In this day and age of technological breakthroughs, everyone would agree that it has its impact. One of the activities that people who go through this detox can engage in is exploring the great outdoors like hiking, mountain climbing, or trekking. But, what are the other things that these activities bring into the community?
Oso Adventure Meals Co-Founder Felipe Vieyra delves into bringing people from different colors together through going outdoor activities and adventures complemented with delicious adventure meals.
Their mission is to provide outdoor food and beverage with uniquely delicious dehydrated meals They are actively working to create an outdoor culture in which BIPOC feels included, safe, and engaged. As a Black and Latino-owned business, Oso Adventure Meals is dedicated to creating a more just, equitable, and sustainable America.
To learn more about what they do, listen to this podcast on Actions Antidote!
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Bringing the Community Together Through Outdoor Adventures with Felipe Vieyra
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, we’re going to talk about the intersection of culture, adventure, and close encounters with wildlife with Oso Adventure Meals founder, Felipe Vierya.
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Felipe, welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me, Stephen. Really excited to dive into this conversation.
Definitely. Now, these are some very interesting topics and one thing that I love to always identify out here in this podcast is ways to think outside the box and ways to think about things a little bit differently. And so, you were on a backpacking trip of sorts when you came up with the idea for Oso Adventure Meals.
That’s right. That’s right. It was two years ago, right outside of Leadville, Colorado, and I had gotten into backpacking so it wasn’t my first time out in the backcountry but it was the first time for one of my best friends, he had never gone backpacking but he loved the outdoors. We decided to go backpacking and we did Jasper Lake Trail, I believe it’s called, and so it was super fun. It was definitely a journey that set us up for an even longer journey of entrepreneurship and food and culture and all the things that you named.
Yeah, for sure, and so most people go on backpacking trips, especially, it’s your first time, it sounds like it wasn’t your first time but it was your friend’s first time and you’re just really focused on some of the basic necessities of life that we often take for granted, like you have to pump the water to get fresh water, you have to set up the tent in every spot to get your shelter and make sure that you get in before the thunderstorms happen, depending on what time of year it is. At the time, though, you were coming up with ideas for a whole new business.
It’s funny, though, because it was few mishaps. First off, it was like later in the summer too so it was a little — or in the fall, I mean. It was a little like it was a bit of a gamble getting out there and we also started on the trail late, we ended up going to Leadville and stopping for a beer, had —
Oh, wow.
I forgot the brewery and we ended up stopping for beer and stayed there a little too long and so we got on the trail a little late. It was also a very steep trail. At some point, I remember grabbing my headlamp and my extra one, me putting one on and handing the other one to my friend because we were hiking in the middle of the night.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, trying to make it to the top and it was his first time so he was like a little anxious. He’s like, “Oh, there’s gonna be a mountain lion right around the corner. This is never ending,” and so it was definitely an adventurous experience, but I feel like that’s what life is about. We finally make it to the top, we pitch our tents, and we’re both exhausted and hungry. We sit down after pitching up our tents, boiled some water and I had some Legacy Mountain House backpacking food, I believe it was beef stroganoff. It wasn’t my first foray into backcountry meals. It was his, though, and so he was like, “What is this? This is so bland. Is this all you brought for us and this is all you have to give us after this like exhausting 15-mile hike in the middle of the dark?” and so, just sitting there, though, we just started talking about the importance of food for us growing up and our abuelita’s cooking and just like what food means for us as folks of color and then also too like what being in the outdoors means for us as well as two men of color from low-income backgrounds and it got us having a really good conversation about, again, food culture and just like what does it mean to claim space in the outdoors.
Yeah, for sure, and then so your community has not always been represented as much in the outdoor community. What’s the background behind that? Is it mostly about the low income and that it’s mostly accessible only to richer people or is it mostly about the racial ethnic aspect of it?
Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s a mix of a few things.
For us, it did start with representation. Click To Tweet
I think it did start with “Are we visible in the outdoors?” and, it’s funny, in the last few weeks, we’ve been doing a lot of like — we just hired a marketing consultant and we’ve been diving into our pitch deck and materials and such and she was like, “You know how hard it is to find stock pictures of kids of color in the outdoors?”
Oh, wow.
She’s like, “It’s non-existent,” and so I think that just gives an example of like representation is an issue. It’s also historically been a combination of economic inequality, legalized segregation, and other forms of historical present day over covert racial inequities that has perpetuated a diversity gap in the outdoors.
For example, a lot of communities of color are far from access to mountains. Redlining had a lot to do with that too. So it’s a combination. It’s a combination of policy, of access, of representation, of economic barriers to the outdoors.
Although some people who are from, say, a quite wealthy background might see a backpacking trip or even a camping trip is a relatively inexpensive activity and it is compared to, say, golfing or equestrian events, it still takes access to a vehicle to drive up to the mountains, that vehicle has to be a four-wheel drive to get to a lot of places you want to and you have to have the time to say, “I’m not gonna work today, I’m gonna spend,” as I did earlier this year, “three days up in the mountains,” just whatever, building tents, backpacking, you’re not earning any money then.
I think you hit it on the nail, like cost of camping gear, there’s entrance fees, lack of vacation days, unpaid leave, and other factors make it difficult for families to participate in the outdoor recreation space, particularly BIPOC individuals who are more likely to face a lot of these economic barriers, and so I think you were spot on on that.
Yeah. So you’re at least in the place right now where you were able to go up to Leadville and just for the reference for anyone listening that doesn’t live in Colorado, Leadville is pretty much right in the dead center of the state and it’s also pretty high up, it’s a town at 10,200 feet in elevation so it’s pretty high up, there’s a lot of stuff, but you were able to get there. What did you need to do to get to the point where you could comfortably take a couple of days and go in the mountains with your friends without having to worry about that that’s a day’s lost income or that’s whatever?
Yeah, that’s a great question. And, by the way, for folks listening, Leadville’s beautiful and so I encourage folks to visit but I would say, for me, I think it’s been a journey, for sure. I’m originally from Mexico and came to the States undocumented and grew up in northern Colorado in Fort Morgan, northeast plains of Colorado, pretty far away from mountains. Both of my parents worked at the meatpacking plants and worked overtime and so we as a family didn’t really have time to experience the outdoors for many years. We went through a lot of hardships as a low-income family and eventually moved to Greeley, Colorado, and so it was when we were in Greeley that we would venture into the outdoors a bit more, Estes Park, which is another very beautiful place in Colorado, was a lot closer, it’s like I would say like a 45-minute drive from Greeley and so we would drive from Greeley to Estes Park and just go and walk the Main Street and then go get Kentucky Fried Chicken, go picnic right next to the Big Thompson River and so that was my intro to the outdoors and it was such a place of comfort for my family, a time for us to really just build with each other, be with each other, given my parents were both working so much during the week and so — and even when I went to college, I went to the University of Denver and I was around so much wealth and privilege and I think I went snowboarding once in my four years and it was such a normal thing for people to do and it was really from a place of like I didn’t have the money to be able to go snowboard, I didn’t have the money for a snowboard, I didn’t have the money for a pass. I also didn’t have a vehicle that — I was driving an old-school Mustang that my mom had given me, which was terrible in the snow, and so I couldn’t even imagine driving up I-70 in the middle of winter. And so I share that because it definitely has been a journey for me to be able to have the opportunity to say, “You know what, I’m gonna go to Leadville this weekend and go on a backpacking trip,” and so I think, through access to quality education, through mentors that had believed in me, through financial literacy, all those things have led for me to be able to have that option, to be able to say, “You know, I wanna spend my weekend in the outdoors,” and so not a lot of kids that share a similar background to me grow up having that option, if that makes sense.
No, that makes sense. It doesn’t seem accessible to everybody and not everyone has, it seems like what you said is, first of all, the parents that worked really hard to get you to where you were, you had some really good mentors, and then you eventually discovered the outdoors. Let’s start with the mentors because we’ve covered this a little bit in past podcast episodes. If someone’s in a place where they’re not sure where they’re going, what would you say would be a good place or a good way for someone to look to find a good quality mentor, to really be that person who’s already gone down that journey, to have that positive impact on their life?
My full-time work, my background is in education, advocacy, and community organizing, and, for me, I think it ties into playing to the strengths of students and what youth are most interested in. like I think every kid in the US is interested and passionate about either sports or extracurricular activities, from the arts, to literature, to even gaming. I think it’s like how do we play to their interest?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it’s interesting you bring up gaming because I think I’ve read a few recent articles that have pointed at this idea that video games might not be nearly as bad for someone as we previously had thought, and there’s obviously a way to take it to excess but that in some of these group gaming experiences, people are actually building relationships, building teamwork, learning how to compromise and coordinate with people to accomplish a mission.
Yeah. I think in my own experiences growing up, like I used to play a lot of Nintendo 64 and Super Nintendo and a lot of Gameboy games, and I think it kept me home and out of trouble. I don’t think they’re as bad as folks say. I think, like with anything, excess can be a bad thing.
Too much of something can be a bad thing, and I think it's finding that balance. Click To Tweet
And then your first family trip to Estes after moving to Greeley, was there a lightbulb moment where you suddenly just realized that the outdoors is something you wanted to be a major part of your life?
Yeah, it was definitely like, I think one of the fondest memories I have is the whole family just being outside like a picnic table and like all of us just being around each other and it was definitely at that time that I felt like, you know what, I really enjoy this and I love like — at the time, it was the connection I made was more around like public spaces, like I love public spaces, I love being outdoors, and because growing up, coming from a low-income immigrant family, my family didn’t really have money or resources to be able to give us opportunities to go to camp or to do youth sports competitively and I remember always watching TV and watching movies around like kids going to camp over the summer and never really wanting that, never really having access to it. And, for me, I think that moment and on the way to Estes Park, it made me realize that I love the outdoors and while my parents couldn’t afford to put me through camps or through youth sports, it was still love that was there and it more so showed up when I, like I mentioned, like in public spaces like our local park, I would spend hours at our local park just playing pickup soccer with neighborhood kids and it was so much fun, it was my favorite thing to do aside from like reading, my favorite thing to do was just go and be outside and go play soccer and it didn’t cost my family anything and so I really leaned into those opportunities to be outside.
Yeah. Oh, that’s amazing. It sounds like, as you became an adult, you continued to lean into those opportunities to be outside with this snowboarding and then, most recently, this backpacking trip with your friend to Leadville and you said this wasn’t your first backpacking trip, that you’ve done this a few times. Was there a transition from the public park playing pickup soccer to wanting to be all the way out there in these really remote places?
That’s a good question. There was. I think, like I mentioned earlier, it was a journey to be able to afford to have access to the outdoors and I think it just came with like having a reliable car and understanding how things worked. And, honestly, having good people around you to take you. The transition for me was like there was a moment in my life where I realized that I wasn’t saying yes to adventure, that I wasn’t saying yes to new experiences, and that was when, for me, a lightbulb turned on inside me and made me realize that I was denying myself all these potentially fun and adventurous opportunities by not saying yes to them and that was when I started saying yes to everything. I started saying yes to like, “Oh, wanna go ice climbing?” which is not something I would usually do, but like, sure, why not? Let’s do it, and said yes to like my first backpacking trip and said yes to rafting. And I think I didn’t realize that adventure was such a big part of my life. And so, yeah, so that’s how that transition happened. It was just like saying yes to new experiences and adventure.
I love that whole saying yes thing because that’s one of the easiest things. Of course, there are boundaries and there are times when people need to learn how to say no as well, but when you need to get out there and you need to experience new things, sometimes it’s trying a bunch of things and seeing what things you like, and if you try something you don’t like it, well, okay, then you just move on, you say, “Okay, I don’t wanna do it again and I’ll just try something else.”
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think there’s so much to experience in this grand old life that we have in front of us and so it’s like how do you not pigeonhole yourself into one thing, and I think that’s reflective of my experience with entrepreneurship and starting Oso was like I come from an advocacy policy community organizing background, hadn’t really ever thought of starting a business, but it made so much sense, like I was building something with people that I care deeply about and we’re friends and we like to have fun and share a similar perspective on life and who better to build something with than with those guys. I’ve been in this space where I want to lean into my culture, my Mexican culture, and I want to be able to share it with folks and what better way to do that than through food.
Yes, and trying this adventure of a whole different kind because, in a normal job, you’re on a different thought process. A normal job, you wait for the person above you, your boss, to tell you what you need to do or you try to find a procedure to figure out what you need to do. In entrepreneurship, it’s completely different. It’s like you’re needing to figure everything out. It’s way more creative but also you’re way more likely to have to do the whole process of like, marketing is a great example, “I tried this, it didn’t work. Now, I’m gonna try something else and maybe that’ll work differently.”
Yeah, exactly. I enjoy what I do in my full-time role, but I have so many other interests outside of it, like, as you can probably tell, I really love soccer and so I used to be a freelance writer for a soccer website called the18.com.
Oh, wow.
Based out of Boulder. They’re still doing some really awesome work. I wrote for them for a little over four years and it was such a fun experience. That’s an example of I said yes to this because, while it’s outside of my full-time role, it’s such a way to build my skills and also do it around something that I love, and so I think that’s always been like a theme of my work or of the things that I take on is like always tied to something that I love. I try.
I love this idea that people don’t have to just be one thing. People will say, “Here’s my name, here’s my job title,” and that tends to be, I guess, like more old school way of thinking about people, but we really are more than just our job titles. Even those of us who like and love our jobs, we still are going to have other interests and other things that we want to do. We’re not just one thing. That’s just people trying to come up with a really easy way to understand people without having to actually get to know them.
Exactly. I feel like people are multidimensional and it’s like, traditionally, the way the world has worked, you’re expected to be a square and fit into like a square space and that’s it. I think it’s like we are more complex than we give ourselves credit for and I think we live in a more open world where people are just doing some really cool stuff.
And speaking of doing some really cool stuff, so you were up there, you went 15 miles from Leadville, it was like the middle of the night, and you and your friend were eating some kind of beef stroganoff and you decided this was just not working for you, this was just not what you wanted to be putting into your mouth despite being so hungry from that whole uphill hike.
We were so hungry and decided not to eat the rest of the meals that we had brought in. My friend was like, “What do I do with the food?” and I told him, “Go find a tree and take this rope and then go toss the food bag over, or toss a rock over a branch, that’s like X feet be stretched out from the tree and then hang the food,” and he went and did that and then we both went to sleep. And then the very next morning, we find that the bag is gone. It took us a bit to find the bag but we found it and it was torn to bits. And, yeah, and we were like, “Well, I guess that bear did not approve that food either.” But it’s a really funny story because like, right now, in our packaging, it says, “Oso approved” or bear approved. I think it’s a preview of where our name came from. And then the entire way back, the fun part of backpacking is mostly talking about figuring what you’re going to eat when you get home and so the entire way back, we were talking about how bland that beef stroganoff was and also all the great food that we were going to eat when we got home and then it led us to talk about — continue the conversation around Mexican food and Latin food and what would it look like to bring Latin food into the backcountry, and from there, two years later, we have Oso Adventure Meals. And so it’s been a fun journey.
Sounds like an amazing journey. Oso Adventure Meals, named after the very animal that also rejected the same bland food that you rejected, it sounds like, which is —
Exactly, exactly.
— utterly hilarious. And anyone out there that’s been backpacking before, you know that whole kind of last day of the journey when you’re just walking back and it’s just miles and miles of walking, there’s no more supplies to anticipate, you’re not anticipating the next view, and that’s oftentimes when you have either a deeper spiritual experience or deeper conversations amongst people, a lot of interesting things. It was actually on a trip like that when I finally decided to start this podcast, a similar day like that about a little over two years ago, so definitely resonate with that experience. And so you were walking back and you talked about, you said, “You know, yeah, there should be better food that’s at least good enough for the bears, those osos out there.” So what did you do next with that idea? How did you envision it? Did it take a little while to figure out how you want to package it, how you wanted to put it together and what the heck you were doing as first-time entrepreneurs?
Yeah. I think the next step was like sharing our idea with my brother, Marcos, and then with my friend, Connor, and so from there, just like the seed grew. We went from it just been an idea that Dom and I had on a backpacking trip to sitting down and talking through like what could this actually look like and then diving into some of like brother and I’s roots from Michoacan and my abuelita’s recipes and just like this would actually be super cool to build and share with folks and we landed on Huevos Rancheros and Veggie Enchilada Bowl and Carnitas Enchilada Bowl and Posole and, from there, also lean into why do we want to do this, what are our values and what’s the problem that we’re trying to solve. And so we’re trying to solve for — to bring tasty, delicious Latin food to the backcountry and, through that, diversify the outdoors through food. From there, launched a Kickstarter and raised over $20,000 on Kickstarter with over 270 folks supporting us and went into production in the summer of 2021 and then started selling on our website and doing accelerator programs. We won third place in Denver Startup Week 2021, Denver Startup Week BIPOC Pitch competition, and then have also been featured in some media outlets and it’s been a really fun journey. It’s been also some peaks and valleys too from being out of stock and not being able to fulfill some orders and then —
Every experience will have that, for sure.
Yeah. And just like figuring out our distribution process and figuring out how to best work with friends and family and hold each other accountable and then also balance having a full-time job. So it’s been a journey but it’s been fun.
So I’m curious about that balance between having a full-time job because I think there are traditional, I’m putting this in quotes, “traditional,” whatever you want to call it, because if you really want to go traditional, it’s agrarian, but our standard 20th century work culture oftentimes would frown upon the idea of working a full-time job but also starting a business. But, nowadays, it seems like for a lot of people, that’s the only real path for someone to find fulfillment, because you have to keep the lights on so you have to have a full-time job, and, sometimes, that full-time job will be enough but sometimes it won’t be. The price of housing has become insane for a lot of people and sometimes other things are going to find your fulfillment. So, how do you find that balance and are people on all ends treating you with any kind of suspicion? The whole idea like from Shark Tank when people are like, “I don’t like the idea that you’re also doing this, you have another…”
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s a great question. I think what I have found is that, because I’m doing work in spaces that I’m super passionate about, like I’m super passionate about education, equity, and organizing and advocacy, I’m also grateful to have been in organizations that care less about maintaining and uplifting traditional systems of employment, I’m grateful to have been in spaces where my employers just cared deeply about is the work getting done and is the quality of the work good, great, and so that’s what they care about, it’s less about like, “Are you at the office?”
Yeah, are you present, like I’ve said this to so many people before, like it’s what work is getting done and what impact you’re having at your job is way more important than whether or not your ass is in a chair for eight hours in a certain spot and I think people are starting to realize that, even though there is some resistance in some corners.
Definitely. I think it also depends on the organizations. I think I had a friend, he was at a city agency here in Colorado and they were like, “Oh, like, we have a hybrid model. Come to the office,” he was hired and this is what he was told during the hiring process, like, “Oh, we have a hybrid process, come to the office twice a week.” He got hired and then it was like, “Oh, no, we want you at the office every single day,” and his point was like, “I understand that, I’m not happy to come, but why? We’re living in a new world, I just want more intentionality with if you’re gonna ask me to come to the office for you to just walk by and like wave?”
Yeah.
That doesn’t make sense to me, like are we going to have team meetings? Are we going to be connecting with partners? It was such a good point. It’s like we’re in a different professional world where it’s like make it sense for folks that are working those kinds of roles to be — I don’t know if that makes sense.
Well, no, I think it makes sense because we’re kind of in this process of a major debate over work culture and I’m sure there’s a lot of people who saw the pandemic disrupt it and really all they want is to just go back to what they knew, what they were comfortable with, sometimes for decades or more before the pandemic hit, and I think what a lot of people are asking, it’s not really about a specific solution, it’s about explaining why, the intentionality of saying like if we’re going to have this policy, what’s the reason for it? What did we accomplish? And then asking is there another way to accomplish that thing, because one of the things I’ve observed with some of the more remote work that we see is that people can do things like cook better meals at home than the ones you’re going to get, either whether it be less calories or whether you want to set aside an hour to actually cook what you have, or go for a bike ride or do some of these other things that can lead to a healthier and a happier life and have the energy to pursue some things because I think people are sometimes scared that if you’re doing two things or three things or five things, whatever, that you’re going to either burn out or you’re not going to be committed to something. But what it sounds like you’re also saying is that if you’re doing things that drive you, that bring you joy, I’ve observed myself in my own life and in others that someone can be working 30 hours a week and be burnt out because it’s draining work and someone can be working 60 hours a week but be totally fulfilled and totally energetic because everything they do is a good reflection of who they are, what they care about, and the kinds of tasks that really come naturally to them.
Exactly. I think that’s it, Stephen.
I think that's what life is about. It's leaning into that purpose that is true for you. Click To Tweet
The last two things I’ll add is like being an immigrant and like coming from an immigrant background, someone that’s always inspired me is my mom and she’s always been a hustler from like — she used to work in the meatpacking plant in Fort Morgan but then she would also run her own catering, she would make meals for workers that were adjacent to the meatpacking plant that worked at a carpentry and she would always roll over and have hot lunches for folks that she would sell. And so I think that’s where it also comes from is like her being inspiring, and then the last thing I was going to say is I think it’s — I can’t remember the last thing, but this was great.
Well, there’s one other thing I do want to ask from you because we Coloradans and people in other parts of the country as well, we adventurer at any particular time of the year. So, if someone is listening to this podcast and they want to get some non-bland food for their next backpacking trip or next adventure, how would someone find Oso Adventure Meals? What’s the website? What’s the best way to order some?
Yeah, great question. And, Stephen, this has been a wonderful time, I really appreciate you again for giving me the chance to share more about myself and also for folks that are ready to hit the trails and go camping, backpacking, you can snatch some of our meals from our website, going to osomeals.com. You’re also more than welcome to follow us on our Instagram account, @osoadventuremeals. We also lean into the storytelling of adventure and so we would love for you all to share some of your adventures as well by sending them to our Instagram account. But, yeah, grab some meals at osomeals.com.
I often do get them myself and just in case anyone out here is really, really bad at Spanish, oso is simply spelled O-S-O.
Sorry.
No, I mean, I’m just — I actually just thought about that at the very end. Sometimes I take for granted knowing some things that a lot of people don’t, in case someone just doesn’t really know. Oso, the Spanish of bear, in case it’s not obvious from the context of the conversation. And so it’s osomeals.com. Felipe, thank you so much for joining on the podcast, for telling this great story about having a great mother, great example, leaning into some great adventures, and being open and having some great conversations with people and saying yes to things, a lot of the lessons that anyone out there listening can take into their own journeys. And I would also like to thank all the listeners out there, everyone that’s tuned in, anyone that’s tuned into any of my other 72 podcasts before this or anyone that will tune into some others, and encouraging you to keep tuning into Action’s Antidotes to hear more wonderful stories about people who are bringing about change to the world and also bringing up the life that they want to be living because, in the end, that’s what we’re all trying to get at is doing something that makes sense for me and I’m doing something that I feel proud of.
Exactly. Exactly, Stephen. Thank you again so much and thank you to the listeners and, yeah, appreciate you all.
All right. Have a wonderful day, everybody.
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About Felipe Vieyra
Felipe Vieyra is the Co-Founder of Oso Adventure Meals. An outdoor food and beverage company with the mission to diversify the outdoors through delicious, spicy and authentic latin food. He is originally from Morelia Michoacan Mexico but has lived in Colorado since he was 4. He volunteers his time on numerous nonprofit boards like Western Resource Advocates, Great Education Colorado and The Nature Conservancy 13er Advisory Board. His background is in advocacy and community organizing, specifically around educational equity issues. He loves to spend time coaching and playing soccer, spending time in the outdoors with friends and family.