66 | The Sandstone Alpinist Part II w/ James Barrow

Welcome back to part two of our chat with James Barrow! In our last episode, we heard about James' journey as a climber and what events ultimately lead to his most recent achievement: The Complete Towers of the Virgin Traverse. A link up that covers 20 distinct peaks, and 18.5k of elevation gain over 28 miles. The terrain involves runouts upon runouts, canyoneering, bushwacking, steep snow travel, soloing, and an abundance of massive full 70m rappels using a fiddle stick. At 5.9+R/M2R. Nothing of this length or technical difficulty has been done in Zion in over 20 years. 

Today, we're diving into a step-by-step trip report. We'll cover the major milestones, close calls, and all the intricate details of this massive desert alpine link up.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend doing a bit of homework on The Complete Towers of the Virgin Traverse. Check out the resources in the show notes to get a sense of the massive scale and seriousness of this objective.

I'll keep this intro brief since we've got a lot to cover. So, without further ado, let's jump back into our conversation with James Barrow.

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We are always looking for new guests. If you or someone you know would be a great fit for the show please don’t hesitate to reach out, just like James did. You can reach us on IG or email us directly @ theclimbingmajoritypodcast@gmail.com

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Resources

James Barrow's IG

The Complete Towers of the Virgin Traverse

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:45 Day 1
• 45:23 Day 2
• 1:19:30 Day 3
• 1:31:35 Day 4
• 1:40:37 Reflections

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:03
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.

00:00:24:03 - 00:00:54:14
Unknown
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to part two of our chat with James Barrow. In our last episode, we heard about James's journey as a climber and what events ultimately led to his most recent achievement, The Complete Towers of the Virgin Traverse, a link up that covers 20 distinct peaks and 18,500ft of elevation gain over 28 miles. The terrain involves run outs upon run outs, canyoneering, bushwhacking, steep snow travel, soloing, and an abundance of massive full 70 meter repels.

00:00:54:14 - 00:01:19:21
Unknown
Using a fiddle stick at five nine plus R m2 are nothing of this length or technical difficulty has been done in Zion in over 20 years. Today we're diving into a step by step trip report. We'll cover the major milestones, close calls, and all the intricate details of this massive desert alpine link up. If you haven't already, I highly recommend doing a little bit of homework on the Complete Towers at the Virgin Traverse.

00:01:19:23 - 00:01:33:03
Unknown
Check out some of the resources in our show notes. Just to get a sense of the massive scale and seriousness of this objective. I'll keep this intro brief since we've got a lot to cover. So without further ado, let's jump back into our conversation with James Barrow.

00:01:45:23 - 00:01:50:22
Unknown
All right. Where were we? Okay. yeah, we were about to hear the story.

00:01:50:22 - 00:02:05:04
Unknown
so take us chronologically. Take. Tell us the story for sure. The, I kind of blend a little bit, the two together to keep it. The 2.0. The first and second. Yes, because I made two attempts at this, and we succeeded on the second attempt.

00:02:05:06 - 00:02:34:18
Unknown
So, they're very different. they're very different starts, to say the least, as they start in the same locations. which was in the Anasazi, like, like the plateau Anasazi plateau area. It's like a little HOA of very wealthy individuals up on the cliffs, you know, kind of overlooking the town. And, but that bridge area is where it starts from a very classic, little alpine route, called Cowboy Ridge.

00:02:34:20 - 00:03:03:05
Unknown
You know, it's goes about five, seven, you know, and so on. The on the first, on the first attempt, the, you know, 2023 was a nasty year for the West Coast when it came to weather. it was very winter heavy. and so even in the, even the deserts, it was, you know, we showed up and ultimately, I mean, to kind of make it short is the whole traverse.

00:03:03:05 - 00:03:27:06
Unknown
Even in the middle of the day, it never really got above freezing. you know, and whereas the on the second attempt, we got out of our got on our car getting dropped off and it's in, you know, it's a nice crisp 50, 50 Fahrenheit, you know, 50°F. And you're like, oh yeah, nice, nice way to start the day.

00:03:27:08 - 00:04:02:15
Unknown
And nonetheless, we, you know, we cruise up, from there, the, you know, the first peak itself is, is Cowboy Ridge goes about five, seven, a really great entry route to the park. And we, we chose that as instead of the West Temple, which is the normal traverses start. We chose Cowboy Ridge as it's this amazing, you know, we you know, it's just the on ramp to get on to the rest of this ridge, you know, whereas when you start West Temple, it it feels as though you're cutting into, you know, halfway into a ridge.

00:04:02:15 - 00:04:27:10
Unknown
You. And whereas cowboys like you start at the beginning and it's great to just like you start there as a really definitive, kind of like shot of the gun to really get going. And so from the, the base of where we started in that neighborhood, it's about, you know, two miles to the base of that climb and then about, it's three quarters of a mile to the top of Cowboy Ridge, you know?

00:04:27:10 - 00:05:05:07
Unknown
So collectively it's a little shy of three miles. And so both times, we did you know, we did in about 2.5 hours, from from base to the top of Cowboy Ridge. From there, you drop into a meadow. and then there's the second peak just neighboring it. that, takes about, you know, it's it's it's a quick like, 500ft third class, you know, and the, from there, it was, you know, it was just a nice, easy trek on the second.

00:05:05:07 - 00:05:31:13
Unknown
Go on the first go, it was misty, icy and cold, you know, was actually breaking out the spikes to go up the slabs, to go up. It sounds terrifying. Yeah. And so. And there's this really, there was this really heavy haze, you know, over it. Yeah. And so I was just like the, you know, as the, as the sun was kind of coming over it, there was this like, just immense fog, that really affected visibility.

00:05:31:15 - 00:05:59:23
Unknown
And so, you know, and this, you know, this first day in most cases was expected to be really easy. You know, it was our longest day and our most, you know, our most elevation gain for the trip. You know, it was expected to be probably around nine and a half miles, maybe ten miles, for day one and about, about, about 8000ft of elevation gain for the first day.

00:06:00:01 - 00:06:19:09
Unknown
You know, the first day was considered start day. You know, it's where you're, you're just getting you're just really putting on the numbers, and, and you're doing pretty much the most of the day. You're doing known routes that are commonly done by individuals that are in that enjoy this style of route. and so from there, you'd hit.

00:06:19:11 - 00:06:44:13
Unknown
So you do Cowboy Ridge. You go in the Meadows, you hit Kennesaw. The from there you come back down and then you repel. You go to the edge of Kennesaw to where you start looking at the West Temple, which would be peak three. And that ridge itself goes at five six. You know, it's not terribly hard. Most of it is most of its third and fourth class scrambling with the occasional, you know, techie kind of scrambling along on this, same, you know, same with Cowboy Ridge.

00:06:44:13 - 00:07:19:15
Unknown
Much of it has like 3 or 4, portions where you have to pay attention. Aside from that, you know, you're just on exposed ledges, doing, relatively delicate, but not really that technical of, of movement. And so, we are we do one full 70 meter Powell, to which, we used, we used a fiddle stick for, it's a canyoneering technique, so that we could one reduce on, reduce on weight tremendously.

00:07:19:17 - 00:07:36:16
Unknown
So, you know, a fiddle stick, if you have, you know, you tie it with a pole line, it allows you to actively use a singular rope. and with the pole, iron allows you to double its length. So, you know, being said, as most people, when they climb, they pass the rope to midway with a 70 meter rope, you get 35m out of it.

00:07:36:16 - 00:08:07:22
Unknown
Right? And so instead of hauling two full 70 meter ropes, which, you know, are close to like about, you know, that like 12 to 15 pounds, about like 3 to 4 kilos, depending on the diameter, you know, a piece you we could save and not not, you know, mentioning that space that it takes up that you have to either haul it on your shoulders or in your pack, or on top of your pack, you know, it's just it's a huge it's a huge savings.

00:08:07:22 - 00:08:26:16
Unknown
I mean, it just so much energy is saved from that collectively throughout all the steps and distance that you do and all the climbing that you do. And so ultimately that that piece allows you to, you know, you you can wrap the singular rope around, whatever bush, tree or rock. You decide that you want to repel off of.

00:08:26:17 - 00:08:50:21
Unknown
And then from there you tie what's called a stone knot, which is actually a hitch, and then you pass, it's essentially a plastic stick through this knot. Essentially, it's a plastic stick. It is. It's a plastic stick. You use something called a smooth operator, which is essentially the same thing, just a different brand, that has two holes in the ends, ends of each side.

00:08:50:21 - 00:09:09:01
Unknown
You clip carabiners to them, and then from there you clip your pull line to that. And so once what is once we repel down and it's unweighted, you pull you like said, you pull that pull line and that fiddle stick will actually release from that knot. And then the of a holding the whole knot itself will come completely undone.

00:09:09:05 - 00:09:34:15
Unknown
And then everything falls. You're still having to take a 70 meter pole line. Yes, but it's way smaller. What the what we ended up taking, was a 6.5. millimeter pull line, and so that's like dental floss. Yeah. Seriously? Yeah. It's probably like this. This much? Yeah. Seriously? Yeah. And so we brought 70m of 6.5mm, and it's so light.

00:09:34:15 - 00:10:00:08
Unknown
You know, it's probably, what, 5 pounds? and so and the space that it takes up tremendously less. And if we need to lead on it to, we can do so. Is it rated the. It's rated. Wow a 6.5 is rated for a full knot twin. It's a full rated maybe a couple out here. you have this fiddle stick here don't you.

00:10:00:08 - 00:10:24:10
Unknown
Yeah. Let's see it. Yeah. All right, so I just need to borrow an arm from you. So kind of given a visual. So these are my tree. So from here, I've wrapped side wrap, take one end and wrap it around my said piece of protection. And then from there, I would take my double that I took around, and I would pass it over, and then I'd pass it over again.

00:10:24:13 - 00:10:46:01
Unknown
And I grab these two strands and then the stick goes, and then I take my stick, which I mean, it's way smaller than I thought it was going to be. Plastic stick. It's strong. It is. Yeah. But, and then you pass it through this setting on from there and you'd cinch it, you'd cinch it down. And so this is where my pull lining.

00:10:46:05 - 00:11:09:09
Unknown
And so the first person that goes down. You you take the, you take an extra carabiner and you click it to the second portion of that and you can click it to there. So if this line tries to pull out it can't actively pull out. Yeah. And so being said is once the first person goes down. Yeah completely.

00:11:09:09 - 00:11:34:01
Unknown
So you want to be first you pull from the right Shambo. Yeah. And so from there on the second person is where the hazard itself that really the fiddle stick gets its reputation for or poor reputation for is that you do take on a certain amount of risk. And the fact being that the system, if you do it incorrectly, it's not going to stay, it's not going to stay done.

00:11:34:03 - 00:11:57:00
Unknown
So nonetheless, though, is you repel down, making sure that you keep it consistently weighted. Because if you unweighted, that actually will allow for this to this to easily move. You can see how easily it moves, right? That's terrifying. And so when it's cinched down and like I said, done plenty of tests on this is if it's weighted, it takes a pulley system and even more so to actively rip that stick out.

00:11:57:02 - 00:12:23:12
Unknown
and so nonetheless, though, you get to the bottom and from there you pull that line and it comes out, for most people, terrifyingly easy. Yeah. And then I'm going to pull that line. The belt comes undone, and then it slides around the tree and it falls down to yeah, I think it seems like similar concept obviously to like a bio escaper, except you're more versatile because you can wrap that around larger objects and stuff in an escape.

00:12:23:14 - 00:12:44:10
Unknown
Yeah, right. So yeah, I know I kind of get like the concession there of like why you'd want that for sure. Just as a short example, just today I was on a different mountain and the only anchor that we had to make a really, you know, a really nice clean repel that the tree itself was 20ft back on the ledge.

00:12:44:12 - 00:13:03:22
Unknown
I can wrap it around that tree and sacrifice 40ft of rope and then make that knot right over the lip of the edge, and then I repel down. I pull that fiddle stick right over the edge. It comes right out, and then I just pull the rope and it comes. Come back to there. Whereas, like, I'm not, I'm not carrying 40ft worth of tat on me.

00:13:03:22 - 00:13:23:23
Unknown
Yeah, I mean I could, but like that gets really heavy. That gets really bulky. I think even from the perspective of the beam escape is like what you just alluded to, where it's like you can actually make the knot for the filler stick over the edge. Yeah. Where's the escape? Or you can't do that. And like, I've actually had this situation where I've gone rope stuck before, which is like part user error, but part also.

00:13:23:23 - 00:13:53:23
Unknown
I don't think it was just the user. So like what happened is, is exactly what you're talking about. So for those listening, if you have a really steep section and then you have a lip and then your anchor is behind the lip because it has to be if you have a escape route, which is kind of like this tiny friction hitch relying on like, you know, essentially tension and then release and tension and release when you have the edge creating almost like a 90 degree angle and you pull all the tension, flips the rope up instead of pulling it down.

00:13:54:03 - 00:14:16:08
Unknown
So, like, what should have taken 20 paws to release a bit escaper might take you like 400. Like I had to leave a rope and recover it. The next day is climbing because like, we pulled it like 350 times and it was like -36 and my girlfriend got frostbite on her pinkie and we were like, fuck this. Like left the rope piece out, you know, headed home.

00:14:16:08 - 00:14:38:06
Unknown
And then the next day I came back, climb the climb again, got the rope and like, the escaper was like almost close to releasing. But like we were there two people for almost an hour straight in like -35, -36, full on running down a hill, cranking on a rope and like. Like I was just in disbelief that this thing didn't release.

00:14:38:06 - 00:15:02:00
Unknown
And I still really like the escape route. But what you just express is like a huge advantage in certain situations for the Federals. Like for sure, fine signs of really leggy and bushy location. I mean, notoriously so if you don't get a rope stuck, it is like a miracle day. Yeah, like you become a pro. If you climb in Zion National Park a lot, you become a pro at getting ropes unstuck and stuck.

00:15:02:01 - 00:15:19:15
Unknown
I'm stuck. Is it worse than Red rocks? Yes. Wow. Yeah. Well, they they put up pretty good competition with each other. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's like a photo that I think you sent to us where this just like a bush and the ropes been pulled into, like, this bush, and it's just like this tangled mess and like, it looks like so, so messed up.

00:15:19:16 - 00:15:37:23
Unknown
Is that. Yes. That phrase I like to call fiddle stuck. Yeah. So and so. Yeah. And like I said, with the fiddle stick, I know a couple things. I know that within five seconds I know if I'm fucked or not. Yeah. You know the B-list gamer, I could be yard in on that thing for an hour and I can go.

00:15:38:01 - 00:15:56:10
Unknown
Can I ascend this safely? I don't know if I'm like, one pole or, like three bounces away from this coming out. No. Where's the fiddle stick? I'm like, I didn't take the care of being around. It's time to ascend the rope. and being said, if it's actively stuck, it's actually stuck. I know it's stuck. I know the situation I'm in and waiting the ropes.

00:15:56:10 - 00:16:13:12
Unknown
Just going to make it more stuck. Exactly. Yeah. And so I know my situation and I know how to adapt to that situation. Where does it escape? It gives me too much because I'm I'm doing full 70s. I'm doing full 70 meter rebels. So most of the time I can't see my anchor anymore. And the rope stretch is tremendous.

00:16:13:12 - 00:16:31:20
Unknown
At the end of a 70 meter, the rope stretches tremendous majority of the efficiency that you get from just using your body to pull the the, you know, pull the rope itself is lost in the stretch of 70m worth of rope stretch. I mean, you look at rope stretch, the elongation on, it's like anywhere from like 25 to 35%.

00:16:31:22 - 00:16:49:14
Unknown
You're losing that much power that your body's providing on that rope before you actually are actively applying force to pulling that to the escape, or not being able to see it gives me too much ambiguity when it comes to do. I need to go up and save my rope because I have six more pitches to get off this.

00:16:49:14 - 00:17:11:17
Unknown
This is the difference between me calling soccer or getting stuck on the wall. Whereas like if I know I'm like screwed, like right there. And then if, you know, I know that that is, you know, I know that I have to address that situation like immediately. And I'm not like asking questions that, you know, I wish I had the omniscience to kind of like float up there and like go, oh yeah, that's for pulls away.

00:17:11:19 - 00:17:32:06
Unknown
Yeah. You know, if I can only put a 13 to 1 on this thing, I would have gotten as you're jogging up. Yeah. That's the thing to like if you're jogging out of escape or like you're jogging could inherently release the escape or just by the fact that you're, like, pulling on the rope. Yeah, there's a possibility you have to, like, climb like, like, really delicately so that you don't, like, shock load the system.

00:17:32:06 - 00:17:49:03
Unknown
Yeah. When I went in, recovered that rope, I did not have the balls to just had a micro tracks on the rope. But I also had another rope below me that I was leading on because I was not. I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. Like no way. Yeah. No way. Fall on this thing like that. Yeah. It was just bananas.

00:17:49:03 - 00:18:09:15
Unknown
Yeah. Wow. Well, yeah. I mean, thanks for painting the picture there. You know, this is how you're, traversing this landscape. Yeah. And so the last thing to say upon why the little stick, like, why the fiddle stick was such a, like, an essential tool is. Yeah, it saves weight. And it also is just like, save space saves weight, saves efficiency.

00:18:09:18 - 00:18:49:07
Unknown
You know, I don't have to coil another rope, you know. Now we're also looking at. Cool. Now I don't have to leave Tad I can be more leave no trace. I can go to these places and I can I can honestly go through these locations and try to minimize my impact on such delicate ecosystems. You know, the desert being one of the most delicate ecosystems in the US and trying to minimize that while still trying to recreate, you know, so I'm still doing damage, but being able to minimize that by not leaving my trash all over the place is, you know, now, now other people aren't going to be inspired to replace old tat just

00:18:49:07 - 00:19:08:17
Unknown
because they're too cheap or, you know, they're trying to save time or something, you know, like the amount of deaths that happened because of that. And then I'm not leaving junk on the bushes and choking trees out. I mean, I imagine you've possibly you've seen, you know, pictures where trees have grown over the years and, you know, like us as a community, normally we clean up that stuff, but not always.

00:19:08:17 - 00:19:32:02
Unknown
Sometimes there are more obscure roots, and these trees and bushes are all, you know, gnarled up simply because, you know, we didn't clean up the stuff that we've left behind. And so if I can avoid that altogether, I mean, cool that just add that to the list of what's what's fantastic about about using it, you know, like, obviously there's downsides to using everything, but you weigh those, you know, you weigh those pros and cons.

00:19:32:04 - 00:19:54:17
Unknown
Yeah. I think the only thing I'd push back on for listeners, and I think Kyle and I talked about this a little bit, is like, I definitely agree with everything you just said. And the only caveat I'd give is like, there is like a larger degree of competency that you need to have with the fiddle stick. And so for like, you know, if you're tired or you're not 100% confident and competent with your piece of gear, there is more risk and you can kill yourself easier.

00:19:54:17 - 00:20:11:01
Unknown
And so the only like message that I'd like to say just because like this is the climbing majority, there could be new climbers listening to this is like, don't go out and just inherently buy yourself a fiddle stick. And it's not worth killing yourself to not leave tat on a tree, you know, not very much. So it's like it's like there's a middle ground here.

00:20:11:01 - 00:20:29:10
Unknown
Like I think people have a right. And of course, like, if we can progress into these things and there's a time and a place, but like, your gear is only as useful as you are competent with it. And so that's the only care I can give to just like newer climbers who could potentially be listening to this is like, don't kill yourself to not leave a piece of tat on the trail.

00:20:29:10 - 00:20:46:13
Unknown
Yeah, you know, I think everybody here is in agreement on practice, practice, practice, especially with this piece of equipment, because like I said, when I was doing it, if you don't do it right, you do it wrong and that will completely come undone. Yeah. So there I mean, as you saw. Yeah. Like sneezed. You will die. Yeah, yeah.

00:20:46:15 - 00:21:05:20
Unknown
Level of. Yeah. The level of margin for error is zero for you using fiddlesticks. So like, yeah making sure that you're extremely competent when using that piece of equipment and being comfortable doing so. Yeah is essential. Yeah. That being said though, you alluded to like tapping Left Behind and that's just as much as zero room for error like we did.

00:21:05:20 - 00:21:26:00
Unknown
You see my Instagram post like just recently. Yes. You fucked like we, we came across that piece of tap and like, it looked brand fucking new. Like, I've come across Sun Tap before and it's like very clear, like, okay, this is like whitewash. It's like it looked really bad. Yeah. this thing looked bomber like, no friggin colored, like beautiful and like.

00:21:26:00 - 00:21:43:03
Unknown
So I'm like, rigging for repel, like getting ready and, like, right before I weighed it. My college stuff. You know, we should double check this. And, like, we look over and, like, we see this little spot that's a little frayed. And he, like, picks out in the whole thing. Just like, rips apart on like the video obviously started like after we had picked apart it a lot.

00:21:43:05 - 00:22:01:22
Unknown
But dude, I have the thing in my garage. It's like like you can like feel it creaking and like cracking under your weight. Just like pulling on it like that and check the things. You're always check your tat, like, I don't care how good it fucking looks. And honestly, this like, you know that that's like the main message that's been put across like check your check your tat, check your tat.

00:22:02:00 - 00:22:22:14
Unknown
Like fuck that. Like if you're doing like a, a more obscure route where you're rapping on tat, put it back up, dude. And then wrap up with all your weight on the old tat. And if it holds, then your second can choose to remove the backup. I think it's like ice climbing. The point is, just complacency kills. And actually I was going to express this in ice climbing.

00:22:22:14 - 00:22:47:08
Unknown
It's like something that's like common that like I've, you know, talked to guides and like competent climbers about is like you'll get like a V thread of cord, you know, like not a tri v thread. So like a cord v thread and like over time, like the ice melts and like, you know, goes over it. And so you'll come to this V thread and you'll think you can see this a little bit of caught and you think you're clipping into a V thread, but it's actually the tail of the fisherman's that's just frozen in.

00:22:47:08 - 00:23:03:19
Unknown
And so people clip it, you know, take themselves off, weight it, and then the thing just breaks out and you fall to your death. And so it's like it's just like complacency kills, right? And it's like, check what you're doing. You know, double check. Look at things. Understand, like what are the risks that you're not aware of in this situation.

00:23:03:19 - 00:23:21:08
Unknown
And like that's just doing your due diligence and, you know, learning from, you know, people who have paid their dues more and like having mentorship. So you can like, like I don't know that from experience. I know that from talking to people that I've been fortunate enough to, like, have time around or incredibly competent in the mountains and like being able to just tell me that.

00:23:21:08 - 00:23:35:21
Unknown
And now I'm like, I look at a V thread and I don't just assume like, oh, that's good. You know, I'm like, I'm double checking and clipping that. But like, it takes a person, you know, telling you that message and really like ingraining that in your brain of like, you know, like make sure you know what you're doing because climbing is dangerous.

00:23:35:21 - 00:23:51:00
Unknown
Climbing is dangerous. You know, what's so ominous is it's amazing. and I didn't know this, but on the sling, the tag, it says warning climbing is dangerous. It literally, it says it on the sling. And I checked all my other things, and they say it too. But, like, it was so ominous. Like I got the picture of that.

00:23:51:00 - 00:24:09:05
Unknown
And it's like, warning climbing is dangerous. I'm like, fuck. Like that's that's a crazy, ominous message. So here to really, really push home on like the redundancy we had is like, yeah, it's ridiculous. You know, sometimes you look at the fiddle and go, that's ridiculous, but you can go, okay, we packed a fiddle stick, okay. We okay, we have a 70.

00:24:09:05 - 00:24:27:21
Unknown
You know, we have the seven meter line and an additional 75 meter line. So if we need to chop like we can chop. And then from there we have a second fiddle stick in our bag in case we have to chop and continue this little stick. No. If we lose our second fiddle stick, we still have the pole line that we have left and our rope that we have left.

00:24:28:03 - 00:24:53:05
Unknown
And now if we don't have that, we also guess what we have. Like, you know, we have two additional slings with some like and we're like, whatever, lose a carabiner. Okay. If it gets to the point in which we've cut two fiddlesticks pole lines and we're cutting our ropes, like, okay, cool, I can sacrifice these 8 or 16 bucks that we packed just in case, and some gear just in case.

00:24:53:05 - 00:25:12:10
Unknown
We need to get off this freaking cliff to stay alive. Because at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. But we have about five different systems in place for us to be able to repel. You know, I'm not just going, okay, if the fiddle stick gets stuck and we literally can't climb up it or can't ascend, there's some like, like bones on the side.

00:25:12:11 - 00:25:32:13
Unknown
And then I'm just like, sitting there. The belay ledge. Yeah. You have, you know, it's just like to, you know, like that's where some of the competency comes into play is like, you go, okay, cool. I have five different ways I can rescue myself, and I have that knowledge to do so. You know, it's not just relying on one piece of gear or one way of going about that.

00:25:32:15 - 00:25:55:06
Unknown
And so when we go on this adventure, it's just like we have a lot of back ups that come into play, which is why we didn't have to take a bolt kit or why we chose not to take a bolt kit is one we want to try avoid putting bolts, and we feel that we have enough trad pieces, we have enough slings, and we have enough additional methods in which if we have to cut our line, we now can go to step two.

00:25:55:07 - 00:26:16:22
Unknown
Step three to be able to, you know, continue to kind of minimize the gear we place behind. Can you fiddle stick with a stick? You know, I probably wouldn't I like I like a thick branch. But here's the thing. So my thought is, is that have you ever have you ever rappelled. And then you use like you pull your rope and then it gets stuck in a bush, right?

00:26:17:00 - 00:26:37:19
Unknown
Have you seen the way that it wraps around sticks and you're just like, son of a bitch and you're pulling you're pulling at it. And like every which way that it's curves around, it gets stuck. So that's that friction that the dynamic rope gets with sticks and bark does not come. Just to kind of entertain this ridiculous idea is in fact being is I don't think the stick would actively pull.

00:26:37:19 - 00:26:57:12
Unknown
I think you'd actually have to actively break it. Yeah. To have it release. You would do that. And at that point, you know, at that point you've probably already broken it on the, the forces that you've likely repelled on that. Not where you don't fiddle. Stick with a stick, don't fiddle, stick with a stick. Use a plastic stick instead.

00:26:57:14 - 00:27:22:16
Unknown
Okay. So kind of like moving on like through this traverse here. Like, you know, I think it's so broad and, like, so much to encompass, but like, like, either continue taking us along this journey or what is kind of like the next most, like, memorable like challenge or thing that you experienced on it. Luckily enough, the next peak is one of the most memorable is the attempt, the first attempt.

00:27:22:18 - 00:27:46:15
Unknown
Yeah. And and that's where our first attempt pretty much takes a very hard halt. So we take two repels to get down to the notch, and we ascend up. We ascend up West Temple. there's a you know, like I said, there's that riding ridge. It's mostly third and fourth, very exposed. You know, so it's kind of one of those things where you don't feel like you're going to fall off, but you look over and your brain's like you could fall off and die.

00:27:46:16 - 00:28:07:11
Unknown
Yeah, like, but you'd have to chuck yourself off the cliff, but your brain tells you like, dude, you're gonna fall. Yeah. You know, and then you get to this last little short portion that's like a a little rinky dink, you know, like what, 60ft? just enough to be an inconvenience at the top to get to the cap, of the of the plateau itself.

00:28:07:13 - 00:28:30:11
Unknown
And, you know, on our on on both times, you know, we have heavy bags going up these ridges, you know, so our bat, you know, all of our stuff, you know, our food, climbing gear, the whole nine yards, going up this, you know, we're packing, you know, like 50 pounds apiece going up this and, you know, on our second go, probably around 45, you know, you're able to drop, you know, we're able to drop a couple kilos.

00:28:30:13 - 00:28:54:17
Unknown
And so and so from there on the, you know, this is, this is where I'll kind of shoot off with the first attempt to kind of put a close to that one is we went over the so we got to the top of the west cap and the snow is at that really inconvenient in between to where you're like, okay, can I either just post hole or can I stand on top of it?

00:28:54:19 - 00:29:22:22
Unknown
I don't want to. You would walk across it and then one of your legs would plummet down to your hips, and the other one would stay on top of the snow. And then you'd have to have your partner come over, dig it out, and then they would fall in. And then so you'd have that consistent fight. And so the top of this, the top of this plateau, you know, aside from getting the the temple cap itself, you know, of the West Temple is across the entire thing is collectively about a half mile across the entirety of that maybe.

00:29:22:22 - 00:29:54:12
Unknown
Well, it's about, the the larger portion of the plateau itself is about about a mile, by getting to the portion of the, the, the temple cap itself is about a half mile getting circumnavigating the top cap. So, this higher elevation sandstone tends to have a, a plateau upon it, and then it tends to have these very these smaller sandstone caps on, on top of them that are, you know, probably like a fourth of the size of the, the plateau itself.

00:29:54:14 - 00:30:17:16
Unknown
and so, you know, hence why they got the, the temple names, you know, and so nonetheless, though, is, you know, we post all our way through there and on our first attempt, we decided, you know, going we're so tired from hauling these bags for the first day. You know, we've already gone like, you know, we've already gone six miles today.

00:30:17:16 - 00:30:36:20
Unknown
We're already freaking tired with these bags. I don't want to. I don't want to have. Let's let's minimize the elevation we have to gain with these packs. And that was probably one of the worst choices we made for the first attempt. And so from there, we circumnavigated the cap on, you know, unwittingly, we didn't really know much about climbing in the snow.

00:30:36:22 - 00:31:09:07
Unknown
And so we went around the northeast face, which has the most snow on most faces, and at least in the northern hemisphere. And to go point three miles around that cap, we were on about varying between 40 to 55 degree slopes of snow. That would, you know, it felt like swimming through sand. because the snow had gotten up to about our cheeks, on these, on these degree slopes, you know, little did we know, it was avalanche like avalanche territory.

00:31:09:08 - 00:31:30:20
Unknown
You know, like, I now have that wisdom. Now ignorance is bliss, right? So luck goes a long way on certain circumstances, to go around, and to also kind of paint. This is just 100ft away of where we were circumnavigating was a 2000ft drop. And so we're swimming against the snow really, you know, hoping we don't go say it off this thing.

00:31:30:22 - 00:31:51:20
Unknown
And so, to go a third of a mile, it took us six hours to, you know, and we both mentally broke going around that. And we're like, this, this really sucks. This is so hard. And we ended up going to camping on the other side of on the same plateau that day. We had we had planned for two more peaks ahead that day.

00:31:51:22 - 00:32:16:10
Unknown
Said not a chance. The sun's going down. We barely have time to make camp. Yeah. You know, on the second attempt, we went up the temple camp. We went to the other side. There's still snow on it, you know, probably about half the quantity we repel off the north side and we get to the other side. You know, on attempt one, it took us collectively seven hours from side to side.

00:32:16:11 - 00:32:40:09
Unknown
On the second attempt, it took us 20 minutes. Yeah. so you went up and over versus up back and then around. Yeah, yeah. And and you know, from from attempt two, we were able to hit, we were able to hit two more peaks that day, you know, and get around big slabs and, you know, you know, on the first attempt, you know, it was dropping below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

00:32:40:11 - 00:33:01:23
Unknown
are you able to use that temperature to your advantage and use, like, the freezing of the snow to traverse like, areas that might be powdery? Yeah. So you want to start early on certain areas, you know, like, you know, and we did on the second attempt. On the second attempt, we did, it was this fine, delicate balance between like, okay, it's on the North face, but the top end gets I want it to get enough snow.

00:33:01:23 - 00:33:18:21
Unknown
So that actually gets soft enough so that I can kick step it. And it's not just a sheer ice wall that I have to really put spikes into. And so are you running, an ax and micro spikes. Is that what you're doing? Micro spikes, but no ax. So we're trying to push. We're trying to because like I say, we're trying to minimize the gear stick.

00:33:18:23 - 00:33:53:18
Unknown
Yeah. Double fiddle stick. Like. Yeah, yeah. Probably work on the. You really would. Yeah. But I mean, don't we take no responsibility for people listening? fiddlesticks are dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so, on the. Yeah, on the, on the first attempt, you know, that night, it drops well below zero. It's wind gusting. And, you know, I had, you know, clearly, you know, I got GI issues.

00:33:53:18 - 00:34:11:19
Unknown
So you're waking up in the middle of the night and you're just like, you know, you want to avoid it, but you got to go outside in those temps. And nonetheless, that was like everything was kind of going awry and not going right, you know, and, but it was it was meant to be a learning experience. We went up there to kind of like really suffer, get a feel for where we are, what's going to happen.

00:34:11:19 - 00:34:31:20
Unknown
And like, what did we pack that we shouldn't have packed and like really use it as learning experience, knowing we're going to fail? Yeah. and have a little suffer fest to kind of like top it off. And so, you know, it's like, you know, I, I had brought a 20 degree bag and it was getting I was, I was really testing the survival rating of that bag, of that night.

00:34:31:22 - 00:34:57:15
Unknown
And nonetheless, though, you know, we end up repelling off the face to kind of drop in, which I'll address on the second attempt. And we saw that the weather report was, you know, the in less than 24 hours, there was to be five days straight of Blizzard snow in, that area. And so, yeah. So we're looking at that weather and we're going, we need to get off here because that's actually life threatening.

00:34:57:16 - 00:35:16:21
Unknown
And so we, we said, okay, cool. We got enough time to hit a handful peaks. So we hit a handful of peaks and then you know, later, you know, we got out probably around, you know, the next day we ended up, you know, really pushing and, you know, we did, we did an 18 hour day, pushing to get out of there because we were a little greedy.

00:35:16:21 - 00:35:36:04
Unknown
We ended up getting extra peaks in. We probably could have gotten out in, like eight, 7 or 8, but we got greedy and got some peaks. Luckily enough, we, you know, got out. We descended some 2000ft gully. That was just absolutely an atrocious bushwhack. I, I've asked around and I don't think I've found someone that's done that. That's an effort.

00:35:36:05 - 00:35:55:08
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah yeah that's the it's the last descent. Yeah I hope it's Melody. I hope no one has to experience that. Yeah, yeah. And we were just lucky enough that a, you know, we were looking at satellite imagery, and we're just lucky enough that it went that it went with us with a full 70. Nice. Yeah.

00:35:55:08 - 00:36:18:20
Unknown
You know, and but so obviously that first time it was just like, you know, we were fighting, you know, wet gear, frozen gear. a little bit of sickness and just really suboptimal temperatures and terrain and just we're fighting snow. You know, we were post the majority of the time, we were like, you know, thigh at least thigh deep in snow.

00:36:18:21 - 00:36:34:15
Unknown
And we're looking at the rest of it's going, yeah, you know, we're looking at the south sides of certain things on, you know, the further portion of the traverse, even without the weather coming, even if we didn't have the weather coming in on us at that point in time, we looked at and we said, it's not even worth checking it out because that's the south side, the south side.

00:36:34:15 - 00:36:55:19
Unknown
We're going up above our to our stomachs. What is what are what are those North canyons look like? That's well, you know, we're only going to get more of what we had already run into on the north end of, you know, the upper caps. And so on. The on the second attempt, you know, it's just like weather was weather was slick, you know, like I was really on our side this time around.

00:36:55:19 - 00:37:13:01
Unknown
We really paid attention to it. And nonetheless, though, you know, we get to the other side of the West Town and, you know, like we did in 20 minutes and we're like, cool, it's only 1:00. And, you know, like we started at seven, it's only 1:00 in the afternoon. And I was like, cool. We got all the time in the world, you know, we hit peak four.

00:37:13:02 - 00:37:38:11
Unknown
Nice easy fourth class. We wrap around the front slabs, which were a nightmare on the first attempt because they're just like this, you know, they're kind of like, they're like a 60 degree slow boffins, like, set off into that, you know, like 20ft face off into the in the oak Creek, drainage. And so, you know, it's like at a certain degree, it just gets really nasty, especially on that white sandstone.

00:37:38:11 - 00:38:07:11
Unknown
Use the white, Navajo sandstone. Sandy. Yeah. It's really sandy, really slick. And so nonetheless, though we, we wrap around, there's just there's pretty much close to no snow on that slab on the on the second go around, we hit peak five called the, which had on our first attempt, my buddy was convinced dead convinced that like, this was the way on one one of the sides, he ended up climbing this ten x ray, you know, ten x route.

00:38:07:13 - 00:38:25:09
Unknown
And I was like, dude, this is fucked. And and his, you know, his feet and hands are crumbling as he's climbing this thing. He's running it out like 120ft. Like his first 35m. He had no protection. I was like, this is fucked up. And and he ends up, you know, he ends up climbing this and it's like ten plus x.

00:38:25:11 - 00:38:43:06
Unknown
And he gets to the top, I climb it and I follow it on the two portions. I on two portions to climb. I'm using the same holes and footholds he was using, and I ripped them completely off, like I completely, you know, I take my little top rope whip off of it. Like, what the hell? I'm still holding rocks in my hand, you know, holding dust in my hands.

00:38:43:08 - 00:39:08:21
Unknown
And I do that twice. And he's kind of like, oh, that could have been me. Yeah. You know, and it just happened to luckily it held for him on the and I, I wrestled him for a year because I knew that there was like some really easy route away. We go around on the second attempt, we hit the, we hit the west side of the of the which had we do like three, five, six moves and then solo the rest of it and it goes nice and easy that, you know, and so and so yeah.

00:39:08:21 - 00:39:44:23
Unknown
Looking at, you know, answering a past question is, you know, I knew that a harder portion was coming up and I was like, okay, let's, let's account for extra time and let's, let's plan our, let's plan our food and our time allotments towards starting our mornings with the most energy we can have on our hardest climbs. And so, you know, the time machine traversed, which was the next set of, four peaks, collectively, it's like one big massif itself.

00:39:45:01 - 00:40:01:13
Unknown
you know, we were able to and it's the most one, you know, the time machine traverses north facing, so all of it's snowy. And so, you know, that was kind of our, you know, we're we're not amazing. You know, we're not like, amazing ice climbers. It's not something we have a particular reputation for. We're desert climbers, right?

00:40:01:17 - 00:40:16:17
Unknown
I mean, he lived in Colorado, but he was a trad climber. You also don't have any ice tools, and we don't have any ice tools. You know, we have a we have a set of spiky micro spikes we can find, you know, it'd be really preferable to have crampons on, and it would have made a lot of this tremendously easy, you know, and like I said, it went up to like M2.

00:40:16:19 - 00:40:35:15
Unknown
Yeah. And so it's like nothing harder than like five, seven mixed climbing. But when you have like really kind of loose micro spikes on and they kind of slide around on your, on your approach shoes. Yeah. It's it sucks. It makes those, it makes those moves a lot more. If you're a lot more technical and unnecessarily technical than they have to be.

00:40:35:17 - 00:41:03:14
Unknown
And so, you know, luckily enough, we take advantage of the kind of crispy, crispy snow to kind of kick in, and, oh, something I do need to address and I always forget is at the start of this traverse. I woke up that morning with the flu. And so this whole trip, I collectively, you know, go downhill as I, I had, like, fevers every single night.

00:41:03:16 - 00:41:19:22
Unknown
And I was losing my voice and, you know, felt like someone shanked me in the throat with knives. but the, so it's one of those ones where you're like, you know, you you get sick, you know, you're going to physically exert yourself to the point where you're like, you're either going to stay the same or it's going to get worse.

00:41:20:02 - 00:41:45:23
Unknown
It's not going to get better. And so, you know, as it goes along, I progressively get worse along the way. The, but I still felt with training, with the physical training that we've done, we did from attempt one to attempt to felt that we could we could make it happen. you know, with the, you know, with training, you have bigger reserves because it takes less to do more.

00:41:46:01 - 00:42:05:08
Unknown
And, you know, stressing the importance of training for objectives and so when inconveniences like that happen, you know, you still have stuff in the tank, you know, because like, last thing you want to do is travel around the world and then go, man, you know, if I was fitter I'd be able to push past whatever this inconveniences. Yeah.

00:42:05:08 - 00:42:28:08
Unknown
So I think on paper, the right thing to do is to turn around if you have a flu. But that's really easy to just say, you know what I mean? Because your body's going to deteriorate. And the reality is, like so many things in life and this completely transcends climbing is like usually when you need to do really important things, things don't just perfectly align, and that's just not how the world works.

00:42:28:08 - 00:42:46:06
Unknown
And this kind of like makes me think of like, you know, like for for me, Scott Johnson is kind of like this catalyst of getting into, like, climbing in, like a personal hero of mine and like he you can listen to him talk about his experience, like climbing K2 and it's like, you know, like the day you wake up to, like, try and summit or move to a higher camp and like, like this is altitude.

00:42:46:06 - 00:43:03:16
Unknown
So it's slightly different, but like, you're extremely ill, you're so ill that you would like instantly call in sick and just be like, I'm never fucking like getting out of my bed today. Like, this is horrible, you know? Or like my experience, which I'm not comparing to K2 or the your traverse like each to our own, but like, you know, like the summit day I woke up for Denali.

00:43:03:16 - 00:43:22:08
Unknown
Like, I literally was like, keeling over in the morning, like feeling like I was going to vomit everywhere. Like having to pull myself together to be like, you're about to go like, do this for like, 12 hours straight, like, you know, are you willing to do this? And it's like sometimes like, you know, when you want to do really important things in your life, the stars don't align.

00:43:22:08 - 00:43:42:17
Unknown
You're actually going to be at your worst, and you have to dig deep. And it's a weird thing to be like, well, on paper you should just say, this isn't good and you should turn around. But like in reality, like a lot of great things and not like great in the scale of like Michael Jordan or something, just great, like for our own like endeavors and our own personal goals, you sometimes have to do them at your worst.

00:43:42:20 - 00:44:10:20
Unknown
You know, I don't know. That's a weird thing to like, reconcile. So yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's just kind of like is looking at it and your body's looking at you going, do you want to do it next year? There's like, no, no, I don't want to do next year. Yeah. And I you know, it's just like I had to logistics so tied down that I said okay, it's going to take us a day and a half if we really if I'm so I'm out if I'm sick as a fricking dog, I know that I can crawl if you're willing, I can fall my butt off this thing in, like, a day and a half.

00:44:10:20 - 00:44:31:07
Unknown
Yeah. And he's like, well, as long as you promise that, you don't complain. I was like, I can't promise. But we're going on a tremendous anyway. And so yeah. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, of course it all useful. I mean I mean, like I said, doing Denali himself. I mean that's that's an intense. And like I said, you do have to push yourself.

00:44:31:13 - 00:44:48:05
Unknown
I mean, that's something to be extremely proud of. And if you know, if anything, I mean, like that type of altitude is, is in in cases, you know, like it's much more difficult than, you know, the flu that I had on that front, you know, I mean, I know it's all subjective, but like, that's still something extremely admirable.

00:44:48:07 - 00:45:14:15
Unknown
And so but like I said, I just felt I had it so dialed that if I needed to back off of this thing, even though. And once you go over the West Temple, you do a, you do a six, you so you do about, a 700ft rappel. And at that point, there's no turning around you that, you know, there's the next the next point that you can get off is going over the altar of sacrifice, which is the 13th peak.

00:45:14:17 - 00:45:29:05
Unknown
So. So you're like halfway at this point. Yeah. And you're just like, okay, I'm halfway. I'm sick, and I'm about to go to a point where I can't turn around. Yeah.

00:45:29:07 - 00:45:47:11
Unknown
And so day two is Crag Day. And so that's where you take a back. You know, we do the time machine traverse. We crank it out in about three hours. That's our most technical one. It goes around five, 9RM2 or I mean you're not really like you're doing these moves, but you're not protecting them. Really. Like the protection is just so freaking scanty.

00:45:47:13 - 00:46:08:17
Unknown
Yeah. On these things, that it's, it's just like, okay, cool. And I mean, I know I'm not going to fall off the mountain because I'm tied in at the anchor, but, I mean, there's a good chance that, like, a lot of my gear is going to rip and I'll, I'll hit it on the anchor, like, you know, our most important thing was we make solid anchors.

00:46:08:19 - 00:46:20:19
Unknown
You know, we get good anchors. And so thankfully, near the, you know, near the near the top, you'll learn that freedom of the hills.

00:46:20:21 - 00:46:42:12
Unknown
And so luckily enough, near the top, it kind of even you know, it, it eases out. And then the rest of it is kind of just, you know, it's just kind of like Peak Bag City. You hit three peaks like bam, bam, bam. And then you do a really, really sat exposed. Powell I mean, it was honestly, it was one of those ones where it was it was so beautiful that like, in most cases, you're like, I was I was really kind of daunted about this exposure.

00:46:42:12 - 00:47:05:17
Unknown
Powell like, at the end of it, after the, you know, you've two full, pretty much two full savages and then you do a pendulum swing to get on to the on a fantastic. yes. Pendulum fiddle stick repel. Yes. As long as you're going first. Okay. So if you go the carabiners in there, it's like, can't the person who goes first then like, hold the rope in place for the second?

00:47:05:18 - 00:47:25:12
Unknown
Yeah. But your the other person doesn't have to swing the second guy takes all the risk. Yeah. So, being the logistics guy, I was the second guy the whole trip. Okay, okay. Yeah. It'll stick. Man. I was a little sick, man. Yeah. That inspired I don't know if correct. Yeah, potentially. But I think that the guy who convinces you that's, like, the contour stick should be going south, for sure.

00:47:25:12 - 00:47:40:18
Unknown
Yeah, that's the contract. It's like I will not you. I'm going first on the fiddle sticks and Kyle rocks, man. Yeah. And so yeah, he's he's the untangle or I'm the guy that has to deal with the fiddle stick and then. But nonetheless. So yes you do a pendulum on the fiddle stick but it's still weighted the whole time.

00:47:40:20 - 00:47:56:11
Unknown
Yeah. He's holding the end of the rope. So you repel just enough to where he was. Pendulum swing on the first. And then when I get down there, I essentially I repel to a certain point and he pulls you and then I, we he hand over hands while I hand over hand and we, you know, circus grip. And he gets me on the edge.

00:47:56:11 - 00:48:16:09
Unknown
So, so I have to do less of the running and back and forth on a fiddle stick. Yeah. hit one peak, repel down the center of the massif in the center, and see if there's a huge cut to where there's, like, this really cool. kind of writing, like ice, ice Canyon. And luckily enough, there is no water flow through it.

00:48:16:09 - 00:48:37:03
Unknown
So we didn't have to walk. We didn't have to worry about plummeting into anything. There was no running ice flow on it. So that was really nice, to say the least. And so yeah, Crag Day is just you hit the witch head, you hit the, you know. So essentially from there you pick up your packs and you just walk, drop a pack, hit the peak walk drop, hit a handful peaks.

00:48:37:04 - 00:48:54:09
Unknown
And so yeah, you know we hit which at on day one. So on day two time machine shivers bro continues rotten tooth. We hit the droids just because they're super scenic. I mean, it only takes an extra 30 minutes just running out there. So, you know, both the teeth probably like mid Seth. We solid both of them.

00:48:54:11 - 00:49:17:16
Unknown
And, and then the droids is like fourth class. Third class. and it's just like it gives you a shot of the whole back area, and then you go up, you go up a 900ft snow gully up the back of the ultra sacrifice to where you, you hit, this last little five nine portion. And so my buddy soul is up at, like, it's it's ain't no thing.

00:49:17:16 - 00:49:31:22
Unknown
And he does it. and then he brings his pack up and he comes back down. I was like, dude, I, you know, like, day two is kind of hard for me. I'd really nasty fevers that, that that night prior. And I was like, dude, this is, you know, we're coming to the tail end of our day on here.

00:49:31:22 - 00:49:49:03
Unknown
I'm really I'm really having a rough time with this pack. And so he's like, don't worry. You know, I don't think I could solo with this pack. and he's like, okay, can you solo it without the pack? And I was like, yeah, I could probably manage that. And so he spat down solos at and then solos up with my heavy pack.

00:49:49:03 - 00:50:14:00
Unknown
I mean, these things are like 40 pounds apiece. I'm like like, kudos to you, man. And so you start out, and even in that it's you start out stemming on these like is super snowy, icy, chimney. I mean, it's just it's just ridiculous. And, and like I said, it to kind of accentuate the fact of how much of a monster he's, he's, he's doing this in Nike running shoes, street running shoes.

00:50:14:05 - 00:50:36:19
Unknown
And that's where I've come to believe that the gear doesn't make the climber it just fine tunes that climber, you know, it's just like, granted, I don't think I could do it in those shoes, but, yeah, it's nonetheless it's just still fascinating. Me so I try to I try to solve this thing, and I, you know, I kind of slip up twice, and then on the third try, I get about 20ft up.

00:50:36:19 - 00:50:54:14
Unknown
I almost turn the lip of this thing, and you just get 20ft, and the rest of it's kind of just, like, just like a little slope that you have to kind of, like, just really drag yourself up through bushes on. And I get to about the top of this thing and I, I fall, I take a 20ft fall into a snowbank off.

00:50:54:14 - 00:51:14:16
Unknown
So I fall soloing in the in the snow and, you know, it's like I wasn't as concerned about it because it's snow. You know, I just I just radio on Rocky Talkies. I don't endorse them for. I don't even get I don't get sponsors, I don't the I don't know if anyone get sponsors from them because they're doing so well, but the, there's some sponsorships they denied us, but.

00:51:14:19 - 00:51:34:00
Unknown
Yeah. Bastards. Just kidding. We love you, sponsor. Yeah. But nonetheless, though, it's like I radio up to him. I mean, they're amazing when you can't see each other. Oh, it's. I never go alpine climbing without them. Fantastic. Yeah. and so I go up to him, I said, dude, fuck this. Like, throw a rope down to me, and I don't even mention it.

00:51:34:00 - 00:51:54:22
Unknown
I just, did you hand over hand or do you have to send her? he he throws a rope to me, and I, I just, I just climb it, okay. With the protection of the. Yeah. And so, the way we're billing is we did micro traction the whole way. So whoever's falling, you just throw them on a micro, and they just run up on on micro.

00:51:55:00 - 00:52:14:16
Unknown
which, again, if you're not experiencing that, don't do that unless you know what you're doing, because it is literally just a pulley that, is a one way, one way pole. And if you load it wrong, it will let loose it. And so we go over the altar sacrifice. That's the end of that's the end of, day two.

00:52:14:21 - 00:52:53:18
Unknown
And from there, the start of day three is climbing a neighboring peak to it. So our repel off of off of the altar of sacrifice, Lara Powell into a notch, a full 70. most of these repels that we're doing are like, we've we repel off of our off the end of our ropes, you know, so you get down and you're essentially making your anchor kind of stretched out, and you're clipping a piece of protection to yourself, and then you're wrapping off the end of your rope to it, and, you know, to make it long enough and nonetheless, so do a full 70 down to that notch.

00:52:53:18 - 00:53:17:23
Unknown
And from there, we fix from that notch our second repel down because we want to do this neighboring peak called Sky Island, right neighboring to it, which was our our most technical portion of the traverse itself. which was it was listed as, you know, mostly a free climb, but some nailing maybe required. and we really wanted to free it.

00:53:17:23 - 00:53:44:10
Unknown
So we brought only, we brought only clean gear to do it. So, like, if not. Okay, cool. We're going to do some really sketchy aid climbing to kind of get through it. And so, you know, we sleep, you know, we we repel down that we sleep through the night. We go back up that we're ascend that rope to the to back to that notch and then do the, do the two pitches up from which it goes at about five, nine plus.

00:53:44:12 - 00:54:05:06
Unknown
you know, you go up, you go up probably like A57 slab to where, you know, you kind of, you kind of nest some gear at the beginning on a handful of, a handful of bushes. And then from there, the leader runs it out for about 50ft. just on open face. Pretty exposed, like five, seven, five, eight.

00:54:05:08 - 00:54:23:19
Unknown
And then from there, he, he gets to a traverse of to where you can see people had nailed in the past, which made some killer singer locks. you know, so we just, you know, like, you just get in that traverse and you just lock down, and you're like, this is fantastic. This is a great free route.

00:54:23:21 - 00:54:46:02
Unknown
and and then from there, nice easy five six at the top. and, you know, we kind of, we kind of high five that, we kind of have five from there and we're just like sweet. The, you know, the hard portion, like the hard technical portion from the day is, is pretty much over. there's a last, you know, there's this last, like 15ft to the top from where we finished.

00:54:46:07 - 00:55:03:05
Unknown
You know, we kind of tagged a little boulder on the side, called the singer, and then we had to kind of up climb this 15 area. I was like, can you just quickly anchor me off? You know, like, I got a family. I don't want to die with a rope on my back, you know, like, you know, like I'll take a whip on the big anchors, like, I just want to.

00:55:03:08 - 00:55:20:02
Unknown
And he's like, okay, I'll solo out. And so I went up there with the rope, and then I just put, I just fixed a hand line for him and, and line and right off that sucker. And so we tag the summit, we come back, and he says, okay, I'm just going to down. So this thing I was like, I feel like I want to I feel like I want to repel this.

00:55:20:03 - 00:55:37:19
Unknown
My gut, like my gut tells me, like I just want to repel it, you know, just because we have it. And so I see this. I see this rock, like this boulder. And so I said, okay, cool. I'm just going to do a triple wrap around this boulder, and then can you just back me up like a hip boy?

00:55:37:21 - 00:55:55:10
Unknown
And so I get on this, I just, I, you know, I sit back on it, I crank on it, you know, I have to walk ten feet back before I hit the ledge. So I really test it out. Told my weight. I come to the lip of the edge and I look to my right, and I realize I'm about.

00:55:55:12 - 00:56:15:02
Unknown
I'm about like 5 or 10ft off my mark to my destination. I need to I need to move to neo. I need to transition to my right as I repel to get to the ledge that I need to land on. And as I turn the lip, I start to walk and I get focused on my destination, not where I'd come from.

00:56:15:07 - 00:56:37:23
Unknown
And what happens is these three wraps around the boulder guitar string off the rock onto my back backup, which is Connor. He's just hip playing me. He just has the rope around his waist, just old mountaineer style, and it cuts loose. So in the midst of my repel, I feel it suddenly just come loose. And now I'm in a freefall.

00:56:38:01 - 00:56:59:22
Unknown
So I take a freefall for luckily, not terribly far. I take a ten foot whip, which is farther than I ever wanted to take on a repel. And I slam into the wall. where? Where Connor catches me. And I'm, you know, I'm bleeding all over the place. because, you know, I just absolutely. Just, like, knuckle punch the wall after taking this ten foot repel Weber.

00:57:00:00 - 00:57:19:01
Unknown
Wow. And, you know, he radios down to me like, are you doing okay? You know, unlike squeezing his guts out because he's he's on the ground holding him down. Yeah, just bearing down, holding my weight and like, yeah, I'm fine. And I kind of like, yeah, I, I finish out the repel, you know, he he down climbs from there.

00:57:19:01 - 00:57:37:14
Unknown
He kind of like check, you know, like I look at it and I go, should I be, should I be like bothered by what just happened? And he's like, don't worry about it, man. You got caught. You know, it's later at the end of that, it's like, dude, you handled that really well. I was like, well, you told me I was okay.

00:57:37:16 - 00:57:54:16
Unknown
And so it's like, sometimes it's okay for partners to kind of lie to you a little bit. Yeah, to kind of get you through the moment, because we still had a couple full 70s left to, get off the mountain itself and, the, Yeah. So I just, you know, we just set up for those rebels and, you know, got off the, the falling notch.

00:57:54:16 - 00:58:15:14
Unknown
And, you know, you're thinking back to yourself like, you know, is that going to carry a weight on me? You know, like, I just like I mean, it stresses the importance of back ups with rebels. I mean, you know, you talk about your cat ripping and blowing up and it's just kind of like, I mean, you were like, it's like the the same decision, like I was ready to repel.

00:58:15:14 - 00:58:39:01
Unknown
And, you know, we both were just like, let's do one more check and then like, same thing. It's like you had wrapped this boulder three times, like probably eight out of ten people could have just been like, okay, we're good. And then like, that decision to add a back up saved your life. Yeah, I'm hands down. I mean, I looked, you know, like being said, is that ledge being off destination I'm going you know, you fall and mentally I'm going okay.

00:58:39:01 - 00:58:58:10
Unknown
What bush can I grab. And that's the only different, you know, some what dead bush can I grab. And hopefully I can catch myself before I fall down into this canyon that I'm staring. You know, because you're when you're leaning into your break hand, you immediate. When it free falls, you immediately turn to what you kind of call skydive mode, you know?

00:58:58:15 - 00:59:24:07
Unknown
Where are you looking exactly? You turned your break hand and you start to like you, you, you you go stomach down. And so you get to watch where you're going. And so it's just like. And what was like, so if he had not been there like what would that fall have looked like? was it like you're going to hit a ledge 20ft down and then tomahawk all the way into the canyon and we're there's like a 200ft freefall, then hit a ledge, like, what was that like?

00:59:24:07 - 00:59:43:11
Unknown
I would have clipped the ledge with that bush. And if I hadn't been able to grab that bush, I'd tomahawk into a 1500 foot like crevasse. You know, like it'd be done. Yeah. You know, it's just rock tomahawk thing. Yeah, I just rock down, hawk down into that thing. I'd be toast. I mean, there's no. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

00:59:43:14 - 01:00:05:22
Unknown
And so it's it's wild to think about that that I was one, you know, just one waist wrap away. And the fact that he was able to hold that too, you know, is just how much heavier is he than you. like, I mean, he were about the same weight. Probably feels 5 pounds heavier than me. Like he's not terribly.

01:00:05:22 - 01:00:23:13
Unknown
What's he like? against the rock or, like, was he just, like, friction on the ground? Like it was? Yeah. So he embraced against the rock, and it still kind of pulled him down in. And, you know, he really had to brace against the ground. And so it's just like it was it, you know, and like I mean we come to the collective agreement.

01:00:23:13 - 01:00:37:02
Unknown
I mean it's one of those things where you have to come to a collective agreement, like if you're going to drag your partner off, like eventually you got to let go. Oh, it's just like, I'd rather you go home to tell the news. And like, I'm not trying to be dramatic about this, but it is being said, is it's better for one of us to die than both of us die.

01:00:37:04 - 01:00:58:02
Unknown
Yeah. And so there's, like, classic touching the void, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Cutting the rope. Exactly. Right. Yeah. I never understood that. Like, people were, like, mad at him for cutting the rope. They were there like they were there for hours. Yeah, yeah. It's like like obviously just another another. I mean, this is back in the day, but like another, example where radios would be, like super handy.

01:00:58:04 - 01:01:20:10
Unknown
Yeah. I times in the voice, I'm stuck just cuts it two seconds. Yeah. He's like, please. I'm at the bottom of the crevasses very badly. My ankles are from my ankles. I broke Tanner Hall. Yeah, yeah. But, Wow, man. That's crazy. Well, and for him to be able to be like, he's in that can, he's in that.

01:01:20:13 - 01:01:39:17
Unknown
So it's not like he can yell out and I don't have a voice. So I've lost my voice on on day three, like, you know, I'm, I'm squeaking. And so, you know, I could talk at a really low tone, but that's about the best I got. I can't yell out or anything. So the fact that he could radio me and be like, dude, are you okay?

01:01:39:17 - 01:02:01:06
Unknown
You know, and maybe able to radio back, you know, made a quick assurance that, like, okay, cool. You know, from there we can make our quick decisions and important decisions, you know, because he can't sit there forever. and so it's like, get off the rope now. And that was that was definitely the for me personally, it was the most climactic portion of that of that trip.

01:02:01:07 - 01:02:24:12
Unknown
Yeah. You fucking hope so, man. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, if you're going to top that, I'd be like, Jesus Christ, man, Holy shit. Yeah. Closer. Closer than most. Yeah, yeah. So than most. And it's just like you just don't know how to, you know, it's like an expected duty of your partner. But at the same time, you kind of think to yourself like, how can I even, like, even repay that?

01:02:24:12 - 01:02:48:14
Unknown
Kind of like that's, you know, that's the reason I get to see my wife and kids. How does your family kid out at the incident? It's. We've talked about you tell your family. Oh, yeah. That's the first time we're out in here. Yeah, listen to that. But, like, No, I, I talk about these things and I've talked about these things very candidly with my wife and with my family.

01:02:48:20 - 01:03:08:23
Unknown
Is your wife a climber? No. Okay. No. She's like a polar opposite. Yeah. Okay. And, I'm extremely candid about it. And that makes it so that, you know, it's like, okay, this is she knows that I'm putting in the best effort I can be. You know, I remember when we first started even dating, she'd be like, all right, be safe.

01:03:08:23 - 01:03:34:08
Unknown
And I was like, I can't be like, I'm not gonna lie to you. I can't be safe. I say, you know, we've since changed that saying, you know, be as safe as you can be. I said, I can do that, you know? And that comes through everything we've talked about in the past and in this past conversation. And so she understands that, you know, just as much as, you know, because we've talked about it is that stuff happens.

01:03:34:10 - 01:03:56:00
Unknown
And the fact being that I came back, she's very happy that I came back and that, you know, and most importantly, that I learn from my choices that I made, you know, like, did I learn a lesson and, and, you know, we can just be both grateful that we're lucky enough that you had the opportunity to learn the lesson.

01:03:56:00 - 01:04:20:01
Unknown
Exactly. A lot of people don't have too much of a chance. Very supportive, which is awesome. I'm wondering, like, do you find climbing like, an inherently selfish pursuit? Like, what's your what's your position on that? In most cases, I do find it to be extremely selfish. I find it really selfish. I'm not going to be guilty about it because, you know, I'm going to look at I.

01:04:20:06 - 01:04:48:18
Unknown
So before when we when we initially started, I initially started dating my wife. I looked at and I said, this is something that's painfully important to me. Climbing is extremely important to me. And if you tell me to stop, I won't be me and I can't. I can't support, you know, I can't fake myself through life. You're not going to have a boyfriend or a husband or a father that you want.

01:04:48:20 - 01:05:11:22
Unknown
I can't be my best me. And that's what you're going to ask of me. So if you're going to tell me to ever stop climbing, we can't have a relationship. And building that foundation was essential. And because I because we were so understanding of like what? Because she was so understanding and I was so forthright about that right off the get go.

01:05:12:00 - 01:05:41:04
Unknown
It allowed for you know, you know, people go, how do you you know, people ask her all the time, like, how do you deal with him doing all these weird, crazy, you know, things. And it's just kind of like, well, one it's just what he does. You kind of become like desensitized to it. And then all the rest of it comes from like being extremely thorough about, like knowing what the hazards are, what I'm doing to mitigate those hazards, and knowing that, I mean, this is the person she married, and there's a reason she married me.

01:05:41:06 - 01:06:01:04
Unknown
yeah. Yeah. And I think that, like, the word selfish tends to have like, this negative connotation, but I don't think it always has to. I think that, like, we we need to be self-serving to a certain extent, you know, like, you have to, like, be able to be who you are in order to give that to somebody else.

01:06:01:04 - 01:06:24:13
Unknown
And if part of who you are is a risk taker or a climber, like, that's just part of the puzzle that makes up who you are. And if you're like someone has to be okay with that part of you, it's like, yes, it's selfish because you risk, you know, losing your life and that affects everybody around you. But we have the freedom to make those decisions.

01:06:24:13 - 01:06:47:16
Unknown
Yeah. And as long as you have very candid understanding with, you know, whether it be relationships, you're leaving your family, such and so forth. I mean, I, you know, she goes, I need time to read books. Like, I need time to do art. I need time to do videography. You know, she's a rather artistic individual. I mean, people have their outlets that they need to do, whether it be with other individuals or by themselves, and they need that time.

01:06:47:18 - 01:07:11:11
Unknown
I think the difference there, though, is that those activities don't risk death in an inherently risk affecting other people. I say, I definitely say that selfish things are, you know, just like everything, everything's gray. I think I would really like, for me at least, like I'm actually in agreement with everything people are saying. But I think for me, like trying to reframe the narrative because there's kind of like this implication.

01:07:11:11 - 01:07:31:01
Unknown
It's like, for example, your wife needs this artistic endeavor for herself to make herself feel fulfilled so she can be happy in the best individual. She needs to be okay. She just happens to have this innate proclivity for art that's not like, you know, if you want to get into beats of like free will and all these other different things, she didn't necessarily just like choose that.

01:07:31:01 - 01:07:50:07
Unknown
Like she's a byproduct of her genetics, her environment, her biology, and that makes her have a proclivity for that. That's no different than you having a proclivity for climbing. The distinction is that climbing happens to be inherently dangerous, so there's a lot more risk. But I would say like you need climbing, just like she needs art to be fulfilled, to be the same thing.

01:07:50:07 - 01:08:03:22
Unknown
If you were just like, well, I need you to give up art so you can go become a bank executive to make $500,000 a year. So our son can have the best of whatever. But my daughter, you know what I mean? And so and most likely, like most people would be like, well, that's an outrageous request for so many me.

01:08:04:02 - 01:08:25:13
Unknown
And I think it's just as outrageous to get like a climber to not do the thing that inherently makes them who they are, that gives them the outlet to, like, live life to the fullest. And of course, there's a middle ground of like, don't just go out and fucking be a jackass and kill yourself. You don't need to be stupidly, but at the same time, like, it makes me think of like, you know, Jenny Lowe where she's like, you know, Alex Lowe dies tragically.

01:08:25:13 - 01:08:49:02
Unknown
She, you know, marries Conrad. And it's like, you know, she jokes about, like what? She would have been better off marrying a cowboy, which I think is funny, but it's just kind of like the process of, like, you have to accept people for who they are. And I think sometimes in this debate of climbing, being selfish, there's kind of this analysis of it of like, well, if the person didn't climb, everything would just turn out amazing, inherently better.

01:08:49:06 - 01:09:07:00
Unknown
You're like, well, maybe they don't climb and they hate their lives and they become an alcoholic and they kill themselves. Or maybe they don't climb and they get a job that they don't want, and then they get run over by a bus two months later, like the world is complex. There's a lot of scenarios where they don't do the thing they want to do, and it turns out like horrifically worse.

01:09:07:04 - 01:09:26:16
Unknown
Maybe they become an addict, maybe they fall into psychosis. Maybe they get insanely depressed. Like, you know, maybe something really good happens and they take care of their family. Like there's, there's there's a lot of different avenues. But I don't like the equation of like, well, because there's risk, we can just expect that person inherently to give up their calling and their passion.

01:09:26:17 - 01:09:48:07
Unknown
And also if they gave up that passion, everything would just turn out miraculously. You're like, I just think all of those are just like inherent propositions built on like kind of nonsense. And so like, I don't I, I've heard that a lot. And like, it's almost like osmosis, just like you hear the proposition of climbing selfish. And everybody's like, oh yeah, climbing is really selfish.

01:09:48:07 - 01:10:05:07
Unknown
She's like, well, everything's fucking selfish. Exactly. When I wake up in the morning, I take a shower. That's selfish. You know, I eat food that's like. Like everything you do on some level is for yourself to fulfill needs and stuff. And of course, I'm kind of being like a dickhead here and just, like, being too reductive. But, like, I truly mean that.

01:10:05:07 - 01:10:23:05
Unknown
Like, I don't actually know if I accept the proposition that climbing, selfish or the caveat that I'll accept accepted selfish. If everybody else in the world wants to accept that they themselves are just equally as selfish, they just don't take on as much risk. If does that makes sense? Right? Yeah. So this is where I would kind of fall under.

01:10:23:05 - 01:10:50:02
Unknown
The fact being is if you think of, you know, you think back to this, a very open person also is very gullible, you know, and as kind of like one example or a very, you know, a very methodical person is also very rigid. Right? So they tend to have their pros and their, you know, like the first thing is, you know, in most societies view is a problem.

01:10:50:04 - 01:11:09:15
Unknown
And, you know, in other ways it's, you know, you look at it and go, okay, their their proclivity for this attribute is also extremely much it's much more high. And so if you also look at, you know, climbing, being selfish, what do I what do I also gain from being able to do this activity. You know, it it does plan.

01:11:09:15 - 01:11:39:01
Unknown
You know, it does require me to puzzle solve. It does require me to manage risk and to assess situations and to, you know, the pros are it allows me to be you know, it allows me to, you know, risk, manage. And with that comes a much calmer head. I mean, going through life, the common day, societal problems feel so mundane because if you look at it, you're going, well, I'm not on a cliff about to like, no, I'm not hanging off a cliff.

01:11:39:01 - 01:12:02:17
Unknown
Like, yeah, am I actually in danger? So I actually really calm under most you know, I can be grateful to say that in most circumstances that society usually causes anxiety in many people. I'm extremely calm about level headed about. It makes it very easy to address. And I go, what's the problem? It's really easy, you know? And then you go from, you know, you go to, you know, that problem solving just naturally transitions over to problem solving.

01:12:02:17 - 01:12:23:08
Unknown
It causes you I mean, to be a good climber, you have to be physically fit. There's no way to go about it. It requires discipline and fitness. And both of those things translate not only into your work, which society values. I'm a better worker because of my climbing hands down, and a better puzzle solver because of my climbing hands down.

01:12:23:10 - 01:12:46:20
Unknown
You know, I'm, you know, and being said is this fitness allows me to keep up, you know, I can go to work, I can go climb, but I can also keep up with my my toddler. I can essentially have energy to still, you know, I go to work. I work a blue collar job as an electrician. You know, being said, it's it's not the hardest blue collar job out there, but I'm still using my body for money in a sense.

01:12:46:22 - 01:13:07:15
Unknown
And so when I come home, I still have energy with the fitness that I've gained and the training that I've done for climbing specifically, it translates over to cool. I have enough energy to help my wife with chores, to clean up after my kid, to play with my kid, to wrestle with my kid. you know, it's like all these things, it's just like, it's really selfish when you inherently look at it.

01:13:07:17 - 01:13:45:02
Unknown
But what people benefit from as well is can be just, if not greater. When looking at it is like, is it selfish? Yes. I'm not going to lie about that. It's a damn selfish. But is it beneficial to society and my family? Hell yeah it is. I would say like selfish is like a heroin addiction. Like if you're just doing heroin because it makes you feel good and it's just a complete detriment to yourself and to everybody around you, that's a completely selfish, negative connotation, self-serving behavior.

01:13:45:04 - 01:14:03:08
Unknown
I don't like the word selfish when applied to climbing. It's like it's like, yes, there's risk attached to it, but just because it's risky doesn't make it's like selfish to me. What word would you replace with it? Not to put you too much on the spot, at least something to chew on. It's just an activity. I don't know, it's like I ride a motorcycle.

01:14:03:08 - 01:14:21:00
Unknown
Is that selfish? It's like, no, I just it's something I do. It's like, why is it selfish? It's like, yeah, it's self-serving. But just like Max alluded to, everything we do is self-serving. Well, I think the same thing, though, like, I would push back a little bit, although I don't think there's much of a difference. I think it's probably just the wording, but like, like with the heroin addiction one, it's the same thing.

01:14:21:00 - 01:14:43:01
Unknown
This person has something innate that isn't being met, that is, you know, they just can't cope. But there's no net positive. Yeah, but the idea that people are just choosing to do heroin, I don't inherently agree with at all. I think people do that just because they are just like neuro chemically. There's just so many things happening in their lives that they're suffering.

01:14:43:01 - 01:15:01:20
Unknown
So like, they just have a proclivity to escape. And like for some people, that escape is just climbing. Look, I'm just fucking insane if I don't climb and exercise all the time. For some people, unfortunately, they just they're just broken or whatever circumstance just led them to find that, hey, I can actually get this neurochemical stimulus from heroin.

01:15:01:20 - 01:15:25:16
Unknown
And then by the time, you know, things have just gone so out of control, it's just kind of the same mechanism of, like, everybody in some level is self-serve and some things have way more risk. Obviously, I agree that climbing is a much more better mechanism than heroin addiction. So like, you know, but like it's just the broader point of like the thing I was like saying or like, I think we're really teasing out here is like.

01:15:25:18 - 01:15:49:01
Unknown
Because somebody's calling or something that truly makes them who they are happens to have more risk. The idea that that inherently invalidates the thing and they shouldn't do it. I think that's like anti-human spirit in essence. Like that would essentially be like, our tunnel shouldn't have done any of his amazing feats, and he should have just gotten an office job and fucked off.

01:15:49:01 - 01:16:11:01
Unknown
You know, the people that settled the West Coast should have fucked themselves, stayed on the East Coast like, shouldn't have explored astronauts, shouldn't have gone to space. People shouldn't have, you know, like whatever. You get the point, right? It's just like, I just think there's like this anti anti nature or like human proclivity to just like be yourself, you know what I mean.

01:16:11:01 - 01:16:39:07
Unknown
And and so I don't know how to like how to fully intersect that. It's interesting actually I think that like maybe it's because risk has become so fringe for most people. Like it used to be commonplace. Like, yeah, you walk on the street, you risk fucking, I don't know, like a myriad of possibilities of death every day. And today, you know, like, it's so easy to just live and do nothing and never risk your life.

01:16:39:09 - 01:16:54:14
Unknown
And so now all of a sudden, like, people are like, oh, you you climb. That's that's crazy. It's so silly to me. You know, it's like, well, what have you fucking done? You know, like there's no risk anymore for people. And so it's become, like you said, so fringe. I think that's just like to me that, like, seals everything together.

01:16:54:16 - 01:17:19:14
Unknown
I mean, it's it's just an extension of seeing that, you know, it's just like, you know, some people are perfectly happy with the societal norms and power to them, and I'm glad that they can have that. And for many, unfortunately, you know, I just like the polls show it is the fact being is there is a type of because people don't pursue something that they're passionate about, whether it be risky or not.

01:17:19:16 - 01:17:57:13
Unknown
it is in some way, you know, the focus on you, like utilitarianism and distraction, ultimately leads us to have a, you know, people are having a really large imbalance in a lot of their mental and physical states because that's the societal norm of things. And I feel, you know, I find that really unfortunate. And, you know, it's just like our, our as a group, you know, we've, you know, we've happily and thankfully found at least the the starting direction to correct that imbalance within ourselves, though it is definitely not for everybody.

01:17:57:15 - 01:18:14:18
Unknown
you know, it's just like, if anything, we can try to use that as inspiration towards pushing other people to go, you know? Yeah, every day can really suck. If you don't do anything new. You don't try anything. You you don't try to learn. You just kind of accept the fact that, oh, everyone does this and everyone does that.

01:18:14:20 - 01:18:36:05
Unknown
You know, it's just like, push yourself, have some discipline and try to learn something new. I mean, it'll really imbue like a fire under you to. And then the risk you can take doesn't necessarily need to be like, oh, if I risk this, I die. It's like, maybe it's just the risk of failure and whatever that word means to you when so many people are scared of that.

01:18:36:05 - 01:19:02:02
Unknown
Exactly. And I mean, that's it. Just going out, you know, it's just like going out to you like the first attempt that we made on the traverse was we went out going, we're going to fail. And that's okay. And I think, you know, trying to spread the message that it's it's okay to fail. as long, you know, as long as you set your margins up to be able to pick yourself back up.

01:19:02:04 - 01:19:27:04
Unknown
Yeah. You never. Yeah, you can kill yourself and not have any chance to recover. Yeah. but, yeah, I mean, in the essence of time, I think for, the show, let's, circle back to kind of like the tail end of this traverse, of course. and just kind of like, Yeah. Just kind of like bring us, bring us towards that closing for sure.

01:19:27:06 - 01:19:54:08
Unknown
And so that was the beginning. So climbing Sky Island and having that very climactic rappelling accident event, take place, was the beginning of day three. and, you know, this was what I was calling transition day from the, you know, part one. So the first half of the the drainage itself to the second half of the drainage, the second half of the drainage was the and skyline was peak 14.

01:19:54:08 - 01:20:18:15
Unknown
So we only had six left to hit. And from there the peaks get bigger, you know, they're less, but they get bigger in size. And so after hitting, you know, peak 14, in between there's a transitional one. It's called Avelo Heights. Rivera temple, also known as a temple. yeah. So there's an individual, called Courtney Purcell, which named a bunch of peaks.

01:20:18:15 - 01:20:44:09
Unknown
And he was very inclined towards, the Buddhist nature. So he named a bunch of Zion Peaks, after, after eastern religion. And so the, so a temple. Yeah. Was just, a sheer bushwhack fight. you know, it's nothing more than third class. We fought our way up, about the 800ft face. Just absolutely full of manzanita.

01:20:44:11 - 01:21:04:18
Unknown
Just chest, chest high. Manzanita. And so if anyone's been in red rocks or up in Zion National Park and and dealt with these bushes, they put up a pretty good flier. Harder than stone. Yes. And, I mean, that's we, we if you see them on a climb in these locations, you sling those first. If you say Cam or Manzanita, you go.

01:21:04:22 - 01:21:28:15
Unknown
I'm assuming that manzanita that there. Sure. It's not going anywhere, dude. Yeah. That is things can climb. Yeah. Things can grow in desert rock and hold still through the thick and thin. Dude, they're great handholds. They're great foothold. They're great anchors. They're great pieces of protection all day. Manzanita, manzanita. And so. But fighting through forests of it. not as fun.

01:21:28:15 - 01:21:48:23
Unknown
So we we. Right. You know, we're we crank up that and, we come around and we go up the a, we go around to the west side of, Meridian Tower, which is the biggest obstacle kind of in our, in our midst of the this would be the north side of the, north side of the traverse.

01:21:49:01 - 01:22:11:22
Unknown
And so we go up on the west side, heading northbound and going up the first saddle. We take our bags up over the saddle. So you're, you know, you're on 40 degree sand, just sand hill, for 800ft and you're wrestling, about eight foot tall. Scrub oak and manzanita all mixed in one, a forest mixed in one.

01:22:11:22 - 01:22:29:17
Unknown
And so most of the time, your feet aren't even touching the ground. You're actually actively stepping on these stone strong manzanita bushes as you climb and, you know, get whipped in the face and you're like, squinting, even with sunglasses on. You're squinting your eyes because the branches are, like, reaching underneath your eyes, like trying to poke your eyes out.

01:22:29:19 - 01:22:47:09
Unknown
you know, it's it's a full on fist fight. And they, you know, they win most of the time. And so you get to the top of that. And as soon as we clip over onto the north end, we drop it over the saddle, which is half, you know, which is about a third around the the Meridian tower on the west side.

01:22:47:11 - 01:23:12:13
Unknown
the whole canyon itself is about a mile and a half long. And so we have to make that probably mile and a quarter before we pop a right around the north side. So we're circumnavigating the Meridian Tower. And so we drop over the saddle of where the trees where we drop over a saddle, about a third of the way through, and it drops into a canyon, which it drops into, with this canyon.

01:23:12:13 - 01:23:46:14
Unknown
It's on the north side. So, it's very shaded, very cold, and there's still plenty of snow. And from here, it's, collectively scattered with something, called potholes, which are usually, you know, as water settles in sandstone, it tends to kind of just eat away at the sandstone until it makes these holes that are just, you know, so deep that, you know, many people in many canyon areas of unfortunately, like, met their demise to potholes because they get stuck in them and then they drown, because there's, there's no escape out of them.

01:23:46:14 - 01:24:03:11
Unknown
So there's, there's some famous, you know, canyons that are, notorious for having potholes. You know, there's like like, like heaps. Canyon is one of the most famous ones for not only, plenty of rescues, but also for having the potholes themselves. You know, there's an easy mode when they're full of water. You just swim right across.

01:24:03:11 - 01:24:22:12
Unknown
And then there's the hard mode where they're really low, and you actually have to do hook moves to actually get. So you repel yourself and maroon yourself into a pothole and then have to actively, do hook aid ladder moves to get out of these potholes. Otherwise there's no means of escape. You slide into one of these without equipment, you're just screwed.

01:24:22:16 - 01:24:47:19
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just a it's a slick ball, slick sandstone bowl that's been worn away by by the weathering water. And so how like diameter or. Yeah. Diameter. Like how big and see feet and so. Yeah. So these potholes most potholes that would be like categorized as these things usually, anywhere from like, you know, yeah, like 5 to 20ft in width.

01:24:47:19 - 01:25:10:17
Unknown
And they can go they can go as deep as you damn near want them to. I mean, there's tremendous ones. Are they like conical or or cylindrical? almost I would say just my, I don't know, vocabulary wise, it would be like a kind of could be like a marble with the top cut off, like spherical, very spherical.

01:25:10:17 - 01:25:35:22
Unknown
Okay. Very spherical. And, it's just like an almost perfectly. So it's amazing sandstone, just beautiful things. and so anyway, the snow, the way that the snow covers down this canyon, it lays a perfect blanket. So you have something called trap doors along the way, and you could probably guess what that is, is kind of like crevasses.

01:25:36:00 - 01:25:51:13
Unknown
you're we're probing with trekking poles to not fall into these potholes. The problem is, is by the time you're usually probing into them, you're top of you're pretty much on top of them. And so, you know, and now not only are you in a pothole, but now you're in a pothole that's covered in snow full of water.

01:25:51:16 - 01:26:18:11
Unknown
Yeah. And so, yeah. And so, you know, your partner behind you is very aware that you have the potential to punch through. So you take turns testing the waters. Technically, you guys are roped in, like crevasse travel. in this case, we, like I said, most of these potholes, based upon the depth of this canyon, we didn't expect our potholes to be much deeper than, you know, probably like five feet.

01:26:18:13 - 01:26:39:08
Unknown
So we knew that we could likely, you know, tracking, pull or throw a rope in. we didn't feel like it would be a, a, you know, assessing the canyon that we were. And, you know, like I said, once we wrapped the north side, there were there were potholes that were much deeper. luckily we could circumnavigate them, kind of riding the ridge.

01:26:39:10 - 01:27:08:09
Unknown
and it's, you know, it's like being said, is should we have roped up? I think we should have roped up. But I think there's certain it's these it's these judgment calls you make as a party to where you look at things and you go time versus risk. And time in equivalent as well also equals effort. And so the less time you spend, the less effort you use.

01:27:08:09 - 01:27:30:20
Unknown
And so it's just it's this really fine balance. You know, I'm not you know, I'm not going to say we made the most responsible choice. and or the safest choice. but it's one of the effective choices, you know, we knew that if we fell in, which we did, that you're going to get wet. It's going to suck, and someone's going to have to pull you out of it.

01:27:30:22 - 01:27:54:22
Unknown
And so we have means of pulling out of that. and, you know, we felt that we could execute that nonetheless. Yeah, we fell on it a couple of times. We navigated around the north side. We, found a really perfect ramp up between the two. There's the, up the east side canyon around Meridian, which started to, it goes up and then saddles really deep.

01:27:55:00 - 01:28:14:10
Unknown
and then so from there, there's two peaks that you're in between which would be called the chameleon on the left, which can only really be seen while you're atop one of the neighboring peaks, otherwise than that, from anywhere around the park you look over, you can't really see it because it blends in, because the Mesa caps are all of the same, aside from the canyons that are carved in between them.

01:28:14:12 - 01:28:34:08
Unknown
All the mesa caps are the same elevation, and so each time it so, you know, to kind of stress where all this 18,000ft coming from is every time we go down a peak, we're going back up to that mesa top and then coming off that Mesa top and go to the next peak and going up to that elevation and then back down.

01:28:34:10 - 01:29:02:15
Unknown
And so we get to a saddle between, that's, kind of on the sub peak of the chameleon on the east side of the canyon of the Meridian, and then from there, you know, Meridian is the 16th peak, so skyline is 14, a temple is 15 Meridian at 16. we had 2.5 hours left of light and we said, let's do it.

01:29:02:17 - 01:29:19:05
Unknown
And so I think we can crank it out. So we dropped our gear, we shoveled some food down. I was really hangry. I said, I'm not gonna he he was tempting. He's like, dude, if we can get out today, fourth day, we can get off by sunlight. I was like, okay, that's tempting, but like, I'll stab you with a cam if you don't let me eat dinner right now.

01:29:19:05 - 01:29:50:01
Unknown
Yeah. And so shoveled food down, filtered some water. We cranked out Meridian Tower. we we circum navigated the Meridian Tower, although pretty much all the way down the east side. So an additional about an additional mile, which required a bunch of, a bunch of horizontal soloing through bushes with really high exposure. like I said, you're staring down at, you know, probably 600 to 1000ft, depending on where you are on the Meridian Tower.

01:29:50:01 - 01:30:21:10
Unknown
So, you know, you're you're yanking on bushes and go on. These are kind of dead. and it's just kind of like, if you roped up for every single one of it, it would it would take a whole day. yeah. And, you know, we, we wrap around it and, you know, for, for ease of, you know, so we found, you know, we knew more so through through the research that I had done and some of the information that some people provided me, I knew that there was possibly a good route on the east side that could potentially go at like five, six.

01:30:21:12 - 01:30:50:05
Unknown
So it's like questionably solo bull. and being said is we ended up getting, you know, beings going from camp to the top of the Meridian Tower was about collectively 1300 feet worth of climbing. and like I said, you know, probably a good half mile of it was horizontal soloing. And then we still had to go up to the, you know, the remaining 700 of the cap itself, or, sorry, to the base of the mesa itself.

01:30:50:08 - 01:31:04:15
Unknown
And so we solo it up as much as we possibly could. And then the last 60ft, I looked at the big rocks. You know, you could easily pull off ridge sized sandstone boulders. And I was just like, dude, throw a rope to me, like, you know, like, not worth to the end of the day. I'm tired. I'm fatigued.

01:31:04:15 - 01:31:26:07
Unknown
Like, check a roof. And so he raised up it, chucked a rope for me. you know, and we, we topped out the cap and we had eyeballed a, rappel close to camp. So we did two full, you know, two like a 65 meter. And about a and then a full 70 off of it down climb the snow ramps.

01:31:26:09 - 01:31:55:05
Unknown
Got back to camp. That was the end of day three. And then so on day four, we wake up and I wake up rough. I wake up pretty darn sick, and, and so we we go over that east saddle, we continue down the east canyon of Meridian, and we have to we kind of have to double back or we double back up, up a a cut in the side of the chameleon, kind of like a zigzag.

01:31:55:05 - 01:32:16:11
Unknown
So when you're, when you're going down into there, you you zigzag back, so you have to lose 500 to get back to where, you know, to get back on there for a lot less technical, because we're trying to minimize the technical terrain. We can, you know, Max, it we're trying to max it at low fifth if we can help ourselves with our, with our big packs that we still have on.

01:32:16:11 - 01:32:41:04
Unknown
Because even on the fourth day, you're still carrying your climbing gear, you're still carrying your ropes, you're still carrying your camping gear. You know, even you start out at 45 pounds, you're still ending it around like 35. And, and so we get around the chameleon and, we climb the north prow of the chameleon, which is the last snow, last the, like, last snow pitches that we have to actively climb.

01:32:41:06 - 01:32:58:19
Unknown
Last snow slash mixed pitches that we have to climb. which was one of the scariest parts like that I was I was really happy. I didn't have to lead it. Connor led those ones. Good job. Connor. The, friends like you who needs enemies? Yeah.

01:32:58:21 - 01:33:15:21
Unknown
Yeah. You know, he was, he was cranking on, you know, like I said, the the appliance boulders, and he was cranking on were and they were, they were shifting and moving. And it's just, you know, you pull on one over here, the fridge, you know, you pull on one over here microwave. And it's just kind of like, oh my gosh.

01:33:16:00 - 01:33:37:09
Unknown
It's one of those things where luckily enough it's ridge. It's ridge climbing enough to where if it falls, it's not going to hit there. Blair. But at the same time, it's just like when that stuff rolls over, you know, you can cut your rope. It can, you can cause some serious damage. And so and especially on lead where, you know, all the, all the protection is really scanty, you know, you can take some really, really bad, bad falls off that.

01:33:37:11 - 01:34:04:13
Unknown
And so, you know, you climb some more M1, M2 and some five, eight and like I said, the grades don't sound terrible. but, you know, when you when you're, when the rock quality is extremely poor, the, the rock quality becomes more of a challenge over the difficulty of climbing itself. and you're four days in, you're just freaking shot.

01:34:04:15 - 01:34:30:09
Unknown
And so, you know, thankfully, we get the top chameleon. we, you know, we high five on that. That's number 17. We we come down off the south, prowl with one repel, probably around 30m. and at this point, our risk meters are pretty shot. We're actually taking a lot more risks and necessary for the sake of time because we're we want to get, you know, we're just terribly comfortable with the situations we're in.

01:34:30:09 - 01:34:55:20
Unknown
Talk about really desensitized, you know, just kind of like you've been soloing so much that you're like, what's more soloing, right. we get down to the notch to the point we do, we repel a really blank face, and then we climb the point, which is peak 18. Just it's just a proud it's a it's a tall, proud same elevation off of it that's about, 600ft worth of soloing, going at about like five, seven.

01:34:55:22 - 01:35:15:21
Unknown
and we, we solo the whole thing up and the whole thing down at this point, like I said, what's what's some more soloing? 90% of what we did was soloing totally. And so it's like, what's a little bit more and the essence as well. Yeah. You're, you're running out of food, water grid, everything's, you know. Exactly. Yeah.

01:35:15:21 - 01:35:48:14
Unknown
And so, we, you know, once we finish that, we do we kind of traverse the landscape and we do three different full. So we do a portion with two full 70m, and then the and then the and then we did one and then we climb up on slabs, we transition for another three quarters of a mile, you know, as we're kind of like from the point to big Red in the beehive, the last final peaks very convoluted up and down terrain.

01:35:48:14 - 01:36:11:21
Unknown
So you're kind of you kind of riding into the, you know, you're kind of riding and climbing up towards the cliffs, and then you have to climb all the way down back to the, you know, you have to kind of ascend 600, descend 600, ascend 600. And then occasionally you're reaching points to where you go, screw this. And then you repel off sheer faces so you don't have to walk all the way to the end and then drop back.

01:36:11:21 - 01:36:31:14
Unknown
You know you can do it without rappelling, but it would add so much time and so much effort that just rappelling saved tremendous amount of time. And so collectively did three full four repels. That last 70 of it is where it got tremendously stuck. Wasn't hard. We just hand over handed it to like top rope solo because it was so stuck.

01:36:31:14 - 01:36:50:00
Unknown
Anchors were, you know, like anchors were not as strong as how stuck that rope was. Just top rope soloed off of the the stuck rope itself got it undone. At that point, I'm looking pretty darn haggard. I'm feeling really sick. coughing up a storm, you know, my buddy looks at me and he says, give me your rope.

01:36:50:02 - 01:37:05:08
Unknown
You know, give me the rope. And I go, no, dude, it's okay. I can I can totally carry it. It's fine. He's, you know, he's like, nope, give it over. I said, okay, well, if you need to give it back to me. Yeah. You know, is I he's looking at me. He's like, yeah. Like just like little sick puppy.

01:37:05:11 - 01:37:20:16
Unknown
It was just like, okay, carry me the rest of the way. And, you know, it's like in the end you look back and go, that's what partnerships for. You know, if he was in the same situation, I would do the same thing. Yeah. You got to be accept help when you need to. Exactly. And, you know, like taking a little ego shot to your height a long time.

01:37:20:18 - 01:37:42:16
Unknown
I don't know, I probably could do it, but the pace that I would set, having that additional weight, we, you know, we would have been stuck in the night, you know, I was moving way too slow with the weight that I was carrying. And he was able to pick that up. So we get to the last final slab between Beehive and sorry, big Red in the beehive, which are just easy, nice second class slab walk ups.

01:37:42:18 - 01:38:09:15
Unknown
You know, it's just like, luckily enough, it's nothing technical to finish out the time you get to the top of, a very recognizable wall for many, that are familiar the park as we get to. So we climb the final slabs and like I say, we get to the base of the final slab to the notch between the saddle, between these two and I tell Connor, okay, normally I would be able to solo these, but I, I, I have to be I have to be really candid with you.

01:38:09:15 - 01:38:27:18
Unknown
If I climb these slabs without a rope, I'll die. I'm so tired. I'm so sick and so haggard that I will just fall off this. And, you know, the sickness had caught up with me on day four. It really just like, you know, the first three days, I was able to kind of, like, put it in the back pocket and kind of be like, yeah, I'm sick.

01:38:27:18 - 01:38:44:11
Unknown
Whatever. I can't talk. Let's make fun of it. be a tough guy about it. And day four just smack me in the face. you know, like a briefcase. Yeah. You're serving a massive metabolic death the whole time. Yeah, exactly. And we're at a claw deficit the whole time, and it's just like. Yeah, this whole just, like, just slammed me in the face.

01:38:44:11 - 01:39:04:18
Unknown
And at that point, I go, you know, I just have to be forced to be humble and go. If I want to make it home. Like throw a rope at me. I'm pretty sure this is like fourth class terrain. I'm. And so anyway, I crawl my butt up that that terrain and we get to the saddle. We do the two, and, you know, we then we have.

01:39:04:18 - 01:39:30:02
Unknown
Yeah. So we're at the top of that, that saddle between there, very familiar to climbers, that are familiar. The park would be the, the street wall. And so we're atop the street wall, and then we do the street wall descent, which is a very convoluted, convoluted ridge Ridge line descent where you, that descends about 1900 feet down.

01:39:30:04 - 01:39:53:20
Unknown
Yeah. And so it's like you finish the 20th peak and you go, cool. We did the traverse. And then it's like, okay, now we have to descend. You know, it's not over till it's over. And so we descend the nine 1900 feet and we, we get back to the museum and spiritual light and, it's I'm. Yeah, I'm just still, still super, super stoked that, you know, we finished it.

01:39:53:20 - 01:40:19:10
Unknown
So it's from March 9th of 24 to, March 12th of 24 as we completed this. So and, you know, it's like I had a dream of establishing the longest climbing picture version, Zion. And I, you know, I and we got it, you know, and in, you know, and so it's just, it's it's really surreal. I'm really happy to have gotten it.

01:40:19:10 - 01:40:40:04
Unknown
It's it's a crazy accomplishment, man. It's absolutely insane. It's like, for a lot of people, like a lifetime of climbing experience in, like, four days, you know? That's wild. Yeah. And there's only been two other parties who have done. It's not the full traverse, but like a similar. So there was so yeah, there's been two parties. Yeah.

01:40:40:04 - 01:41:09:12
Unknown
There's been two parties that have done that there. One that did the there's two parties that have done it twice done the lesser portion twice for different objectives. And then there was one that did the extended line, which was essentially they did 12 of the 20 peaks originally. And then I said, let's throw in all the technical stuff and, and then that's how this kind of came to be, you know, in that individual that one of those individuals that did the 12 is ultimately said, get up there and go do it.

01:41:09:12 - 01:41:37:18
Unknown
And I said, hell yeah. And then it just became bigger from there. And that's how this all came to be. And then, yeah, following two weeks, you know, we were between the community and the point I had actually left, you know, I had left trekking poles that had been with me, you know, I had these carbon, these black diamond carbon trekking poles that I had taken on over, overall, over 100 peaks in Zion and, I left them on top of a 20ft blank face.

01:41:37:18 - 01:41:54:21
Unknown
Repel between the point. The chameleon. I was like, son of a bitch. I know, I know, they're up there. Yeah, I can, I can't see them, but I know they're up there. and it was it was just a freak. It was just a freak incident. There was a fourth party two weeks later that did like they did.

01:41:54:21 - 01:42:11:14
Unknown
Only six of, you know, they had a really bad they were going to do the extended line and they had a really, you know, just nothing was in their favor. So they ended up just doing the line as bare minimum as possible. So they did six peaks out of, you know, out of, out of the 12 extended.

01:42:11:16 - 01:42:31:02
Unknown
And they ended up picking up the sticks. And I, two weeks later and it was not but, you know, a month after the traverse was completed that I stumbled upon meeting the guy that had my tracking poles, and he said, you know, yeah, there's a part. And I said, I did do they did. you know, they did that.

01:42:31:02 - 01:42:48:14
Unknown
They did the traverse over there. And he wants to share information with you. I was like, oh, cool. And so I got to talking to he's like, dude, did you leave? Did one of you leave trekking poles behind on it? I was like, oh my gosh. And so it was just this like, you know, I'm not a very nostalgic person, you know, a very connected to equipment.

01:42:48:14 - 01:43:06:10
Unknown
You know, equipment gets used, equipment gets retired, or equipment gets given away to someone else who might need it, you know, and, you know, it's like, that's one of those pieces of equipment that like, you know, if I had to go back and get those, it was two days minimum to to grab them. And I was like, well, you know, so be it.

01:43:06:10 - 01:43:25:03
Unknown
Nature claims it. but a month later to have these sticks come back to me, I was just like, wow, what a you know, it's kind of one of those sayings where, you know, if you really love it, let it go. And sometimes it comes back. Yeah, yeah, I know that applied does stuff sometimes if you're talking about trekking poles at that thing.

01:43:25:03 - 01:43:51:10
Unknown
But yeah. How has the community received this, accomplishment so far in, it's been only positive. truly. And, do you think, like, how many people can truly grasp, like, what you've actually done? You know, I've been trying to, I've been trying to translate to the people. And like I said, we all we all live our own perspectives.

01:43:51:10 - 01:44:15:04
Unknown
So I, I don't know, truly, you know, but if I say very few, I can kind of envision kind of reliving and, you know, like living out that kind of like what that entails, you know, and I want to try to translate it the best I can just so people can, you know, so, so people don't have to do it.

01:44:15:04 - 01:44:32:17
Unknown
And so they can vicariously like, you know, if they don't want to, you know, so that they can, you know, you can storytelling kind of tell you vicariously through yourself, the best ability and, you know, you can only do so much. It's, it's it's it's kind of like, you know, when someone says, hey, I free a solo cup, it's like, okay, cool.

01:44:32:17 - 01:45:05:03
Unknown
We've climbed hard walls and we've, you know, like, climbed in, you say, climb big walls, but yet I still lack the comprehension of or like moonlight, moonlight buttress, you know, close to my backyard. It's just like I still can't. I still can't comprehend someone going out and free soloing Moonlight Buttress. It's, you know, so I like as an example, is like, even though we're so close to having a perspective like, I don't know if I ever can fully translate it to individuals without them trying it, but I can do my darn best.

01:45:05:03 - 01:45:27:12
Unknown
And but I guess to give a really long and slight digressed answer, I think only a handful of people can probably understand. Yeah. What about the broader implications for yourself personally? Like what has this like, what has this changed in you? Like how has this changed how you see the future? Like what's next? Like how has this shifted who you are?

01:45:27:14 - 01:45:54:15
Unknown
This is showing me of how much the human body can do to sound cheesy, but like it instills me to train harder and like I go, okay, I was sick for this, you know? What can I do? Healthy and what can I do? Trained and how can I know? Like honestly like it really opens up the opportunity to try bigger things and be be confident about it, you know?

01:45:54:15 - 01:46:15:14
Unknown
And so it's just like I like I said, with with adventure, it's not, you know, like obviously there's some there's some difficulty that comes into play that is attractive. But you know, like nothing I talked about in difficulty, I mean, the traverse goes at five nine plus the hardest, right? It's more about the adventure at hand and the logistics and difficulty of like putting it all together.

01:46:15:14 - 01:46:33:02
Unknown
Ridge climbs are fascinating to me. And you know, connecting link ups is fascinating to me. That's what's really cool. It doesn't matter particularly how hard it is, maybe a little bit, you know, otherwise I'd be on the wall or something, you know, just like run in ridges. Not that, you know, it's ridiculously hard, but it's not terribly technical.

01:46:33:07 - 01:46:54:23
Unknown
I want a little bit of technicality. Just enough, but to make it challenging enough to where it's just like, you know, I look at, you know, I look at, I still have I still have so much to, you know, over 85% of Zion National Park is wilderness zone, that there's a lot of mountains out there or a lot of desert peaks out there.

01:46:55:00 - 01:47:18:18
Unknown
So it's just like looking at building bigger link ups. I now see that as possible, you know, convincing a partner, I mean, that might be that might be harder than the next traverse. Yeah. But the, but it feels within grasp. You know, it's like I already have ideas that I'm piecing together, and it's just like, I wouldn't have ever thought of that, you know?

01:47:18:18 - 01:47:39:10
Unknown
And then, this also lays out other opportunities, like, you know, in the, in the summer, I want to go to the, I want to go to the bugaboo and I want to like I said, Connor and I intend to like, you know, I guess a pre spray a little bit in the sense being of like, I hope we're good enough and trained enough to be able to attempt, like All Along the Watchtower and do it in a day.

01:47:39:12 - 01:48:02:14
Unknown
Like if we can manage that, like that would be amazing. And so it's just like it allows me to have doing stuff like that allows me to have inspiration to, to try and maybe even fail, you know? And so it's just like, you know, go out and fail. Awesome. And I mean, thank you so much for for coming and sharing your story.

01:48:02:20 - 01:48:38:01
Unknown
Thanks for listening. I think, incredibly inspiring. And, I mean, yeah, I mean, I visually, I like, was there with you the whole time. so I think it's, just an amazing story, I don't know. Yeah, man, I think just likewise, like, thanks so much for coming on. It was amazing having a conversation with you and, really, like, great to be able to just deep dive into like, that traverse and that adventure and going through that, and then also just, you know, teasing out those more like philosophical things of like how climbing, once again, just like transcends just the physical climbing.

01:48:38:01 - 01:48:59:06
Unknown
Right? It's like it's more like embodying like spirit and who we are and just taking on more. And, yeah, I just think you really eloquently put that through with that story. So thanks a lot for sharing. Appreciate them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wicked man. Cue the, the closing music. Yeah. My where's the fun? Yeah.

01:48:59:06 - 01:49:19:03
Unknown
That's it for today's episode. Everybody, I want to extend a huge thank you to James for listening to every episode of the show, and for driving down to Vegas from Saint George to do this rare in-person interview with Max and myself. And thank you, everyone, for tuning in and being a part of the climbing majority. The TCM movement is growing, but we need your help to spread the word.

01:49:19:05 - 01:49:38:02
Unknown
Please share this podcast with your friends and family. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to support the show, and if you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. We're always looking for new guests. If you or someone you know is a great fit for the show, please don't hesitate to reach out just like James did.

01:49:38:04 - 01:49:46:21
Unknown
You can reach us on Instagram or email us directly at the Climbing Majority podcast at gmail.com. Thanks again for listening, everyone. We'll see you in two weeks.