Preparing for Outdoor Adventure with Special Guest Ray M from TSS_Hike ALOT

I know many of you out there scouring Youtube, podcasts, and the rest o the interwebs are pondering the best ways of Preparing for Outdoor Adventure. It's almost memorial day week and the weeks ahead could hold many interesting outdoor adventures. It is easy to prepare once you know how. My friend Ray from the Texas Survival School and Hike ALOT will give us his best tips for getting prepared for any outdoor adventure whether you are a brand new beginner, an intermediate, or more of an expert outdoor adventurer. I am sure there is something to learn. Please check below for links to his content as well! 

#outdooradventure #beingprepared #outdooreducation 

Hello there! My name is Craig thenaturalmedic. On this podcast, I help you build the skills, understand gear choices and review trip destinations in a budget-friendly manner to help you enjoy the outdoors safely. I primarily focus on hiking and backpacking, but I am certainly not limited to those topics. Instead, I try to give you the best possible information based on my experiences and opinions from my decades of outdoor adventure travel. Thanks for being here!

I try to keep active on social media in addition to my podcast. Plus, you can find my support links here: https://campsite.to/thenaturalmedicadventures

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Texas Survival School: https://www.texassurvivalschool.com/index.php

Hike-ALOT: https://hike-alot.com/classes/

Hike-ALOT Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Hike-ALOT

Copyright FourGreen LLC, 2019-2023.

Transcript

Craig thenaturalmedic: 0:00

hey, welcome everybody. This is Craig from the natural medic adventures. I've got a Ray here from the Texas survival school and hike a lot. He is joining us this week. We definitely appreciate him being here and we're going to talk for the next little bit about getting prepared for outdoor adventures. We're not really picking anything particular, he and I probably have pretty similar adventures that we do hiking, backpacking, that kind of stuff. I might be doing some different things that he doesn't do, but he maybe does do some things that I don't do as much but anyway, we're just trying to get you a baseline for. What how to prepare yourself and what, what types of things, you need to be ready for when you get out there enjoying the outdoors, whether you're a, whether you're a beginner, intermediate or expert, I think there's something you'll definitely learn here. So thanks for joining. You can ask us questions. I can answer those we'll answer those as we get to them. If we have time, otherwise we'll do it at the end. So I've got a list of questions over here. See me looking on the other screen here. That's what, that's where the questions are. Ray, welcome. Thanks for doing this again. And I, I've read your bio. I know you, you don't live that far from me, about 45 minutes or so, but tell the audience kind of a little background about yourself and what got you into this, this whole, yeah,

Ray McKee: 1:16

absolutely. And thanks, Craig, for having me on here. This will be an interesting little afternoon for us all here. So like I said, I'm Ray McKee. I've been in the Dallas Fort Worth market now for about 12 years. I've spent the bulk of the last 25 years or so in larger metropolitan areas. But I grew up out in the sticks and I, we do intros at my survival school and I always joke that I was raised feral. I wasn't. I was dangerously close to being feral. We lived in one of the larger counties with one of the smaller populations back in South Carolina. And so I spent the bulk of my time, as a kid out in the woods. It was, hunting and fishing and just tromping through the woods and, floating rivers in canoes and, just being a typical boy. Doing as much as you could to stay out of trouble. But I moved into the cities figured out pretty fast that it was claustrophobic for me. Moved into the cities for my actual job. And, but nature was always my escape. That was my quiet place. And so I was always running for an avenue to get back out into somewhere. And shortly after I moved to Dallas I stumbled on the survival school as Texas survival school. That's been, let's see, I moved here in 12. So I've been with him now, school's 10 years old. So I've been with him now for about nine and a half years. So I was here for a couple years before I found it. Not too terribly long, but we I, it happened to be close to the house and went out for a class and loved it. left and at this point I co own it with the the original founder of the school. And then we constantly had it's a mixed bag of folks that would come through the classes. We'd get hunters and fishers and backpackers that got lost. We'd get Boy Scouts, we'd get the Peppers. We would get the, you know the, Now, honey, you're going to die if you get lost in the woods or the, so you're going to go take this class or you get the moms and dads bringing their kids out because the kids love watching naked and afraid or alone or something like that. And sometimes it wasn't mom or dad's cup of tea, but the kids were all into it. So stumbled on the school, just never left. But we would, we kept getting this large swath of people who were hikers and backpackers who'd gotten lost. And I enjoy that piece of it. And so we. I made a decision to do a standalone company that was just purely focused on taking hikers and making them into backpackers and helping people make that transition because I constantly had people saying that, Oh, I would love to do that. I love hiking. I'm just not comfortable making the leap to overnight backpacking. So I tried to give them an outlet to make that transition to, but I do less of the hunting, fishing stuff. Now, at some point, probably about 10 or 12 years ago, I figured out that more often than not, it wasn't the actual active hunting that I was enjoying. It was just the being out in nature and enjoying the peace and tranquility of it. And that's what I really dove more into the hiking, backpacking side of the world. Yeah,

Craig thenaturalmedic: 4:17

absolutely. Absolutely. You 2nd question already, what size. I guess your typical class that you offer

Ray McKee: 4:25

like for the survival school. They're a good bit bigger than what they are with the hiking stuff. The hiking stuff I've found that it seems to be a lot more since this is stuff that a lot of people don't know and it's more of. I intentionally hold those around, 6, 8, 10 people tops on the hiking side of the world. For the survival school, it really depends on the class. We have a variety of classes out there. Probably one of our more popular ones, honestly, is the basic survival class, which is really based around that 72 hours. It's on the high end of when people are lost, if you're lost in the woods. The vast majority of people are picked up in the first 24 hours. The overwhelming majority of what's left is picked up in 48. And by the time you get 72 hours, most people are found. So that first class is really based around... That keeping you hydrated, keeping you warm, some situationally appropriate first aid, there's some land navigation, some signaling, sheltering, that type of thing. Just the basic blocking and tackling. And that runs from like a Friday through a Sunday. Those classes are much bigger. Those typically run anywhere from probably 40 to 60 people. And then as you move up through the progression, you move more into a primitive skills perspective, and the classes obviously get smaller. We do a, our intermediate class. We do those a few times a year, and we're starting to layer in the primitive stuff. And then we move up to advanced class, which now adds an additional day where you're really out there with just a knife. You get a pot, a knife a cordage, you get a tarp, a combustion tool, we use a ferro rod, and then just a little bit of food for... Four days. We do those at a different location. Each time we move to classes, they get more steer. Those classes, they're anywhere from, a half dozen people to 20 on the high end. And then our knife only class, I think the biggest we've ever had, and that's a five day class. And it's legit, just a knife. And whatever clothes you have on your back. Those are. 10 tops normally, and then we do other classes like we do CPR certification, wilderness first aid certification we do like a wild edible classes. We've got a gentleman from the Houston area Meriwether, if for anybody who's familiar with him, he comes in and teaches our edible classes. Those we cap off at, 15, 16 people, some of that neighborhood just those kind of smaller worn off classes. Gotcha. It's fine. We do classes. Most of the classes run from like September through May. We run like on a traditional school year. Okay. All right. We do one off stuff during the summer, but that's all.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 7:00

You have a pretty busy schedule with that. Are you.

Ray McKee: 7:03

We're constantly looking for stuff. We've got a cadre of about a dozen instructors, give or take. The more people we have, obviously the more stuff we can push through and the bigger we let the classes get. So it's grown very organically. We're constantly looking for new content to add for people. And a lot of that's just, it's a result of students saying, Oh, I would love to know more about this. We've made a, made a. Attempt over the last year and a half. I always try to pick a different kind of a different avenue to focus on from 1 year to the next. Last year we intentionally started layering in. We layered it in this year. We did all the prep work last year as far as getting ready to do like the CPR, the wilderness first aid certifications and stop the bleed and all that fun stuff. But then this year we started, went in with let's see, we added like a campfire cooking class. We added fishing classes. We're always trying to broaden we added a weekend long land navigation class too, which people had been clamoring for the longest time. That was an awesome class. So we're constantly broadening the breadth of the classes. We don't do those as often. We base it entirely on demand, but then we're also we're just, so we're based on the DFW market but all of our classes, as you move through them, it's always a different location, and everything's gone from here north, so we do classes here in DFW, and then we do a handful of classes up on the, in the Oklahoma area on some of our more advanced classes, but we did just lock down a spot in the Texas Hill Country that, We'll probably be announcing and making public here in the next, I think we're back down there doing some prep work and end of July. So we'll start doing classes out there in the fall. Okay. We finally got big enough. Now we pull enough people from down there. We've gotten big enough as far as the number of instructors that we can try to run 2 locations in parallel. That's good. That's good. That's

Craig thenaturalmedic: 8:50

a good expansion there. Yeah. So with that in mind, you're following the school year thing. During the summer, as most of us, the kids are out there in the summertime or, depending on a person's job, they might have more time in the summer. But of course, for those of us in the South, especially, in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, Louisiana, et cetera, the Southern U. S. That's when the weather is starting to get. Uncomfortable, it's getting there, yeah. So what kind of tips can you offer quickly? Just for those of us that are, because of, whatever reason we're having to start, let's say Memorial Day weekend is like our first time, to get out there and experience outdoor adventure. What would you say?

Ray McKee: 9:30

Absolutely. Everyone gets sucked into this. There's this, at least on the survival side, there's this rule of. And it's the three minutes without air, the three days without water, the three weeks without food. I'll be honest, the three days without water in Texas is garbage during the summer. You may physically be alive at the end of day three, but you're not going to function at the end of day one. If you've never actually, been admitted to the hospital for dehydration you probably don't know what real dehydration is yet. And it's it's a very real thing for, so for me, it's all, water's king. Obviously, you want to minimize as much of the exposure to the shade and to the sun as you can. I like, I go hiking still during the summer and out a lot. I start at the crack of dawn, if not earlier, and I try to be done by lunchtime. So all of my activities, I'll start super early and wrap up early. And then I just go in hibernation During the afternoons, and I may pop back up and do more stuff in the afternoon in the evenings, but for me, it's all about getting it done as early as possible. We do like we've always flirted with doing classes during the summer. It's a survival school and. While we're out even though we're not doing classes, we're constantly out in it. Like I said, we're going down to the Hill Country at the end of July and we'll be out there for four days. So we're constantly out in it doing it, but we're just pounding water. And that's always been our downfall with doing classes during the summer months because Theoretically, most of the students are adults. They should be able to be responsible enough to drink enough water, and anytime we've ever done classes, you'll see people that are getting behind the hydration 8 ball, and they're just not catching up, and you start telling people, hey, you've gotta, you need to be drinking more you're clearly getting dehydrated. No, I'm drinking. I promise, I'm hydrated. And it's, it's a Mountain Dew, or it's a Red Bull, or... Sure. It's not the stuff we need to be putting in our stomachs. Yeah. And it. That's honestly, that's the biggest thing. Minimize the exposure during the hottest parts of the day. Ease yourself into it and get acclimated too. Don't decide that I'm gonna go from having been sitting on the couch for the last nine months to I'm gonna go hike down the Grand Canyon Ease yourself into exactly yourself up to it. But it's, for me, it's water.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 11:50

Exactly. And that's the key, and I think, in addition to what you it. To what you said, the taking advantage of the shade, going in those cooler times of the day. That's very, yeah, that's very good advice. And of course, I never really thought about it. We did. Yeah,

Ray McKee: 12:06

I was gonna say we did a class. We were, we had a private class for us. It was a singles hiking group out of Austin. It's been several years ago. And if you come to our normal survival class, we have, Like a list of stuff that we ask you to bring and the whole thing is structured around it. And we're going back and forth on this because it was a little bit of a different format. And because it was all it was specifically a day hiking group. They were just the weekend hiker not really backpacking ish. And so they always ask hey, what do we need to bring? And we decided we'll do it a little bit differently. We're going to teach the entire class from the trail. And we told people, just bring what you normally hike with, which is always my pet peeve because, it's the hiker that typically gets in trouble, not necessarily the backpacker. The backpacker is more often than not prepared to be spending the night out there. They may still get turned around, but they're at least more, They're more prepared to spend the night. But we have several people show up, which is next to nothing. You roll up out there and you've got a hair scrunchie, which obviously I don't need. A pack of chewing gum and some chapstick and a water bottle and a hairbrush and you're, you're off for the day. It's that person that gets in trouble and we were bringing up several scenarios and we had a quote that stuck in our head from one of the ladies. We're sitting there talking about, okay, a storm's coming in. Now, what are you going to do? And we're over there setting up our little shelter. I'm going to get in there with you. No, you're not. There's not room in there for you and me. Somebody has to take care of me. And that 1 quote that someone has to take care of me, it's stuck in my head. And actually, Eric, the other instructor that was there, it really resonated with both of us because that's a lot of people's attitude that, somebody has to be responsible for me. I'm not, so someone else has to take care of me. And that's not something we always constantly reiterate with people is, we just need to be prepared to take care of us and ourselves and those people that are with us, if I've taken my wife and son out, I expect them to be prepared for themselves. But, I prepare for them as well.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 14:06

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's always good to have extra whatever if possible, but but me being a paramedic and just recently getting back into EMS from coming from a more of an urgent care setting. I have to think about it every day. People are, and it's, I'm not faulting these people for anything, but they're calling for the oddest thing sometimes, right? I know you know this. Oh, sure. Because we talk a little, we talk on Facebook a lot. And then I tell you about some of my, details of some of my calls and stuff. But that's the attitude of the general public. I think a lot is, I don't really have to take a responsibility for myself because somebody else, especially if you're going to probably go into one of your classes, I can imagine some of the students attitudes of going to the class. I'm going here to teach this. So the instructor is going to take care of me. They're going to teach me how to do this. And they're going to You know if I can't if I don't have the right stuff They're gonna they're gonna provide for me and that's not necessarily You know how it

Ray McKee: 15:01

should be. And we actually really try to let people at the class, like we always try to tell people, we want them to fail in a controlled environment. We want people to come out there and test the stuff that they think they're testing, that they know how to use. The stuff that you've seen 10, 000 YouTube videos on and you're convinced is going to work until you actually put it in play in the field. So we let people fail. We are very much prepped to take care of people while they're out there. It's the ones that aren't in class that are just, they've decided to venture into the woods, COVID for, if you had to give a pro out of COVID it has definitely introduced a lot of people into the outdoors that historically just had not been out there. I think it was the. Cabin fever from the isolation and then our lovely social distancing, all of a sudden now over the last few years, you have a ton more people in state parks and federal parks that. Just typically hadn't been in there. People have found a new hobby and a new love of something that they can enjoy, and they've continued to do that, but what it, the con of it is, it's also a lot of people that this is newer experiences for them, and as long as they're on the trail and at the campground, It's perfectly fine normally, normal. It's always subjective. What's going to happen when something else goes, and that's when they get in trouble. And so it's pushed a lot of people out there that while they're good, while they're sitting at the campground, and they're good while they're on that immediate trail, if anything goes right, they're just. It's a lot of people getting in trouble and that's the piece that worries me and it's the reason we've been as busy as we have with the school, I think part of it.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 16:39

Oh, absolutely. That's still, I won't say irks me, but it irks me when I go on the trails, not even in the summer necessarily, but when it's starting to get warm, like right now in May or like at the end of our hot season, like in September, October, and I see people on the trail with nothing. Oh, absolutely. No, absolutely. They have no water. They have Yeah, no water. No extra supplies. No, nothing. Sure. So with that in mind about supplies. What are, can you tell us some items that you always carry on, any outdoor adventure? What's your essential items that you think? Oh, sure.

Ray McKee: 17:16

Absolutely. Absolutely. And when you move through if a person were to like move through our classes at the school, you figure out pretty fast that you really don't have to have a ton of stuff to be comfortable. All right. So my kits, yeah. Smaller than probably what a lot of stuff could be would be but then at the same time It's more than most people carry my anytime I would get on people for not carrying stuff out there that the constant argument was always I'm not carrying a bunch of stuff on the trail is more I have my phone, which drives me crazy. I don't have to carry a bunch of stuff, and those are the ones that get in trouble. So what I normally carry, it's a little bit of a hybrid. In on the survival front, you have the 10 Cs of survivability, which was popularized by Dave Canterbury. I think it was based off of like the 10 essentials of scouting from. A hundred years ago, whatever it was it's he modified it and commercialized it and marketed it really well. And, but it's a hybrid between it and then the 10 essentials of hiking that you can pick up everywhere. So it's an amalgamation between the 2 without fail, I never leave the house to go out in the woods without a real compass. and by a real compass, I mean something that's not on a key chain and not on a carabiner, it has actual degrees on it. Sure that I can shoot like a true azimuth bearing right? And know exactly that I'm going that direction. I'm always out there with a water filter. I've always got a simple way to make fire. I have some kind of cover. A lot of times it's just a poncho, but it's still something that I can make a small shelter and get underneath. A little bit of cordage. I'm not going out there with 500 foot of rope, but just enough to make a quick shelter and do some basic blocking and tackling. And then some kind of water container if I need that in conjunction with my filtering system. A little bit of first aid. I don't take a, I'm not like hauling out on backpacking trips or hiking trips. Like a massive eye fact or something, but I carry enough to cover all of the bases. Cause it drives me crazy. The thru hikers like, Oh, what's in your first aid kit? I have moleskin and three ibuprofen. Okay, that to me is not first aid. So it's a little bit of a hodgepodge of everything. I can say that I can sleep and live very comfortably. I call it my tiny big kit. It's just a little drop leg bag that's about the size of a softball. And everything fits in it. There's a little metal cup in there that I can boil water in. There's a water filter in there. There's a collapsible water bag. There's a little fire kit in there. There's a poncho on it. It's got a lot in there. And it's enough so normally during the summer... That's what I use. When it gets winter time, because I want to add extra layers of clothing, I'll move the gear out of it and into just like a backpack, so that I can throw in like a puffy and a hat and gloves and all that fun stuff. It's mostly been just about adding layers. There's a little emergency blanket in there, just a normal blocking tackle.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 20:14

Yeah, we don't in the south here. We don't really need layers during the summertime. Maybe a rain jacket would probably be plenty, if it gets a little cool, we could throw a rain jacket on. We got a little reflective, body heat. They're not a big deal, but yeah,

Ray McKee: 20:27

definitely. I always tell people here in Texas, we don't have, we don't have seasons. We have summer and not summer. Yeah, and so it just, it's all just varying degrees of warm.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 20:38

That's exactly true when we do have those, those few days, maybe in the late fall, winter months I think you and I were planning on going to Oklahoma back and, around Thanksgiving time and it like kept to a kind of a weird freeze where it was technically in Oklahoma, but it's right across the border from Texas. So we'll call it Texas as well. It's that whole this whole area had a big freeze, around Christmas Thanksgiving time last year. And so that was unusual. But, yeah, normally we don't need all that stuff. During the majority

Ray McKee: 21:05

of the year, and those cold times, that's all. That's always my favorite time to go. I love the cold weather sleeping and the cold weather hiking. And I did a Eagle walk up in Arkansas. I guess it was last year January 22. and I think it was high teens, low 20s at night during the day. It got up to just above freezing. It was perfect. I had just an absolute ball out there. Yeah, that's the, That's the time I enjoy going.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 21:33

Yeah, I think that was right after I went. That's maybe the first time we started talking on one of the Facebook groups, I think. Somewhere in that neighborhood. Because I had gone in December, like on Christmas weekend in 2021. And it was an interesting trip for sure.

Ray McKee: 21:47

Without a doubt.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 21:48

You mentioned that about, all these people coming to the outdoors and we're focusing that on more, we're focusing more on, forgive the term newbies, but that's what, we're focusing on as newbies. So how can these people that are coming, to the outdoors how can they enjoy. The outdoors and also be a good steward of, of the environment. And now they all these different outdoor recreation places. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Ray McKee: 22:14

The easy answer for the good steward, we all subscribe to that. Leave no trace code of ethics that everyone generally buys into I do fall in the middle of it. And if some people go crazy, Completely to one extreme. I was on one of the groups a while back and was watching people, having this just heated argument over what do you do with your toothpaste spit after you brush your teeth and like it was this, there must have been 100 messages in this thread and I was just astounded. I'm like, wow, I just, I'm not that over the top. No, I'm not there. They're chopping trees down and, leaving trash all over the place. I'm trying to be, as, I'm trying to leave it in a better space than the way I found it, and that's always my mission when I go out. Leave it better than what I found it. It but some people definitely go to an extreme, stance with that stuff of, don't yell at me because we're not walking on a single file line and we've accidentally widened the trail by a half step somewhere. Sure. So I think as long as you're doing better today than you did yesterday, and you're leaving it better than you found it. We're all moving in the right direction. But as far as, getting out and enjoying it, I honestly think one of the biggest things is getting educated and being prepared to go out into it so that you can go out with not just confidence, but an adequate level of confidence. Because I see a lot of confident people that's, that go out there and then when gear breaks or injuries happen, it, we figure out pretty fast that it's more of a... Maybe I was a little more overconfident than what I should have been. Or when you start hooking up the heel with, the pack. No, this never happens. This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. So just having that realistic expectation with everything and then that comes with, actual trail miles and getting out there and doing it and all that fun stuff. And my wife, the first trip she went with me on an overnighter. It wasn't anything long. I've actually day hiked the trail before myself. And before I would take her out there, I made her go do shakedown hikes with her bag until she could hike. In the course of the day, what I was well, more than what we would be hiking that day and it took her probably six or eight shakedown hikes before she was comfortable doing it. And after a while, she thanked me for doing it. She was annoyed that I kept making her do shakedowns. It would take on the overnighter, but I wanted to be sure she was actually ready to do it because learning when you can call an Uber to come get you It's far easier than learning when you're out in the middle of nowhere and you have to come out of the woods on your own fruition or off of an air lift. Yeah, exactly. The biggest thing is you're getting educated so you actually have an accurate sense of confidence. Yeah.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 25:04

Baby steps. Like you and I both like to go to Arkansas and there's definitely trails that are considered, quote unquote, beginner trails and some that are like Eagle Rock loop. They're a little more advanced. I wouldn't necessarily call it an expert trail, Eagle Rock loop, for example, but it's, there's a lot more challenges on that trail due to, due to length and different things that you have to encounter. And yeah, the, yeah, I agree with you. The best. The best way is to ease into it instead of trying to jump off and, like we mentioned earlier, going into the Grand Canyon on your very first hiking trip and trying to cross a cross. That's probably aiming a little too high, I think, for your first trip. You can build up to that, of course, sure, absolutely. Most anything can be done out there with the right preparation, the right training, education, that kind of stuff, especially nowadays. Yeah. You mentioned, people relying on their phone and things like that. But we still, in every aspect of our life we really can't get away from technology and technology to an extent, as long as we don't rely on it fully, can make our lives easier or whatever. So what would you say is your favorite? Technological piece of gear or whatever

Ray McKee: 26:11

that you take on. That's an easy answer. And it is not my cell phone. Okay. I keep my cell phone out there for navigation. I take pictures with it. Part of me enjoying getting out is getting away from technology and. Plugging, but it's an easy answer because it's Rhonda members like who's Rhonda. Okay, so it's my emergency beacon. Okay Because it has made I do so many trips out where I'm not around a phone signal and just the amount of because my wife Can see exactly where I am the amount of mental peace that it has given her that I'm not dead has made it far easier for me to take more trips. There was, there'd be a lot of time I'd get in the car on Sunday night and start heading back to the house and you finally get a signaling call and say I'm glad you're not dead. So the anxiety that having that beacon and her being able to see the breadcrumb droppings it's just tenfold been. I would pay 10 times what I do for it just for her having that peace of mind and I've joked that it's Rhonda because when we set it up in the application, because it sends text messages and emails, you can name it. And so in my head, I'm like, if I had to push the button, I need help. So it's helped me Rhonda. So when the emails come out and the text messages come out, they all say from Rhonda. And the first time that one of the notifications went to my mom, she's who's Rhonda, don't worry about it. It'll be fine.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 27:40

So for

Ray McKee: 27:42

me, it's Rhonda,

Craig thenaturalmedic: 27:43

easily. And is that a, is that one of the Garmin inReach devices or which one do you.

Ray McKee: 27:48

It's it. It is I actually carry the Spot Gen 4 because for me, I wasn't necessarily concerned with the two way communication. I just wanted her to be able to see where I was, and if I absolutely had to need help, just push the button and let it ride. I just, it wasn't... We weren't really concerned with the two way and I like a lot of the other devices. I think any of them are good. I'm really quite enamored with the the Motorola defy that just came out and I'm a convert to it. I'm liking what I'm seeing with it. I think they just released at the beginning of May. Okay. It's pretty slick. I haven't picked one up yet, but I might move to it. Okay. They have a Defy that's the phone, but then they have a Defy that's a dongle that just Bluetooths over to your phone. It looks like a little key fob. It basically makes your phone a stat phone which is really slick. I'm...

Craig thenaturalmedic: 28:36

Oh. It's like we lost we lost him. Oh. Perhaps he'll be back. I'm not sure what happened. But anyway, yeah, just carrying on with that. I'll grab my device that I use, my favorite piece of technology so y'all can see it. It's the Garmin inReach. This is the first inReach. Put my headphones back on so I can hear. In case it does come back on. The Garmin inReach device here probably can't see it because I got the screen blurred. Let me see if I can unblur the screen here. Okay, part of my mess behind me. Okay, so Garmin inReach right here. This device basically it's like a satellite phone in a way. It doesn't make phone calls, but it does send Two way communication, you have to subscribe to it just like you would any other communications device. You have to be on a plan that allows you to send somebody messages or what have you. This is the one that I use and I like it. He uses a different one and that's okay. Let's see what happened to him. And let me check my phone. Maybe he's dropped off for some reason. I'm not sure. So pardon me just a minute. Anyway, let's keep rolling through the questions here that I had for him. So a place that I haven't gone to yet that I would like to go to, and that would be what is the name of that place? I just now lost the thought of it. Isle Royale. Sorry, I had a bit of a little brain smear there. Isle Royale is definitely a place that I want to go to. It's located, if you're not familiar with that, it's a national park you have to get to by boat. Or by seaplane only. It's in the middle of Lake Superior, almost in Canada. It has, because of its isolation, it has its own little ecosystem and you can get out there. Oh, there he goes. He's back, looks like. Are you there with me, Fred? Hey, you're back. You're back.

Ray McKee: 30:51

Yeah, I am back. Sorry about that. I my dear friends at at Apple apparently heard me trash talking using technology. Oh, so they were kind enough to shut me down. Gotcha. Get my let me get my headset to connect here. Okay.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 31:11

We have lost your

Ray McKee: 31:12

video for a second to you. There you are. Okay. It told me my phone overheated. Oh, gosh.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 31:23

We're not gonna go too much longer. We're almost through this. So

Ray McKee: 31:26

Hopefully we can hang on one second here to reconnect. Oh, no, I turned the AC on in the car now. So let me just swap headsets real fast.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 31:37

Sure. We were talking about our dream vacation or dream destination we'd like to go to. That was the next question. And so I was saying one that is in the forefront of my mind. Yes, I'd love to go to Iceland or someplace exotic like that. But in the U. S. I'm thinking I'll Royale would be a really cool place. It's remote enough that, a little bit of challenge to get there. Once you get there, you're you're there. And it's only open during certain times of the year. I think it's only open when it's not icy in Lake Superior. And it's so isolated. It has its own like unique ecosystem. So that's really would be a cool thing to check out. And that's what I'm looking at. So what would you, what would be your, dream of our venture place if you could go anywhere?

Ray McKee: 32:22

I would love to do John Muir, but given that I grew up on the East Coast, like in the foothills of the Appalachian Trail, I've always wanted to go do it. I've never felt like I could take 5 or 6 months off of life. And commitments and all that fun stuff to go do it. In the back of my head, I'm like, maybe it's a retirement trip 1 day, right? Or when the kid gets out of college or off to college, maybe I'll venture out. But it yeah, that was always been there. I've kicked myself for when I live there, not taking it in, at least in sections and I just, there's always something else to do and so that was always been on the docket. If I had to pick one, it'd be somewhere between those two.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 33:07

Yeah, I gotcha. That was definitely would be, that'd definitely be a cool trail to do. I'm not sure the length of that one. Is that 500 something miles or something?

Ray McKee: 33:17

The Appalachian

Craig thenaturalmedic: 33:18

trail? Oh, you said the, I thought you said the John Muir. I'm sorry.

Ray McKee: 33:23

That was the first one I threw out there, but it would be somewhere between the two of them. Oh, I see. I see. I see. John here. Okay. Yeah. It's yeah. You could definitely get your done pretty quickly, but it, cause it's not that long. Yeah, but it it is just gorgeous up there. That area of the country. Oh yeah.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 33:39

You came from. the Carolinas. So you were relatively close. Have you ever been on the Appalachian Trail and done any of it?

Ray McKee: 33:47

Very little. And that's what I've always kicked myself for not taking more opportunities to go enjoy it. I grew up like riding the foothills of it all and, spent a lot of time in the woods and all that fun stuff. And I love that area of the country. It's just, I never unplugged enough from life to actually go out and spend substantial time on it. And it's always going to regret

Craig thenaturalmedic: 34:10

one day. Same. I, yeah, at 1. I lived briefly in Connecticut and I was and I was in the northwest corner and I was like, literally the Appalachian trail went right through that particular township. But I never set foot on it the entire time I was there. And that was, one of those things I like you said, kick myself. I kicked myself when I think about that. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. And I looked it up. The John Muir trail is 213. 7 miles, but it has an elevation gain of 47, 000 feet.

Ray McKee: 34:41

Yeah. So that's,

Craig thenaturalmedic: 34:42

yeah, that's a far cry from that. Same here, man. That's especially down here

Ray McKee: 34:47

at sea level that we are here in Texas. Yeah

Craig thenaturalmedic: 34:50

we're barely above sea level in majority of Texas. And yeah, that's going to kick our butts for sure. Yeah. Let's look at some other questions here. So just keeping that in mind to talk about the new places. How do you Ray figure out? Like I'm going to go to this new place. What's your research process for figuring out, the ins and outs of that new place?

Ray McKee: 35:15

I find new trails all the time. I do. I'm not a fan of social media, but I do it for the schools. Sure, which is why I don't really have a personal page. I find new trails all the time through it, or through something like AllTrails, which... It's good for telling you what all around there. Yeah. I don't know that they're all that accurate, but they're good. I do a ton of just internet research getting into some of the forums, especially if it's a trail that's big enough to have its own groups and pages, just because you get so much actual intel there as far as, what the trail conditions are and traffic and things to be worried about what are the parking areas look like? So I try to do all of that sort of normal reconnaissance piece. Yeah. But as part of my communication plan, because every time I go out, I leave. A trail map for my wife on the refrigerator at home, and it's got the, alright, if I'm parked here, this is the way I'm going. If I'm parked here, I'm going this way. And here's where I'm planning on camping and here are my license plate numbers and here's the telephone number for the local police department and search and rescue and ranger stations, all that stuff, but it's part of the process of filling all of that out. One of the things I'm always doing is looking for the stuff that's not on the trail map because I do. Thank you. I actually prefer to do compass based land navigation instead of the app on my phone, just like I'm way more in touch with the land and nature doing it that way. And it is, I'm always looking for the stuff that's not on the trail map. So it's that stuff that's on the outside perimeters. And so handrails and backstops and bailout routes. All right if I've gone this far and I run into this. I've gone too far, or if I get blind lost and I'm on this leg of the trail, I know I can go this way and hit this thing and it just that piece of it gives me a lot of comfort while I'm out and about and that and the fact that, regardless of what's going on, the compass and the map are in my pocket. I may not have anything else with me, but those 2 items are in my pocket because what I don't want to do is, step off the trail to go to the restroom or something and be the statistic that they're out there looking for. So it's I do a lot of that, that what's around me research, because that's the piece that at that point gives me the peace of mind is I know if I step out and I'm on this leg, if worst case scenario, it may stink going from A to B, but I know if I go that way, I'm going to hit civilization and that's usually my biggest concern when I'm researching an area. Yeah.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 37:47

I got you. Yeah, I'm pretty much doing the same things. I'm just doing a lot of internet research and just digging in and seeing what's in the area so I can get a, get a feel of how that fits into the general landscape as a

Ray McKee: 37:57

whole.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 38:00

And with that in mind, what would you say right now is your favorite trail or area to go to as far as hiking goes?

Ray McKee: 38:07

Growing up in kind of the foothills in the Carolinas, I love the watchtowers here that kind of, through Arkansas and Oklahoma. It's, they're both close enough to be pretty easily accessible from North Texas. And to me, it's the first place that I've found that feels like what I grew up in. As far as the way it looks and, animals and plants and the topography, like to be, it always looks like home, right? And then being able to sneak off in there, 4 or 5 hour drive and be right in the throes of it all it for me, it's so yeah, so I try to sneak off up there as much as I can.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 38:42

Yeah, absolutely. I would agree with you. That's the closest like kind of getaway place to where we live here in north texas. And then of course, even when I lived further east in the east texas and in the so called architects, that was, still a pretty good jump off, place. We still got you? We lose you. We

Ray McKee: 39:02

lose you. There you are again. Can you hear me, Craig? Yep. Yep.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 39:07

Lost your video again, but. I can hear something on that end. But I can hear something on that end. There we go. There we go. Got it. Alright. Now we got a little bit of echo.

Ray McKee: 39:24

Let me check these. Let me check

Craig thenaturalmedic: 39:25

these settings real quick. Test.

Ray McKee: 39:28

Test. I can hear you fine.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 39:31

Controversial question. Controversial question again. Tent versus a hammock. What is, what do you feel about that?

Ray McKee: 39:40

Can you hear me? I'm not getting your audio now, Craig.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 39:44

Oh, can you hear me? Can you

Ray McKee: 39:44

hear me? Oh, I hear you now.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 39:46

Yes. Okay, so controversial question. Tent versus hammock. What is best?

Ray McKee: 39:52

That's funny. So I'll be honest, I'm not a tent camper. I will hammock a lot during the summer. I love the hammock. I love being, I have a bridge hammock so I lay flat, get plenty of air circulation. It's the cooler way for me to do it during the summer. Wintertime, I'm pretty much just a tarp. I'll throw up a tarp, or I'll just, normally just straight cowboy camp. I'll throw up a tarp if I'm worried about it, being a little extra windy, or if I think there's going to be any precipitation. But for the most part it's it's a hammock during the summer, and it's a tarp during the winter.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 40:27

Okay.

Ray McKee: 40:29

But I will sleep in a tent if my wife carries it. Hey, there

Craig thenaturalmedic: 40:33

you go. There you go. That's fair. Yeah, I feel the opposite. I just haven't had a whole lot of experience with hammocks. I tried, last time I attempted the Eagle Rock Loop and I got ill on it. I had probably the wrong size hammock. It was a little too short. I'm per Texas DPS, I'm 6'2 I don't think I'm quite 6'2 But, I'm a little bit tall for that hammock, and it just wasn't comfortable. I didn't bring enough cover, and etc. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna give it up. They do take some getting used to.

Ray McKee: 41:00

Yeah. They take

Craig thenaturalmedic: 41:01

some getting used to. The nice thing I guess about a tent is that, the fact you can set it up. Put your betting out, and you're good to go, for the most part. Sure. Simple. It's simple. But I think hammocking, like you said, requires a little bit more finesse, as far as how you're, gotta be a little bit more careful about how you do things.

Ray McKee: 41:19

Yeah, I love the fact that it doesn't matter what the ground looks like when I set it up though.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 41:23

Yeah, you can definitely get into some really interesting places really easily that a tent would never go in. And I know you teach a survival class, people, we're not gonna talk about Rambo knives, but I'm thinking like, commercial kits like I have a commercial kit down here, let me show you.

Ray McKee: 41:39

I just

Craig thenaturalmedic: 41:39

picked it up because I just think they're neat, like I've got just like a, the Bear Grylls, survival kit. Is this thing worth, having or is it worth anything?

Ray McKee: 41:50

Depends on what you paid for it, man. Depends on what you paid for it. I think I

Craig thenaturalmedic: 41:54

paid 20 bucks for it, okay. And it's got, let me see, I don't even know what's in it. It's got some cordage, it's got like a little Gerber knife, of course, cause it's Gerber. It's got a little survival booklet. Fire starter. Just some basic, a waterproof bag to carry all the stuff in, a whistle, that kind of stuff. Sure.

Ray McKee: 42:14

We have a lot of people come out to classes and, they'll come out with little kit stuff that they bought like that. Or the ones I like even more are the ones that pull the bug out bag out of the back of the truck. I've been driving this around for three years, I'm gonna use this. And then they've broken five pieces of it by lunchtime on Saturday. It, more often than not, they're, there are good things out there. Sure. But you're, you have to be selective finding them. And that's not the easiest thing in the world to do. I can find a knife today that, is great. But then, six months from now they change where they're getting the metal from and they change some of their heat treating and all of a sudden it's a garbage knife six months from now that has the exact same look and name to it. So some of that stuff just takes getting to know the gear. I really subscribe much more toward the let me get the pieces that I know work and let me assemble it myself. And that same thing goes for my first aid kit. Like I don't not a real big fan of buying a first aid kit. I'd rather compile the pieces myself that one, I know how to use and two, aren't concerned with like the piece count because usually it's 2% of stuff that's usable and 98% of stuff that's, it's pieces of band aids that I don't really care about anyway, that it's not going to stick when I get wet anyway.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 43:33

You've got, 500 different types of band aids in a commercial kit sometimes. I just need I just need some regular band aids and I'm good. I can pretty much adapt. Yeah. So that pretty much answers the second question, or the next question, which was what's in your first aid kit? You pretty much, and I agree with you as a paramedic. We Even on the ambulance, we have a lot of stuff. Oh,

Ray McKee: 43:55

yeah,

Craig thenaturalmedic: 43:55

certainly, but we can't possibly have You take medicine or a an intervention that's going to solve every single problem. And I think the same approach is appropriate in the outdoors. You want to try to keep it as basic as possible to keep everything that you need for your, the majority of what you're going to deal with, cut scrapes. Maybe some burns and, maybe some medicine for, allergic reaction or pain like leave or Tylenol or whatever, and you're probably going to be good,

Ray McKee: 44:24

I do. Mine's pretty scaled down. It does change based on the time of year and how many people are going with me because it drives me nuts. People not having stuff. I religiously, I don't, consider it to be part of my first aid kit, but I religiously everyday carry a tourniquet. It's one of the few unit taskers that I carry. If I'm backpacking, it's a shrap, it's galls because I can do a lot with both of those. I keep a couple foot of luca tape on my trekking poles and that's my band aids. It's my medical tape. It's my splinting. It's my fill in the blank. That's my moles, my moleskin, my blister prevention or treatment. Those three items go a long way. I carry, a handful of like antiseptic wipes. I'll carry a little bit of triple antibiotic or the silver sulfidine. I usually carry it more than I will like a Neosporin or something like that. And then just a small baggie of like various assorted meds. If I'm going to place According to a place where I know there's, there's a lot of elevation gains up and down or it's really rocky. I may throw a Sam splint in just for good measure. Yeah. That's probably the bulk of it. Yeah. I don't get too crazy with the backpacking because if it's most of that stuff, I can get stabilized out, whatever I'm going to have to do. And if I have to push the button, I have to push the button. If it's something that's bad, there's a lot of stuff to that out there. Because a lot of times it's just me, so if all of a sudden, all of a sudden I need CPR in the middle of the woods, there's not gonna be anybody there to give it to me anyway.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 45:59

And yeah. And with that in mind, the CPR part, even in, pre hospital situations, like when we're in the ambulance, where we have all that stuff, all the drugs that we need, all the cardiac monitor and stuff. Even then, we still don't have a, the best. Sad to say the best outcome is because of the situation. It's not because of a lack of training. It's not because of a lack of equipment or supplies or whatever. It's just because of the situation. So

Ray McKee: 46:23

yeah, it's the environment you're in and what you're

Craig thenaturalmedic: 46:25

dealing with. That's the, yeah, that's the one thing you have to think about is that you're, when you're going out here, you're, there are risks that you're going to have to assume and take on because you're not in a controlled environment, but. That was the whole, but that was the whole reason of having you on the show today, Ray, was because you have a lot of knowledge, obviously you have survival school, you have your hiking, hiking school as well, that, can offer a lot to a lot of people if they're in this area. Right now, he doesn't have any online stuff going on right now. Yeah, and Use your precautions on a lot of the online stuff. Some of it's really great, but it is you can't beat hands on. Let me touch this equipment or let me touch this item and do this particular procedure. You can't beat that. Online training, we're 45 minutes away from each other, but we're, able to broadcast like this. And it's pretty amazing but, it doesn't mean the same thing as us being in person and having, being able to interact that way. So just think about that stuff whenever you're, it really is. And, and like we've said in this whole broadcast, if you're out there and you're listening, you're watching, whatever, the more time you get in the outdoors, just anything else, just whatever job you do out there, you, when you were a beginner, you didn't know anything about what you were doing, but as you got more and more exposed to that. You became better and you learned and probably partnered up with people that worked with you or that you knew could help you do this particular task or do this better. That's how that works is that, we have a lot of students come through an AMS, my particular station that I work at. And so that's what I tell them. I was like, this is your first exposure to this field. And so you're, you suck. In a nice way, but because they just don't have any exposure to it, I'm just, I try to tell them, it's hey, This is your your first ride out, your second ride out ever on an ambulance. You don't know anything. And that's how all of us were when we started. We were all little babies, basically, when we started our career, or whatever we did. You know what I mean?

Ray McKee: 48:33

We all start out somewhere, and I think the danger a lot of times is when you're early on, you don't know what you don't know. And I think that's the dangerous piece to a lot of it. If you can go into it humble knowing that, Hey, I don't I'm not sure what I'm doing here. As opposed to, I've seen this on YouTube. I'm going to wing it. I know how to do this. Sometimes we get sideways.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 48:55

Yeah, I watched Craig or Ray's videos on YouTube, so I'm an expert now. Yeah, that doesn't quite happen like that, folks. But, we're happy to, after this is posted, we're happy to answer any questions you have. So post comments, questions, whatever, send us emails. There's a couple more questions for Ray and then we'll let him once again, promote his his his school and websites just to get some interest there in case anybody is in the area and wants to take some of his classes. So what's your favorite any type of gear, it doesn't have to be technology or whatever, what's your, what is your favorite type of gear, or your favorite piece of gear, that

Ray McKee: 49:28

you... Yeah, it's like asking a parent what their favorite child is. I know. That's hard to dial down. It, honestly for me, we try out so much stuff with the survival school. Yeah. Our gear bags, it's a constant state of flux. What I love today changes six months from now. I have things that I gravitate to more often than other products, but they all fit in, in the categories, like for my hydration, I'm carrying a Sawyer filter when I'm backpacking, but I day hike with a grail, I hike with a grail just because it's easy, it's heavy. I'm not going to backpack with it, but it's easy, but when it comes to. The hammocks, I can be a hammock snob. I've gotten spoiled with my ridge runner from war bonnet because it's a bridge hammock. It's nice and flat and easy. And that's the stuff it, it changes for me, honestly, constantly. I don't know that because of the school, I've intentionally not gotten attached to a lot of pieces of gear because we're constantly rotating stuff out and we're at them. All the time. So it's a state of flux. Sure. I like my favorite piece of gear is the next piece of gear.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 50:34

There you go. There you go. That's a good answer. Let's see. Let me see if I can. Let's see. I'm gonna try to share your, there we go. Let's see if I can share this. on the screen here. Are you able to see that? Yeah. So this is this is Ray's main. Are you there? Can you hear me? Can you hear me, Ray? I think we lost Ray, but anyway, this is his main side here. This is the Texas Survival School. I don't know if you can see... There you are. Can you hear me? So here is his Here's his survival school website. If you want to check that out. Texas Survival School. There's links to this in the description. The other one... You hear me now?

Ray McKee: 51:24

Oh, I hear you now. Yes.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 51:25

Okay. I don't know why I cut off on the sound there. I'm still learning, again, to use this. This software. But anyway, I was showing them your, your website for the Texas Survival School. And I put a link in the description on YouTube so they can see that. And let me show the other one real quick, which is I can find it. There we go. Yeah. Hopefully you can still hear me. Yeah. So this particular site is. It's hike a lot. com and he's got classes on there as well. The other site, texassurvivalschool. com, you can check those out at your leisure. Did you lose audio again on that? I did. Okay, I don't know why it's losing audio, but anyway, I just showed them the two, your two main sites. Is there any other place on the web you want them to check you out on?

Ray McKee: 52:16

Not really. Each one of them's got a business page. Each one's got a Facebook group. As far as the within Facebook, they have a business page and a group. They're pretty easy to find. I don't do a lot of the other social media outlets. Like I said, I'm not a big social media person. Yeah. Yeah, no.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 52:34

But you can definitely catch Ray on both of those other sites. He has training going on all the time. Reach out to him there through email. I do, I think I put a link to the hike a lot. Which is like your main YouTube. Down in the description of this video. So you can check that out and go to check out his videos. He puts out a lot more content than I do. Cause he has more time than he's able to do that. However, I figured that he's figured that out. I don't know. He's working full time and running these two other things. So your time management is just much better than me.

Ray McKee: 53:01

Oh, I just give up on sleep. Oh, give up on sleep. Sometimes I lose as well. I'm thoroughly disappointed cuz I didn't get a single question about, don't you know that's not how you spell a lot in Hike A lot. No. I was fully expecting that one. Everyone seems to always miss that. It's an abbreviation for Arkansas, Louisiana.

Craig thenaturalmedic: 53:21

I already knew that. But that's a good, that is a good question, good thing to point out. If you're wondering audience out there, it's, it is spelled a lot because it's Arkansas, l. Oklahoma and Texas. Which is where we focus a lot of, the clientele for, for this area for him. But anyway thanks so much, Ray, for being on here. We appreciate you coming on and talking to the audience about getting prepared and hopefully that they've picked out some gyms that there's a lot of gyms thrown out there today. They picked out some that were very helpful to them and start that part that ball rolling of getting more information about being outside. Thanks everybody. I appreciate you having me on, man. We will see y'all out there on the trail. Thanks.