Halle Homel is a 27-year-old outdoor guide, van dweller, and questioning nomad who built her life around travel, adventure, and seasonal work—and now asks herself whether the road still feels like home. (@halletreks)
After graduating college a year early with a degree in creative writing, Halle hit the road in her Kia Soul and spent three months visiting all 48 contiguous states alone. That trip turned into six years of van life, guiding rock climbing, backpacking, and canoeing trips across the U.S. while living on public land and making seasonal wages stretch through the winter. But as she and her partner juggle life in a van with a six-day-a-week climbing schedule, the absence of a real home base is starting to feel more like survival mode than freedom.
We discuss the economics of seasonal guiding: how she makes $200 a day on average, relies on tips for daily expenses, and stretches her summer paychecks to last all year. Halle shares the reality of van life in 2024, from Walmart parking lots to the mental toll of constantly moving, and why she’s now searching for a mountain town where she can return year after year. She also talks about breaking into the guiding world as a woman, the sexism she’s faced in climbing, and how she’s using her new Single Pitch Instructor certification to carve out a long-term career in outdoor leadership.
She opens up about her evolving relationship with social media after going viral on TikTok, her role in environmental advocacy, and the tension between craving stability and chasing big, audacious goals—like summiting all 15 of California’s 14,000-foot peaks before October.
Full transcript: dirtbagrich.com/halle
Recorded in December 2024.
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript. Typos and mistakes exist!
Blake Boles 00:00
Halle Homel, welcome to Dirtbag Rich.
Halle Homel 00:03
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Blake Boles 00:06
Tell me about the beautiful life plans that you made for yourself that were then crushed by the pandemic.
Halle Homel 00:11
My pandemic experience was really unique. I graduated college in 2019 and kind of immediately hit the road in my car and had just bought a van right before the pandemic hit with plans to continue traveling. And I’d already done the 48 states. And so my goal for 2020 was to finally get to Alaska, which was going to be my 50th state. And then I had all these dreams of like, oh, we’re going to do South America and all this traveling. And I was also considering becoming a guide internationally with a group that I had volunteered with at the very end of 2019. So things were very quickly thrown out the window when it became really clear that Alaska was not going to be happening that year.During that period of my life was traveling, caravanning with somebody who’s now my ex-partner. And we kind of just kept going north hoping that the border would open. And then by June, we were like, oh, this isn’t happening, is it? And so that dream was super crushed because I had this whole vision of actually getting to fully explore Alaska. And I was working remote at the time. So it would have been really easy to do that when we were in a big city and then actually go and explore a lot of the national parks and the state parks and really, really see a lot of the state. And then that didn’t happen. What ended up happening was a big kind of up in the air road trip around the US because we had nowhere else to go except our vans. Yeah, so we ended up quarantining on public land and being so completely isolated that we were the only two people that we saw for weeks at a time, which was really weird. Yeah, living in the woods during COVID was super interesting. But it was kind of like some of the most fun days of vans because nobody else was out there except for the people who fully, fully lived in their vans full time. So it was just a really interesting community that we kind of got to know through this weird circumstance of all of our travel plans getting thrown out the window.
Blake Boles 02:56
Okay. So you really made the most of the pandemic and definitely it sounds like you, you were really set up to do this. You’d already traveled extensively. You already had a van. What were you doing during your college years or even before that, that led you to, yeah, to be such a travel fiend already by this age.
Halle Homel 03:17
Yeah, so when I was a teenager, I came across this list that was essentially a road trip that somebody had put together that was like, this is the fastest way that you can see all 48 states in one road trip. And I was like, okay, when I graduate college, I’m doing that.And then I ended up graduating a year early. And so I was kind of toying with like, oh, do I do it like the summer between my third and fourth year and then I graduated after my third year. And so I hit the road in my Kia Soul. And I was following my own version of this list, I use this list I found online as sort of a reference point, and travel to all 48 states by myself, living out of my Kia Soul. And it kind of taught me how to live on the road, but I had already sort of discovered the concept of van life. I during my research period for this big road trip that I was planning, which was only supposed to be three months, and it’s now been almost six years. But during that planning period, I kind of stumbled upon like hashtag van life on YouTube. And it kind of opened my eyes to the fact that like, oh, this is actually a lifestyle that people live. Like you don’t have to just go on like one lengthy road trip, you can actually live on the road and people make this work. And so it taught me that this was a thing that I could do.And so I started seeking out remote work, while I was still in my senior year of college, and was making enough to kind of keep me going during that first like year and a half that I was on the road.
Blake Boles 05:08
What let you graduate college a year early?
Halle Homel 05:11
Yeah, so I worked really hard in high school and I took a lot of AP classes. So I went into college technically as a sophomore in terms of like how many credits I had.So then around the end of my first quarter of my third year, I was kind of at an impasse of just like really hating it. I was like really not vibing with the structure and just like really wanted to just go and travel and hike and see the national parks and that was sort of what I was most passionate about and I also sort of started not really vibing with my program anymore. Like it just felt like a lot of the people in my program, I was just like having a hard time kind of like relating to the reason why they were there and so.
Blake Boles 06:07
You have to tell me more how the, what was the program and what were the, the griefs and why did you think these other people were there for the wrong reasons?
Halle Homel 06:15
Yeah, and it’s not that I think they were there for the wrong reasons, I just felt like I couldn’t really relate to their reasons. I have a bachelor’s degree in creative writing, which I do still write, and that was the field that I was working in remotely for the first couple years after I graduated college. But it just felt like I had this goal of like, I want to tell these stories to help people. And a lot of the people that I was coming across were like, I want to be published in the Times. And it just didn’t feel like a goal that I could relate to.I didn’t care about these big publications, I just wanted to write so that maybe something that I said could help somebody heal in some way. And I didn’t really understand why do I not care about being published in the Times. Why does this not feel like a big deal to me? So I wasn’t really submitting to literary magazines the way that everybody else was, I was sort of just like wanted to write my own stories and do what I wanted with them. And yeah, so I sort of started playing with the idea of potentially not finishing college, just because I just didn’t really see the point in being there at that point. So I went to my advisor and I was like, Hey, you know, how close am I to graduating? And she was like, if you take five classes, the next two quarters, you could be done by the end of this year. And so I did that. And I just worked really, really, really friggin hard from like January 2019 to June. And graduated, got my piece of paper in June, and hit the road and hit the road. Literally three days later, I graduated on June 16th, and I hit the road June 19th. So
Blake Boles 08:13
Let me ask you about this goal of doing states or like checking states off a box because I hear people talk about this in the international context a lot and what’s the significance to you of going on a road trip in which you kind of pack in the number of distinct political entities we call states into the shortest timeframe possible and what does it even mean to do a state in your book?
Halle Homel 08:41
Totally. I really think I just wanted like, I’m a person who really thrives on having tangible goals. And so it gave me like a really nice just like, okay, like I can just plan a route that hits all of these locations and like sees the majority of the country in one go and that was sort of my goal. And also I was really young, I was 21 at the time, and there are not a lot of young people who have seen all 50 states. And so I was kind of enamored by the idea of like, seeing all 50 by the time I was like, of graduating college age. But obviously that didn’t happen.I had to wait for Alaska. Well, you got pretty close. I got pretty close, got pretty close. But um, but
Blake Boles 09:27
Is this your version of being published in the Times, Halle, like, like you’re saying not many young people, not many young people see so many, can say they visited so many states by a certain age. Is this another form of accomplishment and status indicator?
Halle Homel 09:42
You know, I think at the time I felt like it was and I think I at the time I really wanted to go on like, I kept saying it was my version of the book wild, which is so funny because now I literally work as a backpacking guide and I’ve, you know, been on many a journey that I feel like is my version of the book wild. But this was sort of me like venturing out into the world and like discovering myself for the very first time because it was my first time really being away from my family or my friends and like really being alone with myself.And so I felt like that was sort of the main goal with it was just to, like, really get to know who I was and put myself out in the world and experience the vast differences of culture that is our ginormous country here and also see most of the national parks because I love our public lands. And I should have just structured my road trip around visiting the National Park Service sites, but I was sort of still learning about the national park system at the time. So I think I ended up visiting about 35 national parks in that one summer.
Blake Boles 11:05
It’s a ridiculous number.
Halle Homel 11:06
It’s a ridiculous time. It could have been better, but…
Blake Boles 11:10
Were you super outdoorsy growing up?
Halle Homel 11:13
When I was a young kid, yes. I grew up scrambling on rocks in our local county park. And my dad would take me out, and we would go and look for little animals, and definitely played outside a lot when I was a young kid.And then when I was a teenager, you couldn’t catch me dead outside. I was indoors reading a book all the time. But I think a lot of that was just because of the pressure that was put on me in high school of just you have to do well so that you can go to college, because that was the path that was presented to me by counselors and teachers in high school. So I felt like, oh, I can’t be successful if I don’t get straight A’s. So I was very much in my room reading or studying or doing homework all the time when I was a teenager.And then I kind of rediscovered the outdoors when I was 19 or 20. I can’t remember how old I was my first trip to Yosemite and that kind of just helped me fall back in love with it.
Blake Boles 12:15
Were your parents also pressuring you to go to a great college and do really well there?
Halle Homel 12:20
Not necessarily. They definitely made it clear that it was always going to be my choice.I remember my senior year of high school, my mom like sincerely asking me like, do you really want to go to college? And I was like, yeah, because all my friends were going to college. So I didn’t want to be the odd man out. But in retrospect, I think I could have ended up where I am today, regardless of where I went to school or if I went to school. So who knows?
Blake Boles 12:52
It’s a hard one to, hard experiment to run there. And where are you today, Halle? Can you just summarize your current, let’s say job title, the way you make money, but also how you spend your time?
Halle Homel 13:06
Yeah, so I make money pretty much exactly the way that I spend my time, which is that I work in the outdoor recreation industry. So I’ve worked as a guide since 2022.And I’ve worked in all sorts of adventure sports from rock climbing to glacial lake canoeing in Alaska to backpacking. And then I’m kind of at this weird transition right now where I just got my single pitch instructor certification from the American Mountain Guide Association. And I’m trying to make the like solid transition into climbing guide and working toward like the mountain guide path.
Blake Boles 13:48
For those who don’t know what single pitch instructor represents, like how much of a time commitment, energy investment is that and what does it allow you to do that not having that certification, you know, you can’t do.
Halle Homel 14:01
Yeah, that’s a great question. So single pitch in climbing relates to how far you can climb with a single rope length. So being a single pitch instructor, it’s essentially a rock climbing instructor that can only operate in the single pitch environment. So there are certifications that can allow you to take clients and students further up into the mountains. But this is sort of your basic certification, your kind of entry level certification for working in the rock climbing world. A lot of rock climbing outfitters and companies will not hire you if you don’t minimum have this certification.And it’s kind of the time commitment for it really depends on kind of your base skill level going into it. I was super lucky to have a partner now who is already a single pitch instructor. So he was able to help me prepare even before I took my course. And then going into the course, the course is a three day course with an instructor teaching you all of the systems that you might use out in the field professionally. And then the exam is two days long. And most people wait three to six months before taking their exam. I waited one month and passed my first try. But I think a lot of that was because I had a lot of preparation before I took my course.
Blake Boles 15:41
And for your other guiding roles, hiking, paddling, glacier travel. Did you say glacier travel?
Halle Homel 15:48
So, I never got to actually guide on the glacier, but we did a lot of glacier education because we would canoe to the terminus of the Menenhall Glacier.
Blake Boles 16:00
These sound like dream jobs to a lot of people, getting paid to play in the outdoors. And what was your route into these positions?And are these all for different guiding companies, or did you work mostly for one company?
Halle Homel 16:13
Yeah, that’s a question I get all the time. So largely every summer I’ve worked for a different company. Right now I’m looking for a company that I can stay with long-term because I’m seeking maybe a little bit of some sense of stability in my life. We’ll get to that.Yeah. But yeah, and then I do have one company that I have done contract work with here and there throughout the past two and a half years-ish, but largely I’m working for different companies. So yeah, my route into this was that I had just quit my remote job back in December of 2021. Had a very short stint of making money on social media and then found myself in West Virginia. I was invited out there by a friend who was working as a raft guide and she was like, I’m working in New River Gorge and I know you’re a climber and if you want to come out for a couple weeks and climb with me here in the new, you’re welcome to come out. And so I drove across the country because it was a national park I hadn’t been to. And I’ve kind of been looking for an excuse to go and check it out because it gained national park status after my 48-state road trip. And so I drove across the country to go and climb with her for two weeks. And by day 10, I was like, I’m in love with New River Gorge and the community here. And her company was still hiring in the climbing department. So I worked as an assistant rock climbing guide for three and a half, almost four months in the new and just absolutely fell in love with guiding.Like I never thought I would be a person who could work an in-person job because I love traveling so much, but I realized that it allowed me to not only travel, but also stay in a place long enough to really get to know it, play outside and make a living that could support me living on the road.
Blake Boles 18:19
I think there’s a lot of people who would take issue with this idea that you really get to know a place when you just are there for a few months. I agree with you, Halle, but like what makes you feel like you can spend a couple months in Alaska or a couple months in West Virginia and walk away saying, I really know this place.I feel like I have a connection to this place now.
Halle Homel 18:41
Yeah. And I think a lot of that comes from the work that I do. You know, when you’re when you’re out in the wilderness, or you’re out in the National Park, and you’re spending all of your time, like, in nature, I feel like you kind of grow to know it in a very deep and intimate way.And then the thing with seasonal work is that everything is accelerated. You gain these friendships so quickly, because you have to, when you’re working somewhere for what many would consider a short amount of time to me working somewhere for six months is a very long time. But that’s because of kind of the nature of seasonal work. But because you’re making these deep friendships, like, pretty early on in the season, you do really become sort of integrated in a sense of community. Even if that community is just the seasonal work community, it’s such an integral part of the culture of that place. I think a lot of people don’t really see seasonal workers when they go to visit a national park or a mountain town. But like we are such a core aspect of what keeps that place running. And so being able to like be a part of that and get to know people and know people who have returned for many, many seasons and form those relationships and get to know people so quickly and so deeply. It really does feel like you have a connection to that place that you wouldn’t have had if you were just there for two weeks.
Blake Boles 20:23
Yeah. My own experience was working at wilderness summer camps and some outdoor ed programs. I feel like it’s like this little surrogate family that you become a part of.Absolutely. It’s a family that is being thrust into some like hardcore challenges and adventures together. And you’re all going through a similar struggle of dealing with the outdoors, dealing with clients, uh, you know, dealing with exhaustion. And, uh, and somehow, yeah, in just one or two months, you feel deeply connected and like you can really trust these people who you’re working with your fellow guides, uh, in a way that it might take years to build up that level of trust with someone in like a city.
Halle Homel 21:05
Absolutely.
Blake Boles 21:06
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, you’ve developed this life where you guide. I want to know a bit more about the economics of this.Um, totally. You’re able to work really intensely, but usually that’s only during the summer, right? And how do you make money? Do you save money during that time? And then how do you make that money last for the rest of the year when you are not getting.
Halle Homel 21:31
Totally, yeah. So I do mostly work in the summer. I do work here and there throughout the winter season and I’m about to, in a couple weeks, go and work a program that’s about two weeks of work in terms of like how many days you’re actually on. That’s a backpacking program for high schoolers. So that’s every spring I’ve done that and that kind of gets me to the summer season.But when you’re working as a guide in the summer, you’re not spending a lot of money usually. A lot of places will give you housing for free or for very cheap. So that allows you to save quite a bit. And then when you’re working with tourists and not in like an outdoor education setting, the possibility for tips is pretty high. And so when you’re getting tips from clients, a lot of times that’s in cash. And the way that I make my money from my actual paycheck last, well past summer, is that pretty much everything that I buy throughout this summer, I only spend my tip cash on, which is a trick that I’ve developed over the past couple of years. So every time I go and buy groceries, I only spend my tip money. So all of my paycheck money gets saved. And so then I’m able to stretch my summer paycheck money through the winter with like a couple of contracts here and there just to kind of like make sure that I’m okay throughout the winter. And then van life is just really cheap. Especially when you’re doing it the way that we’re doing it right now where we’re mostly staying on public land or in a Walmart parking lot and really just climbing all the time. We’re not spending a whole lot of money throughout the winter season. And so it really allows for that summer money to kind of make its way around to the next summer.
Blake Boles 23:41
Are you in your vehicle right now, Holly?
Halle Homel 23:43
I am, yeah.
Blake Boles 23:45
Where is it parked?
Halle Homel 23:46
I am in an Albertsons parking lot in Las Vegas.
Blake Boles 23:51
I love that image. Can you talk a little bit about how much money guides in your position make?You can say like on a day rate or a week or a season, but just like roughly, like how much money are you living off of? And you’ve been doing this for many years now. What does it look like?
Halle Homel 24:12
Yeah, so it really depends on the company. Some companies pay you hourly and some companies pay you a day rate. So I’ve realized that on average, a day rate is about $200. I’ve been given offers that are $180 a day and offers that are $250 a day. But I would say it usually averages around $200.And then hourly, I would say most guides are making about $20 an hour. Last summer, I started at, I believe, 18 and then got a raised after a couple of months to 20. It feels very low, honestly, considering the responsibilities that we have. But it is enough to continue living this lifestyle.
Blake Boles 25:04
What do you love the most about the guiding life and where do you derive purpose from this work? What makes it feel like you’re doing something important and not just your version of getting published in the Times?
Halle Homel 25:20
Yeah, totally, totally. I think I really kind of settled on my purpose when I was through hiking this trail called the Backbone Trail in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, because I was through hiking this trail with the purpose of educating about leave no trace and responsible recreation along the trail. And a lot of people were asking me, well, isn’t hiking this trail going against leave no trace? Isn’t promoting the existence of trails going against leave no trace? And it really helped me to realize the reason why I promote outdoor recreation.And the reason for that is that the more people who have access to the outdoors and the more people who have been able to make deep connections with locations in the outdoors, whether that’s getting to see the terminus of a glacier in Southeast Alaska or getting to climb rocks in West Virginia, getting to have that deep connection with nature can help promote why it deserves to be protected. And it can help to essentially breed advocates for our public lands and for our wild spaces. Because I truly believe that if somebody has had a deep connection with somewhere, they are more likely to speak up for that place when it’s threatened. And so getting to kind of be this connector for people and this person who can provide like safe passage to actually experience these things, sometimes for the only time in this person’s life, is extremely fulfilling. I remember a internet mutual of mine using the term green-collar jobs at one point to describe jobs that kind of work in climate advocacy. And that really resonated with me because I think a lot of people don’t see outdoor recreation as having a direct connection to climate advocacy, but it really does. I’ve taken people to see old-growth forests in Oregon and glaciers in Alaska, and these are a lot of places that are threatened. And getting to show people those things and why they’re important, I think is one of the most important things that we can be doing right now.
Blake Boles 27:56
What about a more personal purpose? Like what do you kind of selfishly love about the guiding life?
Halle Homel 28:04
Yeah, I mean, I absolutely love just getting to be outdoors all the time. I don’t find a lot of fulfillment from being inside.I have spent, you know, the past six years and now most of my 20s living out of a vehicle and getting the opportunity to spend every single day of my life with the opportunity to go and do what I love most, be that climbing or hiking or just existing outside, is so fun and fulfilling to me.
Blake Boles 28:45
And I want to get to the part of your life now where you’re starting to question things and question this existence. And I’d love to, to quote from one of your, your Instagram posts, which I think you really put it succinctly, uh, you wrote,
Blake Boles 28:58
“I’ve been truly floating without a real address home base or reliable place to land for over a year and a half now, and as August, your partner and I grow into living together, I’m finding that this floating just isn’t working for me anymore. I’m in survival mode most of the time. Van life hardly resembles the paradise that used to be back in 2019 and while I know people all over the country, I don’t have any of the tight knit community, my soul craves.”
Blake Boles 29:23
That is a pretty damning statement right there. It sounds like you are, you are about to just say like, I love guiding. I love traveling and I cannot do it for another moment. And where is the white picket fence?
Halle Homel 29:37
So, I never plan to stop guiding. My goal right now is, like I said earlier, to find a company that I’m able to return to season after season. Because I really truly am craving community, and I think that’s a big thing for me right now is I just feel like I don’t have like a tight-knit group of friends like I should in my late 20s. You know, I do find myself feeling jealous of people who have these deep communities that they’ve been able to grow in.And I have so many friends. I know so many people all over, but they’re all so spread out. And I find myself missing them so, so, so often. And yeah, it hardly has to do really with my work. It’s more just that since my parents moved, and I no longer have my childhood home to go back to, it just feels like you’re kind of, you’re like, like I said in my Instagram post, you’re floating. And that, yeah.
Blake Boles 30:57
I find this a very interesting topic, and especially the word community because it means so many things to so many different people. And you said that you don’t feel like it’s connected to your guiding work, but I feel like it is connected because your guiding work takes you away from the world, like the broader social world and drops you into this little microcosm where, as we previously discussed, you form these really great close relationships. You are very much in community, in that tight-knit community, but it’s such a little tiny bubble.And then you have to leave the community. All your fellow guides, they spread out across North America or farther. So when you say you’re seeking community, are you seeking the TV show friends, like people who live really close to you and you can just message each other and be like, what are you up to in 20 minutes? Or you can drop in on each other? Is it that physical closeness where not just you are there, but your friends are there and they are not leaving very often. Is that the form of community you find yourself missing?
Halle Homel 32:05
Yeah, kind of. The parts of the community that you really find yourself super deep in during a seasonal guide position is friendships very much like that. I was sharing a campsite with somebody who I would consider one of my best friends now this past summer, and being able to literally pop out of my van and be like, do you want to go watch the sunset out the road? It’s beautiful. Yeah, and it’s just it’s such a unique experience that I feel like I miss when I’m not in those summer seasons.And really what I’m what I’m seeking is that, you know, I want to have those connections that are kind of formed from seasonal work and from guiding because I find that a lot of the people that I connect with work in this industry, because it’s such a weird and unique lifestyle. So I feel like a lot of the deep friendships that I’ve been able to make have been with people who are either in outdoor ed or in some sort of guide position or just working in the outdoor recreation industry. But I want to be able to return to those people year after year, or stay in one place year round and have those communities from the outdoor recreation industry surrounding me more long term. So I’m totally with you and yeah.
Blake Boles 33:37
You and I have 15 years between us. I just want to tell you, it’s been painful for me to make these close friendships with people in guiding or summer camp roles. And these are people who come from all over the US and all over the world. And then a lot of them do feel that call to slow down, to settle down a bit, to be in a more serious relationship, to have the house, to have the dog, maybe have some kids. But they’re all over the place. Like they’re on multiple continents. There is no one place where they are all clustered together. And so I have taken it on the role to go and travel and be the one who visits them. Because I want to see them face to face. I don’t want to just message. I don’t want to just email or send Christmas cards. And it’s like, yeah, I think painful. It’s a beautiful kind of pain, right? To have such close connections and then to not feel like you can have that physical, single, place-based community.And so do you have an answer to this? Do you have a way forward? Or do you know any people who seem to have taken this close-knit community that you find in guiding situations and turned it into a longer-run, place-based community?
Halle Homel 34:58
Yeah, I do. And a lot of that, a lot of those people were people that I met in Alaska this past summer, where they’ve either gone up to Juneau and gone for a season and been like, Oh, I’m actually not gonna leave. Or people who return year after year. And then I do just generally have a lot of friends that I’ve met on the road, just van life friends, who are also kind of in the same stage in their journey right now, where they are seeking more of a permanent place.And a lot of them are finding that and a lot of them are still staying in touch with the van community and the Nomad community. But having now a place to land and a place to actually rest. Because, like I said, in my posts, like survival mode is a huge thing. You know, we might sleep out in a Walmart parking lot. And my partner’s on edge all night because he thinks we’re gonna get kicked out of our sleeping spot. And it’s it’s just hard to like fully relax when your whole world exists in a vehicle. And so there’s a lot of people in my community who are sort of in the same stage that I’m in right now.
Blake Boles 36:15
what are they doing with like yeah are they just choosing a place and like buying a house there like a normal person and then spending part of their year there and trying to get their van life friends to to come and like buy a house in the same neighborhood
Halle Homel 36:29
I mean, Bend, Oregon does exist, and that’s where a lot of people end up landing. But a lot of people right now who are kind of in this stage of life are seeking a place that they can live and they can exist without, you know, feeling like they need to leave, but then still keeping their vans so they can still kind of travel when they have the opportunity to.And I feel like that’s sort of that, like, perfect, like, happy medium when you’ve been on the road for so long. Like, you’re going to miss it when you aren’t there anymore. But being able to travel because you want to and not because, like, oh, my 14 days on this Bureau of Land Management campsite is up, so now I have to move on. You know, that can be stressful.
Blake Boles 37:23
Definitely. Yeah.So are these people, are your friends settling down in like a normal, like get an apartment, get a house kind of fashion, but then they continue to guide? You said you want to keep guiding forever and ever, how are you going to pull this off?
Halle Homel 37:40
Yeah, so I mean, my plan personally is to find a mountain town that I can at least return to every summer, if not return to, or if not stay year round, depending on work opportunities. And then, yes, either rent a place or maybe eventually buy land and build some sort of like tiny home situation that would be incredible and so much fun to kind of still be living an alternative lifestyle, but in a more stable way.But yeah, being in a location where there are still outdoor recreation opportunities and being able to do what I love, but then honestly, being able to grow an even more intimate connection with the place because it’s somewhere that I’ve now been long term, that would be just absolutely incredible.
Blake Boles 38:32
What else do you think it would take for you to feel like your life is sustainable, long run sustainable?
Halle Homel 38:41
Yeah, I mean, honestly, the way that I have been living is sustainable. It’s just that mental health wise, I’m just like craving something a little bit different.And I think really, really what it comes down to is a feeling of home. And the reason why I’ve been craving that so much, I think, is because my parents left my hometown. It just feels like, you know, the rug was pulled out from under me. I’m just like, oh, I’ve been able to go back to this place for the past 26 years and now, you know, they left a year ago. So I can’t really go back to where I grew up in the same way that I’ve always been able to. So being able to create a feeling of home for myself would be absolutely so fulfilling.
Blake Boles 39:27
Yeah, otherwise you feel like life is working well for you. Like you, you like what you do for, for work, for money. You like how you can save money. Uh, you, you like how you spend your time. You’ve managed to like, to find a partner who wants to share life with you. That sounds pretty great.And nothing else is missing here. No big puzzle pieces are missing.
Halle Homel 39:52
Yeah, I mean, you know, other than that sense of home, everything is fantastic. I mean, yeah, like my partner and I live in a van together and we have a dog and we climb every single day, like we’re literally climbing six days a week right now.And it’s, it’s just amazing, like getting the opportunity to do that. Um, yeah, I wouldn’t have it any other way right now.
Blake Boles 40:15
Fantastic. Uh, let’s switch gears.I want you to talk to me about your evolving relationship to social media. And you mentioned earlier that you, you had a moment where you kind of went viral. You had a big moment. What was that about?
Halle Homel 40:31
Yeah so right at the end of 2021 I sort of just like made a video that was like this is my van life journey and it got like I want to say 1.5 million views and just like really blew up kind of literally overnight.
Blake Boles 40:50
on which platform?
Halle Homel 40:51
This was on tiktok. Okay.Yeah hot topic right now But But yeah, so that sort of went viral and for a while after that I was still getting a lot of views on my videos And so I started kind of making national park content and just like general van life travel content And then basically as soon as I started guiding my views kind of plummeted, but at that point I had a hundred thousand followers So it was a really weird place to be of like oh, I have all these people following me But no one’s seeing my content anymore and now as I’m getting older and just kind of existing on social media is sort of this like weird place to be I’m sort of kind of just you know questioning how how much of myself I really want to be putting on social media how how much of an Influencer role. I really want to be Putting out there Because I don’t really enjoy Making content for content creation sake the same way that I did a few years ago I more just want to post climbing videos and be myself on social media and not have the pressure to Buy buy trends and like make videos because you have to stay relevant like I just want to post when I feel like posting Yeah
Blake Boles 42:20
Did you ever make money from social media?
Halle Homel 42:23
I did, yeah. Right after that video went viral, I started getting some pretty good brand deals. I worked with quite a few companies, and I still do every once in a while.I’ll have a company reach out. A lot of what I do right now is more affiliate marketing, so I’ll post about a brand, and I have a link, and if people buy things through that link, then I make a little bit of commission. It’s not really enough to live on by any means right now, but it’s like, you know, some extra gas money here and there. Yeah.
Blake Boles 43:04
You recently had an essay published in an all women anthology called blood, sweat tears. Um, I don’t know what your essay was about though. I didn’t catch that in your post. Can you talk about it?
Halle Homel 43:16
Totally. Yeah, so the entire anthology is all written by women and women plus individuals. And it’s all about our experience living in a assigned female at birth body on the trail. And so that’s either hiking or backpacking or trail running. And the book is divided into three categories, blood, sweat, and tears. The first category has to do with menstruating on trail. The second category is more about experiences within the body on trail. And then tears is the section that kind of involves the more emotional side of being a woman on the trail.And so I’m in the middle section. My story relates to some long-term injuries that I was dealing with a few years ago. And how that kind of relates to a feeling of belonging on the trail as a woman. There’s a lot of feelings out here as a female identifying individual of feeling like you kind of constantly need to be proving yourself and pushing yourself in these like really extreme ways on the trail or in the mountains or on the wall or whatever you’re doing. And being injured really does not help with that. It really makes you feel like you don’t belong. And so that was sort of what my story was about was my experience with a flare-up of an old injury while I was on the Timberline Trail in Oregon in 2023. Right as I was sort of kind of starting to find my stride as a guide and preparing for a thru-hike attempt, which I ended up having to cut short because of said injury.
Blake Boles 45:20
This is something you’ve written about elsewhere, which is this expectation to be pretty hardcore in the outdoors and to be a really top climber. Um, you’ve, you’ve used the phrase taken up space a number of times.I’ve noticed, talk to me more about this and, and I’m curious about your personal experience, but also kind of the state of the discussion in the outdoor field or that we’re the climbing field, broadly speaking.
Halle Homel 45:46
Yeah. Yeah.I’m a huge advocate for women and minorities taking up space in the outdoors. And what I mean by that is allowing for women and minorities to get out and occupy those same spaces that, you know, are straight white cis men are existing in without shame. When we’re talking about, you know, taking up space as a woman in the outdoors, it’s not being afraid to put yourself out there as an outdoorsy person or as a mountaineer or as a climber. Because I feel like a lot of the women in my life hold themselves back from the things that they’re super passionate about because they don’t feel like they belong. A part of the reason why I wanted to become a climbing guide is because I didn’t have anybody who looked like me to learn from. And I have noticed, you know, as I’ve kind of stepped into this instructor role, that there are a lot of women who approach me and ask questions. And they’re just like, I’m so afraid of feeling silly for asking these questions about rope systems or about belaying or about rappelling because so much of the climbing community is so intimidating. And so creating a space for women to learn and to grow as outdoors women is so important, I think. And it’s something that I’m a huge advocate for.
Blake Boles 47:26
Can you tell me about maybe some experiences you have personally had in which you felt like you were not allowed or not supposed to take up space or maybe you were you were held to a different standard when you were doing stuff in the outdoors?
Halle Homel 47:42
Absolutely. Um, I mean, just generally trying to learn how to lead trad was a really interesting journey. And what’s trad
Blake Boles 47:51
for those who don’t know.
Halle Homel 47:52
Yeah, totally. So TRAD stands for traditional climbing, which is where you are placing gear in cracks in the rock as you’re ascending instead of clipping into set bolts and hangers that are drilled into the rock, which would be considered sport climbing.So TRAD climbing is way more technical skill set when you’re talking about climbing and mountaineering and multi-pitched climbing. And I really wanted to break into this because I really wanted to be climbing bigger walls. But finding anybody who was willing to teach me was super impossible. I ended up learning from my current partner, but that was because he had a crush on me. But yeah, I mean, just finding anybody like I literally asked so many people in the Pacific Northwest where I was living at the time if they would be willing to mentor me. And I got a very soft no from three or four people, all men, who just didn’t want to take me out into the mountains to teach me.
Blake Boles 49:04
Is that how trad climbing knowledge is traditionally like passed down to new people?
Halle Homel 49:11
Like, through mentorship? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot of times, yes. Now, of course, you can sign up for courses and go and pay for somebody to teach you, which I was actually signed up for a trad climbing course when I met August. And then I was like, oh, I can save $700 because you can teach me instead of me needing to hire a guide to do that.But yeah, so that was super frustrating. But then from a guide perspective as a woman, there’s a lot of doubt when I was a canoe guide in Alaska. Me and the other women I worked with consistently got a lot of comments from clients of just not expecting us to know what we were doing. We would guide on very windy days that would often turn our boats around. And I got many comments from men being like, I don’t think we’re going the right way. And I’m like, A, don’t know where we’re going, B, I’m the one steering a canoe in 40 mile per hour winds. And even more extreme misogynistic comments of my best friend getting a comment that she would make a good wife one day because she would lift a boat. Yeah, and it’s just things like that where you kind of witness these microaggressions and just this general doubt that our male counterparts just simply would not get out in the field.
Blake Boles 50:49
Um, how you’ve also been featured in a documentary. You, you have, you have a lot under your belt for 20, tell me about that. How did that come about?
Halle Homel 51:01
Totally. So I mentioned my thru-hike of the Backbone Trail earlier. And a thru-hike is hiking a longer distance trail from end to end. So the Backbone Trail specifically traverses 70 miles in the Santa Monica Mountains, which is the mountain range that I learned to love the outdoors in. So before my parents moved, I really wanted to do the entire trail. And I had the idea to do this as kind of a leave-no-trace advocacy hike to teach people along the trail about responsible recreation.So I was kind of working on this project on my own, and I was like, oh, do I write something about this or just kind of vlog about it on TikTok? How do I want to go about documenting this? And a few weeks before I came up with this idea, this man named Roger approached me at a crag in Malibu and was like, hey, could I take some photos of you climbing? You look really cool out here. And I was like, yeah, for sure. Really rare to get pictures of you climbing. And we stayed in touch, and he was actually starting a adventure women festival in LA with his wife to kind of help to advocate for women in the outdoors. And so I went to go and help with some advertising for that because I was in the area. And I mentioned this thru-hike that I was going on, and he was like, let’s make a movie about it. And so we did. So we documented the entire thing with the conversation surrounding Leave No Trace and surrounding responsible recreation because with how close the Backbone Trail is and how close the Santa Monica Mountains is to Los Angeles, there’s a lot of disrespect that happens in those mountains. There’s a lot of people who just go out and don’t really realize that it’s actually a protected recreation area and that it’s what is considered the largest urban national park in the country. It’s run by the National Park Service, and it is protected land. And yet you see a ton of litter, a ton of graffiti, a ton of people just generally not really understanding restoration of these wilderness areas.I was really inspired to do this thru-hike because of an interaction that I had with somebody who had their dog on a trail that they’re not supposed to have their dog on. I have a dog. I want to have my dog on the trail with me. But this particular trail was a wildfire restoration area. And that was the reason why they didn’t want non-native animals in this area pooping and peeing or whatever. And I tried to explain to this man all of this and why and like, hey, there’s like 14 signs at the beginning of this trail that say no to dogs. And I was met with a lot of anger just trying to advocate for a place that I loved. And I really wanted to kind of make a bigger deal about protecting our wild spaces and not just the Santa Monica Mountains, but everywhere.
Blake Boles 54:38
Hmm. It seems like the real through line here is your desire to be an environmental advocate, that’s been pretty consistent.Do you ever dream of, of doing this in a bigger way, like a more systematic way, uh, working on policy and anything like that? Uh, do you feel like guiding and sometimes writing about this or posting on social media feels like, like you’re doing enough for your own, your own standard in this department?
Halle Homel 55:10
Yeah so I mean it’s that’s a really great question and it’s really complicated because I’m so not qualified to do anything more than I’m doing right now it feels like. I have considered going the park ranger route once or twice but breaking into that is really difficult and I’m just you know a not really sure whether or not I would like it to start because I have a lot of friends who and there’s a wide variety of opinions about working as a park ranger but also just generally like I don’t know what I’m qualified for beyond guiding in terms of like being able to actually work on policy.I think I can be a really great advocate and I can be an activist in the climate change space and the outdoor recreation space in the public land space because I do know a lot about those things but I have a creative writing degree and so really being able to work on a bigger more political level just doesn’t feel accessible to me so I’m going to use my voice in the ways that I have access to use my voice. tonight… A new look at your forecast tonight… tonight…
Blake Boles 56:31
No, I find that a bit surprising, Halle, because I mean, just to take the TikTok viral moment as one example, it’s like you’ve pretty clearly proven to the world that if you are passionate about something, then you can get people’s attention. And sure, maybe the TikTok thing was a fluke, who knows?But a creative writing degree, like any liberal arts degree, really is a gateway to so many different fields. And as I’m asking you this question, this is a question I’ve asked myself also. So I’m just, again, curious to hear what makes you feel limited to guiding? What makes you say this is really the only work I truly feel qualified to do?
Halle Homel 57:13
Yeah. And I mean, maybe it’s just self-doubt, but really it’s that that’s what I have the most experience in. But I am super passionate about storytelling. And I do plan on continuing to write and work in the creative space.And I am kind of trying to figure out how to bridge the two right now. I just am not quite sure how to do that. I’m writing a more long form piece right now. It’s going to be book length about women in the outdoors, my experience as a female guide.But yeah, I mean, I think really what’s probably limiting me is mostly self-doubt. I’m not going to self-doubt, but yeah, it might be just how
Blake Boles 58:09
fun it is to be a guide.
Halle Homel 58:10
Also that too, and it’s really special to watch somebody gain these connections with the outdoors, that’s super fulfilling to me and I love that. It would be really, really cool to bridge outdoor recreation with storytelling though, and I think a lot of that will come with gaining even more experience in the mountains and more confidence, and I kind of have this secret desire to make more documentaries.Because I really like it, I love documentary filmmaking. I think it’s really, really interesting. And I think there may or may not be some things in the future that I could probably document on video and long form video. And we’ll see. We’ll see if I’m able to make that happen.
Blake Boles 59:04
Yeah. Yeah. I have the feeling you will.
Halle Homel 59:08
We’ll see. Yeah. Thank you.
Blake Boles 59:11
As one of the last questions, can you just mention some of the projects or plans you have for 2025?
Halle Homel 59:20
Mm hmm. Totally. Um, so my partner and I are pursuing every 14 are in California this year.
Blake Boles 59:28
over 14,000 feet.
Halle Homel 59:30
Yes.
Blake Boles 59:31
How many of those are there?
Halle Homel 59:32
There’s 15.We’ve already done Whitney. We climbed Whitney via the east buttress in the fall, which is one of the harder ways to summit Mount Whitney. It’s actually a rock climbing route, an alpine climbing route. And so our goal is to summit all of the rest of them before our Whitney-versary. So we have until October to climb 14,000 foot mountains.
Blake Boles 01:00:01
But you got some guiding to do and some money to make during the summer.
Halle Homel 01:00:05
Yes, I think a lot of this climbing is going to happen in September when the snow is definitely gone and the guide season has sort of slowed down. And the cool thing is that we’ll be able to link a lot of these mountains together.So we’re planning on hiking a large majority of what’s considered the South Sierra high route, which will be about 70 miles of complete wilderness travel through the southern portion of the high Sierra. Most of the route takes place above 10,000 feet and we’ll probably be able to hit, I think, six 14ers along the way. And then…
Blake Boles 01:00:45
I did most of that route with my friend Julie some years ago can highly recommend it, you’re gonna love it.
Halle Homel 01:00:50
I’m so excited for it. We’ve mapped out our whole thing, and we’re really stoked on it.And then we’ll also be able to hit another five of the 14,000-foot mountains, referred to as the Palisades Traverse or the Thunderbolt to Sil Traverse, Thunderbolt and Sil being two of the 14ers. So that’s already 11 of them. And then, yeah, there’s just three others that are kind of standalone mountains. And I really think we can do it. It’s just a matter of like really kind of organizing our time and prioritizing climbing this year.
Blake Boles 01:01:34
Speaking of prioritizing, it does not sound like settling down and creating a stable home base is very high up on your list, despite our earlier conversations.
Halle Homel 01:01:43
Yeah, it’s it’s weird because it is very high up on my list, but I also definitely plan on not slowing down the adventure and and I think what That comes down to is that we’ll probably be settling somewhere in the sierras. Um, okay
Blake Boles 01:01:59
choice good
Halle Homel 01:02:00
Yeah, so, so we’ll have, you know, pretty close access to a lot of these mountains and yeah be able to just kind of take weekend trips and go down and, you know, summit White Mountain on a weekend and head back up and rest in a place that feels a little bit more like home, but yeah.
Blake Boles 01:02:23
I’m sure we will cross paths at some point when I’m making way back to the States because that Eastern Sierra is just, it’s the best. It is the best, objectively speaking.Halle, for anyone who wants to find your writing or stories about your life, what is the best way for them to do that?
Halle Homel 01:02:43
Yeah, so I am Halle Treks on everywhere, social media-wise, so that’s H-A-L-L-E-T-R-E-K-S. Yeah, right now it’s mostly Instagram, a little bit of TikTok. I’m kind of unsure where I’m taking my TikTok platform as we speak right now, but we’ll probably continue to post videos here and there. And then I also mess around on threads, if you want to hear me rant about the climate and post photos of the sunrise, that’s what I use threads for. Considering starting a sub-stack, but we’ll see, that would be more writing-based. But any book announcements or writing announcements or any big expedition announcements will happen on social media, so.
Blake Boles 01:03:33
Halle, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
Halle Homel 01:03:36
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.