How to Find BEAUTIFUL Hidden Places - Part 2 (RECON)

Welcome back to part two of how to find beautiful hidden places. Today we are talking about something that I refer to as recon. It's a military term that they use to describe observation of a region to locate or determine strategic features. And in our case, those strategic features are hidden beautiful places. If you remember in the first video, we started up a creek. The bull in the china shop method. I caught a glimpse of a creek. I thought there could be some beautiful stuff up there. And we just started going. We reached a point where there was a large pool and it looked like a difficult climb relative to the capabilities of the group. Because it wasn't just me and Sam. We had another friend with us. And so that was as far as she wanted to go on the day. So I decided I'm gonna have to come back to further explore what is up that creek. Oftentimes when you're looking for hidden beautiful stuff, you constantly have to evaluate the skill set and the capabilities of your group. If you're with people that aren't good climbers or they're not geared up properly, sometimes you have to come back with less people, more gear, or less gear depending on, like for example, I'm not bringing my good camera above that climb today because it's going to be too involved because the pool is over my head deep. So in order to like swim through and then climb up, I'd have to put the camera in a dry bag and it just makes it more cumbersome. So I'm gonna try to go as lean and mean as possible just with the GoPro. And sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you realize that you either need more gear. In the case of if we weren't able to, like that climb, that first climb, I know we can jump that. So we don't have to climb down because it's deep enough. I've depth check it. That's part of the recon as well. If it was something that we couldn't jump and it was going to be a sketchy climb, I might want to bring a rope just as a hand line to help people that aren't good climbers just to make it easier on myself. So sometimes a bull in the china shop or a looky-loo turns into a recon mission because you now have a strategy for returning to that place with more or less gear, different people, and stuff like that. When I'm consciously doing a recon mission, I'm taking as much information down, whether it's written or mentally, so that I know when I return there, I have all the details. So in this particular case, we know it took something like an hour to reach that pool. We pin the spot on the map. We knew exactly where it was. We did a little other research around that area, which I will actually talk about research in a later video because that is a very detailed process. Some of the research I do and I want to give you as much information and tools as possible so that you can thoroughly research your adventures as well. All of these things kind of interplay with each other and it's not always a step-by-step process like I do A, B, C. Sometimes I do research. Sometimes I do a looky-loo and they kind of all overlap and intermingle. So without further ado, let's go dive into this creek and see what's going on. So that initial big climb was tougher than I thought at first. As you can see, we're starting to get into some more beautiful stuff. The good thing is because we had to swim that pool, we know it's deep enough that we don't have to climb back down. We can just jump it. Oh yeah, epic. This is the biggest waterfall we found so far and not really much of a pool here, but wow, that is sweet. Wow, epic. Another big waterfall, but this time a sweet big swimming hole. We are hot on the trail of some hidden treasures today. And there we go, third epic waterfall in a row. I think we're going to keep going. This looks like a little bit of a tougher climb here. I think we can get there on the left. Who knows what else is up here? I'm already blown away. Like we could call it a day today and it would have been amazing the amount of hidden stuff we found, but it's still early. It's not even one o'clock in the afternoon yet. Let's keep going, but look at how beautiful this is. Right now we are in a part of Abel Tasman National Park that very few, if any, other people have ever stepped foot on. Truly, truly lucky to be here and this is the type of stuff that you can find. Yet another deep pool here. Beautiful hidden places are all around you. All it takes is to go looking for them and in some cases you have to go to the same area multiple times and that's what I mean by recon. Going multiple times, taking notes if necessary. How long did it take me to get to point X? Pinning multiple spots on a map. That way when you go back there down the road, for example, if it was low flow here and this was very stagnant, I would still think, hey, when there's higher flow, I bet that's an awesome swimming hole. Stuff like that. Taking as much information and detail, whether mentally or writing it down, that way you can use that recon possibly at a later date. Oh my gosh. Tremendous beauty. This is what I'm talking about. What? Simply amazing. Look at the type of stuff you can find if you just go looking for it. It probably would have been a good idea to bring a wetsuit, but what an amazing find. All those waterfalls, the waterfall with the cave under it, that slot, that last slot waterfall that we couldn't go above. But man, what an epic day. And you know, the recon process can keep going on. There's really no limit to it. The only limit is your skill set and your gear and your abilities. But man, we found some epic hidden stuff today. And guys, to further illustrate what I mean by recon and the different types of ways that recon can be utilized, check out this next video. This is a case study on how to find beautiful hidden places. And the legwork was done by my buddy Kelvin out in California. He is finding some epic hidden gems in the Sierra mountains out there. And so I'm going to talk about a case study in the next video that him and his friends went on, and I'm going to share his Instagram and YouTube with you guys so you can check out his adventures. But he's doing some epic stuff. Get out there, find your adventure, and be infamous. Infamous.