The Long Ways Podcast
Adventures and Misadventures on the Long Trails of the World. Follow us as we share our experiences from the Tour du Mont Blanc, Rota Vicentina , Dingle Way, West Highland Way, Hadrians Wall Path, Julian Way, Lycian Way, and most recently - the Great Glen Way! What could go wrong?! Well, follow us to find out!
The Long Ways Podcast
Why The Hell Are We Doing This?
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Join Devin and Mike, a father-son duo hiking the great long trails of Europe. Each episode takes a look at at a single day on the trail — with all the highs, lows, stupid moments and semi-profound insights two amateur hikers can provide.
In this episode, we bring you to where it all began: at the foot of the French Alps on the first day of the Tour of Mont Blanc. We talk about the highs and lows of the first day on a trail, the joys of a cold beer at the end of a long hike, and ask the most important question of all: why the hell are we doing this?
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Do you have a story from a long trail that you would like to talk about? Or are you interested in having us as a guest on your hiking or podcast? Then we would love to talk to you! Drop us a message at hikewithus@thelongwayspodcast.com
Hello and welcome to the Long Ways Podcast. I'm Devin Wendelspeck. And I'm Michael Wendelspeck. And on this podcast, we are trying to take you to the Long Trails of Europe. We're a father-son hiking duo. And we want to do this podcast as a way to talk about all the adventures, misadventures, and highs and lows of the trails that we've traveled on. So I want to start with who we are, Dad. Tell me more about yourself.
SPEAKER_01Hey, okay. So one thing I am not, I am not a professional hiker. I am actually a biologist and an author. And I started doing these, and you'll hear a lot more about this, but I started doing these really to kind of get outside and do some stuff with my son. I have hiked a lot in my life, okay, but never these long trails. Not the you know, the 80, 90, 100, 110 mile trails we're going to talk of. So um I'm looking forward to doing this because um I want to share with you some of the stuff I've learned about myself and about how you actually do these tri these trips.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Um so I'm obviously Michael's son. Um I have been um hiking since I was a kid. Um we grew up in the the mountains of North Carolina together. But like dad, you know, I'm not a professional hiker. I am someone who loves traveling, I love culture, I love languages, um, but I'm also someone who loves nature from growing up and all of that. But what we wanted to do here today is not so much talk about us. What we want to talk about is that first day on the trail.
SPEAKER_01First day.
SPEAKER_00So when we started off, we started off um hiking the Tour of Mont Blanc. Um it's a let me tell you a little bit about the Tour of Mont Blanc. It's a about um 100-mile trail that goes through France, Switzerland, and Italy. Around the highest mountain in Europe, depending on your definition, um, Mont Blanc. It is a trail that is tough. It's also known as one of the greatest hiking trails in Europe. And we first started this when I was coming off of a study abroad in France at the very end of my undergraduate. I was sitting in Paris, and I think I just texted my dad, hey, in two weeks, do you want to come over and hike this trail with me? Sure, why not? Exactly. What could go wrong? I remember actually the first time seeing you, you had flown in um to Paris, Charles de Gaulle airport, and you were sitting there forlorn in Charles de Gaulle while they were doing a uh a train strike, if you remember correctly. Yes, uh-huh. Um, and then having to use my um very, very poor French to get us from Paris all the way to the start of our trail. A little town named Lesout in um the very, very, very edge of um of France. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That was a brutal day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh I remember um I remember calling you and trying to get you, you hadn't woken up yet, we were early, yeah. And I had to actually hand a three by five card to the to the cab driver to get him to bring me to the train station. Exactly. And I didn't even I couldn't order coffee. And I've traveled all over Europe. I mean, I I've lived in Europe, but not in France. Yeah. Um and that was probably also one of the most interesting train rides. We went we rode everything from a high-speed bullet train, yeah, right, which is going, you know, crazy speeds, you know, weaning to what was basically a country train of two cars at the very end.
SPEAKER_00So uh it was quite a trip, yeah. Yeah, getting off that train and coming up to like what looked to be an abandoned train station almost in Lesutes, and just getting someone saying pretty much your stop, and we looking at ourselves carrying this these massive suitcases, trying to figure out what the hell we were doing. We were using suitcases back then too. I want to remember that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we weren't we didn't know what we were doing, and and it's funny you say that because um, you know, I didn't know how to prepare for these. But at the time, I basically went to REI and went, okay, I'm going hiking. And I think I planned for a big day hike. Yeah. Okay. That was pretty much the idea that it looked like I had all this stuff and I mean more clothes I knew what to do with, you know, and uh we're so we cart these things out um in into in a what was looked like an abandoned train station. There was nobody there. There was no people.
SPEAKER_00Turns out that this town, Lesuch, is a lot more popular in the winter when this is a small ski town. But when we were there, there was you could you didn't see anyone at all. But you know, one of the things we want to do on this on this podcast is bring you to a day in the trail. It's not gonna be a sequential thing where um it could be one day in Ireland, one day in Mont Blanc, one day in Portugal, which we're coming up to do soon. But we want to take one day and we want to bring that out to you to show you what it's like to hike these long trails, but also like what we learned from these. What were these adventures that we went on? And we wanted to start on this first episode with uh the first day of hiking Mont Blanc. Our first day of hiking that trail. Dad, you want to give like a little bit of kind of an overview of you know what the structure of our hike was? Sure.
SPEAKER_01The general rule what we did is is um we used a um a travel company called Max Adventures, okay, and what they do for you is they actually um move your luggage between these different hostels, uh hotels, okay, um breakfasts, okay, depending on where you're at. And this makes it nice because basically what you're doing are long day hikes. Um and you get up in the morning, you have some breakfast, okay, at the place. Um you usually have to pack a lunch, okay, depending on what we're do where we're at. And then you basically hike, okay, to your next destination. Your luggage is there, you have a dinner there, and you keep and you keep repeating this, okay, um over a course of about a week. Seven to eight days is usually a normal hiking time for yeah, depending on the trail.
SPEAKER_00We've done as long as ten and um as short as about six.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, but usually it is around a week, the ones we do. Hiking in Europe is very different than in the States. In the States, and I've done this before, actually right after high school. It's a lot more about having everything on your back and really getting up there in the mountains and going five, six days without like seeing another human being. These trails in Europe, Mont Blanc is a really, really good example. They're they're still tough. You're still doing those excents and those descents, but they're a lot more about getting up in the mountains between towns. Um, I mean, as a reminder, most of these places in Europe, there's a lot the there's not as much space. There's towns you're traveling through while you're hiking all the time in a way that you wouldn't get hiking, maybe like the Rockies or the Appalachian Trail in America. But this first day, let me let me paint an image of what that's the structure of that first day was. So you start in Lezuch, um, and immediately the guidebook pretty much says there's an easy way and there's a hard way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Guess which one?
SPEAKER_01We were exhausted.
SPEAKER_00Oh, jet-legged, especially dad. I wasn't so much at that point. And one of the ways to get to the easy one was to bypass an already at the very start, we're bypassing part of the trail, is this gondola that takes you up to um the rich line. This was also uh an experience which is me uh shoved to the front of this line, going, Do you speak English? And there's absolutely not. Nope. And having to fumble my horrible French to just try to get like a small ticket onto the gondola up. So our hike actually didn't begin at the start of the trail. Our hike began about three miles into the trail. We began our hike with a gondola ride. We began our hike with a with an easy gondola ride. But, you know, just to kind of like paint what this trail looks like, what this day looks like, the first day, so you could take the higher ridge hike, or you could take this more meandering one that starts that goes along the ridge for a while. It kind of passes this really nice um ski hotel um right at the coal. And coal is the word used in most of Europe for um what we call usually a saddle in um in America. And so what a coal is, is that it's where you have the the edge of two mountains and they kind of form what looks like a saddle um right in between them, and that's where the trail usually goes. It goes into these passes right between the mountains. Um our first one was the I think it was BioNasi. Yeah, our first coal. Um and that really that was sitting there right up by the um this like beautiful ski lodge, kind of a little overlooking the Zooch. As you keep going throughout the day, you pass um several small little towns. You pass these little ones that look like they were built in like medieval times. Um like have these ancient churches right there. And it's the kind of place where like there's like a dirt road kind of like coming off the main highway down this in the bottom, but you really feel as you're hiking through this, um, kind of along the ridge lines, then having these massive glaciers behind you from the um the Mont Blanc glacier. You're kind of hiking through like these pine forests all along the bridge. So our first day was about 10 miles, I would say. And it started with that, that the coming up onto the ridgeline, and then there's kind of like the slow meandering um descent down into town. Now that sounds easy. For us, it was tough. And I think this is something that we have to like realize. Like the first day on the trail, even though we've gotten better at this time and time again, um, for all the training you do and that kind of stuff, the first day can be the toughest if you want to talk more about that, Dad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think it really is for a lot of reasons. I think that one of the things that uh is really tough about this, and in and I think the the thing that's I'm saying tough, okay? It's it's like a it's a there's a physical toughness and it's a mental toughness to it, right? Okay, the physical toughness is obviously if you've trained, you know, and you're doing these long hikes to prepare, um, you can you can do it. I mean that's it. There's nothing that hard about you know the ascent. Some of the ascents are pretty tough, okay. But I mean they're they're doable. Okay, obviously these trails are all possible. You don't have to be an expert climber or anything like that. You know, you don't have to have special gear. Yeah. You know, you have to have good shoes, obviously. You know, we found out later. Um, but I think so the physical part of it, you are carrying everything on your back, you are carrying a lot of water, and we'll talk about the water from sure in a little bit again, because that's kind of a cool story. But um there's really the first day, the tough part is the mental part. I mean, in most cases, if we're hiking as long trails of Europe and we've gotten better at this, you're coming in, you're tired. We've now built down days to begin and end trips because of this. But you so you have this mental, but the mental part of it is really getting out of your own head for a few moments. Okay, because you know you're starting off and you have all this anxiety and you want to keep going, you're not sure what there's gonna be. And by day two or three, the mental stuff starts to fade, and you just kind of you kind of get into a rhythm, you know, if you were gonna go hiking. Um and you know, it's a it is a destination hiking, so you know how how far you need to go. You know, 10 or 15, 10 or 15 miles is normal, sometimes shorter or longer. The physical part of it um is it like Devin said it it does have some there you are going up and down, you know, okay, and up and down. And then if you're gonna hike the coals, you're gonna hike to a ridge and you're gonna hike down, okay? Up, down, up, down, and that's gonna be basically how this one's going to work. Very different in Scotland, very different in Ireland, okay.
SPEAKER_00Um But if you've never been to the Alps in in Europe, there it's interesting. So where we're from in North Carolina, we actually live in an elevation that's just about the same, maybe a little bit lower than what the Alps, this section of the Alps actually are 4,000 to 5,000 feet. Yeah. So you're not talking something like as like altitude sickness, like 15,000 feet or whatever, unless you're like actually hiking Mont Blanc itself. Right. But the thing with these mountains is that they have that kind of structure of the Rockies, that kind of like jagged structure. That it isn't like these graceful mountains like you get where we're from, or if you're maybe from New England, if you've been or you've been to the Berkshires, or you know, the Catskills. This is something where you look up, and I think this was our first day. This kind of what the hell were we thinking? Yes. Waking up in the morning, having the sun come right over the the mountains is just absolutely gorgeous. Um, because you're usually starting these days at like six or seven in the morning, and looking at ourselves and looking up and looking at the guidebook and being like, we have to climb that. Yes, every day. Every day. Um now the first day we did cheat with the gondola, but as time goes on, like you you it really is kind of that realization like here's this wall of mountains in front of you. Your next hotel, your next bed and breakfast is on the other side of those mountains. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think the I think the important thing is that I know for Mont Blanc especially, the motivation was, you know, absolutely the most beautiful scenery I think I've seen. And I think it was also even more beautiful because you've got Mont Blanc, this beautiful glacier-covered mountain. You uh um, like Devin was saying, you don't actually hike on Mont Blanc. You're hiking around it. Okay, you're always looking at Mont Blanc or her sister mountains, depending on work from a different angle each day, and that's kind of cool as well. You never really actually are on the mountain, you're kind of like on the shoulders, obviously. And um I think that the fun part about this is every day you've got this beautiful mountain and beautiful scenery, and when you get to the tops of the of each of the edge of the coals, it's just these views are to die for. Okay, um, and we'll post pictures up on our website about this, you know, so you can see what some of these things are. But it truly that helps the mental part of it. You've got to get into that part of it. You've got to get into the not the 15 miles, you've got to get into the let's stop and take a look. And so we're gonna we're gonna talk about that at some point, too.
SPEAKER_00Well, let's let's pull back to that question though, like what that thing of like why the hell are we doing this? Yeah that we first thought. Yeah, Dad, why why are you doing this?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, there's a lot of reasons, okay. I think the number one reason is that, you know, like you said, you know, our family has always been in you know hiking in mountains and outdoors. You know, we've always done things, camping and hiking, not you know, hundred-mile trails, obviously, but we've done that type of stuff, and the chance to do it with you, okay. You had finished college, we really hadn't seen you a lot for a couple of years, okay, because you you know you were away for school and everything. And it was a chance to do it with you, okay, and that was a that was really important. Um, and my part, I was looking for a challenge. You know, um, I'm I'm not a young man anymore, okay. Okay, you had two bad knees. I had well I had two bad knees. We gradually replaced them over a couple of trails. Over a couple of trails, yeah. We've got new knees, so that that does help. But I think that uh for me it was a it was I needed some sort of challenge. Um, you know, I'm I'm a writer and a scientist and a biologist, and you know, I do a lot of traveling and everything, but I needed to have a physical and a mental challenge to break things up.
SPEAKER_00And so let's let's bring back to that first day. What do you think was the the mental or the biggest mental or physical challenge on that first day for you?
SPEAKER_01The the physical challenge was really, even though we said we took a gondola up, yeah, we didn't take the gondola all the way up. Okay, we just basically got to the top of a ridge line which just it wasn't really wasn't considered to be the best part of the trail, anyways. It was just kind of like you know, you're gonna be hiking up a uh a ski resort. Okay, so it wasn't you're we're not really missing anything. But then you go to um uh the physical the physical part of it was there were some decent ascents that first day. Okay, you do get you do get stuck sometimes, not the first day here, because this was more pine, but there's lots of switchbacking. You know, you're gonna go back and forth and back and forth. Um, and sometimes it has a nice incline to it. Um and if you're not ready, you know, and you you know this this first trip, um, we really weren't that ready for it, you know, um with shoes and things. I mean we had good shoes, but not what we needed. Um, and so there was that physical part of it. Yeah, the mental part really was that anxiety of what if I don't get to the next stop? Right? What if I and what if, you know, what's gonna be around the corner? Okay, what if something happens? You know, what if you know that those all those things that run through your head which make you distracted from the fact that I'm hiking with this beautiful mountain, okay. In some cases waterfalls, okay, always sceneries, little little French towns. Yeah, you know, you you hike past these little huts, you know, at the at the top of the coals, you usually see the the the farmers up there, you know. With the shepherds and exactly. So I think that that was it for me. Yeah, you know, it was it was it was a combination and of sheer exhaustion from not having slept and you know getting up really early the next morning, you know. When we started, it would have been 2 a.m. my time. Yeah. And I know it sounds crazy, but I'm not used to starting a 15-mile at 2 o'clock in the morning.
SPEAKER_00You know, on my end, just talking about like the the challenges of that first day. Physical, let's just say that coming out of college, I was in a little bit better shape back then than I might be now, even though I keep doing these trails. So the physical wasn't that much. I actually remember there's a moment, I think about maybe two hours into the trail where dad took off his massive backpack and we had to switch for my little one. Because he's like, There's no way we're gonna do this like this. Um, but also um so physical wasn't a big deal. There are some like there's some some difficult parts. But I remember the first day for me, the challenge actually kind of came toward mentally towards the end. And that challenge, and it's something that I think happens in a lot of stuff. It was when we had come off the mountain, we had passed like this beautiful glacier stream coming down the mountain. Yep. And really pushed ourselves really hard. Yeah, we didn't know how to pace ourselves yet, and we eventually we figured that out.
SPEAKER_01We weren't stopping enough.
SPEAKER_00We weren't stopping enough, we weren't taking enough brakes. Yeah. But as for me, it was this we kind of come through at the very end. There's not a lot of road walking in Mont Blanc. There'll be a little bit more some of the future trails we do, but you're kind of walking through like this really hot, um, almost like suburb, remember? Yeah. Of of uh the town we were gonna end up with, which was Les Les Contents. Um if any French listeners are listening, my French pronunciation and language skills are atrocious. Um But what this did, what it really was in that was that kind of feeling of like I want to be done. I want to be there. Right. And kind of that can put you into a really bad head space because it's like it's that grumpy headspace. It's that thing of I'm not having fun anymore, I'm tired, I'm chafing, you know, which is a a big problem sometimes, especially if it's like hot and sticky and that kind of stuff. And I remember like that kind of feeling at the very end of just I want to get done, I want to go home. Even I want to go home. Like, this isn't fun, this was a bad idea. Right. And I think that's something that might, if you're especially if you're a first-time hiker, yeah, that's gonna hit your head. Yeah. You know, like why not just take a taxi back and like go to Paris and like sit around and drink beer? Right. You know? Oh yeah. And trust me, sometimes you do like that that cold beer at the end is something. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01I will always recommend that you have the cold beer at the end of every day because you it's amazing how much you relax once you've actually done it.
SPEAKER_00But but I think for me, breaking that mental thing and which is in two ways. The first is usually to stop and like you were saying, look at where you are. Yeah. Even if like, yes, that was like kind of like in a small like subdivision, um, but that was even ringed by like these beautiful mountains. And by um, you know, you hear French kind of being called out from which is a language I absolutely adore, if I even if I'm horrible at it. Um you hear French kind of like called out from like the windows and stuff like that. So having that moment to like kind of like sit and be like, appreciate where you are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And the second one is to say, I'm doing something big, and it's big for me, you know? I'm here to complete something. And it's not about completing something as in like I have to get to the end of the trail. It's completing something as like I'm here on a journey, and I'm going to do this journey for me. And kind of keeping that in your mind. And I think that's something the first day is always the hardest sometimes with those two.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, we've had we've had those challenges, no matter what trail we've been on now. You know, it that first day is getting back into getting back into the idea that the mental head space of you can do this. Yeah, we have done this. Okay, now okay, we know what we're gonna be in for. And um, you know, kind of just trying to be in the moment more. Yeah. Okay, instead of worrying about, you know, what's gonna happen with the flight home or this or that, or you know, um I think you're absolutely right on this, Devin. I think that um that was part of the fun of this is that mental challenge, okay, of overcoming your own doubts as to whether you can do it. Yeah. And I'll tell you right now, okay, if you're wondering if you can do it, okay, I've done it. Okay, and so if I've if I've done this, you can it you can do it too. I mean, we're not professional hikers.
SPEAKER_00So I have two things to end on. Okay. One is I kind of want to paint that picture. You know, we were talking about the struggles at the end, that mental health. Ending that day, which is one of the the best ways to end a day. We were talking about that cold beer. We ended up in like a small bed and breakfast in Les Cal Dames. It's a medium to small to medium-sized town. Yeah. One of the larger towns we went through along the way. Beautiful French breakfast, um, having people um, you know, coming in, just a classic French dinner, um, a bottle of French beer, and just sitting there and having that feeling at the very end of I just did that. Right. It happens at the end of every day, no matter how tired you are or how wet you are, and we'll talk about that with some of the brainstorms, um, or how hot you are, or anything like that, that feeling at the end of the day is I just completed that, and that sense of accomplishment just kind of drifts through you. It's just sitting there like with that beautiful scenery around you. Yep. The other thing I want to ask you, Dad, is what are the tips you would give someone for their first day on the trail?
SPEAKER_01Um, a couple big tips I would give you, especially if you're you know, if you're not used to these types of things, is we started off with this idea that we would hike 45 minutes and take a 15-minute break. Yeah. And and that sounded great, I mean, but it almost became like a forced march. Yeah, exactly. And we changed our mind up on that um we even during this trail, okay, and definitely on when later trails. We stopped when we wanted to. You know, it was usually around once every hour, an hour and a half, it still was. It still was that type of thing. Um, the other thing is that um when you're hiking, don't feel as if you have to hike together. Okay, you know, just have you know, just the trails are usually very well marked. Yeah. So therefore, don't worry about if somebody's hiking faster than you. You want to stop and take a picture, you do that.
SPEAKER_00And that's usually how we hike. Usually uh me or Eric, who's another hiking friend of ours who will join us in future hikes. We would usually hike a little bit ahead or and it would be spread out. And there's becomes like these natural points on the trail where you kind of realize like this is a nice place to take a break. Yep. And then everyone just kind of like comes together. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01The other thing would be to, you know, to and what I'm saying that is it's kind of things take things at your own pace. Um because you can tire yourself out pretty fast if you decide you're going to try to keep at somebody else's pace. Well, I mean, you know, I'm 58, okay, and I'm I'm not gonna be able to hike at the same pace as Devin does, right? Okay, it's just not anyone just tired me out. Uh and so you have to be honest with that. But the other thing is is really I keep coming back to this is to enjoy the moment. Okay. Uh while you're walking, there's a natural tendency to kind of space out, okay, or start to look at the ground too much or something like that. You need to look at these trees, the villages, the the town, the people. Yeah. You know, there's a lot you're gonna run you run across a lot of people in Mont Blanc. We'll introduce them on certain, you know, it'll be definitely a people discussion one day. That would be my my advice. Um the other thing would be to make sure that you um pack light. Yeah. Okay. Um I really have to say that I the first day I think I packed, I think I packed a camera.
SPEAKER_00I think I packed, I mean and I would also say like so it we use one company, but there's several other companies that do this, especially with Mont Blanc. Um, the value, if you're financially able of being able to not carry the entire day on your back and to have someone ship the major stuff from place to place. Right now it depends. If you're like a gonzo hiker, then go ahead. But for someone like uh Dad and I, or people who might be listening who haven't done things like this before, the difference between having a light day pack on your back and a massive backpacking pack on your back, as someone who's done both, is massive for just enjoying the trail.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, I I agree. Yeah. I was not enjoying the trail. I I every every time now I pack lighter and lighter and lighter, not just the stuff that's being moved, okay, but also on the trail.
SPEAKER_00Um and the recommendation I would have though, the one thing not to skimp out on is water.
SPEAKER_01Water.
SPEAKER_00We usually carry around two to three liters at a time.
SPEAKER_01Yep minimum. Right. And that was uh that and also small food food items. You're not gonna eat a lot, but eat to eat constantly, keep your energy up. Uh, you know, and we'll talk more about packing and things like that. We'll actually put a lot of this up on our website as well, you know, if you're in case you're interested in like what did they pack for this or or things along those lines. So yeah, I think that's I think that that's uh that's a nice picture to leave them with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would just leave the with this also from the first day. Don't get intimidated. No. Because there's especially if you're someone who's not used to hiking, or this is your first time, it's easy to see all the people around you and think like, because especially in something like Mont Blanc, there's a lot of hikers. And then you have like the Swiss or something who are just like, I don't know, they're just like mountain goats up there.
SPEAKER_01Um, those runners, the people who ran Mont Blanc. And they they run with like they're wearing like shorts, yeah, and like this little itty bitty pack on their back, and they run, they're running like 80 miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There are gonna be people like that. But for the most part, most people are in the same place as you. Yeah. Um, it's not a race, it's not a it's a personal challenge. Right. And you have to remember on these things that the challenge comes as part of it, and not to be intimidated by the challenge. You're able to do this trail. This is not something technical, this is not something like hiking Everest or anything like that. This is a trail you can do. And I think, you know, when we were sitting there going, what the hell are we doing at the foot of the mountains? You know, the answer really is we're gonna go hike this trail. That's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01Yep. We're gonna go to hike today, and tomorrow we're gonna do another hike.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And the next day we'll do another hike. So, you know, that's where we kind of want to end on here. Um, going forward with this podcast, we want to take you to a day on the trail. Um, whether it's on Mont Blanc, our next one will also be on Mont Blanc. Um, and or in Ireland or in um Scotland, or as we keep doing these trails, more and more of these. So keep tuned. Um please send us um comments, emails, going on our website. Um we'll include more tips and packing tips and photos. Um for Mont Blanc, our photos are gonna be okay, but especially when we get our photography friend Eric's photos from the other two. Yeah, those are really good. Yeah. And other like, you know, tips, tricks, um, but also like maybe even some more reflections, um, written reflections on the trail these days. So thank you for listening. Um once again, I'm Davin Wendelspeck. And I'm Michael Wendelspeck. And you've been listening to the Long Ways podcast, and we look forward to being able to speak with you again.
