LIVE with Glacial Gear

The following is a manuscript of my wife and I as we visited with Shane from Glacial Gear.  Glacial Gear is a small business that creates backpacking gear out of a specific type of Merino Wool.  Shane shares his stories of his favorite trails, backpacking experiences, starting a small company and his heart for the community.

Watch the interview HERE – Glacial Gear

Listen/Download the podcast HERE – Glacial Gear

Joey – Hello, everyone. We are live on the Overland Podcast. We have been backstage talking about being healthy, and that’s always a hot topic with my wife and I, and also with our guest this evening, Shane, founder of Glacial Gear. Thank you for being with us.

Shane – Happy to be here.

Joey – Well, this week has gotten off to a pretty good start. We were home, not feeling very well, but decided we were going to get better and we just willed ourself to being better and got out and did a little bit of hiking this weekend. Took PJ on her longest hike ever, almost six miles, and she made it. Gia actually carried the backpack that we carry her in and didn’t get to use it. So just in case, just in case, just in case we had to stop at all the little creeks and ponds and everything and let her swim and get cooled off. And she loved that, but she had a really good time. And then we came home and made the world’s best toffee. So, we got out, did a little thing and then came home and made some sugar. So, that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Gia – Tis this season, right? Tis this season. That’s actually baking and candy making the things that I do to feel a little more Christmassy.

Shane – It looked like enough toffee to feed an army.

Joey – Yeah, it was. I think we weighed it. What was the tonnage?

Gia – It was over nine pounds. Nine pounds.

Joey – Nine pounds. And just so that you know, if you saw the pictures, that’s not all for us. We actually bought some little bags and stuff to give them away. We gave them away to a lot of the teachers at our school, and we’re going to give some away to family. But we have to make sure and keep it hidden from ourselves, or we have to pay the toffee tax every time we go into the kitchen. And so that’s bad. That’s bad. Sunday was good we met up with Luke and Jesse his wife from UltralightSacks we had they are actually from Arkansas.  They had never been to the Ouachita National Forest so we met up with them and it was pouring down rain we got soaking wet but we had a great time showing them around all of our little honey holes and doing all that. They’ve got a little van that they’ve built to travel around in. And that was fun showing them around.

Gia – We broke their van.

Joey – We broke their van. Uh, we wheeled their van a little too hard.

Gia – Well, we, we, we stuck to forest roads that were not too, that weren’t too rough, but I texted him Monday morning and I just said, hey, we had a great time. Glad y’all got to come with us. Hope you have a safe trip home. You know, really enjoyed it. And he responded, well, we’re at the Ford dealership. I was like, oh, man. And he said, yeah. He said that was the hardest we ever wheeled it. But he said it’s a POS and it always breaks. So, he said I’m used to it. So that was good.

Shane – Is it a Transit?

Joey – It’s just an old Econoline. He’s got an old Econoline van that they have built out as a camper on the inside. It’s got a lift on it, big tires, and it’s just a neat little setup. Not a four-wheel drive, so we didn’t take it down any four-wheel drive places, but it’s just a nice thing for them to be able to use and get away and camp in and stuff, and they love it. It’s pretty neat. We took them to one of our honey holes on a little lake. And it’s kind of like you’re on an island surrounded by water.

Shane – Oh, wow.

Joey – And they’re like, oh, this is beautiful. So, they had a good time, had a good time. But now we’re back at the old grind preparing for our next adventure this week. I’ve got a backpacking trip in the Ozark Highlands Trail with some guys going to do a new section I’ve never done before. So, all week I’ve been packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking, weighing, packing, unpacking, weighing, and all that, the way it goes. So, I’ve packed my food, unpacked my food, took food out, put food in, and make sure I got everything. It’s fun.

Gia – He had to reconfigure his waist belt last night because on his new pack, he got a small and he realized he maybe should have gotten a medium.

Joey – Yeah, I’ve come to figure out on some of these backpacking packs that what they tell you that the waistband is… I got the very perfect one. But if you put any layers on, you add a little bit of space in there. And when you always and I didn’t think, OK, when most of the time when we backpack, it’s in the wintertime, you’ve got layers on. And so, I didn’t I didn’t add space for a few layers. And so, it was pretty tight. And I thought, man, if I if I put my puffy coat on, this isn’t going to reach. And I want my I want my heel belt on. I want my hip belt on. And so, I had to do a little grinding and carving and going out in the garage and finding the little straps that would go in between. So, I had to make me an extension on my waist belt.

Shane – Nice. You modified it.

Joey – Yeah, it works. It works. So anyway. It’s fun. Yeah, that’s always a thing.

Gia – Yeah, it is. I think Joey likes the packing for the trip almost as much as he likes the trip because it’s his chance to surround himself with all his gear, to touch all his gear.

Joey – It’s fun. I’m a gearhead. I’m a gearhead. He likes his gear, yeah. Spread it out all over the bed. We came home last night. This is a funny story. So, we came home last night. It was one of our only nights at home, just me and the wife. She gets on the couch. We have dinner. You know, we make our little Vietnamese spring rolls. We had a little kit and did all this and had a great little dinner. And she makes her little nest on the couch and turns the TV on. And I go in the bedroom.

Gia – Oh, I didn’t turn the TV on. You turned the TV on.

Joey – Well, I already had it on. And I go in the bedroom. I start spreading everything out. And she said, what are you doing? I was like, well, I’m getting all my stuff together. I told you I was getting all my stuff together. It’s my night to pike. She said, we haven’t been married long enough for me to be in this room and you to be in that room. She said, I’m coming in there with you. We can’t have two TVs on. You turn the TV on in there and I’ll just come in there with you. We’ll be together. And I was like, well, come on. This is where I’m at. So, it was pretty funny. We had a good time in there just together and strolling everything out.

Shane – It’s a good point, though.

Joey – Yeah, it is. It was fun. We had a good time.

Gia – Well, it was after the bed was covered with me and all of his gear. And I was offering feedback. It was great.

Shane – I have an embarrassingly large amount of gear.

Joey – Well, I love people like you because it doesn’t make me look bad. There was a time when the words came out of her mouth when she said, don’t you think we have enough backpacking gear? I was like, no. Is that even possible? Is it possible?

Gia – When he says, don’t you think you have enough shoes? I say, I need one more pair than I already have. I need one more pair than I already have. And you never will. If that’s the way you measure, if that’s your metric, you’re never going to, you always need one more pair. And he needs one more piece of gear than he already has. It’s almost like a toffee craving. It’s close to that.

Joey – In the overlanding world, you say two is one and one is none. Well, in backpacking world, it’s five is one and one is none. In the shoe world, it’s a hundred is one and one is none. So, you know, as long as you have a hundred pairs of shoes, I can always say, well, why do you need a hundred pairs of shoes? I don’t understand. It’s all different.

Gia – I’ve got, I’ve got hiking boots and hiking shoes.

Joey – Right. And I’ve got this pack weighs this much and it’s an ultra-lot. And this backpack is, you know, I can do the same thing. This is for this. That’s for that. That’s why you need, you know, ten sleeping pads and all this other stuff.

Shane – Yeah. You’re making me think about it now. I’m going to have to pull it all out, you know,

Joey – Oh, I love it. I love it. Let’s do the other again.

Gia – Well, it has been fun, though. He has had the guys that are going with him on his trip. They’re all on a text thread. And so, they’ve been sharing pictures of all their gear and what their pack looks like. And they keep each other pretty entertained with all their pictures that they’re sending back and forth.

Joey – We do. It’s fun. You know, it gives you a way to connect and have friends and build friendships and, you know, build that lifelong thing. And it’s fun. And I enjoy it. And, you know, we tell each other all the time we kid with each other all the time. But whatever makes the other one happy, that’s what we’re all about. And so, I know deep down in her heart, my wife wants me to be happy and have everything I’ve ever wanted. And I’m saying that on this live show in front of the whole world because I know that the words would come out of her mouth if I wasn’t saying it. That’s exactly what she would say.

Gia – Oh, yeah.

Shane – Yeah, that’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful thing.

Joey – Well, several of the things that I’ll be taking this weekend on my trip comes from Glacial Gear. And Shane, I appreciate you taking your time to come on the show. I’ve been I’ve been I’ve been rocking your trail towel for a while now. I’ll tell you what, if there’s one thing that I do, no matter what the weather is, I sweat. You put twenty pounds on your back, you’re going to work hard and having something to wipe my face, wipe my nose has been incredible. And so fell in love with your stuff. It was 2022, I think, when I was introduced to your products, I actually won a competition that was put on by Responsible Stewardship called the #giveashit. I want to talk about Responsible Stewardship a little bit more later, but as a result, I was sent your trail rag. And since then, I’ve found, several of your things on Garage Grown Gear and, visited your website and, and I actually have something that’s even a little bit bigger now. I actually have the sleeping bag liner that goes in my sleeping bag.

Shane – And a beautiful color.

Joey – Oh, so pretty. And it’s so soft. That’s, that’s the first thing my wife said when I, when I opened up, she’s like, that is so soft. It’s crazy soft. I said, I know. I love it. So anyway, I couldn’t be more excited to have you on the podcast, get to visit with you, know a little bit about you and your background. So, I love businesses like yours where like when you talk on the web on your website, you give a little bit of history about your business, a little bit of history about yourself. So, if you would tell us a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself and who you are.

Shane – Well, I’m Shane, owner of Glacial Gear. My wife and I own it together. And it basically, the company came about, well, I’ll go back a little bit further. I did a fair amount of backpacking, camping, things like that when I was younger. My wife and I got married when we were eighteen. Oh, holy! When I’m speaking younger, talking about younger, I was quite a bit younger because we got married and she wasn’t so much into that. So, I kind of backed away from that part of my life. And probably I think it was about twenty fifteen. I was riding with my daughter. near our home and she was kind of giving me a laundry list of things that she just felt that I, you know, she missed out on that. I didn’t take her to do that. She knew that I’d done in the past and backpacking was I mean, I’d love to go with you. So, I started doing that with her a little bit more and she found out she didn’t really love it that much. So, I just kept doing it. And I’d go to the Ice Age Trail, do like section hikes up in Wisconsin quite a bit. And it’s just… I sweat a lot, you know, and I’d go to REI, I’d look for different types of towels that I could just clip on my, my shoulder strap and grab and wipe and just, you know, wouldn’t, wouldn’t get nasty. I knew Merino wool had antimicrobial attributes. So, I looked and looked and couldn’t find anything like that. And I, basically just cut up part of a merino wool shirt and use that for like a year or so and then I had uh my aunt make one I was like you know what but at the time I didn’t know how to sew so I had her make one for me and then I have a friend at another gear company that that just kind of like pushed me a little bit and said you know what you need to figure out how to start selling these because nobody makes anything like this and uh my wife already knew how to sew I learned how to sew so we started you know looking at what it would be like to put a business together you know get a website up and going and just learn all of that and um you know that’s kind of how it started cool it was just a black towel and then we started making other colors and You know, the neck Gator was a thing that pretty much I did the UL Gator. Cause I couldn’t, couldn’t find anything made out of Merino Wool that you could just pull over your head, just over your ears. You know, if you had a baseball cap on or something like that, then it just seemed like a natural thing to have a regular Gator and then the sleeping bag liner, you know?

Joey – That’s cool. Very cool. I love hearing about how everything started and where it all came from. Now you grew up in Illinois, is that right?

Shane – Yeah, yeah, Northern Illinois. On the website, it’s about you exploring different places in Illinois. One of the places that it talks about, I had never heard of before, Nipper Sink Creek.

Shane – Yeah, yeah.

Joey – So just in case we find ourselves in Illinois and want to get outdoors, give us some places, some good places up there we could explore.

Shane – oh man well in that area there’s a chain of lakes area that Nippersink creek feeds into this chain so it’s about a probably a fifteen-mile creek with four or five canoe launches that you can hop on at any point and take down into the lake area um but yeah there’s starved rock um more down between Chicago and Peoria out by Galena near the Iowa Wisconsin border is beautiful. I overlooked where I lived for the longest time for probably because I’m fifty-four for probably I would say a good forty-five years of my life. It’s just like, you know, Illinois, I love Wisconsin is probably one of my favorite states. I just love everything about it, except the fact that it’s brutally cold. Yeah. But I even, you know, I overlooked a lot of things there, too. And I was out west. There’s a pack maker named Tom Ben. He’s retired now, but his company has been around since the early nineteen seventies or more day pack type things are made in the USA. I had one of his packs and I was out in Washington visiting a sister-in-law and I wanted to go to his shop and I wound up being an industrial condo. Like, at first, we didn’t know if we were in the right spot. We walked in, and it’s just a bunch of people sewing and a few desks over in the corner. Yeah. And, like, you know, a wall with some packs hanging from it. And so, I started speaking with somebody that was inside the door there, and I recognized Tom Binley. he’s like oh let me grab him and he came up and was talking to me about a lot of things but I told him how beautiful I thought it was in the northwest you know like it’s one of the most beautiful places I’d ever been and he asked me where I was from and I told him and he was like oh man that has to be just awesome right there by the great lakes and I was like, you know, in my head, like, I don’t know. But it was that conversation made me very intentional about finding beauty in all of God’s creation everywhere. And it’s really changed my perspective on that entirely. So everywhere I’m at now, I love where we’ve lived in a lot of ways. I’m glad to be in South Carolina now because I really love it down here. But yes, yeah, yeah, there’s beautiful areas.

Joey – Yeah, Wisconsin has so many great spots too. And it’s so underrated in so many ways. You know, Illinois is not, it’s not one of those. If people say, where do you dream about going? It’s not really on a lot of people’s radars. And that’s why, because there’s always something there. You just have to find it. And so, it’s Illinois is not a place that we go to, but it’s a place where we go through. So, you know, if it’s, if it’s one of those things where we’re taking our time and want to, I want to do some things like we did that this summer. When we were going up into the northeast, there were places that we were intentional about going. But we stopped in Pennsylvania and did some trails. We stopped in New York and did some trails. We actually did a hike in New Jersey, which I was not planning on doing. And it was like being in a third world country. And, you know, it was it was a lot different. And the takeaway was a lot different. But I’ve got good memories from being there.

Shane – I’ve actually heard a lot of good things about New Jersey.

Gia – New Jersey is gorgeous, but it was a little too close to the city, the spot that I said, let’s go here. It was too close. It was right in the center. Well, it was too close to the city, like New York City.

Joey – It was one of those places where as soon as we got out of the car, I said, I don’t feel safe.

Gia – And I just had to remind you, I was like, just pretend we’re in a different country.

Joey – Oh, I wouldn’t have to pretend. It is a little bit of a different country. It was a different country. It was.

Shane – that’s like Chicago. Chicago is not Illinois. Chicago is Chicago. You get away from there and… You know, I mean, it’s a, it’s totally different. The people are totally different. Everything’s just different. That being said, I love the Chicago Cubs.

Gia – Oh, yeah. I love Chicago. My sister went, she went to, got her graduate degree in Chicago at Rush University. Okay. So, we spent, I, I, and being across the lake from Chicago and South Haven, Michigan, where my mom’s spot is, I love Chicago.

Shane – It’s a great city, you know, just has its issues, but it’s, you know, it’s a great city.

Gia – You’re right. There’s so much more to Illinois. There is so much more to Illinois. My younger sister that lived in Chicago, she actually has settled in Paducah, which is just across the Illinois. I mean, just across from Illinois, the river from Illinois. And, literally like their property butts up to the, to the river. And so, across the river, you can see Illinois from there, you know, backyard. And, and, Yeah, Kentucky and that. They’re not too far away from Land Between the Lakes, which is a really gorgeous recreation area. But Southern Illinois has some amazing hiking spots. Most of the times when we go hiking with the kids, we go to Illinois because it’s got some really neat spots that are just a couple hours from where they live that are just gorgeous. Just all kinds of rocky bluffs and outcroppings and… all kinds of neat topography that we’ve really enjoyed exploring so Illinois has so much going for it it’s a neat place it’s more than just it is way more than just Chicago

Shane – oh yeah, I’ve never been down there like Illinois is kind of unique I mean northern Illinois and southern Illinois are very different you know like the people like you go to Wisconsin or Minnesota and the people aren’t that much different from Northern Wisconsin. The Southern Wisconsin or Illinois is just kind of unique where, you know, it’s kind of a Northern state and a Southern state a little bit.

Joey – Yeah, you’re right. Because the Northern people in Wisconsin act like people from the UP.

Shane – Yeah, that’s right.

Joey – You know, you’re up there and you talk about a whole different world. The UP is a whole, as soon as you cross that bridge, it’s like, People talk different. They act different. They talk different. All the signs are different. The food is different. Everything’s different.

Shane – Pasty. Did you have a pasty?

Joey – Oh, we did. We did. Every time we go. Every time. And we like to find the little hole in the wall places that make them right in. Because I want it made right then. I want it fresh. And they said, well, it’ll take about fifteen minutes. I said, I’ll wait. I’ll wait. Because they’re… They’re good when they’re fresh. I love them.

Shane – Another thing, before the podcast started, you were talking about Big Bend being relatively quiet with tourists. I backpacked around Isle Royale, which a lot of people aren’t familiar with. That was one of the best backpacking trips I’ve done. I’ve done quite a few.

Gia – We are so excited to do that one day.

Shane – I would encourage you to take your time out there, too. I don’t even know how many miles of trail you could string together. We did an eighty-mile loop.

Joey – Oh, wow.

Shane – You can take a seaplane out there or a ferry from Copper Harbor in Michigan to… I think it’s Rock Harbor on the east side of the island. Wendigo is on the west side where you come out of Minnesota, which is a shorter ferry. That’s what we did, but boy, it was… It was amazing. Great camp spots. Shelters at almost every camp spot. Since the mosquitoes are a thing there. I stayed in my tent anyway.

Joey – Well, we found some of those UP mosquitoes when we were up there. They found us. They found us the black flies and. We got some great pictures of being in the tent and you couldn’t even hardly see outside. There were so many black flies on the outside of the tent. It was amazing. But yeah, the mosquitoes. In fact, when we got back to the house in Michigan, I actually looked up mosquito body suits. I actually Googled that and found some on Amazon. I thought, I bet some people up there have those because they were rough.

Gia – Yeah. We passed so many people that when there was one day that they were really, really, really bad. And so, everybody we passed on trail was wearing all their nets and everything. And there was somebody, we were walking by somebody and we were laughing about how our essential oil spray that we had bought didn’t work. And he’s like, I don’t know where…it’s not working.

Joey – Yeah. nothing works nothing works and there’s even signs there’s signs on the trail that says mosquito spray does not work yeah you have to have a physical they’ve been sprayed with it so many times they’re immune…nothing works you know and we thought hey we’ll buy some local stuff and you know when we went and oh this is local stuff made locally blah blah blah it worked about what eight seconds and then yeah and it quit.

Shane -yeah, I’m not going to say there aren’t mosquitoes out there because there are no wood ticks, I mean that’s a unique thing is there no wood ticks on that island no everywhere else you know oh yeah somehow, they’re not out there which is a thing to worry about

Joey – I mean they’re bad in Minnesota up in the boundary waters, they were really bad. And I’ve always wanted to do one of the portage, new portage things, but that’s always scared me off. The mosquitoes just hauling you off to some unknown place and never bringing you back and sucking you dry. But other people have done it and lived, so there’s got to be a way.

Shane – Yeah, I think you just get used to being bit. I mean, it’s an irritant to me, but I don’t swell up or anything my wife and both of my kids I have a son and daughter in their late twenties they get bit and they have a lump for like two weeks you know I couldn’t even imagine you know being somewhere like that and having that happen but I think yeah you just kind of You just motor through it. Just get through it. Get used to it a little bit. Which is one of the reasons…

Gia – Oh, I’m going to interject, though. I love your merino wool rag so much, though, while we were traveling, because when I… At my eye… waters constantly. My eyes just water. Backpacking, I get so tired of rubbing my hands with my eyes. I’m sorry, my eyes with my hands because my hands are… First of all, you’re on the trail, so they’re just not… It’s not like you’re able to wash them all the time. They’re just dirty. Bugs spray all over them. It’s just so nice. I just took advantage of the rag, just being able to wipe my eyes when I needed to, which was constantly. They just water.

Shane – And then with the antimicrobial aspect of it, it just, you know, you’re not, I mean, it’s still dirty, but you know.

Gia – No, it’s so much better than my nasty paws. Because what will happen is I’ll end up like I’ll get home with a case of conjunctivitis because I’ve been rubbing my eyes so much with my really, really dirty hands. I’ll get home with pink eye. Whereas if I use your rag, that doesn’t happen. So anyway, another thing that is a really good thing. Another benefit.

Joey – Yes. Need to add that to the benefits. No pink eye.

Shane – And that’s another thing. I mean, we’re getting more of them out there now too, because we partnered up with Z-packs, making a collaboration trail ride with them. And you know, their reach is so broad, you know, we’re able to get it out there to the masses a little more. Cause I believe in it like majorly and the sleeping bag liner that they have is really good.  It’s lighter than ours. It’s actually because Shareen and I make everything here except for well the trail rag elite that just came out.  Their trail rag and merino sleeping bag liner we have somebody else make because we don’t have the machines to be able to make the finished edge like the merino that that they have is super fine.  Like you have to have a very specific finished edge on it so it doesn’t fall apart but yeah, we’re pretty proud of like the products that we came up with all around.

Joey – One of the things I really like is on your social media, it’s not all about your gear. You actually post pictures of your dogs, your family, you make it very personable. So, we’re actually getting to know you and your gear all at the same time. And I love that. We had, uh, some guys from BlackBeard Fire Starters on last week and I told them the same things, you know, they like to have fun and do jokes and, and, it, it helps us to get to know you a little better. And I appreciate that. I like that. It’s, it’s very personal.

Shane – Yeah. I mean, social media is a tough thing. Cause it’s like, it’s like your best advertisement and you have to take advantage of that. But you want people to get to know you and that you’re a real person, you know, all the time. That’s what I love about social media. I mean, I truthfully don’t love the business aspect of having to like, you know, do it for the business. So, I’m doing it for myself.

Joey – more that way too you know yeah and then it works it works

Shane – yeah, it’s a tricky thing so did the did the name glacial gear did that actually come from your time on the Ice age Trail is that where it came from.  Well a little bit but more so right in the location that we’re at what McHenry County Illinois is where we lived it’s basically to give you paint a picture. You’ve got Cook County where Chicago is. Then Lake County is directly north of that on the Wisconsin border. And McHenry County is just west of that on the Wisconsin border. And McHenry County’s conservation department is like awesome, you know, especially with the resources that they have. But there’s a park called Glacial Park there with a lot of glacial features because it did dip down into Illinois a way too. There’s that section south of Milwaukee, like the Glacial Kames is a big feature in Kettles. I think Kenosha County alone, Kenosha and Racine County have like thirty thousand glacial kames… and then which are basically just ridges of gravel it was dropped off of the snow melt you know and just deposited in a ridge like a hill so yeah that park was like ten minutes from our house and when I got back into backpacking and just being outside more it’s somewhere that I would go and do you know a two-mile loop probably three four times a week

so it’s kind of funny because my wife and I were actually in a Hobby Lobby and I didn’t really have anything to do when we were in there I’m just kind of like I’ve never I don’t think I’ve ever told this story um I’m walking around and I’m just thinking like okay we’re going to do this what do we name the business and you know I started thinking about that park and just people don’t think of Illinois and probably even Wisconsin, you know, when I think of glaciers and I just thought, you know, it’s, it’s paying homage to our area in a big way that people don’t realize and bring a little, you know bringing that to the forefront a little bit more so people get knowledge of it.  But yeah, I just love that place so I Glacial Park is what it was called and it was I think it’s like five thousand acres something like that in its entirety but that was what triggered it and I was in that Hobby Lobby Glacial Gear the place of inspiration I started googling.  And I just started checking the name on everything and it was available. The website was available. It was available on Facebook, Instagram. It wasn’t available on Instagram. That’s a long story for another time. But yeah, so I was like, well, let’s roll with it.

Joey – Do you ever think about going into a Hobby Lobby again for inspiration on new things?

Shane – I probably should.

Joey – You know, it was the birthplace of major inspiration. Oh, that’s such a good story, though. There you go.

Shane – Yeah, these maps, actually, in the background here, there’s a… So, there’s a story about those. I have quite a few of them in here. They’re actual like waterproof maps that I’m trying to remember the name of the podcast, the Mighty Blue podcast. I think it is.

Joey – I’ve listened to it.

Shane – So, this was probably, man, I bet you five, six years ago, he had a little segment where he’s talking to this guy, Keith Mermel, about these maps. And at that point, he’d done a map of the Superior Hiking Trail. And, you know, which ends basically in, in my mother and father-in-law’s backyard and Jake Park, Minnesota. So, I was like, man, I’d really like to get ahold of one of those maps. And, I couldn’t find him anywhere. So, I emailed the guy. I was like, my wife grew up here. And I just kind of rambled on a little bit. And I got an email back. And he said, I can send it to you. No problem. Just tell me. Give me your credit card number. And I said, your wife wouldn’t happen to be one of the Townsend girls, would she? I was like, what?

Joey – Small world.

Shane – He actually knew my father-in-law was best. But, you know, I got them, and we took those to Hobby Lobby and had them framed there, and they do an excellent job. I mean, I can’t say enough about Hobby Lobby.

Gia – My sister, she worked in the framing department in college.

Shane – Kind of a long story to bring, you know, some things that I have in here to the Hobby Lobby part of it.

Joey – I love it. That’s getting to know you a little better and that’s what we’re here for. I love on your website where you take a little bit of time and a spot on there to talk about the history and about how you hiked the Ice Age Trail and of course, we had a little more in depth here. You’re talking about where the name come from. But we’ve interviewed so many small boutique companies that share the same kind of story about how they’re out on the trail. And they’re thinking about, I need this. I need this. I need something that will do this. And they think of something that will make their lives better. And you actually follow through with it and create something that not only makes your life easier but also helps the community makes everybody else’s life easier… you come up with it and run with it.  So I love stories like that.  So that was the birth of the trail rag out there on that trail.

Shane – Yeah. And Garage Grown Gear, actually, before we launched our website, we partnered up with them and they’ve been absolutely huge for small businesses like us. They’ve had so much growth since that point. We launched our website April first, 2020. So, we probably had that right in the middle of COVID.

Joey – But, you know, that was a good time, though, because everybody was going outside. Everybody was going outside. We would go out and we would try and find places to camp and we couldn’t find any places to camp and places that would normally be completely empty. People were getting outside, getting outdoors, because if they were in the city, they couldn’t do anything. Everything was closed. And so that was a really a good time. And it was actually a boom for a lot of really small businesses because people were staying home, getting on internet and buying everything. And, you know, there’s so many businesses that boomed there in that time, especially in the overland world, the backpacking world, because people were getting outside and getting away. And so, you hit it at a pretty good time, probably.

Shane – Yeah. I actually, I was a heavy equipment operator for, a thirty-three-year career doing that that I I retired from three years ago. And yeah, it was a weird time. I was still I was still doing that for a couple of years after we started before, we started Glacial Gear. But yeah, that was a crazy period of time as far as like who could work who couldn’t work.

Joey – yeah, the new term essential came out and you found out whether you were or not

Shane – exactly yeah not good

Gia – so have you ever had any other businesses that you’ve started or was this your first

Shane – no I just like chased after my grandfather started.  He was a he was a dirt farmer. You know, his parents were immigrants and him and his brother started excavating business back in the nineteen by late nineteen thirties, early forties, and then started the gravel pit where we had a family business for like seventy years. And then that kind of went the wayside early two -thousands. And I worked for somebody else until I was able to get my pension from that. So, so this kind of basically started as a hobby business.

Joey – Okay. So, when did it go from the trail rag to other things when you, when you thought, oh, I can make other things out of this? And it kind of branched out. How did all that start?

Shane – I think it was just kind of organic, you know, like I had a, I’d thought about a sleeping bag liner for a couple of years, but hadn’t acted on it. And then, um, like my best friend is the marketing director at Z-Pack. So, like we go on a bunch of backpacking trips and he’s, you know, he just loves people and he meets somebody and invites them, you know, on a trip and we did the ocean, the lake trail. A few years ago, that goes from Lake Okeechobee to Hobe Sound in Florida. So, you’re basically kind of walking through, walking through swamps a lot of the time. But he invited this guy that he’s, I don’t know how many people have now. I think he’s the seventh person to have finished all the National Scenic Trails. Patrick French is his name. And we were on that hike and just kind of hit it off. And he wound up being on that TV show, Naked and Afraid, which he’s been on, I think, four times now. But I picked him up after a trip. And after his first Naked and Afraid, he flew from Argentina to Chicago. I picked him up. went to my house for like a half hour. We went to a Cubs game, came back and he spent like five days with me before he started the Ice Age Trail. And I saw his sleeping bag liner and it was, He’s a professional through hiker, so it’s all he’s been doing since twenty fifteen. And he had his sleeping bag liner from twenty fifteen. And I looked at and I was like, you know, I’ve been thinking of making something, you know. So, before he left, I got one. designed and made and he used it on the Ice Age Trail and he used it on the whole North Country Trail from North Dakota to Vermont so he tested it pretty well for me before we launched it and so you know that that’s how that came about. It was just kind of things like that. I’d like to have a hoodie at some point, but we just have to… I have some thoughts for a design and the Merino. There’s… there’s the way the way the textile industry has changed in the world there’s basically no textile industry left in the states

Gia – so is it all China Vietnam?

Shane – like the wool all comes from Australia or New Zealand primarily still but then it goes you know you like I mean some companies like have a proprietary fabric that they design but there’s a lot of there’s a specific company that basically does everything from in Injini’s toe socks, big companies like that, that, that have a lot of different excellent fabrics that, you know, I have a really lightweight Merino sun hoodie in mind, but we just have to get It’s a little bit bigger before we can do that.

Joey – Yeah. Well, you offer, you offer quite a few items now, um, blankets, sleeping bag, liners, gators, and then your trail rags, uh, along with a few other, other things. So, you’ve really, you’ve really branched out since, you know, in a small amount of time. So, it’s one little black trail. Yeah, the blanket seemed like a no-brainer. The fabric is… It’s really the lightest merino wool blanket there is out there. You know, so for people that… I mean, you know, hikers aren’t going to use that, although I know quite a few that have. But, I mean, it’s… Being on, you know, your Overlanding Podcast, I mean, that’s one thing when I have the time, cause I bought a Bronco Ford Bronco a couple of years ago, I had it ordered for two years, but it’s going to be a process, like the Goosegear tailgate table. And, you know, I have a rooftop tent. I haven’t gotten to use it yet though. And we just by chance came across a, a Thor sanctuary sprinter van last spring that somebody had for ridiculously cheap. key price compared to what they were going for on the market and we had a nineteen foot camper trailer that just didn’t really work out for you know yeah our lifestyle you just have to drag the things around and yeah that’s not really us so I made I made an offer on this thing and they took it so we have we have our band now that we’re

Gia – somebody is so jealous right now

Shane – so I’ll show it to you someday you guys are more than welcome stay with us

Joey – that is on my list…a van the van life van I want to live in a van down by the river he started it and I want to live it…we have a little list on our phones that we call if we were rich. And it’s the stuff that we’re saving for. Vans on the list.

Shane – They’ve gotten so expensive.

Joey – It’s ridiculous. They’re more than houses. Oh my gosh.

Shane – When I saw the price they were asking, I offered significantly less because I wasn’t really prepared to do it. I just figured, well, if they… take it I’m just going to figure it out you know it’s a it’s a 2021 and it has like 35,000 miles on it.  It’s all wheel drive yeah so I mean the overlanding community has been like I haven’t been you know, in it, in it a ton, but it’s been close to my heart and, you know, part of a community that…

Joey – you know, I feel could use our products with the sleeping bag liner and the blanket. Cause we’re always looking for, we always are looking for the blankets that have, because when we’re in a rooftop tent, we’re not necessarily staying in sleeping bags. We’ve got our blankets.

Gia – And so, we’re always looking for ones that feel good against our skin, that in the humidity when there’s not, you know, when you’re not in air conditioning and stuff like that, and with the moisture or whatever the air is doing still feels good against our skin, but also is small enough for us to be able to leave in the tent and close it down.

Joey – And so, we don’t want anything that’s super, super big or puffy or bulky. But yet still has a lot of warmth and comfort. Yeah. And those are, those are not easy to find. It’s hard to find that. Yeah. And so, the Merino wool has been a fan freaking tastic. Because you have to have the compressibility because one thing about a rooftop tent is when I open it, I want it ready. I want everything in there. You know, when I have a small vehicle, like you having a Bronco, when you have a small vehicle like that, and you’re like, I don’t need a rooftop tent. I can sleep on the ground. Well, if you’ve got a ground tent inside your vehicle, you have to carry sleeping bags. You have to carry cots. You have to carry pillows. You have to carry all your blankets, everything that you sleep on, mattress pads, all that stuff that takes up room inside your vehicle. And so, with the rooftop tent, everything stays in the tent. And so, we want everything to be up there. So, our pillows are up there. Blankets are up there. Everything’s up there, but in order to be able to do that, it has to be light and compressible. And so, with the Merino, well, it’s made it, it’s made that possible for us to be able to do that.

Shane – What Rooftop Tent do you have?

Joey – I’ve got 23Zero Kabari. It’s not a clamshell. It is a… I can’t remember what they call it (a Wedge), but it’s just got two latches on the back and it just pops straight up. Yeah, and you sleep long.

Shane – It’s a back entrance.

Joey – Well, we go in the side.

Gia – You can go in the back if you want to. It just pops straight up. We have an OVS Everest. Is that what we have on that?

Joey – That’s a clamshell. That’s what we have on the Subaru. It pops up and then another part flips out. And so, you sleep sideways on it, on the other one, we sleep long ways. But both of them were able to keep the mattress, the pillows, blankets, everything stays in there. So, when we open it up, it’s ready. And, and that’s what I love about it. So, when you talk about you, your gear being, or the overlanding world and the backpacking world being very closely related to that is exactly true because we bought a vehicle or we outfit our vehicles to get us to the trailheads, to get us to the places where we can actually get out and get in canoes or get in kayaks or get on paddle boards or get to a backpacking trailhead or ride our bikes or anything like that. It all kind of works together. and so yeah… it’s definitely transferable.  I’ll tell you what it’s a lifestyle that is very popular right now and people are getting outside more than any time in my life and you’re only a year older than I am and we’ve seen a lot of different changes in the outdoors, backpacking, and the gear industry. And right now, it is an amazing time. It’s an amazing time.

Gia – Oh, I was just going to say, talking about the gear, like looking at my dad was a hiker and looking at my dad’s pictures of the gear that he would have on his back. And then when I graduated from college, my first stuff of backpacking, twenty years ago is so I mean, nobody walks around with an external frame anymore unless it was the Kelty external frame. That was like the thing, you know? Kelty has the market they have the corner on the market.

Shane – and now yeah and I bring some extra things you know like I like to watch my phone or listen to stuff in the tent I really don’t love being in my tent at night you know so I bring a pretty decent sized battery to have with me I’d gotten a graphene battery that technology is so new but they charge up so fast like you can charge a ten thousand mil hour battery in like thirty minutes but yeah my base weight is probably like fifteen pounds usually roughly seems like once I have food and water I’m always right a little over twenty pounds that’s why I’m looking to drop twenty pounds off my body weight now yeah it was two years ago so Right now I do the weight carrying my pack.

Joey – Makes a big difference.

Shane – That’s for sure. Oh, it does.

Joey – You know, and that was really one of the things that got me back into backpacking. Did it a long time ago in college and high school. But, you know, when I was heavy and trying to lose weight, I was in the gym walking on the treadmill and I thought, there’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be a better way. And I bought a weighted vest and I thought, OK, this will work. Well, then I thought, why don’t I just go outside and wear a backpack and go backpacking? And that’s what got me back into backpacking was, you know, the wanting to lose weight, the wanting to get into shape and stay in shape. And it’s the best of both worlds when you can actually get out, enjoy life, be healthy. and it is it is so much more enjoyable.

Shane – it is so much more fun and just mentally since we moved down here, I haven’t really had much of an opportunity to get out at all just for little day hikes and man like I miss it mentally it just feels I feel so much better if I just get out for a half hour somewhere oh yeah walk through the woods You know, it makes a huge difference.

Joey – Let’s talk about the material that you use and why you use it. It’s a specific kind of, Merino wool and it comes from a specific place. Tell us why, why you chose that.

Shane – Well, the, um, Merino wool is just like, it’s close to second to none as far as its vapor transferability through it without absorbing moisture. That’s a huge one for Merino specifically. And the antimicrobial factors of it, the temperature regulating factors are huge, you know, until somebody actually uses it and feels the difference of, just not getting too hot or too cold and being able to regulate through that temperature change is huge so yeah there’s an organization called ZQ that we’ve been able to maintain using um that oversees different ranchers in New Zealand you know as far as the quality of Merino that they’re getting, the way that they treat the animals. For a smaller company like us, it’s not, we’re really fortunate that we’re able to get that in multiple colors and not have to buy huge, huge yardage to maintain it. But they’re a pretty special organization as far as, because there’s a lot of animals that don’t get treated out there, treated well out there as far as sheep go. So, it’s really important to us to know that we’re getting it from somewhere where it’s well-sourced like that. But yeah, I mean, Merino wool that we use is it was it was it was probably a year-long process of getting to the point where you know we knew exactly what we wanted to use it was pretty intentional process getting that’s getting specifically what we have right now and we stuck with it

Gia – Did you get to go to New Zealand as a part of the process?

Shane – No, we didn’t get to do that. I would love that.

Joey – It’s on the list.

Gia – Yeah. That would be a great way now to write off being able to go there and do a little hiking.

Joey – There’s a guy that we follow on YouTube. We don’t watch a whole lot of different TV shows or something, but there’s a guy on YouTube. His name is Harmon Hoek, and he does silent hiking all over the world. So, he doesn’t talk on his videos, but he’s got a guy that creates background music. But he is one of the best cinematographers I’ve ever seen. and but him we have a humongous list of different hikes to do all around the world and I have him to thank for that but New Zealand is outrageous it’s so beautiful

Shane – yeah, the founder of Zpacks actually did the Tay Aurora with his wife the through hike from north to south across the islands Yeah, I mean, that sounds awesome.

Gia – That’s a long way away.

Joey – Big country. I love on your website; you give the characteristics of the Merino wool. And you don’t just say we use this because it’s good. You give so many different characteristics. And I want to kind of highlight those real quick. It’s warm. It’s water retention. I didn’t know this. It can absorb up to thirty percent of its weight before it feels wet.

Shane – Yeah, that’s incredible. So, it maintains its insulation, insulating factors.

Joey – It’s durable. It’s very strong. It’s breathable. uh cooling it has moisture cooling in its fibers it’s moisture wicking uh soft incredibly soft incredible and odor resistant which is huge for through hikers because a lot of times you just have to get over yourself but still you don’t want you just don’t want to get to…

Shane – so yeah and then that was really you know one of the main things in my head initially because I it’s just all that everything gets gross everything like this thing’s touching your face all the time and your story about with your eyes yeah that’s you know yeah I’d love you to put for you to put something on Instagram about that… that’s a great story I’ve never heard anybody you know I haven’t had that experience with it yet, but that’s, that’s important.

Joey – Especially to somebody that happens to all the time, you know, and she knows it’s coming. So, she has to be careful and be careful about what she uses to wipe her face with.

Shane – So, I think that’s a big thing about Merino in general is people just have to use it and experience it and then have those experiences to, to, you know, realize for themselves that it’s, it’s a, it’s a big difference. Socks too, you know?

Joey – So, I never understood how much of a difference a good pair of socks make. Oh my gosh. Until in the last couple of years,

Gia – all it takes is for you to get one bad pair of socks, waterlogged that will not dry out. And then you’ve got one good pair of socks and you’re like, I’m never taking these other socks again. I’m sticking with.

Shane – Yeah. And when I did the ocean, the lake trail, that was like, that was quite a learning experience for me because so much of it is underwater and it’s Sandy. I mean, you’re, you’re basically probably, I don’t know, just over ankle deep to knee deep in the water a lot of the time. And I thought, yeah, I thought I would, I’d be able to, you know, we’d stop, I’d take care of my feet. It would just be, I’d have a dialed in by the end of that hike. I lost so much skin in the bottom of my feet from being wet. The last day I stepped on a root the last day and I could just feel all the skin on the bottom of the middle of my foot slide. We finished this hike, got to the ocean and I couldn’t even walk apart and I was like oh man am I just what do I do? I realized there was a bunch of water and everything but I’d gotten a lot of blisters in the past and I went I have a podiatrist friend that I went and saw and he told me that I’m one of part of the seven percent of the population that has the same thickness skin on the bottom of their foot that people have on the top of their foot. And I was like, OK, well, what do I do about that? And he said, don’t get your feet wet for one, which is hard to do when you’re hiking because you don’t know you’re going to be in rain.

Gia – Exactly. So, you know, I mean, so many trails, they’re water crossings. You can’t. I mean, unless you’re, like, completely fleet of foot like my husband, he’s fine. It’s me. It’s me.

Shane – Well, so, shout out to this company, Xoskin, that it’s veteran-owned. It’s a small company. I think they’re in Rhode Island or Delaware, but… He came out with toe socks. They have non-toe sock versions also, but he has a proprietary fabric that he uses or a coating on it. They’re not merino wool or anything. I ordered a pair of those before I did the New England trail a few years ago. We did the two hundred and thirty-five miles. I think it wound up being in two legs. We did the southern part in the spring and then the northern part when the colors would be changing in the fall. Before that hike, I ordered these socks and one pair didn’t come. So, I was like, OK, what do I do? Because you kind of I like to have. I’d like to have five pairs of socks for minimum. So, I’m switching them out, leaning them. And that’s, that’s been a huge thing. But the guy, my friend Patrick, that was on a naked and afraid shows that did all the national scenic trails. Like that. He told me that like bring five pairs of socks with you. Let’s wait. You’re not going to regret, you know? So, so I didn’t have this pair of socks. So, I found a number and I call, I call the number and I get the owner of the company and, and I’m talking to him you know for probably a half hour and he convinced me to buy a pair of their underwear too and I have not had any chafing issues I’ve hiked like hundreds of miles for sure since then I haven’t had a blister again ever and probably, I mean, I’m not somebody that can go out and do five thousand miles. You know, I don’t have kind of a lifestyle, but I’ve done easily six or seven hundred miles since then. And it was just life changing.

Gia – OK, I get blisters.

Shane – remember Xoskin and I don’t know if it’ll work for everybody but man it was a game changer for me. I’ve tried some other and I they’re lightweight you know so they’ll your feet fitting you know your normal shoe pretty easily so yeah socks are a big deal.

Joey – They’re a big deal. It’s a big deal for Gia and I anyway. It is a big deal. Comfort.

Shane – I mean, I’ve kind of rejected this trail name, but I got… I got tagged with the Babyfoot trail name because I told this story. And then, like, you know, my best friend was like, it’s your trail name now. I was like, no, it’s not. So, we actually went on that New England trail hike. And I wound up being the only person that didn’t get a blister on that hike. So, I was like, I reject that name.

Gia – Yeah, you’re like, hmm.

Shane – Yeah, I pretty much was. Yeah awesome when that’s an awesome trail too you know if you ever have an opportunity to do that you’re literally they have this green You know, this green corridor through the middle of Connecticut and Massachusetts where you walk through a handful of towns. But especially Connecticut, your southern Massachusetts and almost all of Connecticut, you’re running these ridges. You know, there’s just little New England towns that you’re overlooking. Just beautiful.

Joey – Wow. Yeah. And what trail is that?

Shane – That’s the New England Trail. And it ends at the New Hampshire border, but it’s relatively uneventful. It just ends in the middle of the woods. And I won’t pronounce this correctly because I’m a Midwesterner and not from New Hampshire, but it’s Mount Mononodak, I think. It’s the second most summited mountain in the world next to Mount Fuji. But it’s we pushed past, you know, the Northern terminus of that trail. And we ended on the top of that mountain. You can see Boston from sixty, seventy miles away. And yeah, that was, that was a great hike.

Joey – We would love to do that because after this summer, I think New Hampshire is probably our new favorite state. It is. It was, it blew us away. New Hampshire and Vermont. Totally underrated. Beautiful, beautiful states.

Shane – Yeah, on the top of my list of places that I want to get to and spend more time.

Joey – Definitely. Yeah, we talked about that. And if there’s two places out of all the places that we went this summer, we would definitely want to go back to and spend some time there. New Hampshire and Vermont. Outrageous. Vermont’s got it. It’s got a cheese tour. We went on the cheese tour.

Gia – It’s not like you get on a bus and they’re like, okay, we’re going to go get cheese.

Joey – There’s a map of all these little mom and pop little places that has either sheep or cows or goats or whatever and they make their own cheese. You just pull up to these little I don’t know. Some of them are look like outhouses or huts or barns or whatever. There’s nobody there. It’s all on the honor system. You go in there and get some cheese and leave some, leave some cash in their little box. And, and you know, we’ve, we’ve got a fridge freezer that we take with us. We came home with mountains of cheese. We just wanted it all. It was just great. So, we love Vermont. It’s so good. We went up Mount Washington and did all that. It was, I just love it. It’s so beautiful there.

Shane – Yeah, I mean, if I could travel, my wife’s kind of more of a homebody, but I would probably easily be able to spend. Forty percent of my time at home and sixty percent of my time traveling. There are so many places out west, you know, I want to get to.

Gia – Oh, so many. Same here.

Shane – So, Arkansas, you’re probably you’re probably still in the Midwest, right? area where there’s no um public land to really go on as far as do you have public land?

Gia – oh we’ve got a ton of public land.

Joey – I think we’re like number ten or eleven as far as percentage because we have all of the Ozark national forest and all of the Ouachita national forest. So, we’ve got a ton of public land and we’re only twenty minutes from the Ouachita. So, in the Ouachita Trail, which is one of the it’s about two hundred and twenty miles. I believe it ends about thirty miles from our house. So, we’re really close to that.

Gia – So, Arkansas, we have over three million acres of public land and that’s about ten percent of the total acreage in the state. Just doing some quick Googling. So, yeah, we’re pretty high. Yeah, we’re pretty high on that. You can just drive out there and pitch forever.

Joey – Yeah, that’s why overlanding is so big in the state because people from Texas that has no public land, Oklahoma has no public land, they all come here. And so, it’s perfect for that.

Shane – So, knowledge has occurred for me. That’s awesome. I thought we’re just like, too bad for us to go out to the west side of the country.

Joey – Yeah, well, nobody wants to come here in the summer because it’s so hot. Yeah. you know, then the fall and the spring and the winters are really not too bad either. But man, I tell you what, from June to September, you want to go somewhere else.

Gia – It’s not pleasant. It’s too hot. It’s too buggy. It’s too hot. It’s too buggy. Lots of ticks.

Shane – Are there a lot of lakes in your area?

Gia – Yeah. Most of the if they’re natural lakes they’re going to be um what do they call them the oxbow lakes that are made from rivers that you know because um where the Arkansas river runs through there are some oxbow lakes that are along the side of it there are a lot of lakes but other than the ones that are um the many lakes most of them are man-made from damming up rivers yeah that’s what they all are down here yeah

Joey – we also have the very first national river the Buffalo National River is here it’s a hundred and twenty-six miles.  You can float the whole thing and so it’s uh that’s a real popular thing that we have here

Gia – as well just bluffs on the side

Shane – yeah wow

Gia – And that’s one thing. One of our favorite books, we love the book Bill Bryson’s Walk in the Woods. We really know everybody’s book that they love about the Appalachian Trail. And it’s hysterical. But Bill Bryson speaks so negatively of the Forest Service. And he talks about they really should call it the Road Service because the Forest Service, all they do is make roads to make roads to make roads. But we were talking, we were like, he really, you can tell that Bill Bryson has not been on Forest Service roads because they’re not paved highway. They are little janky roads, little janky roads.

Shane – I’ve been on a lot of forest service roads in Florida that, you know, up in the panhandle in the park areas there. And, you know, some of it’s not very traversable. I mean, the majority of the roads, like, yeah, they’re sketchy dirt gravel roads, you know.

Gia – And so, it just is one of those, I was like, that’s a part of his book. He is usually so good at research, but that is one. Yeah. that he does not understand what he’s saying when he’s like the moaning service in their roads it’s like oh that’s not they’re not what you think they are…

Shane – are you familiar with the Trans Catalina trail off the coast of California on Catalina Island?

Gia – yeah uh-huh

Shane – Yeah, there’s a, it’s a, I think, thirty-six mile through hike out there. And the Wrigley family that owned the Cubs initially owned that whole island at one time. yeah and they I don’t know what year it was there’s a book out there because I’ve done it I went I took my daughter the first time and we didn’t quite finish the trail and I did it over new year’s last year but there’s an airport with a gift shop and a restaurant that serves bison burgers there’s like a hundred and eighty bison that just wander on the island freely you kind of have to navigate through at times but they donated like all of this the majority of that island and had a conservation you know like they created they created the I think it’s the Trans Catalina I don’t remember what it’s called but it’s like a private organization that maintains it and runs the whole thing and it’s just really awesome I would encourage you guys if you wanted to do not a super long hike but a really neat one with great views because you can see the Sierras out there and here the majority of its elevated so if it’s clear you can see clear across the white caps of the Sierras.

Gia – I’ve been to Catalina a couple times.  Some good friends of mine lived in California so I got to visit them. But no, we never did anything like that. How cool.

Shane – Yeah, you just go into Avalon. Yeah. You just take the ferry there and walk. Yeah, we do that. Campgrounds like a half mile out of town. Then you leave Two Harbors. You take the ferry from Two Harbors back to Long Beach. But it’s not a huge time commitment. You know, you have to get yourself out there. But it’s like a gem of a hike for sure.

Joey – That’s so cool. Well, we’re getting down to where we like to call the time limit. But before we do, I want you to talk about one thing that you have on your website, somebody that you partner with, Responsible Stewardship. I love this organization because they’re not like other organizations that just come up with rules and different like principles to follow and just put it out there, hoping everybody will do it. They actually do things. They actually lead and clean up and doing things like this, which is, you know, they were a huge part of helping clean up Hurricane Helene and things like that. They really made an impact on that. And I’d love to get Benny Braden on here and talk to him about that. what he’s got going on there but if you would just talk about them and a little bit about your work with them and partnering with them.

Shane – yeah, I mean Benny is you know one of the most passionate people I know in so many different ways but he held the um fastest known time for all the miles through the Smokies for a few years, you know, his heart’s near and dear to that area where he lives around Knoxville. And there’s so much, like, trash and graffiti and stuff like that there that, you know, I mean, it really, like… hit him where he started. I mean, on social media, really his personal account, he started just asking people to show up, meet him at different places. And then it eventually grew into partnering with or combining with another organization that’s in that area. And yeah, he is a mover of men and women. You know, he’s really gotten people to step up, pick up the torch, you know, and do these huge cleanups.

And we spend almost, I guess, two and a half years ago. There’s this, I guess it’s a company called the Highlander Adventure. They’re Croatians and most of their hikes are abroad, but they have one in Big Bear Lake, um, in the San Bernardino Mountains every year. And the last three years, this will be the fourth year they’ve had it. And Benny actually had a lot of health issues in general, but some major problems with his feet where he was just struggling to be able to hike and didn’t really know if he’d be able to do it again. But he went out there for this event and figured he’d probably just get through the first couple of days. And I think it was, I think it was about halfway through the second day, you know, he’s just kind of moving along. So, I feel pretty decent and you, you know, you’re on a hike, you kind of split apart a little bit, you know, come back together. toward probably three quarters of the way through the end of the day, come up behind him on a road. And he has like this probably fifteen-foot half inch chain, like hung over his neck. And he’s carrying part of a drive shaft in one hand. And, you know, you have people from all over the world at this hike and they’re like, what are you doing? You know, and he was explaining to him, you know, just like this is our land to take care of just the whole, you see it, pick it up, you know, take it and clean up, leave it a little better than you found it. And by the end of this hike, there were, I think, so many people had jumped on board. I can’t remember how much weight and trash they’d picked up, but this organization, you know, saw this and, you know, so inspired by it and they knew the kind of reach that they have because they do things in Asia, you know, Africa.

So Responsible Stewardships reach has really gotten to be worldwide just from a guy walking down, you know, yeah a forest service road essentially I guess is what it was there carrying some trash and you know so yeah he’s had a big impact on me and we’ve partnered with him as much as we can, you know, to try to get to cleanups and, you know, just try to raise money for the organization because they, you know, just for bags and gloves and, you know, it costs them a lot of money. They’re in the process of trying to buy a boat. There’s a lot, a lot of, a lot of rivers, you know, and different waterways in that area, Tennessee and North Carolina, south of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, where they want to get a boat to get out and clean up garbage in the lakes.

Joey – what an awesome organization, like just I have a huge respect for them because I love how they post all the time about the weight that they have collected, the different places that they do. They have organized trash cleanups all the time in different areas, and I have a huge respect for them.

Shane – They do great, great work. and it’s really spread you know across the country there’s some people out west that have picked up the torch for Responsible Stewardship and are starting to organize cleanups out in that area too Utah and what a humble guy you know if you haven’t met him yet he’s just an awesome person you know I’m a Christian believer in you know Jesus Christ and he, you know, is too. And he just like humbles himself too, you know, this is part of our creation that we are responsible for taking care of. So, you know, yeah, it’s a, it’s a great organization. Yeah. I’m so happy to be partnered with them.

Joey – Yeah. Cool. I love it. Well, make sure that you follow Glacial Gear on Instagram, @glacial.gear. Website is www.glacialgear.com. Go there and subscribe to their emails. And they also have a Facebook page, which also has a store where you can go buy some stuff. So that’s pretty cool. Shane, I really appreciate the podcast. Thoroughly enjoyed getting to learn more about you, your family, your business. Really appreciate it.

Shane – I appreciate you too. I’m so happy to have been on here. Look forward to a visit from you too.

Gia – Please come to Arkansas.

Shane – I’d love to do that too.

Gia – We can help you break your van in. We’re good at that.

Shane – I am really excited to do that.

Joey – Sure did. Well, if it was all-wheel drive, you probably would have been okay. You just had to go a little faster.

Gia – Seriously, there are so many neat places you would love. So, we would love to have you right here as well.

Shane – I’ve been there a little bit when I was a kid. My great-aunt lived in Dardanelle. Yeah, we’re close to there. They’re right on the base of Mount Nebo, I think. Russellville.

Joey – Yeah. Dardanelle and Russellville are right beside each other. One’s on one side of the river, one’s on the other. But Dardanelle is right at the base of Mount Nebo, which is the second highest peak in Arkansas. About an hour from us.

Shane – Yeah. I mean, I was only fourteen ones out there last, but you… That has been a while.

Joey – Well, that’s forty years.

Shane – Well, thanks for having me, too.

Joey – I want to encourage you on your diet journey, getting healthy. If you ever need somebody to talk to about that, I’ve been down that road. We’re still on that road. It never stops. It’s a journey.

Shane – It is a journey I don’t have to learn a lot to me last time I did it I was like well that’s never going to happen again and yeah, here we are. Here we are. But yep, I could always use an accountability partner.

Joey – So that’s great. Well, we love, we love your products, love using them and never leave home without them. So really thank you for doing what you do. I want to thank everyone for listening to the podcast. This will be on all podcast platforms tomorrow. I hope you learned as much as my wife and I did. So, on behalf of my wife and I, thank you for listening. And on behalf of Glacial Gear, we really appreciate you coming on the podcast. So, I hope everybody has a wonderful week. And as I always say at the end of every podcast, have a great time. Get outdoors and whatever you do, look out for number one. That’s what I’m talking about.

End of Show

The following is an attachment of the notes I used for the podcast. We vary from these often, but it will give you a general idea of the flow of the show if you are so inclined to get a glimpse into my “bro’s” mind lol.