0:00

time to clip your last good piece and

0:02

dig in, because the runout starts now. Hey

0:13

Chris. Hey Andrew. Nice

0:17

job on your red point yesterday.

0:20

Oh thanks. I

0:22

did a little mini project

0:24

in a way. Seems too

0:26

early in the season to be

0:28

sending for us non -professionals. Well,

0:30

let me tell you something. Let

0:33

me tell you something I've been doing.

0:35

I've been sort of complaining about

0:37

my shoulder, going back to NFL starting

0:39

lineman Wes Schweitzer

0:41

giving me a personal

0:43

training tip on

0:46

my stretch. Well, I

0:48

added lifting weights

0:50

this year, which I had been told to

0:52

do ad nauseam. I used to lift weights

0:54

a lot when I was younger. And, uh, so

0:56

I like got serious, serious to the point

0:58

of like trying to go twice, twice

1:00

a week. Okay. So that's like old guy

1:02

serious to push, you know, to go push

1:04

instead of just pull. And yet

1:07

we have this little like

1:09

rec climbing wall in the gym

1:11

here at the rec center, which

1:13

I've always just like blown off

1:15

because it's, you know, I don't even think

1:17

it's 20 feet tall. It's probably like 18 feet

1:19

tall. Um, you know, typical

1:21

sort of like, let's take the kids

1:23

climbing kind of thing. Um, however, I

1:25

started climbing on it cause there's audible

1:27

ways of which I am a strong convert now.

1:29

I believe you are as well. Um,

1:33

although I, I tend to, I

1:35

climb back down almost always not,

1:37

not totally out of fear, but, um, just to

1:39

try to get, you know, 35

1:41

feet of climbing in instead of 18 or

1:43

whatever. But if you fall from the top

1:45

and it doesn't work, you're going to live

1:47

cause the wall. I'll probably live. Yeah. Yeah.

1:49

Just, you know, somebody might have to interrupt

1:51

there. session on the stair

1:54

master to come over and see if

1:56

i'm okay but uh i've really embraced

1:58

it and actually the gym or the

2:00

the rec center they had the

2:02

same roots on it for i

2:04

mean years literally i think and

2:06

they finally actually brought in some

2:08

professional course setters and reset it

2:10

this this winter oh nice yeah

2:13

they brought some guys in from

2:15

i think it's called the gripped

2:17

gym over in in uh junction

2:20

and uh and they set it up

2:22

and there's actually like you know

2:24

there's actually like these cool kind of

2:26

hard roots on it and so

2:28

in between lifting which is probably stupid

2:30

i also climb like that's my

2:32

rest between like doing bench press i

2:34

go climb for a minute nice

2:36

yeah and i think it's really like

2:38

it's been great like my shoulder

2:40

feels better um and i like yeah

2:42

i'm out of the gates a

2:44

little early this year um although i

2:46

kind of cheated so what do

2:49

you mean Well, you know, I

2:51

have my 513 a season rule, which I've

2:53

talked about on here. Yeah. This

2:55

one is a route that

2:57

I had done previously, like some

2:59

years ago. But then

3:01

they moved, they, our friend Corey being

3:04

they, moved the anchors up on it

3:06

to make it a little longer. And

3:08

in some ways a little harder, although

3:10

I sort of debate that. So it

3:12

got longer. And then it also, I

3:14

used like, literally I... think

3:16

I used seven or eight knee bars

3:18

on it. And that fell

3:20

out of vogue. And this is

3:22

at like basically a kind of

3:24

a private crag of ours here.

3:27

Just an unknown cliff that only

3:29

sort of – You and

3:31

Corey Kline. Yeah. I mean other

3:33

people too. Madeline Sorkin was up there

3:35

too. She loves it too. But

3:38

yeah, so I decided to get rid

3:40

of knee bars and then do the

3:42

whole route. So it's sort of like

3:44

I fudged – I got a –

3:46

i think it actually wasn't 13 before

3:48

maybe now uh 13a only but uh

3:50

but yeah so i sort of it's

3:52

sort of a fake one so i

3:54

i owe myself one more this season

3:56

and um and it's time to step

3:58

up to something that i'm not as

4:00

familiar with so it's sort of a

4:02

cheater cheater way to get my get

4:04

my rule my rule being doing at

4:06

least one 513 before july 1st yeah

4:09

well i'll give it to you Thanks.

4:11

Last year I had to fudge

4:13

one too. I think I did

4:15

it on July 16th or on

4:17

July 6th, but I grandfathered it

4:19

in to the previous season because

4:21

it was also 13Bs. I kind

4:23

of gave myself that congratulations. So

4:26

anyhow, but it was still fun.

4:28

It's a magnificent route. I mean,

4:30

it's super fun to climb on.

4:32

I'm not so good at steep

4:34

climbing anymore or probably never was.

4:36

And it's real steep. So good

4:38

training there. Yeah. I

4:41

did the stupid thing, which

4:43

is instead of just like

4:45

congratulating myself and spending the

4:47

rest of the afternoon enjoying

4:49

my triumph, I immediately got

4:51

on to what I think

4:53

will be my next project

4:55

and got completely obliterated three

4:57

bolts up. I couldn't even

4:59

begin to do the movement

5:01

required to get to this

5:03

other section. So yeah, I

5:05

went home demoralized anyway. Short

5:07

-lived victory, yeah. Exactly. Which

5:10

I've actually counseled against so

5:12

many times. And I

5:14

was like, well, fuck, man, I'm feeling good.

5:16

I'm strong. I'll probably, you know, I'll figure

5:18

it out. Like, I'll at least go up

5:20

there and recon it and, like, start to

5:22

figure out the moves. I'm coming well today.

5:24

Yeah. It was so dumb.

5:26

I should have just stayed on the ground,

5:28

drank a beer. Well,

5:31

lest our podcast run the

5:33

risk of becoming a training podcast,

5:35

what are we talking about

5:37

today? uh

5:39

we are gonna talk about

5:41

a couple of fabulous ascents

5:43

by the youngsters uh that

5:45

happened over the over the

5:48

last few weeks and uh

5:50

yeah just get our old

5:52

guy perspective on them because

5:54

that's what everybody wants yeah

5:56

so um i'm gonna tell

5:58

you a bit about uh

6:00

brick rabbitu climbing 515c which

6:02

is a pretty big milestone

6:05

in climbing and also women's

6:07

climbing, if there's a way

6:09

to distinguish those things. And

6:11

yeah, so she became the first

6:13

woman to do a route of that

6:15

grade. And so I dug in

6:17

a little bit to the history of

6:20

how we got to this point.

6:22

So I just wanted to spray you

6:24

down with that because I know

6:26

that you can probably rattle off all

6:28

the women who've climbed. uh

6:30

515 and you know exactly what

6:32

their roots are and when they did

6:35

them um off the top of

6:37

your head but maybe some of our

6:39

listeners might not be as uh

6:41

versed in in this history as you

6:43

are chris you know what early

6:45

in the run out we got in

6:47

trouble for doing that and forgetting

6:49

someone actually well i'm sure that we're

6:51

going to do that again today

6:54

someone got on our case and for

6:56

because of this person that we

6:58

had forgotten but then i'd actually during

7:00

sort of talking with this person

7:02

talking, you know, emailing, I realized that

7:04

there was actually two that we'd

7:06

missed by minimum. I found another one.

7:08

And so then I sort of

7:10

jokingly accused that person of also having

7:12

a bias against this person that

7:15

they had forgotten. So anyway, it was

7:17

my touche because they were all

7:19

like, you forgot this person. I was

7:21

like, well, then you forgot this

7:23

person. So what's your problem? You also

7:25

hate women. Cause

7:29

it was a dude that was mad

7:31

at me for forgetting a woman who

7:33

climbed hard. I can't remember what, what

7:35

it was, but anyhow, or who it

7:37

was. Um, but I love women and

7:39

I love women climbers. I just want

7:41

that stated. And also if we get

7:43

this, um, all wrong, or if I

7:45

get this all wrong, um, it has,

7:47

uh, nothing to do with that and

7:49

just everything to do with just basic

7:52

journalistic incompetence. Um, well, come

7:54

on. I mean, there's like, shit

7:56

going on all around the world

7:58

by people we've never heard of yeah

8:00

that's true in climbing it's just

8:03

what floats to the surface and what

8:05

gets recorded so anyhow continue yeah

8:07

but i thought this was like a

8:09

cool exercise just to kind of

8:11

review the last i mean it's basically

8:13

been eight or nine years of

8:15

women climbing in the 515 at the

8:17

515 level and uh it's interesting

8:20

to just kind of review it from

8:22

like this 30 000 foot view

8:24

and just kind of see how it

8:26

it's all kind of common waves

8:28

and like you go for, you know,

8:31

um, kind of a

8:33

decade, like, uh, Joe Zune was

8:35

kind of right there, uh,

8:37

at the, at the boundary between

8:39

14 D and 15 a

8:42

back in 2005. And then, you

8:44

know, kind of nothing really

8:46

happened for 10 years until Ashima

8:48

Shirashi also kind of tickled

8:50

that, that slashy grade in, um,

8:52

2015. And then,

8:55

you know, kind of the history

8:57

books have settled on Margot Hayes

8:59

being the first woman to climb

9:01

a 515A full stop with La

9:03

Rambla in 2017. And then

9:05

she also did biography or realization later

9:07

that year. So she did two 15As

9:10

in that year. And I was just

9:12

thinking about 2017 is like, it's kind

9:14

of a cool year in climbing in

9:16

general, because that was the year that

9:18

handled free solo Del Cap. And,

9:20

um, so we had Margo Hayes

9:22

climbing 15 a, as well as that

9:24

same year, Angela Eider, she did

9:26

the first one became the first woman

9:28

to climb a 15 B. Um,

9:31

and a knock for Hoven climbed a

9:33

sweet new, which was also 15

9:35

a. So 2017 was like this pretty

9:37

monumental year in our sport where

9:39

all this, like. amazing shit happened. So

9:41

we had the first woman to

9:43

climb 15A, the first woman to climb

9:46

15B, and another woman joined them.

9:48

So three women climbed 515 in one

9:50

year. And then, you know, Hanold,

9:52

free solo at El Cap. So I

9:54

think of that year as like

9:56

this pretty breakthrough monumental year in climbing.

9:59

Is it 9A plus? Is that

10:01

15A? Yes. In French grades? Okay.

10:03

So that's where 15s start. Is

10:05

that 9A plus? 9A plus. And

10:08

then... You know, we jump

10:10

ahead to 2019 and Margot

10:12

Hayes, again, climbs her third

10:14

15A with Papi Chulo. And

10:16

people have called this the,

10:19

you know, 9A plus or

10:21

515A trilogy. So La Rambla

10:23

biography and Papi Chulo, these

10:25

kind of like benchmark 15As

10:27

in Europe. You know,

10:29

and so Margot was like

10:31

really, I think, the trendsetter,

10:33

you know, really establishing this,

10:35

even though Angie Eider, you

10:37

know, was... technically ahead with

10:39

15B in 2017. Um, but

10:42

then, you know, nothing really

10:44

happened for a few, for

10:46

three years basically. And then

10:48

we get to 2020 and

10:50

we have another kind of

10:52

spate of, uh, women climbing

10:54

that hard. Laura Regora climbed

10:56

a 15A and then she

10:59

did a 15B later that

11:01

year, uh, which was the

11:03

Allie Hulk sit start extension

11:05

total. Um, so

11:08

this is one of those, um,

11:10

those, uh, those Hulk cave, like

11:12

road AR kind of bouldery. You

11:15

start off as like a bouldering

11:17

route and then finishes a sport route

11:19

kind of link up things. That

11:21

route needs a rebranding. I know. Julia,

11:26

uh, from

11:29

France climbed super crack a net

11:31

and Eagle four. So she did

11:33

two 15 days in 2020 and

11:35

Angie Eider made history in 2020

11:37

by doing, she became the first

11:39

woman to do a first ascent

11:41

of a five 15 B and

11:43

her, that route was called Madam

11:46

Ching in Austria. Um,

11:48

so she's, you know, pioneered

11:50

five 15 B for women.

11:52

And so, Um, she's been

11:54

a big, like, you

11:56

know, name in this kind of progression up to

11:59

where we are today. And

12:01

then in 2021, this is

12:03

an ascent that I didn't, I

12:05

certainly don't remember happening at

12:07

the time, but Laura Regora, the

12:10

Italian climber, um,

12:13

climbed this route called Erebor,

12:15

which is a 515B slash

12:17

C. So she got the

12:19

slashy 15C ascent in 2021. Um,

12:23

so it was probably the

12:25

hardest female sport climb at that

12:27

time. And then again, we

12:29

jump a couple of years to

12:31

2023. Michaela Kirsch did La

12:33

Rambla and Victima Perfecta, both 15A.

12:36

And now we're in 2025

12:38

and Brooke Rabatou climbs 15C. And

12:40

of course, that route that

12:42

she did is, uh, called Excalibur,

12:44

which was a Stefano Gisalfi

12:46

first descent from 2023. And,

12:49

um, I think Will Boses

12:51

repeated it. And so it's been

12:53

confirmed at a 15C rating,

12:55

and she's the first woman to

12:58

climb that grade officially, like

13:00

full stop, no slashy grades. And

13:02

she joins a list

13:04

of, by my count, nine

13:06

other men who've climbed

13:09

that hard. And so those

13:11

men are Adam Andra, Chris

13:13

Sharma, Alex Magos, Stefano

13:16

Gisalfi, Jakob Schubert, Seb

13:19

Juan, Sean Bailey,

13:22

jorge ds rulo and will bosey

13:24

how many people have climbed

13:26

excalibur just just the two dudes

13:28

i think just will and

13:30

um and stefano yeah nice yeah

13:32

yeah so um there's probably

13:34

a bunch of mistakes you guys

13:36

can fact check that and

13:38

let us know what we got

13:40

wrong but you know i

13:42

was kind of it's interesting to

13:44

like see this list of

13:46

10 people who've reached this level

13:48

in sport climbing now including

13:50

brooke and um I

13:54

couldn't have rattled this off the

13:56

top of my head, but Sean

13:58

Bailey was a name that I

14:00

didn't... It's kind of a funny

14:02

list. The only two American climbers

14:04

that I have on here, Chris

14:06

Sharma and Sean Bailey, and I

14:09

didn't really think of Sean Bailey

14:11

as being up at that level,

14:13

but he climbed Bibliography, which is

14:15

a 15C in Sayus. Right,

14:17

right. It's nice to have

14:19

old... hanging in there yeah totally

14:22

still still proud proudly sending

14:24

um yeah so that's um that's

14:26

the update there and i

14:28

think that's kind of cool like

14:30

you know and i think

14:32

there's also the other observation to

14:34

just make of of all

14:36

this is like we're kind of

14:38

in this um in terms

14:40

space of competition season and as

14:42

well as like kind of

14:44

olympic training season like it's as

14:47

far away basically from the um,

14:49

from the next Olympics as you

14:51

can get. So there's plenty of

14:54

time to just kind of fuck

14:56

around on, on the real rocks

14:58

outside. And Brooke has, you know,

15:00

taken advantage of, of that. Um,

15:02

you know, she got silver in

15:05

the last Olympics and I assume

15:07

she's probably going back for the

15:09

next one, but I haven't read

15:11

that or confirmed it. I'm just

15:13

making an assumption, but yeah, so

15:15

good for her for, you know,

15:18

taking advantage of her, her time

15:20

away from, uh, competition scene to

15:22

to make history so um i

15:24

noticed on the list that yanya

15:26

seems to be missing from the

15:29

15a and i know i i

15:31

did a moment of research and

15:33

got a little confused by uh

15:35

whether she had or had not

15:37

what is your what's your take

15:39

yeah i i don't think that

15:42

yanya has actually officially climbed 15a

15:44

so she's um she's

15:46

climbed v15 but she's not

15:48

climbed 15a as um as far

15:50

as i know and um

15:52

i think that she's come very

15:54

very close like i read

15:56

a report that she fell off

15:59

the last move of biography

16:01

i know that like you know

16:03

worked on climbing la dura

16:05

dura so she's she's projected 15c

16:07

but um she hasn't officially

16:09

ticked a 515a from what i

16:11

can see online um so

16:13

that's like obviously someone

16:15

who's like quite capable of doing

16:17

the grade but just hasn't had

16:19

the time or you know her

16:21

focus has been in the wrong

16:23

place or whatever but just maybe

16:25

it hasn't been as important to

16:28

do just a 15a for its

16:30

own sake but um conspicuously absent

16:32

from that list well i was

16:34

actually that's what made me think

16:36

of it is you talking about

16:38

how you know you have to

16:40

be outside of this training cycle

16:42

for these Climbers did not only

16:44

focus on climbing outdoors, but have,

16:46

you know, be at the top

16:48

of their own, you know, game

16:50

to do it. And that's always

16:52

a problem for these ongoing athletes,

16:55

that training takes precedence over all

16:57

that stuff, which, you know, has

16:59

always, you know, bummed me out

17:01

because I want them to take

17:03

their incredible abilities out there and

17:05

do great things, which obviously Brooke

17:07

just did. And, you know, there's

17:09

always time later, too, to do

17:11

it. mean, I actually, you know,

17:13

kind of bugged Tiana about it

17:15

when I interviewed her. So,

17:17

I mean, she's onsighted, I believe,

17:20

like in the high 514s,

17:22

14B or C or something like

17:24

that. You know, so

17:26

she's no slouch outside. No, totally. But,

17:28

you know, it's like I've been,

17:30

you know, waiting for this like explosion.

17:32

And I think, yeah, I mean,

17:34

this is it. I mean, Brooke

17:37

is the example of. of taking

17:39

that power and, you know, all that

17:41

training and applying it outdoors and,

17:43

and having great success. So, um, I

17:45

kind of look forward to more

17:47

of that actually. Yeah.

17:50

I, if I had to guess, I mean, I

17:52

feel like Yanya is gonna, you

17:55

know, probably do something at some point,

17:57

like she'll be the first woman to

17:59

climb 15 D maybe like she's, or

18:01

having skipped 15, a B and C

18:03

or something like that. Like I could

18:05

see. I could see that

18:07

happening in the next year. Like she's

18:09

obviously got the skills and strength

18:11

and ability to do this, something like

18:13

that. I thought I, didn't I read

18:15

that Brooke did? She skipped

18:17

a couple letters to get to see,

18:20

didn't she? Yeah, she did. She

18:22

skipped all the letters. Okay. Yeah. All

18:24

of them. Yeah. The whole fucking

18:26

alphabet. Yeah. I mean, it

18:28

is crazy. Like there's, we're

18:30

more and more like in this,

18:32

in this world where, you

18:34

know, you just have built this

18:36

huge, base of experience and

18:38

strength from climbing indoors, which has

18:40

no, it doesn't really have

18:42

a direct parallel. Like you could

18:44

say a route inside is

18:46

like a rated 14 B or

18:48

something, but nobody really believes

18:50

that. And it doesn't mean anything,

18:52

you know, it's not like

18:54

a real 14 B and it's

18:56

only real at that grade

18:58

until once you climb at that

19:00

level outside, or at least

19:02

in my old school brain, in

19:04

way of thinking. Um, you

19:07

know, so I, I feel like, yeah,

19:09

like I just gave a list of

19:11

all the women who've climbed five 15

19:13

and Yanya is not on that list.

19:15

And it's because it's not because she

19:17

can't, she just, and it's not because

19:19

she hasn't maybe climbed five 15 a

19:21

in a competition setting with, uh, the

19:23

kind of setting that they do for,

19:26

for those events, but it's just not

19:28

a real five 15 a until you

19:30

do it outdoors. Yeah.

19:32

I mean that, That could come

19:34

across as like some anti -competition thing,

19:36

but it's just, I think it's the

19:38

way the sport thinks as well.

19:40

It's not just us. And I think

19:42

it just, you know, it has

19:44

to do with the quality of an

19:46

indoor route. You know, it's not

19:48

La Rambla that, you know, has a

19:51

decade or more of history behind

19:53

it and is there waiting for you

19:55

to try it. You know, it's

19:57

not like you can go back 11

19:59

years later and try that indoor

20:01

competition route again. Um, that, that paradigm

20:03

doesn't exist yet. Um, well, the

20:05

only immortal, the only immortal, um, indoor

20:08

route is the speed route. Yeah.

20:10

The speed route or probably a couple

20:12

of things that catch Jim. Yeah. Um,

20:16

that's an insider one, but, uh, but

20:18

yeah, it's, it's, I think that's

20:20

more of the quality than this, like

20:22

necessarily dissing competition climber, which we've

20:24

been known to do, but, uh, but

20:26

yeah, the immortal five, nine speed

20:28

route. Although there's still, you know, isn't

20:30

there every once a while rumbling

20:32

about changing that? I don't know. That

20:34

would be, yeah, I think that

20:36

would blow people's minds. At some point,

20:39

we're going to just get sick

20:41

of it and it'll have to be

20:43

updated for a new era. Yeah. They'll

20:46

retire it. Someday we'll be sick

20:48

of it. Not yet. So

20:50

good. So good. Yeah.

20:53

So, but yeah. And then

20:55

the other great thing is, you

20:58

know, Brooke. has

21:00

you know just by physiology and

21:02

everything else you know she's got

21:04

a decade or more of of

21:06

possible improvements to her her abilities

21:08

and and her her physical abilities

21:10

mental can go on a lot

21:12

longer than that so you know

21:14

we can look forward to this

21:16

going up for sure this wasn't

21:18

wasn't a one -off yeah yeah

21:21

she's a fucking great climber and

21:23

i love um i mean i

21:25

i love watching her climb in

21:27

competitions i just think she has

21:29

a cool style that just is

21:31

yeah she's just really strong and

21:33

powerful and great to watch well

21:35

also there's you know we we

21:37

went through an entire i mean

21:40

probably 15 years where the europeans

21:42

were better sport climbers better comp

21:44

climbers you know better you know

21:46

about at everything but our freaking

21:48

cracks you know we hung our

21:50

hat on big walls and cracks

21:52

for for that long But, you

21:54

know, it was a concern that

21:56

like was brought up in magazine

21:58

articles. Our friend Matt Samet wrote

22:01

a very, very well -known article about

22:03

how much better just slamming American

22:05

climbers actually in his way that

22:07

he does. So, you

22:09

know, I'm not like some national,

22:11

nationalistic, jingoistic sort of person, but

22:13

it's cool that it's just a

22:15

mix now and that Brooke. comes

22:17

out of Boulder, Colorado, and is

22:20

currently the top female climber in

22:22

the world in that realm. Yeah.

22:24

And just looking at this list

22:26

of 515 climbing women, I mean,

22:28

three of the seven are from

22:30

the US. So that's a pretty

22:32

solid offering, not to get too

22:34

nationalistic about it. Come

22:38

on, it's just hometown hero stuff. You

22:41

know, it's also two from

22:43

Boulder, right? Yeah, two from Boulder,

22:45

Margo and Brooke, and then

22:47

Michaela. And then,

22:49

yeah, we've got

22:51

Franz, Julia, Shanurdi, Anak

22:54

Verhoeven from Belgium, and

22:56

Laura Regora, Italy, and Angie

22:58

Eider from Austria. Yeah,

23:00

good mix up. So

23:03

I wanted to talk about another

23:05

ascent that was noticeable in the

23:07

last month. fits with my

23:09

regime um and that is our friend

23:11

and i think that's a i think

23:13

that's an appropriate way to say it

23:16

um our friend connor herson who went

23:18

out to the desert and uh and

23:20

sent one of the hardest cracks in

23:22

the world it was thought to be

23:24

the hardest when it was put up

23:26

and maybe was and it's right in

23:29

there still mason earl stranger than fiction

23:31

and uh yeah i went out and

23:33

sent it in a pretty you

23:35

know, less than it took me

23:37

to do my little sneaky 13A

23:39

that I did recently. I'll tell

23:41

you that right now. So, um,

23:43

pretty cool ascent in another, just,

23:46

uh, you know, dropping the mic

23:48

again from Connor Hurston on stranger

23:50

than fiction. Yeah. So

23:52

tell me about stranger than fiction.

23:54

Cause I, I vaguely recall that

23:56

going up and I don't, I

23:58

don't think I, I thought of

24:00

it as kind of having the.

24:02

prestige it maybe deserves at the

24:04

time. It felt like maybe I

24:06

was just distracted with other things,

24:08

but the news didn't feel like

24:10

it was as monumental an achievement

24:12

maybe as it might be. Hey

24:17

folks, you know what's stranger

24:19

than fiction? that you're not already

24:21

a run -out rope gun. More

24:23

of everything when you become

24:25

a rope gun at patreon .com

24:27

slash runoutpodcast. More spray, more critiques,

24:29

more laughs, and more analysis

24:31

of the history of Mason Earle's

24:33

test piece, Stranger Than Fiction,

24:35

recently sent in ridiculous style by

24:37

Connor Herson. So go to

24:39

patreon .com slash runoutpodcast to become

24:41

a rope gun today and get

24:43

more. Mark

24:50

Sinnott is a professional big wall

24:52

climber, expedition sailor, and writer whose books

24:54

have included The Third Pole and

24:56

The Impossible Climb. His latest book is

24:58

Into the Ice, an epic read

25:00

about his recent voyage across the infamous

25:03

Northwest Passage and the historical mysteries

25:05

that lie within. We're

25:09

just living on the boat. We still

25:11

have our house in New Hampshire. We rented

25:13

it. And we

25:15

sold our cars. We have

25:17

a long -term rental going. Yeah,

25:20

we're nine months into this whole

25:22

thing. It's the Senate Family 2

25:24

.0, so it's me and Hampton and

25:26

Tommy, who's nine. And

25:28

my older kids are pretty much

25:30

grown up, and two of them have

25:32

graduated from college, and one of

25:34

them is a freshman in college. So

25:37

unfortunately, they're not with us. They

25:39

just came to visit, so we get

25:41

to hang out with them a

25:43

bit, but they're not part of the

25:45

whole grand endeavor. What's

25:47

the vision for this endeavor? It's

25:49

a good question. I've been almost

25:51

like kind of not really talking

25:53

about like the big picture in

25:55

terms of what it might be,

25:58

because I don't want to do

26:00

like the pre -spray kind of

26:02

thing that sometimes we do in

26:04

climbing. I don't want to jinx

26:06

it. Old school.

26:08

But for, you

26:10

know, I dreamed about

26:12

doing this. like

26:15

going on a multi -year

26:17

sailing voyage. It started

26:19

in 2005. And

26:21

man, I just dug

26:23

in so hard. It's

26:25

2025 now. So it

26:27

literally took me 20

26:30

years to launch this.

26:32

But yeah, a multi -year

26:34

sailing voyage. Like

26:36

if I was totally honest with

26:38

you guys. If this could

26:40

go on for a very long

26:42

time and involve sailing like all

26:44

over the world, like I would

26:47

do it. But as

26:49

I said, it's a family affair.

26:51

And so everybody would have to

26:53

be on board with that. Pun

26:56

intended. Yeah. I

26:58

don't know if we have

27:00

enough, enough runway really for

27:03

that to get, to get

27:05

too, too far. But I

27:07

have. Hampton

27:09

and Tommy signed up

27:11

to sail as

27:14

far as New

27:16

Zealand. And if

27:18

things work out the way

27:20

that I'm hoping that they

27:22

will, as far as an

27:24

itinerary, we would get there

27:26

towards the end, you know,

27:28

like October, November of 2026. from

27:38

boat life um as far

27:40

as like what would happen after

27:42

that i'm gonna i'm gonna

27:44

put on do not disturb sorry

27:46

about that so yeah what's

27:49

that like another year and a

27:51

half to get there well

27:53

so you know we started in

27:55

maine and so i think

27:57

kind of what's cool in a

27:59

about what's going on is

28:02

that i had this original expedition

28:05

through the Northwest Passage, which kind of

28:07

started it. But it's really an

28:09

ongoing thing. So that story ends at

28:11

a certain point, but the voyage

28:13

is now ongoing. So after

28:15

we got to Alaska, the

28:17

boat spent two winters in Alaska.

28:19

And then in June, we moved

28:21

aboard as a family. And we

28:24

sailed from Alaska down here, down

28:26

to Mexico. So it's been about

28:28

nine months that the three of

28:30

us have been living aboard and

28:32

doing this voyage. And

28:35

if everything works out

28:37

the way that I have

28:39

been planning that it

28:41

would work out for 20

28:43

years, we will set

28:45

off mid -April. So in

28:47

just like two weeks, less

28:49

than two weeks, set

28:51

off for French Polynesia to

28:53

the Marquesas. And so

28:55

that's what I'm doing when I get

28:57

off this recording with you guys.

29:00

I'm going back to work. on the

29:02

boat working on my punch list

29:04

it's never ending it's never ending but

29:06

yeah chris heard a little bit

29:08

about this because what as we were

29:10

coming down through the inside passage

29:12

in british columbia we stopped in squamish

29:14

and he just happened to be

29:17

there for some climbing festival so oh

29:19

yeah yeah he's been aboard he's

29:21

been aboard polar son yeah i have

29:23

been it's awesome it was like

29:25

piss and rain i met i met

29:27

mark on the on the dock

29:29

and uh that was just like a

29:32

random encounter too right yeah totally

29:34

yeah and i we figured it out

29:36

i mean it was like 20

29:38

some years at minimum since we'd seen

29:40

each other's face right um although

29:42

he'd be in person yeah yeah so

29:44

it was really special actually it

29:46

was really really nice um mark you

29:49

and i have a past together

29:51

in yosemite you know that that's a

29:53

big part of your story is

29:55

your life dirt bagging back in yosemite

29:57

And I think for a lot

29:59

of people, it's hard to square the

30:01

two things that knew you back

30:04

then, the cave life, which I think

30:06

you bring up in the book

30:08

a number of times because a fellow

30:10

cave lifer was on your boat

30:12

during the Northwest Passage. And you and

30:14

I climbed, I don't think we

30:16

climbed together a bunch, but when we

30:18

did, we went big on El

30:21

Cap. That's true. Yeah,

30:23

Kevin Thaw doing the second ascent of

30:25

the Reticent Wall. supposedly the

30:27

hardest route at the time on El

30:29

Cap. Yeah, so I mean, I

30:31

have a lot of references to that,

30:33

and reading your book, you know,

30:35

you kind of couch this desire to

30:37

do this huge adventure up in

30:39

the Northwest Passage, goes all the way

30:41

back to those years, as well

30:43

as this climb in Baffin. So if

30:46

we want for any better place

30:48

to kind of start the story of

30:50

the Northwest Passage, frame that.

30:52

if you could do that in

30:54

a nutshell, the ascent on Polar

30:56

Sun Spire and where that sort

30:58

of fits into the germination of

31:00

your boat and these further adventures.

31:03

It's a crazy story, really,

31:05

and it's kind of a

31:07

book -length story, really. The book's

31:10

like 400 pages, but yeah,

31:12

the boat's called Polar Sun,

31:14

and that climb was the

31:16

Polar Sun Spire. That was

31:18

in 1996. So

31:20

I think that was the year

31:22

before you and I did that,

31:24

did that climb and in Yosemite.

31:27

And yeah, I mean,

31:29

when I, when I

31:31

first showed up in

31:33

Yosemite, when looking back, I would

31:36

say those were the best times that

31:38

I've ever had in my life. Like

31:40

if I could somehow go back and

31:42

relive those years, I would love nothing

31:44

more. It was all

31:46

kind of wrapped around this dream,

31:48

though, of using Yosemite as a

31:50

means to get good enough at

31:52

climbing giant cliffs so that we

31:54

could go out into greater ranges

31:56

and do, you know, kind of

31:58

like exploratory big wall climbing. While

32:01

I was in Yosemite,

32:04

an article came out in

32:06

the American Alpine Journal.

32:08

I'm sure you were there.

32:10

You saw the same

32:12

one. It was by

32:15

this guy named Eugene Fisher, and

32:17

it was sort of like

32:19

a photo documentary of the climbing

32:21

potential on the east coast

32:23

of Baffin Island. One of the

32:25

things that it said in

32:27

that article is that Yosemite Valley

32:29

would be like a minor

32:31

side fjord in this fjord land

32:33

on the east coast of

32:35

Baffin. There were a lot of

32:37

us who saw that and

32:39

became inspired by it. but probably

32:41

not a lot of people

32:43

more so than me personally. And

32:46

the timing of it was just

32:48

such that, you know, I had put

32:50

in a bunch of years in

32:52

Yosemite. It was all about like learning

32:54

the, I would call it like

32:57

the trade of big wall climbing so

32:59

that we could take those skills

33:01

and then go out to places where

33:03

we could find cliffs like the

33:05

ones in Yosemite that nobody even knew

33:07

about. And I had, was just

33:09

coming to, fruition

33:12

you know for lack of

33:14

a better word with what you

33:16

might call kind of like

33:18

this apprenticeship a big wall apprenticeship

33:20

which so many of us

33:22

were working on and then that

33:24

article came out and so

33:26

it was just one of those

33:29

those moments in in life

33:31

where the stars kind of aligned

33:33

and i remember sitting there

33:35

somewhere in yosemite and reading that

33:37

that issue of the American

33:39

Alpine Journal and seeing those pictures

33:41

and seeing Polar Sun Spire

33:43

in particular, which Eugene Fisher named

33:46

and almost having like the

33:48

mountain just sort of lift off

33:50

the page. Like this is

33:52

it. This is why I not

33:54

only have been working my

33:56

way up through the ranks as

33:58

a big wall climber, but

34:00

this is why I climb. so

34:03

that i can go and be

34:05

the one to go up this

34:07

north face of the polar sun

34:10

spire so yeah that was probably

34:12

that was that was probably in

34:14

1994 and so then we went

34:16

for the first time in 1995

34:18

and chris as you know very

34:20

well from hanging out with me

34:22

a bit and chatting like These

34:25

stories literally can go on for

34:27

days. And at the

34:29

pacing that we're covering right

34:31

now with this one, it

34:33

will be that long. But

34:36

yeah, the Polar Sun Spire, it

34:38

took two attempts because we went for

34:40

the first time in 1995. I

34:42

have some crazy stories from

34:44

that first attempt that we made

34:47

on Polar Sun Spire where

34:49

I had... I would say

34:51

the closest call that I've ever

34:53

had in the mountains. And

34:55

so it didn't go, but we climbed some

34:57

other stuff. We went back. Then we, you

34:59

know, we're back in Yosemite. I'm

35:01

sure we saw you and other people

35:03

and you were like, how was it?

35:05

And we're like, yeah, it's not that

35:07

good, man. You wouldn't be interested in

35:10

it. But really what we, what we

35:12

had found was what we thought was

35:14

the greatest cliff. on

35:16

earth that nobody had climbed before,

35:18

which is a polar sun spire.

35:20

It was really me and Warren

35:22

Hollinger, who you know. And we

35:24

just had this inspiration that we

35:26

would go back. So we did.

35:28

We went back in 1996. We

35:31

made the first ascent of the

35:33

polar sun spire. was me and Warren

35:35

and this guy, Jeff Chapman. And

35:37

I really don't know why. I think

35:39

it was because Warren was obsessed

35:41

with sailing. He talked about it constantly.

35:43

And he had this crazy thing,

35:45

and I'm sure he's willing to admit

35:47

this, and he won't mind me

35:49

sharing it, but his thing was, you

35:51

know, we'd sit in the portal

35:53

edge for weeks and be like, what's

35:55

it all about? What are we

35:57

doing? Getting all philosophical, looking out at

35:59

the fjord, you know, watching the

36:01

sun go in circles overhead. And

36:04

Warren would say, the reason why I'm

36:06

doing this, the reason why I big

36:08

wall climb is because I want to

36:10

get to the point where I can

36:12

look out at the world and say,

36:14

at this moment in time, I'm the

36:16

best big wild climber in the world.

36:19

And when I get to that moment, I quit.

36:21

And then I'm going to leave and I'm

36:23

going to go and sail around the world. And

36:26

he'd kind of look over at us and

36:28

we'd be like, holy shit, really? That's why you're

36:30

doing it? I mean,

36:32

I'm doing it because

36:34

it's fun. Because it's

36:36

crazy, you know? Because

36:39

when I'm up here on the

36:41

wall, I'm just like in the

36:44

moment, just existing for like weeks

36:46

on end. It's like being

36:48

at the crux of a pitch

36:50

of rock climbing, like continuously for like

36:52

a month. That's just an

36:54

awesome thing. I mean, I don't even know why I'm

36:56

doing it, but I just know I'm having fun and

36:58

I don't want to do anything else. But

37:00

he was talking constantly about

37:02

sailing. And there was a

37:05

moment. I don't even know if

37:07

I really talked about this in

37:09

the book, but there was a moment

37:11

where it just came out of

37:13

nowhere because I wasn't interested in sailing

37:15

at all at the time. But

37:17

I thought, man, wouldn't Polar

37:19

Sun be a cool name for a

37:21

boat? So that

37:23

was in 1996. And this, I think,

37:25

is an original thought that I

37:27

haven't shared too much before. combined

37:37

with the idea that I would be

37:39

a sailor. It was not anywhere in

37:41

my conception. It was Warren's thing. I

37:43

was like, I'm just going to keep

37:45

climbing, dude. I'm going to

37:47

keep going on these trips, which I did. But,

37:52

yeah, like I said,

37:54

man, long story.

37:56

But it crept up

37:58

on me, you

38:00

know, the whole sailing thing. I

38:02

kind of had assumed, and I know

38:05

you're okay, but I only knew

38:07

you as this climber. Whenever

38:09

I see somebody who does something like

38:11

you've done, and also sort of

38:13

the East Coast kind of connection and

38:15

things like that, I'm like, oh,

38:17

he sailed as a kid. Like one

38:19

of those things where you're out

38:21

at the country club or whatever, the

38:23

yacht club rather, and learn to

38:25

sail as a kid. And I was

38:27

really surprised to find out that

38:29

that isn't in your past, actually. Yeah,

38:31

maybe. Andrew, you're a New Englander,

38:33

aren't you? I am, yeah.

38:36

Maybe you were at the Yacht

38:39

Club as a kid. Actually,

38:41

my high school girlfriend's parents were sailors,

38:43

and so when I was in high

38:45

school, they taught me a little bit

38:47

about sailing. I went to

38:49

college in Boston, and my

38:51

girlfriend and I would rent those

38:53

little dinghies on the Charles

38:56

River and sail around there. That's

38:58

awesome. Yeah. Well, so I grew up

39:00

right near there in the suburbs of

39:02

Boston. And yeah,

39:04

for some reason, we never got

39:06

into that. We weren't country club

39:09

yacht folk, you know, which is

39:11

probably part of it. But somehow

39:13

I went through my entire youth

39:15

where I really don't think I

39:17

ever even got on like a

39:19

sunfish or a laser or any

39:22

of those little dinghy. So I

39:24

had never done it. One

39:27

of the stories in the

39:29

book in terms of the whole

39:31

creation of this idea was

39:33

the expedition that we did to

39:35

Pitcairn Island in 2005. That

39:38

was really the first time

39:40

I had ever done anything on

39:42

a boat. It

39:45

was so interesting in the

39:47

way that it had these

39:49

incredible parallels with mountain climbing.

39:52

In that right off the bat,

39:54

I got my ass kicked harder

39:56

than I had ever had it

39:58

kicked in my life. I got

40:00

super seasick. We were in a

40:02

gale. I mean, it was like 50 knots of

40:04

wind. And I was down

40:06

below. I completely lost the plot.

40:09

I had my head in the

40:11

toilet. I vomited so hard so many

40:13

times for so long that I

40:15

actually pulled a muscle in my neck.

40:18

And so it was bad. And I don't know

40:20

if you guys have been seasick, but it's

40:22

not like other types of suffering. Like it's bad,

40:25

bad, like crying for your mommy. Like, I

40:27

mean, if I could have gotten like a little

40:29

pacifier, I would have probably put it in. But

40:32

then I

40:34

recovered. I got

40:36

through it. And it was kind of

40:38

like getting your ass kicked on a

40:40

wall. where there's like a

40:42

waterfall pouring out of a crack into

40:44

your face and you're shivering and you're

40:46

hanging in your harness and you're like,

40:49

wow, this is, this is really, really

40:51

bad, really, really bad. But then you

40:53

get out of it. I mean, I

40:55

can remember coming, I can remember being

40:57

up on El Cap, coming

40:59

down and just, or just being like,

41:01

I got to get off this wall.

41:03

This is heinous. Like, get me out

41:05

of this. And finally getting down, getting

41:08

to my cave, passing out. Waking

41:11

up the next day, going to

41:13

the meadow and looking up and being

41:15

like, I need to get back

41:17

up there again. And

41:19

having it be like pretty

41:21

quick like that. And the

41:23

sailing thing ended up being

41:25

the same. After I got

41:27

my ass kicked on the storm on

41:29

the way to Pitcairn, I recovered. And

41:32

there was just something about it, like

41:34

the intensity of it. I was like,

41:36

I kind of want more of that.

41:40

ideally next time maybe i won't

41:42

be seasick and so that is

41:44

kind of a crucial thing with

41:46

this whole deal is this the

41:48

seasickness um equation and finding a

41:50

way to overcome that because if

41:52

if you don't it's it's going

41:54

to be miserable all the time

41:56

i just i just found out

41:58

that sean villanuevo driscoll you know

42:00

the the duo that sails around

42:02

he's he's never not been seasick

42:04

on these these things like he

42:06

he for years it doesn't matter

42:08

but he still goes like he's

42:10

not overcome it although he had

42:12

he did come up with a

42:14

system but we don't need to

42:16

get into but i just was

42:18

really surprised at that like dude

42:20

you just it doesn't matter you

42:22

just go anyway and just you

42:24

know you're gonna suffer and you

42:26

just get on the fucking boat

42:28

anyway and i was like all

42:30

right that's that's like legit it

42:32

sounds like a similar thing like

42:35

yeah that's a new level of

42:37

toughness and i did i did

42:39

get seasick in the early days so

42:42

it's like 20 years ago but

42:44

at a certain point i don't know

42:46

what happened but like i just

42:48

sort of like acclimated and got to

42:50

a point where it just went

42:52

away and so now i feel like

42:54

i just don't even worry about

42:57

it anymore i don't even think about

42:59

it i don't take anything i

43:01

don't you know and there's never an

43:03

issue so that's kind of a

43:05

nice feeling to to just

43:07

know that you're finally kind of

43:09

bulletproof as far as that goes,

43:11

because there's plenty of suffering as

43:13

it is without being under the

43:16

weather. So I want

43:18

to get into the Northwest Passage

43:20

part of this story. But before

43:22

we do that, I just want

43:24

to draw or just like hear

43:26

you speak a little bit further

43:28

about the connection between big wall

43:30

climbing and sailing, because to hear

43:32

you describe it both in your

43:34

book and just talking right now.

43:36

it's such an obvious connection in

43:38

some sense, even though they're completely

43:40

different pursuits, you know, obviously across

43:42

a flat ocean and one is

43:44

climbing up a vertical cliff, but

43:46

there's, I don't know, it like

43:49

the word adventure feels like the

43:51

relevant kind of connection point, even

43:53

though that's such a, you know,

43:55

kind of cheesy word, but there,

43:57

maybe you could just like help

43:59

me articulate or just understand what,

44:01

what the, What is

44:03

the common ground between these two

44:05

very seemingly different things? It's

44:07

a great question, Andrew. And

44:09

I think you kind of

44:12

hit it on the head

44:14

there with the idea of

44:16

adventure. I mean, I'm someone

44:18

who I think has built

44:20

my entire life around adventure.

44:22

So I do think about

44:24

the word a lot. And

44:26

you're like, what else could

44:28

we call this? Is there

44:31

something better? But

44:33

it does kind of

44:35

encapsulate it. But I

44:37

think adventure is pretty

44:40

intimately entwined with exploration.

44:42

And exploration is really

44:44

a better word. And

44:46

for me, exploration is

44:48

really like the essence of

44:50

it is curiosity. And

44:52

when I look at myself and

44:55

I think about myself and I

44:57

try to be introspective, which is

44:59

something I feel like I do

45:01

quite a bit, I

45:03

could see curiosity as being

45:05

just like a really central

45:07

basic thing for me. And

45:10

I'm curious

45:13

about a lot

45:15

of things. And

45:17

one of the great things about

45:19

that is that you don't actually

45:22

have to go out and do

45:24

anything physical. I

45:26

don't have to leave this

45:28

little cabin that I'm sitting in

45:30

right here to like exercise

45:32

my curiosity about the world. And

45:34

that's something that I absolutely

45:36

love about being alive. And one

45:38

of the reasons that I

45:40

hope that I can stay alive

45:42

for as long as possible,

45:45

because I'm so curious about so

45:47

many things and I get

45:49

so much joy out of learning

45:51

about things that I didn't

45:53

know anything about. But

45:56

the ultimate intersection

45:58

of these things, I

46:00

think for me

46:02

is curiosity and then

46:05

like physicality out

46:07

in geography. So

46:09

it's kind of like the

46:11

same thing as intellectual curiosity,

46:13

but you're doing it while

46:15

you're on the move in

46:17

the world. And then if

46:20

you can do that in

46:22

crazy, wild, raw,

46:26

places, you end up somewhere that

46:28

for me personally, it just

46:30

feels like, okay, like I don't

46:32

have to question things anymore

46:34

because right now at just a

46:36

gut level, it's so obvious.

46:39

Like this is what I should

46:41

be doing. And I think

46:43

the reason why is because it

46:45

just gives me joy to

46:47

be out in the world and

46:49

to be exploring. And

46:52

I know you guys, understand

46:54

this feeling but for me

46:56

sometimes you know you get

46:58

out there and you're out

47:00

in the middle of nowhere

47:02

you're doing something crazy I'll

47:04

get this incredibly strong feeling

47:06

that that it was meant

47:08

to be that I was

47:10

supposed to be there or

47:12

maybe I wasn't but somebody

47:14

was I'm like tapping into

47:16

something bigger that I mean,

47:18

I'm trying to express something

47:20

that I guess I don't

47:22

really understand, but I'm trying,

47:25

I'm grasping at, describing what

47:27

this thing is. But there's

47:29

an intersection there with climbing

47:31

is one way to get

47:33

there, to get to those

47:35

places. And originally, as a

47:37

younger person, I quite honestly

47:39

thought it was the only

47:41

way. I thought it was

47:43

the best way. But I

47:45

also thought it was the

47:47

only way. I thought it

47:49

was like kind of monodimensional

47:51

for me. And I didn't

47:53

realize, no, it's like this

47:55

whole world. It's like this

47:57

whole cosmos. Here's like one

47:59

thread that leads into it.

48:01

There's actually all these other

48:03

ways to tap into it.

48:05

And that was the epiphany

48:07

that I had on the

48:09

sailing expedition to Pitcairn Island.

48:11

After getting my ass kicked,

48:14

after recovering, after getting back

48:16

into it, and then having

48:18

this moment. where something

48:20

clicked and I thought, oh, like this,

48:22

how I feel right now is

48:24

the exact same way that I feel

48:26

when I have these peak moments

48:28

in the mountains. And it just, it

48:30

was so obvious. And I was

48:33

like, oh, sailing. And then the next

48:35

question was, maybe I was meant

48:37

to be a mariner. Maybe I'm supposed

48:39

to be doing this shit too. And

48:42

then I started thinking about how you

48:44

can combine the two and how they're not

48:46

mutually exclusive and et cetera, et cetera. And

48:49

I became totally and completely

48:51

obsessed with the idea of

48:53

being sailor. And

48:55

that was in 2005. So here we

48:57

are 20 years later, I'm living on

48:59

my boat and I'm doing it. And

49:01

it's like every day I go deeper

49:03

and deeper into it. And every day

49:05

I'm like, man, I hope that nothing

49:07

happens that forces me to stop doing

49:09

this. Cause I could just see

49:11

how far I could go with

49:13

it. And I don't want it to

49:15

end. I don't have a question,

49:17

but just to build on what you're

49:20

saying, it's making me think of

49:22

that famous Shackleton ad that was in

49:24

the paper that said something like,

49:26

you know, this is a perilous journey.

49:28

We need men for this voyage.

49:30

You're likely not to return home safely.

49:33

Like, basically, you're going to die if

49:35

you sign up. And, you know, lo

49:37

and behold, the next day, according to

49:39

the legend, there's like, you know, 100

49:41

dudes standing in line. you

49:43

know, pick me, pick me. And,

49:46

um, and so this thing that

49:48

you're kind of, that you're drilling

49:50

down on is I think a

49:52

timeless, it's something deep within all

49:54

of us. It comes out in

49:57

different ways throughout history, throughout the

49:59

eras, you know, but there's this

50:01

like kind of itch, uh, this

50:03

curiosity, um, to explore, to, um,

50:05

to see the world, to, to,

50:07

to understand and to, and to

50:10

take risk like deep. deep, deep

50:12

risk. And, know, I imagine if,

50:14

you know, you'd been alive back

50:16

at that point, you'd be one

50:18

of those dudes first in line

50:20

for the, you know, the Shackleton

50:23

voyage. And, but you know, here

50:25

it's 2025 and, you know, we

50:27

have advanced climbing ideas and understanding

50:29

and geographical tools. And so the

50:31

world is smaller in a way,

50:34

and there's a lot more that's

50:36

known. But it's still,

50:38

you know, there's still this

50:40

like desire to explore even in

50:42

a world where, you know,

50:44

it's all been done, so to

50:46

speak. And maybe that's

50:48

a good segue into this book

50:51

because, you know, one of the

50:53

interesting aspects of your voyage through

50:55

the Northwest Passage is that it's

50:57

not as though this hasn't been

50:59

done before. It's a passage

51:01

that has been sailed many

51:03

times, but certainly not. many

51:05

many times according by like

51:07

sailing standards but it's certainly

51:09

been done but you have

51:11

a historical question that's part

51:14

of this like curiosity like

51:16

understanding what happened to this

51:18

uh fateful voyage you know

51:20

150 years ago so maybe

51:22

can we can get into

51:24

um just the overview of

51:26

the northwest passage we covered

51:28

how i'm obsessed with adventure

51:30

and exploration and i grew

51:32

up In a family

51:34

where my dad was a

51:36

banker, my mom was a real

51:38

estate broker, I spent a

51:40

lot of time observing my parents

51:42

and seeing what they did

51:45

and like absorbing it. And they

51:47

didn't seem like they loved

51:49

it. And so I

51:51

really internalized that and

51:53

was like, okay. well,

51:56

I'm not going to do the kind of

51:58

stuff that they did. They don't seem happy.

52:00

They don't seem like they like what they

52:02

do. It's more just a chore. My dad

52:05

would talk about how basically, yeah, this sucks,

52:07

but when I'm 65, I get to retire

52:09

and then I can enjoy life. And then

52:11

my dad would also say, I'm going to

52:13

live to be 80. And

52:15

I would sit there, little kid in

52:17

the back seat, and like, I'm not,

52:19

you know, like a mathematician or anything,

52:21

but 80 minus 65, 15. I'm

52:24

like, wow, that sounds like a pretty shitty equation.

52:26

Like, so this whole deal is about those 15

52:28

years and you're going to play golf and do

52:30

whatever. So from

52:32

a very early age, I said

52:34

to myself, no, I know

52:36

what I'm passionate about. I know

52:38

what gives me joy. I'm

52:40

going to try to get my

52:43

work and that like avocation

52:45

to line up and to be

52:47

on parallel paths. I want

52:49

to spend my life doing. the

52:52

stuff that makes me happy. I don't want

52:54

to do a job that I don't like, so

52:56

then I could get time off to do

52:58

the thing that I like. And

53:00

the reason why I bring that

53:02

up is because it ties in,

53:04

you know, intimately to this whole

53:07

idea of like, why did we

53:09

go after solving, trying to solve

53:11

this historical mystery in the Northwest

53:13

Passage? The reason is because that

53:15

is how I have figured out

53:17

to get my work and my

53:19

play to be on the same

53:21

path. So just me taking my

53:23

boat and sailing into the Northwest

53:25

Passage, like that's awesome. Like in

53:27

a perfect world, I would just

53:29

do that. But in order for

53:31

it to come together, I needed

53:33

to get sponsorship. I needed financial

53:35

backing for the expedition. And in

53:37

a perfect world, I needed to

53:39

take the expedition and turn it

53:41

into work. turn it into job.

53:43

If I turn it into work,

53:45

I've got money that I can

53:48

put in the bank while I'm

53:50

gone. I have a pretty solid

53:52

justification for my family for why

53:54

I'm doing it. And in my

53:56

case, it's not just a one

53:58

-off like, oh, hey, I came

54:00

up with this crazy idea. It's

54:02

like, no, this is kind of

54:04

what I do. And I have

54:06

this past track record and this

54:08

is actually what I do for

54:10

a career. And I

54:12

end up with this

54:14

whole justification that makes

54:16

the entire enterprise work

54:19

for me. personally. So

54:21

once I had the idea like, wow,

54:24

I have this incredible boat now. I

54:26

have polar sun. What could I do

54:28

with this thing? Ultimately, I would love

54:30

to sail this boat really far, like

54:32

maybe even like all the way around

54:34

the world. But I can't do that

54:36

yet because I'm not at that point.

54:38

My kids aren't grown up yet. I

54:40

still have kids in the house. When

54:43

my daughter goes to college, maybe I could

54:46

do that. That's a few years out, but

54:48

I have this boat. What kind of crazy

54:50

mission could I do as like a shakedown

54:52

cruise? That was where

54:54

the idea for the Northwest Passage

54:56

was originally born. Then I spent

54:58

a bunch of time thinking about,

55:00

could I do it? Could polar

55:03

sun do it? Could I do

55:05

it? Like, am I ready

55:07

for something like this? I spent

55:09

about six months contemplating all that. And

55:11

once I decided that the answer

55:13

to both of those questions was yes.

55:16

Then I kind of zoomed out a bit and

55:18

I said, and this is like just full transparency,

55:20

and I think I tried to do this in

55:22

the book too. What

55:24

kind of a story could I tell

55:26

where I'm not just going doing this

55:28

for fun? I've turned this into work.

55:30

I turned this into a job. But

55:32

again, a job that I love doing. I

55:35

love history. And,

55:37

you know, the

55:39

whole Franklin expedition

55:42

mystery. is like

55:44

there's nothing really more

55:46

obvious when it comes to

55:48

the Northwest Passage. Go

55:50

back a little bit and

55:52

I've just done something

55:54

really similar on Mount Everest.

55:56

Same kind of thing,

55:58

really. Same thought process, same

56:00

path, you know, as

56:02

I put it together. Hey,

56:05

look at this mystery

56:07

of Mallory and Irvin. Did

56:09

those guys summit Mount

56:11

Everest in 1924? wow,

56:13

that's one of the great mysteries of

56:15

mountaineering and exploration. Is there a

56:17

way that you could do an expedition

56:19

where you could go to Everest

56:21

and you could do climbing on the

56:23

mountain with the idea of trying

56:26

to solve that mystery? So I talked

56:28

to my literary agent and I

56:30

said, is it cheesy if I just

56:32

follow the same template again and

56:34

I just do the exact same thing?

56:36

But instead of Everest, it's the

56:38

Northwest Passage. Instead of mountaineering, it's sailing.

56:40

Instead of Mallory and Irvin, It's

56:42

the Franklin Expedition. And she said, no

56:44

way, man. This is a great

56:47

formula. Like, do it. Let's do it

56:49

again. And so, again,

56:51

another long convoluted answer. But

56:53

that's the way that

56:55

it came together. Just

56:57

to jump ahead a little bit, we

56:59

do the expedition. We come back. I'm jumping

57:02

way ahead. I was like, okay, the

57:04

expedition was kind of epic. I'm

57:06

talking to my editor. He's like, you

57:08

know. You don't even need the Franklin

57:10

thing at this point. Like you could

57:12

just write about what you did. This

57:14

could be your first person story of

57:16

doing the Northwest Passage. And when I

57:18

first got back and I was sizing

57:20

this up, that was the central question.

57:23

Am I going to do the same

57:25

thing that I did with the third

57:27

pole and have this transcontinental narrative where

57:29

I weave these two stories together? One

57:31

is like my first person contemporary story

57:33

of going on this crazy adventure. And

57:35

the other is the history. Of

57:38

this, you know, mystery. And

57:41

ultimately, I decided that I wanted

57:43

to follow that same template for

57:45

the simple reason that I love

57:47

history. And I knew that if

57:49

I did it that way, that

57:51

I was going to have to

57:54

go super deep into all that

57:56

history. I was going to have

57:58

to read 50 books. I was

58:00

going to have to digest it

58:02

all. And what I wanted to

58:04

do was take it all. and

58:08

like try to the best of

58:10

my ability to kind of figure it

58:12

out and, and it's very complicated

58:14

story and then like kind of

58:16

boil it down to its essence and

58:18

then weave it into my story.

58:21

And I did that just because I

58:23

wanted to, because I thought that

58:25

it would be cool and that

58:27

it would be fun for me. So

58:29

I don't know if that was

58:31

really what you were driving at with

58:33

that question, but that's, um, sort

58:36

of how I feel about it. This

58:38

mystery has been going on

58:40

for the 100 years since it

58:43

happened, or more than that, in

58:45

little fits and spurts and all

58:47

these sorts of things. But it

58:49

also seems like you did

58:51

happen to tap into a resurgence

58:53

in it. It's interesting because when

58:55

I first started hearing about

58:57

you interested in that or whatever,

58:59

I had actually just read a

59:01

couple of those books. especially

59:04

the one that has sort of been

59:06

a little bit discredited about the the lead

59:08

poisoning but that one led me to

59:10

another one because i actually did a whole

59:12

jag on this on on the age

59:14

of exploration before that and then got into

59:16

the polar thing for years actually i

59:18

was reading all magellan and all these guys

59:21

um but it was interesting that it

59:23

kind of seemed to happen at the right

59:25

time i mean you know amc picks

59:27

up and does this like absolutely bonkers series

59:29

on it which i don't know if

59:31

you've seen but it's It's awesome in its

59:33

own way, this fictionalized version of it.

59:35

So it was there in the ether and

59:37

it seems like it just kind of,

59:39

it also was a good, good bit of

59:41

timing. Plus there was,

59:43

you know, things being discovered, research. I

59:45

mean, a couple of things I've sent to

59:47

you since then and you've, I'm sure

59:50

saw on your own, but I was, you

59:52

know, kind of checking it

59:54

out to have come up even since

59:56

your, your journey. But it's, so

59:58

to me, even as a climber, it

1:00:00

is much more interesting tale than,

1:00:02

than. Irving and Mallory to me. Those

1:00:05

guys went up there and they

1:00:07

fell off. They didn't make it. Even

1:00:09

if they did summit, to me,

1:00:12

as a climber and a mountaineer, it

1:00:14

doesn't matter. They didn't come down.

1:00:16

You don't get to take it if

1:00:18

you don't get down, in my

1:00:20

opinion. There's a real dead end there

1:00:22

that's pretty tight. There's

1:00:24

so many wild loose ends and

1:00:27

things with the Franklin Expedition. I

1:00:29

just found it way more fascinating.

1:00:31

And enjoyed like your little discoveries

1:00:33

of these more like discovering the

1:00:35

characters who had been involved in

1:00:37

this search and were like more

1:00:39

obsessed than you was sort of

1:00:42

your story in some ways. You

1:00:44

know, finding these characters whose lives

1:00:46

had also been intertwined with this

1:00:48

mystery was, I think, a cool

1:00:50

part of how you did things.

1:00:52

I mean, I think that's why

1:00:54

we're talking now is because you

1:00:56

have this interest in. in

1:00:59

the story in arctic history

1:01:01

and i mean i first got

1:01:03

tapped into it when i

1:01:05

was in college and at that

1:01:08

point i kind of didn't

1:01:10

really know that much about it

1:01:12

and yeah it it fired

1:01:14

the imagination and i think that

1:01:16

that was there kind of

1:01:19

resonating under the surface without me

1:01:21

you know totally realizing it

1:01:23

and i think that that's part

1:01:25

of the path that led

1:01:27

me to going on this expedition

1:01:30

but you're right about the

1:01:32

story having so much depth the

1:01:34

the whole franklin mystery you

1:01:36

know i mean for one thing

1:01:38

it's not two guys it's

1:01:41

129 people and they disappeared and

1:01:43

still to this day we

1:01:45

don't know what happened but i

1:01:47

tried to weave all these

1:01:49

little tidbits into the story to

1:01:52

give like my best telling

1:01:54

of like what we think and

1:01:57

what we know but one of

1:01:59

the most fascinating things in that series

1:02:01

you talked about the terror it

1:02:03

ties into this thing and one of

1:02:05

the things that's so interesting about

1:02:07

the terror and that by the way

1:02:09

is based on a book by

1:02:11

a guy named Dan Simmons is that

1:02:13

it's like a huge amount of

1:02:15

it is all historically accurate But

1:02:18

then he makes stuff up.

1:02:20

I mean, I didn't even know

1:02:22

you could do that. He's

1:02:24

attributing some diabolical stuff to actual,

1:02:26

real, historical characters who existed

1:02:28

in real life. I'm reading the

1:02:30

book, and I'm thinking, if

1:02:32

I was this guy's long -lost

1:02:34

relatives, I wouldn't really be that

1:02:36

psyched on the way that

1:02:38

he is being characterized. But

1:02:40

one of the things that's in that

1:02:42

book, and that is based on... Historical

1:02:46

testimony from Inuit

1:02:48

is this idea

1:02:50

that some, maybe

1:02:52

one small band

1:02:54

of Franklin crew

1:02:56

were still alive

1:02:58

in like 1855.

1:03:01

I mean, the boats

1:03:03

got trapped in

1:03:05

the ice. eight years

1:03:08

before that so i mean you want

1:03:10

to talk about depth like if if

1:03:12

that inuit testimony is right and

1:03:14

you had 129 guys in eight years

1:03:16

you're down to a band of like

1:03:18

three or four guys like what like

1:03:20

what is that story how the hell

1:03:22

do those guys survive how did they

1:03:25

survive for that long and i i

1:03:27

cover this in the book at the

1:03:29

end like obviously they were they've they

1:03:31

had to have been living with the

1:03:33

inuit And so that's what makes it

1:03:35

so tantalizing and why it is really

1:03:37

a thing to see if you

1:03:39

could find some records. There's that cairn

1:03:42

that I talk about in the book

1:03:44

that's out on the Melville Peninsula where

1:03:46

like multiple different groups of Inuit talk

1:03:48

about this cairn and how there's papers

1:03:50

inside of it has never been found.

1:03:52

There's only one party of two guys

1:03:54

who have ever even gone to look

1:03:56

for it. That's a totally thing than

1:03:59

what we did going to look

1:04:01

for Franklin's tomb on King William Island.

1:04:03

Like you want to watch another one?

1:04:05

Let's go to the Melville Peninsula and

1:04:07

see if we can find this other

1:04:09

cairn that supposedly has papers in it. This

1:04:12

cairn was built in

1:04:14

like the mid 1850s. Those

1:04:16

papers could tell us

1:04:18

what happened during all those

1:04:20

intervening years. Imagine like

1:04:22

the story that they would

1:04:24

tell. So yes, like

1:04:26

that stuff. That

1:04:28

kind of stuff is incredibly

1:04:31

tantalizing. It kind of taps into

1:04:33

that thing we were talking

1:04:35

about before, which I just call

1:04:37

curiosity. I think that's why

1:04:39

the people are so obsessed with

1:04:41

mysteries, because we're just curious

1:04:43

and there's just something inside of

1:04:45

us that wants to know.

1:04:47

We want to have that missing

1:04:49

piece of knowledge. So that

1:04:51

thing was right at the essence

1:04:53

of our expedition. There

1:04:57

was no reality in which I

1:04:59

wasn't going to be weaving all

1:05:01

that into my story. But I

1:05:03

will say, and I hope that

1:05:05

people will read the book, and

1:05:07

I'm really appreciative of you guys

1:05:09

for doing so. But

1:05:11

I will say that that was extremely

1:05:13

challenging for me to take my story

1:05:15

and then weave it into all that

1:05:17

history and to do it in a

1:05:19

way that was coherent. I hope that

1:05:21

you can't even really tell. And that

1:05:23

as you're reading it, you're like, oh,

1:05:25

cool, we're over in this one. Yeah,

1:05:27

this kind of makes sense. We're doing

1:05:29

this now. Oh, we're back over here. To

1:05:32

put that together was so challenging

1:05:34

because we had some disjoint in our

1:05:36

own chronology with our expedition and

1:05:38

everything. But I ultimately decided that instead

1:05:40

of doing it chronologically, I was

1:05:42

going to do it through the geography.

1:05:45

And again, hopefully that's not even

1:05:47

obvious and it just sort of like

1:05:49

slips under the radar and you're

1:05:51

just reading it and you're going kind

1:05:53

of back and forth. I

1:05:55

mean, I think when you

1:05:58

write a book, you finally

1:06:00

get, know, your copy. And

1:06:03

then you're like, I'm going to read it

1:06:05

one last time. And I'm going to see. And

1:06:07

you're never going to read it again. No

1:06:09

way. But you're going to read it one last

1:06:11

time. And it's been months since you created

1:06:13

it. And hopefully you have that separation. And you

1:06:15

try to be like, I'm just some random

1:06:17

person. And now I'm going to read this. And

1:06:20

how does it come across? How does it

1:06:22

sit on the page and all that? I'm

1:06:24

sure a lot of authors are like this,

1:06:26

but like when I, I'm like in my

1:06:28

own head, I'm like, I don't know. I

1:06:30

don't know how I did. I'm not so

1:06:32

sure about this, but when I, and again,

1:06:34

I'm just patting myself on the back, but

1:06:36

when I read it, I was like, I

1:06:39

like this kind of makes sense.

1:06:41

Like it works. So I was

1:06:43

like really kind of happy. I

1:06:45

just finished that process recently and

1:06:48

that's it. And I will, I

1:06:50

will never do it again, you

1:06:52

know, but. you know, in terms

1:06:54

of reading that book. But now

1:06:56

it's up to other people, you

1:06:58

know, to see like how that

1:07:00

all hangs together. But I guess

1:07:02

what I'm saying in a long

1:07:04

convoluted way is that I'm really

1:07:06

happy that I included all that

1:07:09

Franklin history because if nothing else,

1:07:11

it just forced me to go

1:07:13

so deep into it. And I

1:07:15

did, my ideal reader of this

1:07:17

story is someone who doesn't know

1:07:19

all this Arctic history. And I

1:07:21

really wrote it primarily from that

1:07:23

standpoint. But because I had to

1:07:25

lean on so many Arctic historians

1:07:28

to figure everything out, it was

1:07:30

like, as I'm writing the book,

1:07:32

I'm thinking about like two guys,

1:07:34

three guys who are like the

1:07:36

world's leading experts on this subject.

1:07:38

I'm like, what are they going

1:07:40

to think? And that was

1:07:42

really important to me. So I was

1:07:44

trying to do both things. I was

1:07:46

trying to do that with the other

1:07:48

books too, where I'm writing this for

1:07:50

the layperson, but I want hardcore climbers

1:07:52

to be like, cool, Mark. Yeah, we're

1:07:55

good here. Nice job. There's

1:07:57

another thread in the book. There's

1:07:59

the sailing stuff, and then there's the

1:08:01

historical stuff, but then there's the crew

1:08:03

and the interpersonal stuff, and particularly your

1:08:05

relationship with a guy you thought of as

1:08:07

your mentor. Maybe that was a mistake

1:08:09

to think of him that way, but

1:08:11

I won't give away the sort of

1:08:13

climax of that relationship. Ben

1:08:16

and uh you know and that

1:08:18

like when Andrew asked the question

1:08:20

about like the climbing thing um

1:08:22

I thought that was also very

1:08:24

pertinent in the sense of partnerships

1:08:26

you know and I kept thinking

1:08:28

of I mean you guys were

1:08:30

on the polar sunspire for 40

1:08:32

what days 48 I know what

1:08:34

39 36 39 okay you know

1:08:36

and you have this like you

1:08:38

know this little sort of closed

1:08:41

capsule of these portal edges and

1:08:43

and you know famously in that

1:08:45

in that story of the polar

1:08:47

sun spire you guys had this

1:08:49

you know janky setup with a

1:08:51

hammock underneath and like we're used

1:08:53

to these giant beady you know

1:08:55

huge separate zones in in a

1:08:57

climb but those are the olden

1:08:59

times and and cheaply done so

1:09:01

you guys had this crap situation

1:09:04

with three guys stuffed in this

1:09:06

tiny relatively tiny which we thought was

1:09:08

awesome at the time we thought

1:09:10

we were the luckiest dudes in the

1:09:12

world to have that hammock what'd

1:09:14

you guys call it we

1:09:16

called it little rico rico right little

1:09:18

rico yeah i don't know if you've

1:09:21

ever spent time in little rico but

1:09:23

yeah it's not wonderful but um but

1:09:25

then i you know and then it's

1:09:27

the same thing in these boats right

1:09:29

you're on top of each other your

1:09:31

shit's every in everybody's way you all

1:09:33

stink you're all and and then all

1:09:35

that brings out like good and bad

1:09:37

and everybody and um yeah so that

1:09:39

was an interesting part of it and

1:09:42

you know obviously you want something to

1:09:44

go smoothly and everybody to get along

1:09:46

and you're like this you know, seal

1:09:48

team six, well -oiled team out there doing

1:09:50

your thing. But at the same time,

1:09:52

that's a completely naive expectation. But what

1:09:54

was your reviewing that? And as you're

1:09:56

writing it, you know, and it's very

1:09:58

personal and you kind of have to

1:10:01

expose everybody's warts, so to speak. Tell

1:10:03

me about that process of writing

1:10:06

about that interpersonal. And also when

1:10:08

you were on the expedition, you know,

1:10:10

was it surprising how... you know

1:10:12

things turned out as far as

1:10:14

um how you guys got along and

1:10:16

worked together and things out there

1:10:18

yeah another another great question you know

1:10:20

and if you go back and

1:10:23

you look at all this history

1:10:25

like the history of exploration the golden

1:10:27

age of exploration discovery golden age

1:10:29

mountaineering you read all those books

1:10:31

which i know you guys have and

1:10:33

i have too there's kind of

1:10:35

like a stiff upper lip understated

1:10:38

kind of thing where like

1:10:40

that interpersonal stuff is essentially not

1:10:43

touched upon. It's almost

1:10:45

like kind of like a taboo,

1:10:47

like, yeah, we don't talk about

1:10:49

that. And as a result, a

1:10:51

lot of it is like, it

1:10:53

can be a little dry. And

1:10:56

so I like when

1:10:58

I read stuff, like, let's

1:11:00

say like kind of

1:11:02

zoom out from that little

1:11:04

niche of, of, of

1:11:06

literature, if you want to call

1:11:08

it that. And I'd love nothing more

1:11:11

than nonfiction and like a great

1:11:13

story with some history where I'm going

1:11:15

to learn some stuff about the

1:11:17

world that I didn't know, but like,

1:11:19

it's crazy story. That's more wild

1:11:21

than anything that you could make up.

1:11:23

That's like my perfect nonfiction. And

1:11:26

there's quite a bit of stuff like

1:11:28

that out there. When I'm reading

1:11:30

that kind of stuff, I'm seeing like

1:11:32

the best authors, they don't pull

1:11:34

any punches. It's

1:11:36

warts and all. And

1:11:39

as soon as you

1:11:41

start homogenizing, smoothing stuff over,

1:11:43

well, I can't piss off this person, and I

1:11:45

can't piss off this person, and I can't piss

1:11:47

off this person. We all know there's quite a

1:11:49

bit of that kind of thing going on in

1:11:51

our world and our culture right now. Oh,

1:11:54

I can't do this. I'm going to get canceled.

1:11:56

I can't do this. I'm going to piss off this

1:11:58

faction of society. I can't do this. These people

1:12:00

are going to be angry at me. I

1:12:02

think if you're... hyper

1:12:05

concerned about that and you just

1:12:07

want to homogenize everything or at

1:12:09

least for me personally I would

1:12:11

just bow out and be like

1:12:13

what's the point and it's one

1:12:15

of the things that I love

1:12:17

about you guys is that I

1:12:20

think you understand what I'm saying

1:12:22

it's obvious I mean like reading

1:12:24

Andrew's writing it's like I love

1:12:26

this you know we're not pulling

1:12:28

any punches here so I try

1:12:30

to do that with my books

1:12:32

and I'm sure it's kind of like

1:12:34

a spectrum, and there's some people who are like, oh,

1:12:36

wow, this is a little much. I'm

1:12:39

reviewing this book for the New

1:12:41

York Times. I'm going to shred this

1:12:43

guy. He's total sexist. Or

1:12:45

other people are like,

1:12:47

this is too mild.

1:12:50

And the truth is, it all has

1:12:52

been homogenized, but I'm trying to be

1:12:54

as edgy as I possibly can. So

1:12:56

your first draft, okay, we're just going

1:12:58

to... I'm just going to tell it

1:13:00

all. I'm just going to put it

1:13:02

all down. There is a

1:13:04

lot of stuff that got

1:13:06

left on the cutting room floor

1:13:09

in this book, like chapters

1:13:11

of stuff, more stuff that is

1:13:13

like really edgy and kind

1:13:15

of out there. And like after

1:13:17

the first draft, I read

1:13:19

it and I was like, yikes,

1:13:21

no, this is too much.

1:13:23

This makes people look bad, but

1:13:26

more than anyone, it makes

1:13:28

me look bad. So we're going

1:13:30

to do some homogenizing. So

1:13:32

the smoothing over is what you

1:13:34

read. I mean, this, I

1:13:36

guess, will be a little bit confusing, but

1:13:38

like, okay, yeah, I'm going to do

1:13:40

the edgy first draft. But actually, even before

1:13:42

that, I did say to myself, and

1:13:44

I talked to my editor, maybe I'll just

1:13:47

completely gloss over the whole thing with

1:13:49

Ben and I. Maybe I just won't write

1:13:51

about it at all. And

1:13:54

my editor, for

1:13:56

one, strongly... discouraged

1:13:59

me from that. And he was like, no,

1:14:01

like you gotta, it's the opposite of that.

1:14:03

You gotta lean into it. You have to

1:14:05

tell that story. But I

1:14:07

was super uncomfortable with it. You know,

1:14:09

I didn't really want to because I

1:14:11

was just, I guess more than anything,

1:14:13

just really concerned. Like, well, how's Ben

1:14:15

going to feel about it? You know?

1:14:17

And I care about that a lot. But

1:14:20

I ultimately decided like, okay, I'm going

1:14:22

to go, I'm just going to, I'm going

1:14:24

to tell the story. I mean, my

1:14:26

editor wants that. And I'm just going to

1:14:29

be truthful. I'm going to truthfully tell

1:14:31

how this all went down from my perspective.

1:14:33

And again, that's part of the problem

1:14:35

is like the only voice that like these

1:14:37

other people have is the one that

1:14:39

I give to them. And that's kind of

1:14:41

inherently unfair. So I

1:14:43

recognized all that. I

1:14:45

went in, I did that edgy

1:14:47

first draft. Then yeah,

1:14:49

it was, it was over the

1:14:51

top. Nobody ever needs to know

1:14:54

some of the other stuff that

1:14:56

was in there. But it was

1:14:58

all, in my estimation, kind of

1:15:00

true things that happened. I smoothed

1:15:02

that all over and then I

1:15:04

just kept smoothing and homogenizing until

1:15:06

I got to the draft that

1:15:08

I did. And I would say

1:15:10

that there was probably nothing that

1:15:12

I was more concerned about or

1:15:14

there was more of a dark

1:15:16

cloud hanging over me than how

1:15:18

Ben would feel about it. Would

1:15:20

he feel that it was kind

1:15:22

of okay or not? And

1:15:24

eventually I shared it with him. And,

1:15:26

you know, it went okay.

1:15:29

We did. You're like, can I read the

1:15:31

first draft? Yeah,

1:15:33

there's a lot. Yeah, it's

1:15:35

a long story. But

1:15:37

there was a lot of

1:15:39

tension. But it was really interesting.

1:15:41

When we finally kind of had it out,

1:15:43

he said that he didn't feel it. And

1:15:46

I was like, wow.

1:15:49

It's so thick on this boat that, like, you

1:15:51

could cut it with a knife. Like, I

1:15:53

mean, I've done lots of expeditions. Like, I know

1:15:55

what it feels like when things are tense. You

1:15:58

know, I've been divorced. I've been,

1:16:00

you know, in a relationship where I'm,

1:16:02

like, walking on eggshells in my

1:16:04

own house. I know how this

1:16:07

feels. And that's how it

1:16:09

feels now on this boat. And now it's,

1:16:11

like, it's literally, like, it's blown up

1:16:13

in our faces. And we're talking about it.

1:16:15

And you're like, I don't know what

1:16:17

you're talking about. I'm like, what? Seriously?

1:16:20

Wasn't that the problem? I

1:16:22

mean, that was part of

1:16:24

the problem. You're like, nothing.

1:16:26

You're like, I'm imagining it.

1:16:28

Like, that's crazy. Lead

1:16:31

poison. So,

1:16:33

yeah. So, the

1:16:35

tension built up.

1:16:37

But anyways. it's

1:16:40

really cool. Like the way that

1:16:42

it came together and I don't

1:16:44

want to give away too much

1:16:46

in the book, but then, you

1:16:49

know, too much. That's like part

1:16:51

of the story, but I could

1:16:53

say with, with 100 % confidence

1:16:55

that we came out of it

1:16:57

stronger than we were. And we

1:16:59

started and we're, we're, we're friends

1:17:02

still. And that's kind of an

1:17:04

awesome thing. And that's really what

1:17:06

saved it. And there was a

1:17:08

moment where I was like, well,

1:17:10

that's it. I'm done. I'm done.

1:17:12

I can't do this anymore. I

1:17:15

would rather risk my life than

1:17:17

keep going as we are because

1:17:19

I am miserable. I can't stand

1:17:21

like the way that it's going

1:17:23

right now on this boat. And

1:17:25

there was probably like one thing,

1:17:28

like one sentence that he could

1:17:30

have said to fix that. And

1:17:33

he found it. And

1:17:35

he said, I didn't even know

1:17:37

that there was anything that could fix

1:17:39

it. Like, I'm like, we're done.

1:17:41

We're completely fatally broken. And

1:17:44

I saw no way out. And

1:17:46

then he said something. It was

1:17:48

like instant, like, oh, holy shit.

1:17:50

Like, we're going to be okay.

1:17:53

And that, I think, kind

1:17:55

of like just says

1:17:57

it all. And that's why

1:18:00

we're still. friends

1:18:02

now, you know, and

1:18:04

sometimes, yeah, like with

1:18:06

people, I guess I would

1:18:08

say with, with people that

1:18:10

I really care about and

1:18:12

that people that I consider

1:18:14

true friends, I'm willing to

1:18:16

cut them immense amount of

1:18:18

slack. Like you can

1:18:20

fuck stuff up every which way imaginable,

1:18:22

but if you're like on my true

1:18:25

friend list, like you're going to, you're

1:18:27

going to get a pass. on

1:18:29

all of that and i'm going

1:18:31

to give you the benefit of

1:18:33

the doubt and i hope that

1:18:36

my friends would do the same

1:18:38

for me and like my spouse

1:18:40

because i'm a i'm a deeply

1:18:42

flawed human being i mean i

1:18:44

think we all are but like

1:18:46

i mean i'm really i got

1:18:48

some issues so i hope people

1:18:50

will i hope they'll really like

1:18:53

cut me quite a

1:18:55

bit of slack because i'm gonna

1:18:57

screw up a lot of stuff

1:18:59

i know i did on this

1:19:01

expedition and i tried to be

1:19:03

really honest about that in the

1:19:05

book i tried to balance you

1:19:07

know like stuff that would be

1:19:09

perceived or was critical with like

1:19:11

hey let me like turn that

1:19:13

same lens back on myself and

1:19:15

we all have our blinders on

1:19:19

I try really hard to see past

1:19:21

my own blinders, but part of

1:19:23

it is that I know that I

1:19:25

have them. Well,

1:19:28

I'll just say that part of

1:19:30

the story is no less compelling.

1:19:32

I mean, we've got, again, all

1:19:35

these threads, adventure and history, but

1:19:37

I loved it because, I mean,

1:19:39

that's been one of my great

1:19:41

criticisms of climbing media in general,

1:19:43

and you're on the North Face

1:19:45

team. or still are have been.

1:19:47

I can't, I don't know what's

1:19:49

going on with that, but, um,

1:19:51

you know, and I, I've so many

1:19:53

years, so many times, like watch some

1:19:55

piece of media from them and knowing

1:19:57

everybody who was on the expedition, I'm

1:19:59

like, that's not how it went. Like

1:20:02

dude was ready to punch that guy

1:20:04

out and she, you know, like, but

1:20:06

it was all just like, we're all

1:20:08

in this together. Hooray, like high fiving.

1:20:10

And it just, and even those old,

1:20:12

old books you were talking about. I

1:20:14

mean, like, you know, Anna Perna is

1:20:16

like primarily horse shit. you know and

1:20:18

it's like one of the great books

1:20:20

of all times and people had to

1:20:22

like take legal action against each other

1:20:24

about how each other were depicted and

1:20:26

you know and Messner and and Peter

1:20:28

Havel are like they you know they

1:20:30

had this whole thing going on under

1:20:32

the scenes and you just had to

1:20:34

find out about that later and so

1:20:37

I've like a lot of those stories

1:20:39

have just been like well where was

1:20:41

the truth then this is you know

1:20:43

so anyhow i like that part of

1:20:45

it a lot and and you know

1:20:47

i'd love to read that first draft

1:20:49

now um whatever that's gonna happen okay

1:20:51

maybe if you come to the next

1:20:53

time you're on the boat you can

1:20:55

read like i'll print it and you

1:20:57

can read it here and then we'll

1:20:59

burn okay okay cool we'll burn it

1:21:01

pour some rum on it and light

1:21:03

it on fire well tequila So

1:21:09

when does the book come out officially? And

1:21:11

I mean, I'm just like kind of sitting here.

1:21:14

You're telling us you're about to

1:21:16

embark on another voyage. So I

1:21:18

assume you're not going on a

1:21:20

book media tour. Are we the

1:21:22

only interview that you're doing? Or

1:21:24

did you just like give the

1:21:27

big middle finger to your publishing

1:21:29

team and just like see you

1:21:31

guys later in nine months when

1:21:33

I'm back on land? Well, yeah,

1:21:35

no, those are good questions. So

1:21:37

the, I mean, this is kind

1:21:39

of interesting and it is, it's,

1:21:42

it's convoluted, but the boat, the

1:21:44

book comes out on April 15th

1:21:46

and April 15th is the day

1:21:48

that hopefully we are setting off

1:21:50

from, from this port that we're

1:21:52

in called Barra de Navidad in

1:21:54

Mexico. And we're

1:21:57

setting off for the

1:21:59

Marquesas in French Polynesia.

1:22:02

that's, it's like 2 ,800 nautical

1:22:04

miles. So it's going to take

1:22:06

us three to four weeks.

1:22:08

So I'm prepping for that right

1:22:10

now. And I guess I

1:22:12

would just say it's kind of

1:22:14

a coincidence that the dates

1:22:16

happen to be exactly the same.

1:22:19

I wasn't really sure, like if

1:22:21

I'm going on a book tour,

1:22:23

but like when we kind of

1:22:25

stack that up against. What

1:22:27

I have going on with this boat

1:22:29

and the fact that there's certain windows

1:22:31

when you want to do this kind

1:22:33

of stuff because of the weather and

1:22:35

the conditions and so forth. It just

1:22:37

happened that they lined up perfectly. And

1:22:39

then we realized, like, I could do

1:22:41

stuff like this. I'm hanging out with

1:22:43

you guys. You guys are awesome. You're

1:22:45

supporting me. That is hugely appreciated. One

1:22:50

of the big things, I'm

1:22:52

told, again, full transparency, marketing department

1:22:54

at Dutton Books. Like, dude, you

1:22:56

got to get the book in

1:22:58

the hands of social media

1:23:00

influencers. That apparently

1:23:02

is a great way

1:23:04

to sell books. Am

1:23:06

I doing that? Yes,

1:23:09

I'm trying. Like, think

1:23:11

of a famous climber that you

1:23:13

know. They have probably gotten a message

1:23:15

from me. You're

1:23:17

bosom buddies with Chin and Honnold,

1:23:19

man. You're done. Like, that's all you

1:23:21

got to do. of them. They,

1:23:24

they both, they're both,

1:23:26

they're both on board.

1:23:28

Um, so yeah, I mean, I

1:23:31

don't really good marketing plan. I'm

1:23:33

going sailing and I'm giving my

1:23:35

book to Jimmy Chin. I guess

1:23:37

so. He's going to take care

1:23:39

of the rest. I will say

1:23:41

that, um, man,

1:23:43

like the adventure, the

1:23:45

writing, the storytelling, all that,

1:23:48

it's really, really hard,

1:23:50

but I, I do, I,

1:23:52

I enjoy it in

1:23:54

the deepest possible way. The

1:23:57

marketing, you guys probably have

1:23:59

to do marketing for what

1:24:01

you do. Like it's distasteful.

1:24:04

It's not

1:24:07

nice. I don't

1:24:09

like doing it. You know, I have

1:24:11

a mountain guiding business in New Hampshire.

1:24:13

It's like same deal. Like we're terrible, terrible

1:24:16

at marketing. I mean,

1:24:18

I can sell an

1:24:20

adventure. I

1:24:22

mean, I sold National Geographic on me

1:24:24

taking my own scrappy boat through

1:24:26

the Northwest Passage. That was definitely not

1:24:28

easy. But I would say that

1:24:30

I could really turn it on when

1:24:32

the thing that's powering it is

1:24:34

like, I'm going to get to go

1:24:37

on this insane adventure. I love

1:24:39

that. That brings out the best in

1:24:41

me. But when it comes to

1:24:43

selling the book that came out of

1:24:45

that at the end, it's a

1:24:47

lot harder. Yeah, but can't you

1:24:49

think of it as like... like putting

1:24:51

it in the bank for that next

1:24:53

adventure that you haven't thought. hope so. Yeah.

1:24:55

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean?

1:24:57

I mean, if this is successful, that leads

1:24:59

to the next one. Right. So I

1:25:01

mean, there's so much change your attitude. There's

1:25:04

so much stuff like

1:25:06

going on behind the scenes

1:25:08

that we don't talk

1:25:10

about, but like being an

1:25:12

author is, is really

1:25:15

hard. And. The

1:25:17

unfortunate part about it, like

1:25:19

the marketing and all that kind

1:25:21

of stuff and like how

1:25:23

much your book sells is intimately

1:25:25

entwined with whether you are

1:25:28

going to keep doing this thing

1:25:30

or not. And

1:25:32

so it's like, it's, it's

1:25:34

beyond mission critical. If

1:25:36

you have a dud, it's

1:25:38

not good. So.

1:25:42

So yeah, on the one hand, you know,

1:25:44

you have to be like super motivated, but

1:25:46

like marketing stuff that you're not good at. And

1:25:49

you're like, it's really easy to be like,

1:25:51

you know what I did? I told the story.

1:25:53

I feel like I did a good job.

1:25:55

I did not phone it in. I tried really

1:25:57

hard. I tried as hard as I possibly

1:26:00

could. I could say that with like all the

1:26:02

books that I've written. And I

1:26:04

kind of want to just be like, well,

1:26:06

whatever happens, you know, but I really want, I

1:26:08

want it to be successful. I want people

1:26:10

to read the book. and my

1:26:12

other books so that i can keep

1:26:14

doing what i do i do

1:26:16

like writing and i do like storytelling

1:26:18

mean i don't like like it

1:26:20

like it but i like the whole

1:26:22

the whole thing and what it

1:26:24

enables me to do and to be

1:26:26

on this boat and i i

1:26:28

do get excited you know about another

1:26:30

story but when i think about

1:26:33

like okay what's next like what would

1:26:35

that next story be i'm thinking

1:26:37

more like big picture not really like

1:26:39

what the story is but like

1:26:41

what kind of story, like what kind

1:26:43

of structure would the book have?

1:26:45

Like, could I do something where I'm

1:26:47

not like the narrator? I'm not

1:26:49

the main character. Could I, could I

1:26:51

do something that's just like pure,

1:26:53

like third person? Could I find some

1:26:55

crazy story and just not be

1:26:57

a character in it? Because the honest

1:26:59

truth is I find it extremely

1:27:01

painful writing in the first person, but

1:27:03

I think other people want me

1:27:05

to keep doing that. So anyways, these

1:27:08

are some of the things that I'm. that

1:27:10

I'm thinking about and we could talk more

1:27:12

about when you're not recording. Should,

1:27:14

uh, pitch a, pitch a book

1:27:16

from the perspective of, um, Irving's foot.

1:27:20

No, that's ours, man. We, that's

1:27:22

our project. Yeah. I

1:27:24

met Jimmy Chin chapter nine.

1:27:28

There's a whole world going on

1:27:31

with all that, you know, that,

1:27:33

uh, I don't pay super close

1:27:35

attention to, but yeah, it is,

1:27:37

it is interesting. People are like,

1:27:39

Like, Hey, like, does this like, you

1:27:42

know, support what you were doing on

1:27:44

Everest? I'm like, um, well, I

1:27:46

mean, I was looking at 28

1:27:48

,000 feet and they found the

1:27:50

boot way down on the glacier

1:27:52

at the base. So seems like

1:27:54

not really, they don't, they don't

1:27:57

really add up, but I mean,

1:27:59

you get tons of people who

1:28:01

are hitting me up. Obviously there's

1:28:03

an insane amount of haters out

1:28:05

there. But they're like, what about this,

1:28:07

this, this, and this? I'm like, well, I mean,

1:28:09

I wrote a book on that subject. I'm

1:28:12

like, I mean, I'm kind of

1:28:14

busy. You could check that out

1:28:16

instead of like hitting me up

1:28:18

randomly on the internet with like

1:28:20

a hateful undertone. Well,

1:28:28

listen, man, I mean, bon voyage

1:28:30

in two weeks, not only on the...

1:28:32

the sailing journey but on the

1:28:34

launch of the book it's kind of

1:28:37

a similar thing casting off into

1:28:39

the reality of it all so um

1:28:41

appreciate you coming on the show

1:28:43

and again it was uh nice to

1:28:45

sort of see you twice in

1:28:47

a year uh after all this time

1:28:49

that we we hadn't hadn't seen

1:28:51

each other yeah yeah no i uh

1:28:53

i'm so glad i got to

1:28:55

see you in squamish and andrew we're

1:28:57

gonna have to be in person

1:28:59

although it sort of feels like this

1:29:01

is in a in a weird

1:29:03

way So, yeah, it's good

1:29:05

to see you guys' faces, and I

1:29:07

always appreciate the conversation. You guys

1:29:09

have a way of, like, drawing stuff

1:29:12

out of me. Like, in my

1:29:14

head, it's all swirling around, and it's

1:29:16

very incoherent. And it probably is

1:29:18

when I'm speaking to you, but you're

1:29:20

forcing me to, like, explain things

1:29:22

that are pretty amorphous inside of me,

1:29:24

so I appreciate that. And that's

1:29:26

kind of what you guys do, and

1:29:29

you are very, very good at

1:29:31

it. So keep doing what you're doing.

1:29:34

And, um, well,

1:29:36

what we're going to be doing is working

1:29:38

on your marketing, your book for you while

1:29:40

you're off sailing. So we'll, uh, this podcast

1:29:42

will carry the, just make sure that you,

1:29:44

you know, you think of us when that

1:29:46

first royalty check comes in. And

1:29:48

when you're, when

1:29:50

your book is coming

1:29:52

out, you give

1:29:54

me a call and

1:29:57

I'll unleash some

1:29:59

of my insane marketing

1:30:01

on on world to

1:30:03

make sure. But yeah, I'm

1:30:05

looking forward to both of

1:30:07

your books. You're going

1:30:09

to be awesome. It

1:30:25

was one of those nights where the

1:30:27

beer was cold, the air was thick with

1:30:30

smoke and stories, and the floor of

1:30:32

the black nugget crunched underfoot from scattered peanut

1:30:34

shells and sticky dried beer foam. Cowboys

1:30:36

leaned on the bar like it was

1:30:38

a church pew. Hippies swayed to nothing in

1:30:40

particular, and the whole place smelled like

1:30:43

whiskey in the sweet perfume of chaos. Then,

1:30:45

like some cosmic through the

1:30:48

haze, Chris Caloose and his band

1:30:50

Sector 7G landed on the

1:30:52

following groove now known as Rick's

1:30:54

Cheese Interlude. What started as

1:30:56

a whisper of a riff a sonic

1:30:58

expedition that set the hippies and cowboys

1:31:00

a new dimension. Somewhere

1:31:02

between stardust and sawdust,

1:31:04

they jammed, improvised, elevated,

1:31:07

and for a few golden minutes, that iconic

1:31:09

bar in was the center of the

1:31:11

world. The

1:34:04

the

1:34:07

the the

1:34:14

the the

1:34:18

the the

1:34:27

the the

1:34:35

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