EP 65 - The Uinta Highline Trail pt. 2

Team: All right. Welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast. This is part two of the Highline Trail, which is the last stage in the hard line challenge. That's a little bit confusing to say quickly, but generally, this is the finale of the finale's, I guess to be another way we did do stage one already. So if you have not listened to or part one already, if you have not listened to that, go check that out. I won't

Team: spend a ton of time doing interest stuff here because really you should start with part one, no matter what. So we left that day at the end of day, two, We had separated from Brennan and then we kicked it into high. Gear went up over North Pole pass. Set up our tents in freezing cold rain and woke up to Will Rain a sleet? I guess you would call it. Basically is hitting the tent, it was melting,

Team: but snow sleet have just started to fall in that morning. One thing I did want to note is we had planned consistently to that point to get up at. I want to say 6:00 and we had pitched our tents, a little farther than I thought. So, at about 6:00, I kind of listened didn't hear anything kind of yelled out to see if he knows getting up Noah's getting up, so I'm like, all right, I don't want

Team: to get up in this. This is terrible weather. I'll just kind of hang out here. Meanwhile, Derek and Tyler over there, putting their Camp all the way and getting all ready, and they came over a little while later, knocking on the tent. And are you guys getting out alive? I think me and bring him were like why would we get up? Well we did the night before because we kind of got into Camp Lake. We did

Team: say we're gonna get up an hour later but when I got up and our later than normal and it was snowing and slushy I didn't, I just kind of wanted to sit there and wait, you know, that feeling like just hoping the rain stops. That's yeah. So yeah, we actually had everything cleared up at 7, you know, which was the hour later. And so we're like, all right we're ready to go and it is freezing. This

Team: was the coldest coldest point of the entire trip. There was no other point. That was this cold as that morning and if you ask

Team: me North Carolina rides it probably was

Team: North Pole pass lived up to its name for me. Like that was that was so cold especially when we were waiting for you guys to we had our no tree cover and like we don't

Team: get under the tree to stay dry

Team: dripping and raining and snowing and wind blowing and And we're all packed up, everything's already on our backs and so, the most we've got is a rain jackets. Already had on the rain last night

Team: and you have to remember that we're coming off of that Beaver through hike fastpack that we had done where we were Trail runners. Short shorts and then jackets and rain. Jackets, like that was the apparel that we took with us which was the apparel that we took with us on Highline. Because we knew we were doing the same amount of miles per day. And we knew that that was where we were the most comfortable and efficient.

Team: So that was what we were wearing. So none of us had like Gore-Tex boots or pants or like gloves like any of the the cold weather gear because we're planning on going fast, and the weather report didn't say it was going to be Freezing snow. Yeah. So

Team: I can handle rain. But what the heck is this white stuff, you know? Yeah, freaking August. So we were all

Team: getting up early in the morning, super cold water running everywhere. Like just all the way down. Every Mountainside, the little river that was below us was just roaring and and then we're looking at it thinking like okay today is our rest day, it's gonna be like 14 or 15 miles. But as we got going, like the miles were slow, we couldn't find the trail very easy. We're trying to dodge puddles of hail because that froze your feet super fast.

Team: If you listen to the last episode taste and mentioned that a lot of the trails Highline Trail, they really felt more like riverbeds and that's especially true, when all the rain was coming down because they were really actually flowing, and they were just driving over beds. They were actual River beds since. So, that was Tyler saying with, you know, the going was not easy. Even when we did have the trail and exactly where the trail was,

Team: it was not even easy to walk on or even near because of all the water flowing through. And so we're kind of trying to go near the trail out in through the trees or some rocks or hopping on rocks from rock to rock and just really strenuous going all day long. It's your feet up. Beat your knees up. Beat your, you know, your muscles up that first.

Team: Yeah, that First hour. like we were just cold and wet and, and we actually kind of decided that in What did we decide in the open areas? Where the wind was blowing hard? We were gonna run because it was just so warmer to run. Yeah, it was just so cold in the wind that we were like, we got our full size backpacks on, but we're still gonna fast back this because that's the only way to stay

Team: warm. And so that was what we did that. Like and I remember at one point like just looking back, like I was doing this weird Hunchback run thing in my Poncho, trying to keep my hands warm and I look back and bring him to do it and Derek's doing it and Tayson's doing it. And I just like started laughing so hard. It can hardly even breathe because we looked so goofy, just like doing this little hunch

Team: hop thing. If you can water, you can get a good view of

Team: it. If you go to our YouTube channel and watch the Stage 5 of the Heartland, yeah, we have a video about it and it is hilarious. But imagine these guys, your arms kind of like, in these L shapes. Yeah, trekking poles because you're hands would be so Frozen. So we had our Trek Kohl's in our backpacks, but then you're like, how do I keep my hands from getting soaked in and of them?

Team: Cells. And then keep your balance in the mud and on the Rocks,

Team: you're trying to. I think, I think, the reason for some of this arm positioning was that you're trying to keep your arms from like touching the cold parts inside your jacket or something? Because for whatever reason everyone was like stiff. Army over your hand. Yeah, not swinging your arms because the wind was blowing. That's why I was doing, because I was wanting to tuck my fists into my sleeves and then but like keep my sleeves facing down. Yeah. So

Team: like I didn't want to swing my arms and Rain to come in because I was the only protection. I didn't have gloves, you know, nothing. So the only protection I had for my freezing cold hands was tucking in my sleeves or like, like some of this too. Like I kind of mentioned that I might have had the most prepared stuff. Like, I had that rain skirt which actually was helpful because it even though, like, on the

Team: law by the end of the day, like my shorts would often kind of get wet from, who knows what? But at least it blocks some of the wind but I also had leggings like four ounce leggings and a pair of liner gloves. But I can't wear those. You know what I mean at this point in time because they just be soaked in seconds and be useless. So I'm at this I'm back to the same stage you

Team: guys are which is no gloves and just my shorts and then that rain

Team: skirt and keep your insulating stuff dry for when you have to stop like That was our whole mindset was we're going to keep our our down jackets and our top quilts and everything completely sealed up. So that when we stop in the evening, we know that it's still dry.

Team: The end of the day count on a really warm nice place.

Team: Yes. So by like 10.

Team: One thing I wanted to say, too, before you get too far, is I could not believe. I mean, maybe these guys had been walking around camp but like we literally left our camp and I was like, all right, go up to the trail and I'm like, trying to find my way to the channel. I'm like, oh, I can't step there. That's a swamp, that's a swamp, that's a swamp, that's a swamp because it had been raining

Team: all night long and then it was raining even harder than maybe, like, everywhere you stepped was nothing but water, okay? It was like, we are a little bit

Team: of a flat spot. There's no where to stop that just wasn't going to soak your feet. And so we really were lucky and we pitched our tents, and not having that. But like, that was how we started off the day that's 10 feet. Outside the tent is just nothing but, but water and running.

Team: It was like that for miles. It

Team: was like even worse 17.8 miles 17.00.

Team: Yeah. Like the side, you know, a downhill angle of a grassy slope. There was water coming out of the ground everywhere. It was. Yeah it was crazy. Yeah

Team: so like mid-morning, we stopped, we were A warm ish because we had been moving a lot and and we were doing better by then, but I remember like that was when we were first kind of looking like, okay. What's the weather going to be like tomorrow? Because day four was supposed to be the day. We went over, Kings Peak and, and day three was gonna be our rest day. We were gonna camp at the bottom of

Team: King's Peak, and be all ready to go up and over before the Afternoon storms hit but by rest day, he means

Team: we were so that. So day three, the plan was we only had to cover like between 14 and 15 miles? Yeah. So

Team: like 10 miles less than any other day and the topography was Generally pretty easy going. So that's why we were fantastic. We were calling day three like our kind of recovery day. It was supposed to be easy, but the weather didn't want that to happen.

Team: Yeah, cuz we were, we were just looking at it and thinking, it's Stormy this bad right now, we knew that it was forecast for storms on Thursday. So then we're like, well, If there's a chance we can get over Anderson pass and get past Kings Peak today, we will be a thousand times better off considering how bad the storm had been up to that point. So then we were looking at it thinking like, all right, this

Team: rest day of 14 miles is now going to be a 27

Team: 28 mile day if we get over Kings and when like we discussed it and like everybody was I think we all felt like, yeah. Like we got ready for like sure, like no problem, let's do it. I mean we talked even about like how we're not on a daylight on day two, but both me and Brigham said like we could have

Team: gone farther like we were in the shape and the position that we could have done 30 miles in a day. We felt like, so we're like, you know what? After we started to like Tyler mention talk about this and be like, wow, we we may need to get up and over this past today. If we're gonna make this happen, you know, we started picking up the pace, not that we were going slow or anything by that

Team: point, but we just started to realize. I was all you guys get to do another 20 plus miles today, and I think everyone's like, yeah, it's do it, so best alternative. And so at that point in the day, you know, we're starting to pull weather reports and we're just trying to get down the trail stops we can now get down the Charles last we can. comes with some caveats because like like Derek said, the trail was

Team: the worst that day, not only like, just the like, Just the trail itself, was pretty bad that day. Plus we couldn't even walk on the trail, like the trail itself was nothing but rocks and then so where they're walking on the Rocks, you know, rock to rock to rock hopping, you know, while there's a river running down the trail, or we're completely off the trail jumping over logs and stuff like that. And so we're trying to

Team: move this fast we can and I remember just constantly looking at my watch thinking. There's no way we're going this slow. Like this is so frustrating. We are putting an effort to to cover the miles and every time I look at my watch on my dang it, that's another mile like that took us way too long.

Team: That's just way too long part of it was those ding River. Crossings there was three different River. Crossings that day that we had to go a few hundred yards up and down and search around and then do sketchy things to get over because they'll, there was a lot of high water. A lot of Whitewater, in the places where normally wouldn't have been that big of a deal to cross.

Team: Yeah, probably. What would normally be? Just like, a two or three inch little stream that's got. You can see rocks that you could step over. Yeah.

Team: Was Two feet, deep of raging water

Team: and, and to put it into perspective. As far as the storm goes, the rest of Utah was having like, record high storms across the state, with massive flooding, like all over like worse flooding and we've had in 100 and hundreds of years. So so we were in that storm in

Team: the how you went as the highest point of Utah alleys flooding, would probably be the driest state in the in the United States without the US. Like if you erase the uintas and maybe the Wasatch is out of Utah, would be the driest state in the lower 48

Team: right in there. Arizona, and

Team: Nevada is actually the lowest but like I think it would be us with the US. That's how much rain falls in that stupid mountain range. Yeah,

Team: stupid. I love so, so like

Team: I was just, it was stressful like we thought that was going to be our rest day, but the day was stressful because the miles were slow and we had this big goal of getting over Anderson and down before the storm got worse.

Team: Yeah. So Anderson is the past right next to King's Peak. So that was kind of and the King's Peak is the highest peak in Utah. So just to kind of cover that I think my favorite pass or water crossing on the day was definitely the one where we had to cross the big giant log and I feel like I walked across it, and looked back and Brigham is just ready to go across it and he trained,

Team: he like takes a couple steps the way we had in the next thing I know he's like, like two inch steps at a time sneaking along this thing. And I mean, but a good reason Underneath Him is this Raging Raging River? I mean, I think that was

Team: If you fell in that with your pack on, it would be a really, really hard to get your pack off and get out of the water before you got pinned under a boulder. Or log like that was a Sketchy. It was

Team: intense. I mean, it was just the amount of water was just off the charts for sure. Now, I did enjoy some parts of that day, you know, even pulling up my binoculars when it got a little bit clearer. I see I'd look up in the corners and you just see these waterfalls pouring off different parts of of the trails and then the mountain ranges and stuff. And we were here in

Team: rockslides too, which is that's pretty intense,

Team: I'd say once we From when we stopped for lunch. The day was much more pleasant like we did the it didn't get really sunny but the sun came out in little patches, but the rest of the day, it hardly hardly rained or snowed and it was just, like, kind of partly or mostly cloudy. And yeah, it was really

Team: easy going. Okay, yeah, for sure, the confidence went up, our Pace went up and we're thinking, oh, yeah, like this is good enough, whether we can, we can do the pass no problem. And about a little bit after that, we could actually start to see the pass Pretty directly and had eyes on it. We got into a really big long base in the approaches Anderson pass for Miles. So, you could kind of three miles out. We

Team: could see we could see the pass and know what we're going for. Yep.

Team: So we have to crop another river, which that

Team: River Crossing was a, was a gnarly. I was like a quarter Rivers spaced four feet apart.

Team: So just long big jumps. I was glad I had a little bit longer legs, for sure, pole. Vaulting, yeah,

Team: But at that point we're cruising up and now we're getting close, but it was three in the afternoon by

Team: like, when we were at that River, we had to filter a little bit of water. Then we had to get over that and it's three and a half and we were like, yeah, he's these afternoon storms usually hit hardest round four or so. So we're kind of like looking at it and thinking can we get up and over that or you know, what's going to happen? So we We just knew we had to get there fast

Team: from there. We start moving really quickly and trying to get across the rest of this Basin as fast as possible. We run into a bunch of sheep. Hundreds of sheep, actually, and tasted just freezes. He's like, oh man, I don't want to go first, he's scared about The Sheepdogs, it always come along with these big herds of sheep and he just been bitten by a couple of dogs actually. Just I think a week or two before

Team: and taking antibiotics on the trip for the infection I still had from the dog bites. Yeah. And so this guy he would not budge. He was like oh the midnight. I see she she can't. I'm like over here like all right, I got PTSD, guys. You guys go first. Come on. Take and everyone's like Just stands there. I'm like, who wants to go? Everyone looks around. I'm like, oh my gosh. What is going on?

Team: No he doesn't move and Brigham had a good point. He's like if they're Sheepdogs that are mean and they're gonna bite us because we're

Team: too close to their sheep. Then tasting, you've already been infected no points, the rest of us. Yeah,

Team: but anyway, Tayson, we cannot get him to move, so I end up actually just going. I'm, all right. Well, we gotta get going. We gotta get up over the past. Yeah,

Team: this is the wrong time to have a delay.

Team: We weren't afraid of the herd dogs. So like there's the Border Collies and Australian Shepherds that the herders used to actually heard the Sheep. We were afraid of the guard dogs, which are great, parents are a box, and they are usually 150 pounds to 200 pounds, big huge, white dogs, and and usually, a few of those dogs can protect heard from Grizzlies wolves, mountain, lions and everything. And we know people who have been chased away from herds, from our

Team: personally have. It's not like, I've not scared. Like I'm scared of these from stories. Like no, I've had them up in my face. I yeah, I don't, I do not like those dogs, right? And I have their friendly, sometimes they're not and you just gotta apparently know which when, and how that's gonna go down.

Team: So we're walking on eggshells, at the bottom of Anderson pass, trying to get through the sheep and looking up at the pass and thinking, oh, it looks pretty stormy up there.

Team: Well, that's the thing is that the wind was coming from the opposite side of King's Peak, which means we're completely blind. And I've been pulling weather reports consistently throughout the day even like upgraded to the premium weather report. Hoping that that might give me something else. All, it's giving me is 50% chance of rain. That's what it's been saying all day long and so basically, It doesn't give us. That's just know. There's going to be rain

Team: and and Brigham really set at the best. If it's 50% chance of rain in this area. That's 100% chance of rain in

Team: his house on 1000 feet. Exactly, exactly. So we're walking into this past blind. We can't see from the direction. The wind is blowing and we're tiptoeing around the sheep and then we hit the hill and we start booking it up this hill, at this point. We'd passed the Sheep herder. You didn't speak any English at, but I speak Spanish. She, I think he's from Peru and he's just stops me. And he's like, what are you guys

Team: doing? You're not trying to, you're not trying to climb King's Peak today. Are you my no, no, no. We're just going right by King speaking. It's different. Different.

Team: Yeah we're gonna go right around 700 feet different. So

Team: he's like, okay well basically he thought we kind of idiots because he I mean the Storm at this point is already starting to brew and the winds blowing the clouds are looking angry. Again. It's not raining, really? Yeah but we haven't seen any lightning so we were still really trying to book it up this past and get up and over. but, Yeah, he wasn't really a fan of that. I thought we were kind of silly. Yeah,

Team: he made, he could see him from a distance and he could see us from a distance. As we started going up, the side of the pass and he made a point to intercept us like that was very obvious to me. He made a point to Traverse the mountain to intercept us which he did. And so a little bit of the context like these guys are like pretty much like they're like expert scheepers. So like there's a

Team: reason they come from South America to Utah. To to manage these ranchers sheep is because they're the best in the business and you know, they're living in this Basin all summer long. So so they're like the most in tune people with the weather systems with the mountain weather, with the environment, like in that area, they are the local experts. And so, you know, think coming from their caught their point of view. Like it's he was doing

Team: the right thing to come and intercept us because he doesn't know our experience level. So he was probably you know for somebody else he could have been doing them a huge favor and coming and just kind of getting a feel for like hey what are you guys doing? He was almost like interrogating us like just questioning like what we were doing so that he could give us a response to say like don't do that, you know,

Team: but I think when when Derek he told him like we're not doing King's Peaks, we're just going over the past. I think he probably in his mind was thinking like, okay. That's still really sketchy but you're not going to die like you speak your probably gonna die. That's a little dramatic. But like you know what I mean, the situation and they think he when we told him we were doing the summit, we were just going to

Team: go over the past like kind of put them a little bit of these like okay. Yeah. Well, good luck anyway and he probably knew like there were gonna get hit. Yeah, he definitely knew he was not talking to me knew that, that things are for sure. Going to be bad up there and he told me so and I told him. Yeah, we kind of know, we've just kind of got to get over. We were really trying

Team: to get to the other side. We've got to be on the other side to be able to keep Pace with what we're trying to accomplish with this trip, and, and the timeline. So, He kind of took that I was like, all right, we'll be careful and and off we go we booked it up and our on our way up past and we get pretty far and we get cruising I would say halfway up this first, I

Team: guess this first part the way this pass is shaped, there's a couple of steep inclines the levels out almost for a second and then it's another really steeping. Clan up to the very top. And so we're about halfway up this first steep. Incline, and right, then the wind really picks up and we stopped. I think we saw a flash or two of lightning at that point. So we stopped and kind of get into a little huddle

Team: and start talking about some

Team: different options. And then more lightning comes well,

Team: the rain started and then we stopped. And then, while we're in the Huddle lightning, and then I was like, oh, and then more lightning,

Team: and more lightning than hell. And then the hail. And so that was the point where we were like, okay, the clouds are crashing, the lightning is here, we're here in Rockslides.

Team: It was kind of comical. I felt like it was kind of comical because we stopped when it started raining and started talking. And I'm like, what do you guys think? And Tyler's like, this doesn't look very good, we should probably turn around and Derek. I like had misinterpreted all day that he was kind of like dragging his maybe not dragging his feet but like wasn't super amped up and Derek's like, no way. I've been sitting here

Team: all day, mentally preparing for this past. Like I'm ready to run all the way through the past. Like, well, we didn't stopping for, let's go. And then in a matter of like, 60 seconds of like, like rain intensifying turning to hell. All sudden crack a lightning, it was like, all right. Go, go go. We just turn around and start running down. It was like that whole conversation. We had was just no null and void and in

Team: a matter of seconds. But I was, I had definitely misinterpreted Derek's, like, mental preparation, all day of, like, I'm gearing up to crush this past all day long. I had a hard time in the morning. I was so cold. I was just He was mad in the morning, he was angry. I was smiling. As he saying he's angry, though, that's Derek's personality, he's like smiley face.

Team: Exactly you can't make Derek like that mad and he's good to go with pretty much everything but he was like mad that morning and so he had been stealing himself all day to get over the past. And then when I was like, I don't think this is a good idea. Well, for one tastes and ask the question, like what do you

Team: guys think? And we all stood there and didn't say anything.

Team: And then finally, I was like, well, I kind of feel like this isn't good and then once I said it everyone was like yeah, probably. And so then accepted defending it

Team: and then it was like, crack a lightning and that

Team: was the first hammer down big gnarly lightning. And

Team: yeah, at that point I'm like I find let's go down and then we went but then we turned to go down and it's like, all right like we've let's just walk down and it was like nope all sudden Thunder's crashing hail starts coming down and I know we are fastpacking our way sprinting down this Hillside slipping, I started know who was I watching Tyler Tyler's shoes were slipping all over. I'm like this, we need to back

Team: up to the decision to turn around though. So we never really mentioned this. But so the the Peaks are out there were all covered with snow. So, so Anderson passed like we could see from miles. Was. Covered in snow. It didn't just look like it was dusted. It was white Kings. Peak was occluded in the clouds, you couldn't even see Kings Peak, it was just socked in, but Probably the top thousand feet of all the surrounding

Team: Peaks were covered in snow. And like, so just that that played into the decision, making process of when we took that stopped and had that little huddle and, you know, because it was now we're getting rained on and we're not even to the snow yet because there were just starting to be little patches of snow, but we weren't to wear. It was like, solid snow. Yeah. And so we knew, you know, High steep mountain pass in

Team: the snow and we were geared up to do it. But that was at that point in that day. So yeah, there was a lot stacking up. The the backside

Team: of the pass was going to be really treacherous. It was probably gonna be dark when we're going down the backside of pass and we hit experience that on the North Pole pass the previous night, then there was the lightning, then there was the rockslides and then the mud and then us not having pants or waterproof boots and

Team: yeah, well, prior to the lightning, I, I felt and I think everybody else felt like, still amped up to charge through the snow and do the past. Prior to the lightning. Finding was definitely the last straw for me, it was just the coldest of snow and just the slippery. I think we would have dealed.

Team: Well, the timing was bad. We were getting their later than we definitely wanted and so we kind of knew it was gonna be dark on the back side so that was one of the yeah. One of

Team: the things I think we still had pretty good amount of time. Yeah. To

Team: get down the backside but we would have been Looking for, you know, kind of covering three or so miles in the dark. Yeah,

Team: looking for camp. Well, as soon as we make the decision to go back down, the hill, picks up the rain turns into hail and the wind picks up with the same time, which is blowing the hail horizontally. It's just going straight into us getting shot by a shot

Team: and I think that's what contributed to what Tayson mentioned before. Was everyone was running. It was you know, if you've ever been Airsoft thing with little plastic BBs that you Shoot out of those guns. And I feel like you're getting pelted by hundreds of those Non-Stop and we were just trying to get out of that as fast as possible. There's only been a few times. When I've had hail like hurt in my life, one time I

Team: was on a motorcycle driving on the freeway and got into this hailstorm that was gnarly. And I mean, it was so bad that I had bruises on my legs and it broke like my mirror on my motorcycle, right? Like it was intense, this was also one of those times though where the hell wasn't as big but the speed at which it was hitting you just was stinging the cast like first, you're like, oh this is, this

Team: is uncomfortable. Let's get more and more uncomfortable. Okay, this is actually painful. Now, like I'm not enjoying this any longer, but like there's nothing we could do about it. I mean, meanwhile, there's lightning crashing down in front behind left, right? All around us and Thunder

Team: and the water. The whole entire Mountainside was just running water. So yeah, so so then like we're going down the trail. Lightning, strikes, close to us. And we see these tiny little stunted. Yeah, stunted little Pines that were, you know, five feet tall. And so we decided to take shelter from the hail and the lightning. Like, by hugging these pine trees,

Team: the shelter came not because they were tall enough to give us any overhead cover. It was just because they were in the way of the wind. So, we were just on the downwards, downwind, side of these Trails so that, at least we didn't weren't getting like hammered by the hail, but the hail still blowing completely sideways. And so, these little four or five foot trees were awesome when we were collecting beside them because they blocked that

Team: sideways. Yeah, onslaught of hail,

Team: this is a good that's like watching that in the video on YouTube. Really puts it into perspective. You actually can't see the base in, you can't see anything above us because there's so much storm. It just looks like we're hugging trees for no reason, like but like Brigham was like, inside of the trees in was like, laying on this one me and Derek were on like the shorter ones. that was we tried to wait out the

Team: lightning right there and hail we thought maybe we still had a chance. I think that's what we're hoping by staying there. But we stayed there for probably 30 minutes. And we got a break in the hail, but the lightning was still going. But when we would look up at the past and the peak, it was clear that it was completely summed in and it was,

Team: you guys remember this part of the conversation when we were sitting there one? There's a ton going on mentally at this point for all of us. We're just like, what does this mean? What does this mean? We're kind of distracting ourselves by just counting seconds between lightning strikes, you know, but I remember all the saying I don't feel that cold right now,

Team: I don't know that. That's

Team: a good thing. I don't know that, that's a good thing and and so we're all started to kind of raise our eyebrows thinking like is this like early onset hypothermia, or is it really just not that cold? We couldn't tell. I don't know. I don't know if we ever like, obviously with the story goes on it. Not, but I just remember, like that was an interesting. Little question that got posed in all. These were kind of

Team: feeling the same thing I do know by the

Team: end of the 30 minutes. I was plenty cool. Yeah. That was yeah,

Team: I was gonna say that was like, kind of what was jump-started us up to just get down the mountain because people started saying that they were like shivering and feeling cold. Yeah, because that was like okay sitting here getting blocked from the hail is not doing us any good at this point because people were starting to feel shivering and cold. So

Team: there was still water running underneath this. Like we were basically sitting in streams because there's so much water running. So we stand up and, and have a break in the lightning. And we actually could like, see down the hill, the ways. And we could see the sheep herders, we start like, kind of running down the hill, to just, get down and get warmed up. And my legs did not want to work. Like, they were really, really

Team: cold at that point, and we see those sheep herders, and they're just like standing there under a tree with their, like, Alaskan fishermen rain slicks on, like the big thick rubber rain gear, and they're just like pointing at us and like, looking at us. And we went straight down to him and what they wanted to do. So the first thing

Team: they want to first thing they wanted a selfie with us.

Team: I mean, the first thing the guy even did, was he just pulled his iPhone straight out of his pocket and just held it up and smiled and

Team: takes a picture of us. And then, yeah. The other guy wants to get in the picture with us

Team: after that, we go up and talk to him and, and I asked him. Hey, is there anywhere in this whole basement? Because again, we're back. Down in the basement at this point, right? Out of the base of the Anderson pass. That I asked, is there anywhere in the basement? Where water is not flowing and actively running? I was dancing question. That was a money question and And then he points up to this hill and he's like

Team: right there up on the hill, which happened to be nearby, which was lucky. The other thing we're gonna have to hike like a mile and a half to a campsite at this point just to get some cover and not be in water because there's I can't even describe how much water there is on the ground up there but everywhere is soaking wet not like not like so like think of the tundra because that's really what it

Team: is. Like this is like high Alpine Tundra and Tundra just holds water in it like the vegetation just holds on to that water and so the whole thing comes to the swamp so that was the million dollar question and they pulled through for he pointed out this hill nearby and yeah there's not really that much water that runs right there

Team: should be a nice spot to camp and other people have used it and it's worked great. So then I had to follow up questions. Okay, so that's awesome. Are we really lucky enough? Is there any place that also blocks the wind somewhere in this base? And that also doesn't have to any water. It's like, yeah, that same Hill. I just pointed out. There's actually a little grow of these same types of trees, little four or five

Team: foot tall trees. There's a little growth of them a little Clump and they actually grow and kind of a little bit of a circle with a clearing in the middle, and if you camp right in the middle, it'll block the wind quite a bit. And so we actually go up this hill and check it out. And sure enough, there's this little clump of trees, this little clearing, a great little wind block, and it's dry. There isn't

Team: there, isn't like water flowing through that spot and so we actually got really lucky and there's really no, you guys got lucky. You have the two person tent. You got the best spot. Brigham cleans up with this other spot and I decided to try to pitch my tent in this little circular, you were the first one, pitching your tent, though.

Team: He's actually the most win protection out of the wind. When you can't pitch your tent right. Bring him was like walking in circles. like a half an hour looking for a flat spot to put his tent down, and I was worried that he was like a little past, like Normal, can you just walking in circles? And I thought it was

Team: just like, not thinking, right? But I'm just, I'm obsessive about a flat spot,

Team: so we all start to put our tents up and by the time we're getting our tents up was when the cold like really, really, really, really set in to us all like tea, all of our teeth were probably chattering at that point. And and we were that was kind of where we hit the very coldest worst moment. It was, It was kind of scary but we knew we had done a good job. Keeping the right gear

Team: dry. And so it's just it was just like, if all we can do is just get this tent set up and get in to our top quilts and get our wet stuff off. We'll be okay. But that was like, I was extremely cold and and was going along.

Team: I was so frustrated because I just kept tweaking my pitch over and over again. Trying to get it to work. Because I was so confined in a circle of these trees. My I just didn't have enough space to get the pitch. Just very taut and tight. So I just kept going around in circles and I just kept getting colder and colder and more and more frustrated. And yeah, that one was, that was pretty annoying. But yeah,

Team: there's definitely Brigham Brigham actually said something that that just stuck with me. I don't know why. But you know, we're deep into the Wilderness at this point and we've kind of hiked through some areas where we're back to an area where we're we could get off Trail to a Trailhead, I Trailhead in the middle of Wyoming. But that would be about 12 mile hike out, right? Just to that trailhead. But I mean, I guess what I'm

Team: saying is like, we don't really have many options and the weather can turn so fast, you can the moisture can zap the heat out of you so fast and he's just when we were talking about finding the right Camp spot. Brigham said, look. We can't just pitch our tents anywhere. We gotta pitch

Team: him in a place that It's okay because you know this is our last shelter if this is our last sanctuary and if our shelters were to get damaged somehow for shelter, if we pitched them in the wrong spot or whatever it was and that got tarnished, then you're really, really in a bad position in the middle of nowhere with. Not very much help and it becomes real. It becomes very real, very quickly when you start to

Team: put things into perspective so I think ever since then for whatever reason I've just thought about my shelter a little bit different like that it's like it like just even the difference between getting your shelter pitched and climbing in it to get out of the Wind. That the difference in temperature of that alone was so massive. And you think about all the implication that shelter really provides you I mean it's just Mission critical. I feel like

Team: so that that's stuck with me for whatever reason. Yeah, I would say. Another. I mean we were we were approaching hypothermic conditions, I would say probably in our of Continued exposure. There, we would have been hypothermic. Yeah. So you know it making decisions before you get to that point is like hugely important. because you still have your cognition and then, like yeah, there's no there's no replacing like the, like the final Refuge concept or like The

Team: Last Stand because like, that's like, that's all you have left, you know, like that's There's no, you're not going to sit that out in your shorts and your rain jacket. Like if you have to have you know your your gear, your bases covered, when it comes to gear. So it is amazing. How much like immediate relief you get just from getting in the tent and like the wind not hitting your soaked skin and

Team: I think my favorite part about all of this, though was climbing into my tent and seeing the puddles, the still existed in my channel, from the day, literally had water coating, the bottom of my footprint. I'll say those puddles are not from the tents leaking. Those puddles are from wet humans and wet humans, gear going inside the tent and then taking that tent down soaked with snow and slush and rain, and then just stuffing it in

Team: a stuff sack. So all that water just seeps in. So that's lots of condensation when it's raining all night too. Yeah, lots of lots of condensation, it all night. Yeah,

Team: so, So I bring Brigham talked about watching our shelters because we were all using our trekking pole tent and Brigham was like watch the snow on the on the tents because we knew we knew we were getting snow that night like there's no question. We ate our dinner. It took, it took me a while to get like truly warm. But then I wake up in the middle of the night and the tent is resting on my

Team: forehead and on my feet and I'm like, what's going on here? Like did I slide somewhere? But wait, how's it on both my feet and my head and we look at it and there's just so much snow on the tent, that it just completely sagged it down to where it was resting

Team: on my head and my feet. So we just have to start whacking the tent walls just to knock all the snow off. We actually had to do it a number of times and I heard bring him throughout the night. He was doing the same thing I get here and kind of punching his tent, and it's all the thumps of all the snow falling

Team: off. And little did we know he had And alarm for every hour on his phone. Waking him up.

Team: I went to bed, very, very warm and comfortable and peaceful with a nice belly full belly and But like, I remember waking up, probably a couple hours after I had fallen asleep. And the rain had not stopped. And I just remember like, I consciously made that had the thought of like, okay the rain's, not stopping it snowed last night, we're higher than last night. It's going to snow tonight. So, I just set my repeating alarm for

Team: every hour, so that I would just wake up every hour. To be able to beat the snow off the outside of the tent. Just because I didn't like, like we said, it's like your final stand. You can't let that fail, so

Team: it was still really windy but when your tank got covered in snow it was like silent.

Team: Which is kind of. Yeah, I needed over here who's like oh yes the rain stopped. You know in my in my high cognitive functioning State at like two in the morning and then I hit a little while later. I just hear some rustling. And I'm like, what is going on over there? Just be quiet. I'm trying to sleep and then like the next hour happens again and I'm laying there going back to my. Why are my

Team: feet? So dang cold. So I shine my light down there and I'm like oh the tent is laying on my feet with snow just cake around my feet because I had such a bad pitch because

Team: I couldn't get it tightened. I'm like this sucks. this actually, but we're gonna have to give Derek the mic here for just a second. He actually has to take off. We've got a little bit long on the podcast because we're I think we're enjoying it, but some final thoughts, Derek without spoiling the rest of the trip here, on, just that day and the trip I guess. Well, I think final

Team: thoughts overall is like, there's is as long as you're taking care of yourself and the people you're with to be safe. I don't think they're, I don't think there's a way you can go wrong on a trip like this. As long as you're safe and everyone comes out okay? All the experiences you have and all the, all the things that you do and are able to see or be a part of or something, that'll help you,

Team: that'll help you grow and that will help you. get a valuable experience that you can take away and take home with you and and help you become a little bit better and a little bit more connected with with the world. And and I think this is the case with The Highline challenge for the Highline Trail. While there was a lot of things that were hard at the end of the day, we were able to stay

Team: safe. Everyone on the team was okay. And well, that keep everyone safe despite Brigham have or Brennan, excuse me, having to having to leave a day early. Then and then, then we were expecting and the rest of us, you know, cutting it close with hypothermia but we were still able to get into our into our shelters and staying warm at night, you know, because we had the preparation. We were able to have a good experience

Team: and I think that's really what it comes down to, which is kind of what we do here to alter vitals. I mean, if we're really embracing the liberal lifestyle, it's confidence in your gear. It's confidence in yourself. And I feel like we had that and I feel like that was a success and of itself we knew all of us at the end of the day that we were going to be able to crawl into a warm

Team: top quilt and be all right. No matter how cold we were when we were still on the trail with the wind in Hell blowing. And so for me that was one of the big takeaways from this trip and in I'm excited to have more experience like it. So yeah. Yeah I got it like this. I said I've got to head out I've promised to take a youth group camping. So I got a meet my appointment with

Team: them but and definitely been a good time on the podcast with the guests. So I'll catch you guys on the next time. Awesome, thanks. Derek appreciate being here. All right, so I kind of just continue to pick up on this. Yeah. So we

Team: wake up the next morning and that's when the real fun began

Team: another hard decision. Just like when Brandon had to leave

Team: It wasn't hard physically. It was hard, mentally, consistently throughout this entire Hardline challenge. I'll tell you that much. But yeah, I mean, essentially I can start to hear Derek and Tyler start to talk in their tents and I'm just laying there and I'm just thinking, What's gonna happen today? And I think that's what I think a lot of us. I didn't sleep that well, that night, even just because every time I woke up, that's what's going

Team: through my head is, I bet that pass is just getting more and more and more snow. And we didn't talk about this yet, but The backside of that pass is incredibly steep switch back to and when you're up there, 2008, 18, I was looking for King's Peak at it thinking that is one of the most gnarly Trails I've ever seen. Like, it's just going straight down that Cliff. Like, that's crazy like it's just straight down that

Team: Baron cliff. And, and I just remember thinking like, that's a, that's a Glee Trail. And now, we've been talking about it the whole time, but like we know that there's snow on it. And so even the night before when we were going to do it, I'm like I was nervous like I was Like man, that is gonna be a crazy Trail down. All these switch backs and mainly more. So the cliff that is there in the

Team: snow. And we've never done this Trail before. None of us have done this section of the trail. So just a lot of concern around that. So we wake up knowing that it snowed all night up there on that pass, and on that Peak and What's just staring Us in the face. So, Tyler starts peeking his head out because he's got the best view of it from his tent. And what are you seeing?

Team: Well, I had to get all the way out of it with no clothes on, in order to see, which was quite a cold Awakening, because there was like three to four inches of fresh snow in painters Basin, which was the the bottom of the Basin where we were and then looking up into the pass. It was obvious that there was like probably a foot of fresh new snow there. And the worst part was There was no

Team: Blue Sky, anywhere to be seen on on that side of it. And so we started to have the discussion of like, well, what if we wait, another few hours and then we can get over the past. So taste and started pulling some more of the satellite weather reports from the inner reach and it just looked like there was no end in sight in the storms.

Team: And when we started to think about that, we're like, well if we could just, we could sit here all day and then we gotta do this and it's like if we see here all day we can't we don't have enough time to finish the whole hike. So it's like, okay, well, we gotta do, we gotta get through this pass, but then we've got poor Pine pass which is also another 12,000 foot pass. That's all so, you

Team: know, steep, right? And so in the same, whether too

Team: same, whether so we were thinking like maybe we could get over Anderson but then we'd have to wait out the Storm at porcupine and then maybe we could get over porcupine and then we would have either a 40 mile day for another two days. And so it was like well we didn't bring enough food to go through Sunday and Monday. Plus it was going to be more treacherous plus like we didn't actually know if we could make it over Anderson.

Team: We're still in trouble Runners and we're talking about like a foot of snow, but really all I could think about was the backside of Anderson's the Cliffy Steep and the switchbacks and the uncertainty there and sliding down. I was even starting to think, like could we use some of our ropes to tie each other together and you know, that be safe for? I mean I'm I did not want to go home and call this a trip.

Team: I did not want to, you know, Stop. I mean I had geared up again months and months and realistically years to do this Trail ever since I've been at Anderson pass. I thought passive rubbed me the wrong way because I you know, watched Derek and Darren just pull away from me in that past and I was frustrated about that and all I mean just that past meant a lot to me to get up and through that

Team: passion, and then finish this Trail, not to mention that right before we tried to go over Anderson.

Team: The first time tasting was like, let me do a little YouTube clip and, and they talked about how Anderson viewed him, the first time and how he's gonna get over it this time. And then we're just thinking about how we had retreated the first day. So,

Team: I don't have a good relationship with this pass at this point. But yeah, I mean we laid there and about every 30 minutes, Tyler would stand up out of his tent, look at the past and give us an update. And we stayed there, you know, from first light until about 10:00, it always say like okay, let's let's go to and make a call. Yeah,

Team: and realistically, what happened is all of us here did not want to stop all of us here wanted to finish this. All the share are very goal-oriented type people. But essentially, we just slowly talked ourselves in circles enough that we knew that they're really wasn't an option like they're really wasn't. We were, we were trying to make an option out of a situation that they're just really wasn't an option for us. yeah, I mean we're we

Team: kind of already talked about like the factors we were discussing like the weather you know that it wasn't just Anderson pass there was multiple passes like that that would have to happen that day and and not having the time but the other you

Team: know, one of the other factors in the decision-making process was We're at Mile. What? 69 ish somewhere around there. So we had another 40 miles to go in those 40 miles, there's no exit. There's no. So first of all there's no bypass of Anderson pass. We look at all, so no exit to a Trailhead. So we were a lot like the the situation with Brennan, we were situated at a place where we were close to an

Team: exit strategy meeting like we had to go over a lower elevation pass, that was like a mile away and hop right on the Henry's Fork Trail which is the King's Peak Trail and that was the only trailhead. For the remainder of the Highline Trail, which would involve like a 12-inch mile hike out. So like that was the other, you know, kind of one of the factors on the other side of like, hey, when were thinking about

Team: making this decision, um yeah, we all we all desperately really want to get over the past and get to the end of the trail but like taste and said we're going around in circles trying to Trying to think of how it made sense to keep going. But then also knowing that it didn't really make sense to keep going because of safety and this really was going to be the only place that we could get out of

Team: there. And again, we're on a time schedule like we don't have an extra day. We don't have an extra two days. We don't have the food to support that. So Yeah, so sucked. We tried to spin it everywhere, we could. I looked at maps for hours in my tent while we were checking on the weather and watching and they're just wasn't a good way and if we got up through Anderson and got down the other side,

Team: we could have easily Gotten Trapped there almost you know, between passes and So eventually. You know, I I don't know. I I feel like I I feel like this but I don't probably wasn't this way where I feel like, you know, at some point I just gotta be able to say we got a we got a call. It it's just too dangerous. It's too much at risk here. So we decided to stop. And so again the

Team: enriched garment in reaches came in clutch texted, our ride and said is there anyway. You could pick us up today at this Trailhead and they said yep and so at that point we got out and started packing up our gear One thing I we did not yet mention that I just wanted to note was the we were testing out a few products on this trip. One of which was the new, some new jackets. Some new puffy

Team: jackets. So we have a new jacket, a couple of them. But in the one that we were particularly using was the Nova UL? Now, this will not be releasing quite as early as we wanted to, but we did get to use that piece and it was just, I thought it was phenomenal. It was one of those pieces where man brought a lot of Peace of Mind to be in those exceptionally warm. If you watch the video,

Team: there's a little Easter egg to look for that jacket because you likely see it, and we'll start to release some details on it. And the next probably two months or a little bit less than two months and hopefully they're not too far behind that, from from being available. But yeah, definitely a clutch piece that I really, really enjoyed on the trip. But yeah. So we climb out of our tents. Get all packed and we it was

Team: hard too because we're leaving that basement and walking towards what's called gunsight pass. The sun kind of came out for half a second. We're like

Team: this sucks, but it's right decision, right? It's the right decision and literally 100 yards from camp. We walked past this Pond ice on the pond like its it was that cold that night that it iced up a pond and not like a little Pond but like in summer in summer it's August right? Middle of August. But we get over there. We hiked through the pass, it's really pretty. We're getting some pretty good shots. We get over

Team: the past. Now I want when I watched that video, Tyler, I did not actually see that thing but you were talking about how much water there was and how I was shooting out of the ground. Yeah, the fountain. Yes, that was, why the Artesian well, Yeah,

Team: that was crazy, just water shooting in a jet out of the ground. Just straight out of the ground. Not like on the hillside just

Team: straight out of the ground, but

Team: we get up and over that pass. I don't know if there's anything there besides, you know, starting to leave the past and how that transpired,

Team: or leave the Trail. Well, even going over that past. There's a ton of snow and it was Pure rocks. It was kind of dangerous. We had to take our time. I don't know the conversations changed from from like, the stressful conversation of like Brandon weaving or us trying to make it over Anderson or does things to just more of like How's our gear doing and talking about that? And that was actually really good. This trip was,

Team: fantastic R&D for all the different things we're testing and it was, you know, we we got some good work. Done that day as far as, like, talking through a lot of things. But what the thing that stood out to me, the most was we started running into tons of people who are hiking up the trail thinking that they were gonna Summit Kings Peak that day and we knew there was no chance of that storm. Leaving

Team: King's Pizza asking us how the weather is up. There were like there's a reason we're walking this way. Yeah

Team: but what was funny was they would look at us kind of funny and and for one we were pretty much all wearing the same shirt because it's a prototype that we were testing. So we looked at the same but like The way that they were packed compared to the way that we were packed. I think most of the people thought we were day hikers.

Team: Oh, for sure. Like that's why the I think that's why they were asking us. Every, every single person was asking us, how can speak was because I think they assumed that we had been up there that morning like, yeah, we were just a hikers like they were in running shorts and trail running, you know, Trail Runners and 45 liter little packs and and just kind of bounced him down the trail honestly. Like, yeah, that's

Team: probably what we're gonna look like. Oh, these guys are just like cruising and

Team: that means they, on the other hand, had 75 to 90 liter packs bigger. The didn't even like keep all of the gear in it, they had stuff attached to the outside to their packs and I'm looking at this stuff and just thinking Packs, are he? Crazy. Like to think how I think I saw. And we saw a dozens and dozens it may have been over 30 people. I'm sure it was probably closer to my first people

Team: who have seen the entire trip. So like this is highly traffic Trail and then but to think about the number of people that are hiking up there Stay because they'll they'll do the approach. They'll hike up Henry's Fork Basin, which is, you know, 11 or 12 Mi they'll stay the night at the, in the Basin. Then they'll Summit, Kings Peak the next morning. Go back down to Camp, stay the night and then go back out. So

Team: it's two night three day trip for them, but like, it's crazy to think about how like 99 all. But one person that I saw was carrying a jot not just like a knot ultralight pack but like, giant, the quintessential, like four foot tall pack, that's twice. The Torso size, you know, like sleeping bag tied to the bottom of the pack. Yeah, like bouncing, or you could visit me, see this sleeping bag in the pack because it

Team: was so big and printed. Yeah, like there's that many people that still do that. And, and and, and, and and backpack that way. I opening.

Team: Yeah, I didn't want to bring that up because I want like I didn't want to seem like it's not premises know,

Team: I don't. Yeah I agree.

Team: The reason I brought it up was because I was just impressed that we had come 75 miles the way that we did and that we were packed the way we were and moving as fast as we were and like it was just a eye opener for me because I I hadn't really ever looked at my progression as a Backpacker and thought, like where I came from and how much I used to pack and how I used

Team: to think about trips compared to where I was, but like being there that day having having come 75 miles and and then like, seeing everyone else, I was like, oh, wow, like I really have progressed, a long ways as a Backpacker and like the amount of miles we were doing the way we were packed. the gear we had the storm, we had just weathered, like all of that was just like it was a cool confirmation to

Team: me that even though we couldn't finish the trail, which was a bummer like, I've still progressed a ton and that was the big takeaway that I

Team: got as we were coming down the mountain. I think the thing that I got and that I mentioned these guys, I turned to the team and I just said, Guys we still got a lot of work to do, like we got a lot of work to do because I have a big enough belief that you know whether you whatever a degree of ultralight, backpacking, you adopt it will enhance your experience when I'm looking at these guys

Team: and they've got these packs on their back, like they're not smiling. They're not happy that they have this 60 pound backpack. That is the size of, you know, most of their body. And like they're not enjoying that. So to me, it's like I have enough belief that even if they just switched out say they're sleeping bag. They would lose nothing in warmth or Comfort, but they would gain a lot in weight back, you know, savings and

Team: size and stuff like that. So even elements of ultralight backpacking. Just would have helped these guys a lot and so that really stood out to us and I guess I just turned the team. So guys, we got a lot of people we can still help and and that's something that definitely drives us to try to try to make those guys as trip more enjoyable, if we can. So, So anyways I think the Capstone on some of

Team: this, that's still to come as we get into the trailhead. Now to get to the trailhead would have been about the 80th mile on the trip. and when we're about one to two miles away from the car, It starts to snow again on us and I'm talking lizard. Lizard. Like 3500 feet lower and then we camped. Yeah, we were like 8,000 feet or like 8,000 feet. We camped at 11, the passes it 12. Something like 12

Team: and a half thousand feet. So we're we're like 5,000 feet below the past and it is snowing on us in the middle of the day and that was like, even though like we don't like getting snowed on per se that was the biggest pat on the back of like we absolutely did the right thing. Well to me that was you know, like like Mountain weather. first of all so it's mid-august that's like the heat of the

Team: summer in Utah and yes in the Unis in the Alpine like you can get whether, you know, quick thunderstorms and stuff that turns to hail maybe snow like that blows through in an afternoon this obviously it definitely felt like a lot more than that the previous two days like it wasn't just something that was comes in and then goes out but it was when that blizzard hit like almost to the trailhead that like it kind of

Team: clicked with me as like you know this is like a significant like Regional weather system that Made me feel a lot less discouraged or frustrated about having to make that call. Because like it's just told me, you know, this is, This is just bad luck like incredibly. This is Angelina. We're not just like chickening out because we're scared of the past. We're not you know just saying we don't want to deal with the rain at the

Team: past, like it kind of, it just told me that this is, this is a significant Regional weather system. That's just sitting here and You know, it just. Yeah, it just was really, really bad luck. I mean for perspective, a local city down here, where we're at their previous record for rainfall in a 24-hour period was an inch and a half. And while we were on the trail in a 24-hour period, they got four or four and

Team: a half inches in a 24-hour period. So I can say 3x, they're old record, all-time historic record three exit. It just couldn't have been more unlucky on timing of the weather. We really couldn't. We even I remember someone was in the car I think and they're like, looking it up and they're like. Yep, everyone says the hike it between July 15th and September 15th and we're literally August 15th, dead center that and just got extremely unlucky.

Team: just tough because now, you know, not not the Tough tough. In the sense that like we didn't get to finish the goal but we'll be back. I mean where we will be back. So we got down to the trailhead. We waited there for not long at all and up runs are car.

Team: Eric was supposed to meet us at 4. We got there at like 3:56. Yeah.

Team: And he was there like on the dot like 4:00

Team: 401 and he's pulling up, pretty incredible

Team: and lo and behold. He has a passenger Brennan is smiling and waving from from the car seat as well. He settled out to the trailhead to pick us up as well. So that was a good surprise. I think all of us were just happy to see Brandon again too after not knowing and we had a lot of questions for Brennan at that point. So yeah, I mean what tell us Brandon a little bit. I guess about

Team: any of the gaps and how you were feeling that day. That was kind of the first day. He started to eat again, right?

Team: Yeah, that's the first day started to eat the night before. Like I think I'd mentioned on part one of the podcast, I really only had Like a quesadilla, like a few pieces of bread that I could really get down that. Day and felt pretty normal. And I think the biggest part of that was just hydration the other day and said, drinking like water as I was doing Gatorades and I got like two Gatorades down and that

Team: morning I got another Gatorade down in the car, but there was no way. I was missing that I woke up that morning to Tyson's texts from the Garmin in region, a phone call from Eric. And Eric's like hey I don't I might not be able to take them up, I work, I'm at work right now and I'm about to talk some of his life and pick them up if not. But for sure I'm coming with you.

Team: And so I met Eric at his house and we got there literally like they said right on time and we even drove past the exit about a mile or so and so

Team: we've been there a little bit early. It's not the best part is for like we were talking about it like, Because we're at this point we're thinking that the coast of Eden made in sick and were like we should take him back to Coast to veto because it's on the way and he's like, oh yeah I already had to be today. We're like what you took yourself back to coast of Vita, after you've been sick for

Team: days and that could have been the coolest.

Team: I think the thing like it wasn't even, I don't think it was food poisoning or anything. Like I really just like my stomach had settled like tasting, mentioned, like the combination of like the ocean on my stomach. Got settling like Hi. That's just like what I have always eaten at something that I know is like, good on my stomach. And I had a burrito, which I never usually get it or enchiladas with her. Never get it

Team: cost to be. So something I never really ate so just getting something something that I was used to eating. And my stomach, I ate that, but it was fun pulling up and seeing you guys, they look happy for about the first five minutes of seeing us. And then I think it kind of said in that like this kind of little Adventure was over for the time being. I never gonna say it's over because we all have

Team: a bone to pick with that trail. But stupid kind of all said and that we all kind of had some bad luck. I've never been sick on the trail and that was kind of out of my hand. These guys have never obviously experienced a foot of snow on the pastor about to do on a trail. So just a lot of circumstances that were kind of just out of our control and finally making peace with those decisions

Team: that we had to make on that mountain.

Team: Yeah, there's a lot of takeaways that I'd really like to go into I'm realizing we're going pretty long. I want to talk a little bit more about the sickness side but I think you kind of summed it up pretty well there Brennan and maybe in a future podcast will just kind of dive more deep into elevation and maybe how that did play into both mine and your issues on the trail. I have my theories, I have

Team: no idea if they're the right, there's still completely theories because both of us could have actually had a bug of some sort of, both of us could die elevation, it's tough to know. But I do want to talk about that in future episode and also kind of like the garments. I mean, they just they came in so clutch for that trip that that probably deserves its own episode in and of itself as well. So yeah, I

Team: mean with that in mind, we get in the car, we start driving home and we just, we, I don't know. I mean, I guess I'll just give Tyler and Brigham and Brandon. If you wanted it, just some time to just reflect on what you're, what, you're thinking at this point and and watching the hard line challenge come to an end for this year. It was pretty. Apparently we're going to come back like the next week

Team: and do this thing. We all had different plans that were already set. Well, we also have weather was gonna even. Yeah. Like if that was gonna be there for the year, I don't know. But yeah,

Team: we were betting that it would like most of us were betting that snow wasn't gonna thought out before winter came. So Yeah, I mean, the car ride home was long. We weren't expecting it to be that long because we had to be picked up in Wyoming, and we're expecting to be picked up east of Park City. So that was long. It was, it was a bummer to, to have a whole summer worth of training and and

Team: anticipation for the trail and not be able to see it through the way that we imagined it. But at the same time, I had had that realization that I had come a long way with my fitness and preparation and backpacking. And we had all the great product testing and everything. So all in all I was happy that we were all safe. We had some good stories, it's new inside jokes and and just a lot of awesome

Team: camaraderie. So I was like, in no way. Do I regret it? Because we just learned a ton, we were fairly well, prepared for what we're playing on doing. But what it came down to was that was bad luck, and when, when you're doing that many miles in a day, there's less room for error, there's less room for waiting storms out, and things like that. And so, it's just Yeah.

Team: Yeah, you know, I had obviously on the car ride home, a lot of time to reflect and and I think about it all the time still, you know? It's Kind of just like how I like to think about all my experiences you know significant experiences. From. you know, more of a professional side of things for, for my standpoint, like, looking back that that the trip provided insane value for product testing and R&D. We had some some

Team: prototypes on there that were really proven. That really, yeah, the testing on some of those things was really, really good that otherwise, like, had we had Bluebird. Whether it would not have provided that that feedback that we have on some of the, some of those products are sure. So, you know, looking on, you know, trying to be positive and and go, you know, think about Lessons Learned like yeah, the R&D value there was huge and, and

Team: I'm a big believer in in what? What? I just think of is as learning. There's something physiological to happen. That like learning is a is a, is a physiological or a biological process that when you are, when you you physically do something, something takes place in your brain. that converts that to a learning a learned experience and I recently You know, kind of listen to and expert in this field. Talk about how even though that may

Team: not, you may not be able to remember that one learning experience. It is there like infinitely? So looking back at our experience, on The Highline Trail, there's a massive learning experience, just because it was the experience that it was. And so I, to me, it was just an incredibly valuable experience. It was a great experience, it was a huge learning experience and, and honestly, It was three, how many days, three days, three and a half

Team: days on the uni Highline Trail and like they were, it was awesome. Like it was awesome. The challenges and the difficulty and the suck. It really contributes to like, the the, the overall gain as what I would call as a huge gain that experience. And so, you know, looking at the discouragement of having to have into bail and and get off that trail early while frustrating. Again it was just it was just a in summary, a positive

Team: experience and like just think about the little things like when we hiked out of that base and Painters Basin to go over gunsight pass to leave, you know. Just those few seconds that the the sky would open up in the sun would shine through amazingly. Beautiful like that like just those moments, you know, I don't care if we had to leave the trail early like those moments were just, I mean all though, they're awesome. So and

Team: then, you know, moving forward, like it is what it is. It's bad luck. The situation is what it is. And I don't, you know, it's it's I wish we could have finished it and I have, you know, I plan to finish it and we will for sure. But yeah, still in my mind. A great experience. Yeah. Bring out or Brandon, sorry.

Team: Yeah, I know. I kind of Exactly. Like Brigham said, there was so many positive things to take from this trip. Even with all the bad luck that all of this experience. I know, I didn't go through everything that you guys did go through on that trip, on that second part of that trip. But what I look back in the think of is, you know, tomorrow that you wanna that Trails not going anywhere, like you have to

Team: make the best decision for you in that moment and I think we all experienced so many things after we made those decisions that proved us that we made the right decision, you know, like me, whether it was me, my body kind of giving up on me as I arrived at the spot or you guys getting hit by a blizzard on the way down. We can look back at that and say we made the right decision but

Team: that Trails not going anywhere. You know, it always make the best decision for you, especially the safest decision for you when you are doing trips like that, because you can just use it as motivation to go back. I know. Tayson me and him have plenty of conversations about motivation, you know, for those of you don't know, I think all of us, lost weight, this summer doing, all this training that we were doing. And are in such

Team: better physical shape. Because we had a motivation and now it's just time for everybody. Whether your Trail is 20 miles long or 200 miles long, you can't finish just use as a mode as a motivation to go back. The trail is still going to be there tomorrow. I know, since I've been back after pulling off that trail, I ran more times than I did each week during the training because I have a motivation to go back

Team: and do that. And I also realized that where I may have locked in my training, was the running aspect. So just take those things that you learned on those trips and apply them to your life. After you get back and you'll be on to bigger better things, maybe in doing 100% to kind of surpass where we are now even seeing how far we've come. So Trail will still be there tomorrow, so just use it as motivation

Team: it, get back out there.

Team: Yeah. so I guess my final thoughts as we were in the car driving home was Just trying house. Smelly. You guys. All that was. I changed my clothes but you barbarians, you know, that she's away. I think

Team: I still couldn't believe that. Choose the wipe his feet off, just that trail I guess. Um, now for me, I, I honestly was pretty depressed on like, like that weekend, I got home. I feel like I was just kind of living in a depression for a few days and then I and then I kind of got a better perspective and I and I just, Remember things that I've learned throughout my life, which is just, you know,

Team: easy things are rarely worth it. You know, that's what calls me back to the mountains is the unknowns and the unexpected, the things Mother Nature, throws at you. That the things the mountains throw at you, whatever it is, That's what makes it. So enticing are those variables if if there was no variables it wouldn't be that exciting. It wouldn't be that fun and it wouldn't be that worth it. And so we saw a lot of variables

Team: and we saw a lot of hardships and we pushed hard, we pushed super hard. And at the end of the day, I feel like my training paid off, and I got like a pat on the back for that. I saw some of the most amazing country I've ever seen before. Got to spend a lot of time with the most amazing guys, I know. and you know, I got to get reminded that that of the reason why

Team: I'm drawn to the mountains and into those Peaks into that kind of country is, it's that intense, and it's that difficult, and it's that unpredictable, and Software. I kind of got that perspective. I was, I was just like, you know, that's what makes it all worth it, and you can prepare, but you can't guarantee anything. And so next year, we'll do the same thing. We'll prepare, we'll go back to finish the last 40 miles of the

Team: trail along. I'm sure with a bunch of other hikes that we'll do between now and then. And after then, but we'll do we'll prepare and hopefully the variables work in our favor, this time to, to finish out that trail. And I'm excited to see the rest of that trail. I'm gonna bring something to, I don't know. I got to do something at Anderson pass to show how much I hate it. But half past would be fun

Team: to get that one crossed off the list again and just look forward to it. But lots of Lessons Learned. We'll continue to break down more of the things that we learned more from this trip on future podcast. So make sure you guys are subscribed to just dive into deeper into the products for using the things that worked with the things that didn't work, the lessons that were learned And so on and so

Team: forth. So we were decked out in prototypes so there's a lot of good stuff coming down the pipeline. Lots of it,

Team: lots of prototypes. All right, Lots in in the pipeline, don't expect things on timelines, don't ask for timelines, covid has wrecked mine and Brigham's world. But we, you know this year is actually been harder than last year, just as a perspective on things. But and also just, if you've listened to this part in the podcast, you guys are loyal fans. Just so you know, if you've got things that you want, I would highly suggest not waiting,

Team: it's not just going to be us but everyone is going to have more and more shortages. So you're on Christmas and so on so forth. So just know. There's some massive things coming for all consumers, but this is your warning that, you know, if you're buying something for Christmas, you may want to look at it a little bit early, or just as an inside or tip here. But with that, though, We really appreciate all you guys

Team: being on the podcast. You know, going through all of this Joseph, doing some great work on the, on the audio side behind the scenes as

Team: well as sorting through our mountain of footage from the trip and making an amazing video out of it. So

Team: yes, he lived he lived behind that screen editing for like the last month basically since he joined the team. That's been his number one job. I don't know what he's gonna do now. You know, he may just hang out but all we needed.

Team: That was it. No. But yeah, I just wanted to think the team everyone pulled this off and put it all together. It was awesome. Thank you guys, for for listening to the podcast and make sure you're subscribed and we'll see you guys on the next one.