The Climbing Majority

25 | A High Altitude Climbing Legend Part 1 w/ Alan Burgess

October 24, 2022 Kyle Broxterman & Max Carrier Episode 25
The Climbing Majority
25 | A High Altitude Climbing Legend Part 1 w/ Alan Burgess
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

All right, people, today is a special day because we are sitting down with one of the most legendary high alpine climbers of the 20th century. His name is Alan Burgess. Alan first reached out to me after seeing a climbing majority poster at our local climbing gym here in Reno. We met at a coffee shop and I did not know what to expect, having not known who he was or about his stories up to this point. He handed a book to me. It was called The Burgess Book of Lies, and his vision was to turn it into an audiobook. To be honest, at this point, I had no idea who Alan was. And now, after hearing his stories, I'm a bit ashamed as a climber not to have known who he was. But after sitting down with him for probably an hour, I knew that he was special and his life needed to be shared. So I agreed. Unfortunately, after much effort, the project of turning his book into an audiobook just did not make any sense. And we had to call it quits. So instead, we are sitting here today to do the second best thing to get him on to the podcast, to hear his story. Alan lived a life that most of us couldn't even dream of. His vast experience in the mountains and the multitude of a sense worldwide that he is accomplished in his life would just be impossible to capture in a podcast episode. So we decided to break up his story into two parts. In this episode, we are going to talk about his childhood and what climbing was like in the 1950s. And then we're going to talk about his most notable super Alpine ascents. The first climb we're going to be talking about is his third ascent of the American route on Fitzroy in Patagonia. Next is the first alpine-style ascent of the French route on the north face of Huascaran Norte in Peru. And third, we're going to be talking about the first ascent of the southwest buttress of Mount Logan in Canada, a route that has never been repeated. And finally, we're going to close this episode out by talking about how he was able to fund and create a life of climbing around the world and how he was able to survive through countless situations where most fail.

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00:00:00:14 - 00:00:23:22
Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. Kyle here. Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast where Max and I sit down with living legends, professional athletes, certified guides and recreational climbers alike to discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a climber. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:26:22 - 00:00:48:18
Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. Kyle here. We've got some exciting news. This week. We will be hosting a live Q&A with our previous guest, AMG Guide Max Lowry. Also known as Alpine to the Max. In this exclusive session, we will be giving you the opportunity to ask us and Max questions and pick topics for us to discuss. This event is going to take place on Max Lewis's Instagram.

00:00:48:22 - 00:01:14:20
Speaker 1
Alpine to the Max on November 2nd at 5 p.m. Pacific Time. Spread the word and we are excited to see you there. All right, people, today is a special day because we are sitting down with one of the most legendary high alpine climbers of the 19th century. His name is Alan Burgess. Alan first reached out to me after seeing a climbing majority poster at our local climbing gym here in Reno.

00:01:15:12 - 00:01:34:22
Speaker 1
We met at a coffee shop and I did not know what to expect, having not known who he was or about his stories up to this point. He handed a book to me. It was called The Burgess Book of Lies, and his vision was to turn it into an audio book. To be honest, at this point, I had no idea who Alan was.

00:01:34:22 - 00:01:56:11
Speaker 1
And now, after hearing his stories, I'm a bit ashamed as a climber to have not known who he was. But after sitting down with him for probably an hour, I knew that he was special and his life needed to be shared. So I agreed. Unfortunately, after much effort, the project of turning his book into an audio book just did not make any sense.

00:01:56:11 - 00:02:19:18
Speaker 1
And we had to call it quits. So instead, we are sitting here today to do the second best thing to get him on to the podcast, to hear his story. Alan lived a life that most of us couldn't even dream of. His vast experience in the mountains and the multitude of a sense around the world that he is accomplished in his life would just be simply impossible to capture in a podcast episode.

00:02:20:04 - 00:02:40:00
Speaker 1
So we decided to break up his story into two parts. In this episode, we are going to talk about his childhood and what climbing was like in the 1950s. And then we're going to talk about his most notable super Alpine ascents. The first climb we're going to be talking about as his third ascent of the American route on Fitzroy in Patagonia.

00:02:40:18 - 00:03:08:01
Speaker 1
Next is the first alpine style ascent of the French route on the north face of Hungary and taught in Peru. And third, we're going to be talking about the first ascent of the southwest buttress of Mount Logan in Canada, a route that has never been repeated. And finally, we're going to close this episode out by talking about how he was able to fund and create a life of climbing around the world and how he was able to survive through countless situations where most fail.

00:03:08:20 - 00:03:31:13
Speaker 1
So please sit back and relax and enjoy this. Two and a half hour episode with Alan Burgess and Nicholson. Okay. All right. A gentleman ready to go?

00:03:34:07 - 00:03:43:23
Speaker 1
Oh. Oh. All right. Well, cheers. Cheers. Cheers. All right. So welcome. Welcome, Al.

00:03:44:07 - 00:03:45:18
Speaker 2
MAX Hi, Max.

00:03:45:19 - 00:03:46:10
Speaker 3
How's it going?

00:03:46:11 - 00:03:47:19
Speaker 2
AL In Vancouver.

00:03:47:22 - 00:03:55:02
Speaker 3
I sure am. MAN Yeah. No, it's absolute pleasure to be here talking with you. And, you know, lots of fun, exciting things to have a conversation with.

00:03:55:08 - 00:03:56:18
Speaker 2
A fellow Canadian.

00:03:57:08 - 00:03:58:15
Speaker 1
Oh, are you a Canadian?

00:03:59:00 - 00:04:00:07
Speaker 2
Well, I'm thinking, wow, I.

00:04:00:07 - 00:04:00:20
Speaker 1
Didn't know that.

00:04:00:21 - 00:04:02:00
Speaker 3
Awesome, man. Actually.

00:04:02:00 - 00:04:06:09
Speaker 2
Outdated, but. Yeah. Well, just in case, I need to run somewhere.

00:04:08:03 - 00:04:09:06
Speaker 3
That's your backup plan?

00:04:09:22 - 00:04:10:14
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:04:11:10 - 00:04:12:10
Speaker 1
Well, I look forward to.

00:04:12:18 - 00:04:14:17
Speaker 3
Slowly hearing how you ended up in Reno.

00:04:16:03 - 00:04:18:09
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:04:18:09 - 00:04:48:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, I mean, hell, we'll just get started here. Yeah. Everybody, you know, this is Al Burgess. I met him recently. He actually reached out to me because he saw a climbing majority poster up in Mesa Rim. And he and that climbing gym. Climbing gym? Yep. Him and his twin brother, Adrian, wrote a book about their lives and their climbing legends and stories that they've done over the years.

00:04:48:05 - 00:05:09:00
Speaker 1
And we basically wanted to try to create an audio book from the book. And, you know, here we are now. We're unfortunately not able to move forward. That project. But I thought it'd be an awesome opportunity to get them on the show and to have them tell the story and at least get something in the in the Internet world so that people can can remember and hear these amazing stories.

00:05:09:00 - 00:05:18:07
Speaker 1
So, you know, that's kind of that's why we're here today. Al, if you just want to like introduce yourself just kind of like your name, how old you are. And yeah.

00:05:18:20 - 00:05:55:21
Speaker 2
So I'm I'm actually next month I'm 74. I was born in Yorkshire in northern England. An interesting story back in 1948. It was, you know, just after the end of the Second World War, really, things were food was rationed. And my brother, myself, twin identical twins, we were born six weeks prematurely in 1948. That was really dangerous. And there were two of the sets of twins in the hospital at the same time as we were born.

00:05:55:21 - 00:06:26:06
Speaker 2
You know, they both died while four of them. And we were kept in an oxygen tent, which is basically a sheet thrown over a frame with oxygen leaking out. And we weren't allowed to go home for about five days, you know, and we were only were £4 at birth. But that said, you could fit us in a 20 ounce pint of so, you know, so we're kind of lucky sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

00:06:27:00 - 00:06:41:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think it might be. You know, I have read a significant portion of your book and we'll get into a lot of these stories a little bit later. But it definitely seems like Luck has played a large role in the reason why you're here. Still here?

00:06:41:12 - 00:06:41:19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:06:42:09 - 00:06:45:19
Speaker 1
So, yeah, it's interesting that there's a point early so, so early on.

00:06:45:23 - 00:07:20:19
Speaker 2
So climbing, climbing back then. So we started climbing at the age of 15, 14, 15. Back then it was a fringe sport and there was no such thing as sport climbing or gym climbing. It was all tried climbing and often multiple. Some seem to pitch on stone, you know, were brought up on the tracks of the Derbyshire Gritstone and some of the and the multiple pitch timing in the Lake District and in Snowdonia, North Wales.

00:07:22:05 - 00:07:41:21
Speaker 2
Now what happened was we, we found a couple of books in the library and one was the How to Do It book and one was a small guidebook for a gritstone crack. And that Gritstone crag was called Lateral Rocks. And it was we could get there on our bicycles from the small village of Holmfirth where we were living.

00:07:43:10 - 00:08:14:17
Speaker 2
And, you know, so we were going out there climbing with a sizable rope and no gear, no hiking boots and my dad quarters, I think, talking about it and decided that you know, we'd better probably get a little bit better instruction. And in those days what you did, you joined the climbing club and, you know, every university would have had a mountaineering club on a climbing top, but there are of other clubs around.

00:08:14:17 - 00:08:45:19
Speaker 2
And my dad touches down to this one in Huddersfield about six miles away from Holmfirth, and it was called the Phenix, the Phenix Mountaineering Club. And there they met in a pub every Friday night. And you you sat there and you arranged to get rides for the weekend. And most of them, a lot of the lads would work on Saturday morning and stuff, you know, as engineers or they'd be doing, they'd be doing some other work, construction work, whatever they were doing.

00:08:46:02 - 00:09:27:21
Speaker 2
And then they would probably leave on Saturday afternoon and climb Sunday and drive back Sunday night. That was standard. And usually when we were only 15 we would sit there and know these guys who were the oldest one was probably 35, 40. They at that time, they would then take you out for a couple of weekends your time with them on a multi pitch and they kind of, you know, show you the ropes what to do now and really, it was about instilling safety in you because, you know, we already knew how to climb and stuff, but, you know, we didn't know how to use running blades, you know, tried routes.

00:09:28:04 - 00:09:53:04
Speaker 2
And in those days, a lot of the running blades were homemade. There were machine notes that were drilled out or filed out. So the threads were gone and then they were threaded on thin pieces of rope. And there were four thicknesses of rope from the go. Number one, two, three and four, four thickness number four was one and 3/8.

00:09:54:03 - 00:10:19:23
Speaker 2
I don't know that that much of that was diameter. I don't, I'm not sure what it was but it was like an 11 Mm. Roll nowadays and then and the finish one was probably the same as five Mm. One. So you had, that was a range out and a lot of the runners you had would be placed rock spikes in a sling over a rock spike, you know, and a long one.

00:10:19:23 - 00:10:26:04
Speaker 2
So it did lift off and so and all the been us then were steel though no aluminum beanies.

00:10:26:11 - 00:10:27:11
Speaker 1
So they were heavier a.

00:10:27:11 - 00:10:51:05
Speaker 2
Weight twice as had twice as heavy you know if you were doing a head climb which you know we did in the west some around you might be carrying 40 of those things. I mean, they're way a lot, you know. And so that's how we started climbing with that club. And then after about maybe a year and a half or so, we're probably close to 16.

00:10:51:13 - 00:11:11:07
Speaker 2
There was this one of the better climbers in the club called John Stanger. He was probably six years older than six, maybe eight, and he was looking for people to climb with on a Saturday as well. It was a telephone engineer and so we ended up climbing a lot with him as a threesome and he was much better climber.

00:11:11:07 - 00:11:59:03
Speaker 2
The notes, you know, it was time in in those days he probably would have been around ten. Si ten plus trad was a very good time. Super, super flexibly could do the split sideways mean and things like this and you know, but we were gradually getting stronger as well. And by the age of 16, I remember the lead in this thing called Victor, which I don't know how you would grade nowadays, but I went back well, it's probably ten years ago now and it was pretty slippery and I failed on it and I had not done choose wow and modern gear and you know, it was really slippery and I think I was going the

00:11:59:18 - 00:12:24:23
Speaker 2
wrong way. But, you know, it was it might have been ten C, it could be. I mean, it was grade. It was graded extremely severe. But there was no the grades. You know, that and the hardest times around were hard. There was there's one called the school, which is considered probably nowadays to be 11 plus 12 eight trapped and run out.

00:12:25:14 - 00:12:51:04
Speaker 2
You know, that was way done way back. And so, you know, in the time with John Stanger and the first year we went to the Alps, we were just 17 and just coming up to 18 in September. But, you know, it was June, July, August. And we all drove out to Europe. We went to the village at Kaiser in Austria, limestone multipage, alpine rock.

00:12:51:21 - 00:12:56:21
Speaker 1
So real quick, I want to back up a little bit. So you started climbing and you said you were 14, right?

00:12:57:05 - 00:12:59:06
Speaker 2
About 15, almost 50.

00:12:59:07 - 00:13:04:14
Speaker 1
Okay. So did you have any athletic background up to the point where you started climbing? Did you do any other sports?

00:13:05:11 - 00:13:31:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, I did track and field and cross-country, just endurance, stuff like that. In fact, we went to a drama school and there would have, you know, it was a very classical one. You know, you don't wear the same colored blazers and the hats and all this kind of stuff. And they had what they call the Victor Lew door of junior, middle and senior.

00:13:31:04 - 00:13:39:19
Speaker 2
Basically, it was a decathlon. Okay? And you could pick ten, ten events and I would win that in all three times, you know.

00:13:40:02 - 00:13:40:14
Speaker 1
And then.

00:13:40:14 - 00:13:47:11
Speaker 2
So you didn't train? No, no, no. It didn't really train. It was just just, you know, I don't know.

00:13:48:13 - 00:14:06:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so when you found climbing, you were 15. 16. Yeah. And you said you, you found out about the sport through books. Yeah. And then you and Adrian, your twin brother, just like found supplies on your own and started tackling the local tracks by yourselves without any instruction. Yeah. Okay.

00:14:06:12 - 00:14:24:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. That was pretty. I mean, we were only climbing relatively easy stuff back then. It would have been, you know, that would be some five, five, five, six. You're in hiking boots. Yeah. And it certainly back then you didn't fall. Yeah. You climb back down. Yeah. You know, you didn't really want to take a fall. Yeah.

00:14:24:17 - 00:14:41:07
Speaker 1
And so this kind of brings me to a question. You know, you kind of covered it a little bit, and I'm sure it you know, the gear kind of progressed a little bit. But before we jump into some of these bigger stories of your achievements when you were a climber, what was the gear like? Like what? What were you protecting your climbs with?

00:14:42:06 - 00:14:58:00
Speaker 1
Let's start with rock climbs and we'll move on to ice climbs later. Yeah, like what was that like? You know, you said, you know, you basically climbed in that sport to just not fall, right? Was there protection? What were you using to get down? Were you rappelling at all like talk to us a little bit about about the gear.

00:14:58:00 - 00:14:58:03
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:14:58:03 - 00:15:24:00
Speaker 2
Well the gear metal business and for thickness of slings and so you had really small engineering notes drilled out or filed out on thin swings all the way back up to what would be considered now. What would it be? Would probably be like an eight or nine hex. That was probably the largest three we had. It was a huge note.

00:15:24:15 - 00:15:25:22
Speaker 1
Was it solid or hollow?

00:15:25:23 - 00:15:50:19
Speaker 2
It was hollow. Hollow with a threaded slings. And so these these were like primitive hatchets, which you had. And that and slings you also chopped stones. You would use those you found quite a few of those actually where people had dropped rocks in the back either because they, you know, they wanted to make a stone, then you would thread slings around it and flip it in.

00:15:50:19 - 00:15:52:04
Speaker 2
And that would be old school.

00:15:52:04 - 00:15:52:15
Speaker 1
Big boy.

00:15:52:18 - 00:15:54:16
Speaker 2
Old school. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

00:15:54:18 - 00:16:11:02
Speaker 3
I'm I'm wondering here also due to the nature of the gear, it sounds like obviously if you're climbing through cracks or something, would it like correct me if I'm wrong, but would it be almost too strenuous to place proper protection? So you'd have to do almost like an obligatory run out. Was that something that you would experience?

00:16:11:17 - 00:16:30:12
Speaker 2
Well, you would, yes. You couldn't get I mean, you couldn't g adjusting anywhere in those days. You couldn't, you know, I mean, it wasn't like you saw a crack and, you know, if there was a crack and it was at least three inches deep, you could put a cabinet. Now it is now. There was none of that. Sometimes you had to fiddle.

00:16:30:17 - 00:16:33:07
Speaker 2
Yes, you had to fiddle it into a constriction.

00:16:33:14 - 00:16:33:22
Speaker 1
Mm hmm.

00:16:34:14 - 00:16:56:14
Speaker 2
And that took sometimes quite a lot of strength and energy to hang around. So, you know, you'd probably get something as close to the crops as you can, and then you would climb up. It would because a lot of it was searching for holes. Yes. There's no chalk. It wasn't. Oh, that is the chalk tool. So and sometimes they were out of sight or hidden.

00:16:57:02 - 00:17:20:06
Speaker 2
And so if you couldn't do it the first time, then you would maybe climb back down to check out to rest and then gradually work yourself up, maybe another five feet higher, and then you might come back for another rest. And then sometimes you might say, I can't get back now and you just go for it, you know, and you'd go for it and find the hold and pull through it.

00:17:21:09 - 00:17:57:08
Speaker 2
And rock, rock shoes. You know, we did initially, we had flimsy soles. There were the black soled shoes were first named after the plimsoll line on a ship and I guess sailors wore them and they were black rubber, you know, with tin cup and tennis shoes like tennis shoes with smooth black rubber on the bottom. And you would wear those incredibly tight and they did have a bit of friction then the big hiking boots and you would carry those with you and, you know, possibly use those.

00:17:57:14 - 00:18:27:02
Speaker 2
But there were there were climbing shoes around. And I think John Stang, it actually said a lot, it's about time for you to get some proper shoes. And they were they were called pairs, which they later became known as EBS. And they were the high top smooth but not sticky rubber, kind of like a heavy duty TSI pro.

00:18:28:06 - 00:18:40:06
Speaker 2
You know, that's a close issue. I can think of now. You know, it was a thick sole on it and you know, you could edge with it, but it wasn't sticky and it was super high. ANGLE And you wore socks with it.

00:18:41:12 - 00:18:44:09
Speaker 1
And what age were you when those shoes came out, the EBS.

00:18:44:10 - 00:18:50:06
Speaker 2
Well, we by the time we got a pair, we were probably 616 to 7.

00:18:50:09 - 00:18:52:10
Speaker 1
Okay. It's almost perfect timing for you guys.

00:18:52:15 - 00:18:54:04
Speaker 2
Mono that came out before that.

00:18:54:05 - 00:18:54:18
Speaker 1
Oh, they did.

00:18:54:18 - 00:18:59:21
Speaker 2
But we just didn't get a path. Gotcha. We you know, it's kind of pricey for us and stuff, you you're.

00:18:59:21 - 00:19:01:03
Speaker 1
Training for the alpine boots and.

00:19:02:10 - 00:19:25:02
Speaker 2
We were climbing these big old turkey high. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what you kind of did. You know, there was a certain amount of training for the Alps. Yes. That's what everybody wanted to do. So. Well, first, let's go back a bit then you wanted to get you need that was the rock climbing multipage, the immediate some ice climbing experience.

00:19:25:15 - 00:20:00:10
Speaker 2
And that was only found really in Scotland, a little bit in the late just in Wales. But mainly you would go for a week up to Ben Nevis in Glencoe and then you'd have crampons, big heavy boots and initially you would have a short ice arch. My first one was an ex-army thing that I took down to about 18 inches because what you needed here, you were cutting hand footholds and you were cutting them and your gloves were that tine.

00:20:00:10 - 00:20:22:20
Speaker 2
That same woolen mitts when you reached there would kind of semi freeze into the jug. It bloody carved out. So so the one thing the big mistake was you didn't you always had to carve a head. You didn't carve a hold and then move and step up into it unless it was easy angle. You know, if it was 50 degrees, you might 55 degrees.

00:20:22:20 - 00:20:39:00
Speaker 2
But, you know, a lot of it was 80 degrees. You know, you were hanging on a chip in, so you had to cut holes and then you would move up two steps and then cut holes, you know, and that that went on right into the Alps when we first started doing that.

00:20:39:00 - 00:20:39:09
Speaker 1
Wow.

00:20:40:10 - 00:21:00:15
Speaker 2
I need to remember was this route called the shroud of the North. Face the ground your ass that these check check timers in 1968 Dick and the one guy cut his way up I we're joking like it must have worn off that was the size of a person's leg. Yeah. You had to cut 3000 foot steps, you know.

00:21:00:17 - 00:21:02:09
Speaker 1
When did front pointing and more.

00:21:02:20 - 00:21:37:18
Speaker 2
Well, it was there but it was, you know, I think really in the late thirties, the Austrians and the Germans were front pointed and they were then using probably I staggers, I saw how many one hand and the dagger in the other, like a sharp and high speed down to something, the one tiny drop tool. Then some people may have made their own, but there weren't certainly weren't commercially available or the French on the other hand.

00:21:38:05 - 00:22:03:09
Speaker 2
So that was the Germans and Austrians pointing and the French sidestepped and they would do this. I think Yvonne Chouinard Did this ice climbing book mean where you would have both hands on one eye, one hand on the head, one hand on the shaft, and you would climb your what do they call it, or plaque or something, flat feet, and you would put all crampons in.

00:22:03:16 - 00:22:23:12
Speaker 2
You couldn't do that. A 90 degree ice. There's no way you could you could do it probably up to 60 degrees if you were really good. But that would be normal. It would be more 50 to 55. And if you read The White Spider, the first ascent of the North Face, well, there's all kinds of a sense of not north.

00:22:23:18 - 00:22:55:07
Speaker 2
The idea. But when it was first time, Jim, 38, there were two teams on it. One team was wearing nail boots and had to cut steps. That was Fritz Kasper, Mark and his friend. And then there was was it just production of horror anyway? There was the the other guy's. What was his name? Oh, anyway, he was pointed and he made a big point of it.

00:22:55:12 - 00:23:17:04
Speaker 2
He had nice daggers, maybe a slightly curved tools. And he was pointing and that was the hole in that was probably just starting then. It wouldn't have been the first time he ever did from point two, but that was then when we first got to the Alps, pointed out crampons weren't good enough. Actually, there were there was still bad things.

00:23:17:04 - 00:23:44:04
Speaker 2
There were, you know, use they were they were okay on never like y never ice but not on blue hard ice. No way. And, you know, the first big ice time we did was the North Face, the triple-A. And it took us 18 hours and we cut steps the whole way up it. Wow. Yeah. I mean, nowadays with modern tools, you know, 2500 feet of time into an off hours, you know, thousand foot an hour.

00:23:44:15 - 00:23:48:01
Speaker 1
So, Max, you have any questions before I go to the next one?

00:23:48:01 - 00:23:50:07
Speaker 3
No, no, no. It's all good.

00:23:50:07 - 00:24:06:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm just curious. So the the process from going to backyard climbing, you have a mentor, you're in this climbing group and you go to the Alps when you're 717. So you've been climbing just under a year or.

00:24:06:09 - 00:24:07:06
Speaker 2
A couple of years?

00:24:07:06 - 00:24:08:01
Speaker 1
Two years, yeah.

00:24:08:02 - 00:24:08:14
Speaker 2
So do you.

00:24:08:15 - 00:24:21:08
Speaker 1
Still. That seems really quick. How many? I'd say like were you climbing every weekend for two years? Like how much experience did you get under your belt before taking on these.

00:24:21:08 - 00:24:45:04
Speaker 2
Well, would it be is certainly mean trying to climb every weekend knowing the weather in Britain I mean you would climb in bad weather. I mean you would climb in the rain and grit stone and freeze your hands because it was good training for the Alps. Yeah. And in Scotland always you're climbing in, you know, snowing and blowing, windy and cold.

00:24:45:10 - 00:24:49:18
Speaker 2
It was really blue skies occasionally, but, you know, I mean.

00:24:50:10 - 00:25:02:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, and and so if you can't protect yourself well and you can't really fall, how are you progressing your abilities and managing that risk level at the same time?

00:25:02:16 - 00:25:09:17
Speaker 2
Well, you can fall if you pick your places, but you can't just fall. You really don't want to be falling.

00:25:10:05 - 00:25:19:10
Speaker 1
So how do you how do you push your difficulty level of your technical level without that risk of of injuring yourself if you mess up or a piece of gear.

00:25:19:12 - 00:25:42:20
Speaker 2
Well, you're you are you're basically and not really would you the top route wasn't done much it was trying to look down on like if you were top rope in to grit stone crack some you know as young lads of 17 so all the guys wanted along the top would be what you do and get knocked down you know that's practicing the route.

00:25:42:20 - 00:26:02:02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Because you know some of the ropes were doing, you know they were probably I mean those gritstone routes were mainly five nine. They might be in the out 510 they're right, you know, and and some of it was knowing how to do it, where the holds were. So if you done it on a top rope, you could and then you leg it.

00:26:02:03 - 00:26:48:14
Speaker 2
There was no a red point. It was called cheated it, you know, I mean, you know, there might have been some stuff that we were playing around on on some quarries and stuff where there were no climbers, where you would all there's no protection where you might top rope. But generally speaking, you were trying to do it round up and you got stronger and you technique got better and yet endurance got better and you could hang in in those places where it was really difficult to rest, you know, I mean, just stand steaming round something and shake one hand and, you know, getting rid of a pump and then going back up to it and,

00:26:48:14 - 00:27:15:06
Speaker 2
you know, and and sometimes maybe you would take that, you know, take it was sometimes dodgy because, you know, you didn't know if the note was going to turn, right? Yeah. You know, I mean, sometimes you knew it was good something or if it was a piton in you know, you could probably although some of those pitons looked pretty old, some of them I mean, you could probably turn them out in soft steel, rusted ones from the 1930s or something.

00:27:15:06 - 00:27:15:19
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:27:15:19 - 00:27:16:03
Speaker 2
You know.

00:27:16:15 - 00:27:18:18
Speaker 1
And we're using pitons pretty early on too.

00:27:19:06 - 00:27:43:07
Speaker 2
And you would know you, you would use it on aid routes. Okay. Yeah. You would use pitons in their droves but on if you were doing well we weren't doing first ascents. Right. But if somebody was doing like Joe Brown was doing the first ascent, it might limit himself to two pitons on a page on a hard time.

00:27:43:23 - 00:27:49:01
Speaker 2
Why the that's something that was pretty close to 511 I would imagine is yeah.

00:27:49:02 - 00:27:51:05
Speaker 1
What so he's got just so protection for the.

00:27:51:10 - 00:28:08:20
Speaker 2
No no no he would use notes and slings and spikes and whatever he could use. But you know occasionally if it was totally blank, you might put in a pin and if he placed a pen, chances are it was useful. They'd just maybe put.

00:28:08:20 - 00:28:09:06
Speaker 1
A skin.

00:28:09:06 - 00:28:46:21
Speaker 2
Through, put a sling on it. Standing eight, there was there was no real difference if it had a point of aid between pulling on it or standing in it. Okay. Right. There's no you know, so if you saw Pete on set in the guidebook, it said one Pete on for your tip, a sling on it to get your foot on it for behind you to rest in it and then, you know, stand up and see where you go from there and know, you know, if you've ever done that and left a point of Ed, it's a point of no return because you can't get your foot.

00:28:46:21 - 00:29:02:16
Speaker 2
But once you've pulled out of it, often you can't get back into it. You've kind of left it. You've got to go, you know. Yeah. And usually that would be at a point, you know, and that was to get you through. It wouldn't necessarily be correct that it would get you through that point.

00:29:02:16 - 00:29:04:13
Speaker 1
Are you clipping a rope to it as you pass two or.

00:29:04:15 - 00:29:11:06
Speaker 2
Oh, you sit you're up into it. Yeah. You would have you put a long sling on it and you'd put the rope on bottom of the same.

00:29:11:06 - 00:29:12:08
Speaker 1
Problem and then you'd stand on.

00:29:12:09 - 00:29:18:04
Speaker 2
It and then you stand it probably wouldn't clip directly to the Pegasus. It's a great track. You want to.

00:29:18:16 - 00:29:19:05
Speaker 1
Extend it.

00:29:19:05 - 00:29:19:22
Speaker 2
Extended.

00:29:20:06 - 00:29:43:06
Speaker 3
And I'm just wondering here out so at the time when you were climbing and there was kind of these to me, you could say obviously in hindsight it seems really easy for me to say, but like arbitrary rules did they seem just common common knowledge or common practice, or was it something at the time that you questioned and maybe you thought, oh, this seems a little silly that I can't top rope a climb or etc.?

00:29:43:06 - 00:29:46:13
Speaker 3
What was your feeling at the time? And maybe what's your feeling now?

00:29:47:13 - 00:29:57:11
Speaker 2
Will you try? You know, we're 17 question it because guys at 25 and 35 were telling us, don't do that. Yeah. You know.

00:29:57:13 - 00:29:57:20
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:29:58:14 - 00:30:04:23
Speaker 2
You know, I mean, they, you know, you'd get probably shouted out if you were doing that.

00:30:06:17 - 00:30:07:09
Speaker 1
Ethics.

00:30:07:09 - 00:30:29:20
Speaker 2
You know, I mean, if you if you were pulling on something, you know, some of you might shout to get like that, go stop that, you know? And if you you know, if you're standing in gear on the route that you weren't supposed to, that that looks like it's too hard for you. Come on down the most. Yeah, but don't forget, there weren't the same numbers of people climbing them.

00:30:29:21 - 00:30:50:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, so, yeah. You live by the ethics. Now, when you went to the Alps, those ethics didn't count. Anything went just. It was all about speed and say speed was safety. So, you know, so when you call when you nowadays if you call something French free, right. That means you're totally in on it with your hands.

00:30:50:06 - 00:30:57:00
Speaker 2
You don't stand in it. It's French freight. Just the French used to do that all the time. Okay. I call it a free time. Right.

00:30:58:01 - 00:30:58:11
Speaker 1
Okay.

00:30:59:08 - 00:31:26:13
Speaker 2
And I don't think the blade techniques were round the waist. David So with this with a twist around your wrist and so you would wear leather gloves and we actually had a jacket, big leather jacket, not leather jackets, but canvas jackets with leather stitched around the back. So you wouldn't wear it, could wear the jacket down. And for a while, my brother, he was we were training John Steinman.

00:31:26:13 - 00:31:59:00
Speaker 2
I would training him to be the Blair. It took some skill and I remember this one time I went to the top of this great stone quarry and we had two big coal sacks. Hessian bags were filled with rocks at the top and bounded around. Right. And Adrian was tied to a big boulder with his gloves on and his jacket, you know, and we edge to the edge gave him six footer slack and then tossed it over anyway and held it and let it slide a little, you know.

00:31:59:01 - 00:32:21:17
Speaker 2
So, you know, you have to probably had to let inside that they said let it slide a bit because that would help the strength of the ankles and everything. And then we did that. And on the third time I remember just we pulled about 20 foot to slack and I went round to the bottom of the quarry to watch this sack came hurtling over the top.

00:32:21:17 - 00:32:39:04
Speaker 2
I don't know. Holy shit. It's halfway down the cliffs. Right. I pulled engine over to his side. Just he had the rope outside this big toe side. His foot pulled him on to his side. They held it. Wow. So a good Blair was worth a lot get dropped, you know.

00:32:39:12 - 00:32:43:04
Speaker 1
At what point did you start wearing more modern day harnesses.

00:32:44:17 - 00:32:51:23
Speaker 2
Like, wow, that wouldn't have been until probably around 1970.

00:32:51:23 - 00:32:57:00
Speaker 1
Wow. So all this stuff that I've read about you being in the Alps was all hip.

00:32:57:00 - 00:33:23:21
Speaker 2
Blaise Ill Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, even when there was harnesses you're still dealing with. I mean, I think the first harness, like the women's harness, was made in I think it was the south face of Annapurna, which was in 1970. So before that you would have, you know, you Swamy belts, that's what you use in in Yosemite rather than the harness.

00:33:23:21 - 00:33:48:20
Speaker 2
And then for for rappelling you would just put a sling around your thighs, you know, you figure they'd sling that to your swami and then repel over the shoulder or try to be in a break. Can be a Brit system. You know we didn't know about the French used to be use in a mountain range and we used to see him doing that just so we'd have it direct to the anchor.

00:33:49:05 - 00:34:09:04
Speaker 2
And we just think that's a bloody dodgy liability, you know, just a monitor on the direct. Actually, it would have worked pretty good. It would have been pretty good. It would have been really good. How big? A monitor with a twist around the waist as well? That would have been probably really excellent. We didn't know a lot, though.

00:34:09:17 - 00:34:10:07
Speaker 2
I think a lot.

00:34:10:07 - 00:34:30:00
Speaker 3
Of modern bullying in guiding outfits now as they're actually starting to move back to having a multi-directional anchor point with the redundant master point and using a monitor hitch on just a single locking carabiner. So they're actually kind of coming full circle back to that. I think there's a reason for doing that.

00:34:30:12 - 00:34:34:10
Speaker 2
They're doing that on a lead to climb in. Yeah. Wow.

00:34:34:13 - 00:34:58:02
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I think the rope has a lot of slippage. So you're supposed to wear a ballet glove because the rope will slip. But essentially it's all dynamic properties. It reduces load on the anchor. It's actually quite easy. I was working on this. The other two weeks ago. It's really efficient, quite easy. And then if the leader was actually get injured as well, you don't have to transfer the load onto the anchor.

00:34:58:02 - 00:35:06:12
Speaker 3
It's already on to the anchor. So you can kind of just do a monitor mule and lock off the anchor and you're ready to go to start looking into how you can do rescue.

00:35:06:12 - 00:35:13:16
Speaker 2
I'm not sure. Sure I want that that you know, I mean, I can imagine a bolt and it pulls up, but.

00:35:14:12 - 00:35:36:11
Speaker 3
Yeah, so it's bolts or then if it's a trad anchor, you need to have a you need to obviously have whatever you adhere to for a strong enough anchor, generally three pieces and then you need to have one piece as a, as a directional for pull that can withstand at least 4 to 5 kilojoules. That's my understanding of it, because that's what they've done in a lot of other use.

00:35:37:05 - 00:35:40:07
Speaker 2
Would you use a monitor on a big Veena on your b-line loop?

00:35:41:03 - 00:35:41:17
Speaker 1
You could do.

00:35:41:17 - 00:35:58:14
Speaker 3
That as well too, I guess. But then there's still the properties like you're going to. You're some of the benefits of having it on the anchor is that if your leader falls, you're not going to get pulled into any terrain as well because. Right on the anchor. Yeah. So you could use it.

00:35:58:14 - 00:36:04:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I've seen that with built in anchors bold and different, you know. Yeah.

00:36:04:17 - 00:36:12:16
Speaker 1
It also solves the problem of heavy leader and a light layer is all the Yes. Put on the anchor and sure. Yeah. Yeah. Which is pretty cool.

00:36:12:16 - 00:36:14:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. No I mean I could see that.

00:36:14:17 - 00:36:35:10
Speaker 3
I would also assume from the time of the French in the Alps that you're describing that a the technology of the ropes and the actual dynamic properties have probably increased a lot. The calming material you can use to make multi-directional anchors, obviously, you know, like the improvement in these things are probably like more than tenfold. So I think it's probably a lot different now doing it than at the time you're describing.

00:36:36:07 - 00:36:50:03
Speaker 2
Well, they were just having some picked up through pins. Yeah. In the Alps, you know, that would have been the way they did it. But that harness came before being a I'm I think what the first belay.

00:36:51:13 - 00:36:52:03
Speaker 1
Device was.

00:36:52:04 - 00:37:24:00
Speaker 2
Device was a, it was either a stitch plate with one or two holes in it and it had a spring on so it wouldn't lock up. Also, you could have a figure of eight just for repelling and you could belay and you could use that as a stitch plate or, you know, or even just pay it out. But we were we were still using billets probably at times because certainly in the Alps, because it was faster, you could pay the rope out faster and stuff.

00:37:24:00 - 00:37:36:09
Speaker 2
And certainly bringing the second rope, you would either of a monitor on the ankle directly or a waist below round waist.

00:37:36:23 - 00:37:37:19
Speaker 1
Just like sitting.

00:37:37:19 - 00:37:58:09
Speaker 2
Sit at sitting. Yeah, because you could, you know, you could the advantage and this is the guide in particular if you are using it round the waist, I can bend my legs taking the rope and straight my legs and I can hold somebody up using my legs, which you can't do that using a blade then really not as easily anyway.

00:37:59:13 - 00:38:26:01
Speaker 1
So we have some stories to dove into today, some of your your biggest objectives. And I think we've done a good job at laying the groundwork for what the world was like as a climber back in that day and kind of what tools and techniques you were using for these ascents, which I think is so important. So the first story I want to dove into is your ascent of Fitzroy.

00:38:26:19 - 00:39:01:01
Speaker 2
Okay, well first of all we were invited to go down to Fitzroy by Alan Rouse and a bunch of his friends rupturing turn, Brian Hole, John Whittle. And it was in the fall of 74, over the winter of 74, 75. And at that time actually I was working illegally in Canmore, Alberta and construction and we flew from we got the bus from there to Miami and then flew down to Argentina.

00:39:02:11 - 00:39:44:18
Speaker 2
At that time, Fitzroy had been to be climbed a number of times, the first time by Lionel Terry, not the French route. So it was done by, I think I know the Argentinian route. There was a British route. It was probably climbed less than ten times. I couldn't swear exactly to the numbers, but it had been climbed also by Yvonne Canard, what is known as the Californian route when he drove his Volkswagen bus down all the way from California, you know, they put it on a boat someplace and and he went surfing and, you know, they ended up doing this time.

00:39:45:20 - 00:40:13:17
Speaker 2
Well, the thing with Fitzroy, it's about 11, 12,000 feet and it sits on. Yeah. On the summit. Yeah. But they, the base of the pampas is only about 1500 feet to a thousand feet. So it's a big, big height. Not all on that rock. Just, you know, this glacier at the bottom of it is, you know, I think I've got those heights correct.

00:40:13:23 - 00:40:43:21
Speaker 2
Think just it's not high altitude. But the thing about it is it's like this big granite spike with a comet. CHILTON Because of the cloud coming out, the top created by the wind makes it look like a volcano. Charlton means volcano, I believe. Right. And so, you know, it was called Fitzroy from some British officer who or admiral or whatever that was that was sailing past it and then they named it after it.

00:40:43:23 - 00:41:10:10
Speaker 2
But because it sat in the middle by itself, in the middle of Pampa, it's renowned for high winds, incredibly high winds and of course, territory. It's neighbor it's kind of brother sat that right next to it is you know famous for its up atmospheric ice smeared all over it so the winds incredibly powerful there and the storms come up quickly and deadly.

00:41:11:12 - 00:41:38:13
Speaker 2
So that's the that was the challenge. Our route erupted into a down there trying to do new routes on the smaller peaks. And they did. I forgot what they did. Stand to something like that agent and I wanted to go for Fitzroy because it's the obvious one and it is easier than territory. Territory it only be timed a few times by then, you know.

00:41:38:13 - 00:42:22:03
Speaker 2
And it was definitely a, a big expedition, sea siege things, it was time and territory. We wanted to climb Fitzroy Alpine style so we would, we went there now were two girlfriends to myself and we started climbing I think to round in December. We never, we never summited until the 28th I think it was 220 February that so many tries and I think we had three big tries where we almost got to the summit and got nailed by weather and we were trying to initially from a snow cave and a tent at the base of the Italian Couloir top, top of the glacier above base camp.

00:42:22:03 - 00:42:50:09
Speaker 2
It already gained a few thousand feet. Good. Few thousand. And then there was this thing is about 1500 foot couloir called the Italian crop, which is snow and ice. And it was relative to the steep birch on the bottom, but otherwise it was fairly straightforward and we were trying to do it from there and it was just too far, you know, I mean, nowadays you would do it from there because you would use good head torches.

00:42:51:05 - 00:43:18:10
Speaker 2
But people also we eventually climbed it. We built an ice cave right at the foot of the rock itself. And we had some fixed line, old fixed line going down this couloir. And I don't think the whole thing was fixed but sat there, burgeoned was and there were bits of old stuff we found as well. And then we did it from there and we met up with a South African guy.

00:43:18:16 - 00:43:42:01
Speaker 2
So it came, joined up with us and you know, eventually we climbed it, but we did, you know, to be fair, we did have hexes then just by 74 and I got my first set of hexes, not cams, but we did have headsets and we had curved ice tools. And from point crampons, you know, we have that wheel.

00:43:42:01 - 00:43:55:03
Speaker 2
So we had Gore-Tex. No, we didn't have Gore-Tex, we didn't have Gore-Tex then, which makes a wood. We had fleece, homemade fleece and sweaters as well.

00:43:56:11 - 00:44:06:04
Speaker 1
For for the route it. So to give us some perspective, at least for the time, you know, like there is a town called L Shelton now, now. So like what was that like?

00:44:06:16 - 00:44:14:06
Speaker 2
L Charlton was one house was called LaGuardia Park. It was a the God of the park, the national park headquarters.

00:44:14:13 - 00:44:23:12
Speaker 1
And so how did you have supplies there? I mean, you were there for two months. That's a lot of food. That's a lot of water. That's a lot of supplies. Like the.

00:44:23:20 - 00:44:24:13
Speaker 2
Initial what were.

00:44:24:13 - 00:44:25:08
Speaker 1
The logistics.

00:44:25:08 - 00:45:06:18
Speaker 2
Initially? We'll take it, Kate, on the back of the back of the construction vehicle. And we took, you know, a load of flour and soups and every two weeks there would be a postman come through and we you could order food from him, okay? You know, give him money and value food to bring in. But there was a Swiss expedition there that did the second descent of the American route, the Canadian route, you know, Shannon's we did the third son, and they had all these blue plastic drums, you know, with Swiss chocolate, because it was a Swiss expedition and salami and cheeses and everything.

00:45:07:00 - 00:45:33:03
Speaker 2
And when we showed up, they actually said one guy said, where's all your supplies of food and stuff? And we looked around with pointed to all the sheep grazing. And when you're walking around that there aren't sheep bread anymore, they moved them out. The estimators then would grazing all over the Fitzroy area.

00:45:33:09 - 00:45:35:21
Speaker 1
I read in the book that you actually went oh were.

00:45:35:22 - 00:45:51:18
Speaker 2
Well we got, we were rustling all the time. Yeah. You know they were known as Puma kills but they just as humans were killing killing the sheep. Yeah they do. Yeah. Yeah. You know there are a few more puma kills during the season. During the season.

00:45:51:21 - 00:45:54:21
Speaker 3
So you actually, you actually kill the native sheep. We were there.

00:45:55:13 - 00:46:19:14
Speaker 2
Oh, all the time. Wow. Oh, yeah. I mean, and there's something to attempt just before I went out and got a sheep and took all the little bits of been made up and fried it, we had packets of soup and agent bread and that's what we timed it on with spaghetti, soup, bread and chunks of cheat sheet meat.

00:46:19:17 - 00:46:20:01
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:46:20:17 - 00:46:21:03
Speaker 1
Well, I'll.

00:46:21:03 - 00:46:27:12
Speaker 3
Make sure to bring a sheep up my next multi pitch just for you out.

00:46:27:12 - 00:46:39:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I read in the in the book that you guys were basically living in Ice Cave for days on the western side of the Massif.

00:46:39:18 - 00:46:42:03
Speaker 2
Right. That was on the final, final attempt.

00:46:42:04 - 00:46:42:08
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:46:42:08 - 00:46:45:09
Speaker 2
We were there for about, I don't know, ten days or something.

00:46:45:09 - 00:47:01:12
Speaker 1
Just in a tiny ice cave. Yeah. So. So in your stories, it seems to be this one was the longest it seemed. But what do you do with that time? Five days you're in you're in a a ten by. Yeah, ten by six.

00:47:01:19 - 00:47:06:02
Speaker 2
You really can, you could stand it in one end of it just to cook. Yeah. Yeah.

00:47:06:02 - 00:47:09:14
Speaker 1
So what do you, what are you doing to pass time? How are you keeping your mind?

00:47:09:19 - 00:47:35:19
Speaker 2
I don't know. I can't remember. If you've got to read up there, you know, you'd go out and check the weather and stuff like this. Just we had an altimeter, you know, you know, weather forecasts, no phones or anything like that. The just the barometer. And when barometer went to one point an hour for 4 hours continuously, that meant good weather was moving in and we climbed it.

00:47:35:19 - 00:48:01:11
Speaker 2
We left the ice cave. I think it's 11:00 in the morning, climbed all day big locked. You're sat on a ledge. They've locked climb till next morning, summited by noon probably rappelling off and we got no before because by the time we got back down to the ice cave, the storm had come and it was only like 1:00 or something I think.

00:48:01:12 - 00:48:03:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. It seemed like you were saying that.

00:48:03:01 - 00:48:04:01
Speaker 2
24 hours.

00:48:04:02 - 00:48:06:01
Speaker 1
Chasing you back down. Yes.

00:48:06:05 - 00:48:06:14
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:48:07:01 - 00:48:12:08
Speaker 1
And and so on the route itself in terms of technical difficulty, like what was the.

00:48:12:10 - 00:48:13:13
Speaker 2
Which granite.

00:48:13:18 - 00:48:18:20
Speaker 1
Are you climbing cracks? Are you climbing roped? Like are you lead climbing or is it all ice? Like, is it snow tracks that.

00:48:18:20 - 00:48:49:07
Speaker 2
Start it started off with about a few hundred feet of ice time and up to this little cold seizure, which I think means armchair comma something. And from there, it's granite tracks, face flakes, reasonable ledges, most of the way below stances, not big ledges. This near the top, there was some ice, you know, like.

00:48:49:18 - 00:48:50:05
Speaker 1
Grime.

00:48:50:09 - 00:48:53:21
Speaker 2
Grime, ice on the outside, the cracks and stuff.

00:48:53:21 - 00:49:12:00
Speaker 1
So what's this is something that's been interesting to me a lot. I was inspired by the secretary to climb years ago when I first became a climber. And I was just fascinated by the atmospheric grime ice that sticks to the rocks out there. What is that like to climb on? Like, is it does it hold an ice ax?

00:49:12:00 - 00:49:17:05
Speaker 1
Are you able to step into it? Do you have to dig deep and to get to more substantial territory.

00:49:17:05 - 00:49:23:19
Speaker 2
Almost on Fitzroy there isn't a lot of climbing on Ryman's, okay, it's just they're getting in the way of the rock.

00:49:23:19 - 00:49:24:05
Speaker 1
Gotcha.

00:49:24:06 - 00:49:44:09
Speaker 2
I mean that's it's something mainly you would chapatis, you try to get it out of the trap, but you can't climb on it. I mean, on territory, on the ice side, they actually tunnel through. But I haven't really climbed up right ice there. But I would imagine it's like climbing in Scotland I'll show Scottish ice is is really nice and you just pointing it.

00:49:45:06 - 00:50:11:20
Speaker 3
I've heard that this is not from personal experience, but I've heard that in the consistency. Some of the remise and some of the top notes in in Patagonia can be the consistency of mashed potatoes or ice. And so I have seen people do ascents where there's almost an attachment that you can put on modern ice tools. And it's kind of like a head that sits on the top that's like a prong shovel on either side.

00:50:11:20 - 00:50:22:22
Speaker 3
And so you kind of like swing into it. And then, yes, the consistency is really, really low, like a mashed potato or soupy. You can kind of put yourself through an area. So that's just that's totally anecdotal.

00:50:22:22 - 00:50:48:14
Speaker 2
But yeah, we, we never came across any ice like that. I mean, there's one, there's the the spit on it, which I remember started off on a thin groove with, I think, ice on the right hand face and rock on the left. And it was blind. You couldn't get any, you couldn't get a pinion, you couldn't even get a knife blade in at all.

00:50:48:21 - 00:51:20:02
Speaker 2
And agent led it the first time and each time with the on on the right foot and a boot on the left. So just a normal not a rock shoe like a mountaineering boot and the time that it opened to the groove, which had ice in the back of it, that the crooks was coming up to this big flake of whipped flake that was, I think it still graded ten C, I mean, but and, you know, he had some protection at the bottom of it.

00:51:20:02 - 00:51:47:05
Speaker 2
And you and I think. Well, he never took his pack. No. Did it without his pack. So you climb of the pack but yet to reach up and get into this layback position underneath and round this flank, and if he just taking the fly from there, if it strengthened being going, he would have taken a 74 to 80 4 to 77.

00:51:47:09 - 00:51:58:05
Speaker 2
60 to 70, maybe 60 to 80 footer. And it would have hurt himself to see where to smash down. I mean, he probably would have died, you know, couldn't he got it off?

00:51:58:05 - 00:52:06:23
Speaker 1
How many how many moments like that did you find on that route, particularly where you were basically free soloing?

00:52:06:23 - 00:52:34:14
Speaker 2
No, most most of it you could protect. Yeah, you could protect. I mean, you could you know, with axes, there was just that wide stuff like that. You could not protection. No, there was. I mean, you can protect. Well, you know, there were probably some a wider crack higher. That was I don't know. I mean, who knows a great five nine plus or whatever, you know, that had rhyme in it that was wide.

00:52:34:17 - 00:52:44:13
Speaker 2
Just the widest piece we had was that number ten hat turn sideways. So that's what's that that that would be it. That's fish size.

00:52:44:13 - 00:52:45:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. Size. Yeah.

00:52:45:19 - 00:52:52:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. So if it got wider than that, you really had to just climb in and get up. It.

00:52:52:19 - 00:53:06:07
Speaker 1
You know in the book you it was I think it was Adrian that wrote this chapter. He talked about a knot that came undone or popped as you guys were repelling off. And he caught both ends.

00:53:06:15 - 00:53:22:06
Speaker 2
Dave was just it was a half inch tape, tubular tape tied, but it hadn't been tied far enough away from the knot on double.

00:53:23:04 - 00:53:24:15
Speaker 1
The tags were too short.

00:53:24:15 - 00:53:43:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. All, all, you know, it was pulling at an angle and it was and Dave was just about to go off on it, obviously, first down an edge. So and not full, you know, basically unravel, pulling out and just grab the rope or jump. Dave pulled him back.

00:53:43:15 - 00:53:45:14
Speaker 1
Yeah. You would have just fallen to his death.

00:53:45:14 - 00:54:10:03
Speaker 2
They were both ropes as well. Oh, my God. Although we did carry a spare rope because sometimes when you pull the rope down in the wind get stuck, it could blow away again. Well, you know, when we were trimming well, basically coming down in wind, what Adrian would do, he would I would drop the rope around me, probably in a pack or something.

00:54:10:16 - 00:54:28:16
Speaker 2
And then he would lower me on the end and I would just pay the rope out. So he'd let me on one rope and I'd pull the other rope out and then I would tie it to the anchor and stand in it if it was a spike to hold it from blowing off the anchor at the top and catch it lifted off a rock spike of the top.

00:54:28:18 - 00:54:28:23
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:54:28:23 - 00:54:37:20
Speaker 1
I've read, read stories of a sense of in Fitzroy in secretary and they, they say like rappelling you'll throw the ropes down and then they go past you. Oh yeah. Up the way.

00:54:38:00 - 00:54:51:11
Speaker 2
Or up is okay out. Sideways is not a good idea, it just, it catches on flat and then you screw, you can't get if you're in a stall there and you ropes it off to the side somewhere. Oh there's.

00:54:51:11 - 00:54:51:20
Speaker 1
Nothing you.

00:54:51:20 - 00:54:57:23
Speaker 2
Can do. There's nothing you can do. Freeze to death. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's why we had we cut it an extra rope. Yeah.

00:54:58:09 - 00:54:58:16
Speaker 1
Wow.

00:54:59:01 - 00:54:59:09
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:55:01:04 - 00:55:08:02
Speaker 3
So I'm assuming you wouldn't tie any catastrophe knots or anything in the bottom of the rope. Because, hypothetically, if it flies away, that's.

00:55:08:09 - 00:55:28:17
Speaker 2
What it was that right below me, I'd go down first being lunge, take in the repel rope with me. Basically, that's how it worked out. And then I would stand in the arch it if it if it could lift, just stop it, lift it and then they would repel down, you know, there's always some slack in it, enough to repel them.

00:55:28:19 - 00:55:29:21
Speaker 1
It's honestly pretty smart.

00:55:30:17 - 00:55:34:01
Speaker 2
And we had figureheads. Yeah, we're repelling. When I said.

00:55:34:21 - 00:55:38:20
Speaker 1
Wow Max anything else on on Fitzroy.

00:55:39:05 - 00:56:01:23
Speaker 3
No man. Just pretty crazy in such an amount. Amazing mountain range. And I know for myself just I would love to go climb in Patagonia some day but I yeah, it's, it's, it's such a committing route and that's even with all the modern gear that I have access to, it's terrifying and committing and scary. And so I just can't even imagine with a number ten XP, my largest piece of gear.

00:56:01:23 - 00:56:13:13
Speaker 1
And yeah, I think there are lessons in place on that in that area in general seem to be quite common from all the ascents, people just talking about storms just being consistent.

00:56:13:13 - 00:56:35:20
Speaker 2
I think the big thing now is weather forecasting. I mean, they've got they know there's a window coming up. They can be in place ready and with really good head torches. You know, you can do super long days. You know, you probably wouldn't need to bivouac. I mean, you know, we'd never practice climbing rock in the dark, which people do now.

00:56:35:20 - 00:56:59:18
Speaker 2
You know, they'll time they'll start. I mean, if if you're doing it now from an ice cave there wish you wouldn't because you it from lower down I need your shoes I had torch you'd go up the Italian cool to the coal seizure it all that would be in the dark you climb the first I don't know four or five pictures for pictures anyway in the dark.

00:57:00:01 - 00:57:04:12
Speaker 2
And that would be your time at the end of the day to get back down in the daylight.

00:57:04:12 - 00:57:07:23
Speaker 1
And we're talking about weather windows that last less than 24 hours.

00:57:08:05 - 00:57:14:02
Speaker 2
I don't know if anybody would do it in a window less than 24 hours. That would be pretty nasty to try that.

00:57:14:03 - 00:57:20:14
Speaker 1
But still, I mean, I guess I'm what the point I'm trying to drive home is even with these weather windows there are relatively short. Yeah.

00:57:20:20 - 00:57:45:01
Speaker 2
I mean, if you get a 24 hour window, you know, I mean, you can find a decent distance. That's all you get in. Yeah. You know, I mean, if you're having to climb, I don't think you're going to be you're not going to be climbing as fast. If you're going to be climbing 12 hours in the dark, that would be really tenuous, you know, unless it was aid climbing or something, you know, quite easy, easy, mixed or whatever.

00:57:45:01 - 00:58:18:00
Speaker 2
But, you know, if it's technical climbing, I think that would be kind of tricky, you know? I mean, yeah, we work because we knew we're going to bivouac. We work, you know, carrying down jackets. We probably had a lightweight, super lightweight sleeping bag as well. I think for that, I mean, we never had Gore-Tex, so we didn't have got we may have had they used to have these big bags called tzatziki sacks, which was like a big nylon envelope that you sat facing.

00:58:18:00 - 00:58:39:17
Speaker 2
One another and pulled over your head and sat on. Right. And you could then create a gap between your weight. You could cook that, you know, they would get really condensation inside and stuff. Here's how long you could got to poison yourself, you know, not, you know, carbon monoxide poisoning with the stove. I mean, normally there was enough air going around.

00:58:39:20 - 00:59:24:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. But it wasn't it wasn't like got Gore-Tex changed a lot, you know, I mean, certain things changed climate. You know what what first changed really changed. Gore-Tex changed alpine climbing. Plastic boots changed. High altitude climbing comes change rock climbing. Those three things definitely changed things. You know, Gore-Tex meant that Gore-Tex and fleece together meant that you didn't get I stop you sweat you didn't form ice, you know, inside condensation and stuff, which used to happen in a winter climate in the Alps.

00:59:24:22 - 00:59:53:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. So actually I think this is a perfect transition. This particular problem that you're talking that Gore-Tex Salt was spoken specifically on the ascent of the north face of the Mascara and naughty. I remember you specifically towards the top. You had icicles dripping water on you and they were freezing the instant they touched your jacket, right? Yeah. The one you gave one, you recommended that you talked about the fact that there was no Gore-Tex back then, that how much of it was safe.

00:59:53:21 - 01:00:05:12
Speaker 1
So on that note, let's kind of dove into that ascent, you know, tell us again, same thing, kind of the history of the mountain range, where it's at, what kind of objective you're looking at.

01:00:05:13 - 01:00:31:23
Speaker 2
So after Fitzroy, so we timed it on the end of February and then we came back into Bronze. Iris went overland to Bolivia and climbed there in May and then came over into Peru to climb in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. I don't know if it was July or August. It was in that summer period. We're looking for an objective.

01:00:31:23 - 01:01:00:23
Speaker 2
We went to to the town that was it called. It's kind of so almost like these Matt of the Cordillera Blanca now. And there was one hotel there that the climbers stayed at and it was on the fifth floor. There was like a dormitory dust place and the owner of the hotel had a magazine and he said, Rascal, I'm not the French route.

01:01:00:23 - 01:01:14:09
Speaker 2
It is a classic. Well, we we thought a classic means, you know, it's been there lots of times and it's a classic, right? It's a classic. We didn't know it hadn't been repeated.

01:01:14:14 - 01:01:15:10
Speaker 1
And then once.

01:01:15:16 - 01:01:39:16
Speaker 2
It had been to once, wow. So what happened was a big French expedition was supposed to be going to Janu in the Himalaya and for some reason didn't go. And they choose to come to Western and instead and west. Karen Naughty is the small little north peak of West. Karen Which is the highest in the planet in Peru, which is about 22 and a half thousand, I think.

01:01:40:22 - 01:01:58:12
Speaker 2
So it has some altitude to it. You know, it's not super high, but it's 22 and a half is reasonable. You know, and north face means that it actually faces south. Oh, right. Well, no North facing but it's.

01:01:59:07 - 01:01:59:13
Speaker 1
It's.

01:01:59:14 - 01:01:59:18
Speaker 2
In.

01:01:59:18 - 01:02:01:11
Speaker 1
Solzhenitsyn South in in the.

01:02:01:22 - 01:02:02:11
Speaker 2
In the southern.

01:02:02:11 - 01:02:05:11
Speaker 1
Hemisphere. Yes. Which is super interesting.

01:02:05:11 - 01:02:10:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. So but it has ice on it just it's high enough. Well you know.

01:02:10:05 - 01:02:14:17
Speaker 1
And so the seasons are switched to so yes. Summer and so that means you're winter down there.

01:02:14:22 - 01:02:15:21
Speaker 2
Well you know.

01:02:16:10 - 01:02:17:23
Speaker 1
It's closer and a few days later.

01:02:18:11 - 01:02:38:23
Speaker 2
It's in you climb in the is the best time is May and Peru is summer. So whatever it is, it's that's the season. It's the opposite down in Patagonia for sure. You know, that's the best time is down. That is over there. Winter.

01:02:39:01 - 01:02:39:09
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:02:40:07 - 01:02:42:11
Speaker 2
Over January. January.

01:02:43:00 - 01:02:44:18
Speaker 1
So how did you get information about this?

01:02:45:06 - 01:02:46:13
Speaker 2
Just from that magazine.

01:02:46:13 - 01:02:47:19
Speaker 1
What what was in the magazine?

01:02:47:23 - 01:03:14:09
Speaker 2
It was like a French. It was a French magazine that described how they climbed it and they climbed it using fixed lines from this. It's a big face. You know, it's probably it's certainly felt 5000 felt it might be six. Wow. You know, it's a big face. And, you know, jet filled. It feels as if it's as big as an office.

01:03:14:10 - 01:03:40:01
Speaker 2
The idea to something, it might be a thousand foot short or maybe just the rebel at the bottom, the idea but yeah and so they all the best it was part of go and so it was some of the best French climbers of the day and they fixed lines all the way up this thing. And one guy was killed on the descent, probably from falling rocks, I would imagine, or maybe a stroke branch or something.

01:03:40:01 - 01:04:05:16
Speaker 2
I don't know. I can't remember. But that's we had a diagram and a rough description of it. So that's we didn't there's no guidebook. Right. And it is like, gosh, you know, so the three of us, Brian Holland and myself, went to it and we'd been in Bolivia, so, you know, up to 20,000 there. So we're kind of reasonably acclimatized, not super acclimatized because we'd come back down again.

01:04:06:01 - 01:04:15:05
Speaker 2
That got up to the foot of it and then we had a couple of nights. I think that's at the foot of the picture in the book. That's the camp at the bottom of western.

01:04:15:05 - 01:04:16:02
Speaker 1
Mountains at the face.

01:04:16:02 - 01:04:27:02
Speaker 2
No, no. That's looking across the valley. This was just like at the bottom of where it. Yeah I mean agents ages got to you know hadn't it sweater not what have I.

01:04:28:00 - 01:04:28:23
Speaker 1
Some please jacket.

01:04:29:00 - 01:04:52:02
Speaker 2
Is it is it some fleece. Yeah I don't know if it's a homemade fleece if it is I think is winning get fleece jackets commercially until maybe something kind of center suit that we hadn't put down sleeping bags and down jacket you know and we had read the reasonably good ice gear not, not as good as nowadays, but you could from point out for sure.

01:04:52:13 - 01:04:52:20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:04:54:12 - 01:04:58:18
Speaker 3
So I'll just have a quick question for you. I'm just really I'm kind of just wondering, so like.

01:04:58:18 - 01:05:01:14
Speaker 1
What's your you know, what what was.

01:05:01:14 - 01:05:26:19
Speaker 3
Your feeling at the time? You know, just you're you're you're out here. You're in this area. You simply just see a magazine cover, obviously, with a little bit of deception from the hotel owner. And you decide to go in and climb this thing. The 65 or 6600 meter mountain that hasn't really been repeated with really limited information. I'm just kind of wondering what what was your your general feeling at the time like?

01:05:26:19 - 01:05:32:05
Speaker 3
Were you excited? Where you terrified? Were you worried of dying? And how how was your mentality going?

01:05:33:08 - 01:05:43:10
Speaker 2
Well, savagely optimistic.

01:05:43:10 - 01:05:44:02
Speaker 1
I love that.

01:05:44:08 - 01:06:01:13
Speaker 2
Because you're not magic the climb you see, it starts up through this glacial system that really was very fractured and dangerous. And we only had one snow pick. We had one or two snow pickets with us. That was it.

01:06:01:23 - 01:06:02:10
Speaker 1
Said one in.

01:06:02:10 - 01:06:29:13
Speaker 2
The book. We I think we just had once one snow pick and, I don't know, a few ice crews and some tents. So we couldn't get back down. I think once we were on that face, you're screwed. We had to get up. And because the first day these ice runs, the rumbles are made apparently by warm air rising rather than sort of coming down.

01:06:29:13 - 01:06:59:16
Speaker 2
And they form this flaps of a surface lack of ice over loose the snow. And so, you know, you're always scared that the whole thing's going to peel off. So it's not it's not like a normal gooey climate. And there's basically no anchors in. Well, and there's three or four rule plants up this thing at the beginning. There's a hard there's a high birch pitch that Brian led.

01:07:00:00 - 01:07:27:11
Speaker 2
That would have been it if you were climbing it with modern ice tools. Now, it would be great for a great for ice pick. Right back then, with the tools we had, it was kind of stretched what we could do because it wasn't super thick ice, it was mixed as well. But what that led us into this, you know, 55 degree roll that we basically just climbed and, you know, you had one ice pick it.

01:07:28:07 - 01:07:54:05
Speaker 2
I mean, the lead it really nobody could fall. Yeah I mean, maybe the ice pick, if you were bringing a second up that you could hold him on an ice, pick it on an exact time again. But there were not even ice cores there or rock nothing. No rocks or anything. I mean, basically the second or third person got some form of security.

01:07:54:14 - 01:07:58:18
Speaker 2
The leader got nothing. The leader could not fall. If the leader fell, we would all go.

01:07:58:18 - 01:08:02:08
Speaker 1
It was the second or third jump on.

01:08:02:09 - 01:08:03:09
Speaker 2
No, no climbing.

01:08:03:15 - 01:08:04:09
Speaker 1
Not to climb.

01:08:04:09 - 01:08:06:11
Speaker 2
You had to climb. You weren't good enough.

01:08:06:17 - 01:08:09:23
Speaker 1
This was just there for what will be psychological.

01:08:09:23 - 01:08:38:22
Speaker 2
Well, you know, if an ice actor's in and somebody slips some 50 degree ice, you fall in backwards. Right. It's because you could probably hold enough to hold. And, you know, plus if one person's already climbed, it, the steps are there. It's only if a step broke or if a plaque broke off that you could protect the second or third person and the chances are, I don't think we both climb together like the second.

01:08:38:22 - 01:08:58:04
Speaker 2
The third person did not climb together, which we often would have done had the anchors been good. Just it was kind of sketchy. So, you know, you just timed it with the lead to protect to you. Well, we couldn't get back down this thing. I didn't know we couldn't do repelled it. I don't think at all because there's nothing there.

01:08:58:08 - 01:09:16:02
Speaker 2
I wouldn't to repel them. That snow staying was pulled, you know, and that led us up onto a low ridge where we got onto a ledge, we cut a ledge out on this thing and we were really dehydrated. We took a rest dehydrate.

01:09:16:05 - 01:09:27:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. So that was one of the big things that you talked about in this chapter was the dehydration. Like your your stove was made out of kerosene. You you had cut the line for the gas.

01:09:27:23 - 01:09:57:20
Speaker 2
We had we had an early model missile stove, not the one where you can pull it out and clean it. And I had somehow figured I could fix it and basically butchered it so it wasn't working anymore. So You couldn't use the white gas. White just wasn't there. But we borrowed from this one manager. He had an old kerosene stove, primus, the top, the half pint, maybe had a paint tank and three little legs on it.

01:09:58:01 - 01:10:22:20
Speaker 2
You had the primate to get it warm enough. It was kerosene and it had one of those pennies, metal pennies that sit on the top. You know what? It's more like a dot size of a dollar coin. And, and and you cooked on that. It was no hanging stoves. Yeah. We didn't have butane butane stoves were around but we couldn't get the cylinders that down there.

01:10:22:20 - 01:10:23:18
Speaker 2
That was the problem.

01:10:24:10 - 01:10:31:12
Speaker 1
And so you guys are up here, you have this shitty stove and you're dying from dehydration.

01:10:31:22 - 01:10:33:09
Speaker 2
Well, we're super dehydrated.

01:10:33:09 - 01:10:44:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. So which you guys took the day just to melt? Snow, hydrate to rehydrate? Yeah. And that was at the cost of your food supply. Well, at that point, you were like half rations already.

01:10:44:22 - 01:10:46:23
Speaker 2
Well, we're already going pretty light.

01:10:47:12 - 01:10:51:21
Speaker 1
And so, again, like, why did you choose to come up with so little gear?

01:10:51:21 - 01:11:10:03
Speaker 2
Well, because if you if you start fixed roping and have so much gear, you're not gonna be able to climb with the pack. Well, you're going to have to keep fit, drop it in. Going back down the thick rope, even if you have 600 foot of fixed rope and move in fixed line, you know, actually anchors weren't good enough.

01:11:10:16 - 01:11:15:03
Speaker 2
I would have been very dodgy doing the. Yeah.

01:11:15:03 - 01:11:17:23
Speaker 3
And also heavy packs I would just put way more stress. Yeah.

01:11:17:23 - 01:11:18:21
Speaker 2
And also the weight.

01:11:18:21 - 01:11:19:12
Speaker 3
Off you have.

01:11:19:12 - 01:11:21:16
Speaker 2
How tired whether it's never, you know.

01:11:21:21 - 01:11:22:10
Speaker 1
Stable.

01:11:22:10 - 01:11:45:23
Speaker 2
So that I mean we were lucky to get that stable period the weather however many seven days or something were on it really super lucky to get that and I mean that was one thing taking a rest day that's a risk, just a weather. You know, maybe maybe you're going to get caught that last day near the summit by a fucking almighty storm, you know.

01:11:46:16 - 01:12:03:04
Speaker 2
And but we had to just we were absolutely dehydrated. And then from there, you know, the climbing got more technical, that less dangerous probably. And and the last day, you know, you talk about the bit when I'm sacked.

01:12:04:12 - 01:12:33:07
Speaker 1
So before I think before we get to that point. Yeah. You had gotten through more technical ice climbing, you got to this higher point where you saw that you had climbed above, where you were needing to go and you had to repel and then traverse left. Yeah. And so I remember Adrian talking about how sketchy that particular situation was and and how all three of your teams weights and bags and gears were resting on the ice screws, right?

01:12:33:20 - 01:12:34:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

01:12:35:02 - 01:12:40:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. There was no ledge, no edge. We probably had two ice cubes and I would imagine you may have had one agent, but.

01:12:41:01 - 01:12:43:03
Speaker 1
And so how are you repelling at such a high?

01:12:43:06 - 01:13:03:22
Speaker 2
Well. Well, what we're doing is basically it was like a a tent, more like a pendulum. Brian led that pitch, so he climbed up, realized that it needed to be down to the left, got at some decent ice, and I think we just lured him down. That set.

01:13:04:12 - 01:13:05:08
Speaker 1
Thread or.

01:13:05:11 - 01:13:42:14
Speaker 2
No. No, no. Off an ice crew loaned him off an ice crew. No, we didn't. Got to do v threat. There was no such thing as gotcha. I wish if we had that, would it be totally different? Yeah, but we made. You tried to come down appear so. Yeah we lowered offer an ice crew lowered him down then he put made an anchor down there with an screw and then when we climbed up, I think either we, I think we probably climbed up to that point and then clipped a sling on and then he launders down all the next person Lord down.

01:13:42:21 - 01:13:46:02
Speaker 2
It wasn't like we never actually I don't think we. I can't remember.

01:13:46:05 - 01:13:47:12
Speaker 1
Did you retrieve the screw?

01:13:47:12 - 01:14:00:18
Speaker 2
No, I think we had to leave. You had to leave it. I think we had to leave it. Wow. I'm pretty sure. Yes, we would have had to because no way could you climb down. Wanted to climb down the right. And that got us to the bottom of the final buttress that.

01:14:01:10 - 01:14:01:17
Speaker 3
Wow.

01:14:02:03 - 01:14:06:03
Speaker 1
And yeah, I think you guys it was just getting super cold. You guys were super tired at that.

01:14:06:04 - 01:14:34:01
Speaker 2
Well, hungry. So, you know, I think the big thing we were shouting, if anybody knows about Peru, they have these chicken and chip place, french fry places. Right. And they are big chickens. And we said when we get back, we're going to have one chicken each. So when everybody was getting tired, just thinking the chickens choke, you know, just we're all.

01:14:34:02 - 01:14:34:15
Speaker 1
Starving.

01:14:34:19 - 01:14:38:10
Speaker 2
Or starving.

01:14:38:10 - 01:14:41:22
Speaker 1
So I'm wondering out what was your like going what was your.

01:14:41:22 - 01:14:57:00
Speaker 3
Experience previously with altitude like how how high did you actually climb up originally to acclimate? Or was your process just kind of slow and steady enough that your bodies could acclimate? Well, we'd been doing it. And had you had you previously climbed anything even remotely and.

01:14:57:00 - 01:15:02:14
Speaker 2
We'd been to 20,000 feet in India.

01:15:02:14 - 01:15:02:21
Speaker 3
Okay.

01:15:03:12 - 01:15:27:04
Speaker 2
So we knew a little bit about altitude. And also, you know, we'd just come back from Bolivia. You know, I climbed the west face of whatever the African neighbor, the peak down there now. But it's it's a decent peak and it's 20,000 feet, you know. So we'd been there that now we knew we were going pretty slowly. So it wasn't like we were breaking trail.

01:15:27:05 - 01:15:51:10
Speaker 2
Look to the west at 26,000 feet, you know, it was you were climbing the technical stuff and if it got too hard, you took your pack off and pulled it out. Although most of by the time we got to the top, the packaging was much there's no food in it, you know, no food, no food, no gear. Just thinking back to the down jacket, light down jacket, kind of do so.

01:15:52:04 - 01:16:23:10
Speaker 2
But we never really I never felt the altitude in pensioners on the technical climbing. I never that you know I mean it probably did abate but we never it might we might have felt it the first day going through the glacier or something, you know, pounding uphill and stuff, soft snow and stuff. But on the more technical climbing, it didn't seem like it made because it wasn't you're on your feet a lot, right?

01:16:23:17 - 01:16:46:18
Speaker 2
But you weren't doing one step gasp. You know, when you see these are high altitude guys can one step. It wasn't that you were climbing, breathing fine and we were probably acclimatizing pretty well. You know, as I said, you know, with a top of this thing is 21 and a half. The highest peak is 22, the higher peak.

01:16:47:00 - 01:16:59:01
Speaker 2
But this is the north peak. So the tops 21 and a half and from the top of the face it's 500 foot to the summit, probably. So the so the top is 21,000. The top of the face.

01:16:59:20 - 01:17:25:16
Speaker 1
You know. Yeah, one of the, one of things I've noticed with altitude and I've had no experience with anything close to 20,000. But even still, I feel like, like you said, the effects of the altitude, at least for me were felt the most on like hard approaches with like a lot of aerobic effort. Or when you're sitting in a ballet and you're not moving at all because you're not breathing enough to like compensate for the lack of oxygen.

01:17:25:16 - 01:17:32:07
Speaker 1
And so you almost have to like, remember to breathe at a blaze and then you found as well, you started yawning a lot.

01:17:32:07 - 01:17:52:02
Speaker 2
Because you're you can you can you can do that. I think we just you know, it was cold enough that day that we did the big traverse. I remember just the cloud came up. We were doing it. So it was pretty atmospheric. You know, we were thinking, shit. I mean, this is like the hint hinges was a traverse on the Eiger.

01:17:52:10 - 01:18:22:21
Speaker 2
No going down. Well, we knew already we could get down. You know, we didn't have enough gear, you know, so and you know, there was not that good ice even to do threats. I would have been there was in some places that you couldn't just automatically repelled off using ice threads or not things there was there's a lot of some steep snow, you know, like snow with rocks around it.

01:18:22:21 - 01:18:27:18
Speaker 2
And it's hard to tell because I didn't think about the it maybe it could have got down but.

01:18:27:19 - 01:18:28:02
Speaker 1
So.

01:18:28:10 - 01:18:29:11
Speaker 2
Wouldn't have been easy.

01:18:30:16 - 01:18:33:04
Speaker 1
How did you get down. That was well thing in the book.

01:18:33:05 - 01:18:35:10
Speaker 2
Over the cover. Oh you went over the top.

01:18:35:10 - 01:18:35:17
Speaker 1
And.

01:18:35:22 - 01:18:37:11
Speaker 2
Then down the normal route.

01:18:37:21 - 01:18:39:03
Speaker 1
So it's like.

01:18:39:14 - 01:18:48:14
Speaker 2
Well, yeah, more or less. I mean it's, it's like a moderate alpine climb. It can climb down ice fishing out.

01:18:49:01 - 01:18:52:02
Speaker 1
Oh, okay. You know, forward. No technical.

01:18:52:02 - 01:18:56:04
Speaker 2
No. 45 degrees. I think we made one repel just to left the ice cube that.

01:18:56:04 - 01:19:08:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. Wow, you're at the end of that trip. I remember you were talking to Brian about the next objective already. Yeah.

01:19:08:13 - 01:19:11:05
Speaker 2
And we had this big plan for this sort of thing.

01:19:11:05 - 01:19:20:07
Speaker 1
And he said, you know, this is in quotes, you two can't keep on doing harder and harder routes without something going wrong.

01:19:20:07 - 01:19:22:01
Speaker 2
What was probably right?

01:19:22:01 - 01:19:44:05
Speaker 1
What did that like, quote like mean to you? If if at all, like, did you hear it or was it just noise? Did cause any sort of reflection about your trajectory in your climbing career? And and and did you have any a fear about, you know, how lucky you've been so far and, you know, whether you're pushing your luck was what you were trying to achieve?

01:19:46:02 - 01:20:13:21
Speaker 2
I think that we felt that our experience was good enough to judge what was dangerous and what was risky and what was worth, you know, what was a calculated risk. You Know, for example, if you know you're strong enough that you can move through this length, in this length of time, then maybe fall down in the afternoon or aft or when the sun comes up.

01:20:14:06 - 01:20:39:18
Speaker 2
But if you know you're fast enough to get up before the sun comes out, then that's a calculated risk. You know, just the could be rocks coming down in the dark that way, less so. And no, I think there's this. I remember giving a slideshow once to this people. This is after I'd stopped high altitude climbing, alpine climbing.

01:20:40:15 - 01:21:16:09
Speaker 2
And I remember saying, if you can if you can't go get to the foot of a route, look up at the face and say, this mountain is not going to kill me. Not this time. If you say that, turn around and go back. You've got to have that level of confidence to push to move, you know, not to deter around and to know your own strength that it will not cannot kill you.

01:21:16:14 - 01:21:24:04
Speaker 2
It will not kill you. I mean, whether or not it's obviously not 100% true, you're off to feel it's true.

01:21:24:04 - 01:21:24:11
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:21:25:13 - 01:21:31:09
Speaker 2
And if you can't say that, don't go. Yeah, that's my advice. Don't go.

01:21:31:09 - 01:21:49:00
Speaker 1
Max, I think this kind of like links into the topic of expectation that. We, we've talked about before in previous podcasts where, you know, there has to be a level of expectation in the things that we want to achieve and the things we want to have in our life. And I think that it just it rings so true.

01:21:49:00 - 01:22:14:21
Speaker 1
Like if you you're going into a climb and you were already expecting to fail or you you think that that's going to be a large possibility, then you're already, you know, in the wrong. Yeah, yeah. It's it's a it's a powerful mindset to have. And I think in Canada in a weird way almost be the difference between whether a rock takes you out at night or not.

01:22:14:22 - 01:22:22:14
Speaker 1
Yeah. Is just believing in the fact that it won't. Yeah. Which is, it's kind of mystical, but yeah.

01:22:22:14 - 01:23:06:09
Speaker 2
Well our tell a story later that isn't in the book. And, you know, it's like sometimes, I mean, I'm not doing hard times anymore, you know, I certainly had Alpine routes and stuff like that too, you know, just because everything's moved on technically as well, as well as equipment, you know, and so it doesn't and, you know, I am no longer really interested in like guiding on Mount Everest and fucking going to fix lines with, you know, there's not I mean, the one thing about this, you know, Fitzroy, we came down, it was granite good repels stuff, terrible weather possibilities that weather was the risk weather was the main risk I would say the only

01:23:06:09 - 01:23:32:09
Speaker 2
risk really unless you fell off the unprotected pitch that that was the main risk was whether a Westcott or not it is a much better weather area, but there's many other things going on. There was collapse in setbacks on the glacier. There was the conditions of the snow and ice and you couldn't get back. And that that made it special when you did it.

01:23:32:09 - 01:23:50:23
Speaker 2
I mean, it made it special because you had to keep going. You had to fucking keep going. You know, the climb out the top, you know, it's almost as though you were put in a coffin. Somebody hammered the bloody lid down and you had to kick it off, you know? And if you don't kick it off in a certain time, you're going to suffocate.

01:23:51:23 - 01:24:31:01
Speaker 2
You have to get up. We had to go over the top of this thing. So one interesting thing, when we got to the top, you know, it's the weather reasonable, but it's breezy. Obviously, it's 21,002. And and Brian Brian turns to us and says, what if the chicken places are close? And I went, Well, why should the day we said, well, some day we said, Sun, fuck, I have no idea what day of the week is.

01:24:31:11 - 01:24:43:05
Speaker 2
Why is it Sunday? He says, I can hear the bells ringing in the valley. Oh, we were like Bells ringing in your head. Do you've got this like a dog?

01:24:44:15 - 01:24:56:11
Speaker 1
Kels, is the spirit delirious? So did you ever hear chicken? How is that, Max? Did you? I know.

01:24:56:11 - 01:24:59:22
Speaker 2
You. Chicken.

01:24:59:22 - 01:25:00:18
Speaker 1
Eat the chicken.

01:25:01:01 - 01:25:03:16
Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah, raw chicken.

01:25:04:18 - 01:25:07:05
Speaker 1
I think you just need the right the right motivator.

01:25:07:05 - 01:25:12:22
Speaker 3
Is that it? When you're on commuting routes that involve potentially risking your life, you just need strong motivator.

01:25:13:21 - 01:25:16:20
Speaker 1
I think the other motivator is probably change the more desperate it gets.

01:25:17:00 - 01:26:01:22
Speaker 2
Oh, and it was good because some of the more technical climbing actually it was on the last day. Yeah. The very last day. Well not the last day between the hike up to the snow to the summit that because it started off with some lie back in granite corners and one one overhang. I remember I was trying to climb it free because I didn't want to put all the pins in and the I found it must have been an old ping from the French and I flipped into it and started to stand in it and it started to pull down and slip and I quickly moved up off it.

01:26:02:03 - 01:26:28:19
Speaker 2
And when that thing's not a good one, burned up. Careful. And when I got the rope ran out, you know, I didn't have a lot of rope left. And it ended at this where the granny kind of ran into the top of a steep haggle of ice, and the ice was probably 70 degrees. 75 degrees. Right. You know, that kind of hard glacial ice.

01:26:29:04 - 01:26:53:10
Speaker 2
And it ran under and I had a hard time finding an anchor. And I remember it had two pitons and none of them were horizontal. Like, you know, if you've ever used pitons, the best piton is horizontal. The next one is probably in a vertical crack in a narrowing where there's a narrow constriction below and above so it can't pull out.

01:26:54:05 - 01:27:20:21
Speaker 2
And I remember it being a baby angle open up. It sunk into this crack bay. It was like, fuck, it's not exactly mechanical. We call it mechanically sound. It was just, you know, friction. Friction. Yeah. And I had two pins, two or three. I tried to build an anchor. There was no ledge. I mean, it was standing on footholds, trying not to fucking lean on the anchor.

01:27:20:21 - 01:27:46:13
Speaker 2
You know, an agent came through and he. He with ice tools, he cut little nicks in the ice like it took one or two his eye level and then crumpled up into it sidestep into it and then it so it wasn't total from point it just it was really hard ice. It wasn't it wasn't just white ice all water ice.

01:27:46:19 - 01:27:49:19
Speaker 2
It was green glacial ice, you know.

01:27:50:08 - 01:27:53:10
Speaker 1
And so he's using his adds on the back of that ax to to chip.

01:27:53:23 - 01:28:15:02
Speaker 2
Noise you is using the pick pick. He's using the pick. I think he has a Chouinard hammer in one curved hammer, short one. And then you had this wooden shaft and you have dropped Trish Diamond, which which was a really good high to leave. That was a wooden shafted one and it was something with that. But that thing really helped.

01:28:15:02 - 01:28:34:11
Speaker 2
It was good. Anyway, he led that last pitch and when we came over the top of that pitch, it was almost flat. I mean, it was it was kind of, you know, ten degrees, five degrees. And we cut a big ledge there and camped there that night and then hiked to the summit next morning and then run down the normal route.

01:28:34:11 - 01:28:34:17
Speaker 3
Wow.

01:28:34:19 - 01:28:47:18
Speaker 1
It's just crazy. That's the the commitment level for there for that particular climb just is is inspiring and just definitely next level.

01:28:48:13 - 01:28:57:14
Speaker 2
And then it was only after yeah. I don't know when it was after that we found out that it was a second descent. We thought it's a classic.

01:28:57:19 - 01:28:59:10
Speaker 1
Second ascent after, you.

01:28:59:18 - 01:29:08:10
Speaker 2
Know, it was the second descent of that. So There was the first ascent was a French did it with six lines and then we did the second descent of it. Yeah.

01:29:08:14 - 01:29:09:23
Speaker 1
Oh, yours was this.

01:29:09:23 - 01:29:11:01
Speaker 2
Ours was the second.

01:29:11:06 - 01:29:12:18
Speaker 1
Wow. Yeah. And you're.

01:29:13:10 - 01:29:16:13
Speaker 3
And so you would have been the first alpine out of that in Alpine.

01:29:16:13 - 01:29:18:13
Speaker 1
Stone. Fitzroy was the third.

01:29:18:13 - 01:29:21:12
Speaker 2
Wow. It was the third of that route.

01:29:21:13 - 01:29:22:03
Speaker 1
That route.

01:29:22:03 - 01:29:23:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. But it had all been planned by.

01:29:23:23 - 01:29:25:09
Speaker 1
It to be other people I think.

01:29:25:11 - 01:29:30:05
Speaker 2
I can't remember. I know the certainly three other routes I think.

01:29:30:09 - 01:29:52:17
Speaker 1
Wow. Wow. Okay. Logan, Mount Logan talked to us about the history, the background, kind of where we're at elevation wise, the route grade. And you're like Max said in the last time, like your mindset and your your plan of attack for this particular route that you're going.

01:29:52:17 - 01:30:24:10
Speaker 2
All right so so let's get I'm not it was 75, right. So in 1978 I in the spring I officially emigrated to Canada. I don't know if you want to know all the how I did this here or is the statue of limitations and now out written it probably are. I emigrated as a small engine to auto mechanic because you got it.

01:30:24:10 - 01:31:01:01
Speaker 2
You'll get small Japanese cars coming now in the early seventies. Well, mid seventies say. So I went for an interview with greasy my fingernails in Manchester to the consulate Canadian consulate. I had a friend of a friend get me said that I work as a small engine auto mechanic in England went for the interview with greasy my fingernails and then had a job offer by a friend got me in Calgary right to working at in a garage someplace.

01:31:01:09 - 01:31:26:20
Speaker 2
Well the reason they wanted to do this is because they didn't have to pay you very because I never had an Alberta license or a national Canadian license, so they could pay me very little. Obviously, I'm not a mechanic and I never worked, you know, but I did emigrate based on that. And so I've just arrived officially in Canada now stamped.

01:31:27:04 - 01:32:12:11
Speaker 2
Right. And I'd been there previously in 74, 75 and I'd met this find with this young guy called John Lackland, who was an up and coming star, Canadian star born in Canada. Guess there's a lot of Brits who had emigrated or were second generation or whatever around the Calgary area, Calgary Canmore Banff area, and Vancouver. But but John was born in Canada and I think he was only 17 or 18 when I climbed with him in 74 and we did some really good stuff, but he also became very competitive when Agent and I were around.

01:32:12:20 - 01:32:36:19
Speaker 2
Yes, we were kind of I was Canadian now, you know, the year prior and 77, I was they'd gone to the south east butchers of Logan and tried to climb it alpine style and had to John had taken a fall. I don't know. He broke his ankle, cracked it, but had to have a helicopter rescue. They obviously had radios with him.

01:32:37:11 - 01:33:03:12
Speaker 2
So they had a helicopter rescue. So he wanted to go back the next year and finish the route with him. Well, there was four people. And now what happened to one person? Yes, I was invited. Oh, one person was a ski guide and he had an accident cut his hand off. I think that I think it was him anyway.

01:33:03:15 - 01:33:36:02
Speaker 2
There was suddenly a space left on this team and there was a French Canadian guy, John Locke, Lindon, Jim, Zynga. Only Jim and I are now alive. Incidentally, John died solo in Polar Circus in the early eighties, I think it was anyway, so I was down in Colorado climbing and I got this call and an invite to come back up and see joined this to be fourth man on the team.

01:33:36:02 - 01:33:36:19
Speaker 1
Is Adrian with you?

01:33:36:23 - 01:33:48:09
Speaker 2
No, no. They just wanted me. Okay. Just and you know, by then I was I was actually in London, immigrants in Canada and stuff. So what was the mountain?

01:33:48:10 - 01:33:49:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. What was it?

01:33:49:12 - 01:34:18:13
Speaker 2
Kind of the height of the mountains. Just I think it's 19,800 or something. It's just under 20,000, but it's quite far north that makes it feel higher because it's in the subarctic areas, right? It's definitely not fucking colder than than 20,000 foot in Nepal for example. And very glaciated, um, almost down to the sea. Wow. There, you know, I can't remember the name of the glacier and stuff.

01:34:19:09 - 01:34:49:18
Speaker 2
So it's, it's not a difficult mountain climb by the normal rules, you know. I mean we wish I had just I had cross-country skis and almost ski down there of fell skied down the other ski down. They had metal edges. I had three pin bindings and shit. I was just fucking down. But that's the kind of terrain so you can that's called the King trench route.

01:34:49:20 - 01:34:50:00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:34:50:01 - 01:34:51:00
Speaker 1
I was when you got down.

01:34:51:01 - 01:35:19:18
Speaker 2
That's where we came down. So this face I'd never been climbed the southeast buttress so we flew into the tsunami park or whatever from there we were going to be flown in, dropped, and then the helicopter was going to take us to the foot of the face because it was super desperately glaciated and dangerous and would have needed a massive expedition even to approach that side of the mountain.

01:35:20:05 - 01:35:34:11
Speaker 2
So we got dropped off at the foot of the mountain. This time, four of us, I don't know, ten days food. 12. This food is something dehydrated. There's a lot of anyway lost to get away to everybody.

01:35:34:11 - 01:35:37:09
Speaker 1
But it seems like you're more prepared for this climb. Well.

01:35:37:21 - 01:36:04:19
Speaker 2
We looked a little bit, but the John Lucky was very ambitious and he didn't want to take red said no radios. Okay, no chance. Fucking rescued, right? No chance of rescue. That's a good one. I guess it's really in a wild position. Yeah. This is this is not a one day hike. I mean, this is a flight, a helicopter fly in the middle of fucking nowhere.

01:36:05:02 - 01:36:39:16
Speaker 2
And there's no one else around. There's nobody. And they did arrange for couple of flybys for this plane that was that was dropping people on the trench route on the jet that way. So that was it was super committed. Again, no way out. We've got to go over the top of this fucking thing, right. To get out. And they used to have a research station on the King Trench route about don't about the altitude, a thousand foot 20 below the something, 1500.

01:36:40:01 - 01:37:05:00
Speaker 2
Somewhere down there, there's a research place. So they had radios and they could land the plane that night. You know, obviously good weather. So we had our skis. John Lackland had a girlfriend working in that research place. So we had all our skis. Take me to one of the and kept to the research plane. So if we could get over the top and down to the research place, we were okay.

01:37:05:15 - 01:37:28:07
Speaker 2
So it wasn't quite as desperate as having to go all the way down the King Trench in a storm or something, although that turned out to be different. But so this place is 10,000 foot, right. And the temperatures are going to be much colder. We still had leather boots, double leather, not single leather, but we didn't have co flat insulated, high altitude boots.

01:37:28:14 - 01:38:00:05
Speaker 2
We did have good dropped reasonably good ice climbing tools. Reasonable. Yeah. We were climbing grade six in waterfalls with them, you know, so they were good enough for that. We weren't running off them like modern tools and stuff, you know, and I had the first one of the first Gore-Tex, one piece suits that I bought from a guy in Colorado, and it was a one piece Gore-Tex suit, just not a down suit.

01:38:00:10 - 01:38:02:19
Speaker 2
Just like instead of a jacket.

01:38:02:19 - 01:38:04:01
Speaker 1
And like a Gore-Tex shell.

01:38:04:01 - 01:38:35:13
Speaker 2
I got it shelved. It was a won't be a full body suit. And I had a sleeping bag that had a Gore-Tex stitched and sealed exterior to it and the others didn't that I made my own over boots, super gaiters, and which is why I ended up having to use garbage bags instead of gaiters on the way down, he said inside, tied around the knees inside my three Penske boots.

01:38:36:03 - 01:38:53:02
Speaker 2
So I should I should have borrowed some proper skis to come down. So I fell most of the way down. But so we start out on this route and cool to start with and it starts second day, starts getting much cold and technical.

01:38:53:09 - 01:38:54:17
Speaker 1
What are we talking cold wise. What?

01:38:55:04 - 01:38:59:14
Speaker 2
Where it's freezing at night. I mean it's probably minus ten or something.

01:38:59:14 - 01:39:00:03
Speaker 1
Celsius.

01:39:00:07 - 01:39:25:16
Speaker 2
Celsius. Yeah. Yeah, it's, yeah it's probably it's getting down to my no my minus might be getting down there. It's not soup because it gets much colder. Higher up. Yeah. But It's probably minus ten there but we've got really good down bags, good down jackets and pretty good reasonable gear and our stoves are we have crossed over 10/10 from RTI.

01:39:25:17 - 01:39:52:04
Speaker 2
There weren't a lot of good tents around in those days and those were very super light just we had to wait was a critical issue and we just had the liners because it was just going to be powder snow anyway. And the second day, John led the steep ice pitch and it came over to a size of a basketball court, nice, flat ledge on top of the serac, basically.

01:39:52:18 - 01:40:13:21
Speaker 2
And the next section is where he fell off the year before. So he was really I to try this again. Well, to get to this pitch you traverse left off the edge of this flat little plateau, and you look in all the way, I don't know how many thousand feet down to the glacier, which it's four, three, four.

01:40:13:21 - 01:40:20:17
Speaker 2
Anyway, it's a long way and all I've got is a snow stake. This is no ice for ice cubes.

01:40:20:22 - 01:40:21:13
Speaker 1
For an anchor.

01:40:22:00 - 01:40:50:14
Speaker 2
I'm carrying a snow stage looking down and I'm saying, you be careful. John goes the snow, and then it gets the rock and the rock is slab, but not in cut. And the pin that he fell on was still there. And it was a blade, horizontal blade, take an east eclipse into that thing and he starts going up it on his crampons and he's not cleaning the rock properly to you know, because.

01:40:50:14 - 01:41:19:03
Speaker 2
So trust in powder over slab granite not too good idea. Fucking comes flying off again Jesus. Right the same peg holds him. It doesn't hurt himself this time but I said fuck John if fucking that Peg pulled with both me down the glacier dead, I don't fucking told him you fucking do that again. When I get it, I'm going to fucking hound you.

01:41:19:03 - 01:41:39:14
Speaker 2
You timed it, then it timed it and got some ice crews in the bulls and then we left the fixed line down there and went back to a good sleep and then we came back the next day, went up a little bit of fixed line that we left out, probably climbing wrote. We left. It was it was a climbing rope.

01:41:39:20 - 01:42:09:07
Speaker 2
And then I led the next picture up around and that was pretty irreversible because it was this traverse without round over big drops and things. It wasn't flat face climbing. It seemed like it a big, huge, yawning gully to the right. And we kind of snuck round the corner of it. And if you fell, we went down there and, you know, I had some ice cubes each end of it that nothing on the traverse.

01:42:09:21 - 01:42:43:15
Speaker 2
You know, it was pretty sketchy, but we got onto the upper face and this is where things start to get a little bit out of control just went up this big ice slope of about 55 degrees which Jim, with this fucking treatment, let's let go. And you know and then I think I am jump just I think I'm I don't know if I'm bringing another pack up but I think I think we are I can't remember if we actually drew Martin up or I think we probably are.

01:42:43:23 - 01:43:09:01
Speaker 2
But we get to this where it gets to the state rock probably the trucks. Trucks one of the crops is anyway and we cut to ledges one above the other. And I'm on the upper one with Ray, with Ray, my partner. And you know, it hardly ever comes dark. You know, there's not much darkness there. But there was a fucking day.

01:43:09:19 - 01:43:37:03
Speaker 2
I don't know if we spent two nights there or one or two, but it started snowing and shedding snow. And at one point a big woofer powder woofer came over flat and there were tent rig up, pushed off the ledge. But we're all tied in and I'm glad it's getting between me. He's trying to push me off and eventually it goes.

01:43:37:03 - 01:44:05:10
Speaker 2
I think it builds enough snow up over me that it actually didn't split to round it, you know. And I, we get back on and it's, I think this is in the dark anyway. What I wanted to do is to this next read for, you know, we had 600 foot of timing rope, you know, we had to to climb on to nine miles each 150 felt so bad for them.

01:44:05:15 - 01:44:27:22
Speaker 2
I said, Well, let's fix this section here, you know, which we can easily get over onto the easier terrain above with this sleep in a good place here and drink and eat well and then go. We can go up in the dark, the fixed lines, and then just start climbing. But John and John was like, No, we should just continue climbing.

01:44:28:22 - 01:44:52:07
Speaker 2
So, you know, John led that section and I was bringing the without to pack. I think I was pulling the packs or something. If we got over to the top of this thing and then it went, there was a slight easing snow slope, probably 45 degrees. And we put big bucket steps, seats to we couldn't touch a flat ledge.

01:44:52:22 - 01:45:25:10
Speaker 2
We just cut seats to sit in and read and I snapped Blaze and that night dropped to -45. Oh, my God. Right. Fucking really cold. I had my boots on inside the pack loosened inside the sleeping bag loosened up in the morning Spindrift was blowing everywhere the ropes are kind of around here, frozen all over. And I thought, this is where you just fucking make excuses to yourself.

01:45:26:19 - 01:46:05:06
Speaker 2
We'll just. I'll just sleep a bit more tired. Yeah. I don't know how you know I'm not dying here. Yeah. So I got up and start put my crampons on and started to just I called the flint the rope out crampons on and started just so low in the bottom of the final gully. That's probably about 18 to 30000 feet to go left just to warm up, because that started to warm me up, not just the movement and I must have got about a length.

01:46:05:06 - 01:46:28:17
Speaker 2
Oh, when I'm shouting to the others, come on, get up. Move, move. And then just I'd started the momentum. Then, you know, there was no brewing. We need to brew. We need this. We need to get up and get up. Get up and get out. Those was going to freeze to death. And then we kept doing up this and it wasn't that into the gully.

01:46:28:21 - 01:46:52:23
Speaker 2
There's some steeper bits in it and it came out on a glacier at the top in the sunshine. And we spent a fantastic night there. It was. It was just comfortable. The sun, you could dry your sleeping bag out because you were starting to get I stop, you know, with all the nights with powder and everything cold from there.

01:46:53:05 - 01:47:19:07
Speaker 2
This is where it looked as though the summit was over to the right. And John, Jim said, we want to just continue, even though it's not technically difficult, but we want to just keep going up this shoulder here over to the summit just to make the line more direct. Well, my partner Ray was already starting to get in pretty bad condition.

01:47:19:16 - 01:47:51:08
Speaker 2
I think psychologically, actually, more than anything. But definitely losing it. It was it couldn't lead. I was cooking for him. I was taking care of him. And we we could have traversed left round this little glacial bit to the foot of another gully. And we thought this gully led up. And if anything went wrong with Ray, I could just take him straight down the other side of the gully, down the other side of the ridge, straight down to the research place and get him off the mountain.

01:47:52:04 - 01:48:21:15
Speaker 2
And as it happened, we if we did that, that would have maybe that would have happened. This gully brought us out like 15 minutes from the summit. So we basically dropped our packs, hiked to the summit, took some photos, came back down, and then I broke trail all the way. I remember it was like just below the knee for an hour and a half or something all the way down to this camp.

01:48:21:23 - 01:48:40:02
Speaker 2
But Jim and John ended up having another bivouac. Just I think Jim was starting to get an altitude thing because he'd been doing a lot of our work in a mold. And John had really, I think. And so he started to feel the altitude. And then they arrived next morning.

01:48:40:08 - 01:48:41:21
Speaker 1
So you summited with your team first?

01:48:41:22 - 01:48:43:23
Speaker 2
Well, yeah, but we don't, you know.

01:48:44:08 - 01:48:48:11
Speaker 1
I mean, whoever it was at the time, it doesn't matter. I'm just for the sake of.

01:48:48:13 - 01:49:14:22
Speaker 2
Some the sake of the story. Yeah. We, we summited kind of a few hours before they did, you know. But as far as I'm concerned, you know, we all summited even though slightly various routes at the top. You know, there was no the final days were final. There was pretty easy time. A few hours was fairly straightforward. And I consider that, you know, we did now Jim and I are really good friends nowadays.

01:49:15:05 - 01:49:18:16
Speaker 2
And certainly I'm not saying that we submitted the day before it. Of course, we.

01:49:20:05 - 01:49:20:23
Speaker 3
Know it's a.

01:49:20:23 - 01:49:39:00
Speaker 2
Team effort. We met a few hours before this. You going to think of this as, yeah, if we somebody that's 11:00 at night and it was just going dark for an hour and they summited like, you know, a 5:00, a 4:00 in the morning. The literally were right behind us.

01:49:39:04 - 01:49:45:18
Speaker 1
That was just more drive. Yeah. The fact that you guys took separate routes. Yes. To split up and yes. Because of that.

01:49:45:18 - 01:50:05:09
Speaker 2
Was Ray your race condition and we took because I thought this delay was going to give us an out. I could leave him there, go to the summit, come back and take him down or I could even take him down and then go back to the summit, whatever. You know, the route finished at the top of the not good, you know.

01:50:06:04 - 01:50:11:01
Speaker 1
So you you've summited now you get back to the research station. Oh, you're ski.

01:50:11:03 - 01:50:34:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, we spend the night there and then you've got to go over this little pass and, come down down the trench route. Well, we did. I dreaded it in the morning. I'd gone up there to find it and coming down, even with my silly skis, I could just point him straight down and there would, you know, the conditions I actually had to turn.

01:50:34:11 - 01:50:55:22
Speaker 2
He just came straight out to research place so you can tell it was not difficult, but going down the other side. So we went all went over down the other side and it was steep to start. I think we actually rappelled down or climbed down. Yeah, I certainly was going to ski down and not the others were good skiers and they didn't ski down either.

01:50:55:22 - 01:51:29:20
Speaker 2
And then we took one tent jump and were hit by this fucking storm, a fantastic windstorm. And I saying, you know, if this we're heading down the trench route, we've never come up on a glacial system with big crevasses. If it's storming in the morning, I say it's only a few hundred feet back up that cold as straight down the other side to the research place.

01:51:31:02 - 01:51:36:19
Speaker 2
I'm pretty confident I could do that. And I said, that's what I'm going to do tomorrow, John, because.

01:51:36:19 - 01:51:38:09
Speaker 1
Ray is doing even worse at this point.

01:51:38:09 - 01:51:58:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. I said that's what I'm doing, you know. And they were saying, Well, are you going to leave us? No You can come with me if. Well, the weather cleared, it was clear and a blue sky in the morning. And you know, John, when she was getting cold and the tent was starting to stretch at the seams, there were four of us sat in.

01:51:58:21 - 01:52:18:10
Speaker 2
We had tied down with skis. Right. The fucking thing was doing this. I thought it's going to just destroy itself. John went out. We started digging the snow hole, which was probably sensible because, you know, if we did have to stay that another night to sell the snow cave would have been the answer. It would have been better.

01:52:18:12 - 01:52:41:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, but I knew it wasn't that far up to the top of this thing without skis on. And then it was a straight ski straight down. I mean, maybe with the same area cleared. And we spent all that day going down. Ray was very patient with me. He had slipped down. So rest of bindings on skis with edges, metal edges on.

01:52:41:19 - 01:53:08:11
Speaker 2
And I would ski with my racing snowplow and then on his tires. And then I did powder one small tackle over the head. No, no wristband. So take over the head. Get out. Just we'd all rocked. We were up together. Two of us. Ray would just kind of go and stop, you know, just a one turn and stop as I face plummeting.

01:53:08:21 - 01:53:15:06
Speaker 2
And then I would crawl up again and fucking start to jump. I was exhausted.

01:53:16:11 - 01:53:19:05
Speaker 1
And. So that was the first sight of that.

01:53:19:07 - 01:53:21:06
Speaker 2
I'll never be repeat, never.

01:53:21:06 - 01:53:21:16
Speaker 1
Been repeat.

01:53:21:16 - 01:53:30:20
Speaker 2
No, no. Well, there's enough other routes to do. First sense of. Yeah, you know, it's difficult to get to one. I think that's one of the reasons.

01:53:31:06 - 01:53:55:13
Speaker 1
And so when you're when you're on this route, it's a 10,000 foot face. What are your route? Finding techniques like how are you navigating yourself up 10,000 feet? You could you could pick the wrong and go up 3000 feet and then realize that you're screwed and you have to backtrack like what is your your mindset on terms? My shoes, I'm sure.

01:53:55:13 - 01:53:57:05
Speaker 2
I'm sure we had a photograph.

01:53:58:03 - 01:54:04:11
Speaker 1
But still, I mean, a photograph looking at a mountain from miles away is way different when you're on it. Yeah.

01:54:04:19 - 01:54:36:19
Speaker 2
I mean, for example, this final journey, you know, from this from the when we were freezing the final gully, we did not know that we're not led to we didn't know we knew that it probably started to get easier. Yes, we got through the rock band and it would get easier, but we didn't know where it led. The fact that it led out onto this flat glacial system, you know, the upper part of the mountain, basically, you know, just Logan's like a big loaf of bread, steep on the sides.

01:54:36:19 - 01:54:39:01
Speaker 2
But once you get to the top, it's fairly easy.

01:54:40:03 - 01:54:41:16
Speaker 1
So you're saying a lot of it was luck?

01:54:43:06 - 01:55:25:22
Speaker 2
Well, just you know, we kept picking the line the easiest the easiest line, which was directly in front of us. I mean, the natural line, I mean, we were trying to pick the steepest, dangerous fucking place. You know, it was like it looked like it was a break through there. And, you know, we didn't want to climb under setbacks, although somebody, you know, did this farthest flyby thing going, I don't remember seeing it or here or anything, but he said the place that looked like the size of well, the top of the serac steep ice pitch that we camped on and spent the rest of their like the basketball pitch the pilot said it fell

01:55:25:22 - 01:55:47:21
Speaker 2
off and I think he said it fell off while we were on the route. Oh so know good as full of two days. Oh yeah. Wow whatever. You know, sometimes look, I mean I can't I can't authenticate that. But I remember him saying it full. I didn't know if it all fell off. Well, maybe the face of it fell off.

01:55:47:21 - 01:55:49:11
Speaker 2
I don't. Before the whole thing fell.

01:55:49:11 - 01:55:51:21
Speaker 1
Off, I'd say either way, it would have been catastrophic.

01:55:51:23 - 01:55:59:01
Speaker 2
Like, well, if we if we were camped at the back of it, the face fell off, then it would be I'm sure it wouldn't have gone.

01:55:59:01 - 01:56:20:19
Speaker 1
But that you know, we've heard these stories of of the Super Alpine like you've talked about. And, you know, we've heard the details of the story themselves. Now, we'd like to kind of dove into things that you might have pulled from these these adventures and like more nitty gritty details on logistics and kind of your mindset in these and these adventures.

01:56:20:19 - 01:56:22:19
Speaker 1
So yeah, Max, take it away.

01:56:23:13 - 01:56:47:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, totally. So I mean, I think starting with that is a good question about just funding in general and maybe what a cost differential would be from, you know, a trip obviously nowadays where you have an inexperienced person who maybe gets guided on a large trip, Denali or something, could be tens of thousands of dollars. So I'm just wondering, what were you doing to fund these trips and maybe what was kind of an average cost?

01:56:47:04 - 01:56:49:02
Speaker 3
What could you afford at these times?

01:56:49:21 - 01:57:26:03
Speaker 2
Well, initially when we were climbing in the Alps, which would have been 68 to 75, known an alpine season would be three months. And it may start off in the limestone eastern Alps of the Dolomites. And then coming to Sharmini, welcome into the north faces in the Swiss Alps in June, which that's when the best the ice times came and the condition and then end up in SHARMINI around July August.

01:57:26:03 - 01:58:05:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. So by that time you were fit three months. How did you fund it? Well, yeah, we worked. I mean, we were schoolteachers, so I you so we saved up. But there's a lot of work to odd jobs. I gave up my job as teach as basically a mountain instructor in a mountain school in Wales because Adrian was climbing in the Alps that summer and winter, and I would only had six weeks holiday and it was like, oh shit, I want it six weeks, I need three months for the Alps, you need three months, you know.

01:58:06:09 - 01:58:38:09
Speaker 2
So I would supply teach, you know, so I would just come back and try and find teaching jobs. But there's also people start in road access jobs, which I would do, you know, the me I mean, my parents were still alive, you know, the big the big and which I look back now is I was homeless. I was a bloody homeless person.

01:58:39:06 - 01:59:05:03
Speaker 2
I guess you would call it a climb back, climb. But I didn't have a van. Yeah. And, you know, some income of parents who are wealthy or anything, you know, I, we went out to work and saved and, you know, there was nefarious goings on to break you make your house cheaper to make things cheaper money go a long ways but you know going into alpine huts.

01:59:05:03 - 01:59:05:20
Speaker 1
But those are all just.

01:59:06:08 - 01:59:32:13
Speaker 2
But those are just lies you know I don't really know used to Karl I think the discount but hey that's probably not a good idea for the younger people what you listening to this so you know so we were we had part time jobs but you know supply teaching wasn't that bad. You got paid by the day and you didn't have contract.

01:59:33:06 - 01:59:55:07
Speaker 2
So, you know, but you got the worst classes. So if you were prepared to take, you know, the hooligans from the 15 year old hooligans from the inner cities whose normal teacher was having a nervous breakdown and was taking time off a sick. And you took those classes then you were fine.

01:59:55:16 - 02:00:16:05
Speaker 1
I think what I what I read is and this is a little bit of a caveat, but what I read is that you you I think you and Adrian together, correct me if I'm wrong here, took these kids out climbing. Yeah. And and created a programs for access to these inner kids who had troubles and kind of rougher lives.

02:00:16:13 - 02:00:26:22
Speaker 1
And I think you even said that, you know, a child that had come out who was one of the more troubled children in the class came out and reached out to you like what, decades later?

02:00:27:14 - 02:00:28:09
Speaker 2
Just like last.

02:00:28:09 - 02:00:48:06
Speaker 1
Year, last year and said that you changed his life and that he'd been climbing and you really had such a huge, huge impact on on his life. And I think that's like a super cool that you had the, the foresight and a way to give these kids an outlet which they they absolutely so so needed.

02:00:48:16 - 02:01:16:08
Speaker 2
And you know, my he had one because he were doing the same thing with rough kids just up the road in another school just outside of Chester Cheshire, England. And he this kid was obviously I think he was on probation for stealing a motor scooter right age and took him under his wing, groomed him as a climbing assistant.

02:01:17:09 - 02:01:55:08
Speaker 2
It became this is right hand man on these trips out that he did with the kids. Adrian was living in Colorado in I think the, nineties. This kid tracked him back via the Alpine British Alpine Club and stuff like this found his address and sent him a thank you card telling him and this this kid at the age of 16 became Soldier of the Year in Britain with the age of 16 and obviously went on to a career.

02:01:55:12 - 02:02:16:13
Speaker 2
And I don't know what he did after he you know, but he joined the Army, which Jesse had certain outdoor skills, which for the poor kid like that, you know, was good and and obviously highly motivated. And the couple of guys who got back to me last year, one of them's living in Saskatchewan and running the business there.

02:02:17:07 - 02:02:47:04
Speaker 2
The other one is back in England. I forgot what he's doing. He's doing very well. And I remember what I told them. I remember saying, Don't think of just England, get a skill, become a welder, get some form of skilled trades skill and got to Saudi Arabia for six months, earn money, do do it that way. And those kids, they could read.

02:02:47:04 - 02:03:09:08
Speaker 2
But, you know, not a lot. I mean, they were in the lowest classes with some and they were the good guys in a class of folks. There were some thugs in that class who probably are in jail right now. You know, these were two. And now I bet they're both worth a million the way they talk to me and so on.

02:03:09:11 - 02:03:42:22
Speaker 2
And the way that when they emailed me the way the text and they emailed, you know, they continue to growing and learning and that that was fantastic, you know, was cool. And so yeah, that was supply teaching jobs. I mean, I taught all kinds of stuff. I mean, I taught physics when I had a 715 note motorcycle and I took it into the classroom to explain how the four cylinder engine works is all boys.

02:03:43:08 - 02:04:08:10
Speaker 2
You know, they loved it. I'm in the in the classroom but you know it was it was a tough school and teachers were tough. I remember my brother being called out by the deputy head principal on the last day to go and see some kid at the end of school. And this kid had been to knife the deputy head principal.

02:04:08:10 - 02:04:25:19
Speaker 2
And he said, Mr. Burgess, could you just come and just stand a little distance away? And Adrian went over and stood there and the kids looking and saying, Burgess is over there. Yeah, I know. I used that.

02:04:25:19 - 02:04:36:07
Speaker 1
Yeah. So you're in terms of the funding, you basically were working for part of the year and then the other part of the year was completely dedicated.

02:04:36:07 - 02:04:40:12
Speaker 2
That was how that was Alpine up to about 1974. 75. Yeah.

02:04:40:18 - 02:04:42:22
Speaker 1
After that where our stories kind of stopped.

02:04:42:22 - 02:05:11:05
Speaker 2
Yes Well, yeah, after that I moved to Canada and you know, that was when I went to Canada in 78. I think. I'm not sure if it was then or any of the Canadian dollars with 10% more than the American dollar when we went down to South America. So I'm working in construction canmore build in a motel and check in Canadian dollars, changing it, changing them for 10% up of the Canadian American dollar.

02:05:11:20 - 02:05:21:23
Speaker 2
I think when it came back, it was down 10% even more. No, no, no. It was it was kind of worse, you know.

02:05:21:23 - 02:05:23:06
Speaker 3
Now, as you say, it's not like that.

02:05:23:06 - 02:05:23:21
Speaker 1
Anymore.

02:05:24:05 - 02:06:01:16
Speaker 2
But the point is it we the idea after that for the was to working construction hard for three or four months dirt bag and go climbing and raise money for expeditions and the whole expedition thing started really once we started going to the Himalayan. Okay that, that started with David Geary and stuff like that where before that we were working hard in construction, saving and climbing for, you know, 3 to 4, five, six months, you know.

02:06:01:16 - 02:06:08:22
Speaker 2
So I mean, I don't really well, now, you know, people say, oh, you can't do that now. Well.

02:06:09:04 - 02:06:09:16
Speaker 1
You can.

02:06:10:02 - 02:06:51:18
Speaker 2
You can, you can, you know, you don't need a $60,000 sprinter. You know, it's nice. But if you don't have one, you can, you know, you could probably buy a half ton truck. Toyota put it back on yourself not like built out to what an aluminum and provide you don't roll the thing it'll probably be okay and you know and work hard living your truck don't rent camp near the construction site working construction no one's going to bother you know near a construction site no one's going to say, hey, who's that guy in the truck?

02:06:52:00 - 02:06:53:14
Speaker 1
You know, the guy who showed up to work on his.

02:06:53:19 - 02:06:54:20
Speaker 2
He shows up. He's never.

02:06:55:03 - 02:06:58:14
Speaker 1
Not always going.

02:06:59:02 - 02:07:24:21
Speaker 2
To restaurants, drinking, only drinking beer at weekends. That's what we did. Save your money. Go climbing once. Once you get sponsored, little money is hard to come by. But given that when you start going to the outdoor retail shows and stuff, if you've got a resume of some form, you'll probably be able to get gear, at least on pro deals.

02:07:25:19 - 02:07:27:04
Speaker 2
That's not difficult, you know.

02:07:27:11 - 02:07:40:14
Speaker 1
So outside of funding what other sacrifices did you make with family, love, life and overall just kind of like that area of life that a lot of people tend to gravitate to?

02:07:40:14 - 02:08:10:18
Speaker 2
Well, I think I think, you know, the relationship thing is definitely that most people would have to deal with. Definitely, because I mean, the South American trip that went from Patagonia up through Bolivia to Peru and back, my girlfriend was with me, Adrian's girlfriend, who was from French and was becoming a French teacher and eventually, you know, an English teacher in France left him at base camp.

02:08:11:17 - 02:08:12:06
Speaker 2
You know, just.

02:08:12:20 - 02:08:13:19
Speaker 1
Now he was on the mountain.

02:08:13:19 - 02:08:29:05
Speaker 2
While he was on a mountain tour, you know, time enough of it, right? So, you know, that's, you know, so one, take your girlfriends with you all the time with them or whatever, you know. But they were not or.

02:08:29:06 - 02:08:29:21
Speaker 1
Be single.

02:08:30:07 - 02:08:35:15
Speaker 2
Or be single or yeah. All be single and accept that, you know.

02:08:36:05 - 02:08:47:09
Speaker 1
I mean, yeah, it's all, it all boils down to a priorities like what is the priority? Yeah, climbing. If climbing is the ultimate priority, then there are sacrifices to be made.

02:08:48:02 - 02:09:03:15
Speaker 2
I would say if you're too driven climber, providing you're not looking for a long term relationship, girls would never a problem.

02:09:03:15 - 02:09:07:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, fair enough. Now for our.

02:09:10:18 - 02:09:12:01
Speaker 2
And I say that anyway.

02:09:12:09 - 02:09:27:21
Speaker 3
So I'm I'm wondering how could you tell on your adventures when enough was enough? Because obviously you're teetering on such a fine line when.

02:09:27:23 - 02:09:29:00
Speaker 1
Do you when.

02:09:29:00 - 02:09:37:13
Speaker 3
Do you know when to to kind of pull back? You know, have you have you had a difficult.

02:09:38:12 - 02:10:00:00
Speaker 2
You know, that? Well, I mean, you know, we had I think we retreated three times off of Fitzroy before, you know, we climbed it, you know, we weren't going to just freeze, you know, anybody who says you get hit by a storm, 500 from the top feet, from the top of Fitzroy. Well we'll sit here till the weather clears.

02:10:01:00 - 02:10:01:13
Speaker 1
You're going to have.

02:10:02:23 - 02:10:35:07
Speaker 2
Two weeks later frozen corpse. There's no way you look you if you get down and I think yeah we turned around you know when Brian Hall said, you know, if you guys keep doing this, we went up to try these Tyra who which was these big buttresses again same kind of high 19,000 or something like that. And as we walking across the glacier towards the footprint of this thing, a big avalanche came down.

02:10:35:07 - 02:10:36:18
Speaker 2
Straight between the two peaks.

02:10:36:22 - 02:10:37:06
Speaker 1
Is.

02:10:37:16 - 02:11:13:22
Speaker 2
Right edge. And I just looked at one another. And when you know, yeah, back, we'll go back. It's something's not right. You've got to develop a kind of sixth sense on stuff and you've got to listen to it. A friend of mine, very good time. One of the Paul Braithwaite, brilliant alpinist high altitude climber and so used to say, if you just do this at weekends, maybe you could get away with it.

02:11:15:08 - 02:11:39:16
Speaker 2
But if you do this all the time, you have to kind of listen. If something don't feel right, it's probably cause it probably isn't. I mean, I tell the story. This is more recent. This is like only year 2000. So this is reality. But I'm in with this guy in the Dolomites and we're doing this time and it's a great six.

02:11:39:16 - 02:12:10:21
Speaker 2
It's probably 15, 1700 foot high limestone wall you know, trad with the pitons you to there and I'm about third picture up it's just come daylight and it's only it's only about 630 in the morning and I look over the Italian plains and I can see the shimmering, just a shimmering of heat and also the shimmering is moisture starting.

02:12:11:21 - 02:12:36:01
Speaker 2
And I went, I think there's going to be a huge thunderstorm today. It doesn't look good to me. We should get down. We should go down. He's like, no, it can race it. And you know, you don't race things in the Dolomites because you end up on the top of things with electricity heating all around. Yeah. So we wrapped off and he didn't want to wrap off 12 noon.

02:12:36:13 - 02:13:05:20
Speaker 2
The big massive thunderstorm inches of water running down the road below the the refugio. We were at fire, but yeah the air next morning we went up it and we're up we're on the top to about three in the afternoon, two in the afternoon. I turned to him. I said, Where would you have been at 12 noon when that storm hit?

02:13:06:07 - 02:13:28:01
Speaker 2
Oh, would it be bullshit decisions we'd have made during the time bloody peak in lightning storms? Yeah. You're going. You've got to know. I sensed the weather was going to change. The storm cleared it next morning. Nothing like the thunderstorm, the clearing, the air for the next day. That's when you want to be going.

02:13:28:08 - 02:13:28:21
Speaker 1
Right after.

02:13:29:00 - 02:13:35:03
Speaker 2
Right after the big, massive thunderstorm. It'll clear because it cools air down.

02:13:35:15 - 02:13:46:01
Speaker 1
So what was that like? You had a partner that disagreed with you. What was that like in terms of forcing the descent upon him?

02:13:46:01 - 02:13:50:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, he you know, it was I think it was about ego for him.

02:13:50:00 - 02:13:51:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Which will kill you?

02:13:51:12 - 02:13:58:06
Speaker 2
Which will kill you? You know, I was way more experienced than he and even a stronger rock climber.

02:13:58:07 - 02:13:59:18
Speaker 1
So in the end, he just trusted, you.

02:14:00:02 - 02:14:01:16
Speaker 2
Know, basically, I'm not going.

02:14:01:16 - 02:14:04:11
Speaker 1
Oh, okay. So we're I'm going down. You can come with me.

02:14:04:11 - 02:14:16:04
Speaker 2
Going down, you mean you know, we're going down, you know, I mean, and he just said that we made the wrong decision because, you know, we wouldn't accept it. Yeah, I Mean that was the.

02:14:16:04 - 02:14:17:02
Speaker 1
Training he didn't it.

02:14:17:03 - 02:14:33:03
Speaker 2
Stupidity he wouldn't accept it the next day yeah 12 noon the storm hit massive. I mean you're talking a cloudburst of rain and lightning and where would be said we would have been not well we weren't up until 2:00 in the afternoon the next bloody day.

02:14:33:04 - 02:14:33:22
Speaker 1
And you had already done the.

02:14:33:22 - 02:14:46:22
Speaker 2
First part and we're done the first three pictures. Wow. So, you know, stuff like that will that stupidity will kill you. I mean, if you can't accept what's going on around you, you know, you have to.

02:14:47:17 - 02:15:11:19
Speaker 1
And so I think this actually is a perfect caveat to my next question is and maybe this is the answer, how how have you avoided major injury and death all these years? Because, you know, in these stories, you know, your your climbing friends and the professionals, your in your career have died. And you've seen friends and other athletes die in the same field that you're in.

02:15:12:03 - 02:15:19:07
Speaker 1
Why do you feel you have been spared in a way like how have you cheated injury? How have you cheated death? Like what?

02:15:19:07 - 02:15:23:02
Speaker 2
Well, a little obviously a bit of luck in the place. Some place. Do you.

02:15:23:02 - 02:15:25:17
Speaker 1
Feel like there's a way to maximize luck.

02:15:26:14 - 02:16:03:22
Speaker 2
And experience? Because, you know, with experience, you make better decisions on weather route, find in danger. When is something dangerous, right? You know, if it is dangerous, how dangerous, you know, I mean, taking a flier on a dolomite peak with bolt anchors, all the way out and cracking an ankle is or getting hit on the head. Just, you know, you probably cocky and anxious?

02:16:03:22 - 02:16:26:14
Speaker 2
Not really. I mean, just it's probably steep, you know, you're not going to do that, you know. But suppose it didn't some injury you could pull your body out. Shoulder muscles pulling an over something. That's not a big danger because you can wrap off this fucking fixed anchors, right? It's not it's not Patagonian wings howling across it, you know, trying to tell you ropes up.

02:16:26:21 - 02:16:53:14
Speaker 2
So I think just judging accurately where you're at and once you committed, you know what's going on, not on Logan. You've got to say you're be honest with everything. You've got to honest with your team. You've got to share your team, shred the strengths of the team, not ego doesn't work like that. You've got to say, I'm tired now.

02:16:53:14 - 02:17:21:15
Speaker 2
I need you to come through and help me. Otherwise, if I keep doing this all the way up and some people might have you do that, but you're going to have a cripple, a knackered, injured, you know, cripple on your hands, you know, higher up on a mountain. And, you know, when what people do then will leave you here and go for health security solution pocket.

02:17:22:00 - 02:17:48:04
Speaker 2
Not good, I think I think you have to be honest with yourself. You know how you are like how like how you are at the time. You know, you have good days and off days. And I mean, I've turned back from times in the Alps, you know, when nothing happened, where probably if we had gone forward, the weather didn't break, you know.

02:17:48:04 - 02:18:19:10
Speaker 2
But there's certain places, you know, choose the choice of route, for example, that I'm that's experience. And we never had that experience initially in the Alps, but about 1972 we started to get it and it was, you know, even with mediocre weather forecast in, you had some weather forecasting, but it was mediocre if it said if it looked like it was there's going to be a storm tomorrow.

02:18:20:13 - 02:18:45:17
Speaker 2
But the being in the past, we could just be in afternoon thunderstorms. We'll do an ice route. We start at midnight and you're off the mountain by 12 noon. Flexibility, flexibility, objective. Don't get too tied into that today that I've got to do. You know, I mean, we've come down off the north face of the Eiger. I've never climbed it.

02:18:45:22 - 02:19:10:05
Speaker 2
We came down because I could see a storm building up up in the upper section of that face and we would have been hit by it. Now, whether or not it would have gone, you know, but what it may have just been an afternoon, the next day was clear. But on a face like that, that's going to bring a stone fall like crazy on a face that's known for stone.

02:19:10:05 - 02:19:33:06
Speaker 2
So don't do it, you know? So it's picking the route. Don't get me too tied in. I mean, your objective have a bunch of objectives and then fit them to the weather. That's what I would do in the Western Alps, you know? Well, anywhere, you know, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I do that in Colorado, you know, on Longs Peak.

02:19:33:06 - 02:19:57:08
Speaker 2
If I could, I would go on the it's known for its thunderstorm activity. I would figure it out the time of year, maybe in middle of September when the storms of I don't know, just I don't I'm not experienced in that area. But I would find out when the best time periods are the. Yeah, so so I think that's experience.

02:19:57:22 - 02:20:01:22
Speaker 2
Luck helps fitness and speed is safety.

02:20:02:23 - 02:20:06:10
Speaker 1
But I think another.

02:20:06:10 - 02:20:08:02
Speaker 2
Turning back is not a problem.

02:20:08:02 - 02:20:11:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. You got to be okay with turning back. Yeah, sure. Yeah, you.

02:20:11:13 - 02:20:12:01
Speaker 2
Have to be.

02:20:12:04 - 02:20:44:13
Speaker 1
And I think, I think one of the things that, that play a role a lot in in safety is fear. I think it's fear creeps in it. It we've talked about this in other podcasts it it clouds it lowers performance. You know, I think a lot of people deer deal with fear in different ways in the book and in these these parables, it seems like you are this fearless climber and you are able to be in the flow state and you're able to be in this mentality most of the time.

02:20:44:13 - 02:20:50:20
Speaker 1
Is that an accurate representation of your experience or what what is your relationship with fear and how much?

02:20:50:21 - 02:21:04:03
Speaker 2
I would say I would say sometimes that was true that, you know, I was quite fearless and that those were the times that I could go and say, this mountain cannot kill me.

02:21:04:03 - 02:21:40:05
Speaker 1
So it's like these stories of these sketchy ballets and these these just very exposed situations. I think people like Max and I, the majority are going to be just gripped with fear and just with the sheer paper thin paper, thin amount of threshold of risk that you're dealing with between complete failure and death and and success. I think that how do you stay comfortable in a situation like that where the stakes are so high, there is no margin for error.

02:21:40:11 - 02:21:45:03
Speaker 1
You're soloing half the time, like what are the secrets to build?

02:21:45:03 - 02:21:46:20
Speaker 2
You build in your experience.

02:21:47:01 - 02:21:47:14
Speaker 1
In the experience.

02:21:47:14 - 02:22:32:16
Speaker 2
Build your experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to be comfortable with the terrain you're on. If it's what we would consider relatively easy terrain, just know you're not going to fall. Don't, don't just climb three point contact you know, don't you know and don't climb under big ice tracks. And if you do go very, very quickly, don't don't camp Sundram Downs Wellesley camping under a big serac or a stone chute this probably shows you shouldn't be anywhere near that mountain.

02:22:32:16 - 02:22:33:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. No.

02:22:34:01 - 02:22:34:08
Speaker 3
Yeah.

02:22:35:15 - 02:23:14:07
Speaker 2
No build. You build on your experience. That's the thing. So it's building on it. Go in. Don't go in over your head. You know that this is one of the things about gym climbing that always concerns me. You can have somebody who's climbing five, 13, five, 14 in the gym. They have so much strength to climb into difficulty, the climbing to danger on a track situation or alpine situation that they will suddenly be out of body control.

02:23:14:07 - 02:23:55:12
Speaker 2
And, you know, 514 climber, you know, is go berserk. And just as easy as anybody else, you know, when you land or swinging, you know, and so so you've got to know at what level, you know, gym climbing, sport climbing, build on it adventure sport. You know on somewhere in the European outs where bolted anchors and the odd bolt but you carry a light rock that will improve your route finding that don't bloody assume you're going to climb at the same grade you climb in 512 in the gym or on single page.

02:23:55:22 - 02:24:24:06
Speaker 2
You know, why don't you just drop it to 510 to start with to see how that goes? Five, nine even. And because you could be on a two on five, nine terrain, even five, ten terrain and use that six foot to the right as you go on 515 terrain, you know, route finding is critical and that's it is really experience.

02:24:24:06 - 02:24:24:17
Speaker 1
Really teach.

02:24:24:17 - 02:24:38:21
Speaker 2
That you can't you've got to just build it and if you stop doing it, you will you maintain a bit of it. But you need to be natural. You know, if you're climbing in granite all the time, you suddenly climb on dolomite.

02:24:38:21 - 02:24:40:03
Speaker 1
Limestone was about to say that.

02:24:40:04 - 02:24:44:09
Speaker 2
You need to you need to start off a work up to it because it's different.

02:24:45:10 - 02:24:53:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. The terrain you're on, the rock quality, the rock type, it all is different because the holds are going to be different. Yeah. The way the rock interacts with you is. Yes.

02:24:53:13 - 02:24:55:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. And the way it protects.

02:24:55:07 - 02:24:56:12
Speaker 1
The way is different.

02:24:56:12 - 02:25:01:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. And particularly the route find it, you know.

02:25:01:21 - 02:25:02:05
Speaker 1
Yeah.

02:25:03:04 - 02:25:38:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. Build on the experience and then it can, you know there are very few really hard rock climbers of these, of being very hard rock climbers who became very good high altitude mountaineers. I'm just I'm not one of those very good because I was never a very rock climber. But you take someone like Dave Breashears, right? Who does, you know, he was like in the eighties, which time in 512 tracked.

02:25:39:05 - 02:26:04:17
Speaker 2
Right. And ended up you know, spent last time I saw him he just spent I don't know, 40 days over 20,000 feet, you know, making cause he's now a film maker, but he's also was apparently very strong, high altitude climbed. I've never climbed with him. And that's what the Sherpas told me is quite rare for that ability to translate.

02:26:04:18 - 02:26:46:20
Speaker 2
To translate. I mean, rhino messengers run you as a very good rock climber. I mean, became a very good high altitude climber, tends to become quite specialized. I think myself and my brother, we will age, age and was a better rock climber for a period because, you know, it was going the climbing gym. I was guiding treks in Nepal and his big deal was at the age this is true at the age of 50 he went to Pakistan with me, with another guy and climbed I think it was like over 25,000 foot peak Alpine style on a face.

02:26:47:17 - 02:27:32:06
Speaker 2
It was the first and then it was a second. I think Al Patel came back and when within a month on sighted a 12 sport climb they probably lost so much bloody weight in Pakistan that, you know, you came back and did a few pullups, a finger hiking boards and he was ready to go. Yeah, yeah. But that but that is that's kind of a hard thing, you know you know, you think Alex Honnold Alex Hunt is actually building is on his good rock climber went to Patagonia has actually been to the Dolomites I don't know what he's done in the Dolomites and stuff I don't think his time dies yet.

02:27:32:22 - 02:28:00:00
Speaker 2
I don't know if he has an interest in climbing ice. The kind of what Josh what was his name? The who's the Swiss machine? What was he? So straight was another one who was very good rock climber. I think he was a very good rock climber, but then became obviously a very brilliant alpinist soloing super fast and then went trout due to his obviously good at altitude.

02:28:00:07 - 02:28:05:18
Speaker 2
But it didn't last long enough at altitude. I don't know what went wrong.

02:28:05:18 - 02:28:08:07
Speaker 1
It was either rockfall or an avalanche during a rock.

02:28:08:07 - 02:28:10:21
Speaker 2
It was solid. You got something happened.

02:28:10:21 - 02:28:11:10
Speaker 1
Something hit.

02:28:11:15 - 02:28:18:08
Speaker 2
Something hit him probably. Yeah. Sometimes it's better be lucky than good. Yeah.

02:28:18:16 - 02:28:43:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. So with, you know, so many years of experience and spending so much time in the mountains, obviously tragedy, and trauma and injury, these are all things that are kind of, I guess, synonymous with mountain climbing. If you spend enough time in the community, you know, both Kyle and myself of injured ourselves, I'm wondering what your experiences with that, whether that's like lost friends or climbing partners or sustaining injury yourself.

02:28:43:09 - 02:28:44:18
Speaker 3
Maybe if you can speak a little bit about.

02:28:44:18 - 02:29:08:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, not, not actually not much personal injury. I mean, you know, I, I was heel hook in, in the Dolomites, the torso meniscus, you know, I had to get my knee fixed, whatever. Just do not I don't have an ACL on that one, but it goes into Half Lotus really easily. Yeah. No, no big injuries, obviously. People who are dead.

02:29:08:15 - 02:29:09:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

02:29:09:17 - 02:29:14:13
Speaker 1
Could you I mean, a lot of them. Yeah. Is tens twenties like.

02:29:14:14 - 02:29:43:00
Speaker 2
Oh shit. You know I tend not to try and remember. Yeah. And you know there's a whole the Sherpas told me you never mention the dead person's name because it holds them back. Oh wow. Do you know that Sherpas how? Given a name in by the Lama when they're born and it's carried in a little package here and then the name they have.

02:29:43:00 - 02:30:04:09
Speaker 2
Isn't that true name? Because their true name is only whispered by the lama at the point of death that help them most. Hassan So you never say a person, wow. So it holds them back, you know. So I mean I, I'm not exactly home to that, but I tend, that's why I forget names. Real estate.

02:30:04:19 - 02:30:06:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean this is pretty synonymous with a.

02:30:06:19 - 02:30:09:23
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, let's say 5040.

02:30:10:11 - 02:30:41:16
Speaker 1
And I think that's pretty synonymous with like when wink wink shooting and base jumping. It just gets to a point where it's just there's too many utilities and too many tragedies to to put so much effort on or focus on. Yeah. To the deaths and to it's just kind of becomes part of the sport. But I do think it is important for for the climbing majority and people like us to to just recognize how dangerous the environments are and and how much you are on the line.

02:30:41:16 - 02:31:10:13
Speaker 1
And you have to answer that question. One, is it worth it? Is it worth your life? And to, like you said, like, are you coming into objective with an understanding that you're going to survive this climb? Or are you going into it with the expectation that you might die? And I think that these questions need to be addressed in the of the heaviness and the and the severity of of these kind of objectives are are can be overlooked and I think need to be at least addressed in a certain way.

02:31:10:13 - 02:31:47:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, you have to you got to know, you know, what is the risk. That was when we spoke before I said so which is the most difficult of this to achieve? Climbing a read point in a 514 or climbing an 8000 meter peak in the Himalaya without oxygen in winter? Well, it's depends you know, it depends on how big your team 8000 meters in winter.

02:31:47:22 - 02:32:22:11
Speaker 2
You know, if it's a huge team or not, it depends. Is everyone else using oxygen? Do you want you know, is Sherpas fiction aligned to the summit for you? I mean, I would never count that as climbing. That's being guided. Right. But, you know, if you're climbing like we climb delegated to climb delegating winter which is more difficult that or read pointing to 514 and I sat down again I've forgotten his name is a well-known, very good rock climber.

02:32:22:15 - 02:32:44:00
Speaker 2
Well, it was an Indian creek. We were both drinking beers around a campfire. And I said, you know, you if you get a train to do a read point of 540, you can do it out of a van with your girlfriend, your wife you can do it from home with a kind of job and just go to the gym in the morning and evening.

02:32:44:07 - 02:33:12:18
Speaker 2
You can go running and training. It will not affect your everyday life in some ways, in a negative way. If you don't want it to. You could go on the road in a van and just train like crazy, right? It still can be very physical, but it's not really dangerous and I don't think it's as emotionally taxing. £8 me to peak in winter.

02:33:13:19 - 02:33:43:08
Speaker 2
You're not you know, you're not going to climb 8000 to peak in winter without oxygen, without being altitude a little while, for sometimes it's not going to be the first time you've been that. That's going to take a lot of time out of your personal life, relationships, jobs, careers, homeless. Right. And then once you get there to do it, just you've got all that together.

02:33:43:21 - 02:34:29:17
Speaker 2
You can raise the money. You've raised the money out, somebody else raise the money, and the team comes together. The winter winds high heel can shut you down so easily, so easily and without. I mean, you know, even with the best gear that's around nowadays, which is way better than it was 20 years ago or 30 years ago, that I would say the personal commitment to that, the time it's going to take away from, you know, raising the money, you know, can you keep manage to get even a girlfriend doing that because you're going to have to go at least one eight times me to peak the year without you.

02:34:30:00 - 02:38:56:14
Speaker 2
I mean, I don't know how the hell are you going to do it to gain that experience, to do it safely. And then, you know, you've got to get the fitness levels, the hours, you know, you can put in an hour on a hang board every day. You're going to have to.


Introduction
The Early Years
Fitzroy
Huascaran Norte
Mt. Logan
Deep Topics