92 | An Untold Life w/ Bob Gaines

When you hear the phrase living legend, what comes to mind?....to me…this is someone who has lived a life to their fullest. A life that inspires us to be our best. Someone whose legacy will outlast them.

Today, I have the pleasure of releasing my conversation with a true living legend…Bob Gaines. 

Bob began climbing in the mid-1970s—right in the thick of climbing’s golden era, alongside icons like Ron Kauk, Scott Cosgrove, John Bachar, John Long, and Lynn Hill. But Bob wasn’t just in the audience—he was part of the show. He became John Long’s main climbing partner for five years. He trained hard, soloed hard, and became a Joshua Tree lifer—watching legends like Bachar soloing 5.10s and 11s before most people had their morning coffee.

It's easy to remember these iconic names like John Bachar and Lynn Hill, but Bob Gaines has his own right to stand amongst these icons of climbing. With nearly 600 first ascents under his belt, and 500 of them located solely in Joshua Tree California. Bob has certainly stamped his name into the history of climbing. His routes are known for being clean, creative, and undeniably classic—if you're on a Bob Gaines line, chances are you're giving it four stars on Mountain Project.

This episode marks Bob’s first-ever podcast appearance. I give him the chance to share his origin story. How he found climbing and how the icons of history directly influenced his journey. We dive deep into several of his key first ascents, so get out your MP and be ready to add a bunch of climbs to your to do list. We explore the controversial issue of bolting, how that process developed over the decades, and how we are currently in a time period where we may lose the freedom to bolt in wilderness areas entirely. We explore Bob’s unique experience in Hollywood as a stunt double for William Shatner in Star Trek V and safety officer for the 1993 movie Cliffhanger. And finally we speak about Bob’s unique experience as a climbing instructor for SEAL Team 6. 

This is a rare, wide-ranging conversation with a man who’s lived more life than most of us can imagine.

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Resources

Bob's Instagram

All Of Bob Gaines' Books

Opening Scene of Star Trek V

Bob's Write Up on Slab Climbing

Star Trek V & Free Solo Parody

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 4:32 Origin Story
• 29:35 Y.O.S.A.R.
• 38:37 The Art Of First Ascents
• 1:09:09 Bolting & The Bolt Wars
• 1:37:44 How The Sport Has Changed
• 1:44:34 Hollywood
• 2:11:34 SEAL Team 6

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:09:24
Kyle
Welcome to the Climbing Majority podcast, where I capture the stories, experiences and lessons of nonprofessional climbers, guides and athletes from around the world.

00:00:09:26 - 00:00:14:17
Kyle
Come join me as I dive deep into a more relatable world of climbing.

00:00:16:02 - 00:00:37:14
Kyle Broxterman
Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast, everyone. I've got a few exciting updates before we jump into an even more exciting episode. First, a huge thank you to everyone who gave the show five star ratings on Spotify. We didn't just hit our goal of 150 ratings by May 1st. We blew past it. This kind of response shows me that there is a real growing community here that is psyched about the show.

00:00:37:17 - 00:01:00:11
Kyle Broxterman
And that absolutely fuels the fire to push this project forward. Secondly, as promised, I have officially released our first ever Patreon exclusive episode where I sit down with two of my closest climbing partners and former podcast guests, Bryce Unger and Phil Seder. Together, we unpack the ins and outs of climbing partnerships. What makes them work? What causes them to fail?

00:01:00:14 - 00:01:21:18
Kyle Broxterman
How we found and lost climbing partners over the years, and the red flags that send us running away. Bryce and Phil bring very different approaches to partnerships, which leads to a rich, honest and at times hilarious conversation about trust, risk, and what it really means to grow as a team. As I continue to grow this show, one thing remains clear.

00:01:21:21 - 00:01:42:15
Kyle Broxterman
I would really like to continue to keep this show as one of the few podcasts that exist ad free, but that means I need your support. Help keep this show ad free by becoming a supporting member of the Climbing Majority. Help me cover shipping costs. Get access to exclusive content and even have the opportunity to ask upcoming guests your own questions.

00:01:42:17 - 00:02:11:16
Kyle Broxterman
I am focusing on providing real, extra value to those who place their trust in supporting the show, so these benefits will just continue to grow. Become a supporting member today. Visit Patreon.com slash the Climbing Majority podcast. That's Patreon.com slash the Climbing Majority podcast. Okay, into today's conversation. When you hear the phrase living legend, what comes to mind? To me, this is someone who has lived their life to the fullest.

00:02:11:18 - 00:02:38:12
Kyle Broxterman
A life that inspires us to be our best. Someone whose legacy outlasts them. Today I have the pleasure of releasing my conversation with a true living legend. Bob Gaines. Bob began climbing in the mid 1970s, right in the thick of climbing a golden era alongside icons like Ron Couch, Scott Cosgrove, John Bakker, John Long and Land Hill. But Bob wasn't just in the audience.

00:02:38:15 - 00:03:05:06
Kyle Broxterman
He was a part of the show. He became John Long's main climbing partner for five years. He trained hard, soloed hard, and became a Joshua Tree lifer. It's easy to remember these iconic names like John Bakker and Land Hill, but Bob Gaines has his own right to stand amongst these icons of climbing. With nearly 601st ascents under his belt and 500 of them located solely in Joshua Tree, California.

00:03:05:08 - 00:03:33:05
Kyle Broxterman
Bob has certainly stamped his name into the history of climbing. His roots are known for being clean, creative, and undeniably classic. If you're on a Bob Gaines line, chances are you've given it four stars on a mountain project. This episode marks Bob's first ever podcast appearance. I give him the chance to share his origin story, how he found climbing, and how the icons of history directly influenced his journey.

00:03:33:07 - 00:03:52:18
Kyle Broxterman
We dive deep into several of his key first ascents. So get out your mountain project and get ready to add a bunch of climbs to your to do list. We explore the controversial issues of bolting and how that process developed over the decades, and how we are currently in a time period where we may lose the freedom to bolt in wilderness areas entirely.

00:03:52:20 - 00:04:13:26
Kyle Broxterman
We explore Bob's unique experience in Hollywood as a stunt double for William Shatner in Star Trek five, and a stunt coordinator in the 1993 movie cliffhanger. And finally, we speak about Bob's unique experience as a small team rescue instructor for Seal Team six. This is a rare, wide ranging conversation with a man who's lived more life than most of us can imagine.

00:04:13:29 - 00:04:21:16
Kyle Broxterman
So without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Bob Gaines.

00:04:36:15 - 00:04:45:13
Bob Gaines
Mid 70s, around 74.

00:04:45:15 - 00:04:57:03
Bob Gaines
Oh, man. The equipment is different. The mindset is, though. Yeah, it was when I started, I was using a gold lined rope as my first rope, so things were a lot different.

00:04:57:03 - 00:05:15:11
Kyle Broxterman
I can't imagine just like the not only technology but culture and access and the amount of actual people climbing has, has changed so much. And so yeah, I really want to, you know, dive into that progression, what it was like for you to, to find climbing and really give you a chance to kind of, share your origin story with everybody.

00:05:15:11 - 00:05:23:12
Kyle Broxterman
So, yeah, let's let's dive into it. You know, how did you find the world of climbing and who and what kind of shaped you along your path to, to

00:05:24:14 - 00:05:48:01
Bob Gaines
I really owe it to my parents. In particular, my mother. When she was young, her father took her to the Sierra and he was a fisherman. So every summer they would go up and go on fishing and camping trips. And when I was a little kid, I have three brothers. My parents would do the same thing. So they introduced us to the Eastern Sierra at a very young age.

00:05:48:03 - 00:06:12:02
Bob Gaines
And it was an annual thing, like two weeks every summer. And we went to 70. We went to a lot of Eastern Sierra, locations, but I think it was the first time driving through 20m, that I saw some climbers up on one of the rocks, and it just seemed so incredible to me and so fantastic. And, you know, it's so pristine.

00:06:12:02 - 00:06:32:00
Bob Gaines
The environment up there. I saw that, and I immediately wanted to do it, and I was probably 12 or 13 years old. And then I remember my dad took me and my three brothers to the base of El Cap, and I just started climbing up a little ways, and I got up there and I remember him yelling at me, get down from there.

00:06:32:00 - 00:06:59:00
Bob Gaines
You got to break your leg. And, I was already pretty keen on on climbing at that time, and I had already read a bunch of books on climbing, and I think we got back in the station wagon. The whole family were driving to Camp Currie, and I just blurted out, I'm going to climb El Capitan someday. And my dad said, son, it's too sheer.

00:06:59:00 - 00:07:17:16
Bob Gaines
No one could ever climb that. But I already bought the guidebook, the old Roper Green Guidebook. And I said, well, actually, dad, the first ascent of The Nose of El Capitan was in 1958 by Warren Harding, Wayne Mary and George Whitmore. And he just kind of looked at me, remember, he was glaring at me in the rearview mirror.

00:07:17:16 - 00:07:38:07
Bob Gaines
He didn't say anything, but he was probably thinking, oh, here we go. And at first my parents were sort of against against it. But I was just so interested. I just it was just, I was it was unstoppable. And I would recruit, you know, buddies from high school.

00:07:38:07 - 00:07:43:29
Bob Gaines
And I think the first climbing experience I had was kind of sobering.

00:07:44:02 - 00:08:05:26
Bob Gaines
I was too young to drive, but one of my high school buddies, his brother, drove us to Stony Point, which is a bouldering area in LA. And we got out of the car and my friend started to climb up Boulder one, which is that big boulder right in the front there. For people that are familiar with Stony Point, you got up about 15ft and fell off.

00:08:05:29 - 00:08:11:21
Bob Gaines
On the way down, he hit a little ledge with his ankle and smacked his ankle out. And that was it. We had to go home

00:08:11:21 - 00:08:13:17
Kyle Broxterman
Damn! Did you break it? Or

00:08:13:17 - 00:08:23:26
Bob Gaines
I think it broke. I think it broke his ankle. And, I thought to myself, this shit is dangerous. So right then and there I'm like, okay, this is serious stuff.

00:08:23:28 - 00:08:25:22
Bob Gaines
That was my first experience.

00:08:25:22 - 00:08:50:07
Bob Gaines
And, all the climbing I did in the beginning, I was leading everything. So I was on the sharp end. And it's difficult to progress if you're just leading and do not top roping. This was before, you know, obviously, the gyms had become popular. So my progress was pretty slow in the beginning, but I was careful.

00:08:50:14 - 00:09:00:12
Bob Gaines
I was careful.

00:09:00:14 - 00:09:18:28
Bob Gaines
Yeah. When I was young, I would go in the school library and I would devour all the literature. I would read every single book. A mountaineering climbing. I was just fascinated by it.

00:09:19:00 - 00:09:33:18
Bob Gaines
Yes, but when I saw those climbers that just did it for me, I'm like, I'm going to do that. Yeah.

00:09:33:20 - 00:09:53:27
Bob Gaines
I was athletic. I was involved in sports. So I did have a passion for, athletics. You know, when I was in high school, I was a high school football star. I was a track athlete, you know, a long jumper. I think I had my high school record at one time for the long jump at around 110.

00:09:53:27 - 00:10:18:02
Bob Gaines
Seven. So I was the athlete. I was a fullback in middle linebacker and in football. So I came from a pretty athletic background. But I realized, you know, in the beginning that I needed to train really hard to be a world class rock climber. So I knew that. And when I got to college, I trained really hard.

00:10:18:04 - 00:10:39:14
Bob Gaines
My program was to do, 100 pull ups a day. So I do force that to 25 every day for years. And I got into gymnastics. They had a gymnastics class program at Long Beach State where I went to college. So that gave me access to all the gym apparatus, and I trained until I could do a one arm pull up.

00:10:39:16 - 00:10:58:24
Bob Gaines
And so I was pretty strong at that time. And I remember I was out bouldering and I think my strength was was a lot better than my technique. So I was on a boulder problem, doing like a one arm pull up and something happened to my shoulder. I'm like, oh, this isn't good. I went to the orthopedic guy and he says, you have a broken clavicle.

00:10:58:26 - 00:11:22:04
Bob Gaines
And I said, no, I didn't fall. I can't have a broken clavicle. He said, well, this is this is called an avulsion fracture. And this is what gymnasts get sometimes. So I was working out a little too hard. So I backed off a little bit after that. But, I saw guys like John Backer and John Long and I saw the way they trained, and that inspired me to train really hard.

00:11:22:04 - 00:11:28:06
Bob Gaines
So I got really strong at the beginning. Right at the outset, like, especially when I was in college.

00:11:28:06 - 00:11:38:09
Kyle Broxterman
Were you were you running into people like that early on, or was it more like you heard stories of John Walker and what they were doing. And it was kind of like through the grapevine, or did you come in contact with these people early on?

00:11:38:22 - 00:11:59:04
Bob Gaines
Well, back here I saw Joshua Tree. So when I started to go out to Joshua Tree, you know, in the morning you would see backer soloing around on all these five, 11 climbs all by himself. There was no entourage. So this was before the internet. This was before people were publicizing their climbing and he would just go out alone.

00:11:59:04 - 00:12:21:20
Bob Gaines
And in the morning he would do 10 or 11, a dozen, five, 11 climbs right off the bat. So we would see it and we would see how he trained to. When I started going to Yosemite, I would see his training stuff set up in camp for the backer ladder, you know, like a crude wooden hang board. So I kind of knew what I needed to do.

00:12:21:20 - 00:12:41:02
Bob Gaines
And I started training a lot, especially when I was in college.

00:12:41:05 - 00:13:03:11
Bob Gaines
I didn't have a mentor at first, but I think around 1979 I met John Lung up at suicide Rock. I was just up there and he was with Lynn Hill that day. She was up on a climb with someone else and he said, hey, you want to do a pitch? And I'm like, sir. And we walked up and did a climb and I got to know him a little bit.

00:13:03:11 - 00:13:29:14
Bob Gaines
So after that, from 1980 to 1985, we were pretty regular climbing partners. We climbed a lot. We did a bunch of first free ascent, particularly in Ottawa, Talkeetna and Suicide Rocks that were pretty standard setting at the time. You know, back then in the in 1980, if you were climbing five, 12 plus, that was like a world class grade.

00:13:29:16 - 00:13:55:22
Bob Gaines
And so it took me. I started climbing probably 1974. I started climbing at the 512 level in 1980, and I climbed in both sport and trad, at the 512 level from 1980 until about 2005, so about 25 years. So I've had a pretty solid background in, you know, both trad climbing and sport climbing.

00:13:55:22 - 00:14:14:04
Kyle Broxterman
You. You almost like. I just ran into John Bakker and Lynn Hill. You know, you want to say it, like, kind of nonchalantly. Do you feel like that was serendipitous and rare and, like, you know, a lucky moment for you or or, you know, was that kind of just being one of the few people inspired by those areas at that time?

00:14:14:05 - 00:14:18:28
Kyle Broxterman
You're going to run into these people because there's so few people like what what what kind of was it?

00:14:18:28 - 00:14:38:18
Bob Gaines
like you said, there weren't that many climbers at the time. So, for example, at Joshua Tree back then it was called the Monument. All the climbers would kind of stay in Hidden Valley Campground in the same sites. So they kind of banded together. And, you know, it was serendipitous in a way, to meet John Long and start climbing with him.

00:14:38:21 - 00:15:02:10
Bob Gaines
So I look back at my career in climbing, and I had a lot of serendipitous moments that were, in a way, lucky. But at the same time, I was prepared and ready to go. Like once I met John, we were off to the races and one day he said, I think he came over to my house to meet my parents and he said to my mom, your son's a world class climber.

00:15:02:13 - 00:15:22:15
Bob Gaines
And I thought to myself, And then I started to believe it. And one thing about climbing with John, he was a lot better than I was, but I would watch him climb something, and then I would just say to myself, well, that's the way you do it. That's how it's done. And then I would do it.

00:15:22:17 - 00:15:34:15
Bob Gaines
So a lot of it, like I said, the mentoring is actually being with someone who could do it and you could emulate that.

00:15:34:17 - 00:15:40:29
Bob Gaines
That is possible. You'd say, well, that's how you do it. That's the move. That's it's possible. Yeah.

00:15:40:29 - 00:15:56:26
Kyle Broxterman
you did you see a benefit? You know, so the first year that you had no mentor, you're bringing people up, you're recruiting friends. When you look back on that time, in your life as a climber, would you like, could you extrapolate any benefit from introducing yourself to to the sport that way?

00:15:57:07 - 00:16:25:15
Bob Gaines
Well, yes. I think it teaches you a lot about judgment. Because back then, a lot of the climbing was very run out, very trad. So, you know, you know, when you're in a scary situation and if you don't want to get hurt, you have to be very careful when you're pushing your limits. So I was cautious, but I didn't have any moments where I felt like I was in jeopardy.

00:16:25:17 - 00:16:53:26
Bob Gaines
But I built a foundation and I think a lot of climbers nowadays, they climb really hard in the gym. They boulder really hard in gym. They go outside and they want to climb at high levels, but if they get into trad climbing, they haven't really built that foundation. Back in the old days, if we wanted to get good at crack climbing, we would spend a couple years in Yosemite, like a couple summers in Yosemite, living in our van, climbing cracks.

00:16:53:29 - 00:17:35:01
Bob Gaines
And that's one thing I've seen in my guides training is, you know, back in the old days, a lot of the climbers that got into kiting, they had this foundation that they built with, you know, years of climbing in Yosemite and doing big walls and a lot of trad climbing. And nowadays, you know, you get these apprentice guides, they want to get certified, but they don't have a they haven't laid down that foundation and they're just kind of missing a step.

00:17:35:04 - 00:17:41:29
Bob Gaines
Yeah. You learn by your mistakes.

00:17:42:02 - 00:17:44:21
Bob Gaines
Exactly.

00:17:44:21 - 00:18:07:17
Kyle Broxterman
reflecting on your story. Just the fact that you had that accident happened in front of you, like, right in the beginning of your of your climbing experience. To me is once again almost like this serendipitous thing, because I do feel like that's something that plagues our community a lot, is that, you know, people just don't really understand how how real the danger is until it happens to someone right next to you or to yourself.

00:18:07:20 - 00:18:23:02
Kyle Broxterman
It's like really hard to really get that ingrained in your mind and kind of take the risks seriously sometimes. So it's cool that you, you know, you had that lesson up front and you carried it with you because, I mean, I don't want to jump too far, but you've been climbing for 45 years now, and you're you're uninjured up to this point.

00:18:23:02 - 00:18:24:04
Kyle Broxterman
Is that correct?

00:18:25:02 - 00:18:42:25
Bob Gaines
That's true. I can't remember any accident that I've had climbing where I couldn't walk away from it. So I guess I could say I haven't had any serious accidents. I've had, you know, some injuries.

00:18:42:28 - 00:19:08:14
Bob Gaines
Well, I think it like I said, it involves judgment and risk mitigation. And I've pretty much my whole career been involved in and risk mitigation and, in my work as a guide, as a manager of a climbing school, in my work as a stunt coordinator, I've worked as a safety officer on movies. So that's something that I've been focused on.

00:19:08:14 - 00:19:16:04
Bob Gaines
I think most of my adult life.

00:19:16:07 - 00:19:21:06
Bob Gaines
I.

00:19:21:09 - 00:19:56:17
Bob Gaines
I think with guiding, my philosophy is and always was in 40 years of running a climbing school, if I gave a client an opportunity to make a mistake, they will make that mistake. And that was that was sort of my guiding philosophy all those years, both as a guide and running a climbing school. And so I was really tight on supervision and knowing when to really watch someone, from a risk mitigation standpoint.

00:19:56:17 - 00:20:12:20
Kyle Broxterman
is is one thing. But then there's also that self regulation. Right? And the battle of the ego trying to get the sand, you know, maybe chasing the on site and putting yourself into these kind of situations where, you might be in over your head and you're kind of just like kind of going for the chains, essentially.

00:20:12:22 - 00:20:23:15
Kyle Broxterman
But, I had something written something down here and correct me if these are wrong, but you said you value positivity over tenacity and judgment over ability.

00:20:26:14 - 00:20:49:20
Bob Gaines
Yeah. I think in one of the books that I coauthored with John Long, he calls it the protection problem. And it's really more specific to trad climbing, where you have to be able to assess your protection and how solid it is and your ability to make the run out. So that's really the crux, and that's really what it boils down to.

00:20:49:20 - 00:21:23:06
Bob Gaines
If you want to be a safe trad climber. In sport climbing, accidents occur more from lapses of concentration and distraction, and ignorance, rather than the protection problem, which is what you get into with the trad climbing. So you have to have that ability to assess your protection placements and also that ability to make good judgments on what you can safely climb and when to back off.

00:21:23:09 - 00:21:51:08
Bob Gaines
And I think a lot of newer climbers, particularly male climbers, they tend to just keep trying until they fall off rather than back down, because if they back off a climb, it's not considered a success. But you have to look at it from a different standpoint and say you backed off a climb and rappelled down safely. Well, that's a victory and that's a success too, because you didn't get hurt.

00:21:51:08 - 00:22:04:02
Kyle Broxterman
And you've never struggled with that inner voice of putting yourself in harm's way. Harm's way for your own, egotistical benefit.

00:22:06:01 - 00:22:33:20
Bob Gaines
I've had a couple situations when I used to do more free soloing, like back in the 90s, I was free soloing, like, at the 510 level. And I had a few situations where I thought to myself, man, that was just a little sketchy, you know? And, I could remember one climb in particular where I hadn't done enough stretching in the morning, and it was a super duper high step with my left foot.

00:22:33:20 - 00:22:54:11
Bob Gaines
I couldn't get my foot on the hole, and that was about 40ft off the ground. And I just thought, Holy shit, if I fall and that was a little wakeup call. So I think I wrote in one of my books that, free soloing has the ultimate irony, which is you can die as a direct result of not wanting to die.

00:22:54:11 - 00:23:16:28
Bob Gaines
So it's like it's all fun in the sun and it's you're flowing up the rock and there's that feeling of the air beneath your feet, and it's the greatest feeling in the world. And then suddenly there's like a dark cloud blots up the sun. And that fear could overcome you so instantly. So,

00:23:17:00 - 00:23:26:07
Bob Gaines
You get scared? Yeah.

00:23:26:10 - 00:23:59:03
Bob Gaines
I, the thing is, when you're doing the really scary stuff. And I think it's a trait that I have because I've involved, been involved in rescue situations and some pretty dicey situations where I just become calmer and I sort of slow down as opposed to getting excited. And I've noticed that about myself. And I just focus on what I need to do.

00:23:59:05 - 00:24:18:06
Bob Gaines
As far as climbing goes, I think one of the scariest climbs that I ever did was, a new route on Torquay's rock called The Happy Hooker, which is actually an aid climb, and I'm kind of proud of it. But at the same time, I'm kind of shocked that I do even did it, because it's so scary.

00:24:18:09 - 00:24:50:14
Bob Gaines
And it involves, a long section of hooking. So it's an aid climb where you're hanging on hooks and it's on the head wall to the left of the vampire. So it's on the steepest part of Torquay's rock. And I did it in 1994, and I don't believe it's had a second ascents and people have gone up there and taken some big falls, but it was, I think I was doing a lot of ground up climbing where I was hanging on hooks to drill bolts and free climbs, and so I got really good at it hooking.

00:24:50:16 - 00:25:15:10
Bob Gaines
So when I went up on this climb, I used 2 or 3 hooks and balanced on them at the same time, all the way up this pitch. And, you know, some of the run out were, you know, maybe 25 or 30ft. So if you fall, you're going to go a long ways. And psychologically, I think that was what I would consider the scariest climb I've done in terms of someone wanting to repeat it.

00:25:15:10 - 00:25:32:16
Bob Gaines
It's going to be really scary, but at the time I just kind of blocked all that out and and just focused on doing it and not falling. And I thought, you know what? If I fall to clean fall and I just put in the bolt, I know it's a good bolt. So I might go 100ft, but, you know, it's a clean fall.

00:25:32:18 - 00:25:44:15
Bob Gaines
And part of it too is the judgment part is knowing when you can safely fall. Yeah. So is the protection good and is the fall going to be clean and then go for it.

00:25:44:15 - 00:25:45:14
Kyle Broxterman
Yeah.

00:25:45:17 - 00:26:01:14
Kyle Broxterman
Yeah I think the I don't want to go too much into this because we just did an episode with, with Silas and we get to really, really deep into risk. But he said that like, you know, I asked the question, how do we trust our own judgment more? Because it's it's fine and dandy to be like, yeah, that trapeze will hold me.

00:26:01:14 - 00:26:22:03
Kyle Broxterman
But sometimes when we make mistakes in judgment. And so how do we increase our odds of that judgment being correct? And he was just like, you need the data. You need like time with the equipment. You need testing of the equipment, whether it's aid climbing or actually falling on the gear in different scenarios and building that data set so you actually have tangible information to work with rather than it being

00:26:23:04 - 00:26:45:11
Bob Gaines
Yeah. I always say there's no substitute for experience. And when I was teaching, guides courses, the first thing I would do is get the group together, and I'd say, okay, everybody, put your rack on the picnic table. And I would just look at their equipment and you'd see racks where the cams were all worn down, and everything's kind of scratched up.

00:26:45:13 - 00:27:08:18
Bob Gaines
And you see other stuff with price tags on it, too. Right then and there, you'd know who who the climbers were and add up and go like, you know, with the guy with the Warren cam, I'd say, have you done the no. Of cap and. Yep.

00:27:08:21 - 00:27:24:21
Bob Gaines
Well, it's nice to have new gear though. On the other hand, you have these these guys with all, all gear that needs to be replaced. So there's a balance there. I like new gear.

00:27:24:23 - 00:27:25:13
Bob Gaines
Yeah.

00:27:25:13 - 00:27:41:24
Kyle Broxterman
Let's circle back to, kind of your mentorship. You know, such icons like John Long and John Bakker, like, how did you see yourself amidst these, you know, these icons and, like.

00:27:41:26 - 00:27:43:02
Kyle Broxterman
Oh.

00:27:43:04 - 00:27:53:08
Kyle Broxterman
How how was their impact on you? How like, maybe some key formative stories of of interacting with these people? And how did that kind of shape you as a climber, specifically?

00:27:55:01 - 00:28:18:01
Bob Gaines
With backer, I think it was just watching the precision of his technique, and I always tried to emulate that. So people say, oh, Bob, you have really smooth footwork. How do you. How do you get smooth footwork? And a lot of it's mental. I just focus on it. And part of it is, is just every move you make.

00:28:18:01 - 00:28:43:20
Bob Gaines
You just focus on being precise with that move with your foot. So it's really more of a mental challenge and a focus from the first move. I planned a lot with Peter Croft and he I said he likes to do an easy warm up climb. He's he said it's like target practice. So on that easy climb, he really emphasizes his footwork and almost goes in slow motion and gets super precise.

00:28:43:23 - 00:29:15:11
Bob Gaines
And that just puts him in that mindset for the whole day, to have that precision with his footwork. That's one thing I learned from him, and I've learned a lot about crag climbing from Peter Croft too, because he just is able to show you really good technique, but also explain what he's doing.

00:29:15:13 - 00:29:40:05
Bob Gaines
Yeah, I look at, like every climber, you have the opportunity to have that precision and technique. It's like a dance. And I think a lot of it is just mental focus from the outset that a lot of people never have, but they just need someone to teach them. Like, this is what you want to focus on. Like from the first move of the day.

00:29:40:08 - 00:30:04:08
Bob Gaines
When I was in college, I spent the summers in the cemetery. So that was, early 80s, and I spent four summers in Yosemite. So, it's kind of a funny story, but the way that I got on, yo sa was, I was actually doing an El Capitan route called The Shield, and we were just starting out the first day.

00:30:04:08 - 00:30:27:18
Bob Gaines
So we're doing the first, part of the salute de wall, which is called the Free Blast. And as the afternoon wore on, it's about 12 pitches up to Mammoth Terrace, where we were going to bivouac, and it's sort of windy. And as the afternoon wore on, I started to hear kind of muffled voices, and then it got more distinct.

00:30:27:18 - 00:31:00:24
Bob Gaines
And finally I could hear, help, help, help. And I looked at my partner. I'm like, okay, here we go. So when we got up there, what we saw were two guys that had been up there. It turned out for two nights and they had put all their ropes in one big hall bag, and they were going to fix ropes down from there and then come back up and the strap on their hall bag broke and they lost all their stuff.

00:31:00:27 - 00:31:22:16
Bob Gaines
And the one guy, he had a t shirt on and he had pulled it down to his ankles, it looked like a sleeping bag that stretched out. And I remember you know, we kind of met eyes. Our eyes met and he just looked at me go, oh, man, you don't smoke, do you? He knew he was Johnson for a cigaret.

00:31:22:18 - 00:31:53:20
Bob Gaines
And it turned out they were going to climb El Cap and then base jump off one of the guys, the base jumper was a very inexperienced climber. So down at the meadow, yo SA is starting to gather on the road down there. We could see him and then they get the bullhorn out and they started to yell up to us climbers on Mammoth Terrace, if you can hear us, raise your right arm.

00:31:53:23 - 00:32:16:06
Bob Gaines
And it started like, like that and a bunch of pantomimes and it ended up with me and my partner agreeing that we would repel down with these two guys in the morning. So, we spent the night with, and they just they were so happy because they were hungry and they were cold. And then we rappelled down with them the next day.

00:32:16:08 - 00:32:35:29
Bob Gaines
And I remember the one guy, he goes, you can have all my climbing gear, I quit, I quickly. But they were happy. And then John Dale, who was the head of yo SA, he goes, hey, let's go have dinner. I want to do a little debrief with you. And so we talked a bunch and then he asked me, hey, do you want to join you SA?

00:32:35:29 - 00:32:53:05
Bob Gaines
And I said, sure. And back then it was a real perk because you could stay in camp four and you know, when you were on call, if you stayed there, you could go on rescues and get paid. And then if you wanted to sign out and go climbing, you could do that. I was mostly signed out and going climbing, but I did.

00:32:53:05 - 00:33:09:23
Bob Gaines
I did participate in, quite a few rescues too.

00:33:09:26 - 00:33:55:29
Bob Gaines
I budgeted myself in those years, $20 a day. And I lived like a king in Yosemite. I had no bills, no mortgage, no insurance. I had saved it up. I was a, painter, like a house painter in college. That was, kind of my my side gig. So I painted apartments and, you know, residential, buildings and, made some money doing that.

00:33:56:01 - 00:34:17:11
Bob Gaines
I do remember the first rescue I ever went on, and it was, at dusk. And the report was that a base jumper had jumped off El Cap and gotten into trouble. And he was at the base of El Cap somewhere to the right of the nose. So I was with Warner Bros. And it was like the godfather of Yosemite climbing.

00:34:17:14 - 00:34:43:25
Bob Gaines
So the two of us ran up there and in short order, we found the guy and he was roughly at the base of the North American wall, which is one of the sheer parts of the base of El Cap on the right side there. And what was weird about it was there was no base rig. He had like climbing clothes on, and he had like climbing boots on.

00:34:43:27 - 00:35:09:26
Bob Gaines
And his story was, oh man, that'll teach me to free solo. Oh man. That. And I look up and I'm like, dude, this is like a for this. It was like, there's no way. And turned out he was a Navy pilot. And it's a federal offense. And he would have gotten in big trouble. So but he was busted up really bad.

00:35:09:26 - 00:35:36:13
Bob Gaines
He had a, broken pelvis. Broken leg, broken arm, head injury. So he had to bite the bullet. We couldn't give him any pain medication, but remember carrying him down? He was screaming the whole time because, you know, that's pretty rough terrain. And we carried him down in a litter back to the road, and, met the guy later.

00:35:36:13 - 00:35:57:29
Bob Gaines
We became good friends. Years later, I actually worked, on a commercial with him where he did, a base jump off a radio antenna tower in Florida for a mountain dew commercial. And even to that was like 20 years later, he still walked with a little hitch to his giddy up. He still had a little limp.

00:35:57:29 - 00:36:04:13
Bob Gaines
You know.

00:36:04:16 - 00:36:29:23
Bob Gaines
Yeah. He, he had a bad opening because when you open your chute, it ideally it should be pointed straight out from the wall, and then you kind of sail outward if you have a bad opening, like if it's 180 degrees to the right, then you're going straight into the cliff. So if you have a bad opening when you're base jumping, it can be really bad because it can turn you right into the cliff.

00:36:29:23 - 00:36:43:27
Bob Gaines
If you don't have enough room to maneuver. And that's what happened to him. So he hit the cliff and he sort of bounced all the way down. Yeah, yeah.

00:36:43:29 - 00:37:09:18
Bob Gaines
There was a time, a short period of time where it was legal. And then it was shortly, curtailed after that. It was just hitting two crazy people jumping off El Cap.

00:37:09:20 - 00:37:31:06
Bob Gaines
You know, it's pretty wild to see it. I couldn't do it personally. You know, I've I've, like I said, I worked on that commercial in Florida where I was. Imagine ING, jumping and jumping off this 1200 foot tower and the mindset it would require to just leap off. And I convinced myself that I could not do it.

00:37:31:08 - 00:38:10:03
Bob Gaines
Should it be legal? I think if there was a permit system, maybe, you know, and where it was a little more controlled. Because it's such if if you're a climber, it's a beautiful place. And I'm sure if you're a base jumper, it's one of the most beautiful places. But, I think they'd have to control it a little bit with a permit system.

00:38:10:06 - 00:38:12:27
Bob Gaines
Yeah, that's a tough one.

00:38:12:27 - 00:38:16:21
Bob Gaines
Because what better Cliff is there to jump off than El Cap?

00:38:16:21 - 00:38:36:13
Kyle Broxterman
exactly. But yeah, there's, there's got to be some sort of regulation there. But you would hope that someone who understands the sport understands the nuances of everything, or is the one that's like, kind of setting the stage and doing it the right way, rather than someone who doesn't understand it making rules that don't make any sense.

00:38:36:15 - 00:38:47:15
Kyle Broxterman
Okay, so this next little chapter, you have established between is it 600 to 700 First Descents at this point?

00:38:47:29 - 00:38:52:07
Bob Gaines
Yeah, somewhere in that range, I think, Joshua Tree, probably about 500

00:38:52:14 - 00:38:55:04
Kyle Broxterman
So most of them are isolated in Joshua

00:38:55:04 - 00:39:04:09
Bob Gaines
Mostly Joshua Tree. That's my main area. And, I probably have about, oh, about 100 up at Idlewild at, Tahquitz and Suicide Rock.

00:39:04:16 - 00:39:24:12
Kyle Broxterman
And I ask this question to to everybody who kind of goes down this road, but I think there's a junction, right? There's like, I guess it's different now because access is so staggering. You know, we could just go climb classics every day for the rest of our lives and never have to put any up new routes. I'm assuming back in, in the 80s, it was different where there was just so much untouched rock, where it was kind of just.

00:39:24:12 - 00:39:34:18
Kyle Broxterman
That's what you do. Almost. But what about the creative vision and the process of of establishing new routes like called to you? What about your personality connected with it?

00:39:39:08 - 00:40:00:04
Bob Gaines
It just was something that whenever I went out, I would look at what had not been climbed. I think most people, when they go out with their guidebook, they just look for the routes they want to do or what's in the guidebook. And early on, I had some friends who developed a new bouldering area near LA called the Purple Stones.

00:40:00:07 - 00:40:13:17
Bob Gaines
And that was so much fun, just discovering new boulders and putting up new boulders. So I just got a a hankering for it. And then when I went out to Joshua Tree, you could just see there was a lot of great climbs to be done.

00:40:13:17 - 00:40:13:25
Kyle Broxterman
an art

00:40:18:15 - 00:40:38:21
Bob Gaines
I'd say is an art form, if particularly if you're putting up face climbs, because then you have to decide, where the bolts go. And for me, I think the most fun aspect of it was picking a challenging out. And there was always that doubt in that moment of truth when you realized, oh, this is going to go in.

00:40:38:21 - 00:40:53:23
Bob Gaines
Sometimes it boils down to 1 or 2 holds being there, and if they weren't there, I wouldn't go. And that moment of realization, like if I'm working it on the top rope or if I'm bleeding, and all of a sudden it dawns on me like, okay, this is this is going to go, this is going to be a day.

00:40:53:25 - 00:41:11:14
Bob Gaines
That was the most fun aspect for me, for sure. So it's that act of discovery. And on bigger climbs like in Yosemite, it's a whole process. Like a lot of times I'd be down in the meadow with a telescope, looking at the features from down in the valley and wondering what it's going to be like when you get up there.

00:41:11:16 - 00:41:37:12
Bob Gaines
And so that was an act of discovery to doing ground up first ascents on these huge walls and so many. Not on El Cap. Probably my best one in Yosemite is, Herod I did with Scott Cosgrove in 1995 on the west face of Sentinel Rock. It's called How the West Was Won, and it was the first climb to free climb the west face of the Sentinel.

00:41:37:14 - 00:41:58:23
Bob Gaines
New, 16 pitch route. And there was that one pitch where Scott had let it, and I knew it was the crux. We'd been working on it, and it was a 512 face climbing pitch, and I knew that that was the key to free climb that entire, you know, a 1600 foot tall wall was this one move that I had to do.

00:41:58:23 - 00:42:16:23
Bob Gaines
So I, I took off all the gear off my harness. I didn't even have a single caribou and I put it all in the whole bag. So all I had was my shoes with my chalk bags on, my chalk bag on. And I told myself, okay, this is it. Because you can't do it, that you're not going to free climb this wall?

00:42:16:26 - 00:42:36:25
Bob Gaines
And it all came down to 1 or 2 moves and I pulled it off. It was like, that was a very satisfying climb.

00:42:36:27 - 00:42:37:26
Bob Gaines
Yeah.

00:42:38:28 - 00:42:48:02
Kyle Broxterman
What would you attribute that eye to? Like, describe what you think people are talking about.

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00:43:31:12 - 00:43:53:24
Bob Gaines
Well, a lot of times when I've done new routes, people are like, wow, I can't believe that hadn't been done because they were walking right by it. But for me, you know, a lot of people, they'll go on Instagram or TikTok for fun. For me, for fun, I study rock formations and I look look for lines between the routes and I just study it.

00:43:53:24 - 00:44:17:10
Bob Gaines
I take photographs, I look, I look, and when I go out there, what I'm looking for is what hasn't been done as opposed to I think most people are just looking for what's been done and what they want to climb established routes. So my mentality was was always, okay, what hasn't been done? And the key is finding that gem and finding a really high quality new route.

00:44:17:17 - 00:44:35:02
Bob Gaines
And to be a classic, you know, there are a lot of traits that you need. Like number one, it has to have a cool hang out at the base. You know, it can't be just tons of boulder, a jumbled pile of boulders, a bunch of bushes has to be a nice spot to hang out. Another quality is good rock quality.

00:44:35:04 - 00:45:03:02
Bob Gaines
Another quality would be esthetic climbing, like fun moves, not awkward. And in recent years, you know, as I've gotten older, I tend to put in more bolts. So safer climbs too. And people generally like the safer clients, like back in the 80s, I was doing new routes that were R-rated or X-rated, which means, you know, an X rated climb means basically, if you fall, you're going to die.

00:45:03:05 - 00:45:36:10
Bob Gaines
And, you know, they're like, people can't museum climbs like people walk by and look at it, but they never climate. But in recent years, you know, I want climbs that that, that are going to be fun for me to repeat. So I tend at tended to put up, moderate sport climbs and a lot of them I've done over and over again just because there's so much fun and I want stuff that I could enjoy too, because some of the stuff that I did in the 80s and 90s, you know, it was, you know, a lot bolder, a lot more run out.

00:45:36:12 - 00:45:51:05
Bob Gaines
And I'm more risk averse these days, and I'm not going to go back and retro about those climbs. But it's a different thing.

00:45:51:07 - 00:46:11:04
Bob Gaines
Museum climbs.

00:46:11:07 - 00:46:36:02
Bob Gaines
Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, the new generation might say, oh, man, you guys screwed it up. All those classics in Yosemite, you just made him so scary. You screwed it up for all of us. But that's a big question. And so far, it really hasn't happened. Where, you know, we thought it was going to happen, where a new generation of climbers was going to come out of the gyms and want to retro bolt everything.

00:46:36:05 - 00:47:25:20
Bob Gaines
You know, it really hasn't happened. It could be the next generation that does it, but I hope not. I you know, there's still some psychological challenges out there. And, you know, I think that's a great question and it hasn't really been answered. I think it's up to maybe the next generation and we'll see see how they handle it.

00:47:25:22 - 00:47:32:29
Bob Gaines
Yeah.

00:47:33:01 - 00:47:56:20
Bob Gaines
Well, I think I think everyone agrees we should be able to replace aging hardware. It's adding bolts to a. That is the big Pandora's box. And I think it depends on the grade of the climb. For example, you know, back or solo at all these five, eight climbs. And to me, that are just the most beautiful climbs. And is that going to lock that climb into being, a death route for future generations?

00:47:56:20 - 00:48:19:29
Bob Gaines
Or should, you know, climbers get together and decide they want to bolt that and make it a fun moderate climb in in Yosemite and into me. A lot of routes. The climbing community has decided, yeah, let's retro about this five seven and make it fun for everyone. So there's a balance. And you know, if you look at the back of your hand route, that's different.

00:48:20:01 - 00:48:37:16
Bob Gaines
You're going to read better about that one. I would suggest not. Yeah. But when all of us die, you know, the next day there's no getting not you're not going to have a people around that are going to be like, oh, we're going to go chop those bolts, you know? So they're going to have to deal with that.

00:48:37:18 - 00:48:57:10
Bob Gaines
The rule right now, as far as I know, like in traditional areas like Joshua Tree and you said if there's a route that the climbing community thinks should have a bolt, added that if you asked the a member of the first ascent party, is it okay? And they agree, then it's fine. And then people have done that to me and I've said yes.

00:48:57:10 - 00:49:46:00
Bob Gaines
So, but like you said, when those first ascent team members die off, then what's going to happen? But it's up to the climbing community. Yeah. So far it hasn't gotten out of control. But, you know, some areas like suicide Rock where you have a lot of run out slab climbs, you know, they're like ghost towns because nobody wants to go up there and get scared.

00:49:46:03 - 00:50:13:22
Bob Gaines
Well, there's a lot of routes. I think in general, like I said, it kind of depends on the grade. And, you know, most people, the general population climbs up to five, ten a maybe and below. They're not as many people climbing five twelves. So there was an example of that at Joshua Tree where, you know, back in the 80s, I was actually with a client I was guiding, and she wanted to do a new route.

00:50:13:22 - 00:50:33:11
Bob Gaines
So I led a new route on echo Rock. It was this 130ft slab at five eight, and I didn't put any bolts in. And, you know, it's an X rated climb. And we got to the top. I said, what do you want to name it? And her name is Penny. And she said, I want to call it Penny Lane.

00:50:33:11 - 00:50:57:16
Bob Gaines
And I'm like, there you go. That's it. So I went back, I think an Iron Mountain project was listed and in like 20 years it had like 2 or 3 ticks, like on a top rope. And then I retro bolted it and made it a sport climb. And now it's had hundreds of ticks in just a couple of years.

00:50:57:16 - 00:51:29:14
Bob Gaines
And people really love it. They enjoy it. So I think there's a balance, you know, and it's sort of like opening Pandora's box where where do you draw the line? Because almost everyone would go like, yeah, I'd like a another bolt on this climb. So I think the first ascent should be respected. But in some cases, especially if it's a moderate climb where someone just soloed it, who is climbing at a much higher level because it felt comfortable for them.

00:51:29:14 - 00:51:52:02
Bob Gaines
Like, you know, backer soloing at five nine and you somebody, they're sort of taking their locking in that real estate forever and it can't be bolted. You know, I disagree with that. Maybe like I said, the climbing community should get together and have a consensus. And there's some been some debate on routes like Snake Dike on Half Dome.

00:51:52:04 - 00:52:02:24
Bob Gaines
Because people have gotten hurt on that. Like, you know, it's pretty run out, but,

00:52:02:27 - 00:52:26:22
Bob Gaines
Yeah, but it's a easy climb. And, you know, again, it involves judgment. And I've done that climb in so many different ways. I had my wife lead me up at one time, I took my little brother on it for his first rock climb ever, and he didn't believe me. And I just told him, hey, when I get to the top and I say, you're on a bike, just unclip this and start climbing.

00:52:26:25 - 00:53:35:19
Bob Gaines
So there's there's different ways to do it.

00:53:35:21 - 00:53:57:07
Bob Gaines
No, I agree, and I think one thing about rock climbing that I tell people is, you know, when people say, oh, it's so dangerous. The risk is there if you want to take it, but it can also be a very safe sport. You could just top rope or you could free solo. So there's varying degrees of risk.

00:53:57:09 - 00:54:22:01
Bob Gaines
And it's really up to you that's to have good judgment and know which level of risk that you want to take on. Because I've gone through the whole spectrum when I was younger, I look back at some of the stuff I've done and I'm like, Holy shit, I can't believe I did that. And now, you know, I enjoy top roping more than anything, so I can just be relax and enjoy the moves and not have to risk of fall.

00:54:22:04 - 00:54:40:26
Bob Gaines
So it's really, up to the individual. How much risk do you want to take on it? Part of it is learning how to use the equipment and be safe with the equipment, and then decide which level of risk you want to do. You want to do a sport climb? Are you going to get into trad climbing? Are you going to get into alpine climbing?

00:54:40:29 - 00:55:14:29
Bob Gaines
Are you going to get into soloing?

00:55:15:01 - 00:55:37:27
Bob Gaines
Well, part of it is just is just looking for the quality stuff. And, you know, nowadays, I'm. I'm more averse to spending time cleaning something like, I'm looking for really high quality rock. If I'm going to spend the time and effort to do a new route, the part of it is just looking for quality to begin with.

00:55:38:00 - 00:55:47:24
Bob Gaines
Rock quality.

00:55:47:27 - 00:55:56:29
Bob Gaines
I mean.

00:55:57:01 - 00:56:19:03
Bob Gaines
Nice.

00:56:19:05 - 00:56:43:15
Bob Gaines
Well, I've climbed a lot in that valley. And the Anasazi wall is where physical graffiti is. And that's at the end of that canyon. And I'd always look over there, and then a lot, a lot of times I go, Looks like there might be something there. I saw a dog, so I just started walking over there, and I think I probably walked over there ten times and just solo it up a little bit on the dike and then came back down.

00:56:43:17 - 00:57:07:18
Bob Gaines
And then finally I just went to the top and anchored a rope and just went rope solo. And that one. At first the rock quality actually wasn't that good. It was grainy and I was pulling chunks out of the dike and flying out there and but finally I kind of cleaned it up, and then I recruited a partner, and then we did a ground up and, turned out it's pretty good.

00:57:07:18 - 00:57:30:02
Bob Gaines
I mean, it's not the best rock quality, but I think it's unusual because it has such variety in one pitch. Like I said, and it's got some cool dike features and it has those characters that we talked about like it has a cool hang out at the base. It's a nice spa, it's a nice wall. It's kind of on its own, face there.

00:57:30:05 - 00:57:36:29
Bob Gaines
And so all those things sort of came together on that one.

00:57:37:02 - 00:58:08:24
Bob Gaines
Thank you.

00:58:08:27 - 00:58:19:26
Bob Gaines
Nice. Nice job doing that one. Yeah, that that's that upper part is kind of hard. That move into the little cave below the roof that I was. Yeah.

00:58:19:26 - 00:58:31:00
Kyle Broxterman
holds, but it didn't. You just got past that little bit of a bumpy lie back, and I'm just like, ooh, this is a little spicy now, but the roof pole was on big jugs, and I love that. That was really cool.

00:58:31:03 - 00:58:38:08
Kyle Broxterman
Okay, let's talk about North Astrodome. Same kind of questions here. I just got a I just want to kind of dive into some of these first ascents.

00:58:39:27 - 00:59:04:21
Bob Gaines
The North Astrodome. I did the first ascent with Scott Cosgrove called The Gunslinger, and that was a memorable climb because I think it ended up being the longest, route as far as, multi pitch climbing and Joshua Tree. And every pitch is really hard. I did it with Scott Cosgrove, and so it demands a lot of different skills.

00:59:04:23 - 00:59:29:05
Bob Gaines
And we did that one ground up, and that was back when bolting was legal. That was before they even new power drills are being used. So, we bolted it ground up. And I remember, on the last pitch, Scott was messing around with the hammer. He was trying to drill a bolt or something, and I was at a hanging belay, and he was, but maybe 30ft above me.

00:59:29:05 - 00:59:46:13
Bob Gaines
And he drop the hammer, so it goes sailing through the air. And I reach out and I grab it and catch it and caught it. And they saved the day because otherwise we had to go down. And I remember, yeah, that was just a couple weeks before I got married to. So, it was a pretty meaningful route.

00:59:46:13 - 01:00:07:28
Bob Gaines
And, Scott was one of my main climbing partners in the 90s, and he worked as a guide with my Vertical Adventures climbing school for over 15 years. And, so he was a really good partner and really good friend of mine.

01:00:08:01 - 01:00:26:08
Bob Gaines
Let's see, first pitch is 12. See? Second, it's as kind of a slab pitch. Second pitch is 11 C, third pitch is 12 C, and the fourth pitch is 12 a stepping.

01:00:26:10 - 01:00:50:00
Bob Gaines
First pitch is a slab and we call it the moguls pitch because it has like these humps of granite, like a ski mogul course. And the second pitch is, kind of steep edging, like on Gray slab, similar to run for your life type rock. And third pitch is slightly overhanging on in cut, edges. So steep face climbing and the fourth pitch is a stemming dihedral.

01:00:50:02 - 01:01:08:21
Bob Gaines
And it had rock that's the similar texture of coral like from a coral reef. So we called it the coral corner. For pitch climb and Joshua Tree, it's one of the longest routes. And Joshua Tree.

01:01:08:23 - 01:01:14:17
Bob Gaines
No, that's a Charles Coral.

01:01:14:19 - 01:01:30:22
Bob Gaines
Yeah, that's a beautiful rock. And I did a root right next to it called The Runaway, which is actually a sport climb. So it's similar to run for Your life, although it's great, harder and it's really well bolted. It's got like 11 bolts. So it's, you know, run for your life. Little run out. And then my root right next to it.

01:01:30:22 - 01:01:45:01
Bob Gaines
The runaway is not right now. Just left of it about 15ft. Yeah.

01:01:45:03 - 01:02:08:22
Bob Gaines
Yes. Silver Spur. To me, that was like the ultimate slab first ascent. And, slab climbing is kind of my specialty. So I found this slab up. There's three pitches up, saddle Rock, and it's that perfect gray rock that you were just talking about. Similar to that rock on run for Your life. No graininess, no loose holds.

01:02:08:25 - 01:02:28:07
Bob Gaines
And, it's one of the most sustained slab pitches in Joshua Tree. The first seven bolts, I think it has 12 bolts on the pitch, but at the first seven bolts, there's a 511 plus move at each of the first seven bolts. So it's eight, but so it's very sustained. And it took me about five years to do it.

01:02:28:07 - 01:02:46:02
Bob Gaines
I kept going up there. Part of it is just where it is. You got to do a couple pitches climbing just to get to it, and then it's so airy that it's hard not to get jittery when you're leading because you're on these really thin, thin edges and you just have to stay so calm not to shake off.

01:02:46:04 - 01:03:12:20
Bob Gaines
So the way I finally ended up doing it was I use sport climbing tactic. So I would just hangdog my way up the pitch, set up a top rope, top rope it, put tick marks on all the little edges, pull the rope and then red pointed it. So that's one of my harder slabs. It's maybe 12 C or 12 D.

01:03:13:12 - 01:03:34:22
Bob Gaines
Well, the most important thing, and I think, you know, when I hear people talk about or write about slab climbing, the thing they don't get is the most important thing is to put weight on your fingers. It's not as much about the feet. Obviously. You have to have precision with your footwork, but to re to climb the really hard slabs, you really have to take weight off your feet by putting onto your finger.

01:03:34:22 - 01:03:54:18
Bob Gaines
So it's all about crimping technique and getting as much weight as you can on your fingertip pads. Yeah.

01:03:54:21 - 01:04:29:04
Bob Gaines
Well, nowadays people call everything a slab if it's not overhanging. So, you know, you see, it's like a vertical cliff. It's a slab. And I'm like, really? That does that. So, you know, in recent years, yeah I've heard slab used up to vertical, but in the old days a slab meant something that's less than vertical. I don't know what the, the point of a slab to face is, but, now I think the nomenclature is that anything vertical or less than vertical is being called a slab.

01:04:29:07 - 01:04:41:11
Bob Gaines
Yeah.

01:04:41:13 - 01:05:05:11
Bob Gaines
Sometimes, you know, it all depends. Most of the time you're pulling down, sometimes you're using side poles. But, yeah, sometimes mantle thing, if you use a thumb press as opposed to your palm, you get an extra inch or two of reach, you know.

01:05:37:27 - 01:05:59:17
Bob Gaines
Yeah. To give you an idea of kind of the peak of my slab prowess, sounds like you're familiar with the Weeping wall. But back in the 90s, at one point, I was pretty dialed in on slab I. Three solid ten karat gold, and I down climbed the serpentine. Yeah, yeah.

01:05:59:19 - 01:06:18:29
Bob Gaines
But I felt so. I mean, I was at a different level back then. But yeah, I was really dialed in. Slab timing.

01:06:19:02 - 01:06:30:28
Bob Gaines
Yeah. I mean, the key is in the fingers. Yeah, yeah.

01:06:31:01 - 01:06:46:19
Bob Gaines
Yeah. When you get to a harder slab climbing, like ten plus and above, it really boils down to finger strength. And that's one thing I always had really good finger strength.

01:06:46:21 - 01:07:12:00
Bob Gaines
I used to do, like I said, a lot of training, finger boards, but a lot of it's just climbing. Yeah, like when I was training for Silver Spur, I'd go out and I'd just look for slab boulder problems that were like V3 or harder, and I do those to train my fingertips. Just some. I had some callus because like I said, every move for the first seven bolts on that is V3 or harder.

01:07:12:03 - 01:07:24:14
Bob Gaines
So I got my fingertips up to speed before I went up there.

01:07:24:16 - 01:07:28:01
Bob Gaines
Well, silver spurs on saddle Rock. And then

01:07:28:01 - 01:07:42:08
Bob Gaines
I did another one up there called where of All the Cowboys Gone. And that's actually the more popular one. And that's a two pitch, route on the left side that gets four stars. It's considered to be a pretty classic one.

01:07:42:08 - 01:07:48:28
Kyle Broxterman
Nice. Do you have any other kind of a notable first since that we haven't talked about so far that you've been proud of or that stick out in your mind?

01:07:51:04 - 01:08:12:15
Bob Gaines
Up in Iowa world, I think I'm most proud of, two routes. On to that I did. One is the first free ascent of the stairway to Heaven that I did with John Long and, 1984. And that's a five, 12, three pitch climb, actually, four pitches to the top. And then I did a a really hard face climb to the left of the open book.

01:08:12:22 - 01:08:34:20
Bob Gaines
That's called The Bookworm. And I actually named it after my wife because she's such a voracious reader. And, it's one that I worked on, probably worked on it. Five days is a project, and it's a 512 plus, but the rock on that is so good. And the crux was really kind of bizarre and really hard. And I actually built a mock up of the crux at my garage.

01:08:34:22 - 01:09:06:22
Bob Gaines
So I measured the angle and the holes and everything, and I built a little model of it at my garage, and I did it like a thousand times in my garage. And then when I finally went up, there was a piece of cake.

01:09:06:24 - 01:09:09:19
Bob Gaines
That, Yeah. Retro building? Yep.

01:09:09:19 - 01:09:23:05
Kyle Broxterman
about. I want to call them the Bolting Wars. It's a bit dramatic and kind of catchy, but, more about the process of bolting over your time as, in, you know, in your climbing career.

01:09:23:08 - 01:09:48:03
Kyle Broxterman
I think the, the, the big transition, at least for my understanding, is the ethics from ground up to rat bolting. That seemed like a big shift and and almost kind of, increased the access and the number of bolts that were going up that maybe caused all of these access issues that we're running into. So, so talk to us about this bolting progression and how you've seen it develop.

01:09:48:06 - 01:09:51:21
Kyle Broxterman
And kind of bring us to, to where we're at today.

01:09:52:27 - 01:10:14:24
Bob Gaines
Well, that's a big one there. So when I started that, it was quarter inch bolts as the norm. And we thought, wow, it's a bolt. It's solid, you know? And, you know, a brand new quarter inch bolt is rated at about 2,000 pounds. Shear strength, which is similar to like a regular sized wired stopper. The problem is over time, they age.

01:10:14:27 - 01:10:34:21
Bob Gaines
And, you know, not every bolt is the same length and in the same quality rack. So that was standard back in the old days when we were doing new routes. It was pretty easy to drill a quarter inch bolt because they're so tiny. So it was easier to do it ground up because it was quicker and easier to drill the hole.

01:10:34:21 - 01:11:04:24
Bob Gaines
So you could do it from stances and, you know, like I said, if you install a brand new bolt, it was we considered an bomber. But then as time progressed, you know, those bolts started to age. And as Clement got more popular, climbers demanded safer anchors. So the standard became 3/8 inch bolts. And those are very difficult to drill by hand.

01:11:04:27 - 01:11:25:16
Bob Gaines
So in the beginning, in the ground up era, you know, most of the bolts were drilled on the lead with hand drill. So you either had to stop and find a place. We had a stance and then get the, the drill with the drill holder out and then get your hammer and just start pounding away at it.

01:11:25:19 - 01:12:02:03
Bob Gaines
I got really good at some of the best, ground up drillers I've seen with Charles Cole, the guy who founded the 510 company. I was really good. John Long could do it really fast. He didn't do that many, but he was really fast. But it was, I think it's kind of a lost art form, and I think I brought it up a notch, maybe to its its zenith back in, probably the 90s in Yosemite and Idlewild, where I would go up on the lead with nothing except my, my drill and my holder and the hammer.

01:12:02:06 - 01:12:34:28
Bob Gaines
So I go up there on the run out, and I'd get a sense and maybe I'd get a hook. And then I drew a little hole, and then I'd pound a bad hook in there. Then I'd pull up all the equipment, drill a big ass bolt. So I developed some sort of advanced ground up techniques. But after a while it got kind of silly where, like at Joshua Tree, you have a 40ft sport climb and to do to use those tactics on the lead, it just seemed kind of silly and.

01:12:35:00 - 01:13:01:12
Bob Gaines
American climbers started going over Europe and they saw what was going on in France. So sport climbing really wasn't a thing until, like, I didn't even hear the term sport climbing till about 1985. And Bakker went over there and came back. He was climbing at the highest standards over there. Guy named Christian Griffith went over there and he came back to El Dorado Canyon and started bolting.

01:13:01:12 - 01:13:25:17
Bob Gaines
And immediately his bolt got chopped, and kind of at the same time, there was a guy named Allen Watts who was developing Smith Rock up in Oregon, kind of isolated in a bubble, and no one was really paying attention to what he was doing, but he just was rap bolting everything. And he developed that whole area like that kind of in isolation.

01:13:25:23 - 01:14:03:25
Bob Gaines
Whereas in Southern California at Joshua Tree and Idlewild Talkies and Suicide Rocks and Idabel and Yosemite, there was a real traditional ethic where everything was done ground up. But then when these sport climbing European ethic started to creep in, that created the conflict. And I can remember at one time in the 90s, both John Bakker and Scott Cosgrave were working for me as a guides, and they showed up the same day at the parking lot to meet their clients.

01:14:03:25 - 01:14:28:12
Bob Gaines
I was there and Bakker had just chopped some of Scott Watts, and I thought they were going to have a fistfight or something. But, there were actual fist fights. Bakker got punched in Yosemite over, over, rap bolting and, actually he chopped some one bolts in the rap bolt or punched him, but, yeah, it was there.

01:14:28:14 - 01:14:57:09
Bob Gaines
It was a weird time, and it lasted at Joshua Tree longer than any other area. The ethics were so severe and Joshua Tree was crazy. I remember one time Bakker actually chopped a bolt. Not because someone rap bolted it, but because they top rope the root first before they drilled the bolt on the lead. The ethics were at that stringent.

01:14:57:12 - 01:15:26:12
Bob Gaines
So. But I think the big shift was in what the general climbing public required as far as safety and anchors in the quarter inch bolts were not considered safe anymore. They wanted 3/8 inch bolts, and that was really the impetus because it's really hard to drill this by hand. And now everybody wants half inch bolts. So, you know, it went from quarter inch bolt.

01:15:26:12 - 01:15:38:01
Bob Gaines
Those were replaced by 3/8 inch bolts. And now all the 3/8 inch bolts are getting replaced by half inch bolts. So now the standard like a Joshua tree is a half inch bolt.

01:15:39:20 - 01:16:05:20
Kyle Broxterman
What do you feel so I would say like the European tactic is, is there out of efficiency. Right. It's just like let's put up more routes. Let's do this. I would say it in a way that facilitates a better experience. What do you think about the ethics that were so ingrained into these areas? And why were people holding onto them so much?

01:16:05:20 - 01:16:17:07
Kyle Broxterman
Like what were the benefits and why were the reasons other than just like, this is how it's done, other than resisting to change? What were the reasons why people were holding onto these ethics?

01:16:17:07 - 01:16:49:08
Bob Gaines
That's a difficult question, I think. To go back to what you said about Europeans, I think in Europe it was the nature of the rock and it's limestone. So you don't have a lot of cracks. And if you're going to lead that stuff, you need bolts. And, you know, I think at Joshua Tree and Yosemite, yeah, it was a small group of climbers and there was a lot of peer pressure, not only in the ground up ethic, but not over bolting and just placing enough bolts.

01:16:49:08 - 01:17:27:22
Bob Gaines
So I think the way I would describe it is back then when I started climbing at Joshua Tree, what was considered to be most sought after was boldness in climbing, not safety and so that's something that everyone was kind of going after was if they were putting up new routes, they were putting up really badass, bold new routes, and they weren't looking at it like, oh, this route is going to be here forever, and future generations are going to be climbing this thing.

01:17:27:29 - 01:17:51:20
Bob Gaines
They looked at it like, well, my friends are going to think I'm pretty badass because I only put in two bolts instead of five. So it's more like that. So, yeah, it just didn't make after a while, you know, certain really trad famous trad climbers kind of broke ranks like Ron Carl could do. Somebody started rap bolting and there was just it slowly crept in.

01:17:51:20 - 01:18:11:15
Bob Gaines
And I remember there was this famous climber in Yosemite, Eric Z. And I was talking to him in 75 and he said, there's this big he was like a southern guy, and he's like, there's this big tidal wave coming, and it's, this is coming, and it's breaking right over backer, and it's just going to like, drown him. And it's all over.

01:18:11:15 - 01:18:18:20
Bob Gaines
There's a wave coming. And he he was right.

01:18:18:22 - 01:18:39:28
Bob Gaines
Here we are. So now it's just a matter of can we place bolts at all. So it's come full circle. And like you said, those bolt wars, those don't help the land managers. As far as access issues go, because they, like, wow, these climbers, they can't even agree amongst themselves, are battling it out there chopping bolts. So that didn't help.

01:18:39:28 - 01:18:53:19
Bob Gaines
But yeah. So now it's a matter of can we bolt at all. And that's the big issue in recent years.

01:18:53:19 - 01:19:19:22
Bob Gaines
That's where Allen wants it. But yeah, there have been areas like that where, you know, people sort of poached in there and bolted when they weren't even supposed to be climbing there. And, you know, that creates access issues for sure. And now the big issue is wilderness. So there's a big distinction between being able to put bolt in non wilderness and congressionally designated wilderness areas.

01:19:19:24 - 01:19:34:10
Bob Gaines
And a lot of people don't know it. But everything above the 4000ft contour and Yosemite Valley is wilderness. That includes all the big formations El Capitan, Half Dome, Sentinel Rock, the Drill rocks, Washington column, all that stuff.

01:19:35:03 - 01:19:47:01
Kyle Broxterman
So where do we stand now? As as a culture. And I think I was told that we came very close to losing, climbing all together in Joshua Tree. Is that true?

01:19:48:10 - 01:20:33:25
Bob Gaines
Not climbing, but bolting. So, you know, I don't think climbing was in jeopardy, but our ability to place bolts and replace aging bolts in wilderness was in jeopardy. And that wasn't just Joshua Tree. It was nationwide. And it dealt specifically with wilderness areas. So what happened was, in the Biden administration, there were some lawyers and some people in both the National Park Service and the Forest Service who got together and came up with the new interpretation of the Wilderness Act, which says, you can't have manmade installations in wilderness areas.

01:20:33:28 - 01:21:05:25
Bob Gaines
And what they determined or tried to determine was that bolts are installations, they're manmade installations, and therefore all bolts are illegal in congressionally designated wilderness like Joshua Tree has wilderness areas. Most great climbing areas in the country are in wilderness, so there are a lot of them. And it was a big deal. So, the access fund got involved.

01:21:05:26 - 01:21:35:17
Bob Gaines
And this is one of the biggest wins for them. They were to, laws that that were passed. One was the Protect America Climbing Act, Protect American Climbing Act and the Explorer Act. And those went through Congress and got passed. And basically what they're saying in those laws is that bolts are allowed in wilderness, but there can be some restrictions.

01:21:35:17 - 01:22:06:00
Bob Gaines
So there's the catch and at Joshua Tree, what they were trying to do was designate the type of route and whether or not that route would be allowed to exist in wilderness, for example, trad climbs. They were calling a trad face that had, you know, a few bolts. Those were fine. And even if you had a route with a bunch of bolts.

01:22:06:03 - 01:22:35:06
Bob Gaines
Even if you had a route with a bunch of protection placements and one bolt or two, they would still call that trad. If you had a route that's all bolts and one gear placement, they would call that trad too. So all it had to have in their definition was like 1 or 2 trad placements. That's fine, but if it was all bolts for protection and for an anchor, it was considered a sport climb and that was not going to be allowed in the wilderness areas.

01:22:35:06 - 01:23:11:03
Bob Gaines
So that was that's a tough one because there are a lot of great sport climbs in Joshua Tree Wilderness. So that was the crux of the issue was they were saying that sport climbs didn't meet what's called the minimum requirement analysis to be allowed to exist in a wilderness area, and it's a bureaucratic process, but a minimum requirement analysis takes a look at whether that act is can it be allowed because it allows for safe recreation.

01:23:11:06 - 01:23:37:19
Bob Gaines
And what they're saying is, you know, they had director's order number 41, which came out that says bolts are integral to rock climbing. They should be allowed, but you shouldn't have quote unquote bolt intensive routes. So when I first read that one that came out years ago, I was like, oh, we can't have bolt intensive routes. That's going to be a problem because those are sport climbs.

01:23:37:21 - 01:24:00:07
Bob Gaines
And I had a long discussion with Randy Leavitt about it. And, you know, he has all these great sport climbs from the 1980s in Joshua Tree, that are like an hour into the wilderness. And by definition, Joshua Tree was saying, well, we're either going to remove the bolts or we're just not going to allow replacement of the bolts.

01:24:00:07 - 01:24:24:17
Bob Gaines
And that's the crux, because what they're saying is we don't think sport climbs should be allowed in wilderness. You can have trad face climbs, but you can't have sport climbs. So that's really the crux of the matter. But now with the Trump administration, the Forest Service and the Park Service after that legislation came out, they're just back down and haven't heard a peep from them.

01:24:24:24 - 01:24:47:16
Bob Gaines
So they kind of went silent. So now they don't have them. They're losing funding. The parks are losing manpower. So the last thing I think on their list right now is studying bolts and catechetical rising routes and whether or not the bolts should be able to exist. But it's kind of, bad in a way that now they don't even seem like they want to manage it.

01:24:47:16 - 01:25:19:25
Bob Gaines
So to get permits to do new routes is becoming very difficult, if not impossible. Whereas before in Joshua Tree, they had a system for new routes and for bolt replacement, all you need to do is get a permit. So now that process has slowed way down. And so it's it's kind of becoming an issue.

01:25:19:28 - 01:25:36:20
Bob Gaines
In Joshua Tree and I just heard this, last week, they're not allowing, they're not even accepting permits for new routes. They said they don't have the staffing.

01:25:36:22 - 01:25:56:01
Bob Gaines
Yeah, it's almost an invitation to pirate bolt because, you know, if you say, well, we're not going to give you a permit to replace those aging bolts on this 1980s classic explorer climb, people are just going to do it. So it's really a shame because I don't like to break the rules, and I always play by the rules.

01:25:56:04 - 01:26:16:04
Bob Gaines
And, you know, I'm a commercial permit holder. And Joshua Tree when I ran my school for years and years, so I just played by the rules. And two years ago it was great. You could get a permit for a new route in non wilderness. You could get, permit to replace bolts. And now they're just on this big slowdown and they just told me, oh, we're not accepting applications for new routes.

01:26:16:04 - 01:26:24:14
Bob Gaines
And I'm like, really? They say it's because of, staffing cuts. So you could blame that on the Trump administration. I guess.

01:26:26:11 - 01:26:52:13
Kyle Broxterman
I, I see an issue where, you know, the the I mean, pendulum swings. Right, right. Now we're in a situation where the these forest Service and these agencies don't have any funding, but let's say, you know, after Trump is gone and maybe the legislation or the administration changes, and now all of a sudden, these organizations have funding, and now they have, you know, a lot of time on their hands and they're like, well, let's pick up this bolting issue again.

01:26:52:13 - 01:27:06:24
Kyle Broxterman
What has happened in the last six years? And they see, wild amount of development in these wilderness areas. Do you see that as an issue that we are maybe missing? Not looking far, far, far forward enough into the future.

01:27:07:21 - 01:27:19:05
Bob Gaines
Yeah, it's a big problem because they can use that against climbers and say, well, look at all this illegal activity that's going on. And there are huge lobbies, huge, that lobby against boats in wilderness.

01:27:19:05 - 01:27:28:05
Kyle Broxterman
Okay, so why the focus on bolts? I understand that they've been labeled as like, what was the word you phrase like manufactured installments,

01:27:28:23 - 01:27:30:24
Bob Gaines
Manmade installations.

01:27:30:24 - 01:27:45:06
Kyle Broxterman
installations. Why such a focus on the bolts? Why do people care? Like, I couldn't even come up with an argument to say on how it's detrimental to the wilderness. Like you can't even see them.

01:27:45:12 - 01:27:50:12
Kyle Broxterman
Like, why are people so focused on trying to prevent these things from being put up?

01:27:50:12 - 01:28:16:02
Bob Gaines
That's a good argument, Kyle. But. And I've argued that before. It's more the philosophy that they argue rather than the reality, because it's easy to. It's easy to argue. Well, here's our interpretation before a judge and this this is our interpretation of the wilderness says right here, no manmade installations are allowed in wilderness, no sign of man.

01:28:16:02 - 01:28:31:18
Bob Gaines
And all this. And they can just read it right off the wilderness like, and then the judge will say, well, what's a boat? And they'll say, well, a climber goes out there with his drill and he drills this big hole in the rock, and he pounds in this metal thing and it's there forever. So that's sort of the definition of a manmade installation.

01:28:31:18 - 01:28:54:23
Bob Gaines
It's an easy argument. The reality is, if you take that judge out there into some wilderness area and particularly in in the mountains, you know, you'll be on some trail and you can say, well, you see that rock up there 1000ft up there. Can you see any bolts up there? And unless he and he's going to go, well, let's the glinting in the sun is on that you're not going to see anything.

01:28:54:25 - 01:29:20:00
Bob Gaines
On the other hand, there are some cases in some egregious cases where there's a trail and you walk by and there's some 50ft rock that's just bolted. So that's where we need to be careful, because there are some examples of that where climbers have gotten out of control. And so visually, I think you have to be very careful in developing crags that are near hiking trails where people can really see them.

01:29:20:02 - 01:29:45:13
Bob Gaines
But yeah, I mean, that argument, it doesn't really work when you walk up to a rock that has a lot of sport, climb side by side because you can see the bolts.

01:29:45:15 - 01:30:14:04
Bob Gaines
But yeah, the issue has kind of been hashed out in the courts and in legislation. The access fund played a huge role and getting those, those, those laws through Congress, that was huge. And basically it says that boats are allowed in wilderness, but there has to be some management of it. And it's sort of back to square one where the Park Service is still going.

01:30:14:04 - 01:30:39:05
Bob Gaines
Well, yeah, we're not going to allow sport climb to allow bolts. And that's okay. So the era of just, you know, freelance bolting and wilderness is kind of over, I'm afraid to say. I mean, I got in to first ascent at kind of a great period in American rock climbing, where, you know, there were a lot of unclaimed routes and not a lot of regulation on boating.

01:30:39:07 - 01:30:58:16
Bob Gaines
And I could kind of do what I wanted. And now it's, you know, permits and regulations and you can't do it and you can do it in non-woven webinars. We can't do it in wilderness. So the era of bolted first descents, I hate to say it, but it's really over in a, in a, in a major way in American rock climbing.

01:30:58:16 - 01:31:23:01
Bob Gaines
And I kind of hate to say that, but I think the big issue now is our ability to maintain what we have and replace aging anchors. And that issue, we've pretty much won. So and that's the key going forward is to preserve what we have, because El Capitan is in wilderness, you know, and we want to preserve the great climbing areas we have.

01:31:23:04 - 01:31:48:05
Bob Gaines
I think there should be permit systems for new rafts, but the Joshua Tree, I was really disheartened because I was putting up new roots last year and with a permit. So now, you know, they blame it on staffing issues. I think that's kind of a lame excuse, but, it's kind of what's happening with national parks. They're they're getting less funding, so they're not worried as much about bolts.

01:31:48:05 - 01:32:21:03
Bob Gaines
They just tend to go like, okay, we're not going to do anything. No, no new bolts. We're not going to manage it. We're just going to say no bolts.

01:32:21:05 - 01:32:47:14
Bob Gaines
Well, I think one of the reasons why they banned bolts in Joshua Tree Wilderness back in 1993 was because they were lobbied by the Wilderness Society and these big lobbying groups and I think they just wanted to satisfy them. So they said, okay, no new bolts in wilderness. And then you know what? Here's what happened. People went in there and drilled thousands of bolts.

01:32:47:16 - 01:33:08:22
Bob Gaines
And what did the Park Service do? Nothing. So it's kind of like saying, well, the speed limit is 55 miles an hour, but, we're not going to write any tickets for somebody going 80 miles an hour. And so they kind of look the other way and just let it happen. And but you're right, the pendulum has swung in the other direction.

01:33:08:22 - 01:33:38:11
Bob Gaines
So now they're saying, okay, no new bolts, we'll just ban bolts. So how are they going to go out and remove bolts? You know, I don't think they have the staffing or the manpower to do that. Now, whether or not they do in the future remains to be seen. But I think there has to be some more lobbying that goes on, and a development of a climbing management program that has the ability for climbers to get permits, to do new routes in wilderness.

01:33:38:14 - 01:34:08:08
Bob Gaines
But at Joshua Tree, I can tell you right now they're not going to allow sport climbs.

01:34:08:10 - 01:34:37:10
Bob Gaines
They'll they'll get climbers. They can definitely get climbers. That would do it. Absolutely. They could find people that there are a lot of climbers that don't want sport climbing in wilderness. It's not, unanimous group that says, oh, yeah, we should build a boat wherever we want. If you look at all the comments in the last go around with the comment periods to the Forest Service in the national parks, it was pretty split even among the climbing community.

01:34:37:12 - 01:35:08:06
Bob Gaines
Not everybody's pro Bolt. And particularly with the Instagram, generation, I find it I found it really odd, like on the access funds Instagram, I would say it's 90% of millennials or whatever age group was was responding were completely anti bolt, completely anti bolt. And this is the people that come out of the gyms and need to clip bolts and go sport climbing because they don't know how to trout climb.

01:35:08:08 - 01:35:36:25
Bob Gaines
It was it was amazing the the comments that the access fund got when they were lobbying for our rights to place bolts in wilderness, it was like I said, it was 90%. We don't need bolts. Don't put bolts in the rock. You're scarring a lot. You know, this is wilderness. We shouldn't have bought. It was a lot of that.

01:35:36:27 - 01:35:53:17
Bob Gaines
It felt like that.

01:35:53:19 - 01:36:10:05
Bob Gaines
Yeah.

01:36:10:08 - 01:36:31:29
Bob Gaines
It's a difficult issue, but like I said, it's. It's a bit sad to me, but I feel like the the era of new roots and wilderness in American rock climbing is, is pretty much over. And I'm, I'm just happy that I was able to get into, that era where I could actually go and do the route I wanted to do.

01:36:31:29 - 01:36:48:10
Bob Gaines
And it was it was, a feeling of freedom. And, you know, I don't feel like I was excessive or anything like that, but, it's it's different now for sure.

01:36:48:13 - 01:37:12:08
Bob Gaines
What? Right now. Right now in Joshua Tree, it's a pretty tight, pretty tight regulation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I still replace bolts. They still allow that. So there's a lot of work to be done there, you know, going back and fixing, aging anchors. So I'm going to you know, put some of my, effort into that.

01:37:12:08 - 01:37:14:15
Bob Gaines
And, that's why satisfying to.

01:37:40:25 - 01:38:02:14
Bob Gaines
Yeah.

01:38:03:25 - 01:38:11:12
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01:38:12:25 - 01:38:52:02
Bob Gaines
Well, I think, From what I've seen, you know, most gym climbers, I'd say a pretty high percentage of them. Never go outside. The ones that do tend to gravitate to bouldering and sport climbing and, you know, the first gym in LA was 1995, the first real climbing wall. And I remember that because it was in Irvine, where I lived, and it was a 48ft tall entropy panel wall that was slightly over this beautiful wall.

01:38:52:04 - 01:39:15:17
Bob Gaines
And I joined that gym and I thought, wow, that's great. But now I think the gym to crag thing, I think one of the things, you know, that I focused on in my climbing school and guide training was, you know, really teaching people leave no trace ethics because a lot of the gym climbers, they don't have that foundation of, of, being in the outdoors, you know, like I had when I was a kid.

01:39:15:17 - 01:39:39:01
Bob Gaines
I was camping with my parents for weeks, every summer for years. And I kind of learned how to how to deal with stuff in the outdoors. So that's something that you know is important. They need some mentorship, like how to behave and how to take a poop. And, you know, just leave no trace and learn. Leave no trace ethics.

01:39:39:04 - 01:40:00:26
Bob Gaines
So there's that. And then as guides, we always called it job security because people out of the gyms, they really needed to learn how to use their care. And they were totally lacking in trad skills. So, you know, for years and years and years, we taught people anchoring classes, leading classes. That was sort of our bread and butter.

01:40:00:28 - 01:40:24:21
Bob Gaines
And then I think in more recent years, it's families coming out and wanting to climb. And, you know, sure, they climb in the gym a lot, but when they go outdoors, they don't have that, foundation of safety and using the equipment to set up trad climbs. So they'd rather just hire a guide and make it a fun and safe day for the typically mom and dad and two kids.

01:40:24:23 - 01:40:49:00
Bob Gaines
For the last ten years of my climbing school, that was our bread and butter. Typical clients. They just want to have fun. They don't want to set it up themselves and take that risk. They want it to be safe. The guide is going to take them to a great spot. It's all going to be set up. It's all going to be safe and just want to have fun climbing so that the, the, clientele, the demographic profile changed when I first started guiding in the 80s.

01:40:49:02 - 01:41:08:03
Bob Gaines
It was serious climbers that came out and hired a guide that wanted to climb hard stuff and be guided up hard climbs. And then, you know, when the gyms came up, a lot of people wanted to learn trad. And then in recent years, the families. It's like maybe they climbed when they were younger, but then they had kids.

01:41:08:03 - 01:41:27:26
Bob Gaines
They got out of it a little bit. Now they want to come back and they'd rather just hire a guide and make it all safe and fun for them and not have to worry about.

01:41:27:29 - 01:42:18:11
Bob Gaines
Well, I'm just saying that's the the average. But there's still some people that want to come out and, you know, hire a guide for guided climbing and do hard climbs. But the vast majority of the clientele, I would say, are just people that either want to take their families out or want to learn trad climbing skills and become self-sufficient.

01:42:18:14 - 01:42:25:04
Bob Gaines
Well, yeah.

01:42:25:06 - 01:43:06:07
Bob Gaines
Well, I'm just kind of telling you the norm, but, yeah, I mean, for me, in my my climbing career, most of the clients that were my regular clients, you know, they became, like, my climbing partners. And I still guide a lot part time. And some of my clients I've guided for over 20 years. So essentially, that's kind of what you're talking about, is they usually they have the money and when they go climbing, they want a solid partner who's going to be safe and can take them on good routes, knows the routes.

01:43:06:09 - 01:43:34:17
Bob Gaines
They're going to have a fun day and it's going to be more rewarding for them than if they went out and just started looking for partners on their own, or climbed with their other climbing buddies who were maybe at the same standard. So for me, as a guide with my private clientele, that's that's sort of what I, I've done for my entire climbing career is developed a clientele with with people who climbed with me over and over again and enjoyed climbing with me.

01:43:34:17 - 01:44:01:03
Bob Gaines
I enjoyed climbing with them, and we just went out climbing and it was like a partnership, and that's what I enjoyed the most.

01:44:01:05 - 01:44:12:21
Bob Gaines
Yeah, and they'll show up where most of the partners, will flake out on you half the time, right? You're pretty much guaranteed the guy's going to show up.

01:44:12:21 - 01:44:40:21
Kyle Broxterman
The you've had a quite an illustrious career, in the climbing space. And you have also kind of had this, fun exploration of other areas. And, and one of them is in Hollywood. I'd love to dive into your experience of how you ended up into the film industry. And, some of those key moments

01:44:43:10 - 01:45:17:29
Bob Gaines
Well, I think I'd use the word serendipitous again. And I kind of have got lucky and just happened to, be available at the right time. A friend of mine who was a climber by the name of Bob Carmichael, was doing some climbing films in Boulder, and he started to get some work doing commercials in Hollywood. And, he would hire his climbing friends to be the riggers for the climbing commercials.

01:45:18:01 - 01:45:54:25
Bob Gaines
So I worked with him a lot. And back in the 90s, there were less, sophisticated computer generated images. So a lot of the stuff that was shot in commercials was actually the real deal shot on cliffs. So I worked a lot with him in the in the at the outset. And the way he works in Hollywood is if you're working with a production company and there's a certain crew like, and you're working with a certain director when they get work, they just tend to take the same crew with them from job to job.

01:45:54:27 - 01:46:20:25
Bob Gaines
So kind of snowballs. But that's really the way I started, was I had a friend who was making climbing films, and then he started to work in Hollywood and then he brought us along with him, and that was Bob Carmichael. So I owe him a lot. And he's the guy who I worked with on a movie called Star Trek five The Final Frontier, and he got the gig, to do the second unit.

01:46:20:26 - 01:46:41:20
Bob Gaines
He was the second unit director on the scenes that were filmed in Simi Valley when Captain Kirk was going on a little free solo up on El Capitan, in the opening in the movie, Spock had to save him. Yeah.

01:46:41:22 - 01:47:04:29
Bob Gaines
Star Trek was filmed in 1988, and its theatrical release was in 1989. Yeah.

01:47:05:01 - 01:47:29:14
Bob Gaines
Yeah, I was the stunt stunt double for Captain Kirk. And I think the reason why I got the job. Because I was the biggest, fattest climber they could find that could actually climb really hard. Because Shatner at that time, you know, his heyday with Star Trek, you know, the TV series like 60s. So he was getting a little older and, so there you go.

01:47:29:14 - 01:47:51:17
Bob Gaines
Hey, Bob, can you gain, like, 15 pounds? And I'm like, yeah, I could do that. And which made it harder to do those climbs, but still, and I remember they said, okay, we're going to have you meet with William Shatner at Paramount Studio, and he in it, you know, talk to you and, you know, size you up and everything.

01:47:51:17 - 01:48:16:29
Bob Gaines
So I remember it was a beautiful day in LA and I'm driving through the gates, the Paramount lot. And I look up, I could see the Hollywood sign up on the hill there and I thought, damn, I'm working in Hollywood. And then I met William Shatner, and I remember he got right in my face. He walked up to me and, you know, we had a little chit chat, and he walked up to me and and he said, like, yeah.

01:48:16:29 - 01:48:41:17
Bob Gaines
I heard your guide and George and McConnell. I've cried Chuck to the roof of my mouth. I was so nervous because I was meeting like, Captain Kirk. He was like my hero from childhood, so. But I guess I looked enough like him. But I got the job, and, he actually came up to Yosemite and did a little climbing at the base of El Cap on a route called Pine Line, which is like A57.

01:48:41:19 - 01:49:06:10
Bob Gaines
And then they built a mock up of the boot flake, which is where he takes his fall from the boot flake on the nose, right, and a fiberglass mock up of it and erected it in the, parking lot at the tunnel that, is at the entrance to Yosemite Valley for him to do his little climbing. And then as a stunt double, I did a bunch of routes that were in a little montage.

01:49:06:10 - 01:49:31:01
Bob Gaines
You don't have to watch the whole movie, but if you watch, like, the first two minutes, it's the opening scene of the movie. And, at the time, like I said, it was before sophisticated computer generated images. So I remember Carmichael, the director, telling me, well, you know, he's free soloing, so you're going to be climbing on belay on an eighth inch cable.

01:49:31:03 - 01:49:54:21
Bob Gaines
And I'm like, And I didn't really know that much about cables. But he said, you know, Bob, Kenny Bates, who's the top stuntman in Hollywood as far as cable work goes. We're going to have you meet with him at Stony Point. He's going to show you everything about cable. So I met with him and the guy knew nothing about climbing, and he's trying to convince me that, you know, he's done all these fall on cables.

01:49:54:21 - 01:50:15:09
Bob Gaines
And I'm like, you know, if you had a dynamic rope that stretches, this can be a lot safer. But he showed me how to make, this wedges and thimbles and loops on the cable and all the tools. And I learned everything about it. So when I got to Yosemite Valley, I thought, you know what? I better do some testing.

01:50:15:12 - 01:50:37:27
Bob Gaines
And, I got together with with John Dill, who's the head of user 70 Search and Rescue, and I told him, hey, I want to do this test because say, I'm going to have to climb on this eight inch cable. So eight inch cable, it's rated at about 2,000 pounds. And I had a concrete block that weighed roughly the same as my body weight.

01:50:37:27 - 01:51:01:18
Bob Gaines
And so we went out there and found oak tree and, you know, got an anchor up in the tree. And I think the first test, I raise the block about five feet, and then I looked at dill and he was smirking already. I could tell he knew what was going to happen, but the cable just snapped like kite string to like, didn't even slow it down.

01:51:01:18 - 01:51:29:18
Bob Gaines
And I'm like, oh no, Holy shit. And so then I raised it up about maybe two feet and it snapped again. And I'm like, I don't know. But what I figured out was if I put some dynamic rope in the system. So I had the cable go into some rope, like I use nine millimeter dynamic rope. And as long as I had a length of, dynamic rope in the system, the cable wouldn't snap, so I would drop.

01:51:29:18 - 01:51:44:02
Bob Gaines
I think I dropped to 15ft with the rope and nothing did break. So then I was a little more confident to use the cable.

01:51:44:05 - 01:52:13:09
Bob Gaines
Yeah, I think it was a world record for a descender fall. So Ken, Ken Bates, who at the time was the top stuntman in Hollywood for descender, Cable Falls and it was kind of a weird technique, but basically what he did was he took the eighth inch cable and wounded around this giant spools like a big fishing reel, and essentially he would just get dropped.

01:52:13:11 - 01:52:34:22
Bob Gaines
So as he was dropped, the cable would just peel out of this giant off this giant spool. And there was, like a hand disc brake that would slow him down at the end. So I looked at it, you know, because I know a lot about dynamic versus static forces. And I looked at that and I'm like, Holy shit, this is dangerous.

01:52:34:24 - 01:53:02:08
Bob Gaines
And, so they had it set up so that the spool, the descender rig was anchored at the base of El Cap. So it ran all the way up about 400ft up on the North American wall to an anchor and then back down to the ground. And then they hoisted him up and dropped him. And I remember when he was ready to clip in to get hoisted up, his hands were shaking so badly I had to help him out like, hey, let me help you clip that in.

01:53:02:10 - 01:53:30:11
Bob Gaines
And, he was scared. I mean, that was. I didn't do the fall. His name was Ken Bates, and, I was just the climbing double for Shatner. So all the climbing, I did was blade on a cable that went into a rope, and, and I devised that system, so there was some elongation and some dynamic property in the system.

01:53:30:14 - 01:54:01:05
Bob Gaines
And I did, separate reality, which was, a big overhanging roof crack. And what was interesting about that one was, I don't know if you're familiar with separate reality, but it's this big overhanging hand crack that goes out this horizontal rope. It's a famous climb that was first done by Ron Couch. And, it's like a 512 a and it's interesting because it's really just thick wafer of rock at the top of the overhang, and the crack goes all the way through it.

01:54:01:05 - 01:54:32:27
Bob Gaines
So if you standing on top, you could look down through the crack. And so I'm climbing underneath. And the way I did that one was I had a little swami belt on under my wardrobe. And then I had the rope tied into that, and I just ran it up the sleeve of the sweater. So I was cool. As long as I didn't cross my hands over, I just shuffled my hands out the roof, and at the end of the roof, I had a little rung that was hidden that I could grab to kind of get over the lip, but, I did that one, and I did the boot flake up on the nose root,

01:54:32:27 - 01:54:51:27
Bob Gaines
which is I think it's like 1700 feet up there. I did the boot flake about 15 times. And, on belay it's pretty hard. It's like a ten hand crack. And I remember when they shot that, they wanted to get a shot of him up there, sort of all by himself, because he's supposed to be free soloing.

01:54:52:03 - 01:55:12:26
Bob Gaines
So they had their whole crew get out of there and rap off. So I was the last one up there, and they did like this master shot where you see all cap, and then they zoom in, zoom in, zoom in, and then you could see boot flake and I'm climbing on it. So it was pretty cool because when it was wrapped, I got to, rappelled down about, I think it was almost 1800 feet.

01:55:13:02 - 01:55:55:03
Bob Gaines
And that was like the biggest rappel I've ever done. That was a lot of fun. I think it was a couple sections of rope, but just all in one go to rappelled down from that was pretty cool.

01:55:55:05 - 01:56:23:06
Bob Gaines
Not at all. But yeah, there's that video of Alex Honnold, commenting on, you know, climbing in, in Hollywood films and most of it, he's saying, oh, that's not a thing. You know, you don't do that because usually guys just like, die knowing like they're free solo and they're doing this dinos to like finger pockets and, I remember he was he was watching Stallone climb these icicles, like, grabbing him with his bare hands.

01:56:23:06 - 01:56:43:10
Bob Gaines
He's like, that's not a thing. And when he saw Star Trek, it was, you know, the movement. And my feet were really precise. And I actually presold the first pitch of, free rider to. And when he saw it, he goes, that's free rider. And then when he saw the film, because this is this is actually more like what free soloing is like.

01:56:43:12 - 01:56:55:19
Bob Gaines
So I felt good about that when he saw me. Yeah.

01:56:55:21 - 01:57:03:23
Bob Gaines
Yeah, exactly.

01:57:03:25 - 01:57:31:08
Bob Gaines
Actually I was and that was you know, we're talking about risk. And that's one of the times in the film business where I got involved in a risky situation, and it was at Red Rock in Nevada, and. Okay. Yeah. And, it was on, a movie called Rambo three, and John Long was actually the second unit director, which was pretty cool.

01:57:31:11 - 01:57:54:15
Bob Gaines
So I was doubling for Stallone where he's free soloing to get up to the enemy hideout in the movie. And we probably spent the whole second unit crew and a couple days out there. I think the budget was like $50,000, and it ended up being it ended up being about point five seconds in the movie total time.

01:57:54:17 - 01:58:20:03
Bob Gaines
But anyways, there's this big limestone mesa like Cliff, if you're driving up the loop, it's on the right side. It's called the Turtle Head and Turtle Peak. And, that's where I was doing the the supposed free solo was the top section of that, the top 100ft. And it's actually limestone and it's it's really good limestone. I think some people have done some new routes up there in recent years.

01:58:20:06 - 01:58:41:26
Bob Gaines
But anyways, I was with Richard Harrison. He was the rigor and he's a famous red rock climber. And we were flown up there with the helicopter was in the winter time, so it was pretty cold. There was a little snow up there and was a nice day, wasn't windy. So, you know, he bullied me. I kind of lower down and climbed up a few times and they did some helicopter shots.

01:58:41:26 - 01:59:10:19
Bob Gaines
It was beautiful rock. It was like 510 climbing. And then the afternoon sort of wore on. The pilot had to go back and refuel. Started to get windy and, did some more filming and then the winds really started to kick in. I think he had to go back and refuel, came back in, and we were just waiting to be picked up and, for some reason, I think it was because of the wind.

01:59:10:19 - 01:59:31:26
Bob Gaines
He couldn't land on top of the peak anymore. So we had to go down, scramble down to the saddle, and by then we were really cold. It was freezing. And, I remember he had parked the helicopter in this little notch, like in a little call down below the summit, and I just jumped in the front. Richard jumped in the back and I'm like, ooh, let's go.

01:59:31:26 - 01:59:53:15
Bob Gaines
And he looked at me. He turned to me and he said, winds are clocked about 45 knots. And I didn't even think anything. I'm like, okay, great, let's go. And when he took off, he just couldn't get any lift. So basically the helicopter just dive bomb down the slope. And at one point I think we actually went through a tree.

01:59:53:17 - 02:00:16:00
Bob Gaines
The red warning light was going off and buzz in, and it was very close to crashing. And finally we landed. And I remember Richard Harrison said, like, if I would have known I would walk down. He was pissed and I actually saw the same helicopter pilot few years later on another movie, and he recognized me. He said, you know what?

02:00:16:02 - 02:00:45:12
Bob Gaines
That's the closest I've ever come to crashing in a helicopter. Yeah. So. Yeah. But helicopters, you know, I've worked on a lot of, stunts and climbing shoots where helicopters are involved, and it's always fun to ride around in helicopters when the weather's nice. But, you know, helicopters are really dicey, too, in a way.

02:00:45:12 - 02:01:07:01
Kyle Broxterman
So I've heard I've had, Oh, yeah. We had one guest on the show. He had fallen the rock, basically. Yeah. I amputated his foot. It was hanging by a tendon. The helicopter comes in the line. Man comes down and straps them together, straps into the to the cord, and then all of a sudden, the helicopter is just like.

02:01:07:03 - 02:01:09:21
Kyle Broxterman
Just like, falling out of the sky, like going down

02:01:13:25 - 02:01:28:11
Kyle Broxterman
fuck, fuck, like trying to unclip them from the tether. And apparently he didn't get it in time and they're just getting drug through the talus, attached to this falling helicopter. And remarkably, somehow the helicopter was able to get lift again and pull out and then boom, they get lifted

02:01:29:27 - 02:01:32:22
Bob Gaines
Wow. Wow.

02:01:33:01 - 02:01:49:09
Bob Gaines
The other big film I worked on, it was after, Star Trek was cliffhanger. And that was in, 1992. And the theatrical release was 1993, and that was the one with Sylvester Stallone.

02:01:52:22 - 02:02:17:03
Bob Gaines
Well, at first I was hired to train all the actors and which was a lot of fun for Stallone. We actually built a climbing wall in his backyard at his house in Bel Air, and I would go over there, like, once a week, and we would train on his wall in his backyard. And, so I spent a lot of time in his backyard.

02:02:17:03 - 02:02:44:19
Bob Gaines
He let me in the house a few times, but, yeah, he, it was a pretty cool wall. He had a tennis court, so, had a retaining wall all around it. And on that, we had all these bolted on holes with different routes that went up. And then we built a higher wall with four by eight foot, plywood panels with nuts and textured panels that went up, for panels.

02:02:44:19 - 02:03:04:25
Bob Gaines
So that's, 32ft and, slightly overhang. And so we had top ropes on that. And after the gig was over, I actually got those panels and put them in my garage. And that's where I built that mock up that I was talking about on that climb. Bookworm on one of those panels that I got from Stallone's,

02:03:04:27 - 02:03:30:19
Bob Gaines
But anyway, so that was my initial job, and what was remarkable about Sloan was he had a huge ape index, like plus seven, and he climbed 510 C on his first day, super duper strong. And he worked out with trainers all the time. So super fit and at first I thought, wow, he's going to love climbing so much.

02:03:30:19 - 02:03:49:21
Bob Gaines
He's going to be so good. And he's going want to go everywhere. Because we had this big training program envisioned for him where he's going to come to Joshua Tree, he's going to go all over the place, do all this climbing. But I think he realized that, you know, he was good enough to pull it off because he had two of the best climbers at the time.

02:03:49:21 - 02:04:15:00
Bob Gaines
For his stunt doubles, he had Ron Cork, who had just climbed Magic Line just like a 1320, some of the hardest trad climb and Wolfgang Goulet, who'd just done the first 514 in the world as his doubles. And so he had those two guys. I remember there was a meeting where we were all sitting in his office and, Stallone said, about Ron because Ron was lean.

02:04:15:00 - 02:04:39:29
Bob Gaines
You know, Wolfgang was kind of buff. But Ron, you know, he was lean and mean. He'd just done this hardest trad climbing 70. And Stallone said, I think, Ron's going to need a little, supplementation. So, you know, they were on, he brought them over there and they were training and is eating like five meals a day and trying to bulk up to look like Stallone.

02:04:40:03 - 02:05:01:15
Bob Gaines
But Wolfgang actually ended up, doing most of the climbing, doubling, for Stallone when we went to Italy. And it was filmed in the Dolomites. But anyways, yeah, I remember when I was working with Stallone in the backyard, his associate producer of his Italian guy, came up to me and he said, Bob, we got to have a little talk.

02:05:01:17 - 02:05:35:18
Bob Gaines
And I'm like, okay. And he said, Bob, nothing could happen to Sly. Do you understand me? Nothing could happen to Sly. And I'm like, well, maybe he shouldn't be climbing. He goes, no, Bob, listen to me. You got to listen. Nothing could happen to Sly. And I'm like, okay, so then we went over to Italy and I was, the chief safety officer, so I was in charge for, the cast, the crew, on location.

02:05:35:18 - 02:06:01:02
Bob Gaines
And we were in the Dolomites for about four months. And, so that was a big responsibility. And, it was a great job. The Dolomites are beautiful range and one thing I'll say about Stallone is he's no prima donna. And, you know, it's not that he'll do his own stunts, but if you go, hey, would you jump off this little snow, snow cliff and do a roll?

02:06:01:05 - 02:06:22:00
Bob Gaines
Tuck and roll. He's like, yeah, I'll do that. But, if he got hurt, it would be a big deal, you know? So there's no replacement for him. But yeah, I think Wolfgang did a really good job as his double. And, you know, people thought it was going to be a climbing movie, but it turned out it really wasn't.

02:06:22:02 - 02:06:42:23
Bob Gaines
I don't know if you've seen that movie was a lot more violent than I thought it was going to be. I mean, I like the movie and cliffhanger. Yeah, I should see that one. It's got John Lithgow's in there. He's the the villain. And, Yeah, it was good times. Good times over there.

02:06:42:26 - 02:07:03:11
Bob Gaines
Where lightning was a big, big problem. And, you know, I was always writing up all the safety reports. We only had one fatality. And, that was the, one of the caterers who was really stressed out because he had to get all that food up on the mountain every day, and he had an aneurysm. Died in his room.

02:07:03:13 - 02:07:31:29
Bob Gaines
But, the big risk on the on the peaks. I mean, we were in a real mountain range, and there was a big crew. You know, sometimes he had, like, a couple hundred people up on, on a mountain. And lightning was was probably the biggest issue. One day there was a second unit crew up on top of this formation called Torrey DVC, which are these two towers, that are divided and they're about 600ft and accessible only by helicopter.

02:07:32:02 - 02:07:37:22
Bob Gaines
And a lightning cell moved in and I think five people got hit by lightning one day

02:07:37:22 - 02:07:40:19
Kyle Broxterman
my gosh. And a single strike or separate, separate events.

02:07:40:19 - 02:07:55:14
Bob Gaines
separate strikes. Earl Wiggins, who's a famous, climber from the desert areas around Moab and Canyonlands, he got knocked off the cliff. He got hit pretty hard. And, it knocked him over the cliff. It kind of.

02:07:55:14 - 02:08:16:28
Bob Gaines
He flew, like, about 15ft, and the cliff was like a 600ft cliff. And luckily there was a little ledge just over the lip that he landed on, and, he was okay, but that was a scary day. I wasn't up there, but I had to write a report about that, so, we had two helicopters flying, you know, every day in the mountains for for a month.

02:08:16:28 - 02:08:40:11
Bob Gaines
So right there, it's a it's a dangerous situation. And I remember there was another close call with the helicopter. I wasn't in the helicopter, but I wrote a report about this one to, a new pilot came in, and to land on snow, you need snow skids. So he came in and he forgot to put a snow skids on.

02:08:40:11 - 02:09:03:23
Bob Gaines
And when he landed, he was going to pick up some of the riggers. He was fine. The helicopter was was sitting there, and then they all jumped in. And then all of a sudden the helicopter just went onto its belly and started sliding. And it was right on the edge of the 1800 foot cliff. And a couple of the guys jumped out, which was a bad move because he got the tail rotor.

02:09:03:26 - 02:09:14:09
Bob Gaines
But nobody got hurt in that incident. But that was a wake up call. It stopped. Yeah, yeah, that was a close call.

02:09:14:09 - 02:09:15:07
Kyle Broxterman
Wow.

02:09:15:10 - 02:09:26:15
Kyle Broxterman
Such wild stories. It's so cool. Have you. Have you written? I mean, you you've written a bunch of guide books. Have you ever written, like, a biography or an autobiography or putting these stories

02:09:27:12 - 02:09:43:08
Bob Gaines
Actually, I'm working on a autobiography of short stories just about, you know, some of the cool guys have climbed with. And some of the stuff just writes itself. You know, like some of the stories we're talking about. And, I have done a lot of writing and that's one of my, my next projects.

02:09:43:10 - 02:10:02:10
Kyle Broxterman
Very cool. That's exciting. What, you've lived like, I would say a very action packed life. To someone trying to implement that into their lives, what advice would you have for them?

02:10:03:19 - 02:10:25:08
Bob Gaines
Well, I think my father gave me some advice when I was young. He said, you know, because he knew that I was all in on climbing. He's good. Be careful. Making, your your your hobby or your passion into a career, but, it all worked out for me. I think it was just like you said. Serendipity.

02:10:25:11 - 02:10:53:14
Bob Gaines
A word and things happened, and I don't know if it was luck. It was more like, the opportunities arose and I was ready to take them on at the time. And part of it was just being prepared to do it, and opportunity arose, and I could do it like working on a movie. You have to be kind of ready to go.

02:10:53:16 - 02:11:25:17
Bob Gaines
It's tough on a relationship. I think that that one movie cliffhanger, I was away for four months and I was still running a climbing school, so my wife had to kind of take over, and that was a little strain on our relationship. But I, I thank her for doing that. But after that, I decided not to work on feature films and in the film business, focus on more short term, work like commercials, which is usually like two days to maybe two weeks tops.

02:11:27:28 - 02:11:55:28
Bob Gaines
Pick your battles. That's what I say about climbing to.

02:11:56:00 - 02:12:27:02
Bob Gaines
Yeah. I had a friend, Jay Smith, who's, top notch climber who had a contract with, the seals, and he hired me to work with him. And I think the first contract we worked on was 1985. And over the years, I think I've worked with Seal team six from 85 up to. I think the last gig was probably 2010.

02:12:27:02 - 02:12:56:19
Bob Gaines
Right. I believe it was right before the bin laden raid. And in the beginning, you know, Seal Team six was more clandestine. They didn't call themselves Team Six. They were known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group and Seal Team six didn't exist. It was only in recent years, like, particularly after the bin laden raid, that, you know, I think the Seals themselves wanted more notoriety.

02:12:56:21 - 02:13:28:09
Bob Gaines
And, you know, books and movies have been written and produced about Seal Team six. So now it's more in the open. But back then it was a little more secretive. And yeah, I think I'm most proud. I've worked with a lot of military special forces and a lot of military groups over the years, but I think I'm most proud of my work with Seal Team Six because I think among the military, they are the most elite and the the real cream of the crop.

02:13:28:09 - 02:13:57:15
Bob Gaines
I mean, to get to that level of special forces, I think most people have no idea of the training and test testing of physical and mental attributes that goes into that. I mean, just to become a seal is pretty tough. Like you have to go through the basic underwater demolition school, which is a six month program and probably.

02:13:57:17 - 02:14:24:06
Bob Gaines
Only 30% of the candidates make it through that. One of the Seals told me interesting story about about buds. And during buds there's there's a hell week where you have forced sleep deprivation, so they only allow you to sleep about four hours in a week. And so there's a lot of mental toughness training and he said that one night they were out in the surf.

02:14:24:06 - 02:14:51:09
Bob Gaines
So they were, you know, out in the surf just at various stages of hypothermia. For most of the night. And then they called them all in and they have nice clean, warm beds for them. And they said, you know, you guys get some, go ahead and get some sleep. So, but just fall asleep. And about 15 minutes later, he said, they woke everybody up and said, okay, we're going to go back out in the surf.

02:14:51:12 - 02:15:17:07
Bob Gaines
And he said about half of them quit, right? That in their. Yeah. So to get through buzz and to just get through to becoming a Seal is very tough. And one of the problems is recruiting enough Seals. They could get through the training. I think they've actually lowered the standards in recent years. Like instead of doing in real cold water, they do it in like warm water.

02:15:17:09 - 02:16:03:12
Bob Gaines
But they've had trouble, you know, recruiting and enlisting enough seals just because it is so tough. The standards are so high and after that, to get to Seal team six, they only recruit the best of the best. And when you meet those guys, you know there's some of the most amazing humans that you'll ever meet because they're skilled physically and mentally, and they're just well-rounded in all aspects of, you know, size, psychological and physical attributes.

02:16:03:14 - 02:16:36:08
Bob Gaines
Well, they do exude exude confidence. I don't know if I'm that competent, as a, as trained killers, but, I think, looking back at that, yeah, I think training someone at that high level, those, those guys that gave me a lot of confidence in my ability as a guide to to know that that, they want me to work with them and they respect, you know, my level of training that I could give them.

02:16:36:11 - 02:17:08:05
Bob Gaines
So that gave me a lot of, self-confidence and that I was chosen. And they have a choice. And, I look back at those years fondly, and I'm really proud of it. To.

02:17:08:07 - 02:17:28:11
Bob Gaines
Where? I just like to thank you, Kyle, for having me on the podcast. It's been a pleasure talking to you. And, I'm glad I got to share a few of my stories. And, thanks for having me.

02:17:28:13 - 02:17:58:02
Bob Gaines
Yeah. I'm always a little reticent to go on camera and go, on interviews and afraid. Am I going to say some stupid. But, Yeah, I feel comfortable talking to you, and I appreciate your questions.

02:17:58:04 - 02:18:00:17
Bob Gaines
Thank you.

02:18:00:17 - 02:18:01:13
Kyle Broxterman
again, ditto to you.

02:18:01:13 - 02:18:21:22
Kyle Broxterman
I really appreciate your time. It's been such a great time chatting with you. Really cool to hear all these stories. And just to an absolute lifetime of of experiences. And I think, it's been it's been an inspiration for me, to just kind of live, you know, take those opportunities and, and to, you know, lives full as fully as we can.

02:18:21:22 - 02:18:34:04
Kyle Broxterman
I think it can be so easy to get, kind of sucked into the to the grind, to the day to day. And, you know, there's a lot of life out there. So, Yeah, I appreciate the inspiration. And I hope, everybody else

02:18:36:23 - 02:18:38:22
Bob Gaines
Thanks, Kyle. Appreciate that.