All right, just in time for fall. We're happy to introduce our new partner here on Gear, Abbey Fjallraven. Because you can't Fjall without Fjallraven. That's right. Fall doesn't get nearly enough credit for hiking. Everyone thinks summer's the season, but for hikers, autumn is the real deal. You got cooler days, quieter trails, more space. And fall is exactly what Phil Rubin's KEB collection is built for. Born from trekking in northern Sweden, their jackets, fleeces, trousers, everything lets you focus on nature. All specifically designed to make cold optional. Check out the whole KEB collection by clicking on the link in the show notes or search for it when you head to fjallraven.com where your fjall or your fall begins.

You got questions going out of your mind. Someone with answers. Now that's hard to find, like the what and the why and the. The house stuff works. Or just where to go to avoid all the jerks she's Gear Abby. Gear Abby. Gear Abby. Advice that doesn't suck. Gear Abby.

Hello there, my outdoorsy friends, and welcome to Gear Abby, where we tackle the controversial, weird, obscure, and taboo topics that other outdoor podcasts refuse to touch. I'm Shawnté Salabert, an outdoor educator, writer, former school social worker, and and Wisconsin cheese enthusiast who's hiked, run, climbed, paddled, and adventured across the United States and beyond. And here on Gear Abbey, I channel all that experience and more into answering your burning questions about our relationships with outdoor people, products, places, and pastimes. Because remember, my outdoor loving pals, there are no dumb questions, just smart advice. So, my friends, you know how this works. You're going to send questions in to DearGearAbbyMail.com I have finally got it together. There is an email. I am using it. You are using it. We're using it together. And I'm going to pick my favorites to answer here on the show. And as always, it's thrilling. I know you can't wait. Joining me today is my partner in Gear, the producer of Gear Abby, and a man who has perhaps and unnatural love for the intersection of ska and punk. Colin. True.

Unnatural.

I mean, you gotta call it like you see it sometimes.

I am a big ska and punk fan. What is unnatural about that?

What is natural about that, Colin?

A lot. All right. What's more unnatural than starting a podcast without an actual email address? Maybe that's a little more unnatural.

No, that, you know, email really has nothing to do with podcasting, Colin. It's just A cherry on top. Okay. It's a way for the people to connect.

I think what we need to do, though, is give some credit to the listeners. Listeners, you have overwhelmed myrockfightmail.com because the response has been so overwhelming to gear Abbey. So, yes.

Yeah. We had to create a new entity here.

Yes.

It's beautiful. But, Colin, I actually wanted to ask you. It's the beginning of October, which I cannot believe.

I know, right?

Do you know what that means? Do you know what season it is?

Spooky season.

Well, a. It's spooky season. My number one favorite time of the year. Not gonna lie.

Hell yeah.

Oh, my God. I just. I live for a haunted house. Okay. I'm ready for it. But no. It's tarantula mating season.

Is it really?

Yeah. Wait, how do you not know this?

You're out there doing it.

They're out. They're doing it. They're. While they're out there looking for someone with which to do it. You know about. You don't know about tarantula meetings?

I did not. That's why I've only been here for five years. I've seen a couple. I mean, I didn't know. I've never seen them out there. Like, you know, like the mating tarantulas. That's amazing.

Crawling toward each other, like, will you be my eight legged love? That's. Yeah, it's great. I appreciate this. I am an arachnophobe through and through. And I will say the one thing that brings me out of my freaky, like, get those legs away from me vibe is tarantulas.

And knowing is freaky tarantulas.

Freaky tarantulas. Getting freaky every fall. It actually started last month, so I'm a little late on the uptake here, but I feel like, you know, spooky season is when we should really celebrate this.

So it should be October if you're gonna pick a month for this.

I mean, come on.

Also, it makes sense. Cause this is when tarantula porn sales spike every year. I never put those two things together before, so now I understand.

Wow. Yeah. You know what? There's something. I think I've said it before in the podcast, and I'm probably never gonna stop saying it. There's something for everyone. Now that we both have visions of sweet tarantula love in our heads, why don't we save the listeners by moving onto a new subject? You got a question for me?

I do. I want to read it. And I do have something to Say before you answer it. Oh, all right. First. First, let's read the question.

Oh, wow.

Dear Gear Abby, since it's going to be winter soon and I can't go peak bagging anymore, I have to find some other way to obsess over mountains in the off season. So I want to know, how can an average guy go about naming a bunch of mountains that don't already have names signed, asking for a friend? And I want to say to asking for a friend before you get the real answer from Gear Abbey, why can't you go peak bagging anymore? I think the best time to go peak bagging is the winter.

Well, it depends on where they live, I guess. So what do you do? I mean, you have to, like some peak bagging in winter. As deep alpine as you want, maybe.

You know, if you live in a place where there's. If you live where there's 14ers, you don't have to go up the 14ers.

This is your Southern California bias. Some people live in Kansas. Okay. Some people live in Kansas. Maybe they can only peak bag in the summer and other months.

Oh, I see. So they're like destination peak baggers.

I don't know. Ask. We'd have to ask. Asking for a friend. What they.

Okay, I'll back off.

Wow. I like that. That. This is totally your Southern California bias. You don't know about tarantulas, but damn it, you do know about peak bagging.

Well, it's actually more of my New Hampshire bias because when I was there, I loved to do the 4,000 footers in the winter. It was great this time of year to go up those.

Yeah, people like to suffer. It's the suffering. It's the suffering we choose.

Much like mating tarantulas who are probably.

Suffering somehow until they get to make sweet annual love.

I mean, have you seen a tarantula penis? It's got.

No. What? No, but don't Google it if you're listening right now. I don't even know. I don't want to know if Collins Googled it. I'm not going to. You don't Google it either. Unless you're like a. Wow, is tarantula.

Penis a good band name?

No, it's not. Don't put. Don't put the dinging sound there. Let me answer this question.

Sorry.

Listen, friend A, I'm sorry for Colin. He just keeps showing up every week, and it turns out I don't know how to do any of the back end stuff for a podcast. So we gotta keep Him. But listen, friend, I hope you have a lot of time on your hands, not for my answer per se, but for the actual process involved in naming a mountain. But first, I want to roll it back a second and talk about how mountains in the United States have been named in the past when. Which is basically orally. That's the original tradition of how we name things, is somebody pointing at something and going like that is, you know, Tarantula Mountain. Right. So humans, for Time to Turnal, have come up with names for prominent landforms. The thing is, back in the day, people weren't writing things down in the English language in tidy little moleskin notebooks. These were names that were basically, you know, known in their communities from people who have relationship with these places. So we're going to use a little test case here. We're going to look at the highest peak in the United States. So over thousands of years, this approximately 20,310 foot beauty. Wow. Has earned a bunch of different names from not just native Alaskans, but even Russians, all essentially referring to its massive size. The one that stuck in modern times as we know it now is Denali. A riff on the Koyukon Athabascan name. Denali. So very similar, right? Okay.

Yes.

Not much change there. Um, so first you have the names given by the people who are kind of native to the area. Then you get the next wave of people who we may call colonizers, the people from outside who came in and were like, this is my place now. Generally by force and enslavement of the native people. Right. So this shitty thing is happening. They also are seeing these large landforms. They also want to give them names. So in Denali's case, this phrase, this phase in its naming kind of happened when a prospector named Frank Densmore saw it and just started waxing poetic to anybody who would listen to him yapping about it. So much so that some people started calling it Densmore Mountain, maybe just to shut him up, I don't know. The peak then gained another name thanks to a whole different prospector. This is two prospectors in one peak naming story. That's a lot of gold in them the hills. You know what I'm saying? Thank. Thank you for that little chortle. I appreciate it.

So golden them there.

Yeah, I feel like you'd be better at that. Could you just.

I just got. I was thinking of old Prospector, the old Prospector sketch from snl. When you said that, that's what.

Wow. I was thinking of what is It. Yosemite Sam. No. Yukon Charlie. Who am I thinking of thinking of? Dairy farm? Yukon Cornelius. Isn't that the Yeti?

I'll eat what I like.

Wait, Yukon Cornelius was the yeti in all of the Claymation?

The Claymation, like that was the bumble.

Damn it.

Who. You. Who fought Yukon Cornelius, who was a prospector.

Oh, man. Wow. I've gotta.

We can't. We're not gonna. We're spoil our Christmas episode. We can't do that.

I can't wait. Um. All right, so this. The second. This whole second Prospector, William Dickey, total William McKinley fanboy called the peak Mount McKinley in an 1897 piece written for the New York sun, which in my head is just the New York Post of olden times. But the name stuck after McKinley was assassinated in 1901. They were like, yeah, let's honor the guy. Whatevs. And despite the state of Alaska asking the federal government to change the name back to Denali way back in 1975, that actually wasn't made official until 2015. And if you are paying attention, you may have noticed that there is, of course, a fresh battle royale between the current occupant of the White House and the whole state of Alaska and many other people after the name was switched back to McKinley by an executive order earlier this year.

We encourage not paying attention to that.

Yeah, if you would like to save any shred of your sanity. But so, to get to friends, question. How do you actually name a peak in the year 2025 and beyond? Well, as it turns out, that involves a masochistic desire to wade through a spider's web, a tarantula's web, maybe, of red tape. So here's the deal, Colin. Are you ready?

I'm ready. I want to. I don't know any of this. Honestly, this is all education for me, too.

I'm here for it. You take the. I don't know.

We're talking more about peak bagging. We're here to learn about naming.

You wish. I'm never. We're never talking about it until you calm down. We're unbagging every peak until you calm down.

Oh, my God. I lost my list. Okay, wow.

Yep, you're gonna have to start over. But if you want to name any of your unbagged peaks after me, here's how you're gonna do it. So, basically, you gotta do a little bit of research. One of my favorite things to ensure that a peak isn't already named. And of course, we gotta go back to the Beginning of my long winded answer here. Not all names are in the written record as many indigenous place names of course come from the oral tradition, so. So you also can't name it after a living person and usually they want you to have like a five year waiting period after somebody's death before you honor them with that. So Colin, I'm sorry, we're gonna have to wait a bit for Mount Ozzy Osbourne.

That should happen though. I co signed that naming wherever it is. Probably somewhere, I guess in the uk.

Yeah, it would have to be maybe in the Peaks district. Would it be Mount Ozzie though? I think Mount Ozzie is what it has to be.

Yeah, Mount Ozzie would be. I would, I would fly to Scotland.

To Scotland? Why are you going to Scotland?

To the Peaks? Oh no, we're going to Peaks district. Yes. I was thinking up in the Highlands, up in a northern part there at the uk.

Maybe we could fly there too. We'll do a remote taping.

Yeah, that'd be Osborne. Glenn Osborne.

Oh, there's so many Osbornes. I'm sure we could find them all. Yes, we got time but. All right, so you also want to make sure the name isn't already present on another feature in the area which they apparently have not paid attention to in the Sierra because there's a lot of double named things. And then finally you got to make sure your chosen name isn't, you know, sexist, homophobic, racist, derogatory, offensive, harmful in any other way. You know, again, I don't know at this current administration if the rules have been laxed, but let's just try not to do that anymore, guys. Then it's paperwork time, baby. That's right. You gotta petition the federal government. Doesn't that sound exciting? Via the U.S. board on Geographic Names, which is part of the Department of the Interior. So it's its own thing. These are the people who come up with the names that are on, on maps. They say yay or nay. They, they figure, you know, all these names on federal websites, on paperwork, everything official literature. It's the US board on Geographic Names. And for them to even give your idea a passing glance, you want to really drive home why you think this specific place deserves this specific name. So it might meet, you know, mean reaching out to local tribes, visiting, you know, doing research and libraries, museums, historical societies, societies, finding proof of colloquial like that kind of everyday use of a name and even asking people to write letters of support. So it's basically a butt ton of work and before you get too excited, it's probably not going to be a very compelling case for you to suggest naming the local hill that you run up every day before work asking for a friend Mountain. Not going to happen. But Gear Abbey Peak could be. I mean, after all, there are not nearly enough landforms named for women. But honestly, are there any? There are. There are.

I hope so.

I wrote a piece for Alpinist once, actually on Mount Florence in Yosemite, which is named for. Not just a woman, a little girl. She was the daughter of James Hutchings, who was the first concessionaire in the park. And by concession era, we mean like horrible person who went in and was like, I'm gonna make money in this valley. Screw the people who live here. But Florence seemed cool as. So it was fun to research that. In general though, I mean. Colin, what do you think? I think for me, we just shouldn't name people things after specific people anyway. Like, let's just not do that anymore. We are all. There's. There's like prop. Everyone's got skeletons in their closet.

You know, I. I agree. I think at this point, like, you know, if you're gonna play by the rules, you probably should find people who do have shady history and skeletons in their closets to name the mountains after, because that's basically what was happening back in the day. I just. It's at this point, you know, why do we care so much? I mean, if it really is at this point, probably all the mountains that get climbed the most probably have names. If there's something that's unnamed, like let it be and be, leave it unnamed.

All right, Colin, now that. Now that. So we've got. We've got spiders, we've got peaks. Although I've removed the joy of peak bagging from you. What else? What else? I. I feel like we got some special sauce in the mix this week.

We do. I got a really good one here. I think is. It's going to be one on one of your favorite topics.

Is it about poop? There's some.

There's a little. There's a little poo involved. Gear Abby, I think you're going to be pretty excited about this one.

But.

But a couple episodes ago we talked about the horny salmon, and now we have the mating tarantulas.

I forgot about that.

Trying to set the hierarchy for the, you know, the banging wildlife here on Gear Abbey.

Listen, hey, it's DearGearAbbyMail.com I want your burning questions about banging wildlife. Wildlife making sweet weekly love like Flight of the Conchords. I did once see two cheetahs making love and it was one of the most intense things. I was in the Serengeti, which is where you see these things. We'll get into that some other time, but I want to know what potentially poop related question you have for me now.

Okay, here we go. Dear Gear Abby, I've gotten into through hiking. Yes, Gear Abby is now being in the last few years and love it. The only thing that's really bumming me out is how I hate how much waste I create through all of the wrappers and packaging from the food I bring on trail and all of the Ziploc bags that I use to store it in. Put in my used tp. Okay.

Oh, I see. That's the poop mention. Okay, there it is. All right, I'll take it. It's not much.

I know you're a long distance hiker too, so you understand that it's a hard trade off between keeping your pack weight light and giving a shit about the environment. Any tips for how to cut down on all the garbage I'm creating every time I thru hike without making my pack weigh 100 pounds? Signed Rabbit on the trail. Assuming rabbit's in quotes. So I'm assuming that's a trail name.

That's great. I've known rabbits on trail, but it was a 12 year old child so I didn't know. Although the ch. The child would be older now. My gosh, that kid would be in college now. That's freaking me out. Okay, well, Rabbit, if it's you, hello. And if it's some other rabbit, hello. Also to you, other rabbit. This is. This is a great question. I do in fact love through hiking. You are correct. And I also give a about the environment magic. I also feel like a one woman garbage machine on long backpacking trips. And not just because I'm usually eating my body weight and Fritos and Swedish fish. Although that is a large contributor. I'll be 900% honest in that this question is one I've actually asked myself more than once. I. I think we're going to pull in. Are you ready? We're pulling in a heavy hitter here.

Oh my God.

Yeah. It's time for our very first guest. It's going to be Kristen Hosutter, an outdoor journalist, author, backpacker, who is, I think, to put it mildly, borderline obsessed with sustainability.

That's mildly. Yes.

Go freak. And some quick. I'm going to give you some quick bona fides so you Know you can trust whatever she's about to say. Say she co founded the Plastic Impact alliance, which is a collaboration with over 350 outdoor brands throwing the middle finger to single use plastic, which I truly appreciate. She was named Sustainability Champion of the Year by Outdoor Media Summit, and she spent five years working at Outside Interactive, Inc. As as their head of sustainability. Plus, when she was still at Outside Business Journal, which used to be known as Snooze, she gave me one of the coolest assignments ever when I got to write about the Absolutely Banana Zero Waste program at Packrat Outdoor center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, one of the best outdoor shops in the country, in my opinion. So, Kristen, I'm so stoked. Thank you and welcome to Gear Abby.

Thanks, Shantae. Gosh, I'm so glad you mentioned that assignment because I forgot about that. But that was a good one. You crushed it.

So. All right, Kristin, bringing you in. You are. I, I consider you to be a sustainability expert and you're a backpacker like us. So what is your advice for our pal Rabbit here on how they can stop being such a trash monster on through hikes?

Yeah, it's a tough one, right? Because in some ways, you know, there's, there's no getting around it. Like, we need our packaging to be lightweight and, and we need to have it packaged in the proper way so it maintains its freshness, it doesn't get wet, all this stuff. So packaging's a really big deal. I will start by saying that I gave up prepackaged, like energy bars a long time ago. Like, if I never eat another Clif Bar or Luna Bar or whatever in my life, I will be thrilled because I just get really tired of them. I don't like the way they taste. I don't like the way they make me feel. And I just swore them off a long time ago. And so when I'm doing a long hike, and full disclosure, I have not hiked one of the big three here in the US But I do do a lot of long distance hiking around the world. And when I do that, I do two things. I like to buy my stuff in bulk and package it in. No surprise, the stasher bags or here's an off brand one that I bought on Amazon and I have a million of these things and I repackage them from the bulk store and make my own snacks and I bring them. But I also, when I travel, I love to sample the local snacks, particularly internationally. I'll give you one really fun example. I just got back From Norway. And my son and I were in a grocery store and he's a big Oreo fan and he said, I'm going to take a chance and buy these off brand Oreos. These things are called ballerinas and we thought they were going to be gross. They are the most delicious cookie ever and they beat Oreo by a million bucks. And by the way, I looked at the ingredients and you know, if you ever look at the ingredients on Oreos, there's like a thousand of them.

Yes, there's not.

There's not. These are so much simpler and more pure, as with many things in Europe. And so not only did we get to sample the local snacks, but they come in these little sleeves. A lot of cookies in New York come in these little sleeves. And so packaging was made. My point is bring your bulk stuff from home and then grab some add ons in the local stores, support the local economy and try the new stuff.

And.

And so that's like something that just happened really recently. You know, I think, you know, there really is no silver bullet. Like, I think backpackers rely on these bags and these containers and I think we always will. But those are just some ways to minimize them. Another thing that I've been doing lately is, and I started this when I hiked the Camino a couple months ago, is I started bringing a, like a sandwich container on every trip.

Oh, like a Tupperware. You got like a flat, square Tupperware.

I've eliminated plastic from my kitchen, but I saved this for backpacking. And I'm on the hunt actually for like a lightweight aluminum one because I do want to get rid of plastic. But this thing comes in handy so much on the trail because I use it for a bowl. But I also like, if you buy a sandwich at a trail town or whatever and you don't eat it all, which is normal for me. You pack it in here, leftovers. Like, I just pop this in my pack and I end up using it all the time. Or I use it to make trail mix in local trail mix when I find stuff that I want to mix up while I'm on a trip. So those are things that I bring in my pack. I try to avoid prepackaged. I don't buy the alpine air, the mountain house, that stuff anymore. I actually make my own dehydrated meals and they're awesome. And I'm a huge fan of Andrew Skurka. Do you know Andrew Skirka?

Oh, of course. Come on. The pinto beans, the beans and rice.

That'S our Favorite, the Frito beans and rice. And so I dehydrate those and I package them. And he's got like three or four meals that are just like my go tos over and over and over again. So I dehydrate them and I make them in bulk and I package them into, you know, containers like this so they're ready to go. And.

And it does cut down a stasher or something.

Yeah, and it does cut down on, on, on packaging. You know, the one thing that Rabbit mentioned that I think is totally unavoidable is the TP bag, right? Like, you're not going to put your used TP in a, in a bag that you have to take home and wash out. What I do for that is I always bring like a big bread bag. Like, I buy big loaves, rounds of bread from local bakeries and I save those and I use those. I bring one of those on, on a backpacking trip and that becomes my trash bag. So I'm not using a new Ziploc, right? I haven't bought Ziplocs. I have not bought. I. You not. I have not bought Ziploc bags in over five years because I reuse the bags that I do have to buy and, and then once in a while I take some home from my mother when she gives me leftovers. So I do have a couple Ziplocs in circulation, but I don't. I haven't bought them.

I'm also. What are you like, I'm a big bidet user. I feel like that has helped me just completely transform my, you know, poop waste on the trail, so.

Oh, you use a bidet on the trail.

I love it. I love it. I have, I have gone over to the dark side. It is actually the light side. It's beautiful.

We have to talk about that. On a separate issue, I wrote a whole article about in home bidets, and I have two in my house here. I'm a huge fan of them here. But I have not, I have not done the, the, the trail bidet yet. I want to, I want to learn more.

Well, what. Okay, so the other thing I think about is, so we've got food. You know, food packaging waste is obviously a big thing. What do you think about, like, a friend of mine, I was at her house recently and she had this plastic bucket on her porch, and it was from a company called Ridwell. She pays like a monthly subscription and they pick up all these. She was showing me, there's two different kinds of plastic. They'll pick up Things like that. Then I looked into it, I was like, holy shit, that's very expensive for your everyday person. But are there options, like let's say people just cannot get away from their delicious Snickers bar breakfast, you know, are there options for recycling those wrappers that you can't put in, you know, your home trash or your home recycling? I should say.

Yeah, I mean, Ridwell is one example. TerraCycle is another example. They are super expensive. I don't feel like they're accessible to most people, including me. There's some controversy around them too. Like, you know, if you Google, like if you Google sort of about the transparency of what they actually do, like they claim to be able to break down everything and, and there's some questions about that, like, like what they are actually able to recycle and how they are actually breaking down. You know, because if you buy a bag of chips, for instance, you know, that's multiple layers there. And so before that can be recycled, it has to be taken apart. Very laborious.

Yeah.

So I'm not like, I'm not trying to throw shade because I don't know the full answers, but there is controversy around it. And you know, and I think the bottom line is like, I just wish and hope and pray that someday these types of, at least all of these services show that we are starting to think about this. We are starting to think about the waste and the materials that wrap everything that we buy. And I have to think that that's going to lead to more accessible, more widespread solutions. And so in that sense I do support these efforts because I think they are going to, you know, they're a launching point.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I mean, I think about even how here I live in Pasadena and Southern California and we have now community composting and city composting where you can drop off at some of the city parks. Because they realize like, all right, not everybody's going to have a compost bin. Not everybody. Like so many of us live in apartments and things. So yeah, it is, it is like a sign of progress. I suppose that's true. At least there are some options. I mean, I know the Ridwell, she told my friend told me that some of them you can do like the two ply, the multi layer plastic or whatever. But yeah, I guess there's probably still a ways to go and true transparency as far as how much it does, but it. Okay, like one final question for you because then I think about something a little bit more big picture. And you know, do you think when we think about all the things we do, and I think there are plenty of environmentally conscious hikers like Rabbit who are like, man, am I doing the right thing by being out there? Like, do you think through hiking has an outsized environmental impact compared to, say, going about your daily life at home for several weeks? You know, should backpackers feel like there is a real big ethical dilemma in going on a thru hike from a sustainability standpoint?

Oh my God, that is such an easy answer for me. It's no. Absolutely not. Get outside and do those hikes. I mean, that is, that is what keeps us going. It's healthy. It's appreciating, enjoying and becoming stewards of our natural environments. Absolutely not. I guarantee that if you spend a day at home, you know, or in your office, your environmental footprint is far larger than a day on the trail. And I would never ever pin or use, you know, the sustainability sort of dilemma as a reason to not go on a long walking trip. Absolutely not.

Well, right on, Kristin, thanks. Yes, exactly. I'm with you 110%. Agreed. Thank you so much for joining me and helping me answer Rabbit's question. And Rabbit, if you a few more things that I just think about is I think about how, you know, gear, we, we should be repairing our gear. I know there's a lot of great repair, like a lot of brands now you can send your gear out and they'll send it back. I just got my backpack from Six Moon Designs. It had ripped right down the side. They repaired it for free, which is amazing. Big Agnes has done repairs for me. You've got independent, you know, sewists and other people who. So Google how to repair your gear. Learn how to do it yourself, right?

Shameless Plug. I've written two books on gear repair and I just want to say that also, you know, I love this question because I, I think when people start thinking about these issues, something so small like my, my energy bar wrappers and whatever, it's such a jumping off point when you start thinking about one thing, you start thinking about other things in your life and you start thinking about how to be more sustainable on a daily basis. On the trail, off the trail, little actions lead to big actions, they lead to lifestyle changes. And that's really important. And it's also really fun and inspiring and empowering when people start to think this way. So I'm really glad and thank you so much for bringing this topic to light.

Kristin, thank you so much for joining us today and keep on Fighting the good fight. Keep hiking.

Thank you so much.

Oh, man. Kristin is awesome. I'm so glad she got to jump in today. We got to have her back.

Yeah. Legend. Absolute legend.

Truly, Truly. But now it's back to me. All of the. All of the pressure. I've got to answer this alone. I hope you give me a good one. What's next on the agenda?

Okay, this is actually. This is a very exciting episode on episode six.

Yes.

And not only do we have our first guest, we have our first repeat question from a listener.

Oh, wait, what do you mean, repeat? We're just answering the same question again. Do it better.

We ran out. We're running it back.

First time sucked. Do it again.

No, no, sorry. Repeat. Writer. Inner. We have. Prodigy is back from episode one.

Was episode one one of the early. Yeah, one or two. That's right. Prodigy. And. And I think their original question was about. It was like, biodegradable soap, which was a really great question.

Well, Prodigy is very interested in Leave no Trace because this email from Prodigy is Dear Year. Abby is using TP and burying it. Actually. Leave no Trace sign. Prodigy.

Prodigy. You and Kristen should get to know each other, actually. Kristen come back.

Yeah. Or is prodigies hanging outside of, like, Leave no Trace's office, like, waiting to be like, gotcha.

Prodigy's an LNT plant. It's like somebody from the Org is like, just keep sending them questions. Yeah, well, actually, this is not. This is actually a fantastic question. So thanks, Prodigy. It's great. Not just because it's tangentially related to poop. We know me at this point. But actually, I'm going to define. We're just going to jump in really quick and define Leave no Trace. I mean, Colin, if it just in a. One word. If I was an alien that came down from outer space and I was like, what is Leave no Trace? What would you say?

Oh, Leave no Trace is. I mean, it's a set of guidelines for how to engage appropriately with the backcountry. Right. It's the rules for how you should be going outside to, like, limit your impact on the. The environment that you're going into.

All right. I would accept that. I did have a mental image, though, of how you should engage with the backcountry. I was thinking about the tarantulas again, which I don't. I don't know how I feel about that being in my head the rest of the day.

You want to come over to my tarantula hole tonight?

Tarantula hole? No, I don't oh, Jesus. Wow. According. So we're gonna. Let me. Let me actually dig into some serious business here. According to the Leave no Trace center for Outdoor Ethics, that is their full informal name, the first time that the phrase leave no trace was formerly associated with the outdoors was back in the olden days of 1987, when a bunch of federal land management agencies printed a pamphlet titled Leave no Trace Land Ethics as a response to basically increased use and abuse of public lands. That had been going on for a couple decades. But the formal capital letter Leave no Trace. Org was founded six years later after a group of feds, nonprofits, outdoor industry wonks kind of drummed up the concept at the very creatively titled Outdoor Recreation Summit. We're real good with names.

Yeah. By the way, that's continued on today.

Yep, you're not wrong. But blah, blah, blah. I mean, what's this got to do with tp? Glad you asked. So, to answer your question, Prodigy, we're going to look at Leave no Trace from three angles. Call them formal, Formal, revised, and the personal ethics angle is what I'd say. So CliffNotes history lesson I gave a minute ago kind of marks the formalization of the idea of Leave no Trace. So we humans should leave places exactly as we find them. The whole take only photographs, leave only footprints business. And the organization was founded in 1994, created a list known as the Seven Principles of Leave no Trace. And the third one, dispose of Waste, properly addresses your question, Prodigy. So the word waste is doing some heavy lifting here. It actually refers to general garbage and food scraps, which the organization says you should pack out. And my favorite topic, poop. So their guidance is simple. Dig a 6 to 8 inch cat hole at least 200ft. So we're getting into some math here. Spatial awareness as well. 200ft from all water sources, trails and campsites. Then you're going to drop your load. Then you're gonna pack out your tp if you haven't yet hopped on the bidet train. And I would say, please ask me about bidets, but I think we've got three emails already that have come in. So maybe next week it's time to drop some bidet knowledge and you know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's right. Dropping the trowel, dropping the knowledge. But. So if I was a lazy podcaster, I might just say prodigy. There you go. But I am never lazy when it comes to drop and deuces in the wild. That's right. Poor Colin is losing his literal figurative shit. Maybe not, hopefully not your literal.

The copulating tarantulas have stopped to listen in at this point because they're interested as well.

They want to know, what do we do with our little shits. All right, so I promised two more angles. So we're going to hop over to formal revised. That's my. My middle section. To muddy the waters. Leave no trace center for Outdoor Ethics writes in its own blog. Wait for it. It's okay to bury your TP as long as you use the tiniest amount possible and toss it in with your poo before filling the hole.

That's subjective.

Right? Okay, so this is what I'm saying. Do not, though, do not just toss a rock over the whole mess and call it a day. Please, just bury it like a body. Okay? We do not want to turn over rocks and continue finding petrified turds. That is my. One of my least favorite things. But these. These absolute hypocrites cited a pilot study that showed absolutely no trace of TP in an 8 inch cat hole a year after its burial. So you're like, w. Oh, okay. If you're gonna roll with this leave no trace reversal of fate. Remember that toilet paper will not easily disintegrate in dry environments, which is where you and I live, Colin.

Yes. So you very, very dry.

If you are like me and you live in a very old house, 110 years old, with pipes made out of corroded whispers and dreams, you are going to have toilet paper sometimes in your yard. And let me tell you, I have petrified toilet paper over there right now that my landlord still needs to clean.

So also, I'm trying to picture the poor intern that had to, like, go, like, poop in a hole, then go out a year later, like, dig it up.

What do you mean poor?

No toilet paper here.

You know, like, maybe they were delighted by this task. You don't know. Maybe it was me.

God, I hope they asked me to poop in a hole in this job. Oh, that's all I've ever wanted.

Listen, I'm good at it. Let me go. I don't know. But the point being, in these drier environments, the stuff's just going to get mummified, okay? It's going to get unearthed the next time somebody wants to take a dump behind that one perfect trey or bush that we all see from the trail that we're like, that's the one I'm pooping behind because it gives me just enough cover. So one thing you can do if you're going to do this to speed up the decomposition is to give it the old dirt nap treatment and create the most disgusting soup on earth by dumping some water into the hole on top of your turds. And this the TP that I still think you shouldn't put in there. And then you stir it all up with a stick before burying it.

I think this is going to be our last poop question for a while.

Not if we talk about bidets next week.

Damn it. Yeah.

I mean, you do you. I would not do this before dinner. Let's be frank. I don't like this method. I have tried it before and it just creeps me out in a deep way. So I think at the end of the day, we're going to come to that third thing here, which is personal ethics. And this is where I land. So principle number three here in the LNT world is not a law, but it's a recommendation. So that means nobody's going to fine you or arrest you for tossing your Charmin in with in with your cat hole after a relaxing number two. So deciding whether or not to leave a trace, in this case some dirty 2 ply is a personal decision. I think there is a lot of gray area when we talk about leave no trace. So humans have always coexisted with nature. We, like the animals around us, leave natural traces of our existence. And, you know, poop is one of these things. People have been pooping outside since the dawn of humanity. But I also think that we've evolved enough. And I mean, that's kind of debatable, but let's just say we've evolved enough to think a bit more deeply about how we want to be in relationship with these places where we hike and bike and paddle and run and climb and camp. So for me, it just doesn't feel great leaving poopy toilet paper behind for animals and other humans to, you know, dig up. It might break down eventually, especially if you live in a wetter area or you make your little poo stew, but that's not going to happen overnight. And, you know, back when I actually used TP on trail, I just carried it out in a Ziploc bag stor in an outside pocket of my pack. It's, you know, I ended up ultimately swapping out for a bidet because I love that thing. It. It pulls double duty. No pun intended.

Oh, my God.

It leaves no trace of toilet paper on the ground and no trace of anything on my ass. So I would call that a win win.

You can also just go wag bag.

Well, Wag bags. We should talk about that, I'm sure. Actually, I think we may have a wag bag question, too. Right now. I feel like. The thing is, we'll get into that when we do talk about wag bags, but that's like a whole extra step that a lot of people. We have a problem on Mount Whitney, for instance, where wag bags are required in the Whitney zone, where it's, you know, granite. You got a ton of people on there, and people aren't using or they're leaving them on the side of the trail. So wag. They're like.

They're like human dog poop bags. Yes, same problem. Totally.

Exactly what they are.

That's fucked up. I mean, that is because generally speaking, I would say, like, if I were. If you were to make. Make me pick a solution here. I like the wag bag solution.

Just wait. You want to carry your poop instead of burying it?

If I'm to your point, if I'm backpacking, we're going through hiking, I think. You know, the. The. The bidet thing obviously makes a ton of sense, especially the way you've described, like, your system with it. But it's just like, you know, I. Look, I've used wag bags on Shasta and Rainier, and it's like, it's not that big a deal. And if you're only there for a couple of days, you just. It's all sealed up. It's not going to crack open. You stuff it in your pack and you throw it away when you get down.

But it's not the poop that's leaving. Like, the poop can go. The poop belongs. The poop will. Poop will do its poop thing in the earth. It's the toilet paper we're talking about.

I get it. Just put it in a sock.

Why do you need a whole system? You don't need a wag.

That's true. I'm just saying, you know, but also, if, like, you can debate the merits of, like, the potatoes, we'll do that later. And it's going to. It's going to be subjective or whatever, but if people are truly leaving their equivalent of a dog poop bag of their own turds on the side of trails. Like, come on. Like, carry your dog poop bag out. What are we doing?

Carry your poop and then carry your TP out.

Carrier trowel. Jesus Christ.

Listen, prodigy, you. Do you. You can bury your poo, but please don't bury your tp. All right, Colin, on you Said you were excited about this last question, which makes me a little afraid. What do we have?

I think you're. I think you're going to be in agreement with my point of view on this. Here we go. Last question. This is the last question of the day, right?

Yeah. Number four.

Yeah, we're at number four.

We went from number two to number four. Zing.

Dear Gear Abby, I feel like I keep seeing people talking about gravel shoes. Not for cycling, where I'm used to seeing it, but in running. What the hell is a gravel running shoe? And is it complete bullshit? Signed, keep it simple, stupid?

No, I know why you're excited about this. Okay. Okay. Kiss. Can I call you Kiss? Keep it simple, stupid. Kiss.

Are the tarantulas kissing?

We don't know what they do on their downtime under the cloak of darkness in the spooky season in the desert, making sweet tarantula love. All right, well, listen, Kiss. Great, great question. Colin's excited, and I actually have a little bit of recent experience here because I was actually on a PR call about maybe two months ago now with people over at Craft Sportswear, and one of the guys on the call described gravel running shoes as essentially the Subaru Crosstrek of running shoes. And I cannot tell you a time when I have better understood a publicist description of a product. I was like, yes, I have heard what you say. I have ingested it. It is true. And funny enough, I actually own a Subaru Crosstrek. Surprise.

Oh, you and my daughter.

Oh, really? Yeah. Great choice. It's a rely. It's a reliable car. I mean, I have convinced myself. So mine is. The color is khaki gray, which seems like a fake color. It just looks like cornflower blue to me. But whatever. I'm not a Pantone Namer. I. Her name is Francesca the Ice Queen, or Frankie for short.

Okay.

I really do think she's kind of the perfect mix for me right now in my life. I live, you know, in just outside of la. I have an urban life, but I'm also in the mountains and in the desert all the time. So basically, you know, drive a little bit in the city, drive a little bit in the mountains. She is a crossover Crosstrek. So I think gravel shoes. It's a really good analogy because gravel shoes are meant to be similar, sort of jacks of all trades, master of none. They're crossovers, not unlike a gravel cycling shoe, which you would know more about, I'm sure. But they're designed to work just fine on pavement and just fine on gravel or dirt road or trail. The kind of thing you might pop on if you're running straight from your house to a local trail or something like that. We're doing mixed. I think of it as, like, mixed media runs. They've got more grip than a standard road shoe since you don't want to spend half your run on your ass. But they're not so aggressively luggy that you feel sluggish on pavement. So honestly, Kiss, I have also wondered about the bullshittiness. I'm not a big fan of, like, fad terms that we're throwing around, like, just to create more gear in the world. I know I can look at the smile on Colin's face. He cannot wait to jump in. He's just holding it and so good right now, barely holding it inside. It's like I can see the sweat coming out of his pores. It's great. I love this. So this is a good time question and you're thrilling, Colin. In the meantime, I am usually either fully on trail or fully on pavement for my runs. So I have a. I have a road shoe, I use a Hoka Clifton, and then I have speedgoats for my trail runs. But I have been actually testing one of the. One of Craft's new shoes. It's the X Explorer. That's X p l o r 2. Dun, dun, dun. I've been taking that one out just on these mixed media runs I like to do and. Or that I don't normally do, that I'm trying to do. And I. I get. I get the appeal. Okay, hear me out, Colin, because I just. I see.

I think I'm gonna shock you with my. Where I come in on this, but go ahead.

You're like, slithering around all weird over there, so we'll see. Maybe you just have to go to the bathroom. I don't know.

Pick it up.

Pack out your TP if you do. When I first saw. Saw these explore twos, they got to my house, I flipped them over because I had to see the sole right away, the outsole. And I was like, that looks like a strip of tire tread. And then I realized it kind of was because the shoe is actually collaboration with cycling tire maker Victoria. So it's maybe a little less subi and more gravel bike vibes on your foot, if you want to think of it that way. So the midsole, however, is a little more cushioned, more like a Road Runner. Um, and these, to me, actually feel just as comfortable as my Cliftons, which I Kind think of as like Grandma Shantae's comfort walkers. So that's about as fast as I'm going on my runs gear.

Abby, coming to you from a mall. From a mall near you.

That's right. Coming like a super mall. I would take these to the mall of America. Just run.

Weigh in today with your questions about mall walking.

Oh, hell yeah. Someone should do that. So far though, I will say I have enjoyed the flexibility of it. I feel like I'm not going to fall on my ass any more than I usually would when I take them out on trail. And then I'm not going to wear down the lugs. Um, or at least in theory, we're done. The lugs. Like, I don't run on pavement with my speedgoats because I don't want to, you know, screw up the lugs and have them have to be retired early, essentially. So the only thing, I mean, speaking to that point, the only thing I'm not convinced of yet is longevity. Um, I haven't had them long enough to really know. I haven't put enough miles on them. But I think there's a little bit of proof of concept. Um, even though as somebody who is trying to be more minimalist with outdoor gear, I'm kind of salty about possibly adding, you know, like adding a third shoe to my rotation. This whole idea that we need an endless quiver of gear is annoying to me and stupid. But I don't know, I mean, there's a test case for it if you're the person who is mixing your doing these mixed media. I'm creating a new term.

I love that, by the way.

Mixed media runs. I love that. Yeah. So, all right, Colin, that's my take on it. Gravel running shoes. What do you think?

I think you're going about it the right way when I first saw it because the whole more stuff, the whole more stuff thing is where I came in on this. Of like, really, are we adding now another category of run shoes for consumers and retailers or whatever to have to like, well, now we have road, now we have trail, now we have gravel. Right. And so it seemed very opportunistic to sort of expand category and just sell more stuff because at the end of the day when it comes to running shoes, I know people who have taken their beat up old Asics running shoes that they've had for 10 years that quote unquote, shouldn't be like, should be past their expiration in terms of like rebound in the mid and they've run like 50 miles on them like legitimately, Legitimately known people who've done stuff like that, proving that you basically can do any of this stuff in just about anything.

Yep.

And then, you know, then there are the gear obsessives who measure their lugs on a daily basis to see how much of the rubber has run off so they could go get a new pair or whatever. What I do actually like, and I met with the craft folks as well at the Outdoor Market alliance media event this past summer. And first of all, great looking line.

Oh, yeah.

Kraft hasn't sponsored the segment. Just beautiful shoes.

They are beautiful shoes. Definitely would wear them just to wear them. They are nice looking.

What I do like about the idea of a kind of crowd, what I've come around to on the gravel kind of as a category is it is more that entry level person who really doesn't know, who would maybe who could just go for a trail run in their road shoes and be totally fine, but maybe are a little intimidated when they see like you know, some la prodigios or some hokas or whatever on the wall. And so they are kind of scared off by that. And this is a little bit more of a welcoming kind of embrace to that world that probably you could do just about anything in these gravel shoes as you can do in a more kind of hardcore trail runner, depending on who you are and what you enjoy doing. So to that point of view, I've definitely come around on what the intent of them could be.

That's actually a really good perspective.

Thank you. You know, I think about things a time from time to time.

Every once in a blue moon.

Sometimes I stop shaking my fist at the clouds and. And I think, wow.

All right, well, I'm gonna. I want everybody to just for a moment, a moment of silence for. For Colin's old man, Fish shaking. That was really positive and supportive. And I do actually love that idea that maybe for somebody who's just getting in and they don't know exactly. I definitely was confused when I first started running. I was like, I don't know, I could just run in like my Converse All Stars, which. Terrible idea. But for my feet. But yeah, I mean, we're all. All of our bodies are different, all of our mechanics are different. People run barefoot, people do all sorts of things. So I. You're right, I like that idea. And listen, kiss bullshit really is in the eye of the beholder.

So I think, well, 100%, yes.

You know, for you, if you already have shoes, you dig, stick with it. If you are wishing if you're out there finding yourself just like constantly transitioning between gravel and pavement and trail, maybe you do look into something like this. And I think really the test is going to be how long, how many miles can I get out doing mixed, mixed media runs? I want every brand to use that term now. Well, that's it for this episode of Gear Abby. Until next time, send your burning questions about your relationships with outdoor products, people, places, pastimes and tarantulas over to us@Dear Gear abbymail.com that's right, sexy new email and I'll do my best to answer them or find someone like Kristen. You can and of course head over to your podcast listening service of choice and subscribe, rate and review to support the pod and personally make my day. In the meantime, today's episode was produced by David Karstad and Colin True, art direction provided by Sarah Gensert. I'm Chante Salibair and remember, there are no dumb questions, just smart advice.