Guides Gone Wild

Less Existential Crisis, More Climate Crisis: Torey Brooks on the Catamount Trail

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Summer is winding down, school and fall sports and work obligations are winding back up, and that has me thinking about winter! Or should I say, what passes for winter these days in New England (which at least last winter, was three months of rain and chilly gray skies, followed by 87 snowstorms in like 2 weeks...)

So what better time to bring on my guest today, Torey Brooks, who is one of my original backcountry ski inspirations, a former ski racer and coach, a climber, an engineer, a climate warrior, and a basic bad*ss who decided she wanted to ski the entire length of Vermont earlier this year.

We are talking about the Catamount Trail - 300+ miles of nordic ski trails that were strung together in the early 80s by a few guys who were stuck in their tent on a rainy camping weekend, probably had had a few too many beers, and decided it would be an awesome idea to ski from Massachusetts to Quebec.

I may have made up that part about too many beers, but not about this trail system being awesome - the Catamount Trail really is an amazing network of public and private lands, laced together by ski trails that are conveniently broken down into 31 manageable segments, which is how most people experience the Catamount Trail.

But not today’s superstar guest! As you’ll hear, Torey decided to go for a thru ski - yes, that means all 300+ miles in a single go - this past winter - yes, the winter that basically didn’t decide to happen until the end of February.

So how did she do? You’ll have to tune in to find out!

If you’re not already, you should absolutely be following Torey’s latest adventures over @tleeski on Instagram, and while you’re at the whole online thing, make sure to check out (and maybe even donate to!) Torey’s purposeful pursuits over on Summit4Something.com

And some other important stuff!:

>> Make sure to follow Torey for all the up-to-date deets on the premiere of 300 Miles Melting - Friday, September 16th, 5:00-8:00pm at Hula, Burlington VT! <<

Torey Brooks:

I'm not trying to have an existential crisis here. Like I want to make it clear that you don't have to be like on the verge of not knowing what your life is, to go and do cool things in the woods. Like sometimes you can just do them because they're fun and you want to go do it.

Jen:

Welcome to the Guides Gone Wild podcast. What is Guides Gone Wild, you ask? This is where you'll fill your ears and minds with the stories of everyday extraordinary women who inspire you to take your outdoor adventure game to the next level. Whether you're starting your journey from the couch or the trailhead, this is the place for you. So let's get a little wild. Hey, hey there. Welcome to Guides Gone Wild. This is your host, jen.

Jen:

The summer is winding down. School and fall, sports and work obligations are winding back up, and that has me thinking about winter, or should I say what passes for winter these days in New England, which, at least last winter, was three months of rain and chilly gray skies, followed by 87 snowstorms in like two weeks. So what better time to bring on my guest today, tori Brooks, who was one of my original back country ski inspirations. She's a former ski racer, coach, climber, engineer, climate warrior and a basic badass who decided she wanted to ski the entire length of Vermont earlier this year. We're talking about the Catamount Trail 300 plus miles of Nordic ski trails that were strung together in the early 80s by a few guys who were stuck in their tent on a rainy camping weekend, probably had a few too many beers, decided it would be an awesome idea to ski from Massachusetts to Quebec. I may have made up that part about too many beers, but not about this trail system being awesome. The Catamount Trail really is an amazing network of public and private lands laced together by ski trails that are conveniently broken down into 31 manageable segments, which is how most people experience the Catamount Trail, but not today's superstar guest.

Jen:

As you'll hear, tori decided to go for a through ski. Yes, that means 300 plus miles in a single go this past winter. Yes, the winter that basically didn't decide to happen till the end of February. So how did she do? You'll have to tune in to find out. Ha, hopefully I've got you hooked. Let's clip in and head on out with Tori Brooks. Alright, tori Brooks, welcome to Guide's Gone Wild this evening.

Torey Brooks:

Thank, you Thank you.

Jen:

I run around of trying to find I know. Seriously, I said hold on, yeah. Background to all listeners I met Tori. Tori was one of our leaders way back with Meg Pierce when I did my first back country ski tour guided thing with inclusive ski touring two winters ago and I've been literally chasing you down ever since. You've got like a new job, probably like a new house. You've done like 150 million miles on your skis like since then, like you've done a million things.

Torey Brooks:

I know funny, because I feel like sometimes it feels like a lot and other times, like you said, two years ago, and I had to be like was that really two years ago?

Jen:

I know, I know what we were being reckless during COVID, I guess. Whatever we did it and it was great, and I subsequently eventually bought a little uphill set and I did a little bit of stuff all by myself this weekend. I didn't buy a fancy one, I got like you know, whatever those retrofitted alpine bindings things, so they're wicked heavy and I'm like just it gives me excuse to be the last person because I'm like these are heavy so I can just be slow.

Torey Brooks:

That's what I started with. Yeah, you know, especially if you're still figuring out, if it's like totally the sport, yeah, not the day, not the day makers, the ones that you can like slide, the ones that oh shit, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jen:

So I can use my regular boots, basically so which I, which I'm loving, yeah.

Torey Brooks:

I'm always big about, like you know, the right gear makes a huge difference, but at the end of the day, it's whatever gear makes sense for you for what you want to do, and I, you know, especially in your first couple seasons, like there's no need to break the bank. No, and that was the thing I told my husband.

Jen:

I'm like this is something that I'd love to do, but like we get eye contest. So he's Don Hilski quite a bit. So I'm like I'm going to do it. You know when the lines are long, or like probably five times a year. So he's like here's this group, this stuff I found on Facebook be like 150 bucks. I'm like Don Christmas. My birthday yeah exactly I'm like, and I need a better lower body workout anyway. So there you go.

Jen:

That you will get Exactly, exactly, all right, so winding it back. Tori is a amazingly smart person. She has a really cool new job working for the federal government. She is an engineer right by training environmental engineer no.

Torey Brooks:

I'm actually a structural engineer structural engineer and building and environmental specialty yeah.

Jen:

Obviously a bad country badass, but you started out as an alpine badass, racing and what else do I know about you? You do all kinds of cool adventures. You are a very, very active and organized person who takes on these very exciting things, and she did the entire cat amount trail this past winter, which is like remarkable, because winter didn't even start until like March 15th and she still managed to ski the entire length of Vermont. So we're going to talk a little bit about that today and just all the other things. She also holds down a full time job while she does these things, which is like remarkable.

Torey Brooks:

So anyway, I want to talk to you for a million years.

Jen:

I know, I know, but but anyway. So let's wind it back. I know you're from you're from New Hampshire originally, we don't need to talk too much about it. But I would love to hear about, like kind of the ski racing to then, why you stopped doing that and how you got into back country, especially because that plays into all the other stuff that we're going to talk about.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, definitely yeah. So I grew up in New Hampshire. I was super lucky to grow up in a beautiful place. I grew up in the lakes region in New Hampshire and my family spent a decent amount of time outside not necessarily like you know exactly the types of things I do now, but you know as a kid it was your two choices were be doing your homework or go play outside kind of deal, and grew up really kind of in nature and enjoying the lake and the mountains and Alpine skiing. Both my parents were big skiers and though you know they didn't necessarily push me into ski racing, the deal was just on the weekends we go to the mountain. So figure out what you want to do, Ideally not like sitting in the lodge the whole time, but this is, this is our family's deal, so figure out what you want to do with it. My brother went more the freestyle route. I stuck to kind of the racing route. You know, classic like the mountain was our daycare on the weekends, that my parents could go skiing because that's what they wanted to do. We like shared a ski house with like a family friend just to make it reasonable and it was. It was an awesome way to grow up and so, yeah, I raced all the way up to high school and I was pretty competitive.

Torey Brooks:

I ended up going to Colorado to continue racing at some point when you're at a certain level and you know, in ski racing, but in a lot of these sports it's really hard, if not impossible, to be able to do public school and compete at that level. I tried, I did at my freshman year and I actually loved where I went, but by like February they pretty much told me I couldn't miss another day of school and I hadn't even started racing at like the next tier. So I ended up finding an awesome school out in Colorado. That was a combination of kind of like a mountain school, so there were athletes, but there were also students who weren't athletes, and it allowed me to race at a high level and still get a, you know, really great education and be surrounded by people who love the outdoors as much as I did, which was really it was a great place for me and that was in the team boat springs, yeah. And then through that, you know, I always kind of thought, you know, when you're in a sport like that, there's kind of the trajectory right that you you from when you're little are moving towards and everyone is, and it's kind of either that like us ski team or D one skiing, like that's what everyone's shooting for. You know, it's not that many people who get there, but there's a lot of people trying.

Torey Brooks:

And in pushing yourself that hard, you know I ended up dealing with a lot of injuries, pretty young in comparison. So by the time I was 18 and I graduated high school, I was had had two major knee surgeries, a couple concussions, and was just pushing myself really hard and at that point was still trying to go to race in college, ended up taking, you know, a year off or I was planning actually taking two years off before trying to get on a ski team of some type and got hurt again. And when I got hurt the third time and I remember sitting with my surgeon at that point because it had happened a few times and I remember him telling me like you know, there's going to become a point where I can't really fix you anymore. Like you're, we're starting to approach the, you're doing really long term damage. And I just remember being like what the heck am I doing? I'm 18. Like why are we talking about how soon I'm going to get arthritis Right Like you're just like. This is insane.

Torey Brooks:

And so at that moment I kind of decided that I was done ski racing. Luckily I had deferred to UNH, so the state school, and I decided that I was just going to do school. And I always really liked school, I was always a good student and that was always on my radar. But the decision to just do school was a big one for me and it was nice in a lot of ways because it allowed me to have a school experience. That would have been really hard if I was balancing something like ski racing. And in that experience, you know, I found that I was really interested in engineering, which is a really intense program. Sometimes, I joke, I just switch one type of intensity for another.

Torey Brooks:

But and I had the opportunity to start really exploring the outdoors and sport outside of these kind of traditional roots of competitive sports, and it was amazing. And you know, growing up actually my mom was the person who taught me about ski touring. She is to this day like my biggest mentor. She's very much the like. I want to go ski touring in Alaska and I'm going to go do that, you know. And so growing up with. That was, I feel, incredibly lucky.

Torey Brooks:

And so once I got into school and I wasn't ski racing anymore, I had all these this opportunity to do that more and go ski touring with my mom more and really just fell into it. And by the time I graduated from grad school, it had just become like how I reset myself, was just being outside in these places. Climbing became a really big thing and that's how I met my partner and my best friend and so, like my whole community really just became the outdoor community and it was really cool to me because I had always been in competitive communities, so it was really cool to just be like, oh, we all just love the same thing and not because we're trying to, like you know, one up each other necessarily, and so, yeah, and that's how I kind of got to where I am now, and then I was always, just, you know, every year balancing between them two and got deeper and deeper into ski touring. That's really become my main love.

Torey Brooks:

I just love traveling in the mountains in the winter and I love the decision making and the safety aspects and also, just, you know, winters long in the Northeast and so having a passion to do during winter is important, and so bringing other people into that fold and I had the opportunity to, you know, ski as a kid and so, like I went, I spent seven or eight years coaching ski racing at a little Rope Toe Hill in the town that I grew up in, and like getting to share that experience was really important to me and I continue you know that's how we met was still feeling connected in a way that I can bring people in the way that I had the chance to come in. So, yeah, it's just been kind of a combination of all that and now, you know, like anyone, I'm trying to juggle a lot of things, yeah.

Jen:

Yeah, well, and before we get into the job things, I do want you to talk about that quite a bit, but like there's something that came that has been kind of like interesting, as I think about your background and hearing the whole story about the racing so, and I know that, I know that like we're going to talk about the Cadmont Trail too, because I think that is a very noteworthy accomplishment, but I know it didn't go the way you planned and I'm also like, ok, you were like probably catastrophically injured multiple times if you were having this conversation with your surgeon. So, like, talk to me about disappointment, redirection, expectations not being met, like kind of first off, what has made you so resilient? Because, like a lot of people would get a very serious injury and be like I'm done, you know what I mean. Like that would just be, you'd be scared or whatever.

Jen:

Obviously, not everybody, because we got what's her face there, the one that got like demolished on national television, the blonde Lindsey Vaughn. I mean you watch these awful things happen to somebody and you're like, holy crap, she's back at it. So not everybody is as big of a wussy as I am, but I'm like that's a remarkable thing, well, but also like you know, and then it has set you up for a lot of the things that you're doing now.

Jen:

So talk about that a little bit, Like what is there something unique in you, or is there something that you learned or something you developed over time? Or how you know how do you approach disappointment? And how do you approach you make good decisions because you're still here and you do a lot of crazy stuff.

Torey Brooks:

So when the objective does not go the way you expected, yeah, I think the first step is and honestly I don't think I figured this out until I started moving in the mountains more I think my ski racing career was a lot of I don't want to call them unrealistic expectations, because you want to set big goals but like harsh expectations on yourself and not always properly aligning that with, like, the realities of what you're doing. Right, and it's hard when you're in a bubble of a bunch of really elite people. Right, you're, you're sensitive, normal, like even with the injuries, yeah, I mean I had three major. Now I've had four, but I had at that point three major knee surgeries. But in the realm of, like ski racing it's not you know and and so learning.

Jen:

But also in the realm of ski racing. You're in this hotbed of comparison culture. You know I mean and, and and feeling like you're not good enough, you know.

Torey Brooks:

so I'm like, how do you? How do you?

Jen:

know how, what makes you able to navigate that you think?

Torey Brooks:

I think that you know like and everyone always says this but like that kind of having the why you're doing it and at the end of the day, I just really love skiing and I loved challenging myself. I loved about ski racing how objective it is. You know, there's a lot of sports that are judged and ski racing is not. You go down and you follow the rules and you have a time and like it's brutal that way sometimes because you can lose by two hundreds of a second, which is ridiculous when you think about it.

Jen:

But it also doesn't matter how ugly you do it.

Torey Brooks:

Right, it doesn't matter. Like you know, technique and all these things are really important to make you fast. At the end of the day, it's very clean cut as to what your time was, and so I think that I really like that because there's this even though you're comparing yourself to people, there's this natural progression, like even in like I used to like races. I didn't actually love racing, but I love training, because in training sometimes we'd have like a timer and you'd be doing the same course. You'd get the opportunity to do that and see like, oh, if I do this, I can shave this time. And so I think it was that that I really loved about skier racing.

Torey Brooks:

In the end, and as far as the managing disappointment, you know it's hard the more you love something, and so I dealt with a lot of that when I was in ski racing and I think when I stopped ski racing, that was like a huge burden that I learned to let go. I think in some ways I then shifted it into engineering and you know, difficult pursuits like that have a similar mentality. But I think over time it's like every way I shift it, I learned to shave some of the harshness off of it and learning that like it's okay to have expectations of yourself, but, especially in the mountains, like you almost have to before you go out, except that the chances that it's not going to go the way you want it to are like 99%, like it's never. When it does, it's like you're like weird, did I miss something?

Torey Brooks:

And so I think the more you learn to just accept that before you even step out the door and then everything's kind of a win, or even looking at those opportunities like one of my favorite things about traveling in the mountains and doing these things, you know that you're mitigating risk. A lot is the chance to like do that and if you're with like a partner in the mountains, like to have those conversations to work through those problems, I mean, it's all just problem solving at the end of the day. So I think, yeah, with the disappointment, it's hard and you're going to have it, no matter what realm you're in. And I think, with like coming back from injury, I think part of it was it was just really stubborn. That is a family trait that I definitely you know, and I think in some ways too, it was like finding a new way to move that did work for me because, I was really worried and I was actually really shocked when I stopped ski racing.

Torey Brooks:

There was like a solid three or four years where I would have a lot of moments where I'm like, no, no, no, I can't do that, I can't blow my knee again right or like, and, honestly, that's healthy and I am proud that I took that approach. But it's funny because now I feel like my body and my knees are the strongest they've ever been, much stronger than I was when I was even ski racing, because I have learned to do it incrementally with what I feel like my body can allow, and now I have a much longer outlook where, like, my goal is to be traveling in the mountains for my whole life. So that requires me to like, keep my body in check and be realistic about what it can do. And if I'm tired some days I'm tired and that's as far as that can go.

Jen:

Yeah, well, and yeah, and I think you get a lot of that wisdom with age too. It's like it's, you know, you're not just following somebody else's plan. At some point you're just like, yeah, this doesn't work for me, but yeah, so let's talk about the Catamount Trail, because it's a good kind of. What I found interesting about you choosing to do that is that you know, you obviously went from alpine skiing to like backcountry like, but alpine like climbing and going down like Takramans and other sketchy stuff all over the place, yeah.

Jen:

And then, but Catamount Trail is more of a Nordic backcountry experience. So, like, where did that even come from? Why did you decide to do that? Like, tell us about that whole.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, bit of a departure, honestly. Like I got into like a bit of Nordic backcountry, kind of just out of the desire of you know there's a lot of days, especially in the Northeast, where it's either not safe to be up in the backcountry or you've had to call your day, or the conditions aren't quite right and you still might be want to be on skis and move and you know if the resort's busy you don't necessarily want to go do laps. So I got into Nordic backcountry because there's a way of still exploring a lot of the lower terrain in a more efficient way. It kind of came from. I got into trail running and then it was kind of for me like the combination of trail running and backcountry skiing is Nordic backcountry.

Jen:

You're like cross regular cross-country skiing on a groomed trail? Not for me Too easy.

Torey Brooks:

Well, I will not say easy. I don't think I've never tried the skate ski and I think I would. Maybe that'll be like a funny video we can make with.

Jen:

Yeah.

Torey Brooks:

Like don't get the impression that I'm a good Nordic skier, okay, I'm just good at long arduous stubbornness, but yeah, so I got into it a little bit and then I think what really just propelled me to want to do it was I didn't know that the Catamount Trail existed until about like the time that I was getting into Nordic backcountry, and just the concept of it, like I was in awe, like that.

Jen:

So tell us about it though, because, like I think, I'm not sure I really knew what it was until you started doing it. I mean, I assumed it was in Vermont. I thought it would be like a hike trail that they're doing, but it's really not right.

Torey Brooks:

No, so it's this 300 mile backcountry trail that runs from the southern border to the northern border of Vermont, so the long way, and it was imagined by people who were like I would love to ski through Vermont.

Torey Brooks:

So it's not on like a normal hiking trail that you're just skiing on, it's not even there are sections. You know it's a, it's a total mix. There are sections that are like total backcountry trails, there are sections that are old logging roads, there are sections that are snowmobile, like shared access trails, but it's a continuous link up of the entire way and I just thought that that was so cool. You know, I think through trail culture is really cool on, you know, in the summer and I've always thought that that was amazing. But the concept that this was a trail that was for skiing it's now, you know, they're trying to make it also open to like summer recreation and biking, but for the longest time it the only way you could do it was on skis and I just thought that was so unique and so cool and not something that you have, and it was something that was it's three hours from where I grew up and I had no idea, and so when I found out, I was just like this is amazing and, even if that's not like exactly my forte, like how cool is that?

Torey Brooks:

I think I was also just like looking for something that was I knew was going to be like long and hard and to push myself, but not push myself necessarily for like an immense amount of risk, and that's a really hard balance in the sports that I do Like it's a fine line. And so I felt like it was kind of this like oh, that like there's risk at it, that's definitely not risk free, but it's a little bit more palatable. So yeah, I just started brainstorming and thinking about it and kind of thought like there's a couple people who have done it in one push. I, from what I know, I haven't seen any women have tried to do it in one push and very few, just people on the whole. And so that was originally my intention.

Torey Brooks:

Was I can I do this whole thing kind of self supported, in one push, knowing that that was asking a lot and that's kind of back to our expectations thing, right, like that was the dream. But the amount of things that would have to go I don't even want to say right, just not really wrong to make that happen would have, you know, would have been immense. So yeah, not exactly how it came out, I got hat. Well, first we weren't even sure if it was going to be able to happen this year because, seriously because it didn't even snow until like April, but yeah, our winter was not good and a lot of the elevation is actually relatively low.

Torey Brooks:

So that was the first concern was like I don't even know if we can do this, I don't really intend on walking out of it. So as we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and then finally we were like I think it'll go, and so I started out and I made it about halfway through Vermont and it was hard and the conditions, you know, were not great even for, like, I didn't expect them to be great, but they were especially sticky, which makes it hard to make a lot of progress, and are most of these on trails that are broken down, that somebody else would have broken, or are you literally doing it?

Jen:

A lot of it, and that was part of the difficulty at the start was I?

Torey Brooks:

think the first three days I was almost breaking trail the whole time and I was carrying everything I needed to sleep and eat, so it was a lot more effort to make miles happen and it's just not a super popular trail. So I knew that that was going to be a chance. But three days was a lot more than I was expecting.

Jen:

Were you pulling a? Sled Is that how you, I was, yeah, okay.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, which for me was. You know a lot of people do it with a backpack too. If they've done it For me, pulling a sled I just find is a lot more efficient and I don't have to have the weight on me. So I just find my body just reacts better to it and that's just one of those like I don't know if there's a good way to do it, it's just pick your poison.

Torey Brooks:

Because this led to more complicated and more things can go wrong.

Torey Brooks:

But so, yeah, so I made about halfway through Vermont and then we got that giant nor'easter, which was ironic because we hadn't had enough snow, and then we got a ton of snow and I originally was like, you know, this is part of it, Even if I lose some mileage for some days. So be it. I had always expected that there was going to be something like this, and so I pushed through it for the first day because I was also, you know, really checking the radar and trying to figure out and originally did not look like it, looked like it was going to be a big storm, but I think originally it was like maybe two feet and it ended up being like. I remember the first day I made it through, I was like okay, and I remember like checking the radar again and I was in contact with the gentleman and the team who was filming me, which I'll get into. But I remember like ending my day and just like checking my in reach messages and checking the weather, and they were just like it's not going to stop.

Jen:

I was like shit, yeah, and it's not like three feet of snow in like Utah. You know that you could just like right through like it's salt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like concrete.

Torey Brooks:

So I was like so we started like playing the like okay, what makes sense?

Torey Brooks:

And so we decided at that point I was like, okay, it doesn't make sense for me to, at that point, to after that full day of trudging, I was starting to really feel it in my body in a way of like you know, you have to know your body and I was using so much more energy than I should be if I needed that whole time. So we decided to, I decided to pivot and I was like okay, if I don't carry my sled and I have a little bit more aids so I meet up with my crew with my gear when I need it, kind of I can do most of the day like fast and light, and then maybe I can do it. And I did that for a day and it was just another two feet of snow and I did a great day. But again it was just like at some point you know I'm a numbers person and the numbers weren't making sense no, well, plus, as you mentioned, you were squeezing it in in the limited amount of time that you had to do it.

Jen:

It wasn't like you could just be on trail forever, you know.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, I had taken off like two and a half weeks for work and I knew like at this rate I'm not gonna make that anyways. And you know, honestly, I mean, a lot of Vermont was like fully shut down, the roads are really dangerous and a lot of these access points that my team was trying to get me to like they couldn't plow the normal full roads, let alone these hour-long back roads.

Jen:

Yeah, so it was just it's not just you you're worrying about it, it was possible.

Torey Brooks:

I felt to like ask people to continue to do this. So once I called it, I was just like you know, and I actually felt I thought it was gonna be harder than it was. I think at some point, like you, just know what the right things to do, and it's a bummer, but I had spent so much time preparing myself, knowing that it probably wasn't gonna work out that it was just not like okay, like pivot.

Torey Brooks:

And then the funniest part was everyone how much people assumed that because I had stopped halfway, that I would just like everyone's like okay, so like you can go for it next year again. And in my mind I was like, well, I wanted to do this trail, because I wanted to do the trail, like that doesn't change, just because I am not gonna be able to do it in this one, like one push attempt this, like you know, hero story, like I you weren't gonna be able to submit it to fktcom.

Jen:

it's like what the hell?

Torey Brooks:

and so I was like you know what, I still want to do the rest of this trail, and I'm just gonna do it in the weekends. So I was a little bit past the halfway mark at this point. So then I spent the next three or four weekends just doing these big like two, sometimes three-day stretches of just a ton of miles, fast and light, and finish the trail that way and honestly like I though of course you know the the pride's like oh, I like, wish I could have done it in one push.

Torey Brooks:

It was so cool to be able to experience the trail in multiple ways, and the way that most people do it is this like sectioned way, and so it felt like I was getting more of the real experience and I also got to like spend more time in the towns around the trail and it's much more fun to be like oh, I wish I was doing it in one push when you're eating nachos and you just took a hot shower.

Jen:

You know right?

Torey Brooks:

oh my gosh yeah, I was so sick of bagged food and being cold and like the the second half, I was like, oh, I can like stay at the craft berry center. It's. This is like bougie, I can eat nice food. I was like I should have done it this way the whole time.

Torey Brooks:

I'm warm, I'm dry, yeah, it ended up being such a cool experience and I ended up doing the whole trail hardly by the skin of my teeth. The last three miles was literally through like a needy swamp, needy swamp but I ended up somehow finishing before all the snow melted and it was amazing. It was a really cool way to see Vermont and see really beautiful places that, like aren't all that far from you know busier places, and it's just so amazing. The wilderness that we all have access to and the community was amazing. I mean, every time I ran into something like the amount of donuts and cookies and snacks and trail magic that people left me along the way and messages I'd get like in the every three days when I got service on my cell phone I would get like a bombardment of messages and it was like really amazing.

Jen:

Yeah it sounds cool and and so we're gonna be able to ride along with you, kind of like. So tell us a little bit about the film and also tell me about the film crew and, given the fact that you were slogging and carrying your skis for the last three miles, like talk about your involvement, protect our winners, because that's like yeah, yeah yeah.

Torey Brooks:

So, uh, you know, through this whole adventure and one of the reasons when I was looking at this trail that I kind of wanted to do it sooner rather than later was, quite honestly, that our winters are not getting longer and you know, everything that happened with the weather makes sense and, um, you know, I spend a lot of time thinking about climate change and working in that realm and so I always kind of knew, you know, having the opportunity to do these types of things really gives you the opportunity to see these types of changes so directly and gives you that feeling of like what we have to lose in some ways, you know, outside of realistically much more serious things as well, but in a way that's, I think, emotionally really tied more and so, in the process of knowing I want to do the catamount and knowing that part of that reason was climate change and I've been involved with protector winners for a while because I think it is important to tell these stories in this light that I had reached out to Connor at Eastern Adventures because he makes the type of films that I like, which are like real people films, not kind of these like huge, like existential crisis athlete, like I just feel. I always felt like you're really relatable. I like how he's not afraid to use humor. And so I reach out to him and I was like I have this really crazy idea. Do you want to help me make a film? Because, like, I will be the first to say I am not. I am not a filmmaker. I am like, hey, I have an idea if you would like to film it. And so initially I think he didn't tell me this until later. Initially he was like, oh hell, no, that's crazy. And then he came around to it and we ended up working with Ansel at Vermont social through a lot of it and we brought it together and, yeah, so we filmed most of the adventure.

Torey Brooks:

One of the big things for me is I wanted this to be a still a journey on my own journey. So I still want to do it solo, and so having those conversations with them about like what that meant and like not that I want to be like don't talk to me at all, but just like these long stretches of being solo are important to me. I don't want contact every day and kind of figuring out how to do that and also film. So it's a combination of you know, like really quality, amazing filmmaking on Ansel's part and essentially, my less quality selfie videos, which I'm sure get less and less lose it as the trip goes on. So I'm I like told them I was like you guys editing this are gonna really see everything about me, but anyways, so yeah, we're, we're compiling that and making a film.

Torey Brooks:

And you know, about climate change, hopefully you know we're we don't want to make it too much like climate doom, but just inspiring people that like, if we can do these types of hard things, then we can also do other hard things, like tackling this huge endeavor that's in front of us of taking care of our planet. And so, yeah, we're gonna be telling that story and the film premiere just figured out it's gonna be early September and likely gonna also be, you know, it's probably. That's exciting are you?

Jen:

are you seeing like cuts of it and stuff already?

Torey Brooks:

a little bit.

Jen:

Yeah, we started, I just love the fact that it's not like this, like angsty white female takes out into the wilderness to find herself like. It's just not even about that.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, I love it guys, I'm not trying to have an existential crisis here. Like I want to make it clear that you don't have to be like on the verge of not knowing what your life is, to go and do cool things in the woods, like sometimes you can just do them because they're fun and you want to go do it, you have your shit together and you planned and you can learn about this huge like moment in all of it I thought I was actually gonna cry a lot more than I did on trial.

Torey Brooks:

I think there's only like one real moment where I teared up, which was shocking. I was expecting more.

Jen:

Yeah, that's amazing. I like, hey, being wet and cold. I would have been like the whole time, Like the first time I had to get into my tent and was like, oh, I'm going to get wet. I would have been like a mess. Oh, a total mess.

Torey Brooks:

But yeah, so that I'm excited for that. It's going to be a weird experience seeing that much time of me on a screen, so we'll see how that feels, but yeah, I'm excited.

Jen:

It's cool to combine like something that I love and something that creatives like love to do and yeah, they'll do a great job, though the Eastern Adventure guy posted the most hilarious real today. He's like I've been so busy so I'm just going to do a 720 for you guys, and he's like it's him spinning in his office chair. And that's what.

Torey Brooks:

I was like it's relatable. I get it Like everything doesn't need to be this like high and mighty thing. I don't think like.

Jen:

And yeah.

Torey Brooks:

I, honestly, in making a film that you know, though it's not like crazy personal in the sense of like my personal life, it's personal in the sense of like you're going to watch me suffer for 300 miles and so to have a team that you feel like you trust and you feel good about that. And even in like that moment halfway where I had to like look at them and be like, guys, it's not going to happen, and just like how much, how well and like amazing, they handled that and I never felt uncomfortable with them. We all know each other way too well at this point. And yeah, and it's cool too Because, like Ansel just had his first kid and Connor like just moved his young family into a new house and I have this new job. So it's cool because it's like feels like real people doing real things. That's hopefully like tangible to other people seeing it.

Jen:

But at the same time they got to have their Jimmy Chinmo, where they're like the talent says go, we're going to go. The talent says stop. We're going to stop.

Torey Brooks:

So they got everybody, Probably not as quickly as most of those it's like, okay, I'm going to go now and you're going to see me for the next 10 minutes, just walking across this Vermont field, although it does sound like the road conditions at the end there were probably just as dangerous, as like hanging off a cliff with a camera. So honestly, I think they might have been in more danger some of the time than I was. Yeah, yeah, yikes.

Jen:

They're doing it harder.

Torey Brooks:

I didn't have to carry a camera around, so that was nice.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't have gotten a very flattering vantage point from your sled that you're trailing by, that's trailing behind you anyway. So so tell me, okay, what let's? Let's wrap this up, because I want to hear about, I want you to talk a little bit about your summit for something website, because that was something that kind of predated all of this, these shenanigans that you're doing now, and also about you know, I know you just kind of started a new job and you've been traveling quite a bit, but even before that, like, you have a very, you know, high impact job and you work like real hours and you do this, and while it would not probably be everyone's first choice to get up at like three o'clock in the morning to do things, it, I do think that there's a good way, a good reminder of, like, if there's something that's important to you, you know you don't necessarily have to blow your whole life up to do it.

Jen:

So talk a little bit about all these things.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, so summit for something, summit for somethingcom, and it's essentially by website, which I never really thought. I was going to be a person who had a website but and it came about because I would go and do you know, I've always been a person who kind of sets goals and not for the reason of really reaching them, just because I am a box ticker, it's just. You know, at some point you just have a nature, and mine is like you're an engineer, you can just leave it.

Torey Brooks:

You can just leave it there Like we get it, we get it, and then it's like getting all the experiences from that, but that for me, is just like it's the motivation to get out the door and then after that it's the experience. But sometimes it's helpful to just have that motivation.

Jen:

And so, yeah, accountability thing I would think Like you put a list down of like here's all the things I want to do you better. Do You're like?

Torey Brooks:

Oh, I have a Saturday. What am I going to do? And you're like well, I got a whole list of them. So, yeah, so, uh, summit for something.

Torey Brooks:

Essentially, I have a bunch of my kind of goals that I want to do in my outdoor that some like throughout my career, and some of them are like things that might I may be able to achieve in a season or two, and some things are like if I do this in my whole life, then that will be amazing. And every goal I kind of have a paired like reason behind it, you know. So it's usually either climate or inclusivity based, and essentially the way it works is people who like care to follow along, they pledge a certain amount of month. Usually it's like a coffee worth of. Like I'm not asking for people's mortgages, I don't want people sending their mortgages, but essentially like, as I kind of achieve my outdoor goals, it's like other people pledge money to donate to these nonprofits and it's kind of a way of you know, I think being in the outdoors and doing these sports can be inherently a little selfish and that's okay, right, like there's no reason we need to be like peak bagging, like that's not uh, other than like it's amazing. It's an amazing experience and that's okay, and so for me it was a really nice way to tie things that were important to me together and to have a way for people in my life. Honestly, originally it was just kind of like direct family and friends who wanted to be more plugged into what I was doing, and it kind of just blossomed from that and it's been a really cool way and people seem to be pretty receptive of it and so it's just kind of like this side thing that I have. It's not anything, you know, too fancy, but it's been a really rewarding way and I feel like it makes people feel that these things are more approachable, which is really important to me. Um, like I'm the first to like, yeah, reach out, ask me a question, like I'm happy to help in whatever way I can. But you know, balancing all of that with the fact that I have a full time job and you know I worked in engineering for the first like five or six years of my career and now I work for the EPA, environmental Protection Agency, launching projects as they relate to the field of engineering that I was in, and it's been awesome to you know, it's cool for me because I feel so privileged to be able to go to work every day and know that inherently, my work's purpose is to tackle this huge issue that we have in climate change, and so, like I feel really blessed to have that opportunity and I like the balance a lot.

Torey Brooks:

Um, I think there's this unfortunate dialogue that if you want to be outdoorsy, if you want to be in some of these sports, you have to give up everything to do it and you have to go all in. And there are a lot of people that does work for I mean a lot of my friends, whether they're pro athletes or in like the creative space in the outdoors, like they love it. But it's not the only way to do it and for me, I love having a job. That's I mean it's related because you know my passion for outdoors.

Torey Brooks:

I get to exercise in a way at work, but I like the separation and like I can't run eight hours every day even if I wanted to. So it's this kind of counterbalance and it's not always easy and there are times that I do not get out nearly as much. I'm in one right now, this spring, because I, when I started at the job, it's been a bit more travel than normal. I won't be like this forever, but so you know there's counterbalance to it all, but I really love being having an opportunity to do both and I like that. You know, my outdoor activity is not what's paying my bills and so I don't view it as a job and I think that that is. I think some people are really good at balancing that. I don't think I have that personality type because I tend to be all in on things, so for me the separation is really important.

Jen:

And you can pay your bills, which can sometimes be an issue if you blow up your life and decide to do all that full time, because, yeah, there are no shortage of outdoor content creators out there. And it's a dying dot work and making your passion your hobby, your profession doesn't always work well, and sometimes it just snuffs out that passion pretty damn quick.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, and so I think it's more so, just like, and you know there's space for all of it and everyone can figure out what works for them and you know, at the end of the day, like what's going to make you happy.

Torey Brooks:

And honestly too, from I think some of it was like my choices and balancing. This was informed from my experience of like getting really injured and then stopping ski racing because it's so hard when you lose something, and that is like really, or something. And for me, like yeah, I lost ski racing, but I still had my academics, I still had something there that I knew like still makes me happy and they, you know, I it's not my whole identity and that's really important for me. I like that If I have a frustrating day at work, like I can go for a run and I can just like switch my brain off and love in that kind of way and then honestly, sometimes like after when I did the first half of the catamount, and then I called that and like went back to work sitting at a warm desk with like an endless supply of coffee, like warm and dry, and I had a heater on and I was just like working and I was like you know, it's not that bad.

Jen:

Yeah, I don't know, you know, do I tent in the snow or my office?

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, I had the opportunity you know like own a home and do these other things that like are so important to my happiness in the long run, and I'm sure it'll add, been flow. You know there's gonna be. There are times where my career, like right now, are kind of taken a lot. And that's okay, Because in the end it's like in my whole life I just want there to be the balance that I need for happiness, and it's not always going to be perfect.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah, no, that's. That's awesome and I think that it's just yeah refreshing to hear, so it's good. All right, two more questions and I'll give them both to you and you can think about them both and answer which in whichever order you would like. My first one is because you are a very inspiring person to a lot of people, but who inspires you? And second is your favorite piece of gear costs less than 50 bucks.

Torey Brooks:

Oh, I don't know which one of those is harder. You know, I know you asked these questions and you think I would have thought of this beforehand, but I'll do the gear first.

Jen:

I feel like we did. We might have done the gear question that time at the clinic. I think people were telling me their gear. Oh, interesting, when we were doing the intro circle. Or maybe it was this past year. I don't remember what my answer was. I don't either, actually.

Torey Brooks:

Yeah, my favorite piece of gear and this is like really odd is the kind of fold up Z pads that you can get, cutting two panels off of it, maybe one, and having that, and, or you can get the inflatable ones too and just having those chucked in your various bag. Because if, whether it's like you're climbing and you're at an uncomfortable spot at the bottom of the cliff, or you're skiing and you're tired and like sitting on the snow is just going to make you even more cold, or you're trail running and you eat it and you need to take like a little bit of a high, or you just got your uphill setup and it takes you 57 hours to like transition from uphill to down or uphill downhill and you need to kneel down.

Torey Brooks:

Having something comfortable to sit on or kneel on is like life changing.

Jen:

So like it.

Torey Brooks:

I almost always will have something like that on me because and honestly, just on the like safety side, it's like a built-in spline. It's if someone's like hurt, you want to keep them off the ground anyways, and it's, they're so light, they're so easy, they're cheap. I mean, mine is like I literally just have a really old one, it's like in holes, but it is good enough, it does a trick.

Jen:

Yeah, that's actually a great. That's a great call, that's a good one. Yeah, I like that Cool. And how about? Where do you find inspiration these days?

Torey Brooks:

Oh, doesn't have to be outside, but I think I find the most inspiration in. I don't think it's any like. I mean there are singular people, definitely, who inspire me, for sure, but I think it's just like whenever I see someone who is going about their life and you know that like wherever they were was because they just committed to whatever is going to make them happy and not feeling beholden to what they should do or high expectations or whatever it is, because that is so hard. We all know that and like and no matter what it is, you know if it's like the teachers who are willing to be teachers one and two like you know work, a summer job I worked in restaurants as a kid growing up and the amount of teachers that I worked with and I'm like and they're willing to do that because they really love teaching kids.

Torey Brooks:

Or you know somebody like I have friends who decided to start their families early. You know like they were, like they had kids earlier than a lot of the people around me because that was what they knew, that they really wanted to do and the way they wanted their life to look. And I think whenever you see somebody do that like, there's very few things that are as inspiring as just like that person knew what they needed and they did it because that is. It seems easy, but when you're actually in the moment it's really not so it happens obviously outdoors a lot too right.

Torey Brooks:

Like every time you see somebody, like on a mountain, essentially, you're like you wanted to do something and you did it yeah absolutely yeah, no, and that, and that is that's a really good point, because it's so, so easy.

Jen:

You know it doesn't get any easier as everybody gets, you know, tied up in their phone all the time to not get caught up in the shoulds and the woods and the codes and whatever, and to just see somebody who is literally just like living their truth is, you're right, it is very inspiring. And then that is why I've been very inspired for you, because you can tell that you're doing that and you're making choices based on how you want your life to live, and that's a really cool way to be, and you're using, you know, your exceptional privilege to do a lot of really good things in the world, and I think that's awesome, because sometimes that can hang us up too. You know feeling guilty about the fact that we have access to a lot of stuff that non white ladies don't, you know.

Torey Brooks:

So yeah, it's a hard balance right, but I think you know I've always felt that I was dealt an amazing deck of cards and that comes with a responsibility to make sure that that's I'm not playing them against anybody else's chance in the card game. And if anything like using it to help propel that and you know there's so many opportunities to do that if you're willing, and if you're willing to kind of take your ego out of it and be called out sometimes you know like that's the most important like you have to be open to somebody being like that was dumb or you shouldn't say that, because that's the only way that you're going to like, learn and improve.

Jen:

Yeah, Well, as simple as it was. Tori was like crawling around in the snow helping us all with our pin bindings when we were like completely clueless, and she was so pleasant about it, and she did it like 15 times to all of us because we just couldn't figure it out.

Torey Brooks:

So, hey, honestly, stuck with me for two years. I'm like that was so thankful. I think about like it, like I love uphill skiing but oh my God, the gear, like I mean the gear has gotten so good, but it's just like I wish you could make skiing so much less complicated than it is, because it's just so complicated and it's it's just the nature of the sport, but it's just really hard. So whatever like I feel like I can do to help ease that.

Jen:

I know you guys were hilarious Like no, no, you got it, you got it, you got it, you got it. You're so close. I'm like okay, the last time somebody told me that my kid kept popping back into me when I was like trying to get it out, and that wasn't funny either. Okay, Hopefully pin bindings are easier. Pin bindings are easier, much better than that. Yes, oh my God, but it was super fun. I hope that we get to cross paths, live again soon, and because you're out the road in New Hampshire from me and and yeah did, we did we miss anything?

Jen:

Did we miss anything? I don't think so. I really appreciate you finding time to do this, because I know you are wicked busy right now and you are doing all the air travel, which is such a disaster, because every time I do it it's like four days later I might make it home where I, when I think I'm going to so delayed.

Torey Brooks:

And you know, there's also the guilt of the irony of traveling for work to be better in the environment, yeah.

Jen:

Little hard to get your head around Like. I'm excited to not somebody buy my carbon offsets Because, like, because the fifth time I've been in a plane this month, yeah, yeah.

Torey Brooks:

It's not ideal, so it's it'll. It will ease and I'll be able to get back into things. But I think the only thing I'd like to mention is like I think, if you, having a longer outlook in these types of sports is really important, because it's really easy to put your body in positions that are not going to benefit you in the long run, and learning how to listen to your body and to your mind sometimes, too, is so important. And sometimes that's just in the like I don't feel. I feel weird today about climbing that mountain or skiing that run and just being able to accept that. You know, there have been days where I'm like there's no reason I shouldn't want to ski this line, but I just don't feel good about it and that could be enough.

Torey Brooks:

And same with your body, like sometimes it's really subtle, but there's such a cool experience in learning how to listen to your body and it allows you actually to do a lot more, but the hard part is that the beginning it's often feels like doing less, so but that's been one of the my favorite parts about all of my outdoor stuff is like pushing my body, but through listening to it.

Jen:

Yeah, it's good You're not letting foam will get to you ever like not bodily not experientially.

Torey Brooks:

A lot of people do a lot of cool things that are a little hard to not get foam about, but you know, yeah, you got plenty of time.

Jen:

Yeah, all in good time or not? Thank you? Yeah, thank you, I really appreciate it and yeah, we'll hopefully see you soon. Yeah, definitely, if you're not already, you should absolutely be following Tori's latest adventures over at T Lee ski that's T L E E S K I on Instagram. And while you're at the whole online thing, make sure to check out and maybe even donate to Tori's purposeful pursuits over on summit for somethingcom. That's summit the number four, somethingcom, and drum roll please. The world premiere of the film about Tori's catamount trail journey has been announced. 300 miles melting will debut on Saturday, september 16th at the Hula Innovation Campus in Burlington, vermont. If you want to be part of this very cool event at a beautiful venue overlooking Lake Champlain, you're going to want to follow Tori for updates and all the details. That's it for now. Hope you'll join me back here next time for our last gasp of August summer wild.