82 | The Silent Alpinist Part II w/ Paul Ramsden

Today, we continue our conversation with the legendary Paul Ramsden. If you missed Part 1, hit pause and go back to the last episode—it’s essential listening. In this episode, we pick up with the second of Paul’s FIVE Piolet d’Or-winning climbs: The Prow of Shiva. From there, we journey through each climb, exploring the lessons, challenges, and reflections that have shaped his remarkable career. We close with Paul’s insights on life, climbing philosophy, and advice for anyone daring to follow in his path.

As we wrap up this incredible conversation, I want to send a huge thank you to Paul for trusting me to share his story. If this episode resonated with you, don’t hesitate to reach out—I’ll gladly pass along your messages to him.

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Piolets d'Or Award Winning Climbs

#1 North Face of Siguniang, China (2003) w/ Mick Fowler

#2 Prow of Shiva, India (2013) w/ Mick Fowler

#3 Gave Ding, Nepal (2016) w/ Mick Fowler

#4 North Buttress of Nyainqentangla South East, Tibet (2016) w/ Nick Bullock

#5 Phantom Line on Jugal Spire, Nepal (2023) w/ Tim Miller

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:29 The Prow of Shiva
• 21:20 Gave Ding
• 29:54 North Buttress of Nyainqentangla
• 41:23 Phantom Line on Jugal Spire
• 56:12 Reflections

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;30;26 - 00;00;53;16
Speaker 1
Welcome back, everybody, to the Climbing Majority podcast. I am your host, Kyle Brock Sterman. Before diving into today's episode, I just want to take a moment to thank this amazing community. Recently, Climbing Magazine posted their top eight climbing podcasts on Instagram, and within 30 minutes, over 20 of you commented calling out that they had overlooked the climbing majority.

00;00;53;18 - 00;01;16;15
Speaker 1
That wave of support was incredible to see and made me more psyched for this project than ever. Even better, your comments caught climbing magazine's attention, and they recently updated their article to include the Climbing Majority podcast as their ninth recommendation. Seeing this level of support from the community was truly humbling. We're building something special here and you're a big part of that.

00;01;16;18 - 00;01;46;16
Speaker 1
So thank you for being here. Big things are coming. Today we continue our conversation with the legendary Paul Ramsden. If you missed part one, hit pause and go back to the last episode. It is essential listening in this episode, we pick up with the second of Paul's five pillars. Your winning climbs the prow of Shiva. From there we journey through each climb, exploring the lessons, the challenges and the reflections that have shaped his remarkable career.

00;01;46;19 - 00;02;08;27
Speaker 1
We close with Paul's insights on life, climbing philosophy, and advice for anyone braving tough to follow in his path. As we wrap up this incredible conversation, I want to send a huge thank you to Paul Ramsden for trusting me to share his story. If this episode resonated with you as much as it did myself, don't hesitate to reach out as I will gladly pass along your messages to him.

00;02;09;00 - 00;02;13;16
Speaker 1
And now here is part two of my conversation with Paul Rasmussen.

00;02;26;00 - 00;02;35;24
Speaker 2
Okay, cool. Let's dive into the prow of Shiva, which is your second. Put your. I think we've we've talked a lot about, you know, who you are as a climber.

00;02;35;24 - 00;02;47;14
Speaker 2
And, you know, we understand that. So I think maybe just tell us the story. From what you can remember about this objective, kind of like what stood out and bring us through the, the experience.

00;02;47;21 - 00;03;21;24
Speaker 1
I mean, obviously it's about ten years after the previous climb. So there's a lot of climbing in between, you know, an expedition to the every year. So. So there's a lot of climbing going on. I think what in the intervening, intervening period, I did a lot of climbing in different styles. And I went to places like we did a new route on Denali, for example, climbing and like a continuous pushing, a sort of more modern style and we didn't particularly like climbing that way.

00;03;21;27 - 00;03;48;23
Speaker 1
And, so I spent a lot of time climbing in different styles and different ways, and kind of refined what I enjoyed doing. And then ten years later, I found myself. But we make making in India under this peak called the Shiva. Or the peaks called Shiva. And we call the route the Pro. So some Russian guys attempted it, and they said it was, probably not possible, alpine style.

00;03;48;26 - 00;03;54;04
Speaker 1
It was also a picture in the American Alpine Journal. Very prominent.

00;03;54;04 - 00;03;59;29
Speaker 2
even from far away. It's just so prominent. Just sticking out, almost leaning off to the right. So cool.

00;04;00;06 - 00;04;20;18
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, it was a crazy looking thing. In fact, it was so crazy when we got there. And usually when you get to base camp, you just average, exciting looking at the mountain and getting the book. No. 12 binoculars out and all this kind of thing. And I remember we we put the tents up and nobody looked upwards and it looks so ridiculously crazy.

00;04;20;21 - 00;04;45;00
Speaker 1
We didn't even talk about it, was that we avoided looking upwards from base camp. And, and I remember getting into the tent with Mick in the evening, and I said to make what? What do you think? And you said, we'll talk about it in the morning. Because it just looked so impossible, you know, so crazy steep, you know, whereby alpine climbers, we're not, you know, big rock climbers.

00;04;45;00 - 00;04;57;06
Speaker 1
We didn't even have a pair of rock boots. And it just looked crazy. But we spent maybe 3 or 4 days walking up nearby hills looking through binoculars. I mean,

00;04;57;06 - 00;05;16;16
Speaker 1
it's amazing what goes from being completely impossible over a few days. Kind of slowly evolves into, yeah, we might go. And then you do your acclimatization. And we climbed to peak opposite, and we spent two days looking at the line through binoculars and thought, yeah, there's a possibility, you know, it'll be really hard, but it's possible.

00;05;16;18 - 00;05;34;05
Speaker 1
Maybe, and and there we have it on. How is it I do a topo of the route before we started, so I usually I draw my own topo where I'm planning to go and even mark on the big white ledges and the, the, the different features of the route.

00;05;34;05 - 00;05;37;24
Speaker 2
a lot. And so you got to get a painted in your mind first.

00;05;38;01 - 00;05;52;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Because thing is, when you're on a massive face, it's really easy to get lost. If you knew routing because it's so foreshortened that you can only see the next pitch and you've got no idea where you're going. So it's really useful to draw a topo off the route before you start.

00;05;52;11 - 00;06;02;05
Speaker 1
And also, you can mark unlikely ledges to sleep, for example, because you know, when you're on a climb, you can't see where these ledges are and you might get benighted.

00;06;02;08 - 00;06;19;26
Speaker 1
And you know that if I push on for maybe one more pixies, a ledge there. And so things like that are really useful when you're on the route. And also psychologically, it's easier because you're not doing a new route. You following a topo now. So it's, it's quite good.

00;06;19;28 - 00;06;43;20
Speaker 1
But it was a, it was a amazing route. And we were we were very lucky because it the rock quality was incredible and the ice was amazing. And it was one of those routes. Often when you climb big mountain routes, the climbing wall, it looks really impressive. The climbing often can be a bit rubbish because there's, you know, poor quality rock.

00;06;43;22 - 00;07;05;27
Speaker 1
But ice conditions often very bad ice conditions. But this route, every single pitch was like three stars. And it was just beautiful. And it went on for pitch after pitch, and every pitch was kind of a limit of our climbing ability, but really good quality. And it just went on like that for pitch after pitch. And what was really exciting is we just didn't know if we could do it.

00;07;05;28 - 00;07;21;25
Speaker 1
And even right at the top we were you were 30m below the summit, and we didn't know if we could get to the top because it was kind of overhanging band of rock. And I was thinking, you know, are we going to make it? And then we just traverse slightly around the corner. There was a chimney light and it was amazing.

00;07;21;25 - 00;07;30;23
Speaker 1
This timeline led up the worst piece of rock. And you saw did a mantel shelf off the top of the chimney onto the summit. And it was. Yeah, it was amazing.

00;07;30;23 - 00;07;51;04
Speaker 2
that, before you guys found the chimney, you were traversing around the ledge to the right, and there was, like, a gap in the ledge that you would have had to get across. That was like before you found the chimney. Where? Like, how was that? Kind of like a devastating blow, or were you guys still just, like, totally optimistic and just like, oh, we're going to we're going to still find something.

00;07;51;18 - 00;08;01;22
Speaker 1
I think we're always optimistic. You know, you wouldn't be doing this if you weren't an optimistic, quite optimistic person. And, you're always optimistic, but, you know, it's,

00;08;01;22 - 00;08;20;03
Speaker 1
you know, the the excitement in the mountains is in not knowing, you know, if, if you knew the outcome, it wouldn't be an adventure. So, so to have the outcome being uncertain on every single page for five days is, is really, really exciting.

00;08;20;10 - 00;08;25;19
Speaker 1
And to have that still the case on the very last pitch below the summit is pretty cool. Really.

00;08;25;19 - 00;08;42;01
Speaker 2
What about that route. Made it so, uncertain because I would imagine certain routes you're like okay, I totally like from here to here I got it. We're good. You know, maybe there's like this question mark mid route, but what about that specific route was just like question mark after question mark.

00;08;42;19 - 00;09;08;13
Speaker 1
It was the steepness and the fact it was granite. And as you know, granite can have blank sections and, self-imposed ethics of no bolts means that especially on granite, you can really just grind to a halt. And it had lots of those what appeared to blank sections on the way up. So, so that's why we were quite kind of nervous about it.

00;09;08;15 - 00;09;34;18
Speaker 1
But yeah, it just worked out. It it was amazing. Amazing. Edit we had basically it was a very sharp, and sort of thinner rock and it was so sharp, the buttress was so sharp that sometimes you would kind of lay back and right on the edge of it. It was amazing. And then it, it, it this sharp arrow had like a chimney line right on the crest of it.

00;09;34;18 - 00;09;39;00
Speaker 1
It's quite hard to describe, but it was it was an amazing position.

00;09;39;00 - 00;10;02;27
Speaker 2
Wow. Yeah. That sounds. That sounds amazing. It said. It said here that you had full pitches of thin ice on unprotected slabs, and you said that's just kind of par for the course for the kind of climbing that you're doing. And also, it seemed like these, these particular pitches, it gets to the point where you have to take your pack off because the extra weight is like jeopardizing your security on the wall.

00;10;03;26 - 00;10;25;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. No I mean having said that, the, like to hole a hole suck. It is fairly common that you, you have to take your pack off to do a hard pitch. Usually you decide mid pitch, so you kind of get halfway up there, then abandon you know, rucksack on a nut. And then the second comes up on the doodle.

00;10;25;29 - 00;10;56;15
Speaker 1
Total kind of chaos trying to work out how to solo hold the sack up while the second is second thing with their sack on. Yeah. Yeah. So it it's it's not straightforward, but, Yeah, it's kind of it does happen very often. You have to do that. But yeah, in those I think also, you know, climbing a lot in Scotland, you do get used to this kind of style of stimuli slabs, which is quite, quite a useful skill to help.

00;10;56;15 - 00;11;05;08
Speaker 2
worry about, like, sheets of it breaking off, or you just like, tapping it and just getting just enough, you know, grip onto it where you can dance, dance

00;11;07;02 - 00;11;34;28
Speaker 1
Is. Yes. Sometimes. Sometimes it's terrible. Sometimes it's not. It's just. It's just luck of the draw. It depends on the combination of some cycles. Since the last storm and everything. You know, some thin ice slabs can be really good and some can be terrible. You know, sometimes you just spend all your time digging it away, looking for rock underneath and hoping there's little flakes or wrinkles in the rock to allow you to climb it.

00;11;35;00 - 00;11;44;02
Speaker 1
So but also that, you know, that's another part of Scottish climbing is digging, you know, digging the snow away to find things underneath.

00;11;44;02 - 00;11;53;17
Speaker 2
deal with the like? How do you deal with being in a position where you're extremely run out and basically in a no fall zone? How do you keep yourself calm and focused?

00;11;53;23 - 00;12;05;21
Speaker 1
I guess it's just experience, you know, when you've been in that situation a lot of times, then it becomes easier. And you just know you can't fall off. So, so you don't.

00;12;05;21 - 00;12;24;09
Speaker 2
that experience, you're saying that you're you're extremely tapped into your, like, how far away you are from your threshold of, like, potentially coming off the wall, like your ability to stay attached to the wall and your connection to your tools, and you're climbing, you know, how far away you are from, like, hey, I might fall here.

00;12;24;09 - 00;12;26;10
Speaker 2
And the percentages that you have.

00;12;26;20 - 00;12;47;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. No. You are hyper aware of all these things. You have to be. And, you know, you're kind of aware. But also, when you've done it a lot, you are aware of your own abilities and you know, you know what you can do. And and that makes it less stressful.

00;12;47;16 - 00;13;03;23
Speaker 1
Stephen know I have neither. The rock was was pretty good. Those no close calls at all. Yeah. And, it was beautiful. The weather, the climbing was beautiful. The weather was beautiful. I think I remember the most as we got to the top and,

00;13;03;23 - 00;13;08;08
Speaker 1
we had about two days food left and the weather was beautiful.

00;13;08;10 - 00;13;27;24
Speaker 1
And you could have walked down it in about a day, and, and we just camped and used our food up. And it was just night, you know, just sitting in the mountains looking at the view. You know, as soon as you get back to base camp, then you got to go home and it's back to normal life.

00;13;27;26 - 00;13;48;16
Speaker 1
So we suddenly realized it's funny. Everything in the mountains these days, it's all light and fast and everything's single. Push and go as fast as possible. And you realize that while you know, there's there's elements of kind of attraction to that. Also there's, there's a lot of pleasure in just being in the mountains and staying where you are and, you know, hanging out.

00;13;48;16 - 00;13;51;28
Speaker 1
And I think, you know, some people forget that sometimes.

00;13;51;28 - 00;14;08;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, I know, I know, for example, I always laugh, I know Colin Haley and I remember talking to him and he said, this is ambition was to never bivouac in the mountains again. And that was kind of you mad. Absolutely mad. You know, these are some of the best experiences of your life.

00;14;08;08 - 00;14;17;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. No, I've got a lot of a lot of respect for Colin, but that kind of never wanting to bivouac, I just don't understand it because it's just marvelous.

00;14;17;10 - 00;14;39;27
Speaker 2
sure that position was. It was marvelous. It's interesting, I think. Where, like, when to. To someone who doesn't know to listen to these stories of of awards, you would always imagine, like the crazy epic. And, you know, it's dramatic and, you know, someone almost died. And I think the the funny thing is, is that with a lot of professional climbers, it's not every objective needs to be like that, right?

00;14;39;28 - 00;14;55;26
Speaker 2
You know, some things just go smooth and some things just work out in the best way possible. Because you are professionals and you've done all the prep and you have the experience and sometimes the best experiences, the mountains aren't the ones that are, you know, labeled as like an epic.

00;14;56;09 - 00;15;19;12
Speaker 1
yeah, I was I was a climber. I don't think I've had very many what I consider to be epics at all, you know, it all seemed quite sort of calm, to be honest. Maybe other people might have thought they were epics, but, personally, it's not always felt like an epic. Yeah. I've clearly had the odd occasion where things have been a bit close to the line, but,

00;15;19;15 - 00;15;22;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, often used of this failure ceiling.

00;15;22;28 - 00;15;33;07
Speaker 1
You know, I want to feel like I'm in control of the situation. And I get pleasure out of feeling in control. And I don't want to feel out of control and have an epic.

00;15;33;07 - 00;15;37;18
Speaker 2
It's probably one of the main reasons why you're, you're still alive.

00;15;38;03 - 00;15;59;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I could probably keep going back to this idea of, I think, you know, building up your experience is really important, and there's no shortcuts to experience. You just have to put the time and in the mountains doing that. Tivity. And I think if you have the a foundation of experience and certainly things that might seem epics to other people just seem to be okay.

00;16;03;21 - 00;16;05;08
Speaker 1
No, no, go for it.

00;17;19;03 - 00;17;47;03
Speaker 1
Yeah I think I think that's off the beaten path is the correct phrase. I think, I'm fairly sure at this at the time we were on Cheever, if it had gone somewhere like stock, there would have been a huge queue of people. And again, again, year after year, people go to laptop to laptop to laptop and yeah, it's a great mountain, but you know that there's a huge number of people there.

00;17;47;03 - 00;18;08;00
Speaker 1
Everybody knows everything about it. You know it. It's it's a known entity. You know, you could argue in some ways that the adventure is not there because, you know, it's most of it's being climbed at all over. And, and I think that's what he's referring to is we avoid things like that where we know there'll be other people there.

00;18;08;03 - 00;18;21;00
Speaker 1
And people have been home for years, and yeah, it's not the kind of thing we do. You know, for us, adventure is the essence. And that needs to really be unexplored ground.

00;18;21;00 - 00;18;42;11
Speaker 2
that makes sense. I just I was, I think was well said. And, interesting that. Yeah, even in the, the ecosystem of, of Himalayan climbing, there's like these ways to be off the beaten path and the fact that there are routes that have Congo lines. You know, we talk about stuff in Red Rock out here like Crimson Chrysalis is always got, you know, three parties and people rapping on top of each other.

00;18;42;11 - 00;18;54;09
Speaker 2
And it's just a nightmare. It's interesting to hear that that's the same in some of these epic giant Himalayan mountains as well, where you just like, oh, yeah, we're going to run into crowds on this climb, you know? It's kind of funny.

00;18;54;29 - 00;19;21;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. No it's, there's some very busy places and this, you know, in all my expeditions, I don't think I've ever had a base camp with anybody.

00;19;22;13 - 00;19;43;04
Speaker 1
And also, you know, new routines. It's when you go back to lotto because, well, you know, when, when you got a mountain that the Americans climbed or was it 95% of it and then came down the route has been climbed. You know, finishing it off is very impressive. But it's it's not new ground. It's, it's known ground.

00;19;43;07 - 00;19;55;26
Speaker 1
And and that's not why I really want to do. And I like, I like new ground and like no crags and Yeah. So I think that's what those returns here.

00;19;55;26 - 00;20;02;21
Speaker 2
that finding these objectives is kind of getting harder and harder, or are they just just as numerous as they've been? You just need to know what to look for.

00;20;03;07 - 00;20;35;28
Speaker 1
Only I think is getting harder. You know, while there are lots of, climb faces, don't climb mountains in the Himalaya. A number of sort of beautiful north facing buttresses that really catch my imagination is is started to slim down. So, maybe I, I was part of a golden era of that kind of thing. Don't get me wrong, there's tons of things to do, but definitely in my list of my personal list is a bit smaller than it used to be.

00;20;36;01 - 00;20;40;29
Speaker 1
I don't have time to finish my list, but it is. It's not as it's not as extensive as it was.

00;20;40;29 - 00;20;59;11
Speaker 2
depressing thing. I always I've always looked at that like I've got all these. I mean climbing aside I have all these like flags around the, the world on my Google Earth of like places I want to go and things I want to do. And sometimes I look at it and I'm just like, I even if I started, if I quit my job now and started traveling now, I still wouldn't be able to do everything I want to do.

00;20;59;11 - 00;21;03;15
Speaker 2
And it's there's something magical and also depressing about that.

00;21;04;13 - 00;21;16;25
Speaker 1
I know exactly rimming. It is. If you finish your list. Life would be so depressing, wouldn't it? But realizing you're never gonna get anywhere near finishing your list is also a bit upsetting as well.

00;21;17;06 - 00;21;26;03
Speaker 2
Exactly. Okay. What about, I'm again. I'm going to destroy the pronouncing that. Is it Jeff?

00;21;26;03 - 00;21;30;18
Speaker 1
Dave. Dig? Yeah. Yes.

00;21;41;16 - 00;21;43;11
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So

00;21;43;11 - 00;21;54;21
Speaker 2
So that means there were two other climbs in between those routes. And like, you know, I don't know. Yeah. Bring us, along the, the progress towards, shifting.

00;21;55;29 - 00;21;58;21
Speaker 1
If you've been enjoying the climbing majority, please rate.

00;21;58;21 - 00;22;02;06
Speaker 2
And review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00;22;03;16 - 00;22;38;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So there was, At least there was another two expeditions, that were that were very successful there. They were good. And, it was because Mike mix a bit older than me. So, we'd sort of decided we would probably not go together on the next expedition. And then he sent me this bit of video that, that somebody had taken out of the window of a helicopter where they were being rescued in, in Western Nepal.

00;22;38;06 - 00;22;59;26
Speaker 1
And it showed this amazing mountain. And he said, do you fancy this? Okay. Yes. So it was kind of it was and it was it was wonderful because that was our last big expedition together. And it was to, this peak in far west Nepal. So it's very, very remote. You know, nobody really goes to west Nepal.

00;22;59;29 - 00;23;23;05
Speaker 1
And it was just a beautiful mountain on totally, climb mountain with this big, impressive North buttress. And it was, it was another perfect climb. You know, was up so brilliant. And, and especially great memory for me because it was a last expedition. I think, with, with Mick. You know, we're still very good friends, and we climb a lot together, but that was less so.

00;23;23;05 - 00;23;28;20
Speaker 1
The expedition went on together.

00;23;28;22 - 00;23;43;13
Speaker 1
Is. Yes. Yes. No, he's just just doing different things a bit more slowly. Maybe a bit lower down. But he's, is still at it, and he's still at a very much so.

00;23;43;13 - 00;23;44;14
Speaker 2
planned as

00;23;47;00 - 00;24;09;25
Speaker 1
Yeah. That we decided before and we were last thing we did together. And, Yeah. And it was a, it was again it was, a wonderful it was what was really interesting was a we only had this kind of piece of grainy video from a helicopter. And then we just set off and there was no, there was no photographs of the mountain.

00;24;09;25 - 00;24;35;24
Speaker 1
So, and, we had a bit of image from Google Earth. And then we went to Nepal and we walked in for about four days. And then the, the, the, the mules couldn't go any further. And they left us in this valley around the corner from mountain. So we still couldn't see the mountain. So we were basically dumped to this base camp where we, we couldn't see any, anything to climb.

00;24;35;27 - 00;24;45;17
Speaker 1
And then we kind of walk around a corner for a few days and we found this amazing kind of line. And it was, it was another, another perfect line for me.

00;24;45;23 - 00;25;04;22
Speaker 2
Yeah I remember is this the one where there was like you didn't really know exactly how it was going to go and there was like, you know objective A and then objective B was to wrap down and come across and you ended up getting to the spot where you wanted to possibly wrap if it wouldn't go. But there it was, super overhanging, and you ended up having to just like quest

00;25;06;03 - 00;25;34;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, we were from from a distance. It, it looked Latin with a variety of options. So from a binocular, my topo was I drew had all these kind of variations. But as we got higher and higher, the variation slowly evaporated, and, and it just got kind of steeper and steeper and more committing, and we kind of ended up with this kind of thin veneer of ice now this corner.

00;25;34;21 - 00;25;52;11
Speaker 1
And, it was the only possible option. And we're also going to struggle to get off from there because it was kind of overhanging beneath us and, and, but yeah, we, we were blessed with perfect, snow, ice conditions. So it was, it was steep climbing on the most perfect ice you could ever imagine.

00;25;52;11 - 00;26;18;03
Speaker 2
You had mentioned that you you, are an optimistic person on the in the mountains. There's a lot of people that I talked to on this show that talk about, like, psych and just being super, boisterous and happy and kind of vocal on the wall and just actually hooting and hollering and having a good time. Would you consider yourself that kind of person on the wall or are you a bit more stoic and kind of absorbed in the moment?

00;26;18;03 - 00;26;25;29
Speaker 2
Like, do you have a lot of chit chat with your partner, like describe the the mood and and how you share the moment with your climbing partner on a wall

00;26;27;24 - 00;26;38;11
Speaker 1
No, definitely not boisterous. There was no. There will be no hollering. It's all very quiet and calm.

00;26;38;11 - 00;26;58;05
Speaker 1
That's I mean, that's a very American way to approach climbing is hollering, you know, and, no, it's probably but probably very, very English. And it's all very calm and, you know, you get to the summit and there's a nice steady handshake and,

00;26;58;07 - 00;27;14;02
Speaker 1
Yes, yes. Oh, no. Psych is, you know, you don't create psych psych by hollering spikes in your head, and, you're either somebody who, you know, if you need to create the psych, then you don't really have it, do you?

00;27;14;02 - 00;27;20;27
Speaker 1
So, Yeah. Yeah. No, never, never, never felt the need to holler about anything.

00;27;20;27 - 00;27;42;00
Speaker 2
It's funny. It's an American thing. I could totally see that. What about humor? Like, do you find, humor in kind of dark situations and laughing at the pain. Laughing at the suffering or or is it, you know, is it just kind of like you're in the it's like this moment that you're sharing with nature, and, you know, you guys are both just kind of absorbed in that

00;27;42;00 - 00;27;43;00
Speaker 2
very.

00;27;43;02 - 00;27;44;05
Speaker 1
No, I mean, the

00;27;44;05 - 00;28;12;28
Speaker 1
Brits only communicate through moderate verbal abuse. It's it's just it's just constant, slight abuse of each other. That's that's that's how British climbers or Brits in general communicate with each other. So. Yeah. So there's yes, there's no as it was, what was the phrase we would describe as banter? You know, there's just this constant, constant humor.

00;28;13;01 - 00;28;23;00
Speaker 1
Even in the worst possible situations, somebody will say something funny, not hilariously funny, but it just this constant, mild humor going on and usually.

00;28;23;00 - 00;28;31;04
Speaker 2
what would be like, a typical, you know, British motivational thing that a Blair would say to a leader that's maybe struggling or

00;28;31;27 - 00;28;43;22
Speaker 1
Oh, it's not it's not the it's not the don't think to shout advice of the leader. Blimey, you know. No. Nothing like that. Yes. No, no, we wouldn't do that.

00;28;48;19 - 00;29;01;06
Speaker 1
Yeah. No. Sometimes when you get to be like, you might shout down or some brilliant pitch or something like that. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't presume to give the leader advice. Blunt.

00;29;02;26 - 00;29;18;21
Speaker 2
You're doing it wrong. Go left. Okay. Cool. Yeah. It's so funny. These, you know, these these stories end up, you know, it's just like. Yeah, everything went smoothly. Everything was amazing. And it's like, yeah, that's somehow. That's sometimes how it goes.

00;29;18;24 - 00;29;39;25
Speaker 1
This is funny, isn't it? Because, I mean, I remember reading as a kid all these kind of books of amazing climbing epics, you know, sort of like touching the void and all that kind of thing. And, and I'm kind of slowly writing my own book, and it just seems really boring because, like, nothing goes wrong.

00;29;40;02 - 00;29;45;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. Drama. And that definitely captures the attention of the of the human mind. But you

00;29;46;27 - 00;29;53;25
Speaker 1
No, no, no, I think that is the thing is, people stories like that usually only do a few trips.

00;29;53;25 - 00;30;08;27
Speaker 2
Okay. We're we're coming through here. We've got two more of these, you know, award winning climbs. This one, I think is a bit more more of, a drama to it. At least on the descent, the North buttress. I don't even know how to say this one. Niyang Katanga.

00;30;09;05 - 00;30;11;22
Speaker 1
Yes. I call it nine contango.

00;30;11;26 - 00;30;12;17
Speaker 2
Nanga.

00;30;12;17 - 00;30;14;19
Speaker 1
It's, it's in Tibet.

00;30;14;19 - 00;30;32;23
Speaker 1
It's, Yeah, it is quite difficult. Pronounce. If you see it written down, it's almost impossible to pass that. Yeah. And, Yeah, I was trying to get to Tibet for about, like I said, about eight years. So we. McQuade applied for permits and didn't get them.

00;30;32;25 - 00;30;54;12
Speaker 1
And then I randomly just emailed the, Chinese Tibet Mountaineering Association and, said, can I have a permit for this mountain? And almost by the return of email, they said, yeah, they're fine. And I, I almost after eight years, I'm like, no, this fell off my chair. And then and then and then realized I didn't have a climbing partner or any plans.

00;30;54;14 - 00;31;19;19
Speaker 1
So so it was it was, it was it was cool. It was really good. So, and a linking up with a guy, and, so Nick Bullock, Nick Bullock, I'm no Nick, but for a long time, I first bumped into him in a bar in Nancy Bazaar in, in Nepal and know you meet somebody in a bar, and within seconds, you decide that they're completely crazy.

00;31;19;19 - 00;31;41;11
Speaker 1
And you should avoid this person. And then. And then 15 years later, I was organized to go on an expedition with. Yeah. And he's he's a he's a superstar, you know, he's a very, very gifted climber, really tough climber. And, and we went on this trip anyway, it was a really hardcore trip because, we didn't know each other very well.

00;31;41;11 - 00;32;01;14
Speaker 1
We'd never climbed together ever before. And I was convinced he was a crazy guy. And then we got dropped off a base camp. And on this trip, one of the peculiarities of Tibet is they don't usually have any kind of base camp support. There's no cook. So Raven officer type things. So they just dumped as a base camp and left is there for five weeks.

00;32;01;16 - 00;32;24;08
Speaker 1
And, and I was trapped in this tent with this crazy guy, and, and we got on really, really well, you know, we had a brilliant trip and, and announced itself was amazing. That was a super impressive magic line that was in the heat, completely hidden in Tibet. And, nobody even knew existed. He was definitely not staying on the radar or anywhere, and it was in an amazing location.

00;32;24;08 - 00;32;42;12
Speaker 1
He's not actually in the Himalaya. It's sort of in Tibet, in a separate mountain range. And it was, yeah, just over 7000m and, at a crazy location or over a lake. So it was almost like a and this lake was the size of a sea. So this mountain was almost like a, like a sea cliff.

00;32;42;12 - 00;32;57;18
Speaker 1
It was really strange. And and it was, yeah, it was a big route. And we had some really bad weather and some pretty tough climbing. And, and then we got to the top and,

00;32;57;18 - 00;33;06;24
Speaker 1
we had no idea, you know, we we we didn't we couldn't get down the way we'd come because, I think as I mentioned before, the ice was not thick enough for, for, for threads.

00;33;06;28 - 00;33;33;04
Speaker 1
And, we didn't have a big enough rope route, so upside down. So we had to get down the other side. And the conditions were terrible, and it was complete whiteout and, took about three days to get down, and it was in zero visibility. So it was complete sort of, yeah. Yeah, that's Nick, the Nick said I was navigating by the falls.

00;33;33;07 - 00;34;00;22
Speaker 1
And it was literally you. It stood in whiteout conditions with huge drops all around you, and you were just trying to work out which way to go by, kind of some sort of occasionally get shadows in the whiteness and sort of sixth sense. And, you know, for, and, one, one of my, you know, I'm not a great climber, but I'm a good navigator, and I'm a person who can find my way around the mountains.

00;34;00;24 - 00;34;19;00
Speaker 1
And, and that really came to the forefront on that trip. But it was, it was wild. And then we descended on completely different valley from the one we'd come up to be. We staggered down this valley and we arrived at a village, and they thought we were like aliens coming out of the mountains. Yeah, it was amazing.

00;34;19;00 - 00;34;20;13
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah,

00;34;20;28 - 00;34;29;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, it looked like pitch two on that route. So right off the gate was one of the hardest pitches you guys ran into. On that

00;34;29;28 - 00;34;48;15
Speaker 1
Oh. Yeah. No, no, the crux was about halfway up. Okay. But maybe, maybe looking at one of the photos, but. Yeah. No, that was a really smooth section of granite that was steep and smooth. And, it took some, some effort to get up it, but, I mean, look, that was one of Nick's pictures today.

00;34;48;15 - 00;34;51;21
Speaker 1
So very talented climate. A properly.

00;34;51;21 - 00;34;59;09
Speaker 2
climbing is like that pitch particularly like kind of paint the picture for maybe someone listening to like what that would be like to climb it.

00;34;59;19 - 00;35;24;00
Speaker 1
Oh. Not a slab like a nearly a vertical wall. And it was had, some rock flakes on it and a few cracks, but then it was plastered in maybe 3 or 4in of fresh snow, and it was just a case of the sod cleaning and scratching your way up. It, so very time consuming.

00;35;24;03 - 00;35;47;23
Speaker 1
And, you know, and, you know, when you're getting up to a 7000m, it's pretty hard work. You know, basically, that's the crazy thing. People always ask me about grades of these things, and it's just like, well, you can't even describe the grade when you're climbing it. What are you doing? Technical climbing altitude. It's just so difficult having describing a grade to somebody is completely meaningless.

00;35;47;26 - 00;35;59;26
Speaker 1
You know, you could say it's felt like this, but it was probably loads, loads easier than that. But it's just it was it was it's hard work and time consuming. But Nick did a great job on the crux on that.

00;35;59;26 - 00;36;13;08
Speaker 2
Nice. And it's not even like. Sure, it might be, you know, whatever. Certain grade. But it's the position. It's the amount of times you have to, like, clean the route. And it's the weather conditions like all of that is probably more substantial than the grade of climbing

00;36;14;14 - 00;36;28;22
Speaker 1
Yes, definitely. Definitely. And, yeah, the weather, it was really bad on the whole climb, you know, it snowed all the way up and it snowed all the way down. And, Yeah, yeah. Sleeping bags were in pretty bad condition by the time we finished.

00;36;28;22 - 00;36;31;03
Speaker 2
it said that you fell into three sections.

00;36;31;15 - 00;36;52;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. So we were descending this ridge, and, it was quite a sharp edge with rock pinnacles, and it was quite complex. And, because I'm the one with the kind of the nose, for getting down things. I was in front all the time coming down, and, I just kept falling into crevasses and broken orders, and it was.

00;36;52;07 - 00;37;13;21
Speaker 1
It was such a complete whiteout, you know, you you you couldn't see any stitches at all. And you were so crawling along and then you sort of just disappear and you'd fall, fall into a birch and, and, one point I fell into this hole that went through the ridge and it was like hanging in space. And he could knock like about 5000ft down the side.

00;37;13;23 - 00;37;35;17
Speaker 1
And you see, you go from this kind of whiteout to this hole, and then what a drop down was kind of seemed to be kind of below the cloud. And so you could look all the way to the bottom, you know. Yeah. It was quite as it was a distressing descent, if I'm completely honest. It was it was full on.

00;37;35;19 - 00;37;47;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. Because it was a narrow crevasse. So I could just climb back up like bridging up. Yeah. But, Yeah. Yeah, it was a, it was a and memorable outing.

00;37;47;29 - 00;37;59;22
Speaker 1
And, another thing, Nick had been in that kind of environment very much is a very good experience climber. But I don't think he had anything like that. So it did seem to leave a lasting impression on him.

00;37;59;22 - 00;38;09;26
Speaker 2
I have a I have a quote from him. He said, I'm not making this film for anybody else apart from myself. It's to remind myself to never, ever, ever, ever, ever do this again.

00;38;09;26 - 00;38;13;29
Speaker 1
Okay.

00;38;30;13 - 00;38;55;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I do, I do always carry a camera. And I do try really hard to take photographs. More recently, I try not to take video. And, I quite enjoy that side of it is. It's hard, though, when you're in on difficult ground and and, you know, and it's cold and altitude and trying to get you get you get everything together to make a bit of video.

00;38;55;29 - 00;39;22;17
Speaker 1
It is incredibly difficult. That's why nobody's really ever met a good mountaineering film. In my opinion. There's no it's almost impossible to make it a mountaineering film of an alpine style ascent of a big mountain. You know, it's I've been in, you know, quite a few films have been made from trips I've been on, but you never have any film, for example, of the difficult climbing, because you're belaying somebody who might fall off any second.

00;39;22;20 - 00;39;41;06
Speaker 1
And the thought of, you know, taking your hands off the rope to start making video is just impossible. So, you know, it's made because they make these films and people say, oh, that film was incredible. And you're thinking like, wow, you've got no idea. Because we did we didn't film it in our base because we were we were too.

00;39;41;08 - 00;39;43;10
Speaker 1
We were too frightened.

00;39;43;10 - 00;39;57;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Now I feel like the only way to really do it would be climb is a party of three. And you'd have, like, one person go up, set up the belay, then you, you know, drop the rope and he'll video it from above as the other person goes

00;39;57;17 - 00;40;24;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, but I'd never like climbing as a story. I just like climbing. There's a two. I find it to more an esthetic approach. There's something really setting about two climbers. Swinging leads up a mountain. And I have climbed trees and it is enjoyable, you know, somewhere like Alaska is very enjoyable. Climbing is a story, but, on big mountains it is difficult organizing things like tents, etc. you know, there's lots like small two man turns.

00;40;24;08 - 00;40;31;21
Speaker 1
But when the three of you where, where you sleep, it's it's I think three works in some places. But he's quite tricky in those.

00;40;31;21 - 00;40;53;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. And there's also a difference between, like. I think the hardest part about capturing the high alpine, objectives is just like, once you start focusing on trying to capture it too much, it turns more into a production than it does actually, like a an alpine style climb. And so, like, there's, like that fine line between there's like that fine line between, one or the other, you know.

00;40;53;19 - 00;41;15;06
Speaker 1
Yes, yes. You know, on big Himalayan alpine style routes, you know, you are. It's full time job staying alive and putting time into filming and photography. There's always going to be a little bit to it. I think for me, you know, so I try hard, but there's, there's always a limitation.

00;41;15;06 - 00;41;31;08
Speaker 2
I mean, some of the stuff I've seen so far is just is really good. So you've been doing a great job. Okay. Cool. Last one, the most recent. The most recent, award that you've the climb that you've gotten an award for is the phantom line on the.

00;41;32;24 - 00;42;07;28
Speaker 1
Juggle. Yeah. Juggle. Yeah. Though the juggle. Himmel. Yeah. So the juggle Himmel is the. If any of you people follow in this. I've been to Kathmandu. Then the the there's not many snowy mountains you can see from Kathmandu center, but you can see one mountain, and that's the jungle Himalayan. So. So the peak we climbed is actually the almost the nearest mountain to Kathmandu, which is a bit bit wacky because we made the descent of it.

00;42;07;28 - 00;42;10;23
Speaker 1
And it's the nearest 6000 meter peak to Kathmandu.

00;42;11;07 - 00;42;14;08
Speaker 2
Yeah, I was saying that it's kind of, like, overshadowed by a bigger peak

00;42;15;06 - 00;42;41;16
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. So, so what happens if you're ever in Kathmandu? There's one triangular, snowy mountain you can see called Dorjee And directly in front of it, maybe 100m lower is another mountain. So actually what you're looking at is not doji, you're looking at the summit of dodgy. That and another mountain directly in front of it because of the perspective.

00;42;41;16 - 00;43;12;24
Speaker 1
It looks like one mountain. And what we realized is that between these two mountains, was actually a very deep valley. And that meant that the southernmost peak, had a huge north face on it. So, so, the mountain you're looking at, which is this like snowy pyramid from Kathmandu, actually has a huge north face on the other side that nobody was aware of, and I just found it through Google.

00;43;12;24 - 00;43;19;08
Speaker 1
It.

00;43;19;11 - 00;43;22;13
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;43;22;15 - 00;43;48;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Sometimes it can be hard to get images of faces on satellite imagery, but sometimes the shadows tell you more than the than the pictures they tell you. They can tell you quite a lot. Can shadows. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So actually it was a kind of a strange expedition because, you know, I'm, I'm used to like getting to Kathmandu and traveling for days and days to get to the mountains.

00;43;48;02 - 00;44;13;17
Speaker 1
And then it was like six hours on the bus and then we started walking, and, you know, it's about four days walking. So although it's close to Kathmandu, there are not many roads, so it's still kind of inaccessible. And then, and then whew. So lucky because we got to the mountain and, I mean, we walked around the north side and we just realized that this north face, which I thought was there, was actually amazing.

00;44;13;17 - 00;44;23;27
Speaker 1
And it had a single, almost unbelievable line running a pit. And it was, yeah, one of the one of the best looking things I've ever taught.

00;44;23;27 - 00;44;39;19
Speaker 2
it it from what? I've. From the research that I've done it. It looked like, kind of like the the first, third and the last kind of part was like, you had this kind of scar that went through the center, but there was this section in the middle that was blank. That was kind of like a big question mark.

00;44;39;19 - 00;44;39;29
Speaker 2
Is that

00;44;41;05 - 00;45;01;05
Speaker 1
Yes, yes, yes. So, well, it appeared to be an almost continuous line in the, in kind of in the middle, there was this blank section, and, and as we mentioned, on granite blank section, gonna be really bad news. So we're, I was pretty skeptical we'd get up this route. But since we're there, we thought we'd give it a go.

00;45;01;10 - 00;45;39;07
Speaker 1
And we were super lucky because, we found out the first third, and then we got to the blank section and hidden from view was like a chimney line. And we got inside the mountain, essentially McLaren's three pitches underground inside this chimney. And I've never done anything like that in the Himalaya. We were we were underground in this chimney and Buckingham footing and, it was kind of narrowed to kind of big off, which can size and and it was, it was, it was really hard work because it was smooth walls just backing in footing.

00;45;39;09 - 00;46;01;24
Speaker 1
We're not kind of back in and it was kind of back and knees really, because it was that kind of size where you were you, John, with your knees and your back. And it just, no, you needed your crampons because there was ice on the walls as well. Yeah. Yeah. And Derby obviously couldn't climb risk, but the size of the chimney was a perfect for jamming a rucksack in so, so tall.

00;46;01;24 - 00;46;24;23
Speaker 1
The rock size was just desperately difficult. Absolutely desperate. And it was okay holding it, but basically we had to haul two sacks, and then the second had to, like, climb, manhandling the rucksacks out to this chimney. So it was super strenuous. So it took a whole day to do these three pitches, basically on the ground.

00;46;24;26 - 00;46;36;15
Speaker 1
But we got through and and then the line continued. So it was a it was a great moment, but, yeah, a feature. I've never seen anything like that on a, on a technical climate in the Himalayan.

00;46;36;15 - 00;46;48;17
Speaker 2
Wow. Now, like, for. For a chimney. Like most of us, probably are thinking, like, you know, you're in it, you know, maybe five feet from the edge, and you can see the light going through. Or is this more of, like, a tunnel where you entered one section

00;46;49;24 - 00;47;10;13
Speaker 1
No, probably your first descriptions, but. Right. You were probably in this chimney, and you're probably maybe 5 to 15ft from the light. And you had to move around a bit where it was, you know, there was room for you to squeeze through. But. Yeah. Yeah.

00;47;10;15 - 00;47;34;22
Speaker 1
It, just came out of the chimney. Yeah. Onto a snow slope. So it was. It was continuous. It was a few chalk stones. I mean, obviously it was too wide for Camhs, so, it was quite badly protected, but occasionally you'd find a chalk stone, occasionally you'd get these strange blobs of ice. So you were actually chimney and putting ice screws into pieces of ice that were.

00;47;34;25 - 00;48;03;15
Speaker 1
I mean, but like so many mushrooms that were maybe like one foot in size across, just stuck to the wall of the chimney and you play ice through it. It it was it was a strange, strange conditions. Yeah. But and then we sort of got from the chimney and we got into the upper slopes and, we sort of, we got, we hitched, we pitched a tent on a, I've got this single Osmo hammock which allows you to sort of sleep in the hammock, but we got hit by an avalanche and it destroyed the tent.

00;48;03;17 - 00;48;23;14
Speaker 1
This tent got all ripped into pieces. And. Yeah. So that way with us, it was a bit more in the open that we were tent less by then, and the weather was quite bad. And, one of the luckiest things ever I've had on the climb, we were sort of literally 50m below the summit and we couldn't find anywhere to sleep.

00;48;23;17 - 00;48;43;23
Speaker 1
And the weather was really bad and it was too steep and we had no tent. And literally we arrived at a cave and we crawled inside a cave, and we slept in a completely sheltered cave underground with a flat floor. And we were 50m below the summit of this peak. It was it was weird. Not not an ice cave, a rock.

00;48;43;23 - 00;48;52;17
Speaker 1
Hope. Yeah. So, Yeah. Yeah, we definitely felt somebody was looking down on this quite benevolent.

00;49;04;13 - 00;49;29;01
Speaker 1
Oh. That's the sensitive subject at the moment, actually, because, I'm I'm I'm usually very good in the cold. And, and I definitely seem to prefer a cold as much as a lot of people. But I did get frostbite on my expedition last year, and I. So I lost the end of my finger.

00;49;29;03 - 00;49;50;25
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, so I can't really claim to be immune to the cold, and most. Now I've lost part of my little finger. My, a little finger on my left hand. So that's about as good as it gets. So frostbite. Doesn't seem to do anything at all. Yeah, it's it's about as good as frostbite gets. My Meg describes it as souvenir.

00;49;50;25 - 00;50;16;28
Speaker 1
Frostbite? Because I don't, I don't I mean, I've never, I'm climbing again, and it doesn't seem to affect me so I can ice climb, rock climb. But the only time I ever noticed the end of my finger missing was, if you go to, like, a climbing wall and there's, like, a volume, you have a little bit less friction on your fingertip, but that's it.

00;50;17;00 - 00;50;22;00
Speaker 1
Oh, yes, yes I do. I can feel the end of it. Yeah.

00;50;22;00 - 00;50;28;14
Speaker 1
The most.

00;50;28;16 - 00;50;47;17
Speaker 1
No, no, I can't do that. But still not got used to it. I mean, for example, do you, when you're cutting your fingernails, I still keep going to the fifth thing because I. And I was like, oh, was it going? It probably is like, yeah.

00;50;47;20 - 00;51;06;20
Speaker 1
Yeah. I'm not been on an expedition since then. I'm going next year. So I can't really say how it's been mentally on. I've been ice climbing since then and then seem to be I seem to be fine. And the worst thing, actually, some ice climbing. There's nothing in the end. My, my my gloves.

00;51;06;20 - 00;51;29;08
Speaker 1
So it sticks out strangely when I'm quoting an ice ax, which I find irritating. But that's. Yeah. No, actually, I think I get my, clothing from a company called Mountain Equipment, and they've offered to tailor me some gloves, so. So they're going to get my gloves taken and think. Yeah.

00;51;29;08 - 00;51;50;12
Speaker 2
cool. Yeah. Someone probably will keep one of those as an iconic, test piece for you. Wow. Okay. Real quick back on the Phantom line. It's it sounded like you had a hape scare, coming down that mountain. How how true was that? And kind of. What was that? You sounded like you were coughing and, you kind of were, like, going downhill pretty

00;51;51;00 - 00;52;11;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, it was, I was flying on the mountain. And then I got to base camp, and, it was basically the following day that I got this kind of bad chest infection, so. So no, it wasn't. I don't think it was altitude related. I think it was just a proper chest infection. But it was quite, quite severe.

00;52;11;02 - 00;52;28;21
Speaker 1
I was coughing a lot on the mountain. But then it so deteriorated into a chest infection. But that was, that was kind of walking out from base camp. But, yeah, I got kind of really cold and wobbly at one point, so it was a bit. It was a bit concerning, but, the month's about it to me.

00;52;28;23 - 00;52;30;07
Speaker 1
It went away quite quickly.

00;52;30;29 - 00;52;33;05
Speaker 2
Have you had any other moments where you've kind of dealt with

00;52;34;14 - 00;53;01;01
Speaker 1
No, no, I've never had any problems with it. And I've never climb of anybody who's had any problems with it. You know, I am very careful with, altitude. And that's one of the great things about doing hard technical climbs is it really slows you down, you know? So, so because the routes I do, the don't have big snowfields on the way, you can gain height really quickly.

00;53;01;03 - 00;53;24;28
Speaker 1
So, so by doing technical routes, you kind of avoids a lot of the altitude problems. And boom, there's not a super talented fast climber. So that's a good way of slowing you down. So yeah, because I mean, a lot of people, you know, they get problems when they just climb too quickly and too fast and usually on kind of more moderate ground and, just fine.

00;53;24;28 - 00;53;52;14
Speaker 1
Big snow slopes, very boring. And I always choose technical routes and that just slows you down. So as a, as a result, I've never really had any serious altitude illness. Obviously when I'm acclimatizing, I do I do feel quite rough, which you would expect, but I've never had a proper altitude related condition.

00;53;52;16 - 00;53;57;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Tim. Tim. Tim Miller, he was a,

00;53;57;00 - 00;54;05;28
Speaker 2
like a mentorship role for you in terms of taking kind of like the next generation under your wing and then showing them kind of your, your vision for how you interact with

00;54;06;26 - 00;54;35;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, there was, there's an element of that somebody, the me was giving me a hard time and ask me what what I'd done to contribute towards the future of mountaineering. And I kind of thought nothing at all, really. So, I thought so. Got become more involved in, mentoring. I mean, young climbers don't need me to mentor them, but climbers, they want to say progress from, say, the Alps to the Himalaya.

00;54;35;15 - 00;54;53;08
Speaker 1
There weren't a lot of Brits doing that. There was a bit of a hole in the sea. Nothing. But there's a lot. There's kind of generation. It didn't really go to the from the UK. So, I thought one of the best thing to do was kind of mentor these people and just give them general advice.

00;54;53;10 - 00;55;13;27
Speaker 1
And, and then Tim was one of the people I met as part of this young group, who I'd gone with really well. And we had very similar approaches to things. I've known him since he was sort of about 17. And so we just decided to team up for it for a route. And, it worked out really well.

00;55;13;28 - 00;55;30;19
Speaker 1
You know, he's exactly half my age or was at the time, and it was good. Good for me getting really well, there's obviously a massive generation gap there. Yeah. You quite often you can see both. I was looking at you were going like, what the hell is he talking about?

00;55;30;22 - 00;55;47;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. When I, when I burst out into my grumpy, middle aged man mode complaining about my work from my work and my pension and my house mortgage, you could just see him looking at me going like, what are you talking about?

00;55;47;14 - 00;56;06;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. But he's nice, you know, hanging out with young people. It does keep you me though. Just the energy and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is brilliant, you know. But you do see, you know, all the hooch in Holland. But then you just wonder, well, why is he running over there doing that? You know what? Why you. Why? Yeah.

00;56;06;14 - 00;56;12;28
Speaker 1
So, Yeah. So is, is is a young, enthusiastic, a he's got a lot of talent.

00;56;12;28 - 00;56;37;04
Speaker 2
Nice. Awesome. I've got. You know, can I kind of wrap this conversation up? I've got, just some questions about kind of. Maybe some reflections on your career and kind of everything that we've talked about so far. And then we'll kind of lead into, maybe some future plans that you have. So, the first question I have here is, you know, you've been climbing pretty bold.

00;56;37;06 - 00;57;03;23
Speaker 2
I would say objectively dangerous routes for a really long time now. What would you say is the main contributing factor for being able to survive, all of your annual objectives? And like the people in your shoes that aren't here to share their stories, like, what's the difference? Like, is it luck? Is it preparation? Is it a mix of both?

00;57;03;25 - 00;57;07;01
Speaker 2
How do you attribute your survival up to this point?

00;57;08;14 - 00;57;16;17
Speaker 1
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00;57;17;15 - 00;57;52;10
Speaker 1
No, it's. It is mountains. So there's an element of. Look. But also, I think you need to, choose your objectives really carefully and be obsessive about minimizing those objective hazards. You know, the people who are not here nearly always were swept away by, avalanches or serac falls. And, you know, you have to be, obsessive about avoiding these things that, you know, as much as possible.

00;57;52;10 - 00;58;15;08
Speaker 1
You can't always, you know, I was in Nepal and last year, to get to the foot of the route, we had to go underneath some serac. So you can't always avoid these things, but I think you could try as much as possible to choose routes. That minimizes objective hazards. So avalanches arose and rockfall as well. Hence, like in Thailand, sort of crest of buttresses and things like that.

00;58;15;11 - 00;58;39;17
Speaker 1
So I think that's a really important thing is, is choosing your objective really well, and then also, you know, yeah, I'll keep mentioning it, but making sure you have the skills before you go, you know, don't miss out the skills that you need, you know, you spend your time, you need to invest your time in learning all the skills that are needed to be a mountaineer.

00;58;39;19 - 00;58;47;07
Speaker 1
And it's really easy, especially these days when the much information around you kind of miss stages out. And, you know, I think

00;58;52;02 - 00;59;14;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, a lot of my so, you know, look I is not is come down to just spending the time in the mountains learning how to do everything. And, you know, even going back to being, you know, young and being in the scouts and going hiking and going out in bad weather to navigate, you know, these things all just build up over time.

00;59;14;08 - 00;59;31;00
Speaker 1
And, and, you know, it's amazing sort of 30 years later, you know, I find myself relying on something I learned a long, long time ago. So it's having that huge reserve of experience and knowledge is is important.

00;59;31;00 - 00;59;44;15
Speaker 2
What about, like, personal growth? So, like, is there a specific thing that you feel like the mountains have taught you in your life, or something that you learned about yourself through your pursuits in the mountains?

00;59;45;04 - 00;59;49;25
Speaker 1
Wow.

00;59;49;27 - 00;59;54;09
Speaker 1
I think can.

00;59;54;11 - 01;00;05;03
Speaker 1
I think these are quite hard things, because I don't really sort of talk about these things a lot.

01;00;05;06 - 01;00;36;00
Speaker 1
I think. You realize that, trying to impose your will on the mountain or nature just doesn't get you anywhere. You know, you you're either going to spoil the mountains by damaging with bolts, or you just going to die because the mountains don't care about you. You know that they're there and and you know that they're not really interested in you.

01;00;36;02 - 01;00;58;10
Speaker 1
I'm trying to impose your will on this thing that doesn't care is completely pointless. So. So the only way to show is can I climb a mountain is to sort of fit it with the respect it deserves. And that involves a whole kind of approach to life and climbing. So I think mountains have taught me to respect the outdoors a lot.

01;00;58;12 - 01;01;25;01
Speaker 1
And I think if you respect the outdoors, you kind of end up respecting yourself down. You. So they've taught me a lot about myself. And I think, a lot of that is just down to respects, to treat of respect. And, yeah, it's treatment of respect. You've got to end up treating people respect and, you know, and don't be trying to impose your will on anything.

01;01;25;04 - 01;01;38;00
Speaker 1
You know, if you're if you have the right approach to life then everything will work out. So I, I'm quite positive about things. Everything always works out in my space.

01;01;39;17 - 01;01;51;05
Speaker 2
What about, like, a moment, in your climbing career where you felt like the most humbled or just, like, shocked by the, the nature and the environment that

01;01;52;06 - 01;02;05;06
Speaker 1
Oh yes. No. I'm, most humbled in it. There's not. There have been some just probably.

01;02;05;09 - 01;02;26;06
Speaker 1
One of the things, one of the experiences that, most stays with me, as we would put it, on Denali, there's this face call that the father and son face, which you basically climb up the west, buttress the motorcycle hill and drop over the back. And there's a thing called the father and son face. And we did a new route on there.

01;02;26;08 - 01;02;27;19
Speaker 1
And

01;02;27;19 - 01;02;44;23
Speaker 1
it was sort of start on the right hand side, which is on this huge band band of rocks, and we thought we'd just risk it to get started. And we raced up this clearly to get started and then the whole set up and we're talking literally millions and millions of tons of ice just ripped off.

01;02;44;25 - 01;02;57;18
Speaker 1
And I was right in it's full life, and the guy was climbing. It was off to one side and I was just in this full light. And, I remember looking around and then.

01;02;57;20 - 01;03;15;29
Speaker 1
Just decided it was like a rock wall and just like this little pillar of ice. And then just on top of this pillar was, a piece of rock sticking out, maybe like, two feet. And I climb this little pillar really quickly and just got onto this thing, and then this million tonnes of ice went over the top for me.

01;03;16;02 - 01;03;35;03
Speaker 1
And the. That's probably the most humble I've ever felt in the mountains where I was, I just there was no reason why I should have ever survived that. And when it passed. And you. So you go and it doesn't ask a lot of questions. Why am I here? You know, how did I ever, ever survive that? And that's quite, quite a revelation, isn't it?

01;03;35;03 - 01;03;39;09
Speaker 1
When you have that kind of experience.

01;03;39;09 - 01;04;02;17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Still did the route though. So, Yeah. No, no, no, but it was interesting because we did this new route and then. Yeah, I think it was a 50 hour round trip from our base camp and it was that kind of classic Alaskan continuous bush style thing, but I didn't enjoy it, to be honest.

01;04;02;20 - 01;04;23;01
Speaker 1
It's not my style of climbing. There's just there's no. Well, it's very impressive doing these things very quickly. There's no kind of time to look at the view or take any such graphs. You just, you know, you're not really there. You're just climbing, you know, kind of enjoying the mountains, which, you know, I think enjoyment to me is weighty, important to enjoy the mountains.

01;04;23;03 - 01;04;28;27
Speaker 1
And sometimes if you're just climbing continuously, you know, you don't have any time to be in the moment.

01;04;30;07 - 01;04;42;01
Speaker 2
That makes sense. That's crazy. That's crazy. I can't even imagine that. Coming down. That's wild. Did you like.

01;04;42;04 - 01;04;45;19
Speaker 2
Did you question, like, you know, how long

01;04;46;09 - 01;05;23;09
Speaker 1
So this is a long time ago. So this is in the period where I was kind of discovering what kind of climbing suited me. So I did spend maybe, sort of, maybe ten years climbing in different styles and in different ways. And so refining what, what suited my style and with different climbing partners and, different mountain ranges and going to Alaska and Patagonia and lots of different places in Nepal and, and I kind of came out of that kind of I kind of just kind of a bit of a self-discovery of what skills, what style suits you.

01;05;23;09 - 01;05;40;06
Speaker 1
And that came out at the end of it. And that was kind of in the period we talked about the various trans would make it the first one on Sigourney, and on the second one on Shiva. There was a ten year gap on it. And that kind of ten years I was trying to disguise, discover what kind of style of openness, suited me.

01;05;40;08 - 01;06;03;03
Speaker 1
And it was experiences like that, you realize that, you know, you have to modify the way you climb mountains if you're going to survive. You don't survive things like that twice. So therefore you can't put yourself into that situation again. And so so it took me a long time to evolve the method or the style of climbing I solo, and then now I kind of just feel much more.

01;06;03;04 - 01;06;14;12
Speaker 1
I feel comfortable in the way I do it and, and some 55 and still doing things that people might more normally do in their 20s or 30.

01;06;14;12 - 01;06;19;15
Speaker 2
And so that that particular moment was a turning point in terms of your vision for who you were going to be

01;06;20;25 - 01;06;26;25
Speaker 1
Definitely contributed. It was just one of those things where, yeah, I just can't do this kind of thing again.

01;06;26;25 - 01;06;30;08
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely. Like you said, you don't get that kind of

01;06;30;25 - 01;06;44;26
Speaker 1
No, no, no, I certainly.

01;06;44;28 - 01;06;52;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, surviving something like that is, is a gift, you know, and most people don't get that gift. So you have to make the most of it.

01;07;08;03 - 01;07;33;11
Speaker 1
Oh. I'm already I'm not going away this year. So, I've got a few too many work commitments. But next year, I'm going on an expedition to India, and I already have my objective. And it surprisingly, it looks like a north buttress of very nice looking mountain. Yes, yes, yes, there are still north facing things left to climb and and,

01;07;33;14 - 01;07;54;20
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I'm looking forward to. I'll go with a German friend. Misha. He's my own age, so I'm not. I'm not mentoring a youth this time. But, Yeah. So that's more more of the more it's the kind of thing I've done in the past. But I think I'll just keep climbing. I'll just maybe just do smaller, easier things.

01;07;54;20 - 01;07;57;11
Speaker 1
But I just don't ever see myself stopping.

01;07;57;29 - 01;08;05;09
Speaker 2
Cool. Very cool. How does your family feel about, your time in the mountains and the risk that you put yourself in?

01;08;07;06 - 01;08;29;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I, I, I tend to do worry. I'd be a bit blind to say that. Don't worry. You know, which means I'd. You know, to do this kind of thing. There's a there's a limit to how much of a nice person you are, to be honest. You know, you have to be a bit of a bastard, which is not a nice thing to think about your family, but I am a bit ruthlessness.

01;08;29;13 - 01;08;57;04
Speaker 1
Suppose, Which is not a nice. It's recognizing that and yourself is not very nice, but that's how I am. So, So yeah, I do appreciate that they worry and they put a lot of effort into supporting me, so that is great. But those kind of things just go fairly used to it. Now. My daughter, she started climbing, which was quite a concern.

01;08;57;06 - 01;09;15;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. For me, yeah, I was, I was I didn't really encourage it, to be honest. But, but fortunately she's really into rock climbing and shows no interest in climbing mountains, and I, I encourage that.

01;09;15;18 - 01;09;34;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I'm going to be honest, not a lot of people have died about some, you know, it's kind of inevitable. So when. Yeah, I can't imagine what I would say if my daughter said, dad, I want to go on an expedition. I would, I would be a bit distressing. Yeah.

01;09;34;08 - 01;09;37;00
Speaker 2
her go with you or go with somebody else?

01;09;38;07 - 01;10;00;05
Speaker 1
Well, that was kind of interesting because I, I didn't really encourage your climbing when she was, when she was younger at all. I don't know if she knew when it was first started talking. I mentioned when I was first in the Alps, my climbing partner, his his daughter died when we were out there. So, so I had an experience of the the death of my climbing part as a teenage daughter.

01;10;00;07 - 01;10;39;26
Speaker 1
And she was out there climbing with a university climbing club in the same valley in Germany. And that had a really lasting impact on me. So, so I when I had a daughter, I felt no interest in encouraging it to go climbing. So most climbers drag their family out climbing, but I never did, and, and then it was when she got to be maybe about 14 and kept asking to go, and I kept refusing, and then then my wife said, you know, you need to take a climbing, because if you don't show what to do, then someday else will, and, they probably won't do it as well

01;10;39;26 - 01;11;09;17
Speaker 1
as you. So it was kind of this bizarre situation. I was forced by my wife to take my daughter climbing, which which was not what I expected. But actually it's been a revelation. And we've had and she's 20 now, and we've had six wonderful years of climbing on a regular basis together, and I've absolutely loved it. But, yeah, yeah, it's been beautiful and, but it's all been rock climbing and long may that continue.

01;11;11;02 - 01;11;29;25
Speaker 2
Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. Last couple questions here. What do you see for the future of high alpine? Like how a pine alpine object. How high altitude alpine objectives like, what do you see? The

01;11;30;22 - 01;11;53;28
Speaker 1
Well, I mean, the the future just occurred or. Johnno, you know, those those the future. And, you know, I'm I'm too old for that kind of thing, but, you know, everything about what they did. I was kind of. I've been telling people that's where you. And, you know, ever since the, was it since, grade seven invented the inflatable portal?

01;11;53;28 - 01;12;13;09
Speaker 1
I just said, you know, that is the thing that will shape the future of Himalayan optimism. And, then. And then the guys did that on January 1st. You know, that is undoubtably, you know, where the future of albinism lies. Unfortunately, I'm too old for that.

01;12;14;00 - 01;12;15;12
Speaker 2
I'll have to look into it. What happened

01;12;15;12 - 01;12;25;07
Speaker 1
So basically, they they America, this clan, this, North Face of China, which had been seized by Russians.

01;12;25;09 - 01;12;55;04
Speaker 1
Bolting and capsule style climbing over like monks. And then, team Americans climbed it over about five days straight, alpine style. And and it's so steep they use these little inflatable portal ledges. And it was just a it just shows you how the technology is improving. You know, things like that are now possible. So there's a there's a bright future for high altitude optimism, but it requires a lot of commitment.

01;12;55;07 - 01;13;04;01
Speaker 1
And, and not not many people will be that put in that level of effort and commitment.

01;13;04;01 - 01;13;26;22
Speaker 2
If you if you want to, you know, close this out by leaving a message to, the audience and kind of like, maybe a message to climbers or a, you know, people who are inspired by your story. People who have a vision to climb the kind of things that you do, like what would be a piece of advice or a message that you you would leave to them?

01;13;28;03 - 01;13;42;26
Speaker 1
It's always it's, repeating the some of the messages Rory said I would. There's two things. Is, you know, learn the skills, put your put the effort in, put the time into, learn how to do things really well.

01;13;42;28 - 01;13;43;21
Speaker 2
So that all.

01;13;43;21 - 01;14;10;17
Speaker 1
The different techniques and skills come really slickly. And don't race ahead until you, you are really confident at the level you're at. You know, everybody's in a rush these days, but put the time in, put the effort in and it will pay you back in the future. You know, when you're up there on a mountain and as we say, the shit hits the fan and there's a big storm and everything goes wrong.

01;14;10;19 - 01;14;30;14
Speaker 1
It's all those kind of muscle memory skills that you've got that will get you out to the bother. So put the time in and effort into the skills. And then the second thing I would say is just, just really choose your routes, you know, really avoid those objective hazards, those avalanche slopes, those rocks, because that's the things that kill most people.

01;14;30;16 - 01;14;35;22
Speaker 1
So just put the time and effort into choose routes that are as objectively psycho as possible.

01;14;37;17 - 01;14;57;11
Speaker 1
That concludes today's episode, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. It really means a lot to me that you're here. 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, if you're psyched about what we're doing here at The Climbing Majority, please reach out to me.

01;14;57;12 - 01;15;19;29
Speaker 1
Email me. Call me whatever you want. I just want to hear from you. And also, don't forget you can watch our full episodes on YouTube. Stay tuned for our next episode where we dive into two twin's mission to stand on top of the tallest mountain in each country of the world. Until then, keep exploring, stay safe. And as always, thanks for being a part of the climbing majority.

01;15;20;03 - 01;15;22;17
Speaker 1
I will see you all in two weeks.