As mountain athletes it's easy to get consumed by our objectives and our drive to continuously improve and get stronger can be draining. It can make us forget that one of the most meaningful parts of the mountains is the people we meet on the way, the bonds we form and the experiences shared.
In this conversation we explore what drives a 25 year old who was born and raised in the flat state of Long Island New York to pursue a challenging solo ascent of Denali. Our Guest today is Alex Mitchko, an apprentice ski and alpine guide. I met Alex this past spring while climbing Denali in Alaska. During his expedition he had a 45 mph skiing accident…. and two harrowing crevasse falls. Amazingly he walked away injury free.
Spending time with Alex, you could see his passion for the mountains radiating from him. But what stood out even more was his ability to connect with people. Alex brought out the best in everyone around him and is a great reminder that the people we are with are just as important as the objectives we covet.
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 mountain athletes it's easy to get consumed by our objectives and our drive to continuously improve and get stronger can be draining. It can make us forget that one of the most meaningful parts of the mountains is the people we meet on the way, the bonds we form and the experiences shared.
In this conversation we explore what drives a 25 year old who was born and raised in the flat state of Long Island New York to pursue a challenging solo ascent of Denali. Our Guest today is Alex Mitchko, an apprentice ski and alpine guide. I met Alex this past spring while climbing Denali in Alaska. During his expedition he had a 45 mph skiing accident…. and two harrowing crevasse falls. Amazingly he walked away injury free.
Spending time with Alex, you could see his passion for the mountains radiating from him. But what stood out even more was his ability to connect with people. Alex brought out the best in everyone around him and is a great reminder that the people we are with are just as important as the objectives we covet.
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
00:00:00:17 - 00:00:26:06
Speaker 1
Hey, everyone. And welcome back to the Climbing podcast, where Kyle and I sit down with living legends, professional athletes, certified guides to recreational climbers discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a climber. If you haven't already, please subscribe rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:26:08 - 00:00:50:15
Speaker 1
As mountain athletes, it's easy to get consumed by our objectives, our drives to continuously improve and get stronger. It can be draining, it can make us forget that one of the most meaningful parts of the mountains is the people we meet along the way. The bonds we form and the experiences shared. In this conversation, Kyle and I explore what drives the 25 year old who was born and raised in the flat state of Long Island, New York, to pursue a challenging solo ascent of Denali.
00:00:50:17 - 00:01:12:14
Speaker 1
Our guest today is Alex Mitch Coe. He's an apprentice ski and alpine guide. I met Alex this past spring while climbing Denali in Alaska. During his expedition, he had a 45 mile per hour ski accident and two howling crevasse falls. Amazingly, he walked away injury free. Spending time with Alex, I could see his passion for the mountains radiating from him.
00:01:12:16 - 00:01:28:16
Speaker 1
But what stood out even more was his ability to connect with people. Alex brought out the best in me, and I felt better around him immediately. His kindness and concern for those around him was shown on many occasions. Alex is a great reminder that the people we are with are just as important as the object as.
00:01:28:16 - 00:01:45:08
Unknown
We cut it. We're like.
00:01:45:10 - 00:01:47:00
Speaker 1
An ally for.
00:01:47:00 - 00:01:48:13
Speaker 3
Us.
00:01:48:15 - 00:02:07:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, wicked, everybody. Thanks for coming back and joining the show and Alex, we will have already given you a really nice introduction worthy of your amazing character and handsome, devilish good looks. But, you know, for now, yeah, we're here sitting down with Alex Pacheco, and it's great to have you on. And thanks for being here.
00:02:07:20 - 00:02:09:05
Speaker 4
Yeah. Welcome to the show.
00:02:09:07 - 00:02:24:07
Speaker 5
Yeah, Thank you guys for having me. I'm a stoked to be here. And I know I always light up when I see and see Max's face and hear his voice just, I don't know. He just pulls it out of me, which is awesome. Kyle, I feel like you're a similar caliber. So sad to be here.
00:02:24:07 - 00:02:28:10
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Yeah. It sounded like you guys had quite the adventure.
00:02:28:12 - 00:02:49:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, we had a really good time. I remember, like, you know, I'm sure. Well, this is jumping a little bit ahead. You know, we usually like to hear about our guests and stuff, but I just remember, like Ray and I had when we saw you on Denali, the first time, we had had this pretty awful time trying to move from, you know, 300 meters or 1100 foot camp for the Americans.
00:02:49:02 - 00:03:07:19
Speaker 1
And we had this awful, awful night the day before. And then when I woke up in the morning and I just saw you there, you know, it's like five in the morning, clear sky, I just instantly, like, remember looking at you and just thinking like, oh, this guy, just like I could feel like your vibe. Like, you know, from, like, the other campsite.
00:03:07:19 - 00:03:30:19
Speaker 1
And it was just like, I instantly got a really good feeling, just like being around you and stuff. And lo and behold, you were a really, really I do it and I'm super happy we connected so well. Well, eventually jump there, you know, not, not that far back, but you know, for now, you know if we could just get like a little bit of a rounding off of like, you know, where are you born and raised?
00:03:30:21 - 00:03:36:22
Speaker 1
You know, who are you and what led you to become the kind of mountain person that you are today?
00:03:37:00 - 00:04:05:02
Speaker 5
Oh, wow. What a big question. Um, so I'm originally from Long Island, New York. I believe the flattest part of all of North Shore Suffolk County, if I was familiar with that, I had an interesting path into the mountains skiing a handful of times when I was really young, between like three and five probably went on maybe 10 to 15 trips between five and 15 or so.
00:04:05:02 - 00:04:37:06
Speaker 5
I never really was too passionate about it. Snowboarding at the time I'm speaking of. And then all of a sudden, late in high school, I just got really excited about skiing. I started watching some YouTube videos and I was blown away that people were skiing in Oregon in July and just I wanted to do that. So I just was taking weekend trips or so up into the mountains, the Catskills, mainly the closest, what I would call real mountains rather than little trash holes in New Jersey and such.
00:04:37:08 - 00:05:00:23
Speaker 5
But so doing that late in high school bounced around in college for a little bit, went to Arizona State for a little, didn't really enjoy that too much and then came back to New York for a year and a half, spent those years doing the same thing, bigger weekend trips, Vermont and things like that. Then I had an awesome opportunity to go to this program called Ridge Mountain Academy.
00:05:01:01 - 00:05:25:15
Speaker 5
Honestly, like shout out to all the people at this academy, it was really awesome. This program. It was in conjunction with the University of Montana, so I was able to still get college credits while learning how to rock, climb ice, climb mountain bike, backcountry ski uphill fitness, do volunteer work with adaptive ski groups, all these amazing things for four months.
00:05:25:15 - 00:05:43:04
Speaker 5
And whether I knew it in the moment or not, I just have this really awesome bond with being outside in it. Most of the time it didn't even have to do with being outside, but rather sharing that experiences with others and just it was so much fun. I just had an awesome time and I didn't even feel like I was learning.
00:05:43:04 - 00:06:10:09
Speaker 5
I was just having a great time with my friends outside. Which awesome experience from there finished that program and moved out to Tahoe to finish my Bachelor of Science degree, then never left, started just taking more courses. I was interested in snow science. One thing led to another teaching courses and then beginning to ski up in here in Mount Shasta currently.
00:06:10:09 - 00:06:14:10
Speaker 5
So yeah, that's that's the path so far out.
00:06:14:12 - 00:06:35:09
Speaker 4
Now in college. Back me up a little bit here. Like are you this program you were talking about it is like are you you said you were getting credits at the same time while also doing this outdoor activities and these things like how do they mesh together? Are they part of the credits? Are you doing like a huge course load because you're doing both?
00:06:35:11 - 00:06:39:05
Speaker 4
Like how how does that kind of mesh together?
00:06:39:07 - 00:07:02:03
Speaker 5
So it was probably 6040, more outdoors centric and focused. So we're taking courses like Applied Snow Science, Professional Mountain Sports training. I believe Instructional Yoga is one of the courses I got. Credits. Wow. Worthiness First responder Level one Athletic certification.
00:07:02:05 - 00:07:02:17
Speaker 3
Something in.
00:07:02:17 - 00:07:22:12
Speaker 5
My school. Oh, it was it was phenomenal. It was like the most fortunate experience I've ever had in my entire life to go to a program like that. And there is obviously some pros and some cons to the program. There wasn't a lot of personal freedom. I didn't have a car. Every every single minute of our day was blocked out on a calendar.
00:07:22:12 - 00:07:46:21
Speaker 5
We knew it like weeks in advance. So definitely strict and regimented, but at the same time, just an insane experience. Got to go biking and climbing in Moab for my first time and did a hot trip in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. And just, you know, all these crazy things, like in a lifetime, they're amazing, but got to do it in essentially one winter, which was just awesome.
00:07:46:23 - 00:07:57:02
Speaker 4
In comparison to like a normal max, help me out here. Tuition, a normal tuition compared to like ASU or something like that. Like what would this what would this program run?
00:07:57:02 - 00:08:04:04
Speaker 5
People probably just over like a normal semester's worth of like a private. Okay, I would say.
00:08:04:06 - 00:08:08:13
Speaker 4
Yeah. Interesting. So not cheap, but not out of reach.
00:08:08:15 - 00:08:28:18
Speaker 5
Yeah, exactly. And the way I looked at it, right, is we had I went to Arizona State for a public school for a year and then went to two public schools back in oh, excuse me, one public school back in New York. And essentially I had saved money. A ridiculous amount in comparison. If I were going to a private school or a four year school for all four years.
00:08:28:18 - 00:08:46:20
Speaker 5
So it basically added like, you know me, the same math work. So yeah, I'm super fortunate. Definitely like the pivotal moment in my outdoor background and as a huge shout out to everybody. I couldn't name all the names but like, Oh, it's just an awesome experience up there.
00:08:46:22 - 00:09:12:02
Speaker 1
I think that's really, really amazing sounding. And like the, the, the particularly the structure of it because I think that's one of the biggest entries in, in the mountain sports in itself is finding a community, finding mentors, finding trustworthy people who your schedules can align with, you know, and, and kind of like making that happen. So having like a more structured program that's actually facilitated through school education.
00:09:12:04 - 00:09:42:19
Speaker 1
And I'm sure like people who have, you know, taken what I would call like diversified, you know, post-secondary education, you end up having to take a whole bunch of courses that aren't particular or like strictly a part of the actual main discipline you're studying or interested in. And so if you have to take courses that are kind of diversified anyways, then having the opportunity to do some courses, like you're saying, I think just it's a really amazing and obviously totally pertains to, you know, my passion and love of the mountains and stuff.
00:09:42:19 - 00:09:59:23
Speaker 1
So I'm clearly like completely biased towards this, but I just think that so many people would benefit from having courses like this or access to courses like this in universities, you know, to kind of like get them to experience other things, take control of their health or fitness, being able to connect with a community of people who are into the outdoors.
00:09:59:23 - 00:10:21:17
Speaker 1
So yeah, sounds like a really amazing course. And I could be talking out of term here, but I feel like through anecdotes and people we communicate, communicated with and had correspondence with, Europe seems to have a much more like structured system for people like universities or like pathways for people to become mountain guides that are much more structured.
00:10:21:19 - 00:10:38:17
Speaker 1
You know, my experience here in Canada, it's kind of you're kind of like you want to become an an HMG apprentice guide. Like, Yeah, the G offers structure and has a lot of things, but there's no like college credit or system that I can really do. There are outdoor programs, but yeah, it sounds like you, you had a really amazing one.
00:10:38:17 - 00:10:41:00
Speaker 1
So that's, that's pretty awesome and that's amazing.
00:10:41:02 - 00:11:07:18
Speaker 5
Yeah, it was a, it was a sweet program. It's unfortunate that we were actually the last year that the program ran the owner of it and just the way everything happened financially decided to part ways with the idea. So that's unfortunate but still really stoked that I was able to do that. And once again, big shout out to all the Ridge Mountain Academy folks like the staff and the folks that I was in the program with, definitely awesome people.
00:11:07:18 - 00:11:08:10
Speaker 5
Everybody.
00:11:08:10 - 00:11:20:08
Speaker 4
So did you stumble upon it? And also, did it shape your direction or did you have the direction in mind before you showed up?
00:11:20:10 - 00:11:46:13
Speaker 5
You know, I, I got to that program and I was really trying to see how I would fare, honestly, in all those disciplines in I had never camped before that program. And I went winter camping for my first time and it was like, I don't know, just below zero. And we got in a bunch of fresh snow overnight and went in So many lessons on that trip alone.
00:11:46:15 - 00:12:03:19
Speaker 5
But I don't think it really it really shaped me in the sense that I wasn't really looking that far ahead. I was thinking, you know, this is an awesome thing I get to do in between coursework. I'm going to figure out what school I'm going to go to after this. But this is going to be a really nice time to recalibrate and see if I enjoy this.
00:12:03:21 - 00:12:30:20
Speaker 5
And in the moment, that's how I was taking it. But I know down the line those fundamental skills that I learned in the in those form four and a half months were just, you know, unbeatable, really. Like they're such they're like some of the biggest tools in my tool belt right now that the little things that keep you from like a miserable made up on the mountain or forgetting something at the trailhead or just like the little the little tiny things that make life so much easier.
00:12:30:20 - 00:12:55:06
Speaker 5
So I didn't really, like affect. Yeah, like I said, not really affecting the directions so much, but just taken at face value, seeing how I react. And then once I moved out to Tahoe after that, it was just like, game on, like so much fun in skiing and developing skill sets in the mountains, trying to see as many different mountain ranges as I can look at as much snow and just be excited.
00:12:55:10 - 00:13:12:10
Speaker 5
Also, the the school I went to out here in Tahoe, another awesome outdoor school, I didn't get a degree in what we would call outdoor adventure leadership. My degree is actually in ski business and resort management, so it's pretty awesome.
00:13:12:10 - 00:13:15:07
Speaker 3
Still, but a little different.
00:13:15:09 - 00:13:43:12
Speaker 5
But our orientation was like a six day overnight backpacking trip in Desolation Wilderness, which is just as beautiful granite playground, high Alpine lakes around like seven, 6000 feet up there. It's just gorgeous. And just being around these other excited folks who are new to the area in such a beautiful area and just excited to get outside was, you know, another super formative experience for me.
00:13:43:14 - 00:13:45:13
Speaker 1
How old are you, Alex?
00:13:45:15 - 00:13:51:07
Speaker 5
I am 25, and in two months I'll be 26.
00:13:51:09 - 00:14:01:03
Speaker 1
And so when you were doing this program first, how old were you? The outdoor program that we were just discussing?
00:14:01:05 - 00:14:02:19
Speaker 5
20.
00:14:02:21 - 00:14:06:04
Speaker 1
20. Okay, So five, five years of laps essentially, right?
00:14:06:06 - 00:14:09:05
Speaker 5
Yeah, five. Yep. Yep.
00:14:09:06 - 00:14:14:11
Speaker 1
Okay. So you you moved to Tahoe, you said, right?
00:14:14:13 - 00:14:15:07
Speaker 5
Hmm.
00:14:15:09 - 00:14:32:19
Speaker 1
Okay. And it's it's game on, right? You've got all these skills. You're you're kind of getting stoked on the mountains and everything. How does that, how does that progress into you know, alpine glow and becoming an apprentice skier, an alpine guide?
00:14:32:21 - 00:14:54:23
Speaker 5
So that first year I was really just focused on developing the skill set to be able to ride at the level I want to in the backcountry and spent probably 65, 70% of my time inbound skiing at the resort, skiing my face off. It was also a record winter. And I just I wasn't as good as I wanted to be.
00:14:54:23 - 00:15:31:00
Speaker 5
And I could I could visualize what I wanted to do in the mountains. I just didn't have the abilities yet. So I spent a lot of time that first winter skiing around and just getting the lay of the land. Like I said I did. I didn't mention this, but I did a solo road trip around like just mainly the western U.S. Ski at Jackson and Big Sky in Utah, just to experience the different mountains and see how I reacted to them and what I liked and what I didn't like and what I was good at and what was it Just trying to keep getting better at skiing and then here and there had more opportunity
00:15:31:05 - 00:15:55:19
Speaker 5
to develop like technical skill sets that first week that I was at school, we went rock climbing on like a free school funded trip to Phantom Spires, which is just south of Lover's Leap. And, you know, slowly after doing all these really fun things, developing the skill set for the first year, I just started taking more avalanche courses.
00:15:56:00 - 00:16:15:04
Speaker 5
I wanted to just like learn more. And I never I just kept asking why and never really had the answer to it was always just is is lose of questions I couldn't comprehend or I didn't have an answer to. And I wanted that answer, or at least the confidence to know what I didn't know more more than an answer.
00:16:15:06 - 00:16:44:03
Speaker 5
And taking more ski courses over the next two years. All of a sudden I'm taking professional grade avalanche courses here in the U.S. The pro one. And then at that point I was eligible to start teaching courses. So then took an instructor training course through the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education. So now I'm an area certified instructor, and from there I decided, hey, let's start ski guiding, Let's let's do this for real.
00:16:44:05 - 00:17:01:01
Speaker 5
And all of these opportunities have come through Alpine glow because I went to them with my credentials and said, This is my background, this is what the trajectory is and what do you think? And I just was at the right place at the right time. They needed some folks to start teaching some avalanche courses and they liked me.
00:17:01:01 - 00:17:14:03
Speaker 5
So here I am today, a couple of years later, I'm still smiling, so passionate about it. But yeah, that's that's basically that that was the trajectory for the last couple of years or so.
00:17:14:04 - 00:17:22:21
Speaker 1
And do you see yourself pursuing an if MGA certification or do you just what what's your thought process of where you want to take this?
00:17:22:23 - 00:17:52:21
Speaker 5
I'm mainly concerned right now about my ski certification. I just feel the most passionate about developing that craft. And if I could become a ski guide, utilize those skills for a couple of years to deflect, just change the way I want to move into the mountains, potentially pursuing. I figure right now, for me, the rock and alpine stuff is just so far down the line in the span of things that I want to do.
00:17:52:22 - 00:18:02:22
Speaker 5
I just want to ski as hard as I can while my body still can do that. And I know climbing is a little less impactful or hopefully it should be on your body.
00:18:02:23 - 00:18:07:01
Speaker 3
And you're talking to the wrong dudes man. Yeah.
00:18:07:03 - 00:18:25:07
Speaker 5
This impacts on your body rather than skiing is. So while my body is still you know, young and healthy enough, just get out there and go ski. But that's it. Yeah, it's a great question. I feel like I have this discussion quite a bit at work, like, are you going to go for your finger? Where are you going to be in the process?
00:18:25:07 - 00:18:45:03
Speaker 5
You know, it's it's a constant, constant thing. And once you get to the I figure it's still continually learning every single day, every week, every month, every year at your guiding service or wherever you are in the world, which is part of the reason why people love it so much. You just constantly learning about people or developing your craft just one step further.
00:18:45:03 - 00:18:49:13
Speaker 5
It's really cool. So not sure, but definitely Ski Guide.
00:18:49:15 - 00:19:07:16
Speaker 4
I ask this from all our guides is do you feel like your pursuit of education and your craft as a guide interfere, interferes at all with your pursuit of athleticism and your goals as a ski athlete?
00:19:07:18 - 00:19:43:06
Speaker 5
You know, I think they're pretty. They go hand in hand. Actually, I like the better I think the better I am at skiing with my friends, the better I am guiding people, whether that's Baseline Fitness, where I can keep up with someone who's doing, you know, a thousand vertical meters an hour, so to speak, for you Canadians up there, or whether it's just I can take care of somebody better and I know when they need water, when they may be hurting and they're not saying something, all those things, I think, transfer over really well between personal skiing and guiding skiing.
00:19:43:08 - 00:20:05:11
Speaker 5
I think where the distinctions should be looked at is when folks know that people are guides, when guides are skiing with them just for fun recreationally, they become they tend to become opinion less. They will start to take a back seat and say, Oh, guides here, they're going to do all the work. They don't have anything to say in the group discussion.
00:20:05:13 - 00:20:26:02
Speaker 5
And the analogy I like to use for this is like being a field goal kicker. It's when you're the guide in this friend group and you do everything right, you just get like a pat on the back, no big deal. Like nobody's really celebrating. But as soon as you mess up, right, you ski into the wrong drainage, you look at the map wrong, you spill water all over somebody, something like that.
00:20:26:04 - 00:20:51:18
Speaker 5
You're looking at this huge villain that blew it. And, you know, like everyone was looking at you. Right? So I think that's more of the distinction where it can pull you away. But just finding people that, you know, respect you and respect your ethos and mantras in the mountains and just making a cohesive relationship really like I have, I know there's a lot of people that I really like skiing with and there's other folks that I haven't enjoyed skiing with them as much.
00:20:51:18 - 00:21:33:22
Speaker 4
So I think that I understand and respect, you know, what you just said in terms of its relation to, you know, your relationship with other skiers. But I think that skiing in itself could be a pretty solo sport. And I think that there is a side to it that is purely athletic, purely personal, purely selfish. And I feel like there is some sort of line and distinction between the path of a professional athlete versus the path of a professional guide and someone who is there their entire job and their entire profession is interacting with other people in this medium, whereas the professional athlete, it has nothing to do with other people.
00:21:33:22 - 00:21:55:18
Speaker 4
It is purely their attachment to the mountain and their athletic performance. And so like I'm totally cool and I understand the two different paths and I respect them both. I'm just curious because, you know, in my shoes, you know, I would never try to consider myself a professional climber at this point or, you know, but there was a little taste of like, okay, maybe I could pursue this.
00:21:55:20 - 00:22:15:01
Speaker 4
And to me, I saw guiding as a distraction from practicing the craft that would take me to professionalism. And so I'm just curious back to this. I guess back to this exact question is, did you ever feel that kind of split where you're like, you know, I could either choose to become a professional skier or I could choose to be a guide?
00:22:15:01 - 00:22:20:05
Speaker 4
Or did you always find an inclination to interacting with other people as a guide?
00:22:20:06 - 00:22:38:07
Speaker 5
No, I was I am nowhere near good enough to be a professional skier. At the rate people are skiing that now. There is so many mind blowing folks that have been doing cutting edge things now even in the last two, three, five years. But for the past 40, 50 years, that honestly, I don't think you even get enough appreciation.
00:22:38:09 - 00:23:00:18
Speaker 5
The level has gotten so high. I've never I've never thought, hey, I'm going to go pro at this, so to speak. At some point it would be awesome to get support from somebody who sees my vision, you know, almost through my eyes, so to speak. And they get the passion or the idea or, you know, like I said, the ethos and the mantra of the project vision, whatever it may be.
00:23:00:20 - 00:23:08:17
Speaker 5
But no, no, never, never down that professional line for me, I was never winning due to any of that stuff.
00:23:08:19 - 00:23:25:16
Speaker 4
Yeah, I don't know what it even takes to be a professional skier or anything. So that to me it's just more of that understanding of like the choices we have in life and kind of like which direction life pulls us and the amount of effort it takes to become, you know, a pro athlete versus a guide. Like there's I feel like there is a distinction.
00:23:25:16 - 00:23:28:10
Speaker 4
So I was just curious. But yeah.
00:23:28:12 - 00:23:54:17
Speaker 1
I definitely don't know from experience, but and this might be a little pessimistic, you know, for people maybe who are, you know, like not young individuals getting into sports, this might, you know, be like blowing. I think people should still chase their dreams in some capacity. But I feel the way sports have gone nowadays, the people who are really going in to the professional level general generally at a very young age, they have a genetic proclivity for it.
00:23:54:17 - 00:24:24:15
Speaker 1
And from a very young age they are performing at a very high level in that sport or they perform very high in their sports and then when they transferred to that sport, they're kind of some like some form of a thing on it. So at least that's the sense I get, you know what I mean? Because if you're competing to become a professional athlete and the person you're competing against is not only genetically gifted in that particular subset of athletics, but they've also been doing that all the way through puberty and have much longer like epigenetics and adaptations.
00:24:24:17 - 00:24:27:06
Speaker 1
You're kind of just at such a disadvantage. They're such as.
00:24:27:06 - 00:24:34:03
Speaker 4
One of their own. There's ten of them. Yeah, 18 against each other. And you're on the sideline just like, fuck.
00:24:34:05 - 00:24:35:21
Speaker 1
And they're mental psychos.
00:24:35:23 - 00:24:37:04
Speaker 3
You know, who are like, just.
00:24:37:04 - 00:24:40:13
Speaker 1
Capable of like, just pushing to some unbelievable amount.
00:24:40:13 - 00:25:01:05
Speaker 4
Yeah, Yeah. It is interesting. It's an interesting situation to be in as someone who is, I would say, you know, I would say I would label this all as three, you know, physically active, you know, athletic men that, you know, could have goals to be. You know, we have the taste of like what it could be like to be, you know, professional or whatever.
00:25:01:05 - 00:25:17:04
Speaker 4
But it's so far removed from our reality, even though we are, you know, the top 10% of American civilization, as it were, it's like the the professional status is just being pulled so far away. It's it's really, really interesting.
00:25:17:06 - 00:25:35:01
Speaker 1
But I think something too that's cool that I would I would at least I feel like you alluded to it, Alex and I do want to put words in your mouth, but, you know, you're talking about finding someone who wants to be a part of your vision. You know, for for me, I was never destined to be a pro athlete, especially not a pro climber.
00:25:35:02 - 00:25:53:21
Speaker 1
But but I love climbing and I have this really big passion for the mountains and passion for climbing. And you and I have this vision of, you know, providing a platform to kind of engage with the mountains in a different way in a digital sphere. Like that's part of my vision and somehow amalgamating my own mountain goals into that.
00:25:54:03 - 00:26:14:17
Speaker 1
So I think now in the digital age, there's so many different ways to be a professional and to have high level of competency and to find a way to kind of amalgamate. Maybe having a job and living a life you want, and also being able to maybe monetize the vision for what you want out in the world, right?
00:26:14:22 - 00:26:40:03
Speaker 1
So I think on some level like that might not involve being a professional athlete on the circuit, but like through professionalism, you know, like character and, and just like work and determination, you can, you can find a way to have a vision that still involves that in a different capacity. That's like, hey, I won a gold medal at the Moguls going down the Olympics or something.
00:26:40:03 - 00:26:47:16
Speaker 1
You know, it's like a different it's a different way than that, You know, not to diss anybody doing that, like, that's great. Just not very many people are destined for that, right?
00:26:47:22 - 00:27:06:02
Speaker 4
For sure. My buddy put it a really nice way. He said, you know, yes, you could look at it as this like bad thing and this thing that kind of shuts people down. But at the same time, it basically is rewarding creativity. And so like you like you just said, you have all these other outlets to be a professional while still having a passion for climbing.
00:27:06:04 - 00:27:20:06
Speaker 4
And so I think there is like that silver lining and the digital age these days where, yeah, you can, you can still have a huge passion for climbing. You don't have to be the, the fucking best climber in the world and you can still be a professional in your space and bring something creative to the table.
00:27:20:06 - 00:27:57:05
Speaker 5
So yeah, I think that's a really a good distinction that you just made though, especially in the sense that with the pivot off that slightly that a good mount, a great mountain guide will never be the best mountain athlete, but the best mountain athlete will never be a great guide not to disparage anybody who's super fit, but most of the time when you're really ingrained in your training and fitness, you don't have time to pick up on little tiny things while you're going through these movements in the mountains.
00:27:57:07 - 00:28:23:18
Speaker 5
And I've always found that the guides that really crush it out there can see through everybody's lens from their really crushing client that's doing like I said, a thousand meters in an hour, or the person that's really struggling ski touring for their first time. If they're able to adapt to those two scenarios and the entire range in between, I think that's what's really awesome about like being a guy, just being with the people, you know?
00:28:23:20 - 00:28:39:00
Speaker 5
And, but, but kudos to the really strong mountain folk, too. It's mind blowing to see what people can do and how they just dedicate themselves to getting better every single day and literally running up mountains these days, which is insane.
00:28:39:02 - 00:28:59:04
Speaker 1
Funny about the the thousand meter in our ascent rate. There's actually this. I think it's kind of like a pretty infinite number that Reinhold Messner used to be able to do a run 1000 meters in an hour. And that was kind of a standard that certain people would try and adhere to. You know, obviously him being such a famous individual and everything.
00:28:59:06 - 00:29:13:21
Speaker 1
But somehow I think it's for training in the new Alpine ism, their website and I've heard this anecdotally as well, it's somehow somebody got misquoted and there's like a lot of people I've seen online who thought it was a thousand meters in 30 minutes.
00:29:13:23 - 00:29:14:22
Speaker 3
Which is just like.
00:29:15:00 - 00:29:32:21
Speaker 1
Completely, you know, like absolutely insane. So lots of people, like in this form were comparing themselves going like, oh, man, I just don't understand, like how I could ever measure up to this like, fitness wise or even come close and like Steve House like under it like commented he's like nerd or like it was a thousand meters an hour.
00:29:33:01 - 00:29:35:08
Speaker 1
And then they're like, Oh, okay.
00:29:35:08 - 00:29:36:07
Speaker 3
Like fuck.
00:29:36:09 - 00:29:43:03
Speaker 1
It's like going from this just completely, absolutely like insane fitness measurement that no one could adhere to. So yeah.
00:29:43:04 - 00:29:47:08
Speaker 4
And as there was beta beta testing, the, the Tesla neural link.
00:29:47:10 - 00:29:52:22
Speaker 1
I mean, yeah, even even a thousand an hour is like it's, it's really fast. Like that's, that's a lot. I mean it's.
00:29:53:00 - 00:29:53:13
Speaker 5
Calling.
00:29:53:13 - 00:30:04:03
Speaker 4
I think like the, the, the, the general staple for an average Joe is like a thousand feet an hour which is a third of the performance.
00:30:04:05 - 00:30:23:16
Speaker 1
So also add like a test, you know, for something of 1000 meters an hour. So many things are variable in that temperature. The gray the technicality of the terrain. You know, me testing here and you testing and Tahoe like there's going to be so many variables to that. Whatever Messner tested in South Tyrol or wherever he was, you know, maybe.
00:30:23:16 - 00:30:25:00
Speaker 4
You're on a chairlift, you know.
00:30:25:01 - 00:30:30:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. You hit that goal. That's all. General.
00:30:30:12 - 00:30:57:22
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, okay, so, you know, it's funny you were talking about that with, like, guiding of like having, I think like the temperament and understanding how to view people through this lens. And that's part of what's making you a really, really good guide. And that's a really interesting skill. And so I think we can kind of, you know, start relating this back to, you know, how we met and, you know, when I like, like saw you and I just something I would say is like, I think I said this to you.
00:30:57:22 - 00:31:19:17
Speaker 1
I was like, you, you radiated like humor and safety. Like, I just I just felt good being around you, you know? And you're like, thanks, man. Like, that's a really great compliment. And and so I think that's a testament to maybe your temperament as an individual. And and I have noticed that with guides that I've been around is you feel at ease with them if that makes sense.
00:31:19:17 - 00:31:41:18
Speaker 1
Like it's not just that they're physically capable and competent. It's it's that like they bring out the best in you and you feel like you feel good around them, you know? And that's that's a very separate skill to have, I think. So, you know, looking at you, I honestly couldn't tell if you were like 25 or 30, you know, So I had no idea.
00:31:41:18 - 00:32:01:09
Speaker 1
And 25 was like, I'm I'm really young. I'm 29, you know, I'm super young. But you're you're super young, you know? So like, how do you what maybe if you could take me a little bit through the process here of like, you know, being like, like you're 25, What led you to want to, you know, do Denali solo?
00:32:01:10 - 00:32:16:01
Speaker 1
You know, like how how did you, you know, take take us a little bit through that process that made you want to do that? How how premeditated was it? Was it a quick decision? Had you been planning this for years? You know, take us through that a little bit.
00:32:16:03 - 00:32:44:04
Speaker 5
Yes. Wait. So I guess the spark start is in 2021. I don't remember the exact context, but I have an iPhone written down. It's just some gibberish. It's like solo ski Denali. Is this possible? Is this feasible? Sleds, question mark, permits question mark. What do you need now is basically Yeah, and I hadn't revisited that in a long time.
00:32:44:06 - 00:33:12:14
Speaker 5
Come April 20, 22, I'm on an AMD Alpine skills course and I meet a friend then and now mentor. This guy. Dan Kabuki. Absolutely. Crusher He's a USA ice climber. I think he's ranked like, I don't know, first or second. He's just an absolute beast. Awesome guy, super articulate, tons of degrees. This guy is a do it all guy.
00:33:12:16 - 00:33:32:12
Speaker 5
And he was telling me about his experiences soloing and I was like, Whoa, that's crazy, dude. He had done I believe I Can go solo Denali Tons of impressive peaks by himself and I. I just admire that. I thought it was a really resilient way to move in the mountains by yourself, just with your own thoughts and your own abilities.
00:33:32:12 - 00:33:56:16
Speaker 5
You know, not really much sleep or depend on. So I kind of compartmentalize that that next over the next year went to Argentina and awesome time skiing down there. And I got back and I went to the MJ annual meeting and I'm surrounded by all these professionals, all these FMG guides the best of the best in the business here in North America.
00:33:56:18 - 00:34:20:09
Speaker 5
And I'm just thinking, what should I do next? What should I do? I had some ideas about skiing, some things in the Yukon with the team. Talk to a lot of different folks all around. Some folks in Washington here locally in Colorado couldn't really get all the ducks in a row for the folks to just decide on something.
00:34:20:09 - 00:34:40:12
Speaker 5
Everybody had a different idea or a different you know, they had different vision. Oh, I want to based here. I don't want to peak bag. You know, everyone wants to do something different. And I just decided, screw it, let's just do it solo. Like, let's let's see if it's possible. I wrote it down two years ago. By that point, it would be like over a year and a half.
00:34:40:12 - 00:35:09:13
Speaker 5
Right? So this is November of 20, 22 and. Yep. Just had that idea, kind of floated it around to a couple of people, told a couple of people, got a lot of mixed reviews, met with a lot of resiliency at first, like why? Why do you think you can do this? Do you think this is appropriate? Is a safe, you know, but I reached out to that guy, Dan Cappy, who had the ice climber and soloed himself and he was fired up.
00:35:09:14 - 00:35:34:00
Speaker 5
He's like, Oh, man, you're going to crush it. You like, I you I know you're going to do this, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he coached me through a couple of just online video calls, things like three or four throughout the season. Just checking up on me, giving you giving me advice on training gear, food, little logistical things that would help me along the way, make sure that I was doing good.
00:35:34:00 - 00:35:53:09
Speaker 5
And we just had this nice rapport as friends would, and it was awesome to get his advice and his clarification on some things I was unsure of. And lo and behold, this season here and in Tahoe, it was still firing in the spring. I left a little early and then, yeah, all of a sudden flying to Talkeetna.
00:35:53:11 - 00:35:54:17
Speaker 1
Wow. That's that's where it starts.
00:35:54:17 - 00:35:55:05
Speaker 5
Yeah.
00:35:55:07 - 00:35:58:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, that. That's a lot.
00:35:58:21 - 00:36:00:00
Speaker 3
I've got to I got a quick question.
00:36:00:00 - 00:36:30:20
Speaker 4
So you say solo and obviously I'm not in your shoes and I don't ski in it. I'm just thinking from an outside perspective, like the the mountain of Denali is busy. And I think that I've learned that especially through Max. And so you are solo in the in the event that your effort is solo, but you're not solo in the aspect of if you fuck up, you're alone, you have everybody there to save you.
00:36:30:20 - 00:36:47:12
Speaker 4
And so maybe talk to me and ask a little bit about like what your thought process was in your mind on the ethics of that. And at the same time, like what it means to you to be quote unquote, solo in effort versus safety.
00:36:47:14 - 00:37:20:07
Speaker 5
So yeah, I think the distinction you made the beginning was perfect. Yeah, I was solo, but not alone. Most certainly not alone, almost never alone. And some of the reasoning why I decided to do this effort this way, I had done some. So I've done quite a bit of solo skiing here in the Sierra. I did a bunch of solo skiing down in South America as well, and Denali seemed like the next appropriate step for me in that solo progression.
00:37:20:09 - 00:37:50:12
Speaker 5
You're right. I did have a lot of things to fall back on if I needed them, right? Other people on the route, ones on the route. Medical attention at 14,000 feet. People camped, you know, all the way up to 17,200 feet. And so but the idea was to prepare her so well and to have the kit dialed and everything just so well prepared that I wouldn't need any help.
00:37:50:14 - 00:38:05:10
Speaker 5
Obviously, there's still variables in every plan, like I can't predict everything, but I definitely was not alone and if we're getting technical here, my effort definitely was not completely solar.
00:38:05:12 - 00:38:24:11
Speaker 4
Yeah, and I don't mean to discredit your effort in your achievement at all because that's not that was not the intention of it as more is more of just my understanding of like just making the stark difference between the situations like have you have you been on a big mountain before where there is like literally no one but yourself?
00:38:24:13 - 00:38:49:11
Speaker 5
Yeah, Yeah. So I was, yeah, I did like this, this big traverse. Well, it depends on what you call big, but like a 25 mile traverse down South America that I was going to hut. But the mountains in between, there is nobody I just barely sat phone coverage also spent some time up in Washington, up on Baker Solo in on uncrowded sections of the Hour of the Mountain, excuse me.
00:38:49:11 - 00:39:10:00
Speaker 4
And would you describe those moments like as more powerful than your experience on Denali? Or did the sheer power and size and majestic ness of the mountain compare to the actual like being alone on these other mountains?
00:39:10:02 - 00:39:33:07
Speaker 5
I would say the Denali was more of a powerful experience, and the reason why is I still feel like I'm digesting the experience today. The scale of the mountains in the Alaskan range, especially especially right around Denali Fork or in Mount Hunter, it's hard to conceptualize anywhere else. I've been at least I've never been in the Himalayas or Karakorum, But it it's mind blowing.
00:39:33:13 - 00:39:58:08
Speaker 5
I've seen 10,000 feet of prominence before I saw it, you know, Mount Whitney and Lone Pine. I can see I saw it, you know, in Scale ten. But to see, you know, ceramics and ice fall, that's 1200 feet. And in your mind, you're like, oh, that's at maximum 300 feet. And that'll be cataclysmic for the normal person. But you're looking at this and the scale is crazy.
00:39:58:10 - 00:40:24:05
Speaker 5
A 5000 foot slope is just massive. So I think just the sheer scale of everything, the hype in the allure and how cold it is, and people say, Oh, it's the hardest of the seven summits and all this stuff, yada, yada, yada. I think the My times alone in Washington were are much different in the eastern Sierra because you truly, for the most part, you truly are alone.
00:40:24:09 - 00:40:48:13
Speaker 5
There's nobody on the route. You really if you fall in a hole, you're actually gone. Like there's no saving you at all. So I would say just being on Denali was like, I'm still digesting it. It's been the biggest, you know, mountain accomplishment. I hate saying that word, but, you know, biggest and most impactful experience I've had so far in the mountain.
00:40:48:15 - 00:40:57:16
Speaker 4
I think that's just a true testament to the size and the the scale of what you did. So it's awesome. And I'm psyched for you.
00:40:57:18 - 00:40:59:09
Speaker 5
Yeah, I appreciate it.
00:40:59:11 - 00:41:33:15
Speaker 1
It it is it is really just an unbelievable place. And it's like the throne of the gods, you know, just like the largest prominence of any mountain in the world, size wise. It's unbelievable. And as far as the traveling solo, there's obviously so many distinctions here and traveling solo. But I would argue that, you know, most most likely the most dangerous part that you could possibly be doing is actually glacier travel alone, you know, because, yeah, you could have a really bad fall and a steep slope and tomahawk and something.
00:41:33:15 - 00:41:46:11
Speaker 1
And that's definitely a very high consequence. You could have, you know, fall terrain for sure, but I feel you have more capacity to mitigate and to make choices there. Whereas when it comes to crevasses in glacier travel.
00:41:46:13 - 00:41:47:16
Speaker 3
You can just.
00:41:47:18 - 00:42:10:06
Speaker 1
Step on the snow bridge and fall in, you know, like as as Alex knows for sure, 100%. And we can we can jump into that a little bit. Right. And so I would say that is probably like the the biggest consideration. Like that's why like Ray and I are both ski tours and you know, we a wanted to work more on our skiing skills before we skied in Alaska.
00:42:10:06 - 00:42:30:23
Speaker 1
And then even though I feel like I'm a pretty strong skier and we were just pretty on edge about the idea of skiing down and roped up to get to camps just because of crevasses. It's really it's a really scary thing and decision. And you have to commit and you have to make good decisions. And, you know, there's a lot going on there.
00:42:30:23 - 00:42:36:12
Speaker 1
And and yeah, and Alaska's a really serious place.
00:42:36:14 - 00:43:09:14
Speaker 5
Yeah, it was yeah, it was insane. So to, like, walk through like, my experience up on the mountain and flying in, fly in, I land, it's like mid-afternoon and I was solo so I just basically rigged up my sled, attach it to myself, and boom, started heading down what they call Heartbreak Hill. It was awesome being solo because I wasn't faffing around with ropes is everyone's trying to ski downhill and get pacing right and everyone's wearing bags has like, you know, heavier than they've ever worn before.
00:43:09:14 - 00:43:36:13
Speaker 5
Some people have never pulled a sled skis before, so I'm just whizzing right by them. I'm actually sitting on my sled, straddling my sled, going downhill. I make my way across and believe north northeast up the Helena Glacier, not up the northeast Fork, just north to 78. Camp. And I was unsure about stopping there. I hung out for a little bit, boiled some water.
00:43:36:14 - 00:44:05:09
Speaker 5
I thought weather was going to come in and I could see the next camp at 9000 feet. And I said, you know, it'll be worth it. I'll be way happier tomorrow morning when I wake up and my ascent is only 2000 feet and sort of just over like over 3000 feet. So push to 9000 feet. Jack Counsell and Zachary McCarthy, they were part of system of the down the fences noontime team.
00:44:05:09 - 00:44:28:17
Speaker 5
They also came up to camp with me there and at that time by the time they get to camp a few minutes behind me, completely whiteout made like a hasty dinner next morning. Wake up, clear skies. I'm stoked. You know, break down my stuff as fast as possible by the time I have my kid on and everything ready to go, I'm in the ping pong ball and I'm at 9000 feet.
00:44:28:17 - 00:44:52:02
Speaker 5
I'm trying to get to 11. I couldn't see anything, actually, anything in this area of the route notoriously just had no wands like none for the next 800 vertical feet. So I'm going between using the GPS on my watch and the GPS on my phone to orientate myself and I still think that was the scariest day of skiing I've ever had.
00:44:52:06 - 00:45:18:06
Speaker 5
I didn't see anything until 9800 feet. I got there. There was a camp and I just got really lucky. I started talking with the guys, you know, using the bathroom outside, finished this business and then says, What's up to me? By the time we have a two minute conversation, a guided party comes down from 11,000 feet. And I was just so happy because that now I had a track to follow rather than just, you know, trying to use the GPS.
00:45:18:06 - 00:45:39:10
Speaker 5
And that, yeah, dealt with the scariest day. Just, you know, potentially crevasses everywhere. And I have really no idea. I did look at the satellite imagery and the GPS track that I had on Carl Topa and Gaia made sense for what was closed and what was open. So as far as, you know, holes and just so you could actually.
00:45:39:11 - 00:45:59:13
Speaker 4
Like, navigate there, you could actually navigate yourself in a blizzard whiteout using satellite images and it was that accurate where you could look at this image and be like, okay, there's like a crevasse hole over here and there's an open one over here. And like, I can actually avoid these things based off of a satellite image in live time.
00:45:59:13 - 00:46:00:12
Speaker 4
You could do that.
00:46:00:14 - 00:46:19:12
Speaker 5
Yeah. So on counterpart pro you can download with, you know, with the pro account you can download what's called the Sentinel weekly imagery and every I believe it's three or four days, it takes a photo of the everywhere in the earth and it goes over your cow top. So I download those layers, lay them over each other just to see.
00:46:19:12 - 00:46:25:20
Speaker 5
Okay, the snow coverage is here. A little finicky, though, because the clouds are always, you know, moving in and out still.
00:46:25:20 - 00:46:36:18
Speaker 4
I mean, that is like parking pertinent information in a whiteout. I mean, what else are you going to do? You got to stand still. You have no idea. You could step on a crevasse and any step.
00:46:36:19 - 00:46:56:14
Speaker 5
Yeah. So that's where that's where like all the planning and prep comes in, right? Like, wow, how do I, how am I still able to progress even in the harshest of conditions, even when things are really bad? Like, how am I still going to really keep moving or, you know, set up camp, whatever it may be? So that that was definitely the navigation stuff was a huge part of the planning.
00:46:56:16 - 00:47:12:04
Speaker 5
So reach 9800 feet, keep moving uphill, slowly slogging up, and then that's when I put up my tent pad ready at 11,000 feet. I just listen to the podcast and it was funny to hear those Russian guys vacated that.
00:47:12:06 - 00:47:13:04
Speaker 3
Came back and roll.
00:47:13:05 - 00:47:31:15
Speaker 5
Band. So I guess I poached one of theirs and and then I remember when I was first getting there, I saw Max and Ray didn't say hi at the time or anything, but they were like shuffling and getting ready to go. So I was like, okay, whatever. Nobody'll put my tent up, just take a nap trying to rest.
00:47:31:15 - 00:47:56:09
Speaker 5
I it's just storming outside so there's no point to be outside or do anything. Just use the bathroom, drink water, eat some food, and stay happy and healthy. Really. And yeah, that night, I guess Max and Ray come back. I remember. I hear them, like, set up camp and all that stuff, and they definitely seemed a little just like, frustrated with the mountain at that point.
00:47:56:09 - 00:48:19:21
Speaker 5
Like, I couldn't imagine just breaking down camp and leaving and putting it back all in the kit and yeah, just a tough night. So I'm hanging out there and Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it was to watch you guys leave and then come back. I was a little confused. I remember. And take a double look like those was the same exact people or this, this like different people at the same camp.
00:48:19:22 - 00:48:21:22
Speaker 5
Like this is, this is weird.
00:48:22:00 - 00:48:41:05
Speaker 1
We had a similar experience where it went from like, it was like a little, like, clouded, but like, pretty good. And then by the time we had gone 200 meters out of camp, it was like going full whiteout on the ridge and just descending and people were coming back down from windy corner and they were saying, It's really, really bad up there.
00:48:41:05 - 00:48:53:16
Speaker 1
And you could see it coming down. And we just we instantly knew we had just packed up for no reason. And there's a massive ordeal. And yeah, we just set up camp and, you know, sat in our tent and ate cheese and waited for the morning. So.
00:48:53:18 - 00:48:58:12
Speaker 5
Yeah. And I'm glad you guys did too, for my sake as well.
00:48:58:14 - 00:48:59:16
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:48:59:18 - 00:49:23:23
Speaker 5
So the next morning I'm up pretty early. I had been sleeping basically the entire day after I got to camp and it's 4 a.m.. Beautiful views of I believe it's the calton the dome looking west and I'm just fired up. I'm ready to get the sled going. I'm ready to get the skins on and nobody is up. It's just myself.
00:49:23:23 - 00:49:41:17
Speaker 5
Max and Ray and I started making some small talk with Max, like, Oh, how are you guys doing? How long have you been here? All the all the classic Denali camp talking. I put my skis on. I'm like, All right, well, I'll see y'all up there. I know I'm going to be moving slow and you guys have the benefit of at least walking this track for a little bit.
00:49:41:17 - 00:50:10:04
Speaker 5
So. And then it had snow, I don't know, maybe 12, 14 inches, just over 30 centimeters since the last time people were bit on the route. So pretty deep snow. So start moving uphill. Moving uphill. My pace slows the further I get up and Max and Ray are close behind me, I'm making some more conservative switchbacks through the middle of the gut of what's called Motorcycle Hill.
00:50:10:05 - 00:50:35:14
Speaker 5
It's notorious for not only crevasse fall, but also avalanches. And the avalanche sweeps you and, you know, just pummels you into a device like the worst way to go. So I was pretty concerned about avalanche hazard that morning. I start moving up, start moving up some more. And Max and Ray are pretty close at this point. And on one of these switchbacks, all of a sudden, boom, I'm somehow still suspended on the surface.
00:50:35:14 - 00:51:08:03
Speaker 5
But I realize that I've broken through this crevasse. And what had happened was my left leg punctured through the crevasse and flexed the ski so hard. Same thing with my right leg that my left ski came off, was still suspended on the snow because has a skin on it. It's just sitting there. My left leg is completely in space and my right tip of my ski is into the lip on the uphill side of the crevasse and insecurities draw my hands out of my pole baskets and basically do like a hasty self self arrest.
00:51:08:05 - 00:51:26:16
Speaker 5
And I am petrified. I have no idea. I know that I'm stable at this point, at least for a little bit, but I don't know what's going to happen if I move. So I basically hang out there until Max gets up to me and he clips the back of my sled, which is just a huge help. God forbid I fall in.
00:51:26:18 - 00:51:56:02
Speaker 5
I'm so attached to something somewhere from there, college, shuffle myself up a little bit. Mind you, right now, at this point, I can't move my downhill skier. I'm so wedged in, so I have to precariously hold on to one pole, take off my tack binding, rotate my feet. Now both feet are in open space. I'm just, like, clawing and trying to do this weird maneuver to put an ice screw in just above where my poles are.
00:51:56:04 - 00:52:03:00
Speaker 5
So that it was terrifying. It was. It was a long time. It felt like forever just now, just that minute or so.
00:52:03:00 - 00:52:06:03
Speaker 4
But describe what it looked like below you.
00:52:06:05 - 00:52:07:11
Speaker 5
What was that?
00:52:07:13 - 00:52:10:09
Speaker 4
Describe what it looked like underneath you.
00:52:10:11 - 00:52:24:18
Speaker 5
Oh, it was it was dark. And that's all I knew. I didn't see a snow bridge. I didn't see I didn't see the it's thinning out. Right as I was getting closer to the top, it it was just.
00:52:24:18 - 00:52:26:02
Speaker 4
A giant hole.
00:52:26:04 - 00:52:28:20
Speaker 5
Yeah. And it.
00:52:28:20 - 00:52:29:21
Speaker 1
Was yeah. Your goal was.
00:52:29:21 - 00:52:32:16
Speaker 5
Probably the most terrifying.
00:52:32:18 - 00:52:43:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Like if you, if you fall down that you have no idea, you know, you could be riding for 40 feet or 200 feet. You know, like you're just, you're going, you know. Yeah. Yes.
00:52:43:10 - 00:53:14:07
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Okay, back up, back up. You said you were concerned about avalanche risk that day. Yeah. As a guide, as an instructor, what are you doing to mitigate the risk? And secondly, in your eyes, like obviously an avalanche didn't happen, but like, what was the decision process and to choosing to go regardless of your fear of an avalanche hazard.
00:53:14:09 - 00:53:42:04
Speaker 5
I just want to quickly make the large distinction between the the guide mentality and the personal skiing mentality. The risk management ethos for guiding is safety always. We we need to be as safe as possible. We want people to come home to their families, their loved ones, their friends, all that good stuff. I would never ski again if I could see my family right, so to speak.
00:53:42:04 - 00:54:07:04
Speaker 5
Like I wouldn't choose skiing over my family and I wouldn't want other people to do that or think that I would be doing that with my their lives in my hands. When personal skiing, though, there is a time to accept risk. Sometimes it's good to dial back your risk tolerance and know when to proverbially wave your white flag, and there's other times to let it hang out there.
00:54:07:06 - 00:54:32:10
Speaker 5
And for me at this time, I thought to myself, if I get stuck here, I'm just going to sit here and play this mental game of, Oh, it just snowed too much when Slab, slab, yada, yada, yada, I'm too scared and get paralyzed at camp. Also, the snow conditions at the time to rationalize my personal decision making here, Nothing was slamming up.
00:54:32:16 - 00:54:56:10
Speaker 5
Everything was pretty cohesion this powder. And at this point I hadn't seen any signs of recent avalanches. So no signs of instabilities in the moment. And just adding to that load, the cohesion was so low and you're only affecting, you know, 100 cm, 120 cm with, you know, ski towing equipment in the snow pack. I feel pretty good about moving in the snow.
00:54:56:15 - 00:55:11:07
Speaker 5
I also knew that potentially I could get up there, have a shooting crack go off in front of me and call it a day and do what Max and Ray did and, you know, have to set up camp in the same spot, you know, 20 minutes when I just broke it down in.
00:55:11:07 - 00:55:30:10
Speaker 4
A in a more general sense. And this is because I'm not a skier to me, I'm scared of snow. I'm scared of ice and snow. It scares the shit out of me, mostly because I feel like the risk is out of my control. I feel like with climbing the risk you put yourself in and the risk you find yourself in is within your control.
00:55:30:10 - 00:55:48:09
Speaker 4
It's like how far you are from your last piece. How good is the rock? It's your judgment on whether or not you move up and how much risk you put yourself in there. I mean, rockfall is a hazard, but it's not really this thing that's going to kill you unless, like, the place is super notorious for rockfall and your leader pulls it out of the wall.
00:55:48:11 - 00:56:13:21
Speaker 4
But it seems like with snow and ice and avalanches, it's like, you know, you do your best to assess the risk. But in the end, it's this crapshoot of whether nature wants to kill you or not. And so how do you you answer that question and how do you handle that ephemeral risk that avalanches and snow provides for you, knowing that, like in the end it's out of your control?
00:56:13:21 - 00:56:14:23
Speaker 4
Almost?
00:56:15:01 - 00:56:46:13
Speaker 5
Yeah, that's that's quite a loaded question. I mean, I can go in on like the conceptual model of avalanche hazard and how we deduce risk and uncertainty and how we weigh certain factors. But I think the first thing is, is starting out with just the general avalanche hazard itself and discussing what is the sensitivity, how sensitive this problem is, what's the you know, sensitivity to likelihood and also what's the consequence of that problem?
00:56:46:15 - 00:57:24:01
Speaker 5
Is this a low frequency, high consequence problem where it could potentially maybe happen, but you're swept off the earth or is this, you know, a little ankle biter slap on the wrist? You know, you could still survive, Right? There's there's that range, right. So in that range basically meets when a matrix meets your risk tolerance. And some folks will stay on staying like underneath that threshold where something terrible happens to them and others unfortunately don't.
00:57:24:03 - 00:57:52:15
Speaker 5
And they go over that. Right, whether it was their misdoings or is it just negligence? Right. Like there's there's tons of case studies in small little factories where basically anything can happen. Right? There's always a never and never and always there's an unpredictable amount of variabilities. And I would concur with you the the risk in rock climbing is way easier to assess.
00:57:52:15 - 00:58:15:01
Speaker 5
Right? You can look at a piece of rock and say, oh, that face looks bomber. That's better to climb than that really chalky thing over there. Mm hmm. That's I can completely agree. But if you just have this dance with nature, right, that you get this deep powder skiing and you make all the right calls for the day and it's just floating, right?
00:58:15:01 - 00:58:47:15
Speaker 5
And it just makes the world it makes the world a better place. Actually, it's it makes people smile, People giggle, they hooting, holler. And I think I think that's what really I mean, at least just like circle back to the risk and everything. That's why people bump up their risk tolerance, because they get a feeling of this blissful ness, this clarity while skiing powder that can maybe inhibit their ability to deduce factors that they have in front of them to mitigate the avalanche problem.
00:58:47:17 - 00:58:50:18
Speaker 5
But we have an acronym.
00:58:50:20 - 00:58:51:16
Speaker 4
No, go ahead. What is it.
00:58:51:22 - 00:59:15:10
Speaker 5
Going to say? We have an acronym called like FACETS. That's like the human brain traps that we fall into. Like familiarity of an area wants to be accepted in a group commitment, All these little intangible things that hinder our decision making. So like, like there's so many different matrices going on in our brains to figure out should we go ski it or not.
00:59:15:12 - 00:59:20:21
Speaker 5
And backcountry skiers, we accept the risks to a certain level. So that's the short, long answer for, you.
00:59:21:01 - 00:59:43:03
Speaker 4
Know, and I appreciate you going so deep into it. And I think it's a it's a it's a start distinction between the two sports and something that I feel dramatically with the risk and in terms of my control over exactly what it is. And I think that with skiing and with Avalanche, it's it's more in it's not as much intuition or your ability to stay attached to the wall as more.
00:59:43:03 - 01:00:03:16
Speaker 4
It is like knowledge and education and wisdom in terms of being able to read the environment and read the slopes to avoid the risk in the first place. So it's just a different skill set and a different understanding of the mountains versus an understanding of your physical prowess and your ability to stay attached to the wall. Because in the snow that's the thing.
01:00:03:16 - 01:00:24:16
Speaker 4
It's like you could be the best skier in the world, but if that slope cuts underneath you, there's nothing you can do that's over. So that's just an interesting distinction anyway, that off of my tangent, I just wanted to cover that. But you just survived this this crevasse massacre. Max rescued you like bring us back to this moment.
01:00:24:16 - 01:00:26:07
Speaker 3
Not bring it.
01:00:26:11 - 01:00:27:21
Speaker 4
Bring us back. I anchored him.
01:00:27:21 - 01:00:31:19
Speaker 1
So he could rescue himself.
01:00:31:21 - 01:00:33:20
Speaker 4
And bring us back and bring us back.
01:00:33:22 - 01:01:01:07
Speaker 5
So at this point, I have two skis off in there above me, uphill just above my poles. I snag an ice screw and just make a little personal tether to one screw and use that to leverage myself uphill from there. I had Max dig through my duffle bag and he got my crampons for me, for my for my boots.
01:01:01:09 - 01:01:18:19
Speaker 5
I was not expecting to use them at least until the top of motorcycle help because we had gotten so much snow. So I was thinking, hey, just toss them at the end. It's going be the first thing you put on at the top of that thing. So no big deal, right? All of a sudden I'm halfway in a crevasse, just a tether to one ice screw.
01:01:18:21 - 01:01:30:19
Speaker 5
And you know, his max is about to toss me my crampons over an open hole that I need for the next two and a half weeks. So I that precariously put on two.
01:01:30:22 - 01:01:33:20
Speaker 4
Did you catch them? Like, did he throw them to you?
01:01:33:22 - 01:01:36:14
Speaker 5
Yeah, just like a nice little underhand softball.
01:01:36:16 - 01:01:40:03
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah.
01:01:40:05 - 01:02:03:10
Speaker 5
But I get my crampons on, put my skis on my pack and Max, just, like, make sure that I can get the excuse me, the sled over the open hole. And then from there, I rest for a second. I just kind of recap, recalibrate for a minute. At this point, Max, and head below me and to the right and ascend above me.
01:02:03:12 - 01:02:25:02
Speaker 5
I want to keep breaking trail. And then I think you, as Max say, Hey, dude, like, why don't we just punch some steps for you and just follow in their footsteps? I was like, Yeah, that sounds awesome. So yeah, we're moving. Well, we're moving Well, I am so pumped up on, you know, cortisol. The stress levels are crazy, the adrenaline is going nuts are moving really well.
01:02:25:04 - 01:02:49:17
Speaker 5
And a move in a move in a move in. And I actually break through another hole right at the top of motorcycle hill. Both my feet plunge at the same time and thankfully having my sled behind me. And at this point I'm going straight up the fall line. I'm not, you know, cutting across switchback and across the slope.
01:02:49:19 - 01:03:17:09
Speaker 5
I plunge in fear, dangling my bag, stops my skis or the skis on my back, stop me. I just get wedged in the snow and this dangling leaning back from there, I basically just roll backwards and roll out of the hole and frantically run up to Max and Ray and I. I think my heart rate was maybe 200 beats a minute or 210 something insane.
01:03:17:09 - 01:03:39:23
Speaker 5
I had never felt that in my life and got up to them and just kind of broke down, like physically, emotionally, just lost it it was it was so hard not only to like, go through almost falling to your demise once and thinking you'll be okay to then boom, two feet in once again, right back to that same stress level.
01:03:40:00 - 01:03:43:23
Speaker 4
And wow. Max, were you aware of his second fall?
01:03:44:01 - 01:03:59:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, I knew he kind of had slipped, but I didn't know it was that bad, honestly. Yeah. And I just like where you got to the top and just seeing how shook up you are and, like, you know, like just. Yeah, you were just like, Dude, I need a hug. And we had this, like, big hug in this embrace.
01:03:59:08 - 01:04:18:03
Speaker 1
And like, I was, I was even, like, feeling really emotional about it. It was like, like, fuck, man, This was it's really serious, you know? It's like, the mountains are fun. You get that skiing, the smile on your face, all that kind of amazing stuff. But and it's really easy to forget that things can bad so fucking fast out there, you know?
01:04:18:03 - 01:04:22:23
Speaker 1
And they get really, really, really, really fast. Yeah.
01:04:23:01 - 01:04:46:09
Speaker 5
Yeah, I, I had every thought go through my head at that moment. Like, did you prepare enough is do you think this is save, Is this stupid. Why are you being stupid. Everybody told you not to do this. All these things of self-doubt and plus just the idea of not being here, not surviving, like, wow, that was a very real reality for a few minutes there.
01:04:46:09 - 01:05:02:14
Speaker 5
So it was it was a heavy time. And I remember at that point I actually had a thought like, should just turn around now, like, is this to have I bitten off more than I can chew? But yeah, we had an awesome warm embrace up there. I was like tears in my eyes, Hey, can I have a hug?
01:05:02:14 - 01:05:22:20
Speaker 5
And he was stoked on it. And yeah, I it was also really just calm and beautiful. And that was the first time I had gotten to see any of the upper mountain at all. And the surrounding peaks from these elevations, especially on a clear day to go back to that Alaska fact of the magnitude, it was just gorgeous.
01:05:22:20 - 01:05:40:11
Speaker 5
It it felt wrong to even have that thought of should I turn around it? Perfect Bluebird splitter day, basically no wind. It did pick up a little bit. As we progress, but at this moment it was completely still good visibility and it felt good to be there as a team together.
01:05:40:14 - 01:05:45:16
Speaker 1
So did you did you single Kari all the way to 4200 meters?
01:05:45:18 - 01:05:49:22
Speaker 5
Yeah. Yeah. I so I got to 14,000 feet in three days. Yeah.
01:05:50:00 - 01:06:28:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. So just for context, for anybody listening who isn't aware like that is really, really fucking fast, both furnace and plot and also just from a mechanical perspective of actually doing work as a human that is a lot of fucking war. You're a solid person in the mountains. Those are big days. I did not do that. I hauled loads up and down at a way slower rate like so I remember just being like, Holy shit, dude, you had gotten here so fast and we're just hauling single carry loads like and then also to have those two falls like three in, you know, like it's just that's so much stress physically and emotionally for your
01:06:28:12 - 01:06:32:06
Speaker 1
body to go under. So yeah, it's a testament, man, to how solid you are.
01:06:32:07 - 01:07:05:19
Speaker 5
The Yeah it was a I didn't want to have double carries for an option for me. I really want to prioritize Sledge throughout the winter. I did I pull this sled maybe ten or 15 times with even heavier loads than I had just to see how my body would feel and I'm glad I did even those few times just to figure out how to rig it up and what worked well, and how my body would feel getting pulled from the side and so forth was perfect for my training and help me help me get there.
01:07:05:19 - 01:07:31:19
Speaker 5
214 in three days. But yeah, once we're on the top of motorcycle, hell, Max and Ray were kind enough to lend me some spare rope and allow me to join a rope team. So, yeah, I did a joint and it was awesome. We were just at a nice cruising pace. You go around. What is it, Squirrel? How I believe is that next section?
01:07:31:21 - 01:07:44:10
Speaker 5
This off campus sloping Traverse that if you slip and don't arrest, you're guaranteed to just go into the abyss. That is the Peters Glacier, like a thousand meters below. So the crowds are.
01:07:44:10 - 01:08:00:20
Speaker 1
Me like ice slope, and then you're just off a thousand meter ridge. Yeah, it's it's the scales. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you just terrible large mountain and you fell from the peak to the very bottom, just like a straight drop.
01:08:00:22 - 01:08:03:15
Speaker 3
That's crazy.
01:08:03:17 - 01:08:28:00
Speaker 5
But yeah, if, if other folks have listened to Max's podcast or yells conversation, you'll know like it was pretty cold for the next section in the football field or the polo fields, I always get those confused. We get to a windy corner and it was just blistering hot. No wind, and it was, I think, 30 degrees hotter Fahrenheit and just gets super hot.
01:08:28:00 - 01:08:51:02
Speaker 5
We all get super roasted. I at the corner think I was in six or seven layers. The most had worn on the mound at any time. And 20 minutes, 30 minutes later, I'm in a base layer and the smallest wind hoodie I could find. So we have a have a pretty hot day up to 14,000 pass windy corner or 4200 meter camp.
01:08:51:04 - 01:09:15:20
Speaker 5
And we get there. Max gets an awesome spot around the corner of camp and I post up next for them next to them excuse me and my was knowing that we had a good day of weather that a camp around me would be soon leaving in the next day or so because they had a good summer when the weather window they come back down and yeah, so I slept there for a night now before taking a nap.
01:09:15:20 - 01:09:22:21
Speaker 5
Right when I got to camp, put the, put the foam pad down and went right to sleep, which was awesome.
01:09:22:22 - 01:09:43:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's right. Right before we got to 4200 meters, like I was full on, completely bonked, virtually heatstroke. And Alex just, like, totally came to my rescue, gave me, like a caffeine noon tab, some snacks. He had extra ice water. I was completely out of water like, couldn't even I couldn't even take 20 steps uphill pulling my sled anymore.
01:09:43:10 - 01:09:57:10
Speaker 1
I was so done. And I just remember you just graciously, you know, gave me electrolytes and all that and got me going. And after sitting in the snow for a bit, we finally yeah, we, I made it to camp and I just lay down and like, clocked out.
01:09:57:12 - 01:10:21:11
Speaker 5
See like that those, those are the moments in the mountains though that I live for, that I like to give, to be there for someone and to give him a helping hand like this is jump a little bit forward. When I was up at 18,000 feet on Denali, you this is right as you finish the autobahn, which is a big traversing section, gaining about 1300 vertical feet and you finish autobahn and your first instinct is to take a break.
01:10:21:13 - 01:10:40:15
Speaker 5
What most folks will do is get to the pass and stop within the first five or so feet on this flat section. But if they were just look up a little bit, they'll see this area called zebra rocks in these perfect little plateaus for, you know, eight, ten, 12, 15 people to hang out safe from the wind. Really awesome.
01:10:40:15 - 01:10:58:01
Speaker 5
So I pass a bunch of folks once I get to Denali Pass and sit in there, some people are more congregating in these three folks from Montana come up to me and I just share with them. I was like, Hey, I got some extra like sour candy. Do you guys want to stop and have some? And they're like, Yeah, I would love some.
01:10:58:01 - 01:11:14:23
Speaker 5
And they continued on their way. And then later that day when I was skiing down right in the 14 camp, one of them came up to me. He goes, Hey, dude, I don't think you remember me cause I'm not in my gear anymore. But that's sour candy at Denali Pass was like, the best thing like that just increased the vibe of the crew completely.
01:11:14:23 - 01:11:22:21
Speaker 5
And they're, they're a super guys from Bozeman. I'm blanking on their names right now, but yeah, that, like, those moments in the mountains are just awesome.
01:11:22:23 - 01:11:39:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, for sure. Let a little differences in attitude and morale and that can just kind of change everything. That can change your experience, right? Drastically. Yeah. Super important. And good to have friends like that around.
01:11:39:05 - 01:11:40:18
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:11:40:20 - 01:12:02:19
Speaker 1
We've got, you know, 4200 meters. You know, I remember you were getting some sick turns in and a climate rising and, you know, eventually getting ready to, you know, look at the upper mountain. And so what were your kind of like aspirations for the mountain? What were your considerations? And then maybe take us through your ascent a little bit.
01:12:02:21 - 01:12:35:23
Speaker 5
So when I was first planning this trip, I have a another mentor and a fellow guide, Dave Riggs, and he had skied up there last year and he told me the biggest thing, his biggest takeaway was go up there with options because all of them are going to be terrible. That's what he told me. Something like that, Like just go up there and, you know, like whatever whatever you think you're going to do, you're not going to do it Like it's going to be tough and I think he wants to ski the mass near any ski line off the sunshine face, which is just a lower drop off 17,000 foot camp.
01:12:36:01 - 01:13:05:20
Speaker 5
But my goal at the time was to ski the Messner. It would be an addition to ski other lines, things off of Black Rock Peak, which is just off of the north peak of Denali. Maybe some other things like Rescue Gully or Orient Express dropping in starting at around 18 nine, 19,000 foot mark. So that was the goal right when I got to camp at 4200 meters, though, we saw these two gentlemen skiing.
01:13:05:20 - 01:13:23:04
Speaker 5
The lower section of the Messner cooler, and they had hit some blue ice. And the story is, is that one of them had hit some blue eyes skiing down, tried to sell for us with an ice ax. The ice packs blew out of his hand and he luckily caught a wind lip were some pack snow that stopped him.
01:13:23:06 - 01:13:49:07
Speaker 5
He put in some ice screws. His buddy came down in for crampons and then they basically a long rope crevasse traveled their way on out a couple hours later, which didn't didn't really inspire too much confidence in myself. But I still left that as an open option. And I spent maybe a week or so at 14,000 feet skiing just under the fixed lines.
01:13:49:09 - 01:14:16:15
Speaker 5
One day I went up and ski rescue guy, which drops in from 17,000 feet and that ski itself that day was awesome for the first third of it and then got very scary. I dropped in from the top of the cooler it was really hard and Chalky made some turns nice and conservative. As soon as I got to the lower the lower wide open face, it was power skiing on of bullet proof.
01:14:16:17 - 01:14:43:13
Speaker 5
Whether it's white ice or blue ice, it was anywhere from 6 to 16 inches a beautiful low 30 degree power skiing with burned shrubs and crevasses littered amongst. And I was having a great time for the first 50% of it. And all of a sudden the clouds just come in and there's no visibility. Once again, I'm in the Alaskan ping pong ball trying to figure out, you know, like do all the mental checks.
01:14:43:13 - 01:15:03:15
Speaker 5
Like, oh, I looked at this rock and I want to be underneath here and so forth, because there is a pretty specific line that you want to ski down this thing. You don't just want to, you know, take wide open gas turns across entire face so slowly pick my way through there once again, probably the scariest second scariest day of skiing ever.
01:15:03:17 - 01:15:34:19
Speaker 5
And I spit myself out, right? I had to erode tiny little bird shell, which is funny. And the only thing I could see was two folks resting at the bottom of the fixed lines and ski to them, hung out for a few minutes, went back to camp, and from there it was really either one option, a waiting for the messenger to snow in and look a little more appealing or find a weather window and try and ski for the summit.
01:15:34:21 - 01:15:54:23
Speaker 5
So there yeah, it took a couple of days rest. Just once again recalibrated the body, ate a bunch of food, boil a bunch of water and drank it and just doing the camp things. And I went for a push on the summit, I believe on the 4th of June, I was the first one out of 14 camp. I wasn't moving particularly fast.
01:15:54:23 - 01:16:14:17
Speaker 5
It was really cold out. It was it felt so cold that, I don't know, like it wasn't it wasn't just like, oh, my hands hurt, but my body is actually moving because it's so cold and trying to shake out. Rewarm warm as much as I can get up to the fixed lines, attach myself doing the whole thing and get about 70% the way up there.
01:16:14:17 - 01:16:42:17
Speaker 5
And I'm just in so much pain. I spent 2 minutes getting some blood back in my hands, had the worst screaming bar fees of my life and just said, now, like, now's not the time. Like this is my it shouldn't feel this bad. Descended back down a skid back to camp and basically just sat in my tent trying to rewarm my hands and toes for the next day, which was a task in and of itself.
01:16:42:19 - 01:17:07:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's it's is really you know, I had heard this in videos I've seen with Steve House and their guys talking where they talk about how cold the Alaskan is and how cold Denali is. And it's really cold. That's all I have to say. There's obviously days that are very warm, but certain experiences where the sun is not out and it's the early morning or evening or something.
01:17:07:07 - 01:17:14:00
Speaker 1
And yeah, I'd like to be respected. It's very dangerous. Yeah.
01:17:14:02 - 01:17:24:14
Speaker 4
You spend a few days before going to the summit, just like skiing certain colors and certain lines on the area, like the Massif of of Denali.
01:17:24:16 - 01:17:39:04
Speaker 5
Yeah, I ski. I try to get out for a little ski every day or so. The guy only had three. True days where I didn't ski, but just little short day missions, anywhere between 500 feet or a couple laps of 1500 vertical feet.
01:17:39:09 - 01:17:57:15
Speaker 4
Still, I mean park, that's a lot of just effort and travel and risk and management and everything while still you're like, Oh yeah, I still have to go to the summit. Like, I haven't even gotten there yet and it's still there. You know, it's it's not like you came down from the summit. You're like, All right, cool. Like everything else is cake.
01:17:57:15 - 01:18:02:18
Speaker 4
I get to do whatever I want. Like, you're just packing in your trip before you even get to the summit. So this is bad.
01:18:02:21 - 01:18:11:08
Speaker 1
Fortunately, you do have to acclimate anyways, so it's like he he has to go up and down anyways. So it's like you might as well get some fucking sick turds in.
01:18:11:08 - 01:18:14:12
Speaker 3
While you're doing it. Yeah.
01:18:14:14 - 01:18:18:14
Speaker 4
But it's all a leap across some crevasses before you go up to the summit.
01:18:18:16 - 01:18:20:20
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
01:18:20:22 - 01:18:44:23
Speaker 5
Exactly. Yeah. So I spent the rest of that day trying to rewarm my hands and toes hanging out in the sleeping bag. I read the book. I'm forgetting the name. It's on Lonnie Dupree. He did the first solo ascent of Denali in the month of January, and He said something about rubbing derma tone on your toes to keep him from getting frostbite.
01:18:44:23 - 01:19:06:00
Speaker 5
So I did that, and I taped the toe box of my ski boot with duct tape. Even though I had an overboard, I was doing everything in my in my power so they couldn't possibly get frostbite again. I was so concerned because tomorrow, the next day, the fifth would be the basically the only weather window for the next three or four days.
01:19:06:00 - 01:19:29:21
Speaker 5
There would be it would start stone up high once again and this is the end of the local high pressure system. So decided to push the next morning for the summit and had the same routine. But it about 20 degrees warmer everywhere on the mountain so I was cruising. I'm also super slow in comparison to other people that are up there going from 14.
01:19:29:21 - 01:19:53:22
Speaker 5
So my cruising is a snail's pace. But I got to the fix lines. Everything's feeling fine. No, no sensitivity issues with the hands or toes at the moment. On that ridge between 16, the top of the fixed lines and 17,000 foot camp, it's the most esthetic part of the route. It's not a really it's just a big broad ridge that has views in every direction.
01:19:54:00 - 01:20:15:01
Speaker 5
There is some awesome spindrift coming up from below 14,000 foot that was rhyming up on some of the like Washburn's thumb and some of the more notable features on the ridge. It was just a gorgeous morning and then got to 17,000 foot camp and it was just blistering at this point. I shed I think I only had two layers on at this point.
01:20:15:01 - 01:20:42:19
Speaker 5
I had a a layer like a long sleeve. Sun, hoodie and Patagonia are one just like a grid fleece. And this is at almost 18,000 feet at this point. So cross the autobahn going across that guy Jack Counsell runs by me during his fastest known time. He said, just like I took a little video of him and he's still, like, shooting the shit with me, like sprinting past me at almost 80,000 feet.
01:20:42:19 - 01:20:45:09
Speaker 5
This, like, the most impressive ever.
01:20:45:11 - 01:21:02:22
Speaker 1
He ripped by us so I just I couldn't. I couldn't believe it. It was just making me laugh just to watch him. Like I'm, like, sitting there like a snail or slug moving in. This guy's just is, like, hirsute, you know, and his bushy hair, just like fucking rockets right by you. Like, he's not even trying. You're just in there.
01:21:02:22 - 01:21:05:19
Speaker 1
Like. Like it's unbelievable.
01:21:05:21 - 01:21:33:16
Speaker 5
Yeah, it a hoot to see him. And yeah, it used as a little bit of motivation just to keep the feet movin. I would soon get to Denali Pass, 18,000 feet, fed those Bozeman dude some sour candy which stoked him out. And the next section for me was a real struggle between 18 519 five. I was moving so slow I that's when all the altitude really seemed to hit me.
01:21:33:16 - 01:22:02:06
Speaker 5
I just couldn't move every of steps, just taken a couple of really deep breaths, really struggling. After about an hour or two or so, got up to Arch Deakins Tower is at 19 five, I believe, and that's when you drop into what's called the football field. You lose about 200 vertical feet and you head up the final little pitch, Peg Hill to the summit ridge.
01:22:02:08 - 01:22:20:09
Speaker 5
And from here, I knew that my mode of transportation was so fast, I didn't really care about time. I wasn't doing anything for time. I was just going to take my time, essentially. And I got stuck behind a lot of guided parties and realized, Hey, I'm going to be here for a while. Just enjoy it and don't stress out.
01:22:20:14 - 01:22:42:07
Speaker 5
You won't be out of breath, but you'll just be moving slow and that's all good. I got to the base Pig Hill and it was really slow from the base of pig hell to the summit. Ridge took an hour and 20 minutes waiting for these guided parties to move around. It was. It was it was a little frustrating at the moment, but once again, just had to tell myself, hey, you're up here.
01:22:42:07 - 01:23:07:05
Speaker 5
You've spent two weeks getting here. At this point, you should at least just take the time and soak it all in. So I did get up to the summit ridge and yeah, see Max and Ray coming down super stoked. And it was just a cool moment. Everything felt like full circle once again, just great vibes and things felt aligned and right.
01:23:07:07 - 01:23:13:06
Speaker 5
And just one of those once again, one of those moments in the mountains, high places with good friends. And it was it was.
01:23:13:07 - 01:23:31:01
Speaker 1
I just remember seeing you and being so stoked to see you and you, you know, in, in, you know, classic Alex fashion. You're like, Are you guys okay? Do you need electrolytes? I've got some caffeine pills, I've got some water, gives me a caffeine pill, gives me all this stuff is just so, so big smile on his face.
01:23:31:03 - 01:23:46:15
Speaker 1
You know, we got a couple of photos together and everything, and it was like just the generosity. It was, you know, so it's so palpable and just it's really like authentically you, man. It's it was is really awesome. I just remember being so happy to to see you both. Ray and I were so stoked.
01:23:46:17 - 01:23:52:03
Speaker 5
That just jogged my memory. I completely forgot I was I was asking everybody if they needed anything on the summit.
01:23:52:04 - 01:23:54:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, some were looking.
01:23:54:03 - 01:24:00:03
Speaker 5
Really cooked and exhausted, and I was like, Hey, man, I got some caffeine, I got some sugar. What do you need? What? Little water?
01:24:00:04 - 01:24:01:15
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:24:01:17 - 01:24:13:14
Speaker 5
Yeah. I had also forgotten drink water basically the entire day, I think. Oh, I got back to 14,000 feet and I still had two and a half leaders in my bag. And I carried over to 20,000 feet.
01:24:13:15 - 01:24:19:11
Speaker 1
And I missed opportunity. But the weight of my friends.
01:24:19:12 - 01:24:46:13
Speaker 5
So yeah, I passed some folks and yeah, I summit at about 730 on June and it wasn't really an emotional summit. It was more emotional on the ridge, I think. Right. As Max and Ray departed and I had this moment by myself, I kind of realized I had in the bag and let's say slipped and fell to my demise in the next 100 yards or so.
01:24:46:13 - 01:25:12:00
Speaker 5
But it was this moment of full circle, like I had essentially thought of this idea two years ago, almost to the day at that point. And put in about seven months of preparation and training and talking with people and getting good advice and bad advice and all of a sudden it was right in front of me. So yeah, it felt good to be up there.
01:25:12:02 - 01:25:36:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, man, it's a it's a huge accomplishment, right? And just something so fulfilling to to set your eyes on a goal like that and to just put in, you know, your blood, your sweat, your tears your time, your energy, and to, you know, make something like that. Yeah. Materialize and just, just happen in your life. I don't know.
01:25:36:12 - 01:26:02:11
Speaker 1
There's something there's something just so meaningful and important about that. And I'm sure there's lots of different versions of that for people. This just for myself, you know, not putting words in your mouth was it just was like one of the most meaningful projects I've ever done in my life. And also I just kind of have this feeling that I if I really want to and put my mind towards something, I can do it.
01:26:02:13 - 01:26:13:12
Speaker 1
Like it really solidified that in me as an individual that that like that, if I am willing to put in the effort, I can do the thing that I want to do. Yeah.
01:26:13:14 - 01:26:34:11
Speaker 5
Yeah, I, I never, you know, like we were talking about when did I start backcountry skiing? If you were to take me five years ago and told 20 year old me in Whitefish, Montana, that I'd be skiing off the top of North America by myself, you know, completely self-supported, I'd. I'd be like, You got the wrong guy. That's not me.
01:26:34:13 - 01:26:58:21
Speaker 5
But it's awesome. It's awesome to I think like, just like the personal creativity in assigning your own goals is really powerful and I really strive to do things that are inspiring and cool to me. I could care less about what other people do or think if if what I'm doing, if I think it's cool, it is. And I put that hard energy and soul into it.
01:26:58:21 - 01:27:18:18
Speaker 5
And when you when you spend, like you said all that time, I think your journey is quite longer. Like you had this idea in 2019 and got skunked from COVID and all this stuff like that, that journey. You know, no one can take that away from you and that's special to you like an individual experience. And yeah, I'm just stoked the way everything played out for me.
01:27:18:18 - 01:27:42:22
Speaker 5
I think I got lucky a little bit too, with getting some of your help and to fast forward through like what happens off the summit, my GoPro dies, which is the most unfortunate thing ever. I mean, I have the best and the funniest little clip of me putting it on my head and I tap my ski tip on the summit marker in some ways, like, Oh, you got to touch the summit.
01:27:42:22 - 01:27:47:16
Speaker 5
MARGARET Right. And the GoPro dies. It's like a56.
01:27:47:18 - 01:27:48:08
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:27:48:10 - 01:28:16:11
Speaker 5
So I ski off the top and the terrain, it drops from a head wall, a steep little head wall. It flattens out and then starts to go back uphill. Right. That 200 vertical. We talked about dropping from Arch Deakins Tower. So my skier brain kicks in and I'm looking at this uphill and I think, hey, if I bomb this thing and I keep my speed, I can just ski up of this.
01:28:16:13 - 01:28:19:00
Speaker 5
And that was the wrong idea for sure.
01:28:19:02 - 01:28:20:22
Speaker 3
I picked up a.
01:28:20:22 - 01:28:53:01
Speaker 5
Ton of speed. My Garmin told me I was going 40 miles an hour at 19,600 feet and I soon encounter wind ripped snow the rock hard so srouji that's three and a half feet deep. And I jump one and I'm really backseat just trying to hang on at this point on like my my tech bindings and I just slam straight into one just like full body, full compression, two skis come off.
01:28:53:03 - 01:29:17:22
Speaker 5
I groan there for a little bit and there is a guy come in coming up and he's like, Hey, are you all good? And I'm like, I think so. And I check my body to make sure I didn't like, puncture myself with, like the ice packs on my bag or the ice screw on my harness or anything and shamefully collect myself and hike up to the little the notch at what is it, 94, 9500 feet or 19,005.
01:29:18:00 - 01:29:59:06
Speaker 5
And Archdeacon Tower put my skis back on, ski down to Denali Pass. Pretty uneventful. Go through the pass and get onto the Autobahn. And this is just a really traversing pitch. Once again, just basically no falls on one big side slip, essentially. And I'm skiing down, skiing down. And all of a sudden my uphill pole gets ripped from my hand from a pick it that wasn't picked up from seasons prior that I hadn't seen that on the uphill side of me, it's just like a little thing hanging out there, so it rips my pole out of my hand and takes the pole all the way down into the glacier.
01:29:59:06 - 01:30:23:15
Speaker 5
And now I'm just skiing downhill with one pole. So ski the autobahn with one pole, make it into 17 camp. And I actually see Max and Ray there and they're like, Oh, hey, what's up, dude? And at this point, I'm so tired, I'm so defeated that just get exploded. Actually, at like 19,000 feet. Now I lost the pole and the weather's coming in.
01:30:23:15 - 01:30:47:19
Speaker 5
I can't tell what I should do if I should just call it quits and see if I can sleep in someone's bag up here, get down to 14,000 foot camp. And I say, screw it. I'm just going to keep moving and I end up skiing. Rescue again. And it was just phenomenal. I dropped into the first constriction, the upper choke and just perfect Alaskan sunlight.
01:30:47:19 - 01:31:12:09
Speaker 5
It's probably 830, 9:00, maybe even a little bit later at this point. And just beautiful alpine glow looking the I wish I had bandwidth to take a photo is one of the most beautiful pieces of sun I had ever seen. And just really conservative turns at this point, I'm just in full survival skiing mode. Short radius turns and POW.
01:31:12:11 - 01:31:35:22
Speaker 5
The visibility is still really good. So I'm really fortunate and at this point I can see the base of the fixed lines as I get lower down the mountain. I had an area where the sun had gone down for long enough, where sun crested start to develop, which is just not not fun to be skiing after a 12 hour day and 6000 feet of vert.
01:31:36:00 - 01:32:02:05
Speaker 5
And I was forced to jump a little bird shredded at the bottom of it. And I remember making a little check turn, getting a little off balance, hopping this bird strike. And my skis just ripped through this truss. I was like a train on tracks. No way. I'm making turn, just basically pinning it and trying to, you know, shed as much speed as possible, making a big arching turn.
01:32:02:07 - 01:32:20:15
Speaker 5
And yeah, it was it was a hoot. It's a funny thing as well that two or three of the guys in our in my Ranger orientation at the National Park Service, they were actually in camp watching me and they were like, Oh, I wonder if he's going to jump in, if he's going to jump. And then they all went nuts and I jumped.
01:32:20:17 - 01:32:42:01
Speaker 5
That's why we had jumps approach from get to the fixed line ski back in the camp and yeah had actually a warm welcome there was called team KFC it was Gill's G and Copeland these three dudes from Jackson and they're like, Hey dude, we just saw you get in a ski down. Do you need like hot water or anything?
01:32:42:01 - 01:32:48:22
Speaker 5
Just being super nice and welcoming and basically just told them the story. I told you guys like I just got smoked up there, you know, like.
01:32:49:00 - 01:32:49:20
Speaker 3
A dog.
01:32:49:20 - 01:32:58:18
Speaker 5
With its tail between its legs. And it was it was a tough go up there for sure. I was feeling that fire at 19,000 feet.
01:32:58:19 - 01:33:02:14
Speaker 4
So this entire descent. Did you have your sled attached to, you.
01:33:02:16 - 01:33:09:01
Speaker 5
Know, So I brought my sled up to 14,000 foot. And then for the second push, it was just me and my backpack.
01:33:09:07 - 01:33:20:06
Speaker 4
Gotcha. Okay. I was like, envisioning this entire time with that crevasse jump and the eating shit, like, all with your sled. And I'm just like, This sounds heinous. Heinous.
01:33:20:08 - 01:33:28:05
Speaker 5
I didn't eat shit with my sled above 14,000 foot camp, but I definitely did a couple of times below, that's for sure.
01:33:28:07 - 01:33:31:06
Speaker 4
Yeah. I can't even imagine managing that sled.
01:33:31:08 - 01:33:55:11
Speaker 1
Yes. Summiting for 14,000. Man. Like that's, you know, Ray and I tried that, and we got shut down so hard, and that's a really big day. And know it. It's really awesome that you pull that off in. Pretty funny the fall you had up top, but also really serious situation. You know, that's a really bad place to break an ankle or to hurt yourself and you know pretty happy that you ended up, you know, pulling through and having a rad time in ski out and everything.
01:33:55:11 - 01:33:58:02
Speaker 1
Man. It's it's really, really awesome.
01:33:58:04 - 01:34:28:00
Speaker 5
Yeah. Was I was really happy. I did enjoy myself up high. And part of me, you know, I'm I'm glad I'm just so glad I didn't you know, it could have gone so many different ways and yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad everything turned out the way it did. I once I did get into, I had a thought about hanging out for a couple of days and potentially skiing, you know, the Messner, other lines on the mountain.
01:34:28:01 - 01:34:48:09
Speaker 5
But after those big falls, I decided, hey, the mountains taken from me right now, I just need to go home, you know, wave the white flag. You know, I summited I off the summit. I came here to do what I wanted to and I accomplished most of that 90% of that. So I feel good about the trip and I can go home happy.
01:34:48:11 - 01:34:54:01
Speaker 1
Do you do you ever see yourself ever going back to the Alaskan range and skiing up there again?
01:34:54:03 - 01:34:56:08
Speaker 5
No. Yeah, I'll be there next year. I think.
01:34:56:08 - 01:34:59:09
Speaker 3
I'll be. Yes.
01:34:59:11 - 01:35:02:01
Speaker 1
That's awesome. And yeah.
01:35:02:03 - 01:35:17:18
Speaker 5
Yeah, that that place inspires and it's there's a lot of mountains in this in this world, but the Alaska range has something special. I can put my, my tongue on it right now, but it's special up there.
01:35:17:20 - 01:35:39:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah absolutely. And it, it, it just is. I don't know. You know, I can't compare. Hopefully one day I can go to the day care. Carmen and to the Himalayas. But until then, this is the this is, you know, the epicenter of what I, what I have to compare as far as scale and stuff. And it's it's a magical place.
01:35:39:06 - 01:35:42:17
Speaker 5
Well, it is like the biggest vertical prominence right from base.
01:35:42:18 - 01:35:53:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's the largest mountain in the world, not the tallest, but it is like the biggest mountain in the world. And, you know, just flying in there and being at the base of it like I, it seems pretty obvious.
01:35:53:10 - 01:35:57:06
Speaker 3
It's like just yeah, it's.
01:35:57:07 - 01:36:08:18
Speaker 5
But yeah, definitely plans to go back in next spring. Hopefully if everything works out for me and just go skiing some more spread some more smiles.
01:36:08:20 - 01:36:26:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, dude, I, I definitely hope that my future has in store. Alex in a leopard vest smoking a cigar and me bum in a puff again on on a big, big ass mountain because that that made my day, man.
01:36:26:07 - 01:36:26:20
Speaker 5
Oh, yeah.
01:36:26:20 - 01:36:53:06
Speaker 1
I wanted to bring up a cigaret. I told this to Ray. I was like, I really want a cigaret. I like 14. I'm seeing like Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker smoking cigarets in the Meru video and stuff. And I just had this idea and I forgot to. And then we get to 14 on that move day after being cooked and I come out of the tent and Alex is just there looking like a fucking boss with this dope leopard vest on, just sitting there in the sun with his like legs crossed, smoking a cigar.
01:36:53:08 - 01:37:06:11
Speaker 1
And I was just like, holy shit. And walked out and I was like, Dude, can I have a part of that cigar? And he's like, Yeah, man, of course. And I was like, Wow. It just it was like that was like one of my goals. And it, it came to fruition because of you, my friend. So thank you.
01:37:06:13 - 01:37:10:04
Speaker 1
Thanks for facilitating once again your generosity.
01:37:10:06 - 01:37:22:22
Speaker 5
You got to have fun up there. You know, if you're not having fun, what are you having right there? Yeah. Got to go keep it lighthearted And yeah, unfortunately, that vest came all the way to the summit with me, but I forgot to put it on.
01:37:22:23 - 01:37:24:00
Speaker 1
I know, man.
01:37:24:03 - 01:37:28:23
Speaker 5
I was too tired and. Yeah it was. I know.
01:37:29:00 - 01:37:37:02
Speaker 1
Well, it's all good you're going back. You know, this is a missed opportunity that you can, you know, redeem.
01:37:37:04 - 01:37:45:10
Speaker 5
Yeah, that. That leopard print vest will be the my flag that I bring on all my summer.
01:37:45:12 - 01:37:49:14
Speaker 1
You got to get matching underwear, and then you're ready that you're ready to rock and roll.
01:37:49:18 - 01:37:51:06
Speaker 3
Exactly. Yeah.
01:37:51:08 - 01:37:54:20
Speaker 4
Just make it all a one piece leotard just called.
01:37:54:22 - 01:37:55:18
Speaker 3
The.
01:37:55:20 - 01:37:57:23
Speaker 5
New speed suit by DNA fit. That's what I heard.
01:37:58:03 - 01:37:58:23
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:37:59:00 - 01:38:01:01
Speaker 4
A sponsored someone to make it for you.
01:38:01:01 - 01:38:04:07
Speaker 3
Exactly.
01:38:04:09 - 01:38:13:16
Speaker 4
Oh, man. Well, awesome, man. What a what a epic story. I mean, I was engaged. Time flew by so fast. So now I appreciate you coming in.
01:38:13:18 - 01:38:15:11
Speaker 5
Yeah, thanks for having me.
01:38:15:13 - 01:38:25:05
Speaker 1
It's honestly a perfect place to end, you know? Nice happiness. Feeling good in the mountains, leopard vests and smoking cigars, you know, Good, happy thoughts.
01:38:25:07 - 01:38:40:00
Speaker 5
Yeah. Just got to. Got to keep things in fun. And now the first thing, safety in coming home, right? Like lived to ski another day. But besides that, just keep having fun. There's nothing else to have out there either laughing or crying. Right.