Chris Eyer: Muledragger

Unknown Speaker 0:01 Hi, I'm Danny from wild Cumberland, and you're listening to the wild idea. Bill Hodge 0:11 Welcome to our stories of a wild and connected world what we call the wild idea podcast. I am one of your hosts, Bill Hodge, and along with my co host, Anders Reynolds, we bring a passion for wild places and wild ideas, and we have a genuine curiosity about the intersection of wild nature and human nature. And together, we also bring a combined 30 plus year track record of fighting for land protections, fighting for land stewardship. Today, I am joined here in our Montana studio with friend wilderness packer and outfitter Chris Eyer, otherwise known as mule dragger. And from DC, my partner in crime, Anders. Anders Reynolds 0:46 Oh, hi, Bill. Look at you. And Chris in studio. I know it's snowing there. You're in your footy pajamas, matching footy pajamas. You got some chestnuts roasting nearby. Are you guys watching reruns of that? Ryan Zinke appearance on 60 minutes from last night. Bill Hodge 1:03 Exactly we were doing. We were great. Some of Chris's cousins actually appeared in that 60 Minutes segment. The Manix. No way, really. The manics family were featured prominently in in that 60 Minutes piece. I mean, you bring that up, that's a, you know, it was, I thought, I thought it was really good. I thought it was really fair. It certainly covered the land sell off, but through the lens of Montana. So I'm a little bit biased, but I thought they, they did tell the full suite of the political spectrum that pushed back against Senator Mike Lee's proposed sell off of public lands and and on. Obviously, the folks at Romney range, from, you know, sheep herders to ranchers to conservation advocates to even our congressional delegation, and of course, Ryan Zinke featured prominently in that story. But I thought it was fair balance story. I thought it was I thought it was well done. Anders Reynolds 1:59 It was fair, it was comprehensive, but I got to tell you, it was also pretty politically savvy. You know, 60 minutes has been America's number one rated news program for like, 51 years or something, and the people that watch it are voters, right? So in the in the clearest terms possible, Zinke told this group of of very likely voters that the Trump administration wants to sell off public lands, and that once they're sold, they're gone for good. And I, I, for one, appreciate people hearing that message. Bill Hodge 2:36 Yeah, 100% and I thought it came through loud and clear. What you said, it came through loud and clear. It came through, through the voices of people on the ground, and it came through representative Ryan Zinke as well. I wanted to talk a little bit about favorites, I guess because of our guests today, I've been thinking a lot about my quote, unquote, favorite wilderness. You know, there was a time when if someone asked me what my favorite wilderness was I had a canned answer ready, which was always, well, it's whatever wilderness I'm in today. But now, if I'm 100% honest, I do have a favorite. Well, actually two favorites. One is, of course, the upper bald river wilderness, a place that was close to my Tennessee home, and a place you me, Laura, so many others, played a role in protecting with the Tennessee Wilderness Act in 2018 but, you know, once I set foot here in the treasure state and set foot in the Bob Marshall wilderness complex, I was hooked forever. It is a special place for for me, for a number of reasons, the scope and scale of the place is just sort of mind blowing. The connection to my personal hero, you know, Bob Marshall, and the people that I've been so fortunate enough to work with, alongside and stewarding the place, it's just, it's kind of really in my soul, in a way that's going to be impossible to ever let go. But I'm curious to you have that favorite place, and I learned recently your favorite River, which I should have known, and I'm sorry for not having gotten that right, but do you have a favorite wild place? Anders Reynolds 4:06 You know, I don't. I'm gonna keep my answer short because I don't want to step on the Bob Marshall stuff, because I know it's gonna be so important today, and there's so many wilderness areas in the running. I mean, you introduced me to Glacier Bay Wilderness this summer, and God, it was just, it's almost overwhelming, and it's in its vastness and how alive it is with wildlife, I think, kind of an underrated wilderness, but one that was a lifeboat for me during covid was otter Creek wilderness in West Virginia, which I came To get I came to be really familiar with but my answer is a canned answer, and I'm not ashamed of it. My favorite wilderness area is the next one, right? So right now we've got a number of wilderness bills in front of Congress, and those are my favorites, the additions to flat side wilderness in Arkansas, the Shenandoah mountain Act and the GW. Jeff, the Virginia wilderness editions and the GW, Jeff and there's, you know, additional wilderness that could be considered any day now past, any day now. And in the Olympic Peninsula and the Rocky Mountains in the state of Illinois, those are my favorites, the ones that are coming next. Bill Hodge 5:17 I love it. I think one thing for our audience, those who maybe aren't that familiar with the system. You know there is every acre is created equal, whether it's an acre in the in the six acre, Pelican islands wilderness, or an acre in the almost 9 million acre, Rangel st Elias wilderness, they're all created equal. They're all they're all part of the exact same system. And it doesn't matter whether you have a favorite or you don't, and I love your answer. It's just an important system. We're going to talk a lot about wilderness today with Chris. Chris, thanks first of all for making the journey up from the Valley of the Blackfoot and from the Kleinschmidt flat to be here in person. It's really a great honor to have you here. Speaker 1 5:56 Thank you very much. Big fan of both you guys and of both pods. And I'm just, yeah, I feel really grateful to be here. So thank you. Bill Hodge 6:03 When we connected first, when I first set foot here in Montana to serve in the role as the executive director of the Bob Marshall wilderness Foundation, and you stepped forward to serve on the board, I'm curious for you about where was the first place you connected with the wilderness idea? Chris Eyer 6:19 First place I ever connected with the wilderness idea was actually in Southern California. Southern California, and somewhere in the Angeles crest National Forest. And I don't even know honestly, the name of the wilderness area that I was in, quite honestly, but I was involved in in high school. I was involved in, like an explorer scouts troop, and we, we were doing trail clearing, actually, in and around the Angeles crest, and I didn't know anything about anything. I just wanted to get out in the woods. And at that time, I was probably 13 years old, or something like that. And then over time, I just, yeah, just began to gain an appreciation for, honestly, just national forest I really like. Didn't know what wilderness was at all. I had no idea. And it wasn't until I was probably in college that I started to realize what it actually was and what it meant and and to this day, now, of course, on the other side of it, I'm continually shocked by how few people actually know what wilderness is or what it know what it's about, or what the regulations are, what makes it so very special, but, but it turns out a lot of people don't even know that it's theirs, and they don't know how accessible it is, and they don't know what what it actually means. Bill Hodge 7:32 Yeah, I think it's, it's something that I failed to mention off the top. But you are a packer, you are about to become an outfitter, you're a saddle maker. You're also an electrical contractor. You're a former Marine. You've got a number of hats that you can handle in the closet there. Yes, sir, but yeah. I mean, you now have a, clearly, a very visceral connection to the wilderness idea. Chris 7:53 Yeah, I do. And I live, you know, I'm extremely grateful to live right at the foot of the Bob Marshall wilderness complex, which is composed of a variety of wilderness areas, and the one closest to me is a Scapegoat Wilderness. But yeah, it's just a few miles up the road for me, and I'm feel incredibly fortunate to live right at the heel of the complex, but also to be able to just access it all year, actually, which most people don't get that opportunity. But because I'm so close, I can make it to the trailhead, and I can ski into the wilderness throughout the winter, and then I can take my mules and horses in there all spring, summer and fall, Anders Reynolds 8:27 Chris, I know your sort of first encounter with wilderness happened in California, so I want to ask you about your journey from that encounter in California to where you are now enjoying life as a packer in Montana. Can you tell us about that evolution? You know, what was the most surprising cultural shift you experienced moving from one state to the other? Did those differences deepen your connection to wilderness, or did it maybe challenge it in unexpected ways? Chris 8:59 Yes and yes, I think it did all those things. You know, for me, I was, I was in a in the Sierra Club when I was in high school, and I got to take part in something at the time. I believe this program still is still around. I think it has a different name, but at the time it was called, it was the basic mountaineering training course, is what it was, BMTC. So I went through the BMTC when I was in high school, which the Sierra Club put on this program where it was basically teaching people how to be mountaineers. So as a part of that course, there was a whole bunch of facets to it, but one of them was it was a year long course, and one of them was that we, towards the end, we would do these, we did these hikes from one side of the Sierras to the other. And in that, in that, on that hike, I was coming out of big Whitney meadows, headed down to horseshoe Meadows trailhead, and I crested over a pass, which I do not know the name of. And as I did, I heard a noise, and I was out in front of the group of people I was hiking with. I. I heard this noise. It was some rattling and some shaking, and I heard some snorts, and I just got off the trail. I didn't know what it was, and around the corner came this sort of crusty old guy, and he had a dimpled up hat, and he had four mules behind him. And I just, for me personally, that was kind of just this odd archetypal experience. I did not know. I'd never seen a pack string in my life, but I knew exactly what it was. There was something where that came out of the myth of the West, and I saw it, and I recognized it, even though I'd never seen it. And to me, that was just this very pivotal moment of which I've had maybe three or four of in my life. And I just sat there and watched him go by. He never said a word to me. He just looked at me. We made some eye contact. I looked at his mules, and he just kept going. And then I continued down the trail, and I walked away going, Wow, that's I might be 15 years old, but I'm going to do that one day. And then it was just sort of a long path to get from there to where I am now, in a long journey. And yeah, that transition of coming to from Los Angeles, where I finished up a couple years of college, and then I went and finished my undergrad degree at the University of Montana. I came to Montana because I wanted to be near the mountains. I wanted to be near the wilderness. And I had pipe dreams that someday I would have something to do with, like, you know, a horse and and the mountains. And I thought that would just be the most amazing thing. And then, yeah, after I finished my my undergraduate degree, I went on and, you know, got my first horse. Actually, I was in my senior year of college, and I very irresponsibly, bought a horse that I could not afford. Had no idea what I was doing whatsoever. I was very well versed in the backcountry and camping and traveling through the back country, but I but quite honestly, I had ridden a bunch. Written a bunch as a kid, but I didn't really know anything, and I certainly didn't know how to keep an animal alive in the wilderness. But, um, yeah, that kind of, that journey, sort of took off in 1995 and now, you know, I got sitting in Bill's living room, and he's asking me how many animals I have, and I don't even, it's 30 something, that's what I know. So it's, it's Yeah, so here I am, but I guess, to answer your question more directly, it's been an amazing transition. My family's from Montana. On my mother's side, they've been here since 1889 my great grandfather came from Ireland and homesteaded, and now I live about 10 miles up the road from him, and I'm Yeah. Couldn't be any happier about the place or the space that I live and what I get to do with it, and how I get to interact with it. And the whole thing is just a deeply transformative experience, and it continues to be, and I need plenty of transformation, so I'm open to it. Bill Hodge 12:34 So we dove head first into this, Chris without really for some in our audience backing up and explaining what a packer is what packing is, what stock we use terms. And I know for some of you, you're gonna like, Oh, you don't need to explain this. But like, for some we may want to explain, can just talk about what you do in the wilderness, like, what your what your primary role is in the wilderness, and what you what you do on a day to day basis? Gotcha? Chris 13:02 Yeah. So what I do is I Pack Mules, which means I put heavy things on the backs of mules, and I bring it through the wilderness. As most, hopefully, most people know, the wilderness areas, you cannot move things with a wheel. You you can't move things with helicopters, unless it's under very specific circumstances, and you have a special permit for that. Otherwise, anything that gets moved throughout these vast areas gets moved on the back of humans or animals. And it's unrealistic to think that some of the construction projects that take place to keep these wilderness areas accessible, whether it's bridges or the support infrastructure associated with cabins that the Forest Service uses, we it's not really realistic to move all that in there by by foot. So So animals do that. So these mules, they carry, you know, 20% of their body weight every day that they can work. And usually it's a lot less than that. And they just bring heavy things in and out of the wilderness. And that could be anything from construction material. I've moved everything from mattresses to toilets to lumber to steel. I beams to sometimes just people's things, whether it's food for trail crews, or whether it's, you know, their supplies and tools, or whether it's people who want to have a different kind of wilderness experience, they hire an outfitter. The outfitter historically has hired me, and then I bring their stuff in there, food, clothing, tents, all their supplies, so that they can set up and have a different kind of wilderness experience, as opposed to the kind where you carry everything on your back, which I think holds a ton of value, but I very much appreciate the diverse array of ways that people experience wilderness, and especially on horseback or riding mules. One of the things I think that people continually feed back to me is that they are able to have a much more immersive experience in their surroundings, because they don't have to just continually look at where their feet are being placed. They can actually look around and take in the entire place. And for me personally. Only, I think there's also another dimension that some people are tuned into. Some people not quite so much, but mules exist back there in a very natural way. And if we pay attention to them, they provide us, not only transportation, they provide the ability to actually get heavy things in there so you can have a slightly more comfortable experience. But they also act as a kind of, as I've said many times before, they act as a kind of midwife. They are very natural in experiencing the wilderness area. And for my money, we as humans actually belong evolutionarily more in the wilderness than we do here in the front country. We're I think if we can trust our bodies and trust ourselves enough to let go into the wilderness experience, then I think we are able to have a really rich, rich experience of ourselves. And we already know how to live in the wilderness. Your body knows how to do this. You've evolved to live in this environment, and so have the mules. And the mules, even though they're typically a plains animal, they know how to be outside. They know what they need to do. They know how to keep warm, they know how to stay out of the wind. They know how to drink, they know how to eat, they know how to forage for what's naturally there. And they can act as a midwife. I think that delivers us into a more fundamental experience of ourselves, something that's significantly more rich. And I'm not advocating that people go back to that in terms of living there forever. But I think when you come back to the village, quote, unquote, or you come back to society, you do so in a different way. And I think mules and horses and that relationship that they help unfold help deliver us into is one that's a more fundamental experience of ourselves, which I could go into quite a bit more. But I think that is a big event for a lot of people, and it certainly is. Certainly is for me, and it's what keeps me coming back again and again. Anders Reynolds 16:45 Chris, I don't have a question, but I have to speak in celebration of the mule. The mule the sterile offspring of a female horse and a male donkey. It is smart, it is sure footed, it is flat backed, which makes it ideal for packing. And I have to say, I took a trip, God, maybe 10 years ago, through the Book Cliffs. And there were 12 of us. We had 11 horses and a mule. I got the mule, and that thing was absolutely fearless. It had it. I think this is probably something you've experienced too. It was absolutely obsessed with walking behind the lead horse, so it would just shoot off the trail around the other horses to get up there, whether up or down. It never missed a beat. And I really enjoyed my time on the back of a mule. So I can certainly understand why you love them so much. Chris 17:38 Yeah, I appreciate that. And on behalf of all mules throughout the world. We thank you, because they are the unsung heroes of a lot of wilderness maintenance and upkeep and a lot of people's experience in the wilderness. But additionally, you know, most of the big mules out here, they come from Mammoth Jack stock, which was all that was really helped by Thomas Jefferson. They're an American donkey breed, and they are, you know, a lot of the mules that are running around here come from Mammoth Jack stock. So donkeys and mules, we all appreciate that. Bill Hodge 18:09 I think I am going to ask you to go a little bit deeper on what you started into there. You know, there's a well, one, there's a favorite expression of mine, which is, if you don't have a pack mule, you are one. There's a lot of truth to that, but there's like, there's a culture around packing. Now that we're trying to define this, for maybe some of our audience that don't know packing that well, it's truly a learned skill set. There's, you know, there's load management, there's equine care, there's being a good horseman or horse woman, you have a reputation for a deep connection to your critters, which is true for most packers, I know. But please talk a little bit about you started to, I think, get into this a little bit about how you see your working relationship with your mules and horses. How you see that, like, how do you, how does that relationship work for you? Chris 18:56 Yeah, that's good question. Yeah, mules and mules and horses. My mules and horses, my mules and horses, they're I mean, honestly, they're just an extension of my family. I'm with them every day, every day of the year. I spend time with them. But there's something different about bringing them into wilderness. None of them resist going to work. They all appreciate going to work. They could all carry a lot more weight than they do, but quite honestly, I'm the one that has to lift it up so I keep the loads relatively light just for my own, my own self. But they, uh, yeah, they, they've nothing in my life has changed. It has changed my life, improved my life, enriched my life. More than that, those equine relationships. They're an amazing animals, horses and mules, both. All the equines are quite amazing. They have no obvious verbal language like we do. So they are completely tuned into body language. They are noticing where your eyes are, where you're looking, how your shoulders are facing them, where they're not, how your feet move. They can almost always sense your emotional state well before most people can. So they're really. Eating all that on a moment to moment basis, because that's how they live. That's how they survive. So for me, that relationship is key. I mean, yes, they move heavy things to the wilderness. That's true. That's not what I'm doing. I'm not moving that at all. Actually, what I'm doing is I'm just trying to understand myself, my fellow human beings, and how that all connects with wilderness more and what wilderness is adding to that. But it's about connection. The whole thing, for me, is about connection. The moving heavy things is about that's just a means to an end. That's like what we do as a way to connect. And working with a group of blue collar equines, I think is is something that is different than working with a pasture pet. It's different than working with an animal that gets out, you know, once a month, or someone rides it around an arena, all of which I respect and admire. But it is different when you go to bed at night and they're right outside your tent. My mules, when I get to the into the back country, we free range them, so we put a couple bells on a couple of them, and then we kick them out. We just turn them loose. I take my horse, one or two horses, and I keep them in a hot wire corral so they're somewhat contained the rest of the animals. I just turn them loose. They could leave. They go anywhere they want, but we all stay together, and they will, especially on trips, they'll accept all those humans into the herd. They look out for them, when grizzly bears are around, they defend the camp. They let you know if anything's coming. But it's really, at the end of the day, it's about that connection piece for me, and I think it's that's what it's about for them, the connection and the relationship that we have with them. Anders Reynolds 21:35 I'm glad you brought up connection, because I want to dig into that and talk a little bit about the platform you have, which, if folks haven't caught on, is mule dragger on Instagram and other platforms, and I'm curious how you use that platform to speak about and on behalf of wild places and the people that steward those places. Maybe you could share just a little bit about how you built that platform, how you see your responsibility in using that platform and and what it provides, you know, both the folks that engage with you and and yourself like, do you find enrichment, you know, interacting with all these followers? Chris 22:18 Yeah, that's also a great question. I don't know, you know, social media is so fascinating, and there was no social media when I started learning how to pack. I wish there was, because there was very few resources, which, thankfully, I never killed any people or any animals in the process of learning to pack. But I'm largely was self taught through books, but, but yeah. I mean, social media, on the positive and has done so many amazing things for for the packing community in general. I my, my big statement is, I don't think there's ever been a time when there's been more people interested in learning to pack in the history of the world, which is, if packing mules and horses has been around forever, at least 3000 years that we know of. And there's, I just don't think there's ever been a time where so many people are interested in learning about it, finding out about it, like, you know, I have a pack clinic, typically every spring, and the thing fills up so fast. There's so many people that want to do it. Unfortunately, because of the price of equines and because of the price of land in the West, it's there's probably never been an actual larger barrier to entry than there is today. But, yeah, I feel like I have a responsibility to it, but then I go through these other periods of time where I'm like, Who do I even think I am? I mean, I'm just over here, packing doing my thing, keeping my head down, you know, I'm happy. I've always thought of my my Instagram account in particular. I've always thought of that as a way to promote wilderness and to promote working equines that are treated really, really well, but I don't, so I guess I don't know what my responsibility is to them. I kind of toggle back and forth. I mean, I think the relationship that a lot of us have because we really don't even know, I think most of us don't even know what social media is, and we don't really know how to use it. We're all just sort of following along and trying to figure it out as we go. It's still so new, and I've made some of the best friends I could possibly have or ever imagined I would have. I've made them through Instagram and but, you know, I've also received plenty of criticism because I have animals that work for a living, and a lot of people don't think that's okay, that I would say that's less true now than how it used to be. Those people don't seem to come around my page anymore. But, um, but yeah, I don't know. At the end of the day, all I can do is just show that slice of my life, that aspect of my life, and hope that people receive some kind of inspiration from it, in some sense, especially around public lands. I mean, I want people to understand that horses and mules that work for a living blue collar equines can be treated exceptionally well. They can have amazing lives, great retirement benefits and and great points of connection with humanity. But I also just want, more than anything, I think I really want people to realize that these are their land. You know, these are our public lands, and I want people to just get out and experience them. And it doesn't matter to me if you're a day hiker, if you're a fly fisherman, if you're through hiker, if you're extremely professional and you've been doing this for 50 years, or if this is your first day like this, is this? This is one of the greatest things I think America has, and it's all of ours. It's open to all of us. It belongs to all of us. And I just, I'm a huge advocate that this wilderness system that we have is big enough to take in all the different viewpoints and all the different, you know, ways of understanding the world in a very unifying way. And I think that's one of the things that this public land sell off. Thing has really brought to the surface is that man you talk about, I know people that are so much farther right than people could even imagine, and I pack with them, and I camp with them, and I sit around the campfire, and I know other people that are so far left, you would not believe it. And we can sit around the same fire and go, This belongs to us, and we don't want it taken away. And I think right now, that feels the most urgent, you know, that really feels urgent like this. This is we have something incredibly special, and people come with me from all over the world, and they cannot believe that this belongs to all of us, and that people can just come here and just access it. It's open to anyone. Like, what an amazing thing. Bill Hodge 26:25 You know, you have a range of ways in which you've interacted with the wilderness. Like you said, you started out on, you know, backpacking as a teenager. You're packing, and you're packing. You're sometimes you're packing for the agency, for the Forest Service that manages the Bob Marshall wilderness complex, and like I want to get into some of those stories later about some of the unique experiences of things that you've had to pack in but but you've also packed in for Outfitters. You're about to become an outfitter yourself. And all of that has been able to provide for the American public and experience in a place as big as the Bob and for those who may not know, the Bob Marshall wilderness complex is 1.6 million acres. It's three different wilderness areas, but they're all contiguous. They were just designated at different times. But I'm curious on the wilderness idea how important you feel it is whoever you're sharing it with, whether it's that colleague at the Forest Service, or it's that customer that you're packing in that's now maybe going to be your customer as an outfitter, how important a part of the business model is it making sure that they not only understand that the land, the public land, belongs to them, but why the wilderness idea itself is so valuable? Chris 27:39 Yeah, okay, that's a good question. I think that you know, for me, I'm always trying to meet whether it's clients, when I'm contract packing or moving forward outfitting, I'm always trying to meet people right where they're at. So for some people, it's just such an overwhelming experience. But I think a lot of what's happening is happening, but like, people aren't even aware of what's happening as they're riding in, as they see the pack string take off, as they take off and start riding into the wilderness. And I think there's this gradual introduction for people into what their surroundings are, the history of it, how these wilderness areas are these, I believe the correct language is untrammeled, and how we only stay there for temporary periods of time. There's no permanent settlements in there at all. And I think that when, when people get around the campfire later at night, I think people start it starts to seep in, and people start to ask questions, and they start to come to realizations about what's happening there and what this whole thing is all about. But I think even more so after the trip is over. Yeah, it changes people's lives. And I think a lot of people really it just, it's a slow burn and it's a slow soak. I think a lot of people are very overwhelmed by the possibility of, you know, being consumed by a grizzly bear, like you're taking them in there, and you're taking them off the top of the food chain, and you are when you go off to go to the bathroom in the bushes, like your food to some animals out here, and you're, we're gonna You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be protected. But this is not the same thing as going to the bathroom from your living room. You know, this is a very different experience, and I think it takes people a while to let go, really, that process for me, watching people talking to people, it's about letting go and trusting themselves. Because, as I'd say, you know how to do this. Your body knows how to do this. You have evolved to do this way more than you've evolved to to drive down, you know, a grid pattern, or jump in a way, mow and go somewhere like you have evolved to this. Your body knows how to do this. And so I think that that, you know, bringing people back there, introducing into that, is that's something I feel like, I guess I can do, whereas in this age where there's just, you know, listening to the wildland, it can be overwhelming. There's so many assaults on public lands, there's so many things that. That are under threat. And, you know, I'm just a guy who lives out on a ranch in Montana, like I don't, I can't. It just feels like I can't do anything, even despite my best efforts. But, you know, I think change happens ultimately through connection, connection with ourselves and connection with other people. And I think packing and bringing people on trips where they can connect with mules horses get delivered into deeper experience of themselves. Allows them to connect with people who are also on the trip from a variety of different backgrounds, see the commonality of it, make connection, and then return again, back to the marketplace and a new and I think the wilderness is kind of what does that for them? Anders Reynolds 30:43 Yeah, first of all, Chris, thank you for listening to the wildline. Your weekly news brief. Horland Stories are the lead stories. It's amazing. That's a very nice blog. I this idea of letting go. I'm really into this, and I've read articles where you offer a concept of wilderness that centers on a reset, and I think that may be the same thing, removing yourself from the noise of the world, clarifying what matters. How do you see that particular benefit of wilderness intersecting with broader public land policy in this moment. You know, I'm talking about ideas about how wilderness areas should be managed, how people should gain access, how agencies should prioritize preservation, preservation versus recreation. I mean, given the all the current pressures, visitor numbers, climate change funding. What changes would you like to see in our public lands that might help facilitate that experience of resetting oneself? Chris 31:53 So what changes would I like to see in order to facilitate that reset? Yeah, I think the reset is a great way of putting it. What changes, man, I'll be honest with you at this point, I'm just like, Please don't take it away. Please don't take it away from us. Like I'm not. I used to be very much like, a big advocate for funding, and I had a lot of different avenues I was pursuing on a regular basis, both through social media, but also through politics of just like, we need to improve this. We need more money for this right now. I'm like, Oh my God, please don't take it from us. This is all so huge, everything that's happening. There was a time where there was some funding that was cut for a certain area of the wilderness. That means a tremendous amount to me. And I just got busy on the phone, and I ended up being able to talk to someone at a high level. This is maybe five or six years ago, and I ended up being able to talk to someone randomly that turned out to be a far right wing Hunter. And I managed randomly to find his phone number on the internet, called him up, and he was like, I'm gonna find a way to get money to that area. And he did, and I don't need any credit. I don't need to name the place. None of that. I don't care about that. But he got money there, got more more trail crew there, made it more accessible to the rest of us. And that was, I mean, that just felt so good as an internal victory, like I just wanted to. I just want this place to continue to be available, not just to the people of this country, but to everyone in the world, anyone that comes here. I want them to have this as something that they can take part in. But now I'm like, I don't know. I'm not asking for more money. I'm asking. I'm asking, please don't take it. Please just leave it. I'll work on the let's fine tune this later. Right now, I'm like, we need you. We need bill. We need these podcasts. We need the word out. We need all the people from meat eater. I need the people from the far right. I need the people from our far left. Like, this is ours. Like, let's preserve this. It's and if I have to take the line to like, instead of being more philosophical about the whole thing and transformative aspects of wilderness, how it can make you a more full and rich human being and have a richer experience. I'm like, I'm like, ready to just talk about the money? Like, hey, this is the greatest economic driver in the state. Like, if that's the route I have to go, you know that, hey, this is good for our economy. Like, I don't want to bring it down to that, but I'm ready to do whatever it takes. I just don't want to lose this, and I don't, I don't want any of it to get sold. I don't want any of it to go away. It's one of it's one of those amazing things I think that we have in this country and and even the comp. I mean, four years ago, I could not imagine that I would have a conversation where these places might be sold. That's just like I it wouldn't have even computed. I would have laughed at you. There's no way that's even a conversation. And yet you're having to defend us like we're all trying to, like, it's bizarre to me, you know, and confessionally, it's really easy being where I'm at, living the life I'm living, to just like, you know, close the shades and be like, Hey, I'm on a ranch. It's amazing. I'm staring at The Scapegoat Wilderness. I'm just gonna go back there. And do my own thing while I can, you know? I mean, it's something I have to it's a risk. I have to fight it, you know what? I mean, and it's just so hard to make change at the level. This is now. I exercised in the spring all the resources I possibly had available to me, whether it's social media or otherwise, to get some of these layoffs slowed down. Like, hey, I'm not saying the Forest Service doesn't need to tighten the belt, but you are getting rid of the people that are doing the most work for all of us to keep this thing going. Like, not these people. Like, make cuts, but not these people. And it was, it was a consistent answer, hey, this is happening so far above my head, so far beyond where I'm at, that I cannot move us. I can't do anything about it. And, yeah, it didn't. Reason didn't matter. Logic didn't matter. Money didn't matter. This wasn't about money. It was not about like, this is going to save us. It wasn't about that, because this cost us money in the long run. It just, it just ended up being this thing where I think a lot of us who really care just felt pretty powerless and pretty hopeless about it all, and you just end up retreating back to this very primal position of like, man, please don't take it like we need this, for our heads, for our hearts, for our pocketbooks. We need this. Bill Hodge 36:20 Yeah, I could bottle that up and sell that, right? That's what we need, right? There is, don't take this from us. There are they've taken some from us. They did make those cuts, right? You know, as you know, one of my favorite places in the Bob Marshall wilderness complex is a place called Big prairie. And at the height of the great american outdoors Act, which was signed into law, as you and I were talking earlier, by President Donald Trump in his first term, yes sir, and championed by Senator Steve Daines right here in Montana. At the height of that there was a staff of 18 or 19 people at Big prairie, and they were working on trails that hadn't been touched in three or four decades. Yes sir, creating better access for people, keeping trails sustainable so that they're not causing resource damage. And this summer, there were three people at Big prairie, right? And so while they haven't gotten to the point of selling off the land, they have gotten to the point of gutting the Forest Service workforce, and specifically the wilderness workforce, and I think they continue to find ways to drain the wilderness program at all of the agencies, but the one I'm most familiar with is in the forest service of its resources. And eventually, I think the play is, well, when trails are inaccessible, people will no longer value these places, and that's why we have to speak up so much right now it's, well, the trails aren't open, so we have to authorize chainsaws when chainsaws, you know, horsepower isn't the solution, manpower is the solution, right? Like we can debate the difference of timing between the use of a chainsaw and a crosscut saw, but if we don't have the humans to run either one of them, right, then, yeah, the trails are gonna fall into disrepair. You can go argue for chainsaws all you want. And I'm bringing this up because this is a real world fight right now where the agency is considering just a blanket, you know, blank check to allow them to use motorized equipment and wilderness, which is antithetical to the humility that the Wilderness Act requires of us. And so don't take that away from us. Not just take the land away from us. Don't take the ethic behind the wilderness, right? I think is pretty important too. Chris 38:25 Yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more. And again, I'm not trying to shamelessly plug you guys any more than I already have. But like, my god, is so hard to get this information. It's just like, I love, love the wilderness. I'm a huge advocate. But like, I like, it's so hard in this age of data glare, to distill down some information and know what to do. I just feel like, I know so many people are like, Yeah, I love this. This means everything to me. But what's even going on? What are the bills? What's nested in this bill? What's nested in that bill? And the whole thing is all such. It's just all so confusing to just your average dude like me who's standing out there going, what? What's happening, you know? And so again, I appreciate the wild line. It's great because I get to hear, Oh, gosh, okay, there's these things happening. And it turns out a lot of people don't know this, including me. Until recently, Arkansas has wilderness areas. I did not know this was a thing. I didn't know there was anything other than just, you know, farm fields haulers and whatever else happens down there. But it turns out there's wilderness areas. And, like, I honestly, like, for so much of my adult life, I really thought wilderness was only, only in the West, like, you know, all the flyover places and whatever that's there's no okay, maybe the but the Washington Memorial, I don't know, like those places, they don't even count, but it turns out there's a lot of other places that I didn't even know about. So finding out the information, and I'm trying to press you guys to, like, at the end, just have a little thing that says, and here's what you can do, because I hear bad news, or I hear these things that are under threat, and I want to do some. Thing, and I'm just one guy, but like, I would sure love to know what to do, other than just call my senator. Like he knows I'm gonna call. He's gotten all my messages, I guarantee you. But like, what do we do? How do we do this? It's so again. Cannot thank you guys enough sincerely for just disseminating the information that, like, it's so hard to get in this age of data glare, I'm just blinded by it. And, like, this is the part the wildlife is, like a sunglasses so I can, like, read what's going on. I can understand what's happening out there in public lands. And I like to, yeah, and now I just need a little guidance on how to what to do next. Now that I'm educated, what do you guys want from me? How do we do this? Anders Reynolds 40:43 Yeah, it's interesting hearing you talk about this, maybe bill, maybe, maybe bill. And I have better access to this stuff than the average Joe, but we don't have nearly the audience that folks like you or Hal herring or others that have been on the show have and you know, I think it, it, it probably behooves us all to learn to work together, right? Because, like, like you were mentioning earlier, sitting around a fire, you find that, like, your differences are so small. And it turns out, we're all interested in protecting this resource. We've all grown up loving it. And earlier you were talking about the ways you grew up, and I think twice, you mentioned, like, I don't remember what wilderness area I was in and I don't remember what saddle I was crossing. Nobody does. Nobody remembers. Like, that's just total like, myth making. We all approach this from like, an angle where we where this stuff comes to us before we even know what we're talking about. And so I think it takes, I think it does take all of it takes the the folks who are in the beltway paying attention to this stuff, but who probably don't have the social cred that someone like you, does you do on you, does listen to me that you do on on social media. You mentioned Arkansas earlier, and I came off mute so fast, and you just kept talking right? See, you've got good instincts. You filibustered until I couldn't say anything. But I, I think the model you're describing is one in which we take an honest look at like, what our strengths and weaknesses are, and we learn to work together to overcome like, the common enemy we have. And I don't say enemy as a person. I say enemy as an idea, the idea that this stuff that's our birthright could go away tomorrow if certain actors wanted it to. Right? So I think you've mentioned connection in almost every answer you've given, and I think that's probably how I would answer your question, right? We need, we need more connection, not less, right, right? Chris 42:52 Yeah. And so if there was some way that you guys were, that we were all interconnected in with an like, even just the outlines of an action plan, like, like, if there was something in the show notes, where you could just be like, Oh yeah, and here's this, and then I could post that, and then I could get my other social media influencers, they could post that, and, you know, we could somehow spread that. I mean, it was really fascinating to watch everything after the whole Mike Lee, you know, put up public lands the way he that he did, like I was blown away. I didn't have a single friend from and I have friends from the entire spectrum. Everyone was united on that, you know, and I, and I don't know, I think it made a difference. Did it make a difference? Do you think, Bill Hodge 43:37 I mean, I think what I think about the Mike Lee and the land sell off. Thing is, it's like, I think they realize that that public lands might be the hub of America, quite frankly, and everybody touches it. Yes, we do have differences and nuances of what we think the best way to manage it is, yeah, and that's one of the things that I actually love about the Wilderness Act, is it's saying, Okay, well, we think some of it. Anders, you all often use that wilderness is like this anchor at one end of the spectrum, right? Wilderness is part of that, but so is active management. So is, you know, timber for for a healthy economy in a small rural town in Montana, for example, or or, you know, recreation driving the economy where I live here in the Flathead Valley in Montana. I think they found out, they, in this case, maybe he, Mike Lee, found out that the hub is public lands, and everybody's spoke touches that hub and and I think what I mean, I keep, I keep thinking about, what do we learn from that? Because at some level we were, we were successful, right? Like the there that was removed from the big, beautiful bill. There was no land sell off. But now, now it's the roadless rule rescission, or the public lands rule rescission, which is more nuanced. That was the one thing about the Mike Lee fight was it was straightforward. Do you want them to take this away from you? Do you want them to take your public lands away from you? And he could try to act like it was nuanced, and he was. Talking about a very small subset of public lands, but, but the roadless rule is nuanced, right? It gets into that, like, how much is, how much is active management of priority versus preservation, and maybe us being humble and realizing some places maybe we don't need to punch roads into them. Or, you know, wilderness, we certainly don't have roads and, you know, that sort of thing. So I think it's interesting to think about. Anders Reynolds 45:22 But Bill the research, the response doesn't need to be nuanced. And I think that's what mattered. The same way, it doesn't matter what your first wilderness area is. It doesn't matter what your first trip over a saddle and a mountain range is. It doesn't matter what the what the nuance of the threat is. If it's under threat, then the response should be, like, wide and clear the way it was with the public land sell off every time. And I agree with you, it's sort of right now, sort of, I feel like it's missing in the roadless role defense, and I hope it's something that we'll find again, because that that moment when we were all playing defense against the public land sell off. It was, it was great. Like, everybody pulling in the same direction, a string of Pack Mules pulling in the same direction. Bill Hodge 46:06 Oh, I love it in, yeah, I love it. I mean, and this shameless self, you know, promotion again, you know, Chris, you've asked for like, ways in which we can better activate or better unite people around what they need to know and what they can do with the information that they do know in the month of January. So just a few weeks after this episode comes out, we are dedicating the month to the proposal to rescind the roadless rule from the forest service right now, and we will have legal scholars. Will have people who know the history inside and out. We already have an episode out with Chris Wood, if you want to know more about that, but we're going to talk to organizations on the ground and places where the rescission of the roadless rule is important. So that is an example of maybe getting at what you're what you're getting at is, where can we take what we can put a spotlight on? How do we then can we put the same spotlight on how people can take action? And I think one way we can do that is taking the month of January and helping the American public understand what the roadless rule is. Because let's be honest, the majority of the American public knows that we have public lands, but they probably don't know the difference between the Park Service and the Forest Service and fish and wildlife and Bureau of Land Management, let alone what the nuance of something called the roadless rule is, or the nuance of something called, generically, the public lands rule, which is a BLM thing. And so I think the more we do the wild idea and the wild line with our weekly updates, the more we can kind of help the public understand that stuff. Chris 47:37 No, that's great. And I would also just advocate for any of these, any of these guys in these Hunter podcasts. They got big voices, a lot of them, and they are on our page. They are on our team, so and some of them live here in the Flathead Bill Hodge 47:52 Well, before we wrap things up, I want to ask you a couple fun stories. We got kind of, we got kind of heavy there for a minute, right? Heavy times. Anders Reynolds 47:59 Yeah, Chris, I can't let you leave without talking about your approach to mindfulness. You've said before that the wilderness and the mind sort of mirror one another. How does your Buddhist practice inform the way you move through wild places? Your work in your back country your work with your stock, and how do wild places in turn deepen your practice? Chris 48:26 Good question. Yeah. My I went after I got a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Montana, I went on to get a master's degree in Buddhist studies from the University of Sunderland in the UK and and really, my particular master's thesis was focused on epistemology, again, without getting too heady, just how do we know whatever it is we think we know, and that that really became what's most interesting to me, philosophically, and all of that actually not only aided and embedded, but also brought me to wilderness in so many different ways. And again, just in the simplest of terms, without getting too heady, one of the things you realize when you start traveling through wilderness and spending time in wilderness is everything is in a constant state of change. Everything, absolutely everything, is changing. As Heraclitus said, the great, you know, Greek philosopher said, you can never step in the same river twice. Everything is in a constant state of change. And as you're riding along on the back of your horse or your mule, and you're looking around at everything changing, I never go up that trail and think of it as the same trail. It's always a different trail, however subtle that might be. And the more you start to get nested, and the more you start to take part in that change, you realize that it's not changing randomly. This is not randomly. This is not random change that's just unfolding. This is all a set of interactions. It's an interconnected web of relationships that are unfolding every single time you walk through there, every single time you ride through there, and when you start to really contemplate experience, see that web. Of interconnection, you start to realize that actually, honestly, the to act any other way but selflessly would be to act self destructively. We are part of that interconnected web. All of us are, and so at the end of the day, the that's what I'm really trying to take part in. Now, all of that, any good philosophy, as I believe any good philosopher would tell you, culminates in ethics. Like, okay, so, guts, great. Well, now, what do I do, right? Like the wildlife podcast, like, what do I do now? And so for me, I'm like, What do I do? I try and advocate for these spaces. I try and introduce people to these spaces. I try and teach people how to travel through these wilderness areas and have a similar kind of internal event. I don't, I don't structure that totally overtly. A lot of it is just giving people that experience and letting people arrive at those conclusions. But for me, mindfulness is just about a deep awareness of paying attention to the change process. If you see the change process, you're going to see the interconnectedness of all this, how it's all interacting with one another. And you're going to see that actually, you aren't apart from this. You're part of this. Evolutionarily, you are part of this. This is where you belong and when you can kind of like, really rest in that, connect with that. I think what happens is you come out as a more compassionate human being, both for yourself and others and for the ecosystem that that you've been taking part in, and you can bring that then back into the marketplace. So my deeply naive set of ideas is like, I'm going to show people how to pack, and I'm going to show people the wilderness, and I'm going to do this, and as a result, the world's going to be a better place. And that's that may be true on a small scale, but it is quite naive, but I'm quite invested in it nonetheless. Bill Hodge 51:54 Boy, I think that is the perfect place to put a period on this conversation. And I folks, if you liked what you've heard, you definitely need to follow mule dragger on Instagram. We have been having a great conversation with Chris Iyer. I'm sure this will not be the last conversation we have with Chris. It's just been really wonderful having you on the show. Chris 52:15 Thank you very much. I appreciate it, both you guys and I appreciate all the work you're doing, and it does matter. So yeah, thank you. Bill Hodge 52:22 Hey. Coming up on the wild idea podcast, we sit down with former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Martha Williams, to talk about species recovery and the roles split between the states and the federal government. And for the holiday we chat with our friend Sarah Francisco, who has gone from growing up on a Christmas tree farm to fighting to protect the forests and waters of Appalachia. I hope you have enjoyed this first year of the pod, whether this is your first episode or your 70th. We hope you've enjoyed the conversations if you have or you have not. Would you take a minute to subscribe? Give us a review or rating, or better yet, share a link with your friends and your neighbors and your family if you want to know more about our information that we just had a conversation with Chris about, you can find detailed show notes on our website, the wild idea.com while you're there, also sign up for our newsletter to stay on top of the world of public lands and to find out how you can take action and our shared wild places. And until next time, we will see you on down the trail Speaker 2 53:22 The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bren Russell at podlad Digital, support by Holly wilkeshevsky at daypack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skihan. Our executive producer and ring leader is Laura Hodge. You can find the wild idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating, and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai