Transcript
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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?
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Meet Shelby Treichler, the force behind Cactus to Pine.
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Shelby's journey began with burnout and a high-paced career and evolved into creating innovative, sustainable products from discarded climbing gear.
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Each piece that she creates tells a story of adventure, community and ecological mindfulness.
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Creates tells a story of adventure, community and ecological mindfulness.
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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.
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Shelby travels across the US, connecting with climbers at festivals and crafting pieces that breathe life into places and people she encounters.
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So, whether you're curious about upcycling inspired by nomadic adventures or just love a good story about following passions, stick around.
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Shelby's insights into building a sustainable, purpose-driven business might just spark your next creative idea.
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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.
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My name is Mike Andrus, the host of Exploration Local.
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Join us on our journey to explore these mountains and discover how they fuel the spirit of adventure.
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We encourage you to wander far, but explore local.
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Let's go Well.
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I'm excited to have Shelby Treichler in the studio today.
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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.
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Shelby, welcome to the show.
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Hi, thanks so much for having me.
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Really really cool company.
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You're doing some amazing things.
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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.
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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.
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So I started working in the film industry even before I got out of college and it was my dream job.
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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.
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But I got on some big shows and it was going great, except for I was starting to get a little burned out.
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I loved the work that I was doing, but the hours are really hard.
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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.
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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.
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I liked going to travel to be able to hike and loved road tripping to different national parks around the country.
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But I didn't have this connection to the land quite yet, and that's what rock climbing gave me.
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So I started rock climbing in Atlanta, georgia, in like 2018.
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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.
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Blah for me.
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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.
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So it started with just a couple of stickers.
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I was doing a bit of graphic design for the film industry.
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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?
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I'll pay you for them.
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And I was like what Money?
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You'll give me money for these.
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I didn't know anything about running a business.
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I didn't know anything about how to price things or profit margins or revenue or anything like that.
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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.
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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.
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And I was like what are you doing?
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Like why are you throwing the rope away?
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And they're like well, liability, blah, blah, blah.
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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.
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And I just I always liked making things and the idea of just throwing rope away.
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I was like no, don't do that.
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Like, just give it to me, I'll destroy it by by creating something out of it.
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And I Googled, like what do people do with old rock climbing rope?
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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.
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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.
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And they show the pattern, the over under woven pattern.
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And I made one of those rugs and I was like, oh, I hate this.
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It's really hard, especially if you're doing with all one rope.
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It's almost 50 meters of rope, you're pulling it through.
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So much friction and I was just like I don't like doing this, so like, what else can I do?
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And posted in 2015 on how to make this rope bottle holder.
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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.
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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.
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I drink everything out of a mason jar.
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I like carrying them around.
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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.
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Well, there is, I guess, if you have some, some models of them.
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Yeah, or if you make your, yeah, yeah.
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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.
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That's so cool.
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Yeah.
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So in 2020, I had kind of been doing all these little things on the side.
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I was also like pouring candles and making these gear racks out of retired bolt hangers and the film industry shut down completely.
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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?
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So I was like you know what if I just threw myself all in and just see what I can do with this business?
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At the time I was also laser cutting.
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I had bought a laser cutter and was like learning how to laser cut.
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So I also had this other kind of like weird business where I was making trellises for indoor plants.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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But mid 2021, I was doing pretty good with it.
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So I decided to sell my house in Atlanta.
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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.
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Just recently came back to the Asheville area.
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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.
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Yeah, my woodworking tools were stored and there's this one exterior panel that you could get to through the outside of the camper.
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That was all my woodworking tools, all the rope.
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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.
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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.
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That's cool, and at that time, what were the things you were selling?
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Was it still the stickers?
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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.
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Yeah, the stickers.
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I still everything that I've made.
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I still sell some version of it.
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Mostly like at the very beginning I was doing like t-shirts with the designs, but t-shirts are hard and I've mostly.
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I still do the sticker designs.
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But I haven't released a new sticker design in a while, just because I'm kind of moving away from it.
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But the big thing has been just how fun it is to work with these ropes.
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It's such an interesting medium.
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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.
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And then, as like the business is growing, I'm also just the quantity that I'm putting out is crazy right now.
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So I'm having to.
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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.
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But yeah, all through this whole time it's been.
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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.
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Oh, that's so cool.
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That's so cool.
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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?
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So we've got stickers, we've got the koozies, we've got some art.
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Is there anything else that you're doing in there as well?
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Yeah, so I do have a climber candle line Yep, a scent sense is what I call it.
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So for those I do research on flowers and trees that grow in different crags around the country.
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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.
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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.
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So that's been really fun.
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Give us a visual of of this mason jar and of this koozie that's going around.
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I've seen them in person.
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I've seen, in fact, I think the first place I saw them was um wrong way campground.
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Yeah, that's where I saw it, on their little kiosk.
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They were the first people to carry me.
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Oh, no way, yeah, yeah, okay, good, I met them at the Get In Gear Festival.
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Nice.
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And Joe came up and was like I got to have them you know, oh good, good good.
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Yeah, standard cozy as we call it, because the other version which I slip into sometimes is actually trademarked.
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So a can cozy insulated beverage holder.
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I use a single piece of rope.
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It takes 11 feet of rope to make one can cozy.
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No way.
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Yeah, which most people don't think, because it's like yay, big, you know.
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So just slightly smaller than a can.
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But one of the things I really like about my design is I never want you to see where the rope begins or ends.
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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.
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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.
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So you don't see where the rope ends unless you look inside, and then you can see.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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No, that like what.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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They'll take like PVC pipe and attach bristles to the inside and run the rope through it.
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And that's how initially I was doing it.
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I was hand washing every rope.
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You had some shoulders and back and biceps, didn't you?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It was harder to dry them because they were very condensed at that point.
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And this is all.
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The whole process has been documented on.
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I share everything about my business on.
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Instagram.
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The high highs and the low lows of just watching this process of figuring this stuff out.
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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.
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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.
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I had never thought about it for ropes.
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Electrical cables like from set and stuff like that.
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I had never thought about it for ropes.
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But a lot of people who do like search and rescue or firemen say that that's how they would.
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You know, they would daisy chain them and then hang them to dry.
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Okay.
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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.
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So when I get the ropes they're always dirty.
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I always daisy chain them, wash them, air dry them if I can.
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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.
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Oh wow, what a process.
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It is, but it's also a lot of times I get the ropes kind of for free.
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I'm not buying them, I'm not buying my materials, I do a trade.
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So for me it's always been really important that my business is not relying on donations from people.
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It's a mutually beneficial thing.
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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.
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Or climbers can be like oh, I got my first whip on this, or I got my first trad lead on this.
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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.
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Oh, that's so cool.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I love that.
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Well, so how many stores have you been able to get yourself Because you can buy this online?
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Right now, you can buy this from your website.
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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.
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I had a couple I have like.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I sell in person at certain events and markets and then right now, last time I checked, I was in 92 wholesalers or retailers.
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And, as an artist, you're probably always thinking about what I can do next.
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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?
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The big thing right now that I'm kind of leaning into is like more of an educational thing.
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I've started hosting a lot of workshops and the idea is one still trying to support myself.
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As you know, this is my full time income, but trying to inspire more people to upcycling is like a muscle.
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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.
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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.
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But then I encourage them to be kind of as artistic as they want If they want to imagine a different handle on it.
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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.
00:18:48.086 --> 00:18:48.887
Oh, that is so cool.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, and that's been popular so far.
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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?
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Out in the community.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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But I'm not a good climber and, honestly, I'm not really trying to get better at climbing just enjoy it.
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I'm a five fun climber.
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I bring the beer and I bring the stoke.
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Is what?
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I say hey, yeah, you need it.
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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.
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So I still love doing it.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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And I was like what if we just have like a crafting afternoon?
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And I pitched the workshop and they were down.
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They were so supportive, so I bring all the materials and the instructions.
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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.
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So I was just rapidly cutting more rope and filling more glue bottles so, as people wanted to join in cause.
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It looks fun, and so that was really cool.
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And so since then I've taught maybe 10 of them.
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I've done yeah, I've done collaborations with gyms.
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Riveter Gym here in Asheville has hosted me for a workshop.
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Gyms out in Chattanooga I've done a collaboration with um.
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There's a chattanooga their, their outdoor recreation group, um, like get outside type thing, they hosted a workshop.
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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.
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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.
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So that's so cool.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So it's, it's, it's starting right now.
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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.
00:21:40.451 --> 00:21:40.770
Cool.
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Have you ever thought?
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I'm sure you have.
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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.
