Kevin Bae: We are here at the Walden creek
falls trailhead,
and everything still frozen over here from last week,
so hopefully we don't break our next hiking on Ice see how it
goes.
So Godfrey and I came on this trail last year in the summer.
Godfrey Come on this way. And as I remember, it was an easy hike,
but of course, there was no snow and ice like there is right now.
So that makes a little bit more of a challenge trying to get up
this incline, this icy it's like a, almost like a Forest Service
road. I don't think it's quite a Forest Service, rather, to be
careful. It's pretty icy, but I don't I've never been on a hike
anywhere where it's been snowing. Yeah, so this is the
first I've been hiking in the winter. But it really doesn't
snow much here in Georgia, so and to focus, broke through some
of the snow back to regular trail, and I remember this now.
I went this way before to the left and it's the wrong way.
Stay to the right and keep going. Not always easy to tell
from the all trails may have the way it navigates now. Oh, back
to more snow. I room that's gonna be a lot of wind on this
microphone. I should have put the the dead cat on it and bring
it I didn't think it'd be so windy today. One thing is for
sure, walking in snow is more taxing than just walking on the
trail. It's like walking in sand. It's like double the
effort.
And then I a road here where it's very apparent people have
done their off roading or driving on this on this trail.
It's like a Forest Service road, almost. It kind of compressed
things down to where it's icy where the car tire tracks would
be, so you gotta walk in the middle, where there's some snow
that hasn't been compacted. Another thing to note, just as
an observation, is that it's like 41 degrees, starting out.
Supposed to get warmer as we go, but normally at this
temperature, I don't even wear a jacket. But depending on where
you are in, the amount of wind you get, it feels a little bit
colder. So on, the breeze is kicking up. I wasn't gonna wear
the jacket today, since I got out of the car and I felt the
breeze, I'm like, Ah, better wear your jacket there and
freeze to death. That's always a good plan. This dog's absolutely
loving it. Good boy. This is like, the first real winter he's
had it since we got here. We used to go to the park when it
would snow, big in Chicago, and I throw a Frisbee. And he would
love to go fetch the Frisbee, and likes, you know, half a
foot, put a snowman. We got a lot. I. Here, even this last
Snow was only at my house, two inches Max. Think they got more
here, getting farther north Georgia, but still not that
much. So he's kind of digging, being able to run around the
snow he hasn't done in a while. So there's more. We just passed
it down tree earlier, and here's another one coming across the
trail, probably all from the hurricane that blew through a
few months ago.
So it's not a very long hike. It's like two and a half, three
miles, I think, there and back. Yeah. So these podcasts are
shorter on these short hikes, because I only record when I'm
talking taking video. Not that what I say is all that
compelling anyway, but
since I changed the way I do this, these type of recorder
that I would just talk into, just let it run. But it became
kind of an editing nightmare, because sometimes, on a longer
trail, especially, it's like, you know, two three hours of
talking, sometimes two three hours of video or audio, rather,
and then I gotta go through and chop out all the so much of the
silences, because who wants to listen to? You know, 30 minutes
plus somebody walking with no sound. Maybe it's better than me
chattering. I don't know. That's why these are shorter. In case
you were wondering, go think that was the apex of the hill.
So now on our way down.
So when this trail is without snow and ice. It's easy because
it's just mostly a wide trail that jeeps and ATVs are driving
on. So if you get an older dog like mine, it's good for him,
and that's why we're here.
So the sun has fully come up, and it's starting to get a
little bit warm. Okay, I'm gonna have to take off my jacket. We'd
like to know what you were doing. Godfrey. He's trying to
the snow pack is a little bit covered over in a thin layer of
ice. And he's trying to, like, dive into the snow like you used
to, but doesn't work quite as well here, after uh, snow, a
thaw, some rain and then freezing temperatures, But he's
trying approaching some more tree debris. Trees are just
falling and can't get up. We're almost to the falls. It's right
around the corner here. I can see the turn off. We're going
this way. Go ahead.
Go feeds to the falls. That's got to be super cold, but he
doesn't see me there.
And we've reached the following. There's two sets. There's one up
there, there's one down here that you got to scramble to. I'm
going to see if it's scrambled. I'm
okay, it's definitely scramble. We made it wasn't that bad at
all. Somebody's having a good time, reckon nature. Oh.
Underneath the fall, just about you got people taking out.
Noise. All right, we've done all we're gonna let's go back. Let's
go. Let's go. I guess I gotta move first.
The second set of falls is not as nice and a little bit harder
to get to. We're going to make an attempt anyway, because we're
here, so we're going to do it. It's not super hard, it's just
little bit more of an incline, little bit more of a scramble,
but nothing, I think, that most people can't do. All right, we
made it to the top balls. That was not easy, because the steep
hillside is just covered in leaves and debris. It's really
hard to tell where to put your feet, but we made it. In this
case, it's easier for him than me, even within his old bones
now,
guys, he's trying to dig up a big log. He's crazy. Oh, we
came. We saw, we conquered. Now we got to try to get back down
without killing ourselves, and head back and get the jacket
off, getting warm. All right, we're leaving the waterfall
area. Successfully made it down without breaking our necks, at
least my neck, and now the one and a half mile or so hike back
down to the Jeep.
So so this really is turning into quite the workout for me,
with trying to walk on snow and ice really slows things down.
Hi, great, good. Just kind of slipped. I'm long as I don't
break my neck, it's all good.
I definitely don't think I'd want to hike in snow. I don't
know how people do it. It's just not enjoyable. Like walking
through sand on a regular basis. I wouldn't want to do this,
short hikes like this, not a problem. But if I was doing, you
know, a six mile or 12 mile hike, I don't want to be doing
it through snow, where it's like double the effort just to walk.
I'm just taking a selfie video of my dog kind of grinding
himself into the snow and ice. He's a bit nuts.
I I'm sucking down some oxygen walking up this hill in the snow
that'll ruminate over an idea I had since God for his 10th
birthday at the end of December. You know, Labrador Retrievers,
on average, live to about 12. You know, if you're lucky,
they'll live to 14. So I thought at best, you know, if we went
once a week, he would have about 100 hikes left. So I was kind of
mulling over the idea of, you know, doing just a series of 100
hikes. Problem is, I'm not sure if I have the ability to to
carry that through over two years. Not that I can't do the
hikes once a week. It's just a lot of commitment for me to to
produce record post and not sure that I can stick to it for two
years. It's just an idea. If you're hearing this, let me know
what you think i. At mail, M, a, i, L, at the casual hike.com,
while I'm ruminating about other things, this podcast received
its first booster gram. It's a value for value podcast, by the
way, got my first booster gram. I thought it was for my other
podcast, sets and sounds, which is a music value for value music
podcast, which I get boosts, usually once a week. Every week
I get something, but for the first time, and I forgot to
write it down, because I don't really produce this in my house.
You know, all the audio from this comes from this hike, but
it was, I'll put it on the website. I'll put it in the show
notes. It was shocking, because I couldn't figure out where what
episode was going to and then I had to look into the details of
the boost. And it was like 900 and some odd SATs. It may have
been 1000 even. And then whatever splits that came out.
If you don't know what any of that stuff is, don't worry about
it. Go to my website, the casual hike.com I've got links that
explain what value for value is and how you can participate. The
best way to participate is good modern podcast app, and I have
links to those. I have a sponsor for my other podcast sets and
sounds, and that's podcast guru. And with these apps, you load up
a wallet and you can stream while you listen, stream
payments while you listen, or send a booster a boost that,
whoops, here's come some slippery, slippery stuff. You
send a boost, which is some extra SATs, and then a boost to
Graham is extra SATs with a message. And the message the
person had was just the word nice, but it was fantastic, a
nice discovery. Anyway, head on over to the casual hike.com.
Check that out. If you want to listen to a value for value
music show, go to SATs and sounds.com. SATs and sounds and
check that out. Somebody wants to take the other trail. He's
feeling too good today, too much snow, too much water.
Is this the kind of behavior we want out of a senior dog?
I don't think so. You really miss the snow too much, don't
you?
So the walk down is a lot more slippery than the walk up. So I
thought, so that's why I'm not recording a heck of a lot while
I'm walking down because slip and slide everywhere. But we're
almost back. It's not much farther after the Jeep
got two glass turns, and then I should see the jeep. Bae
policies, for all the wind noise, have to remember to bring
the dead cat for this microphone next time. Usually don't bring
it because not a terrible amount of wind most of the time, and
kind of looks stupid this big fluffy thing on my shirt, this
is going to make for the shittiest podcast in the world.
I forgot to use the microphone even, oh, Lord. Well, this last
part will sound really nice compared to the other stuff. I
probably won't even post it. The sound should be so awful. Okay,
this brings us to the end of this hike. It's actually quite
nice, even though a little difficult walking through some
of the snow. But you probably won't even hear this because I
didn't have the microphone on correctly, and so this is the
only part that will sound halfway decent. So if I do post
it, talk to you next time
go take a hike.
I