How to Set & Achieve Massive Goals | Alex Honnold

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Alex Honnold. Alex Honnold is a professional rock climber. He's best known for successfully free soloing, meaning climbing with no ropes or latching on of any kind, El Capitan, also called El Cap, which is a nearly 3,000-foot climb in Yosemite National Park.

It was also, of course, the topic and focus of the incredible movie Free Solo, which, if you haven't seen, you absolutely should watch. I've wanted to talk to Alex for a long time now. I'm not a rock climber. I've tried it a few times, but I've been extremely curious to understand Alex's mental frame around learning and training and his broader philosophy on life. My interest stems from the fact that Alex's free solo of El Cap and his other climbs make him one of the most accomplished and innovative athletes in all of history.

And, of course, the free solo of El Cap is extremely high risk and high consequence. Today we discuss how to envision and make progress towards your goals, and how to merge the demands of daily work and family life with incremental training for spectacularly big or long challenges of any kind. Alex makes clear that it's essential and possible to build your capacity to exert effort, and how to do that in a regimented way so as to bring seemingly impossible goals within your reach.

We also discuss how coming to terms with one's own mortality is actually one of the best motivators for building a great life, and why most people hide from that reality, and as a result, end up living much smaller lives than they otherwise would. We also discuss training, literally what to do to build strength and endurance, not just for sake of rock climbing, but just generally. And that takes us into discussions about weight training, body weight training, running, hiking, and a bunch of other things that you can apply.

Even if you have zero interest in rock climbing, today's conversation with Alex Honnold will definitely change the way that you think about your life, what you can make of it, and how to go about that. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public.

In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Alex Honnold. Alex Honnold, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

I think Free Solo is remarkable for a ton of reasons. But as a good friend of mine, who I think you know, Michael Muller, photographer, he said before I'd seen the film, he said, It's wild because you're terrified as an observer the entire time, but you also know that Alex survives from the be very beginning, which is a very unusual

But I think some people don't know that. Some

Oh, really?

people watch the movie and they literally have no idea what it's about or what's going on, and they spend the whole movie being like, Oh my god, what's gonna happen?

Okay, so I just spoiled it.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, at this point, I'm like, nobody cares, it's old news.

Well, it's it's a spectacular feat, and, uh, we can go into that feat, but I'd actually like to drill in a little bit to just your process in general. Um, I'm sure that's changed over time, and feel free to talk about that. But, you know, I'm very curious about sort of notions of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, right? And and I think free solo is also remarkable because you had cameras on you, um, it was obviously to be recorded, and you knew you had cameras on you.

And yet, I always thought of climbing as kind of a a solitary, uh, sport, um, or or things that people do in in small groups kind of off the grid. Things have changed now with social media, the way everything can be posted very quickly or even run live. But when you think about sort of the work that you're doing in in terms of progressing and goals and, you know, kind of milestones for yourself, how do you envision that?

Is this in like a do you have a a diary? Do you have a process where you sit back and you think, you know, what would be awesome for me to experience? Would people like to see it? How do what's the sort of balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for you?

So basically, I think climbing is always intrinsically motivated. I mean, since I've I started climbing when I was a child, I've always loved climbing. I love the movement of climbing, I love the feeling of it, I love the whole experience, you know, just everything about it's great. But then, you know, now as a professional climber, obviously there is that extrinsic motivation as well, where you're like, Oh, this is how I make a living. And so I think with the film, Free Solo, you know, it was a really interesting balance of the two, where it was like, this is something that I'd love to do for myself, and even if no one else in the world existed, I'd wanna do this

thing. But then you also know that if you're if the film turns out well, uh, which it did, uh, you know, it's gonna be great for your career, it's gonna be great for whatever. And so, like, there is that extrinsic motivation as well. And so then you're always trying to parse out like, which part is which? And, you know, cause you don't wanna, particularly with free soloing, you don't wanna be too extrinsically motivated, cause you don't want to get pushed into something that you're not prepared for, that you shouldn't be doing.

Of course, you know, being even being intrinsically motivated, you can do something you shouldn't. You know, I, I don't know, I mean, but you're just constantly thinking about those things as a climber.

In order to free solo El Cap, did you memorize sequences, or is it more sort of like motifs where you you kind of know that, um, you're gonna do a any number of different things in a in a given pitch?

It depends. So for the hardest parts, I memorized, like, for sure, memorized every aspect of it, but that's only the hardest parts. That's maybe like 1/3 of the route, and then for the easiest 1/3, and some of it is actually quite easy. Some of it's like even a non climber could climb small sections of the wall. Like, there are parts that are quite easy, uh, here and there, you know, it's like, uh, not the bulk, but but so for the easy parts, you just know that you can do it and you, you don't have to stress it.

And then the the medium parts, kind of like the remaining 1/3 of the wall, you sort of remember, kinda like you said, motifs, like you, you might know the hardest part, and you just kinda know that it's gonna be fine, but you don't have to memorize it per se. But certainly, I knew the route very, very well. You know, you just you just know all the things that you have to know.

You recognize not just holds, but like visceral sensations, like th- this feels different or cause I imagine con- uh, conditions change, right? I mean, weather conditions, heat on the rock, uh, shadows on the rock.

Yeah, but not as much as you might think, because, uh, like, I was only climbing it in shade, like, um, in the springtime, the that whole west side of the wall stays in the shade until eleven or noonish in the morning. So you go at 4: 00 in the morning, and then you have sort of 8 hours of solid shade. So, normally, the temperature and the the conditions feel relatively stable, and you spend the whole season working on it.

So you kinda know that tomorrow is gonna feel the same as it did today, roughly, you know, and so it's all within a relatively narrow band, particularly in the spring, which is why I did it in the springtime. In the in the fall, in the autumn, it's a little bit different because the sun is lower in the sky, so it gets sun much earlier, and it actually is way hotter, counterintuitively. It's like colder when it's in the shade, and then hotter when it's in the sun.

And anyways, that makes it harder for climbing, obviously. But when I free-soloed El Cap, I was spending 3 or 4 months a year in Yosemite every year, like, you know, a month or 2 every spring and every every autumn. And so if you're spending 4 months a year in a place, you just know how it feels, you know? It's like you're used to getting up that early, you're used to climbing on the wall, and you're just kinda like, Oh, it's it's gonna be another beautiful day on the rock.

And actually, the day that I did the free solo of El Cap, it was actually, um, a little more humid and a little warmer than than I maybe than would've been optimal, you know, like it's not what I would've chosen, but that's just the way it was that day. And I was kinda like, Well, this is my day, you know? You kinda just have to do the thing. Um, but it had been, like, overcast that night, and you know, when it's cloudy at night, the lows don't drop as low.

And so I woke up and it was like, kinda muggy-ish feeling. I was like, It's not, it's not great for being 4: 00 in the morning. It's like, feels kinda gross, but I was like, This is my day, and it was fine.

So you form a relationship with the rock, you kind of, like, learn to recognize, um, its different states. When you did it and completed it cause I know you set out one day and then you you called it Yeah, that that off.

was in the autumn, that was that was the season before, and, uh, basically, the season was ending, like, storms are coming in the next week type deal, and it was like the season is winding down. And it was kinda like, Well, I should at least take a shot because I'd done a lot of prep and I felt mostly ready, and it turns out I just wasn't ready, ready. And so so I wound up bailing, but that was kind of my end of the season, like, I think I can squeak this in, knowing that if I couldn't squeak it in, then then I'd have to wait 6 more months.

And with the pressure of the film crew and all that stuff, knowing that there are all these people, like, working and waiting for you, you're kinda like, Well, I ought to at least try to get this done, cause, like, all these people are waiting on me. But as it turns out, I just didn't quite have it yet. And then when I ultimately did do it in the spring, I was much better prepared, felt way better, the whole experience worked out better.

So now, in retrospect, I'm like, Oh, I'm glad that it played out that way cause, uh, you know, it was it was better. But at the time, it was, you know, I was like, Oh God, I failed on this thing and all these people are watching, it's embarrassing. It's, you know, it was, you know, it was all very stressful at the time.

Yeah, the external pressures have to be, you know, pretty pretty mighty when yeah, when, especially when they're your friends. I I guess one could imagine that, like, when it's just business, you can just be like, Well, it's just business. But, yeah, you had a lot of friends up there with you.

For me, the thing is is that if I'm gonna go climb the wall, you know, I start climbing at four thirty in the morning or five or something. So that means some of my friends to get in position at the top of the wall are getting up at like 1: 00 in the morning and then hiking to the top of the mountain with a heavy backpack. And if you're asking a bunch of your buddies to go hiking at 1: 00 in the morning, like, you better live up to your end of the the thing, you know?

Like, if you say you're gonna do something, you better actually do the thing cause your friends, obviously, no one's complaining, no one is pressuring me, no one's but at the same time, you don't wanna bail. Like, uh, like, it's pretty embarrassing if you tell someone you're gonna do something and then you just can't do it.

Well, they certainly wanted the outcome to be only one way, and, Yeah, and and uh,

they were all super positive and supportive, and it's all great, but you still can't help but feel that pressure.

sure. Well, it certainly worked out. I'm curious, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, uh, total certainty, um, along that trajectory, uh, when you completed it, uh, were there any phases where, um, y- you felt you had to improvise against the original plan?

You mean, on the day of the actual On the day of so

the actual completion of of the free solo of El no, on Cap?

on the day, I was 100, everything was perfect. I knew exactly what to do, it was all amazing. Um, but it took a really long time to get to get there, you know, it's like ly- literally years of of building up to it and then months of preparation and everything. But no, on the day, it was it was perfect.

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Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman. When you climb, um, I'm curious where your mental horizon is. I I I can make up a story as a non-climber, that your mental horizon is always on just the the next, uh, the next maneuver, just getting further up or further over. Sometimes, of course, you have to go down and up, um, but that your your sort of, um, time binning and your space binning is is very, very close. Um, but do you ever go into states where you're, uh, sort of in automaticity?

I mean, we hear about flow, right? But where you find yourself kind of maneuvering as opposed to, um, being hyper strategic about what's happening in the next 5 seconds, 10 seconds.

Well, I think the the aspiration is to be in that, you know, flow state, whatever you wanna call it. But, um, y- you know, actually, I think even in the film, there's some quotes from me saying autopilot and things like, I'm, you know, I'm aspiring to be on autopilot. So I'm aspiring to not be thinking too much about it. And and that's for me, at least, why it required so much practice was to be able to to just do something almost by rote, you know, by by r- through repetition, just to do the thing that you've practiced without having to think about it.

Cause I think w- once you start thinking about it too much, you're just more prone to not just make errors, but just, like, get to get caught up in your own mind. And I don't know, I mean, the the aspiration was just to do the thing, like, no thinking about it, no hesitation, you know, no emotional, uh, you know, affect around it, to just do it.

Is the kinesthetic aspect of it big? In other words, are you feeling your way, uh, through it, as well as, um, using vision? Um, I mean, I imagine that these things start to blend.

Yeah, I've actually never been asked something quite like that, and in some ways, I mean, the kinesthetic aspect is is maybe the whole thing. Like, I mean, it is kind of like dancing or something where you are just flowing over stone. I mean, obviously, you're looking around and you're looking at your footholds, and you're sort of placing your feet correctly that way. But but really, you're just doing sequences, you're just flowing like your body is moving.

I mean, it I think when you climb well, and and particularly when you've rehearsed something and and you know the climb really well, it feels like jogging or swimming or sort of other elemental movement patterns, where it's just like your body doing what it's meant to do, and it feels great, you know? It's like, it's really nice.

Do you ever surprise yourself still, like, that, uh, t in training things, you know, surprise that worked out? And then s and then stick with that kinesthetic sense. I've, um, been listening to an amazing book by Twyla Tharp. She's a, uh, choreographer, uh, she was a ballerina, she's a choreographer, and and she said that, um, what distinguishes, you know, sort of virtuosity from mastery is that when you start to surprise yourself, and I think you're certainly in that category of virtu- of virtuosos.

So, um, how often does surprise come about?

for me personally, that's maybe my favorite moment in climbing is when you surprise yourself. Um, and this isn't so much with free soloing, because with free soloing, you don't wanna be surprised. But, uh, but with a but with a rope on, you know, you have moments all the time where you're sure you're about to fall because you're, you know, up against your physical limits or whatever. And then you stick a move that you were sure you weren't going to.

Um, and, you know, it doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you're like, Oh, I exceeded my own expectations. It's like it's like the best feeling, you know? It happens from time to time. In in some ways, actually, I I was telling one of my friends, I think that that might be, uh, one of the ways in which I see aging. You know, like, as I'm getting older as a climber, I think I surprise myself less often.

You know, I think as, like, a twenty four-year-old, you just don't know your own limitations that much, and you frequently surprise yourself where I'm like, Wow, I really outdid myself. I really did something that I was sure I couldn't do, but I managed to do it. And now, as a recent forty-year-old, you know, like, that happens from time to time, for sure, but not all the time, you know? It's like and and now occasionally I have things where I was like, Oh, I was sure I could do that, and and then I failed, you know?

And you're kinda like, Oh, you can blame conditions, you can blame whatever, but you're kinda like, Oh, I really thought I would do that, and I and I fell off. Anyway, you're like, Damn it.

What is the role of aging and climbing, uh, traditionally, and how you're experiencing it? Like, there are fields of of science like mathematics where the the stereotype is, uh, you know, it's a young person's game. And then there are fields like biology, which is a bit more incremental, and people can have fantastic discoveries in long careers. Th- those are academic, uh, cerebral, uh, s um, endeavors. But, you know, we have our understanding of this for every sport.

Uh, for climbing, what's the lore for, um, climbing and for free soloists in particular? That it's an old man's game, it's a young man's game, woman's game, excuse me.

I don't I don't think anybody calls free soloing an old man's game, but but, um, but no, but, uh, it could be, but no, I think in general, climbing has more longevity than most sports, just because it's relatively low impact on your body. It's very technique and, like, movement focused, and so it's not just pure physical strength. That said, I mean, climbing is in the Olympics now, and the people winning the Olympics are all sort of 18 to 23-ish, you know, sort of same as gymnastics type of range.

So I think at the most elite levels of climbing performance, it's kind of similar to gymnastics probably. But then to do interesting new things on real rock outdoors, I think there's a much wider latitude. You know, it's like, uh, and then even into your 50s and 60s, there are plenty of climbers who are leading expeditions to new places, developing new climbs, you know, you know, doing things that are noteworthy and sort of meaningful for the climbing community, even though they're not necessarily cutting edge physically.

So I think there's a lot of lot of opportunity for climbing, more than most sports. And and I think, actually, and the other big thing with climbing is that in so many other sports, like think ball sports, you know, NBA, NFL, uh, baseball, whatever, it's kind of like if you don't make the team, then you're done playing forever, like, you'll literally never play football again if you're not a professional football player. Whereas with climbing, even if you're not playing at the highest level, you can still go climb all the time, and you can still do cool climbs, you can still do things that matter, you can help teach, you can do whatever, and so you can kinda, like, stay in

the game much, much longer.

You mentioned that climbing's in the Olympics now, we see a lot of sports like skateboarding and climbing now in the Olympics. And these were sports that traditionally were done, you know, people would just go to go to where these things were done, and it wasn't always recorded because there wasn't social media back then.

Well, more that that there weren't smartphones, there weren't cameras, that, you know, it's like, it's not even about the social, it's about the whether or not you can record it easily, but

So, um, I'm guessing there's a big influx of of young kids getting into this now. Do you see the sport progressing faster? And I'm also curious about the the culture, whether or not, you know, like, any time a sport, um, is is in the Olympics, the thing is like, Oh, it's kind of quote unquote sold out now, it's gonna change, it's gonna become more commercial. So, w- what's the culture within climbing about, um, about this big expansion?

What are your thoughts?

I mean, personally, I'm I'm way into it. I mean, I was a kid that got into climbing at a climbing gym and and it's changed my life for the better, you know, like, I love climbing, I think it's great. You know, I can certainly see the sort of commercial influx from the Olympics or or sort of, like, more mainstream a adoption of climbing. But that's kinda great, cause, I mean, most of my friends are sort of climbing industry adjacent professionals in some ways, you know, like, they make they're like coaches or dietitians or setters, like they they make the climbs that people climb on.

Um, and so basically, the bigger the industry gets, the more people like that, uh, can make a living doing the thing that they love to do, even if they're not necessarily sponsored professionals at the highest level. So I'm kinda like, you know, a broadening industry is is kinda good for everybody. And mostly, I mean, climbing's awesome, like, if people enjoy, you know, it's like, why not get into climbing? It's like, certainly, I mean, I think it's better than most other fitness modalities, you know, it's like, Oh, why do CrossFit when you can go rock climbing?

It's way cooler.

I mean, it certainly seems Way more fun, to

that's for sure.

and you could do indoors or outdoors. There are probably certain aspects you wouldn't wanna do alone for safety reasons, but, um,

I think when people ask, like, what do you worry about with climbing culture and all that kind of stuff, like with the Olympics and the the mainstream appeal? I'm kind of like, you know, if somebody wants to be a climber and only go to the climbing gym in a in a major city for their entire life, like, that's great. Like, if they just wanna climb plastic the rest of their life, that's still better than going to CrossFit or doing whatever else.

I'm like, that's cool. Like, you don't have to go climb El Cap to be a climber. I'm kinda like people can do whatever they want, and I think I think that's great for the sport. And and you are seeing standards rise very quickly right now, sort of as a result, just like better access to gyms, more kids getting into it, you just see talent rise faster.

I come across, uh, social media accounts of, uh, parkour kids every once in a while doing e- absolutely insane stuff in, uh, urban terrains usually. What's the crossover, if any, between parkour and and climbing of the sort that you do?

There's a little bit, not that much, but, uh, but climbers often like, competition climbing, uh, like bouldering, which is in the Olympics, has definitely taken a slight turn towards parkour-ish sorts of moves, like big run and jumps and, like, crazy swings and things like that. And so s some old school climbers complain that it's, like, gotten a little too jumpy, that type of bouldering. Um, but I'm kinda into it. I mean, it's I don't know. This is all very, like, inside baseball, like, how do you separate?

Like, basically, at the highest level, competitors are all very, very strong, so then how do you separate these different competitors who are all climbing at an elite level? And one of the ways is complicated movement like that, like running jumps and coordination and things like that. So I don't know, I mean, I think it's cool. Um, I've actually met a like, a couple of professional parkour athletes who also climb, uh, and they are really good at at very particular sorts of things.

Where you're like, it's I mean, it's amazing to see.

Yeah, I mean, I I find a lot of what they do terrifying, but also awesome. I can't help myself but watch. And, uh, just the motivation to work it out, too, like, in, you know, because some of these are are truly make or break or make or die, um, at least in the in the form they they put to social media. So I'm always curious to like, what goes into that? And, you know, having grown up skateboarding, I mean, you you go around a city and you see stuff, you know, like, Oh, that would be awesome.

And so, I mean, just looking at a landscape, natural or or urban landscape, in a completely different way. I see a lot of parallels with climbing and parkour. And also, you know, I think of, uh, you at, you know, certainly at the level, and, uh, kind of parallel with a guy like Tony Hawk, who's been in the sport of skateboarding for a very long time, he's a amazing ambassador for the sport as it's gone through its various, like, you know, peaks and valleys now in the Olympics.

So I think climbing and and sports like skateboarding and surfing have a lot in common in this way. Subculture, but then also gets popular.

yeah, where they're kinda niche, and then they become kinda mainstream, but then even once they're mainstream, they're still kinda cool, you know, like, skateboarding, it's like, definitely not, like, full punk rock anymore, but you're like, it's pretty cool, you know, like skateboarding still. And it's not that common still, you know, and that's the thing with climbing is I'm kinda like, yeah, climbing's growing, it's becoming more mainstream, it's just never gonna be, you know, soccer or something.

You know what I mean, like, it's always gonna be slightly niche, slightly countercultural, cause it's just, you know, it's just a smaller thing, like, it's just not playing basketball or something.

Yeah, I'm intrigued by, um, the training aspects and the some of the fitness aspects. I agree that it, um, having only done it a little bit, I mean, I've been to a climbing gym once or twice. Yeah, it's been a And, you know, few, so you so yeah, I've you've gone a few gone up and down times, so the wall a few times. I've belayed for people a few times, but I am by no means, um, you know, uh, skilled at it.

It'd be fun to to get into cause I happy birthday, by the way. as I just turned I say, so 40. I'm turning, uh, 50 soon, and, um, I think more about, um, I I'm happy with my strength and endurance, but I li- I think more about mobility now. And climbing is also

great for that.

climbing is great for that. And and there's a lot of interesting l literature on brain longevity and just maintaining your cognition and the strength of your of your distal body. So, toes and fingers, believe it or not, it's a correlate, like, Yeah, isn't but toe strength

that isn't that? I've always thought that's just a correlation, it's just though, not

a correlation.

because, yeah, I'm like, because grip strength is just a proxy for all. Like, it means that you use your body a lot, and so therefore, you're probably, you know, like, when I read those the things about, like, if you have strong grip, it means this and this and this. I'm like, no, if you have a strong grip, it means that you do stuff all the time. And so, as a result of doing stuff all the time, you're probably sharper than than somebody who doesn't do stuff all the time.

That's right, so it's a correlate. Um, at the same time, the the motor neurons that control, like, trunk movements and contraction of the trunk muscles, like, as you go out from the midline, they are they're in layers in the spinal cord. So they're literally like the the mus- the motor neurons that control, like, the core Like, sitting sit sit closer up straighter. Or like, to the yeah,

which one?

sit closer to in the spinal cord to the midline. And then, you know, across evolution, like, y- you know, we evolved from animals with fins and f- and wings, and some of the same genes are used, and eventually, you get motor neurons that control, like, fine motor movements like this. And it is true that, for some reason, the motor neurons that control the the distal body, so, toes and fingers, calves and forearms, are more vulnerable to age-related degeneration than the ones for the for the core.

So by so, it is possible we don't know yet that by maintaining strength of the of the distal body, that you can actually, um, preserve motor neuron and cognitive function. That is

Then I'm freaking. more of a I'm psyched.

than you're set.

Yeah, yeah, I am doing

But and that's why I was curious how climbers, provided they don't fall and kill themselves, how they age. Um, and there's other things here too, because, like, in some sports, like football and rugby, people are getting their hit head hit a lot, Yeah, that so you don't tend doesn't. to age well. But I always thought of climbers, you know, in my time up in Yosemite, I'd see young guys like you. And then I'd see these, like, o- like these old climbers, and I was like, Man, these guys are in in incredible shape.

They're lean, they're lithe, they they seem cognitively fresh. So it seems like it's a sport where people hold on to their faculties pretty well.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, um, you know, it's hard to say, cause there just aren't that many super old climbers. And then a lot of the ones that come to mind, like sort of famous old climbers, you know, I mean, they die the same ways that that everybody dies, you know, like cancer or heart disease or whatever. But, like, in their late 80s or whatever. Um, no, I I mean, I think climbing is a great way to age.

I mean, I have a bunch of friends who are sort of 50s and 60s who are very fit. Like, actually, I mean, it comes to mind this, uh, this friend of mine who's a philosophy professor at UNLV at at the university, but he's incredibly jacked, and I think he's 64 now. I think he just became the oldest person to climb a certain grade, like 5'4, which is like, kind of an elite rock climbing grade. But I think he's maybe the oldest person to have done that now.

But um, but he once told me, he was saying he was at some hotel pool, like in middle America, at like, some conference or something, and some kid asked if he could touch his abs, cause he'd never seen. He was like, Are they real? You know, like, real? Cause he's Is it like, he's, yeah, only in in well, he's like

action figures?

a yeah, he's like a 48-year-old professor who's like shredded, and some some kid in a pool is like, Can I touch those? Is that real? You know, like, I've never seen a thing like that. It's Well, it like,

says a lot about him and about the state of our country right now, that we're

middle America.

in this crisis of of obesity. Uh, that's very serious. Uh, it goes beyond aesthetics. Um, yeah, I've I've thought about getting into climbing. I mean, it's it's, um, uh, the problem I had is I tried to just r- uh, raw strength it. I just tried to pull up my way, and A lot of people obviously that's

do that.

that's foolish. It's and you gas out really fast.

Yeah, that's a very common thing for adults. I mean, especially men, especially somebody like you who's already fit, and so you try to bring the tool you already have to it, and you're like, no, you gotta drive with your legs, go technique, mobility, like, you know, uh, I like to say that. Anybody that tries climbing should think of it as climbing a really, really steep staircase, where it's like you're still walking up the stairs and you're using the handrail to for balance, but you're not pulling yourself up the handrail.

And most of climbing is basically a steep staircase, you know, I mean, especially outdoors, and in climbing gyms, is a little bit different, cause the wall's actually vertical, but outdoors, the wall's almost always a little bit less than vertical. So it's like, basically, you're on a very, very steep and technical staircase, and then you're using the handrail, like the handholds, to keep you balanced on the wall. But your legs should always be driving you.

I still haven't done Half Dome, and, um, Never. You've done no, done Clouds Rest a bunch, Clouds Rest and not Half a bunch of

Dome?

times, run Clouds Rest, rucked Cr- Clouds Rest, and it. But, um, Half Dome

That's weird.

has those cables. Yeah, yeah, it I never was, uh, organized enough to do the sign up early enough in the No, but, uh, season.

just, uh, do it after the permits. You know, you know, the cables stay up all year, so when, like, when it's out of season, they take the uprights down, but the cables just sit there, and you can do it anytime. It's actually way better to do it post, like, after the season, cause there's no permit and there's no people, and it's, like, super chill.

Okay, I definitely wanna do it.

Yeah, just do it do it off season, Yeah, cause way better.

my biggest concern is not that I'm gonna fall, it's that someone above me is gonna fall. Or you're Or, you know,

strong enough to just glance them off, you know, just like shrug them aside

uh, possibly. I did hear a or ideally lot of stop them, Yeah, ideally but you don't stop them. Um, yeah, I'd want love to do it. I've been going to Yosemite since I was in my teens. I love it up there. It's it's, I wouldn't say it's my second home, but it's heaven. I mean, as as you know. And, um, actually, one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to you, among others, is that I I would like more people to get into the national parks, um, and and really enjoy them, cause they're we have so many gems in Yosemite, the high country and Tuolumne Meadows, to me, is like is is heaven on earth.

The Yosemite, uh,

I mean, is a crown jewel. I mean, it's the I I think it's the best best national park in the country.

yeah, people forget it's only about a four hour drive from the Bay Area or from Los Angeles, it's pretty quick. You go through a bunch of different landscapes, and then boom, suddenly you're there.

Yeah, and it's like, Paradise, it's incredible.

I'm curious about things in free soloing that as a uninformed spectator, we think, you know, that's the hardest part, that's that's the most difficult thing. But I imagine, um, in inside of the sport, like any, uh, that there are things that are very difficult and maybe even perilous that we're not aware of. Like, what's some of the non-obvious aspects of free soloing, if they exist? Um, because I always think, Okay, you know, if I can imagine, Oh, that's super tough, but that might be the easier or, um, less tough.

Usually, they're these kind of hidden, um, I don't wanna call them hidden dangers, but hidden dangers i in a sport. What? What are some things that the observer wouldn't wouldn't be aware of?

Yeah, I'm I'm not sure, I'm not sure what the hidden dangers are. I would say, though, that the the obvious visual dangers, like, for a non-climber, just watching free-soloing, I think they generally misperceive all the dangers and risks involved. You know, they just see it, and they're like, That's crazy, that's whatever, you know, and, like, whatever they're bringing to it is probably not the actual case. Just because it's hard to visually tell what's challenging in climbing, you know, you're like, That's a vertical wall, but if it's, like, a nice crack going up a vertical wall, that's actually quite easy and secure climbing.

But then some of the other stuff, you know, if they're really small holds, you're trusting your feet, I don't know. I mean, it's it's just really hard to judge that stuff visually, like, you have to do it to to experience it. But I think that that, honestly, the whole perception of risk around free-soloing is maybe slightly misperceived by people. So with climbing in general, like if you go climbing with a rope, uh, like if you're traditional climbing, like you're climbing with a rope and and gear, and you're gonna climb Half Dome, let's say, when you start climbing from the ground, you go some distance before you f- put your first piece of gear in, cause that's just kind of the

nature of climbing. You go for ways and you put in some gear, you clip your rope into it, and then you're protected. And then for whatever distance you're going, you're essentially free-soloing to that point, you know, like, there's always risk involved in climbing, because even if you have a rope on, depending how far you're going above your last piece of gear, and you know what the terrain is like, and whether or not the rock is good, and all these other factors, you know, you're more or less safe.

And so I think people look at free-soloing as, like, this binary, like, if you don't have a rope, that's dangerous. And you're kinda like, well, anytime you're climbing, there are dangers, or there could be, and you're constantly evaluating those and and and trying to mitigate them. And so I think that's that's the big misperception, because easy free-soloing is probably like, if if I'm somebody, you know, who's like an expert rock climber or whatever, I've been climbing 30 years.

If I'm on an easy free-solo, that's almost certainly safer than a very hard certain types of hard climbing with a rope on, you know? And most of my scariest experiences as a climber actually have been with a rope on, because with a rope, you're much more willing to push yourself into unknown terrain. Cause you're kinda like, Surely there'll be something good just around the corner, and so you keep going around the corner, and you keep not getting into good gear, and you're like, Holy shit, it's getting scarier and scarier.

Are we allowed to curse? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, so, you know, like,

even at each other, if you wanna curse at each other, yeah,

perfect. But so a lot of my scariest experiences have been with a rope on. Because you're kind of like, I'm sure I'll get better, I'm sure I'll get better, and it keeps getting worse and worse. And then pretty soon, you're in some position where you're definitely gonna die if you fall, but you never would've climbed into that position if you didn't have a rope on. Cause you're just so much more conservative when you're ropeless, and when you're ropeless, you're kind of like, if something seems wrong, you just go down, you know, cause you're just not gonna push that far.

I saw the movie Maru. I thought that was pretty intense. Um, that,

I mean, that's an example of pushing really freaking far with a rope on, you know? It's like, because you have a rope, you're willing to just keep pushing into the unknown, pushing into the unknown. But then you wind up in a position where, like, this is pretty freaking extreme, you know? It's like, I mean, you saw the film, it's it's all totally insane.

yeah, it is insane, and I feel like ice and snow bring a whole other dimension. Um, yeah, I think that, um, in your sport and free soloing, like, the the idea from the spectator side is, you know, like, these guys, like, one fall and they and they're dead, right? Um, I've heard you say before that's actually not true,

I mean, yeah, it's kind um, and it's of you don't wanna true in the fall, be in that. Yeah, but like, yeah, it's true that at most places, if you fall off, you're gonna die. But, like, when I started free soloing as as a as a kid, not that I, like, started and then only did that, but on my first free solos when I was young, in the back of my mind, it always be like, if you slip, you'll die, you know?

And the reality is that there are tons of places where your foot can slip and nothing else moves, you know, like your hands are locked on, you're holding on tight, and your foot slipped, and you're just kinda like, Oh, my foot slipped, and you keep climbing, it's no big deal. Um, I mean, there are also some places where if your foot slips, you're gonna die for sure, and the key is differentiating between those. But I think when I started, you know, it was like, if anything happens, you'll die, and as you do em more, you're actually like, No, I mean, a lot of things can happen, and it'll be fine.

You just have to make sure that the wrong thing doesn't happen at the wrong time.

I was surprised to hear you say that, uh, yes, free soloists die, but oftentimes they die not free soloing, they die doing other things. Uh, I'm fascinated by this, not through a morbid fascination, but for a number of reasons. So, uh, maybe you could elaborate on that a little bit.

Yeah, there's a there's a quote in the film Free Solo, where a friend of mine, Tommy Caldwell, who's a very well-known climber, says something like, All the people who are big free soloists are dead now. And it kind of implies, like, you know, free soloing is dangerous, and they all died soloing, but the reality is that basically none of them died soloing. Like, 1 or 2 soloists have died soloing, though. My preferred statistic is that no one has ever died doing something cutting edge, so, like, no one has ever died pushing the envelope, like doing something extreme.

There have been a couple free soloists who have died, free soloing easy terrain, like just out doing something casual, and maybe a hold breaks, or maybe something happens, like, it's impossible to know what, because they die. Um, but then the bulk of other people who are sort of known for free soloing have died either in parachuting accidents, like wingsuiting or BASE jumping, or, uh, one got swept out to sea by a rogue wave, it's kind of a freak thing.

Um, one died in a car accident, you know, just like things like, you know, it's basically just ways that people die. So all that to say, it's not clear that free soloing is the most dangerous.

We have a friend, um, who unfortunately is dead now, Ken Block, who was a famous rally car driver, and, um, did, uh, with our photographer here at the podcast, Mike Blayback and and film crews with DC, did, uh he developed, he was one of the, uh, founders of DC, like DC shoes, DC skateboarding, uh, et cetera, uh, rally car, um, unfortunately died in a snowmobiling accident. So something very, like, kinda conventional for his daily life, he lived out in Utah, and, you know, um, obviously a huge tragedy.

Um, and then you go look at kind of people who do quote unquote extreme sports, for lack of a better term, and you find that, um, it's fairly common for people who are at the peak of their cr- uh, of a of a field of a sport to, um, die doing something else that they really enjoy. And you kinda wonder, like, are they, um, pushing themselves, or is it that they're they're just too a little too relaxed?

Cause, as you said, rarely do free soloists die, like, in, uh, the most difficult aspects of the climb. So maybe it's that letting go of the mental engagement, like, there's a change in the threshold of what they consider dangerous. So, unless they need to be locked in, there's just some lack of attention to detail. This is my way of trying to save your life, basically. Yeah, no, I appreciate So anything you're that. doing besides free soloing, be very, very careful, please.

Rein it in. Yeah, we need No, I mean, you. I also would suspect that all the people that we're talking about are all just a little, uh, they're just bigger risk takers in general, they're just more willing to do things like drive quickly and, you know, do whatever, um, just more willing to take risk in their life. And and I suppose sooner or later, those things catch up with you, or they can. Though, that said, with free soloing, 2 of the world's best free soloists from the previous generations are still alive, you know, older men just living their best lives, doing their thing.

still free soloing?

Yeah, uh, maybe not at like a super high level, maybe not pushing themselves hard, but yeah, like, certainly could. So, um, a man named Peter Croft, he's a Canadian, but has lived in the US forever. He was, like, my childhood hero growing up, and he's incredible solo. Actually, there's a film with him or a a scene with him in the film Free Solo. He's kind of like a they kind of frame him as, like a mentor figure, though, honestly, he wasn't a mentor cause I was too afraid to ever even talk to him, cause he was like such a personal hero.

But, I mean, he's such a he's incredible, super nice guy, and so I'm, uh, we're both sponsored by The North Face now, so we're kind of friends, we're on the same team, and so I've, like, hung out with him at events and things. And I was having dinner with him once and I was kind of like, Oh, at what point did you kind of end the cutting edge free soloing? And he was like, Oh, actually, I did a couple of my hardest solos, like, in terms of grades, like, not necessarily the most cutting edge, but kind of the hardest grades, like, within the last several years.

And I was like, Really? And he'd still, you know, he's still just like kind of doing stuff and fit and he's psyched. And and he's got to be I, I don't know, I don't want to offend him, but he's got to be, like, mid-50s or, like, maybe 60. Like, you know,

That's awesome.

he's he's, uh, yeah, and he's just still incredible, he's still climbing all the time. And even on his rest days, he goes down into the same climbing areas to hang out with his friends and chit-chat and, like, take his dog to the cliff and stuff. So, you know, I look at somebody like him who's basically made an entire life of free soloing. I'm kinda like, you know, if you do it carefully, you, you know, make good decisions, I don't think it has to be sketchy.

How awesome is it that your friends and coworkers were one of your childhood heroes?

Oh, it's the best. That's actually, I think, one of the best things about being a professional climber is so many of the people that I was that I looked up to as a kid, you know, and now are friends and peers and things. And you're like, Oh, it's so great.

It's wild.

You get to, Yeah, yeah, you get to, like, hang out with your heroes, and you're like, never Oh, it turns out,

would have imagined.

Yeah, no, it's amazing.

There's some, uh, young kid out there now thinking the same. He's like, I'm too afraid to go up to Alex and say hello, uh, and, uh,

They they should just say hello. I don't know why so we had I've in the in somebody maybe the same way that, working with him, uh, yeah, totally. I mean, in the same way that I was, like, so afraid to ever talk to Peter when I was young, and then ultimately now he's just another nice guy and we're friends, and we climb together. It's great. Sort of like, yeah, anybody should just say hi, you know? It's like, if they're at the if we're at the cliff, like, come chat, you know?

It's like we're all doing the same thing.

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I mean, uh, you can do that also a after achieving, um, some degree of financial success. We we know you've done that, we can talk about that. But is it the kind of thing where you have to give up other aspects of life in order to get really, really good at it?

That's an interesting question. I'm not totally sure because in some ways, so it depends what you mean by achieving success as a climber. Because if you're trying to climb the hardest grades or go to the Olympics or things like that, in some ways, you're almost better off, uh, being a university student or something. Like having a structured schedule that in some ways limits the amount of that you can climb. Because, um, you know, I don't know enough about other sports, but I s I suspect this is akin to, like, powerlifting or something, where it's like, if you're trying to be really, really strong, you kind of only need to do a little bit every couple days and then recover.

And so for a sort of elite physical training for climbing, you really only need, you know, say, 3 or 4 hour sessions, 4 or 5 days a week, and then it's like, what do you do with the rest of your time? And so, like, you may as well have a job or. And so a lot of my friends who like write code for a living or, you know, do things like that are very, very strong climbers because of the the schedule that it allows, the structure.

That said, I think if you wanna be a great free soloist or, like, a big adventure climber, you're probably better off living in a van and just doing the thing nonstop. Because for that, you're not trying to have that peak m muscular performance, you're trying to just learn a skill and do something all the time. And so then, like, hours of practice, I think, matter more in a way.

Maybe we talk a little bit about recovery, uh, as long as we're talking about, you know, number of hours that one puts in. Um, I'm sure your recovery looks different than it used to, um, but what what do you do to recover between sessions? Are you big believer in sauna, cold? Is it? What do you do? Just I just basically sleep?

no. I like, push my 3-year-old on the swings, you know, like, that's how I recover. So I like play with the kids on the swings and, uh, and I try to, I mean, you know, I, I try to eat relatively well, I try to sleep enough, uh, like, I do all the basics for recovery. But, um, but no, I mean, I basically just survive in between. I was actually just joking with somebody that I think, you know, as a as a 24-year-old living by myself in a van, I would have crazy days of climbing.

And then on a rest day, I would like binge-watch an entire season of some show while eating an entire flat of Oreos. Just like never even leave the bed of my van. And then the next day go out and like, do a speed record on something and just be like, I'm, oh, I'm so psyched, you know? And now I'm like, I'm definitely not doing that now, r- or at least, no, I haven't done that in forever, cause I just don't have the time and don't have, um, yeah.

So I think now it takes a little more effort to recover, and it's just a little slower, probably. So, all that But it's hard to say, to say, though, because a lot of that's just having kids and and just having different demands of of time in life.

it sounds like climbers are are pretty, uh, grassroots in their in their training and techniques. Like, you know, in a lot of other areas,

Yeah, I mean, I was living in a van. I was basically, like, you know, super low overhead, no, no team, no support. I'm just living in a car, doing the thing nonstop for, uh, you know, a decade, and so that's a pretty scrappy approach. And I think that that in the years since then, climbing has professionalized a little bit, and there's a little more money, there's a little more support, and there's just a higher level of competition.

I think, um, it'd be harder to to achieve things doing just that. Now, I think you'd have to have a little more of a plan.

yeah, I can't help but sense that hyperbaric chambers and red light and massage guns and all that are gonna be making their way into Well, massage the climbing culture.

guns, for sure, are there. Yeah, masha- Masahashi's guns are there. I try to, like, roll out every once in a while, even when I was living in my van, I would stretch and roll out and do those types of things, cause you just kinda have to stay supple.

yeah, how do you feel? How's your body feel?

Well, I mean, right now, I think pretty good. I don't know. Yeah, when I'm, um, I live in Las Vegas. When I'm at home, I try to, uh, see this body worker in town once a week. Pat, sweet Pat, he's the man. And so, uh, you know, I think of that as kind of, like, a basic, just taking care of, uh, you know, making it's like an oil change. It's like making sure the engine runs smoothly.

And and I think as a result of body work like that, I I haven't had any major, like, overuse injuries in in years. And so, like, that's that's pretty good for me.

Awesome. Yeah, I'm s uh, maybe it's just because it's, uh, historically, it was what I knew, but I'm seeing so many parallels with skateboarding where, like, there was this time when no skateboarders lifted weights or did any kind of fitness. Then that started to happen. Actually, Danny Way, who jumped the Great Wall of China, he was the kind of first per person in skateboarding to, like, he would do, like, neck training, cause he had broken his neck surfing in Newport.

And he, he was doing like these, um, you know, like the where you like, swing the ball above your head. He was doing core work, and I remember back then thinking, I I'd sort of left skateboarding Yeah, it was at that point, all fringe and I was thinking, stuff. Yeah, that's like, like, weird. skateboarders are just like, really have a problem with this because it wasn't consistent with the culture. Now there are a lot of guys who who work out and are take care of their bodies, but there are still a lot of guys who absolutely kill it.

They're incredible, and their energy drink is like a beer, and their, uh, quote, unquote nootropic is cigarettes, and and they murder it. They're super good. And and so I I like these sports where it's like you can't get around just investing a a massive number of hours doing it. And then there you can either take the the kind of rock and roll track into it, or you can take the kind of self-care track, and sometimes people cross over, but, you know, it works either way, it really does.

climbing still has that exact same thing going on where you can kinda go either way. I do think, though, that the self-care track will obviously win out long term. I mean, that's the thing with climbing and being in the Olympics and just the professionalism, all that. I mean, obviously self-care is better for you long term. It's like, you know, every everybody knows that. That said, you still see a lot of very proficient climbers who, yeah, exactly, just kinda party, go hard.

I mean, cause so much of climbing just comes down to effort when you're doing the thing. Like, if you go climbing several days a week and you try your absolute hardest every time you're climbing, you're gonna get pretty freaking good. You know, whether you do red light therapy or, like, any of the weird other stuff or not. So it's like, I mean, it really just comes down to your effort doing the thing. And so, yeah, I mean, you could live, and I I mean, a lot of climbers, especially in the past, lived on a diet of of, you know, cigarettes and coffee and and freaking beer.

And, you know, you can, you can, you can get by that way, Yeah, the but

1970s, 80s approach.

it's not ideal.

It's not ideal. A friend of mine, uh, Tom Bilyeu, he he is very successful in business. He also has a podcast. He was saying to me the other day, he goes, Yeah, basically, uh, when young people ask him, you know, how to get good at whatever business or anything, he just tells them, um, work as if, um, smartphones didn't exist. Meaning, when you're bored, go work on the thing. When you don't have any like, if you get rid, I'm not urging people get rid of their smartphone.

But I'm curious about your relationship to technology. Because I think nowadays, even though there are people training for the Olympics and whatnot, that it is very hard to to, uh, disengage from pressures of sponsors, pressures of just sheer communications, right? Um, and if you're coming up, this idea that you always have to be in contact with people, you. It limits the total number of reps that you're that you get physically, but also mentally. Cause I imagine there was a lot of time sitting back in bed and thinking about climbing.

Um, just like I used to sit back in bed and think about experiments. And, you know, when I was in graduate school, now I'd probably if that, if No, that sounds phones existed, like a totally that's how I'd be on something. my phone. I used to think about experiments and figures and what would this work and that work. So, uh, what are your thoughts on kind of a mental, um, uh, engagement separate from climbing?

no, I think that's, that's definitely a big thing. I mean, I think I've I've thought in the past that in some ways, I I feel kind of lucky that I came up when I did in climbing, where it's, like, sort of pre-smartphone, pre-social, pre-you know, you just live in your car and you do the thing, and that's it, and and that's your whole lifestyle. Um, I mean, currently, you know, I I have all the social media, uh, accounts and things, but I don't have any of the apps on my phone.

I have a friend that manages it for me. Um, I like send all the content to her, but she posts stuff. And so it's a nice way to sort of disconnect myself from from scrolling aimlessly. Um, I don't really have the time anymore anyway, you know, it's like I'd rather play with my kids than than, for sure, scroll. Uh, you know, it's like, but no, I mean, that's that's tough. I mean, I think it'd be hard to be a kid now, growing up, like, thinking that that's the norm, that you, like, have to be connected, that you have to be capturing everything, you know, documenting and then sharing it and posting it and just all this stuff.

I've always felt like the thing about being a professional climber is that you just have to be a good climber. Like, 1st and foremost, the key to being a professional climber is being able to climb really well. And, like, the most important thing is doing the thing. And I just think when you get caught up in all the the posting, sharing, streaming, all the whatever, that's not doing the thing, you know, but but it's easy to conflate them, and it's, I don't know.

Yeah, no, I think it'd be really hard.

Yeah, I agree completely. And the hidden secret is that if you want something interesting to show on social media, the key is to not be on social media so that you have something to bring to it.

It's just so hard to actually be good at something. And it's and and this is goes back to what we were just talking about with free soloing and perceived risk and all that kind of stuff, is that it's really easy to make something look rad, soloing-wise. Like, you know, I could climb, I could climb the outside of this building, and it would, like, look insane. It would get tons of likes, people would think it's cool, but it's not cutting edge, it's not cool, it's not even hard.

Like, it's not, it's, it's whatever. But to actually do something that's cutting edge or newsworthy in in climbing is is pretty freaking hard, you know? And and the challenge with with social and with public, all that kind of stuff, is that it's just so easy to I don't wanna say to fake it, because it's not like people are out there, like, trying to be duplicitous or, like, to to trick you. But it's just you can get the same splash with none of the effort, you know, and through through social stuff.

I think you're like, Oh, I just did something easy, and people thought it was amazing, let's call that good. And you're like, Well, that's just not good, cause it's easy, it's freaking, you know, like, it's not cutting edge, it's not rad.

I mean, you clearly go after big, big goals. I mean, it's it's a it's a giant goal. I I think it really stands, and I know you've been told this many times before. So, um, if it embarrasses you in the positive way, then great. Um, I mean, it it stands as, uh, perhaps, uh, at least one of the the most impressive physical feats I in history. Because the risk consequence, uh, scenario there was you fall, you can potentially die.

There may have been moments along the along the Too brief climb where, yeah, moments, yeah, where you're moments

right above a ledge. You're like, like, Yeah, Oh, wow, so okay, so, but

and it's, and it's so like you to to point out those moments as opposed to all the other moments. It really speaks to your mindset, um, but I think that going after big things, I mean, you know, uh, you know, building, um, rockets to go to the moon. I remember when I was a kid, Danny Way just had to jump the Great Wall of China to do it live. Someone had died trying it on a mountain bike.

I remember thinking I watched it on a little screen this big, and I was like, I've known that guy since, uh, we're out of touch now, but, um, for the most part, but since was like 13, and he was always going after big things, jumping out of helicopters, you know, jumping the Great Wall of China, like, g- you know. And then there are people who just push themselves. And so what? What I wonder is, on a daily basis, when you climb, um, do you ever just climb for fun?

When you climb, are you always working on something? And there's this famous scene in Free Solo, like, uh, more or less immediately after you got down from the climb, you're you're fingerboarding again, and like, you're you're training and you're enjoying your your routine. Um, which, by the way, is consistent with keeping the dopamine flowing for process, as opposed to, like, the postpartum depression that many people experience after a big feat is completed, selling a big company, et cetera.

You avoid all that by doing exactly what you're doing. But then how quickly did your mind pivot to like, Okay, what's next? Uh, in the domain of climbing, because I realize you've had 2 children, you you have got other aspects of your life. But, like, where's your mind, um, in terms of where you wanna take your life and your climbing?

yeah, on the one hand, I set big goals, I guess, you know, something like El Cap. But the thing is, I would actually say that's more of the outgrowth of setting consistent little goals, like all the time. Like, I basically always have a running to-do list of like, what am I doing tomorrow? what am I doing today? what am I trying to do this week? And that extends to climbing as well, with, like, what are all the little things I can be doing?

Like, what are the little things I can tick this week? You know, I have, uh, my climbing journal goes back to 2005 or 6 or something. So basically, everything I've ever climbed is is logged with, you know, difficulty and times and whatever. And so I'm constantly trying to tick things as a climber, you know, just like to do new climbs that I haven't done before. And so, I mean, I think, like, actually, my day of climbing yesterday could be a good example of this.

So yesterday, my wife and I dropped off our older daughter at school, went to the cliff, uh, did a day of sport climbing, um, and then picked up our daughter on the way home. It's like a perfect day like that, where you can kinda, like, make it all work. And I'm not gonna be able to go to that cliff very often this season, just because of travel and work and and life, basically. So I don't wanna s have any big project there because I just won't have time to do it.

You know, I'm trying to set my goals appropriately where I'm like, Oh, there's no point in trying to do something that would take me a month or 2 to achieve if I only have 3 days. And so I had a goal for that day of trying to do this very particular little combination of routes that I hadn't done before. It's just something new, something interesting. It's not that hard, but then we got there and it was it was like the worst condition.

It was like 86 degrees when we parked the car, and so, you know, it's like you're trying to work out in, like, horrendously hot, and it was also like kind monsoony, so it was very humid. So we got to the wall and it's, like, disgusting, and I was kinda like, Well, you know, it's a training day, like, whatever. And so I tried to do this new combination of routes. Ultimately, I failed on. I felt the very freaking top of the wall.

I was, like, so maxed and didn't do it. Uh, I'll probably get a chance to go back on Monday and ho- and I'll for sure do it then. Um, but, you know, it's like a very small goal. Like, this isn't cutting edge, like, big, this isn't this isn't even cool at all. Like, my friends won't even care. They're like, That thing is stupid, but but it's nice for me to have a reason for me to try my hardest for that particular day of climbing.

And I think that the big goals come as a result of all those little things. You know, like, if day by day, you're constantly doing something that's a little bit new, a little bit different, a little bit harder, uh, you know, whatever seems like the appropriate challenge for that day. I think that looking back at 20 years of climbing outside, nonstop, that the big things have just come as a natural outgrowth of all those little things.

You do, like, enough little things all the time, and then every once in a while, something big happens. And so I don't know, like, s you know, but I have to-do list going back, like, years of, like, goals and all these aspirations. And, you know, some years, I only do half of them, some years I do a third of them. And then, you know, something like free soloing El Cap sat on a list like that f- literally for years, and it kept floating to the next year, to the next year.

Cause you get into Yosemite, you look at the wall, and you're like, Nah, that's, you know, you're like, totally out of the question, and so you just, like, punt to the next year. And so, yeah, I mean, sometimes the goals don't happen, sometimes they do, but you kinda just have to let it play out. You know, it's more like the day-to-day little challenges.

I love how matter-of-fact you are about it. You are wired different. You think? I mean, Um, well, maybe not. I mean, because, um, like, a and this is not a a a vastly, um, less, uh, high risk, high consequence endeavor. But, like, um, public speaking doesn't make me doesn't raise my level of of cortisol or autonomic arousal at all, cause I've done so much of Yeah, cause It. Right?

you're super well practiced, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, just, yeah. So, eh, um, sometimes I'll, you know, I'll think like, Oh, I'm, like, a little more keyed up than I wanna be, and I'll I know how to calm Totally. Well, myself down.

I'm actually I feel the same way with public speaking now, but that's after years of practice. It used to be it used to be so stressful for me, like, so, yeah, no, I was I was Proof that you're so shy.

a midget that does work like

But totally.

everybody else's. Yeah, no, I Yeah,

mean, exactly. That's why I hate all the stuff. It's like, Oh, you're just wired differently. Cause I'm like, No, I know that, you know, like, yeah, public, like, speaking in front of a class in school was, like, mortifying. But now, after years of doing keynote speeches to, like, giant groups, I'm sort of like, no, now it's super chill. But, you know, that's all learned.

yeah, forgive me for saying you're wired different. I think that, you know, when you did, f- uh, free solo, there were a number of news programs that, like, took advantage of the fact they put you in a brain scanner. And, you know, This is my field of neuroscience, you know, is the amygdala might not be activated the same way as other people's. But I would have thought, and I think it's the case now, you you confirmed that it's really domain specific.

Like, you've done so much climbing, you have so many reps there, that you're familiar with the contingencies. And so it's not that you can't experience fear, it's that you're not placing yourself into truly fearful circumstances climbing. But the fact that public speaking was an issue means that your threat sensors and the amygdala and related circuits work perfectly fine.

With that particular, like, scanning the fMRI, you know, they show you a bunch of black and white pictures, and it's, like, whether or not that triggers the fear response. And I was like, Well, obviously, looking at pictures isn't gonna trigger my fear response. But I'm like, had they thrown a snake into the fMRI with me, like, that would have triggered my fear response. You know, if there were, like, giant spiders, like, crawling over me, like, that would probably would, too.

And so I was like, No, obviously I feel fear, I just I'm just not afraid of black and white photos, you know. I was like,

that's what they used. Yeah, like, angry was faces and that kind of the faces.

um, uh, it wasn't even Staring. faces. It was, like, random stuff, like, I don't know, like a gun and then, like, a light socket. You know, some things that are, like, neutral, some things Yeah, I should that are

have designed the experiment. whatever. My lab used to work Well, I think on fear.

it was a it was a standardized thing, I think, I think it eh, no, was like some battery thing. I'm not trying But they used to be disparaging it, yeah.

of the research. My lab used to work on fear. We use VR. That's how I met Michael Muller, our our friend in common. He took me down to Guadalupe, we did 2 times, so we went down there 2016 and 2017, eh, doing cage exit diving with great whites, filming with, uh, to get the VR. And I'll tell you, in in real life, it's a hell of a lot scarier than it is, uh

totally. Been in VR.

but, uh, along the lines of, you know, dying when you're doing the other thing, uh, not the the main thing. The cage exit part ended up being a lot safer. I had an air failure while in the cage. I was on that hookah line, and I was alone in the cage when it happened. And I'll tell you, that was a lot more terrifying than being out of the cage with the sharks, cause when you're out of the cage, you you're on scuba, and you have some degree of control over, you know, you can shoot for the surface.

When you're in the cage and you run out of air and you're alone, Yeah, you're just you're just terrified kidding. Yeah, and your your your hose, uh, no pun intended, you're you're

yeah, unhooked.

not hosed enough. So, you know, it it speaks to this thing that, like, when there's this big scary thing and you're really locked in, you often miss the the more trivial seeming but real danger that's close up.

Well, this is, I think, one of the thing one of the real values of climbing is I think that as a climber, you spend all your time thinking about risk and managing risk and mitigating risk and all those kinds of things. And so I think that, um, I don't wanna, like, toot my own horn too much, but I do feel good at evaluating risks like that. You know, like, what is the actual dangerous thing? Like, what's sketchy about the situation?

And it just often isn't the thing that people are looking at, you know? And and that's what I was talking about earlier with, like, people watching video free soloing or whatever else, they're like, That's sketchy, and I'm like, Well, you know, might be in some ways, but probably not for all the reasons that you're thinking, you know what I mean? Like, the the obvious visual thing is probably not the the the big challenge.

And it sounds a little cliche, but you're doing what you love. You know, it's it's interesting. I think one of the biggest risks that, um, I think about now, um, as I get older, is the non-daily lethal risk of, you know, grinding it out in a job you don't like. And then, you know, one day you wake up and you're like, Wow, there's there's no time machine. Like, I can't go back and get that vitality and that time.

I've watched what I've been doing.

Yeah, and and that's where I think this this idea of, you know, doing what you love really counts. Whether or not you have to live in a van and do nothing else, or whether or not you can also go to school, you know, but doing doing something that you love very, very Yeah, because either much,

way, you're gonna die. either way, you're It's like,

gonna die.

and you may as well die having done a lot of things you're really excited about than die regretting all the things you didn't do. I mean, I I I think that that actually that exact mindset really helped inform my whole climbing journey in a way. Is like my father died when when, uh, when I was 19, and he died of a heart attack unexpectedly, just freak thing, running through an airport, uh, at age 55. And, you know, and I think for a young, for a teenager, that makes an impression where you're sort of like, Oh, like, this could end at any moment.

And actually, both my grandfathers had just died, like, at roughly the same time. So I think for an impressionable, you know, teen, you're sort of like, Oh, everybody dies, like, do you get to do all the things that you wanna do before you go? And and I think my father my father was a community college professor, taught language, and, uh, you know, he ostensibly lived a risk-free life, you know, like, relatively sedentary. I mean, he he traveled widely, like, he he was great.

But but by any risk perception thing, you'd be like, Oh, he's a professor, like, he's, he's, he's fine. And yet he still died young and probably would have preferred to do a lot of other things before he went. I'm sort of like, you know, it's just a reminder that you gotta you gotta do all those things.

Yeah, I want to talk to you about your philosophy on death and and time and kind of life arc, and and, uh, you've already started, uh, so thank you, f- um, for that. Because I would say most of my friends who started families young are people who these are male friends whose dads died young. And so they had this very keen sense of the finite, uh, duration of of life. And, you know, Steve Jobs talked about this, so, like, you were, you know, very and he died young.

He seemed to have some sense of how long he was gonna live and really wanted to pack things in. And I don't know why that was, he was adopted, so I don't know if he even knew how long his parents lived, et cetera. But barring accident or injury, you know, we don't really know when we're gonna die. But sometimes I think, uh, we get the sense based on relatives. And, you know, I can remember a time in my life when I, yeah, of course, I knew I was gonna die, but I lived in a way that I just I felt like I had all the time in the world despite pursuing things.

And I think, um, with each passing year, I'm like, Oh, wow, like, You're, the wall's coming

like, it's winding down. Yeah, like, we Yeah, yeah,

gotta get get the show on sort of, the road. And I've

sort of.

done things I wanted to do, but it's it's interesting that, um, uh, you know, it's it does seem that, like, having a parent die has a has a profound impact Yeah, galvanizing on on on

effect, for sure.

where you set that horizon. You realize, like, today is part of an arc that ha- has an endpoint, and we know that, but we often don't live into that realization.

yeah, no, I I totally agree with that, I mean, and I you say we know that, but I actually think that we don't talk about that enough, you know? I mean, I think most people live with a little too much open, because nobody wants to talk about death, nobody wants to talk about, you know, like, the consequences of, like, cause people think it's morbid, or it's just not. But thing is, like, we're all gonna freaking die, you know, it's like, are we gonna be proud of what we did before we died?

Like, I don't know. I mean, yeah, we'll see. It's like, kind of cliche to be like, Oh, better to die young and, you know, burn brightly and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, to some extent, I think that's I think there's a middle ground where you're like, it's better to try hard and and do things that you're proud of, and, you know, either way, you're gonna die.

I agree. I mean, I think there is something interesting to this 27 effect. You know, so many, like, uh, rock and roll musicians die at It's their quarter-life 27. Uh, crisis. yeah, quarter-life crisis. I've heard of the quarter-life crisis.

you never heard of quarter like all my friends have gone through a quarter-life crisis. Oh, really? When Yeah, kinda

and that when does it happen?

well, like 25, you know, 27, whatever,

Interesting, No, I was just so focused on becoming a neuroscientist that I didn't know what else I would do besides that. At 25, I think I was just so locked in. But I've always been a little bit obsessive. Have you always been a little bit, like, whatever you're into, you're into? I guess it's been climbing. Yeah,

yeah. I was just lucky to get into climbing when I was 10, so it's something that I've just been into forever.

so did you play Legos as a kid or Yeah, and did you

I was psycho about my Legos,

eh? Were you a psycho about Legos?

though. Yeah, yeah, psycho. Like, I didn't have a bed in my room because I had Legos spread across the whole floor, basically, I slept in a corner, and I just had Legos all over. awesome. Kinda psycho.

Do you see some of this in in your kids?

Not quite that yet, but they're pretty young, so it's hard to tell. But, um, yeah, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. I kinda think, Y- you know, it's all about having personality, like, do a thing, do it well, like, get excited about things. I mean, there's just so many people on earth and they all do different things. Like, you may as well be the person to do that one particular thing and just, like, really do it.

No, I agree, that's the juice. I mean, um, I mean, I think for some of us, like, um, I just know from my own life experience, I like, I thought I was certainly gonna just get into skateboarding. Many of my friends became professional skateboarders, got really good at or worked in the industry. And early on, I was getting hurt, and I realized I'm not very good at this. And then when I finally plugged into academics and learning, I was like, This is the thing.

And I loved it. And it and then eventually I pivoted to this thing, which I didn't anticipate. But I do think that going all in on something is a, uh, it provides a really wonderful feedback loop that one can, uh, like, you feel it makes you feel Yeah, you're, like, alive. doing a thing, Yeah, especially it's like, yeah, when it's hard. Yeah, especially when it's hard.

I've literally spent my whole life, basically, like, all in on climbing, and and I'm still, I just, I just love going rock climbing. You know, it's like, I mean, I think that's really the the goal of parenting is to help your kid find something that they're that psyched about, like something that they can commit to, and something that will drive them, something they're passionate about. And so, you know, I mean, we'll see with, uh, with our kids, but it's like the idea is just to let them experience enough things that they can find whatever they whatever gets them out of bed every day.

They certainly are in the right environment, uh, f- to flourish with it. You mentioned that climbing's in the Olympics, I could see, uh, and I've observed in other sports where the parents are are kind of more obsessive than the kid, and then the kid burns out on it. If you I read, uh, Andrea Agassi's book Open, Yeah, yeah, that's it was basically like the a story of his dad pushing him to play a game he did not wanna play.

Yeah. That that's maybe the best sports memoir ever. That's like, that's a great, uh, that's a great book.

Yeah, great book. Yeah, his dad was, like, a boxer and basically

Yeah, it's a shame too. trained him in tennis, Yeah,

like a boxer. Yeah, so it's sort of like the light-handed approach of of, like, I think kids know. I think I mean, you kinda let them forage, right?

No, we're we're we're taking the light-handed approach, for sure. I mean, our kids will obviously know how to climb because that's what we do all the time. And, um, but so far, we just go hiking, like, we haven't forced them to climb. We have a little bit of a home gym at at home, like a little climbing, uh, garage. And so the girls can, you know, play on the wall whenever they want to, but there's certainly never any pressure to do anything.

I read, um, and please correct me if this is inaccurate, but that, uh, it was during college that you had some family members pass away, and when you really leaned into just climbing more. Um, I I think it's somewhere on the internet that you were climbing on Indian Rock, which is, uh, um, uh, interesting to me because I went to graduate school in Berkeley and lived in Berkeley for a long time. And

You went to Cal?

I went to Cal for my master's. And then I lived in Berkeley even when I was a postdoc at Stanford. I love Berkeley.

I was like, You went from Cal to Stanford? Are you even the enemy, allowed to do that?

the enemy. Yeah, it's like, Uh, yeah. Are, did they Born at Stanford,

take you?

trained at Stanford, and still, uh, spent a lot of time in Berkeley. I liked the culture in Berkeley then, um, and I liked the food. So I used to take pizzas from the cheeseboard up to Indian Rock. And so while you were climbing Indian Rock, I was eating and, uh, picnicking on Indian Rock. Um, it's amazing. So would you just pull little solo journeys out there? Th- this is, by the way, folks, a big, steep rock, but on 1 face, it's it's gradual.

It literally has, like, rock couches where, um, couples go on dates and you eat some pizza and hang out. and beautiful Get an amazing view.

view overlooking the city.

Yeah, so you were climbing up the back of it, which is anything but, uh,

well, actually, I was mostly traversing the bottom of it. Um, there's tons of like, basically, you can contour the whole base of the rock, and so you can climb for, you know, a couple hundred feet, basically, without touching the ground. So you just go back and forth, doing laps. And, yeah,

very cool.

I mean, from where I was living at Berkeley, it was only, I don't know, like a 30 minute walk to Indian Rock or something. So I basically wasn't going to class, I was just strolling to Indian Rock and traversing the wall back and forth. And and then that's why I dropped out after 1 year of Berkeley. It's kinda like, I don't know why I'm at university if I'm not actually actually, it's it's more complicated than that, cause that year I got into the Youth Worlds, like a international thing.

And so I was gonna take the semester off to go to Worlds and travel and climb a little bit. And so now I've just taken, you know, whatever, like, thir- 35 semesters off or something. You're on leave, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

actually, still.

No, I think I think after some point, they were like, They closed You're done.

they closed the hatch.

Yeah, yeah, I think they closed that. Uh, worked out, But, um,

it worked, certainly worked out. Yeah, the thing that we find ourselves doing when, um, we should be doing something else in in the positive sense of it, like, y- I mean, that often is the thing, like, it's, uh, what that you obsess over, right?

yeah. I mean, it's just hard to know with that stuff, though, because obviously for a most people, they probably should get an education and get a job of some kind. Like, even if you're a really passionate climber, I mean, most people probably aren't gonna make a living as a professional climber, cause it's just too small an industry. And, you know, the depends on your level and everything. I mean, I think I got kinda lucky. I mean, in a lot of ways, I got lucky also just because I I like soloing and it's like such a niche and not that many people do it.

And the and the level just wasn't that high. And so, you know, I sometimes joke, it's easy to be the best if you're the only one doing it. You know, it's like, it's easy to compete as the only person in a field, and then you're kinda like, Well, that makes it chill. And so, you know, I think I got lucky in a lot of ways like that. And so, yeah, most people probably should finish university and and climb as they can.

That said, I mean, if you love doing a thing, it makes sense to maybe build your life around how you can do that thing as much as possible, just because it keeps you energized and fired up and, you know, makes the rest of your life better.

I think it was Ryan Holiday that said that if you don't know what to do with your life and you're still trying to figure it out, definitely stay in college. Cause, you know, there are all these tales of, like, Mark Zuckerberg leaving Harvard and Steve Jobs dropping out of Reed College and, um, Alex Honnold leaving Berkeley and, uh, uh, and eventually becoming the the person that you are now. Um, but you had a direction. There was another thing to lean into.

It wasn't just, Oh, I don't like this, I don't wanna be here.

I mean, if you have nothing, then you drop out and you just go play video games in your basement or something. Like, that's obviously not that's not better than going to school. Like, you're better off going to school and broadening your horizons and doing whatever. But, yeah, I mean, I thought I was just taking some time off, and and I thought that eventually I'd become a mountain guide or something, or, like, teach at summer camps. Or I don't know, you know, because especially at the time, the climbing industry was so much smaller, there wasn't any money.

Like, I didn't think you could make it a a living as a professional climber. And so I thought it was just kind of a fun thing I was doing in the van for a while before I'd, like, find some kind of job or something. And then, thankfully, the climbing industry has kind of scaled at the same rate that that that I did as a climber. And so it it all worked out.

Is it the case that, um, you didn't have, uh, any monetary aspirations when you were doing it? Like, it sounds like you d you didn't, but, um, did you ever have the conversation with your mom, like, you know, how are you gonna make a living? Or

No, well, so, I mean, I mentioned that my dad died, so my parents had just gotten divorced, and so my dad had left enough for for my sister and me to finish college. And so I took that money and put it in bonds, which is, like, I don't know what that is, but, you know, so I was making, like, a couple hundred bucks a month in bonds. And then, uh, I stole the family minivan, like I said, my grandparent, my 2 grandfathers had died before, so, like, basically, my mom had inherited this little car that she was driving, my grandpa's car.

I took the family minivan. I was making a couple hundred bucks in bonds, and basically, that just kind of covered any of the pressure, like the financial pressure. Whereas, like, that gave me enough of a buffer that I was like, Well, for several years at least, I can just kind of, like, live in this minivan and see what happens. And then after a couple years, I was sponsored, I was getting free product, I was getting, like, a very, very small amount of money, but some amount of money, which is enough to sort of justify the whole thing.

Where, like, Oh, companies are paying me to do this thing, I should see how well I can do it. And then and then it all kinda took off from there. But, yeah, I mean, it I mean, that's one of the ways in which I was very lucky as a climber, you know, there was like just enough financial cushion that I could try to do the thing as much as I wanted for a couple years and see how it played out.

And it just happened to work out well.

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It's gonna sound like an odd question, but I'm very curious about this. Uh, you've been in beautiful places, like, just and you get a very different view of those places than most people. Um, there's a really great, uh, YouTube shorts of you hanging on, uh, by 1 arm during a climb, which itself is impressive to the the the observer. But then you take some moments and you, like, look around and you're just like, checking out the scene.

You're clearly not looking at the rock that that I that I know, even as a non-expert. And so I w- I'm wondering this, I I have reasons to ask. Uh, do do you ever snap photos with with your mind, your mind's eye? Like, do do you have, like, like, clear recollection of, like, Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna snap a shot of this, like, keep this one No, I in in my day? can't remember. I mean, No,

to me, it's more the living there, day in and day out. Like, you know, with free soloing El Cap, let's say, I mean, we s. I spent months on the wall, and it's like just every day, you know, you're going up before sunrise a lot of the time, so you're watching the sunrise over Half Dome, and it's, like, super beautiful. And then you're going down at sunset and you're watching the moon. And it's just, I mean, it's just day in and day out, it's the most beautiful place on earth, in all these amazing conditions.

You know, sometimes it starts snowing, sometimes it's raining, it's like there are clouds swirling and mist or whatever, and you're just like, Oh, it's amazing. But I don't really remember any specific y- you know, like, a snapshot of that. It's more just the overall, you're like, Oh, it's just this amazing place. it's pretty pretty awesome Yeah, like, the freaking, existence. um, what is it with Yosemite Falls? The, uh, the have you ever seen the the moon rainbow thing?

Like, The the fire uh, light thing, or no, the fire falls is a different thing. That's, like, with the moon, and that's a different time of year. In, uh, like, May or June, if you get a full moon, uh, oh, the moonbow, that's what it is. It's like when you Yosemite Falls will cast a moonbow, like you'll be able to see a rainbow from the moonlight in the waterfall when it's at peak water. It's totally insane.

My my wife and I went for a romantic walk to go look at the moonbow one season, cause you're just there, and you're like, that's pretty cool. You know, it's like it's a rainbow at night. amazing. It's really cool.

We're gonna send a lot of people to Yosemite by virtue of Clouds Rest and, uh, for for the non, uh, climbers, uh, I still think Clouds Rest.

it's crazy that you've climbed Clouds Rest more than once and never climbed Half Dome, cause Clouds Rest No, I've is, like

I've run Clouds Rest, rucked it. I've done it. I've probably done Clouds Rest at least a dozen times. that is crazy. Cause And I love you have to go that hike.

past Half Dome, and Half Dome is the much more famous cousin that's closer and easier and and kinda more spectacular.

Well, you have to drive past it. So, to be clear, I'm I'm starting Oh, you've been from Sunrise. doing it. Oh, you're I'm starting from I'm

going from Tuolumne.

I'm going from Tuolumne.

Oh, I'm way less impressed. Oh, okay, good, okay, Oh, I thought you good, okay, were going from

all right, good.

the Valley floor.

Cause I was thinking to myself, like, I was like, you know, Clouds Rest is, like, 15 miles up and back. It's like, it's it's No, but going from not not really

the Valley floor is really hard.

going from the Valley floor, so I actually don't know many people who come up from the Valley floor anymore. I've I've Pe- pe- people

only done it from the tend to start Valley floor.

at sunrise and then go down Clouds Rest, kinda go down the spine of it toward Half Dome. And then I know this, cause then recently,

Yeah, the there are trails between them, and it's all easy. That's so funny because you were talking about rucking a heavy bag up there, and I was like, Man, that is a hard walk from the Valley floor. But cause I'm thinking everything from the Valley floor, cause I spent so much time in Yosemite, I'm starting like, in that at about valley.

8,000 feet, finishing at Yeah, y- yeah, about 10,000 feet. okay, I'm I'm Yeah, yeah, yeah, so much less yeah, yeah, your daughters impressed. do this, you know, like, Yeah, well, your your not quite yet, three and a half year but old daughter. That's what I was saying, like, she's like, Wow, he's R- okay, I mean, it's tough, I mean, 2,000, but no, it's it's it's, but it,

still tough.

I mean, it's like a workout, But going it's not

from the Valley floor is really tough.

yeah, that's brutal.

Cause I I had one season in Yosemite where, for whatever reason, I wasn't really motivated for climbing goals, and, uh, I called it. I had said that I retired, and I was on a trail running season. Um, though, it's funny because I actually I supported a bunch of my friends on things, and I was bouldering with all my friends. And so, you know, I said that I have a climbing journal. And so by the end of the season, if you looked through the journal, it would look like a normal season where, like, almost every day I was climbing with somebody, I was doing something, and then by the end of the season, I actually did a couple things that I

was kinda proud of. But the mindset going into it was like, I don't care, I'm just here having fun, I'm trail running, and I'm supporting my friends on things, and that's it. And, uh, and one of my big things that season was that I ran Clouds Rest from the Valley floor, but to me, that was like a triumph of of trail running, you know, because that's, like, a pretty big. Yeah, how It was like,

long is that?

really, I don't know, it's like 5,000 feet of, or six thou- I don't know, it's, like, so far.

Yeah, uh, let's see, cause it

It was, like, the hardest thing I'd ever run, yeah, you're for sure.

probably going at least f- 3 to 4,000 feet from the valley floor up to the meadows, and then another 2,000 up to Clouds

When the Valley floor is Rest. 4 and Cl- the top of Clouds Rest is 10, something, It's about so you're doing 6. Yeah, so it's like, for me, I was like, Oh, that's a that's a lot that's a trail for the. But anyway, run. And you bring yeah,

it and you're carrying water, you get yeah, I just refill at the had, like, a little river.

bottle, and I, I filled in the rivers. And

yeah, I mean, I don't consider myself a serious trail runner or mountaineer, certainly, but I I, ever since I got my driver's license, it was, like, Yosemite

yeah, it's the best.

and, uh, you know, and Glacier is amazing. Um, you know, I and I swear I'm not sent here by the National Park Service, but, uh, I think Glacier's got some incredible scenery that, uh, everyone should make it to. Have you done a lot of climbing in Glacier?

Uh, actually, I don't think there is that much climbing in Glacier National Park, but, uh, I've actually bike-past on on the way to Alaska for this, like, random Just biking random journey I did.

through, yeah.

Yeah, but, um, but no, I haven't I haven't done much in there.

What are the, um, if any, uh, cultural differences of or climbing in the United States versus in Europe? It it seems like, uh, you know, like, get get guys in the train in the Alps. Um, I keep saying guys, but I I wanna be fair, not for

People, anybody.

politically correct reasons, but there's a movie out very soon, actually, an IMAX movie. I saw the trailer to. It was a friend of yours, a woman who's what she climbing? She's climbing El Cap.

yeah, she's climbing El Cap in a day, like, free in a day. This route called the Golden Gate. Um, yeah, actually, surprisingly, I'm in that film much more than I thought, uh, because I supported her on each of her attempts. Uh, we're talking about Emily Harrington, who's also a professional climber, um, who, yeah, freed this route called the Golden Gate in a day. And the film's, uh, called The Girl Climber, and I think it comes out 24th.

Yeah, it's not like soon. Soon. It's 1 Yeah,

day in an IMAX, but then presumably and then and then it'll be released.

some kind of theatrical release, but I think it'll be a relatively small theatrical release, and then eventually stream and and whatever. But anyway, this film Girl Climber, yeah, it's funny because she worked on this goal for a long time, and I'd kind of forgotten that I basically supported her on each of her attempts. Because when you support somebody, I mean, this is kind of like crewing somebody's race or something. You know, when you support somebody, it's basically a rest day for you.

You're like, having a nice day, you're supporting a friend, it's like no pressure, it's all really chill. And so the days that I supported her were all like, you know, I mean, I I remember them, but they were just one day throughout a big season where I'd be working on other climbing goals, like all the things that I'm working on, and it's just like a fun day supporting a friend. But then I went and watched the movie and it's like, Oh, every time she tries the wall, I'm like, there, supporting her.

And I was like, Oh god, I I kind of forgot about all these things, like a couple years ago, and I don't know, it

That's awesome.

was, uh, yeah, it's funny seeing the film. It's it's really it's really inspiring.

Is the route that she took, um, particularly difficult? What, ta- what what's the what's the, uh, Yeah, it's like, milestone that she a achieves there?

she was the 1st woman to do that route in a day, uh, f- free in a day. That route's, like, a harder version of the Freerider, the thing that that I free-soloed and and the film Free Solo. Uh, but, yeah, I mean, honestly, I think the film does a good job of not trying to portray it as anything more than it is. I mean, it's it's a very difficult climbing achievement, but it's not like it. It doesn't need super.

It's not the hardest thing ever done. It's not the 1st time that, you know, um, but it's very hard. And if you watch the film, you see what makes it meaningful is the level of effort that she puts into it. It's like, it's hard for her. She's a great climber and she puts a lot into it, a lot of herself into it, and eventually, I don't wanna, you know, spoiler, but eventually overcomes and, like, manages to do this thing that's really hard for her.

And I think that's which, in a lot of ways, is, I mean, that's climbing in a nutshell. It's like, none of it really matters, cause, like, even free soloing El Cap, I mean, you can walk around the back, like, you know, it's like, why put the years of effort into climbing the face when you can walk around the back? Like, all of climbing is relatively meaningless, and so ultimately, it's the effort that we put into it that that that has value.

And so I think that's that's what the the film Girl Cl- Girl Climber does a really good job of is that you're sort of like, Oh, wow, like, she puts a lot into it and then and therefore gets a lot out of it for herself.

Awesome, and I haven't seen it yet, but clearly for the observer, too, I mean, I I find it amazing that humans love to see other humans accomplish great feats. You know,

I think they love to see the effort. I mean, the accomplishment, of course, but it's like, but you love seeing somebody work really hard at something, try really hard, like, face their fears, overcome, and then, you know, ideally achieve something. But I think it's the effort that's so inspiring. Like, I mean, at least personally, I love to see other people try that hard because it's a reminder that I can try that hard if I want to.

Or

I completely agree. I I'd made this little list before we, uh, uh, started, and, um, uh, trying to just let my unconscious mind guide it more than I'm really scripting out carefully. And it says, uh, um, uh, Evel Knievel, cause when I was growing up, it like, everything was Evel Knievel. Turned out there were many of them, it's all family. But, yeah, y- th- Yeah, a bunch of Evel Knievels,

the Knievels.

the Knievels, yeah, um, and, uh, you know, jumping, you know, whatever, you know, 50, uh, maybe not 50, uh, length to length, but, um, semi-trucks and, um, and I think, you know, there's the element of danger. It's super impressive. Um, Danny Way growing up, cause I knew that kid, um, who is now a full-grown man, um, doing all sorts of crazy stuff to the point where he was starting to go after things that for skateboarders just felt a little bit, um, kind of outside the box, like land speed records and things like that, you know, but jumping out of helicopters and certainly grump jumping the Great Wall of China, just engineering it from scratch, w- was super impressive.

Um, and then I've got you here, and then, um, uh, Hunter Thompson, you know, like, the guy just was all about, like, how many, uh, drug experiences he could have. And then his funeral was actually, um, he loved the town of Aspen, uh, he had his ashes exploded over the town of Aspen in a in a fireworks show. So that's that's like going out the way the way you lived, you That's that know,

that is fitting.

right. Um, so I think you're I think you're absolutely right, however, that we love to touch into the amount of effort and training that's required. And that's the Rocky movies. That's, um, pretty much everything. And that's really where the the work is, like, that's the that should be the inspiring part, right? Cause that's the part that I mean, one can adopt.

the the the Rocky training montage, that's the best part of the movie. I mean, a lot of those films, the best part is the training montage, where it's, like, cuts to the person working really, really hard for a long time, like, getting swole, and then then you get to the actual them doing the thing. And them doing the thing is is cool, but it's like them getting ready to do the thing is often the part that you're like, That's so awesome, I'm all fired up.

totally. It's, uh, chasing chickens and all the weird stuff. Speaking of which, um, for the non-climber, what would be the the strangest, um, aspect to your training? Do you train your feet? Do you train your hands in No feet, ways that are un-

but it's probably the dangling from your fingertips that I think a non-climber would. I mean, also, I mean, I think that's the type of thing that a non-climber just can't even interface with. Like, they just can't hang from an edge, you know, it's like from a small, it's like the training your fingertip type stuff. Um, yeah, I mean, I think the though, I mean, now there have been so many mainstream climbing things that I think people have a sense that that's that's what it is.

You like, dangle on tiny edges and do pull-ups and all that kind of stuff.

Well, I think, uh, I follow an Instagram account that's actually informative. Um, it's a former Army guy who's a, uh, he's a rock climber. And, uh, so it's mainly focused on pull-ups and things like that. And and touching into, like, how you if you change the the speed of the initial one-arm pull-up, like like learning to blast through the bar, like through and above the bar and let go and then catch it again. Generates a completely different sort of motor neuron adapt adaptation response than like, just doing a bunch of pull-ups or ab- or, like, slow, won't arm pull-ups.

Like the ability b- ballistic, but and then also, like, the eccentric, like, s catch yourself and lower. Um, and it seems to have a lot of parallels with climbing. Maybe I should just go on a wall and climb. It sounds like, uh, do you so I imagine if you're bouldering, you you end up doing all this stuff i in the process of bouldering.

Yeah, actually, I was immediately like, So should I be going faster when I do pull-ups? Cause I've been, like, doing one arms at the end of a session, but, like, my one arms are pretty slow. You know, you just grab the bar and you just, like, struggle until Well, you do a

I mean, he talks about, you know, um, a lot of people can do a lot of pull-ups in full range, slow, e- concentric and eccentric. But that, um, they rarely ever get to, like, muscle-ups or to one-arm pull-ups. Eh, at the kind of level that he's pulling a ton of weight, um, because they there are a number of things that he suggests we can link to this account. Um, a lot of there's some training of, uh, forearms and brachialis and hands that's required.

But he said, You know, that not being able to generate enough force at the beginning is is a reason a lot of people don't get to the the muscle-up. Because, uh, with the muscle-up, you actually i i i there's a little bit of a kip involved, at least when one's 1st learning it. And so people are used to kinda dragging themselves in low gear out of the bottom. You uh, it's gonna be a long while before they have the strength to do a muscle-up.

Whereas if you can blast yourself out of the bottom, you sort of end up almost above the bar at some Totally. I point. Yeah,

actually just started doing muscle-ups again, like, couple months ago, in in my little home gym, and I was like, I haven't done a muscle-up since I was a teenager, you know, it's like it is a kind of a gym feat when you're a kid, just to see if you can. And as an adult, it's just also living in a van. Obviously, you can't do muscle-ups cause there's nothing to muscle-past like hanging from a little bar inside the van.

But, um, but yeah, I started doing them again. I was like, Oh, wow, it's so explosive. I was, I was kinda like, Wow, what a dude. I was so psyched I could still do them.

Well, yeah, then you don't need his help. But I'll I'll send you to the this guy so you can take a look. He's got some interesting Why I I did productions.

wanna I mean, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna chat with Huberman. I was like, So what am I supposed to be doing? You know what I mean? Like,

Oh, we can talk about well, that's the thing that, but

is, like, well, cause I've just been doing all the same training stuff for 30 years. I mean, and obviously I I've I read all the books and, you know, all my friends are professional climbers, so we talk about this kind of stuff all the time. But there are a lot of things where you're always kind of, as like a self-trained, self-coached athlete to some extent, you're kind of like, should I be doing this more? Should I be doing this less?

Like, and it I was like, training a bunch this summer and I was really motivated. And then I've kind of just the pendulum has kinda just swung back to being like, Do I need to do training stuff, like the calisthenics, the extra workout stuff, or should I just go pure climbing? Because to some extent, climbing, like, if you wanna be a good climber, you just climb. Like, if you have energy left over, you should just climb harder or climb more.

You don't necessarily need to save it for workout stuff and training stuff. So I don't know, but, yeah, what do what do you think?

okay, well, I'm not gonna tell Even though you're you. I'll I'll tell not a you all how to change climber? Yeah, his training, especially before you take on a big a big, uh, milestone. I mean, all I can say is what, um, and I don't have a degree in, uh, exercise physiology, what I do have a degree in is, uh, 35 years of of yeah, of of trying to get stronger. like, strength training, yeah, I'm naturally pretty pretty, um, I would say, like, medium joints.

Uh, I'm not like real thick joints, like my bulldog, you know, like some of those guys that just have, like, naturally the joints. I, um, but I managed to keep in some endurance and some degree of, um, of of, uh, explosivity, but mostly strength and endurance have been the 2 main things. To me, the thing that has just been the most beneficial is what Pavel Tsatsoulian, uh, taught me when he came here, which is, um, take a a weight that you can maybe do 6 or 7, maybe 8 reps with, and do 3 repetitions, set down and just do many more sets and rest a long period of time.

If you have time to do that, that really like that really work those fast-twitch motor units. you mean, And so do the do the just do

reps faster?

well, no, not necessarily. So if you take a weight that you could do, um, maximum 8, like, you'd fail somewhere between 7 and 8 repetitions. You take the the weight, maybe even add a little bit, and you just do 3 repetitions. You don't go to failure, but you do many more sets. So you might do, l- let's say some sort of push pull, um, so like a shoulder press of some sort, or um, and then if you could get 8, you do 3 or 4, but then you go do your pull-ups.

You might do your, you know, sort of ballistic pull-ups that we were talking about before. I'm actually getting a lot of, um, progress from those, those, like trying to blast through and past the bar and kinda K- k- catch a below Do you do it. I'm

a muscle-up?

almost there. I'm I'm kipping too much when I do it, so I'm doing it, but I'm kinda like throwing myself up there. I'm not doing like a like a super controlled muscle-up yet. Soon, uh, that's the goal. Um, but not training to failure seems to be really beneficial if you don't wanna, uh, eat into your recovery too much. There's something about hitting muscular failure that's great for generating hypertrophy, but it really, according to Pavel, and I'm finding this too, it sort of teaches your nervous system to reach that static point where you can't move any longer, and it really eats into your recovery ability.

So I'm able to now train muscle groups that I used to only be able to recover if I train them once or twice a week, I can train them like 3 or 4 days a week, and I'm making much more progress overall. But there's no single set where I'm like grinding out that last final rep.

That's interesting. So, if so, uh, like, so bench pressing, for example, like, that's actually the only weight that I move around is I b- uh, I I bench. Like, when I'm at home and have, like, my own little home gym, I, uh, bench press, like, twice a week, let's say. And, uh, I feel like it's like good for shoulder stability, health. I don't know.

Yeah, definitely.

It's like, nice to balance, cause as a climber, you're always pulling, so it's like, I do that's my only pushing, basically, and so, talk about um, so I can that. do, like, I normally do 3 sets of 5 or 6. That's just kind of like a basic something. So you're saying I should do like 6 sets or like 8, s 8 sets is yeah, maybe of 3 or something?

even 8, maybe 8 sets of of 3 to 4 with slightly more weight, but don't go to failure. And obviously have a spotter. There are these horrible instances where people are benching at home and they don't Well, I have a spotter.

only have, uh, dumbbells anyway, so

Okay, perfect. it's like, Yeah, That's that's the best way to do it. We, um, yeah, it seems and and

to it seems like that's the type of thing, too. Also, I kinda like the dumbbells, cause it seems more like so much of what I care about is shoulder stability and whatever, and I'm kinda like, Oh, it seems like dumbbells are good for that.

yeah, barbell bench, I'm gonna catch a lot of shit for this, but barbell bench press, it, there's a lot of ego involved Yeah, it's too for a lot of people.

showy. I'm like, I don't need that Yeah, I I've shit,

never actually done a s a single rep max, uh, for, uh, barbell bench press. Never been curious enough.

cause you don't have enough friends to help Don't have enough spot them for you, you know?

friends. Exactly. You need, like, 6 I'm all alone,

guys to hold a bar, I'm studying, and yeah.

I'm I'm bench pressing alone in my basement. Um, another reason to use dumbbells, but, yeah, taking a weight that, um, you could do 7 or 8 repetitions and doing 3 or 4, or maybe 5, and then just setting it down and going doing something else, maybe for an opposing muscle group, and then coming back to it. So that your total rest is somewhere

I might try that, particularly around. for the benching, because, uh, I do actually get kinda sore from, like, you know, it's Things just it's kinda sore sucks, and hard. Yeah,

you get really strong. I never would have thought this, cause I I came up in the the the lineage of I learned from Mike Mentzer, who was a like a he was an ex-bodybuilder, but then he trained Dorian Yates, who won the Olympia many times. And that whole philosophy was around doing 1 or 2 sets to to absolute failure with forced reps and drop sets and all the all the stuff that builds a lot of muscle but makes you very sore.

And so Pavel sat right where you're sitting, and he was just, like, Try this. Uh, find movements you can do safely, load up the bar and do far fewer reps, many more sets, and perhaps even divide those sets across 2 days during the week as you're already doing, as opposed to just training a muscle group once per week.

do people do that? Doing something once a week?

I only train my legs once a week, and I'm getting stronger most every workout, but I sprint on a separate day, so that's kind of a leg workout.

yeah, that seems like a

I don't have great recovery ability, never have. So it's, um,

and, you know, pushing 50,

what's that? you know, And I'm pushing pushing 50, 50, and I didn't run from the Valley floor, right? You know, Clouds, you know? Exactly. I definitely have found that if I avoid going to muscular f- momentary muscular failure, as it's called, far less soreness, far better recovery, and you get really strong, which is crazy. You would think the opposite.

Yeah, do you think once a week is enough stimulus, basically, to, like, build?

If you do enough sets, but probably twice, you know, the the data seem to show that the muscle protein synthesis is initiated after those workouts, and then it takes anywhere from 48 to 72 hours before it, you know, it subsides. I just personally find if I train my legs once a week, but then I sprint 4 or 5 days later, that's sort of 2 leg workouts, you know? So

I guess so.

it's really twice a week. And then I do a push-pull day, and then I do a separate day for my my arms and extremities, and and and that ends up training, you know, chest and shoulders and back again, so it's really twice per week, once Yeah, so you're directly, once

doing all your stuff basically indirectly. Yeah, twice a week. but everything That makes sense.

heavy, like, really heavy, never going. I don't think I've done above 8 reps this year. I'm stronger than ever, and I can run really far, which is so the 2 things I always Do you do thought, those were a long gonna be my

run during the week or something?

I do 1 v- for me, very long run, which means an hour to an hour and a half of just running with a 10 pound weight vest. Oh, why Just just to make sure that the small stabilizing muscles are strong, and also because, um, I wanna be able to just show up to Clouds Rest and just do it. I don't wanna have to train for things in life, and I love

I hear that.

also, I love running. I mean, just that lo- that slow pace at 1st, just it sucks, and then after about 20 minutes, you're just like, I could go all day. This is awesome. Uh, I don't know. That that's been my regimen now for almost 35 years, to train each muscle group once a week, directly, indirectly. A long run, and I try and do 1 sprint run. But but again, I'm not gonna tell Ax Alex Honnold how to how to train, but but you might I'm always find it interesting.

looking for ideas.

If you don't like getting sore and you wanna Yeah, that get stronger,

makes sense to me.

you're hearing it from me, but it's really Pavel Tsatsoulian that des- deserves the credit for this. It's

I'll I'll try that for sure, because, uh, particularly with something like benching, where it's like, I don't really care about pushing muscles, but when you're when you're peck or whatever, whatever this muscle is like, that, you know, yeah, it's that your shoulder, like the upper back it's like, Yeah, it's region. like, so sore, and then that kind of affects all your pulling as well. And so you're kinda like, Oh, you just don't need to get that sore doing something that's like a side activity anyway.

Yeah, yeah, they and I'm Like, guessing you're already getting it from your climbing, but I found that, um, anytime I'm doing pushing, which is, you know, basically, e- a all the time, um, making sure that I train, like some rear-rear deltoid type, uh, thing where you're pulling, getting that smaller muscle on the back of the shoulders. Because a lot of people, you don't have this problem, but if you look at a lot of people who lift weights, they just stand passively.

Their thumbs kinda point towards their groin, like they're kind of internally rotated. Yeah, rolling in, Yeah, whereas if you look at people who kinda do, like the the Fonzie thing, like, you want your shoulder, you want your thumbs. Like, if you were just, uh, stand or sit naturally, your thumb's pointing straight forward. So you're looking like like I've met Mike Tyson, and like, he's like this, but like he spent his whole life in that peek-a-boo stance, right?

Then you meet people like you or people who practice yoga regularly, or the really, like, most impressive postures and physiques are the dancers, right? Like Eric Jarvis was on this podcast, he's a neuroscientist, but he used to, um he was accepted into the Allen, uh, uh, is it Allen? Dance company? It was like a you know, elite dance company, where you see, like, a Twyla Tharp, who's in her 80s, and, like, in she doesn't look like she's rigidly st- upright, she's just upright, and that's how I wanna be when I'm in my but that's 80s.

so hard. Well, it's just she That's like

spends 2 hours a day in the gym, 7 days a week. 5 AM to 7 AM. She's that is a and she's in

pretty routine. her 80s, and then That's that's

3 hard-boiled eggs, and then she gets to work. Like, yeah, she's I'm like, a

that's a healthy lifestyle.

she's, and cognitively, she's just so strong, you know? Yeah,

Yeah, no, climbers definitely have issues with posture like that, because if you spend your whole life just pulling, like, you know, climbing, if you just climb, you're just doing pulling things, and so you or wind up kinda like, or they have Well, actually, like, this the you kinda wind up hunching. I think it's because, like, you still use some of these muscles for for pulling, and so you just wind up kinda tight in different ways. But yeah, it's so things like the hunched like, like, putting back, it's kinda you in a bridge from

pose and, like, in in, like, spinal extension, um, those seem to be, uh, very useful. Yeah, as I again, I'm not a elite athlete or even a per a competitive athlete, but I find that doing things that just like a long, slow run, a sprint day, um, training heavy with weights, but being able to, you know, run for 30 minutes. I mean, it's just I I don't think I need a degree in exercise physiology to just it just makes sense.

You're just I'm trying to be upper end of average, um, at everything, but that's very different than what you're trying to do, obviously, you're an elite athlete.

yeah, but some of the stuff, like running, like, uh, like, I went for a 1 hour run yesterday. I've been trying to run 1 day a week, just like Great, run for an hour once a week, and and then I try to do one kinda cardio adventure once a week, which is like climb a mountain or do something, you know, anywhere from like 2 to 4 hours, let's say, but hopefully with like 3,000 plus feet of vert or something.

Just like, go up a thing and kinda trot down, and that's kind of enough to maintain cardio. I mean, this is kinda like family lifestyle, cause the thing is like, when I was living in a van by myself, you're just doing that stuff on rest days all the time, cause you're kinda like, Oh, I'm gonna summit this new peak, or, like, check out this hike, or do whatever. But now that I'm living in a place and, you know, taking kids to school and all that, it's like, I kinda have to be a little more structured with with just like, I'm gonna go.

And but so, yeah, now I'm definitely thinking about all this a little more. It's like, Is this enough cardio? Is this, you know, is this work? But I think that that lays a good foundation to be able to do things. Like, I'm gonna be in Yosemite this season, and, uh, you know, I'm aspiring to climb stuff on El Cap, not free-soloing necessarily, or not free-soloing at all, but maybe some, like, rope-soloing, maybe some speed stuff, maybe whatever.

But either way, I just wanna be able to climb 3,000 feet relatively quickly without being that tired. And so it seems like for running or for mountain climbing, it's like, Oh, you just have to be able to do that kind of vertical without getting too fatigued. Yeah, I think the Yeah,

one day a week long run, one d uh, one day a week, like 30 m minute run at a faster clip, and then one day a week sprint training. Um, I mean, you're covering all bases there. Um,

that's 3 days a week of running, though, I'm like, I don't love yeah, but one of running that much.

them is, like, 12 minutes long, you warm up for 3 minutes It's sprint training, and

12 minutes.

yeah, cause you're you know, you you warm up and then you run a 400, you know, and then you r- you you walk a lap, you do a 200, you walk a lap, you do a a 100, and like you, you're going not all out, all out. but close, Um, yeah, you can hurt yourself sprinting all out, all out. We, um, uh, had Stu McMillan, who's an elite sprint coach, trained a lot of Olympians and gold medalists.

And, um, yeah, running full speed is like how you hurt yourself. You pop a hamstring or something like you you, but

are you are you? At a track?

I prefer doing a track. Sometimes I'll do it in the soft sand, and when I use a vest, I should say, and I have no f- I have no sponsorship relationship to them. Amorfo makes these vests that are like like, it looks it's kind of funny to call it this, but it looks more like a kinda vest that, you know, you'd, you know, like a dress vest, and it's got little ball bearings in it. So it's not like like one of those, like, uh, police-type vests.

yeah, it's not like It's and so that 8 or 10 pounds that they make up to 12 pounds, I think, is just enough to g- give you some extra work on that long run. And then on the day when you sprint, you feel like you have, you know, uh, jet propulsion. You know, you f- I feel like that, I realize I don't, but I I realize I don't. And then all the little stabilizer things, like, you don't have any like cons like aching, like, you're

Not really.

you seem you seem like a very balanced in terms of your overall structure. That's one thing that I've really noticed about climbers. Like, you see guys that are in the gym, I've spent a fair amount of time in gyms, and there's this phenotype where they've got these big, wide shoulders, wide back and the whole thing, and then they got like this little head and a little neck, and you go, Well, their upper spot, they're not training their neck and it looks crazy.

I mean, I don't know if anyone has told them this, but they like, you know, I walk by and I'm like, Don't skip leg day, you know? But, um, but you know, Why don't when a body

you just do it at is out of the depot?

balance like that, like, if you saw a giant dog with a tiny head and neck, you'd be like, That dog is crazy looking. That's So are a

there a lot of dog breeds like that where you're like, that dog, you know, like, hard to believe it came from a wolf, you know, you're

so inbred.

like, that's wild.

So you right, the the healthiest version of something can move best is always fairly balanced. It seems like climbers are very balanced No, I think I across their whole think climbing body.

is is one of the healthiest sports and like lifestyles, and and also just it's so fun. Like going to a gym, you hang out with your friends, it's like it's mostly really chill. You mostly hang out and chitchat, and, like, if you do a gym session, you feel like you just went and hung out with your friends the whole time, but then you also wind up fit and mobile and, you know, pretty strong, and and so much of climbing is strength-to-weight, and so you just wind up kind of, like, lean and not like a big gym gym, bro kind of thing.

Which I think is healthier as one ages, too. Like, you you wanna maintain muscle and hold on to muscle, but there's all sorts of things associated with being heavily muscled, where people end up with some kind of sleep apnea or pseudo sleep apnea, cause the the neck is thick and it blocks the airwaves, and, you know, sleep apnea is one of the biggest health risks. It you know, people not just heart attacks during sleep, but, I mean, you're basically clogging all the the the blood flow and cleaning out of your brain that happens during sleep.

It's very, very common in bigger people, either because they're fat or heavily muscled. It's but it's one of the reasons a lot of bodybuilders Oh, thank goodness, I've die.

never put on that much muscle. Yeah, well, So I'm happy.

well, you can clearly generate a lot of force doing what you're doing. I'm curious how you deal with cramps when you're when you're on the rock, like, you know, No, you you don't

just don't you just don't really cramp.

you don't cramp.

Um, yeah, not really. I've never. I mean, sometimes, you know, if you're trying to climb El Cap in a day, like a like, an 18 hour ascent or something, uh, like climbing with a rope, um, but free ascent. Like, basically, if you're doing really long climbs, some of my friends sometimes will cramp, because you're like, late into a, you know, post 12 hours into a an athletic activity, you're just a little more likely, but I never, I never have.

Pretty much, in general, all my athletic performance is always a steady decline, where I start and I'm doing great, and then over the next, you know, 10 to 48 hours, I just slowly get worse at a relatively linear rate. Except that normally, before sunrise of the next day, it starts to drop quite a bit more. You know, like, as you start getting close to 24 hours, you're like, I'm pretty fucking tired. It's like, but then when the sun comes up, you've really jolt like boost back up again, and so then you're pretty good again, and you just keep on the linear decline.

so these are all night climbs.

Yeah, I mean, I've done a lot. I've done quite a number of things now that are like more than 24 hour outings, you know? I mean, that's typically like climbing or mountain, so where you're, like, hiking and climbing, and then hiking some more and climbing some more, doing whatever. But, yeah, generally, you know, by 24 to 36 hours, you're just you're just a worse version of what you used to be. You know, you're just you're just tired.

And risk goes up when you're sleep deprived. I mean, that's, uh,

Well, like, where, yeah, judgment gets worse, uh, uh, reflexes get worse, like everything is worse.

Sl- sleep is is key. But yeah, that circadian clock phenomenon where, like, you've been up all night, but then you start waking up again, it's, um, Yeah, as soon it's pretty

you see the sun. I incredible. mean, also, some of it with outdoor stuff is that, uh, just when you can see again, you know, it's like you've been going by headlamp for so long. And typically, by that point, your headlamp is kinda dying, and you just don't see that well. And then the sun comes up and you're like, Thank God, and it's not cold anymore, you're just like, the sun. So you get this, like, breath of fresh air, and then you just keep grinding.

Have you, um, ever had, or or do you have any kind of like leanings towards the the s like mystical experiences? Like, do you do you believe in any of that?

No, I've I've always been a fierce atheist. Uh, technically, I was raised Catholic, so, like, I I know religion a bit, um, and I've just never I've always been like, you know, it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm like, Yeah, I'm strongly unreligious, though. I mean, I've been in so many beautiful places on Earth and had so many, you know what some would characterize as spiritual experiences, like feeling a oneness with nature, like a connection, you know, or just awe-inspiring beauty.

You know, when you're just somewhere and you look out and you're like, Oh, the universe is so incredible, this is like the world is a magical place. So, you know, I'm certainly open to general spiritualism, I suppose, or, you know, but no, I'm I'm very opposed to organized religion, basically. Biology is awe-inspiring, Yeah, that's the thing is, I'm like, I think there's enough wonder in the world and in the universe without adding all the layers of dogma, basically, like, all the weird things that you don't really need to believe.

I can't help but tell you this, cause I, uh, I find it fascinating, and I think, uh, you might find it interesting. If if not, uh, uh, then forgive me. Um, speaking of Berkeley, there was a laboratory at Berkeley that wanted to understand how geckos could walk up walls. And, uh, for a long time, it was thought that it was like suction of some sort, but then, um, uh, it turns out, uh, they could do it in a vacuum, so it means that it can't be suction.

It turns out they have these little petals on their on their little fingertips, um, and they can push those petals. They're fe- they're like feather, uh, fe- organized like, sort of like feathers, they can push them so close to the surface that they're climbing that they use what are called van der Waals forces, which is the exchange of molecules between the surface and those petals, and they're making and breaking those van der Waals forces as they climb.

Really, it's So as

like Spider-Man. yeah, so It's like magical

as so as they climb,

sticking. That's cool.

they're exchanging molecules with the surface they're climbing, which I find absolutely amazing. I realize that's not how you're climbing, Well, I'm sweating but

all over the wall, so it's kinda the there you same idea, you know? go. Right, It's like, yeah, and I'm leaving skin behind, you're like, Oh, my you know gobs, it hurts. well, uh, You know, it's you may not feel it's

a kinship to them, but I have a feeling they feel a kinship to you because they're they are, uh, world-class climbers, um, and I I just find it amazing that they've evolved some way to li literally exchange molecules. So, I mean, you spend a lot of time on the rock, I'm sure that you're carrying some some granite in you by now.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. No, that's cool. I mean, you see a lot of creatures on on walls like that, you know, you see, like, little frogs wandering up and down. I mean, even something like El Cap that looks like 3,000 foot solid cliff. I mean, there there are rodents running up and down the cracks, there there are frogs in there, there are all kinds of birds, there are bats. So, like, you see all these creatures roaming around, you're just kinda like, Oh, they're just living, they're just up here doing their thing.

And, you know, I mean, climbing is so relatively hard for humans, and then you know, and then you're up there and like, it's just it's just all part of the natural environment for all the other creatures.

I didn't realize there were frogs up there. I didn't I've seen birds go by, I think there are a couple clips and free-solo birds go by,

yeah, they live in all the cracks off. And when you put your hands in, birds will, like, run down your arm and fly out of the crack and things like that, and you're like, Woah,

it's startling. yeah, it's startling. Well, Yeah,

I mean, it's or it's very startling the 1st time, and then, you know, less startling the subsequent times, but you're always kinda like, Oh, wow, a swift just ran down my arm. That's cool. It's like, it's cool.

well, Alex, y- y- you've inspired and continue to inspire so many people, and I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it's the effort involved. You know, I think that many people, um, might think it's the summiting and, like, standing on top of the rock, and that those are moments that, thanks to you, we've been fortunate enough to to share and experience, you know, uh, uh, indirectly, but, uh, clearly, it's the effort involved, and I I actually think that's, uh, why people are so intrigued by what you do, um, i in addition to the fact that it's in beautiful places and incredibly high risk, high consequence.

It's like you, it's so clear that you're regimented and you're and and that you love what you do and that you put a ton of effort into it. And the way you describe climbing with your friends, I think is the the best hook, uh, sales pitch for climbing ever. Like, hanging out with your friends, talking and getting better and physically healthier, and it, um, puts you in a place to go have bigger adventures and experience life more richly.

Let's also get you back sometime, uh, after this next big feat, we can't talk too much about Sure, it'll it, so

be amazing.

awesome. All right, well, we'll see you after that climb.

Cool, thank you.

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