Get Out There | 04 Backpacking The Wallowa Mountains and King Range

Get Out There Podcast

Get Out There | 04 Backpacking The Wallowa Mountains and King Range

Backpacking stories from the Wallowa mountains in northeast Oregon.

Robert talks about his experience backpacking through a thunderstorm.

Billy Newman Robert Biscarret

hey what’s going on this is billy newman and i’m here with robert bisque arete we’re recording the get out there podcast how you doing Robert hey I’m doing good Billy how are you it’s cool man I’m doing good up here and yes thanks for calling in tonight record an episode 4 of the get out there podcast it’s kind of cool man I like like doing this it is yeah it’s been a great time how you like in this rain oh man it was kind of what you know is we consorted a four part of it was alright like I was getting through the day and then the last half of it was just like a ton of rain how was it done or you uh it was a pretty good for us today it’s raining pretty heavily now I’ve actually been working out in Northern California this last week oh so I mean the weather’s been a little bit different kind of getting outside of the valley typically a little bit more sunshine then we get here in the valley but ugh but yeah now that I’m back in the valley it’s free were you were you out past the siskiyou over there in that part of Northern California yeah yeah up there in the Hills area oh I’ve been on the hill area a couple times yeah I think I went out there with Tyler once to the to the Buddhist temple oh good I’ll day before no as far as I knew is all that existed there was a liquor store well the liquor store I mean that’s what’s in hill but I think yeah all of the town around that all stars like harasses the freeway exit not where you would see a Buddhist temple but no there’s that I think there’s a road it’s whatever that first exit is once you get over the sis queues and into California as you come back down that back sides is that first exit it might not be a hill but it was right right there right in that area you take that and that and you cut back west along along the ridge of the South lie into the mountains and you go back a little ways and you kind of cut up a bit and it’s like no we’re still out there there’s just like there’s like a couple like ghost town area okay it looks like in like I know but like one of those uh kind of or railroad sections like where they would stack up cars something like yeah but then yeah you just turn there you go up into the woods little further and you end up at this pretty impressive Buddhist temple like it’s been there for years yeah i guess like that the Ashland hippies kind of bought it and set it up and you know get was going to say is that a hot spot like that that weird hundreds of 50 miles between ready ashlynn is that nobody lives in is that just like I think it’s a it’s full re Reaper tranquility ok and it’s but it’s exactly you go up there I think we took taking pictures as a before but that they like have all the Buddhist flags a flyer you know like on the side of the hills that you can watch it sky it’s kind of cool it’s like a pretty impressive structure that they’d build out there like it looks like an ornate Chinese building and then lower them there’s like these columns that are all painted red with like you know ornate symbols on them and they like spin and it’s like pretty big like drum system that goes and there’s like 12 of them and they like all spin as you go into this temple wow it’s not yeah yeah it’s a pretty heavy-duty temple for just out in the backcountry I don’t let him know where have you been out that much like out into some of the stuff in the siskiyou no not really I mean you and I did kind of on point with this podcast but we did we did that I cut pilot rock oh oh yeah I was thinking about that that is up there yeah i mean that’s that’s really like and I mean I was snowboarding up off not Ashland that’s kind of a my only experience with that area yeah that’s right you know the siskiyou is when I want to get into more like pilot rock it’s cool i think i think a pile of rock more i was like something of eastern oregon or more like Table Rock you know when you think of kind of yes but that side of it but I remember I can pilot rock with you that was like late last week in july two thousand eight I member gas was 525 a gallon oh my god there’s like 550 a gallon when you went over to ashland it was either that went isn’t that what Tyler hit that rocket is a Camry hatchback and oh yeah as it up plus you that hole in his oil pan forgive is his transmission oh yeah but was he was leaking transmission fluid everywhere i member that night that was thought that like it might be the end of the camry i’m in a guy now but yeah I remember that yeah he’d like that the whole drive back like loaded down with people and I just I guess so it dripped out over the trip but yeah it’s too bad i remember Dawson came with us on that that was Dawson that turned us onto that for those of you that may be listening Dawson was our it was our high school English teacher and uh still still a good friend to this day so dude but yeah he took us out there should have showed us around the area and ended up being a great hike i recommend it to anybody that has access to that area yeah i did say it’s kind of a challenging hike in sometimes I mean there’s there’s a little pyro you know you gotta you gotta kind of get up up and over just just gotta get up and over and the words Agathe but there’s a couple challenging spot so that I can I member give them anything like I was like thirty percent rock climbing or like it’s not invented like actual doing but like in difficulty sometimes like this great is Steve this is like crumbly rock that’s coming around but it’s a cool it’s not some place you would take like your your little kids but I mean any any able-bodied individuals would be able to get up there you know yeah and do it do it all right I remember the big the geocache that was up there at the summit I don’t know I never was able to kind of like do that with you guys in fact that whole geocache movement past right I mean just kind of like the old pokemon just to two major things that just never affected my life in any way I hear you the geocaching I hope a little different than pokemon but but I remember we founded that we weren’t looking for it but it was on that hike when we were there at the summit I think it was like one of the things that was challenging enough to get up there that it was sort of obvious where it was located but yeah there’s a there’s just the geocache at the summit point a pilot rock it was like some little film canister to kind of sign your name well yeah one of the guys we were was pulled of that was okay look I’m 50 of cash stashed at P let’s sign it and remember we like stash about there again just honestly memory I have I ever taken you to the cave up out of a water Creek area you did one time yeah okay nice i’m not going to go to great detail about this is kind of like yeah yeah I get a special a special place but yeah that’s kind of neat that little peanut butter jar there with been in that cave for 17 years buh-bye more than that it was 17 years when I took you so probably 20 years now oh yeah yeah and only one other person to find it that is Matt well that pretty it’s right yeah don’t find too often yeah I think about that like how few times people have been in some areas or you know how many years it takes before someone gets back to that spot oh yeah you ever wonder that when you get rid of really out into remote places and I thought about this a lot when I was firefighting oh yeah you know you get out of those areas and your you know your 10 12 miles out into it looking for a lightning strike and one it just kind of dawns on you when was the last time that anybody was out here you know like I mean how many hundreds of years ago could somebody potentially walk along this area yeah what if it so long ago yeah I mean I there’s a likelihood of that happening a frequency yeah I mean what is what’s the likelihood of somebody being up on this Ridge at you know I don’t know 7,000 feet out of this excuse right yeah it’s just kind of like I don’t know yeah that’s like deep wilderness because you know yeah it might not mean you can open yeah I mean yeah that’s what I mean you could probably count the people through our history that I’ve taken that path that you’re walking probably on one hand yeah I got to think about that though there’s really some super remote areas i mean even still I here in Oregon and southern organ especially like some of it’s still kind of a frontier it feels like well very much so you know yeah it feels like what’s left to their frontier in the 21st century yeah there are some pretty significant location to wilderness or stretches a wilderness out there is it I guess yeah like just don’t have a lot of people move it through it at all well and honestly that’s what that’s what keeps me in this area I mean absolutely it definitely is an economy but it’s just kind of that unexplored wilderness and what the area has to offer as far as I don’t know no it’s really cool how about that and how much I miss it now that I’m up here still in Eugene still with a lot of nature around him and guys just like so much mimic and it will aim at wilderness to go into but I think back to just like behind that high school free if we just wanted to skip class and go up by the school it was like this awesome mountain road that would go up you know into this like crazy endless maze of mountains that goes like deep into southern or northern california busy asset like that whole like mountain rain just started right there and that was just make mountains and wilderness back for four miles and miles out into the metal state I know any choice is kind of like oh yeah whatever signs about but then you start thinking about what’s fine about you just go oh wait this is it for a long long ways yeah you know and we’re lucky I mean a lot of people don’t have that oh yeah not that you know they’ll never be able to experience that yeah I think I think some of us stuff of doing things were your removed from from a population for a long time is really cool like something we you really feel like you get back not back to nature so much i mean i always said like some kind of technology like always been cameras and stuff like what I’m going out so I understand like it’s not a naturalist’s approach maybe it’s not what I mean but just the kind of the thing is prepared on yourself as a person having all your equipment or you know having your gear having some steadiness to you and then going out away from people for a while I always think that’s a really yeah I didn’t too I want to do more backpacking stuff with you and uh so kind of all point yeah so that’s that’s what i was getting too yeah kind of on point with people that may not have that opportunity I want to talk to you Billy oh dude maybe some good opportunities places to go hike I know that you’ve hiked in not only the lower room but I don’t want to get too hung up on that I think you focus on that a little bit and the whole world and i would like to touch on it but but there’s so much more out there beyond yeah derya not wilderness and so I want to talk to you about I know you did I can’t rip through the wall that’s up in kind of northeastern Oregon yeah and that’s a great spot yeah and I kind of want to hear your take on that man i really want to get you up there fact actually that’s one of the spots that we should plan on going this summer if we’re able to make a couple trips out to some spots together but so allow is is awesome yeah I’ve heard nothing but oh ok so actually here’s kind of an interesting anecdote um today I learned that will allow and i’m assuming expensive felt the same way i was listening to an Alaskan okay hunter kind of uh you know telling stories about his hunting situations and he was telling me that Oh Willa wha which was spelled WI ll owa which is the same way as the wall hours correct there’s an a in there but the real close ok Yeah Yeah right so maybe I’m maybe I am confused but he was saying that what it is is unpredictable winds winds that are constantly changing so if you’re out there hunting and Stocking animal Oh Willa I believe that’s how i pronounced it will will potentially give your sent away oh and and I’m wondering if maybe the shape of those canyons and and mountain ranges don’t don’t create some may be unpredictable with that be interesting I wonder if that’s with a homology kuntram I remember yeah so that area is really cool I want to get you there it’s um it’s one of the only glacially formed areas in Oregon like it’s sort of getting into some of the stuff that we see a little further north when we get up to Glacier National Park yeah further in the to Canada and into the Columbia range in fact if you look at a wide map the Northwest you can kind of see that the terrain how it comes down from the Rocky Mountains if you kind of trace that up into Canada and I’ve been yeah Columbia range is that kind of comes down this is sort of the westernmost edge of some of the mountains that would be down on the edge as a panhandle of idaho that go up into columbia and some of the stuff that goes further east over to the Colorado’s but it’s not really connected but it’s like one of the last thing that’s over there and it is really an unusual piece of land for that area like you’ve been over in the Eastern Oregon plenty of times everything around there like Pendleton legrand everything up into Washington it’s all super flat grasslands it’s just like rolling hills for really a long yeah like you get down to the o Chico’s or the blue mountains ish there’s terrain out there but it’s really not like the Wallowa mountains so I think that will allow mountains used to be in mezz Pierce like an Indian city state or I know if that’s what I’d be but it was like it was kind of like a like a section of the Nez Perce tribe that stretched up into Washington and Idaho and Montana and I think that they had like one of their last outpost there and like the Oregon American or Oregon Native American Indian Wars back in the eighteen seventy something like that now where that that would stay here at up in order to there in the ATM cookies yeah I bet it probably was everywhere but that’s where we get Chief Joseph and the town of Joseph up there yeah yeah absolutely yeah so so Joseph is that small town that’s right outside of the well ours and when we went there I think the first time I went there I did a solo backpacking trip I got there with my dad when I was a kid but when I got to the point I was on that trip doing do not photo chit back in 2011 it was fall kind of like mid late September it was really a nice time of year to go though I was worried about doing Alpine hiking as it was getting like later into September because I really didn’t want to get caught in a freeze because it didn’t have the equipment for it but I got to Joseph I parked the camry I said every as a backpack and like a couple days worth of supplies and I took off i think i did nine miles up to spot called ice lake so there’s about four miles in up a canyon that was a pretty pretty easy grade and then it was another like four miles a switchback they get yo yeah every Iker loves the fuck yeah yeah it’s a lot of switchbacks it breaks it up well but but yeah it’s a pretty it’s a pretty steep incline like you do you do most of the canyon and then you really just have to get up the side of this hill for a long time but it’s really rewarding you get up there you get to this up I mean have you done well yeah you probably have definitely in some of the firefighting stuff that you did but I’m probably in a lot of the other backpacking stuff you might have done I was wondering if you’d been up to budget like that alpine level or that alpine lakes that sort of Atma gathering yeah something I want to talk to you about a little later is my experience town of kings canyon near a Sequoia National Park oh yeah I want to break that down with you in a bit but yeah that’s yeah that’s a cool area so yeah you know like what it’s like when you get up about the tree line and you’re in those the snowmelt lakes that show up kind of high in those those areas in the mountains there but it’s really cool because and they’ll allow is probably like what you found in other areas where you got back back into bit into allow is surprisingly for naturally beautiful as we are there really underpopulated i think they’ve got a lot more popular recently but it was so cool cuz when i was there in September I was the only person at this lake oh I absolutely believe it yeah just that kind of I’m yet the amount of solitude that you get I mean I think I saw one other person walk through a day later well what’s so cool about that is when you get up these remote areas but you’ve done is you’ve eliminated about ninety-five percent of the people that are willing to go off of the bib natural path you know they have the the tourist center you can drive your car for their there for the day take some pictures do things of that nature but very few people are a going to find the time or be even have the willingness to really spend the time to actually get out there and explore and that’s the beauty of doing these types of trips is you can really find that solitude and find yourselves in situations where you haven’t seen anybody for days on that yeah that’s that’s what I really love about it no it was amazing when I was up there cuz I was that was really the first experience I had a solo backpacking that’s the thing I recommend to I mean you’ve probably done some other version of that before I don’t mean I’ve not really done things like that much before so completely solo there was nobody else with you the first time I went I went backpacking out there yeah I was it was just me marina wasn’t there for that part of the chip so it was just me and that man I swear okay so break part of the story down I got lost the first night it was kind of that and it’s probably the thing that I’ve made the most mistakes at in something of related to the outdoors like closest to a half native eventually would have ended him where’s Billy yeah right i’m so yeah there’s a sufficiency for that I got concerned it was late-september I was walking up I had started because i had a drive to Lowell Alice and I got a map from from like the local spot how to put in a little permit thing it just said like this this is me I’m gonna be gone for these many days it’s no so dude did you have to get a permit to go do that not really a permit but you just uh but just kind of like a notification that you were going to be out there yeah I think its just oh well they would have found your body at some point yeah at some point it’s like this guys were supposed to move his car last week we should we should go with it I think that’s about all the signal that it gives you is like oh this guy was supposed to get his car a couple weeks ago he’s probably he was just like a nice lake he could have been back so I was going out there I made it all the way up the straightaway like remember if we imagine kind of an l-shaped we’re going up the canyon for kind of the draw with the creek I cross the creek and that’s about the time that the sunset so toes all right I probably should just stop there I uh so now you now you’ve entered in the water made yourself saturated with water that’s a gut the Angels a little wet and then it’s over and now it’s dark and I just got the switchbacks as I rise 4500 feet in elevation to the top bill take to get to okay so yeah I see right just like it’s how you want to get set up for a long backpacking trip it was kind of I typically like to hit my switch back at nightfall after midnight when I shoot for him yeah yeah at the witching hour time that does it go for it I for any people doing this before I had my little head lamp and stuff so I get go and it’s relatively easy is what I’m expecting what I had a deal with myself is all right like I’m going to stop if it gets weird like I’m not going to just like like scale across an escarpment of rock texture so whether you know and that’s whatever their side I was supposed to go to so I’m just going to say like I’ll stay on this easy trail I can see it pretty well it’ll not be pretty regular i’ll just get up here and you know i’ll finish when i do or when I can and i’ll try and make everything go easy so I cruise out that I do the switch back I get to this zone I cross like another really small creek it’s just when you kind of leap over pretty much but it’s it was an area where like the I guess the snow had come through and it made like a big drift and then now there’s like there’s melt waters flowing through it and what it had done was it as a race where the trail I was supposed to take was so there’s this whole zone in front of me that was washed out well then what type of the year was this again you said this was a later the fall September 18th it was a nice eve of yet but it was cold out and it was dark out and then this was the next thing so I stopped there and it’s like darka there’s no moon that night really but I have my head later on i remember i had like Michael Jackson Thriller playing in the chest pocket and my ipod to those affected by myself right I should have nothing to do a nobody yeah and so I’m sitting there I think a like a cliff bar I had my headlamp on and I was just kind of poking around and I kind of looked up and then BOOM well catch a set at eyes over there if you see you at ten o’clock what’s that hi wait look at 12 a client’s Lions like Michael Jeff another said eyes at twelve o’clock and then so I’m looking at you like whose eyes are these like big eyes like they’re not like really tight together you know when you see a cat or something like that but yeah yeah something predatory yeah it’s hot it’s hard in a way so what they had told me is that there was no bears there’s no rules up there there’s some wolves but it really but really no rules but there’s like there’s like sheep I guess which I don’t want to run to a night either but ya better news than the other thing so I was just really banking that they weren’t interested me but you just look down the hill and you just always maybe dear i guess but just look down the hill and you see like these little yellow eyes looking at me go god this is great especially for your first I but it’s like this is not not that the type of thing you want to get into but I ended up losing the trail right there but it was confusing because i had this map in front of me and I was standing at the creek and so what the math showed was well the trail is just to the south of this Creek so if we just cried out for a bit of the trail and we just crossed the creek to the to the south side the trail will be right there I’m assuming it’s running east to us yeah let’s say yeah east to west podcast yeah and so I hop / app / the full creek but there’s no trail over there and so I’m like oh well it’s got to be just like a little further over here a little bit up here and so I kind of like cruise back and forth us trying to find this trail I couldn’t find the trail so I was like this is weird so I ended up getting myself in the kind of this weird spot where I sort of like up higher and whose rocky area where like this is really like nowhere flat to camp by that point where I was at because you’re just going up this hill right yeah so I just like laid out the stuff there and I just like crashed until morning where I could see where I was I was like 10 feet from this like really big drop-off but i had no idea but yeah look up that morning just kind of wedged between these like two little trees on what was the least of a slope effects of in between his Little Rock’s I don’t kind of roll down in my sleeping bag a night but I woke up the next morning and then I found out like okay this was a fake creek that wasn’t even on the map and I supposed to look at this other creek way over here and as for the trailers okay it was great yeah but that was most of it when I got up finally to the lake it was great everything else from the trip really went fantastic there was no one up there at the lake you just got to go around it was super pristine water like really cool great to do photos that I was really fun oh yeah and I decided when I was up there I just should do two days like i should add another day because i already did all the work to get up here and i was kind of yeah I guess so it’s not like well I’ll just I’ll just hang out here for another day I got my food and I kind of rationed it out a little bit not a little extra stuff that I could cook up to so I ended up just like split my meals up and spend more time up there but yeah man that was one of the best chips that I’ve done because what I really like about backpacking I don’t want to hear your take on this is that I like the exercise portion of of like doing outdoor wilderness stuff I think that’s important man there’s a lot of work to do and I’ve definitely doesn’t that’s what I was gliding and as doing photography stuff if they dig carrying my camera with me in the tripod and I like getting out to stuff with I’m being able to take pictures of things that you know I normally don’t get to see just kind of around the more pedestrian stuff around town and so it’s cool to get out to a spa and set up like a base camp this is kind of a strategy i’ve liked a little bit so there’s a lot of trips like the lower row but we talked about earlier where it’s just sort of ten miles each day you do that until you complete the circuit and then you’re you know you’re done with it but i like it where it’s a little more flexible where you go into the backcountry you know 10 or 12 miles or something like that you set up a base camp and then you operate out of there with the resources that you brought in for like a couple days yeah and that that’s been really fun for us to do we’ve done that a couple of times man it made it made it a lot more comfortable to do but you just get to you just get to familiarize yourself for that area of the outdoors where anything is cool because it’s tough when you just walk through a spot and then it’s gone I got man well it’s a little like traveling you know I I did not not the same type of backpacking but i backpacked around Europe for a bit when I was in my early 20s and you find that you go to all these cool places but you only spend a day or two in those places and when you leave you realize that you never really utilize your time there and got to understand the area culture the people and it’s a lot like that was backpacking when you’re hiking for a destination you kind of in a sense forget to enjoy the time that you’re spending in that area and you’re focused on the pain which you’ve got to get through with the mental you know push through mentally and get a lot of rentals yeah yeah and and sometimes you kind of forget about the beauty that you were just passing by and not to sound cliché but it becomes that stop smell the flowers situation quite yeah you know and but don’t get me wrong there are there others great points where you find you know that beautiful little Brook that’s kind of cruising through the area and it’s a great spot to take a nooner and eat an apple and sit there and put your feet in the water because you’re so sore and and those are the little moments that you end up remembering yeah that’s a step I love that about that area and it is really cool but I would love to do something like that I’ve never actually had the opportunity just kind of based on the ice that I’ve chosen to do something like that where I’ve had the leeway to just say you know what we’re going to go in X amount of miles we’ll see what happens when we get there we’ll find a place we like and you know we’ll find our tentative destination set up a base camp there and then explore the area and I think that’s really cool approach to the backpacking because a lot of people i think take backpacking as well we’re making the lube we’re doing the circuit this is the trail or yeah yeah there that i already miles we got two days yeah and so i think i’d like to do more of that i think i’d like to encourage more people to do things like that as well is it you know i made it a lot easier for the first couple times that i did it and that’s what I’ve done with marina a few times it’s been super rewarding because you just like I guess a good example of this was the second time that we went up to the wool hours I went at the ice lake the first time it’s a smaller like really beautiful you might have seen some pictures that I took of it the next time I went up we went a little further down that Canyon to the first cut off trail is up to isolate if you go further there’s a whole number of other mountain lakes that there are trails to cut off job I will only explored really a very small percent of what there is to offer up here in the Millau announced in fact I thought before if i could i’d spend like 15 or 20 days up in the mountains like that you know and have like a cash or didn’t get resources again one time go back to town and yeah but I’ve only been to a couple little spots so the second time Marina and I both went and we went one leg further over to an area called the lake basin and this was cool because and this is what we should do maybe if we go up sometime because there’s so many things to do in that area is we have to the first leg we set up our camp site there and then from there there’s there’s kind of a number of spoke trails that go off to different lakes that are further up in that chain so there’s like a number of lakes that are kind of connected all along you said these glacial e-forms mountain ridges that look really dramatic and really steep as they kind of cut up along up to the top of this mountain that’s all really just sort of one thing with these big gouges carved out of it from you the glacier flow but yeah cool area up there well you know I’ve seen it in pictures and you know you you always know the pictures never really do the area justice oh yeah show the true but I mean even even from the pictures and okay so I I just do want to touch really quick not to get off topic oh yeah but Billy you and marina both do something pretty awesome I mean you talk about packing a camera around a lot I think you should tell people that you know kind of what you guys do I mean you guys are photographers yeah that’s that’s your hobby that’s your passion and I think our field time yeah this outdoor exploration is just kind of like a catalyst of what you guys love to do yes duh that’s the way I remember seen it you know I remember watching for watching a hundred twenty seven hours i was still in college he has right man i’m going to set my Camry up with the five hundred dollars i’m able to scrap together for the summer i’m going to go do some kind of thing there’s also another photographer guy that i follow and I liked I liked a lot of the images that you have you got like an old Land Rover a range rover range rover like an old 401 like a like a left-hand drive one yeah and like set that up with a like a tent and stuff it did this whole circuit of national parks through parts of the West I was like ah man that is really cool I want to do something like that I want to go through and I was just getting out of school I wanted to like figure out a bunch of stuff about photography which is what its most interested in and that’s where as like man I gotta figure out a way to travel for a long time and get a bunch of photographs taken at the same time and that’s when yeah that’s how like Marina and I like first started doing more serious with some of the outdoor travel steps that we got into and I’ve been like and doing it I mean what if I guess it’s like six years later of just that sort of stuff in it you guys you guys have really put out some incredible stuff too thanks man I appreciate it I got it I gotta collect it more I gotta put it out another coming at like all the art our houses photography from the to you oh yeah man thank you well thank you for putting up all that prints that we we dropped yeah i mean i don’t i don’t do it because i like you i do because it’s good picture thanks driving us out here yeah man that was that was once i go though I thought about it is how cool some of these spots are that that it seems like people don’t really get to go to you know I but that’s the part of photography I’ve always been most fascinated with is that ability where is I see photography as soon as this this opportunity to go find the coolest looking thing in the world and try and capture it somehow as shown absolutely so that’s so part of that was kind of my draw my interest to nature into the outdoors where that’s where I was think the coolest things I says why you know I wanted to go out there and do as many types of landscape photos as I could but backpacking I mean it really provides so many opportunities that are separate from what you get on that track that tourist track of photos that you could go on if you’re going to see you get a natural places like the bison in yellowstone like yeah yeah yeah just a drive by bison and yes donor yeah you know whatever whatever that shot is in that in Yosemite all very beautiful and I’ve taking the same pictures and they right but backpacking super interesting because it really makes the perspective different probably like how it is you know what people go skiing or snowboarding or something you know you take a lift up to the top of the mountain and just that that work of getting to the top of the mountain you see such a different perspective on the landscape and it sometimes seems much more dramatic and so there’s something I wanted to touch on also is in and I’m not a photographer but i would have to imagine if you were just a photographer and let me know what you think about this but you’re a photographer okay and you’re going to go photograph the Eiffel Tower okay perfect you’re the 15,000 photographer to go take a professional photo of the Eiffel Tower it doesn’t have that much meaning to it okay come in with a beautiful spot you’ve taken a great picture excellent but somebody else is dying but you I think when you get out there and you uh you really separate yourself from things that people are photographing and not just about photographs but you put in the work you put in the time the efforts of planning and you get out to a remote area you can find beauty in the simpler things be done and you can appreciate that and photography ends up being this this this expression of art right yeah that’s what is this artistic impression yeah and so I think a lot of that kind of pushes through and your guys’s photography and I mean one that sticks out in my mind is you guys you guys were shooting tin cans you know out of the desert and do this there’s this picture of these cans lined up and it really just kind of captures a time far beyond us you know I mean it feels like it feels like 18 you know 70 it doesn’t feel like we’re running rampant it does and and but what’s cool about that is you guys are living that moment and that really is kind of what pushes through in that and and you feel that through the picture because you guys were there and in you be in there and taking a picture of something that you guys thought was important it really portrays to the person that’s look at that yeah that’s definitely part of it i mean like it is like working on music or doing a lot of other types of creative expression it seems like so much of it probably like 10 years of it it’s just trying to figure out how to get through enough and try to figure out how to communicate how to put the pieces together after that it tries to show such as it seems important but yeah I’d like that picture you talk about the one of the cans in that in Eastern California those are all kansa we found out there that had been you know it looked nuts too because like in the tops of him you can see where this a can opener tool was used on him yeah the old church keys yeah obably were from 1870 I had wondered about that you might know about it my grandpa told me you’re like so you did that like tin cans would would kind of I guess what would the oxidizers you know rest out back to the earth in about 10 or 15 years yeah I wasn’t sure that was true or not or like it would just be stuck out there forever but yeah it looked like they were old cans like old old tin cans popped with a church key and left out there yeah a lot of those that I find I always find myself out awning or hiking and I find an old hand up or something I end up searching through it a lot of times I’ll find cans that are typically from like this early to mid sixties that you know but that makes sense it seems like the construction of it the way it’s bill it’s like different than I modern one a lot of the time yeah so yeah I’ve seen a few they seem like they’re around the 60 I mean they’re so oxidized though you’d swear there from the beginning of time the game yeah yeah the Indians yeah exactly shots an arrowhead and as a beer bottle oh yeah Oh Daniel of the canned corn yeah it’s pretty funny but but that yeah that’s some of the some of that back packing stuff that I’d done but you were saying you’re in the king change I wanted you guys about that yeah it’s Donna almost bordering of support a national forest it’s about boy this is just me if your own a number based on driving but it seemed like about 65 maybe 70 miles east of Fresno uh yeah yeah and the reason we went down there is my cousin was getting married and as the only family member on the trip amber and I were able to go down and witness their marriage with just a couple friends and really it was kind of neat they drew the permit for the area and they brought along a friend of a friend and a friend of that friend so really nobody knew anybody oh uh on this trip and it became it was a fantastic trip but that I mean such a place of grandeur it was just it was so beautiful but it was the rail aches for anybody that may be interested in this and if you are I definitely suggest checking it out and I really promote you know put yourself out there and try it but that it was it was cool it was a I think with 55 miles got a long trip looks like a good fit a mile ya know and uh I mean it was it was great and you know I’ve done I’ve done several hike you know multi day hikes but this is the first one that I this is the first time I’ve ever really been tested you know I mean the first day we climbed like 6500 feet and that was the first day that’s significant yeah and so I mean you know everybody’s pretty and 6500 feet isn’t that bad man you don’t have anything on your back but it was just like the first day was like this quick little trail through the forest it was pretty and then before you know it you’re just like switchbacks for like four hours oh yeah you know and he’s got 45 50 pounds on your back but anyway we made base camp up just love the Alpine level the mosquitoes are terrible ah it’s a pair of it but I mean talk about the most pristine country and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Fresno but you’re down there you’re just thinking to yourself well at least I was you know yeah president not the most pristine yeah i’m in fresno and they’re like yeah just use of Fresno oh great I’m like there’s not national park anywhere near yeah I I saw a picture this is not what’s this place look like but no I was great the first night went up there we made camp and oh yeah I think it we were on the North Fork of the Kings River because I believe look out and oh my god what an impressive River talk about an angry pissed-off River man this thing is just cruising I mean you like you go down to wash your face if you fill your water bottle or something like that I mean in one one false move man you’re gone and that’s the end of you like that is that is not a river to play it around it for sure yeah yeah it’s just like 50 miles of class 5 is this lower down or is this up into the hills like once he made the Alpine level well so there’s a when you come into the kings canyon national park area there’s there’s a bunch of different stuff excuse me there’s much different campsites campgrounds i should say around the area and there’s the river kind of just meanders through there and then you’re always just kind of near the river you kind of saw like the the rogue river trail where you kind of do near it and then you end up in the hills and you come back near it it’s always nearby though oh shit if you head downhill you’re going to find the river and so there was a lot of that but how many dates you guys take up here for the for the 55 mile chip we made 55 and then you guys are pretty set doing what is that like about 11 miles a day yeah we are first three days where our longest days we had like 15 we did 15 miles like for three days now we did 15 miles the first day we did 12 the SEC day you know but somewhere in that ballpark but our last few days where our shorter days okay yeah that’s probably the way to do it man I remember being so exhausted up there do you remember tell me well it might be different for you you guys are more healthy I’m I’m ever going up there and I remember craving these weird foods I talked to this amount of hackers about this before to like were you just like like oh my god I just want this food so much right now but I wanted to ask you if there’s anything like that that came to mind I got a couple of money you know not really I mean what I mean don’t get me wrong we all SAT around like a fire eating our life you know in and I’m going to complain about mountain house meals like like they’re not good but there’s so much better than what you see oh absolutely no I mean we’re so spoiled like that’s actually I mean that’s just that’s like when you see college you know that was like yeah okay I don’t know for real I’m pretty happy with a mountain house meal well maybe not on but the man when you’re out it like it really it’s us five you’ve been hiking 15 miles and you’ve done a 6500 foot elevation gain a mountain house meal if it’s beef stroganoff it’s gonna work because droga not beef stroganoff the best meal that’s and you know what my biggest tip of advice is bring Tabasco or tops to you with you I don’t care if you’re a weight hound and you’re worrying about all those extra ounces your backpack do yourself a favor get rid of a pair of socks and pack a bottle of Tabasco because yeah it’s just it if it live-ins up the mouth and also you can sell Tabasco to people while you’re there because everybody else didn’t think of it corded Tabasco five bucks yeah because I’m telling everybody everybody sees you pull it out cuz oh yeah that’s what I should have done no I think hotshots was the thing that I was spicy was the thing that I was really missing the most like in succession after numbered days well and so I you know I joke around and I give the mountain house meals a hard time but I mean they really are good I ghetto they have the biggest thing is is that you they’re all kind of the same palette oh it’s so much greatness I don’t know how to yeah that is just they’re all kind of like the same level of flavor nothing like really stands out they’re all good but I mean they’re all just I mean it beats the hell out of an MRE oh yeah I had an Emily a couple of times and then I did I didn’t really enjoy the experience I’m we happy with the free surf stuff so yeah boiling water to now yeah but you know what you get hungry nothing it’s all pretty good yeah I would totally believe that I remember when that everybody ever moved into the house I had this box of mountain house meals that I had for hiking and and like I don’t know one night I came home from work and she’s just eating one like what are you doing well I mean I’ve been eating these for dinner the last couple nights I’m like no say they’re pretty good yeah I mean they are yeah but not you’re starting them everyday you need you need like something different I know that’s where it’s just nice to have that spice yeah and I’m gonna change yeah yeah it’s totally true but man I remember that I remember I want a cupcake so bad but what was it what was it like out there and as a king’s range we’re gonna wrap up in a minute but but yeah what was the like out in the Kings range then so man it was it was awesome it was just such a beautiful area and I’ve never really I’ve never actually been to any real national parks before I’ve always just kind of been you know in our own backyard and type of thing yeah and banana but that was that was my first experience like really and just like you know some of those public lands that have just been preserved through conservation and it was a fantastic man so that was day one we play some dominoes stuff like that camped out but one of the coolest things that I was able to experience was a somebody brought powdered Lipton tea okay okay phone and in vodka so you mix a little bit of this tea with water you know it makes your teammates imagine you know you mix a little vodka and then you’ve got the you’ve got cocktails up there at the Alpine level and and but you know what it’s so green at the end of a day oh man I’m sure it is yeah everybody just relaxes and Santa it’s not an excess because you can only write so much at night but no man it was great but so that was day one I mean kind of the same thing day two we did 4,500 feet of elevation on day two and that’s when we got up above like into that alpine level okay and what I found that was interesting is you actually you can’t burn you can’t have fires up above the alpine line okay for above the treeline excuse me I heard that I was like erosion issues yeah we’re just uprooting 3 b’s the you know a small tree of saplings and things like that and then people were just stripping the few trees around the area of firewood so they just kind of established a no fire above the tree line rule so no fire that night that was a cold night but we got by you know and that’s the other thing too is your your body kind of goes into that biological clock mode where your ear in bed when it’s dark and you wake up on a flight yeah that happens pretty quick for me when I was out getting used to yeah do you notice how much better you feel when that happens yeah absolutely idea it’s just it’s like your body actually feels you know like it’s being efficient yeah I’ve noticed about yeah but anyway so we did that day three was the most impressive of all the days and that was when we went over Glen pass so Glen past the summit is at eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety feet Wow and it was my first time actually being up in the lake glacial you know areas I don’t know so we hiked up that day we got into the snow I mean there was like snow spots here and there on the hike up but at this point we I think we did like another you know 3,000 feet in elevation that day but we really started getting up into the snow it started snowing quite a bit and it was the first time that I’ve just like seeing these glacial lakes and it was absolutely so impressive yeah there’s no beautiful I know I mean the first time I saw I just had to stop and just kind of really take it in to take it into account of what I was seeing but so we get up there and we’re for anybody that’s not familiar with Glen pass if you had a chance look it up and try to find pictures of it in the late spring on a good snow year anyway the week before they were actually requiring a crampon oh really and I sticks to go over Wow so we had purchased all these things but last minute we were told that we didn’t eat them so and by no means of my a mountaineer you know I love the outdoors and I’ll take on about anything but this this is a little outside of my comfort yeah I understand but so we get up there and uh man it was it was just it was crazy you’re looking at it you’re just going all right you know one foot in front of the other we’re going to take this one step at a time because honestly by the time you’re hitting the summit of that of that pass I mean if you fell you’re on such a steep grade like you’re going all the way down to hell and you’re going to be cartwheel and bad you’re gonna accelerate quick it’s just going to be way too much way too fast yeah yeah and and we didn’t have well yeah I guess I mean we had crampons we put them on before we went over the past but I mean we all made it up it took us about an hour and a half I guess just being careful and cautious yeah you’re moving very very slow at this place yeah because I mean room for error is so marginal so anybody ever get up there it was like the last 15 feet was the most sketchy area that we countered and there was there at that point where you’re just you thinking to yourself you’re like I can’t do this I can’t do it and at that point you’re way too committed to start thinking like that yeah that’s a worse I hate feeling yeah I remember I was just like hey man shut up you are eight steps away from being done like push through it let’s go and so so we did it and I mean my biggest concern was amber up there you know I I know how my footing is yeah and I’ve had a heavy pack on my back before but I wasn’t sure how she was doing she didn’t great she killed it did a great job now it’s awesome it’s really cool but you guys are opposite to it’s awesome you like it up yeah and you know what we get to the top and we’re all celebrating everybody’s like so happy take some pictures of stuff and then there’s like this storm moving in you can see and when you’re at the 12,000 feet comes back into Sierra’s yeah you see these things coming off in the distance you can see lightning you and everything and and you can tell that it’s moving towards you and I mean the very real situation of it is you need to get off that now yeah Julian you don’t want to hang out up there so I decided to push off and head downward at this point we kind of realized that going down is probably worse than the way up oh yeah it’s the same grade now you’re just going downhill with all the way on your back oh my god are you guys going like straight down knees first or are you guys like backing down the mountain well so you’re backing down on pretty much you’ve got yours you created a yeah go to Attica know you’ve got your hiking poles and and also before we went on this trip I thought I you poles resistors like old people and not true they’re so helpful they really are man I don’t you know and you noticed this about to I well you guys are probably in better shape but I noticed like just a my ankles like they just weren’t in shape for four and a half straight they are you know 30 or 40 miles of hiking and they get fatigued and you’d like you get closer to like losing it but those hiking or the hiking poles man they just totally stabilized you yeah they did and honestly it kind of makes you feel like like you got four-wheel drive or something I almost feel like a dog like you can honestly though I mean in and I was having problems with my back I don’t care how much you situated pack and think about how it needs to be set up things like that your pack all returned to you you’re just not used to it always does carrying that kind of weight around your hips and on your shoulders so true and uh but the ability to use those hiking sticks was just kind of like something to take the weight off oh you know something to lean forward with I mean that helped out immensely and especially on the way down off of blunt pass I have kind of a pre-existing knee injury that I had happen to me snowboarding several years ago and on the way down it kind of just kind of irritated that injury and that nice it actually became pretty serious and then it started raining and it started raining and raining raining and I saw quite a bit behind an amber was cold I told her to go on you know I figure out where everybody was and so there was a big situation of separation between everybody that’s what I want yeah amber amber waited up for me because you know I hurt my knee and then and then a you know somebody waited up for oh then my cousin waited up for amber and then somebody waited up from that and that but anyway it just ends up being this scattered group of people and then we made our way into camp that night which I won’t get into detail but that was a long long situation for the fine where we’re going to stay I have two similar to this to ya yeah I mean we set up camp that night and we experienced one of the most profound forms ever real when you’re after that alpine level I mean everything is intensified by we’re we got dumping you know retired so we set up our tents as quick as we can try to keep things as dry as we can I guess get into the tent get into dry clothes get into sleeping bags try to get your body temperature up again true and then uh you know weathered the storm for about three hours and then it broke and we came outside it was beautiful and sunny and we all hung out had a good time for about an hour and a half and then the storm came back and we all went back to bed start nightfall came perfect and I mean just that this the most intense storm came in and I’ve never experienced thunder and lightning like this and i love Thunderman life but uh this this was to the point where you’re like okay I ok yeah back and let up a little okay but after this one yeah I mean it was really a nice six hours yeah really and yeah and you see those you see those pictures or like the video real like you know the lightless likes in the distance and that purple cloud it’s the desert I picture you always see that’s us yeah yeah yeah exactly or like or like Mountaineers on Everest and they’re huddled up in their tents their tent just flapping around it looks like it would just sail away if they weren’t inside of it yeah uh yeah it was it was all of that you know and you would lay there and the Lightning would hit and I mean it was this is no exaggeration it was almost as when the light was dissipating the Thunder would start and I mean it was so directly on top of us oh my gosh it was just that it was absolutely incredible i I was so happy to be able to experience that yeah that sounds so cool and then if you asked and you guys got to the rest of the night was it was the hike out after that all right yeah the next day we dealt with the rain all day that was a long tiring day we got him to camp same thing soaking wet get into whatever you have to dry and the you know and I left my i left my rain fly for my pack at home because I didn’t think I’d need it yeah and ended up doing the trash bag thing okay but yeah anyway I mean the big morale booster for that was we spent about 45 minutes trying to get a fire going with everything we had finally amber came up with some sappy pine cones that run over hand I haven’t been permeated by the water yet and we were able to get a fire going and get enough I go when it’s wet is not easy yeah it’s not no it’s not and I was like I’ve studied different ways making fire things you can do and different tenders you can use and man when it comes down to it you’re actually shaking because you’re kind of at that hypothermic stage yeah and you’re trying to just rationalize what’s best and how do I do this most efficiently it’s just never as easy is when you practice it in your yard in the middle of summer it’s totally true you know yeah yeah absolutely good yeah yeah this reason but anyway yeah had a great fire had a great time last day we hiked that now we all end up going get pizza and hanging out that’s the way to do it man that is a way to do to celebrate with a big meal then every time you always go for a burger or a big spread its on you food you got to come back and just get like a whatever whatever it is you like me to so that look there was it was so funny to we’re all like yeah this this we get to the pizza place and each per service like six or seven of us right and each of us ordered a large pizza like we’re gonna eat the whole thing and yeah we order like like for both shakes or something I you know you drink like a third of the milk yeah a third of it slice is a pizza I can’t do anymore yeah we had leftovers we had leftover three different pieces of leftover that’s a great story Robert six tell me they but you’re the Kings range there’s a couple others i want to get to to we got to break things up in that will stretch him out over a bunch of podcast good thing we’re very much you know yeah no yeah yeah like I talked about there’s a couple things with this this one actually brought up to me and i’ll talk to you about later maybe will be the next episode stay tuned huh I really think she do this this podcast with me man we did a we did a solid hour got a couple good backpacking stories in nothing that was sweet yeah so hey maybe I mean tentatively we talked about the hiking trips we had but what do you really bring on a hiking trip huh oh man yeah that might be a point of debate I wanted I want to talk to you about that stuff yeah we should go in like a whole episode of like a gear we think as I know you pack a heavier bat you’re used to it I’m not I’m scared to have you back it’s gotta come back to say suck yeah I’d register every well because i also get stuck with like the tripod and the camera bag which is way that’s true you guys you’re you’re already ahead yeah I’m not ahead but I mean just ahead of weight oh yeah yeah so that’s where the bulk yeah I try and try and wrap that down a little bit but but yeah we should talk about that I want to break down some of the different gear that that you’re into for backpacking or for some of the outdoor stuff I think that may be a good another good couple episodes to break out too absolutely man I’d be pretty cool we got some material well thanks man for mine so much get outdoors with you oh man it’s great but I gotta feed up it’s on iTunes you guys should check it out review it or rate it if you end up here in it that’ll be great for us but baby thanks for doing it absolutely Billy so we talked about you Maria doing your photos is there any bear that people could go if they wanted to find your photos got to go to Billy Newman photo com you can go to at Billy Newman if you want to check out my Instagram page all the photos make it up there they make it up everywhere else to you can find me at twitter or facebook or any of those things but but yeah man the website see my portfolio this up there but your landscapes my kitty get the beautiful stuff thanks Robert I appreciate it I have it I have my house shrouded a butyl plastid in Billy’s photos I appreciate it man well Robert thank you very much for doing this podcast with me hey anytime let’s do it again soon thanks for doing a long one with me too i know we went a little over but but it was great man yes you know we always set a time limit but i’m never opposed to going over under you know it’s I think it’s all subject to conversation I dig that me know i like it i think it’s great and you know i mean i guess they build to go along really so it’s not bad but yeah yeah Robert I really appreciate you doing this podcast again episode 4 out of the way coming into that Crescent that next stretch of the five to 10 min so be good you guys we got the big rope the big growth get out of it back yesterday man so Yemen on behalf of Robert is correct my name is Billy Newman I want to say thank you guys very much for listening to this episode of the get out their podcast