Speaker 1: Welcome to two percent. I'm your host, Michael Easter. Now,
Speaker 1: most human beings will not climb Mount Everest. Most people
Speaker 1: won't even think about attempting that. But our guest today
Speaker 1: he has climb Mount Everest four different times. He also
Speaker 1: managed to climb every single fourteen or in Colorado by
Speaker 1: his eighteenth birthday. He also made a bold attempt at
Speaker 1: K two, which is the most dangerous, risky mountain and
Speaker 1: the hardest mountain on Earth. Our guest today is doctor
Speaker 1: John Kadrowski. He was rolling through Las Vegas, so I
Speaker 1: dragged him in the studio. I wanted to ask him
Speaker 1: about what he's learned about life on these crazy climbs,
Speaker 1: how you can train for the outdoors, and also how
Speaker 1: he thinks about risk in everyday life and how sometimes
Speaker 1: the most risky things we do are also the most rewarding.
Speaker 1: So let's take a quick break and then we'll bring
Speaker 1: in John. All Right, John, welcome to the show. How
Speaker 1: you doing goo ahod man, It's good to have you here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for yeah, thanks for the invite. Okay, here's where
Speaker 1: I want to start. George Mallory temps Everest in nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: He gets asked why he wanted to climb Everest, and
Speaker 1: he said, because it's there. Now, I think that's total bullshit.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you why. I want to hear
Speaker 1: your reaction to it.
Speaker 2: In terms of it being total, total bullshit. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think he had a lot of other reasons, right,
Speaker 2: he wanted to be the first. Yeah, I'd say that
Speaker 2: was probably his main motivation. Well, you just at a
Speaker 2: first ascent? Yeah, what is it about being the first?
Speaker 2: It just it feels amazing, because, yeah, you're literally stepping
Speaker 2: somewhere that nobody's ever gone. And for me, that climb
Speaker 2: this past month was, honestly, it felt better than Everest.
Speaker 2: And I've done Everest on seven expeditions over the years,
Speaker 2: but it was just a different feel and also it
Speaker 2: pushed me differently. What mountain was it? It was called
Speaker 2: kick cap Ree two, So it was a mountain on
Speaker 2: the bed Nepal border, about about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: miles northwest of Katmandu and just in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Very hard to get to go over a huge eighteen
Speaker 2: thousand foot pass, hike up a valley where you're seeing
Speaker 2: wild yaks, wild mustangs. There's snow upward tracks that kind
Speaker 2: of thing, and to an area that was really hard
Speaker 2: to get to and then you could see why. But
Speaker 2: all the while was during the Mount Everest season over there,
Speaker 2: and so I thought to myself, Man, this is pretty
Speaker 2: cool because I'm not up, you know, getting stuck behind
Speaker 2: people on a rope somewhere on a mountain where I've
Speaker 2: already climbed it before. So I'd rather be somewhere new
Speaker 2: and different. And I think that's what drives me in
Speaker 2: life sometimes. Yeah, what did How did it hit different?
Speaker 1: When you get up there and you're like, I'm the first,
Speaker 1: I'm probably the first human who's ever met up here.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Uh well, first I was like going up and
Speaker 2: I'm climbing up this ridge and I thought, well, shoot,
Speaker 2: what if I get to the top and there's like
Speaker 2: somebody's left something out there, and then I'm not the
Speaker 2: first And I was like, ah, but still, like, we
Speaker 2: haven't seen a person in over five days is to
Speaker 2: even get to this mountain, so I'm pretty sure, Yeah,
Speaker 2: pretty sure, we're good. So yeah, it's just a whole different,
Speaker 2: whole different feel, a whole different experience, And I think
Speaker 2: in life that's what I thrive on is new and
Speaker 2: different experiences all the time. It makes my brain work differently.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: So my theory on that quote the reason that I
Speaker 1: think it's bs. You probably just needed an answer for
Speaker 1: the journalists who asks. I think people find something inherently
Speaker 1: rewarding about taking on these big challenges. Right, It's not
Speaker 1: just that it's there. There's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: are just there that you could do, but the fact
Speaker 1: that there's he would be the first. He knows it's
Speaker 1: going to be extremely hard. He's going into the unknown
Speaker 1: and he's got to figure it out, and that's going
Speaker 1: to be tough. He knew that that was there was
Speaker 1: something inherently special about that. Do you identify with that?
Speaker 1: Climbing mountains?
Speaker 2: I identify with it a ton for a few reasons. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the biggest one is growth overall. I go
Speaker 2: to these mountains now and some of them I get
Speaker 2: to go to over and over again, and the growth comes.
Speaker 2: And working with others to help them reach their goals.
Speaker 2: But then what I started to take a part, especially
Speaker 2: in the last two years now in my career because
Speaker 2: since COVID so five or six years, I hadn't done
Speaker 2: up until last fall. I hadn't done my own project
Speaker 2: in like five or six years. I've read some books,
Speaker 2: I've done some like ski projects over the years, some
Speaker 2: you know, climbing, mountaineering and long distance type projects. But
Speaker 2: for about five years after COVID, business for me got
Speaker 2: so good that people were having me take them places.
Speaker 2: And then I think a lot of us get like
Speaker 2: this with our jobs, or our careers or our lives.
Speaker 2: We let the busyness of life get in a way
Speaker 2: and you put things off. And I was kind of
Speaker 2: doing that, honestly. And then I got sort to a
Speaker 2: point about a year and a half ago and I said,
Speaker 2: wait a minute. I stopped myself and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: there's this trail in the United States. It runs from
Speaker 2: Canada to Mexico. It's called the Continental Divide Trail through
Speaker 2: five states, Montana, I'd Oh, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Speaker 2: I actually asked a friend of mine who I had
Speaker 2: taken up Everest to go with me, and we went
Speaker 2: and hiked the trail last fall for one hundred days.
Speaker 2: That was my first project that I'd done for me
Speaker 2: since COVID, and that felt good and it was a
Speaker 2: reminder to continue to do things for me and so
Speaker 2: then this year, the first ascent was the choice, and
Speaker 2: then I've got some other things already on the radar
Speaker 2: this year and in the next year. But it just
Speaker 2: reminded me, and I think it's a good reminder for
Speaker 2: people in general, like, stop what you're doing. Your life's
Speaker 2: gonna still be there when you come back, So you
Speaker 2: should pick something that's gonna change you. It's gonna help
Speaker 2: you grow, it's gonna help it's gonna help push you,
Speaker 2: and it might be hard and uncomfortable, but that's good.
Speaker 2: And so I just took a lot from that experience
Speaker 2: last year. It's springboarded me into this year and into
Speaker 2: what I've got planned for the next three to five years.
Speaker 1: Now, do you feel like that when you do the
Speaker 1: thing for yourself that it then makes you better when
Speaker 1: you go back into normal life, like with your work stuff.
Speaker 2: Does it make that does it make you.
Speaker 1: Perform better in that space, or does it make that
Speaker 1: more rewarding or there's a question there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I think I think that that experience on
Speaker 2: the CDT because like it was kind of awesome to like,
Speaker 2: for three ish months. Yeah, I had a little bit
Speaker 2: of internet off and on, but then sometimes there were
Speaker 2: days where we're backpacking had nothing. Yeah, and so that's
Speaker 2: a good unplug I also realized when I was out there,
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, it's okay, Like take this time
Speaker 2: for yourself because you know what life is going to
Speaker 2: be there when I get back, and so yeah, then
Speaker 2: it makes you appreciate life more. And then when you
Speaker 2: get back to it, yeah, I haven't felt burnt out
Speaker 2: at all. In fact, I feel more energized, which sounds crazy,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of in line with what I think
Speaker 2: we'll probably delve into for me as my Everest Ready philosophy,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, we'll talk more about what that entails.
Speaker 2: But flipping the switch on the mindset is something that
Speaker 2: these hard adventures do for me. So when I come back,
Speaker 2: even this trip to A Paul, I was gone for
Speaker 2: six weeks. I got home and last night my family's like,
Speaker 2: are you tired, Like what's going on? And I'm like, actually, no,
Speaker 2: I'm more energized. I'm more recharged. And people think I'm crazy,
Speaker 2: but it's the truth. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: So before we get into the everest Ready mindset, I
Speaker 1: think we needed two yet your experience on Everest. You've
Speaker 1: climbed Everest how many times?
Speaker 2: So? I've been on seven expeditions over the years, haven't
Speaker 2: summitted on all of them because of various things that
Speaker 2: have occurred right and challenges. But at least the three
Speaker 2: clients that I've taken to the top twenty nineteen, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, and twenty twenty four, I've all summitted, And
Speaker 2: in my last summit was in twenty twenty four. So yeah.
Speaker 2: And then there were some years in there where I
Speaker 2: didn't summit because of an earthquake, one year you can't climb,
Speaker 2: and then in two seasons. One of the seasons we
Speaker 2: put some people up on a summit and I stayed
Speaker 2: in Camp two on the radio. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: compromise the fact that I had gotten like a chest
Speaker 2: infection and stuff, and we had sure bus and team
Speaker 2: members to help our clients, so I stayed in a
Speaker 2: camp that I could be of assistance. And then I
Speaker 2: tried one year without supplemental oxygen and turned around near
Speaker 2: the summit, trying to sort of test myself but being conservative.
Speaker 2: So sometimes I regret turning around, but at the same
Speaker 2: time I knew it was in the moment, it was
Speaker 2: the right choice. I was on the north side in
Speaker 2: Tibet in twenty eighteen and was within an hour and
Speaker 2: a half or two, but it was too early in
Speaker 2: the morning and too windy, and there were a few
Speaker 2: people on what's called the third step, and it was
Speaker 2: just too cold and too windy in my opinion, and
Speaker 2: I made the split second decisions to go down. And
Speaker 2: I learned a lot from that experience. And I think
Speaker 2: at some point, even though like the competitor and me,
Speaker 2: will probably try to go back and finish the job,
Speaker 2: so to speak. So we'll see. But yeah, Everest has
Speaker 2: been has done a lot for me in seven expeditions
Speaker 2: over the years. What Dunie to Evers in the first place.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Vail, Colorado, So I as like
Speaker 2: an eight year old kid. My parents took me up
Speaker 2: mounted the Holy Cross, which is near Vale. And when
Speaker 2: you're on top of that mountain and you learn in
Speaker 2: elementary school with the highest mountain in the world, is
Speaker 2: you kind of have something cangible? And so yeah, I
Speaker 2: was like as an eight year old kid, I knew
Speaker 2: I wanted to try to climb into the mountain and
Speaker 2: learned as much as I could about it, and eventually
Speaker 2: it led me there. Yeah, So ever's ready mindset? Yeah,
Speaker 2: tell us about that? Well, it's I think it goes
Speaker 2: a few different directions, but it's mainly just taking at
Speaker 2: a basic level. I could get off the couch, or
Speaker 2: I could leave from this room and go climb Everest
Speaker 2: on a whim, no problem, because I've created a lifestyle
Speaker 2: that's lend itself to being ready at any given moment
Speaker 2: for that sort of pursuit. Maybe you're constantly active, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and so but what also it means is it exemplifies
Speaker 2: in life how, Yeah, there may be tough challenges that
Speaker 2: we face, there may be tasks that we might not
Speaker 2: necessarily want to do. For many people on this earth,
Speaker 2: we're never at the end of our development as a person,
Speaker 2: and at times there's going to be huge roadblocks, challenges,
Speaker 2: things that we don't want to do that we have
Speaker 2: to face them, And how is our attitude towards facing
Speaker 2: them as well to get through those tough times.
Speaker 1: So it's like, if your mind, if your body in
Speaker 1: your mind, are ready for Everest actual Everest at any moment.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when the sort of bs of
Speaker 1: life pops up, problems happened, You're like, well, I'm ready
Speaker 1: for this. The literally the world's tallest mountain. I can
Speaker 1: probably figure this out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and don't sweat the small stuff, but like learn
Speaker 2: how to flip the switch towards things that are really
Speaker 2: really scary, hard, inconvenient, and if you seek god discomfort,
Speaker 2: you're going to find that at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: what's so bad about it? What's so hard about it?
Speaker 2: So I kind of all those things are sort of
Speaker 2: packaged into what this framework means to me, and what
Speaker 2: I want to share with others is that they can
Speaker 2: face their challenges head on if they have the right
Speaker 2: attitude and perspective.
Speaker 1: Is what is your climbing on ever taught you about
Speaker 1: not sweating small stuff?
Speaker 2: Mainly like you come home after being there sometimes and
Speaker 2: it's yeah, it's cold, it's scary. There's like the crevasses
Speaker 2: can be crazy going through these ladders. That's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2: People see the crowds, which the media sensationalizes. The summits
Speaker 2: I've had have actually been we wait and we go
Speaker 2: later in the season when the weather is better and
Speaker 2: less people, so we kind of avoid that as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just taking taking on any sort of
Speaker 2: challenge in life. And for me, like like even coming
Speaker 2: home and driving driving over here today after flying to
Speaker 2: Vegas and like someone cuts me off on the highway,
Speaker 2: I'm like, well that's fine. Yeah, it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2: Actually a lot of things that should bother me don't anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 2: through various experiences that I've had in the mountains that
Speaker 2: have changed me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just puts it puts things in perspective more
Speaker 1: or less. I've definitely experienced that with if I like
Speaker 1: to say, like when I got back from the Arctic,
Speaker 1: I was up there for like a month, and my
Speaker 1: wife Leah said, like, nothing really stresses you out anymore.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: Because up there, like there were actual problems of oh
Speaker 1: we need water and we got a hike forever to
Speaker 1: get it, or there's grizzly bears, or there's some crazy storm.
Speaker 1: And so then when I come home and you know,
Speaker 1: the HOA has dinged me with a violation for not
Speaker 1: pulling a weed, I'm just like, whatever I might have
Speaker 1: been those sons of bitches, I'm going to show the
Speaker 1: ho way and start a revolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely hear you on that. So when you
Speaker 1: talk to people, because you talk to a lot of
Speaker 1: groups about this, how do you find people are applying
Speaker 1: evers mindset and using it being evers ready.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it comes with the challenges
Speaker 2: within the corporate structure sometimes, you know, and even like, uh,
Speaker 2: if I do a keynote speech. Sometimes at events we
Speaker 2: do connection walks and hikes so people can actually actively
Speaker 2: get out and hike and walk together and discuss in
Speaker 2: a group. And we find that by getting people outdoors
Speaker 2: they're willing to open up more just a basic sense,
Speaker 2: but yeah, applying some of the frameworks there of being
Speaker 2: ever ready allows people to be more vulnerable even sometimes
Speaker 2: and uh and and open up on the basic level.
Speaker 1: I do feel like that the walking outside together is
Speaker 1: powerful and there is research that shows when people are
Speaker 1: walking side by side outdoors, they tend to have conversations
Speaker 1: where they definitely connect deeper. And especially in a corporate structure,
Speaker 1: everyone's kind of on guard. You don't want to say
Speaker 1: the wrong thing, like what am I doing the.
Speaker 2: Right to get rid of surface level stuff? Yeah, you realize, hey,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's okay, and hey, we're out here too
Speaker 2: and know, and then one of the events they did
Speaker 2: in Arizona in April, saw this huge snake and then
Speaker 2: like after that, it's like all of a sudden, the
Speaker 2: conversations people start opening up, even after just seeing that,
Speaker 2: like the snake go across the trail and you know,
Speaker 2: so like got people it's just kind of going.
Speaker 1: Adding some element of risk almost makes people bond more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you found out what the people you climb with?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, and trusting the process and then yeah,
Speaker 2: on some of these trips, you know, especially like on
Speaker 2: the seven Summits. For me, I've had so many summits
Speaker 2: over the years and success, so when I'm there, people
Speaker 2: trust me. But sometimes in the early going of a trip,
Speaker 2: if something goes wrong, or if it's too windy or
Speaker 2: the weather's too bad and people have doubts, then it's
Speaker 2: really interesting to see people's character too. Yeah, And I
Speaker 2: love what expeditions do to people with patients, right, because
Speaker 2: we're so insta gratification now society, whether it's like phone
Speaker 2: in our hand, something needs to load immediately, and when
Speaker 2: you're out on an expedition, and first of all, just
Speaker 2: put your devices away, but second of all, Okay, this
Speaker 2: summit might not be a week away, two weeks away,
Speaker 2: a month away, And how do people handle that and
Speaker 2: bring card games out of bring like you know, all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff. We're playing Jenga in the dining tent,
Speaker 2: like we just do different things and then also get
Speaker 2: people just to have some patience. And it's amazing, like
Speaker 2: how some people don't deal with that very well and
Speaker 2: some people do. Do they get better over time or
Speaker 2: does it just get worse? It just really just depends
Speaker 2: on the person.
Speaker 1: What do you think separates the people who understand, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a month away, this is what I've bought into,
Speaker 1: this is what it's going to take.
Speaker 2: We can't rush this because if we try and rush it,
Speaker 2: we're going to die. Yeah, we're blasted or we're not
Speaker 2: acclimatized yet, right. There so many little things that can
Speaker 2: go into it. Yeah, I think it depends on the person.
Speaker 2: The people that have maybe had to persevere something as
Speaker 2: as simple as something in their career or sports related
Speaker 2: are often do the best. And the people that need
Speaker 2: to be too wired or have to have Wi Fi
Speaker 2: like that could be a problem. Sometimes it's pretty pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: What conversations do you have with them? Is that you
Speaker 1: being like you need to chill out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, try to, Yeah, but it's try to interact to
Speaker 2: try to get them to do something else or like
Speaker 2: even if it's like hey, let's go out of the
Speaker 2: base camp and go for a side hike or you know,
Speaker 2: try to occupy them. Yeah, I've become a professional time waster,
Speaker 2: so to speak. Awesome.
Speaker 1: You're like, you're kind of like a scout camp leader. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kids are getting restless. You're like, hey, guys, let's go
Speaker 1: out and look for error ads. Yeah, we're going to
Speaker 1: find some.
Speaker 2: But the good things that we've added over the years
Speaker 2: to a lot of these trips are like yeah, just
Speaker 2: trying to trying to make them even try to bring
Speaker 2: the comfort out there. So you know, a chef in
Speaker 2: the base camp cooking good meals, a massage therapist, a
Speaker 2: yoga instructor, like things that you know some people might
Speaker 2: have at home, bring you got to bring it out there,
Speaker 2: and then it's and then it makes the experience it's
Speaker 2: not quite as bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And I think there's a people can kind
Speaker 1: of have this thing like, oh, you had you had
Speaker 1: all these comforts out there, what do you do that
Speaker 1: like nullifies it. Right when I did the Haydu Trail
Speaker 1: last year, our thinking was, this thing is already so
Speaker 1: damn hard. Why are we not going to take advantage
Speaker 1: of things like the softer mattress and carry that. Why
Speaker 1: are we going to just like try to make this
Speaker 1: any harder than it already is. Like, that's just going
Speaker 1: to lead us to fail. It's like, what can we
Speaker 1: do that'll improve our odds of making it? And whether
Speaker 1: that's a chef, whether that's you know, in our case,
Speaker 1: like we're going to carry the slightly heavier mattress, We're
Speaker 1: going to make sure we do a down day every
Speaker 1: seven days or whatever.
Speaker 2: It is, like that allows.
Speaker 1: You to complete the whole thing, because the whole thing
Speaker 1: is going to be hard as hell, and if you're
Speaker 1: trying to just go too far and make it almost
Speaker 1: austere for the sake of that, that can just totally backfire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like that's what Mike and I do on
Speaker 2: the continent of the Vibe Trail last summer too. You know,
Speaker 2: going into it, it was like, hey, okay, there are
Speaker 2: people that come out and start in June or you know,
Speaker 2: if they're going north. We went north to south or
Speaker 2: people go south to north on the trail and they
Speaker 2: start in April or May and they're out there for
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty days, which is like five months.
Speaker 2: And when we were looking at that, we both kind
Speaker 2: of liked said, well, Okay, I'm busy leading expeditions and
Speaker 2: trips and living my life. You're busy with your concerts
Speaker 2: and playing music and pursuing that. Do we both really
Speaker 2: want to be away for five months? And the answer
Speaker 2: that was no. And it was like, well, okay, is
Speaker 2: there way to shorten that? Yes, you have to do
Speaker 2: more miles. Okay, is there a way to surround some
Speaker 2: of our favorite friends and family with that experience? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: let's get it. Let's get it sponsored. Let's get an RV,
Speaker 2: and then we're going to have we're going to slot
Speaker 2: in people our best friends and family as crew at
Speaker 2: two or three people at a time, for cooking meals,
Speaker 2: picking us up from trail heads, dropping us off this
Speaker 2: massive spreadsheet, which was a lot of work, but once
Speaker 2: we had it rolling, it shortened the trip by two months,
Speaker 2: and then we still we enjoyed the heck out of
Speaker 2: it because we had airstream sponsor us and we had
Speaker 2: some other companies pitch in, and then we were able
Speaker 2: to kind of do it glamping style, and then we
Speaker 2: started to learn as we did research of the trail,
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I'd say maybe twenty to thirty
Speaker 2: of the days we still had to backpack, but the
Speaker 2: other sixty to seventy days, it was Okay, here's a
Speaker 2: highway forty and here's highway thirty, and we have a
Speaker 2: twenty eight mile a day from road to road. Okay,
Speaker 2: can we do that with a running best? Sure? And
Speaker 2: we did some big days and it was inspiring and motivating,
Speaker 2: and some people with other friends would come and hike
Speaker 2: with us, and so we were able to create sort
Speaker 2: of more of a community feel with it with our
Speaker 2: closest friends and family, as opposed to what we also
Speaker 2: found out there. We met some great people on the trail,
Speaker 2: but they did it the hard way, admittedly, where they
Speaker 2: just took their backpacks, carried all their food and supplies
Speaker 2: solid the whole trip. They would have to hitchhike into
Speaker 2: towns and resupply and that just took them a long time.
Speaker 2: And a lot of these people were pretty frail at
Speaker 2: the end, and we were being well fed, you know,
Speaker 2: and I was. I'm not going to apologize for that
Speaker 2: because we dialed it up that way, but that was
Speaker 2: sort of the purpose of it. And then we ended
Speaker 2: up finding out we had so much fun doing it
Speaker 2: versus suffering, and so we turned the challenge of yeah
Speaker 2: it was hard to into more like fun too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure there are there were hard times, but
Speaker 1: you're also able to pull this other level of like.
Speaker 2: I think there was a lot less type three fun.
Speaker 2: There was more Type one and type two fun in there.
Speaker 2: You know, let's go, it's good, got it. Life is
Speaker 2: all about balance, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So you is it right that you climbed every fourteen
Speaker 1: or in Colorado before you were eighteen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I grew up doing all the mountains because
Speaker 2: I'm out of my back door. When I got my
Speaker 2: learner's permit as a fifteen year old kid, I would
Speaker 2: drive to trailheads, and back then there were only some
Speaker 2: trails on these fourteen ers, and you get above tree line.
Speaker 2: On most of them, there was no trail. So that
Speaker 2: goes back to like this essence of expiration. You's got
Speaker 2: to figure it out. I loved, Yeah, figure it out.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and then as a skier, I always wanted
Speaker 2: to ski them. So I also went back and skied
Speaker 2: down all their coloraud of fourteen ers, and then obviously
Speaker 2: did that other project called Sleeping on the Summits, which
Speaker 2: was one of my books, which was camping up on
Speaker 2: the tops of all these mountains to enjoy the view,
Speaker 2: the sunset, sunrise photos and then acclimate my body for
Speaker 2: bigger challenges. And yeah, all this fourteener stuff just led
Speaker 2: me into wanting to do the mountains all over the world.
Speaker 2: What was the most dangerous one to ski for fourteen ers? Yeah,
Speaker 2: Capital is pretty difficult, Pyramids pretty difficult. They're both in
Speaker 2: their aspen steep. They're just really steep. They have no
Speaker 2: fall zones on them, and like a good thing that
Speaker 2: Like when I did that project, I had skied most
Speaker 2: of the fourteen ers over the years, and I went
Speaker 2: back and tried to attempt them all in the same
Speaker 2: year in twenty sixteen, which is now ten years ago.
Speaker 2: But when I compare that winter to what we just
Speaker 2: had for a winter this winter, would have not been
Speaker 2: possible really to ski most of them because too much
Speaker 2: ice to to lack of snow. Yeah, I mean, just
Speaker 2: not enough coverage not enough. The winter was so poor
Speaker 2: in Colorado, so pretty lucky that that year was a
Speaker 2: really big winter snow wise to be able to ski
Speaker 2: down all the peaks.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then John
Speaker 1: is going to tell us what he learned sleeping at
Speaker 1: the peak of every single fourteen or in Colorado.
Speaker 2: What'd you learn from sleeping on the peaks? What I
Speaker 2: learned from sleeping on the peaks was I did the
Speaker 2: sleeping on the summits before the full ski project, even
Speaker 2: though I had skied a lot of the fourteen ers
Speaker 2: when I was younger, because that was one thing that
Speaker 2: was lost in the translation of the twenty sixteen. I
Speaker 2: went and attempted all of them and was able to
Speaker 2: summit all of them. And then there was controversy whether
Speaker 2: it's not I skied down certain ones, and I was like,
Speaker 2: well no, because it was too rocky. Still, I had
Speaker 2: to repel something, and it was, you know, not complete
Speaker 2: ski descents on a couple of them, but almost all
Speaker 2: of them. Is still skied down, all of them. But
Speaker 2: I guess what I'm saying about that project was a
Speaker 2: lot of people are like, oh, well, how's he doing
Speaker 2: this so fast? Like this guy's never skied all these
Speaker 2: mountains before. I was like, well, actually, I'd already skied
Speaker 2: most of them prior to that, and that was because,
Speaker 2: you know, I was grew up a skier. But then
Speaker 2: the fourteen Ers Sleeping project was four years before that,
Speaker 2: and so I had taken all this data right from Okay, well,
Speaker 2: people ask me questions about like when I spent the
Speaker 2: night on all the fourteen Ers, Well, what did you
Speaker 2: do when you're up there? Well, as a skier, I
Speaker 2: actually dialed in like if I were to come back
Speaker 2: and ski all these how would I ski them? And
Speaker 2: you studied you know, you're sitting up there for hours, right,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was shooting photos, but you can only
Speaker 2: shoot so many pictures at sunrise and sunset if you're
Speaker 2: up there for two or three hours. Besides, you know,
Speaker 2: drinking water and nutrition sitting around You're like, okay, well
Speaker 2: it'd be really cool to go off this face, Right'd
Speaker 2: be really cool to go that face. So studying the
Speaker 2: geography of the peaks too, and that aided me four
Speaker 2: years later and to be able to put together a
Speaker 2: project that was about four or five months in the
Speaker 2: making of skiing all the fourteen ers in one season.
Speaker 2: This is kind of pivoting.
Speaker 1: Why do you think the outdoor world there's so much like,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, like a pissing contest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like competitiveness, chess put I feel like it's unique.
Speaker 2: There's unlike, it's unlike anything I've ever seen to my attention,
Speaker 2: more in the last like ten years, especially with more
Speaker 2: social media, because my projects were built on this sort
Speaker 2: of go out test myself progression. And I've always thought
Speaker 2: the outdoors were for you to create your own project, right,
Speaker 2: And the reason for me doing these things is that like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I just love being out there and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: is this possible? Is this possible? It's just like a
Speaker 2: cur genuine curiosity for the outdoors, not a measuring stick.
Speaker 2: And the thing with the outdoors is the conditions changed
Speaker 2: so much too so when people try to let's say
Speaker 2: the guys that do FKTs fastest known times. A good
Speaker 2: example is even this year on Everest, Tyler Andrews did
Speaker 2: his fastest known time up the mountain with oxygen and
Speaker 2: he bested a Sherpa from ten or fifteen years prior
Speaker 2: by about an hour. But my argument even with that,
Speaker 2: is that for both of those guys, because I've been
Speaker 2: in the Ice Fall so many times, well, what if
Speaker 2: the year that the other guy did at the ice
Speaker 2: Fall had more turns in it because of the way
Speaker 2: that the trail gets created. So for that kind of record,
Speaker 2: I don't really see the point. I mean, yeah, you're
Speaker 2: fast going up at great But like, and as similar
Speaker 2: to some of the projects I've done over the years,
Speaker 2: at times, if it's come out in the community that
Speaker 2: I've done something, there's always haters, right, There's always somebody
Speaker 2: that comes down and like, oh, well he didn't do
Speaker 2: this one or he didn't see that peak, And I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, but I wasn't trying to compare myself
Speaker 2: to others. I was just trying to test myself and
Speaker 2: to see what is possible in that season and to
Speaker 2: have fun. And I'm like, I think you guys are
Speaker 2: all getting lost and like the fact that I'm just
Speaker 2: out having fun and I want to encourage other people
Speaker 2: to go out and do their own adventures so that
Speaker 2: it goes back to this idea of like growth and
Speaker 2: enjoyment and fulfillment and things that we all should seek.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so that's kind of been my purpose in
Speaker 2: the outdoors, and that's changed with my why now too. Right,
Speaker 2: So over the years I would do my own projects.
Speaker 2: I kind of got away from that because my why
Speaker 2: also shifted for Mount Everaricet or for the Seventh Summits.
Speaker 2: I don't really go back to the Seven Summits on
Speaker 2: my own anymore. It's okay, what client has the same
Speaker 2: values as me? Are they seeking out to potentially change
Speaker 2: their life or to work towards something? And those are
Speaker 2: usually the people that I gravitate towards.
Speaker 1: What qualities do you think people who make it to
Speaker 1: the top half you mentioned patients? Is there other things
Speaker 1: that you see pop up like these are the sort
Speaker 1: of skill set you need beyond just you need being shared?
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's the It's the patience mainly obviously perseverance
Speaker 2: and the willing to kind of up their level of
Speaker 2: whatever it is, attention, endurance, facing their fears. Mike Posner
Speaker 2: and Devin Levec in particular in twenty twenty one and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, both great guys, both distinctly different in
Speaker 2: the mount on the mountain with their approach both authentic
Speaker 2: though and great people to work with, but you know,
Speaker 2: they both had sort of their own whys, and they
Speaker 2: both were successful because they both were willing to put
Speaker 2: in the extra effort too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean putting the extra effort on
Speaker 1: the mountain or in preparation or all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, preparation. And then you could see for both of
Speaker 2: them why their lives are so successful off the mountain,
Speaker 2: you know. And and I just love working with people
Speaker 2: like that. That drives me for sure. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of fun. Yeah, We're going to take
Speaker 2: a quick.
Speaker 1: Break, and then John is going to tell us more
Speaker 1: about the Everest Ready mindset and how you can find it.
Speaker 1: What are some of the more harrowing experiences you've had
Speaker 1: on Everest.
Speaker 2: I'd say there's been two or three moments where well,
Speaker 2: the earthquake was probably the biggest one that changed my life.
Speaker 2: What was that like? So in twenty fifteen, I went
Speaker 2: there on my own actually to climb and ski Everston
Speaker 2: Lotzi at the time. And when I went there, I
Speaker 2: barely got to the mountain and this giant seven point
Speaker 2: nine magnitude earthquake happens. We're in base camp. A big
Speaker 2: sonic wave of ice and snow come down from a
Speaker 2: side mountain across from Everest and wipes out the base
Speaker 2: camp and kills twenty people right in front of me.
Speaker 2: Holy crap. And I was above the base camp, like
Speaker 2: my camp was luckily higher up than the main part
Speaker 2: of base camp, so we didn't get hit by the
Speaker 2: last of ice and snow and wind. And when we
Speaker 2: went down into the disaster zone, there was twenty people
Speaker 2: dead and many people injured, and you know, we're helping
Speaker 2: carry injured to helipads. Obviously people were dead and you're
Speaker 2: just like, wow, I could have been me. And that
Speaker 2: experience really changed my life because except for the COVID year,
Speaker 2: since twenty fifteen, I go back every year two or
Speaker 2: three times to Nepal, taking various groups to their climb mountains,
Speaker 2: track hike. We run a study abroad program now with
Speaker 2: one of the colleges. So I just my calling is
Speaker 2: like I got home from that experience and my parents
Speaker 2: hugged me, and my mom and dad said to me, well,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do with this now? And
Speaker 2: I'm like, what do you mean? And my Dad's like, well,
Speaker 2: you got to live, Like what are you going to
Speaker 2: do now? And I just because of that, I have
Speaker 2: very few bad days now, I've I've never tired. I'm
Speaker 2: always excited to get up and go again and live
Speaker 2: because I feel like I could have just been wiped out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's experience really just profoundly changed how I mean.
Speaker 2: It's not like I had a bad too before that,
Speaker 2: but I just think it it really pushed my level
Speaker 2: even higher. Put in Christmas and it just yeah, and
Speaker 2: it just allows me to live more fulfilling and more
Speaker 2: excited life about anything that I'm doing. Yeah, regardless.
Speaker 1: And you've had people on the mountain that have been
Speaker 1: in a sort of bad shape that you've helped, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in twenty twelve, on my first climb, you know,
Speaker 2: there was sort of like this incident that happened similar
Speaker 2: to what happened on Into Thinner, like John krack Hour's
Speaker 2: book where I in twenty twelve, that was my first
Speaker 2: climb I've ever. So I couldn't really afford to go
Speaker 2: with like a big company, so I went with a
Speaker 2: smaller company. I paid like twenty nine grand for my
Speaker 2: first ever expedition. The trip included some like help with
Speaker 2: some of the camps, but like buy and large, I
Speaker 2: was on my own on the mountain. Yeah, most trips
Speaker 2: are how much are most trips like now seven sixty
Speaker 2: to one hundred grand with a lot of shirp support
Speaker 2: and open things. But anyway, I was on a summit push.
Speaker 2: We decided that sort of the team, there were several
Speaker 2: other people on the team I was on that all
Speaker 2: sort of had paid different amounts of money to be
Speaker 2: there with either a shirt bo or have oxygen available,
Speaker 2: and to avoid crowds on the mountain, we waited an
Speaker 2: extra day. But by waiting an extra day, we were
Speaker 2: risking higher winds. But that meant I'd rather hike in
Speaker 2: a non traffic jam. But there was so many people
Speaker 2: that were up on the mountain as this windstorm came
Speaker 2: in when we were going for the summit, that people
Speaker 2: seven people died that night. Wow. And there were people
Speaker 2: that you couldn't help, and then there were people on
Speaker 2: our team that needed help. And basically I ended up
Speaker 2: aboarding a summit push, going back to base camp, and
Speaker 2: then three or four days later having to skip camps
Speaker 2: to actually reach the summit. And that was the topic
Speaker 2: of a Dayline NBC documentary called Into the Death Zone,
Speaker 2: and that sort of because I was my first climb
Speaker 2: of Everest, and that with the timing of my books,
Speaker 2: gave me at the time kind of a platform to
Speaker 2: create this career in the outdoors. Yeah, and so Everest
Speaker 2: for me was this story of overcoming all odds. Like
Speaker 2: there were so many people that quit after that summit push,
Speaker 2: because usually when you get within five hundred feet of
Speaker 2: the summit, you only get one shot. You go back
Speaker 2: to base camp, you're exhausted. But at the time, I
Speaker 2: was in my early thirties and I was a beast,
Speaker 2: which I pried upon, like always growing up in the
Speaker 2: mounds and just pushing myself. And I knew that I
Speaker 2: also I knew that if I gave up on that investment,
Speaker 2: like what was going to happen to my life? I
Speaker 2: didn't know. I was like I got to go back up,
Speaker 2: and my friends and family supported me, and I went
Speaker 2: back up and made it to the top of the world.
Speaker 2: And ever since that day, Yeah, my career just took
Speaker 2: off in terms of I think that gave me the
Speaker 2: momentum that I wanted to be able to do other
Speaker 2: things and just enjoy not having failed on Everest hanging
Speaker 2: over my head.
Speaker 1: What do you think was the switch that flipped that
Speaker 1: where most people are going, I'm not doing this.
Speaker 2: I think fear of death or exhaustion, or genuinely strength.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were in one hundred mile prior winds
Speaker 2: getting blasted one night and I covered up and came
Speaker 2: down and myself and a few sherpas were helping others
Speaker 2: to get back to tents and give them oxygen. And
Speaker 2: for some reason, why was an ie suffering? It was
Speaker 2: sort of odd. It was like, well, I think it's
Speaker 2: because I grew up in the mountains and I've been climbing,
Speaker 2: and I have a natural affinity for altitude. And I'm okay,
Speaker 2: you know, just by fortune, I guess, but maybe not
Speaker 2: an accident, but yeah, so yeah. So then when I
Speaker 2: got down from that, it actually gave me a lot
Speaker 2: of confidence. I was like, wait, if I can do that,
Speaker 2: I think I could do anything. Yeah. And then I
Speaker 2: wanted to do some other expeditions and get some of
Speaker 2: my guide certifications and become a ski guy and a
Speaker 2: mountain guide and all that kind of stuff too. And
Speaker 2: that's how the right after that, in twenty fourteen, I
Speaker 2: led some trips to kill Them and Jarro and Atcancagua
Speaker 2: and that gave me some confidence that maybe I can
Speaker 2: create a career out of this thing.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break and then John is
Speaker 1: going to tell us about how he balances risk on
Speaker 1: these really dangerous climbs.
Speaker 2: How do you balance risk? What do you think about it?
Speaker 1: I feel like most people if they're up there and now, yeah,
Speaker 1: as I go, okay, maybe mountaineering is not for me.
Speaker 2: When I'm guiding, it's more conservative approach. Though when I'm
Speaker 2: not guiding, I can push it a little more and
Speaker 2: be more aggressive. But even even on trips where like
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, a dear friend of mine, Colin
Speaker 2: ol Brady, he invited me on the K two Winter
Speaker 2: Expedition where there was several climbers attempting to become the
Speaker 2: first people in the winter to summit K two. And
Speaker 2: when I went on that trip with him, I had
Speaker 2: different acceptable levels of risk than he did. Yours are higher,
Speaker 2: oh much lower, except well a higher meaning like a
Speaker 2: I don't accept if it's too cold or too windy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So I guess my level of risks tolerance is probably
Speaker 2: a little bit lower than his. But we had because
Speaker 2: they're such good friends, We've done other projects together. We
Speaker 2: sort of had an agreement like on the trip is
Speaker 2: like at any time, if either one of us wanted
Speaker 2: to pull the plug, that's okay, because we had also
Speaker 2: hired shrip Was to climb with and in that particular instance,
Speaker 2: and they'll be a There's a documentary coming out this
Speaker 2: summer on Apple TV called The Last First about K two,
Speaker 2: and it's about that trip and what happened because five
Speaker 2: people have lost their lives, and three of them lost
Speaker 2: their lives on the summit push where Colin and I
Speaker 2: walked out of base camp, we went up towards Camp one,
Speaker 2: started going up to some of the ropes after we
Speaker 2: had already climatized up to Camp two on the mountain,
Speaker 2: and I just melt a rat and a lot of
Speaker 2: different ways. One was that because of my background on
Speaker 2: neurology having access to good weather forecasts, I just knew
Speaker 2: the weather wasn't going to be acceptable. It's going to
Speaker 2: be too cold and too windy. And then I also
Speaker 2: knew that there was a bunch of other somewhat amateur
Speaker 2: climbers going on this summit push, and I felt like
Speaker 2: that wasn't a safe thing to be up there when
Speaker 2: they were, and those two things for me just were
Speaker 2: enough evidence to say, look, calm, it's okay. You can
Speaker 2: take the shirp as we have and go for an attempt.
Speaker 2: You'll be safe with them, relatively safe with them. But
Speaker 2: I'm out. I'm going to go down to base camp.
Speaker 2: I'll be on the radio. I still support you going
Speaker 2: to the top. And then in the days after that,
Speaker 2: which this documentary will really cover, is three people lost
Speaker 2: their lives and then two more on the course of
Speaker 2: that trip died, so five guys never came home. And
Speaker 2: that experience too changed my risk tolerance a lot of
Speaker 2: times with what I'm doing in my own career. Even Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's kind of an interesting thing. Even lately I've been
Speaker 2: talking with other climbers and my I sort of feel
Speaker 2: the profession reading some things even just like learning, talking
Speaker 2: like my parents and people that are older, and I
Speaker 2: feel like as we all get older, like for me,
Speaker 2: I'm in my forties, but like, there's things I won't
Speaker 2: do now that I would have done in my twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties. And it's not even about me saying I'm
Speaker 2: too old to do it, because I don't have that attitude. Still,
Speaker 2: I still do a lot of climbing and trips, and
Speaker 2: I'm out there living, but it's more about learning about
Speaker 2: what those consequences are and knowing that I want to
Speaker 2: just live longer and not deal with that risk anymore,
Speaker 2: that I say no. And an example that is like,
Speaker 2: at one time I thought I'd want to climb the
Speaker 2: fourteen highest mountains in the world, the eight thousand meter peaks.
Speaker 2: Through my twenties and thirties, I pursued several expeditions on
Speaker 2: mountains like Manisley that I summoned it without oxygen or
Speaker 2: gasherbrum two, and then I went to K two. But
Speaker 2: then I thought, okay, cool. At some point I might
Speaker 2: end up on Annapurna or canchin Junger or some of
Speaker 2: these hard or more dangerous eight thousand ers, And at
Speaker 2: this time I look at them and I'd rather go
Speaker 2: climb my first ascent on a mountain that's not as dangerous,
Speaker 2: or go do an old I run ultras, run one
Speaker 2: hundred k like I'm going to do this summer and
Speaker 2: go explore new countries and do things that aren't as
Speaker 2: dangerous anymore. And I'm okay with it. And I used
Speaker 2: to say, oh, I definitely want to do that. I
Speaker 2: definitely want to do that. I want to put myself
Speaker 2: in that area. And I now I'm kind of that
Speaker 2: perception for me is changing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of those are notable simply because they're risky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're really big and dangerous mountains. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And so it kind of it almost goes back to
Speaker 1: that like measuring stick like you were talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, why do we want to do this, well
Speaker 1: because people think it's awesome. What do they think it's
Speaker 1: awesome because it's risky And you go, oh wait, but
Speaker 1: I'm the one who's going to actually be putting my
Speaker 1: life on the line for a couple of pots on
Speaker 1: the back from my head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: nobody really cares except myself or my family or my
Speaker 2: close friends. Are my loved ones, Like I could care
Speaker 2: less about what a photo does on social media. And
Speaker 2: I think that's the most important takeaway for me living
Speaker 2: now that I think a lot of people should start
Speaker 2: paying attention due because yeah, there are all these like
Speaker 2: record seekers and people that are going out and doing
Speaker 2: mountains just to say the look at me, look at me,
Speaker 2: and that sort of loses its value. I think it
Speaker 2: loses its value a lot because the reason becomes outward
Speaker 2: not inward. Yeah. Yeah, and you see that unfortunately the
Speaker 2: most on Mount Everest. Yeah, you know, this season it
Speaker 2: was the worst it's ever been. Well, we had the
Speaker 2: most summits in the history of the mountain. And if
Speaker 2: you go do a search on social the amount of
Speaker 2: people just doing the look at me, look at me
Speaker 2: is really the present and then there's not a ton
Speaker 2: of Well the media highlights certain things or certain people
Speaker 2: sometimes and you're sort of like, well, that's not really unique,
Speaker 2: Like this person is climbing it. Well seven thousand, eight
Speaker 2: thousand people, Now I've done that mountain. So yeah, it's
Speaker 2: still a challenge. It's still highest moount in the world.
Speaker 2: I do see why people are drawing to it, and
Speaker 2: that's okay, but I think people need to dial back
Speaker 2: their bravado, I think, and really take a hard look
Speaker 2: at their Why why is K two so hard? Isn't
Speaker 2: it considered the hardest? Yeah, it's so steep. It's only
Speaker 2: seven hundred and fifty feet lower than Everest. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: because that's still really high. Yeah, and so what it
Speaker 2: can do to the body is really really tough and
Speaker 2: damaging and scary. And yeah, and now I look at
Speaker 2: that mountain after experiencing it in the winter, and another
Speaker 2: thing that kind of turns me off now is for
Speaker 2: better or for worse, the commercialization of our mountains. And
Speaker 2: that's why I have to sort of take this with
Speaker 2: a little bit of a cautious approach, right, because I'm
Speaker 2: part of that commercialization like it or not. I've brought
Speaker 2: people to Everest, I bring people to mountains, but how
Speaker 2: are we protecting these places? How are we managing them?
Speaker 2: And how are we you know, when they can commercialize,
Speaker 2: how is that impacting people's experiences and the safety when
Speaker 2: they're there. And so for me, that's the epitome of
Speaker 2: why I did choose a first ascent this season in
Speaker 2: Nepaul over a commercialized mountain, because for me, some commercialized
Speaker 2: mountains aren't growth anymore unless I can go to the
Speaker 2: mountain with let's say, a small team myself and we
Speaker 2: do all the work ourselves and we climb ourselves. One
Speaker 2: of my heroes in the mountaineering space of eight thousand
Speaker 2: meter peaks was Ed Viisters, the first to climb the
Speaker 2: fourteen and he did it without supplemental oxygen, and he
Speaker 2: did it in an era before buying large commercialization on mountains.
Speaker 2: Somebody like that is just I admire because of what
Speaker 2: they went through to accomplish that feat. And now when
Speaker 2: you go the mountains are so commercialized, there's ropes everywhere,
Speaker 2: there's people on them. It's easier like it or not,
Speaker 2: for better or for worse. And it's okay if people
Speaker 2: want that experience, I think people should go to the mountains.
Speaker 2: But for me now it's I think it's more about
Speaker 2: seeking these experiences that uh more will allow me to
Speaker 2: grow more. Yeah, And so the combination of picking like
Speaker 2: a first ascent or going to places I haven't gone before.
Speaker 2: And if I'm guiding, I'm guiding somebody that that is
Speaker 2: really for me. That's the project, is working with them
Speaker 2: getting them to their summit. And those are the things
Speaker 2: that allow me to grow now versus some experiences that
Speaker 2: are different that I don't feel like challenge me as much.
Speaker 1: It's almost like you've had to put put in more
Speaker 1: work and there's more questions about the things that you're
Speaker 1: doing now. So the first ascent you just did, no one,
Speaker 1: no one had ever been there, it's not like you
Speaker 1: could download yeah, try.
Speaker 2: To look on Google Earth and we're like it's over here,
Speaker 2: somewhere in this valley and kind of look there. But
Speaker 2: it was okay, the only one and that was the thing,
Speaker 2: like and and some of the people helped me out
Speaker 2: that too, or people ask me questions about like, oh,
Speaker 2: you could just google it and figure that out. I'm like, actually, no,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work that way. You have a full lot
Speaker 2: of map and then you have to go in the
Speaker 2: valley and just go explore it. And that was fun
Speaker 2: and figure out how you up, what route are you
Speaker 2: going to take?
Speaker 1: There's all these questions as whereas with the other thing,
Speaker 1: if there's already all the ropes ready.
Speaker 2: For yeah, they just kind of like rope in and
Speaker 2: climbers show up and they just have to jug up
Speaker 2: the rope and you're like, well, there's not growth in
Speaker 2: that for me anymore.
Speaker 1: There's more a mental component, yeah, to having to figure
Speaker 1: out more things by yourself. If everything is sort of
Speaker 1: fixed and pre planned, you just got to like do
Speaker 1: exactly as you're told and then just push.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah and then and so that's kind of like
Speaker 2: now and I still get made fun of all the
Speaker 2: time because I'm more like my dad with this, but
Speaker 2: like he pulls out the old road outis still hey,
Speaker 2: where are we going? HOI? He crewed Mike and I
Speaker 2: for about forty to fifty percent of that Continental Divide trail.
Speaker 2: We had to teach him how to use some of
Speaker 2: the maps and Google maps to assist him because he
Speaker 2: was pulling out road houses and he'd be like, well
Speaker 2: is the road to get in there? And we're like, Dad,
Speaker 2: it's on there, like yeah, you know, crazy and interesting
Speaker 2: to see that too. But I do defend him on
Speaker 2: some of that because a good example is even navigating here.
Speaker 2: Instead of having Siri tell me where, I like to
Speaker 2: pull up the whole map, see where it is, see
Speaker 2: where I am, and then follow the map as is,
Speaker 2: as opposed to have Siri tell me on it. And
Speaker 2: I've still worked that way because I'm a geographer and
Speaker 2: most people think I'm crazy. But I don't like to
Speaker 2: shut my mind off and just have something tell me.
Speaker 2: I like to learn as I go and worry it myself.
Speaker 1: I think I've mentioned this study on the podcast before,
Speaker 1: but there's this These researchers looked at four hundred different
Speaker 1: careers and they wanted to know what careers tend to
Speaker 1: get Alzheimer's and other degenerate brain diseases the most in
Speaker 1: the least, and they found that the two jobs that
Speaker 1: had the least amount of Alzheimer's were ambulance drivers and
Speaker 1: taxi drivers. And the big reason, they thought, is because
Speaker 1: they're having to pay attention to their environment and navigate
Speaker 1: their environment all the time. And that seems to do
Speaker 1: so if you think about an evolutionary context, people had
Speaker 1: to figure out where they were in space, where they
Speaker 1: were going all the time, and they had to do
Speaker 1: it on the move, And there's something that's good for
Speaker 1: our brain behind that. And then but today we can
Speaker 1: obviously offload so much of that to just you.
Speaker 2: Just follow the blue dog fall.
Speaker 1: So if you can figure out ways to do more
Speaker 1: of your figuring it out how to get from point
Speaker 1: A to point B, that seems to be good for people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think
Speaker 2: with all this technology and AI, that's the other part.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh my gosh, I want to actually want
Speaker 2: to write this email, like I actually want to think
Speaker 2: on my own. And I think some people, especially the
Speaker 2: younger generation, and get lost in this, in that and
Speaker 2: not thinking on their own. That's kind of scary. Actually,
Speaker 2: you know, technology is great, good for better or worse.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and I hope people don't get lost and
Speaker 2: not being able to think on their own. What happened
Speaker 2: when you got struck by lightning or you're tempted? Man,
Speaker 2: that experience was crazy. Yeah. Basically, there was like a
Speaker 2: rogue storm sort of coming over. It was in the fall,
Speaker 2: so you get these sort of like cold fronts that
Speaker 2: move over the mountains in Colorado where kind of hails
Speaker 2: and snows and yeah, and I was sitting in a tent.
Speaker 2: I was actually I called my mom real quick to
Speaker 2: check in. I had sell service and say, well, hey,
Speaker 2: I only have like four peaks left in this project
Speaker 2: and I can't wait to get done. And then and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, there's like a flash boom
Speaker 2: outside of my tent. I'm like, what the heck is this?
Speaker 2: And uh, and then the tent poles were kind of
Speaker 2: like buzzing and every yeah, and so I opened up
Speaker 2: the zipper and look out and it was literally the
Speaker 2: storm moving right over me. And then when you see, yeah,
Speaker 2: like sort of lights flashing on the rocks and that's
Speaker 2: it's called Sante Almo's fire happening. You know, lightning's going
Speaker 2: to strike their pretty quick. And this was on a
Speaker 2: mountain called Harvard. So as soon as I saw that,
Speaker 2: I slipped my shoes on, jumped out of the tent
Speaker 2: and jumped sort of off the summit block to get
Speaker 2: down to the trail. Lightning struck the tent and knocked
Speaker 2: me off my feet into the ground that I got up,
Speaker 2: and I was like, just in fear for my life.
Speaker 2: So I ran down the trail and it was kind
Speaker 2: of in haste and it was dark, and next thing,
Speaker 2: I know, maybe a thousand feet down from the summit,
Speaker 2: and as storms moved through, car out of they moved
Speaker 2: through quick usually, and so just it was over, stars
Speaker 2: came out and I was like what And then I realized,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, all my stuff's up there. It's the
Speaker 2: middle of the night. Now it's like ten pm. I
Speaker 2: can't go down. So I went back up to the
Speaker 2: tent and just kind of looked and I'm like what
Speaker 2: the heck, And like the charred remains in my headlamp
Speaker 2: were sitting on my sleeping bag and then I and
Speaker 2: then I kind of smelt burnt, like burned, and so
Speaker 2: then I was well, I'm like, well, I have no
Speaker 2: choice here. I just got go to bed. So I
Speaker 2: got back and sleeping bag and fell asleep the morning
Speaker 2: to light. Yeah, the storm was gone. It was beautiful morning.
Speaker 2: I took a video of that, which is in the book.
Speaker 2: The video. There's QR codes in the book show everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah and yeah. And then and then I go to
Speaker 2: take the tent down. The poles were melted together and
Speaker 2: there were holes in the tent and it was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this got cooked pretty good, you know, but I escaped. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was. It was gnarly.
Speaker 1: So you have a PhD. And tell us what an
Speaker 1: environmental geography was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, emphasis is on weather and climate. So I
Speaker 2: took climatology, meteorology, all those courses, glaciology and so yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm essentially a meteorologist with my training and stuff. How
Speaker 2: has that helped you in the mountains tremendously? Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean sleeping on the summits was a partnership my great
Speaker 2: friend Chris Tomer, who's a he does mount weather for expeditions. Now,
Speaker 2: that was sort of the infancy of his career because
Speaker 2: after that, I sent him a lot of referrals after
Speaker 2: that book came out and people would call him, and
Speaker 2: now he does mountain weather for expeditions all over the world.
Speaker 2: He had several clients on Everest this year. When I'm
Speaker 2: on trips, he sends me forecasts. But anyway, at the time,
Speaker 2: you know, this was twenty twelve, so you know, we
Speaker 2: didn't really have those fancy weather apps where you can
Speaker 2: just pull it up and look at the radar. But
Speaker 2: I'd be up on a mountain, and after having climbed
Speaker 2: those peaks through my childhood, I could be like, hey, okay,
Speaker 2: we're on this. You know Mount Harvard, got stand by
Speaker 2: that rock over there, and you have cell coverage and
Speaker 2: and so then it would pop in and send me
Speaker 2: messages about the current conditions and be like, hey, there's
Speaker 2: a storm over. You know, being a vista, it looks
Speaker 2: like it's moving away. Here, there's a storm over. Assmen,
Speaker 2: it's coming towards you. You might want to get out
Speaker 2: of the way, that kind of stuff. But it would
Speaker 2: allow me to watch the storms go by at eye level,
Speaker 2: and that would it was really fantastic because you know,
Speaker 2: I could stay up there or I'd have to make
Speaker 2: the call and get off, and you know it contributed
Speaker 2: success for sure, and trusting his judgment of what he
Speaker 2: was seeing on his radar and working as a metrologists.
Speaker 2: But then also I having studied weather and climate up
Speaker 2: being up there, I could be like, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 2: storm is definitely going to fade out of for sunset,
Speaker 2: or you know, I know they're prevailing winds today, I
Speaker 2: know that's going to go away, or hey, you know
Speaker 2: these cumulus clouds are going to develop even higher should
Speaker 2: probably be.
Speaker 1: So I feel like people overestimate, or rather they fear
Speaker 1: things like bears and snakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's the weather that kills you. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I had to run in with the bear
Speaker 2: in one particular occasion on Little Bear. Have you done
Speaker 2: any fourteen ers over the years. I haven't. I haven't
Speaker 2: spent much time in Colorado now. I'm I'm from Utah,
Speaker 2: so we're like kind of Colorado. You shune your family
Speaker 2: out for a hike? Yeah, something we'll have to yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Regarding weather, do you feel like Everest is getting safer
Speaker 1: or more dangerous?
Speaker 2: So I've heard two really hard Yeah, that's a hard
Speaker 2: question because I feel like we do have good data,
Speaker 2: and we have good weather forecasting with basic trends and generally,
Speaker 2: but you know, I was in contact with Crys a
Speaker 2: lot this year. He had six different people on the mountain.
Speaker 2: And even though in general from a general meteorology trend,
Speaker 2: every year from about the fifteenth to the twenty fifth
Speaker 2: is kind of the sweet spot on Everest. And what
Speaker 2: I've found personally is it's twofold. If we do wait
Speaker 2: and let all the people that think the summit window
Speaker 2: opens and they go for it, and there's a bajillion
Speaker 2: people going up like this year there was two hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy eight people on the same day. It was
Speaker 2: a new record. When I gather info in base camp
Speaker 2: and see that many people going on a day, I
Speaker 2: don't go. I'm like, I'll wait, I'll wait a week.
Speaker 2: It's fine. But also we know meteorologically statistically the weather
Speaker 2: does get warmer from about the twenty first to the
Speaker 2: twenty eighth. On Everest every year it's warmer than in
Speaker 2: the teens, And so it's better just to wait. You're
Speaker 2: gonna be up there, it's going to be safer for
Speaker 2: you frostbite wise. There's gonna usually be less wind. This year,
Speaker 2: the people were summoning from about the when they got
Speaker 2: the ropes, and I think on like the fourteenth, all
Speaker 2: the way through the twenty ninth, for a two week
Speaker 2: period there wasn't summits every day. But then this year
Speaker 2: it was odd because the jet stream lingers, and this
Speaker 2: can happen every year. Sometimes after the twentieth it's actually
Speaker 2: really really nice, and this year there was some days
Speaker 2: where it was souper windy and then people didn't sum it,
Speaker 2: or like even on the last some of the last
Speaker 2: summit pushes, my friend Garrett Madison was up there with
Speaker 2: his team and they waited in Camp four for an
Speaker 2: extra day because it got so windy and nobody summitted
Speaker 2: on like the twenty sixth or something like that, and
Speaker 2: then the next day people summitted. Interesting, and so it
Speaker 2: even though we have good tools to forecast the weather,
Speaker 2: that jet stream is unpredictable. It's unpredictable. Yeah, there's some
Speaker 2: days where even Chris was like, yeah, looks like it's
Speaker 2: gonna be maybe twenty mile prior wins and it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's terrible. And then and then there were days where
Speaker 2: it was forecasted maybe twenty and it was dead calm,
Speaker 2: and yeah, Unfortunately the four summits I've done have been
Speaker 2: twenty first, twenty third, twenty sixth, and June first, so
Speaker 2: later in the period, and always they've been good. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: they've been really good.
Speaker 1: It's this push and poll of we have better weather technology, imperfect,
Speaker 1: but better. Yeah, but then also the rising popularity of
Speaker 1: the mountain where so yeah, tell people about like the
Speaker 1: Hillary step and how people have to wait and what's
Speaker 1: the danger in that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the dangers higher up is that, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's cold, but and you got to keep moving. But
Speaker 2: you know most climbers don't evers climb with oxygen, so
Speaker 2: and when a guide to guide on it. So when
Speaker 2: you're up that high, if oxygen runs out, you're cooked,
Speaker 2: like it's like a drug. And so you could be
Speaker 2: going up and if you're taking too long on that
Speaker 2: Hillary step, and it's just why the trails as wide
Speaker 2: as this table. Okay, And so you couple you can
Speaker 2: see how you can't really get by. You can try
Speaker 2: you kind of wrap around. It's easier to get around
Speaker 2: people on the way down. And one of my summits
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four with Devin was actually a crowded day.
Speaker 2: The way we avoided that was we started really early
Speaker 2: and we're on the summit at like five am and
Speaker 2: got off the summit before six am, and on the
Speaker 2: way down, tons of people were coming up and we
Speaker 2: just reached around and reached around them. And then once
Speaker 2: you got to the South Summit, which is maybe an
Speaker 2: hour down, you could get down real quick and out
Speaker 2: of there and it's you can get by people then.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, we were able to manage it accordingly.
Speaker 2: But that day there were a lot of people up
Speaker 2: there getting stuck. People can wait for hours, yeah, two hours,
Speaker 2: because then the other thing that happens in people's minds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean gratefully, I've found that I've pretty clear head
Speaker 2: up on those heights. Even you know, they say, oh,
Speaker 2: people are focusing, they don't pay attention. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty aware of everything that's going on. But I'll stand
Speaker 2: there and it's amazing how you try to talk to
Speaker 2: somebody and they're so locked in. And that's what happens
Speaker 2: on that step is you can be the line of
Speaker 2: climbers and they're coming up and no one will stop,
Speaker 2: and you know, rest for a second. Let you kind
Speaker 2: of come down and go by and you can end
Speaker 2: up standing there for like two hours. And if people
Speaker 2: if you run out of bucy, then that's when people's
Speaker 2: cognitive functions and people's decision making and people's stamina just
Speaker 2: goes down the tubes. And that's the biggest problem is
Speaker 2: with the lines. Yeah, we were reading about even this season,
Speaker 2: some people having a twenty four hour can't for to camp.
Speaker 2: If Camp ford a summit and back to Camp four
Speaker 2: for twenty four hours, how long does it usually take.
Speaker 2: It's way too long. Usually you should be going up
Speaker 2: from Camp four three thousand vertical to the summit in
Speaker 2: about six to ten hours. If you take longer than
Speaker 2: ten hours, something's wrong. And so when you do that,
Speaker 2: and then if you're a fastestcender, you can come down
Speaker 2: in two to four hours back to the camp, so
Speaker 2: you can do it in a twelve hour round trip.
Speaker 2: That's an acceptable time. Strong climbers will be a little faster.
Speaker 2: If someone's a little bit beat up, maybe they take
Speaker 2: fourteen hours. That's okay, we get pass about fourteen hours.
Speaker 2: You're in the death zone. Then bad things can happen,
Speaker 2: whether it's running out of oxygen or just being really
Speaker 2: exerted and not being able to move very well. And
Speaker 2: that's the one thing I'll pride myself upon with Everest
Speaker 2: is and I feel like it's very ethical. Is that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we make sure we get our people up there for sunrise,
Speaker 2: we get them back down to Camp four about like
Speaker 2: nine or ten am, and then we don't let them
Speaker 2: stay there. They stay for maybe an hour quick just
Speaker 2: to eat and drink. We'll have another shrip of making
Speaker 2: water and they can eat and drink, eat and drink,
Speaker 2: We pack them, we get them out of there. Because
Speaker 2: the lower you can get on Everest down to Camp
Speaker 2: three in Camp two by like lunchtime is the best way,
Speaker 2: risk management wise to do the mountain. And we've been
Speaker 2: watching these teams and these groups that just don't get it,
Speaker 2: and they're going up for too long. Twelve fourteen, eighteen
Speaker 2: hours are going up and then another six to ten
Speaker 2: hours down. It's too long. And that those kinds of
Speaker 2: ethics is what myself and many other guides are trying
Speaker 2: to coach these other groups and teams to say that
Speaker 2: that's not acceptable. Yeah, like that's how you get killed.
Speaker 2: Super risky. Yeah, So you know, and over time, the
Speaker 2: teams that are doing it the right way, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: are the ones that are successful, safe and not having
Speaker 2: any problems. But once you get past that, those times
Speaker 2: it's just bad things have been happening. And most of
Speaker 2: the deaths that have occurred on Everest it's been because
Speaker 2: people don't abide by that.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you have people train for
Speaker 1: Everest like physical training?
Speaker 2: Well, it's one of my favorite favorite sayings is trained
Speaker 2: mounains of mountains, because what else is better than doing
Speaker 2: the real thing? And on top of that, it's creating
Speaker 2: those simulations. And so you know, someone like Mike who
Speaker 2: trained with me for two years, he moved to Colorado.
Speaker 2: We trained on mountains there, but then we went to
Speaker 2: like four or five different countries and did some bigger
Speaker 2: mountains with some sort of simulations of Everest where it's
Speaker 2: you know, on the summ at night, we leave at
Speaker 2: eight or nine pm and you climb through the night,
Speaker 2: so you can sum it at four or five am
Speaker 2: and the sunrise and then you're back down. And so
Speaker 2: I would create a lot of Everest simulations where even
Speaker 2: if it was a smaller mountain like Mount Rainier. Hey, Mike,
Speaker 2: we're going to start at ten pm on Vernier and
Speaker 2: climb through the night from the parking lot and do
Speaker 2: a big day so we can sum it at sunrise
Speaker 2: and come back down and so you can feel how
Speaker 2: hard that is. And I think those simulations are the
Speaker 2: best for anybody trying to do. Ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably his fitness is not improving all that much
Speaker 1: that day, but what is happening is that his mind
Speaker 1: is going, Okay, this is what it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Like I've been here before, cold and dark, I'm fumbling
Speaker 2: with my mittens. I've got to figure out where my
Speaker 2: snacks are. I got to figure out how to make
Speaker 2: sure my light doesn't go out. So it's all the
Speaker 2: real world things. I mean, even tomorrow going to Mount
Speaker 2: Whitney with some people that want to get ready Foreverest
Speaker 2: at some point. Yeah, we're going to start at ten
Speaker 2: pm and go through the night and see how they
Speaker 2: see how tough they are, and that's a good way
Speaker 2: to be Ever's ready.
Speaker 1: What's the ideal build for mountaineers, Skinny.
Speaker 2: I think, well, yeah, I mean a good example is me.
Speaker 2: Like when I was in college, I played basketball at
Speaker 2: Velpros University. I played for Scott Drew. Now who was
Speaker 2: the coach of Baylor. We still stay in touch. And
Speaker 2: I was about, well, I'm about six two sixty three.
Speaker 2: I'm about the same height as Steph Curry actually, but
Speaker 2: I weighed like two twenty five two thirty and college
Speaker 2: just pushing more heavier weight, and I still had the
Speaker 2: cardio to play basketball, but you just have to be bigger,
Speaker 2: a little bit bigger and stronger. Now way about one
Speaker 2: eighty and I found that not having that extra forty
Speaker 2: to forty five pounds on my frame really benefits me
Speaker 2: on the mountains. I can move much more efficiently. Cardio
Speaker 2: strength and just endurance is there. So so yeah, a
Speaker 2: prototypic person, they don't need to be so skinny and frail.
Speaker 2: But if you don't have the extra, you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: you get these guys that are like kind of jacked
Speaker 2: and they kill Theminjarro and they get beach body and
Speaker 2: they get pretty worked. Yeah, you know, and they look
Speaker 2: at me and they're like, what the heck. You know,
Speaker 2: I've had some guys on kill manjar the last few
Speaker 2: years that they all summitted, but they were like, you know,
Speaker 2: in their twenties and early thirties and young, and what's
Speaker 2: going on why is doctor John so strong. I'm the
Speaker 2: one that's like at the gym body and I'm tough,
Speaker 2: you know. But but yeah, I found you can't have
Speaker 2: that to have good amountain cardios.
Speaker 1: Even if it's muscle, you're still having to carry it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just need it enough to make it up. And
Speaker 1: that's not going to be as much as people might think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we still do is a lot of functional training,
Speaker 2: and I have a couple of coaches that do work
Speaker 2: with like clients of mine that want to train remotely
Speaker 2: and based on where they live for example. But we
Speaker 2: do try to up the cardio and the mountain experiences
Speaker 2: because I think that's probably weighted, in my opinion, ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the importance versus the gym. I do a
Speaker 2: lot more yoga than actual weightlifting. Oh really, Yeah, to
Speaker 2: stay stretched and stay strong with some of the poses.
Speaker 2: And I'll do some functional training in the gym, but
Speaker 2: sometimes the gym is few and far between because the
Speaker 2: outdoors is my gym. You know. There you go.
Speaker 1: So how do you approach eating on these big expeditions.
Speaker 2: I do a lot of packing my own snacks. If
Speaker 2: I want certain snacks that you can't get what's your
Speaker 2: go to? Well, it depends, Like Paul, we eat a
Speaker 2: lot of snickers, but awesome, But I mean I like
Speaker 2: to try to eat eat healthy so or even just
Speaker 2: like snacks that have a lot of good vitamins, minerals,
Speaker 2: certain ingredients, superfoods, things like that, like pro bars I love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you eat the green one, the super food Yeah,
Speaker 1: the superfood one is tasty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one's pretty nice. I learned a lot about
Speaker 2: other sort of alternative type snacks and foods from Mike
Speaker 2: actually because he was trying to, you know, eliminate sugar,
Speaker 2: and sugar can be a problem, right, because some of
Speaker 2: these these snacks are so sugar and it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: just a certain degree when you're out there, it's okay
Speaker 2: because you're burning it all, but it also can make
Speaker 2: your heart rate skyrocket. And also just like you know,
Speaker 2: you got to get good protein as well. So he
Speaker 2: was ordering a lot of different kind of organic type
Speaker 2: bars or raw bars, like these brownie bars are good.
Speaker 2: The brand name was. And then we had these mirror
Speaker 2: energies they were called yeah, yeah, Mirror Energy, which were
Speaker 2: like less sugar in them, it's like all natural ingredients.
Speaker 2: But then actually The other one that I really gravitate towards,
Speaker 2: especially on US trips, is just real fruits and vegetables,
Speaker 2: so like cuties and apples and bananas. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: what I grabbed the store that I'm gonna take tomorrow
Speaker 2: because I just want to eat real food. My trail
Speaker 2: name was Avocado, so I would carry alvocados and just
Speaker 2: cut them up and eat them straight on the trail,
Speaker 2: you know, two or three a day. Sometimes good oil
Speaker 2: is good fats, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're going to take a break and then
Speaker 1: John is going to tell us about the best hikes
Speaker 1: and climbs that anyone can do. Peaks in Colorado, the
Speaker 1: average person could climb that. You like, what do you recommend?
Speaker 2: I like going down to like Buna Vista and the
Speaker 2: Cleegiate Peaks are there, and you've got hot springs and
Speaker 2: the trails are easy to access, and then they're asspen
Speaker 2: I mean, I obviously the peaks and Asthma are more
Speaker 2: rugged like the Maroon Bells and Capital, but I end
Speaker 2: up on the Maroon Bells and Capital and Castle Peak.
Speaker 2: Every year I generally lead a hut trip over by
Speaker 2: Castle Peak every winter because we love to ski down.
Speaker 2: We actually ski down it this year, So yeah, I
Speaker 2: just love the They're so beautiful. And then for me,
Speaker 2: out of my backyard of vale As, you have the
Speaker 2: Gore Mountains and Gore Range and they're all thirteen ers.
Speaker 2: So because they're so they're not fourteen ers at all,
Speaker 2: they're more rugged. You don't see people. You know, you
Speaker 2: can go to a trail head on a Saturday and
Speaker 2: it's empty, and so I like to get out on
Speaker 2: places that you won't see anybody. It makes it more fun.
Speaker 2: Even I like that. What's your go to pieces of
Speaker 2: gear from a trail runner perspective? I like things that
Speaker 2: are fast and light, So I mean I have a
Speaker 2: few different sort of runners type hoodies that are like
Speaker 2: more lightweight windbreaker type things. And then I'm on the
Speaker 2: Hmalai Athlete team now, so like I love the sun
Speaker 2: hoodies and they're accelerator jackets are great. We give those
Speaker 2: to all of our clients and trips. Yeah, so we
Speaker 2: hook people up with some of the gear. I'm not
Speaker 2: a huge gearhead though, Like I'll have like shirts that
Speaker 2: I've had forever and I'll wear them still that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. People are like, do you have a hole
Speaker 2: in that, like get a new shirt, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I like it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's good to not get too Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have friends that I think they enjoy the process
Speaker 1: of looking for and buying gear more than they do
Speaker 1: actually going out.
Speaker 2: In the wilderness. Yeah. Yeah, I always chuckle at that
Speaker 2: going back functional for sure, over like looks. Sometimes my
Speaker 2: color schemes aren't great, but although with Hamali my gear
Speaker 2: gets better, for sure. Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1: With sort of everything you've learned from the mountains, what's
Speaker 1: the takeaway for the average person, Like, how do they
Speaker 1: use this in their own life?
Speaker 2: If they're like.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to climb a mountain, dude, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: can I do? And what can I learn from it?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you have to accept an embrace
Speaker 2: being uncomfortable on some level in order to grow. I
Speaker 2: can stamp that seal of approval. Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 2: that's that's how I've lived my life now and it's
Speaker 2: changed my life for the better no matter what. And
Speaker 2: then when it comes to doing projects in the outdoors
Speaker 2: or signing up for a trip or going out with
Speaker 2: your friends, is like you should just say yes, Like
Speaker 2: if if someone asks you to do something crazy and audacious,
Speaker 2: you should always say yes, and if you do, like
Speaker 2: what possibly could go wrong? Something will happen. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The guy I did the Heyduke with he would always
Speaker 1: just say something will happen.
Speaker 2: Like that.
Speaker 1: That's the most accurate sentence I've ever heard of my life.
Speaker 1: Something will happen, Matt. Well, John, it is awesome to
Speaker 1: have you. Yeah, I appreciate having here. Thanks, thanks for
Speaker 1: checking out the show, and thanks to John for coming
Speaker 1: into the studio on his way to climb another mountain.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, we are in your feed twice a week,
Speaker 1: so please keep an eye out for more. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to hit subscribe so you can get those updates when
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Speaker 1: to answer as many of your questions as we can.
Speaker 1: As always, have fun, don't die, and find your next mountain.