Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human podcast. This is episode 418, and my guest is Rick French. Rick is the cofounder of Pack Paddle Ski Adventures. He facilitates adventures to over 30 countries on all 7 continents
with people from all over the world. He's also on the board of directors for Journeys of Solutions, enabling travelers to, quote, assist people and communities in the developing countries they have encountered on their trips with the goal to improve quality of life with infrastructure improvements, access to clean water, support for educational institutions, scholarship, and training, unquote, which is awesome. We had a great conversation.
We talked about some of his more memorable trips, including meeting the Dalai Lama, dealing with a client's broken leg at nearly 19,000 feet, elephants, a plane crash, a sultan, just so many stories, as you can imagine, over the years that he has, come to collect. I met Rick through Bonnie and Robin, who were on episode 411, and they went on one of the adventures. They went to Mount Kilimanjaro, both having had experience with cancer, Bonnie having had cancer, Robin, whose ex had cancer.
Anyway, after talking with them and hearing about the adventure they had, I knew I had to talk to Rick, and, he did not disappoint. What a man. What a really fascinating and good human. I can't wait for you to hear this episode. General stuff, Hey, HEMA Podcast is now on YouTube. I'm so excited. Yes. I finally put it on YouTube. It's under official Susan Ruth, so very excited about that. If you like getting your podcast on YouTube or want something different,
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Break French. Welcome to Hey Human. Hi, Susan. It's good to see you. You too. You look good this morning, Susan. That's good. I'm bright eyed and bushy tailed. Yes. Yes. Yes. Early for me. Where are you right now? I live in Western New York, so it's just after lunch here. It looks a bit humid out there. Yeah. It's been pretty humid. It's getting close to 90 today. Oh, no. It is. It's yeah. I don't like it when it's this hot. No. Yeah. Mhmm. I feel like 75 in a nice breeze. That's my happy place.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's like cooled out again. Yes. We're all gonna have to move north as the climate keeps getting hotter. I know. I met somebody on a plane once to Greenland and they were headed to Greenland so they could buy some land because they knew climate was gonna change. Of course, you can't buy land in Greenland, but I guess they didn't know that. Anyway so, yeah, That that was kinda wild. Yeah. That is that's really anticipatory. Yeah. Alright. Exactly. That's way north.
Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's weird that Greenland is icy and Iceland is green, but that's a whole other story. Yeah. Yeah. You probably know that story. That's kind of a wild story. Yeah. Yeah. What story? Why it's called Greenland. I don't know. Well, it was a the marketing deal. Eric the reg, one of his slaves got killed. So he in revenge, he killed, somebody. So the council in Iceland, exiled him from the country. So he had to leave Iceland. So he
sailed around, and he landed in Greenland. So to get people to come to Greenland, he went he sent people back and said, oh, it's so green. You can raise cattle here. There's farms. Yeah. That's that's why it's called Greenland. It was, I don't remember, it's like this 1100 or 1300, something like that. Learn something new every day. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. Because we we've kayaked over there where, he landed where they lived. We've kayaked over in Greenland to the ice cap there and
stuff. So Oh. Yeah. Well, let's get into you. Where were you born? How did you grow up? Were you an adventurer from the get go? Growing up is a question, isn't it? I I know about that. It's still an ongoing process. I was born in Western New York, a little town called Avon. So, yeah, started adventuring just as a kid sleeping in the backyard under a tent that we would make. And what was your first big adventure? I think the first big one is when I left the country. It was
when I was 17 years old. We flew over to see a friend in England. I was just 17. Small things after that, of course, back then would have been late sixties, early 7 early seventies. You know, it's not like nowadays. So if you just went to another state, that was a a big adventure. Yeah. I just and then went to college in Maine. And as you guys went by, took a bus across the country and hiked a chunk of the Pacific Crest Trail north of you. We did Oregon and Washington.
It's north of where you are. So that was in college. Did your family have wanderlust, or was this particularly your thing? My dad was always we were in scouts as kids, and I worked summer camps in the Adirondacks. So, yeah, my my dad always loved the outdoors too. And as years went by, he would go off this, you know, many, many times. Yeah. He's been in Nepal with us, you know, 5 or 6 times. Yeah. He you know, Mongolia. He he went all lots of places with us.
Well, I learned about you through Bonnie and Robin and that they climbed Kilimanjaro with you, and that was an interesting story. And they kept talking about you, and I said to myself, that's somebody that's gonna be a a good storyteller. Let's get that going. So thank you for being here and for sharing your life. Thanks, Susan. Have you had every inoculation under the sun, I bet? Yeah. Probably. Yeah. You know, we have to get a bunch of different shots, but that's, like, not really,
a big deal. I had a I was just got back from Japan a couple nights ago, and I had a, ear was closed up so I couldn't hear again. I was just at the doctor yesterday, and the and the doctor's looking at it. I was like, this is the first time I've ever told someone I don't know what's wrong, but I think there's something alive in your ear. So it didn't end up being anything alive. I was like and I was like, oh, that's fairly interesting. Anyway, I'm like, well, pull it
out. He's like, I don't know if I should. Anyway, so yeah. What was it? It just was an ear infection. It it would it wasn't anything. But we we just but, yeah, you know, shots, different things. I've been pretty lucky, you know, I've never had dengue fever, never had malaria, never had any hookworm, you know, some basic stomach parasites and amoebas and things, but I've been really lucky. Nothing unusual. That's good. Well, let's jump into the adventuring.
When did you start your company? Why did you start it? What was the mission at the front end and and what is it now? I got out of college in 1980 and even in high school, I I always knew I wanted to do run it out, do outdoors in some way for a job. So after college for 5 years, I worked around the country for programs like Outward Bound doing, taking kids, that were at risk population. Sometimes we'd pick them up in the jails in handcuffs, take them in the middle of the swamp,
search them, and they'd spend 30 days. If they did well, they got to go home. So I did that from 80 to 85 all over the country. And then during that period of time, my brother I'm an identical twin. So my brother was back here in New York, and he wanted to start an outdoor business too. So he and my dad had already kinda put that together in 85. They're like, well, come back to New York and start
this outdoor business with us. So I moved back to to New York with that intention and, you know, bought a house and needed redone, so you had a cheap place to live. And, you know, initially, we just went to back then, we just went to, his apartment and pulled the drawer out and dumped it instead of phone next to it. And that's how we started, and then spent that winter making our first couple canoes. You know, back then, we taught cross country skiing and backpacking,
small things. And then as the years went by, it got, you know, bigger and bigger till now we've been on all 7 continents a few times. But that was the original intention. It was quite a bit different than it is now, but the world was different back then. The the point was just to enjoy being outdoors with people.
And then as time went along, the attention changed a bit in in that, you know, realization as you get older at some point, you just feel fortunate to have these amazing gifts in in your life, and it's almost like a responsibility, not like an obligation way, but in in, like, a a way of, like, a way if you wanna share the things that have come into your life feeling that they're a gift.
So then the intention kinda changed to, sharing more of the experiences of the world and and the adventures that could be had and watching how it impacted people's lives so much, you know, how it changed people's, as you know, you know, from the story of Bonnie and, you know, Robin. I can't we have so many stories of lives that have been changed. It's it's pretty huge.
So, yeah, there's a bunch of different types of projects that developed over the years from, you know, wells in other countries to schools to we just got back from building a dorm at my, Tanzania friend's village in Africa in Tanzania. We were in Morocco in the fall, and right after the earthquake, and it was it was pretty intense.
People were not able to go into their houses and stuff, and, Jaima, who works with me, and I, we're like, this is just often what happens is we travel somewhere and it was just something comes to us, and we can't really ignore it. And we just couldn't go home knowing there are people who didn't have homes anymore. So we we came home, we raised some money, and don't and we donate all the money from the trip. And I just got a message last week that Rashid and his family just moved into their home
in Morocco in the Atlas Mountains. But I don't know so many projects, schools and wow. I I don't know. Yeah. When you are a person of the world. I like that. I'm a person of the world. Yeah. Go, Susan. Go ahead and ask. When you're a person of the world, how does that shape how you see the world at large in its foibles and fisticuffs. And how do you how how does that make you Yeah. Does it egg you on and and push you forward?
Oh, yeah. That's got you know, there's lots of pieces to that, but for sure, the world is very, very small to me. You know, when there's a war in Ethiopia, that's my friends. You know, that's like people that are now widows. You know, those are people, you know, that have no food. You know, when there's the earthquake in Nepal, those are my friends' houses. You know, when COVID hit, you know, my Tanzania friends that help us so much on the mountain, they had no food. They were selling
the clothes. The world's very, very small. People are the same all over the world. That's kind of like a, you know, worldview, but, you know, there's a sense of, everybody all over the world is the same. Kids like to play, people like to be loved, people like to sit with each other and be heard, people like to laugh, people all over the world are the same, everybody just wants to be happy, so there's that, you know, awareness.
Fortunately, in my world view, there's it's a hopeful view because if you listen to the media, which is mostly motivated by making profits, so they scare people and are angry, and then people believe that that's how the world is, but that is not at all the case of the world. Know, the case of the world is people are amazing and beautiful. 99% of the time, every story I could tell you would be about someone who helped us.
Someone who, you know, we shared time with, played cards with at Everest Base Camp and Tibet. And that way, my view of the world is hopeful. You know, that people people, I think, in their nature wanna be kind. They wanna share love, which is much different than most people's view of the world, but that's my that's my experience. I've been told I live in a bubble, and my response to that is I like my bubble. I think it's the rest of the world
that lives in a bubble. I was just gonna say everybody else lives in a bubble because they're being fed a steady diet of xenophobia and and Exactly. It's heartbreaking to me, and people are so afraid now. Your kids go to school, and there's a sheriff outside, and there's metal detectors, and the doors are locked. Like, what
message does that give? You know, that compared to, like, you know, a little kid in Japan or especially a little the Tanzania kids, you know, that are just so welcoming and come up immediately and wanna hold your hand and sing with you or twirl the hair on your arm. Yeah. I don't know the answer to all that. I just know that people live very, very afraid and anxious. That's not my experience of the world. Have you been to the top of Everest? No. No. No. That's like a big freaking
deal. No. I'll never go there. Yeah. People are kind of if you don't climb mountains, like, you might ask me that question, but, you know, to go to high altitude, it's above 26,000 feet, what they call the death zone, that's like a big deal. That's a Russian roulette gamble, whether you live, die, And, in the highest I bet is 20,000 feet. Few times, and I have no interest in going any higher. I don't really understand it because at that altitude, you don't feel good.
And even when I I like the physical challenge, but when it's a challenge, it happens because of outside of my body and I'm feeling crappy. It's hard for me to enjoy the mountain, so I have absolutely no interest. We go to the bottom of Everest, which is, like, close to 18,000 some, but yeah. No. Never been Which is still pretty high. It is still pretty high. That is true. There are many high places. Because Kilimanjaro is what? 18 or something? 19 340. Yeah. Right off the top of your head.
I love that. Been been there a few times, so I know. Yeah. For sure. I'm sure you're well versed in recognizing when people are starting to have issues. Oh, yeah. I bet they fight you, and they don't wanna stop. But Depends on the person. It depends on the issues. You know, usually, if someone's bad enough that they can't continue, no, they're not fighting you. They want you to tell them they can't continue. They they want someone else sometimes they know.
They just like to be reinforced. Like, yes. This is enough. This is not safe now. Yeah. So not if someone still has enough fight to say they wanna continue for the most part, they're probably okay. I love that. They're just looking for a reason. They need you to tell them that it's done. Sometimes. Exactly. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. My dear friend Damaru on the way down from Kili one time, he, caught the toe of his foot and tripped forward. And I turned he we were at the
end of the line. I turned around and went back. He's like, Rick, I think I broke my leg, but people tell me that a lot. And no one actually had broken it at that point. They just hurt themselves. So I'm like, oh, I don't know. But first bad sign, it was it was Damiro. Damiro is tough. He's not one that would be a baby and say that. So I'm like, okay. But people still tell me that. And then he said, oh, I heard a snap. That's like sign number 2. That's bad.
So then I palpated his leg, and there's a huge dent in the front of his one shin. I'm like, Dammer of Field, is is that supposed to be there? He's like, no. I'm like, yeah. You broke your leg. So, yeah, we had to, improvise a splint. We cut shoelaces out of our boots and cut stuff sacks to make rope and took twine and made a splint out of my friend Youssef and I, we made took trucking poles and made a splint, and then we put them on, sleeping pad and dragged them down the mountain.
It was snow too at that point until 12 of the porters came up the mountain with burlap bags. And then we carried him down to the base camp at 155. We duct taped him into a stretcher with a sleeping bag and a tarp because he had to go over cliffs. We don't want him to fall off the stretcher. So he was okay. He wasn't too she wasn't too shocky or anything, just a little bit of pain. People always say, why don't you helicopter him out? Well, slight possibility you could get a helicopter maybe
from Nairobi. By the time you do that, these guys could have them out. So, yeah, we took 2 days and got them down the mountain, you know, eventually flew him home and he had some surgery. Yeah. Mhmm. I'm just picturing being duct taped to the to the outside of a helicopter and being like, okay. You're good. Yeah. Well, that was just we duct taped them into the stretcher because when you're going over a cliff, you're putting the thing, you know, kind
of vertical and you wanna fall off. Really, really, we just He was a good sport about it. They never do that in the show MASH. That's Yeah. There's a lot of things we probably do in real life. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. And you get to meet the Dalai Lama? I did. Yeah. 1, some of these things happen because I sit in my living room and every now and then ideas come to me. And a couple of years ago, I had this idea, I'd like to see and look into the eyes of the most spiritual person in the
world. So that, now, who would that be? And the Dalai Lama popped in my mind. So I'm like, I should go meet the Dalai Lama. This is, like, how my mind goes. I it wasn't really a practical or thought out idea. It was just, like, that's what I should go do. So then I started looking into it, and I'm like okay he lives in Dharamshala we could set up a trip we'll go to Dharamshala. I've been to India and Nepal a few times and it's done great trekking there.
Hey. When there when we're there, we should do something more than, just trek and see the Dalai Lama. Let's, let's, volunteer with the Tibetan refugees for a while. So we did that too. So yeah. But we didn't know a way we could see the Dalai Lama. We just knew we didn't even know if he'd be there. So we set up this whole experience to do that, and when I was coming back from Everest Base Camp the year before, it was after the earthquake in Nepal, and my friend's houses had been, damaged.
So but they so we're gonna help them with their houses, but, Kami comes to me. He's very, very devout Buddhist, up in the Solokumbu area, You know, it's the Everest area. The Sherpa people are and especially the older people, extremely Buddhist, very, you know, ritualistic. He's like, I should come with you. I was like, okay. And then my his other buddy, Lakpa, says the same thing. I'm coming with you too. I never know what that actually means. I
just said, okay. So as the year went along, I contacted, and I was like, hey. Your house has got ruined. We really should, you know, put that money and come to your place to help rebuild your houses. And commie's response was no it's more important to see the Dalai Lama. Isn't that amazing? Wow. So anyway, so we go and my son to and we go to Darmasala. And, yeah, the Dalai Lama was in in in at home. As far as I knew, no Americans had gotten to see him. No. Nobody had seen him.
You know, other people would come and see him, a lot of Buddhist people and stuff, but no Americans. So after a few after a week or so working with the Tibetan refugees, this is after we track some, I sent my son down to Delhi to get to pick up, to jump on a bus and get my Sherpa friends to come. So they come, and I think that afternoon before I was even back from a little hike in the hills, they'd gone down the temple, and they're like, Rick, Rick, Rick, we're gonna see the
Dalai Lama tomorrow. I'm like, how did you do that? Like, oh, he always went to the office and asked. Like, easy. You come with us. I will show you. So I go the next day, and there's this line of people out the door. But these guys had an invite to go, so they go in. I go into the office with them, and and they're very very reverent. And then we pass them through the office, and they go on in, and the office says, oh, and I said, oh, you know, is it possible we could meet the Dalai Lama? And
they're like, oh, you're American. You write email. So so I went back to the lodge and wrote an email explaining I was there with my family, and we work with the Tibetan refugees, and my dear Sherpa friends were there, blah blah blah blah. And I thought I would never hear anything. Like, a day or so later, like, 9 o'clock at night, it was a kind of message. It's like, his holiness would be glad to meet you.
So yeah we went down and there's all these calm people calm is an area of eastern Tibet beautiful Tibetan people and people make this pilgrimage to go see the Dalai Lama, and there's maybe a 100, a 150 of these beautifully dressed laden. Common people often wear long pony, black ponytails, and massive jade jewelry. And they're carrying massive amounts of jewelry and gifts, and there's 100, 150 people, these guys lined up outside. I mean, it's it's amazing
the reverence they have. And we know nothing in America of reverence like that. I mean, that is so enlightening alone. Well, we do it with we did that with celebrity, unfortunately. Yes. A little different. What they're it's a little different what we worship there, I think. But, yes. Unfortunately, it's right. Although I'm a little uncomfortable with humans worshiping humans, but I get I get the concept.
It's the idea that they represent, and the Dalai Lama, for those that don't know, is a in their belief system, is a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama before that and so on and so forth all the way back. Yes. Yeah. So for them, it's not so much worshiping him as a blessing for in their life. You know, in the Buddhist system, you wanna gain as much merit as you can to move along through your different cycles of your life. So it's it's a way for them to gain, more merit.
So, anyway so, yeah, we get we went and eventually they call us and hung out with them for a little bit, had some pictures taken. And he's like, where are you from? I'm like, oh, you've been nearby, Harrier. I said, you spoke in Ithaca. He's there's a little town, a college town nearby. He's like, oh, yes. Ithaca. Very small town. So we had a little chat, and, yeah, it was really emotional. We were all crying. It's really emotional. Does he have that,
supernatural almost presence? I've heard that he does. I don't I don't know about supernatural, but I would say, a very holy presence. Holy as in like like peaceful and still and connected to that piece of our ourselves, of our I don't know what the words are, all different spiritualities use different words for that energy, that vibration. There's a sense of his being present to that and aware of it. Yeah. And part of it. Yeah. It's really emotional to look at his eyes.
Really amazing, but the whole experience was amazing. You know, talking to the Tibetan refugees who've been electrocuted and tortured and their the families are tortured and you know, Kami and his wife you do a chorus chorus in in Tibetan Buddhism. A chorus a circle around some sacred area. It could be a mountain. It could be a temple. You know, every day the
again, it helps you gain merit. You know, every day there'd be 100 you know, of Tommy and his friends, you know, it's spinning the prayer wheels and chanting, you know, to be just amongst all that. Just to be amongst the people that are so reverent and believe and live a life where they value so much spiritual parts of ourselves, which is not common in the US. I read a book about Bali once, and
it spoke a lot about that. I assume I kind of like in the Bali people and the Nepalese people as having that same they're tapped into such a deeper reverence than some people from the rest of the world. I think a lot of people that live close to the land are that way. I think, the farther we get from the land, we just tend to lose that. I think it's I think when you live close to the land, it's pretty hard to miss that connection. Yeah. Yeah. You were once alone in the desert for 40 days?
Yeah. Just, just before I was in Japan in the last couple of weeks, I went into south, Southern Utah to the canyons there to do a desert solo. And it was purposely kinda left, you know, you could hike, like, the Crest Trail or something and be alone, but then you still have a task every day. So this had I was on I had my packraft, so there was a 100 mile river, and I got and I walked out of a 4 wheel drive to get resupplied twice.
But on that 100 mile river, I had this little 8 and a half pound raft. So I could go a few miles and there'd be another canyon, and I would hike that canyon for an hour or 3 days. Whatever I felt like. But the idea was to be, immersed alone and really, really intense beauty. It's one of my favorite areas and it was a really, really, intense experience. The first 2 weeks were really, really hard.
It was really scary and just to process things in your life that have been painful or hurtful or sad is pretty pretty brutal. And that was not for the faint of heart. And then it kinda transitioned, but then by the end, who was just this amazing awareness, you you you only slept under my tarp 3 nights because of rain. The 37 nights you're under the stars. I have pretty minimal stuff. Basically, the clothes I'm wearing and a tarp and a sleeping bag tarp if it rains and my raft, of course,
and a pack and some food. But, so you have pretty and some food. But, so you have pretty minimal stuff, and you're just exposed the whole time. And and especially to me in Utah, the sunrise, sunset, the rocks glow. I rocks glow. I don't know how they do it because the light seems to come from within the rocks, but that's my experience of it. So there's
this. And in addition, you're like going to these places where there's one stretch where there were like 9 giant alcoves in a row, and a 1000 years ago, people lived in each of those. There was evidence of where they lived. So there's this whole blend of, antiquity, eternalness of, experiencing kind of being part of nature or I don't know, I get sound too new ages, kind of a hard thing to express, but it was it was an incredibly stilling experience, you know, and it developed a real awareness.
You know that there's a stillness inside of us that we don't normally tap into. And then, like, that's the real place that's that's each of us, you know, that's who each of us are. And it's so much different than how we normally live. It was amazing. Amazing. Yeah. When you go into something like that, do you have an idea of the processing you're going to do or does everything come up naturally? Well, I think, you know, for me, my,
I have an awareness. I I didn't wanna have, like, big expectations or rigid ones because, if you have an expectation, I see this for people on trips, then you limit what happens to fit in within those expectations. So instead, it was very conscious to just be present to whatever was part of
the beauty of what happened. So being that long alone and and that quiet, you almost, like, observed what you were experiencing and feeling whether it's sadness or pain or loneliness, fear, joy, happiness, calmness. It almost was like looking at inside yourself and you could see that. So whatever kinda came up, it just it I didn't change it. I didn't really even think about it too much. I just watched it.
And then then I would watch how it would change, or usually what happened was after a while, it didn't even weren't even that in that place again. It it just disappeared. And it was interesting, you know, initially, I was, like, it wasn't gonna have any structure, but I found that I needed a minimal structure. It helped me feel a little bit more grounded.
Like, okay, I'll I'll do a little yoga, then I'll have breakfast, and then I'll sit and read or write for half an hour, and then I'll walk for a while, you know, see where I am, so minimal structure, but the thing that kept free was just to pay attention to the experience you're having inside, which is amazing. Yeah. Do you believe in God? Are you a religious person or a spiritual person? I would say spiritual. God's a tough question because that means that's so loaded for so
many people. For sure. I use that word sometimes, you know, for myself, for convenience. For me, it's more like an awareness. The best I could come out of it from the desert with was there's more like at some point came out with an awareness that there's like, an all forever, an eternity, kind of like, waves or energy that if we're still and allow ourselves that we will move with that be part of it. It sounds too mystical, so I'm reluctant to
It doesn't. It it makes total sense. It doesn't sound mystical. Yeah. So I have that awareness that there's some sort of something. I don't believe in, like, an omnipotent somebody's up there pulling strings. Nothing like that.
It's more like that there's an energy or a presence or, a pattern maybe that when we're with that pattern, we're calm, we're happy, we're more kind, we're more generous, we can then still experience pain or sadness or suffering, but there's a calmness below it that makes it okay. Mhmm. So it's more like more like that. But also, it's like a pattern that no one would say destiny or whatever, but there's when you live, like, in that place or in that awareness, things come into your life.
And I don't even wanna use really use a word that, you know, are supposed to come into your life. If you live in a aware then there are things that come into your life. Like that idea, like, oh, I should go see the Dalai Lama. Or like, oh, I should go, you know, whatever. You know? It's the flow. You're you get in with the flow. Yeah. It's more like just a flow, but you have to kind of be still enough and notice it and just say, okay.
Because it normal normally, we would tend to be scared or shut down or say that's not possible. I don't know how many times I've done things that are impossible, but it's it never really occurred to me. I mean, sometimes it didn't work. You know? That's okay too. You know? Not everything played out. But a lot of that stuff was played out way beyond anything I ever could have created or written or expected in my life. Oh, we limit ourselves far more than the
universe will limit us. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Which is pretty amazing to have been able to live in that way. I'm super fortunate. That's beautiful. Did you encounter a single soul on this journey? Occasionally, like the 1st 7 days, no footprints, but there were maybe 3 or 4 access points where people could come in from the side into that main canyon, and then I might see a couple people. Yeah. But I could go days and not see a footprint. So occasionally, I'd see people. Mhmm. Yeah.
It sounds really wonderful, actually. It was pretty amazing, Susan. Yeah. Yeah. I know you have a story about elephants, which is one of my favorite creatures. Tell me the elephant story. Sometimes we've used elephants to go look for, like, tigers in the jungle and things.
And one time we were using, elephants to cross a river by the border of India and Nepal and there was a young baby with a cleft palate and cleft palate you can't nurse so the baby would die and, we had in our group a woman who had a cleft palate, so this was many years ago before I had done so many of those projects that we mentioned before, wells and schools and dorms and kids and orphans and things.
The baby that the person in our group was very moved by the situation this young baby was in and said we should can we do something? So we used our interpreter to talk with the mom, and as it turned out, shorten the story of it, as it turned out, it's all it took was a $100 to pay for a bus ticket and hotel because in Kathmandu, a doctor Japanese doctor would come once a month to perform this surgery.
So for a $100 is so the next year, we're back riding elephants across the river again with another group, and they had another baby and they came running out. And first, they were very excited and they're showing us the baby that was nursing and living, and then they were scared because they had another baby. So again, the second time we also sent them to Kathmandu for that surgery. That's amazing. But those things that's kinda what
I say. Like, if you just live with your eyes open a little, these things come into your life and then you kinda just you just do it because it's there. You know? You you stop and pause and talk to these people and pay attention and you realize this is nothing to take care of this and help these people. It's so it's so easy. Yeah. And and again, it the world is a tiny place. Such a tiny place. It's very small. You know, people are the same everywhere. Mhmm. So So I have written down here
let me just look. It says, I was a guide on the highest mountain in Antarctica with the sultan of Saudi Arabia and a plane crash with a dog sled driver of Admiral Byrd. Those are two stories, I suppose. That's all one same story. It's one story? Yeah. Let's hear it. So oh, over the years, so many that's one of the big ones. So another time years ago, I was again, I had this idea that I should have life goals. I was maybe in my thirties back then. Now that everybody
should have life goals. That's what I've heard. So I'm like, oh, I should have life goals. I'm I'm kinda little little irreverent and a little silly. So I'm like, oh, I should have life goals. Kinda like half like, oh, that's a good idea and half like, this is fun. This is silly. So I'm like, let's see. I need to go where they invent chicken wings. I need to drive a bulldozer, and I should go to Antarctica. So I'm like, okay. So I'm like, well, how do you get to Antarctica? Well, I
had no money doing this job. You you have base you have almost no money. That that's a choice you make when you do this kind of work. So I'm like, and it's really expensive to go there. So and I didn't wanna just do a cruise along the coast that didn't interest me, and there was only one outfit in the world. How you can get to the interior of Antarctica? And they're set up to do logistics to climb the highest mountain there called Mount Vincent.
So these people that wanna do the 7th summit thing, you know, these highest mountains around the world, they go. And to get there, what you have to do is you go to Chile, and then you fly onto the continent under the ice in the middle of the continent, Antarctica. That's how you get there. And you have to go through these folks, and now they have a jet. But back when I did it, there was a c one thirty. I wrote them. I'm like, hey. I'm Rick French from South Lima.
Like, they would know that is, you know, Yeah. I'm like an outdoor guide. I'll come in for free. I'll help, you know, guide your clients up this mountain. Like, I didn't really have the experience anyway. A month before November, I got a phone call like, hey. Then we got a opening. Could you come in a month down to Antarctica and help be an assistant guide? I'm like, yeah. So, yeah, I flew down there and sitting around. Any bush flights, whether it's Antarctica or the
Arctic. You never know really when you're gonna fly, but particularly Antarctica, especially back then. So you sit in the airport every day until they think there's good weather. In this case, there are a few people already in place on this base camp. So every day, we'd go to the airport and wait. Well, I'm in the airport.
First, we're sitting around with these guys. There's some Middle Eastern guys and, I don't know, playing cards or just chatting, and they're introducing themselves and they go around. And one guy's like, oh, I'm the sultan of Saudi Arabia. Like, okay. And the other guy's like they did the other guy didn't speak. He was Korean. His friends spoke for me. Like, oh, he's whatever his name is. He's, like, climbed Everest 5 times and 3 times in the winter. And they got to me, and I'm
like, oh, I'm Rick from South Lima. You know? But, anyway, also in the airport was, Norman Vaughn. And Norman in 1928 was going to school at Harvard, and he was a dog sled musher. And Admiral Byrd needed dog sled mushers when he flew across Antarctica. He's had a step set up depots. So they used dog sled mushers to set those depots. So in 1928, Arnold Berg I mean, Norman Vaughn was this young college kid, does the dog musher for him. So Arnold Berg named him mountain for him.
So Norman's well into his eighties now. There's this amazing guy who's lived in Alaska, hand me his business cards, like, the oldest and slowest. He'd done like they did around 13 times. And what had happened was the year before, there was only one plane that flew to Antarctica. And this pilot of that plane this year that I went started his own company to compete with the old company and he flew I think was a dc 3,
Bruce was his name. So Bruce was starting this competing company, and Vaughn, Norman Vaughn, hired on with him to fly him to go dog sled to his mountain and climate. It was also the last year that you could dog sled in in Antarctica because they nixed the dogs because the dogs bring disease and and and it's not good for the seals. So all these pieces are, like, coming together at this moment in this place. He needed to raise, like, a, I don't know, a 1,000,000 or $2,000,000. He's, like, 500,000,
a thou a $1,000,000 short. So National Geographic's there with them because they were one of the sponsors. And so you're hanging out, like, having grilled cheese with all these people, and Sultan's talking about the racehorse he owns for the Kentucky Derby. Anyway, eventually, we fly in the C 130 down there. Sultan was with us. He was gonna fly to the South Pole. He wasn't gonna climb Vincent. I had other clients that were climbing
Vincent. So as we fly down, once we land, a couple hours later, when it happened, it was this other plane that Norman wasn't on it, but his advanced crew was on it, and that DC 30 tried to trail the c 130, but it was slower. And by the time he got to Antarctica, the fog had settled, and he crashed. So when I was woke up, there were, plane crash survivors, in the in the kitchen tent, and they were still chasing down some dogs and some survivors. So there was a lot of drama, of
course, because it's pretty serious situation, obviously. There's a bunch of survivors from a plane crash. 1 guy was injured pretty bad, Jerry, and I took turns in the med tent with him. Basically, he's on morphine, and he's busted up in the head and his leg. And my job was when he had to go to the bathroom, he'd be kinda grown. I'm like, oh, you gotta go, Jerry? He's like, yeah. I'm like, alright. Roll over. Hang on. I got it. Go ahead. You're in the bottle.
Eventually, the National Geographic paid for a rescue plane to go get them, which is about $100,000 back then. So that took all of them off, and then we went and climbed Mount Vincent, which, you know, these bush planes and little bush plane. It's a twin otter and couldn't get there. So we sat down, like, 1 in the morning, sat down and we sat down at an old Chilean army base that had been abandoned because they had crashed a plane too. So they they're bad in this army base.
Everything was buried. So at 1 in the morning, with nothing else to do, there's a few bamboo poles sticking up. So we went around dug by those bamboo poles and pulled up tents and we pulled up benches and stoves and food, and we just started cooking and eating all this food that had been buried for 10 years. We never really have anything else to do. So, anyway, then we went out and, you know, climbed the mountain, which was, you know, an adventurous climb and all that. And,
yeah, we got back. I left the continent, and then Norman had to downsize his expedition. It's kind of a cool story. He downsized because he didn't make much money. So he downsized to, like, 2 like, 3 guys to help him, and they flew him to the continent. Now they flew him with the same agency I was using, like, very much downsized. I don't even know if JobShedale Geographic was still on board within them. They flew him to the base camp, but he never got the weather to go climb his mountain.
So what happened was there was some guy that had a lot of money. So everybody around the base camp he was very charismatic, Norman. He's, like, 82 year old. Just a great guy, but very charismatic. So after a month of living in in this base camp on the ice, this guy with a bunch of money comes back from the South Pole. Some people go just a day to go see the South Pole. Comes back in the camp, and this guy's like, well, why is everybody so quiet? What's up today? You know, like, oh,
Norman couldn't get to his mountain. So the guy pulls out his checkbook and walks over and gave him, I don't know, $50,000. Sit here for next year. So he did end up going the next year. By then, he didn't couldn't have dogs anymore because of this, you know, thing was in place. And he did. They flew him to the base, and he did eventually climb that mountain. So, yeah, that's that story. Wow. That's a it's a lot of twists and turns.
Yeah. Right? Do you stay in contact with Norman or the sultan or any of the people along the way? A a little bit. You know, peripherally for my Alaska friends, I knew when Norman died. The guys that were on the climb, all of them continued and tried to climb Everest. 1 of them was there on the climb the year at Krakow was there. There was all that drama, and they wrote that book. So one of my clients, Lou, was at
he's in that book. And so I did contact him because he was on the mountain, and he didn't get to the top, but he had a different take than Krakauer's book. Well, it's the book's take. Well, Krakauer, it's that's that's a long story. I mean, Krakauer, you know, was there trying to understand why all those deaths occurred. There was either a lot of deaths on the mountain.
So Krakauer was there just trying to tell the story, but, anyway, that that's a complicated question, but it it Claimed a lot of lives. Yeah. I think, 18 this year. Sherpa Lagos called Chomolunga, not not Everest. So the locals call Chomolunga. But, yeah, anyway, so the one guy tried to go to Everest. He didn't go. The other guy I heard from you, he was on the Tibetan side. He tried to go up there to, like, pass some dead bodies. He like and he's like, Rick, why am I here? I didn't
wasn't with him. He wrote me later. He's like, I just turned around after a few dead bodies. And the other third guy was a fireman and contacted me because he wrote a book. So I was in his book for a little brief part, and he had gotten into his drama, run some rescues. He got stuck at a Ferris wheel. So I did have conversation after, Vincent with the the guys that were clients. Yes. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. You I mean, you've had now, what, 1,000
different clients around the world. I mean, you've been doing it for a long time. I imagine the numbers. Yeah. I mean, it's gotta be huge. Right? I mean, you know, counting starting in 80 if you count all the delinquent at risk programs, that's, like, 45 years. I mean, I know I look like I'm probably 35, but You look young. Thank you. How was your Japan trip? What did you go to Japan for, and how was the journey?
That's a really neat, amazing trip. Well, we go there to do Kumano Kodo, which is a Shinto Buddhist pilgrimage. So starting a 1000 years ago, the people in Japan would make a pilgrimage to the key peninsula that has a lot of springs and hot springs and emperors and abdicated emperors would take 800 of their finest friends. As they take their servants, they carry the emperor. That for a 1000 years, they've been doing
this pilgrimage through the mountains. So there's and you that gains you merit and that those sometime are buried, that's a sutra. So there's these sutra mounds, these buried mounds of these sutras on the way. So it's this combination of, ancient spirituality with these shrines along the way that you pray at and ring the bell at and wash your hands at. Hot springs are soaking, very rural local culture, little villages, beautiful people. So it's a really unique way to experience Japan.
So you because you have the spiritual piece, you have the historic piece, you have the beautiful scenery, you have this incredible food that, you know, that's there. It's, you know, the all the pretty much every experience that we do is more around experience than collecting a view of some place. You know, everything we do, we try to immerse people, into some deeper way of experiencing that place with the people or in some way. So it's a very, very interesting country, much different than ours.
It's incredibly clean, incredibly safe, and the people are extremely respectful and very kind and gentle. Really lovely people in Japan. We have a lot to learn from their gentleness and respect. Of all the places you've been, do you have favorites, or do you love all your children equally? You know, when people ask me that and they're on a trip, I always go, the one that you're on with me right now. I said, that's my standard answer. Oh,
yeah. I mean, there's Antarctica and there's the rest of the world so you can't really compare that. So I tend to like wild places, extreme places, so obviously Antarctica. Outside of that, I'm more of a cooler place, because I so I like mountains. So I either like really really wild mountains, like the arctic, like way up in the arctic, you know, bush plane drop off and they'll be around
for 400 miles. Really extreme places like that or places like the Andes or the Himalayas where you have a mix of amazing mountains but you also have really interesting culture. So, yeah, the Himalayas, the Andes, or Greenland, you know, because Greenland's so extreme too and remote. Yeah, those kind of places are my favorites. Eric the Viking would be happy to hear that, I'm sure. Exactly. But I like being home too. I live in a really gorgeous place. I'm I'm quite content to be home
too. It's really beautiful where I live right now. Yeah. Have you ever been on one of these excursions and thought, oh, this is it. I'm no more on the planet? I suppose, but you really don't allow yourself to go there. That's not really a healthy way of thinking. So it's not really an option in your brain. Yeah. You know, I'm you just keep coming up with more solutions. Yeah. You don't really go to that place even if it gets dicey. You don't think that.
I mean, I suppose in passing maybe, but if that thought starts to come, you just don't go there. You just come up with another possibility, another way to stretch supplies, another way to stay warm, another way to get dry, whatever. You know? Another way to keep people safe. So not really. Not too much. Yeah. You're you're an interesting guy. Can't wait to read your book. I'm not writing a book. That's way too much work. And there's a lot of things
to do besides write a book. Now there's a lot of things to experience yet and, you know, a lot of other just not my skill set. I get it. I get it. Tell people how they might find you and maybe go on an adventure with you. Well, that's pretty easy. You could just type in the company name, pack paddle ski. But packpalski.com. Just type in packpalski.com will come up. You can do it on Facebook. You can do it. You can type in Rick French on Facebook. You can type
in Pac Palski on Facebook. You can take Pac Palski. The website comes up. That's pretty easy to find me. Yeah. I mean, people in Kinesis where I live don't know me, but, you know, other people know me. I don't know if people in Kinesis know where to find me, but that's where I live. Yeah. Rick, thank you so much for your time. It was great to meet you. It'd be more fun to do an adventure with you, though. Yeah. I mean, I who knows what it might be?
Exactly. It was a delight. I I read you, you know, I I looked at your information, how you got into that. It's really I love that you've that you've attempted to do this. Meaning more people who've tried to follow their dreams like that because it's hard. So I I really admire that you took this on and, you know, what you're what you're trying to do anymore of that. Thank you. It's just great. When you do this, you tend to connect with other people who do and view the world in the same way.
You're part of my bubble now. Yay. I love it. Well, one of my best friends, she's a adventurer. She's been to so many places, and I'm sure she's gonna be excited to hear this episode. I don't know that she wants to climb on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. I'm pretty sure that's a no. But but some of this other stuff maybe, you know? Yeah. We do other things that aren't quite as rigorous as that. Like, Japan's not too rigorous. Yeah. That one really that piqued my
interest. That's right up my alley. You know, a bunch of things we do aren't aren't that rigorous. Yeah. They're ski in Norway. Yeah. That kind of stuff. Well, Rick, it's such a pleasure. Please stay in touch. You're very cool. You have a really nice day. Okay? You too. Alright. Take care. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. Bye bye. Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Bye.