Guides Gone Wild

Today my guest is Cori Brago , a foodie butcher-turned-merchandiser-turned-angler/mentor/killer fundraiser, and boy mom, and amazing human. This one’s an interesting counterpoint to last week's episode with Laurie Watt . Laurie had a feeling she couldn’t shake that made her keep seeking more in the outdoors. It’s not like she was miserable in her life, she was happy, but knew that was some sm...

Today I’m talking to Laurie Watt , the Women’s Program Coordinator for Mooney Mountain Guides in Concord, NH. Laurie is an AMGA Single Pitch Instructor and Apprentice Alpine Guide, a Wilderness First Responder, and an accomplished hiker and climber. And guess what, she didn’t get serious about doing any of this until about six years ago. When she was in her LATE 40s - yes, you read that right. I w...

We are ready to roll forward again with some new interviews, huzzah!! Today my guest is Wendy Eliot , formerly of Atlantic Climbing School in Bar Harbor, ME. Besides having an extremely strong tutu game   - which you’ll have to go to GuidesGoneWild.com to see for yourself -  Wendy is an AMGA certified Single Pitch instructor, massage therapist, health and fitness coach, outdoor educator, clinical...

Today’s episode is a bit of a departure from my normal format - this week, to be honest, I really need to take a moment. My schedule’s been jammed, my tech has been fighting me, the greater world around us continues to be an exhausting mess of violence, hate crimes, hate speech, you name it - if you’re inclined to be glum at this time of year, there’s been no shortage of things to enhance that fee...

Oh my gosh, I had too much fun with this one...I can’t help it, when I meet someone who gets as fired up as I do to talk about OTHER cool women, and she tells great stories, and then you throw some snowmobiling into the mix, I basically lose my sh*t. My guest today is Debi Gould , the brains and energy and branding genius behind Outdoor Women . Debi seems hell-bent on avoiding the spotlight, but h...

This week I catch up with Emily Kirkton , a long-time registered Maine guide and the owner of GearME (pun absolutely intended!) which is a fantastic outdoor consignment and rental store in Freeport, Maine. Emily started GearME after spending several years with a large, regional outdoor retailer, so she absolutely knows her stuff, and as we talk about, if there’s something she doesn’t really know,...

If you're an avid podcast listener like me, you may recognize today's guest, Emily Holland , from The Stokecast, a show she co-hosted for a few years on which she talked to athletes, entrepreneurs, and activists in the outdoor industry about how to balance work, life, and adventure while having fun and making a difference. That was cool enough, but today we’re focusing on Emily’s NEXT bi...

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a bit, you’ve probably heard me say about 20 times that I need to bring a guest back to take a deeper dive into something we talked about in an interview… I’m finally making good on one of these promises, my guest today is the knowledgeable and delightful Nancy Zane from Northstar Adventures . Nancy was one of my first guests waaaay back on Episode 3 , a...

Looking to shake off some of your mid-winter doldrums with an inspiring conversation? I think this one will knock your socks off. And they’d better be Darn Tough socks, because Murphy Robinson of Mountainsong Expeditions was talking to me from their tiny house homestead in central Vermont. I didn’t have time to dig into the whole tiny house thing (which will definitely be fodder for a future episo...

I just realized that I’m on a streak of non-Mainers for a few weeks here, last week was Nancy Wind from Mass, this week I’m talking to the absolutely delightful Melissa Goodwin from NYC (Brooklyn to be exact). Melissa is a New York hiking and camping guide and the "girl" behind Girl Gotta Hike (the company), and Girl Gotta Hike, The Podcast. As her website so succinctly puts it, “Girl Go...

My guest today is Nancy Wind , the powerhouse behind Peaks And Poses , a company that guides people outdoors for trail yoga, hiking, backpacking and other adventures. Nancy is also a health coach who’s been teaching plant-based cooking and has built a wellness program, called Power UP, around Ayurvedic principles. Nancy’s practices focus on the interplay of the mind, body, and spirit, which has re...

Last spring, when I started contemplating taking my curiosity online and into your earbuds, I was checking out various interview-focused podcasts for ideas and inspiration. Even though I was finding my conversations with so called ‘regular people’ hugely interesting, I wasn’t sure anyone else would, or that I could make an actual podcast out of someone like your next-door neighbor doing cool sh*t....

I’m all fired up today, because this conversation represents exactly the kind of guest and interview that drove me to start Guides Gone Wild in the first place. My guest is Jackie Stratton of Waterways Guiding , a licensed Maine Guide , Maine Master Naturalist , and ACA certified white water canoe instructor . Like all of us, Jackie had exciting plans for 2020. She had given notice at her so calle...

I had so much fun talking to the Fly Girls last week, that I’m keeping with the buddies-on-the-water theme this week too! My guests today are Sandy Moore and Kimberlee Bennett , the authors of Paddling Southern Maine , a great guidebook that I just bought myself as a birthday present… to myself. Yes, I’m one of those lucky people whose birthday smacks right up against the holiday season AND the ne...

My interview today is about as far away as we can get from that whole divisive, violent, ugly scene we witnessed in Washington, DC yesterday. My guests are D and Elena, two of the foundational members of an online community called Fly Girl Global that managed to grow like crazy (the good kind of crazy) during the pandemic shutdown. As you’ll hear, these two young ladies love to fish, but were havi...

The pod train is stopping at Inspiration Station once again this week. My guest is Amy Margolis , a listener who reached out to me after my conversation with Krista Alderdice in Episode 17 . Krista had interviewed Amy and her husband David for her Blue Collar Runners site, because they are the epitome of everyday people doing extra cool things in running - a concept I can obviously get behind! Amy...

Since holiday season is wrapping up (ooh, bad pun, sorry)... I’m turning my attention to inspiration - 2021 is just a week or so away, and while the flipping of the calendar isn’t necessarily going to mean the craptastic circumstances of 2020 are going to disappear, it does bring with it a little fresh breath of hope that, come December 2021, things will look radically different than they do right...

OK, people, we’re in the holiday home stretch here. What better time to talk to Jenny Kordick, the Executive Director of Maine Outdoor Brands , an alliance of manufacturers, service and experience providers, non-profits, and community partners that organized back in 2017 to support and grow the outdoor recreation economy in Maine. As we tend to do on this podcast, Jenny and I talk about the evolut...

Fan-girling for the second time this week - my guide today is someone I’ve worshipped from afar for 20 years, Lauren Hefferon . Lauren is the founder and CEB (Chief Executive Biker) of Ciclismo Classico , a boutique bicycle adventure tour operator based in Arlington, Massachusetts. Lauren’s insatiable curiosity and need for activity in her youth got her into bicycling early, to the point that she’...

*BONUS EPISODE, WOOT WOOT!* I’ve been sitting on this recording for almost six months now, because it was a complete and utter tech train wreck from the startup phase of this podcast. I’d been hoping to redo it before I shared it, but then, well, COVID life.... But I literally just got an email from my lovely friend, Tracyn Thayer , about her Seams Unfinished side hustle, and I thought, "F-It...

We’ve got a timely special treat for you today in honor of Giving Thursday. Wait, what’s up with Giving Thursday, you say? You thought it was Giving Tuesday? Well here’s what I have to say about that - who cares what day of the week you do your giving, honestly!??! It’s never a bad day to support the causes and organizations you value. My guest today is Joy Massicotte from Lifted Outdoors , a phen...

It’s our first Guides Gone Wild Wednesday! Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I decided to push ‘publish’ a day early so you had something to listen to on your way to visit your family later, or more realistically, while you bang out a socially distant virtual Turkey Trot tomorrow morning…. Today my special guest is Jenna Vanni, the founder of Woods + Waters Gear Exchange in Brunswick Maine. Woods +...

Even if you’re not in the hospitality or travel or restaurant business, you can appreciate what a craptastic year 2020 has been for these industries. While I’m pretty ambivalent about the impact COVID has had on the Hiltons and Marriotts of the world, I’ve been super bummed to see some of the small businesses I know personally, or admire from afar, struggle, and in some cases throw in the towel, a...

Today I’m bringing you the amazing Sarah Canney, the founder of Rise. Run. Retreat and a member of the US Snowshoe Team. If you enjoyed my conversation with Krista Alderdice back in Episode 17 , I think this one will speak to you as well. And not necessarily because Sarah is an avid and accomplished runner. Like Krista, Sarah’s running practice helped move her through a ton of healing and recovery...

Today I’m turning the spotlight on two amazing young women who are the future - and for that matter, the present - of White Mountain hiking. Alexandra and Sage Herr, aka 'The Granite Gals', and their mom Trish, are rock stars of the New Hampshire hiking community. You might guess that it was because Trish was an avid hiker in her youth, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Instead, an ov...