Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
Speaker 1: I never told your protection if I hear radio's house,
Speaker 1: stuff works. And today I'd like to start with a
Speaker 1: peek behind the curtains, because Samantha just really impressed me
Speaker 1: with her knowledge of a jets and flint Stone crossovery Monk.
Speaker 1: I may not know anything about SpongeBob, which we talked
Speaker 1: about last week, but I can tell you the hell
Speaker 1: out of Jetson's and the flint Stones. So we need
Speaker 1: to do some kind of cartoon trivia because together it
Speaker 1: will complete I don't think so. So. I didn't watch
Speaker 1: many cartoons growing up, but the Flintstones of the Jetsons
Speaker 1: had my heart, and every now and again I think
Speaker 1: I would watch the Tiny Tunes. It got it got weird,
Speaker 1: and I was getting older too, and I got wed weirder,
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, I think I'm done now.
Speaker 1: The Tiny too got weird. Well, didn't they have Pinky
Speaker 1: and the Brain is part of their segment too, and
Speaker 1: then they separated onto their own show. They were part
Speaker 1: of that w B part of it, and it was
Speaker 1: really weird, and I was like, I think I'm done now.
Speaker 1: Pinky and the brain did make me nervous, right, I
Speaker 1: liked it, but there's something about it where I was like,
Speaker 1: these they could really take over the world. Flintstones and
Speaker 1: the Jetsons. They were a part of my growing up,
Speaker 1: for sure. She sang most of the song, A lot
Speaker 1: of it. I was. I was impressed. Nonetheless, our guess
Speaker 1: producer could have filled it out, but he didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Did you Dave by me embarrassed by me doing it already? No?
Speaker 1: I think we're all just proud, Samantha, proud to know you.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad. But that's not We're not going to
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on that today. Um, We're actually
Speaker 1: gonna talk about something that I I didn't have TV
Speaker 1: for a while when I was growing up, so I
Speaker 1: feel like I missed a very valuable I have a
Speaker 1: cartoon a blank Space, but I do a SpongeBob because
Speaker 1: that came later on when I was at the beach,
Speaker 1: and I would actually have excellent to Nickelodeon. And I
Speaker 1: think the reason I watched the flints was in the
Speaker 1: jet Sins was because my grandparents, who lived a little
Speaker 1: farther from my house, had more access. None of us
Speaker 1: had cable again, this is like nineteen eighties something, mid
Speaker 1: eighties and late eighties, and so it would just be
Speaker 1: on reruns on TBS, and so I would watch it
Speaker 1: in the afternoons for about an hour and then go home. Well,
Speaker 1: I could not watch anything but the three channels that
Speaker 1: we got. We had a very similar experience, but I
Speaker 1: had nowhere to go anything. But my mom did like
Speaker 1: to take me hiking, which is actually what we're talking there,
Speaker 1: you go. We like to bury the We want to
Speaker 1: confuse everyone right at the top. I think that's good content. Right,
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, what the hell are they talking about? We're
Speaker 1: talking about women in hiking. Yes, and I love hiking.
Speaker 1: It is something that my mom and I did together
Speaker 1: when I was growing up. Um And it's one of
Speaker 1: the few things I do where I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: able to actually right because you have to focus on
Speaker 1: where the next step is going to be. UM. And
Speaker 1: we still, my mom and I still go hiking together.
Speaker 1: She's like really badass because she knows that like where
Speaker 1: the hikes are that aren't in the hiking books, and
Speaker 1: she has the hand drawn maps of the parking and
Speaker 1: I got her to zerox them. A couple of weeks
Speaker 1: ago and gave him to one of my friends. He's
Speaker 1: also a good hiker, and I really trussed him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I lived near where while I did. I grew
Speaker 1: up near where the Appalachian Trail starts, so it was
Speaker 1: fun to do to like go and hang out there,
Speaker 1: like you hike up and you hang out there, and
Speaker 1: you to hear people at the beginning of their Appalaian
Speaker 1: Trail journey. And there's a part in my mind that's like,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what you're going to be thinking. But from now, look,
Speaker 1: those people are hardcore that really just dedicate and take
Speaker 1: time off for work. I'm just like, oh wow, good
Speaker 1: for you. But I don't want to be in the
Speaker 1: woods that long. Yeah, I've always wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: but taking the time off work, it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of planning ahead. Yeah, like the boxes, having the box
Speaker 1: pas And I know some people, especially some people were
Speaker 1: going to talk about in here didn't do that. But
Speaker 1: that makes me a little nervous personally. Um, hopefully one
Speaker 1: day I'll do it. But I do hike a lot
Speaker 1: these days. I hike alone a lot. Um I tell
Speaker 1: people where I'm going in case that is scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I almost always get the worried are you sure
Speaker 1: you should do that? Response? And I've even overheard a
Speaker 1: couple whisper it to each other she by herself when
Speaker 1: I was like sitting on top of the summit and
Speaker 1: joining the view. Um, and they're that movie that I'm
Speaker 1: going to be very vague about forever that semi based
Speaker 1: on my life. I can't find this movie and I
Speaker 1: won't tell you what it is. We'll find someone who
Speaker 1: knows there is someone. There's a scene in it that
Speaker 1: this whole thing plays out where the character that is
Speaker 1: me hikes up and then this couple is like, oh,
Speaker 1: poor things, she's hiking by herself. Well it off really.
Speaker 1: I think that's different from me because I go with
Speaker 1: Peaches the dog, and so I don't get as many looks.
Speaker 1: It seems normal, I guess because I haven't an added edition,
Speaker 1: because I typically it's never been like a coupling thing
Speaker 1: for me. I would be surprised if someone that I
Speaker 1: was dating, would you actually go with me? Yeah? My
Speaker 1: ex used to go with me, and that should have
Speaker 1: been my sign, Like before I knew he was interested,
Speaker 1: he'd be like, let's go and hike together, and he
Speaker 1: hated being outside and I'm just totally oblivious, and he
Speaker 1: did the man won't check the directions thing, and we
Speaker 1: got lost for eleven miles. We hiked for eleven extra
Speaker 1: miles because he used to check the direction. So my
Speaker 1: good friend and I who talked about previously the coworker,
Speaker 1: we did that and we thought we went the opposite
Speaker 1: direction of everybody else. And I remember a group of
Speaker 1: people came at us. They're like, oh, he did the
Speaker 1: hard truck, and we would like, excuse me. And we
Speaker 1: added additional six miles and we were starting to hallucinate
Speaker 1: towards it end because we didn't have enough supplies. Were
Speaker 1: like I even almost rolled off the damn mountain. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: a tree stop stopped me and we just we just
Speaker 1: said that was like, yeah, we made a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: We're really selling hiking to anyone stories though it comes
Speaker 1: up with such great stories, is true. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite books is Wild by Sherale Straight. Um. I have
Speaker 1: always always always wanted to do that hike and Um
Speaker 1: Kristen past co host and founder creator Kristen she got
Speaker 1: me into that book. She used to do that like
Speaker 1: every summer. The book, she said that one, and I
Speaker 1: would always read the book, she announced, and it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorites, that the one Witherspoon. Yes, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I know a lot of people really
Speaker 1: really loved that book, and that seems really really inspired
Speaker 1: people to go out, women to go out and make
Speaker 1: their own trail and take time and start really contemplating
Speaker 1: what they want. Is that the premise. Yeah, she she
Speaker 1: kind of gets in a really like her mom is
Speaker 1: just died. Um, her her marriage is kind of fell apart,
Speaker 1: she had some drug addiction problems, and so she, without
Speaker 1: hardly any planning, does this very difficult hike because the
Speaker 1: difference between the PCT and the Applation Trail of the
Speaker 1: Pacific Crest Trail. On the Appalation Trail, it's just the
Speaker 1: and this comes from someone who has not done either,
Speaker 1: but it's just like the very big difference in weather,
Speaker 1: Like you're starting in the desert and you're ending in snow,
Speaker 1: and you're gone through mountains. So it's it's it's difficult
Speaker 1: to pack for and she just did it. She would
Speaker 1: even in the book she did a terrible job preparing
Speaker 1: for it. But um, the opening scene is her like
Speaker 1: losing her shoe and so dramatic because you're like, not
Speaker 1: her shoes, that's bad anything almost anything else. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would have been better than our shoe down the side,
Speaker 1: like even your pants. You might be embarrassed, you might
Speaker 1: get some bites and scratches, but still much better your shoes.
Speaker 1: You got like duct tape just wrapped it around her foot. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're really not selling it. But but you both like hikings. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love hiking. I will say I've been doing it
Speaker 1: a little less this year in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: just because of well, first of all, Georgia's summer heat
Speaker 1: did it's almost stifling too much to go out, and
Speaker 1: that makes it unfortunate, but as well as the fact
Speaker 1: that it does take some time. UM, I've gotten more
Speaker 1: limited because and we'll talk more about this, but some
Speaker 1: of the political stances on some of our nearby hiking
Speaker 1: places that I refused to go to. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this was my coping mechanism. I know. We talked about
Speaker 1: this during our little trauma series where my coworker and
Speaker 1: I would go almost every weekend to some place, and
Speaker 1: I think once a month we try to go to
Speaker 1: a bigger hike, like we talked about that. She was
Speaker 1: the one that when I almost died, plummeted to my
Speaker 1: death day, he was the one. We would just sit
Speaker 1: there and what was so funny about us when we
Speaker 1: would do things like that, we would be really concerned
Speaker 1: for each other, but because we're also social workers and
Speaker 1: so very sarcastic, we would also make fun of each other,
Speaker 1: which motivated each other more. We also competed to be
Speaker 1: faster every time we would go, like to certain areas,
Speaker 1: like we wanted to make sure we hit different strides.
Speaker 1: If we had a part that we would go into
Speaker 1: every week or every least often, we would that would
Speaker 1: be a personal goal for us to beat the time
Speaker 1: and enjoy like the top view, but then still beat
Speaker 1: and see how fast we would go. But it was
Speaker 1: definitely one of our times that we could get together
Speaker 1: just talk about whatever was wrong, whether it's a personal
Speaker 1: life or with our work life, and just kind of
Speaker 1: diffuse our own stress levels. And it was fantastic. I
Speaker 1: missed that obviously because it was We had some big adventures,
Speaker 1: and one of the things we also did was we
Speaker 1: tried to stay if we did a big hike, like
Speaker 1: a far away hike two or three hours from here.
Speaker 1: We would try to go to a local restaurant to eat.
Speaker 1: So it was hilarious because the one time many times,
Speaker 1: but this time when I was disgusting with mud caked
Speaker 1: and we walked into a barbecue restaurant which were all
Speaker 1: white people and me and I'm like, hey, here's the
Speaker 1: brown girl with mud caked on me. How are you
Speaker 1: I want food? Give me those ribs about? But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really really great, And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the things I love about having my dog is
Speaker 1: going to do it more and more. And it's a
Speaker 1: little more local with my dog because she loves anything
Speaker 1: with water, so it gets the play and splash around
Speaker 1: and I get to hiking about. But it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things for sure. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do it more as well. Um,
Speaker 1: So I think it's we're pretty much talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: going to the woods trail and people know what hiking
Speaker 1: is just the case. Yeah, but it, particularly long distance hiking,
Speaker 1: is traditionally a white male dominated activity. Only of three
Speaker 1: hikers on the Appleachian Trail are women. And I will
Speaker 1: say about these numbers that are kind of hard to
Speaker 1: nail down for sure, for I think probably pretty obvious reasons,
Speaker 1: but from numbers that we do have, report from the
Speaker 1: University of Wyoming found that only one out of five
Speaker 1: U S National Park visitors were non white. If we
Speaker 1: look at rock climbing, a survey found that only point
Speaker 1: two percent were Black or Asian and three percent were
Speaker 1: Latin X. Study from the Outdoor Foundation found that only
Speaker 1: eight percent of folks participating in outdoor activities were Hispanic.
Speaker 1: James Mills, a black outdoors person, dubbed it quote the
Speaker 1: adventure gap, and a Sierra Club blog posts called it
Speaker 1: the unbearable whiteness of hiking. Some people who have looked
Speaker 1: into this think has to do with class. People who
Speaker 1: participate in outdoor activities like hiking have a household income
Speaker 1: of over seventy five thousand dollars. In an article over
Speaker 1: at vox, Amanda Machado described her experience being Latin X
Speaker 1: and being into hiking and wrestling with some stereotypes that
Speaker 1: come along with that quote. Whenever I tell my parents
Speaker 1: about a backpacking trip in the wilderness, my parents joked
Speaker 1: about the irony. As immigrants, they had worked all their
Speaker 1: lives to ensure I had a roof under my head
Speaker 1: and present a full clothes to wear. And now I
Speaker 1: was intentionally choosing to sleep outside wearing clothes covered in dirt.
Speaker 1: With the stereotypes that we endure Already, many Latin X
Speaker 1: I knew felt the need to prove that they lived comfortably.
Speaker 1: I knew Latina women who manicured their hands specifically to
Speaker 1: give others the impression that they never had to work outside.
Speaker 1: And I knew Latin X fan lase who hesitated the
Speaker 1: book hostels or camp when they traveled because they feared
Speaker 1: and implied they couldn't afford a quote real place to stay.
Speaker 1: To be a lady meant to treat myself delicately, and
Speaker 1: to be a gentleman meant to honor a woman's fragility.
Speaker 1: I was never expected to carry much or do anything
Speaker 1: remotely dangerous without a man's protection or assistance. Nothing about
Speaker 1: me looking at thirty pound pack across the mountains aligned
Speaker 1: with those ideals. Yeah. So in one article I found
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post, they highlighted on Audrey Pierman, an
Speaker 1: African American environmental leader who with her husband wrote a
Speaker 1: piece called a Legacy of Land. While exploring across the
Speaker 1: US and have been creating working to create awareness for
Speaker 1: diversity in the outdoor community. Is kind of one of
Speaker 1: the things that they've been trying to do to highlight
Speaker 1: the black community being outdoors and actually um changing the
Speaker 1: ideas of it being just a fairy tale for black people,
Speaker 1: as she said. And there's been a bit of a
Speaker 1: rise for youth of colors since the Every Kid in
Speaker 1: the Park program created by the Obodom administration, as well
Speaker 1: as programs created like Hikers of Color Black people hike
Speaker 1: in our own Atlanta's own we Height the Hill, And
Speaker 1: of course the deep racist history of some of the
Speaker 1: parts could also be a deterrent for many visitors. I mean,
Speaker 1: I said that about my own um Stone Mountain is
Speaker 1: a big place of controversy because of the Confederate memorial
Speaker 1: essentially has and of course the controversy throughout the US
Speaker 1: with these similar types of memorials or naming of the parks,
Speaker 1: which is I would be deterred from going from there,
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that many of these historical
Speaker 1: places have bad connotations to slavery history as well as
Speaker 1: like lynchings, and so I could see that as being
Speaker 1: problematic and not wanting to go visit those types of parks.
Speaker 1: Um And also, as you had said, there's privilege attached
Speaker 1: to this with being able to actually take time off,
Speaker 1: get transportation, and especially when most of the majority of
Speaker 1: these parks are not easily accessible, so you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have public transit to get to some of these nice
Speaker 1: little mountains, especially when you're talking about that a T
Speaker 1: trail or the PCT trail. You can't just get there,
Speaker 1: and you can't just take time off, and you can't
Speaker 1: just babysitters. So it's definitely a thing of privilege for sure.
Speaker 1: And um, I was pleasantly surprised how many people are
Speaker 1: talking about this, because sometimes you're like, I love hiking.
Speaker 1: Who knows how many people are right like research papers
Speaker 1: about it. But there's a lot out there, um over
Speaker 1: on codes which people of color discuss feeling culturally out
Speaker 1: of place when outdoors. A lot of the wilderness in America,
Speaker 1: a lot of parks are located in majority white areas,
Speaker 1: and I think this could even go back to the
Speaker 1: terrible phenomena of white people calling a police on black people,
Speaker 1: and they can't be the regular parks to cook out,
Speaker 1: so can you be in the mountains right? Um, so
Speaker 1: there's a lot. There's a lot going on here. I
Speaker 1: will say, like, this is not true necessarily in other countries.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it is, but not in all um the
Speaker 1: whiteness of hiking. When I hiked the Andies in Peru,
Speaker 1: I saw so many indigenous people kicking my ast all ages,
Speaker 1: all gender is and caring way more while doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, they're just kind of running by me. When
Speaker 1: I was researching and I specifically put you know, Asian
Speaker 1: women of Asian women hiking, and it just it was
Speaker 1: just photos. It was just stock images and the actual
Speaker 1: statistics it talks about a little bit that Asian it
Speaker 1: is on the rise from the Asian and women and
Speaker 1: people of color, but everything else is just like stock images.
Speaker 1: Like I could not find one just article. It was
Speaker 1: just pictures of an Asian woman climbing or hiking, and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's super weird. Was she having the
Speaker 1: time of her life? I'm sure she was, and where
Speaker 1: someone was carrying her? Maybe? I don't know. I didn't
Speaker 1: actually look at it. I was just like, why why
Speaker 1: is this the only result that I can find stock
Speaker 1: photos is a fascinating world. I tell you an organization
Speaker 1: at Brown University called BOLTS or Brown Outdoor Leadership Training
Speaker 1: focus on They focus on making the outdoors more inclusive
Speaker 1: and they recently released a guide called Identity, Privilege and
Speaker 1: Oppression in the Outdoors quote the way we experience the
Speaker 1: outdoors is inherently political. They used this quote from Karen
Speaker 1: Warren and the whole thing to um the collective memory
Speaker 1: of past experiences of legally mandated segregation, the flight from
Speaker 1: rural to urban areas due to forced labor outdoors and
Speaker 1: racially motivated violence that most typically occurred in remote areas
Speaker 1: continues to play a role deciding how people of color
Speaker 1: spend time in nature. When it comes to safety, there
Speaker 1: is a perception that it isn't safe for women to
Speaker 1: be hiking alone, a perception held by forty six percent
Speaker 1: of men and of women according to one study. And
Speaker 1: Bridget and I talked about this headline in the Past
Speaker 1: episode a couple of years ago about these women that
Speaker 1: were hiking alone and they were murdered. Um, there were
Speaker 1: two of them, right, but you know you need a
Speaker 1: man to make you a group for a group of women.
Speaker 1: Were they the ones that had the dog too, I think,
Speaker 1: so yeah. And then on top of that they had
Speaker 1: dogs and none of this really for me, I would
Speaker 1: have been like, no, that were definitely me. I definitely.
Speaker 1: The only time I was, like I said, I really
Speaker 1: hike was with a friend who was female or with
Speaker 1: my dog. So I'm like, well, I should be really
Speaker 1: dead according to this perception. For this perception, yeah, me
Speaker 1: two friends. UM. From the data we do have, though,
Speaker 1: your risk of violent crime is lower on a national
Speaker 1: park for both men and women than the country as
Speaker 1: a whole, which is actually, I think, sort of sad.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about that, but anyways,
Speaker 1: I know I'm very confused about what's going on in
Speaker 1: my feelings. But I know that story broke last year
Speaker 1: about how women who are National park employees experienced sexual
Speaker 1: harassment and assault. UM. But women are statistically more likely
Speaker 1: to survive an injury or accident in the American wilderness. UM.
Speaker 1: From a researcher looking into this quote. Culturally, females tend
Speaker 1: not to do as many of the idiotic things that
Speaker 1: solo males do. Males are more likely to try to
Speaker 1: pick up a rattlesnake. This was a quote in a
Speaker 1: research paper. Friends, I don't know. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I just saw a toddler playing with you know, snaks
Speaker 1: and such. But keep going. I I've only I've hiked
Speaker 1: a lot, and I've hiked a lot alone. And I
Speaker 1: feel like I've only ever had one experience that I
Speaker 1: felt unsafe. There's certainly been times where I thought, oh no,
Speaker 1: I might be lost, and that's kind of scary. But
Speaker 1: you know, you got your compass, your map or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm fine. But what time I saw a
Speaker 1: dude who was just standing shirtless in the woods and
Speaker 1: not moving, and he had his leg propped up like
Speaker 1: a flamingo would, and he had a cigar and he
Speaker 1: didn't acknowledge me when I walked by, and I had
Speaker 1: a moment of fear. But that's it and that wonderment
Speaker 1: was it both both? It was was he doing the
Speaker 1: little pirate stand? He he also had a monocle. I
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna say because it sounds like amazing. It was
Speaker 1: in the middle of it was one of those trails
Speaker 1: that so few people hike that it's not well kept.
Speaker 1: And for I remember I had an incident where we
Speaker 1: were hiped ing um I think it was towards Bartow County,
Speaker 1: one of the smaller trails, and we heard something grunt
Speaker 1: at us, and we were pretty sure it was a
Speaker 1: wild hog row war, so we ran because you know
Speaker 1: those things are mean, they do not care and will
Speaker 1: rip into you. That we were petrified. I think that's
Speaker 1: the fastest time we ever made. I think I'll also
Speaker 1: fail trying to get well. And then my plan has
Speaker 1: always been always tell my friends that it was between
Speaker 1: me and you. I'm gonna trip you. I'm gonna run
Speaker 1: front about it. I'm gonna hey. I told my look,
Speaker 1: I know I can't win just by my own strength,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna throw something at you. You've gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta know the dynamic. You've gotta know in a survival situation,
Speaker 1: who's gonna do what And everybody's like and no one
Speaker 1: goes hikes with you. That's true if you if you
Speaker 1: balance it out, I think it's fine. There was a
Speaker 1: time where I can't remember, a friend and I were
Speaker 1: hiking and at the time there was this guy who
Speaker 1: was going around killing women in the woods. And it
Speaker 1: was in Dawsonville. It was near where I lived. It
Speaker 1: was it was on a famous trail if I remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: and we we're going to a trail and there was
Speaker 1: a tree over the road and we were like talking
Speaker 1: about what to do about it. My friend kind of
Speaker 1: semi opened the door and a dude jumped out, but
Speaker 1: then we just backed up and left. And I don't
Speaker 1: know when I tell people that story, they think we
Speaker 1: were about to be murdered. I'm not so sure. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there are some famous female hikers and mountaineers that we
Speaker 1: wanted to to talk about. But first we're gonna pause
Speaker 1: for a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 1: we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So one of the most
Speaker 1: famous female hikers that we wanted to highlight is Emma
Speaker 1: Rowena Gatewood or Grandma Gatewood. Grandma Gatewood, which is a
Speaker 1: rad name. I know there's a book about her my
Speaker 1: mom loves. I think it's probably been Montgomery's Grandma Gatewood's Walk,
Speaker 1: The Inspiring Story of the Woman who saved at the
Speaker 1: Applican Trail. I didn't get a chest confirmed with my mom,
Speaker 1: but I believe that's probably it. Her story is an
Speaker 1: amazing one. She was born in one of fifteen children,
Speaker 1: and she married at nineteen and she was a survivor
Speaker 1: of domestic violence. On one occasion, he broke her teeth
Speaker 1: and cracked her ribs, and when the police arrived, they
Speaker 1: arrested her, not him, right, and she spent the night
Speaker 1: in jail. The mayor stepped in when he saw her
Speaker 1: black eyes and bloody face, and she was able to
Speaker 1: get a divorce, which was really rare and difficult to
Speaker 1: get in those days, since she threw a flower at him,
Speaker 1: I think I think it was like a sack of
Speaker 1: flower or just some flower at him, and they arrested her. Absurd.
Speaker 1: She frequently would go outdoors to to get away from
Speaker 1: from it all, like like Samantha and I talked about.
Speaker 1: She had eleven children and twenty three grandchildren. Oh no,
Speaker 1: that's too much. That's a lot. That is a lot.
Speaker 1: According to one of her daughters, When Emma saw a
Speaker 1: National Geographic article about the Applachian Trail, it included the
Speaker 1: fact that no women had completed it. Grandma Gatewood saw
Speaker 1: that as a challenge, and she gave me an attempt,
Speaker 1: but broke her glasses pretty early on and had to stop.
Speaker 1: But she was not done. In the age of sixty seven,
Speaker 1: divorced for thirty years, Grandma Gatewood became the first woman
Speaker 1: to solo hike the Appolicchian Trail. Yes two thousand, one
Speaker 1: nine miles or two thousand, seventy four point four kilometers
Speaker 1: one six days in kids. Kids are promoting keel. They
Speaker 1: are not a sponsor. I do have some kids fun
Speaker 1: of me. Oh, I would never. All she brought with
Speaker 1: her was a blanket and a plastic shower curtain. For
Speaker 1: the raging, that's amazing. For everything else, she counted on
Speaker 1: the kindness of strangers and her own resourcefulness. When asked
Speaker 1: about the experience by Sports Illustrated, she said quote, I
Speaker 1: would never have started this trip if I had known
Speaker 1: out duff it was. But I couldn't and I wouldn't quit.
Speaker 1: The following year, she kept on trailblazing, becoming the first
Speaker 1: person to throw hike the Appalachian Trail twice. She did
Speaker 1: the second time for fun, she says nice. She ended
Speaker 1: up doing it a third time in sections, making it
Speaker 1: the first person to do it for three times. The
Speaker 1: media attention she drew is credited in part with prompting
Speaker 1: restoration of the trail for saving the Appalachian Trail um.
Speaker 1: When asked why she did it, She responded, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to. I did too. Why not because I wanted to?
Speaker 1: Because I wanted to? And that's not all. She also
Speaker 1: hiked from Independence, Missouri to Portland, Oregon, a nine day,
Speaker 1: two thousand mile or three thousand, two hundred eighteen point
Speaker 1: six kilometers. She's a part of pioneering the Ohio Buckeye Trail,
Speaker 1: and a chunk of it is named for Grandma Gatewood
Speaker 1: Grandma Gatewood Trail in ninetee. She died at the age
Speaker 1: of eighty five, and her obituary came with this quote,
Speaker 1: if those men can do it, I can do it.
Speaker 1: I love her. I love how she's like concise, She's
Speaker 1: just like, it's not about you, It's about me. I
Speaker 1: just want to do it. Jennifer far Davis tackled the
Speaker 1: Appelage and trail as well, and she knelt it, completing
Speaker 1: it in the fastest time on record fifty seven days
Speaker 1: and eight hours, and four years later another woman wrote
Speaker 1: that record. David's hyped the Pacific Crest Trail to she
Speaker 1: summited Mount Coon and Jaro. She set the record on
Speaker 1: the women's for months long trail. She wrote books, she
Speaker 1: backpacked one miles while pregnant, and she found it and
Speaker 1: runs Blue Ridge Hiking Company pregnant. Yeah. Girl, every time
Speaker 1: I see someone running pregnant, I feel right like everything
Speaker 1: about that looks painful, and I'm like, yeah, you do it,
Speaker 1: you keep wow. I am in awe of it. Blue
Speaker 1: Rage Hiking is where I do a lot of my hikings,
Speaker 1: so maybe check that out. Yeah. One of the first
Speaker 1: female mountaineers was Ruth dire Mente Hall. In the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: Mente Hall, a mother of two, made history when she
Speaker 1: climbed at the Sierra Nevadas in California. This was a
Speaker 1: time when physical activities like this were viewed as squarely
Speaker 1: not for women, bad for you. She and her husband
Speaker 1: pioneer trails in the Taitons, the Cascades, and the Alps.
Speaker 1: They get the credit for the first to summit Mount
Speaker 1: Confederation in and Gil Peak in ninety two. She also
Speaker 1: wrote multiple books, including some introductory level mountaineering books. Another
Speaker 1: famous female mountaineer is Arlene Blum. She led the first
Speaker 1: all female American team to summit the difficult Napernal One.
Speaker 1: She did the same from Mount McKinley and attended to
Speaker 1: do Everest as well. Blum started climbing early, and despite
Speaker 1: early failures, she kept at it. She went on to
Speaker 1: become a proponent for environmental protection and published two award
Speaker 1: winning books about her climbing experiences and shout out to
Speaker 1: Neiva Warren, the youngest person to solo through hike the
Speaker 1: Applation Trail at fourteen day. Again, that makes me feel
Speaker 1: bad about myself. You know, we all have different paths
Speaker 1: in line. Well, because I'm like, yeah, no, I'm never
Speaker 1: doing that. I can't imagine my parents going for that.
Speaker 1: She did it, Yeah, she did by She did it
Speaker 1: by herself. Huh, Yeah, that's concerning. Well, she is fine.
Speaker 1: I'm always the youth. They give me. They give me hope,
Speaker 1: and we do have some other stuff that gives me
Speaker 1: a little bit of hope. But first we have one
Speaker 1: more quick break for word from our sponsor. We're back,
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor. So, like we mentioned at the top,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of hiking groups out there that
Speaker 1: are especially focused on helping to get more people of
Speaker 1: color feel comfortable hiking or involved in it. UM we
Speaker 1: Hike to Heal, which is the one we we interviewed
Speaker 1: them on this very show. UM it's run by two
Speaker 1: black married women, Latino Outdoors, the Fresh Air Fund, Beta
Speaker 1: Verda Outdoor, Afro Brown people Camping, h e a T
Speaker 1: Hikers of color. Some of these are Facebook groups or
Speaker 1: Instagram groups. Some of them are like website organization type things,
Speaker 1: but I would highly suggest if you're interested to go
Speaker 1: go check any of them out. Um more women and
Speaker 1: people of color being vocal about their hiking, like the Renovator,
Speaker 1: who we've spoken about before, and that's really important. I
Speaker 1: know that from the articles I was reading, people said
Speaker 1: like seeing someone on Instagram who looks like them doing
Speaker 1: it made them feel like, oh, I can do that too.
Speaker 1: She's in such a good shape. The National Park Service
Speaker 1: created the Office of Relevancy, Diversity and Inclusion, and this
Speaker 1: year Clubs similarly hired their first director of Diversity, Equity
Speaker 1: and Inclusion and likely their first African American president, which
Speaker 1: is awesome and just the kind of to put it
Speaker 1: out there. Doctors are now starting to prescribe it even
Speaker 1: as ecotherapy for people to come out and do some
Speaker 1: not only meditation, but hiking and like being able to
Speaker 1: get outside of themselves away from the electronics. As well
Speaker 1: as the fact that the people. There's been a study
Speaker 1: being used for a d h D, treatment of a
Speaker 1: d h D or at least an assistance and as
Speaker 1: a therapy for a d h D, which is fantastic
Speaker 1: And and obviously again we talked about how it does
Speaker 1: reduce stress and for females in general and just film
Speaker 1: identifying people, it can be hopefully just something that you
Speaker 1: don't have to think about anything but concentrating on yourself
Speaker 1: and your connection to the world. Yeah. Um, I know
Speaker 1: for me personally, I when I started, and I some
Speaker 1: of those things we've talked about, like being thankful for
Speaker 1: your body and where it can take you, because I
Speaker 1: am very fortunate that I am in a position that
Speaker 1: I can do this, um. And I I when I
Speaker 1: was in high school, I struggled so hard with depression.
Speaker 1: I would just sleep all the time. And for me personally,
Speaker 1: like taking that step and banking myself, get outside and
Speaker 1: do something. Um it. It really did have a market
Speaker 1: effect on my outlook and my energy level. And again
Speaker 1: it's different for other people, but for me it did.
Speaker 1: And again we do acknowledge that all of this has
Speaker 1: a lot of privilege to this again and like it
Speaker 1: for people who are able body to do so and
Speaker 1: the access to it. It wasn't money to it, because
Speaker 1: sometimes I can get somewhat expensive viously, just for like
Speaker 1: paying for a pass going into Stone Mountain, which I'm
Speaker 1: not advocating because again I don't go there necessarily, but
Speaker 1: it costs a lot of money. Yeah, And I was reading,
Speaker 1: I've never been someone I could just hike in my
Speaker 1: my old tennis shoes. And but if you actually get
Speaker 1: like the gear, the hiking shoes and the packs and
Speaker 1: the food, and that's a lot. The boots and the yeah,
Speaker 1: the backpack. None of this is cheap. There's no cheap
Speaker 1: versions of day. And if you get the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: it really messes you up. That's true. Like if you
Speaker 1: get shoes right, but aren't that aren't good for you?
Speaker 1: You could actually that if you're going to the Appalachian
Speaker 1: Trail and you don't have the right boots, you're really
Speaker 1: going to be messed up. Or if you're you know
Speaker 1: what's her name and not have shoes at all, But
Speaker 1: I mean, it can really really mess you up. I
Speaker 1: remember I went on a trip with a group of
Speaker 1: people and poor girl she was very very new um
Speaker 1: brand new hiking boots and she tried to wear them
Speaker 1: on our two day hike and camp trip. She was
Speaker 1: in so much pain. She was in so we had
Speaker 1: to figure out how to get her back down. Essentially, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was bad. Yeah, Yeah, I've made that mistake. Yeah, learn,
Speaker 1: you learn, You're like great, right, No, that's not at
Speaker 1: least a two week breaking in period where you're wearing
Speaker 1: them all the time. Rights Obviously, again very privileged talk
Speaker 1: and we understand that. Yeah, um it is. And I
Speaker 1: am just such a I love being outdoors, and um,
Speaker 1: I want I want more people who want to do that,
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable doing that, to have the access to
Speaker 1: do that. Right, So I hope that uh, we're it
Speaker 1: does seem that we were moving in that direction, um,
Speaker 1: and I would we would love to hear from listeners
Speaker 1: your experience in this, If you have any book recommendations,
Speaker 1: if you're a part of a group that goes out
Speaker 1: that we would love to hear about. Let us know, Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you can do that by emailing us at Stuff Media,
Speaker 1: mom Stuff at I heart media dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast and
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Stuff I've Never told You. Thanks. It's
Speaker 1: always to our super producer Andrew Howard and guest producer
Speaker 1: d J Dave. Wait, do we call him d J Dave?
Speaker 1: You did so, I picked up you did. We have
Speaker 1: audio record of it. Really well, now you are I
Speaker 1: gave you that. I think that's a good nick game.
Speaker 1: I think you should just happen to take that one.
Speaker 1: Um and thanks as always to you for listening stuff.
Speaker 1: I've never told you the protection of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: how stuff works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.