Burke Mountain Ski Area

It's great.

So speaking of ownership changes, a big one this year, Smuggler's Notch, now majority owned by Bear Den, which Bear Den is a company that was formed when, to buy Burke Mountain, that then bought Berkshire East and Catamount and then Smuggs.

And then they made John Schaefer CEO.

So John Schaefer is a good friend of the Storm.

And you know, I've had a really rough couple days mentally, like mental health-wise, and you know, that feels like a perfect place to be when I, um, enter into these reflections and share authentically, and you know, it's, it's okay if things are kind of unraveling a bit.

And then, um, you know, I, I lead with that transparency, right? I, I, I really feel like oftentimes when I've gone out to hike Burke Mountain and a couple hours up the mountain, I s- I want to do a podcast.

It's, it's 'cause I'm in a really difficult place in my life, and I'm trying to work through some stuff.

And yeah, this isn't any different, you know? [chuckles] So anywho, um, I have a topic in mind 'cause yesterday I thought a lot about it.

Maybe if it's, um, possible quite quickly.

I think that's quite a oversimplification for some of these mental states that become very troubling emotional and physical states that you can't just snap your fingers and get your way out of.

And I mean like, I think if you use drugs or nicotine, which is also a drug, it's a stimulant, but if you use different substances to kind of just like chemically alter your state, yeah, I mean you can probably pretty easily remove yourself from some of these really troubling, uh, let's call them episodes but in all honesty right now i'm as sober as it gets right and um having removed nicotine before i started traveling having been sober of alcohol and marijuana for gosh maybe at least six or seven years for for one of them alcohol since i was 25 seven years and then quit drinking sorry i quit smoking weed around 23 so i mean like then there were psychedelics then there was dmt you know and then like just stripping away all the layers and then drinking ayahuasca in the amazon first and then again another couple times and then even just a year it's been a year now since those additional ceremonies and you know i'm not able to just pull myself back when i get into a deep dark place you know i i try my best to work through it quickly but it just doesn't work you know some cases that can take an hour some taste some cases it takes multiple hours and maybe sometimes longer but you know i just notice when i'm here in columbia i don't have access to all the same tools i don't have the ability to go for a hike i could go for a three four hour hike and feel like i can work through pretty much anything you know and then um here i i don't have that ability at least not safely i'm still reluctant to take that risk and go out in the you know the mountainside and maybe put myself in a position where they call they call it here they call no dark papaya so i'd be putting myself in a dark papaya situation where i'm i'm an easy target it's ironic i mean i don't want to say it's ironic but interestingly enough in canada it doesn't it doesn't fucking matter if you go on a two-day hike out in the mountains no one's gonna no one's gonna consider you a target unfortunately that's um quite different in many other parts of the world including the united states actually i've been told there's parts of the united states where it's the same so unfortunately i can't go for a hike usually if i feel crummy like i'm not talking just like a an off day i'm talking the lowest of my low i know i can hop in the car go for a drive out to burke mountain spend maybe four or five hours in the mountains or hiking around a lake or you know it's like my medicine that in a worst case scenario i think it works pretty well and uh yeah that's great i noticed the quality of the audio is not great right now because i'm hearing all this background roaring of motors i don't know if they're cars i don't know if they're something else but i hear these birds they're like cackling and they sound so fucking cool so i mean i think i returned to this a lot but sitting with my raw mental state feels like it's like these birds are incredible these are some jungle birds they must have like migrated up from the amazon or something like there's the normal birds and then there's these jungle birds that just have these crazy cool calls oh my god so i'm i'm distracted i'm sorry but you gotta acknowledge like where i am is just pretty freaking amazing so the problem is when i'm not out here in this beautiful nature i'm out i'm inside my apartment and you know that's where some of this rumination can be triggered and i don't have a a miracle fix i mean i can brew some tea that might help i won't drink caffeine a certain point so i'll just drink some herbal tea i can pop a l-theanine supplement or you know do some breath work listen to some rain noises do some yoga uh make myself a delicious healthy snack you know there's a lot of things i can do but in all reality these things don't pull me out quite as quickly as i'd like and um oftentimes i have to do and it's sort of like an internal dialogue to essentially re-ground but there is something about parts that don't quite feel safe and that safety feels akin to when i was in ayahuasca ceremonies and there was just no no capacity to pull myself out of those states and and those parts would feel like they would just get worse and worse and worse and you know i think these are very much parts that get activated when you do psychedelics but i think when you drink ayahuasca and you go deep enough certain parts uh become more more exposed like they become more i guess in some way accessible to you and your in your state of mind and your body and they feel like they're um they're not as exiled they're not as uh buried as maybe they once were when you know when i was for example using psychedelics more regularly or i was using nicotine every day or you know the safety and the comfort of living in canada and where i was living it was just like yeah those parts are they're fine they're they're they even if they got uh sort of opened up or triggered in these ceremonies in my daily they're not really there they're not really as present so why why am i bringing up all this is this because i i believe There are the surface level symptoms of ADHD, the, you know, the challenges with focus, learning issues, the focus issues, the, all the stuff that's just annoying.

It's bothersome, gets in the way, and it leads to doom scrolling.

It was a great place to grow up.

Uh, where, where I was, we were right at the base of, uh, it's called Burke Mountain.

Um, small little hill, like 3,000 feet, but, uh, just a really, really pretty place, um, to grow up.

And that area now, very, very well known for mountain biking, cross-country biking.

Um, Burke Mountain Academy is there, so, you know, very high level, um, skiers and snowboarders coming out of Burke Mountain Academy.

How far from Canada were you?

Oh, man, from the border? Probably hour? And yeah, and it was, it was cool, man, 'cause at the time-

Man, I'm tempted to jump on a plane and fly out of Burlington and get up there.

How far are you from Burke Ski Resort?

You can see Burke from the field.

We'll get hooked up, and I'll send you some pictures, but it's about seven miles.

And well, since we're talking events right now, let's talk about the next one coming up, October 15, 16, 17, and 18.

Burke Mountain, Vermont.

You will find Minis Take Vermont up there.

You can check them out at mtvt.club. You've got to go over there because it's hard to find a date on their Facebook page.