Enormocast 300: Chris Kalous by Alex Honnold – No Retreat, No Surrender

[00:00:07] Hey folks, before we get going today, I'd like to give a heads up that Andrew Bishrat and I will be doing a live run-out podcast February 20th at the Chautauqua Community House in Boulder, Colorado. Guests include Kelly Cordes, Matt Samet, among others, some banter, live music, all that quote other podcast style. Go to Chautauqua.com for info and tickets. Once again, a live run-out podcast February 20th, 2021.

[00:00:36] 2024 at Chautauqua Community House. Tickets on sale now at Chautauqua.com. You are listening to the Enormocast. Squama by Sportiva. A shoe for climbers who are not afraid to send. Climbing obsession.

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[00:02:18] Well, while you and your crew scuttled off to the shade for some burns on the prods like so many mole rats, your rack of post-send libations, or sad sack failure drinks as the case may be, are sitting in your increasingly scolding rig, feeling the heat. And no, that Whole Foods foil cooler bag they guilted you into buying is not going to cut it. Luckily for you and your friends, Yeti has the answer for day trippin' sippin'. The Rody 15 Cooler.

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[00:03:15] So do yourself and your thirsty friends a favor and level up your Opry Grimpe with a Yeti Rody 15 Cooler by going to Yeti.com to find your local Yeti dealer. And remember, gifting a Rody 15 Cooler to your best bud this holiday season just means more cold send beers for you, too. Listen, where are you playing in town? Are you playing here? We're doing the Normo Dome, whatever it is. It's terrific. Oh yeah, the big place outside of town. That's a big place.

[00:03:45] So it's at 2006. We really should. Look, you better get up there before you panic. Those pens are loose. You're very good. I have really enjoyed having them with you. We'll make it.

[00:04:32] I don't think so. Bonfire Coffee. Bonfire Coffee. Go to bonfirecoffee.com and enter Enormo at checkout to get a great deal on great coffee and to support the EnormaCast. And now back to the show. Hello and welcome to the EnormaCast. This is your host, Alex Honnold.

[00:04:58] It is December 16th, 9 a.m. here in Las Vegas, Nevada. And this is episode 300. An interview with climber, podcaster, dad, and all-around climbing badass, Chris Kaluse. So a few little updates. Chris will be at the Winona Ice Fest from January 30th to February 1st. Nobody's ever heard of the Winona Ice Fest, but I would assume that it's very cold.

[00:05:24] He's also going to be at the Michigan Ice Fest from February 12th through 16th. God knows why he would do two ice fests back-to-back, but that is the kind of man that we are going to be interviewing today. Also, the hotline is open for the show formerly known as Taps. I don't know what that is, but the number is 1-888-532-9822. I believe this is the first time I've ever read a 1-888 number aloud, and I feel like I'm doing something naughty.

[00:05:54] Or go to EnormaCast.com to find the number. So anybody wanting to call in for the Taps show. If you've listened to 300 episodes of the EnormaCast, you probably know what that is. The climbing report for my scene in Vegas right now is that I go to the rainbow wall and I board climb, and I'm having a great time doing both. So hopefully you are also having a great time with your climbing right now. And now on to the actual show. So we're interviewing Chris Calouse. He's the man.

[00:06:22] He's been climbing for 35 years. Put up first ascents all over the world, but I mean, who hasn't done that? Come on. Founded the EnormaCast in 2011. Founded the runout in 2018 because, you know, as anyone knows, one podcast just isn't enough. And I think he maybe was the first person to have me on a podcast back in 2013, before I'd ever done anything, really. And so I still remember that. It was kind of a big deal for me at the time, so that's pretty exciting.

[00:06:50] I couldn't be more proud that I've now taken over his show. So with that, let's get into a conversation with the one and only Chris Calouse.

[00:07:30] You edit the EnormaCast. I thought that was the whole point. I know it doesn't sound like that. And I'm recording video, but I haven't really used it yet. But the writing's on the wall, you know. Yeah, I know. I know. Everybody does that now. It's so annoying because I sit in my closet in the dark. I'm just kind of like, man. Yeah, I agree. But, you know, get with the times. Actually, we can talk about this later. There's been some existential crises over here at the EnormaCast.

[00:08:00] Yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, but that's neither here nor there. We can go ahead and start any way you'd like. Yeah, cool. Okay, well, so let's just dive right into it. We're interviewing Chris Calouse. Can you just start with the basics? Yeah, I'm Chris Calouse. As many people listening to this know, I am usually the host of the EnormaCast. I am 53 years old. I've been climbing for 34 years at this point. Pretty straight through.

[00:08:28] Like, no significant time off. Yeah, I got an eight-year-old kid. I live here in Carbondale, Colorado. How did you start climbing? I started climbing because I was into outdoor adventure in the Midwest. Is there such a thing? Yes, actually. I mean, you know, it's all a matter of perspective because I started backpacking in this little tiny park in Wisconsin called Kettle Moraine or State Park.

[00:08:56] And there's like a 26-mile hiking trail that winds its way through the fields and the farms and stuff. But a little strip of woods. And to me, as a suburban kid, and I mean, my family's outdoorsy. They're like my parents are farm kids from Wisconsin. So they, you know, it's like hunting and fishing and those kind of things.

[00:09:16] But to me, like going to this little trail as a seventh grader and being left out there to hike with my friends seemed like the most incredible adventure of all time. You know, it honestly felt the same as like the first time I rock climbed. You know, that amount of like thrill. And what was the first time you rock climbed? How do you go from hiking really far to climbing vertical walls?

[00:09:40] Well, like so many people I've interviewed, I found an article in a magazine whose existence I thought maybe was apocryphal, but I've confirmed it about John Backer. And I thought that was like obviously cooler than what I was doing walking around in the woods. And so I made a plan that started in high school to go to college specifically out west.

[00:10:02] You know, I went out west to go to college, but I had planned ahead of time to become a rock climber to the point of even like working out and lifting weights with the idea of being strong to become a rock climber. And so I ended up at Colorado State. And on the very first day, I moved into the dorms. I went rock climbing at Horse Tooth Reservoir. The RA on the floor, which was the outdoor adventure floor, showed up and said, hey, do you want to go rock climbing? No, he said, do you want to go top roping up at Horse Tooth?

[00:10:32] And I was like, you know, this kid from Illinois. I'm like, I don't know what that is. And he was like, it's rock climbing. Do you want to go rock climbing? And I was like, yes, I do. I have been preparing for this for two years. So, yeah, my first route was cat eye or cat's eye, a little top rope up at Horse Tooth and borrowed shoes and borrowed harness. And I felt like I did pretty well. I wasn't like particularly scared or anything like you might be in your first go. And that was it. I was off and running.

[00:11:02] And I was on the outdoor adventure floor, which kids had signed up for because of their interests. And there was a few climbers there, like some people who had already climbed. An old mutual friend of ours, Jonathan Thisinga, was on the floor as well. And he climbed a little bit. He went to college the same as you? Same years? That's so funny. I didn't know you guys went to school together. Yeah, yeah. We were freshmen on the dorm. And he had a little bit of knowledge, you know, like that kind of enough rock climbing knowledge to get yourselves in trouble.

[00:11:31] And a couple, a few days later, he was teaching me how to rappel. And, you know, then they were showing me how to put gear in the cracks. And the walls of the building had these little rock cracks in them because of the way it was built. And so they showed me cams, and I couldn't believe that those things worked, you know. It's the first time you see a cam. You're like, that's ridiculous. And so that would have been, that was the early 90s? Or that was like 1990 or something? 89. 89. Yep. Oh, wow. 89 into 90.

[00:12:00] My freshman year started the fall of 89. So I can pretty much count my start of my climbing like August 1989. It's interesting. I think I started climbing in 95 maybe. Only a few years later, but for whatever reason, it really feels like we're totally different generations of climbing. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like you're just so much more outdoor adventure. And I like grew up in a gym and, you know, it just feels like a totally different time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you started in 95? I think so. Yeah. I was 10. I was born in 85.

[00:12:30] And I think I started when I was. Yeah. Yeah. So you were on that first wave. Yeah. The first wave of the gym. Yeah. And kind of crashing around me as I started. But, you know, there was probably like some crummy little gym around. But there was, you know, in the 1990, like in Colorado, they were still having fist fights over bolts and stuff. You know, like so sport climbing didn't exist. Like, you know, I was right at the tail end of the end of that or the beginning of sport climbing.

[00:12:59] But when I started climbing, we'd make that joke. Like there was no trad climbing because it was just called climbing. Yeah, exactly. What, talk through your climbing progression, like in a nutshell. I mean, what were the things that you were most interested in? And, you know, how did you learn? Well, the thing that, you know, and this is kind of pertinent because I just put out this interview with Jim Erickson. But there's early, like not, I mean, days, hours, minutes after that first climbing experience, my friend gave me this book called Climb,

[00:13:28] which was the History of Climbing in Colorado up to 1978. And that did two things for me. Is it, A, it like amped me up. Like I was just like, who are these people? What is this thing? Like this is here. Like this is around me right now. Like I'm an hour from Eldo and I'm an hour from Lumpy Ridge. And here's all these pictures.

[00:13:50] But it also like put us into this weird little time capsule because as, you know, all these other people were like looking to sport climbing and the start of bouldering as like inspiration. I was like. You were like in the 1970s. Yeah. I was like basically 15 or 14 years in the past at that point. And so we revered like core and Jim Erickson and we, I wanted to know what aid climbing was right off the bat, stuff like that.

[00:14:18] And so that kind of inspired us. But also I had a van. I had a Dodge van, which is funny because that vehicle really like fits into my early climbing in a way that's kind of ironic now because we have van life. But it was just this empty cargo van that I'd put like some shelves and some carpet in and like there were literally the back seats were bean bags. So it's like super safe, you know. But I was the only guy like a lot of kids had come from Denver or whatever.

[00:14:48] Like Jonathan didn't have a car. So I had this van and I became the mode for everybody to pile in and go to Eldo or go to Lumpy Ridge or go to the South Platte, go to the Garden of the Gods, like just getting to these places. Literally that were, you know, we'd open the book and we'd be like, that looks cool. The book being climb, you know. So, yeah. So that was adventure climbing, you know, multi-pitch climbing was like just seemed obvious that's what you wanted to do.

[00:15:17] Like whatever we were doing at Horsetooth was like pure practice, like for going and doing bigger routes. Bigger routes was what you were supposed to go do, not fart around on like single pitch climbing if you had a choice. And what were some of the first big challenges that you undertook? You know, like what was your first like this is a route that means a lot to me and I'm going to like go for it? I remember some on Lumpy, you know.

[00:15:42] Like I remember doing Osiris, which is this like five or six pitch 5'7 that when I started guiding up there, because that's another thing we probably should mention is, but that we started, we would call it the OA or the Osiris adventure. Because if you took clients on it, even though it was 5'7, it would just absolutely destroy them. Like if you were feeling kind of cranky about your clients, like you'd go do the OA is what we called it. Is it like wide or really physical?

[00:16:12] Yeah, there's just chimneys and fins and like classic like groove cracks where you have to like to get any sort of purchase. You have to put like your whole arm inside. Yeah, I don't know. That's the opposite of good guiding. Would you intentionally go up to destroy your client? That's like the ultimate sandbag. Well, you could read your clients, especially some men, you know, they were up there to be tested. So they kind of like needed that.

[00:16:38] It was like, you know, we were like their doms a little bit, you know, it was like a dom sub kind of relationship. So, but yeah, so I remember that like early on, I got some pictures from it even. A lot of adventures at Lumpy Ridge actually was real. Eldo was like even kind of, we would go, but it was very intimidating in a way that, you know, those slabs up there at Lumpy Ridge. I don't know if you've ever climbed there, but super slabby, like groove crack climbing.

[00:17:05] And then a big one was Hallett, the Northcut Carter, which was a 50 classic 5.7. Is that the one that fell down? Yes, it fell down. Yeah. Yeah. Sad. Yeah. And I was guiding when it happened. It was interesting. Wait, really? I was, well, not when it actually, I wasn't up there, but I was the, I was, I'm pretty sure, actually, I'm sure that we were the first party to walk up there. After it fell out? After it happened. After it happened. Yeah. Did you know that it had fallen off? No, no, no. No, we walked up there. We were like, holy shit, where'd the route go? Yeah.

[00:17:35] And it was like, as we got closer, you know, we started in the dark. This is not my ascent. My ascent was, you know, years earlier, but we got there in the dark and as it's getting light when, so in other words, we couldn't see it. Yeah. Like from the parking lot, even though you could see it from town. Yeah. When people finally realized. But I was like going up the snow, like the hard snow that was still left.

[00:18:01] And like, yeah, there's all this pebbles at first and just like pebbly gravel, you know, that I was looking at like in my headlamp. And then it started to get lighter and lighter and I got over there and I was just like, I think it's gone. Like, and I saw these boulders strewn all over the place. And I kind of like ventured up a little ways with my rope on to see like, because I couldn't even tell where I was at that point. Like it changed so much. And then we realized what had happened and we did, we did something else.

[00:18:30] But you did a bunch of bouldering for instance instead. You're like, you're like, God gave us a gift. Look at all these big rocks. I was like, it's just like sharp jaws, you know. But anyway, back to my thing. That climb for me when I went and did it as a younger climber was like kind of a big deal. It rained on us and like we just kept going. And like I think of it now and I was, I'm like, I would 100% have bailed now. Like I would have bailed.

[00:19:00] But at that point, like my concept of who I admired, you know, these older climbers, like guys like Leighton Kaur who had this like never give up attitude. Like it didn't even occur to us to like stop climbing up into the rain because we had, you know, I had studied all the guys. I'd already read about Herman Buhl and all these people. And like, I'm like, well, fuck, we just keep going. Like this is what you do. And it's, you know, hopefully we don't get struck by lightning.

[00:19:27] And so, you know, it's just interesting how like I'm a much better climber, but I would not have climbed that in those conditions. Now I would have left. But also I kind of didn't really know how to bail. So totally. That feels like a typical beginner story in a way when it's like I will succeed at all costs. And then later you're like, wait, I'll just come back tomorrow when the weather is good. You know, who cares? It's like way less of a big deal. You have no perspective, you know. Yeah, totally. I don't know. It's like Cordis' disaster style.

[00:19:55] Well, you know, Kelly has go until you can't go back down and then you have to summit, you know. At what point did you start branching out of Colorado? Like when did you go to the valley for the first time? When did you go to, you know, bigger mountains around the world? Actually, gosh, one thing I did is I studied abroad while I was still in college. I went to New Zealand for a semester, which turned into about nine months.

[00:20:20] What happened was is that my friends, all these guys I started climbing with, and we were like getting pretty good after a couple years of all these, you know, endless, manic, weird adventures that, you know, could end badly, could end good. I mean, but we managed to all stay alive and keep our limbs and stuff. And all my buddies said they were, oh, we're going to take a semester off and we're going to go to the valley. We're going to go to Yosemite, you know.

[00:20:44] And back, I mean, look, I'm going to do a lot of back then, but back then it was like hard to find all this information. Like we knew about Yosemite. We knew about the climbing there, you know, but it was just this like shining goal somewhere out in the distance that you'd go to. And so they were ready to go and I hit my dad up who was paying for college and he did this clever thing where he's like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. That sounds like, oh, yeah, take a semester off. And right, totally.

[00:21:12] And then he's like, and then just while you're doing that, you know, you should probably figure out a way to pay for college when you get back because I'm not going to pay for it anymore, you know. So he basically was like, yeah, you could go do that, but I don't want you to. So I'm going to tighten the purse strings. So then I was like, okay, well, all my buddies are going to be gone. What should I do? And I found a way to go to college in New Zealand as a, you know, a semester abroad so I could continue to get credits for my semester.

[00:21:42] Because all the other thing was my dad had a four-year cutoff. So he's like, yeah, if you don't graduate in four years, have a good time finishing college on your own. So I had, you know, I'm not stupid. I'm like, got to get this done, you know. So I was able to go have this adventure there. And actually I was into mountaineering there. I climbed Mount Cook and a bunch of other big snowy peaks and ice climbed a bunch there and rock climbed. So that was my first international kind of thing.

[00:22:07] And then another one was right after I graduated, I started guiding in Estes Park back when, like, you didn't actually need to know too much about guiding to get a job guiding. The blind leading the blind. Yeah, totally. I mean, yeah, that's kind of bonkers. But I went to Australia that following winter after guiding for a summer.

[00:22:30] And that was like my first, you know, just go somewhere for months on end on, like, whatever, 10 bucks a day kind of climbing trip. And that fully changed everything. Like, that was the hook for international traveling anyway and going big places. But I still hadn't been to Yosemite by then. I think I went in the mid-90s. Quite along that time after I graduated. So, but yeah, that was – the other thing was the desert. You know, we started going to the desert.

[00:22:58] And I got really hooked on climbing in the Fisher Towers. And I know it's weird. Says no one. Well, okay, look, I'm like this disciple of core at this point, right? I know you really chose the wrong role models. You know, this gives you show the power of bad influences. I mean, you know, some of that is true.

[00:23:19] But man, it just – it brought me to these – like these – again, like ignoring a little bit of the trends that were happening, I think was probably actually really cool in the long run. Like, I didn't just drop hard into sport climbing the way everybody was in the mid-90s in Colorado. You never had Lycra? No, no. We missed that. You're too busy with a construction hammer and Carhart's going and like nailing your way up some mud tower? We actually had a lot of wool, you know?

[00:23:49] Wearing wool like sweaters. Like all those pictures of the dudes in the Alps, they always have these wool sweaters on. Like knickers and stuff? Yeah, knickers. I literally had some knickers. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. They called them capris later on, right? So they got cool again. Man, you're like, well, since I'm swimming through the mud anyway, I may as well have my clam diggers on just in case I find something up here.

[00:24:09] Yeah, but the cool thing was is on this one trip that my buddy was with me and all of a sudden like his girlfriend showed up in the desert and he suddenly like had no more motivation to go climb in the Fisher Towers. What a surprise. I know. And so I like got kind of pissed and grabbed all the gear and went and soloed one of the towers there. And that was actually, I didn't know anything about soloing. I did some version of like clove hitches and, you know, I just kind of made it up as I was going along.

[00:24:40] Made a couple mistakes. Obviously none fatal. But that was actually really a big move for me because I soloed a bunch of those towers, including doing like a couple A5 second ascents of these old Jim Bayer routes. Oh, bad towers. Yeah. And so by the time I got to the valley, actually, I was really good at that stuff. And I remember sitting around the fire. Rob Slater was out there, if you know that name.

[00:25:08] And he was on this mission to do all the towers. There was like 20-some summits considered there. In the Fishers? Yeah, in the Fishers. Like all the little dinky ones. Yeah, weird. I thought there were like six. No, there's six or seven big ones. And then there's all the little hoodoos and shit. Like that one that fell down the whole road. Yeah, yeah. But I was like, yeah, I want to go to the valley. And I'm like really psyched to try to solo the Zodiac.

[00:25:36] And he basically like spit his drink out and was like, he's like, dude, you do not need to solo the Zodiac. Like skip the Zodiac. Because I was already had done all this gnarly stuff in the Fisher Towers. But I had no perspective. He's like, that thing is going to be easy, way too easy for you. Like there's going to be a big lineup on it. Like go do something different. And yeah, he was absolutely right. I still never climbed the Zodiac. I'm still a great route. But you're right that it is much easier than anything you would have done in the Fishers. Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:05] So I kind of like arrived in the Yosemite. And yeah, I was a big wall climber, like aid climber. That was the era. And I was, yeah, I kind of skipped right up to the big dogs as far as repeating some of the hard routes there. What year was the classic YouTube aid climbing rant from? Well, that actually is probably like 2007 or 8. Oh, so much later. Yeah, yeah, much later. Because that's a classic rant. And honestly, I think that's your real introduction to podcasting.

[00:26:33] That's when you realize that you should have an audience. Well, it did. And how did that happen? Tell me the story. I just watched that again the other day because it's so classic. And I remembered it from back in the day. Well, it's just, you know, it's something that I've remembered forever. And I was like, is that as classic as I remember it being? And then I listened to it again. I was like, you know, it's pretty freaking funny. But who recorded it? And like, why is it on YouTube? And like, what's the story behind your aid climbing rant? Well, it's like several dudes, right? I mean, there's the guy that keeps handing you a drink or whatever. There's somebody recording, obviously.

[00:27:03] There are a couple of people laughing. Actually, so what's even the context? Like, where are you guys? So we are in Cochimo. Okay. Okay. So, and this is, again, I think it'd probably be like eight or nine, 2008 or nine. So a little bit ahead of the curve in Cochimo. Totally. So you're like in the middle of nowhere in Chile. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it was established, but I think internationally it wasn't well known. But yeah, and it'd been fucking raining forever and ever.

[00:27:28] And there, I had, like at other campfires or whatever, my friend Dan, the guy who's handing me drinks. Yeah. And he says, I'll rip or whatever in mud. He had heard me kind of like, you know, drunkenly sort of formulate this, this like thing, this idea that I had, because I had, I had like stopped aid climbing. This theorem that if A5, there must be corpses. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:27:56] I'd done the whole, you know, I'd been in my room for days with equations on the chalkboard, like trying to figure it all out. But, and so he's goading me to do it. He'd heard me kind of do it before. And then Matt, this other friend of ours, he's recording and he had like an early website that, you know, pre-YouTube kind of website that he'd put videos on and stuff. And yeah. And so they just, you know, we're drinking, it's raining, we've been sitting in the rain for weeks. You know, they just sort of goaded me into it.

[00:28:23] And then Matt put it on, yeah, Matt put it on his website, but then my friend BJ Sivara, who lives here in Carbondale and had an early kind of climbing, self-done climbing website. He actually put it on YouTube, like when YouTube was nothing. Like it was a very early, like semi-viral thing on YouTube as far as climbing is concerned. And that's how people kind of got a hold of it.

[00:28:50] And at that time, like, you know, there was like 80,000 views, which like today isn't that much, but. At the time it was like every climber in the world had seen it. And it was, you know, people recognize me now from the normal cast or from my voice. But I actually was the first time too, that I'd be at a crag and somebody would be like, wait, you're the fucking aid rank guy. And it also pissed a lot of people off. And so for anybody that is listening to this who hasn't seen it, you should just Google Chris Caluse aid rant. It'll be the first thing that comes up under videos.

[00:29:19] And it's, it's, it's classic. But I don't think any of the normal cast fans have not heard about the aid rants. You don't think? Yeah. I don't know if you maybe. 300 episodes in, you for sure have people who have joined along in the last year or two. I mean, just honestly, like, no, but this is actually something that I think is worth getting into is that climbing has grown so much in the last few years that nowadays I think that a lot of the things that the two of us take for granted in climbing, like, of course, everybody knows A5, RURPS and all this stuff.

[00:29:47] I mean, if you started climbing three years ago in a gym, like you have never heard of that kind of stuff. You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't even exist in the climbing world anymore. Yeah. You're totally right. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. We take that for granted. Cause yeah, it was such a more of a, you know, the media we were consuming was there was so little of it and it was at least at the core was much more collective. Like everybody literally was like reading the same magazine. Yeah. Cause there was only one. Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. So there was these points of reference. You're right.

[00:30:17] That we could all count on in a certain. Well, and it's just that there were just weren't as many climbers and people in it had been in it longer and just learn more. You know, it's like now if you start in a gym, you could start with five friends and all five of your friends would like, just wouldn't know anything about climbing yet. You know, it's like your whole community is just like random people that just started climbing and like are psyched to get outdoors. And I think that's awesome. I'm totally into seeing more people get out and climb, but it's just that there's just

[00:30:44] way less of that sort of institutional knowledge in a way or, you know, like sort of shared culture or whatever. Yeah, I agree. The aid rant should be part of your institutional knowledge. Yeah. Well, here, give me, give me the, uh, the, the 10 second summary. Like what, what's the, what's the, you know, the, the kernel at the heart of the aid rant. I rarely do 10 second summaries of anything, but, uh, it's basically that ride climbing is not as hard as like all the media said it was.

[00:31:13] And a five, no one ever died on a five, even though it's supposed to be a death fall. If you fall. So yeah, it was just basically like ruminating on why no one dies. And if a five exists and, um, and the only a five should be basically, like you said, should result in a corpse. That's the most quoted line for me. It's like, there's the corpse. Like people have said it to my face. There's the corpse.

[00:31:40] But surely you've climbed some a five where you felt like you would die if you fell. Right. I think I, I kind of get at that in there, but yeah, I mean, it, it's like, of course I've done a lot of a two where I think I would die if I fell. But the reality is that, you know, either I don't fall or I don't die when I do fall and it turns out fine, but it's so scary. Well, part of it was that I had done a lot of it, right. Of the storage stuff on El Cap, you know, these, these hardest roots and stuff.

[00:32:06] And I just realized that like the bullshit myth making in the meadow didn't actually live up to the reality of it. You know, people like, it's like a full pitch of hooking. It's like, no, there is no full pitch of hooking. And you're like, no, it's actually four hooks and then a rivet and then two hooks and then a rivet and then three more hooks. Right. And then a drilled this and like that. And like, yeah. So I was just kind of like, I mean, you know, we don't need to get into it, but the, the, the valley like kind of burned me out a little bit. Just the scene there.

[00:32:36] I think I was there and sort of a kind of cranky low point as far as the scene is concerned. In some ways, don't you feel like your, your aid rant has kind of borne out because aid climbing is not cool anymore by any means. Like nobody aid climbs. It's not, it's not glorified in media. Like nobody even knows what it is anymore. Nobody even cares. It's like, no, I mean, I didn't make that up. I mean, you're ahead of your time. Yeah. Because you know what the monkeys were like, I was at the beginning of the monkeys era and

[00:33:04] those guys kind of, they, they actually, you know, I postulated that this shit was not that hard. And then they actually proved it, you know, they did the, you know, it's like Dean and Evo, I think. And maybe Sean, I'm not sure, but did, did the reticent wall, the hardest route on El Cap and like 36 hour push. Right. Right. You know, we did it. I did it in seven days or whatever, you know? Yeah. So it's like, those guys kept just smashing the state as it were to quote the name of

[00:33:32] a, of a aid climb actually up on the diamond, but they kept proving like my thing. Like, yeah, this is, you know, this isn't as Gnar as everybody says it is. You know, do you know the story on a Jesus built my hot rod, the aid route on the left side of a leaning tower in the Valley? It's the thing that Todd Skinner was working on when he died. Um, I have climbed it. Oh yeah. Well, so do you remember a pitch called a out with the old? No, no. Go for the old. It's like an A4 hooking pitch. It's like, go for the old, like old English, like O L D E.

[00:34:03] Yeah. Vaguely. I don't know. Well, whatever. So I wrapped that route with Todd Skinner when he was fixing lines on it to, and he told him in this whole story, like, oh, this pitch is called go for the old, like old English. It's like A4 hooking. Anyway, when, when they went up to the free climate, it turns out the pitch is like 10 plus R or whatever. It's just edging, you know, you just climb up. It's like five, 10. And so he read it. He added like a bolt here or something and called it out with the old, like, you know, just like, like he's like, this is so stupid. Like, why is this, why is this like hardcore aid climbing when you can just climb it at five,

[00:34:33] 10, you know, just like use the hooks on your hands, you know? Yeah. It's, it's exactly right. And it's interesting that you bring that up because I had, I did a route on El Cap, a solar route on El Cap as kind of like my last, like, I was like pretty conscious. It was going to be sort of the last thing I did on El Cap in that style. And then I got talked into doing, um, by a friend of mine of doing that route actually. So that actually was sort of my last big aid route in the valley. Yeah.

[00:35:01] So it's just funny because I was kind of over it in that same way. And then we went and climbed that and, and I felt the same way. I was like, this isn't even that hard as an aid client. Yeah. Like this is kind of dumb. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah. So that's just a way that crossed up is interesting that that was my last route there as a big aid wall anyway. And so did you personally transition into free climbing? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I moved back to Colorado. I was actually living in California then. Um, I moved back to Colorado and I got back into kind of like, oh, the other thing that

[00:35:31] happened is I spent right after that, I spent a summer in Vegas actually. And everybody rolls their eyes when I say it was a summer, but it was like April to August. Um, and as you know, there's plenty to do. Dude, I live here and it's awesome. Yeah. I got, um, I got really into climbing at Clark mountain, my buddy Bruce Anderson and I, um, and he kind of like, I dabbled in sport climbing and I'd clip bolts, but I'd never sport climb per se where I'd like, you know, went and projected and tried things that are really hard and stuff. And I started doing that that year.

[00:35:59] And that, so that kind of helped me transition into sort of, um, you know, sport climbing as something that I was kind of, I liked, um, climbing down. I think I did my first 13 a that year, which was a thousand churches up there at the third. Well, that's a, that's a really proud first 13 a. Yeah. It's sick. I was, I was like, I still. I still can remember like almost every move of it. Oh, wow. Um, and he had to hike your ass up there and everything else. Totally. That's like Clark was a band in that. It's funny because you know, uh, Randy's called the Clark, uh, the El Cap of limestone.

[00:36:29] It's, it's fitting that that's where you did your first hard route. Yeah. And it's, I had this relationship with, with, uh, with, with Levitt that started with me repeating one of his, um, test piece on El Cap actually. And which one kind of stayed friends, um, scorched earth. I haven't even heard of that. Where is that? Yeah, exactly. The eight climbing dog. It's gone. Yeah. Yeah. It's gone. Which part? It's over on the right side, kind of by the trip. Oh yeah. Okay. I have no idea what that route is. And I, I know it pretty well too. You know, I'm like, what the heck?

[00:36:59] It was like by Aurora goes out those roofs by, by the trip. But it was famous because they, him and Slater had invented the, the, the, the love Tron or something they called it. But it was a, a VE 24, um, tent pole, uh, you know, North Face dome tent, tent pole with a hook on the end of it. And you actually would just put your hook on an edge like 15 or 20 feet away and then yard up to it and just hope you had found some like really good edge.

[00:37:27] Um, and so people, that sounds scary. Yeah. Well, I, I did it. I think I did an improvement on it where I put a, they would just put the rope in it and then yard up, which means there are potential to like take a double size. Oh, did you put like a, like a piece of cord on it or something? Yeah, with little loops in it. But then I, then when I actually came to do it, I made my loops too far apart cause the purl on stretched. And so then I was actually high stepping to try to get my loops, which was also terrifying.

[00:37:55] So anyway, but, uh, everybody had like slandered them for doing it that way. Like, I mean, I don't need to get into all these dumb aid climbing debates, but so nobody had repeated it. And so, um, I got some beta from him and me and my friend Chris Ryder went and did the second ascent of it, like 12 or 15 years after it had gotten done. That's the funny thing about aid climbing is people slander that, but you're like, well, at least they didn't have to drill a bunch of extra holes to get up there. It's like, at a certain point, it's all cheating anyway. You're like, who cares? Totally. Yeah. It's crazy. It's exactly right.

[00:38:25] And so, um, but yeah, we did that one, but anyway, back to the free climbing, but yeah, that got me into that. And I, so I moved back to Colorado. I got, um, into, um, climbing in the black Canyon. Um, kind of, that was sort of when I was in. And you only choose the worst places to climb. It's kind of crazy. Come on, dude. You, you gotta, yeah. Have you climbed down there? No, I've actually never been to the black, but only because I haven't been in Colorado the right season. And like I was in right from the summer and I've always wanted to, and I want to do some

[00:38:54] link up stuff there someday, but I just have never made it. So, oh, it's so rad for that. I know, but it's just, it's just, well, it's just kind of in the middle of nowhere, you know, you're like, oh, you got to like, but that's what's, that's, what's nice about it, dude. Yeah, I guess. No, you gotta come down, man. There's so much to do. I mean, come down, do the H wall, if nothing else. I know, no, I want to for sure. But it's just like. Like the, the, I mean, it's, it would be easy for you, but like, it's a kind of common

[00:39:21] hard man challenge to do both rims in a day or three in a day. Um, you know, like pennings, uh, those guys did like the painted wall, the North Rim, South Rim in a day. Um, so yeah, there's all sorts of fun stuff like that. I'll get there eventually. All right. Yeah, cool. It's just, it's just, it's hard to know the season and the right time. I don't know. It's like, it's a little tricky for sure. But so, so big picture though, you went from adventure aid climbing, you got into free climbing, you moved back to Colorado. And so at what point did you get into podcasting?

[00:39:50] Like, cause that's, that's the ultimate modernity. You know, it's like, that's really embracing the future. Well, there's an important, there's an important phase in there. I think we have to talk about real quick is that I did like try to become legit. Um, I got a job teaching here in Carbondale. That's how I moved here. Um, I taught high school for five years. You were teaching music? No, teaching. Weren't you Hayden's music teacher? No, I wasn't. I was Hayden's. I started a, a extracurricular blues band with kids. Okay.

[00:40:19] And then he was in eighth grade. Um, but the music teacher, uh, was like, you, you should bring these kids up him and his friend, Dominic, who are horn players. He plays the sax and his friend of his, Dominic played the, uh, played the trombone. And so they, they would come over from the middle school for our, our rehearsals. And they were him and his buddy were our horn section. Yeah. Classic. That's the first time I met him. And, and I, you know, I had known his dad from climbing magazine and stuff, but of course, but yeah, that was the first time I met him.

[00:40:49] I got these like, uh, I mean, they, they bring a tear to the eye. These like the cutest pictures of him as this little kid blowing a saxophone on stage. Cause we, we would play shows and stuff like that. So, yeah, yeah. That's so I wasn't, I wasn't a music teacher. I was a lit teacher, but I did that extra. Yeah. Yeah. So, but, but I did five years where I tried to become like a legit member of society and that fell apart. Yeah. Why'd that, why'd that fall apart? I just, well, partially it was economics of living here, um, on a teacher salary seemed,

[00:41:19] seemed terrible. And so I was, I quit and I was going to move like to grand junction, which is west of here and cheaper. And especially back then. And, uh, and closer. And then I just kind of never did what's that. And closer to chassis climbing, like everything, everything that your heart sings for. You're like the rock is worse. It's way muddier. You're like, perfect. I should move. Um, yeah, I get further, further away. I mean, rifles is just as it gets to, but, uh, but yeah, so I moved or I didn't move though.

[00:41:47] I just kind of ended up hanging around here and, and I kind of reverted to a climbing bum and that's like that year or after that, I went to South America for almost a year. Um, I went, uh, in there, I went to Jordan. I know you repeated our route there. Yeah. Which one was that? Um, it was called Dar al-Salam on Nasrani North. Yeah. That's a, like it was 513 something like. Yeah. 13 a, like 10. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:15] But anyhow, so in that era, I was kind of, I started painting houses. And so, which was like a classic climber thing where I could paint for like all summer long and save money and then, then travel and do stuff. And so I kind of reverted to a climbing bum. I was in my mid thirties or yeah, pretty much. Do you feel like that says something about society where you're better off painting houses than being a lit teacher? Oh, a hundred percent. You're sort of like in these mountain towns. Like what the heck? It's super topsy turvy. That makes me sort of sad.

[00:42:43] Cause you're like, you know, you have a real education, you have like real things to do. And you're like, instead I choose to paint houses and go to South America for a year cause it's cheaper. Yeah, totally. I mean, there are places where that doesn't work, but in these mountain towns, a hundred percent like development or construction and stuff is way more lucrative. You go to like a suburbs of Chicago, there were teachers get paid well and it's, it's, it's a little bit different, but yeah, no, it's, it's a mess. But I, you know, I felt a little bit guilty like, and I actually enjoyed teaching, but it

[00:43:12] just kind of turned out that way. And then I started painting houses and in that era was when I was listening to podcasts. Right. And that was like early adopter. So this would have been. Yeah. That's super early adopter. I think that's an important thing to kind of note. Cause as you started the Enormacast in 2011, is that correct? Yeah. That's like, that feels like pre-internet. You know, it's like, it's like smartphones were like just starting in a way. It's like social media is not that cool. Like it's all just, I don't know. That's pretty early. Yeah.

[00:43:40] Well, I think historians will, will look at that. I think as second wave podcasting in my mind, because there was like when it was super underground and it, and it, and it only existed on iPods and, and I caught the end of that in the beginning of, in my opinion, what happened was, is that NPR actually blew podcasting up by deciding to rebroadcast all their shows as podcasts.

[00:44:08] And that like the fact that you didn't have to tune in at this certain time to hear one of their shows, you could just download it and, or listen to it on demand, which is something we, I mean, on demand culture is what we live with now, but it wasn't that way even 15 years ago. And so this idea that, oh, you could just listen to this American life whenever you want, instead of having to wake, like turn the radio on at 9am or whatever, that actually, I think

[00:44:35] really blew podcasting into the, into the sort of what it is now was the start of it. And then the smartphone, cause that was just slightly pre the iPhone, um, from having to download it onto your iPod, which I was doing as a painter. That's how it all started. And people have heard this before, but I was just listening to them. I had kind of discovered this podcasting thing and they were all early DIY ones. And, and, uh, I was like, this is cool. And that's when I was like, well, fuck, I could do this.

[00:45:04] Cause I, I'd been playing music for years and I knew how to record basic shit. And, you know, I, I kind of had the realize, I joked that I had the realization that everyone else had about 10 years later, which is that it's really easy. It's really easy. You already own the equipment for the most part, if you have a laptop and they're super cheap, like there's no production costs to a podcast almost, or now there is because they've changed.

[00:45:30] But, but everybody like was like, huh, I can just press record on this laptop I already own, you know, and, and I can post them for free somewhere basically. Like I'll do that. And then the, all the businesses and companies all decided to try to do podcasts, but that's gone by the wayside. But one of the things I was thinking about with the Enorma cast, I mean, I've always kind of thought of the Enorma cast is like the, the Joe Rogan of climbing media. It's like your, your long form unfiltered interviews, you know, with people.

[00:45:57] But I think part of what made it feel that way is because you always did them or, you know, you've tried to always do them in person with people. And so many of your podcast descriptions are like in a sweaty basement or like in a, you know, like tucked in the van or like with whoever in this place. And, and I was thinking about that because now that feels almost a little old school because, you know, we live in a world of zoom and it's like so much easier to do things remotely. But when you started the Enorma cast, it's like, you really did have to have your microphone physically with somebody.

[00:46:25] And I remember like sitting with you doing the podcast back when it was like, you had to be in a room together and chit chat. Can you talk about the evolution from like physically being with people in all these different places to nowadays being able to do things remotely? And yeah, totally. Well, there's, I mean, that was partially technology like Skype existed when I started this, but it was, you know, terrible sounding. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, I think a lot of people tried to use it at their podcasts, but that

[00:46:54] was part of it. The other thing was my, my inspiration, which I've said many times was Mark Maron's podcast, um, WTF or what the fuck with Mark Maron. And he was doing them in person in his garage. Like that was all part of the vibe. Like you had to go to his, even had Obama come to his garage, um, you know, like, and they had to put snipers on, he, you know, it's a couple of great episodes about that is, you know, the secret service had to like clear the street and put snipers on roofs

[00:47:24] and all these sorts of stuff. But he made him come to his, I mean, actually, I think Obama insisted on coming to the garage cause he wanted like the, do the real thing. Cause that, cause he was cool. Um, but yeah, the, but the thing that killed it was the, was the pandemic. And I did, I can't always remember, but it's like 205 or 206 face-to-face interviews. And then the pandemic kind of like forced my hand.

[00:47:52] I kind of, I made it through to July, you know, it started more or less March, 2020 and I had a backlog and then July came along and everybody was still skittish about traveling and, you know, whatever. And so I just kind of pulled the trigger. Um, and there was a learning curve cause, cause the tech wasn't even as good as it is now. Yeah. But, um, yeah. And then, but I mean, I tell you, like looking back on that now, like the fact that I pulled

[00:48:20] that off and when I hit, I remember when I hit episode 200, I was like, I'm not going to be two episodes shy of like what I should have been. In other words, I, there was two, only two months in like seven years that I had missed getting two podcasts out face-to-face. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't even like, I don't even conceive of how I would do that now. Um, and plus no one would do it.

[00:48:48] Like it, the thing I realized too, is it's once this era of doing these on the computer, then it was a real imposition for me to force people to try to get in touch. I think there are actually a couple other like bigger forces that were acting both in your favor and against you too. Is that one, I think, I think part of what made the Enormacast so great, uh, you know, from the beginning was that you had a level of access that a lot of people didn't have, like being in Colorado, going to outdoor retailer, like going to these industry trade shows, going to climbing festivals, going to events.

[00:49:17] Like basically you were just able to meet people where they were and interview them. I mean, I know that we've done a couple of interviews like, uh, like in land or whatever at the, wasn't that the climbers fest one of the years? Yeah. Yeah. We did one there and then you did, um, you did one in my kitchen here in Carbondale. Yeah. The first one. But basically it's like by living somewhere that's like sort of centrally located for the climbing world and then going to lots of events and then also just existing in time when like outdoor retailer was a much bigger event and everybody congregated for it.

[00:49:47] I just felt like you had like this access that, and at the time it was kind of the only climbing podcast. So, you know, it's kind of like, Oh, if somebody has a story to tell, that's the place to tell it. Whereas now it's like nowadays everybody has their own YouTube channel, you know, they're like, whatever, I'll just release my own content. Like whatever. It's like, yeah, it's just like time, times really changed like that where it's like much more decentralized now for better, for worse. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's caused me to like, kind of, especially in the last couple of years

[00:50:14] and even right now to think about like the future of this thing. Um, cause yeah, I had the playing field for like six or seven years at the minimum. I mean, people talk about the Dirk Bag Diaries and I have no rivalry with, with Fitz. I literally have talked to him a few times in the last few weeks. Um, he's always been a huge support. Um, but he's not, it's not a climbing podcast. Yeah. It's like it does climbing content. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:39] So there was a long time when I was the only one and, um, and yeah, and it was kind of cool. I mean, I started as this like hobbyish thing just cause I could, and I was single and I had nothing going on. And actually the, one of the little factoids that's interesting is I lived in this cabin up, um, the crystal river, which is out of Carbondale. And at my house I had, I could get one cell on my phone, like one bar, no internet.

[00:51:04] So I actually started a podcast and lived in a place for the first couple of years where I had no internet. And I would, I would produce it all. And then I would drive to, I would go to the library during the day and that's when I would upload it, you know, or at night, like I'd be that guy in the car that, you know, doing something sketchy, like sitting outside the library, lit up by the screen. That was me for so many years. I sat down outside the wifi, like poaching wifi. Like, yeah.

[00:51:29] Do you remember when you could, you could, um, like drive down streets and actually before people were putting codes on their, um, the security codes, you could just drive down streets looking for wifi. Did you ever do that? Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I, I remember that used to be a thing living in the Fort Econoline. You're just driving around being like, God, I just, you know, I'm supposed to like do this thing or like, I'm supposed to send someone a photo. Like how do I do it? You know? And it's like, yeah, it's like so different. That's, it's kind of weird, but that's what I was up to. I was like, I would do it like that.

[00:51:57] And then, you know, like you said, I had this access and at first it didn't matter. Like I just did all my friends. And then as it started to gain popularity, um, you know, that's when I was like, well, heck, I got to go to the trade show and make deals. And, you know, I used to go there and I'd stack up like seven interviews in three days or whatever. So I would have, yeah, I remember you doing that. Yeah. But I realized though, I mean, and now it's like, it was limiting and people, you know, did, if not criticized, at least were like, yeah, you got to get more East coast people.

[00:52:26] You got to get more people who travel and I'm like, or who don't travel or whatever. And so there was a lot of that and that's opened up, which is, you know, I can call whatever Europe. I can do whatever now and get all these sort of a much wider range of voices using this as the tool. Um, does that, even though I try to do face to face ones now and again too. So. So is that better or worse though? What do you mean? Well, it's just interesting because when the whole world is available to you in some

[00:52:53] ways, it's harder to, to, you know, like in some ways when your options are limited, you just interview the people on hand, you interview the people you run into and it's like, you know, it's all kind of makes sense. It's like once everything is available, then you're like, what's my selection criteria? Do I only interview the most rad, you know, cutting edge versus sense? Do I only interview, you know, like guests who deserve it or whatever, you know what I mean? All of a sudden you're like, wait, so how do I choose when everything is available?

[00:53:19] Well, Alex, you've just wandered into like my, one of my existential crises of this last year, actually, um, in the future of this podcast, because that's absolutely right. And I, I, I miss the days when, when it was like that, I was just a mercenary. And if you seem sort of interesting, we do, right. But that is no longer rewarded.

[00:53:48] What's rewarded is having the, the hottest person that can link to all the things and it's like is on everybody's mind because the algorithm loves that. And so I am in this position now where I, I don't want to do that. I don't want to pursue the, the person doing the latest, greatest thing necessarily. I want to talk to who I want to talk to, but you know, if now that it's a business and I have numbers and I sell numbers and I sell, it's like changed it all.

[00:54:18] And I've, I've just been kind of thinking about that this last year of like, it's no longer my creative impulses are the only thing driving me. It's now, well, gosh, you know, if I post that, it's not going to get that many downloads because it's Jim Erickson and nobody knows who that is. And you know, my fans will love it. And then that, then it'll end there. But I want to, because Jim Erickson's fucking rad. He's getting older. I don't want him to disappear without, you know, archiving what he has to say and what

[00:54:46] he did and teaching people, but it's not good business. Honestly, I didn't know. You're a good business, Alex. I was like, this is fucking good business. This is business. Heck yeah. Yeah. But honestly, you know, I mean, I'm going to tag this shit. I'm going to blow you up, you know? Exactly. And it's like, well, can you come back and on my show again in a few months? But what you're really describing is, is the, the tension that everybody feels when they go pro, you know? Cause like, this is the, the age old dilemma with like being a professional climber or something where you're suddenly like, oh, now I have to, you know, cater to sponsors.

[00:55:15] Like, what about the things I want to do versus the things I'm supposed to do? I mean, isn't that really just growing up, you know, at a certain point you're like, oh, I'm trying to feed my child. You're kind of like, you know, you have to, I don't know. It's like working versus playing. Like at what point do you merge them? And yeah, I mean, but that's the thing is, do I turn this thing that started out as play essentially, you know, when I did the first 20 episodes, it was just, this, I was like

[00:55:41] doing this cutting edge, cool thing that nobody understood, you know? Like I literally, as you remember, I'm sure you were part of this one. Cause I think Julie actually was like, you need to get Alex, this kid, Alex, Alex Honnold is going to be here. Do you, have you heard Alex Honnold? I'm like, yeah, of course I've heard of fucking Alex Honnold, but you know, it wasn't, it wasn't Alex Honnold of today. And she's like, well, I'll talk to him. He'll, he'll do your podcast or whatever that thing is you're doing, you know? And so it's like, that was the thing. I don't even remember the first time. Yeah.

[00:56:10] This is called a podcast, you know, like I would have to explain what it was and that was like, cool. And now, you know, I, I kind of want to try to recapture that and I can make money elsewhere, you know? But I can't. Isn't that the nature of having done something 300 times? You know, it's like 300 episodes. You're sort of like, dude, anything that you've done, you know, like if, if you had sent 300 514s, you'd be like, you know what, maybe I need to try something else in sport for a while. It's like true. 300 is a lot. Yeah.

[00:56:38] That's in 13 years or 14 years, whatever it is. Yeah. That's like a long time. Totally. And that's the thing is like, it's like it's perpetual motion is sort of a drag right now too. Like, so, um, I'm, I'm just kind of thinking about it and, and, you know, stop, like earn my money elsewhere. I can earn money. It's just like any climber that, you know, maybe they're a pro for a while and then they realize, well, I can actually do more climbing if I just get a job.

[00:57:05] Well, I mean, I'm, I'm already like, I mean, I'm still very much a professional climber, but there are certain things where I'm kind of like, man, with corporate speaking, I can just buy the things I need and not have to jump through any hoops or like, you know, like basically there are other ways to make income that just kind of are, you know, kind of easy. And you're like, well, just stick to whatever is easy and fun. But, and I think this will, you may have a comment on this from your life as well, but, um, but I mean, it also has been this thing where I could, at least as far as my connection

[00:57:35] to the community, you know, I'm at the stage in life where I, I can keep climbing. That's great. But as far as like my connection, I can go gently into that good night. Right. And I think that one of the benefits of this thing is that like, I have this connection and it forces me or whatever, or I get to reach out and talk to all these people that are younger than me and doing the cool things and doing the cutting edge stuff. I go to events because of this.

[00:58:03] And sometimes I'm like, fuck, I got to go to another festival. What the fuck? But I always get there and I always have a great time and I always love hanging out. And so I think I would be a much sort of hermitish, crustier climber if I wasn't doing this thing. And so- You divert back to your aid climbing roots. You just be like a cranky old man, like nailing up like Choss in the desert. Exactly. But, you know, it's just, it's like, I'm like examining its value.

[00:58:32] It's intrinsic value in my life as far as a, it's, you know, because it's like, yeah, it's a source of income and I need to sort of get paid for the time if I'm going to keep doing it at the level I'm doing it, which is 24 episodes a year, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, I'm just kind of thinking about it and what, if it would be better. And also, would it be a better show if there were less of them? I think there's an argument that it might be. Yeah.

[00:59:00] That stuff is interesting though, because then again, you start worrying about the algorithm stuff and like, oh, if you don't have a standard cadence and like how often you're releasing episodes, then like, you know, do people still care? I don't know. Cause like- Well, that's what I mean. Like I could stop caring if people care. Well, if I made it back into this vanity project, then, then it's like, because I know that people would care because I, I think I can count on this core. It's whether I can expand that core and that's the hustle. And so-

[00:59:30] Well, and do you want to? I mean, literally I'm having the same conversations because with, uh, with climbing goal, they're sort of like, oh, well now it's all about YouTube. It's all about video. We should be recording. And I'm kind of like, if we're recording, then I should just have a fricking YouTube channel, but I don't want a YouTube channel cause I hate all that stuff and I don't want to be shooting videos. I'm kind of like podcasting is fun because you get to interview interesting people. You have fun conversations. It's like relatively low key. As soon as you start filming things, then I'm kind of like, if we're doing film, then like

[00:59:57] this should be a fricking TV project or something like, I don't want to do fricking YouTube things. I don't want to be filming interviews and releasing it like just because it'll get more traction and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, like, uh, as soon as you have to escalate it to something else, then I'm sort of like, I don't want to do that. You know, like, like I'm willing to have a fun chat, like have a nice time with people, but you know, I'm not willing to be a fake movie star like all the time for, I don't know, it's just like, oh, I hate that stuff.

[01:00:25] I mean, I'm in the same boat, but anyhow, but yeah, that's the, that's sort of the podcast story up to the present, you know, that's the deal. So is this when you, uh, unveil your new YouTube channel? Are you, are you going straight video instead? I mean, no, I mean, I don't want to. Dude, you can have the highest rated aid climbing channel because nobody does that. No, there's this cat out there, Oliver Tippett. I don't know who that is. I don't know. Yeah.

[01:00:50] He's, he's like the latest guy that's out there climbing the hard walls on El Cap. Oh no. I think I met that guy. A British guy. Yeah. Yeah. British guy. Oh, I met him on the nose this season. Yeah. Yeah. I met him, uh, with what's his name? Michael, whatever. The guy that had just done the quad, the, the like mega link up, they dragged him up so he could do one pitch of like a three nailing next to the nose. They basically did the nose in a day with one crazy pitch. And I was like, that sounds like a tremendous amount of effort. I was like, who, like, why are you guys doing that?

[01:01:21] Yeah. But, uh, everybody's got like, they're all ringing, you know, novelty out of these things that, that are so old, but yeah, he's, I think he's sort of like already taken that niche. Like he is the YouTube channel. Yeah, I think so. Oh man. Yeah. So I just think, uh, I think it'd be gripping if you did a GoPro footage or, you know, helmet cam footage of you just ripping a whole aid pitch. It'd be so scary. Dan Osmond. I think he did that. I don't know.

[01:01:49] Dude, I literally just, uh, I was trying to put ropes on this like 13 D wall here in, in Red Rock. It's like kind of sporty. It's not like dangerous, but it's the kind of thing that when you're free climbing it, you like plays a good piece and you punch it like nine moves and you clip a bolt eventually. But when you're trying to French free it just to get ropes on it so you can like work it and there's no chalk. I was like, Oh my God, this is so scary. Cause I like, wasn't really willing to like take these giant wingers over and over. Anyway, I wound up aid climbing on like this micro nut. And then I used a blue ball nut as a handle that was afraid to really weight it.

[01:02:17] So I just kind of held it with one hand and then try to like climb past it and eventually made it to the bolt. But I was like, God, aid climbing is so scary. I think it's like when you're watching all the grains fall out of the placement, you know, you put something in and then as you start to weight it, you see rock falling out and you're just like, Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, I joke that like if, if you took, if you somehow like magically transported me like now, like, you know, 2024 me to the middle of one of those pitches that I would do on El Cap.

[01:02:47] You'd shit yourself. In my twenties. I would like lose my mind. Like I would just go catatonic and they would have to come in like, so I'll get me off of there. Why do you think that is? Uh, I think, I mean, this is like, cause obviously like the podcast has also been this massive research project in a sense, right? Talking to hundreds of climbers. Yeah. Is that you, um, just get more scared when you're old unless you're some, unless you're some sort of anomaly.

[01:03:16] I think we all just get. I think I'm slowly starting to experience that too. And I'm kind of like, why is that? Like, is that just like an innate thing? I think, I mean, honestly it could very well be. And I'm just like talking on my ass. You're, you're usually have more research at your fingertips. Um, just cause of the way you do your reading and stuff. But, uh, I mean, maybe it's just the loss of testosterone because that's a fact. Like we, we are losing testosterone. We're losing it right now, Alex. It's somehow leaving our bodies, um, as we speak. And testosterone is a hell of a drug, man.

[01:03:45] It really is. And it's like, you're, you're boiling over with it in your twenties and, you know, it's just like, it gets you, it gets you through, man. It like makes you a warrior. You know, you, you, I just actually, uh, funny. I rewatched, um, free solo cause my wife had never seen it. Oh yeah. Classic. Yeah. Miles watched some of it too, actually. Um, he was mildly interested, but, uh, yeah, you know, there's some quote in there about your, some warrior stuff.

[01:04:12] And, uh, yeah, I mean, they don't send, they don't, I mean, I guess Russia does right now, but they try not to send 50 year olds to Russia sending like 65 year old convicts into war right now. Yeah, that's not going to end well, but, uh, for either, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, there's a reason you recruit. If you need people to run at, you know, barrages of bullets, you, you recruit young men and they will.

[01:04:36] And history is, is a, is rife with young men just charging at spears or bullets or cannons or whatever the era was. They will charge right in there, you know? And that's interesting. A 35 year old would be like, um, wait, you want me to do what now? Totally. But you always wonder, is that physiological? Like, because you have a lower testosterone or is that just because you're smarter, you know, or slightly more experienced or just like. It's some heady combination of all of it, but I think.

[01:05:04] Cause I wonder a little bit and actually, and this is probably a real question for you having interviewed so many climbers. It's like, how much of it do you think is just collecting baggage over the years? Like you collect these like terrible stories, you hear about terrible accidents, like terrible things happen to friends. And it just like weighs up over the time, you know? It's like. Yeah. That has to be a part of it. Um, like I said, it has to be, but I still go back to like, you know, what you do with

[01:05:34] those stories, how they affect you changes. Because I definitely could, could blow off pretty heavily, like a relatively close accident. Or, I mean, I didn't have anyone in my twenties when I was in my twenties that I knew really well that, that passed away necessarily. Well, actually that's not true. Very early on there was a couple and you just kind of moved on in a way that, um. But do you think that's something that at first you can move on?

[01:06:01] And then with each progressive accident, you're like, oh, it's just harder and harder to move on. You know, like it starts to accumulate in a way. Yeah. Because that's kind of how it feels for me where I'm like, you know, like I've always felt like those kinds of things affect me less than, than some of my friends, let's say. Or, you know, that like in general, I'm probably less emotionally affected than, than average. And yet still over time, I'm like, you know what? I do feel like it's like slowly adding up where you're just like, oh, it's just kind of a lot. You're like, that's heavy. Yeah.

[01:06:29] Like I said, it's gotta be some, some combination of knowledge and understanding. But one thing you need to monitor, cause how old is your oldest kid? Uh, almost three. Okay. Almost three. So you really haven't gotten into the like meat of like Pixar movies and Disney movies yet. Um, but monitor your own response to those movies. Um, you mean if you start crying immediately, then you know that you're softening up. Yeah, totally.

[01:06:56] Because I was like, I mean, there's like, yeah, my wife and I joke about the end of Encanto. There's a song in the movie Encanto, which is one of our favorites. Actually, my wife tried to watch that with, uh, with our daughter yesterday, but she was like not having it. So she had to switch movies like one minute in. Yeah. Yeah. She's three is a little young for, for long plot movies, but, uh, there's a song at the end of that that like, just like hits us. Steph and I joke about it all the time, you know, it's like the end of it.

[01:07:22] Freaking, uh, I mean the chords it's, it's, uh, it's, um, uh, the guy from, uh, from Yeah. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Yeah. So, I mean, the guy's like, he knows how to just like punch you in the face with his music and be like, so it's like, I feel like, you know, I'm not crying over nothing, but, um, I mean, I don't cry, but you can just like feel it. And I, I sit there and I'm like, this is a fucking Disney movie, dog. Like you climbed day five. Like what's your problem? Dude, forget, uh, uh, the other day I've never seen Finding Nemo, but my wife put it

[01:07:51] on for, for our daughter the other morning or like the other day. And, and within five minutes I was like, Oh my God, the whole family just died. Like this idyllic life. Like the, the mother dies in like four minutes into the movie. And I was like, this is horrible. Like, well, how is this a kid's movie? It's like, what the heck? Like you got to teach him about death, dude. I know. I guess I was like heavy baggage, you know, I was like, I'm collecting trauma. Yeah. But that softness to me is like part of the whole deal.

[01:08:16] So, but, um, but do you know, and I accumulate a faster though by, by podcasting, like by interviewing tons of people? Cause basically it's like, cause you just have to dive into other people's stories so much. I mean, you just hear so much more of that. I mean, I didn't know this when I started the podcast, but I am genuinely interested in like, I mean, it's just allowed me to, to go deep with people. Like you just said. Well, that's what I like about podcasting is that you get to the heart of things like in a way that you don't in like normal interviews and things.

[01:08:46] Yeah. And so I just enjoy, I just kind of realized that right off. And, and, um, I mean, I could, you know, just talk a lot about just, I mean, being emotionally affected by talking to people. I mean, we've, I've cried in my interviews. Like I've, I've cried with the person who's crying. Um, is re I mean, I have one in the bag right now that hasn't been put out yet that both of us fricking cry like half the time. So, you know, and that's like powerful stuff.

[01:09:14] And like, it just goes to the meat of what we do, you know, that has this danger in it and it has this tragedy in it. And, um, there's no way around it. Um, if you stay in the game long enough, you know? So, I mean, you know, it's like, I mean, interviewing people who are, are dead now, like, that's crazy that, that we did that, that I did that. And it's such an honor that I did it, you know? I mean, and, uh, well, I mean, speaking of, I mean, so correct me if I'm wrong, but a couple of your first interviews were with Hayden, weren't they?

[01:09:44] Yeah. Yeah. Post a serratory. Isn't that one of the things that kind of blew up the enormous cast? Absolutely. Yeah. It was, uh, it was six and seven. So yeah. Right. In the beginning. And, and there's this kind of backstory to it that, that also sort of just kind of predicted the future in a way is that, you know, he came back from, from chop and serratory and, and he was really affected. I don't know if you remember, but, or if you talked to him a lot then, but like that, that he was getting so much hate, um, really bothered him.

[01:10:13] When like going to jail and shelter and stuff. I thought the whole thing was like kind of traumatizing. Yeah. And then, but then when he got home and like a lot of these people that knew him, you know, were busting his ass and, you know, it was early internet forum times. So you'd, you know, the taco was going off and, you know, people that you respected, like Steve Schneider was going off on him and stuff. And, you know, it was naive for him to not expect that. Yeah. He's a kid. That's the beauty of youth. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, I was doing the right thing. I can't believe they all hate me. You're like, well, it's complicated.

[01:10:43] I can, I was like, look, I'm doing this thing. It's called a podcast. Like literally, like, I'm like, it's, it's, that's what I said. I'm like, it's room. We can, we can press play or record and it's room for you to explain yourself. Okay. What you're, you know, responding to a comment or all that shit is not a place. And I was like, if you do this, I think it's going to help.

[01:11:06] I think people who spend the time to listen to this long form thing, if they disagree with you, it'll be a disagreement. Not like that. He's a fucking idiot or he's an asshole or stupid kid. And it totally did that. Like it, it was a, it was like a test of, of what's, what's the phrase concept in terms of this is a long form format where you get the time to explain yourself.

[01:11:35] And if someone invests that time to listen, they can't walk away like, oh, he's a fucking dick. Totally. In the same way. And it did, it, it worked. Like he, there was a lot of people that got in touch with me and with him like, oh, I disagree, but I see your understand. I understand your, your motives now. And like, you're not just a dumb kid who wanted fame or whatever they were saying. So, yeah. So it was a proof of concept and, and I mean, it's a really special thing to have that.

[01:12:00] I have four or five inner episodes with Hayden, you know, and I mean, it's awesome. Like what a, what a piece of, you know, it was like, cause you know, I mean, you hung out with him a ton. It's like the way he talked, the way he laughed. I mean, that's all his personality and you're not going to read that. You can't read it, you know? And his Alpinist article was quite famous that he talked about Kyle and all that stuff, but that's a polished thing. Yeah. It's all edited. Yeah.

[01:12:29] And so I just feel really glad that we have, I mean, I haven't hardly listened to him because it's too hard still, you know, cause of the sound of his voice and everything. So, but yeah, it's cool. And you know, there's like an early one, I don't know if you got to go, but, or we should wrap this up. But, um, I interviewed this kid, which is kind of in lost to history here, but it's like, uh, I wrote it down. It's like 24 or something. Um, it's a kid named Kevin Landau, 26, um, who had cancer.

[01:12:59] And that's like kind of lost in the archives, but it's a, it's a mammoth moment in the whole thing. Um, I went and, I went and basically, uh, interviewed him in hospice. Well, he wasn't in hospice, but he was living at the hospital on chemo and, uh, it was not looking good. You know, we, we, you know, we keep up the hot kind of like, you know, you're going to beat this, but the truth was, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He died like a few months later, man.

[01:13:29] I mean, he was, you know, it had, he had gone into remission and it had come back. And, and when it comes back, I mean, he admitted it on there, like you're, you're kind of hosed, but like, I went down there and talked to him and, uh, he was an early adopter of the show. That's how I got in touch with him. My friend, um, this guy, Doug Shepard said, I got this buddy who loves your show and this would mean a lot to him. And man, like I, I kept it together and then I left and I was driving back up out of Denver and I like lost it.

[01:13:59] But anyway, so, but it was just this thing, like this, I mean, this powerful thing that I kind of happened upon this, this podcast format, you know? Totally. Well, so maybe as a, as a last question then to, uh, to wrap this up for celebrating 300 episodes of the Enorma cast, what other episodes do you think people should deep dive in the archive? Like what should people find? You know what I mean? Because I feel like at least half your listeners must be somewhat recent. Just because climbing has grown so much.

[01:14:29] I mean, nobody scrolls all the way back to 2011 to find your first episodes. Like what are some, what are some other personal highlights from you or things that, that you think newer listeners should find? Well, people have been emailing me once in a while. They're like, Oh man, I went back and listened to your first one. And dude, you know, like you should go back and listen to it. Spotify doesn't even go back to your first ones. Like when you go on Spotify, it only goes to like 35 or something. I know you have to go on the other formats. That's it. You have to find like a technological thing that I have yet to overcome.

[01:14:59] There's a reason they can't find them. I can't remember why, but, um, but, uh, but yeah, you can find them elsewhere, like on the website. But, um, I mean, I think like obviously the famous one, I mean, obviously HKs are all magnificent. Um, he's funny, you know, it's got a lot more meaning even now, but they were great. He was very much like, yeah, sure. I'll do it. Like whenever I asked him to come on the show. And, um, so any of those are great and you can just, you know, search his name and, you know, I'm a cast.

[01:15:28] But, um, you know, the D Martino one is super famous number 11, which was another kind of like realization that we could tell this like very gripping story off the cuff. Cause, um, it's, you know, he lost his leg and he tells the whole story. He's a really good storyteller. That one, I always joke that I peaked at 11, 300 episodes later. I'm slowly cruising downhill, 290 episodes later. Yeah, exactly. You know? Um, and then this is your, your rough landing number 300.

[01:15:58] He just let someone else host and the whole thing crashes. And you're like, well, everyone off the plane crashed. I mean, Peter Croft one, I think like, I think that still stands out. Um, cause I think Peter Croft. Yeah. He's the man. Yeah. And it's a funny one too, because you can kind of feel me floundering a little bit and then he's not Peter Croft. Yeah. And he's like, wants to watch TV or whatever. Like, um, cause he, I think he thought it was just some stupid thing.

[01:16:27] And then he realized like, you can hear him kind of realize that I knew what I was talking about and I was like a climber for real. And he was, it was in Vegas with the, the red rock rendezvous thing. And so I thought he, I think he thought it was just some bullshit thing. And that was like cool because afterwards I know that he told Julie and Michael Kennedy, like, man, he, that was really great. It was one of the best interviews I've ever done. And like, he's really knew what he was talking about. And like, you can hear him realize that in the, in the podcast, which is kind of cool.

[01:16:56] Um, Stacy bear, which is one Oh three was really, uh, another really moving one. Um, he was a, he's a, you know, guy who went to war and yeah, I went to fricking Angola with him and, uh, uh, unexploded ordinance, like, you know, dug up landmines and like blew him up in a pit. That was a whole Stacy bear is a quite, quite the dude. I mean, honestly, like you're, you're one after doing El Cap is fucking sick.

[01:17:21] Like I felt very honored that, that you came on my show pretty soon after that. And it wasn't like the month after exclusive. Yeah. But you hadn't really done too much media yet. Um, or at least it hadn't come out. I think you'd been on Kimmel actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Like I did Kimmel and I did the enormous cast, you know, the two premier, uh, news, news outlets. Well, the funny thing is, is like Kimmel seemed like a big deal, but then once the movie came out, like fuck, like, yeah, exactly. Um, but yeah, you know, a couple more recent ones.

[01:17:51] Like I have a really great one. I think with Michael Gardner who, who passed away last month or two months ago now that was really special. And, and the cool thing is, is some of these like turned into friendships kind of based on these interviews. I mean, Chris, Chris, uh, um, Hampton definitely became a friend sort of through doing the interview and hanging out. Um, I think I became friends with Michael, not super close, but Mike, I mean, they've been called it Mike, but, um, yeah.

[01:18:19] And then, I mean, recently the Didier ones, dude, like talking to Didier about it. It's like, Oh yeah, dude. We go hard on the whole disappearing in the monastery thing and the whole deal. Oh, classic. Yeah. Those are all like, I mean, yeah. But really just like think of your favorite climber and go Google it. Cause I probably interviewed him. You know? I know. It's like, that's the thing is there, there are only what, like 60 notable climbers out there and you've done 300 episodes.

[01:18:47] So it's like, you must've gotten everybody at this point. Yeah. Yeah. The recent Brett Harrington repeat is also, I think a really good one from last year. Um, cause this evolution between this, like, you know, super go get her, like psych kind of girl, you know, I don't mean that disrespectfully, um, to who she is now and what she's gone through since then was, she was very open about it. And it was, it was kind of an interesting evolution. Cause she had just climbed with her a bunch in the Valley this season and she is like way

[01:19:15] more mature in a way or just, you know, she's just like, she's just grown up. You're like, Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm looking forward to trying to get, um, Angela Van Wiemersh on, um, this winter to, for a repeat. Um, cause her, her evolution is very similar. You know, she's, she's been, she's been through a lot and I interviewed her when she was just like this goofy, naive girl from Michigan and, and, uh, fuck, she's been through a ton. So, yeah.

[01:19:42] Well, I mean, I guess, so you still have, uh, projects you're excited about, still people you want to talk to, still things. So I guess one way or another, you're probably making it to at least three 10, you know, something like that. I got like seven in the hopper, dude. Oh yeah. Okay. So you'll make it to at least 315, I bet. And then, and then you can wind it down. Then I can wind it down. Yeah. The algorithm will stop listening to me altogether. Yeah. Well, that's the tough thing about trying to, at a certain point, all of these kinds of

[01:20:08] things are just, I mean, it has to be personal passion because it's like the algorithm, the, the mass appeal, all that, like, you just never know, like the crowd is fickle, you know, it's like, you never really know when that's just going to like turn off or turn away or whatever. And so it's like, you kind of have to just be doing it for yourself and like interviewing the people that you find inspiring. Yeah. I mean, I've gotten loads of advice over the last month as I've been thinking about 2025

[01:20:34] and, and it all turns on that to the, with the, from the people I respect, it all turns on like, what do you want to do? What do you, what do you want to do? And if you just do it for yourself and, and, and if you don't want to do it, stop doing it. You know, like I have other avenues to make money. This thing doesn't make that much money. So it's like, yeah. And it's been really helpful, you know, again, from some, some voices I very much respect. So, um, something will change. And, uh, I think I'll bring my core with me and not worry about the rest.

[01:21:04] And, uh, and then take the rest onto YouTube, you know, as you start your channel, I'm, I'm, I can't wait to watch. Oh, this is it right here. You, you should have combed your hair. This has gone straight on YouTube. Yeah. No, you don't think this looks good. This is about as good as it gets, you know, my wife got my hair. It's free, you know? Anyway. Uh, cool. Well, pleasure chatting, you know, nice, nice way to, to round out 300 episodes. Yeah. Thanks dude. And, uh, yeah.

[01:21:33] I've appreciated all your, your input and support on, I mean, you've, you've always, when I've asked you, you've always come to the table and I appreciate that. Well, that's because the normal cast has always been the, the premier long form climbing podcast. I mean, it's the place to, to really get into core. Well, I mean, that's, I think that's why I did that, that free rider episode with you, like right after selling the free riders, it's a place where you know that you can get into the niche, like get into the beta, get into the variations. Cause when you do like mainstream interviews, you're like, it was a big challenge to climb

[01:22:00] that mountain, but I overcame that challenge through hard work and preparation. You know, it's like, and then when you do the normal cast, you can be like, well, so the thing with pitch four is that it's slippery as fuck, you know, it's like, you know, it's just totally different ends of the spectrum. Yeah. Cause I remember I kind of opened with that. I think like, how did you get past the fucking free blast? Well, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then you can get into like, well, okay. So there's this one move and I tried this other way, but then I worked this variation for a long time. It turns out it's actually harder. So I went back to the normal way and you know, it's like, yeah, I mean, that's the,

[01:22:29] and that's the beauty of the normal cast is having space to really tell like real climbing stories. All right. When are you going to get, get the, the, um, the uncut three and a half hour, three hour ascent of El Capo to Jimmy Chin. Get that footage. You got to petition Jimmy and Jai. I, I, I'm not the person to know. Why not? Like, what could it hurt? I don't know. To put together the three hour cut. There'll be this weird, there'll be a whole mystery in the middle where they're like, what's he do disappearing behind the spire for about three minutes in the middle of

[01:22:59] the climb? I wonder, I wonder what, what's up with those missing three minutes? And you're like, no, no, nothing to see there. That would start a huge controversy. Yeah, exactly. What do you think he did down the Excalibur chimneys? I don't know, but we should go look for evidence. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Anyway, with that, that should successfully conclude 300 episodes of the Enorma Cast. Perfect, dude. We'll see you at 350.

[01:23:29] Yeah, classic. Thanks for listening. And thanks to Chris for letting me hijack the show. You all know where to follow Chris and you can join me, Alex Arnold, at Climbing Gold when you've finished all 300 episodes of the Enorma Cast, if you can ever manage. It's a lot of content.

[01:23:58] But hope you're out there having fun, having a safe new year, look out for each other, try hard, and of course, check your knots. This battle is over, Linus. This battle is over.

[01:24:27] When I say it is over. There is no glory to be had now. Only retreat, or surrender, or death. But that's an easy choice for us, Arcadian. Spartans never retreat. Spartans never surrender.