42 | The Mountains Are In My Blood w/ Steph Abegg

As we’ve seen on this podcast, there can be some serious consequences to playing in the mountains. But one thing that seems to stay consistent, is that no matter how traumatic the injury, how devastating the loss, we are always finding our way back to the mountains. Why is that? What calls us back to the activity and environment that caused the pain in the first place?

Our guest today is Steph Abegg. Climber—Photographer—Adventurer— and Math&Data Nerd. For as long as she can remember, she has been triply afflicted with an insatiable thirst for adventure, a persistent awe of the natural world, and a need to document the world around her. During her years of adventure and alpine climbing Steph witnessed a major accident and  sustained two major injuries herself that would have completely sidelined most athletes. But for her, not climbing, not being in the mountains just simply wasn’t an option. As she puts it, The Mountains are in my Blood…

In our conversation we dive deep into Steph’s past, chat about three major accidents, discuss her recent move to Estes Park, and finally we cover her website where she has meticulously documented over 750 routes with trip reports, photos, and route overlays. 

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Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: theclimbingmajoritypodcast@gmail.com


Resources:

Steph's Website

Transcript

00:00:00:14 - 00:00:32:04
Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. Kyle here. Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast, where Max and I sit down with living legends, professional athletes, certified guides and recreational climbers alike to discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a climber. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. As we've seen on this podcast, there can be some serious consequences to playing in the mountains.

00:00:32:05 - 00:01:00:07
Speaker 1
One thing that seems to stay consistent is that no matter how traumatic the injury or how devastating the loss, we are always finding our way back to the mountains. Why is that? What calls us back to the activity and the environment that caused the pain in the first place? Our guest today is Steph Abeg. Climber, photographer, venture and math and data nerd.

00:01:00:09 - 00:01:32:23
Speaker 1
For as long as she can remember, she has been triply affected with the insatiable thirst for adventure, a persistent awe of the natural world, and a need to document the world around her during her years of adventure and alpine climbing. Steph witnessed a major accident and sustained two major injuries herself that would have completely sidelined most athletes. But for her not climbing, not being in the mountains was simply just not an option.

00:01:33:01 - 00:02:15:14
Speaker 1
As she puts it, the mountains are in my blood. In our conversation, we dive deep into Steph's past chat about three major accidents, discuss her recent move to Estes Park. And finally, we cover her website, where she has meticulously documented over 750 routes with trip reports, photos and the route overlays. Nothing more. Awesome. Welcome back to the climbing majority.

00:02:15:14 - 00:02:20:18
Speaker 1
Everybody was sent down here with Steph. Is it Steph or Stephanie? I see Stephanie on your screen.

00:02:20:20 - 00:02:21:06
Speaker 2
I just.

00:02:21:10 - 00:02:46:02
Speaker 1
Like. Steph Okay. All right. Steph We're sitting here with Steph Abeg and you know, I'm actually pretty excited to be sitting here with you, Steph, because for multiple reasons. One, a fan of yours actually recommended you to be on the show. They were a follower of your website and of your trip reports, and they just like were super excited to share you with me and with us.

00:02:46:04 - 00:03:10:23
Speaker 1
And so thank you to whoever that was. I'll find your name and reach out to you again and let you know when the episodes published. But you're the reason why we're sitting here with Steph right now, and I'm just super excited that that kind of evolved the way it did. Secondly, I'm super excited to be sitting here because the sheer volume of accomplishments and things that you've done in your life up to this point is staggering.

00:03:10:23 - 00:03:38:13
Speaker 1
And I am baffled at one how it's possible. And, you know, just to name a few, a photographer, a writer, you have multiple publications over the last decade. You are super successful in the academic world, your career, multiple injury recoveries and just the sheer volume of documentation of all of this along the way on your website especially has been just, like I said, staggering and super impressive.

00:03:38:13 - 00:03:51:01
Speaker 1
So I'm really excited to kind of getting into, you know, the roots here on on who you are and how this whole, you know, website and your story evolved. So yeah, just I'm definitely super excited to be sitting down with you.

00:03:51:03 - 00:03:52:05
Speaker 2
Thank you.

00:03:52:07 - 00:04:12:22
Speaker 3
Yeah. In general, just like I, you know, share Kyle's stoke and excitement and everything. And I think, you know, for the podcast, we usually like to do a nice deep dive and everything. And so why don't we start off you give us a little bit of an introduction of, you know, who you are. And, and we like to like we go way back in the past, you know, like, where'd you grow up?

00:04:13:00 - 00:04:19:05
Speaker 3
How did you find climbing all that kind of stuff? So if we can maybe go back to the beginning and get a well-rounded view of who you are.

00:04:19:05 - 00:04:51:07
Speaker 2
Steph Okay, I'll go way back to the beginning. My parents, they met in the Olympic Mountains while hiking. My dad was hiking one way and my mom was hiking the other and they decided to spend camp in the same place that night and basically they were married within seven days of knowing each other. So my dad would go back to his home in Illinois, and then he packed up his stuff, said I'm getting married, and drove back.

00:04:51:07 - 00:04:52:20
Speaker 2
And they got married. So.

00:04:52:22 - 00:04:59:00
Speaker 1
Well, I can understand. I was seeing the pictures. Your dad was a stud. Did you see those quads? That guy was bit, man.

00:04:59:05 - 00:05:17:04
Speaker 2
He was big. They were both very fit. Yeah. He lived a life in the mountains. And that was kind of their life for the first ten years. And then. Then they had the decision. We're getting into our mid thirties now. Do we start a family or do we continue to climb and then know, figure out life after that?

00:05:17:04 - 00:05:43:10
Speaker 2
And they decided to start a family. So that's where I came about. And then my sister a year and a half later. And so I was born in 1983, which makes me 39 right now, almost 40. And let's see, I was born in Washington, Tacoma, Washington, and then my family moved to Israel for four years as my dad pursued his Ph.D. work over there.

00:05:43:15 - 00:06:11:05
Speaker 2
And then we moved back to the Midwest. And eventually, when I was about 12, we made it back out to the West Coast. We moved to British Columbia, Canada for my dad. He got a teaching job at a university there, Trinity Western University, and near Vancouver, British Columbia. And my parents are still living up there. And so I went to high school there and it's just a nice, beautiful place where you can see the mountains climbing started to become on the radar.

00:06:11:05 - 00:06:37:11
Speaker 2
We started to go backpacking the North Cascades quite regularly and just kind of got hooked on Mountain Adventure. That was just the way that we spent our summers together as a family was to go off into the North Cascades for multiple days. We even did the timing in Traverse when I was quite young still, and you know, it's a seven day traverse to the North Cascades, pretty popular now.

00:06:37:13 - 00:07:04:20
Speaker 2
It's a pretty amazing lots of great memories as a family doing that kind of stuff. And then so I went to California for my undergraduate degree and that's where I got into rock climbing for the first time. I joined the Alpine Club and as we were going to Yosemite every other weekend just to learn anchors and lead climbing and just how to how to climb basically safely.

00:07:04:20 - 00:07:29:17
Speaker 2
And as I go, I could spend my life doing this. And pretty much when I came home from university there, I, I combined the whole technical aspect, the climbing that I had gotten from the stuff I'd done in California with the mountaineering that I had done with my parents way back when and just kind of took it to Alpine climbing in the north Cascades for several years.

00:07:29:19 - 00:07:52:17
Speaker 2
And it just kind of grew on me and that became my passion. Did that for until I moved in. Let's see, in like 2019, I moved to Colorado. So I was I was doing that for maybe 13 years in Washington. And during that time is when my website just kind of randomly started and then kind of took off as an obsession of mine.

00:07:52:17 - 00:08:20:17
Speaker 2
And the documenting trip reports showing photography, all that kind of stuff, statistical studies, just kind of anything I would think of that I wanted to share or document. But I mean, just for myself, I just put on my website and so it kind of got large out of proportion or out of control, I guess I'd say. But I tried to the engineer in me tried to make it organized.

00:08:20:19 - 00:08:26:16
Speaker 1
Did your parents rock climb or were they more like mountaineer? Kind of like bigger scrambling objectives.

00:08:26:21 - 00:08:56:14
Speaker 2
So they did rock climb five, eight or so was their max. But back in the day, back in the seventies, doing know the north ridge of, say, the Grand Teton or something, that's that's a that's a major undertaking back then. And so I mean still is but so that was their max was like 5000 no title you know Yeah I have their old climbing gear and it's just a bunch of nuts and stabbers and hexes and Yeah.

00:08:56:16 - 00:09:01:17
Speaker 3
I mean it's definitely different, you know, that's, it's a different endeavor to be climbing on that.

00:09:01:19 - 00:09:13:06
Speaker 2
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. My, my mom's old IB climbing shoes, which, I mean, they still work. Do you recall sometimes. Mm. What's that.

00:09:13:08 - 00:09:16:05
Speaker 1
Have you climbed in them like this one climb.

00:09:16:05 - 00:09:39:10
Speaker 2
So I did a climb. A cemetery spire in the Grand Tetons. Um, maybe like ten years ago, wearing all of my mom's old climbing gear, and they'd climb that route, and we were trying to recreate some of the photos that they had from that route. And this, the summit photo of wearing the same clothes. And it was fun.

00:09:39:12 - 00:09:40:17
Speaker 1
Nice. That's really cool.

00:09:40:19 - 00:09:45:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I've worn in once. Now they are a bookend on my bookshelf. Nice.

00:09:45:17 - 00:10:05:11
Speaker 3
I just. I feel like we haven't even really gotten into your story, and I'm already in all, like, even just, like, inception of your parents meeting and stuff. It's. It's so fascinating. And especially like, you know, like I'm born in 93 and like, you know, my generation, I'm sure, like, it's like, like people you don't really see, or least maybe this is just like my own.

00:10:05:13 - 00:10:20:00
Speaker 3
My, my own ignorance are just, you know, the people around me. But you don't really see relationships like that. Like obviously back in the day, people had like, you know, they got married a lot faster, like things like that happened. But that's just such a unique and like, unbelievable story of meeting and kind of this like mountain family.

00:10:20:00 - 00:10:39:06
Speaker 3
It's just it's really, really it's really cool. It's almost like a climbing fairy tale, you know? Like, I feel like that's like the beginning of a movie I would see or something. So, yeah, it's pretty it's pretty amazing. And pretty cool to see. So you said you were you were going you're climbing, you're you're going through the Cascades and stuff.

00:10:39:08 - 00:10:41:07
Speaker 3
You know what? What happened next in your story.

00:10:41:07 - 00:11:10:07
Speaker 2
Okay. So yeah, that is a part of the story. So in the Cascades, yes. Having a lot of adventures, getting out in the mountains a lot. And I think Yes, 2009, I believe is climbing the north side. I think the started buttress of Mount Terror and the Pickett Range and we were climbing and my partner pulled off a giant rock and proceeded to fall break.

00:11:10:07 - 00:11:33:11
Speaker 2
His femur had a head wound and that escalated into a five day epic on the wall for one of us. We had a group of four up there, and so we left Jason with Steve. Steve was the one who fell. We left Jason with him and Don and I went to the summit and we got a phone call out from the summit.

00:11:33:12 - 00:11:54:18
Speaker 2
There's one wire service up there and we were able to get a helicopter in and pluck Steve off the mountain, short haul them off. But they didn't have time to get Jason. And Jason was uninjured at the time, but they gave him a they threw him a sleeping bag and some survival gear and said, we'll be back. And weather moved in and they couldn't come back for five days.

00:11:54:18 - 00:12:16:18
Speaker 2
And so that's a long time to be out there. And it didn't look like the weather was going to improve in five days either. And so that was a very it was very intense experience, I think, for all of us know, knowing Jason was up there and this whole thing had gone down, Steve was already in the hospital, had surgery, was doing okay, and looked like he'd recover.

00:12:16:18 - 00:12:45:01
Speaker 2
And he did recover fully. And so after five days, they did manage to get the helicopter in there and got Jason out. And so everything went well. A full recovery for everyone involved. But I think mentally it probably affected all of us. And so that was just the first experience for me and two years later I had my own accident in the North Cascades again from Rockfall, I pulled off a giant block and got a tip.

00:12:45:01 - 00:13:09:07
Speaker 2
The compound compound fracture way up on the north face of Vesper, and a very similar story. So similar that my sister who was climbing with me, she had to go to the summit of Vesper to get out of a phone call. So she left me on the wall there and the helicopter came in So short haul me off and then ran me to the hospital.

00:13:09:07 - 00:13:34:08
Speaker 2
And, you know, they did all the surgeries and reconstructed my leg. And that was a long recovery. And it didn't look good for a while. I had multiple complications of that tib fib fracture with compartment syndrome and then a Mersa infection and a severed nerve. And it just didn't look good. And I it was about three months in where I could move my toe.

00:13:34:08 - 00:14:01:22
Speaker 2
And then it was like the the world opened up again. I was like, I I'm going to get back. I'm going to I'm going to walk, I'm going to ride and then climb again. And from there on, it was just focused on recovery. And I did. I got back to everything 110%, really. And but mentally, that that I think was the last it was it was enough to cause fear and apprehension.

00:14:01:22 - 00:14:18:13
Speaker 2
And I was just never the same in the Cascades. It's always a little worried about the loose rock. And I began to think about moving elsewhere. And so fast forward to know now I'm living in this part, Colorado. So there's a story behind that too. But yeah, the question for me.

00:14:18:15 - 00:14:37:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'm just I like like a couple of things. Just like, like with the initial incident with like Steve and stuff, like something I find that. So I would say it's unique to climbing is where do you have you know, I was I was talking with my partner Ray, and we were we were talking to the day. I think it's Hilary Nielsen.

00:14:37:22 - 00:15:00:17
Speaker 3
I was not her last name. I'm so sorry. But Hillary Nielsen and Jim Morrison, they're like professional, massive skiers. And she was skiing Manaslu, I think, and she died in an avalanche. And Jim Morrison is now skiing again still. And we were kind of remarking on this about how it's and he has quite a tragic history as well with like losing his family and stuff in a plane crash.

00:15:00:17 - 00:15:20:05
Speaker 3
And I was just remarking that it's so interesting that you would think like, okay, you know, maybe as an outsider looking at climbing, okay, this crazy traumatic incident happens, like why? Like, okay, you're done. You know, like climbing is over. You're not going to go out like, your friend almost died or you almost died or something like climbing is done.

00:15:20:09 - 00:15:38:18
Speaker 3
Why would you want to go do this? Why would you want to go re-experience this again? And there's just this you know, I think there's a quote actually you have from your website, which is right. It's like, you know, mountains are in my blood and and it's like there's just this like this poll of of being in the mountains.

00:15:38:18 - 00:16:06:18
Speaker 3
It's like it it's weird. It's almost doesn't matter how bad it gets. There's this this just desire that like to feel fulfilled in life. You have to go out there and and I just think there's something so fascinating about that. But I'm wondering, like from from the initial incident with Steve, like, why are you already really struggling and how far after did your second accident happen?

00:16:06:20 - 00:16:35:17
Speaker 2
I think my second accident happened the next year. I think it was the next summer and it was it was so fortunate in so many ways that the accident Steve had happened because I'm not sure we would have followed the same process that we did for my own injury. We got into the habit of bringing a phone and I had never brought a phone out before Steve's accident because in service in the Cascades wasn't all that great.

00:16:35:17 - 00:16:58:08
Speaker 2
But Verizon did have coverage from the tops of some summits, and so I got into the habit of bringing one. And I we had brought one on Vesper, and without that phone, I, I'm pretty sure I would have lost my leg if not my life. And Jenny would have had to go much further to go get help. She would have had to go all the way out and it would have been the next day before they got me off and that it wasn't good.

00:16:58:08 - 00:17:14:16
Speaker 2
I had seven arteries, so I think, Oh, there are so many little factors from Steve's accident that played into making my own rescue. Just kind of textbook.

00:17:14:18 - 00:17:35:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I want to I want to dive a little bit deeper into both these accidents because you're definitely kind of like, uh, which I, you know, I appreciate in a way just kind of like, nonchalantly rolled right through, you know, probably some of the most traumatic situations that people can find themselves in with the first injury. You know, you said he broke his femur.

00:17:35:23 - 00:17:37:17
Speaker 1
Was it a compound fracture?

00:17:37:17 - 00:17:39:04
Speaker 2
Was no like.

00:17:39:04 - 00:17:58:00
Speaker 1
What was the severity of the situation? Did he pass out like kind of paint the picture a little bit more personally in terms of how you viewed it in the moment and what the what the, you know, energy of everybody was and the decisions you'd have to make and the judgment calls that were kind of involved in that kind of accident.

00:17:58:02 - 00:18:22:05
Speaker 2
Right. So he he ended up kind of beside me when he stopped falling. I we were smooth climbing. And I think his last piece had pulled out with the rock. And so just the way things worked out, he ended up about about the same he flipped over, head down. There was blood a fair bit coming out of his head area, and it turned out it was a nosebleed.

00:18:22:05 - 00:18:49:14
Speaker 2
But we I didn't know I was the only one right there at that moment. Jason and Steve were below us by a good pitcher. So and so I was like, well, I got to I got to get him flipped over head first, head up, head can't be down. So I kind of manhandled him over, kind of propped him on a ledge, tied him in with the rope.

00:18:49:14 - 00:19:06:09
Speaker 2
That was also an issue because the rope was one half was severed completely. And I had no idea what was going on with the other half of the rope up there. It could just, you know, I was like, well, it could snap at any moment. And then we're both kind of not really attached to anything at that point.

00:19:06:09 - 00:19:30:00
Speaker 2
So my priority was just to kind of get him anchored in in some way. And so I used, you know, just there was loose rope and so I used some loose rope that was in the system to anchor him in and some gear that we had. And then just kind of called out to Jason and Steve or Jason and Dawn below and said, we've we've we need help here.

00:19:30:00 - 00:19:53:23
Speaker 2
And so they got up there and then the three of us assess the situation and just kind of immediately made a plan. There was no really debate. It was just like, okay, this is what we're going to do. This is what we have to do. We're going to leave one of us and Jason had some first aid training and it's like we're going to leave one of us with Steve here and we've got a cell phone.

00:19:53:23 - 00:20:20:12
Speaker 2
We know we get a signal from the top because the previous day we've gotten a signal from the top of inspiration, which is a nearby peak and where the previous trip, I believe, not the previous day. So the previous trip we'd gotten a signal from the top of the nearby peak, so we knew we could. And so we had Don and Steph going to go to the top, get a cell phone call, you know, call 911 and get patched through to the helicopter rescue team in some way.

00:20:20:18 - 00:20:33:10
Speaker 2
We're familiar with that being a thing. I'm I'm not quite sure how, but we we did know that the North Cascades National Park had helicopters that could rescue. And that's what we did.

00:20:33:12 - 00:20:40:11
Speaker 1
Did you how how what kind of was your situation on the wall? Like how many feet above the ground were you? How far was it to the top?

00:20:40:13 - 00:21:04:18
Speaker 2
Um, let's say it's maybe a thousand more feet to the top or so. We're probably halfway up the route. Wow. Like it's five, five, eight or so is the hardest throughout gets okay, but it was is fairly steep where we were but it just led you terrain so it was no problem finding a ledge for Steve and Jason to sit on and it was definitely necessary to leave some with Steve.

00:21:04:18 - 00:21:19:01
Speaker 2
He was not quite conscious and when he would come into consciousness, he would try to on rope, he would try to untie himself, and it wasn't quite sure it was going on, didn't really know where he was. And so, wow, couldn't leave him like that. So.

00:21:19:03 - 00:21:22:02
Speaker 3
So he was concussed, right? Like badly concussion.

00:21:22:02 - 00:21:37:19
Speaker 2
He was. Yes, he was. And it had a fair amount of blood in his head area. But fortunately, it was just a nosebleed and a concussion, but nothing more than that. We knew the leg was broken. It didn't look good, but it also wasn't compound. So was it.

00:21:37:19 - 00:21:45:13
Speaker 3
Two parties of two parties of two similar climbing is what you're doing when you went Caterpillar. Yes. Right. Okay. Yeah.

00:21:45:19 - 00:21:48:02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Two parties are two. Same climbing.

00:21:48:04 - 00:21:57:13
Speaker 3
Okay. Interesting. Do you use like, like like micro traction or any type of like rope clamp or anything like that to, like, protect the second or where you're just moving.

00:21:57:13 - 00:22:31:15
Speaker 2
Well I do these days and perhaps that that incident was one of the things that caused me to think more about using those. It wouldn't have done anything for that. That particular fall, I was not pulled up. Nothing went incorrect with the whole system there. Yeah, but I think having a follower fall is is a major concern. My good tracks are very useful to increasing the safety of similar climbing, but no, at the time we were not using them.

00:22:31:16 - 00:22:37:11
Speaker 3
Gotcha. And are you in are you in Steve? Like do you still communicate? You're still friends to this day?

00:22:37:13 - 00:22:42:05
Speaker 2
Well, I have you know me once per year. We email back and forth just briefly on.

00:22:42:06 - 00:22:42:21
Speaker 1
The anniversary.

00:22:42:21 - 00:22:54:14
Speaker 2
Of Intense. Yeah. I mean, he lives in Washington still and I live in Colorado, but we've definitely kept in touch and he's doing well, you know, 100% recovery.

00:22:54:15 - 00:23:18:05
Speaker 3
Awesome. And how about how about Jason out of curiosity? Because, you know, obviously, like the focus seems to be like, you know, Steve, he had the fall it's serious but you know, being benighted for five days on the side of a peak in a storm seems like that almost like from a like like, you know, somatic like physically like you maybe endured less trauma or damage, but like, that's that's not I wouldn't be very happy with that situation.

00:23:18:05 - 00:23:20:11
Speaker 3
You know, like, that's a lot to go through psychologically.

00:23:20:11 - 00:23:44:15
Speaker 2
I mean, this his story is almost more unique and crazy than Steve's in a way. You know, being up there that long, I can't imagine. It's just how you spend your time, what you're thinking, not knowing he had a radio so was able to communicate, which is probably that probably saved his life without that radio communicate. Even if they still had come in in five days, he would have not known.

00:23:44:15 - 00:24:07:19
Speaker 2
And, you know, giving up hope or maybe trying to self-rescue when you're kind of at that point physically incapable after a couple of days. You said he was so stiff and weak that your self-rescue was probably not a safe option at that point. Wow. Yeah. Just trying to solo out of there, right? Yeah. And the weather wasn't great.

00:24:07:21 - 00:24:26:06
Speaker 2
If the weather had been great and it was on the, you know, the first morning afterwards, he probably could have soloed out of there and, you know, no big deal. But as it was, he stuck up there in a small cave in bad weather. I can't imagine the mental battle that was going on.

00:24:26:06 - 00:24:29:18
Speaker 1
But has he spoken about it at all? Have you have I talked with him?

00:24:29:18 - 00:24:52:16
Speaker 2
I haven't talked to him much about no. But I know he has he has spoken. I think he was interviewed about it. Yeah. I can't think of a better member of our team to have to go through that and come out. Just just go through it in the best way. I think I would have gone bonkers and tried to do something dangerous, like get out of there, which, you know, was probably not the best decision.

00:24:52:18 - 00:25:06:17
Speaker 2
And I can't speak for Donner or Steve what they would have done, but Jason has. He's a very mellow personality, just really thoughtful. And he probably realized the best thing to do was just to wait.

00:25:06:19 - 00:25:27:01
Speaker 3
Wow. Yeah, I think. Wow, I can see. Oh, I would have had, like, a panic. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, not. Do you just. Yeah, I think there's so many things. So many things in life when it's not knowing, you know, when you don't not, don't know the outcome, whether that's like through a surgery or a trauma or a situation like that.

00:25:27:02 - 00:25:47:05
Speaker 3
So hard to deal with, you know, and to come to terms with and like, do I act, Do I not act? And just sitting there and stewing and ruminating and your own kind of you know, mental anguish, that's it's really difficult to do. Not that I know remotely what he went through, but yeah, that's really, really interesting.

00:25:47:07 - 00:26:06:11
Speaker 2
And there was a lot of that going on on the ground, too. Like, do we start hiking in there, do it like the weather wasn't great, but at some point do we send in the ground team or do we just try to wait until the weather's good and pluck him out of there, which is probably the safer thing to do and the shorter thing to do because it's quite a ways in there.

00:26:06:13 - 00:26:12:10
Speaker 2
Mm hmm. So there's this. Yeah, the clock is ticking kind of thing.

00:26:12:11 - 00:26:28:23
Speaker 1
With with your with your personal situation and your injury. You know, it sounds like you are in a similar situation where very far off the ground, you know, very remote. Talk to us a little bit about kind of what went through your head.

00:26:29:01 - 00:26:53:15
Speaker 2
Well, the crazy thing about it was it was my sister's first alpine climb. My man, my parents had been encouraging us for a couple of years. Sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the sport. Hey, no, I process dawkins's humor. Yes, you do come together and. And so you're like, well, Vesper, the north face, you know, five, seven, five, eight.

00:26:53:21 - 00:27:26:18
Speaker 2
You fairly tame route. Yeah. Nice fun day. Good weather. Everything's good. So we are at the and this happens and so then Jenny has to basically make her own anchors rappelled down to the glacier below, which she had done a lot of mountaineering and hiking and stuff. But as far as making your own anchors and doing all that stuff her own, I think she had very little experience and she managed to repel down a few times near leave gear or she's she's also very thrifty.

00:27:26:18 - 00:27:53:19
Speaker 2
And she didn't want to leave gear. So she's like wrapping off trees and like boulders. And she got down. And Jenny has since become a very prolific and excellent climber, so she's just got it in her blood, too. So, yeah, she she did everything right, got down there and ran up to the summit, got the phone call out, and then I hiked out with my stuff and her stuff and got my car.

00:27:53:19 - 00:28:13:14
Speaker 2
I giving her my key, and so she drove my car home. And as she was going home, she called my parents. And so then they found out. And meanwhile I'm on the mountain there. And so I did know when she got the phone call out there was it was a couple of hours there where I had no idea it was going on.

00:28:13:15 - 00:28:48:03
Speaker 2
So Jenny's left. I don't know where she is. I'm hoping she's safe. I was just I knew she was going through rugged terrain and and my legs not looking good. It's bleeding. We had an ice ax, and we had taken my crampons straps and the ice ax and created a makeshift splint on my leg and kind of elevated it in the tree, wrapped it with a fleece, and just kind of hope for the best that that did seem to have stopped bleeding.

00:28:48:03 - 00:29:09:07
Speaker 2
So that was good. And I wasn't in shock. Strangely enough, that could have been bad if I had been in shock about it. I could have passed out and not been able to see the helicopter when it eventually did come or any of that. But I wasn't. I was actually in a state of like almost boredom, which is very strange.

00:29:09:07 - 00:29:12:06
Speaker 2
But in a way it helped me. What kind of.

00:29:12:11 - 00:29:16:06
Speaker 3
What kind of pain were you in? Because you seem like a very stoic person.

00:29:16:10 - 00:29:34:11
Speaker 2
It was quite painful. But for some reason, unless it's in my mouth, like a tooth or like anything, I can kind of just shut it off. And so the pain I don't remember. I, I do remember thinking, Oh, this is painful, this is really painful. And then I don't remember the pain. It wasn't a big deal to me.

00:29:34:11 - 00:29:49:23
Speaker 2
I you know, as long as it's not in my mouth, I've had my very number of root canals and the root canals. I remember the pain, but I do not remember the pain in my leg. That on the mountain there, which is near death, No toothache.

00:29:50:03 - 00:29:52:10
Speaker 3
You're done. You get. Yeah.

00:29:52:12 - 00:30:14:17
Speaker 2
And that's been pretty much the consistency in my other injuries as well. I can tune out the pain as long as it's not my mouth. Wow. Really? So, yeah, it's fortunate. I guess. But I guess as it in an odd state of boredom, I knew things would be all right. Which I don't know why? Because, yeah, obviously there was a lot that couldn't be all right.

00:30:14:19 - 00:30:36:09
Speaker 2
I didn't know for sure. There's going to be a helicopter coming in that day. They do take a long time to mobilize. And it was early in the day. We do start early. So it was still before noon? Yeah, at the time the accident. And so I knew I had plenty of time as far as daylight went. But now there's time taken getting the helicopter there and then then seeing you.

00:30:36:10 - 00:30:57:02
Speaker 2
Like how that wasn't a sure thing either. You're on this big rock base. Yeah. Yeah. Looking down. And how in the world are you going to see someone? And so I was a little worried about that, but kind of knew things are going to change. All right. So it's kind of waited and took pictures and made some cookies and drank some water.

00:30:57:02 - 00:31:31:10
Speaker 2
I, I just Yeah, as kind of. Yeah, I do remember it all, which is interesting. And then the helicopter came. I heard the, the, the blades and I was like, Oh, they're here. Okay, how are they going to see me? And they didn't really have anything they could see me with, you know, just kind of my jacket, which was dark in color, but, you know, waved around and eventually they did see me and they sent a guy down on a hoist, I believe is what they called it.

00:31:31:12 - 00:31:57:19
Speaker 2
And he unclipped and kind of stayed with me, put me in a screamer suit. And then they they came back around and yeah, the the cable swung in. The guy grabbed it and clipped both of us to it. So me, with my screamer suit and him with his harness, and then we were just plucked off the mountain and that was a wild ride.

00:31:57:20 - 00:32:10:21
Speaker 2
And they hoisted us up and kind of got me stabilized in the helicopter. And at some point I, they probably gave me morphine or something. And I don't remember waking up until the next morning. Wow.

00:32:10:23 - 00:32:14:20
Speaker 1
They didn't have any problems with the helicopter, like stalling or crashing or anything like that.

00:32:14:20 - 00:32:51:07
Speaker 2
No, but that's it's it's I was I later actually ended up joining that helicopter rescue team, the very same team that rescued me. I joined them on some flights and did some photography for them and got to learn a bit more about what they do and how they do it. And that is not a safe maneuver to do up against the mountains there with the guest, Dennis And just you don't have too much room with steep walls and especially the guy that's swinging in like that's you got to swing him in as a pilot, you know, gently enough.

00:32:51:07 - 00:33:02:13
Speaker 2
There's an slamming of the rock and it's hard. So that's those guys do good work and they're all volunteers and they're saving lives, but also putting themselves in quite a bit of jeopardy. I've one.

00:33:02:13 - 00:33:19:20
Speaker 1
Hundred percent. I was more making a joke as a reference to one of the episodes that we had recorded in the past. There's a gentleman who got airlifted in the helicopter after they got attached to the line, stalled and like fell down the cliff and they got drug through the Talis before it picked up the air again. And pulled them off the wall.

00:33:20:01 - 00:33:30:01
Speaker 1
Crazy story. That's crazy story. I can't imagine that happening. Yeah, if you guys missed that, if anybody listeners missed that episode, definitely check that out. That's with Joshua Resnick.

00:33:30:03 - 00:33:44:06
Speaker 3
Yeah, really cool episode. But yeah, in general, it's like you don't you don't think about it, but like, yeah, like, you know, every time you're calling star, like there are people risking their lives to come and get you, you know, and it's both like a miracle and unbelievable that there are people that do that and we're so fortunate for it.

00:33:44:08 - 00:34:00:21
Speaker 3
But at the same time, like there is a very real cost to that. Right. Which is that's something to not be overlooked lightly. I was going to ask if you were like kind of cognizant to like the seriousness of your state, but it sounds like you were pretty messed up and got in the hospital and you're saying you're waking up the next day.

00:34:00:21 - 00:34:04:04
Speaker 3
And so, yeah, I'm guessing not.

00:34:04:06 - 00:34:24:02
Speaker 2
I was very aware of how messed up I was and I was bummed out that I thought I would never run again. And climbing anxiety going through all this in my head. And it is interesting your comment from earlier about, you know, why don't you just stop climbing? But the first thing I was thinking even on the wall was, oh, I really want to be able to climb again.

00:34:24:02 - 00:34:29:15
Speaker 2
I hope this is not the end of my my days in the mountains. I this is. This is awful. Yeah.

00:34:29:17 - 00:34:30:07
Speaker 3
Totally.

00:34:30:07 - 00:34:31:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:31:14 - 00:34:59:12
Speaker 3
It's I think it's just such a testament to just. I don't even, like, maybe this sounds wonky, but it's like. It's almost like some kind of form of, like, spiritual awakening or religion or, you know, some kind of, like, it's like the mountains are my church. It's like. It's like I need, I need it in my life to, like, feel fulfilled and for my mind to be, like, clear and to feel just like, present and and content as a human being.

00:34:59:12 - 00:35:17:01
Speaker 3
Like, I have to do it. So it doesn't matter how bad it got. I mean, granted, I'm sure on some level, if it got bad enough, like, you know, I haven't experienced that, so I don't obviously can't put myself in that situation. But like it feels at least like that, that it's like it doesn't matter about like weighing that.

00:35:17:01 - 00:35:23:23
Speaker 3
It's like, like, it's almost like I have to do it to stay sane or to feel good as a person, right? So yeah, it's, it's just the idea.

00:35:24:00 - 00:35:25:16
Speaker 2
Identity. Yeah.

00:35:25:18 - 00:35:30:17
Speaker 3
That, yeah, that's a really interesting one. Identifying as a climber or an outdoor person for sure. Yeah.

00:35:30:19 - 00:35:49:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think that certain injuries can strip that away from you. And then there is an identity crisis. I kind of went through it a little bit. It's like, well, it kind of almost felt like it was off the table for a little bit. And I was like, What do I do now? You know? And it turning into a good thing, diversified my skill set and started practicing in other areas of my life.

00:35:49:18 - 00:36:17:13
Speaker 1
So ended up working out for the better. I'm still a climber, but I'm now much more than a climber. I have two questions for you. One, again, the stoic ness and like the general boredom that you seemed to have in the moment, do you feel like any of that was suppressed and did you feel like it came out later in your life in other areas, in how you dealt with things, or was it just straight up you kind of just like were flatlining during that moment and it just kind of was what it was?

00:36:17:15 - 00:36:38:17
Speaker 2
Well, I'd say that's just the way I am. When things get really rough, I tend to just kind of kick into gear and forget about how rough they are and just do what needs to be done. So I'd say that that part of the whole thing, I don't sense any trauma or anything that's continued from that into life.

00:36:38:17 - 00:37:07:23
Speaker 2
Now. I'd say it was more the recovery and some of the unknowns that went on and the unexpected things that went on during the recovery. That and just the long term nature of the recovery taking me out of climbing for so long that has carried into right now like I will be just Craig ing and leading some sport climb in two feet above a bolt and going oh I don't I don't want to fall and break a leg because I don't want to face another two year recovery.

00:37:08:03 - 00:37:21:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, okay. So that definitely affects me every time I climb. But I don't think I ever really think about the, the life threatening bit on the wall.

00:37:21:05 - 00:37:33:22
Speaker 1
You can't really. I think that I don't think you can think it if you do too much what it takes away from the fun and the the present ness of the experience and also does it make you as good of a climber because you're thinking about how you can die and.

00:37:33:22 - 00:37:34:22
Speaker 2
Not how you're.

00:37:35:00 - 00:37:52:04
Speaker 1
Presently climbing? So it is an interesting thing to be. You know, I think in the beginning days before injury, as a climber, it's this blissful ignorance. You know, you don't really know what it's like to get injured. You don't know what it's like to lose a friend or it's just fun. Everything's great. You know, you take a fall and you get caught and you're like, Well, I was sick, you know?

00:37:52:04 - 00:38:12:16
Speaker 1
It was amazing. You know, that is amazing because it works. And then, you know, everything comes crashing down. And the reality of of injury and death just gets thrown in your face. And it's this kind of other chapter of climbing where you have to try to have the same amount of presence and focus and skill while having the reality, just like right there at the forefront of your mind.

00:38:12:16 - 00:38:35:19
Speaker 1
It's like stuff. And I think that some people can be super successful and not get injured and just stay in that kind of blissful state their entire life and not really completely understand what it's like. And God bless those people. But there's another there's another stage to it. After your injury, your blew out your knee as well. There was like.

00:38:35:19 - 00:38:37:13
Speaker 2
A helicopter rescue.

00:38:37:15 - 00:38:39:02
Speaker 1
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about that.

00:38:39:05 - 00:39:12:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. So that was 2020. I had been living in Colorado at that point for a couple of years. I came here for grad school and I was the sewer climbing in the Rocky Mountain National Park climb this route called Goldfinger on Arrowhead and got to the summit. I was good, great day, great climb, and I'd snapped a photo and texted my parents because you do get a signal from the top of Arrowhead and takes my parents a nice little photo of the great weather in the summit.

00:39:13:00 - 00:39:31:03
Speaker 2
And then I was hopping from one boulder to the next to try to catch up with my partner. And the boulder shifted a little bit and I missed the next one. And I just went down, my knee just buckled, and I was like, that didn't feel like that was in the right place at all. And I was like, But it doesn't hurt.

00:39:31:03 - 00:39:53:21
Speaker 2
I'm good. I'm going to stand up. And I tried to stand up and it just collapsed on me. Is is, oh my God, is that okay? That really wasn't supposed to do that. And so I called to my partner and he was able to hear me and he came back. And at that point I tried again to put weight on it and it just wasn't taking weight.

00:39:53:21 - 00:40:25:15
Speaker 2
And I was like, Well, at this point, I think it probably just, you know, an ACL that seems like what happened here and now starting to feel quite painful. And so we splinted it up and I crawled half a mile along the summit ridge to the descent route. There's a repel the center out and my partner lowered me and I proceeded to be lowered and crawl and lower and crawl all the way back to camp.

00:40:25:17 - 00:40:50:04
Speaker 2
And meanwhile we had on the summit ridge, we're discussing, okay, are we going to self rescue from camp? It's a good, you know, six miles or so, half of which is kind of rugged in a self rescue crawl out or going to call in the search and rescue team. It's I never you know, the idea of self rescuing is much more appealing as a climber.

00:40:50:04 - 00:41:11:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, I don't like to call in an army again, but it was it is apparent that I was pretty bad off and self rescuing probably would have been quite difficult and might have gotten quite hurt at some point with the rugged terrain. So we did make a phone call and got the the Rocky Mountain Search and rescue team.

00:41:11:14 - 00:41:33:00
Speaker 2
The ground team come in because it wasn't life threatening or anything and to see if they could get me out of there. And they got there that evening and stayed with us overnight in our baby cave and decided that given how bad my knee was looking at that point and the ruggedness of the terrain, that helicopter rescue is in order, another one.

00:41:33:00 - 00:41:59:10
Speaker 2
So and because of the rugged terrain, they brought in a military helicopter the next day, a Blackhawk, and they were able to hoist me out of there. And yeah, I got to the Estes Park Hospital and got the MRI and everything. And it was it was a pretty knee injury. It was an ACL. It was a multiple tears in the meniscus.

00:41:59:10 - 00:42:24:05
Speaker 2
I had broken some contusions. I think in the bones because of the force of hitting it. There were a couple cartilage areas that were damaged. It didn't look good looks like a pretty blown out knee, like a career ender if you're a professional athlete. And I was like, Oh boy, here we go again. Climbing over. Yeah.

00:42:24:07 - 00:42:29:23
Speaker 3
But so that was ten years apart from your broken tib fit, is that correct? Yeah.

00:42:30:01 - 00:42:31:21
Speaker 2
Pretty much. Exactly.

00:42:31:23 - 00:43:01:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I guess, you know, I think Kyle kind of alluded to this at the beginning, but like, you know, there seems to be like obviously for anybody listening, you can go to you can go to Steph's website and you can she has a really detailed report of what happened through her tib fib and it's quite literally an ultramarathon, a pure suffering and recovery and surgery and, you know, and it just it's really unbelievable.

00:43:01:12 - 00:43:23:09
Speaker 3
And so do that. And then to come back and to kind of have this kind of injury, you know, what was what was like that recovery process. What do you find is like the driving force for you to just you know, to just really just jump back on the horse and to just kind of get through these these incidents because they're really they're really major incidents like each one.

00:43:23:11 - 00:43:28:09
Speaker 3
Definitely take somebody out.

00:43:28:11 - 00:43:53:12
Speaker 2
Because I want to get back to climbing. I want to get back into the mountains and I want to not suffer in the mountains. I need to be strong and fit and not in pain and not limping around. And yeah, I also I think for me, I really am both goal oriented and process oriented, I guess, and I like having something to do that really furthers my, my progress.

00:43:53:12 - 00:44:27:10
Speaker 2
And so I would just dive wholeheartedly into the physio, both injuries and I apart from those two injuries, I don't really do physio. I but the physio is magic. If you, if you just keep doing it, keep it, not overdoing it, but not under doing it, fighting that sweet spot and just, just making it. You know, the thing for me, I was able to make it the thing my life revolved around both times for a good six months to a year, depending on the injury.

00:44:27:12 - 00:44:41:14
Speaker 2
And so as a student, both times that was possible. And yeah, I think the driving motivation was just to get back to climbing and get back into the mountains. Yeah.

00:44:41:16 - 00:44:53:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. So you're a student during these these moments. Real quick, I want to say all three accidents were because of loose rock, right? It sounds like that's all right.

00:44:53:12 - 00:45:01:12
Speaker 2
I guess I haven't really thought about The third one is being Loose Rock, but yes, it's a loose boulder. Yeah. You got sort of shifted as I jump from one to the other. And I missed you.

00:45:01:14 - 00:45:03:04
Speaker 1
And you moved away from.

00:45:03:09 - 00:45:04:07
Speaker 2
From I want.

00:45:04:09 - 00:45:07:17
Speaker 1
To get away from Loose Rock. And it followed you.

00:45:07:19 - 00:45:11:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. Be careful everywhere.

00:45:11:23 - 00:45:36:09
Speaker 1
Oh, my. My other question, besides the joke there is, you know, we talk about in our on our Injury podcast, we talk a little bit about the financial aspect of injuries and and how detrimental it can be. You know, obviously Max and I are in different countries and so there's a bit of discrepancy there. You know, multiple helicopter evacuations, you know, full spectrum of a rescue there.

00:45:36:13 - 00:46:05:15
Speaker 1
You're a student. You know, if you feel comfortable, do you mind talking to us a little bit about kind of how that impacted your life if it did? You know, were you on scholarship through school? You know, because you are you are very, you know, you know, accomplished in the academic field. And, you know, most people that are as complex as you find themselves in, you know, six figure debt, you know, and to have you scholarship or sorry, academic debt like that on top of any sort of medical bills would just be devastating financially.

00:46:05:15 - 00:46:10:16
Speaker 1
So you know, maybe shed some light on on kind of what the situations look like a financial perspective.

00:46:10:18 - 00:46:52:22
Speaker 2
Sure. I think I got lucky in being a student both times. So the first time the tib fib, I was at UW as a Ph.D. as working at U Dub, and I was on student health insurance, which I really had no no real clue of how much things would cost back then. And a student plan, It just looked plenty sufficient at the time, But I ended up owing the hospital about 300 grand or so, and my maximum payout and maximum benefit, I believe that's what they call it, was 100 grand.

00:46:52:22 - 00:47:19:14
Speaker 2
So I it was 200 grand that I need to pay the hospital and I could not, as a student I had did not have that money but because as a student, as able to apply for charity care and got a little lucky in that case and instead of having to file for medical bankruptcy and having, you know, my entire savings account wiped out, I was able to get through that one on charity care because I didn't really have an income.

00:47:19:14 - 00:47:43:18
Speaker 2
I didn't have much for them to take. But it also solidified for me the importance as a climber of getting a catastrophic medical plan, something that's going to cover more than 100 grand, because 100 grand is going to go very quickly. If you're in the hospital for multiple days. So I was in the hospital for a grand total of like 21 days.

00:47:43:18 - 00:48:19:08
Speaker 2
That for that one overnight, 21 overnight days. And that it will just in intensive care will really increase your bill. So I got lucky in that one. And the second one, the knee injury again, I was on a student health care plan and that one wasn't nearly as expensive because of no overnights in the hospital. Dan Over nights in the hospital and it was mainly just the major knee surgery that needed to be done and that was covered under my student plan.

00:48:19:10 - 00:48:53:02
Speaker 2
Hmm. Wow. So. So, yeah, Fortunate. Fortunate. Yeah. If I had been working full time and not a student for the first one, it would have. It could have potentially been quite bad. Yeah. Yeah. The American medical system has its, has its flaws, but it also has its great things. I feel like in both cases I got just great care, great surgeons who kind of made all the difference in my ability to use my leg and my knee right now.

00:48:53:04 - 00:49:02:21
Speaker 2
No complaints at all. And I'd pay all that money twice over to have what I have now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I use my body for the rest of my life.

00:49:02:23 - 00:49:20:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think that's there's, I think like Dave Huberman and Peter to there these podcasters, if you ever listen them but like they talk about a lot of health and wellness and you know there's a couple of things that you can look at when you're looking at health care. And I think one of them is like access quality and costs.

00:49:20:01 - 00:49:35:16
Speaker 3
Like those are kind of like the three like pillars. Right? And and I know a lot of people like to comment on the list. You know, I'm Canadian. A lot of people like to comment on the the U.S. kind of health care system. And I think there's problems in health care systems everywhere. And it's easy to point the fingers at things.

00:49:35:16 - 00:49:57:12
Speaker 3
But like the U.S. definitely has quality, like you can get extreme, high quality of care. Right. And in certain circumstances, like that's the difference. Like, you know, you, you know, reading, reading through your website, it's like, yeah, like you possibly could have, you know, lost your leg or when you you had a Mersa infection. Like if you hadn't been treated like well or correctly, like you could have died.

00:49:57:14 - 00:50:19:10
Speaker 3
So there's definitely a lot of caveats I think, to, to any system. And that's really interesting. I think on your website you kind of mentioned where you almost felt like it felt maybe and I don't want to put words in your mouth but my my interpretation of it was like, it's like, what's the point of paying for health care insurance if I still owe like $200,000 afterwards, you know, And you're like, you're like on some level it's kind of funny.

00:50:19:10 - 00:50:40:07
Speaker 3
Like, I remember this is obviously on such a minor level and I was like, maybe young twenties, like at the time. But someone had tried to break into my truck and they smashed my window and I found out there's like, there's no deductible. Like the deductible for the window is the same as the cost of the window. So it's like I was just like, okay, this is the first thing I've ever been in an accident for.

00:50:40:11 - 00:50:53:22
Speaker 3
It's a broken window. I've been paying you guys insurance for, like, you know, five years. And now you're just telling me you don't cover it. And I was like, kind of sitting there being like, What the hell is this? Like, this is ridiculous, you know? And my naivete is like, you know, young in my young 20.

00:50:53:22 - 00:50:59:04
Speaker 1
So that's when you think about taking a car and driving it off the cliff and be like, I don't know what happened.

00:50:59:06 - 00:51:02:06
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. Then they'll cover like you just give you a new car.

00:51:02:06 - 00:51:04:06
Speaker 1
Exactly. Exactly.

00:51:04:08 - 00:51:20:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. I remember at the time there were it was it was quite frustrating at times to be pretty laid up dealing with a bone infection. And the same day getting these bills in the mail that they're going to come collect and it's just like, I don't want to deal with this now. Shouldn't I be covered for all this?

00:51:20:20 - 00:51:52:20
Speaker 2
Like, this is this is something I can't deal with right now. And so, yeah, it was frustrating at the time. Now that it's I can look back at it and it all worked out and it's definitely worth any money. I paid to have to have the help I got. But yeah, I do wonder sometimes, okay, I pay for insurance, but yet they make it so hard to get the money from them and you're not in the state at that point to be really fighting for yourself.

00:51:52:20 - 00:51:59:21
Speaker 2
It's just the last thing you have the energy for. And so, yeah, that is frustrating when you're dealing with it.

00:51:59:23 - 00:52:21:07
Speaker 3
I think another one that I thought interesting from from reading was it's like, I don't understand that once again, want to say too much, but it was like dependent on the hospital. You are at, you get preferential cost and coverage. So it's like you could be at a hospital 10 minutes away from the hospital. That's like preferential in your insurance.

00:52:21:07 - 00:52:38:12
Speaker 3
And like that hospital will cover everything and this hospital will charge you, you know, at the woo high. And it's like I as a Canadian, where I'm fortunate in the aspect where I think our quality is lower, but everybody here gets access. It's like no matter what, you can get access and there's a lot of trouble with that system.

00:52:38:12 - 00:52:57:21
Speaker 3
But it's also really good in certain contexts, right? So I guess for me it's like the distinction doesn't matter. It's like if I, if I'm like closer to this hospital and I go to this hospital, they don't charge me ten times the amount at this hospital than the one like, you know, closer to the my house or something, which just seems like such a bizarre way to just do lack of a better word.

00:52:57:21 - 00:53:02:09
Speaker 3
Fuck people over, you know, like, yeah, yeah. So it's interesting.

00:53:02:10 - 00:53:21:13
Speaker 2
They did fly me to a hospital that was out of network and I remember that being such a big deal in the first week and I was pretty laid up, but my parents were kind of going to bat for me. You know, it's at a network, but it's it's an emergency situation. So, you know, calling the insurance company, making sure that they'll they'll cover it.

00:53:21:19 - 00:53:40:00
Speaker 2
And I think the lesson I learned is that if you fight for yourself, you often do when you just have to fight hard. And it's not not a thing you want to be doing in the moment. And it's easy to say, well, you know, I'm just going to give in to it and pay in money. And this is what they're asking for and it is what it is.

00:53:40:05 - 00:53:46:01
Speaker 2
But I think there is an ability to fight. It's a frustrating fight, but.

00:53:46:03 - 00:54:15:22
Speaker 3
I think ironically, it's there. I've had experience is here in Canada where it's kind of similar, actually, like if you just leave yourself to the whims of the system, you can get like you can fall through the cracks or things happen really slow. But like if you like, fight and advocate for yourself, you can make things happen. Like, I remember when I like when I was like, I'd like you know, broke my ankles and they're like, Oh yeah, we'll see you in, you know, we can see you in like, you know, several days or whatever.

00:54:15:22 - 00:54:32:03
Speaker 3
And I was like, absolutely not. Like, give me a list of surgeons like, I'm going to start calling their office, talking to them. And you can get like, you can get an appointment quicker if you actually are willing to take things into your own hand, like have agency and start fighting for yourself. So yeah, that's, that's an interesting parallel.

00:54:32:03 - 00:54:34:15
Speaker 3
Sorry that I just think of. Yeah.

00:54:34:17 - 00:54:43:13
Speaker 2
That's a good point because I think people need to know that some people don't. Maybe don't know that and it's just worth knowing it is worth fighting for.

00:54:43:14 - 00:55:01:18
Speaker 1
I actually think that's true in everything. I think business, sales, every aspect of your life. Like if you're not an advocate for yourself and you don't have a clear vision for what you deserve as a human or you know, do you deserve in a relationship, whether that be a business relationship, you're not advocating for yourself. No one's going to do it for you.

00:55:01:19 - 00:55:16:20
Speaker 1
It's not their priority. You know, you have to advocate for yourself. And I think that people respect that because, you know, it puts your needs in front of them and you're like, Hey, this is how you can help me. Please do it. You know, you know, this is kind of like expected almost. But if you don't say anything, no one's going to go out of their way to help you out.

00:55:17:02 - 00:55:29:19
Speaker 1
And I don't think that's wrong. I don't think that it's like their job to advocate for you unless you you know, it's a lawyer or something. But in general, I think it's your your job to advocate for yourself on a day to day basis.

00:55:29:21 - 00:55:56:16
Speaker 3
Mm hmm. I think whether it's whether it's a doctor, it's a lawyer, it's the insurance company. Like people are just human, you know? And even the best make mistakes or they have bad days or they're tired or they have a bandwidth. And, you know, if you have a whole pile stuff to do there that's different than like, hey, this this person emailed me three times today, you know, and they keep asking about this same thing and you're like sitting there looking at your inbox.

00:55:56:16 - 00:56:00:23
Speaker 3
You're like, Oh, shit. Like, I've got I've got to deal with this thing. You know? It's like it just.

00:56:00:23 - 00:56:01:22
Speaker 1
Creates precedent.

00:56:01:22 - 00:56:07:09
Speaker 3
And and unfortunately, like, it sometimes just can be the reality of things. So yeah.

00:56:07:11 - 00:56:31:22
Speaker 1
But yeah, I mean moving along here, you know, you've, you know, there's been so much, again, you know, a testament to just how much you've accomplished and you know how much life you've lived, you know, in these 39 years, I think you've lived more than, you know, probably six or seven people combined in certain situations, which is which is pretty impressive.

00:56:32:00 - 00:56:52:11
Speaker 1
You know, So one thing that we wanted to cover here is, you know, you made a pretty strong decision to leave the Cascades and to move to Colorado. Now you're in Estes Park. You know, talk to us a little bit about that journey in your mind and what kind of pushed you along to finally end up where you're at now.

00:56:52:13 - 00:57:21:17
Speaker 2
Right. So, yeah, I lived in Bellingham for a good eight years, which is the longest I had lived anywhere in one single stretch. I went to grad school at Western Washington there and then was hired on as a adjunct math teacher and was happy and teaching and loving it. But the the clouds and the the rain and the lack of year round climbing was starting to bug me a bit.

00:57:21:17 - 00:57:46:21
Speaker 2
And yeah, I was starting to think, okay, so where can I'm single? I really have no major ties. I am. Yeah. As an adjunct, I'm looking for a career rather than to stay as an adjunct forever. And so I started to think where, where could I find a life for myself? And so I'm certain think of all the the mountain town areas.

00:57:46:21 - 00:58:20:12
Speaker 2
You know, there's, there's bishop, there's is what's the thinking here? Red Rocks, Las Vegas. Las Vegas is also a geek in tender. It's not really a mountain town but the climbing. I love Red Rocks. And so that was on the list. There was. Yeah, Boulder made the list. Estes Park definitely made the list. And so and see one other place, Bozeman also made the list.

00:58:20:12 - 00:58:50:14
Speaker 2
And so I had gone to all these places and Estes Park was the one where I just remember going, Boy, if I could live in a place like that, then I would have made it that that is my life goal. I had first gone to Estes Park in 2007 and just for a couple of days. Glen The particular pond just kind of bummed around in town, walked around and just kind of enthralled by the and that stuck in my mind.

00:58:50:16 - 00:59:18:13
Speaker 2
And then I'm back in Bellingham and it is Park is making the list and it didn't really seem feasible just to move to Estes Park. I didn't really have a job there. There was no real. Yeah, there's no reason for me to go there. And it would be hard to just establish a life there. And so I came up with the compromise of Boulder because they had a university and I thought, Well, this is a great opportunity to go get that Ph.D. finally.

00:59:18:18 - 01:00:03:02
Speaker 2
So I did mention previously that I've been working on a Ph.D. at U Dub, but then I'd broken my leg and that did. And the idea for me at that point, I just didn't have the drive for it after that whole experience. So I was like, okay, now I'm going to do my Ph.D. and so I applied to see a boulder, got accepted applied math program and moved down there in 2019 and just loved it, you know, living in Boulder, climbing in elbow flatirons and in the summer, making trips to the Rocky National Park, and you're climbing bigger things there and multipage stuff there and just falling in love with the area and spending a

01:00:03:02 - 01:00:35:10
Speaker 2
lot of time in Estes Park. In the meantime. And so I was offered a job shortly after I finished my master's in applied math. This was last year, so May 2022 I was offered a job working at a remote methane gas monitoring company based in Boulder there called Long Path Technologies and had to kind of make a decision do I continue my Ph.D. or do I take this job, which sounds really quite good.

01:00:35:10 - 01:01:05:14
Speaker 2
This might this might be a good career move for me. And I took the job and that also allowed me to start to think, well, do I want to stay in Boulder or can I now move to Estes Park? And the idea kind of grew, and within six months of starting the job, I was looking and placing an offer on a house and this park and then, you know, getting, getting the house.

01:01:05:14 - 01:01:29:17
Speaker 2
And so I moved in about two and a half, two months ago or so to Estes Park, first house I've ever bought, and I love it. It's a little small home overlooking the town with a view of Longs Peak and it's just great. It's kind of I feel like I've made it by. I know that there are several years ahead.

01:01:29:23 - 01:01:50:23
Speaker 2
Okay, I'm excited to be here and be surrounded by the mountains that I've grown to love and I do work remotely. So that's worked out really well that I can now have just a mountain office. That's awesome. Congratulations. I got a cat a few weeks ago and so really settling in. Is this Newt.

01:01:51:00 - 01:01:51:08
Speaker 1
Right?

01:01:51:08 - 01:02:05:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, his name is Newton. His name is Newton. Named after Isaac Newton. I was going to say. Yeah, calculus and math that Graham. Very. Yeah, He's actually right here next to me, so. Right.

01:02:05:18 - 01:02:17:14
Speaker 3
Yeah. That's awesome. I've got a cat, Tigger. He's. He's on the couch. It's like they're. I don't know if they're there. You could get them in the corner there. Yeah, He's just sleeping back there by all the climbing ropes and.

01:02:17:17 - 01:02:21:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cows got it. I've got two cats.

01:02:21:00 - 01:02:24:07
Speaker 2
Roofs, poof!

01:02:24:09 - 01:02:26:20
Speaker 2
Is catcher. Cats are great creatures.

01:02:27:02 - 01:02:39:05
Speaker 3
100%. I think they live in the home. They feel the good they do. That's my whole life. I love cats. Yeah. They're so great. Yeah, I know. There's some like the him if, like, forever old dog lovers listening to this right now.

01:02:39:07 - 01:02:39:19
Speaker 2
Yes.

01:02:39:21 - 01:02:40:17
Speaker 3
It's like.

01:02:40:19 - 01:02:41:08
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:02:41:10 - 01:02:43:03
Speaker 3
Sorry, guys. Dogs are good too. You know.

01:02:43:03 - 01:02:46:22
Speaker 1
It's not like a lot of competition here. I just like cats a lot.

01:02:47:00 - 01:02:49:16
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:02:49:18 - 01:02:51:06
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:02:51:08 - 01:03:09:21
Speaker 3
No, Estes Park sounds really amazing. Sounds like such a cool place and really interesting to to be there. And obviously, if you're looking at Longs Peak and stuff, I'm wondering, like, what? Like what kind of like, did you ever climb any of the volcanoes back in the Cascades, like Rainier Baker Did you do any of those classic mountaineering routes?

01:03:09:23 - 01:03:38:01
Speaker 2
I did, yeah. I kind of got into a phase where I want to do all the volcanoes, and so I did Rainier by three different routes, I believe started off with Disappointment Cleaver and then ended up doing Liberty Ridge and Ptarmigan Ridge back to back. So within a week we'd done both and that was pretty cool. And I'd done Baker by a couple of different routes in the North Face being the the one I remember the most.

01:03:38:01 - 01:03:58:23
Speaker 2
I think the other one we did was just a Coleman Deming, the standard route that we come down and shucks in as well as a good one. It's not a volcano. But yeah, I really enjoyed that north face route. MM Yeah. And as far as other volcanoes, I didn't Helens That's pretty easy one. Um, it's much shorter than it used to be.

01:03:58:23 - 01:04:27:10
Speaker 2
So it's been years. Well, my parents had done had climbed to the top of Helens before it had blown his top and. Whoa, no way. Yeah. Yep, I think. Oh, yeah. When did it blow? 1980. I thinks somewhere around there. So they, they climbed it and it was still they were actually in the mountains backpacking, spending the night somewhere in the mountains when Mount Saint sounds blue.

01:04:27:10 - 01:04:38:03
Speaker 2
And they had this wild story of ash just blowing everywhere and not having any idea what had happened, thinking it was a nuclear war and end up being Mount St Helens.

01:04:38:05 - 01:04:39:00
Speaker 3
That's wild.

01:04:39:05 - 01:04:41:05
Speaker 1
My it must have been wild.

01:04:41:07 - 01:05:01:16
Speaker 3
My a previous boss of mine Mike, he I think he was like like graduating from high school at the time or something and they were like drunk, partying and like, I think it was like a Soyuz I'm pretty sure and, and like when St Helens had exploded, they'd woken up and their cars were, like, covered in ash and everything.

01:05:01:18 - 01:05:11:05
Speaker 3
It's like that's in Canada. It's quite an unbelievable explosion. So yeah, I wonder if there was anybody climbing on the mountain the day it went off, you know? I don't.

01:05:11:05 - 01:05:11:15
Speaker 2
Know.

01:05:11:17 - 01:05:13:00
Speaker 3
Yeah, I will never know.

01:05:13:00 - 01:05:13:15
Speaker 2
Probably.

01:05:13:15 - 01:05:31:06
Speaker 3
No, they're, they're part of the band now. I'm wondering like what, Like what are your what are your, like, long term kind of like climbing aspirations or hopes? Like what? What are you looking at and envisioning for yourself as a climber? Like, what motivates you? What inspires you? What do you want to do?

01:05:31:08 - 01:06:02:15
Speaker 2
Well, I want to have a lot of objectives in the Rocky Mountain National Park, of course, various routes that I haven't yet done or want to do again because they're great. The stuff on the diamond routes, on Spearhead Arrowhead, just local objectives and just basically getting out and enjoying life. I have no elite climber, so I have no ambitions of climbing anything super hard or super new or anything like that.

01:06:02:17 - 01:06:31:01
Speaker 2
I just of want to enjoy the mountains and climbing. So no real like specific goals other than volume and getting out as many days as I can. And I think as I'm getting older, I'm tending to think more towards, you know, more traverses again, like in the Pickett range they used to do. But now I'm getting older and it might be coming back as something I want to do more of.

01:06:31:01 - 01:06:57:16
Speaker 2
So to link up several peaks in a row overnight, you know, traverse through the entire park kind of thing. Yeah, and further. So I've been looking more into that kind of stuff and super cool. Of course, photography, I always like documenting things. I can't help it. And so creating something unique and adventurous that I can document is definitely an appeal to me.

01:06:57:18 - 01:07:01:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, motivates me.

01:07:01:09 - 01:07:29:11
Speaker 1
So the again, like my question here is, based around all that you've accomplished, I think that, you know, in life there is always a give and take. You know, there is a there sacrifices that we make to achieve the things that we decide to make time for. Do you feel like there are any stand out sacrifices that you made in your life to live the life that you live now?

01:07:29:12 - 01:07:44:23
Speaker 1
Are there areas of your life that you know that you have consciously kind of like put aside or chosen to set on the backburner at all? Or have you just been living exactly how you want to live and there hasn't been much sacrifice.

01:07:45:01 - 01:08:04:02
Speaker 2
I'm not sure there's been much sacrifice, but I am very hard on myself and I would never say that I think I'm living my life exactly the way I want to live. I always want to and I never feel like I'm doing enough, which is I know you said I've done enough for a few lifetimes, but I feel like I, I just never feel like I've done enough.

01:08:04:02 - 01:08:30:05
Speaker 2
Like if I, if I don't go out climbing once a week, I'm like, what am I doing for myself? I'm not doing anything. But as far as sacrifices or things, I'm not sure. I mean, I pretty much I do spend a lot of time alone and don't have a lot of free time to read books, watch TV, just play video games.

01:08:30:05 - 01:08:52:12
Speaker 2
Like those things are not really a part of my life. They're not really something I really desire. I would rather just be exercised eating or, you know, working so I can get out on the weekend or, you know, actually out in the mountains. So my social life maybe has suffered, but again, I'm kind of content to be entertain myself a lot.

01:08:52:12 - 01:08:57:16
Speaker 2
So I'm not sure that's a sacrifice. It's just kind of played into how I am. Mm hmm.

01:08:57:18 - 01:09:00:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's cool. I wasn't trying to, like, make a negative spin on it.

01:09:00:07 - 01:09:01:21
Speaker 2
Oh, no, no.

01:09:01:23 - 01:09:12:21
Speaker 1
I just think that it's just one of the things that I struggle with sometimes, personally, for me, is like choosing where to. To spend my time, you know, because, yeah, there's so much that we can do in our life. So little time.

01:09:12:23 - 01:09:23:13
Speaker 2
I'd say. I never feel like I have enough time, Which, yeah, I it's like, boy, I'd like to read that book, but I don't have time. Yeah, I'd like to sit down and watch a TV show, but that's not happening. Yeah.

01:09:23:15 - 01:09:27:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't know. We might all be able to live forever in the next 20 or 30 years, so.

01:09:27:05 - 01:09:28:17
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:09:28:19 - 01:09:56:01
Speaker 3
You know, it's nice. Yeah. I think something that's interesting for me is a lot of the times, like, people like to compare themselves. Other people or you look at other people and how productive they are and what they're doing. And maybe on some level you have this assumption that like, Oh, they've got it all figured out or they all feel good, but like most people who I see that are like hyper successful or very accomplished, like, like which I would consider you one of those people like you, they have the mentality.

01:09:56:01 - 01:10:17:15
Speaker 3
You have. It's like they themselves never feel like it's enough. They're always driven, they're always doing more, they're working more. You know, you seem like really, really humble as a person. And yeah, I think it is it is really, really interesting to to see something that I found might which I, I honestly I keep thinking I'm reading it wrong, but like, do you have three master's degrees?

01:10:17:17 - 01:10:18:08
Speaker 2
I do.

01:10:18:11 - 01:10:30:22
Speaker 3
Could you explain that to me? I'm sorry. It's just so like, it's it's very impressive. It's also, like, very interesting. So it's like part of that. Like, I'm assuming is like when you did part of your PhD. Yes, that's what it is. Right? Okay.

01:10:30:22 - 01:11:05:05
Speaker 2
It's because I couldn't finish a PhD. I have three master's degrees, okay? I love academia, I love learning and school. I'd stay in school. I do master's my whole life if I could. I it's just enjoyable to learn things to the master's level and then it starts getting a little miserable. But the let's see, I got my first master's at U Dub and I was working on a Ph.D. in civil engineering and that definitely would have happened.

01:11:05:05 - 01:11:35:19
Speaker 2
I had no intent to to end it. I was excited to see where it would go, and then I broke my leg. It's shortly after getting my master's in civil. Then I was continuing onwards and I was out of commission for long enough that I kind of just lost my psych and also a I did lose money. There was some amount of money that I did have to pay for the medical bills, and I was offered a job at a engineering firm nearby.

01:11:35:19 - 01:11:53:22
Speaker 2
And it just seemed like, okay, well, this seems like something I should take to earn some money back and then figure out what to do. So that was the end of, that Ph.D. And then I went back to get a second master's in math at Western Washington. That one was never intended to be a Ph.D. because they didn't have a Ph.D. program.

01:11:54:03 - 01:12:20:07
Speaker 2
But I thought, you know, teaching teaching math would be that would be a great way to go. I love math. I love sharing that knowledge. And it worked out quite well. I, I loved every bit of that master's degree. And then I got hired on and I could still be there teaching there. Yeah. There was no end in sight of work to do there, and I was happy and fit in the program quite well.

01:12:20:09 - 01:12:39:11
Speaker 2
But being an adjunct forever is it's difficult to pay the bills as an adjunct, to be honest. And I so I kind of wanted to continue in academia and to get a Ph.D. in math was kind of the goal so that I could become a professor and teach and actually make enough to live off of and do some research as well.

01:12:39:13 - 01:13:07:23
Speaker 2
And so that's why I went to see a boulder to get a Ph.D. in applied math and I'd say that COVID might have played somewhat of a role. And in fact, I ended at a master's. It did change how school was for a good enough time. You know, classes went remote. All of a sudden you're disconnected from the campus and from all the people you're working with, and you kind of feel this lack of of connection and community.

01:13:08:03 - 01:13:40:06
Speaker 2
But, you know, plugged on words, enjoyed the material for sure. And I was planning on continuing that Ph.D. when I was offered a pretty good job. And, um, so I kind of I remember at the time thinking, okay, I have a decision to make here. I'm either going to continue the Ph.D. and end up in academia and see that goes for me, But I probably won't be able to stay in Colorado because it's hard to get a job working as a professor where you want to work?

01:13:40:08 - 01:14:08:01
Speaker 2
You got to kind of go somewhere else typically for a while before you get to where you want to be. Certainly the story from my dad and a lot of people I've known and says, I really want to stay in Colorado. And I thought, well, if I if I take this job working for this long pet technologies, methane gas monitoring company, which sounds great, like it's data analysis and it's just kind of research in a way.

01:14:08:02 - 01:14:30:10
Speaker 2
They're a and they're just kind of researching had to do this stuff as they're doing it and perfecting their systems. I was like, This sounds kind of nice. I could stay in Colorado and continue learning and have an actual job and, you know, make make more money than I am as a grad student. And so I'd say I'd take the job and I am still working for them.

01:14:30:10 - 01:14:42:17
Speaker 2
And yeah, definitely no regrets. Say it's a great company and the work is very interesting and so yeah, that's how I ended up with three master's degrees and no Ph.D..

01:14:42:19 - 01:14:56:19
Speaker 3
That's awesome. No, I mean, it's obviously unbelievably impressive and yeah, it's it's, it's, it's really crazy. Like when I when I was reading through it, I was like, I kept thinking I was making a mistake. Is it so have you ever looked up what the record for most Masters degrees.

01:14:56:19 - 01:15:20:17
Speaker 2
Is So I don't have anything for it. I mean, I would love to go for a fourth, but I, I feel like this is so I've been fortunate that I've been funded on scholarships through all of them. It has something to do with how, you know, my my grades and my performance and how well I've done I've gotten scholarships that have funded them, but I don't think they'd fund a fourth.

01:15:20:19 - 01:15:38:09
Speaker 2
I just yeah, I don't know what kind of case I would have for myself at this point. So I think I made that decision last May as I I'm getting the Ph.D. and staying in academia or I'm exiting now and probably never coming back. And, you know, I made the exit.

01:15:38:11 - 01:15:39:02
Speaker 3
That's really good.

01:15:39:02 - 01:15:41:18
Speaker 1
It's another chapter now. Yeah, it's good.

01:15:41:20 - 01:15:57:11
Speaker 3
Last last one on in academia, for me at least, is like, what's like what's like your favorite thing? Like, maybe most fascinating thing to just, like, work on or that, like, interests you the most in what you're doing? And like Martha or engineering.

01:15:57:13 - 01:16:28:17
Speaker 2
Calculus, I just love calculus. I think it's a it's just so fun. I do tutor calculus on occasion and I don't know, I just love it. I think it's such a fascinating and cool thing be able to do with math and quite useful. Yes, I'd say calculus. So I, I just like doing an integral. I just like sitting down and doing an integral for no point other than doing the integrals.

01:16:28:17 - 01:16:32:22
Speaker 2
So probably very few people that can relate with that.

01:16:32:22 - 01:16:40:03
Speaker 3
But yeah, I'm not I'm not one of them. But you know, I definitely have an appreciation for it. And yeah, it's it's cool. That's awesome.

01:16:40:05 - 01:16:41:13
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:16:41:15 - 01:17:11:20
Speaker 1
So I think, you know, wrapping things up here, we're coming kind of to the end. Just want to tie things back to, you know, your website, you know, people to find, you know, who you are, your story and you know. I think that the the biggest accomplishment at least I've seen in terms of just effort you've put in to this website is with your what what is the what I'm looking for the root descriptions, the root overlays.

01:17:11:22 - 01:17:18:10
Speaker 1
Root overlays. Yeah. And so how many, how many are on there right now. How many were no idea. Yeah, hundreds. Right.

01:17:18:12 - 01:17:27:04
Speaker 2
Like probably I'm sure I'm sure there's hundreds. I make great overlays for things that don't deserve them because I like making them so much.

01:17:27:06 - 01:17:36:00
Speaker 1
And yeah, I mean, how, how many climbs do you feel that you have documented on the website in general? I like hundreds of claims with great detail.

01:17:36:01 - 01:17:57:20
Speaker 2
Mean I have a, I have a, a weird numbering system that probably only I understand of what merits a number and what doesn't. But I think I'm like 617 trip reports. But I also have a list of how many days of I've managed every year. And it's it's far more than that. And how many claims? It's far more than that.

01:17:57:20 - 01:18:04:02
Speaker 2
But yeah, certain things will merit trip reports and there's six 1617 this point Wow. So yeah I.

01:18:04:02 - 01:18:27:04
Speaker 1
Mean that just that in itself as a resource for for us climbers and for anybody looking to learn more about these routes. It's just I just want to point people to it as a resource you know the fan that that pointed us towards you that was you know, what he was so psyched about sharing was the resource of your trip reports and how detailed you were and how committed you were to sharing this information freely.

01:18:27:06 - 01:18:31:21
Speaker 1
And so, yeah, I just want to, you know, give you a bit of praise for that. And just.

01:18:31:23 - 01:18:32:12
Speaker 2
To.

01:18:32:14 - 01:18:41:18
Speaker 1
Really paint the picture on how much effort that is. You know, I think a lot of people I wouldn't take the time to do that so consistently for years and years and years.

01:18:41:18 - 01:18:59:08
Speaker 2
And so I don't even want to think about the hours put in. But it's all it's it's I wouldn't say it's pure enjoyment, but it's almost all enjoyment. I do it for fun. Um, I do love documenting and the ability to share it. It's makes it even better. Yeah.

01:18:59:08 - 01:19:05:04
Speaker 1
Do you, do you know, like stats on your website? Do you have like a significant amount of traffic? Yeah.

01:19:05:06 - 01:19:27:16
Speaker 2
I have an analytics Google Analytics provides you with all the stats you can look down into even the cities, people are from. So you can see how many page views you get, how long people are spending on each page, how many new users you have, how many repeat users you have, where living. You can pretty much drill down into anything.

01:19:27:18 - 01:19:51:04
Speaker 2
And I do have a page on my website that summarizes that my website stats page. Okay, cool. The thing is, I remade my website as 2020. Like during my knee injury days. I remade my website because Google Sites was closing down its previous sites and they were just shutting those sites down and my site was way too big to convert.

01:19:51:05 - 01:20:17:21
Speaker 2
And so I was in contact with the some of the people, the admins at the Google sites and they're like, well, your site now, it's not going to convert. You got to remake it at that point. It's quite big. This is only a couple of years ago and so my knee injury days I spent recreating my website and I don't think it's as popular anymore because, you know, it takes a while to get to the tops of the searches and stuff.

01:20:17:23 - 01:20:27:23
Speaker 2
So it's so I love when I look at Google Analytics, I don't as many users, but you know, that's that's kind of me. It's not my goal. Yeah Yeah. But do you.

01:20:27:23 - 01:20:32:03
Speaker 1
Are you, are you sponsored or anything like is there any sort of revenue from the web now and the traffic.

01:20:32:03 - 01:20:54:22
Speaker 2
No, no revenue and I don't really people have asked if I want to put ads on there and I don't know how much ads revenue you can even get. But I have no desire to put ads on my site because they annoy me on various websites they go to and there's a pop up. I just yeah, I go, oh, I click this Xbox and turn the corner and get rid of this ad.

01:20:54:22 - 01:20:58:16
Speaker 2
And I don't want that happening on my website. So yeah, that's honorable.

01:20:58:16 - 01:20:59:03
Speaker 1
That's awesome.

01:20:59:03 - 01:21:14:21
Speaker 2
Plus, you know, if it's then I have if there's a typo or maybe some outdated piece of information or something that I hope didn't but might have misled someone, it's it's free information. So take it out with a grain of salt.

01:21:14:23 - 01:21:15:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, fair enough.

01:21:15:19 - 01:21:39:00
Speaker 3
I know it just seems like really amazing passion project and the amount of information that's been aggregated there, it is really something that's cool. And I even find it like quite motivating. Like I've obviously only touched the surface of going through your site and stuff, but reading of your experiences, your trip reports, looking at your hospital reports and stuff, you know, Yeah, there's something inspiring about.

01:21:39:00 - 01:21:50:03
Speaker 3
I feel like I watch Netflix or, you know, waste some time and you're like, you know, aggregating data and making trip reports. It's like, that's what I'm trying to get in my life. I'm like, I just know I'll, be like.

01:21:50:03 - 01:21:51:04
Speaker 1
Doomscrolling.

01:21:51:04 - 01:21:55:18
Speaker 3
Or watching like something and a bit of time off and I'm like, like, oh, I know, I want to be using this.

01:21:55:18 - 01:21:57:17
Speaker 1
What would Steph do? We got to make T-shirts.

01:21:57:20 - 01:22:02:19
Speaker 3
I just have like Steph devel like in the the what is that.

01:22:02:21 - 01:22:14:04
Speaker 2
I forget to show but yeah. Yeah. All that, all that time that could have been spent watching. I've probably put into a website I've never owned a TV so yeah.

01:22:14:04 - 01:22:45:04
Speaker 3
Oh my God that video honestly probably really an amazing thing to to to say nowadays. You know it's something special. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. One last thing, actually, I'd like to ask you a little bit about just since we have you here, because it's like, why not? So you did a seven day fast. And like, my understanding of that was like, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, you know, when you had the Mersa infection, you obviously took like a massive amount of antibiotics and that can really affect your gut microbiome.

01:22:45:06 - 01:22:51:01
Speaker 3
And do you feel like the issues you've had has stemmed from that course of antibiotics?

01:22:51:03 - 01:23:16:00
Speaker 2
I can. I do. I mean, I deal with it on a daily basis. My my gut is not that healthy. I, I deal with pretty constant indigestion, bloating, stomach aches. And so I'm always just on the search for something to help. And I have found that fasting is great. I'd come out of I used to do a lot of fasting.

01:23:16:00 - 01:23:35:02
Speaker 2
I haven't done so much of it these days, although I do intermittent fasting quite regularly where I'll just eat one meal a day, pretty much eat within a three hour window and, then don't eat the rest of the day. So I have found that fasting is it is kind of a good tool for helping with that kinds of issue.

01:23:35:04 - 01:23:59:13
Speaker 2
You're coming out of a longer feeling like a million bucks. Yeah, so there's definitely something healing about them. And then keto is also something I've tried and that is tremendously helpful to forget issues or I have found it to be just general body inflammation and energy, you know, positive effects on both of those inflammation seems to go down.

01:23:59:13 - 01:24:24:22
Speaker 2
There's absolutely no soreness, you just feel younger and then energy seems to go up. So I have experimented with with keto and fasting and have only positive things to say. Yeah, hard to stick to though. Yeah. Much as you feel good during them. And it's like why would I ever stop for some reason It's it's not something, it's just easy to do all the time.

01:24:24:22 - 01:24:35:18
Speaker 2
And so right now I am. I am neither. I am not keto and I'm not like strictly fasting a lot, but it is something I like to bring into my life on occasion.

01:24:35:20 - 01:24:58:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, I've definitely messed around with a lot of intermittent fasting. I've been Quito, I think obviously like from an endurance standpoint or a climbing standpoint, like treating training your body to be more adaptive, to using, you know, to for fat oxidation and like that low slow energy, like aerobic system, like there's a lot of performance benefits but then also can be a lot of health benefits.

01:24:58:01 - 01:25:14:10
Speaker 3
But I do find the same thing as you where it's like, I will do it. I feel like a million bucks. It's almost like I'm like, this like car engine and then somebody just put like engine cleaner and then like the highest quality, you know, like 97 at the gas tank in me. And I'm like, I'm like, amazing.

01:25:14:10 - 01:25:33:21
Speaker 3
But I'm like, I keep that for like ten days. And then I'm like, All right, I need to eat something that for some reason my body's telling me to eat. So it is I think it's really, really interesting, like the performance, the mental clarity, just how I feel after doing it. But I can't seem to sustain it, nor do I actually want to.

01:25:34:02 - 01:25:54:03
Speaker 3
Or like, you know, there's a friend in the like, Hey, let's go grab a beer. You're like, Oh, I'm Quito. Like, I'm not going to have a beer or something, right? On some level, it seems really hard to sustain, but I think it's definitely a tool in the box that a lot more people should start to be aware of that they can like use or to mess around with to try and feel good, you know?

01:25:54:03 - 01:26:12:14
Speaker 3
And when I read your write up, like I actually I'm really interested, like, I can't do it like you're seven day fast. Like, it's really inspired me. Like I really want to try a longer or a longer fast period. And I have a lot of experience with intermittent fasting and ketogenic periods. So like, I know I really enjoy it and I feel good.

01:26:12:16 - 01:26:32:10
Speaker 3
I'm just like right now I'm training to climb Denali in Alaska. So like I'm just nonstop aerobic work and the idea of not eating for seven days seems like a drastic performance decline. But I'm really fascinated with that. Well, yeah, that's true, actually. You don't know what you don't know, but I mean, really, I'm just really interested to know, like, what my body would do on a prolonged period like that.

01:26:32:10 - 01:26:35:14
Speaker 3
So, yeah, I thought that was really cool right up you had.

01:26:35:16 - 01:26:57:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean I it's, I guess for me the big takeaway I've had from, from that fast in particular is is that the body can really survive on its own. You don't have to put anything in and you got to drink. But even if I maybe had a little salt on occasion, but really nothing other than water and I did allow myself coffee just because it's nice, right?

01:26:57:06 - 01:27:21:06
Speaker 2
But the body is just so able to just keep on going, keep on functioning, you know, maybe you lose a little bit of energy not not not to point out feeling weak, but just kind of sitting around. Sounds kind of nice. But it's amazing how the body is able to just kind of keep going. And it's kind of good to know that, too.

01:27:21:08 - 01:27:30:05
Speaker 2
And especially is like a longer day in the mountains. It's like and you run out of food. It's like no big deal and the body and the body's fine.

01:27:30:07 - 01:28:01:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, it is really amazing to see just from like purely an evolutionary standpoint, like we are so adaptive and the way I think we are living like you know, for the majority of people nowadays is so contrary evolutionarily to like what our bodies are actually designed to be doing and what they can do. And, you know, when see people who are like really struggling and I don't want to diminish their suffering or their individual experience or anything, but like really suffering with like, oh, I can't I can't not eat this meal or something.

01:28:01:19 - 01:28:25:19
Speaker 3
It's like, like, trust me, you can like your body has like 100,000 calories on it. Like, if there was like a gun to your head or something right now, you could literally make it like hundred kilometers of nonstop walking. And so it's like, really interesting to see, like, the disparity between how I feel, like the input and the stimulus in my brain telling me for like food and what I want versus like what I'm actually capable of doing.

01:28:26:01 - 01:28:44:04
Speaker 3
Those are like totally separated entities, right? And it's like we always want to drift towards the like how I feel or how I think I should feel. And then sometimes that's really contrary to the reality of like what your body is actually like programed to do or, capable of doing it. It's interesting.

01:28:44:06 - 01:28:50:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think the body can do a lot more than we think it can. Yeah, I think I.

01:28:50:03 - 01:28:54:13
Speaker 3
Think that's a pretty amazing place to stop. I don't know, Kyle, if you have anything else or stuff and, you know.

01:28:54:13 - 01:29:02:22
Speaker 1
I think we covered it. Yeah. Steph, unless you have anything else for our audience or for your fans that you want to say.

01:29:03:00 - 01:29:12:13
Speaker 2
Thank you for the compliments. On my website, I'm known viewer who who recommended me or thanks to my viewers, I guess.

01:29:12:15 - 01:29:29:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. No, I just want to say thanks so much for coming on the show and like taking the time to talk to us and everything stuff. You know, it's been a real pleasure chatting with you and everything and obviously like having the resource of your website and going through that. It's been really awesome. I really enjoyed having this conversation with you, so thanks so much for taking the time.

01:29:29:11 - 01:29:30:23
Speaker 1
Yeah, watch out for those loose rocks. Okay.

01:29:31:04 - 01:29:38:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. I had never thought about the third one being a knee injury, being a loose rock. But you're right, definitely correct.