The Trail Ahead

Latest Episodes:

34. Mirna Valerio on Going FURTHER, Getting Back to the New You, and The Power of Voice May 31, 2023

Show notes

In this conversation with Mirna Valerio, ultramarathoner, cyclist, skier, author, and so much more, we start with the origin story of how she fell in love with running and then dive into what it means to know and love your body in all of its stages - especially during recovery. We also talk about her memoir, A Beautiful Work in Progress, what she is excited about next, ansd how she's pushing her limits to go FURTHER as part of a new initiative with our episode sponsor lululemon.

Related Episode Links:

Mirna’s Website: https://themirnavator.com/

Mirna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themirnavator/

REI Presents: The Mirnavator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5-CSQcYeXk

Lululemon’s FURTHER project: https://shop.lululemon.com/story/run-further

Azores race

Coalition Snow: https://www.coalitionsnow.com/

National Geographic Adventurer of the Year: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/mirna-valerio-ultramarathon-runner

One of Mirna’s Favorite Races, Azores Trail Run: https://www.instagram.com/azorestrailrun/

Megan Roche of SWAP Running: https://swaprunning.com/

Some Work all Play podcast: https://swaprunning.com/podcast

Our Theme Music is by Alekesam: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2JM2yzMSOgq7VeG6nKm3PY?si=tGkc2q88QHm1nwDD2kYk3A

Everett Ó Cillín on Finding Beauty in the Hard, Trails as Conversation, Trans and Nonbinary Representation, and Marginalia May 10, 2023

Show notes

Everett is a curator, organizer, and adventure cyclist currently based in the coastal mountains of a region now known as Santa Cruz, CA. For over a decade they've been using bicycle travel as a way of exploring their relationship to the worlds within and without. As a trans and genderqueer adventure cyclist they find themself seeking out the in between places, finding trails and unpaved roads to connect the dots between people, places and ideas.

After working for several years as a tours specialist and cycling guide, they left the full time bike life and returned to the world of arts nonprofits where they now work to organize collaborative exhibitions that help dismantle social norms and share underrepresented stories. You can find their essays on art and cycling in Adventure Cyclist Magazine and The Bikepacking Journal.

We talk about, connecting with nature as a way of connecting with self, about healing and recovery, about route-creation as art-making, artistic inspirations freedom and play and so much more. They also went into depth about upcoming work in Iceland supported by their affiliation with the non-profit We Got Next.

Links for Everett Episode

Check out Everett on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/grandpaeverett/

We Got Next

WeGotNext amplifies individual stories of adventure and activism from communities that have been underrepresented in outdoor and environmental spaces.

https://www.we-got-next.org/

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty

Great Salt Lake, Utah

https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites/robert-smithson-spiral-jetty

Nancy Holt (American, 1938–2014), Sun Tunnels, 1973–76, Great Basin Desert, Utah

https://umfa.utah.edu/land-art/sun-tunnels

Radical Adventure Riders

https://radicaladventureriders.com/

The Golden Spike

National Park: https://www.nps.gov/gosp/index.htm

Andy Goldsworthy: Storm King Wall 1997 – 1998 Significant Works – Sue Hubbard

https://artlyst.com/features/andy-goldsworthy-storm-king-wall-1997-1998-significant-works-sue-hubbard/

The Library of Water

Stykkishólmur, Iceland

By Roni Horn

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-library-of-water-stykkisholmur-iceland

Ingrid Backstrom on Kicking Open Doors, Increasing Inclusivity in Skiing and Bringing the Gummy Bears Apr 26, 2023

Show notes

Ingrid Backstrom has been a professional skier for over twenty years and is a household name and someone widely considered a “legend” in the world of free skiing. She is also a mother, a filmmaker, and co-founder of S.A.F.E. A.S. backcountry clinics. In this conversation we discuss Ingrid’s professional skiing career and her journey as a woman in a male-dominated sport. We also talk about her work to make skiing more fun and inclusive, how she has learned from mistakes along the way, and how you don’t have to be a mom to “ski like a mother.” We first connected with Ingrid around “The Approach” film, a project she’s been helping lead for the past three years. We talk about the joy of seeing others learn to love a new passion, learning to look a life from a different perspective and making mistakes along the way, how to interrupt an entrenched industry - even as an underdog, what she's learned in her 20 years of being a pro-skier and much more. Our "debrief" this episode is a conversation between host Faith Briggs Rose and her mother, Hope Briggs. Faith asks her mom about what it's been like to be a white woman navigating racial awareness, based on being in an interracial marriage for almost 40 years, especially coming from a sheltered background. It's a challenging, illuminating and raw conversation. Follow along and learn more about Ingrid on Instagram via https://www.instagram.com/ingridbackstrom/

Grace Anderson on Riding Bikes Down Big Hills, Dreaming Shit Up Together and Subverting Systems of Oppression Apr 12, 2023

Show notes

Grace Anderson is a dreamer, a builder, and a Black queer feminist who writes and imagines futures where choice is a human right. In this conversation we discuss why she loves to giggle and fly downhills on her bike, solo adventures in the outdoors, the importance of journaling, and learning that it's important to build what you're for and not what you're against. Faith and Grace also talk a lot about their identity as Black women, their journeys to develop and exude a strong pride specifically in that identity, and why it feels so important to them to continue to center Black women in so much of the work. This episode includes a pretty incredible reading list too by the end, so make sure to check out the related links.

Connect with Grace via Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/amaze_me_grace/

ALL THE LINKS:

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors by Dr. Carolyn Finney

The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection by Dorceta E. Taylor

How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton

We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariama Kaba

The Nap Ministry

Mapping Our Social Change roles in Times of Crisis by Deepa Iyer

MORE LINKS FROM THE DEBRIEF, COMING SOON!

Billie Holiday sings Strange Fruit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHGAMjwr_j8

The Tragic Story Behind Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit"

https://www.biography.com/musicians/billie-holiday-strange-fruit

How white Americans used lynchings to terrorize and control black people, The Guardian (trigger warning: graphic images and stories)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/26/lynchings-memorial-us-south-montgomery-alabama

Jim Crow Laws

https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws

Harriet Tubman, an Unsung Naturalist, Used Owl Calls as a Signal on the Underground Railroad

https://www.audubon.org/news/harriet-tubman-unsung-naturalist-used-owl-calls-signal-underground-railroad

1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre/

Emmett Till

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/emmett-till-1

Historical Database of Sundown Towns

https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/

Sundown Town research specific to Oregon, where Faith lives

https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/oregonmulticulturalarchives/2019/06/05/sundown-towns-2019/

The Jim Crow Roots of Loitering Laws

https://the-ard.com/2022/05/31/the-jim-crow-roots-of-loitering-laws/

A Visual History of Loitering Laws

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-21/what-is-loitering-really

AMERICA RECKONS WITH RACIAL INJUSTICE

Law Professor On Misdemeanor Offenses And Racism In The Criminal System

Heard on All Things Considered, 2020

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/12/876221163/law-professor-on-how-misdemeanors-sweep-blacks-into-the-criminal-system

Sharecropping: Slavery By Another Name

https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/

Season 3 Welcome Back: Faith & Addie on Theories of Change, Trail Running, and Climate Conversations Apr 05, 2023

Show notes

Welcome back to Season 3 of The Trail Ahead, hosted by Faith E. Briggs & Addie Thompson.

In this episode they reflect on why bringing together their multiplicities of identity is essential to their theory of change - which is (clumsily) that with a multi-racial dialogue that seeks to amplify the voices on the frontlines of environmental justice they can encourage more people to fall in love with the natural world and aim to protect it. They discuss the potential flaws in this theory, how it has changed, how much they are learning and where they go from here. While Addie and Faith originally met through trailrunning, they bonded through their passions. Faith is a documentary filmmaker with a background in representation and a focus on identity politics. Addie's road to stories is grounded in work that has been a mix of climate policy and environmental grantmaking. It is at this intersection where these conversations live. This episode reflects on previous seasons and gives some sneak peeks on the kind of conversations coming down the road.

Theme music is "All is Forgiven" from the band Alekesam and the Album Sound Proof Heart.

This episode is sponsored by Subaru, learn more on social via @subaru_usa.

Additional music comes from Track Club by Marmoset.

Other links, orgs, and folks mentioned in this episode are:

Rising Hearts: An Indigenous led grassroots organization committed to the heart work in elevating indigenous voices, promoting, and supporting intersectional collaborative efforts across all forms of movements in cultivating community with the goals of racial, social, climate and economic justice.
Rising Hearts' Running on Native Lands program that aims to make land acknowledgements at trail AND road race events a common and inclusive practice and encourages those who become a partner to go the extra mile by giving back to the communities which the land is borrowed from.
Runners for Public Lands toolkit
Dr. Carolyn Finney episode of The Trail Ahead
Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors by Dr. Carolyn Finney
Link to This Land
The Tongass and the fight to protect it from clearcuts
Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge
#StopWillow
Jade Begay, Policy & Advocacy Director at @ndncollective and member of the Enviro Justice Advisory Council at the white house, on TWITTER
NDN Collective
Grist Fixers 2022
Imagine 2200

The Unrestricted Selema Masekela Heart-Tether Conversation Mar 29, 2023

Show notes

In January 2021 we sat down for what became a 3 hour conversation with the legendary Selema Masekela. We laughed, we cried, and by the end we realized we were undeniably tethered for life, a beautiful heart tether. We've had many people ask to hear the whole conversation, rather than the more edited 1 hour conversation we put out in April 2021. In this episode we go into beautiful stories about Selema's relationship with his father, the late great Hugh Masekela, and include a deeper conversation around making music himself, and what it meant in 2020 to shout about racial justice (and finally be passed a mic when doing so) in a sport as historically white as surfing. We're so please to present the full episode now. The music you hear at the very beginning is the multitalented and multifaceted Selema himself, with the song "All is Forgiven" from his band Alekesam.

Additional Links to go deeper!

Check out Selema on Instagram

Listen to Alekesam on Spotify

Listen to the abridged conversation here

Rock out to Hugh Masekela

Learn more about STOKED mentoring

STOKED collaborates with schools, community organizations, and a network of dedicated mentors to bridge the opportunity gap for low-income youth, and prepare them for a vibrant, fulfilled life after high school.

This Land Doc

The Trail Ahead Presents: The Outside Voices Podcast and "A home for Asian women with Camp Cosmos" Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

This week we feature an episode of a podcast we love that is also working toward a more inclusive and community minded outdoor community: The Outside Voices Podcast. Outside Voices Podcast: https://www.outsidevoicespodcast.com/ Outside Voices on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outsidevoicespodcast/ Cassandra Lam of Collective Rest & The Cosmos: https://www.collective-rest.com/ Article about The Cosmos in The Lily: https://www.thelily.com/what-does-it-mean-to-come-together-as-asian-american-women-this-group-has-been-seeking-an-answer/

The Trail Ahead Presents: Wild Ideas Worth Living featuring Evelynn Escobar of Hike Clerb Jan 03, 2023

Show notes

Connect with Evelynn:

Instagram
Hike Clerb’s Instagram
Hike Clerb’s website
Read more on REI’s Uncommon Path
Watch REI Co-op Studios, “To Touch the Earth”

Season 2 Finale: Faith & Addie reflect on Safe Spaces, Gatekeeping, White Guilt, Accountability & Allyship Dec 06, 2022

Show notes

Additional Links

Learn more about Erin McGrady from a previous project Faith and Erin worked on.

Who is A Runner: Erin McGrady, co-directed by Faith E. Briggs & Tim Kemple

Kamilah Journét on Running, Not Running and Creating Spaces of Belonging Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

Kamilah Journét is a long-distance runner, environmentalist, and brand marketing strategist. She discovered her love for running in junior high and continued competing in Cross Country and Track at high school and collegiate levels. She joins The Trail Ahead for a conversation about:

- creating a space of belonging in the outdoors

- embracing a changing identity as a runner

- not running (imagine that!)

- finding joy through movement

- taking up space, especially in conversations/decisions making spaces

Kamilah shares what playing outside means to her and why we as adults need to learn what playing could mean. She discusses why it’s more important than ever to find outlets for joy and play. As an environmentalist and activist, Kamilah shares why it’s so important to be aware of how others around you might process information.

Kamilah discusses her career as a runner, how she began, and where she is with her relationship to the sport today. She talks about the rude awakening and difficult process of finding who she is aside from her identity as a runner, and how therapy ultimately helped her discover herself. This important conversation reminds you about the power of having honest and open conversations. Tune in to this conversation for an important reminder of how our vulnerabilities and the little pieces of our life make us who we are today.

The Debrief features Sarah Jacquette Ray author of A Field Guide To Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Cool on a Warming Planet.

Episode Resources

Runners for Public Lands: https://runnersforpubliclands.org/
“Kamilah Journét, a powerful voice for anti-racism in the running and outdoor industries” for Citius Magazine
https://citiusmag.com/podcast/social-sport-podcast-kamilah-journet/
Follow Kamilah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kamilahjournet/
The Debrief features Sarah Jacquette Ray author of A Field Guide To Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Cool on a Warming Planet
https://sarahjaquetteray.com/

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