100 | TCM Legacy: Accidents, Mentorship, and First Ascents w/ Joshua Reinig

Today, we’re doing something a little different. For the first time ever, I’m releasing a TCM Legacy Episode—diving back into one of the show’s earliest conversations, this one with Joshua Reinig.

It’s been over three years since this episode first aired, and a lot has changed since then. For some of you, you’ll hear a familiar voice—my previous co-host, Max Carrier. But the biggest changes are in Josh’s own life, and those changes are exactly why I’m bringing you this newly remastered version of our conversation.

I first met Josh over a decade ago, during my very first year of climbing, when he invited me—a complete gumby—out to one of his first ascent projects. Whether he realized it or not, that simple act of kindness shaped me as a climber, and I’m still grateful for it today. I also know I’m not the only one he’s impacted in that way.

Since then, Josh and I have become close friends, following each other’s life stories closely. Over the course of his climbing career, Josh has put up more than 2,000 first ascents and currently sits in the top 20 Mountain Project contributors. His routes often focus on safe, moderate climbing that everyone can enjoy. He’s an AMGA apprentice rock and alpine guide with over 6,000 guided trips under his belt. It’s safe to say he’s dedicated a huge portion of his life to serving the climbing community.

One of the main reasons for revisiting this conversation is some exciting news—Josh has just published the most comprehensive guidebook to the Alabama Hills climbing area. This 300-page book features over 700 routes, more than 100 of which are his own first ascents. It’s packed with detailed route descriptions, maps, and photos, the product of more than five years of work and documentation. With Alabama Hills now federally recognized as a scenic wildlife area, Josh also includes important guidance on how we can all respect and preserve this fragile place.

For Josh, this guidebook is just another extension of what he’s always done—sharing climbing with others. He gives huge thanks to Marty and Sharon for mentoring him through the process, and to his wife, Melissa, who played a major role in the documentation and creative work.

When I first heard about the guidebook, I offered to have Josh back on the show in person. But unfortunately, Josh has recently been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The details of his prognosis are still unfolding, but he faces a difficult road ahead—one that may include surgery, chemo, and all the challenges that come with fighting cancer. The location of the cancer has already made speaking difficult, so joining me for a new conversation just wasn’t possible.

As someone who has spent his life supporting the climbing community, Josh now needs our support. The best way to help is to purchase his Alabama Hills guidebook—link in the show notes. You can also donate directly via his GoFundMe, like I have. And if nothing else, please take a moment to send Josh your thoughts, prayers, or positive energy during this time.

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Resources

Buy The Alabama Hills Guidebook

Support Joshua on his Go Fund Me Page

Joshua Reinig's Mountain Project Profile

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:28 Accidents
• 51:00 Fear & Risk
• 1:41:11 The Art Of First Ascents
• 2:08:38 The Whitney Climbing Ranch

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.

00:00:15:26 - 00:00:39:20
Speaker 1
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we're doing something a little different. For the first time ever, I'm releasing a TCM legacy episode. Diving back into one of the show's earliest conversations. This one with Joshua Reineke. It's been over three years since this conversation first aired, and a lot has changed since then. For some of you, you'll hear a familiar voice.

00:00:39:21 - 00:01:05:24
Speaker 1
My previous co-host, Max carrier. But the biggest changes are in Josh's own life. And those changes are exactly why I'm bringing you this newly remastered version of our conversation. I first met Josh over a decade ago during my first year of trad climbing, when he invited me a complete Gumby out to one of his first ascent projects. Whether he realized it or not, that simple act of kindness shaped me as a climber, and I'm still grateful for it today.

00:01:05:27 - 00:01:27:11
Speaker 1
I also know I'm not the only one he's impacted in this way. Since then, Josh and I have become close friends, following each other's life stories closely. Over the course of his climbing career, Josh has put up over 2,001st ascents and currently sits in the top 20 mountain project. Contributors. His routes often focus on safe, moderate climbing that everyone can enjoy.

00:01:27:14 - 00:01:46:19
Speaker 1
He's also an AMG apprentice rock guide and alpine guide with over 6000 guided trips under his belt. It's safe to say he's dedicated a huge portion of his life to serving the climbing community. One of the main reasons for revisiting this conversation is some exciting news. Josh has just published the most comprehensive guidebook to the Alabama Hills climbing area.

00:01:46:22 - 00:02:09:12
Speaker 1
This 300 page book features over 700 routes, more than 100 of which are his own first descents. It's packed with detailed route descriptions, maps and photos, the product of more than five years of work and documentation. With Alabama Hills now federally recognized as a Scenic Wildlife Area. Josh also includes important guidance on how we can respect and preserve this fragile place.

00:02:09:15 - 00:02:32:09
Speaker 1
For Josh, this guidebook is just another expression of what he's always done sharing climbing with others. He gives huge thanks to Marty and Sharon for mentoring him through the process, and to his wife, Melissa, who played a major role in the documentation and creative work. When I first heard about the guidebook, I offered to have Josh back on the show in person, but unfortunately, Josh has recently been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

00:02:32:11 - 00:02:55:00
Speaker 1
The details of his prognosis are still unfolding, but he faces a difficult road ahead, one that may include surgery, chemo and all the challenges that come with fighting cancer. The location of the cancer has already made speaking difficult. So joining me for a new conversation just wasn't possible. As someone who has spent his entire life supporting the climbing community, Josh now needs our support.

00:02:55:03 - 00:03:13:06
Speaker 1
The best way to help is to purchase his Alabama Hills Guidebook. You can find the link in the show notes. You can also donate directly to his GoFundMe campaign like I have. And if nothing else, please take a moment to send Josh your thoughts, prayers, or positive energy during this time. I hope you enjoy revisiting this conversation as much as I have.

00:03:13:08 - 00:03:18:28
Speaker 1
So now without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Joshua Reineke.

00:03:27:26 - 00:03:46:15
Kyle
All right, so the accident, we're talking about, where you were mentally at this time, kind of talked to us a little bit about who you were as a climber. As you were approaching this moment. I'd like to kind of hear where you're at in your career at this point.

00:03:46:18 - 00:04:16:13
Joshua Reinig
Yes. So and I think that's that's very important. So people understand where I'm coming from with sharing this. So before I say that, what I was starting to say is that I do think we learn more from failure than success, right? And that's been a big part of my healing process through all of this and a lot of other traumatic events that I've experienced in my life.

00:04:16:16 - 00:04:37:23
Joshua Reinig
As as harsh maybe reality is that can be to come to sometimes. This was one of the best learning experiences I've ever been through. Not only that, I've only ever maybe told this story to 20 people total, and it happened 20 years ago. So on average, once a year. Okay. It's not something that I like to share faintly.

00:04:37:23 - 00:05:03:19
Joshua Reinig
And it has been a bit of a build up coming into this. So at the very least, out of all of this podcast, if anybody that is listening can learn from this lesson, but I try to tell it in somewhat of a parody. Parody, right. Paradoxical. Yeah, yeah, whatever I'm trying to say. Like like like, I guess, sugarcoat it a little bit.

00:05:03:19 - 00:05:43:15
Joshua Reinig
Okay. So where I was coming from with my climbing was at this point I've been climbing for five years, like almost nonstop. And I, I definitely was like at the top of my game up until that point. I had done a lot of bigger objectives, like started to climb quite a bit taller kids, which is one of the earlier like more multi perch alpine crags that I cut my teeth that had done some stuff in the Sierra, but it still went on to do way bigger things which, which has always been very interesting that I got past this.

00:05:43:18 - 00:05:45:00
Joshua Reinig
This episode of my life. Right.

00:05:45:01 - 00:05:55:04
Kyle
Where are you at in terms of grades? What are you comfortable on citing? What's your relationship with risk and running it out? Like kind of describe that part of the climbing experience.

00:05:55:06 - 00:06:19:23
Joshua Reinig
Thank you I will. So, I've always had a huge tolerance for risk and a high threshold for pain. The whole psychological breakdown as far as risk management, I didn't know any of that at the time. All I knew was just my instincts. Based off of all of the past mountain experiences I had. Okay. Which I felt at that time, I was pretty damn competent.

00:06:19:23 - 00:06:42:10
Joshua Reinig
Okay. I I'd even done, like, my first real big trip to Yosemite, which was a huge success. It's still a relatively new climber, but the difference, I would say with like, maybe somebody that we see five years into it at this point and they are that dedicated is a lot of that experience was coming out of a gym without a lot of formal training or maybe even some formal foundation.

00:06:42:10 - 00:07:08:05
Joshua Reinig
Right. Which I think almost the whole community understands the foundation right out of the gates now, which is huge. Gyms did not exist at this time. They did. But there is like one in California and it was way too far away. No mentors. The only guide was Bob Gaines at a Joshua Tree. He wasn't very approachable and nor like 19 year old me, afford his rates.

00:07:08:07 - 00:07:34:01
Joshua Reinig
So my brother and I at this point were essentially 100% self-taught from freedom of the hills. Okay. And even for a while after that, and this was, an interesting learning experience. I remember after it happened, I read a bunch of logistics, and one of them was like, hey, if you haven't, experienced a serious accident five years into doing the serious, you'll probably go your whole career and nothing will happen to you.

00:07:34:01 - 00:07:56:16
Joshua Reinig
You'll eventually get complacent, and it could catch up with you. Right. And I'm like, wow. Well, I didn't fall into this logistics. This happened to me after five years and do it right. Most serious accidents. It was like within the first three years. Obviously, all of those numbers have changed because of the introduction of gyms and the the very healthy influx, let's say, to this community.

00:07:56:18 - 00:08:16:22
Joshua Reinig
Paying a little bit more of a picture, like, I remember going to Joshua Tree for my first time for a 15 day trip, and we saw one other climbing team the entire time. And that was in like 2001. It was neat because I kind of got to experience both sides of like the last kind of generation of era of climbing, at least for California.

00:08:16:25 - 00:08:36:28
Joshua Reinig
And to what it, what it now is. So, yeah, dating myself a little bit which that that's fun. But, so that's kind of where I was at with all of this. But to, to, to to take it a step further. It was way too early on to, to be developing roots. And that's where this all occurred.

00:08:37:01 - 00:08:57:07
Joshua Reinig
I didn't really get into root development seriously until I've been climbing, for like 10 to 12 years, and we can get to that. But out of necessity. You know, we lived in North County, San Diego at the time. There are a few local crags, but there is this beach and spot that was closer to home that was undeveloped.

00:08:57:10 - 00:09:15:11
Joshua Reinig
There's some really unique history there. It's on kind of one side of the mountain, and we're like, and you're not allowed to go there anymore because it's privately owned by some climbers. So we're like, wow. The other side of the mountain is even better. And there's a cliff that's like, you know, 20 yards off the road.

00:09:15:11 - 00:09:50:05
Joshua Reinig
And we developed six routes on it to place the very first bolts I'd ever placed in hand, drilled them for this one TRX. And we went there for a couple of years and all was good. But then we started like the mountains. Huge. It's covered in and a lot of giant boulders and crags. So after about a year, we decided to go up to this next terrace that looks promising, and we'd gone up there once to scope it and, my brother and I, and then we had just recently befriended this kid that was fresh out of the Air Force.

00:09:50:07 - 00:10:11:05
Joshua Reinig
He was a friend of a friend. Super cool guy. He had just gone back from doing, like, three tours to Afghanistan, and he was an Air Force medic. So he had seen he was definitely PTSD. Right. And, and a little, a little, climbing was very good for him, let's put it that way. And, and he came out of his bubble right away.

00:10:11:12 - 00:10:31:13
Joshua Reinig
So we climbed with him for a little bit, and then we're like, hey, we have this new spot. You should go check it out. It's even closer to your house. So it's like, yeah, okay, game on. It's New Year's Day is when we plan to go go up there and weather supposed to be nice. But what what ends up happening is that night, it just down poured all night long.

00:10:31:15 - 00:10:52:15
Joshua Reinig
So we we didn't get a lot of sleep. We woke up in the morning and, like, well, it's beautiful out now, but the ground's a little wet. We're like, oh, I still go out there. The rock will dry fast. So we head out. We scramble to like 20 to to 50 yards up to that first crag, do a couple of those climbs to show our buddy.

00:10:52:18 - 00:11:18:27
Joshua Reinig
And then it's like, okay, you know, we have we have I think we had our handrail and a couple bolts that we knew we could build, try to anchors at this new upper terrace. And so we scramble around to that and, like I'd mentioned, we've been up there before. So what happens is it's a very steep mountainside, Southern California chaparral, which is like a nightmare to navigate through.

00:11:19:00 - 00:11:46:29
Joshua Reinig
And to kind of avoid the bushwhacking there was like, this beautiful giant, like five storey boulder with this perfect catwalk ledge that split, like half way out horizontally, like, thank God ledge. And, you could kind of bushwhack up the right side of this ravine to get to that ledge, traverse out it. And then you did like 20ft of this, like fifth class slab to get to this terrace we were developing.

00:11:47:01 - 00:12:07:16
Joshua Reinig
And then it just so happens and like I said, we had done it before, it was pretty chill. But like, at that point, you're definitely in a no falls in like 50ft up. Right. And it's in the chaparral with a bunch of Talis underneath it. They then kind of you could block the exposure out, especially without having a rope that to the right of you, you're, you're right off of this ravine.

00:12:07:16 - 00:12:26:07
Joshua Reinig
You've just bushwhacked up. You could, in theory, maybe jump that way and go, like, 20ft and land in a bunch of bushes which still wouldn't be good. But then the kicker is, right when that ledge ends and you're like, okay, I don't want to fall to the left. And you have to do that like 20ft of like five nothing slab, which we, we've done in our, our approach used before.

00:12:26:09 - 00:12:47:23
Joshua Reinig
I'm in my approach shoes again. I have a huge pack on the rocks a little wet. There's like a mini refrigerator sized block, that we estimated to be at least a ton, if not more. That was just balancing there, very obvious separate entity, and I felt like I was pretty good about as far as risk mitigation, like identifying loose rock, for sure.

00:12:47:27 - 00:13:07:28
Joshua Reinig
And I'd climb to an alpine environment. So I felt like I could translate that a little bit. My buddy, however, that's new to this, oblivious to that, right? So my brother goes out first, I get out there and I'm basically looking up at the five zero move, my buddy starting out the ledge, and I'm like straddling around that big boulder, not touching it at all.

00:13:08:00 - 00:13:33:02
Joshua Reinig
And I look back at him and I, I say, hey, this is the boulder. Like, even though it's kind of leaning against the wall, like, don't touch it like you don't have like even standing on this, it might go, so you have to commit to these moves around it. And as I'm saying that it literally just pops like like a ghost put a ghost, pushes it off on me, and, I start freefalling everything goes super slow.

00:13:33:02 - 00:13:51:08
Joshua Reinig
Time lapse like so slo mo. And this being 20 years ago, I can still relive it. Like every time I think about it or every time I tell this story. It's like that permanently ingrained in my psyche now and instantly I go into like the flying V, so like, I'm upside down and this thing's like, above my torso.

00:13:51:08 - 00:14:10:14
Joshua Reinig
I'm like, hugging it and I'm like, lights out. Like, it was like, definitely one of the closest life flash before my my eyes moments I've ever had. And I've had a few in this now, unfortunately. And knock on wood, which those are the other ones were also kind of freak events and I'll come back to that as well.

00:14:10:14 - 00:14:37:06
Joshua Reinig
But, I, I'm like, you know, you know, maybe a couple seconds. It just feels like an eternity as I'm falling with this thing and it's just like freeze frame, freeze frame, and last ditch effort. I'm like, fuck, I have to try to get out from underneath it. So I push as hard as I can, like, right as it feels like I'm about to impact the ground and all of a sudden everything rotates and I'm surfing on it like the fucking wily coyote.

00:14:37:09 - 00:14:58:07
Joshua Reinig
And in my mind, I was like, no fucking shit like that. That worked. And I'm like, okay, impact 54321 jump. And as I do that and I go to jump, the whole thing just goes back over me above my torso, impact into the ground. Luckily it doesn't crush me or I want to be here. And it would have totally like just crushed me like a pancake.

00:14:58:10 - 00:15:27:28
Joshua Reinig
But what it does do is it throttles onto my leg, pins me in a bunch of towels. I never lost consciousness and and it feels like my leg is is basically torn off and my first reaction was try to move it and I like I can't, and I hear my buddy ripping down through the chaparral, and he comes running up and he goes to the downhill side of me and he gets way nervous and all pale white.

00:15:27:28 - 00:15:44:05
Joshua Reinig
And that makes me nervous because I'm like, I know, I know, my buddy's seen some traumatic stuff in the military and like, being a medic, like I said. And he's like, do we have to get this rock off you? We have to get this rock off of you. And it's kind of like, yeah, no shit. And I'm already thinking, like, we can't do it by ourselves.

00:15:44:05 - 00:16:09:14
Joshua Reinig
Like, my brother needs to come down. My brother's up there waiting. He still doesn't know this is happened. So we start yelling like blood, blood curdling screams. I hear my brother ripping down through some chaparral. And as we hear him running, running down. Me and my buddy try. We go one, two, three and we barely get it up an inch just to have it, like, fall back onto me and, my brother comes running up and his first look like I'll never forget.

00:16:09:14 - 00:16:12:25
Joshua Reinig
And he's just like, I think he even says like, you dumb fuck. What the fuck did you do it?

00:16:12:25 - 00:16:13:25
Kyle
I'm just like.

00:16:13:28 - 00:16:35:18
Joshua Reinig
It wasn't me, man. Like it just went on its own. And, And he's like. And he's just like, looks dumbfounded. Which it takes a lot to kind of, like, appall my brother, you could say. Like, he's a pretty straight faced individual and it doesn't take a lot to, to surprise him, which is always fun because I know when he's like showing some excitement on a pitch, I'm like, oh, what the fuck is this going to be like?

00:16:35:22 - 00:16:52:18
Joshua Reinig
When Norman's way calm, cool and collected, right? So he's like, I just couldn't get it off. Like looking at it like we couldn't get it off or on. What the fuck? And it's like, no. So we're like, okay, count of three, one, two, three. We all roll it. It flops down onto the hillside. My my buddy, my brother on the downhill side.

00:16:52:18 - 00:17:18:24
Joshua Reinig
So like, they're trying to stay out of the way to where it doesn't roll onto them. And all I see is I don't see a foot there. I just see bloody stump with my tib and fib sticking out, and then my foot's dangling and my toes are touching like the back of my calf right here. And, so basically like severed foot and, but it's still attached by something I can't tell.

00:17:18:24 - 00:17:34:09
Joshua Reinig
And I get way nauseous, but I still don't pass out. My buddy's like, we have to stop the bleeding. And in that instance, it's just arterial bleeding down his face and all over his white shirt and he gets all trembly. And then I'm a brother, like, kind of like holds him and he's like, no, dude. Like, let's do this.

00:17:34:09 - 00:17:52:22
Joshua Reinig
And he goes, we have to reset it. We have to reset it. So he grabs my foot, pulls it all the way down, and I'm like, what the hell is it even still connected to you? And he goes thump back into place. So what it was still attached to was just my Achilles tendon. But now, like, it doesn't want to stay.

00:17:52:22 - 00:18:16:17
Joshua Reinig
It's flopping and they're trying to hold it. They pressure up the fuck out of it. And he's like, I don't want to tourniquet it yet. You know, like I don't I can't say anything. And just shy of getting ready to tourniquet it just from pressure holding it, they get the bleeding to stop. But at that point and I hadn't had any formal medical training yet, which obviously being guides, we have to have quite a bit now.

00:18:16:19 - 00:18:37:21
Joshua Reinig
Looking back like solid two liters of blood on the ground. So I was definitely going way in to compensatory shock. And I did super cold and shaky. Everything feels very euphoric. You're like, we have to get you out of the mountain. So although the approach to that lower crag was 20 yards, we were about a half mile up from that.

00:18:37:23 - 00:18:53:15
Joshua Reinig
But then that's kind of from like the end of this dirt road. Our car was four miles away. And, so my buddy, they're like, yeah, how are we going to extract you? And like, you need to be the hospital now. Like you're kind of like you're dying. And I'm just sitting there like, no, like, you guys got this.

00:18:53:15 - 00:19:16:11
Joshua Reinig
I'm not dying. When biologically, like, my buddy was already shutting down right? And, my my friend, he, like, out of nowhere, he goes, oh, like, I just got my first cell phone ever. This was in 2001, and, it was like a Nokia phone. I got it for work, and it was like I called it my electronic leash because my boss would, like, call me, like, one in the morning and shit or text me.

00:19:16:13 - 00:19:32:10
Joshua Reinig
And so I kind of didn't really like cell phones. I didn't have mine on me. Then my buddy goes, oh, I just got this new Motorola cell. And that was military issued just before I left, and I was supposed to have given it back, but I think it's in my pack and we're like, fuck, okay, call nine one.

00:19:32:11 - 00:19:53:16
Joshua Reinig
He goes, no, better yet, like there's this thing, it's called a GPS function. And I was almost at that time the same as having like an inReach. And he just hit this distress button and it sent a distress code to Camp Pendleton, which was the nearest military base. And he goes, he goes, dude, if this works and it looks like the signal went out, they'll send their search rescue and it'll be here in ten minutes.

00:19:53:16 - 00:20:09:23
Joshua Reinig
And I'm like, no fucking way, right? And at this point, I was pretty young, you know, I lived a pretty simple life. You could say up to that point, I had never flown in my life. And he's saying like, oh, a helicopter is going to come and pluck you off the ground. I'm like, what the fuck? This is what it's going to be like my first time flying.

00:20:09:23 - 00:20:36:26
Joshua Reinig
Now to and, Yeah. And and I and sure enough, you know, I think it was five minutes, maybe ten minutes max. I hear rotor blades and this, like, old military Healey, like, kind of an old Vietnam movie appears, and I'm like, no fucking way. And, drop a rope out of it. You know, they spot us, they drop a rope out, and this dude in full fatigues like body wrap repels out of the helicopter.

00:20:36:29 - 00:20:57:04
Joshua Reinig
And in my weird mindset at that time, he looks like l cool J that fully, like, calm it out and everything. Just no firearms or anything, right? I'm like, what the fuck? Like, oh, cool. J came to rescue me and the guy had this like very similar like, like mannerisms and everything. And he, he does say like, boys.

00:20:57:04 - 00:21:22:01
Joshua Reinig
What the fuck? Did you guys get yourself into it? He just looks dumbfounded. He's like, why are you way up on this mountainside? Like you didn't get it? And we're like, oh, we're up, you're rock climbing. And he's just like looking around, like oblivious. And, that way, stuff like that guy lived, the essence, I think of adventure for sure, even though I got to know him a little bit afterwards, that from a rescue and like, trying to make somebody feel comfortable.

00:21:22:01 - 00:21:44:24
Joshua Reinig
Comfortable was a master. And I didn't know that at the time. To what extent. And I'll get to that in, in the story. But, he, you know, he's like, oh, he goes all my rescues. He goes, I bring a disposable camera, can I get a bunch of photos? And I'm like, are you serious? I mean, does he bust out a little waterproof, disposable camera, takes all these photos and then emailed them to me later?

00:21:44:26 - 00:22:00:25
Joshua Reinig
So I have all this footage I can share with you guys later, and, and, he's and he's like, all right. He's like, it's like your buddy reset your foot from what it sounds like. Like he did. Part of my job is like, you got the bleeding to stop, and he's like, you did lose a lot of blood.

00:22:00:28 - 00:22:17:01
Joshua Reinig
And, and as he's telling me this, you know, it's kind of weird bedside manner. He's like, so, you know, if you ever. Have you ever had morphine before? And I'm just thinking, like, what? What are you even talking about? And he slams with a needle and he goes, don't worry. All the pain will be gone. Now he's like, but the bad thing is, you're now addicted to morphine.

00:22:17:01 - 00:22:34:01
Joshua Reinig
And I'm just like you said, fuck. Right? And, and he's like, oh. And he's like, she's all stiff. It's like, check this out. And he pulls out an inflatable cast or an inflatable splint. It was like when they first came out and throws that thing on my leg, has a CO2 cartridge to just instantly inflate it because you're good to go.

00:22:34:01 - 00:22:52:00
Joshua Reinig
And and, he's like, you ever ridden in a helicopter before? I'm like. I'm like, no, I've never flown. And he just kind of laughs and he goes, all right, well, we can do this 1 or 2 ways. And I had my harness on, which was weird because my pack was so full I put my hands on, which I like, don't almost ever do like in those settings.

00:22:52:00 - 00:23:11:24
Joshua Reinig
Right. And he goes, I'm going to give the cop the chopper. Pilot will come back. I'll give him a signal. He's going to lower this, like 500ft winch and it's cable and I'm going to clip, I can clip you right into your harness and you'll fly you up to about 5000ft. They'll winch you in and you'll be to the hospital in, like 10 or 15 minutes and probably straight into surgery.

00:23:11:24 - 00:23:28:04
Joshua Reinig
And I'm like, okay, that yeah, I, I'm like, what's the other option? And he goes, and I'll walk out of here with your two bonehead friends and I'm like, well, what's the other option? And he goes, I give that signal. The pilot lowers the winch and I'll clip us both in, and I'll get the fuck off this mountain with you.

00:23:28:04 - 00:23:42:28
Joshua Reinig
And they can fend for themselves. And I'm like, and now I'm on Murphy. And I'm like, dude, like, you're the professional. Like, it's up to you. And he goes, yeah, we're both getting off this mountain together. And he's like, I'll make you feel like more, more comfortable that you've never flown. And I'm like, yeah, no, that sounds great.

00:23:43:01 - 00:24:06:14
Joshua Reinig
So chopper comes back. My brother and our friend are like trippin, but like kind of a sigh of relief now, right? Like everything's going to be okay. At least. I was like. Like my feeling of the whole situation. But this is when it gets bad. Okay? So Chopper Pilot lowers the cable. It's a it's a petzel three stage ball lock on the end of that thing.

00:24:06:14 - 00:24:24:23
Joshua Reinig
I remember to this day, I'm like, no shit. Like, you think you guys have something like, all steel or something heavier duty and he he clips us both into, like, my belay loop and his buoy loop. He's got, like, a C to harness on, and, gives a signal and helicopter takes off, and we're like, 5000ft, and I'm like, wow.

00:24:25:01 - 00:24:48:19
Joshua Reinig
This is. And so exposed on this ridge side. And, you know, he's like, I feel the cable. He's like, all right. Yeah, they're stable. They're going to winches in and the guy looks all stoked. He's like still taking some photos. And, he, I like maybe 100ft into the winch. It was like, right out of, like, the best way I could describe it was, it was like out of a movie.

00:24:48:22 - 00:25:14:28
Joshua Reinig
And those rotor blades, I hear them just go bump, bump, bump and stop. And that helicopter, like, is helicopters here and we're getting winched up. It disappears off the side of the mountain, upside down. And that guy grabs me and he goes, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, what the fuck? And we get decked from 500ft. And I was more or less sitting on his lap and do a bunch of talus and chaparral.

00:25:15:02 - 00:25:35:04
Joshua Reinig
We bounce about 30 or 40 seat land and and that guy took it like a brick, like he was built like a linebacker. And I'm expecting this, like, internal fireball. And in that moment, I look at him and he's like, panicked as hell, and he's trying to unclip us and and he's like, damn it, damn it. And I'm like.

00:25:35:07 - 00:25:54:01
Joshua Reinig
And instantly I'm like, oh, it's because we're about to get drug now for who knows how long. And he grabs me again and he goes, hold on again. And we get dragged through the chaparral for probably 100 yards, like ragdolls, like super cut up and everything. And now I'm expecting the eternal fireball. I'm like, fuck, like the helicopter crash.

00:25:54:01 - 00:26:16:09
Joshua Reinig
And we just got decked and and that's kind of the feeling I'm getting from him, too. And then all of the sudden we hear the rotor blade just go, like, kick up like me, and we're fucking instantly, like 5000ft again, like off this ridge site. And they winch us up and bring us in, and it's kind of all high fives and they're like, fuck, we can't believe you got decked again.

00:26:16:11 - 00:26:37:25
Joshua Reinig
And I'm like, what do you mean again? And, they explain to me that, you know, it's a very real risk with helicopter rescues and that you were putting up to like 15 to like 13 to 15 other individuals. Life's at risk. And the helicopters do go down all the time. And what happens, especially above 14,000ft, is you don't get enough friction on the blades.

00:26:37:25 - 00:26:53:07
Joshua Reinig
You can hit like a dead pocket of air, they call it. It just loses all friction lift and the helicopter crashes. So that's what happened. But then this pilot being this like season that he is, was able to recover and got us off the mountain.

00:26:53:09 - 00:26:59:24
Kyle
So you fell in deck to the ledge and got dragged to the towers and then the helicopter restarted and. Yeah.

00:27:00:00 - 00:27:01:12
Joshua Reinig
Yeah, exactly.

00:27:01:14 - 00:27:03:21
Kyle
How did you survive a 500ft deck?

00:27:03:28 - 00:27:22:14
Joshua Reinig
I don't know, and all I could say is it it felt slow motion. It was probably more similar to a soft catch as far as, like, taking a lead fall there. Like I said, we bounced a solid 30ft. Like, I remember hitting the ground and bouncing way back up above like 20ft chaparral and landing. So we obviously hit really hard.

00:27:22:20 - 00:27:45:25
Joshua Reinig
I was I mean, to be honest, like he had to have been pretty sore the following days. I was so high on morphine, like I didn't really feel that impact. I remember it felt really jarring. What I did feel was when we got drug and how terrifying that was. And so then because that happened, they couldn't fly straight to the the immediate public hospital.

00:27:46:02 - 00:28:17:07
Joshua Reinig
They had to go back to Camp Pendleton land to fill out all these reports, in which case they said that a civilian civilian ambulance would be waiting there for me. And take me to another hospital. Although now all my family is on the way to this hospital, they thought I was all getting flown to. Right. And, when we land on the tarmac, I remember all these flight crew come up and it was all high fives and like, beers, even though I don't think they were cracking beers, but that the gentleman that was my rescuer and I can't for the life of me remember his name right now.

00:28:17:09 - 00:28:47:18
Joshua Reinig
He apparently holds the record for military search rescue personnel for surviving being decked more times than anybody. That was his seventh time being decked in a very in similar other fashions like that. And I was just like, what the hell do you like? The guy was like, oh yeah, I mean, Guardian angel that day, right? And what's funny was when I got, he came in, visit me in the E.R. and, when I was recovering and give me those photos, and, the guy did look like, oh, cool.

00:28:47:18 - 00:28:54:13
Joshua Reinig
J it's funny. I was like, yeah, that was it. Me, like, imagining that in America, you know? Yeah. So that wasn't.

00:28:54:13 - 00:28:55:18
Kyle
Just, like, serious shock to.

00:28:55:19 - 00:29:20:20
Joshua Reinig
Exactly. Yeah. For sure. And, like I said, never lost consciousness. So I go into surgery immediately and by this time, it's it's 10:00 at night. Surgeon is like, they do all these X-rays. Surgeons, kind of, orthopedic surgeon. Right. He's kind of baffled. And he calls in all these other all these other, like, doctors and stuff, and they're like, yeah, this is extremely uncommon.

00:29:20:20 - 00:29:38:11
Joshua Reinig
But you didn't break a single bone. And so it was what they called at the time, an open dislocation of my tube and fib. So basically pulled my foot off. It was still attached by the Achilles, but then all of the tendons in my forefoot were all severed, and it was like four hours of surgery for them to go in and and reattach them all.

00:29:38:14 - 00:29:47:28
Kyle
And was it so was a skin split so you could see the bone. The bone wasn't broken. Your foot was just so dislocated back. It had been essentially torn off and without.

00:29:48:02 - 00:29:53:20
Joshua Reinig
Exactly and just and just the only thing that was still connecting it was my Achilles. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:53:21 - 00:30:02:16
Kyle
Just completely bizarre. Really. Wow. I think kind of fortunate in a weird way. It's just like that articular surface.

00:30:02:24 - 00:30:31:00
Joshua Reinig
Exactly. Because although it was a very painful and long recovery in which I learned a lot about, as I'm sure you guys did in that recovery process. And about your yourself and your willpower. Right. It it was bad. And so at first they're like, yeah, if it doesn't heal up and it gets any sort of infection, like basically it's like I think they gave me a 70% chance that they would end up having to amputate it.

00:30:31:02 - 00:30:50:25
Joshua Reinig
So 30% chance that it might, like, heal. Okay. Then it was like some crazy odds at it. You know, if backing up a little bit. So then what happens? Long story short, is, about a month into it. It does get infected. And it gets like to me, it looked gangrene and they they were like, no, they treat with crazy antibiotics.

00:30:50:25 - 00:31:10:11
Joshua Reinig
I had to go back into the hospital for like 24 hours. And then the orthopedist, as I go through the cycle, you know, they're telling me that I'll never walk without a cane and that very likely I'll have what's called drop foot syndrome. So, like the stabilizers in, the front of your foot here, like using my hand as an example.

00:31:10:19 - 00:31:24:04
Joshua Reinig
They can't hold your foot up. So every time you step, your foot just wants to sag, and you got to, like, throw it up in front of you, and you normally need a cane, if that's the case. And so it was a lot to deal with psychologically. And I was young, you know, I, I just had my first kid.

00:31:24:06 - 00:31:43:01
Joshua Reinig
I'm like, fuck, I blew it big time. Right. And, but in that year recovery and all of that, that inner soul searching, as I put it, the one thing I kept coming back to is does this lifestyle and this pursuit mean enough to me to where I will do this again as like traumatic is all of that was.

00:31:43:01 - 00:32:02:00
Joshua Reinig
And every time I'm like, without a doubt, I can't wait to prove all those doctors and and my orthopedist surgeon. Incorrect. Right? That that like, I'm not going to need a cane. And after about a year, it had recovered to where it was like probably 80% recovery and good enough to climb on. Right? And I'm like, dude, I'll live with that.

00:32:02:02 - 00:32:28:19
Joshua Reinig
Like, I could find a way around it if if I get that 80% back and then in the long run, it's probably it goes back and forth between like 86 to 88. Right. But yeah, I think the, the moral of that whole story, at least for me personally, is that it did allow me to really come to terms with, with my mortality at such a young age.

00:32:28:21 - 00:32:46:07
Joshua Reinig
Then also be that, hey, this does mean that much to me that I am a lifer at this. And what does it look like from here? Which is what segways into the rest of this story. Right? So do you guys want to ask any questions based off of that? That little rant I got.

00:32:46:10 - 00:33:06:04
Kyle
I got a I got a comment for sure. Just I like for my injury. Obviously you know, not quite apples to apples. I didn't have as much excitement as you. But like I slid down a granite slab and, and I went into, like, a piece of granite and I just completely remember exactly what you were saying about, like, time slowly, for sure.

00:33:06:07 - 00:33:29:08
Kyle
It's such, like a cliche, you know, like you've heard it. People said it. But, yeah, it was really just this fascinating thing of, like, feeling like I'm living in slow motion, like thinking through these things, looking, analyzing what I'm going to do. So crisp, so clear. Yeah. It's really just this, like, bizarre phenomenon like that almost sounds like it's like out of a movie and not real life.

00:33:29:08 - 00:33:41:04
Kyle
But so I, I just wanted to to comment on that. I was wondering, like, do you think that if your friend didn't have, the military Motorola, that you would have died of blood loss or like the extraction of?

00:33:41:07 - 00:34:05:27
Joshua Reinig
That's a really good question. Since this is happened, and especially from a guide point of view, and I apologize if I offend any of my cohorts in this industry, unless it is life or limb, you should always be able to selfie back and not put other people's life's in danger like that. And when I say life and limb like just shy of bleeding out, like in my scenario, you should be able to get yourself off the mountain.

00:34:05:29 - 00:34:30:06
Joshua Reinig
And I've done it in some almost equally as messed up situations. But with that said, it's that is a really good question, Max. Like, say, if it were just me and my brother, it could have been a much different outcome. And I think, like, let's say my buddy didn't have the Motorola phone, but he, you know, he he reset my foot and got the bleeding to stop.

00:34:30:08 - 00:34:48:04
Joshua Reinig
They would have probably just literally dragged me down the mountain and a few miles back to the car. Right. Which would have really sucked. It's like that's what it would have had to come down to. And because they got the bleeding to stop and it was like, like just at the threshold, as if I would have lost any more blood.

00:34:48:07 - 00:35:05:01
Joshua Reinig
I would have gone unconscious and potentially in a cardiac arrest and maybe not come back. Right. So it was a lot of luck in a lot of ways, right down to like the initial, my initial reaction was like, I am dead. Like it's going to crush my torso, right? So I hope that answers your question.

00:35:05:03 - 00:35:20:26
Kyle
Yeah. No, no, definitely. Yeah. I think it was interesting what you said because, like, I felt a lot of guilt, like when we ended up getting like a helicopter rescue and we were really not like, I would fall in the category where you're saying, like, you should have self extracted yourself. And I felt like a lot of guilt around that.

00:35:20:26 - 00:35:28:00
Kyle
I personally actually through like further analysis and like I follow SA behemoth Lee and they get called out for like way less than for sure.

00:35:28:00 - 00:35:28:08
Joshua Reinig
Yeah.

00:35:28:13 - 00:35:54:18
Kyle
And the doctor, the doctor even told me that like, had I had bump my calcaneus like my ankle would have been in like much, much worse shape in my my stomach healing would be much worse. So I just wonder like what's your what's your thought process? More so like like self extraction should always be the goal because you don't want to risk the lives of the search and rescue people, and that it's almost like your responsibility in some ways.

00:35:54:21 - 00:36:14:28
Joshua Reinig
In some ways. And I obviously have felt that guilt and every injury I've experienced, but not even like, a lot of the other ones, I didn't need a rescue. And believe me, there are times where I'm like, hit that distress button. And we were able to get through it, but I feel more guilty just to just the fact that I know it has on my immediate circle and all my loved ones.

00:36:15:01 - 00:36:33:17
Joshua Reinig
Right. And that's a very I think it's a very, rational thing that we should all come to terms with. That just like with rockfall and you do this long enough and I've lost a lot of friends doing this, it can become an odds game, no matter how good you are at calculating the risk in certain venues.

00:36:33:17 - 00:36:58:21
Joshua Reinig
That's not across the board, obviously. The extraction thing, I think is more for me personally standpoint, it's it's definitely probably more of a little bit of a pride and ego thing that there are a lot of accidents like you mentioned, where it's like, yeah, helicopter SG for grandma's blister. And then the helicopter crashes, right? And as guides we are trained or that is a very last resort to ever hit that distress button.

00:36:58:26 - 00:36:59:27
Joshua Reinig
Yeah.

00:36:59:29 - 00:37:18:20
Kyle
And I think that's important to to keep that mentality on, on the side of the person being rescued. It's like, all right, analyze your situation. How much and how much of a dire state are you really in? Are you going to potentially risk death or like severely injuring yourself further if you try to self extricate? Because in the end, the SA people are doing their job like no.

00:37:18:24 - 00:37:19:19
Joshua Reinig
And they and they, they.

00:37:19:19 - 00:37:30:15
Kyle
Understand the risk and they enjoy doing it. They, they assume the risk they undertake. And we can't feel guilty, you know, when we do use it, I think it's just circumstantial. We can't abuse it.

00:37:30:17 - 00:38:09:27
Joshua Reinig
100%. Kyle, I, I, I love how the way that you touched on that, I think to elaborate a little bit more would be, like, climbing is obviously a very selfish pursuit. And obviously every situation is different and everybody's experience level and thresholds of pain, like there's so many factors and moving parts are different. And that's one of the things that based off of that story I just told, I the first thing I did before I even wanted to become a guide was get my wilderness first responder because I'm like, wow, okay, I'm starting to see more shit with myself and friends, going to more backcountry settings.

00:38:10:00 - 00:38:27:11
Joshua Reinig
I want to be able to supply a little bit of help, like my buddy did for me. That was the medic in the Air Force, right. And then it gets to the point with guiding to where or I think even from a recreational standpoint, if you are getting into big enough mountains, let's say you're at a far off region and helicopter rescue isn't an option.

00:38:27:17 - 00:38:42:18
Joshua Reinig
Like, you should know your shit enough to get out of any situation. Just shy of like you're bleeding out and you're all alone, right? And then it's like, that's a whole different conversation that if your buddy's there and he's of sound mind, he should be able to get you out of it.

00:38:42:21 - 00:39:02:22
Kyle
I think that's super important. I think that, you know, for for beginner climbers, it's really easy to focus on, on the art of climbing, the sport of climbing the movement and placing gear. And you can get really far with that, you know? And I was one of those people, you can climb big objectives, you can get yourself really far away and you can come back without a scratch.

00:39:02:25 - 00:39:23:06
Kyle
Sure. I think it's really easy to underestimate just how exposed you really are. Yeah. In these big, big alpine settings, if something goes wrong. Because. Yeah, I mean, if you're, you know, I'll just use Temple Crag in Darkstar as example. It is a great, you know, when you're when you're right up there on that ridgeline, if you fuck up, I mean, you're fucked up there.

00:39:23:11 - 00:39:26:12
Joshua Reinig
You might as well I was up. You might as well be in Patagonia or something, right?

00:39:26:18 - 00:39:33:14
Kyle
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's really easy to overlook that kind of exposure. And focus more on ability.

00:39:33:16 - 00:39:59:09
Joshua Reinig
Maybe say like, that's, a little, a little early on, complacency. But it's more, it's more out of, of just kind of pure, pure ignorance. So in a bad way, you're like, wow, like, this won't happen, right? And I and as I've been getting better and better and I understand how to mitigate all the risks that it can happen to anyone for sure.

00:39:59:09 - 00:40:25:04
Kyle
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely resonate with you. Like, personally, I have my wilderness first responder and an emergency medical responder certificate. And so I do that in pursuit of just like, hey, being in the outdoors, I was like, run guiding at the time and stuff. And so I think that those kind of courses are, so valuable to so many people and even just beyond, like, you know, you don't have to be the most hardcore individual in the world to, like, benefit from that kind of.

00:40:25:04 - 00:40:47:09
Kyle
Of course, you know, it's like somebody has some kind of a medical emergency around you or just understanding the processes of like, the body and what's going on or how you or something in that situation, how to operate, for sure. And then obviously obviously that gets amplified, especially if, yeah, you know, if you are spending multiple days out in the backcountry or you are climbing or you are doing dangerous sports.

00:40:47:11 - 00:41:03:00
Kyle
Yeah. It's pretty important to, to to have skills, you know, to, to be able to do those things and not get complacent with the skills because, you know, you can get a course like that or training like that. And it's, you know, like CPR is a great you got to stay current. You don't get a CPR certificate.

00:41:03:02 - 00:41:13:23
Kyle
Exactly. You got to get recertified. Yeah. All the time for CPR like every single year. And there's a reason for that, right. Like under incredibly high pressure situations. You know, for sure it's.

00:41:13:23 - 00:41:35:15
Joshua Reinig
You lose the edge. Just like with climate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with that said, I've stayed current with my wife for, since 2008. Yeah. And I yeah, I just restarted in February, which was it's always fun. And at this point it is so second nature for me, and unfortunately I have had to use it in wilderness situations.

00:41:35:17 - 00:41:52:00
Joshua Reinig
As, as many times as when you take those courses and they tell you, like, someday you're going to use this, it's happened to me a lot of those some days now. Yeah. And it's not always with me and my team, but you know, there's more and more people getting into the mountains and, I see stuff more and more regularly.

00:41:52:00 - 00:41:53:00
Joshua Reinig
Yeah, yeah.

00:41:53:02 - 00:42:11:28
Kyle
Yeah. I think the interesting thing for your accident was that it's, you know, for Max, and I was like, Max, you were a little bit run out. You didn't place that piece that you thought you wanted to. Me, I'm climbing above my head in a new area on micro gear. You know, the the reasons for our errors were pretty much right in front of our face.

00:42:11:28 - 00:42:19:06
Kyle
Very easy for us to analyze in your situation. It almost just seemed like the universe just pushed that rock on you. It.

00:42:19:06 - 00:42:24:08
Joshua Reinig
And I mean, that's I can't I can't almost explain it any other way.

00:42:24:11 - 00:42:26:02
Kyle
I know and it's, that's the hard thing to.

00:42:26:02 - 00:42:49:22
Joshua Reinig
Swallow and just kind of scrambling to. Right. And, and, you know, with that said, I more than anybody have such, heightened appreciation for a loose rock. Now, and I feel like I am very one at, very at one with it. And I can read loose Rock train. Amazing. Which obviously translates into doing essays because there's a lot or loose rock here.

00:42:49:24 - 00:42:52:19
Kyle
I think it also trains you, trains you for randomness.

00:42:52:19 - 00:42:54:06
Joshua Reinig
It does definitely.

00:42:54:08 - 00:43:10:09
Kyle
And I think that that's something that's really prevalent in the mountains. It's it's, you know, we we spend every movement and every breath. It's all calculated. And we try to plan everything out, move by move. But when you're especially when you're F8 or doing the first descents or you're out in the big mountains, randomness plays a huge factor.

00:43:10:09 - 00:43:10:24
Joshua Reinig
It does.

00:43:11:00 - 00:43:12:03
Kyle
It's hard to mitigate it.

00:43:12:03 - 00:43:13:13
Joshua Reinig
It is. And I think.

00:43:13:15 - 00:43:20:26
Kyle
Yeah, you can never mitigate. All right. So that's the thing is like you just want to make sure you've done your part to be as educated as possible, to be as competent as.

00:43:21:02 - 00:43:24:22
Joshua Reinig
You're aware of the risk that's involved.

00:43:24:24 - 00:43:43:05
Kyle
Totally will get actually has a good article that he wrote on mitigating risk, and he specifically mentions that the universe does not love you. And I would think that your story is a really great example of that. The universe is not out to be nice to you and not a to love you. And you know, there's a lot of beauty out there, but also like.

00:43:43:08 - 00:44:09:27
Joshua Reinig
The data is and as, as hard of a pill as it was for me to swallow at the time. I do look at it as this priceless learning experience that I got to endure and am going to share it with others, you know? So, I'd like to go back to kind of what Kyle was saying a minute ago as far as like kind of those lessons that, the mountains can teach you and, obviously accidents suck.

00:44:10:00 - 00:44:31:16
Joshua Reinig
You do still learn a lot from success that this this commonly comes up, as a philosophical topic in guiding. And what's funny and guiding is like, the unspoken rule is we're never allowed to talk politics, and we're never allowed to talk religion. But philosophy comes up time and time again, which can get at least a little bit spiritual.

00:44:31:16 - 00:44:58:04
Joshua Reinig
Right. So what I well, I'll tell you know, one of the common things that you'll hear is it's like, yeah, you get two stuck on the summit or you have summit fever and you've lost track of like, what you're even up there for and what the overall process is meant to serve, which is enjoying being in the moment and what you're learning about yourself as you're suffering, as you're going along and and you're just that's all in the blinders and you're just like, nope, I'm going to the top right?

00:44:58:06 - 00:45:30:03
Joshua Reinig
And to me, it's to the point where it's like the top is a very subtle bonus. And I love what you learn about yourself in the process. And you learn something different every time, right? No matter how long you've been doing this. It is also, I think translates to where it's like early on I would train really hard and I'd have these really high expectations on myself or my team or elements that were out of my control, like the weather and just being like somewhat of an anal retentive bastard about it and take a lot of the fun out of it.

00:45:30:05 - 00:45:55:04
Joshua Reinig
And then go and something that is out of your control, it happen. And then you're like, go, go running out of the mountains with your tail between your legs, kind of demoralized and not even like totally lost track is to like, hey, I learned more from that than if everything would have just gone perfect, right? And so it taught me, and it does translate into a lot of other lives that I go into all big climbs, especially now with little to no expectations.

00:45:55:11 - 00:46:09:25
Joshua Reinig
And then every pitch you make it is a bonus. And, it can make it a lot more magic and then you're never let down in that regard either. Right. And I do approach a lot of life like that for sure. Yeah.

00:46:09:28 - 00:46:39:21
Kyle
I think what you're describing is, the, the ease to slip into attaching ego and happiness to performance 100%. And I think that that can manifest it into peak bagging. It can be great grade chasing it. And, you know, it manifests itself into everybody's life a little bit differently. But I think with people coming from gyms and people entering the scene, the performance oriented mindset is much more trained into the people that are entering the scene these days.

00:46:39:23 - 00:47:10:03
Kyle
And it can be pretty dangerous because it it blinds you from from risk sometimes. And it also, like you said in your situation, can take the fun out of it as well. If you're not reaching these these whatever goals you're you're attaching your ego exactly. I also think depending on the goal, like, you know, at least speaking for myself and my understanding is like, you know, the actual process of getting to those bigger goals and getting to those peaks is like 90% or more, 99%.

00:47:10:03 - 00:47:29:05
Kyle
You know, that that moment you have at the peak is a really small amount. So if that's like it, that's all you're out there for and what you're myopically focusing on, well, you know, like you're just losing yourself in the process. Like you've got to learn how to enjoy the process. And bailing on a route might be a part of the process saying, hey, the weather's not in our favor, like, this isn't safe.

00:47:29:05 - 00:47:48:17
Kyle
We need to turn around, you know? And then you do get those days where you get to, you know, go and finish your objective or whatever for for whatever that may be for you as an individual. But really, you need to learn how to enjoy the process. You know, just like in life, you know, if if you don't enjoy, like, certain mundane things that you have to do for yourself, oh.

00:47:48:17 - 00:47:51:27
Joshua Reinig
You're going to be miserable, right? Yeah. Yeah, totally.

00:47:51:29 - 00:48:02:22
Kyle
You're going to be so miserable. Right. And so yeah. So it's like you got to enjoy the process and don't just focus on the the peak of a exactly for that is whether it's like a metaphor for something in your life. Yeah.

00:48:02:25 - 00:48:21:22
Joshua Reinig
And like what I'll, what I'll always go back to is it's like and you know, this, this is maybe getting a little metaphysical, and I don't like to talk destiny or fate or anything like that, but the biggest, most important climbs that I have ever gotten to experience, I very strongly feel happened when and why they're supposed to you.

00:48:21:22 - 00:48:47:08
Joshua Reinig
And only that with with whom they happened with when. Other times I try to force that same thing and it wouldn't. And then when it would, it was even more magic. Right? Like a great example of that was the first time that I ever climbed the nose, and I trained so much for a year with my brother, and we had done a bunch, you know, all the prerequisite big walls that are supposed to set you up for that, right down to where I slept with the top under my pillow for a year.

00:48:47:16 - 00:49:09:23
Joshua Reinig
Like, to this day I still have that top of super memorized. But I've also done the route a few times, which helps. And the first time we did it, two days into it, we got caught in a five day storm. Used up all of our rations. It was. It was amazing. Although we were both pretty let down when we were like, wow, we have to go down at the end of this five day storm.

00:49:09:25 - 00:49:28:19
Joshua Reinig
But it just made us kind of want it more. And I was a little PTSD from that for a while afterwards. And we committed to where it's like, okay, we're going to train even harder, and in a year we're going to go back and we will bring extra supplies. And going down isn't an option. And that was a unique approach at that moment.

00:49:28:19 - 00:49:45:04
Joshua Reinig
But, we did it and then it helped teach me that. It's like, don't stress that stuff so much, and it will happen when it's supposed to. And then from that point on, you know, as soon as I let go, all of the magic in my climbing career is when that really started to take off.

00:49:45:04 - 00:50:12:26
Kyle
Let's be real for a second. The current blueprint for a successful climbing podcast is simple. Interview the best climbers in the world. Big names mean big followings. Lots of SEO power and a built in audience that helps boost every episode. But this show, this show has never been about that. From the beginning, I have made it my mission to bring you stories from the climbing majority, the climbers who don't live in the limelight, the ones who avoid interviews, quietly put up roots and give back in ways that are rarely recognized.

00:50:13:00 - 00:50:29:19
Kyle
And while that's what makes this show special, it also means we have an uphill battle when it comes to growth. And that is where you come in. If you're psyched about the show, if you've been inspired, entertained, or fired up about an episode. Word of mouth is the single most important way you can help the show. Share an episode with a friend.

00:50:29:23 - 00:50:47:07
Kyle
Play one on a group road trip. Post about the show on social media. Jump onto Reddit threads and Mountain Project forums and share with people what you've been listening to. Be sure to tag the show, tag your favorite guests, and spread the word. And if you want to help even more, I'm currently sending posters to climbing gyms around the country.

00:50:47:11 - 00:51:00:23
Kyle
If you'd like to support one in your climbing gym, be sure to reach out. Email me at the Climbing Majority podcast at gmail.com and I will be sure to send you one. Let's band together and show the climbing community that the climbing majority has a voice.

00:51:00:28 - 00:51:30:15
Kyle
So you brought up the word PTSD, and it brings me to the topic of fear. I'm interested to hear your perspective on. So let me preface this for a little bit. So we deal with fear as climbers and it's, I manage, managing between listening to our intuition and knowing whether we're like in over our heads versus toeing the line between, I need to push through this feeling and I need to to break through this bubble that I'm in.

00:51:30:15 - 00:51:52:21
Kyle
I need to push the limits. I need to be uncomfortable. You know, there is a line to be danced. And, my question, I guess, is how have you toed that line in your career? And what advice can you pass on to somebody trying to push themselves and to push the grades and explore themselves as a climber? But how to do it safely and totally?

00:51:52:24 - 00:52:12:07
Joshua Reinig
That is a beautiful question, Kyle. And I knew you guys would have some good ones as as this went on. Fear is a big part of of of climbing. I think in general, I don't know if any of us would maybe argue that, it's very common that you'll hear that it's like, hey, that part of your brain is like any other muscle.

00:52:12:07 - 00:52:34:27
Joshua Reinig
You can train it. And I do believe in that. I will be the first to admit that from the time I started doing this. Heights and, like, like, let's back it up a little bit more. You know, there's two psychological thoughts about your fear of heights. One is what they would label and umbilical fear of heights, which is your fear of standing on the side of a tall building or the side of a cliff.

00:52:34:29 - 00:52:57:21
Joshua Reinig
And the other is a fear of flying. As irrational as it is, most people have, almost no fear of flying. And I think it's because it's like driving a car. It's just so second nature for us now that most people have a very, very real, strong, biologically ingrained umbilical fear of heights still. And so climbing. I think that puts that very front and center.

00:52:57:23 - 00:53:18:23
Joshua Reinig
And from early on, like you recognize that, that it's one of the beauties in it that like, I think most of us can relate to that. Right away. You're like, oh, I have I, I'm getting better at turning and channeling this fear into upward progression and positive energy to get me through those moments where you're walking that line.

00:53:18:23 - 00:53:42:14
Joshua Reinig
Right. And that this obviously is like, I think earlier on. And when a lot of people are getting into this, you do train that muscle and the fear goes from, let me back it up a little bit, too. So that umbilical fear of heights isn't so much your irrational fear of just standing what it actually like on the side of some exposure.

00:53:42:14 - 00:54:02:10
Joshua Reinig
Let's say, like whether that's the side of a building or not, it's actually your fear of falling. Right? So as you get better at climbing and and identifying that part of that fear, and a big part of it is you finally confront that fear of falling more than like, hey, I'm afraid of being up here, right? And you're like, wow, the systems work.

00:54:02:10 - 00:54:29:25
Joshua Reinig
My Blaire has me. And like any high risk, high impact sport, whether it's skateboarding, downhill mountain biking, motocross, like you get good at falling skating's like one of the best ones and most avid skaters that have done it for a long time, naturally, are some of the best I've ever seen at falling right out of the gates. So when you get beyond that, then you're like, okay, I can focus on mastering these other fears that come along with everything that you just asked.

00:54:29:25 - 00:54:58:03
Joshua Reinig
Right. And then what that translates to or transcends to is and another philosophical point that for me, a big part of the fear involved with this in every aspect, and it can be the unknowns of Mother Nature, right? Is I love trying to be a master of my own fears, and that is different for everybody. But I think inherently all of us get that out of climbing, whether we're aware of it or not, that we are mastering our own fears.

00:54:58:03 - 00:55:22:26
Joshua Reinig
And then what does that do for us? It crosses over as far as at least a confidence level in a lot of other walks of life. You're like, fuck, like, this is nothing compared to those fears I was confronting yesterday up on that climb. Right. And so that aspect of the fear tolerance, I guess you could say, has made me a much better human.

00:55:22:29 - 00:55:44:28
Joshua Reinig
It's given me more confidence I would have ever dreamed of. I mean, Kyle knows me a little bit, and I think most people who know me have this maybe idea of of this person that has a lot of confidence in their mind, right? When in fact, like when I was a kid growing up, I was one of the most insecure people I've ever known in my entire life.

00:55:45:00 - 00:56:04:07
Joshua Reinig
I got picked on and bullied a tremendous amount, more than I care to admit. And, you know, it was another beautiful thing that when I discovered climbing, it was one of the. I never liked team sports a whole lot, even though I did it. I surfed a lot. And that was more because of this unique connection I made with nature.

00:56:04:10 - 00:56:26:10
Joshua Reinig
But when I started climbing, it was one of the first times where I'm like, wow, there's nobody here to judge me or pick on me or call me names. And it's kind of just like me and my buddy against ourselves and against mother Nature. And we could be as innocent, embrace our inner children, be as goofy as fuck as we want because society is not here to judge us.

00:56:26:16 - 00:56:39:16
Joshua Reinig
The only thing that could, you could maybe argue that it will judge us in this moment is Mother Nature and our interpretation of the risk and fear that we are putting ourselves in in those situations. Right. Does that answer your question?

00:56:39:16 - 00:56:42:06
Kyle
Yeah, I want to expand on it a little bit, though. For.

00:56:42:06 - 00:56:42:23
Joshua Reinig
Sure.

00:56:42:25 - 00:57:02:23
Kyle
So you're describing like a person getting into climbing. There's definitely, you know, we tend to be more cautious when we're getting into a risky sport. At least I hope most people are. But I think that, you know, this process you described of getting through the fear and turning it into confidence, you get to a place of confidence, possibly cockiness and complacency.

00:57:02:26 - 00:57:05:12
Joshua Reinig
Yes. Yes.

00:57:05:15 - 00:57:22:19
Kyle
How do you what what kind of advice can you give to people to try to tackle those feelings? You know, let's say you're in that five year, six year range. You haven't had any major accidents. You haven't seen any people get hurt, you've taken falls. But the systems worked. And so you've got no reason but to trust it entirely.

00:57:22:21 - 00:57:40:08
Kyle
And now you're toeing that line and leading more towards more risk and complacency. So yeah, what it besides getting yourself into an accident or having to see a friend die, how would you give people advice to to back it off and learn some humbleness and some realistic, risk management at that point?

00:57:40:08 - 00:58:00:25
Joshua Reinig
So being humble would be a huge part of it. And I will get a little bit more into it. But you have to leave the fucking ego at the door 100%. And when I first started climbing, it was amazing compared to my surfing background, which has a huge amount of ego. Then I'm like, well, there's some eagle in this, but most people do leave it at the door.

00:58:00:27 - 00:58:26:14
Joshua Reinig
And I always interpret it as, I don't want to see this person die next to me because I'm being an asshole. But more as far as, like back to like, what you're asking. Kyle is like, ego does play a big part into that internal dialog that you're having with yourself as far as getting more confident, potentially getting complacent, getting cocky, as you put it.

00:58:26:17 - 00:58:45:15
Joshua Reinig
One thing that helped me out a lot, and this isn't for everybody, but it was it was kind of more of the old school, the old guard train of thought that I came from when I got into this was like when I started leading. Well, first of all, I wasn't allowed to lead until I climbed for like over a year on TR and bouldering.

00:58:45:17 - 00:59:12:20
Joshua Reinig
And then when I was able, it was like, you can only use passive. You're not allowed to use cams for at least a year, and you better be building as many anchors to try and rappel off of as you can on top of leading all these climbs with passive gear. So two fold with that approach, it way slows you down and keeps you in check that you're not going to lead anything at your ability level, because you have to learn how to fiddle in these little chalks, right?

00:59:12:20 - 00:59:41:18
Joshua Reinig
Like that takes some practice and you're not going to be doing it crushing on something that's set your limit. So it really forces you to, to, to to take a step back from where maybe your, your cockiness and your ego and the experience you've built up to that point would potentially take you. And then after doing that for a year and it's like, oh, you're showing mastery of like nuts and hexes and it's like, here's a few cams and you better save them for your anchors.

00:59:41:20 - 01:00:01:07
Joshua Reinig
And cams were a godsend after that, you know, and and you are very limited. If you climb only off of passive and you have to implement certain little tricks, like such as having, a passive anchor that can take an upward pull. Right. So that that's one bit of advice. Like I said, that's not for everybody.

01:00:01:07 - 01:00:21:07
Joshua Reinig
And I do still preach that to a lot of guests that I do formally train. And I do a big mentorship thing that I've done for a long time. Almost nobody does it. But at least putting that in their mind, it it forces them to take a step back and slow things down a little. Yeah. Furthermore, there you go.

01:00:21:09 - 01:00:22:16
Joshua Reinig
No. Go ahead. Yeah.

01:00:22:19 - 01:00:40:09
Kyle
Well, I was just to say it's kind of funny, I think, not that, like, I'm incredibly experienced to climb or anything, but like a lot of people I know who who I would say are a little bit more older school or really experienced climbers. They are incredibly talented with, with passive protection. And they really, really like placing like, nuts and stuff like that.

01:00:40:09 - 01:00:48:10
Kyle
And I think the much newer generation is really, really heavy on active protection. And I don't really have like a stake in the game or saying like, you know, one way or.

01:00:48:11 - 01:00:49:02
Joshua Reinig
One over the other.

01:00:49:03 - 01:01:04:15
Kyle
Yeah, I, I do think that that's a really good point that you had, though, is like, you know, as you know, like as someone who has an arsenal of tools, you should have high competency with all of your tools and not just the ones that are easier for you. Right?

01:01:04:18 - 01:01:12:22
Joshua Reinig
Yeah. It's like how many people have stoppers hanging off of them and they're never using them. Versus Kyle I know loves is facet placements.

01:01:12:24 - 01:01:17:25
Kyle
Yeah, yeah, I've actually wanted to do an Instagram series called Nothing But Nuts and I wanted to climb that.

01:01:17:25 - 01:01:18:16
Joshua Reinig
Would be.

01:01:18:18 - 01:01:30:18
Kyle
Climber climber root with nothing but passive gear. My buddy Josh and I, when we were climbing, would actually have competitions. We would count how many passive pro we'd place in a pitch and add them up at the end of the multi pitch and see see who had the most passive.

01:01:30:23 - 01:02:01:27
Joshua Reinig
I mean, it can go a really long ways and you can push it hard. You know, it makes you a little maybe stronger minded in that regard. That cams are good. Back to what you were saying. As far as, like doing, doing a route that that would be cool to do on all passive that is actually a very common thing on The Nutcracker and Yosemite, which that was the very first climb that was ever climb with all passes from everybody moving from active hammering to clean climbing.

01:02:01:29 - 01:02:17:00
Joshua Reinig
And so it is still kind of common on that route to be like, hey, like, really? Robbins did it with his wife, with all stoppers to kind of help back up Yvon Chouinard and be like, hey, no, these work. You guys don't need a hammer pitons up here anymore. Me and my wife just did it with all stoppers and axes.

01:02:17:02 - 01:02:22:08
Joshua Reinig
That one's awesome to do. And that style still. And then there are a decent amount of Yosemite climbers that will still do that.

01:02:22:11 - 01:02:33:12
Kyle
Yeah, I definitely think it's route dependent. It is for sure. Right. You can't super crack with a bunch of nuts, like wearing white crap that's like uniform.

01:02:33:14 - 01:02:59:28
Joshua Reinig
That is why Ray Jardine and Charlie Porter developed a spring loaded carrying device, because they kind of obsessed with a parallel side of crack. And the story there is it was this they call it the the 24 hour bit. And yeah, we could talk about that another time. But, yeah, the history is always cool. I think back to your your question though, Kyle, without going to off topic, there is,

01:03:00:00 - 01:03:21:25
Joshua Reinig
Some other things that I think are very important. And I think it's a big part of what you guys are doing and having the guests on that you've had, is the best thing, I think, without a doubt. Especially like, you know, we noticed this a while ago that for the first time ever, climbers were coming out of gyms and their strength far exceeded their experience level.

01:03:21:28 - 01:03:40:29
Joshua Reinig
That had never happened before. And I started to see some really bad accidents in places by guys. And I'm like, you're so strong. That shouldn't have happened. But they were just oblivious to like, what good placements even look like, right? Or they're they're coming out of a gym climbing 510. Maybe they've done a handful of like 5 or 5, 11 out of the gym.

01:03:40:29 - 01:04:02:03
Joshua Reinig
Maybe they don't even a handful of five, ten sport routes. And then their buddy throws them on A57, tried climbing Joshua Tree after going like, oh, this is how you do this, and this is how you do that. And that's a dangerous combination as well. As far as them being stronger than their experience level, right? And especially in their head like that is a complacency and a cockiness thing as well.

01:04:02:06 - 01:04:33:04
Joshua Reinig
But with that said, what I'm getting at is I think the, the most important advice I could give, which I did not have this. And in some ways I got lucky in some ways, obviously the story I just told may not have played out if I did have a legitimate mentor, and it was probably a solid 10 to 12 years into this game, that I finally started to meet some guys that saw enough of me that did take me under their wing, and they were OG legends that I looked up to for years.

01:04:33:06 - 01:04:52:13
Joshua Reinig
And you could say they taught me the ways. More than anything. It was. It was good affirmation that I was like, oh no, you are doing everything right and you're not sketchy about this at all. And part of it was because my strength level, my experience level evolved faster than my strength, but then they've always kind of been parallel.

01:04:52:13 - 01:05:21:05
Joshua Reinig
And maybe strength going up a little bit at a time and then experience level kind of catching back up with it. Right. But that the mentorship process, I think is probably one of the most overlooked things in our climbing society in the States. And it is starting, I think, to be recognized more. But still, nobody, I think, has a very streamlined methodology as to like what that should actually look like other than like how it unfolded for me.

01:05:21:05 - 01:05:53:01
Joshua Reinig
I wish that could happen for everybody. And, it does become a safety thing, and it does come down to how you're mitigating risk, how your fear response to dealing with all of that is, like I, I almost can't emphasize that enough. So the way I think it works for a lot of folks now is as much of a necessarily evil as this has come down to is hire a guide, at the very least, for one time.

01:05:53:03 - 01:06:19:09
Joshua Reinig
And more times than not, you will be surprised that that guide will see enough in you that it's like, hey, I know you're this starving college kid that can't afford coming out with me as many times as you need, so why don't you just start trying to come out with me? Like, every so often and in, like what I do, for example, I do I do offer that to a very large extent, but I'm like, I'm an open resource to everyone and anyone, and I give my heart out to everyone I've ever shared a group with.

01:06:19:11 - 01:06:44:22
Joshua Reinig
And I'm like, no matter how mundane it may be, how technical the systems may be, I love it when you guys ask me questions. Send me pictures of your systems. I'm commonly like, you know, there's no such thing as a dumb question when it comes to safety, kind of only dumb answers and and I love helping out to that extent and being able to extend that to people.

01:06:44:25 - 01:06:45:11
Joshua Reinig
So yeah, I think.

01:06:45:11 - 01:07:00:17
Kyle
That's, I think that's, that's really, really awesome. And I've personally experienced that with like guides I've hired would they've like, like offered, you know, an extension of being like if you're ever back climbing in the area, like, like you want advice on a weather or a route or anything like, you know, it's kind of like building relationships.

01:07:00:17 - 01:07:01:22
Kyle
It's networking. Essentially.

01:07:01:25 - 01:07:15:25
Joshua Reinig
It is networking. You know, if they're doing it for the right reason, that should be a given. That just comes naturally, that you shouldn't even have to think about or be trained on which that is part of the gig, you know, and we do get some education on that. Right? So.

01:07:15:27 - 01:07:24:29
Kyle
Absolutely. Yeah. But we've we've talked about this essentially with like injury recovery is like, who is your support group? And I think you could kind of extend that into your, your climbing support group. You know.

01:07:24:29 - 01:07:25:15
Joshua Reinig
Definitely.

01:07:25:21 - 01:07:38:00
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah. Like what are the resources, you know, to like reach out to or to communicate with or like, who are people that you look up to or that you, you know, speak with or whatever? It's just kind of building a community that you're actually injecting.

01:07:38:00 - 01:08:05:17
Joshua Reinig
Yourself and it does become a family, or you'll hear it referred to as a tribe. And that is something that I'm very grateful for. Back to like me giving all that credit to my brother is I. Through the years I have developed this amazing support group that I am like, I can't even put into words like how much they're support and their belief in me has has helped me get to share this to capacities I would have never dreamed.

01:08:05:17 - 01:08:15:22
Joshua Reinig
Right. But yeah, I mean, a lot of it is. It wasn't for them. I it would I probably I, I know, I don't know if I would be sitting here having this conversation. Right. So.

01:08:15:22 - 01:08:17:03
Kyle
Do you and your brother still call him today.

01:08:17:09 - 01:08:41:11
Joshua Reinig
Like. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Jonathan. Shout out to Jonathan. Yeah, yeah. His IG handle is Adventure Weasel. He's, he's adventure with the family. Yeah. All right, so he has a real job. He's, a terrestrial biologist, and he's one of the chief biologists for the West Coast. So really, all he does is drive around and look for endangered species and monitor them.

01:08:41:11 - 01:08:50:26
Joshua Reinig
And if there's they're they're in any sort of threatening situation, mainly because of urban sprawl. My brother shuts it all down.

01:08:50:28 - 01:08:56:29
Kyle
Is that why he hangs out with you so much? He's looking out for endangered species.

01:08:57:01 - 01:09:17:08
Joshua Reinig
Oh, yeah. No, we we do a lot. I mean, he's taught me. He's taught me more than I even knew there was to know about biology. It's pretty cool. It's like, well, I mean, it's like basically having a biological professor in my pocket that I could talk to whatever I want. Yeah. And then that, that crosses over into getting share this a lot and you know guiding or that's you know a lot about the history and the local biology.

01:09:17:08 - 01:09:24:17
Joshua Reinig
So I love getting to share that, based off of all the interesting knowledge my brother shared with me. Yeah.

01:09:24:19 - 01:09:42:12
Kyle
Yeah, I think that this topic of mentorship is a really, really good one. And I'll test two to you, you know, being a mentor for myself. And in the beginning stages, you know, I met you at Nomad Ventures. You were, you know, you were sitting behind the desk. You saw the twilight in my eyes. I was walking in there just looking at all the gear and stuff.

01:09:42:12 - 01:10:02:03
Kyle
And, you know, you told me about taquitos and everything, and, you know, I was looking in there. You were my. You were my rock, you know, like, I was looking to get into multi pitch trad and I was leading for the first time and bringing somebody else up, you know, like, I didn't really have a mentor. I couldn't find anybody that was climbing harder than me or wanted to do objectives more you know, challenge to me.

01:10:02:03 - 01:10:07:03
Joshua Reinig
And so no and I and and yeah, and I apologize I couldn't be there more. No dude you know.

01:10:07:05 - 01:10:16:02
Kyle
Man, like it was awesome like you you honestly for for where I was and for what I wanted to do, you were exactly what I needed. Exactly.

01:10:16:02 - 01:10:20:12
Joshua Reinig
Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting how that will happen. Yeah. Like time and time again. Yeah. Yeah. And. Yeah.

01:10:20:12 - 01:10:43:16
Kyle
And ever since that day, you know, we did, the little, climb up Black Death like, you've been super open and just like a attesting to your willingness to help people who reach out to you and stuff. So, I, I'm sure I'm not the only one. And, Yeah. Like, just back to mentorship itself. I think that, you know, Max, you said you had a pretty good mentor going into your climbing career.

01:10:43:19 - 01:11:03:00
Kyle
I personally didn't, and I think that there's a lot of other people that could say the same. I think it's hard to find people that are climbing harder than you, or have more experience than you are and willing to take you under their wing, because a lot of those people either have mentors that they're climbing with and they're learning from, or, you know, they don't want to have to slow down.

01:11:03:00 - 01:11:12:06
Kyle
You know, there's a lot of other complications and stuff. It takes a pretty special person to to want to do that for another person. And I think it's pretty hard to come by. So yeah, it's just like I would.

01:11:12:08 - 01:11:14:26
Joshua Reinig
I would agree and thank you for the compliments too.

01:11:14:27 - 01:11:35:11
Kyle
Yeah, man. Yeah. I think it's I think with mentorship it's, it's kind of like a cultural thing, obviously, that's embedded in climbing. But I think also like if I analyze it from a more like modern perspective, like it's a two way street, like we need to breed a culture of mentors who want to seek out and go and and mentor people, which I think there is.

01:11:35:17 - 01:11:39:09
Kyle
But obviously the amount of climbing compared to the amount of really experienced.

01:11:39:12 - 01:11:41:08
Joshua Reinig
For sure, it's very steep ratio.

01:11:41:08 - 01:12:04:08
Kyle
This. Yeah, yeah. So so you also we also need to have kind of and I hope we're contributing to this is like breeding a culture of if you are a new climber and you know, you are invested and you're interested and you have these goals, whatever they are for yourself, you know, the idea that, like the perfect person, you have the perfect temperament to, you know, has the time and all these things you just going to, like, fall into your lap.

01:12:04:08 - 01:12:36:18
Kyle
It's like the chances aren't that high. So also we need to have a culture of like new people, you know, seeking out mentors, seeking out these relationships, trying to inject themselves in these situations. There it is, a two way street, and you as an individual have some agency and personal responsibility to do this. And then the caveat to that is that, you know, if you aren't finding that person, well, you know, we got the Amiga, we got the Acmg, we have these really well accredited industry professionals who, you know, you can hire to to get that result.

01:12:36:18 - 01:12:52:01
Kyle
And then usually those people are really well connected in the community. And, you know, like you were saying, offering, you know, advice or exterior resources or they can even just point you to, you know, in the right direction, you know, like, hey, I was out with this client three weeks ago. We could totally rat you to the areas climbing up the storm.

01:12:52:01 - 01:12:58:17
Kyle
And he's looking for friends to client. Exactly. You know, it's just about like, it's it's about trying to seek out and engage in those kind of. Yeah.

01:12:58:24 - 01:13:00:17
Joshua Reinig
No, I mean, I think like.

01:13:00:20 - 01:13:02:04
Kyle
Climbers, we have a responsibility.

01:13:02:04 - 01:13:21:16
Joshua Reinig
It can be very intimidating to for a lot of new folks and coming out of gyms and feeling a lot of these insecurities we're talking about to go up to, even like someone like either of you, like, you guys both are studs and you look intimidating. You're I know you're very approachable, but it's like, if I see what the crag, I'm gonna be like, man, I want to be like that guy.

01:13:21:16 - 01:13:41:06
Joshua Reinig
And, like, how do I even strike up a conversation with. Right? And that's where I think it's important for us to do our due diligence to make, you know, we hear a lot lately as far as making this more inclusive, but just make those folks will feel more comfortable and more, more genuinely like just psyched about, no, you're out doing this for the right reason, right?

01:13:41:10 - 01:13:49:16
Joshua Reinig
And the end. Totally. And this is why I do it too, you know? Yeah. So I think that it's.

01:13:49:19 - 01:14:09:27
Kyle
You know, we're I think we're using the word mentor as kind of like this long term partner that's taking you up multi objectives and shapes you as a climber. But I think that that mentorship can also mean something else. It could be it could be a comment at a crag that someone or experience says to somebody else, yeah it could be.

01:14:10:00 - 01:14:10:15
Joshua Reinig
You should be able, you.

01:14:10:15 - 01:14:11:00
Kyle
Know, and.

01:14:11:05 - 01:14:19:28
Joshua Reinig
You're in kind of every situation if you're. Yeah, if you're looking at it as far as like, hey, what can I learn from this experience? Right?

01:14:20:00 - 01:14:37:10
Kyle
I think I'm more speaking of, us all trying to be mentors for the people around us. Yeah, yeah. You know, you like, let's say you've climbed five, nine. You know, that's your climbing level and you've been climbing for a year. You're a mentor to someone just getting in. And this goes on and on and on for anybody who has experience.

01:14:37:10 - 01:14:54:22
Kyle
So you're always going to be a mentor for someone below you. Yeah. And like for me at my place, like I can take somebody out right now and like go crashing and do a tragedy and still have fun and push my grades because I can have someone blame me. But I can also take the time to just go over basic trad stuff with someone.

01:14:54:22 - 01:15:02:14
Kyle
I can show them how to play something. I can spend 15 minutes with somebody and change their entire course. Yeah, no, not their track of their trad career.

01:15:02:14 - 01:15:03:02
Joshua Reinig
That it.

01:15:03:05 - 01:15:06:14
Kyle
Doesn't take that much effort to to have that mentality. I would say.

01:15:06:14 - 01:15:29:05
Joshua Reinig
That's a huge part of the process. And and recognizing that that is a big part of the process versus like, hey, chasing numbers or just getting out there to be rad, right? Yeah, totally. And yeah, I mean, for me, like one of my original mentors, I was like. Kind of like, yeah. Like, do you ever get bored of this?

01:15:29:06 - 01:15:49:09
Joshua Reinig
He's like, never. And now and I totally get that now. You know, it's like I there are some of the, the lowest moderate routes in that are amazing, 4 or 5 star classics that we have in the nation. And I've done them hundreds of times now, and I it is different every time and every time. It's just as exciting.

01:15:49:11 - 01:16:06:04
Joshua Reinig
And that's kind of the common thing, I guess when you, you get to that point that you will hear even from someone at the crag is like, oh, what's your favorite climb? And my answer is always, it's the last one I did right? It's like, yeah, that what you just saw me on? That was my favorite as of at least in this moment.

01:16:06:06 - 01:16:25:08
Joshua Reinig
But yeah, you know, the mentorship thing is interesting, and I'm glad that we're talking about that because I do see it coming up more and more. And like I said, I think it is hard for people to maybe put into a box. And Kyle, as you mentioned, it's like, oh, like even for me, I was like, yeah, it's this gnarly old hard dude that's been doing this forever.

01:16:25:08 - 01:16:46:10
Joshua Reinig
And he's going to get me up to par with him. And that is it's come close to happening in that way. But more times than not, it's like even my guests that I'm teaching, they become my mentors a lot of the times. Right. And and what's and in the in the sense that maybe it's one time I spent with them and I learned something from them or a new application on a climb.

01:16:46:10 - 01:17:10:09
Joshua Reinig
Like I said, that I've done hundreds of times, to kind of blow their mind even further. But then a lot of times it turns into a more of a mentorship process. They surpass where I ever will ever get to, and then I see them, that trickle effect and then sharing that with everybody else. Right. So I think maybe for now that is important that people at least recognize.

01:17:10:10 - 01:17:22:09
Joshua Reinig
It's like, hey, we have that. If you can't like, go out and get a share out with Peter Croft tomorrow, right? Yeah. What else? Where do we want to go next?

01:17:22:16 - 01:17:41:16
Kyle
I think one thing I could say on like, fear and mitigating risk and stuff was like, you know, it as much as, like, getting motivated and stoked and wanting to climb really hard and all these things is amazing, and I don't deter from that at all. Also like, realize that, like, it's not the movies and you're probably not now, right?

01:17:41:22 - 01:18:00:21
Kyle
And you're climbing for yourself, you know? And so if you feel more comfortable carrying like a little bit of a fatter rack and like running moderates and you don't want to run it out like, you know, don't pressure yourself into, like trying to be something that there's like this ethos and climbing about, like being hard and being tough and running it out.

01:18:00:25 - 01:18:19:17
Kyle
And I think that for people who do know those things and live that kind of ethos, I think it's really impressive and really admirable. But like speaking for myself, like around the time of my injury, I was getting into like lightning, my rock and trying to move. Yeah, really fast in, like efficiently in the mountains. And it is like as much as I was doing it.

01:18:19:17 - 01:18:47:19
Kyle
Okay. Like for one eight obviously didn't work out that great. And be it like as I was doing it, it didn't really feel like me, like I was trying to adapt how I wanted to climb, to how I thought I should climb. If I wanted to be a good climber. And so I guess for me is just like, if you are the type of person who you want to, you know, get better and stuff, but like, maybe you're really uncomfortable and really pushing your comfort zone and stuff in ways that you're not sure about.

01:18:47:21 - 01:19:08:16
Kyle
Take a step back. You know, like that's that's okay. Take take a step back, you know, don't don't this this exact thing you're talking about. I was at the crack the other day, and there's this new guy who's getting into trad. He he's on his second trad lead. All right, second trad lead, five eight. And he's at the base looking at me, and he's like, telling me he's like, dude.

01:19:08:16 - 01:19:25:01
Kyle
All right. So I looked at it like I'm trying to bring as little gear as possible. Like, he said that like he's already in that mindset of trying to lean down, trying to be more efficient, trying to be a more badass climber and then again, he's up at this crux section on this five eight. He's getting a little a little stressed.

01:19:25:01 - 01:19:40:13
Kyle
You know, you could tell. And you know, he gets past the crux and he gets a piece in. And there's one mentor guy who was with us is like, hey, you know it's okay to take. And he just like shakes his head like this. And he's like, no, I won't take, you know? And so it's just like, it's a pride thing.

01:19:40:13 - 01:19:49:04
Kyle
But I think it's so ingrained into the sport. It's like, face your fears, manage the risk. Like don't take as much gear. You know, it's like, I.

01:19:49:04 - 01:20:02:22
Joshua Reinig
Mean so much you could you could give a lot of that blame to like climbing media as well. Right. It's like, how often do you even see, like, badass shit on the cover of a magazine? I'm sure you guys have seen it. Heard this. No one's where it's like, you know, no one's ever even wearing a helmet, right?

01:20:02:25 - 01:20:20:19
Joshua Reinig
And it's like, I. Yeah, I wear a helmet religiously. I didn't when I was younger, but it's like as I started to have kids and experienced some of these mishaps, I'm like, no, like that. Like there are things we can do that are very simple, like carrying a few more pieces, right? Not being afraid to take. Yeah, totally.

01:20:21:25 - 01:20:29:14
Kyle
What I think of that five. A guy of the crag you're talking about, you know, we could take Josh's example year, you know, how about you go up and you place 40 stoppers?

01:20:29:17 - 01:20:30:14
Joshua Reinig
There you go.

01:20:30:16 - 01:20:48:05
Kyle
Yeah. The route. The route will take you four times as long as you get. And you'll get way more experience. Steve, you is way more experienced. And it's safer. Exactly. Almost just like cheating yourself out of, like, safety. Yes, exactly. And I think that that's kind of what I was speaking to. And I was making a comment.

01:20:48:06 - 01:21:07:05
Kyle
Kyle, I think that was a great example. Right. It's just like, you know, I think I think generally by the time you're ready to really push things and really like, thread the needle, like, you'll know because you're probably like a crusher and you're super motivated and you're like fighting at the gills every weekend to get out. And you like, you like.

01:21:07:05 - 01:21:29:04
Kyle
It's like you just will know, you know. So if you're like, new to the sport or don't feel comfortable or you're getting like the sewing pins leg on like a fine line, like really worried up there. It's like, yeah, man, I know, you know, I put in like three extra cans if you need to take, take like whatever it is to just like ultimately the goal here, you know, our podcast is catered to the majority of people.

01:21:29:04 - 01:21:42:13
Kyle
It's like like we want people to get out and to feel good and to experience the sport of climbing and to hopefully not have a one ton boulder rip their foot off or break bouldering or noting, you know, it's like like, no, that's.

01:21:42:13 - 01:21:45:29
Joshua Reinig
Not the it's the the common thing is the know smart.

01:21:45:29 - 01:21:47:23
Kyle
It happens more than I want as.

01:21:47:29 - 01:21:52:17
Joshua Reinig
Yeah. But people people just what does that even mean. Like no.

01:21:52:20 - 01:22:08:11
Kyle
Well you can also chase down the people that are climbing harder and pushing those boundaries. I bet you the more people you chase down like that are either dead or have been through a traumatic injury like that, the numbers go up significantly or and you start running a thread like that.

01:22:08:14 - 01:22:28:05
Joshua Reinig
I mean, no, like you are, you are cutting corners and heightening the risk factor for sure. And hopefully you are aware of that. Yeah. So and I I've definitely, you know, I'm guilty of walking that line and for a long time even having a family and where it didn't really hit me until I actually had my third kid, which was a girl.

01:22:28:08 - 01:22:46:25
Joshua Reinig
And like, I was like, wow. Like my boys, I guess subconsciously, like, could have gotten by without me, but not a girl. Like for whatever reason, it messed with my psyche way more than almost anything. And I did pump the brakes tremendously with where I had previously gone with it. Yeah, but I found more of a balance, you could say.

01:22:46:27 - 01:23:09:12
Joshua Reinig
Yeah. And a lot of that is, yeah, there's a love of of getting to go do new route development. So let's talk about that and how that all came about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess after that accident when I was younger and, you know, I, I had that conversation with myself loud and clear a bunch of times where it's like, no, I will do this the rest of my life.

01:23:09:12 - 01:23:33:19
Joshua Reinig
Like, you know, it was around, like, I remember, like, not too long after that, like seeing other accidents, people getting in that were way more traumatic even, and then overcoming it and still being involved in the outdoors and, I was like, yeah, okay. It's a little more justified. I that was a freak accident. I'm like, what could be worse than that other than death?

01:23:33:22 - 01:24:02:12
Joshua Reinig
So I'm like, as far as, like one way that I've always tried to rationalize it is. Not nothing that bad could ever happen to me in the mountains again, other than maybe dying, and I could live with anything else. Right? So it was like, game on. I'm like, I experienced the worst. And since I did like the law of averages, I like, I maybe I like and this is probably not a good way to to rationalize this.

01:24:02:15 - 01:24:27:08
Joshua Reinig
Like nothing like this should ever happen again, especially if I'm very cognizant of it. Right. And and I, I yeah, I avoided accidents for a long time after that. And, you know, I got way immersed in it. I got stronger than I ever had. More importantly, I gained way more experience than I ever had. I started to do bigger and bigger objectives.

01:24:27:11 - 01:24:51:29
Joshua Reinig
None of whichever felt forced. They all happened like I mentioned earlier, kind of when they felt like they were supposed to. And it was like like beyond words, like so many magical experiences that I hope a lot of climbers do, you get to experience. And so as that kind of progressed, you know, this is maybe flat, fast forwarding five years now.

01:24:51:29 - 01:25:34:24
Joshua Reinig
So it's 2008. So seven years, and backing it up a little bit, you know, through that, through that next 7 to 8 year period. I, I from the get go, I have been like a very devoted trad climber, you could say. And to me, the pinnacle of all of it were doing like the biggest, like most inspiring routes in the world, although I haven't done that, done nearly all of the ones I've wanted to, I've gotten to to play on some of them, let's say, and, you know, as I would put it, there were a lot of very serendipitous moments that little me would have never, ever dreamed of in a million

01:25:34:24 - 01:25:57:16
Joshua Reinig
years. So kind of a living testament that I like to say, like, if I could do it, anybody could do it. Especially after such kind of traumatic experience when I was younger with this. And so, you know, I was still young. I, you know, this is all before I'm even 26. I didn't know what the fuck I wanted to do in life.

01:25:57:22 - 01:26:14:29
Joshua Reinig
I had mentioned, like, I was born into a career I thought I would do forever, which was working in the surfboard industry. And my uncle owns one of the largest surfboard manufacturers on the planet. So I started working there when I was 12. And as I mentioned, it's still a fossil in the outdoor industry. So all this, that's what I'm doing.

01:26:15:05 - 01:26:37:21
Joshua Reinig
But then I went to college and I got my art degree. I'm, I start working at a gear shop. I love art, as I mentioned before, and I got really into tattooing. So I'm working at a tattoo parlor and I have a family. I'm trying to balance all of that. Like, how do you even find time for climbing?

01:26:37:21 - 01:27:14:00
Joshua Reinig
Right. But climbing, climbing through those early years, it won out and I knew it always would. So what happened was in 2008, I guess it was 2008. Getting stronger. I had, this kind of like, nemesis climbing the Sierras, which is just a casual classic route called Bear Creek Spire. I, I'd gone to do a five times, and because of circumstantial situations like friends getting altitude sickness, weather never even got off the ground like we did the six mile death march every time.

01:27:14:00 - 01:27:37:07
Joshua Reinig
And I'm just like, what is up with this thing? And then finally, was going to go do it with my brother. We're going to do it in a day. And I'm like, oh, it's on. We'll I'll do it with him easy. And we're bouldering like the weekend before. And, I'm on this boulder problem probably three feet off the ground with like five giant pads and like four of my, like, big ass buddies spotting me.

01:27:37:10 - 01:27:49:15
Joshua Reinig
And I do this little slip. It was the end of the day, like my foot popped, but I'm not that high off the ground. Land on the pads, kind of roll with it, fall into my back and I feel a weird pop and I'm like, oh, I think I broke my leg and this is my other leg now.

01:27:49:18 - 01:28:07:17
Joshua Reinig
And, and, and, you know, I'd had a couple other superficial injuries in the meantime, but, my buddies are like, oh, there's no way you broke it. Like, get up, walk it off. You know, like get up there. It's in that thing. And as I stand up like mid, mid shaft tib fib, spiral fracture, it just collapses in half.

01:28:07:17 - 01:28:35:07
Joshua Reinig
And I, I shattered that in 20 places. Yeah. Like just splintered like beyond belief. And back to what you had mentioned earlier, Max, as far as like my other injury sustained. And it was more soft tissue, this was a way worse healing process. And obviously obviously the Bear Creek Spire trip got canceled. I had a this was just after my brother and I had tried to do the nose for the first time.

01:28:35:07 - 01:29:02:14
Joshua Reinig
So I'm supposed to be training for the next year. I'm like, fuck, I'm out of it for now. A year now. And so that recovery, I remember being pretty stubborn. And it was very painful that, you know, unlike the first one, I'm like, this is just part of the process, and it'll probably happen again. Okay. And, and, you know, just for the both of you, like, if you guys stick with this long enough, like, expect to have some other mishaps and hopefully it's nothing too serious.

01:29:02:17 - 01:29:24:08
Joshua Reinig
And that was kind of another random freak thing, but there were a few things that led up to it. Such as like just being tired and, you know, letting my guard down, just a little boulder problem three feet off the ground on and not giving it that respect. And, so that was in June and that January, my orthopedist is like, yeah, you can start walking again.

01:29:24:08 - 01:29:41:29
Joshua Reinig
And maybe like, you got to start doing all this physical therapy. Obviously. Long story short, didn't end up needing any surgery on it, although that was like up in the air through the whole process. I had a really good sports orthopedic at the time, and he's like, no, we're not going to put you in a cast.

01:29:42:01 - 01:29:56:29
Joshua Reinig
We're going to let you be in an inflatable cast for three months, but I want you to try to use it and not get atrophy as much as you can. And if it doesn't start diffuse in three months, then we'll have to go in and put plates in. After three months. He's like, yeah, it's not fuzing. It's not looking good.

01:29:56:29 - 01:30:15:29
Joshua Reinig
Let's give it another month and another month. He's like, no, like you see in the X-ray, like all of these bones have sticky ends. Now that mean that they're fuzing together naturally. And that's what I want. Like, surgery is a last resort. Even though what you have typically you go straight into the surgery for it. And so six months into it is all fuzing.

01:30:15:29 - 01:30:36:02
Joshua Reinig
Basically I have like a huge calcium knot there now. But it was it was New Year's Eve and I'm like, I think I'd gone on this like one kind of random drunken boulder mission up, up at Black Mountain, popular bouldering area in Southern California. And it was more just to go be around my friends climbing and stuff, and I'm, like, drinking and dealing with my issues.

01:30:36:05 - 01:31:03:24
Joshua Reinig
And, and I'm like, well, okay, like, I could climb, but I could still barely walk. Climbing didn't hurt too bad, though. And, obviously I don't want to fall. I'm knew it would have been really bad. So, you know, a few days goes by, it's New Year's Eve, and me and my brother at this party where, like, nobody there is really outdoor oriented, and it's him and I in this back corner just talking, climbing and, like, feeding off of each other's energy.

01:31:03:26 - 01:31:30:08
Joshua Reinig
And and we're obviously drinking. It's about 10:00. We're waiting for the New Year's countdown. And, we start like, kind of like going, okay, like your legs getting better. This is the year we're going to do the nose. Like. Like what? It's like, make all these amazing, like, big climbing objectives that are kind of like New Year's resolution and that kind of escalates and,

01:31:30:10 - 01:31:55:28
Joshua Reinig
Basically, I'm like a drunken bat, my brother, like one of the climbs we really want to do besides the nose and besides, to finally get to go do Bear Creek Spire, which, by the way, we went and did both of those, was the go to epinephrine for the first time, the red rocks. And like, we'd always wanted to do that and, you know, in the moment, like, basically my brother's like, you can climb like, I'll help you hike in and hike out, like, let's drive out there right now on, on the first of the year.

01:31:56:03 - 01:32:11:24
Joshua Reinig
And we're drunk off of our asses at like 10:00 at night. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds amazing. Our our wives are like, know you guys like you? You need to at least sober up. And we're like, well, we'll go home and pack. And by that time we'll be sober to drive, which we still weren't. Drove straight to Vegas.

01:32:11:28 - 01:32:31:21
Joshua Reinig
Blast blasted up and effort with a broken leg and then had to crawl the entire way off of it through cactus and, so that that. And then that was also the year that I like, made the conscious decision to become a guide. And that was kind of part of that, that whole process in that moment with my brother that night.

01:32:31:23 - 01:32:53:25
Joshua Reinig
And that was back to what we were talking about before we started earlier. Max, that was the year I turned 29. I had this huge year of climbing. I remember when I was recovering from that break and just going like, man, I don't want to go back to the surf industry. Like it had become very diluted. I was taught to me is it's like pure craft, like trade.

01:32:53:25 - 01:33:18:23
Joshua Reinig
That is very much a lost art in most parts of the world now. And it, it, it started to lose sight of that. And, and I was getting a little jaded from it, although like I was comfortable and I thought I would do it forever. And I remember like, man, I really don't want to go back. And I was looking in the classifieds in a, in a newspaper, and I saw this article and it was like 30 grand to go work for three months on the Greenland ice sheet.

01:33:18:23 - 01:33:39:13
Joshua Reinig
Babysitting some scientists like was almost how by paraphrasing how this article is worded and I'm like, fuck, I could do that for 30 grand. And it's like a prerequisite. You have to be an AMG alpine guide. And I'm like, AMG okay, like, I know of this, I, I knew of a couple guides and, but I still didn't know what that really meant.

01:33:39:13 - 01:34:03:29
Joshua Reinig
Right. And and so I'm like, okay, like, let's look into it. This isn't maybe just even a bad pursuit for my own self growth was why I originally went into it. Like I still didn't really quite care to be a guide. Then I saw maybe the potential of like getting some side gigs and when I went down the track I was like, all right, like five years of discipline, easy.

01:34:04:02 - 01:34:25:16
Joshua Reinig
And I five years into it was like, not even halfway to halfway to where I thought I should be and beat myself up over that a little bit and, getting a little frustrated, but plucking away at all the different courses and the different certs, right. And being able to guide more to what I had always wanted to guide.

01:34:25:19 - 01:34:46:02
Joshua Reinig
And at one point, I think like 6 or 7 years into it and life obviously gets in the way, as it does with just climbing in general sometimes. Right. And it's important to find that balance. I remember the, the acting president at the time of the MJ right. To me, this really nice letter and and it wasn't any real concern.

01:34:46:02 - 01:35:05:01
Joshua Reinig
I was I was expressing that at that time it was a little tighter knit. And they obviously picked up on a lot of different people's energy and where they were at in regards to where they wanted to be at. And she tells me she's like, so Josh, like, can you get your PhD to become a surgeon in five years?

01:35:05:08 - 01:35:24:26
Joshua Reinig
And I'm like, no. She's like, better yet, like, what martial arts could you get your black belt in? And under ten? And I'm like, dude, it clicked right away. And I'm like, yeah, no, you're so right. And like, just embrace the process. And now, you know, I'm basically 15 years into it and I'm still only halfway to where I wanted to be that initial five years into it.

01:35:24:27 - 01:35:25:10
Joshua Reinig
Right.

01:35:25:10 - 01:35:41:23
Kyle
It's funny that you say that, Josh, because you're like, you know, I've been climbing for maybe like, I don't know, like five, six years, but like the first three years of that was like, you know, nothing randomly in the gym, just like occasionally. So, like, I've really actually been climbing for three years and I've had serious injuries through that.

01:35:41:23 - 01:36:04:00
Kyle
Right? So, and I really actually want to become a guy, you know, it's something that I've really thought about and that I really want to do, and I don't. Yeah. And I don't really like. And so part of me has this big, like deep seated doubt of being like, you know, I'm not talented enough. I'm not a strong enough climber, but I feel like I really have the temperament for it.

01:36:04:00 - 01:36:16:12
Kyle
And I, I don't want to necessarily go guide out like, hard routes all the time. I think my base would be I really enjoy doing like clinics and facilitating like easy outings for people. And so, you know.

01:36:16:14 - 01:36:19:09
Joshua Reinig
More the more the instructor invitations. And so the.

01:36:19:10 - 01:36:36:17
Kyle
The only reason I would not chase this is because I tell myself, like, I'm never going to be good enough to do that. And I think I really resonate with what you're saying right now because I'm the same thing. I'm like, you know, like, let's just take your food reference or your black bowl reference. It's like, okay, you're three years into serious climbing.

01:36:36:20 - 01:36:57:12
Kyle
Why the fuck would you have any of the necessary skills or anything to, to to do that? Right. So it's kind of just this outlandish claim that I or like not claim, but like thought process of like where I should be. I personally 100% resonated with that. And so in the last like six months, I really kind of have this internal dialog with myself and going like, you know what?

01:36:57:12 - 01:37:14:19
Kyle
I have all these things in my life that I'm really happy with and I'm really satisfied about this, and I'm not going to just let this like negative internal voice that just like, is self-deprecating and tells myself, like, I'm not going to be able to achieve this because I didn't achieve it in like three years, which is outlandish.

01:37:14:19 - 01:37:35:15
Kyle
Anyways. It's like, I'm going to I'm going to take my time, I'm going to work hard at this. I'm going to be consistent at it. And, you know, it's still my goal one day to get an Acmg whether that's an apprentice guide certificate or, you know, apprentice ice and and to do that, to be able to facilitate outings and to, to, to, you know, mentor and guide people like that is still a gold mine.

01:37:35:15 - 01:37:55:23
Kyle
So just what you were saying, I just resonate with so much on such a high level, and it's a real big thing I struggle with, of not of like of taking that negative voice out of my head and just saying, you know, like, fuck that. You know, I'm going to work hard of this and it's going to take a lot longer than I think it's going to take, but I'm going to get there eventually.

01:37:55:25 - 01:38:15:15
Joshua Reinig
For sure. So I was the same age as you when I made that conscious decision. And when I did, and I took it was a leap of faith. And I've taken many a leaps of faith. And because I put so much positive forward thinking into it, they've all it's all worked out the way that I always dream. If I could do it, you can do it.

01:38:15:23 - 01:38:49:14
Joshua Reinig
So much of it is patience, and that anything in life that is truly important isn't going to be fucking easy, right? Like it will be a long involved struggle and that is part of the process. And, I think the black belt analogy especially like could go back to what we were talking about as far as mentorship and where you see yourself in comparison to a lot of other people you might see at the crag and what you're like misconception might be as to how you want this to to look or how how you think it should look, right.

01:38:49:17 - 01:38:51:11
Kyle
Yeah, absolutely.

01:38:51:14 - 01:39:07:16
Joshua Reinig
So yeah. So, you know, I did take that leap of faith. And the struggle was very real originally, even when I had come to terms with like, hey, this isn't happening as fast as I want, but I, you know, I gave up a long time ago on a monetary gain. I'm like, this means so much to me.

01:39:07:16 - 01:39:44:27
Joshua Reinig
I would sacrifice everything. I'll be homeless. My wife hates me because she's like, she. She was right along with all of it. She's always been my biggest supporter. And, you know, we were we were like I said, we were homeless for three solid years. It was very slow. But one of the best pieces of advice I could give there that I was very lucky is in your first, like year, especially your first three years, no matter how lame it seems to get as many numbers under your belt as possible, and then that will just help snowball and carry that momentum throughout however long you want to do it.

01:39:44:29 - 01:40:20:27
Joshua Reinig
And so originally, the first company I worked for, I guided 3000 people for them in the first four years, and that's a whole nother story. But it was it was a huge it it did give me a lot of that momentum and then also back to what you were saying, Max, as to where it's gotten now. And what I see makes successful guides is trying to find your own niche, which is hard, that people have been coming up with some pretty original stuff, and it's something early on I'm like, hey, I kind of fall into this niche, which is like sharing it to this capacity.

01:40:20:29 - 01:40:32:06
Joshua Reinig
But as mentioned in is we'll talk about a little bit more like to to a lot of other capacities and other like stages that I get to share this on. Right. So I'm very thankful for that.

01:40:32:06 - 01:40:36:05
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah. No super, super cool man. Yeah. That's awesome.

01:40:36:05 - 01:40:54:27
Kyle
I send professional recording equipment to every single guest to ensure that you get top tier audio and video quality, and those costs add up. Right now, the show is also completely ad free and I would love to keep it that way. So if you've been enjoying the Climbing Majority podcast, we'd like to help keep this podcast ad free and want to help me cover shipping costs.

01:40:55:01 - 01:41:12:21
Kyle
Consider joining our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. You can help support the show and you'll get access to exclusive episodes. You can find the link in our show notes or head to Patreon.com slash the climbing Majority podcast. That's Patreon.com slash the Climbing Majority podcast.

01:41:12:22 - 01:41:37:02
Kyle
So I think that this is, a question I guess I have is you and something you've been circling around is your passion for setting up first a sense to me is the the. The pursuit of an athlete, where the mentorship side is the pursuit of a teacher.

01:41:37:04 - 01:41:51:25
Kyle
It seems that you have these two paths. How have you managed both of them, in your life? Because I feel like, you know, you could definitely have leaned all into the athlete side and just gone after setting up, for sure.

01:41:51:27 - 01:42:12:09
Joshua Reinig
No, no, I like this. And it it's great because I this kept slipping in and out of like me talking and wanting to touch on that a bit. So as I mentioned to you guys, when we had our first little mock meeting, you know, I, I have this artistic background, you could say, like, I've never really consider myself an artist, but everybody else does.

01:42:12:12 - 01:42:37:09
Joshua Reinig
So I embrace it a lot more now than I did when I was younger. But for me, it was never, never an athletic pursuit at all. That was just a side byproduct of being so active in the mountains is it does put you in good shape and the trade off is that is important when it comes down to being able to perform and like perform and dance on, on a dime at a moment's notice, right?

01:42:37:09 - 01:43:03:10
Joshua Reinig
Whatever the case may be. To me, I was always good at certain aspects of of creativity. You could say. But the one thing I always admired the most and always was the worst at was any sort of performing arts. So always been way envious of musicians. It's I'm finally getting a little better at music, and I love music that just.

01:43:03:13 - 01:43:28:23
Joshua Reinig
Yeah, that never clicked for me. Drama, dance, humor. Okay. I was always a stagehand in drama class, so, when I discovered climbing, and I. And I appreciate and respect and recognize the athletic side of it, and just like we were talking about earlier, like, idolized a lot of my climbing heroes growing up because of the pursuits that they were they were fulfilling in their own right.

01:43:28:23 - 01:43:53:23
Joshua Reinig
And I always identify with that as being like, wow, they're this, like, amazing fit, like triathletes, like even beyond that type of conditioning. Right? And, which wasn't always the case with a lot of those individuals. That was just how I perceived it. So when I started getting into it, the first thing I fell in love with was the fact that I viewed it not as an athletic pursuit, that it was a performing arts.

01:43:53:25 - 01:44:33:05
Joshua Reinig
And you'll hear, you know, it's a moving meditation. For me, it was just like beautiful vertical dance that I got to do with no one around judging me. And everybody does it a little differently. All of our body styles are different. Our experience levels are different. To me, that was a very beautiful thing. And, you know, just to try to, like, cut my teeth and become more well-rounded with this, I was pursuing, I think, all the common classics that everybody does, and I think, you know, without veering too off track, one of my buddies who comes from more of a, a gaming generation, she has this beautiful analogy that it's like you

01:44:33:05 - 01:44:53:03
Joshua Reinig
can't start out climbing and you're at level one and expect to skip to level ten and defeat the boss, no matter how many cheat codes you have, and you have to go through it systematically. Right. And so I was doing that, and then, you know, got my first mentor and he has done thousands and thousands of essays.

01:44:53:03 - 01:45:12:12
Joshua Reinig
And I'm like, why do like just so many classics I did. Did you really do them all? And you're like, this is what I have to do. And he's like, no, you know, like, I love all of those classic bread and butter trade routes still. But you'll get to the point to, to find that same excitement that you had the very first time you ever tied in.

01:45:12:14 - 01:45:31:29
Joshua Reinig
You have to go into the unknown. And he's like, Josh, it's the purest adventure. It's not for everybody. And you may never even get this, but in that moment I'm like, no, that makes sense. I still don't get it though. I'm going to go climb this classic bowl five eight or whatever, right? And for the 20th time, I just make, you know, and each time it should get better and better.

01:45:31:29 - 01:45:55:05
Joshua Reinig
I'm basically just repeating the same level of defeating the the same boss a little more efficiently. Right. And then it got to the point to where, you know, and it comes back to the fear and risk mitigation a little bit. I had always made a very deep promise to myself to never climb hopeless. But I remember standing at a crag that I had guided these routes thousands of times now, and I still loved it to death.

01:45:55:05 - 01:46:15:12
Joshua Reinig
But it was becoming a little mundane. And I remember in that moment going like, this is what my buddy told me, in parallel with like, doing new routes was it's like, yeah, okay. To do the same route that I promised myself 15 years ago. I would never do rope bliss to get that same excitement. Yeah, it makes sense just to leave the rope on the ground.

01:46:15:12 - 01:46:38:15
Joshua Reinig
Right. And obviously I, I did do a decent amount of rope less climbing on moderates, just more for training. Then I than I care to admit. But then what happened was, in that process, I found that you could get the same experience. I guess you could say infinite. Like, tenfold, at least, if not infinite amount of times, developing new routes.

01:46:38:15 - 01:47:02:12
Joshua Reinig
And then I fell in love with the beauty of that creative process even more than then, like the vertical ballet that I described a minute ago, because now it was this blatant canvas that you had nothing to compare it to, and I got to paint whatever I wanted up that wall. And, or as I like to put it, like bring, bring that vision of that blank canvas to life to get a hopefully someday share.

01:47:02:14 - 01:47:21:12
Joshua Reinig
And in vertically with generations of climbers, I'll never know the same way I was inspired by doing said classic trade routes and being inspired by the history of what those guys were like, that what inspired them to want to be the first to do that? You know, and it is magic. And I don't say it's for everybody.

01:47:21:12 - 01:47:40:03
Joshua Reinig
I've taken a lot of people up new routes and they're like, yeah, fuck that. Or a lot of times, you know, like the common joke is it's like, well, death march for six hours to do a 30ft, see five, six. That's not all the time, especially with when you know where to look. That, that that can be par for the course, you know.

01:47:40:03 - 01:48:00:17
Joshua Reinig
And it is, it is, a lot of hard work. But it's it's extremely rewarding. And you never see anybody and, and it is the purest adventure, from a personal standpoint and getting to share that with others and see them go, to go through all those emotions and jubilation.

01:48:00:17 - 01:48:01:18
Kyle
Yeah, I think that I.

01:48:01:18 - 01:48:02:07
Joshua Reinig
See your.

01:48:02:07 - 01:48:34:20
Kyle
Your comparison to phase and soloing is a very interesting one. And it's cool that you kind of relate the high or the, the rewards physically in terms of the, the adventure and the exposure kind of being similar. But I think something you've already noted, and I think this is something to point out, is that soloing is completely selfish to its core, and the FAA is it has selfishness to it.

01:48:34:20 - 01:48:35:25
Kyle
But in the end.

01:48:35:25 - 01:48:56:21
Speaker 1
You're giving more to everyone else than you ever could give to yourself. And I think that's so beautiful, that you kind of linked the two and I think it it's almost like this, like light versus dark side, you know, it's like there's like, oh, it's like a different side of the coin. And it's really cool that you've kind of had that perspective on it.

01:48:56:24 - 01:49:02:22
Speaker 1
And it is. You definitely are. It's cool that you're able to get that same experience out of something that offers.

01:49:02:22 - 01:49:21:04
Speaker 2
You know, to, to throw some more. Yeah, to throw some more numbers out there and like, like stroke my ego a little bit more, which I like. Try not to do too much, obviously. I've done well over 2000 essays now, and a lot of them have been like up to great grade five, like some big, solid roots.

01:49:21:04 - 01:49:39:04
Speaker 2
But the most magical thing about all that is getting me feedback from people that are doing roots that you're like, wow, that's kind of obscure. I didn't know that way would gain momentum. But then even more so, what's happened is a lot of roots I've developed have become like very common trade routes for me and other guides to go guide now.

01:49:39:06 - 01:49:45:25
Speaker 2
And that was not really the intention when I was doing those. But now I do search that out a little bit more. Too bad you.

01:49:45:25 - 01:49:48:23
Speaker 1
Can't charge in this world.

01:49:48:26 - 01:49:57:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, purple tea. Yeah, yeah.

01:49:57:08 - 01:50:02:17
Speaker 3
I was that, like, designing a row with the of sort of being like, I'm good at guide this in the future.

01:50:02:17 - 01:50:04:10
Speaker 2
And then it's amazing.

01:50:04:10 - 01:50:07:06
Speaker 3
For me to take people out and do. Exactly. And it.

01:50:07:06 - 01:50:28:28
Speaker 2
Teaches. It teaches like everything that I would want to cover with them on said day out as far as what they're trying to get. Yeah. Right. So that's been pretty magic for sure from like a developmental standpoint. So that that has been my main pursuit, even like hard to balance that one with as far as like, do I do more guiding or do I do more essays?

01:50:29:00 - 01:50:47:28
Speaker 2
Since probably like 2010. Yeah. And I love it to death. Like, right now I have a bunch going. Kyle, you probably remember for my 40th birthday, I, which I'm 41 now, so, like, turning 40, especially for a dude, is kind of like a weird thing. I didn't think it was going to be until I happened.

01:50:48:00 - 01:51:03:01
Speaker 2
And I've always thought birthday challenges for climbing were, like, a bit cliche, but I'd help some friends with them. You know, it's like, oh, you're turning 33, let's go climb 33 pitches. Whatever. Never, never done anything like that. So for my 40th birthday, a lot of friends are like, do you should do something like that? Blah, blah.

01:51:03:02 - 01:51:19:27
Speaker 2
And I'm like, no, no, no. And then my son, my oldest son, who was a very, I mean, still climbs with me a decent amount, but he was a core climbing partner of mine for a long time. We did all we did. Even like my son when he was like 13, did some of my biggest phase with whatever.

01:51:19:29 - 01:51:40:01
Speaker 2
So when someday someone comes along and repeats some of those, it's it's interesting to think that, like, dad was taken as a young kid, that, that could be interpreted a lot of different ways. But, yeah, the birthday challenge. So that so my, my son is like, yeah. So, you dad, you should do 41st ascents in 40 days.

01:51:40:01 - 01:51:58:21
Speaker 2
Oh, and then like, I'm like, well, where did that come from? Where? Bouldering. When he comes up with this and I'm like. And my and like, my birthday was like a, a month and a half out. So I go home and I'm like, dude, this is the perfect opportunity to go do a lot of essays I've been wanting to do.

01:51:58:23 - 01:52:20:17
Speaker 2
I'll force myself to take like, solely focus on that. And then I came up with these rules where it's like they had to be in four different areas. It couldn't all be in the same area, and at least a quarter of them had to be up to grade four. And it was one of the most outlandish, like outer body things I ever did.

01:52:20:19 - 01:52:28:20
Speaker 2
But I did it. It was super rad. So, just another example of, like, having fun, like developing new routes, you know? Yeah. So,

01:52:28:22 - 01:52:35:25
Speaker 1
I'll bring up another question on PFAs. I'd like to talk about ethics. I think that and kind of like the idea of bio guarding.

01:52:35:25 - 01:52:38:16
Speaker 2
I mean, I'm pretty staunch in my ethics.

01:52:38:18 - 01:53:00:01
Speaker 1
Just like, just the thought process behind someone who's who's developing a crack, developing a root. At what point do you feel like it's appropriate to release to the public? If so at all? And what what are your kind of thoughts behind that whole process and turning something you've created basically from private public?

01:53:00:04 - 01:53:38:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay. I'll, I'll answer that and I'll dive a little deeper into that as well. Great. Okay. So, so obviously this sport has a lot of like very staunch ethics ingrained into it. And even as popular as it's getting, everybody still holds pretty true to them. And you do hear of and read about some shenanigans. And it usually comes down to developing new areas and people not agreeing with it and going like, nope, that's getting chopped, or wow, this guy's chipping and gluing a lot of different routes, in an area that that isn't acceptable, things of that nature.

01:53:38:00 - 01:54:06:03
Speaker 2
Right. Okay. Me personally, I was very against bolting for a very long time, and I like I've always been very strict with like the original ethics written up by Erle Robbins and essentially the white hats of the Golden Age. Right. And, you know, that's why we went to clean climbing and stopped hammering pitons. And you should never, as Robbins puts it, you should never take away from the rock to bring it to your level.

01:54:06:05 - 01:54:32:00
Speaker 2
Even if you can never rise to that occasion in your lifetime. That doesn't mean that a future generation won't, and you're immediately robbing them of ever having that pure adventure for themselves. Because you're being selfish, okay? And you want your glory. So my mindset has always been, and I, I am not proud to say this, but at this point I have placed probably over a thousand bolts.

01:54:32:00 - 01:55:11:02
Speaker 2
Okay. And I haven't done that many sport routes. A lot of them were more ground up, like kind of core to those ethics, like ground up drill and traditional routes where it's like, I'm going to get as much gear as I can. Well, this right now is not realistic. Like I need to place a bolt. Okay. But even with that, what I the way I would usually approach it and still do, and especially like I live close to a very popular sport area now that I think maybe a very small fraction of the overall, potential of the place has been bolted into a sport destination, it is acceptable there, and I do place

01:55:11:02 - 01:55:43:19
Speaker 2
a lot of bolts there. So even in that application I if I can, will access it from above, especially if it's 511 or harder and we work it into submission and we clean it and you know, and when I say we it is usually a collective process. So, you know, if you see any of my contributions, let's say Iron Mountain Project, which will segue into like one form of sharing it and when and why, I don't ever give me or any of my friends credit for doing the essay.

01:55:43:19 - 01:56:06:22
Speaker 2
It's kind of this generic crew. So it's like any climbing, you see that I've contributed it and it says the essay party was the Alpine Monkeys. That is me and whatever group of friends. Right. And that was another way to take the ego out of it. Or some climbs. It'd be a year. Process is what I'm getting through, and I would have a dozen different friends, even from the area or visiting.

01:56:06:24 - 01:56:31:24
Speaker 2
I'll check this out. Oh, no. That that. But we do a tick mark that's not in the right place. Okay, then I think about it for a year before I go back and actually put the bolts in. And in that year things will usually change where you're like, no, it needs another bolt or no. We could like ditch half of them that we, we usually were, we originally thought we needed, you know, and then obviously whenever you can place gear, it's like, I really don't like to put a bolt.

01:56:31:27 - 01:56:43:22
Speaker 2
And even if it's like, oh, it's a sport root and it's 13 clips, but there's one spot I can get a cam, I'll leave that. And if somebody is a sport climber, then they're just going to be forced to do a little bit more of a run out. You know,

01:56:43:24 - 01:57:01:05
Speaker 3
I think personally for personally for me, like, you know, maybe it's being like this like newer generation and stuff. I think it depends like, obviously if there's like a nice splitter granite crack that just needs gears, like someone's like for showing bolts into that. You're sitting there going like, okay, like why? But like a good example would be like guaranteed rugged.

01:57:01:05 - 01:57:10:22
Speaker 3
I don't know if you saw that post on, Mount Project and other things on Instagram. It's like it just got bolted. It's really close to your actually. And you see, it's like a 33 pitch round. Yeah.

01:57:10:25 - 01:57:15:23
Speaker 2
It's like they say it's the longest throw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so it's like this. That's a great example on.

01:57:15:23 - 01:57:16:23
Speaker 1
Real amazing.

01:57:16:23 - 01:57:18:22
Speaker 2
Example. And that's still like obviously.

01:57:18:22 - 01:57:42:10
Speaker 3
33 pitches is still full on. So but I think what it does is it like it gives the sport of climbing access to people who maybe wouldn't have got it done, some insane chalky alpine route, you know, now it's like they could maybe actually have this goal, like, hey, you know, this is a bolted route. It's still full on, it's still route finding loose rock, the whole nine yards and 33 pitches in a day is that's a that's a lot of climbing.

01:57:42:10 - 01:57:42:26
Speaker 3
You got to know you're.

01:57:42:27 - 01:57:44:15
Speaker 2
So big day and so on.

01:57:44:16 - 01:57:58:01
Speaker 3
At the very least that you have this entry right where you can get in and you can you can kind of do this. And so I'm, I'm a proponent personally of like when I, when I hear and see things like that, I'm like I'm like fuck yeah. That's untreated. Yeah. Stuff like that is so great. So yeah.

01:57:58:01 - 01:58:19:04
Speaker 2
So, so with that said, not everybody ever cares to get into trad climbing, right? It's like they're happy sport climbing. And that's amazing to be able to like up that ante for those individuals a little bit more obviously. Like what they're out you're talking about there's different rock types involved. And even if like maybe you get a piece of gear, that's just the ethos of the area.

01:58:19:04 - 01:58:37:22
Speaker 2
Whatever it is, it's like, yeah, turn it into a sport out, right? Yeah. Me personally, like I do that at sport areas, but like I said, it's more of a process that even they're out. You're just talking about guaranteed. That was not an easy affair. And it took those guys a long time and a lot of hard work and who knows how many partners.

01:58:37:24 - 01:58:57:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know if they wrapped in if they wrapped into it, they did it from the ground up. Probably a little bit of both. That's that they're not doing that on like a whim and like a week even like so. Absolutely right. No, no not yeah. At least not if they're doing it properly.

01:58:57:13 - 01:59:15:14
Speaker 2
So then, you know, I think, a big part of that and we'll come back to finishing answering some of your questions. Kyle goes back to what I was starting to mention earlier a while back is like for me, like, I, I guess I could consider myself this, like, staunch trad climber. I don't like to give it any label.

01:59:15:17 - 01:59:36:22
Speaker 2
For me, it's just all climbing and I love any forms of it. But as I saw, like, you know, you could say a big wall or a big wall alpine or just any big alpine objective being the pinnacle of it for me, all other pursuits that were under that were stepping stones that were all merely practice to get me to that pinnacle of it.

01:59:36:22 - 02:00:04:01
Speaker 2
All right. Originally, I never cared to climb big walls that scared the shit out of me. I was like, no, I could see that's a lot of suffering. I'm like, hell no. Ice climbing? Hell, no. I didn't like being cold. I worked on a ski resort for two years. I'm like, fuck. And it all came out of necessity that it's like, if you want to be well-rounded, to go do the the those big pinnacle objectives, you have to learn how to do it all and do it all safely and and competently.

02:00:04:01 - 02:00:27:05
Speaker 2
Right. And then that goes back into even developing new routes and recognizing what you're going to do, in what style and what application. And that will make the most sense for to help set up future generations for success and not make it like routes that we've done, which I love. We were like, man, that route is so bold.

02:00:27:05 - 02:00:35:22
Speaker 2
And those guys were so awesome that did this back in the day for why they did it and how they did it, but it's a death route. Like, who wants to repeat that?

02:00:35:22 - 02:00:36:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.

02:00:36:17 - 02:01:00:07
Speaker 2
And then there's a balance, you know, to be found there. And you go back and forth a little bit depending on the rock type, the areas, the history of the area, so on and so forth. But then, you know, as far as when it gets to the finished product. Product. Right. And, and like, you know, that is a huge part of the creative process is it's like, when is this actually ready?

02:01:00:10 - 02:01:15:28
Speaker 2
What are we going to name it? Right. What are we going to, what number do we want to give. Do it. How are we going to go about and share this to where it does inspire more people than turn them off to be like, yeah, I want to go do that right? Or even maybe not even in my lifetime.

02:01:15:28 - 02:01:42:27
Speaker 2
Like I said, so personally, the way I've always gone about it is that your process of whether it needs bolts or not and lap it as many times as you can, and like, for instance, the climb that you and I shared together, Kyle and Kyle got the second ascent of that. That is only been repeated a couple times now, but I didn't share it for probably two years after I had done it.

02:01:43:03 - 02:02:03:17
Speaker 2
You know, that was it took me nine sessions up that thing and then going and lapping it with a couple of friends, Kyle being one of them before I was like, well, that's as close as it's going to get to get a share. This one. Okay. Part of maybe keeping like LED like amazing hidden gems that you found secret to yourself.

02:02:03:20 - 02:02:23:28
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's cool. Maybe for a while, but eventually it's like like the word's going to get out and like you should if you're doing it for the right reason, you should be cognizant or recognize that it will get to the point where it's like, okay, I'm ready to move on, and I can. I do feel comfortable with sharing this with everybody now.

02:02:23:28 - 02:02:26:18
Speaker 1
And I think you should be happy about the share.

02:02:26:19 - 02:02:33:04
Speaker 2
You should be proud about it. Proud. And then especially, like I said, if you're doing this, if you're doing it for the right reasons, why wouldn't you be?

02:02:33:05 - 02:02:34:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.

02:02:34:18 - 02:02:53:23
Speaker 2
And, you know, you you it does give you tough skin. There are a lot of critics out there. And what I always come back to, and I think it it holds true to everything, not just in climbing that it's in your heart of hearts. You know, you're doing things for the right reason. Then what the fuck? Doesn't matter what what the naysayers say in the peanut gallery, right?

02:02:53:23 - 02:02:54:01
Speaker 2
Yeah.

02:02:54:01 - 02:02:57:00
Speaker 1
On on the project forums.

02:02:57:03 - 02:03:17:25
Speaker 2
I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean, I obviously like I'm very active on Mountain Project and yeah, I like, and unfortunately I have to go through and filter a lot of the nonsense, which I, it's nothing I ever like signed up for. But, yeah, I mean, a lot of it is just unnecessary negativity. And it's like, yeah, this doesn't need to be on there, you know?

02:03:17:27 - 02:03:20:25
Speaker 1
I mean, we could die to the rabbit hole for that, but I was we could.

02:03:20:25 - 02:03:49:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, right. We won't go there and sell. So, you know, so yeah, for me, it's like 1 to 2 years and lapping it as many times as possible, cleaning up as much as you can, making it as safe as possible more than anything. Right. And, and what's funny is like part of that process is like your essay on site mentality is versus when you get it dialed and cleaned originally, you're like, fuck, this is so hard.

02:03:49:09 - 02:04:04:21
Speaker 2
Oh my God, it's so out of my comfort zone. And then you rehearse it and a bunch of friends do it and you're like, yeah, it's actually like way easier. But then but then you have to be careful there because then you're like, yeah, okay, this is the onsite essay rating versus this is what the general consensus is.

02:04:04:23 - 02:04:24:11
Speaker 2
And then everybody now is like, dude, Josh, you're the worst sand bagger imaginable. And I'm like, no man like you. Hey, you guys are all soft. And this is the process. So like, this wasn't just me that came up with this number, you know, like, if anything, I agree. And then. Yeah, we sometimes take it a step further depending on the area where it's like, okay, we all agree.

02:04:24:13 - 02:04:38:25
Speaker 2
Let's say this is 510 plus and we'll call it five today. Right. But then people will catch on immediately. It's like, well all this guys, five, ten A's are all 510 pluses. And I'll even I don't even hint around about that. But that's that's a whole another story as far.

02:04:38:25 - 02:04:43:29
Speaker 1
So why why why do you approach it that like that. Why do you set them harder than than they technically are?

02:04:44:00 - 02:05:06:11
Speaker 2
Because that's just always been part of the history of, of developing roots and and inflation versus sandbagging is is both of them. You could interpret is like that's feeding into your ego. But what are the worst of the two evils I guess say yeah. Like I'd rather be like, no, this is this is weak and soft. And someone come along and go.

02:05:06:11 - 02:05:24:15
Speaker 2
It's weaker and softer then someone come along and be like, no, there's like the or or I guess what I'm getting at is come along and be like, no, it's a little harder versus come along and be like, dude, this is way easier than you're saying it is. And like, now you just you're feather bagging everything, right? Yeah.

02:05:24:17 - 02:05:54:06
Speaker 2
And people I think, you know, as the sport progresses and it's like you hear it with like the traditional places like, oh, that's that place is so sandbagged. It's like, no, that's accurate everywhere. You're, you're getting used to climbing, in particular in a gym that is all tremendously soft. And, and then there's a whole history lesson as to like some of those old roots are a little sandbagged, but that that wasn't intentional by any means, you know, versus.

02:05:54:06 - 02:05:54:10
Speaker 2
Yeah.

02:05:54:12 - 02:06:13:21
Speaker 3
Alternately, at the end of the day, like grading subjective, you know, you should go I've climbed it at ten a I can call this ten a yeah, maybe this ten A is the worst stylistically for you ever. And I know and it's also like root finding and it's totally sustained. And instead of beating the average 20 meter pitch it's like 70m.

02:06:13:23 - 02:06:18:09
Speaker 3
You know, it's like taking taking that that subjectivity is that.

02:06:18:12 - 02:06:43:06
Speaker 2
Historically it is so subjective. And that's why I like I don't even like applying numbers. It's well, I will intentionally be a little more generic about it. And then it's like, yeah, you know, people can can drop all the comments they want and all agree differently. Yeah, that, that really like historically, it's like when guys started developing roots after the woods was developed, they all based it off of the first five nine in the open book.

02:06:43:09 - 02:07:05:01
Speaker 2
Right. That that was them basing off of them doing it so hard. Five nine it is, you know, and they'd grown a lot as a climber in two years thinking back to like, is this route we just did easier or harder than the open book? Well, obviously they'd gotten way better, especially in their mind's eye as to how they remember how scary and hard the open Book was when they did it two years prior.

02:07:05:03 - 02:07:24:15
Speaker 2
And they're still like, well, no, it's not. It's not as proud as that five nine, when in fact they're like jumping into like 510 lessons, you know? And then there's a little back and forth with that, with a lot of those classic areas. And then also the, the argument to where it's like, no, like climbers, we've gotten as hard as we can.

02:07:24:15 - 02:07:46:18
Speaker 2
Climbing will never go beyond that. So forever the plateau was 512 D, although there was a lot of 513 being developed and harder. And and those are all sandbagged. 513 right. Like and everyone's calling them 512 D's just because they're like, no, that's as hard as it will ever get. It'll never get any harder, you know? And then that would go on for a five year period until someone's finally like, no, you know what?

02:07:46:18 - 02:07:53:26
Speaker 2
This is way harder. Like, okay, it's gotta go up a letter grade, right? Yeah. And then that's where you see inflation come into place, right?

02:07:53:26 - 02:08:01:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's like you're saying I didn't really think about the evolution of the grades themselves and how they manifested it into the ratings themselves as these routes were being.

02:08:01:10 - 02:08:21:10
Speaker 2
Established, for sure. And then to take it a step further, there's an evolution of the the life of a route and how it can go from the FAA rating, as I described, to what everybody generally agrees happens to where now it becomes sandbagged. And the reason being is, yeah, the the essay on sight is always going to feel the hardest.

02:08:21:13 - 02:08:39:09
Speaker 2
But then the route goes to this evolution where it sees all this traffic, everything's cleaned up and everybody's like, this is beautiful. Everything's there. We all agree it's like this. But then holes will start breaking. Everything starts to get polished, even though gear's getting better and then everyone's like, no, this is way harder than what everybody agreed.

02:08:39:12 - 02:09:01:07
Speaker 1
Cool. Yeah. The last one is, I feel like we we should close with is just, to give you a chance to talk about your your, climbing ranch and the ranch. You a little bit about. Yeah, a little bit about how that came about and kind of what your vision for it is in the future and how people, our audience, especially can can help engage, with what you've got going on.

02:09:01:10 - 02:09:23:10
Speaker 2
You know, I think part of the theme that's developed over this conversation is expressing like, yeah, genuinely how much I do. I am very passionate about getting to share all of this. And then, you know, through the years fighting those different stages and mediums to in which to get to share this on, so on and off the rock.

02:09:23:14 - 02:09:53:04
Speaker 2
So, you know, we mentioned guiding, and you know, the although the original one of the original motivations for getting into that was I still don't want to do surfboards anymore. And I love being in the outdoors, and I would make any sacrifice I could possibly think of to make that happen. It was more that all of those experience, that experiences that always meant so much to me wouldn't have if it wasn't for the people I got to share them with.

02:09:53:04 - 02:10:27:02
Speaker 2
Right? So that's like, what is it look like to do that to a greater capacity? And one of which is guiding? Okay. Working at a gear shop, as you mentioned, Kyle, like that was something like I did early on to help balance college life, but then fell in love with it. I'm like, man, like even before I got to the point that I am now, like, I sold about, well, hundreds of pairs of climbing shoes and hundreds of racks and trying to inspire people, even at that early level, just by working, at a retail front, slinging gear.

02:10:27:02 - 02:10:56:10
Speaker 2
Right. And now in shops in Southern California are really a thing. So I felt pretty fortunate to be at this, like unique time and place and getting to do that. Developing new roots, helping contribute to those roots in the guidebooks and, you know, I'm one of the top all time contributors on Mountain Project now, I work at a gear shop again, which is like the my perfect dream of what a mountain shop should be like.

02:10:56:10 - 02:11:16:19
Speaker 2
I finally found it, and it's the third mountain shop I worked at. And then for three years I was a technical advisor for Petzel and for Scarpa. So that was like an amazing stage to be on. And like, man, your audience was so broad. I was like, wow, this is a dream come true. And those companies take such good care of their employees.

02:11:16:25 - 02:11:47:18
Speaker 2
So I was on a five year contract for them. And when Covid started, they did not renew my contract, which it's okay because it led me down the path that I was initially going down. And so what had happened with that to to give to paint a little bit more of a picture for the folks out there is, you know, I, I was guiding a lot further and further away from the family and it was very hard to be away from them, you know, sometimes like three weeks to a month at a time.

02:11:47:20 - 02:12:02:15
Speaker 2
And I'd come back and I'd be like, man, they put me up in a, an Airbnb, like, you guys could have all gone with me or. Yeah, I was going into the backcountry 2 or 3 times, but coming up to this trailhead where I had this amazing base camp, like, I know you guys didn't want to hang out for a month.

02:12:02:15 - 02:12:20:02
Speaker 2
They're waiting for me to come out periodically in a tent. But if we had like a little small travel trailer, that'd be cool. My wife's like, yeah, but that doesn't really fit into our our balance right now. And then I'm like, well, what if we just got rid of everything? Like, our kids are young enough? Like we could go on the road and do that.

02:12:20:07 - 02:12:38:09
Speaker 2
Maybe one of us could start working remotely to help there. And and my wife's like, no, you're high. Like, what a pipe dream. And I'm like, no, it'd be cool to like, you can't argue, you know? And sure enough, after about a year of, like, thinking about that more and more seriously, we did commit and we sold.

02:12:38:11 - 02:12:59:25
Speaker 2
We, you know, we were, in a sense, living. What I would like to call this very false American dream, where we had a nice house in San Diego County and we had two cars and pets, and everything seemed perfect. But it sucked sitting in traffic and being away from the family. And, I just wanted to be closer to the mountains.

02:12:59:27 - 02:13:24:23
Speaker 2
And so my wife was in agreeance. Finally, and it took us a year to sell everything we had, get rid of our two cars. And unfortunately, I have to upgrade to a truck that would pull said trailer. And we bought a little 20ft travel trailer. And so that that kind of like five year pipe dream almost actually manifested itself as a reality within like 2 or 3 years.

02:13:24:25 - 02:13:48:09
Speaker 2
That part of why I, why that became more realistic was I got this gig with Petzel and Scarpa on top of being able to guide. So I was like, oh, and I'll, you know, there's since I had 300 accounts on the West Coast, I'd have to travel to each of them once a year. But then there was five climbing festivals that I would go to once a year, and that was extremely fun.

02:13:48:09 - 02:14:14:02
Speaker 2
And I mean, like I said, the the stage to get to share all of this and those venues was was magical and, made a lot of good friends. Obviously, the networking is amazing. Part of the way I'd gotten into that, it literally like kind of fell into it was I have just been in this industry so long and made so many connections that, there was just like this small window for opportunity, and my buddy's like, dude, it's yours if you want it.

02:14:14:02 - 02:14:38:09
Speaker 2
I'm like, you'd be insane if you said no to that. Especially in my my circumstance is at the time, right. And so we traveled for about three years. And a big part of what started to happen through that process was this, like long term pipe dream I had, which would be to someday own a guide service, and get a share to that extent.

02:14:38:15 - 02:14:59:25
Speaker 2
That'd that'd manifested itself through a really close friend of mine with, like, almost the business model I had envisioned to the tee. And so that's the main guided service that I represent now, which is Golden State Guiding. Hi, Ryan. And so, so that was covered. So I'm like, well, what's the next obvious step? And I'm like, man, these climbing festivals are rad.

02:14:59:25 - 02:15:22:04
Speaker 2
Like, you know, what would it look like to be able to put this on? So I become really close with, Paul Fish, who is the owner of a very famous mountain shop in Spokane, and he is the one who has always put on the Red Rocks Rendezvous. And then without getting too much into it, it's very interesting.

02:15:22:07 - 02:15:41:05
Speaker 2
The Red Rocks Rendezvous spawned out of the longest standing climbing festival in the US that was called the Phoenix Bouldering Comp, even though it wasn't held in Phoenix by this legendary Joshua Tree couple. And I was like, wow, like, what a cool concept. And they just did it purely out of the love of getting to share and bring the community together.

02:15:41:10 - 02:16:07:03
Speaker 2
And we know, like what climbing festivals have turned into, especially with like the Ax Crag and classics like they do a really good job and so, you know, we're exploring all these mountainous regions and I'm kind of thinking of that. And part of it was maybe in hopes, to find some other mountains that I could fall in love with more than the Sierras, which is where I currently live.

02:16:07:05 - 02:16:32:03
Speaker 2
There are some spectacular mountains throughout North America. They're all really unique in their own way. They all have their own personality and characteristics. But I kept coming back here and, especially from a guide standpoint, like it's it's, a great position to be in here right now. And, you know, but property is cheaper elsewhere, like, it's expensive to live in California.

02:16:32:06 - 02:17:01:03
Speaker 2
And we were saving a lot of money being on the road that I couldn't see, like being able to really ever afford property in California. And so we're starting to look at some of these other mountainous regions, and then we're like, yeah, you know, like, okay, like a five year pipe dream from there turned into like, let's settle down, we have money saved and try to start, climbing ranch, which is essentially a private campground that is like climber centric.

02:17:01:03 - 02:17:28:08
Speaker 2
Right? There have been some very successful climbing ranches, the most historic one in. And that is still in existence in the US is the Teton Climbing Ranch. And that was essentially inherited by the park many years ago. And they do a pretty good job. But it's, it's somewhat private. You could say it's not really, but it's it's a totally different business model than like what we had come up with.

02:17:28:08 - 02:17:48:24
Speaker 2
Right? So the business model that we came up with, which I'm not going to bore you with too much. It didn't work in every mountainous region. It worked in a few places. So like Todd Gordon, who I'm pretty close with, my cousin, who's the only other climber in my family, live with Todd for 18 years and developed a bunch of roots in Joshua Tree.

02:17:48:29 - 02:18:13:00
Speaker 2
So Todd did something pretty similar with what we're trying to do here in Joshua Tree, but he's always kind of kept it on the DL, and now it's like it's not even the Gordon Climbing Ranch really anymore. He might, he might, he would word that differently than I am. But in a nutshell, you know, there's, the Waco Rock ranch is pretty successful.

02:18:13:02 - 02:18:34:10
Speaker 2
Obviously, everybody knows of moguls in the Red. And none of those, though, are quite as old as obviously, the Teton Climbing ranch. And then there have been several that have come and then just fallen to the wayside. But then international, they are getting a lot of momentum. So like one they're that comes to mind. That's been really popular for a while now is this German couple started one.

02:18:34:10 - 02:18:58:14
Speaker 2
I have a hard time remembering the name, but it's in Laos, so it's a really popular destination if you're in Thailand to skip over to their jungle retreat and have full amenities and get it, climb your brains out. And if you're traveling, they have gear for you to use. You can hire them as a guide service. So I'm like, yeah, you know, from a sharing standpoint on a grand scale.

02:18:58:17 - 02:19:20:01
Speaker 2
To me, that was kind of the pinnacle of all of this. And it's something that like, I personally like as far as some shortcomings I talked about, as I evolve through all of this and, and and it all worked out, that's, that was like the least likely thing I would have ever dreamed of having kind of come to life.

02:19:20:04 - 02:19:44:06
Speaker 2
Even though it's something that we've been working towards, you know, given the timeline I just laid out. And so, when we finally, you know, our business model where it worked. Brilliant. Was in this valley, right? Rocks. It would work. Amazing. And in Joshua Tree, but I really wanted to do it here because we're only two hours from Joshua Tree.

02:19:44:08 - 02:20:11:00
Speaker 2
Two hours do red rocks in two hours to Yosemite. I'm like, this is more centralized. The numbers all made sense as far as, like, it's a very tourist based economy here, and it attracts millions of tourists a year. And then not only that, it didn't happen immediately. When we committed to doing it here, but they just came up with a lot of new rules and regulations, that limit a lot of the public camping that is always drawn climbers, especially to this valley.

02:20:11:02 - 02:20:37:15
Speaker 2
So set us up perfectly. And, we start looking into it. It's kind of interesting little history lesson with this valley, that L.A. owns 98% of it. Right. So if you're familiar with the stretch of the 395 up the Owens Valley, it's a lot of open public land. There's national forest, there's BLM, but then there's all this vastness that's empty, and it kind of looks like it's ranches.

02:20:37:18 - 02:21:00:14
Speaker 2
That is all led up. And it is, tough story to share as to why they own all of this, all of this land. But with that said, so there's 2% that's privately owned. And then out of that 2%, none of it is open raw land, let alone that you have water rights because L.A. owns it all.

02:21:00:16 - 02:21:19:19
Speaker 2
And then let alone that it's open zoning to be able to have said business. So I'm like, man, even though this place makes the most sense for our business model, things weren't looking good when we started first really looking, and we had the money to throw down. So we're kind of like thinking Joshua Tree or Red rocks.

02:21:19:21 - 02:21:38:05
Speaker 2
And Bishop was like where I really wanted to do it, and that was definitely not on the table. And then like, kind of, you know, it wasn't that we had given up on this valley. We're like, something will come up, you know, and we're talking to we have like one main realtor in particular who's keeping our feelers out, but everyone's telling us like, there's no way.

02:21:38:07 - 02:22:03:19
Speaker 2
And so very coincidentally and, you know, as far as, like, maybe more affirmation as to, like, believing in the universe, manifesting itself in ways you would never imagine. We randomly, you know, learn of this pioneer symmetry. I'd never known about growing up here because that is where the very first, it's two brothers and their best friend. They're the very first ones to ever summit Whitney.

02:22:03:19 - 02:22:18:19
Speaker 2
And it was kind of this interesting race by all the geologists trying to be the first ones to the top, and they were all over shooting it and summiting maybe nearby peaks. And these three locals were kind of like, oh, these damn geologists that like, should know what they're doing. And they go and they're the first ones to summit.

02:22:18:22 - 02:22:41:19
Speaker 2
So I find out they're buried in this, in this pioneer cemetery, and we go and visit it. And it's this beautiful surrounded by this, riparian and rehabilitation area to where they're trying to bring it back to the original state that that it look like what grasslands 100 years ago. And me and my wife and kids are like, yeah, this cemetery is a little creepy and old, but this is neat history.

02:22:41:19 - 02:23:05:25
Speaker 2
And like, why can't we find a piece of property like, this would be perfect? I mean, even if we could, like, it's not going to be open zoning, and we want to have water rights. The water rights is a different thing, but the open zoning was a big thing. And that night, my wife gets an email for this property that had been listed for a few months now, but even I really didn't know about it, and it was literally the property.

02:23:05:25 - 02:23:29:21
Speaker 2
We had just been talking about that earlier in the day off of this cemetery, and we put an offer in on it the next day and got it. And so what our envision here is we have just under 13 acres, more or less right on the Illinois River. I from the get go, I'm like, this is the best view I've ever seen in this valley.

02:23:29:21 - 02:23:49:10
Speaker 2
From being on the valley floor. And, like, maybe that's a little biased, but everybody that comes is like, do you. This is the the most unique view. And it is it is of like our property. It has very unique energy. And there's some other historical things I could go on about as to why it probably has such unique energy.

02:23:49:12 - 02:24:13:18
Speaker 2
That. Yeah. So, you know, we, we, we got our business license, did all of that. We're in the process of having the name trademarked, which is the Mount Whitney Climbing Ranch. We put some really tight, let me rephrase that. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we first got the property, that was like, hey, okay, like all these marketing pushes before we're even open.

02:24:13:22 - 02:24:39:07
Speaker 2
But to build up interest and momentum and then we'll, we'll do a soft launch in a year, we should be up to par with, like, working with the planning department and all of the phasing out of the project, within a year. And that was the end of 2019. And then Covid happened. And so we had a decent amount of yeah, we had a decent amount of savings.

02:24:39:09 - 02:24:56:02
Speaker 2
You know, to be able to put into the business and have it open in a year. But we spent like, I didn't have work for a year and other than my wife, obviously, like I mentioned, I was my contract with Petzel and Scarpa was not renewed. And it was like, okay, well, it's kind of a blessing in disguise.

02:24:56:02 - 02:25:16:16
Speaker 2
Like we want it to happen more organically and not force it. And we had to survive off of that, that, that cushion for a year. And now we're kind of back to scratch. So the neat thing is, I mean, I got an amazing deal on the property and a lot of that had to do with being very honest with the sellers as to what we're trying to do.

02:25:16:16 - 02:25:36:11
Speaker 2
And they're an older family from this valley, and they loved it. And they cut the price way down and they're like, it's yours, and it's on a five year loan. So we were like halfway through, having it paid off. So the idea right now, without getting it into the nitty gritty too much, is I'll be able to pull out a significant development alone.

02:25:36:13 - 02:25:56:05
Speaker 2
I could do it now, but I'm kind of trying to, like I said, let it happen a little more organically. And when I don't have my current overhead in place, because I'll have that paid off in some other things and be able to dump it all into the business then, and have what I would like to think is a very unique, very.

02:25:56:07 - 02:26:24:22
Speaker 2
Friendly, positive family from friendly atmosphere for climbers. The state if they're passing through really all outdoor user groups. Right. And there are 12 that use this immediate area pretty heavily and they don't all overlap. So that that's some interesting dynamics. But we've gotten, you know, pretty much I would say the general consensus of the immediate climbing community has met the whole process with more open arms.

02:26:24:22 - 02:26:46:11
Speaker 2
And I would have ever imagined, or at least what I would have hoped for, you know, and, we are currently, like, unofficially opened. So it's kind of dry camping right now, and we're letting friends and family come stay here whenever they want. And we have started to do our own climbing festival. So we did one last year that was really small.

02:26:46:13 - 02:27:05:10
Speaker 2
We're doing a much bigger one in the fall time, and we call that bam. It is. And it's neat this year because we will have like a vendor village and I have like basically name a vendor or company in the outdoor industry. They're all coming to help support it. Our guide service has always had a beer sponsor.

02:27:05:12 - 02:27:48:06
Speaker 2
So it is currently Pure Brewing, which is one of the only carbon neutral breweries, microbreweries in North America. And so they're going to supply all the beer as they do for all of us guides. It's kind of neat to have a beer sponsor, especially, a very ethical oriented beer sponsor and, you know, as far as, like, we more than all of that, like, what we're trying to show is that there is this alternative lifestyle that everyone can live in our day and age that is way simpler and way more and minimalistic, and we don't have the carbon imprint mess to clean up that.

02:27:48:06 - 02:28:10:10
Speaker 2
All of the generations, like my parents generation, I'll say in particular, have left us with, it has become very hard. We are one of the only properties, even in the continental US, let alone like California is really strict that you cannot live off the grid. So they've made it hard for people even to want to live a simpler, cleaner lifestyle, right?

02:28:10:15 - 02:28:34:17
Speaker 2
That we've based all of our business model off of that. And to show that it's possible and not only from this grand of a standpoint, I would say, but the fact that, like, I did it with my family in a trailer for four years, right. And and it was it was pure bliss. Like my kids did not know people lived in houses and did not walk daily in the mountains and go take a river bath until we settled down.

02:28:34:19 - 02:28:57:16
Speaker 2
And I was like, wow, how unique, you know? And, they, they, they're extremely up here from that, being exposed to that at such a young age. What twice is Huckleberry Finn as I ever was? Even, you know, and, so then, yeah, you know, we think that it's important to stress that with the community, but like, from the guide service standpoint, it's the same thing.

02:28:57:19 - 02:29:18:20
Speaker 2
You know, we're 1% from the planet. We try to offset everything we do as much as possible because we think that's super important to keep our wild places wild or as it would say it in Hawaii, keep the country country. Right. So I'll end it on that rant. I hope that I hope that answered your question.

02:29:18:22 - 02:29:22:22
Speaker 1
You did, perfect. It was, well, well executed description.

02:29:22:22 - 02:29:27:19
Speaker 3
I think that's a that's a perfect place to, to capture, you know, and, and, and.

02:29:27:19 - 02:29:28:02
Speaker 2
It there you.

02:29:28:03 - 02:29:49:06
Speaker 3
Circle in this conversation and stuff and, but yeah, I, I just think in general like Josh, like between, you know, your versus sans being so open your mentorship, sharing your stories, your climbing ranch, your, you know, your environmental ethics. I just wanna say, like, I think what you're doing is awesome. You know, thanks so much for coming on the show, taking the time to come talk to us.

02:29:49:09 - 02:29:54:16
Speaker 3
I really mean it. I'd love to share rope with you anywhere in Canada when you can. Yeah. Please don't hesitate to reach out.

02:29:54:19 - 02:29:59:07
Speaker 2
And then it would be cool for all three of us to hang out sometime. For sure, man. Yeah, yeah.

02:29:59:07 - 02:30:07:24
Speaker 3
So do you want to just, do you want to just repeat the name of the ranch and how people can, like, if they are interested in, you know, can you up or contacting you?

02:30:07:25 - 02:30:26:19
Speaker 2
Oh, no. You know, well, those three traits and, you know, I've obviously, helped try to promote you guys as much as possible as well as I have already been doing. So it is the Mount Whitney climbing Ranch. You can visit our website. It gives a little more detail as to what I was just explaining on there.

02:30:26:21 - 02:30:48:04
Speaker 2
And then we also have an Instagram. I'm not I'm guilty of of not maybe being more, having more of a presence on social media. I do feel it is a necessary evil. I don't love social media, but I don't hate it. And I have finally come to terms. And it is another beautiful way to get to share a lot of this.

02:30:48:06 - 02:30:58:06
Speaker 2
And so the ranch is page it, you know, it's fun. It's nothing serious. It's a reflection, I think, of our lifestyle really. And.

02:30:58:06 - 02:31:00:18
Speaker 3
Is that the Mount Whitney sliding Ranch on Instagram?

02:31:00:21 - 02:31:01:23
Speaker 2
Yes, yes.

02:31:01:26 - 02:31:05:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. That's what it is. Mount Wendy, quite a ranch on Instagram.

02:31:05:11 - 02:31:06:13
Speaker 2
Awesome. Exactly. Yeah.

02:31:06:13 - 02:31:10:04
Speaker 3
No, I'll go give you guys a follow up and check that out for sure.

02:31:10:06 - 02:31:32:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. No. Thank you guys so much for having me. And, you know, I have a lot more to share. And as I mentioned to you before, which we did not talk about this, this episode is I love storytelling. I think it is, very underappreciated, lost art. And, I, I have a lot of really fun stories that I love to share with you guys further.

02:31:32:19 - 02:31:37:22
Speaker 2
So, Josh, if you like this medium, Ryan. Several stuff. Yeah, yeah.

02:31:37:24 - 02:31:38:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. Cool.

02:31:38:22 - 02:31:49:28
Speaker 2
Hopefully that's good. Yeah, I don't know. Hopefully you guys get good feedback and you're not like, nope. Everybody hated that. Like you can't be back on it.

02:31:50:00 - 02:31:55:10
Speaker 1
No I mean this will this will be our longest one. So we'll see what the people say about it. Well.

02:31:55:12 - 02:31:56:17
Speaker 2
I only and.

02:31:56:17 - 02:32:06:14
Speaker 3
I think that's part of the thing about like this community. Right. It's like. Yeah. Like this is this is exactly there's so many people who share our ideals and visions and the way we think. So yeah. No.

02:32:06:14 - 02:32:25:22
Speaker 2
And I think if it's like like the three of us, it's like I cannot consume enough of, like, everything I can get my hands on in regards to like, any of this stuff. Right? So it's listening to podcasts, all the books I can read, all the YouTube videos I can watch. I mean, Kyle's done an amazing job with his YouTube videos, which has been awesome to watch that evolution.

02:32:25:22 - 02:32:33:26
Speaker 2
And I'm I'm excited to see where you guys go with all of this. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I will say Namaste. Yeah.

02:32:33:29 - 02:32:35:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah to you as well.

02:32:35:10 - 02:32:41:29
Speaker 2
And to you. Yeah. We'll be in touch. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I know you guys have a great evening. And, talk to you soon, okay.

02:32:44:06 - 02:33:03:04
Speaker 1
That's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and revisiting this conversation with Joshua Reineke. Don't forget to grab your copy of the Alabama Hills Guidebook, and please consider donating to Josh's GoFundMe campaign. You can find links to both in the show notes. If you enjoyed today's conversation, it would mean a lot to me if you gave us five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

02:33:03:06 - 02:33:18:14
Speaker 1
Stay tuned for our next episode, where we go behind the scenes of climbing print publications and explore America's original climbing magazine, The Summit Journal. Until then, have fun. Climb safe and celebrate every day. See you in two weeks.