The Climbing Majority
Most of today’s climbing media is focused on what happens at the edges of the sport involving the most experienced and talented climbers in the world. Your host Kyle Broxterman believes that most of these stories and experiences do not directly relate to the majority of climbers that now exist. As a part of this group, he is here to give this new Climbing Majority a voice.
The Climbing Majority
109 | Vitaliy Musiyenko & Sean McLane | Tragedy, Partnerships & Risk Management in Alpine Climbing
Vitaliy is one of the most prolific and respected alpinists of his generation and has a reputation as a master of long, complex alpine objectives—including becoming the first person to complete The Goliath Traverse in the Eastern Sierra…which might be the longest ridge traverse in the western hemisphere…if not the world.. He's established more first ascents in the Eastern Sierra than any other person, authored a three-volume guidebook series to the Eastern Sierra, and spent years developing new routes around the world. He's summited all the peaks in the Fitz Skyline and only has one summit left to complete the Torre Skyline: the infamous Cerro Torre. Even with such an astounding list of achievements, Vitaliy's deep sense of empathy, humility, and curiosity keep him grounded, thoughtful, and heartfelt.
Sean McLane is an American climber and alpinist with a knack for hard ice climbing. He blends curiosity, adventure, and a commitment to exploring terrain that few others pursue. One of his life goals is to complete Guy Lacelle's Favorite 135 Ice Climbs—a notorious list of iconic, hard, and bold routes. Sean has currently completed 71 of the 135 and soloed 61 of them. That's an insane amount of soloing on hard ice routes. Along with several other first ascents, Sean recently put up The Penitent Path, a 12-pitch M9 considered one of the longest routes at the grade in the U.S. Beyond his technical prowess, Sean is a deeply thoughtful and introspective human—and this is his first time ever sharing his story.
We start with Sean's background and how he was introduced to climbing while living abroad in China. We then explore a deeply personal and traumatic story from Sean's past involving a tragic ice climbing accident that took the life of Meg O'Neill and left Sean with a broken back. We use this story to expand on grief and loss, and learn how Sean processed these deep emotions and reintroduced climbing into his life. We then pivot to Vitaliy's background—a wildly unique story checkered with unbelievable suffering, uncertainty, and struggle, but also resilience, empathy, grit, and growth. Next, we dive into Vitaliy and Sean's recent climbing trip to India—an adventure that tested their commitment, focus, determination, and humility. We then contrast their India trip with a wildly successful and spontaneous trip to Patagonia. Finally, we close by diving into deeper topics around work-life balance, the sacrifices we make for success, unmitigatable risk justification, the concepts of faith, luck and self-reliance, and mastery versus complacency.
Watch The Climbing Majority on Youtube
---
Thanks to our sponsors!
Checkout their Ecotrek Trail Pants HERE
Use Code "TCM15" At Checkout for an extra 15% OFF Your Order
Hot Chillys Performance Base Layers
Checkout their Micro Elite Chamois Base Layer Systems HERE
Use Code "TCM15" At Checkout for 15% OFF Your Order
Get Access to Exclusive Episodes, Unlock Ad-Free Podcast, & MORE!
Resources
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:09:24
Kyle
Welcome to the Climbing Majority podcast, where I capture the stories, experiences and lessons of nonprofessional climbers, guides and athletes from around the world.
00:00:09:26 - 00:00:14:17
Kyle
Come join me as I dive deep into a more relatable world of climbing.
00:00:16:06 - 00:00:38:27
Kyle
This year has been a huge milestone for the podcast. Incredible guests like Randy Leavitt, Bob Gaines, Devin Finn, Silas Rossi and so many more. With many that I haven't even released yet because I'm literally booked out until March. This year has also marked the beginning of my partnership with lives in their support for the community we're building, and the stories shared on this show is really a big deal.
00:00:39:00 - 00:00:59:16
Kyle
But most important to me, you all have been reaching out more than ever with guest recommendations and to share your story for the show. I've been so grateful, in fact, for all the support and stoked for the show that you all have shared that I wanted to give back to you in a way that feels real. That's why I've partnered with Lives In for a holiday specific giveaway.
00:00:59:19 - 00:01:25:27
Kyle
I'm giving away a brand new GoPro hero 13 black and Lives in is contributing $500 in apparel. And this is all you have to do. Follow Live's ins Instagram. Follow my personal Instagram and the climbing majority's Instagram. Tag two friends on the giveaway post. And finally, you must be a subscriber to the TCM YouTube channel. It's an easy ask for close to $1,000 in free gear, if you ask me.
00:01:26:00 - 00:01:58:22
Kyle
This giveaway starts today and ends December 29th at 11:59 p.m.. The final winner will be chosen at random and announced on January 1st via Instagram. I sincerely appreciate every single one of you. May the odds be ever in your favor. More details in the show notes. All right, let's get into today's conversation. One of the things I pride myself on with the show is finding guests who rarely, or have never spoken on a podcast before, not because they haven't had the opportunity, but because they don't trust traditional climbing media with their personal stories.
00:01:58:24 - 00:02:20:25
Kyle
Usually from a bad experience with a journalist or a podcast host. These people are incredibly hard to find because they usually don't have any internet or social media presence. They're only convinced to break their silence when a close friend recommends they come on the show. This process has been paramount in connecting with guests, who are quietly pushing the boundaries of the sport without any need for social recognition.
00:02:20:28 - 00:02:53:16
Kyle
Vitaly Missy Yenko and Sean McClain both fit this mold more than most. Vitaly is one of the most prolific and respected alpine ists of his generation. Known for his quiet humility, obsessive work ethic, and deep commitment to adventure. He's carved out a reputation as a master of long, complex alpine objectives, including becoming the first person to complete the Goliath traverse in the Eastern Sierra, which might be the longest ridge traverse in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world.
00:02:53:19 - 00:03:16:09
Kyle
He's established more first ascents in the eastern Sierra than any other human, authored a three volume guidebook series to the Eastern Sierra, and spent years developing new routes around the world. He summited all peaks in the Fitz skyline and has only one summit left to complete the tour skyline. The infamous Secretary. Even with such an astounding list of achievements.
00:03:16:11 - 00:03:43:08
Kyle
Vitale's deep sense of empathy, humility, and curiosity leave him grounded. Thoughtful and heartfelt. Sean McLane is an American climber and alpinist with a knack for hard ice climbing. He blends curiosity, adventure, and commitment to exploring terrain that few others pursue. One of his life goals is to complete Gila Cell's favorite 135 ice climbs, the notorious list of iconic hard and bold routes.
00:03:43:10 - 00:04:17:22
Kyle
Sean has currently completed 71 of the 135 and soloed 61 of them. That is an insane amount of soloing on hard technical ice routes, along with several other first ascents. Sean has recently put up the pen at path, a 12 pitch M9, considered one of the longest routes at the grade in the United States. Beyond his technical prowess, Sean is a deeply thoughtful and introspective human, and this is his first time ever sharing his story in our 4.5 hour conversation.
00:04:17:23 - 00:04:43:23
Kyle
We start with Sean's background and how he was introduced to climbing while living abroad in China. We then explore a deeply personal and traumatic story from Sean's past, involving a tragic ice climbing accident that took the life of Meg O'Neill and left Sean with a broken back. We use this story to expand on the topics of grief and loss, and learn how Sean processed these deep emotions and reintroduced climbing into his life.
00:04:43:25 - 00:05:11:22
Kyle
We then pivot to Vitale's background, a wildly unique story checkered with unbelievable suffering, uncertainty and struggle, but also resilience, empathy, grit, and growth. Next, we dive into Vitaly and Sean's recent climbing trip to India, an adventure that tested their commitment, focus, determination and humility. I really commend both of them for being open about this story, since they ultimately didn't reach a summit or achieve what they came for.
00:05:11:24 - 00:05:42:19
Kyle
Being honest and transparent about something that could be labeled as a failure was honorable, human, and a breath of fresh air. In today's success only media landscape. We then contrast their India trip with a wildly successful and spontaneous trip to Patagonia. Finally, we close by, diving into deeper topics around work life balance, the sacrifices we make for success, unmitigated risk, a justification, the concepts of faith, luck and self-reliance, and mastery versus complacency.
00:05:42:21 - 00:06:07:28
Kyle
Before we begin, in honor of Meg O'Neill, Steve and Susan Chamberlain, along with Meg's family and the community, have generously established the Meg O'Neill Shooting Star Scholarship to carry forward her legacy of combining a love for the outdoors with a passion for teaching. This scholarship will cover all expenses and gear for nine young women to participate in seven days of outdoor learning and discovery.
00:06:08:01 - 00:06:24:20
Kyle
Please take a moment to learn more about Meg and the scholarship by visiting the links in the show. Notes. Any donation made to the program is matched, doubling your impact for years to come. So without further ado, I bring you Vitaly Mutko and Sean McClain.
00:06:37:15 - 00:06:38:04
Kyle
All right, guys.
00:06:38:05 - 00:06:39:28
Sean
Well,
00:06:39:28 - 00:06:42:28
Sean
thank you both for being here. Appreciate you having us.
00:06:42:29 - 00:06:50:23
Vitaliy
Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for the invitation. Of course. Happy to meet you in person. After so many months and years of listening to you.
00:06:50:26 - 00:06:51:11
Sean
Yeah.
00:06:51:11 - 00:06:58:08
Kyle
Yeah, I know it's been, it's been quite some time, I think. What was it last September where we were talking about having you come on the show, and.
00:06:59:21 - 00:07:04:24
Kyle
There was some hesitancy in terms of, having just done Alex Arnold's podcast.
00:07:04:26 - 00:07:08:07
Vitaliy
Yeah, I, I'm a shy person.
00:07:08:10 - 00:07:08:18
Sean
Yeah.
00:07:08:25 - 00:07:10:25
Kyle
Has it always been like that?
00:07:10:27 - 00:07:13:26
Vitaliy
I would say so, yeah, for most of my life.
00:07:13:29 - 00:07:18:14
Kyle
And, Sean, how did Vitale loop you into this?
00:07:18:16 - 00:07:43:14
Sean
You know, we were coming down on this this trip for the climb in Red Rock, and, you know, I was thinking about, you know, what would make sense for for the podcast. And, you know, we we had a pretty good year together and asked me if I asked if I was interested. And, you know, I'm, also a shy person as well, but, you know, I figured why not?
00:07:43:16 - 00:07:46:25
Sean
Cause that's the theme of the theme of this last month.
00:07:46:25 - 00:08:22:05
Vitaliy
Yeah. I feel like, a lot of people find my story of climbing into climbing interesting. And, as I got to know Sean as a climbing partner and the friend, I found out how interesting he is. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce somebody else to the climbing community that, never spoke publicly, and, people don't know about as much, even though I feel like, he has, one of the more interesting stories out there, and I feel like it's worth listening to it.
00:08:22:07 - 00:08:23:29
Kyle
Yeah. No, I, I appreciate that, and
00:08:23:29 - 00:08:28:18
Kyle
one of the best things about this podcast is, like, as it's been growing, a lot of people have been just recommending.
00:08:28:26 - 00:08:29:29
Sean
Other people to the show.
00:08:30:01 - 00:08:50:03
Kyle
Just like you bringing Sean on. And, that has been just so tremendous because, I mean, the premise of the show, right, is, is the climbing majority. And it's really hard to find the majority when you're just searching for people online, because how are you? How else are you supposed to find people? Right? It's like Instagram following, climbing magazine articles.
00:08:50:03 - 00:09:06:20
Kyle
It's like the more loud you are, the easier you are to find. And so it's all these people that don't share and don't talk, that are impossible to find. And, I've been grateful enough to, to have recommendations like this, to have have people like yourself on. So, really cool to have you both in here.
00:09:06:22 - 00:09:09:08
Vitaliy
Yeah. I'm happy to meet you in person. Thank you.
00:09:09:13 - 00:09:10:10
Kyle
Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:10:10 - 00:09:11:28
Kyle
guys been climbing in Red Rock?
00:09:12:01 - 00:09:12:14
Sean
Yeah, we.
00:09:12:14 - 00:09:40:16
Vitaliy
Spent the last six days here and climbed for five of them. Sean has, not done the, the tree of the classics, which, in my opinion, are some of the best climbs in the whole country. It's one of my favorite places to climb in general, Red rocks, because you can combine so many disciplines face climbing and crack climbing and then lead back and some things are bolted, some things are exciting, and it's just awesome.
00:09:40:16 - 00:09:42:25
Kyle
what would you say the three classics were?
00:09:42:27 - 00:09:52:10
Vitaliy
Well, Rainbow Wall, Cloud Tower and Limitation 29. My three favorite climbs here so far.
00:09:52:13 - 00:09:55:21
Kyle
And is that what you guys got on this weekend? This week? Yeah, that's five days.
00:09:55:22 - 00:10:20:14
Sean
Yeah, we did Cloud Tower, then Rainbow took a rest day. Levitation. Did Time's Up yesterday. And then, you know, our Metron to Nightcrawler went up today. That's awesome. So good. Yeah. Good amount of climbing. Yeah. I've really not spent much time here. It's been almost maybe eight years since I've last climbed so.
00:10:20:14 - 00:10:26:10
Kyle
Well, for a try. Yeah. I have. Had you been on any of those routes before?
00:10:26:12 - 00:10:29:05
Sean
Did Armstrong okay? Ten years ago?
00:10:29:12 - 00:10:34:28
Kyle
How did, how did the three the triple go as it did you guys on site? How's the performance?
00:10:35:01 - 00:10:48:28
Vitaliy
I've sent all of them in the past year here. But, I was more hoping to just give Sean all the best pitches and not really worry about performance rather than and just focus on having fun.
00:10:49:00 - 00:10:49:29
Sean
Yeah.
00:10:50:02 - 00:10:51:12
Kyle
And I go for you.
00:10:51:15 - 00:11:00:04
Sean
I did about as well as expected. I came off on clouds. Da. And, Rainbow. Yeah. Yeah, that's.
00:11:00:04 - 00:11:00:13
Kyle
A hard.
00:11:00:13 - 00:11:15:14
Sean
Crux. Yeah, but I did get the upper, uppercuts on rainbow, so I was happy about that. Just like spraying you down. You just have, you know, you just have to believe I'm over here. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know if I believe.
00:11:15:14 - 00:11:20:27
Kyle
In this, but there's, like, just the little, like, iron or nubs that you have to stand on.
00:11:21:01 - 00:11:30:09
Sean
Yep. Yeah, yeah. Just get up on that as much as you can. And. Yeah. Throw for the big jug. Yeah. It worked. So that's what I was one. Cool. Yeah.
00:11:30:09 - 00:11:33:15
Kyle
How was pitch three for you on rainbow?
00:11:33:17 - 00:11:51:28
Sean
The 11 plus, one. I, I had a little bit of trouble with that. I also was I, I followed him up, the first pitch and then basically immediately went into the pitch. I was like, yeah, that was not a good idea. Still not a flash. And.
00:11:51:28 - 00:12:08:08
Vitaliy
It was it was incredibly cold to, like, where my fingers felt like they were, about to have screaming bar fees and getting training for ice climbing season. There was this, it was a couple days ago Saturday, I can't remember.
00:12:08:10 - 00:12:09:06
Kyle
Or Friday I was.
00:12:09:06 - 00:12:15:00
Sean
Like, maybe it was Friday. It. And it was not that bad.
00:12:15:00 - 00:12:18:07
Vitaliy
It was not that bad. But if you like my injuries.
00:12:18:08 - 00:12:19:14
Sean
But you know.
00:12:19:17 - 00:12:28:03
Kyle
We saw you. We were on Time's Up on Friday. Oh, cool. Yeah. So we were like, I was. I remember looking up at the rainbow wall. I was like, wow, there's people up there right now that's so cool. It was you guys. Yeah.
00:12:28:05 - 00:12:32:18
Vitaliy
Yeah. We were in the time zone yesterday. Yeah, that's a great route.
00:12:32:21 - 00:12:33:09
Kyle
Fantastic.
00:12:33:10 - 00:12:34:28
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:35:00 - 00:12:40:03
Vitaliy
What's your favorite route around here in Red Rock? Yeah. If you were to pick up three.
00:12:40:03 - 00:12:41:15
Kyle
Man.
00:12:41:17 - 00:12:44:10
Vitaliy
You're a local. Yeah.
00:12:44:13 - 00:12:59:21
Kyle
Let's see, I've repeated the fox the most. Okay. Because of access and quality. Yeah. I think I've ticked it nine times since I've been here. Multipage.
00:12:59:24 - 00:13:18:13
Kyle
I mean, obviously the triple is, like, just by far super high quality. But in terms of going to repeat them, at least at my current fitness level, hard to justify. Like, really hard for me to go after rainbow, all after I got to the top Cloud Tower, I would repeat for sure. I think nightcrawlers were really high up there.
00:13:18:13 - 00:13:29:20
Kyle
I think I've done that route four times now. Wholesome, full back to our father and his really great link up that I will always go back to and do, really, really fantastic.
00:13:29:20 - 00:13:38:04
Kyle
And then Ginger cracks to Blade Runner. I think that's probably another like another to, like a link up that I've done that are probably on like the top, top of the list.
00:13:38:06 - 00:13:39:29
Vitaliy
I have not done that one
00:13:40:02 - 00:13:55:04
Kyle
Yeah. You're on like a really, really skinny rat. It's like bolted short Tenby crocs and the rest of it's like five, nine climbing on, like, patina. But you keep switching sides on the erat and you're just so high up on the wall, you, like, look down and it's just so. It's such a wild position. It's really cool.
00:13:55:08 - 00:13:57:17
Kyle
But this is, this is it, right? You guys leave tomorrow?
00:13:57:19 - 00:14:15:20
Vitaliy
Yeah. Yeah. We'd like to come back. I would hope that, we could get better over the winter and maybe try the triple or double at some point for, for linking up, levitation and rainbow. Or at least that's.
00:14:15:20 - 00:14:16:21
Kyle
The double, right?
00:14:16:23 - 00:14:34:02
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I yeah, I would like to come back. I'd try to try and spend a little more time rock climbing during the winters. Ten have tended to just go ice climbing for six months like it's because the ice is in the stands.
00:14:34:06 - 00:14:36:00
Kyle
So where where are you located?
00:14:36:02 - 00:14:36:20
Sean
In Salt Lake.
00:14:36:22 - 00:14:38:08
Kyle
Okay. And you're in Salt Lake as well?
00:14:38:09 - 00:14:40:26
Vitaliy
Yeah. Me and my wife moved here a couple of years ago.
00:14:40:26 - 00:14:42:02
Sean
Okay, cool.
00:14:42:02 - 00:14:43:29
Sean
Yeah.
00:14:44:02 - 00:14:51:15
Kyle
Yeah, I definitely could see the weather. At least that's one thing I've tried to avoid in my life is just like avoiding,
00:14:51:18 - 00:14:54:15
Sean
The snow. Well, you picked a good place.
00:14:54:18 - 00:15:03:23
Kyle
Yeah, I lived in Reno for a year and a half, and, even that, I just, like, cannot do the snow. I love visiting it, but living in it, it's a different story.
00:15:03:26 - 00:15:17:01
Vitaliy
You know, I have so many good friends, that live in Reno. It was on the list of, places to move to. Access to the Eastern Sierra and Tahoe is incredible. I feel like Reno is one of the sleeper cities for the outdoorsy.
00:15:17:04 - 00:15:32:21
Kyle
You'd be surprised, though. So I lived there for a year and a half, and I was fed up with the access because it seems close, but like, the Woodford's Tahoe Donner or Yosemite, it's all like an hour and a half away.
00:15:32:23 - 00:15:33:09
Sean
Like.
00:15:33:11 - 00:15:34:17
Kyle
It's kind of.
00:15:34:17 - 00:15:36:19
Sean
Far.
00:15:36:21 - 00:15:48:11
Kyle
If you're trying to do it like there's no such thing as a day trip, right? Yeah. You know, like, oh, you know, you can go out for a day and then come back, but like, half a day, or you're trying to, like, go out and do something and come back and do something. You can't really do that. It's just more time commitment.
00:15:48:11 - 00:15:51:02
Kyle
Like here, it's 15 minutes to the trailhead.
00:15:51:04 - 00:15:52:28
Vitaliy
Yeah, I can't really compete with that.
00:15:52:28 - 00:16:08:15
Kyle
It's really hard to fit with that. And so that's where I kind of had some frustration because I got so much other stuff going on my life too, or it's really hard to like, I got to balance all these different objectives and time and, and things. And so here the access just really like mesh as well with, with everything I got going on.
00:16:08:17 - 00:16:09:05
Sean
Yeah.
00:16:09:05 - 00:16:35:05
Vitaliy
I got to say, when I got into climbing. Yeah. Even if I had to drive for ten hours to go ice climbing in the wintertime, on the in the eastern Sierra, I would be totally psyched to do that. And, after you spent enough time driving and climbing, you change your opinion. You can you can do.
00:16:35:07 - 00:16:37:28
Sean
A lot more.
00:16:38:00 - 00:17:06:13
Vitaliy
When you are psyched on something, when you truly, are in love and, you know, you would go, halfway around the world to see the love of your life. And the same thing with climbing. When you get into it and you are just, excited beginner, you would drive for as many hours as it's necessary so that you can climb for, you know, five pitches and drive back for 20 hours to be be at work on Monday.
00:17:08:01 - 00:17:10:10
Vitaliy
It's an interesting evolution.
00:17:10:12 - 00:17:19:27
Kyle
It's something that evolves over time, though. I think that after doing it for a while, that sort of like passion for spending more time driving and then climbing probably fades, right?
00:17:19:27 - 00:17:35:03
Vitaliy
Yeah. I were a friend of mine, texted me, and asked if I wanted to go, climb this ice climb that is two hours away from us, and it's only one pitch. And I'm like, no, it's just not going to do that.
00:17:35:05 - 00:17:38:10
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
00:17:38:13 - 00:17:44:08
Kyle
Yeah, it's, it's definitely a reason why people moved down here. Access is key. Allows you to do so much,
00:17:44:08 - 00:17:57:11
Kyle
Awesome. Guys. You know, I, I'm super psyched to jump into, you know, the ultimately the larger part of this conversation and, Sean, this is your first podcast, right?
00:17:57:13 - 00:17:58:12
Sean
Yep.
00:17:58:15 - 00:18:00:04
Kyle
Yeah. Awesome.
00:18:00:06 - 00:18:02:12
Sean
Had not had not been told by guests before.
00:18:02:12 - 00:18:11:23
Kyle
Cool. That's awesome. Well, you are joining the ranks of many who have been on the show for the first time. So, I welcome you.
00:18:11:25 - 00:18:14:17
Vitaliy
Time to break him in.
00:18:14:19 - 00:18:15:06
Sean
Yes.
00:18:15:08 - 00:18:31:24
Kyle
Hopefully. You know, I've heard a lot of people have first time experiences on podcasts, and then they become jaded and they're like, don't go on podcast ever again. And so I hope that that's not the case today. So I hope they give you a positive experience and you can get burned by somebody else. And on me.
00:18:31:27 - 00:18:33:26
Sean
No.
00:18:33:26 - 00:18:44:02
Kyle
first, we're going to talk to Sean. I want to kind of give you the chance to give you the, like, give you the mic, and have you talk about, your background. So, you know,
00:18:44:02 - 00:18:47:29
Kyle
you have a, you know, a unique background in climbing.
00:18:47:29 - 00:19:13:09
Kyle
You speak multiple languages. You've lived, in China as a teacher. And your life necessarily always wasn't centered around climbing. Bring us to kind of like to bring us through. Like, talk to us about how you kind of came to this world, what you felt was influential, and ultimately how it kind of led you to climbing and where you're sitting in this chair today.
00:19:13:11 - 00:19:38:25
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Climbing was. Yeah, definitely not part of my life growing up. You know, we lived in Salt Lake a little bit. I'm moved all over. I moved, in about once a year until I was in university. And and, never really did that much kind
00:19:38:25 - 00:19:44:11
Sean
of stuff outside. You know, go picnic in the cottonwood, but that's it.
00:19:44:14 - 00:20:23:06
Sean
And, and I. Yeah. Kind of always liked languages. You know, had a facility for them. Did Spanish through school, and then, when I went to university, I basically picked Chinese because it was the hardest language available there. And, Yeah. I took that, you know, as one of my majors. I also majored in philosophy, which have, you know, not really used other than, in general.
00:20:23:12 - 00:20:28:12
Kyle
Like, I mean, maybe in a career sense, but you probably use a lot to reframe, like the way you think about life and stuff. Yeah.
00:20:28:13 - 00:20:58:11
Sean
Yeah. I think, you know, whether or not I had studied it, I think it's probably just a way that I look at the world. Yeah. Cool. And so I went to I went to China to, continue my language study and, and, thought I wanted to, to teach in the long term. I did a little bit of that and I, you know, had a great experience.
00:20:58:11 - 00:21:07:25
Sean
I taught to, you know, postgraduate students. And then I taught at an international school at the second grade level, in, in very different experiences.
00:21:07:25 - 00:21:10:10
Kyle
But were you teaching English?
00:21:10:12 - 00:21:21:20
Sean
I was teaching English, to the grad students and then, all subjects except, Chinese to the second grade.
00:21:21:20 - 00:21:22:19
Kyle
In Chinese.
00:21:22:19 - 00:21:53:29
Sean
In in English. Okay. But, yeah. Across subjects. Yeah. Oh, and I at that, when I was living over there, I, had some, you know, I traveled around and saw some of the country, and it's a beautiful, beautiful place with, so much to see. And, one of the things I was interested in was going hiking.
00:21:54:02 - 00:22:48:14
Sean
And, exploring, the Su Gunung Shan area. So for sisters, peaks in Sichuan province. I went in there and just kind of went by myself, backpacking and decided I was going to see how far I got up the mountain. And it's like, those are it's like 6000m over 6000m in that area. And you just kind of bumbled around and, didn't get very far, but, it sounds that kind of interest and wanted to do more and I was, supposed to go trek to Everest Base camp, the next spring.
00:22:48:16 - 00:23:23:23
Sean
And that got canceled. But, as an alternative, there was a trekking peak that I could do. So I went and did, low East, so 6000m. And that was my first, like, true, you know, mountaineering climbing experience. You know, they top rope, you know, we top rope on a glacier with ice tools and, you know, flailed around and, I, I, actually ended up getting hape oh, my gosh.
00:23:23:24 - 00:23:49:00
Sean
At the, at the summit. Right. I, I had asthma as a kid and kind of worked through it. That was, exercise induced asthma. And I, knew the kind of the difference between, you know, how my lungs felt with asthma versus Hape. And I was like, yeah, this is probably what I've got. I need to go down.
00:23:49:02 - 00:24:09:21
Sean
And it was the kind of, the Sherpas were just like, yeah, you think you just have a cold. And I'm like, I don't think so. Wow. I went back down to Advanced base and, didn't didn't get to much better and then went all the way back down to fairy, to the closest town at, like, 14,000ft.
00:24:09:23 - 00:24:20:12
Sean
It had no little medical centers. One person working there. They're like, yeah, you probably had Hape and it probably just resolved by coming down.
00:24:20:19 - 00:24:29:07
Sean
And, yeah, later that night, I, I also like, peed blood.
00:24:29:12 - 00:24:47:18
Sean
And I was like, okay. Yeah, something was wrong. This was not just benign. But, there must be something wrong with me, because that was the beginning of my mountaineering and, you know, climbing career.
00:24:47:18 - 00:25:19:27
Sean
And I wanted to continue to do that. Even with that, yeah. That sort of experience, wanted to do it. Better not have it happen again. But being on, you know, being on top of the mountain and, like, looking over at Everest and looking over it on the album, which I would go back in a couple of years after that and do that on my own.
00:25:19:29 - 00:25:26:13
Sean
That was, you know, that was very, very inspiring. Yeah. Started me down this path.
00:25:26:18 - 00:25:38:09
Kyle
Yeah. So you you chose you specifically said you chose Chinese because it was the hardest language possible. You were one of your first mountaineering objectives. Was lousy.
00:25:38:12 - 00:25:38:27
Sean
Low. Bitchy.
00:25:38:29 - 00:25:39:06
Kyle
Low.
00:25:39:12 - 00:25:40:17
Sean
What is it? Low, bitches.
00:25:40:18 - 00:25:41:21
Kyle
Luggage east.
00:25:41:24 - 00:25:42:02
Sean
Yeah.
00:25:42:03 - 00:25:45:00
Kyle
Okay. So still, like we're talking to the Himalayan peak.
00:25:45:03 - 00:25:51:00
Sean
Yeah. Trekking peak. But. Yes. Yeah. Oh, people don't use Asia.
00:25:51:03 - 00:26:10:13
Kyle
What would you say it is about yourself? That's like putting yourself into this where you're, you know, you're choosing the hardest language. You're choosing these huge objectives as your first step into these kind of decisions. You're moving to another country like, have you analyzed kind of the personality trait that kind of you see yourself and why you choose these things right up front?
00:26:10:25 - 00:26:30:19
Sean
I think there's, I think I've, described, why I like ice climbing to friends before as, it being a mastery sport. You don't get to fall.
00:26:31:07 - 00:26:48:17
Sean
You just have to do it right, and you have to know where the edge is, how to back off. You have to know yourself in that respect. And I think there's just.
00:26:48:23 - 00:27:02:27
Sean
Yeah, something, you know, fundamental to me that wants to be as good as I can be and to see where that edge is or,
00:27:02:27 - 00:27:36:09
Sean
I would try things, but I would want to be pretty comfortable that I had a good chance of doing something right if when I went to before I went to do, the push East, I was, you know, on the StairMaster with the big ass backpack for, you know, months before, like, putting in the work, because I knew that that I needed to do that in order to make it happen.
00:27:36:12 - 00:28:06:02
Sean
And, yeah, I, I spent a lot of time, like, ice climbing. I did not have a mentor in any respect. I was always like, I'm the guy leading. So you better know when the what? The right level of, challenges for today. Because. Yeah. You're not getting bailed out.
00:28:06:18 - 00:28:16:25
Sean
So I had an in, I guess both kind of ambitious but incremental in a certain way.
00:28:16:28 - 00:28:22:28
Kyle
And trusting, you know. How old were you when you moved to China?
00:28:23:00 - 00:28:24:17
Sean
I was 20,
00:28:24:17 - 00:28:28:27
Sean
I went to university at 17 and graduated just before I turned 20.
00:28:28:29 - 00:28:30:01
Kyle
And how long were you there?
00:28:30:07 - 00:28:32:13
Sean
In China. Three years.
00:28:32:15 - 00:28:34:16
Kyle
Three years. And then you came back to Salt Lake.
00:28:34:18 - 00:28:38:26
Sean
I went to Spain. Okay. And did my MBA.
00:28:38:26 - 00:28:40:03
Sean
So, yeah, I had,
00:28:40:03 - 00:29:07:03
Sean
Interest in entrepreneurship. And, ended up in kind of the, the mini mini entrepreneur, mini CEO inside of a company role with product management and, a couple of, software companies. And, yeah, did that in, parallel to climbing for, a number of years.
00:29:07:05 - 00:29:20:26
Sean
I was, moved that I moved to Salt Lake just after Spain. Okay. Well, I did a climbing road trip around the country to figure out where I wanted to live, and then ended up in Salt Lake with the the right job.
00:29:21:06 - 00:29:23:00
Kyle
Yeah. So
00:29:23:00 - 00:29:26:09
Kyle
know, you have quite a, unique and.
00:29:26:09 - 00:29:48:14
Kyle
I don't know, personal story. When it comes to the mountains and loss and and how that kind of shapes us. Yeah. I mean, this is just kind of a good time for you to, I guess, tell us that story. However you feel you'd like to share. And then I have kind of some follow up questions about, how you kind of handled the the event itself after the fact,
00:29:48:14 - 00:30:28:27
Sean
Yeah. So, two and a half years ago, I was in a. Yeah. Climbing accident. I gone out, ice climbing with, a good friend of mine for a long time. Meg O'Neill and, another, friend of hers who I'd actually just met that day. And, she was, kind of a, had been ice climbing for a year, but, I was, you know, had was super nice person.
00:30:28:27 - 00:30:56:03
Sean
Got along, easily on the, on the car ride out to go ice climbing. And, I was going to, kind of lead everything. And, Meg had, had surgery that winter and, was, just getting recovered by the end of ice season. And so, we, you know, we had done a lot of ice climbing together.
00:30:56:03 - 00:31:30:05
Sean
That was kind of her main passion. And, you know, I was happy to help her get out and do something before all the ice disappeared. And we went out to, Dushane in eastern Utah. And went to climb Raven Falls. Which, two pitch water ice for, and I got up the first pitch just fine.
00:31:30:08 - 00:32:06:13
Sean
You know, got to the second pitch and, it's a pillar, about 40ft tall. And, was, you know, maybe 10 or 12ft around, or across, so big. Looked pretty solid. Was wet because things had been a little bit warm and it was the, you know, the end of the season. But from, you know, what I could tell, assessing it, it seemed pretty stable.
00:32:06:19 - 00:32:41:28
Sean
But, and so, the, makes friend was blaming me, and, I, you know, climbed up the pillar. It was, you know, hero wet ice and, then I got to the attachment point at the top. It changed to, hard, brittle, drier ice and, couple of swings into that and the whole thing collapsed.
00:32:42:00 - 00:33:10:02
Sean
And I, just. Yeah, fell straight to the to the ground. I had put screws in because it seemed, you know, it was quite a stable looking feature. So I may have been pulled off by the rope. I don't actually remember. I mean, I remember getting the top, breaking it, and, then I hit the ground.
00:33:10:05 - 00:33:50:29
Sean
I basically hit a big chunk of ice, directly into my back. Kind of got jackknifed. And. Yeah, as soon as I was, like, on the ground, I knew that I broken it. I could feel, stuff moving in there and, I just kind of rolled myself over into recovery position and, then, you know, had, Meg's friend say, you know, where's Meg's under there.
00:33:51:01 - 00:34:30:07
Sean
And they had been, taking pictures and walking around and, and just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got, crushed under the falling pillar. And, yeah, we, you know, well, I make sure and tried to get her out or find her and just wasn't going to happen with him. Person people sized chunks of ice everywhere, and there's no way to get her out or didn't do anything.
00:34:30:09 - 00:35:06:27
Sean
And, I basically said, yeah, you need to go get help. You like six the rope on a tree. So that or as our anchor so that people can get back up easily. This is how you do that? We didn't didn't have service in that area, and we, didn't have any and reach up at the second pitch, so she had to go down and she wouldn't be able to come up and, help me at all.
00:35:06:29 - 00:35:40:16
Sean
So I got her light puffy. You can put that under me. As much as I could without jostling my back too much. And I was I had basically been getting in a t shirt and a shell. And so I said, I laid on the ice, for, you know, 5 or 6 hours.
00:35:40:18 - 00:36:23:29
Sean
Yeah. Until, it's basically a bunch of friends in the climbing community came from Salt Lake, and, came up and got me and, helped get move me to where helicopter could long line me out. I, I got put in a harness, not to back forward. Nothing to, protect that. And, also got ran into a tree, while I was getting long lined off, with the screws and the.
00:36:23:29 - 00:36:30:22
Sean
Yeah. Then I got, I got dropped on the road, and then a couple more helicopter flights back to Salt.
00:36:30:22 - 00:36:32:15
Kyle
Lake dropped on the road, or.
00:36:32:18 - 00:36:37:14
Sean
I sent down, set down on. Okay. Where's the. And then fuck that one.
00:36:37:16 - 00:36:42:08
Vitaliy
Five star E.M.S. service. Exactly.
00:36:42:10 - 00:37:20:04
Sean
And, yeah, when I was, in the helicopter, I remember them saying, the paramedics being like, okay, he's at 95 now. I'm like, oh, okay. In 95 degrees. What did I start at? And they didn't tell me, but, I was definitely quite cold. Like, yeah, definitely hypothermic by then. And glad that, I at least, got out of there.
00:37:20:06 - 00:37:23:10
Kyle
What was that mental process like, sitting there for five hours?
00:37:23:10 - 00:37:31:11
Sean
Yeah, that was that was pretty terrible. I mean, that's probably the worst. Yeah. Worst moments of my life.
00:37:31:13 - 00:37:38:06
Kyle
How much of it was dealing with the pain and dealing with the reality of your own circumstances versus.
00:37:38:06 - 00:37:39:16
Sean
The.
00:37:39:18 - 00:37:45:27
Kyle
Realizing the reality of the death of your friend? Like, was it a combination of the both? Which one's that more heavy?
00:37:48:03 - 00:37:51:22
Sean
I mean, you know, they're they're both very, very present.
00:37:52:08 - 00:38:15:22
Sean
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I didn't even know exactly where she was. It basically felt like, sitting here dying on top of my friend who is dying or dying or dead, who's probably dead already. And so, yeah, there there was a whole lot of, yeah, the initial feelings of.
00:38:15:24 - 00:38:46:20
Sean
Yeah. I fucked up or I should have done something different, or I should have seen something or, and, you know, a lot of uncertainty with. Yeah. What, is anybody going to get here? No, I didn't like people out in that area. Don't even know that there's ice climbing there. There's really no training for the local people.
00:38:46:23 - 00:39:30:13
Sean
Luckily, very well. Dustin is one of the, people helped, come get me. He did some training with them later, which was awesome. But yeah. And that uncertainty of, yeah, what's going to happen? And then. Yeah, just the, you know, the pain, which was significant. And then not being able to, to move at all and feeling the cold, I and I, yeah, definitely started to, you know, hyperventilate and like, had to control my breathing.
00:39:30:13 - 00:39:58:05
Sean
It, at some point, so it, it all I feel like there was almost a feedback loop of, Yeah. Losing Meg and my, you know, back pain and the whole, yeah, uncertainty of rescue. Yeah.
00:39:58:08 - 00:40:17:13
Kyle
How like at any point or because they talk about, like, especially traumatic injuries and like, how our pain and and adding the hypothermic state to like a point of acceptance or a point of just like giving in to the circumstances, like, did you ever get to that place where you were kind of just like, man, that would just be so nice to pass out and go to sleep?
00:40:17:15 - 00:40:24:10
Kyle
Or did you, like, fight the entire time? And if so, what kept you fighting?
00:40:24:12 - 00:40:54:07
Sean
Yeah, I think it was, and it was fighting the whole time. I don't I probably didn't get to the point of hypothermia that, kind of makes you give in. I don't think, Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't think anybody's like, it's not a, problem with somebodies, will or will to live by the point that they're, extremely hypothermic and they give up.
00:40:54:07 - 00:41:31:23
Sean
It's just a a scientific fact of how that works. But, for for where I was, I would, I still had. Yeah, I still had that animal fight in me. And I, I was definitely, waiting the for the helicopter. So it was pretty sure that was, that was definitely going to be the answer. So yeah, it was there were certainly moments of when is this fucking helicopter going to show up?
00:41:31:26 - 00:41:40:24
Sean
Oh my God, I wish I could, I wish I could hear the helicopter. And then when I did, it was still another hour and a half or two hours before they actually got to the right place.
00:41:40:25 - 00:41:42:28
Kyle
Wow. Did they ever fly over you?
00:41:43:00 - 00:41:43:28
Sean
Yeah.
00:41:44:00 - 00:42:03:25
Kyle
And there's this show called I Shouldn't Be Alive. Have you heard of it? Yeah. Yeah. Every almost every episode where someone's getting rescued, there's always a point where the helicopter or the rescue team passes them by at some point, just to leave them wondering what's going to happen to then, like, come back and actually rescue them. So it was crazy that that's what happened to you.
00:42:03:28 - 00:42:29:22
Sean
Yeah. Yeah, it actually, it didn't quite know what drainage I was in. Wow. Because, I mean. Right. Yeah. They didn't have the info. They and, she makes friend had gone back to town with the car, so the car wasn't there. There was a new marker, to make it obvious.
00:42:29:22 - 00:42:31:16
Kyle
And it's night. By this point.
00:42:31:18 - 00:42:52:00
Sean
It was not night. It was probably. And so this was April 2nd. And yeah, it was basically noon when it happened. And it's like 6:00 by six ish. Yeah. When I got, long line of. Yeah.
00:42:52:02 - 00:43:16:05
Kyle
You had mentioned quickly about, the fight, you said it was almost animal animalistic, to the point where we all have this kind of, like, survival instinct. Right? I do feel like there's a human element where it's personal to each person. On on reasons why we survive, reasons why we fight. Was there a specific reason that you kept kind of repeating in your, in your mind of the reason why you wanted to stay alive?
00:43:16:23 - 00:43:36:24
Sean
No, I don't feel that logic came into it. Really. I think it was. Yeah, it felt more instinctual. Was just this is what needs to happen. I mean, yeah, the the thought like, yeah, I, I want this to be over.
00:43:37:09 - 00:43:46:26
Sean
but I knew there was no way of actually giving up. It's like it's just going it's going to be what it is.
00:43:46:26 - 00:43:57:19
Sean
I'm going to experience this, and, yeah.
00:43:57:19 - 00:44:14:07
Sean
All I can do, it's be here and try to control the breathing and not have the thoughts run away with, making this worse than it needs to be. Yeah.
00:44:14:07 - 00:44:14:18
Sean
What?
00:44:14:18 - 00:44:22:00
Kyle
How so what were your actual physiological injuries and how did you recover from those?
00:44:22:02 - 00:45:00:04
Sean
So I, I had a burst fracture of my, IL2, so I was when I got to the hospital, I got, a couple days later, I got fuzed, one above and below. That vertebrae, I had some, like, scrapes on my face. Bruising, but that was basically my injury, so. Wow.
00:45:00:04 - 00:45:04:27
Sean
Just. Yeah, I, everything went straight into my back.
00:45:04:29 - 00:45:07:19
Kyle
No spinal cord injury.
00:45:07:22 - 00:45:12:12
Sean
I have a little, like, numbness on my thigh.
00:45:13:08 - 00:45:16:14
Sean
And, Jen has gotten a little bit better.
00:45:16:16 - 00:45:23:19
Kyle
Did you ever get to see an MRI or an X-ray of the actual damage? Yeah. How close was it?
00:45:23:22 - 00:45:51:16
Sean
I mean, hard to tell how close, I guess, to actual, like, spinal cord damage, but, like, yeah, there were pieces in there that were moving around next to my spinal cord, and I, you know, I would have preferred to be on a backboard. You know, my my my, yeah, my my, you know, words to, when people got to me were like, I'd like to be as not paralyzed as I am right now.
00:45:51:19 - 00:45:53:24
Sean
Please.
00:45:53:26 - 00:45:55:15
Kyle
Please don't make things worse than it already is.
00:45:55:15 - 00:46:08:07
Sean
Yeah, yeah. Because I basically just got rolled onto a blanket and to get moved, so. But it. Yeah. Didn't, did not have any major. Yeah. Spinal cord issues.
00:46:09:21 - 00:46:33:17
Sean
After the surgery I was basically, you know, three months from like true weight bearing recovered, just like you can do things, I got some clearance to, like, do assisted pull ups in the gym after, six weeks maybe.
00:46:33:19 - 00:46:48:28
Sean
It's pretty quick. Yeah. Honestly, it feels interminable when you're in it. But with the, you know, benefit of hindsight, it's, Yeah. It was not that long. Yeah.
00:46:48:28 - 00:47:06:22
Kyle
That's why, although it's really, really lucky that you didn't experience any more physical, physiological damage than you did. Yeah. And that you I mean, up to this point now, do you have any sort of limitations because of the injury? Do you have, like, flexion limitations in your lumbar spine? Any pain, nerve damage?
00:47:06:25 - 00:47:12:25
Sean
I mean, if I do a big, big day, I can tell that it's it gets angry.
00:47:13:03 - 00:47:21:27
Sean
But no. Yeah. Flexibility. They said I'd get back to normal and I did, and
00:47:22:07 - 00:47:38:00
Sean
basically said no trail running, no, you know, bouncing up and down on the on the vertebrates, on the basically on the discs on either side is what caused degeneration at some point.
00:47:38:00 - 00:47:38:10
Sean
But,
00:47:38:23 - 00:48:07:29
Sean
yeah, I had to, yeah. They said, yeah. You know, minimizing that type of motion would be good. And so I was like, well, I still really want to go climbing. And so climbing is fine. Falling or climbing is fine for it. And it's like, well, I'm going to hike in places.
00:48:07:29 - 00:48:11:04
Sean
I'm not going to go running if I can avoid it.
00:48:11:14 - 00:48:27:18
Sean
And it's really feels like a the instructions they give you, it's just feels like a crapshoot for when you're going to have another issue, when you're going to have to be fuzed further.
00:48:28:00 - 00:48:35:17
Sean
You know, could be it could be a couple years, could be 20 years before things degenerated.
00:48:35:18 - 00:48:47:08
Sean
And, so I'm at this point it feels pretty much in, 100%, stronger than I was before.
00:48:47:18 - 00:49:24:08
Sean
Accident. And, yeah, the the recovery, I guess, yeah. Went quite quickly and there's. Yeah, I had, you know, there's, thoughts about and, when you recover that quickly, you know, I have I was climbing, I was leading like 4 or 5 months after, and, and, you know, like, why my doing this?
00:49:24:08 - 00:49:44:29
Sean
Like, why am I okay to do this when other people are not, you know, makes friends at a very different, reaction and, different, priorities after the accident and, you know, her recovery doesn't look like my recovery.
00:49:45:02 - 00:49:48:25
Kyle
Now, it seems like you're alluding to more of a psychological recovery than a physical one.
00:49:49:01 - 00:49:49:16
Sean
Yeah.
00:49:49:16 - 00:50:14:17
Kyle
So let's dive into that. You know, I've from from guests that I've talked to on this podcast who have gone through similar loss and grief in their life. They've described it as a personal journey, both in its uniqueness and the way that each person process it. Process. Is it like person to person? But also in the way that it's personal, in the way that no one can really help you get through it.
00:50:14:20 - 00:50:29:18
Kyle
You know, it's it's each person's own journey to, to figure that out. So how have you processed kind of the, the loss and the grief that have you know, and built around this, this accident?
00:50:29:18 - 00:50:31:15
Sean
Early on. Yeah. It feels like.
00:50:31:15 - 00:50:34:02
Sean
the end of the world. And,
00:50:34:02 - 00:51:12:29
Sean
Yeah. I mean, you cliche, but the stages you go through or the same speed is different and, and but, Yeah, it it has to feel like hell for a while. Like, you don't get to skip it. Yeah. And at the point, I was able to at least, like. Think about something other than the accident. As you know, I did, you know, go to therapy and get help that way.
00:51:13:01 - 00:51:56:24
Sean
And, yeah, they're definitely tools that help. And, yeah, it's, you have to get through, you have to get to a point where your body feels that you had agency, where PTSD is basically not having agency in a in. Yeah. Situation that causes you pain, emotional pain or who, and not being able to do anything about it.
00:51:56:26 - 00:52:30:02
Sean
You know, if you, if you're able to take some constructive action, you generally don't don't get PTSD or don't get it to the same degree. So, yeah, to work through, through that and feel like, I was. You know, not it's not agency in the moment. It's, you know, some odd, kind of reconstructed narrative.
00:52:30:04 - 00:52:59:00
Sean
But like, you know, being able to put together, an accident report for the, the accidents, you know, that's a piece of, you know, trying to help other people not have this same issue, of. Yeah, and undercut Hilliard from, water running under it that you really can't see.
00:52:59:11 - 00:53:17:26
Sean
And you just need to be careful at the end of the season, and you can't, you're going to have some, unexplored failures from if you've had warm temperatures that can very easily, undercut features.
00:53:17:26 - 00:53:29:16
Sean
And, you know, if talking about it helps somebody else that's, you know, a piece of agency and then,
00:53:29:19 - 00:54:07:08
Sean
Yeah. Just, feeling like I. Yeah. Didn't, you know, you feel like a bad person immediately, you know, that's just, you know, it's the survivor's guilt. It's the, What do I what could I have done differently? And, you know, the it's it's easier to, kind of put the put the pain into, you know, self-hatred and, than it is to feel it directly,
00:54:07:21 - 00:54:30:26
Sean
and so slowly letting go of, slowly getting to the point where, you know, I was just going out to climb with a friend and, you know, you can look at human factors and understand why I made a decision that I probably wouldn't have made another, you know, if
00:54:30:26 - 00:55:13:13
Sean
I was going out with another friend at another time, you know, at the end of this season. But I did what I did for reasons that are understandable and reasonable and, you know, that forgiveness comes with, comes with time and but also it comes with work. So I think, you know, going through therapy, putting that and you making that a priority and I guess.
00:55:13:16 - 00:55:33:13
Sean
Possibly just, you know, some, particularities of me as a person versus somebody else who could have been in the same situation. I ended up kind of recovering both mentally and physically relatively quickly.
00:55:33:16 - 00:55:48:19
Kyle
Yeah. How are you? You kind of alluded to the fact that you and your partner had different timelines in terms of processing the accident. What would you say were the major differences and how you both have kind of thought about and reacted to this experience?
00:55:48:19 - 00:55:51:03
Sean
I mean, she has inclined sense,
00:55:51:19 - 00:56:08:24
Sean
which is hard because I, you can still see the love for ice and, you know, winter and just the, the features and,
00:56:08:26 - 00:56:30:02
Sean
But it's the right choice for because. Yeah. Her, this relationship to. Yeah, the accident is it's just feels. I think it probably feels more present still,
00:56:30:13 - 00:56:54:06
Sean
and, yeah, she just has had a longer road to feeling more normal and being able to live a more normal life. And, yeah, that's just as valid as how I process things, but.
00:56:54:06 - 00:57:27:19
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunate as it's in this, yeah. The whole, you know, trauma steals part of your life from you and, you know, you're forever changed. And, yeah, you lose, you lose time, you lose people. But yeah, there. Seems to always be a a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere, even when it doesn't feel like it.
00:57:27:21 - 00:57:28:24
Sean
You know.
00:57:28:26 - 00:57:50:13
Kyle
You had mentioned the word agency and, some of the things I've listened to with people going through certain types of trauma like this is kind of, like you said, like a lack of agency or a feeling of like a lack of control over their circumstances or maybe even their own actions, or maybe even, control of their, their own safety.
00:57:52:01 - 00:58:05:11
Kyle
How did you reestablish that connection with your agency, with your control over your actions, with your control over risk management? Like what? What kind of steps did you take to reintroduce yourself to feeling more in control of your life?
00:58:05:19 - 00:58:28:03
Sean
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. In addition to have the accident report and, there's, you know, trauma processing, therapy called, eMDR that I did some of. Okay. And that is.
00:58:28:05 - 00:58:28:27
Kyle
What is it being?
00:58:28:27 - 00:58:33:25
Sean
India eye movement desensitization, I believe.
00:58:33:27 - 00:58:35:01
Kyle
Explain that process to me.
00:58:35:01 - 00:59:16:01
Sean
So you, basically follow, and it can be done in a number of ways. It's basically moving your eyes back and forth, left and right. Which puts your brain in a state receptive to bringing up traumatic events without having the emotion not respond the same emotional response. Wow. Okay. And that that was somewhat helpful. I think other and I know other people who have had, really good experiences with that.
00:59:16:03 - 01:00:22:06
Sean
That was like partially helpful for me, but not as like revolutionary, but definitely a good resource. I guess, yeah, I it's I stated it before, it's like, yeah, it's not necessarily like a terribly logical establishment of agency for like for me, the form it took, was. Basically lying in bed, you know, my or my life was for a while, just, you know, feeling kind of feeling sad, but also, I guess putting myself back in back at the base of the falls, feeling like I was there and,
01:00:22:09 - 01:00:57:02
Sean
Kind of reenacting a bit and changing something, which for me was, I, like, just reached out, and felt like I could feel Meg's hand. So it felt to me like I was able to, comfort her. Hold her hand. And that.
01:00:57:02 - 01:01:30:17
Sean
I guess by putting myself in the same kind of in the same place and and reenacting that, put that in the same kind of place as the memory and, gave me, yeah. The feeling that I was able to, be there for her, that she could, like, say whatever she needed to say, feel whatever she needed to feel.
01:01:30:17 - 01:01:56:01
Sean
And, that she hadn't gotten the actual opportunity to do then and, you know, then being able to let her, you know, let her hand go and kind of metaphorically let her go. Yeah. And then cry for an hour. Yeah.
01:01:56:03 - 01:02:20:20
Kyle
That's heavy, man. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry for the. Just the heavy experience, man. It's, It's a lot. I know we all kind of sign up for these things in the mountains, and we don't expect them to really happen, but, they they tend to surprise us sometimes, so. Yeah. Yeah, I feel for for for everything you've been going through.
01:02:20:23 - 01:02:23:10
Sean
Thanks.
01:02:23:12 - 01:03:01:09
Kyle
You know, we hear a lot about stories of typically in kind of more of a romantic partnership kind of situation where, someone will lose their a romantic partner in the mountains and then subsequently take their own life. Did you experience any sort of kind of feelings of suicide or considering that that trajectory at all in the short term after the accident, whether it was related to the loss of your partner or related to the loss of, you know, your physicality or who you were as a as the identity that you built herself around climbing, like, was there anything that had crossed your mind in that realm at all?
01:03:01:09 - 01:03:03:20
Kyle
01:03:03:22 - 01:03:29:10
Sean
Yeah, I think that's pretty common. You know, whether or not people want to own up to it. Yeah, I think it's again, kind of the, Repurposing or trying to push pain somewhere else. Yeah. It's like an ending. Ending your life would end the pain.
01:03:29:24 - 01:03:40:09
Sean
Yeah. You know, some in some way feels like a reasonable response or in a way that.
01:03:40:12 - 01:03:43:26
Sean
Yeah, a way to minimize the the pain of everything.
01:03:44:16 - 01:03:45:11
Sean
01:03:45:11 - 01:04:00:21
Sean
But yeah, it was, you know, never, never for me got beyond that. You know, the initial part of your brain runs to suggest that as an option.
01:04:00:21 - 01:04:37:20
Kyle
Was there anything in particular that helped? Kind of like, sway that narrative? Like, did you have social support where you kind of. I like it where you isolated. Do you see isolation as being symptomatic towards kind of like making that mentality worse or like, I guess my I'm framing this question as like if if anybody listening is is not necessarily maybe going through the situation themselves or, has a friend that ends up going through something like this, like, how can we as a, as a community, better support people like yourself having gone through something like this?
01:04:37:23 - 01:05:05:14
Sean
Yeah. Having people around is certainly like, helpful. I think that's yeah, just needs to be a baseline. I my family came in and stayed with me for a while. Which was helpful for sure. And, yeah, I mean, you know, you look at, and like, Hayden Kennedy.
01:05:05:14 - 01:05:08:14
Kyle
That's for sure. Like, the main story that comes out to mind.
01:05:08:17 - 01:05:50:18
Sean
Yeah, is, you know. Maybe makes a different choice if it's, you know, the next day or if he has somebody else there. But yeah, the obviously tragic. But yeah, having people around is yeah, critical for. Yeah. After trauma. And I had a, I had a good, community. A number of people came to see me in the hospital and just did feel like I had, a good amount of of support.
01:05:50:20 - 01:05:51:27
Sean
That was that was great.
01:05:51:27 - 01:05:59:06
Kyle
If you were to put what kind of support is best into either a word or a few words, what would it be?
01:05:59:25 - 01:06:36:26
Sean
It may be different for different people, but I feel like, presence without judgment, is probably all that needs to happen. It's beautiful, as you can't. I mean, you're not going to talk somebody out of anything. I or you're not going to. Yeah. And there's no there's no logic to be spoken. And if you, you know, whatever the person wants to talk about or is able to talk about is what they should talk about.
01:06:36:28 - 01:06:50:24
Sean
But yeah, I think I said earlier you just there is a point where it's just it is just pain. Yeah. And enduring the pain is all that you're doing,
01:06:52:11 - 01:06:57:09
Sean
processing like recovering. All that happens later.
01:06:57:23 - 01:07:15:14
Sean
And if you're there for somebody. Yeah. Just present check in. No judgment. Don't need to go through the event. You just need to feel a little bit more normal.
01:07:16:06 - 01:07:24:13
Sean
Feel like. Yeah, you're out of the pain a little bit. Yeah. Awesome, man.
01:07:24:15 - 01:07:49:29
Kyle
You know, I feel like we could, turn the whole, you know, podcast episode into kind of expanding on this and diving into this topic, but we have, a lot of other things to, to talk about. So, before we move on, are there any other things about this particular experience that, you feel like we missed or you feel like is key to your development and kind of something that you'd like to share?
01:07:50:02 - 01:08:20:09
Sean
Yeah, I guess, I suppose, yeah, probably, transitions us a little more into. Yeah. Where, where I went from there and what, what it's meant and kind of the longer term, I think, the way that I processed, the accident was, to put a bunch of work into a try tooling route.
01:08:20:29 - 01:09:02:12
Sean
And I basically bolted the whole thing so that it would be, safe, and, I would feel comfortable doing it. And just, that process of building the route, going up and, like, all the physical work, in addition to making it a a space for me, a safe space for me mentally. Was was great.
01:09:02:12 - 01:09:35:12
Sean
And, what came out of that was, the penitent path, which is 12 pitch dry towing route in Provo Canyon. It's 150 some bolts. And yeah, it's a 350m, like it's, you know, hiked around with a lot of packs, fixed, fixed a lot of ropes. And yeah, just built back to, like, being better.
01:09:35:12 - 01:09:56:16
Sean
And that ended up like that was the moment, I think, when I sent that, that was ten months after. Wow. And that's, it's got three pitches, M9 and it's pretty sustained. And those as hard as I climbed on dry time before then.
01:09:56:20 - 01:10:01:14
Kyle
Well, and it was the first ascent. Yeah. Ground up or.
01:10:01:16 - 01:10:08:06
Sean
Ground up for some of the bottom stuff and top down for the rest of it. While it went.
01:10:08:08 - 01:10:16:13
Kyle
How many days en route were you developing?
01:10:16:16 - 01:10:26:19
Sean
I was there a couple times a week from, like, December to February. So it was like it was 20 or 30 days. Wow.
01:10:26:22 - 01:10:30:11
Kyle
And this seems like it was your healing process in a way.
01:10:30:13 - 01:10:37:20
Sean
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Metabolize the recovery into the into that.
01:10:37:23 - 01:11:01:10
Kyle
And also gave you that kind of trust in the agency in yourself to climb again to trust yourself as a climber, to trust yourself as an athlete. And I mean there's so much in climbing that's spiritual and healing just alone without having to deal with trauma. That and it also like when we're when we lead climbing and we have risk and we have all this experience where we're forced to it's like always a mirror, right?
01:11:01:12 - 01:11:18:13
Kyle
And so it's like it's always a mirror to our deeper self. And we we have to be at peace with that if we're going to be able to climb hard and and to reckon with ourselves. And so, that's really beautiful that that's kind of how you process it all. And we're able to kind of come out the other side at least.
01:11:18:16 - 01:11:30:13
Kyle
With enough agency and peace to be able to, to move on without, you know, crippling symptoms of, of the accident.
01:11:30:16 - 01:11:39:10
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. That that felt like, you know, enough normal. Jack in my life at that. Yeah. Yeah.
01:11:39:16 - 01:11:49:06
Kyle
Oh, man. What a what a journey, man. I'm grateful you're here. I'm sure everybody that has been a part of this journey is grateful you're you're here. And.
01:11:49:09 - 01:11:52:07
Sean
Yeah. Well.
01:11:52:10 - 01:11:52:28
Kyle
It's going to be a hard.
01:11:52:28 - 01:11:55:22
Sean
Pivot right here.
01:11:55:24 - 01:12:15:18
Kyle
I guess, to, to kind of close off your background here, I have this question. And we don't really need to dive into it too much. I'm just interested in your response. But I've been workshopping this this idea of kind of pillars of climbing. And what I've come up with so far is performance, partnership and adventure.
01:12:15:21 - 01:12:27:11
Kyle
The reasons why we climb. I'm interested in you rating them in terms of importance to you, and then maybe suggesting any that you feel might be missing. If they are.
01:12:27:20 - 01:12:34:18
Sean
Feel like I started a lot more performance oriented.
01:12:34:18 - 01:12:48:26
Sean
I guess I've also probably recontextualize performance, more personally, and relatively rather than, externally reflective.
01:12:48:28 - 01:12:51:13
Kyle
I like that. Yeah.
01:12:51:15 - 01:12:54:26
Sean
And yeah, that's always healthier.
01:12:55:00 - 01:13:02:00
Kyle
Maybe. Maybe in term maybe performance seems to be externally focused, but progression seems to be internally focused.
01:13:02:02 - 01:13:02:22
Sean
Yeah.
01:13:02:24 - 01:13:09:02
Kyle
Yeah. Okay. So maybe I should change them from partners of partnerships adventure and progression.
01:13:09:05 - 01:13:16:28
Sean
I don't know I think it depends on the person. Right. There might be people, you know for whom climbing is actually about performance in.
01:13:16:28 - 01:13:18:29
Kyle
The external validation. Yeah.
01:13:19:06 - 01:13:21:00
Sean
And you know.
01:13:21:02 - 01:13:23:13
Kyle
So yours currently are in what order?
01:13:23:13 - 01:13:33:02
Sean
Yeah. I keep partnership's progression and venture. Okay. And I think that they're all. They're all there. Yeah.
01:13:33:02 - 01:13:49:08
Kyle
This show is brought to you by Lives and Designs. Let's be honest, most of our clothes don't last nearly as long as they should. Too often, they fall apart long before the sting of the price tag ever fades. And when something does rip or tear, most brands do nothing in the form of support, repair, or replacement. Lives in.
01:13:49:10 - 01:14:10:06
Kyle
Lives in is different. They design one quality product at a time with a simple philosophy build outdoor apparel that fits well, works well, and lasts longer so that you can wear it more, keep it longer, and spend more time outside doing what you love. Plus, they have an in-house repair program so that if your clothes rip, tear, or fall apart in any way, you can send them in to live in.
01:14:10:08 - 01:14:27:04
Kyle
You even get to decide whether your repair falls under warranty or normal wear and tear. Plus, there's a 30 day money back guarantee so you can buy it. Try it, and if you still don't like it, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get 15% off at lives, and by using the link in the description below and using code TCM 15 at checkout.
01:14:27:05 - 01:14:37:18
Kyle
That's the link in the description below, and code TCM 15 for 15% off at checkout. And remember, every dollar spent and lives in is a dollar spent supporting this podcast.
01:14:38:05 - 01:14:39:14
Kyle
Vitaly.
01:14:39:16 - 01:14:45:25
Sean
How are you doing? I'm good. I'm still here. I'm still here. I love the energy drink.
01:14:45:27 - 01:14:47:11
Kyle
Yeah. You brought a monster just for this.
01:14:47:11 - 01:14:49:09
Vitaliy
Occasion and done with it. Yeah.
01:14:49:11 - 01:14:54:03
Kyle
Have you. Have you heard that story? And then as much depth and reflection.
01:14:54:05 - 01:14:54:14
Sean
Yeah.
01:14:54:21 - 01:14:56:22
Kyle
Okay. I would hope so.
01:14:56:25 - 01:15:00:05
Vitaliy
We we had a lot of time, to spend together, so far.
01:15:00:13 - 01:15:22:02
Kyle
As I'm sure we'll get into. Yeah. I mean, just as a as an easy, easy, transfer here. Why don't you ask or answer that question? Performance, adventure and partnerships. Do you have a particular order and what you'd like to, kind of orchestrate them and do you feel like there's any of those three that are missing in terms of your value that climbing brings to your life?
01:15:22:04 - 01:15:42:26
Vitaliy
I feel like it's a difficult question because, each word has its own subjective interpretation. And I would say performance definitely comes last because without adventure and without partnership, performance is irrelevant.
01:15:43:29 - 01:16:14:16
Vitaliy
And, it depends what you mean by adventure in, in this context because, as a lover of being outdoors, I feel like I could have adventure in the outdoors without partnerships, and that's probably the most important to me. To interact with the nature. But I love the people that I meet, and I hope to develop stronger and stronger relationships with my partners.
01:16:14:18 - 01:16:22:14
Vitaliy
Which is ideal to me. I don't like, you know, short hookups for, sport climbing or something like that.
01:16:22:17 - 01:16:25:20
Kyle
If Tinder was out for you, I mean, you wouldn't be, a subscriber for that.
01:16:25:28 - 01:16:30:27
Vitaliy
Exactly, exactly. I'm not into Tinder dates, either.
01:16:31:00 - 01:16:32:03
Kyle
But you're married, so I hope not.
01:16:32:04 - 01:16:33:26
Vitaliy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:16:33:28 - 01:16:34:19
Sean
Oh.
01:16:34:21 - 01:16:55:19
Vitaliy
Yeah. I'm not going to, Joke around too much. But, yeah, I feel like, performance comes as a result of adventure and partnership and so, yeah, it's guess it's a toss up between those two, because ideally, you, you, adventure with friends
01:16:56:04 - 01:17:07:04
Vitaliy
probably partnership, adventure and performance. Yeah. Even though all of them are very important and, you can't really have one without the other to correct.
01:17:07:04 - 01:17:12:17
Kyle
Yeah, I definitely see them as almost more of, like, a triangle.
01:17:12:20 - 01:17:13:01
Vitaliy
Yeah.
01:17:13:01 - 01:17:20:24
Kyle
It's like a triangle of climbing. And you can't have one without the other. But for each individual person there tends to be like a weight.
01:17:21:08 - 01:17:38:17
Kyle
On which side kind of ends up being more valuable to them you know. And so it's just been something I've been workshopping with each person. And so funny because it's such a simple question. Right. But each person just like the difference between you two, you know, it's, there's always some sort of personal, reflection that comes from it.
01:17:38:17 - 01:17:41:10
Kyle
And, it's really cool to see everybody's reflection on it.
01:17:41:12 - 01:18:09:21
Vitaliy
As I, evolved and climbing over the years and interacted with many people, I realized how selfish climbers and their being and how selfish I was over the years. And, so I feel that to me, performance, lost its purpose. As a, as a, it's own thing, like, I want to perform. I trained really hard to perform at a high level.
01:18:09:23 - 01:18:59:03
Vitaliy
I sacrifice money, I sacrifice, you know, time spent with my wife and, doing things just for pure fun. So performances obviously are very important. And, I know that my, climbing partner, relies on my performance in some way, on, really important, trips where both of our lives depend on it. So it's a very important part of climbing, but I feel like with time, I am, able to reflect more and, be able to dedicate more time to relationships and the important people in my life so that it's not all about just my own performance, which is, not as important in the grand scheme of things.
01:18:59:06 - 01:19:28:09
Kyle
You know, I think it's all about more about like, a passion, like what drives us to to live. What drives you to climb, you know, is performance is our personal performance. Like, is me climbing 512 on track? The reason why I wake up and go climb every day? Or is it the the relationships that I share with my partner while also maybe pursuing performance, but my partner and him waiting outside in the front of the car at 6 a.m. and me.
01:19:28:09 - 01:19:44:22
Kyle
That's the reason why I'm getting up and pressing the alarm clock in the morning is for my commitment to my partner in the morning to get up and be there for him so that we can have this experience together. Like, is that why I'm getting out of bed? And I think that's where it starts to get personal, because someone could be like, I'm about to go climb 512 see today.
01:19:44:22 - 01:19:55:01
Kyle
And it's going to be a red point. That's why I'm getting out of bed. It could be anybody out in front of this house today. Yeah, but the reason why I'm getting out of bed today is because I'm about to go red point 512. See. Yeah. And so it's different for each person. Yeah.
01:19:55:02 - 01:19:55:20
Vitaliy
Exactly.
01:19:55:20 - 01:19:56:00
Sean
Yeah.
01:19:56:05 - 01:20:29:08
Vitaliy
And as I was listening to Sean's incredible story, I was just, thinking that it's obviously a very important to a person to, be able to transition to some sort of a goal, and, regain control in their life after something traumatic happens. And, even though performance would come in the end, as you were trying to free climb this route, it's not the, you know, it's not the essence of the experience.
01:20:29:08 - 01:20:37:05
Vitaliy
It's not why you're there every day working. And, trying to gain some normalcy in your life.
01:20:37:08 - 01:20:47:23
Kyle
Yeah. There's a something bigger. Yeah. You know, performance becomes the, the agent of of growth or the agent of control that you end up having over the larger aspect of your life.
01:20:48:00 - 01:20:49:20
Vitaliy
Yeah. Yeah. Process.
01:20:50:29 - 01:20:55:14
Kyle
You, you personally have had your own journey.
01:20:55:16 - 01:20:56:18
Sean
Through.
01:20:56:20 - 01:21:02:11
Kyle
Adversity and struggle. And, and loss in a way.
01:21:02:14 - 01:21:04:05
Sean
I think,
01:21:04:08 - 01:21:25:16
Kyle
You know, talk to us about, you know, give us a obviously you've talked about this on the climbing gold. So, you know, people can go and check that out, but personally, I'd rather not have everybody leave the podcast and go listen to Alex Honnold, and come back to learn more about you. So, give us a quick overview of kind of what your circumstances were, because I find them extremely unique.
01:21:25:19 - 01:21:42:05
Kyle
I have yet to hear anybody, anywhere with a similar story and circumstances that you've come from, especially, to where you've kind of found yourself now, so, yeah, talk to me about your childhood and how you came to America and what you kind of dealt with.
01:21:42:07 - 01:22:14:02
Vitaliy
Yeah, well, I feel like my story begins before I was actually born because, my mom was pregnant, during the tragedy that happened in 1986, a Chernobyl nuclear reactor blew up, and it released a bunch of radiation. So she was pregnant just north of, the reactor. And the most of that radiation and, waste products, traveled north due to wind exposure.
01:22:14:04 - 01:22:59:13
Vitaliy
And, she ended up having some difficulties during birth. I was supposed to have a brother, that came out, dead. And, as I was growing up, after I turned about five years old, they started experiencing all kinds of autoimmune issues, and, I ended up with some sort of a skin infection, which, led me into the hospitals in and out of hospitals for about three years in the row from about when I was 8 to 11 years old, or, nine to about 11 years old.
01:22:59:16 - 01:23:31:24
Vitaliy
And, and I was basically going through a cycle of, full body skin infections, where I would scratch my skin off, like, completely scratch my skin. There would be no skin. There was just be meat, present. And then, it would get covered in bandages, crossed together, and then, infection would start up, and, I would be covered in pus, and, you know, pus filled boils.
01:23:31:24 - 01:24:11:09
Vitaliy
I basically, and then I also had, severe asthma as well. And, my mom was it did not believe in to, using an inhaler. It she thought that if I start using an inhaler, I will not be able to overgrow it. She would just was not aware. Yeah. I'm not, you know, upset that her, she was doing her best to, raise me in that sort of, condition, and, you know, she divorced my father when I was five, so she had to do it all on her own.
01:24:11:11 - 01:24:42:06
Vitaliy
It was an incredibly difficult process for her. I was, living in hell every day of my life, and, since I started school, till we moved to the United States, I never, attended a PE class because a, when I did attend school, I would, just wear, clothing that would cover my whole body.
01:24:42:06 - 01:25:09:08
Vitaliy
Basically, aside from my head and, playing any sports or doing any sports was just not in the cards. So, over time, my skin got better. We found the right weakness. And at this point, it's not a problem. I feel like, the clean air and ecology and, we moved to San Francisco, which was extremely helpful.
01:25:09:10 - 01:25:41:19
Vitaliy
And I was able to over grow my asthma over the years. But, even though I seem to overgrow the, the skin issues, when we moved, I was trying to help my mom. And the work in Domino's Pizza to, help support, basically support the family because she was, a single mother trying to take care of me, and she did not have, a high paying job.
01:25:41:21 - 01:26:06:15
Vitaliy
Neither of us spoke English, so it, you know, it causes other problems there. But I because I started working in Domino's Pizza since I was 14 years old, passing out fliers and then starting inside, when they turned 15. I gained a lot of weight and, by the time I was 16, I was 300 pounds.
01:26:06:17 - 01:26:45:03
Vitaliy
And when I saw myself weighing in at 300 pounds on the scale, I decided that I need to do something about it. And, I ended up joining their high school football team, and thankfully, kept coming back to, more practices. And even though it was so hard to, start out from complete zero from you cannot run a mile, you cannot run two laps, you're getting shin splints after two laps around the track, you're totally unathletic.
01:26:45:05 - 01:27:24:24
Vitaliy
And getting your as basically beat every day, real hard in the practice. But kids who are more athletic and, you know, I kept on coming back and, improved quite a lot during that season. Was able to lose 40 pounds and, then just kept, on getting more and more into athletics and, learning about, how to, how to train and how to increase your endurance.
01:27:24:26 - 01:28:08:10
Vitaliy
I got into, Muay Thai kickboxing, boxing and, weightlifting as well. And, was able to, somehow find my way into climbing and they and by some random coincidence of, finding a new friend who, worked with me after I graduated from nursing school and nursing school was probably a big, like my main inspiration to go into nursing school was probably because of, my health issues growing up and hoping that I can give back can also help people.
01:28:08:12 - 01:28:40:11
Vitaliy
But, even though, you know, it's been really difficult to overcome some of the personal, like, trauma or working with people in crisis, I cannot work with, suffering kids still, because it's just too close to my heart. And I feel like I have some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder or something. When when.
01:28:40:13 - 01:28:47:26
Kyle
I think that working with struggling kids is hard with people, even outside of your circumstance. And so to have it hit so close to home.
01:28:48:03 - 01:28:49:07
Sean
Yeah, yeah.
01:28:49:10 - 01:29:07:06
Vitaliy
One of my, curses, though, is, when they. I worked as a travel nurse in different, emergency departments. And, I'm always one of the only few people on their floor who knows how to start ultrasound. Davies.
01:29:07:23 - 01:29:24:20
Vitaliy
And, usually when there are kids in crisis and they need, to have a Navy, it's the, it's the easiest way to start one if you only want to try once, which no one wants to try.
01:29:24:22 - 01:29:33:21
Vitaliy
Start starting a navy on the suffering in, and, basically I have to be the the one person doing that.
01:29:33:23 - 01:29:34:14
Sean
Yeah.
01:29:34:17 - 01:29:56:06
Vitaliy
Which, yeah. Makes me go through my own crisis on the inside. Every time. And it's so much harder than working in the cold situation when you're, you know, or trying to save somebody's life, even just because it's a child. And it's, Yeah, it's it's what triggers my stress personally the most.
01:29:56:08 - 01:30:06:02
Kyle
Now, circling back a little bit to the turning point, when you realized you were 300 pounds, have you heard of the the show? Like my 600 pound.
01:30:06:02 - 01:30:06:23
Sean
Life.
01:30:06:25 - 01:30:09:05
Vitaliy
I have, yeah. Have you seen it? No.
01:30:09:07 - 01:30:37:05
Kyle
There's always this consistent theme in that show. When these people step on the scale for the first time and see the weight, whether it's 500 or 600 pounds, and they always have this, like, rush of emotions and, this internal experience as if they don't believe it. But it's proof. Yeah. But to a viewer sitting on the couch watching the show, you're like, obviously you're 600 pounds.
01:30:37:05 - 01:30:37:17
Kyle
Look at.
01:30:37:17 - 01:30:38:10
Sean
You.
01:30:38:12 - 01:31:00:11
Kyle
So break down that experience a little bit psychologically. Like why was seeing the number on the scale such a turning point for you? You had already gone through so much as a kid. You had gone through ungodly suffering and and trauma and your your parents separating like so much had gone quote unquote, wrong.
01:31:01:13 - 01:31:07:04
Kyle
What was the what was it about this moment that seemed to be.
01:31:07:06 - 01:31:07:17
Sean
At.
01:31:07:20 - 01:31:13:11
Kyle
The bottom that you bounced off of? Why why then?
01:31:13:13 - 01:31:15:16
Vitaliy
Because you see, objective proof.
01:31:16:02 - 01:31:48:09
Vitaliy
I feel like when, you see yourself everyday in the mirror, you don't notice that you're gaining weight, for example. You're you're just making incremental gains of weight that are never noticeable. But when you step on the scale and, see the objective proof of how unhealthy you became, something on the inside changes and realizes that, okay, this is not acceptable.
01:31:48:12 - 01:32:19:09
Vitaliy
And, I should try to turn it around and the, you know, I'm not, Like, I'm hoping that, they're like, we don't make anyone feel bad about, their own weight struggles with weight. I feel like it's a sensitive topic. And, some people get bothered by it. Some people do not get bothered by it.
01:32:19:11 - 01:32:23:10
Vitaliy
But for me, it was more of,
01:32:25:02 - 01:32:32:08
Vitaliy
More of an important step to take in order to improve my health. Rather to, improve how I look.
01:32:33:00 - 01:32:58:17
Vitaliy
Because, I resisted the point to where I saw the weight on a scale that I didn't didn't, see anything wrong with the way I look. It's more of the objective. Proof that, my BMI is out of the healthy range, and I. I did not even think that it was as high as it was.
01:32:58:20 - 01:32:59:18
Sean
Now, what.
01:32:59:18 - 01:33:20:26
Kyle
Made it like, you know, because it could be a simple thing to look at the scale and be like, wow, I need to change. That seems like a logical approach. But then you carried with that to losing 40 pounds to end up joining Muay Thai and losing 120 pounds like you, you took it all the way in the other direction.
01:33:20:28 - 01:33:39:04
Kyle
Do you feel like that was like a personality trait? What was the motivating factor to it not just being a transient emotion where, you know, you tried for a little bit, but then adversity kind of like shut it down and you ended up kind of staying back and not pushing as far as you did.
01:33:39:06 - 01:33:39:16
Sean
Yeah.
01:33:39:16 - 01:33:50:26
Vitaliy
I can't, I don't think it's possible to answer the question because, I feel like I owed the whole process to people that were around me.
01:33:51:11 - 01:33:58:21
Vitaliy
Or ended up in playing an important role in helping me, get to where I am right now, where.
01:33:58:23 - 01:33:59:04
Kyle
Some of those.
01:33:59:04 - 01:34:38:15
Vitaliy
People, for example, one of the assistant coaches, from my high school football team, he was in charge of coaching the linemen. And, I tried to quit a couple times. I'll be honest about that. It was really hard for me, and, a couple times I did not show up to practice, and he called me, and, he asked me what's going on, and, you know, I told him, it's freaking hard, and I'm, you know, I'm going through, through hardship, and it's it's really difficult for me to keep going.
01:34:38:17 - 01:35:10:08
Vitaliy
And, he said the things that I probably needed to hear the moment. I don't remember what they were, but, I came back to practice, and, and with time, I just realized that I, you know, I proved to myself that I don't need to quit because I can handle, the hardship and stress and, it's probably, maybe there is an internal trait that comes with it.
01:35:10:11 - 01:35:41:04
Vitaliy
And that's why we desire to, you know, climb the hardest, imaginable mountains and objectives and not take the easy out, the easy way out. And just like, what Sean said in the beginning of the podcast, you see the, the challenging thing ahead. And, instead of, thinking that I should take a trip to Hawaii and, drink my ties on the beach, I want to do that.
01:35:41:07 - 01:35:49:02
Vitaliy
I want to risk frostbite and hape and, and suffer with like minded people.
01:35:49:06 - 01:35:50:00
Sean
Yeah.
01:35:50:02 - 01:35:54:01
Vitaliy
And then you you end up meeting each other, and you're like, whoa.
01:35:55:02 - 01:35:58:04
Vitaliy
Why does it take so long in the.
01:35:58:04 - 01:36:09:14
Kyle
In the same light where Sean was talking about, processing grief and the presence of others, where it was presence without judgment, do you feel like the coach almost served a similar.
01:36:09:14 - 01:36:10:14
Sean
Role.
01:36:10:16 - 01:36:30:18
Kyle
Where it was presence without judgment? It was the coaches. Like, I understand where you are. I'm not judging you. But at the same time, we can do this and you can be better. And like, I'm here to help you like it was. Do you find that phrase presence, that judgment, applicable to the circumstances that the coach played in your development
01:36:30:26 - 01:36:39:13
Vitaliy
That's a really interesting question because, I feel like on our, football team, we definitely had, the good cop, bad cop.
01:36:41:15 - 01:36:59:10
Vitaliy
Pivots between different coaches. We had, our head coach was suffering the bad cop. And, his approach would be, you know, I curse you out. You know, you look no good sack of shit. Just harden the fuck up and.
01:36:59:13 - 01:36:59:28
Sean
And don't.
01:36:59:28 - 01:37:30:18
Vitaliy
Be a bitch. Yeah. And, the other coach that would, you know, call me when I was just like, oh, my God, this is too much. You know, too much strain. I've never heard this before. Would be the good cop. And, it's funny because, when you asked me that question, I realized that I actually started, assisting him when he became a head coach at a different high school.
01:37:30:18 - 01:37:42:23
Vitaliy
They became his assistant head coach, and he wanted me to play the role of bad cop, bad cop. When our players and,
01:37:45:02 - 01:37:49:16
Vitaliy
So I think maybe there was some of that.
01:37:49:18 - 01:37:50:22
Sean
There. Yeah.
01:37:50:29 - 01:38:06:08
Vitaliy
Yeah. But I feel like both parts were essential. Yeah. And, helping you to, get over some of your weakness, but then not break you down completely, but just enough so that you can improve.
01:38:06:10 - 01:38:21:10
Kyle
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Understanding that where you're at is not acceptable, but also knowing that, like, it's okay to feel where you are, but like, let's build a foundation to grow towards this. We both understand that we need.
01:38:21:12 - 01:38:27:19
Vitaliy
Yeah, you've got to be pushed. But you cannot be broken completely.
01:38:27:25 - 01:38:48:06
Kyle
You also, I mean, your your story accessing climbing where you, you know, essentially hiked Mount Rainier as your first time Shasta in Shasta as your first time camping ever. Yeah. Had a big epic. You know, that whole story to me just showed you have this gusto for just, quote unquote, going for it.
01:38:48:08 - 01:38:50:13
Vitaliy
I wouldn't say that. No, no, I would.
01:38:50:19 - 01:38:54:02
Kyle
Was it just you had no idea what you were even getting yourself into.
01:38:54:03 - 01:38:56:27
Vitaliy
Exactly. Okay. Yeah.
01:38:56:29 - 01:38:57:26
Sean
Okay.
01:38:57:28 - 01:39:39:28
Kyle
But it seems like even after the fact, like, the, the objectives that you're choosing now, the things you're going for now, it has this element of just like, I believe I can do it, I'm just going to go for it. Like, do you resonate with that experience at all? Like do you feel like I mean, even even as a kid, you know, seeing that weight on the scale and making that mental switch of, I'm going to go for this goal of healing myself like you, you have a vision, you have this drive, you have this, passion for like, chasing something that's not real or some vision that's out of reach.
01:39:40:00 - 01:39:52:20
Kyle
To me, I'm trying to grasp at some sort of congruence there, with, you know, the child fatality and kind of who you are now. Like, do you feel like I'm. I'm reaching somewhere that's familiar to you?
01:39:52:23 - 01:40:13:00
Vitaliy
Yeah, of course I, I think there's more complexity to it, than that because you need to have a certain level of going for it attitude to say yes to things. But you also have, to have enough patience and, humility in order to survive.
01:40:13:17 - 01:40:22:00
Vitaliy
And they feel like with time, it took me a while to figure out what is an acceptable level of risk.
01:40:22:03 - 01:40:43:04
Vitaliy
And it may be a totally different, acceptable level of risk based on an objective and how important the objective is to me, and to my partner in our progression. However, I feel like it is important to not.
01:40:43:06 - 01:40:52:17
Vitaliy
To call that go for it attitude in your daily practice of climbing, in order to get to the big objective.
01:40:52:20 - 01:40:53:13
Sean
If.
01:40:53:13 - 01:41:11:23
Kyle
with the level of of suffering. I guess you could say that you've dealt with as a child early on. Do you feel like you struggle with like a any sort of elements of depression from the past, or have you completely processed that?
01:41:11:25 - 01:41:23:01
Vitaliy
It's a difficult question to answer as well, because, at one point I told my mother, that I feel sorry, that I am alive.
01:41:23:22 - 01:41:46:20
Vitaliy
For most of my childhood, I. I did not want to be, like, to be alive. I did not want to go through, the suffering of basically getting through another day of having my bandages ripped off and.
01:41:46:26 - 01:42:14:22
Vitaliy
Yeah, having medication poured on my, you know, burning skin. It was just a bit too much. And, I feel like even after I moved to the United States and I overgrow all these problems, I became a lot further after the football team was done. You know, I, I don't think I was that happy in the relationships.
01:42:14:22 - 01:42:42:26
Vitaliy
It. Would people that I had in my life, when I was, in college, because I just never felt like I fit in. I never felt like I belong, and I feel like when I found the outdoors, I no longer, have the feeling that I have to act a certain way to belong. Give.
01:42:42:26 - 01:42:53:17
Vitaliy
That makes any sense. I feel like when I am out, in the nature, I can just be myself. And that's.
01:42:53:20 - 01:43:04:11
Kyle
Well, I can imagine, especially in high school and college in America, it's going to be hard pressed to find anybody that could relate to what you went through.
01:43:04:13 - 01:43:04:26
Vitaliy
Yeah.
01:43:04:26 - 01:43:11:27
Kyle
And how are you supposed to have a personal connection with somebody that is on completely different plane fields of existence?
01:43:11:29 - 01:43:13:01
Sean
And.
01:43:13:03 - 01:43:15:08
Kyle
I can see that being a big struggle for sure.
01:43:15:11 - 01:43:36:06
Vitaliy
But I was no, I was no longer, you know, I did not need anyone to relate to what I went through as a child. I was just in a similar kind of a, at that point in college, I was already and moved on, and that was in party scene. And, you know, I worked as a bouncer and,
01:43:37:17 - 01:43:44:20
Vitaliy
You know, I had plenty of friends that got killed by now or went to jail for a long time because.
01:43:44:20 - 01:43:45:10
Kyle
Of the lifestyle.
01:43:45:10 - 01:43:57:02
Vitaliy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just never felt like I fit in that lifestyle. And, I was really happy that I found, the thing I truly love. You know, in the end.
01:43:57:04 - 01:44:00:23
Kyle
What kept you alive when you were a child?
01:44:00:25 - 01:44:01:09
Vitaliy
I have no.
01:44:01:09 - 01:44:02:17
Sean
Idea.
01:44:02:19 - 01:44:04:22
Kyle
It's just an attempt to take your life.
01:44:04:23 - 01:44:23:23
Vitaliy
No and no, I, I I never had a plan. I, I guess, I was just really good at suffering and, by choice and not by choice. No, you know, it feels a lot better when you do it by choice.
01:44:23:25 - 01:44:53:15
Kyle
Yeah, it is interesting. Like you were talking about, John. We were talking about survival. And you said you alluded to like an animalistic experience. And where it wasn't justifiable. It wasn't logistical. It wasn't like some sort of, thought process of like, this is why I want to stay alive. It seems similar in your case where you're a child, you don't, you know, all you know is suffering, and yet you still have this passion to live, even though you technically don't want to.
01:44:53:15 - 01:44:59:26
Kyle
It's this weird mental place to be in. Yeah. Our survival instincts are pretty strong. It's pretty wild.
01:45:00:03 - 01:45:00:14
Vitaliy
Yeah.
01:45:00:18 - 01:45:35:20
Sean
A people feels like the I mean, not wanting to live is most of the time not wanting to be in pain. And that's a means to that end. Yeah. So is very I very much understand not wanting to have, you know, bandages ripped off and your entire childhood. Right. The like it's the. Yeah, it's the similar interminable aspect of of it as well where you don't know where the end is.
01:45:35:20 - 01:45:37:02
Kyle
That's the thing.
01:45:37:05 - 01:45:42:09
Sean
You know, if you can't, if you don't see where it, where it gets better then. Yeah.
01:45:42:09 - 01:45:46:14
Kyle
Yeah. Suffering without an end date is a damnable sentence.
01:45:46:17 - 01:45:48:20
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.
01:45:48:20 - 01:45:55:13
Kyle
Yeah. You both kind of went through that in your own way. In your own way, own timelines, own mental processes.
01:45:55:15 - 01:46:07:28
Vitaliy
In the same time I understood that if I tried to take my life, my mother would be going through a even a bigger crisis than I am going through. Probably.
01:46:08:05 - 01:46:08:24
Sean
Yeah.
01:46:08:26 - 01:46:11:22
Kyle
She went through her own world of suffering to keep you alive.
01:46:11:22 - 01:46:15:15
Sean
Yeah, yeah. Wild.
01:46:15:17 - 01:46:53:14
Vitaliy
And it's interesting how people in general have, we adapt, to our hardships. And, a new kind of hardships may, feel like tragedies. And then, like, for example, if somebody has been working under climbing project for two months and they didn't send, on their, you know, when they peak. Yeah. It could feel like a freaking tragedy, as it is for somebody who has, you know, bandages getting ripped off their skin every day.
01:46:53:16 - 01:47:00:14
Vitaliy
Yeah, it's all perspective. Yeah. Humans are really interesting, and we are really good at adapting.
01:47:00:17 - 01:47:02:06
Kyle
And we're also good at suffering, too.
01:47:02:07 - 01:47:02:25
Vitaliy
Yeah.
01:47:02:28 - 01:47:07:01
Kyle
In all forms and capacities. As much as we like to complain about it.
01:47:07:03 - 01:47:07:27
Vitaliy
Yeah.
01:47:07:29 - 01:47:09:28
Sean
Yeah, yeah. That's wild.
01:47:09:28 - 01:47:28:06
Kyle
Quick aside. If you're anything like me, you want climbing gear that's durable, stylish, and actually comfortable. No one wants to deal with blown seams, tight hip mobility, or fabric that deteriorates after a single chimney lives and makes the most stylish and durable outdoor apparel on the market. And their Eco Trek Trail pants are literally the best climbing pants I've ever worn.
01:47:28:07 - 01:47:52:11
Kyle
They're comfortable, flexible and packed with thoughtful features a built in drawstring, a phone pocket, an innovative leg roll up system, and stitching designed specifically for movement. Plus, there's a 30 day money back guarantee so you can buy them, try them, and if you still don't like them, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get 15% off your next pair of Eco Trek trail pants by using the link in the description below and using code TCM 15 at checkout.
01:47:52:14 - 01:48:01:21
Kyle
That's a link in the description below, and using code TCM 15 at checkout. And remember, every dollar spent and lives in is a dollar spent supporting this podcast.
01:48:01:21 - 01:48:15:02
Kyle
ultimately, I'd like to, to pivot here and kind of involve both of you in this, in this conversation of, of partnership and, talk to you, talk to us about, like, how you guys met, what was your first climbing experience, like together?
01:48:15:10 - 01:48:21:29
Kyle
And ultimately, we're, you know, obviously going to lead this into, your time, India and Patagonia.
01:48:22:01 - 01:48:45:01
Vitaliy
And so I, the way we met is through a friend of ours, John Jingleheimer. And, Sean was climbing with John at a local drive to learn Crag. Sean and John also worked on the The Penitent Path, which is this giant, dry toll route that they put up together, which, Sean was talking about earlier.
01:48:45:03 - 01:49:14:10
Vitaliy
And, after a little bit of, talking and, meeting up in the gym one more time, I knew that, Sean. I fixed up, a lot of pictures on the penitent path, while working on it as a project. And, I was curious to check it out. One of the reasons I moved out to Utah was, to improve as, an alpinist.
01:49:14:10 - 01:49:50:22
Vitaliy
And, part of the, thing I wanted to improve was steep, dry tooling. And, another part was, endurance through trail running. So, when, Sean was getting close to finishing his project, and taking the, the lines down, he was nice enough to take me out, to play on his Frankenstein creation, which, which is an incredible route, a great addition to the local dry tooling scene.
01:49:50:24 - 01:50:23:26
Vitaliy
And, it was actually, it became it evolved into a goal for me personally to, red point this route and, I was, able to, do the second, free ascent with my friend Cole from Salt Lake City just, earlier a couple months back, or maybe even just two months back, because I think a lot has happened in the last month, and it feels like a whole year passed.
01:50:23:28 - 01:50:28:14
Sean
Yeah, it was probably October, so. Yeah, not very long ago. Yeah.
01:50:28:17 - 01:50:30:05
Kyle
You might. You guys met in October?
01:50:30:07 - 01:50:32:19
Vitaliy
No. We met a couple years ago.
01:50:32:19 - 01:50:33:10
Kyle
Oh, okay. Yeah.
01:50:33:10 - 01:50:39:07
Sean
So that would have been. Yeah. Just, you know. Yeah. 9 or 9 months after my.
01:50:39:10 - 01:50:47:24
Kyle
Accident is when you guys first met. Yeah. And it was about the dry tour out that you put up in terms of you. Yeah. We potentially climbing it.
01:50:47:24 - 01:51:09:06
Sean
Yeah, I, I had, I was basically getting close and you know, I kind of, you know, I knew of Vitaly, and, you know, he moved to Salt Lake and, you know, I was excited to. Yeah, get out with him. And, you know, it was super easy because I had. Yeah, fixed ropes on most of the pitches.
01:51:09:06 - 01:51:28:26
Sean
So we just went up in Michael Jackson and I sprayed him down with all the batter and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was helpful. Was a good, good working session. And we, you know, liked liked each other's company and history from there. Well.
01:51:28:28 - 01:51:37:04
Kyle
As you guys have progressed kind of in this partnership. So let's say, okay, you've had two and a half years of climbing together at this point.
01:51:37:07 - 01:51:38:00
Sean
Right?
01:51:38:02 - 01:51:41:05
Vitaliy
About two, two, maybe, maybe almost two two.
01:51:41:05 - 01:51:43:03
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
01:51:43:03 - 01:51:55:17
Kyle
And you guys, I mean we're going to get into this, but you guys had some pretty astounding objectives under your belt together now and time in the word partnership together. Yeah. So.
01:51:55:17 - 01:52:00:17
Kyle
I guess I'll ask you first. What do you feel like Vitale's strengths and weaknesses are?
01:52:01:20 - 01:52:28:17
Sean
I mean, he's he's got the endurance background. He's done his 100 miler and he's put in all the all the work for for that. And I have I've not done that. And, but, you know, I can, I can keep up mostly, but, he's, you know, if we really need, you know, somebody to break trail, he's probably the the better choice.
01:52:28:20 - 01:52:57:26
Sean
I really, actually have learned on our, descent off of secretary, that, he's really good at slinging blocks. To get off, you know, offer things. I just don't look at them the same way you do. And I was like, okay, I need to. I need to think about this differently. I need to look for these opportunities when we're, getting off mountain.
01:52:57:26 - 01:53:30:05
Sean
Because my first thing to look for is a V thread. And then probably, you know, leave some nuts, but, and, yeah, Vitale's definitely done a lot of big granite stuff. That, you know, he's got a lot of experience on that. And, so, yeah, have rock skills, endurance and, yeah, first ascent, getting off of things.
01:53:30:10 - 01:53:50:04
Sean
He's a lot of well-rounded, climber. But, Yeah, I guess I, you know, was working and doing great on, dry tooling and ice, but I think I tend to take that that role more often.
01:53:50:07 - 01:53:59:17
Kyle
Talia, what do you think? Shawn's strengths are. And where do you feel like your shortcomings are or his strengths, or where that balance and your guys's partnership.
01:53:59:19 - 01:54:09:15
Vitaliy
Definitely. Ice climbing is, Shawn's forte. His. It's it's like a fish in the sea. He is,
01:54:09:22 - 01:54:11:18
Kyle
So in the sea.
01:54:11:20 - 01:54:11:29
Vitaliy
Or.
01:54:11:29 - 01:54:13:10
Kyle
Efficiency.
01:54:13:13 - 01:54:15:11
Vitaliy
No. A fish in a sea.
01:54:15:18 - 01:54:16:27
Sean
He's in his environment.
01:54:16:29 - 01:55:05:05
Vitaliy
Yeah, it's his environment. Exactly. Is his natural, environment is ice climbing. Because, of the amount of time that he invested into it over the years, he did not mention it, in his introduction, but one of his interesting goals is to, solo the list of, favorite climbs by. Give us all the who is, one of the ice climbing legends and, I feel like, it's an incredible goal, which, you know, doesn't really have, a due date or anything like that, but, by now, how many routes have you soloed from the list?
01:55:05:08 - 01:55:14:09
Sean
So I've done about 75 of the 135 and soloed about 67 or so.
01:55:14:09 - 01:55:41:24
Vitaliy
Yeah, that's a lot of, like that. That's an insane amount of soloing on difficult ice climbs. And, so obviously whenever time is of essence and on the climbs that we do, Shawn would take the sharp and then he would be a safer, faster leader than if I am on the sharp end, even though I am able to.
01:55:41:26 - 01:56:14:16
Vitaliy
When you are trying to get through something as fast as possible, it's important that the better person, takes assumes the correct role. And, you know, part of the growth for a climber is to, realize that, you know, there are people who are better than you, than, at certain things. And, it's okay to, to allow them to, you know, get you closer to the goal.
01:56:14:22 - 01:56:17:29
Vitaliy
Yeah, in the quicker and safer manner.
01:56:18:01 - 01:56:22:17
Kyle
So it seems like we've got ice and mixed. We've got maybe.
01:56:22:17 - 01:56:24:01
Sean
Rock.
01:56:24:04 - 01:56:28:26
Vitaliy
I feel like. Yeah, exploratory climbing and rock and big wall shenanigans is,
01:56:28:29 - 01:56:32:10
Kyle
And survival and endurance.
01:56:32:12 - 01:56:36:21
Vitaliy
Yeah. Shawn is, a great rock climber, too. Yeah.
01:56:36:21 - 01:56:55:03
Kyle
Yeah. At least in myself when I, when I'm climbing, I find that learning from the partnerships that we have is, is very instrumental, because we can each act as mentors to each other. Where do you feel like you have learned from fatality?
01:56:55:05 - 01:57:34:27
Sean
Yeah, there's, expedition logistics was definitely a thing. We, with the with the India trip, I had not been on a kind of self-organized, exploratory expedition like that before. So, yeah, there was a lot of, you know, logistical pieces from their previous trip to India that were helpful. In making that work smoothly. Yeah.
01:57:34:29 - 01:57:39:22
Kyle
How about yourself? Italy. How are you? Feel like, Sean has has taught you as a climber, as a person?
01:57:39:24 - 01:58:16:28
Vitaliy
Well, I feel like I'm learning a lot, about ice climbing, from Sean. When it comes to climbing on a really, delicate, wet, ice that most climbers would not touch. As well as, I, I have a lot of respect for Sean as, an intelligent individual who is able to process things, that are stressful in the moment and, come up with a good level headed solution.
01:58:17:00 - 01:58:36:15
Vitaliy
And I feel like we make a really good team because both of us, process stress. Well, and are able to, able to basically keep her shit together when the things around us are falling apart, literally and not.
01:58:36:17 - 01:58:56:19
Kyle
Yeah. So, I guess we can get into any expedition in terms, because my next question here is like, what disagreements or differences have like strengthen your partnership? But it sounds like this in the expedition is a great way to answer that question. So yeah, I mean, let's just jump into that. You know, you've you two, you said you've been climbing together for two years.
01:58:56:21 - 01:59:17:19
Kyle
It seems like it's been a wild two years as a partnership already, with kind of, quite an unlucky expedition, in India and then quite the opposite in terms of an incredibly productive trip to, to Patagonia. So, let's dive into those two stories. Let's let's start with India. You know, it sounds like it was challenge after challenge.
01:59:17:22 - 01:59:34:19
Kyle
You know, you overcame a lot of them, but then ended up just being a bit too much to actually follow through with the objective that you had, in mind. So walk me through what happened. What was the objective? And kind of like, let's dive into that kind of step by step, experience of what that process was like.
01:59:34:19 - 02:00:24:24
Sean
So we got a cutting edge grant to attempt our shriveling, which is in the, Kishore region, Kashmir, in a north western, India. And, we, you know, went through some, visa issues, even before we left the country. Processing Vitalis mountaineering vs, the San Francisco embassy took a very long time, and we did not have it, the day before, we were meant to fly.
02:00:24:27 - 02:00:44:26
Sean
And Vitali, to his credit, flew out to San Francisco, went in person to the embassy to get to make his visa happen. Oh, wow. And, they they gave it to them, actually.
02:00:44:28 - 02:00:45:26
Vitaliy
Magic happens.
02:00:45:26 - 02:00:48:09
Kyle
Such or by force. Brute force.
02:00:48:13 - 02:00:50:20
Vitaliy
You know, no force.
02:00:50:23 - 02:00:51:03
Sean
Force.
02:00:51:03 - 02:00:53:20
Vitaliy
You have security guards bigger than me? No.
02:00:53:23 - 02:00:56:03
Sean
Yeah.
02:00:56:06 - 02:00:59:06
Kyle
Was there something specific about how you made it happen? Was it sheer.
02:00:59:06 - 02:00:59:23
Sean
Luck?
02:00:59:23 - 02:01:02:29
Vitaliy
No, no. Nothing specific. Just,
02:01:03:02 - 02:01:07:12
Kyle
Did your presence affect your risk? Like receiving of the process?
02:01:07:12 - 02:01:09:25
Vitaliy
Yeah, because I had to go in person because.
02:01:09:25 - 02:01:13:18
Kyle
You were there. You're like, hey, I'm here. Let's make this happen. And they're like, okay.
02:01:13:20 - 02:01:15:29
Sean
Yeah, I'm here and I'm flying tomorrow.
02:01:16:00 - 02:01:20:19
Vitaliy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an emergency situation. Please help us out.
02:01:20:21 - 02:01:21:05
Sean
Yeah.
02:01:21:05 - 02:01:30:15
Kyle
Whereas a lot of other people could possibly. We just been like, we never got it. Yeah. Ago you flew to San Francisco and tried to make it happen? Yeah.
02:01:30:17 - 02:01:31:15
Vitaliy
Exactly. Why?
02:01:31:16 - 02:02:10:09
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, with that fixed, we were, you know, we got on the plane, but, just before that, there was a terrorist attack in, Kashmir. Some guys basically went into a meadow, that was popular with Indian tourists and just opened fire. And, so they closed that area, and that was about 80 miles from where we were in a climb.
02:02:10:11 - 02:02:22:06
Sean
And we didn't know if that meant that we weren't going to get our permit because we mean, basically been told. Yeah, we're fine to go.
02:02:22:09 - 02:02:24:25
Kyle
You learned about this before you got on the plane or after you land.
02:02:24:25 - 02:02:37:02
Sean
As just a couple days before we got on the plane. And so we're like, okay, we may need an alternative. But we're going and we'll find something to climb to.
02:02:37:02 - 02:02:38:24
Kyle
Why this objective in the first place?
02:02:39:01 - 02:02:54:29
Vitaliy
I visited the area in the past, about a year prior to our expedition. And, I saw a striking line that I thought, it would would make for a really difficult, and inspiring objective.
02:02:55:06 - 02:02:55:12
Sean
Had.
02:02:55:12 - 02:02:58:26
Kyle
It been done before. Was it a I'm peaked? My line peak.
02:02:58:26 - 02:03:11:28
Vitaliy
It was a peak that has been climbed at least once to the summit, I believe once to the through summit. But the line that I was hoping we could attempt was unclaimed. So.
02:03:12:03 - 02:03:12:21
Sean
Oh.
02:03:12:21 - 02:03:39:12
Sean
you know, we show up. Yeah. We get word that. Yeah, it's not we're not going to be on the Kashmir. So, you know, the trains we have booked to, you know, kind of useless, all of our logistics kind of useless. We go to the IMF, any mountaineering foundation or whatever federation.
02:03:39:14 - 02:04:18:16
Sean
And I, you know, we've gone on the website and basically looked at what peaks are available and, you basically settled on, going to, an area that had, had an attempt on, on a line, the previous year. And, we, we thought maybe we'll, you can get on that line. Maybe there will be something else in the area.
02:04:18:18 - 02:04:55:23
Sean
But basically we went to, Chickamauga, which has four, summits, all around 7000m. And and, logistics getting there were also interesting, as basically had nothing planned. So it was you get in a car and then we'll get the hotel tonight. And I mean, we had a local logistics organizer, helping us.
02:04:55:25 - 02:05:24:11
Sean
But, you know, everything was sort of our pants, and we, you know, we got to the local, you know, the town nearby, you know, after and 12 hours of driving one day and, you know, lots and lots of windy roads, and we don't even have our. We're not even fully permitted yet because we need a local white provincial permit.
02:05:25:18 - 02:05:47:19
Sean
So we're, like, hanging around in town. I ate dinner one night, and, the dinner comes back up, many, many times over the course of the up. Not going up? Yep. Up. Not out. Well, both both both on both ends at the same time.
02:05:47:19 - 02:05:49:21
Kyle
We're talking like dysentery or.
02:05:49:24 - 02:06:19:23
Sean
I've had Jared's worst food poisoning I've ever had. Yeah, I was, and we. Yeah. And we. Yeah. So I was, I was vomiting and, you know, great way shitting myself for hours in, in a room in a town that I was tiny and we, you know, we'd basically this was like the last room available and privacy toilet didn't work.
02:06:19:25 - 02:06:29:07
Sean
So, you know, it's all made on top of vomit. I'll help of shit. Yeah, yeah. Just absolute terrible night.
02:06:29:10 - 02:06:38:02
Vitaliy
I learned a new term called Double Dragon. I believe it's not medical. I worked in the for a long time. I have never heard it.
02:06:38:04 - 02:06:41:19
Kyle
Yeah. You gonna start using that? You're like, yeah. You have the double Dragon.
02:06:41:21 - 02:06:43:28
Vitaliy
Yeah, exactly.
02:06:44:01 - 02:06:44:12
Sean
Wow.
02:06:44:18 - 02:06:46:02
Vitaliy
Nursing diagnosis.
02:06:47:02 - 02:06:56:01
Kyle
I mean, we're just. Yeah, we're talking about food poisoning. Probably, you know, contaminated water source or whatever. The typical mountaineering stories are.
02:06:56:03 - 02:07:00:28
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. You didn't get it out? No. Yeah, I had a different dish.
02:07:01:00 - 02:07:08:11
Kyle
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. What did you choose? I do you remember.
02:07:08:11 - 02:07:14:15
Sean
What it was? You know, mixed vegetables and paneer. What did you do? You know.
02:07:14:18 - 02:07:24:22
Vitaliy
I can't remember, but I think all the radiation in Ukraine, Mutated all the bacteria in my stomach. So I need.
02:07:24:24 - 02:07:27:09
Kyle
To have an inhospitable bacterium.
02:07:27:09 - 02:07:29:29
Vitaliy
Exactly. So this dies right away.
02:07:30:00 - 02:07:53:12
Sean
And many years of eating, you know, skewers of who knows what, rat or cat or whatever. Yeah. In China, after, you know, at like 2 a.m., after the bar and all, they had been. Wow. Yeah. This was this cat. Right. So interesting. And then. Yeah. And we only had one more day before we actually started hiking it, but like, everything got worked out.
02:07:53:12 - 02:07:58:08
Sean
And, you know, I got feeling okay enough and then barely restarted.
02:07:58:11 - 02:08:12:10
Kyle
Well yeah, I mean I like I, I'm getting prepared for like, you know, roots out here in Red Rock. I'm like, okay, I need to drink water the night before. I need to make sure I have enough calories and to make sure, like eat a bunch of rice. I might go to all you can eat sushi the night before, you know, like all these things.
02:08:12:10 - 02:08:18:08
Kyle
I mean, you're like, okay, I'm just about to not be dying. Let's start hiking our entire objective.
02:08:18:08 - 02:08:22:00
Vitaliy
Yeah, yeah, that's basically exactly how it went as well.
02:08:22:00 - 02:08:23:06
Sean
Yep.
02:08:23:08 - 02:08:28:12
Kyle
And so you're you guys are hiking in your ghost. What, what happened from there?
02:08:28:12 - 02:08:58:18
Vitaliy
Well, the objective that we ended up picking had a giant and, pretty dangerous glacier approach to get to the base of it. Part of the reason why we went as a team of two, on our expedition that was planned in advance is because we would not have to approach on an gnarly glacier. So there was a lot of planning that went into our planned trip, however.
02:08:58:25 - 02:09:01:07
Vitaliy
Yeah, to avoid increased danger. Yeah.
02:09:01:07 - 02:09:05:01
Kyle
And now you're in a position where you've forced to do what you tried to avoid.
02:09:05:02 - 02:09:48:18
Vitaliy
Yeah, exactly. And, all the experiences that I had on other expeditions, helped us come up with a good plan in order to not, not overwork ourselves. So the thing that we decided to do is, to, in order to acclimate, to move all of our climbing gear and camp, to the notch at the base of our, first, route of choice, which was this, 30 inspiring, Rock buttress that leads to a longer mix climbing, on the ridgeline.
02:09:48:20 - 02:10:29:06
Vitaliy
And, we acclimated for about four days, up above our base camp. And on the way, we realized that there's also a lot of objective danger, that's coming from, basically both sides of the valley, from different serac and avalanches, that are caused by warm temperatures. So we were able to pick up a line through the glacier that was mostly safe from, the wet slides and avalanches and rockfall and, make it into that cirque.
02:10:29:09 - 02:11:06:11
Vitaliy
We spent several days of high acclimating, and, we felt like we were in a really good position, to make an attempt. After risk coming down and resting. But after we did come down and rest for, about two days, there was, a big enough window for us to attempt something that. But it was cold enough that we would not be able to attempt, the climb that starts with the rock buttress where we would need to rock climb.
02:11:07:04 - 02:11:52:12
Vitaliy
So we picked a different, and climb 9000ft face. That was right by our base camp, which would not required this long approach to get through, a complicated icefall. So, the route ended up, having its own complexity that we were not expecting, because it was facing the sun. As soon as, the morning would come and it would get sun exposure, there would be plenty of wet slides and rockfall that we we, it is figured that we have to hide from till we reach about, 20,000ft.
02:11:52:14 - 02:12:20:10
Vitaliy
So we basically, ended up climbing at night, after spending, one of the first day hiding from objective danger, which was basically exploding out all around us while we are en route. Yeah. Well, well, we're we're just huddled on this ridgeline that we, that was a that had a safe spot for us to, wait it out.
02:12:20:10 - 02:12:21:22
Vitaliy
Joe. How.
02:12:21:22 - 02:12:22:02
Kyle
High was.
02:12:22:02 - 02:12:27:10
Vitaliy
At that point? About 17,500ft or so.
02:12:27:15 - 02:12:32:04
Kyle
And that was what percentage of the route in completion?
02:12:32:07 - 02:12:34:07
Vitaliy
It's hard to say. Maybe one third.
02:12:34:10 - 02:12:41:19
Kyle
Okay, so you guys got pretty high ish. Yeah, yeah. And you got to a point where you're like, we can only continue at night.
02:12:41:21 - 02:12:42:25
Vitaliy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:12:42:25 - 02:12:54:15
Kyle
What was what was the experience like with the rockfall on the icefall and hearing that all go on and still having the mental decision to continue forward.
02:12:54:15 - 02:13:07:00
Sean
yeah, we knew why it was happening. We saw it. And I think we, you know, we kind of saw the evidence coming up and were like, okay, we need to be careful of this. And then yeah, then the mountain started falling apart.
02:13:07:03 - 02:13:21:01
Kyle
And it explained that to me. Mountain falling apart. Like, what was that experience actually like. Like what kind of rough size of rocks. What kind of like debris. What are we talking about? Like actually coming off the rock around you?
02:13:21:03 - 02:13:24:09
Vitaliy
Well, it starts out from small,
02:13:24:11 - 02:13:24:24
Sean
Golf.
02:13:24:24 - 02:13:58:01
Vitaliy
Balls that are coming down maybe every, five minutes, and it progresses to larger chunks of ice that are coming down, more frequently. And then you start noticing wet slides. And it's really hard to explain a wet slide, but you can just imagine, if instead of, a waterfall, there's snow flowing down the, in the middle of this, like snow and ice colors.
02:13:59:01 - 02:14:40:14
Vitaliy
And then, it just gets bigger and bigger till, you have a significant, with avalanches coming down and, a large, you know, boring size, rocks or rocks that are as big as a refrigerator at, a certain point, it's, it just progresses to, the two things that could definitely kill you if you are staying in, in in the line of fire in those, snow colors, unless you either get under some sort of an overhang, a roof type of feature.
02:14:40:14 - 02:14:49:18
Vitaliy
Right above you, or, ideally onto a rock crib that is completely out of the line of fire.
02:14:49:24 - 02:14:50:29
Kyle
Sounds terrifying.
02:14:50:29 - 02:15:10:03
Sean
we were trying to find a safe spot, and. Yeah, it was, Yeah, I ended up like you were saying, or climbing for a sack, and I just kind of had to sit in, like, a less than ideal spot for a minute. And I was definitely into, like, getting a little bit anxious, a of.
02:15:10:03 - 02:15:16:10
Kyle
Symptoms around you or just because you knew what was coming, or potential of what was coming.
02:15:16:12 - 02:15:41:27
Sean
You know, as watching wet slides. Okay. As to mean like, you know, something, you know, bounced differently. It would come over to where I am now. So, I was just like, this is I know this is not a safe spot. I know I don't want to be here, but, you know, I have not so much control about whether I can get out of here until we, you know, tolya Vitali goes around the corner and finds the right spot and puts me on belay.
02:15:42:01 - 02:16:10:23
Sean
Yeah. But, you know, once we did that, we were we were out of it. And, yeah, there's. Yeah, some a little bit of just. Yeah. General, anxiety about like. Okay, well, we we expected some. You expected this to be less active than it was, right. Quite a bit. Yeah. So we yeah, we had to rethink things and.
02:16:10:23 - 02:16:32:14
Sean
Yeah, I had to basically. Yeah, start at night and move as fast as we could and like, hope that we were going to find somewhere protected by the time we got light. Like we had to, like, choose, you know, the next day, we, I mean, I think we started, like, 10 or 11 p.m.,
02:16:32:16 - 02:16:35:27
Vitaliy
I think it was around 11 or after 11.
02:16:35:29 - 02:17:07:22
Sean
And just, you know. Yeah. When as hard as we could, we got through the, the major, like, ice feature, at like 19,000ft and, like, found a little, little protected nook and dug ourselves a spot to sit out the day. And then once it was cooler again, you know, late in the afternoon and things weren't, more moving because it was basically south east facing.
02:17:07:22 - 02:17:30:06
Sean
So in the afternoon, it would, get less, get some shade and calm down. And then, yeah, we just went again till like probably 11 that evening. So we at, I don't think he slept the first night. You guys.
02:17:30:06 - 02:17:30:18
Kyle
Are climbing.
02:17:30:18 - 02:17:31:26
Vitaliy
To night to night.
02:17:32:01 - 02:17:41:22
Sean
A well, your day. The first night. Yeah. The first word. Afternoon. We're attempting to sleep. Yeah. And then the, you know, the second middle of the day and then.
02:17:41:25 - 02:17:50:17
Kyle
Yeah. How are you guys trying to pass the time? I mean, you guys must be so exhausted. It's just more just, like, sitting there. Just, like, trying to just be in a catatonic state.
02:17:50:23 - 02:17:51:25
Vitaliy
Is delirium.
02:17:51:25 - 02:17:52:05
Kyle
Larry.
02:17:52:11 - 02:17:53:04
Sean
Yeah.
02:17:53:06 - 02:18:20:03
Vitaliy
Yeah. The the funniest part about our second night, on the route was, we're trying to climb up to the ridgeline above this, ice, feature that we climbed earlier in the day, and, a large snow color, and it's dark. We're at the end of our, you know, endurance for the day. We're hoping to find, a baby at some point.
02:18:20:05 - 02:18:50:17
Vitaliy
And, there is an active lightning storm in the distance, so I, I'm, you know, I'm I'm really tired. We're at, probably 19,000ft. Did not sleep for, that's the third night of not sleeping. And, in the distance, I see flashes, every minute or so, like a very frequent. And, I don't know if they're getting closer or they're not getting closer.
02:18:50:19 - 02:19:28:12
Vitaliy
But I'm starting to question my sanity because, the, there is not a cloud in the sky. You can see all the stars, and I'm seeing flashes, coming from somewhere. But they were coming from over the ridgeline, and, you know, after you've gone through, you know, finding a safe spot to survive all the rockfall and avalanches, you, you know, you've been breaking trail and climbing vertical declines in the ice.
02:19:28:14 - 02:20:05:27
Vitaliy
And now you're you're potentially, might have to deal with a thunderstorm coming. So it was just, quite a lot for, for today's on on the route. And, in the end, though, we were unable to find the place to sleep, so we just chopped, alleged to be able to barely sit down and covered ourselves with, our sleeping bag and, basically just sat there, in that continuous state of delirium till there was some light.
02:20:06:01 - 02:20:06:15
Vitaliy
Yeah.
02:20:06:21 - 02:20:16:21
Sean
So we had, you know, we could watch heat lightning over it. Yeah, over the Himalaya, which is kind of cool, but yeah, yeah, views were good, but.
02:20:16:24 - 02:20:17:24
Vitaliy
Then we had each other.
02:20:18:00 - 02:20:19:16
Sean
Yeah, yeah.
02:20:19:19 - 02:20:22:28
Kyle
How far away were you from the summit at this point?
02:20:23:00 - 02:20:27:09
Vitaliy
Probably still another 4000ft.
02:20:27:12 - 02:20:29:14
Sean
Yeah. Wow.
02:20:29:17 - 02:20:49:09
Vitaliy
And, probably a bit less because, we ended up, making it to a beauty spot, an actually a nice baby spot about 2500ft from the summit. And the following day and then, ended up where just two days of,
02:20:51:09 - 02:21:10:06
Vitaliy
Of extreme wind, so we couldn't really go to the summit and then, on their first night, I also had the some horrible headache from, going up, gaining the altitude too fast and potentially due to several days of not sleeping.
02:21:10:09 - 02:21:18:28
Kyle
How was the wind, like, did it pick up gradually or the, like, you woke up one day and you're just like, this is a torrential windstorm.
02:21:19:05 - 02:21:46:24
Vitaliy
We were, hoping to, leave for the summit. And when we woke up, I can't remember what time to. In the morning, maybe later, maybe early here. It was we were in the fall on windstorm. Wow. And, at that point, the top of the peak is 7300m or just over. Over. It's 7300m or so.
02:21:46:26 - 02:22:17:26
Vitaliy
So over 24,000ft. And, you can't really function, at the high height with those temperatures, and wind chill by being what it is, or you're getting frostbite and, you know, you're putting yourself and your partner at greater danger without any, you know, chance for any sort of rescue. And you're not even, you know, you're not considering rescuers, an option if.
02:22:17:26 - 02:22:18:23
Kyle
You're choosing to go up.
02:22:18:23 - 02:22:20:05
Vitaliy
There, you're. Yeah. There's no.
02:22:20:06 - 02:22:55:06
Sean
Yeah. Choosing to go up there where like, we want both of us to feel good and we. Yeah. And conditions to be good. Like. Yeah. And you are not feeling good. Yeah. And the conditions were good. Yeah. But we, we stuck it out for a bit. We run like half rations. You're like. Yeah, we have a dinner and, see if we could extend this a little bit and, and wait for the wind to stop and give us a at least a day where we felt good enough and it was not so windy, but it just kind of kept being windy.
02:22:55:09 - 02:23:00:09
Sean
We knew that the weather was going to break down. So,
02:23:00:12 - 02:23:03:08
Kyle
We knew it was going to get progressively worse.
02:23:03:10 - 02:23:09:20
Vitaliy
And that's what the, the, wind forecast and the weather forecast was showing from, and that's usually.
02:23:09:22 - 02:23:14:21
Kyle
What wind entails, right? Usually it's the front of a larger storm.
02:23:14:23 - 02:23:22:04
Vitaliy
Yeah. Usually, you know, or it's some sort of a, heat wave or something, but, you know, changing in conditions.
02:23:22:04 - 02:23:22:28
Sean
Yeah.
02:23:23:02 - 02:23:53:21
Vitaliy
And at the point when, we decided to go down, we were, you know, completely all of our food and all of our fuel. So we can't even melt more water. We don't really have, you know, like our margin of safety, in my opinion, is, at the point where, like, if you don't have enough fuel and food or anything and, you know, all your resources are gone, you should not be sticking around and, playing Russian roulette up there.
02:23:53:23 - 02:23:56:21
Kyle
Yeah, maybe you make it to the top, but then can you even get back down?
02:23:56:21 - 02:24:09:12
Vitaliy
Yeah. Yeah. You don't want, to, you know, lose your life and potential and so on. On on the mountain.
02:24:09:15 - 02:24:36:29
Sean
Yeah. And the descent was still pretty involved. Yeah. Yeah, it we had. God, we come up, you know, up the face onto a ridge, and we could have gone back down the same way we came up. But that would have required a good bit more like climbing and, like down climbing and re kind of climbing across things.
02:24:37:02 - 02:25:02:18
Sean
Or we could go down basically a gully that starts straight from that notch where we buried. So, we chose to go straight down. But because it was. Yeah, more direct would have been, would was faster than going back the other way. But was new terrain, and. Yeah. Just had to. Yeah.
02:25:02:20 - 02:25:12:15
Sean
Go find anchors, figure out what what to repel off of and. Yeah, I mean, last for 5000ft. Yeah. How are you?
02:25:12:17 - 02:25:22:08
Kyle
How are you other than the threads, how are you repelling that many vertical feet without running out of gear?
02:25:22:11 - 02:25:25:25
Sean
Or a day or making double propels, at least.
02:25:25:28 - 02:25:28:04
Kyle
So we're covering as much distance as possible?
02:25:28:04 - 02:25:58:05
Sean
Yeah. Where we are using the threads as much as possible. Which there was, I would say more, more than half of our anchors ended up being B threads. They took some digging to find, but, yeah. Otherwise it's, you know, digging in the rock to find something. Place to put a nut, or pin.
02:25:58:05 - 02:26:00:02
Sean
Ideally.
02:26:00:05 - 02:26:03:20
Kyle
You say a pin is more ideal than a nut.
02:26:03:23 - 02:26:12:27
Sean
Well, nuts. Probably better because you have more of them. Or you can carry more of them with for less weight and,
02:26:12:29 - 02:26:18:03
Kyle
And you guys go on, like, ley talk style, like single nut repels, like, back up the first one, you.
02:26:18:06 - 02:26:19:02
Sean
Back up and.
02:26:19:04 - 02:26:23:08
Kyle
Put the first one on it. Yeah. And then see if it's good and then pull it back about.
02:26:23:11 - 02:26:23:17
Sean
Yeah.
02:26:23:17 - 02:26:30:18
Sean
we brought enough gear. We didn't, we didn't go like super light, I guess.
02:26:30:20 - 02:26:32:23
Kyle
Are you guys prepared to aid climb at all?
02:26:32:25 - 02:26:35:12
Sean
No, I don't get out of line. No.
02:26:35:14 - 02:26:38:19
Kyle
What's your ethics on you listen to Paul Ramsden episode.
02:26:38:19 - 02:26:39:08
Sean
Yeah.
02:26:39:10 - 02:26:48:09
Kyle
What's your ethics in? Because he is like, no aid, no support. Everything you carry with you, no bolts, nothing left behind.
02:26:48:09 - 02:26:50:07
Vitaliy
I think he's okay with aid.
02:26:50:07 - 02:26:55:21
Vitaliy
yeah, but in the same time, I, I feel like,
02:26:55:23 - 02:26:56:09
Sean
When.
02:26:56:09 - 02:27:04:07
Vitaliy
You repel from the mountain, you end up leaving nuts and pins. So you are still leaving things behind?
02:27:04:08 - 02:27:05:16
Sean
Yeah.
02:27:05:19 - 02:27:07:02
Vitaliy
So so his.
02:27:07:02 - 02:27:12:10
Kyle
I actually, I had never thought about that. So his ascent ethics are different than his decent ethics.
02:27:12:10 - 02:27:14:20
Vitaliy
Yeah, in a way, they have to be.
02:27:14:20 - 02:27:19:17
Sean
And, Yeah, it's hard to hard to have an ethic that. Yeah, I feel like you're.
02:27:19:24 - 02:27:23:28
Kyle
You're you're like, about the place. And now you're like, yes, I'm dying. Fly off, I guess I realize.
02:27:23:28 - 02:27:26:17
Sean
Yeah, that's your choice. Yeah.
02:27:26:24 - 02:27:33:01
Vitaliy
I feel like ethics shouldn't, get, away from logic too far.
02:27:33:21 - 02:27:59:01
Vitaliy
And, in my opinion, if you are climbing something that is so hard that it requires you to, you know, hand drill, a quarter inch bolt on lead when you are, you know, climbing out, you know, 30ft run out an M7. Like, I feel like that's a pretty respectable thing to do.
02:27:59:03 - 02:28:14:20
Vitaliy
Versus, you know, protecting your M4 would. Would be tons. It gets still, it could potentially still lead to, a fixed piece.
02:28:15:20 - 02:28:43:12
Vitaliy
So no matter whether we like it or not, we leave a certain amount of gear on the peak from time to time, even though, you know, we try not to, but if you do not have any other anchors, aside from nuts and pitons or cams, you will have to leave or not, or piton or your whole body up on the mountain to get down.
02:28:43:12 - 02:28:50:12
Kyle
And that's well, to get down. But also like going up, you can't necessarily know exactly what the protection is like every step.
02:28:50:12 - 02:28:51:16
Vitaliy
Of the way. Yeah, yeah.
02:28:51:16 - 02:29:06:19
Kyle
You might be like, I want to get up there. But then you get up there and you realize you're like, not down coming back down there and it's either like, I put this piton in or I put this quarter inch in and protect myself moving forward or I die. Yeah, it's like
02:29:06:19 - 02:29:06:23
Sean
that.
02:29:06:27 - 02:29:15:24
Vitaliy
There's a big difference between murdering the impossible and, making bolt ladders up blank faces and,
02:29:15:24 - 02:29:36:07
Vitaliy
and using the fair means tactics in order to climb a really difficult route on the, on the big mountain. Yeah. And and everyone can have their own ethics. I feel like in alpine climbing, we will never have a consensus.
02:29:36:09 - 02:29:47:04
Vitaliy
And it would be a boring world if everyone believed the same thing. So I feel like, as, a different people, we should just bring our own.
02:29:48:09 - 02:30:04:20
Vitaliy
Vision to the table. And then, discuss. Yeah, maybe talk about, why you think a certain, gear or level of aid is acceptable and why it isn't acceptable.
02:30:04:26 - 02:30:06:05
Sean
Yeah. What are your.
02:30:06:05 - 02:30:11:01
Kyle
Thoughts been on, ethics when it comes to first descents and big mountain climbing?
02:30:11:01 - 02:30:41:10
Sean
Yeah, I think I would. I go off, it's always saying and it's, I mean, realistically, it's a hell of a lot more fun not to go ape climbing, or make boat ladders or, you know, like, I'd much rather like, you know, try hard and fail or just, you know, run up things that are, easier rather than do the things that are, you know, more ethically questionable.
02:30:41:10 - 02:30:43:14
Sean
Anyway, it's actually less fun.
02:30:43:21 - 02:31:01:17
Kyle
Yeah. It's like the the Royal Robins versus Warren Harding kind of mentality. You're not going to go purposely choose a face that is obviously going to be. Yeah. So difficult where you're going to have to put a bunch of fixed hardware in. It's like, let's pick the the face. It makes the most sense for our skills and the most sense for the free ability.
02:31:01:23 - 02:31:12:23
Kyle
But if I find myself in a situation where the difference between me being alive or coming off the mountain is a pin or a rivet like, then that decision needs to be made to either get me on or off.
02:31:12:23 - 02:31:17:14
Vitaliy
And I have a tremendous amount of respect for Paul Ryan then I loved his podcast.
02:31:17:16 - 02:31:17:26
Sean
Yeah.
02:31:17:26 - 02:31:37:20
Kyle
It was wild to hear his stories. It was the first time I had ever thought about the, the, the concept of like a first descent because he's not only getting up to the top of these mountains, he's having to find a way down them for the first time ever to. Yeah. And I mean, like everyone says, like, the most dangerous thing about mountaineering is getting off the mountain.
02:31:37:22 - 02:31:54:21
Kyle
And so like to to not even know how you're getting down off of this mountain in the first place is like such a wild concept. And it's cool that you guys both found yourself in that situation as well. Having to essentially do a first ascent off of this face that you guys had intended to climb. That is pretty wild.
02:31:55:02 - 02:32:07:17
Kyle
So, yeah, I mean, you guys obviously made it down, you know, an unsuccessful summit. But, you know, you guys don't seem to.
02:32:07:19 - 02:32:15:28
Kyle
I don't know, distraught by the, the unsuccessful summit. Or is that based off of a level of processing that you guys have gone through up to this point?
02:32:16:12 - 02:32:35:07
Vitaliy
Well, it's more complicated because, after the unsuccessful summit, it was on, our plan B peak. We still came back to our plan A, but discovered that all the climbing gear and our tent that we fixed.
02:32:35:09 - 02:32:36:04
Sean
Up up,
02:32:36:12 - 02:32:42:05
Vitaliy
At the base was completely gone. And, so we lost a ton of gear.
02:32:42:05 - 02:32:45:03
Kyle
You got back to your home base to find everything gone.
02:32:45:05 - 02:32:54:03
Vitaliy
Well, we know we came back to our, base camp. Yeah. We waited out storms for close to two weeks.
02:32:54:03 - 02:33:18:05
Vitaliy
And then we came back to the objective that we went to, that the whole area for where we, stashed our tent and, our climbing gear and the all of that was gone. After a really difficult, approach on, on that glacier that we would rather not travel twice in the same day.
02:33:18:07 - 02:33:42:21
Vitaliy
And, yeah, we got to about 18,000ft, from our base camp at 14,000ft. And it was all gone. And we we don't even know if it was taken out by the wind or by an avalanche that covered it. But we tried to dig in the spot that was marked with the GPS, and we coordinated their photos to where the tent was fixed.
02:33:42:21 - 02:33:45:28
Kyle
So it was unrecognizable. The area.
02:33:46:02 - 02:33:47:24
Vitaliy
Well, it's just.
02:33:47:24 - 02:33:52:02
Sean
Like new evidence that we had the tents there. Yeah, basically it.
02:33:52:02 - 02:33:54:04
Kyle
Was theft and like, an element.
02:33:54:11 - 02:33:55:26
Sean
No. Nobody's there.
02:33:55:28 - 02:34:02:06
Kyle
Okay, so so the area you were in was no longer the area that you had been there before. Something had changed.
02:34:02:06 - 02:34:42:20
Sean
the, it's either like, we I mean, we we had stash stuff, you know, before we went up on, you know, the plan, the route. And that's when we had our windstorm. Right. So it's possible it blew away at that point, or it's possible during some storms in the interim. Wow. But, yeah, I mean, we we tried to, you know, I mean, we stick to town and we had, you know, a rope and a double rack in there and like, some, of a lot of stuff that doesn't fly very well.
02:34:42:22 - 02:35:08:11
Sean
So I just was surprising not to have it there. And then. Yeah, we basically we went up the icefall that, you know, we didn't want to we wanted to minimize our travel through and then. Yeah, with, you know, eight days of food. Wow. And then we're like, well, okay, now our plans are entirely changed for the millionth time.
02:35:08:13 - 02:35:38:20
Sean
And we're going back to base camp. Wow. And then, yeah, we basically had the perfect weather window to do our, our actual objective, which was quite warm. And so our program be objective. That's an ice climb, was our only option. And we were like, well, it looks like it's still there. We guess we'll we'll give it a go.
02:35:38:20 - 02:35:40:06
Kyle
Oh my gosh. You went back up on it.
02:35:40:06 - 02:36:01:19
Sean
We went back up on it. Oh my God. And we got up to, you know that about a third of the way up and, you know, so we're sitting we're sitting out the day and it's really hot. Like we're actually like overheating in the tent, in, like, my base layers, in the sun. In the sun.
02:36:01:19 - 02:36:07:27
Sean
Yeah. And we're, like, looking at the ice. And really, this doesn't look as good
02:36:08:07 - 02:36:28:27
Sean
for sure. And then a little later in the day, we're like, this doesn't look like it looked like three hours ago. No. Wow. So, Yeah, it was falling apart as we were, like, looking at it. Wow. You're a, you know, very easy decision at that point.
02:36:28:28 - 02:36:39:00
Sean
It's like, okay, well, I guess we're just gonna stay in camp until it's safe to go down. And then when it's dark and ready to go down. Yeah.
02:36:39:00 - 02:37:00:03
Kyle
So explain that vision to me a little bit more because, I'm, I'm trying to picture this environment that you're in, the Himalayan, Indian mountain, Himalayan mountain, and you're talking to me about this frozen landscape that is melting in front of you. Like, try to paint that picture for me a little bit more like, what is that experience like?
02:37:00:06 - 02:37:04:18
Kyle
What environment is that actually like to be sitting there looking at.
02:37:04:20 - 02:37:07:02
Vitaliy
Scary.
02:37:07:04 - 02:37:13:25
Kyle
Like I mean like, are you looking at like icicles on a house dripping and melting like shit, falling off everywhere, like.
02:37:13:28 - 02:37:15:00
Sean
It's it's like a
02:37:15:00 - 02:37:18:21
Sean
500ft tall and 100ft wide.
02:37:19:04 - 02:37:30:21
Sean
And it's, you know, you you're looking at it and you're like, okay, there's a black hole in the in the middle of this. That's the rock underneath.
02:37:30:28 - 02:37:40:13
Sean
Where the ice basically peeled off this, this rock. And then you just see more and more sections that look like the holes.
02:37:40:13 - 02:37:41:08
Kyle
Are starting to show up.
02:37:41:08 - 02:37:43:10
Sean
Holes. And. Yeah. And, and.
02:37:43:15 - 02:37:46:03
Kyle
So I would imagine water is running down. You're seeing.
02:37:46:03 - 02:37:59:17
Vitaliy
Yeah. You see water running down. You see big avalanches sliding in the wet above it. Yeah. You, you see a lot of rock fall through the day. Wow. Oh yeah. The whole mountain is basically falling apart.
02:37:59:19 - 02:38:01:14
Kyle
And in such a large scale.
02:38:01:17 - 02:38:02:23
Vitaliy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:38:02:24 - 02:38:04:20
Kyle
Like, probably pretty hard to describe.
02:38:04:27 - 02:38:07:00
Vitaliy
Yeah. It's overwhelming.
02:38:07:02 - 02:38:09:05
Sean
Yeah. Wow.
02:38:09:08 - 02:38:23:14
Kyle
Wow. So you guys, He bailed. You went to your original objective. All your shit was gone. Went back down, back up. The plan B objective just to get shut down again by weather. Yeah, that would have been perfect for the original. Yeah.
02:38:23:20 - 02:38:27:09
Vitaliy
Yeah, exactly. It's like a dagger in your heart.
02:38:27:11 - 02:38:30:12
Sean
This. Yeah.
02:38:30:14 - 02:39:02:24
Vitaliy
But I'm really, quite happy with how we handled every challenge along the way. And, we faced it would logic and, you know, level head and moved on to the next step. And when the next steps shut us down, we turned the corner and tried to take another fork. And, when the fork was closed, we turned around and, you know, he came back, he made a U-turn and tried something different.
02:39:02:27 - 02:39:19:26
Vitaliy
And when, everything failed, we decided that it's time to, go to Delhi and go sightseeing and eat some good food. Hopefully avoid the double dragon coming back. And, and move on to the next thing.
02:39:19:28 - 02:39:20:14
Sean
Yeah.
02:39:20:14 - 02:39:49:03
Vitaliy
Because, you you can't be. I mean, it was incredibly sad, but, you can dwell on it for too long because you understand that you are making the right decisions. You are doing your best to stay alive and not, you know, not get hurt. And also just enjoy being in a different country and, you know, you know, that you're not getting your bandages ripped.
02:39:49:06 - 02:39:49:19
Kyle
Yeah.
02:39:49:23 - 02:39:58:01
Vitaliy
From your skin. You're you're actually doing something for fun, even though, you know, obviously in the moment it's a struggle.
02:39:58:03 - 02:39:58:26
Sean
You know.
02:39:58:28 - 02:40:21:01
Kyle
How much? So you guys are so far away from home. Uranus. So you've worked so hard to get to the place you're at just to start the objective. How much of that plays into the psychological aspect of like, mountaineers decision to put themselves in more risk than they should, because it's like for me, going out to Red Rock, it's really easy for me to boom.
02:40:21:01 - 02:40:43:26
Kyle
It's like, oh, right, yeah, I'll go home. You know, it's like it's 15 minutes away. You guys are, like I said, so far removed that I would imagine there's that level of. Like dedication and, and, you've gotten yourself so far where you start like the decision to not do it becomes so important. It's so weighted.
02:40:43:28 - 02:41:20:25
Vitaliy
Yeah. I feel like it was very telling that it took us about two hours to decide that the ice climb that was completely falling apart, is our final stop. Yeah. You know, we we we try to figure out if we can go around that, if, it's going to get more frozen at night. If we were, you know, if we saw the same scene, six hours away from home, there would not be even a discussion that's longer than a minute like this.
02:41:20:25 - 02:41:45:07
Vitaliy
This is not safe at all. We are going down, when it gets cold enough. But, yeah, after you spent, you know, a month and a half from your life and, we didn't even talk about it, but, the cost of our trip doubled. So it was, instead of $3,000, it became six and a half per person.
02:41:45:10 - 02:41:49:25
Vitaliy
So, because of and go into a different area with.
02:41:49:26 - 02:41:51:05
Kyle
All the change of objectives.
02:41:51:05 - 02:42:10:02
Vitaliy
Yeah, change of objectives. And, porters in that area charged a lot more money. And they had minimum for the number of days that, they charge you for, for example, we hiked out in one day, from our base camp. But they charge you for four days.
02:42:10:05 - 02:42:11:14
Kyle
Regardless of how long it takes.
02:42:11:14 - 02:42:13:18
Vitaliy
Yes, yes, I.
02:42:13:18 - 02:42:15:29
Kyle
Better be cooking your food for four days or.
02:42:16:02 - 02:42:45:04
Vitaliy
No. Well, if I feel really bad for them, too, because they are, you know, they're doing hard work. So I feel like they should earn their pay. And, you know, they're probably charging totally appropriate prices, but it just on our end, that's the, the the the price tag is what we see on our end. Right. Like our total price tag from what we planned for versus what we got.
02:42:45:06 - 02:42:54:05
Vitaliy
And, it makes you, you know, still more upset about the whole situation that you're in than you're not even sending the investment.
02:42:54:11 - 02:42:56:15
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
02:42:56:15 - 02:43:34:07
Sean
yeah. It's easy to. Yeah. To let the costs of everything factor into yeah. How you make decisions. But yeah. Yeah. There's an initial like emotional weight to the decision. And then I think a little more of the logic gets through, and you just have to work through the initial disappointment. Before committing to doing something more stupid, you know?
02:43:34:09 - 02:43:48:13
Kyle
Yeah. What would you say? Like. Because there's definitely stories of people like continuing onward in that same exact circumstance. You know, having been the people who chose the other direction.
02:43:48:14 - 02:43:54:26
Kyle
Like, what kind of things drive a human to put themselves in unnecessary risks in that situation?
02:43:55:04 - 02:43:57:03
Sean
You go.
02:43:57:05 - 02:44:01:14
Kyle
Purposelessness. Like, why do you feel like people do that.
02:44:01:16 - 02:44:01:28
Sean
For like.
02:44:01:28 - 02:44:08:26
Vitaliy
Lack of understanding of the risks? Also add up to poor decision making.
02:44:10:18 - 02:44:50:24
Vitaliy
Ego could, of course, play a role. Ego plays a role in all of our decision making. But it's important to be aware of that present and yeah, yeah. In my opinion, most of the, accidents that come out due to poor decision making and, you know, summit fever, are usually due to a lack of understanding of the consequences and, lack of education about potential for, things to go wrong is at this point, I've read, you know, and I'm sure Sean did the same.
02:44:50:24 - 02:45:19:21
Vitaliy
So much literature, I've heard so many stories about people making bad decisions and, not turning around when they were supposed to. So I feel like it makes it easier for us to make the decision to turn around in a time where climbing is not, you know, not safe at all. Yeah, and could lead to tragic consequences.
02:45:19:23 - 02:45:44:10
Vitaliy
And I don't think most people have a death wish. However, when I was a total beginner and my boxing coach took me, invited me to go climb Mount Shasta for my first time, and, neither of us brought a nice sacks or crampons because he said we don't really need them. There's not all that much, snow on the mountain.
02:45:44:10 - 02:46:02:16
Vitaliy
And I was just like, okay, it wasn't because we had some sort of a summit fever that we kept, you know, hiking up a fairly steep, snow slope. It was more of the lack of understanding of what we're getting ourselves into.
02:46:02:23 - 02:46:10:29
Kyle
It's hard to imagine that somebody in your shoes, in that exact position on that mountain, would also be in a position of not being educated enough about the risks.
02:46:10:29 - 02:46:46:18
Vitaliy
Yeah, there's a there's a really big, gap between, people who, you know, do guided expeditions on big peaks like Everest. And so on versus, really difficult technical routes on the big mountains in the Himalayas when you don't really have, you will not have anyone else to help you. Yeah. So, there's a lot of, carnage that happened, on the objectives like that in the past.
02:46:46:20 - 02:47:21:21
Vitaliy
And I feel like the more, we, you know, move on and progress in alpine climbing, the more people, will be safer with years and, taking on, lines that have less objective danger overall, I feel like that was a big part of my progression in alpine climbing because, when I got into it and, had a dream of becoming an alpinist, my first expedition was to climb in, Cordelia Blanca, in Peru.
02:47:21:23 - 02:48:03:09
Vitaliy
And, there was a lot of, objective danger from double cornices that, usually guard all the summits or most of the technical summits up there. And I realized that, in order to continue pushing, the difficulty of climbing in their range like that, I will have to significantly increase the objective danger. And I pivoted to, to making expeditions to smaller peaks in Patagonia that were a lot more technical, where I could learn how to be a better climber.
02:48:03:12 - 02:48:24:08
Vitaliy
Before or I, you know, pivot back and, go back to a go to a place like the Himalayas to take on, high peaks. That would be incredibly high, but also, hopefully technical enough that more of the objective danger is, is avoided.
02:48:24:10 - 02:48:49:18
Kyle
How have you dealt with, like, when you were up there and you had to, like, pivot away from continuing forward? Like, was it a big or like a big struggle for your identity and the objective? Like, how did you identify with, like pushing forward and how much did you fight for it versus like that feeling of just knowing that it's like, this is not the time to move on.
02:48:49:20 - 02:49:32:00
Sean
Yeah, I definitely felt the desire to succeed and to continue and to, give my best efforts to the objective and. Yeah, the the first feeling like this is not going to happen. Yeah. I'm questioning whether I'm just being soft. Yeah, right. Am I am I giving up too easily on this? And that's like, that's the easy criticism to give to in your in your own head.
02:49:32:00 - 02:50:14:25
Sean
Yeah. The, but most of the time it's not accurate. Most of the time you're actually listening to what, you know, to parts of you that don't speak so loudly. And, you know, the information is getting through and that's where the feeling is coming from. But, yeah, I definitely struggle with. Yeah, those, those critical thoughts and the, you know, the yeah, the trying to get you to keep going and give your best effort.
02:50:14:25 - 02:50:15:24
Sean
But,
02:50:15:24 - 02:50:24:03
Sean
treating that as, a separate part, you know, a voice in your head and not what you believe
02:50:24:23 - 02:50:50:01
Sean
about yourself is, you know, a healthy way of, dealing with it and giving your, more centered self, a way to, think through the whole situation rather than being reactive to, that kind of self-criticism.
02:50:50:07 - 02:51:25:15
Kyle
Yeah. It's interesting, almost like I think a lot of climbers, at least in, like, the general sphere of climbing, are dealing with like overcoming fear. But it seems like to be in the position that you guys are in. You guys are almost so far past that general sense of overcoming fear that it's actually the opposite. It's it's like I need to actually listen to the fear that I've learned to suppress all these years, and now it's the time to actually know when to listen to the fear, and and realize that it's there for a reason.
02:51:25:17 - 02:51:43:11
Kyle
I think that they are like the, the common trope that most of us beginner climbers are dealing with is like, overcome fear, overcome fear. You can do it. Don't be afraid to whip. You know, it's like all these things you hear about, but in your guys's situation, it's like, okay, maybe we actually should be a little afraid here, and maybe we should use it to to stay alive.
02:51:43:14 - 02:51:52:05
Sean
It's funny that it's so context dependent, too. Yeah. Because you can, I'll still have the same, you know,
02:51:52:05 - 02:52:20:18
Sean
fear over piece some time. Is rock climbing, right? That I wouldn't necessarily have if I'm the same level of run out on a mountain, or if I'm, I, you know, looking at, at an objective hazard. Where I think there's a level of dissociation that is adaptive in
02:52:20:18 - 02:52:44:23
Sean
in high altitude mountaineering, but that it. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily exist in all situations and the. Yeah the the contrast of yeah being you know, being afraid on, you know, the you know, rainbow wall but not being afraid over, you know, in India can exist in the same person.
02:52:44:23 - 02:52:46:16
Kyle
Yeah. That is interesting.
02:52:46:18 - 02:52:47:24
Sean
It's a weird,
02:52:47:26 - 02:52:49:29
Kyle
A weird space for sure.
02:52:50:04 - 02:52:59:20
Kyle
Before we move on to Patagonia, do you both feel like there's anything, we missed about the trip to India that was pertinent to the story? Or your guys? It's progression.
02:52:59:22 - 02:53:03:28
Vitaliy
If we feel like we with. You said a lot, and it was a.
02:53:04:03 - 02:53:05:07
Sean
Very.
02:53:05:09 - 02:53:07:18
Vitaliy
Accurate and complete.
02:53:07:18 - 02:53:09:29
Vitaliy
Representation of that trip.
02:53:10:01 - 02:53:33:01
Kyle
Good. Yeah, I know it's important, I think, to, you know, I think athletes have a pretty hard time feeling like they can share about their, their failures or it becomes trite to even share about the failures, because then it's like I'm sharing about my failures, you know, it's like, if you guys suck. Although even even more than that, it's like you're almost like, I don't know.
02:53:33:01 - 02:53:49:26
Kyle
It's like you're, glorifying this aspect of climbing that shouldn't be glorified. It's like this weird space to be in. So but I totally understand, what that's like. So I appreciate you guys being able to even to share about the story because it's just human, you know, we're all climbers. We all.
02:53:49:28 - 02:53:51:11
Sean
We all go through.
02:53:51:13 - 02:53:55:04
Kyle
Non successful objectives both in climbing and in our lives.
02:53:55:04 - 02:53:56:04
Sean
And
02:53:56:06 - 02:54:05:20
Kyle
You know, it's it's kind of a, a common trope, but we all learn a lot more from our failures usually than we do our successes. So, yeah, I appreciate you guys sharing those stories.
02:54:05:20 - 02:54:24:27
Kyle
Winter is here and you need to start thinking about your base layers. Choosing the right base layers is critical, and hot chilies has been the leader in technical base layers for over 30 years. They are made from an innovative blend of spandex and polyester, designed to feel buttery soft like cotton, yet provide all the benefits of performance materials, striking the perfect balance between warmth, comfort and flexibility.
02:54:24:28 - 02:54:47:11
Kyle
I recently climbed rock Warrior in Black Velvet Canyon, a wall that gets next to zero sun this time of year, and my hot chilies micro base layer system kept me super warm at the blaze and cool enough to stay focused on my lead. And believe me when I tell you, these things are soft like crazy soft. Plus, there's a 60 day moneyback guarantee so you can buy them, try them, and if you still don't like them, they will just give you your money back.
02:54:47:11 - 02:54:59:29
Kyle
Right now, you can get 15% off at Hot Chili's by going to the link in the description below and using code TCM 15 at checkout. That's the link in the description below, and using code TCM 15 for 15% off at checkout.
02:54:59:29 - 02:55:03:23
Kyle
But Patagonia seems like the the opposite end of the spectrum.
02:55:03:23 - 02:55:04:14
Sean
yeah.
02:55:04:17 - 02:55:23:25
Kyle
Not like India was planned and executed. And like, all of these things you tried to have control over, and it all went just foobar and followed Patagonia. Seems like there was no planning. There was a last minute weather weather window, and you had all this shit to do and you had no plan and you just went for it.
02:55:23:27 - 02:55:34:09
Kyle
And that has ended up that whole circumstance ended up in being, you know, a successful mission, which is quite funny. But yeah. Like what what was that experience like? Let's, let's dive into that story.
02:55:35:02 - 02:56:09:00
Vitaliy
And the to give your audience some background. I have spent, a couple of seasons in, Patagonia and Patagonia is a huge area. So we're talking about, the area around El Shelton in Argentina. Most people, know of Mount Fitzroy, also called Shelton, for Smoking Mountain. And it is on the logo of, the famous brand Patagonia.
02:56:09:02 - 02:56:44:29
Vitaliy
So that ridgeline is, a fairly iconic. And, there are a very awesome climbing routes and all of those peaks. And, in my opinion, the mountains around El Shelton are the most striking and most beautiful in the world. Especially the ones that are connected to Sarah. Tori, which is the ridgeline that is just west of the Fitzroy Massif, which is the first, ridgeline that you see from El Shelton.
02:56:45:02 - 02:57:08:22
Vitaliy
And, it is a really difficult, place to get a weather window for climbing. The wind is notorious, and it usually, shuts down, most weather windows, much sooner than predicted. Most weather window's fall apart, more often than you.
02:57:08:22 - 02:57:45:21
Vitaliy
We know you hope. And, it is a really complicated place to climb because, there isn't much of a rescue that you can expect. Aside from it, are there climbers that are in the area, when you are there? And, it just most of the routes are big, complicated and, with the weather factor, it gives you only a really small safety margin in order to, completing the objective.
02:57:45:23 - 02:58:15:15
Vitaliy
Usually when you go there for a season, you, you learn a lot about, the conditions and, weather forecasting. And you want to give yourself some time, before you start attempting, some of the bigger objectives. And, I would advocate, for people to take it slow if the choose to go and climb in those mountains.
02:58:15:18 - 02:58:48:25
Vitaliy
And I would highly recommend everyone to visit, but I going there as, climbers, backpackers, photog, photographers. It's one of the more stunning, places around the world. And, probably, one of the few towns where I would love to spend the rest of my life just because, of how, incredible. It is overall, there's even some good bouldering and sport climbing around town and incredible bakeries.
02:58:48:28 - 02:59:05:03
Vitaliy
But I think, know we want to talk about climbing here. Both Sean and I love food. And, after, we went climbing there, we probably spent four days, eating in different restaurants, which are quite good.
02:59:05:05 - 02:59:10:09
Kyle
Sean, do you share, Italian's passion for l'échelle town and the Patagonia massif?
02:59:11:20 - 02:59:41:18
Sean
Now for sure. I, I had basically been, you know, worried about the weather down there and spending, you know, if I went down there and spent a month and got no weather windows. Kind of disappointed. I know that's kind of the generally the, you know, the entry fee, you go down, you put your time in and you hope to get a window.
02:59:41:21 - 03:00:18:26
Sean
And you adapt your objective to the window. Not the other way around. So I had never gone. And yeah. Wasn't sure if I would but yeah, if, you know, if you find another window like this, I'll definitely go back. And, I had a. Yeah, an amazing time. Yeah. It's a it's an amazing place with the incredible views and the, but as much steak as you can eat.
03:00:18:28 - 03:00:20:17
So, Yeah.
03:00:20:20 - 03:00:23:21
Kyle
And so what was the objective? What were you guys down there for?
03:00:23:23 - 03:01:06:19
Vitaliy
So to give a little bit of a background is, I was, waiting for a weather window in Canada to attempt the first ascent and one of the big peaks and the Canadian Rockies with another, couple friends of mine. And, I ran an idea of, going to shorten if we do not, get the weather window for the peak in Canadian Rockies, which we did not, but on a random, evening after Sean drove, from Yosemite Valley, we scrambled up, a peak in our Wasatch Mountains.
03:01:06:19 - 03:01:39:29
Vitaliy
And, that evening, probably around 9 p.m., I checked on the weather in, around Secretary, and, I saw a window that could potentially last a whole week. Which was really exciting, but, also really intimidating because, it was starting on the following day or, like, there was not much time to plan, think.
03:01:40:01 - 03:02:04:08
Vitaliy
And, Patagonia is not a place where you can go with an actual plan in mind. So I asked a friend of mine that we were, on the stand by for climbing in the Canadian Rockies and it was, too quick of, you know, a turn around to go to, to Argentina. You on the to tomorrow?
03:02:04:08 - 03:02:05:18
Vitaliy
Yeah. Not a lot of people say.
03:02:05:18 - 03:02:06:17
Kyle
Yes to that.
03:02:06:20 - 03:02:33:29
Vitaliy
And I personally I personally was, not convinced myself. And what I did was I reached out to, the person, Rolando Ghorbani, a she wrote a guidebook for, for climbing in Patagonia, and, I knew he an expert, who spent a lot more time there than I have. And I wanted to confirm with him, what he thinks about this window.
03:02:34:01 - 03:03:02:01
Vitaliy
And, you know, in the morning, I got a text message from him saying, like. Yeah, well, it looks like a really good window. If you can make it there, like today, it would be great. So Sean and I had a plan to go, climbing, that morning, and, I, I didn't know how to approach the subject before I called him.
03:03:02:04 - 03:03:35:26
Vitaliy
So I, I decided to be very straightforward, like, hey, I'm seeing a really good window in, El Sol area. I don't, you know, I can guarantee that it will be great, because I've been there and I've seen windows fall apart as well. But I contacted Rolando. He also thinks that it's looking good. And, if you are interested, we have two hours to book her flights and pack.
03:03:35:26 - 03:03:37:03
Wow.
03:03:37:06 - 03:03:46:20
Vitaliy
And he was. He he probably thought for about 30 seconds and, then decided that he is interested. But what a.
03:03:46:20 - 03:03:51:23
Sean
Little. There's a little processing. Okay. So, yeah, this is he is asking that.
03:03:51:28 - 03:03:53:14
Kyle
It sounds serious.
03:03:53:16 - 03:04:09:18
Sean
Okay, so send me the weather. I, I mean, I guess I was really planning on, you know, resting after Yosemite. I was kind of burnt out and wanted to be home in my own bed.
03:04:09:18 - 03:04:12:05
Vitaliy
But you spent about a month in Yosemite, right?
03:04:12:06 - 03:04:13:02
Yeah.
03:04:13:05 - 03:04:17:29
Vitaliy
And, he was coming back to to rest from the climbing trip.
03:04:18:01 - 03:04:19:05
Yeah.
03:04:19:07 - 03:04:20:28
Kyle
Rest on the plane, I.
03:04:21:01 - 03:04:38:10
Sean
Yeah, the yeah, that's how it turned out. And it was just well, I mean, it looked it it was. Yeah, it was 8 or 9 days of wet of good weather and I'm, I, I don't know if I'll ever get this again.
03:04:38:13 - 03:04:40:29
Kyle
Impulsivity is a good skill to have.
03:04:41:02 - 03:04:42:06
It's. Yeah.
03:04:42:09 - 03:04:42:25
Kyle
I think you.
03:04:42:25 - 03:04:44:18
Sean
Have an entire.
03:04:44:21 - 03:04:44:27
If.
03:04:44:27 - 03:05:05:27
Sean
I. Yeah I yeah with neither of us have done this anything like this before. Yeah this was definitely the most impulsive thing but it, it checked all the boxes to make sense I guess because we're both unemployed and looking at a weather window.
03:05:05:27 - 03:05:09:13
And why?
03:05:09:16 - 03:05:16:18
Sean
Yeah, if we the you mentioned the traverse and I was like, yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah.
03:05:16:18 - 03:05:21:01
Kyle
So what's this objective? It has stirred such, impulsive move for the.
03:05:21:01 - 03:05:22:06
Both of you.
03:05:22:08 - 03:05:55:14
Vitaliy
So I, I could not to come up with one objective because I knew that we could get there and, we could have, conditions for mix climbing only, with no rock climbing, potential. Or it would be too warm and we would have to rock climb. So when we came there, I brought up an objective of, trying to get on the tour to traverse, which has only been done twice ever.
03:05:55:16 - 03:06:13:18
Vitaliy
I believe it was done on the first ascent to by Colin Healy and roll on the Garibaldi. The guidebook author, and then, Colin Healy and, Alex Honnold. So I was hoping we would, get the first human ascent of the.
03:06:13:20 - 03:06:44:07
Vitaliy
Of the full traverse. But the beautiful thing about that goal is that you can, you can try to climb up the first peak of the traverse. Sarah. Standard, by an ice route or a rock crowd? So as long as we come prepared, we can be flexible and, we can basically make good decisions. And, in case we can only ice climb, we do that, we rappel off.
03:06:44:09 - 03:07:08:13
Vitaliy
And then we, do another route on Sarah Torah, which, you know, getting to summit, in a single weather window in. But they going there is incredible. When I went there for a month of my life, and, if you get a summit in the month or two summits in the month, it's considered to be a great trip.
03:07:08:21 - 03:07:48:21
Vitaliy
Wow. Usually, but, the great thing about, the traverse idea is, that you have all these peaks lined up in the row, and you don't have to, you know, deal with approaching the same peak multiple times so you can just, cheat and, get from white or one to another, quicker. And, fortunately for us, when we got there, the conditions were safe enough to complete the ice route and, cold enough, and warm enough, that we could rock climb on, on the other peaks that follow.
03:07:48:21 - 03:07:57:00
Vitaliy
And so we got incredibly lucky for the first, couple days of our, of our attempt.
03:07:57:02 - 03:08:22:28
Sean
Yeah. Which is kind of odd for this time of year as well, because it's generally a little. We went early and then we went before the main summer down there. Yeah. Which is when. Yeah. December to February is generally when generally in season. So this was we didn't exactly we didn't know what to expect. In terms of conditions.
03:08:23:00 - 03:08:41:17
Kyle
And so is this one of those stories where like, you know, a lot of the stories we hear in climbing, it's like it's always about the epics and like all the stuff that went wrong. And that's where, like, all these complicated topics that we dive into end up being. But then it's funny, like these, these stories that happen that are just perfect.
03:08:41:17 - 03:09:06:00
Kyle
Like everything just lines up. It's like there ends up not being a lot to really dive into because it's just like we, we kind. Is that kind of like a similar thing here or, or are there like particular elements to this ascent or this climb that you did that like was like striking to you, like moments of flow, moments of like, like what were the standout moments to this objective that you both shared?
03:09:07:09 - 03:09:10:16
Sean
I think, all of the routes.
03:09:10:18 - 03:09:12:07
Were.
03:09:12:09 - 03:09:26:11
Sean
Had some incredible climbing on them. Yeah. We got to climb, you know, less than body width, wide ice. Up a huge chimney.
03:09:26:13 - 03:09:27:12
For.
03:09:27:15 - 03:10:22:02
Sean
You know, 800ft on Cerro Standard. We got to, bivvy on every summit that we did. And, you know, we had amazing rock climbing going on. Punta heron, that route is, you wish it was so much more accessible than it is because, it would be classic anywhere. What kind of, I it's these crazy flakes that are solid enough, and you're just, you know, doing cool long reaches between flakes, and there's, like, Waco features, in the wall, and then it turns into splitter crack climbing.
03:10:22:05 - 03:10:55:07
Sean
And then. Yeah, goes back into flakes and back into splitter. And then you have to do the, you know, I overhanging ice climbing through rim tunnels to the summit, like, it was you know, the ice features are part of the, you know, amazing part of the, story range because the the Fitz skyline is pretty much is mostly dry on top where the Tories have the summit mushrooms.
03:10:55:09 - 03:11:07:21
Sean
And so that was, you know, otherworldly formations and, just. Yeah, crack to ice. Klein ice.
03:11:07:21 - 03:11:09:12
Climber.
03:11:09:15 - 03:11:24:27
Sean
And then, you know, and in the rock being so, so amazingly good. Yeah. It's, you know, it heard tell of, you know, how good the rock was down there, but it's. Yeah, it's better than Yosemite. Wow. Some of it's.
03:11:24:27 - 03:11:26:03
Vitaliy
Flowing with water.
03:11:26:05 - 03:11:28:29
You know? Yeah. You know. Yeah.
03:11:28:29 - 03:11:45:20
Sean
You get, you get use, you get time get you first couple moves and yeah, you get used to it. And you know, you do. You do your little point of aid and you know, you clean all the rhyme out of the cracks and then you, you know, you still get a walker finger jam, wet crack, which is still, still.
03:11:45:20 - 03:11:46:19
Kyle
Just still psyched.
03:11:46:19 - 03:11:49:08
Us. It's amazing. Yeah.
03:11:49:08 - 03:11:55:15
Vitaliy
You know what I love? When you look in Sean's eyes. Do you see this excitement?
03:11:55:23 - 03:11:59:02
Kyle
Yeah. Well, yeah, he really lit up when he started talking about the Gavin.
03:11:59:04 - 03:12:00:25
Sean
Like, climbing. Yeah.
03:12:00:27 - 03:12:21:03
Vitaliy
This is exactly what I love about climbing is, you know, doing something that you did not expect to do where, you know, finding people that you weren't meant to meet otherwise. And, you know, having these experiences that just come out of nowhere and, and change your life in some way.
03:12:23:08 - 03:12:23:12
What.
03:12:23:12 - 03:12:28:15
Kyle
Was your experience like through the climbing of these three peaks that you got to stand.
03:12:28:15 - 03:12:28:29
On?
03:12:29:02 - 03:13:00:09
Vitaliy
That's a dream come true on this trip, because, I've probably spent two and a half months of my life, and, I've Scholten and, It's luck did not align with a large weather windows. And though I, you know, I was able to climb all the peaks, on the Fitzroy skyline, and, I was really close to getting to the top of Saratoga on two occasions.
03:13:00:11 - 03:13:16:15
Vitaliy
It's a complicated place where, I would never want to try Secretary on a big, warm window when, unlike a lot of people that end up, doing it on those windows because of the increased subjective danger.
03:13:16:17 - 03:13:17:18
But if.
03:13:17:20 - 03:13:20:02
Kyle
People choose it because there's more rock climbing.
03:13:20:04 - 03:14:01:16
Vitaliy
No, people choose. It's the worst, face route, the most people summit Saratoga from, which is, quite the difficult endeavor. But on, longer weather windows, it becomes into a big, centipede of, people, fixing the rope for the party below them. And it's, basically kind of that kills the adventure. And also, the increased amount of rock and icefall, causes, a big, danger for the climbers on their way down.
03:14:01:16 - 03:14:02:11
Vitaliy
Usually it's.
03:14:02:11 - 03:14:04:13
Kyle
Wow, there's so many people doing it.
03:14:04:15 - 03:14:36:02
Vitaliy
Well, yes. As the number of, competent climbers, rises, the number of people who are able to climb really difficult routes also rises. And then, like, on the good window sometimes, you have parties that probably shouldn't even be there, making it to the top because somebody, next up ahead to fixing their line and it sort of kills the adventure.
03:14:36:05 - 03:15:07:06
Vitaliy
But the problem that I faced is that we, my partners and I ended up, attempting, the tour on, you know, a pretty tight window that would last only for 24 hours or so. And, it usually gets shut down close to the summit. But, yeah, I've been looking at these, peaks on the Tory ridgeline for, for all those days that I spent in North Charleston dreaming about, being up there.
03:15:07:06 - 03:15:28:12
Vitaliy
And it was, a dream of mine to be on top of Tora Eiger, which is considered to be the, the hardest peak in the range. And, it's perhaps my favorite peak, because of all the stories that they heard about it from, an older climber, who did the first ascent of it, named Jim.
03:15:28:12 - 03:15:58:23
Vitaliy
Danny, is, a really great guy that, you know, I, I, I'm really lucky to, know personally and climb in Indian Creek Wood, when he was still able to get out, so it was, like living in the dream and connecting to this person on a different level that I can't describe his, you know, there's not that many people that have the experience of having the views from Torigo, for example.
03:15:58:23 - 03:16:09:14
Vitaliy
And it was, you know, more about having that experience of being there rather than, you know, the conquest of a climb or anything like that.
03:16:09:17 - 03:16:09:26
Yeah.
03:16:10:02 - 03:16:38:02
Vitaliy
And, in the end, our trip didn't end up going totally perfectly, but it went, better than I anticipated in the beginning because I thought that we will probably be able to climb a peak, but I didn't know we would be able to climb three of them. And, you know, having a very good chance to, climb Secretary.
03:16:38:02 - 03:17:06:16
Vitaliy
But, when we got to the base, we quickly realized that, it got to warm on that day, and, we had to make another difficult decision to turn around, which, yeah, we quickly understood that it was a good decision because, the ice blocks of, you know, of significant size were starting to come down and blast the area around us.
03:17:06:16 - 03:17:08:13
Vitaliy
So,
03:17:08:15 - 03:17:12:22
Kyle
Yeah, this is summit mushroom of Secretary ever actually fully come off?
03:17:12:25 - 03:17:45:26
Vitaliy
No, no, it's a crazy formation because it reminds me of, like, imagine an ice fall, like glacier. Glacier tracks that are on top of a vertical spire, like these face of secretaries 5000ft. And you have this, like, serac, like, ice spire on top is covered in, in rhyme, which comes from Rudy or. Yeah. Yeah.
03:17:45:26 - 03:18:09:28
Vitaliy
It's like a very wet, frozen substance that is not like snow. But, you know, if you're trying to swing into it with an ice ax, it will not support your weight. So you almost like to climb it. You have to dig deeper and chimney, inside the mushroom. Or if you're Sean aides.
03:18:09:28 - 03:18:10:14
Kyle
Right.
03:18:10:16 - 03:18:11:03
Vitaliy
Or it's those.
03:18:11:03 - 03:18:13:25
Kyle
Spades on your ice tools like shovel spades.
03:18:13:25 - 03:18:24:08
Sean
Yeah. Some people have. Yeah. Wings on wings. Yeah. You know, bolted to the to their picks. That would give you extra. Yeah. Searches.
03:18:24:10 - 03:18:39:06
Vitaliy
Yeah. But those, are really difficult to get in. You can rent them in Shelton, but we did not have any time for, you know, renting anything or even finding it. We barely had enough time to pack and get some food for.
03:18:39:08 - 03:18:39:17
For.
03:18:39:23 - 03:18:40:23
Vitaliy
A hike in.
03:18:40:26 - 03:18:42:10
While.
03:18:42:12 - 03:18:45:04
Vitaliy
We were on a really tight schedule.
03:18:45:04 - 03:18:48:09
Kyle
And so you personally have how many peaks do you have.
03:18:48:09 - 03:18:49:24
Sean
Left of the.
03:18:49:26 - 03:18:51:04
Kyle
Skyline left to.
03:18:51:04 - 03:18:52:08
Summit?
03:18:52:10 - 03:18:59:28
Vitaliy
On Fitzroy Skyline? They've climbed all of them. And on the observatory skyline, still had to get territory.
03:19:00:01 - 03:19:02:08
Wow. That's the last one.
03:19:02:11 - 03:19:03:11
Vitaliy
Yeah. Yeah.
03:19:03:11 - 03:19:05:15
That's wild. Yeah.
03:19:05:20 - 03:19:11:05
Kyle
Is that the, like, the crown objective that you've been focusing on or you will be focusing on recently?
03:19:12:02 - 03:19:15:13
Vitaliy
You mean in the future? Yeah. Yeah, I would love to.
03:19:15:26 - 03:19:26:27
Vitaliy
We can try the traverse in reverse, or maybe a new route on the east face or, you know, something interesting.
03:19:26:29 - 03:19:28:28
Yeah. Wild.
03:19:28:28 - 03:19:47:15
Vitaliy
But, you know, in the near future, we are planning to go back to India and, hopefully, see if we get lucky on a different trip. Maybe if we, visit the local monastery and ask for.
03:19:47:17 - 03:19:48:03
Kyle
Blessings.
03:19:48:03 - 03:19:50:29
Vitaliy
Ask some. Yeah. Ask for a blessing from a monk.
03:19:51:02 - 03:19:51:28
Yeah.
03:19:52:01 - 03:20:00:28
Kyle
Probably not a bad call. Sean, do you share, Vitale's passion for Patagonian climbing now that you've come back and experienced it for what it is?
03:20:01:01 - 03:20:30:13
Sean
Yeah. I want to go back and do Secretary. Yeah. For sure. And, yeah, I still have plenty of, you know, rock climbing to do in the on the Fitz side. So. Yeah, maybe, maybe I'll go put in the time and, you know, go sit in town and, you know, do, urn, urn, my peaks,
03:20:30:16 - 03:20:34:24
The normal way. Yeah.
03:20:34:27 - 03:21:01:01
Kyle
That's awesome. Guys, I'm glad you guys had such bipolar experiences. I think that's really cool. And, it's rad that you were able to experience the the positive side of it all and have everything work out, even though it was such a last minute objective. Seems pretty rare. The to have that all pan out. And so you guys, you guys, you know, bailed off of your secretary objective went back to return.
03:21:01:01 - 03:21:04:14
Kyle
And that was the end of the trip and you were back to your back to your lives.
03:21:04:17 - 03:21:05:08
Sean
That was it.
03:21:05:27 - 03:21:07:14
We.
03:21:07:17 - 03:21:35:04
Sean
You know, we had, we had two steaks each for dinner, when we got out and then, we went back to Buenos Aires and had a couple more steak dinners and so saw Buenos Aires, because that's all I had not, actually spent any time in the in there on his other trips. And so we saw, you know, saw the sights and, and then.
03:21:35:04 - 03:21:37:01
Sean
Yeah, come on the plane home.
03:21:37:03 - 03:21:37:29
Well.
03:21:37:29 - 03:21:51:12
Kyle
I was thinking about this recently, so I just got back off of, like, doing a larger weekend for myself, like, with Time's Up, and I did Rock warrior, and then I did, like, a big climbing out here in calico. And for, for me, like, three days in a row was a big day or a big weekend.
03:21:51:12 - 03:22:09:27
Kyle
And so, like, coming back to work, I'm just like. And I've got to, like, decompress. I've got to like, become. It's almost like two versions of yourself. Like there's the climber version of Kyle or I'm just like, so fully immersed in the experience. And I'm just, like, so immersed, in the movement and the flow and the systems and the objectives.
03:22:09:29 - 03:22:32:13
Kyle
And then at like on Monday, I had to, like, wake up and go to work and be like, work, Kyle. And like, I was sitting there on my office just like I'm like having a really hard time, like changing gears here. So I was thinking about, like, coming back from a trip, like you guys from India coming back from Patagonia.
03:22:32:15 - 03:22:54:27
Kyle
What is that transition like, coming back to, like, regular life? Like, is there a level of, like, a decompression? Is there a level of reintegration? Do you do you experience that duality of, of identity with like the climber version of yourself and the the normal life version of yourself? Like, talk to me about kind of like your relation to what I'm talking about.
03:22:55:00 - 03:23:23:11
Vitaliy
Or for me personally, I feel like it depends on if I am employed or if I am unemployed. Yeah. Because when I am unemployed, I, I have, different lengths of decompression and, dealing with jetlag and, being tired and allowing myself to feel tired and not worry about, you know, being at work. But when I am employed.
03:23:24:12 - 03:23:51:27
Vitaliy
I have to be at work and act like my normal self taking care of patients who are really sick. And, I feel like working in the E.R. helped me quite a lot with that because, sometimes you are brought into a cold situation to help your coworkers. Or if you are a primary nurse and you, you will have other patients to take care of as soon as that's done.
03:23:51:27 - 03:24:25:10
Vitaliy
So, after you have been working on a person that is passing away or has passed away, you don't even have, a minute to process what just happened, and you have to go back and, have a conversation with your other patient and ask them if their pain, is coming back and if I can be helpful to treat their pain, or if they are hungry and they want the sandwich.
03:24:25:12 - 03:24:39:29
Vitaliy
And, you know, have a conversation that is completely normal and doesn't reflect, that you were just involved in something very traumatic to any other person.
03:24:40:04 - 03:24:41:00
Yeah.
03:24:41:02 - 03:25:04:17
Vitaliy
And I, I feel like when it comes to decompressing from a trip, it's much easier, especially when it's a trip. Like Sean and I had one. We finish by eating steak for three days. It was actually quite nice to come back and, lay down next to my cats and, tell my wife, what just happened.
03:25:04:17 - 03:25:05:08
Yeah.
03:25:05:10 - 03:25:26:24
Kyle
Yeah, I think I guess the big thing there is, like, whether you have to, like, immediately plug back into some sort of job or role that you is required of you. Yeah. How so? You go through bouts of unemployment. Obviously unemployment is I got this derogatory term as in, like you're actively searching for a job, but unemployment could also just be by choice.
03:25:26:27 - 03:25:34:12
Kyle
And so do you go through seasons of work, like do you work per diem? Like how do you choose when or when you're not working?
03:25:34:14 - 03:25:59:25
Vitaliy
Or I never actually go on unemployment is and getting paid to be unemployed. But, I worked as a travel nurse for a long time, so I would, work for 3 to 6 months usually, and then take a month off to do an expedition. Because that would suit my, my ability to go on these expeditions.
03:25:59:27 - 03:26:25:12
Vitaliy
And, before our trip to India, I had the permanent position in the ICU where I worked for about a year and a half straight. And then, I left that job in order to make that trip happen, and, I I'm actually, I just got hired to, work in the same hospital again. The same department again.
03:26:25:15 - 03:26:47:08
Vitaliy
So I'll be coming back and, about, you know, a couple of weeks. Okay. But, I had a good conversation with our, new manager, and she will be okay with me going on the expedition. So it's it's going to probably allow me to have more of a stable career path ahead.
03:26:47:10 - 03:26:51:00
Kyle
Not having to fully quit. Yeah, having to look for a new job when you get back.
03:26:51:01 - 03:26:54:29
Vitaliy
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which is, I like, to have a stable job.
03:26:57:02 - 03:27:07:22
Kyle
How about yourself? You. When was the last time you, like, worked a 9 to 5 or, like, a a job where you were, like, generating income?
03:27:08:22 - 03:27:21:17
Sean
In the startup was, the RV things, like 2020 to 20 21 or 22. Okay. Yeah. So.
03:27:22:08 - 03:27:25:02
Sean
Yeah. Not not since then, not since then.
03:27:25:04 - 03:27:49:09
Kyle
That's awesome man. That's super, super cool. A unique and unique situation. And it's so funny, like you, you hear, you know, people on Instagram or people on the internet hear about people like you or Tyler Kero or even Tanner, and all these climbing projects as they do. And they're always like, trust fund kid, you know, or like, there's always some sort of easy way out for people to describe.
03:27:49:11 - 03:28:12:07
Kyle
The reasons why these people can climb, as much as they do. But it's so funny, like, there's always some sort of circumstance. And whether it's like, I take my time off and I like, schedule my work, or I made really smart investments that other people didn't think about or, you know, whatever the circumstances are, it's like there's always some sort of story there.
03:28:12:08 - 03:28:29:26
Kyle
And I would say it's probably very, very I've never met anybody that's been like, oh, yeah, I'm a trust fund kid. And I just climb all the time like I haven't met anybody like that. So, yeah, it's cool to hear everybody's individual, individual story, but in the end, I think it's all, a lot of just like prioritization, right?
03:28:29:28 - 03:28:36:23
Kyle
It's like, how can you structure your life and structure your time around these passions that we, we want to do? And I always support that.
03:28:36:25 - 03:28:39:28
Vitaliy
If you love something enough, you'll make it happen.
03:28:39:28 - 03:29:02:05
Kyle
So the price we pay for success is often invisible to the public. You know, everybody sees and hears about our territory. Objectives are the free solo, the the free rider. Like we hear about the final product, but we don't really actually hear about the sacrifices that we had to make to get there.
03:29:02:07 - 03:29:25:04
Kyle
You know, I guess we talked a little bit about kind of your foundations for kind of where you came as climbers in the beginning or as people in the beginning, but this isn't necessarily about like what traumas we went through. It's more about priority shifts. It's more about what we choose to sacrifice in order to create the time and space to do the things that we want to, to do.
03:29:25:05 - 03:29:34:14
Kyle
Right. So at what point in your lives have you felt like you've sacrificed something to be where you are now?
03:29:34:14 - 03:30:02:19
Vitaliy
I feel like I have sacrificed, a lot over the years, but when it comes to the number of hours a week that I'm trying to train or improve my, capacity to train, by learning a new skill, for example, like just picking up, trying to figure out the endurance aspect, and, fueling aspect during endurance activities.
03:30:02:21 - 03:30:21:19
Vitaliy
I was, I worked up to being able to, absorb about, 20 to 25 hours of cardio a week on top of all the climbing that I was doing. So, obviously it was sacrificing a lot of time and.
03:30:21:22 - 03:30:27:17
Kyle
Time, time spent training. And. Yeah, when you could have been doing what else?
03:30:27:20 - 03:31:11:16
Vitaliy
I could be doing other things that are more fun or, progressing at work, for example, in order to climb more. I'm currently going to be working a part time job, which I will be doing only twice a week instead of, you know, three times a week of 12 hour shifts. And over the years, probably sacrificed countless relationships, in order to continue doing what I love to do, romantic relationships with partners that, thought that they would be able to change me with time.
03:31:11:16 - 03:31:27:26
Vitaliy
And I would, invest more time into the relationship, rather than going on climbing trips. Yeah. I feel like, almost everyone that ends up.
03:31:29:14 - 03:31:52:20
Vitaliy
In love with a passion sport, like climbing ends up sacrificing, a lot in order to, you know, make it happen. And, yeah, oftentimes, you're also are doing really hard work or, things that other people would find very challenging. Instead of, you know, easy vacations and,
03:31:52:22 - 03:31:53:16
Kyle
From your time.
03:31:53:18 - 03:31:57:04
Vitaliy
On with your friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's okay.
03:31:57:06 - 03:32:17:05
Kyle
It is funny, I think that when when I frame this question, you know, obviously we we choose to be who we are and we choose to, to live the life that we live. So it's weird to think of things that we've sacrificed because it's almost like, well, I've chosen to be here, you know, but in the end, we, we do sacrifice certain versions of ourselves that we are not.
03:32:17:05 - 03:32:38:16
Kyle
Right. You know? And like you said, I think a lot of it ends up being, leisure time or certain relationships or people that we could have spent time with or other hobbies that we potentially could have explored. But in the end, we are who we are because of the choices that we made. And I don't think humans like to live in a sense of regret.
03:32:38:19 - 03:33:06:17
Kyle
So it's not like you're sitting here like, man, I really sacrificed those Netflix videos. You know? It's like it's not a sense of regret, but I think it's important to know that, like, like you said, like, I don't know, like to to achieve the things that that you have achieved up to this point. There are certain sacrifices in the light of, of listeners may be listening, that they might need to sacrifice to achieve what you have achieved in a way that makes sense.
03:33:06:20 - 03:33:13:13
Kyle
Does that resonate with you? Like any particular thing you feel like you may have veered away from to achieve who you are now?
03:33:13:13 - 03:33:50:15
Sean
Yeah, maybe some hallmarks of more normal life that, I don't have. I mean, I yeah, I choose, you know, not to, you know, use my skills and, you know, startup or other business opportunity because I prefer the time to be spent climbing. I don't have pets. I don't have a partner.
03:33:50:15 - 03:34:07:17
Sean
I can't, have responsible abilities that keep me and keep you in one place so that I have the ability to go spend a couple months in Europe this winter. Like the.
03:34:07:19 - 03:34:10:29
Sean
I'm not going to ask somebody to,
03:34:11:02 - 03:34:11:22
Yeah.
03:34:11:24 - 03:34:13:09
Sean
Deal with,
03:34:13:11 - 03:34:14:24
Kyle
Do you have a home base?
03:34:14:27 - 03:34:15:03
Sean
Yeah.
03:34:15:03 - 03:34:17:11
Kyle
And Solvang and Salt Lake. Okay. Not a van, though.
03:34:17:11 - 03:34:42:21
Sean
Yeah, not as in I have. Yeah, but, like, you know, over one bad condo that I can leave and, you know, nothing more. Nothing bad will happen. Yeah. So I don't have. I don't have a lawn, so I don't do any maintenance. The EU, so, yeah, she, he choosing things that fit the lifestyle, but you're sacrificing complexity.
03:34:42:24 - 03:34:51:09
Sean
Yes. Yeah. There's a level of, you know, minimalism that feels. Yeah, necessary to make and make it work for me.
03:34:51:13 - 03:35:12:04
Kyle
Do you see that, sustainable long term? Because I think that, like, that mentality can be intoxicating, intoxicating for a lot of people. But at a certain point, I think, like Randy Leavitt shared this, I've talked to other people where it's like, I need to also be building something else, like there's this passion for something else.
03:35:12:04 - 03:35:20:26
Kyle
Like, have you ever experienced a pull or a passion towards building or creating something else outside of your passions for climbing?
03:35:20:26 - 03:35:47:00
Sean
yeah. I'll take on other projects from my own edification and learning and I, you know, I like code and, like building stuff for myself. So, I just got a bunch of, fabric, and I'm going to sew a bunch packs and see if I can make something that I like for our next expedition.
03:35:47:00 - 03:35:48:27
Sean
And,
03:35:49:06 - 03:35:57:07
Kyle
I'm not necessarily saying that you should or that you need to, or I'm just more kind of, Yeah. Turned it around. Learn more about you as a person.
03:35:57:18 - 03:36:43:02
Sean
Yeah. There's, I think there's. Yeah, seasonality to things. There's motivation that ebbs and flows for certain things. And, for me, it more, becomes what kind of climbing is what I'm motivated for. And not really terribly much of an, inflow of climbing in and of itself. I think it's, no, I, yeah, I have a strong passion for climbing now to,
03:36:43:05 - 03:36:46:02
Sean
Yeah, it's kind of kind of monomaniacal, but it's.
03:36:46:02 - 03:37:02:06
Kyle
Also, No, I think it's important. There's you need to have, like, people who have such, like a, specific driven focus are indispensable in this world. And, it's awesome when you can find something that's at that encompassing and fulfilling.
03:37:02:08 - 03:37:04:14
Yeah.
03:37:04:17 - 03:37:14:07
Kyle
I want to say I wish I could be the same, but I like having a diversified mindset. So, that's different. Something I've been thinking about recently is
03:37:14:07 - 03:37:49:17
Kyle
as I've grown as a human, I've gone through like, identity growth spurts, if that makes sense. To the point almost where after you're caught up in this transition period, which is very fluid and immersive, you get to the other side and you kind of have this breathing room of like, you almost like look in the mirror and you don't recognize yourself anymore to a sense, because so much changes happen so fast and you haven't had time to, like, sit with yourself and look at yourself
03:37:49:17 - 03:37:52:13
Kyle
in the mirror as this new version of yourself.
03:37:55:13 - 03:38:25:26
Kyle
I'm interested if that's something that resonates with either of you, and if so, what kind of internal processes or things that you do to try to help, like re identify yourself with the new version of yourself after such like a staggering amount of personal change. I could imagine that being after you've lost 120 pounds after you had that accident, maybe even after you guys came back from India, like these large, life changing moments that we go through in our lives.
03:38:25:26 - 03:38:36:19
Kyle
Like after all of that turmoil and change, you come back and you have breathing room to sit there with yourself as this different person, like, does that resonate with you guys? Do you understand what I'm saying?
03:38:37:01 - 03:38:39:25
Sean
Is there a part of you that's like rejecting the new.
03:38:39:25 - 03:38:41:06
You know, I guess not.
03:38:41:06 - 03:39:06:02
Kyle
Rejecting, but, like, there's this narrative we have about ourselves, like, I am this or like I do this, right? And like, after you accept change, like, you come back from an expedition or you, adopt a new habit because it's like something that you've introduced into your lifestyle that becomes like who you are. And now you have to, like, reframe your narrative of like, oh, this is who I am now.
03:39:06:02 - 03:39:11:00
Kyle
This is what I do like, I guess as, as best as I can describe it.
03:39:11:05 - 03:39:47:09
Sean
I probably connect this a bit to, Yeah. Guess post accident. And through that, therapy experience, kind of disintegrating the self a bit. And looking at it more as parts and, and, different competing agendas inside your head. The.
03:39:48:26 - 03:39:56:03
Sean
The. The self is a little less, stable.
03:39:56:06 - 03:39:58:04
Or,
03:39:58:07 - 03:40:33:09
Sean
Fixed. And so for me at this point, so I can. You know, I know some things about myself, but other things can change. And I still feel, still feel similar. I don't know, I guess I wouldn't maybe I wouldn't look in the mirror and go, I don't recognize this. Even if there's a difference, I might look at it as,
03:40:33:12 - 03:40:39:00
Sean
Yeah. Something less core has changed, and that's okay.
03:40:39:03 - 03:40:58:12
Kyle
Yeah. And I don't think the change is necessarily bad. It's more like, if, like, allowing your mind to evolve into this new self that you've become in a way. And also, I like the fact that you were talking about, like, the sense of self being fluid, and I really resonate with that. I think that the second the sense of self is like, concrete.
03:40:58:15 - 03:41:16:19
Kyle
It's a recipe for like stagnation. I think that like as we, as we grow as humans, you like, have to have like a fluid sense of self in order to like, evolve and like to, to become. Because so many people I feel like get trapped, like especially like 30, 40 you you've learned all these things up to this point, and then you just stop and you never change.
03:41:16:21 - 03:41:39:29
Kyle
And then like from 40 on, you're constantly describing your life about things you don't like or the things you like or the things you believe. And it's like those things stay the same for the next 40 years. And it's like that becomes a concrete sense of identity that never changes. And it's like, I don't know. To me, I hope that I can always adapt and evolve and go through these transition periods and like, look at myself, the mirror of like man, which we've changed.
03:41:39:29 - 03:41:46:12
Kyle
Like, let's evolve our sense of identity. Let's kind of redefine who we are and, and adapt to the world that's changing around us.
03:41:46:12 - 03:42:14:27
Sean
there's a sense that I mean in which that's just self-knowledge too though, right, where you've had enough experience to, to know what you do and don't like and your, I guess there's, there's a nice part of, in older and being less, worried about how other people think or what,
03:42:15:25 - 03:42:22:00
Sean
What you should be doing and knowing more what actually comes from inside.
03:42:22:03 - 03:42:39:08
Kyle
True. But I think that's also a difference between like identifying yourself with things that you don't like versus things that you like to do. I think a lot of people like, define themselves. Like, I, I don't like salami or I don't like to call, I don't like running. It's like, is that how you really want to define yourself?
03:42:39:08 - 03:42:55:01
Kyle
Like, let's define ourselves with the things that we love to do. The things we want to do is positive moving forward directions rather than like, oh, I don't do this, I don't do this. It's like, I don't know that the the shift in mindset is important to me. Yeah. We can we can move on to that one else.
03:42:55:01 - 03:42:56:06
Kyle
Do you have anything
03:42:56:06 - 03:42:56:26
Kyle
else?
03:42:56:28 - 03:43:09:16
Vitaliy
For me, I feel like, a really important part of redefining myself is, accepting that I want to help other people.
03:43:10:21 - 03:43:58:05
Vitaliy
Probably because I had lots of health issues growing up. And part of me became, What I would call now, a people pleaser. And I realized that it's really important for me to. Yeah, to try to find ways to help so that, you know, I became a registered nurse in order to, help with people's health when they got on to climbing after, some time off, being really into it, and exploring this year, I found a way to help other climbers by, starting the process of making a comprehensive guidebook, with another friend of mine.
03:43:58:07 - 03:44:40:25
Vitaliy
And, and I realized that, yeah, it is really important for me to share with other people and, to bring value to other people's lives, because I feel like the biggest impact that we can make is actually by making lives of other people better in some way, even if, you know, somebody, buys our guidebook and goes out to see five new areas to them that otherwise they would not, think of coming to see for themselves.
03:44:40:27 - 03:44:55:24
Vitaliy
It makes their life more rich and, it makes me feel, good on the certain level that, you know, the work that I put into a project is gonna make somebody else's, life a little better.
03:44:56:25 - 03:45:10:04
Kyle
Yeah. I think it's important to find, like, the skill sets that we have as humans that like, not only uplift ourselves and advance us as humans, but also inherently then pass like positivity and benefits to other people as well.
03:45:10:05 - 03:45:12:25
Vitaliy
Yeah. Help the whole community progress.
03:45:12:25 - 03:45:27:10
Kyle
Without sacrificing like yourself or who you are. Yeah, I think that sometimes it can get a bit conflated. And so I think we all, we all need to be able to grow as ourselves and personal, but also at the same time then still help everybody else at the same time.
03:45:27:10 - 03:45:53:06
Kyle
I, I came across this idea recently of, of the fact that we can sometimes confuse history with trivia, where a lot of times we think of history as like the facts, like someone, someone did this, then, you know, we get focused on these details. But what I think history teaches us the most are like the people and the lessons and the morals and the the stories that come from the past.
03:45:53:09 - 03:46:17:18
Kyle
And so I'm interested in like when you guys, you've read a lot of literature, you know, in your past and what, what lessons or stories or specific people in the past have shaped like your life the most? Like, this could become like a mentor or somebody that you've read about, or someone that you've used as an example to, like how you've wanted to think about your life and and shape your decisions.
03:46:17:21 - 03:47:03:12
Vitaly
Well, one interesting fact is that I used to, take yoga classes in order to, you know, strengthen your core and, other smaller muscles in your body to help you, hopefully, you know, stay healthy and climbing. And one of the things I heard from our yoga teacher, but which might be a bit woowoo for most people, but it was, to to allow everyone around you to be your teacher, and, it took, you know, a certain level of repetition before I realized what the teacher was saying.
03:47:03:14 - 03:47:29:13
Vitaly
But, that allowed me to learn a lot more from every single person that I claim with or, work with, you know, or come in contact with because I feel like every single person has a certain level of wisdom to share, even though it might not be on the topic of, you know, climbing or sending your next project or whatever.
03:47:29:15 - 03:48:14:19
Vitaly
It could have, you know, it could make a big impact if you allow yourself to learn from even beginners that you are supposedly mentoring. Like on your podcast, recently you've been discussing the 20 1620 rule. So, yeah. And, it basically makes me think about that. Or, it could be, you know, you don't have to climb with 20%, people who are, better climbers and then 60 that other like you or 20% that are, maybe not quite at your level yet, but you can learn from everybody.
03:48:14:21 - 03:48:27:14
Vitaly
And, it's really important to, allow yourself to, to know that you, you know, you can learn from every single person you come in contact with. Yeah. So I think there's a lesson.
03:48:27:14 - 03:48:35:29
Kyle
Important to be receptive for that in the first place, right. Because if you aren't receptive, then you the lessons will just, like go past you. You won't even notice them.
03:48:35:29 - 03:48:53:27
Vitaly
Yeah. So you can take lessons even from a yoga class. Not not only from each book, even though of course, in literature there is, you know, good examples, that, you know, pivoted the way a looked at things or.
03:48:55:09 - 03:48:57:07
Vitaly
Do you want any examples there?
03:48:57:09 - 03:49:00:24
Kyle
If there's any specific ones that you feel like stand out.
03:49:01:27 - 03:49:35:09
Vitaly
For example, in Steve Houses book Beyond the Mountain, which is on the topic of opportunism, he is talking about, you know, a big climb that he ended up doing. And, you know, one of the things that happened later, after his biggest climb of his life is, he took a fall on, a winter climb in Canada, which was one of the more like, practice climbs, for him.
03:49:35:12 - 03:50:00:29
Vitaly
But due to that accident, it changed the course of his life. Instead of, focusing on cutting edge alpine climbing objectives. So he had to, adapt his life. Would, you know, some health issues that he was, getting over and, he ended up starting.
03:50:01:22 - 03:50:36:00
Vitaly
A group called the Alpine Mentors, which is, aimed to help young alpinist to become better. And, it wrote, the training for the new alpine ism training manual guide, book, to help other people's train. And, I feel like for me, that was, a good lesson in trying to, do everything in your power to prevent getting hurt on your body, goals and objectives.
03:50:36:00 - 03:50:36:28
Vitaly
Other.
03:50:39:25 - 03:51:04:11
Vitaly
That they're not going to take you to, like, the next level. And I don't want to get hurt on any objective. But I, I feel like I became much more conservative after, figuring out that, you know, if you get hurt, prior to reaching your peak, then you're, you're just, making yourself a disservice.
03:51:04:13 - 03:51:16:12
Vitaly
And, it helped me. Take less risks in the mountains, earlier in my climbing career than I would probably have.
03:51:16:15 - 03:51:18:14
Sean
That's cool. That makes sense.
03:51:18:16 - 03:51:25:26
Kyle
John, how about you have any influential people or lessons or literatures that you've had in your life?
03:51:25:26 - 03:52:05:18
Sean
Yeah. Your piece about confusing history with trivia. Yeah. Just made me think about, The narratives we weave around particular facts and, the, the facts that are not the narrative, you can tell different narratives with very similar, base facts. So the, the history and the meaning that you take from, from something is, you know, largely personal.
03:52:05:18 - 03:52:46:11
Sean
And yeah, you choose to, you know, what lens you choose to put on it. And I guess the, you know, my, I project to do all of, the climbs on chela cells ultimate ice climbing take list is not just, you know, to do all of the ice climbs like, there's, an element of understanding his experience through them.
03:52:46:22 - 03:53:53:03
Sean
Because they're, they're on trips to Norway and to China and to France and, there are places in the world that he visited and that, you know, I'd follow in the footsteps and have and have a similar experience or try to feel what that was like. For him. And, another element of, you know, his reputation, I guess, as, not just a really, talented and and strong ice climber, but as, really kind and, engaging guy, you know, a lot of fun to be around and, give back to his community through tree planting.
03:53:53:05 - 03:54:23:23
Sean
There's an element of who he was as a person that, I think, trying to access through the, through through the project and through, doing those ice climbs, but also engaging with the community. And you're trying to be a little bit more like who he was.
03:54:23:25 - 03:54:25:25
Kyle
He's no longer with us.
03:54:25:27 - 03:54:48:18
Sean
He passed in, avalanche at the Bozeman Ice Fest, and I think 2008. Okay, well, he, he, he had lots of, lots climbs, first ascents throughout the world and was known as, like a very, very accomplished soloist. Yeah, he's.
03:54:48:20 - 03:55:11:08
Kyle
It's wild how the roots speak so much to like who we are, especially when we're doing first ascents. And we're, like, putting our name on these, these roots. Like, it's not just the round. It's like what it took for that person to be in the place in that life to to choose that objective, to climb that objective, to do it successfully, to survive.
03:55:11:08 - 03:55:29:00
Kyle
Like there's this whole story to the person, that the root paints. And I feel like, like you kind of our alluding to it. You I would imagine you can get a taste of that essence like while you're on route like that, and you get to kind of feel like who that person was and where they were in their life.
03:55:29:03 - 03:55:30:01
Kyle
So that's pretty cool.
03:55:30:04 - 03:55:30:12
Sean
You know.
03:55:30:19 - 03:56:01:18
Kyle
It's awesome that you're kind of chasing that a little bit. I'm interested it. So you would talk a little bit about risk management. I'm interested in your guys's thoughts on the difference between faith lock and self-reliance in the mountains. Do you? Obviously, self-reliance is like our main goal, right? Do you feel like faith or luck has a place in the mountains as mountain athletes.
03:56:01:18 - 03:56:05:23
Vitaly
Feel like it has a place, but you don't rely on them logically?
03:56:07:14 - 03:56:23:10
Vitaly
Their luck could help you, but you shouldn't rely on luck. And self-reliance is, what you choose to do with all the things that you've learned in the life time in order to stay safe.
03:56:23:13 - 03:56:34:11
Kyle
And faith or luck is there to help you when things are slightly out of control. After all the preparation that you have already done potentially.
03:56:34:13 - 03:56:58:02
Vitaly
Yeah, but luck is something that you, you should not even consider. Yeah, yeah. Like you always hope for luck and get perfect conditions. But you know, if, you have a forecast for a 100% chance of storm, you're not going to get on the big ground hoping that you get lucky.
03:56:58:02 - 03:57:02:04
Sean
Lucky to. Yeah, yeah.
03:57:02:06 - 03:57:06:01
Kyle
Do you do you share the same sentiment with faith, luck and self-reliance?
03:57:06:12 - 03:57:45:26
Sean
I mean, there's good luck and bad luck. Yeah. I think, I think, yeah, chance has its place and you can't avoid it. It's going to be there. You don't get to control everything. Understanding the level to which you control your environment is critical. And some amount of I probably, maybe re characterize faith as delusion.
03:57:45:28 - 03:57:52:09
Sean
Oh, is useful. Yeah. In just.
03:57:52:09 - 03:57:59:29
Kyle
guys put yourselves in, I would imagine that there is a certain level of self-reliance that you you can only plan up to a certain point, right?
03:58:00:02 - 03:58:15:28
Kyle
It's not like you're going up to climb a rainbow wall. Like the randomness that you guys are occurring isn't really like on Rainbow Wall. It's like, okay, maybe some person's at the top of the wall and they kick a rock down. And I wasn't expecting that. And I get hit that like the chances of that are pretty low.
03:58:15:28 - 03:58:44:22
Kyle
And I'm okay with that kind of objective hazard or randomness happening because it's probably next to zero. However, in the environment that you guys are finding yourselves in, in Patagonia and in the Himalaya, I would argue that there are the high of unforeseeable hazards that could kill. You are getting larger and larger. And so that really does kind of start to to raise the question of like faith and luck, right?
03:58:44:22 - 03:59:04:22
Kyle
Because how else are you mitigating that risk? You can't do it at a self-reliance. You cannot prepare for that. You can do it up to a certain point. And so how are you justifying putting yourselves in these situations where you can't control the environment that you're in? You cannot fully control the risk that you're in? How do you guys process that?
03:59:04:24 - 03:59:07:15
Kyle
And how do you justify putting yourselves in situations?
03:59:07:28 - 03:59:20:01
Sean
Yeah, I, I, you know, I went through. Some process of.
03:59:20:04 - 04:00:20:07
Sean
You know. Yeah. So inquiry of whether I really want to be on an expedition again after the accident. Yeah. Is does risk like that have a place in my life? And I don't, I don't know that I actually have a well thought out like, satisfying answer, even to myself for. How? It's justifiable. Because, yeah, I, you when you're in the, you know, pain cave of someone close to you dying, there's nothing justifiable.
04:00:20:09 - 04:00:24:16
Sean
Yeah.
04:00:24:19 - 04:01:15:18
Sean
But. It's a part of life. Yeah. And you, there's. You know, you can you can go be as safe as possible and take as little risk as possible and live the the simplest and safest life. And it may or may not be fulfilling. And for me, you know, the there's only one thing that lights my face up, like climbing and, and specifically this know, you know, bigger objectives makes climbing, ice climbing.
04:01:15:20 - 04:02:24:02
Sean
And I'm just I can't not have it in my life, and I'm. Yeah, yeah, I'm making choices that expose myself to risk and that have consequences beyond my own life. And that is, that weighs on me, as it probably ought to, And I. Yeah, I don't know that I'm going to get to a happy, justification, but I at least in a place where I know what I, I know what feeds me, and I know what the cost is, and I'm at least.
04:02:24:04 - 04:02:31:07
Sean
As as much as I can be, you know, eyes wide open. Yeah.
04:02:31:09 - 04:02:52:10
Kyle
So it seems like it's not justifiable, but it's acceptable under your understanding of what you're doing. And which I guess it's like, you don't need to justify it. It's like it's not something I need to justify, but I, accepting the, accepting and acknowledging the level of risk that I, I put myself in in order to live what I call a fulfilling life.
04:02:52:13 - 04:03:04:23
Sean
Yeah, I guess yeah, may not be justifiable, but I accept a responsibility for it.
04:03:04:25 - 04:03:11:25
Kyle
How do you feel about the unavoidable objective risk that you find yourself in?
04:03:12:16 - 04:03:40:01
Vitaly
It's a really heavy question, and, I 100%, agree with Sean statement and, I feel like it's so a huge reason. It's a necessity for my mental health, to, you know, follow my passion, and I, I understand that it is not the safest passion in the world to follow.
04:03:41:12 - 04:03:42:19
Vitaly
And, you know, I.
04:03:42:21 - 04:03:44:02
Sean
I, I.
04:03:44:03 - 04:04:19:08
Vitaly
Try to take as much responsibility and avoid as much objective danger as possible, but still, I do understand that there is, a level of chaos that is in the environment, that we choose to, explore. And you can't take all the danger out of it, just like you can't take, you know, the danger or the driving.
04:04:19:10 - 04:04:38:00
Vitaly
And I want everyone to understand that I don't think driving a car and climbing on a 7000 meter peak, is even in the same realm of danger, or exposure.
04:04:38:03 - 04:04:39:05
Sean
But.
04:04:39:08 - 04:04:57:06
Vitaly
I feel like for me to live a fulfilling life, I have to accept, this, level of, you know, danger. The trips that we end up going on and.
04:05:03:01 - 04:05:14:19
Vitaly
And, you know, I don't think this is acceptable, to justify or.
04:05:18:21 - 04:05:58:16
Vitaly
Like, if something if something happened to me, I don't think any objective justifies, dying for, And I'm, you know, I'm doing my best to avoid getting hurt or perish in the mountains, but, When you are in love with something that ends up being dangerous, you just have to measure the amount of love and, the amount of danger that you find acceptable in order to justify the love.
04:05:58:18 - 04:06:52:19
Vitaly
And, and, you know, sometimes, humans don't make reasonable decisions. But, all of us, make our own unreasonable decisions, and it's, I mean, I, I'm, I'm really happy that I found climbing so to, to me, it, seems like a reasonable way to live. And, the goals that we are trying to look for, you know, we're not trying to pick death routes, for our objectives, and, you know, and we just have to accept the, a certain level of, danger that comes with it.
04:06:52:22 - 04:07:11:01
Kyle
Yeah, I get it. I mean, I, I'm not comparing my situation to Himalayan climbing. But I, I write a a street bike. Yeah, to work every day. Yeah. And I think a lot of people from the outside see that as a very reckless behavior, especially someone my age. And. Yeah, I mean, it's just like. Sure.
04:07:11:01 - 04:07:31:25
Kyle
Like. Yes. Is it a dangerous thing? Yes. Or is there a level of chaos on the highway? For sure. But, you know, it's like I also like, people are like, well, you know, if you do dangerous things that you have to accept that you might die. And it's like, kind of, but not really, because I feel like the second you start to accept that, then it's like, okay, well, maybe it'll happen.
04:07:31:25 - 04:07:52:23
Kyle
It's like, no, it's not like I'm going to maybe I'll die, but I'll die thinking I would never have died. You know, like, I have that delusional belief that I will make it to the other side. And also just knowing that every step of the way, I'm going to do everything I can to stack the odds in my favor and make sure that I come home every day.
04:07:52:25 - 04:08:08:23
Kyle
You know, it's like I, you know, there there are small little increment decisions you can make to, like, shouldn't do that. Okay. I can do that. Shouldn't do this. You know, you're always making these judgment calls left and right to make sure you're trying to stay safe in these kind of dangerous, dangerous fluid chaos environments.
04:08:08:23 - 04:08:21:20
Vitaly
as I grew older and, I thought more about, exposure to radiation that I had in Rome when, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor blew up. Do you.
04:08:21:20 - 04:08:24:07
Kyle
See that so nonchalantly?
04:08:24:10 - 04:08:32:23
Vitaly
Yeah. Well, the older I got, the more afraid they became about, passing away due to cancer or something like that.
04:08:32:23 - 04:08:34:04
Kyle
Oh, yeah. Some inevitable.
04:08:34:04 - 04:09:25:00
Vitaly
Doom. Yeah, something. And the the harder it, it, it became to, wanting to get into a relationship with somebody because. Wow. I felt like, what is the point of getting into a relationship if I might pass away when I'm 30 or 30 5 or 40 years old? And leave my wife and potentially children behind, and at some point, probably due to climbing in the lessons that I learned in climbing, I realized that it's important to not, like not to live our life in fear and, allow ourselves to open up and,
04:09:25:02 - 04:09:25:26
Sean
You know.
04:09:25:28 - 04:10:02:19
Vitaly
Open ourselves up to other opportunities, that, you know, might end up in a tragic outcome. But, what kind of a life is that? If, if you are afraid of, you know, experiencing it. Yeah. And if, if you meet a person that you fall in love with or find an activity that, ends up capturing your imagination and, and that's something that you want to do almost every day of your life.
04:10:02:22 - 04:10:28:01
Vitaly
And you just turn yourself off and said, no, I don't want to be with you because I may die due to cancer or because a car hits me tomorrow. Or I don't want to be in this relationship because I'm too afraid that something is going to happen to you. And I'm not going to do this, activity that I fell in love with in it.
04:10:28:08 - 04:10:30:04
Vitaly
What is there left in life?
04:10:30:08 - 04:10:31:03
Sean
Yeah.
04:10:31:06 - 04:10:34:11
Kyle
Because if it's not that, it'll just be something else. Yeah. I mean, away from.
04:10:34:11 - 04:10:35:22
Sean
Yeah, yeah.
04:10:35:22 - 04:11:02:01
Kyle
I've been workshopping this idea of mastery and the question of whether it's ever attainable. And so far, the answer has been no. That mastery is a progress, not a destination. And, I posed this question to to Nate Smith, an educator up in Tahoe, and I asked him why professional athletes are dying in the mountains, why are very experienced climbers perishing?
04:11:02:04 - 04:11:26:06
Kyle
And he floated the idea that who probably more often than not, the particular people who are perishing are people who have felt like they've reached some sort of destination and they're climbing some sort of mastery, some sort of, end of pursuit of knowledge where they, they think they know the right answer and there's no room for them being wrong.
04:11:26:06 - 04:11:45:15
Kyle
Right? Whether that's the timing of going through a particular gully or whether that's, knowing without a doubt that they can do X, Y and Z, or that the mountain is going to do x, y, and z and that sets them up for, for failure. Right. Have you guys thought about, like.
04:11:46:00 - 04:12:00:15
Kyle
Like when professional athletes perish in the mountains? Like, have you thought about why, like what the circumstances are and what you could possibly do to try to avoid that based on this kind of like idea of, of mastery being.
04:12:00:17 - 04:12:01:11
Sean
A,
04:12:01:13 - 04:12:07:15
Kyle
A, something we always are chasing for and not an actual place that we land.
04:12:07:24 - 04:12:45:25
Vitaly
Yeah. For me personally, it's, I always, not always know. I'm not going to say that, as I got more experience in climbing, I realized that, I'm no different than anyone else, no matter how much experience I have. And it's important to understand the will climbing is some level. You are playing with statistics, and, all the people, who are as smart as you are, or maybe even smarter or wiser, more experienced.
04:12:45:28 - 04:13:19:04
Vitaly
None of them want to die. And, you know, I don't want to die. So one of the things that I believe and is that we are. Oh, we all are playing a game of statistics in a way. But with some of the things that help in this game is, not getting complacent and not thinking that because you achieved, a certain level of competence, you are above this game of statistics.
04:13:19:07 - 04:13:48:11
Vitaly
So, doing, basic things. Well, every time is really important. Like checking your notes, you know, rappelling in a safe manner, always looking at your, at your rope as you're rappelling and, trying to figure out if you're getting close to the end, checking your partners, talking about the simplest shit.
04:13:48:13 - 04:14:01:16
Vitaly
In in certain situations, which, you know, at a certain level, experts, maybe come.
04:14:01:18 - 04:14:02:05
Sean
To.
04:14:02:06 - 04:14:28:22
Vitaly
Good to, you know, check each other's notes. I mean, I can't really, imagine, you know, like, let's say, Alex tunnel and Tommy Caldwell checking each other's nuts, but they probably are only do. Yeah, because, they're still alive. And, these basic little things are ones that, help us, you know, make it into our old age as climbers.
04:14:28:25 - 04:14:42:12
Vitaly
And I'm just, trying to stay away from from complacency and, I hope it will provide a little more of a safety margin to, you know, get me there.
04:14:42:20 - 04:14:43:01
Sean
Yeah.
04:14:43:01 - 04:14:45:09
Vitaly
I like and my partners. Yeah. And the likes of.
04:14:45:09 - 04:15:00:01
Kyle
All that, like the concept of being, like, never thinking you're above the statistics. No. Like that the way you frame that. Really nice. About yourself. Have you thought about, like, this concept in, like, professional athletes and where the pitfalls are and how you've chosen to avoid those.
04:15:01:05 - 04:15:07:01
Sean
I don't know for sure that I've actually avoided those pitfalls. Right.
04:15:07:03 - 04:15:07:26
Kyle
You never know.
04:15:08:02 - 04:15:18:28
Sean
Because we have diffuse feedback. Right. Or, it's not a 1 to 1. Yeah. On your decision to the outcome.
04:15:19:16 - 04:15:25:09
Sean
So I've it's entirely possible I've made the same decision that's killed somebody else.
04:15:25:12 - 04:15:26:20
Kyle
100%. Really?
04:15:26:20 - 04:16:13:09
Sean
Well, so yeah. And I'm going to try not to, but I'm really going to avoid judging people who have, who've generally more ran into bad luck than others who made decisions that are not understandable from most people's perspectives. Most people are just, yeah, human and fallible, and they will get unlucky at one point. On the mastery point, I, I think you can,
04:16:13:12 - 04:16:51:17
Sean
Not think of a master as someone perfect or completed, but as, someone who has. You know, as complete knowledge is is is complete knowledge and skill, as you know, might be expected of someone at the top of the. You take the top one, 2% of, you know of alpine climbers, right? I'm happy calling them masters of their craft.
04:16:51:17 - 04:17:32:21
Sean
And even if they're not perfect at it, they've, you know, I, I think you. You've yeah, you've had enough experience and you've built, you're able to do some, masterful theme, some beautiful things. And I think that's worth celebrating. And also not necessarily, the same as, you know, feeling, completion or, complacency due to that.
04:17:32:24 - 04:17:35:01
Sean
Okay. I can see that.
04:17:35:03 - 04:17:54:11
Kyle
Yeah. Because it's an interesting definition. Right. It's like we we try to be a master of something, but yeah, you don't want to end up leading that mentality to thinking that the road's over. Yeah. Because like, even the masters that you're speaking of are there in their own personal journey of development still. Yeah. It's like that process never ends.
04:17:54:14 - 04:18:10:28
Kyle
Yeah. And that will always grow for everyone. I mean, that's it. You know, I, I've got no deep questions left. In order to, to, you know, try to decompress the audience a little bit and wrap this up a little bit.
04:18:10:28 - 04:18:23:17
Kyle
What are you guys focused on next? You know, it seems like this partnership has kind of blossomed into, something really, really cool and special, and, you guys seem like you're going to be tackling some some bigger stuff moving forward.
04:18:23:17 - 04:18:30:08
Kyle
So what's what's got your fire going? And what are you guys cooking up next that you're willing to share.
04:18:30:24 - 04:18:34:02
Vitaly
That's a gym climbing first.
04:18:34:04 - 04:19:03:14
Sean
Yeah. Bouldering. I think, you know, we're trying to go back to India. We'll, see exactly what form that takes. But, yeah, we've got got to do an expedition spring. And, you know, hopefully do some more practice spooning and, you.
04:19:03:14 - 04:19:06:01
Kyle
Got to practice at home, right? Yeah.
04:19:06:04 - 04:19:08:16
Vitaly
So practice with my wife.
04:19:08:18 - 04:19:11:15
Sean
The.
04:19:11:17 - 04:19:17:19
Vitaly
Maybe I can let you borrow my cat or something.
04:19:17:21 - 04:19:21:01
Vitaly
Or. John.
04:19:21:04 - 04:19:27:19
Kyle
Yeah. So that's exciting. India. Is that like, at 2027 or what's the.
04:19:27:19 - 04:19:28:21
Vitaly
2023, 2020.
04:19:28:21 - 04:19:29:01
Kyle
Six?
04:19:29:01 - 04:19:30:17
Vitaly
Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
04:19:30:19 - 04:19:32:26
Kyle
Back to Patagonia in 26 as well.
04:19:32:28 - 04:19:33:20
Sean
Yeah.
04:19:33:23 - 04:19:34:11
Vitaly
No idea.
04:19:34:12 - 04:19:35:25
Kyle
No idea. Okay.
04:19:35:27 - 04:19:55:24
Vitaly
I feel like you gotta take, take it one step at a time and, you know, survive one objective. See? You see, is is see how excited you are and how much time off do you want to take, or maybe get even more excited, and you're just gonna, you know, I'm gonna quit my work and go all out.
04:19:56:01 - 04:20:00:07
Sean
Yeah. You you just go straight from India to Alaska?
04:20:00:09 - 04:20:06:09
Vitaly
Yeah. Exactly. That has been the idea we threw around in Canada.
04:20:06:09 - 04:20:12:24
Kyle
Alaska, like the next stepping stone after, you know, said the other, we just season just. Oh, okay. Gotcha.
04:20:12:26 - 04:20:14:20
Sean
If you're already acclimated.
04:20:14:20 - 04:20:15:24
Kyle
Oh, just go straight out.
04:20:15:25 - 04:20:17:23
Vitaly
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:20:17:26 - 04:20:19:19
Sean
Why not?
04:20:19:21 - 04:20:24:22
Kyle
Well, also, guys, I appreciate you guys sitting down. It's been just an honor and a pleasure.
04:20:24:24 - 04:20:31:12
Vitaly
Oh, thank you so much. It's great to meet you in person. I I'm really happy we waited to make this happen. For sure.
04:20:31:14 - 04:20:36:19
Sean
Yeah. Fun to. Yeah. Fun talking. Think about, think about all these things. Yeah.
04:20:36:20 - 04:20:56:08
Kyle
For sure. Man. I appreciate you guys trusting me with your guys's story and your guys's thoughts and everything. It's been. It's been a pleasure. Where can people follow your stories? Where can people kind of like, inspired by what you guys are doing? What's what's the best place to to follow your story with what you're doing?
04:20:56:10 - 04:21:27:01
Sean
I occasionally post things on Instagram. Okay. So, know M Shan Cheyenne, which is the, Chinese word for mountain. Now, coach. Sounds enough like my name. It's my, Yeah, my little symbol. Here. Call them. And yeah, occasionally I put a little post about, Patagonia on my website as well. Just my name.com. Okay.
04:21:27:04 - 04:21:28:24
Sean
Awesome. Telling yourself.
04:21:28:26 - 04:21:53:17
Vitaly
Yeah, I'm just like everyone else I post on Instagram. I love photography and, it's more of a photography account. And, you know, it's some about climbing, but my Instagram handle is MTN gangster. I don't, you know, I don't take myself very seriously. So it's always a joke of a screen name.
04:21:53:17 - 04:22:00:15
Vitaly
Yeah. And, I try to post there at least once a week or so.
04:22:00:18 - 04:22:01:18
Kyle
Their website.
04:22:01:21 - 04:22:02:17
Vitaly
No, no.
04:22:02:20 - 04:22:03:05
Kyle
Instagram on.
04:22:03:05 - 04:22:06:21
Sean
Me. All right. Awesome as well.
04:22:06:23 - 04:22:07:25
Vitaly
Yeah. Thank you so much.
04:22:07:25 - 04:22:09:15
Kyle
For your company. And thank you. Thank you.
04:22:10:28 - 04:22:32:20
Speaker 1
That's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you like today's episode, please head on over to Spotify or Apple Podcasts to give this show five stars. This simple gesture significantly helps this community grow. I've got to really learn not to preemptively announce the next episode, because that process tends to be quite fluid. So just stay tuned for our next radical guest from the majority.
04:22:32:23 - 04:22:39:12
Speaker 1
Until then, stay safe. Have fun. And as always, thank you for being a part of the climbing majority. I will see you all in two weeks.
