There are so many nice bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, and photographers on the market creating superb outside content material each day.
Not solely did I need to personally get to know them higher, however I additionally needed to discover their outside influences and fervour for nature.
Thus, we’ve launched the I Love The Outdoors Interview Series.
If you have an interest in collaborating within the collection, please contact us and tell us!
James Willamor
1. Tell us a bit about your self.
I’m 43 years outdated and I’ve spent most of my life residing in North Carolina.
I’ve two children who typically be a part of me on my mountain climbing and tenting adventures.
2. What is your favourite outside exercise?
I desire tenting barely greater than mountain climbing. I really like simply sitting and having fun with nature and letting it clear my thoughts.
We typically don’t discover how a lot noise there may be in our on a regular basis life, from the hum of machines to distant street noise.
Nothing beats falling asleep to the sound of frogs and bugs chirping, the flowing of the creek, and the barking of the coyotes.
3. Where is your favourite path?
My favourite path total is the Appalachian Trail.
I’ve hiked and backpacked on it since my early 20s, and nonetheless there may be a lot to find.
Snow-covered balds, the blooms of early spring, summer season thunderclouds cresting the ridgeline, the White Mountains in full Autumn shade.
4. Where is your favourite tenting spot?
My favourite tenting spot to date is Twin Lakes, Colorado.
The 13k footers towering over the lake in entrance of you, the snow-capped peak of Mount Elbert behind you.
The scent of sagebrush and the sound of hummingbirds. Plus, Twin Lakes is a captivating path city on the CDT/Colorado Trail.
5. What was your first outside reminiscence as a child?
When I used to be in kindergarten my dad began taking me to camp and hike at an area state park.
Those have been a few of my favourite recollections with him.
I can nonetheless keep in mind the hiss of the outdated Coleman lantern, the scent of espresso within the percolator, and the style of the very best scrambled eggs I’ve ever had.
6. Who was your largest outside affect?
In 2019 I used to be feeling a bit melancholy about life and I began following a pair who have been friends-of-a-friend in my metropolis, Tina Currin and Grayson Currin, on Instagram as they hiked the Appalachian Trail.
I hadn’t been tenting or mountain climbing in over a decade, nevertheless it rekindled my love for it and because the autumn of 2019 I’ve spent over 120 nights tenting and backpacking.
7. What was your all-time finest tenting or mountain climbing expertise?
In 2021 I spent two weeks tenting and mountain climbing in Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.
It was the primary time I’d actually traveled west of the Mississippi River, and I used to be enthralled by the vastness of the plains, the open rangeland, the peaks of the Rockies, the colours of the Chihuahuan desert, and Llano Estacado.
It’s just like the world grew to become a bit bit greater to me.
8. Who is your favourite particular person to camp or hike with?
Growing up it was my father who began taking me tenting often once I began Kindergarten, and now that he has handed, I take my women tenting typically.
I believed it could be tough to do every week or two-week-long tenting journeys with children however they’re uniquely versatile in a method adults typically discover tough.
I do normally enable for sure conveniences reminiscent of tablets.
I’ll take pleasure in sitting at camp simply staring off into the gap for hours pondering the that means of existence, however I can settle for they’d quite watch Bluey.
9. What is your favourite piece of drugs and why?
If espresso doesn’t rely as gear, then I suppose it’s a camp chair.
I’m not a high-millage hiker, however I’ll hike a long way to a good looking view after which wait hours to catch a sundown.
Since I like tenting greater than mountain climbing I take pleasure in simply sitting and gazing a campfire, a river, a sundown, or simply into the distant horizon.
All of those are made extra pleasurable perched atop a camp chair quite than on a foam pad on the bottom.
10. What do you like concerning the outside?
Trappist monk Thomas Merton as soon as stated that no writing on solitude, “can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.”
I may write 10,000 phrases on what I really like concerning the outside and nonetheless come up wanting adequately describing the expertise itself.
11. What outside locations are in your bucket record?
It wasn’t till 2021 that I actually ventured west of the Mississippi River and it isn’t hyperbole to explain it as life altering.
I nonetheless have a lot to discover out west as I haven’t actually made it additional west than the center of NM, CO, and WY.
There’s a lot I need to discover however to slender it down; backpack the Wind River Range in Wyoming, overland in Monument Valley, Utah, and camp within the Arizona desert among the many saguaro cacti.
12. What is your objective as an outside content material creator? How can we assist you and the place can we discover your content material?
I’ve benefited drastically from studying about tools, methods, and outside locations from on-line content material creators, so I need to share a number of the locations, magnificence, and issues I’ve realized alongside the best way.
The outside are for everybody so I hope what I create can encourage everybody to take pleasure in and be good stewards of the outside.
My Instagram account is @cicadaappreciationsociety and my YouTube channel is @CicadaAppreciationSociety
James Willamor thanks for the nice interview and collaborating within the I Love The Outdoors Interview Series!
If you have an interest in collaborating and sharing your story, please contact us and tell us!
Previous Interviews