Unlocking the Power of Wilderness Experiences: A Journey into Outdoor Hospitality and Experience Design

Join Morgan Fiorino AKA Mo, on an exhilarating journey as she embarks into the heart of the wilderness this summer. In this episode, Mo shares with us how she sees experience design, an incredible realm of outdoor hospitality, and focuses on transformational backpacking experiences.  Discover the transformative power of wilderness exploration as Mo delves into the challenges she faced, the lessons she learned, and the deep connection she formed with nature. 

Transcript

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Hi, Mo. Hey Di. How you doing? Great. How are you doing? Wonderful. So excited to spend the second half of my afternoon chatting with you about some upcoming fun for the summer. Woo. Welcome to another episode of The Road to the Unknown. And as we've continued down this road, more and more unknown has unfolded. So I wanted to bring you here today because I'm super excited to learn more about what adventure you are about to go on this summer. For the next nine, 10 weeks, you'll be adventuring out in the depths of the Western world and into a place that is very near and dear to my heart. And. I know that this has been a really exciting journey for you and something that you've been really excited to embark on and something that you're checking off your personal bucket list. So I'd love for you to just give a little bit of an intro of yourself and where you'll be marking. First off, I just wanna start by saying that the Road to the Unknown as the name of this podcast, Has just like continuously been like reaffirmed that was the right name. And I just wanted to say that. But my name is Mo and I'm an experienced curator and hospitality professional. And I'm really on a mission to spread the most joy and happiness and really help people become the best versions of theirselves through really transformational and bucket list worthy experiences. And so this summer, actually on Friday, I head to Montana and I'll be spending the next two months out in Montana, but also doing trips in Idaho Wyoming, and potentially Washington. But I will be an alpine guide out there. And essentially with that I'll be guiding female trips out into the back country. The trips um, really kind of. defer. There's a whole bunch of different types, but there's some that are more strenuous. Some that include rock climbing or horseback riding. And the one that I'm most excited for is when we get to do six nights of back country rafting on the Salmon River. So that one is really exciting for me, and that's actually the last trip of the summer. So it caps out our season which I think makes it almost like especially special. So that's what I'm getting into this summer in a nutshell. That sounds so exciting. And six days, and six nights on the river. Wow. So what, I guess real quick to break it down. So what age group are you going to be doing these trips with? Is it young girls? Older girls? Is it girls? Yeah. Yeah, so it is girls. And the ages range from 11 to 16. So some groups are, between 14 and 16 year olds. Some are between 11 and 13. So it's not like. All ages between 11 and 16 would go on a trip together. But I'm really excited, especially for this like older group of 14, 15, 16 year olds, although it's probably one of the toughest periods of your life and. It's a weird time to be like a woman. It also is like such an opportunity to, for me to be able to speak into these girls' lives and just from my experience growing up, I. I hope that I can, lend some of the knowledge that I learned through some of my lessons and just be able to make positive impact and I'm really looking forward to that cuz just like the state of the world is weird right now. And if I can touch the hearts of literally just one person per trip, like I feel accomplished. And something else is that, These girls are gonna be coming from all over the country, some having camp experience, some having none. And so we're going to be teaching these girls every single possible skill from just putting up, a tent to all leave no trace practices. Digging a cat hole, like having your period in the woods. Like all of these real things like we're gonna be learning together. And I love that aspect of it just being so vulnerable. And we really are, it's gonna be groups of 10 to 13 people, so it's a family and we've all got each other's backs. And I think that's like a really special thing about the outdoors is I. When you're in a group, like you're always working together, not one person can do it all. And so everyone has an integral role within just camping in general. So, Yeah. That's awesome. And you really touched on a lot of what I, I was looking to ask in this next question where you talked a lot about. Mentorship and having gone through an experience like this on your end and really just the connection within nature and how you have a lot of skill sets that transfer over to being an Alpine guide and all of these different levels. But do you wanna go a little bit deeper on what you hope to get out of this? Because I, personally, I know you very well and I know a lot about what your longer term goals are and what excites you and in life, but. I'd love for you just to be able to break down a little bit on, on what you hope to get out of this experience. Yeah. Well, There's a handful of different things I'm looking forward to getting experience on. One thing that really interests me is I will be working directly with the awesome female leaders from the office, holding it down. And with that I'm gonna be learning a lot about permitting. This is something that a lot of people don't know. You can't just throw on a backpack and be like, I'm going into a national park for a week. There's a lot more that goes into it in preparation these permits are sometimes received or applied for a year in advance, especially for groups. So really understanding the way that works is something that I really just like wanna have in my tool belt. Specifically with the long-term goal of being able to bring my friends, bring extended family, whomever on these transformational backpacking trips. Because there really is something different about losing all of the comforts of, home or being at a resort or whatever. When you, all you have is the people around you and what's in your backpack, you realize that life, there's so much more to life. And so like I'm really like looking forward to. Having that experience internally for myself so that I can then bring that to others. Cuz I think a lot of people are in the crossroads of life right now, where it's like, what's my next turn? And like sometimes you just need to be in a place to understand what's missing. And so I'm excited to learn these things so that I can take others on them myself, but doing it safely, appropriately, making sure everyone's comfortable making sure the land that we're traveling on we're respecting. Um, So there's a lot that goes into it. Um, This is kind of something funny but I've shared this with you for years. I was a very, very proud Girl Scout. Um, One thing I never did throughout my entire duration of being a girl scout, which I got my silver award, so I made it all the way almost through. We never went on a camping trip. That's okay. However, I have a goal of being a Girl Scout leader one day. This has always been something I've wanted, like ever since being a Girl Scout. And so with that, I think this hands-on experience with groups of young girls is really going to lay down a foundation and allow me to help practice working with this age group because. This is not normally I'm working with adults, not as much children. So, um, I think that that's kind of like going to help me build towards that long-term goal. And then lastly, I'm really looking forward to just really honing in on my wilderness first responder skills. There's something that's so important about. Really being ready for any of the worst case scenario. You could look at the weather forecast and see that the entire trip is going to be sun. But then if you're on the top of a mountain at 1:00 PM and the sky opens up and there's lightning, what do you do? And so being ready for every single situation and having a plan and understanding like. Based on what's around me, this is what we can do. It's something that like, I love that kind of like MacGyver, like engineering brain, where it's okay, I need to work with what I see around me to accomplish this goal. And so that's something that I'm really excited to do and like. Hone these skills so that we really can be prepared for some epic adventures because there's a lot of epic adventures on the horizon for us. So strap up. Oh, trust me, I'm strapped up. And especially after all of your ring and seeing what you can do with a pink sweater, I feel comfortable and safe going into the back country with you. And so that's, yeah. Something that I think is just so incredible that you're building into your skillset and just really going off of a lot of what you had talked about on what you hope to get out of this. There's just an extensive list that really aligns with you and I, it, it excites me hearing you talk about just all of these epic adventures and things that you'll be able to really get under your belt and have a big impact with. And, I know that you had gone through a extensive round of getting certifications and you touched on a few of them just around what you were hoping to get out of and feeling comfortable and safe to adventure into the back country and with a lot of stuff that we were doing previously in the back country, we were just using what knowledge we had in a combination of common sense, and we never died in the back country or out in nature, but. Being in, in the element for 6, 7, 8 nights in a row is pretty intense. What type of certifications did you end up going through over the last couple of weeks to be qualified for this role? Yeah. For a lot of the trips that I'll personally be sent on are actually water centered. And so within each of these trips that have a water portion in the itinerary, there needs to be a certified lifeguard. So this is everything from a hot spring to a glacier lake to literally like bathing in a river rafting, trips, et cetera. And so the first certification I had to get was for lifeguarding. And so that was actually more challenging than I had actually anticipated, but I'm so grateful to have that under my belt, like especially having nieces that I love with all of my heart and Always being surrounded by water. I'm just a water baby. And so I now feel confident that like I can help out others and I love like knowing that I could be prepared for anything. So the lifeguard was one. I had to get a back country food handler CER certification. Essentially just knowing how to properly pack, store and dispose of food as we're in the back country. That's a huge one and a lot of what I learned within that kind of goes along with leave no trace. I got my CPR and a e d certification. I got my Wilderness First Aid certification. So the Wilderness first aid, wilderness first responder kind of coincide in a sense, but it was so fun taking this class because. Like you said earlier, how we'll use oftentimes just common sense when we're camping. Wilderness first aid is a lot of common sense, to be honest with you. It's a lot of what can we do? You're not the doctor. You're not the surgeon. Your goal is to get that person to help, to the emergency squad, to the hospital, making sure that you can just keep them alive long enough until you know they're in the right medical hands. And so I was doing things, it was fun. Dylan got to be my victim and so within the certification we had to like record videos and pictures. And so I had him in a hypothermia wrap with a tent and four different layers of things around his neck. I tied a tourniquet with a You te what did I use a spatula on his arm. And I was using all of these tools that you would find, in your backpack. Making a splint out of a yoga mat, like really, like random stuff. But it's been a lot of fun to be creative with that. So that was wilderness first aid. Then I have the phylaxis and um, Rine injection certification. And then today I will finish my leave no trace certification. So I think I just hit all of'em. It's been a lot. But it's all things that I'm like enjoying reading and learning. And just like all life skills too, like I'm ready for CPR at any moment. Blue to the sky, orange to the thigh, let's go. Exactly. It sounds like you are very colored in your accolades after uh, after the last few weeks and get to add a few extra badges onto your girl scout uniform after this one. And so in, in 2022, you had. Gotten the opportunity to to take a transformational travel experience design course, and a lot of those courses were correlating to trip leading and experience curating, designing and entire experiences. It seems like Alpine Girl House has done a really great job of identifying their audience. Building the trips. They've been around for a long time as well, and have rave reviews as far as what they're building. How do you see what you've done in transformational travel and what elements do you see being core correlated between both the landscape of Alpine girls and transformational travel? Yeah. I think it's interesting when you read all of the trip itineraries and you can see that within the design these elements have a hundred percent been implemented. Because within a transformational travel experience, you want it to have this arch like this. You're not, day one is not supposed to be the day of transformation. Like it's just it is a journey to transformation and Making people feel comfortable day one, where, the first day you're at a campground that does have a toilet, you're getting to know each other, you're opening up, you're not just thrown into a group assignment. You're really taking the time to understand who you're going to be with for the next, 10 days, 12 days. So it's super important to have some type of. Introduction that makes everyone feel comfortable because right off the bat, if not every single person is comfortable in that group, then the opportunity for transformation instantly decreases. Because everyone's vibe needs to be positive, it needs to be aligned. And so with that the itinerary needs to have a lot of flow. One day being really adventurous, and then having a fun activity at the end of the day that kind of rewards everyone for accomplishing that goal. I think a big thing that I see is like you're celebrating every win. Like even if you're like, you just took a three hour long car ride and it was obnoxious. We're having a roadside dance party and we're celebrating that. We made it. So having really like fun celebration aspects I think is super important. And then also allowing this time for not just all adventure, but a fun experience where one day you are sleeping in a lavender field and you're given a lot of alone time this day maybe to journal. Journaling is a huge thing that we are encouraging our campers to do so they can really recognize what they were feeling throughout the entire journey. But really the design elements. Of leaving space for thinking, leaving time, space for vulnerability and leaving space for challenges. Altogether really are the catalyst for the transformation to take place. And so for me, I think it'll really be exciting building relationships with the girls over the first two days and then on the final days, like seeing where they're at. Okay. And then the final thing for me, and I'm not sure if Alpine girl does this or not, but I love the idea of having a relationship, a transformational aspect that just continues once you're done with the trip. And so I hope to encourage, like us to be pen pals and to check in or like maybe we all do a meetup at some point and go on a hiking trip together, even if it isn't an Alpine girl thing. Encouraging each other, like continuing that support I'm thinking about hiking this mountain, what do you guys think? I'll fly in and hike this with you. Like keeping it going I think is also an important element. Yeah. I love that. Wow. You just, you inspired me so much just in the, in that realm. And on another end of transformational travel, what I've been seeing through like your end is you're going through. The pre-arrival transformation, it seems like they do that with a lot of their other girls as well, where like the anticipation before the trip is part of the element of the experience and it and a whole. So it's exciting to see just from the beginning phases to the execution and even afterwards having multiple different badges and really getting the girls to want to come back and continue to. Grow in this field is, it's exciting to see that and I can't wait till you bring back all of your findings and share some additional insights afterwards. Cuz I think that we need to do a recap after this to really like, understand what you're doing out there and to really dive deeper into a lot of this because you nailed,, I'm excited. I'm excited for what you're doing and where you're going and I wanna learn more. Oh, thank you. Honestly, like having this conversation for me, like generalizing and speaking out loud, like all of what's been in is like just making me more excited. And I agree. We definitely need to do a follow up not only of just an overview of what happened, but we can even do a deep dive on like my internal transformation. Yeah. I think that could be fun too. We could do like a self dissect and all like the different things and outcomes. We've got some time to think about those questions, but down for a follow up mid August, so I'll be out there for two months. Love it. All right. Are we done to dive into some fun questions now? Some Funer questions. Yes. Oh. All right. But wait, a quick intermission. We just wanted to shout out Guayaki for keeping us fueled throughout these awesome conversations. Cheers. Cheers. Don't forget to come to life. Um, Now I feel energized. Whoa. All right. You had talked a little bit about having your back country food handler certification and knowing how Chef Mo comes alive and crushes it, especially cooking in the outdoors. Can you share a camp meal that you're most excited to cook? Yes I'm like, for some reason, really excited about breakfast. And I don't know what it is like, I'm not so much of a morning person, but like when it comes to camping, I get exci. Like, You wake up and I'm excited for the day. So I'm excited to do breakfast. I wanna do like, um, chocolate chip pancakes or like Mickey Mouse pancakes, some type of themed pancake with a blueberry compote. Type of action. I think that would be oh, I just came up with a better idea. Let's hear it. I wanna do chocolate chip pancakes, but we're going to be in huckleberry country, so we're going to the night before, gather all the huckleberries we can and make a huckleberry compote for the pancakes. Wow. I've never done this before and I've. I haven't been passionate, this passionate about a breakfast idea in a really long time. So we'll definitely talk about that after the journey if that comes into fruition. I love that. I, huckleberry pancakes are one of my favorite breakfast foods when I'm in, out in Montana, huckleberry, anything. It's true. It's true. All right. What activity are you most excited for? Great question. So can I say two? I'm gonna say two. You can, yeah, you can totally say two. So I've never been horseback riding and I've always had this call to go hike in the Sawtooth Mountains. And one of the activities I'll be doing is horseback riding in the Sawtooth Mountains. So I would say that's really high on my list. And like the aspect of being able to, like all of my pack stuff is going to be on the horse. It's like camping and horseback riding. So it's like taking on that old like cowboy, like going on a. Expedition type of thing. So that'll be super neat. And just I've never had a pack on a horse before, never done anything like that where a donkey is with us. So that'll be cool. And then I'm also very excited to sleep in a lavender field. Like I'm obsessed with the idea of that, and I think it's gonna be the best night of sleep that I will hopefully have all trip. Or hopefully I sleep like that every day, but lavender field camping is definitely high up for me. That's awesome. Both of those sound like really fun and exciting activities and can't wait for the recaps on. Both of them I really enjoyed when we drove past and explored in the lavender field in Washington. So getting to take some time and I feel like you'll have a private experience there where it'll just be you guys and in the lavender. So enjoy that. That sounds like the perfect place to have a great night's rest, right? I think so too. That'll be fun. All right, now we're about to roll into a round of overrated or underrated. It would not be the road to the unknown unless we were bringing in a overrated or underrated. Out West Montana version, Alpine girl up in this, in the grill. So let's rock and roll, shall we? All right, you shall. Overrated or underrated? Lewis and Clark. Wow. Lewis and Clark. Appropriately rated, I would say. I think there's a lot of tribute to those guys. Like you go into historical areas, signs, they're relevant. I don't feel like those are explorers where people don't know their names, where there's a lot of people who did really like crazy things that we've never heard of where Lewis and Clark really made a name for themselves. With that I don't know that people really understand exactly the extent of the epicness that they accomplished. So I think they're relevant, but I don't think people fully understand like just how big of things they did. So appropriately rated. Love it. All right. Bison burgers overrated or underrated? I. That's a good one. Bison burgers are underrated. And I also wanna start off by just talking about the power of bison meat. It's actually if you're fueling and like doing protein for like endurance sports and stuff, it's actually better for you than cow. Me, for some reason, I forget like the scientific parts, but as far as it like, Restoring the cells and doing like all those little things. It's super powerful. So if you do have the choice like a week before a race or whatever to eat bison over cow, you should do it. I think it's tough because you can't like really get a good bison burger everywhere. So it's just like such a niche part of the country that you can access that. And then I also want to just throw in a different food and I'm gonna give you it, if that's okay. Yeah. Let's hear it. Okay. Over overrated or underrated? Elk stroganoff. Oh, elk stroganoff. Underrated love elk. It's gamey, but it's delicious. Especially in stroganoff where there's something creamy. And might I add after a nice long hike? It's the extra protein that you need in your diet. Yeah. Elk stroganoff blew me away where I've actually been like a return customer for that dish. I actually didn't think it was gaming at all. I thought it was literally like it had been cooked in a crock pot for seven hours and tore apart perfectly and was tender like I would eat that right now. Elk stroganoff, if you ever see that on a menu, like you have to order it, it will not disappoint. It's so good. Sorry to segue there. I just was thinking about elk stroganoff. No, it's cool. We'll drop the menu and location for where Mo got her world famous elk stroganoff from. Down below. Yep. Ridge, Colorado. All the grand prismatic overrated or underrated. The grand prismatic over fucking raided. Okay. This is controversial and I know that. So I'm gonna do this lightly. It's not overrated, but it's anti climactic maybe. It's beautiful for a second, but there's just so many people who go and it feels like Disney World. And I don't even know that the actual, Grand Prismatic itself is the overrated thing, but it's just the experience of it that's overrated. It felt it didn't feel naturey or special. It more felt like I was like in a museum, like where I honestly enjoyed going to different parts of Yellowstone and seeing like bubbling mud and like little pools and stuff like that. But it's an epic location to at least hit when you're in Yellowstone. The colors are. Something you'll never, ever see in your life. So super awesome, but a little bit overrated. That's fair. A little overrated or real fucking overrated. Actually I think that the real fucking overrated one is the geyser. Which one? What's that called again? It's okay. You'll remember. It's old faithful. Oh yeah. Honestly, when I was saying, when I used the F-bomb, I was really thinking old, faithful. Honestly, I thought you were too. But here's a quick tip for anybody that is going to see the Grand Prismatic take Ferry Falls Trail. You get to see an overview of the Grand Prismatic and a better view than if you were to walk on the boardwalks with all the Disney World Taurus. And. I have a few more overrated or underrated, but I'm actually just gonna wrap it up here and leave it with one last one. Overrated or underrated? Montana's cowboy culture. Wow. Montana's cowboy culture is extremely underrated. Cowboys work so hard. Okay. You work for Google and you sit behind your computer and you eat your snacks and you sit in your$400 office chair. These guys wake up before the sun are physically doing feats that like we can't even imagine doing in a gym. Oh, they're doing, they're accomplishing more before the sun even comes up than we can imagine. And just like the way they respect. The land in addition to animals, even if we do eventually eat them. It's a really interesting relationship. And I admire the modern cowboy and the historical cowboy. I think it's such an interesting world. I love it. Mo. Thank you so much for joining me and us on another episode of The Road To The Unknown. Is there any final remarks that you'd like to have before you embark on your explorations? I wanna say happy trails. Until we meet again, stay shining. Stay thirsty. And thanks for your time. There you go. There you have it. Happy trails and stay fueled. I'm Dylan. And she's Mo. And I'm Mo. And we're connecting roads.