Plug Tone Outdoors

Built Outdoors | Wild Iris Mountain Sports

In 1989, famed professional rock climber, Todd Skinner, and his then-girlfriend, Amy Whistler, heard about the incredible dolomite cliffs near Lander, Wyoming, packed their bags, and moved immediately to Lander. In order to create jobs for themselves and other climbing partners, they created what came to be known as Wild Iris Mountain Sports, an outdoor gear store named after the climbing area that was holding their minds and hearts in Lander. 
Since then, Wild Iris has seen challenges, changes, and growth, and through it all, it became more than your average outdoor gear shop in an incredibly beautiful place. It’s a pillar of the community, both in Lander and in the climbing world at large.
In this episode of Built Outdoors, we hear from co-owner, Amy Skinner and manager, Joan Chase, about their path to creating a community-centered, adventure-focused outdoor gear shop in small-town Wyoming, how they maintain their identity as a business, and what kind of culture they try to create for their employees.
 
Connect with Wild Iris Mountains Sports:
Website
Instagram
Google Maps to the physical store
Connect with Plug Tone:
Website
Instagram
 
Built Outdoors is created by Emily Holland and Kris Hampton, as part of the Plug Tone Audio Collective. Support the show by leaving a review or sharing it with a friend.

Introducing Built Outdoors

Welcome to Built Outdoors, where we talk with outdoor industry entrepreneurs about the ideas that became businesses and what they’ve learned along the way. 
Part business advice and philosophy, part storytelling and history, and part celebration of the entrepreneurs, founders, and community leaders who are the unsung core of the outdoor industry. 
Coming September 20, 2022 to the Plug Tone Outdoors channel. 
Built Outdoors is created by Emily Holland and Kris Hampton for Plug Tone Outdoors, and is a proud member of the Plug Tone Audio Collective - a diverse group of the best, most impactful podcasts in the outdoor industry. Check out our website or follow along on Instagram to learn more about our other shows.
 

The Giant Sequoia Mortician

As wildfires become more common and powerful, the Giant Sequoias of the American West are burning at massive rates. These enormous beings stand at a few hundred feet in height and a hundred feet in diameter.
Due to climate change and 100 years of human mismanagement, the forests where these Sequoias live are being lost to wildfire.
In this episode, Kris sits down with Sam Prentice, District Hydrologist for the USDA Forest Service, to speak about how wildfires are impacting our Giant Sequoia groves, the surrounding communities, and what we can do about it. 
This episode also dives into our history of fire management, or mismanagement, in the United States, and how current government bodies and nonprofits are not on the same page for a mitigation plan. 
Links from this episode:
Save The Sequoias Act
10 Tips to Prevent Wildfires
Smokey Bear’s Helpful Website
The Sequoia Conservation Fund
Plug Tone Outdoors is part of the Plug Tone Audio Collective. Check out our website or follow along on Instagram to learn more about our other shows.
This episode of Plug Tone Outdoors was created and produced by Kris Hampton.
Music by Mepa Melson, Serge Quadrado, Anton Vlasov, LesFM and Coma Media from Pixabay.com
Find a full transcript of this episode, images from Sam, and more, at our site.

The Cowboy King

Years ago, Kris wrote a traditional cowboy poem called The Cowboy King as a gift to the Lander climbing community. It features 120 route names from climbs in the Lander area. He has performed it live at the International Climbers Festival several times over the years, but only recently recorded and scored the poem. In today's episode, Kris plays the new recording for Lander local, Leif Gasch, and then the two of them chat about the making of the poem.
 
Find Leif online at: https://www.substr8climbing.com/
Guitar in today's episode by LesFM: http://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/
 
www.plugtoneaudio.com
 

They Had True, Real Joy In Their Eyes

In this episode, originally from the Nature Untold Podcast, Emily Holland talks with professional chit-chatter and word nerd, pow-hunting enthusiast, dog dad, and self-described addict, Paddy O’Connell. Paddy spent much of his adult life in repetitive cycles of addiction and pain, which all came to a head when he was 29. His story includes depression and trauma, but it also includes laughter and pure, joyful moments. He works every day at his sobriety and strives to show others how beautiful sobriety can truly be.
Learn more about Plug Tone Audio
In this episode, we discuss:
The Marvel universe (no, that’s not a typo)
What life was like growing up in an Irish family in Chicago
Where he got ‘the gift of gab’
Eruptions of unadulterated joy
The moments that led up to Paddy confronting his addictions
The importance of supportive and loving community
His experience with a treatment facility
How he came into recovery to finally get a rest, but came out with the opportunity for a truly joyful and freeing life
Why the most dangerous words in the English language are ‘I got this’
How the outdoor community should celebrate vulnerability as much as we celebrate sending it
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Books:
Between The World And Me
White Fragility
60 Meters To Anywhere
Magazines:
Freeskier
Adventure Journal
Writer:
Steve Casimiro
How to catch up with Paddy:
Instagram
Website
Thank you, as always, for listening to this episode. Please free free to follow along on the show’s Instagram, our private Facebook group, or wherever you’d like.

Free Climbing For Everyone?

From The American Climbing Project website:
"The history of a place creates future results for the space; this means if we want to understand the current reality of the indoor climbing industry, we must look at the history of where climbing gyms are built, and why. Climbing gyms around the country exist on the ashes of redlined neighborhoods, occupying familiar bands of warehouses, crumbling brick, and food deserts. They seek gentrifying areas, and they target the key demographic of those areas—that is, the young, white, and well-educated residential class."
Continue reading and learn more about this episode from The American Climbing Project, hosted by Devin Dabney, at https://www.americanclimbingproject.com/episodes/s01e02
https://www.plugtoneaudio.com/the-american-climbing-project
Follow them on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/americanclimbingproject/
 
You can find out more about Plug Tone Outdoors and Plug Tone Audio at www.plugtoneaudio.com
Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/plugtoneaudio/
 

We’re at Manzanar. America is Out There.

In this episode we talk with Brenda Beza, host of the podcast Your Healing Nature, and we hear her excellent interview with John Tateishi, former National Executive Director of the Japanese American Citizens League and author of the book Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations.
At two and a half years old, John was among the 120,000 Japanese Americans who, at the outbreak of WWII, were forced from their homes in the western states and imprisoned in America’s concentration camps. With his family, he was sent to the so-called Manzanar Relocation Center in the Eastern Sierras, one of ten American concentration camps in which Japanese Americans spent the war as civilian prisoners of their own government without ever having been charged with any crimes.
In this episode, we discuss John’s root story, spending his formative childhood years as a prisoner at Manzanar, how traditional Japanese cultural values impacted the healing of the Japanese American community, his role in leading the fight for Japanese American reparations and so much more.
More from Plug Tone Audio at https://www.plugtoneaudio.com/
You can find the song Kenji from Fort Minor at https://open.spotify.com/album/5v4Vx9loqMQCS3J7OmP9pa?highlight=spotify:track:6H503HrJOogVycvQkq2SuG
Learn more about Brenda Beza and Your Healing Nature at https://www.plugtoneaudio.com/your-healing-nature
You can learn more about John Tateishi here:
https://www.johntateishi.com/ 
You can purchase Redress here through Heyday Books:
https://www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/redress-the-inside-story-of-the-successful-campaign-for-japanese-american-reparations/ 
Manzanar National Historic Site:
https://www.nps.gov/manz/index.htm 
About the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
(National Archives)
https://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/hearings 
President Reagan’s Apology: Signing of HR 442
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcaQRhcBXKY 
Letter of Apology from President George W. Bush
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/japanese_internment/bush.cfm 
Milagros Phillips, Cracking the Healer’s Code
https://www.milagrosphillips.com/healerscode
 
 

What is Plug Tone Audio?

Emily, Devin and Kris sit down to discuss the origin and mission of Plug Tone Audio, both the podcast collective and the audio production company. 
Learn more about us and the shows in our network at https://www.plugtoneaudio.com/
Rooted outdooors. Exploring inward. Expanding outward. 

Plug Tone Audio

Learn more about the Plug Tone Audio Collective and how Plug Tone can help your brand tell the stories that matter at https://www.plugtoneaudio.com/
Rooted outdoors. Exploring inward. Expanding outward.