Martha Schoppe: Smokejumper

The Adventure Stache

Payson McElveen

Outdoors, Interviews, Society & Culture, Current Events, Culture, Photography, Adventure, Mountain Biking, Celebrities, Inspirational, Basketball, Health & Fitness, Entrepreneur, Cycling, Athletes, Sports

4.9 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2020

⏱️ 181 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Martha Schoppe is a smokejumper, one of a select group of firefighters that parachute to the location of the wildfires they’re tasked with controlling. Out of the 400 smokejumpers across the country, only nine are female. Martha joins Payson to talk about the extreme physical and mental demands of her work, much of which takes place before they even reach the fire. From sewing their own gear to jumping from 3,000 feet into perilous terrain to hiking with 140 pound packs in all kinds of weathe...

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When we're flying around in our jump ship, you can feel if the air is unstable.
0:05.8	So when you jump out of the plane, you're going to be going into that same unstable air.
0:09.3	And it's pretty much like white water, but you can't see it.
0:12.0	So you're hitting up air and down air and the winds are switching directions.
0:15.8	And that makes it super hard to get to the jump spot.
0:19.6	So you're trying not to hit the rocks,
0:21.3	but then you don't know what's in the bushes either.
0:24.6	Not to mention the whole flame part.
0:27.6	Yeah.
0:29.0	It's showtime, everybody.
0:31.2	Showtime!
0:33.9	You've been living in a dream world, Neil.
0:37.5	This is the world as it exists today.
0:42.5	Life moves pretty fast.
0:44.8	You don't stop and look around once in a while.
0:47.4	You could miss it.
0:50.5	Listen, we talk about practice.
0:53.7	Repeat on the dude's room.
0:55.2	Donnie, you're out of your element.
0:57.6	I see, you think this has nothing to do with you.
1:01.5	Don't ever trash talk black Jesus.
1:06.2	This is the Adventure Stash with Payson McAlvin.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Payson McElveen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Payson McElveen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.