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1:01
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
1:13
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:14
Let's get into it.
1:16
Our guys, before we get into today's content, I got a correct record on something.
1:20
So I tell you guys all the time, if I make a mistake, I'm okay admitting that I've made a mistake.
1:24
Well, in last week's episode, I mentioned getting sent a video by Jonathan West
1:29
over at the Becoming Husband Podcast.
1:32
Well, it's not the Becoming Husband Podcast.
1:35
So if you went searching for the Becoming Husband Podcast or Becoming Husband on Google,
1:39
I have no idea what you found because it's the Being Husband Podcast.
1:45
The Being, B-E-I-N-G Husband Podcast.
1:49
So I'd like to apologize to Jonathan for not getting that right.
1:52
So for those of you that are looking for a new podcast to get in or some new content or something
1:56
like that, that is the one that I would like to suggest to you guys.
1:59
The Being Husband Podcast.
2:01
So there we go.
2:02
We have corrected the record.
2:03
But now let's get into this podcast for today.
2:06
And the title, I promise, we're going to back our way into that title.
2:10
But I want to talk about something that I did here recently.
2:13
That was an amazing thing that happened.
2:16
And it's amazing in a lot of different ways.
2:17
And I hope I can really elucidate that for you guys.
2:20
But just a couple of weeks ago, I went on an actual backpacking trip in Colorado.
2:26
And I say actual backpacking trip.
2:29
I basically mean, I've been camping before.
2:31
I've even gone with this men's ministry, which I won't name because I don't want to
2:35
disparage them.
2:36
But they went on what they thought was a backpacking trip.
2:39
And they thought it was this big kind of hard trekking type of trip,
2:42
which it didn't actually end up being that.
2:45
But this is a group of guys that I hang out with on Sunday nights.
2:48
It's the group I talk about all the time that we do Jiu Jitsu together
2:52
and we read books and do that kind of stuff.
2:54
It was this group of guys.
2:55
So this group for some time has been going on these backpacking trips,
2:59
mainly in Colorado.
3:00
And so the thing is, is I hadn't been invited to go on one of these yet.
3:04
And so there's not really like this clear idea of who goes and who doesn't go
3:08
or kind of what that whole thing looks like.
3:10
But I've been around these guys for several years now.
3:13
But this was the first time that I was invited on the trip.
3:16
And so it was just an exciting thing because I was like, yeah,
3:18
I really want to want to do something like that.
3:20
And it's kind of one of those things I've talked about here on this podcast before.
3:24
I grew up not doing a lot of the things that I was interested in, right?
3:28
I played a lot of sports and that's what I did.
3:30
But I was really interested in camping and hiking and hunting
3:34
and trekking and kind of all that outdoorsy stuff.
3:37
But no one in my family really was, right?
3:39
My dad worked a lot and he wasn't really into the whole outdoorsy stuff.
3:43
You know, we did a little fishing when I was like, you know, four or five years old,
3:46
but that just wasn't something that we did.
3:48
It was mainly our lives revolved around, you know, my sister being in band
3:52
and me being in all kinds of sports.
3:54
And so that's kind of what we did.
3:55
That was kind of the long and short of what we did there.
3:58
But I've never really done a full on backpacking trip
4:01
where you're literally carrying everything that you need on your back, right?
4:06
And so that was the thing is pre-trip.
4:09
I was like, okay, I had a lot of thoughts kind of pre-trip
4:13
because I knew this was going to be, you know, six, seven or eight guys
4:16
and all those types of things.
4:17
And I was pretty much the only one that hadn't been on something
4:19
specifically like this before.
4:21
And so I had a bunch of kind of pre-trip thoughts.
4:24
And I guess some of those were like, okay, just be cool.
4:26
Just, you know, if you've got a question, just ask a question.
4:30
Don't be the guy that shows up at the trip having been all prideful
4:33
and not asked any questions about what to do beforehand.
4:36
And then you show up unprepared, right?
4:37
And that was one thing that I did is I just asked a lot of questions.
4:40
I asked about, you know, what should be in the pack? What shouldn't be in the pack?
4:43
What kind of pack should I have?
4:44
You know, what should I try to overpack?
4:46
What should I try to underpack?
4:48
All those types of things.
4:49
And one thing that we did is we all kind of got together
4:51
several weeks before the trip and we started to kind of talk about,
4:54
okay, where are we going to go?
4:56
Because there's a lot of different places that you can go in Colorado.
4:58
This year, it was especially difficult for planning
5:01
just because Colorado and really that entire area of the country
5:04
got way more snow than they had in previous years.
5:07
And so even in July, there was still a ton of snow
5:10
in a lot of the areas that we were looking to hike.
5:12
And so we ended up deciding as a group that we were going to go
5:16
to Lake Patricia in Colorado.
5:18
And so I don't know exactly sure where that is.
5:21
I think it's equal distances away from Chris Dubuud and Boonavista
5:25
and Breckenridge.
5:26
And so it's just kind of out there, literally in the middle of nowhere.
5:29
But very, very scenic.
5:30
Obviously, if you guys Google Lake Patricia, Colorado,
5:32
you can kind of see what we're talking about.
5:34
And so we were discussing the trip and we had a couple of different options
5:38
and we kind of landed on that one.
5:39
And you know, for me, I'm like, hey, this is the first trip I've been on
5:41
with this group of guys.
5:42
Like, I don't want to dictate terms.
5:43
I don't want to say anything.
5:44
I just want to kind of be along for the ride and kind of learn
5:47
what they do because they've been doing this for a really long time.
5:49
But one thing I did kind of pipe up and say from the beginning is guys,
5:52
I'm obviously okay with difficult.
5:54
Like, I'm in good shape.
5:56
I'm okay with difficult.
5:58
I'd prefer to go the difficult route.
6:01
But sketchy's just not really my thing.
6:03
Right. So I'm decently adventurous.
6:06
But not if there's this real chance that, you know, hey, it might not work out, right?
6:11
You know, that you might go through this pass and you might not come out on the other end.
6:14
And so those are some of the pre trip thoughts.
6:16
But then one of the pre trip thoughts that I had is, okay,
6:19
just don't get hurt, Kyle, on your way to doing this trip.
6:22
Just don't get hurt.
6:23
Like, you don't want to be guy that the guy that's hobbling around beforehand
6:26
or have to cancel because you got hurt last minute.
6:28
And literally like a week before we leave for this trip,
6:32
I tear every single ligament in my thumb.
6:35
Like I'm sitting here actually the day after I receive surgery
6:38
on multiple torn ligaments, torn muscles, bone bruises,
6:41
all this kind of nonsense.
6:42
It's always like, okay, not the worst injury you could get before a backpacking trip.
6:47
Because I mean, we're just walking, right?
6:49
No big deal.
6:50
Like not having one of the use of one of your hands is not really going to be that big a deal.
6:54
So for any of you guys that have been really off trail hiking,
6:58
you kind of know where this is going.
6:59
But that was kind of the pre trip thoughts.
7:01
And then we actually had the actual trip.
7:04
So there were six of us that were going initially.
7:06
We had a couple of guys that met with us later.
7:08
We drove all the way through to Amarillo from Oklahoma City,
7:10
picked up another guy and then headed on up to Denver.
7:13
So we were in Denver for a day.
7:14
So we could kind of get acclimated to a little bit of elevation.
7:17
And then the day after that, we actually drove to the trailhead
7:20
so that we could start our hike and again, just kind of get used to the elevation.
7:25
Now again, remember when me saying I'm okay with difficult, just not sketchy?
7:28
Well, I was driving on this trip because I had one of, I had a four-wheel drive truck
7:33
in very long bed and we could get a lot of stuff in there with the bed cover and everything like that.
7:37
So it was really a convenient vehicle out there except for gas mileage.
7:40
But I hadn't even experienced a road like the road it took to get to the trailhead before.
7:47
Because typically when my wife and I have gone hiking or when I've gone with other people,
7:51
you just drive a paved road up the side of the mountain.
7:54
And then finally, you see basically a gravel parking lot.
7:56
That's where you pull off and boom, you're at the trailhead.
7:59
Well, we get off on this road and it is a bumpy rocky road on the side of the mountain.
8:05
And we get there probably at like 10, 11 o'clock at night.
8:08
So it's pitch black and I've got 10 in windows.
8:10
And so let's just say it was about a 30-minute drive on this bumpy rocky road
8:15
on the side of the mountain with no guardrail just to get to the trailhead.
8:19
Right? And so it wasn't like I even said anything in the truck,
8:22
but everyone just got real quiet and just kind of let me concentrate on getting up there
8:26
because I was leading the other vehicle up there.
8:28
And again, I've never done this type of thing before, but hey, it's a new experience.
8:32
Just don't be dumb, take it easy and get up there.
8:35
So we got up there, no problem.
8:36
But I will say it was like, I just kind of thanked my lucky stars when I got up there
8:41
because there were a lot of blind turns.
8:43
And the back end of the truck skidded out a couple of times.
8:46
And so it was just kind of an interesting thing there.
8:48
But when we get to the trailhead, we camp there that night and then the next day,
8:51
we get all our stuff packed, ready to go.
8:52
And we get our packs on and it's hiking time.
8:55
Right? And you know, this is a very experienced group of guys.
8:57
So if they told me to leave something in the truck,
8:58
I left in the truck, didn't even question.
9:00
And then we start hiking up, right?
9:02
So we're expecting the hike in to be, you know, maybe four hours or so.
9:08
Well, about five minutes into the hike, my glutes are absolutely on fire.
9:15
And I'm like, what in the world is going on?
9:19
It's as if the only part of my body that was working at all.
9:24
While I was walking, were these little slivers on either side of my rear end.
9:28
And I'm like, okay, we're five minutes into this thing.
9:33
And it's going to be four hours or more, getting to where we're wanting to go.
9:37
This is a problem, right?
9:39
But again, I don't want to be the guy that's like slowing the group down
9:43
or any of that kind of stuff.
9:44
And it's like, you know, I can just deal with this.
9:46
I'm just going to stretch out my hips a little bit.
9:48
And but the first time we stopped after about 20 or 25 minutes of walking,
9:52
just to make sure everyone got water and everybody was kind of relaxing.
9:54
I had the other guy start adjusting my pack for me.
9:58
I kind of told him like, hey, I'm feeling a lot of pressure here.
10:01
You know, I'm not really sure.
10:02
It's the first time I've had a pack on my back with weight before, right?
10:05
And it's kind of hard for me to adjust the pack by myself,
10:09
because I only have the one hand.
10:10
And when you have a, you know, 40, 45 pound pack on your bag,
10:12
it's kind of hard to get it on and off.
10:14
And so I'm sitting there and I have these two guys, Russ, sorry,
10:17
I had a guy named Rhett and a guy named Rock here kind of making adjustments
10:20
to my pack while it's on me.
10:22
And Russ, one of the guys that's with us,
10:24
he's the guy that kind of is the ringleader of our Sunday night group.
10:27
He just kind of looks at me and goes, you're hating this, huh?
10:29
And he didn't mean the trip.
10:31
He didn't mean that.
10:32
He meant you're hating, having a bunch of other people help you.
10:35
And I kind of responded to him.
10:37
I was like, yeah, well, I don't really like the idea of someone else's wife
10:40
and my butt for me.
10:41
And he just kind of shakes his head and goes, Kyle, you can't,
10:44
you can't be that prideful about it.
10:45
And it's just like, you know, that was kind of my first lesson to where it's just like,
10:48
I didn't want anybody's help. I just want to get up there, you know,
10:50
I wanted to be tough with the whole deal.
10:52
And, you know, that's the thing is in that moment,
10:54
I just need to lean on somebody else because I just didn't know what was happening.
10:57
So what they did is they adjusted my pack.
10:59
You know, they got some of the weight kind of lower.
11:02
I had a lot of heavier stuff on the top of the pack.
11:04
You need more heavy stuff on the bottom.
11:05
You need the heavy stuff to be kind of close to your back,
11:08
as opposed to the outside of the pack.
11:10
Made some adjustments and then we're all good to go.
11:12
So we hike for a couple hours.
11:14
We get to this camp area.
11:16
And there's a little, there's a stream.
11:18
And as you know, at this time in Colorado,
11:20
a lot of the streams are basically just rushing.
11:22
They're like unbelievably fast and because of all the snowmelt.
11:26
And so we take some time there.
11:27
We get some lunch.
11:28
We cross that, which is a little bit sketchy
11:30
because I had to use a pole in my hand
11:32
that I couldn't really hold anything.
11:33
We get across, we're good to go.
11:35
And then we get into some hiking.
11:36
And the thing about where we're going,
11:38
where we're trying to find Lake Patricia is there's not a trail to Lake Patricia.
11:42
Again, if you look it up on Google, which I encourage you to do so,
11:46
you can't really see anything.
11:47
It is just, I mean, you were literally out in the middle of nowhere.
11:51
And so we had Rhett and Russ.
11:53
They were kind of going back and forth,
11:54
figuring out the navigation for the thing.
11:56
And, you know, I'm navigation is not my world.
11:58
And so I just basically just kept walking wherever they were walking.
12:02
And so at one point, we kind of realized that, you know,
12:05
we kind of went a little bit too far on the actual trail
12:08
before we got off the trail because now we're in some really,
12:11
really treacherous territory.
12:13
So we're basically, if I can, you know, basically describe this to you,
12:16
it's where you can almost feel like you're there.
12:17
I'll do my best.
12:18
We're on the side of this mountain.
12:20
And it's fairly steep.
12:22
And the entirety of the side of the mountain that we're hiking on is boulders, right?
12:27
And so boulders as small as, you know, your foot.
12:30
And then boulders that are, you know, the size of a bus,
12:33
you know, those types of things like it's just boulders like that.
12:36
And there's snow in different areas.
12:38
And again, in this area, you had to be very careful with snow
12:40
because the snow could be, you know, nice and packed
12:43
and that you can walk on top of.
12:45
And then there was other snow patches to where if you stepped wrong,
12:47
you might be going 10 feet through the snow and you might get stuck there
12:50
or you might end up in the river, right?
12:52
You might end up in the stream.
12:53
It was one of those types of situations.
12:55
And so we're hiking off trail for several hours on this,
13:00
this really, really sketchy type of terrain.
13:04
And luckily Shelby, my boy that was on this trip with us,
13:08
he decided he was only going to trek with one pole.
13:11
And it kind of worked out great because I didn't bring poles
13:13
because I was like, I don't need trekking poles,
13:15
which, you know, luckily he had an extra one.
13:17
So he let me have his, but at the angle we were at on the mountain,
13:21
the pole I really, or the hand I really needed my pole in was my left hand.
13:24
But my left hand is where my dumb was all destroyed
13:26
and I was just doing my best not to touch it, right?
13:28
And so we're hiking for a long time for hours and hours,
13:32
not really making a lot of ground.
13:34
And we don't exactly know if we're going the right direction.
13:37
We pretty much think we're going in decently in the right direction,
13:41
but it's treacherous territory and we've got a lot of weight on our backs.
13:44
And so we get to a point where we rest.
13:47
I don't even know why we rested, but we get to a point where we rest.
13:50
And I take my backpack off and all of a sudden,
13:54
I experienced something that I've never experienced in my entire life.
13:57
I'm starting to get altitude sickness.
13:59
And for any of you guys that have experienced altitude sickness before,
14:03
it can be a little scary and it could come on quick.
14:06
And it's a little bit difficult to figure out what exactly you need to do.
14:10
And so my heart and lungs are fine, right?
14:12
I don't feel like my heart or lungs were ever in any real trouble up there.
14:16
I feel like, you know, I had acclimated fine.
14:18
I was in good shape before I got there.
14:19
But I'm starting to get really, really lightheaded.
14:22
I'm starting to get really nauseous.
14:24
And I've got a million things running through my head.
14:28
But one of the things I had run into my head is, man,
14:31
I can't slow this group down.
14:32
This is an experienced group of guys.
14:34
They've all been through this before, but holy crap, what am I going to do?
14:37
And for any of the guys that were on the trip that are listening to this,
14:40
it was a little bit worse than I even let on because I was trying to, you know,
14:42
keep it together.
14:43
But you know, I had all these thoughts running through my head like, man,
14:47
I never thought it would be my body that would give out on a trip like this.
14:50
Like of all the things that I've worked really, really hard on,
14:53
it would be my body and making sure that my body's ready for a trip like this, right?
14:56
You know, I did no different training leading up to this.
14:59
It's just, hey, you live in a, you know, a lifestyle where you're in shape
15:02
and then you're good to go, right?
15:04
But then I started getting really sick.
15:07
I started feeling like, okay, I'm about to pass out the, and we are miles and miles away,
15:13
hours and hours away from SOS help at this point.
15:16
There's not really a place where a helicopter can land.
15:19
I mean, we're literally out in the middle of nowhere, right?
15:22
And I have this thought and it just rushed through my head really quick,
15:28
but it kind of put a lot of things into perspective.
15:30
And that thought was, you can't die on this mountain.
15:34
And now guys, I don't mean to be hyperbolic,
15:38
but it was just the thought that was going through my head at the time.
15:40
I'm just kind of being honest with you, right?
15:42
Because, because all I could think of is, if I pass out right now,
15:45
what is, what exactly are they going to do?
15:48
Like it was hard enough to get to wherever the heck we were at that exact moment,
15:52
much less having to get somebody out of there that, you know, is passed out cold,
15:58
right? And it was one of those situations where the previous year,
16:02
there was a guy that kind of got into some, some, you know, big altitude sickness,
16:06
trouble and it happened in the middle of the night.
16:08
It was just kind of a bad deal.
16:09
And I was like, man, I can't be the latest version of that.
16:12
But I don't know about you guys and it doesn't happen to me.
16:15
I don't, I can't actually identify another time where I feel like that's happened to me before,
16:19
where you almost have your life flash before your eyes.
16:22
You know, if somebody like pulls over into your lane in the highway,
16:25
because they weren't, weren't looking and you have to like veer off the highway real quick.
16:28
It's like in that split second, you're like, oh, shoot, that could have been it.
16:32
That could have been curtains for me.
16:33
And you start thinking about things, you're like, oh my gosh, if something happens to me,
16:39
what's, what's Kelsey going to do? What's my wife going to do?
16:41
Well, what's my dog going to do? He's, he's expecting dad to come home.
16:45
Like, you know, what are they going to do at work? What about the cases I've got open?
16:48
What about, you know, what about my friend, you know, you start thinking that, but it's,
16:51
it doesn't, it doesn't become like an internal dialogue because it's just a split second.
16:55
But it's, it's interesting whenever you find yourself in those moments where you have to kind
17:00
of consider where you're at in the world, right? And again, all we're doing is hiking,
17:04
but I'm starting to get sick and I'm feeling like I'm going to be in some real trouble,
17:08
right? But I felt like that was a really unique opportunity for me to kind of
17:13
hover above my life for a second and think to myself, man, am I okay with this?
17:21
Am I okay with, with, if this were the it, if this were the, if this were the end right here?
17:26
But I kind of snap out of that right? And again, I even acknowledge that sitting here in the safety
17:30
of my own studio at home right now, like I acknowledge that that was maybe a little bit,
17:34
a little bit dramatic of me to think that. But at the time, the way I was feeling, it was,
17:38
it was terrible. It was absolutely awful. But the group started to kind of have a discussion
17:45
because there was another guy in the group that was a little bit, he was more exhausted than he was
17:48
sick. I was feeling sick and it's like, okay, we, we kind of stop for a second to really have a
17:52
discussion like, Hey, do we need to get me down off this mountain? Do we need to get me out of
17:57
elevation? Do we need to get me to recover? Do we keep going? Uh, you know, we kind of got into a
18:03
jocko conversation there for a little bit to where it's just like, Hey, do does one guy, does the leader,
18:08
you know, who, who in this instance would be Russ, he's kind of the leader of this group,
18:11
does he just kind of make a call and we go with that? But then after about five to 10 minutes of
18:16
talking where I'm just sitting there, you know, trying, I mean, eating hot tamales, trying to
18:19
recover, just sucking down water, trying to see if I can get some sort of recovery. Uh, one of the
18:24
guys in our group, his name's Brandon, but we just call him beard because he has a beard that's down
18:28
past his volleyball. And he just goes, Hey, let's just walk about 15 more minutes. Let's see how
18:34
we're all feeling and then we'll make our decision from there. And at that point, I was, I was tired
18:39
to be in the center of conversation. I felt embarrassed that I had even started getting sick.
18:43
I'm getting frustrated, even though I guess like one in eight people experience altitude sickness,
18:47
I'm just frustrated at this point. I'm like, okay, let's get this damn pack back on my back.
18:51
And let's, you know, let's just walk and see how it goes. And the great thing was is we went over
18:57
even like considerably more of the exact same type of terrain, this very treacherous terrain,
19:04
but about two or two and a half hours after we had had that discussion, we actually arrive at
19:08
Lake Patricia, right? So I got it out. I kind of make it through. I start feeling a little bit better
19:13
as we keep moving. But it took us again, we thought it was going to maybe take us about four hours
19:18
to get to our destination. It ended up taking us close to eight, close to eight hours to get
19:24
to our destination. And for some of you guys, you've done some way more extreme stuff before,
19:27
maybe you've done it, you know, at altitude with snow and different things. But again,
19:31
this is all new to me. This, this is like when you, whenever you pick up a new sport,
19:35
it's like you're an American, but then you go to a different country and someone hand you a cricket
19:38
bat. I don't even know if it's called a bat, but it's just like, it's a whole new world,
19:42
a whole new bevy of experiences. But we get there and it's just amazing. I mean, I mean,
19:48
it's this lake that I mean, there's not a whole lot of people that have been up here because
19:53
there, there's not a clear way to get there. You can't take a helicopter there, like you got to
19:57
walk there. And there's not really a good path. We ended up taking one of the more decent paths
20:01
to get there. But it's this secluded lake on the side of the mountain. There is just trees
20:07
everywhere. It's just serene. We can see Mount Holy Cross. So that's kind of one of the closest
20:13
mountains to where we were was Mount Holy Cross. And it was just absolutely amazing. And then we
20:17
start looking around, getting our camp set up, right? And you know, they're they automatically
20:21
go into go mode, right? You know, we just had this big long trip. We're all, we're all happy to be
20:25
there. But it's like, Hey, we got to get camp set up for that night. So we got guys that are
20:29
getting water and we got guys that are, you know, setting up tents and, you know, you know,
20:33
leavening out the grounds for below the tent and stuff like that. And it hit me all at once,
20:38
which obviously, if I'd been thinking through this even before then that you thought I would
20:42
have hit me before then, but all at once it hit me that I was surrounded by people that were better
20:50
at me than ever than anything considering this trip. I don't know that I said that perfectly,
20:57
but like all these guys are better at the trip related stuff than I was in just about every single
21:03
way. They were just better. They were better prepared. They were more experienced. And it was
21:08
just kind of a cool opportunity, but I will say it kind of checked my pride a little bit.
21:12
Because the thing is, is before this trip, I didn't have a lot of the right gear. So I had to buy
21:18
some and I also had to borrow quite a bit. I didn't know what to pack. All these guys knew
21:24
exactly what to pack. They just need to grab it out of whatever cubby hole they stuck in at their
21:27
house, right? I also didn't know how to pack. How exactly do we pack my pack? I mean, I already
21:34
said like five minutes into the trip, I was having problems with my pack because I didn't pack it,
21:37
right? Right? I read the blogs. I did the things and just didn't quite work out. You know, I didn't
21:42
know how to wear my pack, right? That's such a simple thing. I didn't even bring trekking poles
21:48
because I thought, Hey, this is just walking. No big deal. I've been on hard walks before.
21:52
I also have limited kind of camping setup knowledge because again, I didn't grow up
21:56
with a family that camp. So I'm trying to learn all this stuff on my own, but a lot of the camping
21:59
that I've done has been fairly controlled camping. And also I'm almost useless as it pertains to
22:06
navigation, right? I love to use my GPS when I'm going places, even in the city where I'm at,
22:11
because I like to get there efficiently. And it's just kind of one of those things that
22:14
navigation just doesn't come naturally to me. I have decent, you know, natural sense of direction.
22:19
But all the guys that I'm with are very experienced at all these things. And so they just get to work.
22:24
And so I just wanted to kind of fall in line, right? And so the rest of the trip was awesome.
22:32
And when we spent two nights there, and I'll say this, you know, I wasn't completely out of the
22:36
woods when it came to being sick. I was nauseous a lot while I was up there. And just the altitude
22:41
really was starting to get to me. It was getting to some of the other guys as well. But luckily,
22:45
no one got sick. No one got like really, really sick, right? But we really, really enjoyed ourselves.
22:50
And so we did a couple of day hikes, we tried to, you know, discover, pass around to the other side
22:55
of the lake. There's a waterfall right by the lake. And so we actually hiked up to the waterfall and
23:00
a bunch of us actually stripped down into our underwear and we got in the lake. And one guy
23:04
took the temperature of the water and it was like 40 degrees. Then we went to the other side of the
23:08
lake and we found these like pools where, you know, basically, you can kind of get in and soak in
23:12
the water for a little bit. And I say a little bit, I mean, a little bit. I think we had one guy
23:16
that stayed in there for two minutes straight. And that was about as much as he could go. But it
23:20
really was an awesome trip. We break down camp. Well, we hiked back out, you know, I think it took
23:26
us two and a half, three hours to get out, even though it took us almost eight hours to get in.
23:30
You know, we spent some time, we took our time kind of getting back, we visited some people in
23:34
Salida, had a good time, played some Frisbee golf, but we eventually made our way back and we all
23:39
made our way back to Oklahoma City. But one thing that I want to do and guys, it's just kind of how
23:43
my brain works now anytime I have an experience, especially when it's a new experience and even
23:48
more especially when it's an especially difficult experience. I think about ways that this could be
23:53
of use to you guys to you guys that are dedicated to this podcast and the content that we bring to
23:58
you is what are some life lessons that I can take away from this type of trip. And I just got to say
24:03
that when I was thinking through my trip, which I've had a few weeks to kind of chew on it and kind
24:07
of chew on, you know, how I did how the group did how much fun it was things that I would have done
24:11
differently, all that kind of stuff. I realized that there were a few lessons that I learned that
24:16
specifically kind of come from my brain, but there are also lessons from the other five guys that
24:21
actually went on this trip with that I would get from them individually. And so I'm going to kind
24:25
of describe those in detail as to the exact lessons that I learned from these individuals. So one of
24:31
the guys's names is Rocky. And so Rocky is that type of guy where he is just one of the most
24:37
amenable and accommodating people possible. Like this guy I've never really seen him angry.
24:43
And he's an incredible athlete. He's incredibly strong. And he's kind of got the reputation for
24:48
being the pack mule on the trip. So he's he's the one that'll take the extra weight and he's
24:53
not going to complain. He's just going to kind of make it happen. But we're on our way down the
24:57
mountain and we're kind of walking and kind of doing our thing. And you know, I just, you know,
25:01
turn to my said, Rocky, I really appreciate your help on the way up the mountain. I hope you, you
25:04
know, I thank you so much for kind of helping me adjust my pack. You know, when we got up to the
25:08
top and I started getting sick, like thanks for, you know, kind of checking in on me. Thanks for
25:12
the hot tamales. You know, you just stuff like that. Just, Hey, man, thanks for being a good friend
25:15
while we're up there. And he said something in his kind of a matter of fact way, which is, Hey, man,
25:20
if one person isn't having fun, no one's having fun. And I was like, yeah, I don't always think
25:26
that way. But that's Rocky. He's that type of guy literally give you the shirt off of his back type
25:31
of guy, you know, carry the entire load for you. He's just one of those dudes, right? But that's his
25:37
mindset is if somebody on the trips not doing well, he's going to start focusing on that person.
25:43
And at different points on the trip, there were different people that were having trouble.
25:46
On the way down, we had one guy that was getting really, really tired and one guy's knee started
25:50
giving out. And so Rocky's the guy that's like, Hey, we need to start getting the weight off of
25:54
them. And we need to take more breaks and that kind of thing. That's just his natural
25:57
MO, whereas I'm more of the, Hey, let's perform. Let's perform. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Like,
26:02
let's try to, you know, beat our previous record or that type of thing. That's just my mindset. That's
26:07
my natural way of thinking his natural way is, Hey, man, if one person struggling, the group's
26:11
not going to have a good time. And so I thought that was a good reminder that I got from Rocky.
26:15
So the next lesson I learned was from Brandon, which again, we just called beard. And his was
26:21
was simple enough. And it's profound coming from a guy who probably intellectually was the smartest
26:25
guy on the trip. And it's Kyle, you can never learn enough. And so this guy, he is, he tries to
26:32
be an expert at just about everything, right? That's just his personality. He's an engineer.
26:36
He's trying to constantly problem solve and figure things out. But one of his things that he's very
26:41
specific about his pack. And he's always wanting to learn additional things to where he can get
26:47
more utility out of what's in his pack while dropping weight. And for those of you out there
26:52
that have done real backpacking, you understand that if you can lose a pound off your pack and
26:56
get a little bit of utility in the process, that's gold. That's literally worth his weight in gold.
27:01
And so I saw him spending a lot of time looking at his pack, looking what what other people had
27:06
packed and kind of thinking in terms of, okay, how could I have made this better? And he's done
27:11
this trip a whole lot. And he's just basically says, Hey, Kyle, every year that I come on this trip,
27:17
I learned something new. There's something I have to go home and research. There's something I have
27:21
to go home and buy. There's something I have to go home and replace because every year I think to
27:26
myself, okay, this could have been better. This could have been better. And so his big lesson was
27:31
you can never learn enough. And then we had another guy on the trip. His name was Rhett. And so Rhett
27:36
was the guy that we picked up down down in Amarillo and worked our way over. And the thing about Rhett
27:40
is if you look at Rhett, you wouldn't think to yourself this, this guy would be great on the side
27:44
of the mountain. Like he just doesn't, he doesn't overwhelm you with his physical presence. But his
27:49
kind of reputation on these trips is he's a great navigator. And he's also incredibly durable,
27:55
right? So he's not going to be the guy that sprints up the mountain and beats everybody,
27:58
but he can keep a good pace. And it's almost like he was built for mountaineering, you know,
28:02
mentally and physically. But the thing I'm I learned from Rhett is this is when you're the expert,
28:10
be the expert. And so this is kind of the context that we were kind of going through. So I can tell
28:17
on the way of the mountain, again, I want to try to stay quiet on this trip, right? I just want to
28:20
kind of learn the nuances of this type of group on this type of a trip. But I could tell that Rhett
28:27
was concerned about the way that we were going on the way up the mountain. He was concerned about
28:33
how long we were staying on the trail. He was concerned about the direction. He was concerned
28:38
about certain paths that we were going. But we just kind of kept going in those different directions.
28:42
And at one point, I kind of come up to him and I say, Hey, or do you think it's good that we're
28:49
going this way? Do you think it's right? Like, you know, just kind of talk to me. And he was just
28:52
like, man, I just, I don't think so. But you know, I'm not for sure and that type of thing. But then
28:57
I just kind of reminded him, I said, Hey, I didn't know you before this trip. He was the only guy I
29:01
didn't know before this trip happened. And I said, everyone says you're the nav guy. But you're not
29:07
speaking up. So we're just kind of going this direction, because one guy says to go this direction.
29:12
And then, you know, we kind of get to this pass. And it's like, well, what if we go this way? And
29:15
we're just trying to figure it out again, no one knows exactly how to get there. But that was the
29:19
situation that we were in. And Rhett had a better sense of what we should do than anybody, which
29:25
doesn't mean he would have been infallible. But it did mean that he should have spoke up more.
29:29
And once we got to camp, you know, he and I talked about that a little bit more and he's like,
29:34
how you know what you're right? I should have spoke up at different points. And maybe it could
29:37
have saved us a couple hours. Maybe it could have kept you from being up on altitude. You know,
29:42
for that long, maybe you wouldn't have gotten sick blah, blah, which I said, dude, I mean,
29:46
with the way that it was going, I was probably going to hit that wall anyway. So that's certainly
29:50
not your fault. But that was the thing that I learned from him. And it was just kind of one of
29:53
those things where in those moments, he just didn't have that confidence that he felt like he needed
29:58
in order to pipe up. Or maybe he was second guessing himself. And that was an opportunity for me to
30:03
kind of encourage him and say, man, you've already proved that you're you're probably the superior
30:07
navigator of this group. You've got the skills, you've got the experience. So just just pipe up.
30:12
So that's the thing I learned from Rhett is, hey, man, when you're the expert, be the expert. Don't
30:17
feel the need to kind of, you know, just go with the flow, kind of, you know, direct the flow yourself.
30:22
And then we get to Russ. So again, I kind of say Russ is kind of the guy he's our main
30:26
Jiu Jitsu teacher on Sunday nights. And he's kind of the main, the main guy on these trips,
30:30
kind of putting them together and coordinating them and those types of things. And the big thing
30:34
that I learned from Russ on this trip is pride will kill you. Pride will absolutely kill you.
30:40
So we go back to, you know, 20 minutes into the hike whenever they're making adjustments in my
30:45
pack, Rocky and Redder both making adjustments to my pack and Russ just looks at me says, you hate
30:49
this, don't you? And the hate was coming from a sense of pride that I shouldn't have these other
30:55
men helping me with my pack. I should know what I was doing. I should have been better prepared.
30:58
He's just like, man, that's, that's not what this trip's about. You can't be the prideful
31:03
guy that doesn't look for help, right? And then we get to the kind of jocko come to Jesus conversation,
31:09
right? When we're all trying to side, do we come off this mountain or do we keep pressing on?
31:13
There wasn't any pride in that conversation. There wasn't any, you know, uh, belowviating or
31:20
gusto or machismo in that conversation. It was a very kind of calm conversation. And it was informed
31:27
by what had happened the previous year, the previous year we had another guy that went and I wasn't
31:32
on this trip. But apparently he started getting altitude sickness, but he wasn't really telling
31:36
anybody. And every time someone would check in on him, because they kind of said, you know,
31:40
wasn't looking very good or something like that. He's like, no, I'm fine. Let's keep going. Let's
31:43
keep going. But apparently he was falling apart like he was, he was not doing well. So what happened
31:49
is they get to wherever they were getting to the first night they set up camping around two or three
31:53
in the morning. This guy starts getting real altitude sickness. He's throwing up all over the
31:57
place. And so in the middle of the night, they're trying to figure out what exactly do we do with
32:01
them and the plan, uh, from what I can remember them telling me was, Hey, would let's just wait
32:06
until the sun comes up. Let's wait until morning. Let's see if this, you know, this nausea passes
32:09
or whatever. And let's just kind of figure it out. Well, apparently this guy just kept throwing up
32:13
all the way throughout the night. It became readily apparent when the sun came up is we've got to
32:17
get this guy off the mountain right now. And so they're all scrambling around. They're taking
32:21
their tents down. They're taking their camps down. Uh, they take everything that's in his pack. They
32:26
spread it up into everybody else's pack. Someone else carries his backpack. And then they just
32:30
start trekking down the mountain with this guy, basically puking all over himself, puking all over
32:36
the place. They finally get him off the mountain. I think it was like a two hour, you know, ambulance
32:39
ride to the hospital where he's puking the entire time. And then he's now he's in a hospital in
32:44
Colorado, right? And he's in trouble. I mean, the guy got out just fine. You know, he's back. He's
32:48
healthy. He's all those types of things. But again, pride, pride could have really hurt this guy.
32:54
Pride could have killed him. I mean, what if, I mean, people die of altitude sickness, usually not
32:58
at altitudes like that, but it can get really dangerous, especially when you're that far off trail.
33:02
And so the interesting thing there was is that informed the discussion that we were having when
33:08
I was a little bit in again, it when I was sitting there, you know, trying not to get sick, right?
33:14
And so that's the things I hate even describing it that way, right? Because it's just like, oh,
33:18
man, you should have been the guy that got sick. You should have, you know, got the pills I would
33:21
have held to that or something like that. But that's the thing is pride will kill you. At that moment,
33:25
it was good that I, you know, said, Hey, Shelby, brother, I'm, I'm feeling really sick right now.
33:30
Like I can't put my pack on right now. I think we need to, you know, have a little discussion
33:34
about what we're going to do from here, right? And so that's the big thing that I learned from
33:37
Russ is pride will kill you. And then the last guy that we had is Shelby. And he said some really
33:42
cool. It was on our last night in camp when we were up on Lake Patricia. And he said, Kyle,
33:48
you earned your trident this trip. And so if you understand that reference, obviously,
33:53
if you become a Navy SEAL, you get your seal trident, right? And so that's a, that's a very,
33:57
you know, grand thing. It's one of the thing that very few people in the world actually accomplish.
34:02
And so he obviously wasn't saying that like, Hey, this was just like buds. This was just like,
34:08
you know, all these other different trainings. He wasn't saying it like that. But I kind of got
34:11
the sense that it's almost like I've been a part of this group for a long time. But now
34:16
there's almost this different level of what's going on inside that group.
34:20
Because not everybody's invited every year on this trip, right? This isn't, you know,
34:26
one of those things where it's just come one, come all, you know what I mean? And to be honest,
34:30
like we've got friends that are part of Sunday nights and kind of part of our crew
34:33
that physically, I don't think they could have made this trip happen. Like mentally,
34:38
I don't think they could have made this trip happen. That's nothing against them. It's just,
34:41
this was a different kind of trip, right? We were sitting there all talking and, you know,
34:45
we kind of missed our wives back home or, or whatever. And it's just like, man, none of us have wives
34:50
that could have, could have made it there. Like, I would have loved to, you know, when I was sitting
34:53
up on a rock looking out over Lake Patricia for my wife to be sitting right there next to me.
34:57
But there's not a chance in hell that she would have made it up there. There's just no way. It's
35:01
just a different kind of trip. And for him to say that, this is a guy that I, I really respect,
35:06
I respect his opinion. I respect his intellect. And for him to say, you know, you earned your
35:11
tried and that made me feel good because I've known this guy. I remember the day I met him,
35:14
I met him the night of UFC 200 because that's when I met a lot of these guys. And
35:19
this is just a really, really tough dude. He's a tough guy mentally. He's a tough guy physically.
35:25
And he and I have, have, you know, benefited a lot from each other's friendship. And so to hear
35:29
him say something like, Hey, man, you earned your tried and that was a cool thing to hear.
35:32
And this is guy, you know, he spent some time thinking about, okay, if the guys on this trip
35:36
were a seal team, like who would be, you know, the automatic rifleman, who would be the breacher,
35:40
who would be the radio man, the team leader. And so it was kind of cool. We got to kind of
35:44
discuss like who we thought everyone on the trip would be. And so again, we're all so far from
35:48
actually being seals and, you know, we're, you know, guys that are probably 10 years older than the,
35:52
than the oldest seal or something like that. And so it was just kind of interesting to have
35:55
that conversation with him. And so those were again, the lessons I learned from the guys. It's,
35:59
if, if one person isn't having fun, no one's having fun. Thanks to Rocky for that. Thanks to
36:04
Beard for you can never learn enough. Thanks to Rhett for when you're the expert be the expert.
36:08
Thanks to Russ for pride will kill you and Shelby, you earned your tried it. Right. So there are
36:12
those moments in life where, you know, it may not be buds and may not be something like that,
36:17
but it's something really, really difficult that all you have to do is just keep your,
36:19
keep, keep working hard and keep your nose to the grind zone and make it out. But the quick life
36:24
lessons that even I learned on this trip, there are three that I wanted to kind of pull out. The
36:28
first one is seek out opportunities to be humbled. Right. I've talked about this a lot on this podcast,
36:33
which is I was getting humbled left and right. Everybody knew more than me. People were performing
36:38
better than me. People knew more than I did. People just had more experience. Right. Some of it was
36:43
life experience. And that's just something that I'll gain along with time and other stuff is just
36:47
they've had interests in these areas that I haven't up to that point. But that shouldn't be any reason
36:53
for you to not seek out those opportunities. You should constantly seek out opportunities like that.
36:58
You should constantly seek out opportunities to do things that might humble you. And that's difficult
37:03
for a lot of us guys, we get to a certain age where we've got certain things in our lives dialed in,
37:07
right? We've got our work dialed in, you know, we kind of make what we make and we close the deals
37:13
that we close and we kind of get into that groove, right? We have the hobbies that we like to do,
37:18
right? You know, we play golf once a week and that's kind of our exercise for the week and we kind of
37:22
do that thing. We go to the gym and we just do the same stuff over and over. We're not really
37:26
trying to do more weight. We're not trying to do anything more explosive. We just kind of get
37:30
into our groove. And part of the reason why we like being in that groove is because we don't
37:34
want to be humbled. Because when you put extra weight on the bar, more weight than you normally do,
37:40
there's a chance you're not going to get the weight up. You know, if you do a new sport and
37:45
this is kind of my bugaboo with a lot of guys that won't come and try jujitsu and won't try and do
37:49
things like that is this just kind of like, you know, they don't want to get humbled. They don't
37:54
want to be found out for not knowing what they're doing, right? It's just kind of one of those
37:58
things where it's like, it's hard for a man to admit that he doesn't know what he's doing and
38:03
it sucks whenever you get humbled. But you should seek out opportunities to be humbled and I certainly
38:07
was on this trip. The second thing that I learned is, you know, do hard things. Reap big rewards.
38:13
Because that's the thing guys is again, if you look up pictures of Lake Patricia,
38:17
it is way more gorgeous in person than you can even imagine even when you're looking at professional
38:22
photography, right? I mean, getting into those waterfalls and like, I mean, just you had to earn
38:27
that. Because guys, you could have had a great time at that trip and you could have not been as
38:32
high of altitude. Not has as hard of a hike, you know, not as treacherous or those types of things.
38:38
But I would assume the payoff wouldn't be the same. I mean, there's plenty of gorgeous places
38:43
in the United States that you can just see from the comfort of your driver's seat or your car, right?
38:47
But this was a really, really, really hard thing, which I'm attracted to accomplishing those
38:54
difficult things, especially if they really tax you physically and mentally. But the thing about
38:58
it was is we didn't just do this really, really hard thing. And then we just got up there and
39:01
it's like a field, right? With wheat or something like that. This was a really difficult thing. And
39:06
there was a payoff in the end. So do hard things. Reap big rewards. And the last thing guys is
39:11
something that I've said a lot and I'm going to keep saying it. And this is my encouragement to
39:14
you guys is men prefer to accomplish things shoulder to shoulder. Again, I say this all the time that
39:20
most men's ministries are just women's ministries for men. They take the women's ministry model
39:26
of get people in a circle and have them talk to each other about their feelings and their days
39:31
and those types of things. And they just assume we're going to do the same thing with men's ministry.
39:35
Let's just put these guys in a circle that have accomplished nothing that haven't overcome anything
39:41
as a unit, as a group. And we're just going to have them talk and organically, it's going to
39:45
sprout and make this big, beautiful thing. It doesn't normally work out that way.
39:51
In fact, I would probably argue that it never works out that way. Again, men like to accomplish
39:57
things shoulder to shoulder men like to have the conversation after they've won or lost the battle
40:03
after they've won or lost the game after they've done something. Think of the hunter-gatherer
40:09
cultures, right? They didn't do a whole bunch of [inaudible] chatty before the hunt or while they were
40:13
on their hunt, it was after they had taken down the mammoth, after they had taken down the bison,
40:18
right? That's whenever they got to celebrate and bust each other's balls and kind of talk in
40:23
that circle. They earned the circle. And so guys, whatever group you're in, whether it's the police
40:31
force or whether you're in the military right now, I know we got military listening to this and we
40:34
certainly appreciate you guys. You know, whether it's your men's group at church, if it's an actual
40:39
men's group, whether it's just, hey, you have a couples group that you do like a home group for
40:43
church and the guys kind of get together once a month, whatever that is, go out and actually
40:48
accomplish something. Go out and actually do something that's difficult. Go out and do something
40:54
that is humbling to you individually as the ringleader or to all of you because that's where you're
41:00
really going to see what your group is worth. And so this group of guys for me, this is like my best,
41:07
these are my best friends, right? Like these are, these are the dudes that you want in your
41:10
foxhole. I say that all the time. These are the guys when the crap hits the fan, you want to see
41:14
these guys on your left and right. But you need to be one of the guys that they see in the same way.
41:21
You need to develop yourself and become a man that they would be okay with if you were on their left
41:28
or if you were on their right. You have to develop yourself physically, mentally and spiritually so
41:35
that you can be dependent on because on a trip like this, it was a ton of mental and physical strain.
41:41
There, there was mental part as the prep for the trip and those types of things. But that's
41:46
what you need to do. And so for a lot of you guys out there, you know, you've kind of gotten in your
41:50
rut like we've talked about and there's just things that you're not really familiar with and there's
41:54
things that you don't really want to do. Put yourselves guys, put yourselves out there and go out there
41:59
with a group of guys and see what you can accomplish together. All right, guys, before we let you out
42:03
of here, we're going to do a quick resilience boost as you know, by now we are a men's ministry
42:06
and our mission is cultivating manly resilience. Specifically, we do that by providing content
42:11
that for just spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So today we're going to switch gears
42:15
just a little bit because I'm thinking I'm going to do an entire podcast episode breaking this down
42:19
later on. But I just want to kind of get it out there to you in case you hadn't seen it. So again,
42:23
we talk about Ben Shapiro a lot on this podcast. He's a friend of the podcast where we're so super
42:27
thankfully sent us an advanced copy of his book, The Right Side of History. We thought that that was
42:32
great. But he does a podcast Monday through Friday, but he also does a Sunday special. And so he has
42:37
guests on for more kind of a long form discussion. He's had some great guests on there. Joe Rogan,
42:43
you know, Jordan Peterson, this is some really good dudes. But last week, you know, as of the
42:48
recording of this, he had the Ravi Zacharias on as his guest. And he's had William Lane Craig on
42:55
there before, which is interesting when you see a Christian basically theologian and apologist
43:01
basically sitting across from one Orthodox Jew. There's some interesting dynamics there. I really
43:05
enjoyed that conversation. But this was an incredible, an incredible back and forth between Ravi and
43:12
Ben Shapiro. And it wasn't one of those things where it got contentious or anything like that.
43:16
And if you know anything about Ravi's presentation style, he's obviously very accommodating with
43:21
people. And he's not terribly a matter of fact. But this was an hour long discussion that is well
43:26
worth your time. So I provided the YouTube link for that in here and pretty much everywhere you
43:31
get the Ben Shapiro podcast. You can get that on there. It's the Ben Shapiro show Sunday special
43:36
episode number 60. So again, I'm thinking about doing an entire episode where I kind of break down
43:40
some of the interactions between them. But regardless of if I do that or not, you guys need to take
43:44
that down. Guys, thanks so much for listening to the podcast. We really do appreciate it. Please
43:48
subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen and share this on
43:52
social media. If you use the hashtag undaunted life, we will be sure to find the post and give it a
43:56
thumbs up. Guys, if we deserve a five star review, that is how this podcast is going to continue
44:01
to grow the algorithms love five star reviews. So please leave us two to three sentences letting
44:05
us know why you like the podcast and leave those five stars. I'm currently booking speaking engagements
44:09
for the remainder of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. So if you want me to come speak to your
44:14
men's group, to your men's event, to your church, your team, just hit me up email info at undaunted.life
44:20
again, I N F O at undaunted.life. The website is www.undaunted.life and you can follow us on
44:25
Instagram and Twitter at undaunted life or Facebook.com backslash undaunted life. Check out our free
44:30
devotionals on the U version Bible app just search undaunted life under plans. And as always, we want
44:34
to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their music library for our content.
44:39
The intro outro track on this podcast is our song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest
44:42
record entitled Phantom Anthem. Links are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
44:48
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience. Keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness.
44:54
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.