Podcasts about Grand Canyon

This episode continues my photographic trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon.  These poems describe the "total experience" of life on the river; ending with our last supper!Support the show

Join us as we look at this amazing letter from the apostle Paul to the Ephesians. Some have called Ephesians the Grand Canyon of the New Testament for its beauty and depth. We hope to gain a better understanding of the riches we have in Christ ad how to live in light of them. -Featuring Taylor Kilcoyne

My guest today is John Tilstra.John is, as some of you know, my husband.  He and I have talked about doing a podcast conversation together for all of the two years that I've been doing the Make Life Less Difficult podcast and we finally did it!  You'll get to hear the story behind the delay in our conversation so I won't spoil that here.In our conversation today, we share pieces of our own journey, being in relationship with each other.  While some couples find each other and experience smooth relational sailing for the majority of their time together, John and I have experienced fairly rough seas that have at times battered the proverbial relationship sailboat.We have found that being real about those struggles has been part of our strategy for making it work.  And we've also been helped by others who are willing to be real with us, helping us know we aren't alone…. It doesn't fix all the issues, but it does make the difficult times less difficult.I'm really grateful to have found a deep friendship that underlies every part of our connection and relationship.  Having been through some extremely difficult times before meeting John, that has impacted our relationship and made it more difficult many times.We also choose to live a life with a great many stressors.  We've now been married for 12 years, lived in the US, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, been apart for a year as John worked in Iraq and lived in France, and as of this recording, we are just finishing up 3 year in Sri Lanka and getting ready to move back to the US for the first time since 2012.  We've travelled the globe, climbed a lot of literal and metaphorical mountains, been struck by lightning in the Alps, almost died on our honeymoon, lived on a sailboat, camped in snow, hiked through swamps, and are currently training to do the “rim to rim to rim” at the Grand Canyon.  For those of you who know us, you know we both seem driven toward the difficult.  So, a conversation about making life less difficult is extremely apt!John, thank you for your steady friendship.  Thank you for the conversation here, for your willingness to dig in and share authentically.  Thank you for being a great partner in life and adventure, and for helping me become a better person along the way.Make Life Less Difficult

Long Trail thru hiker Angela "Sparrow" Gluck joins Doc in the studio to share some adventures and lessons from the trail. Settle back and enjoy as Sparrow discusses a wide variety of topics, including some home schooling lessons, bad haircuts, misery in the Grand Canyon, her mail carrying experience, trail diplomacy, hitches that make you commit, and turning points. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 Season 3 Episode 13 Colorado river poemsfor 7 nights & 8 days in the heat of Late August & early September 2023 I went rafting down the Colorado River through the rapids of  the Grand Canyon, taking a landscape photo workshop with 8 students and 2 teachers. Every evening I read my daily poem to the group - here they are!  Notes: The 2 rafts were named "Raven" and "Red Wall".  A Sarong is a long length of colorful cloth you can wrap around you.  A "Groover" is a portable toilet critical to keeping the river clean.Support the show

We sat down with Ashely Durstine, an Air Force veteran and mom of 3, and she was EPIC! From AZ trails in the White Tank Mountains, to conquering the Oregon 200, to running with protection, the conversation was top notch. Take us on your long run while we chat hallucinations, aid stations names that can't be pronounced, and why the Grand Canyon makes for the perfect training runs. Be sure to follow Ashley on IG , let us know what you think about the episode, and as always, #JustShowUp ! Checkout more from The Ultra Running Guys: Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theultrarunningguys.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Race: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Hydra⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - April 20, 2024 Race: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Final Countdown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - 2024 Date TBD Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/theultrarunningguy⁠s⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theultrarunningguys/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theultrarunningguys/support

https://slasrpodcast.com/     SLASRPodcast@gmail.com  Welcome to the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue Podcast! Also known as SLASR. Join an experienced search and rescue volunteer and his friend as they discuss all things related to hiking and search and rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This week we revisit a recent backpacking trip to Yosemite National Park. Thinking about planning a trip to Yosemite and need some ideas for an itinerary? We have you covered as this episode will review our travels throughout Yosemite including Camping outside of Glacier Point, Views of Mount Starr King, Illilouette Falls, The Panoramic Trail, Nevada Falls, Little Yosemite Campground, Half Dome, the Mist Trail, Curry Village and we even saw a Black bear munching grubs by the side of the road surrounded by tourists. All this plus Ben Pease from the Hiking Buddies joins us for an update on all things Hiking buddies, more car break ins, contingency plans in case one of the hosts dies and we need to hire a replacement, Geysers, fake drowning, hiking drama in the grand canyon, and search and rescues all come at the same time in the Whites this week - rescues on Avalon Trail, Jewel Trail, Mt Cube and Monadnock This weeks Higher Summit Forecast   Window Cling Order Form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScAWSpyB3_6IbQF84DaSkJ1KdlUzQkY6DDNM2S-8axYK98NyQ/viewform    Topics Higher Summits Forecast Hiking Buddies - Tip of the week Half Dome Recap Mel and Floki - Car Break In  SLASR Succession plans Random Outdoor News - Geysers, Moose, Bears,  Reklis Event - November 11th Kayaker fakes drowning to avoid court Climber accident in Austria New Ultralight Gear company - Near Zero Vote for a SAR team to win an SUV Pop Culture News - Black Bird / Vuelta Espana Recent Hikes - Stomp on Mount Orange Segment of the week - Yosemite National Park Recent Search and Rescue news   Show Notes Apple Podcast link for 5 star reviews SLASR Merchandise SLASR LinkTree Jen's Friends Climb Against Cancer Fundraiser  Reminder - Taylor James Steeves Summit Challenge starts on September 15th Mel and Floki Go Fund Me What makes a great Geyser, and is Old Faithful the best? hiker trampled by Moose Bear family taking out trail cams Grizzly bears stalk hikers in Canada kayaker fakes drowning to avoid criminal charges. British Tourist Falls 300 Feet on Austrian Mountain Ladder  New UL Gear Company - Near Zero  Vote for a new vehicle for one of 5 search and rescue teams  Yosemite History  Chinese Workers John Muir  Ansel Adams Thomas Starr King California Conservation Corps Trail Crew Day 2 - Mono Meadow to Illilouette Basin  Day 3 - IllIlouette Basin to Little Yosemite Backpacker Camp via Mono Meadow, Glacier Point, Panorama Trail and Nevada Falls Day 4 - Half Dome Hike Day 5 - Down the Mist Trail to the Valley Hiker dies, attempting Grand Canyon rim to rim.. injured hiker left alone by group in Grand Canyon Injured hiker carried down avalon Tral ; Injured hiker rides the Cog Injured hiker assisted off Mt. Cube Seriously injured hiker rescued Mt. Monadnock   Sponsors and Partners Mount Washington Higher Summits Forecast Hiking Buddies  Vaucluse - Sweat less. Explore more. – Vaucluse Gear

Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Inmn is joined by Blix, a river guide. They talk about the utility of packrafting, the joys and travails of river travel, the state of waterways in the western United States, and how river guides might have the best names for the worst things. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Live Like the World is Dying: Blix on Packrafting **Inmn ** 00:16 Hello, and welcome to Live Like The World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Inmn, and I'm your host for today. Today I'm being joined by my friend Blix, who is a river guide, and we're going to talk about something that I've been really entranced by but know nothing about and I'm a little terrified by. And that is, traveling on rivers with boats and why it might be a good or bad idea during different emergent disasters. But first, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Net of anarchist podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo doo doo [Singing the words like an upbeat melody] **Dissident Island Radio ** 01:08 Listen in to Dissident Island Radio live every first and third Friday of the month at 9pm GMT. Check out www.dissidentireland.org for downloads and more. **Inmn ** 01:58 And we're back. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Could you introduce yourself with your name, pronouns, and what you do in the world? You know, not in an existential sort of way, but what is your connection to packrafting. **Blix ** 02:19 My name is Blix. I use she/they pronouns. I am a river guide in Dinosaur National Monument on the Green River. I like to do more things than just river stuff. I'm really into cycling, and gaming, and anything that gets me outside, but river stuff recently has been my main hobby and passion at the moment. Yeah, what was the last one? What is my "what?" **Inmn ** 02:49 What do you...What is your existential purpose in the world [laughing/joking] **Blix ** 03:02 [Stammers while laughing] I'd like to survive. Yeah. The last one was my connection to packrafting. So initially, I got into river...I mean, I've been doing river stuff since I was a kid. I grew up in northeast Iowa, which is not known for anything river related. Or I mean, there are rivers there, but not in the sense that...not the big water and rapid stuff that you typically hear about with river travel or river hobbies, but I grew up kayaking and canoeing. And then I got a packraft four years ago and I've done a couple pack rafting trips since then. Overnighters. And yeah, I think that was kind of the gateway craft that led me to wanting to be a guide. **Inmn ** 04:02 Yeah, it's funny. I can tell if you were being sarcastic about Idaho rivers **Blix ** 04:08 No, Iowa, Iowa.  **Inmn ** 04:10 Ohhh.  **Blix ** 04:11 Yeah, no. Idaho is very well known for rivers. Yeah, no, Iowa is not...You don't think, "Whoa the rivers in Iowa are amazing." But Idaho, definitely. **Inmn ** 04:25 Yeah, there is--maybe it's not Iowa that I'm thinking of--that it's bordered on each side by rivers. Is that true? **Blix ** 04:35 There's the Mississippi on the east and then on the west I think there is a river but I can't remember... Maybe the Sioux River. **Inmn ** 04:45 Yeah or something. Because there's the...I only know this because of going on bike tour and encountering this bike bro who let us sleep at his house. He just saw us on bikes and was like, "Come over, fellow bike tourists." And we're like, "You know, we need showers." And he told us about something called like, Ragbra... **Blix ** 05:05 Ragbrai. I like Ragbra better. Yeah, yeah. RagBrai is riding from the west side of Iowa to the east, and it changes...the route changes every year. But, I've actually never done it.  **Inmn ** 05:23 It did not really sound fun. Very drunken. **Blix ** 05:25 No, I think it...Yeah. As someone who does not drink, it sounds like my worst nightmare. So, **Inmn ** 05:32 Yeah. But anyways, what...So what is packrafting? **Blix ** 05:38 Yeah, packrafting...So, it's a very specific type of craft where you can deflate it and it's pretty much...the way that I've used it, I've strapped it to the front of my bike. You can shove it in backpacks. It can be made very small, and then when you inflate it, some models of pack rafts, you can take your gear and shove them inside the tubes of the craft so you don't have like a pile of gear on your boat.  **Inmn ** 05:51 Like inside the inflatable part of it?  **Blix ** 06:15 Yes, yep. So I've had friends who've done the Grand Canyon in packrafts--which is nuts and also very impressive to me--but yeah, you can put stuff in the tubes. When you want to get it out, you have to deflate it, obviously. But, you put it all in there, inflate it, you can take it downriver. I know people who've carried a ton of gear, like 50 pounds. I know people who've gone hunting with them. You can obviously, I'm sure you've seen, you can strap your bikes to the front of them as well. **Inmn ** 06:50 This was actually my first question is if you can strap it to your bike, can you also somehow take your bike down river? **Blix ** 06:58 Yeah, yeah, it's...I have a lot of opinions about taking bikes--I think it depends on the river and also your bike. The thing with attaching a bike to a water vessel and then floating down a river is it's really exposed to all the elements. And, bikes and water don't...Like, you don't want to submerge your bike in water. There's a lot of issues that can arise from that. So, it's really hard on your bike. And also it makes the packraft hard to maneuver--obviously because you have this big heavy weight in the front--but you can take the front wheel off your bike, put it on top of the frame, and then you can use straps, and they have strap loops, and--trying to think the word of it--they have places where you can take straps and like loop your bike around so it is fully attached to your packraft. **Inmn ** 07:51 Cool. My first impression from hearing about packrafting is, one, that is exactly what I was hoping it would be. But, I guess some questions within that are that it seems highly versatile or mobile. Which, the the thing about boats that I've always thought is boats are really cool and they're really big and you're kind of tied to a boat, and you're stuck on that body of water where the boat is. But, with this, it seems like you can pretty easily be on the river and then decide to leave the river and take the boat with you? **Blix ** 08:35 Yes, yep. And I think that's why they're so popular. I think they're also more affordable. But, it's a multimodal way to navigate places. And yeah, they've exploded in popularity. And it's kind of funny because packrafts themselves--like there's always been smaller crafts like kayaks and inflatable kayaks--but the packraft is kind of this new concept that's come about where you can pack your gear in the tubes and it packs up super small. Whereas kayaks are this big hard thing of plastic that you have to lug around. You know, same with canoes or even inflatable kayaks. Like, those don't deflate to a point where you'd want to carry them in anything. They're so heavy. So packrafts are kind of this ultralight thing that's come on to the river scene and a lot of parks and monuments--at least the monument I work in, they're not sure what to do with them. They're very particular about...like if you go pack rafting down the river, you have to have a bigger support boat. Like you can't just take your pack raft down the river because it's a single chamber. So, it's just like one...When you inflate it, the whole thing inflates. Whereas, normal rafts...I have another bigger raft. It has four different...or excuse me, mine has two chambers. Giant rafts, like 18 foot rafts, have four chambers and then the floor that inflates. So, the thing with packrafts is if you like pop it or tear it, it's going to be a bad day. And that's, I guess, my only issue with them. But, everything else is great, like how light they are. The trips I've done with packrafts and bikes and anything else, it's really nice to not be lugging around a gigantic raft and all this gear. And, it keeps you from overpacking. **Inmn ** 10:26 Yeah, how small is, "small?" and how light is, "light?" Like, does this fit in your hiking pack? **Blix ** 10:34 Yes, yeah, it could fit in a backpack. Like my handlebars on my bike, it fits in between the grips. Like that's how small it is. I think it packs down to like 8-10 pounds. Like it's, it's still a heavy piece of gear but nothing like a huge 2000 pound raft. You know, to me, I'm like, "Wow, this is very light and small." And then as far as like when you're sitting in it, they make different lengths. But, when I'm sitting in my packraft my feet go all the way to the front of it. And I can't think of how...They would probably be like four feet? Three feet? I don't know. I guess I've never measured mine. I just know that I fit in it. I'm not really a dimensions person. I just know that it's light and it's small. So like really specific stuff--I guess I do know how long my big raft is...But, yeah, with packrafts it's just you in the...Like, there's no room really to put other gear. You can shove stuff up by your feet and behind you, but the main idea is you're putting all of it in the tubes. **Inmn ** 11:40 Yeah, okay. Yeah, I guess hearing that their downfall, I guess, or thing that makes them maybe not a great idea is that they can get punctured. Is that something that's likely to happen. Like, can they get punctured easily? Like, how durable are they? **Blix ** 12:00 I guess the story that comes up is that I went on the Salt River this past spring. That's a river in northeast Arizona. There's like a--It's not the tubing section that everyone thinks about. It's like--whenever I tell people that, they're like, "What? You went whitewater on..." And I'm like, "No." There's an upper section that's a solid class 4 river--which, I suppose I should explain classes maybe after...If you're curious. But yeah, okay. But, basically, the story is we were portaging around this big rapid because I didn't feel comfortable running it. It was the end of the day. And portaging is just finding a route that we're able to walk and carry all our gear. Which, wasn't easy because we were in a very steep narrow canyon. But yeah. Someone dropped their packraft on a cactus, which, you know, you'd think--they popped bike tubes--but, their packraft had multiple holes that needed to be patched. Whereas my...I think the rafts are made of different materials...Like, my raft compared to a packraft...Because the packraft is so light, I don't think they can use as heavy duty material. I know people--and from my own experience--one of our packrafts has like gotten rubbed from paddling. Like the paddle rubbed the side and the side could get rubbed raw and then start to leak air. And I do know a lot of folks with packrafts that have a lot of patches. But, I also know...like this is where it comes into play that you need to be good at not just knowing how to paddle a raft but how to like read a river and know how to navigate water and know what hazards are, because, especially in a packraft, it's such...Like you don't want to tear it. Like even in my raft, I don't want to have a tear, but if you puncture your packraft in a significant way it's gonna sink or just be in a really bad spot. And you're going to be...because it is a single chamber and all your gear is in it...Like, that's a huge risk.  **Inmn ** 14:11 So you might just lose every...  **Blix ** 14:13 You might lose everything. And, I think you would have to mess up significantly for that to happen. But, just knowing certain hazards that I've encountered on rivers and things I've heard from other people...The material my boat's made of is this hypalon. It's really thick. Like. I've rammed it into rocks and like, it's been fine, but I also know if you hit things a certain way the like...like it's almost like a knife has cut through your boat. And I just think yeah, it would just be really...I would be really nervous and a packraft because of the single chamber aspect where if it pops, the whole thing is deflating. Whereas with my boat, if one of my tubes pops, I still have another tube that will stay inflated and I could maybe keep getting down the river...and not lose all my gear. **Inmn ** 15:03 Yeah, yeah. And so I guess with inflatable kayaks, are those usually more durable? Or like have more chambers? **Blix ** 15:13 They have...Each side is a chamber and then the floor is a chamber. The packraft floor is also...Wow, sorry, I usually take my big boat out, so I'm trying...I haven't taken my packraft out in a minute, but, yeah, it's just a big single chamber. But, I know that they're making very sturdy packrafts that can go down class five, like really intense whitewater, that are super durable and capable boats. And I think the technology is getting better because it's becoming so popular. **Inmn ** 15:16 That makes sense. Yeah, I imagine in most things, there's the really dinky one that for maybe nothing more than casual water. **Blix ** 16:02 Yep. No. And it definitely depends. Like, even different companies within the packrafting world use different material. And you can tell just by quality, what's going to be more durable than others. But, inflatable kayaks they are...like you can...We call them duckies. I'm not actually sure why we call them duckies. I've never actually thought about that. Inflatable kayak duckies. But they're very--you can't pack anything in them. So it would just all be shoved at the front of this massive pile. So I think--and also duckies, I don't...They just don't navigate the water as well because they're so long. They just are very awkward to sit on. **Inmn ** 16:46 So, what is involved in planning a river trip, whether that's--I guess specifically in a packraft--but in any kind of river transit with camping situation? **Blix ** 17:01 Yeah, I think it's very similar to backpacking and bike packing in the gear you would take. You can't bring anything super bulky. You have to think about what you can fit in your tubes. A big thing that I look at when I'm planning a river trip are rapids, if there are any, what classes they are. I look at predicted flows of the river, and at what point is it flood stage, and at what point is it too low for me to run it. And this is, I think, more specific for rivers out in the West that are very susceptible to flooding and flash flooding and drying up. And then, I mean, I'm looking at the weather too. Like, do I need to bring rain jackets or food. I don't know. It's really similar to backpacking is the only way I can think about it, where I'm bringing sleeping bags and normal things that I would bring on a trip like that. I think the only difference is water. Like, you're on it so you can just bring some type of treatment to treat it. And then, figuring out where to camp along the river can be complex and complicated as well if there's like private land or, I think again,  this is river dependent, if you're in a canyon there's only certain spots you can stop. So, you have to be aware of like, "I have to go this many miles today. I have to," because there are no other places to stop. And, also paying attention to water temperature and how that'll dictate if I'm wearing normal just active clothes or if I'm wearing a dry suit or a wet suit. And then, if it's a multimodal trip, which is if I'm bringing my bike or if it's just solely a river trip to be a river trip. I think also, I mean, you have to bring poop tubes. Like, you're not really allowed to... **Inmn ** 17:10 Poop tubes? [Confused] **Blix ** 19:00 Poop tubes. Like a PVC...You can do it yourself, but you can make one out of PVC pipe. Have one enclosed so you can pack out your poop.  **Inmn ** 19:15 Okay. [Realizing what a poop tube is] **Blix ** 19:16 Yeah, sorry. You have to poop through a tube. [Joking] No, that's not what's going on. But, with bigger rafts and bigger trips we bring something called a Groover, which is this big, basically, toilet so you're packing all that out. Because, if you're all going to the bathroom on like the same beaches and campgrounds and there's not many of them, it turns into a litter box and it's really gross.  **Inmn ** 19:41 I see. I've heard of this on--and maybe it seems like more...Curious on your perspective. So, I've heard of this on especially popular hiking trails and especially multi-day hiking trails that there are spaces where they've literally just become large toilets. And there's so much human shit around buried. It's a big problem ecologically.  **Blix ** 20:12 No, I think I've read a study where I feel like in a lot of national forest and parks the ground is just...they test soil and it always includes human feces, which is deeply disturbing to me. But, I honestly think--and maybe this is a hot take--I think river folks and people who are on the river are really good at packing out feces. And with...Only because--especially in canyons--and maybe this is different out east--but again, there are only these small little spaces that can be used for camping. So again, if somebody shits everywhere, for some reason, people are going to know. And also the National Monument, at least where I work, keeps track of who's camping--because they assigned campsites to people where they can go--so they would probably know the party that like pooped everywhere. And also, they won't let you on the river unless you have a Groover or a way to pack out your feces. Like, they won't let you. They check your gear list. So, it's a highly regulated and permitted activity. For now. That could change. But even then...I...Yeah, you just have to pack out your poop. And then we all pee in the river. That's just what you do. But yeah, I think typically river folks are better than hiking and yeah...There's emergencies, but we're always carrying Wag Bags too.  **Inmn ** 21:49 Wag Bags?  **Blix ** 21:50 It's basically like a dog bag for your own poop, right? Yeah. Yep. **Inmn ** 22:00 Wow. The river community is certainly, I feel like, better than a lot of other niche sub groups at naming things. **Blix ** 22:09 Oh, yeah. I think it...Even like rapids where I'm like, "Really? This is...this is what this rapid is called?" Like...  **Inmn ** 22:19 Like what?  **Blix ** 22:22 I think a lot of them are just intense names. But, like one of them's called Schoolboy or like Fluffy Bunny Rapid or whatever the hell. And, it's like this is...Yeah, I don't know. We have, I feel like, nicknames for a lot of stuff, but...I guess it separates us from the other people? [Said unconvincingly] But, I think guides and river folk also get a bad rap for being adrenaline junkie, like really intense, obnoxious people. So, I won't say that it's a perfect community by any means because it's not, but it's definitely creative. **Inmn ** 23:03 What are some of the dangers of river travel in general, but I guess, you know, specifically we're talking about packrafting or camping as you raft. **Blix ** 23:13 Oh, man. Yeah, there's a lot. I'm trying to think of what I talk about in my safety talk of things we need to be aware of as people on rivers. I think, in general, with any outdoor activity there's the risks of cuts and bruises and broken bones and infections and just things that can happen day to day even if you're not on a river. So, like camp dangers. Which, I think a big thing with rivers that I see are like injured feet with people taking their shoes off on beaches and then running around and running into the water and getting a stick up their foot. [Inmn makes a horrified reaction noise] Yeah, or cutting their foot on a rock. But, river specific dangers, my own standard is I never want to be in the water. Like, out of my boat in the water. I don't enjoy swimming whitewater. It's a personal project I've tried to work on this past summer by forcing myself to swim in rapids. But, hazards that I think of for packrafting is the same with any other--like even if I was in a big raft I'd be thinking about the same thing--but, Keeper Holes, which is a funny...So think about a huge boulder or rock in a river and there's water pouring over it. There's certain...We call them holes because it creates this like giant space behind the rock where the water is kind of...it can recirculate. And if you fall in, or not fall, but float or are getting carried downstream into one of these, there is a risk that you will not be able to swim out of it where you're just getting recirculated underwater.   **Inmn ** 24:59 I see, yeah.  **Blix ** 25:00 Eternally.  **Inmn ** 25:01 Eternally.  **Blix ** 25:02 Yeah. And, I know you said you have fears about rivers. I don't want to freak you out, but... **Inmn ** 25:11 No, please.  **Blix ** 25:13 Okay.  **Inmn ** 25:14 Yeah, I have an utter fascination with water and water travel and also a, you know, horrifying fear of water, which is weird because I'm a triple water sign, but moderately terrified. **Blix ** 25:28 I think it's okay to be afraid of rivers, because when things go wrong, they go wrong very quickly. And you also are on a timeline if someone is in the water, if that makes sense. But, another thing that I think about for hazards is something called a Strainer. So that's when... **Inmn ** 25:29 Y'all are really good at naming things. **Blix ** 25:29 I know, I know. It's terrifying. So, it's when a tree or log falls into the river. And, the way I describe it in my safety talk is when you use strainers at home and you dump the water through, the water goes through, but the noodles get stuck, right?  **Inmn ** 26:10 Yeah.  **Blix ** 26:10 We are human noodles.  **Inmn ** 26:12 Oh God.  **Blix ** 26:12 So, when there's logs or sticks, they tend to pile up in the river and create this huge entrapment hazard. So, if you get flushed into one of those, it's pretty difficult to get out. Like, you will probably get trapped. Another thing is something called foot entrapment, which happens when rivers are shallower. And this is when you're in the water and you can feel the bottom of the river and you're thinking, "Oh, I'm gonna stand up to stop myself." So, you stand up. There's tons of rocks and sticks under the water. Your foot can get stuck under them and push you underwater because you're still...like the pressure of the water is still coming on to you. Does that makes sense? [Inmn makes an affirmative sound] So, you don't ever want to stop yourself with your feet. **Inmn ** 27:01 Okay, that would be my first instinct. **Blix ** 27:04 Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, that's a huge hazard. It's super easy to avoid. For me, that would be the scariest thing that could happen hazard-wise on a river, as my own person. And...because your instinct is "I'm gonna put my feet down to stand up." Yeah, but I've had close calls with foot entrapment. And, if you have even one of them, you will never do it again, just because of how quick the water will push you under. Super scary. Another hazard...[Laughing. Overwhelmed] I'll just keep going? **Inmn ** 27:41 Please tell me all of the ways that I can perish on the river. Which will definitely mean that I will try packrafting. [Dry and sarcastic] **Blix ** 27:49 Yeah. I think you should. It's super fun. I think, again, being aware of these hazards and knowing what to do in situations or read the river. Reading rivers is going to empower you. And I think fear is just a lot of what we don't understand or know, right? And on rivers like--I mean, there's also very legitimate fears of like, "This is fucked."--but, rivers, usually if I can see a log in the river, I know to not go near it. If I'm in the water, I know not to stand up and put my feet down to stop myself. But... **Inmn ** 28:31 No, that makes sense. That is the line that we keep saying on this podcast is preparedness is all about preparing for things that you're afraid of so that you don't have to think about them anymore because you have a plan. And this seems to just be that.  **Blix ** 28:48 Yeah. No, and I'm terrified of all these things, but I should know what to do if that happens. Yeah, there's... I'm trying to think. Other hazards are like Sieves where it's like rock fall and it funnels you through a really tight space and you can get jammed in there. Undercut walls or rocks is when the water erodes away the space underneath it and creates a pocket for you to get sucked under and into. [Inmn makes noises of terror] I'm so sorry. **Inmn ** 29:24 You all can't see me obviously. But, I assume I have this look of just visceral terror.  **Blix ** 29:31 Yeah, that's all right. That's...Usually when I give a safety talk, everyone's faces turn from excitement to complete terror. Or, sometimes kids start crying and I'm like, "Okay, let's go have fun on the river today!" Those are kind of the big ones that I can think of off the top of my head besides drowning. Drowning is...You know, cold water is a huge one where if you're In the water and it's freezing, your body is gonna start shutting down. I think you have 10 minutes to like figure it out.  **Inmn ** 30:07 Ten minutes!?   **Blix ** 30:07 Yeah. I think sometimes even less time. **Inmn ** 30:10 In like what temperature water? **Blix ** 30:14 Um. Oh geez. I feel like 50 degrees, maybe 60? I think it also is body dependent and how well your body is insulated or able to keep warm. Yeah, there's definitely...Like, the start of my season, I'm wearing a dry suit. Which is...Are you? I guess I could explain?  **Inmn ** 30:38 Yeah, a dry suit keeps you dry. Wetsuit keeps you a little bit wet but in a way that is insulative and warm? **Blix ** 30:45 Yeah, so like wetsuits work by, you get wet, but the water close to your body, that's contained in the wetsuit, warms up to your body temperature. So, it's keeping you--at least that's how I understand it--so, it's keeping you somewhat warm. Dry suit is a suit you wear that has gaskets over your wrists and neck and your feet. You're completely enclosed in this goretex super suit. You look super cool. But nothing...You could wear street clothes underneath and they would stay perfectly dry. **Inmn ** 31:17 So you can go LARP [Live Action Role Play] in your like "Dune" LARP?  **Blix ** 31:22 Yeah,basically, it's like a...What is it, still suit? But the opposite. It's not keeping moisture in. Just keeping you dry and warm, hopefully. But yeah. Those are like the hazards I can think of off the top of my head. **Inmn ** 31:39 And then there's the obvious ones, like anything related to camping or being outdoors? **Blix ** 31:43 Yeah. And, you know, you probably want to wear a helmet when you're rafting because of impacts with rocks or...You know, like, there's a lot of things that can go wrong once you're in the water, depending on what kind of rapid you're in or anything like that. **Inmn ** 32:03 Yeah. And there's a thing called swiftwater rescue? **Blix ** 32:11 Yep, um, I am swiftwater rescue certified. And I think if anyone is doing any type of river activity that you should definitely take the class. I don't know. It's expensive, but the knowledge you gained from it, I think, just keeps not only yourself safe as you can be on the river but everybody else around you. And it teaches you things like wading correctly, you know, throw bag techniques, if you wrap a boat, or how to unpin a raft that's wrapped around a rock potentially, techniques for helping people who are like in a foot entrapment situation, which isn't great, swimming out to people, how to swim in whitewater, or try to swim in Whitewater, how to, if you can't get away from a strainer, what to do if you are coming upon logs and sticks in the water. I will say my swiftwater class kind of terrified me because it just made me hyper aware of everything that could go wrong and then what I would possibly have to do to help somebody. But yeah, super intense class physically and mentally. And, yeah, it taught me a lot. But I do feel like I would be able to help in a rescue situation instead of just being some random person who's like just panicking and being like, "I don't know what to do!" So, that feels good. But I would probably still panic to a certain degree. **Inmn ** 33:52 That makes sense, because the principle of any kind of first aid or rescue is, "Don't become another patient."  **Blix ** 34:02 Right?  **Inmn ** 34:03 And so, if you're not trained to rescue someone from one of those situations,  it might be just more dangerous to try to rescue them. **Blix ** 34:13 Yeah. And it's frustrating. It makes me think, like, I take a lot of families down the river and there's, you know, small kids. And, parents always make the comment, "Well, if my kid goes in, I'm gonna jump in after them," which is, you know, then me as a guide, I have to figure out in that scenario, possibly, "Am I saving the parent or the kid?"  **Inmn ** 34:14 Yeah.  **Blix ** 34:14 If I can. Obviously, I want to try to save both but...and I always tell parents, "Hey, if you're not trained in swiftwater rescue, I would not recommend jumping out of my raft to help your kid. You're more help to me in this raft than you are in the water trying to help your child." **Inmn ** 35:02 Yeah. Do you ever just tell them bluntly, "If you do that, then I will be in a situation where I have to choose between which one of you to save." **Blix ** 35:11 Yeah, no. Yeah, I do tell them that if they're being very serious about it and I also try to remind folks that untrained first responders have a very high mortality rate. Which, it's like, you know, I don't understand because I don't have children, but I've seen people I care about swimming in rapids and of course I want to help them but jumping into whitewater is never a good solution. But yeah, I do tell them, "You're gonna make me have a really hard decision to save you or your child, possibly." So. Yeah, it just makes it more complicated. **Inmn ** 36:02 To switch gears a little bit, you know, away from all the grim horror...  **Blix ** 36:07 Yeah.  **Inmn ** 36:08 ...And into some more but differently contextualized grim horror. So, one of the big reasons I wanted to have someone on to talk about packrafting is that we have a lot of...I think knowing different ways to travel is incredibly important and, you know, coupled with my fear of water but also my fascination with water and boat travel, is when I saw "Fellowship of the Ring" when I was ten all I could think about was boat travel, boat travel, boat travel. **Blix ** 36:49 As one does when they watch that movie, more so than anything else in that movie. [Laughing] **Inmn ** 36:53 Yeah, they really...They really made a fun choice...or Tolkein when writing that and they're like, "And then they got on boats," and it's like holy crap. Incredible. How do I get a boat? **Blix ** 37:05 How do I get a boat that looks that cool?  **Inmn ** 37:09 How do I get a boat that looks that cool? And, you know, I feel like the boats that they have in that book are, they're made by elves, and so they're kind of packraftish in that they're abnormally light.  **Blix ** 37:24 Yes.  **Inmn ** 37:25 And so they like do--I'm going to use a fun word that I just learned, I think--portage.  **Blix ** 37:30 Yes.  **Inmn ** 37:31 They get the points where they're like, "Yeah, that's a waterfall. I guess we're gonna pick up the boat and carry it around." **Blix ** 37:37 Yeah. And it's a super light elf boat, so it weighs nothing. I'm sure that one person could carry it, knowing the elves. **Inmn ** 37:43 Yeah. But, the part that was really interesting to me, too, is the reasons why they took to the river and why I'm interested in learning about packrafting, which is, you know, the big reason that they did that was to sneak past the orcs ,which...or the enemy who had all the roads watched, they had the woods patrolled, and they were suddenly in the situation where they were like, "Well, we got to get there somehow."  And so, they took to the river. And so, the thing that I...The piece that I want to bring into the context now is from a situation of preparedness, whether that's preparing for road closures due to the malicious setting of checkpoints or the road is destroyed due to some other kind of disaster...You know, these disasters could be that a right-wing militia has taken over your state, and you're trying to leave that state right, to a more environmentally related disaster has destroyed some kind of key infrastructure, and you are looking for an alternative means to get somewhere. And yeah, I'm curious...I'm wondering if you have ever thought about this and if you have any opinions if...would packrafting help you? Could packrafting be a useful thing in your preparedness kit? **Blix ** 39:18 Yeah, I've definitely thought about this. I think it...Well, it depends. I think in Arizona, we don't have a ton of rivers that we could--and they all for the most part are like...you know, there is an endpoint. And they are going literally...Like, once you're on the river, you are stuck going that way. I do think because of...Getting to the entry point--I'm just thinking of the Salt river because it's the river that we have here. Also, you could do the Grand Canyon, but that's really intense... **Inmn ** 39:59 And like maybe our context out here in the west in Arizona is like...It's not specifically what I'm thinking of. **Blix ** 40:06 Yeah, just in general. **Inmn ** 40:07 Where, there's obviously other places with much more dense and spread out waterways.  **Blix ** 40:13 Yeah. I think it would be a very quick and efficient way to travel if you had a specific place you're going to along that route because you're not encumbered by like...Like, if people are backpacking or biking, you can't just start cutting...Like, backpacking you could cut right into a forest. But, if I was on a bike, I couldn't just turn my bike off the road and just start riding through a forest. Like, that would be super slow. I'd probably be walking my bike a lot. Whereas with river travel, you can go--I think it's, again, river dependent on the speed of the water and a lot of that stuff...But, I don't imagine that people would be patrolling waterways the way they would do with roads. The only thing I think about is if you're on a river anywhere, you'd have to think about when I need to exit before I get to go past a town or go under a bridge, because I think bridges would be huge points where people would post up at, or entry points into a certain area. So, you'd have to think about when I would need to get off to avoid those places. And then how would I get back onto the river? Can I get back onto it? Is there an access point? I'd be thinking about, you know, are their dams on the way? But yeah, honestly, if I could find a way to get onto the Salt River, I would try to post up in there for a while. Especially during the initial fallout. Because I think, if I can anticipate that and get to the river, I could stay in there with enough food in my packraft to be there for maybe two or three weeks because I have unlimited water for the most part, if the Salt's flowing, but it's a very steep narrow canyon that people can't access very well. But, I do wonder if other people would have the same idea with like, "There's water there. And it's hard to get to." **Inmn ** 40:14 Yeah, like, that's the interesting thing about it is it provides these weird little--not like short cuts--but these fairly easy routes through a lot of places that could otherwise be hard to access, but you're also then stuck on it. So yeah, it seems like a double-edge sword. **Blix ** 42:16 It is. And I think, especially with really remote rivers, like even the rivers that I guide on, there's pretty much one way to get in, and then you're in a canyon for a really long time, and there's one way to get out. And like there's a few evacuation points here and there that we've used--they're not great to hike out of--but, I would worry that those sites would also be...Like, would people think to have guards there or set up there to catch people coming down the river? You know? Like, possibly. You know, who knows? I also just...I don't think like...Like, when I think right-wing militia, I feel like they all have jet boats. So, they're not going to be thinking about these little streams and stuff that you can take a packraft on. **Inmn ** 43:37 Yeah, and there's so many weird small water arrays. You know, not here in Arizona, but... **Blix ** 43:41 Right. Well, I'm just thinking like Minnesota, there's tons of creeks and rivers and lakes and there's islands in the lakes that are...Like, think places you can get to that you could like...If it's only accessible via water, you could have stashes there that other people couldn't get to. **Inmn ** 44:02 Yeah. So, a weird dream that I had as a 20 year old oogle.  **Blix ** 44:10 Yes. Perfect. [Laughing] **Inmn ** 44:15 Was to set up funny little like--I didn't realize that I was thinking about this like being a prepper--I was like, "I want to set up all these like little caches. Like, I want to build these weird sheds with bikes and little like inflatable rafts and food stores underneath them. And so you could just, you know, ride trains or whatever and just end up at the weird little safe house, bunker ,like whatever, cache. I got weirdly obsessed with it. I wish that I had been cool enough to have actually done it, but I absolutely did not. Only fantasized about it.  **Blix ** 44:54 No, I think...I do think it's a great option. I don't think it's the end-all thing that you should completely stick to. I think it should be like a multimodal thing. I think, honestly, backpacking and packrafting is like the best combination. Because, I think about with just backpacking, like what if there is a river you need to cross? Or, a body of water that you have to cross and you don't want to swim with a huge backpack? I don't know. I just...And I don't think people...Like, they're gonna be traveling by road, bikes, cars, like I don't think packrafts are well known enough, currently, that people would be looking for crafts in water, especially in smaller waterways. **Inmn ** 44:54 Yeah, yeah. And I feel like that is exactly what the Fellowship of the Ring thought. **Blix ** 45:50 Yes. Yes. I also think...One thing is like, what if the orcs just went to the river edge? They could just pick them off. Like they're moving fast, but I also think you could shoot arrows at them? **Inmn ** 46:09 So, they did at some point. They only traveled at night to make it harder for them to shoot at them. **Blix ** 46:14 Yeah, Right. Right. No, it's okay. **Inmn ** 46:17 But, you know, we do have this dissimilar...We're not on an equal playing field with like bows and arrows in the dark vs the kind of technology that people have access to now with guns and things like that. That would be my first thing is like, if I was going down a major waterway in a canyon, like I would probably not choose this as a way to escape a militia. Like, you're on a canyon wall with a long range gun... **Blix ** 46:47 Yeah, for sure. **Inmn ** 46:48 ...And I'm a tiny slow moving object out in the open... **Blix ** 46:51 Right. No, It's something that I also think about where it would be so easy to just put yourself in a really bad spot if you chose the wrong waterway to go on. Like, I would never be like, "I would use a packraft to travel the Mississippi in those types of times," because I think people would just be near them. I do think though, like, hard to access canyons are still...Like, if you needed to just lay low for a while, would be the place to go. Because, I think the amount of effort it would take to post up on a canyon edge in some of those places is astronomical. Like, no one, I feel like, is going to go--unless you're someone who was really important for people to get to or--like, no one's going to put in that effort, especially in the desert with water being so scarce and like...Yeah. **Inmn ** 46:52 Yeah, Always fun to think about these, you know...Like, "fun." ["Fun," said in a dry sarcastic and questioning way] These terror fantasies that we might be encountered with in the next decade or...currently of far-right violence and having to figure out creative ways to escape it. But, also always want to think about more environmentally related disasters. Like I think...It's like there's things that I...I get really scared here in the desert. Like, one of the big things that I am scared of is getting physically trapped here if there's like gas and energy crisis. **Blix ** 48:33 Oh, right. Yes. Yeah. **Inmn ** 48:34 Figuring out alternative ways to leave--which like, packrafting is not the solution to do that--but thinking about in other places, like, you know, if we're not expecting...like, if our main threat model isn't far-right violence, could packrafting or river travel in general--and maybe we're graduating to the larger raft at this point--could river travel be a helpful thing during other kinds of disasters? **Blix ** 49:06 I think, well, I think of forest fires, like escaping to a body of water or a canyon is a great way to try to mitigate being trapped in a forest that's literally on fire. Because a lot...hopefully nothing's going to catch on fire in the water. That'd be wild.  **Inmn ** 49:06 Stranger things have happened. **Blix ** 49:06 Yeah, I know. So yeah, I think as a means to escape forest fires is great. I think the one thing I think about, especially here in the West, is where our water is going to go. And as someone who guides on a tributary to the Grand Canyon, and the Grand Canyon obviously feeding into Lake Powell and Glenn Canyon and all that stuff, people are constantly talking about water and water rights. And, you know, my fear is that we're...People are going to start hoarding. And by people, I mean, companies and government, they're going to hoard water in these giant reservoirs. And, they're not going to release any to fill up canyons and river beds because it's just going to be such a critical resource. And my thought is that when it gets to that point, they are going to shut off the reservoirs from releasing water and they are just going to keep all of it.  **Inmn ** 49:44 Oh no. **Blix ** 50:18 And, I don't know that river travel will be feasible in the West, except if it's on an undammed river, which there's only...I think the Yampa River, which is a river I guide on, is the last undammed tributary to the Grand Canyon. It is like one of the last wild rivers, which is super susceptible to floods. So, that's another disaster. Whereas with climate change, we're getting these more extreme...Like, they had almost record breaking snowfall in Colorado in the area that feeds into this river. So, the river was flowing at this...It was fine at like 22,000 CFS, which is cubic feet per second. And the way I describe this to people, it's like if I threw a rope from one riverbank to the other, and every second 22,000 basketball sized amounts of water is flowing by.  **Inmn ** 51:35 Wow.   **Blix ** 51:35 Or you could say baby-sized. 22,000 babies are floating by every second. So, it's a ton of water, which being on a river that has that...And so it can be up to, you know, I think the highest flow the Yampa has ever been is like 30,000, which is...I can't even fathom how scary that river would be. But, it can go all the way down to no flow at all. So like, if you can't...if people take out river gauges there's no way of knowing what the flows are going to be for rivers. You would have to show up there with your watercraft and be like, "Well, I hope there's water for me to escape," which I think river travel in the east or a place where there's more water is a better solution than river travel out here in the West. But, as far as natural disasters go and things that could happen, like, if you're trying to escape somewhere due to that, I think we're in a pretty not great place here. Like, the only river I can think of would be going down the Grand. Which is really big water. It ends in...you know, like...You know, like, it's so dependent on...and especially like what if they blow up dams? What if they blow up the reservoirs? Which, what if you're camped along that canyon and someone upstream blows up the reservoir? This is again, all things I've thought about, where it's like, you're gonna get washed away. **Inmn ** 53:11 Yeah, very true. They did just do that in Ukraine. Russia blew up the largest reservoir in Europe. **Blix ** 53:20 Oh, wait. Yes. Yeah, I did see that. Yep. So that's something...I mean, it's something I think about where I think people would blow that up, especially if people downstream needed water. **Inmn ** 53:34 Yeah. Yeah. **Blix ** 53:38 Sorry this is...[Both making sounds about how grim this all is] But...I know...But, I also think the river lends itself to...You know, like, there's fish. You can eat fish, you can...There's lots of food and really fertile soil that can grow along rivers. So, if you had to post up and figure it out, like, I would want to be close to a body of water. **Inmn ** 54:03 Thank you for bringing it back to hope and why this could be helpful. **Blix ** 54:05 Yeah, right. And I think a thing with river stuff as well, and why I love it so much, is it's not an activity that you necessarily want to do alone. In fact, I would like recommend that no one do any river activity alone. But like, you want to be with a community of people on the water, like setting up safety, and sending someone downstream to check that there's no river hazards, and then like having people come through, and you're working as a team constantly. And, you can have people...Like, if someone is injured, someone else could take more gear and like it's...You can carry more things in a pack raft than you could on your back because like--I mean, eventually I think you'd have to carry them on your back--but the water is going to help you with that weight. Or, you can even pull another empty packraft behind you with more gear. Yeah, I think I would very much want to be close to a body or water or a river of some kind. **Inmn ** 54:07 Cool. Um, I think I...One of my last questions is--I'm expecting the answer to be grim again [Blix makes a disappointing groan]--but I'm curious as someone who like works on waterways in the West, how are they? What are they like with climate change? **Blix ** 55:26 Oh, yeah. River or the canyons or the water itself? **Inmn ** 55:33 Everything. Yeah, water and canyons in the West. Yeah, I'm terrified to hear the answer. **Blix ** 55:42 So, I think I notice...Like, when they had to fill up Glen Canyon, I think it was last year, they did a big dam release from the Flaming Gorge dam, which is up river where I guide. So, I'm kind of hyper aware of when shit is bad downstream because they have to do these big releases. But I know this year was a really good year for rivers, especially the ones I guide on, because of the large snowfall that they got in Colorado. Like, we had really high nice water forever. The rivers were all really healthy. But, I think I've...Two years ago I took a group of politicians from Utah down the river. They were like Congress people. Because my company did it. I wasn't like, "I want to take these people..." No, I would never be like, "I want to take these people down the river." But< the point of it was to show these--they were all men--to show these men that the rivers were worth saving, and not like damming up, not drilling for oil and everything in this area. And the moment we got back in the vans to shuttle back, they started talking about canyons they had seen to dam up along the route we had gone on.  **Inmn ** 57:04 Oh my god.  **Blix ** 57:07 But, I think it's because all the water that I guide on is already owned by somebody downstream. **Inmn ** 57:18 Okay, like, “owned by” because it gets used? **Blix ** 57:21 Yes. Like, the Green River gives water to 33 million people. But, it's bizarre to think about water as being something that's owned? **Inmn ** 57:40 I thought it was like that one thing that wasn't for a while. **Blix ** 57:43 Same. No, it's coming to light that it has been. Yeah. But, we mention that to a lot of people we take down the river that all this water belongs to somebody else. Like, this is not ours. This is not like our collective water. **Inmn ** 58:00 Yeah. It's not here for our collective survival. **Blix ** 58:03 Yeah, no, it's for somebody downstream. Which, I mean, they need water too. But I think it's...honestly the rivers I guide on--and maybe this is again is a hot take--but I am not hopeful that they will flow within the next 10 years. I think as water rights and like water wars become more prevalent, I think states are going to start withholding. Like, I think Flaming Gorge is mostly in Wyoming and they could decide to just not--I think it would have a chain reaction if they decided to not leave water let water out. Because all the farms downstream would die. Blah, blah, blah. People would be without that. But um, yeah. But, I'm also, with climate change, it was odd. Like, the first year I worked there, there was no water, there was hardly any water coming down the river. It was super low. Our boats were getting stuck. And I just became hyper aware of how fucked stuff was for some reason. But then this year was so good for water that I was like, "Oh, maybe it won't be so bad." But then I keep...You know, like I think it really...Who's to say? If they dam up more rivers, which I think they might start, then I think that's going to change the game a lot for river travel and it's going to be really dependent on how much water we have access to. **Inmn ** 58:03 Yeah, yeah. Which, that's one of the big key problems is not necessarily there being lack of water, but rather that water is being mismanaged or hoarded. **Blix ** 59:46 Yeah, I think it's a combination of all of that. And where I guide it's desert, but then the valley after the canyon is all alfalfa fields, which is a really water intensive crop.  So then and I...Like, they flood their fields. And it's just like this disconnect of this is not like an infinite resource. And, it's interesting to me that that is this...Yeah, there's a whole lot to unpack with water rights and water usage. And, I think that could even trickle to out East. You know, because who's to say that they won't suffer droughts and experience creeks and rivers drying up? But...I know that is kind of a grim answer. But... **Inmn ** 59:47 The name of the show is Live Like the World is Dying.  **Blix ** 1:00:46 True.  **Inmn ** 1:00:47 Okay. Well, that's about all the time that we have for today. Is there? Is there anything else? Is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have asked you or that you would really love to bring into the conversation? Or have any last words of hope for the river? Or just like why...Is packrafting fun? Is it just fun? **Blix ** 1:01:13 It is fun. Yeah, I really want to encourage anyone who's curious about going on rivers or river travel, I love it. Because, I think I mentioned, it's such a community oriented activity versus backpacking and bike packing and other stuff I do that's very, "You're the individual out there fending for yourself," for river stuff I really love because you're always working as a team. You're always trying to keep everybody safe. You learn a lot about yourself. Learning to read rivers, I think, is like a superhero skill. Like, I feel like a tracker. Like, I feel like Aragorn, like, "Oh, I can read this like little miniscule thing that maybe other people missed. And I know..." Like, it's a really cool thing to look at a river and being able to tell what is causing certain waves or currents. Understanding that, I think is...Even if you're just someone who has to cross a river every now then, whether you're backpacking or bikepacking, like being able to figure out the safest place to cross is an important skill to have. But, river river travel and rafting and all that is super fun. Yeah, I would love to have more friends who do river stuff. So yeah. **Inmn ** 1:01:22 Cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on. And good luck on the river. **Blix ** 1:02:38 Thank you so much. **Inmn ** 1:02:43 Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show then go packrafting with your bike and then please tell me about it or invite me along to live out my "Lord of the Rings" fantasies. Or, you can just tell people about the show. You can support this podcast by telling people about it. You can support the show by talking about it on social media, by rating, and reviewing, and doing whatever the nameless algorithm calls for. And, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Our Patreon helps pay for things like transcriptions or our lovely audio editor, Bursts, as well as going to support our publisher, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is the publisher of this podcast and a few other podcasts, including my other show Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. I'm trying to see how many times I can say the name of the project at one time. But, that is a monthly podcast of anarchists literature. And then there's the Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is a good podcast for people who love movies and hate cops. And, we would like to shout out some of our patrons in particular. Thank you so much. Perceval, Buck, Jacob, Catgut, Marm, Carson, Lord Harken, Trixter, Princess Miranda, BenBen, anonymous, Funder, Janice & Odell, Aly, paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, theo, Hunter, S.J., Paige, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Staro, Jenipher, Kirk, Chris, Michaiah, and Hoss the Dog. Thank you so much. We could seriously not do any of this without y'all. And I hope that everyone is doing as well as they can with everything that's going on and we will talk to you soon. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co

Governor Hobbs says Grand Canyon National Park will remain open even if the possible government shutdown does happen at the end of the month. 

We had the privilege of meeting our next guest, David Andrew, on a Thursday afternoon in Santa Fe. His apartment, located just off the main drag, still carried the sense of a recent transition. As we parked the van and began unloading our gear, the door to his apartment swung open, and there stood David, shirtless, waving us in with a casual declaration that he had just woken up. After getting settled, we took a moment to chat and even shared a morning cigarette.David hails from northern New York, a child of the countryside, born in '66. His early years were marked by the loss of his father, an MD, when he was just three. He recalls those formative memories – the juxtaposition of his father's death and his birthday – and the long darkness that followed. His mother eventually remarried, introducing a stepfather into David's life. Like many of us, David endured the routine of high school and college, a job in a tie that felt like his personal version of hell. The turning point came when he abandoned that life and headed west. His first job, washing dishes at the Grand Canyon resort, brought a sense of freedom that he hadn't experienced before.It was during his time at the Grand Canyon that David experienced his first taste of love – a love that was transient and left him feeling like he had fallen into a pit. As this chapter of his life came to a close, he made his way to Lubbock, Texas, where he spent over two decades building a life. He became deeply involved in the community theater scene, and those years shaped his identity, at least until he grew disillusioned with his job and the path he had been on. This pivotal moment in Lubbock marked the beginning of David's journey to Santa Fe, where he hoped to discover his next steps.David is a profoundly intriguing individual, and his complexity invites compassion. His interview is raw and unfiltered, peppered with strong language and directness – a genuine conversation with a real person. In 2005, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a factor that has influenced his life's trajectory. During our conversation, David shares a heartfelt plea to his daughter, asking for forgiveness for not being the best parent while grappling with his mental health struggles.Join us as we listen to David's story in his own words, a narrative that navigates through his highs and lows, triumphs and challenges, as he continues to forge his path within the pages of The Jar. For more of The Jar, visit:Website: https://www.thejar.live/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaTqB1dhDvl0Oh505ysdxTgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcast.thejarInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejar_podcast/Disclaimer: The views stated in this episode are our guest's opinions and do not represent the views, beliefs or opinions of The Jar Podcast. Our goal is to provide a platform for everyone no matter what they believe, and we would like to continue to do that while making it clear our guests are not a representation of The Jar Podcast. 

Get ready for an adrenaline-pumping ride in this week's episode of Stagecoach Line 100-Mile. Join us as we lace up our running shoes and hit the trail with the remarkable Stephanie Leake, who takes us on a thrilling journey from Flagstaff to the iconic Grand Canyon.Stephanie's recounting of her recent Stagecoach Line 100-Mile race is nothing short of awe-inspiring. As she shares her experience, you'll be on the edge of your seat. From the starting line in Flagstaff to the awe-inspiring vistas of the Grand Canyon, Stephanie paints a vivid picture of the challenges, triumphs, and the unexpected encounters that defined her race.One highlight you won't want to miss is Stephanie's incredible Bighorn Sheep encounter. Hear firsthand how she navigated this unique and unforgettable moment in the wilderness. But that's not all—Stephanie's story takes an exhilarating turn as she describes passing the leading female runner and feeling the chase on her heels.This episode is more than a tale of a 100-mile race; it's a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the indomitable will to push boundaries. Whether you're an experienced ultra-runner or simply an enthusiast of extraordinary stories, Stephanie's journey will leave you inspired and in awe of the beauty and challenge of ultramarathons.Tune in and join us as we celebrate Stephanie's incredible adventure, where determination, wildlife encounters, and the pursuit of excellence converge on the trail from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. Get ready for a podcast episode that'll make your heart race and your spirit soar.Be sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, and we always appreciate you leaving a good rate and review. Join the Facebook Group and follow us on Instagram and check out our website for the latest episodes, posts and merchandise coming soon. Have a topic you'd like to hear discussed in depth, or a guest you'd like to nominate? Email us at info@happyendingstc.org

Join us as we look at this amazing letter from the apostle Paul to the Ephesians. Some have called Ephesians the Grand Canyon of the New Testament for its beauty and depth. We hope to gain a better understanding of the riches we have in Christ ad how to live in light of them. -Featuring Loïs Renaud

Hour 1: Jeff flips a U'y to buy an old gas can on Rt. 66 in Flagstaff. Jeff and Angela do something in the car they haven't done in 25 years...listen to a cassette. National security risks due to dementia, Trumps bad answer on can a man be a woman and 1/4 loaf of bread? Hour 2: Bob Thorpe and Olivia join Jeff to share some news picks including $$$ for hostages (again) in Iran, losing an F35, snakes in a garage, abandoned in the Grand Canyon and more!   VIDEO now available https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGP8_jsPCzuX5HVfNOT9mVQ

Isaiah 44:24 " Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb: `I am the Lord, who makes all things, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by Myself.' To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1232/29

C.K. Collins, aka Kelly, was an award-winning publisher and owner of a hyperlocal news publishing company in the middle Tennessee area. She sold her company and retired from the industry in 2021.Believing that travel feeds the soul and grows the heart and mind, Kelly embarked on a two-year travel sabbatical to write her book and subsequent workbook. Her travels included destinations such as Utah, Grand Canyon in Arizona, Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Portugal, Spain, Italy and a 30-day sailing rally from Los Angeles to La Paz, Mexico.In 2018, Kelly hiked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago in France and Spain, hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire in 2019 and hiked her second Camino (or spiritual hike) in 2022 in Portugal.Kelly grew up in Nashville, TN and is currently residing in Newport, Rhode Island where you wrote The Swipe Right Effect: The Power to Get Unstuck and the companion workbook, The Swipe Right Effect Workbook. Following the book release, she began a coaching and consulting career focused on helping women who are seeking and yearning for their highest frequency of living.Book:The Swipe Right Effect by C.K. Collins, aka Kelly, is the perfect guidebook for anyone who wants to find their way back to happiness, empowerment, and joy.Drawing from her own experience of overcoming divorce, Kelly shares personal stories of her journey towards healing and transformation. She also interviews ten of her special friends who share their own stories of pain, renewal, and growth. Through their collective wisdom, they offer practical ideas and techniques that can help you overcome your own challenges.With chapters that include Empowerment Practices, you can learn how to take control of your emotions and manage overthinking. You can also build your self-esteem, practice forgiveness, and find positivity in your life. The book also covers topics such as depression, mental health, and habit development.Through guided exercises, motivational stories, and powerful manifesting techniques, The Swipe Right Effect can help you become more aware of your thoughts and feelings. You can develop confidence and overcome self-doubt. You can also learn to build positive habits and transform your life.Whether you're seeking therapy or counseling, or simply looking for ways to improve your mental and emotional well-being, this book can be your guide. By journaling your experiences, practicing mindfulness, and focusing on personal growth, you can become happier, healthier, and more empoweredLinks to Freebies:https://c-k-collins.ck.page/da9d0da3f6How to Be Balanced, Beautiful and Abundant?For more information go to…https://www.rebeccaelizabethwhitman.com/Https://linktr.ee/rebeccaewhitman This is The Quickest & Easiest Way To Your Own Side Hustle!Show me how----->https://balancedbeautifulabundant.com/

Holmberg's Morning Sickness - Tuesday September 19, 2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A potpourri of comedies from September 15.First the Stan Freberg show from September 15, 1957, another hi-fi lecture. The Freberg Build-It-Yourself grand piano, The fortune cookie factory, Prof. Horn lectures on Hi Fi. Next, Fibber McGee and Molly, originally broadcast September 15, 1954, The water at 79 Wistful Vista is turned off for the afternoon. Fibber gets very thirsty!Finally more of Lum and Abner and their trek to Las Vegas from September 15, 1948. They boys have gotten off their route and have ended up at the Grand Canyon, only to be met by...Thanks again to Ted at Radiomemories.com for this episode of Lum and Abner.

Welcome back to another exciting episode of SA Voices From the Field! In today's episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Chicora Martin, the board chair of NASPA, the leading association for student affairs professionals. Dr. Martin shares their incredible journey in leadership, from initially doubting their own nomination to now serving as the board chair. We dive into their experience at NASPA, the importance of color and texture in leadership, and the outstanding work of the NASPA staff in keeping the organization running smoothly. Dr. Martin also walks us through NASPA's thoughtful process of selecting the board chair, emphasizing the importance of representation and engagement within the association. We'll also touch on Dr. Martin's involvement in the LGBTQ+ knowledge community and their commitment to addressing gender issues within the profession. So tune in and join us as we explore the dynamic world of leadership and higher education with Dr. Chicora Martin in this episode of SA Voices From the Field! Dr. Chicora Martin serves as the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students for Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA.  Chicora provides leadership in the areas of student development, wellness, sense of belonging, social justice, and transformational learning experiences for Agnes Scott College students.  Before coming to Agnes Scott, Chicora was Mills College in Oakland, CA as the Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students for seven years and at the University of Oregon for fourteen years serving as the Assistant Dean of Students, Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Education and Support Services, Area Director for the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence, and coordinator of the Bias Response Team. Chicora various leadership positions include Region V Knowledge Community Chair for LGBT Issues as well as the 2018 faculty and 2020 Faculty Director for the Manicur Institute for NASPA, co-chair for the National Consortium of LGBT Resource Professionals from 2003-2005, member of the American College Personnel Association's Standing Committee for LGBT Concerns and ACPA Senior Student Affairs Officer Advisory board.  Chicora was honored as the 2015 ACPA Voice of Inclusion Medallion recipient and by the Consortium of LGBT Resource Professionals as the 2014 Contribution to the Profession award. Chicora received a doctorate from Colorado State University in Educational Leadership and Human Resource Studies, a Master's degree in College Student Personnel with a concentration in LGBTQ services from the Florida State University, and a Bachelor's of Science from East Carolina University.  Chicora's research and teaching interests include the intersections of higher education policy, gender identity, as well as marine conservation and emergency management/crisis response.  Past presentations have focused on gender identity, Title IX and policy development, multiethnic/queer identity, access and equity, bystander engagement, and crisis and emergency preparedness.  Chicora enjoys travel and adventures of all kinds including experiences to Everest Basecamp, rafting the Grand Canyon and scuba diving the world, as well as triathlons and serving as Red Cross Disaster Volunteer. Please subscribe to SA Voices from the Field on your favorite podcasting device and share the podcast with other student affairs colleagues! Transcript Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts. This is season nine on transitions in Student Affairs. This podcast is brought to you by NASPA. And I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your SA SA Voices from the Field. Host. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:00:23]: Shakura. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:24]: Welcome to SA. Voices thank you so much. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:00:27]: I'm excited to be here with you. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:28]: We're so glad you agreed to be our season premiere of season nine, transitions in Higher Education. Think you're the perfect person to kick off our season because of your professional transitions, your institutional type transitions, and also your leadership transitions within NASPA. But as our season premiere person, that also means that we get to explore the direction of where we're going to go. And one of the things we will always keep consistent though, is we like to start our episodes with your come up. So how did you get to your current seat both at your institution and in NASPA? Dr. Chicora Martin [00:00:59]: Well, first of all, let me congratulate you on nine seasons of bringing forward our profession in a way that's really accessible to folks and interesting and lets us tell a little bit deeper story about what we're doing. So that's an amazing opportunity for you, for NASPA, and for Student affairs. So super excited to be a part of it. How I got here, I was just actually meeting with a grad student. So I have a general policy that if a grad student reaches out and wants to connect, I try to make that happen because I feel like that's an important part of the profession. So I actually had lunch with a graduate student last weekend who happens to be in the Atlanta area doing some work this year. And that was one of their questions, like, what was your student affairs journey? And I said, first, I said, I think I'm still on it. I'm not quite sure. Trying to figure out what I'm trying to do. But I went to college and really was as a first gen student, really with very little college knowledge. Got to my undergraduate because my mom's best friend's husband coached football there. That was part of my decision making factor in Student Affairs for thinking about the work we do around recruitment and trying to get students to come to our college. I'm sure all of the admissions professionals out there who hear this are going to cringe that. That was part of my college decision making journey. But alas, I got there and I was on a career trajectory to be into law and be a judge. That's what I wanted to do. That was my original career aspiration. So I got involved with the honor know, that seemed like a good extracurricular fit with being a judge. Right? And summer of my sophomore year, this person calls me in July. In the summer I'm working. They're like, hi, I'm your new dean of students at ECU. East Carolina is where I went my undergrad, and I'm going to be working with you next year. Really excited. I'm like, who calls you in the middle of the summer? I'm like, not even in the college frame, but alas. So that person was Dr. Karen Boyd, and she ended up being my dean for several years. Is actually a great friend of mine. At my wedding, we vacationed together even 30 years later almost. So it was because of her making me realize the opportunities available to me. I did want to go home for the summers back to my house in Virginia Beach, so I got connected with orientation so I could work. No real intention of it being a career. Hey, it was a job and a place to live and three meals. And I met the wonderful orientation director at Carolina, Beth Am. Pretty. And it really just went off from there, I think. I got a job in student affairs and got into law school the same week right when I was getting ready to graduate. My mom was a little surprised. You're going to do what? You're not going to go to law school? You're going to do this thing. I don't understand. But I did. I thought it was the right thing for me. I said then that I can always go back to law school. So yeah, so that's how I got into student affairs. It was sort of a circuitous serendipitous, I guess, is the better word for it, route. And I just kept taking advantage of opportunities and decided I wanted to go to grad school. So I had to wait a year, took as many advantages as I could where I was at ECU to do different jobs. I worked in admissions, I worked in the student union. Really cool opportunities. And I went to grad school so I could do this as a job. And my family, many of which have still not gone to college, are always like, how is school? School's still good? As if I'm still enrolled. I don't know. I don't know what they think I do, but it's really cute because they're always like student of life. Student. Exactly. I'm like school's still great. I think they think either just always in school or maybe I'm the principal, I don't know. But yeah, so that's why I got here. And I've just continued to have really great opportunities. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:20]: The reason you heard me go, oh, wow, is I know Karen as well. Clearly not as well as you do, but I grew up in the conduct world, so Karen has been quite a presence stalwart in the conduct world for so many years. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:04:30]: It's true. I say she's always been really committed to this work and is a great connector, so it doesn't surprise me. Right. She's a great connector. She's always introducing people to each other. And I think I also, thankfully have learned that a little bit from her. So I try to do the same thing with people that I work with or mentor, just connecting them to the great people in our profession, for our. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:48]: Listeners, Shakur and I on each other's journey. We met actually at the University of Oregon in 2000. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:04:55]: A long time. Sometime between somewhere. Yeah. Mid 2000, I think. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:02]: Student affairs always comes around on itself, and I think it's a really great example of how small the profession can be, good, bad or ugly. But Shakura actually interviewed me for a job at one point when I was a much younger professional. So we all stay connected regardless of how those things turn out. I didn't end up working with Shakura on a full time basis, but we're still definitely in the Nasca space. You know, like, we're all those of us who've been around the block a few times, the six degrees of separation gets tinier and tinier. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:05:29]: It's true. I tell that to new professionals all the time in our field, is we have really tons and tons of amazing opportunities, and it's still a really small profession. And to your point, that can be good and challenging, I think good, because sometimes that sense of connectedness also is how we take care of each other. We look out. But I also know if you're coming from the outside and or you have identities that are not historically represented in our work, it can feel like you can't get in. Like, it's sort of an inside outside club. So I think we nurture that, but we also recognize it can feel a little clubbish, and we have to work on making sure everyone feels like they'd be a part of that. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:06:04]: Absolutely. And on our theme of transitions, you have now transitioned into the Nasca board chair role. You're in there a couple of months now, so I'm hoping you can talk to us a little bit about your come up in NASPA specifically and then also what that transition has been like from being, like, a general leader or a volunteer to suddenly sitting as the leader of the board. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:06:25]: Now, I appreciate that it's accidental leadership. If you heard, I giggle because when I remember talking to my partner when I was first approached about this opportunity and I said, it's a great thing. I mean, I won't get elected or anything. They probably won't even put me up. But it's a cool thing to be nominated or recognized, just to be to someone to reach out and say, hey, you're doing great things. We see you. So she laughs at me still that's, you know, you say that, and here you are doing you know, my role of work at NASA actually kind of parallels my work in student affairs in that I got my job. At the University of Oregon, and I was there in August, and Laura Blake Jones, who was the Dean of Students there at the time, said, hey, by the way, a bunch of us are on the Portland. It was a regional conference planning committee, and now you are yay. So welcome. I love being volatile. It was amazing. It was a very important job. I was in charge of parking. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:22]: Oh, that was on a college campus. Do not underestimate the importance of parking. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:07:26]: I know it's true. I joke about it, and people are like, well, but if they can't park, no one can come. I was like, It's true. And parking in downtown Portland is not like most major cities. It's really challenging. But it's interesting though. I decided, like, okay, one thing, I was going to take that beyond and sort of my personality too. I was like, oh, what else can I do? So I had like, bus routes, and I got some free bus passes as giveaways. I just went and did all kinds of transportation things. So parking and transportation is important and fun, and I made the best of it. But I also said, hey, I know there's an LGBT knowledge community. I'm connected at that time. I was just I call it like a listserve member at the time, right? I got the emails and I said, I'd like to also provide some resources around LGBT things to do at the conference. And folks were really excited. So I took on that piece as well and just kind of ran with it. And it was a great opportunity. I met wonderful people in NASPA. It was really my first big involvement. And I think for the early part of my career, I was involved in both NASPA and ACPA fairly equally. ACPA was much bigger at my graduate institution, and I stayed connected to both. I think each organization has really valuable pieces for professionals and having each organization and lots of other ones, and I'll talk a little bit about that later, but that really benefit your professional development. So it's cool. Got connected to cool people and just stayed involved. Really got involved in the LGBT knowledge community. And that's what it was called at the time, right? And worked with that group and some wonderful leaders around some of the cool changes that we were working on as far as the organization being more inclusive, being more welcoming, and stayed connected there as well as the standing committee for ACPA. So it was really cool in working, and then as many of us sometimes do, I kept volunteering with NASPA, reviewing programs. That was one of the things I've constantly done. People are like, how do I get involved with something right away? I'm like, offer to review program proposals. It's one of the easiest ways, but really meaningful ways. You really help sculpt the professional development curriculum of our organization. So I've done that for years and generally was just open, especially when NASPA was close to us. So if it was close to me in an area as a relatively I'm not going to use the word poor that I don't think that's appropriate. As a relatively lower income employee at the time, I really couldn't travel nationally, so it was really taking advantage of whenever NASPA came by. The Bay Area first story. Get another bay in heights. So I was really excited in looking at my trajectory as a mid level professional and how you get to become into sort of a vice presidency. It's not a very clear process. It's somewhat opaque sometimes. How do you get the skills and experience? So I think my first really big opportunity to engage was when the faculty director of Manicure, which is a wonderful institute to help support women to get into VP positions, I would say argue sometimes to decide they don't want to be a vice president, which is a completely appropriate reason to also do it. Mamta Akapati reached out to me, and Mamta and I have known each other for a long time, more from afar. She's an amazing leader, really, I think sets a lot of opportunity in our community to talk about inclusive leadership in a particular way. And I've always really appreciated her work in that area and said, hey, you want to get involved with this thing, Manicure? I had never been, and not because I didn't think it was important, but because of my gender identity. I wasn't exactly sure if it was that space for me. I want to honor and respect spaces that are set for people who particularly have marginalized identities to sort of honor that. I think it's important. I think we can have lots of inclusive spaces, but I think those are vital too. And she moms and I said, let's talk. So we talked, and she really shared with me that this was about folks who are marginalized because of their gender, having a path to a VP position. And that really speaks to me because I would say that one of the reasons that I'm at a historically women's college is because we talk about gender all the time. All the time. You have to. It's what you do. So being able to really do that in a way through the NASPA leadership opportunities was exciting, and I think we had an amazing faculty. It was a really profound experience for me as a faculty member, and I had the honor. So it's every two years, the next two years, usually a faculty member is asked to be the faculty director. And so in 2020, I was able to be the faculty director. And again, just those leaders that I'm connected to the faculty, I have a text chat with all of them. To this day that we chat with each other, and some of the participants I'm still connected to reach out, and we have conversations about their careers, what they're doing, how things are going. It's really exciting. And so that was really my first national opportunity. Besides always being involved with the national conferences volunteering and doing all the things I could. I even remember volunteering at TPE for those of us who were older and remember volunteering at TPE. And mine was the mailboxes. So people asked me of one of my most memorable NASPA experiences is working at the mailboxes, at the placement exchange with folks, applying for jobs and trying to be really so my journey with NASPA was just about saying people, you know, opportunities with different groups and just saying, yeah, I'll try that, I'll help out. I will do whatever that thing is. And when I was approached to be the board chair, I really said, if the NASPA membership feels I can be of service, then I'm there. If they feel my leadership, what I bring, how I approach the work and our profession, then I would be honored to serve in that way. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:12:46]: So let's talk about that process a little bit, because I think that too can be a bit opaque. How does one be considered to become the NASPA board chair, and what does that feel like as the person who just went through it and the transition from prospective candidate to candidate to sure. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:13:01]: There'S actually it's a pretty thoughtful process. It kind of goes back to what I said earlier about ensuring that we have a process that's clear to our membership, but it feels like there's an opportunity to engage with it at a variety of levels. So NASPA will reach out to folks around being the board chair. You can throw your own name out there and say, hey, I'm interested. They also solicit from NASPA leaders, ideas, folks who might be really interested. And the first part of that conversation is looking at, do we have a good slate of folks to talk with? Right? Are we representing different groups, different regions? That's a huge part, right? We represent a very diverse constituency, have our regions. Of course, I throw that all in the loop as I move across country. But we'll talk about our regions represented, different backgrounds, different functional areas. And then the past chair part of their responsibility is actually to run this process. So you serve three years, incoming chair, current chair, and past chair. So the past chair then reaches out to folks and has a conversation. I remember my conversation with Angela Batista, and it was really, really important because Angela named what would be expected. And I think that's important to really have a thoughtful conversation with yourself, to the demands of them, to have a conversation with your family, your boss, the people who work with you. Because I would say specifically the board chair year, you're going to ask those folks in your sphere of the world to sort of take on more and to support you. So I think in that process, then folks really name, okay, yeah, I'm interested, or it's not my time. And I would say a lot of folks will say that I am very interested, but it's not my time to do that. And I think that allows us to recognize that this is a volunteer position, that all of us have other jobs. You're required to be in a student affairs role while you're in the board chair position. So it is really on top of everything else. And from that, the slate of candidates, those two candidates that rise to the top through this committee selection process, through the interviews, go to the membership, and the members get to vote between those two folks. We do a great sort of webinar kind of conversation. We have to do a video. That two minute video. I feel like it took me 20 hours to make. It is so hard to get everything you want to say in two minutes. That was, I think, the hardest part of it. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:15:09]: And in one take. That is rough. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:15:11]: I know. It was so arduous. My staff will tell you here, I hate doing videos, especially when they're scripted. I don't like conversational. I love having a conversation. But those sort of scripted are when you really and you have to in two minutes, you have to write everything down, because if you don't, at least I I will name for myself. I'll wander off talking about whatever you want to talk about, but that was the hardest part. And then it goes out to the members, and they vote and make a decision about who can lead. And I would know. I ran against Eddie Martinez. He is an amazing human, and frankly, the NASPA would have been in a great hands no matter who they elected. So, thankfully, Eddie is now on the foundation board. I'm glad we've kept him close. He's a wonderful person, and I know he'll really serve that foundation board well. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:15:56]: And it's such a delightful thing to think about. Your colleagues nominating you for this leadership role, but also really important to know that there's an interview process that you have to really think about why you want to be in this position and what does it mean to you. And the interesting thing about association leadership, which is much different than campus based leadership, is that you are actually more of a steward of the association for the period of time you're in the seat, rather than kind of operationally leading like you would in a division of student affairs. So let's talk a little bit about the transition of hat that you have to wear between your day job and your board chair job. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:16:29]: Yeah, that's a great analogy. That stewardship I describe it as I'm a threat. And one end of my thread is connected to Danita, right. She's already gone through and served our organization and still does this past year. And the other end of my thread is connected to Anna Gonzalez, who will come in next year. And I sort of hold this for a year, but I need to figure out how do I add texture and color to that. That's unique to me and my leadership that really helps serve the organization overall, because that's the most important thing. And I think my leadership style and what I bring to that. But you're right, there's a whole I use the word gaggle, very fondly gaggle of amazing staff at NASPA who do exceptional work to make this manageable for someone like me. I mean, quite frankly, if it wasn't for them, this would not be possible. They are leaders in higher education. Almost all of them have worked in higher education or in something really closely related. Many have. So they understand the flow. And I always joke we have a pretty routine bruton and I schedule throughout the year, but we don't meet in August in the same way. And people are like, oh, we're not meeting in August. I'm like because it's August. And Beth understands what August looks like for most of us. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:17:35]: Unless you're on quarters. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:17:36]: I know. I bet our term schools are like, in September. I know, but we do try. I think it's important. So the NASPA staff are great, and they're know I think every board chair comes in with a sort of a vision of how do I support the organization? And a big part of mine is sort of being with folks in community. So I've made it a real effort throughout the past summer to be able to go to as many regional conferences, specialties conferences, like our Student Success Conference. I'm looking forward to our Strategies conference in January, our racial equity conference in December. So being there and having conversations, I had wonderful visits with region Two and Three at their regional conferences in June. So I think that's an important part of what I think I'm bringing to that sort of stewardship of the board chair is helping our membership understand that, yes, there's this amazing group of staff, but the responsibility and opportunity of NASPA is with us. It is our organization. And you have a board of volunteers who represent all of the regions, all of the divisions, all the wonderful areas that are so important to us. And they are working really hard to make sure NASPA is your organization. And we want you to engage and participate by being in volunteer roles, reading whatever way you can participate. So that really, I think, is my sort of opportunity to steward the relationship our membership has with not. I would say in some ways, it's not unlike being a vice president in that I spend a lot of time ensuring that everyone understands what the Division of Student Affairs does, the important work and contributions we make to the learning and education for students. But thankfully, in my day job, I do a lot of problem solving. And I would say that generally, the Nasca staff ends up being a great know. Kevin and I meet monthly to do that, and by the time we hear about. They have like six solutions. They're like, here are the six solutions the board can choose. Pick one. So I wish I had that group of people all the time. Although I would say, here my current role. My staff also do a pretty good job of that. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:19:37]: So when you think about the transitions of institution types, you've also spent time at large publics. You're now at a small private. You changed and transitioned between the east and the West Coast, or really the West Coast to the south. Tell us about those transitions and what you've learned and what made them successful, or I guess also what made them really scary. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:19:55]: Does that make me like a sort of student affairs unicorn? When I was talking to someone, they were like, you went from a big public to a small private, from the West Coast to the East Coast. Right. I think it just shows you what we talked about earlier, that our profession, while large, is also small in some ways. There's some consistent things that we think also. For me, transitions are about remaining really open to bringing your experience, but recognizing every position you come into as an opportunity to learn, as opposed to assuming you know all the answers. So I think that's always been a very successful sort of transitions approach for me. I went from a school of 25,000 to a school with less than 2500 and being able open to say, yeah, I've got some great ideas, but I need to also see how I could apply them here. I'll use a funny example. So when I went from Oregon to Mills College, when I got there, they had all these posters and flyers everywhere, and they were all like handwritten and were and I said, well, why don't we create a way so they can create more digital posters or we can get a tool people can use. And I'm thinking this in my head because my policy is when I come to a new position, I'm just sort of soaking it in. And then it only took me about a month to realize that was just an important part of that way that campus communicated that sort of homemade and or high touch approach. It wasn't just that they put these banners up, but the fact that the organization who did them all got together and made them together and then put them up, that was part of the culture of gathering for them sense of belonging. And had I just come in and said, oh, we have these great tools at this big school and we're going to do this thing, I wouldn't have seen or felt that. So instead, I bought them a stencil machine. So little cutout stencils for those of you who have those on your campus, you know, little machine, you hope nobody takes their finger off it. Makes me a little nervous. But alas, then we had little classes. You had to do a little class before you could use the stencil machine. And then I bought, like, every color butcher paper on that cool wheelie thing known to student affairs so that students could just make better posters. They could be clear, you could read them better, they could do them more quickly. They had the right supplies, and we had a little big table in a space where they could do it. So I think that's an example of sort of recognizing that in transitions, we bring a lot of knowledge and experience, but to do it well, we have to be able to adapt it to the community we're a part of. We have to just recognize. And I think this is also one of the things I take away from traveling abroad a lot. You and I have talked about this. We both have this love of travel, and I traveled very young. My father imported spices for a living. That was his job. And so I had the opportunity to be in countries in the Middle East and in Europe pretty young. And I took from that also, like, oh, my way of doing things is just a way of doing things. It is not the way of doing things. And I think that has helped me in every transition to recognize I have great experience, but I need to figure out how to apply that to the benefit of that campus or that volunteer role to make it better and to kind of contain be nimble and also learn stuff. I mean, that's the coolest part. I'm always learning things from those around me. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:22:56]: Is there a time that you made a mistake in a transition that you've learned from and applied towards future transition. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:23:02]: Mistake, opportunity for learning? Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:04]: I don't know. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:23:05]: I'm kind of an optimist. No, I would describe as mistakes. You do things in a silo that you are unwilling to own. Like, that's sort of a mistake. For me, everything else is an area where you did probably the best with the knowledge you had, but you have to own when it's just it's not the right thing or it didn't work or you weren't as inclusive. And sure, certainly I think sometimes I get ahead of myself. I'm about recognizing that not everybody has a different tolerance for change and a good leader number one job is to recognize that actually not just to do the change, but to actually recognize folks tolerance for change. I was at Mills College when Mills College merged with Northeastern. Talk about learning. I never thought I would do that in my higher education experience. And I think there were certainly times where it was challenging. Right. It's challenging for an organization to change that significantly. And I learned a lot from trying to apply kind of traditional roles of sort of change management in a way that we've never done before. Right. But it's also having some grace with myself and with others. Around me. So I'd say that's a takeaway. Even when I mess up, which I think the first thing is just I actually not that long ago said to Sioux staff who brought forward, hey, we don't like the way this was going. This is how it's impacting us. First thing is I said thank you for trusting me to bring this to me. That can be scary. I'm your boss. Second, I'm sorry, I hear what you're saying. I wasn't coming from that perspective, we need to do some things, but I see how doing it that way is problematic. So let's get together in the end. I should have gotten together first, but sometimes we get moving so quickly that we don't recognize everyone who needs to be there. And that that change is really important. And as I said to my folks that work with me, hopefully we can build a layer of trust that if I do have to do that, you can trust me enough to know that it's not the typical way I want to make change, but the situation required it. So doing that, naming that, and then what I think that big opportunity always takes is that change is never easy. It sometimes feels a little easy when you're in positions of power and positions of decision making. And information really is just about everything. How we control information, how decisions are made, who gets to make decisions. I think that's the key to not making mistakes and to just learning from those opportunities. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:25]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:31]: Welcome back to the NASPA World. Really excited to be able to talk to you again today in a brand new season. And there is a lot going on in NASPA. Coming up in only a few days on September 20 at 02:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, is a webinar that is available for members and nonmembers alike called Career Readiness. A shared responsibility between student affairs and academic affairs. At research focused institutions, career outcomes have focused on the first destination, corporate hiring and graduate school enrollment. Today, the measures of student success are more broad than a first destination. Career readiness is now an accepted student success outcome. How do research intensive institutions frame this? Explicitly as tied to institutional learning objectives and a shared responsibility of academic and student affairs? In this webinar, three institutions Stony Brook University, SUNY, the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, and the University of Texas at Austin will share their models and approaches. You can still register, so go to the NASPA website to find out more. There's another new volume of the Journal of College and Character that is currently out. All NASPA members do have access to this journal. Among all of the other journals of the association in this issue, there are a number of great articles, peer reviewed articles, as well as opinions and perspectives that range from topics involving career development to university chaplaincy to even considering antihazing messaging. It's a powerful journal that I highly encourage you to check out. It is a part of your membership, and you can take advantage of reading through the different articles from many different authors and practitioners here in the field. Know you get a lot of emails from knowledge communities and other aspects of NASPA, but it's important for you to check those emails, read through them, because there are specific dates and deadlines and things that you need to keep in mind in regard to your membership, in regard to how you can recognize people on your own campus or programs on your own campus. And I don't want you to miss out on these opportunities. One such opportunity is the annual awards process that happens every fall, and the deadline for submitting programs and people for different awards that are hosted by knowledge communities within NASPA or NASPA in general, typically have a deadline of Friday, October 6, 2023. So I want to encourage you to go to the NASPA Awards portal on the NASPA website, and you can go into the NASPA website, go to awards, and find out more. But in there, you can go in, you can look at Knowledge Community Awards, division Awards, dissertation of the Year Awards. There's lots of different awards that are out there and different deadlines, and all the deadlines that are out there as well. Most are October 6. But the Dissertation of the Year award is Saturday, September 30. So I don't want you to miss out on taking advantage of submitting for these awards, submitting others for these awards, because it is a great opportunity to be able to recognize the work that is being done, the people, the programs at your own institutions, and being able to have them potentially get recognized at the national Conference. So, again, the deadline is October 6. I really highly encourage you to at least go check out the portal itself. To make it simple, I know I said you could go to the NASPA website to access this, and you can, but I'm going to make it even simpler. I created a short link for you to follow to be able to check out all the awards, and it's just bitbit lynaspa, 20 fourawards, all one word. So again, bit Lee NASPA 20 fourawards. Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways. Because the association is as strong as its members and for all of us, we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with a knowledge community, giving back within one of the centers or the divisions of the association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself. Where do you fit? Where do you want to give back? Each week, we're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community. I see myself doing something like that. Or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now, to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association. Because through doing that, all of us are stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in NASPA. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:31:21]: Chris, thanks so much for kicking us off with season nine's very first NASPA World segment. As always, we are so grateful for you putting together this list. And if you're new to the show, we want to remind you that our mission here is to provide free and accessible professional development for you, our student affairs professionals, especially as we know, as our travel budgets are seemingly restricted more and more every year. So we thank you for joining us and we're glad that you're here. And Shakura, we have reached our lightning round time. I've got seven questions for you in about 90 seconds. You ready? Dr. Chicora Martin [00:31:51]: Okay, I'm ready. Let's do it. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:31:53]: All right, question number one if you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be? Dr. Chicora Martin [00:31:58]: Oh, I have two choices if it's a chill conference. The rainbow connection by Kermit the Frog. If we're going a little more fly it's. I was here by Beyonce. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:06]: Number two, when you were five years old, what did you want to be. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:32:09]: When you grew think? I'm not sure I wanted to be a judge quite yet. I definitely want to be underwater, so I would say maybe I want to live underwater or be a marine biologist. One of the two. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:19]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor? Dr. Chicora Martin [00:32:22]: Oh, Dr. Karen Boyd. I think, like I said, is the reason I got here. And I would say just about every person I've worked for and with is a mentor to me. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:31]: Number four, your essential student affairs read. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:32:34]: Reading the books that we learn from every one of them has a student affairs message. My current one is Braiding Sweetgrass, which is a great context on science and indigenous folks. So that's the one that's going to inform me today. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:45]: Number five, the best TV show you binged during the Pandemic. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:32:48]: All right. The mass singer. That was it. I wouldn't say it's the best, but it certainly helped me get through the pandemic. And the other one was Bridgerton, so we could talk about that. That was a great piece. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:58]: Number six, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last year. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:33:02]: This is amazing. I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, but my wife does and she tells me all about them. So The Hidden Brain has been a really recent one that she's been listening. I've been listening through her. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:33:12]: And finally, number seven. Any shout outs you'd like to give? Personal or professional? Dr. Chicora Martin [00:33:16]: Thank you for that. I have one for you for taking the time to do this to my great wife and all of our kids who are attached to us. We have about seven and some grandkids for putting up with us and to all the student affairs professionals who are new to the field and finding your path and journey. There's a place here for you and we're excited to have you with us. And for the folks who've been here a while, leading is challenging, so we're here to support you as well. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:33:35]: You made it, yay. Really appreciate you taking time out of your very busy schedule and balancing the time zones that we're currently in. Currently, Shakur and I are recording 12 hours opposite, so very early in the morning for them and very late at night for me. So we're making it work and then we're going to do this for the rest of the season. But this is part of my joy as a student affairs professional, getting to have depth of story with the amazing humans who make NASPA happen and who make our profession work and who are committed to positive change in our profession. So I'm grateful for you and your leadership and looking forward to seeing what the next semester and a half bring in your stewardship of the organization. I think it'll be over before you blink. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:34:14]: Oh, it will. Thank you for hosting this and for the opportunity for the world to be able to have, like you said, accessible professional development at their fingertips. One of the most important things we do. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:34:24]: And finally, Shakura, if anyone would like to connect with you after the show airs, how can they find you? Dr. Chicora Martin [00:34:28]: Sure easiest is LinkedIn. And then if you Google Shakura Martin, you will see my position and the NASPA website. So check those out and then message me on LinkedIn if you have questions. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:34:37]: Thank you so much for sharing your voice with us. Dr. Chicora Martin [00:34:39]: Thank you. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:34:41]: This has been an episode of SA Voices from the Field, brought to you by NASPA. This show is always made possible because of you, our listeners. We are so grateful that you continue to listen to us season after season. If you'd like to reach the show, you can always email us at savoices@naspa.org or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Craighton. We welcome your feedback and topic and especially your guest suggestions. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show. And please like, rate and review us on apple podcasts spotify or wherever you're listening now. It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill L. Creighton. Produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Guest coordination by Lu Yongru. Special thanks to Duke Kunshan University and the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

In this episode, we continue our new series where we tell our wild stories! In part 2 we discuss a hiking trip to the Grand Canyon that took a bad turn, Andrew's family house fire, and the biggest argument we've ever been in. Leave a comment below if you're enjoying this series and tell us one of your wild stories!! We love hearing from you guys and don't forget to follow along at couplethingspod on Instagram! Love, Shawn & Andrew This episode is brought to you by AG1 ▶ If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 Free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to https://www.drinkAG1.com/COUPLETHINGS Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew's Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew's Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us as we look at this amazing letter from the apostle Paul to the Ephesians. Some have called Ephesians the Grand Canyon of the New Testament for its beauty and depth. We hope to gain a better understanding of the riches we have in Christ ad how to live in light of them. -Featuring Bryan Ost

Alice is passionate about solo female travel, adventure and eco-tourism. A 7x telly award winning host, filmmaker, writer, and photographer, Alice has travelled to some of the most remote and beautiful places in the world.  Alice  has documented her solo adventures on her popular youtube channel “Alice Ford Adventures”. Alice creates videos on adventure travel, National Parks, hiking, outdoor exploration, sustainable living and wildlife.  “I'm an adventure filmmaker, travel addict and a Stuntwoman, but most of all a traveler, explorer and lover of our earth.  I love to get outdoors and hike in the mountains, explore off the beaten path destinations and get up close with wildlife.” Alice's first solo travel experience in her late 20s was a life-changing one. Travelling to Europe, she was inspired to see more of the world and to do more adventuring by herself. Despite concerns and fears, Alice managed to overcome them by being in contact with local people and having an agenda when she travels. Alice wants to encourage more women to get out and explore the world. One of Alice's most memorable experiences was climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and going on a safari in Tanzania. The challenges of hiking at high altitude were mitigated by the support and encouragement of other women. Alice Ford is truly an inspiration for all those who love adventure, nature, and eco-tourism. *** Don't miss out on new episodes of the Tough Girl Podcast, which are released every Tuesday at 7am UK time. Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date and inspired by the incredible stories of female role models from around the world.  If you believe in the importance of increasing female representation especially in relation to adventure and physical challenges in the media, please consider supporting our mission by visiting www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast. Thank you for your support! *** Show notes Who is Alice Ford Being a solo female traveller who loves adventure Being passionate about eco-tourism and exploring indigenous cultures  Wanting to teach people about the world, nature, ecology and wildlife Wanting to empower other women to get out and explore Where her passion for adventure came from  Growing up in the woods in New Hampshire, USA Starting out as business major before changing her major to community development   Transferring college and changing to sociology and public administration  Getting a Masters in Environmental Management  Being athletic at college and doing; track & field, spring board diving and gymnastics Her first big solo travel experience in her late 20s Travelling to Europe and how it changed her life  Being inspired to see more of the world and wanting to do more adventuring by herself Concerns and fears before travelling solo Tips for managing fears and concerns  Being in contact with local people  Having an agenda when she travels Spending time in Tanzania Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and going on a safari The challenges of hiking at high altitude Being supported and encouraged by other women Training for Kilimanjaro Hiking with an altitude mask on  Eco-tourism and climbing mountains Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (KPAP) a not-for-profit organisation, is an initiative of the International Mountain Explorers Connection (IMEC)  Hiring guides in other countries and wanting to support local communities  How can people fly ethically? The challenges of travelling in a green way in America Buying carbon offsets  Exploring the National Parks in America  Working as a stuntwoman on movies and TV shows Training in marital arts and learning how to do film fighting Keep fit and healthy  Women in the stunt and film industry and how it's changed over the past decade Solo female travel, eco tourism and indigenous communities  Staying with a Sami Family (reindeer herders) in Norway  Putting grass in boots to keep your feet warm Future travel plans for 2023 - Rim to Rim hike in the Grand Canyon, The Vancouver Island West Coast Trail, GR20 in Corsica, The Great Western walk in Australia and The Trans Bhutan Trail, plus hikes in New Zealand and South America How to connect with Alice  Final words of advice to encourage more women to go travelling  Vision boards    Social Media Website: alicesadventuresonearth.com  Instagram: @alicesadventuresonearth  Twitter: @alicelford  Youtube: @AliceFordAdventures    

Today, we're privileged to have an enlightening and engaging conversation with the one and only Kevin King. Before Amazon FBA and E-commerce, Kevin takes us back to his early days as a collector of sports cards, which eventually transformed into a lucrative venture during his college years. In a unique twist to the collectibles market, Kevin began featuring pretty girls on baseball cards. A fascinating story that takes us back to that era and Kevin's unique business strategy ties into the Amazon-selling industry today. Get ready to take notes as Kevin King, opens his treasure trove of Amazon seller hacks and wisdom from his vast experience in the business world. From unveiling the concept of intuitive eating that helped him lose a remarkable 70 pounds without dieting, to sharing insightful hacks, strategies, and resources for Amazon sellers, Kevin covers it all. He even takes us behind the scenes of his recently launched an Amazon newsletter and its intriguing and engaging content. Gear up as we switch gears to advanced Amazon seller strategies and explore the unfair advantages and perks you can get by being a Helium 10 Elite member! As we dive further into the conversation, you'll hear tales of success from Elite members and how their monthly training and networking calls help them gain insights from some of the top Amazon and Walmart in the space. Rounding off the episode, we anticipate the forthcoming Billion Dollar Seller Summit and the Level Up event. So, whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, an established business owner, or simply someone with a penchant for compelling stories, this episode is guaranteed to leave you inspired and filled with actionable advice. Don't miss out! In episode 491 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kevin discuss: 00:00 - Kevin King's Amazon Seller Hacks and Journey 03:59 - Collectible Baseball Cards and Strip Clubs  10:16 - Kevin's Weight Loss Journey and Health Tips 24:05 - A Different Amazon Newsletter 27:40 - Increasing Engagement Through Opt-in System  40:00 - Benefits of Joining the Helium 10 Elite Program  42:52 - Catch The Next Billion Dollar Seller Summit 48:30 - 60-Second Tip: Automated Tool for Boosting Amazon Sales  ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton Kevin King is back on the podcast and, in addition to some cool seller hacks that he always has for us, he's gonna talk about a whole variety of topics like how he used to be a collectible card Manufacture and how he's lost 70 pounds in the last couple of years without even dieting. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you a six, seven or eight figure seller and want to network in a private mastermind group with other experienced sellers? Or Maybe you want to take advantage of monthly advanced training sessions with Kevin King, an expert guest? Do you want to come to our quarterly in-person all-day trainings at Helium 10 headquarters? Or do you want the widest access to the Helium 10 set of tools? For all of these things, the elite program might be for you. For more information on Helium 10 elite, go to h10.me/elite. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic Conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we've got the most serious sellers of them all, Kevin King, back on the show. Kevin, how's it going? Kevin King It's going. I don't know if I'm serious, though I'm more a I'm a seller, but I'm, yes. Bradley Sutton Some people might say you know as like they read my news I would say what is serious, like how serious is this guy? Yeah, yeah, the newsletter. We're gonna talk about that you know. There's definitely been some some things that people are saying that this isn't, this can't be serious, but we'll get it. We'll get into that. Kevin King A little bit depends on the total point of view, what you see, what's coming, yeah, oh my goodness, I can't wait, I want to talk right off the bat though, before I forget. Bradley Sutton You know, I don't think we've talked about this on the podcast before, or maybe you've alluded to it. I've heard you talk about it, but I've never actually dug deep like right now. Hold on, let me just pull something from my back wall here. I just hit it behind. I was sorting some some baseball cards and I'm actually flying to Japan on my own time personal time off and I'm setting up at a card show over there because my dad's had a business there. But I've heard you mentioned before that that you've dabbled in in the old days, in the, in the like sports cards or comics or what was it exactly in that industry. Kevin King Yes, I as a child back in the 80s, 70s and 80s, I collected the basketball cards, back when the I think it was tops they were big, they're like four, four by six size or something like that very Huge, and I collect I don't know. So I don't know when I started second, third grade. So I'm like that and I collected those, collected baseball cards, collected football cards and I was big into them and then I just kind of I grew out of it. I guess maybe I don't know, sophomore year, high school or something, just that was a little kid stuff threw everything in a box or actually put everything in a. I think I was going to throw it away. My mom's like no, no, no, no, don't throw all that stuff away. So she's threw it into about my mom's a hoarder anyway, but she threw it into a box. And then my senior year of high school, like seven years late, sorry, of college, like seven years later, yeah, I was like I damn, I need some money, man, I need a, I need a little extra cash. I was like what, how can I make some cash? I was like, wait a second. My mom, I think baseball cards now people are actually starting to pay real money for these things. I might actually have, you know, some crazy rookie card for Roger Clemens or something, I don't know. I called her up. You still got that box of stuff I was going to throw away. She's like, yeah, I was like I'm coming up to see you, um, you know, from mother's day or something, I'm gonna grab it from you. So I grabbed it and I went on and I sold to Sold a bunch of those. I had some rare stuff in there, made thousands of dollars just taking them into a hobby shop, you know, a comic book store or whatever, and trading them in. And you got some extra beer, money and cash that I needed when I was, you know, not doing so well, when I was 21, 22 and so that evolved, though into time and, uh, the earth was. When was this? Like 92, 93, so about three years after college, um, I was doing stuff, mark and I, you know, mark, from billion dollar stars on, we were doing, um, I'd started a magazine, uh, that dealt with strip clubs, actually, and it wasn't. There's no nudity or anything. This is the business side of it. It was, you know the business side of it. And and doing that, these, for some reason baseball cards have become hot to put strippers on. So it was everything from you know the cabaret, royal and Dallas to the dollhouse in Orlando, to playboy magazine was doing it, penthouse, all the anybody you know bikini, hawaiian, tropic bikini girls were doing it. It became a thing to put Put pretty girls on on baseball cards and these were being sold through traditional comic stars. This wasn't like in the adult shops and like the on the other side of the internet. These were like. Diamond comics was a big distributor back then in capital city comics Too, huge distributors that distributed all the comic book stores. You know they will have big boost at comic con in san diego. Um, they would put these things out and you will put them in packs. It became a huge, freaking business. Bradley Sutton We're selling cases of these and that's one of my first so you were the, you were the one who made them, or you were we made. I was one of the. Kevin King I was both. I was one of the companies, I was making them. Um, originally we had deals because I knew some of these club owners. So they're like yeah, do go ahead and do ours. You know that's good promotion for us and we'll do it. So I was doing them, I go to them. We would either shoot it or they give us stuff that we would. Actually I would design it. What's the back of the cards have? you know, in baseball cars I would have the stats and he had had susie, susie smith, stage name, candy, candy dropper, whatever, uh, five, six, 34, 24, 34, um, originally from san diego, likes men with uh, a short hair or whatever, um, you know, it would be something like that and I was like I need a better way to actually sell these. So a lot of people it goes back to what we do today. They're putting insert, insert cards, you know, register your warranty or get on our, join our vip club or something as one of the like the 11th card in a pack of 10, and they were sending it into the company stew physical mail. There's no internet back then and these companies were not doing anything. They're like the, the business cards in a fishbowl at the gym. You know, they just accumulate. And so I called up all these companies so what are you doing with your, with your, uh, your inserts? And I got there sitting there, said send it to me, I'll get them all typed in. I hired some company in Jamaica that would type these in for Four cents a piece or something, some crazy load number ended up building a mailing list of like 13 000 people off of this that had filled up for like a hundred different companies that were doing this and then as part of the deal I said well, I want to be able to you, I'll send you the list. I knew these guys wouldn't do anything with it most of them and I want to be able to have the right to mail it and I'm going to buy your cards from you wholesale and I'm going to create a catalog, a glossy color catalog that was sent in the mail, and Send these out and sell mine and yours. That became a huge freaking business that blew up and, um that we were able to ride that wave, uh, for quite some time and we were doing all kinds of really cool. Sometimes I have to show you. If I would know and you're gonna talk about this, I could have showed you some here but we did 24 karat gold signatures, like an ink with 20 raised 24 karat gold. We did and put them in like those, those crystal cases with screws on all sides. I mean this was like Serious, serious stuff. Bradley Sutton I mean people ahead of the time, because that, that's like what the industry has moved to is like these, you know, like one of ones, and like, hey, this is a uh, you know there's only 10 that have this signature. And now there's these companies that have them, where they actually come out Like every single one, like national treasures and stuff, where every single you know card in the set it comes in like this case, and it's all encapsulated in these plastic or these, these hard holders, and You're like doing this stuff. Yeah, it's 25 years before we were doing stuff for puzzles. Kevin King So at the back of the card we might do a set of, a subset of nine, so maybe this sets a hundred, but nine of them on the back is a puzzle piece. So you had to collect all nine, flip the cards over and put them in the right order to get another picture as a, you know, as a puzzle piece, like like a tic-tac-toe board. But you put them on the right order it makes another picture. Uh, we, yeah, we're doing all kind and but because of the nature of the products we were, basically I was limited in my marketing, and so it's where I cut my teeth, because I had to get super creative and super innovative on marketing. Because you know, you weren't allowed to. You know, if there was a facebook back there wasn't facebook back then, but there was they would not allow you to advertise it. So it caused us to be very creative in the way we did marketing. Um, we did a huge events. You talking about going to japan at the block blotch Blotch not beloggio, that's vegas, but the Belaj hotel in west hollywood on the sunset strip over there by the viper room and maybe some different name now, but there's a fancy hotel. In 1997 we brought in a bunch of the models Put out a thing and said you know, it's 500 bucks to come, and we had all these guys come like 300 guys, 400 guys, come to get, stand in line, get autographs from the girls on their cards, on 8 by 10s, and we did a party afterwards. It was it was different world. Bradley Sutton Interesting. Well, hey guys, you heard it first. Kevin King I never talked about it. It's not okay. Bradley Sutton I guess, heard, like you know Briefly, you're into collectible cards, you know, and I was like you know what? That's kind of up my alley. Let me ask him about that. So you heard it first here. Now, guys. Kevin King We had binders, you know, with the sleeves, and you put special, special binders. You would collect and, yeah, it was like it was full on full on Wow, interesting, interesting stuff. Bradley Sutton So, guys, we're doing this podcast a little bit differently. I'm doing everything backwards. You know, Kevin is known for his strategies and and Amazon. You know seller hacks and stuff like that. Well, we'll definitely get to that, but instead of doing at the beginning, we're gonna do that towards the end. If you guys have been listening to this podcast for a while, I've actually, you know, usually at the end of podcast, start asking people about their health regimen and diets and exercise and things like that, because 2023 is my year of health, where I'm asking, talking to guests. But we're gonna, we're gonna flip the script a little bit. Say to the end for the Amazon strategy. Now, Kevin, you yourself, wait, wait, can you look to your left really quick? Look to the side, Kevin. Where'd you go? Kevin? Where, oh? You disappear. You're so skinny now. You just disappeared when you, when you turn to the side there. How much weight have you lost this year? Kevin King I Don't know what the number is this year but in the last couple years about 70, 70, some odd pounds. I still got a ways. Still got a ways to go. But I'm probably another 50 or 60 and I'll be happy, but that'll probably take. Bradley Sutton That's impressive. Take me a few more years. Once you, I've noticed, you know, once you hit 40. It's like hard to lose weight, so you hit a number like that. That's pretty impressive. So let's talk about that a little bit. You know I Mean are. What are you doing? You're not, you know, starving yourself. You told me that before. It's not about, it's not about like starving yourself or necessarily counting calories or or working out seven hours a day or anything like that. But but how have you been able to, to steadily get to that when you're at now? Kevin King I've been. I've had an issue with my weight all my life. I've been up and down all my life and sometimes it's gotten a lot worse than what it what it is now. You know, right now about 260. I've been as high as like 360 in the past. In high school I was right around 200 when I most of my weight gain started when I left the house to go to college, to start drinking beer, eating pizza and just kind of kind of put it on and Didn't really care Too much. But then it, you know, as you age and I've been lucky, knock on wood, that I haven't had a lot of issues, not other than a type 2 diabetes, but no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, none of that kind of stuff that you would expect. I've been pretty good shape, even though been a bigger, bigger guy comparatively, and but I got to a point where it's actually my, my ex-wife, her. She always used to say if you can't take care of yourself, how can you take care of me? Which was a good little slogan and it's true, and so that kind of motivated me a little bit to To kind of in. So I tried every diet in the book. You know, everything from carnivore diet to Atkins diet, to Weight Watchers, to. Bradley Sutton Manny, get you on that carnivore at one point. Yeah, they're all stupid, he's, I know he's big on that. Kevin King Every one of those diets is stupid. I'm sorry if someone's out there's listening and thinks they're great. They're stupid. Every single one they do. They work, yes, they work short term. But how many times have you done the carnivore and you're right back to where you started it. But the key and I kind of learned this from my dad in a way, because he lost a lot of weight and kept it off for like 50 years he's skinny, I mean, he's like 130 pounds or something, but it's mindset, it's psychology. Eating is psychology. It's the people that you look at, all the people that go when they work out. They go when they work out and work their ass off and what they do after that. They go get a Starbucks and they just undo the entire workout. They just did by getting Starbucks with all the cream and all the whatever in it. I'm not coffee drinkers, I don't know all the terminology, but and they just completely undo it. But they feel good about themselves. I worked out and I had a supposedly a good coffee. It you've got to be conscious of what's in your mouth. So my, my ex-wife had found this woman. She's from Venezuela originally. She was listening to these, this podcast in Spanish, and she was a guest and she's talking about something called intuitive eating. You can look at, you can Google it. Google it intuitive eating. And she was talking about how this works. And so my wife At the time was like, let me, I want to do this. And so she called her up, started doing like launch. This woman lives in Miami doing long-distance consultations. And Then she said, Kevin, I think you'll really like her, she's really really good, you should try it. So, and to during COVID 20, was it? I'm into 2020 on Christmas time, 2020. I had my first call with her and started really in January 2021 and what she does is she doesn't believe in diets and she's like the head of the gastric that people of Miami I don't know what the damn thing is called, but something Uh, but she's like the top person of it, gmm. She's skinny, she's a Attractive you know, vince, a willing girl, but she's headed. This whole thing and her whole thing is, is intuitive eating. It's the psychology of eating. It's not about, you know, weight losses is about 80% what you put in your mouth and 20% everything else, and being conscious of what you eat, and so it. She's like Kevin promised me, you'll never go on another diet in your life. It's like done check mark. She's like if and if you get bad. If you get bad, if you go off rails on something Like you know, you go out and you you eat a gallon of ice cream one night because you're depressed or something. Don't think, well, shoot, I just ruined everything. I'm working at Might as well, eat another one the next day and I'll start a diet on Monday. Everybody always starts a diet on Monday or the first of the month. Okay on, on September, on August 1st, I'm gonna start. She said that's absolutely the wrong way to do it. She's like eat what you want. If you want a freaking Pizza, eat the pizza, but it needs to be. You want the pizza needs not be a five or six out of habit, but like a nine or a ten and go get the pizza, but be conscious of what you're eating. Maybe get a small instead of a large or whatever. And I had a habit. I had a bad habit like every night to relax, I would watch TV Just to, you know, unwind my brain and everything and spin an hour just watching mindless TV. You know, america's Got Talent or some stupid reality show or just whatever, just to kind of just wind down. And I would eat a box of milk guts. You know one of those, can those? I love milk guys because you could put three or four of them in your mouth, suck on them. You know, you put three or four in your mouth, they kind of meld together because they're caramel and so you're just sucking on it like you would a you know a butterscotch or something, and then, as it gets lower, you put a couple more in your mouth and they meld together so you can make a box last like an hour and a half. But that's 600 calories on a lot of sugar. I just I was in this habit of doing it every single night. She broke me of that. Now I have that maybe once a month. But she got me the thinking about things and she finds substitutes. Why do you like those milk duds? Is it the texture? Is it the carmel? Is it the way it taste on your tongue? There's something about it. Why do you drink so much soda? Is because you like the carbonation, that is, a specific carbonation. How about switching to this drink, not a period, not this, but this specific one, and it works. So you're, you're tricking your mind psychologically to still, because you have those cravings in those desires or those habits, and as you break in those you swap it. So she's told me, like Most dieticians would say, if you're drinking a coke, zero, you need to cut that out. You need to go to water. You know, hundred twenty eight gallons a day, or ounces a day I mean I got too much, that's a whale size. But a hundred twenty eight ounces a day, and and and, quit, cut, cut those out immediately. She's like no, if you're drinking six a day, just swap one of them out for a water In this, you know, and then have five and let's see where that goes. And but over time you start consciously eating things differently. You start looking at stuff. Am I eating because I'm hungry or am I eating because it's a habit? And now I'm at the point now where I have a private chef that comes once a week and cooks for me, and he used to make my lunches and my dinners. Now I'm just telling me one meal a day because that's all I want. So, and I'm not, I'm not eating half of it anyway. I eat, you know, a little bit of breakfast, protein shake, maybe a little cereal or piece of bread or something. But if I want a candy I buy. If I want an ice cream I get it, but I used to eat a lot of ice cream. Bluebell is my favorite to Texas company and you get across the south it's not everywhere but it's my favorite so I would have those little pints. I buy those little half gallon things or whatever they are last a couple days. I've had one right now in my fridge for two months and I haven't even opened it. It's a change in psychology or what I've done is like, okay, if I want that taste, I want that ice cream taste. I love that taste. It gets the hormones In me, it gets the things that satisfaction, those triggers that are in your body. I'll buy those small size cups. They're like for birthday parties for kids. You know there are 160 calories and I'll eat one of those and she's like, do you go back for a second, go back for a third? Like, no, I just, I just eat one. So it's it's some of its discipline, some of its mind over matter, just being conscious of everything that you eat. And that's the biggest thing in. The second is sleep is so important in in health and a lot of people especially. I mean you're a perfect example. You're working your ass off and sleeping wherever you could grab a nap here or there's a couple hours at night at one point. I know you're better about it now, but but most people dismiss how important sleep is for your overall health. And what woke me up to it is is a few years ago I was going to get life insurance and I didn't have life insurance before. But I got Marius, I better get some life insurance. And talking to the agent, they're like OK, there's, there's a what's your sleep apnea score? And I'm like. I just did a test and it was like 19, I had 19. Mild things or whatever it was, in a, in a period of whatever the measuring period is, that's OK, that's mild and what? What this insurance company told me is that you're at 19 times, maybe it's 19 times per hour. You sub, get subconscious, you don't realize it, but if it messes with your body and they said, if you're you get to 20, you're uninsurable on life insurance. I'm like what? And so I went immediately. I had my wife used to say I would snore. I would snore like a sound, like a Mack truck Coming down the street. So I went. I had a. There's a guy here in Austin that does a balloon, sonia plastic, so they go into your. I had a 70% blockage. I didn't know what, I just get used to it as you're living, you only realize it. But I had trouble in my nose. So you know, man, he just did it. I did a Marcus done a bunch of people done it. He has this technology is like these. One is doogie how's your guys that became an MD when he was 14 or something. So you know this technique. So it doesn't require the major surgery that and still get knocked out for like 15 minutes because and uses balloon and blows it up and opens all that up. That made a huge difference on my story. In my sleep Plus, I started using a sleep mask and I changed. You know, sometimes in your bed If it's hot or cold, temperatures are right, you're tossing and turning, you're not getting as much sleep, you wake up in this little bit of sweats or whatever. But there's something called the eight sleep mattress. Is the number eight sleep. That's freaking amazing. It's a mattress topper and you it's about two grand. It's not cheap, but you put it on top of your bed and then it you can set settings are you cold sleep or warm sleep? And you can do splits, so if your wife and you on one side, your partner new Can be off different. And then it measures you throughout the night and it ring and fit, that fits and stuff. Do this, but give you like your pulse rate and use some measurements during the night. But this like measures your whole body and like how often do you wake up, how, what kind of quality of sleep did you get? What was your heart rate, your hrv through the night, all this stuff and it Adjust after a week of testing. It figures out where what temperature is optimal for you. It's a way to just you can manually write it but adjust up and down either cold or hot, the temperature of the mattress. And this thing is so thin, it's super thin. It goes on top of the bed, has a little pump that you hide behind your bed with a little bit of water in it and it's brilliant. I mean I have a. I have a sleep number bed that has Like seven thousand dollars sleep number bed that has something similar built in that sucks compared to this Eight sleep. It's awesome. So things like that plus you got. You got to watch as a man. You got to watch your testosterone. So, as men, the number one thing is sleep, sleep apnea or sleep To stop, strong level in your diabetes level. Those three things play more in your health Then anything else. If you get on top of those, your chances of Of Having a long fruitful life and being there for your kids and your wife and when To enjoy your retirement or much, much higher intriguing stuff. Bradley Sutton Alright, so let's let's give somebody a quick tease. We're gonna talk about your newsletter you just started, why you started it and some of the stuff, but what's one of the either one that's come out already or something that's coming one of the strategies that you can share with our listeners who maybe haven't gotten a chance to read the newsletter? What's something you brought out in one of your newsletters that can write off the bad help sellers listening. Kevin King Yeah, I mean I just started April, august 14th. It's twice a week, it's Mondays and Thursdays. When I say newsletter, a lot of people roll their eyes but and cause I'm like, oh yeah, I get a newsletter from Helium Town, I get a newsletter from this software, and every time I get my email I get the company newsletter. Those are not newsletters, those are promotional emails for the most part. Go read our blog, go read this. A newsletter to me is more like a. What I'm doing is more like a magazine in a newsletter format. So it's action packed. Yes, there's a couple of ads and stuff in there from people that are paying for those, but it's action packed, actionable stuff. It's totally free. So, like, we just did a big one that's really resilient. The one that came out on August 28th talked about the A9 algorithm and so you know, Danny McMillan over at Seller Sessions did a big, big like document on it and we analyzed that and like, while that's good, that's not really there's more to it than that. So we took a look at Amazon Science, a big paper that came out and a couple of other things analyzed that and we talked about that and I've gotten so many people saying this is like the most amazing. It was written in a way that we can understand it. Sometimes this stuff gets too technical, plus some of the tips and tools that we put in there. We had a really cool resource for like getting. Sometimes, when you're trying to create your A plus content, your brand story, your brand pages, you're like what should I do? How should I tell my designer, a graphics person, to do and maybe you saw a couple here their ideas, or you give them some basic idea. But there's guys who listen. There's a guy in George. That's a similar library of 25,000 A plus pages and you can filter by it. I'm in the pet space, I'm in the space, I'm in the. It's got it all keyworded so you can search and get like, wow, that's a cool one, that's a cool one. I want my designer to do something like that or combine these two together. So I wish there were resources like that. I have something called the Dream 100. As you know, there's a lot of BS not Bradley Sutton's, but BS in this industry that with fake gurus and stuff. So I have every Thursday I come up, I put someone in the Dream 100, and I announced this is a legit person, you should follow them, trust what they say. So that'll get up to 100 people. It's only three right now, but that'll get up to 100 people over time. We do. I add a little bit of humor to it, so there's like I'll either call somebody out you know that's basically a fake guru or we'll put some crazy listing like hey, can you believe that this product is selling 100 grand a month on X-ray on Amazon? You look at it like holy cow. That's the craziest thing I ever saw. We do some of that, so it's a mix. And then I tell a personal story and each one's called a six second story. So when someone opens the news there, you gotta hook them right away and you gotta get them reading and engaged. And so I do. I personalize it and then I tie it to whatever we're talking about that day. Bradley Sutton So I'll personalize and reason. One kind of causes stir about some naked people, some balconies. Kevin King Yeah, but I do that. I want to. You know, I always say if you're not pissing someone off, you're not doing a good job. If you try to please everybody, you please nobody, and so I'm feeding my audience and so if that bothers you and it's gonna bother some people that might be religious or you know, depending that's okay. You can go find your information somewhere else. I'm fine with that. But the overwhelming response to that has been like holy cow, this is the best thing ever. This is don't stop. Can you do this every day? I can't believe it. One guy who sent me a message today is like this is so good I can't even take it all in. I just got three of my team members start reading this and we're dividing up sections of what to do, and so that's. There's so much out there. You know we do the helium-10 elite every month and we've been doing that since 2017 at helium-10, which is advanced level stuff, and in that I do seven ninja hacks every month and share those with the audience, and then, once those have become a little bit older, sometimes I share those other places, but the helium-10 elite people always get them first. Right now, I write everything on the current newsletter, but it's going to get to. I'll hire a staff, but I need to get to set the tone, figure out what works, what people like, what they don't like, and then I can feed everything I've written. For if I do this for three months, let's say, I can feed that all into an AI and then say have the AI write in the style of Kevin of the newsletters they don't know the exact style, the exact everything. So these are not AI newsletters, these are. We use AI as a tool, but AI is not writing these. Bradley Sutton So if somebody wants to go ahead and sign up, it's free right now. How can they do that? Kevin King Well, it's always going to be free. It's billiondollarsellers.com with an S, billiondollarsellers.com with an S. It's growing pretty quickly. So I think hopefully by this time next year there'll be maybe 50 to 100,000 people getting that twice a week and actually reading it that one. So my email list from all the stuff I do is big not as big as helium-10s or something, but so I could just blast this out to everybody. But I don't want to do that. I want people to actually want it and I have people now already saying I didn't get it, I didn't see it in my spam or what happened to it, and they're getting upset that they didn't get it. That's what I want. Is it to become habit-forming and become something people look forward to? When they see that Kevin King, BDSS, they're like, oh, this is something I got to read. If I can't read it right now, I'll save it until tonight or the plane ride tomorrow or whatever. That's where I want it to be. So it doesn't have to be. It's not a blast on my whole email list. You've got to double opt in. You can't just sign up and get it. You actually sign up and you got to click something else to say you really want to sign up and then you're in and that's on purpose and it keeps the open rates high, the engagement high, it's good for the advertisers that come into it, that support it with a little bit of advertising, and it's just good for everybody. It's people that want it. Bradley Sutton All right. So guys, make sure to sign up. It's one of the. I personally don't even read newsletters. This is like the first one. I actually just sit there and read and, just like Kevin said, sometimes he starts with a funny story, but it works. It like hooks you up and like laughing, sitting there, laughing like all right, I want to read more. I'm hooked in and from start to finish. It's long, it's like you're doing a lot of scrolling. Sometimes people say, oh, when you write an email, you don't want them to scroll, and they're like I got no problem scrolling, but it's written short. Kevin King It's written in a format so that you can skim it, but you'll see that it's using every trick in the book. There's no paragraphs more than two or three sentences. There's no. It's not long, and usually when I write it I have to go back and cut half of what I've written wrote out and it's straight into the point and we use a sense of humor. It's not just that opening story, but it's like we did something about in a recent one. So there's no such thing as the A10 algorithm. It's always the A9. There is no such thing, and the A9 of all is just like you did during puberty, but it's still named the A9. So we'll do stuff like that. It's not necessarily business-like or corporate-like, but screw that, put a personality to it and people love that and then as a reading they have a little smile or like I get it, or that's relatable. It doesn't sound like corporate speak or boring stuff. That's all on purpose. Bradley Sutton All right. Now you referenced Elite and how you saved the best hacks for there. Do you have any? Just for a sample, you can give some of the cool one or two of the cool hacks that you've given out on your seven ninja hacks that you do monthly in the Elite group.  Kevin King Yeah, sure, what's a good reason? We do this every single month. We talk about some of its tools, like CASPA AI, which is a really cool tool where you can shoot your product on your iPhone, just basic picture, upload it and then put it into any scene you want. So you're like, hey, I want my water bottle to be held by an Asian guy standing in the gym with some barbells behind him and he's holding it facing the logo out. It'll make a cool picture instantly using AI with that which you could use in your Amazon post or you could use in your maybe in your listing. You could use a lot of places. So we'll do cool tools like that. Or Melio payments, where you can use credit cards to actually finance your purchase, orders and stuff. We do things like. A recent one was about how to Get that there's a newer version of this item available. You know we covered that there's a new version of this item available. Like people like see that, how do I get my? You know if I you got a calendar or you got you just updated your product, how can you Link that to the old inventory so that people see there's a newer version available? We showed people how to do that. We showed people how to do the back-end stuff before anybody knew how to do the back-end and get a complete dump of your competitors Listings like all their attributes and everything before. That was really public information. Well, I was like a couple years before yeah, main stream. Yeah, we stuff like how to use a Hexa. Hexa, it's a beta program most people don't know about to create 360 degree pictures for Amazon listing. They'll do it for you for free and I think that's really really, really, really cool. We've done stuff like how to make money fall from the sky on your landing pages. You know you, someone hits on one your landing pages or one of your blog sites and they don't let's say they don't sign up. But you want to know who they are. There's tools out there that will actually Use IP and geo location to actually figure out, in about 50 to 60% of cases, who these people are, based on public data In the United States, Europe, you might have a few more issues with privacy, but yes, we don't care about privacy. So, unless it's medical, and so we, we can figure out that. I just went to Bradley's blog talking about the honeymoon and he's a no, I went there. You know, as he got a hit or his metrics, that there's a visitor session, but he doesn't know who they are. If he puts this little bit of code, then we can we put, we can figure out that. Oh, this was Kevin King because he was using this IP address of this computer and there's reverse matching. That knows that, oh, Kevin King went to this gaming side or went to somewhere else in the past 10 years From that same place. It must be Kevin King. Let's match it up again to this other database. So his, his email address is blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Puts that into a database. Then you can either email those people which I don't always recommend if you're gonna do that, you should use something like zero bounce to make sure the emails are valid or you can put them into custom audiences if you're running Facebook ads or any kinds things like that and you can retarget these people. You ever wonder how sometimes you went to a site and You're all of a sudden now I'm seeing this stuff all over my feed. Some of that's retargeting pixels, which is more private. But if you're wondering, how do they get me onto an email list? Or how did they get me from this this not a meta property into an X or Twitter property? Those two aren't the same company not sharing the same pixel. How do they do that? And this is some of the ways they're doing it. We also talked about you know, Howard. You've had Howard on the how tie on the on the podcast and he's got a little group called elites I'll forget the name of elites seller society or something like that and he's had every Thursday he has someone come on and talk about stuff and one of the things that just recently he had David, who's spoken at the billion dollar sauce on. You remember David from a, the ghost story. Bradley Sutton Back in 2019 he came on and he did some translating for him. One year at the billion dollars. Kevin King He came on and talked about you know what, what? How are things changing with the Chinese sellers? You know, Howard, he's like you know, ai is level the playing field as far as creating listings and stuff now for everybody. And If you someone's like a word that, how are they ranking? How are they getting reviews? What are they doing? He's like the number one way that Chinese sellers are getting Ranking. Right now they're using postcards, postcards through the mail and he's like, thanks to Kevin King, I'm like what he's like? Oh yeah, I did talk about that in 2019 when I did me and Brandon young went over there and spoke to a huge group in Shenzhen. Well, they took that and now he said that's the number one way that they're getting Review, ranking products and getting reviews. And and so I was like you know what? I think I actually did that In the US too. It wasn't. I just didn't give that to the Chinese sellers. And so I look back and I share that to the helium-ten elite. First way back, and I don't remember exact time, in 2018, some point, I did a presentation on postcards and it was cutting edge. Virtually nobody did it, everybody, you know. They looked at like, yeah, Kevin, that's like I I never heard of. I don't even check my mailbox. I don't know. I'm a millennial Nah who reads the mail like dude, you're missing it. And so nobody in the hardly anybody in the US did it, but the Chinese like, oh, this, this looks good. They did it and look what it's doing for him four years later. So that's the kind of stuff we do in helium-ten elite. If you freakin pay attention and implement Not only what I'm teaching but what we bring on Really good guests. You know I look for diversity, from PPC people to shipping people to you name it. You know sometimes you get a speaker. That's yeah, okay, but we get some really good people as three speakers, plus myself, on Every single one of the helium-ten elite, that's. You know, there's a lot of groups out there that that have trainings, but I think this might be the longest last, the oldest one period. It's continuous. There's others that have started and come and gone, but that and but I think since we started February at 2017, when it's called Illuminati, changed the name in 2019 to helium-ten elite, but it's been continuous, never missed a month since February 2017. So that's six and a half years. I don't know if there's any other Group. That has lasted that long at this point and guys. Bradley Sutton You know I told people this before. This is One of the secrets not the main secret to my success is Before I ever sold on Amazon, you know, before I even became a consultant. You know people thought I was crazy because it's mulling. I mean, like seven, eight, nine figure sellers going and paying 400 bucks to get in this Illuminati mastermind. I, I could see the value in it. I saw a webinar for something first of you and Manny, you know, way before I worked at helium-ten Year, more than a year probably before and and I actually joined Illuminati Just as a regular person who wasn't even selling yet and within like three, four months I had enough knowledge just from the Illuminati stuff and you know a couple other. You know courses I was taking, but mainly from the Illuminati, where I became like a pretty top-level consultant and and was, you know, launched my Amazon consulting career. You know which was my career before helium-ten, without even selling on Amazon, just because I was able to ramp up my knowledge super fast by being part of that Illuminati mastermind. Kevin King So and it's not just the guys exactly training- that's what we had, but more recently Helium 10's added a weekly call with all the people that want to participate. So I do one a month. I jump on once a month and then the other three weeks Bradley and Carrie and Shivali host them and we'll have anywhere from 20 to 40 50 people in there that are members of helium-10 elite. There's a lot more members in that, but you know some people are busy and for a couple hours Typically an hour or two hours everybody's on there on a zoom call, all on the screen. There's no agenda, no presentations Like what do you got a problem with? Oh, you know Amazon's blocking me from shipping this and anybody else ever dealt with this. And usually there's someone else like, oh, yeah, I've a. You know, maybe we me or Bradley or somebody knows the answer begin help them. But usually there's somebody else like, oh, have you ever tried this? Or this happened to me two years ago and I did this and you have this interactive conversation that you're not gonna get in a Facebook group. You're not gonna get anywhere else other than maybe an in-person event, which there's four of those a year to for helium-10 elite. Did you get to come to for free? That are that value right there. Sometimes I learned stuff in there, you know, I didn't know from somebody else that right there, connecting with other high-level sellers and being able to share is as valuable as the presentations, if not even more valuable in some cases, and I'm so. There's things like that, that that you're not gonna get anywhere else. Bradley Sutton Just last week I don't know if it was on your call or on one of the regular weekly one that you're not on there, it was before you. Either way was before you came on the call there was Elizabeth, who's an elite, elite member, and she was talking about how she's done like something like a two million dollars on TikTok shop Some crazy, some crazy number like that and so she was just like people were dazzled with what she was saying Just ran, you know, just like just randomly got on there. She was just one of their participants and was talking about that. Now we're actually gonna do a train. She's gonna do a training in October in the elite in-person workshop in New York where she's gonna show people I'll kind of like reverse engineer how she was able to get to this level of success that she's had on on TikTok shop, which is definitely a hot topic. Kevin King So that's hot, that's. That's big right now. That's big. If you're not paying attention to that, that's big. You know I had Perry Belcher. This will be coming out on the AM PM podcast in October. So be sure, but Perry Belcher if you don't know who he is, he's one of the top marketers in the space right now. He started digital marketer. Yeah, the big expo with 7,000 people I mean sorry, traffic and conversion is. He was one of the founders of that. He started digital marketer. He's really big in the marketing space and old-school marketing guy. One of the things he actually said on that podcast, among a bunch of other cool stuff, is that he's like if you're going from Amazon to Shopify, it's a mistake. You should not be doing anything on Shopify. He said we're finding far better success by setting up funnels with click funnels or high level or one of the other, and doing single product drives it. The conversions are way higher, the Sales are way higher than driving someone to a Shopify site where it's there's too many confusing things that can distract them and he's like that's where these Amazon sellers because I asked him for one of the mistakes people are making said that's one of the mistakes a lot of sellers. Amazon sellers are making right now, as they should be focused more on driving stuff to single products with upsells Rather than driving to a Shopify store. Bradley Sutton Here's all my 20 things my, my company sells, but yeah, yeah, I mean the tick-tock shop that there's, just whatever is cutting edge. You know we talk about an elite, so so it's actually the longest in history and that you know. Kevin just said it started in in 2017. So it's we're talking over six years, almost seven years. It's been closed for the longest time in history. I think the last time it was open was in March of this year I'm not sure by the time you guys are listening to this episode of its open, but sometime in in September, October, we're gonna open it up for a couple weeks or so. So this is the time to sign up. Guys write this down h10.me forward slash elite. H10.me forward slash elite. And even if it's not open right now, there's a button on there where you can join the waiting list so you can make sure that when it does open for the short window that it does, that, you guys can get in. But but you know the benefits are this is like the only way to really talk to Kevin. You know people Want to ask kept. You know want to hire Kevin as a consultant all the time. Kevin doesn't have the the bandwidth do that, but once a month he'll go on there and just live, you know, just in a regular zoom call. You can ask him anything you want. You can ask other people anything you want in the Facebook group. Or we have two weekly zoom calls now one at In the afternoon on Friday us time and then one that I actually hop on at midnight because it's 8 am UK time Every Friday and and we hit the, we hit the Europe. You know, all the European sellers and people in Asia, you know, can hop on a call and network with each other. We have four quarterly workshops. The next one's coming up in October, the fourth one of the year. We had one in, you know, during Amazon accelerate, September 11th, and now October, right during unboxed, we're gonna have one where we're gonna be talking about, like I said, tick tock shop, and also we're gonna have a PPC Expert and there's a whole bunch of other Advances of being on the elite program. So if you guys are interested to add this to your helium tenant count again, go to h10.me forward slash elite and Either sign up right there if it's open, take advantage or if it's closed, just just join the waiting list so you can hook up with Kevin that way. Kevin King There's some software tools to that. They get extra tools or extra capacity or something right. Bradley Sutton Yeah, elite members usually get access to tools like way before, like we just launched Some historical Cerebro. Elite members have had that for like a year and a half, you know, but now barely diamond members are getting it. Like a year and a half Later there's some tools like our elite analytics so that Kevin actually developed himself he gave the the kind of blueprint for it. That's still only elite members can can access that diamond members don't have access. Then that's been around for like two years. So lots of advantages, including networking and training that elite has. You know, back in the day, like I said, when I was an elite Illuminati member, it was only the. You know there's a I think there was a Facebook group Maybe at that time or something, but it was mainly just one of those training calls a month and that was enough value For me and now it's just like all you know tons, tons of other value. So guys, make sure to check it out. Another thing you know I'm wearing my my OG Billion Dollar Seller Summit shirt today from the very first one, from the very first one and the next one time and place In 2024 for the next billion dollars. Kevin King There's actually two. Come with the next Billion Dollar Seller Summit, May 18th to the 23rd in Kauai, Hawaii, which is gonna be amazing, and then right after that one from the 23rd to the 26th, I have a second event called level up, where we're? So the first, the billion dollar seller summits, mostly for Amazon sellers and all the traditional things that you're You're used to like you are Bradley from a billionaire, saw something, the level up, or switching resorts, take it, everybody that's staying, that chooses to stay, and they're going to the Waimea Canyon, which is the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. It's like a little Grand Canyon that you in Hawaii that then we're taking them on the Nepali Coast on a dinner cruise. The pop for the poly coast is where these mountains, these beautiful mountains, come right up to the edge of the water. It's just stunning Dolphins jumping everywhere, and so that's gonna be cool. And then we're switching to Hanalei Bay, to the one the chain, the ones 300 million dollar resort that just had a overhaul and it's like 14, $1500 a night to stay there, but we got a rate that's like way less than half of that For people coming to the event. And then we're doing it's called level up, so it's six speakers, only ones Amazon, the other five, or you know, like Perry Belcher just said, he's probably gonna speak at it, jason Flatlin is someone that's maybe speak at us, a couple other Molly Mahoney, it's probably gonna speak at it, and some some other, and then we're mixing that in with Some mind and body stuff, like we talked about earlier, because that's important for our engineers. So there's gonna be cryo therapy, there's gonna be a sound therapy lab where you listen to the bowls and it helps reset your mind. We're doing hot yoga, a bonfire on the beach, and so it's. It's gonna be pretty cool. We're doing a race. You know we did that race here in Austin. You were in that's that scavenger hunt we did a couple years ago here in Austin. People love that. So Probably problem one of the problems when you go to an event you don't get to see the place. You're like you see the hotel and maybe you see a bar or something with a restaurant. So we're doing we've got 25 Avis rental cars thing or 30 Avis rental cars all lined up and you're gonna broken the teams of four and you're gonna do an amazing race across the islands one day. So you're gonna see, then you're gonna be able to see the entire islands and experience the island. Quiet is a place where you're not gonna want to be sleeping aping in the back. You know you're gonna be like looking out the window after every turn going Holy Callis is beautiful. I've never seen something so beautiful my life. It's a drastic Park Island and so you're gonna, but you're gonna be able to see some cool stuff all in some back places that you wouldn't know they're not on the tours map. We're gonna take you to this one cool beach as part of the race. You're like, holy cow, I'm coming back here because nobody's here, nobody knows about this place. It's like a secret little beach. So that's. That's gonna be cool too. If it's your third or more trip, you're gonna get like a drastic park experience in a helicopter ride Over the island and stuff. So, like Bradley, if you're out there, you get. You get that for free, as, since you're a regular, since you've been to three, this is your third or more we're gonna take a helicopter around the island as a tour is amazing fly up to the inside. This 10,000 foot waterfall and a helicopter in land and this, this drastic park kind of vehicles gonna pick you up and take you through this Amazing like plantation kind of thing and to a VIP dinner that night. It's gonna be really, really cool. So, yeah, that's a billion dollar seller summit calm. If you want information on that, then in October I'm doing the billion dollar exit summit so the billion dollar exit summer, doing this with Scott Deets so somebody may know he's got the, the exit ticket or whatever it's called him and he them to Probably the top guy and helping people exit. He helped manning Guillermo exit Helium 10 help who's involved in that Done over a half a billion dollars worth of exits for Amazon sellers. So and you may be like, yeah, but right now I'm not thinking about exiting, but you, you might be in a year or two years and now's the time to actually start working on it now To maximize and add a couple extra million dollars to your exit. By working now, rather than waking up one day and say I want to exit, I want to be out of here in three months, you're gonna be shooting yourself in the foot. So we're doing a. It's very small 25 to 30 people in Austin, October 10th to the 13th called the Billion Dollar Exit Summit and it's hands-on. So he's bringing his whole team, so it's want some a lot of one-on-one stuff. It's not a bunch of presentations from all these random people. You're gonna walk out there with a plan like, okay, this is what I need to do specific to your business. So that's, that's happening in October. Bradley Sutton Awesome, awesome, alright. So, guys, billiondollarsellersummit.com to get more information on it. Alright, like always, let's go ahead and close this out with your 30 or 60 second tip that you can leave for the sellers out there, do you haven't checked out Levonta. Kevin King That would be a really good tip. I leave a NTA, I think calm, I think is the is the URL. But especially for the fourth quarter coming up. You know, offside Amazon traffic is huge for ranking. You know you get the 10% referral bonus if you're brand registered and it just helps you in your rank Even if they don't buy. If you're sending traffic from outside social media or outside media, blogs, whatever, even if they don't buy, it helps you on your rank. But these guys you know that's, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to go set all that stuff up. You got to find people on TikTok or you got to find blogs or you got to find these affiliates and like coordinate everything one-on-one, one by one, by one. These guys have got over a thousand of the top affiliates, from TikTok people to people who are in the affiliate business. That's what they do to blogs like USA Today. USA Today will do a holiday gift guide for pet products this year. If you have a pet product, you want to be in that gift guide in USA Today with two million people reading it online. You, these guys, can facilitate that in the way. It's seamless, the way it works is you just connect your Amazon account to their system and it automatically imports all your products. Once your products are in there, you can go in and cherry pick them like I only want to promote these three. I'm willing to give a 20% commission for you know this dog bowl and then that goes into their database, these thousand affiliates. When they're writing their stories and looking for things they can search that database. Oh, I want, I want to promote this dog. Well, he's given 20% Off. They just automatically pick up the code, the, everything. It's all done for them. They put it into their blog or their, their post or whatever, and it's all automated or you can go in there. I think they let you do 50 a day. You can reach out to people and they're growing really, really fast and they just had people on prime day the last, the July prime day. Do over a million dollars just off of outside traffic, off of this program on prime day, and just imagine what that does to your listing on Amazon and the internal Amazon stuff, how that's gonna get that file flywheel going. So that's that would probably be a tip of there under the radar. And you know a mission is here. They don't give me a kickback or anything for this, but that's a tool that I think any Amazon serious Amazon seller is a fool to not use. I'm an absolute fool to not actually take a look at that, especially for this fourth quarter, and get a strong competitive edge Over your competition get more like that. Bradley Sutton Guys in Helium 10 Elite. h10.me/elite. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. I know you're traveling a lot more than you were in the previous years. I'll probably hopefully see you at one of these upcoming events and then, for sure, at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit next year. So Keep on. By the time I see you next time, you know I might not even recognize you're losing so much. Wait, hopefully you won't recognize me, because I need to. I need to get on the path. Kevin King Yeah, it's slow but by. Yeah. If we go along in a period of time, you know I've lost a bunch. Bradley Sutton I'm not trying to do it quick. All right, we'll see it. We'll see you next time you.

Mike talks about the Arizona Senate's plans to sue the Biden Administration over the creation of the Grand Canyon-area national monument.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Arizona's Senate President Warren Petersen joins Mike to explain why the Senate is preparing a lawsuit against the Biden Administration over the creation of the Grand Canyon-area national monument.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

https://jerrywills.com

Show Notes:  https://wetflyswing.com/500 Presented By: Mavrk Fly Fishing, Dette Flies, Trxstle, Jackson Hole Fly Company In this milestone episode, we talk about the Klamath Dam Removal journey with Ann Willis. Ann shares her incredible conservation journey, starting from a 6-day white water raft trip. We explore the unique characteristics of the Klamath River, the catalyst for conservation efforts following a devastating fish kill, and the ambitious goals set by American Rivers for dam removal across the nation. Klamath Dam Removal Show Notes with Ann Willis 02:47 - Ann's journey into conservation began with a 6-day rafting trip on the Middle Fork Salmon River, leading her to work as a white-water raft guide for several years. After realizing the need for a more sustainable career, she delved into river science for 15 years and ultimately led her own research program at the U.C. Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. Ann Willis guiding a raft down the Grand Canyon. Photo credit: Amy Quinton 10:00 - Ann introduces the unique characteristics of the Klamath River. The Klamath River was a highly productive ecosystem until around 1918, when the construction of hydroelectric dams began. Among those dams were Copco No. 1, Copco No. 2, Iron Gate, and JC Boyle. 18:42 - In the early 2000s, a significant event that catalyzed conservation efforts in the Klamath River was a massive fish kill. During a drought, water shortages and poor water quality caused by the dams led to a devastating sight of dead fish floating for miles along the riverbanks. 30:00 - Monitoring efforts in the Klamath River assess stream flow, water quality, and the presence and distribution of aquatic life like insects and fish. 35:00 - The removal of dams can have a positive impact on climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with reservoirs. Additionally, it encourages the shift towards more sustainable and emissions-friendly energy sources like solar and wind power. About American Rivers  38:00 - In light of American Rivers' 50th Anniversary, Ann gives advice to those advocating for the removal of the Snake River dams. Hells Canyon on the Snake River, ID. The Snake River is one of the next large dam removal campaigns to improve river health for people and the environment. Photo credit: Ann Willis 46:00 - Ann acknowledges the lack of diversity in conservation organizations. She added that there are also Eurocentric notions that need to be reevaluated, like the idea that these natural spaces are resources for us to profit from or benefit from rather than steward and enhance. 49:00 - American Rivers was founded in the 1970s, a period predating the establishment of significant environmental regulations such as the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency. 49:30 There was a notable incident where the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire due to extreme pollution. We talked about this in an episode with Alex Czayka. 51:00 - American Rivers has set ambitious goals to address dams across the country that have reached the end of their practical lifespan. Their vision includes the removal of 30,000 dams by 2050. 59:24 - People interested in the dam removal can reach out to the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. Show Notes:  https://wetflyswing.com/500

By Davy Crockett This part will cover additional stories found through deeper research, adding to the history shared in found in the new book, Grand Canyon Rim to Rim History. Rim To Rim in the 1950s In 1950, two 15-year-old boys from Los Angeles discovered that hiking rim-to-rim was a lot harder than they thought. While resting down at Phantom Ranch, they ran up an $8 unpaid bill and then decided that there was no way that they were going to hike back up. “So, the two youths ‘borrowed' a pair of mules at the ranch and rode to the top, tethering the mules at the head of Bright Angel Trail. The boys next headed south, stopping en-route to Williams, Arizona, at a service station where they pilfered $20 from the station's cash drawer.” Their trip ended there after some officers arrested them. Get Davy Crockett's new book, Grand Canyon Rim to Rim History. Read more than a century of the history of crossing the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim. 290 pages, 400+ photos. Paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and Audible. Phantom Ranch Guests Arrive by Helicopter On October 29, 1950, Vesta Ledbetter Malone (1912-1995), of Missouri, Phantom Ranch caretaker with her husband Willis Wayne Malone (1910-1997), received a telephone call from Mrs. Jerry Evans of Cody, Wyoming in the afternoon requesting dinner and overnight accommodations for three people calling from the gauging station on the Colorado River, near Black Bridge. “There was nothing unusual in this, as late hikers often showed up at Phantom Ranch about dinner time. But when Mrs. Evans walked up to the ranch attractively attired in a fresh green silk dress complete with matching handbag, and of all things, high-heeled pumps, Mrs. Malone did a double take. ‘We're the folks that landed on the sandbar in the helicopter a little while ago.'” The pilot, Edwin Jones Montgomery (1912-1990), who established the first commercial helicopter operation in the country, in Tucson, Arizona, walked in and explained that his helicopter's motor had conked out over the canyon, but he had glided to a sandbar, and they walked a half mile to Black Bridge. “They established a record as the first Phantom Ranch guests to arrive by helicopter.” The next day, the three rode out of the canyon on mules. A few days later, Montgomery and two of his employees made repairs. “When they attempted to fly out, they flew only about a mile and one half downstream before the motor stopped and the plane dropped into the water. A team of mules pulled the craft out of the water.” There it sat near the bottom of the Bright Angel Trail. The machine had to be dismantled and packed out of the canyon by mule. Maintenance Needed Neglect was noticed in 1950 because the federal government had cut back on Grand Canyon funding for eight years, starting with World War II. Appropriations to the Park were only 50 cents per park visitor. Rotting benches were seen and trails were in poor shape. Rangers were only paid $1.50 per hour and could not work overtime. The old CCC barracks on the South Rim was being used as housing for employees. Some new projects were started, a water storage system was built at Cottonwood Campground to help deal with occasional water outages. A crew of eight worked there for three months. The water tank can still be seen. In 1951, about 8,000 people rode the mule train to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and about 1,000 stayed overnight at Phantom Ranch. Hundreds of additional people descended on foot. The 1952 winter snowfall was so severe that in January, the Kaibab Trail was closed for the winter. Two employees of Utah Parks Co. rode a snow cat to the North Rim to repair the telephone line. “But they found the wires broken by so many fallen trees and in such a tangled condition that the repair work was abandoned.” Black Bridge finally received a new coat of paint. The last time it was painted was in 1934 by the CCC. It took two men six days to paint the 440-foot-lon...

Alan Fredendall // #FitnessAthleteFriday // www.ptonice.com  In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Fitness Athlete division leader Alan Fredendall discusses the role of carbohydrates, the relationship between carbohydrates & performance, carbohydrate loading, and carbohydrate consumption timing. Take a listen to the episode or read the episode transcription below. If you're looking to learn from our Clinical Management of the Fitness Athlete division, check out our live physical therapy courses or our online physical therapy courses. Check out our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab. EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION 00:00 INTRO Hey everybody, welcome to today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show. Before we get started with today's episode, I just want to take a moment and talk about our show's sponsor, Jane. If you don't know about Jane, Jane is an all-in-one practice management software that offers a fully integrated payment solution called Jane Payments. Although the world of payment processing can be complex, Jane Payments was built to help make things as simple as possible to help you get paid, and it's very easy to get started. Here's how you can get started. Go on over to jane.app slash payments and book a one-on-one demo with a member of Jane's support team. This can give you a better sense of how Jane Payments can integrate with your practice by seeing some popular features in action. Once you know you're ready to get started, you can sign up for Jane. If you're following on the podcast, you can use the code ICEPT1MO for a one-month grace period while you get settled with your new account. Once you're in your new Jane account, you can flip the switch for Jane Payments at any time. Ideally, as soon as you get started, you can take advantage of Jane's time and money saving features. It only takes a few minutes and you can start processing online payments right away. Jane's promise to you is transparent rates and unlimited support from a team that truly cares. Find out more at jane.app slash physical therapy. Thanks everybody. Enjoy today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show. 02:14 ALAN FREDENDALL Good morning everybody. Welcome to the PT on ICE Daily Show. Glad to be back again. Hope your day is off to a great start. My name is Alan. I'm happy to be your host today. Currently have the pleasure of serving as the Chief Operating Officer here at ICE and elite faculty in our fitness athlete division. It is fitness athlete Friday. We would say it's the best darn day of the week here on Friday, live on Instagram, live up here on YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for joining us. Some announcements really quick. If you're looking to join us in the fitness athlete division, we have a couple chances online and about a dozen chances live before the end of the year to catch us out on the road. Our online courses, fitness athlete essential foundations, that's our eight week entry level online course. All things relevant to treating the recreational athlete, the cross fitter, the Olympic weight lifter, the power lifter, the orange theory athlete, the boot camper, so on and so forth. That is the course for you. That starts this coming Monday, September 11th. We still have room in that class. And our advanced concepts course, also eight weeks online. Pre-requisite for that class is essential foundations, our entry level course. Advanced concepts is only taught twice per year. It is taught spring and fall. So this is your last chance to catch it this year. That will kick off the week after September 17th. That class has just two seats remaining. So if you're looking to round out your fitness athlete certification, make sure that you get into fitness athlete advanced concepts this fall. Live courses coming your way between now and the end of the year. Your next chance will be September 30th on October 1st. That will be out on the West Coast in the Bay Area with Zach Long. Also on the West Coast, October 7th and 8th, you can catch Mitch up in Linwood, Washington. That's outside of the Seattle area. Also on the West Coast, October 21st and 22nd, Zach will be on the road again, this time up in Vancouver, British Columbia. You have two chances the weekend of November 4th and 5th. You can either catch Mitch down in San Antonio, Texas, or Zach will be down in Birmingham, Alabama. Mitch will again be on the road in November, November 18th and 19th. He'll be in Holmes Beach, Florida. That's right outside of the Tampa area on Anna Maria Island. You can catch Joe Hanisco in New Orleans. That'll be December 9th and 10th. And then our last course of the year will be December 9th and 10th as well. That'll be out in Colorado Springs with Mitch. So that's your chance to catch us on the road in the fitness athlete division. Today's topic, let's talk about carbohydrates. Let's take a deep dive into what a carbohydrate is, how it's relevant to us here in the fitness athlete division as far as exercise, energy and performance goes. And then let's talk a little bit about when and how to kind of dose out your carbohydrates, who needs to be eating them, who maybe needs to think about eating more. And let's talk about timing of getting those in to best suits whenever we're going to be exercising to maximize and optimize our performance. 04:18 WHAT IS A CARBOHYDRATE? So starting very basic, if you know nothing, what is a carbohydrate? It is a sugar, a starch or cellulose plant material. So commonly we know carbs traditionally are things made out of maybe table sugar, candy, soda, that sort of thing, potato chips, things that are maybe less than optimal carbohydrate choices but are overwhelmingly what is often consumed when people eat carbohydrates. We also think of fruit being fructose. We think of the sugar that's in milk, lactose. We also think of carbs as vegetables that we eat when we're primarily eating the cellulose in a vegetable, we're eating that plant matter, we're eating things like green leafy vegetables, broccoli, kale, asparagus, that sort of thing. So different ways we can consume carbohydrates. They're not all equal as far as content goes, but those are all kind of classified as carbohydrates. Why do we care about them? Well, we really care about carbohydrates because eventually they become glucose in our body, which is an energy currency, a way that we metabolize energy reactions and chemical reactions in our body, but we also store glucose as glycogen. We store glucose as glycogen both in our liver and in our muscles. At any given time, we only have about four grams of circulating glucose in our system. So we have a relatively small amount. Our body does not really like to have glucose moving around in our blood system. So when we tend to get beyond that four grams circulating throughout our body, that's when insulin is released, insulin is released, and at the end of the day converts that glucose into glycogen, either stored within our muscles or stored in our liver, or if we do have an incredible excess of glucose in our system, it can be also stored as body fat. 09:13 MUSCLE GLYCOGEN  Aside from the four grams circulating in our body, we have about 400 grams stored inside of our muscles, and we have about another hundred grams stored in our liver. For most people, a total of about 500 grams of muscle glycogen or about 2,000 calories worth of energy. And that's kind of where, if you ever wonder where is the recommendation that I should eat 2,000 calories a day to maintain a healthy weight, where does that recommendation come from? It comes from estimations of how much muscle glycogen we are storing and throughout the day using for regular physical activity, but also for exercise. And that if we deplete that glycogen throughout the day, we will need to eat 2,000 calories of food to replenish that glycogen back into our muscles and back into our liver. We can make glucose and then store muscle glycogen on demand. This is that process you may remember back from middle school or high school biology and chemistry called gluconeogenesis, gluconeogenesis, make new glucose. This is a very, very slow energy intensive process. We can only make about 30 grams of glucose per hour. Now this typically comes from our body fat. It's synthesized, made into glucose, and then is either stored as glycogen or pushed into circulation for energy. So this is kind of where the all day energy you have of being at work, maybe working around the yard, relatively low intensity activity. The energy, the glucose that supports that energy, those metabolic reactions comes from that process of taking body fat, turning into glucose in the liver, about 30 grams per hour. 11:17 GLYCOGEN DEPLETION DURING EXERCISE Now when intensity increases is really our concern in the relationship between carbohydrates, glucose, glycogen, and exercise. That when we start to exceed about 65% of our VO2 max, we start to use more glucose, use more glycogen than our body can produce per hour. So we start to dig into the reserves that are inside of our skeletal muscle and our liver. Now at very high intensities and very long durations, especially if heat, if temperature, is a factor as well, humans can use up to 150 grams or more per hour of that glycogen, which means at any given time, there are only about a couple hours of energy stored in our body for higher intensity activity. So above 65% of that VO2 max, what we call a low oxygen environment, we can no longer make enough glucose and glycogen to replenish what we are burning with that high intensity exercise. We are in a high oxygen environment, relatively low intensity activities. Our body can again make those carbohydrates, make those sugars from the fatty acids from our body fat, but as intensity increases, we start to dig into our reserves. Now that typically happens around the 90 to 120 minute mark. That is going to be a little bit different for every person. Bigger people, people with more muscle can store more muscle glycogen. Those who are better trained, who exercise at all, but especially those who are used to doing long endurance training, can store a little bit more muscle glycogen. And then certainly you've heard of the concept of carb loading, where if we taper our activity for two to three days and we increase our carbohydrate consumption accordingly, we can supersaturate our muscles with glycogen as well. And overall, we may have about 50% more glycogen reserves than the average person. We might have maybe 600 to 700 grams available. So maybe we can kind of flirt with having two hours of energy total for high intensity activity before we need to start thinking about eating, eating food, eating it to not only continue exercise, but feel better after, which is part of what we're going to talk about today. The relationship between carbohydrates and performance, especially if you want to be training multiple times a day or otherwise just not feel terrible the rest of the day after you finish exercise. Now it's not an all or nothing concept. It's not, I have a hundred percent of my muscle glycogen or I've used it all and I need to stop exercising and eat. We certainly know that we can consume food during long endurance activities, but also that as those reserves deplete, we feel a performance shift as we're doing different activities of we can feel maybe speed slow down on a run, maybe power slow down if we're out and we're on the assault bike or something like that. And we know we can run out. That's a concept that's called bonking of where we have depleted almost all of our muscle glycogen and our body is going to take us from that high intensity, low oxygen environment and say, Hey, you need to cool it. We need time to recover some of this energy and your body's going to stop you for you. And that's the concept of bonking of shifting you to a high oxygen environment by lowering your intensity in an uncomfortable manner, maybe even possibly losing consciousness, but definitely not feeling like exercising anymore. It's really important that we never hit that point. If we can avoid it, we've all we've all done it. I have a story of hiking in the smoky mountains of bonking at the top of a mountain, mainly because my wife ate all of our food on the way up and I had nothing to eat. So I had no choice and bonked at the top. But it's important to know that we don't want to get to that point. We never want to use all of our glycogen and hit that wall because there is a compensatory recovery point afterwards where for one to three days after we're going to feel really low energy as our body slowly recuperates and restores all of that glycogen in our body. We're not going to feel like pushing the pace. We may not feel like exercising at all. It's going to impact our training. And what you don't want to get into is kind of this weekend warrior phenomenon. Where maybe you go you go for a really hard run for two to three hours. You hit the wall and then you don't feel like exercising maybe for another week, right? Where you don't feel like you can work out again for a couple of days. That's not very productive training. So we want to avoid that. 13:58 CARBOHYDRATE CONSUMPTION And we'll talk about that now as we talk about when should I eat my carbohydrates. So it's really cool that technically a human being does not need to eat any carbohydrates at all. You may have heard of the keto diet of being low carb, maybe no carb, under 50 grams of carbohydrates, being in a state of ketoacidosis of only utilizing your own body fat as an energy source and the fat and protein that you consume. But it's cool that we don't technically need to eat carbohydrates. Yet almost all of the metabolic and chemical reactions in our body are fueled by carbohydrates. It's very, very interesting how our body operates. So you can go without eating carbs. So again, your body can make carbs about 30 grams per hour, but we need to understand that that takes time as we talked about. And especially if we are doing longer, harder events, we're thinking about maybe training twice a day, something like that. Then we need to understand that that process is slow and we need to give the body either a lot of time or we do need to consume carbohydrates. We also need to recognize at some point that eating carbohydrates is like consuming jet fuel for a mechanical engine. Of it's a very caustic chemical reaction to our body, a lot like burning gas inside of a gasoline engine, that it does create some low grade, low grade inflammation that's kind of always present as we're eating carbs and fueling our chemical reactions with the carbs. And so kind of the longevity side of the research would say, if you want to live as long as possible, avoid that. However, that's in direct conflict with the performance research, especially if you want to be a more competitive athlete. You want to do longer, more intense activities. You want to maybe train multiple times a day. You need to understand that those are two kind of diverging thoughts of longevity versus performance. At some point, those tend to dissect and not reconverge of needing to eat carbs to fuel your activity, especially multiple activities in a day or a busy workday after you exercise or avoiding carbs. Maybe even you may have a longevity physician who recommends you take metformin prophylactically to keep as much glucose out of your system as possible because of the inflammation that's present. But nonetheless, we need to talk about that relationship between eating carbs and performance. So it's that that longevity versus performance question that we have a need to eat carbohydrates if we are a long duration endurance athlete, that when you start to run 10 miles, 15 miles marathon, ultra marathon, when you start to do long trail runs, long bike rides, long hikes, that sort of thing. Again, you are using your reserves faster than your body can make more. And you either need to know that at some point you're going to hit that wall that we talked about or you're going to need to start consuming carbohydrates as you exercise. Higher level elite endurance athletes may eat 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour in the forms of liquid carbohydrates, gels, chews, that sort of thing. Folks who maybe are doing half marathon or marathon training may be eating less, maybe about 30 grams per hour. Our fitness athletes don't necessarily need to eat carbohydrates during exercise. We think about a typical one hour CrossFit class. We're not really at the level of intensity and duration long enough to need to eat carbs during that hour. We can get away with doing that hour of fitness and then worrying about carbohydrates after. But there's also a want, a need versus want. The want for carbohydrates is understanding that performance trade off, but also understanding that your body can only make about 30 grams per hour. So what does that mean? That means if you do go to that one hour CrossFit class, you don't technically need to eat carbohydrates before or during, but that you might want to front load your consumption afterwards, especially depending on the time of day in which you do your exercise. If you're like me and you like to get up and exercise first thing in the morning and then you might be looking at, hey, I have 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 hour day ahead of me. Those subjective feelings that you may feel your patients, your athletes may feel of, I feel tired all day after exercise. I feel like I just need to go home and go to bed. I feel weak. I feel like I can't do my work tasks. I can't take care of my kids. Maybe even feeling lightheaded or some sort of impaired cognitive function. Like my mind just feels cloudy. All of those are good subjective reports to tell you that you should probably eat some more carbohydrates after that exercise session or to recommend that to your patient or athlete. And then we get in now to how to do that of our long duration endurance athletes. We've already talked about they're probably going to be or hopefully should be consuming those carbohydrates as they're exercising, especially once they cross maybe that one hour mark of again, it's not an all or nothing equation of go until I can't anymore of as those reserves of muscle glycogen get depleted, I'm going to feel worse and worse and worse than my performance. And how I get ahead of that is eating, eating those carbohydrates while I'm exercising. So the combination of me eating them and my body making some more keeps them relatively high, keeps my performance, my output higher, keeps me away from feeling kind of that onset of losing power, losing speed, losing energy throughout my workout. 22:08 CARBOHYDRATE CONSUMPTION & TIMING How to eat those? Well, I'm still trying to figure that out. As I get more into long endurance training, I have tried chews and gels and my body doesn't really sit with those. I tend to do better with liquid nutrition like Gatorade. Every person is going to be different, but definitely those people who are going out for longer workouts, especially crossing an hour need to find a way to start to consume that as they're exercising. This is also relevant to our fitness athletes who may be doing a multi event day. Maybe they're doing a local CrossFit competition. Maybe they're a quarterfinals or a semi finals athlete where they have multiple events per day, multiple days in a row. I always laugh now when I go to a CrossFit competition and I see that person after workout eating chicken and salad, right? Just not enough carbohydrates in that meal to replenish what was used in that CrossFit workout in order to have those reserves restored and ready for the next workout, which might be two to three hours after the first one. They might have a third one two to three hours after that, right? Those are athletes who they don't necessarily need to eat carbs during the workout because it's a relatively short event, maybe 10, 20, 30 minutes. But if they have to workout again in three hours, they're definitely somebody who's going to want to eat higher carbohydrate food. That's the case. You see CrossFit Games athletes eating gummy bears and Snickers bars, just getting as much carbohydrates as they can. Again, they're trying to maybe replenish 200, 300, 400, 500 grams of carbohydrates within a two to three hour window to be ready to work out again. So understanding it's important to get those carbs back in if you're wanting to train or you have to exercise again in a relatively short amount of time. I hiked the Grand Canyon last year with Dustin Jones and Jeff Musgrave and we did it. It was about a 12 hour hike up and down about 20 miles and we did it almost exclusively on water, Gatorade and gummy bears, right? Just high carb food that's going to keep our reserves up because we're basically hiking and walking in a hot environment at moderate to high intensity for a very long period of time. I'm thinking I just ran 10, 800s this morning. I have a 12 hour day ahead of me. The first thing I did was eat three bananas, right? The first thing I did was house 100 grams of carbs to give my body that jump start on replenishing that glycogen, which was not entirely gone, but definitely mostly gone at the end of that running workout. And that's really going to determine how you recommend carbohydrate intake to that patient athlete in front of you of what does the rest of your day look like? When do you train and what does the rest of your day look like? If you work out at 5 a.m. and then you have to go to work all day and you're maybe a physical therapist, right? You have a relatively physically active job. You're getting your steps in. You have an eight to maybe 10 hour day in front of you. You'll probably feel a lot better if you eat the majority of your carbs earlier in the day to replenish those reserves. You will find yourself feeling subjectively better. If you work out early in the morning, maybe you run and you want to lift weights at lunch or go to CrossFit after work. How can we fuel our body to be able to do double sessions in a day, two a days, right? The same thing, we need to front load that carbohydrate consumption in the morning, at lunch, in the early afternoon so that by the time we are going to work out again, most of those reserves are back. They're probably not going to be 100% back where I can PR my 5K in the morning and go PR a CrossFit benchmark in the afternoon. It's probably not going to work out that way to be 100% ready to go for a second session in the same day. But you will feel better during the day subjectively and you will definitely perform better objectively in that second session if you eat a lot more carbohydrates in between. Now who is that person that maybe works out in the afternoon or evening and that's their only session of the day and then they go home and they basically watch some TV, get ready for bed and go to bed? That is maybe a person who can get away with maybe a lower carbohydrate or could maybe play with a keto diet, right? Of hey, I work out at 6 p.m. when I'm done with work, I get home around 7.30, take a shower, eat some dinner, go to bed. That is a person that they do not necessarily need to replenish as much of their glycogen as possible because of their schedule, right? They deplete their glycogen in the evening, they are going home consuming some with maybe a dinner meal and then they're going to bed. They're giving their body maybe 8 to 10 hours to replenish hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of grams of muscle glycogen overnight while they're asleep. So that is a person who maybe could get away with lower carbohydrate or no carbohydrate consumption between when they work out and when they wake up again. That's a person who's going to work out, have dinner, sleep, have breakfast and have lunch again before they work out again 24 hours later and they're in a really good position where maybe they don't need to worry about it as much. So carbohydrates, what, when and how? Understanding they're very important for performance, especially for longer duration exercisers, for long endurance athletes. They're definitely linked to performance, especially if you are wanting to train multiple times a day. You are in a competitive environment where maybe you're doing multiple events in a day and then we need to understand timing of when should I eat them. For most people, if they're working out in the morning, they're maybe doing multiple sessions in a day. They're going to work and they want to feel like they have high energy. They should probably eat a good portion of their carbohydrates earlier in the day, but there is that person who maybe trains later in the day who doesn't have a lot going on between when they train and when they're going to train again, who maybe can get away with not eating as much carbohydrates as somebody else. So understanding that food is our friend, food is fuel and understanding how your body creates, consumes and utilizes carbohydrates for energy can be a really big game changer for performance during and after exercise. We all probably have that patient who seems really active, really fit, but complains all the time of being tired, of feeling weak, of not hitting PRs. And that can be a good person, yes, to evaluate their protein consumption, to make sure that their muscles, their musculoskeletal system is recovering appropriately, but also to have a conversation of what their carbohydrate consumption looks like. If we can up our carbohydrate consumption a little bit, we'll often find that that subjective fatigue, weakness that comes after a training session, especially if we're going to train again later or we have a long day of work or whatever ahead of us, we can alleviate a lot of that just by tweaking our diet a little bit. So I hope this was helpful. If you're going to be on an ice course this weekend, I hope you have a fantastic weekend. Have a great Friday. Have a great weekend. Bye, everybody.  24:46 OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice Daily Show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. 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