27 | A Close Call, Fatherhood, and Climbing in the Balkans w/ Chris Stephens Sr.

This episode really represents the foundational purpose of this podcast. That being, to hear climbing stories and chat about climbing topics with fellow recreational climbers. Climbers with full-time jobs, relationships, kids, and lives outside of their world of climbing. Climbing is such an amazing sport and one of the reasons is that you don’t need to climb extremely hard grades or dedicate your life to it in order to have life-changing, empowering, and inspiring experiences. In today’s conversation, we sit down with Chris Stephens Sr., a father, soldier, traveler, and of course a climber. Chris reached out to me via Instagram after hearing my episode on the Sharp End Podcast where I briefly mentioned my climbing trip in Albania. He too had just come back from a climbing trip to eastern Europe and wanted to swap stories. We decided to turn what would be a quick chat into an episode. We talk about how Chris was so inspired by the landscape around him that he chose to pursue the sport of climbing, how a close call turned him off the sport for 4 years, how fathership affects his mental game while climbing, and finally we swap stories about our experience climbing in the Balkans. A land where food limitations, access issues, and limited information make outdoor climbing a whole lot more adventurous.

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Resources

Top 20 Climbing Podcasts FeedSpot Article

Rock Tirana | Climbing Gym in Albania

Transcript

00:00:00:14 - 00:00:01:19
Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. Kyle here.

00:00:02:05 - 00:00:13:01
Speaker 2
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.

00:00:13:01 - 00:00:15:08
Speaker 3
Topics, lessons, stories.

00:00:15:08 - 00:00:23:22
Speaker 2
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.

00:00:28:02 - 00:00:55:05
Speaker 2
What's going on, everybody? We've got some exciting news for you. We just got featured as the top 20 climbing podcasts on feed spot dot com. We are currently sitting at number eight out of 20, which is pretty big news. Also, one of the ways to judge this success of this podcast is by typing in climbing podcasts on Google and seeing how soon our information comes up.

00:00:55:15 - 00:01:17:11
Speaker 2
And if you go ahead and do that, you'll see that we are listed now in the Google's recommended list of climbing podcasts. So pretty big news. Exciting news for us and the growth of the podcast. We've been seeing some big growth and some big viewership, so we appreciate everyone listening and can't wait to keep producing for you guys.

00:01:19:17 - 00:01:54:03
Speaker 2
All right. I am pretty psyched to bring you this episode because it really represents the foundational purpose for this podcast that been to hear climbing stories and to chat about climbing topics with fellow recreational climbers, climbers with full time jobs, relationships, kids and lives outside their world of climbing. Climbing is such an amazing sport, and one of the reasons is that you don't need to climb extremely hard grades or dedicate your life to it in order to have life changing, empowering and inspiring experiences.

00:01:54:14 - 00:01:58:12
Speaker 2
In today's conversation, we sit down with Chris Stevens, senior.

00:01:58:20 - 00:01:59:12
Speaker 3
A father.

00:02:00:03 - 00:02:21:14
Speaker 2
A soldier, a traveler, and, of course, a climber. Chris reached out to me via Instagram after hearing my episode on the Sharpton podcast, where I briefly mentioned my climbing trip in Albania. He, too, had just come back from a climbing trip to Eastern Europe and wanted to swap stories. We decided to turn what would be a quick chat into a full episode.

00:02:21:23 - 00:02:49:06
Speaker 2
We talk about how Chris was so inspired by the landscape around him that he chose to pursue the sport of climbing. How a close call turned him off the sport for an entire four years. How Father SCHIP affects his mental game while climbing. And finally, we swap stories about our experiences climbing in the Balkans, a land where food limitations access issues and limited information make outdoor climbing a whole.

00:02:49:06 - 00:02:49:17
Speaker 3
Lot more.

00:02:49:17 - 00:02:58:04
Speaker 2
Dangerous.

00:03:02:12 - 00:03:05:14
Speaker 2
All right. Welcome to the show, everybody. Max.

00:03:05:15 - 00:03:25:01
Speaker 3
Chris, welcome. Howdy. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I actually heard you talk about your Albania trip when you were on the The Sharpen podcast. Needed your episode there. So are these kind of the whole circle of life with podcasts, right? So yeah.

00:03:26:13 - 00:03:46:14
Speaker 2
Nice. Well, yeah. Thanks for reaching out and yeah, I kind of that was a was a cool episode to do and I think a little some connections have kind of come from that. So it's been it's been certain certain things come full circle. But yeah, I mean, just good things roll in here. You know, this is a climbing podcast.

00:03:46:14 - 00:04:00:01
Speaker 2
Do you want to kind of just talk a little bit about who you were as a as a kid, like how how early you got into climbing, whether you had an athletic background just kind of give us the full spectrum of of of who who's sitting in the chair right now?

00:04:01:01 - 00:04:24:07
Speaker 3
Yep, definitely. So I didn't really start climbing until my early twenties. So growing up, I was really big into mountain biking from Georgia originally. So we're right in the foothills and like northeast Georgia, so right in the foothills of grew up mountain biking, camping, a little bit of hiking. It wasn't really until I moved to Wisconsin in like 2013.

00:04:25:04 - 00:04:53:12
Speaker 3
I started I kind of saw like out Wisconsin. They have a whole bunch of bluffs, like the Midwest has bluffs and a lot of really cool, unique rock formations. And that kind of drew me to the whole climbing thing. And I was like, Somebody's got to climb, right? There's got to be a climbing community. And so I started, you know, searching around for Facebook groups, and I found a whole bunch of really cool people got in touch with some some folks that took me out to Devils Lake.

00:04:53:16 - 00:05:16:04
Speaker 3
And Devils Lake is pretty unique. It's like Baraboo port site is the it's kind of the rock type, insulated, purplish red court side rock formation. It's all trad sports sites, pretty stuff. So it was all trad. And once I realized like I was probably in way over my head beginning, so I kind of, I paired off with some really good people.

00:05:17:08 - 00:05:42:20
Speaker 3
They taught me a lot built. I learned how to build top rope anchors and trees and boulders. So this was. Yeah, I was 22, I think, at this time. Right. So yeah. So I started there and it kind of, it was super interesting and kind of just ran with it from there in I joined the army or I switched from the reserves.

00:05:42:20 - 00:06:04:09
Speaker 3
I was in the reserves. It's on. I switched from the reserves to active duty and that brought me down to North Carolina. And that's where I kind of dove headfirst into sport climbing. I met with met up with some really cool people at the gym here, and we have a couple of interesting gyms around us, pretty small or very flatland around here.

00:06:04:09 - 00:06:29:16
Speaker 3
We're right smack in the middle of the state. So there's not a lot not a lot of elevation to be gained around where we are. But from there. Yeah, we, we were generally driving two and a half hours or so. See I started got really big in the sport climbing and really just progressed from there. I assumed to continue on like, yeah, no.

00:06:29:20 - 00:06:50:05
Speaker 2
I mean Max, I don't know, I don't know about you, but I think this is the first story we've heard of someone being inspired to climb based on the geography. I've never heard of someone be like, wow. Like, I don't know how to climb, but I'm looking at this cliff right now and I want to know how to get up that and turn that into a sport like I mean, are we about correct there, Max?

00:06:50:05 - 00:06:51:06
Speaker 2
Like, have we heard that before?

00:06:51:10 - 00:07:00:15
Speaker 4
I think you are correct. I've not heard that. And I was also going to say the transition like like, you know, hey, I'm like into mountain biking and then, you know, going to climbing, it's also kind of unique. So yeah.

00:07:00:15 - 00:07:24:15
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's the the bluffs are pretty unique. Most of them around there up in in at least where I was at in Wisconsin, we're all sandstone, super gritty, very, very brittle, except for those particular areas. There was one of them down. I had to look it up what it was and it's granddad's bluff or grandfather's bluff or something like that.

00:07:25:09 - 00:07:49:09
Speaker 3
And it's just outside of La Crosse, right on the Mississippi River, and then Devils Lake. So I was in western Wisconsin when I first started. The Devils, like super interesting, very unique, huge towers, fields surrounding the entire area. They approached the approaches are pretty it's the approaches are like climbing the Stairmaster for, I don't know, half a mile.

00:07:49:09 - 00:07:54:02
Speaker 3
They're pretty steep. But really it makes for some really cool climbing. Would you would you say that? Yeah. And then.

00:07:54:02 - 00:07:59:00
Speaker 2
The climbing community out there is pretty sparse and you got to like hunt for it or.

00:07:59:00 - 00:08:26:06
Speaker 3
So it's pretty surprising, you know, it's pretty like there's there's a handful of gyms and the climbing community, again, this is like very new to me. Like the whole understanding what a climbing community was was really a foreign concept to me this time. But by and large, the community up there was very, very willing to share information to get people out, bring people in it just like it is today.

00:08:26:06 - 00:08:37:00
Speaker 3
Anywhere you go, really, like most people are very willing to to teach and to bring people out, to get people in to a specific area, especially. You don't know anything about that area. Do you think that was more.

00:08:37:00 - 00:08:45:10
Speaker 4
Like organic or because like you seem like a pretty outspoken and confident person? Do you think that maybe like placated into that a little bit more?

00:08:46:07 - 00:08:51:18
Speaker 3
I have no idea because I've never had that problem, because I'm pretty outspoken. I have no problem. It's like.

00:08:51:19 - 00:08:55:21
Speaker 1
Asking questions. Yeah. Yeah. I think people like that. Yeah, yeah.

00:08:55:21 - 00:09:08:10
Speaker 2
I don't think that it's normal that people say that like, yeah, it's like pretty inviting and people are going to bring me out. Like, I think a lot of people have the complete opposite experience. I can't find anybody to take like I don't know what to do.

00:09:08:10 - 00:09:15:08
Speaker 1
I can't find a mentor. Don't do things that like teaching myself like, you know, like, yeah, I.

00:09:15:08 - 00:09:35:07
Speaker 3
Mean, there was, there was a whole lot of the YouTube, you know, guys talked about like building trash tankers and like building top rope because yeah, I mean, it's all trash. There's no boats, nothing. And there's a bunch of trees up top so you can sling trees. Yeah, I was definitely a lot of YouTube. I did learn a lot about from people.

00:09:35:07 - 00:09:51:00
Speaker 3
Like I had no problem going up to people who were, you know, have a whole tribe rack on their harness. And I have, you know, a couple of nuts and axes and stuff I had no problem going to like, Hey, will you check my work before I go down and start climbing on this? Because I don't want something to pop.

00:09:51:00 - 00:09:58:01
Speaker 3
Like, I had no problem talking to people about that. So yeah, maybe it was, it's because I was able to reach out and had no, no problem talking.

00:09:58:01 - 00:09:59:21
Speaker 1
I don't know. Now they also get that a lot.

00:09:59:21 - 00:10:10:11
Speaker 4
That's a skill and a blessing and definitely get it. You know, if you're wondering if you should get your work checked, but then you don't want to because you should. You don't feel like talking to the person. You should still talk to the person.

00:10:11:18 - 00:10:14:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh, I understand that. That's awesome.

00:10:15:01 - 00:10:25:07
Speaker 2
So you're you're like rolling back a little bit further, like your childhood. Like, did you have an athletic background place where it's like, was there like a in.

00:10:26:11 - 00:10:51:04
Speaker 3
Did a lot of camping as a kid, a lot of mountain biking, kind of gotten focused more so on baseball through junior and senior year of high school, trying to get into college. And then that didn't pan out. So I joined the army. So here we are. But I saw my I think my senior year I bought a pretty nice Santa Cruz mountain bike and this was before 29 ers were a big deal as well.

00:10:51:04 - 00:11:08:23
Speaker 3
So I bought it like a couple of years before the whole 29 season came out and then I realized that I had a bike that was definitely underperforming most of the new bikes and so on and so forth. So I kind of just got out of mountain biking and then that's that kind of led me to the whole climbing situation.

00:11:09:06 - 00:11:28:07
Speaker 3
Mountains have always been interesting. I've always been into hiking and an hour and growing up I was an hour and a half from Springer Mountain at the start of the eighties. So hiking was always a big thing for me. But yeah, I mean, I'd never really focused on climbing up until my early twenties.

00:11:28:12 - 00:11:43:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm in the same boat here. I think you're in the same boat as well. Like early twenties. That's when I found it too. And, you know, like, I don't know if I can consider it a blessing or not, you know, the part of me that wishes I found it, I found it earlier.

00:11:43:03 - 00:11:44:08
Speaker 1
But who knows.

00:11:45:03 - 00:11:50:15
Speaker 2
What I would have sacrificed for it if I had found it earlier on. So tis how it goes.

00:11:51:13 - 00:11:51:23
Speaker 3
Right?

00:11:52:18 - 00:12:06:21
Speaker 2
But yeah, I mean, awesome. That's a nice little, you know, a good background on kind of who you are, I guess. Let's bring this to the present a little bit in terms of just just climbing like you know, we'll.

00:12:06:21 - 00:12:07:08
Speaker 3
We'll.

00:12:07:08 - 00:12:25:03
Speaker 2
We'll circle more around into your timeline. But but to give people an idea of who you are as a climber now, what kind of grades, what kind of discipline, like, where is your focus and kind of what are your read points like? Just kind of give us a well-rounded image of who you are as a climber.

00:12:25:03 - 00:13:09:16
Speaker 3
Now. Yeah. So I'm pretty comfortable. I can I could probably send I'm pretty comfortable with 510 sport outside. Like when I go to go to like if there's a 510, I'm probably on the lower end of 510. Like I'm pretty confident in myself doing my Blair You know, if I have a lighter bowler, I'm a bigger guy. I'm, I'm like 195 some of their climbers so trying to find a Blair who's who's equal or you know close in weight I'll be more comfortable but I generally so this year was my first year I've done nothing but drag climb and I'm climbing five, seven, five, eight comfortably like very, very comfortably.

00:13:10:11 - 00:13:33:15
Speaker 3
And with that, most of the trips I've taken this year, I've also brought like three or four people with me. So it's a constant building systems, building anchors, getting people up. So I'm trying to do the longer climbs with people. And so I think next year, maybe this fall into winter because we can climb all year round in North Carolina.

00:13:33:15 - 00:14:03:05
Speaker 3
Perks of being North Carolina this fall until into winter. I'll probably start pushing that up to like five, nine, you know, with some of the trad climbs. So cool. But some of the classics in in North Carolina not to get off on a little tangent some of the classics like they're pretty burly five, seven and five, eight trad climbs, but they're like some burly moves that might have been graded out ten, 15, 20 years ago.

00:14:03:05 - 00:14:08:16
Speaker 3
And they're much more difficult now. And so it's an interesting grade scale here in the Carolinas, for sure.

00:14:08:23 - 00:14:12:01
Speaker 4
Are there like what's like the biggest walls you have access to.

00:14:12:06 - 00:14:38:02
Speaker 3
Where I'm at in the state, I'm pretty much I'm an hour south Raleigh and pretty much smack dab in the middle of the state. Takes me two and a half hours to get so it's divided in like into the western, northern and Piedmont regions. So the Piedmont region, we have quite a few pretty nice crags and those are about two and a half hours, all of which are within 3 hours to us.

00:14:38:02 - 00:15:08:23
Speaker 3
And then you all like western North Carolina and like Northwestern North Carolina, you're looking at like four and a half hours. And out in the western part, you're I think you can I don't know the actual I have to go back and look but five 600 feet of climbing vertical for you to climbing some like in the winter there's some ice climbing some vertical ice like water ice.

00:15:08:23 - 00:15:35:22
Speaker 3
Three you've got some routes that are 1500 feet just depends on like what you're trying to do where we normally go, you're looking at two, maybe three pitches, 500 feet max. So definitely some low lot of slab, some great like classic like East Coast, classic slab rocks out here, looking glass is I've heard about kind of a hotspot.

00:15:36:14 - 00:15:56:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's kind of a hot spot. It's it's on my to do is actually I haven't been out there yet this year but it's on my on my to do list but yeah they're not massive they're not they're not they're not huge climbs, but they definitely don't lack character. Like all the climbs that I've done have a lot of character there.

00:15:56:11 - 00:16:02:17
Speaker 3
They can be kind of burly. Yeah, it's very unique. Yeah, very interesting.

00:16:02:17 - 00:16:29:15
Speaker 2
To hear that. The sandbagged old school ratings carryover not only from the West Coast where, you know, the five point decimal system was created, but back into the East Coast as well. You know, there's there's like 5.7 and five, five eights out here that it should be five, nine plus I don't know maybe. Yeah. Like a soft ten a and yeah it's interesting to hear that that translates to the other side of the country as well.

00:16:30:07 - 00:16:59:13
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So there's, there's a route we go to this place called Moore's Wall really popular, tried area and others around called Zoo View and it's a57 it's one of the Carolina classic routes. But the whole route, the crux move is a giant fish jam. Do you have to get over like that's not a57 move but it's it's a57 route that's it's easy sustain five seven climbing all the way up to the croc's move and you just have to throw a fish jam in there.

00:16:59:14 - 00:17:03:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. So it's it's definitely an interesting one. Nice three man.

00:17:04:09 - 00:17:25:05
Speaker 2
Well, nice dude. So, you know, circling back to kind of like when you join the military, I, you know, you correct me on the on the timeline here, but there was a climbing break that we you know, you had mentioned for years that happened before Europe or after.

00:17:26:06 - 00:17:27:02
Speaker 3
That was before.

00:17:27:03 - 00:17:36:07
Speaker 2
Okay, so before. So let's cover that like and yeah, I think that the break was was in tangent with a close call. Is that correct?

00:17:37:15 - 00:17:38:07
Speaker 1
Correct. Yeah.

00:17:38:07 - 00:17:38:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.

00:17:39:01 - 00:17:41:11
Speaker 3
So let's see that led up to it for sure.

00:17:41:12 - 00:17:48:02
Speaker 2
Okay, cool. Yeah. So let's kind of go through the sequence of events here and kind of guide us through what what led to your your climbing break in four years.

00:17:48:10 - 00:18:22:10
Speaker 3
Yeah. So, so I started climbing pretty hardcore in 2013, 14, somewhere on there, moved down to North Carolina in 2014, climbed a lot. We were I was out probably every weekend and then a group of us went to Pilot Mountain. It's like our it's our like every state or every every region has like that one spot where all the gym climbers go and we're like, everybody goes, it's a state park.

00:18:22:10 - 00:18:56:06
Speaker 3
Like easy access. Like you park up top and you walk down hundreds of routes all bolted. So it's pretty cool little area. And I had my part was climbing so kind of dove into the accident or almost accident potential accident so my partner was climbing is is five nine pretty pretty long route I think about 90 feet and you know it's pretty long sustained five nine climbing towards the end of the day so we'd all been climbing probably six or seven routes that day.

00:18:56:21 - 00:19:24:23
Speaker 3
And she was going up. She decided to skip the second or skip the last bolt before the anchors made her way up. And while all this was happening and I, I was on a we I was using ATC to probably get into that. So I was blind with an ATC and I'm trying to get some debris out of the rope.

00:19:24:23 - 00:19:46:11
Speaker 3
And there are some routes and sticks and everything. I'm trying to get some debris out of the room as I'm feeding rope. And she, in conjunction with she skipped the second to last bolt for the anchors. And she gets up to the anchors and as she goes to clip, I feed her slack. And I'm also in the process of feeding slack because this is a point where I am able to feed and play with the rope.

00:19:46:11 - 00:20:10:11
Speaker 3
At the same time. She goes to clip and she misses and she just gets pumped out and she falls. And before I know it and I just grab the rope both hands, I grab the break strap with the break straight down. But by that time, she had probably fallen like ten feet, 15 feet plus rope stretch. I mean, and there is a ledge about a third of the way up the route.

00:20:10:11 - 00:20:39:15
Speaker 3
So she came down pretty, pretty close to halfway down the route before I before like catch rope, stretch and everything and all is said and done and yeah. So that was, that was I think in like November of 2014 that like rattled me pretty well. I got pretty, pretty gnarly rope burn on my hands, mostly on my left hand from initially trying to like just grab the rope.

00:20:39:15 - 00:21:02:06
Speaker 3
Like my initial reaction was just to grab the rope with my left hand and my right hand. And I finally I got her stopped. And it was one of those situations where could've been better communication on my end saying, Hey, I need to clear some debris. May I sit down for a little while and maybe on on her end, hey, you know, get pumped out or something like that.

00:21:02:06 - 00:21:19:23
Speaker 3
But I didn't climb. That was probably, I think November, October, November. I didn't climb until February. Again, I basically took the whole winter off and I didn't go to the gym and in climb, I just really just stopped climbing. I was pretty rattled by that.

00:21:20:11 - 00:21:24:16
Speaker 2
Were you were you intimately involved with this girl that you were climbing with?

00:21:25:14 - 00:21:32:13
Speaker 3
I was at this point. She was to my girlfriend at this time. Right. So, yeah. And yeah. So that.

00:21:32:13 - 00:21:33:17
Speaker 1
That that.

00:21:33:17 - 00:21:56:18
Speaker 3
Definitely rattled me. Took up hiking for the winter when I went out a couple of hikes and didn't really climb much, I still stayed outside. But yeah, so that was like the big event. I went in, climbed to say one more time and in conjunction with all of this I was going through, I switched jobs in the Army and I was going through training.

00:21:57:14 - 00:22:27:07
Speaker 3
And so that march I had completely I graduated from the pipeline that I was in and I had entirely switched jobs and I moved to a new unit. And so my focus then kind of shifted from climbing and and recreation to like really trying to focus on my career and get on some deployments, start working like meet new people and like really dove headfirst into my job regarding the fall.

00:22:27:07 - 00:22:45:06
Speaker 4
I'm just curious because like we've talked about this actually, I think we I think we talked about this with Cody Bradford actually about the process of like why you would skip a clip. So I'm wondering, did you do you ever like debrief with her after, like have a communication of like what was her reasoning for skipping the the bullet skipping the clip?

00:22:46:17 - 00:22:47:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

00:22:47:22 - 00:23:19:15
Speaker 3
We've talked about it. And she had just decided she was, you know, again, it was towards the end of the day. So this was the last route that we were all going up and the drawers were in. Like she wasn't placing gear or anything like that, like everything was there. She had just decided that because she was getting pumped out, she would much rather cruise past it and go past and and just kind of miss the boat and and go ahead and clip in into the to the anchors because it was the last one that wasn't a big gap.

00:23:21:00 - 00:23:34:11
Speaker 3
And yeah, once yeah, that was just that was the decision that she made. There was minimal communication up. Like I said, it was a pretty tall route as well. So yeah, that was that's kind of what we talked about on it.

00:23:34:11 - 00:23:52:07
Speaker 2
But so what about the accident? Made it seem like a close call to you because skipping the last mile on a toll sport route, pretty standard. You know, like people joke about that. You're like, yeah, just skip the last ball and clip the chains. Like in in a in a controlled situation that's not that risky of a decision.

00:23:52:16 - 00:23:58:16
Speaker 2
So, like, was it because there was a ledge? Like, what about the situation shook you so much.

00:23:59:11 - 00:24:24:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think it was it was a combination of there was a ledge and then just me not being or not paying attention enough. Like I was focused on trying to get debris out of the rope and uncoil the rope mostly cause I was like, Oh, she's going to clip in and I'm going to lower, so I need to go ahead and get the rope set to lower, not knowing how pumped out she was, not knowing how that she was like.

00:24:24:03 - 00:24:47:06
Speaker 3
I knew she was skipping the ball like I saw it and the people were like, Hey, either she's going to skip the ball. Yeah. And to me that I was like, as a player, you know, your sole purpose is to ensure the safety of your climber. And I had totally neglected that for a split second and then put put us in the situation where she was three, four feet from decking on this ledge.

00:24:47:06 - 00:24:50:17
Speaker 3
That was, you know, a little over a third of the way up this route.

00:24:50:17 - 00:25:01:01
Speaker 4
So did a lot of rope feed through the system once she had fallen, or was she simply falling a large distance because she she she missed the ball?

00:25:01:04 - 00:25:22:22
Speaker 3
It was it was it it was a combination of both. Right. So I had there was wrote feed because I was not breaking at that point in time because I was flicking the rope around trying to clear some debris. And then she had pulled slack to clip the chain. So then you have the the slack coming up. And then on top of that, it was the rope stretch and everything else.

00:25:22:22 - 00:25:31:09
Speaker 3
So it's kind of all three factors going into her falling led to such a really long fall.

00:25:31:16 - 00:25:47:14
Speaker 2
And and what was the I mean I'm just going to be devil's advocate here. Like, what was the source of the debris on the rope? Like, was it just kind of shoved in a corner like did it was it properly flaked before the climb? Like, why was there some debris on the rope?

00:25:48:12 - 00:26:06:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, no. There at the base of this route, there was a tree with a looks like a root system. And so there was branches and sticks. So it was definitely flaked out pretty, pretty well. I mean, we had we had certainly picked it up this is another thing to think about, too. We'd certainly picked the rope back up and moved it from side to side.

00:26:07:02 - 00:26:31:13
Speaker 3
And the rope was not entirely in the rope bag because it was starting to the bottom ends of the rope was starting to snag around as it was being said, snag around like the exposed roots and everything like that. So yes, certainly something to think about is like placing a rope, placing your tarp in your rope back down properly and then flaking on the center of your tarp, you know, and things like that.

00:26:31:13 - 00:26:40:20
Speaker 3
We probably didn't take into consideration, you know, again, end of the day, you know, just trying to get one more root in before we walk up to the car kind of thing. So I think.

00:26:40:20 - 00:27:03:04
Speaker 4
It's amalgam of things, right? Like you're looking at zapping a bowl because you're pumped. Once again, we talked about this, Toby Bradford. There's kind of some weird irony there. I think in certain situations, if the climb is steep enough, like really overhanging super steep, really clean falls and it's calculated, you can maybe get away with that more vertical like five, ten, five, 11.

00:27:03:04 - 00:27:21:11
Speaker 4
I think there's going to be less of a place to be doing that, in my opinion. And then I also think the aspect of and it's so easy to judge, so I'm not trying to judge from that. I'm just more so thinking about it like skipping a bowl because you are pumping in itself is kind of like the answer to the question is like, well, if you don't think you can get that, why?

00:27:21:11 - 00:27:39:02
Speaker 4
Why are you going to get the next bowl that's like way higher up and way more dangerous at that? Right. And then the third aspect would be, you know, if there is a ledge on the route and you're skipping a bowl, you've now put into a large fall with a ledge. Right. So I think there's just a lot of factors in there to consider.

00:27:39:02 - 00:27:55:16
Speaker 4
And you're kind of discussing and it's a it's a really great conversation because, you know, I know I know for myself and my own incidents, my own injuries, you know, things can get out of hand really quick from just overlooking, like, a small thing and it's terrifying, right? Right. Yeah. And it can happen to anyone, really.

00:27:55:17 - 00:28:26:22
Speaker 3
So and it's interesting. I even though I did have a huge break and climbing after that trip, I went up and I bought a greenery and like that was the that was like the you guys talked about it was with Cody as well, the ATC versus the greenery discussion and like that that specific thing that that happened to me was a reason that I will always play with a greenery unless I'm, you know, doing a multi pit drought and I'm bringing people up.

00:28:26:22 - 00:28:33:20
Speaker 3
Right? I'll always belay from the bottom with a greenery just because there's there are too many factors.

00:28:34:03 - 00:28:51:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I agree with you. And I think, like you said, we cover this with Cody Bradford and I like what he said. It was like in the end basically agree agree is safer because it does or an assisted breaking device you know to honor his right adamant about referring to devices like that.

00:28:51:18 - 00:28:52:15
Speaker 1
Yeah yeah yeah.

00:28:53:15 - 00:29:20:11
Speaker 2
An assistant breaking device is just there to protect your ass like, I don't know how many times, you know, multipage regular on the ground. Like, you know, maybe someone would label me as a bad player, but if. If I can have my hand on that break strand and take my eyes off my climber for half a second to either grab a bar to, like, shove in my mouth while I'm on a multipage or grab my water and grab some water.

00:29:20:11 - 00:29:40:23
Speaker 2
Or like in your case, take the rope and like flick it out a little bit to get some debris out of the way. I want that that assurance that if for some reason the climber pops off the wall unexpectedly, there's an immediate catch on the rope. And I don't have to worry about just like something traumatic happening and the rope just spinning through the system really quick.

00:29:41:07 - 00:29:51:16
Speaker 2
And unfortunately, with an ATC, that's just something you can't you can't risk. You have to mitigate that and you have to be aware with the risk that you're running when you're using an ATC like that.

00:29:52:15 - 00:29:53:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely.

00:29:53:17 - 00:30:02:08
Speaker 2
And so yeah, I think that in that kind of situation that you had, I think the fall probably would have been a lot less scary if you had been using an assisted breaking device.

00:30:02:08 - 00:30:30:09
Speaker 4
I think what's really interesting with the ATC and obviously like, you know, there's just so many like throwbacks to Cody here but it's you practice a lot the you know, like, you know pull break under slide you know, the kind of motions of an ATC, but a lot of people don't really practice what happens if my partner wildly, unexpectedly falls, or what happens if the rope is like hitting me with debris or if I've taken my hand off like really sudden weird falls.

00:30:30:09 - 00:30:50:09
Speaker 4
And that's of course, like where things are going to go wrong, you know, and people don't practice that, or at least in my estimation, they don't go to the gym and like go like, all right, I want you to just take like a huge whip on a safe thing really randomly without me expecting, like, constantly this whole plan and be like, how many times are you really, like, on point, perfectly ready to go there and stuff, you know?

00:30:51:04 - 00:30:54:15
Speaker 2
So it's probably a dangerous game to play. It's dangerous. I'm not even in a safe.

00:30:55:18 - 00:30:56:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, you.

00:30:56:17 - 00:31:00:03
Speaker 4
Know, maybe how like, pack up or something like clove, like, you know, whatever, some kind of.

00:31:00:03 - 00:31:02:03
Speaker 1
Thing. Yeah, but, but in.

00:31:02:03 - 00:31:02:19
Speaker 2
General, I just.

00:31:02:19 - 00:31:08:16
Speaker 4
Mean I don't really like it's so easy going, you know, you're just like you're just sitting there, pull, break under slide like.

00:31:08:16 - 00:31:09:05
Speaker 2
Doing it.

00:31:09:05 - 00:31:09:20
Speaker 3
It's so easy.

00:31:09:20 - 00:31:18:11
Speaker 4
To get complacent. And if you had 10,000 experiences where it's so easy and so complacent and it outtake and it you could hold the two fingers and.

00:31:18:16 - 00:31:22:15
Speaker 3
There's nothing ever going wrong. And then the one situation that's like.

00:31:22:15 - 00:31:41:07
Speaker 4
Really catastrophic where you do have to like, you know, reopen your hand and might be locked in and like jump on the rope and be so ready. You're not really prepared for that. And that complacency can really get people. I think and I think it's just an important thing to just kind of have a reminder that, you know, like, yeah, it is safe.

00:31:41:07 - 00:31:49:10
Speaker 4
Yeah, it is a well tried and tested system, but complacency can wreck a lot of things.

00:31:49:10 - 00:32:32:00
Speaker 3
Yeah, definitely. And I've had a I've had an experience of all kind of touch on too. We kind of get talking about the Balkans and stuff. We're in Macedonia and a huge piece of Trundle came off of a route that was like relatively I would say it's underdeveloped, but it's pretty underdeveloped. You could tell this nobody had been there in a little while and my one buddy was climbing, mother buddy was playing, and my buddy who is climbing this pulled this huge I mean, probably oh God, maybe the size of like a microwave or a little bit bigger or this huge rock chunk off and it went straight down to to Blair and he walked

00:32:32:00 - 00:32:52:18
Speaker 3
in is eight and he was on ATC, locked in the ATC and just jumped off. We were on a ledge and he just jumped off the ledge and swung around like it was wild. But that was like then. That was a good catch on an ATC. Like, Wow, I'll say no, see that very often. But like, you don't you know for sure it's going to happen with the with with the Gregory or some type of auto blocking device.

00:32:52:18 - 00:32:58:22
Speaker 3
But to make that good of a catch. Yeah because he didn't catch the he didn't catch the climber. He saved it.

00:32:58:22 - 00:33:01:15
Speaker 1
So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he could have just.

00:33:02:01 - 00:33:05:13
Speaker 2
Lost it and slipped off the end of the rope off the ledge, you know. You never know.

00:33:05:14 - 00:33:08:06
Speaker 3
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I was like, well, I think.

00:33:08:06 - 00:33:18:05
Speaker 2
It's funny that we always assimilate is not the right word. We always compare like rock fall to appliances. Like who is the one to.

00:33:18:13 - 00:33:22:20
Speaker 1
To establish rock full appliances? Like this is a refrigerator.

00:33:22:20 - 00:33:25:11
Speaker 2
Sized piece of like this is a microwave.

00:33:25:11 - 00:33:30:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. The toast of the refrigerator. I couldn't have done.

00:33:30:07 - 00:33:32:17
Speaker 2
A different direction. We had to go with appliances.

00:33:33:07 - 00:33:37:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:37:01 - 00:34:01:21
Speaker 2
But yeah, that's. It's definitely, definitely something to think about. And I think that in my experience, the group that are die hard Etsy users are old school and they were around the lane when gregarious or assisted breaking devices weren't a thing and so they're just like, you know, I've been building with Etsy my entire life and like, I know how to use it.

00:34:01:21 - 00:34:09:17
Speaker 2
It's like, cool, I get it. But, you know, I'm sorry, but assistive braking devices are just generally safer. Right.

00:34:10:08 - 00:34:11:10
Speaker 4
Man? Craig's single.

00:34:11:10 - 00:34:11:22
Speaker 3
Pitch.

00:34:11:22 - 00:34:25:06
Speaker 4
Like, honestly, having a Gregory is just a godsend. It's so it's it's so nice. The action of it, everything. Obviously, there's like a financial barrier there, but I feel like most days someone has a great degree, at least in support.

00:34:25:06 - 00:34:26:07
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:26:07 - 00:34:34:10
Speaker 4
And yeah, yeah, you're way better, you know, I'll be able to Craig's sometimes with people and I'll have a Gregory I'll be like, Oh, you want to use Gregor? Like, Oh no, I'm good at coming to see. I'm like.

00:34:35:08 - 00:34:41:22
Speaker 1
Why? Why? You know, like, okay, yeah. Like you're like, just just. I don't get it. Yeah, but, you know, you're like.

00:34:41:22 - 00:34:45:06
Speaker 2
Cody Bradford says you have to use. Yeah. GREGORY So.

00:34:45:15 - 00:34:46:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:47:03 - 00:35:06:22
Speaker 3
Or on the complete inverse of that, I was climbing in Switzerland and we got passed by. We had a group of four and we got passed by these two Swiss guys. I think it was a nine pitches and we got passed on pitch number two and they were using monster hitches. They're using HMS Carabiners monitors and they each have like three quick draws.

00:35:07:03 - 00:35:09:01
Speaker 3
And so they were saying, we're.

00:35:10:22 - 00:35:13:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, they were. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

00:35:13:08 - 00:35:27:00
Speaker 3
And then by the time we got up to like pitch five or six, we looked down in this cooler and they're just walking down. They've gone up, they blew by us, started probably 30 or 45 minutes after us. And then we're walking down. Was it just.

00:35:28:14 - 00:35:34:09
Speaker 1
You know? Yeah, no, we we're on.

00:35:34:09 - 00:35:48:20
Speaker 2
The podcast that's going to come out before you. And he's like in his seventies at this point and he was in the Swiss Alps just like crushing and stuff. So just for our audience and everybody who listens to all these episodes, it'll be a good it'll be funny.

00:35:48:20 - 00:35:52:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. No more videos.

00:35:52:05 - 00:35:53:02
Speaker 3
It was interesting.

00:35:53:12 - 00:35:54:19
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah. For sure.

00:35:55:13 - 00:35:58:04
Speaker 1
Oh, but yeah. I mean.

00:35:58:04 - 00:36:01:08
Speaker 2
That's. That's a lot, man. Safety.

00:36:01:08 - 00:36:01:17
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:36:02:08 - 00:36:09:05
Speaker 2
Rock climbing. It's dangerous sport. You had mentioned that your your father. When when did that happen?

00:36:10:13 - 00:36:31:10
Speaker 3
Yeah. So 2018. Yeah, he just turned four. My son just turned four and I've taken them probably five or six times this summer. It's spring and summer. I take him out. We do some like really. He just goes and walks around on the trail and he clips a whole bunch of carabiners to his harness.

00:36:32:10 - 00:36:32:19
Speaker 1
In one of.

00:36:32:19 - 00:36:59:02
Speaker 3
The full body harnesses. And he goes around the trail and falls and scrapes his knees. But yeah, so, you know, I start taking him and I take him climbing with me and yeah, to look at the risk type, you know, like the risk factors with that one. It's, it's really interesting people who climb are just so blown away that I take him climbing.

00:36:59:16 - 00:37:18:03
Speaker 3
But then people who do climb whenever I'm out at the crag or somewhere climbing, they're like, That's so cool. Actually We had our kids out there and like, you know, the baby carriers. And we were, you know, like every like everyone who does climb gets it. So it's really interesting. It's like this really cool dynamic. And so, you know, I got him a helmet.

00:37:18:03 - 00:37:40:23
Speaker 3
He's got a full body harness. He I got him some old gym shoes that I bought for like $20. When the gym split, SWAT swapped out their new shoes. And so, yeah. And I go and I climb, I climb with him and I, I take things pretty. It's obviously very low grade. I get them on like the biggest jugs that I can possibly find.

00:37:42:09 - 00:38:06:01
Speaker 3
But then with that, when I go climb. Now for myself, it's all it's like always a thought in the back of my mind and I don't necessarily let it affect me. I'm like, you know, if I'm doing something that's relatively safe, relatively easy, well within my grade, it doesn't really affect the risk that I'm willing to take.

00:38:07:07 - 00:38:25:04
Speaker 2
You're saying that there is that. Yeah, there's not a lot of risk that you're you're kind of mitigating now in terms of like the difference. But having a kid and not but were were you more of a risky climber for this the close call and before your kid like did you do any soloing were you more prone to taking run outs?

00:38:25:04 - 00:38:30:00
Speaker 2
Like, all right, would you consider yourself a more conservative climber now than before? Right.

00:38:30:22 - 00:39:10:14
Speaker 3
No. So so I'm if it's something that's well within my well within my my abilities, like I have no problems running stuff out, which is interesting and weird and we're talking about risk and and with the kid. But I think that my view on risk now with having my son and getting him into climbing kind of steers me more towards the education aspect of it and like diving more into learning, you know, I try to take every opportunity that I can to learn a new system, to learn a new trick, to learn a new piece of gear I, i spend.

00:39:10:16 - 00:39:32:12
Speaker 3
I'm sure you guys do, too. I spent a lot of money on gear and equipment, and if there's something new that's that could maybe make my climbing with him simpler or maybe make my climbing in general simpler or safer, then I try to buy that or I try to, you know, at least learn, learn about it. And if I want to buy it, I it's a great way to go.

00:39:32:13 - 00:39:36:18
Speaker 1
Last year. Yeah, yeah. It's a it's an easy way.

00:39:36:18 - 00:39:44:05
Speaker 3
To stay on. This is going to be a lot safer. And then, you know, it's stays in my climbing box in my house whenever I go because my I don't really need it. Yeah, I.

00:39:44:05 - 00:39:57:14
Speaker 2
Think it's so funny. Like even even trad gear, like you spending all this money on this gear and you're like, it's so sick, but you don't even use it to climb. Like, it's just there to protect you. If you fall and you fuck, it's just like climb. Well, it's like.

00:39:58:05 - 00:40:01:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's like it's like juxtapositions.

00:40:01:06 - 00:40:06:02
Speaker 2
Like, I'm spending so much money on this thing that's not even going to help me do what I do. Yes.

00:40:06:17 - 00:40:07:01
Speaker 3
Yes.

00:40:07:19 - 00:40:15:08
Speaker 1
More weight. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Slower, exactly. Yeah. But yeah, I get it, man.

00:40:16:12 - 00:40:39:23
Speaker 3
And I try to, you know, I take that and I tried to teach him. I mean, guys for like just turned 42. So like his whole summer we've been climbing, he's been like three and a half and like, it's been really fun. He climbs maybe. I think the highest he's climbed outside is like eight feet. Like he'll get just above my head and then he'll look down and he'll say, Oh shit.

00:40:40:07 - 00:40:41:07
Speaker 3
And then he'll want to.

00:40:41:07 - 00:40:43:09
Speaker 1
Come down here.

00:40:43:09 - 00:40:47:23
Speaker 4
Paraphrasing right?

00:40:47:23 - 00:40:57:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. I bet there's not a direct record like. Oh yeah, what.

00:40:57:01 - 00:41:00:10
Speaker 3
I can see it in that. I can see it in his eyes. He just doesn't know he wants to say that.

00:41:00:17 - 00:41:03:10
Speaker 1
So yeah but no he.

00:41:03:21 - 00:41:30:15
Speaker 3
He, he does like to swing. So it's actually an interesting thing. Like it gets me thinking about it a lot. It's like, okay, so if he comes down and he's eye level with me, he does like the swing, so he trusts the harness enough. He trusts the hell me trust the rope. So he trusts his equipment enough to like be okay, like sitting in it, which to me that that is more important than like having him some four year old make some like the youngest incentive.

00:41:30:15 - 00:41:32:05
Speaker 3
So I don't I don't really care about it.

00:41:32:05 - 00:41:34:05
Speaker 1
That that's not exactly.

00:41:34:12 - 00:41:39:02
Speaker 2
As there have been the youngest incentive things like is that the next chapter of climbing.

00:41:39:09 - 00:41:43:00
Speaker 4
Dude I think there's like 11 year olds crushing 514. So that's that's.

00:41:43:06 - 00:41:46:09
Speaker 1
Okay. Yeah. Right, right.

00:41:46:19 - 00:42:14:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. So the fact that he the fact that he like, trust the harness, he trusts the rope. And I think mostly because he doesn't know any different like it's on him, like I'm putting it on him like he knows that like I'm, I'm not going to steer him wrong, but it's interesting and it helps, I think in the long run it will help him if he does decide to get into climbing, if he does want to continue something in the mountains that like he can, he knows that he can trust the gear as long as he uses it properly.

00:42:14:15 - 00:42:44:07
Speaker 4
No, I think climbing a really interesting sport because there's so many sports that teach you like physical competency where you understand like body mechanics and learn how to do things. But climbing is kind of this amalgamation of almost like trades safety and physical competency, right? And so you're learning all these skills, you're learning safety. There's a lot of really interesting things that you can teach people of all ages through climbing.

00:42:44:17 - 00:43:11:16
Speaker 4
I think that transfer really, really well into society and that's calculating risk, that's understanding systems, that's understanding equipment, that's understanding your body it's it's understanding how to communicate about safety. I think it's a really unique and a sport. You know, I don't know really any other sport where you have to have that kind of dialog and that kind of competency and that you can start teaching that to kids at a really young age.

00:43:11:23 - 00:43:42:06
Speaker 4
And I think that's so good for kids, you know, and and I do think of what you're saying, where you have your friends who don't climb and they go, Oh, this is crazy, you know, cause they don't really understand it. But in general, I think we have this, this, this culture that kind of maybe started in maybe that the eighties where it's, it's like this culture of safety ism and helicopter parenting, like hovering over your kid and making sure your kid can't do any wrong and putting them in these sports and, you know, not letting them out into the world to kind of learn these experiences and stuff.

00:43:42:06 - 00:44:06:00
Speaker 4
And I think you like the 1990s generation is kind of one of the last generations where they really got to go out. Like I grew up fighting kids sticks in the park, you know what I mean? And yeah, crazy stuff. And everybody, you know, everybody knows me. I'll talk to I gen, which I think is like 95 on maybe like 97 later they don't have that experience at all.

00:44:06:01 - 00:44:07:09
Speaker 2
So vapes and iPods.

00:44:07:09 - 00:44:08:07
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly.

00:44:08:07 - 00:44:08:15
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:44:08:15 - 00:44:20:08
Speaker 4
Electronics, it's really different. And and I think that it's really easy to just look at saying, okay, a whole bunch of people, you know, larping or sticks fighting in the park. Like, that's really dumb. But you actually learn a lot about how to, like.

00:44:20:14 - 00:44:24:08
Speaker 3
Communicate with people and have fun and like learn skills.

00:44:24:08 - 00:44:42:09
Speaker 4
And how to play fairly with kids. Like you learn a lot of really interesting skills from that that we really like to overlook. And I think climbing is kind of an extension of that in a sense. It's, it's played but mixed with a lot of skill building that. Yeah, I think like I'm not a dad, but I'm really excited to have kids one.

00:44:42:09 - 00:44:43:15
Speaker 1
Day and.

00:44:44:04 - 00:44:47:08
Speaker 4
You know, hopefully, you know my kid likes climbing he better.

00:44:48:12 - 00:44:53:00
Speaker 1
You see. Yeah yeah. I'm just kidding. Yeah, but.

00:44:53:05 - 00:45:04:04
Speaker 4
But yeah, I can't wait to think of that. That'd be such an amazing thing to be able to go share with, like a child that I have, you know, and teach them about safety in this kind of aspect of the sport. So I think that's awesome that you're doing that.

00:45:04:04 - 00:45:22:07
Speaker 3
And yeah, I appreciate it. It's it's it's definitely interesting does love the mountains like he loves the mountains. He sees trees in the distance and he goes, oh, look, the mountains like now those aren't mountains, but, you know, good, good try. So, you know, it's fun. It's it's been a lot of it's a learning experience for sure.

00:45:23:06 - 00:45:25:08
Speaker 1
So yeah.

00:45:26:11 - 00:45:45:13
Speaker 2
Max, I mean, super well said. I think that it's it is so just an awesome way for a kid to be in nature and to learn all those skills, you know, and and to Chris like the fact that he's like trusting the systems and stuff, I think that's so crucial. Like when I'm introducing people to the sport, that's the first thing I do.

00:45:45:13 - 00:46:03:13
Speaker 2
Like at the gym, I get them two feet off the ground and I say like, Oh, like you have to build that fundamental trust in the system before you, you know, get high enough off the ground where you could injure yourself. And so I think that, you know, in his future fish climbing career.

00:46:04:06 - 00:46:04:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I.

00:46:04:21 - 00:46:06:18
Speaker 2
Think this is great. That's a great start.

00:46:06:23 - 00:46:08:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:08:21 - 00:46:30:08
Speaker 3
No, it's it's definitely yeah. It's definitely been been fun to watch him kind of take it up a little bit. Like I take him to the gym does like to go to the gym as well. So like it's, it's just interesting watching him kind of take in and absorb the different parts of the climbing community because there are a lot of different parts.

00:46:31:04 - 00:46:45:21
Speaker 3
So it's been it's been quite a quite interesting journey through the last that I got him doing it. Yeah. Probably for the last like eight or nine months is what we've really been doing. So he's, he's also Christopher. He's a junior.

00:46:45:23 - 00:46:46:17
Speaker 2
Okay. Christopher.

00:46:46:20 - 00:46:50:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah.

00:46:50:16 - 00:46:52:03
Speaker 3
Not made it easy on myself.

00:46:52:09 - 00:46:55:12
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:46:55:12 - 00:47:20:09
Speaker 2
I try to think about people like Tommy Caldwell and Alex Nottle now having a kid, it's like that's the big question is like, are you going to climb still? Like, are you going to solo still? It's like it doesn't seem like a change as much because I think that for the most part, every person isn't just going out there and saying, I'm going to die today or like Right, to go out and kill myself.

00:47:20:09 - 00:47:48:19
Speaker 2
Or I think I might kill myself. Like, I think that for the most part, again, most people, when they're climbing, regardless of how much quote unquote risk exposure they have, they feel like they're in control. And I think that that's the biggest thing. It's like your your competence and your ability and your risk management all goes into whether or not you feel exposed to the risk or not.

00:47:49:02 - 00:48:07:17
Speaker 2
And I think that as a father and as a climber who's been climbing for for multiple years, you understand that boundary pretty well and you're able to translate that. So I think that it makes a lot of sense for people who who don't get it and the people who just just straight up understand.

00:48:08:14 - 00:48:11:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, but yeah.

00:48:11:03 - 00:48:34:09
Speaker 2
So circling back, I think we're we're backtracking a little bit here in the timeline. But, you know, you said you joined the Army, you kind of got moved around and shuffled around a bit with jobs. And then I think the next translation to this to the storyline here is you getting stationed out in Europe, kind of talk to us a little bit about what you were doing out there and how that that journey started.

00:48:35:05 - 00:48:42:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. So with my job, we go to some pretty cool places. So like I've been to, I've worked in realty.

00:48:43:14 - 00:48:47:13
Speaker 2
What do you, what do you do? Because now you're trying to sell software. What did you do when you were in Europe?

00:48:47:19 - 00:49:14:12
Speaker 3
A Yeah, so, so I'm in a small branch of special operations called Civil Affairs, okay? And we deal with predominantly the civilian domain, right? The civilian population of an area that we're working in or that the US has some type of vested interest in. And in Max, you're in Canada, right? So Canada has the same concept with native cynic.

00:49:14:12 - 00:49:57:21
Speaker 3
It's the same same type of same platform, just a little bit different suite. So we work. So I've worked in throughout the Middle East Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Djibouti and Africa. And then and this particular rotation that got me back into climbing, I worked, we lived and worked for a unit that was in Germany, in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and we worked predominantly in the Balkans and mostly in Macedonia and Albania.

00:49:59:03 - 00:50:23:19
Speaker 3
And we did travel through Kosovo a couple of times. But yeah, we spent most of our time was split between Macedonia and Albania, and then my free time was spent in Germany, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg got to do the whole the whole tour, right? Did the whole like bouncing around the Schengen zone on my free time, which was a lot of fun.

00:50:24:10 - 00:50:48:10
Speaker 3
I got to do a lot of, a lot of great climbing, exposed to a lot of different rock type, a lot of different climbing communities, as you know, like the kind of up and coming climbing communities, the ones that are, you know, newer, not as big, very grassroots. And that was for me, that was Macedonia and then a little bit in Albania as well.

00:50:49:07 - 00:51:14:20
Speaker 3
So so yeah, spent I got over there in September so it's been right out a year now since I went over there. So I got there September of 20 and we were there for seven months and my team was there for seven months and we were pretty much in and out of Albania and Macedonia for about three weeks every month.

00:51:15:08 - 00:51:40:09
Speaker 3
Wow. We were we were in in the Balkans. And so that was really cool. Yeah. I mean, Macedonia was fantastic. I mean, I could get I could sit and go on and on and on for days about how the opportunities that we had there were really, really cool and the people were fantastic. If you want to like give me a topic and then we'll kind of.

00:51:40:09 - 00:51:41:14
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I mean.

00:51:42:14 - 00:52:09:17
Speaker 2
You know, just to preface the future conversation here, you know, I, I went to Albania. Gosh, we left in November of 2020 and soon, man. And we came back in May of 2021. Yeah. And so we probably missed each other by like four months, something like.

00:52:09:17 - 00:52:11:15
Speaker 1
That. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:11:15 - 00:52:40:21
Speaker 2
So I spent all my time in Albania, a little bit in Montenegro, not in Macedonia yeah, but yeah. It's crazy that we were, we were so close in the timeline there. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, the area out there just, you know, at least in Albania, this is my experience, super grassroots. Like there was a very small climbing community that circled around a climbing gym and it was a bouldering gym and it was like shoved in this, like.

00:52:41:15 - 00:52:45:08
Speaker 3
Dark alley, dark alley, dark alley, a back alley.

00:52:45:09 - 00:52:48:06
Speaker 2
Like the first time you go there, you're like super soft on everything.

00:52:49:07 - 00:52:58:18
Speaker 3
And yeah, what do you think? Funny thing, when we went there the first time as we drove there, and I'm sure you probably get there's no parking.

00:52:59:00 - 00:53:00:14
Speaker 1
Nothing like that we.

00:53:00:14 - 00:53:05:00
Speaker 3
Want that is driving back to our hotel and parking our car and walking back over.

00:53:05:00 - 00:53:05:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, you.

00:53:05:14 - 00:53:09:04
Speaker 2
You don't drive too. You don't drive to Toronto. There's no parking.

00:53:09:04 - 00:53:10:23
Speaker 1
There. Yeah. Yeah.

00:53:11:15 - 00:53:23:06
Speaker 2
So I mean, let's just talk about Albania because I've got yeah, we can circle into Macedonia afterward, you know. So you, you went, you went to Tirana, you met Leon and his girlfriend and all that. Yeah, it was the whole group.

00:53:23:23 - 00:53:50:01
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we went there. I think it was like our first trip. Our first trip to the Balkans. So a lot of times we'd fly into one of the airports, either Skopje or Toronto, whichever one we were going to leave, and we would rent a car there and then that we would just go back and forth. So I think our first trip, we flew into Tirana and we we tried to figure out what to do.

00:53:50:01 - 00:54:07:03
Speaker 3
One night was pouring down rain and my buddy was like, Hey, they have a rocks in here. Like, why don't we just go and climb? And so that's what we did. So we went and we climbed. We met the whole group and were like poking around like, hey, you know, is this the right place when we get back there?

00:54:07:03 - 00:54:39:14
Speaker 3
Like, it's just kind of in this back alley, like, yeah, like kind of sketched out at first and then they were super welcoming. We explained to them like who we were and like why we were there. And then there was like, Yeah, how fun. Like we paid our, I don't know, €7 or €6 or whatever. It was just like and just brought all of our stuff with us and we climbed for, I don't know, a couple of hours and spend a couple of hours in that tiny, tiny of a gem was, it was really cool.

00:54:39:14 - 00:55:06:12
Speaker 3
It was just a really cool experience and then we went to the only place that we got, we had the time to climb in was a villa, was Lake Villa. That was the only place that we got to go out and climb. That just given our time constraints and like distance and everything, all seemed pretty far away, but it was such a cool experience to get out there some and we probably had a lot more.

00:55:06:20 - 00:55:17:16
Speaker 2
Experiences there for like eight months. So we, we got like monthly memberships that rock Tirana we like. Yeah. Well, Villa, I don't know, probably like six times.

00:55:18:12 - 00:55:18:21
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:55:19:04 - 00:55:24:04
Speaker 2
And then yeah we, we lived and breathed Albania. We, we almost became Albanians.

00:55:25:01 - 00:55:28:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. But yeah.

00:55:28:06 - 00:55:35:02
Speaker 2
Man, I mean, I don't know exactly where I want to take this, but I guess just.

00:55:35:02 - 00:55:36:13
Speaker 1
The, the, the.

00:55:38:01 - 00:56:02:10
Speaker 2
Let's talk about the community itself. Like just how small it is and how like grassroots it is. Like this guy Leon, he runs the climbing gym. He is the president, I want to say, of climbing in Albania. Like anybody come into Albania that wants to establish new roots has to go through him and some and he complains about them.

00:56:03:00 - 00:56:03:02
Speaker 1
Know.

00:56:03:22 - 00:56:17:07
Speaker 2
There's there's this there's this climbing area south of Tirana called Jeep Canyon. And Chris, if you ever have a chance to go back to Albania, that is the place. You cannot miss it. Okay.

00:56:17:19 - 00:56:18:18
Speaker 1
I'll. I'll, uh.

00:56:19:01 - 00:56:36:16
Speaker 2
I don't know. I don't know how to share pictures of it. I have pictures of it, but it's like this giant canyon that just opens up into the Mediterranean all of a sudden. And so you get to climb on these big multipage like limestone canyon walls and then just like go out into like crystal, aqua blue water for your break and the beach.

00:56:36:16 - 00:56:50:08
Speaker 2
It's just like it's surreal. But yeah, he's always talking about like Germans coming to Jeep and all teen routes and not be like talking to him and using bad bolts and bad gear. It is like the fucking Germans use shit.

00:56:50:08 - 00:56:53:09
Speaker 1
Bolts, you know?

00:56:53:09 - 00:57:13:10
Speaker 2
It's just funny to see like such an uncontrolled wild west of climbing out. There it is. You know, you have people coming from all over the world just showing up. And if they don't do their research to them, it's free terrain. They just get like, wow, like this is a bolt. This is a wall has never been bolted.

00:57:13:10 - 00:57:41:20
Speaker 2
Or there's a few bolts off to the left, but I don't know who put them up. Like there's not a lot of rules and regulations out there. And so you've got people just kind of like throwing stuff up and I guess as, as a message to anybody go into to foreign countries that that you might think you're establishing first sense or you might be the one that's projecting a certain wall, like do some research and try to find if there is an established climbing community.

00:57:41:20 - 00:58:04:15
Speaker 2
Now these day and age is there probably is there's probably a climbing community. There's probably someone that's head pointing or sharpened in the development of these areas. So just at least do your your your due diligence and have some respect for the climbing community out there to to reach out to someone to to get a lay of the land and figure out what the local customs are and what people are trying to do at these crags and stuff.

00:58:04:15 - 00:58:06:17
Speaker 2
Because definitely makes a difference.

00:58:07:15 - 00:58:37:15
Speaker 3
In the terrain in in that region is super interesting as well. So geographically speaking, Albania goes from the coast, it's the agency because the coast and then towards on the on the the western part of the country and then it goes to the eastern part of the country, which is some pretty stout mountains there. I don't know all of our elevation wise how big they are, but I mean, there's there's snow capped mountains through July.

00:58:37:16 - 00:58:57:16
Speaker 3
I mean, there, you know, July, August, there's still snow up to I'm not sure the elevation on them, but then it falls into into Macedonia. And so I was you know, I, I follow along. I try to keep up to date with like the guys on Rock, Toronto and and they were doing some mountaineering this spring out there like they do.

00:58:58:00 - 00:59:24:03
Speaker 3
They do everything and like the community is and it's everyone who sport climbs. They have the group of people that will sport climb. That same group of people will go out and they'll do this alpine mountaineering style climbing as well. And so the community, you know, it's not like here and the same goes for Macedonian, the same guys, they're more like they have the Alpine community and then they have a sport climbing community.

00:59:24:10 - 00:59:48:11
Speaker 3
But it's not like here we're like sport climbers. Don't talk to the Alpinist and the alpinist definitely don't talk to the boulders. And yeah, you know, it's like it's very divided here in the US. I'm sure it is the same up in Canada as well, probably just North America thing. Yeah, it's like everybody there, you're going to climb the mountain like regardless of how you're climbing it, that's just climbing like this.

00:59:48:13 - 00:59:51:11
Speaker 3
Climbing is this big. It's everything.

00:59:52:04 - 00:59:52:17
Speaker 1
For sure.

00:59:53:06 - 01:00:27:00
Speaker 2
I would agree with that sentiment. It seems like there's definitely no division and at least in Albania tried climbing was like pretty nonexistent. He was the was talking about his my buddy and I were talking about doing objectives up in felt boner and Seth which are like the Albanian Alps and we actually went up there and like spent some time up in those mountains and just like, like you said, the elevation isn't super tall, but the vertical relief from ground to peak is huge.

01:00:27:00 - 01:00:46:13
Speaker 2
Right. I'm pretty sure it's like 8 to 10000 feet. It's like not much more than that, but because of its geographical location and the storms like it get just hammered with snow in the winter and it just sticks around for a really long time. But the mountains are made of limestone out there. They're not. Yep, they're not. Since very stark.

01:00:46:13 - 01:00:48:19
Speaker 3
Lines down to, like, huge.

01:00:48:21 - 01:01:14:14
Speaker 2
8000 feet tall mountains of limestone. It's like pretty nuts. And, you know, for all those people who haven't climbed on European limestone placing travel, that is pretty sus. Yeah. It's not like a granite crack. It's like you've got these tiny little sharp pockets you might sling a little baby chicken thorn or whatever, you know, like, it's like nuts.

01:01:14:14 - 01:01:20:15
Speaker 2
There's not a lot of camps and like, Ilyin puts it pretty much all the gear your place is for emotional support.

01:01:21:10 - 01:01:22:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

01:01:23:10 - 01:01:48:08
Speaker 3
Especially on, like, new routes like that, you know, European one stone in European line. So there are some climbs in in in Macedonia where like you just climb long, you know, there's a whole dinner plate size rock that you just pulled out, you know, just toss it off to the side and keep on sucking up like it's it can be pretty, pretty sketchy at some some points for sure.

01:01:48:08 - 01:01:54:23
Speaker 2
It's not established. So I think we take it for granted here in America just how established the sport of climbing really is.

01:01:55:13 - 01:01:55:20
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:01:56:13 - 01:02:15:03
Speaker 2
Just from there being bolts at a wall that needs bolts to, you know, I don't know if you came across this, but some of the anchors, like the sport anchors that climbs were just two bolts with like a really sun damaged rope, like knotted to each bolt. It's. You ever know.

01:02:15:03 - 01:02:18:10
Speaker 3
I said no, I didn't, but I fucking hate it.

01:02:18:14 - 01:02:41:00
Speaker 2
I fucking hated those. Like I would come up. It was like a 12 bolt climb. I get to the top and it's two good bolts, but there's like there's sun damaged rope that's tied and knotted to each bolt, and you're supposed to, like, run your rope around the rope and obviously repel off it because you don't want to lower off of rope on rope friction.

01:02:41:12 - 01:02:42:06
Speaker 1
But yeah.

01:02:43:04 - 01:02:46:19
Speaker 4
Well, even the rope would damage that. That's wild. Whoever.

01:02:46:20 - 01:02:47:06
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:02:47:17 - 01:02:51:23
Speaker 2
It was, the Germans would blame it on the Germans.

01:02:52:10 - 01:02:57:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. Plan on the Germans. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean.

01:02:57:04 - 01:03:10:01
Speaker 2
Not only like route development and stuff, but access I don't know about in Macedonia, but in Albania. Like get into the cracks. You need. You know, we would rent vehicles and they're like, okay, you can't take this off road. And we're like.

01:03:10:16 - 01:03:12:20
Speaker 1
Okay, oh yeah, yeah, okay.

01:03:14:08 - 01:03:16:12
Speaker 3
Like dirt sprayed all over the sides.

01:03:16:21 - 01:03:19:07
Speaker 1
Well, we would go to the car.

01:03:19:07 - 01:03:34:00
Speaker 2
What was it called? Oh, I'm so disappointed in myself. I can't think of the Albanian name for the car wash, but we would like get it washed down by the Albanians before, so we'd like chop it off all clean and shiny. I don't know what's more suspect it had drop off a dirty car or a car.

01:03:34:01 - 01:03:37:00
Speaker 3
Couldn't go horribly.

01:03:37:00 - 01:03:38:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, even even.

01:03:38:15 - 01:03:57:11
Speaker 3
Like going to the villa, like, you go through that dude, that's. That's like, whole, like, you get back there and you're like, okay, you know, Google Maps does pretty good, but like, Google Maps can also get kind of sketchy in Albania. And so like you all of a sudden you're just in this dirt road and it's like two feet, potholes.

01:03:57:11 - 01:04:02:14
Speaker 3
You got to. Yes, it's it's like you said, like you're like driving like.

01:04:02:18 - 01:04:12:21
Speaker 2
Farmers who haven't seen a computer ever in their lives. And they're like like riding their donkeys and they're just, like, looking at you as you drive by. It's another fucking world, dude.

01:04:12:21 - 01:04:13:11
Speaker 4
That's awesome.

01:04:13:15 - 01:04:14:00
Speaker 1
But it's.

01:04:14:00 - 01:04:38:14
Speaker 3
Soup. I think that, like, that's part of the whole experience. Like, that's the really cool part of it all. Yeah. And there's a lot of that in, in Macedonia as well. Like one of the crags that Vlado is Vlado is to Macedonia, is alien, is two Albanian, right, owns the border, owns that. He owns the, the gym in Skopje.

01:04:38:21 - 01:04:48:18
Speaker 3
And actually it's funny, every time, every time we'd say, Oh yeah, we're going to Albania, he goes, I'll tell you this. And I said, Hello, because he just knew that we were going to be going to rock through on as well.

01:04:48:18 - 01:04:49:10
Speaker 1
But yeah, yeah.

01:04:50:04 - 01:05:10:21
Speaker 3
During COVID, they, they developed this entire new area and it was the same thing. Like you drive, you going, you're going down the freeway and then they're like, Hey, hop off the freeway here. And there's like a cut in the fence. And they had the fences rolled back and it's is dirt road. And it takes you it takes you passes landfill.

01:05:10:21 - 01:05:27:00
Speaker 3
You go down, pass the landfill, and then it spits out on the side road of the town. And then you go into this town and up and over the hill and like, boom. Then like there's a gate in the crag and a sign that says, welcome to, you know, whatever, you know, vertical sport, put this up and it's wild.

01:05:27:00 - 01:05:43:22
Speaker 3
Like it's just a whole new, you know, they don't have I mean, they have state parks and like national parks and stuff like that, but it's nothing like what you get here where like you want to go climb in Rocky Mountain National Park or you want to go climb. Like even for us, some of our places are state parks.

01:05:43:22 - 01:06:06:01
Speaker 3
You have to pay like a fee or parking or for whatever the reason is. But yeah, it's like it's absolutely insane. It's like this the on the developed me the developing aspect of climbing in places like that. But nonetheless it's like they have such a fantastic community that is continually developing it. Yeah.

01:06:06:04 - 01:06:18:07
Speaker 2
And they're so psyched. Yeah. So psyched about it. And it's like we have freeways and roads and dirt roads that take us everywhere and we're like, Oh, we got to hike three miles out there.

01:06:18:16 - 01:06:21:08
Speaker 1
You know? Yeah, now out.

01:06:21:08 - 01:06:43:11
Speaker 2
There, it's like you're lucky to have a road that gets you within a certain distance of where you're trying to go. And right. The, the easier cherries to pick are the ones that are going to go the fastest. And That's just goes to show you in these areas, like if you're if you're willing to to hike it, are you willing to explore the A and the establishment opportunities are absolutely endless.

01:06:44:05 - 01:06:44:14
Speaker 1
Right?

01:06:44:18 - 01:07:07:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there is. There is some really cool, um, just some really cool areas and you ask, what do you like? Oh, you know who built this? Oh, I didn't like. Yeah. Oh, okay. This is like all about this. He was able to that to make his team like they went in and they bolted all they have, like gone in and bolted the entire country.

01:07:08:10 - 01:07:28:21
Speaker 3
He, he owns like his shop that he he has a he has his climbing gym, then a shop and they're a petzel distributor. So he's got a deal with Petzel and and they, he buys bolts and everything like that from, from them and like they just go and they find a route, they get a group of people together.

01:07:28:21 - 01:08:00:04
Speaker 3
It like they have the same group of people that kind of climb most of the other routes. They get this group of people together, they go off and do a first ascent and bolt like and that's it. And it's they just have this huge, this huge, like repository of of roots and, um, I don't know if Albania has, has this or if you had an experience like other than word of mouth, like Macedonia has it's climb Macedonia and it's their website.

01:08:00:05 - 01:08:26:11
Speaker 3
It has, it's like their mountain project, right? It's what they have. Everything has all the descriptions, the approaches, the parking. And then everything in Macedonia that is bolted has in some of the trad stuff how it as well has the root name written at the bottom of the route in Macedonian. So that was really, really helpful. I don't know why we don't do that in the US, but mean.

01:08:26:14 - 01:08:38:05
Speaker 2
There are some cracks that do that. But it's definitely mountain project heavy and that was I was like you said that was definitely something that was funny going out to that area. Was it Mountain Project was not a useful tool at all?

01:08:38:05 - 01:08:38:12
Speaker 1
No.

01:08:38:23 - 01:08:39:12
Speaker 3
Not at all.

01:08:39:12 - 01:09:04:04
Speaker 2
And in Albania, 27 Crags was actually the app that had the information that we needed. It was a paid service. I think it was ten bucks a month, but it had the information on the tracks that we were looking for. Outside of that, there was a a a local website, I think that was designed by Lien called Climb Albania.

01:09:04:04 - 01:09:30:10
Speaker 2
It was a little bit more rudimentary. It did have information about the cracks, but it was like it was like, you know, I mean, even Mountain Project sometimes you're looking at these routes and you're looking at that description. It's like pretty specific, but somehow it's still really hard to figure out where you're supposed to go where. Yeah, like so unless you've ever been there before, like, all this information is sometimes useless because you still get lost.

01:09:30:19 - 01:09:41:17
Speaker 2
And out in Albania, in a foreign country like you don't have a mountain project. And all you have is this like PDF document that you got off this sketchy website with like a picture of the crag.

01:09:42:01 - 01:09:42:16
Speaker 1
And the.

01:09:43:03 - 01:10:04:05
Speaker 2
Know directions on how to get there. And you're just like, all right, like, let me fucking figure out how to get here. And yeah, it's definitely we take that for granted as well as not only there's accessibility, accessibility issue, but information on how to access these places in the first place. It's just like out there is you got to know people to know where you're going to go.

01:10:04:21 - 01:10:34:19
Speaker 3
Pretty much pretty much every crag that we went to, we relied heavily on the old school. Yep. You're going to go down to the tractor tire that's in the middle of the road. Then you're going to take a left and then you're going to go down in the tree stump. We rely very heavy on that, so much so that we missed we missed an exit to get off this one area called Demir Cappy, probably one of the most beautiful canyons I've seen and and we missed the exit to go where the where the climbing parking lot was.

01:10:34:19 - 01:10:52:16
Speaker 3
And we wound up having to drive 30 minutes one way to the next exit to then get off, turn around and drive 30 minutes back the other direction. Because that was the only that was the only way to get off the road. Yeah, I would. Yeah. Wow. And, and it was like dang mountain project or like all trails or something.

01:10:52:16 - 01:10:54:10
Speaker 3
It sure would be nice right about now.

01:10:54:10 - 01:10:55:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah.

01:10:55:08 - 01:11:11:22
Speaker 2
And it's like, what is it? Is it our job is as Americans coming out to these areas to establish routes on Mountain Project or do these do these organizations and people even want to because they definitely have the opportunity to put it on a project and they don't. So like maybe it's by design.

01:11:12:16 - 01:11:33:05
Speaker 3
I had a, I had a conversation with, with a guy at the US Embassy that we were basically we were working for him while we were in Macedonia, and he is part of the Vermont National Guard and that will kind of get into that like, you know, maybe tie everything up with the later part of my military career.

01:11:33:05 - 01:12:15:16
Speaker 3
But he we talked about that and we talked about do you do you put all of this information out there for the general public to use because it one it could really boost income for the for the country and tourism I think I think like bringing in like using in Europe they use the cracked com like that's the big website we use a lot in Germany, France and Switzerland and then there's nothing on on mountain project for I mean there's some things but but then you start publishing all this stuff on Mountain Project, maybe it brings more people in.

01:12:15:16 - 01:12:42:14
Speaker 3
But yeah, it's like the it's you, the double edged sword, right? You want to bring a lot of people in, but then you also like in Bovill, I don't know if you guys saw this, but it's a popular like van, like spot. People will tour around Europe and their vans will stop in Albania once because it's it's very beautiful, but it's also cheap to live in, to live there, to stay there for a little while.

01:12:42:19 - 01:13:04:20
Speaker 3
And then they were always camping. But there was like generally when I went there, there's quite a few people there and it gets crowded and like, you know, it's such a remote place. Like you're kind of waiting en route to, you know, so it's the double edged sword. Like, do you want to bring a lot of people in or you do want to keep those, like, hidden gems in those countries to to themselves.

01:13:04:20 - 01:13:19:08
Speaker 3
So I think I think, in my opinion that would be it would be up to the to the community in the country to upload those things to to attract the proper people or people like us saying, hey, go climb in Albania in Macedonia.

01:13:20:05 - 01:13:35:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think that, that, yeah, that level of spreading the word I think is probably acceptable growth. But yeah, just, I don't know, like you said, I think that it's up to the community to decide where they're sharing the information on the Internet and that up to us.

01:13:35:13 - 01:13:36:00
Speaker 1
Um.

01:13:36:12 - 01:14:01:23
Speaker 2
But I think that that that the issue of overgrowth and overdevelopment is an issue that's felt everywhere. Yeah. Even at places that are already super established. And unfortunately, as the sport continues to grow, I mean, this sport in general is in its infancy and we are at these like beginning stages of exponential growth and we are just beginning to see the consequences of of that growth.

01:14:02:06 - 01:14:46:11
Speaker 2
And we, we really don't know, like, how far that's going to go and, and to think that it's unavoidable in certain areas, I think is is not accurate. I think that the the overlap probably in the future will become a hotspot for people to go to more than it already is. So and I think it's just a matter of setting up these foundations like the AC and the access fund to help control the growth, to help sustain these areas through the growth and to help keep these things accessible to larger and larger amounts of people because it's going to become an if not already is a full time job that just needs to be handled.

01:14:47:03 - 01:14:48:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, I agree.

01:14:48:20 - 01:14:49:06
Speaker 1
I agree.

01:14:49:06 - 01:14:52:00
Speaker 3
I think there are they they're permitting.

01:14:52:08 - 01:14:53:02
Speaker 1
That I read that.

01:14:53:09 - 01:15:00:00
Speaker 3
They're permitting of 70 this year in order to own 70. Yeah. That was the start of this year.

01:15:00:01 - 01:15:08:08
Speaker 2
They, they started the permits to act, to act for access and now they're starting to beta the, the permit system for El Capitan.

01:15:08:17 - 01:15:09:03
Speaker 1
Okay.

01:15:09:13 - 01:15:11:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So we'll see.

01:15:12:01 - 01:15:15:14
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's, that's in there. I mean, I don't know to me size wise, it's.

01:15:16:03 - 01:15:30:12
Speaker 2
To me just go climb somewhere else. It's like, why do you have to go to the Disneyland of rock climbing? Like go climb somewhere else? There's so many other vertical rock faces that offer just as great climbing that you don't have to fight everybody for it. Just.

01:15:30:15 - 01:15:31:14
Speaker 4
Yeah, but you.

01:15:31:14 - 01:15:33:09
Speaker 3
Know, it was in a movie. It was in.

01:15:33:10 - 01:15:39:04
Speaker 2
I know. But yeah, it's the it's the statement of whether you're a successful climber at this point.

01:15:39:13 - 01:15:43:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. Max, you need to get out, too. You need to get out to the balcony.

01:15:43:03 - 01:15:44:09
Speaker 4
Believe me. I mean, it's.

01:15:44:09 - 01:15:51:08
Speaker 3
It's not for lack of one. I would love to go to Albania and Macedonia and look at the Aegean Sea. You know, there's now.

01:15:51:23 - 01:15:55:13
Speaker 4
Also like huge, huge fan of like prior like.

01:15:55:14 - 01:15:58:10
Speaker 3
Troy movies and Spartan movies, you know.

01:15:58:10 - 01:16:00:04
Speaker 2
Also like Double Down on that.

01:16:00:20 - 01:16:16:08
Speaker 3
So I'll tell you, the most expensive part of your trip, be your flight you can. I think we lived off of like I could live off of like 100 bucks for like two weeks or so that we were there for food. Like, it's just insanely cheap for me. Your dollar.

01:16:16:15 - 01:16:36:14
Speaker 4
It's just it's time. That's the only thing right now, you know, with, with school podcast, other stuff going on. I know when I do finish school I do kind of want to try and dirt bag in in a truck in Squamish and around the Rockies for a while and potentially go go around climbing some other places too. So but it's just not right.

01:16:36:14 - 01:16:37:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's yeah.

01:16:38:13 - 01:17:02:18
Speaker 2
I feel Chris before we move on from Europe and on to I guess, I guess the next chapter is kind of where you are now in the military and what you're doing. But before we move on to that, the one crux that I in the Balkans was nutrition. During climbing objectives, especially on your days, what in the fuck did you pack to eat?

01:17:03:05 - 01:17:21:21
Speaker 2
What did you do? Because there's no ice, there's no coolers, no. You can't find a cooler. You can't find ice. No one makes ice. And so for me, the only thing that I tried to do, like fucking charcuterie meats and cheese and like canned, we did a.

01:17:21:21 - 01:17:23:10
Speaker 3
Lot of that. We did a lot.

01:17:23:10 - 01:17:27:00
Speaker 2
Of it was after the first couple of days and I couldn't do it anymore.

01:17:27:09 - 01:17:27:13
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:17:28:02 - 01:17:34:01
Speaker 2
Like snickers. It's like Snickers just starving myself until I got back to the cafe.

01:17:34:09 - 01:17:49:11
Speaker 3
Yep. Candy bars, fruit bread. We would, like, get loaves of bread. So a lot of times we would stay. We're staying at when we're in Albania, we'd stay the Ragnar Hotel like right there on the. Yeah, that's where we.

01:17:49:11 - 01:17:50:17
Speaker 2
Rented our cars.

01:17:50:17 - 01:17:51:03
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:17:51:03 - 01:18:23:20
Speaker 3
So we stayed at the ROVNER and then in Macedonia we stayed at the Marriott and we would order breakfast burritos or like we would order something that could, yeah, this stuff in a box and put it in a bag and put in our packs and then take that out with us. And then if we were in Albania, we'd go up to that restaurant in the villa, like we'd, we'd like drive up top and either grab some lunch or we'd send somebody on a beer run and they'd like, go grab a beer at towards the end of the day and come back and like the villa was really cool because you could send someone and go

01:18:23:20 - 01:18:37:01
Speaker 3
get a beer and then we would like go sit on that, that like spine that you know, when you have to go up, know, not only the notch and everything. Like you'd sit on that spine and just like have a beer and look at the lake and then the sun didn't just leave there.

01:18:37:10 - 01:18:37:21
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:18:37:21 - 01:18:40:17
Speaker 2
So I actually bolted a route there on that wall.

01:18:41:05 - 01:18:43:11
Speaker 1
Did you. Yeah. Yeah.

01:18:43:11 - 01:18:45:23
Speaker 3
I'm like on the spine or on the main face.

01:18:46:15 - 01:18:51:16
Speaker 2
So there's the spine you have to solo through the notch to get to your upper wall.

01:18:52:09 - 01:18:52:15
Speaker 1
On.

01:18:52:15 - 01:18:58:03
Speaker 2
That spine. On the lower wall I set up. Yeah. Okay. It's probably like five, seven, five.

01:18:58:04 - 01:18:59:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we climb.

01:18:59:21 - 01:19:01:06
Speaker 3
I'm pretty sure we climbed those.

01:19:01:16 - 01:19:05:13
Speaker 2
So I don't know if it was put in the thing, but I called it Satsuma.

01:19:06:05 - 01:19:06:14
Speaker 1
Okay.

01:19:07:05 - 01:19:27:18
Speaker 2
Because when we first came to Albania, someone told us That's how you ask to ask how much it is, like how much in prices. But apparently it was completely wrong. We were saying something completely ridiculous and it actually makes sense because each time we asked it, people would look at us like, What the fuck did you just say?

01:19:28:02 - 01:19:29:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, like you must.

01:19:29:10 - 01:19:41:14
Speaker 2
Schumer Like what? Like how much is somewhat triple? I think they would draw us or something because yeah, it definitely did not mean how much I. Oh it meant how very.

01:19:42:07 - 01:19:44:05
Speaker 1
How very. Yeah, yeah.

01:19:44:05 - 01:19:52:14
Speaker 2
That's what it like translated to specifically. So that's why I ended up naming the route because that was like such a huge part of my beginning.

01:19:52:21 - 01:19:54:02
Speaker 3
Oh, there, that's good.

01:19:54:05 - 01:20:00:01
Speaker 2
Course, he's seen such humor all the time. So it's called a Satsuma. I think it's like five, seven, five, eight.

01:20:00:15 - 01:20:01:01
Speaker 3
Wicked.

01:20:01:06 - 01:20:04:06
Speaker 1
That's awesome. But. But, yeah.

01:20:06:03 - 01:20:17:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. Food out there was pretty nuts, like no cooler, all that stuff. You definitely have to get creative and and you have to broaden or lower your expectations of of kind of what you want to eat.

01:20:17:07 - 01:20:18:08
Speaker 3
Right? Yeah.

01:20:19:02 - 01:20:22:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. Or and Bob Vila was not open when we were there.

01:20:22:20 - 01:20:27:15
Speaker 3
Oh. So yeah, it was probably because due to COVID I would imagine or.

01:20:27:16 - 01:20:30:10
Speaker 2
Television when we were there November through May. So.

01:20:30:12 - 01:20:31:06
Speaker 3
Okay. Yeah.

01:20:31:22 - 01:20:41:00
Speaker 2
We like left just as all the plants started growing again and things started turning green and all that stuff. So we were there off season, which was a blessing and a curse.

01:20:42:06 - 01:20:46:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, it was. It was our it was always way too crowded to even.

01:20:46:04 - 01:20:46:18
Speaker 4
Go eat.

01:20:46:18 - 01:20:47:13
Speaker 3
Or do anything there.

01:20:47:15 - 01:20:53:06
Speaker 2
See? Well, yeah, that's funny. But our experience will be the was pretty much solitary. There was. No one ever there.

01:20:53:21 - 01:20:54:14
Speaker 1
Oh yeah.

01:20:54:14 - 01:21:19:10
Speaker 3
I mean, it's like it was the hot spot because there's always been life people there. There was always tourists there, like in that little parking lot, like right down the bottom. I mean, yeah, every time we were there, there was five or six vans in there. Like people would stop in. And Albania on their way to usually to like Turkey like go through Greece into Turkey and down that way.

01:21:19:10 - 01:21:28:03
Speaker 3
But yeah, it was, it was always busy. Macedonia was ran into a kid from Canada.

01:21:28:21 - 01:21:29:05
Speaker 1
Was.

01:21:30:05 - 01:21:51:21
Speaker 3
Bikepacking through Europe and just got connected to the climbing community and Celotto went up to the border with Kosovo and picked him up. He like got in touch with them, found them on Facebook, picked them up and then like climbed with us for a few days and then Plateau drove them to the border in Greece and like just dropped them off and away went.

01:21:51:21 - 01:21:54:08
Speaker 1
So why it's like this.

01:21:54:18 - 01:22:03:00
Speaker 3
Yeah, that, that's kind of a testament to the type of people that were in the climbing community as well. And I'm sure like the guys, Albania would do the exact same thing.

01:22:03:15 - 01:22:04:16
Speaker 1
So yeah.

01:22:04:16 - 01:22:18:01
Speaker 2
Alien was like smuggling chalk through taxis through Greece because you can't get it it was like straight up like smuggling cocaine. Stacks of white powder. Yeah, just like getting smuggled through taxis.

01:22:19:03 - 01:22:19:14
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:22:19:21 - 01:22:23:07
Speaker 2
It was honestly, cocaine was more abundant out there in Albania than John.

01:22:23:13 - 01:22:27:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, I imagine so. I'd imagine so. Guys, just chalk.

01:22:27:19 - 01:22:28:04
Speaker 3
It up with.

01:22:28:04 - 01:22:34:19
Speaker 1
Cocaine. Yeah. Uh, but, yeah.

01:22:35:19 - 01:22:47:07
Speaker 2
It's kind of like wrapping it up here. Like, where are you at now? You know, you're back. You're back from the Balkans. What is what is fatherhood and climbing and all that kind of life stuff look like now?

01:22:47:16 - 01:23:23:09
Speaker 3
Right? So we got back from the Balkans, from Europe as a whole back in April, and I'm pretty much so I got back in mid April. I am getting out of the Army mid April of 2023. So I'm in this like weird transition period, but I'm currently. Well, next week I started an internship getting into software and yeah, just climbing a whole bunch and start poking around at grad schools.

01:23:23:09 - 01:23:53:14
Speaker 3
So I'm going to be prepping to take the GI mat here and just figuring out I'm going to start applying to a bunch of different grad schools and figuring out where I'm going to go to grad school. And then I'm joining the Vermont National Guard. So with in Macedonia, we work for the embassy primarily and most countries or most states I think all states have one, but they have a state partnership with another country.

01:23:53:21 - 01:24:20:09
Speaker 3
And so Macedonia just so happens to be Vermont, and Vermont just so happens to have the Army Mountain Warfare School. So the gentleman that we worked for was the old training coordinator, like training director at the Army Mountain Warfare School. That was the job that he had before he went out to Macedonia. And so he was like, Hey, you should go check this out, see if you can get up, go to that school.

01:24:20:09 - 01:25:06:18
Speaker 3
It would be fantastic. And then one thing led to another and I got the ability to go up to the Army Mount Warfare School as an instructor. So really excited about that. It will be part time with the Vermont National Guard. There's a bunch of people that do that, not a bunch, but there's there's a lot of people that go up and they they instruct and they do some part time work and there's about 25 or 30 fulltime guys and they are some of the most badass dudes in the military as far as instruction and training and mountain anything mountain goes, there's only one of the instructors is an Afghan and he's the only one

01:25:06:18 - 01:25:30:15
Speaker 3
in the entire U.S. military like it's it's got it's got some it's there's a wealth of knowledge up there. And I'm super excited for the opportunity to go up there and work with with a lot of those those guys have been doing this for 15, 20, right. So yeah, that's kind of that. I'll move up there or I'll transition up there.

01:25:31:06 - 01:25:48:04
Speaker 3
I'll probably still be living in North Carolina until I figure out where I'm going to go to grad school. Know, once I start grad school, it's going to be diving into the into the books and then climbing when I can and doing the mountain warfare thing and whenever I get an opportunity to as well.

01:25:48:06 - 01:25:54:21
Speaker 2
So nice. Do you do you have any specific climbing objectives or goals you're trying to reach up in the future?

01:25:55:07 - 01:26:18:18
Speaker 3
Yeah, I've got a pretty ambitious next two years, so we're going to do I've got a group of people, one of my friends that I met in Switzerland climbed with him a bunch. He now lives in Australia. He's going to fly and meet me in the Tetons in July and we're going to do we're shooting for the Grand Middle Tee.

01:26:18:18 - 01:26:33:10
Speaker 3
We're not in Marin. If we can if depending on whether if the weather's gracious enough to let us do all four, it's fantastic. But I want to do the grand. I want to go up to the grand. We're going to do XM Ridge Route.

01:26:34:02 - 01:26:39:02
Speaker 2
My my advice to you is to do head Salt Ridge to upper exome.

01:26:39:12 - 01:26:39:17
Speaker 1
Okay.

01:26:40:00 - 01:26:50:15
Speaker 2
And skip the lower exome. It's a more correct route, gives you more climbing and that avoids an extra like 1200 feet of hiking.

01:26:51:03 - 01:26:51:21
Speaker 3
Okay. Yeah.

01:26:52:06 - 01:27:14:09
Speaker 2
That's my advice. We did the pet salt ridge to Upper Exome. It was super sick. And PetSmart Ridge, I think is five and lower exome is five five. Right. Also adds a little bit more of an interesting climbing experience. So yeah, I'll throw. I'll throw that your way. Yeah. I spent last months out in Jackson Hole. Okay. Just an amazing place.

01:27:14:17 - 01:27:15:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, so.

01:27:15:08 - 01:27:49:13
Speaker 3
Much. Yeah. Super excited to get out there. Yes We're going to do that. And then 2024, we're going to do. I have a group of I have a friend who's a guide on Mount Shasta, and he was an Army buddy of mine. We're planning to do a an island peak in Nepal in 2024. And we don't know if it's going to be spring or fall because you can climb those in both seasons, probably leaning more towards fall just because flights are cheaper, because not trying to climb.

01:27:49:21 - 01:28:20:03
Speaker 3
You know, not everyone's going to Everest base camp in the fall, right? Everyone goes in the spring when everyone's trying to do Everest and let's say and all those other. So yeah, that's that's my goal for 2024 and then potentially 2025 have Denali on the radar as well. I don't know financially I'll have to see off to cross that bridge when I get there.

01:28:20:12 - 01:28:45:07
Speaker 3
But the budget and Island Peak are pretty, pretty low on the financial burden, especially if we're going to do it on guided, I think, between all of the people that are going to go. Plus, my good friend who's a guy like between the four of us, like have plenty of experience or we will have plenty of experience to do an unguided trip.

01:28:45:19 - 01:29:07:18
Speaker 3
And it gives him an opportunity to he needs certain criteria to complete his alpine guide through Alpine Institute. Right. So he needs certain of trips that he has to guide and plan. And so he's going to use this as an opportunity to to grow and learn from his experiences and stuff like that.

01:29:07:18 - 01:29:08:07
Speaker 4
That's cool.

01:29:08:07 - 01:29:08:13
Speaker 3
Man.

01:29:10:03 - 01:29:27:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, it sounds. I like the fact that you're planning so far in advance. I don't think I have any plans for 2024, so. So good on you. Well, nice, dude. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a a great place to end it. I think we covered everything and it was a great conversation.

01:29:28:01 - 01:29:38:12
Speaker 4
Yemen, it was a blast talking, you know, having a good time, having some laughs and, you know, happy to hear you're back and climbing and things are going well and some some pretty awesome objectives.

01:29:38:12 - 01:29:41:22
Speaker 3
And and, and love to go. Yeah I appreciate the opportunity.

01:29:43:05 - 01:30:03:09
Speaker 2
Yeah man. Yeah it's awesome chat with you. Thanks for taking your time and and for reaching out and yeah it's just crazy to meet someone who's been to the Balkans and and live that crazy lifestyle for a little bit. It's definitely another world. See US. It's been an awesome and awesome chance to talk to you. And yeah, man, if you ever come out this way, feel free to reach out to either of us.

01:30:03:09 - 01:30:16:08
Speaker 2
We'd be happy to wrap up. Likewise. And definitely the same to you. My my brother lives in South Carolina, so if I ever go out and visit him, well, I guess when I do go out, I'll definitely give you a ring, brother.

01:30:17:11 - 01:30:19:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, right, right. Yeah.

01:30:19:15 - 01:30:34:06
Speaker 3
That the the invite is always there. You guys are always welcome to come out this way and show you some of the Carolina classics. Yeah, pretty interesting climbing out here. Totally different, you know. But yeah, I mean, I'm always, always psyched to bring people up with me, so.

01:30:35:02 - 01:30:35:20
Speaker 4
Cool, man.

01:30:36:07 - 01:30:37:19
Speaker 2
Well, sweet it. Yeah, I'll.

01:30:37:23 - 01:30:38:07
Speaker 3
Say.

01:30:38:13 - 01:30:52:21
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've heard us.