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 how 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, obscure and taboo topics that other outdoor podcasts refuse to touch. I'm outdoor educator and writer Shawnté Salabert, and I'm here to answer your burning questions about our relationships with outdoor people, products, places, and pastimes. And I want them all, because, remember, there are no dumb questions, just smart advice. Well, if you were wondering, here's how it works. You're gonna send questions to DearGearAbbyMail.com and I'll answer a couple each week here on the show. And as always, joining me today and every week is my partner in gear, the producer of Gear Abby, and a guy who stopped using Instagram but still sends me 100 Instagram videos a day. Colin. True.

You know, I think if you went back and looked, I don't think I've sent you 100 total. All right, exaggerator. And also, if you don't want to speak my love language, that's fine. Okay.

Sending me texts all day of Instagram reels that you could just send me on Instagram is your love language.

Yes, because I don't want to engage with people on Instagram. Instagram.

Just in case I won't engage with you back, I'll ignore it like I do half your emails. I need your texts.

That's over now, so I'm going to keep sending it to the ones I text. You are really important that you watch because they're usually funny and about poop, so.

Okay, it's true. You know, you're not wrong. I saw that you texted me just before we slipped into the recording booth, which doesn't exist except for at your house, and I didn't look at it, so I'll look at it afterwards. I want you to feel like you've done your job for the day. Bet you'll have a chance. I will. I look forward to chuckling. So, speaking of, maybe not chuckling, but chuckleheads. I don't know if you saw the news story about the tourists who got caught vandalizing Pictured Rock National Lakeshore in Northern Michigan. I did.

Not until you. I'm just opening the link that you put in our outlines.

Open the link. Checking it out.

Oh, God.

Listen, so for people who aren't familiar, like Colin, apparently. So Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, it's special because it has these kind of colossal sandstone cliffs, these arches that just of like, shoots straight out of Lake Superior.

Sounds delightful.

Yeah, it's real nice, right? Yeah, you'd think. And the water's all aquamarine. It's really lovely. Anyway, so these four idiots weren't just scratching graffiti into some of the rocks, which is already bad enough, but they were apparently also trying to steal a hundred pounds of rocks. I have some questions. What does that even mean? Do they have a photo of this? I need to see this.

Well, wait, so are they. They're stealing rocks for, like, their own landscaping project? I don't know.

They're like, we're going to recreate pictured rocks in our Illino backyards. I don't know.

And carving letters into the cliff faces. Were these guys? They were high is what we are.

No, I don't know. I feel like. You know, the thing is, none of the news articles I saw mentioned gender, but I think we can kind of assume. Maybe even we could assume an age range, but I don't know.

Look, if. Apologies if they're women. These were dudes.

Thank you. I just needed you to say that so I wasn't being sexist.

What is, like, the. What is the pie chart of, you know, gender when it comes to this kind of offenses over the course of human history and, like.

Yeah, if it involves like. Like defacing rocks, chucking rocks, stealing rocks. I think we know.

Yes, we do.

So men folk, here's what I want. I want somebody to write in. You can write in anonymously, you know, however you want, but I just want to know from the dudes, like, why is it. Why are you obsessed with rocks? What's your deal? Why do you want to throw them everywhere? Like, heaving them off of cliffs is the thing that keeps happening. Tell me, why men? Is this just a caveman thing?

Well, that. I don't think throwing things off a cliff is limited to gender. You've thrown them. Like, if you had a clear view, know someone you'd, like, throw something on a lake or off a bridge, something far. But you're not ever tempted to do that?

No, the most I've done is, like, skip rocks on a placid.

That's fun, too.

Okay, I don't have any. No, I don't. I feel like. Do I play? What?

Pooh sticks. Tell me more you don't know about you. Okay, you're. Now. All right, we're Going to fix this because you were going to play pooh sticks, I guarantee, from here on out. So you and your.

Can you spell it? Is it poo as I hope it is?

No, it's P, O, O, H. And it doesn't involve taking a dump into the. Into a body of water beneath you. Unfortunately for you. But it does have to do with you.

I don't do that either.

Yeah, I think you kind of do.

I don't.

You and your hiking companions. So in this case, let's say it's you and I, and we're coming to a bridge, going over a body of a stream, and we each find a stick, and we drop the stick on one side of the bridge, and whoever's stick makes it to the other side of the bridge first, wins.

Why is it called poof sticks?

I think it has something to do maybe with Winnie the Pooh. I don't know.

Winnie was Winnie, like, in between hunting for honey. He's just like, let's throw a stick off of a bridge.

This is the classic. Like, I grew up like, this is my father that we did this. I have no memory of my life without playing poo sticks.

I didn't do that.

And neither do my children, because we do. Let's play pooh sticks. There's a bridge. And so, yeah, it's the best. But it does involve dropping things from a height into a body of water, which is incredibly satisfying.

I mean, do you have to drop it from a height? Can't you just stand next to the water and be like, here's a stick?

Well, you got. It's got to make it under the bridge. The bridge is the racecourse, basically. Okay, so you got to drop it on the one side at the same height. Right. And then whose stick makes it across?

All right, well, thank you for that riveting tale of your childhood joys.

I feel like the curmudgeon now. All right.

Yeah, that's me. Just the curmudgeon of poosy sticks. Wow. I like that we've already managed to say poo, and I think poop, like, within a few minutes.

And you also poo pooed poo sticks, so I did.

I poo.

I'm not happy. This is. This is very out of character for Gear Abby.

That's right. I know. Oh, man. All right, well, let's see if we can get me into character here. I mean, I really do feel like Pooh is in character. But if you want more in character, how about tee up a question for me?

Let's do it. First question of the day. Dear Gear Abbey, Lifelong New Yorker here. Been back. I feel like this is like a 1920s thing. Lifelong New Yorker here. I don't know, it just feels like that when I was reading it.

Is it Katharine Hepburn? Is she right?

No, it's gonna be a Katie Hepburn day, I think, for Gere Abby.

Great. We love an accent on this podcast, especially a really bad one.

Totally lifelong New Yorker here. Been backpacking since my days in Scouts, and I just won the golden ticket to hike the JMT this summer. Apparently, Willy Wonka has a crossover thing going on with the JJ. With the JMT.

Kind of.

I've never made it out to the Sierras before, and I'm a bit stumped by the bear canister requirement in the parks out there. I mean, we have bears here, but there's only one spot in the Adirondacks that requires any sort of canister. Researching my options. I would prefer not to spend hundreds on something I'll only use once. And also not very thrilled up to carry such a heavy item. There's gotta be a better way, right? Food, Hang your sack. Something, anything. Are your fancy California bears really that aggressive? Signed the Otter Trail name I got while hiking the AT back in 98. Don't ask.

All I. All I want to do is.

That's a. Screw your bear question. I want to hear about the otter.

Yeah, actually, I have a question for you. The otter. Otter. No, you got to call at the otter. See, this is like how my trail name, which I don't think we've ever talked about, is rustic. But it began as the. Have we. Okay, great. It began as the rustic, but then I felt it was too pretentious, so I just.

I couldn't I cosign pretense in this situation. That's a great. The rustic is way cooler than the rustic. Yeah, that's like your witch wizard name or something like that, you know.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Yes.

Oh, man. Well, Otter or the Otter, I guess as we're going to call you by your full, you know, government name. You know, here's the thing. Out on the East Coast, y' all are just filthy with ursine pleasures. I know this. But somehow your bears know not to screw around with hikers food. So you would like to know what's wrong with our west coast bears? So much. So much. But it actually all has to do with people. Like, our bears were not born this way. Okay. They're just as cool as your East Coasters. It's Just that we screw up a lot of things for a lot of animals and others and other things and others. Just everything. It's just what we do as humans. Super imperfect. So. All right, let's. Let's. First of all, you asked if our bears were extra aggressive. They are not. They've just evolved into being amazing opportunists. So I have. This is a great question, because there is a very specific reason why we now have bear canister requirements in some of the parks out west. So back in the day, like in the Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, all those national parks, bears learned a very long time ago that we humans were a very easy source of food. This is how the Yogi Bear cartoon was probably, you know, came about. This is the, you know, pick. Picnic basket. It was us. We were the picnic basket. So it's actually kind of the park's fault that all of this started to snowball, because going way back to the 1920s, we're talking early days of the parks here, they used to host what were called bear shows over by the garbage dumps. Okay? So the back of the day, they didn't have garbage trucks. They weren't, like, hauling stuff out. They just had to figure out somewhere to put it. So they just piled up all the trash from all these new tourists that were coming in, and the bears would just go freak out over all this delicious trash. The people loved it. They were like, oh, this is so exciting. So it became a regular thing at the parks. Real good management. Excellent.

This is just like the. This is like the. Some what this. The Mount Whitney hut. I mean, like, all the things that, like, when you get a history behind something and you're like, oh, so it's just us being dumb. Okay, got it.

Just us being dumb. I know. I'm just trying to think of, like, what the original people of these lands were thinking when they're like, these have just come.

And the hubris of the people at the time were like, look at us dominating these bears. They. We can make them do whatever we want because we have this garbage. You know, like, they, like, then realizing, like, oh, that was bad. We shouldn't have done that.

Yeah. Whoopsie doodles. We'll get to that point. There was a whoopsie Doodles. So. So basically, as you can imagine, this wasn't great for the bears. So they lost all of their natural fear of humans, which is a real thing bears used to have. East coast bears probably still have it. So the parks had to rethink this very Stupid idea. So they started using incinerators to burn the trash, which took care of part of the problem. We won't even get into that. But by that point, the Sierra bears had already become completely conditioned to yearn for the sweet, sweet delights of human food. So they got bold and started going other places they could find it. Since the trash was off limits, they went to campsites. So bear management as a whole was just really screwed up in the parks for decades. Sometimes they would drug and relocate the problem bears to other, like, far flung parts of the Sierra. They still do relocations, but they're not, you know, trying to take them hundreds of miles out of their way. They tried running them off with dogs. They tried electric fences at one point. And they also shot bears. They killed the bears. So in the 1940s alone, over a hundred bears were killed in the parks because they'd become, and I quote, a nuisance. Are our fault. This is our fault. It still continues today. We'll get into that too. But it was basically this giant cycle of the parks would try something, the bears would learn how to, you know, deal with it. And eventually, they just kept moving to easier and easier targets. So, like, cars were getting broken into. They had all these property issues, you know, property damage issues. So you're asking the otter. Otter. You're asking about bear canisters. So eventually, the parks did wise up, and they invested in those. We call them bear lockers, but they're metal food storage boxes and campsites in the front country and in some of the backcountry sites, sites. And they kind of, like, doubled down on visitor education. So the bears did what they always did. As each source got removed, they just kept finding new ones. So now, with everything in the main tourist areas kind of locked up, they had to go higher into the mountains to find another source of tasty backpacker vittles. So backpackers backpacking was new in the 70s. Okay, this was a thing that just kind of blew up. People had been backpacking, you know, for decades. But it blew up in the 70s because you had lighter gear coming onto the market. You backpacking, specific foods coming onto the market. It was a total, like, heyday of backpacking. If you think it was wild now, it was super wild back then because there also weren't permit requirements. So there were just people everywhere. The backcountry was filthy with people, but it did not have any. There were no food storage options beyond sleeping with it or maybe hanging it in a tree. And I think you probably know this, but Bears are very good at climbing trees.

I've heard that. Yes.

Yeah. So it didn't take long for word to spread among the bear gossips that there were easy pickings if they just climbed up higher in the mountains.

Bear sewing circles are well known thing.

Oh my God, they're so chatty.

Hanging out, talking to each other. People again, took my trash away.

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. They're just, they're like those idiot humans. Well, all of these smart, chatty bears started going higher and higher in elevation, like way outside their normal range. And they just started following around all of these little walking snack bars with funny bags on their backs. And the park started seeing a lot more sort of bear human interactions at this point, including people getting injured. Now, no one's ever been killed by a bear in the California parks, but people were getting hurt because the bears would try to take their food, the people would try to take it back. So a group of backcountry rangers in Yosemite started experimenting and they tried setting up poles and cables in some of the backcountry camps. Um, but again, bears are smarter than you think. Like Yogi had it right, you know, smarter than the average bear. An average bear is pretty smart. So they learned how to shake shimmy bat at them like pinatas. They just kept getting the food. And so it wasn't until the late 70s that they actually put those lockers that were in the front country into some of the backcountry sites. Even though there was a lot of debate like, is this okay for wilderness? Should we be putting this in there? And it helped. But the bears just kept going outside of those developed sites to find backpackers whose food was still super easy pickings. Okay, so it was a college kid. Again, smarter than the average college kid. Maybe a college kid named Bruce Hastings. Good old Bruce. He was studying. I know, right? It was a sign.

That's my middle name actually.

Bruce or Hastings?

Hastings.

Colin Hastings. True.

That's the middle name. Yeah.

You're. You're monogram is cht.

It is, Yeah.

I like that. I'm gonna use that.

Thank you. Thank you.

Filing that away for future use as I do with all data you give me. I'm just like ingesting and one day it'll come out in a way you don't like. It's my role here.

It's the way it should be. It's fine.

Thank you. So our old friend Bruce Hastings, not related to Colin Hastings. He's this dude studying hiker bear interactions. He goes up To Yellowstone. But then there's this incident where his supervisor gets attacked by a bear. And the supervisor's like, maybe you should go somewhere where bears aren't so angry. Like, I don't know, the Sierra. So he. While he's down there, he sees this video of lions trying to open an ostrich egg. And I just get the pre.

YouTube, right? I mean, how does he see this video?

You don't know. They have cir. Biologist circles where they're just like, this

was a good night out for the biologist. Like, man, we got the lion and Easter ostrich.

They got the beta. And they're like, listen, who's got a beta player? We need to watch this.

We're gonna watch Star wars and the lion video again. That's what we got.

Yes. It was pre. This is how YouTube really got started. All those cat videos really came from the lion and the ostrich aid. It's that. You know, that actually sounds like a fable. The lion and the ostrich.

I actually want to see this video now.

I do, too. We'll have to Google it afterwards.

Yes, for sure.

If I find it, maybe we'll put it on socials.

I love it.

So. So. All right. Just thinking about this. This bear is trying to open or this line's trying to open this ostrich egg. He just couldn't get to it. And so old Bruce here was like, our young Bruce. He's just like, I wonder if we could build something portable that would kind of mimic this that a bear couldn't get into.

So every backpacker got an ostrich.

Everyone gets an ostrich. Grow your own. Yeah, big thing. You know, the 70s were a weird time. Okay?

Totally. Everyone was high. It was fine.

It's. Anything was possible.

Okay?

So, yeah, so he did some prototypes, and he eventually passed the torch on to some wildlife biologists. And then they flipped through the phone book, and they found a guy named Richard Garcia, who is a machinist who lived in a nearby town to. I think it was Sequoia National Park. And they are just like, hey, hey, Rich, can you make a prototype, like, do this thing? And he's like, yeah, sure, whatever. And the evolution of his original design, which people now call the Garcia canister, is still sold to this day. And it works. So he. You know, they had to figure it out, because as it turns out, if you made it an actual ostrich egg shape, which is an oval, it would just roll down a hill and out of sight. So they're more cylindrical now.

And we give birth to an ostrich.

I know that's also true. But that could be exciting because then you would have a buddy on a long hike or something like, hey, bro, what's up?

You don't know which one it is. It's like, well, you put your food in there, or a bird's gonna come out. We don't know.

It's like one of those. Those machines where you put the quarter in it. You don't know what you're gonna get.

You don't know.

Oh, man. Now I want to carry an ostrich egg this summer.

I think you should.

I'll have to look into that. There is an ostrich farm, I think maybe an hour north of here. So maybe I'll give them a call.

Can I put my backpacking food in this?

Yeah. Do you think, like, once it's, you know, evacuated? Once the baby saw the harness for

the ostrich to carry my shit. Yeah.

You just strap it on top of your backpack.

Yeah. Why isn't rough wear come out with things for ostriches yet? Come on, guys, get on that.

That's a good underserved population for sure. Oh, man. So anyway, the, you know, so for, you know, for a very sadly, human food, habituated Sierra bears, again, our fault. Our fault. Canisters are still, to this day the best line of defense, not just for your food, but also for the bear's safety. Because, as you know, you probably know the saying, or you know it now, a fed bear is a dead bear. And that's because once they become habituated and they start, you know, interacting with humans too much and they start getting aggressive, the parks will euthanize the bears. They will kill the bears. So it happens to this day. So. So be a good human when you go out there, I mean, otter, you're gonna need to carry one. Okay. They're required pretty much along most of that trail. And I get that buying one doesn't feel like a great investment if you're coming from a place where you're not gonna have to use it. So it's actually pretty easy to rent these. You could just, you know, if you want to go as light as possible, you want to rent a barricade that is like the creme de la creme of bear canisters. It's not an ostrich egg, but it's the next best thing. I cannot promise a bird will come out of is made out of some carbon fiber composite. So maybe not the best environment for a young ostrichling to hatch. What do you call a baby ostrich?

I'm gonna cosign that. I'm not gonna venture to think it's anything different than ostrichling.

Now, you know, here's what's wrong, is that now I wanna know if somebody is going to tell us how ostriches. I hope they do make baby ostriches.

Yes. When a man baby ostrich and a woman ostrich love each other very.

They go into a backpacker's backpack.

Exactly.

They go into a deep journey into the backcountry.

Yes. They pay. They pay the tax to the bear and then they. Yes, exactly.

And then a baby ostrich happens.

And then you get a baby ostrich.

Yeah. No, you know, we don't actually need a wildlife biologist to write us. We know how it happened, so. Great.

Just gonna check, you know, ostriches fucking off of my gear. Abbey. Bingo. Card.

Damn it.

It was on there for a little while. We got there, though.

Okay, well, you know, at some point, we're gonna get through all of the animal species, so. Hang on to your undies, people.

It' new version of the Noah and the Ark. We're just.

This is how we preserve the species.

Biblical verses over here, folks.

Yeah, someone has to pass on the knowledge, so it'll be us. Speaking of knowledge. So, Otter, you can actually rent these. You can rent barricades. Their company, the company that makes them, is called Wild Ideas. You can rent it through their website. Or there's actually, for the jmt, there's a outfitter called Sage to Summit in Bishop, California. They also rent them. You can organize all of this online or over the phone. And then the parks actually also rent canisters, although they tend to be a little heavier. And I think some of the other outfitters in the Eastern Sierra do as well. So, Otter, listen, if you or anybody who's listening is intrigued by all of this bear talk, I highly recommend Rachel Mazur's fantastic book. It's called Speaking of Bears, and it does a deep dive into everything I just talked about. So it is fascinating. She talks to all these rangers, like, going back decades and decades. Super cool book. And if you want to ball your eyes out like somebody on this podcast, me. Yeah, I highly recommend. I know Colin hasn't seen it yet because we talked about the Oscars before this since. Well. And now we'll know if it won or not. Yeah, this comes out.

This will be out after the Oscars, so.

Yeah, you should watch the animated short Called Forever Green. It's nominated, you know, in that category and I will just say it has to do with a bear, a tree and candy. And I wanted to kick everyone in the shins right after watching it, like as soon as I dried my tears.

Yeah, that kind of guarantees that I'll never watch it. I don't want anything bad to happen to the bear and I don't even know what the bear did or is doing. So I'm good. But I'm sure it was delightful and I hope it wins and we'll know by next week.

Yeah, delightfully. Morally searching. I don't know. Cut. Cut deep into this whole issue in like the span of a few minutes. So. So yeah, listen, Otter, have a good time out there and protect the bears.

So. Okay. So is it truly just that through the Sierra that you have to carry the canister everywhere else in the pct it's optional?

Pretty much. I don't know at this point, like I haven't looked in a while to see what the requirements might be in parts of, you know, Oregon and Washington. But yeah, the Sierra. It's a very specific problem to the Sierra because of the way the parks treated the bears back in the day. Like crazy. Yeah.

It just seems crazy especially coming from the northeast where there is a pretty good bear population and they are closer to. There's. It's much more population dense with humans. You would think they'd have a similar thing and they don't. The last thing I just want to say is to anyone working at an outdoor brand or outdoor media company like this past week Outside announced that Katie Burrell, former guest here on the pod is going to be the new kind of head like face of Warren Miller. I don't need another ski film. I don't need another brand. Deep dive. Someone make the film the film version of inventing the bear canister. There are always movies about like hey, you know that weird thing, the arbitrary thing that you know exists in the world. Let's tell you a two hour story and you're like I can't believe this is a story behind that. This is one of those stories someone in Hollywood make the bear canister movement. People would. They don't need to know what a bear canister is. It would be fascinating. It'd be such a fun journey to see that brought the screen just based on the story you just told in five minutes on a podcast.

So listen, as long as the lion and the ostrich egg are involved. Oscar, Oscar nominee in the future, I. I feel like, we started off real strong today. That was a good one. I get, like. It gets my juices flowing. I'm not even going to lie when people send me questions where I either have to do research or, like, dig up these stories that I just have sitting around in the back of my brain. It's like, let' Shantae for her weird trivia. Oh, I've got something for you.

And we fulfilled our contractual obligation to mention California in every episode.

We did win.

Win.

That's good. Yeah. Didn't even have to try. Someone else did it for us. Yes.

We didn't have to shoehorn it in at all.

Just natural at this point. All right, well, let's see what else the people want to know about today. What you got?

This one's a doozy.

Oh, boy.

Yep. That's why it's number two. It's. This is the anchor of the episode. I can just tell. I think. And I think I think it's good that maybe you are feeling maybe a little surly today there, Gear Abby. I think you're gonna have some opinions on this one. All right. Dear Gear Abby. Hi.

Hi.

It was an exclamation point. I thought that he. You know, I found your podcast through a women's hiking club on men, and we all listen and love it. Thank you.

Thank you.

That's awesome.

I love that.

So here's my question. I go to the climbing gym by my work a couple nights a week, and it's been such a great way to relieve stress. I just go into this Zen state. Except there's this guy.

Oh, you could just stop there.

Yeah, that's a good point. I think I can stop there. You probably will give the same answer.

I've got plenty to say.

Except there's this guy who must have joined maybe a month ago. I made the mistake of being friendly once. Once is in all caps. And he now finds me every single time I'm there. It would be fine if he was just saying hi or making small talk, but he stands next to me and basically narrates the climb as I'm doing it. Like, where I should put my hand or foot next and just kind of shouting what I think. What I think he thinks is encouragement. Really loud as I'm climbing. He'll also tell me sometimes he thinks I can do better. No one asked you. That was also in all caps. I think the worst part, though, was he started to make. He started making sort of uncomfortable, almost borderline sexual comments about my body and how I move on the Climbs. All of this is really messing with my enjoyment of the gym. I am not a confrontational person, but I really need him to stop. Do you have any advice on how I can do this without causing a scene? Thank you. Signed, Jenna. Cause a scene. Cause a scene.

Cause scene. Cause scene. Jenna.

I'm gonna step back.

Yeah. Okay. Colin, go away.

Yes. Right.

No, no. You could jump in. You could jump in. First of all, screw this guy, okay? Don't you dare prioritize his comfort in this situation one iota. Okay, we're gonna dig into that some more, but absolutely not. He doesn't get a shred of your patience here. So I'll say, in a way, I've been there. I've met a version of this guy on the pct. There was a guy who just waited for me at every water source for, like, three days in a row. And each time I rolled in, he'd look at his watch and be like, oh, I've already been here for 10 minutes. What took you so long? Maybe you need more electrolytes, plates, like, real dick moves. Seriously, I. Yeah, dude, seriously. I finally had enough after he camped near me one night, which was not my desire, and he methodically judged every item I pulled out of my earth sack. It was like my. It's my food bag. We actually kind of just call and mentioned it last at last question. But I was just. I just looked at him and I was like, I don't want to camp or hike with you again. He's like, well, my dad's gonna meet us at Cottonwood Pass and he's gonna have cold drinks. I'm like, I don't care. Just leave me alone. So he did. He did finally leave me alone. I also used to go to a climbing gym, and I have met that guy again, that guy in caps. There was a dude that I swear probably spent like 90 of his time sitting on the floor just shouting, like, allay. And right hand, right hand. Like, at anybody, Anybody.

I wasn't wearing a shirt either.

No, no, I don't think he was. That's a good point.

I'm a big. I have a lot of opinions on shirtless climbing gym guys. And I know that there's a crossover. There's a Venn diagram that includes the people we're talking about and the shirtless guy at the climbing gym.

Sorry. They're all one. And I'm so sorry to say, but yeah, I was so happy when that dude stopped coming. I don't know, maybe they just banned him for being annoying. I have no idea. So. So one aspect of what the dude at your gym is doing is that it's, it's called beta. Spraying is kind of the slang for it. It's essentially giving unasked for advice when someone's climbing. And I think like you said, spray guys think they're being helpful and gallant or whatever, but they're really just annoying and they're kind of messing up the joy of figuring out the climb on your own, which is half of climbing. So if any of you listening are spray gays, spray guys, just, just stop. Nobody likes you, okay? Not a single person. Not even if you looked into. No, we may not.

But anyway, other news I am watching on heated, Heated rivalry.

Those are icy gays. Oh, man. So, all right, so back to spray guy here. Sounds like, he also sounds very patronizing and thinks he's hot and he can help poor defenseless you be better. So both of those things are annoying, but him crossing the line into making sexual comments about you is straight up harassment. Okay? This isn't just like someone being annoying or bother you, he's harassing you. And we need to name those things. Yeah, like, we need, listen, like, we have to name this stuff when it happens and not be like, oh, I don't want to cause a scene. Oh, I'm worried about, like, I don't want to be annoying. I don't want to be bothersome or whatever. Be bothersome. Okay? Like, I know you don't want to confront him, but he is probably just going to keep ramping it up and it's already bad enough as it is. It's already making you feel uncomfortable. Maybe you don't want to go to the gym anymore and that's messed up. So if anybody in this situation needs to watch what they say or the tone of their voice, it's him, not you. Okay? So what I would do in this situation is first, if you can, this will kind of maybe nip it all in the budget. Talk to a staff member that you trust. There is no way that they should be okay with somebody sexually harassing people at their gym. Honestly, I'd rather they have to deal with him than you. And, you know, I'd be curious to know whether or not they have any sort of code of conduct or policies in place that cover harassment like this. A lot of places may have it just for staff, but some gyms will have it for patrons as well. And like, while there are a lot of forward thinking gym owners these days, there is still a strong undercurrent of bro culture and protecting problematic men in climbing as a whole. Like, it's always in the news. It's just a shitty aspect of the culture that needs to change. So I really hope that's not the case at your gym, and I hope you have somebody there that you feel you can talk to about this so that they can kick this out. Honestly, he needs to go. If you have buddies at the gym, I would also let them know what's been going on, and don't be afraid to ask them for backup in the situation, whether he comes up to you first or if you do decide to confront him. You don't need to put yourself in an unsafe situation to deal with this, especially since he's escalated his verbal vomit to these sexual comments and he's ramping up. You know, the frequency. If you do decide to talk to him, you know, just be clear, direct. Don't worry a second about being nice or polite. Leave me alone is a complete sentence. It is. It is enough. You do not need to say anything else, but you could be specific if you want. Like, you know what, dude? You're disgusting. I hate listening to you objectify me while I'm climbing. Don't ever talk to me again. Again. Okay? Whatever you feel like you want to say, practice in front of the mirror. Listen, this is what I do. Like, we all do it. Let's not pretend, okay? We all. Before we're gonna get into, like, a heated discussion with somebody, I will stand up for the mirror and I'll be like, okay, well, you know what? So do that if you want. You know, I give you permission. Even if you never end up talking to him, it might feel good just to ex, like, exercise that demon by doing that, but, yeah, Listen, at the end of the day, I want to say, jenna, I'm proud of you for realizing that you don't have to take this bullshit. The forces that uphold patriarchy and its most problematic aspects have been trying to convince us forever that boys will be boys since the Donna time. It's stupid, okay? That line is just one of the most reductive, most harmful things that we pass down to kids. That boys can act without responsibility and that girls just need to, like, put up with it. Screw that shit. You know, Girls will be girls in whatever damn way we please, including telling problematic boys to f off. Okay? That's what I'm saying. Colin, you have. You have. Your children are of the female persuasion.

Like, I have three girls. Yeah.

You have this conversation with them. Like, does this show up for Them in life, what do you talk? What do you tell them?

I pretty much all the same things, you know, we. You just said, you know, stand up for yourself. Don't hesitate if you want to punch. Definitely had the. You could punch someone in the face if they're bothering you, boy or girl. And if you get in trouble at school, you won't get in trouble at home if you're defending, you know, kind of thing.

That's right.

The scary part about this is the sort of the turn into the more personal nature that Jenna described. I think if you want to take the best intentions of just sort of the being the. That guy. There are people who just do not know how to read the room. And like. Right. And they're standing and they think they're just being cool and helpful. And it's like, guy, you gotta. And at that point, Shantae's advice stands tell them, hey, look, I don't want you to talk to me while I'm climbing.

Yeah.

Just. I. I'm not. Anytime I'm doing anything, I don't want feedback while I'm doing it, it'll throw me off. It just distracts me. Like, we can have a conversation afterwards if you want to notice this.

Could you. I don't like the way your face moved when you said that. Since you hate it.

Your. Your. Your microphone, could you move that a

little to the left? Could shave your mustache a little bit.

A little more. A little. Little inward trim a little off center.

I want it more hexagonal, if you could.

But you're right on this thing. And if you're not comfortable, call someone. I mean, but yeah, stand up for yourself, basically. Don't kick him in the teeth. Literally, but kick him in the teeth. Tell him that he can't get away with this stuff and there should be help around you. And if not, then maybe it's time to find another gym. But that's not. That's only if you're not getting the help you need.

Right? And that's a sucky solution because then it always falls on the victim. It's like, no, you're the one who has to make the change. No, screw it. This guy should get kicked out of the gym. At this point. They should have a no time tolerance policy at the gym. And if they don't, maybe this could be the spark that encourages them to adopt one.

Yeah, reach out to your local, you know, media companies, like a little local TV station. Hey, I was told I needed to leave this gym because this one guy wouldn't stop sexually harassing me. You know, let's get a little bad PR going. But.

That's right. Listen, you can email me again. And I will if the gym is near me. If you are in California, which we like to talk about.

Okay, I'll call them Tammy.

It. You know what, Jenna, thank you for being brave. And hopefully other people who are listening who might experience similar things, or maybe they have in the past will know they can be brave too. So thank you. Today's episode of Gear Abby is presented by the one, the only, the most delightfully alliterative outdoor retailer in the game, Garage Grown Gear. Want to see the latest and greatest coming from the coolest and newest outdoor brands? Head over to to garagegrowngear.com, click on the new button and all shall be revealed, including the following breaking news. Just added to GGG is the unofficial footwear of our very own producer and partnering gear. That's pig, in case you forgot Bedrock sandals.

Bedrock sandals. Love Bedrock sandals.

Well, you know what pairs well with Bedrocks?

No, tell me. Gear Abby.

Okay, it's the triple crown button down sundress dress by Jolly Gear. Oh, yeah. You can look fly in your Bedrocks. Because the Bedrocks may not do that for you. You may need the dress.

The best part of the model for the triple ground, the triple crown button down sundress, is some kind of heavyset dude with a beard. It's amazing.

Oh, yeah, I love it. Jolly Gear is awesome. That's Jolly. He's the hiker behind it.

There you go.

So also, finally, if you're tooling around all day on the trail in your Bedrocks and your Jolly Gear trip dress, you definitely need a shelter for the evening. So check out the Pro Trek tent from Tarptent. Whether you're an ultralight backpacker or just an outdoorsy person who wants to see outdoor innovation at its best, you'll find something to love when you head to the official gear shop ofGear Abbey, garagegrowngear.com oh man. Okay. I think it took a Garage Grown Gear ad to bring me back down from my. I was like, you know, when the thermometer hits, the mercury just gets too high. Like we're actually in the middle of a heat wave right now, so I'm already high hot. And then I then I had to answer that email, which pissed me off. Not the email. I'm glad Jenna wrote, but.

Oh, me too. I will just the sheer lack of self awareness is always astounding to me. Like, who wants that?

Nobody wants that even if you think

it's good advice, like, shut up, man.

No, it's also like those guys that shout out of the car, like, I remember, you know, you'd have some guy, and this probably doesn't happen to you, but I. You know, to this day, guys will shout out their guys, like, hey, Mommy. Or whatever, like, hey, girl, can I get your number? And if you don't answer them within the 0.5 nanoseconds that they determine you should be answering them, then it turns to, all right. You know, it just gets, like, violent.

Like, how dare you ignore me?

I don't know. These are the same people who encouraged bears to eat out of garbage dumps for pleasure. So I don't know, you know, tracks, I guess.

It's not hard to tie the two questions together from that point of view. It's like, let's not forget the stupidity that exists that has existed since time immortal immemorial. So.

Time immemorial, yes. Well, our time is not immemorial here on the podcast. We gotta wrap it up. So let us venture into one more question, Colin.

Well, I don't really have a question.

Oh, well, that's.

Actually, I do have a question. Sorry. I do have a question.

Okay.

But it's a question you've heard before. It's been far too long since I asked, because I gotta ask you, Gear Abby, what's in your pack?

Wow, that was like. Just like a. A. A fresh burst of endorphins just raced through my body when you said that.

We gotta. We gotta bring it around. We gotta end on a high note here and find out what's in gear Abby's pack, which we often ask from time to time here on the podcast in that. And get to the bottom of what's in gear. Abby's pack.

The bottom of my pack is probably like, pieces of wrapper and maybe some dirt, but what's higher in the pack, which is actually on my feet? So it's not in my pack. It's on my feet, and it is a pair of Norda double O2s. Do they just call them twos or is it double? Because it's. Oh. Oh, it's 002 in the name. So in my head, it's double O2s.

I would say double O2. That's a good point.

I think.

I bet you internally they refer to them like the one or the two. Right? I mean, I would think whatever you

put the two zeros there. Are they anticipating doing 100 runs of these? Shoes, maybe. So you. You've tried these? So do you have the ones or the twos?

I have the twos.

The 2s. Okay, great. So this will be a one to one conversation.

Colin.

Yeah.

I'm so excited to talk about this.

Oh my God. So before. Before I get into my opinion, let's just lay down some basics here for people who are unaware. Norda is a Canadian footwear brand started a couple years ago by a husband and wife duo of trail runners. That's Nick and Willa Martier. Martier. They're French Canadian, I believe. So they started the brand with a pretty single focus. They wanted to create a light as hell trail runner that's durable as hell and performs good as hell. So I'm just paraphrasing. I do not know if they use all those Hell qualifiers in their, you know, pr.

I'm known to be a good performer. A lot of you know that's right.

Hell yeah. I mean, I'm available. I do copyright. Okay. Yes. Economy. So anyway, the special sauce here is that they manufacture the uppers and laces of these shoes out of Dyneema. And that is the same ultralight material that we have talked about before when I answered the tent question a while back and where I went waxed poetic about my Durston X Mid. It's super light and it's super durable and that's what they're using here, so. And because Dyneema is perhaps the most expensive fabric known to man, the Nor does come out at the very top of the price spectrum for trail runners. They clock in just shy of 300 bucks. Yeah, but the idea here is that these things are supposed to last twice, like twice as long as your average trail runner. So depending on your shoe of choice, you might actually come out ahead financially. Plus, a shoe that goes double time means half the waist. So you're buying fewer shoes, which is a good thing altogether. So I have been putting some aisles on mine. I've had them for a while now. And I will say that aside from just like a little bit of dirt, you would not know that I've worn them out of the house. They look untouched. Okay.

They clean up nice.

Yeah. It really does give me hope though, that the longevity hype is real because you wouldn't know that I've been on track trails and these things. I also think they fit really well in the toe box. I have a wider foot. I think it's because of all the years of thru hiking has just smashed my foot down. And they don't give off clown shoe vibes like my beloved ultras kind of do. Sorry, Ultra. I love you so much. And they feel really light on my feet. So they are, they're like ticking off the boxes here. I also really liked the ground feel. I know they took the cushion, the, like the stack down a little bit on these and I feel like it struck a happy medium between Hoka, Mall Walker and Born to Run Barefoot Guys. So, you know, I could feel the ground. I get good push off still and I don't feel like I've got every rock poking up through me. Um, I was also super surprised, considering they're made of Dyneema, that I don't get crazy sweaty in these. And we're on like our second heat wave right now. And even in these hot, hot March days, 90 degree days, I have not gotten really sweaty in them, which surprised me.

I noticed they. You can tell the, the difference in the Dyneema versus a more traditional meshy sort of upper MA material you would find and a comparable pair of shoes. My feet do feel warmer wearing them, but it's not to your point. It's not like, it's not like when you have like a pair of like shoes like a Gore Tex liner and you're like, oh, my feet are roasting on a hot day in these, like that kind of thing. So yeah.

Yeah. I don't feel swampy in them, which is really nice.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so far I'm loving them and I am. I'm tracking my miles so I could see how long they actually last.

Nice.

So we'll see that. We won't have that update for a really long time if NORDA has their way. So we'll. We'll see how that goes. Goes. I. I just have one gripe, so I know. And I'm curious if this, this has happened to you, but I know they added. So for the 002, which is not just an iteration of the 001, they're different shoes. I know they have heel padding on this one, which the. The one doesn't. But the somehow the structure of the shoe creates this really noticeable heel rub for me so far, which I think is interesting because that's something people complained about with the ones but seems to have vanished for most people.

Yeah.

So I've got some theories. I think it might like the heel does seem to kind of tilt inward just a hair more than any of my other running shoes do. So it could be that. Which would make sense because they are. These are performance oriented shoes. They're made for short, fast runs. So having a tighter, like, fitting shoe around your foot is good for that. And I don't know, like, I will say I am not built for performance. So maybe that's what it is. Maybe my heel is just not built for performance. Performance. And it could also be an issue of sizing. So these are genderless, which I think is great. Each model kind of comes with a different recommendation. So with the twos, you were recommended to size. Size up like a full size for a US size. Yeah, but I don't feel like my foot is sliding around in there. I actually feel really secure. So. I don't know, dude. I just think like the height and the angle of it, it just digging into my heel in a weird way. But.

Well, it's funny because. So I'm. My second pair of twos. I've had. I had a pair of shoes and how do you.

How do you have two pair? How did you already go through a pair? Colin, what are you even doing? You don't like the house.

The only issue I.

You don't even like to hike.

You know what I do in my house, you know, I'm rough on my shoes in my house. It's like a full on like gymnast routine I'm doing all the time down here.

Just parkour.

But there was. I got a lot of wear in right around like in my Achilles. Like it actually wore away and it was like the, the only thing that kind of, I felt like would keep it from achieving that longevity. Like the outsole was fine, the midsole was fine, but it did wear holes in there. And we actually had to talk to Nick and the, the, the NORDA team when we were at the running event, which is a running specific trade show, as you can tell by the name, the running event that Shantae and I got the chance to attend last fall. And I pointed that out and they're like, yeah, that was actually a quality issue. And I bring that up. I'm wondering if maybe the correction for that is causing some rubbing on maybe. Was that a material thing? Was that a. Was that a lasting change? I don't know, but I don't know.

I honestly didn't see it. I've read a lot of reviews of the shoes and I have not seen it show up anywhere.

Maybe it's just you.

I think I just have freaky feet, which is maybe something we can bookmark for our only fans.

I don't know for sure. This will be in the, the gear. The, the quote Unquote, gear section of the only fans.

That's right, the gear section.

After you did the poll, feet and gear. Feet and gear.

That's right. Which together is fear. So I don't know about that. But yeah, I don't know. I, I think, you know, when I, when I think about it overall, I think these will be great for through hikers. I know some people are already using them for that. They're going to be way more durable than something like a speedgoat, which is what I used to thru hike in. And it brings me to my favorite thing about these shoes is that I think Norda is helping drive a bigger conversation around gear sustainability. Because as we know and we've talked about, if not here, at least on the rock fight footwear, especially running shoes, just has such a high turnover.

Yep.

I love that they're just saying, hey, it's worth investing in a more expensive pair of shoes that you're going to get double the wear out of. The only thing I wish, and this is, this is a request I have of every brand that has ever existed and made a consumer. Good, good is that I want people to talk more about end of life cycle. So like it's great that your shoe lasts twice as long as other shoes, but what should we do with it when the midsole, you know, gives out? Like, how can we recycle these things? What can we do next? So that's all I want to know. I want every brand to do that though.

So I don't think there's an answer. That's why. I mean, I'm sure there are ways and there are, but it's probably like, remember when like composting and stuff was like, like we can't do that in one container. You know, it's like you got to put your eggs in this one thing and if you wanted to have like commercially picked up comp, I think it's probably similar. But that is. This is to your point. This is where Norda and any other brand who kind of applies this philosophy of the dirtiest thing in any of our kits are our running shoes. They are built to fail more than anything else We've talked about a lot on this podcast. Right. Like I'm a lot of times using the same sleeping bag I've used since like 2007 and it's fine, Right?

Yep.

Good luck. If you walk regularly, not even hike regularly in a pair of running shoes, six months by then they're going to

be done just like Colin in his house. Yeah, that's That's.

It's crazy.

Real hard on the Achilles over there. What is your house? You live in a cave. Like, what's happening in there?

It's very dark.

All I ever get to see is your little weird recording booth. So I have no idea what the rest of your house.

I'm like one of those creatures in the descent, just sort of hanging in the dark, waiting for someone to come along so I can.

Are you a chud? Do you live in the New York City subway?

Oh, my God, Chad, that's incredible.

Yeah, I like to really throw it back.

But no, but the. The. The longevity. The doubling up here is of the mileage is. Is something they should really hang their hat on.

Absolutely. And Norda, by the way, we have a question that I would like you to answer. We got a question about running shoes that I think Colin has already reached out to. Norda, Nick, come on the show and answer a listener question.

Talking to their pr. Been talking to Nick. They've all said out now. They're open to it, but I can't. Can't book them. So calling you out here on the

podcast, Nord, Bro, 10, 15 minutes max. Answer the people's question. Someone's going to buy shoes just because they heard it. Okay? That's how it works.

First you have to go through the labyrinth that is my cave house, apparently. And then, then you can be.

First you navigate the subterranean layer, and then come on the Gear Abby podcast. Ah, well, that is it for this subterranean. Thank God you're happy. Oh, everybody's like, wow, that was a long one. Even Colin. So until next time, send your burning questions about your relationships with outdoor products, people, places and pastimes to deergearabbymail.com and I'm gonna do my best to answer them or pester Nick from NORDA until he comes on the show. And of course, head over to your podcast listening service of choice and subscribe rate review to support the POD and make my day. And follow us over on Instagram at Gear Abby Pod, where I post everyone's. In the meantime, today's episode was produced by David Karstad and this guy Colin True. There we go. Waiting for that. Art direction provided by Sarah Gensert and I'm Chante Salibair. And remember, there are no dumb questions, just smart advice.