Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) Jessica Turner from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable returns to the show to talk about finally getting the EXPLORE Act through congress!
The passage of the EXPLORE Act marks a significant milestone for the outdoor recreation community, as it is the first comprehensive recreation package to be enacted without being tied to other legislative measures. Jessica joins Colin and Justin to discuss the implications of this landmark legislation, emphasizing its potential to modernize land management and improve recreational opportunities across the country. That conversation starts at (28:20).
Before that Colin & Justin hit a couple of headlines to come out of the outdoor adventure community over the past week including a hiker who made a poor footwear choice on a big hike in Nevada and a quick detour into Housman's House to talk about how the EXPLORE Act will impact filming in our National Parks.
The whole episode wraps up with The The Parting Shot: holiday edition!
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Episode Transcript
Colin
00:00:00.240 - 00:00:42.060
Western North Carolina businesses, they need your financial support now more than ever.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene this month, Darby Communications, based in Asheville, North Carolina, is donating its ad space here on the Rock flight to help other outdoor businesses in western North Carolina get back on their feet.
The outdoor industry is a major contributor to Western North Carolina's economy, and Darby Communications is asking people to donate to the Outdoor Business Alliance Hurricane Helene Relief Fund, which supports outdoor industry businesses in their recovery and supports their staff as they rebuild in the wake of the storm's devastation. Now is the time to help the outdoor community help build back what we lost in western North Carolina.
Head to outdoorbusinessalliance.org and click donate today to get started.
Chris
00:00:44.200 - 00:00:51.820
Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight.
Colin
00:00:52.200 - 00:01:12.214
Go. Welcome to the Rock Fight, where we speak our truth. Sleep, sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree.
This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head.
I'm Colin True, and joining me today, he's gonna pay tribute to Ricky Henderson by speaking only in the third person for this whole podcast is Justin Ousmane.
Justin
00:01:12.262 - 00:01:15.494
Oh, Ricky. I had to look up the cause of death. Pneumonia.
Colin
00:01:15.542 - 00:01:16.038
What was it?
Justin
00:01:16.094 - 00:01:17.126
Pneumonia?
Colin
00:01:17.318 - 00:01:18.006
No.
Justin
00:01:18.158 - 00:01:19.222
Wow. Yeah.
Colin
00:01:19.286 - 00:01:20.678
That's rough. 65.
Justin
00:01:20.814 - 00:01:38.030
I mean, I get the feeling Ricky didn't treat it. Ricky didn't treat his body great. You know, I. I don't know. I. It's hard to say.
There was some stuff out there about how he had asthma for a long time and had, like, breathing issues for a long time. He had some. Like his septum was kind of effed up, which, you know, I don't know, sometimes that means something about.
Colin
00:01:38.150 - 00:01:40.190
Well, he was big, big time, money.
Justin
00:01:40.230 - 00:01:49.310
Making, athlete in the 80s, joy in your nose area. So who knows what, what was going on with his lungs and stuff like that. But yeah, apparently it has something.
Some kind of complication from pneumonia.
Colin
00:01:49.470 - 00:01:53.638
Well, we're. We're burying the lead by talking about Ricky Anderson. It's Merry Christmas, buddy. It's Christmas Day.
Justin
00:01:53.734 - 00:01:54.102
Yeah.
Colin
00:01:54.166 - 00:01:55.686
And Happy Hanukkah's Day one of Hanukkah.
Justin
00:01:55.718 - 00:02:03.010
That's also day one. Hanukkah. Yeah. Yeah, man. Imagine like, God, I would be. I would be lost if I had if, like, Christmas was on a different day every year.
Colin
00:02:03.470 - 00:02:03.846
Yeah.
Justin
00:02:03.878 - 00:02:04.070
What.
Colin
00:02:04.110 - 00:02:07.590
How does Hanukkah, I mean, it's, I don't know, Easter. I don't understand any of these holidays move around.
Justin
00:02:07.630 - 00:02:17.410
I assume it has something to do with lunar cycles. I honestly don't know. Or like the fourth Thursday after the sixth Wednesday. That's Come after like a certain kind of moon.
I, I mean something like that. I don't know.
Colin
00:02:17.710 - 00:02:31.010
I was trying to explain like my kids like about like why, you know, the date for Thanksgiving. Like that was cop or even like the time change. Like what do we do there? Like all that stuff's like easy when you really break it down like this.
Like, yeah, hanukkah. Sometimes it's November 30, other times December 25.
Justin
00:02:31.090 - 00:02:50.962
My kids every day since Friday have woken up and been like, is today Christmas break? And we be like, yeah, you don't have to go to school.
I mean they like, it's so funny because even on like a Saturday my, my older daughter, my 5 year old will wake up. She'd be like, do I go to school today? I'm like, no, there's no school. She's like, yes.
But like they don't really, it's like they imagine that they wake up and they have like, no, just the joy of just waking up. And you're like, I don't know.
Colin
00:02:50.986 - 00:02:56.880
Yep. Well, you're in just like you're getting into prime Christmas age now too. Yeah, they're pretty far. Forget about it.
Justin
00:02:56.920 - 00:03:21.260
They're so far up, you know. Yeah, I'll, we'll, I'll talk about what I think is a brilliant strategy for me in my parting shot. But. Oh, but yeah, they're, they're pretty fired up.
I mean it's been like my, my wife doesn't really want them to watch TV ever, but I don't really mind so much. And especially this week they're out of school and it's like raining constantly. So it's going to be like non stop Christmas movies.
But our rule has basically been all for the last like week or two, if you're going to watch something, that's fine, but it has to be Christmas like oriented for some reason.
Colin
00:03:21.300 - 00:03:25.052
Yeah, there you go. You guys haven't fallen victim yet to the alpha the shelf yet, right?
Justin
00:03:25.156 - 00:03:39.932
No, but we've been watching. So this morning My, my 3 year old's watching. There's like cartoons of it and she's. Oh no, but I don't really.
But it's not like you'd have to be an adult to understand like what's going on and, and to know that that's a thing you could also do. So.
Colin
00:03:39.956 - 00:03:40.332
Okay.
Justin
00:03:40.396 - 00:04:06.072
They're mostly like the 3 year old is at the age where she's demanding things that don't exist for her for Christmas. Like you know, this like magical fox that she sees in a cartoon like I want that for Christmas. So.
And the five year old is just loves the whole concept. Just I don't think like she's stoked to get presents, but she just loves the, loves the lights, loves everything about it.
So tonight, I'm sure tonight if it's not raining too hard, although it's supposed to dump, we might do the little drive around, look at like yeah, everybody's lights. Yeah.
Colin
00:04:06.136 - 00:04:06.424
Yeah.
Justin
00:04:06.472 - 00:04:06.872
So.
Colin
00:04:06.976 - 00:04:41.226
Well, today on the show, our Christmas present to you, the Rock Fight listeners. We're going to talk about a couple of stories that come out of the outdoor industry and community.
But most importantly today, our friend Jessica Turner from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable sat down with Justin and I to talk about probably the biggest story to come out last week, which was the passage of the Explorer Act.
Jess has been on the show a few times before to talk about this important piece of legislation and as soon as it passed, actually she and her team reached back out and you can hear our conversation in just a few minutes. We actually just wrapped up that conversation with her. It's a good one. Stick around for that.
But before we get to Jess and our other stuff, please be sure to follow. Please follow the. It's our Christmas present. It's Christmas in Hollywood.
Justin
00:04:41.258 - 00:04:42.234
It's your Christmas to us. Right?
Colin
00:04:42.322 - 00:05:16.850
Yeah. Just click follow wherever you're listening. Right now you're listening to the Rock Fight like in some corner of your house.
Cause you don't wanna hang out with your family or whatever it. Follow the Rock Fight. That's a great Christmas present. And also leave us a five star rating.
And also if you want to really extend the Christmas joy or the Hanukkah, you know, Love here. Subscribe to our newsletter Go to rockfight Co Click Join the mailing list. You're going to get original content you can't find anywhere else.
Justin's got a couple things in there I'm writing things for there. It's like a lot of good Rock Fight stuff that's going to be, that's in the newsletter every single week. Comes out on Tuesday and well, they.
Justin
00:05:16.890 - 00:05:19.122
Occasionally see graphic photos in the newsletter.
Colin
00:05:19.266 - 00:05:28.146
Yeah. Yes. Actually probably our best newsletter engagement maybe of all time came last week when we had horrible photos of Justin's leg.
Justin
00:05:28.298 - 00:05:36.994
Excellent. People are so predictable. Oh, a graphic warning image.
We should put, we should put a graphic image warning on every single newsletter and just because people will click on.
Colin
00:05:37.002 - 00:05:38.802
It, it would work on me.
Justin
00:05:38.986 - 00:05:40.306
Totally. Yeah.
Colin
00:05:40.498 - 00:05:41.794
What's under that fuzzy picture?
Justin
00:05:41.842 - 00:05:51.502
I got Nothing works. I don't click anything Faster than I do when like Instagram is like, are you sure you want to see this? Yes.
Often the answer was no, but I can't get to that point.
Colin
00:05:51.606 - 00:05:53.870
Yeah, I wasn't before, but I am now.
Justin
00:05:53.910 - 00:06:02.130
Yeah. Following the following, the skateboard slam accounts on Instagram. You get to see some things you wish you hadn't.
Colin
00:06:02.790 - 00:06:09.438
Right, Justin, where else can our listeners follow along on the old socials and whatnot?
Justin
00:06:09.534 - 00:06:18.752
Speaking of Instagram, Rock Fight CockfightCo. That's where we are over there on Instagram and TikTok. Although is TikTok still gonna exist? What's happening?
Colin
00:06:18.816 - 00:06:20.144
Well, maybe, Maybe.
Justin
00:06:20.192 - 00:06:47.556
Right? Like, I mean, they didn't Congress like, Congress did the thing, right?
They were like, okay, well, for now, while it exists, we're over there as well. And you can also see videos of our parting shots on YouTube where we are at Rock Fight. And then also, we'd love to hear from you.
Really does bring us joy, whether it's Christmas or not. So you can email all your feedback to myrockfightmail.com questions, suggestions, flattery, you know, any of that sort of stuff.
Colin
00:06:47.748 - 00:06:48.852
It's all welcome.
Justin
00:06:48.996 - 00:06:50.916
Yeah, most of it. Well, it depends on what they say.
Colin
00:06:50.988 - 00:07:18.634
Well, we got a couple stories we want to get through kind of leading up to our conversation with Jessica. And the first one came out in backpacker.com earlier this week in an article by Adam roy.
It's about two Nevada hikers who went out for a 16 mile day hike up the 11,916 foot Mount Charleston.
Mount Charleston's about 40 miles away from Las Vegas and they started around 8am they were planning to finish up around 5 in the afternoon and things took a turn for the worse later in the day. Dark, some of it.
Justin
00:07:18.722 - 00:07:21.110
What's that, like 5pm Is dark there?
Colin
00:07:21.490 - 00:07:22.810
Yeah, that's a good point.
Justin
00:07:22.850 - 00:07:24.910
Just this time. Yeah. Yeah.
Colin
00:07:25.250 - 00:07:26.522
So it wasn't in June.
Justin
00:07:26.626 - 00:07:39.324
Yeah. You don't usually want to finish hikes like this. You don't, you know. Well, you'll see why in a minute.
But, but, but like, you know, you would normally with the amount of preparation they had, you'd want to be finishing up, you know, with a few hours of daylight left.
Colin
00:07:39.482 - 00:07:44.520
Yeah, 16 miles. I didn't check the vert on this. Not a short hike. I mean, that's a burly day.
Justin
00:07:44.640 - 00:07:45.624
It's a big day.
Colin
00:07:45.792 - 00:08:24.132
But so they wanted to finish up. And the weather. Oh, they hit the summit, I guess around 2pm and then on their descent, the weather turned cold and the snow started to fall.
And this was probably Mostly because one of the hikers decided to do this trip in a pair of crocs and their companion had on boots. So in addition to descending icy and slippery terrain and shoes that were made from foam, temps dropped below 20 degrees in the afternoon.
On their way down, it caused their water bottle to freeze. Apparently they made it down by splitting their shoes.
So each hiker had a boot and a croc and they eventually ran into search and rescue personnel who were out looking for them because it sounds like there were some folks who were expecting to hear from them and did not. So they called it in.
Justin
00:08:24.236 - 00:08:26.164
That's good. They did what they were supposed to do.
Colin
00:08:26.332 - 00:08:48.200
Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like they would have made it probably on their own even if they hadn't run into search and rescue.
But Backpacker was pretty nice to these folks. I think they even said, like, we don't want to just sort of like bag on people for the sake of doing it, basically.
But, you know, they smartly pointed out the gear they should have had. I'm not going to go in on the crocs in, in terms of.
Justin
00:08:48.240 - 00:08:51.096
Well, you hate crocs anyway. I mean, I do, yeah.
Colin
00:08:51.208 - 00:09:04.584
But I also, like, there look, there's people who run like ultramarathons and five fingers and if you run marathons in crocs. So I mean, look at, if you can hike in crocs. Like, I'm like, okay, but, you know, so you can.
I know that you can accomplish a lot in footwear that you wouldn't think that you could. Right. So it's not just like, oh, we.
Justin
00:09:04.592 - 00:09:07.092
Talk about this all the time, but not usually Crocs.
Colin
00:09:07.256 - 00:09:19.916
Right. But heading up near a 12,000 foot mountain in December. I assume it was December. It was around. It was not that long ago.
I mean, even if it was November, I mean, it's going to be cold and icy and dude, if you're wearing a pair of shoes with holes in it, you're.
Justin
00:09:19.948 - 00:09:20.236
That's.
Colin
00:09:20.268 - 00:09:22.556
That's kind of a moronic move. I'm sorry, it just is.
Justin
00:09:22.628 - 00:09:37.756
Well, yeah, I mean, of course it is. I.
I'm trying to decide whether or not I feel like, you know, like Backpacker or any other outlet has a responsibility to like, remind you not to do this sort of thing. I mean, if you're reading Backpacker, you're probably not going to do this, right? You're probably not going to be hiking.
Colin
00:09:37.788 - 00:09:41.976
In Cross, already advanced past this phase of your outdoorsy life.
Justin
00:09:42.048 - 00:10:10.140
So. But I. But like, the real question is, like, what was the Reason, like, did they do this on, like, was this, was this the point?
Like, I could do this in crocs. Like, there has to be. Right?
Especially if the other person had hiking boots and they thought to, like, tell somebody where they were gonna go and when they should be back. Like, it almost sounds like this was like, like a bet or, or. Or something weird like that. I don't know. And just crocs make all.
It just says crocs now. Do they Croc. Crocs make shoes, right? Like, I'm assuming these are just the standard croc.
Colin
00:10:10.620 - 00:10:18.084
Was just the standard croc. They do make reference that there are crocs that have like, like some burlier lugs on their outsoles and things like that.
But it was not them, apparently. Well, even not those.
Justin
00:10:18.172 - 00:10:24.420
Imagine how, like, it must feel like a bar of soap. Because that foam would freeze, I would think.
Colin
00:10:24.540 - 00:10:26.356
Or get really hard or get stiff.
Justin
00:10:26.388 - 00:11:32.328
Yeah, I can't even imagine that. I'm also not surprised because in about five days I will be in Yosemite Valley and it looks like there'll be snow.
And I have done so many, like, of these hikes leading out of the valley where I'm in, like, pretty burly, like, winter boots from, like, Oboz or something, you know, with like a soft, pliable, like, lug that's like, meant for gripping ice. Occasionally I'll use, like, yak tracks because my. My wife actually the first time. So we go to Yosemite every year in the wintertime.
It's their long family tradition. And my wife and I have been together now for almost 20 years. So I've gone, you know, I don't know, 16, 17 years, something like that.
First year I went like, this is like, you know, I don't know how long we've been dating, but, you know, I don't know her family that well, you know, and like, it's a big deal. She's bringing a boyfriend to. To Yosemite for, like, four days. We always stay in the Tomb Lodge, which is a wonderfully quaint place.
Anyway, first day we're there, my wife slips on a patch of ice and just shatters her ankle. Like, really bad. Like, really, really bad. And we'd only been there for. I don't think we even spent the night. Maybe, maybe one night.
Colin
00:11:32.384 - 00:11:34.472
And you're just the boyfriend at this point.
Justin
00:11:34.656 - 00:11:35.256
Yeah.
Colin
00:11:35.368 - 00:11:36.392
You guys left.
Justin
00:11:36.496 - 00:12:49.986
What was what. Yeah, right. The wild part is I remember, like, she didn' back to the room like she was supposed to. I'm like, I wonder what's going on.
And so, like, I started to walk over to the cafeteria or wherever if, you know, you. Somebody lodge. There's like a central area where there's a bunch of stuff.
And I started to walk over there, and I see this crowd of people looking at someone. I'm like, oh, oh, no. And. And there's my wife in the middle laughing, just like, embarrassed laughing. And I'm like, they think I broke my ankle.
I'm like, that's when I learned about her ridiculous pain tolerance. But, yeah, we had to. We had to like, drive her out. She had to have surgery.
It was like, a huge issue, but because she slipped on ice wearing hiking boots. So point of that story is that, like, I usually bring, like, yak tracks with me now if I think I might be hiking on anything, it's slippery.
But I will see people on these hikes in, like, vans. Like, I'll be hiking up to like, like the Vernal Falls Trail, which gets slippery as shit in the wintertime. And there. There will be people in vans.
It's always hilarious to me. I'll get, like, pretty far out on a trail or even like, we'll go up to Badger Pass where it's like, proper snow, and we'll do some snowshoeing.
And you'll be like, miles away from where you start. And they'll be. Sure enough, there'll like, asics. Like, trail, like. Like shoe pattern on the ground.
And you're like, there's just people walking around here in, like, shoes. They bought it. Like, shoes direct, you know, or whatever. Just these absolute shoes.
Colin
00:12:50.098 - 00:12:54.850
But how far, like, from the trailhead are you on some of those trails when you're seeing those. A handful of mile.
Justin
00:12:54.930 - 00:12:55.410
Yeah, Like.
Colin
00:12:55.450 - 00:12:57.282
Like, like a couple miles or like 10 miles.
Justin
00:12:57.346 - 00:13:22.570
I don't think I've ever been like, 10 miles, but still, like, I've been like, miles into the snow. And you're like, you're out here in fucking vans. Like, like, if nothing else, your feet are. Are dying, you know, and you.
If you encounter anything that's slippery, you're going to. You can't do anything. And so I. I can't. I can't imagine it. But clearly plenty of people can imagine it because I will.
The most of the people I will see next week will just be wearing regular shoes. Like, it's. It. It's amazing.
Colin
00:13:23.310 - 00:13:51.090
Your. Your premise of is this was this kind of the point is a good premise of those.
The YouTube video of, like, yeah, my buddy's wearing boots, and I'm wearing Crocs. Let's see how we do. And it's like a summertime hike on a, like a long trail. Like, I probably watch that. Sure, I get it. But if you paid, did you.
And maybe they didn't pay attention to the, to the weather. Maybe that's kind of what the problem ended up being.
But if it's cold enough that your water bottle froze, you probably had an inkling it was going to be pretty chilly out, right? It wasn't like, oh man, it got down to like 39. It was like below 20 degrees.
Justin
00:13:51.170 - 00:13:58.578
I mean, I wonder if I'd be curious where the trailhead is. I mean, if the trail is at like 9,000ft. Okay. I guess I could sort of see.
Colin
00:13:58.634 - 00:14:02.226
Like when they started, it was probably pretty chilly.
Justin
00:14:02.258 - 00:14:06.400
Dude, had it been so cold, had to have already been like, like frozen. So. Yeah, I don't know.
Colin
00:14:06.440 - 00:14:08.720
Coming from Vegas. So maybe they're thinking it's always hot.
Justin
00:14:08.840 - 00:14:12.368
No matter where we are. Absolutely hammered and high. I mean, I don't know.
Colin
00:14:12.424 - 00:14:14.448
I don't make the story better, right?
Justin
00:14:14.504 - 00:14:31.424
Like, yeah, but, yeah, but I do want to touch on whether or not like, media has a, like a responsibility to lambast this sort of thing. I mean, we're at that stage now where you're supposed to celebrate everybody being outside, no matter how they got there, right?
And like, what, you know, that's their experience.
Colin
00:14:31.512 - 00:15:04.172
I mean, that's kind of what they did, right? They sort of said, here's what you should have done in this kind of situation.
This would, these would have been the better decisions that, you know, they could have made. I, you know, this is where, you know, I gotta give it to our pal Shante Salibar, who loves the phrase cotton kills.
Whereas I'm always like, ah, stop leading with fear. Like people, you know, you don't Crocs kill.
Yeah, well, I mean, this is kind of the example of like why a phrase that cotton kills makes sense, right? It's like, no, let me, let me scare you into understanding what you should be doing in this situation.
And it shouldn't be wearing the foam shoes with holes in it for a 16 miles hike through ice and snow.
Justin
00:15:04.236 - 00:15:14.572
I wonder if they, they, they had forgotten their boots, right? Like, they had to be that they like drove up there from, from Vegas and they were like, oh, crap.
All I brought were my Crocs, which I was going to wear when we're done.
Colin
00:15:14.756 - 00:15:17.372
Now you're treading on something that I absolutely would have done too then.
Justin
00:15:17.396 - 00:15:30.172
Probably because I've done That I have done that kind of thing. Not like necessarily where I forgot the only pair of like, boots I need to do what I'm going to do.
But I've definitely gotten out to the backcountry before for like a solo camp trip. And like, I left my hiking boots at home. I guess I'll just have to wear these trail runners for everything I do. So.
Colin
00:15:30.196 - 00:15:34.204
Yeah, or your bike shoes or whatever. Right. So many things. I forgot your helmet. And then you kind of have that.
Justin
00:15:34.212 - 00:15:37.960
Moment I have gone to without a surfboard more times than I would like to admit.
Colin
00:15:38.120 - 00:15:42.008
Well, let's put it, let's, let's take the. Yeah, yeah, right. It's like, where's my surf? I have my wet suit.
Justin
00:15:42.024 - 00:15:52.820
Where's my. Or like sometimes driving. I've, I've drove. I drove to Santa Cruz once without a wetsuit. I was just.
I almost bought one there because it was like an hour and a half from San Francisco. And I'm like, how did I leave my Whatsu? Oh, I remember now.
Colin
00:15:53.120 - 00:16:04.688
And yeah, but you got. If, if you play that out with that as the, the actual reason, it makes a ton of sense, frankly. Let's say you get there.
Let's say maybe the trailhead's a little lower. It's not that cold out. Let's see how far we get.
Justin
00:16:04.784 - 00:16:09.808
Also, I got my Crocs surf. When I went to Santa Cruz without a wetsuit, I wasn't like, oh, fuck it, I'll just wear trunks. You know, I just.
Colin
00:16:09.864 - 00:16:11.824
Sometimes you just got to take home.
Justin
00:16:11.912 - 00:16:34.658
Yeah, sometimes you just go home. I mean, I can see, I can see. I mean, it's okay. Also, I don't know why I'm deciding to be devil's advocate for these guys or people.
I don't know, the, the their men or women. But like, maybe it was bone dry. And like, they're like, you know what? This will be fine. It'll be cold. It'll be fine. And then it snowed.
They're like, oh, shit. I mean, maybe, I don't know, it's the desert. It might not have been that wet.
Colin
00:16:34.834 - 00:17:03.330
I guess the way I think I would always run up against you, though, up against is you're going on a 16 mile hike that's gonna suck the matter. 12,000ft. Yeah, there's gonna be some burly stuff out. This isn't like a few miles, like even the things you described.
That's why I was asking how far they are from the trailhead. Like, if it's like, oh, the falls Are like, yeah, it's like a four mile hike and you're close by the trail. Like, you're not that far from people.
Like, okay, maybe worth the risk. Well, just, you know, they didn't call for help themselves. No, no, they, they, they, they went habsies with nine.
Justin
00:17:03.370 - 00:17:13.906
Well, yeah, but I mean like 90% of the time the story ends in like they call like search and rescue on their in reach or whatever and like, but like get me. So obviously, you know, they said they'd be home by 5. What does it say when they were rescued?
Colin
00:17:14.098 - 00:17:16.274
It doesn't. So they summited it too.
Justin
00:17:16.362 - 00:17:23.570
So they must have been out after dark and there someone was like, yeah, you know, it's pretty rad they got found. I mean, I'm always surprised that that even works, you know.
Colin
00:17:23.690 - 00:17:24.018
Right.
Justin
00:17:24.074 - 00:17:28.470
Like, I guess they just know if you're hyped up there. Obviously they weren't lost, which is, which is crucial.
Colin
00:17:28.890 - 00:17:44.830
No, I think there's, there's, there's a case we made that no matter what though, there were just bad decisions being made. If they showed up and are like, oh crap, I forgot my boots. Well, we're almost at, we're like close to 10,000ft. Guess we're not hiking today.
Sorry, buddy. If they intended to go out in crocs, you probably should have checked the.
Justin
00:17:45.850 - 00:17:50.354
Yeah, they put their names up. We can get their name. Let's get them on. All right.
Colin
00:17:50.362 - 00:17:51.074
We're going to reach out to them.
Justin
00:17:51.082 - 00:18:04.200
And we're going to reach them out because, you know, like I, and I'd be curious because I'd like the only people that, I feel like the only time you ever actually ask questions about like, what's the proper role of outdoor media and something like this. We're just talking to each other, right? So like.
Colin
00:18:04.240 - 00:18:04.664
Yeah, yeah.
Justin
00:18:04.712 - 00:19:16.104
If we were like actually talk. Okay, okay. Crock. Where like if the article came out and they were like, you, I cannot believe you did this. This is the dumbest shit in the world.
Yeah, everybody should be able to go outside. But also, don't, don't be an idiot.
Like, would that have, you know, would that have worked on you like if you had you read something about that before? Because it's one thing for us to all talk to each other about it, you know, but like, you know, we're not really the target audience here. Right?
So the target audience is people that don't know any better. And like I, I feel like we're all, I feel like we could do a better job of navigating that line between being welcoming but also being like. But also.
Here's what you need to know. This isn't like, a game, right? Like, this is like, people can very often do die, whether it's you or someone trying to find you. Like, it's not.
It's totally cool that you want to, like, go out there and you haven't put much thought into it. That's fine. But, like, don't do dumb, because it just. Don't do dumb. Watch any video bad for everybody. Watch any.
Go on YouTube and watch videos of lifeguards telling people not to surf Pipeline. Like, that's. To me, that's the approach that we should take where they're like. They'll like.
There's so many videos of hilariously, like, pasty dudes with, like, rental surfboards. And in the background, you can see, like, eight to ten foot pipes just bombing. And they're like, I think I'll try.
And, like, the lifeguards are just laughing at them but not letting them go out. But just like, what are you guys doing? Are you serious? Like, you thought. You just. You got to be kidding me. And it's like, they don't go out.
Colin
00:19:16.192 - 00:19:25.144
You know, that's worse than almost everything because, like, if you're. If you're there, you obviously know what Pipeline is to a certain degree, right?
Justin
00:19:25.232 - 00:19:37.336
I think you're overestimating people that are just like, oh, it's a cool surf spot. I mean, I feel like that's why when you paddle.
That's why when I go to the beach and look at the waves, there's like, half the time there's a million dudes at one peak because they're like, I don't know. That's where all the other surfers were. They just. They don't know. Wow.
Colin
00:19:37.528 - 00:19:42.820
Anyway, all right, well, last thing before we get to Jessica, a quick stop into Housman's house.
Justin
00:19:43.290 - 00:19:44.786
I'm in my house. I'm already in my house.
Colin
00:19:44.858 - 00:19:46.466
Yeah, but what's the theme song? You gotta do theme song.
Justin
00:19:46.498 - 00:19:47.474
Oh, gosh.
Colin
00:19:47.602 - 00:19:49.746
I don't know. You made a weird. You made a weird sound.
Justin
00:19:49.858 - 00:19:50.530
I did.
Colin
00:19:50.650 - 00:19:51.170
Dang it.
Justin
00:19:51.210 - 00:19:51.378
Yeah.
Colin
00:19:51.394 - 00:19:56.930
I do gotta. You can come on in and have a cup of coffee.
Justin
00:19:57.090 - 00:20:11.560
I don't know. Yeah, I know that's you. Could we have coffee? Welcome. Come on in. You know what?
If you're a Rock Fight listener, you wanna come to my house and have coffee? Absolutely. Have a cup of coffee with you. I've had beers with Rock Fight listeners because they live. Some of them Live in my little town, so happens.
Colin
00:20:11.640 - 00:20:26.360
See, there you go. If you end up there, Justin will have a beer. We could run a contest. This sets up our conversation with Jessica Turner very nicely.
So last week on National Parks Traveler, you wrote about how the passage of the Explore act will allow for more filming inside our national parks.
Justin
00:20:26.440 - 00:20:26.936
Yes.
Colin
00:20:27.048 - 00:20:31.720
So what's the history of that? I mean, what's going on with filming in natural parks?
Justin
00:20:31.800 - 00:21:06.276
Well, it's interesting that even you weren't really sure how this all works.
The only reason I even knew about this was when we went to go film some gear reviews for Adventure Journal, we couldn't do it inside Joshua Tree National Park. I mean, obviously, nobody would have physically stopped us, necessarily. But it.
But, like, Casimiro made it really clear, like, you know, we can't do this. And so he.
And he, you know, he ran the National Geographic gear review program for a really long time, and they did, like, big gear review, like, stories where they send a bunch of athletes out places and stuff. So he had experience with that already, but I didn't know that.
Colin
00:21:06.428 - 00:21:06.884
Okay.
Justin
00:21:06.932 - 00:22:07.680
And so. But now I do. And basically what I want to know is why something, some event had to have precipitated this.
But in the year 2000, Congress passed a law that basically allowed the interior. It didn't, like, say commercial filming is illegal. It allowed the interior to require a permit for commercial filming of any kind in a national park.
And so at that point, though, the Department of Interior basically demanded that, like, so you need to have a permit. And so the rule has always been a little murky. Well, that's not true. It wasn't murky in 2000. It's murky now.
So the idea was that you couldn't just show up with a bunch of cameras and film stuff. Right? Like, partially because they want to protect the resources. I think there's also partial.
Like, partially has something to do with, like, if you're getting profit off of this, like, we need to have some sort of. You know, I don't know if they wanted to cut a. Say. I'm not. You know, like, there was. That was an. An element of it, too. But.
But basically that's the reason that, like, if you want to. If you. That's part of the reason that you don't see a lot of. We talked about this once. We talked about wild, right? Like, when they.
Colin
00:22:07.860 - 00:22:08.776
Oh, yeah, wild.
Justin
00:22:08.808 - 00:22:53.968
Like, you don't recognize the landmarks, because I doubt they're on the PCT very often. You know, they may have been, because I think. I think I could be wrong. I think national forest may also have a similar rule.
But anyway, and so that's why you don't see a lot of like Hollywood stuff filmed in national parks. Like you can see like the Grand Teton in the distance and like Yellowstone and stuff, but they're not in the actual park. Most likely I would doubt.
Right. So.
But anyway, but it's been real controversial once smartphones came out because it's like YouTube creators, anybody who could us, you know, like anybody who ostensibly is making money from anything they're creating. If you film a little video of your family on a phone and you posted to something like, okay, is that, is that okay?
Is that considered commercial filming? You know, I used, I, I've posted pictures that I took it on in Yosemite on Adventure Journal. Like that's a gray area, you know, like.
Colin
00:22:54.024 - 00:22:54.688
Right, right.
Justin
00:22:54.744 - 00:23:08.748
So, and so a lot of like, what's interesting is that this, this comes on the heels of a lawsuit that, that was filed last week. Remember the guy that TR fkt on the Grand Teton and got like.
Colin
00:23:08.804 - 00:23:10.812
Oh yeah, yeah.
Justin
00:23:10.876 - 00:24:46.480
So two of the filmmakers that were with him that took photos of them there applied to photographers and filmmakers applied to get a permit and were denied. And they were, they didn't get their money back for the permit application, which I guess you're supposed to get, it sounds like. And there was.
And they were just like, we're just using phones, there's two of us. Like, we're not bringing a bunch of complicated, like, you know, camera gear out there.
And so they actually filed a lawsuit trying to basically change that law. And it just, I'm guessing they didn't know the Explorer act had that, that, that, that part to the bill.
So basically part of the Explorer act basically does away with the need to get that permit anymore as long as you have fewer than like six people. And it's not like a big production. So, you know, if it's, if it's a place where people can already go, you're fine.
If it's a place where, if you want to record someone like kayaking on a river that's in a national park and that's something that people already do, that's fine. You can't like go base jumping and record it because that's still illegal.
Like, it doesn't like allow for activities that weren't already legal to happen. But the idea is that you, if, if it's a small scale thing, you don't need a permit anymore.
If you want to record something on Your phone or, or a digital, you know, a nice digital camera and put it on your website, put it on YouTube, whatever. That's the, that's the new rule. Which is. Which is great because I don't really understand the old rule other than, you know.
And I made this joke before we started recording, but part of me does wonder. I mean, like, I mean, Jurassic park was filmed on mostly Kauai, but there's probably, I don't know, there's a national park light on Kauai itself.
But I mean, like, if you were trying to film something big at a place like that, I mean, obviously you would need like, you know, it's entirely possible that Hollywood studios just try to show up places with big camera lots and they're like, nah, you know.
Colin
00:24:46.520 - 00:24:50.080
No, we hit the amount of westerns that were filmed in Utah and places like that.
Justin
00:24:50.120 - 00:24:50.384
Yeah.
Colin
00:24:50.432 - 00:24:53.568
You know, like Monument Valley, I imagine. I wonder if that's impacted.
Justin
00:24:53.664 - 00:24:57.648
It might. I mean, something happened. Right. They don't. Congress doesn't like make a law without something.
Colin
00:24:57.704 - 00:24:57.936
Yeah.
Justin
00:24:57.968 - 00:25:30.396
Like precipitating it. But I spent a couple hours this morning just Googling, like, what's the history?
And I forget what the law number is called or the bill that was passed, but I can't find anything about it. But I'm sure there's a good story out there. Yeah. I mean, or maybe not, but anyway. But that's. But that's the rule. And it's awesome.
It's great that you can. Now there's like, there's a. It's been, it's been a thorn the side for photographers and stuff for a really long time because it's just.
And I don't know how they would have, you know, the other thing is like, okay, how do you. How do you enforce that?
You know, like, Steve was like, look, we can't have a table with a bunch of gear on it because if, like a ranger drives by, it's going to be clear what we're doing.
Colin
00:25:30.548 - 00:25:31.404
Yeah, right.
Justin
00:25:31.492 - 00:25:40.348
But like, if you just. If you're just filming something of the Grand Canyon on your phone and then you put it turns out you're.
What's that, what's that YouTube guy that's like the hugest YouTube star in the world.
Colin
00:25:40.404 - 00:25:40.924
Mr. Beast.
Justin
00:25:40.972 - 00:25:48.780
Mr. Beast.
If he's like filming himself at the Grand Canyon, no one's gonna know what that is, you know, so like a ranger's not gonna come up and slap his phone out of his hand. He doesn't know.
Colin
00:25:48.820 - 00:25:49.020
Right.
Justin
00:25:49.060 - 00:26:19.290
But presumably if they see it, the Content online, then they can come after you. And so, and the fines were big. It was like, it was like not something you want to mess around with, with. So, yeah, great.
Good job getting that in there. Like, I don't know who. And that was something I meant to ask Jessica.
I wanted to ask about who, like, are there individuals that come in with like, hey, we need to add this to this. Like, you know, like who. Yeah, right out there was like, you know, what we need to do is address this filming in national parks thing.
Like somebody, somebody made that like their little pet project. And I got it in there, but I think that's great. So feel free to go out there and record all the, everything you want.
Colin
00:26:19.830 - 00:26:44.862
Well, let's use that. Let's, let's, let's get into our conversation with Jessica.
I think because as she talks about, like, there's a, there's a lot in this bill and I mean, obviously it's become a. I don't know, there's been a lot of calls around the Explore act within kind of the community.
I think that, you know that I noticed on social media a lot of outdoorsy folks, a lot of outdoor media members, things like that. So getting it passed was a big deal. You'll hear about the size of the bill and getting it passed unanimously and how that may have been historic.
So it's a lot of really good stuff.
Justin
00:26:44.926 - 00:26:56.550
I didn't realize until she mentioned that it's the first like purely outdoor recreation like act to ever pass everything else not tied to some other, like whether it's public land spending or something like that, which is pretty interesting. Yeah.
Colin
00:26:56.630 - 00:28:42.464
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All right, well, Jessica Turner from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable is back on the rock fight to talk with us about the Explore act finally passing the Senate. And the rumor, Jess, is that this thing wasn't going to get done until word got out that you were coming on our show.
And that's what finally made it happen. So just want to, like, talk about how we have, you know, Washington, D.C. in the Palm of our hand right now.
I think that's what we should take away from all of this.
Jessica
00:28:42.552 - 00:30:12.764
Hi. I think that's a great takeaway. I've never seen the power of outdoor recreation bigger and brighter and prouder than it was last week.
I think in the midst of possibly a shutdown in the strangest way I've ever seen it. Okay. Like we, you know, had a deal, then there wasn't a deal. Then there was. I mean, that was wild.
The last week of the Senate and House in before the holiday when they shouldn't have even been in anymore, everyone to go home, lots of terrible things happening, lots of nothing happening. We passed a huge bill, 250 plus pages, huge, by union unanimous consent in the Senate.
And, you know, a Senate staffer emailed me and said, you should look up the longest bill that's ever passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. And I was trying to find it. AI doesn't know. So then no one knows.
But if anyone can find it, we might have just passed the longest bill ever by unanimous consent. Because usually unanimous consent bills are like two pages. It's like renaming the post office and like, you know, Vermont.
This is like a real massive policy win. And it went down in the most epic, nail biter fashion. So it was a Christmas miracle, a holiday surprise.
And I actually always thought it would happen. But I gotta say, probably last Monday, a week ago today, was the first time I thought, well, maybe it won't happen probably all year.
That was the first moment I was like, maybe this doesn't happen.
Colin
00:30:12.852 - 00:30:40.072
Well, that was about when we started hearing from Cody, who we work with, got you on the show and it felt a little like, hey, we're not sure what's gonna happen, but we wanna have Jess come on. And, and of course it's like, hey, what are you going to do? What are you doing next week? I'm like, well it's Christmas next week.
Like did you guys, you know about that? But then obviously it all came together as a flurry. But I mean just as a real quick to kind of just refresh our, our listeners memories.
What, what exactly is the Explore Act? Let's just start, let's just do a quick refresher on what the Explore act actually is.
Jessica
00:30:40.176 - 00:30:55.254
So it's the first ever recreation package that has not only been passed but has been created. So it's about 20 plus provisions that independently are bipartisan and bicameral. And there's a kid that's trying to go to that had two cookies.
Colin
00:30:55.342 - 00:30:56.454
It's the holidays, it's fine.
Jessica
00:30:56.502 - 00:34:21.979
It adds to the ambiance just for some holiday background noise for you all. And it does so many things. I think from our standpoint at Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, it has something for everyone.
If you mountain bike, it builds long distance mountain bike trails. If you're a veteran, it's going to help you and your family access the outdoors and find jobs and conservation in the outdoors.
If you're disabled, it's going to help you, you know, realize where you can get outside and probably where the government can do better to help you get outside. If you live in urban areas, it's going to connect you to parks you've never been connected before.
If you're on a reservation, it's going to allow you to get federal dollars for green spaces that you've never been able to access before. If you're a climber, it's going to ensure you can keep climbing in epic, you know, backcountry places.
And if you're a motorcycler or a snowmobiler, it's going to create great management plans for you.
If you're a skier, it's going to help communities like Vail and Aspen lease forest service lands for housing in areas that you know, really need, especially low income and affordable housing.
And if you're an RVer, it's going to ensure that the campgrounds that you have access to are better equipped for modern RVs that have pullouts and that are bigger. If you like to backcountry hike, it's going to open up new ways for land managers to prioritize recreation.
And if you get out paddling with guides and outfitters or you, or you fish or hunt with guides and outfitters, it's going to be sure that those guys and outfitters know ahead of time where they can have permits and make that process more streamlined. It's going to allow new guides and outfitters to access permits, which has been an issue.
Guides and outfitters, especially in North Carolina hit by Hurricane Helene that need this flexibility to come back.
It allows flexibility so you don't lose your permits if you don't use them all in one year, which is is terrible for disaster stricken areas where these small businesses really need to keep their permits. But of course they didn't use them. The forest was on fire. In this case, the river was not navigable.
If you are into shooting sports, it creates safe shooting ranges and especially BLM areas so that you have a place that is safe and that is set aside for practicing target shooting. So that's just like what, seven or eight of the 20 things.
Something the community should be so, so proud of because it creates real policy change and modernization and impacts everyone.
It's allowing you to use electronic park passes if you're going, you know, America the beautiful passes becoming electronic so you can, gosh, can you imagine show your phone when you get to a national park or forest and actually pay what you're supposed to pay then putting in a Dropbox. But I think at the 30,000 foot level, it creates a new standard for us. It says outdoor recreation can move on its own. I always said we could.
Everyone told me you have to be attached to an omnibus or a big public lands package or an energy package. And I said, no, we are $1.2 trillion. I do not need this bill attached to anything. We are going to show our might alone.
And we don't need all of these other communities that we've relied on. They're great partners, let's keep working together. But we can pass our own bill.
We don't have to wait until these huge packages come around every five or 10 years. And this is no cost to the taxpayer. So it's pretty cool. We can do all of this without, you know, making your taxes go up.
Justin
00:34:22.359 - 00:35:01.931
Can you talk a little bit about how sort of differing groups, you know, those who are concerned with like wilderness protection versus or it doesn't have to necessarily be versus, but you know, how you kind of get parties to the table to talk about, you know, I guess what I'm thinking of. You mentioned there's.
There's going to be provisions in there for motorized, like, recreation, which, you know, that's going to be a different community of people than there are that are, you know, very concerned about, like, wilderness legislation or something like that. Like, how do you, like, I'm wondering, you know, who. Who puts these together? You know, who.
Who makes the suggestions for what should go in the Explore Act? And how do you. How do you kind of navigate that sort of different.
Jessica
00:35:02.115 - 00:39:10.510
And, I mean, that's really the beauty, right? I mean, that's kind of. It was all strategic. Some of it was also luck, right?
Like, you know, we fell into bills that were the right place at the right time. I think. I think, you know, if you go back 10 years, there was a base bill. I was on a text chain.
I don't know if, you know, Dan Nordstrom and, you know, Rebecca Bear. There's this kind of people that have been in the community for a really long time.
And we just started talking about permits being really hard to get for nonprofits in particular, but also groups like Nanti Hill Outdoor center, these awesome oars, big guys and outfitters that wanted to, like, change from kayaking to supporting, you know, like a very. Because that's where the community was going. That's where the market was going.
They're like, okay, well, people aren't kayaking as much on this river, but they really want to support. And the Forest Service, whoever said, oh, well, you have to apply.
What's the difference between a kayak and a sup on a river? And to go through that entire process again, you know, is years. And so then they're not able to meet the market where it is.
The market wanted to shift to sub boarding.
So we all got together a decade ago at Outdoor Retailer, and we brought in the Wilderness Society, you know, because they're an important partner to understanding, you know, where we did want to say, hey, this is a nominal impact. Can we avoid some of the lengthy processes?
And if you bring them in early on and they understand the problem, they're like, yeah, that is a nominal impact. We could support that in a wilderness area. Same with the climbing provision. You know, we're already climbing in these wilderness areas.
We have been for a long time. Why Are we changing that now? They come in and say, okay, there's, there's some validate, you know, I see your point, let's work on the language.
So I think it's bringing those partners in early on to the pieces that you know, they could help craft. I think with the recreation community.
And then on the motorized side, you know, there's enough in it for non motorized that you got to get motorized there, right?
Because they're half the, half the battle, half the group, half of the members of Congress are looking to, to those folks, half of America is on maybe a side by side or a motorcycle instead of a horse or a bike. And it doesn't change the impact to the non motorized community. And I think that's what we've got to get used to, this making the pie bigger.
If we're creating efficiencies, we're creating better processes, we're modernizing, updating systems, we're making land use more transparent and we're giving land managers tools to manage better, then we're making the pie bigger. So your slice is not smaller because someone's on a motorcycle.
Your slice is the exact same size if not bigger, because we've made the process better.
And we've actually gotten through to the agencies, you know, I think, you know, in the past couple years obviously, but through this bill we're asking agencies to prioritize recreation, no matter what kind, over some of the other things that are out there and really manage for it in all of the systems that they're looking at.
And so when you're managing a piece of land for recreation, that's going to help everyone because you're not managing it, you know, just as complete multi use anymore, you're not managing it without an eye towards recreation. The other I think piece of this is with better data and I'm obsessed with data because I'm so bad at it and I know nothing.
I just have so much respect for people that do this for a living.
But with better data, which is a huge portion of this bill, land managers can do a better job of saying yes, this is not the appropriate area for that, or this is appropriate area for this. So let's move this here.
And I think they can also tell, you know, where things are overcrowded and may need a reservation system like we have now, or where things are crowded at the first mile.
But once you go in over the mile because you're biking or you're hunting or you're fishing, it's not crowded, it's just that first mile off the trailhead and everyone's trying to see that waterfall or whatever. Well, why are we making everyone sign up for reservation system or everyone go through this, you know, process where it's kind of excluding people.
So let's use the data that's out there.
I'm really excited about that piece because again, I think think better managed lands work better for everyone and we don't have to have those trailhead conflicts as much.
Colin
00:39:11.690 - 00:39:30.514
So last time you came on the show, it was February. I couldn't believe. I couldn't believe how long it's been since. Oh, wow. I know. Which was right after it passed the House.
The Explore act passed the House. And at the time it kind of felt like, okay, we got the momentum here, like this thing's going to pass totally imminently, but probably pretty soon.
What ended up taking so long?
Jessica
00:39:30.602 - 00:40:42.946
Oh, man. So, you know, the House was the biggest hurdle, I thought, because the House is difficult and unanimous consent is the House.
I mean, imagine the members of, like, Marjorie Taylor Greene is in the House of Representatives, you know, like, I mean, so is aoc, right. And so both of those people had to agree on this bill. And that was years in the making and a really difficult process.
So when it passed the House, I was like, we're golden because this bill originated in the Senate, originated with staffers, amazing staffers.
Brian Petit at the time and Sky James and turning into John Tanner and Sean Mullen and the Senate, they started piecing these pieces together of all these bills. And we created this recreation package that kept getting bigger and broader and I think more impactful.
And so when it went to the House and passed, I'm like, oh, this is awesome. It just has to go back to the Senate. And now they have to pass it because the version changed a little bit and then staffers changed over, over.
And you know, it's a re education process. It's not bad and it's not wrong, but it does take time to. It's a. It's a very technical bill. You know, if you read it, your eyes glaze over. It's not.
Colin
00:40:43.018 - 00:40:43.490
Right. Right.
Jessica
00:40:43.530 - 00:43:29.170
It's not, you know, it's not late in layman's terms. It's a technical bill because it does, it actually does things right. We're doing things here. And so, you know, there's, there's a real.
There's a real learning curve and they did an awesome job and they made it even better. So now we've got an even better version of the Senate. Probably by mid Summer, we had a perfect.
What I would consider the gold standard version of this bill, because it'd been back and forth a couple times, and then you've got senators that hold it up for their own parochial interests. And that's what we fell into in the past four or five months, was you get towards the end of a session, you get towards the end of a.
You know, you get towards a lame duck, you get towards the end of a, you know, kind of contested Congress that hasn't done much. And a. And you say, well, I'm not gonna let you pass this thing unless you pass my bill.
Which is crazy, because most people had something in our bill, which, again, was the point of it, and yet they were holding up their own bill to get another bill. And, you know, that happens all the time. It's not classic dc. It's so classic.
But it's so painful when you have something this close to the finish line for this long. Because every week it was like, well, maybe there's a breakthrough this week.
We thought we were gonna get it on the ndaa, which is this national Defense bill. We didn't get it on that then. This is the beautiful, hilarious part of the story.
We thought we were going to get on the cr, the continuing resolution. So two weeks ago, we were on the cr, basically. I thought. We thought we were in. I was feeling really good.
And then all of a sudden, we got word that it was too long, kind of to attach the CR because they wanted to keep it short. Well, then we found out the next day it's because Elon Musk was tweeting, this is too long.
And all we thought about that night, with a terrible pun, is, we dodged a bullet there. Because I'm thinking, like, oh, my God, like, what if Elon. Because it would have been about 300 pages longer with our bill. And they were mad.
It was 1500, so been like 1800. What if he was like, why is there bikes and climbing and camping in this cr?
We would have totally gotten called out and probably shot our chances at anything end of the year. And instead, when we found out we weren't on the cr, we went to the. I call it the nuclear plan. We had the. We had one last left option.
It was a nuclear option. No one thought it was possible, or I should say, very few people thought it was possible.
And we were about two days ahead of everyone else who lost their stuff on the cr. So it actually all happened in the most beautiful way. And I like to say the good guys won. Like, we were like, someone was behind this.
Like, we got to get this through, because if we were on the cr, we would have been sunk. They cleaned the whole thing. They cleared all the stuff off of it and all that stuff. A lot of good stuff never got through.
And those were way bigger bills than ours with way more support. And we, you know, so we. We dodged a bullet with that one. And then we got to go to this nuclear option.
Justin
00:43:29.330 - 00:43:51.040
Is this incoming administration have any power to, like, do away with any of this? I mean, obviously Congress passed it, so I would think. Not really, but I mean, I'm just wondering, like, how that works with.
With a potentially, let's say, different sort of interpretation of what public lands are for coming into the White House, like, what do we have to look forward to here?
Jessica
00:43:51.420 - 00:44:50.304
Yeah, no, I don't. You know, I'm. I don't think there's. It's in law. And a lot of things have timelines.
Like, the agencies must do X in the next year or must do Y in the next two years or five years. So there's. There's timelines for a reason. For, you know, smart people that have been through this a million times, you create timelines.
And, you know, maybe it's not the number one priority, but the career staff are the ones that carry this kind of stuff out. So it's the career staff, it's your local forest service supervisor, it's your park service superintendent.
It's the people that have been doing this for a long time. And I do think there's gonna be a bipartisan support, even with the new administration coming in because of the efficiencies on this.
We're creating efficiencies so that things work better for businesses and visitors. And I don't know if you're not behind that, that I don't really know what you're behind.
So hopefully, this is something that, you know, continues to be a priority.
Colin
00:44:50.432 - 00:45:10.240
Well, I guess last thing, and then we'll let you get back to your family and your holiday here. I think, you know, it feels like the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable and the Explore act are kind of synonymous at this point.
Like, I think if I know anything about you guys, it's probably as an extension of your support of the Explore Act. So now that this is. That you've accomplished this, like, what's next? What do you guys. What's. What's on the horizon for the orr.
Jessica
00:45:10.400 - 00:45:16.064
So this will be. This is crazy, but Explore just like 5% of probably what we do.
Colin
00:45:16.232 - 00:45:17.644
So it's just Most public thing that.
Jessica
00:45:17.652 - 00:48:40.640
You'Ve been doing, it's just really public. And we've created, I think, a great coalition. And, you know, it needs a. You need sort of a central leader, but it's really small.
Most of it on our end has, like, really been the education and kind of awareness and, you know, our relationships.
But the rural development programs we run together, outdoors workforce, our state recreation offices that we're creating all across the country, the elevation of the economic, economics, you know, statistics, all in all agencies. Our work, I would say, are really, really deep work now. Going into health and.
And mental and physical and the connection to the outdoors, bringing CEOs together, you know, to network and have conversations. All of that will continue and elevate, I think. You know, we'll be tracking this. The implementation process is a real one.
And just like Great American Outdoors act, the big bill we worked on a couple years ago, you know, we follow that, and you've got to follow it. So we're certainly not, like, patting ourselves in the back and walking away from this.
This will be part of our repertoire for a while, but we'll be doing all the other things that we do well that we're excited about. And I think we're ready for the next recreation package. I mean, there's already things stacking up. Shred ACT is still out there for the skiers.
Really important for the Forest Service and anyone who recreates on big forests. The BLM concessionaire authority, we'd love to get that done. So that's kind of stacking up. So we're already creating the next package.
And I think the beauty of that is we can start asking for ideas. And I'll leave you one anecdote. Cause it was so cool.
I got a bunch of calls from members of Congress after, and one of them said, I never really get thanked. Like, everyone's always onto the next ask, right? I mean, you're a member of Congress. You kind of get like, hey, I want this. I want this.
They said, I've never been thanked as much for a bill as I have in the past two days from Explore act, like, in their lifetime. This is a really prominent member of Congress. And I'm thinking, that's what I want us to be known for. That's our community. We're so happy.
We're so elated. We're so thrilled. You know, I almost like, let's hold off on the asks for a little bit. Like, let's get our things done, see how this works.
You know, let's continue to work on GAO reauthorization and funding and all of that. But we've got a lot to sit on.
And we actually had another huge win that sort of got buried where the Economic Development Administration got reauthorized for the first time in 20 years. So it's huge. It's billions of dollars that sit in this agency within commerce and we for the first time have recreation language in there.
And as part of their definition, they need to look at recreation as an economic development, development tool, which opens up again billions of dollars for public works, for planning, for marketing, you know, for. For workforce. So we've never even had access to the money before.
And I mean, just thinking about that as, like, that should be five people's full time job is how do we access this money for trails and for, you know, workforce training programs and for marketing small communities that want to be marketed and for managing communities that don't want as many people, you know, there anymore. And all of that is, it's just a whole new, I think, frontier for us. So that's the type of stuff I'm really excited about.
Now that explores out is sort of the nitty gritty that unlocks the money that's going to do all this.
Colin
00:48:41.340 - 00:48:50.804
Well, Justin, I want to pitch you at some point on the outdoor recreation podcasters act. I think there's a lot of government money that could funnel into the rock fight. That'd be really good for the world.
Jessica
00:48:50.892 - 00:48:57.540
You know, hey, you know, we can talk about that and explore 2.0, hopefully just like two short years away.
Colin
00:48:57.660 - 00:49:02.016
Thank you so much. Hope you have a great holiday and yeah, let's have you back on soon, soon in the. In 2025.
Jessica
00:49:02.088 - 00:49:04.560
Thank you. Thanks for all you do. Love listening to your show.
Justin
00:49:04.680 - 00:49:05.248
Thank you.
Colin
00:49:05.304 - 00:49:15.136
Thanks, Jess. All right, man, it's time for the party shot.
Justin
00:49:15.168 - 00:49:18.224
Is that from Jake as well or Chris?
Colin
00:49:18.272 - 00:49:19.936
I'm sorry, Chris, That's. No, no, that's.
Justin
00:49:19.968 - 00:49:20.592
That's a. That's a.
Colin
00:49:20.616 - 00:49:21.888
That's a car that AI special.
Justin
00:49:21.944 - 00:49:22.720
It's so good.
Colin
00:49:22.840 - 00:49:24.048
All right, who's going first?
Justin
00:49:24.184 - 00:49:24.672
I.
Colin
00:49:24.776 - 00:49:25.472
You go. You go.
Justin
00:49:25.496 - 00:50:08.552
Okay. All right. So it's Christmas, folks, as we've alluded to a million times. So my parting shot today is Christmas oriented. And.
And it's not specifically a parting shot. I'm not taking aim at anybody here necessarily. But I have a small house and I have two kids and it is loaded with toys.
Like everywhere that you go, there are toys. It's a constant battle. I am basically, my rule is if I pick it up And I haven't seen one of them using it for a long time.
I, I, I, I throw in the garbage. Right in the garbage, Colin.
My wife has some bags where it's like, this is going to go to the daycare because they, you know, they like to have used toys. Toys. That's fine. She never takes them though. So they're in the garage and sometimes they go to the landfill. I'm sorry. I hate it.
I don't like it either. I don't like it either.
Colin
00:50:08.616 - 00:50:11.800
I like that you're whispering. Like if she does hear this one day, like she won't be able to.
Justin
00:50:11.840 - 00:51:46.780
Listen to it on the podcast and I'm whispering, she won't be able to hear it. That's how it works, Colin. She doesn't listen. She doesn't listen to every episode.
But if she hears this one, she hears me whispering, she won't be able to hear it anyway. So, you know, last couple weeks, I see, I see presence.
My wife and I have a lovely relationship, but we also don't really coordinate for about a lot of things. And now here's the, the presents are piling up under the tree. I'm like, hm.
I see my children's names on these are clearly presents that my wife has bought them. And I'm just like, I don't want to buy them. More like I'm the one that cleans up. I'm the one that gets mad.
I'm the one that's like, you have too many stuffies. You have too many of these toys. My like 3 year old just would not stop clamoring for Paw Patrol toys.
Like six months ago, my wife found some on Poshmark, by the way. Used toys. We don't buy new toys. Toys always used. Poshmark is an amazing place to find kids stuff, by the way, including toys.
My wife bought like the full like Paw Patrol like action set on on she. I found a backpack that my daughter hasn't worn in two months stuffed with all of them. She didn't even know they were, she's done.
She doesn't know she even has them anymore. She's three, you know. Yeah. So here's my parting shot. Ready? No more toys for Christmas. Here's what you do. You buy them food, you buy them candy.
Like they're gonna want it. It's already holiday season. They don't care what's in the, they just want the present. They just want to unwrap something and like it.
It dawned on me, I'm like, you know what? I could wrap a PA package of like the Haribo gummy bears and my three year old's gonna lose her goddamn mind.
If I get her like a little like toy set or I have to explain it to her. She's gonna be like, cool, whatever. But she's gonna be so fired up on the gummies. So this year I'm not giving. I'm not. I haven't bought.
Well, temporary tattoos is the only actual thing that's not food.
Colin
00:51:46.820 - 00:51:47.276
That's a cool.
Justin
00:51:47.308 - 00:52:14.982
But that's a consumable as well. So, you know, they get temporary tasks, they get some candy. My wife got them some books or whatever, some toys and it's fine.
But yeah, you don't have to buy toys. You can buy. My parting shot is against the toy industry. Generally speaking, I hate, you know, we all hate you. Nobody likes you. Nobody likes.
It's fun to go down the aisles of Target in the toy section and kind of have like that wistful thing from when you were a kid and that made you super excited and like you want your kids to be excited, but you don't want to buy them the things you don't want to. Consumables for the kids folks.
Colin
00:52:15.126 - 00:52:39.874
I love that. That's a really smart. I wish I had thought of that a long time ago. And we give them candy anyway. I just make it all candy.
Yeah, well, my party shot, it's more about. I think we need to re approach a new approach to the holiday season.
So look, before World War II and the economic post war boom, the holidays were like an authentic pause for people who trul believed either the origins of the holiday or simply because life was just harder back then. Like there wasn't like a holiday shopping season. Like your dad just like whittled you like a wooden figurine every night and.
Justin
00:52:39.882 - 00:52:41.250
That'S how it should be. Right?
Colin
00:52:41.290 - 00:54:02.260
That's how it was. And maybe you got some candy.
But then around the time that we were growing up, you hit that kind of perfect intersection of those who remembered those. The holidays back then. But then you had this modern boom of consumerism, right?
So Gen X kids were the same as prior generations in that only two days a year we got presents. Only on two days a year did we get presents. It was our birthday and Christmas and we didn't get shit any. Any other time of the. That was it.
So now today it's just not that way anymore. It's just easier to get stuff. It's cheap to get stuff. Something getting delivered isn't special anymore.
You know, it happens almost every day as such. The marketing behind the holiday season I don't think really matches reality. Right.
There was a time when, like, the holiday campaign from Coca Cola, remember, like, the polar bears and shit? Like, that was cool. Like, that got you kind of excited for the holidays, and now it's just overkill.
So I came up with a solution to bring back the magic. This easy one. Polar bears, yeah. The easy one would be to limit the length of the season. There's just too much economic might now, though, right?
You can't cut back at this point. We're hooked on the juice. So I say, like, let's embrace it and let it go longer.
Think about when we first start to see the presence of fall and winter on store shelves. It's right after the Fourth of July.
You get a lot of people get excited about their August pumpkin spice lattes, while cynics like me complain that it's too early. I say, let's just combo all of the events of the second half of the year and drop them all on July 15th. We put everything out for back to school.
Fall decor and beverages. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, holiday, Monica, Kwanzaa, New Year's at the same time.
Justin
00:54:02.300 - 00:54:04.212
Like a buffet. Like a holiday buffet.
Colin
00:54:04.356 - 00:54:13.060
And we make it normal to sell the second half of the year for just five and a half continuous months where we remove, like, the event part of it, and then consumers can decide how to engage.
Justin
00:54:13.140 - 00:54:33.316
You know what? It's not a bad idea. But I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna make a one very important change.
And I'm gonna say all of that starts in November and goes through March because there's nothing more depressing than like, January 6th, 6th, or whatever. Because you're just like, I don't now. It's now. Now, like, the real winter setting in, and there's nothing to look forward to.
Colin
00:54:33.388 - 00:54:38.260
So it's like, it's. We go. Instead of back to school through New Year's, we go Halloween through St. Patrick's Day.
Justin
00:54:38.300 - 00:55:03.890
Sure. And like. And like. Well, I just want the. It's just something else to look forward to in the.
In, like, once Christmas is over or once New Year's is over, because you're just like February. Like, all I know is it's dark and it's cold and I hate it. Like, there's nothing like.
But at least we have a week where everyone puts the weird on their house, you know, like, we all do, right? Go to the party where you drink rose tea. Out of a. Whatever.
I don't know, like, there needs to be more winter activities that make you want to live and not just curl up a ball and wait for something.
Colin
00:55:03.930 - 00:55:09.682
It is funny how, like, Valentine's Day and something never really kind of. It can't get even close to like, where like, Halloween's gotten to.
Justin
00:55:09.706 - 00:55:18.498
And you would think about Valentine's Day as a kid. It was kind of cool to get the Valentine cards or whatever. But, like, that's it. Like, Halloween is probably.
I probably look forward to Halloween more than any other holiday.
Colin
00:55:18.594 - 00:55:20.226
Oh, hell yeah. Because it's weird.
Justin
00:55:20.338 - 00:55:33.566
Yeah, exactly. So let's have a, like, like, let's have a. You know what?
We can have Christmas and let's have a, like winter thing where maybe, you know, maybe there's. Maybe it's. It's. Maybe. I don't know, maybe it's scary like Halloween. Maybe we sacrifice. Maybe we sacrifice some people.
Maybe that's what it's going to take.
Colin
00:55:33.638 - 00:55:37.310
Well, it's probably what we did for Easter before the Christians took it over, I imagine, right?
Justin
00:55:37.350 - 00:55:40.158
Yeah, yeah. We sacrificed the slowest person Harbo eggs.
Colin
00:55:40.174 - 00:55:41.566
And cut people's heads off or whatever.
Justin
00:55:41.678 - 00:55:42.334
Absolutely.
Colin
00:55:42.382 - 00:55:42.702
Yeah.
Justin
00:55:42.766 - 00:55:46.286
Yeah. Get into the real Scandinavian. Weird. Yeah.
Colin
00:55:46.318 - 00:55:58.938
I just think. But ultimately it says it comes down to like, the cynics like me who do the thing of like, ah, it's too early for this.
And everybody else who's like, it's Christmas every day of the year or it's Halloween every day of the year. Like, let's just, let's just open up the floodgates and just have it be all normal to have it all the time.
Justin
00:55:58.994 - 00:56:02.042
I mean, it's. You're not far from that being the reality.
Colin
00:56:02.186 - 00:56:02.890
It's true.
Justin
00:56:02.970 - 00:56:04.010
Like, really, it's like.
Colin
00:56:04.050 - 00:56:11.018
But it's just the marketing of it and the, the, the TV ads just don't, like, it's all like, oh, the magic of the season. Like, ah, it's not like that anymore.
Justin
00:56:11.114 - 00:56:15.882
No. And it is, it is lame that we all hate the commercialization, but we all still, like, do it.
Colin
00:56:16.066 - 00:56:16.986
Fuck yeah.
Justin
00:56:17.098 - 00:56:45.282
Like, my kids don't even know. Like, they don't know. Although that's not true. My three old walks in the other day. This is what she, she says. Comes in. She's supposed to be in bed.
Comes out of her bedroom. Like she does every night with some sort of thing she has to say. Right. Walks out, looks at the.
Our Christmas tree and looks at me and goes, dad, did you know there's not that much presence under the tree. And it's only because she watches like Already Lost. She's. Because she watches the movies and there's like a thousand foot of presence under the tree.
Colin
00:56:45.306 - 00:56:54.588
And I'm just like, well, you're playing with fire. Letting her watch that elf on the shelf cartoon. Let me tell you, that's coming next year.
She finds out there can be an elf on the shelf in the the house. Like you're doomed. It's over.
Justin
00:56:54.644 - 00:56:58.668
That seems kind of fun. But that's probably every parent said until they started. I know, I know I said it.
Colin
00:56:58.724 - 00:56:59.100
Yeah.
Justin
00:56:59.180 - 00:56:59.724
Yeah.
Colin
00:56:59.852 - 00:57:02.044
And within three days I'm like, oh, this is a bad idea.
Justin
00:57:02.092 - 00:57:09.436
I think there's a, there's a decent chance that. But come next, next Christmas we're all living in a like an RV in, in Hawaii somewhere.
Colin
00:57:09.628 - 00:57:12.332
Oh, I hang out with you. That sounds great.
Justin
00:57:12.436 - 00:57:13.532
It all. Yeah.
Colin
00:57:13.596 - 00:57:14.220
Yeah.
Justin
00:57:14.380 - 00:57:15.580
Anyway, Merry Christmas.
Colin
00:57:15.660 - 00:57:16.380
Merry Christmas.
Justin
00:57:16.460 - 00:57:35.398
For real though. Merry Christmas. It's. I'm sure wherever. Hopefully. I, I hope that people are listening to this on Christmas.
It's a good, it'd be a good show to listen to on Christmas morning. You know, you just got, you're like your hot chocolate with some, some bourbon in it or something like that. Just you know, finish open the presents.
About to draw on the worst football games of the season. Maybe you watch the Lakers get creamed by like the Raptors or some stupid NBA game was on.
Colin
00:57:35.454 - 00:57:36.902
Patrick Mahomes pull another game out of.
Justin
00:57:36.926 - 00:57:40.490
His ass, you know, and, and you know, listen to a little rock fight. Goodness.
Colin
00:57:41.870 - 00:58:04.740
All right. The Rock Fights. A production of Rock Fight llc. For Justin Hausman, I'm Colin Trude. Thanks for listening.
Have a happy and merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and all that good stuff. And you know he's out celebrating Christmas somewhere. It's Chris D makes. He's singing a song. He's probably singing Christmas songs, I'd imagine.
Or maybe he, maybe, maybe he's sitting there singing the rock fight fight song because he's going to sing that for us right now. And we'll see you next time. Rock fighters.
Chris
00:58:15.010 - 00:59:00.160
We speak our truth Slay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree we talk about human powered outdoor activities and pig bites about topics that we find interesting like pop culture music the latest movie reviews ideas that aim for the head this is where we speak our truth this is where we speak our truth Wax our rock flight Rock flight Welcome to the rock flight Rock flight Rock flight welcome to the rock fight Rock fight Rock fight Rock flight Rock fight Rock fight Welcome to the rock Fight rock Fight rock Fight.
Justin
00:59:02.300 - 00:59:04.820
Rock fight Flight.