Ranching, haircuts, sustainable materials and so much more. We had a blast talking to Gabriel Dixon Patterson about his play and his work. Gabe is a Biomaterials Scientist with a PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry from University of California, Davis. Congrats Gabe! He is a climber, the founder of Soul Ascension Crew, and an ambassador at We Got Next, a non-profit aimed at increasing representation in the outdoors. Read more about Gabe at Melanin Basecamp.
For more information about Faith, Addie and The Trail Ahead go to https://www.thislanddoc.com/thetrailahead.
Faith E. Briggs: Welcome to The Trail Ahead, conversations at the intersection of race, environment, history, and culture. We are your hosts, Faith and Addie.
Addie Thompson: We bring on folks from all walks of life to have real, authentic, messy dialogue that can lead to tangible change.
Gabriel Patters...: My dream growing up was I wanted to own a ranch in Wyoming. That's what I used to tell my family. They would laugh in a funny way. My dad's dad would tease, "Where did this guy come from in our family, because no one is a cowboy?"
Faith E. Briggs: Our guest this week is Gabe Patterson. He is a biomaterial scientist, a climber, the founder of Soul Ascension Crew, and an ambassador at WeGotNext, a nonprofit organization aimed at increasing representation in the outdoors.
Addie Thompson: We talked to him about growing up in rural New Mexico, the joys and challenges of leading an affinity group, and one of our favorite topics, what it means to see yourself outside?
Gabriel Patters...: My name is Gabriel Patterson. Normally go by Gabe. Currently I'm living in Davis, California. Came out here to do my PhD at UC Davis in Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry. What I study is cellulose based material alternatives to petroleum based products.
Addie Thompson: When we say playing outside. What does that make you think of? Where do you go?
Gabriel Patters...: I'm from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have two older brothers. Our parents divorced, maybe 1995. I was four or so. When I was with my dad, we would drop my brothers off at kindergarten, he and I would go to the local barns and we'd just like, look at the horses. And we eventually got to know the people and they would let us break the ice in the winter time from the water troughs and throw hay out and stuff. I always had this affinity for horses from a young age. Then by a miracle, and second grade, I met this boy Antonio Marquez, whose family is like multi-generational, Mexican-American and indigenous. With him, around age eight is when I got really involved with ranching. Sometimes it was almost every weekend, Friday after school, his family and I would drive up to their ranch and we do a number of things like fixing fences, feeding the cows.
We'd load this truck with a bunch of hay bales and would just like put it in drive. It'll do this slow couple of mile an hour, roll across the plain, we'd kick off hay bales and all the cows would come in from all over the place. We'd feed them and do this big loop. Later in the year, before it got too cold, we'd have to do these round-ups and we'd bring the cattle out of the mountains. All the other ranchers in the area who would also let their cattle graze in the spring. In the summer, the cows would all be mixed up with each other. Some 100 Cowboys or so would take off into the mountains and would round up the cattle and then do a whole sorting process based on the brand on the cattle.
Faith E. Briggs: I want to talk about Panama next, because we have that in common. When I spent time in Panama, which was 2004 or something like that. My host family raised cattle, but we weren't right near the farm. My host family and I would jump into the trucks at whatever time in the morning, I can't remember. Go out into the hills and my host brother and my host dad would just start yelling. And these cows would be coming down out of the mountains to come get milked. But I was terrified! I was like, "Calves! Cool!" And I was like, "Oh my God, these things are big!"
Gabriel Patters...: They're massive.
Addie Thompson: They're what?
Faith E. Briggs: They're massive! I feel like nobody thinks about cows as being terrifying, and I just want some validation.
Gabriel Patters...: Everything, I 100% agree. Where I learned for the first time that cattle were totally... and horses too, I had a fear of horses as well, because... I mean, in both cases, I feel like they can sense your fear. And then when we do these roundups, there's so much energy. There's cows everywhere. There's missing calves and horses and is tense. And when the cows get tensed, they all start to shit. So they're just like throwing their tails up, and they're just like unleashing cow pie everywhere.
Addie Thompson: I have no idea.
Faith E. Briggs: It's so gross. It's like a stream.
Gabriel Patters...: It's a stream.
Faith E. Briggs: Horrible.
Gabriel Patters...: And there's synchronized mooing and the cows get aggressive and we'll charge and... They're big, you realize how large these animals are.
Faith E. Briggs: Thank you. I feel like...
Addie Thompson: Faith needed some validation.
Faith E. Briggs: ... I needed that. I didn't know I needed that.
Addie Thompson: We heard you grew up as a cowboy. That was a word that we saw, it was used about your childhood. And that is true, that is very true.
Faith E. Briggs: I first came across you via Melanin Base Camp. I wanted to ask you how has Melanin Base Camp and other groups and platforms like that? Like from me [inaudible 00:05:54] outdoors and Melanin Base Camp. When I first started kind of understand there was a phone call outdoor community. I wasn't [inaudible 00:06:02] people that look like me, but I had people cheering me on, shouting out, connecting, et cetera from those spaces. And that felt like my community was maybe... Even if it wasn't physical, it was definitely virtual.
Gabriel Patters...: For me, Melanin Base Camp, finding out about them and seeing that they were highlighting people in the scene. I was like, "Whoa!" That was my first eye-opening, I'm not the only one out here. In fact, in all these little bubbles all over the world, exist people like us. That was the community I was looking for all these years. For a long time, I've had this fire in me to somehow give back this opportunity I've been afforded, to be in the outdoors, to rock climb and I telemark ski. My parents and my grandparents all created this space for us to form this relationship with nature and be outside and have these opportunities. I wanted to translate and give back somehow, but I didn't know what, and I've been feeling it for a long time. And once I saw these affinity groups popping up, I was like, "Dang, this is my opportunity." And I reached out to Summer.
Addie Thompson: He's talking about Summer Winston, a rad climber based in the bay area in California and the founder of The Brown Ascenders, a BIPOC climbing group working to increase accessibility of outdoor spaces, related education and recreation for BIPOC, adults and youths.
Gabriel Patters...: Originally Soul Ascension Crew was supposed to be The Brown Ascenders Sacramento branch. But as I started sitting on it and Summer was super open and chill, and she's like, "You know what, if you want to do an extension, awesome. If you decide you want to run your own thing, different name, also supportive. I just want to be here to support whatever you need." I was sitting there kind of brainstorming and eventually Soul Ascension Crew came up and started running some of our first meetups. And it's been great. It's been very challenging to run an affinity group like that. Actually, I want to step back and shout out the book, The Adventure Gap, which brought to light that expedition that Tyrese and Scott Briscoe and many others were a part of. I think to read that book and hear about those people was my first taste of... There's other people out there that are doing this. That book is probably... If you asked me what book is most important to me, it's that book.
Faith E. Briggs: The Adventure Gap by James Edward Mills, I totally agree.
Addie Thompson: Oh, so why did you talk about Panama?
Faith E. Briggs: I read some of your experience there and it felt very similar. This idea kind of always having stood out and then suddenly blending in. I know what that experience was, for me I'd love to hear more about that from you.
Gabriel Patters...: Yeah. Santa Fe, New Mexico, my family, we were basically the only black family in town. And I think that that's changing now. We weren't the only black people, but thinking about my high school, they were less than 10 black people. Growing up in New Mexico, I had this affinity for Latin culture and Spanish. My dad, he's a pediatrician and he studied Spanish heavily in college, and to this day he still practices. The majority of his clients and his patients are Mexican American, they're all Spanish speaking. I kind of grew up with that interest of Latin America. But at the same time, I went through this radicalization phase, if you want to call it. I would wear Malcolm X t-shirts and back when the iPod, you could put like an engraving on the back, it said, "Black is beautiful," power to the people and all these things.
I also really wanted to go to Africa because I felt this something was missing in my life. And I'm like, go back to the roots kind of thing. And then I got to undergrad and I was able to study abroad and I came across Salvador, Bahia, Brazil first. Bahia, Brazil was the Portuguese slave trade capital. The first slaves that... To my knowledge that are arrived in the Americas, like 1519 from the Portuguese was in Bahia, Brazil. That was for the first time where I felt most... I blended in. People assumed I was Brazilian. And once my Portuguese got good enough, I could get through a couple of sentences in a new place before someone was like, "Whoa, something's wrong."
Meanwhile, the majority of the white students in the program, they were getting pickpocketed or they were assumed to have wealth and were bothered or they couldn't access certain spaces and feel comfortable, that was extremely eye-opening. What actually took me to Panama was I got an internship with the Smithsonian Institute based in Panama City. They've got this Tropical Research Institute and that's what took me to Panama. But going to Panama made me realize how rich the Afro-Latino crossover and roots really are. In fact, if you go essentially anywhere in central America, South America, at least on the Gulf and the Atlantic Coast, black people can blend in.
Faith E. Briggs: My experience in Panama was my first time leaving the country. I'm biracial, my dad's black, my mom's white. But I always, always have this question, "What are you? What are you? What are you?" Particularly from white people, "What are you?" So I feel like when I was growing up, I always had to explain my existence. And in Panama they were like, "Oh, she's from [inaudible 00:12:12]," like the Afro-Latino area, she must be from there. It was interesting because even though it was wrong, it was incorrect, it felt so good to have someone just think I belonged.
Gabriel Patters...: I agree. When I came back, when I came to Davis which was almost directly after nine months in Rio, when people were asking me like where I was from, I had this Brazilian heartbeats still rolling through me. I don't know, I must've said things, but people thought I was from Brazil or something. And at the time I still had dreadlocks, which I think we should talk about what that-
Faith E. Briggs: Totally.
Gabriel Patters...: ...what that means. Let's just go to hair real quick.
Faith E. Briggs: Let's go to hair.
Gabriel Patters...: For people of mixed African ancestry, hair is one way to link to the culture. I felt insecure most of my life about where I fit because for a lot of reasons, but my hair was a way for me to assert to people where I belong.
Faith E. Briggs: Same. Same. Cause I was just based on the texture of my hair. And it's so interesting to what you say because I felt like before I dreaded my hair, it was as if my hair outed me. If people could look at my curly hair and look at the texture of my hair and be like, "Oh, she's not really black. She's [inaudible 00:13:48] hair, she's got a nice hair. She's got good hair. She's not really black." I literally have had some walk off me and touch my hair and be like, "Oh, you got some engine in you?" Literally these are the things that are all caught up in just the way that your hair grows out of your head. And you're trying to navigate race and politics and just like being a fricking kid in high school. There's all stuff that's put on you. Do you feel like you knew that when you started them? When did you start blocking?
Gabriel Patters...: In 2006. I was in high school. I think I was 15 or so. I had afro for a long time. I had the afro pig with the black power fist on it. I would like religiously pick that out every morning and I'd go to school. And all my white and Latino friends would mess up my afro. In those days too, no one had any black exposure, even the white and Latino kids. Everything people knew or thought they knew about black people was from TV and movies and MTVs. So, my brothers and I didn't speak the part or dress the part, or we didn't have cornrows or whatever. There was constantly this challenging of authenticity. We were in DC for this NAACP convention and I saw more black people than I'd ever seen in my life and a lot of black men with dreadlocks.
I was super inspired and spoke to some people and they told me where to go. My dad and I went to this locktitian and she locked it up for the first time. And that's where it started 2006. Upon return to New Mexico, there was immediate affirmation from... in hindsight people I shouldn't have cared about, but Latin and white kids telling me, "Yo go pair." I feel like some kids said, "Finally, you're acting more black," or "You look more black," or something. I don't know, and I knew these things were fucked up then, but I don't know, high school is a fucked up place.
Faith E. Briggs: [crosstalk 00:16:05] We both cut ours. I cut mine in February of 2020.
Addie Thompson: You must've been year around. [inaudible 00:16:14]
Faith E. Briggs: When did you cut yours?
Gabriel Patters...: It was December 30th, 2019.
Faith E. Briggs: Wow! Some months apart. What has your experience been? I think what I've found for me is I didn't realize like what you said... I didn't realize what I was trying to do in terms of taking whatever kind of ownership around my own appearance and my own aesthetic and trying to assert my blackness. But I very much was doing that.
Gabriel Patters...: I feel, abroad when I was living in Brazil or in Panama, people will call me Rasta or Bob Marley or... I mean, and then there's also the dumb, negative parts where in Davis, where... or in California where weed is legal. I had this white dude come up to me, "Yo bro, where can I buy weed?" I'm like two things. One, I don't know, just because I have dreads, and two they were in California, there's a fucking dispensary down the street. Things like that would unfortunately happen, and maybe that happens predominantly in white spaces were like, "Oh, black dude dreadlocks. He knows where the shits at." So that was a negative experience that would happen that I thought was annoying and dumb. It wasn't the reason why I cut my hair. Basically, I kind of had like a crown on my head.
My locks were long enough. I started doing my hair into this bun that basically sat like vertically on top of my head. I used to rock it, hanging down the back. Then eventually I would put it up into this ball on the top of my head. I was very identifiable. I would walk with friends and people would stop me, who I didn't know would compliment me on my hair. We talk about locks. If I saw other black people with locks, we talk about like, "What are you putting your hair?" and "How do you lock them up?" So there was always a connection. There was connection and there was recognition and acknowledgement from all people. And there was also exotification, there was an experience where I felt that someone was interested in me because of my hair and my skin tone. And once they made that pretty known, it was a turnoff.
I don't know about you, but I always kind of dealt with my hair by talking about how I was going to cut it eventually because it's a lot of work and it costs a lot of money and I've driven a lot of miles to my one locktitian in Albuquerque, New Mexico. What was the main motivating thing was I didn't want to be recognized for my hair anymore. I felt like I was the guy with the dreads and while it was nice to be easily identifiable and acknowledged and all these things, I wanted to know that I was more than my hair basically. And I was ready for a change, I had locks for 14 years.
Faith E. Briggs: Wow. Well, I [Inaudible 00:19:21] I knew that this is the time which is I've been wanting to have also.
Gabriel Patters...: Totally.
Faith E. Briggs: Thank you for being just like, "Let's talk about the hair."
Let's talk about the Patagonia Capilene Air Hoody for a second, because it's like this soft textured base layer that basically allows you to feel like a furry protected turtle or something. When you put it on, you're like a baby kangaroo who is crawling into its mother's pouch and your world is now this soft, warm, happy place.
Addie Thompson: There's so many times where I look over at Faith and she's just on her computer with the hood pulled up around her face, working away, looking legitimately like a purple Teletubby.
Faith E. Briggs: Oh, totally. Even in public I can't actually care about how strange I look in that moment because I just feel so cozy. Like I have actually transformed myself into a baby koala bear and that's just my new normal. Yeah, the Patagonia Capilene Air Hoody, transform your world.
Addie Thompson: That is definitely not their slogan.
Faith E. Briggs: True. And maybe it should be-
Addie Thompson: Patagonia in the business of saving our home planet.
Faith E. Briggs: And being hella cozy while doing it.
Let's talk about the Merrill Moabs.
Addie Thompson: Moabs, the Moab Speed and the Moab Flight.
Faith E. Briggs: What do you like best about the shoes?
Addie Thompson: Okay. This is going to be me sounding like a Total Trail running nerd, but the lugs on both of these shoes are incredible.
Faith E. Briggs: Nerd out. Yes, please. What are lugs for our listeners who do not know?
Addie Thompson: They're like the spikes on the tread of the shoe.
Faith E. Briggs: Lugs matter so you don't slip and slide and still have grip on buried terrain.
Addie Thompson: So you agree?
Faith E. Briggs: Yes. The lugs on these make my heart sing. These shoes can tackle anything from soft PNW trail, even after a lovely PNW rain to scaling rocks and J Tree.
Addie Thompson: If you're in the market for trail running or hiking shoes, go grab yourself a pair of Merrell Moabs you can thank us later.
Gabe, we haven't talked about this yet, but I'm really curious to hear a little bit more about how you got into climbing in the first place. But also I played hockey growing up, but I'm a white girl from main and I'm based from Canada. You know what I mean? It was not so crazy that someone growing up very close to the Canadian border, who's also white myself would get into a sport like that. It is a very white sport. I think that's... I love hockey by the way, we can talk about that for a long time.
Gabriel Patters...: Totally. Totally.
Addie Thompson: Now I'm sort of thinking through all these different sports. So I'm just curious kind of like your perspective, your experience with that. And then of course also wanted to kind of hear even... Backing up a little bit, how you got into climbing, but the way it's just fascinating, that's what's coming up for me as we're talking about this. Realizing that there's so many different kinds of people that congregate around different sports and what does that access? And have they been invited and maybe there's a history there in certain ways that people have been invited in before. Then there's maybe ice hockey, which is maybe, [inaudible 00:22:43] I don't know. I don't know, but I loved it. I'd love to hear that experience that you had.
Gabriel Patters...: Real quick, Addie, you brought up ice hockey. So I want to talk to that. Our dad, he played hockey, he played I think lacrosse. He eventually played collegiate football, but in the military he hang glided as a hobby. He climbed a bunch of fourteeners with his close friend to this day. His name is AlphaGo Gomez. He's my godfather, Tio AlphaGo. The two of them, they would do all these fourteeners in Colorado. I don't know if they done them all, but when kids in high school were talking shit to us about what we should be and what we shouldn't be doing. Eventually it got to me and cause we... They're like, "You guys are black, can you play soccer and hockey?" We used to be playing football and basketball, and that got to me.
I went out for the basketball off season and I was horrible, trying to hit a layup from the three point line, which doesn't work. I was this bullshit, I'm going to do what makes me feel good and what I'm passionate about. I think both parents for sure were inspirations to go against the grain. Even then, and now when I think about why I telemark, why climb, why I used to play hockey was... the first part was because I genuinely enjoy it. And I think hockey is actually one of the most amazing sports out there. You have to be able to skate and you had to skate backwards and you have to stick candle and-
Addie Thompson: There's a lot going on and you have to learn all of it.
Gabriel Patters...: There's a lot going on.
Addie Thompson: Exactly.
Gabriel Patters...: It's incredible and it's amazing to see that hockey is actually becoming more diverse too. I think it's beginning in Canada, you're having a more diverse set of people starting to play.
Addie Thompson: I think the word should is so powerful. I mean, it's just incredibly prescriptive. And I say either, "Don't shoot on yourself," or... I say it to myself and I say it to other people. What you just said is a should in a racist context as, "Oh, you shouldn't do this." It's prescriptive with deeply racist roots and I was just wondering if you've ever felt that or ever experienced that when getting into climbing?
Gabriel Patters...: For climbing and skiing in the past, I would go to groups of black people who don't do it. And they would even... There was incredible backlash from them as well, which was hard to hear of black people don't do that. So there's these crazy cultural barriers in expectations that are coming from both sides. I don't think that any non-black people ever told me that I couldn't climb or that I shouldn't climb. But I always felt like I had to prove myself when at a new gym or there was kind of people's language or in how they looked at me or, or the comments that they said that there was a surprise that I could climb to the level that I could, or that I knew I was doing. But never had anyone tell me that I shouldn't be doing this.
Faith E. Briggs: Part of me not to be not optimistic. But part of me is well, you started climbing later and people learn their manners. They're not... They're more polite than kids are.
Gabriel Patters...: True.
Addie Thompson: Exactly.
Faith E. Briggs: Do you have any reflections on people's evolved sense of equity in the wake of the black lives matters uprising in 2020? Knowing that what has happened in those uprisings is very much related to the context of being in the middle of a pandemic as well.
Gabriel Patters...: I could be totally wrong, but I've been feeling things feel dangerous or people are more motivated to like inflict harm or something. When Trump lost that day, I was telling Megan, "Careful." I don't know if I want to go outside, people are going to be doing dumb shit and maybe there's going to be retaliation. Going to these spaces feels more like, am I putting myself in danger? Are we a target? We... Megan and I got out on new year's day. We went to Auburn. Anytime you leave this city and go to rural spaces, there's a reality that I think sinks in, politically views change and all these things. So we roll into Auburn and we see big trucks and lifted jeeps with blue lives matter flags, stickers on them and all these things.
It made me feel even more kind of nervous and head on a swivel. And it makes you think that potentially now more than before, going to these spaces might be more difficult for some people because they know that half the country and especially in these rural areas, people were pro-Trump and it just feels like things are so polarized and tense. When I was filling up gas at this gas station, I'm kind of looking around, kind of sizing people up or looking at them like, are they a threat or do they threatened by me? So there's all this heightened stuff, and maybe it's me overreacting. I don't know.
But I feel like I'm more conscious of going into these spaces now than I was when I was in college, for example, where the majority of my friends, who I was learning how to climb with were all white. We were going to these spaces together and maybe that was insulation and backup. But at the same time, all of these protests have made me more curious about my white friends. Just because you're liberal and you went to this hippie school and whatever. Where do you actually stand, and kind of wanting to hear from them like they have the same beliefs that I do. And when I don't hear that from them, it's definitely been frustrating.
Faith E. Briggs: Yeah. I would agree. It's felt high and then it's true that the interesting thing about in the pandemic having to do more things on our own, having things in smaller groups, maybe our pod is one group of people, but it's not our climbing friends or it's not our running friends. So is it safe to go to some of these places where it may be there was a reason why we're going in numbers, whether or not we were conscious of it? I think being a leader and the outdoor as someone who is seen in that way. For you, does that come naturally to you? Have you felt like you've had to muster it up and step into a place based on that, seeing other people and wanting to be an example? Are you kind of like, "I'm ready for this. I can do this." Or kind of like, "Okay!" How does occupying this space feel for you?
Gabriel Patters...: It feels comfortable, generally. A friend of mine, Steven Herrera from New Mexico, he'll remind me of when we were in middle school during black history month, I would bring some info. Each day at lunchtime, I'd sit my friends down and I read them like that on this day and 1960 something, this person did this thing. So I think that I've always been passionate about bringing awareness of historical black events or what black people are doing to the spaces that I occupy because it's important.
Representation is always been super important for me, whether it's me doing it by default because I'm in that space or wanting other people to know that I'm not the only one doing this. There's mad of other people doing it, that black people do this, it's not a white person thing, et cetera. I think when it came to Soul Ascension, it was a natural progression of things. At the end of the day, what I've decided when it comes to Soul Ascension Crew is if I can impact one person, if I can take a black student from UC Davis or... We had this event with the boys and girls club, where we brought a bunch of kids in from Sacramento where I think there was one kid who was white, the majority were black and Latino. So if I can affect one person that's what's important to me now.
Addie Thompson: Gabe, your spirit is so unique and both of us are honored to have had that conversation with you. Thank you.
Faith E. Briggs: To learn more about Gabe and his work. You can follow him on Instagram @gabrel_dixon, that's Gabriel, without the i. We love the article featuring him on Melanin Base Camp, check them out if you aren't familiar. We'll link to that and other relevant topics to this episode in the show notes and on our website, thislanddoc.com/thetrailahead.
Addie Thompson: The trail ahead is created and hosted by us, Faith E. Briggs and Addie Thompson. It's produced by Lantigua Williams & Co. Jen Chien is our editor. Elizabeth Nakano is our producer. Sound design and feed music by Cedric Wilson.
Faith E. Briggs: Our podcast art is by Shar Tuiasoa, check her out on Instagram @punkyaloha. Special thanks to our amazing teams from Merrell, Adam Kepfer, Lauren King, Will Pray and from Patagonia, Bianca Botta, Sasha Tenidy, Clare Gallagher and Whitney Clapper.
Addie Thompson: Big thanks also to Trail Butter and Outdoorsy. And thanks to our team on the visual side, Tyler Wilkinson Ray, Fred Gores and Monica Medellin. Thank you for listening and for spreading the word. Follow The Trail Ahead on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. See you next episode.