Exploration Local
Come journey with us as we explore and highlight the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique. We explore the towns, trails, rivers, scenic byways, businesses, and people that fuel the life & adventurous spirit in these mountains. Listen in on this relaxed conversational style podcast as host Mike Andress interviews Authors, Business Owners, Photographers, Athletes, Adventurers, Travelers and Friends who have a deep connection to the outdoors and directly influence the culture of the Blue Ridge. We’ll even explore the many ways nature & the outdoors can positivity influence our health and well being.
Exploration Local
From Film to Climbing: Shelby Treichler’s Journey to Eco-Entrepreneurship with Cactus to Pine
What happens when burnout from the film industry's hectic pace becomes a catalyst for an eco-entrepreneurial journey? Join us for an insightful conversation with Shelby Treichler, the creative force behind Cactus to Pine, as she shares her transformative path from working in props in bustling cities to finding peace within the climbing community. Shelby's journey is a testament to the power of passion and adaptability, as she reveals how she turned discarded climbing ropes into unique, eco-friendly products, building bridges within the climbing world and beyond.
Shelby takes us behind the scenes of her innovative upcycling process, where creativity meets sustainability. From crafting can cozies out of recycled climbing ropes to hosting workshops at festivals, her journey is filled with challenges and triumphs in equal measure. Through her storytelling, you'll discover the deep connections climbers have with their gear and how Shelby's creations honor those personal histories.
Mike Andress
Host, Exploration Local
828-551-9065
mike@explorationlocal.com
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What happens when a creative spirit swaps the glitz of the film industry for the rugged charm of rock climbing and eco-entrepreneurship? Meet Shelby Treichler, the force behind Cactus to Pine. Shelby's journey began with burnout and a high-paced career and evolved into creating innovative, sustainable products from discarded climbing gear. Each piece that she creates tells a story of adventure, community and ecological mindfulness. Creates tells a story of adventure, community and ecological mindfulness. In today's episode, shelby takes us on her path from selling her house in Atlanta to embracing a nomadic lifestyle in a converted camper that doubles as a mobile workshop Equipped with a laser cutter and a passion for creativity. Shelby travels across the US, connecting with climbers at festivals and crafting pieces that breathe life into places and people she encounters.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're curious about upcycling inspired by nomadic adventures or just love a good story about following passions, stick around. Shelby's insights into building a sustainable, purpose-driven business might just spark your next creative idea.
Speaker 3:You're listening to Exploration Local, a podcast designed to explore and celebrate the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique. My name is Mike Andrus, the host of Exploration Local. Join us on our journey to explore these mountains and discover how they fuel the spirit of adventure. We encourage you to wander far, but explore local. Let's go Well. I'm excited to have Shelby Treichler in the studio today. She is the maker and owner of Cactus to Pine, which is a company that upcycles climbing gear to keep old gear out of landfills by making really cool, creative products. Shelby, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3:Really really cool company. You're doing some amazing things. You have a really interesting background and I'd love to start there first, talking a little bit about your experience in the film industry and what sort of got you into this space of creating these really cool products.
Speaker 2:So I went to school to study film and I knew I wanted to work in the film industry and, unlike a lot of my friends, I actually did end up working in the industry that my degree was in. So I started working in the film industry even before I got out of college and it was my dream job. I was working in props, started in Wilmington, north Carolina, and then I moved down to Atlanta, georgia, where there's tons of production, and I was really lucky and worked really hard. But I got on some big shows and it was going great, except for I was starting to get a little burned out. I loved the work that I was doing, but the hours are really hard. There's some of the best people in the world working on films and then there's some of the kind of not nicest people and there was just a bit of whiplash where I would spend eight months working on a gig, you know, and then I would get off and then I'd be completely unemployed and I was in my 20s and I'd go traveling and burn all my money and then come back to work and have to earn it all back. And that was great for a while until it kind of wasn't, and at that time I started rock climbing and I'd always been kind of outdoorsy. I liked going to travel to be able to hike and loved road tripping to different national parks around the country. But I didn't have this connection to the land quite yet, and that's what rock climbing gave me.
Speaker 2:So I started rock climbing in Atlanta, georgia, in like 2018. And I wasn't really good at it, which is fine, but anybody who's like I talked to about they're like that doesn't matter. Blah for me. I still wanted a way to connect to the community and that's always been through my art and the stories of the art and stuff. So it started with just a couple of stickers. I was doing a bit of graphic design for the film industry. I knew how to do some like illustration, so I had these just kind of insider joke stickers that I made and I was just giving them out to friends initially, and then one day someone at the gym was like, oh, can I grab a couple extra? I'll pay you for them. And I was like what Money?
Speaker 2:You'll give me money for these. I didn't know anything about running a business. I didn't know anything about how to price things or profit margins or revenue or anything like that. But I just started making these design stickers and selling them and all of a sudden I had this kind of little side business going on and I was earning a couple hundred dollars a month just selling stickers on Etsy to my climbing friends and all across the country at that point.
Speaker 2:And one day I was in the gym and I saw one of the guys who worked there throwing away their old ropes that they would use for their lead climbs, but their top rope wall too. And I was like what are you doing? Like why are you throwing the rope away? And they're like well, liability, blah, blah, blah. And they even had to go as far as they had to cut the rope down into two like two to three foot segments before throwing it in the dumpster because they were afraid some dirtbag climber would come, take the rope out and go climbing on it.
Speaker 2:And I just I always liked making things and the idea of just throwing rope away. I was like no, don't do that. Like, just give it to me, I'll destroy it by by creating something out of it. And I Googled, like what do people do with old rock climbing rope? And there's this mat, this kind of like woven rug that I call the gateway craft, because everyone who has a climbing rope tries this mat. At one point One of the rope manufacturers, edelred, even includes instructions on how to do it in their ropes, but like when they sell them, and the idea is just like when you're done with it, here's something you can do. And they show the pattern, the over under woven pattern. And I made one of those rugs and I was like, oh, I hate this. It's really hard, especially if you're doing with all one rope. It's almost 50 meters of rope, you're pulling it through.
Speaker 2:So much friction and I was just like I don't like doing this, so like, what else can I do? And posted in 2015 on how to make this rope bottle holder. And they did it by using a lighter to fuse the rope together and I tried doing it and I liked the idea, but, using that tutorial, I didn't like how it turned out. It didn't feel super sturdy, it wasn't very clean looking, and so for the next couple of months I just played around with it because I wanted to make one for a mason jar. I drink everything out of a mason jar. I like carrying them around. I frequently drop them and break them, and it's also like it's a little cumbersome, you know it's not, you know, you have no handle.
Speaker 3:Well, there is, I guess, if you have some, some models of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or if you make your, yeah, yeah. So I made one, initially for a mason jar, but then also was just making them for cans and same thing, just posted them online and people liked them, and that's kind of been the whole idea behind every product I've made is it's just something that I want and or need, and then someone else is like, oh yeah, I would take one of those too, and then I got to figure out how to make it profitable and how to manufacture on larger scales and stuff, but it's always just stuff that I want to make first.
Speaker 3:That's so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in 2020, I had kind of been doing all these little things on the side. I was also like pouring candles and making these gear racks out of retired bolt hangers and the film industry shut down completely. When COVID hit, everybody was out of work and for the first time in my you know, quote, unquote adult life, I had free time and nothing kind of on the other side of like when's the next gig starting up? So I was like you know what if I just threw myself all in and just see what I can do with this business? At the time I was also laser cutting. I had bought a laser cutter and was like learning how to laser cut. So I also had this other kind of like weird business where I was making trellises for indoor plants.
Speaker 2:So between all of that, I was just putting all this time and energy of the frustration of being, you know, stuck at home into this business and by the end of 2020, I was earning enough that I was like, with a few small lifestyle changes, I could not go back to the film industry, which I'd already been like playing around with. I'd been taking summers off and working other jobs and trying to figure out if I left the film industry like what would I do? That was my identity for so long, and so, as I found this avenue out through my work, I was just going to say like all right, let's just ride this wave and see what happens. But mid 2021, I was doing pretty good with it. So I decided to sell my house in Atlanta. I bought a truck and a trailer, a camper, and decided to take my business on the road, and I've been traveling around since then. Just recently came back to the Asheville area.
Speaker 3:Now, that's so cool, and when you first started you actually I was seeing on your Instagram page where you converted the back of that camper into your production studio so you truly could take this whole gig on the road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my woodworking tools were stored and there's this one exterior panel that you could get to through the outside of the camper. That was all my woodworking tools, all the rope. I would get these like ropes and huge waves, and so they usually just lived in the back of my truck because I didn't have anywhere else to store them. My laser cutter went into this compartment under my bed, so I would lift up the bottom part of my sleeping bed and there was a laser cutter under there that vented out the side and I did the whole business out of that as I traveled around to climbing festivals in Colorado and Wyoming and Idaho and Utah and just traveling around and selling my stuff on the road.
Speaker 3:That's cool, and at that time, what were the things you were selling? Was it still the stickers? Or you had started to sell these koozies that you were crafting and making, and people obviously at climbing festivals are going to be so taken by this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the stickers. I still everything that I've made. I still sell some version of it. Mostly like at the very beginning I was doing like t-shirts with the designs, but t-shirts are hard and I've mostly. I still do the sticker designs. But I haven't released a new sticker design in a while, just because I'm kind of moving away from it. But the big thing has been just how fun it is to work with these ropes. It's such an interesting medium. The more that I learn about them and how they're manufactured and the different types, the more I get inspired to make different things with it. And then, as like the business is growing, I'm also just the quantity that I'm putting out is crazy right now.
Speaker 2:So I'm having to. It's been a crash course in learning how to run your own business and keeping up with that part of it too, as I'm trying to scale up. But yeah, all through this whole time it's been. I just sold a gear rack the other day and I still, you know, whenever my buddies are out re-bolting, they'll let me know when they've got old bolt hangers and I'll make a donation to the local climbing coalition on behalf of them if they get me the old bolt hangers and then I'll make some gear racks.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. All right, so before we go really deep into the koozie piece with the ropes and that seems to be like the lion's share of what it is you're doing what else? So we've got stickers, we've got the koozies, we've got some art. Is there anything else that you're doing in there as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I do have a climber candle line Yep, a scent sense is what I call it. So for those I do research on flowers and trees that grow in different crags around the country.
Speaker 2:So you could get a New River Gorge one, you could get an Indian Creek one, smith Rock, and so it's like what you could smell while you're climbing in those areas which has been really fun because I've gotten to climb in almost every single one of those areas as I traveled around and kind of confirm like oh yeah, smith Rock does have a lot of juniper trees, like that works. But it's also fun, when I pop up in these different festivals, for people to be to see their home crag, their local crag, represented in a candle, you know. So that's been really fun.
Speaker 3:Give us a visual of of this mason jar and of this koozie that's going around. I've seen them in person. I've seen, in fact, I think the first place I saw them was um wrong way campground. Yeah, that's where I saw it, on their little kiosk. They were the first people to carry me. Oh, no way, yeah, yeah, okay, good, I met them at the Get In Gear Festival. Nice.
Speaker 2:And Joe came up and was like I got to have them you know, oh good, good good. Yeah, standard cozy as we call it, because the other version which I slip into sometimes is actually trademarked. So a can cozy insulated beverage holder. I use a single piece of rope. It takes 11 feet of rope to make one can cozy.
Speaker 3:No way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which most people don't think, because it's like yay, big, you know. So just slightly smaller than a can. But one of the things I really like about my design is I never want you to see where the rope begins or ends. So it starts at the very bottom with a very tight coil and from there it just spirals up around across the bottom and then around the outside of the can and when it gets to the right height which is just low enough that your lip doesn't touch it when you're drinking it, because that could get gross after a while it loops down into a handle and it's all one piece of rope. The handle loops down, attaches to the bottom and it comes back up and then it looks almost like it folds into the cozy itself. So you don't see where the rope ends unless you look inside, and then you can see. But when you're holding it it all just looks like one piece of rope, and the glue I use is very precise in where I place it, so you can't even see a glue line.
Speaker 3:So for anybody that's listening, and you were talking about old ropes, old climbing ropes, and if you've been to a gym you know they can get chalky and dirty and there's a reason that they retire these ropes when they retire them. But you have a washing process, so it's not like when you buy one of these cozies you're going to get all this, all the stuff that comes with the climbing gyms. No, that like what. If you could talk about that a little bit, because that's the part that really kind of blew me away yeah, well, again, this was all.
Speaker 2:I learned this the hard way because there wasn't anybody doing this on the scale that I was trying to do it on the common way of washing climbing ropes. When you're still climbing on them, you want to make sure you don't compromise the safety, so the recommended way is to soak it in a tub with this very specialized soap Hand scrub it People will make. They'll take like PVC pipe and attach bristles to the inside and run the rope through it. And that's how initially I was doing it. I was hand washing every rope.
Speaker 3:You had some shoulders and back and biceps, didn't you?
Speaker 2:I know, I know that's a yeah body built by washing rope, but it's hard and also a lot of times I would be in weather that was not conducive to this, especially doing it in a camper. As I'm traveling around, sometimes I'm on limited water, like I'm off grid, so I had to discover a way to do it, using laundromats basically, and there are specific washers that you can find. They're like industrial extractors that are for like 60 pound loads and I think it's mostly people who are doing like sheets and comforters and stuff like that. I have a process of weighing my ropes so that I never do more than 40 pounds because they get heavier when they get wet. And there was also the hard problem of I would want to be able to wash five and six ropes at a time and when you put up a whole bunch of ropes in together and you spin them around, you get a giant knot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, so at first I was kind of parceling them out into these mesh bags and bringing them into the laundromat and doing them. It was harder to dry them because they were very condensed at that point. And this is all. The whole process has been documented on. I share everything about my business on.
Speaker 3:Instagram.
Speaker 2:The high highs and the low lows of just watching this process of figuring this stuff out. So a lot of people, when I posted this, one video went viral on TikTok of me sitting at a laundromat like trying to figure out how to wash these ropes. And a lot of people are like, oh, you should try daisy chaining them, which I knew daisy chaining just to like store electrical cables like from set and stuff like that. I had never thought about it for ropes. Electrical cables like from set and stuff like that. I had never thought about it for ropes. But a lot of people who do like search and rescue or firemen say that that's how they would. You know, they would daisy chain them and then hang them to dry.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I watched a YouTube video on how to daisy chain and the first couple of times the idea is, if you do it correctly, if you chain it correctly, when you unchain it it comes apart so easily, just falls apart basically, and as long as you knot it on the end really well, it holds through the washing cycle, which is great. So when I get the ropes they're always dirty. I always daisy chain them, wash them, air dry them if I can. But we're going into a season right now where I'm going to have to use the dryer and then coil them back up and then I have a storage system in my trailer right now keeps them all separate so I can like build as I go.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, what a process.
Speaker 2:It is, but it's also a lot of times I get the ropes kind of for free. I'm not buying them, I'm not buying my materials, I do a trade. So for me it's always been really important that my business is not relying on donations from people. It's a mutually beneficial thing. So if gyms are getting me their old ropes, if businesses are getting me their scraps of their productions, or if even climbers are finding me individually, I want to be able to make a koozie or a bowl either out of their ropes, which is cool because like gyms can be like hey, you're buying a koozie or cozy out of the rope that you just climbed on.
Speaker 2:Or climbers can be like oh, I got my first whip on this, or I got my first trad lead on this. They have stories behind them, and so I can make a bowl or koozie out of it, give it to them and then upcycle the rest.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. Well, so how many stores have you been able to get yourself Because you can buy this online? Right now, you can buy this from your website.
Speaker 2:So it's been an interesting year because I started wholesale at the beginning of last year, which I hadn't really been doing before. I had a couple I have like. One store for Bridges Outfitters in Chattanooga was the very first store to carry my stickers and anytime I've got something new they're like we want to be, we want to carry it so they've always been available in certain areas.
Speaker 2:But as far as me just having like a wholesale side, so I have stuff on Etsy, I have like monthly, or what should be monthly, drops on my website, because the hard part is color Once a rope is gone, it's gone. So I will make 10 out of this blue rope that I've got, and so it's hard for me to keep listings updated online. I sell in person at certain events and markets and then right now, last time I checked, I was in 92 wholesalers or retailers.
Speaker 3:And, as an artist, you're probably always thinking about what I can do next. Is there anything that's sort of in your brain of oh, I'd love to try that or I'd love to try this?
Speaker 2:The big thing right now that I'm kind of leaning into is like more of an educational thing.
Speaker 2:I've started hosting a lot of workshops and the idea is one still trying to support myself. As you know, this is my full time income, but trying to inspire more people to upcycling is like a muscle. You know some people it comes really natural to them, and some people you kind of need to like teach them how to see things creatively and all it is is having some sort of problem or like artistic vision and just figuring out how to do it with what you've got. So for the ropes when I have these classes, it's either it's usually their bowls or cozies that we're making and I tell them how I make it and I give them some tips and tricks. But then I encourage them to be kind of as artistic as they want If they want to imagine a different handle on it. They want to imagine, instead of it for a can, making it more of like a beer sign and just kind of trying to inspire people to also think about what they're throwing away and how they can use it differently.
Speaker 3:Oh, that is so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's been popular so far. Or like what are some of the things that you've, what are some of the sessions or some of the educational moments that you've had? Out in the community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first chance I got to do it was actually um, I go up almost every year this was the first year I hadn't done in a while but to the International Climbers Festival in Lander, wyoming, and it's such an amazing festival.
Speaker 2:The community is so supportive out there and they just it's a three or four day festival where they've got tons of workshops and they have an art crawl and then they have like a trade fair for two days and I always set up my booth and I do really well, not just as like, as far as like selling things, but also connecting with people. That's where I met the Sterling rep for the first time and they're like let's figure out a way to get some of this rope to you. And so the one year I had talked to them about maybe doing a workshop like this, because I also go to a lot of these climber festivals and I love climbing and I will take any day at the crag that I can and carry in the rope. But I'm not a good climber and, honestly, I'm not really trying to get better at climbing just enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I'm a five fun climber. I bring the beer and I bring the stoke. Is what?
Speaker 1:I say hey, yeah, you need it.
Speaker 2:You need it therefore, yeah, I can relate but it's also some of the most beautiful like days that I get to spend with my friends and you're in these gorgeous places, seeing spaces in ways that most people don't get to experience them, like from the side of these rocks, like looking out and everything. So I still love doing it. But when I go to these festivals, a lot of the workshops there are very geared towards this kind of like you're trying to get better. And I was like what if there's just a craft class, for you know people who are there and maybe they're there with a friend or a significant other. And I was like what if there's just a craft class for you know people who are there and maybe they're there with a friend or a significant other? And I was like what if we just have like a crafting afternoon? And I pitched the workshop and they were down. They were so supportive, so I bring all the materials and the instructions. And we made bowls the first year and it was so cool because as we were sitting there in the city park, people would be walking by and just want to sit in. So I was just rapidly cutting more rope and filling more glue bottles so, as people wanted to join in cause. It looks fun, and so that was really cool. And so since then I've taught maybe 10 of them.
Speaker 2:I've done yeah, I've done collaborations with gyms. Riveter Gym here in Asheville has hosted me for a workshop. Gyms out in Chattanooga I've done a collaboration with um. There's a chattanooga their, their outdoor recreation group, um, like get outside type thing, they hosted a workshop. And then I've just done a couple of them, like pisgah climbing school, hosted like a women's weekend, and asked if I would come that afternoon. Luckily it was actually bright when it was going to be raining and so they couldn't be out climbing anyway and so everyone got to like make their own cozy and take it home with them.
Speaker 1:So that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, it's starting right now. It's just hard for me to schedule it because, again, I'm in survival mode with production, which is again a good problem to have but it's just really something that I would like to lean more into.
Speaker 3:Cool. Have you ever thought? I'm sure you have. You know, because there's a, there's always a reason to have something at a brewery you know, or the paint, the art, or go into an art studio or a ceramic studio or something like that. That would be the dream.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as if I could start doing like a regular series and and especially cause I know um, some of these places like they can't like some of them can exclusively in, like the 16 ounce tall boys, so we could make a tall boy can cozy. Or, if they use the plastic cups because they're not allowed to have like the reusable cups, we can make a cozy that fits their disposable cups that they use so that it's a little easier to hold it because those are so flimsy.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was like, let's make it fit whatever you're doing, you know. So there's definitely ideas there. It's just right now time management.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I totally understand that. Yeah yeah, just a few minutes ago we talked about some of the stories that were part of the rope and you mentioned that people would give you these ropes and you would make crafts or you'd make these cozies or whatever it is they want. It's almost like they commissioned you to make this thing for their rope. I have to believe there's more of those stories, those types of stories, that are out there, or maybe not, but if there are, I'd love to kind of dive into that a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was something I wasn't anticipating when I started, because when I first started doing this I was new into climbing. I didn't really understand kind of the connection that people would have to their gear, because I didn't have any connection. All my gear was brand new, I just bought it at the REI or I'd been gifted it from someone. But I learned about it from the very first guy who got me some rope. I had just put out on a Facebook climbing group that I was trying to start doing some crafting and if anybody had any old ropes laying around I would love them. And I said I wasn't even making anything yet but I was like I'll do a trade, like for something. You know, even back then I wanted to gift something.
Speaker 2:Um, and this guy contacted me and he's this old school climber who had been climbing forever and he's like, hey, I've probably got six ropes sitting in my closet right now that I've been holding onto Cause I can't just throw them away. But if you're going to do something with them, they're yours. And I was like that's amazing. So he was, they're yours. And I was like that's amazing. So he was. We met at the gym and he brought him out and every rope had a story.
Speaker 2:He remembered, he remembered where he'd climbed on them and and, and he wanted to share them with me. Like that, as he was like handing these ropes over to me, it was like, just make sure, you know, I climbed in this place with this one and I climbed here with this one, and it just felt like a like almost a responsibility, because then, as I made cozies and then I would sell them to other people, I'd be like, oh, someone climbed here on this one and so it's like it traveled with the piece. And it was such a thing that it awoke something in me that to give back to him. He didn't want anything. I tried to give him a cozy. He's like, no, no, I don't need anything.
Speaker 2:But what I ended up doing was I made a shadow box and I took one piece of each of the rope he had gave me and I made sort of a pattern behind it and then I left some empty space so in the future, if he retired more ropes, he could add it into the shadow box. And on the front of the shadow box, kind of silhouetted, I put good catch, because that's what these ropes are they catch you, you know. So it's a good catch, and then it just that was what kind of primed the pump, and whenever somebody would bring me these ropes, if they didn't tell me right off which they usually told me I would ask them. So at that same festival, the Lander Festival, I had a guy come up to me on crutches and he had just broken his leg, like a couple of days before, and he was giving me the rope that he had been climbing on when he broke his leg and he was like I don't want to see it anymore and I was like it's all right, dude.
Speaker 2:So I took it and I had just developed a new product at the time. I call my cruisies.
Speaker 3:They hang around your neck, so it's like a hands-free cozy, yeah, and so there's a story behind those two.
Speaker 2:But it was so perfect because he was on crutches, so I tried to give him a cozy at first and I was like, actually you need one of these because he couldn't carry a drink while he was moving around on crutches. Some of the products are like that too, with the stories. I had someone reach out to me a couple of years ago and asked if I would make a cozy for Ben and Jerry's ice cream pints, and they sent me one of their ropes and it was like a tradition of theirs to share ice cream for like this person and their partner, and so I made them, and I couldn't even post it online right away because I didn't. I wasn't sure if they both followed me or if only one followed me, so I didn't want to spoil the surprise, but they got to give it to them and I put. When I finally posted online, people went crazy for it. They're like, oh, like ice cream cozies, like that's such a good idea. So I got to like that's the story behind it is.
Speaker 2:And then, more recently, people who have lost friends or loved ones or significant others, and climbing was how they connected, and so they will bring me their old ropes and ask me to make something out of them. So they contact me after they've lost someone and they bring me their old ropes, and usually it's because they want to gift things to other people. So I had a friend who was like you know, we lost this climber and we'd really like to be able to give like stuff to his parents or one guy who's like we're going on a camping trip and we all want to toast to him out of his old rope and so we'll make something. And so these stories come to me and again, these aren't really mine to share, necessarily, so I didn't really put it out there, but I wanted people to know this was calling it a service feels kind of crass, but a thing that I could do for them, because climbing is like for a lot of us it's our life, it's how we spend all of our free time, it's our entire friend group, it's what we spend all of our money on, and this gear is part of that.
Speaker 2:And so having a way to kind of memorialize it and remember these people that you know either we lost from climbing or some other way, it's just been a really like beautiful part of this? That again, none of this, none of this, even doing this as a living. I never expected any of this because I didn't see anybody doing something like this and making a living out of it, so I've just fallen into it all the time. So I've fallen into these stories, I've fallen into these designs and I've fallen into this life. But it's been so beautiful and I feel so privileged when people share the stories of their ropes, even if they're, you know, if they're sad or if they're heavy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, that's the beautiful part about it and that's where the really the art really kind of comes in, because there's an expression you know people look at things and they interpret things differently, and but what these things mean to people and I love the word that you just use, memorializing, because that's exactly what it is I mean, if you it's a loved one or you know, trying to have a remembrance of some type of of an experience of a person, of a place and to be able to look at that thing, and it does that for you is is huge, and then it's utilitarian too.
Speaker 2:so yeah you know it's carrying all the yeah, and it's it's part of like my life. I think, the way that we can. I don't like to say that I'm materialistic, but I think the things that we surround ourselves tell stories about us. That's why I worked in props for 10 years. The things that we have around us and part of our daily rituals, they can remind us of people, and I sit every day at a workbench that I inherited from my grandfather and I use sewing tools that I inherited from my grandmother.
Speaker 3:So cool.
Speaker 2:And so it's. You know if every day they can drink coffee out of a mason jar surrounded by a cozy from a friend's rope? It's a way of like keeping people around, the materials, upcycling. Keeping the materials around, but also keeping the stories around.
Speaker 3:So cool. Yeah, oh, I love that, absolutely love it. Well, let's pivot a little bit and talk a little bit about that lifestyle on the road, what it was like when you actually went full time, because that is not for the faint of heart at all, and I'd love to just kind of dive into that just a little bit as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a little prepared for it. When you work in the film industry, you work contract work. So you take a gig. You don't know exactly how long it's going to last, because you don't know how long the product is going to go. You have a rough idea, you know, and I was pretty lucky because, as a props person, I usually got a little bit of pre-production and post-production as well as production. So I'd work an eight-month, ten-month gig, which you know was most of my year, and then I would take the time off. So this kind of like ebb and flow of income I was used to. It's really different, though, when you're responsible for every part of it. So I was just very prepared to kind of lean into the dirtbag thing and just be like well, I'll just make my art when I make my art. You know, I was not prepared to have an LLC.
Speaker 3:Right, right, what happened to the fun I?
Speaker 1:know, I sold out.
Speaker 2:No, but no, it's how it's become sustainable which is the big thing, and that's as my hobbies have shifted a little.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I don't climb as much as I used to. I've gotten more into biking, especially being here in Western North Carolina. There's different things. The climbing out here is real different, but there's just different things that have kind of caught my eye and I still, I love my work, I love even just when I have to sit down and make 50 koozies in a day. I love it. I, just every single one I make. I'm like that looks good, which is great, you know. But there's other parts of it that you can't just produce, you have to do accounting. I've had to get really good at social media, which is both a blessing and a curse to say that I'm good at it, which I can just tell by numbers and statistics.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're good at it. Okay, you're good at it, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, I got the film background. That helps too, and, again, like finding a way to do it authentically. For me it was just about telling the stories of what I'm doing. So when I leaned into the dirtbag thing, it was more so one I knew I didn't want to stay in Atlanta anymore. So I was like, well, where, where do I want to live? Which is such a privilege, like if you're self-employed and you get to pick where you live, not based on how you earn your income. That's not something a lot of people get to do.
Speaker 2:So, having grown up in the Southeast my whole life, I remember the first time I flew into Denver it was dark out. I drove a couple hours out to Colorado, which is this magical mountain town like tucked into the Rockies, and I woke up the next morning and it was the first time I had like seen the Rockies like for real. And it blew, it broke my brain and that's what started and this was. This was when I had just gone out of college. This was the beginning of me wanting to be out West. So as soon as I had my life on the road, I drove West and I was Colorado and I was Wyoming and I was Utah and Oregon, all the way down to New Mexico, and I was just kind of bopping around. I would stay. The longest I ever stayed is I stayed in Salt Lake for six months and I thought that was going to be it like.
Speaker 2:But there's something about it out there that is both like very magical and alluring like the desert, the high desert, the red rocks, all this type of stuff. And alluring like the desert, the high desert, the red rocks, all this type of stuff and all I missed was the Blue Ridge Mountains. I just thought about home and also I was coming home every, you know, holiday season. All my family still lives in North Carolina and as soon as I would come through, I would always come across I-70 down through Nashville, and then I would hit North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains and it just felt like home.
Speaker 2:And at one point I just couldn't deny it I was kind of tired of living on the road. I was like, well, I'll go back and check out Asheville and see what's going on. And at the time, too, my business had been changing, because when I was on the road, I was selling at festivals, but I also had an online business. But it's really hard to not only have a manufacturing, where I wish I would have thought about making jewelry or something, something small, compact you know, you're gonna have like a whole, like carton of beads right you know?
Speaker 2:no, I needed to make like 24 inch gear racks and carry around like two by six lumber with me. That's what I decided to do.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you decided to do what you're doing.
Speaker 2:I am too so. But there was a thing where I was like I just wanted space. I knew my business felt like it was kind of contained by the life I was leading, just because I could only do so much at a time. It was very ebb and flow. I would get a couple of ropes and then I would make stuff and then I'd be out of ropes for a while and then I'd get and I didn't even have a mailing address, like I couldn't even get stuff mailed to me. And so when I decided I was like, well, I need a home base, I want to be close to my family.
Speaker 2:I remember spending summers here, like or like every weekend when I was at UNC Wilmington. I loved going to UNC Wilmington for film, but I'm not a beach person, respect the ocean, but not not like my hobby. I would come up and be spending weekends in Pisgah Forest sleeping in the back of my truck, and so I was like, well, let's just go back and let's see what's going on here. And as soon as I came back I joined the Outdoor Business Alliance and started meeting people and connecting with people and had a little like. Initially I was renting a little storage unit down in Fairview but I was living up north of the city so I was like commuting 40 minutes, which was a lot. It was not my favorite thing. So what I ended up doing was I bought a separate trailer. So I have a little uh like 6 by 12 enclosed trailer parked next to my camper. So now I have the workshop is its own trailer and then I have a living trailer.
Speaker 3:Moving up in the world.
Speaker 2:I know I just have space, and what I've seen is my business has responded to it A little bit of stability, being able to build upon things, being able to build on my systems that I have, and productivity, and so that's how, in the past year, the wholesale has managed to grow exponentially. So I actually just recently closed on some properties. So, I'm pretty rooted now in the Western North Carolina region.
Speaker 3:That's so good. Yeah, that's so good. What an inspiring story. Yeah, I mean absolutely, and I love the fact that you can take something that once was making it into something that's going to be around for a very long time, and it's not just a product. That's what I think is really cool about what you do. It's not a product. There's a story behind literally everything that you've done, and all your materials have their own story, as you were saying, which is so, very so, very cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of the even things that I'm making now. There are times where I'm like, oh, I could make this and either someone's already making it or they're doing it better. I couldn't improve or expand on the design so I don't want to make it. But it's always just about the story of it and I don't know. It's just. I want to feel good about what I'm producing and what I'm putting out there. I'm trying not to be even more of a burden on the planet.
Speaker 2:So certain products like I get asked to make dog collars or dog leashes a lot. I don't know how I'd find that hardware used and it would be a liability concern if you had a reactive dog on a leash that I made with upcycled hardware and it broke and the dog got off or something like that. So I've always just kind of stayed away from stuff that I couldn't figure out a way to use, mostly upcycled components. Some of my earlier stuff, like I make cozies for tumblers, like coffee tumblers, and every tumbler has a different size. You know Yeti versus Hydroflask versus Perani, like they all have different specifications. They're flat walled or they're tapered, and so I just had been buying stainless steel tumblers in bulk and I make them with that.
Speaker 3:Oh gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then, like now, I'd love to be able to say like oh no, you can order it in hydro flask 12 ounce or prani 12 ounce or something like that, and then I don't have to buy these things in bulk and sell them, cause that's the idea is like that If everything that I did was an had an upcycled component, it would make me feel better about what I'm doing.
Speaker 3:Oh, I absolutely love that. Well, this is so cool. Thank you so much for just kind of sharing and unpacking this story with me. I'm glad you're connected to the Outdoor Business Alliance as well. I'm glad that is something that is helping. I would imagine it's helping you to sort of catapult, find some grounding, find your place, the whole nine yards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's actually been a really interesting thing. When I first joined, I only joined really to get into getting gear fest because I was like I don't know what the outdoor business alliance is.
Speaker 2:But it's been really cool because usually at these things I struggle with a bit of imposter syndrome because I'm a little like one person, small business, artsy business and then I'm sitting there next to these like giant manufacturers that ship stuff all around the world and so it can feel a little intimidating. But the cool thing has been some of the collaborations I've got to do. Very recently, for example, I got to do a collaboration with Eno Hammocks and Pirani For Eno's 25th anniversary. They were doing this limited release specialty hammock using an artist from the Blue Ridge area that did the special print. So they asked if I wanted to upcycle some of their old materials into these things that they were going to do for a giveaway.
Speaker 2:So, I made custom cozies for Perani a crossbody one and then a handled one and they use old carabiners from Eno Hammocks and old tags from Eno stuff. So getting to work with some of these brands like what are y'all throwing away and how can I use it for something better has been really cool, because there's so much manufacturing going on here in Asheville.
Speaker 3:So much, yeah, yeah. And you're right. Even though you could be a small business like yours and the ones that are shipping nationwide, you really don't get that vibe when you're out in the mix with these folks. They're so collaborative, they're so willing to share, they're just good, good people.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we're all outdoors people, so we all show up in the same Blundstones and Patagonia outfit. So it's the great equalizer it is.
Speaker 3:I've been saying that more and more and more and it's absolutely the truth. Well, shelby, this has been really, really cool, and I'm not going to say on air what I told you I was going to buy when we were off air, but I have already the Christmas presents in mind for people I want to buy for, and I know that it's going to be well-received. You make some great stuff. I wish you all the best as you kind of scale this thing up, because it's not easy. You've hired a couple of people, which is great, so you're expanding there and I guess you will scale when scale is ready. Yeah, scale when scale is ready.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I want to, if I feel like there you go there, you go Well, um, all right, before I let you go, though. So we talked about Etsy. We know your website, Um, tell us your Instagram handle how we can follow you and how we can track your products.
Speaker 2:Yes, the best way to keep up with things is either my Instagram or my Tik TOK Instagram more recently, but Tik TOK also, which is at cactus to TO pine, with underscore for spaces, so cactus to pine. And then, if you go to my website, you can sign up for my newsletter. I usually only use it whenever I'm doing a drop, so people can learn about drops that are coming out and then follow me on Instagram to see where I'm popping up locally.
Speaker 3:Very nice, yeah, very nice. Well again, thanks so much. I love the products you're making. I can't wait to get my hands on some for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:From turning burnout into brilliance, climbing ropes into art and a camper into a mobile workshop. Shelby's story reminds us that creativity and sustainability can thrive in the most unexpected places. If you loved today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. It helps more people discover stories like Shelby's. You can also follow Exploration Local on your favorite podcast platform for more adventures and passion-driven living. And if Shelby's journey sparked your interest, be sure to check out Cactus to Pine's unique creations and workshop opportunities at cactustopinecom. Be sure to subscribe to Exploration Local so you'll be the first to know when a new episode drops. Join Mike on Instagram and Facebook and drop him a note at mike at explorationlocalcom if you ever have a suggestion for a future episode or if you'd just like to say hello. Until next time, we encourage you to wander far, but explore local you.