78 | Hey, It's Buttress! w/ Tanner Wanish

I first reached out to Tanner back in March, right after he and his climbing partner, Michael Vaill, had completed the Red Rock Triple in an impressive 12 hours and 35 minutes. I was stoked to share their story, but little did I know it would take six months to get the chance to sit down with them. Looking back, I couldn’t be happier it turned out that way. Just days after our initial interviews, Tanner and Michael made waves by setting the speed record for the Yosemite Triple Crown. And as if that wasn’t enough, last week they pushed the boundaries even further, making history with the most ambitious link-up Yosemite has ever seen—the Yosemite Quad. Last week, these two crushers linked Mount Watkins, El Cap, the South Face of Washington Column, and Half Dome in a mind-blowing 21 hours and 50 minutes.

So, this week, I’m thrilled to introduce The Climbing Majority’s own 'Triple Crown'. Over the next three days I will be posting three separate full length episodes.' Today, we sit down with Tanner Wanish. Tomorrow, you’ll hear from his climbing partner, Michael Vaill. And on the final day, we’ll sit down with both of them for an insider’s look at their recent, groundbreaking feat in Yosemite. Get psyched for an epic week of stories, insights, a deep look into the lives of these two athletes. 

Today, we dive into the journey of Tanner Wanish. Tanner’s story begins with a military background, though not in the way you might expect. After years of service, he found himself in what he describes as the darkest days of his life, having realized that the trajectory he was on in the military was no longer the path he wanted. Sensing Tanner’s struggles from overseas, his brother—a prominent developer on the Front Range—sent him a hard drive packed with climbing films. And so began Tanner’s passion for climbing, igniting a pursuit that would lead him, four and a half years later, to literally etch his name into the walls of Yosemite.

Our conversation with Tanner reveals a climber who has woven the sport into every aspect of his life. He’s taken climbing beyond just an outlet for adventure and fulfillment—it’s become his way to live, grow, and connect deeply with others. Tanner also embraces what he calls 'manufactured adversity,' seeing the immense value of challenge and struggle for personal growth. For him, climbing is the ultimate vehicle for this kind of development.

Tanner’s journey is a powerful reminder that climbing is more than a sport. It’s a medium for growth, connection, and self-discovery. His story shows us the value of resilience, adventure, and the balance between passion and purpose. Buckle up for an inspiring conversation with Tanner Wanish.

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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. You can reach us on IG or email us directly @ theclimbingmajoritypodcast@gmail.com

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Resources

Tanner's IG

Athlete Write Up

Crux Non-Profit

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:20 Small Talk
• 19:26 Tanner's Origin Story
• 55:18 Mentors
• 1:04:02 Injuries
• 1:21:47 Soloing Close Call
• 1:31:57 Reflections
• 1:44:53 Tanner's IG Channel
• 1:55:55 Future Plans
• 2:03:25 Final Message

Transcript

00;00;00;18 - 00;00;05;27
Speaker 1
Have you ever felt that most climbing media only tells stories about what's happening at the pinnacle of the sport,

00;00;05;27 - 00;00;08;24
Speaker 1
leaving the stories of everyday climbers untold?

00;00;09;04 - 00;00;14;06
Speaker 1
I'm Kyle, and I believe that there is a growing group of climbers that wants representation.

00;00;14;12 - 00;00;24;05
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Climbing Majority podcast, where I capture the stories, experiences and lessons of nonprofessional climbers, guides and athletes from around the world.

00;00;24;07 - 00;00;28;29
Speaker 1
Come join me as I dive deep into a more relatable world of climbing.

00;00;31;00 - 00;00;39;06
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast. I am your host, Kyle Broxton. I first reached out to Tanner back in March, right after he and his climbing partner,

00;00;39;06 - 00;00;51;03
Speaker 1
Michael Vail, had completed the Red Rock triple An, an impressive 12 hours and 35 minutes. I was stoked to share their story, but little did I know, it would take about six months to get the chance to sit down with them.

00;00;51;05 - 00;01;12;13
Speaker 1
Looking back, I couldn't be happier. It turned out that way. Just days after our initial interviews, Tanner and Michael made waves by setting the speed record for the Yosemite Triple Crown. And as if that wasn't enough, last week, they pushed the boundaries even further. Making history with the most ambitious link up Yosemite has ever seen. The Yosemite quad.

00;01;12;15 - 00;01;33;27
Speaker 1
Last week, these two crushers linked Mount Watkins El cap, the south face of Washington Column and Half Dome in a mind blowing 21 hours and 50 minutes. So this week, I'm thrilled to announce the climbing majority's own Triple Crown. Over the next three days, I will be posting three separate full length episodes. Today we are sitting down with Tanner ish.

00;01;34;00 - 00;01;52;18
Speaker 1
Tomorrow you'll hear from his climbing partner, Michael Vail, and on the final day, we'll sit down with the both of them for an insider's look at their recent groundbreaking feat in Yosemite. Gets like for an epic week of stories, insights, and a deep look into the lives of these two athletes. Today we dive into the journey of Tanner Wanek.

00;01;52;21 - 00;02;16;08
Speaker 1
Tanner story begins with a military background, though not in the way that you would expect. After years of service, he found himself in what he describes as the darkest days of his life. Having realized that the trajectory he was on in the military was no longer the path that he wanted. Sensing Tanner struggles from overseas, his brother, a prominent developer on the Front Range, sent him a hard drive packed with climbing films.

00;02;16;08 - 00;02;39;08
Speaker 1
And so began Tanner's passion for climbing. Igniting a pursuit that would lead him four and a half years later to literally etch his name into the walls of Yosemite. Our conversation with Tanner reveals a climber who has woven the sport into every aspect of his life. He's taken climbing beyond just an outlet for adventure and fulfillment. It's become his way to live, grow, and connect deeply with others.

00;02;39;11 - 00;03;05;17
Speaker 1
Tanner also embraces what he calls manufactured adversity. Seeing the immense value of challenge and struggle for personal growth. For him, climbing is the ultimate vehicle for this kind of development. Tanner's journey is a powerful reminder that climbing is more than just a sport. It's a medium for growth, connection, and self-discovery. His story shows us the value of resilience, adventure, and the balance between passion and purpose.

00;03;05;19 - 00;03;07;10
Speaker 1
Buckle up for an inspiring

00;03;19;25 - 00;03;40;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. We're, we're at, Donner Summit right now. We we kind of boogie down to Yosemite. We're taking a, a load week, I guess, and air quotes, kind of a mental delay of the week. We've been kind of pushing hard, lately, and we wanted a week or so to decompress before we head back to Yosemite.

00;03;40;04 - 00;03;50;00
Speaker 1
To start working on our our Valley goals. So, yeah, we're at a snow shed. I'm actually parked at Snow Shed while right now working on some, some fun trad crag and routes to the.

00;03;53;14 - 00;04;13;26
Speaker 1
No, I haven't done that. I haven't done much climbing here in Donner yet. I have a lot of stuff I'd like to do, but it's, It's in such. It's so close to Yosemite. And, like, Yosemite for me is this big black hole that just, like, sucks me in any time. I'm within five hours. So we always come up here, we're actually trying to move to this area.

00;04;13;29 - 00;04;20;05
Speaker 1
Hopefully by the end of this year, because we like it so much, but we, we never seem to be able to spend enough time.

00;04;20;05 - 00;04;25;19
Speaker 2
So.

00;04;25;21 - 00;04;26;13
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;04;26;13 - 00;04;31;16
Speaker 1
We've, we've we've met a couple times. He's he's seems like a great guy. Every interaction I've had with him has been really positive.

00;04;31;16 - 00;04;35;07
Speaker 2
So yeah. Yeah I know

00;04;35;07 - 00;04;38;08
Speaker 3
So it'll be cool. Cool to see how he, how he solves that problem.

00;04;38;08 - 00;04;43;07
Speaker 1
I need, I need to talk to him about that. Maybe I'll figure out how to get up here.

00;04;54;23 - 00;04;58;17
Speaker 2
Nice. Yeah.

00;04;58;19 - 00;05;16;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, I, I took some of the I took some of the bigger falls. I've taken in my probably whole climbing career today. Just all over whip and all over. All over Donner. Yeah, it's tough climbing. It's like there's it's it's own kind of granite climbing. It's very specific. And, it's kind of tough to roll right into. So.

00;05;16;20 - 00;05;21;19
Speaker 3
Nice. Yeah. I'm surprised you're taking the biggest whips here. And you just did, Bacardi

00;05;21;29 - 00;05;44;01
Speaker 1
Yeah, but, yeah, the back of your head. No, we we, we both fell on the first pitch, and then everything after that was good. Yeah. It gets, the the first pitch is actually protected pretty well. It's not. It's it's like the good, the well protected pitch. And then everything above that is, is pretty harrowing.

00;05;44;01 - 00;05;45;19
Speaker 1
So definitely.

00;05;45;21 - 00;05;47;01
Speaker 2
Yeah. If.

00;05;47;01 - 00;05;57;04
Speaker 3
following you for, you know, for quite a while now. And it seems like of recent like maybe the last two months or so. It's just been like are X are X like all these really crazy run

00;06;04;02 - 00;06;23;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. We will. It was a very intentional ramp up to the back of your area, and, Mike, Mike and Mike and I and Mike. Mike Vail, he's one of my best friends, my main climbing partner. We kind of floated the idea, maybe a month ago or so, and it just seemed so audacious and, like, unrealistic.

00;06;23;15 - 00;06;42;03
Speaker 1
It's just not, I mean, if you look at the list of people who have climbed it, which there's an actual list on Super Topo, it's like it's like John Bakker and Scott Burke and like, and, Alex Honnold and like, Hazel Finley and all these people that are, like, known for being really bold climbers or, or they have such an incredible buffer.

00;06;42;06 - 00;07;01;22
Speaker 1
You know, they're climbing 514 so like, they're not going to fall. We don't have either of us. But we kind of we kind of thought like, let's just go try and see what happens. So we kind of set, a bit of a ramp up schedule. The goal was to climb, to get really comfortable on like five, ten rated.

00;07;01;22 - 00;07;20;19
Speaker 1
Our stuff like we wanted to do a lot of 510 R, and then we wanted to do a lot of 512 climbing on knobs. And then the goal was to put those together, kind of mesh those for the back of your in, which is 511, you know, rated R or X or whatever it gets now. So yeah, it was I mean, it worked.

00;07;20;19 - 00;07;30;19
Speaker 1
You know, we did well. So very, very, very grateful that it went well because that would have been that had been a tough day.

00;07;30;22 - 00;07;35;07
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;07;35;09 - 00;07;51;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. No I got I got a little wigged out. Mike so Mike said we, we drew this is, I think this is the cool thing. We drew rocks, at the base of the route to see who leads what pitches. We both. We both wanted the lead. We both wanted lead. The second pitch, specifically, and then.

00;07;51;09 - 00;08;09;08
Speaker 1
And then we both kind of wanted to lead the first pitch as well, because it's like the crux, you know, it would be nice to lead the crux and send that on lead. But we couldn't agree. And then we and then we decided this would be a really cool way to do this, to just draw. We went for rocks and one through four drawn on them, and we we pulled them out of the chalk bag right at the base of the route.

00;08;09;08 - 00;08;27;12
Speaker 1
And those are your pitches. And we also agreed to, to yo yo instead of like, hey, you know, we didn't want to hang dog up there. It's just it's such a it's such, like a significant route. It's got so much history, and I feel like it's held in this high regard. It's it deserves all this respect and adoration.

00;08;27;12 - 00;08;49;00
Speaker 1
It gets. So we didn't want to be up there making a mockery of it, you know, like hanging all over the place and, like, you know, pulling on gear or whatever. So we said, if you fall, the other person gets to gets to tie, and and they get a shot too. So, Yeah. Mike. Mike led or I led the first pitch up to the second bolt, and then Mike took it to the chains after I fell.

00;08;49;02 - 00;09;05;00
Speaker 1
And then he started the second pitch, which, which is pretty crazy. And then I did the third pitch in the fourth pitch. And yeah, I had a little I mean, we both had we both had some very cathartic experiences.

00;09;05;02 - 00;09;06;02
Speaker 2
So yeah.

00;09;06;07 - 00;09;25;09
Speaker 1
I the second pitch is I don't 120ft or something, and it has two bolts on it. And yeah, I thought it had. Oh, I thought I had three bolts, but one of the bolts is off the belay. It's like two feet off the belay, so I don't know. You can count that if you want. It's just to keep it from a factor.

00;09;25;09 - 00;09;26;19
Speaker 1
Two.

00;09;26;22 - 00;09;31;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. So.

00;09;31;23 - 00;09;54;10
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Some. Yeah. And it was I tied off a knob. At one point, I don't know if it would have done anything. It made me feel better than nothing. And then I it's kind of challenging because you can't see the bolts. There's, there's just so far. There's so far away. We we both wear prescription glasses, literally to try to see the bolts better.

00;09;54;12 - 00;10;10;12
Speaker 1
And the bolts are kind of tucked away in these, like, knob clusters. So they're just you just can't see them. So it's this really committing trust exercise where you just have to keep climbing higher and higher and higher and just hope that, like, you're going to see it at some point. And I,

00;10;10;12 - 00;10;17;05
Speaker 1
I got up, I was probably 40, at least 40, 45ft over the last bolt.

00;10;17;08 - 00;10;40;11
Speaker 1
And I'm in like sustained 510 like slab climbing. And I was starting to I was kind of starting to panic because I'm like, I haven't seen a bolt yet. And I'm like, you know, this would be a life changing fall already. And I'm like, there's no rest. There's not like a glory jug that you can shake out on and be like, okay, let me like, reassess and look around or you can't like say, oh, I don't know what I'm going like, take I'm going to hang here.

00;10;40;15 - 00;10;59;06
Speaker 1
You're just like, you're 100% committed. And I yeah, I started I looked I looked down for some, I think I was looking at my feet or something. And out of my periphery, I caught, like, the 50ft of rope. But what I mean, that was not there was nothing, you know, and I something something got me a little riled up.

00;10;59;07 - 00;11;23;11
Speaker 1
I was like, oh, man. Like, I don't know, I, I hollered down the bike. I was like, dude, I'm not feeling good right now. Like, you know, which is like code for my like, hey, you know, hunker down this or he's going to dodge me as I fly past the buoy, hopefully. Yeah. So, yeah. But, and then I kept climbing up and I saw the bolt, I saw the ball, and it was like eight feet to my right directly.

00;11;23;11 - 00;11;33;22
Speaker 1
So which is like, not what you want, because now I'm like, I have to down climb and then traverse and go over. And it was like it was pretty. Yeah. I don't know is pretty is pretty engaging.

00;11;33;22 - 00;11;40;24
Speaker 1
But afterwards, like, what a rewarding experience, you know, to to get it done and be like, man, I was like, I don't want to be dramatic.

00;11;40;24 - 00;12;01;01
Speaker 1
But I was like, pretty scared for my own safety there for a bit like I was. I was not totally sure that I had it. And then to, to choose to, like, go. Anyway, I didn't really choose. I don't have a choice, but, like, you know, to go anyway and, like, be able to, figure the sequences out on site and, you know, do them successfully.

00;12;01;03 - 00;12;13;17
Speaker 1
It just feels so good when you're done. It's great. So I don't know if it's worth the risk. You know, I don't I haven't I haven't been on the bad side of that yet. But I mean, so far it's a pretty rewarding experience.

00;12;17;10 - 00;12;18;21
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;12;18;23 - 00;12;47;04
Speaker 1
She is incredibly supportive. She trusts she trusts me to make the right decisions to preserve my own life, which which I appreciate. We've we've talked about this before. We've I've, you know, I've had some, like, pretty big solo days in the mountains and I've done some stuff that's like, you know, more risky and less risky, but, a little earlier on it, she, it kind of made her pretty uncomfortable.

00;12;47;06 - 00;12;54;04
Speaker 1
Just to think that, like, maybe I. You know, what? If I didn't come home or something like that, and I just, I always tell her, like, hey, I

00;12;54;04 - 00;13;00;04
Speaker 1
don't want to get hurt much more than you don't want me to get hurt. Like I'm doing everything I can.

00;13;00;04 - 00;13;03;24
Speaker 1
I don't have days where I'm like, I'm just going to, you know, wing it, and, like, I don't have a clue.

00;13;03;24 - 00;13;24;25
Speaker 1
I'm just going to go for it. I don't do that. Everything is like, generally you know, a lot of preparation goes into stuff. It's been it's been planned like as deeply as I possibly can. And I've got exits and contingency plans and it might look a little crazy from the outside, but generally, you know, if you pop the hood, you're like, oh, this is like, this is like running pretty well.

00;13;24;27 - 00;13;31;06
Speaker 1
I mean, or at least I think it is to some degree. As far as the risk factors that you can control, obviously there's stuff that you can't, but,

00;13;31;06 - 00;13;49;27
Speaker 1
yeah, she's been she's been really good lately. The, the maybe the speed climbing stuff in Yosemite. She's not super crazy about that's I think that's like, objectively, probably significantly the most dangerous thing I'm doing in my modern climbing period right now.

00;13;49;29 - 00;14;08;08
Speaker 1
It's just the reality of that's that's how you go fast in a lot of ways is you, you end up cutting safety corners and stuff like that. So I yeah, I'm not planning on making a career out of it. We want to do we want to do some goals this fall. And then I don't really see much more speed climbing after that.

00;14;08;10 - 00;14;27;16
Speaker 1
But yeah, I mean, for this for like the back of your in specifically, I, I told her a couple weeks before, I kind of told her what the climb was, and we watched a little, a little YouTube documentary on it. There's a really cool one, that gives some, some history on, on a, a guy that that trained for it for a while and got this cool on site.

00;14;27;19 - 00;14;43;03
Speaker 1
But after that I was like, hey, I don't want to talk about this again. I'm not going to tell you when I'm doing this. I don't want to make this a thing because, like, I'm already kind of building it up in my own head and a big, a big, I think trick for me, I guess mentally was to just treat it like any other climb.

00;14;43;03 - 00;14;58;01
Speaker 1
I didn't want it to be like the back of the year, and we just wanted it to be like, this is just another five, 11 and 12. I mean, we've done plenty. It's not the end of the world like, you know, don't even it doesn't matter if there's two bolts or 20 bolts in this pitch climate like you have every everything else.

00;14;58;04 - 00;15;15;25
Speaker 1
So it was a really intentional, push personally to just, like, not make it a thing at all. We initially had a buddy who wanted to come shoot it. He wanted to photograph it, which would have been, I'm sure cool. It's a beautiful line, and it doesn't get done very much at all. But we ended up telling him to like, hey, we're not going to do this.

00;15;15;25 - 00;15;32;05
Speaker 1
We're not even telling anybody when we're doing it. We're just going to go climate and enjoy the day and enjoy the experience. Like, you know, as this really cool partnership that we have. And and just, yeah, it was it was a little more of a personal thing, which is cool. So.

00;15;32;07 - 00;15;34;13
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;15;34;13 - 00;15;48;27
Speaker 3
pressure. And I mean that's what makes like the documentary free solo to me. So crazy. Not only what he did but just that it was filmed so up in his face at the same time, it was like, it's it's, it's a lot to handle as a climber to to be filmed like that, doing something

00;15;49;14 - 00;15;51;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

00;15;51;16 - 00;16;13;26
Speaker 1
No, I totally agree. Yeah. I got I have a couple, like, personal rules for, for, I mean, I guess soloing, but like these, they kind of high risk things in general. And, generally that involves me. Not I don't tell anybody about it because I don't want the, I don't want the subconscious pressure of feeling like I need to fulfill some sort of expectation that I created out of thin air.

00;16;13;28 - 00;16;30;07
Speaker 1
And then I don't like to, I don't know. I've only done one solo ever. That Vitale, one of my best friends, photographed, in a little Cottonwood Canyon, and it was just. We just wanted to recreate this whole Brad go bright picture. It's very inspiring. It was one of the first pictures I saw a little cottonwood.

00;16;30;07 - 00;16;41;02
Speaker 1
And I always thought it was just the coolest striking line. So, I had done it a couple times, and I just asked if you'd be interested in shooting it, but that's the only time I've even done anything, on camera. So.

00;16;43;02 - 00;17;04;29
Speaker 1
No, no. So, like, sorry. So, like. Yeah. Yeah, I guess like, like more like high risk stuff like that. So. Yeah. But yeah, I just don't, I don't like that. The pressure of, feeling like I have to fulfill expectations that I've created for no reason. So especially with stuff like that, I'd like to be able to, like, listen to, you know, listen to my, my own body or mind or whatever.

00;17;04;29 - 00;17;20;07
Speaker 1
And if it's not, if I don't feel good, like, okay, I'm not doing this today. Zero stress at all. I have nothing, nothing to lose by backing off. And I like to keep that that exit very clearly, like cordoned off, like, hey, I can always walk through the store no matter what.

00;17;20;09 - 00;17;21;27
Speaker 2
So.

00;17;21;27 - 00;17;32;21
Speaker 3
approached it, too. You're like, we're going to do a bunch of five, ten hours. We're going to do this style of climbing that's safe, and then we're going to mash it all together into this project that you guys did. And I think it's a cool way to think about it. Like, I'm a weekend warrior.

00;17;32;21 - 00;17;49;02
Speaker 3
I think a lot of climbers, like they have small moments in their life to like go out and do a climb. And a lot of the times it's like, all right, this is the one and only chance I have this weekend to get this climb done. And like routes like that are just kind of like not an option because, you know, they don't they haven't had the time or, you know, the the preparation mindset isn't really there.

00;17;49;02 - 00;17;50;26
Speaker 3
So it was it was cool to have you piece

00;17;51;20 - 00;17;53;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks.

00;17;59;09 - 00;18;02;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

00;18;07;27 - 00;18;17;11
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I told him. I think this is the first time I've ever been asked a question in my life in terms of, like, about me, I. Yeah, this is the first time, so this is cool.

00;19;03;21 - 00;19;08;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, sure. Like the the. I'm assuming the climbing specific side of all this.

00;19;08;26 - 00;19;23;03
Speaker 3
I, I mean, all of, you know, our whole life kind of leads us to, you know, certain things. And, you know, I didn't find climbing until I was, 24. But, like, I scrambled as a kid, I had adventurous parents and stuff like. And that all kind of molded me into who I am today.

00;19;23;03 - 00;19;25;21
Speaker 3
So, whatever you feel is, you know, important.

00;19;26;05 - 00;19;47;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I was in, I was in the Navy. I was in the Seal teams with Jack, for seven years or so. I shipped out in 2014 after I graduated college and in, Charleston, I went to the Citadel Junior military College. I was the definition of troubled youth, and I needed some structure.

00;19;47;08 - 00;19;59;22
Speaker 1
Like, I needed some rigidity. And, I hated it at the time, but it was by far the best decision I ever made. Was was introducing some authority and into my own life. I was kind of missing it at the time.

00;20;00;20 - 00;20;07;15
Speaker 3
it kind of like, this is your only option, or is it kind of like, I know I'm going down the wrong path, and I'm choosing this for myself.

00;20;07;24 - 00;20;29;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, I had, my best friend, at the time. His name's George Halstead. He was one year older than me. We wrestled together for forever, going through high school and stuff, and he wrestled in college. He went to the Citadel on a, on a wrestling scholarship, and, he said, man, my, my senior year.

00;20;29;04 - 00;20;53;17
Speaker 1
So he was a freshman in college. I was a senior in high school. And I was just completely out of control in high school, just like party and way too hard and just zero zero regard for authority. I was I was on a bad, bad path. And, he came back from freshman year at the Citadel, and he's like, he's this new military man now is kind of a crazy concept.

00;20;53;17 - 00;21;18;00
Speaker 1
You know, he's got a clean haircut and he's, he's one of the best athletes, I think, to to ever come out of South Carolina as a, as a wrestler and a collegiate wrestler and stuff. But he came back and I was committed to USC, University of South Carolina. I supposed to go I already had I went through registration, I went through I had my, my roommate in my dorm and everything already picked out.

00;21;18;03 - 00;21;44;03
Speaker 1
And my mom at the time was like basically begging me, on a regular basis to like to not to not go to USC and to go to the Citadel. I had been accepted to both, and, there was some collusion behind the scenes between George and my mom. But George ended up bringing me out to, a friend's house, and we spent the day, on the lake, kind of hanging out with me.

00;21;44;03 - 00;22;09;06
Speaker 1
Him and his. It was his youth pastor Adam. And, I didn't realize that it was this intervention in the background of, like, George basically pulled me aside. He's like, hey, man, you you you need to go to the though, like, you're you are not you're zero chance you're going to make it to USC. You're on you're not you know, like you need this and I'm your best friend and I'm telling you like from the outside you need this.

00;22;09;08 - 00;22;29;22
Speaker 1
And he was my best friend, and I respected him a ton. He still is one of my best friends. But I respected him a ton, and, I just, I don't know, I had a change of heart two weeks before college started. I was able to get one slot to go to the Citadel and just upended my entire life and went to this military college instead of, regular college.

00;22;29;22 - 00;22;49;02
Speaker 1
And it set me on this on this path that I'm on today. And, I, I kind of attribute that as, like, the single most responsible, best decision I've ever made in my entire life because it I think that I think that was a fork, that there was not going to be an opportunity to reverse from either. Either way, I went so, yeah.

00;22;49;02 - 00;23;06;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So he ended up recommending I go there and, I was like, all right, you know, if George, if he's recommending it, I love this guy and I respect him, I'll, I'll go give it a give it a shot. And I hated it. I hated every minute of it. It was just a just a nightmare. I you have to shave your head bald.

00;23;06;13 - 00;23;25;00
Speaker 1
Like, just shave it with a razor every single week for your whole freshman year. And, like, you just get treated so terribly. It's, a lot of hazing and a lot of old traditional stuff. It's it's looking back on. You're like, man, that was terrible. Like, that was such a bad time. But, yeah, I don't know.

00;23;25;00 - 00;23;35;29
Speaker 1
I just stuck with it. And I came back sophomore year and junior year, and then, Yeah. And then ended up going I graduated there in 2014, so.

00;23;36;02 - 00;23;38;09
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;23;38;12 - 00;23;59;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, I yeah, the whole freshman year I was, I was like, I mean, I would call I call my mom crying probably once a week. I was like I'm on it. This is the this is the worst. I can't imagine a worse life than this. But it was the, man, it's like type it's type two fun, you know, it's like it's it's basically an all male college, which I really enjoyed.

00;23;59;22 - 00;24;24;21
Speaker 1
So it's this, like, really profoundly miserable lifestyle. Or, like, you can't even leave campus Monday to Friday. You're. You march to breakfast and you march to lunch together and like, you wear uniforms and all that stuff. But, like, you just get so close with these guys that you're with. They're still my best friends today. Because you you just go through this, like, really again, like, profoundly miserable lifestyle together, and you kind of bond over the adversity.

00;24;24;21 - 00;24;49;06
Speaker 1
And, you know, freshman year is really challenging. It's, again, a lot of, just unethical hazing and stuff like that. It's a lot of that's changed now, but this was still kind of on the tail end of it before stuff was getting cleaned up a bit. And but as a result, you know, if there is a silver lining you get, you know, you bond with these guys so deeply, and then you kind of bond over, like, how bad it sucks.

00;24;49;06 - 00;25;14;22
Speaker 1
And, and it becomes like this fun thing. And then living in Charleston is incredible. To Charleston is, I think, one of the best cities on planet Earth. Charleston, South Carolina. And it it's, you know, the the the weekends mean so much more when you can't leave school during the week. So, like, I don't know, it was it was, it was a challenging period, but there were so many extremely bright silver linings peppered throughout this entire experience that it was.

00;25;14;24 - 00;25;33;25
Speaker 1
I mean, I'm I'm happy I did it. I would do it again. I don't want to go back and start over. But like our ten year reunion is in two weeks and we have a group chat right now with a bunch of guys that I haven't talked to in a couple years that are all getting a house together in Charleston because, like, we don't have to talk every year because like, we know we're going to be friends forever because we went through a bunch of challenging stuff together.

00;25;33;25 - 00;25;34;15
Speaker 1
So.

00;25;40;09 - 00;26;06;23
Speaker 1
I know I, I could not I've, I could not have been more anti-military after freshman year. I didn't even up until senior year of The Citadel. I didn't want to go. And I had zero interest at all going in the military. It's actually funny story. I, so you can't work at the Citadel? I, I ended up getting a job working at, our gym cleaning equipment, like ten hours a week or something for I earned, like, 60 hours a week or something.

00;26;06;26 - 00;26;24;06
Speaker 1
But you can't work because you can't leave campus. You're, like, not allowed to have a job. You have to get a waiver normally to, like, try to work anywhere. But it's just it's such a full time, like, you're you're a full time military, you know, sailor, soldier, whatever. And a college student. So you're doing it's just a tremendous amount of work.

00;26;24;08 - 00;26;45;07
Speaker 1
And, so I had to work, on the summers and ideally save up enough money over just the summer to last me the entire school year. Which isn't as hard as it sounds, because you're not spending a ton of money at the Citadel because, like, you know, again, you can't leave. You can't do anything. You're not only buying clothes, you don't, you know, you got all your uniforms.

00;26;45;09 - 00;27;06;15
Speaker 1
So, but I would try to make, you know, a couple thousand dollars would get me through most of the school year. So after my junior year of college, I worked at, I worked at State Farm Monday to Friday, like, 9 to 5. And then I worked at Home Depot Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, seven days a week for three months.

00;27;06;20 - 00;27;24;22
Speaker 1
And I just tried to I just work because I was like, I just I'm going in a senior year, like I want to be able to do, you know, I want to be able to go, go enjoy Charleston and go, you know, go to these functions and like, enjoy myself and take trips. And we were going to Clemson and USC games and like that costs money, obviously.

00;27;24;24 - 00;27;49;01
Speaker 1
So I worked that summer, man, that summer was that summer made the Citadel look pretty good. I, I, I am not cut out for the, for State Farm, at least specifically. Just doing, like, just cold calls for eight hours a day and stuff and, like, literally just selling insurance. I was the the youngest licensed, insurance salesman in the state of South Carolina.

00;27;49;04 - 00;28;03;04
Speaker 1
Which is like a whole thing, but, I thought I wanted to do I thought I wanted to go into insurance, just like my grandpa did. And he was successful. He worked at State Farm. And, you know, it's kind of what you do. You see somebody in your family tree above you and you're like, okay, I'll do that.

00;28;03;04 - 00;28;22;19
Speaker 1
That's what they did. That's my template. Whatever. So he, like, he helped train me up to get to become a licensed salesman and stuff. And then, man, after that summer, I was like, pop. Yeah. Bad news. Really, really. This isn't. This isn't for me. Yeah. Isn't it? Yeah. And after that, I said, after that summer, I would never work a desk job again.

00;28;22;19 - 00;28;52;21
Speaker 1
I was like, very definitively like, I can't do that. I'm not. I'm not good at it. I'm like, I've ADHD, I'm not good at. I'm just not good at that. So I went back to college senior year and, two of my best friends, Adam and Jay, got, special forces contracts with with the Army. And I was just I could not have been more anti-military at the time, but they were they were convincing me like, oh, no, this special operations community is,

00;28;52;23 - 00;29;14;27
Speaker 1
It's not it's not military. It's like it's own. It's different. It's its own thing. And they I swam my whole life growing up. I was that's probably what I was the best at was swimming, like, competitively. And, they were like, oh, you should look at you should look at the seal teams, which would be like the, the, you know, the Navy equivalent of Special forces, I guess, in terms of like, tiers.

00;29;15;00 - 00;29;30;03
Speaker 1
And I didn't know anything about it. I never met a seal. I didn't know you know, I didn't know what they did. I literally it was like a movie maybe was my best guess. And, I mean, I just, I think I decided, like, same day I was like, all right. Yeah, it sounds cool. Let's do it.

00;29;30;06 - 00;29;51;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. So just completely like, went on, you know, it could have gone so poorly. So, so poorly. But I, I submitted a packet. I auto qualified with my scores, which, if you score high enough, you get a, you get a contract immediately within 48 hours, and then you get the first ship date that you want. So I, I was very fortunate.

00;29;51;01 - 00;30;09;01
Speaker 1
I was in good shape at the time. And I auto called on my packet, and yeah, I didn't even I it's honestly embarrassing to say I like, didn't really know what I was getting into. I would love that. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, you know, I, I think I watched some YouTube videos or something. They're like, oh, they're skydiving and shooting like that looks fun.

00;30;09;01 - 00;30;31;00
Speaker 1
And they all have long hair and beards and like, this doesn't look like the military. This looks fine. So yeah, I just was like, whatever isn't a desk. Like, I'll give it a shot. And it's crazy in retrospect, you know, the extraordinarily high, attrition rate. Statistically, I had zero chance of making it through. But, like, I don't know it.

00;30;31;04 - 00;30;49;06
Speaker 1
I get I think I just stumbled on a, a really gratuitous situation for me personally, that, like, worked out well. So, yeah, I it feels weird. I feel like a lot of guys that I worked with had these big aspirations of, like, they wanted to go, you know, 911 and they wanted to go serve their country and stuff and like that.

00;30;49;09 - 00;31;09;17
Speaker 1
That's certainly a big part. It's it's nice to have it gives you this really rewarding sense of purpose, which is still something that I'm trying to figure out how to deal with. Now, on the other side, not not having that, but, yeah, I, I don't know, I just kind of I just wanted to challenge myself, and I wanted to see if I could do it.

00;31;09;24 - 00;31;20;18
Speaker 1
That was a big thing. Like, I did see the I did see the stats. 95% of people don't make it and stuff. And I was like, oh, that sounds pretty cool. Like, let's see, let's see what we can do. So.

00;31;20;21 - 00;31;28;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, I don't know.

00;31;28;06 - 00;31;33;26
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;31;33;28 - 00;31;54;11
Speaker 1
Man, I think I, I think it's this is again, these are like that bad answers. But I just want to be, like, honest. I think I'm extremely pride driven. I don't like to. I don't like to fail at all, and I. I really strongly refuse to fail publicly. Which is something I, I think I've gotten a lot better at in my adult life.

00;31;54;11 - 00;32;16;09
Speaker 1
Now I'm a little more open about failures and, stuff like that. But I think at the time I was like, I just, I just didn't I was like too embarrassed to to quit or too embarrassed to, you know, do whatever I did. I got rolled, I got rolled back to classes, for some stress fractures in my legs.

00;32;16;12 - 00;32;34;08
Speaker 1
And I still marked out as kind of a failure because I, I just didn't take care of myself the way I should, and I just kind of fell apart. And then I made it through the second time. But, yeah, I don't know. I think I'm just to to too prideful to to prideful to stuff, I guess.

00;32;34;08 - 00;32;58;24
Speaker 1
I don't know, I, I wish it was a better reason. Like, I wish I had more pure, you know, like more pure motives of, like, I, you know, I, I leaned on the guys around me a lot and it's, it's exclusively a team community. But, yeah, I think the reality is I just, like, I just didn't want to be seen being weak or be being, being a failure of any kind like that.

00;32;58;24 - 00;33;00;06
Speaker 1
So.

00;33;00;06 - 00;33;15;29
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot of power in that, a lot of strength in that. I don't think that's something like to be, to be ashamed of anyway, you hold yourself to a certain standard and there's pride there. And that also comes with grit and like perseverance and stuff. So it's cool, man. It's like it's definitely a badge of honor to where it's like getting through something like that.

00;33;15;29 - 00;33;17;28
Speaker 3
Because like you said, the odds are against you. So that's

00;33;18;11 - 00;33;39;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. Thanks. It's I, I say I'm really happy I did it. I'm really happy to be done, too. I it's it's a very taxing lifestyle on me personally and on your family and, Yeah, it's it's it's it got me to do some, really cool stuff and see some cool places and meet some of the best people I've ever met.

00;33;39;11 - 00;33;48;20
Speaker 1
But I, I was pretty ready to pass pass the torch on when I was wrapping up my second enlistment. So.

00;33;48;23 - 00;34;10;02
Speaker 1
No, no, we, we met, we started dating, but, two months before I went on a seven month deployment, and it was, I mean, destined to fail like it. It stood no chance, you know, but we, we I, I don't know, something. Early on, I was like, oh, I think I'm going to marry this girl.

00;34;10;04 - 00;34;29;06
Speaker 1
And I have a really short runway to, like, get all of our stuff together before I go on this long deployment overseas. And, we just, we put in a lot of work in, in about two months. We actually, we actually signed a lease on an apartment together right before I left, which is like the craziest thing.

00;34;29;06 - 00;34;46;02
Speaker 1
That's like a recipe for disaster. I expected to come home and all my stuff be gone, and her just be like, you know, whatever. I just heard horror stories about it, but, no, it went it went well. And a big part, a big part of that was I didn't know I was getting out at the time, that that was going to be my last deployment.

00;34;46;04 - 00;35;00;19
Speaker 1
But, it was cool because at the time we were kind of viewing it as like, oh, we're going to vet this relationship very thoroughly in the beginning. Like we're going to know, you know, this is either going to work, we're going to make it through this, and then we're probably good forever, or we're not going to.

00;35;00;19 - 00;35;22;29
Speaker 1
And then we probably weren't meant to be anyway. So it was kind of trial by fire almost immediately. And it went really well. She was a huge part of that deployment. That, that was, that was actually the deployment that I kind of discovered climbing on. It was it was really challenging for, a couple different reasons, but, she was instrumental in, you know, keeping keeping going there.

00;35;25;22 - 00;35;28;11
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;35;28;13 - 00;35;33;25
Speaker 1
I very, very much I cannot recommend that anybody anybody listening?

00;35;33;25 - 00;35;50;19
Speaker 3
In terms of, like, you know, we don't have to go into your military stories to, to in-depth unless there's any specific one you want to talk about. But I think, you know, if there isn't any, we can kind of start to steer it towards, like, the your exit and like how that started to happen and bring us in that

00;35;51;03 - 00;36;13;13
Speaker 1
Sure. Yeah. It was it was that same deployment, we were in, in the Middle East ish, kind of floating around the Arabian Peninsula and, it was, it was like. Yeah, it was probably the lowest point, of my adult life at the time. It was.

00;36;13;16 - 00;36;15;01
Speaker 2
Yeah. I don't even know how to.

00;36;15;03 - 00;36;48;23
Speaker 1
It was, I didn't I didn't, get along great with the guys that I was with over there. We're just different there. They are really hard partiers and a bit, you know, big drinkers. And, like, there's a lot of ego in the teams and stuff, and I just don't. I don't drink, I don't go, I don't go out, I don't I don't party anymore like I did that, but I, I stopped a couple years, prior and, I don't know, I just kind of stopped identifying with, with the culture.

00;36;48;26 - 00;37;19;14
Speaker 1
I, I did a good bit. It felt like, I don't know, it just seemed like a tremendous amount of ego. And then secondary to that was a lot of negativity and, like, narcissism and judgment and just all this, like, really taxing, culture to be around 24, seven for months on end, especially like we went on this deployment, we were sitting on a tiny, tiny base, in the middle of absolute nowhere.

00;37;19;14 - 00;37;40;12
Speaker 1
And you had, you know, for months on end, these this is your family. And a lot of them are great guys I don't have, I'm not going to say anything negative about them. I just they weren't they weren't my, you know, it wasn't it didn't feel like it was my community. And I felt I felt really, alone at the time.

00;37;40;14 - 00;37;59;03
Speaker 1
So. Yeah. And then that and then in conjunction with a lot of the work that we were doing at the time, and then having, you know, having Hana back home in like a it was just like a ton of things together that made it a really, really challenging experience. And, yeah, our work tempo was fluctuating a lot.

00;37;59;03 - 00;38;17;20
Speaker 1
And ironically, it was the hardest when we weren't when we weren't going out, like, working, because then you're just, you're sitting there for weeks at a time and, and it's like, you know, you don't have, like, we didn't have, like, internet and stuff. We did sometimes depending on where we are. But like, you're just watching movies over and over and stuff like that.

00;38;17;20 - 00;38;36;00
Speaker 1
So, I don't want that to come off as complaining. I've had significantly worse deployments than that. And I have friends that have had worse deployments than I will ever have. So I'm certainly not complaining about sitting, you know, being bored somewhere, but, it just it just felt like it was a tough scene at the time.

00;38;37;05 - 00;38;49;00
Speaker 3
it all depends on where you are in your life too. It's like can compound compound the, the moment you're feeling. And just like especially if you came to the realization where you're just like dude I don't know if this is meant for me. And then just like all of a sudden everywhere you look, it's just a

00;38;49;13 - 00;38;51;19
Speaker 2
Except. Yeah.

00;38;51;22 - 00;39;11;22
Speaker 1
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And. Yeah, as soon as you realized that, like, oh, man, this is tough. And I have four more months of this, like, whatever. So, yeah, I don't know, it was, all things considered, it was. It was fine. Nobody got injured on that deployment. Like, we, you know, there was no, you know, any any different.

00;39;11;22 - 00;39;33;17
Speaker 1
I mean, everybody comes home from is a good deployment. But I feel like I came home a a significantly different person, than I left on that trip. Yeah. In my, so my, brother, my brother, he's the one who got me into climbing. He's four years younger than I am. His name is towel.

00;39;33;17 - 00;39;49;25
Speaker 1
He's a big developer in the front Range. He lives outside Denver. I had been talking with him a good bit on the deployment and just kind of, like, venting and, you know, like, you can't even say a lot of stuff, like on deployment because, like, we can't, you know, it's a lot of, like, sensitive information.

00;39;49;25 - 00;40;06;29
Speaker 1
I can't say like, where I am or what we're doing. So I'm having to be vague and like, stuff like that. So I'm just kind of vaguely complaining to him, and, he sent me, he mailed me a hard drive with, like, 60 climbing films on it, and he's like, hey, why don't you check these out? And, you know, I think you'll you'll enjoy it.

00;40;06;29 - 00;40;28;10
Speaker 1
And I had never rock climb to my entire life. This is 20, 2019. The in the 2019, I never climbed anything in my life. And, he had been trying to get me to to just go try it. And I thought it was this stupid, happy sport, you know, I was like, what? I don't whatever, man. But it's so cliched because I, I ended up watching, like, free solo on the Dawn wall and all that stuff.

00;40;28;10 - 00;40;53;27
Speaker 1
And I was like, oh, man, this is incredible. This looks this looks for real. And I just thought, I just thought it was like this insane, you know, action, action filled, adrenaline junkie sport, you know, before I ever tried it. So, yeah, I came home, in November of 2019. And but that's when I bought my first pair of shoes, and, I came home from that deployment saying, I'm not.

00;40;53;27 - 00;41;03;05
Speaker 1
I'm done with the Navy after this. I don't want to do this again. And it kind of coincided well with discovering, climbing. It was kind of a transition out of one into the other. So.

00;41;06;22 - 00;41;19;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, I guess, like through the films and stuff. Yeah. I hadn't actually climbed at all. Yeah, yeah, that was my first introduction, I guess was like, here's this hard drive that took a month and a half to me out there, like.

00;41;19;21 - 00;41;22;23
Speaker 1
Oh no, no, I never did anything like that. Now.

00;41;22;23 - 00;41;27;14
Speaker 3
Did you have a particular film that stood out to you that you're like, damn. Like, this is the one I watched, like, six times.

00;41;28;09 - 00;41;40;15
Speaker 1
And I hate it. I I'm sorry. It's it's probably free. So, I know I, I can't believe that's, like, a real like, it's that's the worst cliche ever, but.

00;41;40;18 - 00;41;56;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know. At the time, I'd never again having never climbed it. I had no concept of like how crazy that even was. It was, you know, it seemed crazy. And then like, the first time I climbed cap, it was like, oh, that's even crazier. And then the first time I did Free Rider, I was like, oh, that's even crazier.

00;41;56;16 - 00;42;06;27
Speaker 1
And it just kept building. Yeah. So yeah, it was, I don't know, I, I came home really eager to, buy my first pair of shoes and try it out. So.

00;42;13;12 - 00;42;17;13
Speaker 2
No, no. Yeah.

00;42;17;16 - 00;42;39;05
Speaker 1
No, I, I had another almost three years after that, I got yeah. No, it wasn't as bad. I got, after that deployment, I got picked up for a special mission unit, which was actually, like, this really big blessing in disguise. Because we were, we were training for this very, specific operation, and we spent almost two years just training for that operation.

00;42;39;07 - 00;43;03;14
Speaker 1
And, yeah. So it, I ended up getting with a whole new group of guys I really enjoyed, the community. And it's, it's crazy because that, like, that community specifically, your entire experience is exclusively dictated on what random group of 16 guys you get put into. So it's totally, you know, if I had been to platoon over with, like a bunch of guys I really enjoyed with, I would I'm sure I would still be in like, I'd be like, this is my, you know, this is my life.

00;43;03;14 - 00;43;24;23
Speaker 1
This is my family. I'll do this forever. I just happen to get put with a group that I didn't quite identify super well with. Again, like, not bad guys, just not the guys that I was really, meshing with super. Well, so yeah, it's crazy how how, dependent your whole experience is on just like this totally random, draw of names.

00;43;24;25 - 00;43;46;20
Speaker 1
So. Yeah, but yeah, so I, I ended up going about to that latter unit and did two years, with them and then I got, I was, I was, lead medic for, my platoon. And I ended up doing, I ended up getting to develop a bunch of new medical protocols for some, evac stuff that we were kind of developing as we went for some specific work.

00;43;46;22 - 00;44;08;27
Speaker 1
Which is really cool. Is very rewarding. I got to help write some of the new training protocols for some very specific type of extraction stuff, like, I don't know, it felt like I was able to do something that would have a legacy as a as I walked out, which was, which was gratifying, you know, to feel like you, you left something better than you found it.

00;44;08;27 - 00;44;27;09
Speaker 1
So, but yeah. So I ended up writing that until the end of, the end of my contract. And then six months before my contract ended, you can do this thing called skill bridge, which is you go work a civilian job. Yeah. I did mine at the Telluride adaptive sports program. Which was, like, the coolest thing ever.

00;44;27;09 - 00;44;59;22
Speaker 1
It's it's, it's a nonprofit located in Telluride that does adaptive sports for adaptive athletes. So if you're, you know, if you're, like, missing legs or something or, we dealt with some, some, people with down syndrome or, you know, stuff like, like actual, adaptive requirements. So we would take people rock climbing or mountain biking or, just hiking or paddleboarding, but they have these incredible resources to be able to do basically whatever you want to do at whatever ability you're at.

00;44;59;25 - 00;45;13;12
Speaker 1
And I worked there for four months, basically to take that information back to crux, which is the nonprofit that I work with, and kind of develop the nonprofit strategy and then bring that back to the program I'm with now.

00;45;22;18 - 00;45;24;18
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;45;27;02 - 00;45;30;21
Speaker 2
Whoa. Sorry, dude.

00;45;30;24 - 00;45;36;00
Speaker 1
All over the place. Yeah. I, man, I was like, really?

00;45;36;03 - 00;45;41;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00;45;41;07 - 00;46;06;02
Speaker 1
I was, really, really, really eager to get into the outdoor industry. It's it's tough starting over at 30. It was when I got out 29, 30 or whatever. You know, starting from scratch, competing against people I felt like, who were straight out of college or whatever. And I didn't I put I thought a lot about the guide stuff for a while.

00;46;06;05 - 00;46;24;02
Speaker 1
That's not for me. It's not the best choice for me. I'm not. I'm not the most patient person. I. I know that about myself. I can be I can be, like, really intense in the mountains because I enjoy the experience so much. And I, I know, I just don't think I would be the best client facing role.

00;46;24;04 - 00;46;45;16
Speaker 1
So I, I kind of realized that early on. And then I was actually set on, going into the medical profession. So I have, a pretty good amount of medical experience, like real world medical experience. I was a medic for two deployments to the Middle East. I've seen a lot of medicine. I've done a lot of medicine.

00;46;45;18 - 00;46;53;19
Speaker 1
I really enjoyed medicine because I think it's a good way to offset, the climbing lifestyle in terms of, like, just selfishness.

00;46;53;19 - 00;47;09;02
Speaker 1
I think climbing is this, like, inherently really selfish, pursuit. You're just creating risk literally for no reason at all. And, putting yourself and others, you know, in harm's way, just just for the experience. And it does it does nothing good for, you know, the people around you.

00;47;09;02 - 00;47;30;05
Speaker 1
It's a it's a personal pursuit for me. It is at least. So climbing was, going into the medical field was this way, in theory, to kind of offset that cosmic morality balance of like, you know, okay, I am going to pursue climbing because I, I, it gives me more life than anything else I've done so far. But I also want to be able to feel like I'm doing something, you know, in this world.

00;47;30;05 - 00;47;31;01
Speaker 1
That is good.

00;47;31;01 - 00;47;56;05
Speaker 1
So I was, set on PA school, up until, like, I don't know, six months ago, I was still planning to go to school. I said, when I got out of the Navy, I said, I want to give climbing one year to just just see what can happen. I had only been climbing basically, like as a weekend warrior for, I don't know, two and a half years at that point.

00;47;56;07 - 00;48;11;05
Speaker 1
And I just, I just wanted to give it one year and see what could happen. So we put, I did all my prereqs for school the first year I got out, like a year and a half of prereqs in, like, four months because I was going to try to go right to PA school the following year.

00;48;11;10 - 00;48;25;06
Speaker 1
And you have to apply and it like, rolls to the next year and all this stuff. And then, yeah, I just kind of, I put a pin in the, in the school idea, and I just haven't taken it out yet, so.

00;48;25;06 - 00;48;25;16
Speaker 2
when.

00;48;25;16 - 00;48;36;04
Speaker 3
You say give climbing a chance. Like, is that kind of just like I'm just going to go have fun and I'm going to climb and just see what happens. Or like, did you have a structure and did you have a plan, like did you have a vision for what you were working for?

00;48;36;26 - 00;48;59;10
Speaker 1
I the goal was to find a way to make a living in the climbing space, whatever that looked like. I didn't I didn't have a definitive, I didn't have a definitive end state. I, I knew for, for the PA route, I was looking to go into wilderness medicine. Most of my medical experience is in austere environments.

00;48;59;10 - 00;49;23;27
Speaker 1
I think I, I have a lot to provide there, just from my own experience that I could help others with. But, no, I, I just wanted to treat climbing like a full time job for a year, and just see what happens. And we're like, we're a year and a half into that now, so, Yeah, I didn't really expect to be able to.

00;49;24;00 - 00;49;43;08
Speaker 1
I mean, certainly not like, you know, get paid to just to climb. That's it's it's I'm not a good climber. Like, I understand that not delusional. I know, I know, I'm not claiming that hard. But it's. Yeah, it's I don't know, we've made I guess made some good decisions over the past year or so and things have, things have worked out really well.

00;49;43;08 - 00;49;46;06
Speaker 1
And we've got, we've got some money coming in now from.

00;49;47;24 - 00;50;07;03
Speaker 1
From climbing somehow. And it's, it's a really cool opportunity. We also have very low expenses. We, you know, we live in a van, we rent our house out, my wife works. We have no kids like our expenses. We don't need much to be able to, like, keep, keep this going. Yeah. And I have the GI Bill for school.

00;50;07;05 - 00;50;21;29
Speaker 1
And we have, you know, we saved up specifically for this gap year that we're still, like, now we have money coming in that we're still stretching. And, it's not it's not as crazy as it felt initially. It's it's it's kind of feels like we're we're making this work. So.

00;50;22;16 - 00;50;25;21
Speaker 3
It's awesome man. And so you're you're officially now a sponsored athlete for Black Diamond.

00;50;26;22 - 00;50;30;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if they'll be putting that out yet, but.

00;50;30;14 - 00;50;30;25
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;50;31;00 - 00;50;31;24
Speaker 1
We haven't.

00;50;33;04 - 00;50;38;13
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. No, I know that's, Okay, cool. Yeah. It should be out by then.

00;50;38;13 - 00;50;40;16
Speaker 3
But that's awesome, man. Congrats. That's huge. I love

00;50;40;16 - 00;50;50;09
Speaker 1
Thank you. Yeah, I that felt like the craziest thing in the world. I couldn't even I, I mean, I asked the guy, I was like, why? Why like, what do you, you know, what do you see in here?

00;50;50;09 - 00;50;59;24
Speaker 1
I'm like, I'm, like, comically weaker than everybody else on there, on the team. So,

00;51;01;22 - 00;51;10;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. No longer. Yeah. No, I think I'll still be a part of the part of the majority. Is that any given crag, there's ten people climbing harder than I am. So.

00;51;10;17 - 00;51;16;10
Speaker 2
Okay.

00;51;16;12 - 00;51;17;27
Speaker 2
No. Yeah.

00;51;17;27 - 00;51;31;16
Speaker 3
that can climb hard. Like there's so many people that climb 514 and that no one knows about. It's like it's more about a story. It's about a personality. It's about like, does does the brand want to attach itself to your story and how you represent yourself to the community?

00;51;31;16 - 00;51;46;14
Speaker 3
And I think that that is what is most valuable these days is like, can you tell a story? And I think that you, you know, you achieve that really well with your your Instagram and it's like, you know, yeah, you know, I saw you wrote that you consider it like a scrapbook for your life. And I think that that's exactly what it is valuable.

00;51;46;14 - 00;51;48;17
Speaker 3
Right. It's like it, you know, your

00;51;48;17 - 00;52;04;29
Speaker 3
your achievements and your accomplishments and the vision that you have for your climbing is it's so profound that taking a simple photo and writing a caption of what you did is enough to inspire people. And I think that's been very,

00;52;06;01 - 00;52;07;08
Speaker 2
Oh. Thank you.

00;52;09;26 - 00;52;25;18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I appreciate it. That's like the. That's by far the coolest part of that page is we get message. I mean, I got a message to this morning from a guy who's. I think he's in his 50s. He said he just went and led his first outdoor pitch of his entire life yesterday. Because he was he was like, hey, I just like, I saw what you did.

00;52;25;18 - 00;52;32;18
Speaker 1
And or so you know, said something or you inspired me to get out there and do it. And, oh, it's just it's so cool.

00;52;32;18 - 00;52;39;05
Speaker 1
I don't know, I mean, I grew up, I grew up on the East Coast, you know, I didn't I didn't have any, like, it's it's just not I didn't grow up in the outdoor community at all.

00;52;39;05 - 00;52;54;11
Speaker 1
And I wish that I had that influence a lot earlier on. I feel like I'm such a late, you know, I've only been climbing for four and a half years now. Like, I'm such a late bloomer, and that's a big reason why I've been pushing so hard, is I have this sense of urgency that, like, I'm I'm very late to the party here.

00;52;54;11 - 00;53;00;29
Speaker 1
I'm, kind of kind of trying to chase to catch up. Right now it feels like, but I also have.

00;53;01;12 - 00;53;13;17
Speaker 3
You've progressed super quick. Yeah I'm four and a half years. You're climbing some really bold hard routes. Like what was that progression like, like did you have a mentor, like, did you just teach yourself on YouTube?

00;53;13;25 - 00;53;14;00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;53;14;06 - 00;53;36;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I oh, we're completely self-taught initially, which is like, looking back, I have no idea how we didn't die in the beginning. My my wife and I used to go to Alabama Hills and, like, have these, like, I mean, colossal epics on, like, a five, seven. Just. Yeah. I don't know how I feel like we kind of got away with it early on.

00;53;36;09 - 00;53;39;17
Speaker 1
We were just winging it.

00;53;56;06 - 00;54;02;19
Speaker 1
If you've been enjoying the climbing majority, please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00;54;03;22 - 00;54;10;04
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh, yeah. We, It's not like a crazy story, but it's one that we tell. It's like. It's. I remember very vividly.

00;54;10;04 - 00;54;24;04
Speaker 1
There's this five, seven called riders of the Purple Sage and Alabama Hills. And it took me an hour and 45 minutes to lead. It's one pitch of five seven and I was like, gripped out of my mind.

00;54;24;04 - 00;54;42;08
Speaker 1
I thought I was going to die. I was like, you know, I had to. It's there's like 15ft between bolts there. And I was, I thought I was like, Alex, I thought I was Honnold. I was like, well, I'm, you know, I'm on the I'm on the sharp end right now. I'm insane. Like, and and then on the way down, we realize that you need you need a two ropes to, to repel it.

00;54;42;10 - 00;55;00;09
Speaker 1
And like, we don't even know how to win. I'm not alone with one rope. We have no idea we're doing so. Yeah. Ended up like thread threading the rope through bolt hangers or something. I don't know, it was like, such a bad. It was just a bad deal. And it ended up being this, like almost three hour ordeal just to go up and down this one single pitch of five, seven.

00;55;01;20 - 00;55;08;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's kind of a hoot, but yeah.

00;55;09;02 - 00;55;15;24
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, those, you know, those lessons, lessons learned the hard way stick the best. So, I'm sure. Yeah, exactly.

00;55;15;24 - 00;55;20;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So.

00;55;20;17 - 00;55;22;19
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah.

00;55;22;22 - 00;55;32;02
Speaker 1
Oh, man. Yeah, I yeah, I used to love that. This is like my. So I tell people all the time because I had people reach out to me a lot now asking like, how do I get started and stuff like this. So,

00;55;32;02 - 00;55;38;20
Speaker 1
this is how I got started. I was in San Diego climbing. We're stationed in a station in Coronado.

00;55;38;23 - 00;55;53;02
Speaker 1
And I immediately I mean, within this is like, honestly embarrassing to say we bought a camper van, like, two weeks after we started climbing. We were all in, like, we're like, we're going to do this forever. I will, I will climb until the day I die. I want to do this rest of my life.

00;55;53;02 - 00;56;02;29
Speaker 1
And, so immediately I started trying to go climb around San Diego at Woodsen and El Cajon Mountain was like where I did most of my climbing.

00;56;02;29 - 00;56;26;29
Speaker 1
I really I still think that's some of the best granite on planet Earth. It's incredible. And I, you know, like it. Oh, no. Have you climbed up at the at the wedge? Like. Oh, man, that orange. Oh, no way. I think you're climbing the wrong routes. I think I think that orange, orange sticky granite. I don't know if it gets better.

00;56;27;01 - 00;56;43;27
Speaker 1
It's incredible. You just got to. I think you get a. Yeah. If you get off like Meteor and Leonids and stuff, if you get on some, some other, it gets like it's so good. I, I think pockets of resistance and, the commander are two of the best, best routes I've ever climbed in my life. They're both on, on the wedge.

00;56;44;17 - 00;56;50;23
Speaker 3
left San Diego probably, like a year and a half after I started climbing. So I didn't have, like, the the boldness to go after some of the harder routes.

00;56;51;00 - 00;56;51;24
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;56;55;04 - 00;57;11;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I ironically, I've never climbed that, so. But, Yeah, they, I know, I think they, I think, yeah, I think they're, I can get a little polish but. Yeah. Anyway, so I, I, I was trying to get, I was really eager to get involved in this community and kind of like I wanted to integrate into the community a lot.

00;57;11;23 - 00;57;22;26
Speaker 1
I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to it's. I wanted to give something. I wanted to provide something for the community. I didn't want to just climb in, you know, not and just mooch or whatever. So I,

00;57;22;26 - 00;57;34;29
Speaker 1
I wrote an email, an identical email, and I copied and pasted it to three different guys. And it was the same three guys that I saw on every route on Mountain Project for El Cajon Mountain.

00;57;35;06 - 00;57;59;10
Speaker 1
That is like the first essentialist or developers or whatever. And it was, Gary Anderson, Marnie Swan, and then Randy Leavitt. And I sent them all the exact same email, and I was like, hey, I'm like a little newer in the climbing. I'm looking for some, mentorship. And I said, if you guys would let me come basically just shadow you for a day, I will carry all of your shit up.

00;57;59;10 - 00;58;15;09
Speaker 1
This, you know, you've done it. The approach is horrific. It's terror. It's like straight uphill. It's you're always in the sun. It's terrible. And I said, if you guys will let me come out, I'll carry all of the heavy stuff. I will just do manual labor all day, like,

00;58;15;09 - 00;58;17;24
Speaker 1
you know, I just want to come, like shadow you guys for a day.

00;58;17;24 - 00;58;21;27
Speaker 1
I just want to, like, watch what you do or whatever, and learn how to develop and stuff like that.

00;58;21;27 - 00;58;32;24
Speaker 1
And they, Randy Levitt emailed me back, and he's like, hell yeah, you can carry my stuff. That's all I said. Bag.

00;58;32;24 - 00;58;41;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I, ended up meeting I ended up meeting him out there. I don't know, a couple days later, they go out there every every three days or something.

00;58;41;16 - 00;59;05;28
Speaker 1
And, sure enough, they get. They loaded me up, man. They gave me. I was hiking up there with, like, I think I had a, bag full of shovels and bat and hose, and we in, like, hedge trippers, tread trimmers and stuff. I mean, I just I had to weigh 80 pounds stuff, and they laughed the entire way up there and they, they're like, yeah, we're going to go we're actually going to do, we're going to develop today if you really want to like, learn some stuff.

00;59;05;28 - 00;59;23;09
Speaker 1
I was like, oh, absolutely. This is incredible. Like, you know, thinking about like down the like, how do you put trails and stuff like that. So I thought we were going climbing. We're not going climbing. I went out there with all my climbing stuff. We did zero climbing. We just did. We did trail development the entire day.

00;59;23;12 - 00;59;42;02
Speaker 1
And I felt, I had a good, a good hunch that they were they were testing me to see if I was worth keeping around. So I, I worked really hard that day. Just. I don't think I talked to anybody the entire day. I just cut several hundred yards of trail up the side of this hill.

00;59;42;05 - 01;00;06;17
Speaker 1
We were moving stones around to make steps and, stuff like that. They were. I think they were developing, platinum all up by second tier at the time. And, yeah, I just busted my ass that day, and I wanted to show that, like, you know, I'm worth I'm worth keeping around. And sure enough, at the end of it, we, like, talked, and they were like, you know, we have people reach out to us all the time that say they want, they want to join us.

01;00;06;17 - 01;00;22;10
Speaker 1
They want to learn and stuff. But he's like, generally they get out here and they realize how much work it is, and then you just never see them again. Or like halfway through the day, they're like, oh, I got to go let my dog out or whatever. You know, it's just it's I mean, it's genuinely just manual labor in the sun for like hours for nothing.

01;00;22;10 - 01;00;48;17
Speaker 1
You're not getting paid. So yeah, they were like, hey, we we think you worked really hard today and we'd love to, you know, bring it out next time to, and then from there, I just, I kind of leaned into these guys as much as I could for mentorship and guidance. You know, they taught me how to hammer pitons and how to place, you know, how to place gear and, how to clean roots and develop and, like, trail maintenance and stuff like that.

01;00;48;17 - 01;01;01;09
Speaker 1
Guys like Chris Hubbard have been like, really these, like, really prominent, strong, male mentor figures in my life that I haven't necessarily had from a lot of other places. So, it's been really valuable.

01;01;01;24 - 01;01;05;26
Speaker 3
That's awesome man. Yeah I think a lot of people struggle with like oh I don't have mentors or

01;01;07;04 - 01;01;07;21
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;01;23;05 - 01;01;23;29
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;01;47;25 - 01;02;09;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that's a big that's a big. I don't I don't know if issues the right word, but it's it's a very it's very prevalent today that people I have people reach out to me all the time asking me to teach them stuff, or, you know, whatever. But I think most people, they just want to be handed all of the information and like, they just want all the answers, you know, right away.

01;02;09;14 - 01;02;30;29
Speaker 1
And they it's like, I don't think that's the best way to do it. I think you should. I think you should have to work for some stuff like that. I think the lessons will settle set in a bit more permanently if you're, if you learn them in real time or, you know, if you learn them through work or experience, I think people just want, you know, people want to go climbing.

01;02;30;29 - 01;02;49;10
Speaker 1
I totally get that. I remember being, you know, top roping or whatever in the beginning and being like, I just want to know how to go lead multi pitch or something like that. And I just, you know, it, it takes work. But that's, that's the beauty of it is it means so much more when you develop the skills personally and you're able to be self-sufficient.

01;02;49;10 - 01;02;58;11
Speaker 1
You know, you, you go to the base of the wall, you can get yourself up and down with your partner and like, that's a cool I mean, that's a cool human experience to have.

01;02;58;17 - 01;03;06;08
Speaker 3
You're also going to learn a lot more than anything. Like. Sure. The information might be tangibly available on the internet, but in application and, like, actual real life

01;03;06;22 - 01;03;07;12
Speaker 1
Way different.

01;03;07;12 - 01;03;15;23
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.

01;03;15;26 - 01;03;18;17
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;03;18;19 - 01;03;39;07
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's even different from the gym. You know, people think it's another big thing. You see people even in German and go outside and, it's just different. It's almost two different sports. It's hard to, you know, you're tying the same knots, but that's about as far as the, transfer goes. So it's tough. Yeah.

01;03;39;10 - 01;03;47;18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

01;03;47;21 - 01;03;49;05
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. East Buttress.

01;03;49;05 - 01;04;00;02
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;04;00;05 - 01;04;09;27
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;04;10;00 - 01;04;29;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. I just think it's important to be able to provide some something. If you're going to ask somebody for something like you know, you should be able to provide something in return, whether that's, you know, sometimes that is just like positive companionship. Maybe that is just showing up and like, being stoked and like having a good attitude, like sometimes that's enough.

01;04;29;15 - 01;04;48;04
Speaker 1
But also, you know, the more valuable that you can make yourself, you know, I'm hey, I'm willing to do just like manual labor today if you just let me come out like, why would they say no to that? You know, it's like they have nothing to lose. So it's it's just being and being willing to, do a little bit, a little bit extra.

01;04;48;13 - 01;04;48;24
Speaker 3
You.

01;04;48;24 - 01;04;50;01
Speaker 2
Are.

01;04;50;04 - 01;04;57;19
Speaker 3
Injured in a way. You've I read, I'm specifically, interested in, like, you're only lifting

01;04;58;18 - 01;05;02;18
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah.

01;05;02;20 - 01;05;28;14
Speaker 1
No. Yeah. That was, on that was on that actually on that deployment also. So I was, really big in Olympic lifting. And, yeah, I just man, I truly love it. I think it's like one of the funnest things. But I was I just destroyed myself. I got to totally compressed and herniated discs in my back, and, I have a torn what's,

01;05;28;17 - 01;05;33;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. It's probably from cleaning, I don't know, I, I all I did was.

01;05;33;17 - 01;05;48;17
Speaker 3
I CrossFit coached for a couple of years, and I got pretty big into only, the snatches, like, my favorite movement. But, yeah, I've seen multiple clients do power cleans, and just, like, boom, back, just vertebrae. Completely fucked, like, right in front of me. And like, holy hell, like,

01;05;48;23 - 01;06;14;05
Speaker 1
It's terrible. Yeah, yeah, I that's all I did for five years was cleaner snatch and things that would augment cleaner snatch. That's. That's all I cared about was, was I competitively Olympic lifting and, Yeah, I just I just made a mess. I'm still kind of dealing with dealing with some body issues. Hey, bud. What's what's is name?

01;06;14;07 - 01;06;19;23
Speaker 2
Hey, Puth. Yeah. I'll get.

01;06;22;10 - 01;06;46;16
Speaker 1
Beans. Okay. We have we have Charlie. Charlie is our team. Yeah, I know she's like the mascot on the page right now. Yeah, yeah, she's, She's she is the happiest. We we love being in the van. It's just it's our, like, this is our lifestyle. We we just love it. Like with very. We live very simply. We have very few things here.

01;06;46;18 - 01;07;02;03
Speaker 1
The dog puts us all to shame. She acts like she's a six month old puppy the second we get in the van, because she just like she went swimming and down her lake today for an hour and a half, just like she's running around in the dirt and like, you know, it's. Yeah, it's like there's some. I'm telling you, there's something to it.

01;07;02;06 - 01;07;03;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's good. It's good to.

01;07;03;15 - 01;07;04;22
Speaker 2
See.

01;07;06;01 - 01;07;18;24
Speaker 3
Nice. Dude. The injury. So the reason why I wanted to bring it up was just because, I. I went through my injury, like, injuries are tough. They're hard to come back from. You said you woke. You wake up every morning and you got to, like, lubricate the

01;07;19;07 - 01;07;20;25
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;07;42;07 - 01;08;01;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. I'm still trying to figure out myself, honestly. Yeah, I, I, I'm just kind of rotating whatever's currently the most pressing issue injury wise. I feel like at any given point in time, I still have to, like, when I. When I drive more than an hour, I have to put a pillow under my back because it.

01;08;01;12 - 01;08;21;27
Speaker 1
I like, well, I can't I won't even be able to walk for 24 hours afterwards if I don't. It's it's kind of frustrating. Yeah, I, I don't know, I feel like my entire, my entire existence, I feel like when I'm not climbing is oriented around recovering, like, always, what I eat and how I sleep and, like, what I'm.

01;08;21;27 - 01;08;48;23
Speaker 1
What I doing, you know, it's throughout the day or whatever is is generally oriented around just trying to, mend whatever issues I currently have going on. I don't this is not like I don't it's again, this is another like this should be like an embarrassing I thing. I, I wish that I was better at like moderation or, you know, I mean if I just took I'm sure if I took a month off, I would be like a trillion times healthier than I am right now.

01;08;48;25 - 01;09;10;19
Speaker 1
But I, I can't seem to do that. I can't take a week off. I just it's this is, like, such an important part of my, my life. And it's big for my mental health, too. And, I really, I feel like I need to do this stuff that I'm doing. And it's kind of this constant battle between, like, body and mind where, like, my mind is like, no, we're not stopping.

01;09;10;19 - 01;09;15;19
Speaker 1
And the body's, like, hanging on for dear life, you know, it's like, please, God.

01;09;15;22 - 01;09;16;06
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;09;16;09 - 01;09;38;26
Speaker 1
Please, please stop doing this. Yeah. So I don't like. Yeah, I generally rotate like I can generally have either upper body issues or lower body issues. So when my legs are like I've had three knee surgeries, when my when my legs start getting a bit, my knees all kind of start falling apart. I'll start, you know, I'll do more climbing and less alpine stuff where I'm doing like 30 mile days.

01;09;38;29 - 01;09;55;04
Speaker 1
Or if I'm, you know, I have a I have a slight tear in my shoulder. That kind of bugs me sometimes. And if if stuff like that is is a problem, I'll do more stuff on the legs. I just try to rotate, you know, give, like, selective rest to certain body parts. However, however much I can.

01;09;55;04 - 01;10;16;29
Speaker 1
But, No, I'm still trying to figure that out myself. I, I, I feel like I'm chronically under recovered and, I'm just trying to. Yeah, just trying to keep up. I it anytime I have, like, a mandatory off time in terms of, like, going on a family trip for like a week or something where I, I physically cannot climb for a week or like, you know, go work out and stuff.

01;10;17;05 - 01;10;28;25
Speaker 1
I feel like a superhero afterwards. I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm. I'm like, there's no way this is how I would feel all the time. There's this is insane. But I just don't. I don't have that opportunity too often. So.

01;10;29;19 - 01;10;34;28
Speaker 3
It's interesting because in my in my shoes I actually suffer more when I am less

01;10;35;22 - 01;10;38;21
Speaker 1
Oh, really? Like, physically.

01;10;38;23 - 01;10;48;16
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;10;48;18 - 01;10;49;27
Speaker 2
Oh, no.

01;11;03;09 - 01;11;06;08
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;11;06;11 - 01;11;12;27
Speaker 1
I still do. You do you have trouble climbing it off?

01;11;12;29 - 01;11;26;01
Speaker 2
Okay, so. What? Yeah.

01;11;26;03 - 01;11;36;12
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;11;36;14 - 01;11;37;13
Speaker 2
Oh, wow.

01;11;37;16 - 01;11;54;18
Speaker 1
Oh, man. That was a big. That was a big issue when I tore my ankle last spring in Yosemite. I couldn't crack climb for five, at least five months. It was. It was terrible. Was really frustrating. So I just climbed. I just climbed sport in an ankle brace. You start to face climb as much as I could.

01;11;54;25 - 01;12;12;18
Speaker 1
But then even like last, I mean, just on the back of your in two days ago, my ankle was really, really bothering me. Like, it was kind of becoming an issue because, of all the ankle articulation, I needed to, like, dance on these knobs for an hour and a half at a time or whatever. Is really bugging me.

01;12;12;18 - 01;12;27;06
Speaker 1
It's still this really big. That's. That's significantly my biggest, like, looming threat at any given point in time is, is when is this ankle going to going to go again? Yeah. I was supposed to have.

01;12;27;08 - 01;12;50;28
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So I yeah. So I had a, a full grade three rupture last spring in Yosemite, the fifth day of the season, and were supposed to be here for two months. And, no TfL. Yeah. So I tore my TfL completely and then, I had, I had like some grade two in some other, some other ligaments as well.

01;12;51;00 - 01;13;11;19
Speaker 1
But it was, it was devastating because I couldn't do anything, I couldn't climb, but I also couldn't hike or run or like, I couldn't do anything. And that's. I'm not I'm not good at, you know, not good at sitting around. So, Yeah. And I so I was supposed to get surgery basically right after it happened.

01;13;11;22 - 01;13;23;06
Speaker 1
And I just kick the can down the road for a bit too long, and then after, you know, a month and a half, I was walking again. Fine. And I was climbing in a brace like face climbs. And I was like.

01;13;23;06 - 01;13;25;09
Speaker 2
Well, you know what?

01;13;25;12 - 01;13;41;10
Speaker 1
Like, what if I just don't do it if I don't get it? And the doctor was like, it's not a it's not if it's when, like, you don't have the ligament, it's it's completely gone. It's not doing anything. Yeah. It's like, you know, I go I went to the doctor that day and he sub blocked my ankle with his hands.

01;13;41;10 - 01;13;59;05
Speaker 1
He just pulled my joint apart. It's very uncomfortable. And he was like that's you can't. You're not supposed to do that. Like, your ankle has no tension at all. It's like yeah I was like, well okay. So he's he's like, you know, you can compensate to a certain degree with your, with your stabilizer muscles and your other ligature and stuff like that.

01;13;59;08 - 01;14;15;26
Speaker 1
But he's like, it's not, it's not if, it's when it's not going to heal itself. Like you need the surgery. And so the, the compromise was I said, okay, well since I'm already walking again next time I roll and I'll get the surgery because I don't want to take myself out now because I'm going to be out at some point anyway.

01;14;15;28 - 01;14;19;25
Speaker 1
And he's like, all right, then go crazy, like you're going to be back.

01;14;19;25 - 01;14;24;00
Speaker 3
the one thing I've heard because my brother, he ruptured his biceps tendon, the one

01;14;24;00 - 01;14;27;22
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Oh.

01;14;38;21 - 01;14;40;21
Speaker 2
Oh yeah. Yeah.

01;14;40;23 - 01;15;00;28
Speaker 1
Well the good the good news. So I need a total lateral, ligament reconstruction. I I'm I'm totally shot. So the surgery, they cut all of the ligaments off, and then they crank them down and they reattach them all. So he's like you. You need a complete reconstruction anyway. So, like, I mean, that was the big question I asked is like, am I going to make this worse?

01;15;00;28 - 01;15;07;17
Speaker 1
He's like, no, you you can't make it any worse. Like, yeah, you're already you're kind of bottomed out right now short of like just.

01;15;07;19 - 01;15;09;21
Speaker 2
So.

01;15;09;23 - 01;15;27;21
Speaker 1
It's all I mean, it's, it's a, it's a chronic problem. I've, I've, I think I initially tore it 2 or 3 years ago or something, and then it, it's just been this constant. Every few months I roll it again and it gets worse and worse. And then we had a, we had a ledge collapse.

01;15;27;21 - 01;15;45;03
Speaker 1
I don't know if you heard about this in Yosemite last spring. My partner Mike and I were the first ones to climb center of the universe. The first ones of the year to climb center in the universe after, like, the big winter. And it was. It was the really heavy winter. There was a ton of a significant amount of erosion and rockfall and and snow.

01;15;45;03 - 01;16;04;27
Speaker 1
And it just it just did a whole number on the, the, the terrain on all these climbs. And we had we got so lucky on this, this is this is probably the closest call in retrospect, I think that we probably got away with it this day. So we we climbed Voyager in the morning, which is one of my favorite routes in Yosemite.

01;16;04;27 - 01;16;21;04
Speaker 1
And then we were going to climb center of the universe second, in the afternoon. So we climbed Voyager. I don't know if you're familiar with CC buttress, but Voyager starts up on a ledge system on kind of on the right side, and then center of the universe starts at the very base of the wall on the left, like down here.

01;16;21;07 - 01;16;41;19
Speaker 1
So we climbed Voyager and we went up and down, and then we were going to walk down the ledge to the base of center of the universe, but instead for just because we're lazy, we were like, let's walk 50ft to the left, which puts you at the top of pitchforks and in the universe. And we said, we'll just repel down in the base there, and then we'll just re climb it.

01;16;41;22 - 01;17;05;06
Speaker 1
And in retrospect, if we had gone to the base and climbed up, I, we, we both would have died 100%. There's no world where it wouldn't have happened. So. Yes. So we went on so we went into the wrap anchor, and we were simul wrapping and we both loaded the rope and we started to walk back and as we walked back, like to go over the ledge, the entire ledge just collapsed under us.

01;17;05;08 - 01;17;20;25
Speaker 1
So if we came up from the bottom when we like, you know, climbed up and like, grabbed on the ledge, we would have pulled the entire ledge. I mean, you know, a several tons of rock. We would have been catch up. It would have been terrible. Yeah. So the ledge collapsed under us and we were just we were.

01;17;20;25 - 01;17;40;00
Speaker 1
Now we're just hanging on the similar app. Like, if we weren't on, if we weren't even on repel, if we had just walked to the other end of the ledge, it would have collapsed under us and we just would have fallen, you know, 400ft or whatever. We just happened to be on repel when it happened.

01;17;40;02 - 01;17;59;08
Speaker 1
It's probably 10 or 15ft. It's like. It's like you like, come up on the ledge and then it's like 10 or 15ft of, like, kind of nasty jaws. And then you. And then you hit the next wall. It's like a tiered system. And then you start climbing up there. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. So that's why we got that's why we that's why everything went well.

01;17;59;08 - 01;18;20;09
Speaker 1
And then it, we didn't know if anybody was you know. But what below us really know anything. And I caught this this enorme I'll send you this picture. It's kind of crazy I call it this enormous like I mean at least it was the size of a mini fridge block. And I just like it, like hit my body and I just like, leaned on it into the wall.

01;18;20;11 - 01;18;45;14
Speaker 1
And then after I did that, I'm like, oh, I'm stuck now because I can't let this. If I let this go, I the rest of the ledge, I'm like, holding this Jenga pile together, like barely. And Mike, my partner, thought extremely quickly, he ripped a, a nano traction out, set up a 2 to 1. We put two slings around this giant boulder to fix it in the place just so we could.

01;18;45;16 - 01;19;00;22
Speaker 1
Then I stayed up there and, like, held this Jenga pile together, and he sprinted down to the base to make sure nobody was below us because, like, hey, we're about to send the rest of this ledge down because we we need to let it like we like. I'm up there holding it.

01;19;00;25 - 01;19;04;02
Speaker 2
It.

01;19;04;05 - 01;19;26;25
Speaker 1
He just he just talk. He fixed it. He. Yeah. I think he just tied it off and fixed it. So I was, like, hanging on the edge of the ledge just with this, like, giant boulder, like, pressed against the wall, like. All right, well, this kind of sucks. And then, right after that, somehow in that, like, whole kerfuffle, like, as it was wrapping up, I just, I just folded my ankle, like, clean in half.

01;19;26;27 - 01;19;29;21
Speaker 1
And it was just. Yeah, I was a it was a tough day.

01;19;29;23 - 01;19;32;16
Speaker 2
This is a tough day.

01;19;32;18 - 01;19;33;15
Speaker 1
You

01;19;33;15 - 01;19;38;01
Speaker 3
or. Or was it, like, coming off the boulder or just in the midst of everything

01;19;38;01 - 01;19;51;21
Speaker 1
No, it was actually right. It it was actually separate from like the boulder collapse. It just happened to be like immediately following it. And then like, we were like, wow, we almost died. We're done for the day. And then I took, like, two steps and, like, just I don't I don't even know.

01;19;51;21 - 01;20;12;01
Speaker 1
I just, I don't I just didn't have any, any ligament to help me out or. No. Just it just roll. Yeah. So and then after that I, yeah, I know I was trying to, I was texting Dan McDevitt. Like, I'm, like, in tears. I'm like, I thought I broke my ankle, like. And I thought I, like, literally snapped my leg.

01;20;12;04 - 01;20;28;22
Speaker 1
And I'm like, I'm very aware of that. Like, my season is done before it's even started. This is like a catastrophic injury. So Mike is like, carrying me these woods. I'm like, crying, trying to text Dan McDevitt, being like, you need to read. Tag this route. Somebody's going to die. He's like, can you can you do it?

01;20;28;22 - 01;20;30;19
Speaker 1
I'm like, no, I'm going to the hospital. He's like, what.

01;20;30;19 - 01;20;31;07
Speaker 2
The hell's going.

01;20;31;07 - 01;20;36;10
Speaker 1
On out there? Like, I don't know, call a ranger. Like, we need help out here.

01;20;36;12 - 01;20;37;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's tough.

01;20;37;07 - 01;20;42;03
Speaker 1
Tough start the season. So there was yeah, that was the only only climbing I did that whole spring.

01;20;42;03 - 01;20;46;18
Speaker 2
So.

01;20;46;21 - 01;20;48;21
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;20;48;23 - 01;20;58;16
Speaker 1
And yeah, in retrospect, that's probably I can't imagine a worse, yeah. Worse body part to injure. That was it was pretty bad. Pretty brutal.

01;21;04;19 - 01;21;22;23
Speaker 1
I mean, I, I think in, in retrospect, just knowing that, like, I don't see any universe where us coming ground up on that wouldn't have resulted in pulling an entire system on top of us. I don't see how that's possible. You know, I don't that's not I think that's exterior, you know, factors that we didn't really control.

01;21;22;23 - 01;21;41;20
Speaker 1
And we just kind of lucked into the right situation. That's one of those, like, you can do everything right, but like, you know, we could have we could have been wearing helmets and like, sewing it up and all, you know, it doesn't matter. Yeah. So that was pretty scary. I know we we talked about the one in the Cirque, traverse that was, that was, that was complete user error.

01;21;41;20 - 01;21;47;17
Speaker 1
So that I guess that would be the other end of the spectrum. I'm like, so.

01;21;47;19 - 01;22;07;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So I went, so I wanted to do I had this big idea that I wanted to do the Grand Traverse. I want to do the Grand Traverse, the circle towers traverse and the whirl all car, the car in a day and all in less than two weeks. I thought, the circuit, the towers traverse. It's in the the wind river edge.

01;22;07;29 - 01;22;08;20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;22;08;23 - 01;22;26;06
Speaker 1
So, Vitale and I went and did the Grand Traverse. It's one of the best days I've ever had. The mountains. It's it's the Grand Teton. The whole skyline. And then the next day, I drove to the wind River range. And then the following day, I went in to do the Cirque traverse. I was just.

01;22;26;09 - 01;22;44;13
Speaker 1
I was by myself. I was just going to solo the entire thing. It's five, eight and below. I felt like I was pretty comfortable. In that terrain, I'd say I don't make a habit of, like, I'd. So soloing five, eight quite often. But Vitaly had just done this recently, and we were kind of competitively racing times on this specific traverse.

01;22;44;18 - 01;23;08;06
Speaker 1
So he just did it. He's like, oh yeah, you know, I did it. You're going to be fine. So, yeah, I went to go. I mean, I wanted to go beat his time. That was, you know, that was a goal, a goal for the day. But, so about halfway through the traverse on, the short, I think shark nose is, is the mountain.

01;23;08;08 - 01;23;29;23
Speaker 1
I got, I just got off route on the backside of this thing. I got kind of sucked. I know an easy crack that looked like it was five six, and then it kind of got a little steeper and steeper, and then, like, kind of before I. I should have realized sooner that I am no longer on five, six, which is what that section was supposed to be.

01;23;29;25 - 01;23;48;03
Speaker 1
I would say I was on like probably approaching like ten a by the time I realized, like, oh, I'm not in, you know, I was just kind of like sucked in and like, I got tunnel vision and I, I should have I should have just stepped back and said, hey, this isn't this isn't the right way. But I kept thinking like, oh, if I go a little bit higher, it'll it'll flatten out.

01;23;48;03 - 01;24;11;00
Speaker 1
We'll be able to grab the summit. So and I'm, I'm on site soloing and approach shoes with like, a 30 pound backpack. You know, I just it just wasn't the most efficient setup. But by the time I realized that it was a bad, situation, I was kind of, like, locked in this fairly engaging sequence, and I did.

01;24;11;00 - 01;24;26;12
Speaker 1
I broke the golden rule soloing. It's. This is the only time I've ever done it my entire life is I climbed up something that I was not willing to down climb. That's why. That's why all of this happened. Was I, I, you know, I if I would have been able to reverse these moves, it would have been a little better.

01;24;26;12 - 01;24;47;03
Speaker 1
So, I ended up going up to, I saw some tat above me on a on a piton. There was a slung horn and a piton that were that were equalized. And I'm, I'm like, probably 1000ft up this wall with nothing but air under me. Like, I wouldn't have hit anything. I would have hit nothing before the ground.

01;24;47;06 - 01;25;10;22
Speaker 1
So, I go up to this tat and I did like a couple five, ten moves up again that I know I'm not going to doubt. I know I'm not going to do in reverse, but I rationalized it by, well, there's a rap station five feet above me. I know I can do these moves up. I'm just going to go there, and then I'm going to rap all the way back down to the fork where I took the wrong direction, and I'll go from there.

01;25;10;24 - 01;25;29;22
Speaker 1
So I got up to the station and it was, the big red flag. Looking back, it was white webbing. They don't make white webbing. That's sun bleached webbing. So I, took a look at it, and I, like, gave it a couple tugs. And, it was again, it was a horn and a piton that were equalized on just an overhand.

01;25;29;24 - 01;25;57;14
Speaker 1
So I checked it out, gave it a couple of tags, like, all right, I guess this is fine. And then I, I clipped into it. So I was indirect hanging on this on the tat, like, hanging on it because I had to get the rope out of my bag. So I took my bag off, and I pull the rope out, I thread it through, a quick link, and, I'm about ready to wrap, and then, so right before I start, I look in the something caught my eye in the back of the webbing.

01;25;57;14 - 01;26;14;06
Speaker 1
It looked really glassy, like really shiny. I was like, oh, that's like, that looks weird. You know, already hanging on this, but I'll check it out. So I, I, I grabbed the horn that it was slung on, which is like a big jug with my left hand. And I, like, stood up to take all the weight off of the sling.

01;26;14;06 - 01;26;37;02
Speaker 1
And I did, like, the most mild bounce test ever. Just, like, lightly dropped into the onto the anchor and it exploded. Immediately exploded. The back just the black back blew out, it exploded. And then it just slid down my rope with the quick link, just like sliding down the wrap things. And I'm like. And when it happened, the weight of the rope kind of like caught my harness and it kicked my feet off the little nubbins.

01;26;37;04 - 01;27;03;08
Speaker 1
So I'm like, doing this. I mean, quite literally like a cliffhanger thing on just one hand with a whole rope hanging from my harness. And like, now I have nothing to clip into. I have nothing like, well, you know, I that was a pretty like, man, I didn't I was so embarrassed after that. I was so I felt so ashamed of, like letting myself get to that, that place, it was completely self-induced.

01;27;03;10 - 01;27;26;14
Speaker 1
Totally my fault. If I were to just, you know. Yeah, I just it just wasn't climbing smart. And it got me in a situation where, like, all right, now, I'm hanging by one hand on the side of this cliff. And I had one. I had one single sling on my harness. That's all I had. And if I was able to grab that sling off my harness and drape it over the horn, and then I could go and direct on that, which is ultimately what I, what I rappelled off of.

01;27;26;20 - 01;27;55;24
Speaker 1
But if I didn't have that sling, like, I don't even know what I, I would have had no way to like, you know, I don't know what I would have done. I'm like, now I have the rope hanging from me. I have nothing to clip to. I don't it was just this really vulnerable, careless situation that I was, I was so I actually I have a video on my phone still of I when I got to the summit after that, I like I did a little, I don't know, two minute, two minute talk.

01;27;55;26 - 01;28;14;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. Just to myself on video. I still I've watched that several times since then. And just kind of like, hey, man, like, that's your that's your one, you know, you don't get another. That was completely your fault. You do not deserve to come home after that. But like, you got you got away with it, like, don't do that again.

01;28;14;16 - 01;28;24;17
Speaker 1
And I was just so embarrassed and ashamed of, like, letting myself, it was, it just felt careless. So, Yeah, that that was a close call.

01;28;24;17 - 01;28;27;06
Speaker 2
have you thought about why.

01;28;27;08 - 01;28;41;27
Speaker 3
You got that chance. Like is there like I've had multiple life experiences just like that. Not I mean some in climbing and outside of climbing. But I always makes me wonder like, you know, there's, there's something else here, for me

01;28;43;09 - 01;28;44;20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;28;44;20 - 01;28;47;10
Speaker 3
it's like a life purpose to try to figure that out.

01;28;47;13 - 01;28;52;17
Speaker 3
Is that it's like a, there's a similar sentiment that you have from, like, surviving something like that.

01;28;55;00 - 01;29;11;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't I don't know, I've had I've had like a couple experiences like that from, you know, time in the Navy and stuff that are like, oh, I everything just like, by sheer happenstance, worked out well, like, no fault of my own. I had nothing to do with that. That just like I. Yeah, I got away with one, which I don't.

01;29;11;18 - 01;29;30;24
Speaker 1
I don't like feeling like I got away with one because it inherently means that, like, I was not in control of that situation and I don't, I don't really like not being in control of my own safety or my own, you know, outcome. Yeah. I, I don't know, I, I haven't thought much about the, I guess the, the greater forces behind why that happened.

01;29;30;24 - 01;29;47;02
Speaker 1
I think it, yeah. No, I, I don't know, that's a good question.

01;29;47;04 - 01;29;54;26
Speaker 2
Oh, well.

01;29;54;29 - 01;30;09;25
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;30;09;27 - 01;30;15;12
Speaker 2
Oh. That's cool.

01;30;15;15 - 01;30;18;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's amazing.

01;30;18;22 - 01;30;43;09
Speaker 3
that, I, I always attribute it to one, like, you know, we're here for a bigger purpose, right? And it's like our job to respect that. That second chance that we were given and, like, fulfill something profound and, like, do something with the chance that we were given instead of just pissing it away, but also that there's other forces out there that are looking out for you that like, allows you to be in a position where you could hold on to that, that horn and that, you know, you had that one sling.

01;30;43;09 - 01;30;52;18
Speaker 3
Like, I almost feel like there's divine intervention. And whether that's God or whether that's people in your family and spirit to look out for you like, I truly believe that, like there's other forces at play.

01;30;52;18 - 01;30;54;02
Speaker 2
That that,

01;30;54;04 - 01;31;02;20
Speaker 3
All right. That have our back in a way, especially if you do the things enough to, like, set luck on your side with karma and all that jazz. I think that's like all, all

01;31;03;02 - 01;31;04;29
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Very cool.

01;31;05;02 - 01;31;23;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's. It's very interesting.

01;31;23;19 - 01;31;27;29
Speaker 2
Yeah. Scared all the time. Yeah.

01;31;28;00 - 01;31;45;23
Speaker 3
It's like, you know, climbing the routes that you do with like, X's and ratings, like, you clearly have a level head on your shoulders. And, you know, I'm sure the military helped you with that. And being in intense situations and being connected with your body. But like, how do you view risk and, like, is it all calculated or do you lean on luck?

01;31;48;18 - 01;31;56;13
Speaker 1
Hey everyone, please like, subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to support the show.

01;31;57;24 - 01;32;33;20
Speaker 1
I don't lean on like. No, I, I don't lean on luck, and I don't. I don't ever want to lean on a lot because I don't have any control over that. Yeah, I think it looks. It probably looks a bit, I mean, transparently. I'm sure it looks kind of reckless from the outside occasionally. I know I, I can kind of come off as, like, pretty, just we're just out, you know, fucking around all the time and, like, having fun, but it's we, my, my partner and I, we really do kind of treat this like a full time job, and, we're a lot of a lot of preparation and

01;32;33;20 - 01;32;47;04
Speaker 1
work goes into anything that we do that's that's higher risk. Again, we didn't just walk up to the bar and just say, like, we're just going to go try, like, we would have broken both of our legs, probably. So, you know,

01;32;47;04 - 01;33;00;18
Speaker 1
I, I think one of the coolest parts about climbing is, is that you can you put yourself in these situations where you can hit the manual override on these, like, human instincts of like, hey, stop.

01;33;00;18 - 01;33;20;24
Speaker 1
Like, don't stop climbing. Don't go higher. You're you're in danger. And you get to, like, when else in in human existence, can you create this, like, custom tailored level of risk or fear or whatever you want to, you know, adversity, whatever you want to call it. And then like I can say, I want to go climb this, you know, I want to experience this much risk.

01;33;20;24 - 01;33;46;06
Speaker 1
Exactly. Today. And then I can go do that and I can say like, I want, you know, to take it just slightly more, slightly less. Or maybe I didn't sleep well last night. I don't have a good head. I'm not going to do that. But you can put yourself in these situations where everything is saying like, hey, this is like you're in danger because it's your, you know, your your monkey brain is telling you, like, hey, this is you're you're you're hi, this is scary or whatever.

01;33;46;09 - 01;34;05;12
Speaker 1
And you get to just override and say, like, you know, you look down, okay, my not good. The ropes. Fine. I have a clean fall below me. I'm going to keep going. And it's this really unique, human experience to be able to kind of I mean, there's this there's such a good this Jon Bakker quote, I just I just shared it, yesterday.

01;34;05;14 - 01;34;15;27
Speaker 1
Or he's talking about the first ascent of, the first ascent of the back of your in. And he said something, he said something like in this

01;34;15;27 - 01;34;25;23
Speaker 1
he said every single moment came down to these tiny crystals in these tiny moves. And he said, in that tiny moment, I tried to get a measure of myself as a man.

01;34;25;26 - 01;34;42;24
Speaker 1
And I just think that's fucking awesome. It's like, if it's like, that's what it is. Like, it's just a kite. Climbing is just a mirror. It just shows you like, what's what. You're, you know, what you got going on? It's a megaphone in a mirror. It amplifies what you're what you're experiencing. If you're happy, you're stoked out of your mind.

01;34;42;24 - 01;35;00;22
Speaker 1
And if you're scared, you think you're going to die. And like, you know, it's it's it shows you, like, you might think that you're like a big tough guy and you're like, you know, you're brave or whatever. And like, okay, show me like, let's, let's go do it. And it's probably going to be a different experience and your own perception of yourself.

01;35;00;22 - 01;35;12;00
Speaker 1
Like there's the reality in the in your self-perception. And those are generally this like unbridgeable gap that most people will never even get close to, you know, joining. But in climbing you get pretty close

01;35;12;00 - 01;35;22;24
Speaker 1
where you I have a really, really good understanding of what I can and can't do and what I will and won't do because I've done it now.

01;35;22;27 - 01;35;40;25
Speaker 1
You know, hundreds or thousands of times. And I've, I've had moments where I said, I mean, I've had climbs where like I'm like, I just don't got this. I don't like mentally. I'm not doing this today. And I've backed off because like, maybe I thought I was like super brave and I was capable and ready to do all this stuff.

01;35;40;28 - 01;35;58;14
Speaker 1
But like, the reality is I wasn't. And you can't just fake your way up stuff like that. Like it's a very conscious, intentional action that you have to take and you have to override. You have to hit that override every move that you're doing. And, not only do you have to override the fear, but then you have to perform or you are going to get hurt.

01;35;58;16 - 01;36;26;09
Speaker 1
So it's it's like it's such this it's a unique, such a special experience to be able to get this really, really raw, like genuine look at who you are as a person. And I think there's very few things that can show you that as a as a human outside of adversity. And I think adversity, whether it's manufactured adversity, which is like my favorite phrase, just manufacturing your own adversity if you can afford it, obviously.

01;36;26;11 - 01;36;49;12
Speaker 1
Is is so valuable because it, it's just a quick look at like under the hood and it shows you like it shows you very, very clearly who you are or like where you're at. And there's no there's no fluff, there's no frills. You can't exaggerate. There's no gloating or ego. This is the reality. You you said this and you did this like bridge that gap somehow.

01;36;49;12 - 01;36;54;09
Speaker 1
Now, I just think it's the coolest thing.

01;36;54;09 - 01;37;00;25
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's totally true. Manufactured adversity is really cool. It's definitely like, kind

01;37;01;27 - 01;37;07;07
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah.

01;37;07;10 - 01;37;07;29
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;37;08;01 - 01;37;18;20
Speaker 1
But you're almost, almost always better on the backside, right? Like, you know, if you're, obviously if it goes well, there's, there's manufactured adversity that doesn't go well, but.

01;37;18;22 - 01;37;19;14
Speaker 2
You know.

01;37;19;17 - 01;37;31;17
Speaker 1
It's, I think people are generally always better off for, for, doing something challenging. So.

01;37;31;19 - 01;37;37;00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;37;37;03 - 01;37;40;23
Speaker 2
Exactly. Yeah.

01;37;40;23 - 01;37;55;16
Speaker 3
biggest thing though, for, for people to understand is that you need to have enough experience to be able to make those decisions with like a calculated mentality. You know, you can't just like, okay, I think I'm great and I'm going to go up and throw myself into the situation and realize, oh, like, actually I'm not.

01;37;56;22 - 01;38;19;09
Speaker 2
Exactly. Yeah.

01;38;19;11 - 01;38;41;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I, I totally agree. Yeah. It's it's a it's like this beautiful meshing of physical and mental ability. It's really cool to be a part of.

01;38;41;16 - 01;39;05;18
Speaker 1
Climbing takes most of the time. Yeah, I, yeah, yeah. So I have the nonprofit that I work with, Crux Wilderness therapy. I think it's a I'm biased. I think it's the coolest program in the world. It's, like, oriented around climbing. So I'm the vice president on the board of directors right now. I started out as the secretary, which is really cool to be able to kind of rise through this, this organization.

01;39;05;21 - 01;39;32;22
Speaker 1
We, we're oriented toward, military and veterans. So we provide, basically free guide services and outdoor climbing clinics for anybody that's in the military or veterans or their family. So we do, outdoor climbing clinics every weekend rotating around Southern California. We do them in Joshua Tree or Idlewild or, we've gone to discount Descanso or Mission Gorge or, you know, it's kind of just rotating.

01;39;32;24 - 01;39;53;06
Speaker 1
We're we just got permitted to guide in the Sierras this summer, which is really exciting. We did a couple, weekend retreats in the Sierra, but the goal is to kind of break down any barrier to entry for climbing for anybody in the military. I am extraordinarily passionate about it because I think climbing, like, really, really dramatically improved my life.

01;39;53;06 - 01;40;11;03
Speaker 1
Like, could not be overstated how much, you know, I was kind of struggling to find, a purpose and something that, like, really gave me direction and something that, like, made me feel, you know, like, I'm really living, like, intensely. And that when climbing was out immediately, it was immediately like, oh, I'll do this forever.

01;40;11;05 - 01;40;31;06
Speaker 1
I feel like I should have started 20 years ago. And I think a lot of guys in the military, guys and girls, both in the military, just, the lifestyle and, the culture that it attracts are people that also would really thrive in the outdoors. And where I mean, first and foremost, we're we're a wilderness therapy resource.

01;40;31;09 - 01;40;55;28
Speaker 1
But it's not we're not doing much like therapy. We don't bring a therapist out. The idea is like, hey, just come climb with us, you know, on Saturday and like, let's just have a good day outside, climb. And if you want to talk about anything, we can get into the weeds. But ultimately, like, maybe you just want to, like, not think about shit for a day, you know, maybe you just want to get outside and be like, I don't want to be a part of reality for eight hours.

01;40;55;28 - 01;41;20;25
Speaker 1
I just want to climb rocks and, like, bullshit, like create. Come on out. Yeah. It's incredible. It's a myth. Yeah. It's that's that's actually it's exactly what I. Yeah. Kind of sight. One of my biggest climbing, benefits is like, it just forces you to be, like, exactly here, right now, because you can't, you know, you don't have the bandwidth to be thinking about anything else.

01;41;20;28 - 01;41;38;17
Speaker 1
Which is really, I think it's really special. So we, we put on this clinics every weekend. We've had I think we had 100 and almost 150 veterans come out in the last year. And the goal is to teach and equip, like veterans to learn how to do this stuff on their own. We would love to have you keep coming in the clinics and keep climbing.

01;41;38;17 - 01;41;55;06
Speaker 1
And we have a lot of people that we continue to see. But the goal is, to teach you how to do all this stuff and then you can go go climb on the weekends if you want, whatever you want to do. And we we've got some, some really great support from Black Diamond. I've been big the last year.

01;41;55;08 - 01;42;11;18
Speaker 1
They've given us a ton of equipment, gear and cut our expenses down a lot. But that's I'd say that's like where most of my free time goes right now is, is toward the organization and in kind of just fundraising or outreach or letting people know we have there's so many vets who don't even know that we exist or active duty people.

01;42;11;18 - 01;42;33;14
Speaker 1
There's almost a million, military people around California. And it's like, people don't even know that that exists. Like it's this crazy resource. Like, I was out there like almost dying on an Alabama hills. I wish that I knew about Crocs before. You know what? I was getting started. I did, I didn't, so, I don't think so.

01;42;33;14 - 01;42;41;05
Speaker 1
Now.

01;42;41;07 - 01;42;52;10
Speaker 1
Well, it's definitely not the same organization because I know everybody intimately well. But I'd love to meet them. Now, there's.

01;42;52;12 - 01;43;02;28
Speaker 2
Oh, wow.

01;43;03;00 - 01;43;10;02
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;43;10;04 - 01;43;11;09
Speaker 1
Exactly.

01;43;11;11 - 01;43;23;01
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;43;23;04 - 01;43;41;12
Speaker 1
And you're in control. Yeah. You can. Yeah, you can go to, like I said, tailor what? You know what you want to do. That's. I mean, Mike, Mike is probably my best friend. Now we've we've done like. I mean, realistically, I don't think we would have ever become friends outside of climbing. We're just very different. He's a he's a PhD like neuro.

01;43;41;14 - 01;44;12;11
Speaker 1
So he's just he's it's like psychotic genius. Yeah. He's just he's a doctor. He's like incredibly, you know, intellectual. And I'm like, you know, I'm kind of an idiot. Yeah, I'm pretty chill. I'm like, whatever. But like, he's he's my best friend because we've like, I mean, we've climbed thousands of pitches together now and we've spent weeks and weeks on walls and like, we've had these really like he has seen me at my, my absolute most like disparaged and despondent lows that I could imagine.

01;44;12;11 - 01;44;31;16
Speaker 1
And I've seen him and we've all seen each other at our, at our highest highs. And like, you know, we've done these big days together and, it's the, the bond is just like it is. It's like the, it's the military stand in. It's like you go through stuff like that together, and you and you're, you're closer off as a result.

01;44;31;16 - 01;44;32;11
Speaker 1
So.

01;44;33;05 - 01;44;33;22
Speaker 2
That's awesome man.

01;44;33;23 - 01;44;48;29
Speaker 3
Really cool. Yeah. It's definitely important to to build those partnerships. And there. Yeah. I mean, even in my own personal life with the people I climb with, it's just it's a level playing field too. Like, like like you said, it could be people come from completely different backgrounds, and you show up, you climb, and it's just like it's, you know, you guys are both on the same

01;44;49;19 - 01;44;58;19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;45;12;10 - 01;45;35;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Man, that's like that gives me more heartburn than I would like to let it. Honestly, I, I, I hate I hate that page. I hate so much. Yeah. I'm like, I my my goal is to be an athlete. I am an athlete. I would like to make a career as an athlete. That's like the dream.

01;45;35;14 - 01;45;52;15
Speaker 1
I'm still to this day, every day. I'm, like, very self-conscious of being viewed as, like, an influencer or something. I'm not. I'm not at all. I'm not a content creator. I'm not, you know, I'm not like, doing dances and like, I don't even, I don't even I never edited a picture, like, I don't, I just,

01;45;52;15 - 01;45;56;00
Speaker 1
I just love climbing and I really, really love storytelling.

01;45;56;00 - 01;46;17;04
Speaker 1
I love having a really significant day in the mountains or, you know, whatever it is, and coming back and kind of like creating a little, a little piece of that to, like, share with people around me. I the goal was never to be some big page. I didn't this is all happened pretty recently. And it it's very weird.

01;46;17;04 - 01;46;32;11
Speaker 1
We get, I just we just had to two guys today at the crag recognize us? Yeah. You bachelors? Yeah, I know it. It's like it's, I know I'm, like, so self-conscious of it. I just I'm super weird. And it happens. I don't know how to act like. Oh, yeah. Thanks. That crap.

01;46;32;11 - 01;46;33;24
Speaker 1
Oh, you know, I like.

01;46;33;24 - 01;46;52;26
Speaker 1
So, Yeah, I don't know. It's it's like I did. I will say I'm not. I'm not completely naive. I did view it early on as a as an opportunity to, if nothing else, cut expenses. I know that if you, if you have, you know, a big following and stuff, you can like, get help with gear and, you know, stuff like that, but like, I'm not, I'm not I'm doing the same stuff.

01;46;53;00 - 01;47;06;22
Speaker 1
I'm posting the same stuff today that I did. You know, two years ago when we made the page three years ago or whatever. I'm not I haven't changed anything. I'm not going to change anything. I don't care if I lose our followers tomorrow, I don't care. Or like, you know, it's I just like sharing what we're doing.

01;47;06;22 - 01;47;25;12
Speaker 1
And I feel like I have so much stock and, like, I just, I love, you know, I go to these places and I just want to, like, shove these pictures in people's faces and be like, look at this. This is awesome. Like it? This great. So yeah, it's I don't know, it's kind of a fine line of like, I understand, it's not a fine line.

01;47;25;12 - 01;47;52;08
Speaker 1
It's a very blurry line. I understand that I'm not that strong of a climber. I again, I'm not delusional, and I get that. I'm not like, you know, I'm not a professional climber in the sense that I'm going out and climbing. 515 but I also, I have obviously used that reach and audience and stuff as a, as a way to, maybe fast track making some sort of income with this.

01;47;52;10 - 01;48;07;24
Speaker 1
But we also like, I mean, I, we have people reach out all the time about working together. We say no to 99.9% of people. I, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not selling anything. I'm not at telling people to use my code like I don't care. And I will delete the page before I do that, I don't care, I'm not doing it.

01;48;07;26 - 01;48;36;07
Speaker 1
So I just love what I'm doing and I love where we're going, and I, I really enjoy, sharing and storytelling and stuff like that. So and it's cool to have people like we've had again, we've had so many people reach out and say, like, I mean, probably 100 people at this point have reached out over the last year or two and been like, hey, we, you know, we just got into climbing or we just bought a van or like, we're, you know, we're doing this thing because we see this stuff that you're doing and that one of those messages makes that entire page worth it.

01;48;36;07 - 01;48;54;04
Speaker 1
That's great that if it if it inspires anybody to get out and like, do this stuff that I'm doing that's been so meaningful to me and like, really like significantly derailed my own life in the best possible way. Like, you know, taken me off whatever path I was on and has put me on this one that is just so fulfilling now.

01;48;54;10 - 01;49;13;23
Speaker 1
Like, I'm happy to share that. And it, you know, it can be a little I don't it's I'm sure it's like completely made up. I it's, it's just my own like self-conscious, you know, embarrassment or something like that. But like it can feel a little like weird or cringe sometimes to share. There's this big ethic in climbing that you're, like, not supposed to ever talk about anything.

01;49;13;23 - 01;49;14;27
Speaker 1
Or I.

01;49;14;28 - 01;49;16;10
Speaker 2
Like.

01;49;16;10 - 01;49;17;11
Speaker 3
disagree with that.

01;49;17;29 - 01;49;33;04
Speaker 1
No, I've never I've never had a single person that I like look up to or respect that so that it's exclusively people that I'm, I'm like, well, I don't really care what you think anyway. So so it makes it kind of easy, but yeah, it's so I don't I can feel kind of weird to like, share some of that stuff.

01;49;33;04 - 01;49;50;20
Speaker 1
And I feel like I do have a bit of a, a window into my life to some degree now, because we, I, you know, I do consistently share a lot of stuff. It is still heavily, filtered or maybe not filtered, but tailored. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm not going to get, like, overly personal in there.

01;49;50;20 - 01;50;04;10
Speaker 1
I don't think Instagram is a place for that. I definitely don't think a public Instagram page is a place for that. I have, you know, I have friends that I can speak with if I need to. And, if I started doing stuff like that, I would hope a friend would, like, pulled me aside and be like, hey, what the hell's wrong with you?

01;50;04;10 - 01;50;05;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, like, stop doing this.

01;50;05;27 - 01;50;06;06
Speaker 1
You're being.

01;50;06;06 - 01;50;09;05
Speaker 2
Weird. Exactly.

01;50;09;05 - 01;50;12;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, I know, so, yeah, it's been.

01;50;12;08 - 01;50;22;05
Speaker 3
No I can see how it's like you know I don't know it just there's no pressure man. It's like you're what you're doing is successful and it's like there's no need to change all of a sudden because

01;50;23;15 - 01;50;28;08
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

01;50;28;11 - 01;50;50;02
Speaker 1
We just it's such a it is such a an unending source of negativity that I have to take breaks a lot. It's, It's tough, man. People are just terrible on the internet. There's so bad. And, like, oddly enough, uniquely, climbers are, like, the worst by far. I mean, not even close. It's not even a close second.

01;50;50;03 - 01;51;06;26
Speaker 1
They're they're by far the worst people that I interact with on a daily basis. Just like really nasty stuff. And, people, you know, I'll post something and be like, look at this beautiful. Whatever. And I'll have people messaging me like, you don't give a fuck about the environment. You're you're responsible for destroying this full mountain range.

01;51;06;26 - 01;51;32;18
Speaker 1
Like like you. What do you talk? There's 700 cars at the trailhead. What are you talking about? Like the cat's out of the bag. You know I'm not. Nope. You know, and most of the places I'm going are like. They're, like, very remote. Like, I shared something from, back in the winds on Mozambique. Just this really beautiful day that Vitaly and I had climbing this super obscure adventure route that, like, gets done once a year.

01;51;32;21 - 01;51;54;21
Speaker 1
And I had people on my messages that were like. You're distraught. They were furious. They were calling me, like, the worst names and, like, you know, you deserve to die. You shouldn't be allowed to be back there. Crazy stuff. Like, really like aggressive stuff. And, I'm like, dude, this is 20 miles from the nearest trailhead. Who the fuck do you think is going back there?

01;51;54;26 - 01;51;58;16
Speaker 1
Like, who do you think is seeing this post and is like.

01;51;58;18 - 01;52;00;20
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, that's I.

01;52;00;20 - 01;52;15;25
Speaker 1
Said to I'm like, how did you find out about it, man? Like you found out from the internet too. You didn't. You're not Lewis and Clark. You didn't go like, discover this, like whole range by yourself. Like somebody gave you that information and then you went and saw it and had a good experience. Like there's 20 people go back there a month.

01;52;15;25 - 01;52;32;28
Speaker 1
Maybe now there might be 30. Great. I hope there's 30. I hope there's 40 or 50. Like I want people to go experience this is public land. Like go, go outside like you typing this right now that are so angry. You should go outside. You need to go there like you shouldn't be this angry about somebody sharing that.

01;52;33;01 - 01;52;50;08
Speaker 1
It's just it's crazy. So we get like just. And then there's just like, you know, weird people and just people that are just, just really, they just love they love hate. And man, I don't know, it's it's it's.

01;52;50;10 - 01;52;59;23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

01;52;59;25 - 01;53;03;26
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;53;03;29 - 01;53;08;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

01;53;09;01 - 01;53;11;17
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's always climbers too. It's the saddest thing.

01;53;11;17 - 01;53;19;20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;53;19;23 - 01;53;21;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. I'm getting better. I'm getting better at that.

01;53;21;13 - 01;53;24;21
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;53;24;24 - 01;53;32;19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01;53;32;22 - 01;53;43;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

01;53;43;07 - 01;54;02;25
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I'm getting better at that. Yeah, I'm getting better at not responding. I got, I just, man, I let this I let it bug me sometimes. There's like some specific things that I'm not going to tell you what it is. Because if somebody hears this, they're going to go do it. But there's like this very specific job that people do that like I'm unable to walk away from, and it will ruin my whole day.

01;54;02;25 - 01;54;11;28
Speaker 1
I'll be like, I mean, Hannah and I will be sitting, you know, on the at the crag or something, and I'll just stop talking and she'll be like, what did they say?

01;54;12;03 - 01;54;13;20
Speaker 2
I'm like, oh yeah.

01;54;13;20 - 01;54;35;15
Speaker 1
I know, it's yeah, but I it's been a while since that. I've been a lot better at that recently. But, yeah, I just think I'm like, I really, I really do value the connection on there in the community and stuff that I've been able to, foster and develop. It's been, it's been really I've met like we we've traveled, we travel around the, the West Coast with several different couples that we've met from that page.

01;54;35;15 - 01;54;51;16
Speaker 1
Like I have some like really close friends from that page. I'll be friends with the rest of my life. It's amazing. And so I try to be, I, I don't like I think it's weird when people have pages that, like, they just don't interact with anybody at all. I'm not. You're totally allowed to do that. I have nothing against it.

01;54;51;16 - 01;55;12;28
Speaker 1
But like, it's it's weird to me when people like, you know, don't message people back or like inter engage anyway. It's like, well, what's the point of even having the pigeon? So I try to like I do try to interact with people and I try to, you know, engage as positively as I possibly can. Secondarily. That also means I am also generally reading the comments in the messages.

01;55;13;04 - 01;55;21;04
Speaker 1
So I don't I don't miss bad ones. And yeah, so I and I, you know, some stuff I add kind of like bug me, but

01;55;21;06 - 01;55;33;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's oh yeah. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Real real quick. Do I gotta let you. I'm not going to let you go. Yeah, yeah, I, I'm not.

01;55;33;15 - 01;55;39;01
Speaker 1
Going to let you have. Yeah. Unfettered access to like me and my page through my phone. Are you insane?

01;55;39;01 - 01;55;41;10
Speaker 2
I don't even know you. Why would I. Yeah.

01;55;41;12 - 01;55;50;26
Speaker 1
I don't even know. No way. I'm not going to let you have access to me. If you're just going to be a dick like this and say, yeah, no, I'm. I'm pretty quick on that now. And I love it. It's great. Yeah.

01;55;50;29 - 01;55;54;26
Speaker 2
So yeah. That's good. Yeah.

01;55;55;05 - 01;55;59;14
Speaker 3
What about the future, man? Kind of wrap this up, talking about what you have planned for

01;56;00;08 - 01;56;25;17
Speaker 1
Yeah. So we are. Yeah. You said it's coming out in November. Hopefully this is all this will have come to pass. We, we're taking a few a few down days mentally here at Donner. We're just doing some cracking, getting back into free climbing, and then we're going to go back to Yosemite next weekend, I think, and we'll be there, probably until early November.

01;56;25;19 - 01;56;44;18
Speaker 1
Our big goal is the Triple Crown this fall. We've got we got, Yeah, we're feeling pretty good about it. And then, we've got a couple, a couple side quests that we're looking at too, that I think will be used as, like, kind of a ramp up to the triple, but that'll hopefully be the season finale.

01;56;44;18 - 01;56;58;06
Speaker 1
And then, yeah, Hannah and I will head back to Salt Lake and we'll go get, you know, pick some more goals and start working. So got some ideas for the. Yeah, some ideas for the winter, but I'm not quite sharing them yet so should be some good.

01;56;58;06 - 01;57;03;26
Speaker 2
Stuff and stuff. Yeah, I could always.

01;57;03;26 - 01;57;13;15
Speaker 3
big? Big vision, like, relationship with Black Diamond? Like, do you see, you know, how does that evolve? Like, how do you see your climbing? Kind of like in the next five years. Ten years?

01;57;15;04 - 01;57;30;22
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's that's a great question. Yeah. He actually the, the, athlete manager, Adam Peters actually asked me that, specifically, he's like, where do you want to be in five years? And ten years? And I don't, I don't I didn't have a good answer. I was like, I don't I, I love, I love all climbing.

01;57;30;22 - 01;57;50;21
Speaker 1
It's like nearly impossible for me to be like, I want to be, you know, a free climber or, trad climber or whatever. I know I don't want to be a boulder. That doesn't interest me literally at all. I don't boulder, I boulder zero times a year. I don't really have any interest in doing that. But I just love all other kinds of climbing, and I haven't, quite pinned down.

01;57;50;23 - 01;58;08;23
Speaker 1
Maybe the specific, you know, maybe my, my niche right now would be like maybe enduro technical climbing, which I really I just, I love climbing a lot and I like climbing like, I like climbing a lot of climbing in a day. You know, it's just something I've really taken a.

01;58;08;25 - 01;58;09;24
Speaker 2
A.

01;58;09;27 - 01;58;26;14
Speaker 1
Just great joy in, whether it's big, you know, big ridge traverses. I love the I love the end of day challenge. How much can you do in a day? I think that's a great a great cutoff to where you can, like, you can really bury yourself, like, pretty deep in a day, but like, it's it's only a day.

01;58;26;14 - 01;58;47;06
Speaker 1
So it's like this nice. It's this nice arbitrary cutoff to where, like, once you get over a day, like you get into this, it's a whole separate kind of, suffering. But like, what can you do in a day? Like, you can get a lot done in a day if you're willing to hurt. And it's pretty fun. But I told him, so I, I went to Denali with Vitaly this, this last summer.

01;58;47;08 - 01;59;03;16
Speaker 1
That was my one of my three big goals. This year was, was doing Denali, and, we, we went there originally to we're going to try to do the Slovak direct, which he would have been carrying the, the brunt of the technical climbing on that. It says he's very, he's, he's one of the best alpine climbers in the world.

01;59;03;16 - 01;59;25;15
Speaker 1
He's incredibly talented. And he was he's one of my best friends now. And, he thought that I was like, you know, totally capable of going up and being a partner on that. I'm not going to be leading all of the crux pitches, but, like, I felt like I could carry my own weight. And then, we ended up not getting good weather basically at all the entire trip.

01;59;25;17 - 01;59;59;12
Speaker 1
We did summit, we went to some to the north peak too, which is pretty cool. But ultimately I left that, I left that trip not having a deep seated desire to go back, which is maybe the first thing besides bouldering that I've been able to, like, maybe cross off the list of, like, I don't, I, I don't know, I've always I've had all these people in my life, a lot of my mentors that I've, that I've, that have helped me along the way, they've, they've all said, oh, wait until you get into like, the greater ranges.

01;59;59;12 - 02;00;15;15
Speaker 1
Wait until you get into the high altitude mountaineering. They, they've, they've all thought that I was going to like, get into the mountains and just be like, this is my you know, this is my dream. And I didn't really feel like that in Denali. I, I was really eager to get back to Rock and, like, the Sierra.

02;00;15;18 - 02;00;32;04
Speaker 1
So I just what I said to Adam, I'm like, I don't know exactly where I'll be in five years, but I am, like, slowly closing the circle, like a little bit at a time on, like, I don't know what I want to do, but I maybe I know what I don't want to do as much. So, yeah, I don't know.

02;00;32;04 - 02;00;53;26
Speaker 1
I the stuff with Black Diamond. The goal I've been saying, you know, I've been saying for years that specifically I've been saying verbatim the dream would be to end up on the Black Diamond athlete team. I, I still don't understand. I'm on the ambassador program now. It's not. It's like the B team for the athlete team. But, I still I can't even really understand why they brought me on.

02;00;53;26 - 02;01;24;22
Speaker 1
It's I'm very grateful that they did. And I, you know, do the best I can to, you know, provide some value and, and be able to do something for the, for the company that's taking a chance on me and helping me out. And the goal would be to stay with them forever. Like, that's ultimately like a dream would be like, check in in 25 years, and, like, I'm still on the Black Diamond team, and, like, I'm making a salary, and we're helping develop gear and we're helping, like, you know, refine, whatever equipment or techniques or something like that.

02;01;24;22 - 02;01;46;19
Speaker 1
Like, I would love to be I would love to get a part of this community and culture and like, put roots in the ground and just be able to, like, start giving back and helping and, you know, helping newer climbers get started, which is what we do at crux and stuff like that. I'm just so passionate about this, this sport or hobby or whatever you want to call it.

02;01;46;19 - 02;01;57;07
Speaker 1
And like, I know I'm going to do this forever, and the dream is to make a living doing that somehow. And if I can't, you know, can and I are going to have kids next year is the plan.

02;01;57;10 - 02;02;01;23
Speaker 2
Yeah. I'll see. Yeah, yeah. We'll see. Yeah.

02;02;01;26 - 02;02;19;08
Speaker 1
No, we're very excited. It's going to be great. We're. It's getting about time. But there's always been this, like, kind of looming thing of, like, if we have kids and, like, we're not at it. We're not at a good income source yet, like, immediately I'm done. I'm getting a job. There's no questions asked. Which is which?

02;02;19;08 - 02;02;25;14
Speaker 1
I think is the way it should be. I'm not just going to go like, you know, I'm not going to go be like, climbing cap over and over.

02;02;25;14 - 02;02;27;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, I wouldn't, I want yeah.

02;02;27;11 - 02;02;42;17
Speaker 1
So, yeah, that's that's the goal. I feel like I've got a little bit of a, a little bit of a countdown clock in the back of my head, still of like, hey, we got to get, like, we need stability. We need to have, like, the stability to know that we're good here. And then, we're, I mean, we're we're getting close.

02;02;42;17 - 02;03;01;21
Speaker 1
We're not. We're not quite there yet. We're not, like, make any great living off of this, but, it's it's paying the bills at the moment. With, with the help of, you know, hands and working as well and stuff. So, yeah, that's the goal is to do something that's worth being proud of. And, I, I just want to be able to look back and say, I'm really happy with how that went.

02;03;01;23 - 02;03;05;09
Speaker 2
So.

02;03;05;11 - 02;03;13;19
Speaker 2
Thanks.

02;03;13;22 - 02;03;15;26
Speaker 2
Yeah.

02;03;15;26 - 02;03;25;02
Speaker 3
the people that are inspired by you, the people that are going to listen to this and listen to your words, like, do you have like a, you know, a message or any sort of, you know, lesson or something that, you know, you like to

02;03;25;16 - 02;03;42;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Can I can I read you this? This is cool. This is my my partner's, my Michael Vale. And he's. I think he's, like, the best climber that nobody's heard of. I don't understand how I feel so self-conscious of this, because he's. I have so many climbers I'm surrounded by. They're so much stronger than me.

02;03;42;11 - 02;03;59;17
Speaker 1
And they're they're, like, doing maybe not doing more than me, but like, they're they're climbing harder and they're, you know, they're kind of adjacent, you know, these like, lifers that you see everywhere. And, I feel I feel very undeserving of, like the support that I've gotten from these, companies and stuff because I just keep asking, like, why me?

02;03;59;17 - 02;04;18;23
Speaker 1
You know why? Why not? People like Mike, who's like, he's the best guy in the world. And he's he's just he's incredible climber. But he he he shared this thing yesterday, after the after the backer year in. I just thought this was a pretty cool, a pretty cool little quote from him. This is a little long.

02;04;18;23 - 02;04;19;16
Speaker 1
Carried this. It's a.

02;04;19;16 - 02;04;21;03
Speaker 2
Paragraph. Okay.

02;04;21;06 - 02;04;50;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. So he said, the backer you're adding legendary to all feared by many and treasured by a few. The first ascent and early repeats of this route featured the absolute crushers of their day names like John Backer, Steve Schneider, and Curt Smith. Modern imagery of the route features climbers like Alex Honnold, Hayden Kennedy, and Lonnie Couch. I've known about the back of your in and his mythology nearly as long as I've been a climber, and it's never been in the category of roots for me, even though it's only 511 who am I to follow in the footsteps of giants like those named above?

02;04;50;14 - 02;05;14;03
Speaker 1
Who am I to walk up to one of the most storied and feared routes in the world? It's like how to rope and tie in. All these preconceptions began to crumble earlier this year when my go to partner in crime. Tanner asked what I thought about trying it this fall. I realized while I have nowhere close to the physical strength and margin of many of the back of your hands, previous suitors as a team, Tanner and I have one thing in abundance the audacity to go for it.

02;05;14;06 - 02;05;31;17
Speaker 1
We chose to go for it. On Free Rider having each barely climbed 512 before we chose to go for it. Setting our eyes on the Half Dome El Cap link up before ever even doing El Cap in a day. And yesterday we walk up to the court, flaked out our rope tight end and chose to go for it on the back of your head.

02;05;31;20 - 02;05;55;19
Speaker 1
I thought that was cool. I, it's just like just being willing to try, you know, just go. Just go. Like, if you fail, fuck it. Whatever. I there's that this old saying, magnificent failure beats mediocre success. Like, just go try. And if you if you just completely epic, great. You got a goal. Now you know what you need to work on.

02;05;55;21 - 02;06;14;24
Speaker 1
Or you or you tried and you hated it. And now you get to move on to the next thing. But like, I just think people would be so much better off. They were a little more willing to, like, just go fail. Because a lot of times you end up surprising yourself in a lot of these big objectives that I've been successful, that I went into with.

02;06;14;24 - 02;06;24;00
Speaker 1
Like, I mean, I gave myself maybe 50, 50 chance of succeeding. And you really surprise yourself when you, when you decide to keep going. So.

02;06;27;19 - 02;06;46;15
Speaker 1
That concludes today's episode, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you'd like today's episode, please be sure to rate and review the show. This simple gesture significantly helps the algorithm share this podcast with new listeners. Also, please share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is the best way to support the show. Don't forget you can watch our full episodes on YouTube.

02;06;46;18 - 02;06;59;24
Speaker 1
Stay tuned for our next episode where we continue our TCM Triple Crown with Absolute Crusher Michael Vale. Until then, keep exploring, stay safe. And as always, thanks for being a part of the climbing majority. See you in two weeks.

02;07;00;22 - 02;07;03;24
Speaker 1
I'm just kidding. I'll see you all tomorrow.