107 | Unpacking The Life of A Legend w/ Randy Leavitt

Randy Leavitt.

As a climber who grew up in Southern California, I’ve been hearing this name since the very beginning of my climbing career. Collaborative inventor of the wide-crack climbing technique so aptly named “Leavittation,” developer of thousands of routes — with around a dozen graded 5.14 or harder, including Jumbo Love at Clark Mountain, the first 5.15 in the United States — and long-time athlete manager for Maxim Ropes… Randy’s name has carried serious weight and inspiration for decades. A climbing legend if there ever was one.

I actually remember listening to his episode on The Enormocast way back in 2012, when I was just getting started as a climber. So to now be sitting down with Randy in person, over thirteen years later, felt surreal. While Randy is best known for his achievements in the sport climbing world, the life behind the headlines tells a much broader story — one built on creativity, discipline, and a blue-collar work ethic. He found climbing young and quickly cut his teeth in Yosemite, climbing The Leaning Tower at age sixteen, The Zodiac and The Ephemeral Tis-sa-ack at seventeen, The Pacific Ocean Wall at 18, AND the first person ever to climb up — and then BASE jump off — El Capitan at just twenty. Back then, all of this was part of his bigger vision: to become a high-altitude mountaineer. But as he would discover throughout his life, his passion for business and financial independence remained just as strong, ultimately leading him toward a more balanced existence where climbing fit into a much larger picture.

In our conversation, we explore Randy’s 1986 expedition to the Karakoram — including summit pushes on Gasherbrum IV and The Nameless Tower. We revisit his gripping ascent of The Stratosfear in the Black Canyon; we talk about the origins of his business, the freedom it’s given him, and his philosophy on route development, mentorship, and legacy. We also touch on a recent development in his health that has made climbing too painful to pursue — and how he’s learning to navigate that new reality. Later, we take a deep dive into the climbing industry itself: how it really works, how athletes are chosen, and what brand support actually looks like. And finally, we reflect on how climbing culture has evolved over the decades — and why Randy believes the rise of climbing gyms has changed the sport more than anything else in history.

Randy actually flew himself from San Diego to Las Vegas to do this interview in person, right here in my home studio. If you want to watch our full conversation, head over to YouTube. I pour a lot of time and resources into providing you the most professional video and audio quality possible — so if you’ve been enjoying the show, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, even if you don’t usually watch podcasts there. We’re getting closer to our goal of 1,000 subscribers, and every bit helps.

Watch The Climbing Majority on Youtube

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Resources

Randy's IG

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:28 Chit Chat
• 7:19 High Altitude Mountaineering
• 28:11 Stratosfear
• 46:34 Business First
• 1:27:24 Route Development
• 1:37:53 Aging As A Climber
• 1:53:29 Inside The Climbing Industry
• 2:15:47 Evolution Of Climbing Culture
• 2:26:10 A Life Without Kids

Transcript

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

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

00:00:16:12 - 00:00:46:29
Kyle
Randy Lovett as a climber who grew up in Southern California. I've been hearing this name since the very beginning of my climbing career. Collaborative inventor of the wide crack climbing technique so aptly named levitation. Developer of thousands of routes with around a dozen graded five, 14 or harder, including Jumbo Love at Clark Mountain. The first 515 in the United States and long time athlete manager for Maxim ropes.

00:00:47:03 - 00:01:13:16
Kyle
Randy's name has carried serious weight and inspiration for decades. A climbing legend, if there ever was one. I actually remember listening to his episode on the enormous cast way back in 2012, when I was just starting as a climber. So to now be sitting down with Randy in person over 13 years later felt surreal. While Randy is best known for his achievements in the sport climbing world, the life behind the headlines tells a much broader story.

00:01:13:19 - 00:01:42:20
Kyle
One built on creativity, discipline and blue collar work ethic, he found climbing young and quickly cut his teeth in Yosemite, climbing the Leaning Tower at age 16, the zodiac and the ephemeral tussock at 17, the Pacific Ocean wall at 18, and the first person ever to climb up and then base jump off El Capitan at just 20. Back then, all of this was part of a bigger vision to become a high altitude mountaineer.

00:01:42:23 - 00:02:08:19
Kyle
But as he would discover throughout his life, his passion for business and financial independence remained just as strong, ultimately leading him towards a more balanced existence or climbing fit into a much larger picture. In our conversation, we explore Randy's 1986 expedition to the Cairngorms, including summit pushes on broom four and the Nameless Tower. We revisit his gripping ascent of the stratosphere in the Black Canyon.

00:02:08:21 - 00:02:32:04
Kyle
We talk about the origins of his business, the freedom it's given him, and his philosophy on route development, mentorship and legacy. We also touch on a recent development in his health that has made climbing too painful to pursue, and how he's learning to navigate that new reality. Later, we take a deep dive into the climbing industry itself, how it really works, how athletes are chosen and what brand support actually looks like.

00:02:32:07 - 00:02:52:15
Kyle
And finally, we reflect on how climbing culture has evolved over the decades and why Randy believes that the rise of climbing gyms has changed the sport more than anything else in history. Randy actually flew himself from San Diego to Las Vegas to do this interview in person, right here in my home studio. If you want to watch our full conversation, head over to YouTube.

00:02:52:18 - 00:03:10:24
Kyle
I pour a lot of time and resources into providing you the most professional video and audio quality possible. So if you've been enjoying the show, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Even if you don't usually watch podcasts there. We're getting closer to our goal of a thousand subscribers and every bit helps. You can find the link in our show notes.

00:03:10:27 - 00:03:16:00
Kyle
So without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Randy Levitt.

00:03:28:20 - 00:03:33:12
Kyle
I'm excited this is happening. It's been quite a long time trying to put this together.

00:03:34:16 - 00:03:40:14
Kyle
I appreciate you. Sit down with me. Yeah. Yes. It has been like, six years since you've been here.

00:03:40:17 - 00:03:48:20
Kyle
Yeah.

00:03:52:06 - 00:03:58:26
Kyle
That's fair. Yeah. You were like, we're trying to schedule this and you're like, just give me two days. Two days. Two days notice. I'm like.

00:03:58:29 - 00:03:59:11
Kyle
Okay.

00:03:59:11 - 00:04:08:02
Kyle
There was like let's be like a retiring thing. You know, two days notice. I'm like, okay, we'll see if we can make it work.

00:04:09:13 - 00:04:16:21
Kyle
Got it. Yeah. Did you. How did that end up working out that the waves, end up coming or did you. Oh, wow. Then you're still.

00:04:16:21 - 00:04:19:23
Kyle
Here? Yeah.

00:04:19:23 - 00:04:21:06
Kyle
Well, I appreciate.

00:04:21:08 - 00:04:25:01
Kyle
Cool. Well. That's awesome. For sure. Yeah.

00:04:25:02 - 00:04:34:23
Kyle
Where, when did you kind of like, stumble upon the show or when did you catch wind of the show's existence? And.

00:04:34:26 - 00:04:36:21
Kyle
Cool, cool.

00:04:36:23 - 00:04:57:16
Kyle
Yeah. He's been, I'm grateful he's been super stoked on the show. And, Yeah, he definitely was like, you should get Randy on the show. So I appreciate him making that connection. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, it's, It's cool. I've definitely gotten a lot of feedback from people, and, just trying to bring something different to the climbing space.

00:04:57:16 - 00:05:03:17
Kyle
So, get a little deeper. Just be more real, more human. Less spray.

00:05:03:20 - 00:05:04:15
Kyle
You know?

00:05:04:18 - 00:05:42:04
Kyle
So it's, like, psyched to have you here. So, you know, you've done several interviews. I've listened to pretty much all of them. The nugget or No more cast. I've looked back at the podcast, and it's been quite a long time since you sat down with Chris Glues.

00:05:42:29 - 00:05:46:02
Kyle
For sure. I always call him, like the Joe Rogan of climbing podcasts.

00:05:46:02 - 00:05:52:27
Kyle
Yeah, I was.

00:05:52:29 - 00:05:57:08
Kyle
For sure. Yeah, he was def. I listened to his podcast from the very beginning, and.

00:05:58:02 - 00:06:15:26
Kyle
I had no idea that I would end up kind of doing a podcast myself, but, he was definitely, influential and just inspirational during those earlier years of just hearing climbing stories and getting to hear the history and everything. So it was really cool what he's done.

00:06:15:28 - 00:06:38:01
Kyle
Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand all the work that goes into it. I mean, there's so many podcasts that are popping up left and right. I think there's like, what was the statistic? I think there's like a thousand a day or some ridiculous amount of podcasts that start every day. But yeah, it's definitely interesting to watch, even in the climbing space, watch certain podcasts pop up, and then all of a sudden they just start posting and then they disappear.

00:06:38:03 - 00:07:00:00
Kyle
So yeah, consistency is definitely huge.

00:07:00:03 - 00:07:18:02
Kyle
Yeah, I do like the timeless nature of podcasts. You can always and even like when I'm when I'm older and look back, it's like almost this legacy in a way of just conversations and experiences that I've had and stories that we've talked about and told. And you can, you know, forever. You can go back as long as it's the internet's still a thing, you can go back and revisit those things.

00:07:18:02 - 00:07:18:11
Kyle
It's pretty.

00:07:18:11 - 00:07:19:10
Kyle
Cool.

00:07:19:12 - 00:07:25:02
Kyle
Now you have a quote here. You said free climbing is just a way to fill the gap between big wall seasons.

00:07:26:08 - 00:07:33:10
Kyle
What did you get out of big wall climbing and climbing? That free climbing didn't give to you?

00:07:33:10 - 00:08:00:08
Randy
things that meant something to me, not just so. Bouldering was at the very bottom of the list. That was. There was no purpose for me for bouldering other than getting stronger and hanging out with my friends and and being entertained on, you know, in the afternoon. But for me, climbing was big objects like El Capitan, Half Dome, and ultimately the the Himalayas and for K2, things like that.

00:08:00:10 - 00:08:25:14
Randy
And so, you know, we don't have room for K2 in our backyard, but we have Yosemite in our backyard. So that's where I started, and I felt like I took too big wall climbing right away. It just was easy for me. Not necessarily easy, but my mind was wrapping around it really fast. It's just a system of of, you know, when you're when you're putting in a belay, you're layering ropes and knots on top of each other.

00:08:25:14 - 00:08:49:13
Randy
Right? And it's just sort of if you can understand those systems and not get them all screwed up and see how it all works together, then you can big wall climb pretty well. Pretty soon. And I felt like I was natural at that. So I was natural at a climbing natural, a big wall systems. And therefore I ended up doing the Pacific Ocean wall with Dale Bard in 78, and I was only 18 at the time.

00:08:49:13 - 00:09:07:16
Randy
And that was, you know, the second hardest big wall in the world, basically. And and from there, there was there was a lot of momentum with that. Eventually I want to work more on free climbing. So like you said, it was just something to take, in between big walls. But, you know, free climbing was not natural for me.

00:09:07:16 - 00:09:09:18
Randy
It was harder. I had to work on it really hard.

00:09:10:02 - 00:09:26:29
Kyle
How much of that was just because, like, big wall climbing was just the. The scene back in that time, like, was that was free climbing. Kind of like becoming. It was. It was it like a baby where people were starting to kind of branch off and start to spend their time free climbing? And big walling was kind of like the main focus of the culture.

00:09:27:09 - 00:09:48:26
Randy
Big wall was the main focus? Absolutely. Hard routes were being done back then. You know, free climbing was a thing. It was impressive. It was it was well-respected, you know, and there were people doing it who were really good at it. But the big wall scene was really Yosemite. I mean, you don't go to Yosemite and just hang out at camp for boulders.

00:09:48:26 - 00:09:53:18
Randy
At least I didn't. You're surrounded by these massive monoliths, and so why would you do

00:09:53:18 - 00:09:55:01
Kyle
Yeah, exactly.

00:09:55:01 - 00:09:56:02
Randy
It's different now.

00:09:57:14 - 00:10:04:23
Kyle
I mean, there's a lot more people, and there's. I'm kind of happy. It's diversified and everybody doesn't want to do the same thing because there's not a lot of rock, at least in these busier areas.

00:10:04:27 - 00:10:06:12
Randy
Yeah. It's great. I love the diversity

00:10:06:12 - 00:10:07:23
Kyle
yeah.

00:10:07:26 - 00:10:27:29
Kyle
Now you, you had already you kind of mentioned gathering for and your, you know, trip that you ended up doing with the Himalaya. You was that like your focus early on was like, I, you know, because for me, like, when I started climbing, I saw, like a picture of Secretary, you know, it's just like that. That's what I want to do.

00:10:28:02 - 00:10:36:05
Kyle
Was it similar in that way where you were captured by the essence of mountaineering and big walling, and the stuff you were doing as a climber was ultimately for that goal?

00:10:36:10 - 00:10:38:25
Randy
Yes, absolutely. I want to be a high altitude

00:10:40:08 - 00:10:48:09
Randy
and climb the biggest the biggest walls, biggest faces, highest mountains in the world. That's what I wanted to do.

00:10:49:03 - 00:11:08:08
Kyle
Now I want, you know, I think this is something that people don't really know about you. Again, I think you've at least again, I'm generalizing here, but I would say you are most recognized by the general public for your free climbing kind of law. You know, your 514 first descents. Your your, career as a professional climber.

00:11:08:10 - 00:11:24:20
Kyle
But I found it interesting to learn about this passion that you had early on with the Himalayan climbing. And so, you know, in the podcasts that people have done with you, it's always kind of they brush over it. It's always like this, you know. Oh, that's cool. Let's talk about something else. So I want to actually hear the stories.

00:11:24:21 - 00:11:34:29
Kyle
I want to actually have you, like, break down. Like what? The trip was like, what you did, and ultimately kind of use that story to reframe how it changed your focus after you got back.

00:11:35:23 - 00:12:04:24
Randy
When I was a young climber, I looked up to Boardman Tasker, you know, Bonnington, all these guys who were this badass mountaineers to me, that that seemed like the ultimate. And Yosemite was just a stepping stone. It was the thing we had near us. And, so I got good at Yosemite climbing, good at big wall climbing. And by virtue of that, I was invited on the 1987, 1986 Nameless Tower.

00:12:04:24 - 00:12:27:24
Randy
And before expedition I climb with Greg Child. It was one of the guys on that trip, really highly experienced mountaineer Tim McCartney. Snape, Tom Hargis and a whole host of other guys. And I was there because I had big wall expertise. And we're going to do The Nameless Tower first, which is a 20,000ft spire. And I had envisioned it was sort of like the Zodiac at 20,000ft.

00:12:27:26 - 00:12:48:24
Randy
That's that's what I thought I was going to do. It turns out that The Nameless Tower is more like the south face of the column at 20,000ft. And so I think, Baffin Island was probably more of what I was envisioning in my head. That's that's what what I thought I was getting there, but nevertheless, we ended up switching plans and doing gash ribbon for first.

00:12:48:24 - 00:12:49:20
Kyle
was.

00:12:51:14 - 00:13:14:18
Randy
I don't know, I that's how the planners decided to do it. It was probably the timing of the porters and how many porters we had. And so anyway, that we, we were successful in climbing a new route on gas before, and it was only the second ascent of that mountain since the Italians did it in 58. Greg, Tom and Tim made the summit and they were going for it up there.

00:13:14:18 - 00:13:35:14
Randy
They spent a night out, a bivouac in the open at 26,000ft. And, you know, they're lucky to get back in one piece. So they got back and they were knackered and the weather was starting to turn. And at that point I had been to 24,000ft, which was higher than I could ever imagine climbing. We were there without oxygen.

00:13:35:17 - 00:13:44:27
Randy
I mean, you're it's it's a trip climbing at 24,000ft. You take one step and take ten breaths and another step and ten breaths and you look, you look up at the sky and it's

00:13:44:27 - 00:13:47:20
Kyle
slap you a well.

00:13:47:26 - 00:13:55:11
Kyle
Was supplemental oxygen part of the culture of high altitude climbing back then? Like, was it even an option? Oh yeah. Okay. You guys just chose to forego it.

00:13:55:14 - 00:13:55:18
Kyle
Yeah,

00:13:55:18 - 00:14:02:07
Randy
we had this. And I mean, the guys that led the expedition, Tim and Greg, envisioned it being without oxygen.

00:14:02:07 - 00:14:02:22
Kyle
Well, that

00:14:02:22 - 00:14:03:19
Randy
was better style,

00:14:03:19 - 00:14:04:14
Kyle
Yeah. For sure.

00:14:04:14 - 00:14:04:24
Randy
fine.

00:14:04:24 - 00:14:07:02
Randy
I'm that's I

00:14:07:29 - 00:14:18:27
Kyle
Now, isn't there, like, a certain, like, genetic pool of people that just don't have what it takes to be above a certain level of altitude without supplemental oxygen? There's, like, some sort of genome that you.

00:14:18:27 - 00:14:19:23
Kyle
Have to have. It's

00:14:19:23 - 00:14:42:17
Randy
some physiological thing. And I felt like I did pretty well at altitude. A lot of what it is and what I learned from these trips is especially watching Tim McCartney. Snape is he was like MacGyver up there. So every time something would break or something would need maintenance or he would be time to melt snow and drink and replenish your body.

00:14:42:20 - 00:15:14:00
Randy
It was just a constant game of maintaining yourself and maintaining your equipment and staying in position to get to the top. And I think people don't understand that about high altitude climbing. It's you're really just stuck. You're just doing everything you can to stack the odds in your favor. And they're little steps all along, very little steps, acclimatization, being safe at the right or, you know, making certain approaches through coolers at the right time of day so you don't get avalanche.

00:15:14:02 - 00:15:28:09
Randy
A lot of little steps involved. And I really learned that I liked the trip. I unfortunately, was there the same year that a whole lot of people died on K2, and that was very sobering. Some of the best mountaineers in the

00:15:28:09 - 00:15:29:17
Kyle
were.

00:15:29:19 - 00:15:34:13
Kyle
Were you hearing about their deaths, like live as you were out there, or did it all hit you after you got back?

00:15:34:22 - 00:15:58:19
Randy
We we heard news trickle in and we I actually hiked to, K2 base camp so I could look at at the mountain and the mountain's amazing. You know, you're we are on from four, which is, I don't know, about 3000ft shorter than K2. And the day that I hiked to K2, I could look at gosh from for I was at Concordia, which is this intersection of glaciers.

00:15:58:21 - 00:16:17:12
Randy
And I could see, gosh, from four and I could see K2 and gosh from four was calm. There was no snow blowing off the top. K2 was in another stratosphere. There was snow blowing off the top at probably 60 knots when gone right off the top like a giant plume. And you know, it's a whole nother animal.

00:16:17:12 - 00:16:18:16
Kyle
Yeah.

00:16:18:23 - 00:16:21:10
Kyle
What was the climbing like on as an.

00:16:21:13 - 00:16:21:26
Kyle
Ash.

00:16:21:28 - 00:16:28:24
Kyle
Gash or broom. How was the Climbing on gash album for like any technical roped climbing or are you kind of just mountaineering mountain slog up the snow?

00:16:29:27 - 00:16:52:21
Randy
The route we were on was mostly mountain slogging, although it was the type of mountain slogging where you're on one, you're on a ridge and you're looking down. China's on one side and Pakistan's on the other. And if you fall, you feel like you're going to fall all the way down into China. I mean, it's, you know, a 50 degree slope can seem very steep when you're up there without a rope.

00:16:52:23 - 00:16:53:21
Randy
And.

00:16:53:24 - 00:16:55:08
Randy
Especially if it's a little icy.

00:16:55:08 - 00:16:56:02
Kyle
Wow.

00:16:56:05 - 00:17:01:12
Kyle
And it was just you. I'm a imagine you've had, like, ice and mountain experience before you went out there or

00:17:01:12 - 00:17:14:03
Randy
I did. I spent a couple of seasons ice climbing and mountaineering in Canada. Which is a great resource if anyone is interested in getting into that. Could just go to the Canadian Rockies. They're they're wonderful.

00:17:14:03 - 00:17:17:26
Kyle
What about, Nameless Tower? So that was the objective after

00:17:18:07 - 00:17:40:29
Randy
You know, so that was my specialty. I was there for Nameless Tower. Greg and Tom both made the summit of Gaston before they were really, really knackered. Really tired from their bivvy out and and making the summit. So when we went to Nameless Tower, I was all gung ho, like I wanted to fire up this route. And those guys were, you know, soldiering away.

00:17:40:29 - 00:18:00:14
Randy
We were getting some fixed lines in and we're making progress. We're giving up, I don't know, maybe a third of the way up the cliff. After a very long approach up coolers and ice fields and then up onto the onto the main tower, maybe a third of the way up. And those guys were making noises like, they didn't think it was right.

00:18:00:14 - 00:18:18:05
Randy
They wanted to go back down because the conditions weren't very good. It was actually too warm. So all the features wouldn't freeze at night. And in the morning, you would get ice to start to fall off from the top. And I'm just going, you know, I'm, I'm I'm so motivated. I want to get on top of this thing.

00:18:18:08 - 00:18:45:19
Randy
And, those guys are. I mean, they really had their fill already. And I remember one time there was a pitch where it was like a three plus or a four, and I was hooking, I think it was hooking up and left and doing some knife blades and small pitons. Heading up to a big dihedral. And above me was sort of another dihedral with a roof feature, and it was a hanging ballet.

00:18:45:19 - 00:19:08:07
Randy
I'm looking back down at those guys. I may be 80ft up the wall or 80ft up the pitch, and this refrigerator size ice block just decides to cut loose on the roof above us, and it falls right between me and Greg and Tom. Right over my rope. I mean, it just it didn't hit my rope, but it it came within inches of going of cutting my rope.

00:19:08:09 - 00:19:23:21
Randy
And I looked down at those guys and I said, it's unanimous. And then we just packed up our stuff, threw the hall bags off so we could retrieve them down later, and, and bailed. And we were out of there fast because it was it wasn't good conditions.

00:19:23:29 - 00:19:27:04
Kyle
How high were you up off, at least. How far away from the summit were you?

00:19:27:10 - 00:19:31:06
Randy
We weren't close. I don't remember exactly. I want to say we were a third of the way up the

00:19:31:06 - 00:19:31:28
Kyle
Yeah.

00:19:33:06 - 00:19:35:24
Kyle
Had the eternal flame been established on that wall yet?

00:19:35:29 - 00:19:36:26
Randy
I don't think so.

00:19:36:26 - 00:19:37:15
Kyle
Okay.

00:19:37:15 - 00:19:42:01
Randy
This was an 86, so I don't know when eternal fame was

00:19:42:01 - 00:19:42:18
Kyle


00:19:42:20 - 00:19:47:27
Kyle
And had it been the route that were the rock had been climbed to the top itself before?

00:19:47:27 - 00:19:49:14
Randy
Yes, we were on a new route,

00:19:49:14 - 00:19:50:03
Kyle
Okay.

00:19:50:03 - 00:19:51:27
Randy
but that nameless terror had been climbed.

00:19:51:29 - 00:20:00:25
Kyle
Yeah. Now, are you like, was the route kind of pre chosen for you or are you questing based off of features and your own intuition to kind of link things together.

00:20:01:02 - 00:20:16:06
Randy
What we. I mean, at that point, there weren't there wasn't even a route up this face. And I believe it was the northeast face. And so we were basically just climbing that face, that feature. And we're following the most obvious line we could

00:20:16:15 - 00:20:18:22
Kyle
Wow. And you're just piecing it together? Pitch high. Pitch.

00:20:18:25 - 00:20:20:06
Kyle
Wow.

00:20:20:08 - 00:20:26:13
Kyle
Did you ever, like, psychologically where ever other than the refrigerator block like, overwhelmed by.

00:20:26:13 - 00:20:27:17
Kyle
The.

00:20:27:19 - 00:20:31:01
Kyle
Sheer magnitude of the objective that you were trying to get done?

00:20:31:14 - 00:20:57:08
Randy
Not really. No. I to me it when you get there, it's sometimes cliffs are in your mind they're gigantic right. I remember when I was going to college and I, I transfer to UC Colorado University, Colorado Boulder. And I seen all these pictures in this book climb. And, a shout out to the enormous cast. It would be climb.

00:20:57:08 - 00:20:57:23
Kyle
I'm.

00:20:57:24 - 00:20:59:05
Kyle
Yeah, exactly.

00:20:59:05 - 00:21:14:20
Randy
I saw that book climb, and I thought, man, El Dorado Canyon. And I thought, this is this massive place. And I go there and I thought, oh, it's just so small. It's not that big. And the Himalayas are the same way. They don't seem small, but they're the scale seems appropriate.

00:21:14:20 - 00:21:15:19
Kyle
when you're there.

00:21:15:19 - 00:21:22:09
Randy
Yeah. When you're there, just like any mountain, though, you know, there's foreshortening and but you already have that programed in your mind.

00:21:23:22 - 00:21:31:07
Kyle
Yeah. It is true. I definitely think that at least on a smaller scale, a lot of the objectives that I've kind of built up in my mind the second I'm at the base, I'm just like.

00:21:31:09 - 00:21:32:12
Kyle
This doesn't it looks.

00:21:32:12 - 00:21:39:22
Kyle
Pretty fine. And then you start to actually see the way up and you're just like, okay, I can actually visualize how this is going to happen.

00:21:39:25 - 00:21:39:27
Kyle
And

00:21:39:27 - 00:22:00:19
Randy
it's not like the rural face where they're you know, that's a gigantic face. Yeah. You're already base camp is 18,000ft, so you might have got 8000ft to get to the top. And that's a manageable mountain. It's high altitude so it's a whole different ballgame. But yeah, it seems

00:22:00:19 - 00:22:01:04
Kyle
good.

00:22:01:07 - 00:22:20:22
Kyle
How are you dealing with the altitude. Like because at least even for me, at 14,000ft at the blaze, I have to, like, force myself to continue a structured breathing protocol. So I don't like just breathing. Like we are here normally up that high. Was there any techniques that you used to to maintain consciousness up that high?

00:22:20:22 - 00:22:44:12
Randy
You. I felt the worst. Around 17,000ft because your body really hasn't acclimatize yet. And so we just took our time acclimatizing. And by the time I was at 24,000ft, it's obviously rougher. It's. It's more strenuous. It's your throat hurts because it's so dry. You know, there's a lot of factors. It's not a picnic. But I felt good. Like I felt like I could do it.

00:22:44:14 - 00:22:47:07
Randy
I mean, I left that expedition thinking, oh, I can do this.

00:22:47:07 - 00:22:48:21
Kyle
well.

00:22:48:23 - 00:22:49:11
Kyle
Now.

00:22:49:14 - 00:22:50:04
Kyle
With the.

00:22:50:09 - 00:23:31:22
Kyle
I guess with Got Cash Burn and Nameless Tower, two completely different objectives. In terms of what you're kind of bringing to the table to, to achieve them, you said, you know, you talked about logistics and all the little baby steps that you have to pay attention to the whole time. Like, is that kind of challenge like something that captures your attention more than just, like, executing movement in climbing, like you like I think you have a quote here or, you've said you like objectives that have like a direction or a progress or a destination somewhere that you're going, did that kind of like mountaineering expedition style, like fit that motivation

00:23:31:22 - 00:23:32:23
Kyle
for you?

00:23:32:25 - 00:23:59:19
Randy
I think it did I feel like I can organize things well and keep an objective. You know in my mind and not lose focus on it and achieve that. So the whole mountaineering thing was pretty good as far as that goes. The thing that didn't work out for me is I wanted to start a business in real estate in San Diego, and you really can't be in the Himalayas six months out of the year and carry on a business like that.

00:23:59:19 - 00:24:07:16
Randy
So I, I decided to instead just pursue rock climbing, a sport climbing. I'd figure I'd live longer and maybe make some

00:24:07:16 - 00:24:07:28
Kyle
like.

00:24:08:00 - 00:24:16:26
Kyle
Yeah, how much of it was I might die out here versus I want to start a business. Like how much of it was, a reflection of your mortality?

00:24:17:00 - 00:24:38:04
Randy
Well, I decided to start a business when I was on that trip and the the fact that all those guys died on K2 that year, I mean, it was it was pretty grim. So, I mean, it wasn't that wasn't a big part of our expedition because we we only heard about that towards the end. But, and you know, it definitely.

00:24:38:04 - 00:24:46:02
Randy
These are impression on you. I mean, these guys are the best guys in the world. I see what they're like. And, the mountains are unforgiving.

00:24:46:15 - 00:25:01:02
Kyle
Yeah, I think once you start to step into those high altitude, especially with snow or ice, I think luck starts to play a larger role in your survival. Like you can be as prepared as you want, but in a sense, you are rolling the dice a little bit. It's hard to justify that.

00:25:01:02 - 00:25:05:07
Randy
on nameless, we would do these approaches up this, this gully,

00:25:05:07 - 00:25:05:25
Kyle
yeah,

00:25:05:25 - 00:25:16:04
Randy
get above it, and, you know, we start it. I don't know what it was like. Two in the morning, in the dark. And first light comes and we'd watch avalanches go down it.

00:25:16:16 - 00:25:28:10
Kyle
It's a pretty notorious approach goal. And I remember hearing about it like you have to it's like, yeah the shooting range. You got to go up at a specific time. You can't be in it during the day because it just is a shooting gallery.

00:25:28:13 - 00:25:29:12
Kyle
Yeah. It's wild.

00:25:29:14 - 00:25:31:10
Randy
There's also a lot of sitting around with mountaineering

00:25:32:07 - 00:25:34:05
Randy
and I'm not great at sitting around.

00:25:34:05 - 00:25:36:22
Kyle
But,

00:25:36:24 - 00:25:41:14
Kyle
Yeah, there's all these stories of people like playing cards and just, like, burning Time.

00:25:41:16 - 00:25:42:04
Kyle
Yeah.

00:25:42:06 - 00:25:48:05
Kyle
They're, the mental attrition starts to play a a factor. You start to go a little crazy, I would imagine.

00:25:48:08 - 00:25:50:00
Kyle
Yeah.

00:25:50:03 - 00:26:09:11
Kyle
What about. So, you know, you had been chasing this goal of how to do mountaineering, since you were young, it had been such a focus for you. And then it seems like a pretty massive switch. So, I mean, you obviously had a business that you wanted to start. You had that vision. But in a sense, you're also kind of letting this portion of you die.

00:26:09:11 - 00:26:17:12
Kyle
This like portion of who you wanted to be like, was that identity switch hard for you? Was it or was it an easy, calculated decision

00:26:17:20 - 00:26:42:04
Randy
Not really. Because in life you can't have everything. So you have to have make decisions. And I made that decision. You know, I couldn't sort of be a Himalayan climber. I either had to really jump into it. There's a lot of preparation involved. We getting sponsors to help pay for things. The relationship with the sponsors, the packing, the logistics, everything is it's a lot of work.

00:26:42:06 - 00:26:45:24
Randy
So I had to let go of something, and

00:26:46:17 - 00:26:46:28
Kyle
Okay.

00:26:46:29 - 00:26:50:07
Kyle
So clear cut decision. You just knew in your heart that was the right way.

00:26:50:10 - 00:26:51:12
Kyle
Yeah.

00:26:51:14 - 00:26:53:12
Kyle
Are you familiar with the Burgess twins?

00:26:53:14 - 00:26:56:13
Kyle
Yeah, I interviewed al. Did you.

00:26:56:18 - 00:26:58:27
Kyle
A nice all six hours of it.

00:26:58:29 - 00:26:59:04
Kyle
Know

00:26:59:04 - 00:27:01:15
Randy
I mean the guy is just you could just listen to him all day

00:27:01:15 - 00:27:02:17
Kyle
day for sure. Yeah.

00:27:02:17 - 00:27:09:29
Kyle
Wild stories. Hiller. Yeah, it's really cool. He's in Spain now. Yeah, he's just living out this retirement climbing sport. Climbs in Spain?

00:27:10:01 - 00:27:10:20
Kyle
Yeah.

00:27:10:23 - 00:27:13:23
Kyle
I think about that guy pretty often. He had his book over here.

00:27:13:23 - 00:27:32:13
Kyle
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Kyle
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Kyle
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00:28:10:26 - 00:28:25:28
Kyle
So continuing this progression, I guess we're going back a step, but I think we skipped a story that I want to cover. Is, you had kind of a close call on the painted wall on stratosphere in the Black Canyon. This was before your time in the MLS.

00:28:25:28 - 00:28:41:07
Kyle
Like I said, we're going back in time a little bit, but, I'd like to just dive into that story real quick, and then we'll we'll jump back. So, kind of describe the climb. What was the significance around it? Why did you choose it? And then walk me through your, your kind of experience on the wall?

00:28:41:07 - 00:29:01:01
Randy
I moved to Boulder in, I believe it was 1980 to go to University of Colorado Boulder. Met some of the locals there. I met a guy named Leonard Coyne who was. He had this shirt that said world's greatest alpinist and free climber. He was a real boisterous kind of guy. Just. He's funny. He was just funny and entertaining.

00:29:01:01 - 00:29:17:04
Randy
So he latched on to me because I was this new guy with all kinds of motivation, and I probably didn't know any better to, you know, a lot of his friends just didn't want to go to the Black Canyon with him. So he said, oh, you want to do this climb? And it's this big free climb and you know, it's in the Black Canyon.

00:29:17:04 - 00:29:35:00
Randy
And I heard of the Black Canyon painted wall. I didn't really know a whole lot about it. I said, sure, so we drove there in the middle of the night, and I don't even think we're able to sleep. I think we by the time we got there, it was maybe four in the morning and we wanted to do a one day ascent of this thing free.

00:29:35:02 - 00:29:56:12
Randy
So we started hiking down the canyon. I never even been to the black, had never even seen it. And we're going down the S.O.B. gully, which is this horrible thing and dirt, you know, really steep dirt, scree and and slippery rocks and stuff. And we're heading down there and there's, there's starting to become light in the sky. So I can hear the river down below roaring.

00:29:56:12 - 00:30:16:00
Randy
And I can see these silhouettes of these big walls all around me. It was really crazy sort of feeling to see the Black Canyon that way for the first time, and knowing you're going to go up on what was the most notorious wall there. You know, it had a really bad reputation for being loose. And, dangerous and all this sort of stuff.

00:30:16:00 - 00:30:26:27
Randy
So Leonard and I got to the base, we were being supported by a guy who.

00:30:26:29 - 00:30:44:19
Randy
Who had broken his arm. He had a cast on. He was going to jump behind us. I think he was on the first try, but I'm not sure. I think it was the first try with this guy. So he, he only went up like two pitches and realized it wasn't right for him to go. So he ended up wrapping down our lines before we got too high in the wall.

00:30:44:21 - 00:31:06:19
Randy
And then Leonard and I cast off, and we got within 350 vertical feet of the top, and we hit the this band of pegmatite, just this rotten stuff. And that's where, you go through a big bands of pegmatite. If you look from a distance, it's the, the serpent's head on, on that, that white

00:31:07:09 - 00:31:08:11
Kyle
It's the White stripes.

00:31:08:16 - 00:31:11:14
Kyle
Yeah. The white stripes. Okay.

00:31:11:14 - 00:31:40:21
Randy
we got up there and the root finding was really hard at that point. We just didn't know how we were going to get through these basically A4 overhanging roofs that we had to nail through. And we were just there with a free climbing rack just going for it. No bivvy gear. So Glenn Randall was going to photograph us for his book, Vertigo Games, and Glenn was going to rap over the top and photograph us coming up.

00:31:40:23 - 00:31:44:26
Randy
We.

00:31:44:28 - 00:32:05:27
Randy
Know that was the second time I was on there. The first time we had to, Leonard and I got stuck. We got benighted. It rained on us and it was like thunder and lightning and, you know, like an electric storm being up on this big wall, not comfortable at all. And just raining. And Leonard and I started playing this game called Yosemite Climber.

00:32:05:27 - 00:32:24:16
Randy
And it starts with an A, so you have to think of a name of a climbing Yosemite that's an A, and you say Astrum and and then B butter balls and then but we were hallucinating at that point because we were so tired and so hypothermic. And I remember just coming in and out of consciousness and he would say, Randy, it's you're on E!

00:32:24:16 - 00:32:25:09
Randy
It's your turn.

00:32:26:27 - 00:32:27:28
Kyle
Yeah. What are we doing?

00:32:28:04 - 00:32:33:07
Randy
So we woke up the next morning and rapped out of there, and the second time was when Glenn Randall

00:32:33:07 - 00:32:34:02
Kyle
two went back.

00:32:34:05 - 00:32:34:26
Randy
yeah, know? Yeah. We went

00:32:34:26 - 00:32:35:25
Kyle
Wow.

00:32:35:28 - 00:32:40:13
Kyle
It's for this particular route. Well, and you kept getting stopped at the same spot.

00:32:40:15 - 00:32:41:01
Kyle
Wow.

00:32:41:01 - 00:32:43:11
Kyle
How big is his band? Like 20 or 30ft.

00:32:43:19 - 00:32:45:15
Randy
Oh well the, the pegmatite we got

00:32:45:15 - 00:32:46:11
Kyle
Oh, you got through.

00:32:46:11 - 00:33:06:15
Randy
it's just horrible. It's like really, really dangerous. 510 a type of climbing. You can pull off big crystals of things the size of softballs and just suck them down. You're climbing through this stuff. But there was the rock was amazing. Or it was total dog shit. You know, it's just it was either these really rotten bands or it was just amazing rock.

00:33:06:22 - 00:33:25:18
Randy
But the amazing rock was also fractured into big blocks sometimes where you'd have this perfect face and just fracture block, just waiting to fall off. It really, really old rock and really dense. Hard to drill in. Where was I? So we're, playing the Yosemite climber game. I'm on f

00:33:25:18 - 00:33:26:13
Kyle
yeah.

00:33:26:13 - 00:33:33:07
Randy
freestone. Anyway, so this this whole thing became this big epic with Leonard to me.

00:33:33:09 - 00:33:55:18
Randy
Glen Randall came on the second time, and we got, we had figured out how to climb out of this thing. We figured out that we had to traverse, and we done that by some, recon on repels previously. So the first time up the wall, we had no recon. Second time we saw it. We can't get through this top section without figuring it out.

00:33:55:18 - 00:34:17:04
Randy
So, Leonard, I wrap down pieces of it and looked at it and figured, oh, we have to make this giant traverse from the forest walker root out right into the Dragon route. And that connection we called stratosphere. So stratosphere became the name of the whole climb. But it's really that connection from Forest Walker to free climb over the dragon.

00:34:17:07 - 00:34:41:09
Randy
That when, Glenn Randall went with us again, weather moved in. Glenn was on top. He was going to rap down and take, photos of us. He ended up throwing, like, 300ft of rope tied together, 250ft pieces going over this sharp pegmatite over the top and down to me. And so I went first. And they were they were not.

00:34:41:09 - 00:35:00:11
Randy
This is before we had static ropes, and we knew the wisdom of using static ropes in situations like that. So, you know, you, you jump on 300ft of dynamic rope and you probably do more for what seems like five minutes before the rope stretch is done stretching. And now you're you're kind of up on this rubber band boomerang.

00:35:00:13 - 00:35:23:18
Randy
And I couldn't see the top of the wall because it was shrouded in clouds. So my ropes disappeared into clouds. I could see down to the river where 20 500ft down to the river. I jumped to the top and and I could start to see through the clouds, and I could see my rope going over the edge, and it was fraying and it was sawing itself over this edge.

00:35:23:20 - 00:35:45:07
Randy
And the closer I got, I realized the rope was cut in half to the core was coming out. There were pieces of the core out. The sheath was cut all the way through on one side, and half of it, and pieces of the core were coming out and I almost vomited. Just with the stress and everything getting past that, that one section.

00:35:45:07 - 00:35:53:27
Randy
I remember when I finally slid my jumper past that one section I just took, this is just huge sigh of relief. Like, I really almost died. This thing almost broke

00:35:53:27 - 00:35:54:18
Kyle
Wow.

00:35:54:22 - 00:35:57:28
Kyle
And you were in not on terrain where you could, like, hold on to the wall or.

00:35:58:00 - 00:35:59:13
Randy
No is overhanging below that.

00:35:59:13 - 00:36:02:14
Kyle
Oh my gosh. Free hand you. Wow.

00:36:02:14 - 00:36:04:07
Randy
and I could see it sawing up there

00:36:04:07 - 00:36:10:20
Kyle
And you had no choice but to continue causing what it was like doing the thing that was causing the rope to get hard. Yeah.

00:36:11:19 - 00:36:14:16
Randy
How far could I do more up before the thing would, you know, cut.

00:36:14:16 - 00:36:16:10
Kyle
Wow, wow.

00:36:16:10 - 00:36:19:07
Randy
was I was able to jump over the cut before it

00:36:19:07 - 00:36:20:27
Kyle
Yeah, that's wild.

00:36:21:01 - 00:36:29:09
Randy
And so I fixed the rope for Leonard. I, I ended up tying a rope that he would, you moron. And then I had another one paralleling it and backing it up

00:36:29:09 - 00:36:32:09
Kyle
Yeah.

00:36:32:09 - 00:36:38:12
Randy
So that was we hadn't yet done the wall free at that point. So, Leonard, I still had to go back and do it,

00:36:39:01 - 00:36:40:12
Randy
and then we get to the top.

00:36:40:12 - 00:36:46:01
Randy
And Leonard said, I wouldn't make I wouldn't ask my worst enemy to do that route. You know, he's.

00:36:46:01 - 00:36:47:04
Randy
He's just.

00:36:47:07 - 00:36:59:04
Randy
For some reason it was a brilliant route. But, you know, he was just so sick of it at that point. And, I don't know, a season passed and, my friend Rob Slater wanted to climb it, and he also wanted to climb and jump off

00:36:59:04 - 00:37:01:27
Kyle
of that route. Yeah. Yeah.

00:37:01:27 - 00:37:08:08
Randy
So I, I, I went up to, stratosphere with Rob to do the second ascent.

00:37:08:12 - 00:37:32:00
Randy
So we did it, but we figured out sort of a a good way to do it, a safer way to do it, where what we did is we lowered some haul bags over the top down this obvious sort of dihedral, where the forest walker comes up before the traverse out and we had portal edges and all our stuff there, so we would climb from the ground in a really easy day up to the that stuff.

00:37:32:00 - 00:37:41:26
Randy
And then, bivvy there leave everything there and then do the stratosphere traverse and get out of the dragon and then haul our bags, walk over and haul our bags.

00:37:41:26 - 00:37:43:21
Kyle
Okay. Wow.

00:37:43:21 - 00:37:50:24
Randy
the first time we did it in a day. First free ascent. Second time was in two days. I just want to enjoy it. It was really fun.

00:37:51:00 - 00:37:52:18
Randy
It's actually a really fun route at that point.

00:37:52:18 - 00:37:53:22
Kyle
What is it? Go up.

00:37:54:14 - 00:37:55:14
Randy
511 C

00:37:55:14 - 00:37:59:14
Kyle
Okay. No, Ed. No. Wow. Okay. Wow,

00:37:59:14 - 00:38:02:05
Randy
I don't know, it's something like 30 pitches.

00:38:02:05 - 00:38:03:05
Kyle
Wow.

00:38:03:05 - 00:38:04:06
Randy
It's really long.

00:38:04:11 - 00:38:08:01
Kyle
And, I'm assuming it's seen multiple ascents after this story

00:38:08:10 - 00:38:10:27
Randy
It's seen maybe four

00:38:10:27 - 00:38:11:28
Kyle
while,

00:38:11:28 - 00:38:12:29
Randy
I, maybe more,

00:38:12:29 - 00:38:13:22
Kyle
but,

00:38:13:22 - 00:38:15:12
Randy
I only know of a couple people that have done

00:38:15:15 - 00:38:21:27
Kyle
I don't hear a lot about people climbing in Black Canyon at all. It's not publicized if people are climbing there.

00:38:22:00 - 00:38:24:04
Kyle
Yeah, it kind of. Yeah.

00:38:24:04 - 00:38:25:28
Kyle
Just because of the nature of the rock.

00:38:26:00 - 00:38:26:29
Kyle
Yeah.

00:38:27:02 - 00:38:34:08
Kyle
And we did Escape Artist. I climb to that route. It's like, off to the left of gully. Fantastic. Climb.

00:38:34:12 - 00:38:35:07
Randy
There's some great climbs

00:38:35:07 - 00:38:36:01
Kyle
Oh, yeah.

00:38:36:01 - 00:38:38:18
Randy
Stratosphere is a great climb but it's a different breed.

00:38:38:18 - 00:38:39:09
Kyle
Yeah.

00:38:40:10 - 00:38:45:11
Kyle
Do you think people could do it in a single push because you guys broke? Broke it up, right.

00:38:45:15 - 00:38:47:06
Randy
Well the first time we did it in a single

00:38:47:06 - 00:38:49:12
Kyle
Okay. The second time you just wanted to slow it down.

00:38:49:14 - 00:38:49:21
Kyle
Yeah.

00:38:49:21 - 00:38:52:25
Randy
second time we slowed down. Oh yeah I mean by today's standards simple

00:38:52:25 - 00:38:53:15
Kyle
climbing. Yeah.

00:38:53:15 - 00:39:06:02
Randy
easy. Yeah I mean it's a three, it's a 20 500ft wall with, I don't know, three, 400ft of traversing in it. So there's almost 3000ft of climbing. But a lot of it's not very hard.

00:39:06:02 - 00:39:07:20
Randy
It's like five, eight run out, five,

00:39:07:20 - 00:39:10:22
Kyle
okay. Love it. Oh yeah.

00:39:10:25 - 00:39:12:28
Kyle
I added to my take or my my to do list.

00:39:12:28 - 00:39:13:25
Randy
it's a cool route.

00:39:13:25 - 00:39:16:13
Kyle
Yeah. Okay. Very cool.

00:39:16:15 - 00:39:30:26
Kyle
And now that was a close call. Is the rope jogging the rope at that time. Yeah yeah I definitely I've been doing some rigging and stuff in for photos and that's always on the back of my mind. I'm like always looking up and just like, that would just be the worst.

00:39:31:06 - 00:39:38:29
Randy
Yeah I've learned a lot about fixing lines especially doing new routes and you know how you manage your rope. So you don't have to worry about that in the future.

00:39:38:29 - 00:39:43:09
Kyle
What kind of short tips do you have for avoiding that kind of thing happening?

00:39:43:10 - 00:40:09:23
Randy
If you can always see or not. So let's say I'm going down a, a route that has some bolts in it, and I'll get to a bolt and maybe I'll put a clove hitch in right there and then continue down. And if I can, with the idea that when I go back up later on, maybe that day, maybe a month from then, who knows when ever it was that I can when I start, sure, I can look up and I can see that knot.

00:40:09:25 - 00:40:37:03
Randy
And also two carabiners like one on the hanger, which would be pinning your rope against the wall, and then another one below that so that your rope is lifted away from the wall, you know, kind of parallel to the wall. And then you put a so two, two boners on the bolt hanger, you know, not not two burners together, but one like a daisy chain and then clip up, a, cliff edge and the second one, the lower one.

00:40:37:05 - 00:40:46:29
Randy
And then it's a clean knot. You can see it. And then when you go down, you look back up. And when you can't see that, not anymore. If there's another anchor, make another anchor and then keep going down.

00:40:46:29 - 00:40:47:07
Kyle
I.

00:40:47:07 - 00:41:03:13
Kyle
Love that. Yeah, I was definitely I was trying to shoot, a kid over here in Charleston, and it was like a 600ft wall, like trying to come up with logistics. I had about 200 meter static lines, and that was the biggest question for me. I was like, it's so far up there, you know, like just having one point of contact.

00:41:03:13 - 00:41:06:26
Kyle
I love the redundancy of just doing it on the way down. It's really smart.

00:41:07:22 - 00:41:13:19
Randy
Yeah. And we've done tons of that. You know, developing routes. It really makes a difference

00:41:13:19 - 00:41:14:13
Kyle
for sure.

00:41:14:13 - 00:41:21:12
Kyle
Especially I would imagine if you need to like get into different areas of the wall too. You can kind of like come over here. I mean, come over here a little bit.

00:41:22:04 - 00:41:55:29
Randy
And that was the painted wall wasn't the only time that I had a rope almost cut. I was on the blasphemy wall and I had a rope fixed to one of the top of routes. I forgot which route it was. Could have been a dark boy or something like that. And there's, f dude, and, I forgot the names of the routes right now, but there's that 14 C and I wanted to try out that thing, and I so I left my rope up there.

00:41:55:29 - 00:42:20:13
Randy
I was going to Juma, but in the meantime, someone had switched my rope, and they had taken it from an anchor, and they had moved totally sideways to another anchor, which was like one of those muscle hooks that is just an open hook. And they just slotted my rope into over those hooks. So now my rope goes from an anchor horizontally like 40ft through a muscle hook and straight down.

00:42:20:16 - 00:42:30:27
Randy
So when I jumped up that what happened was as you jump up, there's this dynamic action between the muscle hook and the original anchor that horizontal and that almost cut the rope

00:42:30:27 - 00:42:31:21
Kyle
Wow.

00:42:31:28 - 00:42:36:21
Kyle
Even though it was a smooth. So it was the pivot point on the hook. That was causing the abrasion.

00:42:36:23 - 00:42:37:04
Kyle
It was a

00:42:37:04 - 00:42:38:27
Randy
a point between the muscle hook

00:42:38:27 - 00:42:39:17
Kyle
and a.

00:42:39:17 - 00:42:40:01
Kyle
Contact with.

00:42:40:01 - 00:42:41:28
Kyle
The rock. Yeah. Contact was some

00:42:41:28 - 00:42:44:29
Randy
little sharp crossly, you know, stuff is like razor sharp

00:42:44:29 - 00:42:45:23
Kyle
Yeah.

00:42:45:23 - 00:42:56:27
Randy
sometimes and just one little piece of rock. So people have to be careful. And another time that I was climbing early in my career, I was doing Tangerine Trip and and the guy had left in Yosemite.

00:42:56:27 - 00:43:06:13
Randy
He had left a rope fixed overnight, I think Tangerine Trip and Mart in the morning. And the wind had blown the rope around and saw it, and he fell and died.

00:43:06:28 - 00:43:09:09
Kyle
Because he didn't he couldn't see what had happened.

00:43:09:12 - 00:43:11:16
Randy
it. He couldn't see the knot.

00:43:12:00 - 00:43:13:06
Kyle
Wow. Yeah.

00:43:13:06 - 00:43:26:19
Kyle
Even that situation where it's horizontal, like if he had tied a clove hitch on the muskie, that would have that negated that problem because there's no stretch. Every time you anchor the rope, you're removing the dynamic property above it, which is smart.

00:43:26:19 - 00:43:32:03
Randy
And that's another reason why I do those clove hitches is because that eliminates that sawing action between bolts.

00:43:32:06 - 00:43:37:20
Kyle
Yeah, it's only between you and the last point of contact that you're going to have that dynamic property.

00:43:37:22 - 00:43:40:14
Kyle
Yeah. Wild.

00:43:40:17 - 00:43:55:09
Kyle
Now I guess since we're on this topic, like I've got close calls, it seems like this is so far from the way we've talked. They've all happened on rigging or route development. Have you had any stuff with big walling or free climbing? Any close calls.

00:43:56:08 - 00:44:05:05
Randy
What's that stupid warm up on in the gallery. It's 11 c crack is it. Yeah. Crack.

00:44:05:05 - 00:44:14:21
Randy
I tied in the bottom of that thing, and this is when I was really cocky, and it's like 11 c I couldn't even get pumped on 11 c and I just warm up on it cold.

00:44:14:24 - 00:44:32:16
Randy
And I didn't even tie my shoes. I had these last four TVs and just left them loose and tied in with a bowl in which I always do. I climbed up, got to the anchor. I didn't clip the anchors. I thought, you know, I'm not even pumped. I'm just going to climb down now. So now a down climb.

00:44:32:16 - 00:44:59:07
Randy
This thing. It's 11 C, I'm clipping my lead rope as I go down. And then rise. I step off onto the ground. I look at my balloon and it had undone itself because I didn't follow a protocol that I always do, which is I tie my bowl and and right after I tie my shoes, I put the ball in around the bottom of my foot and stretch the rope so I know it's the balloon is set.

00:44:59:09 - 00:45:00:27
Randy
And because I didn't tie my shoes,

00:45:02:01 - 00:45:03:10
Kyle
Wow. You missed the step.

00:45:03:14 - 00:45:07:07
Randy
I missed that step and I just basically free solo the

00:45:08:12 - 00:45:10:07
Kyle
And then down. Salute it.

00:45:10:09 - 00:45:11:24
Kyle
Wow.

00:45:11:26 - 00:45:32:13
Kyle
That's so interesting how we can find ourselves in these positions of just complete risk without even knowing it, out of just negligence or lack of awareness. I wonder how many times, like you were aware of that happening after the fact, right? I wonder how many of us go through our climbing career having almost died, and not even know that it happened because of simple stuff like that?

00:45:32:13 - 00:45:41:09
Randy
well I don't think very many because I mean at some point you have to realize you weren't tied in some point you if you really almost died at some point, you recognize.

00:45:41:14 - 00:46:00:07
Kyle
Well, what if like, you know, you I, I just I guess a simple example is like if you are climbing above your first piece and you're 30ft from the ground and like if you fell in it ripped, you could have hit like all these circumstances that could happen that don't that could have led to injury. You know, there's all these variables, that play into it.

00:46:00:16 - 00:46:04:07
Randy
Yes. I don't like getting into too many hypotheticals because then I'd be afraid to

00:46:04:07 - 00:46:05:19
Kyle
Yeah, that's fair, but

00:46:05:19 - 00:46:18:18
Randy
I mean, you got to control the sort of the procedures, you know, and the habits that you get in. And, you know, like my habit of of putting knots in fixed lines as I go down that kind of stuff, but not at the end of the rope.

00:46:18:18 - 00:46:27:08
Randy
So you don't wrap off the end of your rope, just procedures. Just get all that dial down and don't worry about the hypothetical stuff. Just climb.

00:46:28:09 - 00:46:31:16
Randy
Because if you don't have confidence, then then you're actually going to get hurt.

00:46:31:16 - 00:46:32:20
Kyle
for sure.

00:46:32:20 - 00:46:33:11
Randy
you need that.

00:46:33:11 - 00:46:34:03
Kyle
Yeah.

00:46:35:06 - 00:46:42:24
Kyle
In turn back to this kind of progression. So, you know, you got back from the Himalaya, you had gotten on a climb with Rob Slater.

00:46:45:07 - 00:47:06:06
Kyle
Scorched earth. And this seemed like a big turning point for the both of you. In regards to your directions as climbers, and for you, it seemed like a big shift between big walls and sport climbing. And for Rob, it was kind of just like, I'm done climbing all together. For that pivot. Like what? Again?

00:47:06:06 - 00:47:24:05
Kyle
You kind of went through this. I'm going to be high altitude mountaineer. I'm going to start, you know, do a business, and then you're like, doing big walls. Now I'm going to be, you know, sport climbing. Was it once again, the pursuit of business that kind of like spurred that shift. And what about that climb in particular?

00:47:24:05 - 00:47:26:05
Kyle
Kind of like help facilitated that change?

00:47:26:20 - 00:47:34:11
Randy
Well, it's kind of a turning point for both of us. Like you said, I was, scorched earth. Must have been 87 or

00:47:34:22 - 00:47:36:26
Kyle
It's like shortly after you got back from Emily, right?

00:47:37:05 - 00:47:57:09
Randy
Yeah. So I got back 86. It could have been 87. That first scorched earth. Robin, I wanted to do this route. We had known about this route for a long time, and Rob wanted to start his business on the Chicago Board of Trade. So he was going to get on the CTA, seat on the Chicago Board of Trade.

00:47:57:12 - 00:48:18:22
Randy
I was going to do my real estate business. And this was sort of our last farewell to Yosemite. In fact, one of the pitches on that route we named Farewell to Yosemite. So Rob was just talking about the Chicago Board of Trade the whole time, and I was talking about sport climbing and, but this was one great last wall climb between two really good friends.

00:48:18:24 - 00:48:24:01
Randy
So that was just a great climbs, just really fun.

00:48:24:01 - 00:48:26:03
Kyle
You're.

00:48:26:03 - 00:48:44:15
Kyle
I guess the main thing I'm trying to lead in here is, is this business that has captured your attention over your entire life. Well, I hear it mentioned. I hear, you know, you say real estate business. I'm curious if you can bring us to, like, what it is exactly. Like, what have you built? And what was the vision since you were young?

00:48:44:15 - 00:49:05:15
Kyle
Like, how have you developed this business? What does it look like and how have you kind of achieved, you know, you were I'll use air quotes, but like, your financial freedom that you have. I mean, you flew here in your own plane. It's just I think you've you've achieved a level of freedom that I think a lot of people aspire to.

00:49:05:15 - 00:49:11:10
Kyle
So I'm curious, as to, like, diving into that business a little bit and kind of what you've actually done and how that's grown.

00:49:11:16 - 00:49:33:15
Randy
Well, I always wanted to work for myself when I was going through college and earning my way through that. I would paint houses and wallpaper houses. So a lot of the clients were very wealthy that I work for. But the point is, is I could work for two weeks on a job and then take two weeks off and go to Yosemite and climb.

00:49:33:18 - 00:49:54:13
Randy
And so it worked for me. It was, you know, it was a trade and I think trades. I ended up with a lot of respect for people that work trades because I've been around in my whole life in my real estate business, hiring guys to do stuff and, and I see how hard people work. And I worked really hard at painting houses, but and I was always hire these climbers that were like minded, like me.

00:49:54:13 - 00:50:16:10
Randy
And we would bust out these jobs, you know, start at six in the morning and work till six at night and do that as many days in a row as it took to to finish the job. So I wanted to work for myself, but I didn't want to do painting. Real estate always was interesting to me because I was painting houses, I was painting office buildings and things like that.

00:50:16:10 - 00:50:50:02
Randy
So I would, it was tangible. I grew up in the 70s when inflation was rampant and I saw the, you know, escalating value of assets because the dollar was worth less. And we seen it again just recently. So it's kind of like watching the movie happen again. And real estate was a hedge against that. So when I finished my college, my expedition to Pakistan and all that, I contacted some wealthy people and ended up starting a real estate company where I ran the company and it all did all the work.

00:50:50:02 - 00:51:05:04
Randy
And then my partner provided the funds so we would buy an apartment building and sell that, exchange it, buy another one, bigger one, and, and so I, I became like an apartment manager, basically an asset manager with apartment

00:51:05:19 - 00:51:09:27
Kyle
Now were you like buying, renovating, flipping or buying.

00:51:09:27 - 00:51:11:01
Randy
Buying, renovating and

00:51:11:05 - 00:51:18:16
Kyle
Keeping and then renting out. Okay. And commercial or residential? Residential. How many properties do you manage it or own?

00:51:18:16 - 00:51:19:06
Kyle
No,

00:51:19:19 - 00:51:20:12
Randy
Now I don't have

00:51:20:12 - 00:51:25:29
Kyle
any. Okay. Yeah. They're all okay. Nice.

00:51:25:29 - 00:51:39:14
Randy
But I it was it's a it was a hard job. I mean every month people would move in and move out and you'd show up at someone's apartment and there was a moving van there and you had no idea. And they're gone. They're they've disappeared.

00:51:39:16 - 00:51:41:15
Kyle
Oh, just left without it. Okay. It

00:51:41:15 - 00:51:48:24
Randy
was it was in lower income areas of San Diego. There was a lot of challenges. But, you know, we had a lot of good tenants, really good

00:51:49:09 - 00:51:54:27
Kyle
Now, are you, like, property manager or you like handling the intake outtake of of residents.

00:51:54:29 - 00:51:56:00
Kyle
Would you? Okay. I mean,

00:51:56:00 - 00:51:57:12
Randy
had done so much of it myself

00:51:57:12 - 00:51:57:25
Kyle
Yes.

00:51:57:25 - 00:51:58:08
Randy
small

00:51:58:08 - 00:51:58:22
Kyle
Yeah.

00:51:58:22 - 00:52:07:10
Randy
that when it was a little bigger, I had employees, but I would go to the office and, you know, monitor what they're doing and help them do their job

00:52:07:10 - 00:52:07:27
Kyle
Yeah,

00:52:07:27 - 00:52:08:21
Randy
some good employees.

00:52:08:21 - 00:52:09:17
Kyle
that's cool.

00:52:09:20 - 00:52:16:03
Kyle
Now, did you always have a venture capitalist to kind of help you, or was that kind of the kickstart in the beginning and then you ended up using your own?

00:52:16:03 - 00:52:20:03
Randy
I was partners with this gentleman and his wife for 27 years.

00:52:20:03 - 00:52:20:23
Kyle
Well

00:52:21:26 - 00:52:22:19
Kyle
how.

00:52:22:20 - 00:52:37:04
Kyle
So? For someone who because I think that particular situation, finding someone like that to get into business with, I would say is, is unique. How would you advise people to kind of create those kind of relationships in business, in their life?

00:52:39:06 - 00:53:06:03
Randy
When I was really young, I was not as good at, at making relationships with people like that as being older and smarter now. And so I'd encourage people to, you know, like older guys like me, you know, if I'm a pilot and I'm at an airport and a young guy comes up to me and ask me questions about something, I mean, people want to help each other, and young real estate investors would want to talk to me and take me out to lunch and pick my brain for stuff.

00:53:06:03 - 00:53:17:29
Randy
And I always like to help people. And the willingness to help is is really pretty universal. So if you're interested in this kind of stuff, try to meet people that do it. Try to get some mentors and people to help you.

00:53:18:03 - 00:53:35:14
Kyle
Yeah, I was actually, I've been talking to my brother about this and the concept of literally just, like reaching out cold to certain people that inspire you and just be like, hey, will you mentor me? And I think this goes beyond, climbing. It could be in any aspect of business or life that you would like to grow in.

00:53:35:21 - 00:53:44:24
Kyle
And I think to your point, there's a bunch of people out there that are willing to help other people. So yeah, what is that going to look like? There's just reach out.

00:53:44:29 - 00:53:48:04
Randy
Don't be afraid to ask someone. They could say no, but that's all they're going to say.

00:53:48:04 - 00:53:48:19
Kyle
Yeah,

00:53:48:19 - 00:53:53:04
Randy
at the worst, or get off my lawn, I don't know.

00:53:53:04 - 00:53:54:06
Kyle
Yeah.

00:53:54:08 - 00:54:20:12
Kyle
In terms of reaching out, you know, it's it's got to be more than just like, hey, will you mentor me right? This guy, like, in terms of, I guess, giving people a structure or guidance on like what look like a cold call reach out would look like I would imagine it's going to be like, come to the table with some preexisting knowledge on the subject, maybe come, come with like an educated question, like it shows you've already done research that shows you are invested in kind of what you're doing in the first place.

00:54:20:15 - 00:54:29:10
Kyle
And have have something for them to immediately respond to, rather than it just being like, oh, sure, I'll be a mentor. Like, what does that even mean, you know?

00:54:29:15 - 00:54:43:18
Randy
Well yeah. Don't ask such an open ended question like that. You're not going to get a good response. You're what you said is exactly right. Have do your homework, figure out what you're trying to learn, what your questions are, whatever it is.

00:54:44:01 - 00:54:52:19
Kyle
Yeah, I think, Tanner, actually, his story of reaching out to you is hilarious. I reached out to you, and it's like, hey, can I carry all your stuff up to the base of, alcohol and, well.

00:54:52:19 - 00:54:52:26
Randy


00:54:52:26 - 00:55:00:08
Kyle
And I love that he's like, hell, yeah. You can carry my stuff. I just like that was a really cool example of exactly what we're talking about here, right?

00:55:00:11 - 00:55:19:23
Kyle
Like, I don't think he'd ever met you before. That was the first time. He was just, like, inspired by your story and knew his vision of where he wanted to be as a climber, and just kind of made it happen. And like you said, you know, you were willing to entertain someone that was willing to put in some work and get out there and show a passion for kind of what he was trying to achieve.

00:55:19:29 - 00:55:34:09
Randy
Yeah, there's in route development. There's a lot of work to be done carrying stuff. Trying to figure out where the trails go. Just just. It's a lot of work. In fact, we. I don't know if sometimes it feels like a manual labor

00:55:34:09 - 00:55:36:20
Kyle
Sure. Yeah.

00:55:36:20 - 00:55:52:11
Kyle
So, I mean, while we're on this topic of mentorship, like, what did it look like for you when you were younger? And then how has it changed? And I guess we're talking about climbing specifically now. How has it changed to modern day?

00:55:53:06 - 00:56:13:26
Randy
I didn't even know what mentorship was when I was a young climber. I had climbers that I went climbing with who were more experienced with me. And in a way, they're a mentor. But I didn't really understand that concept because for me, when I was young, I was just thinking, you know, I can do anything. I'll do it all on my own.

00:56:13:26 - 00:56:14:27
Randy
You know, it's sort of

00:56:15:04 - 00:56:16:24
Kyle
You were a self-taught climber in the beginning.

00:56:16:28 - 00:56:42:03
Randy
Yeah, pretty much a self-taught climber. So I had this feeling like I'll just figure it out and do it, but I did. I was very lucky to climb with some really good climbers. Early on I did. In 77, I went up to Ciac with Augie Klein and Max Jones, and these guys were older than me and more experienced, but, Max was impressive as far as his ability to climb.

00:56:42:03 - 00:57:08:18
Randy
512 climb a four set up hauling systems, do big wall stuff. I mean, he was the entire package. Then climb with Dale Barden, 78. Climb with a lot of really good climbers. And so I was being mentored, but I didn't really. It wasn't like this sort of the current day notion of mentorship, where you take a more active role in learning and being taught and that sort of thing

00:57:09:14 - 00:57:27:11
Kyle
There's this, rule I like at least taking this into the modern day is the 2060 20 rule. Have you heard of this? So 20% of your partners should be better than you. And act kind of as a mentor, 60% of your climbing partnerships should be people that are even with you, where you kind of each teach each other things as you grow.

00:57:27:13 - 00:57:35:25
Kyle
And then 20% of the last 20% of your partners should be people who you act as a mentor to. And I really like that split. I think it, I think.

00:57:36:02 - 00:57:36:29
Kyle
Each.

00:57:37:01 - 00:57:58:20
Kyle
Segment of that experience as a climber is so crucial to our development as climbers. And I, I've definitely from the very beginning, I've definitely, I started out like, very much, as a mentor, kind of like the hey, we'll just come out and climb with me so I can get my objectives done. And like, even though I didn't really know what I was doing, I was still teaching somebody that didn't know what I knew.

00:57:58:22 - 00:58:05:15
Kyle
And so that's been a huge part of my development. It's just like, playing with that, that ratio of 26 to 20.

00:58:05:20 - 00:58:26:07
Randy
Yeah. I've mentored other climbers, and I wasn't even real. I didn't even realize I was doing it. I when I needed partners in Boulder, I would just go to the bulletin board and find someone who's willing to belay. They might only climb five seven. Now, I made a deal with them. I said, you belay me on this project up in Boulder Canyon, and then after that, I'll lead you what?

00:58:26:07 - 00:58:27:29
Randy
Whatever you want to do.

00:58:28:01 - 00:58:30:12
Randy
And.

00:58:30:14 - 00:58:38:12
Randy
So things like that, it was it was interesting. But yeah, I didn't understand the whole mentorship, but it's in a way I was doing it on both ends

00:58:38:12 - 00:58:38:16
Kyle
it.

00:58:38:18 - 00:58:57:10
Kyle
Yeah. And it seems like back, back then it was almost like ingrained in the process because there were less climbers. And so once you got into the scene, it was just like you got absorbed in the scene and you were climbing, especially when you're choosing objectives like yourself. That was just like you. You grew through, just like being around everybody and being with these people.

00:58:57:10 - 00:59:13:13
Kyle
But now it seems like there's so many climbers and there's so many little segments, like, I talked to so many people that have trouble even finding partners to begin with. Like, I think lead rope soloing is getting really, popular. But, people are struggling to, to find people to teach them, how to climb or they don't feel safe.

00:59:13:13 - 00:59:31:29
Kyle
So they don't have people, or harder them that they are trying to they're having a hard time finding people that are harder climbers than them. There's like this weird kind of situation that we're finding ourselves in, in the community, at least, that I'm seeing where there's like a giant disparity between like, mentors and the larger pool of climbers.

00:59:32:04 - 00:59:51:00
Randy
Well, I think part of that is due to people wanting to be shown the way. You have to take the initiative to buy a book about climbing and go out and study it and go to the rock and tie your knots and check that book and see if you've done it right, or YouTube or whatever. How are you getting information?

00:59:51:00 - 01:00:19:01
Randy
But there's so much available you can teach yourself that you don't have to rely on a mentor. The mentors will be there, but they're not just growing on trees. You know, they're you have to take the initiative and learn. When I learned how to climb, I had basic Rock craft by Aurora Robbins and my sister's boyfriend at the time, and I would go out and, you know, tire anchors and look at the book and look at the anchor and, you know, it's like, okay, I, I think we done it right.

01:00:19:01 - 01:00:25:12
Randy
And we taught ourselves. So people have to be willing to go that take that step because there's all the information is

01:00:25:12 - 01:00:26:17
Kyle
Yeah.

01:00:26:19 - 01:00:27:17
Kyle
I think that's a good point.

01:00:27:23 - 01:00:30:07
Kyle
For a mentor. Yeah. A mentor will show up.

01:00:30:09 - 01:00:34:16
Kyle
Once you've gotten to a place where you're in a position to be mentored. Essentially.

01:00:34:19 - 01:00:36:08
Kyle
Yeah. I mean,

01:00:36:08 - 01:00:57:18
Randy
what I see and it it's it happens with surfing and climbing and there will be people that are keen to learn, but then there are people like Tanner who have taken that extra step. And you can see that, you know, you see that extra step and go, okay, this guy's serious because I don't mind spending my time helping people, but I'd rather do it to people who are really going to continue and be serious about it.

01:00:57:18 - 01:01:00:23
Randy
Not just, hey, that was a fun day. And then they never do it again.

01:01:00:23 - 01:01:07:18
Kyle
if you could answer this question, what is the greatest piece of advice that you've ever received or felt like you've given to somebody.

01:01:08:21 - 01:01:24:22
Randy
Oh, I don't know. Need to be a good listener. I learned that through business and dealing with people in the real estate business and screening tenants and all this kind of stuff. Just. And just in general, be willing

01:01:24:22 - 01:01:25:09
Kyle
list.

01:01:25:11 - 01:01:32:00
Kyle
Expand on that a little more, I think. And you know, we hear that common trope kind of pretty often is like you're going to be a good listener. What does that actually mean?

01:01:32:03 - 01:01:56:12
Randy
Most people will tell you what you need to learn if you give them enough time. You can sit in a car and be quiet, and the other person after a while maybe gets uncomfortable being quiet, and they'll start talking and maybe they'll start telling you things that if you weren't a good listener, you wouldn't would never learn. I would say that.

01:01:56:12 - 01:02:11:09
Randy
and then set goals, you know, set goals and try and this is an individual thing is something that suited me, may not suit everyone, but I, I like to have a goal and I like to see what I'm doing towards that goal as time goes on.

01:02:11:28 - 01:02:18:11
Randy
So if you want to climb 512, you might have certain landmarks to get to on your way to 512.

01:02:18:11 - 01:02:32:00
Randy
Don't think of I got to climb 512 overnight. It's like, oh well, I need to climb 510 in the gym. And then 511 plus in the gym. And then I need to lead 510, do outside and just sort of have these landmarks and then you'll get there

01:02:32:08 - 01:02:38:07
Kyle
It's kind of like you're always keep the not in view the same, same principle in.

01:02:38:07 - 01:02:39:03
Kyle
A way. Yeah.

01:02:39:05 - 01:03:04:21
Kyle
So back on to this, like the element of business. And, you know, I guess to wrap up this chapter here is, like, was there ever a tension between your love for adventure and climbing and your pursuit of stability through business? Like you were clear about your both, right? You've had both passions. Like, was there ever a tension between the two that you had to, like, mitigate or get around?

01:03:05:09 - 01:03:15:05
Randy
Oh for sure. For example, it would have been great to spend every October in November in the Red River Gorge.

01:03:16:10 - 01:03:33:09
Randy
Just different things that I wanted to do that I couldn't do because I had a business. So you have to. I mean, life is. Life is give and take. You're you've you get to do things, but you don't get to do everything. So you have to set realistic goals.

01:03:33:22 - 01:03:51:07
Kyle
How do you decipher between what you should and want? Like, you know what I mean? Like the difference between like, chasing things that we might want, but maybe. No, we should do. Like, how are you able to make the decision between what's the right decision and what's not

01:03:51:17 - 01:03:52:22
Randy
Give me an example.

01:03:52:22 - 01:03:59:15
Kyle
So, like you just said, like you, you know, it'd be easy to go to Red River Gorge and just be there for those months.

01:03:59:18 - 01:04:06:12
Kyle
But, you know, you had, like, a business, like, I guess it's priorities. You have to choose priorities in life.

01:04:06:12 - 01:04:28:10
Randy
For sure. Yeah. I would always remember basically what side my, my bread is buttered on. And I had to take care of that first and that was my business obligations. I had that to my partner, to my employees, my tenants. So that would take priority. So I'd always get that work done and then do the climbing.

01:04:28:13 - 01:04:45:06
Randy
And you have to keep your priorities realistic and and focused because, you know, if you just say, oh, well, I, I didn't show up for that meeting because I was so close on sending my project. And I thought if I took another rest day, I'd do it. And that people at you like what

01:04:45:19 - 01:04:51:11
Randy
there's there's four other people here waiting for you and you didn't show up.

01:04:51:13 - 01:04:52:18
Randy
So.

01:04:52:20 - 01:04:59:22
Randy
You know, you just have to set your priorities. And that's paying your bills and taking care of your family.

01:05:00:05 - 01:05:02:19
Kyle
And climbing would never have done that for you.

01:05:02:21 - 01:05:03:14
Kyle
Alone.

01:05:03:17 - 01:05:08:00
Kyle
Climbing alone would never have buttered your bread. It would never have been,

01:05:08:03 - 01:05:12:09
Kyle
Hey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:12:11 - 01:05:26:26
Kyle
Even at your level, even at your, you know, the legacy that you've built as a climber, even at that status, climbing full time is not like it doesn't butter your bread. It's not going to support you. Even today, in modern day.

01:05:27:10 - 01:05:29:07
Randy
There's a few exceptions, but generally no.

01:05:29:07 - 01:05:31:08
Kyle
yeah.

01:05:31:10 - 01:05:34:27
Kyle
Interesting. I think that's important to know. I think,

01:05:35:03 - 01:05:36:01
Randy
Alex Huntley's

01:05:36:01 - 01:05:37:17
Kyle
I he's he's an anomaly.

01:05:37:17 - 01:05:38:06
Kyle
Yeah.

01:05:38:06 - 01:05:39:03
Randy
from climbing,

01:05:39:06 - 01:05:41:21
Kyle
But it's not just because of his performance.

01:05:42:05 - 01:05:43:19
Randy
No. It's because he's a celebrity.

01:05:43:19 - 01:05:44:07
Kyle
Yeah.

01:05:44:07 - 01:05:45:06
Kyle
Yeah,

01:05:45:06 - 01:06:08:05
Kyle
you're a prolific route developer, especially in, like, the 514 range. I spent it like the Virgin River Gorge. You've established, like, a large majority of New Fourteens with the Salt Lake City crew out there. You drove six hours each way from San Diego for a long period of time to kind of chase that passion.

01:06:08:07 - 01:06:25:20
Kyle
And you've I've. I would say you've developed, like, more rock than some people probably will ever wear. Will ever climb. What is it about discovering new routes, new areas, and this passion as a, as a route developer that has captivated you all this time?

01:06:25:22 - 01:06:26:01
Kyle
It's

01:06:26:01 - 01:06:49:18
Randy
really inspiration. You got to chase what inspires you. So if that kind of stuff does inspire you, don't do it. It's not important. Climbing new routes was always really interesting to me. Because you take something that no one's done before, they haven't set where there's anchors or or where the route might go, which crack systems might you link.

01:06:49:18 - 01:07:11:28
Randy
And so it's really to me, it's an artistic thing and it's an inspirational thing. So that's what I love doing about it. I don't think I would have been the climber I was if I didn't have new routes to do, and it forced me to climb hard because I would come upon some amazing line and I would look at this thing and think, man, this is, this is a I don't know if I can do this.

01:07:11:28 - 01:07:25:17
Randy
This is really hard. And then I'd finally rise to the challenge and be able to do it. So and being inspired by the whole process. So I think inspiration is real important. If you're not inspired to do things, then try to find

01:07:25:17 - 01:07:27:13
Kyle
you're. Yeah.

01:07:27:15 - 01:07:43:03
Kyle
And you, you it's like, if it doesn't inspire you, then it's not for you. Do do you? I mean, for you route development was a huge part of your climbing experience. Do you feel like people who aren't developing routes are missing a portion of the climbing experience in a way

01:07:43:06 - 01:07:59:06
Randy
Not really. It may not even inspire them. They might just enjoy bouldering. And that's what inspires them. That's what they love doing. So they're not missing out on anything. It's it's just subjective.

01:07:59:06 - 01:07:59:21
Randy
it?

01:07:59:22 - 01:08:07:21
Randy
You miss out on appreciation. You don't appreciate what goes into it, but that you don't miss out on sort of an experience that you could generate yourself and

01:08:07:23 - 01:08:09:16
Kyle
If it didn't inspire you in the first place.

01:08:09:18 - 01:08:11:02
Kyle
Yeah.

01:08:11:04 - 01:08:34:08
Kyle
What about this nature of like I talked to a lot of route developers and I would say a lot of them are just doing it, not selfishly, but not specifically for other people. But it's almost like in it's in nature. Putting up routes is a give back to the community in a way, especially after time. Like, was that ever a motivating factor of like, man, I'm leaving like a legacy.

01:08:34:08 - 01:08:46:15
Kyle
I'm making routes that people can climb. Or was it very much like, I have a vision for a style on an a difficulty of climbing that I can't find. And so I'm going to make it exist.

01:08:46:18 - 01:08:46:28
Kyle
A little

01:08:46:28 - 01:09:06:18
Randy
bit of everything. Part of it was I was a professional climber, you know, to a degree. Now, it didn't pay my bills, but it paid for all of the gear that I did new routes with. So a lot of the bolting and all the stuff, all the gear that it takes to do that, I would find out of my income as a climber.

01:09:06:18 - 01:09:37:25
Randy
So I really didn't make anything. At the end of the day, as a climber, I put it all back into climbing, that that I like doing because it's, it made sense. It wasn't so much money that it really made a difference, but it was enough money to pay for all these routes. They're expensive, you know, each bolts like five bucks, probably a lot more now, but with a stainless hanger or stainless bolt and drilling it, the drill bit that wears out and the drill that eventually wears out and all the ropes and all that kind of stuff.

01:09:37:25 - 01:09:38:23
Randy
So,

01:09:38:23 - 01:09:52:14
Kyle
what about like the inspiration for putting the roots up in the first place? Like, was it like a mixed bag between like, I know I'm giving back to the community or was it like, I want this root to exist because I need to climb something really hard?

01:09:52:16 - 01:09:52:26
Kyle
It starts

01:09:52:26 - 01:10:15:20
Randy
starts out as I need to climb something really hard. And I want to find that jumbo love or whatever that mega king line is. I want to find it and and do it, hopefully. And then after a while, you realize that you have to create warm up routes. You know, there's a lot of other routes to do that people are going to be climbing these routes, so you want them to be good quality.

01:10:15:23 - 01:10:26:05
Randy
And it's not an altruistic thing where you're just going out there and slaving away for the community every day that you climb. But it's a combination of for yourself and knowing that other people will

01:10:26:05 - 01:10:27:07
Kyle
Yeah.

01:10:27:09 - 01:10:53:18
Kyle
How do you feel about climbers coming into an area, establishing a single line and then leaving? Versus kind of what you've been doing is you show up, you set up a whole crag, make sure there's a trail, you do the whole kit and caboodle and then move on. Do like are they just different styles? Do you find them both acceptable, or do you think people have a responsibility to develop crags as well as routes?

01:10:53:18 - 01:11:11:17
Randy
They don't have a responsibility, but they need to do it responsibly, though. You know, if you're let's say that you set up, you go to some crag and you set up a route and it's just got awful dangerous because they're just loose rock and everything that you could definitely fix if you spent some time on it, cleaned it up.

01:11:11:17 - 01:11:33:10
Randy
But you just leave this ugly, dangerous route that no one wants to climb, and you've taken up that real estate. That might have been a good climb for someone if they actually put their work into it. So that's, that's, that's kind of not being responsible with the resource. But if you just go to an area and put up one route and leave and it's a good route, it doesn't matter.

01:11:33:12 - 01:11:55:08
Randy
So it leaves the other routes for other people to do someday. I mean, we were we had sort of a ranking system on our routes first round, second round, third round, draft pick. And we would go and try to do the first rounders, and then we would do the second, and we would eventually leave an area knowing that there's still a whole bunch of routes left.

01:11:55:11 - 01:12:05:10
Randy
But they're in the priority. They're not as much a priority for us, but it's good because you leave it for other generations to do, and then they become invested in the area. And so that's good.

01:12:05:10 - 01:12:08:08
Kyle
So there's an art to almost leaving it slightly unfinished.

01:12:08:11 - 01:12:09:11
Kyle
Yeah, yeah.

01:12:09:14 - 01:12:32:14
Kyle
That's cool, I like that. What about, like, the unsung heroes of development? You know, I think that you you've spoke about this at length is, you know, you you get recognition for these routes and these crags that you've developed. But it's it's a huge group process. And there's like a big community involvement in, making these things become kind of what they are.

01:12:32:16 - 01:12:45:14
Kyle
Are there any, like, people or, you know, steadfast climber partners that have been along this journey with you and development that you'd like to shout out or, maybe just talk to a little bit about those people behind the scenes that kind of are a part of this process.

01:12:46:00 - 01:13:08:15
Randy
Oh for sure. You know, a lot of times back in the day, let's say it's a 513 or something. I'm working on a Joshua tree, and my name would be on the first ascent, but the names that aren't on the first ascent are my partners that couldn't remotely climb that hard. That was still get up at four in the morning every morning and go out there with me and make these drives and belay me and be patient.

01:13:08:15 - 01:13:33:23
Randy
And, you know, I was just I was almost like a workaholic out there where I would it was like a sun up first light to end in a to last light situation, with Randy hiking back in the dark every day. And as I look back on my climbing life and I realize these guys were soldiering away with me, and it's amazing that some of them would just stick with me and keep doing that.

01:13:33:26 - 01:14:00:26
Randy
And so I had a friend named Glen Swenson who had got in an accident in the Army, and he was basically disabled with his thumb jacked up so he could only climb certain routes. That crash went certain ways because of his hand. And he went out there just tons of times with me. And super reliable. These, a lot of these guys were were, you know, incredibly reliable.

01:14:00:26 - 01:14:25:09
Randy
On time, we would get up at crazy hours and. Yeah, it's just so what I started doing is I started at some point in my life, I realized these guys are just as important to the first ascent as I am. So I would list everyone. It has something to do with the first ascent, and therefore there is a route in Baja that we did, which is 1000ft free climb, called Orion Rising.

01:14:25:12 - 01:14:44:04
Randy
Brian Spiewak started that route with Chris Hubbard and Diego Andretti, and then they invited me along because they thought I could free it. So anyway, it became this kind of group effort. And the first ascent list is about, I don't know, 12 people long. And it's it's almost ridiculous that we put that many people, but all those people has something to do with it.

01:14:44:04 - 01:14:46:15
Randy
They weren't all the ones that went from the bottom to the

01:14:47:02 - 01:14:49:05
Kyle
But they were critical pieces of the puzzle.

01:14:49:08 - 01:14:49:24
Randy
yeah.

01:14:50:00 - 01:15:07:14
Randy
Oh, and then and then my friend George Visser would would was super reliable when I would go to the VG, he would come from a nearby town and he would, we would say meet at ten and he would come one side of the freeway and park his car, and I'd be on the other side of the freeway. He'd pull up simultaneously.

01:15:07:14 - 01:15:14:15
Randy
It was like clockwork, and we had this routine down. And so, you know, I made a lot of good friendships with some guys who were

01:15:14:15 - 01:15:15:22
Kyle
that's cool.

01:15:15:25 - 01:15:38:18
Kyle
Have you ever struggled with, like, a balance of recognition, like, is there ever been like a partner or a conflict where it's like, you know, there's a tension between like, oh, Randy's getting the attention, but like, I'm also a part of this, like, and there's like a struggle between, like, someone trying to make a name for themselves, but, like, there's a spotlight challenge, like, do you know what I'm trying to get at at all?

01:15:38:21 - 01:15:44:04
Kyle
Like, well, talk to me about that and how you've experienced that tension between partner sometimes,

01:15:44:17 - 01:16:24:11
Randy
Too. It exists not not too much. But I've seen it, you know, in my experience, a little bit, especially when I was getting older and I'd have younger guys climbing with me and some of these, a couple of guys I can think of, would they want to do a first ascent that generally I brought them to, you know, like I've been working on an area, I've got a route and I bring this guy, remember he kept wanting to send it before me, and it got competitive between us and was getting kind of weird, I thought, because I because it was sort of my route that I had, you know, figured it out, cleaned

01:16:24:11 - 01:16:43:22
Randy
it and bolted it and all that. And then he's, he's he's up there going, yeah, I think I'll hope I'll get the for this try. And I'm thinking, whoa, this now we're in a competition. But it's actually kind of fun because I gave me a reason that I had to step it up a little bit for being the old man.

01:16:43:25 - 01:17:10:29
Randy
But I think in general terms, I've gotten a lot of recognition for what I've done and some of the partners that I've had haven't gotten as much recognition as maybe they deserve. So that, you know, there is that dynamic. Part of it is I would write, articles for, for climbing magazines back in the day. So my name naturally went more to the top of the list of people's attention, rather than some guy who is reticent, who never wanted to, report anything.

01:17:11:02 - 01:17:22:20
Randy
And I go back and forth between, wanting to expose areas that are really cool and show everyone and also not talking about areas. They're still secret areas that I've

01:17:22:20 - 01:17:23:15
Kyle
find that.

01:17:23:17 - 01:17:32:05
Kyle
Yeah. So so talk to me about that. How do you decide when to make an area or a route public versus keeping certain ones still off the radar?

01:17:32:07 - 01:17:33:05
Kyle
It's

01:17:33:05 - 01:18:02:11
Randy
it's a balancing act. One of them is having all your gear there in position to clean the roots bottom, do the first ascent stuff, and not wanting someone to show up and and taking your stuff. There's that. There's wanting to do the roots first. There's that aspect of it, sort of the selfishness. There's the access issues. Maybe you're going through private land to get there, and there's some weird access problem where if it blows up to a big area, then it would just be over for everyone.

01:18:02:14 - 01:18:27:29
Randy
And then we'll take people out, you know, one by one. And, there could other could also be, other locals that I've stumbled upon, areas where I've done new routes and the locals there don't want it talked about, and I respect it. So if someone brings me to an area and goes, hey, come here and you can do some new routes and but we're showing it to you, we don't want you to talk about it.

01:18:27:29 - 01:18:59:25
Randy
Then I won't say anything. And then there's also why don't you let the genie out of the bottle? It's out of the bottle. So you can enjoy those days where you feel like Robinson Crusoe and no one's on your island. I mean, George and I were up at Clark one day, and. And we saw this car drive up, and the car stopped in our parking area, and the guy hiked up the trail towards the crag, and we felt like, you know, I mean, we felt like we were watching, I don't know, the white man come in like sailing ships back in, in the into the new world.

01:18:59:27 - 01:19:17:09
Randy
Like, who are these guys? What is going on here? Who knows? We're here and but it's it's fun to be out there and have no one there. It. I like the solitude of climbing. I'm not into these massive scenes where there's 30 people and their dogs at the base.

01:19:17:18 - 01:19:23:25
Randy
I mean, that's okay, because that's, you know, that that's okay for some people, but that's not where I prefer to be.

01:19:23:25 - 01:19:24:22
Kyle
no, I.

01:19:24:23 - 01:19:50:00
Kyle
100% agree. I think that's the biggest thing that turns me off from sport climbing is the crowds and the people. Like I love the solitude found in multi pitch. Tried climbing especially kind of like getting into the a slightly above moderate stuff. There's just not a lot of people doing those routes. So you're pretty much guaranteed to be there alone or, or the person you're with has such a specific level of skill set and like objective that you have so much in common that you're you're always like, you know, man, this is so cool.

01:19:50:00 - 01:19:54:28
Kyle
We're out here together. You know, you both, agree on so much. So I've, I've met really cool people doing that.

01:19:54:28 - 01:20:03:26
Randy
I mean if we went climbing we could go somewhere today. We know there's no one and that's what's beautiful about climbing still, it still has that. Surfing. Not so

01:20:04:10 - 01:20:08:14
Kyle
Yeah, there's only so many waves. Only points.

01:20:08:14 - 01:20:14:09
Kyle
on this topic of new route development, you know,

01:20:14:09 - 01:20:25:01
Kyle
I think the at least the area that hasn't got a lot in attention is your you just kind of mentioned it, but the area in Baja, is it just that one route that you guys did or was there a, crag or an area that you developed?

01:20:25:04 - 01:20:45:20
Randy
It's a north facing wall which at its shortest point is maybe 5 to 600ft. And at the tallest point is a thousand. It goes up a steep hill and gets from, shorter to taller and then shorter at the end at the very top end. And, and it's split by crack systems. It looks like the needles

01:20:45:20 - 01:20:46:21
Kyle
Wow. It's like

01:20:46:21 - 01:20:50:16
Randy
Yosemite Joshua Tree and the needles got together and had a baby.

01:20:51:09 - 01:20:51:26
Kyle
It's granite.

01:20:52:02 - 01:20:53:01
Kyle
Yes. Okay.

01:20:53:01 - 01:21:14:17
Randy
It's really good granite and, my friend Brian Spiewak, who's one of the most reticent root developers I've ever seen, this guy will literally slave away for weeks on end and make a classic five eight, say, in San Diego County. That requires digging out tons of dirt, doing tons of.

01:21:14:19 - 01:21:15:19
Randy
Of.

01:21:15:22 - 01:21:44:01
Randy
Reconnaissance and rerouting. And just like his attention to detail on it and not stopping until it's perfect. Some of these routes have become just ultimate classics. For people to do that are five, six, five, seven, five, eight climbers. So the amount of effort he's put in to these climbs is phenomenal. Very selfless really. Brian showed me this area in, in Baja along with Chris Hubbard.

01:21:44:03 - 01:21:52:09
Randy
It we ended up doing probably 20 routes there. Maybe the longest one is ten pitches, and the shortest one is

01:21:52:09 - 01:21:56:20
Kyle
like this. Cool. Chad. Yeah.

01:21:56:20 - 01:22:02:00
Randy
Well, trad and sport combine. There might be a mostly trad and then a sport pitch, maybe in a rat.

01:22:02:00 - 01:22:03:01
Kyle
Yeah.

01:22:03:01 - 01:22:06:10
Randy
not, not all sport. Nothing is a pure sport climb. There.

01:22:06:10 - 01:22:08:14
Kyle
Are you able to say what the area is called?

01:22:08:14 - 01:22:11:07
Randy
Yes. On the north face, the El Gran Torino Blanco.

01:22:11:07 - 01:22:12:22
Kyle
Okay. Sorry.

01:22:12:25 - 01:22:17:01
Kyle
How far is it? South. Like how how far down the Baja Peninsula is it?

01:22:17:15 - 01:22:22:14
Randy
Not far. You? It's about 100 miles south of my house in San Diego.

01:22:22:14 - 01:22:23:17
Kyle
Okay.

01:22:23:17 - 01:22:42:05
Randy
So it's not that far. You you drive down through Tecate, which is the border crossing. Then you head east to a town I believe it's, la rumah Rossa. And then from there, you head south on dirt roads for 20 miles.

01:22:42:29 - 01:22:49:05
Kyle
any cartel activity you're going to be aware of. Oh yeah. Yeah. How do you mitigate that risk.

01:22:49:05 - 01:22:50:03
Randy
Travel during the day?

01:22:50:26 - 01:22:54:26
Randy
Don't travel on flashy vehicles. I don't.

01:22:55:13 - 01:22:57:01
Kyle
No no sprinter vans.

01:22:57:01 - 01:23:01:16
Randy
No sprinter vans. No jacked up monster 4x4.

01:23:01:16 - 01:23:02:08
Kyle
Yeah.

01:23:02:08 - 01:23:04:18
Randy
kind of a modest car.

01:23:04:25 - 01:23:07:11
Kyle
And how are you doing? Day trips? Are you camping out there?

01:23:07:15 - 01:23:07:22
Kyle
Oh,

01:23:07:22 - 01:23:30:24
Randy
we would have a day trip routine. Brian and I called the Mexican beat down, which is how we get up at two in the morning. You know, leave my house at three. We get up to the park and ride, where we'd meet at four. From there we'd leave. We'd get to the parking area at first light, hike in, climb all day and then come back at night.

01:23:30:26 - 01:23:32:09
Randy
And it was just a brutal, long

01:23:32:19 - 01:23:34:00
Kyle
Yeah. Sounds like it was

01:23:34:00 - 01:23:34:17
Randy
hour and a half.

01:23:34:17 - 01:23:36:28
Kyle
Oh my gosh. Wow.

01:23:37:13 - 01:23:45:07
Randy
It's a it's a downhill hike. We usually we could do one hour in 50 minutes if you're going fast and then say an hour and a half

01:23:45:07 - 01:23:46:08
Kyle
Yeah.

01:23:46:10 - 01:23:48:16
Kyle
Interesting. Sounds like a cool place.

01:23:48:18 - 01:23:48:23
Kyle
It

01:23:48:23 - 01:24:03:28
Randy
is. It's super adventurous, amazing climbs all at all, slowly start publishing tempos of it because it needs to be climbed. These routes are fantastic. They're as good as some of the routes are, like romantic warrior quality.

01:24:04:09 - 01:24:05:14
Kyle
Okay.

01:24:05:17 - 01:24:14:17
Kyle
How are you? So how are you scouting routes? I know you recently been using your plane to scout routes. Was that the reason why you got your pilot license?

01:24:14:22 - 01:24:16:20
Randy
Now I got my pilot's license for different reason

01:24:16:20 - 01:24:18:01
Kyle
What for?

01:24:18:01 - 01:24:35:26
Randy
I we go down to Baja on surf trips and I felt like I would go down there with my friend who was a pilot in his plane. And sometimes we're in really remote areas, situations where we could get hurt. And I thought I should learn how to fly so I could fly the plane back if we had to.

01:24:35:28 - 01:24:40:23
Randy
And then it's just aviation is just a rabbit hole that you get involved in. It's really interesting.

01:24:41:09 - 01:24:47:12
Kyle
What would you say the Earth felt larger or smaller after your smaller.

01:24:48:17 - 01:25:02:28
Kyle
That's cool because you can just get places way faster. No commercial flights, no security. Like, how fast can you be if we were to leave the house right now and you were to go get in your plane. I don't know what like an hour to be up in the up in the sky less.

01:25:03:06 - 01:25:05:28
Randy
Oh to be up in the sky here. We're ten minutes from

01:25:06:04 - 01:25:07:03
Kyle
Ten minutes from the airport.

01:25:07:04 - 01:25:07:23
Kyle
Yeah,

01:25:07:23 - 01:25:17:19
Randy
ten minutes from the airport, ten minutes to walk through the gate and do the preflight, you know, 15 minutes for the run up. So that's 35 minutes.

01:25:17:19 - 01:25:18:17
Kyle
Yeah.

01:25:18:17 - 01:25:20:13
Kyle
Wow.

01:25:20:15 - 01:25:32:07
Kyle
That's freedom. That's really cool. And so the scouting of routes came out as a kind of like a secondary from you're in the air now and all of a sudden you're looking around and you're just like oh what's that, what's that?

01:25:32:10 - 01:25:33:08
Kyle
Yeah.

01:25:33:08 - 01:25:50:15
Randy
Especially around San Diego. And I still have a lot of crags that I know about there, but they just become farther and farther to hike too. We were at the 2.5 hour mark where we would hike 2.5 hours each way to climb at this crag. But this crag was spectacular.

01:25:50:15 - 01:25:51:21
Kyle
Wow.

01:25:51:24 - 01:25:56:27
Kyle
Yeah. Access just becomes a barrier after a while. How far are you willing to walk in.

01:25:56:29 - 01:25:57:09
Kyle
The

01:25:57:09 - 01:26:04:15
Randy
which I never really enjoyed before, became part of the process. And some of these hikes are spectacular. They're actually good

01:26:04:21 - 01:26:26:11
Kyle
I could resonate with that. I mean, a lot of, like, I talk to people about climbing here in Red Rock and the, very common thing is like, oh, but those approaches, I'm like, this part of the experience, it's so beautiful. And like, you're scrambling, you're going through the rocks and the creeks and walking by pools and you know, you're getting all this elevation before you even start climbing like it's it's part of the adventure and the experience.

01:26:26:13 - 01:26:27:29
Kyle
I definitely resonate with that.

01:26:28:02 - 01:26:28:19
Kyle
Yeah. I think

01:26:28:19 - 01:26:32:23
Randy
as I got older I got more I would appreciate the hiking more.

01:26:32:23 - 01:26:57:07
Kyle
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01:26:57:07 - 01:27:17:19
Kyle
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Kyle
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01:27:24:09 - 01:27:38:18
Kyle
You know, you've been struggling with, kind of a debilitating. It's a disease, right? Talk to me about that. What is it called, and how has it manifested itself?

01:27:38:18 - 01:27:59:27
Randy
It's a disease called halex limits and it turns into Halex Rigidness. And halex is your big toe Alex. Limit is, is when your big toe you have arthritis in the joint and you get bone spurs growing on top of your foot, right at the toe joint to try to physically limit the motion because it's your body defending itself.

01:27:59:29 - 01:28:26:20
Randy
And after that disease advances, it turns into rigidness, where you can't bend your toe. But it's very painful. So I can't climb. Can't hike. So that's why I appreciate hiking so much now, because I can't do it. But I was appreciating it during, when I could do it. So it's changed a lot in my life until I get some surgeries which are rather not going to how complicated the options are.

01:28:26:20 - 01:28:29:00
Randy
But there's a lot there's some options, and they're not all very

01:28:29:10 - 01:28:31:10
Kyle
When did it start manifesting?

01:28:31:10 - 01:28:51:04
Randy
Oh, I, I, I had it for years. I didn't know about it. I only knew about it around October 2nd years ago, like two years ago today where I actually got a diagnosed by podiatrist. And from October through December it was downhill fast. You know, I couldn't stand the pain of being in climbing shoes.

01:28:51:06 - 01:29:06:08
Randy
I have to have very specific type of footwear so that my feet aren't comfortable, are not uncomfortable. And with carbon fiber inserts, I surf with booties that have carbon fiber. I put carbon fiber inserts in there, but I can do board sports

01:29:06:08 - 01:29:09:19
Kyle
work okay. My feet are flat.

01:29:09:22 - 01:29:11:01
Kyle
Obviously I mean I've.

01:29:11:04 - 01:29:36:22
Randy
if there's any people out there that have experience with this, especially surfers who've had big toe fusion or climbers with big toe fusion, that's one of the fixes is to fuze your toes. The other is an implant in the toe joint. Just reach out to me because I'm trying to find other people who've had this, who've gone through the the procedure and see if they can still surf, like, for example, with a fuzed toe.

01:29:36:24 - 01:29:39:00
Randy
You can't bend your toe at that point.

01:29:39:09 - 01:29:41:04
Kyle
How much range of motion do you have now?

01:29:41:07 - 01:29:41:17
Randy
I don't know.

01:29:41:18 - 01:29:43:18
Randy
If it's ten, 15 degrees in each

01:29:43:18 - 01:29:47:08
Kyle
Wow. And I'm a. Yeah, I'd.

01:29:47:08 - 01:29:58:01
Kyle
Say that even that helps walking. Right? Yeah. Because I saw you. I mean, I have very limited exposure so far, but it seems like you've been walking around pretty decently.

01:29:58:13 - 01:29:59:23
Randy
Yeah. I can walk around the house. Fine.

01:29:59:23 - 01:30:01:00
Kyle
Okay.

01:30:01:00 - 01:30:03:03
Randy
For a while but I ice my feet every day

01:30:03:03 - 01:30:04:04
Kyle
times.

01:30:04:04 - 01:30:07:09
Randy
day. So I iced him this morning at five in the

01:30:07:09 - 01:30:08:09
Kyle
Yeah.

01:30:08:09 - 01:30:11:28
Randy
quite a long time. And, and then I'll try some later on tonight.

01:30:11:28 - 01:30:12:28
Kyle
Yeah.

01:30:12:28 - 01:30:14:27
Randy
And so it's just managing it.

01:30:15:03 - 01:30:19:16
Kyle
And so climbing and hiking is off the table at the moment.

01:30:19:19 - 01:30:21:16
Kyle
Oh, wow.

01:30:21:18 - 01:30:25:24
Kyle
And that's happened since two years ago. So it's relatively recent.

01:30:25:26 - 01:30:25:29
Kyle
I

01:30:25:29 - 01:30:31:24
Randy
was Leave It to Beaver with Tim O'Neill in December 2nd years ago.

01:30:31:24 - 01:30:32:22
Kyle
Wow.

01:30:32:22 - 01:30:36:07
Randy
18 months ago or not, 18 months, 22 months ago.

01:30:37:26 - 01:31:06:01
Kyle
I've been workshopping this idea of climbing pillars. Like the reasons why we climb. And so far, I think three have kind of stood out. Performance, adventure and partnerships. Kind of the reasons why we we chose the sport. It seems like a year. I guess I won't answer the question for you. Write them in order of of importance.

01:31:06:03 - 01:31:08:09
Kyle
Adventure, performance and relationships.

01:31:08:09 - 01:31:12:12
Randy
venture relationships. And then last would be performance.

01:31:12:12 - 01:31:14:05
Kyle
really.

01:31:14:08 - 01:31:16:28
Kyle
I would have done it the other way. I would have guessed the other way.

01:31:16:28 - 01:31:18:10
Randy
Oh well that's.

01:31:18:12 - 01:31:19:09
Randy
That's my ordering.

01:31:19:11 - 01:31:19:17
Randy
Okay.

01:31:19:17 - 01:31:33:16
Randy
I'm. I'm really motivated by venture. I think that's great. And, you know, with that you get the your partnership. So that comes second performance is a byproduct of that because you can choose your level of performance to.

01:31:34:04 - 01:31:53:05
Kyle
Now you, you would correct me if I'm wrong. But you had mentioned that even if you got the surgery and you were able to let's say climb it like a 510 level. You had mentioned that you would question whether or not that would even be something worth your time or something that would inspire you to do. Is that is that true?

01:31:53:07 - 01:32:16:15
Randy
I used to think that when I stopped being able to climb harder, I would stop climbing. So at 14 be which is the hardest I ever climbed? Yeah, that eventually I started surfing more and I couldn't climb 14 because I was too fat. Which is kind of in quotes, you know, because the, the definition of fat in climbing is different than

01:32:16:19 - 01:32:19:20
Kyle
You know, 514 fat and 510 fat are a little different.

01:32:19:27 - 01:32:38:06
Randy
So I was not able to climb that grade even though I was young enough to do it, you know, because I had other interests. I kept climbing because I would find the adventure, see it that that's that's what I realized. Adventure was more important because I'd find these new things to do and partnerships and to hang out with my friends.

01:32:38:09 - 01:32:59:22
Randy
And so I kept climbing. Now that I've hit this roadblock and I may be reduced to 511 if I have my toes fuzed and I don't know if I can, if I can get joy from that, it's hard to say. I do miss climbing a lot, like it was the best source of exercise I had. It was, a great social thing.

01:32:59:22 - 01:33:07:16
Randy
And, you know, I got a lot of friends in the in the climbing, but I can't answer that question now, and I, I used to think I could answer that

01:33:07:19 - 01:33:27:24
Kyle
So if performance is the third pillar, why is it such a hard thing to try to understand that it might be something that's worth your time? If you could still have an adventure and go hike and climb a five 9 or 510 as you you know, like, why is that a hard thing to conceptualize enjoying if performance is the lowest tier?

01:33:28:07 - 01:33:28:20
Randy
I think.

01:33:28:20 - 01:33:29:15
Randy
It's.

01:33:29:18 - 01:33:52:18
Randy
Two reasons. One is there's other things I want to do. I don't mind being a beginner at stuff. So I learned hydrofoil, surfing, wing foiling these other things that I'm working on. And so I, I want to get better at those. I'm never going to get better at climbing from what I was. And then climbing is always going to be something that I was best at, you know, better at than these other things.

01:33:52:21 - 01:34:14:18
Randy
And it might be a bitter pill to swallow, to degrade too far down from being quite good at it to being pretty damn mediocre at it. So it's hard to say what it'll be like after I get this surgery done, which is two surgeries because it's two feet, both toes. And how old will I be at that point?

01:34:14:18 - 01:34:30:07
Randy
You know, I'm 65 now, so maybe I'll be 67 when I recover from that 68, 69, 70. I don't know how old I'll be. And do I really do I really want to continue climbing? I don't know, I can't answer that now. It sure be fun to

01:34:30:07 - 01:34:31:12
Kyle
get back on.

01:34:31:14 - 01:34:34:19
Kyle
How does it feel to be in that position.

01:34:34:22 - 01:34:37:04
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:34:37:06 - 01:34:47:02
Kyle
How have you been dealing with that kind of. That's the mental struggle and the the identity, that identity crisis, I guess that comes with it.

01:34:47:10 - 01:35:04:13
Randy
It's I think one of the hardest things is not being able to exercise the way I want to exercise. So I'm not a good guy about getting on a StairMaster or something like that. Or a peloton. I have a peloton. My wife uses it every day, but I I'm not that motivated, so it doesn't get me from A to B.

01:35:04:13 - 01:35:17:11
Randy
It doesn't really do anything for me other than give me exercise. So I really miss the exercise. That's hard to deal with. And then just missing the active climbing that's hard to deal with.

01:35:17:18 - 01:35:25:14
Kyle
And so even if you were to get into this like five, nine, five, ten realm, you're almost living in the shadow of the experience that you used to have.

01:35:25:21 - 01:35:26:21
Kyle
Yeah.

01:35:27:01 - 01:35:52:12
Randy
You know, life. You life is what happens when you're busy making plans. I heard someone say that, and it makes sense because you you you have plan what you want to do, and then certain things happen. Injuries where you get your body gets modified. I had a wrist injury in 94 that changed my climbing. So we the older you get, the more modified you get.

01:35:52:12 - 01:36:15:25
Randy
You know, some finger injury that now is giving you problems or or in my case, my toes. So it whatever you have to be able to accept and move on from what I mean there was there were times where I would just, you know, be flying my plane, just going along and just crying, you know, but that doesn't do me any good.

01:36:15:27 - 01:36:29:06
Randy
That doesn't get me right, because I have a lot of time to think when I'm flying, say, from here to San Francisco or something. So I try not to think about it too much, but I think about it every day.

01:36:30:01 - 01:36:32:07
Kyle
That's tough. I'm sorry you're going through that.

01:36:33:04 - 01:36:36:22
Randy
I still have a pretty good life. I mean, a lot of people would say, I'll take

01:36:36:22 - 01:36:39:06
Kyle
that. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

01:36:39:06 - 01:36:41:26
Randy
So I can't complain, I really can't.

01:36:41:26 - 01:36:45:17
Kyle
I understand you still happy? Yeah. It's just hard. Yeah.

01:36:45:20 - 01:37:04:14
Kyle
I understand your your desire for progression. I think that that I resonate with that for sure. It's like, well, what's the point of me putting effort into this if I can't see some sort of progression? And if all I'm going to I fall, I'm going to experience is regression. And again, like that, always comparing myself to who I used to be.

01:37:04:17 - 01:37:07:18
Kyle
It's almost like more painful than it should be.

01:37:08:08 - 01:37:29:08
Randy
I think you, you look at something like an NFL quarterback and you see these guys that retire and they just can't let go of it because being an NFL quarterback is probably being one of the best athletes in the world at what you do with the most spotlighted sport position in the world. And these guys.

01:37:29:11 - 01:37:38:28
Randy
Sometimes they play too long, you know, and they just shouldn't be on the field anymore. But they can't let go of it because that's the one thing that they were so good at. And it's hard to be.

01:37:39:25 - 01:37:44:22
Randy
A guy who's, you know, so good at what you're doing and then not have that anymore.

01:37:45:06 - 01:37:47:23
Kyle
Definitely becomes a part of your identity.

01:37:47:25 - 01:37:48:22
Kyle
Yeah.

01:37:48:22 - 01:37:53:05
Randy
yeah. It's hard. You got to move on. Be grateful for what you have.

01:37:53:16 - 01:38:16:07
Kyle
What about this? So there's, like, a bell curve of performance, I think as humans, because we age. When did you. You know, you peak at a certain point, and then it slowly starts to kind of taper off. When did you feel that taper start to creep in? When did you like the. You're like, Holy crap. Like, I might have just climbed the hardest I could climb.

01:38:16:07 - 01:38:21:06
Kyle
Or, you know, I see the the bell curve starting to go down the other way. Did you have a moment like that?

01:38:21:08 - 01:38:25:20
Randy
Not a moment, but it's. Well, when you're on the top of that curve, it's a slow.

01:38:25:28 - 01:38:28:06
Kyle
It's it's kind of. It's very slow. Right?

01:38:28:11 - 01:38:28:14
Kyle
It's

01:38:28:14 - 01:38:29:22
Randy
it's not a moment. It's more like

01:38:30:13 - 01:38:31:24
Kyle
Like a decade or something.

01:38:31:24 - 01:38:34:11
Randy
say I was in my best climbing shape in my mid 30s.

01:38:34:11 - 01:38:36:10
Kyle
Okay.

01:38:36:17 - 01:38:58:06
Randy
Early to mid 30s. And there was a route up at Clark called Wall of Glass. I did it was 14 a and there was an extension to it. I bolted, I called Jumbo Glass that was going to be 14. See, I was certain of it, you know, that was my next step from 14 B to 14 C and it was a really long route.

01:38:58:06 - 01:39:21:00
Randy
And it was it was brutally hard and it was going to be really good. I really was psyched on it. And I sat below that wall. I worked on it for a while, and at some point I realized, let's do this route. It's going to take complete devotion and let's I was maybe say 35 at the time. I'm going to have to hone my diet down.

01:39:21:00 - 01:39:44:24
Randy
I'm after workout like I've never worked out. I'm going to have to come out here for who knows how many days, 40 days are working on this route over a period of years. If that takes that. So that was my challenge. Was wall of glass or jumbo glass. And after a while I realized, you know, I just don't want to spend my time doing that.

01:39:44:26 - 01:40:07:15
Randy
I have a wife. I don't want to just become a slave to this route and not be around home. I've got a business, I've got surfing that I want to get better at. I've got these adventures and places I want to go to Indonesia, I go surfing, I want to go to some crazy places. And am I going to be able to just to devote myself and my physical training and all this to this route?

01:40:07:17 - 01:40:27:26
Randy
Now, 14 C might not be that hard to someone who climbs 15 C but at the time for that year, for the for the for that area, it was quite hard and I didn't think I could do it. I mean, I thought I knew I could do the route. That's not what I was wondering. I just didn't think that I wanted to do, to have my life make that

01:40:27:26 - 01:40:29:25
Kyle
Yeah. It was a sacrifice you weren't willing to make.

01:40:29:26 - 01:40:30:28
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah.

01:40:31:00 - 01:40:31:19
Kyle
Interesting.

01:40:31:19 - 01:40:34:22
Randy
And I realized it. I just sort of like, well, this is it.

01:40:35:12 - 01:40:35:27
Kyle
That was the.

01:40:35:27 - 01:40:36:06
Kyle
Peak

01:40:36:06 - 01:40:39:00
Randy
someone on this route. So I told Chris Lehner about it.

01:40:39:00 - 01:40:39:23
Kyle
Yeah.

01:40:39:25 - 01:40:49:10
Kyle
Was that hard for you or was it again the same decision with the, the letting go of high altitude. You just knew you're like okay I'm setting my priorities once again and I know exactly which direction I need to go.

01:40:49:10 - 01:40:50:03
Randy
No, it wasn't hard.

01:40:50:03 - 01:40:50:19
Kyle
Yeah.

01:40:50:19 - 01:41:06:25
Randy
You know, you at some point you're going to climb as hard as you can and then it's you're not going to climb as hard as you can. And I devoted a lot of effort to climbing as hard as I could. I reached that point. I saw where it was. I knew my limitations, you know, I didn't think I was better than I was.

01:41:06:25 - 01:41:11:04
Randy
So I kind of realized that was that was the one I probably wasn't going to do.

01:41:11:10 - 01:41:11:25
Kyle
Yeah.

01:41:12:01 - 01:41:14:11
Kyle
That's interesting. And such a turning point.

01:41:14:14 - 01:41:15:23
Kyle
Yeah.

01:41:15:25 - 01:41:19:14
Kyle
To have a vision for like I know it's there.

01:41:19:14 - 01:41:20:18
Randy
Or I done all the moves

01:41:20:18 - 01:41:21:03
Kyle
Yeah.

01:41:21:03 - 01:41:36:23
Randy
you know except for. Yeah I've done all the moves I didn't, I used and linked big sections together. I hadn't made enough progress to say hey I could do this in 15 days. It was more like 40 days, you know, 40 days of projecting it. This means a lot of trips.

01:41:37:00 - 01:41:39:12
Kyle
What's the longest you've projected? A single route.

01:41:39:12 - 01:41:42:24
Randy
I think planet Earth in the VG, it was my first five, 14,

01:41:42:24 - 01:41:44:08
Kyle
How many days?

01:41:44:08 - 01:41:47:11
Randy
I don't know, I don't remember, but

01:41:47:11 - 01:41:48:03
Kyle
a lot of

01:41:48:03 - 01:41:50:26
Randy
Planet Earth because I figured I drove around planet Earth.

01:41:50:26 - 01:41:53:14
Randy
That's how many miles I put on my car to go back and forth to the

01:41:53:26 - 01:41:55:02
Kyle
That's what you. That's why you called it.

01:41:55:07 - 01:41:57:03
Kyle
Wow. Wow.

01:41:57:05 - 01:42:04:04
Kyle
That wasn't the first 514. Or was it the first 514 that was established? No. Okay. Who has the claim to that

01:42:04:16 - 01:42:06:11
Randy
I don't know, this is Scarface. Maybe

01:42:06:14 - 01:42:09:26
Kyle
Okay. Scott Franklin. Okay. Interesting.

01:42:09:26 - 01:42:19:18
Randy
It was hard. 14 A never been downgraded. It's if anything people think it's harder than that. So I was happy. That was a solid 514.

01:42:19:18 - 01:42:20:12
Kyle
Yeah.

01:42:20:12 - 01:42:26:11
Randy
was a that was a big effort for me. It took seasons. So I would I knew that I could do this route.

01:42:26:11 - 01:42:39:24
Randy
But at I finally got smart with climbing because I used to just bang my head against these projects until I did them. And with Planet Earth, I realized I'm just going to take some time off of the route, get a better base, and then come back. And I would do that.

01:42:39:24 - 01:42:40:15
Randy
And.

01:42:40:17 - 01:42:44:23
Randy
Go out. Go away from it, come back, go away, come back. And then then I did

01:42:44:23 - 01:42:44:26
Kyle
did.

01:42:45:02 - 01:42:53:22
Kyle
Did you ever find like a digression with the more time spent away from it or every time you came back it just got a little easier a little easier.

01:42:53:22 - 01:43:07:01
Randy
Well you you're I'm familiar with the moves sometimes. So maybe your first or second burn. You're remembering some key micro data that you had forgotten. And then once you sort that out, then you're feeling better. But at first you don't feel better.

01:43:07:08 - 01:43:10:01
Kyle
Yeah that makes sense. Brush off the cobwebs real quick.

01:43:10:03 - 01:43:11:24
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah. I want to.

01:43:11:29 - 01:43:31:27
Kyle
You've you've had a lot of experience climbing really hard. I want to know why hard climbing performance is so intoxicating and why you feel like these successes are so, they, like. The success fades so quickly after success.

01:43:32:09 - 01:43:56:24
Randy
On planet Earth I was happy for a week after I did it. Most of my climbs even big projects when I clipped the chains and lower down. I'm already thinking of the next one. So it's it's really odd with sport climbing in particular, it's, I think mountain climbing, big wall climbing is different. You've done, a thing where as a sport, climbing is more like a physical performance.

01:43:56:27 - 01:44:06:01
Randy
And it's there's a there there's actually a pain factor that some people don't realize is in hard sport climbing.

01:44:06:01 - 01:44:06:08
Kyle
a.

01:44:06:08 - 01:44:06:17
Kyle
Pain.

01:44:06:17 - 01:44:07:01
Kyle
Factor.

01:44:07:01 - 01:44:26:04
Randy
Yeah. Where you're, you're climbing through pain like a pump that won't go away, or maybe even mental anguish where you're so far below on a long endurance route and it just is mentally hard to get through all that, the pain of the pump and the strenuous soreness.

01:44:26:04 - 01:44:54:20
Randy
So it's not the pain in the normal sense, like someone is right. I don't know, cutting you or breaking a bone, but the pain of serious uncomfort, you know, to the point of maybe you're almost throwing up, you're trying so hard. So to be able to work through that and get to the top without hanging on any of the gear to make a successful read point is, is kind of a it's a physical mental process where they're both combined.

01:44:54:23 - 01:45:17:24
Randy
You're not thinking about anything else, that you're your laundry, your business. Nothing else is going on, but you're just focused in your mind of managing the pump, being smart with the moves, you know, not worrying about the run outs, the whole thing. It's just a very complete experience. But it's really in the moment. And so once that moment is gone, you just want more.

01:45:17:27 - 01:45:18:20
Randy
It's almost like a

01:45:18:20 - 01:45:19:23
Kyle


01:45:19:25 - 01:45:24:02
Kyle
So it's the process of trying super hard.

01:45:24:04 - 01:45:25:22
Kyle
Yes.

01:45:25:25 - 01:45:29:24
Kyle
And the better you get, the harder you can try.

01:45:29:24 - 01:45:30:16
Randy
that.

01:45:30:20 - 01:45:35:05
Randy
Well I don't know if it's the harder you can try, but you realize you can try

01:45:39:04 - 01:45:58:05
Randy
I've what I would generally try to do when I'm climbing is if I'm doubting myself or I'm having any sort of thoughts about whether I can succeed or not. Some red points I know I'm going to do, I'm just ready for it. And maybe it's it's a couple letter grades below my limit and I know I can can can execute.

01:45:58:05 - 01:46:19:17
Randy
But let's say something that's really hard and on site or or a project and I just try to think of myself like, hey, I'm going to put on a good show. Not really a show for anyone necessarily, or there. We'll see it, but just a show as far as I'm going to show up. I'm going to just give it everything and just see what happens.

01:46:19:20 - 01:46:30:26
Randy
And sometimes you pull it off and it's just, it's a physical, mental thing that's just a complete package. But like I said, only last for that moment and then it's gone.

01:46:30:26 - 01:46:32:20
Kyle
Yeah.

01:46:32:22 - 01:46:35:25
Kyle
And you can't do the same route again because you've already done it.

01:46:35:28 - 01:46:53:27
Randy
Yeah, I don't I don't repeat rights a whole lot. There are certain routes I've repeated quite a bit because they're maybe local and I think they're so good, but you know, I don't want to do my 514. I don't want to go back and do my 514 a second time or a third time. Some of them I've repeated.

01:46:53:27 - 01:46:54:14
Randy
But for the

01:46:54:14 - 01:46:57:18
Kyle
more. Yeah. What

01:46:57:20 - 01:47:24:22
Kyle
Like what if this is going to. Might be a hard question to ask. I'm trying to understand. Like what basic human performance, like attributes do you have to have to climb? 513? Five, 14? Five, 15? Like, are there measurable things that the human has to be able to do to climb those grades? You know, I mean, like, is there a certain level of finger strength or is there a certain physical adaptation that you have to have?

01:47:24:24 - 01:47:29:06
Kyle
And is there like a particular thing you can assign each grade to

01:47:29:19 - 01:47:59:24
Randy
With climbing. Unlike, say, surfing, for example, you could see some overweight guy surfing and he looks unlikely to be an athlete, but he has that coordination and that center of gravity and that balance and that style in that flow. And could be an awesome surfer. Climbers, you can't really fake it. So there's a certain physique that's pretty common with climbers lean as a high strength to body rate and you have to have a lot of for the hard climbing.

01:47:59:24 - 01:48:09:27
Randy
I think you have a lot have to have a lot of mental tenacity, because hanging on for that long and going through that whole process is hard mentally.

01:48:09:27 - 01:48:15:04
Kyle
would you say climbing hard is more physical or more mental.

01:48:16:03 - 01:48:16:27
Randy
It's hard to say.

01:48:18:12 - 01:48:20:28
Randy
It's hard to say. I think it's half and

01:48:20:28 - 01:48:23:03
Kyle
Okay.

01:48:23:05 - 01:48:41:26
Kyle
Even though it's not you're not dealing with like a mental risk aspect of like run out trad climb or having a place gear. It's just the fact that your mental that your body is like don't do this, but you're like, we're doing this. You're pushing yourself further past what your body kind of wants to do, because it's such a hard thing to try to accomplish.

01:48:41:26 - 01:49:00:27
Randy
Sometimes how we get to the top of routes and look down and see my chalk marks and think, can a human even climb that? That's an intoxicating thing about climbing these. Look down at what you've climbed, and sometimes that you're just amazed that humans can do it. Not like you're pumping yourself up, but just, you know, I'm just another climber that can climb at that grade.

01:49:00:27 - 01:49:32:17
Randy
But that that's amazing. That people can do that. It's pretty cool. It's. Yeah. But, there's there's a huge mental thing just to keep at it. Keep keep it together. You know that a lot of mistakes people make is they, they do a one hang ascent and they think they almost have the route. And then you kind of realize that maybe that hang is going to keep getting higher and higher and higher and higher, and that you're still a long way from doing

01:49:32:17 - 01:49:33:05
Kyle
it.

01:49:33:08 - 01:49:37:25
Kyle
Yeah. Because resetting that endurance kind of button is a huge thing to get over.

01:49:38:01 - 01:49:38:29
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah.

01:49:38:29 - 01:49:58:25
Randy
And sometimes you do a from a hang. You really you're really pumped and you shake out for a second and you can do a move a certain way, but you can never link it that way. You almost have to get to that point. Totally gassed to find out a way you can do it. Totally gassed. You know, there are certain ways to take more body tension or whatever.

01:49:58:25 - 01:50:17:09
Randy
So so, you know, you got to be smart. You have to figure out mentally, like, your strategy, your mental toughness. And then of course, the physical and the physical. Some, some guys are just super, blessed with finger strength. That is just an earthly

01:50:17:20 - 01:50:24:15
Kyle
Do you feel like you were given any sort of genetic superpower? No. Just a blue collar climber.

01:50:24:18 - 01:50:25:17
Kyle
That's cool.

01:50:26:01 - 01:50:30:04
Randy
I think with stemming, I think I had a genetic, superpower with stemming.

01:50:30:04 - 01:50:30:27
Kyle
Okay.

01:50:30:27 - 01:50:39:27
Randy
There was something in my mind that could just understand the leverage. And I loved it. So I think I was quite good at that. But the rest of the stuff, I just had to work my ass off.

01:50:41:03 - 01:50:48:20
Kyle
Would you say you're more, like, predisposed to climb like a techie vertical, or do you, do you love, like, overhanging climbing?

01:50:48:26 - 01:51:08:17
Randy
I love something that's, say, ten, 15 degrees overhang where you're still footwork is still very important. Not just thuggery, not just like crawling up on Joe's at the Red River Gorge, but version river style. I like that, that that angle. Maybe not blasphemy wall, but more like planet Earth wall.

01:51:08:17 - 01:51:09:06
Kyle
Okay.

01:51:09:09 - 01:51:10:22
Kyle
Just slightly.

01:51:10:22 - 01:51:12:12
Randy
yeah, 15 degrees, I'd say.

01:51:12:12 - 01:51:13:02
Randy
Yeah.

01:51:13:22 - 01:51:21:16
Kyle
You have a quote here. You said, just because you're a good climber doesn't mean you inherently have more value than another human. Unpack that a little bit for me.

01:51:21:16 - 01:51:47:19
Randy
It seems obvious to me. It's just there's people that are good at everything or there's there's all different kinds of people good at different kinds of things, but there's no value as a human being, as being a good climber. No more so than someone who's good at tennis or some other sport. You know, like there could be a world class tennis player, but that person has no more value than the janitor that's working at the tennis

01:51:47:19 - 01:52:07:04
Kyle
what about like intra climbing? Like, so you're comparing, like, a general population to climbers. What about inside climbing? Like, a harder climber versus someone who, isn't climbing as hard? Obviously, like you said, I think this this statement is a bit obvious, but, you know, we're talking about like inter climbing.

01:52:07:04 - 01:52:08:00
Kyle
Yeah.

01:52:08:00 - 01:52:25:06
Randy
I mean, that that that that still stands. I think the climbers that are the best climbers out there, the ones having the most fun, you know, you could probably see some people on a 510 multi pitch and red rock and they're just having the time of their life.

01:52:25:09 - 01:52:43:14
Randy
Their experience is just as good valuable as your own experience. Neither one is more important. Now. The climbing world is going to recognize the famous climber more. It's obvious because people like to follow people that do things and and aspire to that. But you know, as far as value, there's no

01:52:44:04 - 01:52:59:19
Kyle
Yeah I think it gets con convoluted when you start to attach like your identity and your self-worth to how hard you're climbing, then it's like, well, you need to feel better than everybody else because if you don't, then who are you? You know, it gets kind of messy.

01:52:59:28 - 01:53:07:13
Randy
Yeah. I've had a good reflection on that. You know, we talked earlier about my toe problem and I can't climb, so now I'm not that guy anymore. You know, I go to.

01:53:07:13 - 01:53:08:29
Randy
A.

01:53:09:01 - 01:53:25:10
Randy
Wing foiling place where everyone's wing foiling. And I'm just some average Joe, and I'm not the guy that everyone at the crag wants to go talk to. You know, it's different. So I understand that dynamic. It's different, but there's no extra value for being that

01:53:27:02 - 01:53:28:12
Kyle
Like a general human sense.

01:53:28:12 - 01:53:28:27
Randy
Yeah.

01:53:28:27 - 01:53:29:14
Kyle
Yeah.

01:53:29:14 - 01:53:58:20
Kyle
I'd like to talk about the climbing industry and the, and how it's kind of grown. You've watched it evolve, you know, from just, kind of a dirtbag counterculture to, like, a global economy. To kind of like the commercialism that it is today. Did you ever, when you were climbing, like El Cap at 16, did you ever manage and imagine that it would kind of evolve into what it has become today?

01:53:58:27 - 01:54:22:26
Randy
I didn't really think about it. Climbing seemed like everything to me when I was that age climbing on El Cap, and I wanted. I wanted to be a rock climber for the rest of my life. And I love doing it. It's didn't surprise me when it started getting more popular. The climbing gyms. I think I've really expanded on that because they've brought it to every.

01:54:22:28 - 01:54:50:14
Randy
You could be in Miami, Florida and be a climber because you're there's a air conditioned climbing gym. So climbing has has really gone mainstream. And it you know, it's not it's not the same vibe at all is when I was a young guy climbing in Yosemite and a lot of that soul and independence and freedom and, sort of an anti-authoritarian attitude is, is really is really gone.

01:54:50:21 - 01:55:14:02
Randy
You know, we're not anti-authoritarian. We're just sort of anti-authority because we were these young punks that felt like we had this awesome place called Elk Grove, and we hardly ever even see anyone climb on it. You know, we were just up there. So now it's totally different. It's crowded, it's commercialized, it's mainstream, it's there's regulations. There's there's a lot more people on the planet.

01:55:14:05 - 01:55:23:24
Randy
Competition and for resources. So the whole planet has gotten different. Not just the sport of climbing, but everything is seems smaller and more

01:55:23:24 - 01:55:25:09
Kyle
Yeah.

01:55:25:12 - 01:55:53:15
Kyle
You've spent a lot of time as an athlete manager at Maxim. I wonder. I'm hoping you can provide, like, a bird's eye view at what the internal ecosystem of the climbing industry looks like. Like, And I'm grasping at straws here because I don't understand even what I'm asking about. But you're the closest person I've ever spoken to that has had one foot in the door, I guess, and has an inside look at kind of how it operates.

01:55:53:18 - 01:56:16:17
Kyle
How how the businesses like, attract athletes. What that kind of politics are like, how commercialism works in climbing and how that it has brought into, like, the world of athletes. I'm interested in, like, whether Free Solo and Alex Honnold was a catalyst for, like, a boom of commercialism in climbing, like, do you understand kind of where I'm prodding and where I'm going with this question.

01:56:17:13 - 01:56:21:06
Randy
It's a huge question. I mean, I could go in a million different directions.

01:56:21:15 - 01:56:39:12
Randy
I think I would start by saying that one of the things I always hear in the sport, whether it's the surfing industry or the climbing industry, is people saying we need to grow the sport. And that's something that I always disagreed with. I don't think we need to grow the sport, the the sport's growing.

01:56:39:14 - 01:57:09:05
Randy
People want to earn money in it. They want to provide for their family and, you know, maybe acquire some wealth. And and people are in the climbing business for those reasons. I was never in the climbing business for those reasons, I was I always like that climbing was obscure and that not very many people knew about it. And yet here I am, a guy who was a sponsored athlete for many years and then ultimately, social media and athlete manager at Maxim.

01:57:09:07 - 01:57:39:03
Randy
And so I, I'm part of I'm on one side, I'm quote unquote growing the sport on on the other side, I'm still the same guy that likes to the obscurity and anonymity of climbing and the adventure of it. So, I mean, I see both sides of it. And also, you should know that in Maxim ropes, that was a small division of a big company, and most of their money was being made in industrial marine products and other other venues other than the climbing business.

01:57:39:03 - 01:57:59:08
Randy
So the climbing business was almost one of the basically their smallest division. So it wasn't like working at the North Face or Patagonia or Prana, which are these big clothing gear companies that have a much bigger budget. So my perspective is from a smaller budget type company.

01:57:59:08 - 01:58:14:13
Kyle
Is there an insider group of like the industry of climbing, like the athletes, the brands like how how small of a group of people would you say that is in the climbing community, at least in North America, like a thousand people. Is it less than that?

01:58:14:13 - 01:58:15:25
Randy
I'm just guessing a

01:58:15:25 - 01:58:36:29
Kyle
a thousand. Yeah. Because what I'm finding, the more and more I expand into this in this podcast and, into just athletes and brands, I'm realizing that it's just it's so small, like this. This niche of climbing is even smaller than I could have even imagined it. And so to me, that just fosters, like, a competition for resources.

01:58:37:02 - 01:58:56:29
Kyle
And you've got all these people that are trying to, like, make their name in climbing, and there's only so much to go around. So I would imagine that would create, I don't know, like, a, a level of politics when it comes to who's on the inside and who's not. Do you have experience with that kind of, political realm of athletes?

01:58:56:29 - 01:59:09:17
Kyle
And, who's on top and who's getting recognition and who's not, maybe who's allowed to be on the team and who's not. Like, how did you choose athletes and, how does that world work?

01:59:10:08 - 01:59:12:27
Randy
It's kind of like too many rats and not enough cheese.

01:59:12:27 - 01:59:13:24
Kyle
Yeah, exactly.

01:59:13:24 - 01:59:16:12
Randy
And there's not that much cheese out there.

01:59:17:02 - 01:59:33:10
Randy
right, the the big companies. Arc'teryx thing or companies like that are, are big companies. Now, they've made a lot of money. And that's because they've expanded beyond they've used the climbing industry to sell clothing to average people. And that's where the money's out.

01:59:33:13 - 01:59:56:21
Randy
And so the farther you go down that road, the less core it remains. Whereas I was with a rope company, so all we're doing is making rope for climbers. I like that because we are dealing really with climbers and not trying to go out in the general population. But I mean, there's all kinds of issues. Everyone wants to be a sponsored athlete.

01:59:56:23 - 02:00:28:22
Randy
I, the program, the program I had was pretty limited on how many we could have. And I would tell people that are interested in that. First of all, don't try to be a professional climber. Try to earn your living some other way. But if you're going to, you have to be tenacious. You have to, if you send out a resume or an email or call people or try to make a contact with the company and they don't respond, it's not always because they don't want to.

02:00:28:24 - 02:00:47:16
Randy
It could be there's personnel changes. It could be the timing's wrong. You need to be persistent. If you really want to hook up with a company, I would see people who were very persistent, and I would have. I would have a list of people I want to get on the team that that I would keep. And it when there was opportunities, I would do that.

02:00:47:16 - 02:01:05:14
Randy
But then maybe there's an opportunity and all of a sudden someone from an another, geographical area says, oh, we've got this big account and they really want someone in their area. And so all of a sudden now we got to choose someone from New England or wherever, or the South.

02:01:06:05 - 02:01:10:11
Kyle
So you have money dictating where the athletes are being chosen from.

02:01:10:28 - 02:01:11:27
Randy
That has a lot to do with

02:01:11:27 - 02:01:12:20
Kyle
it. Yeah.

02:01:12:20 - 02:01:13:18
Kyle
So talk to me about.

02:01:13:18 - 02:01:26:13
Randy
You want representation in different markets, right? In. And every geographical area is a different sales rep, different territory. And so you don't want everyone from California or everyone from Colorado.

02:01:26:17 - 02:01:40:27
Kyle
Are there big money pulling the strings behind the scenes. Are there like big families big investors in the climbing space that are kind of like dictating how things are run. Maybe in like small secular sections like there is a big money at play.

02:01:40:27 - 02:01:56:10
Randy
Not a maximum ropes. Maybe at some of these other companies that I've already mentioned that have, you know, they're going public or, or what have you, and there could be some, some big influences there. And I'm sure if.

02:01:56:13 - 02:01:57:17
Randy
Yeah.

02:01:57:20 - 02:02:22:01
Randy
I'm sure there's a lot behind the scenes that I don't even see. You know, I'm just at one part of it. And I was a sponsored athlete too, with other companies like La Sportiva, and megalith and, for labs, you know, a number of people with PowerBar, Chinook, you know, so I saw I saw it from both sides.

02:02:22:03 - 02:02:43:01
Randy
But, I mean, I don't get the impression that there's they're certainly favorites. And if you're a rising star, people will recognize that that and it's not just a rising star. It's sort of a it's almost like a personality in today's market, not just the talent. There's underground guys that are better climbers than all these other people. And they've never been.

02:02:43:01 - 02:03:08:01
Randy
No, no one knows about them because they don't self-promote. No one else promotes them. They're not promoted by anyone else. And there's someone with a better personality who is hell bent on being a sponsor climber, and everyone knows about that person. And it's a lot of it's what the individual wants, that the money is minimal. So. So they're pursuing it really for their own reasons.

02:03:08:03 - 02:03:11:27
Randy
I mean, I don't think it's not like guys are fighting over.

02:03:12:23 - 02:03:32:23
Randy
$100,000 salaries. You know, I think they're they're just enough to make payments on their sprinter van and buy some gas and maybe some plane tickets here and there. Maybe the plane tickets are bought by the sponsors. It's it's a big industry, but it's there's not a lot of cheese to go

02:03:33:10 - 02:03:35:29
Kyle
Yeah. Do you think that will change and continue to grow?

02:03:37:04 - 02:03:44:19
Randy
I don't know, it's almost, If it grows, it gets worse, the industry gets worse

02:03:44:19 - 02:03:45:19
Kyle
how

02:03:45:19 - 02:04:05:00
Randy
Well, I mean, look what the surf industry has done. They just. The surf industry got so big, it almost just imploded on itself. And all these companies are ceasing to exist. And it's just it almost cannibalizes itself. I don't I don't think sports need to become popular to make the sport better.

02:04:05:24 - 02:04:09:04
Kyle
But they do in order for the people who want to make money off of the sport.

02:04:09:05 - 02:04:09:23
Kyle
Yeah.

02:04:09:23 - 02:04:34:15
Randy
And that's why I always was grateful that I made money outside of climbing, because I never felt like, I was making climbing big to make myself have more money in climbing. I was just in the real estate business, which is a business that every Tom, Dick and Harry is in. You know, it's just everyone is in their real estate business.

02:04:34:15 - 02:04:45:05
Randy
I can be the hundredth best real estate investor in San Diego and make a comfortable living. I could be the 100th best climber in the world. And and no one even wants to give me a free

02:04:45:05 - 02:04:48:07
Kyle
fair speaker. Yeah.

02:04:48:09 - 02:05:03:07
Kyle
Know for sure? That makes a lot of sense. Do you feel like, Do you see, like, a future where, like the soul of climbing and the business of climbing can coexist? Or do you feel like the the cannibalize or one cannibalize is the other?

02:05:03:27 - 02:05:17:24
Randy
I think with certain companies, they try to keep that going. That that sole. But I also think that it's easily lost. It's by and large, a lot of it's lost today.

02:05:17:29 - 02:05:22:14
Kyle
What main characteristics of, of the soul of climbing would you say have been lost.

02:05:23:07 - 02:05:58:19
Randy
Earlier I mentioned just, the sort of scrappy freedom basic, values that climbers have of just being independent minded, and not being followers. There's a there's a huge amount of followers in the climbing world today. They want to pretend like they're worried about the climate or they're worried about die or other stuff like this, and it just gets all confused with it's just climbing.

02:05:58:21 - 02:06:22:27
Randy
And that's the soul of climbing is just that independence, that self-sufficiency. Being on a big wall and carrying everything you need to protect yourself and and to be successful or, or just being on a trade lead somewhere and having everything with you and going from the bottom to the top and enjoying yourself with your your company and it there's so much more in climbing now.

02:06:22:27 - 02:06:34:23
Randy
If someone says something in social media and everyone jumps on them because they don't seem like they're toeing the right line, and I think climbing is the soul of climbing is lost at that point. And and we're seeing

02:06:34:23 - 02:06:38:16
Kyle
or bickering over things that don't even relate to climbing in the first place.

02:06:38:26 - 02:06:53:13
Randy
I never knew of my partner's politics ever. When I was growing up climbing. We didn't talk about it. I was probably mid 30s before I started paying a bunch of taxes, before I started learning about politics.

02:06:53:13 - 02:06:54:25
Kyle
yeah. Where's all my money going.

02:06:54:26 - 02:06:55:24
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah.

02:06:55:24 - 02:07:02:01
Randy
And then now I'm looking at it going, okay, what's, what's going on here? But when I was young, there wasn't part of the conversation.

02:07:02:03 - 02:07:15:22
Randy
I was just climbing with some guy because I like to be with him and he was available and he's solid partner. And and nowadays it's, it's it's so different and it's part of our society.

02:07:16:18 - 02:07:33:23
Kyle
It's sad that it has bled into climbing. Definitely. Definitely. Like, I've had it, spill over a little bit to this podcast and someone was kind of commenting on my Instagram just like, oh, too bad he, you know, he's on one side and I'm like, hey man, no politics on this page. Never has a place and never will.

02:07:33:26 - 02:07:46:19
Kyle
You know, this is your last warning or whatever. And then he, like, started blowing up the comments. Just like she started DMing me, just like rapid fire, all this stuff, pick a side. And I just blocked him. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so toxic.

02:07:46:22 - 02:07:47:27
Kyle
It is. Yeah.

02:07:47:27 - 02:07:53:12
Randy
I just, you know, I liked it better when when it wasn't part of the conversation.

02:07:53:12 - 02:07:53:28
Kyle
yeah.

02:07:54:00 - 02:07:56:02
Kyle
People with too much time on their hands.

02:07:56:06 - 02:08:01:02
Randy
know I think they're being fed. I think they're being controlled by

02:08:01:23 - 02:08:08:06
Randy
their they're people are at each other's throats because the people controlling it like it that

02:08:08:06 - 02:08:08:27
Kyle
Yeah.

02:08:08:27 - 02:08:12:25
Randy
And it, it distracts them from what's really going on

02:08:12:27 - 02:08:19:17
Kyle
How do you feel about athletes having, like, voicing their political opinions on social media and stuff?

02:08:20:03 - 02:08:42:03
Randy
I don't like it, general. I don't look up to athletes for political opinions. I might look up to a philosopher or an economist or a scientist about world views that I might be interested in. But just because you climb 514 doesn't mean that I care about who you vote for.

02:08:42:09 - 02:08:53:01
Kyle
100%. Yeah. It feels forced when I see posts like that from professional athletes. It feels forced. I'm like, what the do we paid for this?

02:08:53:01 - 02:08:53:16
Kyle
Like,

02:08:53:16 - 02:08:57:07
Randy
I think some of the companies that people are sponsored by expect

02:08:57:11 - 02:09:00:12
Kyle
Expect that's wrong in my opinion.

02:09:00:12 - 02:09:01:17
Randy
that's that's real.

02:09:01:21 - 02:09:02:17
Kyle
That's crazy.

02:09:02:17 - 02:09:14:18
Randy
It wasn't at Maxim. Maxim was very in my tenure was very apolitical. And we had I guarantee you we had people on both sides of the aisle as I knew them, as friends and knew how they stood.

02:09:14:20 - 02:09:16:11
Randy
But it was never part of conversation.

02:09:16:16 - 02:09:17:03
Kyle
It never should.

02:09:17:03 - 02:09:18:26
Kyle
Be. Yeah.

02:09:18:28 - 02:09:21:00
Kyle
That's sad that it has to be like that these days.

02:09:21:23 - 02:09:30:21
Randy
People say some people claim it has to be like that because it's so important, you know? But it's it's just it's just a distraction.

02:09:30:21 - 02:09:31:17
Kyle
Yeah.

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Kyle
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02:10:30:15 - 02:10:54:17
Kyle
You, You seem to be a bit of a pioneer, as an athlete manager and how you chose people for the program. Specifically in kind of shifting focus from, athletes that are climbing at the peak performance to people with more of a story to tell, people with a bit more of, maybe skills in other areas like content creation and being able to present a story or a personality.

02:10:54:20 - 02:10:56:00
Kyle
Is that true?

02:10:56:10 - 02:11:00:20
Randy
I don't know if I'm a pioneer at that, but I was pretty early to do that.

02:11:00:22 - 02:11:09:12
Kyle
And what, like what was the reasoning behind that kind of shifting focus? And, how do you see people like that benefiting the climbing community in the long run?

02:11:09:25 - 02:11:30:29
Randy
Well, it's part of the direction that the industry is going. And I wanted to have the company that I'm representing and working for to try to be well represented in the different areas. And let's use the word influencer. There's people who are influencers that maybe they're not hardcore climbers, but they love climbing and they're good at making content.

02:11:30:29 - 02:11:49:17
Randy
And there's people receptive to having them be part of it. Maybe some of the other. I know some of the athletes I and I was always a very hardcore athlete manager where I, I knew when people would call me up and or write resumes. I knew the climbs that they were talking about. I knew how hard they were.

02:11:49:17 - 02:12:18:21
Randy
I knew the reputation of the climbs. I, you know, I knew so much about it because I was a climber myself. I always tried to stay true to that and have the best athletes in the most core people, regardless of whether they were well publicized or or whatever. But there was a time where the influencers were generally are were genuinely coming on the scene, and I wanted to be part of that because I try to as I get older, I try to keep an open mind because things change.

02:12:18:28 - 02:12:24:15
Randy
You don't maybe like things that change, but they do change. So you got to go with the changes.

02:12:25:26 - 02:12:44:27
Randy
It seemed kind of obvious that I think we made some good moves and the people were good, you know, and the people who were on the team, sometimes the, the best climbers weren't the best team members because they wouldn't you would never hear from them until they want something. And that's saying that as a generalization. But it's.

02:12:45:12 - 02:12:51:04
Randy
it it didn't go that. It didn't go hand in hand that you were a great climber and you were a great athlete to be on a team.

02:12:51:15 - 02:13:06:15
Kyle
Well I think also too, there's got to be some sort of marketability to you as an athlete. You need to be able to have content of you climbing or you need to have, you know, it really helps to have an audience. And so there's all these things that are kind of going into the decision making process, I would imagine.

02:13:06:15 - 02:13:14:01
Kyle
And unfortunately, climbing hard is kind of not a novelty anymore. Like, there's so many people that climb really hard.

02:13:14:01 - 02:13:15:08
Randy
We,

02:13:15:11 - 02:13:39:00
Randy
We I would like the hard core guys that would come to me. There was a couple that I. We couldn't take on that I wish I had taken on early on when there was more of a chance. But, we had, you know, guy like Andre, Marc, Andre Leclerc was one of our athletes. And he came up to us in the trade show, and he was just this understood, hated, quirky guy.

02:13:39:02 - 02:13:58:13
Randy
And I could just tell there was something, something about him that we're, you know, he's he's a sort of guy that would, would do some huge, incredible climb and come back the next day and say, oh yeah, I was just out, like checking out some climb and not say anything about it. So anyway, I would I would come across some of these quirky guys sometimes.

02:13:58:13 - 02:14:19:23
Randy
And Alex Honnold was one early on. We were one of his first sponsors. I think we were his first paid sponsor. And I just would recognize these guys and go, I love how hardcore these guys are, and I know I'm not going to hear much from them. We're just going to give up Mark a rope when he needs them, and I probably won't hear much, but I just feel good that we're helping him out.

02:14:19:23 - 02:14:21:11
Kyle
These guys are doing something special.

02:14:21:11 - 02:14:21:23
Kyle
Yeah.

02:14:21:23 - 02:14:30:15
Randy
and we knew it. But you know, so there there was a part of me that that that love doing that just helping those guys out

02:14:31:06 - 02:14:45:08
Kyle
Yeah it's cool. It's definitely nice to have a diversity in terms of your athletes. Like you got the people like Marc Marc Andre Leclerc and Alex Honnold. And you have like influencers and kind of like this the vast in between. It's like there's room for all this is a matter of how you choose to diversify it.

02:14:45:14 - 02:14:45:18
Kyle
You

02:14:45:18 - 02:14:54:29
Randy
I wanted mountaineers, I wanted ice climbers, big wall climbers. Free climbers, boulders. Well Boulder is not so much where

02:14:54:29 - 02:14:56:20
Kyle
you sell.

02:14:56:23 - 02:15:02:01
Kyle
Yeah, exactly. How many athletes would you say you kind of had at once on your team?

02:15:02:13 - 02:15:05:04
Randy
Oh I would say probably average of 20

02:15:05:21 - 02:15:10:09
Kyle
Okay. And would you say that's pretty average for most brands or do brands have bigger athlete teams?

02:15:10:12 - 02:15:20:05
Randy
Some some brands have pages and pages of athletes on their website. And it was too much. For me, it's a lot of work. Every every person is work.

02:15:20:05 - 02:15:22:03
Randy
So.

02:15:22:05 - 02:15:36:12
Randy
And and we can only spread ourselves so thin. We're not. It depends on what your product is. Ropes are relatively expensive, and and it's hard to support, say, 100 guys with 100 people with ropes. If

02:15:36:15 - 02:15:37:21
Kyle
Yeah.

02:15:37:23 - 02:15:40:03
Kyle
Yeah. Like a hundred ropes.

02:15:40:05 - 02:15:43:02
Kyle
Maybe 300 a year.

02:15:43:02 - 02:16:19:15
Kyle
I just mean all at once sometimes you're like oh here's 100 ropes. Oh geez. Yeah. Okay. So kind of coming to the close here, I want to you know, we've talked a little bit about this, you know, and some of this is tied to the climbing industry itself, but I guess climbing culture specifically, you know, you've seen it change tremendously over the years and you're, you've seen basically every major cultural climbing shift from aid to the introduction of free tours, the introduction of bolts and sport climbing, and the ethics that have evolved between the dissection, between those two sports.

02:16:19:18 - 02:16:27:25
Kyle
You know which one of the major shifts over the years do you feel like has kind of changed the culture of climbing the most?

02:16:27:28 - 02:16:32:00
Kyle
The gym, the gym?

02:16:32:02 - 02:16:34:01
Kyle
Just access to the sport,

02:16:34:01 - 02:16:56:17
Randy
brought main Street to climbing. So someone has no idea about rock climbing, but they can walk into a climbing gym in Nashville, Tennessee, and they could look at it. Their kids are climbing on the wall, and they. They say, oh, I kind of get it. I understand there is it exists and and then it it's it's brought in just a whole different element.

02:16:56:20 - 02:16:57:07
Randy
The gyms for

02:16:57:18 - 02:16:58:21
Kyle
It's a gateway drug.

02:16:58:23 - 02:16:59:12
Kyle
Yeah.

02:16:59:14 - 02:17:11:20
Kyle
So it was for me, started in a bouldering gym. Then I went to a rope gym. And that was when the light bulb went off. After I learned how to lead climb, I was like, Holy shit, this is what I'm going to be doing.

02:17:11:29 - 02:17:13:03
Kyle
Yeah. And

02:17:13:03 - 02:17:18:07
Randy
I mean the gyms are great but they also have problems associated.

02:17:18:14 - 02:17:55:03
Kyle
Yeah. So I've talked to like some I would call them traditionalists. Anti bolting, anti sport climbing, anti gyms. They're very much kind of myopically stuck in a version of climbing that doesn't exist anymore. It seems like this progression of gyms and sport climbing is just inevitable. It's just part of the progression of the sport. Do you see it that way, or do you like, do you see an alternate reality where, like the core values of climbing and the risk ethos and the bold climbing like could have just been what climbing stayed?

02:17:57:07 - 02:17:58:26
Randy
I don't know what you mean by progression.

02:17:59:15 - 02:18:04:21
Kyle
Progression of the sport. Like it's inevitable that it ends up becoming what it is today, right?

02:18:04:23 - 02:18:04:29
Kyle
I

02:18:04:29 - 02:18:31:23
Randy
think so, yes. Yeah. I mean, sport climbing was inevitable. Tony and Aero and I, adopted sport climbing techniques when we first figured it out or learned about it way back in, whenever it was early 80s. And a lot of it wasn't well received by some of the other climbers who were more traditional minded. But we saw it as an obvious sort of, why would you climb up a rope?

02:18:31:25 - 02:18:59:27
Randy
And as soon as you fall, your partner lowers you instantly? Why not just hang out there for a second and see what the next move might have been? And that creates another opportunity to maybe keep climbing, and then maybe put another piece in and hang and try to figure something out. So it, it just there was this obvious progression that that hang dogging, rehearsing climbs and then eventually bolted protected pre protected climbs like bolted sport climbs would exist.

02:18:59:27 - 02:19:03:22
Randy
And it just is sort of like you had to bury your head in the sand. If you didn't see that

02:19:03:22 - 02:19:04:16
Kyle
Yeah.

02:19:04:16 - 02:19:09:05
Kyle
Why do you think so many people did bury their head in the sand? Why was there such a division?

02:19:09:16 - 02:19:11:14
Randy
There was a lot of ego back in those

02:19:11:14 - 02:19:11:20
Kyle
days.

02:19:11:27 - 02:19:16:12
Kyle
Tied to the way you climb to the way you approached it.

02:19:16:12 - 02:19:31:06
Randy
People genuinely believed that you shouldn't be doing it any other way. There's other people that were super good at the scary stuff, and they they wanted they wanted to be that

02:19:31:06 - 02:19:31:21
Kyle
they.

02:19:31:21 - 02:19:35:27
Kyle
Would. Yeah they wanted to be that guy. And anybody else who didn't do it almost devalued their

02:19:35:27 - 02:19:59:10
Randy
else back. There was a lot of, there was a lot of cheering on for people to fall and stuff. Back then, it wasn't. It's not like today where you go to a crag and everyone's cheering someone to make it. There would just be silence and just people wanting someone to fall. So there's there were some of it was ego driven, some of it was just they thought it was the way it should be done.

02:19:59:12 - 02:20:20:04
Randy
And I'm not saying that any of that's wrong. It's just it just to me, there was an obvious progression in climbing and and that's the same with gyms. And obviously I wouldn't say progression, but let's say next step. So when gyms came out, I looked at it and said, okay, this is this is the new normal and how it affects the sport.

02:20:20:04 - 02:20:34:23
Randy
That's that's another story. But it it's things like that are going to keep happening with the sport. You have to keep moving with it. You have to be able to accept the way thing, what people are doing, because just the way you did something doesn't always mean that's the only way to do it.

02:20:34:23 - 02:20:35:28
Kyle
Yeah.

02:20:36:01 - 02:20:43:22
Kyle
Do you have a vision for what is next? What's the next gym? What's the next progression in the evolution of the sport of climbing?

02:20:44:07 - 02:21:06:03
Randy
Well, I think the deep water soloing is amazing. And even to have more of these deep water soloing contests or maybe public gyms that are deep water soloing because it's such a the only problem is you get wet and your chalk bag gets wet and your shoes get wet when you fall, but just being able to have that ability to climb.

02:21:06:03 - 02:21:18:01
Randy
So maybe imagine instead of falling into water, you could fall into giant pads that wouldn't where you wouldn't get hurt. And so there could be a climbing gym. You go in, it might be like Thunderdome.

02:21:18:19 - 02:21:19:26
Kyle
All over a huge foam pit,

02:21:20:02 - 02:21:31:28
Randy
Over a huge foam pit, and people will be hiking off left and right, taking these 50ft rippers into giant foam pits. And that I could see something like that. It might be a little hard

02:21:32:05 - 02:21:33:22
Kyle
Liability insurance is going to go up.

02:21:33:22 - 02:21:34:22
Randy
yeah, stuff like that.

02:21:35:15 - 02:21:37:23
Randy
but that's where my mind goes on stuff like

02:21:37:23 - 02:21:39:07
Kyle
Okay. That's cool,

02:21:39:07 - 02:21:48:23
Randy
And then there has to be an easier way for, say, climbing gyms to cut down how much human labor is involved in setting routes.

02:21:48:26 - 02:21:52:16
Randy
There needs to be a better solution to putting holes on the wall and setting

02:21:52:24 - 02:21:53:18
Kyle
It's too expensive right.

02:21:53:18 - 02:21:54:07
Kyle
Now.

02:21:54:07 - 02:22:09:19
Randy
It's like an ant farm, you know, climbing gym, trying to all these guys go up. They're hanging from ropes, they're swinging around, they're trying to screw holes in and figure out moves. And then someone's cleaning the holes off later on, and they're stripping the things.

02:22:09:19 - 02:22:34:08
Randy
And it's there's just a ton of labor for I think there could be something that eliminates that. Who knows, maybe artificial intelligence setting routes where it figures it all out and someone just has a plan and it's a robot. Packages all the holes in order, and there's holes and they're numbered. And you put them all in and then that's your route.

02:22:34:10 - 02:22:40:00
Randy
I mean, there's AI and so I, I'm thinking more in terms of artificial climbing as far

02:22:40:06 - 02:22:41:19
Kyle
Yeah, gym climbing.

02:22:41:19 - 02:22:59:05
Randy
because it really there hasn't been any advancement in footwear and not a whole lot of advancement in ropes or protection in the last, say, 30 years. So climbing is just sort of at this point, it's just performance.

02:22:59:08 - 02:23:09:12
Randy
Maybe there will be some sort of bionic protection where you can just stick it like Silly Putty on a wall and, and then go in there. You wouldn't need bolts. I don't know, maybe there's something like

02:23:09:16 - 02:23:14:07
Kyle
Yeah, some sort of like a clean, clean tread that's even better than what we have now. Yeah.

02:23:14:13 - 02:23:15:11
Kyle
Yeah,

02:23:15:11 - 02:23:17:23
Randy
They would, they would would, substitute for bolts,

02:23:18:13 - 02:23:19:06
Randy
but I don't know.

02:23:19:06 - 02:23:20:13
Kyle
interesting.

02:23:20:15 - 02:23:22:15
Kyle
Some molecular bonding.

02:23:22:18 - 02:23:25:12
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah.

02:23:25:19 - 02:23:50:26
Kyle
What about free soloing and its effect on climbing culture? I find this, contradiction. So, you know, we, at least in the digital world, we glorify Alex Holland in his free solo attempts. And we made a movie on it and won Oscars. But then, you know, we see people posting about their free solos on Instagram, and instantly it's just bombarded by hate and judgment and criticism.

02:23:50:28 - 02:24:01:06
Kyle
Have you experienced that kind of contradiction? And, it's all like in general, like the overarching effect that publicizing and commercializing free soloing has done to the community.

02:24:02:03 - 02:24:20:19
Randy
Well free soloing you can talk all you want, but when you get 30ft off the deck and you have no rope, you're going to meet your maker. You know, you're going to you're going to see God or something. You're, you're you're going to have a reality check. So you haven't seen people falling off the walls and dying free soloing.

02:24:20:26 - 02:24:38:10
Randy
There's been a few accidents, but nothing widespread like you would think. So I don't think Alex Honnold spawned a whole generation of people, lemmings climbing up a wall and falling off and dying. I think he's the that's the reality is you get 30ft off the deck and or 15.

02:24:38:10 - 02:24:40:14
Kyle
They're. Yeah. You know, whether or not you're going to do it or not.

02:24:40:14 - 02:24:51:22
Randy
you're just like, I don't think I want to do this. So sure, there's going to be a few people here and there, but I don't think it's I mean, I don't think it's a big problem. I think it's a self-regulating

02:24:51:22 - 02:25:07:21
Kyle
Yeah. I wasn't really alluding to the fact that Alex Honnold is causing all these people to die. It was more like the contradiction from the public's, reaction to glorifying someone like Alex Arnold, but then criticizing someone who's doing someone something similar, like, you're risking your life, you're going to kill yourself.

02:25:07:21 - 02:25:11:29
Kyle
This is the stupidest thing ever. Like, how do you, have you seen.

02:25:12:00 - 02:25:12:05
Kyle
It's

02:25:12:05 - 02:25:13:13
Randy
like the no helmet thing. You.

02:25:13:13 - 02:25:14:17
Kyle
Yeah, exactly.

02:25:14:17 - 02:25:35:26
Randy
publish a picture and someone doesn't have a helmet, and then they start belittling you for publishing this picture of someone that should be wearing a helmet. Or maybe they shouldn't. You know, it's their choice. So it's just it's just all part of that thing. Originally we talked about where, there's all these sides people take and they argue about it and it's it's just sad.

02:25:35:26 - 02:25:41:03
Randy
It's sort of the the death of the sport. It's not it's not relevant. People

02:25:41:03 - 02:25:41:10
Kyle
aren't.

02:25:41:14 - 02:25:42:28
Kyle
It's all distraction. Yes.

02:25:42:28 - 02:25:59:05
Randy
it's all distraction. Someone wants to free solo and post. They should do it if they want. And people don't have to hate about it, but they just always feel like they need to say something and they need to be on one side of it or the other. Either you're forward or you're against it. I'm neither for it nor against it.

02:25:59:05 - 02:26:10:12
Randy
I don't free solo. I told you earlier, I free solo easy stuff like 5/7, sometimes more just for efficiency, but not I don't free solo.

02:26:10:12 - 02:26:19:17
Kyle
you chose not to have kids. Was that like a deliberate act or was it something that, like, your life just didn't have time for.

02:26:20:04 - 02:26:39:24
Randy
Not having kids was deliberate. I was married in my 20s, late 20s, but. And my wife and I had talked about it before we got married, which is an important conversation. You don't you don't want to get married. And then, oh, should we have kids or not in any crisis or. I'd love to in that, like you're. Well, I don't really want to, so.

02:26:39:24 - 02:27:09:09
Randy
No, it's something in a conversation you have to have before you get married. When I was young, I was born in 1960. In 1968, a book came out called The Population Bomb. And it's it's kind of like all the doom and gloom, sort of. It's along the same lines as the climate change stuff, where young people get so afraid of living their life and having kids and having a family because they're afraid of something they perceive.

02:27:09:11 - 02:27:30:27
Randy
And it's been told to them. And I'm not saying climate change is not real. I'm not saying the population bomb was not real, but a lot of stuff in that book didn't come to fruition. But it had an impact on me because I read the book as a young guy, and I believed it, and that that one of the things was they thought hundreds of millions of people were going to die from famine and starvation

02:27:31:01 - 02:27:32:14
Kyle
Because there were too many of us.

02:27:32:14 - 02:27:33:09
Randy
there are too many of us.

02:27:33:09 - 02:27:58:09
Randy
And they had it all figured out how much agriculture could be produced and blah, blah, blah. And this is how we're going to control it and sterilizing people. And, and I sort of just brought up in that mindset and it I remember it I remember that book. And I thought to myself, well, I can't control the world, but I think there's enough people and I can't control whether I put any more out there.

02:27:58:11 - 02:28:21:03
Randy
And it's kind of a in my own way. It's a way of reducing my carbon footprint because I'm not there's not another four. Randy's running around because they'd make a hell of an impact. But it's just it was just a personal decision. And my wife felt the same way for for different reasons. But we didn't. Neither of us really wanted kids for for our own reasons.

02:28:21:05 - 02:28:23:13
Randy
Mine was the population thing.

02:28:24:28 - 02:28:41:25
Kyle
I'm also in that same boat. And, and I have chosen. That's not kind of the path we want to go. For me, selfishly looking forward to someone who has made that decision is now kind of in the later years of your life, do you ever regret not having a child, a kid?

02:28:42:06 - 02:29:04:01
Randy
I don't regret it. It's. And I was, you know, my mom got old, and I was the guy taking care of her when she was old. And I could see how important it was to have a kid who could make decisions for you and help and do all this stuff. But I've also seen families where the kids don't want to have anything to do with their parents, and it could be a heartbreak the other way.

02:29:04:04 - 02:29:11:13
Randy
So there's no guarantees having kids is going to do anything for you eventually. So your reason for having them needs to be something other than that.

02:29:11:13 - 02:29:12:16
Kyle
just have a lot of them.

02:29:12:16 - 02:29:13:16
Randy
Yeah, I just have a lot of them

02:29:14:06 - 02:29:14:20
Randy
Yeah.

02:29:14:20 - 02:29:16:16
Kyle
odds are more in your favor. Yeah. Yeah.

02:29:16:16 - 02:29:20:13
Kyle
Yeah. That's good to know. Yeah. And,

02:29:20:13 - 02:29:21:08
Randy
no regrets.

02:29:21:08 - 02:29:21:27
Kyle
Yeah.

02:29:21:27 - 02:29:23:22
Randy
I mean but I'm not done living either,

02:29:23:22 - 02:29:24:09
Kyle


02:29:24:09 - 02:29:24:29
Randy
so we'll see.

02:29:24:29 - 02:29:25:18
Kyle
Yeah.

02:29:26:20 - 02:29:46:17
Kyle
That's another thing I guess. You know, as we get older I think at least for me, the one of the biggest fears I have is kind of like being older and having regrets looking back, I mean like man I wish I had done this or I can't believe I didn't take that opportunity or and that's been a driving force for me and how I live my life now.

02:29:46:19 - 02:29:57:13
Kyle
How would you advocate or, like, what advice do you have for someone, to avoid being in that position when they're older?

02:29:58:06 - 02:30:22:14
Randy
Every day is basically a gift. And you can't let them go by. So do what you think you need to do. Do what's going to make you happy, but think ahead to the consequences financially or whatever it is that may be there. But don't let days, weeks, months slip by and not do stuff. And you know, I've got this situation with my feet and I think, oh, it's it's really sad.

02:30:22:14 - 02:30:39:24
Randy
But then I look back and it's like, well, I did everything that I could have done and I saw I have no regrets, even if that caused my problem. So you just have to you just have to seize every day and do what you can. And I let a few days slip by when we're out and do stuff.

02:30:39:24 - 02:30:44:26
Randy
But for the most part, I'm I'm really trying to live life

02:30:45:18 - 02:30:59:03
Kyle
Do you have tips for, for not because, you know, the, the common trope like, depression is built by living in the past, and anxiety is built living in the future. I'd say presence is like what we strive for. And this kind of what you're talking about is to be present enough to live each day

02:30:59:12 - 02:31:00:22
Kyle
and to take action.

02:31:01:25 - 02:31:09:01
Kyle
Do you have, tips on being present and, like, how we can stay not focused on the past or the future, you know, the live now?

02:31:09:09 - 02:31:32:00
Randy
Yeah I, I don't, I don't think about the past much. I mean I think back and reflect back on things I've done and people I've done things with, but I don't dwell in the past. I really live in the present and the future and the future from the standpoint of I like to figure out where I'm going and how to best get there, and what steps I need to take today.

02:31:32:03 - 02:31:42:00
Randy
So I guess really I'm thinking about today. Like how what what can I do today either to make today a great day or to get where I'm going

02:31:42:00 - 02:31:43:01
Kyle
to?

02:31:43:03 - 02:32:07:13
Kyle
Yeah. I think a big thing for me is like having a clear vision, a vision for where you want to be and what you want to be. Because without that, how are you supposed to make the correct decisions now to get to a specific place? Right. Although if you don't have a vision and you have a clear picture of where you want to be or who you want to be, you end up just kind of like floating around, and you let external factors decide who you end up becoming.

02:32:07:16 - 02:32:10:23
Kyle
But if I try to avoid that, yeah.

02:32:10:23 - 02:32:11:26
Randy
yeah. Live it,

02:32:11:26 - 02:32:15:24
Kyle
without. Yeah. Every day. Well,

02:32:15:24 - 02:32:16:29
Randy
don't destroy your body.

02:32:18:12 - 02:32:32:09
Kyle
Yeah. There's a balance to be had or any of was a pleasure. Yeah. I just I'm honored to be sitting down with you. You're such a legend. And, it's been just an awesome time chatting with you. I appreciate you taking the time to fly over here.

02:32:32:13 - 02:32:33:29
Randy
Thanks for having me on your podcast.

02:32:33:29 - 02:32:34:19
Kyle
Yeah.

02:32:34:21 - 02:32:40:16
Kyle
Where can people find you? You know, is there a place like you have a blog? Substack, you know, where can people find you? Follow your story.

02:32:40:16 - 02:32:47:17
Randy
Instagram is probably the best at Randy Leavitt. It's Randy Leah vibes and Victor, it

02:32:47:17 - 02:32:48:06
Kyle
Sweet.

02:32:48:06 - 02:32:53:21
Randy
and you could DM me or if you need to get in touch with me there, that's probably the best.

02:32:54:07 - 02:33:15:25
Kyle
That's it for today's episode, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you liked today's episode, please head on over to Spotify or Apple Podcasts to give this show five stars. This simple gesture signified helps this community grow. I kind of squeezed Randy's episode in here, but as promised, our next episode will be with the developer of The Nooks and the filmmaker behind it, an exciting new film called The Developer.

02:33:15:27 - 02:33:24:03
Kyle
Until then, stay safe haven. And as always, thanks for being a part of the climbing majority, and we'll see you all in two weeks.