83 | Twins To The Tops Part I w/ Eric & Matthew Gilbertson

Have you ever heard of the Gilbertson twins? My guess is probably not, which is surprising given what these two have been up to for nearly 30 years. MIT graduates Eric and Matthew Gilbertson have made it their mission to summit and survey the highest mountain in every country on Earth. So far, they’ve successfully climbed 145 country highpoints, documenting their journeys with detailed trip reports and photos. Similar to previous guest Steph Abegg, Eric and Matthew’s attention to detail and the sheer amount of free information they’ve made available on their website is astonishing. I highly encourage you to check it out after this episode.

When I first heard about their objective, I was overwhelmed with questions. How do you condense 145 mountains across 145 countries into a single conversation? Each country is distinct, and climbing its highest mountain poses its own difficulties, whether they’re technical, logistical, or even political. To top it all off, Eric and Matthew aren’t just climbing these mountains—they’re carrying surveying equipment to the summits to verify elevations with accuracy down to the inch. Their work has already corrected outdated information about multiple country highpoints, establishing the true highest peaks for locals and peak-baggers alike to celebrate. It’s an incredible endeavor that blends adventure, science, and the pursuit of global exploration.

In Part I of our conversation, we dive into the origin story of the Gilbertson twins and their vision for climbing country highpoints. We then start to explore some of the standout objectives that illustrate their experience over the last 30 years. We’ll also touch on their meticulous surveying efforts, what it means to truly measure a mountain, and the surprising conflicts they’ve faced along the way— even some with Wikipedia. Finally, we’ll discuss their reflections on climate change and the transformations they’ve witnessed firsthand in some of the world’s most remote and stunning peaks.

So, without further delay, I bring you Part I of my conversation with Eric and Matthew Gilbertson.

----

Don’t forget to check out our full video episodes on Youtube!

The TCM movement is growing but we need your help to spread the word! Please share this podcast with your friends and family. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to support the show. If you enjoyed the show we’d appreciate it if you could rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher.

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

---

Resources

Country Highpoints Website

Eric Gilbertson's IG

Books

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 4:29 The Origin Story
• 17:40 Surveying
• 29:28 Global Warming
• 35:16 Country Highpoints

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;47;27
Speaker 1
Welcome back everyone. I'm your host Kyle Brock Strowman, and I hope you're all enjoying the holidays with your loved ones. Judging by the posts and messages I've seen, some of you have also been making the most of your winter climbing season, and it's been fueling my fire for upcoming trips to Joshua Tree and some local climbing here at Red rocks.

00;00;47;29 - 00;01;14;07
Speaker 1
As the year comes to a close and I record this final episode intro of 2024. I'm reflecting on what a turbulent yet transformative year it has been from my life changing discovery of testicular cancer to bidding farewell to Max carrier. There have definitely been some lows, but there have also been some great positives, like cherishing meaningful time with family and celebrating my most significant year of climbing since I began nearly a decade ago.

00;01;14;09 - 00;01;38;13
Speaker 1
This year alone, I've managed 176 pitches of climbing. Ticking off some of the biggest routes on my list, including Positive Vibrations, Cloud Tower, the original route on Rainbow Wall, levitation 29, and so many other ultra classic tread lines. These climbs have given me the confidence to book my first Yosemite trip this May, and even though I think I might have bitten off a little more than I can chew, I could not be more excited.

00;01;38;16 - 00;02;05;22
Speaker 1
But truly, when I look back at 2024, what I'm most proud of is this growing community we're building here at the Climbing Majority. When I go to a crag and never drop the do you listen to podcast line? I'm amazed to find that 75% of the time, at least 1 or 2 groups of strangers are already listeners. These moments of the crags, the consistent flow of support and stoke and seeing this podcast even connect climbers from around the world, brings me immense happiness and pride.

00;02;05;24 - 00;02;31;03
Speaker 1
You are all part of a rapidly growing group of climbers that make up the majority. All right, enough reflection. Let's dive into today's episode. Have you ever heard of the Gilbertson twins? My guess is probably not, which is surprising given what these two have been up to for nearly 30 years. MIT graduates Eric and Matthew Gilbertson have made it their mission to summit and survey the highest mountain in every country on Earth.

00;02;31;05 - 00;02;55;05
Speaker 1
So far, they've successfully climbed 145 country high points, documenting their journeys with detailed trip reports and photos similar to previous guest Steph, a big Eric and Matthews attention to detail and the sheer amount of free information they've made available on their website is astonishing. I highly encourage you to check it out after this episode. When I first heard about their objective, I was overwhelmed with questions.

00;02;55;07 - 00;03;19;28
Speaker 1
How do you condense 145 mountains across 145 countries into a single conversation? Each country is distinct, and climbing its highest mountain poses its own difficulties. Whether there are technical, logistical, or even sometimes political. To top it all off, Eric and Matthew aren't just climbing these mountains. They're carrying surveying equipment to the summits to verify elevations with accuracy down to the inch.

00;03;20;00 - 00;03;44;22
Speaker 1
Their work has already corrected outdated information about multiple country high points, establishing the new, truest, highest peaks for locals and peak baggers alike to celebrate. It's an incredible endeavor that blends adventure, science, and the pursuit of global exploration. In part one of our conversation, we dive into the origin story of the Gilbertson twins and their vision for climbing country high points.

00;03;44;25 - 00;04;09;27
Speaker 1
We then start to explore some of the stand out objectives that illustrate their experience over the last 30 years. We'll also touch on their meticulous surveying efforts, what it means to truly measure a mountain, and the surprising conflicts they faced along the way, even some with Wikipedia. Finally, we'll discuss their reflections on climate change and the transformations they've witnessed firsthand in some of the world's most remote and stunning peaks.

00;04;09;29 - 00;04;16;21
Speaker 1
So, without further delay, I bring you part one of my conversation with Eric and Matthew Gilbertson.

00;04;29;12 - 00;04;41;07
Speaker 1
I've been, I've been diving into your guys's website, and, I mean, first off, I am just absolutely astonished at the level of detail on these trip reports. If you guys know about Steph, a big.

00;04;41;07 - 00;04;51;09
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. I, I've read her reports and, the cascade. She's really good. She's really good. Topo diagrams on mountains. A lot of climbers use her user data.

00;04;51;09 - 00;04;56;19
Speaker 1
if you ever go to Mountain Project and you like the the main image is like this. Perfect. It's usually like by Steph a

00;04;56;19 - 00;05;13;16
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;05;13;19 - 00;05;14;09
Speaker 1
Thanks.

00;05;14;20 - 00;05;31;20
Speaker 1
So I think, a really great place to start, you know, obviously with a lot of people who, you know, don't really get their stories told. And maybe I'm wrong in that statement, like, have you guys spoken about this publicly or have you kind of like, had a platform to share, your story and kind of what you guys are going after?

00;05;32;05 - 00;05;56;02
Speaker 1
I think if you know a few different things here or there, we've had the opportunity to, you know, kind of talk about, like our our our college outing club. We get invited back every year to give a lecture. For example, we've also, I think talked BBC we had, like a short interview a couple of years ago.

00;05;57;08 - 00;06;15;04
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. A couple of newspapers. It was London Times and one in Switzerland. They were kind of interested in a country high point in the surveying project. I guess more recently, with me serving Rainier, some of the locals places have been interested in that.

00;06;15;04 - 00;06;23;04
Speaker 1
Okay, cool. Have you guys had a chance to, like, talk about, like, the origin story in terms of, like, where you guys came from and the passion for the project and kind

00;06;24;23 - 00;06;30;23
Speaker 1
We haven't done anything like a podcast like this before. Nothing like nothing. This in-depth.

00;06;30;25 - 00;06;42;23
Speaker 1
Okay. Awesome. Yeah. No, I so I think you know, too, I'm assuming it's going to reach a lot of people who haven't either one heard of you or haven't, you know, gotten the full depth of your stories. Maybe they've had like,

00;06;44;17 - 00;07;05;18
Speaker 1
You know, they've come across one specific thing, like you talked about, like, you know, that you've gone to their local mountain and then they've heard of you. So I want to to start this podcast with the foundation for like, who you guys are and like, what your origin story is. And I think a great place to start for me, I think the, the main thing I want to lay the foundation for is you guys are

00;07;05;28 - 00;07;07;07
Speaker 1
Yeah. Fraternal twins.

00;07;07;16 - 00;07;08;08
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;07;40;25 - 00;08;04;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, for one thing, we, you know, have so many similar experiences growing up. We. And we have similar interests. You know, both, I guess, in school, academically and also in the mountains. So we, you know, we get along pretty well and physically, our our abilities are pretty, pretty similar. You know, we're both in pretty good shape.

00;08;04;08 - 00;08;26;11
Speaker 1
We're both played soccer. So you know those you know we're pretty compatible for with each other from that perspective. So I think that's and also we, you know, we get along pretty well. Like we might just kind of, you know, argue a little here or there or small things, but, you know, there's never any like a real big conflict.

00;08;26;14 - 00;08;30;07
Speaker 1
So that kind of makes us pretty good firing partners.

00;08;30;14 - 00;08;36;00
Speaker 1
Has it always been like that? Have you always been, like, in sync? And are you guys, the

00;08;37;21 - 00;08;56;10
Speaker 1
We have one younger brother. We've pretty much. It's nice to always have, like a mountaineering partner. We have the basically the same interests growing up. So I can in school and college, we would always do, like, the exact same trips together. We always take the exact same classes. So pretty much always doing the same thing.

00;08;56;10 - 00;09;04;10
Speaker 1
And you always have a reliable partner that has the same skill level, same athletic ability, same interests and mountains. That's pretty nice.

00;09;04;10 - 00;09;15;05
Speaker 1
And, did you guys, like, were your family into mountain sports? Were they hikers, climbers? Or were you guys kind of the the forging the path in terms of bringing it to more vertical,

00;09;15;16 - 00;09;38;12
Speaker 1
I think our families are always been really outdoorsy. So we do trips with our, you know, our parents and our younger brother down in the Smoky Mountains. Tennessee, North Carolina, and then kind of locally, where we grew up in Kentucky. And then we kind of got faster and faster. And then our dad kind of let us do a few trips by ourselves on the Appalachian Trail, when we were in high school.

00;09;38;14 - 00;09;49;13
Speaker 1
So it's kind of our first trip, just like the two of us. And then, of course, when we went off to college, we're doing more and more stuff just by ourselves. To our family. Different got us started.

00;09;49;13 - 00;10;08;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. Family is really into road trips. Like trying to visit every state in in the US. And that kind of led to peak bagging because we would even, like, Iowa or Kansas on the Rand McNally map. There'd be a little symbol of a mountain. The high point there say, okay, we got to stop there and climb that one.

00;10;08;05 - 00;10;16;24
Speaker 1
So it kind of led us into, you know, you can kind of drive up some of them. Some of them are hikes. But that kind of got us into peak bagging. I think.

00;10;17;07 - 00;10;22;01
Speaker 1
Okay, so you started peak bagging in some of the, like, flatter states,

00;10;23;01 - 00;10;36;20
Speaker 1
That we would like drive up to Minnesota to visit our grandparents, but maybe we go through Iowa on the way and then hit the high point or drive farther.

00;10;36;23 - 00;10;45;15
Speaker 1
I would say you would be an undergrad with, MT starting club. They kind of got us into rock climbing or climbing up in New Hampshire a lot.

00;10;48;04 - 00;10;58;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, we were at MIT for undergrad and grad school. We were there for like ten years together. Kind of do the same thing.

00;10;58;21 - 00;10;59;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, pretty much.

00;11;13;22 - 00;11;32;23
Speaker 1
I just remember one short, being on the Appalachian Trail. We were, you know, we were through hiking, and we got a, shuttle, and we ended up paying more than expected, and we had a conflict between the two of us. Or about last about an hour. We hiked a few hundred feet apart, and then we got back together at the end of the day,

00;11;33;15 - 00;11;39;18
Speaker 1
You can't stay too far apart. If one of us has the stove and one has the tent. Kind of have to meet up for the like.

00;12;21;29 - 00;12;42;08
Speaker 1
For me, academia kind of has a good balance between, outdoors activity, like expeditions. And then also engineering. So I get the summers off to go do expeditions, which is great, but then I can still do engineering, do some research, teach classes. So I kind of like the balance.

00;12;42;08 - 00;13;05;17
Speaker 1
For me, I'm in aerospace. I work at Lockheed Martin, so I design satellites that, you know, take pictures of the sun and stuff like that. For me, the the work schedule is pretty nice. In aerospace, you sometimes get, like, every other Friday off, so I kind of use that for, to get a three day weekend every, every other weekend.

00;13;05;17 - 00;13;06;21
Speaker 1
And that's pretty nice.

00;13;06;26 - 00;13;22;15
Speaker 1
Now, are you guys, Matt, I guess this is like a, you know, some of these questions will be kind of split, so, I guess I'll start with you, Eric, on this question. Are you are you, like a fully employed at this point or are you still in studying, or are you like, a teacher or like, what are you kind of what is your life trajectory like in terms

00;13;23;14 - 00;13;43;13
Speaker 1
Oh. I've been. I'm a full time, like a teaching professor in mechanical engineering. Seattle University. And we we both graduated in, like, 2015, so we've been working for a little while now. So I'm full time, but I get three months off in the summer, so I'm like, not not paid in the summer, but I can go do expeditions.

00;13;43;13 - 00;13;54;12
Speaker 1
Got it. Okay. So you're you're teaching, your craft, and, Matthew, you're, in a, in a profession, you know, working on your craft with satellites and astrological

00;13;54;23 - 00;14;01;21
Speaker 1
Yeah. I know from.

00;14;22;21 - 00;14;40;00
Speaker 1
Well, I guess I can start, Eric. And then you can take over. I think, as Eric mentioned, like when we were kids or family, we do a lot of road trips. I try to visit every state, hit the state high points, and then once we got into college, there it there is this list of the New Hampshire, 4000 footers.

00;14;40;00 - 00;14;58;19
Speaker 1
Says 40, 48 mountains or 4000ft. And everybody tries to do those. So we kind of got in the peak bagging even more than that. And then did you know Mount Washington? That's a state high point. We thought, This is an interesting list. And then kind of we're working on this state high point at the same time.

00;14;58;19 - 00;15;23;25
Speaker 1
And, you know, we eventually finished that in 2012 when we thought we've already done well on the hard won Denali in terms of the country high points. So let's, let's start working on more of them. We, you know, we had conferences in different countries like, we had a, a couple of weeks that we were in India, and I visited Bahrain on the way back near the high point there.

00;15;23;28 - 00;15;48;20
Speaker 1
And so that kind of got us started on, country high points, and we just, you know, every chance that we got, we ended, we tried to fit another one in here, there whenever we'd have like a layover or. Yeah, we have a conference in an interesting location. So it was a pretty kind of gradual, ramp up to working on

00;15;51;10 - 00;16;10;21
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think that. Yeah, the conferences in grad school were good impetus. Because if we do good research, then we get sent to, like, Brazil or Germany or China or somewhere. And then you can always tag on country high point on the side, and it wouldn't really cost any extra money. There's already the flight and the hotels already paid for.

00;16;10;23 - 00;16;24;20
Speaker 1
And so that kind of got us thinking, okay, maybe we can make some progress on this. And it seems like kind of a good lifelong project. We wanted to visit every country in the world, and this is a great excuse to visit every country.

00;16;25;04 - 00;16;42;01
Speaker 1
So it's kind of like a culmination of. Of your skill sets. You, you you've already, you know, practice ice climbing and climbing, and you've done a bit of peak bagging everywhere you went since you were a child. Now all of a sudden, you know, in your academic career, you're you're traveling around the world and you're like, hey, like, I'm chilling in India.

00;16;42;02 - 00;16;56;03
Speaker 1
Like, why don't we go find the highest point in India? And like, the same thing kind of goes around for each country, right? Is I kind of like the summarization of kind of how it started. It's just kind of like circumstantial. You're just finding yourselves in these countries with time and experience and like

00;16;58;15 - 00;17;18;18
Speaker 1
Right. And we we kind of already had built up enough skills since we'd already climbed Denali, the Alaska high point, but also the US high point. So that meant a lot of country high points about an accessible. And we'd already learned all these skill mountaineering skills from MT out and club teaching us all the ice climbing, rock climbing like winter, winter camping.

00;17;18;18 - 00;17;39;02
Speaker 1
we had also developed an appreciation for the mountains that aren't very hard from doing a lot of the state high points, like, you know, Delaware and Florida. Pretty, pretty short mountains. But they're they're all part of the list. So that kind of got us. Yeah. Appreciating some of the easier ones that maybe didn't involve as much climbing.

00;17;39;09 - 00;18;04;09
Speaker 1
Now, when it comes to like your your passion for the like the reason and the passion for going after these peaks. Do you see the passion slide more in your abilities in your, like your, your passion as a climber. Or is it more about the data acquisition and the serving that drives you to the top, these peaks? And, you know, we haven't really talked about that that goal of serving.

00;18;04;09 - 00;18;06;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Like when did that come into the equation.

00;18;08;01 - 00;18;30;20
Speaker 1
That started in for the Saudi Arabia high point. So there we. Before then, we kind of just assumed. I think most people assume. Well, everything's already been measured. All the mountains are already known. Everyone knows. What's the country? High point. But then came Saudi Arabia, and then we started digging a little bit. And it turned out there was like another mountain that no one had really ever heard of.

00;18;30;20 - 00;18;52;13
Speaker 1
That might be the high point. And if we're going to go all the way over there, we definitely want to be certain we get the right mountain. So and in that point in 2018, Saudi Arabia wasn't issuing tourist visas. It would be extremely hard to get over there. We were really lucky. One of our climbing partners from from school was is was head of the Saudi Climbing Federation.

00;18;52;15 - 00;19;13;17
Speaker 1
So we got a special permission to go in. We said, we're going to go and survey both mountains and see which one's taller. So that kind of got it started. And then what do you know, the peak that no one had really heard of was actually taller than the one people thought was the high point. So then we kind of got to thinking, okay, well, there might be other countries that it's uncertain what's the highest mountain.

00;19;13;19 - 00;19;16;25
Speaker 1
And it turns out there are quite a few still remaining.

00;19;16;28 - 00;19;27;14
Speaker 1
And that has been kind of. Now, the vision from that point on, moving forward. The vision is, is trying to establish what the high point is for each country.

00;19;27;14 - 00;19;44;02
Speaker 1
I think for the countries where it's not certain, it's definitely a priority to figure that out. If we're going to go there and those are kind of like interesting ones that I kind of think it's good to prioritize now because it's kind of fun to, like, make a new discovery like that.

00;19;44;12 - 00;19;46;25
Speaker 1
Do you survey every mountain that you summit?

00;19;47;11 - 00;20;12;11
Speaker 1
I'm kind of starting to I'm getting more into it now. I've like, I've gotten all kinds of equipment in Washington. Our kind of survey about anything. Now, and I'd like to start bringing it to bringing this equipment to countries, because a lot of countries they like haven't really surveyed with much accuracy. What we've even if they know what is the high point, they know what to like, I don't know, the nearest ten feet of 20ft.

00;20;12;13 - 00;20;19;03
Speaker 1
And if I can get to the nearest inch, I know people would appreciate that. Just knowing with high accuracy.

00;20;19;26 - 00;20;24;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I guess, like, the focus on precision, it seems like.

00;20;24;24 - 00;20;26;10
Speaker 2
So it.

00;20;26;12 - 00;20;29;05
Speaker 1
The background to, like, the passion of of, like.

00;20;29;07 - 00;20;30;12
Speaker 2
When you're.

00;20;30;15 - 00;20;43;28
Speaker 1
Trying to reach the summit of each country. That goal still within itself is like a personal goal to explore and to, to reach the country high point of, of each country. That is still like a standalone goal for you

00;20;44;27 - 00;20;54;18
Speaker 1
Right. That's kind of separate from the survey. Surveying is an interesting side project that helps with the overall goals. Just to, like, get to every known.

00;20;54;18 - 00;21;09;13
Speaker 1
facets to it. You know, we like to explore senior places, and we like physical achievement. We also like to be, I guess, rigorous and precise in what we do. So we want to make sure we get to the top. We want to make sure that we know what is the top.

00;21;09;13 - 00;21;38;10
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I'd like, you know, I said this to, somebody else I interviewed recently. I'd like to, push back on this concept in order to draw value and purpose out of, like, your, your mission. So, like, what do you guys see as the benefit towards the climbing community or the benefit towards the world in terms of like a setting, you know, a certain peak higher than the other or, hey, this is actually ten feet higher than, you know, other like previously recorded, like, where's the value there?

00;21;38;10 - 00;21;44;23
Speaker 1
Like, you know, explain it to us in terms of like how you see it benefiting the world and the community.

00;21;46;03 - 00;21;48;25
Speaker 1
If you've been enjoying the climbing majority, please rate.

00;21;48;25 - 00;21;52;08
Speaker 2
And review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00;21;53;26 - 00;22;13;27
Speaker 1
I think, for everyone in a certain country, it's very, very important to know for. For mountaineers. What is the highest mountain in that country? Maybe it's not as important for people in other countries, but like. Like in Kurdistan, for example. I've just driving down the road in this taxi. Taxi, we just come down from the high point in the mic.

00;22;14;00 - 00;22;23;14
Speaker 1
Taxi driver gets out and says, these guys climb Pobeda and like random people on the side of the road, know that mountain because it's the highest one in the country. So that's very important to them.

00;22;23;19 - 00;22;29;06
Speaker 1
So is the sense of pride. I think for many people that the highest mountain in the country.

00;22;29;26 - 00;22;41;00
Speaker 1
Got it. And if you know if someone's not doing it, then someone's got to. Right? You know, it's just like missing data in the world that has to be acquired in a certain way. And you guys are the ones that are

00;22;42;04 - 00;22;55;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think there's a lot of peak baggers in general that it's very interesting to know what's the highest point. And they're very surprised to know that mountains haven't actually been surveyed all over the world to enough accuracy to even know.

00;22;56;01 - 00;23;25;28
Speaker 1
I guess, another aspect for me is like when I. When I've done the highest amount, my country, I kind of feel like, to some extent that I've done the hardest mountain. And that's not always the case, that the ice is the hardest. But I feel like I've done a really good job of seeing the country. If I've climbed the highest mountain and I've done sort of the hardest thing you could do from mountaineering point of view in the country, if that makes sense.

00;23;26;15 - 00;23;33;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, it's arguably the hardest terrain to achieve in the country just because of its position geographically. Right?

00;23;34;18 - 00;23;51;23
Speaker 1
If I think a lot of mountaineers rely on topographic maps and the work that previous surveyors have put a lot of work into, and so this is just kind of adding to that dataset that people kind of expect it to be out there. So I think people benefit that way.

00;23;51;23 - 00;23;56;11
Speaker 1
there's one conflict that seems to pop up is like your conflict with Wikipedia.

00;23;56;14 - 00;24;10;03
Speaker 1
So, like what's going on there? Maybe break that down a little bit and like, is there some sort of conflict going on between, like, your guys's actual data set and like Wikipedia's and like, you know, what's the drama there? What's going on?

00;24;10;27 - 00;24;36;26
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I added that to the website. Maybe I shouldn't have brought this up, but it stems from me surveying reindeer that I found. Reindeers melted down by about 22ft, and it's at it's 14 three, 99.6 now instead of 14 for 410 is the park's elevation. Some Wikipedia editors apparently don't like that. And so now they just taking it out on anything we've ever done.

00;24;36;26 - 00;24;45;16
Speaker 1
So they're just removing. So it's really just a couple rogue areas that are I don't know, they're just not.

00;24;45;16 - 00;24;51;05
Speaker 1
what do you feel like the personal vendetta is that they have, like, just because you're you're shortening their mountain, their pride

00;24;52;04 - 00;25;02;29
Speaker 1
All right. I'm really confused about this. They're just kind of anonymous people that somehow control mountain elevation. Pages. So.

00;25;03;01 - 00;25;19;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the so we've discover a new high points in five countries from serving Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Gambia, Togo, Guinea-Bissau. And so they've gone in and like kind of on removed any survey work that was done there.

00;25;19;24 - 00;25;20;12
Speaker 2
Wow.

00;25;20;12 - 00;25;26;01
Speaker 1
And isn't Wikipedia the whole nature of it is supposed to be, like, open sourced information, right? Or anybody can make

00;25;26;11 - 00;25;34;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. This is why I think in the long term people will hopefully will like undo what these people have done.

00;25;34;21 - 00;25;35;05
Speaker 2
Wow.

00;25;35;11 - 00;25;54;27
Speaker 1
Interesting. I guess outside of Wikipedia, I'm sure there's plenty of other websites, including your own, where you can house the information, and I'm sure it'll just all eventually, you know, seep back into the the truth, I guess. And hopefully people who are super, super interested in the actual elevation of mountains like guides and stuff aren't reliant on Wikipedia for

00;25;55;16 - 00;26;04;05
Speaker 1
Hopefully they'll look at multiple sources. Click blogger.com. They always update with latest survey elevation. So that's the most useful or most relevant.

00;26;04;05 - 00;26;17;04
Speaker 1
So I want to dive into the serving process just a little bit. So people can understand, like, what equipment are you using? What, like, what processes are using? How's the process involved? Are you lugging equipment up these mountains? Like, what does that look

00;26;17;06 - 00;26;38;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, how it started in Saudi Arabia, we, rented this differential GPS unit from this company, Waypoint Technologies. I think it was. And so that's the kind of unit that we've been taking up mountains like Saudi Arabia and West Africa. So it's like, what you'll see construction workers using, like surveyors on a construction site.

00;26;38;23 - 00;26;55;22
Speaker 1
It's not just a regular handheld GPS, it's way more accurate. You can get elevations down to like the nearest inch. So it's the main tool. Then in Washington, I do. I use a bunch of other surveying tools like a theodolite. You can measure angles, okay. If there's like a double summit, you can figure out which ones do. On the other.

00;26;58;04 - 00;27;04;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know your distance and you can measure an angle. You can use old trigonometry and then you figure out what's the height difference, which ones are higher.

00;27;04;12 - 00;27;14;05
Speaker 1
and a lot of times for other countries will send our data to professional surveyors and they'll like double check everything like or we'll have friends who are experts in surveying like for Saudi Arabia.

00;27;14;05 - 00;27;16;29
Speaker 1
We we have them always double check any work.

00;27;16;29 - 00;27;36;21
Speaker 1
Man. Like for Rainier, I was collaborating with professional surveyors in Washington. They're like experts on surveying Rainier, like they've done all the previous official surveys. So I sent my data with to them and I like collaborated with them on like what I was going to measure, how long I was going to do it. And they, like, double check all the work.

00;27;36;23 - 00;27;39;07
Speaker 1
So then we're pretty confident in the results. Then.

00;27;39;07 - 00;27;40;21
Speaker 1
findings? Do they

00;27;40;21 - 00;27;49;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So Rainier is like triple checked or that one is very trustworthy result.

00;27;49;13 - 00;28;00;29
Speaker 1
And so I, I've read that you guys are considering the top of mountains no longer. You're not considering the ice cap or the snow cap anymore. It's just the landmass underneath that's technically the true elevation. Is that true?

00;28;01;14 - 00;28;28;01
Speaker 1
Like historically, the the highest point of ice or snow in, like, late summer has been considered the high point because historically mountains were measured with like a theodolite you just pointed at the mountain. And so you can't know if what you're looking at is if there's rock five feet underneath, you don't know. So traditionally, that's what mountains has just been the highest point of like ice or rock.

00;28;29;03 - 00;28;44;06
Speaker 1
But in.

00;28;44;13 - 00;28;46;07
Speaker 1
And how much shorter is it?

00;28;46;18 - 00;29;07;24
Speaker 1
I think cabinet sizes. It's not I don't think it's melted as much as Rainier. I can't remember the exact number, but yeah, the South summit was was a snow capped summit when we were in 2010. And now it's melted enough at the north summit, this rock is taller. The same thing happened with Rainier. The summit used to be Columbia Crest ice cap.

00;29;07;27 - 00;29;22;29
Speaker 1
It was always permanent ice. Highest point on the mountain. Then it started to melt down about 20 years ago. It's actually accelerating now. And so now the now Columbia crest is not the highest point on the mountain. It's this rocky spot on the southwest corner.

00;29;23;05 - 00;29;42;29
Speaker 1
Is it a is it a global phenomenon, or is it like a northern hemisphere phenomenon? Like, maybe we can talk, you know, drive this topic a little bit in towards, global climate change, like the mountain scapes in the environment, like how, how have you guys, you know, you have more experience in global mountain peaks than I would probably imagine a lot of people do.

00;29;43;02 - 00;30;01;14
Speaker 1
What's your general consensus in terms of what's happening? Is it, you know, related to us as humans? Is it more of just a grand geological time scale where we're just in a mode of melting before we get, you know, closer to an ice age? Like, what are your thoughts behind the the grand scheme picture of all this?

00;30;02;09 - 00;30;27;29
Speaker 1
Well, anecdotally, all the mountains that we visited have had less snow when you visit them. And you had historically, like in Switzerland, you know, we had to climb up all these ladders that on top of the glacier, whereas, you know, decades before you could just walk straight on to it. And, you know, up in Alaska or hiking along and you can see how much, how many hundreds of feet the glacier is melted down.

00;30;28;02 - 00;30;35;17
Speaker 1
Same thing in New Zealand. So just anecdotally, you can see that there is a lot less snow than there used to be.

00;30;36;07 - 00;30;51;24
Speaker 1
Yeah. Another one. And, Uganda. The high point. It's near the equator, but it's this mountain that has glaciers on top. And when you get up to the edge of the glacier on all the rocks, there are these little lines with a year written on it, and the guides are like, oh, yeah, that's where it was that that last year.

00;30;51;24 - 00;30;55;11
Speaker 1
That's where the glacier was ten years ago. And it's just going lower and lower.

00;30;55;20 - 00;30;56;14
Speaker 2
Wow.

00;30;56;16 - 00;30;59;26
Speaker 1
Have you guys put much thought behind the reasons why?

00;31;00;29 - 00;31;04;02
Speaker 1
I assume it has to be global warming.

00;31;39;08 - 00;31;52;23
Speaker 1
Well, I think the scientific consensus is that it's most likely human caused. And as a scientist, I trust those that have studied this very carefully. So I would generally defer to their opinion, to their findings.

00;31;52;26 - 00;31;59;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. I would trust that. That's the consensus. That's where we are responsible for the warming of the planet.

00;31;59;17 - 00;32;13;21
Speaker 1
Got it, got it. Have you guys, like, thought about using this kind of, like, findings in this hands on expertise to try to stir change or movement in, in terms of trying to solve the problem.

00;32;13;28 - 00;32;16;05
Speaker 1
Eric, why didn't you take that? Didn't you apply for a

00;32;17;08 - 00;32;40;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I got a so American Alpine Club. They, give research grants for climate change related research. So I did the project. I was surveying how the elevations of the last five ice cap summits in the lower 40 states have changed. So I'm kind of like bringing awareness to the situation. It's kind of. So I found there used to be five ice cap summits in the lower 48 states.

00;32;40;03 - 00;33;03;27
Speaker 1
They're all in Washington. So I measure the four of them have all melted down between 20 to 30ft in the past, like 20 or 20 years or so. And that means now two of them, or only two are currently ice cap summits. The other three of melted down so much that now the high points rock. And it's kind of interesting that the public is a lot more.

00;33;04;00 - 00;33;26;22
Speaker 1
This seems like a big deal when the mountains like this melt down, because everyone knows the glaciers are the melting down like big studies have come out okay over the years, lost like 40% of its glacier volume in the past hundred years. The. But people generally thought the mountain tops maybe were high enough that they're cold enough and they weren't being affected, but they actually were being affected a lot.

00;33;26;22 - 00;33;45;02
Speaker 1
It's just really hard to go up there and measure them. So no one had measure them in a long time. So I think people around Washington at least are kind of getting aware that it's it's pretty significant. It's changing the elevations of mountains. Yeah.

00;33;45;02 - 00;33;45;25
Speaker 2
Wow.

00;33;45;25 - 00;34;18;08
Speaker 1
on the other end of the spectrum, you know, we. Of course, we want to climb every country. Higher points, including the Pacific island countries, the ones that are really low. So Eric's been doing a lot of research, trying to figure out, like for the Maldives, for example, where the high point is there and for many, many other low lying countries and the high points there, I guess will as a sea level rises also get lower, not due to snowmelt, but due to the ocean rising.

00;34;18;15 - 00;34;25;12
Speaker 1
And that. So that. I mean, I guess that makes sense, right? The elevation of a mountain lowers based off of the rise of the sea level.

00;34;27;01 - 00;34;27;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. The relative height.

00;34;29;19 - 00;34;37;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. I guess if your mean sea levels getting higher than your zero, elevations getting higher. I haven't really thought about that. Yes, it's true, the.

00;35;45;05 - 00;36;03;25
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I've got two young kids, you know, so it's been the last 6 or 7 years. We haven't done as much hiking, but hoping to get the kids into it, hoping to do some of the European high points with them next year.

00;36;03;27 - 00;36;25;06
Speaker 1
But we. Eric and I tried Everest together last year. So 2023 and then before that, I guess it would have been, Mauritania and Cape Verde the year before that. So we're trying to use still in the game, but yeah, the pace is a lot slower than, than it is for.

00;36;25;06 - 00;36;35;12
Speaker 1
yeah. So in terms of, like, logistics and preparation and strategy, I think it's important to go through like some of these stories. So one of the stories that really stood out to me was Madagascar.

00;36;35;14 - 00;36;50;24
Speaker 1
And, I think it's just a really cool opportunity to kind of maybe just tell the story from start to finish. So, like, you know, how did you guys find what the how high point was, you know, talk about the logistics in terms of planning that and like, what was that? How did that story unfold?

00;36;52;11 - 00;37;00;16
Speaker 1
If you've been enjoying the show, please like, subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to support the show.

00;37;02;02 - 00;37;28;01
Speaker 1
So the high point. There's actually not a whole lot of information online about it when it's definitely been done. And we can look at satellite images. It kind of looks like there's trails going up, up near it, but we haven't really done a whole lot of high point in Africa up to this point. We're kind of used to I would say like Europe or North America, you can just kind of show up and then just kind of hike in as far as you want and get up to the mountain.

00;37;28;01 - 00;37;47;15
Speaker 1
That was kind of our strategy. So we we flew into the country and didn't help that we're our French was a little bit rusty. And basically everyone speaks French there. So we, we arranged with this hotel that we could they could drive us as close as they could get on roads, and then we would just walk from there.

00;37;47;18 - 00;38;03;22
Speaker 1
Now, in hindsight, it would have probably been good to hire a motorcycle and they would have gotten us really far in, but we didn't really know. That's a that's a good thing to do in Africa. So they couldn't actually get us very far in this van. So we just started walking and we weren't making a whole lot of progress.

00;38;03;22 - 00;38;19;13
Speaker 1
We ended up like camping a couple of nights, kind of just hiding behind these, these farmer's fields. I don't know if they were too happy with us camping there. As we got farther in, though, we had to do a lot of stream crossings, and I didn't realize that this was going to be an issue going going into it.

00;38;19;13 - 00;38;29;13
Speaker 1
But, Matthew's wife, Amanda, she she was more informed about it, about the risks. Are you want to talk about that? You.

00;38;29;13 - 00;38;46;26
Speaker 1
that we got in, I guess the more we started to realize that the risk of schistosomiasis in the in the rivers was something to be concerned about. Like, we, you know, we're texting with a friend back in the States and who's looking up information. And what he was finding was it wasn't wasn't great.

00;38;46;28 - 00;38;47;23
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;38;47;23 - 00;39;00;17
Speaker 1
this is like, live feed information. You guys are like crossing the stream. And Amanda's like. Hey, this actually might be kind of. What? Like, you know, like, it's not something like a risk you guys had planned for. It's more of, like, on the on the route information. You guys are like,

00;39;01;10 - 00;39;18;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, we kind of vaguely heard about it, but we thought, well, whenever we cross the creeks, we'll be able to kind of hop across the rocks. There won't be too many creeks that we have to cross, so we don't have to worry about it. But, and, you know, we had to wade through the streams and, you know, had to wade relatively deep.

00;39;18;14 - 00;39;39;20
Speaker 1
And then we're. And so we're like, wow, this is a lot worse than we thought. And by the way, our, you know, our friend back in the US, how bad is it you said. Yeah. Just a surmise from what he could tell was, super prevalent in Madagascar. Many, many people have it, and it's a very nasty, debilitating thing.

00;39;39;20 - 00;40;04;24
Speaker 1
Once you get it. So we started getting really worried and eventually we decided to turn around. We got pretty high up on the mountain, kind of past the last village or really started getting, you know, more wilderness. But, you know, we no longer felt comfortable with the, with the situation. And we made the decision to turn around.

00;40;09;15 - 00;40;11;14
Speaker 1
This called of schistosomiasis.

00;40;11;14 - 00;40;12;12
Speaker 1
And it's like a

00;40;12;12 - 00;40;18;19
Speaker 1
Exactly. That's right.

00;40;21;23 - 00;40;42;04
Speaker 1
Yeah. You don't have to drink the water. You just get the water on you. And then. And we all end up testing positive for, when we go home. Yeah, we just take always, like, deworming pills and, like. So in the future, I think you maybe bring waders so you can just wade through and then just bring the deworming pills over there.

00;40;42;04 - 00;40;46;13
Speaker 1
Just assume you're going to get it and just take those as just a single. You have to take them.

00;40;58;03 - 00;41;08;24
Speaker 1
Yeah. When we took the the medicine soon after getting home, then it was not a problem. But if you didn't know you had it and then you just didn't take anything. If I do that.

00;41;09;00 - 00;41;26;13
Speaker 1
That's crazy. That parasites man are got to be the one thing that, like, give me the heebie jeebies. Like having something like living inside you. I'm sure we all have our own form of parasites, but, like, something super infectious like that, man, it would be something really hard to psychologically deal with. I'm sure, like from Reddit, from the story.

00;41;26;13 - 00;41;32;24
Speaker 1
Amanda was like, really kind of like stressed out about it and was like, I need to like, get out of here because we're moving further and further away from medical treatment.

00;41;36;22 - 00;41;43;26
Speaker 1
She was with you. Does she come with most of your, you know, country high points? Is this, like, a passionate first as well or.

00;41;44;04 - 00;42;01;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. She goes along, with with us on some of them. We've done ones like Namibia, Barbados, Dominica. Some of the. Yeah, some of the kind of lower elevation ones. But she's she's very supportive.

00;42;01;03 - 00;42;02;13
Speaker 2
cool. That's really cool.

00;42;02;15 - 00;42;11;12
Speaker 1
It's rare to find someone that's willing to willing and able to join you on an a very adventurous thing like that. I think that's like a a diamond in the rough

00;42;11;29 - 00;42;15;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. It's great that we can do it together.

00;42;57;08 - 00;43;18;06
Speaker 1
Well, I think for Madagascar, it was more like curiosity. Because foreigners never go up there. And in hindsight, we. We probably shouldn't have just tried to camp in some place. There was some farmers field. Like if we would have just asked people like, can we can we camp here? We'll pay you some money. That would probably be an appropriate move.

00;43;18;09 - 00;43;34;17
Speaker 1
And it's a little different than in the US. You have always National Forest and you can just kind of camp in national forest and no one cares. Then in Africa it's a little different. I don't think the you can just necessarily do whatever you want there. So we were probably we were probably not doing we were supposed to be there.

00;43;34;26 - 00;43;43;27
Speaker 1
You guys are pioneers. Have you guys thought about your, trip back to that particular mountain, or is it kind of on the back

00;43;44;19 - 00;44;03;08
Speaker 1
I think I mean, I'm definitely going to try to go back. I think the right move in Madagascar would be to find someone with a motorcycle in town, and they'll just get us the first, like two and a half days of walking. They'll just get us there a couple hours and then hike from there. And that would shave down the Chippewa.

00;44;03;11 - 00;44;24;09
Speaker 1
Oh, we've done trips where we bring foldable bikes. Anything like for Haiti, back when it was safe to go there, we flew down to Dominican Republic and we drove to the border and we we knew the car rental wouldn't let us drive across. We had foldable bikes, so we biked across and then we biked in as far as we could.

00;44;24;09 - 00;44;26;27
Speaker 1
Seems like a more reliable form of transportation.

00;44;26;27 - 00;44;31;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, might be a little bit slower than I could work in Madagascar.

00;44;32;16 - 00;44;38;00
Speaker 1
I mean, maybe, like, you know, another another objective here. Maybe Mount.

00;44;38;00 - 00;44;38;29
Speaker 2
Cook.

00;44;39;02 - 00;44;53;26
Speaker 1
In New Zealand, it seems like you guys were on some, like, really exposed icy ridges. Like, were you guys in over your heads in terms of your technical abilities? Like, was this like a technically challenging peak? Did you succeed? Like, what was that story like?

00;44;54;06 - 00;45;22;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, that was probably one of the first, like, really difficult, technical mountains, high country, high points that we done. I think we were pretty well prepared from the outing Club in, in New Hampshire. Like, I, I would be like, I use climbing every weekend, for like, November through April. So the ice climbing part and I'll cook, I was pretty comfortable with and then the like the mix climbing I was I mean, I had done stuff like that before, just not up on a big mountain like that.

00;45;22;06 - 00;45;26;28
Speaker 1
Like more like kind of cracking or Mount Washington or.

00;45;26;28 - 00;45;49;15
Speaker 1
we were a little surprised that the snow conditions, like we thought it was just going to be kind of a snowy ridge, but instead it was ice. And it was, you know, like, basically like a knife edge, and you couldn't really. There's really no, no flat spot at all. You just kind of on the slope and it's, you know, a couple thousand feet down on either side and you're just Eric.

00;45;49;17 - 00;45;55;10
Speaker 1
Eric was leading and he was just putting an ice screws straight into the ice. There's no snow to speak of.

00;45;56;08 - 00;46;15;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, we're we're a little bit not expecting that. And I think it's because most people turn around at the fall summit on Mount Cook. It's kind of where the rock ends. And then you look across to where it's obviously like 20ft higher, the, the true summit. And most people say, it's good enough. We're going to turn around here.

00;46;15;23 - 00;46;46;17
Speaker 1
So like any report we read didn't, didn't mention this, this crazy knife edge ice traverse. So just kind of fortunate that I brought enough screws and we had the technical tools for a little bit of climbing. I didn't expect that, though. That was definitely the crux, though. So like the it's so sharp on there. I mean, maybe it changes year to year, but when we were there, we could actually hook the summit ridge with your ice tool and go across and then look down between your legs, and it's 5000ft down and just kind of like traversing that way.

00;46;46;19 - 00;46;49;26
Speaker 1
Oh yeah. I think that's on our report for

00;46;49;26 - 00;47;06;20
Speaker 1
Yeah. And at one point, the wind was really strong. It would blow our rope over the ridge, and there was a little bit of a cornice. And so at one point, our rope got over the cornice and hooked, and we couldn't get out, so we started sawing away at it. So Eric pulled one way, and then I pulled back.

00;47;06;20 - 00;47;19;16
Speaker 1
And so we pulled back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and eventually the cornice. We saw it through with a rope, and then a rope came free and were able to keep moving. That was a little scary.

00;47;19;28 - 00;47;37;22
Speaker 1
Oh, I broke off down the gravel face. So on the way back, I was careful to put pro. More like pickets and screws in more frequently. So there was no slack in the rope. Like a blow off. That could have been. Yeah. If we couldn't saw that off, that'd be kind of hard to get the rope back over in the wind.

00;47;37;22 - 00;47;40;05
Speaker 1
Have to wait for a lull in the wind. Maybe.

00;47;40;05 - 00;47;51;03
Speaker 1
Wow. Was that. Was that kind of. Would you say that was the closest to the edge you guys have been, like, technically, in terms of climbing a mountain? Or is there another story that's like, more close to the edge?

00;47;53;23 - 00;47;54;29
Speaker 1
Oh.

00;47;54;29 - 00;48;19;14
Speaker 1
was the Georgia high point in the country of Georgia. You coming from, the Russians, didn't you? I think it was something like 16, 18 pictures of, like, ice climbing really hard ice to get up to the to the ridge that you can see the summit from. But, then we found the ridge was kind of similar to what it was on, on Mount Cook in terms of just really hard, solid ice.

00;48;19;14 - 00;48;24;11
Speaker 1
And so we just we just turned around when you're there is no way that we could safely get up there.

00;48;25;00 - 00;48;41;20
Speaker 1
Yeah. I was like Matt Cook for, like, ten times longer on the ridge. I think we maybe got really unlucky with conditions because I've heard of people just climb in a snow climb up to where we got, and we were like, 18 pitches of ice, so definitely slowed us down.

00;48;41;23 - 00;48;54;23
Speaker 1
Oh, no. It was like three. So we did like we can make pretty fast progress, but when we were expecting it to just be an easy snow climb, then our time budget isn't quite accurate anymore.

00;48;54;27 - 00;49;09;08
Speaker 1
And what are you guys? How would you guys keep, like, I guess, to give people a rounded view of, like, who you are as climbers, like, Matthew, like, what kind of ice climber are you in terms of grades? What kind of grades are you comfortable rock climbing like ground round. You sell

00;49;10;03 - 00;49;21;24
Speaker 1
I'm at the bottom. Bottom end of the spectrum. I'm, you know. Okay. Following Eric on relatively basic stuff, if we need to get to the top. But he's he's the real climber.

00;49;21;27 - 00;49;40;05
Speaker 1
Got it. Eric, where are you at? Like, in terms of grades and as a climber, I just. I think it's important for people to understand because everyone wants to compare themselves to, like, if they're putting themselves in your shoes, like, okay, what kind of climber do I have to be? So I think it's important to just keep people or perspective on like what kind of technical ability you have.

00;49;41;13 - 00;50;02;26
Speaker 1
I guess my technique. It's not, like, super high because I'm mainly into mountaineering. I mean, like I for ice in New Hampshire when I'm practicing a lot, and, I don't know, 510 tried or something. I don't really focus on Crag. And there's very few mountains that require more technical climbing than that up there. Easiest route. And that's kind of what I focus on.

00;50;02;26 - 00;50;03;03
Speaker 2
Nice.

00;50;03;10 - 00;50;18;12
Speaker 1
And I guess that that's a perfect segue to I guess I'm curious as to like some of these peaks, like, what is the peak in the world that has the highest level of technical difficulty in the country, like is which

00;50;19;08 - 00;50;43;24
Speaker 1
I would say Pobeda, the Kyrgyzstan high point is a pretty good candidate, and that's the most difficult mountain I've done. It's harder than K2, so the. Yeah, there's, like the technical grade doesn't always encompass the whole difficulty because if you're climbing like M3 at 20,000ft, it's a lot different than down at sea level. And you have like a week of gear on the back.

00;50;43;27 - 00;51;08;24
Speaker 1
So that was Pobeda had some like authorities, some like, two and three timing lights up at high altitude and it's really cold and there's extreme objective hazards where it's cornice failures and avalanches, and I've got frostbite in all my fingers on that one. Just. Oh yeah, they completely covered. But it was just like the first knuckle on each one was kind of not not good.

00;51;08;24 - 00;51;23;15
Speaker 1
That, like, so high altitude, high altitude mountaineering is, like, it's a whole category in itself. Like, obviously that's a skill set you have to have in order to achieve the the objective that you guys are trying to go for. Matthew, were you with him on that objective?

00;51;24;14 - 00;51;30;08
Speaker 1
Oh, Kyrgyzstan. No. The, was Eric and his. His friend.

00;51;30;19 - 00;51;52;20
Speaker 1
Eric, like, did you prep for that trip? Like, was it just something you threw yourself at, like these high like K2? I mean, that is like, that's a serious objective. And you're saying this one is even harder. Like, this is like a whole nother world of of mountaineering that you're throwing yourself at, like, what was that kind of cliff in terms of like crossing that barrier?

00;51;52;20 - 00;51;52;27
Speaker 1
Like.

00;51;52;27 - 00;51;53;16
Speaker 2
Like what?

00;51;53;19 - 00;51;54;15
Speaker 1
What was that like?

00;51;55;05 - 00;52;17;11
Speaker 1
Oh. I try to work my way up gradually to these kind of objectives. So low altitude technical mountaineering is. Yeah. Washington is really good for that. Especially winter. Winter mountaineering here. It's almost like, harder than some 8000 meter peaks. I feel like some of the, like broad. It's like lower 8000. Your views are almost like training for Washington Peaks in the winter.

00;52;17;17 - 00;52;42;28
Speaker 1
The next climbing, ice climbing like mega days, 24 hour 36 hour pushes. So I think like weekend trips here are really good, baseline training. So then I tried to work my way up gradually to the harder peaks. So like 7000 like, well, 6000 year peaks, like, Denali we did. And then 7000 meter non-technical like Lenin and Kyrgyzstan, some of the other snow leopard peaks.

00;52;43;00 - 00;53;05;22
Speaker 1
And then I tried to work my way up like, how I, how I do at high altitude, like Broad Peak. Not really technical, but it's experience of 8000m and then camera data to K2 right after broad K2 is not as hard as Pobeda, mostly because there's so many people on it, and they fixed lines up to the summit, so you don't actually have to.

00;53;05;22 - 00;53;27;08
Speaker 1
Ice climber rock climber Q2 is there's lines fixed the whole way. You kind of just have to wait for a window and you have to be good at, you have to be able to deal with the altitude, and you don't really have to worry much about avalanches. There's a big rockfall danger, but there's not technical climbing. But Pobeda, no one's on the mountain just all alone.

00;53;27;10 - 00;53;50;03
Speaker 1
We're breaking trail the whole way. That's the most difficult trail breaking I've ever done in my life. It's just like swimming uphill. 7000m. It's just zaps your energy. And then technical climbing avalanches. We were. Yeah, we're involved in some of those. And, like, cornices falling on other climbers. So it's objective hazards is pretty high.

00;53;50;03 - 00;53;54;01
Speaker 1
that you were involved in some specific objective hazards like yourself.

00;53;55;13 - 00;54;12;01
Speaker 1
So one time we were coming down this, it was this rock cliff above this big snow face, and we climbed up the snow face going up. It was stable. That was weird. It got loaded coming down. So I believed my partner over the edge on an anchor. You touch the top, and we just all kind of slid off.

00;54;12;03 - 00;54;22;05
Speaker 1
But I had him on the rope. And so then it was all stable after that. And so we were done mean. So we expected it. And it probably wouldn't have been terrible. But it was very scary.

00;54;22;05 - 00;54;28;11
Speaker 1
It's crazy. The level of intuition there. Like, just the one decision, like, let's belay over this boom! Avalanche.

00;54;29;06 - 00;54;40;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, I mean, we knew it was it was snowing and windy overnight, so I expected it was getting loaded when we went up. And it had been pretty stable for a while, so it wasn't too bad.

00;54;42;29 - 00;55;05;13
Speaker 1
Another thing that Eric has going for him is that I guess, physiologically, he deals with the altitude a lot better than, well, most people. So whenever we do a trip together, I'm usually the limiting factor. You know, in high altitude, I end up getting altitude sickness earlier, even though it was pretty much the same physical shape. You know, he's Eric does really well now, soon.

00;55;05;15 - 00;55;06;14
Speaker 1
So.

00;55;06;14 - 00;55;10;23
Speaker 1
think there's, like, an argument there that it's biological. Right? There's like certain just

00;55;11;14 - 00;55;16;29
Speaker 1
Exactly.

00;55;17;28 - 00;55;25;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. It just seems like luck of the draw. I don't know, for some reason, I don't really have a problem. I mean, I had problem on Everest, but that's about the only time.

00;55;25;18 - 00;55;38;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, I was not not. I was doing fine. I was very careful about acclimating, though. So basically did broad twice beforehand. So we got to 8000m.

00;55;38;04 - 00;55;58;09
Speaker 1
First attempt bailed because of bad weather all the way down to base camp. Russian rest back up to 8000. Taiga summit down to base camp. Rest again. And we had spent like four weeks on Brier going up and down, up, down. So I think my partner and I, we were super well acclimated. But still, even after doing that, you kind of have to be lucky that your body acclimates.

00;55;58;09 - 00;56;18;18
Speaker 1
Well, I think some K2 going up, I was it was up to like 80 400m. I was feel like not that big a deal but but above 80 for the last 200 vertical meters. My speed tiny like cut in half. So I definitely ceiling it.

00;56;18;21 - 00;56;22;01
Speaker 1
Wow. I didn't make it on Everest. I had to bail. Is.

00;56;22;01 - 00;56;39;17
Speaker 1
I think the main problem was I was up at 8000m. South call. And there was supposed to be a weather window. The wind is supposed to die, so I rest a couple hours. But the wind never died. I just kept waiting. Waiting. I spent, like, I think it was about 40 hours in the death zone.

00;56;39;17 - 00;56;57;02
Speaker 1
Just waiting. I pulled to them. I was waiting for the wind and finally a die and I went up. But I think so much time in the death zone just bore me down. So K2, I was only above 8000 for like 10 hours or 13 hours. It was like 40 hours on Everest. And I think that's just too much.

00;56;57;04 - 00;57;07;24
Speaker 1
So I bailed it like maybe 500 or something. There, maybe 500m. So maybe 300 years below summit.

00;57;14;12 - 00;57;15;02
Speaker 1
turn around?

00;57;15;28 - 00;57;36;11
Speaker 1
In the moment, I thought it was a great decision because I was kind of, I was starting to show signs of of haste. So I just bailed, and it seemed like very good session. Because other people have gone up there and. Yeah, the Denmark Observer.

00;57;36;15 - 00;57;41;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, nearly. I was it.

00;57;41;29 - 00;57;45;20
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's not good enough if you get up there but you don't go down.

00;58;08;02 - 00;58;22;06
Speaker 1
As is more of the latter. I mean, I think Eric's going to. You can speak for himself, but I think he'll try to do all of them. I guess I know that I'm probably never going to do K2, but I'm going to do the best that I can. And all the ones that are within my abilities and are are safe for me.

00;58;22;06 - 00;58;25;21
Speaker 1
And I'm I'm cool with that.

00;58;26;09 - 00;58;44;20
Speaker 1
Yeah. I definitely want to go for all of them. Maybe we keep the the total count for like that. Either of us have done, like, the one four or something. Well, kind of started, like, we all like, exactly in sync. So that made sense. And then we're a little out of sync. So but we just keep the same total running number.

00;58;44;20 - 00;58;45;17
Speaker 2


00;58;45;19 - 00;58;48;03
Speaker 1
So.

00;58;48;03 - 00;59;01;23
Speaker 1
I guess where I want to take this. I guess, Matt, I'm interested in hearing some of your perspective. So, what what trip has been the most meaningful to you thus far? Like what mountain summit.

00;59;02;05 - 00;59;17;21
Speaker 1
One tips. I really like with Amanda was in the maybe a high point. It's way out there in the desert. Kind of off by itself. You get to hike through this crazy terrain, get hiked by these 3000 year old Ki paintings.

00;59;18;05 - 00;59;35;28
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 liked today's episode, please be sure to rate and review the show. I've seen a large uptick in these lately and it's been really cool to see. Let's keep that going. Also, if you're psyched about what we're doing here at the Climbing Majority, please reach out.

00;59;35;29 - 00;59;43;25
Speaker 1
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.

00;59;44;17 - 00;59;48;21
Speaker 1
Stay tuned for our next episode where we continue our conversation with the Gilbertson twins.

00;59;49;02 - 00;59;57;03
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 two weeks.