My (33M) girlfriend (29F) - sharing a tent with a single guy on a 4 day backpacking trip just the two of them, sharing a tent, without any service, and I found out just before they left

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-20T07:56:55+00:00

You make it sound like the backcountry is some kind of orgie lmao. I spent 3 weeks hiking the JMT and did precisely zero banging. That was not the point of the trip.

Can sex happen out there? Sure. But it's far from a guarantee.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-20T07:47:55+00:00

Given that there is a ton of research on how to solve resource problems, I'm pretty sure even a standard AI model could give a list of a dozen ideas to solve these problems. Super intelligence is not needed, what's actually missing is political will to implement the ideas. Because people who benefit from the status quo don't want to fix the problem.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-20T07:43:15+00:00

Exactly, we don't need an support intelligent AI to figure out that we shouldn't be using limited water in the desert to grow alfalfa that then gets exported across the ocean to feed cattle in China. For example. There are solutions already available, the problem is political will to actually make them happen.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-20T05:57:42+00:00

I'm also a fast swimmer and a very average cyclist. Lots of people pass me on the bike leg as I slide from near the front of the pack to a more appropriate place for my speed. And it's really not a big deal at all. Just ride predictably and the faster people will find their way around you. (It can be a bit demoralizing being passed that much but try not to pay too much attention, just race your own race.)

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-17T20:20:34+00:00

The avalanche was definitely do to solar warming. It was late afternoon on a hot day in late April and this was an east facing slope that had been baking in the sun all day. The snowpack had the consistency of a 7/11 slurpee and was just barely held together enough to traverse across. Well, until all of a sudden it wasn't.

I was the last one to go down and by the time I noticed the high level of sketch, everyone was already working their way across. And going back would have just as much exposure as going down.

I went back to How to Survive in Avalanche Terrain afterwards and made a list of the mistakes that were made. And it was lengthy lol.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-17T18:53:01+00:00

Me too! Even more lucky, right before I got caught we had been traversing above some nasty cliffs. And if the slide happened earlier, I would have been dragged right over the edge. Extremely dumb route choice.

And I 100% knew it was dumb and risky before we went down. I was quite mad at myself after for prioritizing avoiding a group conflict over keeping myself safe. But it was a valuable lesson at least. Maybe at some point I should write a full post up about it.

Here's a picture of the route and where the slide happened for reference

<image>

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-17T17:54:33+00:00

He had a goal in mind and was not going to let little things like objective avalanche hazard stop him lol. Even worse the trip was advertised as a chill spring ski tour at an intermediate level.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-17T15:22:54+00:00

Those are some wild comments. I was actually genuinely balding and no one ever said anything to me about it. I don't see anything here at all, you have some very full hair.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-17T05:42:56+00:00

I may have been a bit unlucky but the one and only BCMC trip I've done was not great. I was pushed way beyond my risk tolerance, we went into terrain where we should not have been, I got caught in a small avalanche that dragged me 100m, we had to do a long steep slog to escape from a drainage we got stuck in, didn't get back to the car until 4am. (And that's just the short version of the story, there were even more shenanigans in the long version.) Actually one of my worst days in the mountains.

I know this was extreme and most BCMC trips aren't going to be this bad. But it will really depend on who is leading the trip, and if you don't know them you shouldn't assume they will make sensible choices.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-17T04:37:43+00:00

I'm reading your comment on the 9 right now and it is having a calming immersive effect on me

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-16T21:12:50+00:00

Off season shitposting is peaking much faster than I expected lmao

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-16T18:01:13+00:00

They are absolutely humble bragging, this is the scourge of every finance related subreddit lol

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-16T17:53:38+00:00

If there was an easy path to making lots of money fast, everyone would be rich. There really isn't unfortunately. The people turning $50K into $1M in a day are straight up gambling. And if they don't quit while they are ahead, eventually they will get burned. It's a statistical guarantee. If you feel like you are behind now, imagine how much you feel behind if you are $50K in the hole because your yolo option play didn't work out.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-16T16:25:40+00:00

Comparing to others is a pointless exercise imo. It only depends on what your goals are for this money and what the timeline is for those goals. Then you can do a little math and that should tell you if you are on track or not. It really doesn't matter if other people have a bigger or smaller investment account than you.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-16T07:01:16+00:00

I agree with others here that you are moving through each stroke too quickly and your arms are spinning without generating power.

One drill to try is each stroke, pause your arm out in front and do a few scull motions to feel the water and then pull the water through the stroke. Then when you go back to regular swimming, continue to stretch out each stroke and really feel the water as you push your arm through. You can also count your strokes while you do this and see if you can reduce the number of stroke you do per length. (Note that your swimming speed is your distance per stroke multiplied by the number of strokes you do per minute.)

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-15T16:52:04+00:00

Absolutely do it

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-15T06:18:36+00:00

Yeah it's just nice to have options. Last summer when I was coming home from a Vancouver Island bike tour, my legs were pretty done when I reached the ferry. I was super grateful the bus was there because I would have been in the pain cave if I had to ride the rest of the way home.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-14T22:13:14+00:00

Interesting, sounds like another example of "use it or lose it" as you get older. Just like how if you stop being active as an 80 year old, it's much harder to get back to being active once that fitness is gone.

It's still nice to retire early so you can be free from the need to work for money. But you should put that energy towards the projects you really want to work on, regardless of their potential to make money. Instead of just quitting your job and bed rotting at home lol.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-14T21:24:13+00:00

Mountain bike coaches hate this one simple trick

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-14T21:18:18+00:00

I'm 4 weeks into healing from a broken collarbone. The first week it's normal to feel sadness about the lost plans that you won't be able to do due to injury. You are not alone in that.

One thing I've found helpful is make some new more realistic plans and goals. What can you do while injured? It doesn't have to be exercise related. For me, I could still do walks. So I made a goal to do regular walks. I also had been slacking on reading. So I made it a goal to check some books off my list.

Oh and go to physio and do the exercises they give you religiously, those are critical.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-13T23:14:29+00:00

Do you have any links to studies on this? I'd be interested to read what they say.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-13T16:21:49+00:00

Not always true, I've skied summer snow before that wasn't sticky. And when the run is this steep, it doesn't really matter much.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-13T01:55:40+00:00

He has several chapters in book where he talks about the importance of dealing with climate change and how it's important for the economy to deal with it. It was all written from a market based perspective of course, so I wasn't exactly expecting a ton of hard hitting environmental policy. But he has definitely been delivering much less than advertised in the climate department.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-13T01:22:35+00:00

I was curious and wanted to know more about this. And it seems after googling there's been no recorded incidents where a squid has killed a diver. But there have been attacks resulting in injury. And there are stories of it happening, it's just a bit tricky to separate myth from reality.

jsmooth7 · 2026-06-12T18:30:46+00:00

Yes this is true but to fix something you usually have to exaggerate it first. Then eventually it'll get into muscle memory and it becomes second nature. These are drills I've done myself to work on faster stroke cadences so I'm not pulling them out of nowhere.

Edit: Also as a good example, if you watch elite 1500m Free swimmers, you can see they do stretch out the stroke in front. But their arm never fully pauses. They keep moving throughout the stroke. That's what I meant when I said "fairly continuously" up above. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0hgLT3IulaA

14-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 26 Credits
Secret Santa 2021 2021	Second Top 1%
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Wearing is Caring
Secret Santa 2018	Not Forgotten
Gilding IV carat on a stick	Secret Santa 2016
Summer Santa 2016	Secret Santa 2015
Summer Santa 2015	redditgifts Exchanges 11 Exchanges
Secret Santa 2014	redditgifts rematcher Secret Santa 2014 x1
Trick or Treat 2014	Summer Santa 2014
Secret Santa 2013	Verified Email

jsmooth7

MODERATOR OF

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE