This is the outside podcast with Paddyo.

Typically, when we talk about, like, humans being a part of the natural landscape, we talk about it as a positive.

But it seems to me that what you were feeling was this like very negative impact of the dark and the cold.

Did it feel isolating then in that way?

I guess it did feel isolating too.

But on the other hand, it also kind of allows everybody to kind of band together.

You're from Chicago.

When I lived in Fairbanks, people who seemed to get along the best with the dark and the cold and the sort of isolation

were people from the Midwest, you know.

We know of the deep, dark, hard winters. Yes, it's true. Yeah, well, not only that,

like, you know, the people from Anchorage would always complain. They were like, oh, it's dark,

and the mountains are so far away. And the people from Colorado were like, you know, I'm going to leave the state because there's nothing to do here. But the Midwesterners, you know, they were used to being, you know, far away from the mountains or far away from nature. And they were really good at potlucks and, you know, playing games and chatting, you know, so I found it. It's dark, ain't that bad if you got some casseroles, you know? Yeah, that's about it.

Exactly. games and chatting, you know, so I found... This dark ain't that bad if you got some casseroles, you know?

Yeah, that's about it. Exactly, yeah.

Multi-sport adventures are a right of passage in the outdoors, and there are a lot of ways to do

them. In Southern California, there's the

trifecta where you ski or snowboard, mountain bike, and surf all in the same day. There's the Jackson

Hole picnic in which you bike from town to Jenny Lake, swim across the lake, climb the Grand

Deton, and then do it all in reverse. Salida, Colorado has its annual pull-paddle push race, which combines backcountry skiing,

biking, and kayaking.

The thing these endeavors share is a healthy balance between testing your mountain metal

and having a goofy good time.

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