Ep. 1171: Holding Nature's Hand Through Natural Navigation - Tristan Gooley

Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

This is Caleb.

In addition to the work that I do for the Adventure Sports Podcast, I am also a video game

composer and in addition to my background in music, I also have a background in philosophy,

something that I studied a lot in college.

And I thought it would be fun to combine the two.

So recently I started a YouTube channel where I talk about the congruence of music and

creativity in general with AI and how AI can affect creativity, the human creative spirit

and the human creative conversation.

And it's just me thinking through what AI means for human creativity and things that we

can do, practical things that we can do to preserve our own human creative spirit in light

of all that.

So if that's something you're interested in, you can check out the link for that YouTube

channel in the description below.

You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation

you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.

In this episode, Kurt interviews Tristan Goole.

Tristan is an author and natural navigator expert.

He spent decades learning the clues and signs in nature across the globe about how to

navigate using the natural signs like the sun and the stars and even the environment

around him such as plants, the weather and those sorts of things.

Tristan has led pioneering expeditions, sailed boats across oceans and piloted small aircraft

to Africa and the Arctic.

He has also ran fun experiments like testing ancient Viking navigation methods.

He is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed single-handed across

the Atlantic and he is a fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation.

Unfortunately, the beginning of this episode was cut off and Kurt tells a story which Tristan

is responding to at the start of the episode.

Unfortunately, we don't have the audio for that story and Kurt is still returning from

Africa, so there's not a possibility of he recreating it.

In the context of the podcast, though, I think I have a pretty good idea of what the

story was and so I'll do my best to give context for the beginning of the episode.

Several years ago, my dad and cousin and I were in the woods.

We were off trail and my cousin asked my dad which way was north or what the different

directions were based on where the sun was.

We weren't in any danger or anything and we knew exactly where we were.

It was more of just a thought experiment to see if we could figure out our directions

based purely off the sun.

My dad looked around and he became quite puzzled because based on his understanding at the time,

the sun was in the wrong place.

It was not where it should have been.

In that experience, he and my cousin actually sat down and did the geometry to figure

out the direction of the sun and where we were in that time of year so that then they

could sort out how to use the sun to tell the cardinal directions.

I'm 95% sure that's what the story is at the very least it fits within the context

of the episode and hopefully I'm right.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

It's a truly fascinating episode, amazing conversation.

All right, enough of me.

Here we go.

Yeah, these skills will definitely help you if the kit fails but I really encourage people

to nurture them for when they're going as good because it's the best possible way to

connect with our surroundings to sense and see things that most people don't.

When you were second example, that was a really, really good example of where you felt

lost but then you actually had the two core skills there.

You had a sign that was giving you some idea of direction in the moon and then you have

what we commonly refer to as a handrail in navigation the highway and all natural navigation

is instead of having one or two very, very kind of bold things like that, you're tuning

into absolutely everything in your surroundings as much as you want to.

You mentioned also you've been on a deer hunt and it's notorious if you're trailing an

animal or stalking or hunting or anything like that, however good a navigator you are,

you will become disorientated.

Our brain isn't actually capable of taking in all of these cues whilst doing something

that's as sort of resource hungry as following an animal in the wild.

So then it's about re-tuning into things, but yeah, as I said, it really is, I think

a skill for fun and connection, not just emergencies.

Great stuff to have if it's all going upside down, but I use it as much on days when the

sun's out and things are going well as I do on times when I'm trying to challenge myself.

You know, I couldn't agree more.

What has happened because of these experiences is I've started trying to learn more and

learn more and learn more and it kind of turned into a lifelong pursuit.

Now, I never got as skilled at it as I know that you are not even close, but I'm here

to learn today because I want to know more about this.

The first big backpacking trip I took my oldest son on, he was 13, I believe.

And as we're hiking out, again, off trail seems like that's the way life is for us.

But as we're hiking out, at one point, he just said, Dad, where are you going?

And I stopped and I took account of my surroundings and where the sun was and the shadows and all

that sort of thing.

And I said, you're absolutely right.

I'm going the wrong way.

And so he's the one with the compass in his head.

But the point you just made about, if you just take the time to connect with everything,

you get so much more out of it than just a direction, right?

Totally.

And we can take your examples and experiences there and maybe combine some of what the academics

have found out as well.

So, when you were, you were traversing some high ground and you hadn't noticed that the

layer, the land had changed effectively and the high ground had led you round in a different

direction.

What the academics have found, and we've all experienced ourselves in some form or another

as you were recounting there, is that without external reference, human beings will walk

in circles effectively.

We don't have, we don't have without external reference, there's nothing internal.

There's a lot of research going into how some animals, not least birds, do have internal

ways of sensing direction, but my point here, what's largely misunderstood is that in the

academic world and in areas where people haven't given this any thought, there's this belief

that the external references are very few.

Like it's the sun or it's the north star or it's the moon or it's a distant peak or it's

a coastline.

You know, the kind of feeling if you haven't ever given this whole area of natural navigation

or any thought is those are the only things that are going to help you, but actually what

my work has been about for the last 20 years is refining that to the point where absolutely

everything can help you.

So I mean, the way grass is bent over by the wind, that is not random, I've under high

pressure conditions found things miles away in fog just using the way that the grass is

bent.

So that's something that might only be, you know, seven feet from our nose and can help

us actually find something that's a few miles away.

It doesn't have to be, you know, a big sun all moon.

Hmm.

You know, there's so many directions that we could go with this conversation right now.

And I, less I forget, I just want people to know that you have a lot of resources to

help with this and it's an amazing hobby.

It is a past time.

It not only could it save your, save a life, but like you said, it's just connects you

with the natural world around you in such an amazing way.

So I want everyone to know about these resources.

I mean, we will revisit them later in the show, but you have several books, the most recent

being the hidden seasons.

And then you have like four or five more along the same lines.

Tell me if I, if I'm listing these books correctly here.

I see the lost art of reading nature signs, the walkers guide out door clues and signs,

how to read water.

I'm sorry to jump in there.

So the, my North American publishers took the, the UK title, the walkers guide out of

clues and signs and changed it to the lost art of reading nature signs.

Interesting.

Okay.

How to read water from 2016, the secret world of weather, that's another one that I think

is pretty cool from 2021.

So I'm moving forward in time as we go here.

How to read a tree 2023 and then the hidden seasons, which is your latest 2025, did I miss

any?

I think there's, there's a couple, but you know, if people want to have a, have a, have

a, you know, a dive then, then all the information's out there on, on all the usual places

at my website, naturalnavigator.com where I, where I sort of explain, but I'm always

happy to get messages.

People sort of saying, what's the difference between this and this?

And, and in summary, I'm taking a simple, powerful philosophy, which is everything outdoors

is a clue and a sign.

It is trying to tell us something.

And then I'm coming at that idea from different angles and with different content.

So, so how to read water and how to read a tree.

It's pretty obvious the angle I'm taking there.

How to read a tree is the, is the, you know, 200 different clues that we can get by just

looking at an average tree.

We're not looking for special species.

We're talking about a tree you can see in a, in a park in a city or a tree in, in, in

the, in the back of beyond.

How to read water?

It's how, if you think of your favorite patch of water, you know, it, it could be anything.

It could be a, again, a pond in a city or, or, or a massive ocean.

Every time you look at it, it looks slightly different and all of those differences, it,

it's a language.

I sometimes think of it as the hub and spoke model where at the hub is that very simple

idea.

Everything outdoors is a clue.

And then each book is a spoke of me coming at it.

So the most recent book, The Hidden Seasons, I'm taking this idea that, that we look for

different, different signs at different times of the year.

You know, there's, you know, January is not the most rewarding time to, to make a compass

out of wildflowers.

You can still do it in January, but you're going to have a lot more fun doing that in May

and June.

Um, whereas midwinter is fantastic for looking at star compasses, um, you know, and there

are different weather signs at different, different times of the year, different, different

cloud patterns, including those.

So yeah, that, that's, that's all I'm doing is taking it, it's, it's, it's one idea that

I've been, you know, having fun throwing myself at for 20 something years now.

Uh, so fun.

In way of example, let's do the trees.

And the reason is because when I was a kid, I read some sort of a little survival guide

book that said, the moss grows on the north side of the tree.

Sometimes.

Yeah, absolutely.

You just said that trees give us all sorts of signs, right?

So let's talk about what you can learn by just reading a tree.

Yeah, absolutely.

The, the key here is nothing is random.

So you will never, ever of the billions of trees on planet earth were probably in a lifetime,

see hundreds of thousands of them, probably millions.

Um, you'll never see two that are the same and every difference.

There's a cause and therefore there's meaning, therefore there's a sign.

So let's, let's actually get a bit more kind of nuts and bolts here.

You know, trees are not symmetrical.

If you are somebody to draw a tree, they draw a symmetrical tree because that's our idea

of a tree.

But trees are not symmetrical.

Um, they grow bigger on their south side.

The branches are closer to horizontal on the south side, close to vertical on the north

side.

And it's all to do with asymmetry of light.

If you're north of the tropics, the sun is due south in the middle of the day, every

day of the year.

And, and the way I think of it is the sun, the wind, water and a few other things are

leaving footprints on everything, not least the trees.

So there are over 20 ways we can navigate with big bold signs and trees.

And then it comes down to some quite, quite subtle ones like, you know, the color of

bark is typically very slightly different on the north and south side.

But even in the center of a city, um, look at the, look at the most exposed part of the

tree, the very highest part of the tallest trees.

Uh, and you'll just notice it bent over typically from, from west to east or something close

to that, depending what the prevailing winds are in, in your part of the world.

Uh, but, but, but as I say, every single, you know, the leaves are smaller and lighter in

color on the south side, bigger and darker on the north side of a tree.

And a lot of these things sit just below the obvious.

Some things are obvious, you know, if you ask, you know, hopefully if you ask any child

over, over about, you know, age eight or nine, they will be able to tell you that you

can, you can age a tree stump by counting the rings.

That's something that has survived.

But what I'm really doing is, is, you know, blowing the dust off of things that are not

obvious, that our ancestors probably did know, but that we've, we've sort of let, let

go.

Um, but you have to, you have to, a, know what to look for, uh, and, and be, give these

things just a, not a lot, you know, sometimes it's only a few seconds, but you have to make

that conscious choice.

Ah, I'm going to look for the way the, the roots stretch away from the base of the tree

on the side the winds come from and how that can make a compass.

Hmm, very, very cool.

You know, this weekend, we, we had grabbed a permit from the forest service and we went

into the woods hiking through about 14 inches of, of snow, looking for our holiday

Christmas tree.

And you just said trees aren't symmetrical.

When we go looking for a Christmas tree, you realize that right away because it's like,

Oh, well, this was flat on this side.

I don't know, you know what I'm saying?

No tree is symmetrical, not unless it's been pruned that way.

No, it's a flat on all the things you see.

I'm getting images of national, national ampune's Christmas vacation.

You know, you know, it seems, um, but when you say it appears flat on one side, that's

uh, very possibly an example of flagging.

So wherever, wherever you get, um, uh, regular snow, or if you're close to the coast

and you get salt, laden winds, we find that the branch is struggle on the side

of the winds come from the, the buds die and then the branches die off.

So you end up with a bear or, or a struggling side of the tree.

And it's known as flagging because if we imagine the branches are pointing in the

direction, the winds blowing because they're, they're struggling on the side,

the wind comes from and so much of natural navigation is just tuning in.

And you only have to do it once in each region, you know, when I go to a new

part of the world, I, one of the first things I want to know is what is the

prevailing wind direction? Where do most of the strong winds come from?

Because that, those are some of the easiest footprints to see in, in any landscape.

You know, in Colorado, we see the flagging a lot on ridge lines where the wind is

often from the same direction, not always, but often from the same direction.

We see flagging like that.

You have to know what the winds are likely to do to understand the flag I would

think. That would be the one caveat.

Oh, totally yes.

And so with all wind clues, we're, we're reading a story and, and we're being

sensitive to time.

So the floppier something is, and the more exposed it is, the shorter it's memory.

So it doesn't matter if we're talking about grasses or, or mighty, mighty trees.

The more, the more effort it takes for the wind to change their shape, the longer

their memory.

So the more dependable they are.

So if, for example, I mean, a good example is in the UK, we get most of our,

most of our strong winds from the Southwest.

And so I know that in most regions in the UK and indeed Northwest Europe,

I'm going to see most of these footprints, you know, from the wind, from the

Southwest towards the northeast.

But here we, like everywhere, there are some valleys that don't line up.

So I was in, in some, doing some hill walking in a place called the Yorkshire

Dales and there the valleys tend to be west to east.

So the Southwest, West winds come in and then they get channeled down the, down the valley.

Nature doesn't lie, but you've just got to, you've got to understand what the relationship

between the wind, time and place.

The, the very floppiest leaves and branches on a, on a tree will, will change day to day.

But the, the toughest trees, you know, as you get near the tree line, you know, in Colorado,

you, you, you will have spent plenty of time above the tree line, I'm sure.

So you'll know what I mean, that once you get to the point where the trees are struggling,

you, you get these kind of gnarled, twisted shorter trees.

And they, they're, they're clinging on for life, but they're giving, they're giving a pretty strong

message because they are, yeah, they've, they've, they've lasted, you know, decades,

probably of, of, of quite harsh winds.

So, so whatever the wind does one week to another, they're not going to suddenly change

shape. They're, they're effectively sculpted into a, into quite a gnarly, fixed form.

Hmm, I have found that most of the flagging, the limbs point east in Colorado,

because our, our prevailing winds are from the west, but we also get a lot of strong

northern winds in the winter time and then in this other times of the year, you can get

southwesternly winds, that sort of thing.

But, you know, if you know the topography, it's a, it's a really good clue.

So I've heard this said, I don't even know if it's true, but I want to ask you this in this

way. I've heard it said that if a deer sees you, that's not enough to scare it.

If it sees and hears you, it's, it'll run away.

If it hears and smells you, it'll run away.

If it only smells you, it'll probably put its head back down and continue to graze.

What I'm saying here is it takes two clues to start a la deer.

Maybe that could just, you know, that could just be a colloquialism.

That's not true.

But that said, how many clues should we be looking for where we're trying to use natural

navigation to confirm that we haven't made a mistake?

For instance, the valley turns the wind and the tree points south in this one location.

Yeah, it's a good question.

And I'll answer it in a moment if I may, because I just want to come back to your, your,

your two things with the deer in my latest book, The Hidden Seasons.

I, there's a tiny section in it called the law, the law of two sounds and it's basically

that, you know, prey animals are having to be sensitive to their environment the whole

time, because if there's a predator out there, it could be their last day.

But that said, there's always a mixture of living and non-living sounds in any landscape,

by which I mean, if there's a wind of any sort, you know, there are going to be branches

bending, there's going to be the sound of foliage, there's going to be the odd snap

as dry weak branches break that sort of thing.

Let's take the deer, the deer, every time it hears a sound that could be another animal,

it can't stop grazing because, you know, and browsing it, it can't because there's always

enough noise out there that, so what it's generally, what all animals are generally doing is a

probability game, it's what all animals are doing.

They just basically go, okay, some, some twig snapping over there, you know, what's the

likelihood that's a predator, not very likely.

I might lift my head, I might lift my ears, but I'm not, I'm not going to kind of, you

know, charge, charge away.

I'm not going to go into flight behavior.

But if they hear two sounds from that same location, the probability that that's, you

know, non-living drops and the probability that's living shoots up.

And as you're saying, if they pick up a scent and a sound or they pick up a site and a

scent, it just shrinks the probability that this is, you know, something it can ignore.

So, so this, this is how we learn to predict animal behavior is, is you learn the kind of

alert behavior, then you learn the, the flight behavior, then you learn the refuge behavior.

And if you bolt all of those together, you can, you can actually have a bit of fun because

you can go, right, I'm going to take two paces forward, that foul idea is going to go uphill

because that's the flight behavior, and it's going to head towards those trees because that's

the refuge behavior, you know, if you don't explain the, the different steps to somebody,

and they, and then the deer does exactly what you've said it's going to do.

They think it's psychic, but it's not. It's just, it's just a lego.

It's just putting pieces together. But in, in answer to your question, how many signs do we need?

When I'm, when I'm teaching on my courses, but also when I'm writing about it,

I generally encourage a top-down view by which I mean we go, we go celestial.

What are the sun moon stars and occasionally planets telling us? Then we drop down to

wind and weather. And then we come down to, to surface clues. The reason we do it in that order

is because like, like so much stuff I share, I learned the, the hard stupid way, which is that

if you spend a wonderful 10 minutes inspecting lichens or mosses on a, on a rock or a tree,

when the sun is out, and then you stand up 10 minutes later as the cloud seals the sun out

for the next three days, you feel like an idiot. So you take the really powerful celestial cues

when you can, and you bag them, you know, in my case, if it's, if it's practical stuff, you,

you drop the sun to the horizon by which I mean you imagine it's like a stone falling vertically,

then you pick something on the horizon, because that way if you lose the sun, does the same,

same thing for, for moon or stars, you've probably still got something you can see in the horizon.

You've got to be thinking about cloud bases and all that sort of good stuff as well, but,

but generally let's say there's a, there's a medium height, you know, distinctive,

rock formation on a, on a ridge line that's, that's not the very highest thing that's not

going to disappear as the clouds drop, you know, that, that's a few miles away from you.

Then the, the clouds can come over you, you can get this thick,

stardust blanket, which means you, you don't get any celestial cues perhaps for, for a day,

but, you know, whenever you've got sight of that, that rock formation, you've gone,

ah, for simplicity's term, for simplicity's sake, we say it's the middle of the day,

the sun dropped onto that rock formation. Okay, that is south, you know, and let, unless you,

unless you walk a very long distance, it's, it's going to give you a good sense of direction.

Once you come down to, to wind and weather, you're going to want to back that up with something

because the wind may change. I mean, generally speaking, unless there's a significant weather change,

the, the wind direction, before it started mixing with the topography in the land is, is fairly

constant. Um, and then as we come down to the ground, we, we want more than one or two things,

we start to think of it as a tapestry. So you're not going to look at just flagging and go,

right, let's, let's head off for five miles in this direction. You're going to look at the,

the flagging, you're going to look at the lichens on the rock, you're going to, um,

sense the wind as well. You're going to start to put, put several pieces together. And so with

celestial cues, you only need one. If you know how to find the north star or use the sun or the moon,

um, then you, you genuinely don't need another directional cue. Um, you're still going to be

tuning into things because that, that's what I'm doing all the time is, is, if it's a nice sunny day,

it, it takes all of two seconds to get a very strong sense of direction, um, and, and even to sort

of mark it on the horizon and things like that. But that's when you, that's when you really feast on

the other things. So a good example would be I was walking in the, in the lake district north west

England, um, a few days ago. And I, I get a sense of direction from the sun, then being the

lake district that doesn't last very long that the clouds blocked that out. But I, I've now still

got that sense of direction from the shape of the land and having dropped it to the horizon. I can

now put a lot of faith into the lichen patterns. Yes, that is south. Yes, those bright green lichens,

map lichens, as they're known, um, uh, they, they are giving me a strong sense of south. They are

responding to the light, uh, and then you're tuning into the shape of the land and everything else.

So it's, it's, there's no, you can never have too many. But if you, if you bank the celestial help

when you, when you can, you, you, the rest of it's a, a good fun luxury.

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You know, I want to talk about the sun in a minute because the sun is both helped me and confused

me. And I want to come back to that because it can be misleading if you don't understand the way

that it works. A lot of people would like to think well it rises in the east and it sets in the

west and that's all I need to know but that is not all you need to know. I can guarantee you

but I want to go back to the trees just in way of example where we were looking for the Christmas tree.

We were in a valley with limited light the the mountain we were on we're on a north facing slope

for the most part northeast. And there are tall trees and small trees and of course we're looking

for the right size smaller one. But the bigger ones are casting shadows and the trees all

chase the light. And so some of the trees grow in these erratic crazy patterns because they are

just trying to find a little bit of sun. And so the flagging can get really confused right

especially with the smaller trees. But what was obviously apparent you're looking for a Christmas

tree and you say well it doesn't have any limbs on this side and then you look right beside it and

oh there's a tree twice as tall and thick on that side. There's no sun on that side. And why

does this matter? Because the sunlight is how the trees make food. So they don't waste time growing

limbs into the shade. They grow limbs toward the sun. And if the sun is only shining on that tree

from one direction because of the shadowing of the larger tree or something then it's going to

completely change the way the tree is. But if you begin looking at these things then they become

apparent. And if you find a tree that's solitary in the middle of a meadow it'll be symmetrical.

Well, I don't think it will be honestly. It will be more symmetrical than one that's been

the one that's been shaded on one side for sure. But I guess. Yeah, absolutely. So again as you say

they're not going to put a lot of resources growing into directions. They're not getting a lot of

light. It's very easy to anthropomorphize these trees and say they want to go south or anything

like that. What we have to remember is it's a constant feedback cycle. If a tree is harvesting

loads and loads of energy through a branch it sends resources that way. It's not dissimilar to

a retail business analogy. Let's say a company's got 20 retail branches around a country.

If ten of them are doing amazingly well and the managers are constantly messaging saying I need

more staff. We've got a queue of eight people. We're queueing out the door here and 10 branches

are saying like we have tried everything you've suggested over the last year. There's tumble we

blowing through the store. There's nothing happening. We know that company if it's sensible

is going to look different in two years time where the stores are doing well. More staff

bigger retail space and that's all the trees are doing. They're going where the resources are.

That's really fun. Every tree tells a story and we actually have a game that we play when we're

out in the woods. It's especially fun when there's someone there who hasn't spent a lot of time

in the woods because when you say the forest tells a story and you know there's a history here.

Can you read the forest? I've seen people look around and start noticing these clues for the first

time and they begin to connect in a way that I mean they thought they were just walking in the woods

and all of a sudden these trees they probably do anthropomorphize some but the tree becomes something

besides just wood. Now it's an individual who has history and we've done this before and you know

the evidence of logging at some point in the past or a fire or evidence of insect infestations or

evidence of a virus or evidence you know of the way that the sun shines particularly into

that valley or which direction the wind blows the strongest and and pretty soon you begin to see

every tree as unique. People look at something and say why is this? What what do you think did that?

You know totally and you've reminded me of some of my most fun experiences. I see my work as a

treasure hunt and when I go to a new place I'm I'm imagining I'm going to see a lot of old friends

in the sense of you know signs that I'm familiar with. I've been doing it long enough now that it's

rare I walk out and go oh what's this alien landscape? None of this makes any sense but that will

normally be if if I spend you know a few days hiking anywhere I will I will expect and hope to come

back with one or two that are totally unique to that region or if not unique certainly I remember

the very first time that I because we don't get a lot we don't get forest fires in in the way that

large parts of the you know North American continent and other parts of the world do here in the UK.

We do get them but they're not such a big feature in terms of most landscapes so I've seen evidence

of them here but I they're not they're not my go-to and I was walking in La Palmer in the Canary Islands

and I'm constantly looking for a cemetery and I saw this darker darker pattern on the side of

some of the pine trees and it wasn't obvious far damage you know you know even if you're not

looking for it if something's if something's been you know torched for hours and hours you're going

to know but this this was you know a brush fire or something that moved really fast through and

there was just this this charring I wanted and and once you you know you spotted it it's suddenly

just so powerful because again you just got to know where those fires gone through but it wasn't

it wasn't what I was expecting to see that day and it just filled filled me with joy I mean I did

some really good fun in in Texas with some some aerial fire fighters there actually and uh you know

we were we were we were having an amazing time just comparing notes because obviously they've got

just one of the things I love about the outdoors is every expert has their perspective um you know

I have my natural navigation one but one of the joys in natural navigation is I can feed anything in

you know if if somebody's you know if they can be into um they can be into mushrooms or they can

be into clouds they can be into stars they can be into anything they can be into something that they

you know here let's have some fun and you know name name and outdoors pursuit or expertise or

something like that that you think will have no obvious connection with navigation and I'll I'll

have a bit of a play hmm you know one that is very critical life and death critical is back

country skiing in Colorado okay okay and I can think of a lot of ways that this plays in so

fantastic um I I honestly can't tell you whether this would would work in that region because

I've only ever tried it in the Alps but uh I'm not I'm not a particularly good skier which is one

of the reasons why I was with a phenomenal um uh skier I explained you know my my weird interest

even on it on holiday if I'm with an expert of any sort I want to know how they can shed light on

an area that in a way that I haven't thought about it and they always can obviously uh and the

and this instructor said okay um one hour from now you are going to be telling me whether you are

skiing northeast southwest purely by sound and and it was it was surprisingly easy surprisingly

easy you know we we happened to be out there after a particularly cold night when the sun was out

you know it those conditions make it a lot easier obviously and it's why you know downhill skiers

are are picking certain slopes particularly in when the conditions are marginal but I'm not an

experienced skier so I'd never thought of it that way um that you can actually just from the sound

of the snow under skis tell which what the aspect is that's wonderful so several things come

out of this in Colorado or a semi-arid even some places are arid landscape and so when you see a

forest it is it is growing where there are resources and so one side of the mountain often will

be barren just little scrub maybe scrub oak maybe not even that maybe sagebrush and the other

side of the mountain will have a healthy forest and you say well what's going on here well it's

the side of the mountain that holds the snow is the side of the mountain that has the trees because

is the snow melts in the spring it provides a resources for the trees and so because of that you can

look at the landscape and say oh east north south you know just by looking at where the trees are

in relation to the valleys and the same thing comes into effect when you're skiing the reason is

because the the prevailing winds load that snow on one side of the hill or the mountain versus the

other and that tells you where the most snow is going to be but it also tells you where the greatest

probability of an avalanche is going to be so it it is directional and it is based on what the sun

melts off and sublimates during the wintertime you know that would be your southern and western

slopes generally and this snow tends to load the most on the eastern and northern slopes northern

primarily because they're in the shade in eastern because the prevailing winds are from the west

so anyway just another example yeah and let's let's play with snow a bit more

in the hidden seasons there's a section where I'm in the the Scottish Highlands and I'm trying

to quite often what I'm doing is taking broad concepts that are familiar amongst you know any

any sort of outdoors communities that are having fun in those types of landscapes and just trying

to push it into some lesser thought about or or more kind of niche knowledge so what I was doing

there is exactly what you were you were describing there you know we we get these asymmetries where in

that part of the world you get a lot of the heaviest snow coming in from between north and east

so immediately after the snow that's where that's the aspect you're going to see the heaviest snow

and then you get a compounding effect because the south facing slope is going to is going to you know

melt faster and that's a that that you know I go through very briefly but then I'm going into

where where you're close to losing the snow where you've just got you know remnants little snow

pockets and stuff like that you know it's very very easy for our brain to go there's a lot going on

I don't really need to know why why we've got half a dozen pockets there and none over there but

there will be a story and a message and within that signs and a compass so so what I found was

the in that particular landscape and the plants will be will change a bit but this principle won't

change which is which is the height of the plant and it and its tone and color will play a massive

role in how far small pockets are melting because if you're near to losing the snow it's probably

because there's a a thawing wind as as working as well as the sun the the wind is going to

thought things very fast and if if plants so in that case Heather was darker and taller than the

grasses so it was lifting it lifting snow up into the thawing wind but it was also darker so the

second a bit of thawing took place it warmed up faster than the lighter grasses so you ended up

with this kind of patchwork and Heather itself is it is a sun loving plant you get it on south facing

slope so you suddenly realize that what was just kind of random patches every single there isn't

randomness every single you know patch of snow is is telling you something you know I could see

something similar if you're walking boy the wind can can can found this somewhat but often walking

on the mountains when the snow is is partially melted out then you'll find that there are patches

of snow in the shadow the north side of a stone right into the south there's no snow of course

because the sun's to the south and so the the north side is the the last to melt but of course

the prevailing winds can confound that a little bit yeah sometimes you get really beautiful examples

if you've got if it's midwinter so you've got a very low sun and and the the air temperature is

staying below zero you can have this lovely window where there is only really about an hour in

the middle of the day when the sun is high enough and strong enough to do any serious melting and

then you can sometimes get these perfect compasses I I've got this photo of these mole hills you know

and you've got literally a tail of snow pointing north and it is dark wet mud on the south side and

the line between the two is perfectly east west because there was just a very short window around

the middle of the day when the sun is due south when when any melting was going on okay we've

we really need to talk about the sun so let me let me introduce the subject this way if you're

in the northern hemisphere and almost everything we've been talking about is northern hemisphere all

of this reverses in the southern hemisphere but if you're in the northern hemisphere in the winter

time the sun is further south in the summer the sun is further north I live at about 40 degrees

are you 60 degrees I'm just guessing right now I'm 50 but I'm I'm South Coast UK so when I'm in

the UK I'm I'm between 50 and 60 yeah 50 and 60 okay so you're a little bit further north so

these effects get more pronounced the further north you go but whenever my nephew asked me which

direction we were going and I looked at the sun and realized that it was lying to me I actually

said the sun is in the wrong place in this guy this is not possible that's when I realized that I

didn't understand the sun and so I had read about what the sun does and how to navigate with the

sun a little bit and promptly forgotten probably most of it and misunderstood a lot of it and so

I thought that there's only one way for me to really get this I'm going to have to do the geometry so

I sat down pencil and paper and actually did the geometry and then it started to make sense to

me but it didn't until I worked through it and it's not always obvious for instance I said what

what confused me is that I had seen the sun setting in the northwest quite a distance north

so I thought that during the the weeks around the solstice the sun would sweep across the north

part of the sky that's not what happens so can you explain to people where my confusion came from

yeah sure and I the the wonderful thing about all aspects of natural navigation including this

the celestial clues and including the sun is that there's a very fast way to to understand

the basics and then you can spend decades fine tuning it you know I sometimes say on my course

I'll be standing in front of people and if it's a you know a short course I say you know I could

spend all day here talking about the sun but that's not why you're here so I'm going to have to you

know just keep it so I'll keep it to the brief version which is as you've said if you are north of

the tropics which is almost all of the the USA and Canada the tiny bits that just sneak into the

tropics don't they but but for simplicity let's say we're north of the tropics the sun will be

due south in the middle of the day every day of the year now I'm choosing my words carefully

the middle of the day is not always 12 o'clock on your watch um uh so the middle of the day

our expression midday is of course an abbreviation of that but but the sun will rise and keep

on rising until the middle of the day at which point it is at its highest and it is due south it

will then start to set so the words morning and afternoon are just telling us morning is literally

when the sun is rising and it is east of us and the afternoon is when it's setting and it's west of

us there has to be a moment between those two times when it is neither rising nor setting it's at its

highest point shadows are their shortest and they point perfectly north so when I encourage people

to do instead of I think it's really healthy to kind of get get into the geometry as you say and

stuff like that but the very first thing I encourage everybody to do if they're not totally

used to the middle of the day stuff is anywhere near lunchtime if you see the sun for the rest of your

life you just go that's roughly south you know if it's a little bit past lunchtime you go that's

a bit west of south if it's a little bit before lunchtime you go that's probably used to south and

that's it for you know the very first um pillar if you like now rising in the setting in the west

on the equinoxes which is late March late September the sun rises due east and sets due west

those are the only two days of the year when the sun will rise due east and set due west

every other day of the year it is either going to rise and set north of east and west or rise and

set south of east and west now it very if we're just throwing labels like east and west and north

and south around it can get confusing so there's a technique for for not getting confused here

what you do is you set yourself what time of year is it which pole is pointing towards the sun

and however you answer that question wraps it all up so let's work through

we're as we're chatting now we're in December you know and not that far off mid-winter in solar

terms the the winter solstice being late late December so it is winter to us because the south pole

is pointing towards the sun so the answer question which what time of year is it it's winter

why is it winter because the south pole is pointing towards the sun the sun will rise and set south

of east and west if in June you go oh okay what time of year is it it's winter mid-summer

okay why is it summer are the north pole is pointing towards the sun the sun will rise and set

north of east and west the only regular pitfall is there's part of the brain that feels if it rises

north of east it should set south of west and vice versa and stuff like that but that's over the

years there is no there's no you know button I can push on the side of anyone's head that's going to

make all of this stuff come together in two seconds but over many decades of teaching it that question

is the one that avoids confusion you say what time of year is it which pole north or south is

pointing towards the sun that tells you whether the sun will rise and set north of east and west

or south of east and west there's one little thing I'll add to it I mean as I've mentioned I could

honestly talk about this for eight hours going into more and more detail but there's only one

thing I want to add at this point there's nobody particularly people have an interest in the the

outdoors who who has lost relationship with the length of day so for some people they find this

helps to think about it why why are days so long in June it's because the sun is tracing a massive

arc it's always going to go through south in the middle of the day whatever day of the year it is

to make a really big arc you've got to rise in the northeast and keep on rising and rising and

rising and rising and rising and rising really long journey you know we're going from some parts of

the world you know four a.m. you know you're rising for eight or nine hours until you're you know

your highest point and then you've got a really long arc all the way down to northwest that is your

June day this time of year December we've got short days how do you make a short arc you go from

roughly southeast you climb a little bit a few hours later you're at your highest point which is

not very high to south and then you've got a short journey down to southwest so if people are

really struggling with this use a traditional compass or a smartphone or a place where you know

where's north southeast west and just trace with your hand go June and point you know northeast

and then trace a massive arc in the sky all the way up to high south and then all the way down to

to northwest that's June December really short arc point southeast up a bit to south down to

southwest everything else is in between those two extremes I love that what a beautiful explanation

something that I've added to my smartphone is an app that shows me where the sun is and it

traces those arcs that you just described and then it will put like a Google map under it so

you can actually see where the sun should be in relation to what's right in front of you

and so you can say oh at four o'clock this afternoon the sun's going to be there but then you can

change the date and say where's the sun going to be in March right and it really has helped me to

visualize everything that you just talked about in a much better way I'd really encourage that use

of technology and in the sense that I'm not a lardite or a technophobe I think we can accelerate

because what we're trying to do here in natural navigation really is catch up on where our ancestors

would have been at this stage of life you know they would have spent you know depending on your age 10

20 30 40 56 70 years you know just tuning into this stuff what we're trying to do is fill in the missing

few decades and if technology helps with that which it very often does that's why I was saying

any way you need to so I'm always saying to people you know you use the technology to make a fun

challenge out of it you know you don't even need to step outside you can you can glance out of a

window and have it you know do your best to gauge where north is and you go oh I can't see the sun

but I can see the shadows are going that way it's roughly it's roughly lunchtime so that's going

to be north and then you know whip out the smartphone why not and there comes a really magical moment

where you you're checking things with with technology like a smartphone and there's this really

wonderful moment I I've seen it you know it happens with the north star quite a lot because people

are less confident in stars because typically they're not using them much these days but once you

know the techniques for finding north southeast or west using the stars it's very very normal to want

to check that with technology and there's nothing wrong with that at all but the magical moment comes

where it might be the third time it might be the 33rd time it doesn't matter but there comes a

moment where you realize that if the technology is not telling you the north star is north

the problems in the technology by which I mean yes if you confine the north star and it disagrees

with your smartphone you know the smartphone is wrong some of the people already know that my day

job has been a RF engineer so I designed cellular networks and one of the things that I used to

have to do was what we would call shooting asmoths of the antennas to make sure they're pointed in

the correct direction and from the ground you'll stand where you're directly in front of the

antennas and then you use a compass and of course you you figure out what the declination is

so that you can actually estimate to within a couple of degrees if that antenna is pointed in the

right direction so the reason I tell this I I've done it a thousand times one day this was a

rooftop site and there are people up on the roof working on it one day I'm trying to shoot the

asmoths and I'm just like man they have really messed this up and I'm looking at my compass and

the people on the roof yelled down to me hey look down I was standing on a steel manhole cover

and so my my compass was just no good whatsoever yeah and I was like what is going on here so it's

one of those moments technology fails for a variety of reasons and I love what you just said

when you know better than the phone you know that something's happened now now you were you've

arrived at some new level of understanding yeah I mean when I did the the solo flight across the

the Atlantic is a good example of that now in to do any sort of serious aviation you you have to

get an instrument rating and part of the training there is trusting the instruments more than

what your inner ear in particular is doing when we accelerate the inner ear is telling the brain

that we're pitching up and vice versa and lots and lots of people in the early days sadly lost

their lives through trusting their inner ear so you're trained to trust the instruments more

but there are lots of situations where it's a visual thing so I was I was taking off from memory

northeast out of out of Goose Bay in Newfoundland in in May and there's you know there was a lot

of a lot of snow ice and water in the in the first few few hours and I'm taking off towards

towards sunrise now if I wasn't aware and very comfortable that the sun is going to rise well

north of east I could have had a horrible experience where I'm looking at all this kit the first time

solo in this aircraft type over over water and and that you know if all I was thinking is the sun

rises east every day that's a you know pretty much 45 degree difference between what the instruments

are telling me and what what popular you know perception what the sun does is so so in that

situation it was lovely that all the things kind of married I was kind of like yes you know my magnetic

compass is telling me I'm flying near northeast all the electronics are telling me I'm flying near

northeast and the sun is northeast there is no mismatch there at all

well that's where the source of my confusion came from obviously in the story about my nephew

asking which direction we were hiking in the forest let me give you a scenario and tell us how you

would manage it just because I think it happens a lot it's it's wintertime you're in the forest

you've been having fun skiing sledding hiking whatever you've been doing you've not been paying

attention and suddenly you realize oh it's four o'clock in the afternoon

let's say 330 just give it a little bit more you know it's 330 in the afternoon I've kind of lost

my way and I want to know what west is I want to want or at least one of the directions so that I can

make sure I'm taking the best route out of here but it's it's winter and it's 330 in the afternoon

and the sun is somewhere selfish somewhere westish how do you find your way in that scenario

okay so so me personally when when you're using the sun and you you have quite a lot of

experience of using it what you're always doing is finding out where it is between two fixed points

so the sun is either going to be assuming it is not exactly sunrise sunset all the middle of the day

which is quite rare nice examples but but it's going to be between sunrise the middle of the day

or between the middle of the day and sunset so then all we've got to do the middle of the day

it's easy we've nailed that already that's due south that's never going to change yes so all we've

got to do we've got to all we've got to do is think about where where sunset is and and we go back

to the the time of year so it it it does get a little bit more advanced and there is a bit more

thinking because latitude comes into it you know and just as a weird thought experiment if there's

if there's a group of you know six of you hiking the the sun will have have a very slightly

different position of sunset for each of you even if there's only three feet between you you know

because whenever you move north or south at all the the bearing of the sun changes very slightly

and whenever you move east or west the the timings change very slightly but to take that to a more

practical point the further from the equator you are the more extreme the seasonal adjustment

so when I was mentioning earlier that in the south south coast of UK I'm at 50 degrees north

north coast of Scotland you're nearer 60 degrees north that's the sort of difference that is well

worth taking into account by which I mean I would know that in in late December for example in

the circumstances you're you're giving I would expect on the south coast of England the the the

sun to be setting just on the west side of southwest but if I go all the way up to the north coast

of Scotland it's going to be just past southwest so there's there's not I don't think there's much

value in us going down to the sort of degrees and this sort of stuff but but when I've used this as

a primary navigational tool what I am doing is is tuning into the degrees I will know to the number

where the sun will set for that latitude and then the next part of the puzzle and this is this

is getting more advanced I'm not expecting anyone to fall in love with the subject with this level

of detail but as your latitude increases the the angle of all celestial objects on moon stars and

planets when they set get shallower now I can explain that in a slightly neat way at the equator

things rise and set vertically at the poles they move horizontally but we spend all of our talent

typically between those two so it's it's a number called your co latitude which is 90 degrees

minus your latitude so don't don't nobody needs to you know drown in the detail here I'm just sort

of explaining what I would get be going through if I was genuinely trying to use the sun as a

primary navigational tool in a in a toughen scenario so let's stick with those UK numbers of 50 and

60 for now on the south coast of England the the sun will be setting at an angle of 40 degrees

so let's say by measuring with with an extended fist which is which is 10 degrees the sun looks

like it's it's you know one hour from setting I am then building triangles visually and you can

actually do it with bits of string and stuff like that if your life's going to depend on it

working out back from sunset where where the sun is so to make it slightly more

easier to digest if you stick out your fist and work out the sun is one and a half

fist above the horizon at the equator you know it is one hour till sunset and then you work out

where your sunset you know bearing is going to be and that will be it because it's going to set

vertically you know if you're if you're at the north pole you're not going to be doing this

exercise at all because the sun's going to be moving horizontally parallel to the horizon everywhere

in between you are visualising the more often than not it's fairly casual as in if I'm at 35 degrees

north I will be factoring in a steeper sunset and going okay for simplicity let's say it's setting

south west the sun is the sun is currently perhaps only 10 degrees south of that whereas if I'm

up at 55 60 degrees north I'll be going okay the sun the sun will be setting south of south west

and it is going to be 15 degrees south of that right now I mean there have been times not not

hundreds of them because it's as you can hear it's a it's a pretty convoluted process but there

have been times where I'm doing that and it takes you know 15 minutes concentration and

and the one in 60 rule if you're one degree out and you you travel 60 miles you will be a mile

from where you think you are so you know if you're tender if you're 10 degrees out you don't have

to travel that far before you're not close to where you thought you would be so there have been times

where I do it like that but the really fun interesting thing is however hard we have to work at

any of this stuff in the beginning the brain takes over the process because our ancestors were

finding their way across continents without you know mostly getting lost and they weren't thinking

about things like co-latitudes and stuff like that this is just again a way of trying to try

to shortcut back into that way of thinking it sounds much more technical than it is what happens

on on the first half of the day is you're thinking right okay co-last you 90 degrees minus 50 degrees

okay the sun is going to set at 40 degrees and other data by the end of the first day you're not

even you're not even thinking like that you're like oh the sun's there that's what that means you know

it's it's it's all very doable otherwise none of us would exist

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promo code ASP I love what you were saying about the fist it's such a great tool and I use my

fingers kind of bent and I hold my arm straight out and a hand you know the straight out from your

arm represents about an hour ish right and I'm I'm being general here but a few things that I've

learned that allow me to to judge a lot about time and distance and everything as I just have to

remember what time does the sun set or rise generally this time of the year I have to know if it's

daylight savings time or not all right and then just remember okay well the sun's going to set

in the northwest so I'm just going to use my hand to track that arc until I get to the sun and that's

how many hours until sunset and yeah assuming you can see a flat horizon and in Colorado you can't

you're always looking at an elevation so you have to get a feel for if if I were in the planes where

where the horizon be you know but those sorts of things allow you to tell time to within about 15

minutes and to know direction very very well because you're just paying attention to it and as you

pay attention to it it becomes kind of natural absolutely and if we take the high ground example

it is technically you know for you sunset when it goes behind the ridge line you know even if

so you can have the situation where you you phone you're out for a couple of days hiking and you

phone home that is you know maybe two hours drive away or something like that and and you have

you will have different sunset times you know because because you're behind a ridge your homes

behind a ridge or something like that so I make this point occasionally that you you can make a fun

low-tech time machine you know if you if you've got a friendly kind of friendly kind of slope

you can play the tape forwards and backwards you know you can literally make the sun rise again once

it's set you know just by heading uphill yeah one thing that that I've done before is go to a high

point and watch a moon rise and then drive down to a low point and watch it again yeah it's fun

to see it twice you can do the same thing with mercury right if you want to see mercury which

is hard to see because it's so close to the sun you know you can expand the amount of time that

you get to see it by changing your your altitude or your elevation um Tristan here's what I would

like to do I would like to talk a little bit more but we've burned through our time and so for

the sake of the listeners I want to make sure that they have all the information they need to learn

more about this stuff because it really is a glorious way to interact with nature and I'm gonna

just me sound like a silly example but I'm gonna say it you see a lovely guy or a handsome fellow

across the room you're like wow I would really like to get to know that person and then you get

a little closer and maybe you introduce yourself and you know you have that conversation close up

you can tell what color their eyes are maybe pick up some pheromones even right and then comes a

magic moment when you take her hand or she takes yours or he takes you know it whatever the genders

are I but the point is this that magical moment when you're holding someone's hand and you say

this is different we're together right now experiencing this thing together that's what it's

like in nature when you have something like this that causes you to connect with it to pay attention

you're not looking at the the other person across the room anymore you're holding the hand

and you know you're in it together and I just want to say that because this is the magic of what

you have spent decades working on and I can't under express how how wonderful I think it really is

if you're spending time in the woods you need to know this stuff not just so you can find your

way out but so you can hold the hand I've never heard it put that way that's that's beautiful yeah

thank you for that and it matches very nicely with with a lot of feedback I'm getting at the moment

where people people expressing something that I felt a lot which is people are telling me I should

connect with nature and it's a lovely idea but I don't know what they're talking about and so

so I've even you know written about connecting with nature but my my whole point is don't

don't go into a natural environment whatever it looks like and think that something magical will

automatically happen but it will do if you if you set yourself very simple ancient little canundrums

just say to yourself what what time is the sun going to disappear behind that ridge line or

you know can I find north by looking at these these leaves or these pine needles can I work out

you know what what time the rain will will start tomorrow by looking at those cloud shapes and then

all that happens is is you know 10 minutes disappear and you you are on a on a different plane

and a connection and yeah yeah holding hands as you say well let's go over how people can learn

more information and then if you don't mind if you have the time I would like to talk about weather

with you yeah sure yeah okay so the the most recent book is the hidden seasons yeah and where can

they find that that's available all the usual places where wherever you get your books it's really

well distributed globally but not not least in North America so you know support your your local

bookstore if you if you can we we miss them when they when they disappear but it is available

through the three online booksellers if you're if you don't have a local store so just look for

a Tristan Gouli and it's not just that book they're many like we mentioned in the beginning

you have a course the beginner's guide to natural navigation where do people participate in the

course yeah it's that's an online course which I never imagined doing until till COVID you know

forced me to to reinvent like so many people how I did things and some of the most interesting

lessons in life I'd just so obvious in hindsight well I hadn't realized I'd been running courses

for for probably about 15 16 years by the time that happened and what I didn't realize is the

number of people are frustrated because they could never geographically get to places where I was

running them typically in in the UK so with an online course you you can be anywhere and it's

it's tailored towards the northern temperate zone but that's that's most of most of North America is

you know it's relevant too and yeah you can find out information about that and the books on

on naturalnavigator.com well the the Adventure Sports podcast has the most downloads in English

speaking countries so that takes care of you know the UK and Canada and the United States but we

also have Australia and South Africa and many other places where there's a lot of English spoken

so New Zealand the point I guess I'm getting at is that it all still works you just have to flip it

yeah and and I do get there's a page on my website explaining the the differences for for Southern

hemisphere adventurous but either the the principles are identical not just globally but you

universally by which I mean you can navigate from the shape of of a sand dune whether it's in a big

desert or just on on your local beach but those same patterns can be found in Mars you know so

so the principles are truly universal some of the the labels change so we still get our prevailing

winds you know from from one direction wherever you are in the world it's just the label we put on

it that changes you also have a newsletter called the sign of the week is this an email using sort

of a thing yeah it doesn't go out every week it's a it's a little bit more um uh

sporadic than that but uh I I a tip is when I get around to it yeah exactly yeah exactly but it um

you know my my work on the one man band my work you know uh sometimes I'm not in front of a

computer for a for a couple of weeks but it but yeah basically I typically I start with a photo

and the question you know which way we're looking all south east west um and then and then I unpack

the clues that are in the photo down the bottom and in in between I'm giving updates about books

and the other things that help pay the bills oh that's fine how can people participate with this

newsletter uh if you go on to naturalnavigator.com uh there'll be a window that that pops up and if

it doesn't then just down the bottom of the homepage you all you've got to do is put in your your

first name and your email address and you'll uh you'll get one as soon as I get round to it

okay Tristan I'm gonna do that because I want to I want to play this game this is great

okay um first of all thank you very much for your time I do want to talk about weather

but that means we're going longer than we usually do and for people that don't have the time

right now just reload the episode later and you can you can listen to all of it but

weather okay so weather can help you with navigation as well but just understanding what weather to

expect can can really be valuable when you're in nature so do you have some some tips for us how do you

discern what the weather is likely to do that day or the next day what do you do

yeah there's there's um I mean in my book the secret world of weather I go into literally

hundreds of the more sort of detailed signs but but they generally fit into into families which

which we can cover uh in in broad terms now um wind direction if you read any accounts of

exploration or interesting travel from more than a hundred years ago you will find wind direction

pops up in in log books account everything like that for the simple reason that since you know

prehistory we've known that the the direction that the winds are coming from give us a give us a

very good steer in terms of the conditions we can expect and the probability of change so if you

you know if you just monitor the direction the winds coming from uh mourning and late afternoon

and there is no significant change in that the probability of a massive change in the weather is

very very low you know so that's a nice big broad thing that that our ancestors knew and that is not

it's not too tough then what I'm typically doing is just adding layers to that a lot of a lot of

this clues and sign reading is is just putting two pieces together to come up with something a little

bit richer more interesting birds perch facing into wind they land and take off facing into wind

so if you happen to notice all the birds facing one way in the morning and in a different way

in the late afternoon you know you you might well have rain by by breakfast time the following day

because they are telling you the the wind direction shifted significantly um so of course so um

and then and then we've got the whole family of clouds and that's um you know I spent years and

put together so much detail on that and there's there are some some broad trends things step down

as as we go from dry to wet um so at the very highest level star start twinkling more as the moisture

level increases you know as we go from a a dry blue sky type of you know perhaps high pressure

weather system when when there's a front or or some significant change on the way the there will

typically be uh moisture in the highest part of the troposphere first and that makes stars twinkle

more so it's it's that's that's at the very early very sensitive sort of thing that's only people

who are really really wanting to tune in are going to spot that sort of thing but the bigger bolder

trends are the typical stepping down of the clouds so we start with the the the wispy we call it

candy flossier I always forget what it's called in your part of the world but uh serious with uh

yeah the serious clouds but the what do you call it the what do you call candy floss the um

the sort of fluffy stuff we we get them at fair it's it's sugar candy but it's it doesn't

yeah it just doesn't cut in candy is cutting candy that's it yeah it can't so you you get those

those wispy icy high clouds which you can still see the sun through and typically it just steps down

and you don't you don't even need to know the the names you just need to know if clouds are getting

you know lower then then the the forecast you'll typically start to sense wind direction changes

as part of that process as well so you you know it goes cirrus cirrus stratus you know

out of stratus nimbus stratus and you're you're getting wet at that point but whilst that's all going

on uh you're sensing wind direction changes animal behavior changes things like that you know

there are there are some big bold things that that um signify change uh and within that there are

you know uh some some of the most interesting stuff is is map making as opposed to forecasting

so cumulus clouds the the bubbly ones that you see at the start of the simpsons those are the opposite

of random they are mapping something below them typically high ground towns uh dark coniferous forests

or islands you know the places that warm up fast because that's where the air is rising yeah

it's a really nice example of non-randomous and nature not lying because a cumulus cloud

is sitting on top of a thermal there is no other way that they are they are formed you know

there are different ways thermals are created you know but but in in in weather terms uh it's

it's one area of the earth surface warming up fast in the other areas and that's not random it's

not like one patch of the earth goes oh we haven't got hot for a few days let's get hot

it'll be because it's a town or a city which which is typically hotter than the surrounding

countryside or it's an island because land warms up faster than water under sunshine that sort

of thing you know our ancestors would find the idea that you you first sent land by seeing land

from from the sea absolutely hilariously incompetent you know um you don't have to spend much time

you don't have to spend much time on the water or around mountains for that matter you know there's

a whole family of clouds and you you'll see many of them in Colorado that that signify high ground

even when you haven't seen the the peak itself um uh yeah all of these clouds are making a map

yeah that's very very interesting you know cumul animbus is something in the american west it's a

big deal because these are the thunderstorms that they bring hail they bring lightning and when

you're mountaineering the cumul animbus but if if the cumul animbus clouds are forming it's

probably too late you should have headed down a while back but the you get the the nimbus clouds

forming and that means look out and then the cumul animbus are going to follow but what

again confounds that a little bit here is that the the topography of the ground forces air to rise

when there's a prevailing wind so sometimes it's not just where things are warmer it's also where

the mountain is pushing the air up and that causes clouds to form as well so it we get localized

weather events you'll see storms form on the west side of a mountain go over the peak and then

dissipate as they go down the other side the meteorologist call it call it the sort of

or a graphic effects when the you've got the force lifting by the the high ground but there are

normally um uh so for for a thunderstorm to to form whether it's being pushed up by high ground or

or by by a thermal uh you need an unstable atmosphere and there are clues to that yeah so

you know thunder thunderstorms are are you know they again they're not random if you look at a map

of of thunderstorm locations by by month for example they're not randomly distributed exactly

as you're saying you know these patches of high ground you know it doesn't matter whether you're

you're North America or anywhere else for that matter you know um moist unstable air hitting high

ground leads to thunderstorms but how do you tell it's unstable air well if if there are no clouds

at all in the sky uh a thunderstorm being the first thing you see is quite unlikely you know

because there has to be some moisture in the atmosphere for a thunderstorm to to form so what we're

looking for there is signs that that the atmosphere is unstable which just means that that clouds can

go into vertical kind of runaway and the signs of that is is any clouds particularly early in the day

that are taller than they are wide because that is that is an unstable atmosphere so so you know

storms can form very very fast and I don't want to give people the impression that a blue sky

means you're safe but what I'm saying is it is more the opposite it's more if if it's sort of 10 30

in the morning you see um uh towering cumulus you know bubbling clouds that are definitely tall

and they are wide you know that is a sign of an unstable atmosphere so if you're heading into the

mountains and you've seen that in the morning you you know it's a high risk situation

interesting uh what about lenticular clouds first of all what do they look like

yeah the nick the nicknamed um uh flying saucer or UFO clouds and and they they're they're

sort of a gentle version of what we've been talking about there so instead of instead of in an

unstable atmosphere where things can go into runaway and lead to terrible storms the the lenticular

clouds are where you've got air being forced over a summit typically uh and it's being pushed up

to up to a level it's expanding cooling leading to condensation which which which is the cloud we see

and then it dips back down compresses warms and disappears it's it's something we we will all

have seen many many times it's not a particularly strong sign of weather to come you know it is not

telling you things are going to get better or worse for example in weather times the I don't know

if the right adjective is sensitive or fragile but what I mean is they they they will disappear if

there's a significant change in wind speed or direction typically so so if you see them forming

and they don't change for for a couple of hours you know it's very unlikely something something

dramatic is about to happen that they're saying the airflow is fairly steady you know something

that's interesting is they they often look like they're not moving but what you're seeing is the

condensation that's happening in one place the air is still moving but the cloud is forming because

of the pressure differentials and and and because of the wind essentially I've interviewed uh

like paragliders who will go through a lenticular cloud and find that there's a 60 mile per hour

updraft right through the cloud that doesn't appear to be moving yes absolutely and that's

fascinating too it's a really good example of where these patterns are universal and once you get

used to seeing them in one context you recognize them very quickly and another so for example

that what we're talking about there in physics terms is a is a standing wave which is where

the the the the atoms and molecules are constantly changing but the pattern we see isn't

and you see exactly the same thing in water if you look at white water uh you know kayakers will

be all over this but basically as water hits uh a boulder or an obstruction it gets forced up

in in this way that you can spot but only if you only if you're sensitive to it uh into a pattern

called a pillow um but then the water will plunge down the other side of the the stone

and it punches what's known as a hole because it is literally a hole it punches a hole

now water doesn't like holes it's constantly trying to reach equilibrium so what you find is water

will try and fill the hole from the downstream side and that sets up a standing wave you don't

need to travel far you know if you look over a bridge at any any stream or river that's got a

bit of white water in it doesn't need to be you know ground wrappers or anything it just

just where you can hear the water which is a sign of white water of any kind even if it's small

you will see these standing waves and again the wave doesn't appear to move anywhere

as long as the flow and the obstruction stay constant the wave will stay there and it's a

it's a standing wave every you know every water molecule is constantly changing but the shape

stays the same yeah you have uh hundreds or thousands of gallons per minute that are flowing

through there but it looks like it's it's just staying there just kind of underleading right

that's that's fascinating interesting okay a lot of people have heard the old adage

red in the morning sailors warning red at night sailors delight we have issues with that in our

modern day but what is that about yeah the the red in the morning is is less clear cut and

but the the the red sky at night shepherds or sailors delight is fairly straightforward

it's not a cast iron guarantee but if you if you can see the sunset by definition you can see

far to the west and most weather you know in in the temperate zones comes from the west so it's

basically you you know that experience when when the weather's bad you really can't see very far

not only can you not see the sun you can't see horizontally very far so if you are seeing a red

sky at night you you are seeing many many miles through clear air to the west it's as simple as that

and it's you know that that's not to say um the the the can't be bad whether it's just a probability

thing you know if you can see many many miles to the west which is where most our weather comes from

the visibility is good in the direction our weather comes from QED the forecast is not bad

you have noticed that air pollution impacts that went a little bit too and that's that's why

you mentioned our modern world because if you have a bad smog layer to the west you're going to

get that red and it might be but only only if you can see the sun so it'll change the colors but

it won't change it shouldn't change the the the general diagnostics the visibility in the hidden

seasons for example I talk about how the the sunsets are seasonal so we we get for example

at harvest time you know if you've got a lot of arable crops in your part of the world you are at

harvest time there's just going to be a lot of dust in in the air and the sunsets are on notice

to be redder then you know lots of lots of other places will have um you know seasonal fires we've

mentioned fire you get a lot of smoke particles in the air the the sunsets change I mean we had a red

we had a red moon visible from the U.K. and all over Europe from forest fires in North America last

year I think all we might have been the year before but quite recently you know all it takes is

that has some thoughts causing the atmosphere and the and the colors change because the the blues

will get bounced out by the scattering more than the reds you know we had days last summer when

you could look at the sun bear eyed without burning your eyes um because it was so obscured the

the opacity of the smoke was was so high it's eerie not that I would recommend looking at the sun

but there's a related dynamic that I want to mention because it's been very helpful for me and

that is that high pressure air tends to hold more dust and pollutants in it and low pressure air

tends to be clearer and so on a on a morning in Colorado when you're climbing a 14er and you've

got the perfect blue bird sky you can see forever it's crystal clear you think what a beautiful day

look out because that's a low pressure system and yes dorms can roll in

yeah yeah i mean that's that's not one i've come across but it makes it makes good sense yeah the

high pressure it's a lid on on things sinking air low pressure is typically yeah ascending so

i mean that's interesting you know on a totally different scale that's why the deserts are where

they are you know most people would kind of imagine well the equators getting hit with more

solar energy than anywhere else on planet earth so why don't we have the deserts there it's for

that reason you're talking about there which is you have most of the instability and rising near

the equator but that leads to lots of tropical storms and then the air is sinking much much you

know at higher latitudes both north and south but it's super dry hence the Sahara desert isn't on

the equator well Tristan this has been fascinating and I love the the conversation about weather

we could probably talk for three more hours just about weather itself but some of these things

just become kind of second nature like you were talking about when you open your eyes and observe

and so man we could we could go on forever about this stuff again go to naturalnavigator.com

and from there I'll bet you can find everything else to get a hold of Tristan and to learn about

what he's been working on Tristan goole thank you very much for your time today it's been really fun

and very thank you so much really really enjoyed our chat and yeah keep up the keep up the

great work with the podcast it's really good fun okay thanks everyone start observing nature more

because that way you can hold the hand get out there and have some fun