Senator Tim Kaine: Walk, Ride, Paddle, Protect!

TWI_014_Tim_Kaine Mon, May 19, 2025 11:55AM • 17:54 SUMMARY KEYWORDS public lands, Virginia wilderness, Shenandoah Mountain, outdoor economy, conservation, environmental stewardship, Appalachian Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway, James River, public lands literacy, economic argument, qualitative argument, nature preservation, public policy, outdoor recreation SPEAKERS Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Anders Reynolds, Voiceover Voiceover 00:00 Announcer, the following is a production of wild idea media. Speaker 1 00:06 And welcome back to the wild idea podcast, where we are exploring the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature, and this very special bonus episode that we're gonna be bringing to you today. Anders, I know this is one you are particularly excited about. I Anders Reynolds 00:20 am amped about this one bill, and we're gonna jump right in. So I think, you know, I've worked with and hiked with Senator Tim Kaine and his staff on a couple of different lands designation bills, and they are the gold standard. He's the only senator, or at least the only senator that I can recall, who spread out a giant map on the hood of my car and told me what's what? Back in 2019 to commemorate both his 60th birthday and his 25th year in public office, he decided to hike all 559 miles of the Appalachian Trail within Virginia, to bike the 321 miles along Virginia's portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and to paddle the entire length of the James River 348 miles, that journey and the reflections it allowed the Senator to make about his life and his work became the excellent new book, walk, ride, paddle, a life outside and here to talk about his life and his work and his book is the author himself, Senator Kane, welcome to the wild idea. Hey, Andrew, Speaker 2 01:19 say, Bill. I'm really glad that you guys are inviting me on today. I can't wait to talk about my journey and the beautiful outdoor spaces that Virginians cherish in Anders Reynolds 01:29 your book, walk, ride, paddle, you document a deeply personal journey through Virginia's natural landscapes. How has spending that much time immersed in the outdoors shaped your view on the role public lands and waters play in our national identity, and what do you think we risk losing if we fail to protect them? Speaker 2 01:47 Well, you guys, you know, I was a passionate believer in Virginia's outdoors before I undertook this journey. I did undertake it to mark these milestones that Anders mentioned. I turned 60 and I celebrated 25 years in public life, and it's kind of my love letter to Virginia to do this journey, walking, hiking, cycling and paddling, but it has made me an even more urgent promoter of stewardship of the outdoors. So during this trip, we did the great american outdoors act to put more funding into national parks, I have focused on a couple of really important public lands initiative, one that's called the Virginia wilderness additions act that deals with part of rough mountain in in Bath and Highland and Allegheny counties, but also the Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area, which is just an exciting project west of Harrisonburg and Staunton in some beautiful parts of the wilderness that I love, like Ramsey's draft. To preserve this Virginia natural beauty, I'm doing work to preserve dismal swamp. I'm doing work to create a Chesapeake National Recreation Area that would link the various public lands, state, federal and local, and Chesapeake Bay region in Maryland and Virginia. So yeah, I would say that this has always been a priority. Personally, I preserve 400,000 acres of open space when I was governor, but this journey has even increased my desire to protect these spaces so that all Virginians can access them. I Speaker 1 03:22 was fortunate enough to be a small part of passing a bill for wilderness protection in Tennessee. And one common thread that I see in that successful effort, in your efforts in the Commonwealth, is that the champion on the Hill was actually connected to the land you actually get out and you know, these places spend time in these places and communities. We had that with Lamar Alexander in Tennessee. I guess my question is, what do you think the state of public lands literacy is in Congress? And are there more Tim kaines out there that are connected to public lands in real and educated ways? Or how do we facilitate creating more of that on the Speaker 2 03:57 hill? What a great question, Bill. And I've hiked with Lamar in the Smokies. So I know what a passionate guy he is about Open Space Preservation. Are there more? Tim kaines, what is the state of of literacy with respect to the outdoors? Well, the person that comes to mind most obviously, is Don Beyer. Many of you guys, guys know Don. He just completed what he claims is the slowest through hike of the Appalachian Trail. I think it took him 19 years of weekends and but he just finished last year, and he's very, very proud of it, and he's about to start trying to do the same thing on the PCT. So yes, there are champions. Tom Tillis would be a good example, Republican of North Carolina, if you ask, ever asked Tom how he started in public life. He ran for, I believe it was city council or town council in his community near Charlotte, because the existing powers that be didn't want to do a trail that he thought was a good thing for outdoor recreation in his town. So the answer is yes, but we need more. And so that is why bills like the ones that I am. Putting in to preserve these Virginia spaces are so important. And you guys probably know this bill, having worked on it, the way these outdoor preservation bills usually go is, you know, Kane and Warner put in a Virginia one, and then Marsha Blackburn puts in a Tennessee one. Mike Braun puts in an Indiana one. And then we usually say, Hey, I'm going to support yours, if you support mine, and it kind of comes together in a public lands package at the end of the year, with a lot of us championing our own projects and agreeing to help others who are championing projects in their state. So Anders Reynolds 05:30 as you mentioned, you serve Virginia and the nation in a number of leadership roles, and as we're hearing, you're doing your part to preserve special landscapes, I think we should stop here and actually thank you for the introduction last week of those two bills of the Virginia wilderness additions Act and the Shenandoah mountain Act, which together represent the possibility of protecting almost 100,000 acres of National Forest, much of it targeted in the recent Trump EO. I want to ask you, when you think about your legacy, particularly in terms of conservation and environmental stewardship. What impact do you most hope to leave behind that Speaker 2 06:03 is a good one. Anderson, I'm still way too young to think about a legacy. You know, I view that as you that's something you think about, kind of, rear view mirror, but you can kind of, I guess, in a way, I've had a through line when I was the mayor of Richmond, I did an awful lot of work in the James River Park system, and really focused upon Open Space Preservation. Here as governor, we did this 400,000 acres of open space preservation. And now at the federal level, we've done great work in the northern next dismal swamp, Chesapeake Bay, these two acts. So I'm always looking for the next one, but it might be a forest. It might be a national or state park. Three weekends ago, I went kayaking on Dragon run, which is this pristine stream that comes into the Pianka tank River near the Chesapeake Bay that I helped preserve when I was governor, together with the Nature Conservancy. So it gives you huge joy. And I'll tell you one of the reasons it does this. This might be a legacy type thought much legislation can be undone, you know, a different Congress or different president can see it another way. But when you preserve open space through like, you know, conservation easements that get recorded in deeds in courthouses, or you may play in public, it's as close to a permanent thing that can't be undone as there is in public policy. So do these things that can't be undone so that our grandkids and great grandkids can enjoy these same natural assets. That really drives me one Anders Reynolds 07:37 of the challenges advocates face when talking to elected officials about protecting land is this tendency to get caught up in the qualitative arguments rather than the quantitative ones. I think we'd all agree that America's growing outdoor economy allows for some really compelling arguments about how public lands contribute to local economies. But what's harder to put into words are the reasons for protecting places by virtue of it being the right thing to do. You've written about many of those virtues in this book, most specifically about the healing power of nature. But what is your advice for advocates who want to make those qualitative arguments for protecting special places to Congress? How can they most effectively tie abstract ideas to meeting voters, material needs. Speaker 2 08:23 Boy Anders, what a great question. And let me, let me take sort of both halves of it. You do. You should make, always make the economic argument. I'll give you a recent example. Hurricane Helene, you know, blitzed a lot of public lands in the east as we were working on a package at the end of last year about relief. The piece I took was make sure we're doing the public lands, because we were going to help businesses, we were going to help home owners who lost their homes, and we were going to rebuild infrastructure, roads that got flooded out or bridges. But if we had done all that and not restored the public lands, a lot of the communities like Damascus, Virginia trail days is happening this weekend as we're talking that have really organized their entire culture and economy around the public lands, they would have been harmed long term. So you always need to make the economic argument. But I think the way to make the qualitative argument is just to point this out. Every Virginian, every American, is unified around their support for public lands, because everyone has a place that's very special to them. Might be a trail, might be a stream, might be a beach, might be a place to watch a sunset, might be a meadow. Everyone has a place or places that are deeply special to them, that they want their kids and their grandkids and their great grandkids to be able to enjoy just as they have. You know, long after I am gone, my successors should be able to stand at a place that I stood and get the same sort of joy shock at the gorgeous aspects of nature that I got, and then that can. Connect us across time. And I think that's an argument that is really appealing. It's it's a it's a preservation argument, it's a conservation argument, it's a link between the generations argument. And I think that's appealing to people of all persuasions. And I did find in my journey that while we as a nation are divided politically in the outdoors, we're not divided, and it's good to not be divided in the outdoors, because it also helps remind us that in much of life, we're not divided. It outdoor experiences reminds us how much we have in common. I Speaker 1 10:34 love that answer Anders and I talked a lot about that love of sharing that map with you on the hood of his car before you all took a hike, I'm wondering, how do we get out the larger map for responding to threats and restoring our federal lands, and get members from both parties together on the map? Because I have found the map is such a great sort of metaphor, because one, you can look at it in both a qualitative and a quantitative way, like you can see the communities that are you know, next to these places and, and I know, I mean, it's, it's, in some ways, it's pretty frustrating, obviously, that some public lands issues have become quite so partisan. But like, it seems like if we can find a way to get out that map among a larger collection of of members of all elected life, right, from the, like you said, from the city council to the governor to the mayor, to the to those of you on the hill, but I'm curious about how we get more people around looking at that map without just turning it into a photo op, right? So, Speaker 2 11:29 yeah, it's and Anders. You and I were looking at the map of Shenandoah mountain, right? That's right. And it was on a really blustery, snowy March day where we hadn't really come well dressed enough. But then we took a really delightful hike on this snowy trail with the snow just kind of swirling around us, up near upright on shenanida Mountain, where the highway crosses over between Augusta and Highland County's gorgeous spot. There's Civil War breastworks up there, beautiful views east and west. I mean, it was a gorgeous occasion that day. Yeah. How do we do it? I mean, everybody is especially public officials. You know, we're, we kind of imprison ourselves in our own busyness. It's we don't have to, but we we do, and yet, what I find again and again. Anders could have shown me the map in my office, you know, but he but he showed it to me on the hood of his car, and we went on a hike together. And what that meant is I got 100 times more information and motivation out of that experience than had I looked at the same map in my office? So, you know, maybe one of the things nature advocates have to do is look for opportunities. Hey, I don't want to come talk to you in your office when you're in town. Come by and I'm going to show you this. And I do, I do tell you this. Here's a non partisan trick of the trade. Politicians like field trips. You know, we're in our offices enough. We like field trips just as much as fourth graders like field trips. So So invite us to come, you know, look at a map on the hood of a car and have a hot dog and then spend a half an hour in nature. And, yeah, we're going to turn it into a photo op. I'm not going to lie about that, but we'll walk away from the experience with a lot more deep information and motivation to get something done. Anders Reynolds 13:24 There are two sides of that coin, though, because you're absolutely right. Public Lands advocates have one of the greatest tools possible for advocates, and that's they have beautiful places and access to them. But the other side of that coin is, in my experience, sometimes you end up going on a hike with a certain senator, and everybody wants to turn around except Him, and you just can't say no, you go that. 13:48 Were there those who wanted to turn around that day. Anders Reynolds 13:50 I'm not saying that. Speaker 2 13:55 Well, I'll tell you that area, just for listeners, if you know it, there's a really beautiful area, just kind of downhill from that called Ramsey's draft, which is one of the first places I went camping with my wife when I got engaged to her, and we decided that we were going to move to Virginia, and I've been back hiking and camping there many times, but that place in particular would be a place where I wouldn't want to turn around and come back Anders Reynolds 14:19 quickly. That sounds like a special place for you. And you mentioned earlier that everyone's got a place that's special for them. I'm wondering, going back to your book, was there a specific place, either on the trail or on the James River, that felt very special to you, one you believe deserves greater protection and recognition. There Speaker 2 14:41 are many, but the one that just comes to mind first is brown mountain creek along the Appalachian Trail, which is just south of route 60 in Amherst County. So this is a really amazing, tiny, tiny, narrow valley that's carved by this creek called brown mountain creek. So in the aftermath of the Civil War, a lot of free and enslaved folks, freed slaves, moved there, and they established a community. And you have a hard time imagining this hollow is so narrow that the amount of sunlight a day is de minimis. But they built stone cabins, and they farmed, you know, further up the ridge of the mountain in the early 1900s the city of Lynchburg bought brown mountain creek and that valley to dam it up to create a reservoir for the city. It's about 20 miles north of Lynchburg, and so these folks were displaced, just like the settlers in the Shenandoah National Park were displaced when that park started, but the the ruins of those cabins remain, these stone houses and and barns. And when you're walking south from route 60 along the Appalachian Trail, you go down along downhill, and within about two miles, you get to a maybe a mile and a half long stretch of the this abandoned community. It is truly beautiful, kind of eerie. It makes you reflect upon progress is always achieved at the cost of somebody else to Shenandoah National Park. We're so lucky to have it. It was achieved at the cost of displacing families. We've been there for generations round mountain creek. How lucky it is that that's public land. It was achieved at the cost of kicking out all these people who had made it their home. So it really makes you reflect on the beauty of the place, but it also makes you reflect upon you know, all progress is usually achieved at the cost of some pain and some displacement, and that's a humbling thing to think about. Anders Reynolds 16:39 Senator, we can't thank you enough for spending some time with us today. I really want to urge people to go out and grab your book, walk, ride, paddle. Virginia is for lovers, but I don't think there's a greater lover of Virginia than Senator Tim Kaine. He's a great storyteller. I read the book in like a weekend you will too. Thank you so much for talking to us about that book a little bit. Speaker 2 17:00 And thank you guys for, you know, pushing the beauty of nature and human nature and the connection on the wild one. Thanks guys. Thank you, Tim. We 17:09 appreciate you coming on Bye. Voiceover 17:14 Bye. The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds, production and editing by Bryn Russell at podlab Digital, support by Holly wilkoszewski at daypack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skeehan. Our executive producer and ringleader 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