80 | The Yosemite Quadfathers w/ Michael & Tanner

Welcome back to the final episode of the TCM triple crown! Today we get the privilege to sit down with both Tanner Wanish and Micheal Vaill to discuss their most recent achievement, the Yosemite Quad. If for some reason you’ve made it here without listening to the two prior episodes I highly consider stopping and checking those out before you continue here, as they give a background to each individual climber’s life. 

Human nature has us craving novelty, so when we hear about an achievement like ‘The Yosemite Quad,’ it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and headlines and miss the real meaning behind it. Tanner and Michael didn’t create the Quad for publicity, nor were they focused on breaking speed records for the Yosemite Triple Crown. In fact, they didn’t really care about records—it was just a by-product of something much bigger. For these two, the real passion lies in pushing the limits of how much climbing they can pack into 24 hours. ‘The Yosemite Quad’ is simply the latest expression of that vision.

It’s also easy to get hyper-focused on the climbers themselves, especially when media tends to spotlight individuals. But after talking to Micheal and Tanner, it’s clear that the Quad wasn’t just about physical endurance. This feat took meticulous planning, logistics, and overwhelming support from their network. These two are especially psyched about this accomplishment because it was truly a team effort. Without the key people who supported them over the 22-hour mission, this achievement wouldn’t have been possible. For them, the real magic lies in the collaboration—the network, friendships, and teamwork they’ve built over the years.

During this interview, these two crushers were still buzzing with excitement, having completed the Quad just days before. So I sat back and just let them share what was on their mind.. I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I did. And now I bring you The Quadfathers.

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Resources

Michael's IG

Tanners IG

Cover photo taken by Earl Bates

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:39 The Yosemite Quad

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;29;26 - 00;00;51;21
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the final episode of the TCM Triple Crown. Today, we get the privilege to sit down with both Tanner Harnish and Michael Vail to discuss their most recent achievement, the Yosemite Quad. If for some reason you've made it here without listening to the two prior episodes, I highly recommend you stop and check this out. Before you start here.

00;00;51;24 - 00;01;12;07
Speaker 1
Human nature has this crazy novelty, so when we hear about an achievement like the Yosemite Quad, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement. The headlines, and miss the real meaning behind an achievement like this. Tanner and Michael didn't create the quad for publicity, nor were they focused on breaking speed records when they climbed the Yosemite Triple Crown.

00;01;12;10 - 00;01;37;06
Speaker 1
In fact, they really don't care about records at all. This was just a byproduct of something much bigger for these two. The real passion lies in pushing limits on how much climbing they can pack into 24 hours. The Yosemite Quad is simply the latest expression of that vision. It's also easy to get hyper focused on the climbers themselves, especially when media tends to spotlight the individuals.

00;01;37;09 - 00;02;02;03
Speaker 1
But after talking to Michael and Tanner, it's clear that the quad wasn't just about physical endurance. This feat took meticulous planning, logistics, and an overwhelming amount of support from their network. These two are especially psyched about this accomplishment because it was truly a team effort without the key people who supported them over this 22 hour push. This achievement simply would just not have been possible for them.

00;02;02;05 - 00;02;23;10
Speaker 1
The real magic lies in the collaboration, the network, the friendships, and the teamwork that they've built over the years. During this interview, these two crushers were still buzzing with excitement, having just completed the quad a few days before. So I just sat back and let them share what was on their mind. I hope you enjoyed listening to them just as much as I did.

00;02;23;13 - 00;02;26;20
Speaker 1
And now I bring you the Quad Fathers.

00;02;38;20 - 00;02;43;02
Speaker 1
We're getting good at this.

00;02;43;04 - 00;02;45;26
Speaker 1
Now it's called this more. And it's like, I don't know, bright 30 out.

00;02;45;29 - 00;02;46;17
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;02;46;20 - 00;02;48;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's for good. Yeah.

00;02;48;15 - 00;02;54;10
Speaker 2
Like it's like fall conditions. All the free climbers are showing up in the valley. Everyone who's psyched to do stuff on lookout.

00;02;54;12 - 00;03;02;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, the free climbers are showing up. I'm taking off because,

00;03;02;06 - 00;03;05;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, maybe it seems like we we. Yeah, we might be. It's cool.

00;03;05;21 - 00;03;18;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, just hella. Congratulations, you guys. I mean, such a huge accomplishment. And, I'm sure it's all still kind of like soaking in and settling in, and you kind of just, like, marinating in what you guys had just accomplished. How are you guys feeling right now?

00;03;18;29 - 00;03;37;08
Speaker 2
Pretty good. I mean, it's definitely soaking in, you know, like, we set this big goal of doing the triple, and then we showed up to the valley. We're climbing well, and we ended up pulling off something we couldn't have even dreamed would be possible. Yeah. Especially at this point. Yeah. One year to the day after our first Nyad.

00;03;37;10 - 00;03;58;15
Speaker 1
You know, we I think that's the craziest part of this whole thing, is that it was one year, the day after our first ever, like, big one a day ever. And it was just. It seems insane. So it's pretty cool. Yeah. I don't think the gravity I mean, I don't know, I'm like kind of I keep going back and forth between like, being really being really proud of it.

00;03;58;15 - 00;04;14;27
Speaker 1
And I am really proud of it. And I think it was a big, a big accomplishment. But then I go back and I'm like, well, it's not that big of a deal. Like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want the ego to get away from us. We're just like, we found something that we love and that we're good at, and we just went out and had a big day.

00;04;15;04 - 00;04;28;29
Speaker 1
I don't know, I yeah, it's kind of a weird I'm trying to like, process and digest it in a way that's not going to alter our experience moving forward at all. I want us to keep doing what we're doing because we like doing it. And, you know, that's that's why we're out climbing. So.

00;04;29;01 - 00;04;44;29
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Tanner texted me. Did you realize that was one year to the day since our first need? And my immediate reaction was, oh, well, if we've only been doing this a year, then obviously we're just beginners, and nothing we have done must have actually been, you know, that part or significant?

00;04;45;00 - 00;04;47;09
Speaker 1
That's not what we said. Yeah. Or like we can't.

00;04;47;12 - 00;04;57;29
Speaker 2
Just call it foster saying like, yeah, I guess we are still kind of beginners, you know? And it's like, no, no, no. Maybe we can be proud of what we've done

00;04;59;01 - 00;05;09;26
Speaker 1
Totally. You guys should absolutely be proud. And I think, Here, I got this this quote here. I've been reading the articles about everything that, you know, people have been posting, and I listen to,

00;05;09;26 - 00;05;12;06
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;05;19;08 - 00;05;20;14
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;05;29;28 - 00;05;34;22
Speaker 1
Oh, less than household names. Yeah, I think I was that.

00;06;02;16 - 00;06;19;09
Speaker 1
I'm still anticipating somebody coming out of nowhere and being like. Oh, I did that two years ago. I don't know, it just feels. It feels like it's, It's such an obvious, obvious progression. And it's like, well, how the hell are we the ones that just got that done? It seems, you know, we're not we're not like crushers.

00;06;19;09 - 00;06;27;01
Speaker 1
We're not again, we did our first night a year ago. Like, how are we the ones that just did that? It doesn't. It seems kind of improbable, but it I mean, it's cool. It's very.

00;06;27;01 - 00;06;42;06
Speaker 2
Cool. Every every time someone says first ascent or even when I say I think it's the we're the first ones to do this, I feel really timid and shy, like, yeah, I don't know if I really want to claim that because, you know, it's it's so common now that people say, I was the first one to do this.

00;06;42;06 - 00;06;47;15
Speaker 2
And then they find out that, yeah, some random person did it ten years ago. Yeah.

00;06;47;15 - 00;06;56;22
Speaker 1
The news articles have been saying that. I don't think either of us have come out and been like we were the first ones to or now it's not true. I said, we're in the quad fathers.

00;06;56;24 - 00;06;58;28
Speaker 2
But I have.

00;06;59;03 - 00;07;14;28
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I know, I mean, yeah, you know, I, I would be happy if somebody came out and we're like, oh, you know, I don't, I'm not happy. I don't know, it's just kind of like it's, it seems like kind of a delicate thing where I don't want to make any assumptions and take credit away from anybody else that might have done something good.

00;07;14;28 - 00;07;24;24
Speaker 1
But as far as we know, it's never been done. And we we assumed that we were developing this as a first. And if that if that finds out it's not true, that's that's totally fine.

00;07;24;24 - 00;07;43;16
Speaker 2
We had to get doesn't change anything because the reason that we did it was because we wanted to see what we are capable of. And these news articles are coming out that says, oh, you did this the fastest. Oh, you were the first ones to do that. And that's cool. And I mean, I don't mind receiving the accolades, but that's not why we did it.

00;07;43;18 - 00;07;45;04
Speaker 2
We.

00;07;45;07 - 00;07;47;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. It just wasn't the globe.

00;07;47;22 - 00;08;03;29
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it has nothing to do with our motivation. Our motivation was just that we love climbing in Yosemite and it's a great challenge to see how much in Yosemite you can climb in 24 hours. So we went out to try to find that out this season. And we did the the quad and we had a great day.

00;08;03;29 - 00;08;16;07
Speaker 2
We did it in 22 hours. And you know we're happy with that accomplishment. So you know the the whole first and speed record and all that is is just kind of icing on the cake. That's. Yeah. It has absolutely.

00;08;16;07 - 00;08;33;12
Speaker 1
Mike. Mike brought up a good point after we did the triple because we we got done with it and it immediately felt like we weren't done. We didn't really celebrate after the triple. There was all this big hype about we broke the speed record. The triple is not a speed record. It has never been a speed record as far as we know.

00;08;33;17 - 00;08;59;20
Speaker 1
It's just like a it's for completion and people just want to do you know, it's it's it's just good to complete in a day. But people do it in all different styles and they do it human powered lately. And it's it's not about doing it fast. It's about seeing how much you can do in 24 hours. So it was cool that we did it in under 18, but all that showed us was that we didn't we didn't fill the day with enough climbing because we had six hours left.

00;08;59;22 - 00;09;15;25
Speaker 1
So we were never after a speed record. I transparently don't care about the speed record. It's not really important to us at all. It just showed us that like, oh, we didn't go big enough because we had all this time left and I think it got really blown out of proportion. And some I think gripped was the first one that that reported.

00;09;15;25 - 00;09;31;03
Speaker 1
And they were like, Alex Honnold lost the speed record. Alex Honnold didn't have the speed record that Brad and Jim did. So that was inaccurate. And then that wasn't our goal. That wasn't. And then it got it got kind of construed as this, like like we went out to like beat the time. And that was never the intent article.

00;09;31;03 - 00;09;35;05
Speaker 2
And then they corrected it and they said, oh, they beat hard, they beat Brad, go right.

00;09;35;07 - 00;09;36;05
Speaker 1
And we didn't beat it.

00;09;36;05 - 00;09;41;26
Speaker 2
The thing is, you beat someone at a chess game. You beat someone at a tennis match. In climbing, you just go out and see what you're capable.

00;09;41;27 - 00;09;59;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, we're not complaining. Yeah, we don't care about a record. We just wanted to have our own big day. And we did. And it was awesome. And then we said, oh, look at all this extra time. We should do this again next weekend and and do and do more. Because, you know, if you have any time left on the clock in 24 hours, it's time that you could have been still climbing and and you didn't.

00;09;59;17 - 00;10;05;22
Speaker 1
So we kind of called it early, on the triple. So the quad was seemed like an obvious next progression.

00;10;05;25 - 00;10;29;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. We were so happy to have completed the triple. And, you know, we came down and our friends were down there and Hannah had a bottle of champagne, and we were so happy. And then the next morning we were like both laying in our beds, like texting each other. Five, oh, okay, next weekend. 504 and it's like, oh, maybe the only thing crazier than doing a day like this is doing it twice.

00;10;29;06 - 00;10;29;28
Speaker 2
Twice in a week.

00;10;29;28 - 00;10;31;03
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;10;31;05 - 00;10;32;13
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;10;32;16 - 00;10;37;17
Speaker 1
So.

00;10;37;19 - 00;10;42;05
Speaker 1
It was terrible. It was it was horrible.

00;10;42;05 - 00;10;54;00
Speaker 1
like someone took some news they found on Facebook and just, like, spewed an article out in like 15 seconds just to try to, like, trade stuff, just to try to catch the time without any fact checking or realizing anything that they're saying.

00;10;54;00 - 00;10;59;00
Speaker 1
Like, what were you guys thoughts on, like how they represented you and like what the purpose was behind

00;10;59;15 - 00;11;20;14
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. Hold on. I got all right, I this this this bugged me. This bugged me that I so there there are first article. I just want to preface this. We, you know, we're not owed like, any recognition. I'm not owed an article. Nobody I don't deserve like, you know, a whole a whole suck piece on like, how good we are at climbing or whatever.

00;11;20;21 - 00;11;41;06
Speaker 1
But if you're going to write it, like, be a fair reporter and be objective in their their entire article about the triple from headline to the last sentence was about Honnold. Somehow it's literally the headline was Honnold Loses speed record, which he didn't have. So you were wrong from the headline. And then the entire article was about Honnold.

00;11;41;09 - 00;12;03;27
Speaker 1
And will he come back and take it? And this is how he did the triple when he did it. Whatever. I obviously you're throwing out Honnold name because you want the clicks. It's super lazy writing. It's it's just it's inaccurate. The whole thing was was just kind of like it just seemed gross. But we were we were just kind of laughing about it, like, okay, whatever.

00;12;04;00 - 00;12;16;01
Speaker 1
Then we did the quad and somehow they wrote an article yesterday about the quad that was all about Honnold. Again, no whole. Oh yeah, I'll send you a screenshot. It was it was actually unreal.

00;12;16;02 - 00;12;16;21
Speaker 2
It was never done.

00;12;16;21 - 00;12;36;24
Speaker 1
The quad in the whole thing was about Honnold is coming to the Valley. And will he try the quad and I was like, this is like the worst joke I've seen. And I ended up emailing, the editor, Brandon Pullen, who I like really looked up to as a climber before. And now I'm just I mean it.

00;12;36;26 - 00;12;54;13
Speaker 1
And I said this to him, I'm not just like gossiping. I'm not like I said this to him as well, but it's just so disappointing because, like, this is a cool opportunity for us and we should be celebrating. And instead we're running around like fact checking all these news sources that are erasing other people's accomplishments, like Brad and Jim, who had the record.

00;12;54;16 - 00;13;20;10
Speaker 1
And they're doing this really, really lazy reporting and just trying to get quick clicks. And, and in their whole article that they put out about the quad was inaccurate, too. And I'm like, guys, if nobody's reached out to us outside magazine and Climbing magazine has now and then alpinist did recently, but grip never did. They're just regurgitating these Instagram posts in this really lazy way that they just like you said, they want to get something out and just get the clicks and they don't give a shit if it's right or wrong.

00;13;20;13 - 00;13;42;03
Speaker 1
And I just have lost every ounce of respect for gripped I couldn't possibly have. They're the most like, it's just it's like this bad Reddit source of rumors and like lazy reporting and like, dude, Jesus. And when I emailed the guy who did it, Brandon, he was like, oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know how that how the Honnold thing slipped by and I sent him a screenshot.

00;13;42;03 - 00;13;45;20
Speaker 1
I said slipped by. It was your headline. It was the whole article.

00;13;45;25 - 00;13;47;17
Speaker 2
What are you talking about?

00;13;47;20 - 00;14;02;07
Speaker 1
And he was like, oh, well, I actually had a piece written about me a few years ago that was, like, inaccurate, like this. And it really, really was like kind of hurtful. And it felt like it took away from my accomplishment. And I was like, you've had this happen to you, and you're still doing it to other people.

00;14;02;11 - 00;14;08;27
Speaker 1
How the hell is that possible, man? Like be better. This is so lazy. So. And I have I soapbox.

00;14;08;27 - 00;14;28;07
Speaker 2
I thought the worst. Honestly, I thought the worst part about it was not only, you know, it's not necessarily what they're doing to us, but also the fact that they made it about the record, which we said we don't care about. And then they said that Honnold had the record, and Brad and Jim, Brad, who's not even around anymore, they're like racing.

00;14;28;07 - 00;14;30;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. What they accomplished.

00;14;30;05 - 00;14;48;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. And it it's a ten second message on Instagram. It aggravated me because the guy said he's like, why I didn't have your contact info. And I'm like, that's bullshit. Because we're talking we're talking on Instagram right now. And you linked to my Instagram post in your thing. You could have sent me a ten second message and just saying, hey, does this look right?

00;14;48;13 - 00;14;56;29
Speaker 1
And I said, oh yeah, actually no. Just you know, these these are inaccurate. Like, thanks for reaching out. Publish it. We're glad to share it. They didn't even take 10s to do that.

00;14;57;01 - 00;15;01;24
Speaker 3
So yeah.

00;15;01;26 - 00;15;04;00
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00;15;04;02 - 00;15;24;13
Speaker 1
No winner. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody's yeah I know nobody reached out and it's surprising because this is obviously the first time that we've ever, like had any sort of attention or media or whatever. And so this is all kind of a new scenario. And it's surprising because we keep getting sent articles from sports Illustrated and people that are like publishing stuff that we haven't talked to.

00;15;24;13 - 00;15;28;24
Speaker 1
Nobody's reached out to us like, people think I'm 34 for some reason, and I'm not.

00;15;28;24 - 00;15;37;28
Speaker 2
That's just the online journalism of the 2020s, where you see something that you think other people will be interested in, and you just get it onto your website as fast as possible with a headline that people will click.

00;15;37;28 - 00;16;00;29
Speaker 1
On, and then the person that gets it out first, everybody copies them. So are, explorers web, is a is a, media source that I really do look up to. They did a bunch of reporting on Vitale's White Sapphire ascent recently. They're a very reputable source, but they just regurgitated the gripped article, and I message the guy because I'm trying to clean these up.

00;16;00;29 - 00;16;20;27
Speaker 1
Because I don't want Brad and Gems, you know, speed record to get lost. And I just want to have accurate facts or don't report at all. I don't care if you don't report. I don't need an article about us. We don't need to be recognized for this. But if you're going to. Yeah, but I message him. And I was like, hey man, this is wrong from headline to the last period.

00;16;20;29 - 00;16;49;11
Speaker 1
And it's like really frustrating because we're we're trying to enjoy this moment and instead we're running around cleaning up all these like, lazy reportings. And he just straight up told me he's like, I apologize, I copied, you know, we reported based on gear Junky who reported based on grip, so to speak, cascade of inaccurate information. All all stemming from gripped just being like a clickbait, a clickbait, lazy, you know, news source now, so it's just kind of a bummer.

00;16;49;19 - 00;17;09;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. So they're like one of the main like reasons why you know I started this podcast was because I felt like the climbing media like didn't accurately represent, the larger group of climbers that exist. Hence you know, why this podcast is even here. And I think this is just an interesting example of that. Right. Like someone in the

00;17;19;08 - 00;17;20;08
Speaker 1
The minority.

00;17;20;11 - 00;17;25;15
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00;17;36;27 - 00;18;03;07
Speaker 2
Well, I don't really want to criticize anybody because, you know, even these guys in the climbing media, what are they doing? They're trying to run a business. I totally understand that. It's just comes down to capitalism at the end of the day. Right. They're trying to get clicks on their website. They're trying to make revenue. But even if you're running a business and you need to get your clicks, I think just the fact that they report things that are objectively, factually incorrect is really disappointing.

00;18;03;10 - 00;18;17;05
Speaker 2
But I mean, I I'm not going to that's just the way the internet works. I'm and I totally understand that and accept it. And I don't you know, I'm not going to run around and say that they're doing something wrong for doing the clickbait. I mean, it's I think it's draining.

00;18;17;06 - 00;18;18;12
Speaker 1
I think it's wrong. Yeah.

00;18;18;12 - 00;18;19;08
Speaker 2
I self.

00;18;19;10 - 00;18;22;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. But I mean, yeah.

00;18;22;10 - 00;18;24;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I, I don't.

00;18;24;09 - 00;18;26;27
Speaker 1
Like. Like philosophically. Like I don't know

00;18;27;10 - 00;18;29;17
Speaker 1
Know, I'm happy to admit.

00;18;37;18 - 00;18;57;15
Speaker 2
Exactly. At the end of the day that's what it is. But also in contrast to that, so many individuals that we've seen since then, or just people online that have reached out, have been so supportive and psyched and incredibly just, you know, full of stock. I mean, that is the most yeah.

00;18;57;16 - 00;18;57;29
Speaker 1
It's been a.

00;18;58;00 - 00;19;11;17
Speaker 2
Big thing. And to put all the media stuff aside, you know, that's just some people who have some websites that are trying to make money in, like I said, the 2020s internet economy and whatever, they do their thing. But

00;19;11;17 - 00;19;25;18
Speaker 2
what matters to me is the majority, the people that we're seeing here in the Valley that are like running up and giving us high fives and people we don't know on the internet that are like sending messages like, wow, that's so inspiring.

00;19;25;18 - 00;19;43;21
Speaker 2
That's so cool. You know, everybody that we climb by on the walls, we'll see later in camp for the cafeteria. And they're like, oh, man. Like, yeah, you know, you share those vibes and the rest of the day, like, you know, we were hauling the next pitch just thinking about how, like, much stoked you guys had. And that is just absolutely the most incredible thing.

00;19;43;21 - 00;20;09;09
Speaker 2
So honestly, whoever is out there on the internet trying to get their clicks, they can do their thing. And I don't care because I'm here with the people and with the climbing majority, and the people are stoked and we're stoked and we're climbing and the people are climbing. And, you know, the headlines are going to be about Honnold, and I just don't give a shit because that's not why I climb.

00;20;09;11 - 00;20;19;15
Speaker 2
You know, I climb because because I love I love it because it's, you know, the most incredible thing that I've ever found in my life. And yeah, I'm just going to keep doing it until I can't. Yeah.

00;20;19;29 - 00;20;36;25
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. Yesterday I was, I was, I did the cafeteria, for dinner and I just ran in and got some stuff to go, and I got a burger and chicken tenders. And when I went up to grab my order, the cook behind the counter gave me a box of fries. I'd never talked to the guy. I don't know who he is.

00;20;36;25 - 00;20;54;23
Speaker 1
I've never met in my life. So he gave me a box fries and he said, congrats on the code. And like that meant more to me than the Sports Illustrated article. And I was like, this is a guy that's like a working as a cook just to live in the valley. He's obviously like, looks like a climber, but he's living here because he, like, he's a lifer and he wants to be here, like doing this.

00;20;54;29 - 00;21;14;02
Speaker 1
And he recognized us. You know, I was I was just standing in the corner waiting for my food. And, he it was just like such a cool gesture. And I was like, that was so cool. Like, we've had so many people. I mean, just walking around the valley with people all the time now, you know, in the last 24 hours or whatever, just stop their car and be like, hey, congrats, guys.

00;21;14;02 - 00;21;24;19
Speaker 1
Like incredible work. And every one of those means way more than any of these articles, because these are the people that are here doing it. And it's it's just awesome to see. It's really cool.

00;21;24;19 - 00;21;41;27
Speaker 1
also. It's such an inspiration because you guys are not a part of the minority, right? Like, you represent what's possible for all of us. Because you are all of us, in a sense. You know, you have worked really fucking hard to get where you are, and you had the vision and you've thought differently than people, but in general, you are you

00;21;43;10 - 00;21;47;27
Speaker 3
And.

00;21;48;00 - 00;21;49;13
Speaker 2
Guys, absolutely.

00;21;51;05 - 00;21;59;10
Speaker 1
In terms of like your vision for this route, like, and why it, you know, obviously this is all alleged, but like why it hadn't been done before.

00;21;59;10 - 00;22;03;17
Speaker 1
what were where did the vision come from? Like, why did you guys think of this versus somebody else?

00;22;03;17 - 00;22;27;12
Speaker 2
Well, I think there are people, plenty of people who are pushing the sport, but just in other ways. And, you know, for example, Carlo Gervasi did the first v 16 in the Valley this year, which I can't even imagine what that means. It's basically like a blank face next to thriller and camp for I, I, you know, I, I'm never even going to imagine that I could even touch one of those holds.

00;22;27;12 - 00;22;52;13
Speaker 2
And I just let's hang on that much. Let's move off them. So there's people pushing the sport, but it just so happens that these huge days in Yosemite is the element and the aspect of the sport that inspires us the most. And this aspect maybe hasn't been pushed. You know, as far as the link ups go in a couple of decades, it's been 23 years since the triple was first done by Dean and Timmy.

00;22;52;15 - 00;23;22;01
Speaker 2
And, you know, since then people have broken El cap speed records, you know, Honnold free solo del Cap for the first time. But that was, what, seven years ago? You know, last year, Nick broke the speed record of the solo knows, you know, people are speed climbing. People are pushing the free climbing limit. But this is just like the one element of the sport that is like our niche that we're good at, and also that we love that we're passionate about.

00;23;22;04 - 00;23;26;21
Speaker 2
And we saw the opportunity to do something new.

00;23;26;24 - 00;23;30;00
Speaker 1
Pushed the sport for in like an inch. And I feel I can.

00;23;30;04 - 00;23;49;10
Speaker 2
A millimeter, whatever it is. And the other thing about this challenge is that, you know, the nose was first done by Harding. What, in months or years was it several years? You know, these siege style. And then and then Robbins and his partners came and did it in a single push, and then it was done in one day.

00;23;49;13 - 00;24;07;10
Speaker 2
And then Backer and Croft added Half Dome. And it's like this thing about seeing how much you can do in less time, how much you can do on a push, how much you can do in a day. And the goal for us was to see how much we could climb in the valley in one day in that 24 hour period.

00;24;07;12 - 00;24;26;19
Speaker 2
So I think we mentioned it earlier. So when we did the triple, we did it in 18 hours and we said, okay, we haven't answered the question. We haven't found out how much we can climb in one day. So for us just personally, we're going to go out and try to figure out what that is. Does that mean we can add another grade six?

00;24;26;19 - 00;24;49;16
Speaker 2
Does it mean we can add another grade five? What is an iconic wall in the valley that we can add. And we talked about a few different routes. We said, well, the column is this iconic wall. So many people come to Yosemite. And South Face of the Washington column is the first big wall that they climb. Every tourist that comes to Yosemite that's just, you know, get some pizza in Curry Village.

00;24;49;18 - 00;25;08;16
Speaker 2
They walk back to their car and you see Half Dome and you see the Washington Column. It's this beautiful, huge formation. If you just you know, take a tour around the valley, you're going to see it, you're going to recognize it. We thought, well, that is a beautiful, classic, iconic piece of rock to add to our big day, to add to our challenge.

00;25;08;18 - 00;25;35;07
Speaker 2
So and it's perfectly lined up. You know, we left El Cap we on the way to Half Dome. It's literally sitting there. You have to walk by. It's a half dome anyway. So we said, well why don't we just with that and you know, see what we're capable of. So.

00;25;35;10 - 00;25;38;02
Speaker 1
Yeah I think it's the. Yeah I think so.

00;25;38;02 - 00;25;38;15
Speaker 2
I think so.

00;25;38;16 - 00;26;01;01
Speaker 1
The only other one that would be. No. So, so no. So the column is a great five. So we originally we're going to try to do another grade six to have four grade sixes. I think that's like a nice clean option. But the, the the the the low hanging fruit for the grade six would be lost arrow spire

00;26;01;04 - 00;26;03;04
Speaker 2
Which is also iconic. You see it from here? Yeah.

00;26;03;09 - 00;26;37;21
Speaker 1
It's like it's the first Big Root ever climbed in, like in the world. Basically, it was the first big wall ever climbed in in history and definitely in the valley. And it would be this really legendary edition. But due to its location up on Upper Falls Wall, I, we just didn't we just didn't have the margin. We, I think before we down the road, if we, if we, you know, we've had people ask about like you had time for a fifth or whatever, I think before we even would consider going for a fifth, we would try to replace the column with the spire, but we would have to shave down a couple more hours,

00;26;37;23 - 00;26;49;21
Speaker 1
here and there, just because the approach and walk off for that, it's just going to be pretty demanding. And the actual climb itself is it's a big climb is six, eight, 16 or 18 pitches or something. And it's. Yeah. Yeah.

00;26;49;21 - 00;26;50;16
Speaker 2
It's

00;26;50;18 - 00;26;51;28
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So I if.

00;26;51;28 - 00;26;54;28
Speaker 2
Anybody out there out there wants a challenge and we just gave you our project to.

00;26;55;01 - 00;26;56;07
Speaker 1
Go get it.

00;26;56;09 - 00;26;58;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.

00;26;58;19 - 00;27;10;03
Speaker 1
kind of a joke? But did you guys ever consider or moving like, the sport forward in this kind of direction that you guys have kind of carved, your, your legend in, like, turning it from a climb

00;27;11;06 - 00;27;12;05
Speaker 1
We've got.

00;27;12;08 - 00;27;19;19
Speaker 2
We, Oh. Even time. Yeah. Every time we're walking up the death slabs. Yeah. And down them. Trust. Ryan talking about.

00;27;19;19 - 00;27;39;12
Speaker 1
It. Ryan. From how not to. We did that at the video interview yesterday and he when he got here, he legitimately asked if we base jumped because he was like, I don't know how it's I don't know how it's logistically possible for you to do that. Yeah. It's 38. Back to the car. I was it was crazy. But he was he was genuinely asking us like, did you guys do you guys jump?

00;27;39;13 - 00;28;04;11
Speaker 1
It's like, no, no we didn't. No. But yeah, I, I said this in that interview too. For us it's about the climbing and we want to see how much literal climbing we can do. All of these logistics are just hurdles and they're kind of inconveniences in the way of more climbing. So if sincerely, if I if it was legal to base jump off the top of El Cap and land at the base of Washington column, we would absolutely be doing that.

00;28;04;14 - 00;28;23;16
Speaker 1
I don't care about how much running down trails we can do or how much like, you know, it's all this stuff that gets in the way of climbing. I want to see how much. Just a climbing. We can do in a day. And if there was ten different El caps right next to each other with a with a zipline that went down to the base of each one, that's a perfect scenario.

00;28;23;16 - 00;28;40;01
Speaker 1
And we just literally climb for 24 hours until we physically cannot pull ourselves up another pitch. That's what I want to see. So and this is the best place to do it, because these are the closest walls. I mean, where else in the world do you get this many walls in this close proximity? And you can just pick and choose like, you know, let's do that one and then we'll do this one.

00;28;40;03 - 00;28;45;06
Speaker 1
Oh, shit, I'm getting all excited. All right, dude.

00;28;45;09 - 00;28;49;01
Speaker 2
That's all. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice.

00;28;49;04 - 00;29;07;25
Speaker 1
Let's, Yeah. So that's the, that's I don't know, it's all like these hurdles of we just, we want to do more climbing. So it's, we're we're trying to get the best ratio of climbing, the hiking that we can come up with. And I think what we did is, is about as clean as you could possibly get in the Valley.

00;29;07;27 - 00;29;12;13
Speaker 1
It's pretty ergonomically set up the, the way that, the way the link up goes.

00;29;12;13 - 00;29;37;11
Speaker 2
And something else is that when you're doing the speed climb, you have this coffee. You. I'm sorry, when you're doing these climbs, like maximizing and optimizing, how fast you get up the wall is basically but the whole name of the game. But and we're pretty good at that, like figuring out the logistics, but also the part in between of doing the link up is adds more logistical, a logistical chess game to figure out.

00;29;37;13 - 00;29;53;20
Speaker 2
And I think that's part of the fun, like we've spent. Yeah, well, we've been in the Valley for three weeks now this season, and we've only climbed, what, five days maybe. And in between. So that means we had, what, all the rest of the, you know, 15 days of not climbing. And they've.

00;29;53;20 - 00;29;54;01
Speaker 1
All been we.

00;29;54;01 - 00;30;17;11
Speaker 2
Spent all those days sitting down talking about it. We can do this. We can do that. We can move this over here. We can run down here. We can have our gear here. And that whole game is this whole fun, strategic, process that we're good at and we enjoy. Yeah. So, I mean.

00;30;17;14 - 00;30;19;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's it's fun.

00;30;19;29 - 00;30;25;04
Speaker 2
Well, well, those are people that come to the valley and climb one wall and then realize that they really like sport climbing.

00;30;25;06 - 00;30;25;26
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;30;25;28 - 00;30;34;27
Speaker 2
So, like, if you keep coming cemetery and climbing out app and doing walls that you probably enjoy to some degree, that whole, like I said, logistical testing.

00;30;34;29 - 00;31;02;16
Speaker 1
We also had we had this like really, really incredibly just awesome support crew of 10 or 12 people that, we're we're just committed to helping us get this done. And we wouldn't even have been able to try without without everybody. I'll send you. I'll send you a picture of this. I, we we sat down before the triple in the quad and we wrote out like an itinerary down to the minute on like every single actionable item for the 24 hour period.

00;31;02;19 - 00;31;20;09
Speaker 1
And we, we put everybody in a group chat and sent it out. And I think the coolest, one of the coolest parts of the whole quad was we were almost to the exact minute on our entire schedule from starting to finishing the last one. And I was just I mean, I was like, we're going to top out our cap at 3:00 and we topped out at like 255.

00;31;20;09 - 00;31;40;04
Speaker 1
And then I said, we'll be at the van at 345. And we were there at 343, and I said, we're going to finish at 2:00. We finished at 150. And like we were almost to the metadata was so cool. But it was this really logistically challenging, chess game where we had to move all these people around in this ways that we are still getting.

00;31;40;09 - 00;31;55;18
Speaker 1
We're still climbing all the walls. We're not using any fixed lines. We didn't. We didn't, you know, we didn't, I don't know, cheat in any way, if that's even. I don't even know if that's the thing. But we did use people like Noah Fox met us on top of El Cap at 3:00 in the morning. Two Saturdays in a row with a boombox.

00;31;55;18 - 00;32;10;22
Speaker 1
Food, water. He had this crazy amount of energy. He helped us carry our rope rope in rack so we could sprint down the slabs and then go right back up the death slabs and it's like without all these people that were so invested in helping us, we wouldn't have been able to do this. It just wouldn't have been, wouldn't have been possible.

00;32;10;24 - 00;32;30;09
Speaker 2
So and that's all like, I think part of the fun really is, you know, being able to work with friends, you have people who are, you know, motivated and inspired and psyched to help us and coordinate all of that. And the whole organization and build up to the thing is just as key as the day itself.

00;32;30;12 - 00;32;48;08
Speaker 1
It was the symphony. It was a beautiful symphony that came together on like the day, and it was just so fucking cool, all of our friends. And like, it was like everybody was just amped for, like, the Super Bowl. And then when we started off, everybody, like, they knew their role and they they did exactly what they had to do.

00;32;48;08 - 00;33;07;23
Speaker 1
And it was so freaking cool. Because how often do you get to plan something like that where you get all these people involved and they're all like, really committed to succeeding and doing it for that. And I feel selfish that we were the ones that got to do the climbing like everybody was, was equally important in this success.

00;33;07;26 - 00;33;19;12
Speaker 1
We are the ones that get the name in the, you know, the headlines or whatever. But like, everybody had a huge role in this. We just happened to be the ones that got to do the climbing, but other people were involved just as, as heavily.

00;33;19;12 - 00;33;51;08
Speaker 2
So like we nailed it on the 88in of climbing, but on the whole 22 hour plus before and after thing, it was a whole team. And it was the whole plan, the whole logistical preparation. I mean, it wasn't just the 88 pitches that that, yes, went well, but honestly, I mean, a just as proud if not more proud of the entire process from last week till today where, you know, we had to set everything up and everybody came together.

00;33;51;08 - 00;34;11;11
Speaker 2
I mean, that's that's the most inspiring part to me. Because, yeah, if you climb one pitch, well, you can immediate pitch as well. But if you can, you know, set up this really complicated, goal and just everything flows perfectly. Like Tanner said to the minute, exactly the way we planned. I mean, that was just totally satisfying.

00;34;11;14 - 00;34;18;01
Speaker 2
Yeah, I.

00;34;18;03 - 00;34;19;22
Speaker 2
Exactly. Know. But knowing, like, you.

00;34;19;22 - 00;34;25;29
Speaker 1
Know, when we actually.

00;34;26;01 - 00;34;46;15
Speaker 2
Just getting. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, pulling up the last pitch of El Cap, like, I just remember above, there was like, okay, we were whatever. Halfway through the night, it's 3:00 in the morning. Definitely feeling a little bit tired. Like, like I leave the upper part of the nose and I was definitely feeling it a bit, but then all of a sudden, like, I'm walking towards the tree, kind of stumbling and I hear, and, that's my boy.

00;34;46;18 - 00;34;49;02
Speaker 2
Come on up here, I hear it, I hear it playing. Yeah.

00;34;49;05 - 00;34;49;23
Speaker 1
You hear God.

00;34;49;23 - 00;35;06;17
Speaker 2
And you know, I take my hands off my knees or I'm like, dredging up the slab and I start to rot and I'm like, yeah, man, I yeah, you know, let's fix then. Yeah. A lot of gunny starts and enemies some stacks and. Oh man. And that was just I mean, he was he was just huge. Like, I cannot say enough what Noah did these weekends.

00;35;06;18 - 00;35;15;28
Speaker 1
The physical support was was was really helpful. My like we got we had some friends help us carry water up the death slabs and Noah helped us carry the and rope and rack.

00;35;15;28 - 00;35;22;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's Hannah's brother. Flume from Denver just to hang out with us. Yeah, just basically he flew and we were like, out in the middle of the night climbing.

00;35;22;21 - 00;35;23;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, he got it after.

00;35;23;29 - 00;35;29;28
Speaker 2
Where do you hours up the up the death slabs with us. And basically that was the only time I really saw him. Right. And then he flew home.

00;35;29;28 - 00;35;56;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. He, he flew from Colorado. So, so the physical side of help was, was big. I think that was the only two times you got physical help was carrying the carrying the rope and rack down from El Cap and then water up the death slabs. But it was the having having a fresh person there, even if they're not doing anything physically, was so incredible, crucial to the success because we are like, we're trying not to get too zoomed out on this enormous day.

00;35;57;02 - 00;36;15;26
Speaker 1
And then when we get up there on El Cap and we just did two walls, we have two more to go and it's three inches the morning and retired. But Noah is like fresh and he has all this energy and it's just infectious. So yeah. And you like it. It just brings you it brings you back to reality or maybe takes maybe it takes you away from reality.

00;36;15;26 - 00;36;34;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm like out of it. But yeah, my brother flew out here from Denver, literally was in the Valley for like 20 hours. He flew out just to hike up the desktops with us and meet us on the summit at Half Dome. And we were kind of dreading the death slabs because we knew it was going to be after three walls.

00;36;34;10 - 00;36;51;19
Speaker 1
And then, you're like, you know, it's kind of a question mark. Like, how are we going to feel after three? And this is this big approach. And then we saying, well, the first like like, yeah, the first half of El Cap or Half Dome. So it's like it's it's really physical back to back thing. And my brother met us at Mirror Lake at 8:00.

00;36;51;22 - 00;37;08;23
Speaker 1
And we hiked up together and I literally forgot that we were like doing a link up. I like I was just so stoked to see him. And we were catching up and telling jokes and just talking shit and hiking. And then next thing I know, we were at the base of the route and like just having a fresh body there, much less my own brother was.

00;37;08;23 - 00;37;26;19
Speaker 1
So I mean, if it was just Mike and I doing that, it would have been pretty grim. It would have. I think we wouldn't have been talking. We would have been just like really deep in the pain cave. But everybody that volunteered to just join us and just be a fresh presence, was invaluable. It was incredible.

00;37;26;21 - 00;37;44;09
Speaker 2
Because that's the thing, when you're on the wall, when you're doing the climb, you're like, oh, this is great. I'm climbing this beautiful wall and it's takes all of your attention. But then once you're just trudging up a steep trail, you know, you're not you're not really focused. It's not like when you're climbing and, you know, on some beautiful classic route, you're kind of just.

00;37;44;09 - 00;38;19;10
Speaker 2
Yeah, actually recognizing that you're in the pain cave. So yeah, when there's someone just making casual conversation, it's crazy how quickly your mind just fixes everything in your body. Yeah. And because it's such a mental, psychological game to accomplish a day like this, that if you just have any help just snapping your mind out of it and just having a normal conversation, like, you know, like you're just going on a hike with your friend instead of your 16 hours into you know, and 70in then.

00;38;19;13 - 00;38;20;20
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;38;20;22 - 00;38;21;17
Speaker 2
Exactly.

00;38;21;25 - 00;38;24;07
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we don't.

00;38;24;07 - 00;38;33;09
Speaker 2
We walk to the Washington column, just the two of us. That was one of the hikes we did alone. And that hike that was, that was like definitely the worst hike. We're hiking uphill. We had just the two of.

00;38;33;09 - 00;38;35;28
Speaker 1
Us pretty heavy bags and stuff and kind of a slog.

00;38;35;28 - 00;38;37;10
Speaker 2
Never like Racks and Road.

00;38;37;10 - 00;38;38;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, we were talking.

00;38;38;26 - 00;38;54;29
Speaker 2
The thing was that we were actually being that was like the one time where we were a little negative. Yeah. Oh yeah. We were like, oh man, I don't know about this. Like, yeah, we were 100% confident. Like the whole way from before until after, except for those like 20 minutes where we're just doing this, like what, half mile uphill walk, you know?

00;38;55;06 - 00;39;08;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, just the two of us. And then as soon as we're on the wall, we flick out the rope, we start climbing and it's back to normal. Okay, we're rock climbing. We know how to do this. We are confident. And then we came down from the column and we were back with friends for the next hike uphill.

00;39;08;29 - 00;39;16;05
Speaker 2
And I mean, that is just huge. Either climbing or when you're walking, you know, having a friend with you. So.

00;39;16;08 - 00;39;34;05
Speaker 1
Yeah, we even we even like passing parties and stuff on the walk because just literally just seeing another human that's not in doing the thing you're doing is like, it's enough to just momentarily distract you, just being able to see somebody, oh, where are you from? Bask oh very cool. I would love to visit it one day. How are you, like in Yosemite?

00;39;34;05 - 00;39;44;25
Speaker 1
Like the little five minute chat as we climb through is like, it's just a good reset on the, you know, the slow spiral down that just inevitably happens throughout the day.

00;39;44;27 - 00;39;47;04
Speaker 2
So with with.

00;39;47;04 - 00;40;02;01
Speaker 1
how much of a critical part that was to your guys's success. Like, you know, it sounds like if you. I mean, just the support alone by, like, you know, Hannah driving you guys around and someone being at the top of El Cap, just the the psych support that you guys needed to, you know, achieve

00;40;02;28 - 00;40;03;23
Speaker 1
Huge. Yeah.

00;40;03;24 - 00;40;22;07
Speaker 2
Which definitely makes me appreciate even more people who have, like, done huge solo records. Yeah. Not like alpine solo climbs like Lily Stack or Colin Haley or these guys like, like, wow. That's. Yeah. I'm just seeing how much how much the psychological help of our support, even when we had each other added, like, wow, those guys are on another level.

00;40;22;14 - 00;40;23;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, I was, I was I was about to

00;40;23;29 - 00;40;45;10
Speaker 1
say I think most of my, like mentally most challenging days I've ever had are solo days. And in the alpine where I have these like big objectives by myself. And it's just you have to be so deliberate about, like putting that doubt into this box in your head and just burying it as deep as you can, because as soon as it cedes, you're fucked.

00;40;45;10 - 00;41;07;22
Speaker 1
And it's just, you know, as soon as it routes, you're done. And this is kind of like a solo day, because Mike and I don't. We're never together. We short fix or simul every single pitch on all four walls. We're not together to talk. We meet up generally one time on an entire wall for, you know, four minutes to change shoes.

00;41;07;22 - 00;41;24;18
Speaker 1
And then it's like, all right, I'll see you on the summit. So the only time I. The rest time you're alone and you're in your head and you're thinking like, man, it's 2:00 in the morning. Sun's not coming up for another five hours. It's called. We're 50 pitches in. We have another 40 to go. Like, you kind of start to get in this rabbit hole of doubt.

00;41;24;20 - 00;41;41;16
Speaker 1
Which which kind of got me on the, on the triple last, last weekend was I kind of got into a bit of a grim spot mentally for a bit. But it's yeah, it just goes to show that like, just a just like an ounce of positivity and energy and stoke from like a third party. It's night and day different.

00;41;41;16 - 00;41;48;19
Speaker 1
It resets the clock immediately and you're good for another, you know, hour or two hours until you inevitably start to spiral again.

00;41;48;22 - 00;42;04;00
Speaker 2
So yeah. Or like another story, another story from the quad that kind of shows the importance of the psychological thing is, you know, we like to play music in our just in our iPhone or our pocket when we're climbing. And on my block on the nose, you know, it's like 2:00 am and I'm playing music out of my back pocket.

00;42;04;06 - 00;42;22;11
Speaker 2
And I got up to camp six, and there's a bunch of people living there and they're poor ledges. And I was like, okay, like we're already being obnoxious enough, like climbing through them with our headlamps, and I tag deer like behind this guy's G7 pod while he was, like, trying to sleep. But I'm like, okay, I'm going to turn my music down just to be a little polite instead of, like, blasting techno music into.

00;42;22;11 - 00;42;36;03
Speaker 2
And so I turn my music down, I get up to the top of that pitch, and I was in the zone just climbing, and I forgot. I had forgotten that I turned the music off, and a few pitches later I'm like, I'm in so much pain. This sucks so much, you know? I was like, I turn the music off.

00;42;36;03 - 00;42;54;08
Speaker 2
That's why, you know? And then I turned it back up and I was just back to flow state, like, okay, just distracted. Just listen to some tunes climbing up these cracks. Oh, this is great. So just having something, you know, having a friend walk through is huge, but even just having some music playing, like, yeah, totally changes the game, which is just so impressive.

00;42;54;08 - 00;42;59;21
Speaker 2
It's such a take away from the whole thing. How much everything in your body and the feeling physically.

00;42;59;21 - 00;43;01;00
Speaker 1
Mentally absolutely.

00;43;01;00 - 00;43;05;27
Speaker 2
Affected by your mental state and your mindset and I.

00;43;05;27 - 00;43;13;27
Speaker 1
was your partnership together for this ascent or could you guys see, you know, like with the same kind of preparation, doing it with another partner.

00;43;16;11 - 00;43;19;03
Speaker 1
If you've been enjoying the climbing majority, please rate.

00;43;19;03 - 00;43;22;16
Speaker 2
And review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00;43;24;20 - 00;43;43;15
Speaker 2
The same kind of preparation as in, like climbing? Yeah. There for years. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Maybe I think I've maybe not that many people like to enter, but there's maybe a few out there. And. Yeah, if I spent three years climbing with then maybe it's possible, but, could I just go find someone else and, you know, look at meadow and go do this next week?

00;43;43;16 - 00;43;46;07
Speaker 2
Absolutely not. Yeah. No way.

00;43;46;07 - 00;43;53;00
Speaker 1
So so was it just the fact that you guys had been climbing for three years together, or is there something else about the partnership that really made this kind of something, you know,

00;43;53;24 - 00;44;13;04
Speaker 2
I think there's some luck that we're both, like, just for some reason, really good at this specific thing. Yeah. Physically. Mentally. Like, neither of us have been climbing that long, but we both have, like, other athletic backgrounds, like an endurance and that we can bring into this. And we've been climbing long enough that we're, you know, we can climb five, ten cracks really well.

00;44;13;06 - 00;44;36;25
Speaker 2
And, the combination of just like, happy to have that. We both happen to have those like, athletic traits. And then we've built this partnership and we're also both really good at this type of like, bold, like endurance climbing. Like I can climb a 510 pitch and clip two pieces or something, you know, that's like, you know, unfortunately a big part of moving fast on these walls.

00;44;36;28 - 00;44;45;09
Speaker 2
It's just the luck that we're like, individually have the right skills and that we've built our partnership over the years.

00;44;45;11 - 00;45;09;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I think our partnership I've talked about as Graham is the only reason that we even I could attempt this. We have we're both, We have. Good. I like Phil, we were talking about myself like this because I don't want it to be like I'm bragging or boasting because I'm not. But I think we're both very fit for this kind of for the specific kind of climbing right now.

00;45;09;07 - 00;45;37;06
Speaker 1
We both I think this is really important. We both have very similar risk tolerance, which is absolutely necessary for you both to be on the same page with the tactics that we're using. We're both, I think, really good at bold climbing where we're confident. So we're happy to do these, you know, we're happy to make a double rack last 11 pitches if we need to, because we were confident climbing these pitches.

00;45;37;09 - 00;45;56;25
Speaker 1
And I think we're both just really intentional about staying positive and stoked. And we were, I think we knew each other well enough. Like when Mike was. You had the wheels kind of falling off on El Cap. It was obvious. It was obvious when it was happening. So as a partner, I started ramping up like my own.

00;45;56;25 - 00;46;18;02
Speaker 1
You know, I was giving him on belay whatever energy I could. Hey, turn your music back on. We got this. This is our chance. This is going to be history. Like, you know, doing my best to like, recognize that and try to bring him back to back to the center as much as I can as well. But we're both just like, we love climbing so much, and it just seems like such an obvious.

00;46;18;04 - 00;46;40;21
Speaker 1
I mean, I don't know, I never would have thought that we would have been able to try this so soon. This. We floated this idea for like, five years down the road. Like one day the quad should be possible in theory, based on times and whatever. But just due to our partnership, we're both. I read you that quote at the at the end of our last one that Mike posted about us having the the audacity to just try.

00;46;40;23 - 00;47;00;02
Speaker 1
And we're both really similar in that we're so happy to go set some like, heinous goal that seems laughable and just go try and like if we we said with the quad, if we didn't get it in under 24 hours, that was fine. We're totally okay with that. As long as we did the four walls in a push, because that would be the first like four in a push or whatever.

00;47;00;09 - 00;47;28;14
Speaker 1
So we were we were totally cool with that and we just wanted to go. We knew we could do it. We wanted to really engaging and fully all consuming de that and we got it. But it, it was only a result of the years of work that we've put in to, to do this kind of climbing together and understand that, like, you know, I have chores to do on belay so I can pay out like ten armfuls of slack while Mike's climbing and Mike's not going to look down and be like, what the hell, dude?

00;47;28;14 - 00;47;56;10
Speaker 1
You know, he knows that that's happening. I know that's happening when he's belaying me, but I also know that he's going to catch me. And I know if there's a ledge below, he's not going to let me hit the ledge. Or, you know, it's just this really implicit trust that we have just from years and years and probably thousands of pictures of climbing now together, that we're just, yeah, we're both after the same experience, and we can only get that experience with each other because you can't do this stuff by yourself.

00;47;56;12 - 00;47;58;08
Speaker 1
It's just, I just I love it.

00;47;58;08 - 00;48;01;08
Speaker 2
Most people can't. There's one person who can, but.

00;48;01;10 - 00;48;06;00
Speaker 1
It's it's awesome. I it's great. I think the partnership's the only reason that this, this got done.

00;48;06;02 - 00;48;30;28
Speaker 2
And honestly, that's one of the most rewarding things about this whole endeavor. Because how many times in your adult life or your entire life do you have the opportunity to build a partnership with another person where you can spend weeks in years setting a goal, planning a mission, sitting around, working out the logistics, executing, flowing like a freaking, you know, expert team?

00;48;31;00 - 00;48;50;14
Speaker 2
I mean, maybe if you're on an NBA team or something, you have that feeling of just perfectly executing or professional tennis. That was, I don't know, like maybe there's some people out there who do that, but it's like, I think absolutely an unusual experience and, priceless experience to be able to function at that level of teamwork.

00;48;50;17 - 00;48;52;03
Speaker 1
Like it's it's so addictive.

00;48;52;03 - 00;48;53;28
Speaker 2
It's absolutely crazy.

00;48;54;00 - 00;49;27;06
Speaker 1
Being a part of the like a truly high functioning, high performing team like that is just an unreal feeling. It's like it just feels so good and and, you know, planning it as good. But like during the quad when we kept hitting our splits just how we wanted and we were just like, every time we're high fiving and hugging and like, we're doing this, we're doing this, and you get to share that, you know, I'm going to introduce Mike to my kids in 20 years and be like, this is the guy that we did this with the origin stories about, like how you know, this on this wall and this on that, and this happened.

00;49;27;06 - 00;49;39;11
Speaker 1
And like, I it's just so special. I can't imagine I can't imagine replicating this feeling or this scenario outside of climbing in almost any in almost any way. It's I, it just seems like it would be really, really challenging.

00;49;39;11 - 00;49;51;15
Speaker 2
It's like almost telepathic thing, like I see something that needs to be getting done. And it's like as soon as my mind is realizing that needs to happen, I realized that Tanya's already doing it. You know, it's like absolutely insane.

00;49;51;15 - 00;50;11;05
Speaker 1
But that just comes from like years of of climbing and, of climbing together specifically. So, we both have similar, like, pet peeves on, on walls where, like, we both really hate when people aren't doing something. You should always be working, always, like 100% of the time. And we're both very similar in that. So we're both always looking for work to do.

00;50;11;10 - 00;50;26;19
Speaker 1
So you end up pulling like every second of slack out of this whole system, because we're just looking for stuff to do all the time. So it's it just is,

00;50;26;21 - 00;50;33;10
Speaker 1
I didn't see it. I listened to it a while ago. Yeah.

00;50;33;12 - 00;50;36;07
Speaker 1
Yeah, I told yeah, yeah, yeah,

00;50;36;07 - 00;50;40;15
Speaker 1
the same mentality. Like you just like he gets so pissed off of, like, people standing there's like, what the fuck are

00;50;41;10 - 00;50;49;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that's the, I think that's the cool thing. Mike. Mike, Mike should have gone into the teams. Yeah, yeah, he's he's got the good traits.

00;50;50;03 - 00;51;16;15
Speaker 1
So I want to push back a little bit on this achievement to try to pull some more meaning out of it. So I think speed climbing in general has had this kind of like the climbing community sometimes debates the value that it brings to the to the sport and to the community. Right. Because like, you know, when you're pushing grades, you're pushing the, you know, the capability of the human potential in terms of the difficulty of rock that you can cover with your with your body speed climbing.

00;51;16;15 - 00;51;39;26
Speaker 1
It's like, I think there's there's this air of like, well, what are we really gaining out of this? It's like, you know, it's more just like accepting a lot of risk and not really protecting ourselves anymore. And like, so, you know, push back on that. Like, where do you see the value of your achievement and this style of climbing of, like, endurance, speed climbing, like, how does this benefit the sport of climbing in your eyes?

00;51;42;07 - 00;52;07;06
Speaker 2
Oh. That's good. Yeah, that's a good question. I guess that I think a lot of it is what we've been talking about. Like, in order to function well in this genre of climbing, you have to build that team, and you have to build a certain level of trust that you're not going to find, you know, projecting whatever the next nine B is or whatever.

00;52;07;08 - 00;52;24;10
Speaker 2
I feel like if someone wants to send their nine B project or their V 17 or whatever, you just find someone else who knows how to use it, Gregory or can spot and you can go out and do your thing. But in order to accomplish something like what we did this weekend, you have to build that team.

00;52;24;17 - 00;52;55;20
Speaker 2
You have to understand yourself. You have to understand your partner. You have to understand the rock. And it's just this much more encompassing and deeply, demanding endeavor. And I think executing, you know, a cutting edge difficulty climb also requires digging deep, you know, in, but in a whole different way, like doing whatever the v, whatever crux is on your project when you're already, like, more pumped than you can imagine, you have to dig deep.

00;52;55;23 - 00;53;21;18
Speaker 2
But it's like in that moment and you either stick the move or you you fall off. And I mean, I love climbing hard and I love pushing my limit difficulty wise. But it's a very different level of satisfaction. And it's, it's I think what we're doing here is more of what people experience alpine climbing, where it's also very dangerous, you know, and I, you know, many alpine scenarios are way more dangerous than what we're doing here.

00;53;21;18 - 00;53;45;13
Speaker 2
Okay. We're running it out on five, nine, five, ten. But there's, you know, we're never walking under a serac or, you know, so I, you know, so here we get the, accomplishment and the satisfaction of pushing ourselves in that way and pushing our team in that way. But I think it's actually safer to run out 510 cracks on El Cap than it is to go to the Himalaya.

00;53;45;15 - 00;54;06;19
Speaker 2
And I don't see that type of criticism about Himalayan climbing, you know. Yeah, but but yet people are like, oh, you know, why are you bothering trying to climb El Cap as fast as you can when you could be out hanging dogging on this, you know, limestone cave. But they're not criticizing people who are walking, you know, across the glacier under a serac.

00;54;06;19 - 00;54;07;00
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;54;07;00 - 00;54;20;18
Speaker 2
Which is way more objectively hazardous. But for for me, I don't know, just less fun. Like, I would much rather run up 88 pitches of cracks in Yosemite than, you know, walk up a steep glacier with an oxygen tank.

00;54;20;18 - 00;54;24;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'll walk that.

00;54;24;26 - 00;54;50;12
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll add to that kind of the same side. You could say the same thing about aid climbing like A45, where the whole scale is literally oriented around how likely you are to die. And it doesn't it's not like that doesn't get criticism the same way, but it's the same. It's like, why? Why do you need to go up and like, hang on hooks for 80ft and risk blowing every piece of gear and shattering your spine?

00;54;50;15 - 00;55;13;07
Speaker 1
You know, it's not for anything. I think the term speed climbing is or is weird to me because we're just we're just climbing. We're just wall climbing, but we're doing it efficiently and and moving quickly. But we're doing, you know, speed climbing is no different than you saying, I'm going to do the nose or I'm going to do Half Dome or whatever, just but speed climbing gets this negative connotation.

00;55;13;07 - 00;55;36;08
Speaker 1
We're doing the same thing. Everybody else on El Cap and Half Dome are doing. We're just doing it quicker and more efficiently. So it's not like, yes, we're running it out, but we'd probably be running it out anyway because we're, you know, even if we weren't speed climbing, we'd still be climbing. Like relatively similarly. We would just be, you know, placing maybe two extra cams or whatever, because we're going to get them back at the top of the pitch.

00;55;36;08 - 00;55;54;24
Speaker 1
So, I when I think of, I mean, you ask what, what good it does for, I guess the sport, I, I don't know if it does any good for the grand sport. I don't know if any of this means anything ever to anybody, but it's the act of just setting a goal and and working towards something and achieving it, I think, is really valuable.

00;55;54;28 - 00;56;11;29
Speaker 1
Like we talked about last time, the manufactured adversity, like picking something hard and then working toward that for no other reason than like you're passionate about it and you want to do that, and it gives you an opportunity to have this purpose around something that, you know, it might not mean anything to anybody else in the entire world.

00;56;12;02 - 00;56;42;28
Speaker 1
And it's the stupidest thing ever, and nobody gives a shit. But it was important to us, and we work toward it. And we we grew together as partners and friends and climbers, and we accomplish this. And and, you know, that's, that's really valuable for us, and hopefully for other people, too, because I think because of the experience we had, it was such an incredibly positive and significant, impactful 24 hour period that I hope somebody goes out and does it again and has the same experience, because I feel like it taught us a lot about ourselves.

00;56;43;00 - 00;56;58;29
Speaker 1
You know what? What is the inner inner voice in your head? Start doing what things are getting really hard 19 hours in and like you, you I mean, you learn a little bit about yourself every single time. But, yeah, I don't know. I think it would just you I would ask like, what is any of this for?

00;56;58;29 - 00;57;11;12
Speaker 1
What is any a climbing for? It's all, it's all arbitrary and made up. It's just for the experience of working hard towards something that you care about. So.

00;57;11;14 - 00;57;16;03
Speaker 1
No. Yeah. No, it's a good question. Yeah.

00;57;16;03 - 00;57;32;25
Speaker 1
hyper focusing on the risk aspect of the criticism, I think that, I want to pose this question again with more of, like a, juxtaposition of, like, going out and establishing first descents versus establishing, like, big link ups, like, how do you do you do you see them like, related at all?

00;57;32;25 - 00;57;49;02
Speaker 1
Like, I could see the argument of like, oh, first descents, you're giving back to the climbing community because you're, you know, increasing the amount of climbs that people can do. And you're, you're, you're expressing your, your art on the wall because you're creating a path and a vision that no one's seen before. So do you see parallels and kind of the

00;57;52;03 - 00;58;12;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. It's like, you know, it's not. We're not establishing a new a new line, but you're just showing that it's possible. So it's like the, you know what the. I'm probably going to butcher this, but I think something like the two hour marathon was thought to be like 100 or. No, it it's a four minute mile. It was a four minute mile was like 100% possible.

00;58;12;08 - 00;58;32;06
Speaker 1
This will never get done. It's physically impossible. And then as soon as it got done, it got done like a shit ton of times because you just showed it was possible. So I think we're not establishing a new route or a new line or something. But we are. We're opening this door in a psychological way for the community that people just see that, oh, this is possible.

00;58;32;08 - 00;58;48;07
Speaker 1
And hopefully people that are stoked on these big days, capitalize on that opportunity to, to repeat this and have the same experience. So we're not it's not creative in the way that we looked up at a blank wall and saw like, you know, these edges that connect and we we put it up and somebody can have that.

00;58;48;07 - 00;58;58;12
Speaker 1
But it is similar because we're establishing that it's just we we brought it from fantasy to reality, you know. So whatever that's worth in terms of creating, it.

00;58;58;12 - 00;59;16;10
Speaker 2
Feels very creative when we're sitting down and discussing the whole plan, though, it's like we and and even if someone's repeating a link of if someone's doing, you know, the El Cap Half Dome link up for the first time, we're just they're need for the first time, you have to sit down with your partner and find exactly how you're going to execute this extremely complicated thing.

00;59;16;10 - 00;59;36;25
Speaker 2
You know, doing a ten pitch big wall in a push for your first time, or even just a multi pitch if it's your first time up, whatever it is. Is is complicated and you have to work out all the logistics. So the bigger the day gets, you know, up to four big walls and 88 pitches, you have to create your entire strategy.

00;59;36;25 - 00;59;52;11
Speaker 2
And that strategic process is, creatively satisfying. And I don't think that it's any less meaningful then. I don't know yet. Like you said, seeing a new line. So, yeah.

00;59;52;11 - 01;00;09;21
Speaker 1
I just wanted to. I wanted to hear your guys's reflections on that. I think that to, to, like, wrap up the the reflection thing. I want to ask each of you, like, personally. And I guess I'll start with Tanner. We'll go to mic. Like, what does this achievement mean personally to you? And, like, how has it shaped your view of yourself as a climber and how you are going to

01;00;12;10 - 01;00;33;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't think the that again, that's like, I feel weird talking about myself like this because I don't I Mike and I both really consistently degrade our accomplishments like instantly. And we were trying not to do that here, but, I don't think that I don't think the gravity of it is really set in. I don't know if there is gravity.

01;00;33;23 - 01;00;57;03
Speaker 1
Maybe it hasn't set in because there's not gravity. It seems like a it seems like an impactful event. It seems big. And if somebody else did it, I think I would be, like, probably freaking out about how insane that is. But for some reason, like Mike said, I don't know us doing it. One year after our first Nyad that logically tells me, well, it must not be that hard.

01;00;57;03 - 01;01;18;01
Speaker 1
Some people just have. They must have just wanted, not wanted to do it. That's why it hasn't been done. It must not be that big of a deal. But it was, Yeah, I, I don't know, I don't think like the, I don't think the whole scenario is really set in on, you know, I'm not we don't have I'm not like, randomly more sponsored today.

01;01;18;01 - 01;01;42;11
Speaker 1
I'm not making more money now. Like nothing's changing. We just did this goal. And, honestly, what changes moving forward is we can go back to free climbing more, which is what we're both really excited about. But besides that, I don't know. I just it's been really it's been really meaningful. I, I think I took away the biggest thing I took away from the quad was the community support.

01;01;42;13 - 01;02;11;27
Speaker 1
I, I cried on the top, a half dome, just a little bit for the first time in like 15 years. And it was because I was so overwhelmed by the show of support from that. I mean, we had 20, 25 people meet us on top and celebrate. I've never had in my entire life. I've never had a group of strangers like that mobilize together to support me for something that was so, well, I mean, of any kind, but especially something that's so meaningless and stupid.

01;02;11;29 - 01;02;29;17
Speaker 1
And we had this, like, this industrial effort of all these people, some of which I don't know well at all. But we'll now be friends for the rest of my life. And it was this. It was just an unbelievable experience to have that many people that, like, believed in us because they wouldn't have done it if they didn't think we were going to be successful.

01;02;29;21 - 01;02;49;00
Speaker 1
But they all came together and like being on top and seeing 25 of my friends up there, like clapping and cheering, and they were rudeness on and like, you know, they were like, this is history. You guys did it. And abuse got their cameras out and like, it was so overwhelmingly positive. I just I wish I could bottle that up and like just drink that every day for the rest of my life.

01;02;49;00 - 01;03;07;17
Speaker 1
It was such a cool experience. So I don't know. I think that was the biggest thing was that like, if you have enough people who believe in something, you can do basically anything. Anything is possible. If you have the right support and you have the right people that have the right mindset and stuff like that. So yeah.

01;03;07;19 - 01;03;34;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, no, I think that's kind of similar to some of my big takeaways because, basically what it comes down to is whenever you set a goal for yourself, that seems ridiculous. If you believe that you can do it, then it's possible. And and I guess if we find out that someone did this two years ago and never talked about it, then it doesn't take anything away from it.

01;03;34;19 - 01;04;00;18
Speaker 2
This has nothing to do with being the first to do this or being the fastest or, you know, anything like that. It just has to do with ourselves seeing something that we think is extremely difficult, but believe is possible and going to find out and testing it. I'm a scientist. You make a hypothesis, you design an experiment and you test it.

01;04;00;21 - 01;04;24;17
Speaker 2
And that's exactly what we did. It's like a science experiment to discover your own mettle, like what can you do? And the answer is probably it's going to be a surprise if most people actually go out and conduct that experiment. I think most people will be hugely surprised with what they're capable of if they really take the effort to find out.

01;04;24;19 - 01;04;45;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I think that is the huge takeaway, because if you had asked me a year ago, you know, after we did our first night or even better before, are you going to do four walls in 22 hours next October? Oh, I'd be like laughed. Yeah. I'd be like, yeah, I'd be stoked if we do the double next October.

01;04;45;06 - 01;04;45;28
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01;04;46;00 - 01;05;15;17
Speaker 2
But we just did it because we put in the effort to find out. And we did three and we weren't satisfied, and we did four. And I have to admit, we're already talking about going bigger. I mean, I definitely want to go sport climbing next. Yeah. But that is a certain mindset to discover what is inside of you that I think brings so much value and understanding to your life.

01;05;15;21 - 01;05;38;24
Speaker 2
And I mean, and if there's any other takeaway, it's just that doing something like this for yourself, like we wanted to discover what we're capable of, is also able to provide meaning to someone else out there. Just the fact that one person said they're inspired and that they're psyched in, they're stoked to see us doing this, that, you know, people talk about climbing is inherently selfish.

01;05;38;24 - 01;06;05;23
Speaker 2
And and that whole train of thought, the fact that, like, we went out just to find this for ourselves and we inspired that all of our friends that Tanner said supported us along the way in medicine top that were there, that this meant something to them and to strangers. And it's just mind blowing. So again, like like I, like I wrote a few weeks ago, just have the audacity to go for it.

01;06;05;26 - 01;06;06;14
Speaker 1
Let's try.

01;06;06;15 - 01;06;07;19
Speaker 2
Just try. Yeah.

01;06;07;20 - 01;06;24;10
Speaker 1
Who just who cares? Yeah. If you're not failing, it means you're not trying, you know. Yeah. That hard. Which again I just always want to follow up with. That's fine if that's your goal, if you're just out climbing because you just want to be outside and move and it's, strictly a hobby, that's 100% fine. There's nothing wrong with that.

01;06;24;12 - 01;06;27;01
Speaker 1
If you want to climb five six for the rest of your life, that is. Absolutely.

01;06;27;01 - 01;06;30;07
Speaker 2
That's fine. I'll give you a top rate bullet. That actually sounds really good.

01;06;30;09 - 01;06;50;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, but but, if your goal is to progress and and test, you know, what? What you're made of or what you've got, if you're not failing routinely or you're not really finding out, you're not, you're probably not even close to finding out if you're not a failing consistently. Yeah. Because your limit is going to be somewhere past all of those failures.

01;06;50;20 - 01;06;52;23
Speaker 1
So you need to keep pushing. I mean.

01;06;52;25 - 01;07;15;20
Speaker 2
Yeah, well Robin said fail falling like find the actual limit because on a sport climbing, oh lots of times you say take because you're so pumped, you just know you can't do the next move. But if you try the next move, more often than not you'll stick it and surprise yourself. But you don't know that you failed until you fall.

01;07;15;23 - 01;07;17;10
Speaker 2
So yeah.

01;07;17;15 - 01;07;19;15
Speaker 1
The. The only caveat I'll say to that.

01;07;19;15 - 01;07;25;17
Speaker 1
Especially since we have, like, a, you know, a large kind of audience of of, majority of climbers is,

01;07;25;17 - 01;07;26;20
Speaker 1
when you start getting

01;07;27;13 - 01;07;30;15
Speaker 1
Obviously. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. You know that better than most before.

01;07;30;15 - 01;07;32;18
Speaker 2
Yeah yeah yeah

01;07;32;18 - 01;07;53;09
Speaker 1
always say fail, fail when you have the opportunity to like when you can afford to fail, when you're in a position where you can take that 20ft fall safely, that's the time to do it. When you are in a position to fail on an alpine climb, where you can escape through a gully and you're not going to be benighted and die on the ridge overnight, that's your opportunity to take the governor off and try.

01;07;53;11 - 01;08;09;16
Speaker 1
But obviously, like there are opportunities that are more, you know, like I have days where like, I, I cannot fail today because the consequences I don't have, I don't have a safety net. There's not a there's not a way out here. And those are not days that I'm going to say, like, I don't know if I got this.

01;08;09;16 - 01;08;26;18
Speaker 1
Those are days that I'm going to I'm going to go into like pretty confident that I have it. But there are also days where I can shoot a little over my pay grade, and if I don't make it, I have contingency plans for like, well, either the fall will be safe here, or I can exit on the ridge here or, you know, whatever.

01;08;26;19 - 01;08;30;09
Speaker 1
I'm going to bring a tagline. That way we can wrap if we need to, stuff like that.

01;08;30;09 - 01;08;51;24
Speaker 2
So like, like with the quad, if we failed, it just means we would have done it in like 25 hours or something, which is probably meaningless. So we can go for it. And the consequences of failing are absolutely meaningless in that sense. So, I mean, yeah, just set a goal where it's obviously safe to fail, but then try to fail and, and I and if it's.

01;08;51;24 - 01;09;15;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, if you, if you, you know, if big wall climbing link ups are not your thing, find something in life where you can find your limit. And I just think that's so valuable, whatever it is, you know, just find something that you're passionate about and do it until you can't. And just like find that limit. And I think there's just like so much in the human spirit, it can.

01;09;15;23 - 01;09;16;15
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01;09;16;18 - 01;09;37;24
Speaker 2
Yeah, that can sign when you've identified that and you've opened up the space in your spirit. I mean, not to sound weird or whatever kooky here, but like, you open up that space in, like, human psyche and like, as that enlarges and you realize how small a percentage of your potential like ability you're normally engaging on a day to day basis.

01;09;37;26 - 01;09;51;00
Speaker 2
It's so empowering. Yeah. It's, you know, go through your day, you wake up in the morning, you go to work, you come home, you do your chores, you whatever, you go to bed. And it's like realizing how small amount of the human consciousness you're normally engaging, you know, just going through your daily routine.

01;09;51;07 - 01;09;52;17
Speaker 1
It's almost sad. Find it out.

01;09;52;17 - 01;10;16;28
Speaker 2
Is is like, I just I just think, you know, I, I whenever I was in grad school grinding away hours in the, in the lab and and and doing whatever and I just think like wow. And compared to the days like this weekend where we're totally pushing our limits, it's like, wow, like that routine, just absolutely. It almost feels like a, like a waste of consciousness.

01;10;17;00 - 01;10;31;16
Speaker 2
So. And which was why I got into climbing, I think, in the beginning, because even just doing it on the weekends, even just going one week in a month to, like, push myself in that way, just like opened my mind to one in capable of. And then you wake up every morning and you know what you're capable of.

01;10;31;18 - 01;10;33;03
Speaker 2
And it's it's just this hugely.

01;10;33;03 - 01;10;48;08
Speaker 1
Empowering as you go through the day with so much confidence because you know that, like, you have these capabilities that, you've, you've experienced firsthand, like I've proven to myself time and time again now that when things get hard, I'm good, I'm fine. Yeah. Like, you know.

01;10;48;11 - 01;11;08;09
Speaker 2
Like what? I'm on I-5 driving, you know, to campus, and and there's a semi on the side of the road and I'm going to be five minutes late to my 9 a.m. meeting. You know, I could get so upset and infuriated, but it's like when you, like, really push yourself, you realize that, like, okay, whatever. I just kind of whatever they call, call my camera and say, hey, I'm, you know me.

01;11;08;12 - 01;11;25;22
Speaker 2
I'm not going to stress or, you know, it's like, yeah, like the biggest thing that normally, like, could get you so angry and upset. It's kind of like it's just makes everything to be no big deal compared to being 75 pitches into the day. And it's dark and your stomach is upset. You're, you're you're headlamp just flashing and.

01;11;25;25 - 01;11;29;27
Speaker 1
You're 100ft over your last cam and you're, you're like, you haven't drink water in three hours.

01;11;30;01 - 01;11;44;26
Speaker 2
Your hands are sweaty and your chalk bag is pinched between your hip and the chair of the like. I'll eat, you know, and then it just it's yeah, that's just like such an empowering feeling. So I yeah, there's so much value in this and everyone says it's meaningless and that and I just absolutely couldn't disagree with that more.

01;11;44;26 - 01;11;49;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. But whatnot I do a call at night.

01;11;49;05 - 01;11;52;22
Speaker 1
Here's a call at night. I just want to give you, like a 20 minute warning.

01;11;52;22 - 01;11;53;27
Speaker 1
think this is.

01;11;57;13 - 01;12;00;14
Speaker 1
Perfect. Cool.

01;12;06;15 - 01;12;27;28
Speaker 1
No, I, I just think, I, I think the last the last thing I, I felt this is just like I thought I had last night again. I feel like we had an obligation to try this because we knew we could do it. And I didn't think that we had to do it for any other reason than the fact that we, we were that that we were able to.

01;12;27;29 - 01;12;46;02
Speaker 1
I think the fact that we could we felt this obligation to try to try to push the sport forward, you know, an inch or whatever, whatever amount that we, we would have done by accomplishing this. I feel like the valley climbing scene has done so much for us as a whole, over both of our lives and our climbing careers and stuff.

01;12;46;06 - 01;13;10;10
Speaker 1
And this was our opportunity to give back in some way to, you know, open up a new link up in some, some small amount or whatever. So I feel like we we had this obligation to try just because we knew we could do it. And I feel like if people if you have if you think you can do something, you owe it to yourself to try, because if not, then you've already failed.

01;13;10;10 - 01;13;24;28
Speaker 1
Like the only way you fail is by not even attempting it. You know, if we had tried and been and just gotten absolutely throttled, that's great. That's that's a totally acceptable outcome. But we we stuck, we stepped up to the plate and we tried. So I think that.

01;13;24;28 - 01;13;37;18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, just just to echo what Mike said, I think people would almost always benefit from, you know, once a month, once every six months, once a year, a goal that seems fucking stupid.

01;13;37;18 - 01;13;52;05
Speaker 1
Like just absolutely pick a goal that you have, like a 5050 chance of succeeding and then go give it a 100% and you'll probably be successful most of the time. Like take the governor off and really try. And it's such a cool experience.

01;13;52;05 - 01;13;57;12
Speaker 2
And the truth is, when you fail, you'll probably learn even more than if you succeeded. Yeah.

01;13;57;12 - 01;14;12;19
Speaker 1
achieving what you thought was not possible. While that is a part of it, it's more about what you learn along the journey towards achieving or striving for something that's so out of your field of view, because it's you progress as a person, you progress as a spirit and as a human as you achieve for these things.

01;14;12;19 - 01;14;22;04
Speaker 1
And maybe you don't get it now, but now you're 50% closer than you were when you started the first time. And then you can set the bar even a little bit higher and you just fail. Fail to the top or,

01;14;24;11 - 01;14;30;11
Speaker 2
Because goal setting and trying hard are skills. And if you practice them, you will get better at them.

01;14;32;04 - 01;14;36;20
Speaker 1
Well, nice guys. I appreciate the time. Congratulations again. I you know, I think that

01;14;36;20 - 01;14;54;06
Speaker 1
it's a common thing to feel kind of like, I don't know, like, not as fulfilled by things like this or, you know, trying to practice humility or being humble. And I and I see that and I just want to, you know, I'm sure everybody else as well is just, like, just a huge congratulations.

01;14;54;06 - 01;15;04;24
Speaker 1
And, you know, what you guys have done is, is legendary. You guys have your names. And in the, in the Yosemite Valley now. And I think that's such a cool accomplishment. And, and what it represents for the majority of climbers as well. So it's just

01;15;05;22 - 01;15;18;20
Speaker 1
Well. Thanks. All. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Carl. Yeah. Thanks for having us on. We could. I keep saying we could yap about climbing all day. Yeah, yeah. You know, you're talking about climb aboard our. Oh, yeah. I can do this. I'll do that. Yeah.

01;15;20;13 - 01;15;42;09
Speaker 1
That concludes today's episode and the TCM Triple Crown. Everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in and being here with us for the last three episodes. It really means a lot that you're here. If you liked 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.

01;15;42;12 - 01;16;06;03
Speaker 1
Also, if you're psyched about what we're doing here, the Climbing majority, please reach out. DM me. Email me. Call me whatever you want. I want to hear from you and don't forget, you can watch our full episodes on YouTube now. I got to be honest, I'm absolutely exhausted from producing all three of these episodes under such tight deadlines, so I'm going to push back the next episode release until December 2nd.

01;16;06;06 - 01;16;14;22
Speaker 1
Until then, keep exploring, stay safe. And as always, thanks for being a part of the climbing majority. I will see you all in a month.