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Yeah, my guest today is an extraordinary woman.

She is the first woman to free climb the Golden Gate route up El Capitan, a 3200 foot high monolith in Yosemite National Park in under 24 hours. And on top of that, she's just cool as fuck.

Please welcome Emily Harington girlfriend podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience Train by Day.

Joe Rogan podcast, My Night All Day. Hello, Emily. Hi. What's happening? You seem very normal. And that's what always stuns me about people who do insane things.

Like they're just like Alex Honnold. I've met him a few times, had him on the show a couple of times. Supernormal guy, but does what you do? Yeah, I would argue Alex isn't as normal as me.

Oh, really? So I don't know if you've met him.

I think he's normal. He's pretty normal.

He does what he does is exponentially more dangerous than what I do because there's no ropes at all.

He doesn't use ropes. I do use ropes. Yeah. Yes. Let's listen. It's dangerous. What you do is dangerous. We'll get there. Yeah.

Tell people what you did because it's pretty crazy.

So I did what's called free climbing. I free climbed a route on El Capitan, which is a three thousand two hundred foot cliff in Yosemite National Park, and he did it in under 24 hours.

That is a long way to go. Yeah. Three thousand two hundred. And it's something three thousand two hundred feet is what I say.

I think it might just be like a little more than that when you're halfway there. Emily Harington becomes the first woman to scale El Capitan via its notoriously difficult Golden Gate route. Why is that route more difficult?

Well, OK, so there's a route, a route I don't think really matters.

I say shoot. Yeah, yeah.

So essentially El Cap is this giant cliff face and there's there's hundreds of routes up, different like pathways you can take.

And right now there's currently only like 15 ways to get up it via free climbing, free climbing, being using only your hands and feet to ascend and a rope in case you fall.

And I chose the route called Golden Gate, which is more difficult than the route free rider, which people are very familiar with, because that's the route that Alex Honnold free soloed, meaning he climbed it without a rope.

Yeah, that seems insane. So your lesson saying to him. Oh yeah, definitely less insane than him.

Alex is a dear friend of mine, but there's some things I don't understand about him. Yeah. I don't know if he understands those things about him.

No, I mean I have an enormous amount of respect for him. But what he does is, is truly remarkable.

You bonked your head while you're doing it, too.

I could see the way your forehead scar that. Yeah. And that's actually the second time I hit my head trying to trying to do this.

Last year I had a really bad fall, wound up in the hospital for concussion, the whole thing.

This time it was slightly less less serious, but maybe more dramatic because it happened like way higher up on the wall.

How high were you up? Um, twenty eight hundred feet, I'd say. Like almost to the top. It was a it was a whole it was very dramatic and I so the day was actually going really well.

I've been trying to do this for a few years now, probably I would say three years. I've been working towards this goal.

And I'd actually done the route in twenty fifteen over the course of six days. And I really wanted to do the same route in twenty four hours.

But can I stop you there when you do it over six days, do you sleep on the route.

Yeah, that's how most people climb el cap. They sleep on the wall. It takes like five to seven days.

That seems more sketchy.

It's, it's, it's different because there's a lot more logistics involved. Right. Like imagine you have to like live in the vertical world for days on end.

So you think about everything you do, like from when you wake up to when you go to bed, including poing.

Oh yeah, you have to poo vertically. Yeah. We use like we use swag bags are like, you know, little like plastic bags and you like go in that bag and then you put it in another bag and then carry it with you.

So yeah, you put it in another bag, you put it in another bag and then you like hang it below everything and you take it up with you and then you like you take it. Yeah.

You don't leave it on this stuff in the crack up there is that's.

How are you going. No, that's just someone hanging out. Oh that's like how you do it when you live on the wall.

So you have that ledge like the Michael Jackson song. What. Living on the wall. Yeah. No that's song.

No, no I'm not familiar. That's a famous song.

So you sleep in that thing? I would get zero sleep. I don't like sleeping when I'm near the edge of my bed. It's amazing. It's amazing how exhausted you are at the end of the day and how used to the whole like how you used to it. You get you just adjust.

The human bodies, like humans are really remarkable in their ability to, like, adapt to things.

And so it's pretty cool how. Yeah, it's really scary at first.

But then the more you do it, the more you're just like, OK, well this is kind of ah, you know, when you're sleeping in that thing, you fully harnessed in and strapped in the sleep in a harness and you just usually have like a loose like rope or sling or something attached to the anchor point.

So like, if you roll out, you're one of those people that, like, rolls out of bed at night, then.

Yeah, well, it's your dad.

Can you imagine just the feeling of, like, waking up swinging, like hanging from your harness?

He's so he is actually serious that sling around his waist. No, that's just like. Yeah, that's like last resort. Like that's that's Tommy Caldwell.

He Tommy Caldwell. You're a psycho.

He he free climbed perhaps the hardest big wall in the world. Also on El Cap called the Dunwell and he was up there for 17 days. So when Etemad was 17 days, like, look at all the stuff.

That's like he's like a homeless person up there. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff, you know, like the homeless people, those little camps.

That is a he's a maniac. That's a crazy person. Look at him checking his fingernails.

Yeah.

You see, he's also he's also actually missing a finger, which is pretty rare for an elite level rock climber. Oh, wow. What happened to his finger?

I believe it was a table saw accidents, home improvement accident.

Oh, and so he's using everything but his index. Yeah. He kind of climbs and climbs like this and uses the little the knob, the nub.

He's yeah, definitely. Tommy is one of my true heroes, ultimate climbing hero that you have.

That is a very small click right. Of Savage Cycos that are willing to climb gigantic mountain faces. Yeah.

It's a relatively small group, I mean. It's growing economies definitely growing in popularity, but it definitely used to be like a little bit like a small little community and I think we still feel that way.

Is there a danger in the climbing world or not? A danger, a concern, I should say, of people who are seeing people like Alex Honnold and yourself become famous and get all this attention from these very dangerous climbs, and they want to perhaps accelerate their progress and and jump right in and try to do some really risky things. Yes, I mean, I could see that being a danger, especially with what Alex does climb without a rope, I would still argue that what I do is a relatively safe form of climbing, climbing the rope.

When I fall, the rope catches me. It's super safe when I all the rope catches me free climbing el cap in a day. What I just did, I definitely cut some corners and took more risk. But that's an achievement that not many people have done or really strive to do.

And so I think I think for the most part, climbing is actually a very controlled, very safe activity and you can make it as dangerous as you want it to be. Does that make sense?

Yes, I understand what you're saying. So if you're a person like Alex is deciding, you know, he's he maps these routes, he does them with ropes and then he's like, I can do this.

Yes. And Alex, Alex is so unique in a way. And I think anyone that watches the movie Fasullo, anyone that talks to Alex understands that what he does is he it's so well thought out and it's so well planned.

And every single decision he makes is very calculated. And I think that that's just and I think that that's a testament to what climbing is truly about. Like we're not like we're not out to go feel an adrenaline rush when we go climbing.

Like, if you're feeling adrenaline, it essentially means like you messed up like something's wrong. And climbing is very much more about like the movement and the challenge and the mental challenge of all of it then then going out and trying to get a thrill. How did you get involved in this?

I started climbing when I was 10 years old. I was at I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and my parents used to take me to the Boulder Reservoir. This lake.

You have a Subaru? I did have a Super Bowl.

There is this I got to supervise 16th birthday. It's like 70 percent of the cars out there.

Yeah. Green Subaru is there. So practical they work in the snow. Yeah, I had it for years.

So anyway, my parents took me to the lake and they had this little festival there and I grew up. I'm an only child. I grew up with my two cousins who were boys and we were just like super competitive with each other all the time. Like, all I wanted to do was be better than them at like literally anything.

It didn't matter what it was.

So we were at this lake and they had a little festival with one of those tower rock towers, you know, the ones that they let the kids climb on.

And we all tried to climb the wall. And I just remember it was like, well, I have to go to the top because they went to the top and, you know, there was like no other option.

But the interesting thing that happened when I was climbing was it was just this feeling of like, oh, this is what I this is what I meant to do. Like, it was like I just felt like I belonged up there.

And I remember the feeling so vividly even now.

Twenty three years later, I was like I was scared, but I kind of liked it. And I just really I got down and I was like, Dad, I want to go climbing.

Like, that's what I want to do. I want to quit everything else. I was a gymnast. I played soccer, I was a ski racer. I was like, I don't want to do I don't want to do any of that anymore.

I just want to climb.

Why, what what what about climbing, like cancelled all those other things out in your interests?

I think I think part of it was because I was I was good at it and I kind of knew that I was good at it. Like I could feel like I felt I was strong from gymnastics.

I had a lot of body awareness, like it just felt like something that I could be good at. And I really enjoyed just the feeling of being up high, the feeling of the exposure.

And I really enjoyed the process of solving it. Like I loved that cerebrally.

Like how how am I going to get to the top?

Like, how am I going to solve this puzzle? So what was the course of progression you started out? Did you start out just climbing small things with friends? And then did you eventually get a coach? Like, how did you get into, like, serious hardcore climbing?

I was among the first generation of kids, climbers who started out in a climbing gym.

So like in an artificial setting, a lot of people before me started, you know, in Yosemite and outdoors, like in the mountains. But I I grew up like in the nineties, and that was sort of like the beginning of climbing gyms. And so I I started in a gym on plastic and my dad took me to the local the local climbing gym in Boulder is called the Boulder Rock Club. And he enrolled me in, like a kid's class.

And they sort of noticed a little bit of talent, I think, in me. And they invited me to join their junior climbing team like there's junior climbing teams. Now, every gym in the country has a junior climbing team.

Is there a benefit to learning on plastic first? I mean, I think access for one, like if you if you live in a place where there's no rocks, it's. Pretty easy to go, still go climbing. You got to go to the gym, that said, it's very much become it's own discipline, gym climbing and I use gym climbing still for training. Like, I think it makes you strong. It's a really easy it's an easy way to get a workout in.

Like the body awareness factor. You can kind of like distill down all the like the movements. And in a really controlled setting, it's also super safe when when you say training.

So like if you're going to practice for a big climb, something like you just did, do you have like a training schedule? Like, do you try to peak like an athlete would for the Olympics or for some other kind of event? Like how do you how do you train?

Yeah, I do. I do try to train so that I am peaking at a certain time.

I'm it's a little bit experimental though. Honestly, I've I've been working towards this goal in particular for for many years, really experimenting with how how to train for it, because it does require such a variety of skills, like you need the strength and endurance of of technical like of a technical rock climber in order to like climb the pitches cleanly. But you also need logistical support. So has to be like the right time of year. You need the right partner, you need a good weather, and then you need, like, the stamina to be climbing for twenty one hours.

And so a lot of it, a lot of it was just trial and error for me.

But I did spend a lot of time in the gym training on plastic, and then I would supplement that with like really long trail runs and big days in the eastern Sierra, like climbing bigger routes. And then also there's a mental component. So I had to sort of get my head back, especially after my accident last year.

I had to get my head back in the game and, you know, feel comfortable leading on runout terrain with big fall potential again. So there was just like a lot.

And I did I think this year in particular because of of covid, I was actually able to focus a lot more like I think that was sort of the key for me.

I stopped traveling. I was at home. I had like a routine. I had like a good sleep schedule going on. I had, like, my days that I was training and I was able to, like, have a really good routine. And then when the season started, I felt really well prepared.

When you train, do you have someone who is a coach who sets aside a training schedule or do you just do it yourself? Is it an intuition like you just like have a sense of what you need to train? Like how do you decide what you do?

I used to have a coach I because when I first started climbing, I was basically just only doing climbing competition. So I just was a competition climber.

So I have a really solid base in in training and how to train. I no longer work with a coach, but I definitely like read a lot and I kind of like grab bits and pieces of information from my friends.

And so yeah, I do, I, I do have a set training schedule approach that I kind of like build out in my head and try to stick to it. That said, I'm like pretty, I'm pretty flexible, but I do not just climb like if that's what you're asking.

I do a lot of specific, specific training.

Mostly I try to train what I'm weakest at, which is like pure power, pure strength.

So you're saying the trail runs too, and you find that that helps you?

I do think running helps me.

A lot of climbers would say that running is like not that good for climbing back up because it it makes you tired, essentially, and it decreases your power and your ability to, like, really pull hard.

Like, you're not really supposed to go running on your best days. But I do it anyway. Hmm.

And for me, sanity wise, like, I just love running. Just good for the head. Yeah. Yeah. Well so they think that just exhausting your legs from running will mess you up when you're climbing. Yeah. The idea. Yeah I think so.

I think it just like depletes your ability to like pure power, you know, like if you're doing like a I mean I know if you're doing like a weightlifting workout, it doesn't seem it seems like you're not supposed to go run a few miles before you try to like bench press your hardest.

Yeah. Is there are two schools of thought on that because it seems like another school of thought would be if you can condition your body to run and climb you, you'll have a stronger body than one that just climbs.

Well, that's my philosophy. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously you're out there kicking ass.

Well, I mean, I'm sure I'm still I'm a work in progress. Well, we aren't we all. So you basically are self trained in that sense where you don't have someone who sets the schedule aside for you. Like today, you're going to lift weights, you're going to run today. And so how do you do that?

Is it just based on how you feel? Do you write it out? Like what? Like when Emily wakes up in the morning and decides today is a what day? How do you do that?

I it's it's a lot of how I feel. Sometimes they plan it out, sometimes I write it out, I it depends on how much time I have, like if I have a chunk of time to train, then I'll build like a training schedule like five a month.

I'll be like, OK, I'm going to climb two days on one day off for the next month. And then on the first day I'm going to do like more power style training. So like shorter workouts, like shorter workouts, higher reps or whatever you want to call it, like fingerboard, bouldering stuff that really like increases my power.

And then on the second day, I'll focus more on, like power, endurance or endurance. And that's sort of how I structure it.

And I, I climb. I do, I do hankered workouts, which is essentially just like hanging on different grip.

Yeah, I've seen those things. Yeah. It's really a simple way to train your fingers.

You can't get manicures can you. I mean I do get me, I actually do get manicures. They just don't turn out that well.

You're digging into rocks on the tip off really really fast.

Yeah I like it. I like to feel girly. Just, just recognize it's very temporary in terms of manicure at least. Yeah. It's not very.

So when you're training, do you use heart rate monitors, do you register or record your recovery? Like how do you do all that stuff.

I don't do that as much. I've actually played around a little bit with heart rate monitors a lot of times when I'm like resting on the wall, that's something I'm really focused on. Like a lot of times when you're climbing and you get really tired, a lot of times you'll feel it in your forearms.

They'll get really like tight.

We got pumped like there's a lot of lactic acid build up and that causes you to, like, panic in a way, get a little bit of tunnel vision like and start to start essentially you'll just fall. And so a lot of times what I focus on when I'm like in that place is trying to lower my heart rate, like, very consciously. And I've used a heart rate monitor to do that, but I don't do it while I'm climbing anymore.

It's more just me recognizing that that's what needs to happen and putting effort into lowering my heart rate.

Well, you know, we were talking before with your fiance and we're talking about Wub Strap's, you know, and like the idea of checking your recovery and making sure, like, do you do any of that where you wake up in the morning and you make sure that you're good to go. So does that in any way affect, like how rigorous your training is going to be, the measure heart rate when you wake up or anything? I don't do that.

And I and it's been for a specific reason. I actually I'm go I'm planning on starting to do that.

But because I had this project sort of looming the last few months, I didn't really want to, like, change my approach because I thought it might mess with me psychologically and wake up.

And you say, oh, my God, yeah. Oh, no, I'm not recovered.

Like, what do I do? I try to be really intuitive about it. I used to be very like data driven and very focused and very like obsessed with everything that I did. And I honestly, in some ways I feel like it kind of hindered me.

And so now I try to be a little more intuitive. But I think I think it's a balance.

I'm kind of like going back into maybe I maybe I need to start tracking my sleep a little bit more because I'm notoriously bad sleeper, because I would imagine the reason why I'm asking all these questions about training is because I would imagine that when you're doing something that's literally I know you're saying it's relatively safe, but for a person like me is a big chickenshit. It's not relatively safe. It seems quite insane. And and I would imagine you would want every single edge.

So I would I would imagine that if I was going to do something like that, I would want to know exactly how my workouts are affecting my body. Like, OK, I lifted weights this day and then the next day I felt pretty beat up. So I did this and then I recovered. I checked my heart rate. Ah, and I'm back. I'm good to go. So now this day I'm going to run or this day I'm going to do fingerboard exercises like I would imagine that.

There's so much mindfuck going on, when are you going to do something that difficult that you want to put all these pieces in place the best way possible? Yeah, and see, I would argue that all of that is like it's like too much it's like too much data and it's like that actually gives me a mindfuck.

Oh, versus versus me just waking up and being like, oh, I feel good today. I'm going to listen to that like that little like internal voice.

I think I'm a little bit more. A lot of people are super data driven, especially in climbing, and they write everything down. And I'm a little bit more and Adriaan, my fiance, is very much like that as well.

Like, he loves the data.

And for me, I find it to I think it messes with me a little bit.

And so to a certain extent, I'm a little more focused on like my own, my own mental state and my own, like, psychology and sort of like. You know, trying to trying to just figure out how to have confidence up there. Have you ever seen the movie Dirtbag? No, no, no. Really? Oh, it's amazing. What's it about?

It's about a climber, about a guy who literally climbed his whole life. I forget the gentleman's name. He's a famous climber, Fred.

Yeah, I know who Fred Beck is. Dirtbag. Meaning that, you know, he would just camp out and sleep on people's couches and climb all across the world and was meticulous in his is recording.

It's an amazing documentary, even for someone like me, has zero interest in doing that.

But he climbed until he died. Yeah. I mean, he just kept going and it shows it in the film, you know, you see footage of him when he was younger, whereas I mean, there he is, like overnight camping prohibited, you know, fuck you, I'm sleeping here.

You slept everywhere.

And it just shows like how bizarre his obsession with hiking and camping and and climbing was.

I mean, he was he just wanted to get out there and and climb all these different peaks and all these different mountains and all these different paths and recorded everything.

Yeah. Like super meticulously had boxes and boxes of notes. And he would go over the notes and show people routes and all the different things that he learned while he was doing it. I mean, he was obsessed.

I am just fascinated by people that have a singular obsession like that and carry it for their entire life.

Yeah, I mean I think climbing for me and I personally think climbing is very easy to become obsessed with because there's so many different facets to experience it in. Like you can go to the climbing gym, just play around on some plastic holds, or you can work towards climbing something like Mount Everest and then like everything in the middle. And so there's just a lot to do. Like, I just feel like I don't even have I I have, like, a lifetime's worth of things to do in climbing.

Hmm. That makes sense, I mean, watching that guy, watching the Fred Becky movie, Becky, right? Yeah, watching that movie and seeing his lifelong obsession and seeing other climbers sort of talk about him and the experiences they had with him and about. Like, there's it's there's more going on than just climbing, right? It's there's some sort of strange. It's a case of a mental state, there's a there seems to be a mental state of people that climb and want to reach the peaks of these things and and navigate these difficult routes, that it's there's a some sort of a game going on in your mind.

And there's rewards. There's like this this good feeling that everyone is getting while they're doing this. You like filling yourself up with endorphins when you're accomplishing these things. That's safe to say.

Yeah, I can agree with that. I mean, I think for me, climbing is my passion and it is essentially like my vehicle for experiencing like like the all of the wide spectrum of emotions that we all have.

You know, it's my vehicle for exploring fear. It's my vehicle for exploring achievement and success and ego and confidence. And, you know, I think you could really, like, use anything in order to explore those emotions. But everyone, I think, in some ways is trying to find what their vehicle is to explore those emotions. And for me, it truly is climbing up there on AACAP.

Like I went through the whole spectrum of emotions the whole day, just up and down in like the most extreme ways possible.

When you have these moments where things don't go well, when you have a fall or when you had your concussion, when you got really banged up overcoming those things, what is that like?

Because I would imagine that it's such a scary thing to do. Well, maybe for me, I know as much for you, but I'm watching pictures of you. My hands sweat.

I like legitimately like alcohol freaks me out every time I see videos of him because he's got nothing saving him. Yeah. My hands start sweating. Yeah. I can't him.

No I think all our hands sweat when we watch him but um. Yeah. So for me it's I think for example when I, when I hit my head this time, the time I got the scar I was on one of my day had gone so perfectly like I was climbing super well. Everything was great. I there it is. Yeah. That was the rock bottom moment. So I was climbing and I was in the sun. I slipped off.

I felt like I was just going to have a really normal fall, super safe, like nothing bad was going to happen. And then I hit my head and I instantly, like, just felt the blood pouring down my face. And it was super dramatic and it was super scary. And I lowered down and Adrianne sort of assessed me for concussion symptoms and tried to figure out if there was anything super serious. And turns out that there wasn't really. And so it it came time to decide like, oh, should I keep going or should I try?

I give up. Like what? You know what what's the best course of action now? And honestly, in my head, I was like. Part of me was like, I don't want to keep climbing, like I'm emotionally kind of destroyed and and drained and I don't think I see how it happened, like what amazing sequence of events.

I was so I was climbing this pitch. And it's a pitch that I've never fallen on before. And the next pitch is the hard one, which is where I think I went wrong because I was sort of thinking ahead, like I wasn't focusing on what was happening in front of me.

I was thinking about the the next pitch. And I was like, I need to get this one out of the way so that I can focus on the hard one. And therefore, I was climbing the sun when it's too hot, like the friction's not as good, it's more slippery, all those things. And I was rushing it. I didn't rest enough.

The friction is not as good when it's hot. Yeah. Won't be cold because your skin sweats. Oh OK. And like the rubber on your shoes isn't as sticky like it's just the heat. The heat radiates off the rock.

It just gets more slippery. Like imagine like a a granite face, just like baking in the sun, like everything's more slippery and you're, you're all sweaty and so it's just not ideal.

And I could have waited but I didn't. So I thought I was climbing and I was like kind of traversing. And so I was trying to do this move and I rushed it and I slipped and I fell. But I had like a piece of gear down into my right. And I just didn't I just didn't anticipate, like the physics of how I was going to fall.

And I kind of fell sideways and I couldn't get my feet out in front of me in time. And we watched the footage later. It was just like it was kind of like my head just like bounces off the wall like a like a basketball.

And I must have just hit like a crystal or something with my forehead, like some sort of something sticking out of the rock. And there was blood everywhere, like head wounds. They just, you know, they believe they bleed a lot.

And so there was a lot of blood and they lowered down and I was super bummed.

It was just like my confidence was sort of shattered, like I could. I just kept thinking back to last year. I was like, oh, no, my attempts over everything was going so well, like, that sucks.

And I was letting myself go to that place of doubt and that place of like, it's over.

And last year when you hit your head, you hit your head much harder. Last year I fell on the first pitch of the route so close to the ground, but I felt like fifty feet and I hit a ledge and didn't the rope like didn't catch me. I hit the ledge because I was again rushing and not placing enough protection.

And so you fell 50 feet without being caught, huh. Oh God. Yeah, it was, it was pretty gnarly. How did you hit it. I don't remember because I got knocked out.

Yeah. But I had this crazy Ropen on my neck and.

Oh my God. Yeah, I was it was pretty. I had yeah. I had to get rescued like full on ambulance. The hospital like spinal injury worries, all that. It was pretty serious. It was definitely the worst accident I've ever had. And it was I walked out of the hospital that day, which is incredible, like that just doesn't happen very often. There's me dressed up like a burrito.

And what. So this is when they were carrying you to the hospital?

Yeah, that's over open. Oh, my God. I also don't know how that happened. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow, and there's no footage of this, right? You didn't review footage of it that was dark when I started climbing, so actually is footage of Alex Honnold was bullying me.

There's footage of him bullying me. What is below me?

Blaen is the person who hold your rope at the bottom. OK, so he was like essentially holding my rope.

But it's a little bit nuanced because the way we were climbing, we were doing something called simul climbing. We were so we were essentially I was tied on the top of the rope. He was tied onto the bottom of the rope and we were climbing together up the wall simultaneously in order to save time.

And it's actually it is a more dangerous form of climbing than just like one person climbing while the other person bullies them. And then they and then I would stop and bring him up and then we'd go on from there, like instead we were climbing together.

Well. That makes me nervous, just thinking about it. Yeah, so someone falls, you're kind of connected to them. Yeah, we are always connected to somebody when you fall, but if he had fallen, it would it's it's kind of a complicated form claiming that not many people do.

It's definitely like an advanced strategy.

But so was someone filming. Yeah, I have a I have a filmmaker who's making like a movie about me. And he was filming because he was there filming that attempt and he was filming Alex as Alex was like sitting on the ground getting ready.

And have you review the footage? Yeah. What was it like watching yourself? It's pretty. It's pretty like it's it's hard.

It was hard. I didn't watch it for the first few months. I was like, I don't know. How long does it take to fall 50 feet? Imagine that's a few seconds. Like a I don't know what's the first you fall or isn't it like a nine foot. Yeah. Nine point eight meters per second.

Mm. Yeah. So a couple of seconds. Yeah, at least it felt that way. Oh, God. So, yeah, so that was that was something like a mental hurdle to get over for this year and then this year something similar happens only I was way higher on the wall, but I was really close to succeeding this time.

And I had this. Part of me was like, well, I just want to give up, like, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to be done. Like, I'm tired of this project. I'm over it.

When you got over the first injury, the really bad one from last year, what was the process of recovery like? How long did it take before you felt comfortable enough to climb again?

You know, I was super lucky. I think I definitely got away with it was one of those things where I got away with one. Like I walked out of the hospital. I was back climbing. I took I think I took a month off, but I went to like I went to Ecuador and climbed to a volcano with my dad and, like, went skiing and just did a bunch of things like how long afterwards we went to Ecuador, like four days later.

What kind of crazy father do you have?

He's awesome. My dad loves all sports and activities and he's like super passionate about everything.

And this was his dream was to like, go climb this volcano in Ecuador. And we've been planning it for months. And I actually felt that was one of the reasons I felt so bad that I got hurt was like I was like, oh, no, I'm supposed to go on this trip with my dad.

And like me, you know, we had this whole plan. He's been training. He trained like four months. He's 65 years old. Like, you know, it was one of those things. So we went and we climb the mountain. And thankfully, I was able to do that with him.

It was really cool, but kind of like physical damage. Did you suffer in terms of like how long did it take for you to recover?

I, I honestly, I would say I felt pretty normal within a month or so. Yeah. A little back pain but concussion. Concussion. Yeah. The concussion symptoms were a little gnarly for a little while, but four days later you're climbing a goddamn volcano. Yeah.

Well we're headed there. Yeah. How long after that. Before you were actually climbing.

I, I. Maybe like three weeks. So while you were suffering from some concussion, some symptoms, you were climbing.

Yeah, not recommended. We went to the doctor and she was like, you, you can't go to Ecuador.

You shouldn't do that.

And I was like, yeah, that's nice. See, when you watch the footage of the fall and you you know, you see yourself hit the wall and the just the impact and what happened to you, does that obviously didn't deter you from doing anything? But does it change the way you approach climbing it?

Yes and no.

I, I think the reason that it was a little bit easier for me to overcome that hurdle was because I was it was really obvious what had gone wrong. And it was really obvious that the what had gone wrong wrong was within my control. Like, I simply had not placed enough protection for the difficulty of the route. It was an easy, easy climbing for me. But it was really dark. It was cold. It was slippery. And I was like, I was just going too fast and not placing enough gear.

And so.

But can you explain that to people? So when you're doing a route or a route, when you're on your way up, you decide, OK, I need to play something here in case I fall. Do you do it more when it's more difficult? Exactly. And you gave yourself a lot of space?

I did. I gave myself a lot of space because I'd done it so many times before and I wanted to. So I only had you only have like a certain number, like a certain amount of pieces of gear. Right. And Alex and I were trying to go really fast and climb the first part of the route within, you know, within a couple of hours. And so I was trying to conserve the gear. So I was trying to, like, not use it very often so we could cover more distance in in one go, you know, because otherwise you then you have to stop and then like because he follows me and takes the gear out.

So I place it, he takes it out on the way up and then we meet and he gives it back to me and then we start again. And so I was essentially just trying to conserve gear.

I wasn't placing enough. And so the next time around was like, well, I just placed more gear, like I'll just be a little more conservative. And so this season it was a lot of it was some baby steps of like going back to that route and just placing a lot of gear.

So I felt super safe and then, you know, climbing it in the same style that I was going to climb with Alex simul, climbing it, but still placing more gear.

And then during my try this year, I actually told Alex because he was he's definitely more comfortable than almost anyone I know on El Cap.

Most people at least feel a little bit of intimidation and a little bit of fear, like, you know, there's a little bit of anxiety around it. And he's just it's so casual that he was like, yeah, he's just like, you know, just run it out, like, go go all the way. Like, he was basically just wanting me to do it the same way that I was doing it before. And I was like, you know, Alex, I'm going to be a little slower this time.

Like, I just I think I need that for my head.

And so he felt like you should do it with the same amount of gear that you did before you fall. Just don't fall this time. I'm like, yeah, kind of simple.

A little bit. Yeah. He was like, you know. But Alex, the one thing he always says is he's just like, OK, follow your heart. I was like, OK, well, I'm going to go slower.

Well, just so the audience knows, Alex told me that he did a route once and on his way up realized that he hadn't brought any chalk. Who so he had to borrow it from someone else who was strapped to ropes. Yeah, he's free soloing. Yeah, no, Chuck. Yeah.

Says, Hey, I know how many talked and the guy gives them a bag. And then he left the bag at the top so that when they got to the top they could retrieve the bag.

Yeah, that's a classic Alex situation.

You know what, like how do you not bring like if you lift weights, you like chalk.

It's like it's very important for me to have a good grip, kind of obsessed with having a job. I don't have to talk. I just won't go climbing.

I just can't imagine.

But, you know, I think he's the type of person that, you know, going back to, like, talking about heart rate, like, I bet I bet when he's in those types of situations, like he's so relaxed and his heart rate is so low and he's just he's a different I think he's truly unique, you know.

And I think I think that he just has a different like even brain chemistry than than a lot of us in terms of like how he feels fear and how he can maintain that composure in a very dangerous situation.

Well, he's remarkably calm all the time. Yeah. But he just seems always like on this one plane. Yeah. He's got like this like 55 beats per minute that he just stays at all the time.

Yeah. And it's great climbing with him actually, because it kind of rubs off on me a little bit. Like when I climb with Alex, I feel more confident, I feel more capable.

I tend to climb better even though he kind of gives me shit all the time for being nervous.

He's always like, you're always nervous, like you're you're always stressing out. But it's actually when I'm with him, I'm like, you know what? I can chill out a little bit. I can like I can I can be on that wavelength a little bit more.

So that's part of the reason why I like climbing with him up there and why I chose him for this project.

Well, that makes sense. I mean, I guess when you're around people that are if you're doing a thing and you're around people that are excellent at that thing, it's contagious or at least inspirational. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's important to like do. Yeah. To practice, practice things you want to be better at with people who are better than you.

Yeah, for sure. Um, what was it like. Do you remember vividly your first day climbing after the, the injury.

Um yeah. It was in Ecuador. I went to this little Cragg little climbing area after we climbed the volcano and I, I remember climbing but I had like back pain, you know.

And it was from the injury. Yeah. From the injury.

And I just remember thinking like, oh, I'm still not back. Like, I'm going to have to like maybe I'm not ready yet. You know, it was one of those for me. I've always been the person who I don't really give myself a break very easily and I'm pretty hard on myself. But this time I think I learned a pretty valuable lesson that was like I do need to be a little bit more gentle with myself and be OK with, like taking a step back.

So I actually tried climbing and I was like, nope, not today. I'm not going to do it today. And I just took photos for the rest of the day and then I didn't climb again until maybe three weeks later.

What do you do to try to recover from something like that in terms of like physical recovery? Do you do you take ice bars? Do you try to stretch? Do you get massage? Like, how do you when you you feel like beat up or something like that, how do you how do you bounce back. Yeah. Massage.

I do as often as I can. Not enough. And then really really light stretching like foam rolling.

Um I like a little travel lacrosse ball that I lay on sometimes, but again I am not as as diligent with it as I probably should be. But back. But then after I got injured I was really diligent about it. I think it's something that you kind of should maintain though, and I definitely don't do that now.

Do you do this professionally? Yeah. This is all you do up. How long has that been the case? I. Well, I guess I should say that I became like a true professional rock climber when I joined the North Face team, and that was in 2008, right after I graduated from college.

That's a long time. It's a really long time. Yeah. Yeah. So you've been a pro for 12 years.

Yeah, 12 years. And before that, I was like doing a lot of competitions and. You had sponsors and stuff like that, but I was also in school and then I went to university and I wanted to be a lawyer actually, so I graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and I was going to study for the LSAT. And that's when the North face approached me. And I was like, OK, well, try this for a little while and see how it goes.

Like, it's cool opportunity to travel and see the world and keep climbing.

And then I just didn't. Would you be hesitant to. So it's not at all. No. But you went to school for something else.

Yeah. I be doing something physical. That's always weird, right? Yeah. Relying on your body, which you can break, but you can always go back.

My mindset I think I was 20 years old. Like, I didn't really, you know, I didn't have like a super good like 10 year plan or whatever, you know, I was like, I'll do this for a few years and then I can just go back to school.

Right. Like, that's that's great. But now being a professional athlete, like, is sort of like morphed into this viable option to make a living. Well, for me at least.

And when you're sponsored, like, how does that work? Do you are you required to do a certain amount of climbs per year? You're required to make social media posts out of the how's it work?

Yeah, so I work with a bunch of companies, but the north face is the main one.

And it's essentially I mean, it's essentially like kind of it's like a marketing job, like where we are expected I wouldn't say required, but expected to participate in social media, tell our stories like, you know, be open about that.

And then we do a lot of photo shoots, we do a lot of expeditions, a lot of big trips and then personal projects as well.

And and, yeah, I kind of expected to tell the stories of those and to work with the brand to, you know, make it worth their while as well.

So they just kind of want you to be cool.

And whether stuff like you're out there doing cool stuff and yeah, you were in the north and the active within the brand and like. Yeah.

Is that how's it feel like to be like that's what you do for a living. Yeah. I would be lying if I. Said that I didn't feel sometimes a little bit of like imposter syndrome, you know, how some like, oh, I do. I actually deserve this. Like, this happens with everybody, though.

Yeah, I think so, yeah. Like, why am I like, why am I here. Right. Like, I don't I'm not special.

Right. Well that's probably why you're special. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I think people that like actually think they're special genuinely. Are they. That's a that's a more of a hindrance I think you're better off with. Yeah. I think you're better off feeling like shit. OK.

Better continue with that. I do because I think, I think it makes you work harder. I really do. Yeah. People who think they deserve success, the people who think they're awesome, I think you don't have as much nervousness or at least doubt which forces you to work harder. You know, I think there's there's real value in feeling fake, like feeling like how am I here? I like these are people are they're really good.

Like, I know so many successful people to think that way, whether it's athletes or comedians or so many people suffer from imposter syndrome.

Yeah. And I think it's real. I've experienced it. Yeah. I think it's important.

I think it makes you work harder because you just I think if you just think you're the shit, like you're not going to you're not going to have that extra edge.

Yeah.

And I guess like admitting to it, it also makes you more relatable to people, I think like admitting that you struggle with self-confidence and like imposter syndrome and feeling like you're not good enough all the time is yes, you may want other people to be like, oh yeah, yeah.

Cool. I feel that way too.

Yeah. Well it's I think it's valuable for all of us because we want to know that you're human, right. Yeah. You're doing a superhuman thing. Right. You're climbing the face of a giant goddamn mountain. It's crazy when someone does something that everyone else is terrified of. We want to know what does that lady like? Like what is? And when you're like, oh, I feel like a fake. Yeah, I'm like, oh, she's like me.

I'm terrified most of the time.

And I cry a lot. That's what it's like. Yeah.

See, people love to hear that. They do. They really do.

It's very valuable when you can relate like genuine anxiety and fears and things to people because you are doing an extraordinary thing with your life. I mean, how many professional rock climbers are there?

Yeah, I mean, there's a few. There's not many. There's more now.

A lot more lawyers. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's, it's a lot more now than when you first started. Yeah. For sure.

I mean climbing is kind of exploded in popularity in a way with the like the resurgence of climbing gyms, like there's climbing gyms and every Yeah.

Every city now multiple.

Really good way to get a workout. Like people don't realize how hard it is to do. It's really hard. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I love it. I think it's so cool that people now have access to like experience climbing and in the inner city if they want to. I think it's rad. And it also now it's an Olympic sport. So it will be in the Olympics next year. It was meant to be in Tokyo.

How do they do it as an Olympic sport? They have a particular path that you have to try to climb up.

And so it's three disciplines because it's new. It's a new sport. They've essentially combined like the three main disciplines of competition climbing into one. So there's one medal and they combine the scores and they have a lead climbing, which is with a rope. But like the routes are longer, like, say, I don't know, fifty feet or so. So it's sort of like an endurance challenge and it's like they set a path and that it's meant to be difficult and each person gets one try and whoever gets the highest wins that discipline.

And then there's bouldering which is like shorter, no ropes. The movements are like more powerful, more explosive. There's a little bit of a parkour element.

There's like a lot of jumping around the other, you know, lots of like big features, like volumes. Where's that guy going?

Exactly where is really using it. But but super entertaining. If you're hanging in that position, what is your next viable option?

He's going to throw his feet up to where his left hand is and then he's going to bring his left hand into his right hand.

What? Yeah, just that's my that's my estimate.

That's me reading them. Where does he go?

And he's going to knock down the sticker on it. That one. Yeah, it's incredible. Like Boldrin competitions are so cool. Oh my God.

They're super entertaining and they all have that sort of Honnold body long lean version.

But not everyone, like a lot of the women, are quite short, quite small. It's kind of like climbing is so climbing is unique because it's a really complicated and it kind of caters to all different bodies, body types.

In a lot of ways it's better to be taller, but in other ways it's like sometimes better to be shorter because it's always different. The rules are always different. How would. Imagine today would be better because you have a longer reach, you reach up and grab it and I can put my feet a little higher than a lot of people, and I'm a lot more flexible than most people. What do you mean where you can put your feet?

Like, I put my foot, like, above my head because you're flexible from gymnastics. Yeah. Oh, interesting.

And do you maintain that you, like, work on your flexibility just specifically for that? I should. I don't.

There's a lot of this with you. I know. I should get one. You can't do everything. Oh, I guess so.

That lead climbing. OK, so that's with the rope and you just get one try on the route with the bouldering you got you get like they call them problems. So you get maybe four or five of those problems and you get five minutes on each one. Hmm. And however you do on each one gives you a score and then you have speed which is right there, same route everywhere all the time. And it's just it's speed.

I've seen some of those speed ones. We've watched them on the show.

But with Alex, yeah, it's been really fast. They go flying super. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, really cool.

It doesn't seem real like how does a person get up a wall like that.

I don't know. But I mean they also have a different like speed cameras actually have a different body type than a lot of the sport climbers and boulders because a lot of it is like really lower body explosion.

Yeah. So that's Olympic's. Woops, there's music to the explosion. A lot of these guys going, yeah, so the rope is not helping them.

That's what's crazy, because if you saw someone just make up their way up a wall like that.

No, no. Helping like that is insane. Yeah. So that's speed climbing.

Do you have to be so strong to do that? I mean, that is just bonkers. Wow, yeah, I've never I've actually never, never speak.

I'm really, really not like that just because I've always focused so much on on technical, difficult rock climbing and other things like mountains and all these other disciplines.

Was this person doing that bouldering? OK, so this is trying to figure out how she's trying to solve the problem.

And she's not she has no rope, so no rope. So if she falls, she's just going to what, she just going to hit the pads. The pads are super thick.

They're almost like a pole vaulting pads, kind of maybe a little more firm than that. Wow. It's wild to say, yeah, so that's the Olympics. Yeah, you're not interested in that? I mean, I would have been if I was like. Ten years younger, you've passed. There's no way I could qualify for the Olympics. Really no way. Why would you say that?

Because it's it's such a different it's a different it's almost like a different sport. And it takes, like, the dedication to only doing that for years and years and years. And I did that throughout my teenage years.

And then I kind of moved on to other things.

I would imagine that hand strength is one of the most important things, like the ability to hang on the stuff.

Yeah, that's why I like travel with my bought and hang all the time and like do a lot of it.

What do you put the hangover when you travel. Yeah, I bring those up, pull up bars that you like screw on between the doorjamb and then I hang it from there. Wow.

And then you just hang. So if you're staying in a hotel you just like hanging in the bathroom wall on the door. Yeah. Well and do you do it for time. Do you do reps. Do chin ups. What are you doing there.

Yeah, all of that. There's like little there's exercises you can do. There's a lot of research now that's been done on finger strength.

So that's one of the things you use like that.

Yeah, the one I have is wood because the wood is actually a little bit friendlier for your skin. Mhm. But yeah, similar. You do different hand positions and sometimes you'll hang for like five seconds and then take ten seconds off and do it again.

And then sometimes you put weight on your body mano a mano, someone can hang from one finger, people can do crazy stuff, people are going to pull ups from one finger but one hand, one finger, pulling people in different levers from like one finger.

There's all climbers are amazing.

Front lever when you, like, put your body to. Oh yeah.

Yeah, right.

I bet you could find a video of that. I'm nervous now so someone can. There it is. Oh my God. I can't do this. That is freaky. Yone Hoga is a beastie single finger plank man machine.

Yeah I would agree with that statement. Look at that. That's crazy that he can do that.

Yeah. That guy must have ridiculous fingers. He's one of the strongest climbers in the world. Yeah. I imagine. Yeah.

That's, that's bananas. Yeah.

Oh is this him climbing stuff with no feet. Oh. Yeah, that's. The tendons and all the stuff in your fingers and your hands, like they must be ridiculous, but you could see those are shaking. Yes.

Oh my God, that's crazy. I just heard something. If you lost your pinky, lose 50 percent of the strength in your hand rule. Yeah, I did not have confirmation on that.

Some of those like snap effect type effects I saw on the Internet recently because that possible. That's a bummer.

It doesn't seem right, because when I draw my bow back, I'm only using three fingers. But maybe it's like the way it's all connected, you feel weak at all. I think it's like if you cut it off, not like if you've done other work, like to strengthen the rest of your hand or your bucket from a bow back and barely use my hand, it just kind of locked in place all the more my back and shoulders.

But I feel like that's not real. Hmmm, maybe, maybe, but it's all like talking to here, right? You're right, your forearms and everything. Yeah, that's what makes sense.

Yeah. Well you squeeze it. Your pinky provides half your hand strength. Wow, stick your pinkies out and raise your glasses to toast your fifth finger. Without it, your hand would be half as strong.

Wow. This weird, the things are connected in that way. Yeah, you know, it's there's a sort of it's a unit.

It's not one thing. There's a lot going on. It's all working together. Yeah. So when you do your hand strength exercises, do you have like a routine where you go, one, two, three, four, you'll recall them or. Yeah, I do.

I tend to do like handgrip positions, like I'll hold on to something like this and I'll hold on to something like this and hold on to something like this.

She must have looked ridiculous. I mean, my hands are strong, but they're not like. That's one of my weaknesses, I think, in climbing is my fingers strength, so I'm always working on it. Do you have to make sure that your body weight is very light when you do something like that to do diet down before you do something to make sure that you're as light as possible?

Yeah, it's an it's an interesting subject because climbing is like a strength to weight ratio. Sport does benefit you to be lighter, but at the same time, it's really easy to take it too far. And I think. Right. And then once you take it too far, it's it can be very bad.

Like injury's weaker and eating disorders is like kind of a yeah. It's definitely a thing in climbing. This is going to get to that.

And I suffered from it when I was younger, when I was heavily involved in competitions like and it's like once you start to experience a little bit of success from losing weight, like there's so much more incentive to just like keep going down that road. And I think it's actually a pretty dangerous road.

And it's something that we're climbers are starting to talk about more, which I think is super good and super healthy, especially like with the growth of climbing competitions and with the growth of of youth, like becoming more interested in climbing. Right.

That the edge that you get from doing that is now worth pursuing because there's a lot of negative drawbacks.

It is. And it's pretty temporary and it's not very sustainable.

And, you know, in a lot of ways I feel lucky that I came out of that period and kept climbing because it's hard it's hard to to go through that phase and then sort of come out of it and have to deal with, like, not climbing as well for a while.

And what does that mean? And, you know, it's kind of a mindfuck. And so that's why that's why it's why I talk about data the way I do, because sometimes it's like I just can't I can't, like, emotionally handle it.

I need to, like, take a step back and just be intuitive. Mm. Yeah.

Sometimes there's too much data and not enough just being.

Yeah. And I was one of those, I was one of those athletes when I was younger that I was like obsessed with the number on the scale.

I was obsessed with how much I ate, I was obsessed with every little thing and it got to the point where it just almost destroyed me. That makes sense.

That's a giant problem with people. Right. But yeah, just in general, being obsessed with the scale and in the numbers. Yeah.

And if you're in a sport where you're literally carrying your body weight up a mountain, it's not just like so many girls are obsessed with the scale for whatever reason, even if they look good, they don't like the number, like you look great, but you weigh 145 pounds like shit. I hate that I want to be one thirty five.

But you don't like this is crazy. Like, what are you doing.

Yeah, I think it's complicated because then I think society, especially as a woman, you kind of die your self worth to it and then you tie like your. Yeah. Your value to society to it. And then if you bring in the athletic side, it's like a lot to handle. Yeah. So yeah, that's something I've, I mean I still struggle with it.

It's so interesting. There's this woman who is on Instagram, I forget her name, but she's a beast and I mean that in the best way. She's just a fucking tank. She's so strong and I don't know what she does, some sort of fitness trainer or something like that. But she got on a scale to show that she's one hundred and eighty pounds. Yeah. She's like, I'm 180 pounds all. Well, she looks fantastic, like there's no doubt about it.

She's an amazing shape, but she's a big gal. But by getting on that scale and showing like, hey, like fuck your numbers.

Yeah. I was like that is that is great and very scenes.

Sounds so crazy to say, especially as a man, that it's brave of her to show her way because men don't give a fuck if you're 180 of a man's 180 or 170 or one like no, unless you're trying to get big, you don't care or unless you're trying to lose weight, like no guy says, oh, no woman's going to like me. I'm, you know, 195 instead of 170. Like, that's nonsense. No guy thinks like that.

Like a no. Like you have to like no one. I don't want anybody to know my number. But for a woman, that's a big issue.

It's a big issue for sure. And it's like I mean, I don't weigh myself anymore. So I'm just like. Right. I don't I don't need to deal with that.

It's common for women that have had those issues. Yeah. They just decide, you know what? I'm just going to be healthy. You look good and not think about.

Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the things that's been there's a lot of things that I actually don't like about social media. But that's one thing that I've really appreciated is like women, like you're talking about like sharing those things and being like, yeah, this is who I am.

I think she gets enough likes. Yeah, it's OK.

Yeah, she's she's hot, you know, she knows what she's doing, like she's kind of being brave but also. Yeah. She's, she gets enough compliments but you know she's like six foot one or something like that. But she's a tank. Yeah. But I just, I admired that she put that number out there, she showed it and she was like, look, this is who I am. Yeah.

And for a lot of people that's important because there's probably people that are struggling with their own weight and they see her and they go, oh, OK, I'm an.

I'm going to take a little of that. I'm going to I'm going to adopt a little bit of that attitude and just just don't worry about the number. But yeah, people get obsessed with stuff like that.

It's so it's so interesting because it's so it's so sad. And when you see people that are anorexic, like there was a woman that was anorexic in my yoga class.

And I vividly remember being in class, you know, laying down the mat and looking over and just go.

Like, oh, no, like being looking at this girl who was like a skeleton. Like, what do you say? That she was only she was young, like she's probably in her 20s. And I'm looking at her and I'm thinking, shit. And then I asked a yoga instructor who was my friend, I said, Do you know her? Like, what is her deal? She's like, yeah, she's you know, she's struggling and she doesn't think she is.

And it's a real issue. And I don't know what to do. And what you can't even say anything. What do you say?

Yeah, it's hard. I think it's hard to to talk about because it's not really talked about if that makes my place.

I don't know her. Yeah. It's so personal. It's super personal. And I think it's a tricky subject for sure. Like I've had people come to me and be like, what do I do? Like I have a friend who, you know, it seems like they're struggling and it's hard because going through it myself, it was whenever people brought it up, you get very defensive.

Yeah. And it's really easy to be like, well, I'm I don't have a problem. I'm fine, you know, like, it's it's you know, I'm doing this for my sport. This is what I need to do. This is how needs to be.

And so I think it's a struggle, sort of like navigating how to deal with that, especially with, you know, friends and family or something like that.

But I think, you know, I think just overall, shifting the culture behind it is maybe a possible solution.

Know when you're when you're training for something big like this, do you alter your diet? Do you have specific foods that you eat when you train or do you just always maintain a healthy diet?

I'm pretty healthy.

I also, because of my past, like obsessiveness about food, I try to not worry about it too much also because I travel so much and I love food and I love sharing food and cooking food and eating food.

It's just I don't like I don't necessarily worry too much about what I eat. I'm very healthy eater. I like everything I, I don't I try not to worry about it too much if I want to eat ice cream. Ice cream.

Good for you know, when you go on a long climb like that do you carb load before you do it. Do you carry a lot of food with you or.

Yeah, I carry a lot of food with me. It's hard for me to eat on the wall. It's hard for me to like because I'm, I get nervous.

I get nervous, you lose your appetite and all those things.

And so I try to bring like simple foods with me on the wall and like a mix of fat just, you know, well balanced and easy. I don't usually bring, like, meals.

Like, I actually brought a burrito on the wall the day that I was going to eliminate any any of it.

So you didn't eat it all while you're on the wall. You just didn't eat? I didn't eat the burrito.

I ate like cereal and nuts and beef jerky and candy because I love candy.

But it's probably good to to get some extra sugar. Yeah, that's exactly why. Yeah. And replace the glycogen in your muscles. And so what is your diet like. Normally like what kind of foods do you eat. We say eat healthy. Do you.

Yeah I eat super healthy. I love like I, I love like pancakes in the morning but like with protein and avocado toast and you know, eggs, whatever salad you're vegetable insane amount of calories doing that too.

Sometimes it depends on, you know, it depends what you're doing. If you're free climbing all cabinet then yes. But if you're just going to the gym for an hour and a half or if you're just hanging on the board.

But if you have a one like I see you have some sort of a fitness watch on what do you what do you work?

Oh, I have this, um. It's new, actually. Adrian got it for me. Garmin it's like a Phoenix Saffire.

Oh, sweet little thanks.

Does that measure output Khoury's heart rate.

It's meant to yeah. It measures your heart rate.

I use it for like my running and stuff. I'd be so curious to see how many calories you burn on a twenty one hour trip up the side of a mountain.

I would imagine thousands. That's the thing. I don't wear it when I climb because you put your hands in the cracks. Of course they get all stuck, right?

That's right. So I thought of that.

Yeah. But the amount it's also like a mental thing to write. Your mind must be burning a shit ton of calories.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of mental fatigue that goes on.

We were talking the other day about chess masters and that one chess master is playing these tournaments. They burn 6000 calories a day. Really? Yeah. They found out that these guys were losing incredible amounts of weight over a weekend.

Like just thinking. I was thinking I could see that.

Yeah. I mean, I guess it's makes sense. But your brain, when you're calculating, like all these different maneuvers in different places, that your opponent can move his pieces.

You're just constantly goes RPM's going, even though you're sitting there, your body just burning off fuel.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, actually. So I imagine some of that's going on, too, with you because you're physically climbing. But you're also thinking, you're calculating, you're trying to stay calm. You lose a lot going on. A lot going on. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you. Meditate, do you have any mental exercises that you participate in?

I, I visualize, um, so I'm one of those people like I can I can almost remember every move of like the Golden Gate said, I'll go, I'll lay in bed at night and like, go through all the moves over and over again almost to a fault, you know, like I can remember things really well and I'll go over sequences and I'll I'll lay down and I'll think about myself climbing, like executing these sequences really perfectly.

Um. So I know where all the handholds are. Who are the footholds are, you know what freaks me out about that stuff? It's like, don't those break off sometimes?

Yeah, it it happens occasionally. Yep. It depends on the type of rock, like some rock is more prone to breaking than other way.

So that's way too casual. But it doesn't happen. It happens occasionally. Occasionally. Not very often. Yeah. And especially like the well traveled routes. Yeah.

They don't have some giant person was on it before you put their heavy duty on that handhold. Yeah. Sometimes I worry about that. I would imagine. Yeah.

And then you go to grab it like breaking the. So I was looking at some of the things that Alex was holding on to when he was free soloing, and I'm like, what? What are you doing in your body? Man?

Yeah, that's you know, that that rock is pretty solid, though. And a lot of people, like, climb that route and it's been there for, you know, forever.

And when you're when you're imagining it in your head, do you, like, sit yourself down and go through the whole. Because, I mean, the path takes 21 hours to do so. You can't really go through the whole thing.

Yeah.

I mean, I skip over some of the easy part, but the hard parts I have like really ingrained in my brain to the point where I think it's kind of hinders me sometimes because I'll go through all the I'll go through the moves and then I'll go through all the things that can go wrong.

And then that kind of messes with me a little bit. You write it down. I've written it down to, you know, like draw.

I draw it out only I can understand it, but I draw it out in a sort of a family code.

Yeah. It's like I just like try to draw the hold and then I write where my feet go home or my hands go.

Do you think of this career that you are currently involved in as a life journey? Is this sort of going to be something that you do your whole life? Yes. So you are a climber? Yes. Do you have any other ideas of things that you would like to do in this life or you just this is your career, no matter what?

I mean, I think at this point, this is my career. I'm pretty well established as a professional rock climber and I feel, yeah, I'm not bored.

I this is what I want. I, I, I'm super excited for future opportunities, for future objectives and goals and things like that. And Adrian and I have sort of built this life together.

Did you meet him climbing. I did. I met him on. I met him on Mount Everest. Oh yeah.

Both up to risking our lives. Yeah. Yeah.

And he has he has a guy he has a guiding business alongside his professional athlete career. And so yeah, I feel like we've just built this, we've built this life together and we're we're both super passionate and supportive of each other. And you know, I, I want to have a I think we want to have a family someday.

It's really cool that you're involved with someone who has the same passion to like.

They'll understand you. Yeah, it's it's super important. And it it's important because, you know, both of us go away on our own separate trips sometimes.

And, you know, instead of the other person, just like sitting at home, kind of like worrying and stressing out, you know, we kind of understand what the other person is going through.

It just it feels like we have a really, like, symbiotic relationship in that way because we really do understand what the other person does beyond I mean, no other person is ever a person who doesn't climb at all, I would imagine would be hard.

I think. Yeah, well, not impossible.

But my female friends that are comedians have the sort of same attitude about norms, what they call norms, like some normal person who doesn't do comedy, OK, they're never going to stand them. Right. Like, look, just that thing. I have some female friends, like my friend Iliza Schlesinger. She has a husband who's a chef. And they were it works out great. But a lot of them, they'll try like regular people and they wind up dating comedians because, like, no one can understand them.

We have the same joke in climbing. I think it's like people always say like, oh, I'd really like to not date a climber, but then it's like, well, then you got to, like, go do other things besides climbing.

Right? What are you going to do? Where are you going to meet those people? And then when you meet them, what are you going to do with them. Exactly right. Like like where are you going to go out to eat I guess.

Hey, I'm going to go climb for twenty hours. What are you doing today, Bob? Yeah, well I thought we can hang out. Exactly. OK, we'll come climb with me bitch.

Yeah exactly. Yeah.

The Mount Everest thing is odd one.

Right, because it seems to be sort of there's like a weird sort of bucket list thing that's also attached to like a social it's like a social metal to all.

I climbed Everest. Yeah.

I have a very intense love hate relationship with Mt. Everest. It is like I was very fortunate to be able to go on an expedition, climb Mount Everest. And that's where I met Adrian. And, you know, my life sort of changed directions after that. But that said, like, he goes back to Everest every single year.

So to guide or for his own personal projects or whatever that may be, because he he he guides Everest every year.

And and so for me, it's like Everest just became like a part of a part of my everyday life. Like it's always you're always planning for the next expedition or on that expedition or or thinking about the expedition. And so it's like it it just kind of took over in a way, for a few years there. And I got really, really tired of it. How many times you climbed Everest?

I've only going to once Adrianne's climbed it eight times. How many bodies did you see? That's a common question I get, and it's there are bodies on Everest I. Maybe saw like two or three. Yeah, that is one of the most wild things. Yeah, it's Mt. Everest. It is wild. It's something that I think people in that world are pretty accustomed to. But that's a crazy thing.

It is customary. Yeah. And the thing about your body leaves you like he's he's. He's always awesome. It's over. He's right there. He's right there. No, no, no. It's over. Leave him. You got to go. No, no, no. He's right there. I could touch him. They're going to reach down and touch touching his head. He's gone, man. We got to let him go. He's breathing.

Yeah. And he's right there. He's dead. You got to look like what? What are you talking about? There's more than one hundred bodies laying on Mt. Everest.

Yeah, but there's an open debate whether to remove them or leave them be fucking leave them.

Yeah, that's kind of what. Yeah. It's actually super, super dangerous is the thing to remove bodies from whatever Mount Everest. Like you're putting other people in danger. Yeah, I'm down.

And what's the point? And also I think there's something about like the guy, the first guy to ever climb Everest is still up there right up.

Well, circumstantially, it's kind of like a great mystery. Oh, really? Yeah. Because he vanished.

No, there's a so the the mystery of whether or not Mallory and Irvine summited Mount Everest is still like it's still out there.

Oh, they might not have ever actually made. No. So, OK, so the first the first I don't want to mess this up. The first ascent of Mt. Everest happened in like the fifties.

I think at but there's this argument that maybe it happened way back in the 1920s because there was an expedition to Everest. George Mallory and Sandy Irvine went out to go climb Mount Everest and they essentially disappeared. And it's still a question as to whether or not they summited. So this is someone who has this people that have actually done it. This is a list. So are supposedly George Mallory, George and Cindy Irvine set out to climb Mount Everest in 1924 and they essentially disappeared.

But nobody's sure if they summited and died on the way down or if they died on the way up.

Oh, somebody died on the way down. And they're the first people to summit.

Right. And so people are still looking. They actually found George Mallory's body in the 90s. And as the story goes, he was meant to like leave a photo of his wife on the summit.

So he carried a photo in his possible ice ax injury following a fall body found in 1999. Yikes. So people are still looking for Ervine because apparently he had a camera.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

So if you find the do you think the footage would be fucked? I don't know. That's another question.

See if there's a photo of Mallory's body. Jamie, it's kind of it's kind of dark because you see his porcelain white frozen skin exposed by the sun and his face down, I believe. I think that's the photo I'm thinking of. And he's got these old timey clothes on, too. So it's like. That's it, that's it right there. That is rough, man, that photo freaks me the fuck out every time I look at it. Because that guy is rock solid, frozen there like like a piece of stone, and he will be there unless climate change melts his ass, right?

Yeah, I mean, that is fucking crazy. It's just it's like his shoes of rotted off. Oh, my God.

This is the bones of his foot and everything. Yeah, that is hard core.

Yeah. It was a long time ago. Oh yeah. I mean the equipment they had back then was like. Nothing. I know what kind of clothes are they're wearing just probably wool. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's I think it's there's a tradition to leaving the bodies there that I think there's something about people that are doing it that know they're risking their life. Like, that's an affirmation. Like there's a guy that didn't make it. Yeah.

What you're doing is crazy is really hard. So I think it's one of the rare moments in life where I think it's probably some beauty to leaving a dead body in a spot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, it just like makes sense. It seems fitting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's also everybody's doing that. I mean, there's none other than the few douchebags that are just doing it for social cred. Like there's a lot of people that are just what they're doing is they decided to test themselves and one of the most extreme ways possible. You're literally risking your life to reach the highest spot or not the highest, but one of the highest spots on Earth.

Something it's the highest.

It's ever. The highest. Yeah, but is K2 the highest in terms of its relation to the ocean or sea level?

No, that's that's something different. It's different. K2 is the second highest, but K2 is considered significantly more technical and dangerous than ever.

And actually, there's a lot of mountains that are considered more difficult and dangerous than Mount Everest.

And when a guy decides like, hey, you know, I want to show off and be the man who climbs Mt. Everest in my neighborhood, do you do they have a requirement like how much they have to train for something like that? Because I know of rich people that are not really climbers that have climbed Everest.

Yeah. So Everest is really it's it's a really interesting one because it's a very it's Everest has become very commercialized.

So there's a lot of companies that guide Mount Everest, including Adrien's company, Contagion's Company's name.

So this company is called Alpine Globe Expedition, Alpine Glo, Alpine Globe Expeditions website. Yes, they do.

What is the ultimate expedition stuff?

Okay, you can sign up. You can go anywhere in the world, basically go climb with agent. Yeah. So there's a bunch of companies that guide Mount Everest from both sides.

There it is. There's the website. Are you backcountry ready?

Yeah, we're getting ready for backcountry ski season and and the guiding guiding on Mount Everest has become very, pretty lucrative. And there's guiding from the Chinese side and from the Nepal side. And both of those governments obviously benefit from that. And so from from the Nepal side, it's a little bit less essentially. It's just up to the companies who who they take and who they don't take.

So for up and go, for instance, you do need previous requirements in order to climb Mt. Everest, you have to have climbed another eight thousand meter peak and have gone through, you know, some climbing, some rock climbing skills, schools. But then other companies will just take anyone if you have the money and if you pay for it.

And that's where a lot of the issues on Mount Everest arise is because you have a lot of inexperienced people up there and you have a lot of inexperienced guiding going on. And and it's not regulated by the government or anything like that. Like a lot of mountains in the world are regulated by the country that they're in, like Denali, for example. And so the companies have to abide by a certain set of regulations. But in Mt. Everest, it's not really like that.

So it's a little bit of a free for all.

So that's why you hear about like the crowds and the lines and the the dead bodies and the people dying. A lot of that is due to inexperience, I can only imagine.

Yeah, but experienced people die to experience.

People do die, but less so. Like for for example, like when Adrian goes to Everest.

I do not worry about it, but no, not at all. Not even a little bit.

Wow. Because he uses oxygen. That's another thing like using oxygen versus not using oxygen. The one time I did worry about him, he climbed Everest without oxygen, which is infinitely more difficult, more dangerous. And so, yeah, experienced people do die up there, but less, less so.

Wim Hof climb Mount Everest with sandals on and shorts. The guy with the that goes in the. Yeah, yeah. I met him.

Yeah he did a little clinic with him so it's too easy. Yeah.

Yeah. He's a character. Oh he's a freak. He's a real freak like a legitimate freak of nature and will like he's he has the desire of the world record for swimming under ice. He's got some crazy record for swimming under ice, and there he is. Yeah, those fuckin sandals on. With an ice pick, no oxygen in shorts. Is that really wow, wow. Oh, yeah. Oh, that photo, dude, he's a freak.

Like he's a legit freak. Yeah, he's another one that's got some sort of. Different, different wavelength of mental strength. Well, it is mental strength, but it's also breathing. Yeah, the breathing, breathing exercises, breathing exercises are so strange because you think, well, I breathe, everybody breathes, but you don't realize.

Here it is at the world record for the longest time and direct full body contact with ice, a total of 16 times, including one hour, 42 minutes and 22 seconds on the 20th of January. One hour. Forty four minutes. This is a different record. He did something where he swam under ice. He swam in the ocean. They cut a hole in the ice and he swam under it to another place. Yeah, fifty seven point five meters.

He set the Guinness World Record for the farthest swim under ice, 57 fucking meters under ice. Jesus, that's long. Yeah, have you ever done, like, those ice baths things? No, I've done cryotherapy, which is OK, but it's easy. It's three minutes. Yeah, but those ice packs takes your it takes your breath. Yeah, it's really hard. I don't even like cold showers. Now, when I lived in Boston, there's a guy at my taekwondo gym.

His name is Bob Cafarella. Everybody was scared of him because he was like an advanced black belt and he would shower in the winter in Boston in cold water.

So he'd get done training. Yeah, it's really good for you. But I didn't think it was good for you. I thought it was just a for him.

It was just like a mental strength thing. He would just get in the water. He lived at the gym like literally lived in the gym and taught out of the gym like he was super dedicated. But he would turn the cold water on and just get in that call. Everybody was like, what are you doing? We're all scared of him.

His mind was so strong because Boston is cold is shit. The water is barely not frozen.

And so he's in there with like thirty three degree water, just having it pour over his body after training. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

I mean I think that is it. There is a test, there is something to learn. They're like the mind over matter thing. Yeah.

And also learning that it's actually beneficial for you and you really do get something out of it. Norepinephrine gets jacked through the roof.

When you get out of that, you feel amazing. Yeah. Like cryotherapy, like I had doctorand or Patrick and I took her to a cryotherapy place in Woodland Hills back. We were in L.A. and she had never done it before, but she was aware of the Formanek effects. And so as a doctor, she was really interested in as a clinical research researchers interested in like what it felt like for her body. And she got out of there. She was like, this is amazing.

She starts rattling off all the things that are actually happening to your body. I'm like, wow, what a good person to bring to cryotherapy place, like someone who actually understands the physiological benefits and is experiencing them and then relaying them to you as she's experiencing them. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty intense. Have you done those cryotherapy places?

I've never been in one of those. The real good ones. I mean, they're all good for you.

We have one here. We actually have a tank here. But it's one of these like below the neck, though. The really good ones is the whole body, your whole like even your dead, everything, because the ones below what they're using is liquid nitrogen.

You can't breathe in and if you breathe it in, you'll black out. And people have actually died doing that, like where they've had no supervision and then set it up themselves. And the the ones that they do at cryo health care in Woodland Hills and in L.A., those are all freezing the air. So they're using the liquid nitrogen to freeze the air and get the air down to two hundred fifty degrees below zero. And then they pump this freezing cold air in the room and you could breathe it in.

So you wear a mask, a surgical mask, wear with covid, you wear earmuffs, you wear mittens on your hands, and you have to wear underwear and you wear socks and like rubber crocs.

It's actually a big one. Oh, wow.

Oh, that's interesting. I've never seen one that big. Is that out here? It may be this apparently one out here like that that does full body.

Does it feel like unbearably cold. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yes you've done it. Was it. It's fucking cold.

How many times you the three times maybe. Yeah.

It's just you can't wait for the song to end because you know you get the fuck out of there.

Yeah. I have certain songs that I listen to like that I can a.m. I'm freezing my ass off. I just do three minutes.

Three minutes. Yeah but I did that. There's a guy who is working there that he was always trying to see how much I can endure because it is like I think you could do more. I'm like, let's say like it's just a glutton for punishment sort of thing.

So I got the three minutes and forty seconds. That's the most I've ever done.

Well, it's not enjoyable and I do it twice to I do it and then I take like ten minutes off for my body to recharge and then I go back in again and supposedly that there's a significant benefit in doing it two times, huh.

Yeah. Do you do it like before training or.

No. After training or is it. I do it after training but you really should put a large buffer just for the like. There's, there's a great benefit in your body being heated up and your body's natural healing and recovering. And there's a lot of benefit, there's a lot of debate, rather as to how much time you should spend like post workout before you get an ice bath. And that same applies. The same thought process applies to cryotherapy, a sauna.

On the other hand, they think you should do right after training. So if you go like, I'll train and then I'll get one hundred eighty five degrees sauna, like right away. So I'll turn the sauna on before workout. And then when I'm done with working out, I go right into the sauna and they think that that conveys an additional benefit that's similar to continuing a workout.

So increase in red blood cells and and increase it almost almost mimics a low level of blood doping.

So you get an increased benefit in your cardiovascular, your capability. And then you also get the heat shock proteins that reduce inflammation, so you feel really good so that you can do that right after training, but they don't recommend ice baths or cryo. They used to think you should do it right afterwards. Now, they don't think so. They think you should wait a couple of hours, especially strength training.

Interesting.

Yeah, but it's cause for concern. Yeah, 50 degrees below zero. You can't believe how cold it is. Like what is this. Let's it's it in like a nice bath. Yeah. Oh yeah. But not. I don't know if it is uncomfortable. Yeah.

Because the ice baths they're really cold with Wim Hof. We had to get in it and like sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or something and then we were like allowed to get out.

That's hilarious. Did you do a seminar with him or something.

Yeah. It was like the North has these they call them athletes summits and so we all get together for a few days and do activities and like team building stuff.

And Wim Hof came to one of them and he did the whole the whole seminar.

And we had these kiddy pools with ice in them and we all had to get in and sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

Well, there's a thing that you can get now that we're going to get here for the studio. That is it's an ice bath, but it's you don't have to add ice to it.

It's a machine. And the machine chills the water. Right, right. To the point where it would freeze. And so you get to write about 33, 34 degrees and then you climb in this duke, you lose cold water.

And everybody says that that's a better option because then you have to go to the gas station and buy a bunch of ice every time you do it.

Yeah, that makes sense, because my friends that have, like, just a tub and they just throw it like every time you do that, you've got to go to the gas station or wherever you get your ice cream. Yeah, buy a ton of ice. Yeah, do you do any kind of like do you wear, like normal boots or anything like that, even normal boots? One of those those are those things that look runners on that compression.

Jamie, you just did it right. It's pretty dope. Yeah.

You know, I've seen that. I don't do that now. Yeah, I have them. I need to use them. They send them to me. I got to put them on. But Jamie, you really liked it, right? Yeah. I loungewear for it. Recommended to do what is it like 20 to 60 Minutes. I think I just did 30 just to, just to try it. And then I did another 45 minute session the next day.

Did it, did you feel better when you got out of them.

What was it feel like?

I just I love the feeling of it like a leg massage. If someone could massage my leg all day long, I'd pay an ungodly amount of money probably for it all day long. I think I have restless leg syndrome, which may or may not be accurate or I've looked up how I have it or why.

What is that? What is it? I don't know if you know this. Yes, I've heard of it, but I'm feeling like I have it funny. I just said restless leg syndrome, which is even more ridiculous, but just the feeling of it bothers to.

It's really hard to explain. That's why I think people don't think it's real because it's like I just can't sit still. I can't keep my legs still. I feel like I have to kick them out. They're still right now. Right now, it's not bothering me.

But like, sometimes at night, if I'll be sitting and try to watch TV, I can't keep my leg comfortable. Is that why you like running? I thought running helped it watch the most recent time I did. I ran and I it bothered me at night and I was like, well, that doesn't fix it, but that's what it seems like it is. It's like you're not moving enough during the day. You have some build up and that's what it is.

But I don't think that's what it is. And it's got to be studies that people have looked into that.

But either way, have you ever tried bodyweight squats? Doesn't do it. There is not a thing I found to fix this, and I've had it since I was like twelve. And I told my dad he's like, shut up. You don't have that, like, commercials out, come up, pop up on TV.

Yeah. Pills for it or something. And I'm like, Dad, can we try to think like, oh no, you're fine, go get your kid. I mean, it is these things that normal jackboots.

I've always I've seen them like that's going to be the most amazing fix for that feeling. It was I mean, I'm not saying like I'm a doctor. Everyone should get them, but I'll go after you. Did it did it alleviate that feeling?

Yeah. Yeah. And every time I'm going to have it for now on, it's time to put the boots on and lay down whatever and I'll be fine.

And what's Dobens? You can put the boots on and just watch TV, right? Mm hmm. Hmm.

It's not that loud. The machine is not loud. It's battery powered things. You I thought I had to leave it in the wall. It's not. You can take it anywhere. Oh, pretty cool.

So you never mess with that. No, no. We get some sent to you. Maybe I should. Yeah, but you use a little crossbow.

I love that. I use lacrosse ball so I'll just travel with it. I love them. It's awesome. And you can really dig in with those suckers, especially if you got a good hardwood floor. Yeah. You know what, lay on your back. Yeah.

The one that gets me is like the hip flexor lay on that. Yeah, super painful how flexibility is got to be very important. You said you were really flexible because you're a gymnast, right? Yeah. And you don't have a routine where you like a daily stretch routine. No, no, I. I do stretch.

I have like one of those yoga glow membership things and I'll. What does that mean.

Like I have a yoga glow is like a website that you go to and it's like you can watch a video of like a yoga class basically.

And I'm really bad at going to yoga classes. I actually don't like. I'll go to the climbing gym, but I don't like going to any other type of gym. I don't know why. I would just like to do it alone. Yeah, I'm like very much into doing it alone. Like, I don't like to go lift weights in front of people. I'm just like a little bit, I guess, shy about stuff like that. So I just do it in my home.

I have like weights and I have I do yoga by myself in front of the screen. But I also don't like going to classes because they're just too long. And I don't think I have the attention span sometimes for a full class.

So in order to get myself to do it, I'll log in to this website and I'll be like, I'm going to do fifteen minutes of hip stretches and I'll just do that. And that's how I get myself to do it, because otherwise I just I'm just not good at sticking with it.

So great for a person who went all the way up a mountain. Well, I can stick with certain things.

Well, you seem very self-motivated, obviously, if you're doing all your training yourself and making routines yourself. So is that like a thing where you don't want other people motivating you or other people like guiding the exercise? Because then you're not relying on intuition. You're relying on someone to tell you what to do?

No, I actually love I love training with other people and climbing with other people, especially other women. And it's just so happens that, like, a lot of like they don't live in the same hometown as me.

So it's different training with other people and being led in.

Yes, totally. Yeah. Yeah. But you're weightlifting when you do it.

You just I mean, I don't weightlift that much. I do like opposition stuff, but like, you know, like as a climber you're like constantly pulling all the time.

And so I'll do like, like light weight lifting for like my shoulders to like opposition stuff.

I don't actually weightlift.

How much would it be? What does that mean, though? But like, you know, like a lift of a a dumbbell and just like lift him up like this.

I, I and he's. Oh yeah I do those. Yeah I do Isais and and I do him on the T-Rex too. But I wasn't explaining to people what you mean.

It's when you basically make it you make an eye a wire t with your arms.

Yeah. So straight up straight at us. Yeah.

And then Y and then the T and it's supposed to, it's supposed to help with like strengthen your shoulders and stick like the little stabilizer muscles because I just get nagging like my shoulders constantly feels like it's on the verge of getting injured and it never has.

Well it's kind of amazing.

You think about what you're doing is so much shoulder when you're always putting them in, like, really compromising positions.

It's like one of the a common injury for climbers is a shoulder injury.

What is like what what does a climber do to strengthen the shot? There's a lot of band work. Band work.

I was just going to say, as I travel with, like in my climbing pack before I climb, I'll like pull out the band and do like a bunch of band exercises.

And have you ever seen there's there's these bands that are called. Crossover symmetry, that's what it's called, and it comes with like a workout, like a chart that shows all the different various shoulder workouts, but they you do them so like if it's on a door or wall you like, you would put one on one side of the doorway while on the other side so they cross this way.

So you do your eyes wide and tease with that. You do. I do like these where I pull back. Yeah. And lift up.

There's all these, it's but it's really cool because it has a chart that comes with it that shows all the various exercises and what it targets. And if you just make your way down, it's specifically designed to strengthen shoulders.

That's where it is right there. That's about it from rogue symmetry.

But it's really cool, too, because it has a bunch of different tension bands like they go up to really like I mostly use like a 25 pound one, but they go up high like 40, 50 and the ridiculously stiff to move.

But if you can, like, force yourself, that's how I have it set up. I have it set it up on on a sauna rack.

But if you can force yourself to go through those routines that you'll see on the chart, just make your way down the hole.

It's a phenomenal shoulder workout. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's I guess that's the hook for like a doorway. Yes.

They can like with it. Yeah. It's really dope. I love it and it's and it's simple like they have it all set up. So you just follow these routines and it shows you what part of your back and shoulders that it's targeting. And I've I noticed a pretty significant elevation of shoulder instability and weakness from it.

Yeah, that's that's what I need. Yeah. Because I got to imagine, like, that would when I was asking you what it's like being thirty shoulder fixed. There you go. What I was asking about being a professional athlete.

I mean, obviously I know a lot of professional athletes from working in the UFC, but the instability of or the in the science ability but the. Uncertainty of making a living with your own tissue and bone. This is your career is reliant upon you not being injured in a sport that's incredibly injury prone.

Yeah, yeah. I think I think it is. And I think as I get older, like, I'm going to have to be a lot smarter about how I train.

And and there is a lot of uncertainty. Like I remember when I was younger in my head, that's why I was going to go be a lawyer, you know.

And then also I was like, oh, once I you know, once I decide to have a kid, like, then I'll just be I might just be done, you know? But I think that.

The way that the job of professional athlete has sort of like morphed into so much more than just performing at your sport, if that makes sense, like, you know, if you're if you're really actively engaged in social media and if you're a good storyteller and if you're a good speaker, there's a lot of other avenues you can take.

For instance, like if you do get injured, it's also temporary. Right. And then with climbing, there's a lot of you know, it doesn't just stop it like the Olympics, for example.

I can I can do what I'm doing now. I can go climb big mountains.

There's a lot of other ways to be a climber. And so I think it elongates that career in some way, in addition to the fact that we can essentially become our own brand.

Hmm. That makes sense. Right. So you can you can do all kinds of things with that. Right. Do you have any aspirations to expand your. I hate that term.

I know it's I kind of I love what you've done with your brand success in L.A.. I think it is.

You're right. It totally is. But I don't know what else to say. No, it's the best way. I mean, I just have, like, a glorified marketing job is what I is what I have.

Well, anyway, but but it's also.

Sort of, yeah, but you've earned that position, it's not marketing, it's like you've you've done things that are pretty extraordinary.

That's not yet. It's not as simple as just a glorified marketing.

It's true. It's true. But I guess that's the imposter syndrome speaking.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think I do I have aspirations to, like, tell my story. I think in an authentic way that people are inspired by and that people can relate to.

So are you thinking about writing a book or a documentary?

I'd love to write a book. Someday there is going to be a movie coming out about my whole, like, process on El Cap and sort of like my my journey as a climber, I guess in the spring. Who's putting that together? My friend John Glasberg, who owns a company called Louder than 11. He's the one who's been with me the whole time. He filmed he's been filming me ever since I started climbing in Yosemite. And he was there the day that I did it and I did this.

And he was also the day you fell and got concussion. Oh, so you have all of it. Oh, wow.

Yeah, he's got he's got everything from the beginning. God, that's an editing job, huh? Yeah.

We actually Adrian and I, he came to our house a few a few weeks ago and showed us just like the storyline and it's just like four hours of my life leading up to that moment.

So there definitely is that weird you to see.

It was pretty weird because he got all this footage. He, like, went to my parents house and got all this old footage from my dad, you know, like from the cassette tapes and just I don't know what they call when they, like, digitized at all. And yeah.

So I was watching, like, all this stuff from when I was a baby till like when I my dad built a climbing wall in my garage and surprised me with it, which I completely forgot that even happened.

Wow.

And you just like showed it to me and I was like, oh my gosh, this is it was trippy for sure. That's wild. Yeah. So is he going to do that and try to sell to Netflix or something along those lines?

I mean, yeah, I think that's I think that's like an idea at this point. It's like his first documentary, you know, it's kind of like his his like his his baby at this at this point, he's like pretty involved, pretty invested in it.

So you have to see dirtbag then. I have to watch. I can't believe you haven't watched it.

So now that you now that I've I've seen like the cover of the film, I've totally heard of it.

I know I know what you're talking about.

It's a sad story in a way and a lot of ways because the guys. Like the people that were around him, sort of admired him at the same time, pitied him.

Mm hmm.

It was like there was because he you know, he would eat like old food and, you know, he never had any money. Yeah. He's always just laying around. And it's weird. It's it's a weird but also, again, this dedication to this one singular obsession. Yeah.

You know, and that's kind of like a um that's kind of how the history of climbing in Yosemite began is with, like the dirtbag's, the people who went there and all they did was that's all they wanted to do was climb.

And so they would just like go scrounge for food at the cafeteria and like, sleep out in the forest and just go climbing and do whatever they could to climb. That's such a weird thing. Yeah.

For the average person that wants to build in their life and wants security and wants a 401k plan and wants, you know, a mortgage and all all the things, the trappings of modern culture to see someone who is so completely rebellious that they literally want to sleep in the forest and climb mountains.

Yeah. In a way, you know, that's what made them happy. They, like, figured out what made them happy.

But you just got a big smile thinking about them. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's romantic to you, right?

Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking about it in terms of like how far climbing has come as well, you know, and I think a lot of those those people from back in the day, they were just like they saw themselves as like outcasts of society in a way.

And I think just as with everything, everything changes. Right. And like with the evolution of climbing, like, you now have people like me who are like making a living, climbing. And, you know, I do have a mortgage and I'm just like making it work, you know?

And in a way, I often wonder if those people, like, look at me and sort of like feel like I've sold out or like I'm not like core, you know, if that makes sense.

Oh, because you have sponsors. Yeah, because I've like I've made it work and I've worked the system again, imposter syndrome, but I've worked the system to to get to a point where I'm like actually making a living and and managing, you know, and it's just an interesting it's an interesting thought. There's like a little bit of like I don't know, I feel a little bit sensitive to it.

Like I'm like, oh no, I might not like to stay sleep in the forest enough to sleep, though.

I didn't struggle eating fucking wood chips. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I would imagine like any industry, it's filled with people who try to sort of malign and misrepresent who other people are and they get jealous and you get petty.

Yeah. I mean I think and I think it's mostly like social media. Like the one thing I learned through all of this the last few weeks were a little bit of a whirlwind because just because this whole thing went a little bit bigger than I thought it would imagine.

So yeah, I learned to like, not ever log in Twitter.

Twitter is like the worst one for some reason. Yeah. Because it's all just opinions. Yeah. At least with Instagram it's, you know, photographs and then yeah.

People comment on the photographs, but it just seems to be the, the tone of Instagram seems to be markedly more positive.

Oh yeah. That's what I've realized. And that's mainly that's the one I use the most is Instagram too.

But I logged in to Twitter for the first time in like three years or something, and I was just like, oh, no, I got to get out.

Yeah, you can't read it. It's just there's so many people there that are just filled with hate.

Yeah. But at the same time, I mean, I guess it's a good way to get news I suppose. Yes. It's a good way to get news. It's not a good way to read anything about you though. Know the mentions. You've got to still take on that one. No, I learned that one.

This should be a way to make that invisible. Yeah. Make that whole thing invisible so you don't have to look at it. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't even like because like it's like a haunted house, like open the door bruhaha with all these crazy people that are just angry.

And there's a thing also where it's almost like having a box of rocks next to a bunch of windows. It's like people just want to throw a rock. Yeah.

Fuck Emily, that bitch. You know, like people that just are like that. Yeah.

Some people the and they're at work and they're bored or they're. Yeah. I just want to be heard I think in a lot of ways.

Well yeah there's a lot of that that's so I mean it's what we all want in a way. I guess I've seen and heard until you are.

Yeah. It's who you are and then you're like OK.

And then you're like this is not what I wanted and I go hide. Well, that is the peril of trying to be in the public eye. Yeah. Like you're you're making an attempt at garnering an enormous and an unusual amount of attention. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

It's and it's it's scary honestly. Like it's almost scarier than like doing what I did. It's. Or climbing in a way, because it's it I mean, I'm just I'm like a sensitive person, I think. And so throughout all of this, I've had to just learn to be like, well, a little bit tougher.

Hmm. As long as it doesn't change.

Right. So that's the danger that you'd be more averse to risk or you would be somehow or another you would change like, you know, we were talking before the show about Hollywood. Like moving out here has made me realize how tainted the entire city is by the desire that people have to be chosen to be on things. We chose to be on television show or chosen to be in a movie.

And so you become what people want you to be. You pretend to be what people are looking for. You shape your opinions and your look and your dress to what you think is going to be more likely to get you success in that world.

And that is a mind virus that infects the entire city, that the problem with any kind of interaction with people on social media is that you can kind of change how you behave so that you, like, mitigate the amount of hate you get or you mitigate the amount of jealousy or mitigate the amount of pettiness.

And you can it can sort of. It can fuck up your own journey, you know, like your own. There's there's there's pros and cons like, don't get me wrong, there's there's definitely some pros in reading criticism. And because you can apply to yourself and learn whether it's accurate and also realize, oh, this is like a person that's like really sad and they're trying to hurt all these other people. So you can sort of take pity on them.

And it gives you a better understanding of just human psychology in general.

But it can also it can also change the way you express yourself, while you could be more guarded for sure. And that that that can be a problem, too, because then you're not as free.

And ultimately, we all want to be free to express ourselves. We all want to be free to show who we really are.

And I think the more you intertwine who you are with other people's ideas and other people's expectations and sort of try to be everything for every person, you kind of water who you are down.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I think yeah. And the more people the more people have eyes on you, the more they're going to have their opinions about who you are.

There was also people misrepresenting what you did to exactly. Which was. Yeah, which is hard for me because. So essentially. Yeah. Explain.

So essentially one news article, I think it was like, I don't know how it happened, but essentially like the domino effect of like someone changed the wording of, of what I did and said that I was the first woman to free climb OK in a day, which is a gross misunderstanding because the first person to free climb el cap in a day was a woman and her name is Lyn Hill, and she did it in 1994. And in climbing, that is like one of the most historic groundbreaking achievements in climbing history.

Like Lin Hill is an absolute legend that everyone knows who she is. And so, you know, in a way, like I got accused of, like erasing history by like claiming to be the first one on your own.

No, did nothing. I didn't do anything. But I I did I tried really hard to correct it. But for me, it was it was a little bit mortifying because I, I, I grew up in the same town as Lynn.

Like I was brought in. I knew her like growing up. And she was an absolute hero of mine. And I knew of her achievement as like this was there's not that many sporting achievements that are that groundbreaking and that pioneering that are like owned by a woman like she did this before any human thought it was possible. And and for me, like coming into climbing as a 10 year old, I recognized that immediately and saw climbing as a space for women in a space where women could really excel.

And so I, you know, free managing to free climb el cap in a day for me was personally very important.

But it also I just felt so much pride because, like, I got to kind of do something that landed twenty six years ago. That's so rad. And then all of these stories came out saying that I was the first woman. So it was just kind of me being like, oh, no, like I didn't I didn't do that. I didn't I don't want it to be this way.

And thankfully, I like know her and I got to call her and be like, I'm so sorry. And she didn't really care at all, obviously.

Well, we should be really clear. It's nothing you said. No, I did. The way the editors decided to phrase it. Yeah.

And I think it's just like, yeah, it's just the way that media works sometimes, like they basically change the heading of like that. I was the first woman to free climb Golden Gate.

They just did a shitty job of researching it. Yeah. And so you were the first woman to free climb Golden Gate in a day. In a day, which is a really difficult path.

Yeah, it's a difficult path when you climb to the nose, which is a different route. And then free climbing El Capitan today is just in a day is the important part because it's it's an achievement that like I think only maybe like twenty five people have done in history and only for women.

And it's something it's like the epitome of like big wall free climbing.

So the hate that you got was unfortunate and misguided. Like, yeah, but people do that when someone achieved something remarkable.

And if there's any flaw in the way it's being represented, they're like, oh, this girl, she's a racing history. She's a fraud. She's a this is that. But you didn't do anything. All you did is just do what you did. Yeah. You climb the mountain.

Yeah. And to be clear, like I wasn't that bummed about it, but I was sort of like, OK, this is how it goes, like getting a lot of attention and I'm going to have to deal with a little bit of like negativity because that's just how the world works, has not been cleared up.

And people kind of understand that this wasn't you. I think people have cleared that up for sure. I mean, there's definitely a little bit of like, oh, you should have been more on top of things. But, you know, that's just people not understanding how the stuff works. You don't even know how many articles are being written about. That's the problem. Yes, all the articles viral.

Yeah, I put it up on my Instagram and when I did, I saw at least 10 different articles about it. Yeah, I was trying to see, like, what was right and what was wrong. And it's just one of those things where someone does something extraordinary and it becomes click bait.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So that was the big lesson about social media and hate for you.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I don't think it's really changed much. It's definitely made me feel I honestly like I feel like a little bit of responsibility in a way.

Like I feel like I represent climbing to a broader audience right now, especially right now.

And so, like, I want to do a good job of that and I want to present it in like an authentic and honest way, you know, but at the same time, like, I'm pretty aware that there's always going to be haters and like, that's just life.

I goes, yeah, just don't engage. Don't read the comment. Don't don't don't read the comments and definitely don't respond to them. Yeah.

Does North Face or any of these other companies that you work with, do they have like social media coaching or anything.

Do they. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. We do some social media coaching like at those athletes. Um it's I was referring to and you know now it's but that was back in the day, not like a few years ago now I just feel like everyone is so accustomed to social media.

Everyone knows how to like how to work it.

The one thing that they're starting to get into that I'm still not quite there yet. I feel like I'm a little old for it.

Is tech talk good? Like I just you I don't. My 12 year old young man is a tick tock and fool. Yeah, the dad's away from the team. Yeah. They're all they can't help themselves. I just like waiting in line at Starbucks too.

I, I still don't, I can't. It's just one too many things I think. Yeah. You don't need it.

It's odd but it's interesting. You know I think it's interesting when things become viral, I'm always fascinated by when something becomes like some things are just so boring to me. They become viral. Yeah, I understand that. Some things are just like the gun, skateboard, drinking cranberry juice, singing along the flatback, like so simple. So it resonates with people and the guy becomes huge.

Yeah. I mean I think that was I feel like that was just like a moment. He was it was a moment in time that like people are really looking for something positive. Yeah.

It was like so light hearted people love that song. Yeah. Just went over really well.

Yeah. Weird right. Yeah. But that to me is so fascinating that of all the things that people are doing online all over the world, that this guy just chillin on a skateboard with a bottle of cranberry juice.

That's it. I thought it was great. I did too. I was like, oh, it just made me smile. Yeah. You know. So you said it to your friend. Yeah. Makes them smile. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know how many millions of people saw it, though. It's crazy. Yeah. That's fascinating to me. Like what, what pops, what catches people's attention. What goes viral.

I think it's just like a combination of like where we are as a society, like what we're kind of like craving. And if someone like provides that without knowing it. Right.

Of course, because it was like right at the elections, everyone was like, the sky's falling. Yeah. And I feel like that happened a little bit with my story too.

Like I had climbed the day after the election. Everyone was like, that's so crazy.

You climbed the day after the election. Like, what was that like? And I was like, well, I just didn't have to do scroll all day.

Like, I didn't want to look at my phone. What are you talking about? Like this girl should have done. That is the way to do it. Yeah. Everyone should have gone hiking. Just do something. Yeah. Get out of the house. Get out of there. Yeah.

Do people ask your opinions on politics and do you sort of like, avoid answering those questions because there's no winner? No, it's like no. Like, you know, what are you're going to piss somebody off totally.

Yes. Yes, they do. And I do I do share my opinions about politics and I do try to do it in like a very diplomatic way. That's, you know, I, I do have I have like I have a political stand on things.

I care about the environment. I care about climate change. Like I'm a part of an organization called Protect Our Winters.

Like, you know, I that's like one of my causes that I care about. And so I'm pretty vocal because you're really into skiing.

Yeah, I love skiing. When there's no flying, if everything gets warm.

Exactly. You know, and that's sort of like our avenue for talking to people, you know, like if you love the outdoors, you should care about the environment and you know, and so people do.

But I'm also I'm one of those people that I really and you and I talk about this all the time.

Like we try to listen to all the different sides and we try to have I think that one of our problems is like being so divided and not being able to understand one another.

Yeah.

And that's the part that worries me the most, is like the hatred that we all have for the other side.

And that's. US versus them type of thing and the inability to. Understand each other is hard or even want to understand each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, to just label each other the other side as the enemy, no matter what.

And the weird thing to me is I know people personally that used to be like heavy duty left wing, and they would argue like vehemently and passionately against the right wing.

And then they switched over and then they're arguing passionately against the left. Yeah.

And I'm like, you just might be a fucking complainer.

Like, that's fair. There's good and bad in all people, in all ideas and in all ideologies and in all political bends. But what gets me is that what you talked about, that the climate and the environment could in any way be political.

That is so bizarre to me that we would have a division left or right, that wouldn't or would appreciate the environment like God.

Isn't that like part of being a fucking human living on a planet? Like, don't you want the rivers to be clean? How is that political? How is it political to to not want the oceans to be filled with plastic? How is it political to not be concerned about the death of animals because of oil spills? Like what is political about that? That seems so nuts. That seems like something like universally as a human, we should say, hey, first, take care of the earth.

This is the only one we have. This is where we live. Let's abandon left and right and all this nonsense independent libertarians, stop earth, take care of Earth.

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it obviously a lot of it has to do with money. A lot of it has to do with where we get our energy from and who's in charge there. And I guess. I think one of the biggest things I think a lot of people don't appreciate the Earth is what I'm saying. Like, I think a lot of people don't have the opportunity to go outside you on like you do and and and to appreciate the world in the same in the same way that I've been able to to do so are you have.

So I think, you know, one of the important things is to is to show people what, like nature has to offer, like what being outside has to offer, like the outdoors, how much it can contribute to and benefit your life.

And then once you show people that, then they'll start to care about it, because if they don't get to experience it, then they go. They don't care about it.

And I think there are a lot of people out there that are pretty isolated from the outdoor experience. You know, they live in inner cities. They don't have access to the outdoors in the same way that we do. They choose to just play video games and in their spare time, whatever that may be, I think and that's one of my goals in climbing, I guess, is to make it more accessible to people, let them experience it, experience what it does, and then they'll start to care about the places that are outdoors and they'll want to protect them.

That's a great desire to educate people. I think it's technically bizarre that we have a term that we call outdoors. What do you mean it's strange that we have a thing like outdoors, it's outdoors, like indoors is normal, outdoors it's the earth.

Yes, it's nature. But in our our mind, we're like, oh, outdoors. Like, what do you mean out? You know, it's nature, the earth. Like we're so accustomed to being inside a building that we think of everything outside of buildings as outdoors.

Yeah. Like it's a weird term. Yes. Indoors should be what's bizarre.

Yeah. Agreed. And outdoors is seen as like this really extreme. I think we need to kind of like. Get away from the idea that outdoors is like so extreme and it's like for people who like it's a but I do like going outside is something that's super normal and we should all be doing it more.

It should be. Yeah, you do do it a lot. And it's amazing and it's great. The expression outdoors is a weird expression. Yeah, I agree. It's just like it's assuming that everyone is constantly protected by a house in a shelter. Yeah. And when you go outside of the shelter, like, oh my goodness, you're outdoors, you're out there right now.

That is the real life. That is the real earth. That's the real nature.

This is where everything else lives except us. Yeah. And we're like going outdoors. It's a. Oh, I love the outdoors of love. You mean you love nature.

No. Outdoors nature. You mean woods and wilderness. That's what you mean. Well to call it outdoors it's a strange right. It's a very strange expression mentioned.

It is, it is weird. It's one of those strange things that you just get accustomed to and you forget how bizarre it is until someone brings it up. It's like, well, if you got high, you'd think about it.

And you're like, well, yeah, what a weird expression. It's a strange expression that's commonplace.

Yeah, I could see that.

Yeah, it's it's that's actually nature. That's what everything's supposed to be living in. Everything's supposed to be in the woods, in the mountains, in the wilderness and lakes and streams and the ocean and we call it outdoors.

I mean because I think most a lot of people do just spend their time inside. Yes. You know, they go from their home to their work, maybe not even go to their work anymore. They're just at home.

Yeah, well, and I think that's one of the reasons why people are so depressed. I think it's I don't think it's a natural environment for any biological creature and not for us, even though we've created these environments and we've we've made them really cool and made some nice houses and, you know, great big TVs and cool shit to do inside the house. I don't think it resonates with our actual biology. I think our bodies have evolved over millions of years to be experiencing all sorts of things that are a part of the wilderness nature, the sun and the wind and trees and visual, just these visual cues, seeing mountains.

There's something about like beautiful, like landscapes in nature that make you feel really good.

Yeah. Like if you if you're like on a trail and you you you crest a hill and you see mountains and a lake, a like in the sun, the rays of the sun are hitting the trees and it's all green and lush and you see birds flying around you like wow.

It makes it's like a drug like it hits you because your body evolved. Human beings evolved to experience these things.

And when you see these beautiful, gorgeous, lush environments, generally speaking, it means like like habitat where animals live and where you can find food and where there's going to be fresh clean water.

That's that lake and all those things is like these cues that are biologically embedded in our DNA.

Yeah. Agreed that I really care about that stuff. Yes.

But the fact that that's political is. We're nuts, we're crazy, we're crazy animal, yeah, that that is that's odd. To go there to those places is rare, but that's how we evolved.

We're supposed to be in those places like that's I really firmly believe it's one of the reasons why people are so detached and they feel so disconnected and so unhappy.

Yeah, it's get if you're in a fucking subway and you take the subway to a building and you sit in front of a cubicle staring at a screen, and then you get in the subway and you head home in another building, you're never around trees, you're never around a river, you're never around eagles.

And you never see a deer walking by.

You never see those things. Like, I just think your body's deprived of it the same way you would get scurvy if you don't get vitamin C.

Yeah, but so but so what what do you think the solution is? Get outside. But what if you just live in an inner city like you don't park nothing apart.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, we need more spaces like that.

Well-off says we should literally hug trees. Yeah. He's like, you should hug a fucking tree, man.

Yeah, I say it about he's like, it's good for you. You really you need it. You really do.

Like people that go to Central Park. You could see like you go to New York City when you see him in Central Park, they're fucking relaxed like yeah.

They're like, oh, like you just sit there and there's trees and there's the grass and is there's at least some life, some actual natural life.

Yeah. Yeah. I think. And also I think that's one of the things that's come out of covid a little bit.

I think people are actually going outdoors more, not in L.A., not L.A. won't even let you go to the fucking park.

You're crazy. I mean, I've noticed the common areas and the trails and everything where I live in Tahoe. It's so busy. Yeah.

Because people have gotten out of the city and they're coming up and they're getting outside and they're going hiking and like just even friends who own, like gear shops, they say that they're actually doing really well because people are buying bikes and buying hiking shoes and getting outside because they're not in school, they're not in work, they're not working. There's nothing else to do. So that's maybe like one tiny little silver lining to everything is. Yeah, people are discovering it.

Well, it's like you were saying that people do adapt what you're saying about people sleeping on the side of cliffs. People are very malleable. They do adapt. And it sucks that people are going through all this. But the good thing about it is that there are people that are becoming more active. There are people I mean, it's not everybody. And unfortunately, some people can't do this, but a lot of people are getting in shape. A lot of people are, even though they can't go to a gym, they've gone on YouTube and looked at bodyweight exercises and started a routine and lost weight and got fitter and started.

You mean there's a ton of yoga videos you can just get off YouTube? Yeah, they're free. And you can just you don't need any money. You just need a phone or an Internet connection and you've got something to do. And, you know, bike shops like I know a bike shop that's near me that was saying that they literally have a hard time keeping bikes and stuff.

So, yeah, that's what we're hearing in our town as well. That's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, I think it's awesome. Yeah. More people out there doing stuff. Yeah. I think it's great. I hope that people also realize that they've been known for a lot of people, they've been dedicated themselves to something that can be taken away from them and that to just recognize that this whole experience that we have on this planet is very temporary.

And so many people are chasing material things and chasing a position in the company, and then the company goes away and then you realize like, oh, well, this is all fragile.

And I thought it was permanent. And it's it gives you an opportunity, even though it sucks, it does give you an opportunity to sort of readdress how you interface with life and change what's important to you and change where your priorities are and change just maybe your path forward and recognize that, hey, this can happen again and maybe I should be more prepared, but also maybe I should reassess what I'm doing with my life.

Yeah. What's important to you, where your priorities are? Yeah. Do you anticipate doing this until you're like like the dirt bag guy? Yeah, you can't climb anymore.

Yeah, I'm going to climb forever. I think I'm going to climb forever. I'm going to ski forever. I'm going to. Yeah, for sure.

Beautiful. I love it. Listen, keep kicking ass. Thank you. Thank you very much for being here and let everybody know what your social media is so they can say nice things, OK?

I just say it right now. Yeah.

Just everybody. I'm Emily A. Harington at Emily Harington.

And that's on Instagram. On Instagram. But if you just if you just search that, you can find it on all the other ones, too.

OK, well, thank you, Emily. I really enjoyed talking to a lot of fun. Thanks. All right. Bye, everybody.

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