Climbing can be risky, and it's easy to overlook those risks when you've never experienced them first hand. You might hear stories of injuries or even fatalities, but until you experience something first hand you are missing a true understanding of the risks you are taking. Enter Colin Jokisch, a seasoned climber whose world changed after a near-fatal fall on an Arkansas roof crack. Colin's accident gave him PTSD, especially when using trad gear—a sentiment Max and I deeply understand. Like most of us his love for climbing didn't go away. Instead of choosing to quit the sport altogether or to never push his abilities again he pivoted to the art of rope soloing, finding it a safer way to tackle challenging trad lines. Today, we dive into Colin's harrowing experience, the mental, physical, and emotional toll of climbing accidents, and finally we cover the ins and outs of the elusive practice of rope soloing.
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
Climbing can be risky, and it's easy to overlook those risks when you've never experienced them first hand. You might hear stories of injuries or even fatalities, but until you experience something first hand you are missing a true understanding of the risks you are taking. Enter Colin Jokisch, a seasoned climber whose world changed after a near-fatal fall on an Arkansas roof crack. Colin's accident gave him PTSD, especially when using trad gear—a sentiment Max and I deeply understand. Like most of us his love for climbing didn't go away. Instead of choosing to quit the sport altogether or to never push his abilities again he pivoted to the art of rope soloing, finding it a safer way to tackle challenging trad lines. Today, we dive into Colin's harrowing experience, the mental, physical, and emotional toll of climbing accidents, and finally we cover the ins and outs of the elusive practice of rope soloing.
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
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:08
Unknown
Hey, everyone. Kyle here. Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast, where Max and I sit down with living legends, professional athletes, certified guides and recreational climbers alike to discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a climber. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:26:12 - 00:00:34:15
Unknown
The climbing majority is on Patreon. If you want to support the show and get exclusive access to our video episodes. Become a subscriber today.
00:00:36:17 - 00:00:45:16
Unknown
Climbing can be a risky sport, and it's easy to overlook those risks when you've never experienced them firsthand. You might hear stories
00:00:45:16 - 00:01:01:01
Unknown
of injuries or even fatalities, but until you experience something firsthand, you're simply missing a true understanding of the risks that you're taking. Enter Collin Joe Kish, a seasoned climber whose world changed after a near-fatal fall on an Arkansas roof crack.
00:01:01:03 - 00:01:23:17
Unknown
Collins accident gave him PTSD, especially when using trad gear, a sentiment that Max and I deeply understand. Like most of us, his love for climbing didn't go away. Instead of choosing to quit the sport altogether, or to never push his abilities on trout again, he pivoted to the art of rope soloing. Finding a safer way to tackle challenging trad lines.
00:01:23:19 - 00:01:37:17
Unknown
Today we dive deep into Collins harrowing experience the mental, the physical and emotional toll of climbing accidents. And finally, we cover the ins and outs of the elusive practice of rope soloing.
00:01:50:12 - 00:02:13:10
Unknown
All right, everybody. It is 104 degrees in Las Vegas, and I am currently sitting in my chair sweating bullets, excited about the episode here. There were about to unfold. Welcome to the show, Colin. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Looking forward to it. DAX, I need you on the show. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, of course. Yeah.
00:02:13:10 - 00:02:35:16
Unknown
Remind us how we we linked up. I believe it was through through Instagram. How long has it been now? A couple of years. Yeah, I think so. I first. I mean, I was just doing the scrolling thing and came across your first person based on yin and yang, and that was like something that I was interested in climbing and I was like, Oh, this is really, really cool content.
00:02:35:16 - 00:03:04:00
Unknown
And I got to like, see all the, like the rack that you used and everything and I like, try and do my, my flash attempt on it. And I didn't do it, but. And then we, I think we like DM'd you about some other things like some GoPro tips and yeah, it kind of went from there. Bowman. Yeah, it's been a starting the channel and everything was really cool, just like especially through the injury, just being able to connect with people.
00:03:04:00 - 00:03:18:22
Unknown
And I never knew like that was the major thing I was going to get out of. It was like, how many new people I was going to meet and how many conversations I was going to have. So happy, happy that you were one of them. And yeah, just psyched to have you on the show. You know, we got a lot of really cool stuff to talk about.
00:03:18:22 - 00:03:39:21
Unknown
And just a quick interjection here. I find something about that that's so funny because I myself am a part of this generation of climbers where you go search of first person data, you get climbing videos, you have the guidebook, you go to Mountain Project, you look at X Files, the amount of content and information we have, you know, and it's still really hard.
00:03:39:22 - 00:04:11:15
Unknown
I still, you know, fuck up root finding and all these things with with all this information present and to me I'll use that. And then still go. And if I climb something clean, you know, once again, not a hard climber, but if I climb something clean, I'm like, Oh, I got the onsite. But then if you like, have that juxtaposition to, you know, talking with like Dale Rims where it's and stuff where they're like, you know, it's like, oh, if you look at somebody touch your hold on the root beforehand, then it doesn't count as an on site because you had beta or something, you know, and it's just this interesting contrast of that just,
00:04:11:20 - 00:04:36:18
Unknown
it just makes me reminisce on the previous generation of just pioneers going out there and just no information, just completely raw dogging the wild, just like, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Dogging the wild. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Like, Oh, we don't have to go. It's it's, it's insane. It's going to it's going to turn into a Rt-cgm T-shirt.
00:04:36:18 - 00:05:15:20
Unknown
It's going to be merch here in a couple of months. Yeah, right. Hog the Wild. I wear that shirt. Unfortunately on sighting is is is interesting for me just because I don't know I've it's bitten me like really hard before and I know like I certainly understand that people get a ton of value out of it. I think it like is a really cool measure for some folks on like how they might see themselves as a climber, but it's not something that I usually trend towards.
00:05:15:20 - 00:05:32:23
Unknown
I like to do like a gentleman second go usually like get all the moves to the chains and then like do the read point. That's that's like the ultimate for me. Yeah, yeah. See, I'm like the opposite. I'll, I'll go for the on site and then if I fail, I just won't even do it again. I'll just move on.
00:05:32:23 - 00:05:52:17
Unknown
I'll go the other one, I'll pick something, I'll pick something easier and just be like, Oh, let me go find something I can on site. That's so fascinating. I, I just like the, the, yeah, I just like the raw adventure of, like something unknown. And then once I've like I don't once I've even gotten a taste, I'm just like there's so many other things I can do that's new.
00:05:52:17 - 00:06:15:11
Unknown
I'll just go do something else. Yeah, I've got the, I've got the same thing with, like, a climbing mentor of mine who I climb with. Well, mentor. He's also really good buddy. I love this guy, you know, Brendan, and he's like, in my books, you know, a very, very strong climber. And. And, you know, he'll go to something and be, like, just debating so long, the bar in the room looking.
00:06:15:11 - 00:06:41:17
Unknown
He's like, oh, I don't know, has this like, anxiety to it. But it's really just because he just like, covets the inside so hard. So it's like, dude, you could like he could easily like, you know, climb this thing like maybe take one fall, like you'll get it for sure. But he's like so anticipatory to the on site and wants it so bad that you just like builds it up you know and and it is this kind of level of like tenacity or grit that I don't have in my climbing currently.
00:06:41:17 - 00:07:00:13
Unknown
It's not at least for that style of like single pitch climbing. Like I don't, I don't have it. But it's just is this difference between climbers and people and what they covet and what they're interested in, how they how they climb stylistically. Right. So it's it's really fascinating the nuance that we have in our sports, you know, sports categories.
00:07:00:15 - 00:07:22:01
Unknown
I mean, that's the good thing about being a part of a sport that's so diverse. It's like make up your own game, right? Absolutely. The possibilities are endless. Like do the most contrived thing that no one else likes, and it could still be pretty cool to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, bring us. It's like a good Segway.
00:07:22:01 - 00:07:41:08
Unknown
So, you know, bring us to from the beginning, bring us to where you are as a climber now. You know, talk to us, you know, just like the climbing majority, the, the stamp that we always do, you know, Who are you How did you find climbing? Like, give us a painting on on who you are. Yeah. So my name is Colin.
00:07:41:10 - 00:08:17:21
Unknown
I'm from Kansas. Originally born and raised. After college, I had moved to California after ending a career with track and cross country and started working for the Student Conservation Association in the Eastern Sierras, which was such a cold experience. It was like my year long summer. Like if you guys know a whole lot about the Eastern Sierras, it's just like endless playground.
00:08:17:21 - 00:08:48:14
Unknown
It's like America's playground. It was it was a real treat. But a couple of my coworkers had like they had climbed before. So they we went on like a all of us went to Joshua Tree and we went to Indian Wells and I borrowed my boss's climbing shoes and we went scrambling. I think we had like maybe one or two bouldering pads.
00:08:48:14 - 00:09:13:21
Unknown
We didn't have a guidebook. It was I don't I don't think we were even doing like boulder problems. We were just scrambling. Which Joshua Tree is like, Joshua Tree is known for that. Yeah, Yeah. Just like world skiing. Get lost out there scrambling. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. And I was hooked ever since then. Went out and sport climbed and you get.
00:09:13:23 - 00:10:06:07
Unknown
You're right there. I'm good. I'm just down the road because I was, like, exploring like you were. But no, we're get survival Got a meniscus injury about a year into that job had to move home to Kansas City and found a really cool climbing community in Kansas City. It's kind of surprising. I don't know if a lot of people know this from the outside looking in, but there's like I think there's six gyms in the Kansas City area and it's like something ridiculous is and people there are really stoked was just like road trip in it down to Arkansas and Missouri like really hard So did a lot of climbing in Missouri and Arkansas most
00:10:06:07 - 00:10:32:07
Unknown
recently about a year ago, moved to Arizona and in April, southern Arizona. All right. Yeah. When you when you first found climbing in Joshua Tree and you found like you found it, Bruce scrambling, how did that progressed to roped climbing? Because for me, like as a child, I spent probably a decade, you know, scrambling as a kid in Joshua Tree.
00:10:32:07 - 00:10:51:00
Unknown
But the sport of climbing, when I was a kid was almost laughable to me. You know, I was like, oh, why do you stay in one place with ropes? It's so boring. And like, scrambling was all about it. So, you know, was it the group that you were surrounded by that kind of pushed you towards climbing? Like, how did you make that gap from scrambling to climbing?
00:10:51:02 - 00:11:16:09
Unknown
One of my coworkers, David and I, purchased a Freedom of the Hills book and went out and like totally did not know what we were doing and like, decided to buy a rope and went sport climbing. We were like, it was it was we were doing everything wrong. And but I've always like been a big like gear guy.
00:11:16:10 - 00:11:37:01
Unknown
I like having the kit and like, accumulating all of it. And so like that, that part of it was kind of a natural progression to like go from sport climbing. And then I had some people show me trad climbing and then I was like, Oh, this is obviously something I want to do too. It's like an added thing, like an added factor.
00:11:37:03 - 00:11:57:00
Unknown
In our earlier episodes, we talked about the first year of tried climbing, you know, the first year of climbing in general, like, you know, you alluded to, you said the phrase like we did everything wrong. You know, I resonate with that a lot because when you're teaching, especially if you know you're going the route of not having a mentor, you guys are you know, you and a buddy are getting a book and figuring it out like so many people do.
00:11:57:00 - 00:12:26:20
Unknown
That's how I did it. You make fucking mistakes and you make mistakes that could have killed you. So like, maybe talk to us about maybe one or two of those mistakes that you made during your first year of climbing that could have cost your life. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So I started pushing it about as hard as I could on grade chasing for tread, tried climbing as fast as I could for not having anyone else to like.
00:12:26:21 - 00:13:00:13
Unknown
I was like finding people to belay me just like buddies. They weren't there wasn't even people necessarily trying the routes that I wanted to do. And it just seemed to like, Oh, I'm just going to keep gradually climbing and there's never going to. And it's just seems like a natural progression to me. And then it eventually all kind of culminated in this really bad climbing accident that I had in Arkansas in 2010, 2015.
00:13:00:15 - 00:13:35:00
Unknown
No, that was 2017, isn't it? 2017? Yeah, right. I'm getting old. Yeah. 2017. In the fall, it was October. It's still pretty hot. And I was at a crag called Sam's Throne, which is kind of a traditional climbing crag in Arkansas. And it's just that Horseshoe Canyon ranch. It's it's not far. It's like 45 minutes from there. Yeah, it's it's one it's a really cool it's like one of the cooler campgrounds I've ever been to.
00:13:35:02 - 00:14:06:22
Unknown
It's all free and there's pit toilets and you are, like, camped on this pinnacle that like, overlooks, like this huge swath of national forest and below that pinnacle or that point, it's like on either side or cliff bands. And that continues on for miles and miles and miles. It's all broken. But like it turns into, it's all like there's different crags, but it's all one cliff band and you can like see all of them from this point.
00:14:07:00 - 00:14:38:21
Unknown
So I decided I had like rolled my ankle doing a different climb that I eventually sent like a year later. So I wanted to do something and I had a big trip coming up to Arizona, so I wanted to climb like something really steep so that it would be like I thought it would be like kind of safe for me to like, have an open air fall, not having any roof crack experience at all.
00:14:38:23 - 00:15:01:00
Unknown
So had you taken a had you taken a trout whip at this point? Yeah, I had been I had had so many like I'd been I had already ripped some cams, broken some cams. At this point, it was it was like, no, our fear. No, no fear instilled at this point. Or are you just like, not Well, there weren't any contact lenses for it so far, you know, Exactly.
00:15:01:00 - 00:15:38:19
Unknown
Like, yeah, everything had been turning around, like turning out okay And like, it's like, all right, this is this is pretty fine. So the climb is called Arkansas Reality. It's an 11, 11 B, 11 C trade route. And it starts with kind of like this grainy, like really like graham cracker e ramp that leads up to a dead horizontal roof that's like a couple of body lengths long.
00:15:38:20 - 00:16:02:09
Unknown
So I think and I had wanted to on site it because I was like something that I was like like this is like something I should be on siting like, I don't know, like my, my typical mental conversation. Yeah. And it's like, I like this is who I see myself like, like how I see myself. So I should be doing this.
00:16:02:11 - 00:16:27:23
Unknown
So I that's what I tried. And what are the list of mistakes that I made? I didn't wear a helmet. It was really weird that I didn't. I had been wearing a helmet often, but maybe I think it was because it was going to be a roof. And then I didn't think that was going to be much risk for stuff to fall on me or to me to hit something.
00:16:28:01 - 00:17:11:00
Unknown
Left my helmet on the ground, kind of slimmed down my rack a little too far and then like, totally underestimated the grade of the route, started up the low angle ramp, which did not have very inspiring fro. I think I found like some like really poor nut like it was not good. Climbed above that to the base of the roof and put in a what I thought was a pretty good gold hand sized camera in the crack and busted out.
00:17:11:02 - 00:17:49:12
Unknown
I probably should have put some more cams in to just put the one in and extended it. So extended it. Yeah, right. So I get like only a couple of moves into this hand crack. It's like 20, 25 feet off the deck maybe, and I'm struggling to get into it. It is a weird crack. It's like this or like these weird flake features.
00:17:49:12 - 00:18:17:13
Unknown
It climbs more like a sport root than a an actual crack, which I didn't really know at the time. And so I'm like, got my hands on one of these flakes and my feet cut out and I get them back on. I'm like trying to like lock off with one arm to get a number four and above my head, which is really far, and I'm getting pumped, my feet cut again.
00:18:17:14 - 00:18:51:01
Unknown
And when my feet cut again, the rope pulling through the system lifts out the knot the first night and then I fall. And I remember everything was fine. I, like, felt the rope, take my weight, I'm swinging back in and like the moment my feet, like, hit, like the less than vertical part, just like a shower. I'll never forget it because it was like I felt it as much as I heard it.
00:18:51:03 - 00:19:23:22
Unknown
I like. I felt like I was showered with sand and like I heard like that horrible sound of like a cam ripping. And then in a second I was on the ground. I was like, out of it. My buddy Josh was bullying me. He's also a paramedic. He's telling me, Don't move. And I'm like making like this inhuman sound like this, right?
00:19:23:22 - 00:19:57:12
Unknown
Deep, like primal. Like where you like God, it's like this. Yeah. This guttural, like, groan. And so, like, he just tells me to, like, I'm on like, this. All this broken rock and nothing is flat down there. It's like, Rudy, it's horrible. If you're like, for something to land. I guess what actually happened was, like, I swung. Like I flipped backwards and, like, hit my shoulder on the face and then my head on the ground.
00:19:57:14 - 00:20:30:08
Unknown
So, like, inverted from 25 feet when you but I was under the roof and you were like about to fall. Were you panicking or were you like in still like an almost a pseudo control? No, I wasn't really panicking. Mm hmm. Yeah, I guess, like, nothing in my experience had, like, told me that there is anything to really worry about, I guess.
00:20:30:10 - 00:21:00:20
Unknown
Yeah. Percent. I think that's really interesting with these, these stories that you kind of hear and this is definitely me, you know, projecting my own experience and from, you know, hearing definitely a biased sample size because we speak to so many people who have these tragic incidents and unfortunate Natalie. But a lot of times I'll see climbing and especially the track gear and just knowing the amount of people I've talked to you where something like this has happened.
00:21:01:01 - 00:21:22:13
Unknown
Oh, I thought I had this really amazing piece in and the piece ripped and I'm sure more experienced climbers could be listening to this and say like, Oh, that would never happen to me or something. But a lot of the times I do see people climbing in bad situations and and they are in these situations where they look like they're climbing really well, they're moving well and they're placing pieces at these appropriate body lengths.
00:21:22:13 - 00:21:41:07
Unknown
But if one of those pieces, just for some reason pulls, you could easily be looking at it, you know, and something that's something that I really struggle with now, where I look at, I'll be climbing something and I'll go, you know what? I'm going to double up here or I'm going to place two pieces in succession pretty quick.
00:21:41:07 - 00:22:10:16
Unknown
Even if the last one seems super, super bomber, just because if one of these pieces pole, that's the difference between me, you know, falling to this next piece or doing double or triple body lengths and then if there's any terrain, it just the calculation of Scary Whip or too serious injury. It's such a fine edge, you know, And if you're just competently and confidently climbing and it's like one piece per body length or several body lengths, that's really good and very efficient.
00:22:10:16 - 00:22:32:15
Unknown
But if somehow, you know, human error gets tossed into this equation, which inevitably it does, you know, and that piece rips, you're looking at a really serious incident. And it's something that I'm struggling with and I'm seeing a lot more in the climbing community with people is is yeah. Like you know that this interesting debate of like are people placing enough gear?
00:22:32:15 - 00:22:50:09
Unknown
I don't know. That's an interesting question. I mean, you see it all the time on Instagram on Weekend Whipper and stuff like that. I was about to begin climbing and, you know, ten, ten, 20 feet up off the ground and they're fucking cameras so they're not ribs. And they hit the ground. And you all saw Doctor Jeff's video, right?
00:22:50:11 - 00:23:12:02
Unknown
Okay. I was going to, I was going to bring this up. Colin. So, you know, I'm from B.C., just from B.C. I knew the climb, the area he was at. He's obviously profession a climber, such a strong climber and er doctor, you know, incredibly competent person. I don't, I don't like, I'm not commenting negatively. I think his write up that he did of his fall on the Oracle was really, really amazing.
00:23:12:02 - 00:23:48:16
Unknown
So hats off to him, you know, and he's such an experienced and talented climber. But yeah, I just this like hard boulder sport climber just starts tried climbing, you know, climbs up into this climb that has pretty like, I think, esoteric gear slash, you know, finicky thin gear, you know, realizes he's in a bad position, down, climbs to his last piece and then, you know, slowly just takes and pulls the cam and whips pulls the cam out of the whips because he rips the cam out of the wall just on bodyweight and then like slingshots into his Blair and decks and he was luckily okay but you know.
00:23:48:18 - 00:24:07:18
Unknown
Yeah for me looking at that video I'm going if you hadn't backed off and you had just done like two or three more moves and then fell, you would just have decked from like 30, 40 feet and you'd be like both ankles broke and paralyzed. You know, he's got a young kid. And that's exactly what I was talking about.
00:24:07:18 - 00:24:32:12
Unknown
And actually thinking about when I was like referencing that of just putting a couple more pieces in or something. It's the line sometimes between okay and really not okay is so thin. And it's it's really it's really interesting to navigate that. And as a community, you know, it's it's obviously what makes our sport so fulfilling and exciting in some capacity, but also it's wrecking people.
00:24:32:15 - 00:25:10:00
Unknown
You know, It is I unfortunately was not lucky enough so end up walking away from my accident. I did later on from the hospital, but I ended up having a a temper orbital and sinus fracture with some pneumo Caerphilly sublets my AC joints fractured ribs, pneumothorax, lizard liver laceration and ended up breaking my calcaneus in my foot. That's all.
00:25:10:03 - 00:25:31:06
Unknown
That's all the fun stuff, man. You're taking all the all the boxes there, you know? So like, sorry, before my kind of interjection. Right. So you've had this web cams ripped out, you shouted rocks, you hit the ground. You have this guttural sound and stuff. And fortunately, obviously, you know, you as a paramedic yourself, your friend's a paramedic.
00:25:31:12 - 00:25:50:05
Unknown
You know, what was that kind of situation on the ground like? What what was your mindset at the time? Were you worried? Am I paralyzed? Is am I going to die? Like like take us through a little bit about that And then how did you get yourself out there out of that situation? In the end, you guys, it's like almost scripted.
00:25:50:07 - 00:26:13:13
Unknown
Like I was so lucky that, I mean, like any one of those things could have killed me, like the brain injury, like the pneumothorax, the liver laceration, Any of them pick one. If it's bad enough, you die. No, I'm serious. Yeah. So it's like, very serious. Things get bad. I just start, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, Oh, yeah.
00:26:13:13 - 00:26:39:05
Unknown
Couldn't get any worse. Yeah. All right, So get this walking down. We we had climbed in a different area before this, like on the throne proper because there's like a little, like away from the point, there's like a rock, a giant rock pedestal that has rocks or like rock climbs all around it. It's called sandstone. I guess Sam used to, like, go up there.
00:26:39:06 - 00:27:18:22
Unknown
But we went, we were up there and as we were going to the throne proper, we passed a search and rescue team that was out there and there's like over a dozen people and they were out there that day doing a high angle drills that day. It's normally like I needed a test subject. I know, right? It normally takes search and rescue teams a long time to get out to places like these are all volunteers, like they're not on call any place.
00:27:19:00 - 00:27:45:06
Unknown
Their response time was ridiculously short. It was just like you, just my climbing partner just yelled to them and they were. They came over there like almost immediately is nuts. Like they had a gator in the litter and like enough people to litter someone. Wow. The ambulance took a long not a long time. The ambulance took a while to get there.
00:27:45:06 - 00:28:17:23
Unknown
It's kind of way out in the woods. And they started an I.V., gave me some fentanyl were they moved me. It was only after like I had been sitting on the ground for a while that I had like the gravity of it started to sink in because the I could feel my pneumothorax, which is like a combination between like one sided chest pain and a panic attack where you like.
00:28:18:01 - 00:28:40:00
Unknown
And I, I knew exactly what it was because they told me that I was had diminished lung sounds and like me and my buddy Josh are like looking at one another. I'm like, I can't breathe, Josh, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. And like thankfully it didn't tension down, but like that, that was the moment, not when I was falling.
00:28:40:00 - 00:29:01:01
Unknown
It was like after I'd been on the ground for a while that I thought I was going to die. When you when you hit the ground initially, you there was still like the panic didn't set in or anything. You were just like in kind of shock. Yeah, like that. It took minutes. And then I got the, like, the worst headache ever.
00:29:01:03 - 00:29:27:14
Unknown
Like, wow. It's like. Like tonight. It's like, just. Yeah, like it just can't do much of anything. It's just, like, the worst pain. But yeah, that that's kind of like the stark reality of it. I always assume that like, Oh, if you're going to die in a climbing accident, at least it'll be quick. It's like, No, that's not necessarily.
00:29:27:16 - 00:29:51:18
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. No, no, you could be on the ground for a while. Yeah. I mean, we, we, we spoke with Gosh Max, remind me his name. Joshua Rada. We spoke with Joshua Rada. He fell 200 feet free soloing, and he survived. You know, his his whole mentality was like, all right, well, if I fall very slow in soloing, at least I'm going to die, you know?
00:29:51:18 - 00:30:23:07
Unknown
And it's like you might not. And if you don't mind, you might die in the middle of the night. Hypothermia or like something. Yeah, Really slowly. Yeah. I think Steve House has a really iconic iconic might be the right word, but wrong word but at a fall I think it was around 2010 in the Canadian Rockies, he took I think a 70 foot whisper smashed into the wall alpine climbing on a really hard route and ended up, I think, broke his pelvis and got him pneumothorax as well.
00:30:23:09 - 00:30:43:14
Unknown
And in his book, he kind of talks about that in his podcast as well, where he's just sitting there, you know, waiting for a helicopter, which is going to take a really long time and knows he has a pneumothorax and he just sitting there freezing, contemplating the end of his life, you know, you're like, yeah, that doesn't sound fun.
00:30:43:14 - 00:31:04:00
Unknown
You know, it's that that is a reality of of the things we do. Unfortunately. Mhm. And the funny thing is, is that like you said, up to this point there was a sense of innocence that you had, you know, it was just like, you know, you're sending, you know, oh yeah, I fall Cam's poll, whatever, you know, you're fine on the other side.
00:31:04:02 - 00:31:28:10
Unknown
Yeah. It's not the sense of security that you get. And it wasn't like I had been, like, not falling on the cams that had been like, I'd been. I was like. Like I was getting feedback, but it was just a matter of time before it bit me. Yeah. And they weren't, they, they couldn't fly me. There was like a low cloud ceiling.
00:31:28:12 - 00:31:56:20
Unknown
So they gathered me around to the top of the throne near the campground where the ambulance was waiting. And then it was 45 minutes to a small critical access hospital and then an hour and a half to Springfield, to the trauma center. After that. Wow. Yeah. So you're you're you're like you're at the hospital now. Briefly cover. Like what?
00:31:56:20 - 00:32:24:14
Unknown
What was like like how was getting back to this work, I mean, for you mentally and physically. So of all of those injuries, the shoulder took the longest to recover from the soft tissue of the AC joint, separating all of the broken bones. The new most definitely. And the pneumothorax. When all went away on their own, I didn't have to have a chest tube or be decompressed or anything like that.
00:32:24:16 - 00:33:04:22
Unknown
It was a pretty low grade liver laceration. So as far as interventions, like surgically, nothing seems like it. What could have been ended up me like hobbling out with like a walker out of the hospital. Wow. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Went to pity for my shoulder. Let's see. That happened in October. And I took a Christmas climbing trip down to Enchanted Rocks in Texas for.
00:33:05:00 - 00:33:35:09
Unknown
In December. Yeah, that was my first time climbing back outside for some leading trout again After that. Sorry. What was the timeframe? How long was it? The accident was, I think it was October 30th, and I went on a trip for Christmas down to Texas. Wow. Okay, That's a quick turnaround. Yeah, that's crazy. It was a weird time.
00:33:35:11 - 00:33:56:21
Unknown
Yeah, it was a weird time for me. That was right. When Red Go Bright had died as well. And then I think Emily Harrington had a like, really horrible accident at this time. And so, like, I was like, Do I even want to do this anymore? It's like, all my like, am I going to lose friends doing this?
00:33:56:21 - 00:34:34:00
Unknown
Like, what's the point in all of this? And I think I had decided, like really early on that I wanted to keep doing it because I didn't want to lead. I don't want to lose my friends or like lose my community and yeah, I, I guess I just decided to like, take responsibility for it and not let, like the why or like the unanswered questions bother me about it.
00:34:34:02 - 00:34:54:16
Unknown
I just decided to take ownership of it and that I had made some mistakes and then I could move on. Yeah, that's really awesome, man. It's obviously like such a challenging thing, you know? And I don't want to use the word defeated because it's having an experience like that. Walking away, making a different life decision is totally valid and fair.
00:34:54:16 - 00:35:13:00
Unknown
You know what? On some level, there does seem this kind of, at least in my estimation, there is this feeling of, you know, you're kind of letting a mistake get the better of you and saying, I'm no longer going to do this. You know, like even Josh Arata, who we talked about, he's aid climbing and still getting out there and doing stuff.
00:35:13:00 - 00:35:36:16
Unknown
So it's it's pretty crazy to see. I'm really interested what was what was it your experience once you started getting back into climbing? Did you would you characterize yourself as the fall was traumatizing to you psychologically? What was your mental state getting back into climbing? Oh yeah, I think I still have PTSD from it. Yeah, I think it's changed.
00:35:36:16 - 00:36:07:12
Unknown
Like everything about my climbing. Like pretty shortly after it was like as soon as my physical therapist cleared me, I went to the gym and on like, a week day and nobody was there and like, just kind of clipped into an audible quietly and like, just cried is that I could do it. And then just kind of progressed from there.
00:36:07:13 - 00:36:41:17
Unknown
Just start starting indoors and then I started working my way back into it and like, kind of like relearning all of the things and like redoing all of the things that I had done before. Slowly over like the period of a year. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously to each their own, I had a traumatic fall, got really injured and, you know, I made some, some pretty big improvements coming back I felt mentally.
00:36:41:17 - 00:37:09:09
Unknown
And then this season which my fall was in 2021. So now the year after I had kind of rehabbed myself and got back into climbing. And this year I've just had this really big aversion to leading and really psychologically had some a lot of issues. And I've really struggled with it. And, you know, I kind of I, you know, would use the same terminology as you.
00:37:09:09 - 00:37:31:04
Unknown
And it's like I feel like I have like post-traumatic stress from the fall. You know, I'll be climbing something well within my ability. And sometimes I'm like, you know, like a like the visceral feeling of like, I'm going to die or such a high, like a flash back to me just falling before I impact, you know, the granite block.
00:37:31:04 - 00:37:53:18
Unknown
It just like, like shocks my body. And it just there's all these weird things that happen and it's something I've really with this season trying to get back into climbing. And I just find it's it's really interesting and it's challenging to deal with. It's important to me that I learned that lesson, though, and like in a way that thankfully I like.
00:37:53:18 - 00:38:25:12
Unknown
I'm still active. Like I've for the most part, unscathed. Yeah, I think that that's an interesting point. I think that all three of us are kind of in that same boat and so many people have gone through the same experience but not come out the other side. And like all three of us could very well have died and, you know, we could have not had the chance to learn that lesson, albeit the hard way, but at least we were able to learn from it and and not be stuck.
00:38:25:14 - 00:38:46:16
Unknown
Yeah, so I always reflect on that a little bit. It's like, wow, like I had a chance to learn from this. But it is hard sometimes, you know, like it's it's hard to be as psyched as you were. It's hard to be as stoked. It's hard to not be scared, you know, 20 feet above your last piece, I was telling Max this the last, you know, I was five feet above your last piece, dude.
00:38:46:18 - 00:39:07:08
Unknown
Yeah, Yeah. You're just like, you know, you're on a58 and all of a sudden you look down and you're like, Bark, I'm 15 feet. Run out again. You're like, Why am I always here? You know? It's just like, you know, there's this like this part of track climbing where you can't always be stitched up. It's just impossible. Especially on some of the easier routes.
00:39:07:08 - 00:39:25:08
Unknown
Oh, yeah. It's just like the crack is really weird. It's not splitter. You need to save gear because the routes, you know, 140 feet long, you know? And so it's like you always find yourself in this position where you're 15, 20 feet run out and you're just like, What is my life? You like? I was here before and it didn't work out very well.
00:39:25:08 - 00:39:51:02
Unknown
And here I am again. And so it's just it gets frustrating, but, you know, that's that's the sport we choose to, which is to love, I think, in a way that can be therapeutic for other stresses that you have in your life, though. And like colors that yeah, like if you're worried about something in rock climbing it's probably because like that perceived consequence is a real thing.
00:39:51:04 - 00:40:26:12
Unknown
And like the more you can like address that and deal with that, maybe you can translate that to other stresses in your life, whether that's relationships or money or work, it can be healing. Yeah, I think it also paints a picture for what's valuable to you in your life. Like after seeing the risk and after being 20 feet above your peers and you looking down and knowing what's going to happen to you if you fail or if something happens, you know, like there is value of what you would lose.
00:40:26:14 - 00:41:02:04
Unknown
You know, if it's your life, you know, you're going to lose, you know, whatever career you've built, you're going to lose, you know, the things you've been working on. So the reality of the consequences are so much more real compared to this. Like, oh, you know, everything's going to be okay. You know, there's no real tangible consequence that you can taste And no matter how many times you hear about professional athletes dying, no matter how many times you sit here and listen to the climbing majority and listen to Kyle and Max talking about how they broke their ankles, it's never going to really sit and really sit and feel like it does for us.
00:41:02:04 - 00:41:23:01
Unknown
Three because you have to cross through the other side, unfortunately, to feel that reality. It's just an interesting side to be on. The other side of the coin, when providers talk to patients in the medical field, you have to make sure that patients have an informed decision like that's kind of like the phrase that like comes to mind to me.
00:41:23:01 - 00:41:54:00
Unknown
Like, you know, we we have very informed decisions now because we know the consequences of when it can all go wrong. Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of what we've done on this platform and, you know, part of the thing I was addressing with, you know, Dr. Jeff's whipper is that I think a lot of the time there are people climbing and doing things and they are not in the informed decision category.
00:41:54:00 - 00:42:17:21
Unknown
And, you know, I'm far from an expert in not trying to, you know, be some high horse here preaching. But I just I see on whipper media, I see online, I see my own climbing experience. I hear anecdotes. We talk to people on the show. You know, even Ian Wells did the other day was posting somebody who's climbing in in Squamish and you know, they're on a very easy multi page.
00:42:17:21 - 00:42:36:11
Unknown
I think he was guiding and this is not to shame but they had just this abysmal trad anchor like just so awful. You couldn't even imagine it. And they're like hanging on the side of an edge. And he posted this video kind of to the community being like, how should I as a guy deal with this situation? Like, how do I talk to these people?
00:42:36:17 - 00:43:03:04
Unknown
And so they had this abysmal anchor. The people are exposed hanging. One person is just hanging into this literally just passed into a single cam with these other cams doing God knows what below it. And and then the leader was apparently 20 feet up, sewing pad and leg, you know, placing a first cam. And it's just, you know, this is just you're really in a seriously bad spot or, you know, the same thing with Kyle or, you know, myself or other people.
00:43:03:04 - 00:43:22:14
Unknown
I know people, you know, I would have said are pretty reasonably competent climbers and have place what they thought was pretty good pro and had three cams rip and death. You know I know several people that that's happened to. And I wouldn't say these people are just shoving Cam's in nonchalant like they they had climbed quite a bit.
00:43:22:14 - 00:43:48:21
Unknown
They had taken lots of whips on cams and you know, and it it is just back to that, you know, I don't know that an informed capacity to climb, you know, I don't know. I don't know how I could articulate it more, but it's something I struggle with and I hope that this podcast is a platform to really maybe, you know, maybe people should take an extra cam and plug a couple more pieces in when they're off the deck, you know?
00:43:48:21 - 00:44:09:14
Unknown
And I hope I hope maybe that's the right decision for some people and they get that out of listening to this. Yeah. Single rack means double rack to me on a climb. I've never been on a dude. Crazy double track there. Yes, absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. The minimum amount. Just double it. That's just a fair assessment. You can climb it again later.
00:44:09:17 - 00:44:37:09
Unknown
Yeah. Narrow it down if you need to. Yeah. Exact. Actually. Yeah. I'm not not sending because of the extra like three cabs I have on my rack. That's not the reason I'm sending. But there isn't another safer route to experiencing the world of climbing. And you are a bit of an expert. I would say from my limited knowledge, and that is the art of rope soloing.
00:44:37:11 - 00:44:48:22
Unknown
So talk to us a little bit about, you know, your progression into that area. You know, why it called to you, why it calls to you and, you know, yeah, bring us to the current day
00:44:49:22 - 00:44:56:21
Unknown
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00:44:56:21 - 00:45:15:20
Unknown
expert is very flattering. I would say that I've learned a bunch from a lot of very smart people and, uh, looked at a lot of resources and did a lot of trial and error to earth systems that haven't worked for me in the past.
00:45:15:20 - 00:45:45:05
Unknown
But these days I am often top rope soloing and I've started to do some multi pitch lead rope soloing, which is a super neat thing. It works out for my lifestyle because I don't necessarily have days off on the weekends. Also being pretty new to the Tucson area and not not even being really close to Tucson, I'm like 45 minutes away.
00:45:45:05 - 00:46:15:08
Unknown
I'm actually in Benson and closer to coaches, but ultimately I get a ton of freedom and adventure for discovering new things and it kind of fits and aligns with my margins of safety these days a little more. Yeah, So there's two distinctions here to be made is like I think like Collin's alluding to here, which is top down and then there's lead robe soloing and those both offer their own, you know, kind of unique ways to engage with the rock.
00:46:15:08 - 00:46:45:07
Unknown
And so calling like why don't we start out with top down rope soloing? You know what you know, what is your reasoning behind why you wanted to get into this so much? And maybe talk to us a little bit about your preferred system with that. Yeah. So depending on where you're climbing, if you if there is a way to hike around and rappel in, you can top rope solo.
00:46:45:09 - 00:47:11:09
Unknown
Sometimes you have to use like a tree protector and rappelling off of a tree in order to get down to the anchors. I've I've do that quite a bit with like those, uh, cabin like slack line things and tree and like, continue on over. Or if it's easy enough, you can just like clip the chains sometimes from the top of a cliff band.
00:47:11:11 - 00:47:46:12
Unknown
There is a zillion ways to do this and there's like threads in like people have theories. There's always pros and cons to different systems. And so there's a lot of information that I had to like kind of filter through until I found what worked for me. But I ended up settling on using a Taz Love too, which I actually have that here since we got video that will show everybody a max splash and his.
00:47:46:12 - 00:48:27:06
Unknown
Oh yeah. Is that the love three though? Yeah, this is a three. Yeah. So I think it's like you can vary the mechanism to open it. You know I think that's the difference between the two and three. I believe. Yeah. Yep. And that's certainly convenient if you want to just like, like leave your system. Like oftentimes it involves like a, like a chest harness or some sort of like elastic, like non constricting neck loop in order to keep that device like really high, but like his device is really nice because he can just like open up to the side and like pop the rope out without taking the Caribbean or out of the eyelet, which
00:48:27:06 - 00:48:51:22
Unknown
is super cool. Yeah, absolutely. So the the pro to this device, right. Is that the rope, Wolf, really run by directionally. So whether you're climbing up the rope, just run seamlessly through it as if it was like a micro traction. Or once you get to the top of the climb, you can then disengage the device and repel pretty, I would say, on par to the same mechanism as a Greek.
00:48:51:22 - 00:49:15:07
Unknown
RE Right. So it's very seamless to go up and down, you know, in a very continuous fashion. So obviously if you're on a line and you're looking to move up and down and get laps in or work your project, then a device like this is really, really beneficial and it allows you to climb naturally and fluidly because the rope just freely runs through in both directions.
00:49:15:07 - 00:49:42:19
Unknown
And then when you get to the top, you don't have to do all this extra work or, you know, disengage a device and put on an AC and then wrap. It's just a really fluid system to make sure you're feeling smooth out there. And ultimately, the convenience also gives you dividends in safety. Like it's like when you're anytime you're having to like, switch out a bunch of devices every single time and like, you could drop something.
00:49:42:20 - 00:50:23:11
Unknown
You could I mean, it's just more opportunities to mess up. And with soloing, there's nobody there to check your systems if something gets jammed up or like if you get stuck for some reason, it's like it's very much on you in order to be able to escape from it or troubleshoot it. So I usually like I'm pretty like weighed down with like I got like a tie block and like adjustable bases and like, I'm getting down like, no matter what, I got plenty of redundancy in my experience, if you have to wait your side of the rope, right?
00:50:23:13 - 00:51:04:09
Unknown
Yeah. In my in my the book that I read, it's like use a water bottle, you know, or someone like ties the extra rope and drops it down. Is that the same with this device? It has three in the test. You still have to wait your side of the rope to a certain extent, Yeah. And so depending on what I'm doing, I will either put the rope in a saddlebag if it's on like a multipage or just let it hang freely and like, hopefully the rope is enough so that it doesn't get pulled or I'll coil it and like, do a like, like a bowline finish with the free end on the standing so I
00:51:04:09 - 00:51:32:17
Unknown
can like adjust the height. But yeah, it's kind of like the same with ascending. Like you do have to have a little bit of weight on the end for like the rope to start sliding through efficiently and Nazis back up for the device or do you do trust it wholeheartedly? I use a secondary device. Yeah, I use I use this guy, which I settled on through trial and error.
00:51:32:17 - 00:52:02:01
Unknown
Also, it's climbing technology's role lock. It doesn't have teeth. It just has, like these ridges. Yeah, I like it because when you open it all the way, like the teeth are where it looks like a, like a 180 degree angle away from the rope. Whereas like a, like a micro traction is like kind of just like barely out of the way and can like clip the rope a little bit as you're repelling.
00:52:02:03 - 00:52:27:20
Unknown
And this is like a pulley in here, too. So the literally the only thing I have to do in order to repel is open this up and start repelling. And then when I'm ready to climb again, I can just close it and I'm ready to go. It's like an outdoor portable air. Yeah, it's it's essentially like the best closest you could get to an auto blade.
00:52:27:22 - 00:52:54:07
Unknown
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really useful way. And, you know, for anybody listening here, obviously, like, none of this is subject to, you know, actually going out and doing your own research and, you know, professional climbing advice. But ultimately, if you're struggling to find partners, you're working on projects, you're looking to just get out there and run endurance laps constantly and don't need to necessarily arrange someone to play.
00:52:54:09 - 00:53:14:22
Unknown
These are really, really great ways to get out and engage with the outdoors a whole bunch more. Or in the case of you know individuals such as ourselves, you know, I know after my fall and when I first started climbing again, being able to get on a rope solo device where I could go out on my own time, I could, you know, do things on my own.
00:53:14:22 - 00:53:34:20
Unknown
I could climb a roof and deal with the exposure and know if I fell, you know, I was on a static line, so I wasn't taking some big you know, there was no dynamic elongation in the rope, so I wouldn't have any of that feeling or the sensation of falling. So that really helped get me into more and more exposure to get back into climbing.
00:53:34:20 - 00:54:04:12
Unknown
So they're really, really useful tools. Yeah, Yeah. It's like I mean, it's kind of like saved that part of climbing that like, made me want to try really hard trade routes. Like without it, I don't think I would even be considering it anymore after the accident. But now head pointing is like something I do a lot. Describe head pointing for us.
00:54:04:14 - 00:54:35:10
Unknown
Head pointing? Well, it's a little it's a little silly because I think a lot of like really like upper echelon like super hard tread climbs are climbed on like if somebody were to go out to Cobra crack, they're not just going to like, try at ground up. They're like probably going to top rope it but like if you're like climbing 512, all of a sudden we call it head pointing because it's like it's an elitist thing, I think a little bit.
00:54:35:10 - 00:55:05:17
Unknown
But it like kind of describes it kind of like describes like the practice of trying something on top rope before leading it. But I think in like it used to actually mean like on the gritstone, you would dial it in like a rotary phone and then try and squeak one out at the end, which, which is not really what I do.
00:55:05:19 - 00:55:24:21
Unknown
I like to like, get out, like make sure like the the no fault zone is dialed up, but like, there's still you can you can keep it. You can keep it sporty if you want. You know, does that take it does that take away from the fun at all. Not for me. I don't like being in the no falls.
00:55:24:23 - 00:55:43:15
Unknown
Yeah, well, then I got you. I mean, not every not every, not every climb has to have an off no fall zone. But sure, if you're like head pointing a and you come, you climb it successfully on top rope and then you come back at it for a lead like, is there like a little bit of a lack of magic there at all?
00:55:43:17 - 00:56:15:05
Unknown
I would say, and this is just my experience. This is not like maybe what other people do with the tool. I'm not sure. I've climbed an entire route from the ground to the chains on top rope. So prior to trying it on lead, I've like done sections or like done crutches or like, Hey, this start is rated R sort of deal like I'm I'm going to do this like 40 times and then I'll try the crux because that's safe.
00:56:15:07 - 00:56:40:17
Unknown
It's just like it's not an all or nothing thing in my experience. Yeah, you leave leave portions of the climb or the on site, as it were. Yeah. I mean that's cool. I respect that. Yeah, well, that's just my personal approach. Like, I don't really like if somebody wants to climb at seven times prior to tie, and that's cool too, for sure.
00:56:40:17 - 00:56:59:13
Unknown
Yeah. There's no judgment here. I'm just. Yeah, I'm just curious. And in terms of your, your, your personal relationship with, with the craft and what it does for you. Sure. I mainly just use that early season. I'll go set something up within my ability. That's a nice climb where you have a good walk up to you and could just wrap in with a fix line.
00:56:59:13 - 00:57:17:15
Unknown
And then that way I can just, you know, if I go with a partner to the Crag, I might get six, seven, eight pitches in. Whereas this I can go climb 12, 14 pitches in a much shorter timeframe, you know, just going up and down, up and down, focusing on movement, getting out, touching real rock instead of plastic.
00:57:17:15 - 00:57:33:21
Unknown
And I found that to be a really useful tool. I haven't personally used it to actually kind of project like a harder climb or anything like that, working to the move. So but I definitely will want to in the future. Yeah, that's something I've neglected and I was like, Really glad you brought that up. I should do that more often.
00:57:33:21 - 00:57:51:20
Unknown
That's like another great use of it and like you want to get fit. It's like you don't have to worry about. Yeah, yeah. Climb till you find some boy like you crack that, you can just finger lock or whatever and just, you know, go have you have fun. It doesn't have to be at your limit or, you know, something really stressful.
00:57:51:20 - 00:58:09:20
Unknown
It's just to there is a difference. Engaging rock compared to plastic. You know, you can get the fitness in the gym and stuff, but some of the nuance of moving on rock and it's a little bit different. So, you know, how often do you get an audible A on like a cruise route That's really fun, but still bumpy, but that's actual rock.
00:58:09:23 - 00:58:43:19
Unknown
So that's pretty much what I've used it for, which I've enjoyed. So yeah, yeah. So when it comes to rock soloing, Colin, have you, have you progressed to ropes going into lead rope soloing out of curiosity? Yeah. So this spring I did my first trad multi pitch rope solo. I did Euphoria on the Sheepshead. It took me a super long time.
00:58:43:21 - 00:59:16:20
Unknown
It was like, was that 11 hours car to car? It was really long. It was like it was either because I'd been I've done some lead rope solos, a lot of sport routes, but like the systems, like the transitions are super important and like switching up the anchors and just like knowing like the little details that that change when you're going to continue going up past the one pitch.
00:59:16:22 - 00:59:58:09
Unknown
It was a bit of a learning curve, but I think I'm starting to wrap my head around it a little bit and I'm pretty excited about it for this fall. Lead role of soloing involves you taking the rope, and if you're starting from the ground, you would anchor it to some natural feature. I often use a tree with like a tree protector, or if there's a crack, you can put some Cam's in and it's got to be an upward pulling anchor because you are taking the rope up with you through a device that is going to catch you that's on your harness.
00:59:58:11 - 01:00:21:05
Unknown
And so as you are placing protection, the higher up you go, all of all of the you're like self-blame yourself and then you have to come down. You have to repel the whole thing. And then you have to either top rope solo it or a jug that pitch, you have to do it three times in order to get all your stuff back.
01:00:21:08 - 01:00:53:06
Unknown
Yeah, Yeah So climb rappel clean. Yeah. So if you're doing a 900 foot route, that means you climb 900 feet or climb 1800 feet, you rappel 900 feet or you jog 900 feet instead of the second 900 that you top rope. So so, yeah, assuming that you're super one person, you got to do you got to do both the work you got to do twice.
01:00:53:08 - 01:01:18:11
Unknown
Yeah. Don't even get me started on like doing any sort of filming for it too, which means that you have to do that way more like it's because you have to, like, go up and put the camera up like Andy Kirkpatrick has like a whole chapter in his his book, Me, Myself and I that's he talks about photography and how you like if you want to have an angle from above.
01:01:18:12 - 01:01:43:07
Unknown
If the climb up place the place the thing then like clean the whole route and then like climate again and come back down, you end up doing it like four times, I think four or five times, depending on what sort of angle you do. Sounds like you need a cameraman. Yeah, exactly. And so what was your appeal to get into lead rope soloing?
01:01:43:07 - 01:02:10:03
Unknown
Like what about it enticed you? And where do you see yourself taking this kind of interesting niche in climbing for yourself? I think it was just a like a further it it it's like a like a further like me furthering like the gear junkie side. It was like really attractive to me also because I think not a lot of people do it.
01:02:10:03 - 01:02:35:06
Unknown
I like doing climbs like weird things and climbing. I get tickled like I get tickled like knowing that, like this is the first whatever, arbitrary, like weird thing. And I like, I like doing things that people like it wouldn't occur to them to do. I just like, I like the idea of that a little bit. Just like in like it just tickles me a little bit.
01:02:35:08 - 01:03:01:17
Unknown
I think. And then this fall I want to do I want to link up three three, big long climbs and try and do them in a day. And so what I'm training for right now, I want to do Euphoria, Moby Dick, and what's my line in a day, which sounds like a pipe dream right now. It's a lot.
01:03:01:17 - 01:03:36:14
Unknown
It's a lot of climbing. It would end up being like over like 3000 feet, like when you do like the up and down part of it and like a bunch of hiking and yeah, it's there's still a lot of mystery involved with it but that's what. What do you view as your biggest obstacle to that goal and probably it's a really good question.
01:03:36:16 - 01:04:09:21
Unknown
Probably my feet I think my feet are going to be freaking killing me. Like all of these routes are like really low angle slab things and doing just one of them like I did Dick already and I've done euphoria already and my feet were killing me afterwards. It's just all just like a lot of slab stuff. And so I might just have to get confident enough on them to just like, do you some approach you climb in.
01:04:09:23 - 01:04:34:20
Unknown
We'll see. Probably not on euphoria if it's like feels a little like this starting pitch is like slick and like a little spooky. What what shoes are you wearing? Tsipras's Yeah, dude, I've had some bad luck with DC Prose, man. Every time I wear them, I'm like, is in but a pitch in fucking painful bro size in my face.
01:04:34:23 - 01:04:45:02
Unknown
I mean, this dude, I had to size him up even more after my injury. I think I'm wearing like a 46 right now. Oh, wow.
01:04:45:04 - 01:05:16:04
Unknown
But my recommendation for slab climbing is mythos. Gotcha. Yeah, dude. So if I have any recommendation for my my limited knowledge, put a pair of La Sportiva mythos on size them so they're not crazy tight, but not too much gap. So they slip you know obviously size I'm appropriately give them a little room for stretch and you can wear them all day on whatever terrain and they'll never hurt you could even like hike down in them and you'd be fine.
01:05:16:06 - 01:05:34:07
Unknown
The only thing that you can't do in them is climb technical terrain. So if you're like trying to get into like the 511 face, you just don't have the edging capabilities with them that you do with other shoes. But for everything else, they are just I have two pairs. They're amazing. That's a classic shoe. I've been around for a long time.
01:05:34:09 - 01:06:12:01
Unknown
Yeah, I do see a lot of people wearing those on on big, big long adventure outs. So that ends up being the crux for me. My feet. Then maybe I'll have to give those a try. But yeah, that's exciting. Mean that's a huge that's a lot of climbing to do unsupported completely solo. You had alluded to the the dream or at least the vision of of capturing yourself climbing these routes like do you have a vision for putting together some sort of story visually for this, this task you have in front of you?
01:06:12:02 - 01:06:41:10
Unknown
Yeah, I think a part of me does, and a part of me doesn't. So I always like feel self like there's definitely a huge part of me that's like self-conscious with like sharing things and like, I don't want to like, spray about things that nobody necessarily cares about. Maybe it's just me that cares about them. So, like, I have a little a lot of self-consciousness with that, but I still like, do it a little bit.
01:06:41:10 - 01:07:03:12
Unknown
But yeah, I've definitely been toying around the idea of it, but that's not fully fledged yet. As a as a person that does it for a living, I recommend you to film whatever you can and and make a story out of it. Yeah, I think that it's all about how it's presented. It doesn't even really matter what the subject matter is.
01:07:03:12 - 01:07:24:10
Unknown
Obviously, the subject matter needs to have some sort of heart to it. But if you're, you know, 3000 feet of vertical feet climbing, solo, unsupported, I think that's a sellable story. And it's all it's an awesome role. That's a that's a really cool thing to film. It's just a complicated project for sure. But that would be really awesome.
01:07:24:12 - 01:07:50:22
Unknown
You have a silent partner, right? Call. And I think we spoke about this, you know, private, is that correct? Yeah, I got I got the silent partner. I don't I haven't heard like there's I don't know much about LiDAR rope swallowing devices if I'm going to be honest. Like I think that like, people use modified Gregorys and like, there's some other products that people use.
01:07:50:22 - 01:08:28:14
Unknown
I think some people use the tars, but I don't know, it just makes me way more nervous to be fallen on lead with something that's not like that. Silent partner is like made for that. Like I've I've fallen on lead with it. It catches the only system I've ever met with very rudimentary is an inverted Gregory and a and a Petzel a sap And then you have yeah a micro traction at the back to like take in the slack of the rope so it's not pulling the device oddly so it feeds and it seems pretty secure.
01:08:28:16 - 01:08:52:14
Unknown
It's really funky. That's an expensive setup. You know, if I could have gotten my hands on a, a the name flanking me, the device you have, I would definitely be a silent partner. But they are not in production. Yes, I'm a partner. They're not in production anymore. And you know I've seen people selling them for 1200 bucks. So I was like, Yeah, that's out.
01:08:52:16 - 01:09:19:18
Unknown
Yeah, Yeah. What did you get yours for? I got mine for like 500. It was a, it was a while back. It was a while while back. Wow. It's actually appreciated in value. Let me see this thing and it's really bizarre. I'm wondering if anybody is listening and they know A, why is a silent partner not in production anymore given it has such a high demand and its resale value is so high?
01:09:19:20 - 01:09:42:18
Unknown
I just don't understand that, You know, if you can sell that for 1200 bucks, why is the company that owns the pad and or can make it just not going, okay, let's just make more of these. I really I'd be curious to to have that answered for me. That'd be great. I have a theory that rock exotica did not want the risk of selling a lead rope soloing device anymore.
01:09:42:23 - 01:10:07:23
Unknown
Well, okay. So I thought of that initially, and then I immediately backtracked in my own brain because I think that could lead rope soloing. Yes, It's like this weird, esoteric thing, but so is lead climbing. I don't know. Like, to me it's the same and agree. Agree is the same, you know, more or less the same purpose as the silent partner as is a micro traction, as is a t block.
01:10:07:23 - 01:10:28:03
Unknown
Like all these things have this like inherent risk like just thrown all over the disclaimers everywhere. Like if you die, you can't sue us. So to me, I wonder, like, I don't know if that was the that would be the reason, because there are so many legalities like blanket legality protection from them to be like, Look, can't sue us.
01:10:28:03 - 01:10:59:16
Unknown
She killed herself. I'm sorry. Like, that sucks, but we're protected. I wonder if it was even profitable for them to sell though. It's like manufacture it. And so. Yeah, because like what? It's less than 1% of people try lead rope soloing. Like less than 1% will ever try it. So I think you're on to something because yeah, people like money so yeah usually if something's making money, people in their infinite wisdom, they're like, Hey, this is a thing.
01:10:59:18 - 01:11:20:04
Unknown
Let's make some money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It isn't. I mean, on a tangent here, it is impressive how abundant tried climbing gear is. Now. I think that, like, I forget what the poll was, but like, you've got the wide spectrum of climbers, you've got Jim climbers, you've got boulders, you've got sport climbers, and then you've got tri climbers, then you've got alpine climbers.
01:11:20:10 - 01:11:42:23
Unknown
Like every time you go up into these tiers, you get smaller and smaller people that actually do the sport. And the fact that these businesses I mean, I don't know how lucrative they really are, but the fact that you can go around and buy camps So commercially, these is pretty impressive. It's pretty impressive. And it just speaks to how many people are out there, just like throw in $1,000 on the table on their credit card to buy their first rack.
01:11:42:23 - 01:12:03:04
Unknown
You know, it's just like it's it's it's interesting. There's a lot of people out there that are having access to this sport now. Yeah. Like Jerry Moffett had to like, take a projector screen to, like, file the camming angle for one of his friends to make a custom cam back when he was trying it or like going to onsite equinox.
01:12:03:04 - 01:12:27:16
Unknown
And now it's like, that's not like, Yeah, million. Where was that? How's that? How many years ago was that? Like 80, 60 years in the seventies? It was in the eighties or 50 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's the sport of climbing has changed so much, so fast growing very, very. Here we are. Mm hmm. Max, do you have anything else?
01:12:27:16 - 01:12:51:15
Unknown
We're kind of, like, coming to the the sweet spot in terms of our our time for episodes. No, I think that was really awesome. I think that was engaging. I think the last thing that I'd be kind of curious at is you talked about, you know, these three routes you're looking at getting into, you know, what else is in store for you in the future of climbing and you know, what's motivating and inspiring you in climbing right now?
01:12:51:17 - 01:13:28:16
Unknown
Oh my. So yeah, that big that big link up is something that I'm interested in. I had been trying some some harder redpoint stuff around Mt. Lemmon until my shoulder was given me some troubles. About a month ago. I'd like to go continue working on that. Uh redpoint project. I like to do a couple more walls to. About a year ago, I did Touchstone, and it'd be it'd be cool to do a couple more of those.
01:13:28:17 - 01:13:52:09
Unknown
I had. I got a lot out of setting up the, the, the wall bivouac, so it's pretty cool. Yeah. Let's say. Do you have any long term aspiration? Like, is there something in the world that's just maybe you don't even think you'd be able to do it, but it'd be interesting. It are really cool if one day you could that inspires.
01:13:52:11 - 01:14:20:14
Unknown
I would like to climb 513 tread. I think that would be super cool. Well, I'm not sure if I'm even remotely close to it at this point, but it's just kind of been in the back of my mind and just do more, do more free climbing like on Big Tall faces. Like maybe go to like the Eastern Sierra and do Incredible Hulk like and like Yes.
01:14:20:15 - 01:14:41:11
Unknown
Yeah. Not be like branch freeing but like doing things that are in my pay grade but like 4000 feet. You know, if you if you ever want a partner for the red Nike drill or for positive vibrations hit me up man I live in Vegas. It's like those are two on my huge tick list. I don't have the balls to go after positive vibrations right now?
01:14:41:11 - 01:15:04:01
Unknown
So if you're feeling like a like a rope gun, he's so psyched to follow you up that and maybe take a picture, too. Yeah. Yeah, that would be super cool. I would would love to do either one of those routes, though. All that. Funny enough, just before just before this conversation I was watching, there's a YouTube video with Peter Croft, and I forget the female climber.
01:15:04:01 - 01:15:23:18
Unknown
Sorry, My apologies, but really amazing video on YouTube of Peter Croft climbing. I think it's a root. He got first descent on, I believe, on The Incredible Hulk. And it's just this beautiful video of them both climbing this together. And it's I just love it so much. I've watched it like 20 times. So Anybody else sitting up there wants to go look at The Incredible Hulk.
01:15:23:18 - 01:15:57:22
Unknown
It's a great video for that. It's a what? A beautiful piece of rock. Well, yeah. Colin, thanks so much for sharing, man. Those are some pretty some pretty awesome goals. I'm happy we got that that 13 a goal of yours you know publicly here. I think it's a good thing Do lots of people have these kind of goals that they they're very they're very timid about and you know some of them, as I was listening to today, said kind of part of the reason for that is, you know, once you put it out there, there's that public admission of, you know, of like putting skin in the game and failure.
01:15:57:22 - 01:16:22:20
Unknown
It's something that you now can can fail on or not succeed, if that's right. You know, and there's lots of things I'd like to do in climbing that I kind of have this internal voice going, Oh, you could never do that, or You'll never do that. But it's not really true. You know, if I if I put my mind to it and actually dedicate myself over, you know, a longer term trajectory, which I plan on being climbing for a long time, there's there's a lot of things I could accomplish.
01:16:22:20 - 01:16:46:07
Unknown
And I think that's important to remind ourselves in the audience that, you know, if we if we want to work hard and try things, you know, you can accomplish some pretty cool things. I think a lot of climbing is the process of failing and then finally doing it once, you know, like especially like when you get to your limit, like people are trying things hundreds of times.
01:16:46:09 - 01:17:10:16
Unknown
Like I've never tried anything a hundred times, not in climbing like, but what, what? Like what if I tried something three times like that might be cool. Like, how far could I go? Totally. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. Yeah. They also say, like, you know, set your dreams to be unachievable so that when you come short, you do the unacceptable.
01:17:10:16 - 01:17:23:22
Unknown
Or you do the exceptional. Yeah. Like set them so high so that chasing them puts you above the rest.