Ep 36: Wes Siler on Politics, Conservation, & Being Prepared

Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Modern life, society, and responsibilities have domesticated us, but now it's time to rediscover your adventurous side. Whether that's camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, this is the podcast for you. Join us as we get back to the wilderness and rewild. Welcome to the Adventure The Undermade Podcast, sponsored by Rewild Gear. I am your host, Seth Spears, and I'm here today with Wes Siler. Wes is a columnist for Outside Magazine and an adventure travel writer. He is an outdoor adventure subject matter expert on CNN, CBS, ABC, and Fox News. His articles and expertise have been featured in Wired, Newsweek, Popular Mechanics, Outdoor Life, GQ, Road and Track, and Playboy. He is the founder of the motorcycle website Hell for Leather and the outdoor site Indefinitely Wild. Wes lives in the mountains of southwest Montana with his wife, Virginia, and their 3 rescue dogs. And I also have a note here that his testicles are the subject of Glenn Beck's most recent book. I want to hear about this to start.

So, you know, one of the unique things about this time in history we find ourselves is that half the country is stupid and believes lies. So if you sort of look into the right-wing internet verse, they have this theory that getting a vasectomy is tantamount to having your balls cut off, which I assure you it's not having had one. I wrote an article a couple years ago. My wife and I sort of looked at the world, looked at our lives, and decided not to have kids. Women's healthcare options suck. It's really, really easy and non-invasive to have 2 5-millimeter sections of your vas deferens removed. It's an outpatient surgery. A friend's brother did it for me in a hospital. Totally legitimate, I assure you. But, I wrote an article about it and I was like, hey, the world's not necessarily going in a great direction with this whole climate change thing. Climate change, COVID, what have you, these are all symptoms of a larger problem, that problem being too many humans. So, responsible thing right now is how do you get fewer humans? Do we have a whole bunch of wars and a whole bunch of famine and a whole bunch of strife or do we, for those of us that are maybe on the fence about having kids, just not have kids? The entire right-wing media world seized on that as liberal cuckholes cuts balls off for bad weather. And, Glenn Beck wrote a book and it was just like it was a whole thing.

Interesting.

Yeah, the whole thing's just kind of shocking. You're like, well, dude, I assure you everything still works.

Gotcha.

And, it's actually pretty awesome having a vasectomy in terms of sex and stuff. So, yeah, the way they seize on that is like, I'm somebody who is not a man now. one prominent right-wing Twitter user who was insisting that my wife would leave me for a virile fertile person now that I was infertile. And, I looked up a picture of him and he was maybe 5 feet tall, sort of like a Ben Shapiro type. Probably not all that lucky with the ladies if you know what I mean. You're like, God, you people just suck. Gotcha.

So, we try to avoid politics as much as possible because it's one of the most divisive things and try to stick with content and topics where we can all agree on. However, I'm going to push back on you just a little bit here. So as the father of 6 kids, and when it comes to overpopulation and things like that, I can totally respect the viewpoint that you have. However, my own personal viewpoint is that it's not that there's too many people, it's that there's people that care too little. And we're not raising children up to be good humans, good people, and to make changes and invent things so that we can improve the world as a whole. So that'd just be the little pushback that I have there.

Absolutely. That's a great way of looking at things. I guess my only question there is, is there time left to improve the world? Is there time left to save the world? What are things going to be like at the end of the century when where you're sitting right now is underwater and where people are really upset about that, where there's a lot of movement, a lot of relocation? We've already seen What mass refugee crises look like in Europe and Northern Africa and the Middle East. You know, what happens when that comes to our own shores? That's probably not that far away.

No, that is a great point. And that's something that I've wrestled with a lot during the past couple of years, you know, with everything with lockdowns and COVID and all of that stuff, just with so many people wanting to get out into nature and spend more time. But it also, it's creating that urban sprawl where, you know, we're losing a lot of those forests and natural places and things like that where it's affecting a lot of nature and wildlife. So I'd love to get your take on Absolutely.

I'd be teaching your kids how to scuba dive right now because the opportunity to dive Miami is probably not that far off and that'll be really freaky. Right. We saw what you're talking about up here in Montana during the whole, especially during the lockdown portion of the pandemic. We had low case numbers for a long time because everybody here lives kind of far apart. We're all kind of individualists already, which isn't always the healthiest thing for mental health. is kind of the healthiest thing when you're in a pandemic. And, people would just come up here assuming we didn't have a pandemic and act irresponsibly. And, we saw that both just in grocery stores or in the outdoors. All of a sudden, all of our trails were crowded and they're crowded with people who aren't on the program that most people that live in Montana traditionally are. I've got 3 big dogs.

Which is what?

I've got 3 big dogs and I enjoy hiking them. And, people up here tend to be of this sort of live and let live viewpoint and have some experiences and perspective about sort of legitimate outdoor experiences. And, I never had a problem with my dogs on a trail prior to the pandemic in Montana.

Interesting.

And, all of a sudden, the pandemic hit and the other dogs coming the other way weren't other large dogs and weren't other outdoorsmen, they were frou-frou dogs, people that were scared of dogs. And, you're sitting there in some place with grizzly bears and mountain lions and wolves and food and some person is screaming at you about your dogs being off leash and you're like, lady, you don't have a gun. Yeah. Are you lost?

Interesting dynamic.

You're not safe back here. Hey, Tim.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I could totally see, see that perspective for sure. Wes, how, how did you get into travel writing? You know, you're a very prolific outdoor writer and, you know, have done tons of reviews and articles, especially like in the automotive space as well from a lot of your work that I've read. Um, your Instagram is, you know, very interesting. Um, so I just kind of love to get your, your origin story, how you got into that space.

Yeah. I mean, the quick version, because I'm 41, I'm extremely old, so there's a lot of history here now.

I'm older.

The quick version is teenage Wes always wanted to be a car journalist, specifically a road test editor, the guy who gets to review the cars. I grew up in England and cars are a mainstream hobby there, not as niche and not as sort of weird as they are here. And so, I did that. I did that at the highest level in my 20s. I kind of found it one-dimensional just from a pure career perspective. It was a very just conservative, slow-moving world. I probably experienced as much success as I was going to experience in that world by the time I was 26 in terms of my career path. From there, having already been a road test editor, having already written for Road and Track and Car and Driver and everything and You know, I helped, I was second in charge when we grew Jalopnik into what Jalopnik was when it was a great website. You know, from there, my career path would have been like, you know, working slowly to try to become the editor-in-chief of Motor Trend or something. And that would have taken another 20 years. The world just wasn't right for disruption. And the world that I thought was sort of right for that, that had a lot of space in it that wasn't done very well was motorcycles. Motorcycles have always been a passion of mine. So, I started a website called Healthy Leather while I was at Jalopnik just on my credit card and eventually grew that into the largest motorcycle site in the world, largest motorcycle publication that's ever existed. And, that was a fun adventure. I did a lot of really cool outdoor stuff as part of that. I've always been outdoorsy. I was a Boy Scout, all that kind of stuff, had an outdoorsy dad. But, more and more, that I'd spent time on motorcycles, the more I was using them to go outdoors, not to do the traditional motorcycle stuff. So, when it was time to exit that, I didn't know what was next. And, Brian Lamb, who used to be editor-in-chief of Gizmodo and founded The Wirecutter, is now a surf bum in Hawaii. I talked to him and he was like, you should just be an outdoors journalist, man. It's what you're good at. And, I was like, is that even a real job? And, it turns out it is. And so, I launched a website called Indefinitely Wild in conjunction with Gawker Media. Outside ended up acquiring that and now I work for them. And, it's been really great.

Cool.

I have a lot of variety in my life now. It's not just cars, it's not just motorcycles, it's not just hunting, it's not just hiking, not just backpacking, it's not just canoeing, it's everything. And, it's interesting people and it's good people. I think probably as you found, Seth, on the podcast, people that work in the outdoor space are really cool.

Oh, yeah.

And so, getting to spend my time with those people has been really good.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Where did the passion for writing come from?

I don't know. I just always wanted to be a writer. I guess my journalism origin story is I went to a very small military school, part of the Defense Department system back in England. And, I was running the school newspaper and we had like my graduating class was like 18 kids. So, the newspaper was printed out on A4 paper and stapled together.

Oh, wow.

And, my dad did nebulous things for the government in foreign countries. And, for some reason, everybody was terrified of him all the time. I grew up in an environment just always like my dad I was scared of. Never really understood why. He was a great dad, but everybody was always terrified of him. And, especially in a military environment, other military parents and families and administrators and things were terrified of my dad. So, I was the worst kid at school, the worst kid. If there was a crime committed at school, I committed it. If there was a ring of bad kids doing bad shit, I was the ringleader. It was one of those situations, but I never got in trouble. And, I came to realize that discipline was unfair if you were the child of an officer or high high-ranking civilian parent like mine compared to if you were the child of an enlisted parent. And so, I tracked disciplinary actions across a semester and published the results. The PTA had a meeting that afternoon and fired the principal on the spot. And, that guy was a dick.

Wow.

I was like, oh, power. 18-year-old Wes was like, ooh.

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Right, exactly.

It's like, what's that saying? Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink in gallon jugs or something like that.

Oh, I've never heard that one. That's— that's— yeah, yeah, don't do that.

Yeah, something to that extent. Wes, why is— why is nature and the outdoors so important to you? Because it sounds like from a very early age, being in the Boy Scouts and Being with and having an outdoorsy father?

Yeah, it's just always been a really crucial part of my life. Now that I'm older, I can think about the reasons for that. We all find ourselves living a very comfortable existence in a very developed, safe part of the world. And, we didn't evolve to be that way. We evolved to be animals. And, being able to be in touch with that even to a small degree on a regular basis is really, really helpful, I think, for a sense of identity and a sense of purpose and a sense of satisfaction. So, I personally find a lot of satisfaction in risk and danger, and I don't really feel whole unless I have those things. And, the place where it's acceptable and the place where it's fun and not too scary to other people to go involve risk and danger in your life is in the outdoors.

So what I find really fascinating about that is I'm guessing you would kind of identify yourself as more on the left-wing political spectrum. Is that an accurate assessment?

Yeah, I like to say that I'm not liberal, I'm literate.

Okay, fair. And so what I find interesting about this is because in my experience, most people that self-identify on that left-leaning spectrum, they're very risk-averse. And, you know, It's kind of like we have to make everything as safe as possible for our kids in the world, and they're very risk intolerant. And so I find that absolutely fascinating that you, like, as you just said, the idea of danger and risk is so appealing, and to me as well. But you don't really see that combination that often. So I'm intrigued by that. Maybe you can talk about that a little bit.

I think you see it much more often than maybe, you know, the mainstream media world and sort of general society makes evident. One of the things that I've spent the last year sort of doing is, well, the last couple years, I've been picking a pretty big fight with the NRA. I'm a gun owner, all the stuff, all the scary stuff. I shoot it all, pretty handy with it.

Yep.

But, it sort of seems like I would like to be part of the solution to kids dying in schools, not a part of the problem. And, One of the things I found through picking that fight, picking that fight very publicly, is that the vast majority of gun owners are just like me and think just like me. Americans of all shapes and sizes and colors and political persuasions and what have you have guns. There's 190 million gun owners in this country. They don't all belong to one political party. That is just—

Yeah.

It's just a fairy tale the right tells itself. Most of the people that I know who are really, really, really experienced outdoors people, the people who have had the chance to travel the world, the people who have had the chance to have a really successful career are very liberal-leaning. You take Conrad Anker, for instance, arguably the most legendary mountaineer that's living right now. And, he's a lot like me.

I met him at— Outdoor retailer this year.

Yeah, he's a great dude. He lives in Bozeman too. And, you know, both of us are, you know, sort of aligned on the idea that we just want other people to be able to have the opportunities that we've had as like relatively privileged white men, you know, big, tall, strong, good-looking, healthy, you know, straight white men. We want everybody else who doesn't have all those privileges to also be able to do all the stuff that we've done. And I think you'll find that really common among people who have traveled the world. People have seen other cultures. People have just had the perspective to experience success and, you know, maybe just want to share it, you know.

Totally. Yeah, I think travel is one of those things that opens your mind to new perspectives and ideas as opposed to being just completely one-dimensional. If you grow up in a certain area, rural, urban, whatever, you just kind of think that the entire world thinks and acts like you. But then when you do get outside of that and you're able to travel and see other countries and cultures and experiences, it does change your entire perspective on things.

It does. I mean, one of the— one of those things is that's very relevant to the outdoors and doing adventurous stuff is healthcare. You know, as far as I know, I'm the only country I've ever been to where you didn't get taken care of if you got hurt is America. You know, I've had broken bones repaired in many other countries. I've never paid a dime anywhere for it other than America. The quality of the outright care has been better everywhere, everywhere but here, even in third world countries. Cuba has substantially superior healthcare than what we have. I'm not just talking about price, I'm talking about the actual quality of the care. One of the factors there, one of the major factors there, we have all the money in the world. Why isn't our healthcare better? And it's just, what is the job of doctors? And the job of a doctor in America is, A, to avoid risk, and then B, to make money. And, you walk into a hospital anywhere else in the world and the doctor's job is to help you and that's it and it stops there. And, that fundamentally alters the level of care that you receive. I had this arm, my left arm repaired one of the times, broken like 8 times.

Cool.

One of the times I repaired it at a hospital in France and my dad took me in. I was hurt in San Diego and he flew me home. Because they wanted to cut my arm off in San Diego. So flew home, he took me into the hospital, and the head of the hospital, who my dad knows because he gets a lot of surgeries too because he does stupid stuff, was sitting there, you know, legs crossed like Jean-Luc Picard in the ER waiting room reading a book because it was the quietest part of the hospital. Because they don't have like, you know, people that rely on the ER for primary healthcare, you know, like, like.

Yeah.

If your kid's sick, you take it to the hospital, they fix it. It's not like you have to sit there and wait until the kid has pneumonia because it has a cold and you can't afford it. The ER is your only access to primary care. You just go to your doctor. So walked in and he was like, oh shit, you look hurt. Come right this way and I'll fix it for you. And it was that simple.

Yeah.

And the hospital had no capacity to process payment. It's not a business. They didn't have a credit card machine. They didn't have You know, like that level of, of like accounting. It was just, it's a service. And once, once, once you see that, you're like, well, we're the richest country ever. Why, why don't we have that? And what, and what advantages would that have to like entrepreneurialism and risk-taking and family life in America? You know, with, with healthcare in America pegged to your job, Seth, if you wanted to quit your job tomorrow and go take a risk and start a new company, you know, your first thought would have to be, Well, how are my kids going to have access to healthcare? You know, you got the greatest idea in the world. You could be the next Elon Musk, you could be the next Jeff Bezos. And, you know, you might not be able to pursue those opportunities because your first concern has to be providing healthcare for your kids. And so it limits us as a country. And so it's just, it's just natural and patriotic and to want those things for us too.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think in my experience anyway, a lot of that, what we're seeing is because you have these insurance companies Who it's profit at all costs and the in-network, out-of-network idea and just, you know, and lawyers who are looking to sue for everything. It's— they run the entire system, Big Pharma, all of that where, I mean, that's where all the money is. And so, it's a top-down problem. And so, the healthcare providers, they're kind of limited as far as what they can do based on these big conglomerates that run everything.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure that people that become doctors You know, like want, want to help people at some level. They want to help people. They go through 10 years of higher education to do it. You know, you're not just doing that for the Porsche. You're doing that because like, you know, you have a cause in your mind, but at some level along the way, you know, you stop thinking about helping people and you start thinking about, you know, not getting sued.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is really unfortunate, but it's the nature of it right now. Wes, you know, one of the things that, that we're really passionate about for Rewild Gear is conservation. And protecting a lot of those wild spaces, those animals, all that side of the equation. So I'd love to kind of hear your philosophy surrounding conservation and environmentalism and all of that.

Yeah. So, you know, what's my philosophy? I mean, I'm just a follower. You know, we've had in America, we've had some really good thinkers come before us and put out some really solid ideas that have stood the test of time. The North American model for conservation is the most successful conservation model that exists anywhere on the planet. It's incredibly unique and it involves all of us day-to-day Americans, average Americans in making it work, which is really special. And so, what I'm talking about here is hunting. And, most people in America, most people that don't hunt, even most hunters Aren't aware that hunting is almost 100% responsible for wildlife conservation in America. You look at like the amount of money that's raised by like, you know, non-hunting wildlife funds, you know, the World Wildlife Fund, you know, put like six zeros on the end of the money that they raise, and like that's like one of the way, you know, one of the funds that takes, you know, is funded by hunters. And the reason for that is. Other things, you know, your birdwatchers and your people that you know donate money to things, you know that's voluntary. And voluntary charity is not how big problems are solved. It can be helpful, but big problems are solved by like mandatory taxation and you know non voluntary programs. So you look at hunting and the fees that we pay for our hunting licenses, the fees that we pay for our tags, those go directly to animal conservation. Those are what Fund, you know, state wildlife conservation scientists. The taxes imposed on our hunting equipment—the Pittman Robertson, the Dingell Johnson Act, Dingell Johnson is fishing—impose an 11% additional tax on top of anything else on all of our equipment. That goes directly to wildlife conservation in states. You know, so hunters are are paying for the science, you know, paying for the the land conservation, paying for the habitat, and then going in and using that science. To perform the actual tools of wildlife conservation. You know, so the way that works is like the scientists that, you know, we pay for, the state scientists will go to an area and say, well, hey, you know, there's too many male elk in this mountain range. And so hunters this year are going to take out 125 of those, those mature male elk.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and that keeps the population sustainable and healthy. Um, you know, the backstory there being, you know, mass agriculture destroyed, uh, predator populations in this country. So, yeah. Um, yeah, so, you know, the ungulates and the animals that we hunt are designed to reproduce at rates that are unsustainable for the environment. So we prevent that from happening, we prevent that mass starvation, that disease from spreading. Um, and so that's just been so successful. You look like, uh, the turn of the century, there were, um, You know, something like 4,000 pronghorn antelope left. And today there's, you know, well over a million. You know, black bears were mostly wiped out. Now there's more than when white people came to America. Deer, you know, are super successful. Elk are super successful. Every single animal that's part of this program is super successful. And then the habitat that that creates and the wild places that creates and the ecosystems those sustain. Then, you know, foster all, you know, total— not just access for people going hiking, people going backpacking, people just enjoying nature, but for all the species, you know, your songbirds, your plants, everything else. All of that is made possible by hunting.

Yeah. What do you feel is the biggest threat to conservation today, considering all of that?

Oil and gas and coal extraction, mineral extraction. Budgets being taken away from wildlife conservation and given elsewhere, industrial agriculture, all that kind of stuff. We really see wild places under assault. Like during the Trump administration, we saw the biggest thefts of public lands ever in American history take place. Uh, it immediately be kind of like disinformation out of existence. Um, you know, we're getting that back now, uh, during the Biden administration. And, you know, these are places that hunters use and pay for. Um, and then yet, you know, you see disinformation targeted at us, um, that basically justifies stealing these places and, you know, sort of creates a wedge and creates a political divide where really As we've seen politically and even as Republican Party has identified, almost all Americans want to conserve nature and want wild places and wild animals.

Yeah, I would say the exception to that is a lot of your massive corporations that just want to grow things as much as possible to make money, but they're not looking at the long term.

Oh yeah, I sort of disagree with the Supreme Court. Corporations are not people. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's, there's, there's definitely interest out there. You know, your extraction industries, your industrial agriculture that don't want wild places and don't want wild animals. And it's up to all of us to vote against their interests and vote for our interests.

Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Wes, I'd love to get your take on the quite controversial issue as far as wolves in the US and, you know, the reintroduction, the whole rewilding movement surrounding those both in Yellowstone and then, you know, all the issues surrounding hunting them, like in Idaho. And I think there was an issue in Montana as well, but we're seeing very controversial—

Yeah. So wolves are awesome and they're a keystone species that helps regulate any ecosystems that they're involved in. Purely in terms of— there's a lot of conflict between wolves and hunters that's then ginned up into a social issue that becomes part of the culture wars, which is very unfortunate. Because wolves are actually the biggest ally of hunters. We have this huge problem right now with a disease called chronic wasting disease spreading across America. It's a prion-based disease.

Yes.

If it ever— it causes zombie deer. It's disgusting. If it ever crosses over to humans, which it could according to biologists, it's probably the next pandemic, not out of Wuhan, China with some dude fucking a bat, but right here with some hunter eating a deer. Right. It's really scary. Um, and all the research demonstrates, um, that wolves act as a gatekeeper for CWD. Uh, they can't totally eliminate it from the environment, uh, but they can absolutely reduce its numbers to almost just irrelevant levels, uh, and they can prevent it from spreading into new environments. And so if you look at a state like Idaho, Yeah. uh, which is run by like the stupidest legislation in the country, They don't have CWD yet and they have this massive war on wolves. They're basically trying to exterminate all of their wolves because people are upset that like wolves reduce hunting opportunities, which is absolutely untrue. But, you know, Idaho has this once in a lifetime opportunity to prevent CWD ever from coming there. They have a relatively healthy wolf population. If they expand it and allow it to grow and allow it to sort of like exist around Yellowstone in the Northern Rockies, CWD probably won't ever come to Idaho or may not for a long time come to Idaho.

Yeah.

The story that's then told by the morons in Idaho is that wolves kill elk and wolves kill deer and they do. But, by killing them, they actually help create healthier populations.

Yeah.

One of the problems we see with elk and one of the areas where elk becomes subject to disease is like if you've ever been to Jackson Hole and seen the National Elk Refuge there. Oh, yeah. All the elk are fed there and it's really unhealthy and really unnatural. And, by clustering so densely in that during the winter, they spread disease and their population actually becomes really unsustainable and unhealthy as a result. Whereas, in Idaho just across the border, the elk are super healthy because the wolves, their function is to kill the sick and the old, which the hunters don't kill.

Yeah.

So, we're not in competition for the same animals. You know, and so you look at the elk numbers in Idaho and they're the highest ever. Elk are above management objectives in almost all Idaho hunting zones. The harvest rate is almost as high as it's ever been, which given population trends, agriculture, blah, blah, blah, is really impressive to be able to say that. And that's a big success for the North American model for conservation. But that's not the story that's told to people. That's really unfortunate.

Yeah.

You know, the more wolves there are, the healthier the elk deer will be, the better the hunting opportunities will be, and the less chance we have of, you know, getting a zombie deer disease from eating tasty whitetail.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what you're saying basically is survival of the fittest. It's, I mean, it's just the way nature works and was intended to.

Exactly. You know, wolves are nature's garbage men and the garbage has to be taken out. And that's just like, you know, imagine your neighborhood if the garbage man didn't show up because like a bunch of Republican politicians lied about it, you know, like everybody would have cholera real fast. And that would suck. And that's, that's basically what's happening in nature right now.

Yeah. So just in the research that I've done surrounding the whole issue with wolves and historically why they were almost wiped out, it's because of big agriculture in a lot of ways, as far as like CAFO farms and all of that where, you know, they're coming in and they're killing them and trying to wipe them out because of that. However, that's not the healthiest food we're getting anyway by That type of agriculture. Do you have any thoughts up there?

No, absolutely. And, you know, like wolves do kill livestock and there is a 100% effective proven solution to preventing wolves and other predators from killing livestock. In 1994, the Namibian government in conjunction with international charities saw a lot of conflict between goat herders and leopard populations, cheetah populations, which are endangered. And so what they did was they— the herders, one of these, an Anatolian Shepherd. And this is a Turkish livestock guardian breed. It's like the size of a mastiff. It is fast and agile and healthy in the way that most giant breeds from America are not. Strongest bite force of any dog. Bred over hundreds of centuries to fight brown bears and wolves. Not the worst dog going to Montana. But so Namibia, there's been a lot of, as a sort of a trial program, there's been a lot of the whole program of giving herders Anatolian Shepherds has been studied just at every level of detail with international nonprofit money. And as far as I can tell, reading every study done on the matter, it's been 100% successful, which is crazy. But you get an Anatolian Shepherd and cheetahs and leopards don't eat your goats anymore. And they're just 100% success. Look up the studies. It's just one of the biggest success stories for working dogs in the history of mankind. And so why don't we have that message here? If a rancher is upset about a wolf getting their sheep, get a dog. It's that simple. It's a proven successful method. I should also mention that the level of predation is so extraordinarily low. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I wrote an article about it. You can look that up. The level of predation for wolves and sheep and cattle in Idaho is like 0.0004% of the total population of livestock. And the rate in Idaho for loss to natural causes being weather, birthing complications, or disease is 5% of the total population.

Wow.

So, you're talking about a rounding error amongst losses they already have. It's not a huge problem. The federal government refunds ranchers 50% of the total cost of any animal they lose. So, the cost of Jimmy Joe and Billy Bob getting on ATVs and buying those ATVs and getting dinner like the Piggly Wiggly afterwards and going out hauling that animal out of the field in addition to all the feed you gave the animal, all the housing you gave the animal, all the medical care you gave the animal, blah, blah, blah. You know, every single possible cost you could possibly put on a sheet, the federal government will write you a check for 50% of that every time a wolf kills one of your livestock. And again, you're not losing that many livestock. So it's like, there is no problem. It's just manufactured.

Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up in Kentucky and there's cases of CWD that are around the border and maybe just a few cases across, but we don't have any predators like that. There are no wolves in Kentucky anymore, at least not Regular ones. There may be a few stragglers that come in here or there. I mean, there's coyotes, but they are not usually taking out deer and whatnot. So, yeah, so we can definitely see that across the country.

Yeah. And, you know, there used to be, you know, like the ecosystems are designed to have healthy predator populations. You know, we're seeing, you know, specifically Kentucky, we are seeing mountain lions return to the East Coast pretty successfully. And that's, that's really exciting if you ask me.

Yeah, totally. There is something about seeing an apex predator in the wild that it's just, it's very different than most people their day-to-day existence. And it's both scary, interesting. And there's also an issue where people don't like the idea of hunting them for some reason, as opposed to like deer or something like that. It's like no big deal or turkey, whatever.

That's a really interesting dynamic. You know, we're, I'm recording this from, from the, you know, the border of Glacier National Park in northern Montana. I'm 8 miles south of Canada. We are in like the densest grizzly country in the lower 48. You know, I hunt elk here in the backcountry. You know, like people get killed every year by grizzly bears. I think I like doing dangerous stuff. I like having a foe out there. I think it's really interesting. I'm fascinated by bears.

Yeah.

It's interesting that some of the guys that I hunt elk with, I'm planning a coastal brown bear hunt in Alaska in 2023. And, those same guys that will carry a pistol for self-defense as I do wouldn't hesitate to shoot a bear in self-defense. I mentioned that I'm going on this once-in-a-lifetime brown bear hunt and they're kind of like, oh, that's weird. And I don't, I don't, I don't understand that.

Interesting. Yeah, very, very interesting.

Yeah, there's just a, there's this disconnect there. You know, it's, it all falls under the North American model for conservation. The money, the money that we're spending to go on this hunt, you know, goes to brown bear conservation, goes to science, goes to habitat preservation. You know, there'll be more bears because we kill one, basically. Yeah. You know, so where's, where's the discomfort? I don't understand that. Yeah.

Wes, I'd love to hear— you've had a lot of outdoor adventures over the years, whether that's hunting and hiking and backpacking, especially in grizz country. I'd love to hear probably your craziest adventure story.

Oh man, I wouldn't even know where to start with that. I'm trying to think like what's, what's been cool or crazy recently. Gosh. I guess one of the things to mention to readers here is that outdoor stuff does not have to be terrifying or scary. The odds of you going on a camping trip and having a life-risking situation occur are very low. One of the places that I recommend people go all the time, friends of mine are like, where do I go camping? I want to go on an awesome car camping trip with my family and camp on a beach. And, I'm like, dude, go to Baja, go to Mexico. And, people are scared to go. And, I've never had anything but good times there. I understand the stories people tell. I've paid bribes to cops. It's not a big deal. I'd rather pay a bribe to a cop in Mexico than deal with to deal with a speeding infraction in California. It's a lot more straightforward. The cop's like, hey, I want money.

Fair.

The cop's like, hey, you want money? And you give them $50 and they're like, thank you, carry on your way, have a good day. Not like, you were driving dangerously, blah, blah, blah, all this kind of stuff. You're like, you're an idiot. Then you have to pay $500 in court or something. I sort of prefer Mexico's system. I guess one of the Crazy experiences I had was my wife and I got married on March 13th, 2020 down in Todos Santos in Baja Sur. And, that's the day the pandemic was declared. We had a wonderful wedding, best wedding in history, but our plan had been to camp around Southern Baja for a month for our honeymoon. So, we get driven down in my truck and with the dogs and All that kind of stuff. And, you know, suddenly find ourselves 900 miles south of the border, you know, with nothing but like panic and empty grocery store shelves and stuff at home and had no idea what was going on. You know, Donald Trump was tweeting about closing the border. We were in a town that has 5 total hospital beds in which gringos immediately decided to act like assholes and clear out the local grocery store. And like, you know, it's a grocery store, gets a delivery once a week. You can't go and buy everything. 3 days before the truck comes, there's no food for anybody else, right? Sort of being a bad community member, there was anger amongst the local community about that. There were just so many unknowns. I didn't know if there was going to be violence at home. I sort of assumed there would be. Here we are, all the emotions of a wedding. We have days of driving and really risky, terrifying conditions between us and the American border. There's a state border in the middle of Baja between Baja Norte and Baja Sur. Mexico has a history of closing state borders during disease problems. They had a big problem with swine flu. They closed all the state borders and quarantined people that were sick. And, I don't know a whole lot about life, but I do know that I will never be taken prisoner by the Mexican military.

Hell no.

So, here I was wrapping up my wedding and pulling out map books and making a plan to circumvent the state border on the gnarliest off-road trail in Baja and calling friends that are CIA analysts and making plans to cross the border illegally back into America in case the border was closed. And then, possibly have to get across California, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Montana for— Before I could get home to my guns and that kind of thing. So, sort of making plans what I would do about that. And, they were pretty serious plans. I like to think I'm a capable person.

Sure.

But, we got stopped by a cop who wanted a bribe halfway home in Mexico. And, you should see my wife's face. She knows that I'm just planning to kill him the entire time that he's talking to me. And the guy's just trying to work his way around asking for the bribe. And I'm like, well, if he does this, I'll just snap his arm. So, we eventually exchanged $100 and go on our way. And she's like, Jesus fucking Christ. I remember my father-in-law asking me what my plan was and I was like, well, David, I'm going to go home, get all my guns and go to the cabin. And, haven't really gotten further than that.

Yeah.

And, he was like, well, that's a good idea. Maybe he and his wife will join us. And, I was like, well, you need to announce yourself from a distance if you come up here. And, he laughed about it for a second and you could see the gears going and he's like, oh, yes, I will. So, I guess the moral of all that, nothing really that bad happened, but The moral of that was, you know, outdoors can be as dangerous and as stupid as you want to make it. And most of the time it can just be safe and fun for everybody. Just go out there and have a good time and, you know, reduce risk as much as you can through, you know, first aid kits and, you know, making a plan for, you know, people knowing where you are and that kind of stuff. Other than that, you know, you're just going to have a good time. Yeah, totally.

What's the biggest life lesson that nature and the outdoors has taught you over the years?

I think for me, it's put some of the challenges and problems that I faced in life in perspective. You know, I can be upset because I'm broke or I can be upset because, you know, I had a minor injury or, you know, something like that or just a setback. You know, and you can go outdoors and see a daily survival situation for the animals and the planet that in which you're utterly irrelevant.

Yeah.

And, you know, like that is not just perspective, but it's also then You know, getting to participate in that to a certain degree, getting to see it, getting to heal from it and learn from it, you know, has been pretty powerful. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. You know, that kind of makes me think of the Instagram account Nature is Metal. I don't know if you follow that one or not, but it's a fascinating—

Yeah, I do follow that one. It's great.

Fascinating account. You know, there's all these people that are like, oh, you're being inhumane to the animals. You're like, wait a second, nature is not very humane. It's survival of the fittest and it's vicious, mean, and cruel. And Mother Nature can be a cruel bitch.

It is. Yeah, Mother Nature is a cruel bitch. And, you know, like, like death in the outdoors in nature is, is not a pleasant experience. You know, animals suffer and die and die horrible deaths and they're doing it right now and they're doing it every day. You know, and one of the takeaways for me there is, you know, people ask me like, you know, I've got 3 dogs. I use them for, you know, they're my pets. I love them. But, you know, we use them for security here in grizzly country. Yeah. And it's like, well, you know, your dogs couldn't beat up a bear. And they probably couldn't if it was a fair fight, but it's not a fair fight because that bear has to predicate every decision that it makes on the understanding that if it breaks a nail or gets an infection or gets a cut, its ability to get food is limited, that it starves and it suffers and it dies. Every decision that bear makes has to be predicated on that knowledge. Whereas my dumbass dogs predicate every decision they make on like, Dad has super glue. Yeah. So it's not a fair fight, you know, and like, you know, even the biggest bear in the world will come down the driveway, look, look at the dogs and be like, oh, fuck no. You know, that's, there's too much risk involved in that. Yeah. And that, and that's sort of like, you know, so you end up avoiding all conflict by just by having like the odor of dogs around, you know.

Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Wes, is there an outdoor experience that you never want to repeat?

There are a lot of outdoor experiences I never want to repeat. So, my buddy Chris Bergdahl—

Let's hear the most gnarly one.

Yeah. Well, my buddy Chris Bergdahl Jr. and I just got back from an Alaska trip in August and we went up there for a caribou hunt. And, we were spending Sitka's money, which is really nice. So, we got to have a once-in-a-lifetime— Big out a little bit. Yeah. Backcountry, took an airboat upstream, packrafted out, got access to areas other people never get to see up close to Anwar, that kind of thing. And, we were there, we were in the backcountry for 7 nights and we saw zero animals. And so, it more or less just became like—

Zero?

Yeah. There were some muskox. We caught all the grayling in Alaska and ate them, but that was really it. The caribou migration this year, the weather in Alaska was Super crazy this summer, super warm, and the migration just didn't start for like a month after it was supposed to.

Oh, wow.

And so, we just camped in a cold wet field for a week waiting for the caribou to come on the tundra. And, you can't really move across the tundra. It's kind of just a giant wet sponge full of basketballs where you're just knee-deep in freezing cold water all day every day. And like walking across it is like, you know, your normal walking speed of like 2.5, 4 miles an hour or whatever just is not there. Like you spend all day and like Herculean amounts of effort going like 3 miles, you know, and like that, that just, we did that and then you're just exhausted. And just rained every single day and was 32.5 degrees, you know? And so we're just like camping in a camping on a wet sponge. in the middle of nowhere with no animals, having spent a couple tens of thousands of dollars to get there and a lot of effort and a lot of time off and all that just to sit in a field and eat backpacking meals.

Yeah. At least you have the stories about it, right?

Yeah. I wish there were more adventurous stories, but we literally just kind of sat there and our daily routine was you'd wake up, have coffee, go take a dump, Yeah, walk around the tundra looking for caribou, not see any caribou, come back, eat some lunch, catch a fish. One thing, the fishing's awesome, but there's so many fish up there that it's just like you just throw a line in, you got a grayling, and then eat it and you're like, okay, well, sort of over that now.

Next.

Yeah. You can only see about half a mile in either direction because of the rain and you're just soaking wet and cold the entire time. You're like, ugh.

Oh yeah. Well, so you're, you're, uh, very much a prepared mindset dude. Um, you know, it sounds like just from some of those excursions and everything. So I'd love to hear what gear you consider essential that you always take with you no matter what adventure you're going on.

Yes, I think, you know, one of the lessons you learn, uh, over time is that less is more. Um, and leaning on multi-use items, uh, leaning on skill over, over gear, um, is sort of like where you end up being. I had a reader ask me recently what my base weight was for backpacking trips. Last time I measured it, it was 6 pounds.

Whoa.

And, I would consider that fully prepared for pretty much anything. I carry a good knife. I really like the Gasper that you sent over. Love the handle material, the blade shape.

Thanks.

It's awesome. It's ideal. Been headed up here to the cabin. I'm making fires with it every night.

Nice.

The handle material is like a— feels like a significant upgrade from linen micarta. So I like that a lot.

Yeah, it's TeraTough. It's fantastic.

Yeah, it's just, it's just super tacky. You just, you just hang on to it. It's really good. Yeah. So good knife, reliable method of starting a fire, you know, you pair that knife, that's a ferro rod. Honestly, I carry a small first aid kit. It's been years since I've, since I've really used it. I just sort of hurt myself and roll with it these days. Once you— superglue some Band-Aids. Yeah. One of the things about pain is that it's relative. And so, every time you have a major, major injury, the ways in which little injuries affect you become less and less to the point where it's kind of unhealthy, honestly. I say this in the least macho way possible, but I cut myself pretty regularly and don't notice it until my wife points out that I'm bleeding on everything. Just that level of injury just moves outside of your consciousness. You just don't care about it anymore.

Yeah.

It's like carry a little first aid kit, carry appropriate clothing. I've learned a lot from John Barklow at Sitka about layering appropriately for the outdoors, wearing clothing systems that don't need to be swapped out ever and they just work across a wide variety of conditions, stuff that will dry out quickly. If you get wet, the quickest way to die outdoors is hypo or hyperthermia.

Oh, yeah.

So, wearing clothing depending on the environment that deals with that for you. Sitting here doing this podcast in a synthetic base layer and a Polartec Alpha top from Sitka's military range. It's 34 degrees outside, 65 in the cabin. I'm comfortable in the cabin. If I take the dogs for a walk, I'll zip up the zipper and that's it and I'll be comfortable. So, getting there where your clothing is you know, doing a multitude of jobs for you. You know, you just, you just don't need a whole lot once you learn how everything sort of works together and, you know, sort of what you're doing. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. I'd love to get your take on what brands you think are just doing a phenomenal job of their product quality.

Yeah. So I pretty much just wear Sitka, Beyond. Beyond and Sitka are closely related. Rick Elder, the guy that runs Beyond, was John Barklow, Sitka's guy. Boss when they both worked for the military. Their backstory is they basically invented modern layering while designing clothing systems for the special forces during the early days of the War on Terror. And then, I honestly wear that stuff day to day. In terms of more casual outdoor experiences, I really like Fjällräven just because it's bomber, just so durable, built to last, looks good. I'm sort of tall and thin and a lot of American gear is cut for chubby guys and doesn't look good on me. So, European brands kind of help with that. Then, my favorite daily casual apparel brand is Filson.

Yeah.

Just, again, lifetime quality stuff, really durable materials. They recently have brought more technical materials into their line and their technical stuff is actually world-class. They make some rain jackets from Polartec NeoShell. which is the most breathable waterproof membrane out there. So, having that and solid colors with quality stitching is really helpful. Wax cotton is actually a really good material for non-backcountry stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So, I wear a lot of Filson. The problem I have with Filson is there's no tailors in Bozeman, just no tailors. You can't get stuff altered. And, I'm a vain guy and I do stuff on TV and everything and I want my clothes to fit me.

Sure.

And so Filson stuff, that was kind of bizarrely cut and sort of made for, for fatter dudes. And it limits my ability to wear it because, you know, I can't get it tailored anymore. You know, so I can't buy shirts from them anymore. I can't buy jackets from them anymore because they're just too big. Yeah. So yeah, Sitka, Beyond, Fjällräven, and Filson are pretty much— if you went through my closet, that's the only brands you would find.

Gotcha. What about as far as like gear outside of clothing? Any brands there that really stand out to you?

Yeah, Hyperlite Mountain Gear. I use their packs for backpacking. They're not relevant to hunting because they don't carry much weight, but I do use their shelters. I have an Ultimate 4, which weighs 1 pound without the bug nest and a pound and a half with the bug nest. And, it's a 4-person size shelter that's stronger than anything else out there. It's made from Cuban fiber. America's Cup sailboat material. That's why I took it to Alaska. That's all I camp out of now, that kind of thing.

Wow.

So, Hyperlite Mountain Gear is one of my favorites. I would use their stuff for everything if I could. And then, here in Montana, we have a fantastic new company called Go Fast Campers and they're making rooftop tents and ultralight truck campers. And they make everything in Bozeman, you know, paying living wages, which is rare in Montana. And they make just fantastic quality gear. And their innovation is— so basically every camper company out there lies to you about the weight and lies to you about the vehicles you can use it on. You know, so if you look at most pickup trucks like a Toyota Tundra, you know, a big pickup truck has a payload of 1,600 pounds.

Mm-hmm.

And it has to include fuel, that has to include people, that has to include dogs, it has to include beer. You eat it up really fast. So, you basically can't carry, you can't safely carry a traditional camper in the back of a Tundra.

Yeah, interesting.

Your 4-wheel campers, your slide-in campers, anything like that, it's actually illegal, it's unsafe, and you'll be prosecuted if you get into a crash and hurt or kill somebody overweight with one of the campers in the back. And, Go Fast, what they did was they made a 275-pound ultralight sort of It's hybrid rooftop tent pickup topper solution. It's not nearly as nice as traditional campers. It's more of a very, very basic but very robust and very strong camping cabana, which is awesome. You go set up camp on a beach and have your own personal cabana.

Cool.

Again, at a 275-pound weight instead of a 2,000-pound weight, So, your truck is still working, you can still go off-road, nothing falls apart, you can jump it, have fun, enjoy everything that the outdoors has to offer, and then still have this super ultra comfortable thing that actually makes your truck a better truck. So, they're one of my favorite brands right now.

Yeah, cool. What do you recommend for a Tacoma? I know you've had a little bit of beef with Tacomas over the years.

I would recommend you set your Tacoma up fire. Yeah, I recommend you set your Tacoma on fire while walking off. Substantially better experience. So, Tacomas have several issues from the factory.

Okay.

They have inadequate gearing. They gear it to pass the EPA mileage test, which the top speed is 60 miles an hour. So, Tacoma can't actually maintain top gear at, say, 75 or 80 on the highway on level ground. That's in stock form, much less in the mountains going uphill carrying weight. Bigger tires or anything like that. So, inadequate gearing from the factory, an unsuitable motor that was designed for minivans and sedans that doesn't drive like a truck. So, you're revving the shit out of it to get anywhere. And then, to do that, you would need a good transmission, but the transmission in Tacoma is just dogshit. It just hunts, never holds a gear. Aside from the actual outright gearing of the final drive ratios, it's just a really terrible transmission. And then, the payload is 1,100 pounds. And so, Toyota Tacoma can't safely take 4 adults camping. I think that's probably counter to the way you think a lot of people use their Tacomas.

Oh, yeah, totally.

So, it's just a terrible, terrible truck that people buy. It's unsafe, it's unsuitable, it shouldn't be sold, it shouldn't be advertised like it is. There's probably lawsuits to be had there if any lawyers are listening. I'd love to see a class action where You know, a bunch of campers got together and, you know, sued Toyota for trying to sell people who go camping Tacomas because, you know, they can't, they can't go camping. Yeah. It's just, it's a sad situation that people fall for kind of shit in American vehicle world.

What's your take on the new Jeep Gladiators?

They're cool. It's a very, very good truck. They, you know, you don't get any more off-road capability anywhere than you get from a Jeep. Live axles are always going to articulate. Independent front suspension, we see better RTI numbers, we see better wheel travel numbers up front from the new Ford Bronco, but independent suspension, just the way it flexes independently of the body, is always going to be superior for rock crawling. The payload is good on the Gladiator. It's a nice truck inside. Having said that, it's very, very expensive for what it is. Yeah. You're paying upwards of $50,000, which is an expensive truck at that point. And, Jeep Chrysler Fiat Stellantis's long-term build quality is extremely questionable. It's not a brand that I would own outside of warranty. And so, there's that. Gotcha.

Yeah, good to know. Yeah, I've been a Jeep guy for years and I traded in my Rubicon last year for Tacoma, just a little more practical, you know, with kids and carrying gear and for camping and stuff. But there's part of me that's like, man, I really miss my Jeep. Just always loved them.

Yeah.

I've always said if I could get an Unlimited with like a, like an '04 inline straight-6 engine and get rid of all the computers and just, you know, bulletproof the damn thing, that would be the ideal. But outside of a completely custom job, you can't find that.

That would be an awesome truck. I would encourage you on your way to your next camping trip with the family on board and all your gear on board to stop by a vehicle scale and see how much your Tacoma weighs with everything all loaded up. Oh yeah. You know, there's no chance you're under EWR. And remember, exceeding payload, you know, cops in America aren't smart enough to know to pull you over for it.

Yeah.

But, if you were to be in an accident and cause an injury or a death, it's almost certain that the lawyer on the other side would have your vehicle weighed.

Wow.

And, that would probably invalidate your insurance and move all liability in your direction. And so, imagine being stuck with a potential death without insurance and with full liability in your direction. It would be potentially ruinous. Oh, and so that's, that's what— that's catastrophic. That's what the company— it'd be financially catastrophic. And that's what the Kuma drivers are taking on by driving a truck that's inadequate for purpose.

Yeah. Well, let's get it now.

Just real fast, my advice to every Toyota owner right now, Toyota just does not make good trucks anymore. They're trading on a reputation they developed in the '80s, '90s. They just canceled the Land Cruiser. That's the last good truck they made. I own one. The used car market is insane right now. Sell your Tacoma, sell your 4Runner, get the best, get more than you paid for out of it.

Yeah.

And then, go buy a truck that's suitable for your needs. That truck would be, if you want a midsize SUV like a 4Runner, get a Lexus GX. That's actually a good car. It's safe to drive, has a V8, has full-time 4-wheel drive. So, it's good in the snow, it's good off-road. Has a good transmission, has adequate payload. It's doing space milk worldwide. Land Cruiser Prado, it's a great vehicle. You know, if you can get away from the Toyota brand, if you're not that brainwashed, look at a Ford Ranger, look at a Jeep Gladiator, look at a Ford Super Duty. If you want to have a camper, if you want to tow, you need to be in a heavy-duty pickup truck.

Yeah.

And the best one of those right now is a Ford Super Duty. So you can get one of those starting at about $50,000, which is about the same price as a Tacoma or 4Runner TRD Pro.

Yeah.

Super Duty will haul a camper, it will tow a trailer, it will be safe for the family on board. It'll probably get better fuel economy than your fucking taco. It'll be able to climb mountains. You know, like, you know, just, just buy, you know, take advantage of this weird world where used cars are more so expensive and finance on new cars is, is, is so cheap. You can get 0%, 0.9%, or 1.9% on any new Ford right now.

Wow.

You know, like, that's nuts. I just bought a new Ford Ranger and like over 5 years I'm paying $900 in total interest.

Whoa.

You know, like, why would you buy a used car in that market? Yeah. Yeah. It's free money.

Yeah. No, that's great to know. And it's definitely a weird, weird car market right now. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's the world we live in.

Yeah. You know, with 6 kids, I would get an Expedition next Ford. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Wes, I found that most writers are also prolific readers. And so, I'm curious what books have had the biggest impact on your life over the years?

Oh, gosh. Well, that's sort of an easy question right now. One of the guys that taught me all about outdoor skills when I was a little kid is this guy Mark Warren. He's a Native American who lives in Georgia and has always done outdoor education stuff for children there. And, I had a really good opportunity to spend a summer with him before we moved to Europe just learning all about Georgia Mountains and wildlife and existing with very little. And, he's now an author. And so, he just wrote a trilogy that's probably the most true history of Wyatt Earp ever told.

Oh, cool.

And then, he also has a whole bunch of survival and outdoor skills books, which are literally how I learned to do outdoor stuff.

Wow.

So, if you're a dad buying books for kids or you're an adult that wants to read interesting history of the West, he's a fantastic writer. His books are awesome. The Wyatt Earp stuff's really compellingly told and just he did it in conjunction with the family and a bunch of historical societies. So, it's not just a fairy tale, it's an actual accurate portrayal of what the Old West was like, which is really cool to learn about.

Yeah, cool. Super. Yeah, we'll add that into the show notes for sure. Wes, do you have a favorite podcast?

I don't really listen to podcasts. You know, I listen to NPR and New York Times and, you know, BBC and all that kind of stuff when I drive. But I'm a reader. Listening to stuff is harder for me.

Got it. Yeah, totally makes sense. What's one piece of advice that you would leave with our audience today, Wes?

You know, if you're on the fence, if you're worried, about problems that might happen in the outdoors. If you're scared to go someplace or scared to go camping or whatever it is, just get over that and go do it. I think the experience you have, even if you run into some minor issues, even if you're a little cold or things don't go according to plan, will be so valuable that it'll justify itself. Go outside your comfort zone, go places you've never been, take some chances, be open-minded, talk to people. People are friendly pretty much everywhere. Just go do stuff and have fun. You know, don't, don't spend life being scared of the world. Spend life enjoying the world. There's so much, there's so much out there.

Great advice. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Exactly.

Totally. Wes, this has been a lot of fun. Really enjoyed this interview today. Just to kind of close out, where can people learn more about you online?

Yeah, so my full-time job is with Outside Magazine, outsideonline.com. You can also follow me on Instagram, Wes Seiler, Twitter, Indefinite Wilds. And I drop links to my freelance work and all sorts of stuff that I do on westsiler.com. Super.

Wes, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. Really enjoy our conversation. And for all of you listening, till next time, stay wild.

Thanks for listening to the Rewild Gear Podcast. You can check out the show notes for today's episode at rewildgearpodcast.com. If you're ready to spend more time in the wild, our line of high-quality, minimalistic outdoor gear can help you do just that. Check us out at rewildgear.com.