50 | Climbing The Fishhook Arete on Mt. Russell w/ Kyle Broxterman

Welcome back everyone! We are about 1.5 years into this podcast and you are currently listening to our 50th episode and are rapidly approaching 30k all time downloads and just wanted to say thank you for being a part of this growing community, Max and I are beyond pumped that your here, and are excited to keep sharing stories of climbers around the world. 

Today’s conversation is about my recent successful summit of Mt Russell via the Fishhook Arete in the Eastern Sierra in California. While, thankfully, nothing dramatic occurred, we talk about the new permit logistics found for the Whitney Portal area, the complications of professionally documenting a high alpine ascent, the benefits of radios in the alpine, and finally the play by play of our climb…which included a single nut rappel made after a route finding error.

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Transcript

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.

00:00:26:03 - 00:00:33:21
Unknown
Everyone, please like subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to support the show.

00:00:35:14 - 00:00:44:13
Unknown
Welcome back, everybody. Just a quick announcement. We are currently 1.5 years into this podcast and you are currently listening to our 50th episode.

00:00:44:13 - 00:00:58:04
Unknown
We are rapidly approaching 30,000 all time downloads. And just wanted to say thank you for being a part of this growing community. Max and I are beyond pumped that you're here and are excited to keep sharing stories of climbers around the world.

00:00:58:06 - 00:01:28:09
Unknown
Today's conversation is about my recent successful summit of Mount Russell below the official caret in the eastern Sierra in California. Well, thankfully, nothing dramatic occurred. We talk about the new permit logistics for the Whitney portal area, the complications of professional documenting high alpine ascent, the benefits of radios in the Alpine, and finally, the play by play of our Climb, which included a single nut repel made after a critical route finding error.

00:01:41:15 - 00:02:04:07
Unknown
But yeah, man, I mean, we're back. We're here. Sit down chatting. And, you know, I think we kind of talked about this previously. Like, it's great that we can just go on our own adventures and then talk about our own adventures. So I'm super stoked to be sitting here talking with you and to get to know a little bit more about your most recent adventure on The Fishhook A out of Mount Russell.

00:02:04:09 - 00:02:22:10
Unknown
So, yeah. How you doing, man? Yeah, Good man. Yeah. No, definitely psyched. You know, we definitely talked about it before. Is, uh, you know, when we started this podcast, we were broken, and you know that Instagram post you made recently, it's sharing that picture of you in a hospital bed. Yeah, I was like, It took me right back to when I first.

00:02:22:10 - 00:02:43:15
Unknown
It was the first picture I ever saw of you, you know? Yeah. Like, Hey, man, you know, I broke my ankles, too, and you sent me that picture. Um, and, yeah, just brought me back. But yeah, we've been, you know, it's been almost two years now, and, uh, well, I'm a little bit over two years, I guess. And, yeah, just kind of took us out of the game and, you know, we were focused on everybody else's adventures and now we're able to, you know, add them to the mix.

00:02:43:15 - 00:03:04:01
Unknown
So I, I agree with that sentiment. Sentiment. It's really it's really awesome. So I'm psyched to be here. But yeah. Russell Yeah, it's been a let's see, where did I start thinking about Russell? Um, I climb the east buttress of Witney. I think it was three or four years ago with my buddy Josh. And then after that, you know, we did Dark Star on Temple Crag.

00:03:04:01 - 00:03:37:14
Unknown
We climb some stuff in the Tetons. I've climbed Capital Peak in Colorado, so I've got a few of these kind of like rock climbing Alpine mountains. Probably a horrible way to say it. Just rock, climbs up mountains, no snow, you know, just trad gear, really adventurous multipage climbs, no bolted anchors and stuff and really was awesome. And, you know, Russell was kind of the next step, at least in the eastern Sierra for me, because it's a little bit further back than Witney, a bit more committing and just, uh, yeah, had my eyes on it, you know, for, for a couple of years now.

00:03:37:16 - 00:03:55:20
Unknown
Yeah. I mean I, I've never personally climbed anything in the Sierras and you know, even just looking at some photos right now, the rock is so beautiful, like the quality of it looks amazing. Also, I think you guys are a little spoiled because, I don't know, maybe these photos did show it, but you're the approach is really nice.

00:03:55:20 - 00:04:16:23
Unknown
You know, you're not bushwhacking through creeks or anything. It's just this, like, stellar, beautiful looking mountain that you seem to be approaching. Yeah. Is like was the approach harness like is a doing it just as Yeah no you got it right on the money there it's I mean the Whitney portal area itself receives I think receives the summit of Whitney.

00:04:16:23 - 00:04:35:19
Unknown
I think sees 10,000 people a year, which isn't that much when you really think about it. But yeah, there's really well-established trails to get everywhere. There's just like a tiny bit of bushwhacking. Ever since the the hurricane came through, there's like some crazy debris fields and stuff. But outside of that, it's this so much traffic that there's not a lot of bushwhacking involved.

00:04:35:19 - 00:05:02:14
Unknown
So we definitely have it have it crispy. But Josh and I were actually joking about it is you know, he just got back from the Matterhorn. We just interviewed him. And you know, he's talking about taking gondolas to the bases of routes and stuff like that. And just like a striking juxtaposition between hiking four miles and, you know, 5000 vertical feet versus, you know, chugging a beer when you get back from the climb after taking a gondola down 10,000 feet to the base.

00:05:02:14 - 00:05:20:21
Unknown
You know, that sounds pretty nice. Yeah, that's that's spoiled. And awesome, you know, and I don't I don't think anything snobby of it. Like I if there's a gondola, take it. That is awesome. It gives you amazing access. It's really cool. But yeah, you know, like what you were pointing out at the beginning from that that, that reason you know post where you know Yeah.

00:05:20:21 - 00:05:42:08
Unknown
Like was bringing you back to the accident and stuff. It is really crazy just how, how much I feel like we've experienced together and gone through from this injury and I know for myself this year I've set this goal like I you know, I've never really, like just solely tried to focus on rock climbing. So I want to try and climb like a 12 sport route this year.

00:05:42:08 - 00:06:05:00
Unknown
That's a goal of mine, you know. And so I've been trying to rock climb a lot. And this summer, you know, coming off of a season of not really training rock, I kind of just threw myself into rock without preparation. And I found that, you know, clearly I hadn't just moved past the trauma. I had experience from my fall, both physically and psychologically.

00:06:05:05 - 00:06:31:11
Unknown
And I never really got into a groove. This season, I climb some really hard things for me. Subjectively. I had a great season, an amazing time going out, but I could never feel good on the rock or get in a flow state. Even lots of times I'd have this kind of visceral, like sympathy stick nervous system stimulation while climbing where I'd be super jacked up and I'd have flashbacks of me falling and dying.

00:06:31:11 - 00:06:48:10
Unknown
And so I never, I don't know, I just never got into the mental state I want to do climbing this season. And so I'm really hoping to try and work through some of that, you know, that kind of trauma and, and, and for my own goals, get back on track. But I'm, you know, I'm wondering like, like, how are you doing, man?

00:06:48:10 - 00:07:08:11
Unknown
You know, how how did you approach this climb? How were you like getting into that? Yeah, like, like what was that like for you? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, you bring that up, especially your personal, you know, perspective on just that visceral fear and the flashbacks and stuff. Cause I didn't, I didn't experience that getting back into climbing.

00:07:08:13 - 00:07:31:03
Unknown
Um, for me, a lot of the effects it had on me were like when I wasn't climbing, um, motivation on a day to day basis, just getting run down by the, by the fact that walking around sucks and hurts in the morning and I've got to do it all the time and it's just like taking a piece out of kind of who I am physically.

00:07:31:03 - 00:07:53:07
Unknown
And so that part of has affected me a lot more than like being on lead and having panic attacks. I don't know if it's like something, you know. Honnold The in my brain, but I definitely I don't have like a fear response here when I do. I just now must Yeah, I don't I don't I don't know what it is like.

00:07:53:08 - 00:08:13:13
Unknown
It's been a little bit of a superpower because I'm able to just focus on the task at hand. And I mean, I get scared, but I have to get into a really, really bad situation where I'm like, run out on gear and I know the gear is bad and like, I'm coming off the wall. I'm like, you know, the fear is impending and I know that something bad can happen.

00:08:13:13 - 00:08:35:07
Unknown
That's when the fear strikes. But I have I guess I have a pretty well like a pretty well-established connection with, like my body and my movement on rock. And so I feel in control. I feel very in control on the grades that I'm climbing because I'm climbing well within my my abilities. So that fear aspect, while I'm on lead or climbing hasn't really gotten has it?

00:08:35:07 - 00:08:54:22
Unknown
Hasn't approached me yet. That being said, you know, I have been climbing, like I said, well, within my grades, I'm taking it slow. I'm climbing 5/8, five nines. You know, I haven't even really gotten into the 510 range, so I'm just trying to take it slow. I just I can't take a second beating on my ankle, so. Yeah, totally.

00:08:55:00 - 00:09:20:15
Unknown
Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, basically surrounding this trip specifically and my ankle, honestly, it wasn't the climb that I was really worried about. It was more the approach and the descent. It's like, you know, it's a5i think it's a five mile approach. And there's, you know, five or 6000 vert from the car. And then, you know, get up above 14,000 feet and then you got to get back down to your ten and 11, 11,200 all in a day.

00:09:20:17 - 00:09:41:08
Unknown
And so that part I was really concerned about. I was like, you know, am I going to get to the base of the climb and not be able to stand on my foot? Or am I going to get to the summit and then not be able to walk on it to get off the mountain? You know? So those are the big looming questions for me on the longevity of, you know, the physical structure of my ankle and whether or not that was going to play a factor in the objective.

00:09:41:10 - 00:10:02:13
Unknown
Yeah, really, really interesting, man. I, I totally get that with the ankle, kind of like seizing up. You know, I recently did this thing called the armchair drivers kind of do it, like every year, but the group we were with really amazing group of people. But normally I'm kind of more get the job done, less breaks. You know, it was more social, which is good.

00:10:02:13 - 00:10:25:18
Unknown
I'm not knocking it. But for me, every time I stop and take 1015 minutes, my ankle starts to stiffen up. So then like the next ten, 15 minutes that I'm walking, it's just really stiff and painful. So every break, it's great. This is a nice thing to socialize, but for me it's just like, I don't know, man. This is just going to be hurting more and more and more.

00:10:25:18 - 00:10:52:07
Unknown
And it's a long day. So I definitely understand that with the ankle stiffness and stuff, have you ever I got a prescription for Celecoxib. It's like a really strong, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, and I don't use it all the time. You know? Eric for training, for climbing to some great podcasts on, you know, the effects of certain, you know, anti-inflammatories or things on ligaments.

00:10:52:12 - 00:11:14:03
Unknown
So essentially for laying down college and, and restructuring and remodeling and having healthy soft tissue taking a lot of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory is bad for that. But, you know, that doesn't mean like if you're at a pinch or a really bad situation sometimes it really good to have. And celecoxib is essentially it's like a prescription think of like Advil, but you need a prescription to get it.

00:11:14:03 - 00:11:30:02
Unknown
It's just way stronger and lasts like 14 hours. So if you're ever in the mountains in a pinch and your ankle seizes up or something like that, that's pretty good thing to have in your back pocket. I think even just in the med kit, you know, if something happened, you have to walk out and it's really hard. You know, it's it's a useful tool to have.

00:11:30:02 - 00:11:55:08
Unknown
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, that's probably good. Instead of just like, you know, risking it with no back like Gollum by crawling over, like, shale fields. Yeah. The funny thing is, is like, when my ankle gets stiff like that, it's not swollen. Like, there's no visible swelling. It's like, I don't know what it is. It's almost it feels like my tendons still want to, like, seize up and tighten.

00:11:55:10 - 00:12:13:07
Unknown
And like, I constantly have to tell them like, No, it's okay, guys. Like, you can stretch. You can be, you know, active, you know, after I put you through some stimulation, you don't have to, like, retreat back into your, you know, constricted state. Yeah. So it's just a constant battle. And, you know, if I push too far, I've got like a week and a half where it's going to suck.

00:12:13:07 - 00:12:28:20
Unknown
But the one thing that I've noticed, which is cool is even on days where I push it too far and I have to suffer for a week and a half after I recover from that, I come out the other side stronger than I was before. And so there is some recovery there, which is, which is nice and motivating.

00:12:28:22 - 00:12:52:08
Unknown
Yeah, that's it's really interesting, actually. I was just learning about this thing recently. It's called Davis Law and it's essentially to do a soft tissue. But essentially it's kind of what you'd think if you don't stretch and use soft tissue, it shortens and gets tighter. Right? So it's like there's a direct relation as you get this injury, you're not as mobile in the joint and that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy where that makes it less and less mobile over time.

00:12:52:10 - 00:13:14:10
Unknown
And actually, after our conversation with Jack, I kind of started looking into these overtones a little bit more, and I've been doing some of his exercises and they're really they've been really helpful actually with getting my joint mobility and moving it around and stuff. So I definitely say check them out. I really hadn't looked into them and it's nothing crazy complex.

00:13:14:10 - 00:13:33:20
Unknown
You know, he has like 2010 and he says, I've only looked into a couple of them, but some of them are really good exercises for loading and just like moving the ankle around and getting that mobility. So hoping to stick with that and, you know, have that going and you know, anybody listening, you got some some knees or ankle problems, go check out knees over toes and, you know, give us some of his protocols.

00:13:33:20 - 00:14:02:18
Unknown
A shot. We should get him on the bike. Yeah, we totally should. We should be the great he just case steady. Yes. You know, it's like, okay, I'm just going to do. Exactly. You're fucked. Your foot. Yeah, that's my professional opinion. Oh, man. Yeah. I was, like, thinking about. I don't know if I was talking with you about this, but early on I remember reading about my injury in the calcaneus, you know, and obviously it's like everyone's like, you're fucked, you know, I'm fucked.

00:14:02:18 - 00:14:24:02
Unknown
You know, it's like everything's fucked and you're just like, Goddamn, my life is going to be screwed up for the longest time. And one of the major comments I read, it was like, it's been six years and there's not a day that I go where I'm not reminded that I broke my calcaneus. And I like. When I first read that, I was like, Oh my God, fuck like I am.

00:14:24:04 - 00:14:43:15
Unknown
That's it. You know, like it's doom and gloom that that's the worst thing I've ever heard. And it's funny, like, you know, it's been two years and that statement's true. It is. I wake up every day and I know that I broke my calcaneus like, Yeah, for sure. But that doesn't mean you can't, you know, go climb it.

00:14:43:15 - 00:14:58:22
Unknown
Cause I mean, you can't be active. It doesn't mean that you can't live an active life. You know, there is a life to be had. It's going to be different, you know, It's not going to be the same. You're not going to be the same person. You're not going to move in the mountains. The same. Exactly the same.

00:14:58:22 - 00:15:16:20
Unknown
But you will still be able to accomplish, you know, goals. You'll still be able to be an active person. And I think that that's just, you know, for anybody listening, that's, you know, either going through an injury or still fresh or has someone going through like, you know, there is something at the end of the tunnel, you know, it is important to know that it will not be the same.

00:15:16:23 - 00:15:47:22
Unknown
You will not be the same person. But there is there is something else on the other side that's still worth living for. So, yeah, absolute, absolute bleh. I mean, and I think there's obviously levels to injuries, you know, and I don't want to diminish like sometimes you need to feel bad and you need to accept your suffering, but there's also, you know, way, way worse outcomes that people have and they do amazing things, you know, like how even Joshua ratas, you know, Joshua climbing and stuff like that, hats off to that guy.

00:15:47:22 - 00:16:22:15
Unknown
It's unbelievable to have that kind of tenacity and that go mentality after the accident he had. But the point is like that doesn't diminish the suffering that you and I are going through. And hindsight's 2020. You know, obviously, I wish my accident didn't happen, but it's just like you said, you know, if you if you just take it one day at a time, you're proactive and you still have these goals and aspirations and you want to work hard for them, you can still do a lot of really amazing, awesome things, you know, And and that's not to discredit that and and I think sometimes to like yeah like looking at the totality of something like,

00:16:22:15 - 00:16:46:07
Unknown
oh, what's this going to be like in 30 years or be like or Oh, this is too much pain in a week. You just break it down like two a day time frame. Every day I can wake up and feel good enough to get myself moving, to go exercise, to go climb, to hang out with my friends, my family, you know, like and and that's pretty amazing, you know, and, and and it is kind of one of those things like, you know, Quintus said motion is lotion.

00:16:46:11 - 00:17:05:14
Unknown
You know, you lose it, you don't use it, you lose it. There's all these kind of like, you know, sayings. And it's really true. The more I use my ankle, the more functional it is, the better it is. It's like so counterintuitive. And ironically, one of the things that hurts it the least is climbing. Like, you know what?

00:17:05:14 - 00:17:25:06
Unknown
I'm actually climbing on the wall and stretching it. It feels great. It's almost like some cruel irony. You're like, you know, it's going to be really great for your broken ankle that you broke. Climbing is going climbing on it for some bizarre reason. It's just kind of like it feels better. I contract all the small intrinsic muscles of my foot and yeah, it's it's it's bizarre.

00:17:25:06 - 00:17:48:20
Unknown
Yeah, it's definitely comical for sure, though, man. But yeah, man let's, let's like, let's here, let's hear about this climb like this. This is this really beautiful climb. You know, like, why don't you take, you know, take us me, the audience through like, what's, what's it like? What's the approach? Like, you know, like start from the start, from the beginning for sure.

00:17:48:20 - 00:18:10:05
Unknown
Man. Yeah. So I climb this with my buddy Josh. He was on the show recently who summited the Matterhorn. We've been climbing partners for several years, and, you know, it's the first time that we had climbed together on an objective like this since my accident. So pretty big, you know, Cool thing there to link back up with the with an old team member who, you know, I've spent most of my climbing career with.

00:18:10:05 - 00:18:36:16
Unknown
So that was awesome. And yeah, this is the first time getting back out into the eastern Sierra as well. And the biggest, you know, biggest objective I've done since my accident as well. So a lot of cool stuff on that route. The, the objective was the mythology drill on Mount Russell. Mount Russell is a 14,088 or 14,088 beat foot tall, 14,088 foot tall.

00:18:36:18 - 00:19:04:07
Unknown
That sounds so weird. I just want to say that 14,088 But the tall. I'm going to cut all this three feet. No, leave it in. It's good, bad. It's definitely feet. You know, hobbit feet. You got two feet. 14,088 feet tall. Yeah. Granite Mountain in the eastern Sierra. Just just west of Lone Pine. The route itself is a ten A and it's a 500 foot corner.

00:19:04:09 - 00:19:24:16
Unknown
And it just is so ascetic. You're out in the middle of nowhere, you know, five miles into the into the wilderness above the tree line. There's still snow out there, pretty surprisingly. You know, in late September. And so, yeah, we're really we're really psyched on it. And another thing that we kind of added to, you know, this whole objective was to document the whole thing.

00:19:24:18 - 00:19:48:10
Unknown
You know, I'm a I'm a filmmaker on my professional time. And, you know, this is the first time I've ever gone out and, you know, filmed a large objective like this, at least, you know, in terms of a documentary style of ourselves, I would really like to film something where I'm, you know, doing somebody else. But, um, yeah, so we had brought a camera gear, we brought a drone, we brought all these things, you know, to add to our pack.

00:19:48:10 - 00:20:07:05
Unknown
So, um, we get to the Whitney, you know, actually we get to Alabama Hills, and so, so the permit system. So the Whitney portal is a permit system. And so at the beginning of the year, they issue a bunch of permits and it's a lottery. And so you, you know, pick your days and you either get them or you don't.

00:20:07:07 - 00:20:27:05
Unknown
And there's a wait list. But in the past, there was a certain amount that were reserved for each day. And so, you know, for those of us who have a life and can't, you know, plan a climb eight months in advance. Yeah. Especially with weather, you know, you know, I kind of plan a climb, eight minute advance. I mean, you don't know the weather.

00:20:27:07 - 00:20:43:23
Unknown
You just show up to the ranger station the day before or the morning of and you're like, Hey, are there any permits? And usually it's a yes, you get them. You go like, I've done that multiple times up at the Whitney portal area. So that was our plan. So, you know, we show up to Lone Pine, you know, we sleep the night before, get a couple of sport pitches in.

00:20:43:23 - 00:21:10:08
Unknown
We wake up, we go climb the sharks. Then I got to talk about this real quick. So there's this route called the there's this rock formation at the base of the mountain in this area called Alabama Hills. And it's this granite bin. It's called the in. And there's a sport route that goes up the right. It's not hard, but it's positioned in a way where in the background, you can see Mount Whitney and Lone Pine Mountain in the background like and it perfectly frames it.

00:21:10:10 - 00:21:29:20
Unknown
And so we woke up before sunrise and both climbed the shark fin and through through the drone up in the camera's up and got some incredible footage of us standing on top of that mountain or that that rock. It's really, really amazing. We'll put a video up so you guys can see it. It's remarkable. So definitely was a really cool moment.

00:21:29:22 - 00:21:52:00
Unknown
So back to the story. We go to the ranger station, you know, feeling all pumped up. You know, we just got our McDonald's filling as well, filled up and ready go pre Alpine McDonald's, Alpine, McDonald's for sure. So we get to the ranger station, you know, 30 minutes early because, you know, sometimes there's a line and we get out in the front and this lady comes out and she's like, Are you guys waiting for permits?

00:21:52:00 - 00:22:06:23
Unknown
I'm like, Yeah, so you can just do it on line. And I'm like, Fuck what? I was like, If you can do it online and they're already gone, you know, like if it's at, at a midnight thing, like they're gone, like we're fucked. So I started to kind of panic and I was like, Well, what the hell are we going to do?

00:22:07:00 - 00:22:27:04
Unknown
And so I kind of wait out a little bit longer. I'm like, I want to wait. I want to go talk to somebody else inside because maybe this girl doesn't know what she's talking about. So I go inside and I start talking to the other Ranger stations are the Ranger guys, and I love the people who support the national Forest and who work to keep our places clean and everything and organized and structured.

00:22:27:06 - 00:22:47:00
Unknown
But at least for a climber, these guys didn't know what the hell they were talking about. They didn't know what permit was for, what they didn't know, like what permits we needed to get to where we needed to go. They almost sounded like we needed two different permits. And so there's like a Whitney Day use permit, there's a North Fork permit and a South Fork permit.

00:22:47:00 - 00:23:05:02
Unknown
And so they were trying to tell us we needed the North Fork permit and the day use permit. So a lot of confusion there. And they basically said, you know, you can go online and and look for a permit. Basically what they do now. And so for everybody trying to go up into the Whitney Portland area and do the tactic that we used to do is you can't just show up in the morning anymore.

00:23:05:02 - 00:23:28:04
Unknown
What you have to do is you got to go online the day of at 11 a.m., they start to manually go through and enter the unclaimed permits into the site. And so you got to refresh the page after 11:00, like every fucking minute as they start to populate and then to see, you know, which ones are available. And so we're you know, we go back, we're a bit discouraged, you know, a little bit worried.

00:23:28:04 - 00:23:46:18
Unknown
We go back to my buddy's climbing shop, just, you know, shooting the shit, talking about everything. And so 11, 11:00 hits and I start refreshing the page of the permits and nothing happens. Nothing happens. And then about 1105 rolls around and, you know, eight day use permits pop up. And I'm like, okay, that's a good sign, you know, But we're trying to go for overnight.

00:23:46:20 - 00:24:05:17
Unknown
And so, you know, what are we supposed to do? And I'm waiting for the North Fork overnight permits to pop up and wait. And it's 1115. Still nothing. And I'm like, Wall, you know, we're fucked. Like, we can't be, you know, legally, according to the permit system, we're not allowed up there. But the coolest guy came and sat down next to me named Miles.

00:24:05:19 - 00:24:27:12
Unknown
He was a good friend of Josh. He just got off a his project in a like grade 412, a granite trad climb or trad mixed climb. So bolts and trad, and he's bolting it ground up with hand like a hand. I think he's drilling. Yeah. He might even be using a hand tool. I'm not even sure it goes mega.

00:24:27:12 - 00:24:45:18
Unknown
Yeah. Like, you know, Mega. Honestly, Josh and I were convinced that he was world Robbins son for. Well, he had, like, the same eyes. Like, I don't even know if that's possible, but we were convinced this guy's a super like, a crazy center. He's going to be on the podcast. We're going to get him on the show. He's in the middle of setting up yet another route on that same wall.

00:24:45:18 - 00:25:03:16
Unknown
That's like taking him multiple days to get up. He's sleeping on a portal edge. Like crazy is super stoked this time. Yeah. Anyways, so we're like, we're like, well, what do we do? You know? And you know, these guys live out there and so they're like, you know, they go back there all the time without permits and stuff and they know all the rangers and stuff.

00:25:03:16 - 00:25:16:15
Unknown
So Miles is just like, you know, we talked to him for a little bit. You know, I already invited him on the show. And so he's kind of psyched and he's just like, let me let me make a call. So he just calls and he's like, Hey, what's up, Steve? Like, is are there going to be any Rangers on North Fork, you know, today or tomorrow?

00:25:16:15 - 00:25:31:01
Unknown
And he's like, Yeah, okay, so like what permit, you know? And so he's like, All right, you guys are good. And he's like, you should like, just get the Whitney The Whitney day pass permit, you know, the one that's only supposed to be for the day and then just go up the North Fork. There's not going to be any Rangers there.

00:25:31:01 - 00:25:56:07
Unknown
And I was like, All right, that is the kind of information I need inside information. Yeah. Yeah. So he you know, my priest, Miles, he he really made an awesome situation out of that. And it just goes to show who you know, you know, I talked about, you know, I guess for people that might not know what Miles going into the situation, that being a situation where where I'm at, where there's not a permit, it's good to know the risks.

00:25:56:07 - 00:26:24:03
Unknown
So and good to know information about this. So there's two forks. There's the south of the north. Norfolk takes you to the climb. Southport takes you on the hiking trail to the top. You need an overnight North Fork permit if you're going to be in the North Fork Wilderness area overnight, there's only a limited amount. And so if you don't have them, if you go anyway and you run into a Ranger, they're going to turn you around, They're going to find you, but they're going to turn you around and make you go the other direction and you're going to have wasted your time.

00:26:24:05 - 00:26:40:20
Unknown
So that is the risk. Basically, you know, you risk getting turned around. You could get a Whitney Day pass and try to, you know, save your skin a little bit and be like, oh, I'm here for the day. But if you're like, if you got sleeping bags and shit on your bag, it's not you know, it's going to be pretty hard to sell that.

00:26:40:22 - 00:27:01:02
Unknown
And then but he did say that most of the Rangers are patrolling the South Fork. There is Rangers patrolling the North Fork, but they're only there during the morning, usually like morning midday. And so their advice is to go up in the evening after about three or 4:00 in the afternoon and you not going to see any Rangers.

00:27:01:02 - 00:27:21:05
Unknown
And once you're in the wilderness and you know, you come back down, usually people aren't checking for permits because you're already headed back to the car anyway. So as long as you get past any sort of rangers on the way up, you're good to go. So that's kind of like the low down on the permit system in the way the portal area at the moment.

00:27:21:07 - 00:27:39:15
Unknown
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I've a, I've a mixed bag of feeling about that on one side. Okay, I totally get it. You can't have just this influx of insane amount of people going in the backcountry doing crazy things. If you have a permit, it means people are probably doing the research. They're there for specific reasons. They're not just going to go party.

00:27:39:15 - 00:28:03:09
Unknown
The better the whole area. You have their name, their information, So on one of I'm going, okay, this is great. This is obviously probably a good policy. People are put more thought into this than myself. You know, I've come up with a system, but on the other side, I think it's kind of there's something primal in me that just wants to say, you know, like it's this like emotional response to be, What do you mean?

00:28:03:09 - 00:28:28:12
Unknown
I can't go here? This is the wilderness. It's the middle of nowhere. I just want to go explore, like I almost feel I have this, this, this primal right to just go explore the wilderness. You know, it's this bizarre thing to be. Oh, no, you're not allowed to go there unless you have the right permit. There's something about it that just seems seems confusing to me, you know, and that I'm a I'm a I have an aversion to.

00:28:28:12 - 00:28:47:15
Unknown
But I think I think if I sat and really thought about it and, you know, talked to somebody who knew about it more, they'd they probably enlighten me and just some really good things that have happened since they've introduced permits, I'm sure. But it for sure, I think that the biggest thing is crowd control. You know, I think that people are trying to keep that area wild.

00:28:47:15 - 00:29:03:20
Unknown
They're trying to keep not only I don't think it's not only for traffic and trash and waste and all that stuff and education, but just like it would suck if you went out there and it was just a fucking line of people everywhere you went like that would completely take away from the experience. So I do get it.

00:29:03:22 - 00:29:22:20
Unknown
But you got to do what you got to do. Yeah, no hundred percent. Yeah. So back to the story. We got our permits. You know, we did go, you know, we didn't want to just go steal, you know, steal the mountain. So we liked Al Burgess. I was like, Should we just pull out? Burgess We go pirate the mountain.

00:29:22:22 - 00:29:41:17
Unknown
And I was like, Nah, it's the 21st century. You can't do that. So I, I, you know, I talked to Josh. I was like, we should at least, you know, pay the government. We should pay the National Forest Service for the, for the, for the permit, even though it's the wrong one. Let's just buy a permit, you know, given the 40 bucks and put it in our pack.

00:29:41:17 - 00:30:07:03
Unknown
And so, you know, we felt like there was a bit of respect there. Yeah. Um, I think that's a good thing to do. Yeah. We so we, we got to the car and parked the car at the base and started hiking at 420 in the afternoon. So pretty late. Um, my bag was £48 and Josh's bag was £49 and we did that first try.

00:30:07:03 - 00:30:27:12
Unknown
We like, split the weight almost perfectly right away. It was pretty nice. I was pretty satisfying a bit. It was? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then we hiked in, man. You know, it's, uh. I forget how long it is. I think it's either. I think it's three miles. It's about three miles, lots of vertical feet. It's not the most crazy technical trail in the world.

00:30:27:14 - 00:30:48:23
Unknown
You know, you cross the river a couple of times. The one thing that was really crazy about the approach is, you know, the hurricane that came through down here. Yeah, I kind of know. I don't really know the effects or anything, but. Yeah, yeah. So Hurricane Hillary came through and really messed some stuff up in Alabama Hills actually, the the road that you usually take to get to the base of Whitney Portal was completely gone.

00:30:48:23 - 00:31:06:14
Unknown
Like no road left anymore. It turned into a riverbed actually got some crazy drone footage of it. So I'll be able to share that you know, with everybody that you actually had to take like this big side, you know, route to get around that that blocked road. Really, really great. Yeah. But anyway, so there was there was evidence of that hurricane up in lone Pine as well.

00:31:06:16 - 00:31:28:23
Unknown
There were like these areas of where, you know, a you know, a normal creek goes where the like it looked like a meteor like hit the side of the mountain and went flying down the mountain like trees, huge trees bent over big ass boulders like I wish I was there when it was happening from afar and just watching the carnage like it was like on the scale of it was insane.

00:31:28:23 - 00:31:54:10
Unknown
Yeah. No, that's crazy. Water, Like, probably mud, sediment, water, rocks, you know, like just flooding or something. Yeah. Boom. Just bulldozing. Yeah. Flooding. Yeah. It's crazy. You know, Miles said that there was a house, you know, at the mouth of the. The portal area. And then when the flooding got on its worst, he said like there was a giant boulder like that just went through this guy's house and just fucking, just like completely decimated.

00:31:54:10 - 00:32:16:16
Unknown
This guy's house. Imagine you're just like in your underwear watching Netflix. It's like a full popcorn, like a boulder, just like flies through your house. Like, holy shit. Yeah, it's crazy, crazy, wild. Yeah. This the scale of this to how big and how powerful the mountains are just was very apparent on the approaches. It was really cool. Yeah, that's awesome to see.

00:32:16:17 - 00:32:28:06
Unknown
But yeah, man, we're, you know, we're documenting the whole thing, so it slows us down a little bit. You know, every good shot, we're like, All right, you walk past me, you know, I'm going to set the camera down and turn around and we'll walk past the camera. And then I got to run back to the camera and grab it.

00:32:28:08 - 00:32:41:15
Unknown
So like, lots of that, you know, on the approach. And then every time we took a rest, we'd set the, you know, the camera up on a tripod and we'd make sure the mic was on. And, you know, we, you know, try to talk about and document the story on where we are and kind of how we're feeling and stuff.

00:32:41:15 - 00:32:59:04
Unknown
And so, you know, it wasn't just, uh, just a climb, you know, we were, you know, we were filming and we were trying to do it as seriously as possible. And so that adds a lot to, you know, the, the stress and the logistics and the timing of everything. But I will say it kept us busy, which I really liked.

00:32:59:05 - 00:33:20:10
Unknown
You know, it just like you're constantly doing something like Jack. You know, Jack could always like, just do something constantly. And that's what we were doing, you know, we were doing something constantly, you know, every second of every moment. We were either hiking, we were moving. We were eating, we were drinking water, we were getting the shot, you know, coming up with creative ways to capture what we were doing and trying to come up with dialog, you know.

00:33:20:12 - 00:33:38:05
Unknown
And so that part, I really liked it just busy, you know, you're just keeps time going, You're engaged, you know, that's what life's about is being present. And so it really helped with that. Yeah, I've only been like in a very minor scale, starting to play more with photography and film and, you know, various content for Instagram and stuff.

00:33:38:05 - 00:33:57:07
Unknown
And when I'm when I'm out doing adventures and I think it was really eye opening for just how much extra work and logistics it is. And to be analyzing like both trying to have a good time and engaging with the environment, but then also analyzing it from this kind of different lens and that extra little bit of things you're doing.

00:33:57:07 - 00:34:20:11
Unknown
And then you add environmental factors and temperature. It's actually just becomes quite a large task. And I really just think of, you know, I think obviously Jimmy Chin's probably the most iconic, but, you know, I would think like them filming the Sharks fin, you know, may through that documentary, I just cannot even imagine the logistics of keeping batteries warm and filming in the most awful conditions ever.

00:34:20:11 - 00:34:57:16
Unknown
And it's it's actually just such a monumental undertaking. It's crazy. It's really it's I think it's something underappreciated in our community, actually, is what's behind the camera of these people getting these these shots and these this footage that we love to engage with. Right. For Sherman. Yeah. You brought up a good point. I think that the the major thing that people don't understand is how hard it is to turn the camera on when things go wrong, when things are bad, when you're feeling like shit, when you're hungry, you're miserable, and you are suffering, like pulling out that camera and capturing that moment creatively, that is a heroic move.

00:34:57:18 - 00:35:24:23
Unknown
Heroic? Yeah, I remember. I remember this, you know, the iconic picture of Cory Richards where he took a picture, selfie picture after the avalanche. We seen that picture? I think so, Yeah. Yeah. That that that I think is like captures the essence of of that. Exactly. It's like this dude just died basically it came back to life at the base of an avalanche is all fucked up he almost drowned from snow and what does he do?

00:35:25:01 - 00:35:42:19
Unknown
He grabs his camera and takes a fucking selfie. You know, like, that's dedication to the craft right there. Yeah, that is dedication. And it's an iconic picture and it captures so much like, when are you going to see someone's face like that? And so that's what storytelling is all about. It's like you got to film the good and the bad, you got to film the story, you got to film what's happening.

00:35:42:19 - 00:36:04:09
Unknown
So yeah, that's crazy. Now, the good and bad thing, I guess good for me and bad for the storytelling is that nothing really bad happened during our trip. And, you know, the most miserable thing that happened to us was lack of sleep. So the worst shot I got was me waking up in the tent looking a bit haggard, but that's about it.

00:36:04:11 - 00:36:26:06
Unknown
You know, nothing else. That's a good problem to have, you know? It was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Grand scheme of things. That's. That's where you want to be in for sure I think. Yeah. Like, like take us into this climb a little bit like, you know, you've been approaching it, you know, for anybody listening, you know, go look up Mount Russell and, and these climbs, it's just so stunning and beautiful.

00:36:26:08 - 00:36:31:21
Unknown
Yeah. What like what happened? You know, you said you camp the night obviously.

00:36:31:23 - 00:36:50:06
Unknown
Yeah. We set up camp at Upper Boy Scout, which is at 11,200. It's positioned, you know, just east of Russell. And so our plan of attack was to hike the normal route to the base of Russell, hike to that or climb to the top of Russell and then come down the East ridge, a different route back to the tent.

00:36:50:06 - 00:37:20:01
Unknown
So we're kind of doing a circuit rather than an out and back, which I love. I love not covering the same ground twice. It's just I don't like that at all. So I was really psyched about that. So we sleep, you know, I don't get the great the greatest sleep. You know, our tent was uncomfortable. You know, if anybody's listening to this, if you found a way to sleep in the Alpine comfortably DMAE and let me know what sleeping setup you're using because right now, while I'm warm, I am super, super uncomfortable.

00:37:20:01 - 00:37:46:06
Unknown
So should give us a shout. Let me know your suggestions because really need to update my sleeping situation. Um, anyways, so we get up after a rough night of sleep. Partially elevation, partially my, my sleeping set up and we get up pretty late start so our our climb the missile the hedgerow is west facing southwest facing and so especially this time of year it doesn't get sun until about 1030, 11:00.

00:37:46:08 - 00:38:03:16
Unknown
And so, you know, when you're climbing at 13,000 feet in the shade, it's, you know, freezing cold. You know, there's multiple reports on Mountain Project Summit Post about not climbing that route in the shade because you just it's miserable. And so we're like, all right noted like don't want to climb in the shade. Let's go climb in the sun.

00:38:03:16 - 00:38:29:03
Unknown
And not only that, but we get to have a really awesome non alpine start. So, you know, we casually get up, we start hiking I think around like 830 or something like that. Um, you know, we take our time, we document the approach and we get to the coal, you know, between Whitney and Russell, and we're looking across the screen field and we can see people on the route and we're like, Fuck, there's a party on the route.

00:38:29:05 - 00:38:45:01
Unknown
And we're like, All right, you know, if it's just one, they're climbing right now, all the by the time we hike over, there will be good. You know, we're taking our ten, 15 minute roof refuel, break and we spot another party and they're at the base of the route as well. And so we've got a party starting the first pitch and a party waiting.

00:38:45:03 - 00:39:03:07
Unknown
Um, and so we're like, you know what? Like we need to start to consider other options because for me, even on a sport climb or a try, climb down on the ground, you know, at, you know, not high elevation, you know, not, you know, hiking really far back. If there's one party, I'll consider waiting and climbing behind them.

00:39:03:07 - 00:39:20:00
Unknown
You know, I'll take a lot of things into consideration, like rock fall hazard. How fast are they moving? You know, Are they, you know, equipped? Are they skilled? Do they know what they're doing? But if there's two parties I don't know about you, but I it's a no go for me. I'm going to I'm going to use my backup climb.

00:39:20:01 - 00:39:35:18
Unknown
I'm going to go search for something else because two parties on a single are out. If I'm the third, that's just like, I can't do it. What about you, Max? Are you the same? Do you have your rules like that? Nothing's set in stone, but I think usually what you're saying is totally fair. You're going to be dealing with a shit show.

00:39:35:18 - 00:39:51:04
Unknown
You're going to spend half your day waiting, you're going to be frustrated. And then the other thing is, this is like you're in the Alpine, This is an alpine climb. There's loose rock. You've now just doubled the chance that you're going to get domed in the head or something with a piece of rock. So I think it's a pretty bad calculation.

00:39:51:04 - 00:40:06:09
Unknown
You know, maybe if you were in Squamish on a classic multi pitch that's been climb so much, there's no loose rock or anything. You're having this chill day, then you know, why not? You want to have a slow climb, that's fine. But yeah, there's kind of a situation. I think I definitely would have pulled the plug. Yeah, yeah.

00:40:06:09 - 00:40:25:21
Unknown
And not only that, but, you know, like I said, we got a late start. You know, we started hiking it like 830, and so we got to the base at like 11, 15, 1130. And so it's like half the day's already gone. You know, Sunset's at like 6 p.m.. And so, you know, we've got 6 hours of light to get to the top and we've got a thousand feet of climbing.

00:40:25:23 - 00:40:50:23
Unknown
And so, you know, that's like a pretty tight time frame depending on what you're doing. And so to have two parties in front of that, which is like, you know, we need to figure something else out. And so luckily the climb directly to the right of it is called fishhook or red. Um, it's longer in terms of the number of pitches that are technical because miserably hydro you get four or five pitches of stellar corner climbing and then it's like a fourth, fifth class to the top fishhook.

00:40:51:00 - 00:41:04:18
Unknown
A rat is, you know, a thousand feet of, you know, five, seven, five, eight, five, nine. And so there was no one on the route either. And so we're like instantly. Josh night. There wasn't even really much of an argument or a discussion. It was just like, you want to do a fish? Cigaret And he's like, Yeah, sounds good.

00:41:04:18 - 00:41:21:18
Unknown
I'm like, Yeah, I'm super down. And that was it, you know, we, we switched objectives probably within a couple words. Even like less than a minute. We had completely changed our entire objective that we had, you know, come for, um, which is I think pretty funny. You know, it's definitely you got to be able to pivot like that up there.

00:41:21:18 - 00:41:38:16
Unknown
You got to be able to make those kind of decisions. Yeah, it's always good to have backup decisions or a contingency plan or be flexible with what's going on. Right. Because, you know, you know, things don't you know, they won't go as planned, essentially. Yeah. So is it this massive? It's this massive curved threat in the photo. I'm looking at it.

00:41:38:17 - 00:41:58:01
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah, that you look so beautiful. Wow. Yeah, it's so sick. So, yeah, you know, we we give it up, we start it up through slapped on the GoPro and put the tread rack on and started climbing. I took the first pitch. I'd like to take the first pitch. I just want to get into it, you know, I want to, I don't want to sit there and wait at the base like I want to get into that flow.

00:41:58:01 - 00:42:16:10
Unknown
I want to get into that mindset because I definitely have to switch gears like hiking and then switch it into climbing. Like, especially after my accident, everything. Like I got to I want to just get into it. I want to I want to start climbing. And so I took that first pitch, Um, pretty fun, you know, five, eight, maybe.

00:42:16:12 - 00:42:38:21
Unknown
Definitely a bit sloppy at times. You know, the one characteristic this route had was lots of root finding. There's so many different ways to get to the top and and the least, you know, the path of least resistance is, is a bit hard to, uh, to mitigate. You know, there was, you know, I wanted to try to gain the ridge proper, but then it was getting a little bit too hard, so I had to back off and pull some gear out and then go left, you know?

00:42:38:21 - 00:43:00:00
Unknown
So the root finding aspect of this climb was was really, really remarkable. Yeah, I set up a belay after pitch one. Josh came up, he took pitch two, he gained the ridge proper. And so, you know, you're exposed on both sides. And then he got up to this point where he, you know, put a cam and realized he wasn't going the right way and then backed off but forgot to extend the piece.

00:43:00:00 - 00:43:18:22
Unknown
And so and then he went out to the left. And so instantly he got like a foot off of passes piece and just instant rope drag. Yeah. And so I think he got like another 15 feet and it was just like he radioing me down to me and just like, Dude, I can't move. Like, you know, his, his turn was I got £1,000 gorilla hanging off the end of the rope like I need to build a ballet.

00:43:18:23 - 00:43:44:01
Unknown
Yeah. And luckily, he was actually kind of exactly where you needed to be to to set up an anchor. So it worked out pretty well. Yeah. And yeah, then I took the third pitch, and this pitch was probably one of the wildest pitches I've ever done. Like the first move off the ballet is just like, super airy. You got, like, this nice hand crack, but it's just like, you know, hundreds of feet directly below you.

00:43:44:01 - 00:44:08:21
Unknown
You know, you're like, it's almost overhanging, but you're not climbing. Overhanging is this ridgeline super airy move, you know, really committing. But then you get into it, you're like, oh, that was that was easy. It was like five, seven, six or five, seven, five, eight. You know, like that was sick, you know? And then, you know, you get to the ridge proper, you do this crazy mantel move where like there's no feet and there's the little anvil looking, you know, platform that you've got to like hook yourself up on to with no gear.

00:44:08:23 - 00:44:23:07
Unknown
And then you stand on it and then you gain the ridge and there's this one section of it where you, like, walk across without any hands and there's just like hundreds of feet on both sides. And you just like, walk across. I had to like, pull slack in to make sure the, you know, I was not going to get in control.

00:44:23:08 - 00:44:43:22
Unknown
AS Yeah. Any external forces pulling on me. Yeah, it's crazy. Obviously like walk across to the other side and set up a belay there. Do this is funny. I have a video of this too on the GoPro so I'm building the anchor on pitch three, right? Yeah. And it's like I'm facing, I'm facing the belay or I'm facing.

00:44:43:22 - 00:45:05:18
Unknown
Josh Yeah. And so I'm not doing a top belay. Instead I'm hooking myself to the belay and then I'm billing him as if it were like a top rope because I'm below the rope, the ropes running over me over the ridgeline, and then back down to Josh Yeah. So I'm using the ridgeline basically as a fulcrum point for the weight distribution.

00:45:05:20 - 00:45:21:20
Unknown
And so I'm building this anchor and I get a point a block total man, I get 2.3 in, and then I'm, you know, there's a knot. I'm like placing a knot. And so I pull out one of the damn peanuts, you know, the nuts that ripped on. Yeah. During the climb. And it's just like, one size bigger than the one that broke on me.

00:45:22:01 - 00:45:37:11
Unknown
And so I'm, like, trying to place it, trying to place it, and I get it into a little slot and I test it, test it, and it's fine. And then I, like, go with both hands and like lurch my body on it and it fucking snaps. And I like to take a couple steps back and like towards the edge.

00:45:37:13 - 00:46:00:02
Unknown
And I'm like, Oh, you motherfucker. Like, fuck you nuts. You know, it's just like they're they're out to get me, dude. That's I think I think Kyle as a big, strong boy such as yourself, Maybe the demon Peanuts need to get, you know, a little retired and turn into some Christmas ornaments. At this point, they're below five K, and I just don't even know if that has a place on my harness for me personally.

00:46:00:02 - 00:46:17:07
Unknown
But, you know, I know. No, I think they're useful. I think it's rated I think it's rated six. So I threw everything off. That was five. I kept the six. I'm never going to put it on lead and just trust it as a piece. But yeah, as an anchor, I don't know. So you're pretty helpful. Yeah. So I found a better spot for and it was warmer, but I was just laughing.

00:46:17:07 - 00:46:32:13
Unknown
I was just like, of course know, like, of course this thing blows on me and almost throws me off the edge. What was your consideration for making like, a focal point and having yourself below the boy? What was like the reason. So you just threaded the rope through the master point, you were below and then just playing off your harness, right?

00:46:32:13 - 00:46:51:07
Unknown
So it's like redirecting the rope to you essentially. So. So I mean, I could be completely wrong in how I set this up. I'm not going to claim that I knew exactly what I was doing because it's a it's a situation I've not been in before. But basically so I climbed off the ridge. I climbed down to a platform.

00:46:51:07 - 00:47:11:22
Unknown
Yeah. Where I built an anchor for myself. And then the rope was running back up and then down to where he like what you're saying. And so I basically put him on a regular belay off my house. So I was just the counterweight to him. And so if he were to fall, yeah, I mean, I would be the counterweight and that weight would be draped over the ridge.

00:47:11:22 - 00:47:29:09
Unknown
Totally. I get it. It's like the ridge would have fractured too many ways, just like the class of the train. And it's like if you had top down, it would have made, you know, even like pulling down. And then also the device could have been open. It wouldn't have worked. Like I couldn't at least how I, the anchor was built, like because behind me was just empty space.

00:47:29:09 - 00:47:49:16
Unknown
The only thing I had to build an anchor was in front of me. And so, like, there was no way for me to have the anchor hold weight in the direction where the the climber was like, I couldn't have the weight being pulled away from me. It had to be pulled towards me. Yeah. And so the only, the only logical explanation for me was like, I need to act as a counterweight.

00:47:49:18 - 00:48:08:17
Unknown
Want to put them on a regular belay and use the terrain as friction. Like you said, no, I think that makes total sense. I was just curious about it. I think I think in anything with climbing being so principles based, it's I'm sure if there's drone footage of it or something, there's professionals in the industry. You could have pointed out, oh, maybe do this or do this or do that.

00:48:08:17 - 00:48:26:23
Unknown
You know, that might have been better. But ultimately it's like anchor strong enough. It's safe enough. The ridge is going to catch him. You're tied into the system, you're player safe. It's like all the principles. Are there something being safe, right? So it's like more so a question of I think like efficiency at that point or maybe just like making it like the cleanest system proper.

00:48:26:23 - 00:48:44:23
Unknown
But I've I've done that. Like, I get in a situation, I make an anchor and you're like, Oh fuck. Like I could waste 30 minutes and look at everything around me, you know, and like, try and find something better. But this is totally good enough and it makes perfect sense. And I know my boys are safe and like, I'm just we're going with this like we were move in, you know?

00:48:45:01 - 00:48:59:23
Unknown
Is for sure. Yeah. Time is of the essence, too. Like, that was something that was looming above our heads was time. Like we need to move. And that first those, first three pitches took us quite a long time because of all the rough finding. And we were warming up, you know, getting into the flow. And so we burnt a lot of time.

00:48:59:23 - 00:49:15:21
Unknown
And also when we got to this spot. So after pitch three, you know, you climb up the the lower half of the ridge and you get to the base of the head wall, basically, and there's a notch in between the top of pitch three and the beginning of the rest of the climb, and there's a bale anchor there.

00:49:15:21 - 00:49:30:18
Unknown
And so you could bale there and go back to the base. And so basically it's like the last option. It's like, all right, like, do you want to commit to the climb or do you want to leave? You have to ask yourself that question. And at this moment, clouds are starting to roll in, you know, like dark clouds.

00:49:30:18 - 00:49:46:05
Unknown
It was getting cold. I had to put my puffy on. The wind was kind of picking up. And so we're kind of like fog, like, you know, the question was looming a little bit more like, do we bail or do we go? You know, it was kind of a real question, but both Josh and I were just like, That's good.

00:49:46:05 - 00:50:04:01
Unknown
You know, we're good. And I was able to kind of like look over and see Whitney, and there wasn't anything really big and dark coming. Like there wasn't any sort of system. It was just kind of these like the thicker puffier clouds, you know, that were taking up some of the light. And I wasn't having there was no precipitation or any rain or anything like that.

00:50:04:01 - 00:50:29:09
Unknown
And there was no thunder. Basically. There's a there's a you know, we use radios when we climb boots, by the way, shout out to walkie talkies here. Amazing company. I've been using them since I started climbing. Um, just while we were climbing. Pitch three. I have videos of me on lead with the GoPro and I'm climbing and there's people in the middle of the guardrail and they're just like, Jump one.

00:50:29:10 - 00:50:53:04
Unknown
Oh, but I. And then his partner likes their silence, and his partner's like, why? Was like, well, I swear they scream to each other three times the same bit of information. And then, like, I just like for the sake of it, I like just go to my radio. I'm like, Hey, Josh, how we doing? He's like, We're doing good, man.

00:50:53:04 - 00:51:24:00
Unknown
Keep climbing. No problem. Oh, Jesus Christ. How are you? Good. Yeah, I just. The craziest mantle move, you know, like, just the subtle simplicity of the exchange of information was just so amazing. I mean, I feel like as climbers, lots of people have been there. I've definitely been there just in my futile screaming matches. And you're just you just know through the rope and the system with your climbing partner, eventually you get on the same page, you know.

00:51:24:05 - 00:51:46:06
Unknown
But yeah, that is I think I think walkie talkies can definitely be overlooked. I actually bought a pair last year of this cheaper Cobra brand or something for Mac, and they're pretty good. But I think they lasted like ten days because I just was doing like a multipage ice climb and just accidentally dropped it at the top. And it just watched it smash like eight days into having it.

00:51:46:06 - 00:52:13:15
Unknown
And I was like, Well, fuck, you know, like, God damn it, like, this sucks. And we just haven't replaced it yet. But yeah, maybe I'll give Rocky talk he's a look into because I know they're I highly recommend that to people like him. So yeah, yeah, they're really awesome. I think they're, they're great as a brand too. I kind of like seeing them develop and I've been in touch with their marketing department and their customer service just really down to earth people, you know, they're really here to help the community and they know what they're doing.

00:52:13:15 - 00:52:30:01
Unknown
So yeah, definitely a shout out to those guys. Oh, I was going to say, I mean, also like when I fell and broke my ankles, I didn't have a phone. I didn't have a radio. Yeah. That I had to like. Yeah. Down climb and Bill the trade and all this stuff. I couldn't even get in communication with Rey to get her up to me, you know.

00:52:30:01 - 00:52:55:06
Unknown
So yeah I think it's communication's so, so key, you know, in environments like it really is like being in that situation terrifies me. Like, there's so much information going on. You're digesting so much information, making so many decisions, like nothing ever goes to plan. Like you could have this wondrous plan that you come up with the player before you leave, but there's a high chance that's not going to come out the other side.

00:52:55:06 - 00:53:17:04
Unknown
And I don't care. Like, okay, three tugs means your bully. Two tugs me the ability to anchor like I don't trust that shit. Fuck that. You know, I'm not going to hang off the rope and trust my life. Having just heard three tugs. Like, that's terrifying to me. Um, and so, like, the radios I think are just critical for safety, at least for in my eyes, especially for triad climbing.

00:53:17:06 - 00:53:35:11
Unknown
And for me, the not only for, you know, the lead to be able to communicate to the player, but for the player to understand what the hell's going on. You know, sometimes when you're leading, you go over a corner and you're like, you know something? You can't find the track gear. You're like standing there for 15 minutes and your player can't see you and they can't communicate with you.

00:53:35:12 - 00:53:52:02
Unknown
You're expecting them just to sit there and patiently wait, like the mental turmoil that you have to go through as a belay or not understanding what's going on, on the sharp end of the rope is I hate that. I want to know, like if, if, if the rope hasn't moved in like 5 minutes, I want to be like, Hey, man, what's up?

00:53:52:07 - 00:54:08:19
Unknown
You could be like, Yeah, man, I'm just trying to figure out some trade gear. Boom, done, communication made. I feel more at peace. You know, I understand that nothing's happened to him. And we can move on our day without any stress. Just like those simple small communications like that, to keep each other, you know, in tune with what's going on.

00:54:08:21 - 00:54:35:12
Unknown
Um, there's just, like, it's a it's a complete dealbreaker for me. Like, if I have climbing tried multipage. Those radios are on my back. Yeah, I definitely see. It's a double edged sword, I think. I think both things can be true where the radio is just this tool that is both affordable and not like that heavy, that is just really useful and can save a lot of time and energy and communication at the same time.

00:54:35:14 - 00:54:55:08
Unknown
You should be able to climb with the person without one because if your battery dies or something, you know, if you if you have no experience understanding the ropes and your ISP precarious, dangerous place and you've got to move it, you say, Yeah. Oh, I've no idea. Like, you know, it's like you should at time just streaming it till you're blue.

00:54:55:10 - 00:55:11:02
Unknown
Yeah, you should have a copper edge of the feedback. But once you have that then have the Yeah. This tool is just Yeah, it's streamlines everything. So I think it's a great idea. You bring it, you bring it fairly. You should, you should be prepared. You don't want to show up with. No, that's the word not no help.

00:55:11:02 - 00:55:35:19
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah Not know how to communicate. Yeah, totally. But yeah, well, walkie talkie. Tanja, bring them. Uh, yeah. Top of pitch three, right? That's for sure. Yeah. All right, cool. So, yeah, Josh's lead. We decide to keep going, even though the weather's coming in and we've got, you know, 700 feet of climbing to go. Um, and so we're like, All right, like, I'm telling Josh, I'm like, Dude, we need to move.

00:55:35:20 - 00:55:50:03
Unknown
We need to fucking move. Like, it's time to pick up the pace. It's time to go. Jus. Yeah, we need to get well. Yeah, we need to go. And so, yeah, you know, one thing that's cool. Josh You know, when we climbed in the past, I was definitely more of the rock on. I would take a lot of the pitches.

00:55:50:03 - 00:56:08:21
Unknown
You know, we wouldn't swap leads. It would be like, okay, you know, you need to take these pitches and I'll take this pitch or, you know, like it was kind of this thing. And so this pitch or this climb, we swapped leads without even a question. It was just like, Yep, here you go, here's the next one. And so that was really nice, you know, to be able to swap leads like that with Josh.

00:56:09:02 - 00:56:46:11
Unknown
So I'm super proud of him and psyched for his, you know, accomplishment there in his climbing. But it worked out really well and we were able to move super quickly after after pitch three. Um, pretty much, you know, the rest of the climb, pitch three, pitch four, pitch five. Um, really nothing really to write home about other than just super quality rock, no loose rock bomber granite, beautiful alpine golden white granite, super, super featured like if you want to jog it was there small sex sections of like five nine moves then back to like you know five seven.

00:56:46:11 - 00:57:13:11
Unknown
Awesome, easy climbing really Remarkable position. You know just a beautiful Arad, you know, just relatively wide, you know, probably like, you know, 20 feet wide. But you're climbing these features on it is really really bomber awesome gear. Um the next little story point for this objective was so Joshua's leading up pitch six and got to the end of pitch six and I started climbing up what was pitch seven.

00:57:13:13 - 00:57:30:17
Unknown
And I get to the top of this little pedestal about 15 feet up from where he blade and it's just a drop off on both sides, like complete drop off, no where to go, you know where to go up. No where to go down. It's overhanging like there was no way to move. And so we came back to the belay.

00:57:30:19 - 00:57:42:04
Unknown
We're like, All right, what do we do? And so I look back down and I kind of get an idea of the terrain. I'm like, All right, we're on the wrong side. You know, We're on the right side of the earth. We need to be on the left side. And so we need to find a way to get to the other side.

00:57:42:06 - 00:58:01:12
Unknown
So I look back down to where we came from, and it's like a 35 foot down climb, probably five, seven, maybe a move of five eight. And it's like, you know, 13, you know, almost 14,000 feet. It's getting late. We're tired. You know, we're we're thirsty. Storm, you know, has gone. It's not really that stormy, but it's it's cold.

00:58:01:14 - 00:58:26:21
Unknown
And we're like, all right, like, do we down climb, you know, do we solo down climb this corner, you know, to this pedestal where we can traverse around and we're both like, I don't know, man, it doesn't seem safe. And so I remember the story of Jim and any and his descent off of lay talk on the enormous cast where I believe one of the guys either got hace or hape or got injured, like basically, you know, 400 feet from the summit.

00:58:26:23 - 00:58:48:17
Unknown
And they had to repel the entire route on single nut rebels. And I think they made like 60 rebels over five days or something like that. Um, and it was just no crazy story, bro. Oh my God. Like a crazy story. And it was like a party of three, like a person that we have a summer who is, like, dying.

00:58:48:19 - 00:59:14:20
Unknown
Yeah. So every single boy, you're like, Well, baby, this is the one, you know, every single wrap. Screw know you guys. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, every time you wrap off, you're just like, you know. Yeah, here we go. 60 times. I guess you could back them up. And then the last person to wrap is always like, rock, paper, scissors or split, you know, long straw.

00:59:14:22 - 00:59:33:08
Unknown
Who's going to go last this time, you know? Yeah. So basically, the the procedure for that is Yeah, like you said, you back it up so you put your main piece of protection in and then you do another piece above it and you clip that with an extended drawer further down the rope. So it's not actually playing a role until the first one breaks.

00:59:33:08 - 00:59:50:16
Unknown
Yeah, totally. But not to extend. And so, and then I think not to extend it. So you want to shock And then a good rule of thumb is send the heaviest person first, because if it takes the happiest person, then probably good. You know, it takes the rest, which is usually when being a big boy is good. Yeah, do this math.

00:59:50:16 - 01:00:14:20
Unknown
That's all. It comes in handy. Okay. So that's exactly what we did, man. You know, we I put a nut in and it was perfect, dude. Like on a physics standpoint, which is what, years based off of completely bomber. I don't think I've placed a more bomb or not in my life. Like, just this perfect crack. It wasn't even a crack where went into the rock.

01:00:14:20 - 01:00:29:15
Unknown
It was like a crack to the other side of these boulders. You could see the sunlight coming through and it just like, tapered down into this narrow slot. And there was a big fatty nut. And I just like, slide it, slid it in. There was super bomber. And then I backed it up with a secondary nut, you know, rappelled down.

01:00:29:15 - 01:00:34:07
Unknown
Josh cleaned it and rappelled down and we pulled the rope and left the nut in a carabiner.

01:00:36:04 - 01:00:44:16
Unknown
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01:00:44:16 - 01:00:57:08
Unknown
All right. We are at the top of pitch seven or six and a half something. We don't know exactly where we are. What we know is that we're too high and to the right. We tried to go up this and it clipped out.

01:00:57:10 - 01:01:25:17
Unknown
So we have to go back down and down climbing. That just didn't seem like a good option to exposed. I'm tired and retired and we're at 14,000 feet already. We're about 200 feet from the summit. This is a single nut. We're stuck in that crack and we'll be in one beater in a single nut and be rappelling off of that down about 50 feet.

01:01:25:19 - 01:01:53:16
Unknown
Yeah, Rip, send it to be falling off. Never hear from us again because we died. You find this footage right here to publish it, Please. We felt really just. It was great problem solving. We were really proud of it. The decision and to. To live in the shadow of, you know, the late talk adventure and just get one one rappel in, you know, on the on the mountain like that felt good.

01:01:53:16 - 01:02:12:10
Unknown
And it was fun to to kind of kind of take that step and problem solve and make sure we were on route. And, you know, after that we summited. It was the last pitch. So we had turned to eight pitch, climb into seven pitches, which was pretty cool. That's really awesome, man. Yeah, just, you know, so stoked to hear you got out.

01:02:12:10 - 01:02:33:06
Unknown
Had this amazing adventure. It looks so beautiful. Also, you know this. You're telling how Josh is like in Peru in trading leads with you and stuff. I think that's got to be one of the, you know, not even like taking credit. It's just like just seeing people who you care about or even just people in general just improve and thrive and succeed in environments.

01:02:33:08 - 01:02:55:06
Unknown
It's just it's just really fulfilling. Like you don't even have to be the person that's accredited to doing that. It's just amazing seeing people excel and do better in whatever domain. It's I just feel great, like of knowing that someone else is doing really well, you know, like, that's just really, really awesome. I think you you said you clean the second one, you wrapped off one right?

01:02:55:08 - 01:03:20:22
Unknown
Yeah. I think Mark Smiley, I don't know if he still does it. You know we can message Mark but he did a pretty good Yeah. Yeah. Can you take a picture of the second piece and he'll it. I think so. Yeah. You guys should know that I got a video on. Yeah. I'll send it to him. Yeah. So if you wrap on too, you know I think he replaces the second piece that you use to kind of just promote people not wrapping off of single pieces, which is really, really cool.

01:03:20:22 - 01:03:38:08
Unknown
I think. Please double check that. You know, I mean, you should probably just be wrapping off of two pieces anyways if you can, but but, you know, definitely double check that. I think that was a really cool program that Mark was was running. So yeah, that thing was a big ask. Not though I've had that for seven years.

01:03:38:08 - 01:03:59:18
Unknown
So it was ready to go. It was ready to go. The wire was all bent and it, um, but yeah. And so we, so we started to climb it like noon and we summited at 545. So we climbed 1000 feet in 5 hours and 45 minutes. Nice. It's good amount. Yeah, yeah, it's good. We kicked around on the summit.

01:03:59:20 - 01:04:24:14
Unknown
Um, took pictures, you know, documented the whole thing, and we're starting to hike down probably by 630. And then we got back to the tent at 945 down the east ridge. Um, did you. Did you, did you camp another night or did you pack out? We camped that night. So on the way down, it's like a it's like a fourth, fifth class ridge with some very exposed terrain.

01:04:24:16 - 01:04:41:04
Unknown
And we probably did a quarter of it in the in the twilight and then the rest of it was headlamps. And so, you know, just again, like I said, the whole theme of this entire route was route finding. It's like, which way do I go? You know, what's the best way to to go? You know, don't want to go down here because that's a drop off or it's, you know, loose.

01:04:41:04 - 01:05:00:18
Unknown
And so lots of route finding, very pivotal route finding, especially in the dark. And, you know, we're getting tired and, you know, trying to stay up on food and water. And, um, you know, it's funny, we got off the east ridge to this call between another summit and the East ridge, and it's this sandy plateau and we're like, We're done.

01:05:00:18 - 01:05:18:08
Unknown
We made it. We're on the sandy plateau. This is amazing. And we're just like strutting, walking with these long strides, like, just laughing, you know, putting out the cameras. And then we get to this Karen, and it's just like a drop off. And we're like, Fuck, are we in the wrong place? Like, this is like, this is pretty steep.

01:05:18:08 - 01:05:40:14
Unknown
Like, what the hell? And I'm like, Josh, pull out your garment. Like, let's figure out how high we are. And I think we were still at like 13,300 feet, so we had 2000 feet to go down. And so it just like a huge reality check or it is like, yeah, a little premature. Yeah. Yeah. Premature celebration. Never a good idea.

01:05:40:16 - 01:06:07:07
Unknown
Yeah, it was. But yeah, so the the final 2000 feet was basically endless. 45 degrees of kitty litter sand. Um, your every step you take, you slide down about three feet and there's like some rocks in the ways you get a watch where you stand because kitty litter on rocks is really slippery. No really dangerous, crazy drop offs where you're, like, worried about falling off the edge.

01:06:07:07 - 01:06:29:23
Unknown
It's just endless, endless downward, just scree field, sandy miserable hiking and our shoes filled up with sand. So much more than I've ever had in my shoe before. And Josh, like, I want to get the sand out of my shoes. My dude is just going to go right back in machine again. Like, there's no point. Like, just own the sand.

01:06:29:23 - 01:06:51:11
Unknown
Don't fight the river. And we finally get back to the tent. We're so exhausted, dude. So exhausted. And we've got this hilarious video of us both pouring the sand out of our shoes at the same time. Yeah, it's like it's a bucket of sand. It's hilarious. There's so much sand in our shoes. Yeah, I'm ready. Oh, my God.

01:06:51:13 - 01:07:23:07
Unknown
Oh, you got like. Oh, my God. Yeah, I saw that video, I think. And it was it was really like a ridiculous amount of sand for this entire shoe. Just full of sand. Yeah. What you. What did you have for dinner that night? Yeah, dude. Fucking goos and beef sticks. That's it. You gets the job done. So we had, we had dry like a freeze dried spaghetti the night before.

01:07:23:07 - 01:07:42:11
Unknown
Yeah. But our, our initial plan was to potentially pack up and hike out that same night. Yeah. Um, but we got to the tent so late. We were. We were both beat as fuck. We're so tired. Yeah. And so luckily, Josh had the, the, you know, the, the two ish intuition or the what's the word. It starts with the half like to have foresight.

01:07:42:11 - 01:08:03:12
Unknown
He had the foresight to, um, he's like, dude, let's save some meat sticks and put them in the bear. Can and sure enough do. When we got back we're like, do we got meat stacks? You know, Uh, it was so good, though. It was funny actually, for the nutrition part of it. You know, we picked our calories and what we wanted to eat and stuff, and I brought these pro oatmeal bars.

01:08:03:12 - 01:08:21:10
Unknown
They're really delicious, especially the super greens one. I highly recommend them. They're super tasty and I usually love them, but I don't know if it was the altitude, but I brought four them and I didn't eat a single one. There's even a video of me when we're deciding what route to do up at the Cole, and we saw the parties on the route where I pick it up.

01:08:21:10 - 01:08:40:15
Unknown
I'm about to open it and then I throw it back on the ground and grab something. Yeah, Just wasn't. What was so funny? Was it for you? Yeah, it was it feeling it. Yeah. Weird. And so, you know, I basically lived off meat sticks, Clif bar goo blocks and goo packs for two days. Wow. What a what a classy guy.

01:08:40:17 - 01:09:01:14
Unknown
Kyle's. Kyle's available for catering your trips for food if you're wanting to email us at the The Climbing Majority podcast. When I, when I went climbing in the Nets Squash Valley with Quinn, I brought three bags of bits and bytes and I was, Oh, this is going to last me the whole trip. And, and I ate like three bags and sub 24 hours.

01:09:01:14 - 01:09:21:22
Unknown
I just, I don't know, I was, I was just so hungry and exerted and there's just delicious I just could not stop eating bits and bytes. Quinn was just looking at me demented like dude like what are you doing? Eating three like large bags of bits and bytes in, like, a day period. It was it was needed. You know, sometimes you just got to do what you do.

01:09:21:23 - 01:09:40:23
Unknown
It. Did it end up being a bad decision? Oh, it was great. It was wonderful. I really, really enjoyed it. Didn't have any washroom problems or anything. So, you know, fingers crossed is good. Yeah, that's a big consideration with the food, especially the especially the freeze dried food. And I don't know, I can fuck my gut up pretty bad.

01:09:40:23 - 01:09:58:21
Unknown
Like I get pretty bad gas. I'm fortunate that like, my stomach, whatever this is, is just this, like, machine that just chews through things, you know? It's probably not good for my health. That's why it can go through anything. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. That's. That's a that's a good mountain mountain stomach. Yeah, it is. You know, no complaints.

01:09:58:21 - 01:10:17:17
Unknown
So. Yeah, but yeah, man, we got, we got back to the car the next day, um, you know, typical descent. Nothing crazy. Um, ankles are feeling pretty beat. Um, but you we came back to the car and we had a cooler full of goodies. I was going to ask, did you do the treasure chest? Man? Yeah, I do, too.

01:10:17:18 - 01:10:37:22
Unknown
Cause of our first episode's talking. We were discussing that. You've got to have a cooler at the car or something. Ready? The treasure chest. Have a good time. Yeah. Yeah, That's awesome stuff. Yeah. Just put the cooler out, Lay my feet up, brought camping chairs to, like, sit in the chairs in the back of the car. Um, I had cold, kosher dill pickles.

01:10:38:00 - 01:11:10:13
Unknown
Um, double IPAs sandwich meat and cheddar cheese. Um, what else? Oh, and oh, what else was it? Those are the main. Those are the main items. And we were working gets a michelin star in my books as far as, like post backcountry adventure. You know, people, it's funny. People go to restaurants that costs $1,000 a meal and all you actually have to do is just go climb until your fingers bleed and deprive yourself of all the necessities in life for two or three days.

01:11:10:13 - 01:11:32:22
Unknown
And then anything you eat is a michelin star restaurant. Food quality is so, oh yeah, way cheaper way to experience the amazing cold and airy side of life. You know, you make a T-shirt, suffer more, eat. Yeah. Seriously, That's a gray t shirt. You know, like I. I would wear that and it's highly accurate, so. Yeah, totally. Oh, man.

01:11:33:00 - 01:11:54:02
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah, man. That was it. Uh, you know that the rest of it's history. Um, you know, just definitely recovered multiple days afterward. I was just a fucking zombie. Um, both Johnny were, um. Ankle definitely is still sore. I've to, like, do some, you know, it's gone past the, the main source stage, and now it's just like residual.

01:11:54:02 - 01:12:13:23
Unknown
And so I've got to just do some specific work to get to get it back to normal. Um, but overall, really psyched on it. The footage came out great. Guess, I guess how much, how much footage we shot. In terms of the quantity, I have no idea. Gigs one terabyte. What the fuck, man? What are you guys doing?

01:12:14:01 - 01:12:35:13
Unknown
Just cameras blasting the whole time on the last. Yeah, the last. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you're documenting it more is better, so. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, yeah, the cameras are running 4K ten bit basically the entire time. Yeah. Um, so we've got a lot of work to do in terms of the little short film we're going to put together, but, um, we got enough footage to do it.

01:12:35:13 - 01:13:01:09
Unknown
I just. Yeah, I would hope so. Like five length feature films or A Fishhook, a read. It's like 48 hours live stream. Uh, and it's 40 bad. Well, do. That's awesome. That's awesome that you guys got out how to climb. It's cool that I got to, you know, meet Josh on the show and stuff and then now, you know, see you guys going on a climb and stuff.

01:13:01:11 - 01:13:25:07
Unknown
Obviously, you have your long climbing history. I know that. But what's in the future, man? You know, are you like planning any other kind of trips or climbs you're thinking about you're just going to chillax for now? Chillaxing For now. The winter season is upon us. The climbing season in Red Rock is in right now. And so most of my attention is going to be, you know, climbing some stuff in the Red Rock Canyon.

01:13:25:09 - 01:13:42:02
Unknown
Um, but in springtime, at least for Alpine stuff. Joey You know, Joey, the teen and I have talked about doing positive vibrations up on the Hawk. He's going to be my rope gun for that. I was really wanting to climb that before my injury. That was kind of like my that was going to be my next career move.

01:13:42:04 - 01:14:02:11
Unknown
It's like this eight or No, it's probably more than that. It's more like a 12 pitch 11 a all trad alpine granite, supposed to be one of the best routes in the entire eastern Sierra. So I'm going to have that little crusher bring and it'll be it'll be rad do this, guys. I mean, a little tangent. Joey is next level duties getting better and better.

01:14:02:11 - 01:14:26:22
Unknown
He's like climbing you know 13 Strat. He's like, got these huge objectives coming out. He's going to Yosemite in the next month. Like, I think big things are around the corner for him. That's really awesome. Really amazing to see. Man, that kid is definitely felt ahead of his time. You know, just he was composed and wise. And, you know, when I was that kid's age, they wouldn't even claim that right now for myself, let alone at his age.

01:14:26:22 - 01:14:49:02
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, think the world is oystermen. Good. Good for him. And that's really great that you guys are getting out and I mean, the Hulk is just such a beautiful piece of rock. There's this really great YouTube video of Peter Croft climbing it. I've I've talked about it before. And then also just, you know, Alan Burgess story of him climbing the Hulk.

01:14:49:02 - 01:15:09:08
Unknown
It's kind of just like this mythic piece of rock that I've wanted to engage with, you know, So hopefully one day get out there and get to climb on it. Yeah, man. There's a there's a ten B myth, a red huge hole that's like the the easiest, right up the wall that we could tackle. So yeah, that would be really, really awesome to work to in the future for sure, man.

01:15:09:08 - 01:15:27:21
Unknown
Go out there and have a great time because it just, it is such an esthetic climb. I really, I feel like this drive, like I have to go there and my life and an experience that you know for sure man music, you know, once again we end another show. I think this might be the 50th episode. Oh, it is.

01:15:28:02 - 01:15:50:14
Unknown
Which is the like, not even like, planned or anything that's brutally awesome. Like, wow, it's crazy to think like episode 50 and to become an, you know, doing this with you. It's really, really sick, man, for sure. And it's to be just asked for, you know? Exactly. I think that's it. It's like you're Avenger Episode 50. It's so awesome.

01:15:50:14 - 01:16:11:14
Unknown
You Know and like coming. There's something just also like the chronology of it, of us both being, like, really mangled. And then now it's like, you know, doing adventures, interviewing about them on the, on the show. Like it's really awesome.