As climbers we all have our own goals and ambitions. In 2019 I had the goal of climbing the tallest mountain in North America. I had just recently completed an ironman and was looking for my next challenge. Life had other plans for me though. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic and a fall that nearly took my life all happened in 2021. Fast forward from 2019 to present day my girlfriend Rae and I have just returned from Climbing the West Buttress of Denali. Four years have passed and I've learnt a lot of things since initially wanting to climb Denali. But the thing that stands out to me most in the last 4 years is that life can be really hard, but you can do really hard things if you commit and put your mind to it. So whether “your summit” is raising a family and having a successful career or climbing mountains, maybe both? We all have peaks to summit and lows to experience. It's how we deal with our lowest moments that define us. Climbing Denali was the culmination of 5 years of endurance training and climbing. This experience changed me for the better. I hope it inspires you to try hard and get out and climb. In this episode Kyle and I will be sitting down and sharing everything I learnt while climbing the tallest mountain in North America.
Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.
Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: theclimbingmajoritypodcast@gmail.com
As climbers we all have our own goals and ambitions. In 2019 I had the goal of climbing the tallest mountain in North America. I had just recently completed an ironman and was looking for my next challenge. Life had other plans for me though. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic and a fall that nearly took my life all happened in 2021. Fast forward from 2019 to present day my girlfriend Rae and I have just returned from Climbing the West Buttress of Denali. Four years have passed and I've learnt a lot of things since initially wanting to climb Denali. But the thing that stands out to me most in the last 4 years is that life can be really hard, but you can do really hard things if you commit and put your mind to it. So whether “your summit” is raising a family and having a successful career or climbing mountains, maybe both? We all have peaks to summit and lows to experience. It's how we deal with our lowest moments that define us. Climbing Denali was the culmination of 5 years of endurance training and climbing. This experience changed me for the better. I hope it inspires you to try hard and get out and climb. In this episode Kyle and I will be sitting down and sharing everything I learnt while climbing the tallest mountain in North America.
Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.
Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: theclimbingmajoritypodcast@gmail.com
00:00:00:18 - 00:00:06:03
Speaker 1
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Climbing Majority Podcast. We're gonna sit down with living.
00:00:06:03 - 00:00:06:17
Speaker 2
Legends.
00:00:06:17 - 00:00:17:18
Speaker 1
Professional athletes, certified guides, the recreational climbers. We discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a farmer. If you haven't already.
00:00:17:20 - 00:00:19:00
Speaker 2
Please subscribe.
00:00:19:02 - 00:00:21:14
Speaker 1
Rate and review us wherever you get your.
00:00:21:14 - 00:00:26:03
Speaker 2
Podcasts.
00:00:26:05 - 00:00:27:18
Speaker 2
As climbers, we all have our own.
00:00:27:18 - 00:00:29:08
Speaker 1
Goals and ambitions.
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Speaker 2
In 2019, I had the goal of.
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Speaker 1
Climbing the tallest mountain in North America.
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Speaker 2
I just recently completed an Ironman and.
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Speaker 1
Was looking for my next.
00:00:36:15 - 00:00:41:05
Speaker 2
Challenge. Life had other plans for me, though. Unfortunately, the COVID.
00:00:41:05 - 00:00:41:15
Speaker 1
19.
00:00:41:15 - 00:00:45:19
Speaker 2
Pandemic happened and additionally, in 2021, I.
00:00:45:19 - 00:00:46:18
Speaker 1
Had a fall that nearly.
00:00:46:18 - 00:00:49:15
Speaker 2
Took my life. Fast forward from 2019 to present.
00:00:49:15 - 00:00:54:20
Speaker 1
Day, and my girlfriend REI and I have just returned from climbing the west buttress of Denali.
00:00:55:01 - 00:00:55:16
Speaker 2
Four years have.
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Speaker 1
Passed and I've learned a lot of things since initially wanting to climb the mountain in 20.
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Speaker 2
19. Something that stands.
00:01:01:19 - 00:01:04:19
Speaker 1
Out to me the most in the last four years is that life.
00:01:04:19 - 00:01:06:19
Speaker 2
Can be really hard, but you can do.
00:01:06:19 - 00:01:08:22
Speaker 1
Really hard things if you commit and put your.
00:01:08:22 - 00:01:11:17
Speaker 2
Mind to it. So whether your.
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Speaker 1
Summit is raising a family and having a successful.
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Speaker 2
Career.
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Speaker 1
Or climbing.
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Speaker 2
Mountains.
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Speaker 1
Maybe both.
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Speaker 2
We all have peaks to summit and.
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Speaker 1
Lows to experience. How we deal with our lowest moments that define us.
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Speaker 2
For Ray and I.
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Speaker 1
Climbing Denali was the culmination of five years of endurance, training and climbing. This experience changed me for the better.
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Speaker 2
I hope it inspires.
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Speaker 1
You to try hard.
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Speaker 2
And.
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Speaker 1
To get out and climb.
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Speaker 2
In this.
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Speaker 1
Conversation, Kyle and I will be.
00:01:37:13 - 00:01:58:15
Speaker 2
Sitting down and sharing everything I learned while climbing the tallest mountain in North America. So without further delay, enjoy the show.
00:01:58:17 - 00:02:01:08
Speaker 2
We're here to ask again.
00:02:01:10 - 00:02:07:01
Speaker 3
How long has it been since we've actually done an episode like just the two of us as the first of the year, isn't it?
00:02:07:03 - 00:02:08:21
Speaker 2
Honestly, first of the year, you and I are just.
00:02:08:21 - 00:02:14:07
Speaker 1
Touching base, talking about Rt-cgm and acknowledging where it's going to go. But it does feel and.
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Speaker 3
Here we are where it.
00:02:15:06 - 00:02:21:17
Speaker 2
Is. Yeah, exactly. Now it's now I don't know. It does it does feel really like full circle though, and cool to.
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Speaker 1
Actually be sitting down and just talking with you.
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Speaker 2
Yeah, it's been a while.
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Speaker 1
So it's awesome.
00:02:25:11 - 00:02:28:07
Speaker 3
Definitely. I think is at the halfway point. Let's see.
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Speaker 2
To the year, pretty.
00:02:29:17 - 00:02:34:02
Speaker 1
Much we're almost bang on. I want to see which I didn't even think about. That's kind of nice. Almost.
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Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. It's about halfway through the year. It's pretty bad as you are sitting down because you just accomplished something pretty fucking rad. Pretty rad. So let's. Let's dive into it.
00:02:44:18 - 00:02:51:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, we're just here to, you know, I think my terminology be shoot the shit and talk about Denali.
00:02:51:23 - 00:02:54:09
Speaker 1
You know, which is kind of.
00:02:54:10 - 00:02:55:11
Speaker 2
The project that.
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Speaker 1
My climbing partner slash.
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Speaker 2
Girlfriend REI, and I just, you know.
00:02:59:09 - 00:03:02:13
Speaker 1
Ended up competing. So we did Denali via the West.
00:03:02:13 - 00:03:04:02
Speaker 2
Buttress.
00:03:04:03 - 00:03:05:13
Speaker 1
And yeah, it was.
00:03:05:15 - 00:03:07:01
Speaker 2
Really.
00:03:07:03 - 00:03:10:18
Speaker 1
One hell of an experience and an endeavor and.
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Speaker 2
I feel.
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Speaker 1
Like I have a lot to.
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Speaker 2
Share. So, you know, here we are.
00:03:16:11 - 00:03:19:20
Speaker 1
To, to essentially talk about it, right?
00:03:19:22 - 00:03:21:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, like funny enough.
00:03:21:19 - 00:03:39:18
Speaker 1
REI and I actually in 2019 ended up wanting to do Denali and various injury and then COVID and then actually, you know, having that fall and breaking both my ankles, which was, you know, the most major one of that kind of incident. And here we are almost four years later.
00:03:39:19 - 00:03:51:06
Speaker 2
And yeah, there's just been something. So I don't know, fulfilling about that, about how long the journey has been to kind.
00:03:51:06 - 00:03:52:09
Speaker 1
Of come full circle.
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Speaker 2
To this and in a really weird way also, I don't know, you know, I can't in.
00:03:59:08 - 00:04:05:18
Speaker 1
Hindsight is 2020. I don't know what would have happened had we actually had gone through with it in that time frame or something. If it hadn't.
00:04:05:18 - 00:04:08:02
Speaker 2
Happened. But really, the skills.
00:04:08:02 - 00:04:13:11
Speaker 1
And the experiences I had that led up to this trip.
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Speaker 2
Were.
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Speaker 1
Invaluable in us actually succeeding on the mountain together. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it was it was really awesome, So meaningful.
00:04:23:16 - 00:04:31:22
Speaker 3
So you, you, you and REI came up with this idea back in 2019. You're like, All right, we're going to we're going to do Denali. That was kind of the precipice of the entire endeavor.
00:04:32:00 - 00:04:33:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, 100%.
00:04:33:02 - 00:04:37:16
Speaker 2
I had just so REI and I actually July.
00:04:37:16 - 00:04:46:03
Speaker 1
19, 2019, REI and I started dating. I had just finished my Ironman, like, I think the end of July.
00:04:46:05 - 00:04:50:18
Speaker 2
And then kind of after the Iron Man, I was really looking for the next challenge.
00:04:50:18 - 00:04:55:21
Speaker 1
And I just started getting into climbing a whole bunch and Denali kind of seemed like this.
00:04:55:23 - 00:05:09:04
Speaker 2
Really cool idea, you know, Hey, that seems really awesome. And, you know, in retrospect, I didn't actually really fully understand what the project entailed. So at the time, which is kind of funny, but but that was on my mind.
00:05:09:04 - 00:05:21:06
Speaker 1
It was. It was. I start reading training for the New Alpine ism. I knew that Steve House and Scott Johnston, they say the Alaska Rangers is amazing, stepping stone to getting into your foray at altitude. And there's so many routes up.
00:05:21:06 - 00:05:22:08
Speaker 2
There.
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Speaker 1
And this is something I'd kind of been.
00:05:24:08 - 00:05:25:03
Speaker 2
Thinking about for a.
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Speaker 1
Long time is climbing at altitude and trying to climb bigger peaks. And, you know, living here on the West Coast just was the natural progression to say, well, you know, this is this is the next testing ground to to go try something. You know essentially I'd got climb Baker a couple of times of climbed Rainier a couple of times those were amazing experiences the feeling I get being on the side of Rainier that spectacular amazing mountain I just yeah I really wanted to just experience kind of the next level of that, if that made sense.
00:05:56:19 - 00:06:02:01
Speaker 1
And so Denali was the the logical progression in my mind to to to that.
00:06:02:03 - 00:06:12:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. So, so this is kind of what I was alluding to like how how I guess how many like mountaineering peaks that you climbed before you had this idea to climb?
00:06:12:09 - 00:06:23:03
Speaker 2
Denali Yeah, I think so. Like, I just, I had just done maybe like one really kind of like intro beginning.
00:06:23:03 - 00:06:35:10
Speaker 1
Ice climbing, mixed climbing season, you know, I had climbed the core job, so a couple of like kind of Alpine routes and mixed climbs and ice climbs in the Canadian.
00:06:35:10 - 00:06:36:06
Speaker 2
Rockies.
00:06:36:06 - 00:06:39:01
Speaker 1
I had climbed Baker.
00:06:39:01 - 00:06:44:03
Speaker 2
Once, Wedge Mound like I had like as far as like a beginner.
00:06:44:03 - 00:06:46:16
Speaker 1
Amateur, like I had experience and.
00:06:46:16 - 00:06:51:13
Speaker 2
Experienced. I at a very, very rudimentary level.
00:06:51:13 - 00:06:55:16
Speaker 1
There's so many levels to this, right? It depends like who you're comparing yourself to, obviously.
00:06:55:16 - 00:07:01:14
Speaker 2
So I was I was not like I didn't not know anything, but I had the.
00:07:01:14 - 00:07:21:09
Speaker 1
Ambition, I had fitness, I had experience and time in the mountains. I obviously still had a huge amount to learn and to increase skill sets proficient lead to, I think, what would have been needed to be successful on Denali, which I didn't know at the time, which is just a good explanation of, you know, where I was in an amateur setting, right?
00:07:21:14 - 00:07:22:06
Speaker 2
You don't know.
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Speaker 1
What you don't know, I think is for.
00:07:24:06 - 00:07:26:20
Speaker 2
Sure kind of step to being an amateur. And then the next.
00:07:26:20 - 00:07:41:19
Speaker 1
Step is you start becoming quite competent, but you're competent enough to know what you don't know, which is a whole fuck load of things, you know, and, and, and that's when you when you're really able to start doing a lot more in the world of climbing I think.
00:07:41:21 - 00:07:59:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, I think, I guess what I'm alluding to is like I think a lot of us especially, we can get super hyped up on Stoke and we can be like, Oh, you know, like Denali sounds like a good idea. And it's like, I know you just kind of loosely throw it out there or, you know, whatever the goal might be for someone, I guess.
00:07:59:04 - 00:08:16:06
Speaker 3
Like how much of that decision do you think was like concrete? And you're like, you know, we're like, I'm doing this 100% and I'm about to commit to order. It was kind of like, you know, oh, let's let's do Denali and then kind of just like, forgot about it for a couple of weeks or a couple of months.
00:08:16:06 - 00:08:20:18
Speaker 3
Like, how committed were you when you made that decision that first day?
00:08:20:20 - 00:08:22:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, I feel like we were 100.
00:08:22:07 - 00:08:30:17
Speaker 1
Percent we were going to pull the trigger. We were ready to do it. We were going for it. So I just thinking in the hindsight bias of like now having done.
00:08:30:17 - 00:08:32:14
Speaker 2
It.
00:08:32:16 - 00:08:55:10
Speaker 1
You know, like I said over though, you know, obviously there is a lot of time being injured and sedentary periods through COVID and stuff. But I also had a lot of intermittent climbing and another two seasons and two rock seasons and made a huge amount of improvements and understanding. I spent time with guides. This podcast started access to more people.
00:08:55:10 - 00:08:56:09
Speaker 1
So the point.
00:08:56:09 - 00:08:57:02
Speaker 2
Is I learned a.
00:08:57:02 - 00:09:02:08
Speaker 1
Huge amount and I used a lot of the skills that I had learned there. So at the.
00:09:02:08 - 00:09:02:18
Speaker 2
Time I.
00:09:02:18 - 00:09:04:05
Speaker 1
Think I would is ready to pull the.
00:09:04:05 - 00:09:06:12
Speaker 2
Trigger. I would have done it.
00:09:06:14 - 00:09:08:11
Speaker 1
But it.
00:09:08:13 - 00:09:10:02
Speaker 2
Would have been a much.
00:09:10:02 - 00:09:14:13
Speaker 1
Different and difficult endeavor. And I don't I think I.
00:09:14:15 - 00:09:15:08
Speaker 2
Attribute the.
00:09:15:08 - 00:09:23:15
Speaker 1
Success we had on it, and I don't want to say it's just a success because we got to the summit. I think it's a success that that's really nice, but it's a success because.
00:09:23:17 - 00:09:24:18
Speaker 2
I utilize.
00:09:24:18 - 00:09:25:02
Speaker 1
Like.
00:09:25:02 - 00:09:26:11
Speaker 2
A huge breadth of.
00:09:26:11 - 00:09:36:08
Speaker 1
Skills and information and fitness to actually, you know, cohesively work with Ray and to end up, you know.
00:09:36:13 - 00:09:37:11
Speaker 2
Doing a whole bunch of.
00:09:37:11 - 00:09:45:11
Speaker 1
Things right that I think I would not have had any clue to do, you know, had I actually done it in 2019.
00:09:45:13 - 00:09:48:17
Speaker 2
So, yeah, who knows what would have happened. But I'm, I think it it.
00:09:48:17 - 00:09:52:03
Speaker 1
Worked out perfect the way it did in a really strange way.
00:09:52:04 - 00:09:54:16
Speaker 3
Bad assets, kind of how things work out, you know?
00:09:54:18 - 00:10:06:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And I mean, I don't think I think on some level it's really good to be overly ambitious and sometimes you got to put the cart before the horse a little bit and.
00:10:06:20 - 00:10:09:19
Speaker 1
Leap and you've got to just, you know, take a leap.
00:10:10:00 - 00:10:11:04
Speaker 2
Of faith, essentially, or.
00:10:11:04 - 00:10:12:15
Speaker 1
Try some harder things.
00:10:12:17 - 00:10:14:05
Speaker 2
But it's to do those in the.
00:10:14:05 - 00:10:22:03
Speaker 1
Most calculated way possible, if that makes sense. So and I think there would have been a lot of overreach had I done it in 2019.
00:10:22:03 - 00:10:24:23
Speaker 2
So and that's not to say that the West Buttress.
00:10:24:23 - 00:10:28:13
Speaker 1
Is really this unachievable task or something very hard.
00:10:28:13 - 00:10:30:03
Speaker 2
Once again, there's layers to things.
00:10:30:03 - 00:10:33:15
Speaker 1
It really depends who you are and your experience and background.
00:10:33:17 - 00:10:36:07
Speaker 2
It's a very, very achievable task.
00:10:36:07 - 00:10:40:22
Speaker 1
And I think so many people who are thinking of doing something like that, or whether it's the West buttress or another.
00:10:40:22 - 00:10:41:05
Speaker 2
Mountain.
00:10:41:11 - 00:10:42:11
Speaker 1
You can absolutely do.
00:10:42:11 - 00:10:45:03
Speaker 2
It, but just take the.
00:10:45:03 - 00:10:58:12
Speaker 1
Time and energy to prepare properly and to do the trip right, if that makes sense. And if you're hiring a guide, then you have a lot more leeway in what you can do. And that's an amazing way to learn and have an experience as well, too.
00:10:58:14 - 00:11:15:05
Speaker 3
In terms of I guess we can dive here into the preparation, like with the how much would you say? I mean, you can go through your whole process. I'm just curious as to like you're because you've had a lot of on mountain time like you've climbed Rainier you can Baker You climb Shasta right. Like you've climbed these big mountains.
00:11:15:05 - 00:11:40:02
Speaker 3
And I feel like those are like training grounds and test piece to like kind of make yourself ready for something like Denali. Like how much of that experience of being on the mountain and actually kind of like doing those trips versus training in the gym or, you know, building your aerobic base? Like, what kind of split would you give it in terms of what's more important in your particular situation?
00:11:40:04 - 00:11:47:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think giving it a split is really, really difficult. Like fortunately for Ray and I, you know, as people who have we do.
00:11:47:17 - 00:12:05:15
Speaker 1
Multipage tried climb mics, climb multipage ice. We have done tons of mountaineering. You know, I've spent a lot of time in my life on skis and knowing just intuitively how to swing axes and to move crampons points and how to get rest and a little bit more of efficiency.
00:12:05:15 - 00:12:06:12
Speaker 2
So all of.
00:12:06:12 - 00:12:08:10
Speaker 1
Those skills.
00:12:08:12 - 00:12:10:05
Speaker 2
Those are those take a.
00:12:10:05 - 00:12:11:16
Speaker 1
Long time to build.
00:12:11:18 - 00:12:13:06
Speaker 2
So if you're somebody who is just.
00:12:13:06 - 00:12:22:15
Speaker 1
Going into the mountain and you hadn't had any of those skills, of course you hear stories of like people on Everest and they're just learning how to put on their crampons for the first time and stuff like.
00:12:22:17 - 00:12:26:02
Speaker 2
Highly would not recommend. Right. And so those those kind of.
00:12:26:02 - 00:12:39:06
Speaker 1
Skills take a long time to build to be able to do it well. Like you could also do it pretty fast, you know, if you had a lot of time, you dedicated time over a year or two years, you've got a lot of Mountain Time. You could learn really fast.
00:12:39:08 - 00:12:40:13
Speaker 2
But fortunately, Ray and I had.
00:12:40:13 - 00:12:44:22
Speaker 1
Already had kind of the majority of all those skills, which I would say.
00:12:44:22 - 00:12:48:01
Speaker 2
Are, you know, significant. But with the lack.
00:12:48:01 - 00:12:54:00
Speaker 1
Of technicality, like it's not like the West buttress, you're climbing four and five and like a rock chimney or something.
00:12:54:05 - 00:12:55:19
Speaker 2
Because of that, you can learn on the.
00:12:55:19 - 00:12:58:09
Speaker 1
Fly like the barrier to entry to getting up there.
00:12:58:14 - 00:13:00:20
Speaker 2
Is a little lower. That being said.
00:13:00:20 - 00:13:05:13
Speaker 1
I wouldn't recommend going in with like the lowest, you know, barrier.
00:13:05:15 - 00:13:07:22
Speaker 2
But but very much so. At least.
00:13:08:00 - 00:13:09:05
Speaker 1
My experience.
00:13:09:05 - 00:13:11:12
Speaker 2
On the West buttress.
00:13:11:14 - 00:13:35:15
Speaker 1
It is just a aerobic and power marathon. You know, it's just day after day after day of just hammering out, you know, moving and acclimating and hauling loads and and all that. And then you're getting higher up the mountain as you're continuing this kind of work output and all.
00:13:35:15 - 00:13:38:13
Speaker 2
That accumulates.
00:13:38:13 - 00:13:40:21
Speaker 1
Into a lot of stress and wear and tear. And so.
00:13:40:21 - 00:13:42:09
Speaker 2
If you don't have a really, really.
00:13:42:09 - 00:13:47:09
Speaker 1
High degree of fitness, a really high aerobic base, your body's not going to recover.
00:13:47:09 - 00:13:47:19
Speaker 2
As well.
00:13:47:19 - 00:13:48:06
Speaker 1
You're not going to.
00:13:48:06 - 00:13:50:15
Speaker 2
Feel as well and you're inevitably going to.
00:13:50:15 - 00:14:00:20
Speaker 1
Deteriorate going up the mountain. But if you don't have that margin of error for fitness and stuff, that's just going to happen so much faster. So I would.
00:14:00:20 - 00:14:05:05
Speaker 2
I would say 7030, just given the type of route it is, you know.
00:14:05:05 - 00:14:05:23
Speaker 1
From a technical.
00:14:05:23 - 00:14:11:17
Speaker 2
Proficiency and gear and all that stuff, like 30%, you know, more of those technical appearances.
00:14:11:17 - 00:14:13:21
Speaker 1
And like 70% like fitness.
00:14:13:21 - 00:14:18:05
Speaker 2
If you were just the most aerobic that is beast.
00:14:18:05 - 00:14:33:13
Speaker 1
In the world and you just had like a good buddy or two who just were like, Oh, yeah, this is how you do your crampons. And they just like, took all the technicality, that decision making. You could you could definitely do it, you know, so for sure. So it's a very achievable task. Yeah.
00:14:33:15 - 00:14:41:07
Speaker 3
So how did you I know you built your fitness program around training for the new Alps. Albinism, Right? That was the book. You kind of built everything around.
00:14:41:09 - 00:14:42:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.
00:14:42:13 - 00:14:56:11
Speaker 3
So I've. I've used that book before, and I've built some of the training programs before when I was living out in Jackson Hole. Like, did you follow them pretty strictly on how they kind of build everything out, or did you kind of make a hybrid for your own specific needs and goals?
00:14:56:13 - 00:14:57:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, so we.
00:14:57:07 - 00:14:59:23
Speaker 1
Definitely hybridized it a bit.
00:15:00:01 - 00:15:02:04
Speaker 2
So what I've done is.
00:15:02:04 - 00:15:11:03
Speaker 1
In Training Peaks, which is if anybody doesn't know Training Peaks is this amazing coaching and athlete software you can get on your computer.
00:15:11:05 - 00:15:14:17
Speaker 2
It has so much so many amazing functions.
00:15:14:17 - 00:15:19:12
Speaker 1
And information that you can get on it, but you can purchase training programs from people. And.
00:15:19:14 - 00:15:21:00
Speaker 2
You know, a training program.
00:15:21:00 - 00:15:25:16
Speaker 1
Obviously isn't specified to an individual. It's just like a blanket.
00:15:25:16 - 00:15:28:06
Speaker 2
Like, here's a pretty good idea. Follow this.
00:15:28:06 - 00:15:30:03
Speaker 1
You're probably going to get pretty fit.
00:15:30:05 - 00:15:32:00
Speaker 2
So the nuances of I.
00:15:32:00 - 00:15:34:14
Speaker 1
Think coaching, like self coaching, comes from.
00:15:34:16 - 00:15:35:04
Speaker 2
Knowing.
00:15:35:04 - 00:15:44:08
Speaker 1
Yourself and your body and physiology and understanding when to push and stuff. And I'm very in my infancy of understanding this, but I still feel like I know a fair amount.
00:15:44:10 - 00:15:46:07
Speaker 2
And so we use these, these.
00:15:46:07 - 00:15:50:09
Speaker 1
Training templates from it's you know.
00:15:50:11 - 00:15:50:22
Speaker 2
I think it's.
00:15:50:22 - 00:15:51:15
Speaker 1
Uphill athlete.
00:15:51:15 - 00:15:58:00
Speaker 2
Is what produce them you know and and and so we use those but then.
00:15:58:00 - 00:16:00:05
Speaker 1
We modify things for ourselves.
00:16:00:07 - 00:16:03:02
Speaker 2
So for example maybe the.
00:16:03:02 - 00:16:04:19
Speaker 1
The training program calls.
00:16:04:19 - 00:16:08:01
Speaker 2
I don't know maybe I can take way higher aerobic load than.
00:16:08:01 - 00:16:09:18
Speaker 1
What the program calls for.
00:16:10:00 - 00:16:12:14
Speaker 2
Or maybe I know that it's going to benefit me way.
00:16:12:14 - 00:16:22:15
Speaker 1
More to actually go do X number of days outside as opposed to the one day outside the program. So that's when like the nuance of knowing yourself, having access to the mountains, time, commitment.
00:16:22:15 - 00:16:23:22
Speaker 2
Energy, all those things.
00:16:24:00 - 00:16:29:19
Speaker 1
Will accumulate into you being able to increase your performance hypothetically.
00:16:29:21 - 00:16:31:12
Speaker 2
But yeah, so what Ray and I did.
00:16:31:12 - 00:16:31:19
Speaker 1
Is.
00:16:31:19 - 00:16:36:05
Speaker 2
We we did a two month.
00:16:36:07 - 00:16:55:17
Speaker 1
Training program for ICE and mixed climbing, and so we did that, took it extremely seriously. It involves like, you know, I've got my home gym I can dry tool in the den there. So it involves a whole bunch of dry tooling and functional strength training and aerobic base training.
00:16:55:19 - 00:16:57:20
Speaker 2
And we did that for two months.
00:16:57:20 - 00:16:58:12
Speaker 1
And we got.
00:16:58:14 - 00:16:59:18
Speaker 2
Really, really.
00:16:59:18 - 00:17:07:03
Speaker 1
Really strong. You know, obviously it's always subjective to the individual, but for myself, I made.
00:17:07:03 - 00:17:08:02
Speaker 2
Huge.
00:17:08:02 - 00:17:35:21
Speaker 1
Strength improvements, huge improvements, and then I went out and we started ice climbing and I had the largest and best ice season that I've ever had. I've only been doing it for like three or four years with some serious injuries, not from ice climbing, but that created lapses in that. But just these huge improvements. And we just went on to have this like magnificent season of just climbing, amazing multi pitch ice and some of the most spectacular things I've ever climbed.
00:17:35:23 - 00:17:37:11
Speaker 2
And so that was this huge.
00:17:37:11 - 00:17:38:17
Speaker 1
Breakthrough, a feeling.
00:17:38:19 - 00:17:39:09
Speaker 2
Really.
00:17:39:09 - 00:17:40:18
Speaker 1
Really amazing.
00:17:40:20 - 00:17:43:11
Speaker 2
And feeling really, really strong.
00:17:43:13 - 00:17:46:12
Speaker 1
And so we kind of came off of that.
00:17:46:14 - 00:17:48:00
Speaker 2
Two month period.
00:17:48:02 - 00:18:03:23
Speaker 1
Then tons of climbing, so much time spent in the mountains. And then we started a six month program as just under six months, maybe like five and a half, around program that was really much more traditional mountaineering centric.
00:18:04:01 - 00:18:04:23
Speaker 2
So, you know.
00:18:04:23 - 00:18:15:11
Speaker 1
We kind of came through the ice and had this really good technical season. We felt that that was extremely complementary to our task, not in the sense that we were going to be climbing.
00:18:15:11 - 00:18:17:07
Speaker 2
Like that on Denali, but.
00:18:17:07 - 00:18:18:21
Speaker 1
In the sense that, you know, if I can.
00:18:18:21 - 00:18:19:13
Speaker 2
Go.
00:18:19:15 - 00:18:30:22
Speaker 1
Do a 600 meter, you know, like eight pitch ice multipage and have like 500 miles of water and two bars and spend like 12 hours in the mountains, you know.
00:18:30:22 - 00:18:31:17
Speaker 2
Like.
00:18:31:19 - 00:18:33:07
Speaker 1
Leaving in the dark, getting back in the.
00:18:33:07 - 00:18:33:23
Speaker 2
Dark.
00:18:34:01 - 00:18:43:10
Speaker 1
I know that I'm in a good position for being in the mountains and spending long days in the mountains. So and to sharpen all those skill sets of proficiency on steep.
00:18:43:10 - 00:18:46:11
Speaker 2
Snow and all those things. And so we progressed.
00:18:46:11 - 00:19:11:15
Speaker 1
Through that into this more traditional mountaineering training, which, you know, there's always this foundation of low, slow aerobic base activity, which for people listening is like commonly known as zone two, and that's like your nose breathing pace, right? So there's this huge foundation of that and then a lot of a lot of strength building and gym work, which, you know, like strengthening your.
00:19:11:15 - 00:19:14:08
Speaker 2
Core tons of, you know, leg.
00:19:14:08 - 00:19:29:14
Speaker 1
Exercises like squatting, single leg squatting box step bobs, like all this kind of foundational stuff. And that just accumulated over time. And then eventually it goes, Sorry, hopefully I'm not going too much here, but I'll just finish with this.
00:19:29:14 - 00:19:30:05
Speaker 2
Like eventually it.
00:19:30:05 - 00:19:54:02
Speaker 1
Gets into you as you get closer to your training, gets into sport specific periods. And so the sport specific personally is what they call a muscular endurance workouts. And it's just you put a whole bunch of weight in a bag and the weight once again is subjective to the individual and your strength. It's not. It's very calculated. It's not just stupidly kill yourself, you know, going uphill or something with a backpack full of rocks.
00:19:54:04 - 00:19:57:19
Speaker 2
But, you know, and and you do these muscular endurance.
00:19:57:19 - 00:20:07:01
Speaker 1
Workouts and these weighted hikes. And it was very, very effective. I got, you know, the strongest from a hiking, walking uphill running.
00:20:07:01 - 00:20:08:02
Speaker 2
Perspective I've ever.
00:20:08:02 - 00:20:11:23
Speaker 1
Been in my entire life. It was it was really, really awesome.
00:20:12:01 - 00:20:15:13
Speaker 3
Damn, dude, that's awesome. Hella committed for sure. It's a lot of training.
00:20:15:15 - 00:20:17:00
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:20:17:01 - 00:20:31:10
Speaker 3
A lot of training. Would you if you like, if you were working full time or you were like, If you were working full time, would you feel like you had enough time to do that level of training that you had done while you were doing it?
00:20:31:12 - 00:20:38:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, if I was working like a 40 hour a week job, I think it would be similar. So I was in school.
00:20:38:01 - 00:20:41:05
Speaker 1
Full time for fortunately, school. Okay, flexible and sedentary.
00:20:41:05 - 00:20:42:01
Speaker 2
But school ate.
00:20:42:01 - 00:20:51:16
Speaker 1
Up about 30 hours plus a week. And then usually the podcast here could be anywhere like 5 to 10 plus or if we have multiple interviews.
00:20:51:18 - 00:20:53:15
Speaker 2
So I looking.
00:20:53:15 - 00:21:16:21
Speaker 1
At my schedule, I was about without training, about 40 hours a week consistently, I would be busy and then training my training load on average was about 20 hours a week and and start off like that like it progress. You know maybe like you'd at 15 and there's periodization so it's not like you might you know you build up for three weeks, you have like a week cut back a bit but on average is about like 18 to 20 hours a week.
00:21:16:21 - 00:21:21:19
Speaker 1
And so to be busy 40 hours a week plus that.
00:21:21:21 - 00:21:24:05
Speaker 2
You know, it's really.
00:21:24:07 - 00:21:30:22
Speaker 1
I was constantly talking to Ray because you'd almost have these weird periods where you're like, I'm so exhausted all the.
00:21:30:22 - 00:21:32:02
Speaker 2
Time. Yeah. You know.
00:21:32:04 - 00:21:36:15
Speaker 3
I was this was my second question was, how do you manage the energy, the energy crisis?
00:21:36:17 - 00:21:43:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, you have to make sure you're eating tons. So food prep and making sure you're eating enough was a huge one.
00:21:43:02 - 00:21:50:12
Speaker 1
And that also is time consuming. I start taking lots of mini naps, which I've never done previously in my life. That became.
00:21:50:12 - 00:21:52:11
Speaker 2
A big thing and.
00:21:52:11 - 00:21:55:14
Speaker 1
Just kind of in a perpetual state of exhaustion.
00:21:55:14 - 00:21:56:04
Speaker 2
Which I think.
00:21:56:04 - 00:22:01:10
Speaker 1
Sounds bad. But can you say that to a coach? They're like, Oh, you're overtraining or something.
00:22:01:11 - 00:22:03:15
Speaker 2
It's I know my body really well.
00:22:03:15 - 00:22:07:22
Speaker 1
After quite a few years of training and it was like it wasn't.
00:22:07:22 - 00:22:10:22
Speaker 2
Like overtraining, but it's like you're, you're, you're quite.
00:22:10:22 - 00:22:13:14
Speaker 1
Close to the line, a lot of it, you know.
00:22:13:16 - 00:22:15:14
Speaker 2
So it really was really.
00:22:15:14 - 00:22:36:20
Speaker 1
Tiring because the most exhausted I've been for eight months ever in my life. So and I think you can climb the West, buttress with with less of a commitment than that, if that makes sense. So having done the climb, you know, even coming off the mountain, I know I felt like I have a lot more in me.
00:22:36:20 - 00:22:38:18
Speaker 2
Like it was really hard.
00:22:38:20 - 00:22:53:15
Speaker 1
Very, very hard. But I think you perpetually have these experiences that push you to your you're so called max or line, and they're very, very hard. But on some level, in the back of your mind, you really realize if there was a gun to the.
00:22:53:15 - 00:22:55:02
Speaker 2
Back of my head right now I.
00:22:55:02 - 00:23:10:03
Speaker 1
Have a lot more in the tank, you know what I mean? So it's like the barrier is actually psychologically being able to push myself to the level rather than like was my physical body at the absolute limit. It was like mentally, I had never been pushed.
00:23:10:03 - 00:23:10:16
Speaker 2
That hard.
00:23:10:21 - 00:23:12:16
Speaker 1
But physically I think I had more.
00:23:12:16 - 00:23:13:19
Speaker 2
In the tank.
00:23:13:21 - 00:23:40:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's bad attitude. Yeah, I think it's just it's easy for, I mean, myself included, to just be I don't know, you can call it lazy, you know, just fucking I'm tired man. Like a beer sounds nicer or I want to do something else or whatever. And it just, it takes a you know, you're a you're a living testament to, you know, an example outside of those excuses where it's like you can be busy 40 hours a week and still accomplish something like that.
00:23:40:19 - 00:24:03:15
Speaker 3
And so I think that was just kind of the point I wanted to drive home. So yeah, it's bad attitude. Yeah. I mean, training, you want to start diving into kind of like logistics on, on how you were packing and prepping and, and because I think that's like I've never obviously I'm, I'm not in your shoes so I'm coming up with this on the spot.
00:24:03:15 - 00:24:20:13
Speaker 3
But my, my understanding would be is that like just the sheer logistics of packing and understanding what to bring, how much to bring and over packing would be kind of like a make or break decision on your success when you actually get there. So maybe walk us through that a little bit.
00:24:20:15 - 00:24:23:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. I think.
00:24:23:14 - 00:24:49:20
Speaker 1
You know, I've heard anecdotes that, you know, people they say mountaineering is like 30% climbing and 70% logistics. And I think there really is a lot of truth in that. You know, people like to have, you know, this myopic view of of climbing and just or maybe just fitness and, you know, these things. But like you've alluded to, you know, and this was my first foray into planning like a large expedition, it's it's.
00:24:49:20 - 00:24:54:11
Speaker 2
A lot of work to really do all the.
00:24:54:13 - 00:25:00:19
Speaker 1
The research that's finding articles, that's finding, you.
00:25:00:19 - 00:25:03:22
Speaker 2
Know, maps, camel files, looking at the routes.
00:25:03:22 - 00:25:07:12
Speaker 1
Mapping every single thing out, looking at the elevations, the.
00:25:07:12 - 00:25:09:00
Speaker 2
Plots.
00:25:09:01 - 00:25:10:08
Speaker 1
Knowing all the.
00:25:10:08 - 00:25:11:07
Speaker 2
Gear, what.
00:25:11:07 - 00:25:13:21
Speaker 1
You're going to bring, how to do that in the lightest possible.
00:25:13:21 - 00:25:14:15
Speaker 2
Way.
00:25:14:17 - 00:25:19:07
Speaker 1
How do you plan for 22 days of food? You know, what are you going to actually want.
00:25:19:07 - 00:25:20:04
Speaker 2
To eat is.
00:25:20:06 - 00:25:23:04
Speaker 1
How do you know if it's enough calories?
00:25:23:06 - 00:25:24:15
Speaker 2
How much weight are you going to have?
00:25:24:18 - 00:25:27:18
Speaker 1
You know, if you can actually take that amount of weight like.
00:25:27:18 - 00:25:31:03
Speaker 2
Appropriately so, all of these things.
00:25:31:05 - 00:25:34:00
Speaker 1
Need to be done in a very, very calculated.
00:25:34:00 - 00:25:35:16
Speaker 2
Manner. And fortunately, you.
00:25:35:16 - 00:25:43:22
Speaker 1
Know, in our age, there's so many there's infinite resources out there to to actually be able to do that. But so.
00:25:44:04 - 00:25:44:23
Speaker 2
You know, Ray and I had.
00:25:44:23 - 00:25:55:13
Speaker 1
Done our research. We knew the layering systems, the gear we were going to have. Fortunately, we mostly had all of it anyways from really cold climbing that we do ice climbing wise.
00:25:55:14 - 00:25:56:19
Speaker 2
So gear wasn't.
00:25:56:19 - 00:25:59:00
Speaker 1
Really an issue. It was more so figuring.
00:25:59:00 - 00:25:59:21
Speaker 2
Out what.
00:25:59:21 - 00:26:11:03
Speaker 1
Is the best possible system and the lightest possible system for what we're going to be doing. So that that was kind of one component of it. Another component is, you know, figuring.
00:26:11:03 - 00:26:11:16
Speaker 2
Out food.
00:26:11:16 - 00:26:11:22
Speaker 1
Like.
00:26:11:22 - 00:26:13:03
Speaker 2
I, you know, I've got a.
00:26:13:03 - 00:26:30:02
Speaker 1
I've got some pictures. I think I posted them on her Instagram page. It's like having 22 days of food for two people just mapped out. Your entire house is just like floor to floor, you know, day one, day to day three day for, you know, all these sequential sequences and and finding out.
00:26:30:04 - 00:26:31:02
Speaker 2
What is actually going to be.
00:26:31:02 - 00:26:34:09
Speaker 1
Enough for me, like my body size, my BMR.
00:26:34:11 - 00:26:34:19
Speaker 2
What.
00:26:34:19 - 00:26:43:23
Speaker 1
What is also going to be a diet that, you know, is going to be appropriate for me. And so, you know, for for Ray and I, for example, we did.
00:26:44:03 - 00:26:44:23
Speaker 2
Oatmeal and.
00:26:44:23 - 00:26:47:16
Speaker 1
Egg band Noodles for breakfast, and I got to say, I loved it.
00:26:47:16 - 00:26:53:21
Speaker 2
I can always eat oatmeal usually and Egyptian noodles in a cold environment to just have like the soupy.
00:26:53:21 - 00:26:54:18
Speaker 1
Brothy.
00:26:54:18 - 00:26:58:05
Speaker 2
Noodles. It was so good.
00:26:58:07 - 00:27:00:14
Speaker 3
Do you mix them together or are these two separate things?
00:27:00:15 - 00:27:05:08
Speaker 2
These are two separate things. Although I did mix goals and like this weird.
00:27:05:08 - 00:27:09:05
Speaker 1
Egg freeze dried meal, I got off of somebody and it was delicious.
00:27:09:06 - 00:27:10:09
Speaker 2
Okay, You know, you're still.
00:27:10:13 - 00:27:11:04
Speaker 3
Struggling.
00:27:11:04 - 00:27:12:22
Speaker 1
Down by the day when you're out there.
00:27:12:22 - 00:27:19:03
Speaker 2
I think. But yeah, so we'd have like that would be an example of a breakfast. And then.
00:27:19:05 - 00:27:21:01
Speaker 1
That was between like five and 600.
00:27:21:01 - 00:27:22:10
Speaker 2
Calories.
00:27:22:12 - 00:27:46:02
Speaker 1
I was aiming for about 3500 calories a day. So I have my 5 to 600 calorie breakfast. We then had a snack bag that was comprised of dried fruits, nuts, a few treats and like bars and that was about 1500 calories for me. And then for dinner, I would try and get one really large meal and ideally around 1500 calories.
00:27:46:02 - 00:27:47:01
Speaker 1
So shooting.
00:27:47:01 - 00:27:47:14
Speaker 2
For about 30.
00:27:47:14 - 00:27:48:11
Speaker 1
500 calories a.
00:27:48:11 - 00:27:49:05
Speaker 2
Day.
00:27:49:07 - 00:27:55:03
Speaker 1
I definitely didn't eat all my food every single day, you know, But it.
00:27:55:04 - 00:27:56:02
Speaker 2
But even just.
00:27:56:03 - 00:28:17:23
Speaker 1
Knowing that like that, I feel I felt really confident with what I was going to eat because I've spent a lot of time in the mountains and I know what I like to eat when I'm in the mountains and experimenting with food and stuff. So, you know, even just logistically planning that, like I'm trying to I'm just trying to think what else.
00:28:18:01 - 00:28:44:07
Speaker 3
In terms of like timing. I know I did it dabbled a little bit in this. Like, I know it was like, what was it every hour you have to consume? I think it was like 300 calories an hour. That was like the recommended dosage or you like like cognitively taking like breaks every hour to consume food or were you on the go kind of like eating or like were you I guess we're kind of jumping ahead.
00:28:44:07 - 00:28:54:12
Speaker 3
You can kind of like pastel over this just a little bit. But directly related to food, was it was it like stationed out like that or was it kind of just eat when you need to?
00:28:54:14 - 00:28:56:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, generally for me, I know.
00:28:56:05 - 00:28:58:10
Speaker 1
For myself.
00:28:58:12 - 00:29:00:20
Speaker 2
If my my consumption is.
00:29:00:20 - 00:29:05:07
Speaker 1
Dependent on on a few things. So it's like terrain but then also.
00:29:05:07 - 00:29:08:10
Speaker 2
Output when I have a really high output and generally.
00:29:08:10 - 00:29:27:16
Speaker 1
I know my body really well when I'm starting to go into this area of, you know, beyond my aerobic threshold. So maybe you're getting 50% energy from a robot glycolysis and 50% from, you know, oxidizing fat, and then you start going higher into these anaerobic pushes and stuff.
00:29:27:18 - 00:29:29:18
Speaker 2
If I'm working like that, I really.
00:29:29:18 - 00:29:34:06
Speaker 1
Start consuming and forcing myself to have food consistently.
00:29:34:06 - 00:29:37:17
Speaker 2
Like every hour I'll be like, usually I don't have a number, but I'm like, I'll.
00:29:37:17 - 00:29:45:22
Speaker 1
Try for like a gel or a bar or a couple of nuts or something every hour, every single hour, or even 45 minutes, if I can, depending on how high my output is.
00:29:46:00 - 00:29:50:12
Speaker 2
But if I've been aerobic pace, I'll try and.
00:29:50:12 - 00:29:52:21
Speaker 1
Be cognizant of having snacks.
00:29:52:23 - 00:29:57:00
Speaker 2
But, you know, if I know from intentionally.
00:29:57:00 - 00:30:14:04
Speaker 1
Training my body, like I really focused through this training camp on that adaptation and renal training and so renal your your kidneys. So I really tried and fad adaptation getting your body to use its own fat stores better in anaerobic way. And I.
00:30:14:04 - 00:30:17:05
Speaker 2
Did this by progressively doing.
00:30:17:06 - 00:30:35:18
Speaker 1
Larger and larger days and larger larger training sessions with no water and no food. And so I got myself to a position where I just kind of knew, you know, if I've got to if I've got to go 14 hours straight with like a very small amount of water and no food, like it's going to be miserable and it's going to suck.
00:30:35:23 - 00:30:42:19
Speaker 1
But like, I can get my body to do that, you know, 14 hours is pretty extreme. Like I could do it now would be a lot.
00:30:42:19 - 00:30:45:20
Speaker 2
But but really, I do mean it like, you know.
00:30:45:21 - 00:31:03:23
Speaker 1
Like, like I would do like four or five hour trail runs. No food, no water. But casually, you know, I did two weeks of carnivore diet in my training with a 20 hour a week aerobic volume. So I had zero grams of carbs for two weeks and I was doing 20 hours of aerobic training. So it's like.
00:31:03:23 - 00:31:04:16
Speaker 2
Really just.
00:31:04:16 - 00:31:07:04
Speaker 1
Training your body to to be fat adapted.
00:31:07:08 - 00:31:11:00
Speaker 2
And that's like once again, all of these things are there's a.
00:31:11:00 - 00:31:20:14
Speaker 1
Slow progress into these things. I've done fasting before. My body works well with fasting. I've tried Carnivore before, you know, it's not just 0 to 100, it's all very calculated.
00:31:20:16 - 00:31:21:01
Speaker 2
Just for.
00:31:21:01 - 00:31:22:06
Speaker 1
Someone listening. I just don't want.
00:31:22:06 - 00:31:34:13
Speaker 2
Them to be like, you're like, Can you do it tomorrow? Yeah, I'm going to go from this high sugar, high carb diet, and I've never ever intermittent fasted and I'm going to just do this. It's like you're going to feel horrible, you know, don't don't kid yourself. So. But Max said to.
00:31:34:13 - 00:31:38:02
Speaker 3
Eat a raw chicken breast and go run six miles with no water.
00:31:38:05 - 00:31:47:09
Speaker 2
Chicken sashimi, always, always the secret. But but but yeah you know so so those that that I knew.
00:31:47:09 - 00:31:50:02
Speaker 1
For like snacking wise.
00:31:50:04 - 00:31:53:19
Speaker 2
I knew that. But in general like every single day I would.
00:31:53:19 - 00:31:55:02
Speaker 1
Out my my.
00:31:55:04 - 00:31:58:17
Speaker 2
My snack bag I would try and eat that maybe maybe in a move.
00:31:58:17 - 00:32:00:15
Speaker 1
I, I, i.
00:32:00:17 - 00:32:01:17
Speaker 2
Maybe one or two.
00:32:01:17 - 00:32:03:07
Speaker 1
Bars over 8 hours, let's say.
00:32:03:12 - 00:32:04:05
Speaker 2
But then when I get.
00:32:04:05 - 00:32:15:16
Speaker 1
To camp, I make sure I'm like, okay, I'm. I don't even care. I'm not hungry. I'm force feeding myself this whole snack bag and then I'm full. An hour later, I'm going to have my soup, I'm going to have my dinner. I'm going to you know, I'm going to.
00:32:15:16 - 00:32:16:08
Speaker 2
Make sure.
00:32:16:08 - 00:32:17:18
Speaker 1
I get these calories in.
00:32:17:19 - 00:32:20:02
Speaker 2
And that definitely got a lot harder as you got.
00:32:20:04 - 00:32:26:08
Speaker 1
You know, once you pass like 4200 meters, like it starts getting harder to eat Food was my experience.
00:32:26:10 - 00:32:47:00
Speaker 3
Yeah, I've I've noticed that a little bit with my small bit of mountaineering is like, yeah, you just force feeding yourself, you know, you need it and you kind of like, it's weird. It's like this, you know, I think the term they use is bonk, right? You don't want to bonk. And it's like this fine line, right? Like you can like you feel fine.
00:32:47:00 - 00:33:07:18
Speaker 3
You could feel fine, like you said, for 10 hours. You feel like pretty good. But then, like, it's too late. You've already, like, waited too long and now you've, like, are at a deficit. Now you're having to, like, reek, consume all those calories. And it's much better to just force your force, feed yourself, like you said, every hour and consume those calories on a strict schedule.
00:33:07:23 - 00:33:20:17
Speaker 3
And you feel pretty good if you stay on top of that. And you don't have to worry about these kind of highs and lows and energy. It's an interesting kind of thing to be in to force, force, feed yourself like that. But it's it's it's important.
00:33:20:19 - 00:33:21:23
Speaker 1
It's super important.
00:33:21:23 - 00:33:22:11
Speaker 2
And it will.
00:33:22:14 - 00:33:38:00
Speaker 1
Make or break like the difference. Like if you have a day and your day is going to be 8 hours and maybe you've trained and you feel good, that's fine. But if your day then pushes to like 14 or are some longer period that you're really not used to those calories that you felt you didn't need at the.
00:33:38:00 - 00:33:39:01
Speaker 2
Beginning of the day.
00:33:39:03 - 00:33:42:22
Speaker 1
They make a big difference because like if you've been being consistent.
00:33:43:00 - 00:33:45:12
Speaker 2
Then you don't have to play a whole bunch of catch up.
00:33:45:14 - 00:33:51:23
Speaker 1
Because if you're like tired, exhausted, sweating in a bad place, you can't just sit there and eat like 800 calories of nuts, you.
00:33:52:03 - 00:33:56:08
Speaker 2
Know, like she like, oh, like, not even hungry. So you can't play.
00:33:56:08 - 00:34:02:03
Speaker 1
Catch up, right? So it is important. Yeah. Nutrition, such a large factor in so many ways people don't usually.
00:34:02:03 - 00:34:03:13
Speaker 2
Think about.
00:34:03:15 - 00:34:19:11
Speaker 3
I don't know what they call it, but have you found that like, I don't know. I guess I want to call it like, rinse and swallow. Have you ever tried that Where like, basically, are you like, like drinking your food? Yeah. Yeah. You like to sit up, you can't eat, and then you just drink, like, shuffle it around and then take a swallow.
00:34:19:13 - 00:34:33:21
Speaker 3
That was like, Wow, I did that when I was trying to body build. I was like, I did a whole my whole nappy and I was like, I need to consume this many fucking calories in a day. And I was like, I'm so full. And it would just be like, Just water, man. Just like, chew it up and swallow it and it works.
00:34:33:23 - 00:34:36:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I, I have an exact same experience.
00:34:36:17 - 00:34:39:01
Speaker 1
I used to be like £240 meat.
00:34:39:01 - 00:34:40:05
Speaker 2
Had I go.
00:34:40:05 - 00:34:45:01
Speaker 1
To the gym 3 hours a day, five days a week, and I had the same I was managing at General Nutrition.
00:34:45:01 - 00:34:45:11
Speaker 2
Center.
00:34:45:16 - 00:34:48:03
Speaker 1
And I had this like special designed lunch.
00:34:48:03 - 00:34:52:15
Speaker 2
Box that could hold like six meals in it. And I would just brown rice, broccoli.
00:34:52:15 - 00:34:56:02
Speaker 1
And like these cheap salmon burgers. And I would do the same thing.
00:34:56:02 - 00:35:11:15
Speaker 2
Kyle Just chew it up into my mouth and do like this gross bolus and then just swallow with water. And that's fine. I can keep doing this. I think of that to like now, you know, it's so it's such a strong contrast. It's really unbelievable. But that's.
00:35:11:17 - 00:35:14:03
Speaker 3
It. Hey, man, you are preparing for Denali back then.
00:35:14:03 - 00:35:19:00
Speaker 2
And you didn't watch it. Yeah, I don't actually have a problem with consuming food, and I will.
00:35:19:00 - 00:35:24:14
Speaker 1
Definitely credit it to the four years of eating like 4000 calories and 300 grams of protein.
00:35:24:14 - 00:35:28:11
Speaker 2
A day. You know, that definitely helps.
00:35:28:15 - 00:35:30:00
Speaker 3
Oh, man.
00:35:30:02 - 00:35:31:03
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:35:31:05 - 00:35:38:21
Speaker 3
Melissa, let's dive into the meat of it, dude. Let's. Let's start hearing about the kind of play by play here. Totally. Screw it.
00:35:38:23 - 00:35:44:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, I mean, you know, Ray and I, like, we flew out, you fly to Anchorage, we then.
00:35:44:06 - 00:35:51:22
Speaker 1
Caught this ride with this shuttle that was recommended by Talkeetna Air taxi with this guy, Gary Go Purple was the name of his company.
00:35:52:00 - 00:35:59:07
Speaker 2
He was a really interesting character. He buys you like a peanut butter cookie and a coffee. Really nice guy. The first 30 minutes of the ride, he just started.
00:35:59:07 - 00:36:00:23
Speaker 1
Complaining about his ex-wives.
00:36:00:23 - 00:36:01:13
Speaker 2
The whole time.
00:36:01:13 - 00:36:02:08
Speaker 1
Which was like.
00:36:02:10 - 00:36:08:01
Speaker 2
That was how it's going to go on, like the whole two hour drive. It's really interesting. But no, it ended up being just like.
00:36:08:02 - 00:36:10:21
Speaker 3
The typical response. You're like, crazy Did.
00:36:10:23 - 00:36:19:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's insane. Yeah. But, you know, being a good guy, it was. It was harmless. Yeah, but. Yeah, but you get into Talkeetna, this beautiful.
00:36:19:07 - 00:36:21:22
Speaker 1
Little town, right? And two things need to happen.
00:36:22:00 - 00:36:23:16
Speaker 2
First, you need to do an.
00:36:23:16 - 00:36:24:16
Speaker 1
Orientation with the.
00:36:24:16 - 00:36:28:11
Speaker 2
Rangers, you know? And then. And then second.
00:36:28:12 - 00:36:37:00
Speaker 1
You're going to talk to the air taxi service used. We use Talkeetna. Air taxi. That's what. What was recommended there? The largest air taxi service there. They've been operating.
00:36:37:00 - 00:36:38:21
Speaker 2
Longest. And something really cool.
00:36:38:21 - 00:36:53:03
Speaker 1
About them is this thing called the bunkhouse. So they actually have like a house that just has all these bunk beds made out of two by fours on the lower and upper floor and a communal kitchen. And so climbers are just staying there for free. If you use the air taxi service.
00:36:53:08 - 00:36:58:20
Speaker 2
Now, you get to kind of like be in this climbing community. It's pretty grungy, but in a good way, in my opinion.
00:36:59:00 - 00:36:59:20
Speaker 1
And then climbers.
00:36:59:20 - 00:37:00:07
Speaker 2
Who leave.
00:37:00:07 - 00:37:20:09
Speaker 1
The mountain leave tons of free food there. So there's just like nice food that needs to be finished. So if you get stuck there for a couple of days, you get free room and there's free food, you know, so you can save money. So that's that's really cool. And it was cool to be able to talk to people like there'll be somebody there and they just got off the mountain and summited and you can ask them, you know, how is this?
00:37:20:09 - 00:37:21:02
Speaker 1
How is it you can.
00:37:21:02 - 00:37:21:13
Speaker 2
Get a lot.
00:37:21:13 - 00:37:22:20
Speaker 1
Of data and information from.
00:37:22:20 - 00:37:24:03
Speaker 2
People.
00:37:24:05 - 00:37:26:14
Speaker 1
So that that's a really, really great resource.
00:37:26:16 - 00:37:38:12
Speaker 3
You said that you could get stuck there like it's weather wise, right? They're only going to fly if they have a certain level of visibility or like what? What are you looking at? Like, you could get stuck there for, what, like five days a week? Like what was like the fear?
00:37:38:15 - 00:37:41:02
Speaker 1
You heard stories of 5 to 7 days. And actually.
00:37:41:02 - 00:37:42:01
Speaker 2
When Ray and I.
00:37:42:01 - 00:38:02:08
Speaker 1
Came off the mountain at the lower camps when we were coming down, we passed like a procession of like 150 people. Like I kid you not 150 people walking up in a line up from Camp two to Camp three. Wow. And we talked to them and they said they were stuck there for about six days in Talkeetna because of visibility.
00:38:02:08 - 00:38:05:10
Speaker 1
And the planes fly on visibility. So it's definitely.
00:38:05:10 - 00:38:05:20
Speaker 2
Something.
00:38:05:20 - 00:38:08:21
Speaker 1
To factor in. And they also.
00:38:08:23 - 00:38:09:14
Speaker 2
I don't know if it's.
00:38:09:14 - 00:38:10:06
Speaker 1
Mandatory.
00:38:10:06 - 00:38:11:12
Speaker 2
But, you know, in the.
00:38:11:12 - 00:38:23:03
Speaker 1
Information I got is you store four days of food at base camp minimum. And that's what we did because, you know, if you're trying to fly out and you're stuck there for seven days, well, one day of.
00:38:23:03 - 00:38:25:17
Speaker 2
Food is not going to cut it. You know, you better tighten your pants.
00:38:25:17 - 00:38:26:03
Speaker 1
Real.
00:38:26:03 - 00:38:44:11
Speaker 3
Yeah. So, I mean, that's that that's an interesting thing. It's like, you know, you think, oh, fuck, I'm going to get stuck there before I even climb it. But you might get stuck there trying to get back and you're fucking be a shit. You're at base camp, you're out of food, no water, and now you're stuck in the fucking weather for seven days.
00:38:44:11 - 00:38:48:17
Speaker 3
Like that is a serious thing to be, to be prepared for.
00:38:48:18 - 00:38:54:08
Speaker 1
Yeah. And you absolutely have to plan for it. And that's why you got to cache food there. So. But.
00:38:54:10 - 00:38:58:16
Speaker 2
But yeah, you know, so you know, it's actually we ended up sleeping one night at the bunkhouse.
00:38:58:16 - 00:39:07:21
Speaker 1
Got up the next day we had to wait a couple hours because of visibility. But after our Ranger orientation pretty quickly and side note, the Rangers give you these green buckets to.
00:39:07:21 - 00:39:08:10
Speaker 2
Poo in.
00:39:08:10 - 00:39:17:03
Speaker 1
And they were really great. And they're really a great resource. And so now it's really, really nice at the Walter Harper Ranger station there in Talkeetna.
00:39:17:05 - 00:39:18:18
Speaker 2
But yeah, we you know.
00:39:18:18 - 00:39:34:18
Speaker 1
We we got on and we got on to this this plane, these I think it's a little Cessna plane called Otter's and you just get this I'd never experienced anything like it. This amazing, beautiful flight. The plane you can feel like when strong gusts of wind.
00:39:34:18 - 00:39:38:18
Speaker 2
Hit it, you know, and and it's just you feel like a part of the environment.
00:39:38:18 - 00:39:51:05
Speaker 1
Whereas when you're flying like large commercial flights, you don't get any of that because of the the aviation, like the plane is so powerful and well designed in that capacity. You know, it just blows through anything.
00:39:51:07 - 00:39:57:05
Speaker 2
But you fly and you fly into this range and just like Alaska's so beautiful.
00:39:57:05 - 00:39:58:04
Speaker 1
And the curvature.
00:39:58:04 - 00:40:03:23
Speaker 2
Of the the glacial rivers and the wooded land and the isolation, and then you just.
00:40:03:23 - 00:40:09:00
Speaker 1
Start going into these mountains, that just the prominence is unbelievable.
00:40:09:04 - 00:40:15:20
Speaker 2
So large, the glaciers unfathomable. And, you know, I've grown up here.
00:40:15:21 - 00:40:17:11
Speaker 1
On the West Coast, B.C.
00:40:17:13 - 00:40:18:15
Speaker 2
We have some pretty large.
00:40:18:15 - 00:40:44:12
Speaker 1
Glaciers here, you know, contextually compared to a lot of places. And they just the glaciers in Alaska are of an unbelievable scale. You can't even compare. It does not even a drop in the water. It's it's they're so freaking large and so spectacular is really, really magical. But yeah, you know, you eventually you you fly in and you land.
00:40:44:14 - 00:40:49:02
Speaker 1
And before going we had actually done this call with Mark Smiley.
00:40:49:04 - 00:40:49:19
Speaker 2
And he gave.
00:40:49:19 - 00:41:07:22
Speaker 1
A lot of great advice. It was all like Denali, you know how to climb Denali West Buttress or the. CARLSON He was giving people advice and help and talking about his company and his mentorship program. He has is a really great call, but he kind of said, you know, when you get off the plane, you're going to feel super chaotic and stuff.
00:41:08:00 - 00:41:17:17
Speaker 1
Take a second to just relax and look around, enjoy the environment. And we did do that. And it you know, it is chaotic. You're moving all your gear. You're you're so psyched.
00:41:17:17 - 00:41:20:04
Speaker 2
Your adrenaline's going. You're finally there.
00:41:20:04 - 00:41:29:13
Speaker 1
You know, it's been this terrible thing you've been planning for God knows how long. And now you're landed, you're on the glacier, and it really sets in like, Fuck me, I'm on Denali, you.
00:41:29:13 - 00:41:33:22
Speaker 2
Know, And. And yeah, fuck, yeah. But you just look around.
00:41:33:22 - 00:41:53:01
Speaker 1
In the mountains there are so inspiring and so large and spectacular. And the rock and the ceramics. And it was just unbelievable. Like, really just the power of the place is so, so amazing. I can't. Okay, It's. It's for. For what I've ever experienced is just amazing. And yeah, you.
00:41:53:01 - 00:42:01:14
Speaker 2
Know, I remember I remember getting off there and the one thing we hadn't done that was a little bit of a question mark for us, which we knew we would figure out, but was really the.
00:42:01:14 - 00:42:03:04
Speaker 1
Sleds. I didn't train with.
00:42:03:04 - 00:42:03:20
Speaker 2
Sleds.
00:42:03:20 - 00:42:04:01
Speaker 1
You.
00:42:04:01 - 00:42:04:16
Speaker 2
Know any.
00:42:04:16 - 00:42:14:05
Speaker 1
Of that. I haven't rigged a sled before. I had a good understanding. I had all the skills and the know how, had the right equipment. We had that enough power cord. But that was really like, you know, getting off.
00:42:14:05 - 00:42:25:14
Speaker 2
There, being on the glacier and going like, well, fuck neck, now I've got to rig this sled, you know, and make sense of this thing. And, and so we rigged it and we had a good weather opportunity. So we just took off.
00:42:25:14 - 00:42:26:16
Speaker 1
Right away, you know.
00:42:26:16 - 00:42:28:04
Speaker 2
And there's 24 hour daylight.
00:42:28:04 - 00:42:45:08
Speaker 1
In Alaska. So you're never really in this position of going, oh, it's 5 p.m., we should move or something. It's like as long as the wind is going to hold and yeah, yeah, if you can deal with the temperature, depending on where you are on the mountain, you're good to go. And so that's pretty cool. Yeah. So off we went, you know.
00:42:45:08 - 00:42:47:04
Speaker 2
You landed about.
00:42:47:06 - 00:43:08:14
Speaker 1
2300 meters and then you go down this thing called Heartbreak Hill, which is this massive meandering hill on this glacier that's just, you know, unfathomable the size. And you go down this big hill and then you slowly work your way up to about or No, sorry, it's just yeah, I don't know. It's just under 2000 meters or something.
00:43:08:14 - 00:43:12:16
Speaker 1
I think the first day you gain like 300 meters because you go down.
00:43:12:16 - 00:43:15:12
Speaker 2
Quite a bit and then you go up.
00:43:15:14 - 00:43:23:09
Speaker 1
So I think you end up at about 2300 meters. So you probably start at around 2000 and yeah, we go.
00:43:23:10 - 00:43:27:16
Speaker 3
They call it Heartbreak Hill because you have to come back up it on the way back.
00:43:27:18 - 00:43:29:08
Speaker 1
Totally bad and me tell you.
00:43:29:08 - 00:43:43:21
Speaker 2
Super Well I, I guess we'll get to that a little later but wow so well yeah you know and yeah but yeah we got to the first camp and and so essentially the way it works.
00:43:43:21 - 00:43:47:03
Speaker 1
You know, or at least the systems in my understanding is.
00:43:47:05 - 00:43:49:20
Speaker 2
So you're there single carrying and double.
00:43:49:20 - 00:43:50:08
Speaker 1
Carrying.
00:43:50:10 - 00:43:51:08
Speaker 2
And so, and.
00:43:51:08 - 00:43:52:06
Speaker 1
Then back carrying and.
00:43:52:06 - 00:43:53:16
Speaker 2
So single carrying is when you have.
00:43:53:16 - 00:44:01:19
Speaker 1
All of your gear, you're going camp to camp double carrying as you're shuttling loads and back carrying is your shuttle a load maybe halfway to the.
00:44:01:19 - 00:44:02:19
Speaker 2
Next camp and.
00:44:02:19 - 00:44:16:16
Speaker 1
Then the next day or whatever period, you go to the next camp and then another day, a rest day, you'll go back down and carry your load. So a single carry, double carry back carry, if that makes sense.
00:44:16:18 - 00:44:17:10
Speaker 2
And so after.
00:44:17:10 - 00:44:21:05
Speaker 1
Camp one, we started double carrying, so shuttling loads.
00:44:21:08 - 00:44:23:11
Speaker 2
So we tried to avoid.
00:44:23:14 - 00:44:26:21
Speaker 1
Cash and gear before the camp.
00:44:26:21 - 00:44:28:07
Speaker 2
We were going to the next day.
00:44:28:12 - 00:44:41:00
Speaker 1
So, you know, we, we went from camp ones 2300 meters. We took a load of gear, took that up to 3300 meters, dig a big hole, make a GPS waypoint with either a PLB.
00:44:41:00 - 00:44:41:20
Speaker 2
You have or.
00:44:41:20 - 00:44:53:21
Speaker 1
I have a GPS watch. Then you put in a whole bunch of wands and flags and then you bury it with the snow, go back down to camp, rest, hydrate. You know, do all that have a sleep. You wake up. If the weather.
00:44:53:21 - 00:44:54:08
Speaker 2
Permits.
00:44:54:13 - 00:44:58:19
Speaker 1
Pack up your camp, move up to the next camp, then at the next camp, make your.
00:44:58:19 - 00:45:00:01
Speaker 2
Camp, you know.
00:45:00:03 - 00:45:02:00
Speaker 1
Un bury all your staff.
00:45:02:02 - 00:45:03:04
Speaker 2
Get situated.
00:45:03:04 - 00:45:17:19
Speaker 1
And then ideally if you can keep depending on your fitness and depending on whether you keep kind of hopping up the mountain like that in a series is, as you know, as fast as your fitness allow you to essentially.
00:45:17:22 - 00:45:32:06
Speaker 3
So yeah it was and what is so what is this terrain looking like at this point? Are you like are you snowshoeing, you on skis? Are you crossing? Is there ladder like ladder crossings or is this like a steep snow slope? Like, what does it look like?
00:45:32:08 - 00:45:36:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, So there's no ladder crossings. You're on a glacier the entire time.
00:45:36:11 - 00:45:37:01
Speaker 1
The second you.
00:45:37:01 - 00:45:38:12
Speaker 2
Land on a glacier, you.
00:45:38:12 - 00:45:42:03
Speaker 1
Are on a glacier 100% of the time. And so it could.
00:45:42:03 - 00:45:53:17
Speaker 2
Look like large, meandering, rolling to really, really steep snow slopes to, you know, generally until 42, around 3300 meters. It's like, you know, big.
00:45:53:19 - 00:45:56:08
Speaker 1
Glaciated but covered snow.
00:45:56:11 - 00:45:58:09
Speaker 2
Really thick snow like so thick.
00:45:58:09 - 00:46:03:20
Speaker 1
You don't even see the snow bridges. But you're covering crevasses that are huge. I mean.
00:46:03:20 - 00:46:04:21
Speaker 2
So big.
00:46:04:21 - 00:46:05:21
Speaker 1
It's like.
00:46:05:23 - 00:46:06:22
Speaker 2
They're one part on.
00:46:06:22 - 00:46:18:00
Speaker 1
The lower glacier. You could see an open hole like, you know, like 40 feet wide, like a like a bus would disappear. And it no problem. You know, you wouldn't even like Yeah, like there's massive.
00:46:18:00 - 00:46:19:14
Speaker 2
So but for the most part.
00:46:19:18 - 00:46:27:17
Speaker 1
You know, in May, May, June they're just they're totally filled in so or at least my experience my, my rudimentary experience in Denali being there once, you.
00:46:27:17 - 00:46:29:00
Speaker 2
Know, they're they're filled.
00:46:29:00 - 00:46:32:16
Speaker 1
They're very filled in. So yeah.
00:46:32:17 - 00:46:35:16
Speaker 2
And you do that with we use snowshoes.
00:46:35:18 - 00:46:49:15
Speaker 1
We just thought we could mitigate crevasses and, you know, the risk easier on snowshoes, even despite being ski tours. And it's way quicker to go back to camp. Obviously, just skiing.
00:46:49:15 - 00:46:51:20
Speaker 2
But you can fall in crevasses.
00:46:51:20 - 00:46:55:23
Speaker 1
And that's a pretty quick way to die. You know.
00:46:56:01 - 00:47:01:19
Speaker 3
So if you're sitting there all covered, how are you like are there open ones that you're avoiding? Like what?
00:47:01:19 - 00:47:06:14
Speaker 2
Like really lightly open. You know, you might see it open on the left side, but the area.
00:47:06:14 - 00:47:06:22
Speaker 1
That you're.
00:47:06:22 - 00:47:14:00
Speaker 2
Crossing through in the hill, you're going up there completely covered. But, you know, you know, they're there the whole time. And so maybe you just step.
00:47:14:00 - 00:47:16:11
Speaker 1
The wrong way, you know, maybe a little melt happen.
00:47:16:11 - 00:47:20:13
Speaker 2
So it's kind of a bit of a gamble and you can definitely do things to mitigate it. Yeah.
00:47:20:14 - 00:47:23:01
Speaker 3
Are you following people's footsteps or are you blazing.
00:47:23:01 - 00:47:26:04
Speaker 2
A trail trail is really wanded. Unless you're leaving.
00:47:26:04 - 00:47:27:23
Speaker 1
Right after a heavy snow, you.
00:47:27:23 - 00:47:30:21
Speaker 2
Pretty much know. So it's not really a.
00:47:30:21 - 00:47:31:16
Speaker 1
Navigation.
00:47:31:16 - 00:47:35:00
Speaker 2
Nightmare or anything. It's well-marked. It's like if you've anybody been to.
00:47:35:00 - 00:47:37:08
Speaker 1
Rainier, it's the same thing. It's like there's usually.
00:47:37:11 - 00:47:41:21
Speaker 2
Footsteps and it's wandered and stuff. But that being said, where the experience.
00:47:41:21 - 00:47:52:13
Speaker 1
Comes in is, okay, hey all of a sudden a whiteout just blew it, you know? And it's really cold and it's blowing in my face. Well, now you've got to navigate. You can pull out.
00:47:52:13 - 00:47:55:13
Speaker 2
You're in reach or do something. And so that's where the experience comes in.
00:47:55:13 - 00:47:57:04
Speaker 1
It's it's you know.
00:47:57:06 - 00:47:58:19
Speaker 2
You don't need the experience.
00:47:58:19 - 00:47:59:03
Speaker 1
For when.
00:47:59:03 - 00:48:00:13
Speaker 2
Everything's easy. You need it for.
00:48:00:13 - 00:48:03:09
Speaker 1
When things go wrong, right. Or things get difficult.
00:48:03:09 - 00:48:04:14
Speaker 2
So but it's not.
00:48:04:14 - 00:48:17:19
Speaker 1
Really a navigation nightmare or anything. You know, anybody who's been off trail in the mountains and have experience with that, you're doing a lot more navigation than you would on a classical route of Denali like that.
00:48:17:19 - 00:48:22:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, but yeah, you know, and we actually had this funny thing. So I specifically.
00:48:22:15 - 00:48:24:05
Speaker 1
Talked to the Rangers. I was like.
00:48:24:05 - 00:48:26:18
Speaker 2
Because you get to these camps and there's so many like when we got.
00:48:26:18 - 00:48:37:00
Speaker 1
To the mountain, there's about 400 people on the mountain split between all five camps of four camps, plus base camp. So, you know, and I asked the Rangers before we left.
00:48:37:02 - 00:48:38:06
Speaker 2
What is the ethos.
00:48:38:06 - 00:48:40:00
Speaker 1
On abandoned tent pats?
00:48:40:04 - 00:48:41:05
Speaker 2
Because there's going to be so.
00:48:41:05 - 00:48:48:09
Speaker 1
Many people who have made tent pads. They've left, moved to the next camp. And so the Rangers said specifically the ethos is.
00:48:48:14 - 00:48:52:19
Speaker 2
If the tent pad, if there's no gear and there's there's no one in it, it's.
00:48:52:19 - 00:49:00:14
Speaker 1
Totally fair game. You can't claim tent pads by like putting a glove or like a something, you know what I mean? For a friend or whatever. It's like if your tent.
00:49:00:14 - 00:49:01:03
Speaker 2
Not in it.
00:49:01:03 - 00:49:11:00
Speaker 1
You're not taking it, it's not there. And so we get to this camp, Camp to, you know, this base camp, Camp one. So we're at Camp two, which is 300 meters.
00:49:11:02 - 00:49:15:20
Speaker 2
And there's this nice, like cooking area cut out, but no gear in it. And like three abandoned.
00:49:15:20 - 00:49:17:05
Speaker 1
Tent pads by it.
00:49:17:07 - 00:49:21:03
Speaker 2
And so Ray and I are like, Oh, sweet.
00:49:21:03 - 00:49:22:07
Speaker 1
We look around, make sure.
00:49:22:07 - 00:49:24:03
Speaker 2
This is in anybody's, there's no gear in it.
00:49:24:03 - 00:49:25:15
Speaker 1
So I start cutting it out. I do.
00:49:25:15 - 00:49:28:04
Speaker 2
All this work, cut out this huge thing, make this.
00:49:28:04 - 00:49:30:14
Speaker 1
Really great shelter, put our tent in it.
00:49:30:16 - 00:49:31:15
Speaker 2
And then like two.
00:49:31:15 - 00:49:32:21
Speaker 1
Hours later, all these Russian.
00:49:32:21 - 00:49:34:05
Speaker 2
Guys come back and.
00:49:34:05 - 00:49:36:06
Speaker 1
Their tents, like, on the other side, like, pass.
00:49:36:06 - 00:49:45:17
Speaker 2
It. And this one guy's like, You stole that from us. And he's, like, accusing me of stealing it from him. I was like, Dude, like, what the hell, man? Like, you know, I felt terrible, actually really.
00:49:45:17 - 00:49:46:05
Speaker 1
Pissed me off.
00:49:46:05 - 00:49:46:19
Speaker 2
Because I felt.
00:49:46:19 - 00:49:47:17
Speaker 1
Really bad.
00:49:47:19 - 00:49:48:18
Speaker 2
But at the same time, I.
00:49:48:18 - 00:49:50:02
Speaker 1
Was also kind of like.
00:49:50:04 - 00:49:59:17
Speaker 2
Well, fuck you, man. You know what I mean? It's like. Like I didn't steal it. There's nothing in here. There's abandoned tent pads everywhere. There's no gear. Like, what are you accusing me of stealing?
00:49:59:17 - 00:50:10:06
Speaker 1
You know, like. Like a couple of seats you had cut out. So it was funny. They were kind of harmless, but it was weird. You know, we were the only neighbors we didn't make good friends with.
00:50:10:08 - 00:50:12:06
Speaker 3
Did you end up having to give up your spot or.
00:50:12:07 - 00:50:34:17
Speaker 1
No, We had 2 hours of hard labor and. Yeah, yeah, you know, and shoveling in our tent was like it was like I had turned this nonexistence, small, abandoned kitchen that was wind loaded with snow into a massive like, you know, amazing place for a tent in shelters. No way. I was giving it up. Yeah. So. Yeah.
00:50:34:19 - 00:50:38:20
Speaker 2
But, but yeah, we, you know, just.
00:50:38:20 - 00:50:40:18
Speaker 1
Trying to progress the story here, I guess.
00:50:40:18 - 00:50:42:14
Speaker 2
So we're at 300 meters.
00:50:42:14 - 00:50:47:04
Speaker 1
We've set up our camp for me. I felt a huge.
00:50:47:04 - 00:50:48:03
Speaker 2
Amount of pressure.
00:50:48:03 - 00:50:51:12
Speaker 1
The whole time to get up to 4200 meters and.
00:50:51:12 - 00:50:54:13
Speaker 2
So you can get stormed into places.
00:50:54:13 - 00:51:14:11
Speaker 1
For like seven days. Like we knew that. And below 4200 meters, they get a lot more snow on the mountain. So it's really easy to get, you know, snowed in or really bad visibility and weather. So I felt so much pressure the whole time to get to 4200. It was just like that was the first part was like, we need to get to 4200 meters.
00:51:14:11 - 00:51:16:14
Speaker 1
We need to do it safely. We need to feel good.
00:51:16:14 - 00:51:18:03
Speaker 2
We need to acclimate well up there.
00:51:18:08 - 00:51:22:08
Speaker 1
But that's like on my mind. The whole time is like, Fuck, we need to get here.
00:51:22:14 - 00:51:23:22
Speaker 2
Because if you get stuck at 40.
00:51:23:22 - 00:51:24:21
Speaker 1
200 meters for seven.
00:51:24:21 - 00:51:25:13
Speaker 2
Days.
00:51:25:15 - 00:51:35:21
Speaker 1
It's not actually that bad because you're just acclimating like 4200 meters is actually going to help you acclimate to the top for like for a a bit. You know, it's not everything. It makes it you need to do that.
00:51:35:23 - 00:51:38:07
Speaker 2
So so that's this pressure.
00:51:38:07 - 00:51:45:11
Speaker 1
Was on my mind and we had looked at the weather systems prior to going and we knew we had to try to look at Yeah, we.
00:51:45:11 - 00:51:45:18
Speaker 2
Had.
00:51:46:00 - 00:51:53:07
Speaker 1
We had like I think it was about, I don't know, like a four day.
00:51:53:07 - 00:51:54:17
Speaker 2
We got on the mountain on.
00:51:54:17 - 00:51:55:19
Speaker 1
Monday and we.
00:51:55:19 - 00:51:56:06
Speaker 2
Knew that.
00:51:56:06 - 00:52:19:04
Speaker 1
Like Saturday, Sunday kind of ish, like some like weather was coming in. So we were really pressed and so we had tried to actually move the day before and we we packed up our whole tent, our whole camp, everything. It was like clear. And then by the time we had gone 100 meters out of camp, it was weather had blown in like snow, ping pong ball.
00:52:19:04 - 00:52:24:15
Speaker 1
People who were coming down were saying, turn around, it's really bad up there. And so we had to turn around.
00:52:24:15 - 00:52:26:01
Speaker 2
And packing up your.
00:52:26:01 - 00:52:31:01
Speaker 1
Whole camp, you know, setting up your. It's a huge ordeal. Yeah. 5 minutes is.
00:52:31:01 - 00:52:31:13
Speaker 2
A really.
00:52:31:13 - 00:52:39:11
Speaker 1
Big, big ordeal. It's very tiring. It's a lot of work. So we're getting back 100 meters. I've moved now and super pissed off.
00:52:39:12 - 00:52:41:05
Speaker 3
And the Russians took back their tents.
00:52:41:08 - 00:52:50:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. Starting is the North American versus Russians? No, but I'm. Yeah. And, and so we just.
00:52:50:21 - 00:52:56:08
Speaker 1
Shetterly put up our tent. I didn't even take off my mountain boots or any of my clothes. I didn't even.
00:52:56:08 - 00:52:57:03
Speaker 2
Put out a mat.
00:52:57:03 - 00:52:59:13
Speaker 1
I just like babied in a tent, almost.
00:52:59:13 - 00:53:00:17
Speaker 2
Surely in my.
00:53:00:17 - 00:53:03:14
Speaker 1
Bag, because the stove was packed and we knew.
00:53:03:15 - 00:53:04:03
Speaker 2
Were going to move.
00:53:04:03 - 00:53:18:23
Speaker 1
First thing tomorrow morning when it clear we had seen like there was a potential weather opportunity. So we just we had this one kilogram block of parmesan cheese and Ray and I just sat there and like took huge bites of this cheese, miserable cold in this tent.
00:53:19:01 - 00:53:25:05
Speaker 2
Annoyed at what had happened. And and and so, you know, we woke up really early the next.
00:53:25:05 - 00:53:28:08
Speaker 1
Morning like 4 a.m. something prepped Cook got all.
00:53:28:08 - 00:53:29:18
Speaker 2
Of our water everything loaded and.
00:53:29:18 - 00:53:39:23
Speaker 1
Ready and then this this guy you know who had actually once the Russians had left, he camped in their tent pad. And so that was right right next to us.
00:53:40:01 - 00:53:40:19
Speaker 2
This guy.
00:53:40:19 - 00:53:41:14
Speaker 1
Who is also.
00:53:41:14 - 00:53:42:12
Speaker 2
Up and nobody.
00:53:42:12 - 00:53:52:02
Speaker 1
Else was up, you know, and it's this beautiful, calm morning. And this is actually Alex Mitchell, who I was just talking to. Cool with you there. Yeah. So he and we're going to he's going to come.
00:53:52:02 - 00:53:57:13
Speaker 2
On the show, but he just instantly gave me a really good vibes. You know, you just see some people and they.
00:53:57:13 - 00:54:01:10
Speaker 1
Just like radiate like great vibes and humor and like, feel.
00:54:01:10 - 00:54:03:03
Speaker 2
Good, you know? He was instantly.
00:54:03:03 - 00:54:07:16
Speaker 1
That started talking to had a good shot. He was like.
00:54:07:21 - 00:54:18:06
Speaker 2
This is the time to move. He was like, There, the weather. He's like, We have like 4 hours and then the weather's coming in and. Everybody here is going to get stuck. And it was like, yeah, like, you know, like.
00:54:18:06 - 00:54:19:04
Speaker 1
That's exactly what we.
00:54:19:04 - 00:54:21:06
Speaker 2
Thought as well. So and then, you know.
00:54:21:06 - 00:54:23:04
Speaker 1
Talking to him, we found out he's an apprentice.
00:54:23:04 - 00:54:27:04
Speaker 2
Ski and alpine guide. He's doing the mountains solo.
00:54:27:06 - 00:54:30:15
Speaker 1
You know. And so he took off and started setting a skin track.
00:54:30:15 - 00:54:31:19
Speaker 2
Because the first thing out.
00:54:31:19 - 00:54:36:17
Speaker 1
Of the camp to you know, which is I think they called 11 K camp and.
00:54:36:17 - 00:54:40:05
Speaker 2
Feet, you know, for the Americans for Freedom land and.
00:54:40:09 - 00:54:46:13
Speaker 1
I think it's 3300 meters for, you know, the rest of the world.
00:54:46:15 - 00:54:48:11
Speaker 2
But he goes out and sets a skin.
00:54:48:11 - 00:54:49:00
Speaker 1
Track up this.
00:54:49:00 - 00:54:49:12
Speaker 2
Really.
00:54:49:12 - 00:54:50:10
Speaker 1
Big hill.
00:54:50:11 - 00:54:52:14
Speaker 2
And so we're following him and he's maybe.
00:54:52:14 - 00:55:17:18
Speaker 1
50 feet in front of Ray and I. And he just stepped onto a crevasse, no bridge and just broke right through. And he started like his body was hanging on the side of the the the the compact snow bridge and his feet were dangling in open space and he was slowly sliding into a crevasse hole. And then his sled was coming in behind him and starting to, you know, kind of push him into the crevasse essentially.
00:55:17:19 - 00:55:25:20
Speaker 1
So he was like getting sandwiched in. And I just ran up behind him, cut myself to his sled right away. He had and.
00:55:25:20 - 00:55:26:18
Speaker 2
He had ski poles.
00:55:26:18 - 00:55:28:21
Speaker 1
Out and skis on. Right. So it's.
00:55:28:21 - 00:55:29:15
Speaker 2
Extremely.
00:55:29:15 - 00:55:30:15
Speaker 1
Precarious. It's not.
00:55:30:15 - 00:55:31:14
Speaker 2
Like he has mountaineering.
00:55:31:14 - 00:55:35:08
Speaker 1
Boots and he can just self arrest and pull over like this guy's like.
00:55:35:08 - 00:55:35:23
Speaker 2
Really.
00:55:35:23 - 00:55:38:18
Speaker 1
Precarious, fucked up sliding.
00:55:38:20 - 00:55:42:12
Speaker 2
You know, It was really, really scary situation.
00:55:42:12 - 00:55:53:11
Speaker 1
And, you know, probably took like an hour like to do like he got his, like, ice ax out. He put in an ice screw like, you know, connected himself to that.
00:55:53:13 - 00:55:54:18
Speaker 2
I ended up digging through.
00:55:54:18 - 00:55:59:05
Speaker 1
His whole sled and getting his ski crampons. He got his skis off. It was this.
00:55:59:05 - 00:55:59:17
Speaker 2
Really.
00:55:59:17 - 00:56:11:15
Speaker 1
Sketchy, precarious situation. And this guy pretty much almost got swallowed by a crevasse. And then we went and got to the top of this this hill. And, you know, like he gave me a huge hug. He was, you know, in.
00:56:11:15 - 00:56:12:17
Speaker 2
Tears.
00:56:12:19 - 00:56:14:15
Speaker 1
Like I was pretty emotional myself.
00:56:14:15 - 00:56:15:15
Speaker 2
It was it was really.
00:56:15:15 - 00:56:24:21
Speaker 1
Scary, you know? And also the thought of, you know, if we hadn't been there, this guy could have just died. You know, it it was really scary. It was like if he.
00:56:24:21 - 00:56:26:18
Speaker 3
Wasn't in front of you, you guys could have gone in.
00:56:27:00 - 00:56:28:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. But I'm roped up to.
00:56:28:14 - 00:56:29:16
Speaker 1
REI, so, like.
00:56:29:16 - 00:56:31:06
Speaker 2
I would have been. Okay, he's just.
00:56:31:06 - 00:56:34:11
Speaker 1
Going to get dragged the bottom of this thing, you know, with nothing.
00:56:34:11 - 00:56:37:01
Speaker 3
So do you have a picture of the crevasse?
00:56:37:03 - 00:56:40:16
Speaker 1
I don't. Unfortunately. I didn't pull out my phone or anything.
00:56:40:16 - 00:56:43:08
Speaker 2
But it's not like it's not like what you think, where it's.
00:56:43:08 - 00:56:46:18
Speaker 1
Like this gaping hole or something. It's like, Yeah, it's like. It's like.
00:56:46:20 - 00:56:49:00
Speaker 2
It breaks through maybe a bridge.
00:56:49:00 - 00:56:50:23
Speaker 1
Like four feet wide or something.
00:56:51:03 - 00:56:54:16
Speaker 2
But when you're looking at the empty space just going into the abyss of.
00:56:54:16 - 00:57:00:10
Speaker 1
Darkness, you know, it's like this guy could have just slid infinitely down this thing into the glacier.
00:57:00:12 - 00:57:05:19
Speaker 3
So that's what I'm kind of alluding to. It's like four feet wide, but it does it get narrow really quick or is it get.
00:57:05:19 - 00:57:09:06
Speaker 2
Wider or it's like it'd be like if there was like an off with.
00:57:09:06 - 00:57:23:04
Speaker 1
Chimney, like, you know, four feet wide and you could just slide 100 feet into blackness and you don't know how far it goes down, you know, And when you're not roped up something like, you're probably going to impact something at the bottom and die, you know, or Yeah, just.
00:57:23:09 - 00:57:26:08
Speaker 2
It's it's like literally the the.
00:57:26:08 - 00:57:35:19
Speaker 1
Worst nightmare of that that situation is exactly that. The worst case scenario to be sliding on roped up into a crevasse you know Wow.
00:57:35:21 - 00:57:43:08
Speaker 2
But yeah, he broke up with us. He's such a great dude. Like, it wasn't like, bad decision making or anything. Literally, like I was behind him looking at him.
00:57:43:08 - 00:57:50:05
Speaker 1
He just, like, stepped. He was making great skin tracks. We talked about Abbey Risk and choosing Contour.
00:57:50:05 - 00:57:51:03
Speaker 2
In the hill.
00:57:51:03 - 00:57:54:21
Speaker 1
That would be less likely to have, you know, convexity for the.
00:57:54:21 - 00:57:56:00
Speaker 2
Crevasse to be open and.
00:57:56:00 - 00:58:06:13
Speaker 1
Also for less likely to be like sliding like he made great decisions. You know, I just think it was some really bad luck and that the mountains are scary things go wrong, you know.
00:58:06:15 - 00:58:09:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, but we roped up for the rest of the day and move through.
00:58:09:14 - 00:58:14:15
Speaker 1
Windy corner and ended up, you know, at the.
00:58:14:17 - 00:58:19:10
Speaker 2
End actually. Sorry, something is funny. It was really, really nice because he totally.
00:58:19:10 - 00:58:22:03
Speaker 1
Reciprocated the help that I, that I gave.
00:58:22:03 - 00:58:25:16
Speaker 2
Him in the morning. You know, in the morning it was maybe.
00:58:25:16 - 00:58:31:17
Speaker 1
Like minus mid minus twenties or something. It's frozen, the sun's not out, you know, But so that happened.
00:58:31:17 - 00:58:32:12
Speaker 2
And then later in the.
00:58:32:12 - 00:58:37:19
Speaker 1
Day, when we're crossing through this place called Windy Corner, the sun comes out and all of a.
00:58:37:19 - 00:58:39:07
Speaker 2
Sudden all of the.
00:58:39:07 - 00:58:41:23
Speaker 1
Ice and snow reflects all the radiation.
00:58:42:02 - 00:58:47:23
Speaker 2
So you go from maybe like freezing your ass off to in like 20 minutes feeling like.
00:58:48:01 - 00:59:02:22
Speaker 1
People are pointing mirrors at you with sunlight, like literally burning you, you know, like you're so hot to the point where I stripped down to a T-shirt and I'm shoving snow in my pants and in my hood and under my hat, and I'm eating snow. And like.
00:59:02:23 - 00:59:05:08
Speaker 2
Literally, you know, like, like actually.
00:59:05:08 - 00:59:09:22
Speaker 1
Roasting to death. And it got to the point where, like, I was almost heatstroke and I was.
00:59:09:22 - 00:59:11:01
Speaker 2
Out of water.
00:59:11:03 - 00:59:16:05
Speaker 1
And Alex was like, totally just came to my rescue. He was like, he's like.
00:59:16:05 - 00:59:18:08
Speaker 2
Dude, like, I've got extra ice water.
00:59:18:08 - 00:59:19:10
Speaker 1
I've got like.
00:59:19:10 - 00:59:25:01
Speaker 2
Caffeine electrolyte tab, you know? He just completely hooked me up, gave me all this stuff.
00:59:25:01 - 00:59:34:13
Speaker 1
I sat down, had some nuts. I was like, really struggling and we were really close to the move day being close to done, and he just totally saved my ass. And.
00:59:34:15 - 00:59:35:09
Speaker 2
And then we moved.
00:59:35:09 - 00:59:39:07
Speaker 1
To camp, and by the time we got to camp, like, he just lay down on a mat and, like, had a.
00:59:39:07 - 00:59:39:17
Speaker 2
Nap.
00:59:39:21 - 00:59:45:21
Speaker 1
I was like, passed out half from the heat ray as this photo of me just, like, totally annihilated on the ground, you.
00:59:45:21 - 00:59:49:21
Speaker 2
Know, And that was like, that was like the first big.
00:59:49:21 - 01:00:05:14
Speaker 1
Milestone in the trip was like making it to a it's 14 K camp or 4200 military camp. Yeah. And you know, that was like the big milestone and, and we kind of set up shop from there.
01:00:05:16 - 01:00:09:23
Speaker 3
Did a storm end up rolling in after you got there like you guys had anticipated?
01:00:10:00 - 01:00:13:19
Speaker 2
It wasn't as bad as we thought, but the weather definitely.
01:00:13:21 - 01:00:15:17
Speaker 1
You know.
01:00:15:19 - 01:00:16:07
Speaker 2
The weather.
01:00:16:07 - 01:00:23:06
Speaker 1
Definitely was bad for a day. So it would have affected the move day for sure. So so I think we.
01:00:23:10 - 01:00:26:15
Speaker 3
How are you guys checking? How are you guys checking the weather out there?
01:00:26:21 - 01:00:30:11
Speaker 2
So Alex has an inch reach and he was getting a.
01:00:30:12 - 01:00:32:08
Speaker 1
Meteorologist to send him.
01:00:32:10 - 01:00:33:18
Speaker 2
Weather updates.
01:00:33:20 - 01:00:40:11
Speaker 1
I had an ad that was paid for weather updates and then, okay, if you have an FRAM radio.
01:00:40:13 - 01:00:41:16
Speaker 2
I think it's six or eight.
01:00:41:16 - 01:00:47:09
Speaker 1
I think it's 8 p.m. every day. The ranger station from Talkeetna gives you a two day weather forecast.
01:00:47:09 - 01:00:50:17
Speaker 2
And so we didn't have a radio, but all the guided parties.
01:00:50:19 - 01:01:01:18
Speaker 1
The guides have radios and I was just really friendly with the guides. I always ask them for advice. I was like, Hey man, you help me out, you know? And there was this one particular guided group that we were kind of intended.
01:01:01:18 - 01:01:02:17
Speaker 2
In moving with.
01:01:02:19 - 01:01:24:00
Speaker 1
So I kept, you know, getting able to talk to this guy, Adam, you know, Shadow Adam, He was he was super nice, really helpful. Any questions I had or anything? He would like you know, like, give me his two thoughts on it. I would usually talk to him once a day for the weather. So it was nice to be able to consolidate multiple weather from multiple different places.
01:01:24:02 - 01:01:34:18
Speaker 1
But generally, I think unless it was a two day forecast, it was kind of worthless. You know, all the guys would just the weather's the same every day. It's like, you know, chances, snow and bad visibility.
01:01:34:20 - 01:01:36:07
Speaker 2
It's just like it could just.
01:01:36:07 - 01:01:38:21
Speaker 1
Be bad any day, you know, and then not that accurate.
01:01:38:21 - 01:02:03:22
Speaker 3
So so so this one point's interesting. So my my buddy went up and attempted the Matterhorn this last year and he's actually going back I think this month to do it again. But he said that like the ethos and kind of the culture out there, at least with the guides, is that if you're unguided going up that mountain, you're kind of like, like shamed or like, you know, guides are kind of pissed off that you're there and in their way.
01:02:04:00 - 01:02:22:01
Speaker 3
Like it's interesting to hear that the guides are kind of helping you. You're not a pain client, like you're technically in their way. Like, you know, they have every right to kind of be in this mind state of like, cadre. Like, why is this guy around? And in my way, if he's not a pain client, like, I could totally see that mentality.
01:02:22:03 - 01:02:37:19
Speaker 3
So like, what do you think the difference is? Obviously, it's limited information, but to your perspective, like what would be the difference between like the kind of culture there at the Matterhorn versus Denali and this kind of warm welcome kind of experience that you you had.
01:02:37:21 - 01:02:46:02
Speaker 2
I would assume. You know, I don't know 100%. My thought process is partly pacing. You know, like on the.
01:02:46:02 - 01:02:48:18
Speaker 1
Matterhorn, maybe you're trying to move faster, lighter.
01:02:48:22 - 01:02:49:16
Speaker 2
Whereas Denali.
01:02:49:16 - 01:02:57:15
Speaker 1
It's like it's like, okay, I'm at camp. There's six tents 50 feet from me. And if you pay close attention or.
01:02:57:15 - 01:03:00:17
Speaker 2
You really understand the mountain community and what a guy.
01:03:00:17 - 01:03:10:10
Speaker 1
Does, you know, they get to camp and all their clients go sit down after they put up the tent. That guide is now for the entire night, going to be shoveling.
01:03:10:10 - 01:03:11:00
Speaker 2
Looking at.
01:03:11:00 - 01:03:11:18
Speaker 1
Things.
01:03:11:18 - 01:03:14:20
Speaker 2
Boiling water, doing a lot of really mundane.
01:03:14:20 - 01:03:18:16
Speaker 1
Work that actually is really tiring to do day after day after day.
01:03:18:21 - 01:03:24:14
Speaker 2
But that's what they do. So, you know, some guys sitting around waiting, you know, chilling out, enjoying the view for.
01:03:24:15 - 01:03:25:13
Speaker 1
30 minutes, waiting.
01:03:25:13 - 01:03:39:09
Speaker 2
For water to boil. I'll just, you know, have a phone conversation with them, shoot the ship for a couple of minutes, be like, hey, man. Yeah, that's how you know, do this. Like, oh, how many times you done this? Like, are you, like, the lead guide? You just ask them interesting questions and, you know, they're happy to talk.
01:03:39:09 - 01:03:39:23
Speaker 2
They're happy to.
01:03:39:23 - 01:03:41:05
Speaker 1
Just have a nice chill.
01:03:41:05 - 01:03:47:15
Speaker 2
Conversation. So it's really like I'm not I'm not getting I'm not like, oh, how do I tie.
01:03:47:15 - 01:03:48:13
Speaker 1
My not or.
01:03:48:13 - 01:03:55:03
Speaker 2
You know, like, should I go here or should I go here? It's just like, oh, you're in the morning assessing the weather and I'm doing the same thing. I'm like, Yeah, What are your.
01:03:55:03 - 01:03:57:04
Speaker 1
Thoughts for the day, man? Like, why? Oh, interesting.
01:03:57:04 - 01:04:14:09
Speaker 2
Why did you have that consideration? You know, it's like a calculated, intelligent exchange and also reading the guide as well, if they're really busy or they're doing a task, No, don't go ask that guy a whole bunch of fucking questions, right? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, like you can, I think you could gauge things.
01:04:14:09 - 01:04:21:18
Speaker 2
And also I would just say as well, like the guides I talked to Adam and Evans, they were just so.
01:04:21:18 - 01:04:22:12
Speaker 1
Kind and.
01:04:22:12 - 01:04:23:13
Speaker 2
So nice.
01:04:23:13 - 01:04:23:16
Speaker 1
And.
01:04:23:16 - 01:04:25:20
Speaker 2
Extremely helpful.
01:04:25:22 - 01:04:30:03
Speaker 1
You know, like, yeah, so they're just really great resources to have.
01:04:30:03 - 01:04:31:10
Speaker 2
And that was actually one of the.
01:04:31:10 - 01:04:39:20
Speaker 1
Resources that Mark Smiley talked about when we had that call with him. I was like, what's like a big thing that you would say about Mount? And he was like, Just talk to everybody, make friends with.
01:04:39:20 - 01:04:41:12
Speaker 2
Everybody, ask everybody.
01:04:41:12 - 01:04:47:19
Speaker 1
Questions, you know? And so, yeah, it was just a great resource to just ask people questions, you know.
01:04:48:01 - 01:04:48:18
Speaker 2
And there's a lot of.
01:04:48:18 - 01:04:58:18
Speaker 1
Guys up there both just personally climbing for themselves and for groups. So it's not like a resource to have or be like guides going to see me or tell me how to climb the mountain. It's like.
01:04:58:20 - 01:05:05:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, if you're a nice person and you ask good questions or you just want to have some good conversations, they're just nice people.
01:05:06:01 - 01:05:26:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think the difference is probably you really nailed nail it on the head. There is the speed, the time, like Matterhorn. People are trying to get up to get down. There's only one way up. It's probably going to get crowded. It's technical rock, you know, It's like a line can form you, not like you're just you're not sitting around chit chatting, cooking stuff by the fire or building, you know, tent platforms and stuff.
01:05:26:17 - 01:05:34:21
Speaker 3
So I can see. And then it's in another country. And so like all this stupid American wants to try to climb a mountain for sure.
01:05:34:21 - 01:05:37:21
Speaker 2
I'm sure that's I could. Yeah, definitely.
01:05:37:21 - 01:05:39:14
Speaker 1
Amazing for sure. You know, Denali.
01:05:39:14 - 01:05:39:19
Speaker 2
There's.
01:05:39:19 - 01:05:55:09
Speaker 1
Just it's it's a lot of good old fashioned work. You know a I just moved for 8 hours and now I'm going to spend the next 4 hours hacking out at a tired platform and boiling water so I can have food and water for the evening. You know what I mean?
01:05:55:09 - 01:05:56:16
Speaker 2
It's Yeah.
01:05:56:16 - 01:06:01:05
Speaker 1
And it's in its own right. Enjoyable in some capacity, for sure.
01:06:01:11 - 01:06:06:06
Speaker 3
Are you are you sourcing your water from the snow all the way up. Are you carrying water.
01:06:06:08 - 01:06:11:03
Speaker 1
All snow. Yeah. All that boiling snow the entire time. Yeah. So literally every.
01:06:11:03 - 01:06:13:03
Speaker 2
Single morning, every single night, you are.
01:06:13:03 - 01:06:14:04
Speaker 1
Just sitting there.
01:06:14:04 - 01:06:15:03
Speaker 2
For hours.
01:06:15:03 - 01:06:17:05
Speaker 1
And hours boiling snow.
01:06:17:07 - 01:06:26:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Hope you like boiling snow if you're going to have climbed it up and digging it like. Yeah, right. Yeah. A piece of.
01:06:26:04 - 01:06:44:09
Speaker 1
Advice we got from I forget his name, I forget his last name. Mark. He's a guide. He's been guiding on Denali. He did a video with the Uphill athlete, but he recommended bringing like a bulldog, like it's like a sturdy gardening shovel. And I was at first really skeptical, but we ended up buying one and bringing it. And it's quite.
01:06:44:09 - 01:06:46:20
Speaker 2
Heavy, I think for the extra weight.
01:06:46:20 - 01:06:53:11
Speaker 1
If you're doing a classical root like the buttress, it made such a difference. What would have taken me, you know.
01:06:53:11 - 01:06:54:12
Speaker 2
444.
01:06:54:12 - 01:07:10:15
Speaker 1
Times the time to dig out with an avalanche shovel that's light made of aluminum. This thing could just bulldoze and smash it, you know, so quickly and break apart the ice and the crust and stuff. So it came in handy a lot. And there's a lot of digging if you're climbing the West buttress.
01:07:10:17 - 01:07:16:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, good to know. So you're at a you're at Camp four now at this point right.
01:07:16:18 - 01:07:17:18
Speaker 1
Through.
01:07:17:20 - 01:07:20:01
Speaker 2
Three are known area is four.
01:07:20:04 - 01:07:21:15
Speaker 1
Yeah Yeah right.
01:07:21:19 - 01:07:22:08
Speaker 3
Camp four.
01:07:22:10 - 01:07:22:20
Speaker 2
Yep Yeah.
01:07:22:23 - 01:07:23:19
Speaker 1
You're right for.
01:07:23:23 - 01:07:26:23
Speaker 2
If you can't base camp if if you can't base camp.
01:07:26:23 - 01:07:30:00
Speaker 1
As as as one of the camps for. Yeah.
01:07:30:02 - 01:07:36:07
Speaker 3
Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's crazy. You almost got fucking burnt alive. It's crazy. That's a.
01:07:36:09 - 01:07:38:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. So one of your aides, Ray.
01:07:38:14 - 01:07:47:15
Speaker 1
Had the same thing. You know, the sun. Wow. Second half of her trip, and she got so heat exhausted to the point where she felt like she was going to pass out, you know?
01:07:47:17 - 01:07:49:21
Speaker 2
So it's the only thing you deal with these extremes.
01:07:49:21 - 01:08:02:12
Speaker 1
You know, you can be frozen or you can be literally getting, you know, cooked. So it's very interesting. But the higher up on the mountain, you just start eating more to freezing. Yeah, pretty waking.
01:08:02:12 - 01:08:07:21
Speaker 2
Just just changes to freezing. So, you know, don't don't let that fool you for sure. It's it's.
01:08:07:21 - 01:08:10:13
Speaker 1
Cold. It's the coldest place I've ever been.
01:08:10:15 - 01:08:32:23
Speaker 3
I experience that a little bit on Mount Whitney. I was climbing the west or the East buttress and I would like there's an area and like in the sun, I was like t shirt jacket off, and then I would climb the corner into the shade and be fucking freezing my ass off. And I'm like a wanting to just like, reach my hand out into the sun, like, give me some warm, you know, it's just it's such a contrast.
01:08:32:23 - 01:08:37:22
Speaker 3
Like just, just from the direction of the sun. It was just like, wow, this is. This is remarkable.
01:08:38:00 - 01:08:41:08
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, it's really bizarre for sure.
01:08:41:10 - 01:08:42:17
Speaker 3
So what happened next, man?
01:08:42:19 - 01:08:43:05
Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:08:43:05 - 01:08:51:08
Speaker 2
So originally, so Ray and I always had a plan A and a plan B and plan A was to ascend the West.
01:08:51:08 - 01:08:58:07
Speaker 1
Buttress and summit from the 4200 meter camp. It might be 4300. Just for the sake of simplicity, four.
01:08:58:07 - 01:09:03:12
Speaker 2
Thousand 200 meters and. That was always our plan A And then our plan B.
01:09:03:12 - 01:09:04:14
Speaker 1
Was okay, if that.
01:09:04:14 - 01:09:07:11
Speaker 2
Doesn't work or we don't have the fitness, then we will.
01:09:07:11 - 01:09:19:14
Speaker 1
Do the classical style, which is you'll move from 200 meter camp to the 5000. I think it's 200 meter camp. So so with that in mind, where we had been.
01:09:19:14 - 01:09:33:14
Speaker 2
We were there, we ended up moving, you know, we took I think yeah, we ended up moving, having one rest day, then the next day we back carried.
01:09:33:16 - 01:09:53:04
Speaker 1
Which was like an hour and a half. So we went back to Windy corner, got our cash, came up and then the day after that we went up to 4800 meters to acclimate. And then the day after that we went up to the next camp to acclimate, which is 5200 meters.
01:09:53:09 - 01:09:54:17
Speaker 2
But this was just a.
01:09:54:17 - 01:10:02:02
Speaker 1
Day excursion just up and down. We weren't moving camp. So really, like a year, everything. And so just to paint a picture here.
01:10:02:04 - 01:10:03:02
Speaker 2
The 4200.
01:10:03:02 - 01:10:30:18
Speaker 1
Meter camp is like this massive glaciated area. You're kind of looking out at this precipice where you can see, you know, mount. I think it's PHAWKER and Hunter these beautiful mountains is unbelievable view and then left you start seeing you have the upper mountain for Denali and there's this on the classical west buttress route. There's this massive snow slope that goes to this huge ridge and then that ridge leads all the way to the next camp.
01:10:30:20 - 01:10:35:02
Speaker 1
And this is kind of like where climbing really feels like mountaineering and climbing.
01:10:35:04 - 01:10:43:05
Speaker 2
So you go up this really steep snow slope and it's huge. Like the scale here is huge. You know, when I say a slope.
01:10:43:05 - 01:10:50:19
Speaker 1
I mean like it's like 400 meters, you know, like it's massive. And so and then you get to the fixed lines.
01:10:50:21 - 01:10:51:10
Speaker 2
And then there's.
01:10:51:10 - 01:11:02:00
Speaker 1
Probably, like you could say, Alpine Ice or Y three. It's probably not water ice. So but, you know, equivalent to maybe three, two and a half.
01:11:02:00 - 01:11:03:11
Speaker 2
So really steep, you know.
01:11:03:15 - 01:11:10:17
Speaker 1
But like not even close to vertical. And there's all these fixed lines. You go up these fixed lines, and then you get to this this ridge.
01:11:10:18 - 01:11:13:04
Speaker 2
And this ridge is just so stunning.
01:11:13:04 - 01:11:13:15
Speaker 1
You know, it's.
01:11:13:15 - 01:11:14:17
Speaker 2
Huge drop on.
01:11:14:17 - 01:11:21:07
Speaker 1
One side, huge drop on the other. But it's not like a knife edge ridge. It's like it's quite large. And then you get to just.
01:11:21:09 - 01:11:23:05
Speaker 2
Go up this ridge and there's places.
01:11:23:05 - 01:11:25:14
Speaker 1
Where you maybe sling a rock or they have a whole.
01:11:25:14 - 01:11:28:06
Speaker 2
Bunch of pickets banged in and you'll clip the pickets.
01:11:28:06 - 01:11:29:00
Speaker 1
Or you'll use.
01:11:29:00 - 01:11:30:02
Speaker 2
Running pro and throw.
01:11:30:02 - 01:11:41:18
Speaker 1
Your rope over a rock and a specific way. So if someone falls, obviously the rock will take it. So it's kind of the most technical aspect of the route and you end up going all the way up this ridge. So it's.
01:11:41:18 - 01:11:42:22
Speaker 2
Definitely the most beautiful.
01:11:42:22 - 01:11:44:18
Speaker 1
Part of the whole climb, in my opinion.
01:11:44:20 - 01:11:47:22
Speaker 2
Is this Ridge So we did this. We had acclimated.
01:11:47:22 - 01:11:54:18
Speaker 1
To 5200 meters. We knew, okay, now we're in a pretty good position to do our our summit bid. And so we rested.
01:11:54:18 - 01:11:55:18
Speaker 2
One day.
01:11:55:20 - 01:11:56:22
Speaker 1
And, then.
01:11:57:00 - 01:12:00:02
Speaker 2
June 1st. So we've been climbing one, two.
01:12:00:02 - 01:12:02:03
Speaker 1
Three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
01:12:02:03 - 01:12:05:23
Speaker 2
Nine days. So we've been climbing nine days in a.
01:12:05:23 - 01:12:10:03
Speaker 1
Row and we had one rest day. So yeah.
01:12:10:03 - 01:12:19:03
Speaker 2
So, you know, with about nine days of climbing, 1 to 2 rest days were pretty, we're pretty tired, pretty beat, but we knew we had a weather.
01:12:19:03 - 01:12:26:15
Speaker 1
Window and so we went to try our summit bid from the 4200 meter camp to the top and.
01:12:26:17 - 01:12:27:20
Speaker 2
Definitely some serious.
01:12:27:20 - 01:12:30:16
Speaker 1
Inexperience here.
01:12:30:17 - 01:12:32:18
Speaker 2
In hindsight, it was not the.
01:12:32:18 - 01:12:36:09
Speaker 1
Greatest idea just how tired we were. You know, if we had listened to our bodies.
01:12:36:12 - 01:12:39:21
Speaker 2
So I started getting ready at about 10 p.m..
01:12:39:23 - 01:12:47:04
Speaker 1
And because of the 24 hour light thing, right. Like it didn't really matter to climb through the night, but The issue is it's so fucking cold.
01:12:47:09 - 01:12:49:07
Speaker 2
So I start getting ready at about.
01:12:49:07 - 01:12:53:12
Speaker 1
10 p.m., boiling water, probably even earlier, like 930 actually.
01:12:53:12 - 01:12:55:02
Speaker 2
And by midnight we were.
01:12:55:02 - 01:13:06:22
Speaker 1
Ready to go, we had all of our water bottles filled, we had hydrated, we're ready to go by midnight and the temperature just drops precipitously at nighttime. And so I had already.
01:13:06:22 - 01:13:07:08
Speaker 2
Been out.
01:13:07:08 - 01:13:17:04
Speaker 1
Boiling water for 2 hours, which made me freeze my ass off. And then by the time Ray and I started climbing, I have experienced cold like this. Like it was.
01:13:17:04 - 01:13:18:09
Speaker 2
Cold to the point where.
01:13:18:09 - 01:13:25:04
Speaker 1
It almost like gave me an anxiety attack. And to give some perspective here, because I didn't actually have a temperature gauge.
01:13:25:06 - 01:13:26:19
Speaker 2
But I went out.
01:13:26:19 - 01:13:39:00
Speaker 1
Climbing with Ray. We climbed Moonlight in the Canadian Rockies in an extreme cold warning, and we left the car and it was -37 and there was wind chill that day. This day on Denali was.
01:13:39:00 - 01:13:41:12
Speaker 2
Considerably colder and I know is.
01:13:41:12 - 01:13:46:02
Speaker 1
Considerably cooler because I climbed I can climb multipage ice in -37 in my eight.
01:13:46:02 - 01:13:47:10
Speaker 2
Croc's boots.
01:13:47:12 - 01:14:00:16
Speaker 1
It's pretty sketchy and it's really fucking cold. But that's like a thin, tacky double boot. I'm in Scarpa Phantom 8000 meter boots and like, my toes are fucking numb. Going to sleep every.
01:14:00:16 - 01:14:01:01
Speaker 2
Single.
01:14:01:01 - 01:14:05:21
Speaker 1
Step. I was having to scrunch my toes over and over again. I was scrunching while I.
01:14:05:21 - 01:14:06:23
Speaker 2
Was stepping and as.
01:14:06:23 - 01:14:29:11
Speaker 1
My foot's moving in the air scrunching, scrunching, scrunching, it's exhausting. And my toes were just going numb. My quads, which normally never a problem, even in -37 in Alberta, not a problem. My quads were just going numb. I had to put like so many layers. Poppy's It was just I'm just painting the picture. I've never experienced cold like that.
01:14:29:11 - 01:14:29:18
Speaker 1
It was.
01:14:29:18 - 01:14:30:11
Speaker 2
Truly.
01:14:30:11 - 01:14:34:02
Speaker 1
Terrifying and, and, and, but.
01:14:34:05 - 01:14:36:13
Speaker 2
It was beautiful. It was clear. It was.
01:14:36:13 - 01:14:37:01
Speaker 1
Beautiful.
01:14:37:01 - 01:14:44:08
Speaker 2
While we saw the sunrise, it turned like Faucher was there, I think. Is it Hunter Walker? I think it was Hunter.
01:14:44:08 - 01:14:57:06
Speaker 1
I'm pretty sure you can imagine like a 5000 meter mountain off to the side. And this mountain looks small compared to the mountain you're on. And it's this huge mountain and the sun's like, maybe it's maybe now I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah.
01:14:57:06 - 01:14:58:15
Speaker 2
5 a.m. something.
01:14:58:17 - 01:15:08:13
Speaker 1
The entire side of this mountain was just bright pink. I've never seen anything like rain. I tried to get a picture. It was the picture. Didn't do it justice. We were too late as well for the way the light was.
01:15:08:15 - 01:15:10:22
Speaker 2
But it was so amazing.
01:15:10:22 - 01:15:34:14
Speaker 1
So it goes from this to by the time we get to about 5300 meters within a matter of like 10 minutes, it had gone from like perfect clear sky to, you know, full on blizzard with like whiteout, you know, wind chill. And so now we're climbing in like, you know, -40 something plus wind chill. And and then it turns into a full on blizzard with zero visibility.
01:15:34:14 - 01:15:49:10
Speaker 1
And we've just climbed the most technical part of the route. And so we instantly were like, okay, this is really bad. We've got to turn around. We just kept it together, turning around, going down the ridge like I was. I was absolutely terrified.
01:15:49:10 - 01:15:50:07
Speaker 2
Just knowing.
01:15:50:07 - 01:15:51:23
Speaker 1
That, you know like I would.
01:15:52:02 - 01:15:53:11
Speaker 2
If I had to just guess.
01:15:53:11 - 01:16:02:10
Speaker 1
I would say it probably felt like -45, -50. And it was like, and you're on the most technical part of the route. If I slip down this.
01:16:02:12 - 01:16:04:13
Speaker 2
Wow, this.
01:16:04:15 - 01:16:08:19
Speaker 1
If I slip down this hill and hit my knee in a rock and break my knee and I can't move for.
01:16:08:19 - 01:16:10:09
Speaker 2
An hour, I'm dead. You know.
01:16:10:11 - 01:16:13:18
Speaker 1
If I know you have to sit in the snow because I twist my ankles, I'm.
01:16:13:18 - 01:16:14:20
Speaker 2
Losing fingers and toes.
01:16:14:20 - 01:16:22:00
Speaker 1
So I was horrified. I had like, yeah, I my anxiety was so high was really it was really terrifying experience.
01:16:22:00 - 01:16:24:10
Speaker 2
And and also knowing.
01:16:24:10 - 01:16:30:07
Speaker 1
That, like, Ray's behind me as I'm trying to use some places where maybe there's running pro like, you know, the myths.
01:16:30:07 - 01:16:31:17
Speaker 2
You have are so large, like it's.
01:16:31:17 - 01:16:51:21
Speaker 1
Hard to clip carabiners, even use things. So, you know, we, we bailed as fast as we could. And by the time we had descended below the fixed lines, it was like clear there. The ridge was really storming. And I remember just going down this snow slope and I'd take like ten steps with. Ray And we were so exhausted.
01:16:51:21 - 01:17:11:14
Speaker 1
We just sit back down in the snow and we just wouldn't even move. I was just so exhausted I could just stare off. I was like, It's easier to just stare into the abyss of, like, down at the camp than to just even move. Like, that's how tired we were. And it was a really scary experience. Like, I was truly horrified from it and then we got back to camp and I was.
01:17:11:14 - 01:17:12:14
Speaker 2
Really like the.
01:17:12:14 - 01:17:29:12
Speaker 1
Whole way walking down to camp, I was thinking like, I don't know, like, this might be it. Like I might need to quit. I might need to like that was. That was too much for me. And, and I'd been climbing, you know, nine out of ten days straight. My body was worked. We were just And then to have that experience, I was so physically dead and.
01:17:29:13 - 01:17:31:12
Speaker 2
And we didn't really end up even.
01:17:31:12 - 01:17:37:23
Speaker 1
Having a conversation. I think we were both really close to like, you know, saying maybe we should go down.
01:17:38:01 - 01:17:39:16
Speaker 2
And we just ended.
01:17:39:16 - 01:17:53:22
Speaker 1
Up actually giving ourselves a couple of days. And so we took to full on large rest days and then and waited. We knew there was a a better pressure system.
01:17:53:22 - 01:17:54:10
Speaker 2
Coming in.
01:17:54:10 - 01:18:04:09
Speaker 1
And that there was going to be three days of clear weather. And so we kind of just knew we're going to we're going to we're going to hydrate, we're going to eat food, we're going to sit in the tent for like two and a half days straight.
01:18:04:15 - 01:18:05:00
Speaker 2
Just like.
01:18:05:00 - 01:18:20:03
Speaker 1
Full bed rest and and that's what we did. And then we woke up the first day of the good pressure system and we moved all of our gear to the to the next camp and started our summit bit, essentially.
01:18:20:05 - 01:18:21:13
Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:18:21:15 - 01:18:22:13
Speaker 1
Wow, dude.
01:18:22:15 - 01:18:25:10
Speaker 3
Sounds like a fucking lifetime. It was.
01:18:25:13 - 01:18:40:13
Speaker 1
It was a lot, but I like I honestly felt like I had I was going to have a panic attack and I was just like descending that ridge. I was like, I just I just knew like, my body even knew. It was like this. You can't do this year. It's just not an appropriate place to do this. You have to stay calm.
01:18:40:13 - 01:19:00:00
Speaker 1
You have to keep it together, you know? And I did. But yeah, it was it was just weird to be that scared of the environment. You know, I normally feel pretty comfortable in the mountains and that was serious discomfort and just you have such a respect for how serious the place is. Yeah.
01:19:00:02 - 01:19:02:09
Speaker 3
And then you decided to continue on.
01:19:02:11 - 01:19:07:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. Not, you know, that was like we did make it through that hard and, and.
01:19:07:15 - 01:19:10:16
Speaker 1
You know, we went to plan B, which was okay with that.
01:19:10:16 - 01:19:12:01
Speaker 2
Wasn't a success for us.
01:19:12:01 - 01:19:18:13
Speaker 1
We're going to try and we're going to do the classical route. We're going to move up to 5000 hundred meter camp. And so.
01:19:18:13 - 01:19:19:13
Speaker 2
Something Mark.
01:19:19:13 - 01:19:21:13
Speaker 1
Smiley had said on that call was.
01:19:21:15 - 01:19:23:17
Speaker 2
He was like, yeah, you know, Denali is really hard.
01:19:23:17 - 01:19:25:15
Speaker 1
But you can do hard things.
01:19:25:17 - 01:19:32:03
Speaker 2
And so literally, I actually I have this written down here. So that was one of the.
01:19:32:03 - 01:19:37:02
Speaker 1
Mantras I was saying the entire trip. I was like, you know, when days were hard, I would just say.
01:19:37:07 - 01:19:38:15
Speaker 2
You know, this is really hard, but.
01:19:38:15 - 01:19:43:14
Speaker 1
I can do hard things. I would just say that to myself over and over and over again.
01:19:43:16 - 01:19:44:22
Speaker 2
And then the other quotes.
01:19:44:22 - 01:19:47:10
Speaker 1
That I would tell myself.
01:19:47:12 - 01:19:50:10
Speaker 2
One is from.
01:19:50:11 - 01:19:52:18
Speaker 1
NIMS, which is, you know.
01:19:52:22 - 01:19:54:00
Speaker 2
When you think you're fucked.
01:19:54:00 - 01:19:56:01
Speaker 1
You're only 40% fucked.
01:19:56:03 - 01:20:00:21
Speaker 2
So one quote was from him and then the other and then the other quote I would say was from.
01:20:00:23 - 01:20:01:20
Speaker 1
From.
01:20:01:22 - 01:20:18:06
Speaker 2
Alberta. You know, when he's like, if you can't look up at this mountain and say, You can't kill me, turn around and go home. I just kept thinking about that in my mind. And I was like, you know, not say it in a stupid way, but it was really like, yeah, if you think you're going to die.
01:20:18:06 - 01:20:19:00
Speaker 1
Or something like.
01:20:19:03 - 01:20:29:06
Speaker 2
Don't, don't go do that, obviously. And so it was just it was repeating that I can do hard things. I know I think I'm am only 40% fucked and and then Alan.
01:20:29:08 - 01:20:30:18
Speaker 1
Burgess this thing and.
01:20:30:23 - 01:20:34:01
Speaker 2
It really did it really was a very big like.
01:20:34:01 - 01:20:34:21
Speaker 1
Psychological.
01:20:34:21 - 01:20:36:01
Speaker 2
Breakthrough for me. I think we.
01:20:36:01 - 01:20:38:04
Speaker 1
Already alluded to this earlier where I said I.
01:20:38:04 - 01:20:43:05
Speaker 2
Felt like I had more in the tank. Physically, the barrier was actually pushing.
01:20:43:05 - 01:20:50:03
Speaker 1
The mine through it and to push your mind hard enough to actually allow your body to push itself to the extreme.
01:20:50:03 - 01:20:51:18
Speaker 2
Right. Like that's really I.
01:20:51:18 - 01:21:02:03
Speaker 1
Think a lot of the distinguishing factors with like certain people, you know, like I've heard it's Pete Whittaker and Paul, you know, Tom.
01:21:02:03 - 01:21:05:07
Speaker 2
Randall, you know, the white boys, you know, And Tom's one.
01:21:05:07 - 01:21:10:11
Speaker 1
Time was saying, you know, he was like, he failed on this climb. And and Pete went up and did it. And he was like, wait a second.
01:21:10:11 - 01:21:12:06
Speaker 2
Like, I know from training in the gym with.
01:21:12:06 - 01:21:19:00
Speaker 1
This guy, like, I'm just as strong as this guy. And he went and just tried so hard that he thought he was going to vomit and die. And he was like.
01:21:19:02 - 01:21:20:08
Speaker 2
Fuck. Like, he just realized.
01:21:20:08 - 01:21:20:19
Speaker 1
Like, that's.
01:21:20:19 - 01:21:22:06
Speaker 2
What this kid is doing all the.
01:21:22:06 - 01:21:26:05
Speaker 1
Time. It's like it's, not like this person's, like, much stronger. It's like they're.
01:21:26:05 - 01:21:26:19
Speaker 2
Actually just.
01:21:26:19 - 01:21:28:04
Speaker 1
Mentally willing to.
01:21:28:04 - 01:21:28:13
Speaker 2
Push.
01:21:28:13 - 01:21:41:00
Speaker 1
Themselves that hard to succeed, you know? So and it's subjective, of course, to your skill level and your physical ability and all these things. But but yeah, those were my mantras, man. And, you know, we had this.
01:21:41:00 - 01:21:44:20
Speaker 2
Good weather window. We had rested bit. I'm still pretty worn out.
01:21:44:20 - 01:21:49:10
Speaker 1
And we single carried our camp up to the 5200 meter camp.
01:21:49:10 - 01:21:59:12
Speaker 2
And honestly it was really funny. I by the time I'd gotten there, you know, I've exhausted I'd take ten steps and then just like lean on my ax.
01:21:59:14 - 01:22:14:23
Speaker 1
And you're panting, breathing heavy because you got like a £60 backpack on, you know, And at that altitude, to do that kind of a move, it's really physical. It's a lot. It really is very tiring and exhausting. And and we got we just set up our tent. It was like.
01:22:15:01 - 01:22:15:21
Speaker 2
The worst.
01:22:15:21 - 01:22:18:07
Speaker 1
You could set it up but still be acceptable.
01:22:18:07 - 01:22:24:17
Speaker 2
You know, it's like the least amount of work barely getting snow ready, cooking in the vestibule. We do not have.
01:22:24:17 - 01:22:48:07
Speaker 1
A good recipe for cooking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we just. We just tried to hydrate, tried to make some water, trying to force myself to eat this macaroni and cheese alpine meal. I'm, like, ill feeling exhausted. I have, like, light arms symptoms, and. And then we just slept, and we woke up the next day. And the next day I was.
01:22:48:11 - 01:22:57:07
Speaker 1
I'm sure, you know, if she was here, could advocate for herself as well like, I was so sick, you know, like, massive pounding headache.
01:22:57:13 - 01:22:58:08
Speaker 2
Really bad.
01:22:58:08 - 01:23:00:08
Speaker 1
Nausea, weakness.
01:23:00:10 - 01:23:00:17
Speaker 2
Felt.
01:23:00:17 - 01:23:02:15
Speaker 1
Terrible. If I was at sea.
01:23:02:15 - 01:23:03:02
Speaker 2
Level and.
01:23:03:02 - 01:23:17:10
Speaker 1
I was working or had school, I wouldn't I wouldn't even leave my bed the whole day, you know, like, that's how sick I was. And and I kind of in the morning I was so sick thinking, you know, thinking to myself, like, how the fuck am I actually going to do this?
01:23:17:12 - 01:23:20:07
Speaker 2
And and you really just.
01:23:20:09 - 01:23:26:00
Speaker 1
It just back to those mantras of, you know, well, this is exactly what you signed up for. You know, this.
01:23:26:00 - 01:23:26:13
Speaker 2
Is really.
01:23:26:13 - 01:23:40:01
Speaker 1
Hard, but you're not going to die. You know, I knew I wasn't going to die. Well, not that something couldn't have happened, but I wasn't going to die from physically exerting myself. I knew that, you know. So it was like is like, are you, like.
01:23:40:03 - 01:23:41:02
Speaker 2
Willing to.
01:23:41:06 - 01:23:43:20
Speaker 1
Know to actually push your body, You know, use your.
01:23:43:20 - 01:23:44:11
Speaker 2
Mind to push.
01:23:44:11 - 01:24:03:15
Speaker 1
Your body to to to find a limit or to go have a good day and maybe summit. And it was just like, yeah, I am willing to do that, you know, have a, have a coffee, have some noodles, hydrate, boil the water and, and off we went, you know, and, and fortunately for us it was just perfect. Perfect weather window.
01:24:03:18 - 01:24:08:10
Speaker 2
Beautiful day, Nice, calm. Sun's out.
01:24:08:10 - 01:24:28:01
Speaker 1
Other parties are there climbing with us. And, you know, you leave the high camp and the first thing there is is this thing called the autobahn, which is this really steep. You know, slope. And it's this massive traverse. It's huge. And there's pickets banked and everywhere. It's actually where the most amount of climbers have died on the mountain.
01:24:28:03 - 01:24:50:12
Speaker 1
And there's pickets banked it everywhere. And so you kind of go through these periods of clipping pro and clipping pro, moving on this massive traverse. Right. And and and and then you top out on this this nice ridge by this area called zebra rocks. It's just the most unique rocks I've ever seen in my life. Just striking like ash and black.
01:24:50:12 - 01:25:07:06
Speaker 1
But it almost is granite. It's not crumbly. It's a hard, like, good quality rock. And then there's these just white quartz streaks, right through it like it was so it was so beautiful and unique. And actually around there is where.
01:25:07:08 - 01:25:11:08
Speaker 2
You know, Jack I think I I'm hoping.
01:25:11:08 - 01:25:13:05
Speaker 1
His last name is Kuenzle, how you pronounce it.
01:25:13:05 - 01:25:19:18
Speaker 2
Sorry, Jack. You know, but that's that's where that's where he passed us. So anybody who doesn't know, you.
01:25:19:18 - 01:25:37:08
Speaker 1
Can look up Jack Wenzel, you can go read about him and stuff. But he recently beat Kilian Journeys of Denali. So I think he did sub 11 hours from base camp to the top. You know, we're hoping to get we're hoping to get him on the show. So, you know, and.
01:25:37:10 - 01:25:43:23
Speaker 2
But yeah, it's like like in all this puffy gear and stuff slowly going up, you know, dying. And this fucking guy.
01:25:43:23 - 01:25:47:13
Speaker 1
It is like received like light skis just like, oh.
01:25:47:15 - 01:25:55:07
Speaker 2
Just fucking runs right by me. You know, you're just sitting there, just it's, you know, never compare yourself to other people because there's just.
01:25:55:07 - 01:25:59:09
Speaker 1
Always people out there who just make you look so bad.
01:25:59:11 - 01:26:02:08
Speaker 2
You know, maybe that's the wrong context to say it, but it's.
01:26:02:08 - 01:26:19:22
Speaker 1
Just such a such a talented athlete. Wow. And watching him move in his speed, it was truly just unbelievable to see this guy. And of course, like an hour later, he's fucking ripping by you on skis. It's like I still got 4 hours to summit. This guy's already like, how.
01:26:19:23 - 01:26:20:20
Speaker 2
Much is gone.
01:26:20:20 - 01:26:24:16
Speaker 1
You know? Yeah, it's crazy. So.
01:26:24:18 - 01:26:32:09
Speaker 2
But. But, yeah, you know, we ended up. We ended up just slowly trudging along, slowly making her way up there, slowly getting to this.
01:26:32:09 - 01:26:34:12
Speaker 1
Summit ridge and just walking.
01:26:34:12 - 01:26:34:19
Speaker 2
To this.
01:26:34:19 - 01:26:36:21
Speaker 1
Summit ridge in this beautiful.
01:26:36:21 - 01:26:43:05
Speaker 2
Area was tons of other people out on the summit and stuff. Verne This mountain.
01:26:43:05 - 01:26:48:19
Speaker 1
Guide who we had met, it was his 60 seconds summit of Denali, the West.
01:26:48:21 - 01:26:49:22
Speaker 2
Or actually I don't.
01:26:49:22 - 01:26:53:21
Speaker 1
Know if it is by the West, but I know he's climbed the Caspian and other things as well too. So but the point.
01:26:53:21 - 01:26:56:13
Speaker 2
Is, is 62nd summit and he had like a.
01:26:56:13 - 01:26:58:04
Speaker 1
Ukulele and singing.
01:26:58:04 - 01:27:01:17
Speaker 2
Songs up there. I guess just he's just on a different level.
01:27:01:17 - 01:27:05:14
Speaker 1
I think he's climbed Everest like ten times. It's just, you know, and for.
01:27:05:14 - 01:27:07:23
Speaker 2
Him to be as old as he was.
01:27:08:01 - 01:27:10:01
Speaker 1
In his late fifties, sixties or.
01:27:10:01 - 01:27:12:06
Speaker 2
Something, Wow. You know, it's just.
01:27:12:08 - 01:27:17:20
Speaker 1
Some people, like I said, you know, just really crazy cut from different cloths.
01:27:17:22 - 01:27:25:12
Speaker 2
But yeah, we you know, we didn't stay that long. I also I also I have this I have this too, that's.
01:27:25:12 - 01:27:49:11
Speaker 1
Really meaningful to me. People could probably see it in certain photos. It's this woven wool to my mother bought it in South America before she passed away and she gave it to me and a couple of friends as well. Like symbolically, just this group of friends like Ravens have always kind of represented like my mother, like ever since she's passing there's kind of just been a couple of auspicious things that have happened.
01:27:49:11 - 01:27:57:04
Speaker 1
And we always just find like a raven has like represented her and I and and hiking on the West coast I always see ravens so.
01:27:57:06 - 01:28:03:22
Speaker 2
I fortunately which was really awesome saw one raven on the mountain on Denali there's ravens so that was really cool and this.
01:28:03:22 - 01:28:06:09
Speaker 1
This necklace I'm actually wearing it's Aboriginal.
01:28:06:09 - 01:28:07:13
Speaker 2
Design Raven No.
01:28:07:13 - 01:28:08:12
Speaker 3
Way I.
01:28:08:14 - 01:28:22:00
Speaker 1
Like this necklace which was given to me by a really good friend, Cat, who is also my mother's best friend's daughter. So I brought this, this necklace up and my mom's hat, which funny enough, I actually call the cow poop hat.
01:28:22:02 - 01:28:22:14
Speaker 2
And the reason.
01:28:22:14 - 01:28:23:22
Speaker 1
I call that is like it was.
01:28:23:22 - 01:28:24:23
Speaker 2
Clearly woven.
01:28:24:23 - 01:28:27:22
Speaker 1
In some kind of a farm around like animals and.
01:28:28:03 - 01:28:28:18
Speaker 2
Work.
01:28:28:20 - 01:28:32:05
Speaker 1
And so when I first got it, it you couldn't smell anything.
01:28:32:05 - 01:28:34:13
Speaker 2
And then one time I was walking in the rain and.
01:28:34:13 - 01:28:37:00
Speaker 1
When rain hit it like scent had.
01:28:37:00 - 01:28:55:14
Speaker 2
Started to come out of the hat and I just started smelling poo everywhere. I didn't know why. And I realized I was like, Oh my God, Like the hat smells kind of cow poop, like cow manure. And I was like, Oh, it doesn't bother me. I thought it was funny, you know? I thought it was hilarious. So I call it the cowboy hat, but that's my lucky hat.
01:28:55:15 - 01:28:58:11
Speaker 2
The necklace in that hat kind of really makes me.
01:28:58:11 - 01:29:12:16
Speaker 1
Feel close to my mom. And she's the one who, you know, she was a really good skier. She introduced me to the mountains and stuff and and Yeah. So to have those two items with me on the top of North America.
01:29:12:18 - 01:29:14:07
Speaker 2
There was just something about it that just.
01:29:14:07 - 01:29:23:02
Speaker 1
Felt like I was like honoring her spirit and honoring her. And it just felt super meaningful to me personally. And.
01:29:23:04 - 01:29:24:10
Speaker 2
And, and I also kind of.
01:29:24:10 - 01:29:33:16
Speaker 1
Had this like you could call it, like post hoc or, you know, like, you know, hindsight revelation. But as I was walking down.
01:29:33:18 - 01:29:39:18
Speaker 2
You know, on the summit, I don't it's not that I don't enjoy summits, but you're really like.
01:29:39:19 - 01:29:46:19
Speaker 1
Halfway if that and all the accidents happen on the way down so like I don't really enjoy the summits massively like it's great.
01:29:46:20 - 01:29:51:06
Speaker 2
There's something about it that's good. But I really my mind was going, Let's get the fuck out of here.
01:29:51:06 - 01:29:52:20
Speaker 1
Let's get the fuck out of here, you know?
01:29:52:22 - 01:29:56:06
Speaker 2
And everybody's like congratulating everybody and stuff. And I get.
01:29:56:06 - 01:30:01:14
Speaker 1
It. Like, people are just nice. It's a big accomplishment. But for me, I was thinking like, like now, like, I'm like.
01:30:01:16 - 01:30:03:09
Speaker 2
We're in not good place.
01:30:03:09 - 01:30:04:09
Speaker 1
Until we get to base camp.
01:30:04:09 - 01:30:07:20
Speaker 2
You know? And but so so we.
01:30:07:20 - 01:30:17:15
Speaker 1
Left and, and walking down as I was actually back by those zebra rocks kind of starting to walk down, I had this kind of hindsight revelation where.
01:30:17:17 - 01:30:18:18
Speaker 2
When I originally wanted.
01:30:18:18 - 01:30:35:01
Speaker 1
To do Denali, it was like my my mother had passed away, you know, maybe just a year earlier. And I don't know, there was something about like being in the mountains. I was really, really struggling with with her her passing and being in the mountains.
01:30:35:02 - 01:30:35:18
Speaker 2
It just made.
01:30:35:18 - 01:30:57:21
Speaker 1
Me feel connected to her and close to her. And I'd always loved the outdoors and she had really cultivated this in me as as a as a young child. And so after her passing, you know, that kind of coincided with me and my mountain experiences just really taking off. It's just it helped me cope with with her loss and that situation.
01:30:57:23 - 01:31:10:15
Speaker 1
And and, yeah, walking down this ridge from Hailey like I was just crying like I just couldn't stop crying, you know, like, like tears just flowing down my eyes. And, and it was like a.
01:31:10:15 - 01:31:12:04
Speaker 2
Culmination of, like, how much.
01:31:12:04 - 01:31:13:05
Speaker 1
Effort and work I'd.
01:31:13:05 - 01:31:16:15
Speaker 2
Put in having these items with me, feeling.
01:31:16:15 - 01:31:29:06
Speaker 1
Like I've honored my mother's spirit. Somehow. The fact that, you know, she was born and raised in North America and me accomplishing this goal for myself of going to the tallest mountain in North America.
01:31:29:08 - 01:31:30:10
Speaker 2
It just it just.
01:31:30:10 - 01:31:46:03
Speaker 1
Felt like somehow this was like part of me just trying to process and acknowledge and accept and like and and like, honor her passing. You know, it just felt like that. And I just couldn't stop crying.
01:31:46:05 - 01:31:47:18
Speaker 2
And it just felt like this really, really.
01:31:47:18 - 01:31:52:21
Speaker 1
Big, amazing moment. I don't know. Yeah. You know, And wow.
01:31:52:23 - 01:31:54:05
Speaker 2
And there's something about.
01:31:54:05 - 01:32:03:17
Speaker 1
That that does feel really, really special. And it did make me feel really connected to her. So. Yeah. Wow.
01:32:03:19 - 01:32:25:04
Speaker 3
Do you feel like it's a bit of closure in a way to the whole, like, loss, like the passing I like I don't want to speak out of turn here because I feel like I've never lost anybody close me. So like, I it's very hard for me to relate to your experience, but as, as a complete outsider like that is kind of my first thought as like, it's kind of like processing of the entire thing since it is still pretty recent.
01:32:25:04 - 01:32:28:17
Speaker 3
And in the grand scheme of things and stuff like would you relate to that at all?
01:32:28:19 - 01:32:34:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think closure in some capacity, like obviously I will never for me are.
01:32:34:19 - 01:32:38:21
Speaker 1
Like this is something that will just affect me for the rest of my life. You know.
01:32:38:23 - 01:32:39:22
Speaker 2
I think, I think the.
01:32:39:22 - 01:32:49:03
Speaker 1
Loss of like loved ones is just like it's a natural part of like the human existence and whether you haven't had a happened to you now or you happen.
01:32:49:04 - 01:32:51:04
Speaker 2
Young at some point in your life.
01:32:51:04 - 01:32:54:16
Speaker 1
It's going to happen to every single person. You know, like that is.
01:32:54:18 - 01:32:55:01
Speaker 2
One.
01:32:55:01 - 01:33:00:18
Speaker 1
Hundred percent reality. And so I think it's a very much a part of the human existence to experience that.
01:33:00:20 - 01:33:02:07
Speaker 2
That doesn't diminish the.
01:33:02:07 - 01:33:07:11
Speaker 1
The tragedy of it. And for me, just the way I'll process it.
01:33:07:13 - 01:33:08:03
Speaker 2
I just know.
01:33:08:03 - 01:33:15:03
Speaker 1
It's going to affect me for my entire life. The situation was, you know, just like watching her deteriorate from cancer and stuff.
01:33:15:03 - 01:33:15:14
Speaker 2
Really.
01:33:15:14 - 01:33:23:06
Speaker 1
Really affected me. It really, really hurt me. You know, I had such a good relationship with my mom and love her very, very much.
01:33:23:06 - 01:33:27:16
Speaker 2
And I think also, like.
01:33:27:18 - 01:33:34:13
Speaker 1
I have a temperament and proclivity. And then that's compounded by the fact of being a man where I kind of feel like growing up.
01:33:34:15 - 01:33:36:15
Speaker 2
You know, show weakness.
01:33:36:17 - 01:33:38:04
Speaker 1
You know, sorry for the derogatory term.
01:33:38:04 - 01:33:43:22
Speaker 2
People listening, but don't be a pussy, you know, shove your emotions down, be a fucking fall, be up, be a.
01:33:43:22 - 01:33:46:06
Speaker 1
Man like that kind of culture.
01:33:46:08 - 01:33:46:23
Speaker 2
Which I think.
01:33:46:23 - 01:33:56:17
Speaker 1
Stoicism has its place and is important. And I think we want people and you want competent men who can be.
01:33:56:19 - 01:33:57:19
Speaker 2
Good in.
01:33:57:19 - 01:34:05:18
Speaker 1
A place of, you know, bad situations or people you can rely on. But, you know, the modern movement of like men talking about their feelings and all these things.
01:34:05:18 - 01:34:10:07
Speaker 2
These are very, very important. But I think for so many years growing up, just.
01:34:10:08 - 01:34:30:22
Speaker 1
You know, having this kind of bury your emotions down. Yeah, I just I feel like I haven't properly processed, you know, my mom and how that affected me. And I feel like part of this kind of release that like, you know, you describe it as closure, which I do agree with, is like something about this experience. And the way I felt connected to.
01:34:30:22 - 01:34:32:05
Speaker 2
Her did help.
01:34:32:05 - 01:34:51:19
Speaker 1
Me feel like I had in some capacity moved a little further down the line of like accepting and coming to terms with it in my own way, if that makes sense. And was very, very powerful experience, you know, And that just compounded by the general nature of just how powerful the experience is, you know.
01:34:51:21 - 01:34:52:12
Speaker 3
For sure.
01:34:52:12 - 01:34:54:23
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah Yeah.
01:34:55:04 - 01:34:58:09
Speaker 3
So I'm happy for you, man. It seems like a really positive thing.
01:34:58:13 - 01:35:04:14
Speaker 1
Yeah, it was so positive, man. Thank you. I really appreciate it. So, yeah, it was really.
01:35:04:16 - 01:35:14:13
Speaker 2
But yeah, you know, man, we we got back down to camp, you know, had tried to eat some food and, and are still was really not.
01:35:14:13 - 01:35:18:02
Speaker 1
Working that well at 52 like depression.
01:35:18:02 - 01:35:18:15
Speaker 2
And stuff.
01:35:18:15 - 01:35:22:10
Speaker 1
It was not working well. And so I remember talking to Ray and being like, okay.
01:35:22:10 - 01:35:27:15
Speaker 2
We're going to get a good 8 hours sleep or whatever. We're going to wake up the next day. We're going to start.
01:35:27:15 - 01:35:32:00
Speaker 1
Getting off the mountain. And, you know, I'm not notorious for sleeping.
01:35:32:00 - 01:35:33:00
Speaker 2
In.
01:35:33:02 - 01:35:38:18
Speaker 1
But I slept 3 hours and I just woke up and knew I was not going to get back to bed.
01:35:38:18 - 01:35:41:20
Speaker 2
And also the stove wasn't working.
01:35:41:20 - 01:35:46:15
Speaker 1
Well, were almost out of water. We had two days of food.
01:35:46:19 - 01:35:48:12
Speaker 2
And previously to going up.
01:35:48:12 - 01:35:53:13
Speaker 1
I talked a guy to parties and people going down. They had just been stuck there for seven days. So.
01:35:53:15 - 01:35:55:06
Speaker 2
You know, fuck, that's a really.
01:35:55:06 - 01:36:02:13
Speaker 1
Bad position to be in with like a shitty stove that's not boiling water fast and like two days of food where you could get stuck somewhere really.
01:36:02:15 - 01:36:03:21
Speaker 2
So yeah.
01:36:03:22 - 01:36:29:13
Speaker 1
I was also just emotionally like, taxed and physically wrecked from all the labor and everything. And I was really ready to get down to base camp. So I, you know, in me fashion, just like, was like Ray, like I think we should do this and was very like, bullheaded about it. And, you know, Ray's tough, she's super tough and she's really strong in the mountains, you know?
01:36:29:16 - 01:36:35:06
Speaker 1
So I felt and we've climbed we spent a lot of time together. And I think Ray and I have.
01:36:35:08 - 01:36:39:01
Speaker 2
Some good we have a lot of very deep discussions. We know each other.
01:36:39:01 - 01:36:46:11
Speaker 1
Very, very well, very intimately. And there's kind of like a partition like, you know, on the mountain, like, yes.
01:36:46:13 - 01:36:55:23
Speaker 2
You're my lover, I love you. We're partners. But there's two relationships. There's our personal relationship, and then there's our climbing relationship.
01:36:56:01 - 01:36:57:03
Speaker 1
And when it comes.
01:36:57:03 - 01:36:58:07
Speaker 2
To climbing, you know.
01:36:58:12 - 01:37:10:23
Speaker 1
Like I, I, you know, I treat Ray like a climbing partner, you know? And if I was with one of the guys and I was super worried or I was maybe feeling like, you know, a bit dickish and bullheaded, like.
01:37:11:04 - 01:37:15:07
Speaker 2
I'm going to push, you know, And I know that, you know, Ray.
01:37:15:09 - 01:37:22:01
Speaker 1
Like she can advocate and stand up for herself and be I know that she's really tough and she can push through really hard.
01:37:22:01 - 01:37:25:19
Speaker 2
And I was generally like, not only did I wanted emotionally to be off the mountain.
01:37:26:00 - 01:37:31:12
Speaker 1
But I was actually concerned. You know, it was like, look, like this isn't a good place at the very least, we need to get down.
01:37:31:14 - 01:37:37:06
Speaker 2
So long story short, you know, sleep 3 hours, wake up, the stove's not working well.
01:37:37:11 - 01:37:39:10
Speaker 1
So we had.
01:37:39:12 - 01:37:41:07
Speaker 2
We had about.
01:37:41:09 - 01:37:58:20
Speaker 1
A liter of water each. I think I had like one gel. And over the next, like 12 hours, we descended 4000 meters, dug out all of our caches, picked out all of our poop buckets, loaded all of our gear, and we were in base camp by the end of the day.
01:37:58:22 - 01:38:01:22
Speaker 2
Wow. Yeah. And we we stopped at one point.
01:38:01:22 - 01:38:04:06
Speaker 1
We stopped at camp.
01:38:04:08 - 01:38:06:11
Speaker 2
Depending on how you dish it out, the first camp.
01:38:06:11 - 01:38:11:11
Speaker 1
Away from base camp, we stopped there to just boil water who didn't even have food or anything.
01:38:11:13 - 01:38:13:01
Speaker 3
And your snowshoeing.
01:38:13:03 - 01:38:15:08
Speaker 2
Your snowshoeing away from the.
01:38:15:08 - 01:38:18:11
Speaker 1
11,000 foot camp, which is 3300 meters. Could you.
01:38:18:11 - 01:38:18:22
Speaker 3
Could you have.
01:38:18:22 - 01:38:26:01
Speaker 2
Skied? Yeah. There's people ski from the very top and stuff for sure. So the issue where things start to get really.
01:38:26:01 - 01:38:28:08
Speaker 1
Tricky and which we discovered is.
01:38:28:10 - 01:38:38:15
Speaker 2
You know, when you're taking sleds down, it's a fucking nightmare. You just fall over the place and hit and things are rolling or like, it's totally a nightmare. You're going down a.
01:38:38:15 - 01:38:43:05
Speaker 1
Steep hill with sleds loaded with gear. You got tons of gear, you're exhausted.
01:38:43:07 - 01:38:43:13
Speaker 2
It is.
01:38:43:13 - 01:38:48:04
Speaker 1
Not pretty. You know, you're trying to figure out ways to. Okay, what's the best way we?
01:38:48:04 - 01:38:48:15
Speaker 2
Ended up.
01:38:48:15 - 01:38:50:02
Speaker 1
Tying both sleds in the.
01:38:50:02 - 01:38:51:18
Speaker 2
Middle. So one person.
01:38:51:18 - 01:39:10:01
Speaker 1
Was kind of guiding and on the flats or like light hills, they would have two locomotive pull both sleds and the other person would have to be an anchor, try to keep the sleds straight. And it's just really tiring, really exhausting work. So but, but yeah, man, you know.
01:39:10:03 - 01:39:29:17
Speaker 2
By the end of the day, we were going up Heartbreak Hill and my heart was broken. You know, it was funny. I was say to Ray, I was I just renamed it Super Happy Fun Time Hill. I was like, Ray, we're on super happy, fun time, and we're both just miserable. Like my feet have blisters, like Ray's toes are.
01:39:29:17 - 01:39:32:21
Speaker 1
Still bright purple, you know, to this day.
01:39:32:21 - 01:39:33:09
Speaker 2
Wow.
01:39:33:09 - 01:39:39:17
Speaker 1
Two plus weeks later, you know, our toenails might fall off. So, you know, we were both, you know, just, you know, just.
01:39:39:17 - 01:39:42:05
Speaker 2
Trodden along, trying to mentally.
01:39:42:05 - 01:39:43:00
Speaker 1
Stay happy.
01:39:43:00 - 01:39:43:13
Speaker 2
And.
01:39:43:13 - 01:40:01:17
Speaker 1
Just suffer. And we eventually got into base camp. And by the time I'd taken off my boots and stuff, you know, you had to hobble along because your toes are in so much agony and stuff and we we went and dug out our cache, which our base camp food was like six packs of macaroni like crap dinner.
01:40:01:19 - 01:40:09:17
Speaker 2
And so we just made a big bag of crap dinner and, and these guys who had flown there that day, so there.
01:40:09:17 - 01:40:16:23
Speaker 1
At base camp, they had a whole bunch of food that they had like made nice meals for themselves at base camp before they were going to leave the mountain tomorrow.
01:40:17:01 - 01:40:22:21
Speaker 2
And they're like, We have extra steak sandwiches. Do you want one, Mary? Or like ravenous.
01:40:22:21 - 01:40:24:13
Speaker 1
Hyenas? Like, I haven't.
01:40:24:13 - 01:40:28:16
Speaker 2
Eaten like, you know, bread or like meat like that. And, you know, 16.
01:40:28:16 - 01:40:33:04
Speaker 1
Days and yeah, just sitting there getting to enjoy a steak sandwich with.
01:40:33:04 - 01:40:34:04
Speaker 2
Ray.
01:40:34:06 - 01:40:36:14
Speaker 1
And then we had a whole bunch of macaroni and.
01:40:36:16 - 01:40:37:06
Speaker 2
And, you know, the.
01:40:37:06 - 01:40:39:11
Speaker 1
Next day we, we.
01:40:39:11 - 01:40:45:06
Speaker 2
Flew out and, you know, we went to the bunkhouse. I had a shower and then I went and bought.
01:40:45:06 - 01:40:46:15
Speaker 1
This cocktail.
01:40:46:15 - 01:40:48:08
Speaker 2
Drink that was 15%.
01:40:48:08 - 01:40:49:17
Speaker 1
It was like a beer cocktail.
01:40:49:17 - 01:40:50:07
Speaker 2
Drink, not a.
01:40:50:07 - 01:40:53:09
Speaker 1
Beer, but like a beer cans sized. It was like some kind of like.
01:40:53:14 - 01:40:56:02
Speaker 2
Fruity cocktail thing. 15%.
01:40:56:03 - 01:40:57:05
Speaker 1
I bummed a menthol.
01:40:57:05 - 01:41:06:16
Speaker 2
Cigaret off a guy and I just sat there smoking a cigaret and having a beer and it was really it felt really, really.
01:41:06:16 - 01:41:07:15
Speaker 1
Good. You know.
01:41:07:20 - 01:41:09:01
Speaker 3
I was euphoric. Yeah.
01:41:09:07 - 01:41:13:21
Speaker 2
So, you know, just sitting there with Ray getting to just, you know, have a good.
01:41:13:22 - 01:41:19:09
Speaker 1
Time and just Yeah, enjoy, you know, feeling, feeling.
01:41:19:11 - 01:41:22:14
Speaker 2
Really accomplished. And I mean, I think it's cliche, you know, long time ago, our.
01:41:22:14 - 01:41:25:17
Speaker 1
Conversation with Eric Carter. I was trying to like press.
01:41:25:17 - 01:41:28:12
Speaker 2
Like, oh, the summit, it's not everything, blah, blah, blah. And he was like.
01:41:28:12 - 01:41:31:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that's bullshit. People really care about summits and they should.
01:41:31:15 - 01:41:32:05
Speaker 2
And I really.
01:41:32:05 - 01:41:33:04
Speaker 1
Agree with him. You know.
01:41:33:04 - 01:41:34:19
Speaker 2
I, I had a lot of.
01:41:34:19 - 01:41:39:07
Speaker 1
Anxiety going into the trip because partly I'm like, I'm like.
01:41:39:09 - 01:41:41:02
Speaker 2
Openly posting about this.
01:41:41:02 - 01:41:42:01
Speaker 1
I host a climbing.
01:41:42:01 - 01:41:46:09
Speaker 2
Podcast, you that's going on the page there felt like this emphasis.
01:41:46:09 - 01:41:50:14
Speaker 1
To be like, oh, I'm like, if I fuck this up, I'm some phony or something, you.
01:41:50:14 - 01:41:55:12
Speaker 2
Know? So I felt like there was a lot of pressure and I do really care about.
01:41:55:12 - 01:41:56:08
Speaker 1
Making the summit.
01:41:56:14 - 01:41:59:09
Speaker 2
But so I don't want to diminish that.
01:41:59:09 - 01:42:07:07
Speaker 1
That absolutely is a really important thing and it's frustrating when you have your mind set on that and sometimes you get shut down in the mountains.
01:42:07:09 - 01:42:09:08
Speaker 2
But I think really what.
01:42:09:08 - 01:42:15:02
Speaker 1
Is the the fulfilling part of this trip is just how hard we pushed.
01:42:15:02 - 01:42:15:20
Speaker 2
Ourselves.
01:42:15:21 - 01:42:35:20
Speaker 1
In an intelligent manner and that, you know, that that we tried to have that we had that failed summit attempt and that really almost broke us. And we kind of just yeah, we kind of decided, you know, like, we're going to keep it together, we're going to give it another try. That just is what really meaningful I think is just is just is yeah.
01:42:35:20 - 01:42:50:17
Speaker 1
Is just how how much I actually challenged myself like I was so challenged in it And the fact that I got to feel that challenged was really rewarding. Yeah, it's really meaningful.
01:42:50:19 - 01:43:11:02
Speaker 3
That's awesome. I mean, I can I can probably speak for everybody else. Listen to this. Right now. I feel inspired and also a lazy piece of shit at the same time. But yeah, no, it's just it's just awesome. And I think that it's just definitely inspiring for the mental fortitude and just to push yourself like that, It's, it's, it's a really good feeling.
01:43:11:02 - 01:43:30:11
Speaker 3
I've tasted before and it's been a while, so just puts a fire under my ass to to feel that again. It's like it's, it's what we live here for. It's to push ourselves. It's to, to be the best versions of ourselves. And it seems like you were fucking basking in that. So it's a really awesome experience.
01:43:30:13 - 01:43:31:06
Speaker 2
I appreciate it.
01:43:31:06 - 01:43:31:19
Speaker 1
And yeah.
01:43:31:19 - 01:43:33:17
Speaker 2
I think you hit the hammer on.
01:43:33:17 - 01:43:35:02
Speaker 1
The head, you know, to, to some.
01:43:35:02 - 01:43:36:04
Speaker 2
People, what I did.
01:43:36:04 - 01:43:38:14
Speaker 1
Would be very, very easy for them and to others.
01:43:38:14 - 01:43:39:23
Speaker 2
It's really, really hard.
01:43:40:04 - 01:43:44:05
Speaker 1
And so you know exactly what you said. It's just it's just I.
01:43:44:07 - 01:43:46:01
Speaker 2
You know, go out and be the best.
01:43:46:01 - 01:43:47:05
Speaker 1
Version of yourself.
01:43:47:07 - 01:43:48:13
Speaker 2
You know, everybody's got mountains.
01:43:48:13 - 01:44:01:11
Speaker 1
To climb in their personal life, their family life, you know, business and literal mountains to climb because we like climbing. But just go out there, challenge yourself, and be the best version of yourself. And you'll feel fulfilled.