That’s what awaits Shawn Bearden next January. The Idaho State University professor is taking on the World Marathon Challenge, a grueling event where athletes run seven marathons on each of the Earth’s seven continents within one week.
Starting at the world’s end at Novo, Antarctica, Bearden and a handful of other competitors will then travel to Cape Town, South Africa; Perth, Australia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Madrid, Spain; Barranquilla, Colombia; and Miami, Florida.
At each stop, the competitors will run 26.2 miles before boarding a charter plane for the next continent.
Stigma
The World Marathon Challenge has been held since 2015 and draws a small handful of athletes from around the world each year. Just making it through the seven days is enough to secure lifetime bragging rights.
But Bearden isn’t competing for glory — he’s trying to raise awareness and end the stigma associated with depression, an illness he has battled his entire life.
Bearden, who serves as a professor of exercise science at ISU, said that on the surface, he always appeared to be a hard-working, driven, joke-telling and jovial academic. But deep down inside, he has always dealt with sadness and despair.
“It’s affected me my whole life,” he said. “It got to a point a few years ago that if I hadn’t told me wife, I would have committed suicide.”
When he finally told his wife a few years ago, it was the first time he had ever openly spoken about his struggle with depression. Afterwards, he attended therapy and rehab to develop healthy coping skills to deal with his illness.
Since then, he says he has been much happier and wants to use his experience to tell others who also suffer from depression to tell somebody and get help.
“There’s a stigma that exists with depression that has to go away,” he said. “Nobody should be ashamed of it or hide it.”
Therapy
“Running for me is the core of my therapy,” Bearden said.
A lifelong athlete, Bearden is an avid trail runner who regularly logs 70 to 100 miles each week. He has participated in a variety of races including 10 ultra-marathons, winning one and coming in second place in another.
Ultra-marathons are long-distance footraces that continue for up to 50 or 100 miles. This year alone, he plans on competing in five ultra-marathon races.
He also hosts “Science of Ultra,” a podcast where he interviews the world’s leading scientists, coaches and athletes on ultra-marathons and racing in general.
With a doctorate in exercise philosophy, he said his knowledge of nutrition and science will serve him well during his seven-day globetrotting running adventure. He’s going to need it.
Hot and Cold
Hong Kong resident David Gething won the inaugural World Marathon Challenge in 2015. His interview with an Asian newspaper speaks volumes about the obstacles facing Bearden and the other competitors at the first marathon in Antarctica.
“Part of my toes are lost to frost bite, all the tendons in my feet are gone. My kneecaps are aching and it will take a few days’ rest before I can start to feel normal again,” Gething told the South China Morning Post after his victory.
Bearden admits that staying warm while running the four-loop course near Union Glacier is going to be a challenge. But the conditions won’t get any easier once the competitors travel to the other continents.
“The biggest challenge is managing rest and sleep, which is not an easy thing to do in this challenge,” Bearden said. “Due to the changing time zones, my internal clock is going to be out of whack.”
While running in subzero Antarctic temperatures will be difficult enough, he’ll be running in Dubai a few days later, where the temperatures can reach well above 100 degrees.
There also won’t be much time for sightseeing.
“We’ll have a little time for a shower and food at each place, but only for a couple of hours,” he said. “Then it’s onto the next continent.”
Money
If anything is going to stop Bearden from accomplishing his round-the-world run, it will be funds.
It costs $38,000 to compete in the World Marathon Challenge. As he raises money for the cost of the trip, a portion of the funds raised will go to iFred, the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression. Bearded will run in the event as an ambassador for the charity.
To support Bearden’s efforts to end the stigma of depression, please visit GoFundMe.com/worldmarathons. As of Saturday evening, he has raised more than $3,000.
Many times, he felt like he was just a bystander during activities with his family and friends. He recalls a trip to Yellowstone National Park a few years ago, where he had to wait in the car while his family visited Artists’ Paintpots.
“I just couldn’t make the hike up the trail,” he said.
However, those days of sitting on the sidelines are over for the Pocatello resident.
Over the past few years, Clegg has lost 300 pounds, which is almost half of his former bodyweight.
His secret? Combining a clean diet and plenty of exercise with a dogged determination to meet his target bodyweight of 200 pounds, which he plans to do within the next year or so.
“I was a prisoner in my own body, and I came to the realization that I did this to myself,” Clegg said. “But I can undo the damage.”
From Logger to Recluse
In his youth, Clegg didn’t have a weight problem. In fact, he was a football player and wrestler at Highland High School. As an adult, he took on a physically demanding job in the logging industry.
Obesity didn’t start to affect Clegg until 2001, when he sustained a devastating leg injury on the job. After being laid up because of multiple surgeries on his leg, along with a heart attack and an emotionally difficult divorce, Clegg began to eat excessively.
“I just reclused myself,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody around me. Food was my sanctuary.”
By 2014, the 5-foot, 11-inch Clegg weighed 622 pounds, had a 68-inch waistline and had to wear the largest T-shirts available from the big and tall clothing catalog — size 6XL.
It was also around this time that his health started to deteriorate. His knees and back constantly hurting, and he was suffering from congestive heart failure.
“At the rate I was going, I wasn’t going to live the rest of the year,” he said.
Change
The realization that his health was in serious jeopardy encouraged Clegg to drastically cut back his food portion size. The change worked. In one year, he lost more than 80 pounds.
However, at 540 pounds, Clegg felt he needed help exercising to continue his weight loss journey, so he went to Gold’s Gym in Pocatello to take up water aerobics. Naturally, his first day at the gym was a bit intimidating.
“I looked around and thought, ‘How am I going to do this with all these people here?’” he said with a laugh.
He first worked with trainer Chrissy Andrus. They had a few sessions together before Andrus left to pursue her master’s degree. After that, he worked with Sherrie Hebert, another personal trainer who designed a daily exercise regimen for Clegg.
At their first workout together, Clegg showed up to the gym wearing sandals to Hebert’s initial dismay.
“She said, ‘You can’t wear sandals to exercise,’ and I said, ‘Nothing else will fit my feet,’” Clegg said. “My feet ballooned up because of my weight.”
Hebert, who writes a weekly fitness column for the Journal, has written multiple articles about Clegg’s weight loss.
He has been one of her biggest success stories. Under her guidance, Clegg has lost approximately 220 pounds over the past 19 months. With the 80 pounds Clegg lost before coming to Gold’s Gym, that puts his total weight loss at 300 pounds.
Though the numbers are unofficial, the staff members at Gold’s believe Clegg’s 220-pound weight loss while working out at the gym is a record at the Pocatello location.
And exercising at Gold’s isn’t intimidating anymore.
In fact, Clegg is quite well-known among the gym membership. As he walks around the weight training machines, numerous people talk to him and ask him how the weight loss is going. One time, a woman saw him and gave him a big hug.
“A lot of people here are rooting for me,” he said.
His favorite acronym is P.U.S.H. — persist until something happens — which is a phrase he often cites for inspiration during his workouts.
How did you do it?
A common question Clegg hears is, “How did you do it?”
For one, Clegg stresses the importance of portion control when eating.
“If I want a cheesecake or pizza, I eat it,” he said. “But I stop at one slice. I believe in moderation and a problem I had before the weight loss was eating the wrong portions.”
He also stresses the importance of eliminating processed foods from his diet, focusing instead of healthy, natural foods.
As for diet pills and weight loss surgeries such as gastric bypass, Clegg says he is living proof that they are unnecessary.
Exercise has also been crucial for Clegg, who goes to the gym every morning. The exercise regimen that Hebert designed for him includes a lot of low-impact exercises to promote strength, balance and dexterity. While on the weightlifting machines, Clegg uses low weight and high repetitions to burn as much fat as possible.
He also credits hiring a personal trainer to help him through his journey. Not only does he say Hebert keeps the exercise regimen fun, but she often pushes him to levels that he wouldn’t be able to reach on his own.
“I don’t regret any of the money I spent,” he said. “It boils down to looking in the mirror and asking, ‘What are you worth?’”
Not over yet
Despite the remarkable weight loss, Clegg is far from over.
He points to the Gold’s Gym Heroes wall, which features numerous members who got healthy by changing their lifestyles.
“Do you know why I’m not on that wall?” he asks. “Because I haven’t reached my goal yet.”
With his target weight at 200 pounds, he still has approximately 120 pounds left to lose. However, it’s a goal he’s ready to take on.
“When the going gets tough, the weak quit,” he said. “And I’m not weak.”
With 300 pounds already lost, the good news is that Clegg has already taken his life back, with numerous adventures on his itinerary this year.
As a hunter and angler, he is currently planning a backwoods excursion to reconnect with nature. He will also be hiking up the backside of Mount Borah, Idaho’s tallest peak, and will be rafting the North Fork of the Snake River.
He will also be visiting Artists’ Paintpots in Yellowstone — and this time he will not wait in the car.
“Don’t let your weight be your handicap,” he said. “Persist until something happens.”
POCATELLO — The Bureau of Land Management says the M-44 “cyanide bomb” that injured a 14-year-old boy and killed his dog last week was on BLM land.
The federal agency initially denied the device was on BLM property but now says it had been mistakenly placed there by a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee.
M-44s, also known as “cyanide bombs,” are used throughout the West by the USDA to protect livestock from wolves and other predators that could do them harm. According to the USDA, M-44s are spring-activated devices that release poisonous cyanide powder when activated.
Last Thursday, Canyon Mansfield was injured and his 3-year-old yellow Labrador retriever Casey was killed when the M-44 detonated behind the Mansfield family’s home on West Buckskin Road east of Pocatello. A curious Canyon saw the device sticking out of the ground and touched it, causing it to detonate and shower him and his dog with deadly cyanide powder.
Canyon was treated and released from Portneuf Medical Center hours after the M-44 detonated.
The incident has attracted widespread media attention, with the story being picked up by national and international media outlets such as Fox News and England’s Daily Mail.
On Wednesday, BLM spokeswoman Erin Curtis said the M-44 was mistakenly placed on BLM land by a USDA employee.
Curtis said the BLM prohibits M-44s from being placed on its lands and that the agency had no idea that the USDA had put one of the devices on the BLM property off West Buckskin Road.
The USDA would not confirm Wednesday that the bomb had been placed on BLM land. However, the USDA did confirm that the device was placed by one of its employees.
In response to the “cyanide bomb” injuring Canyon and killing Casey, the USDA said it has removed other M-44s that were placed in the immediate vicinity of the Mansfields’ home. The Mansfields said there were no warning signs to let the public know that the explosive devices were present.
Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen said his office is currently investigating last Thursday’s M-44 detonation and he hopes to find out why the device was planted so close to a residential neighborhood. Nielsen said the investigation will likely be completed by the end of the week and will be forwarded to the Bannock County Prosecutor’s Office if the sheriff’s office investigators feel criminal charges should be filed against anyone.
POCATELLO — After a family dog was killed and a teenage boy was injured by the detonation of a poison-filled predator control device near a residential neighborhood, Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen is demanding the U.S. Department of Agriculture stop using the “cyanide bombs” in the county.
“Based on the amount of calls we have received during the course of our investigation, I plan on meeting with officials with the Department of Agriculture and demand the practice of using these devices ceases in Bannock County,” Nielsen said.
The M-44 devices, also known as “cyanide bombs,” are spring-loaded metal cylinders that upon detonation shower everyone and everything nearby with deadly sodium cyanide powder. Detonation is caused by simply touching the devices. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the USDA commonly uses these devices to protect livestock from a variety of wild predators, including coyotes, wolves and foxes.
However, these devices have injured people and killed pet dogs who were unlucky enough to stumble upon them.
That’s exactly what happened to Casey, a 3-year-old yellow Labrador retriever who died on Thursday after an M-44 device detonated behind his owners’ home on West Buckskin Road just outside of Pocatello. The family’s 14-year-old son, Canyon Mansfield, detonated the device by simply touching it. Canyon was simply curious as to what it was, and he said there were no warning signs posted to alert him that a “cyanide bomb” was nearby.
Canyon was injured when the device exploded and he then watched helplessly as Casey slowly suffocated from the poisonous cyanide powder that covered both of them.
Soon after Canyon was transported to Portneuf Medical Center for treatment, Nielsen said the deputies who responded to the scene also had to go to the emergency room. Though none of the deputies were injured, they had to be decontaminated because they were near the cyanide poison that killed Casey. The deputies’ clothing had to be burned as a precautionary measure.
“You can’t justify using something that poisonous to kill a coyote, and I don’t think there’s a place in Bannock County where it can be guaranteed that one of these bombs will never hurt somebody,” Nielsen said. “It all just stinks.”
Nielsen is not the only person in Bannock County who feels the practice of using M-44s needs to end.
Theresa Mansfield, Canyon’s mother, feels “cyanide bombs” should be illegal.
“It’s lethal,” she said. “Casey was between 80 and 90 pounds and Canyon is 101 pounds. It could have easily killed my son. It’s just a matter of time before something like this takes human lives.”
Canyon was released from the emergency room on Thursday night. But he is still dealing with the emotional after-effects of watching his dog die, often coming to tears when he thinks of Casey.
“It’s been traumatizing for him,” Theresa said. “It keeps going and going in his mind, and he contemplates if he could have done something different.”
Since the Journal broke the story on Thursday night, news about Casey’s demise and the controversy over the usage of M-44s has been reported by numerous national and international media outlets, including the Daily Mail in England. The Mansfields were also interviewed by Fox News.
Theresa said numerous people have reached out to the family, some even offering to give Canyon a new puppy. One man told the Mansfields that he had a dog, a collie, that was killed by a “cyanide bomb” when he was a boy.
“This man was in his 60s and it still stays with him,” Theresa said.
Casey was purchased by the Mansfield family about three years ago. Theresa said the hunting dog cost $8,000, with an additional $2,000 for training. However, it’s the loss of a close companion and family member that hurts the most.
“In our eyes, Casey was priceless,” Theresa said.
Theresa said her pastor told her that it was the “breath of God” that saved her son. That’s because if it wasn’t for the wind blowing in the opposite direction, Canyon might have perished from the cyanide, Theresa said. Miraculously, he only suffered minor injuries as a result of the detonation.
One well-known local resident, philanthropist Dr. Fahim Rahim, wrote in a detailed Facebook post published on Sunday that the USDA needs to officially and publicly apologize to the Mansfield family and the entire community for the placement of the M-44 devices in East Idaho.
“I am still seeing many of my patients who got exposed to “Agent Orange” during the Vietnam War and how they are suffering with so many chronic ailments because of the exposure to those agents that our government felt were safe,” Rahim wrote on Facebook. “What will be the long term consequences of this 14yrs old boy being exposed to cyanide gas? How will we ever be able to heal the mental and emotional scars of this tragedy from his life and this family?”
Rahim urged people to contact their legislators to make the use of M-44s illegal.
It’s currently legal for the USDA to use M-44s to control predator populations, but the legality of how the “cyanide bomb” that killed Casey was planted by an Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service employee so close to a residential neighborhood is still being investigated by the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office.
R. Andre Bell, the spokesman for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said in a written statement on Friday that “the unintentional lethal take of a dog is a rare occurrence” and that the agency “posts signs and issues other warnings to alert pet owners when wildlife traps or other devices are being used in an area for wildlife damage management.”
However, the Mansfields said they were never notified by the USDA that a predator-control device was being planted near their home. Canyon also said he did not see any signage indicating that an M-44 was in the area.
“I feel really violated,” Theresa said. “This was done by my government, in my own backyard. I don’t trust the government if they can do something like this.”
POCATELLO — A 14-year-old Pocatello boy watched his dog die from a cyanide poison bomb that detonated near his home on Thursday.
Theresa Mansfield, the boy’s mother, said her son was walking the family dog on a hillside behind their home on West Buckskin Road when they encountered the bomb. When it exploded, the boy was knocked onto his back and the dog was killed.
The Bannock County Sheriff’s Office said the bomb was placed by an individual with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a predator control device used to kill coyotes. When activated, these type of bombs release a burst of cyanide.
According to the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office, it is a M-44 device that is commonly referred to as a “cyanide bomb.”
Mansfield said another one of these devices was found near her home after authorities arrived on the scene.
When Mark, the boy’s father, contacted the authorities, he told dispatchers that the dog was dead and his son was covered by an unknown substance. The boy was transported to the emergency room at Portneuf Medical Center to be tested for cyanide poisoning.
The Bannock County Sheriff’s Office said he was not seriously injured in the incident and has since returned home to his family. The boy’s family was also evaluated at the hospital and released.
The Bannock County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident. Hazmat crews and fire department personnel responded to the incident, with investigators still at the scene as of 8 p.m. Thursday.
The deceased dog, a 3-year-old lab named Casey, was covered with cyanide when found.
“He was the world to us,” Mansfield said, saying that her children were openly weeping over Casey’s death well into the evening hours on Thursday.
Both Mansfield and Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen said the boy was lucky to walk away from the incident.
“That little boy is lucky,” Nielsen said. “His guardian angel was protecting him.”
The whole incident has completely shaken the Mansfield family. The area behind the residence where the “cyanide bomb” exploded was a location frequented by the teenage boy. Now Mansfield is afraid to allow her children to go near the hill again.
The incident has also deeply scarred the boy, who Mansfield said saw the dog perish.
“That is going to be on his mind forever,” she said. “Seeing something like that stays with you.”
The Bannock County Sheriff’s Office released the following statement regarding the incident on Thursday evening:
“The Bannock County Sheriff’s Office is investigating an incident involving a predator control device that detonated killing a family’s dog. The Sheriff’s Office received the call earlier this date from the father indicating an unknown device had detonated in close proximity to his son and the family’s dog. The incident occurred on a ridge line located above a residence on Buckskin Rd. The father indicated that the family dog had been killed and his son had been covered in an unknown substance as the device detonated. Luckily this child was not seriously injured. It was later determined that the device was placed at it’s location by the Department of Agriculture. The device is used by the Department of Agriculture for predator control and when activated releases a burst of Cyanide. The device is a M-44 device but is commonly referred to as a “Cyanide Bomb”. This device is extremely dangerous to animals and humans. A picture of the device in included in this release for the public’s knowledge. If a device such as this is ever located please do not touch or go near the device and contact your local law enforcement agency. The family involved in this incident were evaluated at a local hospital and were released.”
POCATELLO — Thanks to this year’s near record-breaking winter, Southeast Idaho’s water supply for the upcoming year is expected to be extremely plentiful.
This means that water sport enthusiasts and irrigators can expect abundant streamflows throughout the year, particularly in central and southern Idaho.
According to a report by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, February storms brought abundant precipitation into the state, resulting in strong snowpack levels in central and eastern Idaho, the Bear River basin, and the Upper Snake River basin in eastern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming.
“There will be abundant water supplies across Idaho this year,” said Daniel Tappa, hydrologist with the Idaho Natural Resources Conservation Service, in a written statement. “Early March storms are expected to bring several feet of snow into the western and northern parts of the state, which is a reminder that winter isn’t over yet.”
Many of the region’s waterways and snowpacks are currently well above the average levels for this time of year. Overall, the eight major reservoirs of the Upper Snake Region (Jackson Lake, Palisades Reservoir, Henrys Lake, Island Park Reservoir, Grassy Lake, Ririe Reservoir, Blackfoot Reservoir and American Falls Reservoir) are at 106 percent of average.
“As of March 1, water supplies will be plentiful for the numerous water users who rely on the Upper Snake River,” the report stated.
In the Bear River basin in the southeastern corner of the state, the April through July streamflow forecasts range from 170 to 200 percent of average, except for the Bear River below Stewart Dam, which is forecast at 273 percent of average.
The positive news about the region’s snowpack bodes well for water sports enthusiasts, who can expect potentially longer boating seasons and more plentiful fishing opportunities in 2017.
In addition to snowpack and water supply forecasts, the Natural Resources Conservation Service report also noted that high levels of soil moisture already in the ground may reduce the initial irrigation demand, which means additional water may be available to use or release later this year.
These favorable water supply forecasts are largely the result of this year’s wet and snowy winter.
Though it doesn’t happen very often, the Natural Resources Conservation Service report said that above normal monthly precipitation numbers were recorded across the entire state in February.
“During February, the mountains of Idaho received 150 percent to 500 percent of normal monthly precipitation,” Tappa said in a written statement.
So far this season, the Gate City area has seen its second snowiest winter on record, and it could break the all-time record before winter is over.
As of Tuesday night, 86.4 inches of snow had fallen in Pocatello during the 2016-17 winter. The all-time record, set during the winter of 1992-1993, is 93.3 inches.
INKOM — Jordan Wilson vividly remembers walking toward the operating room at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, with his ailing 10-month-old son Brody in his arms.
Doctors had recently found a cancerous Wilms tumor growing out of Brody’s left kidney, a diagnosis that sent Jordan and Brody’s mom Kimber into shock.
According to the American Cancer Society, a Wilms tumor is the most common childhood cancers that begin in the kidneys. However, it is still incredibly rare, with approximately seven cases per 1 million children.
Just days after the devastating diagnosis, Jordan and Kimber, who live in McCammon, traveled to the Utah hospital so the doctors could remove both the tumor and Brody’s cancerous kidney. As Jordan handed his young son over to the doctors to prep for the surgery, the gravity of the whole situation struck him.
“It felt like my whole world changed, to hand over my son, who I had worked so hard for,” he said as he struggled to hold back tears.
For four and a half agonizing hours, Jordan, Kimber and multiple family members waited at the hospital for word on the outcome of Brody’s surgery.
“It was the slowest time of my life,” Jordan said. “Time just stood still.”
Then, the doctor emerged. He had good news. The surgery was a success and there were no complications.
However, Brody was not out of danger just yet.
For the next 28 weeks, the family had to make regular visits to Salt Lake City so Brody could get chemotherapy and blood work done. During some months, they had to make the long trip every week.
Because chemotherapy can shrink the tendons, particularly on young children like Brody, there was a concern that the boy would not be able to learn to walk until after the treatment was completed.
Now, the 20-month-old Brody is not only cancer-free, but he is walking around like a normal toddler, happily bouncing around and raising hell at his parents’ McCammon home. The only physical sign of his brush with cancer is a missing kidney and a 10-inch incision scar on his abdomen.
“He beat the odds,” Jordan said.
Despite the victory, the medical bills for Brody’s treatment have crippled the Wilsons’ finances. Kimber has taken a sabbatical from her job to help Brody recover at home.
Jordan routinely works 70 to 80 hours a week at his job at Pebble Creek Ski Area in Inkom, oftentimes without any days off, to help cover the family’s medical bills and finances.
Jordan has worked at the resort for the past six years, and he is currently employed as the lodge manager and mechanic.
According to Jordan, the total amount of the medical bills before health insurance kicked in was approximately $420,000. But with deductibles and coinsurance, the Wilsons still owe a hefty sum of money.
“We see those bills come in, and our hearts sink,” Jordan said.
To help the Wilsons pay these medical bills, Pebble Creek will be hosting a fundraiser next week. Called Brody’s Snow Ball and Torchlight Parade, the event will be held from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, March 11.
Attendees to Brody’s Snow Ball, which will include music and dancing, are encouraged to dress up or wear a costume. During the ball, attendees will also have a chance to bid on various silent auction items, including gift certificates, clothing and ski equipment.
The Torchlight Parade will be visible from the lodge deck and will wind down from the Sunshine lift. Participants in the parade must be at least 18 years old and be an expert skier or snowboarder. The suggested donation to participate in the parade is $50.
There is no charge for the Snow Ball or watching the Torchlight Parade.
The last time Pebble Creek held a torchlight parade was in 2009 in celebration of the resort’s 60th anniversary. Mary Reichman, Pebble Creek’s general manager, said if the weather is clear enough, the torchlights can be seen as far away as south Pocatello.
This will also be the last night for night skiing in the Aspen area this season. Night skiing tickets are $18, with discount tickets for $9 available at Barrie’s Ski and Sports. Food service, the bar and the rental shop will be open.
Donations can also be made to a GoFundMe site that has been set up. As of Thursday night, almost $2,000 has been donated. The fundraising goal is $6,000.
The GoFundMe site can be accessed at www.gofundme.com/2kxfu438.
Called ‘Brody’s Brave Battle,’ Kimber provided a detailed update on the GoFundMe site regarding the long hours Jordan puts in at work to support his family.
“Brody’s Daddy is not recognized enough for all the sacrifices he makes for us…,” the post reads. “I am humbled every day by this hard working man. Never a complaint is muttered, never a harsh word is said… Just love and devotion…”
Accompanied on the site with the poem, “In My Daddy’s Shoes,” is a photo of Brody wearing his dad’s giant work boots.
POCATELLO — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is considering eliminating youth-only general season antlerless mule deer hunts in Southeast Idaho because of this year’s harsh winter.
The proposal, if approved by the Idaho Fish and Game Commission next month, would prevent youths from harvesting antlerless mule deer in Fish and Game’s Southeast Region during the 2017 and 2018 general deer hunting seasons.
However, youths will still be able harvest mule deer bucks, while some controlled hunts will still be available.
Wildlife officials have cited large numbers of mule deer fawn deaths in multiple areas across the state because of this year’s harsh winter conditions.
Because young hunters are the largest demographic that hunt antlerless deer in Idaho, Fish and Game officials say the proposal is needed to ensure that there are healthy deer populations and quality hunts in the future.
According to statistics presented at a public big game season-setting meeting at Fish and Game’s Pocatello office Thursday evening, some locations in the state, such as the Boise River and Wesier-McCall areas, are seeing mule deer fawn mortality rates of 18 percent. But because the statistics presented at Thursday’s meeting were last recorded on Jan. 31, officials warned those numbers are higher now.
However, Fish and Game officials said mule deer fawn mortality numbers were not available for the Southeast Region because the region does not have radio collars for fawns.
Sportsmen and sportswomen in attendance at Thursday’s meeting were split regarding the youth-hunt proposal. Some publicly expressed support for the change, agreeing that everything must be done to help deer herds after such a destructive winter. However, others worried that the measure could turn kids away from hunting, because it is far easier for a young hunter to harvest a doe than a buck.
Fish and Game officials said that youth-only antlerless hunts would return once the deer populations recovered.
“We hate having to take away hunting opportunities from our youth,” said Zach Lockyer, Fish and Game regional wildlife manager. “We want to add this back as soon as possible.”
Mule deer hunts aren’t the only hunts being seriously affected by this year’s severe winter weather conditions.
In January, approximately 300 pronghorn antelope crossed the ice on the American Falls Reservoir and entered the Fort Hall area.
With the ice melting rapidly on the reservoir, Fish and Game officials are concerned that the antelope will not be able to make it back to their habitat in Game Management Unit 68, which is in the expansive Big Desert area west of Aberdeen. If that happens, wildlife officials said the pronghorn herd in Unit 68 could quickly shrink in size and take years to fully recover.
To prepare for a possibly smaller pronghorn herd, Fish and Game officials are proposing to cut the number of pronghorn tags in three controlled hunts in Unit 68.
Other big game hunting proposals for the 2017 and 2018 hunting seasons in the Southeast Region include:
Providing more controlled antlerless mule deer hunts along highways and urban areas of Bear Lake and Franklin counties to address conflicts with wildlife.
Continue to provide late-season hunting opportunities with a muzzleloader-only mule deer hunt in Game Management Unit 73A as part of a rotating hunt.
Reduce crowding and social concerns in the late 72/76 archery-only mule deer hunt by making it first-choice only.
Providing muzzleloader opportunity for antlerless elk in the Diamond Creek and Bannock elk zones to address depredation concerns and to offer a unique late-season hunting opportunity.
Providing either-sex short-range opportunity within 1-mile of private cultivated fields from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30 in the Big Desert elk zone to address elk depredation.
Extending the spring black bear hunt Unit 76 and 66A from June 7 to June 15.
Proposing to maintain the pursuit-only black bear season in Units 75, 77 and 78, but remove the language asking sportsmen to contact the regional office if they are interested in providing information on black bears.
For mountain lion hunting, establish female quotas that represent current 3-year average harvest parameters.
Sportsmen have until Sunday before midnight to provide input on these proposals. Comments are accepted at idfg.idaho.gov by clicking on “Idaho Big Game Season Proposals for 2017-2018.”
Fish and Game officials will review the public comments, make adjustments to the current proposals and then present the final proposals to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission at the March 16 meeting in Boise. The commission can either approve, modify or decline the proposals.
After more than 30 years, Pebble Creek Ski Area has a new owner.
Shay Carl, the YouTube celebrity who grew up in Pocatello, signed the paperwork and officially became the King of Mount Bonneville early last fall. For decades beforehand, the Inkom ski resort was owned by a group of investors. Pebble Creek has always been a popular place to hit the slopes for Southeast Idaho ski bums, but when news of Shay Carl’s purchase was released, it invigorated the regional skiing community.
Though it’s only been a few months, Shay Carl is already making his snowprint on Pebble Creek. Naturally, the internet star had Pebble Creek’s website redesigned. Plus, skiers and snowboarders were welcomed to a remodeled lodge when Pebble Creek opened for the 2016-2017 winter season. Next year, the Aspen area will be expanded to accommodate more beginner- and intermediate-level skiers.
However, Shay Carl has said that any and all ideas for improvements to the ski resort have been considered. Some of these potential long-term projects include building mountain bike trails, hosting concerts, showing movies on large outdoor screens and offering summer tubing down the mountain.
Shay Carl, who is known by his friends and family by his birth name, Shay Butler, sat down with Xtreme Idaho Editor David Ashby for an interview, in which he discussed why he purchased Pebble Creek, his childhood in Pocatello and his online fame.
Q: Why did you purchase Pebble Creek Ski Area?
A: I grew up here, I learned how to ski here, this was always the place that I came to escape the frustrations of the world, and then this last season being here, skiing here, somehow that idea got put into my mind somehow by someone, and so I decided to do it. I went in and I talked to Mary (Mary Reichman, Pebble Creek’s general manager) and we started discussing it. It was a seven-month process, just to make sure everything was done correctly. But you look back on your life and you ask, “why did I do that,” but you wouldn’t change it most of the time. I’m already so excited with this place and I want to jump ahead five years from now, but you have to take it day-by-day.
Q: You have an interesting story about something you found on the mountain that encouraged you to ultimately make your decision. What happened?
A: During the seven-month process of this deal, I kept constantly thinking it was going to fall through. During that seven months of trying to get the deal done, I almost got cold feet during certain times. I remember skiing here one day and thinking, “man, what if we don’t get snow,” because there was no snow that day and there were rocks, and like, “this is a horrible idea, what about global warming?” So, when we were close to finalizing the deal, I just decided to hike to the top of the mountain. I just took a day, canceled all of my appointments, got a backpack with some water and started walking up. I had a little lunch and stopped along the trail. My favorite run on this mountain is Liftline. I love Liftline, I love the jumps and the trees. I was just hiking straight up Liftline and took the cattracks as high as I could go, then I went straight up. So I was sitting on a rock, eating lunch, and I looked down and saw this nickel that was in this crack of this boulder next to where I was eating lunch. I leaned down and thought, “oh cool, a lucky nickel.” Like if you find a penny, you pick it up all day long and have good luck. So when I grabbed the nickel, and I think most people do this, I always think, “if this coin has my birth year on it, then it’s like a special omen.” And sure enough, and it sounds too good to be true, but the nickel had a 1980 year on it, and I was like, “oh my heck, that’s a good sign.” And five has been my lucky number growing up, and so that was cool, too. So I took a picture of the nickel and sent it to my mom and said, “look at what I found up here!” It was just a cool thing. It wasn’t like that’s what made me decide to buy the mountain, because we were kind of already in the thick of it, it was under contract, but it definitely gave me this good vibe that it was going to work out.
Q: What was the response like when word got out that you purchased Pebble Creek?
A: It was shocking. I couldn’t believe how much Facebook attention it got. The articles that I was seeing from the ski industry and different people from around the world. I was kind of blown away, honestly. I didn’t promote it much on my social media avenues. But it was cool meeting friends in L.A. two weeks later, and they were like, “you bought a ski hill?!” And I was like, “yeah.” It was really encouraging. I think mostly it was cool to see how many people are excited to come skiing again this year.
Shay Carl
Q: What are the challenges ski areas like Pebble Creek face due to the current economic and environmental situation?
A: Skiing is a very niche life sport. If you really break it down, how silly of an idea is it to put on these skis with edges and try to make it down a steep mountain, especially one as steep as Mount Bonneville here (at Pebble Creek). To take it to the next step and say “what if we could actually have a business where we had people come and do that,” it’s a high-risk, low-reward scenario because there’s so many factors with the weather, with global warming. The mountain that we have here is really jagged, there’s a lot of rocks, and with the economy, with people being fearful of what’s going to happen with their job because of the new president or whatever, yeah, it’s a scary time to get in the ski business. But it’s a passion project, and I know that there’s enough people in this local community that love this mountain enough, that call this mountain home, that I think it can be a really good thriving local business. I don’t see it as a global business or anything where you can expand into something you can scale, but we’re excited just to have this local mountain here.
Q: What is your history to the Pocatello area?
A: I was born in Logan, Utah, and then we moved here when I was 4 years old. I went to third grade at Gate City Elementary, and then I transferred to Edahow and then I went to Franklin Middle School and graduated from Highland High School. I did all my schooling at School District 25.
Q: Why did you decide to learn to ski at Pebble Creek when you were a kid?
A: My mom skied. Growing up, my mom lived in Logan, Utah, and they would go to Beaver (Beaver Mountain Ski Area in Logan), and she skied a lot growing up. My very, very first experience skiing was a bad one because I almost got frostbite. We were at Beaver, skiing down the face of Beaver. I just fell face-first and my gloves fell off and I went probably 300 yards barehanded through the snow. I have very vague memories as a 5-year-old being in the lodge standing around the fire sobbing, trying to get my hands warm. But after that I was at Edahow and Mr. K, who was my fifth grade teacher, who was awesome, he used to play flag football with us at lunch. He was like all-time quarterback, and there would be like 50 kids running out screaming, “Mr. K! Mr. K!” He would throw a Hail Mary and if you caught it you were the coolest kid in the lunch hour. So he took us cross-country skiing. It was a field trip, and it was hard, it was like, “where’s the gravity?” And I remember my buddy who said, “we should go up to Pebble Creek and ski,” and I’m like, “what’s Pebble Creek?” So two weeks later we talked my parents into bringing us up here, so 5th grade was my first time at Pebble. My dad actually took us down our very first run up here, and I was terrified. I was up here on the Sunshine Lift, it was the triple, and just coming down the ridge it felt so steep that I felt like I almost had like talon claws clutched into the side of the mountain and if I was to release I would just fall into the abyss immediately. That’s how steep I remember it feeling the first time I skied here. And it was the only thing that was close because we grew up here, so we skied here all the time. When there was a snow day, it was my mom who we all begged to load us into the minivan and drive us up here in her 2-wheel drive vehicle. I learned to do a back flip up here and it became the place where all the guys came to challenge each other.
Q: What’s your best memory on the slopes?
A: Finding the nickel has probably got to be right up there. I do have very, very vivid memories of the very first time I did a back flip. It was such a huge powder day, school was canceled. We were watching the Warren Miller movies. We were fans of Glenn Plake and Scot Schmidt, and like, I don’t know if this was the time, I think it came out later, when Johnny Moseley did the 360 Iron Cross in the Olympics to win the gold. We were fans of all those guys, and it was like, “what if we could do a back flip?” I remember we were at lunch and it was like powder everywhere up to your waist, and I remember telling my friends in this exclamatory way, “I’m going to do a back flip!” And they were like, “na uh!” I said, “I’m going to do it on this run, let’s go.” So we go up on Liftline and I had my brother hold my poles because I thought I was going to be like the ski jumpers without the poles where I flip my arms like this (laughs). So my buddy, he went down and packed down the jump, ha ha, Mary’s sitting over there, she’s doesn’t want to hear this (during the interview, Mary Reichman shakes her head). But my very first back flip, I went up and only did a half of a rotation and barely skinned my head in the snow, and basically landed on my head. But because there was 3 feet of powder it didn’t hurt. And then all my friends were like, “yeah, you did it!” And I said, “no, I ate it.” (laughs). But then I had the confidence, then I felt it, and I said, “oh, I just need to pull a little bit more.” So the very next run I did it and I landed a backflip, and like going home that day and saying, “Mom, I landed a backflip! I landed a backflip!” That’s another very fond memory of mine at Pebble Creek.
Q: We heard you could be quite a hellraiser at Pebble Creek back in the day. Any truth to that?
A: Well, when you’re a kid and you just think you know everything and you think you don’t owe anybody anything, you can be disrespectful. But we weren’t hurting anybody, we just liked to ski. We saw ourselves as these renegade skiers. There were only a couple people that could do a backflip, and then more people started doing them, then more people started trying them, and then people were getting hurt, and so they were saying “no backflips,” and then it was like, “we’re going to do them anyways.” Or people were saying “don’t hike in the backcountry” because if you get into an avalanche, it’s going to be this big fine, and it was like, “we’re going to do it anyways.” And we did get caught in an avalanche once. When you’re young you do stupid things, but we were just extreme skiers, that’s all we wanted to be. We would come up here with no money, we would get hot water and ketchup and crackers and make soup, and that’s what our lunch was because we were so broke. Yeah, we were ski bums.
Q: What did you do for a living before you launched your Internet channels?
A: Before I did Internet, I did a little bit of everything. I was doing real estate, I was a car salesman, I was a door-to-door pest control salesman, I was a school bus driver, I was a radio DJ. Basically, I was kind of looking for what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Shay Carl
Q: What encouraged you to launch your YouTube channel?
A: I was working at American Heritage here in town. At 10 a.m. every day we had a 15-minute break, and we would go down to the break room and there was this little computer. We would just huddle around this computer and watch this guy named Kimbo Slice, who was a bareknuckle fighter. He was just fighting in these backyard brawls on YouTube. So that was my first introduction to YouTube. And then when I turned 27 I got my first laptop computer, and that was the only thing that I knew that was on the internet, so I got on YouTube and I found a guy named Phillip de Franco, who had his own show, and I thought, “I could do that!” And so I uploaded my very first video, probably eight years ago, of me dancing around in my living room wearing my old wife’s unitard that she took video of as blackmail material. But I showed her because I used it as the very first video (laughs). So it just started there and it evolved into something I never expected. I always say it’s a dream come true of a dream I never knew I even had.
Q: For those who aren’t familiar with your online videos, what is your channel all about?
A: Well, I have multiple channels. Our biggest channel is the SHAYTARDS channel. You can kind of compare it to a reality show that I shoot and edit. It’s about me and my wife and my five kids and our daily life. We talk about motivation, we share our struggles, when our dog, that was a big part of our life, died. We had to put him to sleep. That was a video we made that a lot of people watched, because they have experienced losing a dog. It’s like a reality show that’s not edited by Hollywood to make fake drama seem apparent. I do all the production and uploading and everything, so check it out.
Q: What’s your favorite online video that you’ve made?
A: Oh, that’s like picking a favorite kid, how can you? I don’t know. Probably just the one that you’re creating at the moment. We have over 2,600 videos and I have five different YouTube channels, and the reason I’ve done it for so long is the creative process. Here’s my definition of creativity — thinking something’s cool or having an idea and not being able to explain it, and just doing it anyways. A lot of people are like, “why? What does that mean?” It’s like, “I don’t know, it just came out of my brain and I want to make it.” That’s creativity. And a lot of times people are afraid to share that, because it doesn’t make sense. Well, so what? Picasso didn’t care about that, he just made art. It’s hard to pick a favorite, because then you start picking it apart after you’ve watch it long enough, so it’s always about the next creation.
Q: When did you first realize your channels were a hit?
A: Oh, it’s hard to say. The first time I got paid for making YouTube videos was probably the biggest paradigm shift I had ever experienced, where I was like, “wait I can make money from making these videos?” First, it was mostly because I am an entertainer. I was the class clown and was voted most daring in high school and stuff like that. But it was communication. I remember the first comment I got was from a guy named Rob in Ohio, who was like, “when are you going to upload your next video?” Some dude I’ve never met before wants to see another video. That, first of all, was really cool where I thought, “we are transcending geographical boundaries where it doesn’t matter where you live, if we’re on the internet, we’re practically hanging out together.” Those realizations happened slowly. And then all of a sudden you think, “oh, 100,000 people saw this video,” and you picture, “what does the Super Bowl stadium look like?” That’s about 80,000 people. So you picture that. You never really have this moment, when you’re like, “oh, it’s a hit!” The very first time I ever got recognized, I was at a Salt Lake City Bees baseball game with all my family, and some girl said “you’re Shay Carl!” And then all my family made fun of me for the rest of the day. They were like, “oh, you’re Shay Carl! Oh, you’re Shay Carl!” And then I never heard the end of it, so there’s little moments like that that happen where you’re like, “oh cool, this is catching on.”
Q: Why did you move back to Pocatello from Los Angeles?
A: We lived in Los Angeles for five years, and then we just wanted to be back home. We have five kids and my family is here and my wife’s family is from this area, so we thought, “we aren’t getting any younger and neither are our parents.” So our motivation was to be with family.
Q: What is the message you want to deliver to all the ski bums up here?
A: I love the sign that is at the top of our terrain park that’s been here for years, and it’s on a few of our poles, which is “respect gets respect.” We love this mountain, we know everybody else loves this mountain, and we’re trying our hardest to make this the coolest place for everybody and we expect the community to help us with that. Respect gets respect and we can’t wait to ski up here with everybody and have a great year and have a great winter.
It’s been over a year since the story about a deformed mountain lion in Southeast Idaho spread across the world.
However, state wildlife officials are still not sure why an extra set of teeth was growing out the side of the cougar’s head.
It all started on Dec. 30, 2015, when Tyler Olson reported that a mountain lion had attacked his dog near his front porch at his rural Weston Canyon home. The cougar then ran off. Though injured, the dog involved in the attack survived.
After Olson’s wife wrote a post about the attack on Facebook, a group of mountain lion hunters and neighbors quickly congregated at the scene. Within hours of the attack, the cougar was tracked through Weston Canyon, which is located about 8 miles southwest of Preston, where it was eventually treed and killed by one of the hunters. By law, officials with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game were not allowed to release the identity of the hunter.
As the group of hunters examined the mountain lion’s carcass, they quickly realized that this cat was unique.
Fully-formed teeth, including what appeared to be small whiskers, were growing out of hard, fur-covered tissue on the left side of the animal’s forehead.
Pictures of the cat’s strange deformity quickly made the rounds on social media sites. Within a week, the story about the mountain lion and its freaky deformity was picked up by news outlets from around the world, including CNN, Fox News and the Huffington Post.
Jennifer Jackson, the regional conservation educator with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said her Pocatello office was flooded with phone calls and e-mails inquiring about the deformity.
“We had people contacting us all the way from California to France,” she said. “I lost track of how many interviews I did and how many emails I responded to in the days following the discovery.”
Idaho Fish and Game released a press release regarding the mountain lion soon after the story broke. In the release, the department’s wildlife biologists said the deformity was either the result of a teratoma tumor or the remnants of a conjoined twin that died in the womb and was absorbed into the other fetus.
The former reason is probably the most likely explanation, according to officials, because teratoma tumors can actually contain hair, teeth and bones. In rare circumstances, these type of tumors can sprout more complex body parts, such as eyes, fingers or toes. Though extremely unusual, there have been well-documented cases of these tumors in humans, canines and horses.
But to this date, Fish and Game officials are not entirely sure.
The lack of definitive answers regarding the cause of the deformity hasn’t stopped people on the internet from providing their own explanations.
On YouTube, there are multiple videos blaming radiation from the Idaho National Laboratory, which is well over 100 miles away, for the abnormality.
Other online commenters took some jest in the situation. One person said the mountain lion was the legendary chupacabra creature, while others jokingly blamed either Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for the deformity.
Among the mountain of inquiries submitted to Fish and Game, Jackson said that some people, particularly those from the Eastern United States and foreign countries, were simply unaware that hunting mountain lions was legal in Idaho.
But there was one thing that Fish and Game officials said the deformity was not — a hoax.
Shortly after the mountain lion was killed, the hunter reported the harvest to Fish and Game. A conservation officer went to the scene and confirmed that the harvest was performed legally.
The officer also confirmed that the deformity was authentic and not the product of Photoshop.
The only way for biologists to know for sure what caused the deformity is to get an X-ray of the mountain lion’s head. Fish and Game officials said they asked the hunter to bring the cougar in for testing.
However, the hunter never brought the animal in and is not required to by state law.
Local rumor says that the cougar, with its bizarre deformity intact, has been taxidermied and is sitting in somebody’s home, but that has not been confirmed either.
Until wildlife biologists can get a closer look at the cougar’s deformity, the mystery of what caused an extra set of teeth and whiskers to grow out of the side of the freaky mountain lion’s head will most likely remain just that — a mystery.
