Episode 239 - Hiker's Weather App with Tim Luby

[00:00:29] The bushwhacks were some of the worst days I've ever had in the mountains, or life really. Whereas Pantsy Mountain is totally opposite, it's a mountain on top of a crater. I think the weather challenges on this incident were particularly difficult. It is really the development of New York State. Catskills will respond to it.

[00:00:52] Passing into Inside The Line: The Catskill Mountains Podcast. Episode 238 tonight. Tad is with me. No, I'm just kidding. Tad and Tim Luby is with us, talking about his new app called the Hikers Weather App.

[00:01:20] Definitely been looking forward to this for a while. Tim had me doing some test runs on it earlier. So, we all probably are looking forward to a different app besides Mountain Weather Forecast, because Mountain Weather Forecast seems to be not insanely inaccurate, but a little bit inaccurate. But Tim has this weather forecast and he is a Catskill local. So, he's here tonight to talk about this, Hikers Weather.

[00:01:45] And the link is going to be in the show notes I have promoted today as we're recording. So, welcome to the show, Tim. Good to see you, buddy. Thank you. Good to see you, too. True. The second time on here, right? We talked about your hike intel before, right? Yes. Yeah, back then I think it was all on the phone. Oh, was it? Oh, yeah. I don't think we had video then. True. So now, and you also, of course, are one of the admins of the Catskill Trail Condition Space. So that's cool. That's a tough gig.

[00:02:16] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll have to say, I give all the credit to Sarah these days. And not these days, like the past five years, really. I mean, I've been kind of in the background, but she's been running the show. So thank you, Sarah. No, it is a tough gig, man. That's why I couldn't do it anymore. It is. It is so cool. So welcome back, Tim. Good to have you on here. Can't wait to talk about Hikers Weather App and, of course, a bunch of other stuff. We know you're an avid hiker here in the Catskill, so we'll get on with it.

[00:02:44] So speaking of getting on with it, like, ooh, that sounded weird. Bad choice of words. So CNN released a article about this. It's called Generation SOS. Why are young people increasingly being rescued from the mountains? So they talked about basically how, you know, nowadays there's simply all this stuff going on of people being rescued from the mountains continuously.

[00:03:11] And we're not talking about like serious rescues like ankle breaks or, you know, injured their knee or shoulder injury or stuff like that. They're talking about basically just needing help getting off the mountain because, you know, they're having a cramp or something or basically, you know, like dehydrated and stuff.

[00:03:33] So they had a chat about here about people talking about this 110 to 100 or to 11 million times, 110 million, 11 million times on Instagram and TikTok being tagged of hiking and hiking adventures. So as people do this, as people hike, it grows bigger and bigger, as we've known in the past, you know, 10 to 15 years with what happened with COVID and stuff like that. So as we see that going on, there's more and more hikers.

[00:04:01] So that means there are more and more rescues. And as I read a little bit of this, they are like, it's common, you know, I see that the increase brings that on. But it seems like the age between 2018 and 24 are now comfortably the most likely for a call for a rescue, according to the annual review released in May by Mountain Rescue England and Wales for 48 regional teams.

[00:04:29] Twice of that, 13 to 17 year olds and 25 to 29 year olds make up the rest of that with almost 400 call outs, 18 to 20 year old, more than doubled their own 2019 tally. And when the group was responsible for 166 incidents right behind 50 to 54 years old, the Atlantic Ocean painted almost the identical picture as they've had the most rescues.

[00:04:53] Not even out west, they have the most rescues, but out here because we have, of course, a bigger population and such. Uh, this was maintained by the Mountain Rescue Association, which we all know Trailbound Projects is part of. So Joe and Scott from the New Jersey search and rescue team, they are part of the Trailbound Projects. So they are part of the Mountain Rescue Association as well. So teenagers were closest with 11% behind the 18 to 24 bracket.

[00:05:18] Um, definitely def, a lot of different kind of like situations they chat about on this, uh, on this, um, release. And it's, it's cool to see, uh, as it goes back and forth to different people, different people, different ages and stuff. But as we see the 18 to 24 year olds that are most likely to get rescue.

[00:05:45] And like I said, with this being increasingly like hiking becoming more and more popular since COVID, I mean, we've probably, I would have to say quadrupled the amount of hikers we've seen in the Catskills over the past five to 10 years. Um, it's, it's likely to happen. And as garments and stuff like that become more and more popular and more and more easier, accessible, more and more affordable. I could see somebody just pressing an SOS button all the time for a cramp or Tad.

[00:06:14] What was that one store? We got that one time that guy like rescued, like called for a rescue three different times. Was that up in the Adirondacks? Wasn't it? Uh, no, there was that one fellow who I think was on sugar loaf. Oh yeah. Catskills. Yep. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. All within like three hours. That guy wasn't 18 to 24 though. He was, he was one of the persons in the 50 to 54 range. Yeah. I think 54 was his age. Yeah.

[00:06:42] So, so this is, I mean, it's, I, I see this as, as typical with the increase of popular of hiking becoming popular and the, the, you know, your easy, accessible garments and your watches and stuff like that, where you can simply hit a button and you can call an SOS pad, a call out. But, um, Tad, what do you think this is? I mean, Well, I was, I was actually hoping we'd hear what Tim thinks first. Oh, okay. Tim. Yeah.

[00:07:08] Oh, well, I think one thing is they see hike Mount Washington. Wow. On a like tick tock. And they're like, wow, this is going to be easy. Look at those views. It's so glamorous. And they don't know shit about hiking and they just go out and try to see the Instagrammable view. And there are no way ready for a hike. That's kind of one of my theories. It would make sense with that age group, right? Correct. Everything is packaged as being so easy. And yeah. Wow.

[00:07:38] Yeah. Well, to a certain extent, I'm no scientist on this, but I did raise, uh, my wife and I raised two daughters through the, everyone's a winner generation. And my, my oldest daughter, when she, when we signed her up for soccer and she didn't understand why everybody got a trophy, whether they won or lost. Um, she picked up on that and that it wasn't necessarily a good practice.

[00:08:03] And, you know, maybe some of that's carried over into, uh, other activities, whether it's, you know, not just even limited to hiking and sporting events, whether it's, you know, college work, maybe relationships where. Children grew up and were rewarded and praised and honored, regardless of how much effort they put in or didn't put in.

[00:08:26] And maybe now it's just easy for them to pull the rip cord and ask for a rescue, uh, without sticking it out or digging in deeper. I don't know. That's what I'm just thinking of off the top of my head. So yeah, no, us parents definitely have been more attentive to our kids and they fall and scrape their knee. We're like, Oh my God. And we fuss over them. Yeah. So there, we weren't fussed over. We were there like, ah, rub dirt on it. Yeah.

[00:08:52] But like these kids are expecting to be literally rescued, I guess. Right. Yeah. Well, they, you know, we had the helicopter parents that would hover over them and, and be there as their, uh, you know, padded guardrails whenever they, you know, ran into a situation and they needed to be bailed out. And certainly growing up for a period of time, there's nothing wrong with that, but eventually you got to take the training wheels off.

[00:09:20] And if that means you scrape your knee or your shin, um, there's something to be learned in terms of how you get up from falling down and carry on as opposed to just sitting there and, you know, looking for a rescue. Now, all of them necessarily aren't like that. Obviously there are some well deserved rescues, no matter how much preparation you put into it.

[00:09:43] But, uh, it, it just seems that there's a lot of people out there that, you know, tap out easy and, uh, look for a rescue and just generally don't go in prepared. I think one of the stories, if it sticks in here, seems like a unprepared parent of all things. Yeah.

[00:10:05] It's, uh, like I said, the, like, I agree with you, you, you both, uh, with, as in terms of like, if they get injured, they think a small injury, like could be the craziest injury. Like, you know, once again, I always like talk about, you know, cramps and stuff like that. We've heard so many things on, on people getting cramps and all they, the, the Rangers have to do like a cell phone call. They have cell phone service. They tell them or like the person is, is like lost.

[00:10:34] Then they, they tell them to like, well, walk 200 feet this way and you'll find the trail junction. And then you take a left. Like it happens so often. And then the whole headlamp thing, like that happens so often that it's just, it's crazy. It's crazy to think, you know, like, like people with this much, when we have, I have right now, like eight different pages open on my internet, uh, with, with this, this podcast.

[00:10:58] And it's to think that we have all this information right in front of us and they don't research like, Hey, what happens when the sun goes down in the middle of the mountains? You don't have streetlights. Yeah. Tim, how many web pages you have open right now? Oh my gosh. One, two, three, four. Only six. Six. I just have one. Wow. You can tell. Yeah. I'm the real boomer in the crowd here. So he's, he's going off of memory. Ted, Ted's read these like 300 times.

[00:11:27] So at my age, that's, what's lacking. There's the memory. I don't know, man. If you don't have like six web pages open, like Tim does, like you, you got the memory of what we're going to be talking about, or you just throwing stuff in there. Like, like, yeah. Well, let's just, all right, then let's just start the podcast. None of this BS and I'm losing my mind over here. Who's the guest tonight, by the way? Oh yeah. I forgot to, did I forget to say that? No. No, I'm just having fun.

[00:11:53] Now, as we talk about that, you know, they, they continuously being rescued on the mountains. We have the Adirondacks, which is being like continuous calls up there and they, the Adirondacks and Tad pointed this out. I don't know where you found this from. So this is pretty good stuff. So I found it. I found it from one of the web pages. That's not open right now on my screen. Oh, nice. Just going to try to tie that together. But all right. Continue. See, see, he's good. He's good.

[00:12:22] On September 5th, 2026, a parent became lost in the Adirondacks hiking region after stepping off the Marcy Jam trail for a bathroom break. Following state environmental guidelines, they walked 200 feet in the woods, but they could not find their way back to the path. After wandering for an hour, the hiker called their spouse for prompting a forest rescue. Ranger instructed the hiker to call 911 to obtain updated GPS coordinates.

[00:12:49] The rangers quickly tracked the hiker's location that safely guided them back to the trailhead within an hour. He was definitely pooping. Yes. 200 feet. He was pooping. Yeah. Peeing. Yeah. Yeah. You go like 12 feet off of the thing. Not even. Yeah. That's a pretty astute observation, Tim. I mean, hey, they, and, and, you know, funny thing is I've been up to Marcy. I've been to Marcy, Dan.

[00:13:13] I seriously do not know how you can lose a trail unless it's complete darkness and you don't have a headlamp because that is like a three person wide trail, maybe even four going up to Marcy Dam from the lodge. So, uh, it's crazy. Yeah. But this just shows you how easy it is for some people to get disorientated, to get lost.

[00:13:38] And, you know, thankfully there was a cell signal and thankfully it wasn't hypothermic conditions out there because if it was a couple hours is a long time when it's that cold. So this parent, uh, was lucky that day, but a few years ago, a woman hiking the AT was nearing the end, you know, in one of the new England states and similar thing happened to her.

[00:14:04] She went off trail, presumably to go to the bathroom, never found her way back. And they found her the following spring off trail. That. That's unfortunate. So, I mean, I've been main and then the Adirondack Marcy dam trail is a whole different story. Like, uh, so what I, what I want to know, did this person, the parent have a whistle?

[00:14:33] I don't, I wouldn't think so. Cause if you have a whistle and you're lost and you start blowing the whistle, three short bursts, somebody who knows what that means is going to start looking for you. And a whistle, the high pitch of the whistle is very directional. So it makes it easier to locate that you than doing something else like even yelling. So that's one of the reasons it's great idea. Carry a 10 cent whistle. Yeah. Right.

[00:15:03] Nice. Good. Good point. Good point. I, uh, uh, about a month ago, I was coming down off of Wittenberg in the dark. I had my headlamp and, uh, there's one part kind of near the bottom where it really swings around. And I, for the life of me, I could not see it at all. And it took like for five, 10 minutes. I was like, fuck. I was like, oh man, I might be out here for the night. Shit.

[00:15:32] I cannot find this fucking trail. Yes. And, uh, everybody knows where you're talking about that, that section of, uh, oh, what is it? Uh, well, there's like a little ledge, like kind of hemlocks there. Yep. The hemlock ledge. And I'd seen the, I'd seen the stairs. So I was like, okay, this is, this has gotta be the trail. That was like my hint. And I had to backtrack a couple of times and luckily I kind of swung around the right way.

[00:15:59] But for a minute there, I'm like, this, this is home for the night. Maybe. Maybe. So Tim, why didn't you call in for a rescue? Oh, pride. Pride. Yeah. I wonder if, if people, if there was a fee, if these folks had to pay 50, a hundred, $250. On New Hampshire, you gotta pay the whole. Yeah. Or have a hike safe card. Yeah. Right. That would definitely get it. Yeah.

[00:16:27] It's, it's once again, it's, it's one of those big questions. Like why, why isn't New York like doing that? Why aren't they, uh, leaning more towards this, especially with the increasing amount of, of SOS calls we've had. How many helicopters rescues have we had off of in the Adirondacks this year? Well, it's, I think that's because New York state, everyone's a winner. Yes, that's very true. Very true. True.

[00:16:53] I mean, I've, I've, I've seen the most, I would say the, the helicopter rescues are legit. They, I mean, I do not rescue somebody on three quarters of the way up Marcy, which is. Well, they, they recently hauled somebody off the summit of Marcy who had an ankle fracture. Yeah. I saw that video. That was intense. That was crazy. And people were bashing this person. Like you need a helicopter rescue for an ankle injury. And the person was actually like a registered nurse or something like that.

[00:17:21] I think, I think the rescuers needed a hoist rescue. I mean, the person, I mean, they're, they're just kind of in a passive position now they're just, they're, you know, no longer ambulatory. They need either to be hauled out or hoisted out or left for dead. And it's up to the rescuers. And what's the best thing for them to get the person out? Yeah. It's, it's their call to make. I think it's not on the danger to the rescuers to haul someone six miles down. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. It's quite an effort. So.

[00:17:51] Yeah. We've seen that a lot. So, I mean. All right. So next time you go, yeah. Next time, according to Tim, next time you leave the trail to go take a dump, don't forget to bring your, your cat spade and your whistle. That or your, keep your GPS coordinates tracking you these. Yeah. So you can look back in your phone and be like, oh, wow. Or text a friend leaving trail to take a shit. If I'm not. Pay attention to where you're going.

[00:18:19] And, you know, he must've had to go so bad. He wasn't even like saying, I'm here and I gotta get back there. Tim's reading in a lot into this story. Maybe the guy had Mexican the night before. Yeah. I'm replaying the whole thing. I've been in that position before. You're not, you're not thinking about anything. So for getting to that. Toilet. True. That point, point a is where you want to get for, or point D point dump. So, uh, so moving on, uh, we have a lot of fun.

[00:18:49] We had an unfortunate incident on Katahdin recently. So a body was found on Mount Katahdin, the Appalachian trail, 61 year old male, our Tim. Yeah. Determined 58. Uh, Tim Kittling died of hypothermia. Oh wait, Jesus. I've totally read that. You're looking, you're looking at the wrong open. I am. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. The one of the eight boughs.

[00:19:17] So, um, Peter Gore is 64 of Colton, California was found up on one 15 on September 14th on the hunt trail near York Valley. Uh, apparently as nine one one came in and they, uh, two hikers had actually called nine one one to get, uh, this guy off of the mountain. Apparently he had an ankle injury or leg injury and they could, the person could not move well or talk well.

[00:19:43] So Peter, yeah, Bert, Peter Gores was, could not move or talk well. So the first person that stopped gave him his tent and a sleeping bag and continued on their way because conditions were getting worse and worse on the mountain. And if, if you, uh, I'll talk, chat about this later. If you can't save yourself, then, or if you can't save the person and yourself, then it becomes a problem.

[00:20:09] So, and then I actually, later on, another person came in, found, uh, uh, Bert as the same condition, but a little bit worse, gave them, gave Bert a sleeping bag as well, and then continued on their way because it started to rain and they had some, a little bit of frost going on. So once again, this, these two people that saw this, uh, continued on because they knew that they would become part of either a rescue or a possible fatality, uh, when Gores was

[00:20:39] doing this. So Gores was a registered of Appalachian thru hiker and he stayed at the Birch campground on September 13th and signed into the hunt register on 7 40 AM as a solo hiker. Um, he said that the witnesses said he reached his summit on September 14th and was descending. Gores stopped at the hunt trail during his descent asked hikers for direction to the Apple trail. Gores was wearing wet shorts and a long sleeve shirt at the time.

[00:21:06] And hiker told Gores to put on more clothing due to conditions. The hiker had to leave because of weather conditions. The first emergency calls came shortly after that interaction. Wind gusts reached the more than 35 miles an hour that was able in a wind chill around 20 degrees. And there was also periodic rain. So increasing conditions that got worse and worse. Now the hiker who called for the 911, uh, below the intersection, once again, gave them a sleeping bag, an emergency bacon blanket, a tarp and a tent.

[00:21:34] So almost full on coverage for this, for this guy. And they descended around 2 PM because of hypothermia risk. Another hiker came across Gores at 2 35 PM and wrapped them in additional sleeping bag. And they also had to descend because of hypothermia. Um, it was reported that Gores was alive as they got him to the helicopter, but was pronounced dead at the hospital when they brought him in.

[00:22:01] So it's still, uh, it, it didn't seem like it seemed maybe he was disoriented that he didn't, wasn't able to set up his tent, but I would think that an Appalachian trail hiker doing the through hike, uh, what would have their own tent doing that? Oh, he, he might've left all of his gear down low was just kind of like doing it as a day hike up and down. Right. Why did someone leave him a tent and say, here's a tent? Good luck. Yeah.

[00:22:30] Get me up position to do that. Yeah. The more advanced the hypothermia is a less cognitive functioning. They have this guy probably couldn't do anything to save himself. It's again, soaking wet too. Yeah. You know what he needed, Tim? What? He needed an app that told him what the weather was going to be on Katahdin that day. I don't know if only. Crash. Yeah. If only hikers weather was out at that time.

[00:22:57] Now, um, coming from a, a search and rescue, former search and rescue volunteer, this, uh, I've, a lot of people have been bashing the people for the two hikers that left him on the mountain. And, uh, you know, to be honest, I, I find that like, like false because number one, if you're up there and you're trying to save this guy and you're becoming part of, uh, you're now becoming part of the rescue because you're getting hypothermia.

[00:23:26] And then you also might, uh, become a fatality up there as well because you're trying to save this guy, but you, he has all the stuff cause you're trying to get him warm, but you're not prepared because you gave all him, all your stuff that you had on the mountain. And now once again, you're becoming part of the rescue. So that's two people they got to hoist out. So one person, once again, is easier to rescue than two, especially on Katahdin, because as

[00:23:52] we, we all know, knowing Katahdin and stuff and other reports and stuff that Katahdin is severely crazily weathered and stuff, open summit almost all the way up and increasingly difficult sections of, of rock climbing and stuff. So as, as you look into it and you, you, you kind of like research more and more, you feel that, you know, these hikers are kind of these two guys that left the bird up there.

[00:24:22] Uh, now have this in their head. They had a mental game to play when they were up there. Should I try to save him or should I save myself? And now they're stuck with this in their head that he unfortunately passed away. And now they think that, could they think that I was a problem? I should have stayed up there with him and I should have tried to save him. You know, it's, it sucks. It's a huge mental game. That's what I was going through my head. It's just like, well, what do you do?

[00:24:52] Like if you're sitting there with him and he's mildly hypothermic, but you're on the edge of hypothermia, you're both going to screw each other, like in that situation. And you're both going to be both hypothermic. Like you can't save anybody else, but you can't even save yourself. So. Yeah. Well, what can they do besides keep them company? Exactly. You know what I mean? Like what else could they have done? Well, I, I was wondering if these folks were AT hikers and they had all their gear with,

[00:25:20] they would have cooking gear and why couldn't you make them some hot fluids, some tea, some coffee, something warm to put inside him, you know, to start trying to build up his core temperature again. So I, I would just want to believe that the reason that wasn't done is nobody had their, their full kit with them as they were going up. They were just going up with a lighter load, what they perceived to be the essentials for the day.

[00:25:44] And while they had stuff to leave this guy, um, what he really needed was like some dry base layers and some warm fluids. Yeah. And once again, uh, a lot of people don't understand how like once your core temperature goes down, how increasingly difficult it is to bring it back up to a temperature of where you can be, you can understand what's going on and you can actually like come coherent,

[00:26:14] uh, on the mountain because if Katahdin, once again, open summit. So now you get back up to your core temperature or somewhat near your core temperature, you can orientate yourself down the mountain with this person. But now also you have to keep your core temperature. Uh, you got to keep yourself dry. You got to keep yourself going or, you know, once again, you might become another problem down, down the road.

[00:26:41] And it doesn't, it doesn't take like five, 10 minutes, you know, to drink a hot tea and you're like, okay, you know, it's like an hour. Like we had, we had a drill one time. It was the best drill. The craziest drill that we had as we were off to get a person, uh, out in the woods. And all of a sudden, one of our star team members runs and jumps into a frozen lake. And we were just like, what the hell would you like?

[00:27:06] I ran after him and like tried to die for him to stop, but ran in, he dove in, jumped in. And we were all like, oh shit. Like now we got to, once again, it's like, you got to, everybody's got to think together, do a different thing. You know, we have a station of him getting dry, new clothes. We have a station of him getting some like warm fluids and stuff. And then we have a station of him for a fire to move over when he has his warm clothes and stuff. So it's not easy. It really isn't. You have warm fluids. Yeah.

[00:27:36] Yeah. That's why, you know, we, we can play this forward and winter is right around the corner. Yeah. This is why it's important when you go out on a real wintry day, bring a thermos with you, you know, have your warm fluids ready to go and use them because that's what, you know, keeping yourself warm from the inside your core. That's what's really important. Obviously it's important to stay dry and keep the wind off you.

[00:28:02] But once you do get wet and you start getting the chill, you know, stop its advancing by just drinking warm fluids. Yeah. So it's a sad thing for this guy. He certainly didn't set out expecting these types of problems. And it's sad that the people that came along were better equipped to help them. Who thinks in summer too, hypothermia, you know, it's not the first thing in your mind. Yeah, exactly. Even now when the Catskills, I see the temperatures are dipping into the low forties overnight.

[00:28:32] Yeah. I'll talk about that later. Yeah. So 42 degrees is kind of the cut point. That's when like the risk really, uh, starts. What temperature is that, Tim? All right. Like 42 degrees. Oh, really? Wow. We're getting there. A lot warmer than you think. Yeah. Really? Yeah. So unfortunate incident. Uh, once again, like kudos to these two for trying to help him.

[00:28:58] I mean, that's, that's a hell of a stuff to give up your gear and to make that decision. Like they're going to be stuck with that decision for the rest of their life that they should have helped this guy. They'll be saying that I should have, I should have helped, but you know what? To be honest, if he was already suffering and to bring them back up to temperature and stuff is really difficult. Well, you know, we heard from, uh, Slade had to do this on Wittenberg with that one guy who faked an ankle injury and stuff.

[00:29:26] And they kept him like six hours in a tent with warm fluids, new stuff, new gear, new apparel and stuff like that. And like, they had to stay outside with their, you know, crazy gear on to keep warm and stuff. So it's not easy. It really isn't like everybody needs to go through like a, a hypothermia training to see how difficult it is to get someone's core temperature, even from a couple degrees back up to their

[00:29:54] normal degrees to when they're back to a conscious state and they can understand, you know, you can ask them like, Ted, what's your name? And they're just like looking at you like dead eyes. Like you don't even know your name right now. That's a little crazy. So, once again, so, ah, everybody prepare for winter. It's, it's getting, it's getting out there. Well, I'll, I'll chat about it later. How chilly it was in the Catskills. So, ah, as we see on Katahdin, we don't have any open summits up here on the Catskills except

[00:30:24] for little Ashok and High Point. That's what I was saying. Ah, that's great. So, ah, ah, stay warm. All right. Speaking of staying warm, these people are monthly supporters, monthly sponsors. Keep me warm with their monthly support. So, I want to thank Chris Garibian, Eric Rosario, Scott Nichols, John Comiskey, Mikey S, Desert City Radio, Henry Burmeister. Thank you for Jeff Jotz, the guy who really doesn't listen to the show, David Oliver, Betsy

[00:30:53] A, Vanessa, and Jim C. And just about two hours ago, we have a new supporter that was called someone. They want to be named someone, but I will call them Dog Dune because that's their- Dog Dude? Dog Dune, that was their email address. So, thank you, Dog Dune, for supporting the show and everybody else. That's incredible. So, also, big shout out to the monthly supporters like Outdoor Chronicles Photography.

[00:31:23] Molly from Outdoor Chronicles Photography specializes in adventure elopement and adventure couple photography with the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains. She's an officiant for getting married to a licensed guide, but most importantly, she's a story maker. Molly won't just give you photos. She'll give you memories that will last forever. Don't hesitate to get a hold of Molly on all platforms. Looking forward to having Molly on in the future to talk about her photography business, how it's been.

[00:31:50] So, have you ever wanted to learn more about hiking or backpacking or even brush up on some of your old skills in the backcountry? Check out Trailbound Project, a hiking and backpacking school. Scott and Joe from the New Jersey Search and Rescue team have amazing background on Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness First Responder, and the Mountain Rescue Association. And they're there to teach you all the new skills of hiking and backpacking. They teach anything from First Aid, Map and Compass, and many other skills that could help you

[00:32:20] and others while in the trail. Check them out on their website and all social media platforms. They're always doing something every weekend. So, check them out. All right, guys. Who's drinking something? Who's got something to drink? They want to share. Oh, we're there already. Yeah, yeah. I flipped it up because, like, we'll talk about that. And then I'm flipping it up from now on. So, sorry. So. All right. Miss the cider? Oh. I know you're a cider, guys.

[00:32:50] Hudson North. What is that? Just an original, like, cider, right? Yeah, it's just the regular one. All right. All right. Ted, how about you? All right. I got to pull it out of the sock. And because I'm somewhat disabled still, it takes me a little time. So, bear with me. Bear with me. Hold on. I'm still getting there. Ready? You ready, Stosh? You ready? You ready?

[00:33:21] Perfection. Yeah, there you go. Oh, it sounded beautiful. My therapy's paying off. It is. It is. All right. Ready? Nice. You got to do that sip. Only you. That's like your trademark. It is. You should change your Instagram handle. Like the big slurp. The big slurp. Wait, do I have to open another one? I'm already too deep. Tim, that's the rule.

[00:33:49] I mean, if you cracked one too early, that's too bad. You got to crack it right near a microphone. All right. Or you got to call in for a rescue. It's one or the other. All right. All right. Oh, well. All right. It's the refill. Okay. Are you doing it? There you go. Nice. All right. So, Ted, what do you have, by the way? Sorry. Oh, God. I sound like a broken record because of the choices I had, I had to take this equilibrium

[00:34:19] MC squared coming in at an even 8.0. Whew. And yeah. I'm smart enough for that beer, man. What's that? I'm not smart enough for that beer. Right. Well, I'm going to say it's not cheap beer. That's for sure. This is like $5 a can beer. So, that's a hint for people that want to sponsor the show. But I got to say it's worth it. There's some other ones out there that are good with a different flavor profile.

[00:34:48] But for something you want to drink on its own without anything else accompanying it, this is a good brew. What do you got, Stosh? So, would you call that, would that be good for a Summit brew or no? I mean, 8.0 would kind of... What's not good for a Summit brew? Maybe that's the better list to work on. 8.0 will get you some good effects to come down the mountain.

[00:35:13] Yeah, it all depends what that first 500-foot drop is like or that first 200-foot drop. That's what you maybe want to calibrate the alcohol content by is, you know, are you walking down the fire trail off a slide mountain? Or are you bushwhacking down Sugarloaf to the north? That's a little scary. Yeah. Ropes could be required there. I say that could call.

[00:35:40] So, I am having an Orchard Hill, new one, Rosé, New York apples. This was in... I mean, it's only 6.9, so it's far behind. New Hampton, New York. Does anybody know where that is? Is that a... I do. Yeah. That's where Sean Iannucci lives. Oh, no way. Yeah, New Hampton. Yeah, that's orchard country. There's a few orchards out there. Soon's Orchard. It's one of the big ones over there. So, he's mowing their logs. Down in Orange County, just outside of Middletown.

[00:36:09] Just right off of Interstate 84. It's not bad. Yeah. There's a big gas-fired power plant they built down there a few years ago. Hey, at least it's not solar. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. All right. So, the big question, are you really outdoors? Of course. So, mention the podcast on one of your hikes through social media, and we'll chat about it on the show. Tag us by typing at ITL Catskill MTM Podcast.

[00:36:39] Apparently, Tim doesn't tag us on the show, so he doesn't care. So, we'll talk about his hike later. He doesn't post that much. Yeah, he did. You don't post as much as you used to, so I'm good with that. But you'll chat about that later on the show. So, we have Steve. Environmentally did balance rocks for one of his LP Niner Challenge. So, a lot of people were up there at the Anderodex. Everybody was up at the Anderodex. Except for Todd. T-Bold Outdoors was at Blackhead and Black Dome, and also completed his Lake George Twelster.

[00:37:08] Congratulations, Todd. Good on you, Todd. Yeah, definitely. Vicky at Hiker Goddess Adventures had some happy faces at Sand Point's Preserve, and also did Shunamunk Mountain with some amazing ladies. Did I say that correctly, Todd? I think it's more Shunamunk. Shunamunk. Yeah. Gotta roll the S and the C right into the H. Yeah, what was that, Tim? Shunamunk? Yeah, I don't know. Shunamunk. Shunamunk.

[00:37:35] Yeah, once again, we had this mountain challenge. You know how they had that challenge of people saying Schenectady and a bunch of those places, Skinny Atlas and stuff. We should do this with mountains in the Catskills and lower Hudson area because there's some... No, no. I think the Summit Ciders and Brews is a lot better than Mountain Pronunciations. Okay. All right. Leave the pronunciations to the nerds, the cool people, Summit Brews and Ciders.

[00:38:04] I agree. I'm just saying. All right. So, James John O'Boyle was out on his day seven doing the North Falls Placid Trail. Then he tagged us also in day eight and day nine. He did his whole tag with us. Oh, excuse me. You can read about his journey on the trek.com. The post will have the link in the show notes. So, check it out and looking to get James Future on the show to talk about his nine-day North Placid, North NPT Trail out there.

[00:38:34] So, that would be really cool to hear. Danielle, Witch in the Wilderness, was at Minnewasca State Park on a perfect day. Mike at Red Hand Adventure guides the 30 miles in the Adirondack Rail Trail ending with a cold beer at Charlie's Inn. Sounds like my type of day. Jim C. Did trail maintenance with the Catskill Trail Crew on his section of the Millbrook Ridge Trail and ended the day at Balsam Lake Fire Tower. So, congrats once again. Thank you to Jim C.

[00:39:02] On doing your trail maintenance up there, getting that trail. Because I got to admit, Millbrook Ridge is one of those difficult trails that a lot of people don't really want to do just because of the length that you have to maintain. He's got a lot to do. He doesn't have a lot to do, but if he maintains it, he's going to have a good time up there. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just a nice trail walk, that trail. Yeah. It's just getting up there is a pain. You can go from either way. Yeah.

[00:39:28] But if you're doing something like the Four Seasons or the Grid, it's a nice way to come into Balsam Lake Mountain. True. In that way. True. Breaks up the monotony of it all. Correct. Richie Nature Escapes was out with the SAR gang doing cowboy camping underneath a ledge. So, my buddies Ben and Nick, I believe. I didn't get to see much of Nick because I left SAR at that time. So, good to see those guys out and about.

[00:39:57] Jeff Chotz and Orla enjoyed the last day of summer chasing waterfalls and having ice cream while out in the Delaware water gap. Andy, a.k.a. Brownski, was up at the Finger Lakes doing Watkins Glen Gorge Trail. I admit, everybody has to do that. It's actually an amazing place. Mike, the Catskill Mountain Hiker, is working on his Downstate 28 and did Butterhill and Storm King.

[00:40:23] Rob at Rob Rock Photo and Maho did Sugarloaf and Plateau. Only four left for Rob for his 3500 patch. So, keep us up to date, Rob, on that. Nicholas Golden Money Cat did a barefoot hike with the 3500 club up Red Hill. Said it was weird but also fun. I read his post. He said he had some weird time on the, a great time on the moss and stuff like that.

[00:40:51] Felt good but everything else was just so odd and awkward. So, I could only imagine. I can't, I don't think I could ever do that. So, if you do sign up for one of these hikes with the 3500 club barefoot hike, are you allowed to bring your shoes with you in case you want to bail out? I guarantee you are. Yeah. It's your choice. What if, what if you're at the parking lot and everybody's getting ready for the hike

[00:41:17] and they make everyone put their shoes like in the hike leader's car? It's going to lock all everyone's shoes in there and you don't get your shoes back unless you finish the hike. Would you go or would you just hop in your car and get the fuck out of there? That's a very good question. It's fucking gone, man. Yeah. I'd be like, I'm not down for this. I'm sorry. Right? Yeah. I'll try it. I'll try it in flip-flops. It's an emergency. Yeah. I'll try it in flip-flops. They wouldn't, they wouldn't do that. I mean, it's once again, it's, it's.

[00:41:47] You never know. I mean, these, these barefooted people are pretty hardcore and they might be insulted if you were going to bring your shoes with you. Ken's a nice guy. Ken. He is, he is a nice guy, but. He knows. Hiking. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know either. Or an army ranger. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. He's tough. He's a tough guy. He doesn't call in for a rescue. He's like the rescue. Yeah. I'm surprised. Yeah. He is. He has his own rescue organization. Jesus.

[00:42:14] So let's, as we're moving on, Josh, AKA the headbanging high peaker did the devils in a day, 24 miles, 9,000 feet of gain and loss in 19 hours. Looking to reach out to Josh and see if he wants to come on the show and talk about devils in the day. That'd be pretty fun. So to see his experience. Once again, Shayna, AKA Shay315X did Pyramid, Gothics, and Armstrong with a gang for two people's special finish.

[00:42:43] Katie Henderson-Hikes was out with the gang on Gothics, Pyramid, and Armstrong to watch Catskill Mountain Blue fly by on the steep ascent. I shared that video and that was fantastic of everybody using the chain to get pulled up and then all of a sudden Scott's just like, screw this. I trust these granite areas and flew right by them. That's me. That's what I do as well.

[00:43:08] And as we get to the coolest people of the show, Scott, AKA Catskill Mountain Brew, tags Sawteeth with Danny and Joanne for number 44 on his 46 or less. Then checked out Newmark and then finishes 46 with the Catskill gang on Armstrong, I believe. Congrats, Scott, for your 46 finish. And then Joanne Beyond Blazes was also there and finished her 46ers as well.

[00:43:35] So big shout out to Scott and Joanne for doing your 46. It was an amazing journey and to watch. Yeah. Yeah. So much fun. Joanne's out hiking all the time. Yeah. Do you know, you know, I was thinking about this as I was hiking today and I was just like, when the hell does Scott or Joanne mow their lawns? Like, like do they have Scott or did they have Sean come over and mow them for them? That could be. Could be. He mows for hikers. That might be his new lawn service.

[00:44:05] He mows for it. Nice. You guys want to bag some peaks? I mow your lawn. Yeah. I, for the first time in my life, paid somebody to mow my lawn this summer. It was kind of weird. Because you couldn't, you had the zero turn. You couldn't do the turns. Yeah. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even pick up a leaf for a while, it seemed. But yeah. So for me, it's kind of like meditation is to go out there and do yard work type of stuff. Oh, yeah. I love it. Put on a podcast. Mm-hmm. Not RSL. Yeah.

[00:44:33] Or some good jams and, you know, go do your yard work. Yeah. I was going to stay in my deck this weekend. This is the first, like, two or three day stretch in a row without rain. Mm-hmm. But I'm going to be in Phoenicia. I was going to say hiking or stay in your deck. That's what I always, I'm like, responsibility as an adult or go hiking. So Tim, when you stay in your deck, what do you use, a roller, a brush, or something else? The brush is better.

[00:45:03] Yeah. The roller, I thought the roller would be better, and I was using it for a long time. Last time, but I was like, nope. The brush is just putting it on a lot better. Yeah. The roller just smears it around. Yeah. I was thinking of the sprayer, but I don't know. That might be a mess. Yeah. It depends what's underneath it. True. True. True. True. All right. That's enough deck talk. That's adult talk. Jesus. Yeah. That's right. How about we talk about previous hikes? Tim, what were you up to? I don't know.

[00:45:33] Well, I've been out with my daughters. My eight-year-old is finally doing some harder stuff. I got her on a twin recently. And we did Indian Head last time. Nice. So the harder stuff, like the hardest stuff. Yeah. No, she was a champ, man. She was, I was really proud of her because she's like kind of a little bit of a scaredy cat about a lot of things, but she was going full out on.

[00:46:03] Awesome. Twin. Twin. Nice. We went up from a Picoinach or Picoinach. Picoinach or Picoinach? Whatever you want to say. It depends if you've had your Summit cider yet or not. Yeah. Picoinach. Yeah. That's what it would be the cider. So Tim, does she hike with a backpack? No, I'm kind of the concierge so far. Okay.

[00:46:30] But yeah, actually we were in Dick's Sporting Goods the other day and I saw the perfect little colorful camelback for her that I might pick up. I think she'll like having it. Yeah. Kind of get some more into the groove. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I also recently did this, I was trying to find Cornell Falls and I kind of failed to find it. I had to bail out actually.

[00:46:58] So you have to drop down into Woodland Valley and then into Woodland Creek and take the creek up to its source basically. And it was a really frigging hot day and I'm not good in the heat. Like I, you know, there's not enough water in the world to replace the fluids I lose. So I had to bail and I started just heading up the ridge, which basically was directly after Cornell crack.

[00:47:26] And, uh, getting up that ridge was absolutely nasty. Some of the most like rock walls I've ever seen anywhere. Yeah. I've, I've been up that ridge. Oh my God. Fucking hundred times. It's, it's not the most alleged of the ridges out of Woodland Valley. I'll tell you that. But this one was let this one, this particular area was, was insane. I mean, I almost died a few times. Yeah. Jesus.

[00:47:53] When you say you were running low on fluids, what about you don't like get water out of Woodland Creek? Oh yeah. No, I did. I had, I mean, I had plenty of water, but I mean, I just keep losing it and I could drink all the water in the world and. You use electrolyte supplements? Oh yeah. Yeah. Definitely. No, I'm just, I'm just a sweaty bastard. And once, once I get to a certain point, I just keep sweating. Yeah.

[00:48:22] Well, it's good that you know that about yourself because some people, you know, don't have that connection with how their body is being depleted. And, you know, when you're reaching that threshold where it could be dangerous for you to continue. So. Exactly. I mean, the whole, the whole hike, I was very mindful. I was taking it. I was like, I'm going to take a really slow today. I'm going to take a lot of breaks. I mean, I found this one spot on Woodland Creek in the middle of nowhere that was so gorgeous and pristine, man. It was a real special spot.

[00:48:52] And I was just hanging out, getting my feet in the water and yeah, but I had to bail and get up and then I had to get up from Wittenberg all the way back down, which was. Yeah. Well, there's, there's quite a, there's quite a, a head wall around those three mountains at right, right at about 3,200 feet. Yeah.

[00:49:18] I mean, you can see that from, from giant legends and stuff like that, that those, those three mountains are not, uh, you're going to be their bitch after that sort of thing. I mean, Wittenberg, you can even see that profile coming driving and you're just like, Jesus, look at that thing. And, uh, Cornell is just the same as basically almost the same exact shape of Cornell's worse. I mean, Cornell, once you get up to those, that top part, if you ever, you know, I always

[00:49:46] say that people look at the, if you've ever not looked at Cornell from a, from Google maps, it's, it's a, it's a goddamn arrowhead. It's super cool. Yeah. It's got a crown. Yeah. It's, it's super cool. A lot of people don't know that because they just go up to the Cornell crack and that the flat spot. But if you've ever bushwhacked from either side, that is some bitchy sections going right up to the last part. Your last climb is, is it? There's a crime. Yeah.

[00:50:12] There's a reason why Danny Davis climbed Cornell 88 times. Yeah. And only a few of those were on trail. So. He's a beast. He's a beast. How's he doing in Alaska, by the way? Oh, he's retired. How could he not be doing great? He's retired. He lives, he lives on a bay at sea level and he's got like a 4,000 footer right in his backyard. And glaciers and everything. God damn. In like 2000 vert, he's over tree line. Yeah.

[00:50:42] Bald eagles flying around him, trying to catch him. Bears giving him high fives on the way up. Jesus. Yeah. He had a fantastic summer because he spent about three months going from Rosendale to Stewart, Alaska, living out of his car, a tent, pack rafting, you know, did the whole thing, did it upright. So. Sounds like the life. Yeah. So maybe if my shoulder's all together next year, he and I will get together out west and do something fun. Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

[00:51:12] Well, glad Tim. Once again, you knew your limits and stuff like that because, you know, you don't want to be another rescue, especially at your age. You'll be one of those statistics will be like here. This guy wasn't 20 to 24. Looks like we're going to have to happen to the rare list over here. He's more like the parent that went off trail to poop. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So many places to do that are on there. I mean, it's a little steep. So you hang out from the tree, but anyway, anyway, Tad, what were you up to?

[00:51:42] Oh, so I on, um, for me at least on Saturday, I did something was fairly interesting. I went over to Black Rock State Forest, which is north of, uh, Harriman State Park. Those parks that are contiguous to it because there's like a new park every five miles over there. But Black Rock State Forest is a pretty interesting place. It's run by a consortium of educational institutions.

[00:52:10] They do a bunch of studying over there, but I was last at Black Rock State Forest probably in 1996, 30 years ago. Wow. And, and two pals of mine and I used to go over there a couple of times a week after work. Uh, it was our training grounds for mountain bike racing, doing loops and intervals up

[00:52:35] and down continental and Hulse road and laps around the top and all that stuff. So I hadn't been there in 30 years and I never, ever hiked there before this weekend. So I thought it'd be a cool thing to do. Go over there. I did 10 miles, about 800 feet of vert. I did do predominantly, I'm going to say seven and a half of that was on the roads up there,

[00:53:03] you know, that are all gravel and whatnot. But I did a couple of miles off the roads on trails. And I realized when I was going up this one section that really needed like three points of contact to do it, that maybe that wasn't a good idea for the day to stay on trails, but it was fun. It was interesting. I enjoyed hiking over there. Different, very different crowd. God, I did post that one photo of that group of like 18 people on, on the road ahead of me.

[00:53:31] And it's kind of a weird thing to be like road walking in the woods and you come up on such a big group and then you have to pass them all. Like, so you're going through this group of people that some of them are, they've got their Bluetooth things going on and they're listening to music as you go by them and others are chit chatting and some are checking things out and others aren't. So it was very interesting in all of it.

[00:53:56] But one of the things that's interesting about that region is the rock is over a billion years old. It's some of the oldest rock in the state, has a lot of ore in it. There's a lot of mining activity or at least, you know, from over a hundred years ago, mining activity there. So you'll see remnants of that, that also partially explains why there's all those roads running through there.

[00:54:20] And I, over the course of the 10 miles, I probably came within a half a mile of the West Point area where the state military or the U S military academy is, and it's off limit. They've got a bunch of signs saying don't trespass because they blow up things over there, I guess. So it brings a whole, brings a whole new meaning to like getting shot at out in the woods when

[00:54:50] whoever's shooting at you is like, you know, a mile away or whatever, but whatever. It was fun. It was, it was reminiscent, uh, had a good time. Might go back there again. I might actually bring like one of my bikes over there when I'm ready to ride and start riding there again. Yeah. It's a nice place. Yeah. I have a question for you, Ted. Like you're, you talk about three points of contact because of your shoulder. Um, now why aren't you like going on to the easier parts of the Catskills?

[00:55:18] Like, uh, to, you know, like, like North South, like stuff like that. Are you like worried about like, well, you want the real, you want the real answer? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just curious. So here's the prima donna real answer. Why I have not gone back to the Catskills yet. There is no hike on my grid 2.0 list for the month of September that I can do right now. Okay.

[00:55:46] So, so I'm just hiking around here. I do have a couple coming up in October. So the real question is, will I be tempted to do those? Like, right. So if like a, well, and so one of the other things in the Catskills is I, I still can't carry a backpack. And so a substantial limiting factor has been that I just have this shoulder sling that a water bottle fits in, you know, three quarters of a liter. And that's been the limiting factor most recently on how far I hike.

[00:56:15] So, you know, maybe in October I can, I can graduate to like a kitty pack, like Tim's daughter would wear, you know, a little, little, you know, camelback, maybe I'll borrow hers if it's like pink and, and has a hello kitty on it. That might be my style. And I'll, I'll go over and do something, or maybe I'll hook up with you or somebody else, Dosh, and you can carry my gear. Absolutely. I'll just bring the camera and stroll along.

[00:56:41] But yeah, I mean, I don't want to do anything that's going to entail the likelihood of needing my arm. Yeah. Yeah. Stabilize myself. And then, you know, like, so one of the things this weekend was an issue for me is when I started is should I bring a jacket with me or not? Because I really didn't have, you know, anything to carry it with. And I did end up wearing my jacket at the beginning. And actually I brought along with me of all things, a camera bag that went over my shoulder,

[00:57:09] kind of like a purse for your camera, if you will. And that I got the water bottle in and the little jacket. So that's kind of going to be my thing for a while. But yeah, you might see me up on Balsam Lake Mountain or Hunter. That's on the list next month. I mean, there's a few easy ones. I think Slide is even on the list next month. And I might do some of it. All right. This Osprey, I hate to say it, but a fanny pack kind of thing. Oh, I'm not wearing a fanny pack. I'm never, you're never going to catch me in a fanny pack. It's not bad.

[00:57:39] It doesn't look like. No. I said, I did that in the presidentials and the, and I did it on Pemi Gossett. So really? Stas, you told me if you, if anybody ever saw me with a fanny pack, I'm off the podcast. It's a bitch in fanny pack. It's got like, you can put like two 20 ounce waters in it. It's got beers with the hydration tube. Really? Wow. Damn. Yeah. It sounds like military grade. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:58:09] No, it's, it's awesome little piece for like, if you're doing something, you know, pretty low key, you need to carry a few things. And I, you know, I totally forgot that about like the backpack and stuff. So that, that once again, that's why I asked, I was just like, oh, why isn't he going a little bit like for the, as, has it brought you any joy to come back to these, these mountains? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, back being back at the black rock forest was. It was immensely sentimental because that dates back to even before I met, I started riding

[00:58:38] there before I met my wife. So that kind of goes way back and cool. And into like my twenties, uh, hammering over there. And we used to ride over there back when not a lot of people went there in those days, but yeah, it's a pretty cool place. Cool. And, uh, it was a great back then. It was a great training ground. Like I said, we used to do hill intervals on anybody who knows that place, Hulse road and continental road were two of the roads that we would just ride, you know, relentlessly,

[00:59:08] you know, back to back and forth on those. Sweet. Now they might be closed now for hunt. I think since it's privately owned, they like completely closed. I think for hunting for time. Yeah. When, when it's a adult rifle gun season, they shut down. So I was lucky. I got it in, you know, early. It was fun. $5 to park. It's worth it. There's other places you can park and not pay, but it's a good, good organization to support.

[00:59:38] So I paid my five bucks and scientists. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They actually over there. So one of the things they do is they study how deer populations graze on and deplete the understory and forested areas. So you'll be walking along, you'll, you'll just be, the road goes along this eight or 10 foot high fence and it's kind of weird to see it. And then when you understand what they're doing, you're like, okay, I get it now.

[01:00:07] But at first I thought, I didn't know what they were, why they had them up. And I thought, are you telling me that like, they have this fence and a gate and a bunch of hunters go in there and then just kind of like corner the deer in the fenced in area and then slaughter them. That's what they're doing. Yeah. So that's one of the reasons I checked it out is I'm like, why would you have these huge fenced in areas? And then, you know, it wasn't for the purpose of the hunting. It was because they're ostensibly, they say they're studying how over the overpopulation

[01:00:36] of the deer are eating the, the young trees that would otherwise like young hemlock trees apparently are something that deer eat. And there's a hemlock population problem now in the country, in the Northeast in particular. So, all right, I'm not going to hog anything more with mine. Uh, Stosh, what did you hike? Cause you got like all this data here. Three different apps, three differences, three different people.

[01:01:05] Is this like the three personalities of Stosh? I do. I do. You know, first off, I want to say I went to an RV show. Oh, awesome. That was fantastic. That was fun. Well, the, the America's biggest RV show. So Jessica and I are checking out an RV to maybe get into within the next couple of years and to live out of. So, uh, stay tuned, stay tuned. So it'll be, it'll be outside the line. Yeah, yeah, it will be, it will be.

[01:01:32] I'll still broadcast from the inside the RV and we'll visit once in a while. So, um, today, uh, I, I seriously got back hours ago, uh, because once again, I'm, I'm now enjoying my sleeping time in. So getting out in the trail pretty late, I got out there pretty late. Uh, I did Wyndham high peak from big hollow because there are six viewpoints along that, that way to when you get the Wyndham high peak all the way to the end, there are six viewpoints

[01:02:02] that I'm just like, huh, wonder how these viewpoints are doing, you know, with the, you know, the current UMPs that are happening, that they're not keeping up with the, uh, the viewpoints that we have going on. So it was like, I'll check these out. I, uh, I started the day off and I was just like, you know what? I'm going to run three different apps to get three different data collections and see who's the most accurate.

[01:02:28] So I have my Garmin watch, my Phoenix eight, I believe it is that I used. I use this app that I've used ever since I started hiking called why Kai Loke, which is like why Kai Loke. It's not very popular. I don't know why I've used it, but I've used it ever since the beginning. And then I use Gaia. So, uh, safe to say, uh, in long, long, the, the, the more shorter version is that all six viewpoints are still there.

[01:02:56] So we have full on viewpoints of all there's Burt Knob, then there's one, two, three, four, five, uh, four unnamed one. And then there's like the iconic view at Wyndham High Peak that overlooks the Blackheads. Uh, all are there, all are well, very well conditioned, actually, you know, pretty good condition. This one, I, I didn't think right after Burt Knob, I didn't think I would find because I was like, wow, this is a weird spot. It's off trail, but it's marked on the map.

[01:03:24] So I, I kind of went past it and then I saw a little herd path going to it and it was actually pretty good overlook the Hudson Valley. Um, but every viewpoint on that, that truck, which is around eight miles is still there. So it's a beautiful hike. You know, once again, you start gaining up the Burt Knob, you go, you take a left on the escarpment, uh, you're, you're still going up Burt Knob and then you kind of got some good flat sections. But I got to admit those areas right off of Burt Knob and the other, I don't even know

[01:03:53] what that, that little knob is called after Burt Knob are really cool to look at. They're intimidating. They're steep as heck, like steep rock ledges and talus fields and stuff like that. I was intimidated. I was just like, if I was impressed on time, I was going to bushwhack up both of them instead of doing the trail. But I was, I was being pressed on time. So I was going to go up Wyndham High Peak, come back.

[01:04:17] And then when I hit that one little knob right north of, uh, of Burt Knob, I was going to bushwhack up that. I know Burt Knob is one of the hundred highest. So, but it's, it's really cool, beautiful trail. Like you could fly on that trail when coming down, going up whole nother story with me. Uh, but I met, uh, on, on my last, uh, the first viewpoint going on Wyndham High Peak coming from Big Hollow.

[01:04:44] I met John and Michelle who were chatting to me about, you know, their times hiking and stuff. And John, uh, like looks down and he's like, I know that voice from somewhere. Like, do I know you? And I'm just like, I don't think so. He's like, wait a minute. You're that, that podcast guy that does the, uh, the Catskills podcast. I'm like, yes, that's me. I'm like, that's, that's pretty cool. Um, to be honest, I was just like, oh shit. Somebody on a Tuesday knows who I am. Uh, like nobody likes hikes out here.

[01:05:13] So it was great to meet John and Michelle. We were talking about, uh, the Catskill viewpoints and stuff like that. And they've been hiking in the Catskills. They came from the Elm Ridge area. So, uh, they did really well. Uh, and then I went to the other viewpoint. That's just beyond the iconic viewpoint on Wyndham High Peak that overlooks the Northern part of the Hudson Valley going into like Thatcher Park and Albany, beautiful area. I could see Albany. I could see Vermont.

[01:05:40] I could see, apparently you can see Gore Mountain from there. Do you think, Ted? Like, are you the Gore Mountain's the ski area, right? Yeah. Well, according to my optometrist, I have really bad eyes. So I can't see the trail marker ahead of me. That's a problem. Yeah, it is kind of. I'm always hiking in the dark headlamp, no headlamp, but yeah, I don't know if you can see it or not. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of haze between Wyndham and Gore. So you, you did this as an out and back hike? Correct. Okay.

[01:06:11] Yeah. And I met two. At the end of Big Hollow Road? Yep. So I met also the last last thing. I met two guys, uh, they were at that, that iconic viewpoint on Wyndham High Peak, which is kind of growing in a little bit, you know, unless you're down a little bit further into the, the viewpoint, you, you don't really get a view of all the blackheads. You just get black dome and Thomas Cole or black, blackhead and black dome.

[01:06:36] And these two guys have been hiking in the Catskills from Orianta for over 40 years now. Um, this is like their initial day, the first day of, of, uh, of fall. They go out and they do a hike in the Catskills. They've been doing this for 40 years. So to chat with them about the viewpoints, about me researching this, he's like, oh yeah. He's like, there is just stuff that, you know, I can say that we have like, up on, I believe his first thing was black dome.

[01:07:04] He's just like on the summit, we used to be able to see the beautiful devil's path. And he's like, now he's like, the last time we were up there is like last year in the winter. We couldn't see anything. He's like, it's kind of disappointing. He's like this. He's like, this used to be open as heck. He's like, you used to be able to see everything. He's just like, now it's a little bit, you know, disappointing. The guy's just like, I'm a forever wild kind of guy. He's like, I love that. He's like, I love being in nature.

[01:07:31] He's like, but when you have those seldom viewpoints that kind of, once again, give you hope, he's like, you know, or give you kind of like an inspiration to get up to the top and hike back. He's like, that's where I'll draw the line and I'll support it. And I was just like, it was really cool to see that. So to hear that, to hear that, sorry. But, um, uh, Like the accurate point view too. Yeah. Yeah. That's iconic. That's similar to the, when I'm hiking. Yep. And the same with the, the burnt knob area.

[01:08:01] So it overlooks those three mountains and it was, it was fantastic. The leaves are just starting to change. I was, I was kind of like timing myself. I wanted to see, I got up, I got up to Wyndham high peak, uh, at two and a half hours. That was like stopping and then eating and stuff like that. And then I wanted to see how fast I could get down from, from one Wyndham high peak down the big hollow. So I was like, I think I call it yawging or was it jogging?

[01:08:31] Yawging. I believe it was. Yeah. It's a soft J, but I was yawging down these areas and they're, they're nice to do. So, because there's, you know, there's not many rocks and stuff like that. So what, but once I got in the flat areas and the uppity up, I would just walk. I had no, like no inspiration to move on whatsoever. So you're not doing the escarpment run. Not at all. Okay. Dude, this was, this was this. I loved it.

[01:08:59] I had a great time getting up to the top and doing maybe like, like up, like half, like not even halfway down, but like, I was just like, God damn, I still got another three miles to fricking go like shit. Like, it's not even that much up either. You know, it was once again, on my three apps. So I wrote this all down. It was, it was pretty fun because I'm just like, you know, which ones could, could be accurate. They're all off.

[01:09:25] So the Garmin watch, which I think is the most accurate was 7.9 miles with 2,100 feet of gain. Waikai Loke was 8.62 miles with 1,800 feet of gain. And then Gaia was 7.6 miles with 1,700 feet of gain. So I don't know which one to trust. When I was coming down, I really didn't give a shit because I knew I had a long distance to go and I just did not look at anything whatsoever.

[01:09:52] I was just kind of, once again, it sucks on Tuesdays because it's my day off. So I want to rest, but I'm also like, I want to get the fuck out and do something nice. But then I'm pressed on time because I got, I got to come back here and I want to do this. So like, once again, it's my joy. I love hiking, but I love doing the podcast. So like, I got to get up early to do a really good hike. Like today would have been a great hike to do kind of like the Burroughs range.

[01:10:20] Like that would have been epic as heck. But today I did the Wyndham High Peak. All six viewpoints are there. I have a picture of that. I posted a little bit of black dome being in the clouds. It makes it look like a volcano, which is pretty freaking cool. But other than that, great hike, fantastic hike. I don't know which one to trust on mileage and gain. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:10:46] Well, maybe you have to compare all that against like a Cal Topo map. See where that comes in. I have to, I have to do that. My other option, I was going to do Arizona and black dome from Dutch or hollow and see those two viewpoints over there. But I think that one's intact.

[01:11:05] And I, and I, I think I was, I think that's less miles, but more gain because you start from the Ascarpon area all the way up to black dome, which is prep blackhead, which is pretty insane amount of gain. So, but anyway, it was fantastic. Beautiful colors are starting to show up, up here in the Catskills and even more in the Northern Catskills when I was driving through.

[01:11:29] And the temperatures, like I started off with my sun shirt and a t-shirt on, but I knew I would start sweating. So I took my sun shirt off and I had the t-shirt on when I got up to Wyndham High Peak and I settled down and ate. Like it started to get chilly. Like my fingers were starting to get cold. I threw on my summit sweater. And then I knew once again, as I started to send, I would start sweating again. And I took that off, but I was still like, my fingers were cold for a long time. So it's getting chilly out there, people. Yeah.

[01:11:59] Well, you're four to six weeks away from needing your winter gear. Correct. I had shorts on and a t-shirt. Yeah. Yeah. But presumably in your pack, you had, you know, a pair of pole on or zip on pants, you know, and other gear. No, no. Really? I was, I was, I was unprepared with this hike. I didn't even have any rain gear. So, yeah.

[01:12:22] So if it, if you twisted your ankle out there and you twisted your ankle, cause you were exploring one of these ledges and as you're doing it, you're trying to take a photo. So to send to Tim Luby and you, you, uh, you dropped your phone when you fell and twisted your ankle and it was out of reach. You could be out there right now. Right. You could still be out there. You have no pants to put on. You could be like that guy on Katahdin, but you don't have two people walking by cause it's a Tuesday night.

[01:12:51] I did not see one person going from big hollow to Wyndham high peak. Yeah. And then I saw six people on the summit of Wyndham high peak. Who would come up from the other direction. Yep. Presumably. Yeah. So I would have been screwed. And I was thinking about that the whole time. I was just like, damn, I didn't bring my rain gear. And like my Hallie Hansen, I didn't bring my Hallie Hansen. I was, I was like, oh man, I would, I would die.

[01:13:19] So there, there, there would have been no recording tonight. The podcast would have come just to an abrupt end. You would have taken over. Nah, fuck that. I would have like started my own thing. Bigger, better would have been like, you know, one shoulder hiking, like a new thing. Yeah. So I would just been on zoom. Just like, where are they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tim would have been sitting there. It's just like, well, keep drinking until they get on. Walmart would have gone out of business. The world would have come to an end. Jesus.

[01:13:49] Oh, well, that's how close we were to disaster. Yeah. Correct. I'm, I'm, I'm correct. Next time. Bring your fucking pants. Bring your fucking pants next time. And the summit brew. I didn't do a summit brew. That would have kept me wrong. See, I mean. Damn. Ridiculous. Why can we date it this far? No pants, no summit brew. Got all this mixed up data on your watch. Yeah. Devices. It's crazy. So. Okay. Everybody get out this weekend. Yeah. Get out this weekend. The colors are starting to change.

[01:14:18] Uh, and I think we're, I would say a week, a week and a half away from peak, depending on how the temperatures range, but, uh, there's some changing happening. So it's cool school. So I'll have a video. Hopefully I'll have the video done, uh, of my six visits to the viewpoints and such today to show everybody that's doing, but let's move on. Catskill news. Definitely volunteer. 3,500 club. They're looking to install boot stations, brush off boot stations at different trailheads.

[01:14:47] So get ahold of them. Catskill trail crew, Catskill mountains clubs, visitor center, Jolly rovers, trail crew, gambling mountain fire tower. And if you need stickers, send me a private message and I will send them to you for free or stop in at camp Catskill. They have some there. So let's break it into the inaccurate weather forecast. Here is your weekend weather forecast.

[01:15:15] Inside the line is not held responsible for any subject and change of the weather. With that being said, there is a coastal storm lingering off the Atlantic for this weekend. So be prepared for crazy changes in the weather on Friday, September 25th. Looks to be a great day to be out. Morning temperatures will be in the upper 40s to low 50s in the valleys with the summit around the upper 30s and low 40s. Looks like it's time to bring that extra gear for colder weather.

[01:15:42] Expect a mix of cloud and sun, light winds, and a little chance of rain. By afternoon, valleys will reach in the mid 60s while the stomachs stay in the mid 50s to around 60 degrees. On Saturday, September 26th, starts out cool with valley temperatures around 50 degrees and the summit's in the low 40s. Skies will become increasingly cloudy with rain and drizzle possible during the afternoon. Valley temperatures should reach the low 60s while the summits stay in the mid to low 50s.

[01:16:12] Winds will be light to moderate. And once again, the coastal storm might make a big impact on Saturday. On Sunday looks to be the wettest day of the weekend with morning temperatures around 50 in the valleys and the low 40s in the summits. Expect mostly cloudy skies with passing showers along with light, breezy conditions. Afternoon temperatures only reach the mid 50s in the valleys and the upper to low 40s in the higher peaks. Definitely bring the rain gear because Sunday is an unpredictable day. We are watching the storm.

[01:16:43] With that being said, don't forget to be safe, be prepared, and don't become tomorrow's rescue story. Back to you guys. Thank you for that inaccurate weather forecast. Hopefully everybody survives and packs more than I did on Wyndham High Peak. Shame, shame. Ted's just like, what a loser. Yeah. And you were with search and rescue. I know. Gary.

[01:17:12] I thought you brought the litter. No, I thought you brought the litter. Oh, God. We'll just leave them here. Jesus Christ. All right. So, last set of sponsors, and we'll get on to Tim. So, is it time for some new gear for hiking in the Catskills? Say no more. Camp Catskills in Tannersville has all your hiking needs. Footwear socks, moisture wicking shirts, freeze-dried meals, Catskill merchandise, and more. They have all the essentials for your hiking needs. Located in Tannersville and online, check out Camp Catskills.

[01:17:41] If you want free stickers, stop there. Also, check out another summit, a non-profit program that leads outdoor adventures activities for veterans and first responders for free. Outdoor adventures like walking, hiking, paddling, and even backpacking. We welcome guardians of all ages and ability levels, including those with accessibility needs. Our adventures are located throughout New York and the Northeast,

[01:18:07] and we organize transit-accessible adventures through the Hudson Valley and the New York City area. Apply today on anotherSummit.org. All right. So, let's get on to the guests of the night. Let's go! So, tonight, Tim Luby joins us from the Hiker Weather App, new app that's come out for hikers only, to give out these information of when you're hiking in the Catskills, New Hampshire, Adirondacks, wherever,

[01:18:36] to talk about what you're going to be battling against in the day of the weather that you're going to be battling against. So, it's great to have you on, Tim, once again, the second time, man. That's cool. Good to have you back on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Good to be here. Yeah. It's good to have you on. And once again, good to hear about a new app for hikers weather because, you know, once again, there's very limited on your hiking weather sources that you have.

[01:19:04] I've only used mountain weather forecasts, and to be honest, it's been pretty inaccurate. Like, 35 mile per hour wind gusts, and I have nothing up on Panther Mountain. Like, it's just, I don't feel shit on Panther Mountain. Like, five miles per hour down in the call, but that's about it. So, good to have you on, and good to talk about this. You know, this is, once again, probably took a lot of work to do,

[01:19:31] just like the Catskill Trail Conditions plates that you did before, and your hike intel as well. So, we'll talk about that, but let's first get a little background about yourself. You can go all out and talk about, you know, back then, and then as you are now. Oh, well, you know, man. So, I don't know, just been hiking the Catskills for a real long time, coming up for like 20 plus years. And I think I first met you when I owned the hiking store in Phoenicia.

[01:20:00] Oh, my God, dude. Holy shit. Yeah. What was it called again? Storehouse. Storehouse. That was down right in Phoenicia. Oh, man, I remember that. Yeah. So, I had met you there and got the trail conditions going around, I don't know if it was 2015 or 2016. We said the 10-year anniversary of that. The guy told you the story of how I came up with the trail conditions for him before.

[01:20:29] You can tell it again. Come on. Yeah. Well, I was in Phoenicia, and I think it was like mid to late fall, and it looked like a gorgeous day, perfect day. And I was like, I'm going to go to Balsam Lake Mountain today, and I'm sure it's going to be perfectly lovely there just like this. I start going up the road towards the trailhead, and it starts like a mild blizzard, basically.

[01:20:58] And get to the trailhead. I mean, I'm prepared for a trail run, basically. I'm in shorts and a T-shirt and trail running shoes, and I'm like, fuck it. I'm just going to do it. And I start my run, and the snow accumulated extremely rapidly. And I don't know if you've been over there when it's been snowing, but there's some serious drifts over there. Yeah. Like it really drifts.

[01:21:24] And on my way back down, like my tracks were completely covered. It wasn't a fun day, and I was just like extremely surprised, you know, that there's this microclimate over there. It was just such a different story in the Phoenicia. So that kind of got me to thinking, like, we need a way for people to know what's going on in different parts of the Catskills. And that's where the group was born. Nice.

[01:21:52] I've been there since day one, so it's good to be there since day one. And that's a great story. That's a phenomenal way to start it up because we know, like, once again, somebody who's coming from the New York City area will look at the Catskills on a different side and notice that, once again, Balsam Lake does have some crazy weather, as we're looking in the Graham and Double Top kind of era, that it just has the crazy drifts, crazy snow.

[01:22:21] And who knows what happened above, like you said, 3,200 feet and stuff like that. Ice and going on. And a lot of people will be like, ah, this is good. It's 55 degrees down in Woodstock. I'm fine with no spikes or anything. You can get going up above there. You'll need some freaking spikes. So that's it. Kudos to you for starting that. That's a 10-year anniversary. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks, man. No, it's a community thing. I never thought of the page as mine at all.

[01:22:51] I thought of it as, like, something that belongs to the community always. Nice. So. Yeah. And how many people are we at? Catskill. Hold on. I'm going to. How many people are we at? I think it was around 27,000 last I checked. Wow. No shit. I mean, that's more than we have finishers. We have 4,000 Catskill 35. 20,000. 27,800. We don't have any. We have 4,900 finishers.

[01:23:21] So really excited. Yeah. Right. Like we got to start. People got to start kipping it up then. I think there was only that in 2020 alone. It felt like that. It felt like that. So that's, that's awesome. Like, I got to admit this, that this is kind of like, it's, it's helped out. Do you think, uh, that it's helped out that it's, it's made a big impact on the Catskills? I think so. I say that with humility. Definitely.

[01:23:49] I think it's the way a lot of, a lot of people go to it to plan. They ask ahead. And I think that's an awesome thing that people want to be prepared. They want to know. Well, you dude. Yes. Bring your spikes. Yes. Bring your snowshoes. Yeah. You're just like, but yeah, after a certain point, you should bring your, your, uh, spikes at all times. Yeah. Well, I mean, definitely always have them in there. They weigh like a couple ounces. Yeah.

[01:24:17] It's, I mean, we're getting close to that point of where you should be carrying them 24 seven where you never know. Well, suppose it's nice just to know what trails have been broken out and what ones, no one's reporting anything on. Cause in the winter, that's the difference between you averaging two miles an hour and you averaging point something an hour. Right. Right. Definitely. Ted's not even on Facebook.

[01:24:46] He doesn't know about your conditions. He goes in full on blind. I like, I like going out totally unprepared. That's my motto. The lesson. Tell I have to just carry. No, I can't even carry a backpack. Not anymore. But you used to, Ted, you used to, you used to do this pretty well. But now, now I'm going to do a full round of the 35 without a backpack. Without, uh, any cracking, without shoes, without nothing.

[01:25:15] I'm going to go totally naked. Well, that you've already seen that. Why not? I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to blame it on this beer. I just got done drinking the 8.0, but all right, let's move along. So. Ted, you got, you got anything to talk about the trail conditions page? Yeah. I want to hear about, uh, yeah, I don't really check out the trail conditions. Um, myself. I used to, in the old days, I used to go by Instagram and what, you know, people's photos

[01:25:43] showed me relative to the trail conditions. And I would imagine on the Facebook page that the, the photos that people post tell a thousand words. So, but what I want to hear about is let's talk about, uh, Tim's hiker Intel project, what that was about and what happened to it before we get into the new weather app. Ah, okay. So yeah, so that was basically supposed to serve a pretty similar function to the trail

[01:26:13] conditions group on Facebook, which is probably why it failed. I was like my own competition in a sense. So, so with that app, um, people were able to drop a pin on the map, like in the exact location of whatever they observed. And that pin was an icon that had like a, you know, like I had a little like water icon for like reporting water on the trail or mud or whatever. I had like an animal sighting.

[01:26:43] There was a bear paw. So you can report a variety of kind of things on the trail. And that was kind of what was cool about it is that you could see exactly on the map where someone saw this particular thing. Like this is the spot where the ice begins, you know, and then you could tap the icon and people could put in more details and add photos too. And how, how long was that app being distributed and supported?

[01:27:12] Ah, not, not for that long. So it's, it may have been a year or less. I'm trying to remember, I was trying to put it all together again today, but yeah, I mean, these kinds of things take a while to build up. You have to be patient, especially when you're depending on other people's reporting, you know? Yeah. Right. I just had like value from the start. So I didn't have that. And unfortunately my partner kind of quit on me. He's kind of a pussy.

[01:27:43] And he called, he called in for a rescue. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So like, he didn't have like the, you know, you need to have perseverance when you do something like this. And he just quit. I had actually kind of had, so I could kind of get into where hikers weather came in. I, you know, I saw that the uptake was slow, so I want to do something about it. And my plan was first of all, to get us onto Android because we're only on iPhone at first.

[01:28:12] So that was an extremely limiting factor because you need as many people as possible on there to contribute. This was with, I can tell. Yeah. Okay. Okay. This was my plan. So I was going to get on Android and also, um, I had been listening to a podcast about Kevin Systrom, who was the founder of Instagram. And he was talking about what he called single player mode.

[01:28:40] He said that Instagram was successful at the beginning because actually you didn't need to share because you had all your little, um, filters to play with. So it was kind of entertaining in and of itself. And out of that, the social eventually grew. So I was like, shit. All right. Now I need to have something with this app that there's value from the start. And I thought, how about weather?

[01:29:07] So, so I came back to my, uh, my co-founder with hike and tell. I was like, all right, so here we go. We're going to do the Android. We're going to have weather as part of it. Let's fucking go. And, uh, a few weeks later, he just quit. He didn't want to kind of keep going, which is annoying because when you're, you're invested to a certain degree, you don't just stop. You know what I mean? Like you got to go all the fucking way. Yeah. He didn't want to.

[01:29:36] And also around the same time, my, my, uh, partner quit. I, uh, my wife wanted a divorce. So, and this is a big part of my story. That's the only reason I mentioned it is because to me, my, my partner quitting and, you know, a looming divorce together, like I still decide to go forward and say, fuck everything. I'm going to like start this thing.

[01:30:03] So I like just got to it with hiker's weather. And I feel like that's the story to me about the app really is like my whole fucking like life. Nah. I don't know. That's why I want people to get out of this more than anything. Like when shit hits the fan in life, like just keep moving, find something you're passionate about and like, don't stop.

[01:30:30] Don't get like mired in the bad things that happen. Hell yeah. Yeah. When I'm, when I'm in those situations and I kind of was in one this year with the shoulder thing, I say build a bridge and get over it. Right. You know, a lot of people just get hung up on the shore and they never get to the other side. And most often it's up to you build that bridge, move on. Right.

[01:30:56] And, uh, life is in the end, you'll say your life is short, whether you live to be 30 or, you know, 90. So keep moving forward. So, but one of the things that we all deal with in life is the weather. And so you, you, your partner pulls out of the hiker Intel. You, I guess you wanted to make a more integrated park part of hiker Intel was the weather. And so you have a brief period of time where you're kind of on the rocks and you start to

[01:31:26] go forward with hiker weather. When was that? When was it you retooled to get hiker weather going? Uh, so it was like 2022. And, uh, so yeah, so basically my partner said, so we, so we like, is it four years? It was, it's been in the making for four years now, hiker weather. Yeah. Wow. That's tough. Almost five years. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's a lot of like work and stuff like that. A lot of confidence.

[01:31:53] And like, usually people just throw it out and be like, let's, let's go with it. And that's five. Yeah. That's. Yeah. I mean, there were some fits and starts. Sometimes I had some, you know, not some tons of setbacks, lots of like false alarms and stuff. I actually had a point where there was this weather company, um, that was going to possibly work with me and fund the app. And that was exciting. I was like, wow. All right.

[01:32:19] So I'm going to be able to like get this thing made without any funding possibly. And that fell through. Like, I know this one, this woman who worked, I work in advertising and this, this, uh, woman I used to work with, worked with her father's weather company. So we saw each other on LinkedIn and that was going to be a possibility, but then that wasn't. So, you know, I had points where I kind of wasn't working on it fully for a while.

[01:32:48] And then got back to it. So it wasn't just like straight work for four and a half years. There was a little, little pauses, but it was always on my mind the entire time. So I, I gather that you're not a app programmer by trade. No. So do you, do you do any of the app programming yourself or do you have to contract that workout? No, I have to contract that workout. And that was a big part of my journey to more of my mishaps.

[01:33:17] So I, my, my first idea was to, uh, get interns to do it. Like there are a lot of, you know, college, college students, like masters students who want experience or need it actually for part of the curriculum. So I had a bunch of interns working at one point I had like seven or eight of them, but like, it's kind of a disaster, man. And they made it some of the way, but then like, fine.

[01:33:46] I was like, all right, I'm just going to really have to get someone who knows what the hell they're doing, a professional and I have to pay them basically. So, and this guy's been. He had a return to, he had a return to ground zero with not, not ground zero, but the, the, the professional who came in definitely had to, what they call refactoring the code had to fix a lot, a lot of things, you know, so it wasn't.

[01:34:15] How do you find such a guy or gal? Ah, is it word of mouth? Is it somebody you searched on the internet? How did that come about? Yeah. I looked all over LinkedIn and, uh, I don't know. So I, I heard that like Mexico has a lot of good, like offshoring, um, developers. So I was searching there, but their prices were still a little high. So then I randomly tried Ecuador.

[01:34:44] My, my ex-girlfriend is from Ecuador and that's kind of what the hell I'll search developers Ecuador and I was on LinkedIn and I messaged tons of people. And I found this one guy, uh, Davis is his name of all names. And he's absolutely incredible. And I love this guy. Nice. Davis from Ecuador. Oriana is his last name. Okay. Good. That makes sense. Yeah. Dobby's probably.

[01:35:14] And so that's a problem solver. He's amazing. He's helped me so much. I love him. So how long have you and Dave has been working together on this? Probably about a year. Okay. And what did you learn from your hiker Intel project that you were able to carry forward and, and roll into this, the, the do's and don'ts that you took away from hiker Intel? Oh, trying to think.

[01:35:41] I mean, I just the basics of the process of, of making an app, I guess, you know, I had learned the basics then, but this app is infinitely more complicated, but I think I knew enough about kind of a development logic and principles that I wasn't a total idiot when I was talking with Davis. So I kind of understood, you know, you have to understand limitations.

[01:36:10] First of all, you know, that's where you start. Like what, what can't you do? Yeah. It's actually really important, believe it or not. And were you, were you able to develop simultaneously the Apple and Android apps this time around? Yes. So this time we used a platform called Flutter, which is where you can do them both at the same time. And that was non-negotiable. And yes, that was probably one of the biggest things I learned.

[01:36:41] Flutter and those kind of cross platform platforms were not that robust in 2020, but now they're pretty, pretty strong. So that's the way to go. And speaking in terms of what was around in 2020 and what is prevalent now, to what extent have you drawn on AI to help you design and program the app?

[01:37:09] None for those actually. The design, actually I had a, I had a designer do the whole thing. I actually came up with like the original framework. They're called wireframes at first when you have like your kind of skeleton, what like each screen will look like. And I was able to do that in, I think I may have done it in like PowerPoint or something. I don't know. But I was able to kind of move boxes around to kind of show, this is where we're going to show humidity. This is where this goes.

[01:37:39] And from this screen, we're going to go with this screen and kind of framing everything out. So I was able to do that and then give that to a designer to bring it to life and add their creativity too. Awesome. And even my, and my developer too, he doesn't, I kind of wanted him to use AI a little bit to like make it go faster, but he, he didn't want code snippets or anything. He wanted to, he just wanted like my, my logic.

[01:38:08] Like if you tap this, you're going here. He didn't want like little bits of a JavaScript, you know, which I kind of appreciate actually. No, but I will, I did use AI for a lot of like my weather system though. And developing custom basics of it. I got raw data from Noah, all of, all of my data from there, but you, you can't just display raw data.

[01:38:37] You have to like pick different variables, different ratios and all these, my dog's being annoying. And all these, I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot that goes into it with these formulas. And, uh, I definitely tapped into AI to, to, to fine tune like a lot of my weather system. And I know there are a lot of people going to crucify me out there for being evil AI. Fucking not, sorry. I'd say once in a while, once in a while.

[01:39:07] So now when was this, uh, when was hikers weather officially launched? We only had a couple of days, right? Yeah. On, uh, on Friday. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So now it's, it's Tuesday. So we're on like four days and stuff. And have you seen a positive like download kind of like numbers? Yeah. I'd say, I'd say fair so far, but I really, really the extent of what I've done is, you

[01:39:35] know, just to post in the cat skills and Adirondack trail conditions groups. Um, I'm not looking for like explosive growth from the start. That's not really my goal. I, I want to find the people who really love the app first. That's, that's all I care about. I want it to be in those people's hands and people really enjoy using it and for them to give me feedback and little by little, I'm going to, I'm going to post in some more groups this week.

[01:40:03] I've reached out to a lot of publications and, and I'm reaching out to people. Like on a, a person by person basis too. So I'm kind of taking it a little slow. With, with this, uh, with your, your launch and stuff, how confident were you with, uh, you had to be a little with weather. You got to be extremely confident with your app to show accuracy and stuff. How was the testing and stuff like with that? Who would you reach out for testing and stuff?

[01:40:33] For, for, well, I'll tell you about the most important testing of all actually, which was, uh, against Mount Washington observatory, which, so I told you, I was tinkering with all my wind variables and visibility and everything. Like I had to really work extremely hard to, to tune those things. And the way I would do it is comparing my data and my outputs against the Mount Washington

[01:41:01] observatory because I, I want to have like a ground source of truth, not a fork. I don't want to compare versus a forecast. I want to compare versus this is the weather right now. So Mount Washington observatory is a bad-ass. Yeah. They use, they use people at the fricking top for that. Yeah. No, they have an incredible group of scientists there and the data is top notch.

[01:41:28] So, you know, I would, if I saw my, my data was a match in theirs, I would tinker around and try to match it as closely as possible. And, uh, really wind and visibility were the two variables that I had to work the hardest on that were the most just unpredictable and difficult, man. Yeah. Because temperature, temperature is pretty easy, you know, stuff like that's not so bad, but

[01:41:57] wind, wind is so unpredictable and it's, there's so many factors. It's, it's bouncing off of rocks on its way up the mountain and, and, uh, visibility, forget it fog. Basically fog is what I'm, I'm looking for. And I had to work really hard on that and actually not too far from launch in the summertime,

[01:42:22] all of a sudden my visibility was like tanking and I was, I was freaking out, man. Cause visibility was basically based mostly on humidity. You know, when you reach a saturation at the summit, you know, 99, a hundred percent humidity that tells you like the summit's going to be fogged in basically.

[01:42:46] But for some reason in summer, humidity was just failing me hard. It was absolutely tanking. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? I'm yelling at my developer. I'm like, do we, are we getting the data the right way? Do we have a, a lapse with the data because we're saying 50% humidity and Mount Washington is saying 95 or 98. I'm like, what the hell is going on?

[01:43:12] And I come to find out in summer, there's a little bit of a different pattern where the moisture is a little bit more concentrated. Whereas in the winter time, it's more diffuse and spread out. And the way that Noah captures weather data is through things called grids where it's literally grids on like a map. And, and, and, uh, one point in that is, is picked and they extrapolate the rest of the

[01:43:40] weather based on that one data point, which could be at a different elevation too. There are a lot of factors. So it's picking this point way over here. Maybe that's away from the concentrated humidity. So I had to come up with a solution and I luckily I was able to get my visibility back up using something called lifting condensation rate. Wow.

[01:44:08] Kind of predicts like how condensation is working its way up the mountain. And, uh, that was a save because I also look at the webcams on the, on the, on a Mount Washington. That was very important to me too. Like, is it fogged in or is it clear? You could see that clear as day. And my app was saying clear and it was fucking complete darkness. Wow. So I was like crying, man.

[01:44:38] I was like, I can't believe I'm so close to this and I'm having a catastrophic, like I can't, I can't tell people it's clear when it's 0.1 miles of visibility. So, so Tim, what I'm, what I'm hearing here is you were working from raw data and then making a meteorological assessment, if you will, how that data would translate over time to certain

[01:45:04] ambient and visibility and other weather type conditions. Couldn't you just buy that analysis from somebody else? Couldn't you go to something like, you know, mountain summit forecast and say, Hey, you know, I want to tap into your system, appropriate your data for some, you know, have a licensing agreement with them. Was that a possibility that you considered or. Not really. I don't, I don't, I don't really think they do that.

[01:45:31] There was one source where you could buy their weather data, but they, yeah, I don't think they really do anything like that. I don't, I really don't think any, I mean, open snow and mountain forecast don't do anything with fog at all. Okay. Yeah, that's true. Actually. And now that you say that you like kind of monitored Mount Washington and stuff like that and area around there, this shows that you can use this app anywhere. Correct.

[01:46:00] Like where are you limited to where you can use this or no? No, no. Any. Wow. Any location. Basically you get the coordinates. As long as you have the coordinates and elevation, you know, you could get a forecast for anywhere. So that's. Wow. When I open up the app and I want to know what it's going to be doing on a slide mountain summit in Ulster County tomorrow morning, I type in the coordinates for slide mountain

[01:46:29] or can I type in slide mountain, Ulster County? How do I go to slide mountain? Yeah. Yeah. Just slide mountain. I'm sorry. I'm talking about on the backend for me to send to that. Yeah. So let's, so we'll talk about the user experience you on the backside. You're working from raw data. You have these formulas and from those formulas, you're trying to give somebody a forecast in terms of what they'll see tomorrow. How far out in advance do you do the forecast? 72 hours or something longer? Seven days.

[01:46:59] Seven days. Okay. But I, with the mountains, you can't be looking more. You got to look the day before, two days before. Yeah. You can get like some basic idea, but I really strongly am like 24 hours is like what matters. Yeah. As far as I'm concerned. And in the morning of, right? Absolutely. Don't go by the weather the night before. So it's the morning of and I want to get the slide mountain forecast.

[01:47:29] What type of stuff are you going to provide on the app for me? What is, what Intel is it going to give me the hiker on the front side? Okay. So one thing that differentiates this app is that first of all, when you enter the app, you share your weather preferences. Like the, the coldest weather you'll hike in, the hottest weather, how much rain, how much snow, did I say experience, your experience level.

[01:47:57] And, uh, the, the highest level of risk you'll take as far as precipitation probability, which is a subtle thing because a lot of times you'll see a rain icon on a forecast and right away you're like, ah, shit, now I can't go that day. But then you look closer and you see 20% chance of rain. And it's like, oh shit, I'm going. So that kind of factors into things too.

[01:48:26] So you share all this information about your preferences and experience level. And then the app will say current weather is good for hiking. This time is good for hiking. So it rates the weather with, uh, with color codes, green, yellow, and red to tell you, according to your, your, uh, preferences, whether it's a good day to hike or not. And are those color codes overlaid on a map?

[01:48:54] So I can see a, like New York state. If I want to hike this Saturday, whether I should go up to the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Hudson Highlands. Is that what I'm looking at? No, well, actually that's a great idea. I'm going to steal that idea. I like that idea a lot. I'm going to, I'm going to have to talk to my lawyers, Tim. My, my IP people. So, yeah. All right. That's map based right now.

[01:49:22] It, it, it, in a lot of ways, it looks like a typical kind of presents itself as like a typical weather app in a lot of ways, except for it has the messages like current weather is good for hiking, et cetera. But the map has trailhead and mountain icons. So you can look more on the local level. Let's say like you're, you, you choose slide mountain. You could kind of zoom out and it will show the mountains and trailheads with those color codes.

[01:49:53] So you could kind of look around to see where, where it's good. See, oh, the trailhead is, is green, but the, the summit is red. So maybe I shouldn't go here or you could like kind of get that kind of microclimate picture. If you zoom out a little more, you see, oh, Balsam Lake area is red, but Mount Tremper is looking good. So I can go there. So that's, that's kind of like that feature. I haven't really blown out too much yet.

[01:50:22] It's more about the core forecasting screen right now. So like, what is the core casting screen consist of? Like, what do you, I see the, you know, when I've, when I've used it within the past about, you know, doing the testing and now, and today I use it today when I was up on a window high peak, it says like the, the view is clear, but might be obstructed.

[01:50:46] It's, it's, it's very, it's very well accurate, especially if you're like me, I'm a viewpoint kind of guy. I look at that for view and, you know, I, I agree with Tad and with you to check within 24 hours of when you're going to be leaving within 12 hours of when you're going to be leaving, really. So yeah, it's, I call it the view forecast and it's kind of an offshoot of, of visibility really, but it's, it's a little more specialized.

[01:51:13] It takes like clouds at certain levels into consideration more, but I have some magic formulas that will help to predict where they will have a view. And, uh, that's kind of one of my more fun. And I love seeing like a result like you had, like, that's actually my favorite stat is the partially clear view because that's, I feel like the hardest to predict.

[01:51:38] You know, it was, it was crazy because you could see the black dome, uh, blackhead was, uh, at the summit, probably only like, like 40 feet, maybe 30 feet at the summit was obscured. So like, uh, the Wyndham high peak wasn't obscured. So you might've been like, there might've been a flow coming from the Hudson Valley that might have obscured, uh, the Wyndham high peak area, but it didn't happen.

[01:52:04] So that's, I find that to be very, very helpful because I'm a viewpoint kind of guy. I don't want to fucking go on a hike. That's going to have enough amazing viewpoint where I'm not going to get a view. And that's, that's one thing that, that mountain weather forecast is kind of got me like a little bit into the realm of just like, like, Hey, I don't know if there's going to be a view or not.

[01:52:29] And then it says a cloud level, their cloud level is always like zero feet and then 12,000 feet. Thanks. Thanks for the help guys. Yeah. And also with that, you have to look at, you can have cloud base either from ground level or sea level, you know, so you have to be clear with that with, with mine, it's a sea level and with theirs ground level means, and I don't know what they do actually, because

[01:52:58] their numbers are always fucked up, but ground level can mean from the summit. So if you're at a 3,500 summit, that might be the starting point of their cloud base. You know what I mean? Yes. The starting point of mine is zero is the same as mountains. You know what I mean? So yeah, that's, that's, that's easier for people to relate to, I think, than, than a ground level. Yeah.

[01:53:25] While we're talking about, uh, views and ground level and cloud levels, I know there's apps out there that predict the sunset, how colorful it's going to be or how colorful the sunrise is. Do you have anything like that factored into the app yet? No, but I do have a, uh, what I call my daylight feature, which is, I have a countdown to sunset. Oh, wow.

[01:53:54] So it'll say like one hour until sunset. And I know it's a little thing, like people can do the math. I mean, it's, but, but at the same time, people can't. And when they see one hour versus sunset is at 654. I think that changes your mental frame. Yeah. That's about what's happening. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, I'm looking at it right now. I see like sunrise in 10 hours, eight minutes.

[01:54:23] That's, that's a little of a, wow. Yeah. Yeah. It takes away a little bit of the thought. It like, it really puts it in your mind. I have one hour. And then I also have a, an alert that you can set that will, that will sound, you know, you could do a one hour, 40 minutes, 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes before sunset. Don't bling, bling, bling. Oh shit. 20 minutes until sunset. Wow. Jesus.

[01:54:51] So you, you, you paid for the programmer to do the programming. Presumably you have some type of hosting that you have to pay for to, to crunch all these numbers on the internet and then distribute them to people using the app. Right. Yeah. It's more like storage and bandwidth kind of stuff. Yeah. And is, is there fees to, to have it a downloadable by Google and Apple phone users or iPhone, uh,

[01:55:21] Android phone users, you have to pay a, like a fee for the app store. Yes. Yes. It's, they, they take 15% of every sale. Okay. So speaking of sales, so you have all these expenses. Is it a free program? Is there some fee associated with it? Are there premium features? How's the revenue stream work?

[01:55:47] Um, so after, after a two week free trial, it's, uh, 1499 a year for the app. So a little, a little bit more than a dollar a month. Right. Yeah. Just a little bit. Yeah. That's, that's nominal fee. Um, how many users do you need to get to cover your expenses? Have you computed that? Oh, I haven't computed. I'm not even thinking about that. You're not thinking that far down the road. Okay.

[01:56:17] I mean, I really haven't thought about it. I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to even look. Like you're not worried about that. I mean, to some degree. Yeah. It's luckily it's, luckily it's not like insanely, insanely costly yet. Yet. Yeah. But I mean, basically I'm, I'm paying for a, you know, I have to use a virtual, what's

[01:56:44] called a virtual machine that, that stores a lot of the data and stuff like that. I have to pay Google for some of my other processing. Yeah. Now I have my expenses and, uh, it's okay. I'm trying to try not to think about it too much. I mean, I already subscribed to it. I'm the one that I'm, I'm, I'm probably one of the first subscribers. Thank you. You're paying, paying the bills. Yeah. It's, I mean, I gotta admit, it's pretty fricking helpful and stuff like that.

[01:57:13] Once again, to, to look at mountain weather forecast every once in a while to be like, Ooh, shit. I guess I've always said it like wrong. Like there's 50 mile per hour gust on Panther mountain. And then I've gone up there and there's absolutely no wind whatsoever. And I have, I mean, there's nothing wrong with over-preparing. Let's just say that, you know, but, uh, we don't want to discourage people either. And that's, that's a big balance that I've had with the app too.

[01:57:42] Like I lean towards wanting people to go out and hike. If I'm going to choose between the two, I want people to go out and hike except for a dangerous situation. Of course. So that's, but that's the bias I have, which is why I have that whole probability thing in there because I don't want people to not go out cause it's only a 20% chance of rain. Yeah. Right. But mountain forecast, they don't have wind and gust.

[01:58:11] They have one or the other. I'm assuming that it's sustained wind, but they don't have both. And that's another huge miss on their part because you, you have to have both of those. True. So how often is your data or your, your conditions refreshed? So something that's just constantly ongoing, is it every half hour, 12 hours? How often does the weather data get updated? Yeah.

[01:58:40] Well, it depends because we have two main systems. You have HRRR, which is more of the near term that's out to 180 or so hours. And that's, that's high resolution rapid refresh it's called. So that kind of tells you that's, that's refreshed more on, you know, at least every hour.

[01:59:05] And that's, that's really your most accurate high resolution data, which is why that, that 24 hour period really is where you should be looking the most on the app or on any app, you know? And that's actually the view forecast. I limit to 24 hours. I don't have that for my longer term forecast, especially stuff like clouds. That's changing so rapidly. So I don't, I'm not trying to tell you six days from now, you're going to have a view on the summit. I'd never do something like that.

[01:59:34] So you have HRRR short term, you have GFS, which is more of the long term. And that casts a really wide net. It's a more sloppy system. It's still, it's still good. I mean, it's the, it's the gold standard. It's just longer term. That refreshes several times a day. That's not, not quite as often. Nice. So.

[01:59:58] So what is the best feature of your app that you think that you have that separates you from other apps? Oh, I don't know, man. I think, I mean, I, the color codes just to me are so quick. Like, I, I can just look down the list and see like, okay, Saturday is going to be a good day to hike. I see two greens or like Sunday afternoon is going to be good.

[02:00:27] I see, yeah, if I see like a yellow in the morning and a green in the afternoon, I know like, that's going to be good. And I can kind of just get an idea really quick. And, uh, to say a while back, the app was down for a little maintenance. I was in a Phoenicia diner with my daughters trying to plan a hike. Like, and I was like, fuck, I didn't, I really didn't. Like, I had a moment of panic thinking about going to a regular weather app to try to plan my hike. Like it gave me a month. I was like, fuck.

[02:00:57] Like, it just like feels so much. Yeah. You didn't say fuck in front of your daughters though. Did you? I did. Not the eight year old. Tim, come on. Oh, please. Tim. So, and the, and the color coding to go back, the color coding is that based off the user's preference.

[02:01:13] So when I download it and I say that I only hike in dry conditions, uh, temperatures, 70 degrees and rising low humidity and 100% visibility, that's, what's going to be the green color code for me.

[02:01:32] Whereas for Stosh, you know, he'll hike and, you know, minus 100 degrees, 20 feet of snow, winds up to 200 miles an hour. Cause he's got the Helly Hanson. So he can, you know, he can rough those conditions, but, but the color coding is based upon the user itself and not just some generic hiker. Did I get that? Yep. That's pretty cool.

[02:01:55] That's so that way, like you said, you're, you can just visually without getting into the minutia of the data, you can see, okay, this, this is a green day or this is a yellow day. It's a yellow day. You might dive into it and find out why it's yellow and figure out that, okay, this is, yeah, this will work for me to go do this yellow day. And, and, and the fact that it's going to be yellow, but the visibility is going to be great for Stosh. That would be like a selling point for him. Yeah.

[02:02:24] Whereas, whereas for me, I don't really care about the visibility. Actually, visibility does not factor into the preferences at this point. No. Yeah. It's not one of the factors that, that goes into it now. It may in the future. Well, I mean, Tim, like, like a bunch of things that we, we didn't even like, like put a total perspective on the app.

[02:02:46] So you have a feels like temperature, wind gusts, temperature, like wind gusts, cloud cover, dew point, humidity, visibility, hourly forecast, sunrise, and then a seven day forecast. I mean, that's, that's freaking insane. That's awesome. That's great for, for hikers to, to look into and stuff like that. Like right now it says it's in West end where I'm at, it's 54 degrees. For my weather app that's outside, that's sitting on a thing.

[02:03:16] It's one degree off. So that's crazy with wind gusts here. I have two miles per hour and it's at three to seven. So that's, that's pretty fucking accurate. As I say, like it's cloud cover. I don't know. Dew point. I really don't give a shit about dew point because it's always freaking high dew point here in the, in, in New York state. Uh, same thing as humidity and stuff. Visibility 13 miles. I got to admit, I could see in a freaking Albany today. So that's way more than 13 miles.

[02:03:45] Uh, absolutely insane. So that's, this is, this is a genuine, this is a perfection of hikers weather forecast. This is hikers stuff right here. Yeah, man. I will say that the forecast for like cities for the most part come from another data source. I have a, the source called open media. They're just like a weather data provider.

[02:04:07] So a lot of times for cities, you'll be getting that output and not the Frankenstein mountain forecast, uh, that I put together with the, with the note, with the raw data. But who cares about the city? Let me know. Talk about the city. This is Oneonta. This is no city. 14,000 people is not a city. Urban hiking. That's what you do in the city.

[02:04:33] So what really needed that, that level of, uh, TLC. Yeah. And I'll, I'll tell you this at first I was like completely focused on more of the user experience end of things, just like the, the color coding, the, the UX, how the app looked and the flow of it and all that.

[02:04:55] And, uh, I was looking at the weather to, I was comparing my weather to slide mountain using the, what they call it, the national weather service mountain point forecast. They call it. And I was like, okay, that's pretty good. And then I looked at Mount Washington and I was like, Oh fuck. Yeah. I was saying like, I was saying like 25 mile per hour wind and they were saying like 55. I was like, Oh shit.

[02:05:23] Mind you, this was in maybe November or December of last year. And this is when I was just using that open media source that I use for the, the towns. I thought that was going to be fine for everything. I guess they, it said that they have like elevation aware forecast and all this stuff. So I'm like, I'm good to go. Nope. So, so then I spent another eight months building this mountain weather system. That's, I was almost ready to launch and I was like, Oh no, nope, nope.

[02:05:54] Fuck. And that's good. Yeah. Testing and experimenting. And that's when you had to come up with your own formulations of forecasting. Yep. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I was like so close to, to launching it and I was like, there's no way, no way in hell I can do that. I thought that source was going to be okay, but no. How'd you learn all this? Yeah. Right. Jesus Christ.

[02:06:24] How I did a lot of deep diving, a lot of reading. All on the internet, books, magazines, YouTube courses. How'd you fill your head with this stuff? Yeah. Well, I have this book upstairs. I forget what it's called. Anderson's guide to what this like the basic principles of, of weather and yeah, the school going around and yeah, a lot of AI, a lot of AI. Jesus Christ. Right.

[02:06:55] I mean. Yeah. Well, at least you were like doing, you know, animations of stosh getting blown off of slide mountain while chasing, but being chased by a mountain lion type of thing, you know, which is not necessarily a good use of AI, albeit maybe entertaining. So who's, who's your competitors out there? What other apps are in the marketplace that you would consider to be competitors and what distinguishes you from those competitors?

[02:07:24] Well, obviously a mountain forecast, which we were talking about, which I think it's only a competitor because people know about it, but I think I'm completely different animal. I couldn't be more different than what they are in every way. I mean, I think like, first of all, their, their app looks like shit. It's the numbers are all over the place. It's hard to use. They don't even have precipitation probability, which is a huge miss.

[02:07:54] They don't have anything about fog. It doesn't really paint the picture to me of what's going to be in the mountains at all. And that's what I wanted to do. I want to like as vivid a picture as possible of what, what you can expect. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say this with, with mountain forecast or summit forecast. I gave up on it early last year. I found it was consistently forecasting at least 10, if not 15 degrees colder than it actually

[02:08:23] was. And then I think the year before they came out and they went, you know, for pay for, I forget what they call it, where you have to pay for certain features. And that was to get the extended forecast. It was like $50, $60 a year. It just wasn't worth it given how inaccurate it was. So I would strike them off the list of competitors. Who else is out there? Yeah. And I'll say when I was, when I was doing all my Mount Washington validation, I was for

[02:08:53] a long time, I was throwing them in the mix to compare. And I, I would do that through AI actually. I would put my numbers in the observatory numbers and then Mount, uh, mountain forecast. And then it would tell me like who won this round or whatever. And a mountain forecast never really won. Uh, open snow is another one. Open snow. Is that more for skiing or is that for hiking and skiing as well?

[02:09:22] Or yeah, it's much more for like back country skiers. Okay. But I, I definitely have respect for them. I think, I think they do a good job. I think they have a founder who actually cares about his community. I think mountain forecast is like in England or something. I don't think any of them are hikers at all. So my open snows, it's pretty good. I think they've, I think their numbers are, are pretty decent.

[02:09:48] Again, they don't really paint that full picture of what's going on. You can't find every peak. Like I, I, I couldn't find white face mountain for them because I also, I also compare against the white face observatory a lot. Yeah. Very frequently. And, um, I wanted to use them as compared. I, cause I, I kind of hold myself up to them in a way. I think they're kind of in the same boat as me as far as accuracy to, to a certain degree.

[02:10:19] Do you compare yourself to, um, forecasters out in the Rocky mountains or in the West coast? Not really. No. Okay. What, what do you see as the, the next set of upgrades to this program? The app. Oh man. It was, uh, you have anything planned on the horizon? You know, you, you wanted to get it launched and so you ran, you ran with what you had at the time.

[02:10:47] Cause you had a complete program then. And is there like the next, what's the next level of, uh, user experience that you want to bring anything? Oh, definitely. I mean, I think there's a lot of potential with the map, you know, right now I'm only showing the current, um, whether those icons that are color coded, the trailhead and mountain icons are only representing the current weather.

[02:11:15] So I want to be able to have the user toggle for hourly or for the seven day and all that, or maybe even have like a view forecast, just like which ones have a view right now. So there's a lot I'd want to do with the map. First of all, for sure. That's no, Tim. The only one thing that I find difficult with the, the app is, is the map kind of like with terrain stuff.

[02:11:40] So if you take, would it go faster if you take the, the, like the elevation terrain stuff off and just regulate it to like an open map or stuff like that? Will they move faster where you can like just select your peaks that you want? Not sure. Yeah, I know it's been the past couple of days, actually. I don't know why, but the, the weather data has been coming in a little slow, which means on, on the map, you're loading a lot of weather data at the same time. Of course. Of course. Yeah. It load a bandwidth. So.

[02:12:09] Well, you just launched it. So people might be using it like crazy. So, so you have to wait a minute sometimes for the, for the gray icons to turn the colors, you know? I, I've, you know, I, I think that's, it's, it's incredible to, to be able to use this anywhere. Like I, I mean, you just launched this in the Catskills and the Adirondacks.

[02:12:35] I, I, I'm hoping this, this hits everywhere because this is, I, this is a, I would say user friendly app. Like once again, like I'm looking at it right now and it's showing me kind of everything I need to know about if I want to fricking hike, like what it feels like, what the temperature is, when the, the forecast is in that couple hours, stuff like that. What's the next for the next seven days?

[02:13:04] Like what the fuck, what else would I want? How much, how much is this a year? 1499. 14 freaking 99. It's about the price of a four pack of IPAs. Yeah. Right. I mean, dude, you could go on. I just want everybody to understand what they're talking about. You know, it means like one, one less beer every three months. I think, I think people can afford that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:13:32] Another thing I like is you, I usually have like a white message at the top and depending on what day of the week it is, it says a different thing. But as you get closer to the weekend, it may say like a Saturday is the best day to hike this weekend. And we'll start telling you that on like Wednesday night or, or Thursday. So it's, it's just nice to be able to open the app and just look at that and kind of start getting that picture of like what, what your options are for the weekend.

[02:14:02] Yeah. I, I, I heard that on a Friday mornings, it says that the, a new episode of inside the line just hit. Oh, supporter. Oh yeah. I'm just, add revenue, man. Thank you. Yeah. There you go. Um, so you've been out and it's, it's the launch was last Friday. Do you know how many downloads there have been in a few days, like five days? Oh, I'm not. You're not tapped into that data. I'm trying. I, I have it. I'm trying, I'm trying not to. You don't want to look. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:14:32] I don't want to get distracted. I respect that. I mean, I, I, I would like to know, because once again, I, I, I love the local Intel that we have here, but especially, you know, once again, Tim, you created the Catskill JuroConditions page, which helps immensely with the, the area with people wanting to know, you know, whether or not the spread, the slide spring is running or, you know, what the

[02:15:00] devil devil's path looks like at this time. So like getting people to know about, you know, the conditions and such with the, with the weather is it's pretty important here in the Catskill. Some people might not think the Catskills because they're 4,000 feet and below, like be like, ah, nah, it's not like the Adirondacks above tree line where they'll have eight

[02:15:25] feet of snow when it was no, it's when them might've gotten eight feet of snow, just like, you know, fricking up in the Adirondacks did. So. Oh yeah. No, you could have a five, seven, 10 degree difference between where you start her and, and where you get to on a Catskill hike. Yeah. And it's great to know. It's great to know about it. That's why we have a lot of these rescues. There are a lot of people who don't get the concept of, you know, the weather in town is

[02:15:55] not going to be the weather on the summit. So that's why I do that, that weather forecast of what it's going to be like in fricking town and then on the summit. So it's, it's a whole different story. Like it's, it's crazy to think about, you know, and you know, it's, it's fantastic. So do you, I mean, uh, do you want feedback from, from users and such? Like where can we send feedback? Please. Absolutely.

[02:16:24] Cause you're asking me like, what's next for the app. And like, I do have some ideas in my head, but at the same time, I need to hear from the people before I make any decisions about the future. It's that's, that's what it should be all about is like what, what people like, what they don't like. I need to hear that before I really plan the next phase. Now, this thing is out here that I think people might like, but do they like it? And why do they like it? Why don't they like it?

[02:16:53] So I, yeah, that's the most important part of any, any product is what the people are saying. So I fully encourage all feedback, even if it hurts my feelings. Where can we, where can we send that? Do you want to email Facebook, Instagram, stuff like that? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I'm hikers weather on, on all, all social media, or you can email me at Tim at hike and tell.com.

[02:17:22] Hikers weather. Hike and tell.com. Okay. That's still the, that's still the email address. But you have Instagram and Facebook things for hikers weather. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh shit. No, I don't, I haven't really been posting there. So. Yeah. Right. Like I was going to say. All right. Uh, I will. Would you say, Tim, would you say you kind of went off with a soft launch of the product?

[02:17:52] Yeah. I mean, I, I, I've learned, you know, I, I listened to a lot of like founder kind of podcasts and stuff. And I've, I've learned that like a launch doesn't have to be the singular like moment. It's, it's not like your make or break day or something. It's, it can be something that kind of happens a little more slowly. And I'm, I'm fine with that.

[02:18:20] That's actually what I want. Like I said, I want to get into the right people's hands. And then I want, I want those people to tell other people that they like it. I don't want it coming from me. This app is great. Use it. I want it coming from you. You know, that's, that's a more genuine kind of approach to it. So I'm, I'm okay with it kind of starting slowly. There's, there's this one, a guy in Silicon Valley, Paul Graham, who says it's, it's better to have.

[02:18:51] Like 10 people who love you than a thousand or a million people who like you. So I, I just want those people who, who love it first using it and, and they can kind of tell the world. That's how it works with something like this, the hiking community. People talk, if they like something, they're going to tell people about it. Yeah. I don't need like explosive growth. Yeah. And we have a tight community in the Catskill.

[02:19:17] So I, I will tell everybody who, who uses that download this app to send your, your information and your Intel to, to Tim. Uh, once again, I will have his hikers weather in the show notes and such to, to give your feedback about this. Cause Tim is a great man.

[02:19:39] He knows he wants to help the hiker community as he did once again, 10 years ago with Catskill Turk and distance page, which is, uh, has been a, I wouldn't say a clusterfuck, but I, I, I have ever since the beginning, somebody, somebody stopped trolling a long time ago. I used to be one of those trolls that would, I'm surprised I haven't been banned yet. It's always time. It's always chilled out.

[02:20:09] It seems like it's really chilled out. It's gotten into a, you know, it has. And you know, like once again, people are teaching other people about basics, you know, once again, we hit this time of year and it keeps getting colder and colder. Mug gets like, like once again, like frozen and such.

[02:20:32] And then people don't realize that above 3,200 feet there's ice and micro spikes cost. What? 70 bucks. They last. What do you, what do you buy? The, uh, expensive ones. Is that, is that expensive? Yeah. $70 for micro spikes. I'm not talking about hill sounds. Are you? What are hill sounds? Hill sounds. Yeah. You don't know what hill sounds are. Yeah, I do. What are they there right now?

[02:21:00] Yeah, they're in the seventies, but I, I start up. Yeah. I start off my micro spikes or the El Cheapos, you know, 20, 20 bucks. Amazon has some off brand ones. Yeah. Right. And I mean, what, what's it, how difficult is that to carry in your pack to prepare yourself for? Well, for me, it's really difficult because I can't carry a pack. Oh Jesus Christ. You're really trying to hurt me here. Hurt my feelings. Dude. Okay. So we'll wait three or four weeks and you'll be maybe carrying a pack.

[02:21:29] You can have a fanny pack that has your micro spikes in it. I'm going to, I'm going to pack by the way, a hip pack. No, I think I'm going to get, I'm going to get like a dog. I'm going to get a dog and get the pack on the dog, you know, like the saddlebags on either side of the dog. Is there someplace I can rent a dog for hiking? Sorry. Right. I need to rent a dog for hiking. I mean, we just lost like half of our listeners because most of them have dogs, I assume. And that was true.

[02:21:56] And like an insensitive comment to rent a dog. So I used to hike with the dog. Yeah. So Tim, once again, thank you for joining us tonight. We'll wrap this up with some post-hike bruising bites. You know, this section you've listened to the, this hopefully this podcast once in a while. Uh, what do you have to talk about, to chat about for post-hike bruising bites in the Catskills?

[02:22:26] Oh, like my place is in Phoenicia. So Peekamoose is definitely one of my all-time favorites and has been since the beginning of when I went to the Catskills. Everything there is amazing. The bartender is like best person on earth. Amazing steaks. Uh, burgers are great. Just like the vibe of the place and the tap room is just the best.

[02:22:53] You feel like you're in some old, your uncle's old cabin or something. It's, it's the best place. You know, I like Shandaken Inn. I'm talking in that area. Oh, I go over. Print House and Fleischman's. Westkill Brewery, of course. Of course. Of course. Going on and on. I can't name this. I can't put this many. It's like one or one or one or done. All right. Like, so Peekamoose. That's a good one.

[02:23:23] That's a good one. That's not mentioned that much. So cool. That's a good spot. Place is amazing. So once again, download Hikers Weather. I will have the link in the show notes. I posted about it today, which is Tuesday. About it. I had the link. If you can download the link once again and then share your input, your thoughts with Tim. We can improve this app. We can make this app better for everybody.

[02:23:49] All the users in the Catskills, Whites, Adirondacks, wherever. And we can make Tim famous and then he can support the show. And then the show, we can just ride on and we can buy that area over on the Moonha Road for $4.1 million. Bam. I have a goal. The goal is set.

[02:24:10] And then Tim can have his own weather responding app, like his area over on the Moonha Road to be like we have our podcast area or the weather area. Like we can have a brewery area. Wow. Observatory on slide. Yeah. Stas, you're buying an RV. You're not buying the place on Moonha. Dude, once again. Stop dreaming.

[02:24:34] Your wife is going to come storming in and remind you that you promised her an RV within the next two years. They have a plug-in station for an RV. Oh, okay. All right. We'll be blocking the road, but. Yeah, you thought this whole thing through. That's cool. So once again. Tim's going to put a weather station out there. Everything will be cool. At the Moonha. They'll put a weather station up on Friday in Cornell.

[02:25:02] Well, there is one on Little Slide. Really? Oh, yeah. The bunny's hook. Yeah. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Tim's like, hmm. Tap into that. Look at his evil thoughts digging in. I love it. I love it. So, Tim, thank you for joining us tonight. I really appreciate it. Take your time out. Talk about Hiker's Weather App.

[02:25:29] I have it downloaded, and, you know, I think everybody should download it. Check it out. Give your feedback to Tim. Tim is gratefully accepting feedback, and it just launched again on Friday. So let's get this thing rolling. Let's get this thing bigger and better. And just want to thank, once again, everybody who is supporting the show and the monthly sponsor of the show. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you to everybody who has donated the show. Ted, I'm going to come out with next week.

[02:25:59] We're going to think of somebody who we're going to donate to. So if anybody has any thoughts of where we should donate to, let's do it. Sounds good. Yeah. Thank you to everybody who is still listening to the show. 239 episodes in. Wow. Yeah. Right, Tim? 11 away from 250. 239 episodes in. Still thinking about this. Still doing this.

[02:26:28] Still rocking this with Tim coming on. And I greatly appreciate everybody who is still listening. And I graciously appreciate Tim and Tad, who has joined me on the show. Smile can't be bigger. I love you guys. And thank you so much for being on the show. All right. Have a good night, Tim. Thank you so much, man. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Good luck, Tim. Can't wait to hear about your future. So have a good night. You too. It's nice. Yeah.

[02:27:00] Hi, everyone. I just want to thank you for listening to the show. If you enjoyed the show, subscribe and throw down a smooth review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any podcast platform that you use. You can also check daily updates of the podcast, hikes, hiking news, and local news on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the official website of the show. Remember this.

[02:27:29] You got to just keep on living in the Catskills, man. L-I-V-I-N Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked.