Hello, everyone. It's Clay. This is my introduction to this week's podcast. The program is a conversation with my friend Russ Eagle. We're both out here at Locksaw Lodge and this magnificent retro lodge tucked into the Bitterroot Mountains west of Missoula, Montana. It's actually in the Bitterroots in Idaho. I've been there now 50 or more times.

It's my favorite place in the American West. Absolutely what you would want a retro lodge to be

like. It has all the amenities, but none of the luxuries that you associate with Aspen or Veil or

Jackson Hole. And that's what makes it so precious, that it really

is a place where people, average Americans, can go and have a spectacular experience, eat

trout, eat bison meatloaf, drink good wine, hiking trails in every direction.

And then on the last day of each of the two winter encampments,

we go up to Jerry Johnson Hot Springs, which is just exactly the platonic idea of what a hot

springs in the mountains should be. This year, on week one, this is between the two weeks.

We went up on the Thursday. We were mostly alone there because the University of Montana

has not yet opened for the spring semester, and that takes out that crowd, and they're usually

grossed out by us geysers anyway. And there are about five pools, so we kind of fan out, but

the pool closest to the river is my favorite, and then two of us, well, three, two and a half, let's say, got out of the hot tubs, the hot springs pools, and got into the river itself.

I stayed for three minutes.

You know, once you get past the first 45 seconds, you realize, okay, I can survive this for some time,

but the first 45 seconds are really shocking, and I thought I was going to have to pop out this year,

but I didn't. I just forced myself to stay for a full three minutes, and I wish I'd stayed five.

I don't know whether this is

great for your health. It's certainly an extraordinary wake-up experience. You are not asleep

when you hit that water. I suppose it's 35 degrees, 34 degrees. It's, you know, there's ice in it

and there's snow in it and it's in the highest pitches of the creek in the mountains.

So it's as cold as water can get without actually freezing over.

...