There was no grand plan, Hogg tells me: “We just found the stick funny, but also knew, between us, what made it a good stick.” Arches national park is known for its pinyon pines and junipers, but the stick’s provenance wasn’t the point.
Growing up in the countryside, I had long been desensitised to the joys of sticks: of sword-fighting with them, playing wizards or witches, or Pooh Sticks, and the ease with which you can overwrite a stick’s purpose every time you pick it up to play.
The early stick videos have a bro-like flavour: face to camera, generic “gym rock” soundtrack, the stick’s rating scrawled in a Brat-green Fetching font.
“I imagine we’ve seen more sticks than anyone else in the world and all I can say is that no two sticks are alike,” says Hogg.
It was late summer 2023 and two friends, Boone Hogg and Logan Jugler, both 31, were on a late summer hike heading towards Delicate Arch, a 16m red rock formation in Utah’s Arches national park, when Jugler spotted it on the ground.
