54 | The Seven Volcanic Summit Infinity Loops w/ Jason Hardrath

This podcast is no stranger to traumatic life altering accidents. It is easy to let these events cripple us, and hard to allow them to transform us. Jason Hardrath, PE teacher from Klamath Fall, OR and competitive endurance athlete who’d just qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. Found himself ejected from a moving vehicle. He suffered a broken shoulder, collapsed lung, torn ACL and multiple internal injuries. Its fair to say the Jason is lucky to be alive. Just Three years later, Jason became the first person ever to establish 100 FKTs and currently sits with 121 under his belt. Now he is chasing a new objective: the Seven Volcanic Summits done in a style dreamed up by renowned climber Chad Kellogg called “The Infinity Loop”, which involves two summits and circumventing the entire base of each of the world's tallest volcanoes.

In our conversation we also discuss Jason’s predisposition for H.A.P.E and how it affects his safety in high altitude environments, his goals, and the partners who choose to join him on his dream of establishing the Seven Volcanic Summit Infinity Loops. 

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

Resources:

Jason's Personal Website

Jason's IG

Journey to 100 Film

Journey to Infinity Film

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 36:19 Infinity Loops
• 46:21 H.A.P.E.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:09
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.

00:00:25:08 - 00:00:35:01
Unknown
This podcast is no stranger to traumatic life altering accidents. It's easy to let these events cripple us and hard to allow them to transform us.

00:00:35:01 - 00:00:55:02
Unknown
Jason Harder, math teacher from Klamath Falls, Oregon, and competitive endurance athlete who just qualified for the Iron Man 70.3 World championships, found himself ejected from his own moving car. He suffered a broken shoulder, collapsed, lung torn ACL and multiple internal injuries.

00:00:55:04 - 00:01:17:15
Unknown
It's fair to say that Jason is lucky to be alive. Just three years later, Jason became the first person ever to establish a hundred facts and currently sits with 121 under his belt. Now he's chasing a new objective. The seven volcanic summits done in a style dreamed up by renowned climber Chad Kellogg, called the Infinity Loop,

00:01:17:15 - 00:01:24:07
Unknown
which involves two summits and circumventing the entire base of each of the world's tallest volcanoes.

00:01:24:18 - 00:01:40:17
Unknown
In our conversation, we also discussed Jason's predisposition for Hape and how it affects his safety in high altitude environments, his goals and the partners who choose to join him on his dream of establishing the Seven Volcanic Summit Infinity Loops.

00:01:53:09 - 00:02:12:14
Unknown
All right, everybody, welcome back to yet another episode of the Climbing Majority podcast. We are sitting down here with Jason Harder Jeff. Jason, welcome to the show. It's great to be here. I'm really excited we made this work. It's been a crazy week, but hey, it came together. Yeah, Happy to have you on, man. Excited to have this conversation for sure.

00:02:12:15 - 00:02:31:02
Unknown
Yeah, we you know, I personally, we heard of you through Nathan, actually, which is a previous guest, and I reached out, and, well, I started researching you a little bit, and I was just like, How on earth has Jason not even gotten to the TCM pipeline yet? You know, it's just like, this guy's super red. Is this crazy?

00:02:31:04 - 00:02:56:16
Unknown
So, you know, we're psyched to have you sitting here. You know, I'd like to call you the inventor of the infinity loop, but that's not true. But we are here to hear your story about, you know, how you got into the infinity loop. You know a little bit about your situation, so let's just dive right in here. You know, talk to us a little bit about, you know, what you've been up to, what you've been focused on lately and you know, what kind of circle around there.

00:02:56:16 - 00:03:16:12
Unknown
Just kind of give people a roundabout on kind of who you are and what you're doing. man. Where to start? What have I been doing? Let's see here. I guess. Long story short, I went out a car window in 2015. Kind of put a period on a triathlon career and marathoning career, if you want to call it that.

00:03:16:15 - 00:03:35:13
Unknown
On the side of my my real career, which is being a PE teacher, shaping young minds or, you know, as I like to say, after having deep conversations with people, but I throw balls at kids for a living. So what do I know? Yeah, I just I started hiking in the hills, started started hiking to recover from a car accident.

00:03:35:13 - 00:03:58:09
Unknown
I had I shredded my ACL and LCL among like multiple other injuries across my body. But, you know, basically I was able to kind of limp up and downhill a bit and then started climbing. Well, Hills led to mountains. Mountains led to bigger mountains. Pretty soon I'm getting the mountains of technical summit blocks and I go, Well, I guess I should become a rock climber now and join the climbing gym, start going to the local crag.

00:03:58:12 - 00:04:21:11
Unknown
All the while my knees are still like turning into a grapefruit any time I do stuff. But just like getting after it, learning these skills, you know, building this new strength because you don't build much upper body strength and definitely no finger strength as a triathlete or a runner, you know. So I had to get used to had to be brave enough to suck at something new and have all the nine year olds be better than me at the climbing gym for a real long time.

00:04:21:13 - 00:04:48:03
Unknown
You mean forever is still the case? Yeah, but still, by nearly 530. And yeah. So pretty soon I got the knee rehabbed enough through through physical therapy that I could go out and, like, cruise through 20 mile push and the backcountry trails. And it's like, well, I have these technical skills and running is back. So there's a mountain.

00:04:48:03 - 00:05:05:04
Unknown
There's a mountain, there's a mountain. Let's just see if all three of them go on a weekend and just run in between. And then I discovered fastest known times, discovered facts, and then that put the gas pedal down and it's like, this is what I'm already doing. Like, this is what I love to do. Let's let's dream up roots.

00:05:05:04 - 00:05:29:01
Unknown
Let's come up with new things for people to test themselves on. Let's go test, test ourselves on on routes that already exist that other people have dreamed up, especially when they mix like glacier travel and rock climbing and all these technical elements and sleep deprivation. I was just like, This is my jam. Like, how do you put together like, all of this stuff where you do what takes most people, you know, three days to do a single peak?

00:05:29:01 - 00:05:52:01
Unknown
Let's do three of those peaks in a single day. And that was actually one of my first big breakthrough aspects was the Cascade Trifecta, which is climbing Mount Rainier, Mount Adams and Mount Hood in a single day. And I broke the record on that. That had previously been done in teams, and I just did it solo self-supported and drove myself and got to watch the sunrise on Mount Rainier and the sunset on Mount Hood.

00:05:52:03 - 00:06:13:17
Unknown
And it was just kind of like a perfect day. And I'm like, okay, here we go. And yeah, actually, the one the very next thing I did after that, because that cut my teeth. That was my first time up Rainier. I did the Rainier Infinity loop after that, which was just a beast of a route to get after your eyes.

00:06:13:17 - 00:06:33:05
Unknown
You alluded to. I didn't dream it up. The late American climber, Chad Kellogg, he dreamed it up and then passed away in a climbing accident in Patagonia before he ever got to actualize the dream. And so some people came along after him and finished it in his name. And I went after it to, like, break the record because it just seemed like loomed in my mind.

00:06:33:05 - 00:06:52:20
Unknown
It's like, man, what an experience. Like mixing 140 miles of running twice over this. You know, it's more miles of glaciated terrain than I've ever covered. It's more mileage than I've ever covered. It's more nights of sleep deprivation than I'd ever done at that point. So it's just like breakthrough upon, breakthrough upon breakthrough like in my own athletic journey.

00:06:52:23 - 00:07:12:01
Unknown
And then all the while you're just having this, like, insane, intimate experience, like climbing over the mountain once in a day and once a night. And even though it's the exact same routes, it's like two very different personality. These, you know, everything soft and squishy and everything falling down at you versus you're hardly getting any penetration with your crampons whatsoever.

00:07:12:03 - 00:07:31:11
Unknown
Just like wild differences on the exact same route. Jason, real quick, I'd like to I'd like to real quick. I want to back up real quick to who you were prior to the car accident. So you you mentioned you were a triathlon. You're an endurance athlete. It's a pretty common thread we've seen, at least in, you know, the endurance sports in the mountains.

00:07:31:11 - 00:07:52:09
Unknown
It seems like a a nice transition or a gateway drug, as it were, to, you know, taking your skills to the mountains or, you know, But I'm curious as to the car accident itself. You know, I think that moments in our lives like this, you know, I went through an injury, max injury. You know, there's lots of other people that have reached out going through something similar, whether it be in the mountains or a car accident or something traumatic.

00:07:52:11 - 00:08:20:10
Unknown
It shapes who we are and it kind of defines us in a way. And we either learn from it or we fall from it. Sometimes a little bit of both. So I guess my question here is like, what exactly happened with the car accident? What kind of injuries did you sustain? Because I think it's an important part of the story in terms of, you know, who you are now and what you're accomplishing now, because someone who may have not gone through that, you know, would not understand the same challenges that you might faced.

00:08:20:12 - 00:08:42:04
Unknown
Well, to rewind a little bit, as you alluded to to prior to the car accident, I mean, if you go way back, I'm the ADHD little kid that everybody was annoyed with who couldn't sit still, couldn't shut up, always moving, always animated, always doing impulsive things, always chasing the next thing, always distracted, couldn't do paperwork, couldn't do homework.

00:08:42:06 - 00:09:04:18
Unknown
And, you know, I was supposed to fail because I couldn't sit down and get my work done. And a lot of people wrote me off and then I discovered, well, my, my, my first thing I discovered was actually skating. That became like, okay, here's where you move and you move. And you move and you take your falls to earn your tricks and earn your respect and cred.

00:09:04:20 - 00:09:29:18
Unknown
And you follow and you find your your enemy, your opponent is asphalt. It's like a painful endeavor. And so I kind of cut my teeth on that in a way. I think it taught me some lessons. And then I broke my wrist. And of course, the parents at this point are kind of sick of the kids sneaking out of the house and going skating and discovered running.

00:09:29:20 - 00:09:50:03
Unknown
And then it was, I want to run a sub six minute mile, okay? I want to make it on to varsity in high school. Okay. I want to go to state. Okay. I want to make it on college team, okay? I want to bike across the United States. Kind of a hard transition there. But first, big adventure. And then that opened the door for well, now I run and I bike.

00:09:50:05 - 00:10:21:14
Unknown
Let's do triathlon. And then it was Ironman triathlon ultramarathons the works chasing all that stuff. And I had built this whole life. I mean, I'm a teacher as well. Like, I live what I teach. I teach what I love. And then, yeah, the car accident happened and it was kind of this breakthrough year for me. I'd like qualified for two Ironman 70.3 world Championships, but my training had like just reached a whole nother level on the Sunday before the accident happened.

00:10:21:14 - 00:10:41:16
Unknown
Accident happened on a Tuesday. On the Sunday before the accident happened, I went for 140 mile bike ride, got off the bike, went for a ten mile run. My friends called up later, Hey, do you want to come play Frisbee? I'm like, I feel great. Yeah, I'll come play Frisbee. Like, just feeling on another level. Just absorbing massive workouts.

00:10:41:18 - 00:11:11:03
Unknown
On Wednesday, I couldn't get my own drink of water. Nine broken ribs, a collapsed lung, internal contusions through my organs, a broken shoulder in two places and completely shredded ACL and LCL in my right knee. And yeah, I brought, you know, instantly I like bring up this passion, this love I have for movement, for chasing, running for chasing triathlon with the first doctor I had.

00:11:11:04 - 00:11:28:10
Unknown
And he's like, you're going to let that part of your life go. And then walks out of the room to see his next his next patient. And I just remember that sinking feeling in that moment, you know? And I'd been ejected from a car, right? I rolled I rolled my car over. I was in a rush. The other track, it was a crazy day teaching.

00:11:28:11 - 00:11:43:17
Unknown
The other track coach hadn't shown up, so I solo coach the track team running over here with this workout, running over here for that workout for that athlete, and then was running late to a meeting. I'd volunteered for it to meet with the superintendent and it's like I'm a young teacher. So it's like, no, I'm going to be late to meet with the superintendent.

00:11:43:17 - 00:12:04:12
Unknown
That's probably a problem. So I'm like speeding and I'm in a bad headspace. So I'm like, I'll plug in some music, right? This is this is the era of the Ox cable. And so I go to plug the Ox cable in to the phone to to jam out and chill out for a bit on the drive, catch the shoulder, roll the vehicle, go out my side window and, you know, sort it out.

00:12:04:12 - 00:12:36:04
Unknown
Right? Statistically, you get ejected from a vehicle and roll over accident. It's over. So it's like, you know, a doctor saying that after such a traumatic accident, it's like, you know, it's I'm just just lucky to be alive. And then I think we have a spirit of defiance for a reason. Then that spirit of defiance came on and it was it was no, you don't know what I'm willing to do to achieve the goals I have.

00:12:36:06 - 00:13:09:07
Unknown
And what came to mind at the cookie jar I reached into was how much I how deep I dug to achieve making it, you know, on diversity, on making it to state, making it onto a college team. When I was like, yeah, just the underdog runner on the team and had to work my butt off to like, stay on that team through college and then biking across the U.S. and then somehow making it into, you know, the Ironman World Championships like all these times that it's like I just done more than what people expected of me to get to where what I believed was possible.

00:13:09:09 - 00:13:26:18
Unknown
And as I reached into that, it's like, no, I'm going to find a way to get back to some version of what I love. And I mean, right. I had to be super real in that moment as well. There's like, I'd had enough, like reality checks. Like I thought I was going to break my high school record for the 1500 when I was a runner in high school.

00:13:26:22 - 00:13:57:10
Unknown
You could have given me an extra 12 years of high school. I never would have touched that record. And it was like that was like kind of the first hard knock, you know, approaching senior year and realizing, this is totally impossible. Like not even remotely possible. This will never happen. This dream I had will never happen. And that was the first like reality check where it's like, and I remember like kind of feeling that the sense of like swing setting a bit in that moment where it's like, if I can't achieve this goal, then like, am I really that good?

00:13:57:10 - 00:14:19:23
Unknown
Should I even can continue doing this? Like, what value is it and deciding, no, I'm going to keep finding this is what I love doing. I'm going to keep finding a way to express myself through this. I'm going to keep chasing goals that are achievable for me. And I think that served me really well because in the moment I could go, okay, I may never qualify for an Ironman world championship again.

00:14:19:23 - 00:14:41:22
Unknown
I may never run a Boston qualifying time again. Like the damage to my lungs, the damage to my knee, the damage to my body. Maybe that era is over. That chapter's closed. That guy's dead. He died in the accident. But the promise I can make to myself is I will not relent until I get back to some version of what I love.

00:14:42:00 - 00:15:02:23
Unknown
And even to this day, like when, you know, I'm in circles of runners and it's like chatting about marathon powers are still refer to anything I did before before that day in May and 2015 as my former life. Like, it's like disembodied, almost a bit. It's like, yeah, that was a different that chapter's closed. I don't compare myself to that guy.

00:15:03:03 - 00:15:19:12
Unknown
I don't live in his shadow. And that was really important in the moment. Like it's less important now, probably, but in the moment when I was still in the throes of it where I couldn't even bend my knee after surgery more than like a few degrees, it's like I couldn't be thinking about how I used to run at 250 marathon.

00:15:19:14 - 00:15:38:16
Unknown
I couldn't be thinking about how close I was to qualifying for Kona or whatever it might be. I just needed to be able to go, Hey, this is more than I've ever bent my knee. That's a win. Hey, I walked around today and my knee isn't killing me. Hey, I just shuffle jogged my first mile without a limp.

00:15:38:22 - 00:15:57:00
Unknown
Right? Stuff that I would have taken for granted. Like, not even been on the radar. It's like to go back through the journey, as we all do. Like as little kids, when we're learning our initial skills of celebrating all those little milestones and being in the headspace to be stoked about that instead of going well, yeah, but I'm not here.

00:15:57:00 - 00:16:21:14
Unknown
Well, yeah, but I'm not here yet. Well, I'm not back to this yet, and I think we can cut our own legs out from under ourselves in our recovery process. When life throws us these hard setbacks. If we're always thinking, well, I used to climb five, 13 or I used to get to the summit of this peak in in only 2 hours and 39 minutes, it's like you got some like PR in your head or you got some like mark some rubric in your head.

00:16:21:14 - 00:16:42:02
Unknown
And if you're not measuring up to that, you're like, well, it's not even worth trying better just give up. I think the interesting thing here with this is that at least for my interpretation on on your value in terms of your self-worth before your accident, it wasn't really about the times or about the specific numbers or that you were achieving.

00:16:42:02 - 00:17:00:22
Unknown
It was more about how far can I push my own human potential? How far can I, how what's the most extreme that I can exist? You know, like while it's in the specific discipline, you're still it's not about like, I need to beat this time. It's like, what else can I do? Waka What is, what is the limit of my potential?

00:17:01:00 - 00:17:20:18
Unknown
And so with that mindset in mind after the car accident, what's nice is that at least again, I'm speaking for you here, is that that mindset still applies to who you are or who you have become because you're still exploring this new potential of who you are now as this second person as you have you said, Do I speak some truth here with that?

00:17:21:00 - 00:17:54:03
Unknown
man, I'm smiling so big because I feel so seen right now. Yeah, dude. I mean, I grew up really religious, and so the way I used to say it, even as a teenager still in high school, I would say when I when I go see God, I want to ask him, how close did I get specifically referring to, like accomplishing everything I possibly could, pushing my body to its utter limit, achieving every goal I could have possibly taken the limitations that is Jason harder path and like taken it to its fullest, fullest limits.

00:17:54:03 - 00:18:19:20
Unknown
And so that was the mindset I had clear back then. And yeah, no, it's absolutely blood crossed before an end after the car accident where it's this constant exploration. I had a I bumped into my track coach because I talked to the the cross-country team a couple of years ago and she's still coaching somehow. And she's like, yeah, normally, normally the the runners who are like the faster ones on the team, the top runners, they're the ones that end up, you know, not running later in life and like giving it up.

00:18:20:01 - 00:18:33:14
Unknown
They burn themselves out and like you're still getting after it, which is kind of a rare case. And it's like, Well, yeah, it was always about the journey. Like, what's the next challenge? What's the next growth, What's the next thing to take aim at? It was never just like, Well, I want to be the top runner on the team.

00:18:33:14 - 00:18:55:20
Unknown
I want to be the cool guy. It was yeah, it was always, Well, what's next? What? What can I go try to actually is now what can I go see if it's true, see if it's possible. And I think ego in its purest form is exactly that. It's reality testing. It's like I have this dream in my head.

00:18:55:22 - 00:19:22:06
Unknown
Is it true? Can I make it happen? And yeah, at its purest, like that's what we're out there trying to do is have this journey with ourselves to be like, Well, how much of what I imagine for myself can I actually live? Yeah, for sure. I think that some people lack the vision to even explore the limits of their potential, which I think is the barrier for lots of people.

00:19:22:08 - 00:19:49:23
Unknown
But for people like you, it's it's your physical performance, it's your circumstances that become the limitation rather than the vision for for what you feel like you can accomplish or what you can't accomplish. And I think that that's the most important part. You've got to have the vision. You've got to think and understand that you are one capable to deserving, and three, that it's even a possibility because without those three things, there's no motivation to do it in the first place.

00:19:50:01 - 00:20:27:17
Unknown
I'm interested here. So, you know, you triathlete, you have this car accident, you turn your your focus to big mountains. You know, I understand here that you deal with hape in high altitude environments. Did this exist or did you know that what was there before the accident? Was it related to the accident? You know, for someone who's chasing high altitude volcanoes and infinity loops and spending lots of time in the mountains to be predisposed for hape sounds kind of like a ticking grenade.

00:20:27:20 - 00:20:46:00
Unknown
And so I'm curious as to like one how you developed it, how you, you know, understood that it existed in the first place. And then we can, you know, follow up with with how it's affecting your current projects. But well, let's talk about the formation of a first. Yeah. So I mean, mostly they seem to think that it's genetic.

00:20:46:02 - 00:21:19:00
Unknown
I would assume that there's a potential that the scar tissue in my lungs from the car accident could play a role in this seeming predisposition for me to develop hape And for those I mean, obviously I don't have to explain it as deeply with the background of the people who listen to this podcast, probably. But you know how to do pulmonary edema is where basically swelling edema happens in your lungs to the point that it ruptures through into your airways and starts flooding the airways to the point that you can suffocate while you're asleep.

00:21:19:02 - 00:21:42:14
Unknown
And so you're at first you start to get these little cackles. As you exhale at the bottom of your breath, you start to notice like little bubbling. And that's when it's like entered the initial clinical stage. You can actually notice stuff like if you get really keen on it, right? I've been around the block now with it. You notice that your heartbeat is beating harder and it's kind of beating and a little bit of a different way.

00:21:42:16 - 00:22:06:18
Unknown
Like you kind of, you know, I kind of can tell now, but it's because in my my anatomy is going to fail me. I think there's the the atrial and the ventricular. So the ventricles pump blood like out to your muscles. And then the rear, I think, is the one that pumps to you. No more into your lungs.

00:22:06:20 - 00:22:35:20
Unknown
And so you feel the difference in like like what's pronounced in the beat of the heart because they don't both pump at exactly the same time. And so that like where the heart is stressing to pump hard, it feels a little different. Like really hard to explain, but you can kind of notice it because it's the lung side of the system that's strained due to vaso constriction through the lungs because of the drop of oxygen in your blood.

00:22:35:22 - 00:22:56:03
Unknown
And that causes your heart rate to go up. So heartbeats harder and then the vasoconstriction increases more. So now your blood pressure in your lungs is just outrageous. And that's what triggers the whole swelling and then rupturing into the airways. And then now you're coughing up fluid. And then by the time you're coughing up this clear ish pinkish fluid, it's like, yeah, you're it's serious.

00:22:56:03 - 00:23:17:05
Unknown
Like get down as fast as you can, because that's basically the only thing you can do. They call it the silent killer coughing up pink sputum. You're you're in really, really bad place. You should be there. Ideally. Yeah. Have you ever had pink sputum out of any curiosity there? Wow. Yep. That's scary stuff, man. That's great. Three times a lot.

00:23:17:07 - 00:23:42:03
Unknown
So. So the way to to to get into the story now, the first time I gave my help myself, Hape was a true blues story of young and dumb. I just kind of gotten back my mobility after the accident. So I'm 26 at this point. Maybe, you know, fresh to the mountains and I want to go attack bigger volcanoes in South America.

00:23:42:05 - 00:24:06:00
Unknown
So it's like, I'm going to go get Timbo. I'm going to go climb Chimborazo in Ecuador. Let's do it. This will be a fun story. Let's just let's just tell it. And instead of going straight to the mountain to start my acclimatization process, I bump into a couple of American gals in Quito who are heading to Banos. And so we cruise down to Banos and hang out and have a good time there.

00:24:06:01 - 00:24:35:23
Unknown
And I stay probably a few days longer than I should have and cut my acclimatization window down to like three days. So it's like, show up, drive up, go. And I'm basically climbing the mountain two days sleep, deprived of having, like, gone up too quick and like, already feeling horrible, like headache and all this and man, I mean, my heart rate was over 190 for most of the climb.

00:24:36:01 - 00:25:22:08
Unknown
My water bottles froze. So I ended up dehydrated, you know, just like new moves. Then I stopped eating because I wasn't drinking. So, you know, bonking out of my mind. I'm sleep deprived. The muscle cramping sets in. It was just like all of the things I vomit on the summit from the nausea and get all the way back down, like somehow just muscle it through on Pure willpower summit all the way back down, and then spend the next like, 30 hours just, like, bent over and coughing pink fluid out of my lungs, just basically like, okay, you know, stand for stand for like 30 seconds.

00:25:22:10 - 00:25:41:14
Unknown
And then the urge to cough comes because the fluid accumulates, bending cough and just like nonstop on repeat for like it was at least it was at least 24 hours after that. The effort I remember it being into the next day beyond like the first day down. And I was just like, Wow, that was such a stupid move.

00:25:41:16 - 00:26:05:20
Unknown
And then I gave I did an aggressive climb of Pico de Riserva as well and didn't give it to myself quite as bad there. But again spent like the evening after, kind of aggressively just getting there and going straight to the summit and coming down. Spent the evening after kind of coughing fluid up and not able to sleep that night, just kind of walking and pacing and coughing and walking and pacing and coughing.

00:26:05:22 - 00:26:30:01
Unknown
And those times where I could write them off, like, just like, well, I was an idiot. So of course I gave myself altitude sickness. I just was doing everything wrong and just relying on my fitness to get me up and down before anything got serious. You know, don't recommend that to anybody. And then I went for my first attempt on the pico de la saba infinity loop.

00:26:30:01 - 00:27:00:04
Unknown
I actually just flew over there solo and I'm like, okay, I'm going to do it right this time. I'm going to move up slow. I'm like, going to come pre acclimatized. I'm going to take like five days, six days up at the hut 14,000 feet, and then I'm going to go for it. And on my third day up at the hut, I noticed the cackles and by that evening I am coughing fluid up and I basically I'm like, well, nobody's going to drive up in the night to come get me.

00:27:00:06 - 00:27:30:20
Unknown
And I'm probably fine because I've given myself this before and I know what it feels like and I'll just be up all night coughing. So I just text my logistics, my, you know, the, my Mexican provider there for the lift up and down. I'm like, all right, I need the first ride down in the morning. And then I just kind of sat there researching hape and coughing all night to figure out how I could come back and succeed in the future, how to better, better prepare for it, because it's like, okay, apparently it's not just a young and dumb thing.

00:27:30:20 - 00:27:55:10
Unknown
It's like I actually have the disposition that even when I do stuff right, I develop this malady quite easily. Max You had briefly mentioned something about I could be wrong, but Dr. Peter Hackett does a whole bunch of work. He worked at the Denali Research Camp there, and he does research on haze and Hape for the U.S. military.

00:27:55:10 - 00:28:13:19
Unknown
I think now is in Colorado. You can look up Peter Hackett, but I could be wrong here. But I believe he's talked about two dimensions. One is genetically predisposition and then two is people who get hape are now more predisposed to getting it in the future essentially. So it's like it could be a compounding effect. But yeah, that's really interesting.

00:28:13:19 - 00:28:34:21
Unknown
I've heard him talk about scenarios where people previously had hape. If you do really slow acclimation you can completely negate it even if someone has previous history of hape. But I think in your particular case there's this really interesting dilemma that, well, you're not going to go up to you know, 16,000 feet and sleep for a night if you're running to 80, you know.

00:28:34:21 - 00:28:56:08
Unknown
So it's like it's that interesting thing. And then there's also such a high elevation gain in such a unique style of moving in the mountains where you're mountaineering, but you're also kind of ultrarunning. Like there's all these these things compiling together and it's light and fast, right? So it's like it adds an extra dimension. It's not like, Hey, ascend the volcano in six days and classic mountaineering style really slow.

00:28:56:08 - 00:29:21:16
Unknown
And you know what I mean? It's a very, very different endeavor you're taking on. So it's it's really, really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I might have to. I may have to look up. You said Hackett, right? Peter Hackett Yeah, because I hadn't, I hadn't found any real evidence that distinguish between weather. Is it like the question, is it that each time you get it, you're more likely to get it or just you were genetically likely to get it anyways and so you're going to keep getting it?

00:29:21:16 - 00:29:42:19
Unknown
I couldn't find anything that drew a distinction between both, so I'm definitely look into him for sure. Yeah, it was funny. We are on Denali. There's these group of people from Colorado and they actually had hired his clinic or him. I think I could be wrong, but it was someone in that area to like, communicate with them and and like day one they like, just blew by us.

00:29:42:19 - 00:29:58:06
Unknown
Like, like we stayed at this lower camp. They just went like an extra, like thousand feet, you know, and blew biased really fast. And they were all looking really good. And we're like, okay. Like, good for you guys, you know? And then we went up to the next camp and slowly, like they just never arrived for like a really long time.

00:29:58:11 - 00:30:16:22
Unknown
And eventually, like we saw them at the 14 K can't be like, yeah, like one of our group members got like signs of, like hape right away, like really quickly or whatever. And start having issues and going down. You're like day one. You guys just like, blew right through. I was like, probably not a good idea, you know?

00:30:16:22 - 00:30:43:21
Unknown
But a shit happens, right? And you know, sometimes you got to learn lessons the hard way. Unfortunately, one the other, the other. Interesting. Like you mentioned the situation of the efforts themselves forcing big elevation change. But the other interesting like tightening metric is I'm a school teacher so Right. I'm about to go take a team down and attempt the hostile Salado Infinity loop.

00:30:43:23 - 00:31:11:05
Unknown
And that one, you know, the lowest elevation will be at is 17,200 feet. We're going to go up over 22,615 feet. But the climbing window for ojos is the winter. And the only time I have during our winter is my Christmas break, which means I have a two week window to pull off the whole trip to try to go do an ultra endurance event above 17,000 feet.

00:31:11:07 - 00:31:32:14
Unknown
And it's like, Yeah, it kind of eliminates that. Like, well, I'll just take two months and go down there and hang out on the plateau for, you know, a month and a half of it before the effort. It takes that out of the, you know, the window because, well I've got two weeks for Christmas and where do you live, what, elevation 4000 feet.

00:31:32:16 - 00:31:50:01
Unknown
Okay so not Yeah, I'm not sea level 17. Yeah. I think there's this kind of interesting like occurrence that I think we've talked about here. Like Kyle, maybe you can jump in as well, too. But, you know, starting with the doctor, I don't know what it is. First off, I'll just. Disclaimer I love doctor surgeons. Doctors. You guys are great.

00:31:50:01 - 00:32:09:09
Unknown
Thank you for solving my problems in my ankles, but I don't know what it is. But every person I but also likes to have had like a sports injury. Just the doctor like, like, like upon analysis, like they don't actually get a lot of, like rehabilitation work and training and stuff in that realm. You know, like they're very much like hammer nails.

00:32:09:09 - 00:32:27:02
Unknown
They fix you and then they toss you off and it's up to you to deal with it or to get like rehabilitated. For some reason, my experience, everybody I know I talk to you anecdotally, the doctor, just like day one, when they're like most demoralized. It's like you're never going to walk again. Or like, you know, they just like they just give you, like, the worse information ever.

00:32:27:02 - 00:32:51:10
Unknown
And like, it's it's like, of course, in some cases, like, okay, you're, you know, your CNS has been severed at C three, you're paraplegic like, of course like yeah there's some pretty definitive things, but a lot of them are like my, my surgeon like, you know, like, told me is like, like my life was running and triathlons and I was a running guy at the time and he's like, he told me he's like, yeah, you're you going to need to give up running Like you're you're never going to run again.

00:32:51:12 - 00:33:10:18
Unknown
You know, I, I was like, crushed like, almost like my blood pressure shot. I to sit down. I thought I was going to pass out. I was like coughing pink sputum. Yeah. So, but, but so there is this really interesting kind of dynamic of that. And you know, we talked about this earlier where there's this like, this egocentric mindset, which is like self versus others.

00:33:10:18 - 00:33:37:02
Unknown
But then there's like a process oriented mindset, which is like self versus previous self, right? And so it's almost like if you are self versus previous self, which is how you should orient yourself in the world because it's like better for success and doesn't leave you like in conflict with everybody else around you. Then like you're just looking to improve and someone telling you you can't do something is almost motivating to be like, I'm going to show you that I can be like better than my previous self, if that makes sense.

00:33:37:08 - 00:34:01:21
Unknown
And so there just is this kind of common theme. And now, like even compounded for you, it's like, okay, you had this doctor who told you you're not going to be able to do this. And now you have like another condition which is like, Hey, which isn't very conducive to you doing this task again. And it almost seems like you have this like recurring theme where it's like, you know, like I'm not going to put that limitation on myself and like, write myself off.

00:34:01:21 - 00:34:26:09
Unknown
I'm going to I'm still going to try and improve and see if I can possibly do this. Like, you know, is that like something you've considered in this? Like how do you kind of view that in this dynamic of chasing the the, you know, essentially the seven summits of of infinity loops and volcanoes around the world? I mean, it is it like I think the story I told tells it, all right.

00:34:26:09 - 00:34:49:05
Unknown
Like here I am with a medically significant situation going on and I'm like, well, guess I'll pull my phone out and start doing research for next time. Like the mind was already made up. It's like in the moment, while I'm coughing up fluid, it's like, Well, better figure this out so I can come back and try again. It's just the next problem to be solved.

00:34:49:07 - 00:35:14:13
Unknown
It was it was like, okay, like this is. Yeah, sure. It's really uncomfortable. It's not a fun experience. It's not it induces anxiety, but it's like this is a thing I want to try to do. And this is an interesting problem and maybe someone out there has solved it. And if one person has solved it, maybe I can do and then I get to go live this wild dream that was supposed to be impossible.

00:35:14:17 - 00:35:42:15
Unknown
that sounds worth it. Yeah. Yeah. So two things here. One, in the defense of doctors, I think their entire goal here is aim low, settle high. You know, let's crush your spirits. Tell them you're not going to walk again. And then here you walk down the aisle and they're like, Hey, good job. You know, you're fucking and you are you that man was a reverse psychology.

00:35:42:17 - 00:36:11:15
Unknown
Yeah, exactly. Anyways, jokes aside, I think we you know, we're we're arriving here at the Infinity Loops. You know, we've talked about your injury, your condition with Hape and, you know, your, your, your previous self as to who you were before you started to go after these objectives. You know, for someone who doesn't know. Talk to us a little bit about what an infinity loop is, you know, and kind of brief, maybe a little bit about the history on on Chad Kellogg and what his vision for it was.

00:36:11:17 - 00:36:35:09
Unknown
And you know, what Infinity Loop is and your interpretation of Chad Kellogg's vision and what you aim to achieve in the future. And then we can talk about offer give me the name, not now or who's still a Seto, but the bigger there is other one Pico to Arizona. Let's you know talk about infinite loop and then we'll get to people there is yeah absolutely

00:36:37:12 - 00:36:43:21
Unknown
everyone, please like subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is the best way to support the show.

00:36:43:21 - 00:36:52:23
Unknown
so yeah the the infinity loop is you know it is as it looks on paper except with the summit of the volcano at the center.

00:36:52:23 - 00:37:15:13
Unknown
And, you know, that's kind of how Chad dreamed it up for any freestanding mountain, you know, And volcanoes are the freestanding mountain, of course, him being Chad Kellogg being from the Pacific Northwest, originally like Rainier was on his mind. And it has the Wonderland trail around it. So it all neatly kind of falls together. You got the DC route.

00:37:15:13 - 00:37:38:20
Unknown
On one side, the Indians are out on the other and the Wonderland to get around. And yeah, you climb up one side over the top, down the other side, you do a half circumnavigation back around to where you started. You go up and over again and then you do the other half drawing a big figure eight or an infinity loop with the summit of the mountain at the center.

00:37:38:22 - 00:37:54:11
Unknown
So one question real quick I have in terms of the structure of the infinity loop, what are your thoughts about the let's say you go up the east and down the west and you do with sort of half circle and you go back up the east and then back down the west. What about the north and south facing aspects?

00:37:54:11 - 00:38:24:13
Unknown
Is there like a quad infinity loop there to be achieved? Like what about those, you know, facing aspects? That's interesting. And actually, Joey Campanile, another person that maybe should be on your radar, he he humor. So he likes to be really disagreeable that says his M.O. He enjoys it. As soon as I did my my second infinity loop because I did actually did an infinity loop on Shasta Hood and Adams as well.

00:38:24:15 - 00:38:42:19
Unknown
And after one of those, he's he kind of drew the infinity loop. And. Right. If you draw an eight or an infinity loop, there should be like this little kind of gap. And he's like, so why doesn't it why doesn't it make more of an X on the mountain, you know, hitting like north, south, east, west, and then you only do like a quarter circumnavigation.

00:38:42:19 - 00:39:03:11
Unknown
I'm like, I'm not like I'm not going to change the legacy of a dead guy. The same thing like that. I do feel like that that would be violating worse than your frustration with the way it was thought up. So, yeah. No, that's cool. Yeah. No, I appreciate the explanation. I just that was the first thing I thought of.

00:39:03:11 - 00:39:21:01
Unknown
It's funny that, you know, he thought of the same thing. So I figured that somebody else, when they hear the word infinity loop, is going to have the same thing. So I just wanted to to clear that up. But yeah, please. Yeah. More about the infinity loop. You know, how it evolve to volcanos and bring us to or it's over.

00:39:21:03 - 00:39:41:14
Unknown
Yeah. So you as, as, as I was mentioning before, after doing the rain here infinity loop, it was just such a transform of experience. I knew right then and there. I think you can go find find me calling my shot on like an old 2020 like January 2020 podcast with the adventure Sport podcast saying like, I want to take the infinity loop to bigger volcanoes around the world.

00:39:41:19 - 00:40:11:10
Unknown
When I was asked at the end like, Well, what's next? And then of course we all know what happened just a few months later, COVID happens and all international travel is like, Well, there goes that idea. And so, you know, obviously that led to other interesting things getting done. but yeah, then COVID cleared up and those other interesting projects got done and there was that question again of what's next?

00:40:11:12 - 00:40:45:15
Unknown
And it was like, hey, we can travel again, it's time. And it gave me more time to kind of think about what it was I wanted to do and do a little more research rather than just picking random tall volcanoes that I thought it would like fit esthetically on. I came across the Volcanic Seven summits list and that just seemed like, man, if you want to take Chad's idea and spread it as globally as possible, like there's no more global expression, like that's as wide and far as it gets is to take it to the tallest volcano on every continent.

00:40:45:17 - 00:41:19:05
Unknown
And it's like, well, there's a goal. Like, why not? Why not extend this legacy idea to every continent and see what happens? And it also it was just like this impossible project, like how does a school teacher fund a $70,000 per person trip to Antarctica? How do I do? I take a team down there. How do I solve the issues with what Russia is doing in the world and get to elbrus to, you know, and deal with, you know, the bureaucracy there to do something that normal normally people don't do on the mountain.

00:41:19:07 - 00:41:51:08
Unknown
How do I get into Iran and make the same thing happen there on demand? And then, you know, Kilimanjaro is a 250 mile infinity loop. Yeah. It's like, you know, everybody in the ultrarunning world is all into these, you know, 200 milers and Kokoda is at 250. It's like, okay, yeah, here's a 250 miler, but you're going to run over 19,000 feet twice for a good long stretch of it.

00:41:51:10 - 00:42:22:18
Unknown
Yeah. So it's just one of the seven, which is the hardest. I think with my disposition for Hape I'm really the one that, the one that's got my nerves going is, is the one we're about to do. Hostel Salado. Just because there's no relief, like you don't go below 17,000 feet the entire effort. So there's it's like if symptoms start to come on and also it's like so remote it's like you got to get yourself out, Like you get down on the Argentina side of the mountain.

00:42:22:22 - 00:42:41:10
Unknown
It's like, well, you got to keep it together and walk. Walk your butt back around the mountain no matter how bad it gets. So there's this like seriousness to it. Even though it's a shorter one, it's going to be about 40 miles on foot because of the high plateau There. But it's going to be a super serious 40 miles.

00:42:41:12 - 00:43:08:20
Unknown
And that kind of, you know, the logic of bringing the bigger team is so that if people face issues, whether it's me or someone else, then if it's bad enough, there's someone to buddy up with them. And still people can there's people who can finish the endeavor. And man, that one probably for me, I think Kilimanjaro is going to be brutal just because 250 miles.

00:43:08:20 - 00:43:31:20
Unknown
I mean, just there's a fun thing to think about in the same way. It's like that's just mind numbing to think about the amount of distance and both up and around that you'd have to travel. Wow. So those two those two are pretty those two loom pretty large is the infinity loop. Like all in one effort. Can you sleep like what are the rules surrounding the the objective?

00:43:31:22 - 00:44:17:03
Unknown
So the original people who followed in Chad's footsteps or actualize Chad's idea I guess is a better way of saying that Gavin, Woody and Razvan, they basically did each component part so up and over and then rested half, sir, then rested up and over, rested half, Sark rested. So they kind of took like four days on it. So I think to some degree that's the essential nature of the challenge, like the challenge of like do an infinity that you can stop and rest as long as you complete the whole thing continuously with like outgoing home, you know, sort of in a self-supported way.

00:44:17:03 - 00:44:40:03
Unknown
I guess you could think of it like if you had a tent on one side and a car parked on the other side and you just kind of like, All right, these are the resources until we're done. But then, of course, the nature of fastest known times it got put on that, you know, fastest known time website. And the nature of that is like, well, how do we then make this more efficient and faster?

00:44:40:05 - 00:45:06:14
Unknown
And, you know, then it became this game of like, well, just how little sleep can you complete the effort with? I think when I did the Ranger Infinity loop for that 140 mile push, I slept like 50 minutes on night one and then took a 21 minute dirt nap on night to just like literally pulled on a jacket and laid in the middle of the trail for 20.

00:45:06:16 - 00:45:26:11
Unknown
And then when I got so called that, like the alarm bells were going off, that it's like you're going to freeze to death. I just got up and was like, okay, here we go, Keep going. So, I mean, when you're really going for it on infinity, there's this element of like, how much can you trim everything down and just be as efficient as possible.

00:45:26:13 - 00:45:44:21
Unknown
So, I mean, probably I'll continue doing them in that sort of continuous push style with limited rest. But I think for yeah, because we know why not, you know, it's a testament to your character. How far can you push yourself, right? How fast can I do this? You know, how hard can I try, how much can I suffer, which is honorable?

00:45:44:21 - 00:46:08:08
Unknown
I mean, someone else is going to do it, so you might as well be the first person to give it your best effort or it's over with. Nathan And the film, you know, I've watched the film one great find on the cinematographer, amazingly shot and great storytelling. You know, I have my own questions about that that are a bit unrelated to the podcast, so I'll ask those later.

00:46:08:10 - 00:46:32:22
Unknown
But talk to us about, you know, why you chose Nathan as a partner. Maybe his concerns with Hape and you know that and how that affected the climb itself and, you know, because for me, I was talking about this with Max, it's like asking someone to sign up for you on a high alpine objective knowing that, you know, hey, I might get hape and you know, I have to epic and you know, you might have to rescue me.

00:46:33:00 - 00:46:49:07
Unknown
It's kind of a large ask, in my opinion, you know, to ask somebody to come and do that with you knowing the risks that are involved. So you know, how did that play into Nathan and his choice to to do this with you and talk to us a little bit about the story and how or it's about went down?

00:46:49:09 - 00:47:15:16
Unknown
Well, to be to be fair, if I was a person that lost coherence, like if in these previous iterations of hape, if I at all had lost my mental facilities, I would not have considered probably doing this again, and especially not inviting someone else to have to face that for me. But in every iteration I've ever had this, I stay 100% coherent and I just have to continually cough fluid out of my lungs until the symptoms subside.

00:47:15:18 - 00:47:35:02
Unknown
And so it's like I'm still operational, I'm still able to move, I'm still able to like self-rescue. And so the idea there was it's like, all right, man, if I, if I develop hape, I'll turn around and walk down and you get to keep going was kind of the initial invite premise where it's like, maybe it works for me, maybe it doesn't.

00:47:35:04 - 00:48:00:19
Unknown
We'll try to make it work for me, but there's this possibility that I won't finish and you know, kind of the assumption in my mind with my previous experiences with him, which, you know, we can dive into that, was that he's going to be the strong one. And as far as like how we got to know each other and why I would choose him, he actually originally reached out to me because he wanted to best my time on the Rainier Infinity Loop.

00:48:00:19 - 00:48:21:05
Unknown
So we were kind of connected by the Infinity loop concept to begin with, because our first point of contact with him being like, I think I have a plan to beat your record, would you confirm that it will? And I'm like, you know, yeah, okay, I will. Now I want to start from your core, okay? And yeah, you had a great plan.

00:48:21:05 - 00:48:34:22
Unknown
You had the resume for it. I'm like, Dude, you've got to do this. You might be the first person to go sub 48 hours on on the Rainier Infinity. That would be sick, dude, you got to go for it. And then he's like, Well, what are you up to? And it's like, Well, I've got this silly thing called the Boulders.

00:48:34:22 - 00:48:52:21
Unknown
I'm going to go after Washington's Hundred Dollar Speaks. He's like, That sounds like a great way to train. I'm like, Sure, come along for day one. Like, can't hurt. I mean, I didn't know him, but it was like day one was pretty low key. So even if I mean, it was a huge day, like a huge epic day, like 22 hour push, but no like technical climbing or anything like that.

00:48:52:21 - 00:49:09:11
Unknown
So it's like if this kid doesn't actually measure up to who he says he is, it's not a big deal. He can just walk back out to his car. It turns out he more than measured up and we had an epic time together, had a lot of fun for a 22 hour continuous push where a lot of things went wrong.

00:49:09:11 - 00:49:29:09
Unknown
Just an even in day one and we solved them and move forward. It's like, this is great. And he's like, Can I keep joining you? And he ended up climbing 65 of the peaks with me and finished up all the other ones on his own and became the second person to do them in a season. Youngest finisher at the time.

00:49:29:11 - 00:49:57:17
Unknown
And we just got to share this like super cool experience and like really developed this like deep friendship, right? Because even climbing one mountain with another person moves you in a friendship with them in a way that just can't be paralleled, even with multiple weeks or months in the normal life, normal world. And so to go out and spend, go from 0 to 65 peaks with a person, it was just like the amount of trust and belief that I have in that kid for his capacity in the mountains and as his character as a human being.

00:49:57:17 - 00:50:20:12
Unknown
I'm like, Yeah, this is a person that if it did truly get serious, like if this was a free case of Hape Hill, he's the kind of person that will do whatever it takes. Yeah, obviously. Like I thought that was an infinitesimal chance that that would ever be the case. But I had this belief that it's like he's that kind of guy.

00:50:20:14 - 00:50:37:08
Unknown
He's the kind of person that makes the right decisions at the right time. And yeah, then also he did the whole species list after that every year. Basically people just need to go listen to the entire episode just with you guys because it's awesome. It's so great. Yeah, I think it's is the best episode ever with you guys.

00:50:37:08 - 00:51:09:03
Unknown
So yeah, go tune in. And Nathan Long Hours episode and then I'll stop waxing eloquent now. So yeah, chose Nathan and yeah, the Help ended up becoming an element, you know, I did what I could to, to mitigate and you know, pre acclimatize using altitude tent and all that leading up I had a a medicine that's specific to not allowing it blocks the vasoconstriction in the lungs.

00:51:09:03 - 00:51:36:14
Unknown
It's basically like a heart medication and it stops the vaso constriction in the lungs from happening. So that or at least limits it, I guess it doesn't it so that hopefully the it doesn't become medically significant. And so like I use that during the acclimatization process so that I wouldn't trigger it during acclimatization and it kind of makes you feel weird, kind of like lightheaded.

00:51:36:16 - 00:51:55:18
Unknown
And I just like, I don't want to feel that during the effort, so I didn't want to use it during the effort, but I'm like, I'll use it. Even that feels funky during the acclimatization just to even further reduce the risk of me developing this. It's called Nerfed Weapon. They've done they've done a few research studies on it.

00:51:55:20 - 00:52:23:23
Unknown
It's not what you normally hear about you normally hear about die marks, you normally hear about dexamethasone, but nerfed append is very specific to to help and yeah, you know, so just try to do everything right, everything I could to like set up success. But then we take the first trip over the mountain and I get that like different heartbeat that I talked about, like being able to feel that different, feeling like it's beating harder than it should be.

00:52:23:23 - 00:52:53:07
Unknown
My pulse is higher than it should be. And I feel on deep exhale, I feel a little bit of tension and pressure and pain. No, not none of the gurgling yet. None. None of the cackling yet. But I it could be on its way and that real quick. How much? So if I were in your shoes and I, you know, had already developed hape or whatever severity of hape you would say it would be three times.

00:52:53:09 - 00:53:23:03
Unknown
I think there would be a high chance to like almost be too aware of it or like too hyper focused on it or like to the point where it becomes psychosomatic, where it's like you're convincing yourself it's there, but it's not like, do you do you deal with that kind of mental anxiety of like, you know, either convincing yourself that it's there or convincing yourself that it's not when it is like, how much of that mental game does it play versus it being like, this is actually real and I'm totally connected.

00:53:23:06 - 00:53:51:07
Unknown
I, I tend to be the kind of person that, for example, when I was climbing Washington's peaks, I got this severe pain in my tendon and of course the idea crosses my head since I'm in my thirties now, like, I could be tearing my Achilles tendon loose from my tailbone because it was just like the kind of pain where it feels like someone is stabbing you with a searing knife and you literally can't think about anything else other than that pain as you're stepping off that foot.

00:53:51:10 - 00:54:08:20
Unknown
And we're deep in the backcountry and I'm like, this could be serious. And then I was like, Well, I'll try like flipping my shoe down and see if that that, you know, like when you're being lazy in the morning and you don't want to pull your shoes on all the way. So you walk on the back of them.

00:54:08:22 - 00:54:27:23
Unknown
And so I flipped it down and, you know, the pain subsided a bit like there was the ache portion of the pain, but not the sharp portion. So I was like, it's this heel cup on the back of the shoe that, you know, because of how much how steep all the terrain is in Washington and your Achilles tendon is just ripped straight all the time.

00:54:28:01 - 00:54:49:15
Unknown
It's the heel cup, just barely digging into my Achilles tendon. And it's triggered this whole tendinitis problem. So I just immediately, like whip out a knife and cut cut a V into the back of the shoe and go, All right, cool. Is going to finish the next like six peaks with no backs to my shoes. And so, like, that's the mentality I tend to have with stuff.

00:54:49:17 - 00:55:21:10
Unknown
So while I do believe with something like that can be as traumatic as this, right? Because spending all night bent over in a shower, coughing pink fluid out of your lungs with a headache is is a pretty memorable, terrible experience. So you do have like this almost PTSD aversion to it. And so as soon as I noticed that, like higher heart rate, the heartbeat like enough of these cues, the pressure, when I when it was all three, it was like then it kind of turned on like I'm now anxious.

00:55:21:10 - 00:55:42:20
Unknown
I'm now worried now, like fighting down the feelings of, man, what if this gets really bad? And I was like, okay, just keep observing. Like it's you're not coughing fluid up yet. So do the do the half circumnavigation. And if, if you're not if you're coughing up fluid, when you get to the next hut, you're done. It's over.

00:55:42:22 - 00:56:07:06
Unknown
You don't go up the mountain again. If you're not, you continue. And so those were the rules I played by. And it's like one of the things that can amplify hape developing is high effort levels. And so like I then had to be more conservative with my pacing. Meanwhile, Nathan is at the absolute top of his game 23 super fit.

00:56:07:10 - 00:56:33:14
Unknown
His training had been phenomenal. He was just fit from skiing, had been at elevation like every single day since Forever. Me I'd been dealing with some other health issues and my training hadn't been as strong as I wanted it to be. And then this is setting in. And so, you know, it created this tension between us, and we'd never faced that before because anything we'd done together, it was always one of us doing the thing.

00:56:33:14 - 00:57:09:06
Unknown
And the other just came for some of the time to support, you know, it wasn't we're both putting our names on this thing, right? And it's sort of like when you have a best friend and then you finally go into business with them or something, you're like, Who the hell is this guy? It was it was kind of a little bit it was a little bit of that where suddenly there was this tension between us because we're both getting kind of these different outcomes with how our bodies are performing and, you know, got to the got to the hut back on the north side, not coughing up any fluid.

00:57:09:06 - 00:57:35:23
Unknown
So it's like, okay, I meet my I meet my rubric for continuing but like still did not want to like crank into, you know, anaerobic heart rate zones on the ascent. I kind of thought in my head it's like once we're on the top or in the final thousand feet, I can kind of kick off all of the limiters and take risks because then it's just down the mountain like nine miles back around and we're done.

00:57:36:01 - 00:57:49:09
Unknown
And it's like at that point it's just like survive whatever symptoms set in until the rig arrives in the morning and get driven down. And so I was like willing to play that, but I didn't want them to set in while I was still on the way up. So it's like, I want to be conservative. Meanwhile, he's just like wanting to crank.

00:57:49:09 - 00:58:09:14
Unknown
He's like, I want to just sprint up this thing the whole way. The second time. And that's when like it really started to peel at the glue of of our bond and our friendship and our partnership on this particular. And we just got to have this like super real and raw moment out there. It's like, why are we here?

00:58:09:16 - 00:58:51:17
Unknown
Like what's what's the goal? How do you want? Like, what's the memory here? What's the memory here? Like I can turn around and go down if you want. Like I'm not coughing fluid up. I think I can finish. I can turn around and go down if you want. Like that's what you want, like, you know. And then that led to like, just like this super real and vulnerable set of conversations where I was able to get raw and real about how it was making me feel like I'm over the hill and maybe this era of my life is done and maybe the writing's on the wall, that I shouldn't be the guy doing this stuff

00:58:51:17 - 00:59:19:18
Unknown
anymore, and he got to get super real and vulnerable about I just believe there's something great out there for me to do and I haven't found it yet. And just seeing this like this juxtaposition of these two humans in different places. And he like asked me at one point if the roles were reversed and you were the one strong and I was the one struggling, what would you do?

00:59:19:20 - 00:59:50:17
Unknown
And I didn't miss a beat. I was like, I would carry the team, but I also didn't miss a beat. And I said, But if you had asked 23 year old Jason, he wouldn't have invited anybody else to be here in the first place. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. Like, of course, like there's this juxtaposition that you've explained something that I'm kind of really curious about is like, you know, from the previous episode we had where it was like individuals and these two teams coming and they kind of got stranded.

00:59:50:17 - 01:00:15:15
Unknown
And I guess like one of the things that came up, which is also a parallel here, is like, did you guys communicate prior to doing this? Like what was your expectations? Because obviously like a solo endeavor and a team endeavor are two very different things and racing is a very, very different thing. So like, did you communicate about this beforehand or did you kind of just like, you know, there was just this implicit IT idea that both of you were like in a team.

01:00:15:15 - 01:00:47:19
Unknown
And then when that essentially happened, it created this tension. I'm a cards on the table person. So we had talked we had talked ahead of time about the multiple scenarios that, you know, you know, if, heaven forbid, if he got sick that I could continue if I got sick, which seemed like the more likely scenario he could continue, but that we would like there'd be some level of like where if I looked at him and I'm like, hey, I'm coughing up fluid, we're halfway up on the second lap, I'm fine.

01:00:48:00 - 01:01:09:04
Unknown
I'm just going to walk back down to the hut like I'm here. I'm mentally present. I'm not like passing out. I'll walk myself down. You finish it. Like we talked through those different scenarios and I'm I'm very much kind of risk tolerant in that way where it's like, unless I'm like, feeling way out of it, then I'll be like, No, no, no, now's not the time.

01:01:09:06 - 01:01:27:10
Unknown
Like, or if you see me displaying symptoms like that, like, that's not the time to be like, okay, our agreement is for me to ditch you. So we talk through those different scenarios, but if it's like I'm 100% there and I say I'm done and I'm going to walk myself down while you continue, that's totally fine. So we talk through those scenarios.

01:01:27:10 - 01:01:52:07
Unknown
The thing we weren't ready for was just the emotions of where I was kind of on the edge and having to be conservative. And I'm already a bit slower of an athlete than him and him having this feeling of like having to pull back so hard on the reins as this like young driven, like, I want to go prove myself and find my jam, find my, my niche, my thing.

01:01:52:09 - 01:02:27:11
Unknown
And this feels like an important experiment to run, to like run up 18,000 feet for the first time and actually go like, really hard for myself. And so that was difficult for him. And I like I resonate with that. And, you know, as I said before, I when I was still finding my thing, I feel like a huge chapter ship shift happened for me when I did the Washington Boulders It field like it felt like when I completed that climb in a season and climb those peaks in 50 days, it was as if a chapter turn.

01:02:27:11 - 01:02:48:17
Unknown
And now it's like, I want to invite other people into the mountains and I want to share experiences and I want I want to spend more time like investing in people and experiences and that as opposed to I want to do this myself, I want to solo it, I want to be self-supported. You know, like I mentioned with the Cascade Trifecta Self-supported, I drove myself between the mountains, even though most people had drivers doing it for them.

01:02:48:17 - 01:03:16:11
Unknown
I did the Rainier Infinity Loop self-supported and solo, even though, like I had to convince them to give me a solo permit for it. And then yes, since since finishing the Washington Boulders, it's like, let's just invite everybody. And it's just like this big, like chapter turn where I just feel like I'm in a different place because like that, for me was like kind of a, a great like final exam or of, of things that interest and drive me.

01:03:16:11 - 01:03:36:06
Unknown
It was like this really great accomplishment that I'm very satisfied with. Hard work well done were the words I had as I lay on the ground after finishing it. Hard work well done. And so like that changed things and it's like I get to have that forever. And that was all in my mind as I'm like, as he asked me this question, like, What would you do?

01:03:36:06 - 01:03:59:15
Unknown
It's like, Yeah, but I understand where you're at. I totally understand 23 and still looking for the thing. And I believe it's such an important thing because I'm I feel like I'm a much more generous person now, and I was already generous and already cared about others, and I already wanted to help others even before. Like, people can go look back at my previous f cards on almost all of them.

01:03:59:15 - 01:04:20:02
Unknown
I'm like, Who's next? Ask me anything. Like, I'll give away all my data so you can beat me. I'm not like, I'm not going to tell you. You have to figure it out like I did. But you know, even more so after finishing. Just I just want to, like, help others and give stuff away and invite others into experiences.

01:04:23:06 - 01:04:45:10
Unknown
yeah. So it's just this like, kind of beautiful moment of these, like two different places in life. And we got to like, talk through that. There were some tears. There were some tears in the moment as we're like, still, like stumbling our way up the mountain slowly as we're like mostly in our heads talking this through. And we reached this place where he's like, Yeah, yeah, no, I want to stick it out with you.

01:04:45:10 - 01:04:48:13
Unknown
Like, we should do this together.

01:04:48:15 - 01:05:08:12
Unknown
And then the kind of funny part that happens is we get up on the glacier. For anyone that watched the film, I've had people say this was funny multiple times. I don't find it that funny. It's just how things go. It was hilarious. I was laughing. So we get up, Yeah, Glacier and we're like, We hit that like 2000 feet, 1500 feet from the summit.

01:05:08:12 - 01:05:24:01
Unknown
My local training mountain, when I just want to get a quick lap of steep road after work is about 1700 feet. So it's like when I hit that point. That to me is like, I've I've climbed that mountain, like, nauseous and sick with the flu. I've done a lap on that 1700 foot hog's back is what it's called.

01:05:24:05 - 01:05:45:00
Unknown
So it's like I hit that mark and it's like, doesn't matter how I feel, I can make it. And so, like, the confidence, like, kicked in there, like, okay, the symptoms are not any worse. It's exactly how it was. It's higher heart rate. It's like a little bit of pain with breathing. It's a little there was a little bit of cackling at the bottom of my breath, but it was like very limited.

01:05:45:00 - 01:06:06:13
Unknown
It was like deep exhale. I could hear it like bubbling the slightest bit. It's like, I'm not coughing fluid up yet. We're fine. Let's go. And so I just I don't even I don't even make a decision. It's just like the throttle starts going down by itself. And Nathan, at the same time, suddenly just hits this wall where for some reason he can't move.

01:06:06:13 - 01:06:32:19
Unknown
But I've never seen I've never seen him hit a wall before. I've never been out with him where he was in any way, not absolutely outperforming me at every moment. And so this is just like juxtaposition where suddenly I'm yelling over my shoulder back to him like, Yeah, man, you got this. Like, we're almost there. Let's go. Thousand people go and just rip up this thing in darkness and yeah, no, it was a beautiful moment.

01:06:32:19 - 01:06:54:01
Unknown
It was great. And we made the summit together. But also, you know, it was a little reassuring to me, right? In those moments, I was like, I should still be out here. I do still have it like. And you're like, Hey, by the way, Nathan, it's time for you to turn around. I'm going to finish this. I want to leave you in the dust now.

01:06:54:03 - 01:07:14:17
Unknown
No, no way, No way. Not a chance. man. But I know it's funny. We had a good time, and then we are. I think I'm. I'm almost certain we ran down at faster in the darkness on the second lap than we did in the light on the first lap. Just ripped down this thing, and it was glorious.

01:07:14:19 - 01:07:35:11
Unknown
And the rest is in the film. Yeah, definitely check out the film as it's like I said, so awesome cinematography is amazing. Really great story. I'm curious. So there's like a you know, there's this like crux in terms of partnership and friendship and, you know, expectations out of each other and yourselves. You know, there's obviously the crux of endurance.

01:07:35:11 - 01:08:07:08
Unknown
You know, this is a long, you know, event both up and around what about like a technical crux for this particular one? Like, was there a technical crux that someone could relate to? Or is it just the grit of the sheer volume of elevation and mileage? I, I would say the thing that would get to maybe, maybe not as many of the people who listen listen to this particular podcast, but there are definitely some some route finding to the navigation on the West Side.

01:08:07:10 - 01:08:29:23
Unknown
The trail would just disappear. It was washed out. And so many places are overgrown. There's there's a navigation crux that a lot of people complain about going up the north side before you reach the glacier called the Labyrinth. You know, a lot of people get lost there and end up adding like 6 hours to their ascent on what shouldn't take 6 hours to begin with.

01:08:30:01 - 01:08:57:17
Unknown
That's that's unfair. It's a wonderful climb. However fast or slow you do it. And I mean, the glacier is definitely steep enough that it's like heady if like someone's inexperience and not sure of their their footwork and their skills to arrest a fall like, yeah, it's definitely had the first time I ever climbed it. It was like almost bullet ice like that where your boots don't ever touch the ground.

01:08:57:19 - 01:09:18:19
Unknown
And that was pretty heady at that point. I was a much younger, less experienced mountaineer, and that that's a vivid memory in my mind. Just like seeing the slippery slide and someone actually an American skier passed away trying to ski it like the day before I went for Summit. That was like that was in my mind. So, yeah, I mean, that can get in people's heads for sure.

01:09:18:19 - 01:09:54:10
Unknown
It's it's steep. And then the top part of the scree descent on the south side is, you know, Nathan describes it as dust on crust type experience. And yeah, it's like marbles on marbles on a on a on a table or whatever. It's like you step on it and you get this like lack of friction on the surface, but not enough sync to kind of create that, like where you can control it and then you can quickly end up just like tumbling and trying to put your hands down on the, you know, and it's volcanic rock.

01:09:54:16 - 01:10:16:14
Unknown
You're like trying to put your hand down to stabilize a fall. And it's just like ripping the skin off. So that would probably be a crux as well. Okay. Yeah, No, that's great. Great visuals as well. I was there with you up on the top, just hanging on for dear life. Max, you got any questions? I think. I mean, yeah, I don't.

01:10:16:14 - 01:10:50:03
Unknown
I don't know, man. I mean, that was a lot to digest for sure. I think it's. It's such a it's such a just monumental, an interesting project. And, you know, ultimately, I'm really interested in following your journey on this. I would say one thing for me personally, I think is a little bit of a disclaimer or is that I think if someone is experiencing and they're not as adept to their body as an individual such as yourself and they are experiencing crackling in their lungs, it is a horrible idea to take your mentality and your like philosophy that you know, right.

01:10:50:03 - 01:11:10:15
Unknown
And you're like, no, How have your body and you've been through that because like for some people, hate can manifest really, really quickly. Like there might not be a really slow onset, but you can go from crackling to like you're fucking experiencing like bad symptoms and dying really quick. So the only reason I want to preface this is like for you it works, but I don't want to promote.

01:11:10:20 - 01:11:29:13
Unknown
I don't want anybody to walk away from this podcast being like, Well, Jason Hart art could do with crackling in his lungs and like, it's like that is like really, really terrifying experience. Yeah. And I think, I think it's really interesting you've been able to manage this and like and just still chase this goal. It's really the tenacity of it is really interesting and just crazy to me, you know, like that.

01:11:29:13 - 01:11:56:08
Unknown
It scares me to think about it really does. I would I would absolutely echo that medical advice if I don't see us if I had experienced the the iterations of being young and dumb where I gave myself really bad shape and was just I mean, it was almost annoying how present I was, just like totally mentally with it and totally in pain and totally coughing stuff up.

01:11:56:10 - 01:12:17:05
Unknown
Yeah, I don't think I would be nearly as bold. And I Yeah, like, I know something about myself. I worked a job in manual labor my first year out of college in the summer, putting gates through a powder coating system and you had to get lung tested. Like, what's your lung volume and what are the strength of your lungs before you go work the job?

01:12:17:05 - 01:12:49:18
Unknown
Because obviously they apparently knew that it damages people's lungs. And when I did the test, they're like, you've got like an extra liter of lung volume compared to someone your height and size and weight. That's pretty impressive. And I'm like, that's cool, too. Know? And I bet that plays a role like as I as the symptoms onset, I have enough like volume in there that's not being occupied with fluid that I'm able to keep operating at some level and keep my oxygen levels high enough in my blood that I'm able to keep going.

01:12:49:18 - 01:13:18:14
Unknown
And so, yeah, it's like I've got just enough going in my favor that for some reason I'm able to manage it without quickly. But I've read the same thing that a lot of people, it's like they're fully with it. There are no symptoms. They get a little bit of crackling and gurgling and then like suddenly they have no mental coherence whatsoever and they have to abs they, they have to be attended every second to get them down to safety.

01:13:18:16 - 01:13:42:11
Unknown
So, yeah, definitely not in any way recommended that. It's like, my heart rate is high and I'm getting some bubbling and gurgling. When I exhale, I'm going to continue. No, don't. Yeah, yeah. It's like fluid in the lungs, you know, reduces arterial. to that tanks you get haste on top of ASAP and you're like you're gone really, really fast.

01:13:42:11 - 01:14:09:06
Unknown
Right. So it's one of those things where it's like the exception doesn't prove the rule. Colin I don't want to get sued. No, but yeah, it's, it's a it's a really interesting story. So. So what's the mean? I just. so you go. Yeah. I just think it speaks to. You know, Max's point here just speaks to how insane it is, what you're doing, you know, considering the circumstances, you know, it's just like not a lot of people would be going out on a limb like that.

01:14:09:06 - 01:14:37:12
Unknown
So, I mean, it's it's courageous and inspiring, but there is definitely like a weight of gravity to it. I think most people would have used the word foolish there. It's foolish. Yeah. Hey, it's your life, you know. You know, fuck it. I think in some capacity, like, yeah, like, let's be honest, it is. They there is like a total, like, component to this that is in some way foolish, but like, that's just like inherently it seems like a part of your characters in individual, like driving and pushing, not taking no for an answer.

01:14:37:12 - 01:14:51:15
Unknown
Finding a solution, going beyond, you know, like I could have listened to my doctor who gave me like, sound advice, Hey, you're going to destroy your ankles, never run again. Do that. I still run. I'm not even remotely as good of a runner as I never did a 250 marathon. I did 315, which I still thought was pretty good.

01:14:51:15 - 01:15:12:03
Unknown
I was pretty proud of that man. But but, you know, it's like I like I, I didn't listen to that medical advice. You like you have to find within your own limit in your own life that work for you. Right. And so but it's also just understanding also that like you're this really, really experienced athlete stuff, you know, and it's really like, like for my experience a climb, right?

01:15:12:03 - 01:15:35:21
Unknown
An injury is like I like took inspiration motivation from individuals like you who are doing these aspirational projects and doing these hard things. But it's really important to to not negate the background of the individual and the adversity that that person has gone through to, like, sharpen themselves into the person who can deal with that, who can make the decisions that will deal with that properly in that kind of situation.

01:15:35:21 - 01:15:53:08
Unknown
Right. So it's like we're we're essentially the sum of all of our failures and, you know, the adversity that's been thrown at us. And, you know, in the end, you can make decisions based on that for yourself. And the more you've been through, the more arrows you have in your quiver to be able to deal with that situation.

01:15:53:08 - 01:16:21:20
Unknown
And that's an important thing for people to like, listen and have an understanding of. I completely agree. Yeah, I completely agree. So when do you go down to It's also dels salad. sorry was so terrible. It wasn't that I was like, So that's going to be a sound bite for sure. It sounds right. my God. my God.

01:16:22:10 - 01:16:48:18
Unknown
Jesus. It's okay, Max. You're on the north border, not the south. It's okay. We can rule out speaking Spanish anytime soon. Sorry. Did you maybe say the right name? Hostess or solo Stiletto? As far as I know, it's Ojos del Salado salad. Hey, that's. Come on. That's pretty clustered serenity, But it's not. At least it's not your glasses.

01:16:48:20 - 01:17:19:02
Unknown
We're going to go down there. December 17th is when the team flies out, hit the ground 18th. We have until January 1st to acclimatize and find our window. Everybody's pre pre acclimatizing as well. The whole team is the the bag people on the team are just like up at, you know, 11,000 feet to 14,000 feet skiing. Those of us that have these silly things like careers are using altitude tents and then getting out on the weekends.

01:17:19:04 - 01:17:38:20
Unknown
But yeah, the team's going to show up ready to basically go straight up to sleeping at like 13,000 feet and then we'll work it from there. So sick, dude, I can't wait to hear Cross and Vega is hoping to open up plays. Well, Yemen really interested to follow your journey there. Yeah. And this will be two of seven, right?

01:17:38:20 - 01:17:56:00
Unknown
This will be two of seven. Yeah, that's six. Yeah. Chapter of seven. That's awesome. Are you guys filming the whole thing? Just like the first one? Yeah, We'll be filming it. It won't. It'll be a little more ragtag because we've got one film are coming, but then because of the large athlete team, each athlete will have like an action cam with them.

01:17:56:04 - 01:18:22:01
Unknown
So it'll kind of be in that style. And then we'll get some more of the cinematic type footage on some of the acclimatization days and then he'll probably start off earlier than us and get some higher, higher quality cinematic footage on the actual endeavor as well So cool. Yeah, I'm psyched. Cool. Bastian Well, good luck. You know, super psyched to have you on the show and to hear your story.

01:18:22:03 - 01:18:45:03
Unknown
It's just really inspiring, especially considering, you know, everything you've gone through and continued to deal with with the ape, you know, just again, you know, so super psyched to have you on the show. So thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks a town for coming on the show, man. Where can people follow you support you hear about you like just let people know about that.

01:18:45:05 - 01:19:06:02
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, as far as social media as I'm mostly on Instagram, I have a minor presence on some of the other platforms that people can find me. I don't really like interact as much on their little bit on Facebook, but Instagram. Jason Truth Just my first and last name, nothing fancy about it. Then I do have a website.

01:19:06:02 - 01:19:29:17
Unknown
Jason hydrate that com you can email me through there if that's more your speed and your style because you don't like social media, which I'm actually increasingly liking it less and less. So I don't, I don't mind that at all. I'm willing to give away any better on projects I've done. I love to meet new people and have conversations about how to do stuff like this.

01:19:29:17 - 01:20:07:18
Unknown
So definitely feel free to reach out and for everybody that's listening. What's the film called? The film is available on both outside TV and outside TV slash outside watch. I forget what they call it now and YouTube. And if you just search Journey to Infinity, Pico de or Zaba, you can easily find it on either platform. I'm sure we'll get some links in the show description and then if you're interested in checking out a bit more of a film that covers a little more of my backstory and the other projects I loosely alluded to, you can look up Journey to Infinity or excuse me, Journey to 100, Journey to Infinity.

01:20:07:18 - 01:20:27:20
Unknown
Journey to 100 was my project Climbing Washington's Hundred Dollar Speaks. And that's also on Outside Watch or YouTube. So both of those are ways to learn a little more about some of the stuff I've just awesome. Yeah, we'll put the links in the description for sure. For everybody listening if you gotten this far, Thank you for being a part of the show and listening to the end.

01:20:27:21 - 01:20:36:03
Unknown
We appreciate you guys. Yeah. Until next time.