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That's right, folks, a substance found in a variety of plants and other sources derived from hemp. To comply with federal regulations, all their products use the powerful properties of hemp extract visit Liberty Lotion dot com to learn more and enter promo code meat Eater to get off your first order. Ye, honest, if you could know one thing about um, like if you had one question about my time up at our fish shack, Like, what's the thing you're most dying to know? Like, if you could ask me one thing about it? What would you ask me? Mm hmm, I'm on this spot here. He didn't give me any earlier. Your first question, Your first question was was there a lot of bears around? Yeah? And you know when I asked you that I was actually asking more just general if you guys are out about, you know, fishing, when you've seen a lot of bears. But you answered, yes, there's a shipload. And then you went into tell me about the stories about how they were crawling underneath the shock to come towards you as your flame fish beating off like beating off bears with a stick, well, beating them off with rocks and slingshots black bears. But it sounds like nothing got so aggressive that they actually like charred nothing aggressive or pop their teeth at nothing aggressive, just being like, uh, you fellas are cleaning fish. That's very interesting to me, I don't care that you're standing there. I think I'll come and have some like a like a dog, like a stray dog. You know that someone fed even though we didn't feed him all the time, all times a day. It was funny too. It's really hot. Like we've got our place for fourteen fifteen years, and we've always had enough water in the creek to fill our pen stock. You know, like we divert water a couple d feet above our shack. We divert water out of a creek into a tank, right and then we run a holes off that. It gives you water pressure in fourteen years. Um, never a problem. That creek is too dry right now to uh, too dry right now to pull water. While was I talking about that, Oh so damn hot and dry, and uh it was funny because like when you're bear hunting in the spring and you get like eighty degree day it's just blazing sun. You feel like not gonna happen, like moso, take a nap. They're only gonna pop out like at they're just out black hide, black hair. I wander around in that heat and the seat waves coming off their back man in the sun out feeding on beach ry or walking around, you know, checking out the generator shed, sniffing around, just around like stray dogs. Yeah, and it would make me nervous because I know that they're you know, adults, I don't care, but having my two little kids too, my little kids up there, and my little kids are always digging around the creek and they're not looking at what they're doing. They're just looking for sculpions and these little eels. And bear takes a body out of Ron Bay. It's kind of like, yeah, whatever, he's good to know him. You know, he had a good run. But a young child like that, it was maybe nervous because it's like not being able to anticipate what they're gonna how they might perceive a child, you know, what they think of when they see a child. Well, it's funny too, is watching the deer with little fawns. You know, spawns still got some spots on them, feeding twenty thirty yards from those bears. It's like those bears out there, I think they have so much food normally that they're not like normal bears. They're not as opportunistic as normal bears. It's like Rocky Mountain bears and so much food in the form of all the muscles and just everything that lives at the edge of the marine fish, shellfish and beach ry It's like you watch them just walking down the beach. They just flip over rocks and pick up all the crabs that come out, and then they got lush expanses of beach rye that's always there, it never dries up. And then they got the salmon runs. So it's like a bear. I think he sees something that a normal bear would be all over, and uh, they don't do it. And right now is when the salmon runs start. So I think a lot of those bears are down. You know, we have a run in our creek right silvers and panks, well the creek next to us, and I think now they're down waiting for it to happen. That hasn't happened yet, but they're lurking around the area and you start cleaning fish and there used to be in all um you've seen them up there fighting for the premier spots. Oh, it's some of the wildest ship I've ever seen. Um. I'm trying to think darker. Was it dark the first time we were there? And that was all that commotion. We started shining lights and realized there was like four bears. This creek is you know, it would take you three strides and you're across it, you know, but there's one major pool that holds all these pinks. Before they get into the lake, they're backed up by a beaver dam. Yeah, and uh yeah, we could hear the splash in and we kind of shining a light down there. I don't know why we were filming or something. O're there after dark, and uh, you could see a bear. And then finally we got closer and looked and will sure another is like one bear in the water and three bears on the bank kind of like waiting their turn to you know, get in and get their own sand to get them out from the hole. In another place, there's a there's another creek we fished sam and at and they get competitive over the shallow So you have like the estuary which floods in the ebb of the tides, but there's this one shallow gravel like kind of your first riffle, and so it's all those fresh fish and it's the first place, the first obstacle where they got to come out and have their back out of the water and scurry into the next hole and they sit there and fight and take turns and have skirmishes over who gets to stand in that riffle. But yeah, they don't, do you know. I don't know. I don't I don't know if they never have growled, snapped or teeth. But we saw that one clack in his teeth one time and there at us. I was with you, well, dirt or someone was in there. Oh he was there in there by himself. Yeah, it was clacking his teeth at him. Whatnot. Um, So that's your main question you'd have for me. My next question, We're gonna have to pause for a second. I didn't want to ask it. And many of times you talked about where it is, but I'll tell you in greater details. Okay, we're back on good. So where is a fish camp. It's on Prince of Wales Island, which is a big gass island. Yeah it's Um, I never like totally fact checked this, but it's half the size. I think it's half the size of the big island in Hawaii. So it's half the square miles of Hawaii but has twice the shoreline. Wow, it's a mess. Like a lot of the places you can't tell if you're on the main island around a little island, you know what I mean. Just lots of little pipas and fjords and inlets and little islands and yeah, and so you said you had pinks and silver's right by your place. So all the creeks around us like in ours sort of our zone, which is basically what you can hit in the skiff without killing yourself, is like one too. I don't know seven eight creeks, and they all have some variation on Pink's chums silvers. And then there's one that has steel head in the spring. We've never messed with them. No king runs there though, you get there's kings in the area all the time, resident kings, but they're not running our rivers, okay. And then we could get after hell of it pretty hard, and a host of other not quite incidentals, but things that will target. Can you still fish crab down? There is everything dungeons yeah, yeah, dungeoness is good. And shrimping is very good. We shrimp a lot. We always have shrimp pots out. The crab fish is so good that Steve would be like, oh, I think we've had enough. I'm like, bro, you must have eaten too many crabs in your day, because I say, load up, let's keep going. Yeah, take up a lot of space. Though. The thing with like flying home with crabs, Like you feel a fish box full of crab and it's just like, yeah, it's like either fly home the knuckles, which we'll do, or um, you pick it right. So this time we had someone who I didn't even go on there. I didn't I didn't go on the crab run, but they went on a crab run and got some crab and picked at all. So I brought home a couple of little back bags full of pick crab and then octopus and c cucumber. We'll die for that. We just we dove. Oh you know what's crazy? This last thing I want to say about this, then we'll talk about what we're gonna talk about this is this is the kind of the trippiest I've ever seen it. Really, my kids got PTSD from it. So we're out. My buddy dam Bulgan is driving our skill and I got my two little kids in there damn again. His wife's in there, Luisa, and me and my brother Matt are out and it was a negative low tide, so like the negative one low tide. And we were going out to pick c cucumbers and look for rock scallops. And there's this little islet, like this little teeny island out in this big this big like that. There's this this the mouth of a large arm that comes off this very large bay, and there's a little islet out in the middle of this thing, kind of isolated, and look for the scallops. You want to try to find places that are pretty our wave batter and there's a lot of movement of the water there. So we pull up and jump out there and start nosing around looking for cucumbers and scallops. And Austin I hear screaming from the boat and he's two knows three killer whales my kids call him or because that's like the PC thing to call it killer whales. Three killer whales are on my brother checking them out like thinking he's a seal. Oh, he's in the water, in the water in a wet suit. And they passed in front of the boat and came up and turned away at when they are eight feet away from his fins. He never knew they were there. I could hear people screaming from the boat and I look up and it's just dorsal fins. I can see Matt snarkle in his back and behind him is just dorsal fins scared the ship. I mean, my daughter's crying. I want to go back to the cabin. And even when we were flying, you know, even when we flew out of there, um, you know, you get it on a floatplane. Even when we flew out of there, she was still looking down asking if those whales are down, they're gonna bother us. Even over up the plane. Man, it was just and that never saw no, it wasn't aware of there. He was just like, you know, the visibility is not great. You can it's like wavy look in the art direction and they just tuned in on the noise of us in the water. But just you know, check him out, checking out, see if he's a seal or whatever. Dude, I feel the sealing didn't didn't you know? I feel for your kids because we're just in those two skiffs. Was it two years ago in the fall, we're rolling out going deer hunting, and we see him off in the distance, so we just you know, cut the engines and roll up on them, and they happened to be just kind of coming towards us, and I mean they cut our bow by ten to you know, the closest one there was probably five or six being that close to those animals and just knowing the things that are packing into my head growing up about you know, in air quotes, the killer whale, Like it got my heart racing for sure, Like that's a giant, giant thing that you know, everyone has seen some sort of clip or video of it mess with people, right. I thought about not getting back in the water, but then I was like that was like, is that the kind of person I really want to be? And so I forced myself. We stayed together because we had hit this rock and we each we're gonna go one way and meat on the other side of this island, and we decided to do it a side by side, whatever protection that gives you. But thought about not getting the water and I'm like, I'm not really gonna live my life this way, and then got back in there and just was not enjoying myself. That's not enjoying myself. Oh yeah, but we picked it. We picked a big pile of cues clean them all up. Then how do you cook those c cucumbers? You cut the ends off. You know what they look like, right, yea, you cut the ends off. Then you take a knife and open it, so you're like s batally cutting the ends off making a cylinder, right, And then you're opening the cylinder up and you flatten it out, and then take a party knife, and there's five big clams. Get all the guts out first, Yeah, there's watery guts, or they'll expel their gut too. When they're nerves. They can expel their gut and regenerate. But so you open them up and take a party knife and grab it with a pair of fish cleaning players like catfish skinning players, and take that party knife and just scrape those five big clam strips off in a swipe. Then just cook him up like clams or what's better than clam? Really arguably better than clam strips. And one cucumber yields one c cucumber yields more meat than anything this side of a gooey duck. And you could there's no limit on him. There's no close season, no limit on no one's out there. There's commercial guys that do it for the export markets. But it's not like Joe Blow. American is not out picking sea cucumbers. And all the time I lived in Alaska, I never sat down to a scumber cucumber telling you what they eat. When you're gonna start everyone that everyone is like, once you see what's inside, was like no ship and then people would get real interested in them. But we were up there for years before it occurred to us. I'm at an emergency room doctor from California who's got a shock. It might as well be a million miles away from my place because he can't don't get there in a skiff, but he's got a shack not far from our shack, and he goes out there in his primary purpose when he's up there is diving abaloney. Depends on who he's with. Only a resident can pick Abaloni's. But he got bodies up there's Abalonei's scalped cucumbers. You can die for crab. That's what he does. He has it for that purpose, and I was like, really eat those, and then we went out and started getting them. A nomin true believer. You just gotta get over the way that it looks, you know, I could do that. It's like octopus, I'll cook you some up man, now that we're neighbors or now that we live in the same town. Yeah, starting in one week, I'll pick you something. Oh who I'm talking to is uh Kurt Roscoe, who's been on the show before long ago. Thanks for having me. Devoted listeners will know because we did um what do we call that episode the Impossible Hunt? I think so, yeah about Kurt's exploits keep break down just throughing and people can break down the unlimited the unlimited sheep hunts. Um. Yeah, yeah, I know. We had a lot more facts and figures and when we talked about it. Yeah, it's like basically how it goes. Basically, go out of your one around and don't get to see anything. Yeah, anybody can be a sheep. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. There are several districts and in the state of Montana and uh they're all in the same general area, and they have a limit in each unit, but unlimited people can put in for those tags and can buy those tags. So you know, it's one of the few places where anybody from anywhere can just buy a sheep tag and go sheep hunting. As a matter of fact, I'm not aware of another place that you can do that. Um. So you know, nonresident, nonresident alien doesn't matter. And so what they do is they typically open it up on September and it will be open till the end of rifle season, which is typically you know, the third week and November, and it's open for any weapon, rifle or archery. And once the limit is once the quota I should say is met in each unit, then it closes. So most of the units hovering around between two and three sheep. I think most of them are at two this year. And you know it's as simple as that. That just gives an opportunity to anybody wants to go. And sometimes the quote never gets met. Yeah, yeah, so you know historically we had a little bit more of these facts before, but about half of the units don't close on a given year. Um. And you know, but there's also a buffer on each side. So once the quotas met, it will close in uh usually forty eight hours, and so sometimes in a unit, one extra ram will be taken during that. But you know, generally speaking, it's you know, from those units you're looking price six eight cheap in a year total. I gotta follow ups. I don't think we hit this last time we chatted with you. But any idea how many are killed with archery equipment? Not very many? Um do you even know anybody that's that? I do? I do. UM. I know of I know second hand of a guy who shot one just a couple of years ago, um, out of out of one of the units. Uh, it wasn't the bear Tooth units. Um. And then um there is I I do know of one other guy that shot one UM in the Barretooth's unit. That's the only one that I know of personally that was shot in the bar Tooth. But that was back in the late sixties. And um, yeah, it was quite a feat, quite a feat. You have you ever been tempted to try with bo No? No, not at all. No, I I don't know. There there's you know, there's so many challenges when you go into something like that. I just don't feel that it need that extra level at this point. I'm with you. Yeah, yeah, and you've done it successfully once once. Yeah, and you're going seven years ago, right, seven years ago? Yeah, well technically eight, I guess, but yeah, there's a seven year weight so you did it successfully seven years ago and you had to wait that long, and now you can try again. And you're going for fifteen days by yourself this year. Yeah, yeah, fourteen or fifteen days, Yeah, somewhere around there. Yeah, I guess here's a segue. So we're gonna talk about how to look, how to pack in a in a like, Yeah, basically, how to pack, how to pack and approach deep kind of wilderness hunting situations. Um. And you're going for that many days, fourteen or fifteen days, and you won't you won't go back to your truck at all. No, No, I'm not planning on it. Um. Yeah, No, I mean that's that's what I'm packing to do. That's what I did last time. How many pounds will you have? I don't know what the total will be? Um, I was yeah, I was just I'm starting to get all my stuff together right now. And so you know, my my pack weights right about twenty six pounds before food. So you know that that's that's all of your standard gear, your camp gear, glass tripod doesn't include a rifle. Um. And then you know, I'm I'm hovering between one point two and one point four pounds of food today. So you know, I'm gonna be north of twenty pounds on food and um, so you know for that amount of time you're going to Yeah, you're gonna be in that fifty pound range, which I would be happy with that many days. Yeah, that sounds extremely light, extremely light. Yeah, like you're fore going a lot of loot. Well, yeah, you know, maybe some of you. I mean you're not taking a pillow, and you're not taking camp shoes, you're not taking some of the creature comforts that maybe you're are nice to have with you know, when you're within a day of the truck or you know what el cunting is a little bit different because you know you're going to be making more than one trip out. So you know when I'm well, I don't understand how's that like, what's what's they have to do with how much you want to carry in? Well, if you if you already know, you know with an ELK that I'm going to have multiple trips out taking a little bit of extra gear and you know on each if you have three trips out, then you want to take an extra five pounds on each one to go in a little bit heavier. Is all right, Oh, I get what you're saying. But when you're coming out and you're trying to come out in one load with a sheet by yourself, by yourself, yeah, there's some limitations because there you're adding pounds. Yeah, yeah, you know it's uh, um, it doesn't end up quite being that, but it is. It is pretty heavy in Montana because the eggs you have to take you can't keep out the head. You can't cap the skull. You have to take you know, the whole head and cape and take the head of cape out on the head. Yeah, you knowing. And it's said it dictates exactly where you can sever the skull from the spine. Yeah. Yeah, I would have to look at that again, but it it it says, you know, well the last time it did, Yeah did yet you know you can take it right behind the head, right at the right at the base of the spine and um, yeah, but everything else has stay intact. Interesting, you mentioned camp shoes. Yeah. Um, my brother when he's hunting doll sheet in Alaska, he likes to bring uh he's al He's always messed around with different footwear things. Where for while he's doing plastic boots, was he off that because last time we hunted with and he was that was his first year in plastics. Well, I think he's not running plastics now. He liked plastics because he could cross creeks and take the ends to take the piece out. The man squeaky sounds of bitches. I hunted with him in those plastic things. Yeah, they can be. He likes like plastic boots. You can understand. Man is like a you know, to the listener, like some areas, hunting dolls sheep is just it's just rock. It's just rock. There's not any there's no trail, there's no trail at all. Everything's off trail. You know, everything's off trail. Everything's rock. There's no sort of like sweet kind of walking places. So it's not that much of a detriment to run plastic boots. But he is big on having his boots and a pair of sneakers. Yeah, and then I got me a pair of those down booties, those down camp booties. Oh my god, it those nice to have. But like this year, hunting doll sheep and not even a month, two weeks, two weeks by the time he listened to this, will probably be in the field. I won't. I won't be bringing my down my special down booties. So did they have souls on the bottom so you can get out and walk around? No, you can't really get out and walk around. They got Yeah, they got a soul on the bottom. But man, we're going to the latrine that night. It's so nice. They'll take them damn boots off. It is, but you'll just be running boots. No extra footwear. No, huh no, I don't. But I use plastic boots too, so you know you have the inn So you wear plastics. Hunting down here a lot? Yeah, who's plastic boots? I wear Scarpas. Yeah, I wear the Scarpo Omega's they quit making them, which was a total bummer, but I wrapped hold a couple of pairs and but they're They're one of those things that I've I've suggested them to several friends that have gone on cheap hunts, and you know, it's it's it's a fifty fifty whether or not they fix. You're not going to break them in. You know. It's not like a leather boot where you just wear it more than it's gonna fit. And especially the Scarpo Omega's that they're a real dense liner, so there isn't much to move around, you know, to to form to your foot, so they don't look like, yeah they are, they are, but you know they're real light. They never get wet, um, I don't get blisters in them. There's still the most comfortable boots that I have, so I wear them a lot. When you do finally hit the trail though, and you've got like just five miles of trail to rip, don't it almost I know, yeah, it feels so awkward because you're kind of like, you know, because you don't bring crampons down here to you um typically no, uh, you know, it kind of depends on on some of the you know, some of the area, or it depends on if there's snow or ice on the ground. But you know, some of the some of the smaller crampons I have. I have a pair of crampons that I have cut down there are only three quarter inches tall, you know, kind of like the I'm not going to broounce it, right, but cattla kinda there you go. You know, they make the slip on base type. Those are really nice when it's slick and you know, more from a state safety standpoint than anything. But you don't depend you know there there's still you know, especially on a sheep hunt, you know, something down and in the bar Tooth there's there's a lot of steep, nasty country in there, and it's it's nice to have a little bit more foot protection. Yeah. Man, every year. I remember a couple of years a gonna last you guys died falling mountain go hunt. Yeah, there's just not that many guys mountain go hunt. No, No, you know, especially in those places that have big exposure. It's not necessarily that you're climbing vertical ice or that you you know, you really need them. You're just trying to protect yourself from slipping and and there's a lot of times, especially in September, you can get yourself into a place when it's dry and all of a sudden there's a skiff of snow and it can be flat treacherous trying to get out. So um yeah, just kind of depends on the area. But sometimes I'll carry them down here. So when you're when you're running those and at nighttime, when you're just kicking around camp, do you just walk around the liners? Um? Yeah, if it's dry, I will yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, you said you never get wet. We're all these plastic boots for a while. But one last question on it. You said you never get wet, but do you sweat enough in them sometimes that you get them wet from the inside out? Yeah? Yeah, I should clarify that. Yeah, the the inside and then I just keep rotating through socks. But the liners, particularly on these, are dense enough. I used to use the co Flak too, and they're super comfortable and they had a real squishy nice but they would they the inner boot would absorb a little bit more moisture. Scarpa bought co Flak and now they're putting those high density type liners in there, and those don't absorb as much water. They'll they'll still get moist but you can open them up and and they'll they'll dry out pretty quick. But yeah, you have to rotate through your socks. But as far as the boot itself, I've just had some issues with with you know, certain types of leather boots that over the course of a hunt, they get wet and you can't ever get them dry again, and then it gets cold and now they're frozen. They can't get your foot in there, and you know that it just can't. Can create some issues that way. Yeah, yeah, like wake up and put your boot inside your sleeping bed to get the thought out enough to put it on exactly. That's all. It was fun. Yeah yeah, and then the feet are gonna be real warm. Yeah yeah. It's a hell of a way to start the morning. You don't wear those plastic boots out squirrel hunting you, so you save it for like I do save extreme. I don't want to wear them out, only have to bear. I can't decide, uh, I can't decide hunting sheet this year. I'm kind of thinking about this running those uh running my timberline boots, ma'am. You don't think it's origin. I think it's a bad idea. Yeah, because I wore those when I went into the bear Tooths a couple of weeks ago, and it didn't take long. I mean again, on the trail, I was loving it. Oh, that's They're the greatest thing in the world. Like the older I think it's the perfect shoe man. Because we decided to hop a pass and get into another drainage, and as soon as we got off the trail, I was not. They just don't have the lateral support, you know. Yeah, it's more it's a it's like a great trail boot, but it's so foble. I was actually kicking around doing it. But I'm probably just gonna go with you know, go grants to have that extra ump, but no nighttime not bringing a nighttime comfy shoe. Well here's the deal though, with our hunt. We're flying into what the outfit calls his base camp, right that has definitely has he has a weather port there. What you probably know what that is. I didn't really know what it is, but weatherport when we look at a picture of it, and tell me if I just describe it wrong, Kurt, But it's like a you know sometimes Yeah, I was going to describe it as like when someone doesn't have enough money to actually put up a garage. The shape it's the shape of the shape of a clanet you're talking about. They put up those like car forards, you know that you can drive into. It's like a ten it's the last five years or so. It kind of looks like that, right. So where yeah, so where we're flying. Yeah, where you're flying into you can bring and stuff like that. You know. It's like when you're flying in, whether you have that or not, you can um whether you have that or not, you can bring in extra food, all kinds of stuff, unless unless I have a couple of those extras there, you know, because then we're gonna spike out for two to three nights at a time, and so when I come back, you know, I'll have that nice like you call it creature comfort. That's a good plan. Yeah, Like, but even when you have a pilot limits you. If you have a pilot limits you to fifty pounds on a flight, then it's pretty tight. But other times when I've flown in with my brother Hunt Sheep, we flew in extra emergency food and then like umfy shoes and even some other nice stuff that you would like a puffy jacket that you're never going to carry with you, but you can just hang in a tree in a dry bag. You know, you got to come back. So what I'm talking more about is when you just like strike off from the airstrip, and this case, we have an outfit or friend who's letting us use like a posh base camp that will then strike off from like you're saying, for like a few days at a time. So I'm talking about like leaving there. So you ask me if I'm taking my crocks with me evening time, comfy shoes, I won't. Um, Now, Kurt, how many pairs of socks do you bring? Fourteen days? Fourteen days? So my program is um your sock program, my sock program. Yeah, so I I typically wear two pairs of of some sort of hiking sock a little bit taller, and then two pairs of once, two pairs of once. It just it keeps the blisters down. If you haven't that many problems with blisters, maybe should change boots. That's a good fun, those blister inducing boots. He was just saying that they don't give him a blisters. Yeah, so maybe it's my socks that don't give me blisters. But not like a liner and a hiking sock you actually double up on like Marino blend socks. Yeah. Well, yeah, I should clarify because I used to do the liner thing to eliminate blisters. Silk liners, but it gives your foot like an unstable. You don't talk about for while they made those, like so we would run like a silk liner and then you put a Marino blend thing over it, but every you can't get a blister with them. But every time you step, you feel your foot shift in a very annoying way that leads your foot to get not blistered, but sore because it's sliding around in there. It just because it doesn't it doesn't grip. So it's like it feels like it feels a little bit like every step you feel your foot moving away. It doesn't normally move, which I hate that feeling. So I gave up on liners. You can eliminate blisters though, yeah, yeah, for sure. So so I should clarify on this. They're they're basic, you know, just above boot top height. Um. But it's it's a lighter pair of a Merino based the type hiking sock thinner and then a more cushioned um fuller hiking sock on the on the outside, and and so and then I'll just bring one extra pair of the thick pair, rotate those in and out every day, but depending on how long I go, you know, three pairs of the of the lighter ones and they don't take up hardly any room, but you can cycle them through their thin enough that you know, if you get to a stream, you can you can wash out one pair and just keep rotating through so you don't get foot funking. And I think the biggest thing that I found is on those long hunts when that that inner pair of socks that you have, they get so matted and they get to the point where they get hard, but you can by washington. That's it. So just just having enough pair so I could cycle through them that way, Yeah, because like wash them in the creek and then you just hang them off your hack for the day and they kind of refluff they do, and I just wash them with like shampoo whatever happened to have with me. Yeah, because I'll bring a little bit of shampoo. That's another question. So I'll bring a little bit shampoo because my head starts. It's the damn bad drive me creepy, that's do you ever bring kind of soap now? But I bring wet wipes, a little wet wipes. Um, you know that Dr bond or soap, Like the teeniest container of that stuff is worth it's worth quite a bit. But it really does. Man, I feel like the face of that pepformant soap. Dude, you're loving man. Yeah, And it kind of it gives you a second wind, and I would imagine I've never done a fourteen day hunt, you know. I think the fongest I've made has been maybe seven or eight nights, like actually living out of my backpack. But um, yeah, like four or five days in when you're just really getting that kind of greasy, grimy feel going and if you're at that right creek in the sunshine to be able to dr bees your head and your face. Man, you're a new man, you know. Yeah that does sound nice. One pair of pants, one pair of pants, Yeah, but it's it's all in a layering system. So you know usually uh you know, Marino bass layer and then um, a down insulation layer that's typically packed away for your leg down pants. Yeah. I started on the lower body and then but bahoma backup because let's say you're hunting, Uh, do you run that when you're hunting sheep in August and Alaska? Or do you just trust it's not gonna get that cold? No. I I always carried a part. At that time, I was using the Patagonia synthetic micropuff. They were some of the only ones that were more for the August hunt because I feel like you can stay totally warm with a marino base. Then I wear like a wool blend like the first like cannab pant, like a wool blend pant. Then a rain pant because it's gonna be pretty damn cold to get cold with that. You're absolutely right. So there's a couple of things that The first thing for me is that I had a couple of instances where you get a lot of got a lot of wind, a lot of rain, and and it just gets damn cold sitting in one spot, you know, and you're get in spots where you have to glass, you have to spend you know, multiple hours being in one spot, or you get pinned down and you have to wait him out. Even if it's sixty five degrees, it's wet, it's cold. It's just like jumping in the ocean. If it's sixty five degrees, you're gonna die from hypothermia. But yeah, yeah, so that's why I started carrying them. And then and then secondly that then I know what kind of segue into this. But it can also be part of your sleep system. So you can shave some weight by taking the lighter bag. Then you always have that you know, when you have your puff layers up and down, you know, I don't use a thirty two degree bag. Yeah that's a good point, so you know you could kind of get multiple use out of gear. Yeah, that's a good point. I want to touch on that sleeping with puffies inside of a bag, but we can touch we can come back to that when we're talking about sleeping bags. We don't get too off drag. So do you run rain pants? Yeah? Yeah, the big believer in rain pants. Yeah, yeah, that's that's I think that's one of the key pieces of gear. And I think they should calm wind and rain pants because yeah, let's because a lot of times we put it on them on just to beat the wind off of ye exactly anytime it gets cold, you know, just keeping because so many of the layers are permeable, you know, so that they breathe that that that wind, you know, that air transfer just pulls the heat you know, from your inner layers. So it's nice to keep that barrier. I think too, that you wind up packing when it comes to close. You're more packing for the trip you just had than the trip you're going on. Like you're really informed by your last set of experiences. So if you go somewhere and it's pretty warm and gravy, right, and then you you're loading up for your next outing, you wind up being like, oh, yeah, I'm cutting this out. I'm cutting that out. If you're coming somewhere from just being wet and cold, you think differently, like coming off if you were going to come off a fog nack right and go pack for a trip, no matter where it was, you would approach it differently. After that. Definitely, you're like driving rain and it gets in your head, you know, the whole world like that. Yeah, it just gets in your head and it's hard to like snap out of it. You know. If you come somewhere and everything's like you know, you go and you pack a pair of rain pants and you go a week and never pull them out. Lady Like, yeah, screw these rain pants, man. You know you gotta So it's like you gotta like keep the you gotta keep in mind, learn from what happened, but not like really live it in a in a in a big way, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, for sure, where you're not you're not like trying to replicate, you're not trying to do what you should have done when you had a shitty trip. Yeah, you know, but that's that's where a lot of the you know, the gear hacks come from. You know, there's nothing like a real piss, poor, miserable situation to make you change how you look at what you have in your pack. You know, when when you're cold for an extended period of time and you have all that time to sit there and think about the mistake you make because you didn't bring the right piece of gear that tends to stick with you. Yeah, I feel like those are the only times it's like sunny and seventy per week, you're not thinking about what you're sitting in your tents. There's the things I always like a layout and look at and can't decide would be down, can't booties, Mitts Mittens, like you spent a few days with your fingers just froze and that's more like a late season thing. But like Mittens, I look at him, I'm like, really, you're gonna bring Mittens puffy pants. We spent a lot of time debating puffy pants. A big puffy like a down, full on down jacket, so nice to have, and we'll debate it, but with but with the early So if you're going if you're talking like an early season deal, like right now or August September, you're still saying you have Long John's. Do you guys say Long John's where you grew up. We'll stay where you born in here here. Yeah, you guys grew up staying Long John's. Yeah, and my grandpa said it, Okay, get your Long John's Brian Callahan causing long handles. Yeah, then you got your pants and you're bringing puffies and you're bringing rain pants and your pack ways what pounds six? Yeah? All right, so let's let's adderstional thoughts. I was gonna say, let's go above the above the belt. Okay, but for you right now, you're not running. Don't tell me you're bringing puffies on our little adventure here. Yeah? Really yeah, and again because you know we're going we're flying in but never but forget that. Could that'd be like saying, yeah, you can't because think about it like this. Think about it like this. Think about if you have a place you could fly into and you have a base of operations. If we were hunting right here out of town and we're going away for two nights and I said you, are you bringing your puffy pants? You wouldn't say, yeah, they're in my house. It's the same thing. Okay, you follow me, Yeah, I follow you. I'm gonna bring him. I'm talking about when you strike out to go spend several days, what could leave what could turn into several days, Not what you're leaving behind in your truck or at a weather port, or at a cabin or in your boat. Follow me at the airstrip. It's like striking out. So you're striking out from your truck. Say you're telling me that you're gonna bring puffies for what reason when it gets cold, Well, I might do. What I might do is not bringing long handles. Yeah, because what I've like, what I've started to do is because with long John's always kind of like having to make the decision in the morning on what like whether they're gonna be with you on you for the rest of the day, right because it's such a pain. And take your pants off, take your boots off and get it take them off, you know we're put them or put them on midday. So I almost like being like hunting in my bass layer, which is just my pants, and then that way, as it progressively gets worse or colder, I can just add or take off. But I always know that like, oh ship, we're still we're gonna hike for five miles right now, Like I can just strip down and there are my regular pants and I'm ready to go. Yeah. That's a good point because when you wake up in the morning, you got your long handles on, You're you're like, dude, I'm not taking these off because I'm so comfortable, and then you're like, you know that within three yards you're gonna be like, really, man, I wish you had taken them off, right, Yeah, alright, um, and they're they're probably way you probably know exactly, but I'm guessing they weigh pretty close to the same amount. Yeah, yeah, because I mean the heavier wolf stuff, you know, it's it's definitely yeah, I don't have the exact spects on it, but that you're right, a lot more warmth. Yeah. Uh. When you count your pack weight, yeah, you're you're you're not counting what you You're you're not counting your main apparel. But are you counting the weight of your puffies? Yeah? Yeah, my puffies are puffies and in socks, you know, gloves. Rain gear doesn't get counted though, yeah, rain gears in there. And do you run and then do you like to run the same basic set up for uppers Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's virtually identical. Marin Bay Marino base than like a thing puffy yep. This year I'm thinking about going with think about switching it up a little bit and I have an uh, going like a T shirt Marino T shirt and then like a heavier shirt and just have that be my like a T shirt in my basic because you can get so hot that time of year, in the middle of the day walking up some never ending hill. A T shirt can feel pretty good. It's the same materials, Like you got like a cotton like, no, you're just doubling up Belltown Pizza T shirt on. You got like a Marino T shirt. That's what I used to do. I really like them. Yeah, yeah, gonna be careful for that is the middle of the day going to a T shirt. Man, you gotta pull out the sunscreen because you get worked over on some hills or bugs. Bugs yeah yeah, but bugs aren't usually that bad up on the wind swept ridges and stuff. You know, that's better have you got mauled by bugs? Much hunting? Sheep doll sheet? Oh yeah, yeah for sure, down in the bottoms and the willow bottoms that could be pretty, and a little white socks. I found they were more miserable than the than the mosquitoes. There night, my we're just getting mauled by them at our cabin. And I did my daughter up and and bugs pray, but didn't get her. You know when kids are bent over. Her shirt rides up. Oh yeah, man, it looks like I felt like a bad dad. Didn't just it's just nothing but bug bites on that one strip of skin between her waistline and her shirt line. I felt pre horrible. She's like, you didn't box pray there? Yeah, so I stuff like that. You bring a little sunscreen, No, I've never brought sunscreen. Do you bring a little bug Yeah? Yeah, I did just dent beat so you can have a small container. Yeah, and a lot of times in Alaska and if it was on an early hunt, um, I just bring with those super for lightweight head nets. M you know, I mean they can't wait but an ounce, and then once you have your ball cap on, you don't even need the hooped one. Yeah, you just keep them off your face. I just found those white socks, man. They you know, they dig and burrow underneath your hat and even when you're wearing you know, the bug spray. Just yeah, they're ferocious or candy. Do you like a heavy duty rain jacket or a light duty rain jacket? I'm I'm using a three year, A three layer, um you know, waterproof, breathable, um use, you know, multiple different So yeah, it's probably more on the heavy duty side than the lightweight. UM. I've used the two layer before too, and it it worked. The only problem was is that a lot of times on the top of the shoulders or anywhere where your pack was writing, it just eventually would start to wet and and it was hard to get dry after that. But so that was kind of why I went to the re layer. Had a little better luck, and there wasn't hardly any difference in the way A couple of ounces. What do you do for gloves? Us bring light gloves? I do? I have a I have a light pair of the Outdoor Research I think they call them the Peel four hundreds or something, but there are a Marino synthetic blend and UM so even if your hands get wet, they will you know, they stay pretty warm and they dry out real quick. But then I take the o R mits, the gore waterproof mits over that. So if you do get into the alders or something, you know, real wet conditions, um, they'll keep your hands dry. And yeah, it's not as convenient you don't have the fingers, but I haven't had a lot of luck with with waterproof fingered gloves. Just seems no, it's all a lie man. Yeah, I'm not saying that they're not out there, but I haven't. You can buy a fish or like what do they call grabbing gloves, you know, if you really want something that's a hunting final Like yeah, final gloves are like waterproof, but they're just sweaty and swampy. Yeah, and that's a thing. That's so let's say you were hunting. Let's say you were just hunting like archery, you're hunting September archery. Elk. Yeah, you wouldn't bring the myths, no, no, no, And I mean we have. That's the great thing about honey out, you know, especially in this state, you're gonna have an unbelievable you know, forecast. You can check everything you can pack for the specific weather that you're going to have opposed to what you guys are going into or you know, even what I'm going to do. I you could be in snow, you could be eighty degrees, you could be anywhere in between. You know, August tenth up there. Yeah, we've wanted We've hunted in August in the snow, which when you're looking for a white animal really like, yeah, it's bad. Or sitting in the tent, yep, sitting the tent for two days and then it snows and it's got that kind of fog. Equality Yeah, I remember in August hunting sheep and it's snowed, and then it finally got just beautiful. And looking at tracks on the mountain side and just filling the tracks and my spot and scope and trying to figure out where the tracks went, and realized they ended because there's a sheep standing there. I couldn't see the sheep. I can just see the trail ended. Yes, no, man, you're but I'm glad to have this conversation because you're reminding me of all the bad things that can happen. Well, you know, that's the interesting thing, especially up there, is you never know what you're gonna be getting into, so you kind of really have to prepare for everything, whether or not you leave it at camp or not. Yea, but with gloves, you know that sounds like you don't pack a pair of gloves actually like really protect your hands. Yeah, yeah, but that's that's the other thing that I found with the mitst though, is that even when your hands get cold, you know, when you have all of your fingers together inside the mit my ends seem to warm up quicker. Yeah, and then you canet you know, if you can keep that warmth up that it'll help dry out the gloves you have under it, you know, the soft shell are So that's kind of been my program that I've stuck with. And they're extremely light, you know. That's another added feature I've gone to. Uh like really not unless it's like just getting that that cold where like okay, you have to have gloves on, which a lot of times is getting near freezing, and so you get into usually once it gets near freezing, you're getting into sort of a dryer state, right because you're not looking at rain anymore, but possibly snow. I know there's that in between and probably seed a lot in Alaska, but I've found having better luck just having my hands out there getting drenched and just kind of being like, yes, this is how it's going to be today and dealing with it, and then at the end of the day when I get in my tent or whatever, being able to put on some dry gloves, or when the rain stops, put on some dry gloves. When you get out of the willows, put on some dry gloves, because it just feels like if you get your liners wet, I almost feel like that's worse having wet gloves on your hands than just having wet hands, because the minute it stops raining, your skin dries and you put it. And what I've been doing two is I'll just run them inside my you know, rain jacket pockets as I'm hiking along, you know, if I don't need my hands, and that seems to keep them warming up. Yeah, they're wet, but once you get them what it takes a hell of a nice day to ever get them dry again. Yeah, you gloves for sure. Yeah, I'm with you there. I I do everything I can to keep those, you know, the actual insulating layer dry, and even as far as just wearing the mits over a bare hand. You know, if it's if it's wet and blowing and you know, just hovering at that forty five super cold, or it feels cold with the wet, you can just put those over bare hands and we'll keep your fingers warm. Do you uh? Do you? Um? We're in a netgator, I have uh. Yeah, Depending on the time of year, I'll take one with me. Um, if it's earlier, normally I don't, but um, you know, if if there's any chance of snow, yeah, I have a lightweight one kind of a poly blend like a belt. Do you wear a belt or does an internal like built in belt on my bridges apparently? Yeah? Um, yeah, yeah, no I do. I do, But I just use some of our webbing. I just have, you know, just the real thin one inch webbing and the and the tension lock. Yeah, that's the kind of belt I like for like I I generally wear like a heavy duty belt normally for most stuff. But I now have a super thin, dinky, little three quarter inch webbing belt because I hate the feeling of my backpack digging into my belt. Yeah, I do too, And it's and it's keeping all of that volume on the waistline as small as you can. I mean for me at least. Um, well, you know some pants have the doubled up belt loops, or if you go with a thicker webbing belt, all of that stuff creates that you know, um, that that extra thickness right in your belt line, and it just becomes a pressure point for for you know, when you're packing, when you have your heavy pack, when you tighten the hip belt on it. Yeah, especially on the belt loop areas. I've noticed some of the pants I've used, so yeah, because I'll get it to where I can feel like some something like numb sensations almost like on the front of my thighs kind of coming off my hips a little bit. A lot of times I'll look in there and do some wiggling around and something's just been bunched up, you know, just to create that pinch point. Yeah, kind of dyes, you run. I use those. I use the first light wool ones, the ones that are a little bit longer, I do. I do those, man, those are super comfortable, and it's almost like having like half of a set of law John's. It is because you've got long socks on. You can pull up to your knees. The only thing that's not exposed is your kneecap. Yeah, yeah, I know. I really dig those. Yeah, they're comfortable. Do you uh, how many extra pairs ones you bring along? That's it, just the ones, just the one you're taking a minute wash them on a super nice day. Yeah. No, listen if I don't have a problem with that, I don't have a problem that at all. That's what the wet wipes are for that, yeaheah. Yeah, so you gotta keep up. There's some maintenance that goes along with it. Yeah. We used to mess around with um various powders, you know, to powder and stuff like that. Do you do anything like that? I don't. Just wet wipes. Yeah, just wet wipes. You bring one wet white for every day. I bring one of those little packages and I shower in a bag or it's a shower and souped up wet wiper, genuinely like, oh no, just just the regular they're unscented ones. Yeah, you like the uncented I do. Yeah. I don't know why. Yeah, it's not gonna I don't believe that it makes a difference. It's just seems like the thing you should do if you're hunting. I usually bring one. I usually bring one for every day. But do you ever you familiar with shower in a bag? Basically a big gass wet white. Okay, yeah, it's a big wet white. You know, you can do a good scrubbing, but then you up having all the damn things unless you burn them or something. Yeah, you ever make fires? I'm not very often? No? No, what do you bring for a hat? Ball cap? Obviously? Yeah, ball cap and then stocking hat? You know several different types. And do you run like a do you run around me Warren? Where you wear your stocking hat over your ball cap? No? I don't. But this last year, I uh, I had I started using and I can't even remember who makes it, Morment or something. The hoodie the full face not full face, be like a half faced hoodie that you can pull up over. Yeah, and that was slick. I like that, but kind of the same principle where you can just pull it up over your ball cap. And I found that I was wearing my stocking hat rarely after having that, and it was real lightweight materials, so you know, to dry out even after it got snow on it. You don't wear like a wool blend stocking cap. I do have one, Yeah, yeah, I do have one that I carry on something like your stocking cap. Do you ever like get rid of the stock and cap you like because you're worried about it being too heavy and go with a light weight stock and no, I can't say I've done that. I left behind my last September on my elcoin. I left behind my woolve stock and cap and just went with the first light Chama hoodie. Oh yeah, because I found the same thing. You're wearing that things so when it gets chill, you're putting that on, and then next thing you know, you went a whole week. You never put your beanie hat on, you know. And plus I like sleeping in that thing because it's loose, So you don't like the stocking cap sometimes for me on my ears, oh, if you've been wearing all, your ears start to hurt, sleep your ears hurt. But those hoodies are nice. I was behind the curve on that one. Most everybody I knew. I hunted with one, and I don't know why I did never conform, but I know why they have them now. I uh The reason I like the little, the thin marino net gator is I also sleep where I wear it as my little tuk at night. That's French for hat. I think. I wear it at night and I pulled over my eyes to make things extra dark. You know what I'm saying. Keeps your ears warm, makes everything nice and dark so you can sleep good. It's the perfect thing, especially in Alaska this time of year. Yep, that's things like it's sometimes hard to sleep, yeah for sure. Yeah. I remember my brothers one time, like, yeah hunt in August. They one time we're watching some sheep and I said, there's no point during the night when you couldn't wake up and find them with find him with binoculars. Yeah, always that light out it starts to drive you crazy. Yeah, so I like that even just upo my fish chack. I was running my thing over my eyes at night long still long days. I really kind of rely on it. A little thin neck gator. Used it for tons of stuff and keeps down sunburn on your neck and like you're always getting your neck cooked. It's amazing what those thin little marino ones will do for you, just for uh, for up in your warmth. If you lose a lot of heat out of your necks when you put that thing on. It really it insulates. I'll do to gushes out of there, man, if you can kind of cork that up with one of those things. What else? Ni, oh, what else? I guess it's while we're still on clothes. Talk gators. Yeah, I think people put I think a lot of guys were gators. They think they look badass. I think it looks like when you see a mug walking around and it's hot out and dry out and they got gators on, Like, what are you gatoring? Well, all gators are good for No, let me answer your questions, because you might be running like a very low profile more of like almost like a running shoe, like a body Rick Smith runs. And in that case, if you have one of those like small tightening, they call him scree gators. You know you're keeping the junk out of your shoes. It's I'm talking about I'm talking about big palon knee. Gators are good for the snow, they're good for wading through a bunch of wet brush, and they're good crossing a shallow creek. Crossing the shallow creek. But to be out tromping around and gators in nice weather. I don't understand. It's like people who go snowshoeing when there's only a photo of snow, because I just want the experience of wearing the snowshoe, flipping snow up on their butt. Yeah, like I'm going snowshoeing, whether I need them or not. I think some people like the run gators. They feel like they're like a badass mountain hunter when they strapped those gators on. I really think that that's true. Kurt, what's your take on this. Well, I'm six ft four and I had a hell of a time finding pants that bloods that weren't. Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of times. That's that's why I wore them. But that being said, I I totally understand where you're coming from. You know when it's but if you're on a long hunt, So take, for example, on this hunt, are you going to take gators? No cumbering rain pants? Okay, so I always, I typically always take gators. But on a nice warm day, you figure out what do you what do you do with them? You know, you had them on in the morning because you get up in the morning and you know, everything's wet, so you don't want your pants to get wet or you know, that's the reason that you have the gators. And then it gets nice in the middle of the day, and normally I'll wear them all day unless it gets so hot that it's uncomfortable in your calves and everything, you know, because that's the thing is they just get like, yeah, it's just things get swampy inside there. Yeah. And if you've got a good pair of rain pants that you can buckle down or tighten down, you get you. I get my if I'm putting on, I'll even roll my pants up one or two times and then put my rain pants on and buckle them down. Yeah, that's a pro move if it's snowy. I like the gators, especially tent camping like this kind of stuff, because then you get all that snow packed up, you pull your pants off, and you realize this guy like that wet globs of basically like snowballs living between your pants and boots and stuff. That's that's not good. Gators are nice for that. Yeah, why are you looking at me like that? I'm just gonna add about your time about rolling your pants up and uh, I don't know why I got to do in that last September. That's how they hunt in New Zealand. They hunting shorts and boots. Yeah, but I was. I was wearing my gators. But what I was doing is I had those long, tall first Light socks on it, and I was tucking my pants into the tops of those socks so that they wouldn't be on top of my boots where there's moisture coming in even underneath the gators a little bit. And as soon as you know that moisture hits something that's dry, it's gonna want to wick and travel. And I would find that even though I was all covered up, when I had my pants down, I would have like the bottom, you know, fullat of my pants, possibly the tops of my socks would be wet. And You're like, can I really be sweating that much? Or why? Why was that? So as soon as I started doing that and bringing my cuffs up off of my boots and just letting the gator be with the boot, I had a h percent completely dry feet and dry socks and dry you know. When I got an a tent, I would roll down my pants and they'd be completely dry. People on people underestimate wicking. Yeah, water travels crazy places. If it's super wet and you're getting your cuffs wet, that's stuff of migrate way up your arm. Yeah. Well, John Edwards and snails telling me that he thinks a lot of people complain about having wet leaky boots because the water will actually come all the way up their pants, hit their socks, and then go down their socket into their boot where they're like the top of their boots better than their toes are. Do you ever look up water in the dictionary? No, it's good. You think you know all about water? It calls it. I think of liking almost universal solvent. There's nothing new with what we're talking about. Um, you good on gators. I'm gonna bring them. You bring them, not just your rain pants. Maybe I'll bring mind too. Good idea. You agree that people like the esthetics of gators. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I like them. Do they realize how how sweaty they can make your calves? I gotta think about it. I can't decide. Um that's it for duds, I think so any there are accessories that we missed, gloves, hats, shades, What about some shades, shades, bring shades on your sheep. No, no, no, it's bad luck. It will just start raining. Really no, but no, I don't know. Brick chains, uh got Some days are nice to have, they are, yeah, yeah, I shouldn't say. I think that's that's been because you almost have to bring a case, you do, and you have to keep track of them, and yeah, some days are nice, but they're a little bit hard to maintain. But some days it's just like it's so nice to have them. Yeah, especially if you're on the alpine not a lot of shady trees to hide under. No, but it's hard to glass with them, you know, you end up taking them off. Yeah, and I've had to be. I've had to be. There's one in particularly member cause I got a couple of photographs from it, like early on, as long as twenty years ago, um, hunting doll sheep where we were even like making taking duct tape to convert sunglasses into glacier glasses. It was that bad, especially when you get out in snowfields. Yeah, it is horrible, yep, and like trying to seal off anything around, like you're like that hurting for sunglasses and like keeping that in mind. If you're hanging around glaciers and stuff, keeping that in mind makes you be like, okay with carrying around sunglass because it's just as miserable. I take it you're gonna bring some after that for sure. Where it's just horrible. There's a lot of glare. Even the rock gets glary, the shale gets glary. You don't believe in them. No, I wouldn't say that I don't believe in them because I mean I always have sunglasses with me or on, you know, all summer. But I think it you just kind of get to that point of you know, what can I live without? Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, boys Coast to send me some camouflage sunglasses, so yeah, so I'll be able to hide. Dude, don't set them down. Well they got there. Hopefully it's yeah, hopefully it's reduced glare lens too, any any other clothing. So I want to move on anither clothing. I think I think we can move on unless we want to throw in that. Uh that I got a question about how we're not a question, but I want to see what you guys think about cotton. If you've ever really seen somebody go down, because of cotton, right because people say cotton kills and then have you figured it till we ever actually seen someone gets smoked. I've seen people. Um, I didn't even think of the dudes. His first name is Chuck. I don't want to say his last name. Uh. Hunting Caribou had like a lot of like Carhart type stuff with them, and his just absolute system failure. What heavy cold, because you can't there's just nothing like you take, like there's nothing better. Man like dudes like you know, like big time horse guys, you know, because they can, like horse guys can pack so much ship with them, right, So horse guys will be like, you know, bring a big car heart jacket, like there's nothing better when it's cold to wake up and have that like wind proof you know thing. But um, and I've happily owned many of those things. But it's just like the kind of thing like once you get something like that wet, you can't get that. There's no wear in that dry. There's just nowhere in the dry and you could be packing around I don't know, five ten pounds of waterways jacket like that for sure. Their day I had to wash my daughter's sleeping bag in a five gallon bucket, you know. I remember putting like filled that bucket about the third the way up. Remember we were beach comb and I found that that joga yep jugga detergent that I think came from the Japanese tsunami. Remember, because all that Japanese stuff laying everywhere still five down bucket about a third way up with water and just put a little splash that next I didn't have you other kind of salt and put that sleeping bag into that water vanished. I was like, wow, man, that's like aple, Like is that called pounds water? You know? More? Yeah, you can fit a lot of water, I mean a whole five gallon buckets forty pounds. You can fit a lot of water into fabric. And the fabric that you're not going to get it out of I think is no good. So in that way, yeah, and then I've seen people that had cotton socks. It just don't work unless you're just tough. But my brother can hunt cotton socks because he's impervious to discomfort. It's amazing. Yeah, he defies logic sometimes. I was with him, you know, a couple of weekends ago for two or three nights in the woods, and I'm just like, really, that's what you're wearing, and that's what you're bringing, all right. Um, he's also got llamas too, so he's got a little bit of that horse guy in the mentality, you know, bringing the bring the kitchen sink, you know. Yeah, he can bring extra socks with him for sure. The third day, my kids found a dead gunnal looks like it's like a fish. It looks like an eel. They found it dead in a tide pool and then they were like put a scallop shell on the fire and boiled it. And it was already kind of nasty, you know when they found it and boiled, and he has ate the whole thing. They thought that was funny, but he just like doesn't you know what I mean, dude doesn't. It's nothing bothers him. So you can't learn a whole lot from him, you know. I remember one time he drank coffee mug full of rendered bar oil. Oh my, we're just drank it because he wanted the calories. There's nothing happened to him either a coffee moment, a coffee mug of melted rendered bear lard and just drank it. No, he said, no, ill effect, it just sounds foul. Dude's impervious. Man, This conversation would drive him nuts because you're just thinking, like, oh, crying out, wowd it's just complicated. Threw some stuff in a bag and go. No, he'd never participate to this kind of conversation that he just can't just like beyond his comprehension. People fussing over Rose, what about you? You ever seen Cotton really get work over someone? Yeah, a similar situation. I hunted with a guy when I first moved to Alaska, and uh, we went on I hadn't hunted with him on on this type of hunt before, but we went on a goat hunt and it was late October. It was a registration hunt, and you know that typical heavy snow um hanging on all the alders and he had some sort of you know, Carhart type work pant on with some gators and yeah, by the time we got there was about five miles in, and you know, he was borderline hypothermic, and you just got everything set up, got him in a sleeping bag, you know, and then of course you're stuck, is the only thing that you have. So the trip was over. You know, we we spent the night, got him warm, waited for it to warm up a little bit that day, put the same cold pants on it out. You know. It's like that sucked, but especially since every goats in there. But yeah, yeah, that type of situation, it can it can become scary in a hurry. Right, Yeah. Do you bring, um, anything that that would qualify as survival equipment. I think the biggest piece of survival equipment I take is a SAT phone, you know, and something like this. Um, all right, you know I have an in reach to one of the two and UM, I think that that's my biggest portion of it, you know, and I just kind of keep my route updated it with my wife and so you know, have check in times and um. But yeah, as far as a specific piece of equipment or you know, within a first aid kit, just kind of your standard stuff. Um. You know, I don't have a special skill set in the medical fields, so I don't take anything that I don't know how to use. And that isn't far beyond you know, trying to keep an infection down if you get caught. Yeah, I bring with triple triple antibiotic ointment and assortment of bandages. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that would be probably my biggest concern of something that I could take. Yeah, alcohol wipes, triple antibiotic ointment, yeah, knockle band aids, regular band aids. And I bring a little bit of a little role of med tape, which actually doubles as just general purpose tape. Yeah, like a little teeny roll of med tape, probably ten feet of it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing that I think I could control. Is you get in situations where you know, you could get an infection from a after cleaning an animal or you know. But beyond that, I don't know. I don't carry much else. Don't care like an extra lighter you have, like, oh no, I I carry a couple of lighters. I always have one on me and I always have one in my pack. Yeah, yep. And what what other kind of stuff like that? You bring matches? Just lighters? I do just bring lighters to bring fire starter material, I do, yep, yep, So you know, and it kind of depends year to year, but uh, typically some of like a vassline coated cotton ball or um some sort of gel. You know, you can buy different stuff. I play around with different things, but you don't have a few of those, and um, trying to think of what else I started using that. I take one of the dirt myths chew tins and feel it full of vassline coated cotton balls, because one the vassiline could be good for chap lips or any kind of other problem. Uh to the t s A, guys, don't steal it because you're not flying around with flammable stuff and burns like the Dickens man. Yeah, the cotton ball impregnated with vassilin. That's what I found too. I was really surprised. Yeah, so I think, you know, that's probably the most important stuff of the situations I see myself getting into is you know, being able to keep down and infection of some sort or you know, being able to get warm. You know, you look at the number of people that die of hypothermia or get into a bad situation because of that, and you know, probably one of the highest killers of you know, guys being out in the back country. Lacrosse has spent over a century perfecting the manufacturing, engineering, and chemistry of rubber boots. 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Visit chef steps dot com slash jewel and use code meat eater to get fifteen bucks off for a limited time that chef steps dot com slash j O U l E code meat eater and I think they had it where it's case sensitive, so run it all upper case. A few folks never went to school. That's the big letters. Jewel perfect food. Every time I heard of a guy hunting doll sheep last year. They had to get flown out for heatstroke. Oh wow, I andn't heard of that. No, it's one or the other man. Yeah, damned if you do. Damn if you don't. You know, pride gators on. Yeah, that's what broken. So trying other things that would like there would people regard as as survival gear that you'd bring on say like a like an archery bow hunt or sometime of big time sheep hunt. You know I went hunted. Yeah, I hunted with a guy that didn't know if he was allergic to bees, and we got into a ground nest of wasps be you know, some type of hornet in Alaska, and he got stung seven or eight times. And that was the first time I started thinking about, you know, having something to deal with an EpiPen or what is it you know, ben at drill or you know something. Oh, I carry it, that's their thing, man. I carry an assortment of meds, but just single like single, this single that. Yeah, you know, a couple little like a handful of ivy profen. Yeah, oh anti diar reel, you gotta have that. I haven't brought that. That's a brilliant A good point. They're about they're about a tenth the size of a dime. I think that's a good one. That. Yeah, they are actually small even for a pill, you know. But like, yeah, I think I carry probably I probably have four of my kid, Yeah, because that'll slow you down to carry traditional compass, I don't. That's like total ship hits the fan, right, yeah, or you're hunting like out on the tunder or something where it's hard to tell what the what. But in the mountains, it's like the navigation is so different because it's just because you have such start topography to kind of help you figure out what's the what you do. If you go one and all for Cariboo, you know, you could like now you quickly have no idea what's going on, especially fog rolls in that type of thing, you know, and when you're in the mountains, if you're in that kind of country, if the fog rolls in, you want to be able to see where you're going. You might get yourself into spot you can't get out of or you can't get down through. So yeah, no, I haven't. I haven't carried one. I have one of those little micro compasses. It's in my survival kit along with I think there's still an emergency blanket in there. I've got a piece of paper and in a small pencil in there. There's a roll of duct tape in there, one of those like rolls. It's like your pinky. I gave up on emergency blankets, especially like sheep hunting. You just can't leave your pack. No, you can't leave your pack mm hmm, because as you got it, you're so vulnerable. It's you can't be going off for like a day hunt, you know, because you don't have an extra thing anyway. It's like the things is always with you, you know. Yeah, you know. Another good one is I carry a small roll of guerrilla tape neither my ice ACKs or my my walking stick, you know. And and a little bit of electrical tape too, but that guerrilla tape. And I'm sure lots of duct tapes the same way, but the guerrilla tape seems to have a little bit more gummy on it, and it's worked well to be able to seal up pants when you know, you know, like tore home my pants or my gators and you massage that in there and hit it with the lighter a couple of times and get hot and yeah it'll it'll seal up a lot. But I carry those that what are those patches of circle patches for the therm arrest And then yeah, the name of the tape is it's the greatest stuff in the world. Man. It comes these a weird little roles. Is it a k isn't it? You don't know it, man, you have to look it up now. It's basically like, yeah, it's like you're at the outer textile of a rain jacket with some but you can buy two inch circles of it. Yeah, it's about his bulky is cutting two inch circle out of a piece of printer paper. But it's the perfect patch. Yeah, that'd be great patch, sleeping bag, patch, therm arrest, Yeah, patch anything. I don't know, actually run a therm arrest. You bring a sleeping pad, yeah, yeah, I'm not that tough. Yeah. I got like a little Nemo blow up sleeping pad. I bring it. Yeah. Well, and and when it gets cold, I mean that's boy it is, yeah, sleeping on cold ground. So first, yeah, so for a sleep system, Yeah, I go tent and I've messed around all kinds of stringing tarps up with strings and stuff. But it's like, which is great until things are nasty or until you're stuck in the fog for days on end. Yeah, I use a tent. I use an inflated a very lightweight inflatable insulated pad, and I use a sleeping bag that is five or ten degrees lower than what I expect the lows to be. I never like gamble on good weather with a sleeping bag, because once you get tired and you're just not getting good sleep and you're cold all night, it just affects your whole game, it does. Yeah, So something like this, I'll probably like you know, like like say like an archery l Cohn or you know, August Sheep or whatever. I'd probably bring like a fifteen degree bag. No. One that is probably gonna I'm probably gonna be sleeping with a zipper open. Yeah, well, there isn't that much weight difference between the fifteen and you know even a thirty and what six eight don'ts is? And I owned so many sleeping bags right now, it's like kind of ridiculous. That's what makes me have like I used to have all sleep like when I was younger. You said, oh, bag, it's a bit of bag on everywhere you went. Yeah, you know. Now I'm like, who do I want? You know, I can get right down to the degree, you know, and it's kind of annoying, right and look at Yeah you're Montana September sheet punt zero or fifteen for you, I'll take a fifteen. You take a tent or no tent? Oh yeah, I always take a tu Yeah, new Stone glacier tent will be yeah, new Stone Glacier tent. But that's a two man tent. It is a two man tent and it's lighter than my one man so what yeah, yeah, right right there close. So you air because I I put I put a My one man is a little bit modified because I put a stove jack in it, so it bumped it up over the weight. But so you air on the side of heavy duty tent, I do. I had a couple of bad experiences and um, not as bad as it could have been. But you know, that's that's a game change. It seemed that that that, to me in a couple of situations, was the last lifeline that if you know, if you're out there by yourself and you're in a miserable miserable storm and you don't have shelter. You know, hype a thermia is you can die. Yeah, it's gonna happen. You bring a book I have in the past. Yeah, yeah, I actually hadn't thought about that this time. We got stuck hunting sheep one time in the fox and I was some I want to snow it after the fog. My brother had a book and we cut that book in thirds because there's three of us. We cut that book in thirds because it was his book, his book. He got to read the first part first, but like the other people had to start like either the second third or middle third, and we swapped that book around. Everyone read that book. It was like a biography of the first superintendent of the Nali National Part. Not a great book, some good stories in there. Um in that book, they're always out hunting bears to get bear large to make biscuits. I remember thinking that was interesting. But yeah, man, reading material. But now it's just easy to have something not You don't need a big book, you know, you don't have like a sometime to keep you entertaining. Yeah, you can have like a little digital reader. Yeah, and have a lot of stuff on it. Yeah, but it's just someone and then you're like packing stuff just in case you get stuck. Yeah, and that's that was one of the things that I started to look at, is you know, on a scale I wouldn't attend can you can you live without it? You know? Or how often are you going to use it? And you know, you you kind of you sign a value to you have this group of equipment here on the table, you don't know whether to put in your pack, and you kind of sign a value to it, and you're like, Okay, now I can quantify whether or not I should take that book or I should take whatever it might be. It falls on this spectrum. Yeah, your shoes being on one end and then a heart and then your book being on the other end of the spectrum of like necessity. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's like tough calls and a lot of times I don't know until the last second, I'll still have like a little bag laying there to the last second and I'm still like in my mind, yeah, kicking it a weighing it out. Yeah, you need to pack, like you feel when you're walking back to the strip, you know, when you're just absolutely torn up and you're thinking of all of the ship that you're carrying that you didn't ever touch. You're thinking, next time, I'm not going to do that. I used to and I haven't here in the last few years, but I used to always carry a little tablet with me and and leave it at the strip and kind of go through if there was something, I'd make notes about my trip, you know, when I was waiting to get picked up and say I didn't use this, did use this, could have used that, all those little fine point I see, you'd kind of forget down the road. So that that that also helped to kind of refine the entire gear list program. What do you what do you like for water water purification? I'll say what I like. I'm telling you man, we have just switched let me back up and we're talking about survival stuff. Yeah. I carry a few idine tablets in the little individual packs, right, a few ID one tablets, but we've switched those those uh sterry pens man in for red light. I've never used. It's just like you're going, are you running a palm? No? Oh, you're just going. No, it's drinking just drinking bear shit water. No. No, I haven't done that either. No. I used a pump for a while, and then I had some issues, um wow, with silt, and you know, they're kind of cumbersome pain and as you dread it, you're like, oh, man, I gotta go down to the creek in the dark pump and then and then that's all I brought. And then of course the things filled with water and it froze and then you know, cracked, and then it doesn't work, so you get white. You need to get a pen, man, Well, I think I might because all I've been carrying my longer trips is just tablets. Yeah, you don't want to drink all that all the time. Man, this is not good for you know, I figured for fourteen days. Like Steve always says, it ain't gonna be the thing that kills you because you ate drinking eye eyed water. No, it's not gonna be what kills you. And I and I regret saying that it's not good for you because I don't really know, and it's not you're doing a year round for your whole life. However, a starry pen it's the size of, well what it's the size of if you take two fingers and join it up to your other two fingers. Those sons of bitches are the nicest. That's a great But that person should get a Nobel prize in backpack. So how do you use it, dude? Do you fill up analogene and then drink through the straw in? No? No, no, no, no, not straws. You fill a bottle up. Oh, they drop in there. Yeah, it's a wand yeah it drops in there. It doesn't drop in there. You wave it in there. Okay, I got you. I'm following what you're saying. Now, it's a it looks like it's like a flashlight, so you can put it right in. It looks like a flash No, it doesn't look like a flashlight. It looks like a flashlight handle, lightsaber, looks like a little miniatu. It's it's a lightsaber that's seven inches long. Okay, you dip your net. However you go about it. You get a bottleful, get a water bottleful, and put that thing in there and wave it around for ninety seconds. Can you throw it and like a hydration bladder? No, I think that we've I've done it. Get and just hope for the best, because it says it basically one. You know, I think you tap it twice for half a leader and tap it once for a full lead. So if you're doing, you know, a gallon hydration bladder, you know, do it three times and swirl it around and hope you're killing everything in there. Or I guess I'm always running a bladder and analogy. So I would just do my analogy and poured in there and do my analogy. That we're opening up another question now that has to do with water. So you're running tablets. Do you run the double tablet where you do the iodine, then you do the thing that takes away the taste of the iodine and just running the iodine. Yeah, I started bringing those. You like them? Yeah? I like them. It just takes a little bit of the taste away. Okay, So I have that, I have my sterry pen. I bring a water bottle and then I bring a a bladder that like the MSR bladders because then you can go down and get a heap and helping the water, especially in sheep country. Yeah man, yeah, dude, you're like two thousand feet above the wall. And that's that's what I do too, is I carry they're the I have the two lead ones. I carry two of the two lead ones, and Platypus makes them and they're just a couple ounces. They're the super lightweight plastic stuff. Yeah, they have to guess the fails man well, but I don't have to use them that often, you know. I'm talking about the MSR ones that are like almost like a like a fabric. Yeah. Yeah, but I just carry these ones to carry extra water. So say, for example, if I'm going into a spot where I don't think that there's gonna be water, I'll have my regular hydration bladder and then I'll have either one or two of these, so you know, I can take six eight liters of water up above tree line if you if you don't think that you're gonna have water up there, so you use a hydration bladder in your pack. No, I never put it in my pack. I put it in the lid because you can't be doing that if you're in a place where you can't afford to have your stuff at all wet. Well, and it just in my experience, caused nothing but issues because as the water bladder starts to get smaller, you lose your compression. Things shift it pinches the hose or it pinches off the you know, you can't tighten the pack down super freezes. The hose freezes. So that's the other thing. As soon as there's snow on the ground and I leave the I don't bring a bladder anymore. It's travel I carry eating snow, milk drink. Yeah, yeah, I swapped. I swapped the bladder for an extra canister of fuel and so you know, just you know, stop, heat up some water, get at my water bottle and keep rolling. You only do that a couple few times. Do you like those plastic platypus ones? Well, I like them because I can carry extra water. I won't be I I never use them as a as a daily Yeah, as your daily. I don't have a hose hook to them. They are just water. And then they laughed for that. Oh yeah, you can't carrying around because in some areas, I'll like have my water bubble. I'll also fill up the MSR jug the ms R and put that in my backpack. Yeah. Depending on what your thing is going on with water and water could be tough. Oh that can ruin it. Huh. What do you like for a stove? I got so many different stoves, man, and then the pilots like like the bush pilots now not like in the canisters. Has move things back? Yeah, because he used to use like slot stoves, you know, then went to canister stoves. But now no one wants to fly the canisters. Yeah, so it's like back to slot stoves. Now. Well I heard that slut. Oh well, you know, like my optimist stove you can burn diesel on aviation fuel. Yeah, it's not my terms, Cora McCarthy's term. Got it. What are you packing for a stove? It depends on the time of year of the hunt. Um, so I say, on on this hunt, I'm trying to take virtue. All the food doesn't have to be cooked, you know, maybe it needs to be rehydrated. So you know, you need to rehydrate it at noon for it to be ready in the evening, but not counting on cooking and boiling water every day, so then you can go lighter on your fuel. Um, I'm using the msru is it is it the dragonfly on what's that one called? It's just that whisper light. Whisper light. Yeah, it's just that that's one. It is that little triangular stap plastic container. Yeah. Yeah, well I had that one too, and then they make they actually came up with a smaller version of that, and I just it just hits on a canister or you run, no, it fits on a canister. Oh you're thinking of the pocket rocket. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, that's nice little stone it is. That's a great little show. So I'll carry that, um one or two cans of fuel of the you know, the smaller four ounce ones and um and just not count on cooking much. You know, maybe if you need to melt snow for water or something, so you'll go the whole day and not eating anything warm. Yeah, most of the time. Most of the time. I'm not into that scene, man. Yeah, So tell me what you're instead of having a house at night, what are you eating? Um? Well, I carry a lot of bars, um, you know, and there's a there's a lot of different things. And there's a few of the mountain houses too that if you get water in them early enough that it'll just be like cold leftovers by the end of the night, you know, so by the time you're ready to eat it, so you're just start thinking about dinner at noon. Throw some water you can. Yeah, you can do that. Um and uh, you know you can do it with different ramen. You can do the same thing or instant rice. It just takes longer. I never thought about that with the house Do you take a house packet and put cold water there? Some of them? Some of them you can. The chicken arryaky rice is the one that I carry. There is also a that is that like all you can find that information online or have you just learned that over experience? No, they were just the ones that I liked and you know, just tried it. You cold oatmeal in the morning, m yeah, yeah, well a lot of I actually, I mean I have in the past. I don't carry any oatmeal anymore. You don't drink coffee, no goose shots with double caffeine. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. I just try not to cook very much because I found that cooking in the darks of pain in the assid it always I don't know, I would rather just be going to sleep because you know, typically by the time it's dark you know what in Montana, you know, nine ten o'clock. Well it's not quite that late maybe in Alaska. But point being, as you know, rather be climbing into the tent. And so then if you're cooking during the you know, in the evening hours before it gets dark, that's that's prime time to be behind the glass. So I just found it was easier to you know, try to get that stuff taken care of dur in the middle of the day and maybe it's not as you know, not as good a hund and then then the same thing in the morning. Ah, get up, throw something in your pocket and get after it wherever, get to your glassing spot, you know, post figuring out. Yeah, breakfast is pretty easy to eat that way, like while you're glass and start snacking, you know, next thing, you know, what's new yea, Yeah, I just try to make it as low maintenance as possible. Man, you wouldn't like our set up. We got mayonnaise, mustard, sandwich, thins ham cheese. Yeah that sounds nice. I like, yeah, man, I like I like to try to get the but I like to try to get the food in. Man. Yeah, there's certain I know, there's like there's certain things where I think everybody breaks in their own direction when it comes to like what what warrants being carried, you know, and what's enjoyable because ultimately we go out there because we want to have fun, and so if somebody isn't having fun, because you know, they just yeah, yeah, yeah, it goes psychologically. Man. That's kind of my happiest part of the day. Actually, Yeah, my happiest part of the day having some house. Yeah. And it's not always that way, especially the elk hunting in Montana or you know where you have that stuff. But on the longer hunts, the sheep hunts, you know, when the weather it's a little bit more of the fall and not winter. I don't know, that's just the warm meal hasn't been as much of a priority. Yeah, you do, you bring any you don't bring any kind of fruit or anything, right, apples and stuff because dried you know, a lot of you know, a lot of the stuff has dried fruit in it. Um. Yeah. And there's some really good bars out there. If you guys have ever had the Green Belly meals, No, Man, we've got every barn the planet, but I never heard of that one or thought I had every every barn the planet. I'll tell you they're a ship. They're so good. Um, call Green Belly. Order them online. Order them online. Yeah, the guy runs a really cool business and uh, well we'll pull out like we'll have an assortment. Man, we got like kind pro I can't name them all, tons of them. Well, these zones are old schoolers. Yeah. They come with two bars in each pack and there's six hundred calories and the guy went through for the two of them. It is so I mean, it's it's a it's a meal replacement as much as it is, you know, a snack, but um, they are they are balanced fats, proteins and carbs across the board, and so it's a really well rounded and he has a cool story on the background. I'll probably butcher it if I try to tell you, yeah, because you know what, I was really excited about it. But if there's a if it's a bar that has like the story written on the bag and it's it's nauseatingly cute. No no, no, it's not here. He's an ultra light guy. Okay, because now and then, like you'll read like every guy that came out with the bar, it feels like he's a put like a very cute see like why I make these bars or the marketing team that he picked up. Yeah, and so we'll sometimes sit around we don't have any books to be able to read those bar bags. And now it's like it's like, oh my god, it's like a whole it's a whole other type of literature. Man. Yeah, it all started one old mom. I would like, just give me the bar bro so, no coffee, no vas, drink a little tea at night. Um, no, you're running cold. You're cold, camping cold, camping tough, little bastard, because it's not it's it's really not that bad, you know. Into it, you're like, yeah, that's what I was gonna. I was just gonna bring that point up. You quickly get used to whatever situation you made. You get used to it. But at the same time you already bringing some fuel anyway. It's like a dinky bit more to be able to warm up your food at night. Yeah. Yeah, And not to say that I you know that I don't or that you know, if time allows that, you're in a good you know spot, but I plan on not doing it. Yeah. It's kind of as I go through a lot of times, we'll eat house, um right, pre evening glass session. Yeah, an early dinner like you might hit some like four o'clock. You might hit a four o'clock house, right, Yeah, and then yeah, like you said, it's late. It's kind of shady to go to bed on a full belly, so that way, and then you just have like you know, maybe another half a bar on your right at the tent. Yeah, we'll go out for an evening glass and session and actually grab some water, grab a stove, get up there and get settled in, have a sack of food, and then kind of wrap up your couple hours of prime time. Then you just roll down and have a candy bar or something to go to bed. Yeah. That's some pleasurable evenings man. It is, you know, sitting behind the glass with with you know, your food and steaming up the limbs. Yeah, knowing that you're not going anywhere until like the one I at ten times, when all of a sudden you find what you're looking for and okay, drop everything. Yeah. So do you, um, when you're going on a long hunt, what do you what's your theory on binoculars and spot and scope? I think it depends on the country. So when when I was hunting Alaska guy, I went very light weight on both, so I was ah, I wasn't as concerned with glass in Alaska as I am here in Montana on these hunts, just because picking out a white sheep on black rock is different than it is. Yeah, it is, and it's a little bit different. And and you know, uh, I didn't feel confident shooting a ram on age, so I did. I didn't feel like I was going to be in a spot trying to count rings, um, And so yeah, I I would bring something lighter that was middle of the road on a spotting scope and just some lightweight binoculars. I had some little like a pocket binoculars and um, and you know, it was just enough to scan around as you moved, and it was just you know, it's just a different program. You're not trying to pick sheep out of the timber. You're you're you're trying to make sure you know that you don't make a mistake when you come up over a ridge, so you know, a quick scan to make sure that you know you're not gonna be exposed. And and then once you got in a spot, your glassing was more organized, you had more time, you were getting a spot, you set up your spotting scope. You know, it's just much different than hunting through Montana, where your view is changing all the time and you're you're kind of always seemed to behind your glass make sure you don't blow something out, and so you know, but that being said, in Montana, um, this time, I'll be carrying a swarrow eighty five and you know, that's that's what I've carried on these hunts. And then go a little bit lighter on a big bruiser of a spot, in the big bruiser of a spotting and that's where I'm spending the majority of my time as I set the spotting scope to glass. And then really you just one eyeball it all day long. Yeah you don't get well, yeah, it gets old. But you know there's don't you feel like you'd be more effective just just running like a pair of tens or twelves and just picking off movement with a bigger field of view and more comfortable, less eyestrain. Yeah, yeah, I think when things are moving you probably would be. But the problem is you spend a lot of the day looking in spots where you're just trying to pick out anything and ear you know, a rump. You know, you're trying to find bedded animals as you move down through um, you know, say spend a lot of time in the timber. And so yeah, you're absolutely right. If if if you're glassing for things that are feeding in the evening and they're in the morning, something that's on the move, and you're trying to cover a lot of country, I think behind the perpon oculars would be way better. But and and it depends on the distance too. You know a lot of those canyons, you you might be glass and you know, close to a mile away trying to pick something out. And that's tough when you uh, when you were hunting doll sheep a lot were you did you spend a lot of time or did you just kind of skim through everything? I skim. I think that was the thing that I really liked about it was that it was it was a higher it was a lot higher paced. You know, you're you're just covering ground, and you know that was the key, covering ground, get into places that you can glass, you know, move to the next spot opposed to you know, when you're hunting these animals that are in the timber, you'll walk right by. I proved that. Yeah, so you know that story. Well, the same area I'm going into right now is the first place I hunted ten years ago, and I didn't see a sheep, and you know, and that's because I was I. I just hunted it like you know, like we did doll sheep. You know, try to get elevation, cover as much country as you can, spend the time through the glass and just systematically moved through areas. But you couldn't. You had to spend a lot more time in one spot. I think if you if you want to find animals, and so you're saying you proved it by not finding what I proved it by not finding anything. Yeah, no, now knowing that they're probably were they were there, Oh I'm sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure I walked by sheep. How many? Uh what's your thoughts on a cubic inches for backpack because you got a plan on being able to pack that sheet back out? Yeah, well I think that that's that was kind of where my designs came from for backpacks, was not having to figure that out. So size your bag to the size of your gear. You don't you have to size it to the gear plus food if you don't want to because you can carry the gear in the load shelf, but now you always have the designated spot for the load shelf for the meat for your pack out meat and horns. So you know, instead of having to carry a seventy cubic kinch bag, now maybe you only need to carry four thousand cubic you know, to fit all of your gear and food. And then you always know that you have that three thousand cubic inches a space designated when you separate the back away from the frame in the load shelf, and you don't have to worry about it. And you know, on the flip side, you can do the same thing which I've done, is to carry all the food in the load shelf in the in the same bag that you carry meat out in. And you know, as soon as you get to camp, everything is organized. You just pulled the bag out, take what you need, keep moving. Or you know, in in wilderness areas where you're required to sling the food in the tree, everything's already organized. You just pull it out, hut it up the tree, keep moving. Do you not bring a um? Do you not bring a trash bag liner? Because I don't? Yeah, because man like nothing keeps blood like there's no short of that nothing, He's blood out of everything. No, but that's why if you have it in the load shelf, you never worry about just let it go. Yeah, yeah, I mean that, and that's that's part of the design is the fact that the the load cell that you that you put the meat in, the blood can drain, so you don't get you know, especially in Alaska, I mean if you have sixties seventy eighty degree days, you get that coagulated blood in the bottom that the meat is just sitting and it's constantly moist, you know, just great place to grow bacteria and you know, taint meat. So you're allowing the meat to drain, just drain out the bottom of the bag. And then you know, in between the bag and the frame, the back side of the bag is hydrophobic material xpacts, so you don't ever get any migration of the you know, have the blood or any sort of anything that can contaminate your your gear. So now you don't need that. Before you started the Stone Glacier, what was the backpacks you were messing around with? UM. I played with quite a few different ones, mostly the internals, so you know, I had some arc tereks I had some north face but just regular mountaineering bags. But you know, it was it wasn't long before I figured out that they just didn't quite have enough stability. You know. One, once you got a hundred plus pounds in them, you get a lot more roll and shift out. They didn't have as many compression straps as the hunting packs had, but they were lightweight, they were comfortable, and so that's what I did a lot of a lot of hunting with. But there you're back in the same spot. Now you're putting the meat in there and right in there. So yeah, it creates a tough situation. Yeah, that's where you see the limitation of the pack because on those packs, you know what you're gonna be carrying, and you know it's only gonna get lighter. Yep, as you eat your food. There's never the thing of like, oh man, you know, yeah, what could happen if you get lucky? Yeah, and how that's gonna go? Yeah, and you're like trying to tie jump to the outside and just yeah, yeah it is a mess. That can be a mess. Yeah you don't but yeah, so that that's kind of the point is, is you know, size the bag to the gear and your food what you need at the time, and then let the low shelf silk everything else up. Yeah. How many how many rounds you bring with you? I usually bring about ten, so you're pretty heavy on rounds. Yeah. Yeah, and no, I think that we all we all realize that we run thirteen. I think there's just three because you got a few. You got a couple of the magazine. Three in the magazine and you grab one of those. Yeah, you grab a sleeve. And that's a really good point. I think we might have talked about this last time, and I think I might have said third team because I'm trying to remember if I was counting the ten total or ten and then three. So yeah, but I'm less. I usually just carry too whatever my gun is. I have like two mag's full. I like my gun full, and then I'll have enough in my pocket to reload. Here's my thinking. My thinking is that what's always in my head, it never doesn't happen, is that you're gonna fall bad m hm and be like, man, I gotta fire a couple rounds to check my zero. YEA have a problem there. You need to fire a couple more and then you're gonna have to shoot some rocks in front of a grizzly bear to scare them off, and then you're gonna be like, dude, I only got two rounds. What if something goes wrong? Right? So that's kind of like, oh, how I think about it? And I always like trying to keep them, always put them a couple different places. Like I'll put a couple of my magazine, I stick one of my binal harness, and then I put my other one somewhere else. So I sort of have like like a system, like a redundancy system. If I remember, right, you're the one that you're running three wind right for sheep ill At the time, I was running a three seventy eight weather be in a Flaska. So if you lightened up your yeah, yeah, I have a I have a three weather be now a lot of medicine for a sheep it is. But boy, you know, with with these v l d s and just the accuracy and you know the lack of wind drift and the energy that it carries down range. Right, Yeah, you're very shot long range. Yeah, I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't shoot too far. Uh, you know, conditions would have to be just right. But what's too far? I think it depends on the conditions. Now, in the perfect conditions, you're feeling good. I think in the perfect conditions, no wind, you know, I feel I feel confident out to six hundred yeah, um, you know I've shot help at that range before the sheep I got down there before it was at four d. All confident with that, so yeah, I mean, if everything's right, but I think that that's where it plays in. You know, you have to make that call. What are the gear categories we got for like bagpack, hunts man, Uh, we haven't touched on track and poles? You carry track and pole? I do? I I carry it that um Petzel used to make us. They call it a snow scopic, so it's yeah, yeah, I carry that and then typically one trucking pole, so you carry that snowstopic like this even now yeah down here, yeah, well in sheep hunts I do. It's it's just so handy to have around, you know, just because you know clearing out rocks are trying to get a campsite ready or um you know, if I mean, if you just find if you can find a wet spot in the hill where you where you have some moisture coming out, you can dig in there and get a puddle and just you know, come back a couple of hours later, and you know a lot of times you'll have you'll have water that you can get to. So I just just having that little bit of an ice axe, is it's I found it a real useful tool. Mhmm. You just told in your hand. Yeah, you just use it just like a just like a trucking. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny you mention that because I remember like hunting sheep digging through rock piles trying to find water. You can hear it, Yeah, the cat drives you crazy, man. You can hear it down there somewhere, you know, but you just can't do it out you can't get to. Yeah. It's kind of maddening, man, because you're like, dude, we could save a lot of walk and if we can find where this water is deep underground. Yeah, Curts telling me when we shut down for a second earlier, Um about a good little trick with track and poles. Is taking this double sided velcro. It's got like the hook and loop on one side and then the no, I'm sorry, that is the hook right is the hard part and the loop is the soft part. But anyways, just wrapping it, you know, like two thirds of the way up, wrapping your two poles together and then just exit them and unbelievable shooting rests for shooting rest yeah, yeah, you bring your tripod. I do. Yeah, but my tripod you know, it's kind of back to the same thing that we were talking about with layers and um. You know, my tripods set up with pick tenny rail so I can put my I can shoot off of it. It'll touch to have a pic tiny rail on my on my rifle. I have one on my spotting scope. I have a little adapter for my camera, so you know, everything will slide right into the one piece. So and it's the it'll adjust from nine inches up to fifty four inches, so you know, it gives you a wide range. What's the tripod way, it's right at two pounds. Yeah, my tripods happy. But I little bit man. Yeah, I think that that's and that's a tough thing because you know, my the spotting scope weighs over four pounds I think four pounds four ounces or something, So it's a heavy spotting scope for a small tripod, so you can't get it too high in the air. But you know, typically in those conditions you're glassing, you're you're on an angled piece, so you know, on an angled hill, so you can set the tripod right between your legs and it's an angled eye piece, so it just sits right here in your chest, so you know, it's not you don't have to get it up real high. So it's a different program than I think. If so, if you're out, you know, trying to find meal here and had to get up above the stage rush and had to have a tall spotting, let'scope, right, you don't get any shake, you feel without lightweight tripod, not not if I keep it low. If I keep it low, and and you know normally you're kind of just right there on top of it, so you're blocking the wind. But yeah, you know that's it's not as stable as you know, carrying a four or five pound tripod, that's for certain. Yeah, I think my head and legs come in right just shy at four pounds? Are they really that heavy? Yeah? How how the hell heavy is mine? I wonder? Is this is roughly the same? Might be a little bit more, man, I like that thing. Yeah, I love it. It's quality life issue. Man, Let's see, that's it. That's it like being able to do some power glass and you know, or just like everything's right. Yeah yeah yeah. If your glass is not steady, it's hard to hard to stay in the game the game. Do you bring a Do you bring um a tart beside your tent? No? I don't. Sometimes we do, but for this I wouldn't. Yeah know, because for this, I feel like the tent is always going to be with me or pretty darn close. Usually the tarp combs with me. If we're making like a base camp, I know we're gonna be out for the day. Yeah. Does the guy that you checked, the pilot we're flying in with he doesn't let you have canisters? Or does he does? He does? How could that be like a thing that they probably should't talk about because maybe he's not fools too. I don't know the f A rules. I don't know either. You bring pepper spray? No? And you're in grizz country wow? And no pistol either. Oh you have your rife? Have my rifle? Yeah? No spray? No spray? Times are changing, man, Yeah? Yeah, don't you feel like they're getting thicker by the day around here. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh. I think we proved that every fall with all the encounters that happened just ending around Gallaton County doing that. The Madison's h multiple encounters every year. When that big sumby comes from you, I guess, yeah, your rivals gonna leaning against a tree man way leaving against. I never leaved behind. I got caught in Alaska one time, going down to the river to wash fought out. Yeah, I got called by bear. Yeah, turned around and there was a bear on the other side of my tent, probably forty yards away. Yeah. My rifle was laying up there. Yeah. Luckily he just kept on no, he while he dropped down and started eight. I mean, he wasn't charging. I don't know what he was doing, but he was running at me, and he was looking at me. And then he stopped at about twenty yards and as soon as he ran towards me. I know, they say you're not supposed to run, but I you know, I ran towards my rifle. You know, they're like, there was only a couple of things. I was running towards him. He was running towards me, and he stopped about twenty yards and stood up, and right about time I got to my rifle and he was just trying to catch when. I just don't think he knew what was going on, but there was no doubt that had he chose that he wanted me, he would have had me. And uh, yeah, I just kind of felt lucky figured to keep it a little closer. That's the point of the story. My brothers were hunting doll sheet and uh, They're sitting there by their tent and all of a sudden, up over the hill comes tearing at him. A wolf comes tearing at him, like, you know, first like what in the world, but then like over the hill because he's running because it's a grizz hot on his trail. Man. And then they both saw him and spun off in different directions. But yeah, that stuff can catch you by surprise, man. Yeah, for sure. So no pistol, no spray. I don't you know, for many, many, many years I did the same thing. But now after having like after you know, now I just don't think that I don't think that the rifles really I think there's certain times when the rifles reliable. But when you sit there and you got a load of meat and you got your rifle tied to the back of your back backpack. But you might as well not even have that something, bitch man. Yeah, it doesn't happen like that. It's it's generally in my hand most times. You use a sling though, Yeah, yeah, they use a sling sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, but if it's a tight area, you should have it in my hands, you know, if I can't see, if I can't it's dark because of getting mal scratched. I don't know, it's like a security blanket. Yeah. No, I know what you're saying. Just happy you're walking around with it in your hand. Anything we haven't touched on bad country long hunt gear. Uh, you know. The only other thing that I was thinking about is just how when you're hunting with a partner, how your your gear. Your gear choice can change because me and my bro we'll each have to only carry half. One guy carries the steaks and poles and the other guy carries the tent body. Yeah, which is nice. One spot and scope, one spotting scope exactly, one dry pod, one stove. Yeah. I don't know if I'm brave enough to do one rifle. We've done it. We've done it. It's like, give me that rifle my turn. Yeah, no, we've done that. One guy has one rifle. You don't think anything about it. Yeah, well no, I know who. Uh my dad had a cheap tag last year and we had talked about it and he said, I'll just I'll just bring my rifle. You don't have to carry yours. And I said, I'll just bring it just in case. Where we got in the hell of a snowstorm and we thought we knew were these sheep where And when we finally came up, they had moved up closer to us, and it happened really quick, and he took his he took his his rifle off, his slang and his scope caps were gone and it was just plugged filled with snow and everything was and unfortunately I had my rifle, everything was set handed it to him. Yeah he had the shot, but we had just his rifle. I don't know that it would have happened. Did you like scope caps? You know? I have I have a scope coat on the mind now new yprene a neoprene because uh, you know, all my scopes have the turrets on them, and so you know, it's just It's just another nice protection you don't accidentally get, you know, anything turned or just kind of tighter program. I've messed around with every I feel like I'm messed around with every scope cap on the plant. Man. I just think a neoprene a neoprene cover. You like the caps, don't you. I've donald you've used them in the past. Um, but yeah, I'm a neoprene scope cover guy. Now I've spent a lot of years like when they first started coming out, you know, and like Butler Creek had those ones and the springs that break and the pins that fall out, and you'll be trying to find the parts yeah uh in the snow or whatever. And now just like it's just like it's like an infallibility to a neoprene cover. Yeah, yeah, there definitely as you know, another nice scope cover that I've used though, is uh night Force sends out. They're kind of almost a rubber one that that goes on and that that's the only single piece one that I've used, And I actually really like that one. Yeah, but I don't I don't know who makes it other than them. I just use the I mean, just like a just a general like vortexes has a general neoprene one you yep, pull over and it's pretty good. Man. You know, for a while, I got so burned out on sculpe covers. We went we'd go down to the hardware store and get like PVC and and caught it. So you had the kind of had the reducer and so you could a POxy in a piece of plexiglass in there and then use bungee cord. Oh yeah, and then you had like a one pound sculpe cover that was indestructible, man, indestructible. And um brother made up a batch of those. We use those from Wow. And now I just use like the near prent cover and you just gotta be careful not to leave it land. It's actually the kind of thing you can bring too of because like literally ways, I would say, like literally nothing, Yeah they are you could grab you could you could justify sticking the extra one in your kid, yep, your little gear kid, Dude. I'm excited how to go home and go through all my junk. Man, I kind of got a whole day set aside to pack. Something will come up, and I think something will come up when I will get messed up. But right I think it's one of the funnest, funnest portions of you know, kidding ready anticipation, your gear and the planning. If it's not part of this process, as long as it's not rushed, but long as like you got young kids, you can't focus on anything. No, no, it's pretty accurate. Five and seven. Yeah, I got one of each of those. Well five and eight you can't focus. Oh no, it's after bedtime. That's when that happens. Gear the gear messing. Yeah, the gear messing. But when you can do it right, you're not just cramming stuff in a bag. It's pretty fun, man, it is. Get your gear dial you're thinking about it now, Yanni can't really get packed properly because your house is torn and a half. Yeah, well, luckily my little basement corner where my little zone is, um my little man cave zone down there. It's it's it's kept up, it's it's neatness. So I don't think you should call it a man cave because it's functional. Oh, man caves aren't functional. No, it's like place where people go to watch TV. Yeah, I hear you, you're right, But I think originally a man cave was usually in the garage, like that's the original man. Then it became a thing like then man caves got messed up, or man caves also became things. They became places where like you go down to be lazy. It should be a place where you go to like get your stuff dialed. Yeah, right, but it became a thing where you like got big couches and TVs and it's like this a place you got to be lazy while your wife's being lazy upstairs. Yeah, like in your basement or your kids allowed in that room that weird podcasting in U No, Yeah, like that little zone of mine. I mean a lot of it is safety, right, Like they're shipping there that they can get hurt with, you know, sharp things as well as you know other things. But yeah, like they're just not allowed to be in that zone. So that's why it's like the man cave, right, I think you'd call it the man zone. Yeah. But look if my gal, you know, I mean there's a bunch of tools and stuff in there too, So my gal needs anything out of there, She's more than welcome as long as he gets put back in the right spot. Yeah, Because I do a lot of fixing down there too, and one of the kids things breaks. I go to the same zone that I pack in to repair, to glue their ship back together, you know, to fix stuff. But it's kind of like mostly my garage set up, Like I'm not set up for like ranching on old tractors and ship you know what I mean. I'm set up for like working on the outdoor gear. Yeah, I'm like my primary thing, like I'm rigged for gear. Yeah. I can mount a rifle scupe yeah. So yeah, stuff like that. That's saying, you know, I don't have like a three quarter inch drive ratchets down there and stuff like that for you know, like rebuilding some alice chalmers or something. You know, it's just not what I'm it's not where I'm at when it comes to tool and and you're the only guy you know that has a big sewing machine in his gear room. Yeah. Yeah, that's a rarity, it is, that's next level. It is. It's fun. I knew one other guy to add that. I don't know if it was in his man zone, but old man, I hope you're listening. I hope you're still alive. But there's a chance that he might not be alive, but he might be dead. Donnie the wild Man, uh oh, I've heard a lot of stories about this guy. His last name though, it's Yeah, because he sewed into his vast pistol holder. Well you know, it was like a leather jacket, you know, not like a biker, kind of like a biker. Yeah, I guess you could have if you have just seen him Donnie on the street, you could have thought that he was getting rid of jump on a Harley. But yeah, he had all kinds that he had, like a special pocket for like cigarettes, probably had another pocket for the second pack of cigarettes, for a coke can in there, and yeah, for his giant forty four mag He's one of those like I think it was the Rocky Mountain Special, remember that one. It's like the even the cylinder had no grooves cut out of it, so it's like added weight heavy and yeah, you think the pockets sewn in for that thing. Um. But he was like that. He was he was a guy that got like tinkered with stuff. Yeah, you probably would have got along with him. He just like they called him the wild man, right, but I remember him. He was saying at nighttime he would do nothing to prepare for bed. Yeah, he would just lay down a lot of times too. He didn't sleep and wake up and again prepared for bed. He put his cigarette out and lay down and then he way back up and his lighted. Yeah, light, crack of coke go and everything. He would be like, can't use that bunk. Now there's dying bull. There's no ship there, there's no sleep bag. Yet, dying doesn't need any of that stuff. I remember him buying like a brand new Arctic Cat. You know, I don't know how those things are five dollars, right, I don't know how much brand new nice thing. By the time I got to see it in his garage, the seats ripped off. It's been chopped in half. The um he's got like the whole like I don't know what you call it, but like the thing that metal piece that goes around the seat where you like put your feet on and it kind of extends behind the seat, and he's just drilling holes through it because he was lightning the whole thing. So it had a seat that like you could just fit like maybe two people on. Well he cut it down to a seat to fit a half a person. The whole thing was full of holes, you know, and so and he sowed a new leather seat to fit this. You know. So he had skills, but he was the wild man. And did it look good or did it look like someone was happening on look good? Yeah, my old man hung out with guys. They were like they were gear tinkers. But it wasn't like they were trying to make ship light for wanding around in the mountains for a week at a time. They were they were tinkers like um, making your own ice fish and shanties, making your own charcoal grills, you know, but any kind of like building stuff, right, like building outdoor equipment of big ship. So these guys were at the thing where they had like welders and stuff, you know, or smelters or you know, I mean like weird kind of stuff. But there's this thing that makes people want to go and mess with something. I never look at uh, you know, I never look at me like, man, I'm gonna go to devise some new way to like key to ice shanty, right. But I think there's people have a proclivity, right, they have a tendency to want to go jury rig stuff. Do you know that jury rigg and Jerry rigor interchangeable m you knew that kitty corner caddy corner. No one knows what one's right. Yeah, what do you think about that? Kurt? Is that an east coast west coast thing? I don't think so. I don't know tomato tomato things. Yeah, in the other final wells, yeah no, because it's different the pronunciations, right down to the spelling catty corner and kitty corner. Um. Nothing hunt with a partner. You were saying, Oh, yeah, no, I think I think you hit on that, just that change of stuff. But you're a solo man. Yeah. How many sheet punks you done by yourself? I don't know actually, um, but yeah, probably you know for since it's two thousand. Yeah, just a bad mofo out winding around the mountains by yourself at dinnertime. No, no hogging his rifle all night. It's just that of necessity, you know, when you're when you're in cold grab, when you when you're taking those chunks of time. A lot of times it's it's it's tough to line up, you know, schedules and people who want to go into the same areas. And some dude came to you. Some dude came to you and said, hey, man, I want to throw in with you on your sheep hunt this September. You'd probably say no, because why have the That's what my brother's thing is. I don't know. I'm gonna pitch him right now. Will be like, look, can't do that. I'll carry enough fuel so we can eat hot shit every night. We'll split the weight of our shelter and our spot and scope, and I'll even carry an extra pair of socks and on these for you. Do I get to shoot first? Yeah, in the unit where one sheep closes. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, my brother who could out lonely you, he might not out lonely if he could compy on loneliness lonely tolerance. Um, he just likes, just likes not having to like consult. What do you think? I don't know, what do you think? Yeah? I think we should go over there. I mean, he's happy to hunt with people, but he sees the upside. It's not like he you know, he just sees the upside and being by himself in that, just not having to well, and he's mentioned that right there. He's like, I never had to worry about who's shooting first. I'm always up exactly. So. But anyways, if some dude came to you instead, and it's a friend yours, not some straight wildcat, right, some some dude came to you and said, hey, I want to throw in I was thinking about going to the same place anyway, would you be like, maybe I'll bump into you, or would you then say, you know what, let's let's coordinate. No, if it was a good friend, I'd yeah, I'd welcome it. So you're not You're not like pushing You're not pushing your best friends on Oh no, no, no, not any not any respect. I mean, yeah, I have lots of good friends that you know, we go on hunts, you know, throughout the year, whether it be elk or or any of that. I just think that you kind of have to find somebody spe Siana hunt like this that's willing to take what time you have for the year, because you know, for all of us, between you know, work and family and all that, being able to take fourteen days and go possibly on a hunt where you're not going to fill the freezer, a lot of people don't want to do that. It's not a freezer filler. No, especially when we have so much great elk hunting, you know, all around here is your wife Maddie about fourteen days. No, not even kind of a little bit. No, but it hasn't when you come back. When you come back, is it gonna be the kind of thing where it's like, oh my god, he's home. It's so great. Or will it be that you come in and it's kind of like, oh, hey, can you take care of this? It depends if I come back with the sheet actors that in. No, No, but that there's I think that there is a part of that where you know, when you spend that much time, you want to be successful. But it's also a nice knowing going into it that that really isn't the expectation, you know, it's it's really more about the adventure and taking that time and you figure out another way to fill the fraser. Yeah, because doll sheep too, man. I mean they're not that big. No, they're not freezer fillers. No, No, not by any stretch. But it's pretty high quality, it is. I think it's a lot of guys, Yeah, a lot of guys in the Laska regarded as the finest, right it is. Yeah, but it's it's just a lot more. It's a bottle lot more than that. Man, It's not like out filling doe TEGs. It's just a whole different deal, it is. Yeah, it's a whole different deal. It's just doing something that you have to be paying total attention to, man and being like a little bit vulnerable all the time. Yeah, and being like there is no real there's really no getting lucky m hm no. And it takes you out of your comfort zone. And so you know, that's the one thing that I found about those types of adventures is every time you push yourself, that becomes a new norm. So, uh, you know, you're you're looking to ad ants, you're looking to stay longer or get farther in or go by yourself or whatever your next step is that you know you can There's never a finite finish line. Yeah, there's there's always something that you can add to it. There's always some other way that you can challenge yourself. I think it's kind of the cool part about it for sure. Yeah, we have a new norm. Yeah, cold food, yeah, lonely nights. You can you can learn how to deal with that. You can learn how to deal with a lot. Man, It's not that bad. No, you make it sound fun. Oh yeah, any final gear thoughts, I don't have any. You're tapped. Yeah, I was tearing me up with my bringing my my Um no, I'm cool on that. But my track and pull with the ice axe head stuck to it. So I thought of as a mountain go hunt and too man. Now, yeah, it's kind of got me thinking excavation. I think there's a chance to that we're gonna cross some glaciers, so yeah, we might want to think about having more than just one with us. Yeah, Danny probably carry his Oneman brother. All right, sir, Yanni's good. No last thoughts, I'm good man. All right. I hope you come back and your wife's like, oh my god, he's home me too, and not like you'll never guess what you'll never guess what the kids did. All right, Thanks,