In this episode, we sit down and talk with AMGA guide Joshua Reinig. I met Josh about 7 years ago when I first started climbing. His immediate willingness to share his knowledge and stoke helped shape me into the climber I am today. Throughout his climbing career, Josh has led over 6000 guided trips, established over 2000 first ascents, and is currently in the top 25 all-time contributors to Mountain Project. His deep excitement for climbing and passion for sharing it is contagious energy to everyone around him. In this 2.5-hour conversation, we talk about Josh’s past and how he came to be an AMGA guide involving a freak accident that almost cost him his life. We dive deep into what it means to be a mentor, explain how to manage fear & risk, go over the ethics behind the creation of first ascents, and finally talk about Josh’s most recent undertaking, the creation of the Mt. Whitney Climbing Ranch.
In this episode, we sit down and talk with AMGA guide Joshua Reinig. I met Josh about 7 years ago when I first started climbing. His immediate willingness to share his knowledge and stoke helped shape me into the climber I am today. Throughout his climbing career, Josh has led over 6000 guided trips, established over 2000 first ascents, and is currently in the top 25 all-time contributors to Mountain Project. His deep excitement for climbing and passion for sharing it is contagious energy to everyone around him. In this 2.5-hour conversation, we talk about Josh’s past and how he came to be an AMGA guide involving a freak accident that almost cost him his life. We dive deep into what it means to be a mentor, explain how to manage fear & risk, go over the ethics behind the creation of first ascents, and finally talk about Josh’s most recent undertaking, the creation of the Mt. Whitney Climbing Ranch.
00:00:00:19 - 00:00:21:07
Speaker 1
Here. We want Kyle here. Climbing majority. First off, just want to thank you all for subscribing and listening to our podcast. We've also been seeing great reviews and ratings start to pop up on Spotify and Apple. This means so much to us and helps keep the fire going for this project. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:22:04 - 00:00:48:03
Speaker 1
In this episode, we sit down and talk with Amg's guide Joshua Reineke. I met Josh about seven years ago when I first started climbing. His immediate willingness to share his knowledge and stoke helped shape me into the climber that I am today. Throughout his climbing career, Josh has led over 6000 guided trips, established over 2,001st descents, and is currently in the top 25 all time contributors to Mountain Project.
00:00:49:07 - 00:01:07:14
Speaker 1
His deep excitement for climbing and passion for sharing it is a contagious energy to everyone around him. In this two and a half hour conversation, we talk about Josh's past and how he came to be an AMG guide involving a freak accident that almost cost him his life. We dove deep into what it means to be a mentor.
00:01:08:00 - 00:01:52:07
Speaker 1
Explain how to manage fear and risk, go over the ethics behind the creation of first ascents. And finally, talk about Josh's most recent undertaking, the creation of the Mt. Whitney Climbing Ranch. All right. So the accident we're talking about where you were mentally at this time, kind of talk to us a little bit about who you were as a climber as you're approaching this moment.
00:01:52:22 - 00:01:55:13
Speaker 1
I'd like to kind of here where you're at in your career at this point.
00:01:56:04 - 00:02:00:17
Speaker 2
Yes. So and I.
00:02:00:17 - 00:02:23:14
Speaker 3
Think that's that's very important. So people understand where I'm coming from with sharing this. So before I say that, what I was starting to say is that I do think we learned more from failure than success. Right. And that's been a big part of my healing process through all of this and a lot of other traumatic events that I've experienced in my.
00:02:23:14 - 00:02:23:23
Speaker 2
Life.
00:02:26:07 - 00:02:30:04
Speaker 3
As as harsh or maybe reality is that can be to come to sometimes.
00:02:30:09 - 00:02:31:13
Speaker 2
This was one.
00:02:31:13 - 00:02:38:12
Speaker 3
Of the best learning experiences I've ever been through. Not only that, I've only ever maybe told this story to 20 people.
00:02:38:12 - 00:02:39:00
Speaker 2
Total.
00:02:39:07 - 00:02:42:04
Speaker 3
And it happened 20 years ago. So on average, once a year.
00:02:42:12 - 00:02:42:23
Speaker 2
Okay.
00:02:44:10 - 00:03:05:20
Speaker 3
It's not something that I like to share faintly, and it has been a bit of a build up coming into this. So at the very least, out of all of this podcast, if anybody that is listening can learn from this lesson. But I try to tell it in somewhat of a parody. Parody, right? Paradox.
00:03:06:12 - 00:03:10:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Whatever I'm trying to say.
00:03:10:03 - 00:03:27:05
Speaker 3
Like, like like I guess sugarcoat it a little bit. Okay. So where I was coming from with my climbing was at this point I've been climbing five years, like almost nonstop. And I, I definitely was like at the top of my game up.
00:03:27:05 - 00:03:31:16
Speaker 2
Until that point.
00:03:31:16 - 00:03:43:07
Speaker 3
They'd done a lot of bigger objectives, like starting to climb quite a bit at top kids, which is one of the earlier like more and multiple alpine crags that I had cut my teeth out, had done some stuff in the Sierra.
00:03:45:16 - 00:03:46:06
Speaker 2
That but.
00:03:46:10 - 00:03:52:15
Speaker 3
Still went on to do way bigger things which which is always been very interesting that I got past.
00:03:52:15 - 00:03:53:01
Speaker 2
This.
00:03:53:08 - 00:03:54:17
Speaker 3
This episode of my life right.
00:03:54:18 - 00:04:04:13
Speaker 1
Where are you at in terms of grades? What are you comfortable on setting? What's your relationship with risk and running it out? Like kind of describe that part of the climbing experience.
00:04:04:21 - 00:04:29:11
Speaker 3
Thank you. I will. So I've always had a huge tolerance for risk and a high threshold for pain. The whole psychological breakdown as far as risk management, I didn't know any of that at the time. All I knew was just my instincts based off of all of the past mountain experiences I had, which I felt at that time I was pretty darn competent.
00:04:29:12 - 00:04:52:10
Speaker 3
Okay, I've even done like my first real big trip to Yosemite, which was a huge success. It's still a relatively new climber, but the difference, I would say with like maybe somebody that we see five years into it at this point and they are that dedicated is a lot of that experience was coming out of a gym without a lot of formal training or maybe even some formal foundation, right.
00:04:52:10 - 00:05:17:15
Speaker 3
Which I think almost the whole community understands. The foundation right out of the gates now, which is huge. Gyms did not exist at this time. They did. But there is like one in California and it was way too far away. No mentors. The only guide was Bob Gaines out of Joshua Tree. He wasn't very approachable and nor could like 19 year old me afford his rates.
00:05:17:22 - 00:05:23:12
Speaker 3
So my brother and I at this point were essentially 100% self-taught from Freedom of the Hills.
00:05:23:21 - 00:05:24:07
Speaker 2
Okay.
00:05:24:18 - 00:05:45:21
Speaker 3
And even for a while after that and this was an interesting learning experience. I remember after it happened, I read a bunch of logistics and one of them was like, Hey, if you haven't experienced a serious accident five years into doing the serious, you'll probably go your whole career and nothing will happen to the. You'll eventually get complacent and it could catch up with you.
00:05:45:23 - 00:05:59:11
Speaker 3
Right? And I'm like, Wow. Well, I didn't fall into this logistics. This happened to me after five years and do it right. Most serious accidents. It was like within the first three years. Obviously, all of those numbers have changed because of the introduction.
00:05:59:15 - 00:06:00:16
Speaker 2
Of gyms and the.
00:06:01:02 - 00:06:28:09
Speaker 3
The very healthy influx, let's say, to this community, paying a little bit more of a picture. Like I remember going to Joshua Tree for my first time for a 15 day trip and we saw one other climbing team the entire time. And that was in like 2001. It was neat because I kind of got to experience both sides of like the last kind of generation of era of climbing, at least for California, into what it now is.
00:06:30:01 - 00:06:35:16
Speaker 3
So yeah, dating myself a little bit which, that, that's fun that so that's kind of where I was at with all of this.
00:06:35:16 - 00:06:38:05
Speaker 2
But to, to, to, to.
00:06:38:08 - 00:07:00:19
Speaker 3
Take it a step further, it was way too early on to the vibe developing routes and that's where this all occurred. I didn't really get into route development seriously. Entire been climbing for like 10 to 12 years and we can get to that. But out of necessity, you know, we lived in North County, San Diego at the time.
00:07:00:23 - 00:07:03:05
Speaker 3
There are few local crags, but there is this bitch and.
00:07:03:05 - 00:07:05:21
Speaker 2
Spot that was closer to home that was.
00:07:05:21 - 00:07:30:13
Speaker 3
Undeveloped. There's some really unique history there. It's on kind of one side of the mountain and we're like, And you're not allowed to go there anymore because it's privately owned by some climbers. So we're like, Wow, the other side of the mountain is even better. And there's a cliff that's like, you know, 20 yards off the road. And we developed six resorts on it place the very first boat sign ever placed and hand drilled them for this one.
00:07:30:13 - 00:07:52:17
Speaker 3
TR And we went there for a couple of years and all was good. But then we started like the mountains, huge, it's covered in and a lot of giant boulders and crags. So after about a year, we decided to go up to this next terrace that looks promising. And we got up there once to scope it. And it's my brother and I.
00:07:53:03 - 00:07:55:07
Speaker 3
And then we had just recently befriended.
00:07:55:14 - 00:07:56:11
Speaker 2
This kid.
00:07:56:12 - 00:08:11:14
Speaker 3
That was fresh out of the Air Force. He was a friend of a friend, super cool guy. He had just gone back from doing like three tours to Afghanistan and he was an Air Force medic. So he had seen he was definitely PTSD. Right.
00:08:11:14 - 00:08:14:07
Speaker 2
And and a little a little.
00:08:16:04 - 00:08:33:09
Speaker 3
Climbing was very good for him, let's put it that way. And and he came out of his bubble right away. So we climb with him for a little bit and then we're like, Hey, we have this new spot. You should go check it out. It's even close to your house. So it's like, Yeah, okay, game on. It's New Year's Days when we plan to go, go up there.
00:08:33:20 - 00:08:34:15
Speaker 2
And.
00:08:35:08 - 00:08:43:23
Speaker 3
Weather supposed to be nice, but what ends up happening is that night it just downpour all night long. So we didn't get a lot of sleep. We woke up in the morning and.
00:08:44:04 - 00:08:44:22
Speaker 2
I'm like.
00:08:44:22 - 00:08:51:13
Speaker 3
Well, it's beautiful out now, but the ground's a little wet. We're like, Oh, it's still go out there, the rock will dry fast. So we head.
00:08:51:13 - 00:08:53:05
Speaker 2
Out.
00:08:53:05 - 00:09:11:20
Speaker 3
We scramble that like 22 to 50 yards up to that first crag. Do a couple of those climbs to show our body. And then it's like, okay, you know, we have we have I think we had our handrail and a couple of bolts that we knew we could build trout anchors at this new upper terrace. And so we scramble.
00:09:11:20 - 00:09:14:20
Speaker 2
Around to that and.
00:09:18:01 - 00:09:27:23
Speaker 3
Like I mentioned, we'd been up there before. So what happens is it's a very steep mountainside, Southern California chaparral, which is like a nightmare to navigate through.
00:09:28:09 - 00:09:29:05
Speaker 2
And.
00:09:30:12 - 00:09:56:09
Speaker 3
To kind of avoid the bushwhacking. There is like this beautiful giant, like five storey boulder with this perfect catwalk ledge that split like halfway out horizontally, like St God ledge. And you could kind of bushwhack up the right side of this ravine to get to that ledge, traverse out it. And then you did like 20 feet of this like fifth class slab to get to this terrace we were developing.
00:09:56:09 - 00:10:16:20
Speaker 3
And then it just so happens and like I said, we had done it before. It was pretty chill. But like at that point, you're definitely in a no falls in like 50 feet up. Right. And it's in a chopper with a bunch of Talis underneath it. And then kind of you could block the exposure out, especially without having a rope that to the right of you, you're, you're right off of this ravine.
00:10:16:20 - 00:10:35:08
Speaker 3
You've just bushwhacked up. You could, in theory, maybe jump that way and go like 20 feet and land in a bunch of bushes, which still wouldn't be good. But then the kicker is right when that ledge ends and you're like, okay, I don't want to fall to the left, and you have to do that like 20 feet of like five or nothing slab, which we, we had done in our our approach years before.
00:10:35:15 - 00:10:43:06
Speaker 3
I'm in my approach shoes again. I have a huge pack on the rocks, a little wet. There is like a mini refrigerator sized.
00:10:43:06 - 00:10:43:22
Speaker 2
Block.
00:10:44:09 - 00:11:06:14
Speaker 3
That we estimated to be at least a ton, if not more. That was just balancing there very obvious separate entity. And I felt like I was pretty good about as far as risk mitigation, like identifying a loose rock for sure. And I'd climb to an alpine environment, so I felt like I could translate that a little bit. My buddy, however, that's new to this, oblivious to that, right?
00:11:06:18 - 00:11:24:10
Speaker 3
So my brother goes out first. I get out there and I'm basically looking up at the five zero move. My buddy starting out the ledge and I'm like straddling around that big boulder, not touching it at all. And I look back at him and I, I say, Hey, this is the boulder. Like, even though it's kind of leaning against the wall, like, don't touch it.
00:11:24:17 - 00:11:35:10
Speaker 3
Like, you don't have, like, even standing on this, it might go. So you have to commit to these moves around it. And as I'm saying that it literally just pops like like a ghost. A ghost pushes.
00:11:35:10 - 00:11:37:01
Speaker 2
It off on me and.
00:11:38:09 - 00:12:00:12
Speaker 3
I start freefalling. Everything goes super slow. Time lapse like so slo mo. And this being 20 years ago, I can still relive it. Like every time I think about it or every time I tell this story, it's like that permanently ingrained in my psyche now. And instantly I go into like the flying V So like, I'm upside down and this thing's like above my torso.
00:12:00:12 - 00:12:12:04
Speaker 3
I'm like hugging it and I'm like, lights out. Like, it was like definitely one of the closest life flashed before my, my eyes moments I've ever had and I've had a few. And this now unfortunately and knock on.
00:12:12:04 - 00:12:14:22
Speaker 2
Wood which those are the.
00:12:14:22 - 00:12:17:01
Speaker 3
Other ones were also kind of freak events.
00:12:17:22 - 00:12:19:17
Speaker 2
And I'll come back to that as well.
00:12:19:17 - 00:12:46:03
Speaker 3
But I might, you know, you know, maybe a couple of seconds. It just feels like an eternity as I'm falling with this thing. And it's just like freeze frame, freeze frame and last ditch effort. I'm like, Fuck, I have to try to get out from underneath it. So I push as hard as I can, like right as it feels like I'm about to impact the ground and all of the sudden everything rotates and I'm surfing on it like the fucking wily coyote.
00:12:46:11 - 00:12:59:03
Speaker 3
And in my mind I was like, No fucking shit like that. That worked. And I'm like, okay, impact, five, four, three, two, one, jump. And as I do that and I go to jump, the whole thing just goes back over me above my torso.
00:12:59:13 - 00:13:00:07
Speaker 2
Impact into.
00:13:00:07 - 00:13:22:02
Speaker 3
The ground. Luckily it doesn't crush me or I wouldn't be here and it would have totally like just crushed me like a pancake. But what it does do is it throttles onto my leg, pins me in a bunch of towers. I never lost consciousness. And and it feels like my leg is is basically torn off. And my first.
00:13:22:02 - 00:13:23:22
Speaker 2
Reaction was.
00:13:24:09 - 00:13:25:04
Speaker 3
Try to move it.
00:13:25:05 - 00:13:26:11
Speaker 2
And I'm like, I can't.
00:13:26:19 - 00:13:47:12
Speaker 3
And I hear my body ripping down through the chaparral. And he comes running up and he goes to the downhill side of me and he gets way nervous and all pale white. And that makes me nervous because I'm like, I know, I know my body's seen some traumatic stuff in the military and like being a medic, like I said, and he's like, Do we have to get this rock off you?
00:13:47:12 - 00:14:08:21
Speaker 3
We have to get this rock off of you. And it's kind of like, Yeah, no shit. And I'm already thinking like, we can't do it by ourselves. Like, my brother needs to come down, my brother's up there waiting and still doesn't know this is happened. So we start yelling like blood, blood curdling screams. I hear my brother ripping down through some chaparral and as we hear him coming running down, me and my buddy try.
00:14:08:21 - 00:14:23:23
Speaker 3
We go one, two, three and we barely get it up an inch just to have it like fall back on to me. And my brother comes running up and his first look like I'll never forget. And he's just like, I think he even says, like, you dumb fuck. What the fuck did you do? And I'm just like, It wasn't me, man.
00:14:23:23 - 00:14:36:06
Speaker 3
Like, it just went on its own and and he's like and he's just like, looks dumbfounded, which it takes a lot to kind of like Paul, my brother, you could say, like he's a pretty straight faced individual and it doesn't take a lot.
00:14:36:13 - 00:14:37:03
Speaker 2
To.
00:14:37:11 - 00:14:52:19
Speaker 3
To surprise him, which is always fun because I know when he's like showing some excitement on a pitch, I'm like, Oh, what the fuck is this going to be like when? Naw, that way. Calm, cool and collected, right? So he's like, I just kind of get it off. Like looking at it like we kind of get it off or what the fuck it.
00:14:52:19 - 00:15:08:00
Speaker 3
It's like, no. So we were like, okay, count of three. One, two, three. We all roll it. It flops down onto the hillside. My, my buddy, my brother on the downhill side. So, like, they're trying to stay out of the way to where it doesn't roll out of them. And all I see is I don't see a foot there.
00:15:08:00 - 00:15:33:07
Speaker 3
I just see bloody stump with my kid and sticking out and then my foot's dangling and my toes are touching like the back of my calf right here. And so basically like severed foot and but it's still attached by something I can't tell and I get way noxious, but I still don't pass out my buddies. Like we have to stop the bleeding.
00:15:33:07 - 00:15:49:01
Speaker 3
And in that instance it's just arterial bleeding down his face and all over his white shirt and he gets all trembly. And I'm a brother, like, kind of like holds on and he's like, No, do you like, let's do this? And he goes, We have to reset it. We have to reset it. So he grabs my foot, pulls it all the way down, and I'm like, What the hell?
00:15:49:03 - 00:16:10:08
Speaker 3
It even still connected to? And he goes, thump back into place. So what it was still attached to is just my Achilles tendon. But now, like, it doesn't want to stay, it's flopping and they're trying to hold it. They pressure up the fuck out of it. And he's like, I don't want to tourniquet it yet, even though like, I don't, I can't say anything.
00:16:10:08 - 00:16:23:08
Speaker 3
And just shy of getting ready to turn a kid, it just from pressure holding it, they get the bleeding to stop. But at that point and I hadn't had any formal medical training yet which obviously being guides we have to have quite a bit.
00:16:23:08 - 00:16:23:19
Speaker 2
Now.
00:16:25:15 - 00:16:46:00
Speaker 3
Looking back like solid two liters of blood on the ground. So I was definitely going away and a compensatory shock and I get super cold and shaky. Everything feels very euphoric. You're like, we have to get you out of the mountain. So although the approach to that lower crag was 20 yards, we were about a half mile up from that.
00:16:46:17 - 00:16:50:18
Speaker 3
But then that's kind of from like the end of this dirt road. Our car was four miles away.
00:16:51:13 - 00:16:54:00
Speaker 2
And so.
00:16:54:00 - 00:17:03:06
Speaker 3
My buddy, they're like, Yeah, how are we going to extract you? And like, you need to be the hospital now. Like, you're kind of like you're dying. And I'm just sitting there like, no, like, you guys got this. I'm not dying.
00:17:03:12 - 00:17:04:03
Speaker 2
When.
00:17:04:09 - 00:17:15:17
Speaker 3
Biologically, like, my body was already shutting down. Right. And my, my friend, he, like, out of nowhere, he goes, oh, like I just got my first cell phone ever. This is in 2001.
00:17:15:17 - 00:17:17:01
Speaker 2
And it was like.
00:17:17:01 - 00:17:37:03
Speaker 3
A Nokia phone. I got it for work and it was like I called it my electronic leash cause my boss would like, call me like one in the morning and she had text me. And so I kind of didn't really like cell phones. I didn't have mine on me. Then my buddy goes, Oh, I just got this new Motorola flip phone that was military issued just before I left, and I was supposed to have given it back.
00:17:37:08 - 00:17:50:03
Speaker 3
But I think it's in my patch and we're like, Fuck, okay, call nine one. And he goes, No, better yet. Like, there's this thing, it's called the GPS function. And it was almost at that time the same as having like an inner reach. And he just hit this distress.
00:17:50:03 - 00:17:51:01
Speaker 2
Button and.
00:17:51:01 - 00:17:54:09
Speaker 3
It sent a distress code to Camp Pendleton, which was the nearest military.
00:17:54:09 - 00:17:55:04
Speaker 2
Base.
00:17:55:04 - 00:18:11:20
Speaker 3
And he goes, he goes, Dude, if this works and it looks like the signal went out, they'll send their search rescue and it'll be here in 10 minutes. And I'm like, No fucking way. Right? And at this point, I was pretty young, you know, I lived a pretty simple life. You could say up until that point, I had never flown in my life.
00:18:12:22 - 00:18:19:05
Speaker 3
And he's like, Oh, a helicopter is going to come and pluck you off the mountain. Like, What the fuck? This is what it's going to be like. My first time flying now too.
00:18:20:07 - 00:18:23:23
Speaker 2
And yeah, and. And I and.
00:18:23:23 - 00:18:45:11
Speaker 3
Sure enough, you know, I think it was 5 minutes, maybe 10 minutes max. I hear rotor blades and this like old military Huey, like out of an old Vietnam movie, appears. And I'm like, No fucking way. And drop a rope out of it, you know, they spot us, they drop a rope out. And this dude in full fatigues like body wrap propels out of the helicopter.
00:18:45:19 - 00:18:56:08
Speaker 3
And in my weird mindset at that time, he looks like L.L. Cool J that for you like camping out and everything. Just no firearms or anything, right? I'm like, what the fuck?
00:18:56:08 - 00:18:57:04
Speaker 2
Like, Oh, cool.
00:18:57:04 - 00:19:04:10
Speaker 3
J came to rescue me and the guy had this, like, very similar, like, like mannerisms and everything and he, he does say, like.
00:19:05:13 - 00:19:06:04
Speaker 2
Boys, what the.
00:19:06:04 - 00:19:15:19
Speaker 3
Fuck did you guys get yourself into you? And he just looks dumbfounded. He's like, Why are you way up on this mountainside? Like, he didn't get it. And we're like, Oh, we're up. You're rock climbing. And he's just, like, looking around, like, oblivious.
00:19:16:03 - 00:19:17:18
Speaker 2
And that way.
00:19:17:19 - 00:19:18:18
Speaker 3
Stuff like that guy.
00:19:18:18 - 00:19:20:22
Speaker 2
Lives the essence.
00:19:20:22 - 00:19:33:02
Speaker 3
I think, of adventure for sure, even though I got to know him a little bit afterwards. But from a rescue and like trying to make somebody feel comfortable, comfortable was a master.
00:19:33:02 - 00:19:33:23
Speaker 2
And I didn't.
00:19:33:23 - 00:19:36:02
Speaker 3
Know that at the time. To what extent and I'll get to.
00:19:36:02 - 00:19:38:03
Speaker 2
That in the story that.
00:19:38:16 - 00:19:46:15
Speaker 3
He you know, he's like, oh, he goes, all my rescues. He goes, I bring a disposable camera. Can I get a bunch of photos? And I'm like, Are you serious?
00:19:47:02 - 00:19:47:09
Speaker 2
Wow.
00:19:47:12 - 00:20:01:00
Speaker 3
Bust out a little waterproof disposable camera takes all these photos and then emailed them to me later. So I have all this photos I can share with you guys later. And and he's and he's like, all right. He's like.
00:20:01:08 - 00:20:02:10
Speaker 2
It's like your.
00:20:02:10 - 00:20:14:20
Speaker 3
Buddy reset your foot from what it sounds like. Like you did part of my job. He's like, you got the bleeding to stop. And he's like, you did lose a lot of blood. And and as he's telling me this, you know, it's kind of a weird bedside manner. It's like so, you know, have you ever.
00:20:14:21 - 00:20:15:12
Speaker 2
Have you ever.
00:20:15:18 - 00:20:25:19
Speaker 3
Had morphine before? And I'm just thinking, like, what are you even talking about? And he slams with a meal and he goes, Don't worry, all the pain will be gone. Now he's like, But the bad thing is you're now addicted to morphine.
00:20:25:19 - 00:20:31:10
Speaker 2
And I'm just like, Dude, you just walk right in. And he's like, Oh, and he's like, she's like, Check this out.
00:20:31:10 - 00:20:49:21
Speaker 3
And he pulls out an inflatable cast or inflatable splint. It was like when they first came out and throws up thing on my leg, has a CO2 cartridge to instantly inflated. He goes, you're good to go. And and he's like, You ever been in a helicopter before? I'm like, I'm like, No, I've never flown. And he just kind of laughs and he goes, All right, well.
00:20:50:09 - 00:20:52:02
Speaker 2
We can do this one or two ways.
00:20:52:08 - 00:20:58:06
Speaker 3
And I had my harness on, which was weird because my pack was so full, I put my hands on, which I.
00:20:58:12 - 00:20:59:06
Speaker 2
Don't almost.
00:20:59:06 - 00:21:08:05
Speaker 3
Ever do like in those settings. Right? And he goes, I'm going to give the cop, the chopper pilot will come back, I'll give him a signal. He's going to lower this like 500 foot.
00:21:08:05 - 00:21:09:06
Speaker 2
Winch and.
00:21:09:06 - 00:21:20:11
Speaker 3
It's cable. And I'm going to clip I can clip you right into your harness and he'll fly you up to about 5000 feet. They'll winch you in and you'll be to the hospital in like ten or 15 minutes and probably straight into surgery.
00:21:20:11 - 00:21:21:18
Speaker 2
And I'm like, okay.
00:21:22:08 - 00:21:37:23
Speaker 3
Yeah. I'm like, What's the other option? And he goes, And I'll walk out of here with your two bonehead friends. And I'm like, Well, what's the other option? And he goes, I give that signal, the pilot lowers the winch, and I'll clip this both in and I'll get the fuck off this bout with you and they can fend for themselves.
00:21:37:23 - 00:21:40:09
Speaker 2
Whose? And I'm like a normal, hard working.
00:21:40:21 - 00:21:57:04
Speaker 3
Like, you're the professional, like it's up to you. And he goes, Yeah, we're both getting off this mountain then together. And he's like, I'll make you feel like more. More comfortable that you've never flown. And I'm like, Yeah, I know, that sounds great. So Chopper comes back, my brother and our friend are like, tripping, like, kind of a sigh of relief.
00:21:57:04 - 00:22:05:12
Speaker 3
Now, right? Like, everything's going to be okay. At least that was like. Like my feeling of the whole situation that this is when it gets bad.
00:22:05:18 - 00:22:06:05
Speaker 2
Okay.
00:22:06:13 - 00:22:10:03
Speaker 3
So chopper pilot lowers the cable.
00:22:11:06 - 00:22:12:16
Speaker 2
It's a it's a Petzel.
00:22:12:22 - 00:22:15:23
Speaker 3
Three stage ball lock on the end of that thing. I remember this day.
00:22:16:05 - 00:22:16:23
Speaker 2
I'm like, no shit.
00:22:16:23 - 00:22:26:17
Speaker 3
Like, you think you guys have something like all steel or something heavier duty and he, he clips this both into like my belay loop and his boy loop. He's got like a cedar harness on.
00:22:27:01 - 00:22:29:18
Speaker 2
And he gives a signal.
00:22:30:00 - 00:22:45:19
Speaker 3
And helicopter takes off and we're like 5000 feet. And I'm like, well, wow, this is. And so exposed on this ridge side and you know, he's like, I feel the cable. He's like, All right, yeah, they're stable. They're going to want you in. And the guy looks lost. He's like, still taking.
00:22:45:23 - 00:22:49:17
Speaker 2
Photos and he.
00:22:50:22 - 00:22:59:19
Speaker 3
Like maybe 100 feet into the winch. It was like right out of like the best way I can describe it was it was like out of a movie. And those rotor blades, I hear them just go.
00:23:00:02 - 00:23:02:11
Speaker 2
Bump, bump, bump and stop.
00:23:03:04 - 00:23:23:11
Speaker 3
And that helicopter, like if helicopters here and we're getting winched up, it disappears off the side of the mountain upside down. And that guy grabs me and he goes, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, What the fuck? And we get decked from 500 feet and I was more or less sitting on his lap into a bunch of talus and chaparral.
00:23:23:16 - 00:23:48:11
Speaker 3
We bounce about 30 or 40 feet land, and that guy took it like a brick, like he was built like a linebacker. And I'm expecting this like internal fireball. And in that moment, I look at him and he's like panicked as hell, and he's trying to unclip us, and he's like, Damn, damn it. And I'm like, and instantly I'm like, Oh, it's because we're about to get drugged now for who knows how long.
00:23:48:16 - 00:24:10:06
Speaker 3
And he grabs me again and he goes, Hold on again. And we get dragged through the chaparral for probably 100 yards, like rag dolls, like supercut up and everything. And now I'm expecting an internal fireball. I'm like, fuck, like the helicopter crash. And we just got decked and that's kind of the feeling I'm getting from him, too. And then all of the sudden we hear the rotor blade just go like.
00:24:10:11 - 00:24:11:16
Speaker 2
Kick up like me.
00:24:12:04 - 00:24:26:06
Speaker 3
And we're fucking instantly like 5000 feet again, like off this ridge side. And they went, yes, up and bring us in. And it's kind of all high fives and they're like, Fuck, we can't believe you got decked again. And I'm like, What do you mean again?
00:24:26:10 - 00:24:28:14
Speaker 2
And they explain to.
00:24:28:14 - 00:24:48:12
Speaker 3
Me that, you know, it's a very real risk with helicopter rescues and that you were putting up to like 15 to like 13 to 15 other individuals. Life's at risk. And helicopters do go down all the time. And what happens, especially above 14,000 feet, is you don't get enough friction on the blades. You can hit like a dead pocket of air, they call it.
00:24:48:23 - 00:25:01:19
Speaker 3
It just loses all friction enlist and the helicopter crashes. So that's what happened in this pilot being this like season that he is was able to recover and got us off the mountain.
00:25:01:19 - 00:25:07:11
Speaker 4
So you fell, inject a ledge and got dragged the towers and then the helicopter restarted?
00:25:07:20 - 00:25:09:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:25:09:22 - 00:25:12:03
Speaker 1
How did you survive a 500 foot deck?
00:25:12:08 - 00:25:13:06
Speaker 2
I don't know.
00:25:13:13 - 00:25:30:22
Speaker 3
And all I could say is it felt slow motion. It was probably more similar to a soft catch as far as like taking a lead fall. They like I said, we bounced a solid 30 feet. Like I remember hitting the ground and bouncing way back up above like 20 foot chaparral and landing. So we obviously hit really hard.
00:25:31:03 - 00:25:45:02
Speaker 3
I was I mean, to be honest, like he had to have been pretty sore the following days. I was so high on morphine, like I didn't really feel that impact. I remember it felt really jarring. What I did feel was when we got drug and how terrifying that.
00:25:45:02 - 00:25:49:13
Speaker 2
Was and so then.
00:25:49:13 - 00:26:08:00
Speaker 3
Because that happened, they cut it, fly straight to the the immediate public hospital. They had to go back to Camp Pendleton when to fill out all these reports, in which case they said that a civilian civilian ambulance would be waiting there for me and take me to another hospital, although now all my family is on the way to this hospital.
00:26:08:00 - 00:26:24:08
Speaker 3
They thought I was all getting flown to. Right. And when we went on the tarmac, I remember all these flight crew come up and it was all high fives and like beers, even though I don't think they were cracking beers. But that the gentleman that was my rescuer and I can't for the life of me remember his name right now.
00:26:25:16 - 00:26:38:02
Speaker 3
He apparently holds the record for military search, rescue personnel for surviving, being dead two more times than anybody. That was his seventh time being decked in a very in similar other.
00:26:38:02 - 00:26:39:03
Speaker 2
Fashions like that.
00:26:39:11 - 00:26:46:05
Speaker 3
And I was just like, what the hell do you like? The guy was like, Yeah, I mean, guardian angel that day, right?
00:26:46:05 - 00:26:47:08
Speaker 2
And what's.
00:26:47:08 - 00:26:51:11
Speaker 3
Funny was when I got he came to visit me in the E.R. and when I was recovering.
00:26:51:17 - 00:26:53:23
Speaker 2
And give me those photos and.
00:26:54:17 - 00:26:55:23
Speaker 3
The guy did look like L.L. Cool.
00:26:55:23 - 00:27:00:06
Speaker 2
J. It's 40 years later. That was it. Like a magic bullet, you know? Yeah.
00:27:02:00 - 00:27:04:19
Speaker 4
So that wasn't just, like, serious shock. Exactly.
00:27:04:19 - 00:27:30:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure. And like I said, never lost consciousness. So I go into surgery immediately, and by this time, it's it's 10:00 at night. The surgeon is like they do all these X-rays. Surgeons, kind of orthopedic surgeon is kind of baffled. And he calls in all these other all these other like doctors and stuff and they're like, Yeah, this is extremely uncommon, but you didn't break a single bone.
00:27:30:23 - 00:27:46:08
Speaker 3
And so it was what they called at the time an open dislocation of my tube and fib. So basically peeled my foot off. It was still attached by the Achilles, but then all of the tendons in my forefoot were all severed and it was like 4 hours of surgery for them to go in and reattach them all.
00:27:46:18 - 00:27:56:08
Speaker 4
And was there was a skin split so you could see the bone. The bone wasn't broken, your foot was just so dislocated that it had been essentially torn off and.
00:27:56:08 - 00:28:00:08
Speaker 3
Exactly. And just and just the only thing that was still connecting it was my Achilles.
00:28:00:10 - 00:28:02:00
Speaker 2
Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:02:20 - 00:28:06:04
Speaker 4
Completely bizarre, really. While I think kind of fortunate in.
00:28:06:12 - 00:28:06:19
Speaker 2
A.
00:28:06:22 - 00:28:08:09
Speaker 3
It was very disheartening.
00:28:08:12 - 00:28:10:22
Speaker 4
That might not articulate surfacing.
00:28:11:00 - 00:28:38:12
Speaker 3
Exactly because although it was a very painful and long recovery in which I learned a lot about as I'm sure you guys did in that recovery process and about your yourself and your willpower. Right. It it was bad. And so at first they're like, yeah, it doesn't feel up. And it gets any sort of infection. Like basically it's like I think they gave me 70% chance that they'd end up having to amputate it.
00:28:39:09 - 00:28:44:18
Speaker 3
So 30% chance that it might like heal. Okay. Then it was like some crazy odds that.
00:28:45:02 - 00:28:48:01
Speaker 2
You know, if backing.
00:28:48:01 - 00:29:13:03
Speaker 3
Up a little bit. So then what happens, long story short, is about a month into it, it does get infected and it gets like to me it looks gangrene and they they were like, no, they treat it's crazy as antibiotics. I didn't go back into the hospital for like 24 hours. And then the orthopedist, as I go through the cycle, you know, they're telling me that I'll never walk without a cane and that very likely I'll have what's called drop foot syndrome.
00:29:13:03 - 00:29:25:20
Speaker 3
So like the stabilizers in the front of your foot here, like using my hand as an example, they can't hold your foot up. So every time you step, your foot just wants to sag and you got to like throw it up in front of you and you normally need a cane if.
00:29:25:20 - 00:29:26:14
Speaker 2
That's the case.
00:29:27:01 - 00:29:34:12
Speaker 3
And so it was a lot to deal with psychologically. And I was young, you know, I, I just had my first kid. I'm like, fuck, I blew it big time. Right?
00:29:34:12 - 00:29:34:18
Speaker 2
And.
00:29:35:19 - 00:29:41:21
Speaker 3
But in that year recovery and all of that, that inner soul searching, as I put it, the one thing I kept coming back.
00:29:41:21 - 00:29:44:02
Speaker 2
To is, does this.
00:29:44:09 - 00:29:48:19
Speaker 3
Lifestyle and this pursuit mean enough to me to where I will do this.
00:29:48:19 - 00:29:49:05
Speaker 2
Again.
00:29:49:16 - 00:29:58:16
Speaker 3
As I traumatic is all of that was. And every time I'm like without a doubt, I can't wait to prove all those doctors and and my orthopedic surgeon incorrect. Right.
00:29:58:16 - 00:30:00:06
Speaker 2
That that I, I I'm not.
00:30:00:06 - 00:30:00:17
Speaker 3
Going to need a.
00:30:00:17 - 00:30:02:00
Speaker 2
Cane and.
00:30:02:05 - 00:30:21:10
Speaker 3
After about a year it had recovered to where it was like probably 80% recovery and good enough to climb on. Right? I'm like, dude, I'll live with that. Like, I can find a way around it if if I get that 80% back and then in the long run, it's probably it goes back and forth between like 86 to 88, right.
00:30:21:10 - 00:30:26:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. I think the the moral of that whole story, at least for me personally.
00:30:26:14 - 00:30:27:15
Speaker 2
Is that.
00:30:28:04 - 00:30:34:13
Speaker 3
It did allow me to really come to terms with with my mortality at.
00:30:34:13 - 00:30:35:15
Speaker 2
Such a young age.
00:30:36:21 - 00:30:39:16
Speaker 3
Then also be that, hey, this does mean that much.
00:30:39:16 - 00:30:40:21
Speaker 2
To me, that I.
00:30:40:21 - 00:30:52:09
Speaker 3
Am a lifer at this. And what does it look like from here? Which is what, segways into the rest of this story. Right? So do you guys want to ask any questions based off of that.
00:30:52:09 - 00:30:54:10
Speaker 2
That little rant? Yeah, I got it.
00:30:54:15 - 00:31:14:06
Speaker 4
I got to I got a comment for sure. Just I like for my injury, obviously not quite apples to apples. I didn't have as much excitement as you, but like I slid down a granite slab and and I went into like a piece of granite. And I just completely remember exactly what you were saying about, like, times, for sure.
00:31:14:06 - 00:31:39:23
Speaker 4
It's such, like a cliche and, you know, like, you've heard it and people have said it. But yeah, it was really just this fascinating thing of, like, feeling like I'm living in slow motion, like thinking through these things, looking, analyzing what I'm going to do. So crisp, so clear. Yeah. It's really just this, like, bizarre phenomenon. Like, that almost sounds like it's like, out of a movie and not real life, but so I just wanted to comment on that.
00:31:40:18 - 00:31:49:00
Speaker 4
I was wondering like, do you think that if your friend didn't have the military Motorola, that you would have died of blood loss or like the extraction of.
00:31:49:07 - 00:32:12:23
Speaker 3
That's a really good question since this has happened and especially from a guide point of view. And I apologize if I assumed any of my cohorts in this industry, unless it is life or limb, you should always be able to self evac and not put other people's lives in danger like that. And when I say life and limb, like just shy of bleeding out, like in my scenario, you should be able to get yourself.
00:32:12:23 - 00:32:13:14
Speaker 2
Off the mountain.
00:32:13:23 - 00:32:14:17
Speaker 3
And I've done it.
00:32:14:17 - 00:32:15:05
Speaker 2
In some.
00:32:15:16 - 00:32:18:01
Speaker 3
Almost equally as messed up situations.
00:32:19:14 - 00:32:20:20
Speaker 2
But with that said.
00:32:22:12 - 00:32:28:12
Speaker 3
It's that is a really good question, Max. Like if it were just me and my brother.
00:32:28:12 - 00:32:29:00
Speaker 2
It could have.
00:32:29:00 - 00:32:48:22
Speaker 3
Been a much different outcome. And I think like, let's say my buddy didn't have the Motorola phone, but he, you know, he he reset my foot and got the bleeding to stop. They would have probably just literally dragged me down the mountain and the few miles back to the car. Right. Which would have really sucked. It's like that's what it would have had to come down to.
00:32:49:06 - 00:33:07:09
Speaker 3
And because they got the bleeding to stop and it was like just at the threshold, as if I would have lost any more blood, I would have gone unconscious and potentially into cardiac arrest and maybe not come back. Right. So it was a lot of luck in a lot of ways, right down to like the initial my initial reaction was like, I am dead.
00:33:07:09 - 00:33:11:19
Speaker 3
Like it's going to crush my torso. Right. So I hope that answers your question.
00:33:13:02 - 00:33:13:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, no.
00:33:13:14 - 00:33:28:20
Speaker 4
No, definitely. Yeah. I think it was interesting what you said because like, I felt a lot of guilt, like when we ended up getting like a helicopter rescue and we were really not like I would fall in the category where you're saying like you should have self extracted yourself. And I felt like a lot of guilt around that.
00:33:28:20 - 00:33:35:23
Speaker 4
I personally actually through like further analysis and like I follow Saab vehemently and they get called out for like way less for sure.
00:33:35:23 - 00:33:36:05
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:33:36:09 - 00:34:02:08
Speaker 4
And the doctors, the doctor even told me that like had I had my calcaneus, like my ankle would have been in like much, much worse shape and my, my outcome of healing would be much worse. So I just wonder, like, what's your what's is your thought process more so like, like self extraction should always be the goal because you don't want to risk the lives of the search and rescue people and that it's almost like your responsibility in some ways.
00:34:02:15 - 00:34:22:02
Speaker 3
In some ways. And I obviously have felt that guilt and every injury I've experienced, but not even like a lot of the other ones, I didn't need a rescue. And believe me, there are times where I'm like, hit that distress button and we were able to get through it. But I feel more guilty just to just the effect that I know it has on my immediate circle and all my loved ones.
00:34:22:22 - 00:34:35:09
Speaker 3
Right. And that's a very I think that's a very rational thing that we should all come to terms with that just like with rockfall. And you do this long enough and I've lost a lot of friends doing this.
00:34:35:13 - 00:34:36:02
Speaker 2
It it.
00:34:36:02 - 00:35:00:19
Speaker 3
Can become an odds game no matter how good you are at calculating the risk in certain venues. That's not across the board. Obviously The extraction thing I think is more for me personally standpoint. It's it's definitely probably more of a little bit of a pride and ego thing that there are a lot of accidents, like you mentioned, where it's like, yeah, helicopter rescue for Grandma's blister and then the helicopter crashes, right?
00:35:01:06 - 00:35:06:13
Speaker 3
And as guides we are trained or that is a very last resort to ever hit that distress phone.
00:35:06:17 - 00:35:07:03
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:35:07:19 - 00:35:26:14
Speaker 1
And I think that it's important to, to keep that mentality on, on the side of the person being rescued. It's like, all right, analyze your situation. How much and how much of a dire strait are you really in? Are you going to potentially risk death or like severely injuring yourself further if you try to self extricate? Because in the end the SAR people are doing their job like no.
00:35:26:14 - 00:35:27:09
Speaker 3
And they and they.
00:35:27:11 - 00:35:37:15
Speaker 1
Understand the risk and they enjoy doing it. They, they assume the risk that they undertake and we can't feel guilty, you know, when we do use it, I think it's just circumstantial. We can't abuse it.
00:35:38:10 - 00:35:42:14
Speaker 2
100%. Cool. I love how the way that you touched on that.
00:35:43:13 - 00:36:17:18
Speaker 3
I think to elaborate a little bit more would be like climbing is obviously a very selfish pursuit and obviously every situation is different and everybody's experience level and thresholds of pain like there's so many factors and moving parts are different. And that's one of the things that based off of that story I just told, I the first thing I did before I even wanted to become a guide was get my wilderness first responder because I'm like, Wow, okay, I'm starting to see more shit with myself and friends going to more backcountry settings.
00:36:17:18 - 00:36:43:05
Speaker 3
I want to be able to supply a little bit of help like my buddy did for me. That was the medic in the Air Force, right. And then it gets to the point with guiding to where or I think even from a recreational standpoint, if you are getting into big enough mountains, let's say you're at a far off region and helicopter rescue isn't an option like you should know you're shit enough to get out of any situation just shy of like you're bleeding out and you're all.
00:36:43:05 - 00:36:43:18
Speaker 2
Alone.
00:36:43:18 - 00:36:49:03
Speaker 3
Right? And it's like that's a whole different conversation that if your buddies there and he's of sound mind, he should be able.
00:36:49:03 - 00:36:49:23
Speaker 2
To get you out of it.
00:36:50:10 - 00:37:10:21
Speaker 1
I think that's super important. I think that for for beginner climbers, it's really easy to focus on on the art of climbing the sport, of climbing the movement and placing gear. And you can get really far with that, you know, and I was one of those people you can climb big objectives. You can get yourself really far away and you can come back without a scratch for sure.
00:37:11:12 - 00:37:30:14
Speaker 1
I think it's really easy to underestimate just how exposed you really are. Yeah, in these big, big alpine settings if something goes wrong because yeah. I mean if you're I'll just use Temple Crag and Dark Stars. Yeah, it is a great idea. You know, when you're when you're right up there on that ridgeline, if you fuck up, I mean, you're fucked up.
00:37:30:14 - 00:37:31:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, you might as well.
00:37:31:16 - 00:37:31:23
Speaker 1
I was.
00:37:31:23 - 00:37:34:04
Speaker 3
Up. You might as well be in Patagonia or something, right.
00:37:34:07 - 00:37:40:21
Speaker 1
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's really easy to overlook that kind of excursion and focus more on ability.
00:37:41:06 - 00:37:42:07
Speaker 3
Maybe see like that's.
00:37:43:06 - 00:37:44:11
Speaker 2
A little a little.
00:37:45:05 - 00:37:45:15
Speaker 3
Early.
00:37:45:15 - 00:37:50:15
Speaker 2
On complacence. Yeah.
00:37:50:15 - 00:37:51:05
Speaker 3
It's more out of.
00:37:51:06 - 00:37:53:15
Speaker 2
Of just kind of pure.
00:37:54:07 - 00:38:07:07
Speaker 3
Pure ignorance, stoic, bad when you're like, wow, like this won't happen, right? And, and I've, I've been getting better at better and I understand how to mitigate all the risk that it can happen to anyone for sure. Yeah.
00:38:08:05 - 00:38:33:07
Speaker 4
Yeah. I mean, I definitely resonate with you. Like personally, I doubt my wilderness first responder and an emergency medical responder certificate. And so I did that in pursuit of just like, hey, being in the outdoors, I was run guiding at the time and stuff. And so I think that those kind of courses are so valuable to so many people and even just beyond like, you know, you don't have to be the most hardcore individual in the world to like benefit from that kind of a force.
00:38:33:07 - 00:39:06:04
Speaker 4
You know, it's like somebody has some kind of a medical emergency around you or just understanding the processes of like the body and what's going on or how to deal with something, that situation, how to for sure. And then obviously, obviously that gets amplified, especially. Yeah, you know, if you are spending multiple days out in the backcountry or you are climbing or you are doing dangerous sport, yeah, it's pretty important to to to have skills, you know, to be able to do those things and not get complacent with the skills because, you know, you can get a course like that or trained like that.
00:39:06:09 - 00:39:07:21
Speaker 4
And it's like CPR.
00:39:08:06 - 00:39:09:03
Speaker 3
You got to stay current.
00:39:09:04 - 00:39:21:13
Speaker 4
You don't get a CPR certificate. Exactly. You got to get recertified. Yeah. The time for CPR like every single year. And there's a reason for that, like under incredibly high pressure situations. You know, if you don't for sure, it's you.
00:39:21:13 - 00:39:22:13
Speaker 3
Lose the edge, just like.
00:39:22:13 - 00:39:23:21
Speaker 2
With climbing. Yeah, yeah.
00:39:24:06 - 00:39:29:17
Speaker 3
Yeah. What? That said, I've stayed current with my work for since 2008.
00:39:31:03 - 00:39:31:14
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:39:31:14 - 00:39:50:13
Speaker 3
And I just restarted in February which was, it's always fun and at this point it is so second nature for me and unfortunately I have had to use it in wilderness situations as many times as when you take those courses and they tell you like someday you're going to use this. It's happened to me a lot of those some days now.
00:39:50:14 - 00:39:59:13
Speaker 3
Yeah. And it's not always with me and my team that, you know, there's more and more people getting into the mountains in. I see stuff more and more regularly.
00:39:59:13 - 00:40:00:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
00:40:00:14 - 00:40:19:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think the interesting thing for your accident was that it's, you know, for maximize like Max you were a little bit run out. You didn't play a set piece that you thought you wanted to me. I'm climbing above my head in a new area on micro gear. You know, the the reasons for our errors were pretty much right in front of our face.
00:40:19:12 - 00:40:26:18
Speaker 1
Very easy for us to analyze in your situation. It almost just seems like the universe just pushed that rock. It.
00:40:26:18 - 00:40:31:06
Speaker 3
And I mean, that's I can almost just explain it any other way.
00:40:31:21 - 00:40:32:23
Speaker 2
I know. And it's that's.
00:40:32:23 - 00:40:34:03
Speaker 1
The hard thing to swallow.
00:40:34:03 - 00:40:36:14
Speaker 3
And just kind of scrambling to right and.
00:40:36:14 - 00:40:38:12
Speaker 2
And you.
00:40:38:12 - 00:40:42:08
Speaker 3
Know, with that said, I more than anybody, have such.
00:40:42:08 - 00:40:42:18
Speaker 2
A.
00:40:43:01 - 00:40:57:07
Speaker 3
Heightened appreciation for a loose rock now and I feel like I am very one very at one with it. And I can read Loose Rock Terrain Amazing, which obviously translates into doing essays because there are a lot of loose rock.
00:40:57:07 - 00:41:00:03
Speaker 1
I think it also trains you, trains you for randomness.
00:41:00:03 - 00:41:01:11
Speaker 2
It does, definitely.
00:41:01:18 - 00:41:18:07
Speaker 1
And I think that that's something that's really prevalent in the mountains. It's it's you know, we we spend every movement and every breath. It's all calculated. And we try to plan everything out, move by move. But when you're especially when you're doing a first ascents or you're out in the big mountains, randomness plays a huge factor. It does.
00:41:18:12 - 00:41:19:08
Speaker 1
It's hard to mitigate.
00:41:19:10 - 00:41:20:11
Speaker 3
It is. And I think.
00:41:21:00 - 00:41:28:09
Speaker 4
Yeah, you can never mitigate. All right. So that's the thing is like you just want to make sure you've done your part to be as educated as possible, to be as confident as.
00:41:28:13 - 00:41:29:18
Speaker 3
You're aware of the risks.
00:41:30:02 - 00:41:31:08
Speaker 2
Involved. Yeah.
00:41:32:07 - 00:41:50:06
Speaker 4
Totally. Well, get actually has a good article that he wrote on mitigating risk and he specifically mentions that the universe does not love you. And I would think that your story is a really great example of that. The universe is not out to be nice to you and not to love you. And you know, there's a lot of beauty out there, but also like.
00:41:51:03 - 00:41:51:06
Speaker 2
It.
00:41:51:06 - 00:42:11:10
Speaker 3
Does and it is as hard of a pill as it was for me to swallow at the time. I do look at it as this priceless learning experience that I got to endure and get to share it with others, you know? So I'd like to go back to kind of Kyle was saying a minute ago as far as like kind of those lessons that the mountains can teach you.
00:42:11:20 - 00:42:39:06
Speaker 3
And obviously accidents suck. You do still learn a lot from success. But this this commonly comes up as a philosophical topic in guiding. And what's funny and guiding is like the unspoken rule is we're never allowed to talk politics and we're never allowed to talk religion. But philosophy comes up time and time again, which can get at least a little bit spiritual, right.
00:42:39:19 - 00:42:52:15
Speaker 3
So what I well, I'll tell you, one of the common things that you'll hear is it's like, yeah, you get too stuck on the summit. You have summit fever and you've lost track of like what you're even up there for and what the overall process is meant to.
00:42:52:15 - 00:42:53:22
Speaker 2
Serve, which.
00:42:53:22 - 00:43:12:17
Speaker 3
Is enjoying being in the moment and what you're learning about yourself as you're suffering, as you're going along and and you're just that's all in the blinders. And you're just like, No, I'm going to the top, right? And to me, it's to the point out or it's like the top is a very subtle bonus. And I love what you learn about yourself in the process.
00:43:12:17 - 00:43:36:10
Speaker 3
And you learn something different every time, right? No matter how long you've been doing this. It is also, I think, translates to where it's like early on I would train really hard and I'd have these really high expectations on myself or my team or elements that were out of my control, like the weather and just being like someone would have an anal retentive bastard about it and take a lot of the.
00:43:36:10 - 00:43:37:04
Speaker 2
Fun out of it.
00:43:37:11 - 00:44:02:16
Speaker 3
And then go and something that is out of your control would happen and then you're like, go, go riding out of the mountains with your tail between your legs, kind of demoralized and not even like totally lost track. It's like, Hey, I learn more from that than if everything would have just gone perfect, right? And so it taught me and it does translate into a lot of other lives that I go into all big climbs, especially now, with little to no expectations.
00:44:02:16 - 00:44:04:05
Speaker 3
And then every pitch you make it is a.
00:44:04:05 - 00:44:05:19
Speaker 2
Bonus and.
00:44:06:17 - 00:44:16:02
Speaker 3
It can make it a lot more magic. And then you're never let down in that regard either. Right. And I do approach a lot of life like that for sure. Yeah.
00:44:17:05 - 00:44:46:17
Speaker 1
I think what you're describing is the the ease to slip into attaching ego and happiness to performance 100%. And I think that that can manifest it into peak bagging. It can be great grade chasing. Yep. You know, it manifests itself into everybody's life a little bit differently. But I think with people coming from gyms and people entering the scene, the performance oriented mindset is much more trained into the people that are entering the scene these days.
00:44:47:00 - 00:44:59:10
Speaker 1
And it can be pretty dangerous because it blinds you from from risk sometimes and it also, like you said in your situation, can take the fun out of it as well. Yeah. You're not reaching these, these whatever goals you're attaching your ego.
00:44:59:13 - 00:45:02:15
Speaker 2
Exactly.
00:45:02:15 - 00:45:24:15
Speaker 4
I also think depending on the goal, like at least speaking for myself and my understanding is like, you know, the actual process of getting to those bigger goals and getting to those peaks is like 90% or more, 99%. You know, that that moment you have at the peak is a really small amount. So that's like that's all you're out there for and what you're myopically focusing on.
00:45:25:01 - 00:45:45:07
Speaker 4
Well, you know, like you're just losing yourself in the process. Like you've got to learn how to enjoy the process and bailing on a route might be a part of the process saying, Hey, the weather's not in our favor, like this isn't safe. We need to turn around. And then you do get those days where you get to, you know, go and finish your objective or whatever for whatever that may be for you as an individual.
00:45:45:22 - 00:45:55:13
Speaker 4
But really, you need to learn how to enjoy the process just like in life, you know, if you don't enjoy like certain mundane things that you have to do for yourself.
00:45:55:14 - 00:45:57:05
Speaker 3
Oh, you're going to be miserable, right? Yeah.
00:45:57:18 - 00:45:59:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally.
00:45:59:00 - 00:46:09:18
Speaker 4
Yeah, you're going to be so miserable, right? So yeah. So it's like, yeah, enjoy the process and don't just focus on the the peak of exactly that is whether it's like a metaphor for something. Yeah.
00:46:10:00 - 00:46:29:15
Speaker 3
And what I'll, what I'll always go back to is it's like and you know, this, this is maybe getting a little metaphysical and I don't like to talk destiny or fate or anything like that, but the biggest, most important climbs that I have ever gotten to experience, I very strongly feel happened when and why they're supposed to. And only that.
00:46:29:15 - 00:46:31:10
Speaker 2
With with whom they happened with.
00:46:31:18 - 00:46:51:21
Speaker 3
When other times I try to force that same thing and it wouldn't. And then when it would, it was even more magic. Right? Like a great example of that was the first time that I ever climb the nose. And I had trained so much for a year with my brother and we had done a bunch, you know, all the prerequisite big walls that you're supposed to set you up for that right down to.
00:46:51:22 - 00:47:15:23
Speaker 3
I slept with the topo under my pillow for a year, but to this day I still have that top of super memorized. But I've also done the a few times, which helps. And the first time we did it, two days into it, we got caught in a five day storm, used up all of our rations. It was it was amazing, although we were both pretty let down when we were like, wow, we have to go down at the end of this five day storm.
00:47:16:23 - 00:47:35:18
Speaker 3
But it just made us kind of want it more. And I was a little PTSD from that for a while afterwards. And we committed to where it's like, okay, we're going to train even harder and in a year we're going to go back and we will bring extra supplies. And going down isn't an option. And that was a unique approach at that moment.
00:47:35:18 - 00:47:37:03
Speaker 2
But we did.
00:47:37:03 - 00:47:43:03
Speaker 3
It and then it helped teach me that it's like, don't stress that stuff so much and it will happen when.
00:47:43:03 - 00:47:43:22
Speaker 2
It's supposed to.
00:47:44:07 - 00:47:53:16
Speaker 3
And then from that point on, you know, as soon as I let go, all of the magic in my climbing career is when that really started to take off.
00:47:53:22 - 00:48:18:13
Speaker 1
So you brought up the word PTSD, and it brings me to the topic of fear. I'm interested to hear your perspective on so let me preface this for a little bit. So we deal with fear as climbers and it's a manage managing between listening to our intuition and knowing whether we're in over our heads versus toeing the line between.
00:48:18:13 - 00:48:42:17
Speaker 1
I need to push through this feeling and I need to to break through this bubble I'm in. I need to push the limits. I need to be uncomfortable. You know, there is a line to be danced. And my question, I guess, is, how have you told that line in your career and what advice can you pass on to somebody trying to push themselves and to push the grades and explore themselves as a climber?
00:48:42:17 - 00:48:45:15
Speaker 1
But how to do it safely and how?
00:48:45:17 - 00:48:47:10
Speaker 2
That is a beautiful question.
00:48:47:10 - 00:48:49:19
Speaker 3
Kyle and I knew you guys would have some good ones.
00:48:49:23 - 00:48:52:14
Speaker 2
As this went on.
00:48:52:14 - 00:48:54:02
Speaker 3
Fear is a big part.
00:48:54:02 - 00:48:55:09
Speaker 2
Of of of.
00:48:55:15 - 00:49:13:19
Speaker 3
Climbing. I think in general, I don't know any of us would maybe argue that it's very common that you'll hear that it's like, hey, that part of your brain is like any other muscle. You can train it. And I do believe in that. I will be the first to admit that from the time I started doing this. HEIGHTS And like.
00:49:13:19 - 00:49:15:06
Speaker 2
Like let's back it up a little bit more.
00:49:16:01 - 00:49:32:13
Speaker 3
You know, there's two psychological thoughts about your fear of heights. One is what they would label an umbilical fear of heights, which is your fear of standing on the side of a tall building or the side of a cliff. And the other is a fear of flying as irrational as it is, most people have.
00:49:33:09 - 00:49:33:19
Speaker 2
Almost.
00:49:33:19 - 00:49:59:08
Speaker 3
No fear of flying. And I think it's because it's like driving a car. It's just so second nature for us now that most people have a very, very real strong, biologically ingrained and biblical fear of heights still and so climbing. I think that puts that very front and center. And from early on, like you recognize that, that it's one of the beauties in it that like I think most of us can relate to that right away.
00:49:59:14 - 00:50:00:00
Speaker 3
You're like.
00:50:00:00 - 00:50:01:16
Speaker 2
Oh, I have.
00:50:01:16 - 00:50:27:00
Speaker 3
I am getting better at turning and channeling this fear into upward progression and positive energy to get me through those moments where you're walking that line right. And that this obviously is like I think earlier on when a lot of people are getting into this, you do train that muscle and the fear goes, let me back it up a little bit, too.
00:50:27:05 - 00:50:31:16
Speaker 3
So that umbilical fear of heights isn't so much your irrational fear of just.
00:50:31:16 - 00:50:33:01
Speaker 2
Standing what.
00:50:33:01 - 00:50:41:19
Speaker 3
It actually like on the side of some exposure, let's say, like whether that's the side of a building or not, it's actually your fear of falling, right? So as you get better at climbing.
00:50:42:00 - 00:50:42:18
Speaker 2
And.
00:50:43:02 - 00:51:06:13
Speaker 3
And identifying that part of that fear and a big part of it is you finally confront that fear of falling more than like, hey, I'm afraid of being up here right? And you're like, wow, the systems work. My Blair has me. And like any high risk, high impact sport, whether it's skateboarding, downhill, mountain biking, motocross that you get good at, falling skating is like one of the best ones.
00:51:06:13 - 00:51:22:23
Speaker 3
And most avid skaters that have done it for a long time, naturally are some of the best I've ever seen at following right out of the gates. So when you get beyond that, then you're like, okay, I can focus on mastering these other fears that come along with everything that you just asked, right?
00:51:24:00 - 00:51:24:10
Speaker 2
And then what.
00:51:24:10 - 00:51:28:14
Speaker 3
That translates to or transcends to is and another.
00:51:28:14 - 00:51:29:12
Speaker 2
Philosophical.
00:51:29:16 - 00:51:50:17
Speaker 3
Point that for me, a big part of the fear involved with this in every aspect and it could be the unknowns of Mother Nature. Right, is I love trying to be a master of my own fears, and that is different for everybody. But I think inherently all of us get that idea of climbing, whether we're aware of it or not, that we are mastering our own fears.
00:51:50:20 - 00:52:03:15
Speaker 3
And then what does that do for us? It crosses over as far as at least the confidence level in a lot of other walks of life. You're like, fuck, like this is nothing compared to those fears I was confronting yesterday up on that climb. Right.
00:52:05:05 - 00:52:05:22
Speaker 2
And so.
00:52:06:05 - 00:52:09:04
Speaker 3
That aspect of the fear, tolerance, I guess you could.
00:52:09:04 - 00:52:14:01
Speaker 2
Say, has made me a much.
00:52:14:01 - 00:52:16:00
Speaker 3
Better human. It's given.
00:52:16:00 - 00:52:16:09
Speaker 2
Me.
00:52:16:13 - 00:52:23:01
Speaker 3
More confidence what I've ever dreamed of. I mean, Kyle knows me a little bit, and I think most people who know.
00:52:23:01 - 00:52:24:05
Speaker 2
Me have.
00:52:24:05 - 00:52:28:19
Speaker 3
This maybe idea of of this person that has a lot of.
00:52:28:19 - 00:52:30:03
Speaker 2
Confidence in.
00:52:30:03 - 00:52:39:18
Speaker 3
Their mind. Right. When in fact, like when I was a kid growing up, I was one of the most insecure people I've ever known in my entire life. I got picked on and.
00:52:39:18 - 00:52:41:13
Speaker 2
Bullied a tremendous.
00:52:41:13 - 00:52:43:03
Speaker 3
Amount, more than I care to admit.
00:52:44:22 - 00:52:45:16
Speaker 2
And, you know, it was.
00:52:45:16 - 00:53:04:06
Speaker 3
Another beautiful thing that when I discovered climbing, it was one of the I never like sports a whole lot. Even though I did it, I surfed a lot. And that was more because of this unique connection I made with nature. But when I started climbing, it was one of the first times where I'm like, Wow, there's nobody here to judge me or pick on me or call me names.
00:53:04:10 - 00:53:10:18
Speaker 3
And it's kind of just like me and my buddy against ourselves and against Mother Nature. And we could.
00:53:10:18 - 00:53:11:05
Speaker 2
Be.
00:53:11:20 - 00:53:32:03
Speaker 3
As innocent, embrace our inner children, be as goofy as fuck as we want because society is not here to judge us. The only thing that could you could maybe argue that it will judge us in this moment is Mother Nature and our interpretation of the risk and fear that are putting ourselves in in those situations. Right. Does that answer your question?
00:53:32:03 - 00:53:34:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, I want to expand on it a little bit, though.
00:53:34:16 - 00:53:35:02
Speaker 3
For sure.
00:53:35:11 - 00:53:55:09
Speaker 1
So you're describing like a person getting into climbing? Definitely. You know, we tend to be more cautious when we're getting into a risky sport, at least I hope most people are. But I think that, you know, this process you described of getting through the fear and turning it into confidence, you get to a place of confidence, possibly cockiness and complacency.
00:53:55:12 - 00:53:56:01
Speaker 2
Yes.
00:53:56:09 - 00:54:14:21
Speaker 1
Yes. How do you what what kind of advice can you give to people to try to tackle those feelings? You know, let's say you're in that five year, six year range. You haven't had any major accidents you haven't seen any people get hurt. You've taken falls, but the systems worked. And so you've got no reason but to trust it entirely.
00:54:15:06 - 00:54:32:20
Speaker 1
And now you're toeing that line and leaning more towards more risk and complacency. So yeah, what besides getting yourself into an accident or having to see a friend die, how would you give people advice to to back it off and learn some humbleness and some realistic risk management at that point?
00:54:32:20 - 00:54:52:22
Speaker 3
So being humble would be a huge part of it. And I get a little bit more into it, but you have to leave the fucking ego at the door 100%. And when I first started climbing, it was amazing compared to my surfing background, which has a huge amount of ego. Then I'm like, Well, there's some ego in this, but most people do leave it at the door.
00:54:53:10 - 00:54:59:12
Speaker 3
And I always interpreted it as, I don't want to see this person die next to me because I'm being an.
00:54:59:12 - 00:55:01:16
Speaker 2
Asshole a.
00:55:02:10 - 00:55:17:22
Speaker 3
Bit more. As far as like back to like what you're asking Kyle is like ego does play a big part into that internal dialog that you're having with your self as far as getting more confident, potentially getting complacent, getting cocky, as you put it.
00:55:19:01 - 00:55:19:16
Speaker 2
One thing.
00:55:19:16 - 00:55:24:17
Speaker 3
That helped me out a lot, this isn't for everybody, but it was it was kind of more of the old.
00:55:24:17 - 00:55:25:09
Speaker 2
School.
00:55:27:00 - 00:55:52:14
Speaker 3
The old guard train of thought that I came from when I got into this was like when I started leading. Well, first of all, I wasn't allowed to lead until I climbed. So like over a year on TR in bouldering. And then when I was able it was like, you can only use passive, you're not allowed to use cams for at least a year and you better be building as many anchors to TR and repel off of as you can on top of leading all these climbs with passive gear.
00:55:52:23 - 00:56:11:20
Speaker 3
So twofold with that approach, it way slows you down and keeps you in check that you're not going to lead anything at your ability level because you have to learn how to fiddle in these little chunks, right? Like that takes some practice and you're not going to be doing it crushing on something that's set your limit. So it really forces you.
00:56:12:01 - 00:56:13:02
Speaker 2
To, to, to.
00:56:13:23 - 00:56:26:13
Speaker 3
To take a step back from where maybe your your cockiness and your ego and the experience you've built up to that point would potentially take you. And then after doing that for a year and it's like, oh, you're showing mastery of like.
00:56:27:03 - 00:56:28:10
Speaker 2
Nuts and hexes.
00:56:28:17 - 00:56:52:07
Speaker 3
And it's like, here's a few cams and you better save them for your anchors. And cams were a godsend after that, you know, and you are very limited if you climb only off of passive and you have to implement certain little tricks like such as having a passive anchor that can take an upward pull right. So that that's one bit of advice.
00:56:52:07 - 00:57:10:12
Speaker 3
Like I said, that's not for everybody. And I do still preach that to a lot of guests that I do formally train. And I do a big mentorship thing that I've done for a long time. Almost nobody does it, at least not in their mind. It forces them to take a step back and slow things.
00:57:10:12 - 00:57:11:16
Speaker 2
Down a little. Yeah.
00:57:11:17 - 00:57:12:13
Speaker 3
Furthermore.
00:57:13:02 - 00:57:13:21
Speaker 4
I'm sorry, you know.
00:57:13:21 - 00:57:14:16
Speaker 2
No, go ahead. Yeah.
00:57:15:01 - 00:57:32:17
Speaker 4
Well, I was just to say, it's kind of funny, I think. Not that I'm incredibly experienced to climb or anything, but like a lot of people I know who who I would say are a little bit more old school or really experienced climbers. They are incredibly talented with with passing protection and they really, really like placing like nets and stuff like that.
00:57:32:17 - 00:57:40:07
Speaker 4
And I think that much newer generation is really, really heavy on protection. And I don't really have like a stake in the game of saying like, you know.
00:57:40:15 - 00:57:41:17
Speaker 2
One over the other. Yeah.
00:57:42:05 - 00:57:56:23
Speaker 4
I do think that that's a really good point that you had though is like, you know, as like as someone who has an arsenal of tools, you should have high competency with all of your tools and definitely the ones that are easier for you. Right?
00:57:56:23 - 00:58:03:08
Speaker 3
Yeah. It's like how many people have stoppers hanging off of them and they're never using them. This is Kyle I know. Loves his past.
00:58:03:15 - 00:58:04:03
Speaker 2
Experience.
00:58:05:04 - 00:58:22:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. I've actually wanted to do an Instagram series called Nothing But Nuts, and I wanted to climb that would be climb a climber route with nothing but passive gear. My buddy Josh and I, when we were climbing, would actually have competitions. We would count how many passive pro we'd place in a pitch and add them up at the end of the multi pitch and see, see who had the most passive.
00:58:23:01 - 00:58:30:16
Speaker 3
I mean, it can go a really long ways and you can push it hard, you know, it makes you a little maybe stronger minded in that regard.
00:58:34:09 - 00:58:35:06
Speaker 2
That.
00:58:35:18 - 00:58:54:00
Speaker 3
Cams are good. And back to what you were saying as far as like doing doing a route that that would be cool to do on all passive, that is actually a very common thing. On The Nutcracker in Yosemite, which that was the very first climb that was ever climb with all passes from everybody moving from active hammering to clean climbing.
00:58:54:06 - 00:59:08:11
Speaker 3
And so it is still kind of common on that route to be like, hey, like Roller Robbins did it with his wife, with all stoppers to kind of help back up Yvonne Chouinard and be like, Hey, no, these work, you guys don't need to have our pitons up here anymore. I mean, my wife just did it with all stoppers and exes.
00:59:09:09 - 00:59:14:07
Speaker 3
That was awesome to do in that style. Still and there are decent out of Yosemite climbers that will still do that.
00:59:14:15 - 00:59:18:03
Speaker 1
Yeah I definitely think it's route dependent. It is for yeah.
00:59:18:07 - 00:59:20:04
Speaker 3
You can't buy a super.
00:59:20:04 - 00:59:22:12
Speaker 1
Crack with a bunch of nuts like.
00:59:22:12 - 00:59:24:23
Speaker 4
Flaring wires. It's like uniform.
00:59:25:18 - 00:59:37:11
Speaker 3
That is why regarding and Charlie Porter developed a spring loaded camping device because they can obsess with a parallel side of crack. And the story there is it was this they call it the 24 hour bet.
00:59:39:04 - 00:59:40:09
Speaker 2
And yeah.
00:59:40:09 - 00:59:41:18
Speaker 3
We could talk about another.
00:59:41:18 - 00:59:45:23
Speaker 2
Time. But yeah, the history is always cool.
00:59:46:03 - 00:59:49:19
Speaker 3
I think. Back to your your question though, Kyle, without going too off topic there is.
00:59:52:07 - 00:59:52:12
Speaker 2
Some.
00:59:52:12 - 00:59:58:15
Speaker 3
Other things that I think are very important and I think it's a big part of what you guys are doing. And having the guests on that you've.
00:59:58:15 - 01:00:00:23
Speaker 2
Had is.
01:00:01:14 - 01:00:20:22
Speaker 3
The best thing. I think without a doubt, especially like, you know, we noticed this a while ago that for the first time ever, climbers were coming out of gyms and their strength far exceeded their experience level. That had never happened before. And I started to see some really bad accidents in places by guys that I'm like, You're so strong.
01:00:20:22 - 01:00:38:20
Speaker 3
That shouldn't have happened. But they were just oblivious to like what good placements even look like, right? Or they're coming out of a gym climbing five, ten, maybe they've done a handful of like four or 511 out of the gym. Maybe they don't want a handful of 510 sport routes and then their buddy throws them on a57 tribe climate.
01:00:38:20 - 01:00:57:20
Speaker 3
Joshua Tree After going like, Oh, this is how you do this and this is how you do that. And that's a dangerous combination as well. As far as them being stronger than their experience of a right and especially in their head, that is a complacency and a cockiness thing as well. But with that said, what I'm getting at is I think.
01:00:57:20 - 01:00:58:08
Speaker 2
The.
01:00:58:09 - 01:01:21:13
Speaker 3
Most important and advice I could give, which I did not have this and in some ways I got lucky. In some ways, obviously the story I just told may not have played out if I did have a legitimate mentor, and it was probably a solid 10 to 12 years into this game that I finally started to meet some guys that saw enough in me that did take me under their wing.
01:01:21:13 - 01:01:42:09
Speaker 3
And they were O.G. legends that I looked up to for years. And you could say they taught me the ways more than anything. It was it was good affirmation that I was like, Oh, no, you are doing everything right, and you're not sketchy about this at all. And part of it was because my strength level, my experience level evolved faster than my strength.
01:01:42:22 - 01:02:03:21
Speaker 3
But then they've always kind of been parallel and maybe strength going up a little bit at a time and then experience level kind of catching back up with me. Right. That, that the mentorship process, I think is probably one of the most overlooked things in our climbing society in the States. And it is starting, I think, to be recognized more.
01:02:03:21 - 01:02:15:05
Speaker 3
But still nobody I think, has a very streamlined methodology as to like what that should actually look like other than like how it unfolded for me. I wish that could happen for everybody.
01:02:16:18 - 01:02:20:18
Speaker 2
And it does.
01:02:20:18 - 01:02:29:03
Speaker 3
Become a safety thing and it does come down to how you're mitigating risk, how your fear response to dealing with.
01:02:29:03 - 01:02:30:00
Speaker 2
All of that is.
01:02:30:17 - 01:02:56:11
Speaker 3
Like, I almost can't emphasize that enough. So the way I think it works for a lot of folks now as, as much of a necessary evil as this has come down to is hire a guide, at the very least for one time and more times than not, you will be surprise that that guide will see enough in you that it's like, Hey, I know you're the starving college kid that can't afford coming out with me as many times as you need.
01:02:56:19 - 01:03:23:04
Speaker 3
So why don't you just start trying to come out with me, like, every so often and like what I do, for example? I do I do offer that to a very large extent, but I'm like, I'm an open resource to everyone and anyone, and I give my card out to everyone I've ever shared a rope with. And I'm like, no matter how mundane it may be, how technical the systems may be, I love it when you guys ask me questions, semi pictures of your systems.
01:03:23:15 - 01:03:36:21
Speaker 3
I'm commonly like, you know, there's no such thing as a dumb question when comes to safety, kind of only dumb answers. And, and I love helping out to that extent and being able to extend that to people.
01:03:36:21 - 01:03:37:09
Speaker 2
So I think.
01:03:37:09 - 01:03:53:11
Speaker 4
That's I think that's that's really, really awesome. And I've personally experience that with like guides have hired where they've like, like offered, you know, an extension to being like if you ever back climbing in the area like, like you want advice on the weather or rude or anything. Like it's kind of like building relationships. It's networking.
01:03:53:19 - 01:04:08:07
Speaker 3
It is networking. You know, you're doing it for the right reason. That should be a given that just comes naturally that you shouldn't even have to think about or be trained on which that is part of the gig, you know, and we do get some education on that, right?
01:04:08:07 - 01:04:26:16
Speaker 4
Yeah. We've, we've talked about this essentially with like injury recovery of like who is your support group. And I think you could kind of extend that into your climbing support group. You know, definitely who who are like what are the resources, you know, to like reach out, to communicate with or like who are people that you look up to or that you, you know, speak with or whatever?
01:04:26:16 - 01:04:30:08
Speaker 4
It's just kind of building a community that you're actually injecting yourself.
01:04:30:08 - 01:04:39:06
Speaker 3
And it does become a family or you'll hear it referred to as a tribe. And that is something that I'm very grateful for. Back to like me giving all that credit to my brother.
01:04:39:17 - 01:04:40:12
Speaker 2
Is.
01:04:41:16 - 01:04:48:00
Speaker 3
I through the years I have developed this amazing support group that I am like, I can't even put into words like.
01:04:48:00 - 01:04:49:16
Speaker 2
How much.
01:04:49:23 - 01:04:52:06
Speaker 3
Their support and their belief in me.
01:04:52:14 - 01:04:53:03
Speaker 2
Has.
01:04:54:08 - 01:05:06:02
Speaker 3
Has helped me get a share. This capacities I would have never dreamed. Right but yeah I mean a lot of it if it wasn't for them, I, it would I probably, I don't know if I would be sitting here having this conversation.
01:05:06:02 - 01:05:06:11
Speaker 2
Right.
01:05:07:10 - 01:05:09:01
Speaker 4
So do you and your brother still find it?
01:05:09:12 - 01:05:16:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Jonathan, shout out to Jonathan. Yeah, yeah.
01:05:16:07 - 01:05:18:00
Speaker 3
His IG handle is eventually.
01:05:18:01 - 01:05:21:15
Speaker 2
So these are these adventures, the family. Yeah. Right.
01:05:22:07 - 01:05:41:18
Speaker 3
So he has a real job. He's a terrestrial biologist and he's one of the chief biologist for the West Coast. So really all he does is drive around and look for endangered species and monitor them. And if there's there there in any sort of threatening situation, mainly because of urban sprawl, my brother shuts.
01:05:41:18 - 01:05:42:08
Speaker 2
It all down.
01:05:42:19 - 01:05:48:14
Speaker 4
Is that why he hangs out with you so much? He's looking out for endangered species.
01:05:48:21 - 01:05:51:05
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah, I know we do a lot. I mean, he's taught me.
01:05:51:11 - 01:06:01:17
Speaker 3
He's taught me more than I even knew there was to know about biology. It's pretty cool. It's like, I mean, it's like basically having a biological professor in my pocket that I can talk to and everyone.
01:06:01:22 - 01:06:02:05
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:06:02:13 - 01:06:16:05
Speaker 3
And then that, that crosses over into getting share this a lot and you know guiding we're supposed to know a lot about the history and the local biology. So I love getting to share that based off of all the interesting knowledge my brother shared with me. Yeah.
01:06:16:12 - 01:06:16:16
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:06:16:16 - 01:06:34:05
Speaker 1
I think that this topic of mentorship is a really, really good one. And I'll attest to to you, you know, being a mentor for myself in the beginning stages, you know, I met you at Nomad Ventures. You were you know, you were sitting behind the desk. You saw the twilight in my eyes. I was walking in there just looking at all the gear and stuff.
01:06:34:05 - 01:06:52:02
Speaker 1
And, you know, you told me about toolkits and everything. And, you know, I was looking in there. You were my you were my rock, you know, like I was looking to get into multi pitch trad and I was leading for the first time and bringing somebody else up, you know, like, I didn't really have a mentor. I couldn't find anybody that was climbing harder than me or wanted to do objectives.
01:06:52:02 - 01:06:54:11
Speaker 1
More challenge. Yeah. And so no.
01:06:54:11 - 01:06:55:18
Speaker 2
And I and, and yeah.
01:06:55:18 - 01:06:57:17
Speaker 3
And I apologize. I couldn't be there more.
01:06:57:18 - 01:06:58:10
Speaker 2
No, you.
01:06:58:13 - 01:07:07:21
Speaker 1
Know, man, like, it was awesome. Like, you, you honestly for, for where I was and for what I wanted to do. You were exactly what I needed. Exactly.
01:07:07:21 - 01:07:12:05
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting how that happen. Yeah. Like time and time again. Yeah, yeah and yeah.
01:07:12:05 - 01:07:34:18
Speaker 1
And ever since that day, you know, we did the little climb up, like, because, like, you've been super open and just like, attesting to your willingness to help people who reach out to you and stuff. So yeah, I'm sure it's not the only one. And yeah, like just back to mentorship itself, I think that, you know, Max, you said you had a pretty good mentor going into your climbing career.
01:07:35:10 - 01:07:54:18
Speaker 1
I personally didn't, and I think that there's a lot of other people that could say the same. I think it's hard to find people that are climbing harder than you or have more experience than you are and willing to take you under their wing. Because a lot of those people either have mentors that they're climbing with and they're learning from or, you know, they don't want to have to slow down.
01:07:54:18 - 01:08:03:11
Speaker 1
You know, there's a lot of other complications and stuff. It takes a pretty special person to to want to do that for another person. And I think it's pretty hard to come by. So yeah, I, I would.
01:08:04:00 - 01:08:06:15
Speaker 3
I would agree. And thank you for the compliments too.
01:08:06:16 - 01:08:07:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, man.
01:08:07:06 - 01:08:27:02
Speaker 4
Yeah, I think it's, I think with mentorship, it's, um, it's kind of like a cultural thing, obviously that's embedded in climbing. But I think also like if I analyze it from a more like modern perspective, like it's a two way street, like we need to breed a culture of mentor who want to seek out and go and mentor people, which I think there is.
01:08:27:07 - 01:08:31:14
Speaker 4
But obviously the amount of climbing compared to the amount of really experienced for sure.
01:08:31:14 - 01:08:32:12
Speaker 3
It's very steep.
01:08:32:13 - 01:08:55:23
Speaker 4
Ratio. Yeah. Yeah. So so you also we also need to have kind of and I hope we're contributing to this is like breeding a culture of if you are a new climber and you are invested and you're interested and you have these goals, whatever they are for yourself, you know, the idea that like the perfect person with the perfect to, you know, has the time and all of these things is going to like fall into your lap.
01:08:55:23 - 01:09:28:07
Speaker 4
It's like the chances aren't that high. So also we need to have a culture of like new people, you know, seeking out mentors, seeking out these relationships, trying to inject themselves in these situations. There it is a two way street. And you as an individual have some agency and personal responsibility to do this. And then the caveat to that is that if you aren't finding that person, well, we got the Amiga, we got the Acme, we have these really well accredited industry professionals who you can hire to get that result.
01:09:28:07 - 01:09:44:11
Speaker 4
And then usually those people are really well connected, the community and you know, like you were saying, offering advice or exterior resources, or they could even just point you in the right direction, you know, like, hey, I was out with this client three weeks ago. He's a totally rad dude in the area, is climbing up a storm and he's looking for friends.
01:09:44:14 - 01:09:50:08
Speaker 4
Mine. Exactly. You know, it's just about like it's it's about trying to seek out and engage in those kind of. Yeah, you.
01:09:50:10 - 01:09:50:19
Speaker 3
Know, I.
01:09:51:02 - 01:09:53:19
Speaker 4
I think like as climbers, we have a responsibility.
01:09:53:19 - 01:10:13:04
Speaker 3
It can be very intimidating, too, for a lot of new folks and coming out of gyms and feeling a lot of these insecurities we're talking about to go up to even like some of like either of you, like you guys both are studs and you look intimidating. You're I know you're very approachable, but it's like if I see you at the crack, I would be like, oh, man, I want to be like that guy.
01:10:13:04 - 01:10:32:07
Speaker 3
And like, how do I even strike up a conversation? Right. And that's why I think it's important for us to do our due diligence to make, you know, we hear a lot lately as far as making this more inclusive, but just make those folks more feel more comfortable and more more genuinely like just psyched about, no, you're out doing this for the right reason.
01:10:32:07 - 01:10:32:19
Speaker 3
Right.
01:10:33:01 - 01:10:39:14
Speaker 2
And totally. And this is why I do it too, you know. Yeah. So I think that yeah, I think that it's.
01:10:41:05 - 01:11:00:05
Speaker 1
You know, we're, I think we're using the word mentor as kind of like this long term partner that's taking you up multi objectives and exactly a climber. But I think that that mentorship can also mean something else. It could be it could be a comment at a crack that someone of her experience says to somebody else.
01:11:00:11 - 01:11:02:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, it could be you should be able, you know.
01:11:02:19 - 01:11:11:06
Speaker 3
Or and kind of every situation if you're yeah. If you're looking at it as far as like, hey, what can I learn from this experience, right?
01:11:11:12 - 01:11:31:11
Speaker 1
I think I'm, I'm more speaking of us all trying to be mentors for the people around us. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you like let's say you've climbed five, nine, you know, that's your climbing level and you've been climbing for a year, you're a mentor to someone just getting in. And this goes on and on and on for anybody who has experience, you're always going to be a mentor for someone below you.
01:11:31:11 - 01:11:47:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. And like for me at my place, like, I can take somebody out right now and like go cracking and do a trade and still have fun and push my grades because I can have someone blame me. But I can also take the time to just go over basic tread stuff with someone. I can show them how to place something.
01:11:47:20 - 01:11:51:16
Speaker 1
I can spend 15 minutes with somebody and change their entire course.
01:11:51:16 - 01:11:52:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, I'm not their.
01:11:52:15 - 01:11:53:06
Speaker 1
Threat of their.
01:11:53:14 - 01:11:54:15
Speaker 3
Career. It's like it.
01:11:54:15 - 01:11:57:16
Speaker 1
Doesn't take that much effort to to have that mentality.
01:11:57:18 - 01:11:59:11
Speaker 3
Would say that's a huge part of the process.
01:11:59:11 - 01:12:00:12
Speaker 2
And and.
01:12:00:18 - 01:12:04:05
Speaker 3
Recognizing that that is a big part of the process versus like.
01:12:04:11 - 01:12:06:01
Speaker 2
Chasing numbers or.
01:12:06:07 - 01:12:08:01
Speaker 3
Just getting out there to be right, right.
01:12:09:00 - 01:12:09:16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Totally.
01:12:09:19 - 01:12:26:04
Speaker 3
And yeah, I mean, for me, like one of my original mentors, I was like kind of like, yeah, like, do you ever get bored of this? Seems like never. And and I totally get that now. You know, it's like I there are some.
01:12:26:12 - 01:12:27:03
Speaker 2
Of the.
01:12:27:03 - 01:12:29:04
Speaker 3
The mellow est moderate routes.
01:12:29:04 - 01:12:29:19
Speaker 2
In.
01:12:30:10 - 01:12:34:04
Speaker 3
That are amazing four or five star classics that we have in the nation.
01:12:34:11 - 01:12:35:05
Speaker 2
And I've done them.
01:12:35:13 - 01:12:51:09
Speaker 3
Hundreds of times now and it is different every time and every time. It's just as exciting. And that's kind of the common thing, I guess when you you get to that point that you'll hear even from someone of the crowd he's like, Oh, what's your favorite climb? And my answer is always, It's the last one I did, right?
01:12:51:13 - 01:13:08:21
Speaker 3
It's like, Yeah, that was the submission. That was my favorite. As of at least in this moment. But yeah, you know, the mentorship thing is interesting and I'm glad that we're talking about that because I do see it coming up more and more. And like I said, I think it is hard for people to maybe put into a box.
01:13:09:04 - 01:13:13:00
Speaker 3
And Kyle, as you mentioned, it's like, oh, like even for me, I was like, yeah, it's this.
01:13:13:09 - 01:13:14:11
Speaker 2
Gnarled, old.
01:13:14:11 - 01:13:39:19
Speaker 3
Hard dude that's been doing this forever and he's going to get me up to par with him. And that is, it's come close to happening in that way. But more times than not, it's like even my guest that I'm teaching they become my mentors a lot of the times. Right. And and what's in there in the sense that maybe it's one time I spent with them and I learned something from them or a new application on a client, like I said, that I've done hundreds of times.
01:13:40:17 - 01:13:40:23
Speaker 2
To.
01:13:40:23 - 01:14:02:14
Speaker 3
Kind of blow their mind even further, but then a lot of times it turns into a more of a mentorship process. They surpass where I ever will ever get to, and then I see them that trickle effect and them sharing that with everybody else right. So I think maybe for now that is important that people are at least recognize it's like, hey, we have.
01:14:02:14 - 01:14:03:05
Speaker 2
That.
01:14:03:15 - 01:14:04:16
Speaker 3
If you can't like go.
01:14:04:16 - 01:14:06:19
Speaker 2
Out and, get a.
01:14:06:19 - 01:14:08:10
Speaker 3
Share with Peter Croft tomorrow.
01:14:08:10 - 01:14:13:16
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah. What else? Where do we want to go next?
01:14:13:22 - 01:14:32:03
Speaker 4
I think one thing I say on like fear and mitigating risk and stuff was like, you know, it is much as like getting motivated and stoked and wanting to climb really hard and. All these things is amazing and I don't deter from that at all. Also, like, realize that like, it's not the movies and you're probably not.
01:14:32:09 - 01:14:32:21
Speaker 2
Yes.
01:14:33:02 - 01:14:52:00
Speaker 4
And you're climbing for yourself, you know. And so if you feel more comfortable carrying like a little bit of a fatter rack and like running moderates, and you don't want to run it out like, you know, don't pressure yourself into like trying to be something that there's like this ethos in climbing about, like being hard, being top and running it out.
01:14:52:04 - 01:15:25:22
Speaker 4
And I think that for people who do do those things and live that kind of ethos, I think it's really impressive and really admirable. But like speaking for myself, like around the time of my injury, I was getting into like lightning my rack and trying to move. Yeah, yeah. Really fast and, like, efficiently in the mountains and like as much as I was doing it, okay, like for one, it obviously didn't work out great and be like as I was doing it, it didn't really feel like me, like I was trying to adapt how I wanted to climb, to how I, I should climb if I wanted to be a good climber.
01:15:26:06 - 01:15:44:07
Speaker 4
And so I guess for me is just like if you are the type of person who you want to, you know, get better and stuff, but like maybe you're really uncomfortable and really pushing your comfort zone and stuff in ways that you're not sure about. Take a step back. Yeah, that's okay. Take, take a step back. You know, don't don't.
01:15:44:17 - 01:16:03:04
Speaker 1
This this exact thing you're talking about. I was at the crack the other day, and there's this new guy who is getting into Trad. He he's on his second trad lead. All right. Second trad lead, five eight. And he's at the base looking at me and he's like telling me he's like, dude, all right. So I looked at it like, I'm trying to bring as little gear as possible.
01:16:03:13 - 01:16:20:09
Speaker 1
Like he said that, like, he's already in that mindset of trying to lean down, trying to be more efficient, trying to be a more badass climber. And then again, he's up at this crux section on this five eight. He's getting a little a little stressed. You know, you could tell. And, you know, he gets past the crux and he gets a piece in.
01:16:20:13 - 01:16:37:01
Speaker 1
And there's one mentor guy who is with us. It's like, hey, you know, it's okay to take. And he just, like, shakes his head like this and he's like, no, I won't take, you know? And so it's just like it's a pride thing. But I think it's so ingrained into the sport. It's like face your fears, manage the risk.
01:16:37:01 - 01:16:40:09
Speaker 1
Like don't take as much gear, you know, it's like, I.
01:16:40:09 - 01:16:50:21
Speaker 3
Mean, much you could you could give a lot of that blame to like climbing media as well, right? It's like, how often do you even see like bad ass shit on the cover of a magazine? I'm sure you guys have seen it or.
01:16:51:00 - 01:16:51:12
Speaker 1
No one's where.
01:16:51:12 - 01:17:09:22
Speaker 3
It's like no one's ever even wearing a helmet. Right? And it's like I yeah, I wear a helmet religiously. I did it when I was younger, but it's like as I started to have kids and then experienced some of these mishaps. I'm like, no, like that. Like, there are things we can do that are very simple, like carrying a few more pieces right?
01:17:09:22 - 01:17:11:02
Speaker 3
Not being afraid to take.
01:17:11:02 - 01:17:11:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally.
01:17:13:02 - 01:17:20:11
Speaker 4
Well, I think about five guy at the crowd you're talking about, you know, we could take Josh's example. Yeah. How about you go up and you place stop.
01:17:20:18 - 01:17:21:07
Speaker 2
There you go.
01:17:21:17 - 01:17:27:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. The route will take you four times and you'll get way more experience.
01:17:27:01 - 01:17:35:00
Speaker 4
Steve You is more experience. It's safer. Exactly. You're just, like, cheating yourself out of, like, safety. Yes.
01:17:35:11 - 01:17:35:20
Speaker 1
Exactly.
01:17:35:21 - 01:17:57:08
Speaker 4
And I think that that's kind of what I was speaking to. And I think comment, Kyle, I think that was a great example. Right. It's just like, you know, I think I think generally by the time you're ready to really push things and really like thread the needle, like you'll know because you're probably like a crusher and you're super motivated and you're like biting at the gills every weekend to get out.
01:17:57:08 - 01:18:09:07
Speaker 4
And you like you like. It's like you just won't know, you know? So if you're, like, new to the sport or don't feel comfortable or you're getting like the sewing pins leg on like a guy worried up there, it's like, yeah.
01:18:09:14 - 01:18:10:00
Speaker 2
For sure.
01:18:10:08 - 01:18:27:15
Speaker 4
Well, you know, like put in like three extra tabs if you need to take, take like whatever it is to just like ultimately the goal here, you know, our podcast is catered to the majority of people. It's like, like we want people to get out and just feel good and do experience sort climbing and hope. Yeah for sure.
01:18:27:15 - 01:18:33:13
Speaker 4
I have a one ton boulder rip their foot off or break bothering. Oh no. It's like like that's.
01:18:33:13 - 01:18:37:00
Speaker 3
Not I mean, it's the the comments, you know.
01:18:37:00 - 01:18:38:16
Speaker 4
It happens more than I want.
01:18:39:01 - 01:18:40:18
Speaker 3
Yeah, but people, people just.
01:18:40:18 - 01:18:44:02
Speaker 2
What is that? Even me like? No, no. Well.
01:18:44:10 - 01:18:59:07
Speaker 1
You can also trip chase down the people are climbing harder and pushing those boundaries. I bet you the more people you chase down like that are either dead or have been through a traumatic injury like a the numbers go up significantly when you start running the thread like that.
01:18:59:16 - 01:19:06:23
Speaker 3
I mean, no, like you are, you are cutting corners and heightening the risk factor for sure. And hopefully you are aware that.
01:19:06:23 - 01:19:07:09
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:19:07:16 - 01:19:26:19
Speaker 3
So and I've definitely, you know, I'm guilty of walking that line and for a long time even having a family and where it didn't really hit me until I actually had my third kid, which was a girl. And like I was like, wow, like my boys, I guess subconsciously, like, could have gotten by without me, but not a girl.
01:19:26:19 - 01:19:35:12
Speaker 3
Like, for whatever reason, it messed with my psyche way more than almost anything. And I did pump the brakes tremendously with where I had previously gone with it.
01:19:35:12 - 01:19:36:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, but I.
01:19:36:05 - 01:19:37:23
Speaker 3
Found more of a balance, you could say.
01:19:37:23 - 01:19:38:07
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:19:38:18 - 01:19:39:21
Speaker 3
And a lot of that is Yeah.
01:19:40:13 - 01:19:43:06
Speaker 2
Is a love of getting to go do new route development.
01:19:43:06 - 01:19:44:16
Speaker 3
So let's talk about that and.
01:19:44:16 - 01:19:49:04
Speaker 2
How that all came about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:19:49:09 - 01:20:13:23
Speaker 3
So I guess after that accident when I was younger and you know, I had that conversation with myself loud and clear a bunch of times where it's like, No, I will do this the rest of my life. Like, you know, it was around, like I remember like not too long after that, like seeing other accidents, people getting in that were way more traumatic even, and then overcoming it and still being involved in the outdoors.
01:20:14:07 - 01:20:28:11
Speaker 3
And I was like, Yeah, it's a little more justified. I, that was a freak accident. I'm like, What could be worse than that other than death? So I'm like, as far as like one way I've always tried to rationalize it.
01:20:28:18 - 01:20:32:16
Speaker 2
Is that.
01:20:33:05 - 01:20:38:06
Speaker 3
Nothing that bad could ever happen to me in the mountains again, other than maybe.
01:20:38:06 - 01:20:38:19
Speaker 2
Dying.
01:20:38:23 - 01:20:58:19
Speaker 3
And I could live with anything else right? So it was like, game on. I'm like, I experienced the worst. And since I did like the law of averages, like I maybe I and this is probably not a good way to, to rationalize this like nothing like this should ever happen again, especially if I'm very cognizant of it. Right.
01:20:59:02 - 01:21:04:23
Speaker 3
And, and I, I, yeah, I avoided accidents for a long time after that.
01:21:04:23 - 01:21:05:05
Speaker 2
And.
01:21:06:03 - 01:21:19:18
Speaker 3
You know, I got way immersed in it. I got stronger than I ever had. More importantly, I gained way more experience than I ever had. I started to do bigger and bigger objectives, none of which ever felt.
01:21:21:17 - 01:21:22:02
Speaker 2
They all.
01:21:22:02 - 01:21:46:18
Speaker 3
Happened, like I mentioned earlier, kind of when they felt like they were supposed to. And it was like like beyond words like so many magical experiences that I hope a lot of climbers do get to experience. And so as that kind of progressed, you know, this is maybe flat fast forwarding five years now. So it's 2008.
01:21:47:09 - 01:21:48:13
Speaker 2
So seven years.
01:21:50:10 - 01:21:58:02
Speaker 3
And backing it up a little bit, you know, through that through that next 7 to 8 year period, I from the get go, I.
01:21:58:03 - 01:21:58:23
Speaker 2
Have been.
01:21:59:22 - 01:22:09:07
Speaker 3
Like a very devoted tried climber, you could say. And to me the pinnacle of all of it were doing like the biggest, like most inspiring routes in the world.
01:22:09:16 - 01:22:11:10
Speaker 2
Although I haven't done that, done.
01:22:11:15 - 01:22:41:06
Speaker 3
Nearly all of the ones I've wanted to I've gotten to to play on some of them, let's say. And you know, as I would put it there were a lot of very serendipitous moments that little me would have never, ever dreamed of in a million years. So kind a living testament that I like to say, like if I could do it, anybody could do it, especially after such kind of traumatic experience when I was younger with this and so, you know, I was still young.
01:22:41:07 - 01:22:45:08
Speaker 3
I, you know, this is all before I'm even 26.
01:22:46:10 - 01:22:47:08
Speaker 2
I didn't know what the fuck I.
01:22:47:14 - 01:23:03:09
Speaker 3
To do in life. I had mentioned like I was born into a career I thought I would do forever, which was working in the surfboard industry. And my uncle owns one of the largest surfboard manufacturers on the planet. So I started working there when I was 12 and as I mentioned, it's still a fossil to the outdoor industry.
01:23:03:12 - 01:23:19:18
Speaker 3
So all through this, that's what I'm doing. But I went to college and I got my art degree. I'm I start working at a gear shop. I love art, as I mentioned before.
01:23:19:18 - 01:23:20:14
Speaker 2
And.
01:23:20:23 - 01:23:39:09
Speaker 3
I got really into tattooing. So I'm working at a tattoo parlor and I have family. I'm trying to balance all of that. Like, how do you even find time for climbing, right? But climbing, climbing through those early years it one out, I knew it always would. So what happened was in 2000.
01:23:39:09 - 01:23:40:08
Speaker 2
And.
01:23:41:04 - 01:24:04:19
Speaker 3
Four, I guess it was 2008 getting stronger, I had this kind of like nemesis climbing the Sierras, which is just a casual, classic route called Bear Creek Fire. I'd gone to do it five times, and because of circumstantial situations like friends getting altitude, sickness, weather never even got off the ground like we did the six mile death march every time.
01:24:04:19 - 01:24:17:00
Speaker 3
And I'm just like, What is up with this thing? And then finally I was going to go do it with my brother. We're going to do it in a day. And I'm like, Oh, it's on Will. I'll do it with him easy. And we're both like the weekend before.
01:24:17:07 - 01:24:17:23
Speaker 2
And.
01:24:19:05 - 01:24:20:01
Speaker 3
I'm on this boulder.
01:24:20:01 - 01:24:20:18
Speaker 2
Problem.
01:24:21:09 - 01:24:39:22
Speaker 3
Probably three feet off the ground with like five giant pads and like four of my, like big ass buddies spotting me and I do this little slip. It was the end of the day like my foot popped, but I'm not on the house. The ground went on, the pads kind of roll with it falling on my back and I feel a weird pop and I'm like, Oh, I think I broke my leg and this is my other leg now.
01:24:40:07 - 01:24:40:18
Speaker 2
And.
01:24:41:17 - 01:25:00:08
Speaker 3
And, and, you know, I had a couple other superficial injuries in the meantime, but my buddies are like, Oh, there's no way you broke it. Like, get up, walk it off. You know, like get up there and send that thing. And as I stand up like mid mid shafted fed spiral fracture, it just collapses in half and I, I shatter that in 20 places.
01:25:00:20 - 01:25:01:06
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:25:01:13 - 01:25:12:20
Speaker 3
Like just splintered like beyond belief. And back to what you had mentioned earlier, Max, as far as like my other injury sustained and it was more soft tissue. This was a way worse healing process.
01:25:13:13 - 01:25:14:03
Speaker 2
And.
01:25:14:03 - 01:25:20:17
Speaker 3
Obviously obviously the Bear Creek spirt trip got canceled.
01:25:20:17 - 01:25:22:00
Speaker 2
I had a this.
01:25:22:00 - 01:25:36:02
Speaker 3
Was just after my brother and I had tried to do the nose for the first time. So I'm supposed to be training for the next year. Mike Suck. I'm out of it for now, a year now. And so that recovery, I remember being pretty stubborn and it was very painful.
01:25:36:12 - 01:25:37:06
Speaker 2
But you know.
01:25:37:06 - 01:25:41:19
Speaker 3
Unlike the first one, I'm like, Oh, this is just part of the process and it'll probably happen again.
01:25:41:19 - 01:25:43:15
Speaker 2
Okay. And, and.
01:25:45:01 - 01:26:06:04
Speaker 3
You know, just for the both of you, like if you guys stick with this long enough, like expect, to have some other mishaps and hopefully it's nothing too serious. And that was kind of another random freak thing, but there were a few things that led up to it, such as like just being tired, you know, letting my guard down, just sort of boulder problem three feet off the ground on and not giving it that respect.
01:26:06:12 - 01:26:10:02
Speaker 2
And so that was in June.
01:26:10:02 - 01:26:32:10
Speaker 3
And that January, my orthopedist is like, Yeah, you can start walking again and maybe like you got to start doing all this physical therapy. Obviously, long story short, didn't end up meeting any surgery on it, although that was like up in the air through the whole process. I had a really good sports orthopedic at the time and he's like, No, we're not going to put you in a cast.
01:26:32:16 - 01:26:47:14
Speaker 3
We're going to let you be in an inflatable cast for three months. But I want you to try to use it and knock it atrophy as much as you can. And if it doesn't start to fuze in three months, then we'll have to go in and put plates in after three months. He's like, Yeah, it's not fuzing, it's not looking good.
01:26:47:14 - 01:27:11:07
Speaker 3
Let's it another month and another month. He's like, No, like you see in the x ray, like all of these bones have sticky ends. Now that mean that they're fuzing together naturally. And that's what I want. Like surgeries. The last resort, even though what you have, typically, you go straight into surgery for it. And so six months into it is all fuzing basically like a huge calcium not there now, but it was it was New Year's Eve.
01:27:11:07 - 01:27:16:03
Speaker 3
And I'm like, I think I got on this like one kind of random drunken boulder mission.
01:27:16:10 - 01:27:17:09
Speaker 2
Up at up.
01:27:17:09 - 01:27:26:11
Speaker 3
At black, a popular bouldering area in Southern California. And it was more just to go be around my friends climbing and stuff. And I'm like drinking and dealing with my issues.
01:27:26:17 - 01:27:27:04
Speaker 2
And.
01:27:28:14 - 01:27:39:05
Speaker 3
And I'm like, well, okay. Like, I could climb, but I could still barely walk. Climbing didn't hurt too bad, though. And obviously I don't want to fall on do it would have been really bad.
01:27:40:09 - 01:27:41:01
Speaker 2
So.
01:27:41:01 - 01:28:03:22
Speaker 3
You know a few days goes by it's New Year's Eve and me and my brother at this party, we're like nobody there is really outdoor oriented and it's him and I in this back corner just talking, climbing and like feeding off of each other's energy. And we're obviously drinking about 10:00. We're waiting for the New Year's countdown. And we start like kind of like doing okay, like your legs getting better.
01:28:03:22 - 01:28:32:16
Speaker 3
This is the year we're going to do the nose. Like like like what it's like, make all these amazing, like, big climbing objectives that are kind of like New Year's resolution and kind of escalates and basically, I'm like a drunk and bat my brother like one of the climbs we really want to do besides the nose and besides to finally get to go do Bear Creek Fire, which by the way, we and did both of those was to go to Epinephrine for the first time in Red Rocks.
01:28:32:22 - 01:28:34:09
Speaker 3
I like we'd always wanted to do that.
01:28:34:15 - 01:28:35:05
Speaker 2
And.
01:28:36:21 - 01:28:37:10
Speaker 3
You know, in the.
01:28:37:10 - 01:28:37:20
Speaker 2
Moment.
01:28:38:01 - 01:28:56:11
Speaker 3
Like basically my brother's like, you can climb, like I'll help you hike it and hike out. Like, let's drive out there right now on on the first of the year and we're drunk off of our asses at like 10:00 night. And I'm like, Yeah, that sounds amazing. Our why our wives are like, No, you guys like, you need to at least sober up.
01:28:56:11 - 01:29:16:05
Speaker 3
And we're like, Well, we'll go home and pack. And by that time we'll be sober to drive, which we still weren't, drove straight to Vegas, blasted up an effort with a broken leg and then had to crawl the entire way off of it through cactus and. So that that and then that was also the year that I like made the conscious decision to become a guide.
01:29:16:17 - 01:29:37:13
Speaker 3
And that was kind of part of that, that whole process in that moment with my brother that night. And that was back to what we were talking about before we started earlier. Max That was the year I turned 29. I had this huge year climbing. I remember when I was recovering from that break and just going like, Man, I don't want to go back to the surf industry.
01:29:37:19 - 01:29:56:23
Speaker 3
Like it had become very diluted. I was taught to me, is this like pure craft, like trade that is very much a lost art in most parts of the world now. And it it started to lose sight of that. And and I was getting a little jaded from it, although, like I was comfortable and I thought I would do it forever.
01:29:57:05 - 01:30:17:09
Speaker 3
And I remember like, man, I really don't want to go back. And I was looking in the classifieds in a in a newspaper and I saw this article and it was like 30 grand to go work for three months on the Greenland ice sheet, babysitting some scientists like was almost how by paraphrasing how this article was worded. And I'm like, Fuck, I could do that for 30 grand.
01:30:17:09 - 01:30:20:14
Speaker 3
And it's like, prerequisite. You have to be an AMG Alpine.
01:30:20:14 - 01:30:21:00
Speaker 2
And I'm like.
01:30:21:11 - 01:30:44:20
Speaker 3
MJ, okay, like I know of this. I knew of a couple of guides and but I still didn't know what that really meant. Right? And, and so I'm like, okay, let's look into it. This isn't maybe just even a bad pursuit for my own self growth was why I originally went into it. Like I still didn't really quite care to be a guide, but I saw maybe the potential of like getting some side gigs.
01:30:45:09 - 01:31:11:10
Speaker 3
And when I went down the track I like, all right, like five years of discipline easy. And I five years into it was like not even halfway to halfway to where I thought I should be and beat myself up over that a little bit. And I'm getting a little frustrated, but plucking away all the different courses and the different search.
01:31:11:10 - 01:31:28:11
Speaker 3
Right, and being able to guide more to what I had always wanted a guide. And at one point I think like six or seven years into it and life obviously gets in the way as it does with just climbing in general sometimes. Right. And it's important to find that balance. I remember.
01:31:28:11 - 01:31:32:06
Speaker 2
The the acting president at the time of the MJ.
01:31:32:22 - 01:31:55:09
Speaker 3
Writes me this really nice letter. And and it wasn't any real concern. I was I was expressing at that time it was a little tighter knit. And they obviously picked up on a lot of different people's energy and where they were at in regards to where they wanted to be at. And she tells me she's like, so Josh, like, can you get your Ph.D. to become a surgeon in five years?
01:31:55:14 - 01:31:56:08
Speaker 2
And I'm like, no.
01:31:56:15 - 01:32:02:04
Speaker 3
She's like, better yet. Like what martial arts? Could you get your black belt in in under ten?
01:32:02:21 - 01:32:04:12
Speaker 2
And I'm like, Dude, it clicked right away.
01:32:04:12 - 01:32:15:14
Speaker 3
And I'm like, Yeah, no, you're so right. And like, just embrace the process. And now, you know, I'm basically 15 years into it and I'm still only halfway to where I wanted to be. You know, you're right.
01:32:15:14 - 01:32:32:01
Speaker 4
It's funny that you say that, Josh, because like, you know, I've been fighting for maybe like, I don't know, like five, six years, but like the first three years of that was like, you know, nothing randomly in the gym, just like occasionally. So, like, I've really actually been climbing for three years and I've had serious injuries through that.
01:32:32:01 - 01:32:54:06
Speaker 4
Right? So and I really actually to become a guide, you know, it's something that I've really thought about and that I really want to do and I don't yeah. And I don't really like. And so part of me has this big, like, deep seeded doubt of being like, you know, I'm not talented enough, I'm not a strong enough climber, but I feel like I really have the temperament for it.
01:32:54:06 - 01:33:06:10
Speaker 4
And I don't want to necessarily go guide like hard routes all the time. I think my niece would be I really enjoy doing like clinics and facilitating like easy outings for people. And so you know.
01:33:06:18 - 01:33:08:16
Speaker 3
More and more the instructor Yeah.
01:33:08:22 - 01:33:26:13
Speaker 4
And so the only reason I would not chase this is because I tell myself, like, I'm never going to be good enough to do that. And I think I really resonate with what you're saying right now, because I'm the same thing. I'm like, you know, like, let's just take your reference or your black belt reference. It's like, okay, you're three years into serious climbing.
01:33:26:21 - 01:33:47:14
Speaker 4
Why the fuck would you have any of the necessary skills or anything to do that? Right. So it's kind of just this outlandish claim that I like not claim like thought process of like where I should be. I personally 100% resonate with that. And so in the last like six months, I've really kind of had this internal dialog with myself at going like, you know what?
01:33:47:14 - 01:34:09:06
Speaker 4
I have all these things in my life that I'm really happy with and I'm really satisfied about this, and I'm not going to just let this like negative internal voice that just like is self-deprecating and tells myself, like, I'm not going to be able to achieve it because I didn't achieve it in like three years, which is outlandish anyways, it's like I'm going to, I'm going to take my time, I'm going to work hard at this.
01:34:09:06 - 01:34:30:01
Speaker 4
I'm going to be consistent at it. And, you know, it's still my goal one day to get in HMG, whether an apprentice rocket certificate or, you know, apprentice ice. And and to do that, to be able to facilitate outings and to to, you know, mentor and guide people like that is still a goal of mine. So just what you were saying, I just resonate with so much on such a high level.
01:34:30:01 - 01:34:46:11
Speaker 4
And it's a real big thing I struggle with of not of like I'm taking that negative voice out of my head and just saying, you know, like, fuck that, you know, I'm going to work hard at this and it's going to take a lot longer than I think it's going to take. But I'm going to get there eventually for sure.
01:34:46:15 - 01:35:05:15
Speaker 3
So I was the same age as you when I made that conscious decision, and when I did and I took, it was a leap of faith. And I've taken many leaps of faith. And because I put so much positive, forward thinking into it, they've all it's all worked out the way that I always dream. If I could do it, you can do it.
01:35:05:22 - 01:35:31:06
Speaker 3
So much of it is patience and that anything in life that is truly important isn't going to be fucking easy, right? Like it will a long involved struggle. And that is part of the process. And I think the black belt analogy especially like could go back to what we were talking about as far mentorship and where you see yourself in comparison to a lot of other people you might see at the Crag and what you're like.
01:35:31:06 - 01:35:34:21
Speaker 3
Misconception might be as to how you.
01:35:35:03 - 01:35:36:02
Speaker 2
Want this to.
01:35:36:11 - 01:35:39:04
Speaker 3
To look or how how you think it should look, right?
01:35:39:16 - 01:35:41:05
Speaker 4
Yeah. Absolutely.
01:35:41:14 - 01:35:59:03
Speaker 3
So, yeah. So, you know, I did take that leap of faith and the struggle was very real originally, even when I had come to terms with like this is a happening as fast as I want, but you know, gave up a long time ago on any monetary gain. I'm like, this means so much to me. I would sacrifice everything.
01:35:59:03 - 01:35:59:10
Speaker 3
I'll be.
01:35:59:10 - 01:36:00:01
Speaker 2
Homeless.
01:36:01:09 - 01:36:02:23
Speaker 3
My wife, me because she was like.
01:36:02:23 - 01:36:04:14
Speaker 2
She she.
01:36:04:14 - 01:36:23:19
Speaker 3
Was right along with all that. She's always been my biggest supporter. And, you know, we were we were like I said, we were homeless for three solid years. It was very slow. But one of the best pieces of advice I could give there that I was very lucky is in your first psych year, especially your first years, no matter how.
01:36:24:15 - 01:36:27:18
Speaker 2
Lame, seems to get as many.
01:36:27:18 - 01:36:28:22
Speaker 3
Numbers under your belt as.
01:36:28:22 - 01:36:29:13
Speaker 2
Possible.
01:36:30:02 - 01:36:34:04
Speaker 3
And then that will just help snowball and carry that momentum throughout however long you want.
01:36:34:04 - 01:36:34:17
Speaker 2
To do it.
01:36:35:00 - 01:37:05:00
Speaker 3
And so originally the first company I worked for, I guided 3000 people for them in the first four years, and that's a whole nother story. But it was it was a huge it did give me a lot of that momentum. And then also back to what you were saying, Max, as to where it's gotten now. And what I see makes successful guides is trying to find your own niche, which is hard, but people have been coming up with some pretty original stuff and it's something early on.
01:37:05:00 - 01:37:13:16
Speaker 3
I'm like, I kind of fall into this niche, which is like sharing it to this capacity. But as mentioned and as we'll talk about a little bit more like.
01:37:14:03 - 01:37:16:00
Speaker 2
To to a lot of.
01:37:16:00 - 01:37:19:06
Speaker 3
Other capacities and other like stages that I get to share this song.
01:37:19:06 - 01:37:20:22
Speaker 2
Right.
01:37:20:22 - 01:37:22:04
Speaker 3
So I'm very thankful for that.
01:37:22:04 - 01:37:22:12
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:37:23:00 - 01:37:26:01
Speaker 4
Yeah. No, super, super cool man. Yeah, that's awesome.
01:37:26:16 - 01:37:58:07
Speaker 1
So I think that this is a question, I guess I have is you and something you've been circling around is your passion for setting up first a sense to me is the the, the pursuit of an athlete where the mentorship side is the pursuit of a teacher. It seems that you have these two paths. How have you managed both of them in your life?
01:37:58:07 - 01:38:04:15
Speaker 1
Because I feel like, you know, you could definitely have leaned all into the athlete side and just gone after setting up for the center.
01:38:05:07 - 01:38:25:11
Speaker 3
No, no, I like this. And it's great because I just kept slipping in and out of like me talking, wanting to touch on that a bit. So as I mentioned to you guys, when we had our first little mock meeting, you know, I have this artistic background, you can say like, I've never really consider myself an artist, but everybody else does.
01:38:25:17 - 01:38:36:20
Speaker 3
So I embrace it a lot more now than I did when I was younger. But for me, it was never, never an athletic pursuit at all. That was just a side byproduct.
01:38:37:03 - 01:38:37:13
Speaker 2
Of being.
01:38:37:13 - 01:38:51:21
Speaker 3
So active in the mountains is it does put you in good shape. And the trade off is that is important when it comes down to being able to perform and like perform and on on a dime at a moment's notice, right? Whatever the case may be.
01:38:53:14 - 01:38:54:08
Speaker 2
To me.
01:38:54:09 - 01:39:15:13
Speaker 3
I was always good at servant ASP X of of creativity, you could say. But the one thing I always admired the most and always was the worst at was any sort of performing arts. So I always been way envious of musicians. It's I'm finally getting a little better at music and I love music.
01:39:15:13 - 01:39:16:03
Speaker 2
That just.
01:39:16:17 - 01:39:20:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, that never clicked for me. Drama, dance.
01:39:20:12 - 01:39:21:08
Speaker 2
Oh, okay.
01:39:21:22 - 01:39:50:23
Speaker 3
I was always a stagehand in drama class. So when I discovered climbing, I and I appreciate and respect and recognize the athletic side of it and just like we were talking about earlier, like idolized a lot of my climbing heroes growing up because of the pursuits that they were they were fulfilling in their own right. And I always identified with that as being like, wow, they're this like amazing fit, like triathletes, like even beyond that type of conditioning.
01:39:50:23 - 01:40:00:17
Speaker 3
Right? And which wasn't always the case with a lot of those individuals. That was just how I perceived it. So when I started getting into it, the first thing I fell in love with.
01:40:01:02 - 01:40:01:22
Speaker 2
Was.
01:40:02:10 - 01:40:22:02
Speaker 3
The fact that I viewed it not as an athletic pursuit, that it a performing arts. And you'll hear, you know, it's a moving meditation. For me, it was just like beautiful vertical dance that I got to do with no one around judging me. And everybody does it a little differently. All of our body styles are different. Our experience levels are different.
01:40:22:02 - 01:40:25:00
Speaker 3
To me, that was a very beautiful thing.
01:40:25:00 - 01:40:26:01
Speaker 2
And, you know.
01:40:26:01 - 01:40:52:20
Speaker 3
Just to try to like cut my teeth and become more well-rounded with this, I was pursuing, I think, all the common classics that everybody does. And I think, you know, without veering too off track, one of my buddies who comes from more of a gaming generation, he has this beautiful analogy that it's like you can't start out climbing and you're at level one and expect to skip to level ten and defeat the boss.
01:40:53:02 - 01:41:13:19
Speaker 3
No matter how many kids you have. And you have to go through it systematically, right? And so I was doing that and then, you know, got my first mentor and he has done thousands, thousands of essays and I'm like, Why, dude? Like, there's so many classics I did. Did you really do them all? And you're like, This is what I have to do?
01:41:14:03 - 01:41:31:13
Speaker 3
And he's like, No, you know, like I love all of those classic bread and butter trade routes still. But you'll get to the point, too, to find that same excitement that you had the very first time you ever tied in. You have to go into the unknown. And he's like, Josh, it's the purest adventure. It's not for everybody.
01:41:31:13 - 01:41:49:12
Speaker 3
And you may never even get this, but in that moment I'm like, No, that makes sense. I still don't get it though. I'm going to go climb this classic multi five or whatever, right? And for the 20th time I just make, you know, and each time it should get better and better. I'm basically just repeating the same level and defeating the same boss a little more efficiently.
01:41:49:12 - 01:42:09:20
Speaker 3
Right. And then it got to the point to where, you know, and it comes back to the fear and risk mitigation a little bit. I'd always made a very deep promise to myself to never climb hopeless. But I remember standing at a crag that I had guided these routes thousands of times now, and I still loved it to death, but it was becoming a little mundane.
01:42:10:04 - 01:42:28:12
Speaker 3
And I remember in that moment going like, this is what my buddy told me in parallel with like doing new routes was it's like, yeah, okay. To do the same route that I promised myself 15 years ago, I would never do or hopeless to get that same excitement. Yeah, it makes sense just to leave the rope on the ground.
01:42:28:12 - 01:42:51:18
Speaker 3
Right. And obviously, I. I did do a decent amount rope was climbing on moderates just more for training than I, than I care to admit. But then what happened was in that process, I found that you could get the same experience. I guess you could save it infinite by tenfold, at least if not infinite amount of times. Developing new routes.
01:42:51:18 - 01:43:17:15
Speaker 3
Then I fell in love with the beauty of that creative process even more than than like the vertical ballet that I described a minute ago, because now it was this blank canvas that you had nothing to compare it to. And I got to paint whatever I wanted up that wall and or as I like to put it, like bring, bring that vision of that blank canvas to life to get hopefully someday share an inventory with generations of climbers.
01:43:17:15 - 01:43:31:04
Speaker 3
I'll never know the same way. I was inspired by doing said classic trade routes and being inspired by the history of what those guys were like, that what inspired them to want to be the first to do that know?
01:43:32:05 - 01:43:32:13
Speaker 2
And it.
01:43:32:13 - 01:43:50:17
Speaker 3
Is magic. And I don't say it's for everybody. I've taken a lot of people up new routes and they're like, Yeah, fuck that. Or a lot of times, you know, like the common joke is it's like, well, death march for 6 hours to do a 30 foot chase. Five, six. That's not all the time, especially with when you know where to look.
01:43:50:17 - 01:43:53:09
Speaker 3
But that that can be par for the course, you know, and it.
01:43:53:09 - 01:43:54:12
Speaker 2
Is it is.
01:43:56:15 - 01:44:03:16
Speaker 3
A lot of hard work that that it's it's extremely rewarding. And you never see anybody.
01:44:03:16 - 01:44:05:23
Speaker 2
And and and it.
01:44:05:23 - 01:44:13:13
Speaker 3
Is the purest adventure from a personal standpoint and getting to share that with others and see them get to go through all those emotions and jubilation.
01:44:13:14 - 01:44:52:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that. So you're comparison to phase and soloing is a very interesting one and it's cool that you kind of relate the high or the rewards physically in terms of the adventure and the exposure kind of being similar. But I think something you've already noted and I think this is something to point out, is that soloing is completely selfish to its core and the FAA is it has selfishness to it, but in the end, you're giving more to everyone else than you ever could give to yourself.
01:44:53:23 - 01:45:15:18
Speaker 1
And I think that's so that you kind of linked the two. And I think it's almost like this like light versus dark side, you know, it's like there's like, oh, there's a different side of the coin. And it's really cool that you've kind of had that perspective on it. And it is definitely are. And it's cool that you're able to get that same experience out of something that offers.
01:45:15:18 - 01:45:24:23
Speaker 3
You know, to, to throw some more. Yeah. To throw similar numbers out there and like, like stroke my ego a little bit more, which I try not to do too much obviously.
01:45:27:04 - 01:45:28:01
Speaker 2
I've done.
01:45:28:05 - 01:45:34:16
Speaker 3
Well over 2000 affairs now and a lot of them have been like up to grade, grade five, like some big solid or outstrip.
01:45:34:16 - 01:45:35:01
Speaker 2
The most.
01:45:35:01 - 01:45:35:11
Speaker 3
Magic.
01:45:35:11 - 01:45:38:15
Speaker 2
Thing about all that is getting me.
01:45:38:15 - 01:45:42:21
Speaker 3
Feedback from people that are doing routes that you're like, Well, that's kind of obscure. I didn't know that one would gain.
01:45:42:21 - 01:45:44:16
Speaker 2
Momentum.
01:45:44:16 - 01:45:57:17
Speaker 3
But then even more so what's happened is a lot of routes I've developed have become like very common trade routes for me and other guides to go guide now. And that was not really the intention when I was doing those, but now I do search that out a little bit more.
01:45:58:07 - 01:45:59:00
Speaker 1
It's too bad you can't.
01:45:59:00 - 01:46:08:02
Speaker 2
Charge at the base while. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. Like a purple. Yeah.
01:46:08:03 - 01:46:15:12
Speaker 4
Kind of like designing a room if you like to be like, I'm going to guide this in the future.
01:46:15:12 - 01:46:16:22
Speaker 3
And it's easy.
01:46:17:06 - 01:46:19:11
Speaker 4
For me to take people out and do exactly.
01:46:19:17 - 01:46:24:03
Speaker 3
And it teaches. It teaches like everything that I would want to cover with them.
01:46:24:03 - 01:46:25:06
Speaker 2
On day.
01:46:25:06 - 01:46:46:22
Speaker 3
Out as far as what they're trying to get. Yeah, right. So that's been pretty magic for sure from like a developmental standpoint. So that that has been my main pursuit. Even like hard to balance that one with as far as like do I do more guiding or do I do more essays since probably like 2010. Yeah. And I love it to death like now.
01:46:46:22 - 01:46:48:15
Speaker 2
I have a bunch going.
01:46:49:10 - 01:47:09:18
Speaker 3
Kyle you probably remember for my 40th birthday I which I'm 41 now, so I turning 40 especially for dude is kind of like a weird thing. I didn't think it was going to be until it happened. And I've always thought birthday challenges for climbing were like a bit cliche, but I'd help some friends with them. You know, it's like, Oh, you're turning 33, let's go climb 33 pitches or whatever.
01:47:10:11 - 01:47:16:03
Speaker 3
Never, never done anything like that. So for my 40th birthday, a lot of friends, right? You should do something like that. Blah, blah. And I'm.
01:47:16:18 - 01:47:17:00
Speaker 2
No.
01:47:17:00 - 01:47:19:00
Speaker 3
No, no, that then my son, my oldest son.
01:47:19:00 - 01:47:19:07
Speaker 2
Who.
01:47:20:02 - 01:47:24:23
Speaker 3
Was a very I mean, still climbs with me a decent amount, but he was a core climbing partner of mine for a.
01:47:24:23 - 01:47:27:09
Speaker 2
Long time.
01:47:27:09 - 01:47:38:19
Speaker 3
We did. We did even like my son when he was like 13, did some of my biggest phase with lover. So when someday someone comes along and repeats some of those, it's it's interesting to think that like Dad was taking his.
01:47:38:19 - 01:47:39:23
Speaker 2
Young kids, that.
01:47:41:00 - 01:47:55:09
Speaker 3
That could be interpreted a lot of different ways. But yeah, the birthday challenge so that so my my son is like yeah so you you should do 41st ascents in 40 oh oh. And I'm like, I'm like.
01:47:56:14 - 01:47:57:17
Speaker 2
Well, where does that come from?
01:47:57:17 - 01:48:01:14
Speaker 3
We're bouldering when he comes up with this and I'm and my like, my birthday was like.
01:48:01:14 - 01:48:04:05
Speaker 2
A a month and a half out.
01:48:04:12 - 01:48:26:07
Speaker 3
So I go home and I'm like, Dad, this is the perfect opportunity to go do lot of essays I've been wanting to do. I'll force myself to take like solely focus on that. And then I came up with these rules where it's like they had to be in four different areas, can all be in the same area, and at least a quarter of them had to be up to grade four.
01:48:26:22 - 01:48:40:11
Speaker 3
And it was one of the most outlandish ish like outer body things I ever did. But I did it. It was super rad. So just another example of like having fun. Yeah, like developing new routes, you know?
01:48:40:11 - 01:48:40:14
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:48:40:15 - 01:48:48:14
Speaker 1
So I'll bring up another question on that phase. I'd like to talk about ethics. I think that and kind of like the idea of bow guarding.
01:48:48:16 - 01:48:50:17
Speaker 2
And a stance in my ethics.
01:48:51:10 - 01:49:11:16
Speaker 1
Just like just the thought process behind someone who's who's developing a crag, developing a route. At what point do you feel like it's appropriate to release to the public, if so, at all? And what what are your kind of thoughts behind that whole process and turning something you've basically from private to public?
01:49:12:21 - 01:49:13:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, okay.
01:49:13:13 - 01:49:16:10
Speaker 3
I'll I'll answer that and I'll dig a little deeper into that.
01:49:16:10 - 01:49:18:00
Speaker 2
It sounds great. Okay. So.
01:49:18:06 - 01:49:50:17
Speaker 3
So obviously this sport has a lot of like very staunch ethics ingrained into it. And even as popular as it's getting, everybody still holds pretty true to them. And you do hear of and read about some shenanigans and it usually comes down to developing new areas and people not agreeing with it and going like, nope that's getting chopped or well, this guy's chipping and gluing a lot of different routes in an area that that is an acceptable things of that nature.
01:49:50:17 - 01:49:51:03
Speaker 3
Right.
01:49:51:03 - 01:49:51:12
Speaker 2
Okay.
01:49:52:10 - 01:50:06:21
Speaker 3
Me personally, I was very against bolting for a very long time and I like it's always been strict with like the original ethics written up by Earl Robbins and essentially the white hats of the Golden Age. Right.
01:50:07:06 - 01:50:07:20
Speaker 2
And.
01:50:08:04 - 01:50:33:18
Speaker 3
You know that's why we went to clean climbing and stopped hammering a few times. And you should never, as Robbins puts it, you should never take away from the rock to bring it to your level. Even if you can never rise to that occasion in your lifetime, that doesn't mean that a future generation won't, and you're immediately robbing them of ever having that adventure for themselves because you're being selfish and you want your glory.
01:50:34:07 - 01:50:44:02
Speaker 3
So my mindset has always been and I, I am not proud to say this, but at this point I have placed probably over a thousand.
01:50:44:02 - 01:50:44:17
Speaker 2
Bolts.
01:50:44:17 - 01:50:59:21
Speaker 3
Okay? And I haven't done that many sprouts a lot of them were more ground up like kind of core to those ethics, like ground up drill and traditional roots or it's like I'm going to get as much gear as I can. Wow. This run out is not realistic. Like, I need a place to bolt.
01:50:59:21 - 01:51:00:06
Speaker 2
Okay.
01:51:01:09 - 01:51:24:10
Speaker 3
But even with that, what I the way I would usually approach it and still do and especially like I live close to a very popular store area now that I think maybe a very small fraction of the overall potential of. The place has been bolted into a sport destination. It is acceptable there and I do place a lot of bolts there.
01:51:24:10 - 01:51:25:03
Speaker 3
So even in that.
01:51:25:03 - 01:51:27:00
Speaker 2
Application, I.
01:51:27:08 - 01:51:27:18
Speaker 3
If I.
01:51:27:18 - 01:51:29:18
Speaker 2
Can, will access.
01:51:29:18 - 01:51:56:03
Speaker 3
It from above, especially if it's 511 or harder. And we work it into submission and we clean it and you know, and when I say we, it is usually a collective process. So, you know, if you see any of my contributions, let's say on Mountain Project, which will segway into like one form of sharing it and when and why I don't ever give me or any of my friends credit for doing the essay.
01:51:56:06 - 01:52:18:18
Speaker 3
It's kind of this generic crew. So it's like any climbing, you see that I've contributed and it says the essay party was the Alpine Monkeys. That is me and whatever group of friends, right. And that was another way to take the ego out of it. Or some clients, it'd be a year process is what I'm getting through and we are have a dozen different friends even from the area or visiting.
01:52:19:08 - 01:52:19:22
Speaker 2
I'll check.
01:52:19:22 - 01:52:28:10
Speaker 3
This out. Oh no that, that. But we do a tick mark that's not in the right place. Okay. Then I think about it for a year before I go back and actually put the.
01:52:28:10 - 01:52:30:17
Speaker 2
Box in and.
01:52:30:17 - 01:52:43:03
Speaker 3
In that year things will usually change. We're like, No, it needs another bolt or No, we could like ditch half of them that we, we originally, we originally thought we needed, you know, and then obviously whenever you can place gear, it's like, I really don't like to.
01:52:43:03 - 01:52:44:09
Speaker 2
Put a bolt.
01:52:44:09 - 01:52:54:12
Speaker 3
And even if it's like, Oh, it's a four out and it's 13 clubs, there's one spot I can get a cab, I'll leave that. And if somebody is a sport climber, then they're just going to be forced to do a little bit more of a run out.
01:52:54:12 - 01:52:54:23
Speaker 2
You know.
01:52:56:08 - 01:53:13:16
Speaker 4
I think personally for personally for me, like, you know, maybe it's being like this like newer generation and stuff. I think it depends. Like, obviously, if there's like a nice splitter granite crack that just yeah, like someone's like for sure bolt into that. You're sitting there going like, okay, like why? But like a good example would be like guaranteed rugged.
01:53:13:16 - 01:53:23:08
Speaker 4
I don't know if you saw that post on Mountain Project and other things on Instagram. It's like it just upload it. It's really close to your actually. Yes. Yeah. It's like a 33 pitch. Yeah.
01:53:23:08 - 01:53:23:19
Speaker 2
It's like they.
01:53:23:19 - 01:53:24:23
Speaker 3
Say it's the longest drought.
01:53:24:23 - 01:53:25:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:53:25:20 - 01:53:26:16
Speaker 4
It's so it's like.
01:53:27:02 - 01:53:28:16
Speaker 3
That's a great example, unreal.
01:53:28:16 - 01:53:54:19
Speaker 4
Amazing example and that. And obviously 33 pitches is still full on. But I think what it does is it like it gives the sport of climbing access to people who maybe wouldn't have gone and done some insane short alpine route. You know, now like for sure actually have this goal of like, hey, you know, this important route. It's still full on, it's still route finding loose rock, the whole nine yards and 33 pitches in a day is that's that's a lot of climbing.
01:53:54:19 - 01:53:55:05
Speaker 4
You got to know.
01:53:55:08 - 01:53:56:05
Speaker 3
It's a big day.
01:53:56:05 - 01:54:09:14
Speaker 4
And so I at the very least, like you have this entry right, where you can get in and you can you can kind of do this. And so I'm a proponent personally of like when I when I hear and see things like that, I'm like, I'm like, fuck yeah, that's often treated you stuff like that is so great.
01:54:09:14 - 01:54:10:13
Speaker 4
So yeah.
01:54:10:13 - 01:54:34:23
Speaker 3
So, so with that said, not everybody ever cares to get into tried climbing, right? It's like they're happy sport climbing and that's amazing to be able to like up that and for those individuals a little bit more obviously like what they're out you're talking about, there's different rock types involved and even if like maybe you get a piece of gear, that's just the ethos of the area whatever it is, it's like, Yeah, turn it into a sport, right?
01:54:35:02 - 01:54:49:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. Me personally, like I do that at sport areas, but like I said, it's more of a process that even they're out, you're just about guaranteed. That was not an easy affair and it took those guys a long time and a lot of hard work and who knows how many partners total.
01:54:50:04 - 01:54:51:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I don't know.
01:54:51:08 - 01:55:01:09
Speaker 3
I'm honestly wrapped in if they wrapped into it, they did it from the ground up, probably a little bit of both. That's that they're not doing that on like a whim in like a.
01:55:01:09 - 01:55:02:16
Speaker 4
Week even like so.
01:55:03:09 - 01:55:04:04
Speaker 3
Right? No.
01:55:04:18 - 01:55:06:12
Speaker 2
Not at least.
01:55:06:12 - 01:55:13:13
Speaker 3
Not if they're doing it properly. So then, you know, I think a big part of that.
01:55:13:18 - 01:55:15:01
Speaker 2
And we'll come back.
01:55:15:01 - 01:55:49:02
Speaker 3
To finishing answering some of your questions. Kyle goes back to what I was starting to mention earlier a while back is like for me, like, I guess I could consider myself this like staunch trad climber. I don't like to give it any label. For me, it's just all climbing and I love any forms of it. But as I saw, like, you know, you could say a big wall or a big wall, alpine or just big alpine objective being the pinnacle of it for me, all other pursuits that were under that were stepping stones that were all merely practice to get me to that pinnacle of it.
01:55:49:02 - 01:55:53:16
Speaker 3
All right. Originally never cared to climb big.
01:55:53:16 - 01:55:54:02
Speaker 2
Walls.
01:55:54:08 - 01:56:16:10
Speaker 3
That scared the shit out of me. I was like, No, I could see that's a lot of suffering. I'm like, Oh, no ice climbing. Hell no. I didn't like being called. I worked on a ski resort for two years. I'm like, fuck! And it all came out of necessity that it's like, if you want to be well-rounded to go do the those big pinnacle objective jobs, you have to learn how to do it all and do it all safely and and competently.
01:56:16:10 - 01:56:45:06
Speaker 3
Right? And then that goes back into even developing new routes and what you're going to do and what style and what application. And that will make the most sense for to help set up future generations for success and not make it like routes that we've done, which I love. We were like, Man, that route is so bold and those guys were so awesome that did this back in the day for why they did it and how they did it.
01:56:45:11 - 01:56:48:01
Speaker 3
But it's a death. They're out. Like, who wants to repeat that?
01:56:48:01 - 01:56:48:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.
01:56:48:21 - 01:56:58:13
Speaker 3
And there's a balance, you know, to be found there. And you go back and forth a little bit depending on the rock type, the areas, the history of the area, so on and so forth.
01:56:59:21 - 01:57:00:23
Speaker 2
But then, you.
01:57:00:23 - 01:57:26:05
Speaker 3
Know, as far as when it gets to the finished product, product, right. And like, you know, that is a huge part of the creative process is it's like, when is this actually ready? What Are we going to name it? Right. What are we going to what number do we want to give? Do it? How are we going to go about and share this too, where it does inspire more people, turn them off to be like, yeah, I want to go do that right?
01:57:26:08 - 01:57:55:03
Speaker 3
Or even maybe not even in my lifetime. Like I said so personally, the way I've always gone about it is that your process of whether it needs bolts or not and lap it as many times as you can, and like, for instance, the climb that you and I shared together, Kyle and Kyle got the second ascent of that that is only been repeated couple of times now, but I didn't share it for probably two years after I'd done it.
01:57:55:08 - 01:58:02:23
Speaker 3
You know, that was it took me nine sessions at that thing and then going and lapping it with a couple of friends, Kyle being one of.
01:58:02:23 - 01:58:03:05
Speaker 2
Them.
01:58:03:13 - 01:58:32:16
Speaker 3
Before I was like, Well, that's as close as it's going to get to get a share this one. Okay, part of maybe keeping like led, like amazing hidden gems that you found secret to yourself. Yeah, that's cool. Maybe for a while, but eventually it's like. Like the word's going to get out and like, you should. If you're doing it for the right reason, you should be cognizant or that it will get to the point where it's like, okay, I'm ready to move on.
01:58:32:16 - 01:58:36:13
Speaker 3
And I can. I do feel comfortable with sharing this with everybody now and.
01:58:36:13 - 01:58:38:18
Speaker 1
I think you should be happy about the share.
01:58:38:18 - 01:58:40:00
Speaker 3
You should be proud about it.
01:58:40:00 - 01:58:42:17
Speaker 2
Proud and especially happy about the success.
01:58:42:17 - 01:58:45:08
Speaker 3
If if you're doing it for the right reasons, why wouldn't you be?
01:58:45:08 - 01:58:47:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, you you.
01:58:48:06 - 01:59:05:22
Speaker 3
It does give you tough skin. There are a lot of critics out there. And what I've always come back to and I think it it holds true to everything, not just in climbing, that it's in your heart, hearts. You know, you're doing things for the right reason. Then what the fuck does it matter what the naysayers say in the peanut gallery, right?
01:59:05:22 - 01:59:06:04
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:59:06:09 - 01:59:09:06
Speaker 1
On the project forums.
01:59:09:06 - 01:59:10:23
Speaker 2
I mean. Yeah, yeah. I mean I.
01:59:11:01 - 01:59:13:17
Speaker 3
Obviously like I'm very active on Mountain Project and.
01:59:13:19 - 01:59:15:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, I like.
01:59:15:14 - 01:59:19:22
Speaker 3
And unfortunately I have to go and filter a lot of the nonsense.
01:59:19:22 - 01:59:20:06
Speaker 2
Which.
01:59:21:05 - 01:59:23:00
Speaker 3
It's nothing I ever like signed up for.
01:59:23:00 - 01:59:23:13
Speaker 2
But yeah.
01:59:24:08 - 01:59:29:18
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is just unnecessary negativity and it's like, yeah yeah, this doesn't need to be on there, you know?
01:59:30:02 - 01:59:32:23
Speaker 1
I mean, we could do something for that, but we could.
01:59:32:23 - 01:59:33:12
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, right.
01:59:33:12 - 01:59:38:10
Speaker 2
We won't go there. And so, so, you know, so yeah.
01:59:38:10 - 01:59:55:16
Speaker 3
For me it's like one day, two years and laughing it as many times as possible, cleaning up as much as you can, making it as safe as possible more than anything. Right. And and what's funny is, like, part of that process is like your essay on site mentality.
01:59:55:21 - 01:59:56:08
Speaker 2
Is.
01:59:56:16 - 01:59:58:07
Speaker 3
Versus when you get it dialed and.
01:59:58:07 - 02:00:01:00
Speaker 2
Cleaned originally like this is so.
02:00:01:00 - 02:00:16:14
Speaker 3
Hard, oh my God, it's so out of my comfort zone. And then you rehearse it and a bunch of friends do it and you're like, Yeah, it's actually like way easier. But then, but then you have to be careful there because then you're like, Yeah, okay, this is the onsite essay writing versus this is what the general consensus is.
02:00:16:20 - 02:00:21:03
Speaker 3
And then everybody now is like, Do Josh, you're the worst sand bagger imaginable.
02:00:21:11 - 02:00:23:22
Speaker 2
I'm like, No man like you a.
02:00:24:00 - 02:00:40:03
Speaker 3
You guys are all soft and this is the process. So like this wasn't just me that came up with this number, you know, like if anything, I agree. And then, yeah, we sometimes take it a step further depending on the area where it's like, okay, we all agree, let's say this is five, ten plus and we'll call it five tiny.
02:00:40:14 - 02:00:50:17
Speaker 3
Right? And then people will catch on immediately. It's like, well, all this guy's five, ten days or all five, ten pluses and I'll even hint around about that. But that's that's a whole another story.
02:00:50:21 - 02:00:56:01
Speaker 1
So why, why why do you approach that like that harder than than they technically are?
02:00:56:01 - 02:01:00:07
Speaker 3
Because that's just always been part of the history of of developing routes.
02:01:00:10 - 02:01:01:08
Speaker 2
And and.
02:01:02:02 - 02:01:04:04
Speaker 3
Inflation versus sandbagging.
02:01:04:04 - 02:01:07:03
Speaker 2
Is is both of them you.
02:01:07:03 - 02:01:32:13
Speaker 3
Could interpret is like that's feeding into your ego but what are the worst of the two evils? I guess I'd say yeah. Like I'd rather be like, no, this is, this is weak and soft. And someone come along and go, it's weaker and softer than someone come along and be like, No, there's like or, or I guess what I'm getting at is come along and be like, No, it's a little harder versus come along and be like, Do this is way easier than you're saying it is.
02:01:32:13 - 02:01:55:03
Speaker 3
And like now you just your feather bagging everything, right? Yeah. And people I think, you know, as the sport progresses and it's like you hear it with like the traditional places, like, oh, that's that place so sandbagged, it's like, no, that's accurate everywhere. You're you're getting used to climbing in particular in a gem that is all tremendously soft.
02:01:55:03 - 02:01:56:16
Speaker 3
And, and then there's a.
02:01:56:16 - 02:01:57:10
Speaker 2
Whole.
02:01:57:13 - 02:02:04:11
Speaker 3
History lesson as to like some of those old droughts are a little sandbagged, but that that wasn't intentional by.
02:02:04:11 - 02:02:06:04
Speaker 2
Any means, you know, versus.
02:02:06:09 - 02:02:29:21
Speaker 4
Ultimately, at the end of the day, like grading subjective, you know, it's just like, oh, I'm going to get a I can get this ten a yeah, maybe this ten is the worst stylistically for you ever for sure now. And it's also like root finding and it's totally sustained and instead of being the average 20 meter pitch, it's like 70 meters, you know, it's like taking, taking that, that subjectivities that.
02:02:30:09 - 02:02:37:18
Speaker 3
Historically it is so subjective. And that's why I like I don't even like applied numbers. It's well, I will intentionally be a little more generic about it.
02:02:39:09 - 02:02:41:15
Speaker 2
And then it's like, yeah, you know, people can, can.
02:02:41:21 - 02:02:44:19
Speaker 3
Drop all the comments they want and all agree differently.
02:02:45:10 - 02:02:46:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. That.
02:02:47:05 - 02:03:05:15
Speaker 3
That really like historically it's like when guys started developing roots after the White House was developed they all based it off of the first five nine on the open book right that that was then basing off of them doing it so hard. Five nine it is you know and then they've grown a lot as a climber in two years thinking back to like, is this root?
02:03:05:15 - 02:03:30:22
Speaker 3
We just did easier or harder than the open book. Well, obviously they'd gotten way better, especially in their minds as to how they remember how scary and hard the open book was when they did it two years prior. And they're still like, Well, no, it's not. It's not as proud as that. Five, nine When in fact they're like jumping into like 510 lessons, you know, and then there's a little back and forth with that with a lot of those classic areas.
02:03:30:22 - 02:03:52:12
Speaker 3
And then also the the argument, too, where it's like no white climbers, we've gotten as hard as we can. Climbing will never go beyond that. So forever the plateau was 512 D, although there is a lot of 513 being developed and harder and and those are all sandbagged. 513 Right like and everyone's calling them 512 D's just because they're like, no, that's as hard as it will ever get.
02:03:52:16 - 02:04:06:00
Speaker 3
It'll never be any harder, you know? And then that would go on for a five year period until someone's finally like, No, you know what? Case is way harder. Like, okay, it's got to go up a letter grade, right? Yeah. And then that's inflation come into place, right? Yeah.
02:04:06:00 - 02:04:13:20
Speaker 1
It's interesting. I didn't really think about the evolution of the grades themselves and how they manifested it into the ratings themselves as these routes were being assessed for sure.
02:04:13:20 - 02:04:40:05
Speaker 3
And then to take it a step further, there's an evolution of the life of a route and how it can go from the essay writing, as I described, to what everybody generally agrees happens to where now it becomes sandbagged. And the reason being is, yeah, the the essay on site is always going to feel the hardest within their outcomes through this evolution where it sees all this traffic, everything's cleaned up and everybody's like, This is beautiful there.
02:04:40:08 - 02:04:51:14
Speaker 3
We all agree it's like this. But then holes will start breaking. Everything starts to get polished, even though is getting better. And then everyone's like, No, this is way harder than what the cool.
02:04:51:23 - 02:05:11:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. The last ones I feel like we should close with is just to give you a chance to talk about your, your climbing ranch and other ranches. Little bit about. Yeah, a little bit about how that came about and kind of what your vision for it is in the future and how people, our audience especially, can can help engage with what you've got going on.
02:05:13:03 - 02:05:35:02
Speaker 3
You know, I think part of the theme that's developed over this conversation is expressing like, yeah, just genuinely how much I do. I am very passionate about getting to share all of this. And then, you know, through the years, fighting those different stages and mediums to in which to get to share this on so on and off the rock.
02:05:35:06 - 02:05:36:07
Speaker 3
So, you know, we mentioned.
02:05:36:21 - 02:05:40:06
Speaker 2
Guiding and, you know, the.
02:05:40:13 - 02:05:52:22
Speaker 3
Although the original one of the original motivations for getting into that was I just didn't want to do surfboards anymore. And I love being in the and I would make any sacrifice I could possibly think of to make that happen.
02:05:53:06 - 02:05:55:08
Speaker 2
It was more.
02:05:55:13 - 02:06:01:06
Speaker 3
That all of those experienced set of experiences that always meant so much.
02:06:01:06 - 02:06:01:16
Speaker 2
To me.
02:06:01:23 - 02:06:21:11
Speaker 3
Wouldn't have if it wasn't for the people I got to share them with. Right? So it's like, what does it look like to do that to a greater capacity? And one of which is guiding, okay, working at a gear shop as you mentioned, Kyle, like that was something I did early on to help balance college life, then fell in love with it.
02:06:21:11 - 02:06:30:16
Speaker 3
I'm like, man, like, even before I got to the point that I am now, like, I sold out well, hundreds of pairs of climbing shoes and hundreds of.
02:06:30:16 - 02:06:31:06
Speaker 2
Racks.
02:06:31:11 - 02:06:59:09
Speaker 3
And trying to inspire people even at that early level, just by working at a retail front, selling and gear and now in shops in Southern California are really a thing. So I felt pretty fortunate to be at this like unique time and place and getting to do that, developing new routes, helping contribute to those routes into guidebooks and you know, I'm one of the top all time contributors on Mountain Project now.
02:07:01:07 - 02:07:23:03
Speaker 3
I work at a gear shop again, which is like the my perfect dream of what a mountain shop should be like. I finally found it and it's the third mountain shop I worked at. And then for three years I was a technical advisor for Petzel and for Scarpa, so that was like an amazing stage to be on. And like, man, your audience was so broad.
02:07:23:03 - 02:07:40:15
Speaker 3
I was like, Wow, this is a dream come true. And those companies take such good care of their employees. So I was on a five year contract for them, and when COVID started, they did not renew my contract, which it's okay. It led me down the path that I was initially going down. And so.
02:07:41:14 - 02:07:42:16
Speaker 2
What had happened.
02:07:42:16 - 02:07:48:04
Speaker 3
With that to to give to paint a little bit more of a picture for the folks out there.
02:07:48:12 - 02:07:49:02
Speaker 2
Is.
02:07:50:06 - 02:07:58:07
Speaker 3
You know, I was guiding a lot further and further away from the family and it was very hard to be away from them, you know, sometimes like three weeks to a month at a.
02:07:58:07 - 02:07:58:20
Speaker 2
Time.
02:07:59:07 - 02:08:04:19
Speaker 3
And I'd come back and I'd be like, Man, they put me up in an Airbnb. Like, You guys could have all gone with me.
02:08:04:19 - 02:08:05:07
Speaker 2
Or.
02:08:05:15 - 02:08:20:14
Speaker 3
Yeah, I was going into the backcountry two or three times, but coming on to this trailhead ride, this amazing base camp, like, I know you guys didn't want to hang out for a month. They're waiting for me to come out periodically in a tent. But if we had, like, a little small travel trailer, that'd be cool. My wife's like, Yeah, that.
02:08:21:01 - 02:08:38:18
Speaker 3
But that doesn't really fit into our balance right now. And then I'm like, Well, what if we just got rid of everything? Like, our kids are young enough, like we could go on the road and do that. Maybe one of us could start working remotely to help there. And my wife's like, No, you're high. Like, what a pipe dream.
02:08:38:23 - 02:09:07:17
Speaker 3
And I'm like, No, it'd be cool. They're like, You can't argue, you know? And sure enough, after about a year of, like thinking about that more and more seriously, we did commit and we sold. You know, we were, in a sense, living what I like to call this very false American dream, where we had a nice house in San Diego County and we had two cars and pets and everything seemed perfect, but it sucked sitting in traffic and being away from the family.
02:09:07:17 - 02:09:35:16
Speaker 3
And I just wanted to be closer to the mountains. And so my wife was in agreeance finally. And it took us a year to sell everything we had to get rid of our two cars. And unfortunately I have to upgrade to a truck that would pull said trailer and we bought a little 20 foot travel trailer. And so that that kind of like five year pipe dream almost actually itself as your reality within like two or three years.
02:09:36:09 - 02:09:41:11
Speaker 3
That part of why why that became more realistic was I got this gig.
02:09:41:17 - 02:09:42:18
Speaker 2
With, Petzel.
02:09:42:18 - 02:09:45:21
Speaker 3
And Scarpa, on top of being able to guide.
02:09:46:07 - 02:09:47:01
Speaker 2
So I was like.
02:09:47:01 - 02:09:59:20
Speaker 3
Oh, and you know, they're signing. I had 300 accounts on the West Coast. I'd have to travel to each of them once a year. But then there was five climbing festivals that I would go to once a year, and that was extremely fun.
02:09:59:20 - 02:10:01:07
Speaker 2
And I mean.
02:10:01:07 - 02:10:23:17
Speaker 3
Like I said, the stage to get to share all of this and those venues was, was magical and made a lot of good friends. Obviously the networking is amazing part of the way I had gotten into that. It literally like kind of fell into it was I have just been in this industry so long and made so many connections that there was just like this small window for opportunity.
02:10:23:17 - 02:10:48:20
Speaker 3
And my buddy was like, Dude, it's yours if you want it. I'm like, You'd be insane if you said no to that, especially in my, my circumstances at the time. Right. And so we traveled for about three years. And a big part of what started to happen through that process was this like long term pipe dream I had, which would be to someday own a guide service and get a shirt.
02:10:48:20 - 02:10:49:05
Speaker 3
To that.
02:10:49:05 - 02:10:50:16
Speaker 2
Extent that did.
02:10:50:16 - 02:10:55:01
Speaker 3
That in manifested itself through a really close friend of mine with like.
02:10:55:01 - 02:10:55:14
Speaker 2
Almost.
02:10:55:18 - 02:11:15:15
Speaker 3
The business model I had envisioned to the tee. And so that's the main guided service that I represent now, which is Golden State guiding. Hi Ryan. And so, so that was covered. So I'm like, well, what's the next obvious step? And I'm like, Man, these climbing festivals are rad. Like, you know, what would it look like to be able to put this on?
02:11:15:15 - 02:11:16:12
Speaker 3
So I become really.
02:11:16:12 - 02:11:21:07
Speaker 2
Close with Paul Fish.
02:11:21:16 - 02:11:44:16
Speaker 3
Who is the owner of a very famous mountain shop in Spokane, and he is the one who is always put on the Red Rocks rendezvous and then without getting too much into it, it's very interesting. The Red Rocks rendezvous spawned out of the longest standing climbing festival in the U.S. that was called the Phenix Bouldering Camp, even though it wasn't held in Phenix by this legendary Joshua Tree couple.
02:11:45:06 - 02:12:06:20
Speaker 3
And I was like, wow, like, what a cool concept. And they just did it purely out of the love of getting to share and bring the community together. And we know, like what climbing festivals have turned into, especially with like the ax cracking classics like they do a really good job. And so, you know, we're exploring all these mountainous regions and I'm kind of thinking of that.
02:12:06:20 - 02:12:38:23
Speaker 3
And part of it was maybe in hopes to find some other mountains that I could fall in love with more than the Sierras, which is where I currently live. There are some spectacular mountains throughout North America. They're all really unique in their own way. They all have their own personality and characteristics. But I kept coming back here, and especially from a guide standpoint, like it's it's a great position to be in here right now and.
02:12:38:23 - 02:13:03:16
Speaker 3
You know, that property is cheaper elsewhere, like it's expensive to live in California. And we were saving a lot of money and being on the road that I couldn't see, like being able to really ever afford property in California. And so we're starting to look at some of these other mountainous regions. And then we're like, Yeah, you know, like, okay, like a five year pipe dream from there turned into like, let's settle down.
02:13:03:16 - 02:13:04:21
Speaker 3
We have money saved.
02:13:04:21 - 02:13:05:14
Speaker 2
And.
02:13:06:07 - 02:13:29:08
Speaker 3
Try to start Climbing Ranch, which is essentially a private campground that is like climber centric, right? There have been some very successful climbing ranches, most historic one in and that is still in existence in the US is the Teton Climbing Ranch and that was essentially inherited by the sea. Many years ago. And they do a pretty good job, but it's.
02:13:31:06 - 02:13:32:07
Speaker 2
It's somewhat.
02:13:32:08 - 02:14:00:07
Speaker 3
Private, you could say it's not really, but it's it's a totally different business model than like what we had come up with. Right. So the business model that we came up with, which I'm not going to bore you with too much, it didn't work in every mountainous region. It worked in a few places. So I Todd Gordon Hill I'm pretty close with my cousin who's the only other climber in my family, live with Todd for 18 years and developed a bunch of roots in Joshua Tree.
02:14:00:07 - 02:14:16:00
Speaker 3
So Todd did something pretty similar with what we're trying to do here in Joshua Tree that is always kind of kept it on the deal and now it's like it's not even the Gordon Climbing Ranch really anymore. He might, he might. He would wear that differently than I am.
02:14:16:00 - 02:14:16:20
Speaker 2
But in a nutshell.
02:14:18:10 - 02:14:45:03
Speaker 3
You know, there's the the Waco Rock Ranch is pretty successful. Obviously, everybody knows of Miguel's in the red. And none of those, though, are quite as old as obviously the Teton climbing ranch. And then there have been several that have come and then just fallen to the wayside. But then internationally getting a lot of momentum. So like one there that comes to mind that's been really popular for a while now is this German couple started?
02:14:45:03 - 02:14:47:11
Speaker 3
One. I have a hard time remembering the name, but it's in.
02:14:47:11 - 02:14:48:03
Speaker 2
Los.
02:14:48:14 - 02:15:05:06
Speaker 3
Since a really popular destination. If you're in Thailand to skip over to their jungle retreat and have full amenities and get it, climb your brains out and if you're traveling, they have gear for you to use. You can hire them as a guide service. So I'm like, Yeah, you know, from.
02:15:05:06 - 02:15:05:18
Speaker 2
A.
02:15:05:18 - 02:15:20:04
Speaker 3
Sharing standpoint on a grand scale, to me that was kind of the pinnacle of all of this. And it's something that, like I personally like as far as some shortcomings, talked about as I evolved through all of.
02:15:20:04 - 02:15:21:11
Speaker 2
This and.
02:15:21:11 - 02:15:30:17
Speaker 3
And and it all worked out, that's that was like the least likely thing I would have ever dreamed, having kind of come to life.
02:15:31:07 - 02:15:32:17
Speaker 2
Even though it's something.
02:15:32:17 - 02:15:58:01
Speaker 3
That we've been working towards, you know, given the timeline I just laid out. And so when we finally, you know, our business model, where it worked, brilliant, was in this valley, Red Rocks. It would work amazing and in Joshua Tree. But I really wanted to do it here because we're only 2 hours from Joshua Tree, 2 hours to MetroPCS and 2 hours to Yosemite.
02:15:58:01 - 02:16:07:08
Speaker 3
I'm like, This is more centralized. The numbers all made sense as far as like it's a very tourist based economy here and it attracts millions of tourists a year.
02:16:07:16 - 02:16:09:17
Speaker 2
And then not only that.
02:16:09:17 - 02:16:14:10
Speaker 3
It didn't happen immediately when we committed to doing it here, but they just came up with a lot of new rules and.
02:16:14:10 - 02:16:17:16
Speaker 2
Regulations that limit.
02:16:17:16 - 02:16:30:06
Speaker 3
A lot of the public camping is always drawn climbers especially to this valley. So set us up perfectly and we start looking into it. It's kind of interesting little lesson with this valley.
02:16:31:07 - 02:16:32:00
Speaker 2
That.
02:16:32:16 - 02:16:51:00
Speaker 3
L.A. owns 98% of it, right? So if you're familiar with this, the stretch of the 395 up Owens Valley, it's a lot of open public land. There's National Forest, there's BLM, there's all this vastness that's empty. And it kind of looks like it's ranches. That is all L.A. DWP. And it is.
02:16:52:20 - 02:16:53:14
Speaker 2
A tough.
02:16:53:14 - 02:16:56:11
Speaker 3
Story to share as to why they own all.
02:16:56:11 - 02:16:59:00
Speaker 2
Of this, all of this land.
02:16:59:00 - 02:17:06:12
Speaker 3
But with that said, so there's 2% that's privately owned. And then out of that 2%, none of it is open, raw.
02:17:06:12 - 02:17:07:14
Speaker 2
Land.
02:17:07:14 - 02:17:15:08
Speaker 3
Let alone that you have water rights because L.A. owns it all and then let alone that it's open zoning to be able to have said business.
02:17:16:13 - 02:17:17:14
Speaker 2
So Mike Mann, even though.
02:17:17:14 - 02:17:37:11
Speaker 3
This place makes the most sense for our business model, things weren't looking good when we started first really looking and we had the money to throw down. So we're kind of like thinking Joshua Tree or Red Rocks, and Bishop was like where I originally wanted to do it, and that was definitely not on the table.
02:17:37:11 - 02:17:38:05
Speaker 2
And then like kind.
02:17:38:05 - 02:18:14:04
Speaker 3
Of, you know, it wasn't that we had given up on this valley. We're like, something will come up, you know, and we're talking to we have like one main realtor in particular who's keeping our feelers, but everyone's telling us, like, there's no way. And so very coincidentally and, you know, as far as like maybe more affirmation as to like believing in the universe manifesting itself in ways you would never imagine, we randomly, you know, learn of this pioneer cemetery I'd never known about growing up here, because that is where the very first its two brothers and their best friend, they're the very first ones to ever summit.
02:18:14:04 - 02:18:48:21
Speaker 3
WHITNEY And it was kind of this interesting by all the geologists trying to be the first ones to the top. And they were all over shooting and summiting nearby peaks. And these three locals were kind of like, Oh, these damn geologists that like should know what they're doing. And they go and they're the first ones to summit. So I find out they're buried in this and this pioneer cemetery, and we go and visit it and it's this beautiful surrounded by this riparian rehabilitation area, too, where they're trying to bring it back to the original state that that it look like what Grassley owns 100 years ago and me and my wife and kids are like,
02:18:49:09 - 02:19:05:02
Speaker 3
yeah, this cemetery is a little creepy and all, but this is neat history. And like, why can't we find a piece of property like this would be perfect. And even if we could like it's not going to be open zoning and we want to have water rights. The water rights is a different thing, but the open zoning was a big thing.
02:19:05:12 - 02:19:06:19
Speaker 2
And that.
02:19:06:19 - 02:19:25:13
Speaker 3
Night my wife gets an email for this property that had been listed for a few months now, but even our really didn't know about it. And it was literally the property we had just been talking about that earlier in the day off of this cemetery. And we put an offer in on it the next day and got it.
02:19:25:13 - 02:19:47:22
Speaker 3
And so what our envision here is we have just under 13 acres, more or less right on the Owens River. I from the get go. I'm like, this is the best view I've ever seen in this valley from being on the valley floor. And like, maybe that's a little biased, but everybody that comes is like, do this is the most unique view.
02:19:48:03 - 02:19:50:15
Speaker 2
And it is it is like our property.
02:19:50:15 - 02:20:16:10
Speaker 3
It has very unique energy. And there's some other historical things that could go on about as to why it probably has such unique energy that. Yeah, so, you know, we, we, we got our business license get all of that. We're in the process of having the name trademarked, which is the Mount Whitney Climbing Ranch. We put some really tight let me rephrase that.
02:20:16:10 - 02:20:28:09
Speaker 3
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we first got the property that was like, okay, like all these marketing pushes before we're even, but to build up interest and momentum and then we'll.
02:20:28:14 - 02:20:28:18
Speaker 2
We'll.
02:20:28:18 - 02:20:44:02
Speaker 3
Do a soft launch in a year. We should be up to par with like working with the planning department and all of the phasing out of the project within a year. And that was the end of 2019. And then COVID happened. And so we.
02:20:44:02 - 02:20:45:01
Speaker 2
Had a.
02:20:45:01 - 02:20:48:19
Speaker 3
Decent amount of yeah, we had a decent amount of savings.
02:20:50:04 - 02:20:50:17
Speaker 2
You know so.
02:20:51:16 - 02:21:02:22
Speaker 3
To be able to put into the business and have it open in a year. But we spent like I didn't have work for a year and neither did my wife. Obviously, like I mentioned, I was my contract with Petzel and Scarpa was not.
02:21:02:22 - 02:21:05:00
Speaker 2
Renewed and it was like, okay, well.
02:21:05:10 - 02:21:16:02
Speaker 3
It's kind of a blessing in disguise. Like we want it to happen more organically and not force it. And we had to survive off of that that that cushion for a year and now we're kind of back to scratch.
02:21:16:02 - 02:21:17:17
Speaker 2
So the neat thing is.
02:21:19:05 - 02:21:35:17
Speaker 3
I mean, I got an amazing deal on the property and a lot of that had to do with being very honest with the sellers as to what we're trying to do. And they're an older family from this valley and they loved it and they cut the price way down and they're like, It's yours and it's on a five year loan.
02:21:36:00 - 02:21:42:06
Speaker 3
So we had we're like halfway through having it paid off. So the idea right now, without getting into the nitty gritty, too.
02:21:42:06 - 02:21:42:17
Speaker 2
Much.
02:21:42:23 - 02:22:21:13
Speaker 3
Is I'll be able to pull out a significant development alone. I could do it now, but I'm kind of trying to, like I said, let it happen a little more organically. And when I don't have my current overhead in place, because I'll have that paid off and some other things and be able to dump it all into the business then and have what I would like to think is a very unique, very friendly, positive, family friendly, friendly atmosphere for climbers to start if they're passing through really all outdoor user groups, right And there are 12 that use this immediate area pretty heavily and they don't all overlap.
02:22:21:21 - 02:22:39:05
Speaker 3
So that that's some interesting dynamics that we've gotten. You know, pretty much I would say the general consensus of the immediate climbing community has met the whole process with more open arms than I would have ever imagined, or at least what I would have hoped for, you know.
02:22:39:05 - 02:22:41:13
Speaker 2
And we are.
02:22:41:13 - 02:23:09:11
Speaker 3
Currently like unofficially opened, so It's kind of dry camping right now and we're letting friends and family come, stay here whenever they want. And we have started to do our own climbing festival. So we did one last year was really small. We're doing a much bigger one in the fall time and we call that dam. It is. And it's neat this year because we will have like a vendor village and I have like basically name a vendor or a company in the outdoor industry.
02:23:09:11 - 02:23:18:20
Speaker 3
They're all coming to help support it. Our guide service has always had a beer sponsor, so it is currently pure brewing, which.
02:23:18:20 - 02:23:19:06
Speaker 2
Is.
02:23:19:11 - 02:23:32:06
Speaker 3
One of the only carbon neutral breweries microbreweries in North America. And so going to supply all the beer as they do for all of us guides, it's kind of neat to have a beer sponsor, especially a very.
02:23:33:01 - 02:23:33:15
Speaker 2
Ethical.
02:23:33:15 - 02:23:55:22
Speaker 3
Oriented beer sponsor. And you know, as far as like we more than all of that, like what we're trying to show is that there is this alternative lifestyle that everyone can live in our day and age that is way simpler and way more minimalistic and. We don't have the carbon imprint.
02:23:57:00 - 02:23:58:09
Speaker 2
Mess to clean up.
02:23:58:09 - 02:24:03:01
Speaker 3
That all of the generations, like my parents generation, I'll say in particular, have left.
02:24:03:01 - 02:24:03:14
Speaker 2
Us with.
02:24:05:05 - 02:24:33:02
Speaker 3
It has become very hard. We are one of the only properties, even in the continental U.S., let alone like California, is really strict that you cannot live off the grid. So they made it hard for people even to want to live a simpler, cleaner lifestyle. Right. That we've based all of our business model off of that. And to show that it's possible and not only from this kind of a standpoint, I would say, but the fact that like I did it with my family in a trailer for four years, right.
02:24:33:02 - 02:24:58:13
Speaker 3
And and it was it was pure bliss. Like my kids did not know people lived in houses and did not walk daily in the mountains and go take a river bath until we settled down. And I was like, wow, how unique, you know? And they they are they are extremely a pure from that being exposed that at such a young age what twice is Huckleberry Finn as I ever was even you know.
02:24:58:19 - 02:25:23:04
Speaker 3
And so then yeah you know we think that it's important to stress that with the community but like from the guide service standpoint, it's the same thing. You know, we're 1% from the planet. We try to offset everything we do as much as possible because we think that's super important to keep our wild places wild or as they would say in Hawaii, keep the country country or I hate.
02:25:23:04 - 02:25:29:08
Speaker 3
So I'll end it on that rant. I hope that I hope that answered your question.
02:25:29:08 - 02:25:29:19
Speaker 2
You did.
02:25:30:02 - 02:25:33:07
Speaker 1
Perfect. It was a well, well-executed description.
02:25:33:07 - 02:25:37:19
Speaker 4
I think that's a that's a perfect place to be. Yeah. You know, and.
02:25:38:00 - 02:25:38:18
Speaker 2
And it's area.
02:25:38:22 - 02:26:00:14
Speaker 4
On this conversation and stuff and but yeah I just think in general like Josh like between you know your versus sense being so open your mentorship sharing your your climbing ranch your, you know, your environmental ethics. I just wanna say, like, I think what you're doing is awesome, you know? Thanks so much for coming on show taking the time to come talk to us I really mean it.
02:26:00:14 - 02:26:05:02
Speaker 4
I'd love to share it with you anywhere in Canada when you can. Yeah. Please don't hesitate to reach out.
02:26:05:11 - 02:26:07:18
Speaker 3
It would be cool for all three of us to. Hang out sometime.
02:26:08:12 - 02:26:09:06
Speaker 2
For sure, man.
02:26:09:07 - 02:26:18:03
Speaker 4
Yeah. So do you want to just do you want to just repeat the name of the ranch and how people can like, if they are interested in you? Yeah. Did you offer contact?
02:26:18:08 - 02:26:28:12
Speaker 3
Oh, no. You know, I was pretty sure. And, you know, I've obviously helped try to promote you guys as much as possible, as well as I have already been doing.
02:26:28:19 - 02:26:30:02
Speaker 2
So it is.
02:26:30:04 - 02:26:40:01
Speaker 3
Mount Whitney Climbing Ranch. You can visit our website. It gives a little more detail as to what I was just explaining on there. And then we also have an Instagram. I'm not.
02:26:41:22 - 02:26:42:05
Speaker 2
I'm.
02:26:42:05 - 02:27:03:13
Speaker 3
Guilty of of not maybe being more having more of a presence on social media. I do feel it isn't necessarily evil. I don't love social media, but I don't hate it. And I have finally come to terms that it is another beautiful way to get to share a lot of this. And so the ranch is page. You know, it's fun.
02:27:03:13 - 02:27:07:08
Speaker 3
It's nothing serious. It's a reflection, I think, of our lifestyle really.
02:27:08:12 - 02:27:10:20
Speaker 4
And is that. Yeah. Slapping ranch on Instagram.
02:27:11:04 - 02:27:12:14
Speaker 2
Yes, yes. Yeah.
02:27:12:21 - 02:27:16:03
Speaker 4
That's what it is now. Credit Instagram. Awesome.
02:27:16:06 - 02:27:16:18
Speaker 3
Exactly.
02:27:16:19 - 02:27:19:10
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah. Give you guys a fall and check that out for sure.
02:27:20:16 - 02:27:21:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, I know.
02:27:21:01 - 02:27:30:12
Speaker 3
Thank you guys so much for having me. And you know, I have a lot more to share. And as I mentioned to you before, which we did not talk about, this this episode.
02:27:30:20 - 02:27:31:06
Speaker 2
Is.
02:27:31:06 - 02:27:37:06
Speaker 3
I love storytelling. I think it is very underappreciated, lost art.
02:27:37:15 - 02:27:38:02
Speaker 2
And.
02:27:38:23 - 02:27:43:02
Speaker 3
I have a lot of really fun stories that I love to share with you guys further.
02:27:43:02 - 02:27:50:04
Speaker 2
So Josh, keep that in mind. Several Yeah, I yeah. Cool. Yeah, I guess.
02:27:50:09 - 02:27:55:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. I don't know. Hopefully you guys get good feedback and you're not like, nope, everybody hated that. Like, you can't be back on it.
02:27:55:21 - 02:28:04:20
Speaker 1
You know? I mean, this will this will be our longest one. So we'll see what the people say. Yes.
02:28:05:02 - 02:28:07:12
Speaker 2
Well, totally. And I that's.
02:28:07:15 - 02:28:16:21
Speaker 4
Part of the thing about like this community, right? It's like yeah. Like this is this is exactly. There's so many people who share our ideals and vision and the way we think. So, yeah. No.
02:28:16:21 - 02:28:33:21
Speaker 3
And I think if it's like like the three of us, it's like I cannot consume enough of like everything I can get my hands on in regards to like any of this stuff, right? So it's to podcasts, all the books I can read, all the YouTube videos I can watch, I mean, Kyle's that an amazing job with his YouTube videos which.
02:28:33:21 - 02:28:34:08
Speaker 2
Has been.
02:28:34:17 - 02:28:39:05
Speaker 3
Awesome to watch that evolution. I'm I'm excited to see where you guys go with all of this.
02:28:40:21 - 02:28:41:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, I'm.
02:28:41:20 - 02:28:43:05
Speaker 3
I will say namaste.
02:28:43:14 - 02:28:44:20
Speaker 2
Yeah yeah.
02:28:44:20 - 02:28:46:12
Speaker 4
Yeah to you as well. My to.
02:28:46:13 - 02:28:50:01
Speaker 3
You. Yeah. We'll be in touch. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I know you guys have a great evening.
02:28:50:02 - 02:29:29:06
Speaker 2
And talk to you soon, okay? I.