Speaker 1: Hey friends. Mike from Locations Unknown, No Joe this week.
Speaker 1: He is off having fun in the great state of California,
Speaker 1: so I am alone manning the ship. We got a
Speaker 1: special episode for you this week. A couple weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we did a great interview with Maddie from who runs
Speaker 1: This Park, So we've got exciting news to announce. Maddie
Speaker 1: and her show will be joining Unknown Media, so we
Speaker 1: are super pumped to be working with Maddie. She has
Speaker 1: a great show. She does amazing interviews with people in
Speaker 1: the industry, park rangers, people that run the parks, other
Speaker 1: creators in the space. So we cannot wait to work
Speaker 1: with Maddie. To commemorate that, we are going to drop
Speaker 1: the interview that she uploaded a few weeks ago to
Speaker 1: her feed today and we hope you enjoyed the interview.
Speaker 1: Joe and I had a lot of fun doing it.
Speaker 1: It was one of the funner interviews we've done, so
Speaker 1: hope you'll like it. We're gonna be off next week
Speaker 1: for the Thanksgiving holidays, so Joe and I would just
Speaker 1: like to wish everyone a happy holiday. I hope you
Speaker 1: are expending it with your family and friends and eating
Speaker 1: some great food and watching some football, and Joe and
Speaker 1: I will be back the following week with a brand
Speaker 1: new episode. We can't wait till you get back. It's
Speaker 1: nice to take a break, but Joe and I love
Speaker 1: doing this, so we always miss it when we were
Speaker 1: not able to do it. So hope you enjoyed the
Speaker 1: interview and we will see you soon. Thousands of people
Speaker 1: have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness.
Speaker 2: Join us as we dive into the deep end of
Speaker 2: the unexplainable word and try to piece together what happened.
Speaker 2: You are listening to locations unknown.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, exciting news. You're listening to an episode from
Speaker 3: our brand news segment, Park Enthusiasts. Join in as I
Speaker 3: interview folks across the outdoor industry, from podcast hosts, outdoor
Speaker 3: brand founders, influencers, and more. I'm excited to unlock conversations
Speaker 3: with people whose love for the outdoors and national parks
Speaker 3: heavily influence their careers and life paths. Let's jump in.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Who Runs This Park? Park Enthusiast segment, where
Speaker 3: we expand our universe and knowledge of experiences in the
Speaker 3: outdoors and a national parks through conversations highly regarded and
Speaker 3: respected individuals in the outdoor world. As always, who runs
Speaker 3: this park seems to be a catalyst for inspiration, exploration,
Speaker 3: and appreciation of our world's natural beating. Today we have
Speaker 3: Mike and Joe with us, the host of the amazing
Speaker 3: podcast Locations Unknown. They're waving to you if you're listening
Speaker 3: to this audio, it's very exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just waved and didn't even say anything.
Speaker 3: Where I love it. Mike and Joe are going to
Speaker 3: give us a more in depth overview of what Locations
Speaker 3: Unknown is, But a quick summary is that it's a
Speaker 3: podcast that digs into some of the unexplained and unsolved
Speaker 3: disappearances in America's wilderness, highlighting some of the weird circumstances
Speaker 3: that seem to span across disappearances, like hampered search and
Speaker 3: rescue efforts from storms and missing individuals being found in
Speaker 3: semi conscious states without any memory of their disappearance. With
Speaker 3: both a fascinating and captivating podcast, I'm excited to dig
Speaker 3: into Joe and Mike's stories today getting a behind the
Speaker 3: scenes look on the podcast, the community they have built
Speaker 3: and are continuing to build, and their general love for
Speaker 3: the outdoors and how that shaped Locations Unknown. Mike and Joe,
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. Excited to have you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for having I feel so inflated.
Speaker 3: That's the goal.
Speaker 1: That was a great intro.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Hey, you're welcome. You're welcome. That's my goal, is everyone.
Speaker 3: That's a common response. People are like, wow, thanks for
Speaker 3: that great intro. Mike, we did it.
Speaker 1: I can tell you put some effort into it, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did some research. Well, I'd love to hear
Speaker 3: in y'all's own words, just as people who are listening
Speaker 3: to this may be new to hearing about Locations Unknown.
Speaker 3: Could you share a bit more from your perspective, the
Speaker 3: heart behind the podcast, and then the story of what
Speaker 3: got you guys to start it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so yeah, Locations Unknown. I always tell people it's
Speaker 1: I would say a mix between. If you've ever seen
Speaker 1: the show Survivor Man, it hasn't been on TV for
Speaker 1: a while now, but the plot of that show is basically,
Speaker 1: a guy went out into the wilderness with cameras and
Speaker 1: just filmed himself surviving before bear grills ever did it?
Speaker 1: This guy did it? Originally he was legit. He was legit,
Speaker 1: like he would get dropped off and then just film
Speaker 1: himself like for a week out in some remote place.
Speaker 1: So I say we're a mix between Survivor Man and
Speaker 1: the older version of Unsolved Mysteries. If you ever remember
Speaker 1: that show that goes back, even the show with that
Speaker 1: creepy guy that used to host it, and it really started.
Speaker 1: Joe and I have been hiking backcountry hiking, climbing, camping
Speaker 1: for over a decade together and longer than that on
Speaker 1: our own, and we would always talk about these cases
Speaker 1: while we were hiking and going they can't see them,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we'd be hiking somewhere and we'd
Speaker 1: go buy a sign and somebody would be, you know,
Speaker 1: be a missing poster sign for someone that had just
Speaker 1: gone missing in the park. So we would when you're
Speaker 1: out hiking, you really don't have a lot to you know,
Speaker 1: there's no phones, you're just kind of out there in
Speaker 1: the wilderness, and so we'd get to talking about these
Speaker 1: things and very fascinating cases obviously where people seem to
Speaker 1: literally just vanish off the face of the planet. And
Speaker 1: over time, when back in twenty eighteen, now we were
Speaker 1: we're at a bar, I think just talking about like
Speaker 1: talking about one of these cases. And well it started
Speaker 1: on our trip in Montana.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because we were we were doing a big backcountry here.
Speaker 4: That was the longest one at the time that we've done,
Speaker 4: because I think we did like forty to fifty miles
Speaker 4: to the back country wow Glacier.
Speaker 2: So it was amazing.
Speaker 4: It was what five days, Yeah, it was like a
Speaker 4: week in the backcountry. We have to we have to
Speaker 4: go check into the ranger station, get watch the videos
Speaker 4: on bear safety all that stuff. And there were one
Speaker 4: or two people in the last three months that had
Speaker 4: gone missing at the time. So at the end of it,
Speaker 4: the ranger showed us the slip saying, hey, you are
Speaker 4: going on the same path that these two people were on.
Speaker 4: They never came out. Here's what they were wearing. Here's
Speaker 4: kind of where they were supposed to be. If you
Speaker 4: see anything, like mark it on the map, take GPS coordinates,
Speaker 4: and let us know any come out. So it wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 4: search for him, but you're gonna be there. If you anything,
Speaker 4: just make sure you report it. So when you're a
Speaker 4: back country you don't have anything to do besides walk
Speaker 4: and talk. So we were just hypothesizing about what could
Speaker 4: have happened, like, oh, what do you think happened to
Speaker 4: these guys? Like as we're hitting the spots where they
Speaker 4: were supposed to be, we're kind of, you know, fascinated
Speaker 4: in the topic. And we spent a lot of time
Speaker 4: on that trip talking about it. And then back to
Speaker 4: the bar scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were back here in Milwaukee at a bar
Speaker 1: somewhere it can't bar, it can't bar, and we were
Speaker 1: just talking about I think I came to Joe and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, we should try and record
Speaker 1: what we talk about to see if anyone would be
Speaker 1: interested in listening. And at the time we thought it
Speaker 1: was kind of a crazy idea, like who is going
Speaker 1: to want to listen to anything we're saying?
Speaker 4: And when you just hear your self talk for the
Speaker 4: first time in podcast, you feel so sad.
Speaker 3: I can relate my well you not only feel stupid,
Speaker 3: but like I adore my sister, but she will tell
Speaker 3: me the truth and she'd be like, I mean, I
Speaker 3: had friends like making fun of me. I showed them
Speaker 3: the trailer that I was making and they were like,
Speaker 3: have you ever seen like mimicking how I said, ever,
Speaker 3: and I was like, you know what, everyone I'm trying
Speaker 3: out here, well, you know what it is.
Speaker 4: It's it's a mix too, because at least this is
Speaker 4: how I felt because at the time when we started it,
Speaker 4: everyone was starting a podcast. Like everyone in their mom
Speaker 4: was starting a podcast. Everyone and their mom was doing.
Speaker 1: Like yoga, So you just had this whole You had
Speaker 1: these waves of people that would like pick up a
Speaker 1: thing all together. It was like the different workouts whatever,
Speaker 1: and everyone would be talking about it and just shoving
Speaker 1: it in your face. So it's like you're doing it too,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh man, we're just like everybody else like.
Speaker 2: Doing this thing. So we didn't really tell anyone about it.
Speaker 1: No, I like didn't.
Speaker 4: We didn't tell our friends at all. We're like, let's
Speaker 4: just start doing it and see how it sounds. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and we recorded our first episode in the attic.
Speaker 1: Of my house. Oh it was you know, it sounded
Speaker 1: like we were in a tin can. But yes, the
Speaker 1: the cases themselves are so interesting, and I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of what really kept us going was the case
Speaker 1: is really a lot of them just kind of you
Speaker 1: sit there and think about it and you can't think
Speaker 1: of an like a plausible explanation for why this person's missing.
Speaker 1: Some of them are as crazy as the guy was
Speaker 1: walking down the trail and his buddy was behind him
Speaker 1: one second, looked away, looked back, and he was gone.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, some of them are that strange. And
Speaker 1: just to be able to talk about those and you know,
Speaker 1: over time, we've gotten better equipment and we've gotten better
Speaker 1: at you know, doing it. Yeah, I mean, you know talking.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the big I think that's a big thing
Speaker 4: that makes it weird is when you watch any TV show,
Speaker 4: what are they doing? Their acting, their voices are a
Speaker 4: little bit different. So when you really think about what
Speaker 4: we're all doing, it's entertainment. So we have to be
Speaker 4: entertaining and that means being a little over the top
Speaker 4: or boisterous more than normal. So all the people that
Speaker 4: have known you your whole life and you talk a
Speaker 4: certain way, all of a sudden you throw some spin
Speaker 4: behind it, and they're like, what's going on with you?
Speaker 1: What's happening? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Are you okay?
Speaker 1: Yes? But you know, if you put in enough time
Speaker 1: and effort and stay authentic, yeah, we found the biggest
Speaker 1: thing people like is that you're authentic and you're not
Speaker 1: You're not being fake. We always say that Joe and
Speaker 1: I are exactly the same way we are when we're
Speaker 1: doing the podcast, we are in real life. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no like fake Joe and Mike that you're hearing,
Speaker 1: so which which makes negative reviews hurt just a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Yeah, because sometimes they really like personally attack you,
Speaker 1: like I just don't know what was the most recent one.
Speaker 1: It said something like like specifically at me too. I
Speaker 1: was like, Joe seems like the guy at the party syndrome.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It was like the guy at the party who you
Speaker 4: want to meet but then you regret it immediately. And Mike,
Speaker 4: unfortunately it was too nice to him to ever ditch
Speaker 4: him many years ago, and now it's like it went
Speaker 4: on and I was like, holy cow, I'm like, it's
Speaker 4: kind of accurate, damn it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get a thick skin, Like I remember the
Speaker 1: first couple of mean reviews we got back in the day,
Speaker 1: and after the first couple, you're kind of you just
Speaker 1: let him roll off. You really have to have a
Speaker 1: thick skin. And it was like our friends, it was
Speaker 1: your mom, that was my mom, My mom's you guys
Speaker 1: are terrible, get better.
Speaker 3: But I remember the first like I'm still on the
Speaker 3: smaller side. But the first negative comment I got was
Speaker 3: an email and they were like, I really liked the comment,
Speaker 3: but it was unbearable how much you said the word like,
Speaker 3: and I just I want to listen to the Yellowstone episode,
Speaker 3: but I don't think I can stand it. And I
Speaker 3: was like, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, right, Yeah, you can probably relate to this, like,
Speaker 1: once you do something like this, you really have an
Speaker 1: appreciation for how much time and effort people put into
Speaker 1: even if it's a bad show, Like they're still putting
Speaker 1: time and effort into that. Yeah, I've felt like I've
Speaker 1: never once left a bad or mean review. I just
Speaker 1: stopped listening, like I've never That's part of the doing this.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you get, you know, more and more
Speaker 1: people listen, there's going to be some haters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh for sure.
Speaker 1: But that's the long story of the podcast.
Speaker 3: I love it. The something that's coming to mind and
Speaker 3: this is a very tactical or recent experience, but I
Speaker 3: just went back country camp or backpacking in North Cascades
Speaker 3: National Park working on a documentary, so kind of related
Speaker 3: to the who runs this park World, but a little
Speaker 3: bit different. And I kind of joked that I've listened
Speaker 3: to too many locations Unknown Tooth and Saw and National
Speaker 3: Park After Dark episodes. Yeah, and it was the first
Speaker 3: time I've been backpacking since listening to all those podcasts,
Speaker 3: and my mind was whirling. And to add to it,
Speaker 3: literally right as we were going into the back country,
Speaker 3: one of the park rangers we were with was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this guy went missing from this trailhead and is still
Speaker 3: not found yet. And I was like, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: people kind of go up out here to get lost.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I am going in the back
Speaker 3: country with two strangers that I'm working with, And thankfully
Speaker 3: we found out that he had been found like the
Speaker 3: day before, right before we went in. So that made
Speaker 3: me feel a lot better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that you wouldn't stumble upon him. Correct.
Speaker 3: I was like, so you're telling me because he left
Speaker 3: his window rolled down of his car and left wallet
Speaker 3: on the front seat, and that shit just seemed sketchy
Speaker 3: to me. Yeah, And so I was just, you know,
Speaker 3: my mind was whirling. So I say all that story
Speaker 3: to kind of understand, as you've dug into this world
Speaker 3: a little bit, how has it affected your mentality when
Speaker 3: spending time outdoors.
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely think about I think in my head like, well,
Speaker 1: I hope I don't end up on our own show
Speaker 1: as like a joke, but part partially, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: really thinking that because over the years, like Joe and
Speaker 1: I on the episode, well, there's a section where we'll
Speaker 1: do a location profile and we'll kind of towards the
Speaker 1: end of that, we'll give tips and advice on how
Speaker 1: to hike safely in that area, and thinking back on
Speaker 1: a lot of the hikes before we started the show,
Speaker 1: like there's probably a lot of things I didn't even
Speaker 1: follow from our own show in the past, and some
Speaker 1: like stupid things we probably did where we could have
Speaker 1: gotten injured or lost or maybe even killed. And so
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, just maybe some luck that nothing
Speaker 1: bad happened, but I wish I would have, you know,
Speaker 1: taken my own advice back in the day.
Speaker 4: Yes, So yeah, for me, it hasn't affected my love
Speaker 4: of going hiking and climbing.
Speaker 2: If anything, it's just made me more aware of what
Speaker 2: could go wrong.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm.
Speaker 2: Probably more risk averse, which is a good thing.
Speaker 4: But you know, it may like There's been times where
Speaker 4: it's like you're climbing up a rock face or something
Speaker 4: you're like, should I be doing this?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I'll be fine.
Speaker 4: Now, I'd probably like, eh, if I got that feeling,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna not do it. Yeah, I think I'd say
Speaker 4: that's the biggest difference. But other than yeah, it hasn't
Speaker 4: like slowed it down.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, I'm not like afraid to go hiking. It
Speaker 1: makes me want to go out more and wish I lived,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere out west where I could go hiking
Speaker 1: every weekend.
Speaker 4: Right, But yeah, you think of the sheer number of
Speaker 4: people that go into national parks every year and how
Speaker 4: many cases, Like, there's a lot of cases, and we're
Speaker 4: taking them all and putting them in one spot. We're
Speaker 4: highlighting the worst case scenarios. Yes, but I mean millions
Speaker 4: of people go every year, and yeah, only a handful
Speaker 4: will get lost of that's pretty good odds that you'll
Speaker 4: be okay if you just fallow base.
Speaker 3: I know, I had to remind myself that I kind
Speaker 3: of like, if I studied all the things I live
Speaker 3: in Austin and I used to live in New York,
Speaker 3: if I studied all the like crimes that happened in
Speaker 3: these cities, I would feel that same fear. No exactly,
Speaker 3: but there was. I was in Rocky Mountain National Park
Speaker 3: a couple months ago, just doing a day hike, and
Speaker 3: I had the effect of my podcast because there, like
Speaker 3: a weather storm kind of came in and it started
Speaker 3: snowing and it got really windy, and I in my head,
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't be like, literally the superintendents
Speaker 3: tell me about people being unprepared all the time, Like,
Speaker 3: I can't be that one person that like is unprepared,
Speaker 3: and like someone had died in the area the next day,
Speaker 3: and these two older women were like, you must turn around.
Speaker 3: It's super dangerous. And we were like okay, and then
Speaker 3: we turned around and then it cleared up, and then
Speaker 3: we turned back around and kept hiking. But I definitely
Speaker 3: thought of the podcast, and I was like, I can't
Speaker 3: be one of the superintendent stories that they like have
Speaker 3: to set up a release or on social media or
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, your show would probably blow up though when they
Speaker 1: rescued you. And then it went out.
Speaker 4: There the girl, the girl who literally interviews people and
Speaker 4: is told daily not to do this, did it?
Speaker 3: You're right? Honestly, I regret it. I should have done that, yeah,
Speaker 3: assuming I was rescued. Yes, So you kind of alluded
Speaker 3: to this here and then also in some of the
Speaker 3: like stuff I found about your show, you've alluded to
Speaker 3: having some pretty wild experiences outdoors and to set the
Speaker 3: scene for listeners. Mike, I think this was on your
Speaker 3: website intro, but you said, along my travels, I've met
Speaker 3: some interesting characters, have had to deal with a few
Speaker 3: medical scares, had some close calls up on cliffs, and
Speaker 3: even camped overnight with armed park rangers searching for an
Speaker 3: aggressive grizzly. So I'd love to hear just from y'all's perspective,
Speaker 3: some of the wild experiences you've had outdoors really just
Speaker 3: honestly for it's, you know, fun to look back on
Speaker 3: the times we survived.
Speaker 4: You should do canyon Lands, and then we'll segue into
Speaker 4: the Grizzly. Yeah, because Joe and I were we were
Speaker 4: a part of the Grizzly one. But yeah, I'll try
Speaker 4: to make it as quick as I can. But yeah,
Speaker 4: one of the craziest experiences I had was literally the
Speaker 4: first hiking trip me and two of my friends went on.
Speaker 4: We decided to backcountry hike probably.
Speaker 1: One of the harder places in the country to hike,
Speaker 1: so canyon Lands National Park, but not just the park.
Speaker 1: We decided the backcountry hike the Maze District of Canyon Lands,
Speaker 1: which is incredibly remote and dry and it's called the
Speaker 1: Maze District. But so yeah, you know, we prepared ahead
Speaker 1: of time. We had, you know, the proper gear, and
Speaker 1: we even we checked with the ranger station. So there's
Speaker 1: little I guess guysers throughout the park that the rangers
Speaker 1: have like a whiteboard that you could they checked the
Speaker 1: flow of it every couple of days. So we went
Speaker 1: in there and we checked the flow and we kind
Speaker 1: of knew on the map like all right, here's where
Speaker 1: they are. So like we had a lot of water
Speaker 1: with us, but you're in the desert. It was September,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't incredibly it wasn't like summer hot, but
Speaker 1: it was still I would say probably in the upper
Speaker 1: eighties and really dry. So we start hiking and we're
Speaker 1: in a day now and it's towards evening. We get
Speaker 1: to the first area for water, bone dry, and we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this is interesting. So we we camp we
Speaker 1: still have you know, some water with us. It's the
Speaker 1: next day and we hiked to the next spot that
Speaker 1: was supposedly going to have water and it's bone dry.
Speaker 1: So now we are there's three of us. We've got
Speaker 1: limited water at this point. So that night we camped
Speaker 1: on this like really cool kind of like cliff edge
Speaker 1: that overlooked kind of I don't know if you've ever seen,
Speaker 1: you know, like in the Southwest, you got all those
Speaker 1: like red canyon like slat canyons, and it kind of
Speaker 1: overlooked a couple like a like a junction of several
Speaker 1: of those types of canyons. So we're sitting there around
Speaker 1: you know, our tents and we're kind of just it's
Speaker 1: really quiet. We're just because we probably have between three
Speaker 1: you know, grown grown men. We've probably got like I
Speaker 1: don't know, a leader and a half of water left.
Speaker 1: So and we're kind of just thinking like what are
Speaker 1: you know, what are we going to do? Like this
Speaker 1: this we should have We should be on a beach
Speaker 1: somewhere like drinking pochtos. Why why did we do this?
Speaker 1: And here we are so we you know, we made it.
Speaker 1: We had a tough decision to make you know, just
Speaker 1: do we hike back out and you know, risk it,
Speaker 1: or do we we think the next place is going
Speaker 1: to have water. So we decided to push forward, and
Speaker 1: the next morning we continue on our track web you know,
Speaker 1: climbed out into the canyons and probably hiked for almost
Speaker 1: the full day. We at some point during midday we
Speaker 1: ran out of water. So at this point, like no
Speaker 1: water left, and we finally get it's kind of dusk
Speaker 1: and we finally get to the area that was supposed
Speaker 1: to have water and there was like just this kind
Speaker 1: of small, like little swampy patch of water, and I
Speaker 1: mean it was like, I don't know, like a feeling
Speaker 1: when you're like just overjoyed, like we found like it
Speaker 1: wasn't even that much water, but it was enough to
Speaker 1: you know, filter fill up our bottles. But that experience was,
Speaker 1: you know, when you hit the point where you run
Speaker 1: out of water in the desert and you're not sure
Speaker 1: where you're gonna find water. That was a real eye
Speaker 1: opening experience, to say.
Speaker 3: The least lightly.
Speaker 1: And it didn't help too. Once we found water, we
Speaker 1: actually got lost too. Yeah, and one of our buddies, shocking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was ex military, so he was trained and reading
Speaker 1: topographic maps, so we were able to kind of navigate
Speaker 1: our way out of there. But the thing I learned
Speaker 1: from that experience was when something doesn't go right on
Speaker 1: like a hiking trip or back, the first thing you
Speaker 1: don't want to You don't want to panic. You kind
Speaker 1: of want to sit down, gather yourself. You want to
Speaker 1: just you know, take ten minutes, just if you have
Speaker 1: to do like breathing exercise, just calm yourself down, because
Speaker 1: if you're if you're calm, you'll make rational decisions. If
Speaker 1: you're panicked and you're like, how what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: You know, freaking out, you're gonna make panic decison visions.
Speaker 1: And you know, we all kind of just calmed ourselves down.
Speaker 1: We figured out like, all right, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 1: Like we're not going to die in this canyon. Let's
Speaker 1: figure this out. And I think, but you don't want
Speaker 1: to that, you don't want to think that, while you
Speaker 1: want to have the mentality that you're gonna make it
Speaker 1: out of there. And I think that's important any if
Speaker 1: you're hiking in the you know, Colorado or wherever you're hiking,
Speaker 1: if you get lost, like, don't panic, you know, just
Speaker 1: take a breather and you know, gather yourself and you know,
Speaker 1: logically think through you know, think like what Matt Damon
Speaker 1: said in The Martian, that's like great advice, Like what
Speaker 1: did he say? No, He's like someone asked him like,
Speaker 1: how did you How did you like stay sane with
Speaker 1: all of these problems that you had to figure out?
Speaker 1: And he's like, all you got to do is what's
Speaker 1: the problem right in front of you? Figure that one out,
Speaker 1: move on to the next problem, and if you figure
Speaker 1: out enough problems, you might live and get off Mars
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 3: So you might and you like we're essentially on a
Speaker 3: Mars like landscape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really did.
Speaker 4: Feel like, yeah, that's why you connect so much of
Speaker 4: that movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like, actually, I like basically keep in my soul.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think Martian wasn't even out. Actually in
Speaker 4: bar Nato, you are Matt, Matt Damon plays you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so no, that was one of the more crazy
Speaker 1: kind of life life and death situations. Literally our first
Speaker 1: hiking trip.
Speaker 3: Insane that that's your first like backcountry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we picked Yeah, we were we were like where
Speaker 1: are you? Where should we hike for the first time? Oh,
Speaker 1: let's do Canyon Lands. We've never hiked ever in our lives.
Speaker 1: Like someone who doesn't like you told you to go there. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was I mean this was over ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And yeah we had never like we'd camped and done
Speaker 1: stuff like that, but we had never backcountry hiked. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so we picked Canny Lands.
Speaker 3: Wow. So I'm glad, y'all We're okay. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 3: getting lost piece is like freaky, because I mean, that's
Speaker 3: really lucky that you guys had someone the.
Speaker 4: Feelings to get over you when you first realized you
Speaker 4: might be lost. Is very terrifying. It's such a it's
Speaker 4: such a weird feeling too.
Speaker 3: When when in your normal life we live by like
Speaker 3: Google maps, when in the day to.
Speaker 4: Day, well, if you get lost, I mean even if
Speaker 4: you're in a city and you get lost, you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm still around, like people like I'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: There's a gas station there, Yeah, I can go ask somebody.
Speaker 1: But yeah, when you're like out there, it's so weird
Speaker 1: because you're like, oh, yeah, this is when people die.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, you're interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've kind of turned around. In like alpine environments,
Speaker 1: there's something special about getting lost in like the Southwest
Speaker 1: when you're in like, yeah, desert's worse canyon Lands.
Speaker 3: I don't need to experience that.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's it's actually like canyon Lands is a beautiful park.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing. We and it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: we saw one other person there that whole trip that
Speaker 1: we were.
Speaker 2: Back at people and the go in the middle the
Speaker 2: maze in the desert.
Speaker 1: We eventually hiked down to the Colorado River and ended
Speaker 1: up swimming that trip, So think about like the same
Speaker 1: trip we ran out of water, thought we were going
Speaker 1: to die to a couple of days later we were
Speaker 1: swimming in the Colorado. So, I mean that was the
Speaker 1: same hiking trip too.
Speaker 3: So I actually haven't told any listeners this yet, but
Speaker 3: one of my like it wasn't specifically back country, but
Speaker 3: you're just making me think of like the duality. But
Speaker 3: I was in I had done a backcountry trip in
Speaker 3: Hawaii Volcanos National Park in college with the like outdoor group.
Speaker 3: And on the last day we stayed in the hostel
Speaker 3: and then we were driving back to the main city
Speaker 3: to fly out, and it was when the missile, like
Speaker 3: false missile thing went off, and so we like, I
Speaker 3: kid you not for thirty minutes thought we were going
Speaker 3: to die by nuclear missile. Well, it was crazy. It
Speaker 3: was like there was not a cloud in the sky. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I called my family, was like handing the phone
Speaker 3: off to everyone, like and then we find out on
Speaker 3: Twitter that it was a false alarm. And then we
Speaker 3: were on our way to swim with dolphins in the bay.
Speaker 3: So we had literally just had this like you're gonna die.
Speaker 3: Everyone's analyzing how they reacted, and then we're sitting on
Speaker 3: a catamaran in a beautiful, perfect sky blue day and
Speaker 3: no one's talking, like everyone's just in their thoughts like this.
Speaker 3: One guy's like, I called my girlfriend and not my family,
Speaker 3: and like, I guess it's.
Speaker 1: A good sign for his relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right, check in on him. How's it going.
Speaker 1: That park is like I've hiked that part too. That
Speaker 1: is like being on Mars.
Speaker 3: It was crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a crazy park.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well you have to share the I guess the
Speaker 3: Grizzly story and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll take that one.
Speaker 4: I was pulling up visuals too, so I'll go into it.
Speaker 4: That was the long, the long hiking trip, and you
Speaker 4: have to let me know if you can see this.
Speaker 4: When I switch. We were at the Fifth Mountain Campground.
Speaker 4: I know we're vertical, so I'll try and keep it
Speaker 4: in the middle. But I don't even know where the
Speaker 4: start was. But we basically did this loop that was
Speaker 4: like this through the park in Glacier National Park.
Speaker 3: Zo Oh, this was the recent trip.
Speaker 4: No this this I've been to Glacier many times. This
Speaker 4: was like the first time we went there.
Speaker 1: I can get this three D.
Speaker 4: That sound that great, But it's a pretty it's a
Speaker 4: beautiful campground because it's exposed. Yeah, and I actually I
Speaker 4: have some so you can see some of these views.
Speaker 4: They're just gorgeous, just wide open, amazing views. So what
Speaker 4: we were doing was typically when you get these backcountry permits,
Speaker 4: because we did get them about a year in advance,
Speaker 4: we were staying at four or five different four or
Speaker 4: five different nights, I forget the exact number, but normally
Speaker 4: you're going to camp at a new site every day. Yeah,
Speaker 4: this particular one, because we wanted to climb this mountain,
Speaker 4: we were staying two nights, which is how we got
Speaker 4: stuck out there. So all the campsites are usually full
Speaker 4: because again you have to get the permits in a
Speaker 4: This was like August.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. I'm sure we'll say one of
Speaker 1: these folks. Yeah. But we set up.
Speaker 4: Camp, we had we did our one night, we wake
Speaker 4: up the next day, we go just day hiking with
Speaker 4: the intended coming back. When we come back to camp,
Speaker 4: there's nobody there and there's probably like six or seven
Speaker 4: spots where people can set up their tents, and it
Speaker 4: was just completely empty and we're like, this is really wild,
Speaker 4: Like that's unusual.
Speaker 1: It's very unusual. And we're like, this is awesome. We
Speaker 1: have the whole place to ourselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then all of a sudden, two rangers come
Speaker 4: up on horseback and they've got shotguns and one of
Speaker 4: them goes. One of them is like an old old
Speaker 4: like he's been in the mountains his whole life. He's like,
Speaker 4: what the hell are you boys doing here? And I
Speaker 4: immediately go, hey, we got the permits. And they had
Speaker 4: recently they're chasing two Canadians that were permit jumping, so
Speaker 4: we had just seen how angry they get.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I got my permits. I got
Speaker 1: Like I'm like thinking, like we think we're hopping. No.
Speaker 1: I think this was the first So we hiked into
Speaker 1: this campsite because the night before a tent was attacked,
Speaker 1: so we hadn't been here yet, so we were hiking
Speaker 1: in and this was the first day.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, there's a there's a juvenile grizzly. You made
Speaker 4: me jump ahead at the story. Money, there's a juvenile grizzly.
Speaker 4: That's like actually going after people intents like it's not
Speaker 4: it's it's it's it was they said it was. Yeah,
Speaker 4: probably ad twelve or thirteen year old grizzly. That's just
Speaker 4: like getting arnery.
Speaker 1: So what happened is we hiked all day, got to
Speaker 1: the campsite at dusk and they hadn't even gotten out
Speaker 1: there yet to post signs that it was closed, so
Speaker 1: we didn't know it was. There was just no one there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: jumping ahead of me, that's why. Well I wanted to
Speaker 1: correct it because I remember we hadn't been there before.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, oh the day okay, yeah, because the
Speaker 1: night before what happened.
Speaker 2: Okay, So so yeah, we're we're just eating dinner. I
Speaker 2: think I even have a picture of us just setting
Speaker 2: up shop here. That's our friend Shay and Ben. There's Mike.
Speaker 4: So we're setting up dinner, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: these these sheriffs roll up and they got the guns, like,
Speaker 4: what the hell are you boys doing here?
Speaker 1: And I show them like, hey, we got permits and they're.
Speaker 4: Like, no, we closed every campsite in like a twenty
Speaker 4: mile radius because they're danger. They're putting these signs up
Speaker 4: and they like cleared every even if he'd permit, it's
Speaker 4: like nope, you can't go, can't go. And by the
Speaker 4: time they got to us, it was super late at night,
Speaker 4: so they're just like, you boys just got to stay
Speaker 4: here with us.
Speaker 2: So I think there's one of the rangers right there,
Speaker 2: that's a ranger Peach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rangerer Peach, Like, yeah, I tagged him. He was awesome.
Speaker 4: So we just put all of our tents like in
Speaker 4: a circle in the middle, and they camped near us
Speaker 4: and we just hung out with them. And the intent
Speaker 4: was if the bear comes, they're gonna put it down.
Speaker 4: Oh so yeah, he looks as he's like, do any
Speaker 4: of you boys got a gun? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I have one in my in my bag. He's like,
Speaker 4: you're gonna want.
Speaker 1: To sleep with it just in case, And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think he was messing with you, definitely was.
Speaker 2: He was definitely messed with me. But at that time
Speaker 2: I was like, oh shit, like this is gonna get real.
Speaker 1: I didn't Yeah, of course.
Speaker 4: I didn't sleep, so I had I had my bear
Speaker 4: spray and he was just like, you definitely do not
Speaker 4: discharge your bear spray in the tent at all. When
Speaker 4: this comes out. He's like, nobody hears bear spray until
Speaker 4: we tell you, which means he just didn't want to
Speaker 4: get bear sprayed essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, what happened was the night before there
Speaker 1: were camp the campsite was full and one of the
Speaker 1: camp sites was attacked by a grizzly. Yeah, and the hikers.
Speaker 1: The hikers weren't in it at the time. It like
Speaker 1: they had left their tent there and they went out
Speaker 1: hiking and the grizzly came down into camp and like
Speaker 1: shredded the tent, shredded everything inside of it. And so
Speaker 1: we hiked all day to get there. Yeah, we get
Speaker 1: there at like six or seven o'clock at night, like
Speaker 1: Joe said, And they had they hadn't even posted signs
Speaker 1: on the campsite area because it happened so recent. So
Speaker 1: we had no clue, but we know we couldn't hike out.
Speaker 2: That's where my knee was messed up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Joe's knee was kind of That's where I got
Speaker 4: my trail name from the other the other officer called
Speaker 4: he called me Wolfheart, so my trail names Wolfhart. But yeah,
Speaker 4: and the rangers, they were like this special forces team
Speaker 4: in the park that goes and deals with bears. When
Speaker 4: they attacked people and it was so late, they're like, well,
Speaker 4: it's too late for you guys to hike out now,
Speaker 4: so you're stuck here.
Speaker 1: And one of them did like camp right next to us,
Speaker 1: and the other guy camped on the site that was attacked. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Do they like actually sleep at night or are
Speaker 3: they just awake on patrol?
Speaker 1: No, they just sleep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we hung out at dinner. We played cards with
Speaker 4: them for a little bit. They were so cool. They're
Speaker 4: a lot of fun. Yeah, and yeah, they just they
Speaker 4: sleep and they if the bear is gonna come, and
Speaker 4: we're all waking up, and we kind of put a
Speaker 4: mini plan together what to do where we're gonna go.
Speaker 1: And then I slept with my knife like in my hands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will started storming too, and then I was like
Speaker 1: because like Officer Peach, I'm like, if it's raining really
Speaker 1: hard with the bears, like not move around as much.
Speaker 1: He's like, they don't care.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, so we won't hear around, but
Speaker 3: we won't hear them good exactly.
Speaker 1: So that was that was terrifying.
Speaker 2: And they're making fun of Shay.
Speaker 4: So our buddy Shay had he had he had a
Speaker 4: hammock and he did not know going into this trip
Speaker 4: that at the at least at the time, hammocks were
Speaker 4: not allowed in the park. So we were like, the
Speaker 4: rangers were like, if you set it up, it's fine,
Speaker 4: Like they wrote a little note because he didn't have
Speaker 4: a tent, so his hammock was set up.
Speaker 2: An Officer Peach kept calling him bear Burrito. He's like,
Speaker 2: you're at perfect eaton height. So yeah, that was another
Speaker 2: instance where literally terrified the entire night. Yeah, it was interesting,
Speaker 2: of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well and that and that started our long string of
Speaker 4: major events in national parks that we visit the day
Speaker 4: that we're there. So there was that nothing happened so
Speaker 4: obviously like bar didn't show up, so that they were
Speaker 4: staying there another day and then we we hiked out
Speaker 4: the next day. But then was it the next year
Speaker 4: when we went to Zion there was a major flood
Speaker 4: Was that like the next trap remember it might have been.
Speaker 4: So it was the most flooding Zion National Park saw.
Speaker 4: It was during when they had the tropical storm in
Speaker 4: like Mexico and it shot up through the middle of
Speaker 4: the like through Mexico into Texas. So it brought a
Speaker 4: ton of rain and it was the flash. Flooding was
Speaker 4: so bad. A group of people that were in a
Speaker 4: slot canyon that we saw all died. No, we drove
Speaker 4: right by that group that was going in and they
Speaker 4: said that was them as last group. They're all dressed
Speaker 4: up in their black stuff. And then also it was
Speaker 4: a town south of there got hit and like a
Speaker 4: bunch of people died in a town like they were driving.
Speaker 2: In cars, like it was really bad. It was like
Speaker 2: the worst.
Speaker 4: I think it was the most amount of death that
Speaker 4: that National Park has ever seen in a single day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had the last permits, so we did top
Speaker 1: down narrows and then we did tot We did the
Speaker 1: rim hike afterwards, and we were the last permitted group
Speaker 1: that was allowed into the narrows because of the weather
Speaker 1: coming in Yeah, they knew it was coming. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean, have you ever done Sion or done the narrows.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. When you're down there, you see boulders the
Speaker 1: size of like a Greyhound bus that have like you
Speaker 1: can tell they've been moved, and it's from the power
Speaker 1: of water coming through there. So when you're down in there,
Speaker 1: there's only one way out, like once you start hiking it,
Speaker 1: so you like you definitely don't want to do it
Speaker 1: when there's bad weather sea, yeah, because it up you
Speaker 1: can see the water line from when there's water in
Speaker 1: there and it's like thirty forty feet above you.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a really cool hike.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I remember we were the last permitted group
Speaker 1: to be allowed in there, and then there were some
Speaker 1: really experienced canyoneers didn't heat. They were told multiple times
Speaker 1: by you know, climbers coming out of there, like you
Speaker 1: got to turn around, this this is gonna be deadly situation.
Speaker 1: And they didn't listen, and they started climbing down the
Speaker 1: canyon and they got that the storm hit while they
Speaker 1: were going down on their ropes, and yeah, they all
Speaker 1: got swept away and sadly died.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and it wasn't like young people.
Speaker 1: No, there were middle aged, very experienced super climbers and
Speaker 1: just kind of I always, I always to this day,
Speaker 1: like what an unnecessary risk to take? Sadly, I mean,
Speaker 1: you really the weather when you're hiking in the Southwest,
Speaker 1: you really got to keep an eye on the weather.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just so much more exposed.
Speaker 1: Than Yeah, and you can you know, it could be
Speaker 1: raining twenty miles away, and if you're downstreaming that in
Speaker 1: a canyon, you're gonna get hit with a flash flood.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that would be wild if it's not even
Speaker 1: like raining out and all of a sudden flood waters
Speaker 1: just come in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, those are a couple stories, that's yea.
Speaker 3: The bear one, to me is insane. I mean they're
Speaker 3: all insane, but that one, like what a story.
Speaker 1: I came across a grizzly. I was hiking in the
Speaker 1: tee Tons and I was just on the trail and
Speaker 1: there was a grizzly about fifty yards off the trail
Speaker 1: and a berry patch and we like locked eyes with
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 2: And which is like what you don't want to do?
Speaker 1: I was, and I was terrified, but I guess not
Speaker 1: as terrified because the bear was eating like food, so
Speaker 1: like I kind of was confident that probably could leave
Speaker 1: you alone. But I just remember thinking, I'm standing on
Speaker 1: the trail just staring at this massive creature that could
Speaker 1: probably sprint and be to the trail in a couple seconds,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, it's like it's like I'm at
Speaker 1: the zoo without a fence.
Speaker 3: Like I mean pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's terrifying.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, that's crazy. The kind of jumping into
Speaker 3: locations and known a little bit more, I'd love to hear. Well,
Speaker 3: first off, just I'm curious, and then I'm sure you know,
Speaker 3: people listen to your podcasts are curious, but what were
Speaker 3: you guys doing before you started the podcast? And then
Speaker 3: I saw, actually, Joe, that you have an adventure travel company.
Speaker 4: If I'm not missing, I did, and that was like
Speaker 4: a very small endeavor I was thinking about doing. And
Speaker 4: then yeah, it's that's a whole other story we don't
Speaker 4: have to get into. I was going to buy a
Speaker 4: local Wisconsin based outdoor company called Lackey Enjoys, Okay, because
Speaker 4: I wanted to get into outdoor stuff, so I started
Speaker 4: that as a portion of it because they do a
Speaker 4: lot of retail, So I wanted to have a retail
Speaker 4: division but also connect it to like a travel division,
Speaker 4: so if you're coming and buying all the stuff, we
Speaker 4: also have this group where you can go do fun trips.
Speaker 4: So I was contracting out with just other companies or
Speaker 4: other tour venues like every other company does now, and
Speaker 4: that all fell through. I went and did Mount Kilman Jarrow.
Speaker 4: I was ready to buy the business. My wife had
Speaker 4: power of attorney to sign the paperwork. She was looking
Speaker 4: because my wife's very successful CEO, so she knows the
Speaker 4: business side, so she was looking through all the financials.
Speaker 4: I was in Africa cleming Mount Kilman Jarow and said,
Speaker 4: you have power of attorney, signed all the documents over.
Speaker 4: If all the financials look good, let's pull the trigger
Speaker 4: and do this thing. So when I come back, yeah,
Speaker 4: we'll start doing it. Yeah yeah, And it just something happened.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to get into but it just didn't
Speaker 4: work out. I was super depressed for like that whole
Speaker 4: summer because it was like kind of my dream.
Speaker 1: And then COVID hit and I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: I literally like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: If I just bought a retail company that was specifically
Speaker 4: focused on in person retail sales and traveling.
Speaker 1: They were kind of struggling anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: It was like a break even company. So I would
Speaker 4: have had to like build up to make it profitable.
Speaker 4: I would have lost everything. I literally would have lost everything.
Speaker 4: So I was like, this was okay. It literally was
Speaker 4: like everything happens for a reason, and holy cow, like
Speaker 4: my depression went away very.
Speaker 2: Quickly and not happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like that. So that was a long tangent.
Speaker 3: No, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean I I've worked in the corporate world.
Speaker 1: I still unfortunately work there. We worked together for a
Speaker 1: little bit, Yeah, we did. We really at the same
Speaker 1: company for a while. I've known Joe since college, so
Speaker 1: long long time, probably twenty years now. Yeah.
Speaker 4: We own a pharmaceutical research company because we're both my
Speaker 4: wife and I with her dad and her sister. We
Speaker 4: started this company like seventeen years ago, and she's she's
Speaker 4: a nurse practitioner. I was an EMT paramedic, so it
Speaker 4: was like a medical side and Mike came in and
Speaker 4: did accounting for us for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no way, yeah, so that was a lot of
Speaker 2: fun coo. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I worked with Joe for a while, but yeah,
Speaker 1: never Joe and I never did anything related to media
Speaker 1: production before this.
Speaker 3: We kind of yeah, me neither.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I learned on the fly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess in early episodes, Yeah, from our tin
Speaker 5: Can episode. Yeah, attic, Yeah, it's it's been an evolution, yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean really, we've been doing this since twenty eighteen,
Speaker 5: and we've slowly gotten better with the equipment.
Speaker 1: Our one claim is we were the first podcast in
Speaker 1: the space that did this thing. It's very specific, but
Speaker 1: outdoors true crime with a mix of like survive like
Speaker 1: survival skills. Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I would say that was focused because other true
Speaker 4: crime shows obviously covered cases that happened in national parks,
Speaker 4: but having it be because we didn't want it to
Speaker 4: just be just another true crime. We wanted a specific
Speaker 4: spin and wanted to focus specifically on nature, like that
Speaker 4: being like a segment of Hey, Outdoors True Crime, And
Speaker 4: I mean we searched really deep to find out if
Speaker 4: anyone was doing what we were doing and it did not.
Speaker 1: Exist, and we mixed in like some conservation Joe and
Speaker 1: I are pion like the leave no trace principle of
Speaker 1: one of the fence. Our tagline. Yeah. One of the
Speaker 1: things that bothers me to no end is when I'm
Speaker 1: you know, hiking in a national park and there's garbage
Speaker 1: you can just throw garbage on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like, especially when you're backcountry.
Speaker 1: Not that those people are better, but how difficult it
Speaker 1: is to get permitted to go to backcountry means like
Speaker 1: you are not just an average like tourist visiting the parkier,
Speaker 1: you're a backpacker. And if you're gonna litter, that pisses
Speaker 1: me off so much more than just like a dumb tourist.
Speaker 1: Is like I heard this place looks nice. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we try to stress. Yeah, we try to stress leaving
Speaker 1: the park the way you found it, you know, things
Speaker 1: like that, and not you know, don't hike off trail
Speaker 1: unless you have a permit because it can damage the ecosystem.
Speaker 2: So we try to or you'll fall in a thermal spring.
Speaker 1: Lay.
Speaker 4: Yeah that, Yeah, that some lady just did. She was
Speaker 4: off trail with her dog. You're not even supposed to
Speaker 4: have a dog. Her and her husband or dog were
Speaker 4: off trail at semite or yellow Yellowstone, yeah, Yellowstone, and
Speaker 4: she stepped right through a thermal thing like head burns
Speaker 4: on her leg.
Speaker 1: It's like, Oh, that's what you get. No, it's just yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a very it's a very niche podcast.
Speaker 1: You know, we're covering true crime that's in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Not even true crime, it's really it's it's like paranormal
Speaker 1: paranormal mysterious disappearances exten with some skills, yeah, and a
Speaker 1: flavor of conservation. I think The Unsolved Mysteries is the
Speaker 1: perfect example. It's Survivor and Unsolved Mysteries. That's really kind
Speaker 1: of that was that guy. It always opens like can
Speaker 1: your typewriter kill your mom? Yeah? Like that, there's always
Speaker 1: some weird thing you would Sayeah, he was creepy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll I'll have to do some research from.
Speaker 1: Like the early nineties.
Speaker 4: You might think what I just said is insane, But
Speaker 4: that's how the show always opens.
Speaker 2: Like can a bird communicate with a serial killer?
Speaker 1: Like? And then it would be like a weird story
Speaker 1: about how a bird led a cop to like a murderer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he would always be sitting on a chair and
Speaker 1: it would be like the passage of time and space.
Speaker 1: He'd be like, can your Doug tell when an earthquake
Speaker 1: is coming. Yeah, look it up.
Speaker 2: It's hilarious.
Speaker 3: Honestly, that would be pretty cool to have that like
Speaker 3: job as the copywriter for that of like coming up
Speaker 3: with the I don't know, the little episode intros.
Speaker 2: I mean, just how crazy can we make?
Speaker 1: This interest channel kind of has turned into like a
Speaker 1: whole channel of that with like Ancient Aliens, and.
Speaker 2: It's a great formula all the other crazy shows. It's
Speaker 2: never not entertaining.
Speaker 3: It's the hook, that's what That's what gets people these days.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and we we were featured on William Shatner's show,
Speaker 4: By the way, really The Unexplained with William Shatner.
Speaker 1: Joe got on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I saw something about that maybe when
Speaker 3: I was researching.
Speaker 2: Probably because I'm like a double A list celebrity now
Speaker 2: I said, I said double A mic after the whole
Speaker 2: alphabet and starts over again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it was pretty cool. I Joe. We it
Speaker 1: was my bachelor party, so I I couldn't like they
Speaker 1: would have taken either one of us, I think at
Speaker 1: that point. But yeah, I couldn't go because I had
Speaker 1: already committed to something else. So Joe was on one
Speaker 1: of the episodes of The Unexplained with William William Shatner
Speaker 1: talking about the Crater Lake Case.
Speaker 4: And you were busy being cole of act from a
Speaker 4: national park that was on fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, not WHOA. So we were hiking in your
Speaker 1: Eye Yosemite before my bachelor party, and we ended up
Speaker 1: getting evacuated out of there because the forest fires were
Speaker 1: encroaching on You took a helicopter out of there. No, oh,
Speaker 1: where when did you guys take a helicopter. We chartered
Speaker 1: one in Canada.
Speaker 2: That's what it was.
Speaker 1: Okay. There was no fire though.
Speaker 2: Okay, that would have been so much cooler.
Speaker 1: I know, I should just say just roll with it
Speaker 1: on it next time, next interview. Yeah, we had to
Speaker 1: get rest. Like I was. I was on the top
Speaker 1: of a tree. The flames were coming.
Speaker 3: Up to You're like, I actually flew the helicopter.
Speaker 2: It was the last helicopter out and you leaped and
Speaker 2: took the rail.
Speaker 3: Left all your bachelor friends there, had no one in
Speaker 3: your wedding.
Speaker 1: Yep, but I survived to tell the story.
Speaker 2: Next interview, we do. That's what we're going with.
Speaker 3: Great, I'll expect it. I'll like try to like figure
Speaker 3: out who you're talking to next. And yeah, we'll plan
Speaker 3: get them to ask that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a crazy story if it were true.
Speaker 3: If it were true. What stories, Because you've, you know,
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time obviously digging into these stories,
Speaker 3: what stories do you find sticking with you the most?
Speaker 3: Or I guess that's one question. And then are there
Speaker 3: anyones that you're like still super curious about that You're
Speaker 3: just like, man, I wish we knew how this happened.
Speaker 1: You go, what's your favorite one? Not? I mean or
Speaker 1: not favor it's a weird it's not favorite. One of
Speaker 1: the really puzzling ones was the guy. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: the one. I can't remember his name, if maybe you
Speaker 1: could look it up, Joe. It was in the Southwest summer.
Speaker 1: He was on the production crew, Oh dam or apparance Williams. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet it's Terrence Williams. He was on the production
Speaker 1: crew for Disney or Discovery Channel. They were filming like
Speaker 1: a spinoff for like one of those gold Rush shows,
Speaker 1: and they were out west somewhere and something happened to
Speaker 1: him where he like, he was normal one second and
Speaker 1: then something came over him. It wasn't Joshua Tree, wasn't No,
Speaker 1: it was mel Evans from Evans, Yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: he's Joshua Tree. So that's not that one. Joe will
Speaker 1: find the actual guy's name. But he something came over him,
Speaker 1: like while they were on set, like out in the desert,
Speaker 1: and he just dropped everything and just ran off into
Speaker 1: the desert and they never found he was gone. Whoa.
Speaker 1: And that one always sticks with me just how you know,
Speaker 1: like what caused him to do that? Was is there
Speaker 1: foul play involved with the crew? Did something happen on set?
Speaker 1: Like did he have a mental breakdown? Like what happened
Speaker 1: to this guy? What caused him to just like change
Speaker 1: and just run Like I mean, the description of what
Speaker 1: happened was he just kind of ran off into the desert.
Speaker 1: Like they didn't know why. He didn't say anything to anyone.
Speaker 1: He just like started sprinting down this hill and just
Speaker 1: off into the desert, which is mind boggling.
Speaker 3: That's really crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So like that case, there's there's so many cases
Speaker 1: that we covered. A couple cases that happened in the
Speaker 1: Smoky Mountains of like boy scouts that were part of
Speaker 1: a large group that like one boy scout just vanished
Speaker 1: in the span of like a minute. Terrence Woods, Terrence Woods,
Speaker 1: that's the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that one's really the Desert case.
Speaker 1: The Desert case. Yeah, what location was that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll find it. I just looked at I think it
Speaker 1: was article. Yeah. But like the other two cases, there
Speaker 1: were two cases in the Smoky Mountains in the late sixties,
Speaker 1: like pretty close to where it was like an eight
Speaker 1: or ten year old boy in like a group of
Speaker 1: boy scouts that just kind of vanished within a minute
Speaker 1: and they never found the remains or anything. The case
Speaker 1: is where like someone is there and then isn't there,
Speaker 1: like in a very short span of time, is always
Speaker 1: puzzling and fascinating, like how did that happen? Like is
Speaker 1: someone in lying?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, and then like even if you lose them
Speaker 3: within thirty seconds, yeah, you would think you'd be able
Speaker 3: to find them quickly by searching or yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I mean there's other cases that we've covered
Speaker 1: of really experienced climbers going missing, which you know, in part,
Speaker 1: you know, is more explainable because they're already in very
Speaker 1: hostile environments that there's a chance, like even a really
Speaker 1: experienced person has accidents sometimes, so like yeah, and these
Speaker 1: places are so vast you know this from talking to
Speaker 1: park people and being in the parks, Like Joey says,
Speaker 1: it's like finding a needle in a needle of a
Speaker 1: needle and a second needles in a second needle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean some of these parks are so vast, Like
Speaker 1: there's even if you got one hundred people out there
Speaker 1: in helicopters, it's really hard to find anything.
Speaker 3: Well, it's even I was I don't know where I
Speaker 3: saw this. Maybe it was researching for you guys or
Speaker 3: something else, but it was like, even if you're like
Speaker 3: ten meters off trail, yeah, it can be like impossible
Speaker 3: to find you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well there's a story I don't think because Idaho, Idaho.
Speaker 1: That's right, Penman Mine, I don't remember it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Penman mind. They were filming a spin off of like
Speaker 1: gold Rush Alaska for the Discovery Channel. Oh interesting, was
Speaker 1: on the production crew, Yeah it was.
Speaker 4: It was a dateline Missing in America podcast Into Thin
Speaker 4: Air did an episode, Yeah, we did an episode.
Speaker 1: I don't write about that, no featured. Funny you mentioned
Speaker 1: that just being so far off trail. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we cover this or not, but there was a
Speaker 1: lady that passed away on the Appalachian Trail and she
Speaker 1: got lost, but it turned out she was only like
Speaker 1: one hundred yards off trail or something. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of times they'll find them real close. For like twenty
Speaker 1: days before she passed away and was like keeping a
Speaker 1: journal and when they found her remains, they were like,
Speaker 1: she was so close to the trail. That sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's just it. Really, you can you can get
Speaker 1: turned around and not be that far off trail and
Speaker 1: feel like you're, you know, in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 3: Joe, do you have any of that stick with you?
Speaker 1: See mine?
Speaker 4: I'd say the biggest one is the Gwen hasselquiz cases,
Speaker 4: just because it's so like real, but it's not. It's
Speaker 4: a departure from what we normally do. If you're not
Speaker 4: familiar with that one, it was we think, and it
Speaker 4: was more of a true crime one because there's a
Speaker 4: lady who lived in the Puget Sound area and she
Speaker 4: committed suicide the day COVID broke out in Oregon, and
Speaker 4: it doesn't look like that, and it looks like I
Speaker 4: wouldn't say they swept on the rug. But my hypothesis
Speaker 4: still is not that the police work was bad. It
Speaker 4: was like Day one of COVID when everyone was like,
Speaker 4: I think the end of the world is coming. And
Speaker 4: there's this lady who looks like maybe committed suicide. They
Speaker 4: just kind of made it a suicide and if you
Speaker 4: dig into it, it looks like she might have been murdered,
Speaker 4: but potentially by her husband theoretically. And there's a lot
Speaker 4: of people that sent us information. A lot of people
Speaker 4: think that's the way it went, but it's it's one
Speaker 4: that sticks with me because it's active, it's happening right now. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 4: So that's the one that stays with me. One that
Speaker 4: goes along the line is the one. I think it
Speaker 4: was the Mount Baker one where he was with his
Speaker 4: friends and he went around a bend.
Speaker 1: Oh and he just disappeared.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he like frequented the mountain. He's like very
Speaker 4: good at and they he's wearing like a yellow jacket
Speaker 4: in the snow.
Speaker 1: Gone, just completely gone. We did a multi part the
Speaker 1: Palmer Brothers in where was that? That was a recent
Speaker 1: case where that went up to I wish I when
Speaker 1: we only had like two years worth of episodes.
Speaker 2: You could recall all of them. A lot faster.
Speaker 1: No, we covered these this pair of brothers that both
Speaker 1: disappeared and or No, it wasn't the Palmer brothers. It
Speaker 1: was the case where we thought they might have been
Speaker 1: drug dealing. I know you're talking about. Yeah, sorry, I
Speaker 1: should it's your favorite episode episode and I should know
Speaker 1: all of these by heart. But you do enough of them,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of similarities in the case. When you
Speaker 1: start doing enough of them, like the same kind of
Speaker 1: problems arise.
Speaker 4: The Yeah, I mean we've done one hundred and twelve
Speaker 4: of them. Yeah, to be fair. But Pemberton incident, Pemberton.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a case where two guys disappeared
Speaker 1: in a relatively.
Speaker 4: Short You know, you're right, the Palmer brothers Pemberton incident.
Speaker 4: It was two different people in an area. No, that's
Speaker 4: the one I'm talking about. Pemberg Oh you meant that one. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was I read your mind. We've been friends too long.
Speaker 1: Get It was a case where two guys went missing
Speaker 1: in a relatively short period of time, under very similar circumstances,
Speaker 1: and they could be linked. So it was a really
Speaker 1: fascinating case they found.
Speaker 3: Oh, hold on, that's just drove by folks who are curious.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the only downside of doing this on like
Speaker 4: the corner of downtown Milwaukee, like right busly.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I've never been to Milwaukee, but I'm like, okay, Milwaukee, it's.
Speaker 1: Busy in the summer.
Speaker 4: It's it's very Yeah, people are out and having a
Speaker 4: good time. And as Mike said, I think before we
Speaker 4: were recording the recording, Bar Rescue literally like two doors
Speaker 4: down from us this way, so it's even crazier on
Speaker 4: the show. Yeah, they go into like bars that are
Speaker 4: not doing too good, and the guys like an he
Speaker 4: tries to but the owners never.
Speaker 2: Listen to his suggestions. Yeah, so we'll see if that
Speaker 2: bar is still there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit, but no, just wrap up the
Speaker 1: Pemberton incident. So one of the guys they believe was
Speaker 1: kidnapped by whoever murdered him, and they took his truck
Speaker 1: with him in it way out into the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and then people found his truck burned out on this
Speaker 1: like logging road like way way out in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere. And it's a big mystery is up in
Speaker 1: Canada and very strange circumstances. There's eyewitnesses of like both
Speaker 1: the people that went missing together in a bar with
Speaker 1: this unknown individual that might have kidnapped him, and some
Speaker 1: people think that they might have been drug dealers or
Speaker 1: like it's a crazy story. Yeah, and then you find
Speaker 1: this burned out truck way out in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere and all his stuff strewn out on the road,
Speaker 1: and then investigators come back a day later and his
Speaker 1: stuff's been moved around, like it's still out Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: still out there, but stuff is moved so like someone
Speaker 1: was there like looking through stuff. So like very strange case.
Speaker 1: That one was really fool was a weird one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think it was.
Speaker 3: That's a bad look for whoever was moving their stuff, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's like you know, yeah crime one on one.
Speaker 1: Yeah they that a crime scene well and leaving all
Speaker 1: of your DNA and fingerprints all over the stuff or
Speaker 1: the potential crime scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like just not.
Speaker 3: Much like one crime episode on TV before, So I.
Speaker 2: Know all the same Yeah, right, had to cover all
Speaker 2: your tracks. Yeah, I've seen Dexter.
Speaker 1: I've seen Dexter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm aware. Yeah, what about and then what
Speaker 3: happened in Crater Lake. Remind me the that was highlighted
Speaker 3: on the Charles mccullor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Charles mccullor.
Speaker 4: He was a photographer and went there in the middle
Speaker 4: of winter unprepared and apparently like hitch hiked up a
Speaker 4: logging road and got out to take pictures and it
Speaker 4: was like some of the snow drifts for like eighteen feet,
Speaker 4: like it was treacherous, and he just kind of went
Speaker 4: off to take pictures and was never seen of again,
Speaker 4: seen from again, and they couldn't find the body.
Speaker 1: They didn't find or did they. They ended up finding
Speaker 1: like some parts that might end as yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: then there was a kid more recent times it vanished
Speaker 1: it Crater like two. He was with his dad and
Speaker 1: he ran across the road up this embankment into the
Speaker 1: trees and was just gone, like they never found him.
Speaker 1: Oh at Crater Lake. The show with William Shantner really
Speaker 1: put a paranormal twist on the disappearance.
Speaker 4: It was an incredible look into how they can turn
Speaker 4: what you actually said into something way more paranormal just
Speaker 4: by the head thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like like music and oh yeah, well.
Speaker 4: And just like I've so the whole idea and I
Speaker 4: probably didn't get the memo was they don't want.
Speaker 2: To solve the thing.
Speaker 1: They want to leave it open ended.
Speaker 4: So most of the interview I was doing, I was
Speaker 4: giving like very logical things that could have happened to him.
Speaker 1: They cut all that out and they left in the
Speaker 1: parts where I talked about like the native history where
Speaker 1: they think it's the place where the two gods meet,
Speaker 1: and like they left all that in of like the
Speaker 1: and then they had like a lady on after me
Speaker 1: that was like a mystic type person that studied all
Speaker 1: the folklore and cryptozoology talking about the magical stuff in
Speaker 1: the area.
Speaker 2: So they made it seem like that.
Speaker 4: I also was like saying, that's probably like the gods
Speaker 4: of like whatever, and really I was explaining what probably
Speaker 4: actually happened, and they just like, now we don't want.
Speaker 1: Any of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did read about because I was just in
Speaker 3: Crater Lake recently and there's quite a plethora of articles
Speaker 3: kind of about just different theories of the area and
Speaker 3: kind of paranormal things happening.
Speaker 2: So the paranormal are really cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the the husband and wife one where the guy
Speaker 4: I think or she went crazy or something like that
Speaker 4: and died in the lake or drowned. There's some weird
Speaker 4: like possessive type things that have occurred that are very questionable.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't really vibe with paranormal stuff. It
Speaker 3: freaks me out.
Speaker 2: I stop telling me about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm like, okay, So for all my listeners
Speaker 3: who are interested, you can just listen to locations unknown.
Speaker 3: Once in a while.
Speaker 1: We'll do Yeah, we'll do like a paranormal myth episode
Speaker 1: me doing we even done. No, they're least they're popular.
Speaker 1: We love doing them, but one likes listening to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like they would be popular.
Speaker 2: We should do another one now that we've a lot
Speaker 2: more listeners and see how it does.
Speaker 1: It'd be a good test. I mean, we've done like
Speaker 1: Urban Legends, and we've covered this mountain in Africa that
Speaker 1: like it the locals claim it swallows people and a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of crazy stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: we very very sparingly. We've done an episode on like
Speaker 1: Area fifty one, the Bermuda Triangle, the Nevada Triangle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we've covered all the Alaska travel. There's lots of triangles,
Speaker 4: all the triangles. Yeah, you don't ever want to be
Speaker 4: in a triangle. That's some good advice that you get.
Speaker 4: Never be in a triangle and you'll be fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, thanks. Well, as we're wrapping up, I
Speaker 3: would love to hear just a little bit about We
Speaker 3: talked about this briefly at the beginning, but it sounds
Speaker 3: like there's some exciting things in the works for locations unknown,
Speaker 3: specifically with the network, So I'd love to hear a
Speaker 3: little bit about that from your perspective.
Speaker 4: Yeah, kind of, as we said in the beginning, we
Speaker 4: love doing this and we wish we could put so
Speaker 4: many more episodes, but we both have full time jobs.
Speaker 4: So one of the goals was if we could ever
Speaker 4: get a line of sight as to how this thing
Speaker 4: being like an actual career move, or build a company
Speaker 4: that could pay us to actually do it full time.
Speaker 4: If we ever see like a path of that, we're
Speaker 4: going to go for it. And I feel like we've
Speaker 4: been meeting with industry people. We've been talking with a
Speaker 4: lot of different people about how this works and then
Speaker 4: how we could maybe change it from the old media
Speaker 4: model to a new one that's more focused on the
Speaker 4: content creators, kind of like what YouTube did, where they're
Speaker 4: not hoarding as much of the cash even because the
Speaker 4: creative power is in the people, you know, people making
Speaker 4: their own show. So all right, how can we attract
Speaker 4: a lot of really cool shows in this space to
Speaker 4: a company we create where we can help them grow
Speaker 4: if they have potential or we think they have potential,
Speaker 4: and our somewhat loosely linked to what we do, while
Speaker 4: giving them most of the benefit but also making it
Speaker 4: incentive enough for us to go full time doing it.
Speaker 4: So it's like a delicate balance and I feel like
Speaker 4: we have a decent plan that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, We actually just yesterday launched another really cool
Speaker 1: show called The Weirdos. We know from the lady who
Speaker 1: used to do the luminal true crime podcast Sarah Party.
Speaker 1: Sarah Party, and it's a super I love history and
Speaker 1: the topic of like uncovering what like famous people throughout history,
Speaker 1: like the weird stuff they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like learning new things about people you thought you
Speaker 2: knew all about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds really interesting to me. We also have
Speaker 1: a really cool up and coming podcast called Off the Trails.
Speaker 1: These two ladies cover kind of similar.
Speaker 2: They do what we do.
Speaker 1: They similar show what we do, but it's a different spin.
Speaker 1: You know, It's it's two female hosts. So some people
Speaker 1: one thing I've learned about doing podcasts is people some
Speaker 1: people like just a single person hosting, some people like two.
Speaker 1: Some people only like male voices, some people only like
Speaker 1: female voices. So like it's kind of cool having you know,
Speaker 1: if someone doesn't like Joe and I talking, like, well,
Speaker 1: we've got off the trails. They're really cool podcast.
Speaker 4: And yeah, we literally say, now if you don't like
Speaker 4: how we did it, I'm sure they'll cover it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you might like it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah from them, and like, yeah, it's a great podcast,
Speaker 1: and we're really want to help them grow as big
Speaker 1: as they can. And heck yeah, we're big fans of
Speaker 1: game theory. In this space where I don't really look
Speaker 1: at other shows as competition.
Speaker 4: It's more kind of like it is entertainment, right, Like
Speaker 4: you don't like just one movie? Yeah, Like I like,
Speaker 4: I'm only going to watch a movie from Tom Cruise
Speaker 4: and no other movie exists. Like no, Like, you're gonna
Speaker 4: if you have time, you're gonna taken a lot of it.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of people that listen to your show,
Speaker 4: that probably listen to our show, that listen to the
Speaker 4: National Park after Dark, that listen Tooth and Claw. So
Speaker 4: I look at it all as like, all right, great,
Speaker 4: if we can bring people into the space together that
Speaker 4: we feel have potential, like they put on a good show,
Speaker 4: that's great and it only helps everyone grow. So we
Speaker 4: really look at it that way as I really don't
Speaker 4: care that they do the exact same thing. There's gonna
Speaker 4: be people that hate our show that might love their show.
Speaker 4: So I want to be a part of that if
Speaker 4: we can. And I my life motto is I like
Speaker 4: to do cool shit with cool people.
Speaker 2: So like that's literally what it is.
Speaker 4: Like if if you're cool and you have a good show,
Speaker 4: and you're a nice person, and I can tell you're
Speaker 4: not going to like use us to like help you
Speaker 4: host and get going and then get famous, then screw off,
Speaker 4: Like like yeah, people helping each other. That's I want
Speaker 4: to be a part of that. And I think that's
Speaker 4: you know, that's where the authenticity comes in. As Mike said, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: Over the years, we've gotten help from other you know,
Speaker 1: podcasts and people helping us with their experience, and you know,
Speaker 1: Joe and I have been doing this long enough now
Speaker 1: we've you know, figured out a lot of the technical
Speaker 1: side of it. We've figured out a lot of the
Speaker 1: you know, technique and things that work and things that don't.
Speaker 1: And I think it would be great to you know,
Speaker 1: pass that knowledge on to other you know, shows that
Speaker 1: are starting out to help them because you you probably
Speaker 1: know this, Joe and I know this for sure. The
Speaker 1: first several years, it's just a grind with little to
Speaker 1: no reward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's and for the first yeah.
Speaker 1: And just you have to stick with it.
Speaker 4: Well, we're gonna we're gonna stay in touch outside of
Speaker 4: just this interview.
Speaker 1: Let's just keep let's keep talking. It's like a snowball
Speaker 1: rolling downhill. It starts slow, and as it gains momentum,
Speaker 1: it gets bigger and bigger. And the hardest thing, the
Speaker 1: thing that most podcasts that don't succeed do is they quit. Yep,
Speaker 1: they quit after a couple episodes because.
Speaker 2: You probably they probably quit right before they were about
Speaker 2: to start catching their year.
Speaker 1: We probably did five hundred downloads. I mean the whole year,
Speaker 1: we didn't. I didn't tell any of my family about it,
Speaker 1: so like we weren't even getting friendly downloads. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still yeah, it can really get you can really
Speaker 1: get down about it, like what am I not doing?
Speaker 1: Why is this not working? No one's listening. But you
Speaker 1: just gotta if you just gotta stick with it and
Speaker 1: just keep you know, making improvements on the edge of
Speaker 1: the margins. And and you put it perfectly too.
Speaker 4: I think there's a point where how I look at it,
Speaker 4: what we can do and Mike said it perfectly, like
Speaker 4: we like to really try and help people out. So
Speaker 4: it's almost like when we're in that period of time
Speaker 4: where it's like, man, is this worth it? Like we're
Speaker 4: having fun and we're still having fun, so we'll keep doing.
Speaker 4: But like, what's the point. I wish there was somebody
Speaker 4: who was bigger. I mean, we're not a huge show,
Speaker 4: but we've we've done months where we're over one hundred
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, so big shows will be like, haha, that's it.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, that's huge for us.
Speaker 3: Because but from a small show, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, I wish somebody like that would have
Speaker 2: like had something we could go talk to me like, hey,
Speaker 2: what are you doing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like someone that's already gone through the trials and
Speaker 4: tribulations so that you know, we would love to like
Speaker 4: after this, we'll one hundred percent. Keep talking to you,
Speaker 4: Maddie and be like, hey, here's what we learned here.
Speaker 1: Use it or not.
Speaker 2: But if you can take that and run with it.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. And I would say, like the key to it,
Speaker 1: too is continue doing what you like. Don't change your
Speaker 1: show or change what you're doing just because you know
Speaker 1: comments or you know, like if it's a tech.
Speaker 2: Get an angry email from a lady who doesn't like
Speaker 2: your voice.
Speaker 1: Like if it's a technical thing like your microphone, something's
Speaker 1: wrong with that. Obviously, try and improve that. But like
Speaker 1: the core of your show like never changed, Like if
Speaker 1: you enjoy doing it that way, and that's what's fun
Speaker 1: for you, like that, Like Joe and I have always
Speaker 1: talked like people sometimes with our show, we do location profile,
Speaker 1: character profile, timeline theories and we've always done that and
Speaker 1: some people absolutely hate it. We spend half the show
Speaker 1: talking about location. Yeah, it could be fifteen minutes before
Speaker 1: we get to the story. But some people love it,
Speaker 1: and Joe and I like doing that, so we're like,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna change it. And yeah, and every now
Speaker 1: and then we'll just do something weird because we want to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do a fun show. Because I love talking about
Speaker 1: like UFOs and stuff that's did we did National Park
Speaker 1: Trivia once.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you do fun.
Speaker 1: If it's not fun anymore, then you know why why
Speaker 1: do it? So, like that's the biggest advice to anyone
Speaker 1: to you know, starting a show, like have fun doing Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're just chasing money and views, it's probably gonna
Speaker 1: not be as fun and you will be inauthentic. You're
Speaker 1: gonna do what everyone tells you, so you're gonna get
Speaker 1: all the bad reason to be like, all right, change it,
Speaker 1: change it. Before you know it, it's not you or
Speaker 1: your show anymore. Yeah, it's a grind, but it's fun
Speaker 1: if you'd enjoy doing it. You don't care as much
Speaker 1: about the grinding part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, well heck yeah I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah thanks, Yeah, well I need that. I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm in the.
Speaker 1: The phase of like you're in the grind phase.
Speaker 2: You're in the grind phace, Yeah, you're well.
Speaker 3: And then also, i've done twenty six okay.
Speaker 1: So you've probably done more than we did in the
Speaker 1: first year. Under you're doing one of them then when
Speaker 1: we started. Yeah.
Speaker 3: What's interesting though, is like there's only sixty three Capital N,
Speaker 3: Capital P national parks, and so there's kind of this
Speaker 3: like there will be a pivotal moment where I kind
Speaker 3: of have to figure out what the next thing is.
Speaker 3: And so that's part of why I'm starting these types
Speaker 3: of interviews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 4: I was doing my research and I saw that video
Speaker 4: where you're like, hey, we're doing these segments now and
Speaker 4: you're gonna have other shows on and look and going
Speaker 4: into influencers. That's like perfect because you could tell like
Speaker 4: that something You're just like, hey, this would be neat,
Speaker 4: that's your pivot. Yeah, I mean that was us with
Speaker 4: the paranormal shows. We of X Files and the paranormal stuff,
Speaker 4: So were like, hey, let's do fun what I'm like
Speaker 4: blanket on the word for each state, where like let's
Speaker 4: pick a state and do like urban Legends, top three
Speaker 4: urban legends from that state, like yeah, and a lot
Speaker 4: of people didn't like it, but we.
Speaker 1: Did it like five times. Yeah it was fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, something I've found with honestly with both segments is
Speaker 3: like I interviewed the CEO of Knowles and Knowles is like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if y'all know Knowles, but it's one
Speaker 3: of my favorite companies, and I'm like, how I wouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to talk to them any other way, really
Speaker 3: like and have an hour long conversation with them, or
Speaker 3: like similar with y'all. Like if I didn't have a podcast,
Speaker 3: I'm sure I could send fan mail and be like,
Speaker 3: I love your podcast. That's so cool, but like I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to just chat for an hour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're very You're very easy to talk to.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that.
Speaker 4: So you definitely I can tell just from this because
Speaker 4: I mean we weren't recording yet. I kind of wish
Speaker 4: we were, but I mean we opened up and you're like,
Speaker 4: why does your background.
Speaker 1: Look like that?
Speaker 2: We we started get I'm like, oh, this is what
Speaker 2: I used.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, after like five minutes of talk,
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, hi, Maddie, I'm Joe.
Speaker 2: Nice to meet you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, by the way, hello, Yeah, But I mean.
Speaker 4: Fun, Yeah, you know, you're you're an amazing conversation list.
Speaker 4: I know we kind of ate up a lot of
Speaker 4: the time answering questions, but I.
Speaker 3: Mean that was the point I was interviewing you guys.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's because we feel comfortable talking to you.
Speaker 4: So you're gonna do amazing.
Speaker 3: I mean, well, thank you that.
Speaker 1: Yeahah, this was a lot of fun. Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: Joe and I, I mean we could probably keep talking
Speaker 1: for another That's a lot of people don't like that
Speaker 1: we blather on. I know we do blather it's because
Speaker 1: we're buddies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's something. This is more like something I've
Speaker 3: thought about is my favorite podcasts are the ones where
Speaker 3: it's like co hosts chatting and the candor between them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so I'm trying to figure out I think these
Speaker 3: type of interviews, especially with other podcast hosts, are a
Speaker 3: little bit more candor based and our fun yeah, because
Speaker 3: it's also like candor and it's good for the listener.
Speaker 3: But then also it's just fun for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The superintendents are a little bit more buttoned up. They
Speaker 3: just have to be. And so yeah, it's fun for
Speaker 3: me to kind of get into this space and mimic
Speaker 3: that without necessarily having a co host. Yeah, at least.
Speaker 1: They could do. You could do guest co hosts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could do. Yeah, I mean you could you could
Speaker 1: have like Mic on for an episode. Like it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm being serious.
Speaker 4: If you want to do a cool episode and like,
Speaker 4: and we're gonna have Mike join and then we'll do
Speaker 4: one I'll join, or just as you meet cool people,
Speaker 4: just invite him back. We have our buddy Andy come
Speaker 4: on every now and then because he researched one case
Speaker 4: and he's got a fantastic radio voice, and he's done
Speaker 4: like what like three or four shows with us. Usually
Speaker 4: he did the Gwen shows and then yeah he did
Speaker 4: like yeah, yeah, he did trivia and then he did
Speaker 4: one other one reviews. Once in a while we do
Speaker 4: patron episodes where you read reviews people left, or we
Speaker 4: have a phone number that people can calm leave voicemails.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, play those yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, that can make it easier, and it
Speaker 4: just changes things up a little bit. So you're in
Speaker 4: the pert you're in the exact mindset you need to
Speaker 4: be in to keep your show growing and being awesome.
Speaker 4: It's it's I can tell you, and I can tell
Speaker 4: from your reactions and your faces that sometimes it sucks,
Speaker 4: and that's what we make it sound like.
Speaker 1: It's fun.
Speaker 2: We've had times we're like, oh.
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to do this. Yeah, We've come
Speaker 1: in sick to do it. Yeah, tired.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but then we always.
Speaker 1: Leave and I'm like, I'm glad we did it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad. Okay.
Speaker 3: Usually, yeah, that's what I feel of Like i'd say
Speaker 3: nine times out of ten, sometimes I'll be like tired,
Speaker 3: Like honestly, this is eight. Like I was tired and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, and then now I'm like, I
Speaker 3: know I have all the energy in the world. That
Speaker 3: was a stipped till however long Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean there's really no shortage of you know,
Speaker 1: once you run out of park superintendents, you could start
Speaker 1: reaching out to search and rescue organizations.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we trailed maintenance guys. Trail maintenance guys are
Speaker 2: and they're crazy. They're crazy crazy.
Speaker 1: We've interviewed some search and rescue guys. We've interviewed law enforcement.
Speaker 1: We'd recently just did a case in Wisconsin where we
Speaker 1: interviewed to law enforcement officers that that was a rough one.
Speaker 1: That was rough one. They pulled an audible on us.
Speaker 1: But we're supposed to interview one guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he brought another dude in and then just like
Speaker 4: put a speak your phone on his desk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was like, dude. The audio version of
Speaker 2: this is not going to be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you hear one guy was sitting far away
Speaker 1: from the phone kind of just yelling. And we've done
Speaker 1: we've done interviews with family members of missing people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's hard to get We've found it's hard
Speaker 1: to get interviews. A lot of times people back out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like people are on controversial topics.
Speaker 4: Yes, because like if we're calling and be like, hey,
Speaker 4: tell us about your park, it's a little bit easier. Oh,
Speaker 4: if you haven't talked to this, here's a good lead,
Speaker 4: and we could introduce you to him.
Speaker 2: The PIO of Joshua Tree.
Speaker 1: He's not there anymore.
Speaker 2: Oh he's not, but you could still reach out to him.
Speaker 1: Maybe. Yeah, he's probably. I mean he loves doing an interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, Yeah, and he's he's a he's a funny guy.
Speaker 2: He's cool.
Speaker 1: That was years ago, that was the Paul Miller case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we George Lamb, Yeah, George Lamb.
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's like I was in the North Cascades
Speaker 3: filming a documentary. Kind of the idea is like through
Speaker 3: the eyes of the park rangers, you get an understanding
Speaker 3: of the park and the National Park Service as a whole,
Speaker 3: and the park ranger that I was with was awesome.
Speaker 1: Cool shit with cool people. Yeah, that's exactly. This is
Speaker 1: our way of telling you reach out to us, and
Speaker 1: we will help you literally anyway any way we can.
Speaker 1: Our resources are.
Speaker 3: You're meeting me at a good time where I'm literally
Speaker 3: like in a flux and I'm like, what do I do?
Speaker 2: That's why you reached out to do this.
Speaker 4: We're like, yep, one of Like I'll be honest, i'd
Speaker 4: even hear of your show yet, but I'm like, all right,
Speaker 4: that's a great name, great thing about And then I
Speaker 4: started listening to it.
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, this is cool.
Speaker 3: Well thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah, I appreciate your time
Speaker 3: and I had a lot of fun, So that's the
Speaker 3: most important thing.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Hey everyone, thanks for listening today. If you like this podcast,
Speaker 3: please share the word. Who Runs this Park's success relies
Speaker 3: on you rating or viewing and sharing the word of
Speaker 3: the podcast with your friends. If you have an idea
Speaker 3: for someone you want me to interview for this new segment,
Speaker 3: send me an email at Maddie at who runs this
Speaker 3: Park dot com or dm me on Instagram at who
Speaker 3: runs this Park and we'll make it happen. Thanks again,
Speaker 3: so thankful for listeners like you. See you next week.