Campfire Chronicles Podcast #1 | Yosemite & Thomas's First Camping Trip Mishaps

Description

In the premiere episode of the Adventure Archives companion podcast, Campfire Chronicles, we talk about our plans for the upcoming Yosemite trip, and the mishap that happened during Thomas's first true camping trip.

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All of the musical compositions or arrangements and footage in this video are original, and were composed, recorded, and captured by Andrew Lin, Bryan Lin, and Robby Huang

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Tags: Campfire,adventure archives,Podcast (Website Category),Camping (Literature Subject),First Camp,Nature (TV Genre),Wilderness (Quotation Subject),Backpacking (Sport),Hiking (Sport),Outdoor Recreation (Interest),Outdoor Education (Literature Subject),Ray Mears (Author),Les Stroud (TV Producer),Radio (Invention),Interview (TV Genre),serious jibber jabber,asmr,Holiday,Fun,Funny,Campsite (Accommodation Type),Fire (Quotation Subject)

Video Transcription

welcome to campfire chronicles the official podcast of adventure archives I'm Robbie Huang we're gonna go around the table real quick to find out who everybody is let's start out with Thomas in California Thomas what's your name hello my name is Thomas I think yes my name is Thomas I live in Los Angeles California and I used to be in Ohio and who is in Ohio let's start with the a name alright my name is Andrew hi I'm in Ohio indeed and I am Brian brother of Andrew and I am also in Ohio we should how everyone is related brother Conan oh we might as well do that yeah I guess most not a lot of people know that so I'm Robbie and Brian and Andrea are my cousins and they live in Columbus Ohio and somehow they know Thomas Andrew why don't you explain how yeah Thomas has lived next door to me ever since I was a kid and then he moved two houses down and we sort of lost connection for a while but then we became good for Doug to be fair that was between you were in high school and I was in middle school yeah and that's a big difference I can't associate with those young young uns yeah so on that note I want to share a funny story about that so in 2008 all of us decided to go to Yellowstone and 9 2009 she doesn't know ok yeah mm I well we decided in 2008 but in anyways Thomas was doing the majority of the planning for the trip along with that Andrew was helping him at one point I was oh really so Thomas was basically doing everything I guess I did a little bit then he like turned all my ideas down at some point I'm like guys like what is Thomas how old is Thomas and then Andrew is like 15 and as I wait a minute wait who's 16 but oh he was six no I was 15 I was 15

yeah yeah I was 25 at the time like it's like why is the 15 year old doing the planning for this cross-country trip that was a great trip and I have many fond memories we got to go back there sometime - that'd be amazing that we do well speaking of places that start with Y where are we going on August 5th Thomas why don't you let everybody know where we're going well the folks from Ohio are finally coming out to visit me in the sunny dry state of California we're going to Yosemite and Yosemite is about a four and a half hour drive from where I live and I've been there once before back in 2011 and I fell in love with the place and every single day I've wanted Andrew Brian and Robbie to come with me back there to see just how amazing this place is going to be so I'm excited to do that I was about to say if you love it why don't you marry it and then I was thinking that's like well if I could marry Yosemite I probably it's just a slippery slope from there though there are no Grand Tetons okay so I'm unfamiliar with Yosemite as a whole I know I've seen pictures and everything I know John Muir is all about Yosemite is John Muir all about Yosemite erm I think of something else no it's Yosemite no he yeah is Yosemite okay you can actually go there and they have a museum about John Muir and they have a guy that impersonates John Muir and you can watch one of one of his shows with Stefan right Lee Stetson all right yeah I've seen him before okay well cool so we're all exactly are we going like what are what are the specific hotspots that we're gonna hit sure well you guys are gonna come in and we're going to drive up late on a Wednesday and the initial plan was to go to the Mariposa Grove which is this grove of giant sequoias and the problem is

that's actually closed until 2015 yeah 2017 Wow no that's a long time they say restoration purposes so maybe they're improving trails maybe they're making the trails safer I don't know point is we're not going to be able to see big trees or if we do we'll have to illegally get in I'm down for that let's go ahead and document that and put it on the Internet so we're gonna spend the night near there then the next day we're going to try and get a campsite at one of the hardest campsites to get in the valley there's no reservations it's first-come first-serve Oh so guys we're gonna have to wake up at 6:00 a.m. plan as we make friends with somebody who already has a campsite there but in the video or we just like we belong there I got a lot of backup plans many of them you know we'll have to just follow suit as it happens but worst case scenario we hit the trail one day early oh yeah I might be on it actually because just make our trip a little long right part of uphill out of the way I don't know mm-hmm man I am so excited it's like I cannot wait this is gonna be so much fun all right so we get our campsite and then we're gonna do a day hike just to kind of get acclimated to the high altitude and that day hike is gonna be it's a loop we're gonna start off on the mist trail and it's called the mist trail because as you hike it the mist from the waterfall covers absolutely everything it's hard to see the sunlight come through just because there's it's it feels like you're hiking in a wet cloud have you guys you hang in there I've done this hike before it's beautiful sweet so once you make it to the top of that waterfall there's another waterfall you go to and that is going to be Nevada Falls so once we get to Nevada Falls that's almost halfway up half dome but we're not going to be doing a Half Dome this time

so we're gonna cross that river and then circle back down on the John Muir Trail a different way so it's a nice healthy six mile loop that we should be able to do but there's a lot of up involved so we can start training for these there's like eight miles them up right on the when we first start backpacking but that's a day hike wait wait okay okay well that that's okay anybody who's listening won't know what the heck we're talking about so basically day one we're gonna just start with a loop and then that's to get us acclimated for day 2 or day day day to day 2 in the valley I should say day 2 is when we're going to actually going to start backpack oh that's what I was thinking about yeah yeah so when we start backpacking where are we gonna go like what are the hot spots up yeah what's what's that big view called

okay so you're gonna start off and there's gonna be about a hundred switchbacks or so and then we're gonna our first big view is gonna be at the top of lower yosemite falls which you see you look up and you see some falls you look down and you see some falls so it's more than two scoops of Raisinets just make sure you see the falls and don't fall yourself yes well let's hope that the falls are there they might be dry by the time it's true but we'll see and then after that we're gonna make it up to the top of upper yosemite falls which if you've ever seen Lord of the Rings that stair step that Frodo and Sam take up to meet like whatever those spider is you know what I'm talking about

not yea a spider yeah you know what I'm talking about the big it's alright you're basically just on this foot wide stair built into the side of a mountain and you don't want to fall and die wait is it like right on the edge then it's right on the edge but the nice thing is like it's not a thousand-foot death it's Melanie maybe about a five foot fall now is this one day two this is day two in the valley yeah day one a backpacking so basically day two the big thing is the false right yes now we're being on the falls that night or how does that work camp we're camping near the falls at a place called North dome which gives you a great view of Half Dome right across from the valley sweet okay well then so on day three what are we doing

yeah is that all downhill from there day three were it's going to be significantly easier it's gonna be kind of a small easy downhill hike until we get to this crossing where the trailhead crosses a stream so we should be able to fill up on some water there and pitch a tent sweet sweet okay so then day three what is like the main attraction all right on Sunday our last day it should be in the morning one of the hardest things we've done which is going down one of the steepest exits of the valley huh and as once we hit the bottom it's all flat from there we keep hiking and then we'll pass by Mirror Lake which is a beautiful lake at the foot of Half Dome and we will pop out on the other side take a bus back to our campsite and head home sweet and then so what's our post hike meal do you have anything planned or are we just gonna find it okay

well it depends on how fancy we want to get man I want to eat the finest raw elk turn to the oven and bring it out we are we can't beam at Mirror Lake or by then are we already on the way out I don't think we're allowed to camp by Mirror Lake just because that's too close - what's that steep downhill you were saying is that while we're hiking out or do we can't before that we can't before that okay cool well I'll say right before that I've said it before I'll say it again

I much prefer downhill than uphill anyway so I yeah I feel we're gonna do the first day of backpacking we are gonna take our sweet time on that yeah I'm down it so what is the total mileage that we're looking at doing I think it's about 17 miles does that sound right Andrew yeah I think so over the course of three days over the course of three it might even be worth doing the first day like I don't know what I don't know I'm just thinking maybe it'd be worth doing the first day part of the appeal but I don't know ya know I don't know because you can't you can't camp up on there you have to do that all in one day oh really yeah I mean it's a very popular hike which is why we should plan on leaving sooner if we want to start filming I'd say well that's a lot of fun so we're doing that in a little over a week now right or we can hello man yeah in two weeks we will be sitting on top of a mountain looking at Half Dome awesome okay well my my curious or I'm kind of curious what you guys are going to bring for food and I know what I'm gonna bring but this you guys have specific things in mind that you're gonna bring I'm bringing dehydrated stuff only like lightweight dehydrated meals yeah it's hard well I'm actually was planning on discussing this with Thomas since I mean since we've got to fly over there you know what stuff would be practical to bring in the first place and what stuff should we just you know maybe pick up while we're there or something like that I don't know it's just something I haven't had and I had nothing fancy at least for the time being I don't want a xxx blaster I don't know if you're gonna do that Robbie but I'm not carrying it I'm probably gonna use a plastic jar and for my sauerkraut and I'm just gonna have beef jerky beef jerky and sorry I didn't just make a comment about that actually at Red River Gorge about how like you were like why am I always carrying go glass sorry I don't make this glass jar but I bring a half gallon half gallon for three days it's like way too much yeah are you got kraut for days are you gonna be bringing that kimchi on the airplane no let that infiltrate everyone might not even let that because there's liquid in it yeah we all know no I know how the liquid works I if I have to check it I'm just gonna check it we all know you can make bombs from kimchi juice you know that fermented guests build up in that class honestly I don't know if I can borrow your dehydrator I might like cook some meals and then try to dehydrate them as is oh you know what the dehydrator is still at the house oh really can you just pick that up yeah I forgot to bring it home so well that's another thing I wanted to talk to you guys about is the first two days that we're hiking there probably isn't going to be much water for us to use so we're probably gonna want to try and avoid some stuff that involves a lot of water for cooking well then well on that note I'm bringing coffee we are having coffee on the trail I don't know I got a research how exactly we're gonna make it but I think I'm gonna try to get like a little French press for it but have you seen what's it wasn't it your friend who had like a little hand like pressing thing for his coffee was it do you remember that Andrew that's called a spring I mean I've seen like the like the stand-up ones where you actually I didn't I didn't know like the handheld one was like a standard typical French press - I thought those were kind of like designed to be more portable and compact for people who are on the move I don't know I don't know I don't know but the one that I would bring is small it's glass though so I'd have to find a way though oh no well see cuz okay so I don't remember who it was but anyways I had worked with someone who sat in a desk across from me and he would often make coffee in the morning and it was it was almost like a syringe he would like he would put the coffee grounds in this thing then he would literally press it by hand the coffee through it so you didn't need like a glass container or anything like that and it would just kind of like press the coffee out to another end of the syringe that's cool have you heard of that no I haven't okay well I mean as a suggestion you could look into that because that would probably be more conducive to travel and camping I'm right well I don't know what I'm gonna do about the water thing because I want to bring really lightweight stuff but well you'd have to bring water no I mean I mean what there's no no I mean a hydrated meals like oh well I mean what do you say Grievous two days I think we can I don't know we're getting off track here yeah that's okay well in any case I think everybody's excited we're gonna have to find some water sources and hopefully the drought in California is not so bad that we're by the end of it dying or something although that will make for a really good entertainment we did just have our first thunderstorm all year last weekend oh really yeah encouraging just this quick side question where exactly does California get its water from then this is like they ship it from New Mexico or something well it's funny you ask because I kind of did some research on this the Sierra Nevadas a lot of the snow that happens up there kind of you know melts once it gets a little warmer and goes into this current River and there's tons of reservoirs down in the southern part of the Sierra Nevadas and then there's these aqueducts that go from the Sierra Nevadas through the San Joaquin Valley and kind of pop up all throughout Southern California Hetch Hetchy even supplies water to San Fran doesn't it yeah up up north there yeah I was quite well the reason is because it's Yosemite related but yes yeah that's such a strange name like all of these like the Tetons Hetch Hetchy is like those words don't exist anywhere else in the language okay so I think that's it for the Yosemite trip is there any thing else that you guys want to add about the trip itself I'm looking forward to it yeah looking forward to dying you guys I'm just like on that note I love trips where you actually have to fly to get there because it feels so much more like an adventure like you feel like you're actually like really going somewhere like if you have a car to fall back on you can always have all your stuff in there and you can always drive somewhere else but if you fly somewhere you're there you can't just like leave at the drop of a hat or like you know like retreat to like your little Basecamp or whatever so you really feel like you're doing something like different and new and exciting man it's gonna be good okay cool well I think Thomas do you want to stick around for the next segment or do you have to go I have not been contacted by the person that's requiring me to go so if we want to talk about personal things like who we are and stuff I'm down to stick around but if you're gonna talk about red river I probably should head out okay well if we're gonna let's just go ahead and talk about personal things this is our first episode we can use this as kind of a way to introduce ourselves more than what we just did at the beginning yeah so uh Thomas on that note why don't you just start and then give us your background in whatever you want to talk about life situation yeah well so andrew kind of said that i grew up next to you guys well not Robbie Robbie was in Indiana but I grew up too it grew up next to Andrew and we've kind of always had an affinity for outdoor things because was it the creek that we used to go up and down yeah yeah we'd go to the park to a lot with our family oh yeah we did you your family would always take me to high banks and my family wouldn't take you anywhere because I guess they don't love you well then no we used to like swing on vines and look for fossils and hopefully your parents so yes that's true I don't love it I have some good stories I need to remember what it was but anyway go on so we would do some hiking here and there we would follow this creek up and down our backyards and pretend to get an epic sword fights and stuff like that and we always kind of wanted to go and do bigger cooler things and then one day we just said sure why not you guys took me to Hocking Hills as the first time I ever went camping Wow okay well hold on we need to do a quick aside on this we'll finish your thought prophetically sorry I was gonna do my Hocking Hills story I fell in love with Hocking Hills yeah before you get into that I I want to clarify something I want to ask Andrew a question because I'm I can't really remember the details are kind of fuzzy but when did we start getting interested in the outdoors was it like right before Sunday and took us to Hocking Hills for the first time I think it was Sun gen so Sunday is my brother and in 2007 which was the year I graduated from college he took me Brian and Andrew to Hocking Hills and that was like our first experience ever like camping like we've we've done camping before where you take a car and you park in an RV line and then you get in a tent and then some people call that camping I call that garbage anyway first real experience was when my brother took us camping to Hocking Hills but I vaguely remember that we were getting interested in it before then or am I just no I think it happened when we went to sleeping bear like we went to Torch Lake with my family and yeah like we borrowed one of my dad's friends house is right by the lake and got like kayak down the lake that was amazing then we drove up to Sleeping Bear and hiked on the dunes and I think that's really where like the seed was planted because I actually remember having a specific thought like I don't know why I never realized this but I was like wow there's actually like sun rays that are visible like in the sky and like for some reason I thought that something in a cartoon or something like yeah no that's funny because like those God rays you see in clouds like you see those all the time in the sky boxes and video games but until then in 2006 when we went to sleeping bear I didn't realize that those were really yeah we never bothered to look or something I don't know what what was wrong with this inside too much but yeah and now that you say it I guess sleeping bear in 2006 was when we initially like really started to get that hug that itch to go outside and explore so anyway after we went talking Hills we took you to Hocking Hills Grievous yes quick quick aside quick aside Thomas's nickname is Grievous from Star Wars General Grievous so if I ever say Grievous that's who I'm referring yeah it just kind of stuck since uh since we insisted on it sticks forever yeah so it was a February it was a February weekend I remember that and it was a bizarrely warm March weekend yeah it wasn't much yeah it's right it's very my spring break we had just visited Robbie in New York and we came back oh that's right well it was really warm for a winter month I remember and we went to Hocking Hills and it was great it was a little chilly

but all of us and Danny and Carl who are ok so it was that trip right and Danny is your cousin on the other side of the family Robbie and Carl's his friend who wore a flight suit Carl is his friend who's actually name is Adam well he goes my car should know it's you guys people should know that this team kind of came about from a bunch of late-night halo mattress yeah yeah it's sunny like a lot of friendships have been made over halo we a lot of people who somebody I was talking to oh right somebody thought that Thomas was Asian no yeah your cousin so your cousins were coming to Ohio so we could all meet up for this and they Thomas invited to them to his church this fish fry and they're like ok look for an Asian guy cuz obviously Andrews neighbors Andrew and Bryan's neighbor will behave and Thomas I thought the same yeah Thomas was like well Robby's cousins gotta be Asian so they're both looking for Asian backing and they're all white so we meet up we go to Hocking Hills I we all have an amazing time we find this like really cool abandoned staircase made out of rocks and we go under a waterfall it's just phenomena we get to the campsite that night and we can tell that the temperatures starting to drop and it's acting the way it should for a March day 3 Andrew and I are sharing a temp this is the first time I've gone camping with Andrew and we hear a rumble nearby and we can tell are the thunderstorms coming in so a wind starts picking up and we you know we're like okay we should probably get ready for a thunderstorm and look up and we're like oh crap we didn't put the rain fly on I don't think they even brought her rain fly though like the tow they did it did they it was their fault not ours man we're sitting there and we're like okay we can you know we're Bend we can sit through this yeah we were like unless dad can do it we can do exactly what can do it alone and like the boreal forest we can do it in Hocking Hills next to our car so the wind picks up more it's getting even colder now now it's like in the 40s and we're not like prepared for this at all none of our sleeping bags are appropriate for this and so eventually it starts raining you can hear it first on the tent and then it starts coming inside okay it's gonna pass real soon it's just we can tough it out about ten minutes later there's about a half an inch of weather it's not a tent and we're like okay screw this we're going in the car we just leave everything in the could in the tent and what's funny is when we get in the car we're so cold and there's no blanket or anything we're like oh man well we got to do it we got a cuddle like we're huddling together in the back and like eating these stale tortilla chips or something and then Robbie comes in and he's like oh man it's cold and he he pulls the rug off of the gret for the floor of the car and puts it over in and I'm like oh crap there was something after all that I could use so instead of floor mats you guys just had like these little rug yeah yeah so I was I for some unknown reason I I didn't pack any blankets sleeping bags nothing weightless had hoped yeah I don't know what that crap I was thinking I so all I had was a coat so I come in and then I just like and then through the night Danny comes into the car and he sleeps in there too and the next morning the only two people left outside are Brian and Carl Carl who has a flight suit on yeah no no no no no no no no Danny was one one of the people who had the flight suit I think Adam was in the car with us no no Adam has a playsuit I really Adam had a flight suit okay well then Adam and Annie both had flight suits because Danny definitely had they had a circus size tent like anyway if your house like 50 people say Brian we opened the tent up he's in there covered in a sleeping bag like 50 cups only thing you can see it oh my god I took everything that Robbie had abandoned in the tent myself the night you had like a hoodie on and you had it like pulled all the way and like there's one single string so it looked like you were like a mosquito that you can get from all of this is that you don't need like especially if you do like these low risk type of things oh yeah you don't need any equipment or any experience you because it's actually like kind of a good learning lesson or a learning experience because you go through something like that you will never have a crash you'll be like I will never ever sleep if you don't feel the urge to like look into that you will after you do that yeah I just mentioned that before the rainstorm Thomas found on the map a nice Lake and we all decided to go there and watch the stars and those were some of the most amazing stars I had seen up to that point like it's just so many do were we actually able to see the Milky Way at that point maybe you're really bellissima

like the dust if it were we probably weren't aware aware of the fact that we could see it because we were just so inexperienced no we were specifically looking for the Milky Way no I don't think you can see it I think like maybe we thought we did or is super faint but no well in case the Milky Way is great try to see that if you can check it out kids alright well I think this is my cue to go

maybe we can touch on everybody's personal life every new week so thanks guys for listening to me but these guys have some great stories to tell about something that isn't related to me all right

so I think we'll just go ahead and in the episode now since I got to go and I think this is a nice stopping point anyway so yeah this is a been episode one of campfire chronicles yep the official adventure archives podcast it's July 24th 2015 and it's ten forty nine in the evening except for it's 749 for Thomas we can go ahead and put that fire out you can edit that sound effect in later I saw how you recover a data trickling sound like just water just like peeing I will I will be sure to record all of this very high production values don't worry okay we will see you guys next week we're gonna be doing this podcast every Friday so it'll probably be release every Saturday so you can find us on youtube at adventurer archives you can find us on facebook facebook.com slash adventure archives you can find us on twitter at adv AR CH 64 and you can find us on instagram at andrew what is our instagram adventure archives adventure archives okay and then so use any of those three methods to four methods to contact us like share subscribe yeah I mean tell your family watch it with your family this is a this is a family friendly show oh yeah you know a Prairie Home Companion is retiring Garrison Keillor well Garrison Keillor's retiring so you know after he leaves we're a good replacement yeah yeah it was sunny on the hold great flight tell me more all right and remember Red River gorgeous you