Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galligall people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty four and we're at the peak of
Speaker 2: Mount Everest with one of the world's leading high altitude climbers,
Speaker 2: Kenton Cool. To most, this would be a once in
Speaker 2: a lifetime moment, but for Kenton, this is his eighteenth summit.
Speaker 2: Every climb is tough, and every climb has risk. If
Speaker 2: you become complacent at eight thousand meters in the death zone,
Speaker 2: the mountain is going to kill you. But the view
Speaker 2: and the feeling at the top make every risk worth taking.
Speaker 2: For Kenton, He's acutely aware of how things can change
Speaker 2: in an instant. In nineteen ninety six, a flash of
Speaker 2: overconfidence and it's led to a fall that threatened his
Speaker 2: ability to walk, let alone climb again. He doesn't take
Speaker 2: this view and this feeling for granted. Right now, he's
Speaker 2: the highest person on the planet. I'm at Middleton and
Speaker 2: this is head game today Kenton call on his extraordinary
Speaker 2: career and making his way to the top. Keentin Cool,
Speaker 2: it is an absolute pleasure to not only see you again, mate,
Speaker 2: but to have you this time on my podcast, because
Speaker 2: last time I saw you, I was on your podcast
Speaker 2: and I think it's a year and a half late.
Speaker 3: But that's COVID time.
Speaker 2: No, No, that was mental right, And now you're on
Speaker 2: my podcast head Game. So mate, it's great to see
Speaker 2: you again. Thanks ever so much for joining me. And
Speaker 2: I've got to say, mate, you know from day one
Speaker 2: when I met you, Kenton Coole is a cool guy.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to put that out there. You are
Speaker 2: pretty cool, Kenton.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it lived up to the name,
Speaker 3: but the name is if the listeners don't know me,
Speaker 3: it is actually c O O Out. I mean, I
Speaker 3: know you wanted that for a stage name out, but
Speaker 3: you know it was already taken. You couldn't have it.
Speaker 3: It's my name.
Speaker 2: And did that work with the Chickydezer when you were
Speaker 2: going through school and you know, were you popular with
Speaker 2: the women?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Well I went to an all boys school, so that
Speaker 3: that wasn't much of a thing. So if anything, it
Speaker 3: was the negative is you think you're cool and you
Speaker 3: get your head plunged down a toilet and and everything
Speaker 3: else so, but but it works now because I work
Speaker 3: in the service industry and people remember that name. But yeah,
Speaker 3: growing up it was a little bit of a chalice.
Speaker 2: Yeah I bet it was, Mate, but now missed the
Speaker 2: cool you know that's that's mate, Like you said, it's
Speaker 2: in the title right then, and having had the privilege
Speaker 2: to spend it some time, if you Mate, you're certainly
Speaker 2: a cool dude. But this is about you, Mate. You've
Speaker 2: had a phenomenal career and you continue to have a
Speaker 2: phenomenal career in the mountaineering world. You are one of
Speaker 2: one of, or if not probably the most recognized and
Speaker 2: best mountaineers in the world. And it's obviously taken a
Speaker 2: lot of pain, sweating, tears and suffering. People see the summits,
Speaker 2: especially with mountaineering, and I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 2: get carried away with that cliche. You know, it's about
Speaker 2: the summer, what's underneath it? But and what sparked your
Speaker 2: ignited your passion for climbing as a youngster.
Speaker 3: So I actually came to climbing relatively late. I mean,
Speaker 3: I see this, this whole next generation coming through, you know,
Speaker 3: underneath me, and you know, these guys and girls they've
Speaker 3: all started super young, you know, climbing up, climbing walls,
Speaker 3: perhaps getting out of the Alps. I realistically didn't start
Speaker 3: climbing till I was I was pretty much eighteen. But
Speaker 3: before that, and I think this is really important, before that,
Speaker 3: you know, I was a boy scout. I grew up
Speaker 3: inside the M twenty five. But I was lucky enough
Speaker 3: to grow up on the corner of a farm field,
Speaker 3: and I had access to the outside, and all I
Speaker 3: wanted to do was to be outside all the time.
Speaker 3: Building dens like say, climbing walls, climbing buildings, falling out trees,
Speaker 3: climbing itself as we know it to be a sport
Speaker 3: for me did not exist. But that love of the outdoors,
Speaker 3: the love of adventure, the love of watching the sunset.
Speaker 3: When I knew I was meant to be back at
Speaker 3: home having my supper, Mum's going, where is he? Your
Speaker 3: dinner's burning? The street lights are on, you should be
Speaker 3: back exactly Well, well, in actual fact, you know where
Speaker 3: I grew up, there were no street lights. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know. I grew up in the inside the M
Speaker 3: twenty five. For those who don't know London, I mean
Speaker 3: it was on kind of the outskirts of London, but
Speaker 3: we had all these farm fields and it was just
Speaker 3: incredible the access to just getting in the woods. And
Speaker 3: even when they were building the motorway, so the M
Speaker 3: twenty five was built when I was living there, we
Speaker 3: used to like break into the motorway and steal lamps
Speaker 3: of wood to build the dens, and dodge the big
Speaker 3: earth movers and watch these guys cut down the trees
Speaker 3: and all sort of things. So climbing came late. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But the love of adventure and just being outside and
Speaker 3: maybe bending the rules that was instilled into me from
Speaker 3: quite a young age. And we're sat here today. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm talking to you in Dubai. I'm in the cotsworlds.
Speaker 3: We've got a computer and you know this is my
Speaker 3: phone and yeah, and you know, and these are dangerous
Speaker 3: things for the next generation. It's so easy to get
Speaker 3: sucked into this rather one. You know, that upbringing that
Speaker 3: I had of but we just didn't have it, did we.
Speaker 2: So your parents almost kicked you out as well, didn't they.
Speaker 2: You know, it was more like, well, like just go
Speaker 2: out and play, you know, stop annoying us, you know,
Speaker 2: because we had to entertain ourselves. Back then, we had
Speaker 2: no technology, We had no TV, like you said, which
Speaker 2: I found fascinating. You just said, we knew nothing about
Speaker 2: the climbing world. There wasn't these big expeditions that were
Speaker 2: going on, or you know, you'd hear about the fascination
Speaker 2: of Mount Everest. That's the only mountain you heard back
Speaker 2: in the day, and it would be just a myth, right,
Speaker 2: we'd never had that. Our parents would push us out.
Speaker 2: We had to use our imaginations, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to a certain extent. But then there were the books,
Speaker 3: and you know, for me, there was a couple of
Speaker 3: climbers in the UK, Sir Chris Bondingan and the late
Speaker 3: Great Doug Scott. They published these coffee table books, you know,
Speaker 3: the big A three types of style books or A
Speaker 3: four style books. And I remember getting Sir Chris Bondington's
Speaker 3: book a Mountaineer, I think it was called, or maybe
Speaker 3: Himalayan Climate one or the other and just flicking through it.
Speaker 3: And yes there was Everest obviously, which captivates you. We
Speaker 3: all knew about Everest. We all learnt about sim Hillary
Speaker 3: Sherp pretending nineteen fifty three. You know, news breaking on
Speaker 3: the Queen's coronation. I mean, you just couldn't have make
Speaker 3: that up, could you. So we kind of knew about
Speaker 3: that a little bit. But then there's these other mountains
Speaker 3: like Shanga Bang or Counting Junger and Conger and just
Speaker 3: the photography was amazing, but it felt untouchable. It felt
Speaker 3: like it was way beyond you know, but certainly my reach.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, how do you go from kicking football
Speaker 3: about in the backyard to climbing big mountains? It was
Speaker 3: a complete disconnect.
Speaker 2: So kenon when did that transition come from, you know,
Speaker 2: you reading a book and ultimately you know, inspiring to
Speaker 2: be someone or inspiring to climb and looking at these
Speaker 2: mountains outside of Mount Everest, these these bigger mountains but
Speaker 2: also mountains in the in the UK. Did you first
Speaker 2: seek to climb in the UK then try and go
Speaker 2: bigger or what? What really sparked that thing to go,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tackle the big mountain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a very logical stepping stone, and you know, interestingly,
Speaker 3: the commercialism that goes with these big mountains these days,
Speaker 3: those stepping stones I kind of hacked. You know, people
Speaker 3: are bypassing the apprenticeship and going straight to the big mountains. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that that's right or that's wrong. It's
Speaker 3: just a very very different approach for me. Yeah, for me,
Speaker 3: it started with Andy Foux. There was this guy at school.
Speaker 3: His dad was just an outlier, you know. He was
Speaker 3: a professional rally driver, Tony Foux. He drove for Team Mercedes.
Speaker 3: He tried the paris that are unsupported on a motorbike
Speaker 3: like three or four times. He would just disappear for
Speaker 3: weeks on end. And his son was Andy Foux, who
Speaker 3: was in my class at school. I think we might
Speaker 3: have been the same mass class or something. And they climbed,
Speaker 3: I mean they did all sorts of like amazing stuff.
Speaker 3: And Andy used to go down to the climbing wall.
Speaker 3: And remember that back this would have been in the eighties,
Speaker 3: the climbing walls are not the climbing walls that we
Speaker 3: know today. There were very few and far between. And
Speaker 3: I just said to him one day, can I come
Speaker 3: with you? And He's like, yeah, of course, you can
Speaker 3: come along. And I just loved it. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: loved the movement. I loved the physicality of it. I
Speaker 3: just loved the problem solving. And it very quickly snowballed
Speaker 3: from there, and then one day he said listen, because
Speaker 3: he could drive and I couldn't, he said, listen, We'll
Speaker 3: take my mum's car. And it was a Vauxhall Astra,
Speaker 3: this pretty pooky little thing, and we shot down to
Speaker 3: the South coast. We were stopped by the police. We
Speaker 3: slept in a public toilet overnight and we went climbing
Speaker 3: outside for the first time.
Speaker 2: And that you were on an adventure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We're on the sea cliff and the waves are
Speaker 3: crashing in. I didn't know what I was doing. It
Speaker 3: got so scared. It's just like climbing up this thing,
Speaker 3: like throwing stuff over my shoulder. And I remember getting
Speaker 3: to the top of my first ever proper rock climb
Speaker 3: and there was a metal steak and I just remember
Speaker 3: putting my arms around it and it was, you know,
Speaker 3: as if it was like a newborn baby. It's like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm safe. I'm not going to die
Speaker 3: after all. And then the adrenaline hits you and it
Speaker 3: says like, oh my god, that was insane. I want more,
Speaker 3: I want more, I want more, and it just snowboard
Speaker 3: and it went went from the South Coast to Scotland.
Speaker 3: To the Peak District and then I finished my A levels.
Speaker 3: So I finished school and Andy, his brother Roger, and
Speaker 3: myself and another could made Chris. We just went to
Speaker 3: the European outs. We did not have a clue, we
Speaker 3: didn't know what we were doing. We made all the mistakes,
Speaker 3: but just had the best time ever. Yeah, and that
Speaker 3: was it. That was a catalyst. That was like I
Speaker 3: love this. I want to do more of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that was sparked. And that was, like you said,
Speaker 2: it's addictive writer. You get into it. That adrenaline kicks in,
Speaker 2: you know. And what I love about what you just
Speaker 2: said was you know I'm alive. You know, you know
Speaker 2: because it is because ultimately, when you say problem solving,
Speaker 2: you mentioned the word problem solving, your problem solving to
Speaker 2: ultimately in that moment, even though you've got safety equipment on,
Speaker 2: and in that moment, you're you're problem solving with your life,
Speaker 2: aren't you. You know, you're problem solving to get to
Speaker 2: the top, You're problem solving to get to the next,
Speaker 2: the next stage, and ultimately you're problem solving to keep
Speaker 2: yourself alive. On that mop face.
Speaker 3: It it's one hundred percent. I mean, my first climate
Speaker 3: is a vs. You know, if American listeners is like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, five eight maybe. I mean, it's not hard,
Speaker 3: but you know, I just didn't know what it's doing.
Speaker 3: It's steep limestone. And I got about halfway up, and
Speaker 3: you put these little metal wedges into the rock to
Speaker 3: protect your so if you fall off, the ropes clipped.
Speaker 3: And I get about just over halfway and I'm getting
Speaker 3: tired and I'm trying to put one of these little
Speaker 3: metal wedges in. I've got my hand in a crack
Speaker 3: every time I tak my hand out of like barn
Speaker 3: door about to fall off, and i can't get it in,
Speaker 3: and I've got to make that decision. I'm like, look
Speaker 3: at the floor, look at the rope, look at match
Speaker 3: ropes out, look at the top, and just think no.
Speaker 3: And this is that, you know, we're talking about problem
Speaker 3: solved in decision making. It's like, can I make it
Speaker 3: to the top without putting any more gear in before
Speaker 3: I fall off? And if I fall off? And and
Speaker 3: he said afterwards it he was like, oh mate, what
Speaker 3: what were you doing? I was I was like running
Speaker 3: through how am I going to tell your mother that
Speaker 3: you created that you fell off? And hit the floor
Speaker 3: and you know, but but it's that key decision making. No,
Speaker 3: you know, I laugh about it now, but you're doing
Speaker 3: it almost instantaneously without even thinking about it. And that
Speaker 3: apprenticeship to be able to make those decisions, I think
Speaker 3: is critical. And that's where maybe some of the modern
Speaker 3: generation of peak baggers, those who are just simply looking
Speaker 3: at climbing these peaks on big commercial strips, they don't
Speaker 3: go through that apprenticeship it. Yeah, so, and it's not right,
Speaker 3: it's not wrong. It's a different aspect of the sport.
Speaker 3: But that apprenticeship serves you so well in other stuff
Speaker 3: that you do. Be it. You might be sat in
Speaker 3: the boardroom and you're trying to make a decision or something,
Speaker 3: or you're talking to somebody and you've got to make
Speaker 3: a quick, snapshot decision yourself. You can't chunk it to
Speaker 3: somebody else. You can't go to your boss and say
Speaker 3: what do you think about You've got to make that
Speaker 3: decision yourself. And for me, I learned that through climbing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's a that's a critical life skill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And I make you right there, Kenton, when
Speaker 2: you say you know it's different, it is different. But
Speaker 2: now going straight to the big mountains and people paying
Speaker 2: all this money to ultimately relinquish, which they do personal
Speaker 2: safety and personal responsibility. They think that when you know,
Speaker 2: the shit hits the fan and things go wrong, that yours,
Speaker 2: you've paid your sheirpers thousands and you paid the exhibition thousands,
Speaker 2: that they're going to get you out of trouble. And
Speaker 2: they almost, you know, wipe their hands and go, you know,
Speaker 2: you get me out of this. I've paid you all
Speaker 2: this money to do it. And that's not the case,
Speaker 2: right because you get people that go up there and
Speaker 2: it's quite dangerous to be just wanting to hit those
Speaker 2: big summits. Like you said that apprenticeship sort of prepares
Speaker 2: you for the mountain life. There is a mountain life,
Speaker 2: and then there's these big expeditions that you go on.
Speaker 2: And I believe and I've seen it on Everest, and
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of people do pay the
Speaker 2: big bucks and they do actually relinquish. Not all the people,
Speaker 2: but I've seen it happen where they go, right, you know,
Speaker 2: if something goes wrong, then I've paid all this money.
Speaker 2: You need to get me out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right, it's not everybody,
Speaker 3: but that personal responsibility. I mean, I'm a professional mountain guide.
Speaker 3: You know, I take people to Everest as well and
Speaker 3: look after them, and there is a you know, I'm
Speaker 3: essentially being paid to keep somebody safe. You know, that
Speaker 3: is the one part my job, keep somebody safe, bring
Speaker 3: them back through the front door at the end of
Speaker 3: the expedition. But at the same time, there is a
Speaker 3: degree of responsibility to the client as well. And it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter that you climb in ben Nevis, Scarfel mont
Speaker 3: Blanc or Everest, there's got to be a degree of
Speaker 3: responsibility or accountability. Maybe yet the guide's going to do
Speaker 3: and the sherbet teams because the Sherpe teams, as you know,
Speaker 3: their epic you know, they're they're just on a different level.
Speaker 3: I mean, we think we're pretty fit guys, but you know,
Speaker 3: put like twenty kilos on these guys and they're like
Speaker 3: mounting rockets and they're getting better and better and better
Speaker 3: about client care and knowing what the likes of you
Speaker 3: and I need on that mountain. You know, it'll be
Speaker 3: talking about Everest is incredible, But let's go back to
Speaker 3: the you know, some of the clients. Is that sense
Speaker 3: of responsibility and to a certain tent etiquette as well,
Speaker 3: and that etique you learn from from the apprenticeship, know
Speaker 3: how you treat people in the mountains, how you conduct yourself.
Speaker 2: In the right You've hit the nail on the head there.
Speaker 2: Mountain etique is it teaches you to how to how
Speaker 2: to be a mountaineer, how to act like a mountaineer,
Speaker 2: how to you know, respect the mountains.
Speaker 3: And how to be around and how to respect others
Speaker 3: on the mountains. If you're on summit day on everest
Speaker 3: and you see those long lines, no one wants to
Speaker 3: be stuck in those lines, but there are ways and
Speaker 3: means you can overtake and get round people. And you
Speaker 3: might tap somebody on the shoulder and say, hey, we're
Speaker 3: moving faster than you can. We come past you. And
Speaker 3: on every it's more often than not you get like
Speaker 3: a blank face and someone says no, and you're like, hmm, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to stand in this line and wait
Speaker 3: to get dead. I want to come past you. So yeah,
Speaker 3: you tap them on the shoulder again and say hey, listen,
Speaker 3: we're still moving faster than you can. We come past
Speaker 3: and they're like no, and in the end you're like,
Speaker 3: you just muscle past them, which in itself is not
Speaker 3: mountain etticu. Yeah, and we learn all this, yeah, climbing
Speaker 3: in the Alps, climbing on mountains like a mounte Horn
Speaker 3: or Mont Blanc or you know, smaller peaks, and it's
Speaker 3: just ingrained in us now in the same way that
Speaker 3: you serve an apprenticeship in anything generally that you do,
Speaker 3: if you're work in finance or if you're working pharmaceuticals
Speaker 3: or whatever it is that you're do. Like you and
Speaker 3: you didn't go straight into the special forces, Yeah, you
Speaker 3: done your time learning what you need to do, learning
Speaker 3: how you conduct yourself before you get to those higher levels.
Speaker 3: And it's exactly the same. So it's there is no
Speaker 3: hack that, there's no hack to experience.
Speaker 2: You had a tragic fallback in nineteen ninety six, right,
Speaker 2: where were you and how did that happen? And you
Speaker 2: know what was going through head at the time.
Speaker 3: I mean it is a cliche, but what a great
Speaker 3: life lesson. So it was a week before I've been
Speaker 3: beging on this epic expedition to Pakistan to climb the
Speaker 3: Ogre and I was in North Wales, it was a
Speaker 3: great drizzly day. I didn't really feel the motivation to
Speaker 3: get out and climb. We were just there to collect
Speaker 3: some sponsorship kit and and the people that I was
Speaker 3: with there were like, hey, let's go into the slate
Speaker 3: quarries of North Wales. So they all dis used slate
Speaker 3: mines and you know there's quite hard climbing in there.
Speaker 3: So we go in there, and I reluctantly went along
Speaker 3: because my ego was getting in my way of my
Speaker 3: decision making. I'm like, well, okay, if these guys are going,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go. If they're going to climb hard,
Speaker 3: I'm going to climb hard. And mate of mine jumped
Speaker 3: on a relatively hard route and okay, so I jump
Speaker 3: on the one to the left, and you know, I
Speaker 3: broke a hold off. I wasn't that high. Slate is
Speaker 3: a very friable rock. That's where we have it on
Speaker 3: our roofs. You know, it cleaves quite easily, and putting
Speaker 3: on its hole, I've got no gear in common thread
Speaker 3: here is and there's no gear when I go climbing
Speaker 3: and I break the hold off and bang, I just
Speaker 3: hit the floor and yeah, I ended up what four
Speaker 3: just over four weeks in hospital, three operations, three and
Speaker 3: a half months in a wheelchair. How high were you
Speaker 3: fifteen feet?
Speaker 2: Ye? Still, but you peeled you proper peeled off, did you?
Speaker 3: I fell off and the landing surface was just covered
Speaker 3: in these little flakes of slate, So it's like hitting concrete.
Speaker 3: And because it happened like that, there's no kind of
Speaker 3: parachute role also to speak, there's no shock absorbing. I
Speaker 3: fell off unexpectedly, and then before I know it, bang,
Speaker 3: and I got up and I made about three steps
Speaker 3: and just collapsed again. I didn't walk for four months.
Speaker 2: Was there time to panic? Was there time? Or did
Speaker 2: you just before you know you've hit the deck and
Speaker 2: and you're.
Speaker 3: Because where I was climbing wasn't actually that hard. I
Speaker 3: tried to get a little bit of gear in. It
Speaker 3: didn't fit, and you know I made we're talking about
Speaker 3: snap decisions. I made decisions. I don't need it. You know,
Speaker 3: this is easy. I'll get up to that bit up there.
Speaker 3: And then because I broke the hole, it was totally unexpected,
Speaker 3: totally entertainous. It wasn't like I can't do this, I
Speaker 3: can't do this, I can't do this. Watch me and
Speaker 3: you jump off. It was like bang, yeah, do.
Speaker 2: You remember waking up in hospital?
Speaker 3: Well, so I spent a couple of hours at the
Speaker 3: bottom of the climb while everybody was trying to sort
Speaker 3: out and get an ambulance in, and you know, and
Speaker 3: then I got carried down. It was quite heroic from
Speaker 3: those around me. I get carried down and then get
Speaker 3: handed over to the paramedics who then put me into
Speaker 3: the into the into the ambulance and it was so funny.
Speaker 3: So my friends carried me all the way down and
Speaker 3: it was like down these little steep paths and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm howling, and they get me down and hand me
Speaker 3: over to the paramedics who immediately smashed my legs into
Speaker 3: the side of the ambulance. It's like, oh Jesus, Chris, I.
Speaker 2: Think they might have done that. Burbers made to go
Speaker 2: use silly son.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, possibly. And then I got carded off the
Speaker 3: bank at hospital and spent time there and then ended
Speaker 3: up back down near home. So it was a bilateral
Speaker 3: cocaine and fracture. So I so the little hillbone that
Speaker 3: comes out if you think of your skeleton foot, there's
Speaker 3: a little bit that comes out of the back and
Speaker 3: that's your hilbone right at the back. And I broke
Speaker 3: the I think the right one was in fourteen pieces
Speaker 3: and the left one was in seven or.
Speaker 2: Eight pieces, so he shattered both.
Speaker 3: I shattered both of them. And one of the consultants said, no,
Speaker 3: you're really unlucky to damage them so badly from such
Speaker 3: a short fall. But you know, and this is where
Speaker 3: we have to focus on the positives in life, he said,
Speaker 3: But yes, this is by way, but by father worst
Speaker 3: bilateral cocaine. In fact, I've ever seen without blown out
Speaker 3: knees hips and broken back. So just count yourself lucky. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're really unlucky that you've hurt yourself so badly from
Speaker 3: such a little thought, but you're really lucky that you've
Speaker 3: not got broken back. And then you've got a choice again,
Speaker 3: you know you do you focus on the ah, man,
Speaker 3: I'm really unlucky, this is really shit, or do your
Speaker 3: focus on the positives. And that's a conscious choice that
Speaker 3: we have. And I found myself in that pit of
Speaker 3: kind of negative despair. One of the consultants came in
Speaker 3: and said, right, I'm going to operate on you tomorrow,
Speaker 3: and my immediate thoughts when can I climb and he
Speaker 3: just laughed and said, you're never climbing again. You're never
Speaker 3: going to walk without stick. Yeah, And that spiled me
Speaker 3: into that pit. But then about ten days later, another
Speaker 3: consult John Handley, he said, I'm going to rebuild your
Speaker 3: foot to the best of my ability, and what you
Speaker 3: do after that is down to you and no one else.
Speaker 3: If you put the time and effort in, you will walk.
Speaker 3: You will. And he said, I'm not gonna say you're
Speaker 3: going to climb, but it's down to you and how
Speaker 3: much energy and bocus you put into your rehab. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And those two different approaches from those from those two
Speaker 3: different consultants, that was the tipping point from being in
Speaker 3: the pit of despair and self woe is me to
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, actually I can do this and
Speaker 3: I will do this and I want to do this.
Speaker 3: And that was really powerful. That was for me. And
Speaker 3: I only realized this years later. Yeah, of course, not
Speaker 3: at the time. Yeah, not at the time.
Speaker 2: The penny finally drops, doesn't it. When you do something
Speaker 2: you look back and you go wow, if I hadn't
Speaker 2: That's why I ask you in those moments, you know
Speaker 2: where your head was at and your mindset. But it's
Speaker 2: so important for people to realize that we have a choice.
Speaker 3: I mean, for a while it was awful. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: have the choice. And you know, the other really powerful
Speaker 3: thing is is like negative motivation. And by this, I mean,
Speaker 3: what do you stand to lose? And when that first
Speaker 3: consultant said to me, you're never going to climb again,
Speaker 3: I saw my community as I knew it because I
Speaker 3: was so involved with climbing everything. My girlfriend climbed, all
Speaker 3: my buddies climb, My whole cohort were climbers. And I
Speaker 3: stood to lose my community as I knew it, and
Speaker 3: that really scared me. And that was a huge motivator
Speaker 3: because I didn't want to lose that. I thought I
Speaker 3: was going to lose my community. I've got nothing, and
Speaker 3: that that was one of the big driving forces. That
Speaker 3: was I'm going to get on those parallel bars as
Speaker 3: soon as I can. I'm going to do those extra
Speaker 3: hyder sessions. I was going to go to the gym
Speaker 3: in the hospital and yes, pump weights, do the pull downs,
Speaker 3: do the there's certain exercises I could do build my
Speaker 3: core so that when I could get back on my feet.
Speaker 3: Recovery is going to be that much quicker.
Speaker 2: This is why I really wanted to touch on this
Speaker 2: because it's fascinating because, like you said, we have a choice,
Speaker 2: we have a we have a mindset as well. You know,
Speaker 2: do we do we go down the negative mindset of
Speaker 2: you know, being the victim, or do we do we
Speaker 2: really you know, stand up and fight for what we
Speaker 2: believe in, where we want to be, where we think
Speaker 2: we should be in life. And yours was on the mountains. Now,
Speaker 2: what was your first mountain after your injury that you
Speaker 2: climbed and do you remember it? And was that was
Speaker 2: that a moment where you thought, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: back on track now?
Speaker 3: Well, I suppose there's two things. One is I got
Speaker 3: back into rock climbing, so that's something I could do
Speaker 3: as as soon as I could. I was actually standing
Speaker 3: in a wheelchair and I used to take myself down
Speaker 3: to climbing war in London. That was really steep and
Speaker 3: I could I'm up just literally just toe dapping, so
Speaker 3: just putting a little bit of weight through my feet,
Speaker 3: you know, and then I'll be lowered straight back down
Speaker 3: into the wheelchair. So you know, I got back into
Speaker 3: that quite quickly.
Speaker 2: That's hardcore.
Speaker 3: Mate, that is hardcore, but you say that, But I
Speaker 3: didn't want to lose a community. I just wanted to
Speaker 3: be around, you know, my friends, my cohort, that those
Speaker 3: people that sort of elevated me, you know. And if
Speaker 3: you can't go to the climbing wall, if you can't climb, well,
Speaker 3: now your friends will come out and see you. But
Speaker 3: at the weekends there or on a Wednesday night, they're
Speaker 3: all down the climbing wall, and that's where I wanted
Speaker 3: to be. I wanted to be among those people that
Speaker 3: uplifted me and supported me as much as I could.
Speaker 3: So my first proper foray back into the big mountains,
Speaker 3: it was a dear friend of mine, Alan Powell, had
Speaker 3: this idea of a new winter line in the Alms,
Speaker 3: and you know, we went down and we started to
Speaker 3: climb on Christmas Day and it was a hard rou
Speaker 3: It took us, I know that three or four days.
Speaker 3: I forget now, and the story behind it is all
Speaker 3: a bit of an epic. But we managed to do it.
Speaker 3: And that was my first real reintroduction into the mountains
Speaker 3: and it kind of proved to myself that yeah, I
Speaker 3: had to approach things in a slightly different way. I
Speaker 3: had given myself more time to do the walk ins
Speaker 3: to get to the bottom. I would always have problems
Speaker 3: moving away from a bla. So you strap yourself to
Speaker 3: the mountain and you wait there for what can be hours,
Speaker 3: where your mate goes up and places all the ropes
Speaker 3: and things like that, and moving away would be hard
Speaker 3: because my ankles or my would seize up. So those
Speaker 3: first movements were very clunky, but you learn to adapt
Speaker 3: to what you have. And that was wow, I can
Speaker 3: do this and I will do this, and that was
Speaker 3: the green light and it just started to snowball from there.
Speaker 2: When did Mount Everest first come into your mind? When
Speaker 2: do you think, right, I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 2: take on there, I'm going to stand on the apex
Speaker 2: of the world.
Speaker 3: Not for a long time. I mean it was late
Speaker 3: two thousand and three and so so after the accident,
Speaker 3: what I did, when I realized I could do again,
Speaker 3: you know, I just was consuming climbing, That's all I did.
Speaker 3: I was working on building sites and I was just
Speaker 3: doing multiple expeditions, you know, to Greenland, to the Himalayas,
Speaker 3: to Pakistan. I just couldn't get enough of it. And
Speaker 3: it was on the back of a quite a groundbreaking
Speaker 3: expedition to Nepal in two thousand and three, and we
Speaker 3: with the three of us, and we climbed this big
Speaker 3: new route. I think it was the second or third
Speaker 3: descent of Annapurna three, so just under eight thousand meters.
Speaker 3: We were on it for ten days. We ran out food,
Speaker 3: we ran out of fuel, and you know, it took
Speaker 3: it took all of us to a super dark place
Speaker 3: and it actually it was really interesting. It actually affected
Speaker 3: our friendships because we went so deep that when we
Speaker 3: came out of it, we had issues sort of connecting
Speaker 3: with one another again because we all had our own
Speaker 3: journey in the darkness. And that was that was quite
Speaker 3: enlightening on how relationships can be affected by personal journeys.
Speaker 3: Even though we were three of us together and in
Speaker 3: theory going through the same journey, it was very very
Speaker 3: different for three of us. Anyway, we got quite a
Speaker 3: lot of the claim for that. And on the back
Speaker 3: of that, one of the British guiding companies who was
Speaker 3: already working for hung me up and he just said,
Speaker 3: would you entertain going to ever it's for us? And
Speaker 3: I had to think about it for about a nanosecond,
Speaker 3: and I just said yes, And that was the starting
Speaker 3: starting point of it. I mean, Everest had been beyond
Speaker 3: my financial capability, and to be honest, it was something
Speaker 3: which didn't interest me because it wasn't technical hard climbing.
Speaker 3: It was just never in my wheelhouse. And then it
Speaker 3: became so obvious that, you know, show me one climber
Speaker 3: who can, honestly, hand on heart say that at some
Speaker 3: stage in their career or their life they haven't thought
Speaker 3: about going to Everest. And that was probably November December
Speaker 3: two thousand and three, and I found myself on the
Speaker 3: mountain for the first time spring two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: feeling very out of my depth, not quite knowing how
Speaker 3: it all works. Having a great Surdar is like the
Speaker 3: head Shirpo kind of tells you how it all works.
Speaker 3: And I loved it. I absolutely adored it, and I
Speaker 3: just wanted more.
Speaker 2: And what was that first time standing on the summit?
Speaker 2: Take me back to that day, because of course you
Speaker 2: remember it. What was going through your head and how
Speaker 2: are you feeling emotionally?
Speaker 3: It was a little bit more complicated than simply get
Speaker 3: in there and I'm there with a client. We got
Speaker 3: We've got sherpas around us. But back then now what
Speaker 3: we had to do was the rope was only fixed
Speaker 3: to the balcony, and whoever went first the first team
Speaker 3: had to fix the rest of the rope from the
Speaker 3: balcony to the summit. And we were the first bloody
Speaker 3: team to go. And it's like Jesus, So, you know,
Speaker 3: we're laying all this robe and we're having to fix
Speaker 3: the rope and you're trying to look after a client. Anyway,
Speaker 3: we get above the hilly step and the summit is
Speaker 3: just there. It's like, we're going to do this. This
Speaker 3: is like off the chants. And suddenly I kind of
Speaker 3: look around and the sherpa who I'm with, he slowed up,
Speaker 3: and I found myself on my own. There He's only
Speaker 3: like twenty thirty yards behind me, and he had deliberately
Speaker 3: slowed up to give me the opportunity of my first
Speaker 3: summit on my own. And I can never thank him
Speaker 3: enough for that. It was such a beautiful thing to
Speaker 3: do for somebody else. So in two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: I was the first a summit and I get there
Speaker 3: and I just can't believe it. Now I start looking
Speaker 3: around and you've been there you know what it's like.
Speaker 3: I mean people say, explain that you can't describe the view.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just and it's so crystal clear. The
Speaker 3: sky is so dark blue. I mean you are nearly
Speaker 3: nine thousand meters above sea level. This is where airliners fly.
Speaker 3: I mean, Jesus, it's just blow my mind. And then
Speaker 3: Pemma comes up and you know, and there's hugs, and
Speaker 3: I'm quite an emotional dude, and there's like layers of
Speaker 3: tears and uh, you know, gott to ring my mom.
Speaker 3: I gotta ring my mom and dad and get the
Speaker 3: SAP phone out and plug the number in. And Mom
Speaker 3: picks up the phone and yeah, I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: like nine o'clock in the morning in the porch. It's
Speaker 3: like four o'clock in the morning in the UK or
Speaker 3: something like that. And she's like, oh, who is it.
Speaker 3: And Jesus know who's going to ring at four o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning, And like, Mom, Mum, it's me. It's me.
Speaker 3: It's me. And she's like, oh, hi, dear, how are
Speaker 3: you all right? Yeah? Yeah, I'm great, I'm great. Listen mum,
Speaker 3: And then she how is that chest infection? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's pretty good, you know. It's the Yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: feeling in bed as you're now. Where are you right,
Speaker 3: my mama? Mom? Top of the world. It's amazing. I
Speaker 3: can see for miles. This is great.
Speaker 4: That's nice there. Now listen, your dad couldn't sleep, so
Speaker 4: he's going to walk the dog. Maybe you can call
Speaker 4: back in half an hour.
Speaker 3: And just totally brought back down to earth by your mum.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: And yeah, and I, ma'am, I don't think I can.
Speaker 4: Maybe I can call back from the top cab. Well,
Speaker 4: your dad would really appreciate it. Call maybe chat later
Speaker 4: now keep warm. It's like you have put the phone down.
Speaker 4: And I just thought, yeah, that wouldn't happen.
Speaker 3: To like beg girls, what it I mean, that's like yeah,
Speaker 3: but that didn't detract from it. And then they're sitting
Speaker 3: there and I just thought, I got to use this
Speaker 3: opportunity because I may never be back here, so I've
Speaker 3: got to soak it in. And I've got to look
Speaker 3: around and see what mountains are out there that look amazing.
Speaker 3: And I could climb and look at it's one mountain
Speaker 3: down there. And when I say down there is like
Speaker 3: properly down there and I'm looking at Wow, Jesus, that's
Speaker 3: how my dad Lamb and I climbed down my Dablin
Speaker 3: back in two thousand or two thousand and one. I thought, wow,
Speaker 3: that's a beautiful mountain, and I thought, that's two thousand
Speaker 3: meters two vertical kilometers underneath me. And when I climb
Speaker 3: down my dablam in two thousand, people check the base gap.
Speaker 3: It dominates. It's this mountain that's right up there. And
Speaker 3: then it hit me how high we actually were, eight thousand,
Speaker 3: eight hundred and forty eight meters above sea level. Just unbelievable.
Speaker 3: So then that's my memory of standing on the summit
Speaker 3: for the first time. It's just being blown away by
Speaker 3: the insignificance of who we are and what we do,
Speaker 3: and no matter how much we try, our their mass
Speaker 3: to screw this planet up with you and I don't
Speaker 3: care if there's naysayers out there with global warming and
Speaker 3: climate change and stuff like that, but we are having
Speaker 3: an effect on our planet. And stood there feeling so insignificant,
Speaker 3: just looking around and seeing the wonder of what lay
Speaker 3: beneath me was so humbling. It was just incredible and
Speaker 3: absolutely incredible. I'm sure, in the same way that you
Speaker 3: felt that on the mountains that you climb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt that on k too, because it was
Speaker 2: the reverse of my Everest climb. But the reason why
Speaker 2: I ask you why you felt what you felt on
Speaker 2: your first summit of Everest is because it was obviously
Speaker 2: phenomenal because it led you to go back seventeen more times.
Speaker 2: You have summited Everest eighteen times, Kenton. That's surely that's
Speaker 2: a record.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of people say, oh, well, that's
Speaker 3: a record, and it's not really a record when you
Speaker 3: look at some of the sherpers. I mean, it's a
Speaker 3: non SHERPA record for what that's worth. But I think
Speaker 3: it was Kinny An, the the ultra Runner, the sky Runner,
Speaker 3: the Pyrenean like legend. No. And he said just a
Speaker 3: few years ago that the records don't really have a
Speaker 3: belonging in the mountains. And the reason why I said
Speaker 3: that is because the mountains are constantly changing. It's not
Speaker 3: like if you run one hundred meters, it's always a
Speaker 3: set distance on a set track with a set wind speed,
Speaker 3: and if the windspeed becomes too great, then the records
Speaker 3: not not validated. And if you then you know, overlay
Speaker 3: that into the mountains. The mountains are never the same.
Speaker 3: It's impossible. So so he argues that the records in
Speaker 3: the mountains are meaningless, and I think is absolutely is
Speaker 3: absolutely right, And we see a lot of record chases
Speaker 3: these days in the mountains. They want to be the first.
Speaker 3: It's all Bulgearian on a pogo stick, you know, And
Speaker 3: that's absolutely groovy for the individual. And if that's what
Speaker 3: you to do, more power to you.
Speaker 2: But that's everywhere, I think, and I've seen it as well,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, that's the thing that it's evident
Speaker 2: on the mountains, on the bigger mountains, on the commercial mountains.
Speaker 2: You know, people want to be the first expedition to
Speaker 2: get up there to say that they're the first exit.
Speaker 2: People want to be the first ones to fix. People
Speaker 2: want to be the first ones to be that Like
Speaker 2: you said that the Bulgarian poso sticker who's done the
Speaker 2: backflip on whatever it may be. It's getting to a
Speaker 2: stage where one is I think is overcrowded in the mountains,
Speaker 2: but two, it has become extremely dangerous for those who
Speaker 2: actually want to climb, who are there for the right reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and mostly, if not all, those records are meaningless,
Speaker 3: and the only record that really means anything, I think
Speaker 3: on the mountain is the first ascent who climbed the
Speaker 3: mountain first tending and here to be back in fifty three,
Speaker 3: and then potentially the first ascent of a specific route
Speaker 3: on the mountain, because that's important, you know, who opened
Speaker 3: up the new routes. But yeah, exactly was the oldest,
Speaker 3: the youngest, the fastest, the that's kind of irrelevant because
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, perhaps it's meaningful to the individual, but
Speaker 3: in the wider context of the sport, it means nothing.
Speaker 3: You know. Okay, so you're the first ball gearing on
Speaker 3: a pogo stick, more power to you, but actually, who cares.
Speaker 2: Let's talk K two briefly, because you're touring around the
Speaker 2: UK soon.
Speaker 3: When your film's coming out soon, is it not? I'm
Speaker 3: waiting for.
Speaker 2: What documentari is coming out on Channel seven.
Speaker 3: Briefly, I mean, I know, I know we up against
Speaker 3: it with time, but just briefly, maybe you should explain
Speaker 3: to the audience about K two, just very very briefly,
Speaker 3: what was your experience there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for K two, for me, it was a lot
Speaker 2: more technical. You know, it's a lot more. I think,
Speaker 2: a lot more dangerous because as you know, you've got
Speaker 2: the camps, all the lines, you've got to camp one,
Speaker 2: Camp two, camp, you know, any of the Mainly the
Speaker 2: rock full was absolutely leaf along K two. The more
Speaker 2: people you have on the mountain, the more rockful there
Speaker 2: is because of people climbing in front of you.
Speaker 3: But but the trek to get there, I mean it's
Speaker 3: just off the charts. I mean the bratora glass.
Speaker 2: I mentioned it in my documentary. It is the most
Speaker 2: brutal I've done it in three and a half days
Speaker 2: because you know, we were just we just bypassed all them,
Speaker 2: you know. And I tell you what, it was the
Speaker 2: most brutal base camp trek that I've ever done, you know,
Speaker 2: talk about you know there are the tracks were being
Speaker 2: swept away by the glacier water. You know that when
Speaker 2: the sun was shining, we were going, oh no, because
Speaker 2: we knew we're in for hard days, so we'd leave
Speaker 2: nice and early.
Speaker 3: But is it sensational? I mean it's such a core
Speaker 3: dynamic plot Pakistan.
Speaker 2: It's almost untouched as well. You know, do you want
Speaker 2: a base camp trek? There was nothing, you know, we
Speaker 2: were just you'll see for the document. We were just
Speaker 2: by ourselves, myself and one sherpa and that was it,
Speaker 2: you know, no one to be seen of it was.
Speaker 3: It was phenomenal.
Speaker 2: And then the climb itself. Yeah, what I loved about
Speaker 2: the climb is it was so outside of my technical
Speaker 2: I really had to think about it because you know,
Speaker 2: you're hitting the pyramid, you're hitting the chimney, you've got
Speaker 2: the bottleneck where you dig where you are, you're digging
Speaker 2: in and you know, and I was frantically digging in
Speaker 2: like a nutter. But what a climb mat I really
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it. It tested me beyond and it made
Speaker 2: me realize how how untechnical I was. You know, I
Speaker 2: thought that, you know, I went through mountain trus. I
Speaker 2: thought done my apprenticeship, you know, climbing mountains when I
Speaker 2: was young, Snowden, et cetera, ben Nevis. All through the military,
Speaker 2: I was mountain troop danak On Caagua, Dan Alberiz. Do
Speaker 2: you know, I thought, you know, a smaller, smaller, smaller apprenticeship.
Speaker 2: But it didn't, it didn't really you know. Then obviously
Speaker 2: Everest and K two, the K two CA. You know,
Speaker 2: I wish I would have done a bit more because
Speaker 2: I could have enjoyed it a lot more.
Speaker 3: I loved my trip there. I went there at twenty one,
Speaker 3: and I just adored it because there weren't that many
Speaker 3: people then were coming out of COVID. There's only about
Speaker 3: three teams on the mountain and it was everything I
Speaker 3: ever hoped for, was that expedition. It was just beautiful
Speaker 3: and wonderful.
Speaker 2: Listen, thank you ever so much, mate, phenomenal individual. Like
Speaker 2: I said, I've had the privilege of spending time with
Speaker 2: you and being with you mate, and yeah, you're certainly
Speaker 2: the mystical that is in your surname. But listen, mate,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, and us no, it's a pleasure man.
Speaker 2: My guest today was Kenton Cool. To find out more
Speaker 2: about Kenton ted tokentoncool dot com and make sure you
Speaker 2: check out his podcast, Cool Conversations. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 2: this episode of Headgame. If you enjoyed it, share it
Speaker 2: with a friend. I'm at Middleton. I'll see you again
Speaker 2: next time.