123 | Mark Hudon: Yosemite Legend - 54 Years of Climbing, Ego, & Partnerships

Mark Hudon is a Yosemite legend whose work in the late 1970s and early 1980s helped push big wall climbing into a new free climbing era.Mark Hudon is a Yosemite legend whose work in the late 1970s and early 1980s helped push big wall climbing into a new free climbing era. Often partnered with the equally groundbreaking Max Jones, Mark became known for his bold, ground-up style—blending meticulous preparation with a willingness to test the limits of free climbing on terrain that had previously only been aided. Few climbers have shaped as many eras of the sport as Mark Hudon.

Mark was born the year before El Capitan was first climbed. The first year he set foot in Yosemite as a climber was the same year Warren Harding put up The Dawn Wall. That kind of historical proximity gives him a perspective on climbing's evolution that almost nobody else alive can offer—and that's exactly where this conversation starts. We dig into what the lives of Royal Robbins and Warren Harding actually represented, why their conflict mirrors the tensions we still see in climbing today, and why Mark thinks ego is at the root of most of it.

We talk about how ego in climbing has evolved—for the sport and for Mark personally—why partnerships have been the single most important element of his climbing life, and what it actually looks like to build a life around climbing without letting climbing become your entire identity. Mark built a coffee roasting company from scratch, lived in a van for ten years, spent winters in Baja, and at 70 years old remains fit, healthy, and largely injury free. He values experiences over trophies and partnerships over pride.

We also explore his remarkable relationship with Jordan Cannon—how they met, what they gave each other, and why Mark considers Jordan as close as family. And we close out talking about Mark's recent pivot to public speaking and his desire to help people acquire more agency over their own lives—a philosophy that, it turns out, he's been living since he was a teenager in New Hampshire learning to climb on granite.

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This article by Mark Hudon "Long, Hard and Free" inspired a whole generation of climbers, including Todd Skinner and Paul Piana, and laid the groundwork for the game that is Yosemite big wall free climbing.

Long Hard & Free

Transcript

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:01:15
Kyle
what year were you born?

00:00:01:18 - 00:00:04:00
Mark
I was born in 1955.

00:00:04:03 - 00:00:05:22
Kyle
And that makes you 70

00:00:05:25 - 00:00:06:11
Mark
Yeah,

00:00:06:11 - 00:00:06:23
Kyle
Sitting in this

00:00:06:29 - 00:00:12:21
Mark
well. And I was born in December, so it ends up being a little bit odd, but. Yeah, I'm 70 years old right now.

00:00:12:21 - 00:00:15:29
Kyle
And how many years have you spent as a climber?

00:00:16:01 - 00:00:24:27
Mark
I started climbing when I was 16, so I think that means like 50. Yeah, 54 years, which is just crazy.

00:00:24:29 - 00:00:26:08
Kyle
How does that feel?

00:00:26:11 - 00:00:36:02
Mark
It feels weird. It's it's it feels weird, but it's cool because I was. I've been able to see so much progression through the whole thing.

00:00:36:05 - 00:00:44:20
Mark
It one thing like I tell Jordan all the time, when I was born, El Cap hadn't been climbed.

00:00:44:23 - 00:00:50:23
Mark
El cap was first climbed in 1958. And so although I was completely unaware of it, of course.

00:00:50:25 - 00:01:12:23
Mark
But you know, you just have a different attitude when you know that the sport has progressed along with your life versus versus. Like Jordan when he was born, El Cap had been free climbed. So it's just a it's a different attitude. I just look at the cliff differently. I think.

00:01:12:25 - 00:01:30:06
Kyle
It's almost anonymous to like my generation is like one of the the last generation where we were born before the internet and we like transitioned as children right into the world of of internet. Now we have smartphones and it's going to be AI and we're going to live to like, I don't know, maybe the end of the world.

00:01:30:06 - 00:01:53:24
Kyle
Some people say dystopia, you know, like the amount of change that we're going to experience in our lifetime is just, like, so exponential and so groundbreaking. And it seems like there's a parallel there with your life and climbing. It's like, you know, before El Cap was free, like before that whole time, it was very much like a mountaineering sense of climbing, technical rock climbing hadn't really approached the scene as much.

00:01:53:27 - 00:02:01:16
Kyle
And now, you know, we're seeing 515 D you know, like the progression that you've witnessed has been like just paramount.

00:02:01:23 - 00:02:29:11
Mark
Yeah, yeah. It's been crazy, people. I tried it when I, when I tried to describe rock climbing or even free climbing. I think when I only when I was starting to climb in 72, was rock climbing starting to be its own sport because everything was mountaineering, you know, you just you. Oh, I want to climb Everest. Well, I need to learn how to use the ropes.

00:02:29:11 - 00:02:56:12
Mark
And so I start rock climbing and then I'll be ice climbing and stuff. So everything was a progression to that. And so it seems like my generation there, you do have the, you know, the Golden Age guys, but they were always looking towards the mountains with what they were doing. But but my generation, you know, the 70s with that free climbing push and then the gear changing, accelerating that.

00:02:56:12 - 00:03:03:18
Mark
And yes, it truly became its own sport. And now we've got subsets of this sport.

00:03:03:23 - 00:03:04:28
Mark
Yeah, like

00:03:05:01 - 00:03:12:11
Kyle
free climbing then bolting. So you had technological advancement as well. Yeah. That's a wild a wild transition to be a part of.

00:03:12:15 - 00:03:42:07
Mark
when, when when I bought my first rope, I bought a gold line rope, 150ft gold line rope, and we had little. They were. You could buy ten Eiger ovals for $18. And we all bought a set of pins, you know, although clean climbing was just sort of coming out. And so, you know, we wanted to climb clean, but there were roots.

00:03:42:07 - 00:04:05:29
Mark
There was a big there was a there was a book, the clean climbing book at Eastern Mountain Sports in North Conway, New Hampshire, where people record that they had done the route clean. And then, of course, there were the ones from the, the, the generation just before. It's like, oh, these nuts are just a fad. You know, it's like, well, well, you know, we're kids and we're going, yeah, well whatever kind of thing.

00:04:05:29 - 00:04:10:15
Mark
So just just seeing that is wild.

00:04:10:18 - 00:04:20:15
Kyle
funny. Like, I don't know if it's just a part of humanity. Like someone said recently, the, the two things your humans are most afraid of is change and public speaking.

00:04:20:18 - 00:04:21:01
Mark
Oh, yeah.

00:04:21:07 - 00:04:22:04
Mark
That's hilarious.

00:04:22:04 - 00:04:34:03
Kyle
And, like, I feel like all these symptomatic of like, the politics and the the throwing shade and the chopping bolts, it's all symptomatic of just hesitance to change or resistance to

00:04:34:06 - 00:04:34:20
Mark
Yeah.

00:04:34:21 - 00:04:35:16
Mark
Yeah.

00:04:35:18 - 00:04:42:11
Kyle
Like, do you think the climbing community is plagued by that, like human factor more than some other areas? And if so, why?

00:04:42:13 - 00:05:10:05
Mark
To a point, yes. Just because they are I mean, you, you really become attached to when you started, that was your golden age, that was your back in the day. And, and people are really afraid of, of of losing that. I always tell people every single thing has changed. I mean, baseball's changed, footballs change, money has changed, car has, cars have changed.

00:05:10:05 - 00:05:19:15
Mark
So. So don't get so attached. Don't get so pod. You know be be happy that you're you're going to see the next thing.

00:05:19:17 - 00:05:26:25
Kyle
Yeah I think I mean we'll get into this later. But I think climbing is like very a sport wrapped up in ego.

00:05:26:28 - 00:05:31:23
Kyle
And I think that we, we like, attach our identity to our climbing

00:05:31:25 - 00:05:33:03
Mark
Yes. Oh yeah.

00:05:33:06 - 00:05:33:08
Mark
So

00:05:33:08 - 00:05:40:04
Kyle
you just said, like this was when my golden era, it's like you have all these memories of like the value and the ethics that you brought to the sport.

00:05:40:04 - 00:05:44:09
Kyle
And like when those change, it almost undermines, like your worth as a human in a way.

00:05:44:09 - 00:05:44:14
Mark
way.

00:05:44:15 - 00:05:45:10
Mark
Yeah, yeah.

00:05:45:13 - 00:05:46:29
Kyle
you've wrapped your life around

00:05:47:01 - 00:05:59:00
Mark
If you're so attached to it that way. I've had friends that say, oh, I don't like where climbing is going. And so I'm not going to climb. I'm not going. Well, all right. Well, now you're not going to climb. I mean, okay, if,

00:05:59:03 - 00:06:01:21
Kyle
Yeah. If you're saying that you're not really that much of a climber.

00:06:01:26 - 00:06:05:02
Mark
Yeah. If it bums you out that much, you know, it.

00:06:05:03 - 00:06:27:13
Mark
I just, I really, really enjoy seeing it change and, and and doing those new things. You know, I can I can still go and do that trad stuff, just like I did 50 years ago as a kid in Cathedral Edge. I could still go do that. You can still go to the gun and be a superhero, run out routes and really technical and all that.

00:06:27:13 - 00:06:37:16
Mark
And then you go to Smith Rock where it's just climbing by the dots, you know, and go do it. And it's just it's all climbing. It's all that's what I want to do. I just want to go climbing.

00:06:37:23 - 00:06:49:27
Kyle
Yeah. Why do you think you are someone who views climbing in that way and is adaptive, like adaptive to change. And others might not be like, what makes you separate from that?

00:06:50:00 - 00:07:01:15
Mark
I've never thought that I was so bitch and bad that it needed to revolve around me. I thought, well, here I am and it's changing.

00:07:01:18 - 00:07:09:20
Mark
You know, I was just I saw pitons, I saw hexes, you know, and not like.

00:07:09:23 - 00:07:32:07
Mark
Had the offset hexes. Well, I had the original hexes, you know, and so we saw offset hexes. So right there, there was a big ol change. And then it wasn't too long where Ray came out with the friends. So I just, I just saw that. And I just loved climbing in all its forms. And I thought, well, I can either just be pod or I can just go have fun and live with this change.

00:07:32:07 - 00:07:35:28
Mark
It's still rock climbing. That's what I want to do.

00:07:36:00 - 00:07:38:19
Kyle
The I've had a

00:07:38:22 - 00:07:42:04
Mark
some fell on dear somebody spawn stranding.

00:07:42:06 - 00:07:43:28
Mark
All right. Might be my iPad.

00:07:44:01 - 00:07:49:02
Mark
Want to unplug the iPad and go toss it in my bedroom? Yeah.

00:07:49:04 - 00:08:01:13
Kyle
You are popular. You lied to me.

00:07:51:01 - 00:08:01:13
Mark
Well, it's my girlfriend. And my daughter is all it is. I sent her some photos of this, and she's probably commenting or something.

00:08:01:16 - 00:08:02:01
Mark
Yeah,

00:08:02:01 - 00:08:05:10
Kyle
That's actually one thing I always forget to do is take a picture with the guest.

00:08:05:13 - 00:08:27:10
Mark
Max and I always took 35 millimeter cameras on all our routes. Yeah. And so and our goal our, our and we used to and we knew that it was like okay Lena. Look back click click. And that was it. I mean, we knew that that was the thing. And when we sent our photos off for that state of the art article to to Mountain magazine.

00:08:27:14 - 00:08:43:13
Mark
Tim Wilson, the editor at the time, which was the late 70s, he says this is the best collection of rock climbing photos I've ever seen. Max was a good photographer and I'm a good photographer. And and we really made it a point to to take photos.

00:08:43:13 - 00:08:47:01
Kyle
Yeah, I always bring myself on, and it's like picks at the blade, picks top down.

00:08:47:03 - 00:08:48:27
Mark
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

00:08:48:28 - 00:08:57:23
Mark
Yeah yeah. With Scott it's like take at least one picture per pitch looking up and looking down. And then we'll have a good, we'll have good coverage.

00:08:57:25 - 00:08:58:04
Kyle


00:08:58:07 - 00:09:18:13
Kyle
But circling back to where we left off about the progression of the sport and kind of like what you've witnessed, I've been just having this thought experiment recently of like just how novelty is like the cure for like the erosion of time, like the more new things we do in our lives, the more novelty we interject into our life.

00:09:18:14 - 00:09:33:20
Kyle
Like it slows down time. Like when you look back at your life in the year and you did all these things like, wow, actually, like that was like a big year. But if you fall into routine and you do the same thing over and over again, you look back and you're like, that was really

00:09:33:20 - 00:09:34:00
Mark
they passed.

00:09:34:02 - 00:09:35:26
Mark
What did I do. Yeah. Yeah.

00:09:35:28 - 00:09:42:00
Kyle
And so to relate this to what we were talking about, just like it seems like.

00:09:42:02 - 00:09:58:19
Kyle
Having the novelty be like the evolution of climbing gear, it's like you're like, oh, wow, I get to try new things. I get to adapt the way that I approach the sport of climbing. And with the new technology, I mean, it's safer, it's faster, it's more efficient. Like, these are things that are things to look forward to.

00:09:58:21 - 00:09:58:28
Mark
to.

00:09:59:03 - 00:10:26:14
Mark
Well, and, you know, with sport climbing, we got to be in really wild places that we never would have gotten to, you know, had we had to place, place, gear and those things. So just all that stuff. I've always loved the places that climbing took us. There's this thing I forget the name of the route was some 11 C out in The Needles of South Dakota.

00:10:26:14 - 00:10:42:25
Mark
And it's like this, this giant boulder giant sitting on top of this needle, and you come out this roof and you climb up the thing and it's just like, really? You guys climb that? Holy moly. But it was just so neat to to be there and doing those things.

00:10:42:25 - 00:10:48:12
Kyle
It's funny how some people would argue that those things are not meant to be climbed.

00:10:48:15 - 00:10:51:06
Mark
Yeah. I mean.

00:10:51:09 - 00:11:00:11
Mark
To a point. I mean, really, really, really all rock does not need to be climbed. You know, there's some rock that. Yeah, we can just leave that over there.

00:11:00:11 - 00:11:01:04
Mark
But

00:11:01:04 - 00:11:05:15
Kyle
mean, yeah, that brings up the whole thing of like, well, climbing is kind of pointless in the first place.

00:11:05:22 - 00:11:06:00
Mark
Yeah.

00:11:06:00 - 00:11:16:00
Kyle
doesn't serve any sort of higher purpose. Yeah. We're not like, benefiting society. We're not like, extracting or out of the ground. We're not protecting our country. It's like we're just kind of having fun on the

00:11:16:03 - 00:11:21:13
Mark
Yeah it's sort of selfish. Yeah. We're all like well this is what I am doing going into their.

00:11:21:13 - 00:11:23:28
Kyle
Yeah. And if I die, everybody else has to deal with the consequences.

00:11:24:02 - 00:11:29:00
Mark
Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

00:11:29:03 - 00:11:46:05
Kyle
But on this. So you know we've talked about like this progression. You've you've seen so much over the years. And I think like one of the we've also kind of danced around like the, the bolting the, the division that happened in the climbing community. And you witnessed all of that.

00:11:46:05 - 00:12:06:09
Kyle
And I think like the most iconic representation of this is the Royal Robinson, the Warren Harding kind of debacle, the the thing and what they represented. And I think the coolest thing about your situation is that you were there. You were you were the first year of climbing. Warren Harding established the the dawn wall. And, you know, you met him.

00:12:06:09 - 00:12:20:28
Kyle
You met these people in person. So I wanted to take a chance to, like, get your perspective of, like, who these iconic people actually were. And I want to hear your personal stories about them. So I guess, you know, we can start with Warren Harding and move to Royal after that.

00:12:21:00 - 00:12:54:17
Mark
Harding? Harding probably never knew my name, but he was in the Valley and he was a Lake Tahoe guy to, And so he knew he knew me by face. So he knew that I was a climber. And we had, you know, we would say hi. I mean, we never talked a whole heck of a lot, but he was he was always funny and he was always drinking, and he just, he he was very aware of what we were doing was just ridiculous.

00:12:54:17 - 00:13:21:23
Mark
And he was he was aware they were only doing it for our fun, for our own enjoyment. It didn't really add up to anything. It didn't mean you were any kind of one person or the other, but he could be a little bit crotchety too. He. I gave a slide show in Sacramento years and years and years ago, and this was Max and I free climbing the South.

00:13:21:26 - 00:13:52:05
Mark
And, you know, we had Max and I11 year we went up on the nose and we led and followed the whole thing as free as it had ever been done. Astro man, I think Watkins Half Dome kind of thing. And he walked out. Which which it was, it was sort of funny that he walked out of my slideshow, but after that I forget how long I was giving a slideshow in Truckee.

00:13:52:08 - 00:14:09:26
Mark
And I had a really cute girlfriend at the time, and it was in this little restaurant. It's right across the street from the Bar of America. I forget what the name. It was the passage back then, but and it was the same thing the South and free climbing, Astro man and all that kind of stuff. And we're in this.

00:14:09:27 - 00:14:36:26
Mark
We're in this restaurant or this is sort of the bar area of the restaurant, and it wasn't really too big, but there was something that they did. They'd give slideshows. So the audience was there to see the slideshow and drink. So I'm sitting here at a table with my girlfriend and we're drinking. I just got done the slideshow and Harding walks up and he points at me like this and his his fingers like this, far away.

00:14:36:26 - 00:14:56:29
Mark
And he goes, did you use that bolt on the second pitch? Did you use that bolt on the second pitch of his face? Because if you did well, then you used aid because I drilled that bolt on the on aid and I'm gone. Whoa! Warren. Warren. Warren. Come on. Have a seat. Have a seat. You know, I bought him a glass of wine and stuff, and I was telling him it it wasn't.

00:14:57:03 - 00:15:29:29
Mark
It didn't take away from him because we were standing. He laid that groundwork, and we were just taking the further steps onto his groundwork. And so, you know, enough, enough glasses of wine. And he was crying on my shoulder, telling, telling me that he loved me, but that, you know, certainly, I mean, I think he died of, you know, alcohol poisoning at some point.

00:15:30:02 - 00:16:07:16
Mark
Yeah. Yeah. But he just he sort of needed that a little bit. He needed to he wanted to still be valuable. He wanted to still be towards the end. He, he needed he wanted to he, he needed to know that he had made a contribution, even though he was very much against the whole. What did he call them, the the Valley Christians, you know, the Golden Age Robins and Pratt and all those guys, he he needed it a little bit.

00:16:07:18 - 00:16:33:11
Mark
Yeah, it was interesting, interesting. But he was always laughing and, you know, drinking and stuff. And I remember one they were they were going him and Steve Boesky and some other guys were going up on some route that that face that's down into the right of Half Dome, I forget what that's called. And he said, he said, well.

00:16:33:14 - 00:16:50:02
Mark
There's some cracks there, but but if not, well, well we're just going to go up. You know, I mean he had it was like we're just going to bolt it because that's the face is what we want to climb. He was very much I want to climb that feature. You know, that was the whole thing with the nose.

00:16:50:03 - 00:17:10:18
Mark
The the line of the nose to a large degree is fairly illogical. He he shouldn't have gone over to the stove legs. He should have just climbed up the corner. He shouldn't have bolted up to boot flake. He should have just continued. You know what I guess now is the Jardine corner. But he was a he was a location man, a feature man.

00:17:10:18 - 00:17:27:15
Mark
We've got to go over there. We've got to climb boot flake. Holy moly. You know we have to go over here. And so yeah I mean that was it. That was it. He he was, you know, the dawn wall. You know, those corners and then that roof. Oh yeah. We got to go over that roof. You know, that was his thing.

00:17:27:17 - 00:17:33:27
Mark
It had enough of a line for him.

00:17:33:29 - 00:17:47:26
Mark
Roy was definitely. And we were, you know, when we started climbing, there was that basic rock craft, the rules, you know, book. And so we were very much. And those guys, those guys got more pressed

00:17:47:29 - 00:17:48:25
Mark
the.

00:17:48:28 - 00:17:52:23
Kyle
self-created or do you think that was like media bias?

00:17:52:26 - 00:18:11:19
Mark
No, there really wasn't that much media. But just just I mean, Harding had his downward bound book, you know, which we all read right alongside of basic rock craft and all that kind of stuff. But Robin's there was a an interview of Robin's in Mountain magazine.

00:18:11:19 - 00:18:17:12
Kyle
Yeah, I guess, like, do you think it was self-promotion? Like, did did Royal Robins adopt the art of self-promotion?

00:18:17:15 - 00:18:20:15
Mark
Oh, I would think so, yes. Yeah.

00:18:20:18 - 00:18:21:27
Kyle
of didn't care enough to do

00:18:22:02 - 00:18:48:11
Mark
Right. And I think that was a little bit of their thing, where Roy or Harding didn't feel like he was getting the recognition, because just because he didn't know how to do it, you know, even though. Who was it? Oh. When Galen, Raoul and somebody else were going to go do the regular route on the direct on Half Dome, they had had this big promotion thing.

00:18:48:11 - 00:19:13:08
Mark
And so Robin stormed up there and threw off all their ropes and climbed the route. And then, like Raul and those guys never went back to get any of their gear. But he had heard that they were going to promote it that way. But yet, what was it? The third ascent of the South? Robbins guided it, you know, so I mean, Robbins was very much.

00:19:13:09 - 00:19:40:22
Mark
This is the way we are doing it, because it's what I say is going to happen in in that article, in that interview in mountain magazine, Robin says there's nine routes en el cap, and that seems like a good number. I mean, he had done the first or second ascent of all of them. He goes every, every other, every subsequent route diminishes the importance of those nine.

00:19:40:24 - 00:20:02:11
Mark
It's like, oh, excuse me, Roy, you know. Yeah. So it's like I've done these routes. You guys should really just move on. Yeah. You know, because your roots, you know, my roots are the important ones and those have to stay important. So it's like, oh, geez. Okay, Roy, you know, I get I guess we'll just go somewhere else,

00:20:02:11 - 00:20:05:00
Kyle
Yeah. And did he have, like, a little fanboy club or.

00:20:05:03 - 00:20:30:17
Mark
Oh, totally. Yeah. There was yeah, he was, but yet but even even still, he needed that attention. I mean, I remember him being in Yosemite. Not a lot. I only saw him in Yosemite once, and he's sort of like, you know, was, oh, I hope those guys see me kind of thing. The.

00:20:30:20 - 00:20:52:15
Mark
Max and I had just been on the south trying to free climb it, and Royal was giving a slideshow in, in Fresno. And so we went down there and I forget, this was the first time I met him. And I walked up to him and I think I said, I said, oh, you're Roy Robbins. I always wanted to meet you.

00:20:52:15 - 00:21:16:09
Mark
And I stood there and I. And I put out my hand and he had his hands in his pocket. And I swear to God, I stood there 1001, 1002, 1003. And then he slowly took his hand out of his pocket and shook my hand. And I'm going, oh, geez, excuse me. I mean, maybe I should have washed my hand or something, you know?

00:21:16:10 - 00:21:22:01
Mark
But he was he was definitely on Royal Robbins kind of thing.

00:21:22:03 - 00:21:36:06
Kyle
What do you think? So like these two characters. Like if you if you from today's perspective and we look back at that like what do you think they represented about the climbing culture. Because I think it's been definitely painted that way.

00:21:36:09 - 00:22:02:26
Mark
Royal definitely thought that it was. I mean, okay, they were both moving, climbing forward. Of course, because they were that was really the golden age. But Royal just had an idea that it had to be a certain way and that it mattered, that it was serious. And Harding said, okay, maybe we're moving, climbing forward, but this is this is sort of stupid what we're doing.

00:22:02:29 - 00:22:35:29
Mark
And he wasn't as serious about it. You know, there was one of the interviews or, or something. He he compared the dawn wall as he said, oh, I guess a $330 because there's 330 bolts on the dawn wall. He says, I guess a $330 call girl is unacceptable, but yet $150 call girl. The number of bolts that run to sack is acceptable.

00:22:36:02 - 00:22:41:23
Mark
Meaning like, okay, who drew the line? You know, we're why is 330 is 329 okay?

00:22:41:23 - 00:22:42:26
Kyle
because Royal didn't do

00:22:42:28 - 00:22:48:08
Mark
That's exactly it, you know. But yet.

00:22:48:10 - 00:23:12:27
Mark
Royal and Harding had plans to go do the, the regular route and Half Dome together. And it would have been the first grade six. It was the first grade six in the United States. But Harding had to go do something else for a little while. And Robin's just got two other guys and they just did it. And Harding ran up to the top of Half Dome and congratulated

00:23:13:03 - 00:23:13:17
Kyle
wow.

00:23:13:22 - 00:23:41:17
Mark
Yeah, and I can't imagine that if the roles had been reversed, Robbins would have done. No, it would have been. It would have something about it, you know. But it it was just a it was such a serious thing for Robbins. You know, we're building something. This is the way it has to be. And so we were we were like, well, yeah, okay.

00:23:41:18 - 00:24:15:11
Mark
You know, we were we were steeped in that, you know, that classic sense of, you know, the individual, the, you know, you've got to depend on yourself and climbing, you know, you don't place a whole lot of protection and the bold climber kind of thing. We enjoyed that. Definitely bolts all over the place on places where you could place gear was not considered good, but yet we still understood Hardings idea of we're all just playing games here.

00:24:15:16 - 00:24:20:26
Mark
You know, this is really we're not solving cancer or we're not feeding the hungry.

00:24:20:29 - 00:24:25:04
Kyle
How do you see this like translate to modern day climbing culture.

00:24:25:07 - 00:24:25:24
Mark
I think.

00:24:25:24 - 00:24:29:20
Mark
People are.

00:24:29:22 - 00:24:30:14
Mark
There.

00:24:30:16 - 00:24:48:03
Mark
They're sort of coming closer towards the middle. I think they're saying, okay, yes, we want it to be challenging, but I don't really want to die up here. You know, I'm only going to go so far before I drill a bolt or I hang or something. Robbins would have just like, you know, gone on and on and on and on.

00:24:48:03 - 00:25:08:12
Mark
I don't want to drill 15 bolts in a row to do this route, but yet we are out here having fun. So I think when you take that to the, you know, the, the, the big mountains that that ethic of starting at the bottom, climbing to the top is still there. But that's, you know, that's where it should be, really.

00:25:08:12 - 00:25:37:16
Mark
There was that Reinhold Messner, the murder of the impossible, his interview in mountain magazine, where he was totally against bolts in any because, okay, so his arm masonry had just bolted to. So that was the big raging thing. And so, you know, that was something that we talked about also. It's like, okay, Harding and Caldwell hand drilled 330 bolts even though they invented rivets on that route.

00:25:37:19 - 00:25:57:20
Mark
Is that better than a compressor? You know, a bolt in the rock? Once the bolts in the rock that's in the rock, it's the roots going to take 330 bolts, whether you drill them by hand or dry by a compressor. So that was something, you know, at that age.

00:25:57:22 - 00:26:27:08
Mark
We were still young. We were still idealistic. We wanted the challenge, you know, so we probably we definitely looked down on the, on the compressor kind of thing. We weren't we weren't all for the 330 bolts. We weren't for rampant bolting on L cab. We were all, you got to do as good a job as you can. And we had a everyone had their limit is really what it is.

00:26:27:09 - 00:26:28:11
Mark
You know.

00:26:28:14 - 00:26:40:18
Kyle
How like how do you feel like ethics should be defined? It seems like you could have like the I mean, the first ascension is just kind of like does whatever they feel like their vision is.

00:26:40:21 - 00:26:54:04
Kyle
But, you know, you have this whole situation where like, people want a retro boat like Snake Dike. And the first decision it says, yes, but then everybody else in the community who is like fighting against it is like hell.

00:26:54:04 - 00:27:02:10
Kyle
No. Like is it, do you feel like it should be community, community consensus? Like, it's such a subjective thing.

00:27:02:13 - 00:27:03:13
Mark
It is.

00:27:03:13 - 00:27:08:13
Kyle
don't think we'll ever get to a point where, like, we're never going to get to a point where everyone just agrees.

00:27:08:15 - 00:27:09:04
Mark
Oh, totally.

00:27:09:09 - 00:27:12:16
Kyle
so it's like this never ending battle that we're never going to

00:27:12:19 - 00:27:13:07
Mark
Yeah.

00:27:13:07 - 00:27:15:02
Kyle
And yeah, that's a tough one.

00:27:15:05 - 00:27:32:13
Mark
I was I was brought up in that boldness era, you know, where we're ability counted for something making I mean, there were there were.

00:27:32:15 - 00:27:54:09
Mark
Max is such a nice guy, but he said this, this was so funny, I so I laughed the minute he said it. And friends had just come out and there was only a one, two and a three, and there was a four, but there was no overlap, so we needed half sizes. And so we were going to go up on the nose and we immediately adopted friends and even back then.

00:27:54:10 - 00:28:17:01
Mark
Okay, so this is 1979. There was a lot of fixed gear in the nose because people were still pounding pitons. So it was a lot of fixed pins. And so Max and I went up on the nose. We had we had three sets of friends and we had one number four. And and it was so funny. Max is so nice.

00:28:17:01 - 00:28:28:03
Mark
But he said this and this guy was going, are you going to protect legs? How are you going to protect legs or just that one for that one four. And Max just looked at me. Goes with my ability.

00:28:28:06 - 00:28:32:12
Mark
You know which Max is never like that. He's the world's nicest guy.

00:28:32:18 - 00:28:34:00
Mark
But but that.

00:28:34:00 - 00:28:59:19
Mark
Was a point. You know, just we're going to protect it by. We understand our ability. We understand our strength. And you know, we understand this. And so you can protect stuff with your ability. It sort of bums me out these days. There's there's some roots. I mean, you see roots and they're bolted just like a gym where the routes got a bolt every four feet and it's like, oh my God, come on.

00:28:59:22 - 00:29:00:26
Mark
I mean, really?

00:29:00:26 - 00:29:03:01
Kyle
I can touch the bolt below me when I'm clipping the next one,

00:29:03:03 - 00:29:29:20
Mark
Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to not Z clip every single time. And I, and I sort of go, oh God, this is really too bad. You know, climbing, climbing for me. Has been about that knowing yourself kind of thing. And that kind of bolting doesn't really require anything, anything of you and I, and I miss that.

00:29:29:20 - 00:29:51:03
Mark
I miss I definitely miss that. There was a route at Smith called dreamin, which Smith was. You know, when Allen was first starting to bolted, he was still getting tons of grief from the trad guys. So it's a little bit trad bolted. You know, it's not like if, if, if Smith were developed today, it would the bolts would be much closer together and all that kind of stuff.

00:29:51:04 - 00:30:03:28
Mark
Well, this dreaming was 511 plus run out. And I used to just love that route, you know, just because that was the era that I was brought up in. I just loved standing on little holds, going, okay, relax.

00:30:03:28 - 00:30:05:10
Mark
Relax, relax.

00:30:05:13 - 00:30:31:00
Mark
You know, try this move. Okay. Step down. Relax. Figure it out. Okay. Back up. I just love that. But and I think, I don't know, to me, and that's just to me is the thing that's that's sort of what we're talking about right now. It's to me, that's the part of climbing I love. But yet someone brought up in the gym that isn't the part of climbing they love.

00:30:31:01 - 00:30:51:12
Mark
They, you know, you hear all the time about, oh, I, I thought if I, if I thought if I took up rock climbing, I'm going to have to do that sketchy as shit trad stuff. And I go really sketchy a shit. What are you talking about? What routes are these? You know, with, with all the gear we have now, it's like, what, five, ten c 15ft run out?

00:30:51:12 - 00:31:07:05
Mark
Is that a big deal? I guess, I mean, should we is that sketchy? You know, so but back then. Well, these days we don't have that idea of all routes are not for all people.

00:31:07:08 - 00:31:25:13
Mark
You know, it's so you know I'm going to read point the shit out of this and so I can do anything. You know, there's there were I've seen guys that had trouble on the warm ups at Smith which were 511 ABC working rude Boys.

00:31:25:14 - 00:31:39:10
Mark
And I'm going, really, I'm just going to take you for hundred tries to do this. And it's like, but yet read point. Oh yeah. You know, Adam Andre Red pointed this route after two years of working on it right? Yeah, I guess so. Sure. Go right ahead.

00:31:39:10 - 00:31:40:08
Kyle
a terrible way to spend time.

00:31:40:12 - 00:31:56:18
Mark
Well, to me I'm not I'm not that into it. I, I actually the downfall of my sport climbing career was when I spent 15 days over three seasons to red point 100ft route.

00:31:56:20 - 00:32:18:14
Mark
I went, well, I'd rather just throttle back on the difficulty and go climb easier stuff. I mean, I just this is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I climbed this 513, but I'd rather go climb Astro man or the west face of El Cap or any number of things into all of me, you know? And so that was actually the downfall of my, of my sport climbing career.

00:32:18:14 - 00:32:23:16
Kyle
Yeah. And I mean, that's like a that's the cool thing about climbing is there's something for everyone,

00:32:23:19 - 00:32:24:02
Mark
right?

00:32:24:02 - 00:32:45:21
Mark
And there's that. And I don't get too I don't get too worked up about it, you know, I can I can go climb something else. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to get in somebody's face about bolting this thing every four feet. If somebody else does, that's great. You mentioned the snake dike thing, and and that was a terrible accident.

00:32:45:22 - 00:33:14:27
Mark
I mean, you cannot even imagine a worse accident, but that routes been done 100,000 times, and it's like, well, I mean, people have been driving down route 80. There's a few hundred thousand people who do that. And every now and then there's a terrible accident. So it's like, well, you know, not every route is for everybody. I asked a climber friend of mine that that route was a goal for him.

00:33:15:01 - 00:33:22:13
Mark
And because because you can't ask me if we should rebuilt it, you know, I go, whatever. I don't give a fuck, you know?

00:33:22:13 - 00:33:23:27
Kyle
already done it. I've been it.

00:33:24:00 - 00:33:43:13
Mark
Yeah. I came up with the idea of, okay, let's paint the original bolts red and let's paint all the new ones yellow. And so that if you want to do the original ascent, just clip the red bolts. And if you don't, whatever. Clip the yellow bolts, you know, clip all of those. So but he said, no, he says, and this guy is A56 climber.

00:33:43:13 - 00:34:09:18
Mark
And that was a big challenge for him. He psyched up and he worked for that route, and he probably couldn't even go back and do it again because it was such a big deal. And he goes, no, he goes, that was a real challenge for me. I really put myself in there to go do that route. So and I think his voice is valid because that route meant, yeah, yeah, to me, my voice is not valid on that route.

00:34:09:21 - 00:34:34:02
Kyle
Yeah, yeah, that's a tough one.

00:34:11:14 - 00:34:34:03
Kyle
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00:34:34:05 - 00:34:54:28
Kyle
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Kyle
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00:35:37:12 - 00:35:47:15
Kyle
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00:35:47:17 - 00:35:53:17
Kyle
What about ego? You have a quote here. He says we need ego in climbing.

00:35:53:20 - 00:35:54:17
Mark
Did I actually say

00:35:54:23 - 00:35:56:02
Kyle
was in our meet and

00:35:56:04 - 00:35:59:01
Mark
Okay okay.

00:35:59:03 - 00:36:00:15
Kyle
maybe that's not resonated with you anymore,

00:36:00:16 - 00:36:02:22
Mark
No, it's sort of not but but.

00:36:02:24 - 00:36:04:14
Kyle
I guess there was a time in your

00:36:04:17 - 00:36:05:17
Mark
Yes, yes,

00:36:05:17 - 00:36:08:25
Kyle
we need to prove who we are, and we need to prove that to other people.

00:36:08:28 - 00:36:48:18
Mark
As we're growing up. We need to prove who we are. We need to prove that we're worthy and we need to prove it to ourselves, even. And so, yes, we need ego. Ego on the good side is I want to be a better climber. He's a good climber. I want to climb better than him, which that's fine. I years and years, years ago, the 70s, when I was in Yosemite a lot, we hung out and we rated every single 511 in the ABC and we I don't know why we did this.

00:36:48:19 - 00:37:07:02
Mark
We sat around and we figured out how many climbers were in Yosemite right now, how many climbers climbed this? And so where does that put us in the whole hierarchy? So I used to say that I was the most competitive climber around because I wanted to be a good climber, but I didn't want to be a good climber at your expense.

00:37:07:07 - 00:37:31:08
Mark
I wanted to be a good climber because I wanted to inspire you to do better so that I would be inspired to do better. So there's so yes, we need ego, but only to get our only to make ourselves rise to the occasion, not to not to put people down. I don't I don't like that putting people down with it.

00:37:31:16 - 00:37:59:07
Mark
You know, it it goes back to like climbing is so freaking useless that why am I going to put you down for doing this useless thing? That, and I mean, believe me, I was a dick, you know, to some of my friends back then and, you know, like my buddies had just climbed the regular route on Half Dome and in five days and I went, well, Max and I just did it in 4.5 hours, you know, I was a total dick because, you know, I was I was still young, you know, I'll give you that when you're young.

00:37:59:07 - 00:38:06:03
Mark
But if you're, you know, if you're my age and you're doing that kind of stuff, I just go, oh, buddy, you need some help?

00:38:06:03 - 00:38:12:12
Kyle
I think, I mean, we talked about a little bit before we sat down, but I think it's all symptomatic of like when you don't have other things going on in your

00:38:12:15 - 00:38:13:04
Mark
Yeah.

00:38:13:04 - 00:38:20:02
Kyle
you're young, it's like that. You can get so absorbed by climbing. It becomes everything to you and you're trying to find your ground. You're trying to see where you

00:38:20:05 - 00:38:20:10
Mark
stand.

00:38:20:11 - 00:38:20:20
Mark
Right.

00:38:20:20 - 00:38:24:16
Kyle
And so like that becomes the hyper focus. It's like what, I climb this. What did you

00:38:24:18 - 00:38:52:19
Mark
It's the definition of who you are. And now, you know, at my age I don't need to be defined by that. You know, I've done that stuff. I'm an old guy. I'm past my peak. I'm on the way down, you know, and and it I don't need achievements anymore. And that ego sometimes drives you to achievements. And that's not what I'm after anymore.

00:38:52:19 - 00:38:59:08
Kyle
I think the one thing that when we talked about, one thing that we reflected on is like.

00:38:59:10 - 00:39:22:14
Kyle
When you say you've done a route, there's all this baggage that comes with it to someone who else who's climbed it before, because you know what that person went through to be able to climb that, what kind of person you are, how good of a climber you are, like, what kind of risk tolerance you have. Like, you were able to pull off those moves like there's so much depth to saying, like, I climb the Astro man.

00:39:22:14 - 00:39:31:07
Kyle
It's like, oh, whoa, you know, like there's there's meaning behind it.

00:39:25:22 - 00:39:31:08
Kyle
I mean, even like with this channel that I've been running, like I've noticed, like a shift, like I start climbing.

00:39:31:09 - 00:39:46:12
Kyle
I've climbed Rainbow Wall of Cloud Tower. I had no red points here. I'm not trying to say that I've freed every move or anything like that, but I got to the top. I've been on these routes, I've experienced them, and I can talk about them with other people. And there's just like this general sense of like, respect. It's like, okay, cool.

00:39:46:13 - 00:39:49:29
Kyle
Like, I understand who you are as a climber now,

00:39:49:04 - 00:39:50:01
Mark
now, right?

00:39:50:01 - 00:40:16:17
Mark
Yeah. Whereas and it's the same thing really, if, if some big multi pitch route was bolted and then some, you know, you climbed, it still takes a lot of you to do it even though it's bolted. And so you've eliminated a lot of that risk and that gear kind of thing. But then if someone just pulls on a few bolts, you still understand what they went through.

00:40:16:19 - 00:40:33:22
Mark
then you could be going, okay, well did you want to free climb it? And they go, yeah, I really did want a free climate. So you understand that their dreams and their hopes and how they might have been bummed that they didn't do it. So yeah, it does give you a way to relate.

00:40:33:24 - 00:40:39:06
Mark
Yeah. So there is that shared language.

00:40:39:11 - 00:40:45:17
Mark
Now it's interesting I think.

00:40:45:19 - 00:40:49:13
Mark
There's definitely a lot of trad climbing literature,

00:40:49:16 - 00:40:53:10
Mark
but there's no sport climbing literature.

00:40:53:13 - 00:40:56:25
Mark
You know how much?

00:40:56:28 - 00:41:13:12
Mark
Like, I just, I just spent all. I was just down to Baja all winter, and I spent two months writing this article about coming to terms with my last El cap routes, and and it was very.

00:41:13:15 - 00:41:50:28
Mark
It was very just like, who am I? And what am I losing? You know, what am I? Why? I mean, this thing that that has been a definition of me and I'm not going to be doing it anymore. So who am I going to be? What am I going to strive for? And and and yeah, I mean I know people will argue, well, yeah, people are working hard to do these sport routes and stuff, but is it really I mean, okay, someone I don't know, just recently I heard that he had worked a couple of years and he put like 500 attempts on this one, 515 D or something like that.

00:41:50:29 - 00:42:06:05
Mark
Okay. You know, the guy could definitely write a book about that, it would seem. But, but but generally there's not a lot of literature in sport climbing because that sport climbing just doesn't take.

00:42:06:08 - 00:42:06:29
Mark
I don't know,

00:42:06:29 - 00:42:07:29
Kyle
It lacks adventure.

00:42:08:01 - 00:42:10:24
Mark
it sort of. It does really. You know

00:42:10:24 - 00:42:12:00
Kyle
that's where the stories come

00:42:12:03 - 00:42:32:01
Mark
Yeah. And, you know, maybe that's the thing with the, with the Robbins versus the Harding guys, maybe it is. And you know, maybe it is that Reinhold Messner interview and mountain, the murder of the impossible. You know, you're going up there thinking, I really hope we can do this.

00:42:32:03 - 00:42:35:25
Mark
You know, I really want to do this.

00:42:35:28 - 00:42:37:21
Kyle
But I'm okay. If I can't.

00:42:37:23 - 00:42:45:11
Mark
I'm okay if I can't. Right. Whereas if you. You know, if you've bolted the whole thing, that's a hard one.

00:42:45:11 - 00:42:47:27
Kyle
It's like. Are you familiar with Paul Ramsden?

00:42:47:29 - 00:42:48:13
Mark
No.

00:42:48:13 - 00:42:52:01
Kyle
He's like a seven times pellet Dior winner.

00:42:52:08 - 00:42:53:10
Mark
Oh, yeah.

00:42:53:10 - 00:42:56:28
Kyle
British. He's like a he's like the world Robbins of alpine

00:42:57:00 - 00:42:57:08
Mark
Sure.

00:42:57:08 - 00:43:04:02
Kyle
He's like ground up. First ascent of not only an unclimbed route but an unclimbed mountain

00:43:04:09 - 00:43:14:16
Kyle
in like Pakistan, Nepal like these big mountains. And his ethic is no fixed hardware, no leaving any gear behind.

00:43:14:18 - 00:43:22:19
Kyle
And, you know, first ascent. First ascent. And if I, if I have to place a bolt to get up, then I don't climb it.

00:43:22:24 - 00:43:23:08
Mark
Yeah.

00:43:23:11 - 00:43:25:07
Kyle
he's like that's his ethic. That's his purity.

00:43:25:11 - 00:43:25:21
Mark
Sure. He

00:43:25:21 - 00:43:27:04
Kyle
doesn't like put it on other people,

00:43:27:06 - 00:43:27:21
Mark
Sure.

00:43:27:21 - 00:43:28:09
Kyle
his style.

00:43:28:13 - 00:43:29:22
Mark
Yeah.

00:43:29:24 - 00:43:30:15
Kyle
that's interesting.

00:43:30:22 - 00:43:58:16
Mark
Yeah. Although and we talked about it while you guys were setting up. I've free climbed El Cap except for two moves, you know. So I pulled on the bolts on the Teflon corner, and that's as good as it's going to get. So it was such an adventure. It was. It was. So am I going to be able to do this at all?

00:43:58:18 - 00:44:29:04
Mark
And just meeting Jordan and him supporting me and us climbing together for that whole year, that I felt that calling and I didn't really we left the ground and I pretty much knew I wasn't going to be able to do the Teflon. So I was climbing up into, you know, quote unquote failure. But I didn't want to let that I didn't want failure to be the definition of that journey of that whole time with with Jordan.

00:44:29:06 - 00:44:49:06
Mark
I would love, love, love, love to say that I free clan Del Kalb. I would love to. I mean, I would I'm semi bum that I can't say that I free climbed El Cap and yes, I failed at free climbing free Rider, but it was one of the biggest adventures of my whole life. It was an adventure I knew.

00:44:49:07 - 00:45:04:03
Mark
I pretty much knew I was going to be able to do it, but I thought that maybe I could just do it. Maybe, bam, it'll just happen. And I went and I went, okay, here it is. This is it. This is part of the story. And.

00:45:04:05 - 00:45:09:19
Mark
The guy you just mentioned, he would have frickin tossed the bags off and ripped off and said. See you

00:45:09:22 - 00:45:14:21
Mark
You know, and I guess that would have been part of his story

00:45:14:24 - 00:45:21:20
Mark
and and that would make him happy. And so my story makes me happy, you know, I mean, I didn't.

00:45:21:23 - 00:45:24:01
Kyle
mean, I think it's like about goal setting, right? If like

00:45:24:07 - 00:45:24:25
Mark
Yeah. Like

00:45:24:26 - 00:45:31:29
Kyle
you getting on the South a during that exact moment, the only reason you were there was to free it

00:45:32:02 - 00:45:41:01
Kyle
and free every move. And that was the only goal you had then. Yeah. I mean, if you didn't do it, that's a failure. And then you're going to be depressed and you're like, I didn't do it.

00:45:41:01 - 00:45:50:02
Kyle
I hate myself. Whatever the the fallout from that is. But it seems like, you know, you, you were coming from it from a point of view where it's like, no, I have all these other goals to

00:45:50:05 - 00:45:50:11
Kyle
and

00:45:50:16 - 00:45:53:18
Kyle
if I can free it, then I get this consolation prize.

00:45:53:21 - 00:46:17:06
Mark
Right. Well, there you go. You mentioned prize. And so that was my little mental gymnastics, my little story where what would you choose? You climb the nose. If you touch the tree on top, you forget the experience. But you get a blue ribbon that says you climb the nose, or you look at the tree and you go later and you repel down.

00:46:17:06 - 00:46:40:15
Mark
But you can never say that. You climb the nose. You have the memory. You have the experience, but you can't. I mean, it just it just catches in your throat, you know, you can't say, you can never write a report. You know, you can't say you climbed it, but you remember the experience. And so so there I am, getting ready to pull on those bolts.

00:46:40:17 - 00:47:04:29
Mark
If I pull on those bolts, I'm not going to get the prize, but I'm going to get the experience. And so that experience is going to be the one of the most wonderful things that have ever happened to me in my life. I go further with this and I go, okay, we're you're you're laying there in that bed with those tubes up your nose, you know, and your friends are all around and they're looking at your trophy case and they're going, oh, look.

00:47:05:01 - 00:47:25:28
Mark
Kyle climbed the nose in in May of 2026. Oh, I have the same I have the same ribbon. I wonder if we climbed it together, but yet. Okay, you take your last breath and you die and we walk out of that room. We don't have any stories of Kyle because there's all his ribbons. We don't have any stories of him.

00:47:25:28 - 00:47:36:11
Mark
We can't sit around the bar and go, oh, yeah, me and Kyle, there we were, you know, blah, blah, blah, because Kyle chose the ribbon the whole time, so.

00:47:36:13 - 00:47:58:13
Mark
I'd rather go fail and have the experience. And, you know, that's what that guy is doing. I would rather fail and have have tried valiantly than then, then break, then break the mountain down into something else. Which, if that's what you want, then go right ahead. You know. But it's not what I want.

00:47:58:13 - 00:48:06:25
Kyle
Yeah, it was interesting when I first heard this concept, I was kind of like thinking between the two, and I was just like, I can't even think of of someone who would take the trophy and forget the experience.

00:48:07:00 - 00:48:16:15
Mark
Well, I hope my buddy never hears this, but right now, there's this whole competition to be the oldest team to climb the nose in a day.

00:48:16:17 - 00:48:27:22
Mark
So, you know, good climbers are getting to be old these days. Like Jim Hurston and Hans Florin are both 65, I think. So they've got 130 years,

00:48:27:24 - 00:48:28:06
Kyle
Between the.

00:48:28:06 - 00:48:28:10
Kyle
Two

00:48:28:13 - 00:48:29:06
Mark
between the two of them.

00:48:29:06 - 00:49:02:19
Mark
And so this guy said, I'm I'm 70. He's 68. He goes, Mark, we could get the record. We could hold the record for like five years or something before those guys got old enough to break our record. We could have the record and and I, I mean, immediately I went, I am absolutely uninterested because that's completely for the prize now, right now, today, if Max were to call me and go, Mark, I want to do the nose in a day, I'm totally in because to me, Max is a just.

00:49:02:21 - 00:49:26:03
Mark
I mean, that would mean something to me. I've climbed so much with Max. He's such a good friend that yes, I would do that because I know the experience of climbing it would. Max would mean something to me. But with my other friend, I'm only climbing it for the prize. And, you know, I mean, I could probably do the nose in a day, but it's a lot of work.

00:49:26:03 - 00:49:43:07
Mark
I would have to devote a lot of time to it, and I'm just not like I just said, if Max were call me today, I'd go, yes, we're going to do it. I'm going to devote that time because it would mean something. But but to just go get the record, I absolutely don't care.

00:49:43:10 - 00:49:43:23
Mark
Yeah,

00:49:43:25 - 00:49:49:19
Kyle
No, I'm with you. I think that the experience is the adventure, the experience. That's why. That's why I

00:49:49:22 - 00:50:08:25
Mark
Yeah, Scott and I, it was blazing hot a couple of years ago and we were unable to get up on chaos. And it was funny because Jordan texted me. He goes, well, certainly you can find somebody else to climb chaos with. And I went, yeah, but I don't want to climb chaos with somebody else. I want to climb chaos with Scott, you know?

00:50:08:27 - 00:50:14:13
Mark
So it's like, no, I don't even care. That's the prize. I want the experience.

00:50:14:16 - 00:50:29:21
Kyle
In yours. So we're talking about like, experience. And these are the things that you value in your 50 plus years of climbing. Is there like a single experience, a single moment in the mountains that that stands out to you?

00:50:29:23 - 00:50:33:03
Mark
You know, so.

00:50:33:04 - 00:50:38:01
Mark
Much of.

00:50:38:04 - 00:50:38:24
Mark
When I was climbing.

00:50:38:24 - 00:51:07:07
Mark
With Max in the in the 70s, we were we were sort of climbing next to the limit we were doing. We were doing things. But it was so cool to be with someone who, who had that same attitude that I, that I had, and he was willing to go and he was willing to suffer. And we we just banged out a bunch of routes and, and it was interesting.

00:51:07:10 - 00:51:23:17
Mark
I remember we were, we were, we were gathering stuff up to do the South a in, you know, camp floor. And someone walked up and we had started to get a little bit of a rep of that we could do. We were doing pretty good stuff. And someone walked up and they said, what are you guys going to go do?

00:51:23:18 - 00:51:43:12
Mark
And and we said, we're going to go try to free climb the salt. And he goes, really? What are you going to do in the headwall? You're not going to be free. Climb the headwall. We go. Well, we don't know. We're just going to go up there and give it a try. And and it was, it was I mean there was only one five, 13 in the whole valley at the time.

00:51:43:12 - 00:52:03:23
Mark
And certainly anyone who looked at it knew it was going to be 513. And we just went, whatever, we're just going to go up there and have fun. And that was like a this does not compute kind of thing because it was we we already knew that we weren't going to be able to free climate, but we didn't care.

00:52:03:24 - 00:52:24:07
Mark
We were just going there to see what was going to happen. We were going up there just to, just to, to, and we weren't even thinking of pushing limits. We were just thinking, oh, wow. Wouldn't that be cool to go up there and like, slam some hand jams in the in the headwall, free climbing, that kind of stuff.

00:52:24:10 - 00:52:43:13
Mark
And, and it was just that kind of stuff. And Max was just as into it as I was. And he pushed and, you know, he fell on the headwall and we just went up there and did this thing. And it was we used to sit there and go, isn't it crazy that we can do this stuff? This is like having superpowers.

00:52:43:13 - 00:52:58:24
Mark
We can do these things. It was just we were so happy. It was just so fun to be able to go somewhere. And Max said it too. He said, I don't want to be a good climber just to be a good climber. I want to be a good climber so that I can go somewhere and go, whoa, what is that?

00:52:58:24 - 00:53:25:10
Mark
Let's go climb that. Oh, it's five nine, I don't care, let's just go. That looks freaking cool. Let's go climb that or. Oh, yeah, it's 511 plus. Yeah. Let's go, let's go, let's go. You know. So that was it was, it was just that, that driving around the country and hearing about a route and going over there and, and doing it or not doing it and just that, that the sky is the limit kind of thing.

00:53:25:10 - 00:53:27:11
Kyle
a shared mutual passion with another

00:53:27:14 - 00:53:56:04
Mark
Yeah. It was it was really fun. We really we had so much fun doing that, that kind of stuff and that, you know, I've had great. I've, I've been so lucky. I've had great climbing partners and you know, Jordan Scott for my big walls, I have a really good friend in, in Vegas who I climb with. And we're just not at all interested in the rating.

00:53:56:04 - 00:54:15:22
Mark
We're interesting. We're interested in the climb and being together and having fun. So there's no there's no ego involved. There's no bummer involved. The last time I was down there, it would she had hurt herself. And so we climbed A57 route and it was like, we're just going to go have fun. We're just going to go climb some rock.

00:54:15:23 - 00:54:28:02
Mark
You know, we're going to climb this five seven and have a great old time. And but but that that whole time with Max was just I always it was just some of the best climbing in my life. It was so fun.

00:54:28:05 - 00:54:32:07
Kyle
What do you think makes a good climbing partnership?

00:54:32:09 - 00:54:37:09
Mark
You know.

00:54:37:11 - 00:54:49:22
Mark
Someone that you can just really it's hard. I mean, I've never had to do that, you know, put the note on the camp for bulletin board, you know, want to climb the nose kind of thing.

00:54:49:25 - 00:54:59:19
Mark
Although that's how Max and I met. Not a bulletin board, but we were introduced. And then he came over to my site and said, hey, my partner's just crapped out on me on the nose.

00:54:59:20 - 00:55:14:11
Mark
Do you still want to go do the nose? And I had just met Max, you know, five days before. And that night we spent on Sichel ledge and we climbed the nose, and then the rest is sort of history. It's just we.

00:55:14:14 - 00:55:38:09
Mark
We had a we had a really friendly competition. I wanted him to do well. He wanted me to do well. We both had a good idea. Like he would say. He would say Mark had an idea of how he wanted to do this route. And I would go, okay, let's go. And that would be like Mark's project. And we would just sort of go and then Max would come up, hey, Mark, let's go do this and let's go do it like that and like, okay, great.

00:55:38:09 - 00:56:00:23
Mark
Let's go. And so he had an idea. We were both sort of creative that way. Let's go do it like this. Let's go do it like that. And just you're back then where it was trad climbing. We're both more willing to, you know, put it on the line. I guess we never got too crazy, but we were still ready to go.

00:56:00:27 - 00:56:23:05
Mark
You know, you never have to worry about this guy backing down. One thing, too. I tell a lot of people these days, you got to have an honest assessment of your skills, and and we, we, you know, Max, did. Scott, you know, as far as wall climbing goes, Jordan of course did. So there was never any never any bullshit in there.

00:56:23:07 - 00:56:43:14
Mark
It wasn't it wasn't. Let's go do this, you know, ridiculously hard or run out route that you just knew we weren't going to be able to. Just like you can't do that, you know, he knew. He knew he could do it, you know, or, you know, that kind of thing. So just an honest assessment of his skills and then understanding where your partner is.

00:56:43:14 - 00:57:01:19
Mark
Also, back then I was the guy who did all the run out pitches, and Max was the guy who did all the really technical thin cracks. He was just so good at that. But that was how our partnership worked. We were.

00:57:01:21 - 00:57:21:02
Mark
We we hiked into free climb quarter domes and we had those little ghouls, you know, that, you know, you'd sit there and you'd pull it down over your over your knees and you just sort of squat with the hood on to be raining and raining and rating. And you're just sitting there going, okay, here we are. He was ready to do

00:57:21:05 - 00:57:50:27
Mark
You know, we we did that and we free climbed Quarter Domes and then we ran over to Half Dome. My brother brought us some sandwiches and then we ran down to the base the next morning. And we we we speed climbed Half Dome in. I remember our rack we had we each had a one, two and three friend, and we each had a single single set of, of stoppers.

00:57:50:28 - 00:58:10:27
Mark
And we had a little pint water bottle and a breakfast bar in our pocket. And that was the whole that was we gave our we gave my brother our approach shoes and we just we just went, you know, and it was just he was totally into it. I was totally into it. And it was just fun. And we had a great old time just that kind of thing.

00:58:10:27 - 00:58:12:06
Kyle
Yeah, yeah.

00:58:12:06 - 00:58:21:12
Kyle
It's, like you said, I think, at least I'm running into it. I personally don't have this problem. I'm very grateful for that. But a lot of people struggle to find partners.

00:58:21:15 - 00:58:22:04
Mark
Yeah.

00:58:22:09 - 00:58:24:07
Kyle
that is these days?

00:58:24:09 - 00:58:27:21
Mark
I think I think.

00:58:27:21 - 00:58:31:11
Mark
Really it's people do not have.

00:58:31:16 - 00:58:32:10
Mark
Well, some people have.

00:58:32:10 - 00:58:54:03
Mark
This real red point idea of anything like we're going to go up the nose. I've never done anything like this, but I'm going to read point the nose eventually. You know, they have no real idea what it takes. And then, you know, you hear you hear all sorts of stories about, oh, yeah, we got to the base and they couldn't haul the bag.

00:58:54:05 - 00:59:16:29
Mark
It's like, what? You couldn't hold the bag. You know, I remember I was in Zion one day and and I was, I was out taking pictures and they were guys were on this pinnacle. And the one guy was going to get lowered down, but he was questioning his belayer about, you know, threading the Grigoriy correctly. And did you, you know, do you know how to how to do this?

00:59:16:29 - 00:59:33:13
Mark
And they were the guy the Blair really didn't know how to how to thread the Gregory. And he said, I thought you said you knew how to how to use a Greek. And the guy goes, I do. It's like, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's only like two ways you can thread it is either the right way or the wrong way.

00:59:33:13 - 00:59:52:27
Mark
But even there, amiss all his inability to thread the Gregory correctly, he was convinced that he knew how to do it. So going well, I mean, like, what are you what are you talking about? I mean, it's obvious that you don't know how to do it. And these people, they just deceive themselves. You know, how many guys, how many people, they say, oh, yeah, the stove legs are five, ten.

00:59:52:28 - 00:59:59:00
Mark
See? Oh, yeah. I can climb five Tennessee, I can climb five. Tennessee. And the guy goes up there and he gets two feet off the anchor and he can't do it.

00:59:59:03 - 01:00:02:07
Kyle
Well, I mean, those people actually found partners in the first place.

01:00:02:12 - 01:00:10:02
Mark
Well, right. Because they because they, they sort of presented that I can do this, but yet I can't really do this.

01:00:10:02 - 01:00:16:14
Kyle
then after that, you're saying, like, you get a namesake for being that, and so you get blacklisted in a way from like smaller communities?

01:00:16:21 - 01:00:32:01
Mark
you sort of do, you know, I mean, no. Yeah. I remember back in the day when, you know, the leader does not fall kind of thing, you got a rep. If you were someone who fell, it's like, oh, that guy falls, you know, so that, you know.

01:00:32:05 - 01:00:47:22
Kyle
I mean it's one that that's one question I asked people. I said, are you a taker or are you a follower? As I asked new partners that all the time because I need to be prepared. Like, do I need to prepare for you to be like, hey, take it's getting hard here? Or like, am I going to need to be prepared for you to be like crux and like, ready to

01:00:47:25 - 01:00:54:09
Mark
Yeah, yeah. I can't I can't handle that level of intensity for four days, you know, I mean come on.

01:00:54:12 - 01:01:12:03
Mark
Yeah, but but an honest assessment of their skills, really. It's just it's crazy that people don't have a have that. I mean, it's really it's an ego thing. I remember one of the first days I was at Smith Rock when I was just learning about how sport climbing was working.

01:01:12:06 - 01:01:36:12
Mark
And this, this guy was on something next to a heinous killing, some 12 B or something over to the right. And and the guy went up on it and he hung on the whole thing. And I went, well, all right. Whatever. And his friends walked up and he lowered down and goes, yeah, I just climbed this. It's really good.

01:01:36:16 - 01:01:41:07
Mark
And I went, really? He just he didn't climb that at all.

01:01:41:09 - 01:01:51:02
Mark
yet he believed that he had just climbed that. And so that's what he's going to portray when he when he tells people, oh yeah I can Clive Toby

01:01:51:04 - 01:02:04:20
Mark
I'm going. And so that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. You know, it's well you can climb ten b 12 b, I mean, could you climb in the gym or do climb trad or people just don't have a, you know, they just don't have that.

01:02:04:20 - 01:02:11:27
Kyle
yeah, there's that. And I think the like community can be kind of hard to come by unless you like, interject yourself into it.

01:02:11:29 - 01:02:23:02
Kyle
I think that's like a lot of the time is like some people just don't have a pool of people to even choose from or be in front of, like and like, I mean, at least for Vegas, it's like you post Partner Finder on Vegas Climbers group and you're not.

01:02:23:03 - 01:02:25:15
Kyle
No one's going to reach out to you. It doesn't seem like that's the case.

01:02:25:18 - 01:02:25:29
Mark
Yeah.

01:02:26:05 - 01:02:42:21
Kyle
it's also such a crapshoot, too. It's like you don't know. Like you said, someone might be lying about their abilities. It's like it's kind of a dice roll. You'd much rather climb with someone who's a friends, with a friend, or someone that you've maybe been following on Instagram and you've been seeing their climbs, and so you have an idea of what kind of climber they are.

01:02:42:22 - 01:02:46:22
Kyle
You have a deal of their personality and there's like that sense of familiarity.

01:02:46:25 - 01:03:09:01
Mark
There's there's no sense of apprenticeship these days. Back in the day, back when, you know, back in my day, it was a common thing to say, you're not ready for this route. And that wasn't that wasn't you suck. It's just you don't have enough experience to go up there. And of course, that was that was back when user was just getting developed.

01:03:09:01 - 01:03:36:18
Mark
So rescues were not just a sure thing. Now you freaking dial 901 and go, I'm on the nose, come and get me. And you know, three hours later, there you go. So it was a little bit more of a serious kind of thing, but people don't take it seriously anymore. They it they think, you know, they hear these stories of, oh, yeah, those guys from Ohio had never climbed a wall, and they drove right into the valley and they did the nose in a day.

01:03:36:18 - 01:03:50:15
Mark
And it's like, well, yeah, that does happen. But no one hears about those 75 other parties who, you know, didn't get above sickle ledge kind of thing. So yes, that does happen. But come on, you know.

01:03:50:17 - 01:04:00:21
Kyle
So your your partnership you it he left. He stops climbing and chose mountain biking instead.

01:04:00:24 - 01:04:02:27
Mark
And it didn't exactly work that way.

01:04:02:27 - 01:04:03:08
Kyle
okay.

01:04:03:08 - 01:04:03:29
Mark
Yeah.

01:04:03:29 - 01:04:10:16
Kyle
that. Because it seemed like I mean you guys are having a reunion soon. You guys have like a 50. What's the what's the anniversary? How many

01:04:10:18 - 01:04:12:14
Mark
years? 50 years? Yeah.

01:04:12:21 - 01:04:46:22
Kyle
it seems like you had this period of climbing with with.

01:04:15:16 - 01:04:46:20
Mark
Well, yes, Max and I were you know, I climbed met with Max exclusively for five years. He climbed with me exclusively. And even then I felt after 79, I didn't go back to your 72 much. And I felt that I had sort of done it. And so I slowed down, climbing a little bit. And then Max did one more year of being in Yosemite without me and didn't really do anything.

01:04:46:25 - 01:05:10:25
Mark
And then he slowed down quite a bit. And then but I think he felt like he had done it also. And so we would meet each other at Donner and we were climbing, but he just he just wasn't that interested in it anymore. And then I remember one day I was down at Calaveras as they were another friend and Max had driven down also.

01:05:10:25 - 01:05:29:19
Mark
And this is when Calaveras was pretty much unknown. And, and Max pulled in and we, you know, we talked about it and Max just looked at it and went, I'm not really into this. And he got in his car and he drove away. And that was the last I saw Max for like five years. And and then I continued climbing.

01:05:29:19 - 01:06:00:04
Mark
And then there was the whole Bolt Wars where I quit climbing, and I ended up moving to hood River to windsurf. But. Max. Max, I always say that I'm a really good rock climber and Max is an athlete. So Max after after the climbing, he got into road biking and so he got on a road bike or no, he, he got into biathlon okay, skiing and shooting.

01:06:00:06 - 01:06:08:01
Mark
And so he, he said the Russians could shoot better from their hip than he could lying down

01:06:08:03 - 01:06:13:25
Mark
shoot. And so he almost got on the Olympic team for biathlon.

01:06:13:27 - 01:06:19:16
Mark
said that getting from nowhere to 11th is as hard as getting from 11th to 10th.

01:06:19:19 - 01:06:20:03
Kyle
Wow.

01:06:20:07 - 01:06:28:18
Mark
he didn't make the team, so that wasn't going to happen. So he got into road biking and so he was road biking and he didn't didn't quite like that.

01:06:28:18 - 01:06:55:08
Mark
Mountain biking started to take off. And so he got into mountain biking and he became very, very successful. But we had already sort of like split up a little bit. And then I heard about him mountain biking, but it was I was not into climbing either. Okay. So what happened? I moved up to hood River. It was the early 90s.

01:06:55:09 - 01:07:20:02
Mark
Sport climbing became an okay thing to do. I started hearing about Max getting into sport climbing because he sort of felt the same way at cave Rock. And cave Rock is the perfect sport climbing area for Max. Max was always the gorilla climber, I was always the ballet climber, and so he Max Red pointed a bunch of 13 in cave Rock and then he came up to.

01:07:20:04 - 01:07:39:22
Mark
He came up to Smith and climbed. And that's not his style at all. So they didn't do well at all. But so we didn't really do too much. But then I got back in the big wall climbing, and I had done a few big walls and I finally, you know, was telling Max, you got to come back, you got to come back, you got to climb out cap with me.

01:07:39:22 - 01:08:03:15
Mark
And then finally I got he agreed to climb out cap with me. He hadn't climbed out cap in 32 years. And I said, Max, I will buff you out. I'll provide all the gear. You know, your life is going to be just great. And so we did South Seas, which was great because it took it took Max like 4 or 5 days to get back into it.

01:08:03:15 - 01:08:30:04
Mark
And there's a great part of this whole story to he had never climbed a pitch with cams in his whole life, because he would stop climbing before Cams came out. And so he was really struggling, you know, he didn't see the sizes and he just didn't understand the stuff. So he was really struggling. And but he was getting better, you know, we'd sit there on the portal ledge, would talk about it.

01:08:30:04 - 01:08:57:03
Mark
And he was getting better. And I remember I wrote this trip report and he was he was ready. He was climbing up to do the rubber band man pendulum. And I looked at him and I thought, Max looks like he's back. Looks like he's really like he he understands it now. And I had him write something about his experience on it to include in my trip report.

01:08:57:03 - 01:09:25:12
Mark
At that exact moment, he looked back at me and he said, I'm back. I'm a climber again. I mean, when I read that, I went, oh my God, because we both, you know, we both saw that. I mean, he, he, he realized he was back and I realized he was back at the same exact moment, you know, which really proves that that Max is just one of my best friends, you know, and we really just we so totally enjoy doing these things.

01:09:25:12 - 01:09:45:22
Mark
Well, for the next years, we climbed Lost in America. Then we climbed the Atlantic Ocean wall. Then we climbed reticent, you know, which is pretty freaking hard. And then even just eight years after reticent, I got him to climb out cap with me again. And he's just like, oh, yeah, okay. You know, which is why I say Max is an athlete.

01:09:45:27 - 01:10:04:28
Mark
All he needs is a couple weeks of notice and he can totally be back in shape and and out there doing it. So just that partnership to be back there with Max, I mean, if we do this thing in the fall as our 50th anniversary, I'm going to cry my eyes out when we get to the

01:10:05:00 - 01:10:05:29
Kyle
What's your goal?

01:10:06:02 - 01:10:07:20
Mark
The nose.

01:10:07:22 - 01:10:09:26
Mark
Yeah, yeah. Because that was our first route.

01:10:09:26 - 01:10:10:28
Kyle
Are you going to try to do it in a day

01:10:11:02 - 01:10:25:00
Mark
No, we talked about that at one point, but I said, no, Max, let's just go have fun, you know. So but but it's going to be my last route and it's going to be with Max. And so that's, that's going to really, really mean something to

01:10:25:06 - 01:10:25:10
Kyle
really

01:10:25:16 - 01:10:26:15
Mark
Yeah. Yeah.

01:10:26:20 - 01:10:46:01
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01:11:17:29 - 01:11:27:21
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01:11:27:24 - 01:11:39:22
Kyle
What. So, you know, pivoting to your partnership with Jordan. Like what were some of the differences and like, what about the partnership with Jordan. Like really stood out to you and like, what did you get out of that

01:11:39:24 - 01:12:03:06
Mark
The the whole thing with Jordan, it was it was so wild. He wanted to meet me. He wanted to meet me. There was a climbing event at Donner Summit, and Max had been climbing and had been climbing with Jordan for some reason. I don't know how, but I was working for Max at Max's bike shop at Incline Village and he said, oh yeah, there's this guy Jordan, he wants to meet you.

01:12:03:07 - 01:12:22:17
Mark
And I had been climbing a little bit more. And so Jordan, Matt met me and within 45 minutes of meeting Jordan, Jordan said, you should you need to go back and free climb out. Cap El cap is a free climb now, and you should do it. You're one of the fathers of this free climbing big wall stuff. You should go do it.

01:12:22:17 - 01:12:39:23
Mark
And I swear to God, I said, I need to devote a year of my life to it. I need to climb whoever I do the root with for that year, and I can't do any hauling. And Jordan and I had known Jordan 45 minutes and he goes, I'll do that, you know. And I went, okay,

01:12:39:26 - 01:12:47:28
Mark
you know. And so we, we went off, we climbed the Hulk together just to see if we were getting along.

01:12:48:00 - 01:13:08:13
Mark
And then I did. Aurora en el cap with Scott. And Jordan was up on Golden Gate and had had had had broken a flake off on that last couple of pitches and really wrecked his hand. So he hiked to the top and he, he, I said, I'll go back there next year to, to support you because he had a friend support him there.

01:13:08:13 - 01:13:47:11
Mark
And he hiked to the top and helped us hump loads down. And then the next year he just had this plan. I mean, he just there was something I didn't see it then, but Jordan. Jordan, somehow he somehow saw something in me that he needed. Jordan's parents, Jordan's parents discovered his same sex attraction when he was 11 years old, and they basically shunned him at 11 years old.

01:13:47:11 - 01:14:11:24
Mark
At 11 years old, they told Jordan that that he had the devil in him. So when you're 11 years old, your parents are God's. Every single time you've ever gone to bed, they put you to bed. Every single time you ever woke up, they were there. Every every meal you ever had. They fed you. And so for them to do that, he was just crushed.

01:14:11:24 - 01:14:37:00
Mark
And so he was just just wandering and and and I don't know, I don't want to blow myself up or anything, but somehow he saw that I could be this father figure to him, that I, that I immediately just accepted him. What am I, nitwit? Friends said to Jordan. He goes, oh, yeah, we're keeping an eye on you to make sure that you're good enough to climb with Mark.

01:14:37:03 - 01:14:51:24
Mark
It's like, really? Who the fuck are you? You know, I mean, it's like I can make my own decisions, you know? And, and and Jordan felt the same way, but it just.

01:14:51:27 - 01:15:13:07
Mark
That sort of comes back to the ego thing. I know who I am. I don't need anyone to build me up. I don't need to prove anything. You know, at that point, I was 63 years old, seven years ago now. And so I didn't need I didn't need to prove anything. And so I was willing to accept it.

01:15:13:07 - 01:15:32:12
Mark
So here's this young kid. It also goes to I didn't I didn't mind that climbing was changing. And so Jordan was going to was presenting me with a sort of a new way of climbing. And I'm going, cool, let's go do it. Let's go dangle en el cap. Let's go climb a bunch of routes. This is going to be great.

01:15:32:12 - 01:15:59:10
Mark
And so we had a really good time, and George and I became closer and closer, and I started to see that, wow. There's something, something about this guy on the rock. He was really. He was calm. He was relaxed. He was fun. Off the rock. He was reserved. He didn't like hanging out with people. And I couldn't figure out what the deal was.

01:15:59:10 - 01:16:23:03
Mark
But I thought, okay, he's 25 years old, he's figuring out who he is. And on the Rock is where he feels comfortable. So I was just going, whatever. So then we're in the parking lot at Max's because Jordan was working for Max also. And so we're sitting there and Jordan says, I've got something to tell you. I've got something to tell you got something to tell you.

01:16:23:03 - 01:16:39:01
Mark
And I'm going, whatever. And he goes, and he, he came out to me as gay and I just, I went, I don't care if you're gay. I mean, I could, I could I had been, we had, I had hung out with him enough that I could see that he was a true person. He was very but he was struggling.

01:16:39:01 - 01:17:08:24
Mark
And I said, I don't care. You're a wonderful person. It doesn't I don't I don't just I just simply don't care. And so we went and we continued the whole thing. And then he and I, he and I spent two months in quarantine together. We someone offered us their house in South Lake Tahoe to do quarantine. And the whole two months was really discussing Jordan and his, you know, his problem, I guess.

01:17:08:27 - 01:17:23:27
Mark
I hope that's not the way bad way to describe it, but but and it was really we used to have just knocked down drag out discussions. It was like it was big time. And I could see how he.

01:17:23:29 - 01:17:46:03
Mark
He needed, like, I have a daughter, okay. I have a daughter who she's 27 years old. I love my daughter. Like you can't even imagine. Do you have kids? Oh, yeah. Well, wait til you do. It's just the freaking craziest thing in your in. But I mean, do not get in between me and my daughter because you will not win.

01:17:46:03 - 01:18:09:09
Mark
You won't. It won't. I mean, it's just I love my daughter and and I when Jordan first told me about this and he was telling me about how his parents had treated him, at first I hated his parents. But then I realized I was sad for his parents because they didn't get to enjoy the wonderful person that Jordan is, and that I got to enjoy.

01:18:09:16 - 01:18:37:23
Mark
Jordan and I got to help him along live his best life. Just like, you know, I raised my daughter and now my daughter is having this crazy life. So to me it was the same thing. And so he he saw that I loved him unconditionally and that that made that gave him value. He didn't have value before the devil was in him.

01:18:37:23 - 01:19:07:13
Mark
And so and so that that later on when he did come out publicly, it was I mean, it was this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen my life. He texted me that he had just done it on his Facebook or Instagram and we were in Bishop. I don't know why I was camping in different spots, but we met somewhere and when he was getting out of his car walking towards me, I could see that he was a different person.

01:19:07:16 - 01:19:27:27
Mark
I could just see it. It was. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. But he's. And now he's out there as living his best life. And so and I was I was talking about this earlier. I looked back at the movie and I think about the time and I and I, and I see how much Jordan took care of me.

01:19:28:03 - 01:19:58:10
Mark
You know, he had carry a heavier pack to the base of the cliff. He always made sure I was clipped in. He always made sure I was comfortable. You know, he he just needed someone to accept him and that. And that was who I was. And it's just it's such a it's such a wonderful thing. Like, we gave this talk at the American Club a couple of years ago, and I said, Jordan is like a son to me now, and I and I and I love him as much as I love my own daughter.

01:19:58:11 - 01:20:14:16
Mark
I was proud of him as I am of my own daughter. And it's just it's such a it's such a wonderful, wild thing that through climbing, I ended up having this relationship with another person that.

01:20:14:18 - 01:20:26:21
Mark
I just helped his life, which to me, I just go, what could be? What could possibly more important than that? And now he's out there living his best life. I mean, it makes me so, so, so happy.

01:20:26:24 - 01:20:27:15
Mark
Yeah.

01:20:27:17 - 01:20:35:18
Kyle
Yeah, that story is remarkable. And it's so like, it's. He was the. You were the first person that he told

01:20:35:21 - 01:20:38:12
Mark
Yes. Yeah, I was the first straight person he came out to.

01:20:38:12 - 01:20:57:11
Kyle
Yeah. And that's that's wild because you guys spent so long having him just work through the thought processes and feel accepted and to be to be able to, like, work through that thought process and then feel comfortable enough to then like, confront the world with all of this stuff.

01:20:57:12 - 01:21:01:25
Kyle
It's like it's a really heavy responsibility that it was on your

01:21:01:27 - 01:21:02:13
Mark
it.

01:21:02:14 - 01:21:06:11
Mark
Yeah. And we were there in quarantine and it was I mean, Jordan is smart.

01:21:06:14 - 01:21:27:04
Mark
And so I was just treading water, trying to be relevant and trying to help him along and even even things that happened later on that year. I could just I mean, I was I was an intimate part of his struggle. You know, we that just didn't end in quarantine.

01:21:27:04 - 01:21:51:09
Mark
He struggled. It was it was hard. And I don't want to I don't want to make myself out to be some, you know, some all wonderful person. But I could just see that. I could just see right away that he was an honest, good person. You know, he he didn't know who he was. He didn't trust who he was.

01:21:51:14 - 01:21:57:12
Mark
But I could still see that he was honest and.

01:21:57:14 - 01:22:24:28
Mark
And so that made it all easy. And it didn't he didn't have to prove himself to me. You know, that's I mean, I was older, I'm 40 years older than him. I'm 39.5 years exactly older than him. So he didn't need to impress me because I just don't I don't care, I don't I don't have that. Like my stupid friend going, oh, you know, it's like, no, I know who Jordan is.

01:22:24:28 - 01:22:54:06
Mark
His. I don't need the ego. I don't need someone to try to impress me. I can see that he's honestly offering to help me do this thing, but I thought, wow, this would be pretty freaking cool. And then we went off and we had the road trip to end all road trips. It was freaking great. You know, imagine being an old codger and having this young, freaking young gun who wants to go do all this stuff, and you're going, oh, okay, this is going to be fun.

01:22:54:09 - 01:22:57:08
Mark
You know? I mean, he definitely pushed me and stuff, but

01:22:57:10 - 01:22:57:16
Kyle
yeah.

01:22:57:16 - 01:22:59:17
Kyle
What did you learn about yourself during that

01:22:59:17 - 01:23:03:06
Mark


01:23:03:08 - 01:23:22:21
Mark
That I was getting old for one, you know, like, I mean, Jordan, the first time we climbed, we we we went into the Hulk. We we hiked in, climbed the root and hiked out in a day. And I'm just going, oh my God. And Jordan is just bounding down the trail and I'm just freaking crawling down the trail.

01:23:22:21 - 01:23:26:25
Mark
But it it.

01:23:26:27 - 01:23:58:18
Mark
I learned that if you're open to if you're open to it, there's wonderful things that you can experience. You know, if you're, you know, it's like it's the same thing with we're talking about the progression of climbing and I and I feel that I'm so lucky that I've been able to watch so much of that progression. Well, there's that, but then watch this progression in a human being was so fun and so, so not fun.

01:23:58:18 - 01:24:20:28
Mark
That's not a good word for it, but just so rewarding. Yeah. And and then what could be more important than helping someone you know. And that I don't know, it's sort of hard to. What did I learn. I've always been struggling with that. But I just, you know, maybe maybe I taught Jordan to be accepting, you know, to not to you never.

01:24:21:00 - 01:24:26:14
Mark
You never know what someone else's thinking until you walk in their shoes kind of thing.

01:24:26:16 - 01:24:40:10
Mark
you know, so just you're not you're not so smart that you know everything that you can figure out, everything you've just got to be ready for it and accepting of it. Be ready for change.

01:24:40:12 - 01:24:46:12
Kyle
Ready for change is open. Like I think setting your own personal judgment and bias aside a lot of the times.

01:24:46:18 - 01:24:46:28
Mark
Yeah,

01:24:47:03 - 01:24:53:09
Kyle
just like being receptive, receptive enough to like witness people for who they really are

01:24:53:13 - 01:24:53:22
Mark
Yeah.

01:24:53:22 - 01:25:00:03
Kyle
and energetically give them the space to be that because we color people so much with our own judgment

01:25:00:06 - 01:25:13:01
Kyle
they can they can see that, you know, the things you say, the little comments you make like whether you mean them to be charged in certain ways or whether you don't, they still come across that way with your own internal bias.

01:25:13:04 - 01:25:20:02
Kyle
And so learning to like let that go and just being open with other people is it's hard to do sometimes, but such an important skill to

01:25:20:02 - 01:25:20:07
Mark
have.

01:25:20:09 - 01:25:46:22
Mark
Yeah. You know there's you see these people, it's like somebody goes and they you know, they. Right. Oh we, we climb the shield. But we ju marred up to heart and continued on from there. And someone goes, oh well you guys didn't really climb El Cop. And it's like, well do you understand what their situation was? You know, like they took time off from their families and their kids and their jobs and they flew out from Boston for a week, and then it rained for three days.

01:25:46:22 - 01:26:07:00
Mark
And they were, you know, they were they were crunched on time. So so really does it you know, they're not we're not pushing the sport forward anymore. So who the fuck cares? You know, I mean they did free blast, you know, five years ago. So they still climbed the whole thing or they didn't. So like, big frickin deal.

01:26:07:07 - 01:26:23:16
Mark
You know, really what you're saying is you didn't do it because you didn't do it like I did it. You know, you did the easier version of what I did, you know? So it's, you know, your ascent isn't a front to my ego, you know,

01:26:23:19 - 01:26:24:09
Kyle
Self-gratification.

01:26:24:10 - 01:26:30:08
Mark
Yeah, it's like, really I mean, if you're that shallow that that it matters.

01:26:30:10 - 01:26:51:25
Kyle
Let's be real for a second. The blueprint for a successful climbing podcast is simple. Interview the most famous climbers in the world. Big names mean big followings. Lots of SEO power and a built in audience that helps promote every episode. But this show, this show has never been about that. From the beginning, it has been my mission to bring you stories from the climbing majority.

01:26:51:25 - 01:27:10:22
Kyle
The climbers who don't live in the limelight, the ones who quietly put up roots, build communities and help give back in ways that are rarely recognized. And while that's what makes this show special, it also means we have an uphill battle when it comes to growth. And that is where you come in. If you believe in the show, if you've been fired up, inspired by an episode.

01:27:10:24 - 01:27:32:02
Kyle
Word of Mouth is the single most powerful way to help the show share an episode with a friend. Post about us on social media. Jump on to Reddit threads and Mountain project forums and tell people what you've been listening to. Also, I am on a mission to beat Climbing Gold Spotify review account. If you haven't already left the show a review, please head on over to Spotify to give this show five stars.

01:27:32:03 - 01:27:34:06
Kyle
We only have 1000 more ratings to go.

01:27:34:06 - 01:27:34:27
Kyle
Yeah.

01:27:34:29 - 01:27:53:26
Kyle
We talked a lot about like ego and having like climbing not be the focal point of your identity. Where did you diversify. Where like what about what areas in your life did you put effort and passion into to avoid having climbing be everything?

01:27:53:29 - 01:27:56:26
Mark
Well.

01:27:56:29 - 01:28:20:12
Mark
When I get into something, I really get into it. There was a time I got into I was rabid mountain biker. I was mountain biking so much. There was a whole time that I got into landscape photography and I was just rabid with it. I was doing trips to Zion and the wave and just all sorts of places just for photography.

01:28:20:12 - 01:28:49:03
Mark
And so I felt it that way. You know, my wife and I at the time in hood River, we built a coffee roasting company. So I was really into that. The whole mechanics of how all that would work. We built a building and I went out and I bought a CAD program, and I spent a year learning how to use it, and then and then designed the building that we, that we built.

01:28:49:05 - 01:28:55:06
Mark
So it was just just that kind of stuff.

01:28:55:08 - 01:29:21:15
Mark
When my daughter was born, I was just all over it. She was just the funniest thing to do. And, you know, teaching her how to how to ride a bike and teaching her how to drive a car and, you know, teaching her, you know, I've carried her in a backpack while she recited the ABCs about 700 times. You know, little kids do that and just that whole thing.

01:29:21:18 - 01:29:44:08
Mark
And then I just felt this need actually, I got I got into some some friends had Gumby their way up the nose in five days, and I thought, and I hadn't been climbing and I was and I sort of missed it. I started missing it. I thought, you know what? I can Gumby my way up the nose. And so I just decided that, okay, I want to climb the nose and I and then I modified.

01:29:44:08 - 01:30:00:22
Mark
It's like I want to do the nose in a day. And then I thought, I'm going to leave the whole nose in a day. And I just devoted a year to that. And my first El Cap route in 30 years was the nose in a day. I led the whole thing in in 15.5 hours

01:30:00:22 - 01:30:01:27
Kyle
After taking a break from climbing

01:30:01:29 - 01:30:03:15
Mark
after having. Yeah, yeah.

01:30:03:17 - 01:30:04:27
Mark
I mean, I had

01:30:05:00 - 01:30:24:19
Mark
yeah. Oh yeah. But that's just the way I am. I just get into these things. Like when I was windsurfing, I was just totally rabid with windsurfing. Moved to hood River, Oregon to windsurf, you know, as a windsurfing capital of the world. So that's what I did. And then, of course, when I got back into wall climbing, that's what I did.

01:30:24:20 - 01:30:42:12
Mark
I mean, I just became rabid with it. I climbed the shield the next year, and then I sold El Cap the year after that. And I was doing for El Cap routes a year, you know, in the last I think it's the last 15 years I've done 22 El Cap routes.

01:30:42:15 - 01:30:46:25
Mark
Yeah, it's freaking nuts, you know, but I'm just I just get rabid with this stuff.

01:30:46:25 - 01:30:51:24
Kyle
Other than the coffee roasting company, what have you made? Like what? What is your career? Ben? How have you made your

01:30:51:26 - 01:31:10:23
Mark
Construction here? I built $1 million homes here in Lake Tahoe. I mean, I was just a carpenter, lead man on the jobs, and I was construction up there in, in in hood River. And then we we built the coffee company from scratch. And then, and then

01:31:10:26 - 01:31:17:10
Mark
when we got divorced, she bought my part, my half of the business, and I bought her half of the building.

01:31:17:13 - 01:31:17:26
Kyle


01:31:18:02 - 01:31:35:26
Mark
so then she rented the building from me for a number of years, and then she sold the business. And then recently I sold the building to the people who owned the business. And so I'm sort of like, I'm living off that, my Social Security and I'm still carrying the paper on the building.

01:31:35:29 - 01:31:36:09
Kyle
Yeah.

01:31:36:10 - 01:31:39:27
Kyle
You were like, blue collar carpentry

01:31:40:03 - 01:31:40:14
Mark
Oh, yeah.

01:31:40:14 - 01:31:42:02
Kyle
whole time. You weren't, like, general

01:31:42:05 - 01:31:42:17
Mark
No.

01:31:42:17 - 01:31:59:01
Mark
No, I didn't want to. I didn't want to complicate my life like that. I just my one of my, one of the big things in my life was I want my life to be simple. And the coffee company. And I'm good at that step by step. You know, we need to do this and then we need to do that.

01:31:59:01 - 01:32:18:03
Mark
Then we need to do this. That's why I'm such a good big wall climber. And so building the coffee company I just had, it worked so that my life could be easy. And it was really, really efficient. People used to come into our building all the time and go, oh, I thought you guys were so much bigger than this.

01:32:18:06 - 01:32:46:25
Mark
But we were. We gave that image because we were so efficient. We could do a whole lot with very little, which that's the way I just I just organized it that way. And then and then hood River. Even then, even though we were the owners, we only worked for days a week. And so I like to say that I've, I haven't worked a Friday in, you know, the last 35 years because we used to just work four days a week.

01:32:46:25 - 01:32:51:01
Mark
We just we just rigged it so that we had an easy

01:32:51:03 - 01:32:52:09
Kyle
live your life by design.

01:32:52:09 - 01:33:26:13
Mark
Yeah, well, that was exactly it. And that's. And that's what climbing. Well, that's what climbing taught me is I can. When I first did, my first root of no cap was the south wall. When I was 18 years old. And I just realized that if I can do that, if I can figure that out, then I can figure anything out, and I can do I can do anything which which allowed us like, I didn't we didn't we didn't have any business knowledge.

01:33:26:13 - 01:33:54:15
Mark
We didn't have any financing. We just figured out every single freaking thing. And I thought, and so I just, I just, I from, from the climbing the El cap thing, I realized my very first time in 74, I thought, I can I can decide where my life goes. And I really, really did move to hood River because I wanted to windsurf.

01:33:54:15 - 01:34:19:14
Mark
I walked into my first job, you know, and I was immediately the foreman on the job. And I said, I won't do it often, but if it's really blowing, I'm going to line the guys out and I'm going to go in surfing, you know, which I did, and I was I was a good enough carpenter and a good enough lead man that the contractors that I was working for never lost any money on any job I framed.

01:34:19:14 - 01:34:41:25
Mark
So they went, okay. So it just taught me that I could control this thing. And so then when when we had the coffee company, you know, I just, I just, I just controlled it. And so, I mean, I've been very lucky, of course. And so then when we divorced, I moved into a van. I've lived in a van for the last ten years.

01:34:41:25 - 01:34:55:01
Mark
I moved into this apartment exactly a year ago. I lived in a van for ten years, rock climbing, mountain biking, spending my winters in Baja, but again.

01:34:55:03 - 01:35:12:16
Mark
It's a little bit of an eagle thing where I don't need much, I don't want much. I don't need to have stuff to impress you. I don't need any of that. And and so but I've had just a wonderful life for the last. I mean, I've had a wonderful life, but.

01:35:12:16 - 01:35:12:26
Kyle
Yeah.

01:35:12:27 - 01:35:35:16
Kyle
But I think the most important thing is you learned you have agency from an early an early, early point. And that that shapes your entire life because you you live by design. You the decisions you make or the or the way you shape your life. And having that belief allows you to like, actually create a life that you want rather than reacting to

01:35:35:19 - 01:35:36:05
Mark
circumstances.

01:35:36:06 - 01:35:40:18
Mark
Right now I'm I'm working to get into professional speaking.

01:35:40:21 - 01:35:40:27
Kyle
okay?

01:35:40:27 - 01:36:13:04
Mark
And my lesson is if if you want to be brave, if you want to accept a little bit less security, you can take your life where you want your life to go. And and here it is. I mean, here's here's the proof right here. I've done this. I'm not a gazillion air, you know, I mean, I don't have several million dollars in the bank, but I sort of don't care because I'm I'm living the life that I wanted to live.

01:36:13:11 - 01:36:39:26
Mark
And so, so many people, one of my one of the keynote that I, that I, that I give is I've never been the smartest person in the room, but yet what I did is I know how to figure it out. This is a great story. My daughter was 11 years old. She was working for us at the coffee company, and so we had we didn't sell cups of coffee.

01:36:39:26 - 01:36:58:10
Mark
We sold pounds because we roasted mainly for the restaurants and all that. So every every Monday and Tuesday, we had to call our commercial account so that we could get them coffee for the weekend when all the tourists showed up. And so we would call, we had a list of like 25 one day and 25 the next day, and we had to call.

01:36:58:10 - 01:37:17:24
Mark
So she was 11 years old and we had her making these phone calls and we tell her, okay, Ellen, you've got to be you've got to be clear, you've got to be concise. You can't be wasting these people's time. Hello, this is Ellen with Huda for coffee roasters. Can I speak to Dan? I'm trying to get a coffee order for the week.

01:37:17:25 - 01:37:34:19
Mark
Okay. One regular, two decaf. Okay. Thank you very much. You know, write it down, make an invoice, bring it to the guys in the back, some in the back. I'm roasting coffee and the phone rings and it's Ellen. She says, dad, I just talked to this guy at Sixth Street Bistro and he said, give me what you what I had last week.

01:37:34:19 - 01:37:52:28
Mark
And I went, yeah. And she goes, but I don't know what he got. Last week I said, okay, 11 years old. I said, go to his customer file, go to his invoice history sort from newest to oldest, open the newest and give him that. And she goes, But dad and I go figure it out. And I hung up on

01:37:53:00 - 01:38:20:04
Mark
And so my daughter has a great evil eye. I mean, she walked back and she's giving me the evil eye. And all that, years later in college, she said, dad, that was the most important lesson I ever learned was figure it out. And so now she's starting a life of her own with agency, figuring it out. And that's what a lot of people don't get.

01:38:20:05 - 01:38:46:14
Mark
They don't get the they don't get someone else pouring confidence into them that you are smart. You can figure it out. You don't have to impress anyone else. You don't need this big old house just to make them happy. You don't need this car, you know, blah blah blah blah blah. And so so when they realize that, they go, oh, I am smart, I do have talents.

01:38:46:14 - 01:39:12:25
Mark
And so that's a lot of what my professional is speaking about is about because I've actually done it. You know, I never went to any construction training. You know, I just I started off as a laborer here in Reno and I, you know, I just watched guys and I just started off as a, you know, then I was a framer and I used to sit there and read plans and volunteer.

01:39:13:00 - 01:39:28:18
Mark
I remember I was up in, in Truckee and I was talking to this contractor, and he was walking me around this house, and he wanted me to show up and do some of this pickup work. And he wanted to me to cut this little set of stairs off the deck. And he goes, you can cut can you cut stairs?

01:39:28:18 - 01:39:46:10
Mark
And I went, oh, yeah, I can cut stairs. And so that was Friday and I was supposed to be doing this on Monday. This is way before the internet. I left the little interview, I was hired, I was going to cut stairs. I drove here to Reno. I went to the bookstore, and I found a book about how to cut stairs.

01:39:46:11 - 01:40:09:05
Mark
And and I learned how to cut stairs that weekend. And on Monday I walked up and I cut stairs. And so it's not rocket science. You you know, you can do it. I mean, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I'm one of those guys that, yes, I can do it. I believe in myself. And that's what climbing taught me, is to believe in yourself.

01:40:09:05 - 01:40:15:08
Mark
And so if people step back.

01:40:15:11 - 01:40:48:29
Mark
You know, that's the that's the. I'm competitive, but I want you to rise also. And so so and that requires belief in yourself. And so when you rise up. And that was part of the thing with Jordan also was that I was pouring confidence into him. So he was gaining confidence. He he could see that I treated him, that I respected him as a full human, that there was nothing wrong with him.

01:40:49:01 - 01:41:13:11
Mark
But because that had been hard for him. And now he really has learned that lesson and and he's passing it. Jordan is a wonderful person. He's a wonderful, wonderful person. And that's why he's so doing so well as a professional climber. And in the endeavors that he's taking off now, is that he he knows how to give that back to people.

01:41:13:14 - 01:41:37:25
Mark
He's always telling me, he goes, Mark, I'm the weakest professional climber out there. He goes, there are guys that are so much better than me. And I go, yeah, but loves you because you're because you embrace everyone. You're you're approachable, you cheer everyone on. You're like the every man pro climber.

01:41:37:27 - 01:41:54:05
Kyle
I think one of the things to like you can you can believe that you have agency. But I think a lot of people struggle with having a vision of what they even want to do. Like just because you believe that you can do something, you then have to have the second piece of that and know what you want to

01:41:54:12 - 01:41:54:26
Mark
Yes.

01:41:54:26 - 01:41:58:05
Kyle
And I think that's sometimes even harder than believing that you can do

01:41:58:08 - 01:42:03:01
Mark
And it's very it's just like it's your same question of how do you find a good partner.

01:42:03:04 - 01:42:18:07
Mark
It. Yes. And I and again, again, I've been very lucky. And it wasn't like I'm just I'm one of those guys that I can look at a set of plans and I see it in 3D. It just doesn't. I can do that.

01:42:18:07 - 01:42:43:12
Mark
And I've been able to do that since I was ten years old. But the coffee company, it wasn't my idea to start this coffee company with my wife's. And so there was so many things that we had to figure out. And I remember sitting around one day in our living room, sitting there all day just figuring out how we were going to do this price structure and how we were going to do the billing and stuff.

01:42:43:12 - 01:43:07:16
Mark
So she had the idea and that to me, it was a very it was a very physical business. Coffee comes in, coffee gets roasted, coffee gets bagged, coffee goes out. So to me I just see it as being very physical. So yes, I hear about people who go, oh, I work from home. I go, I don't even understand working from home.

01:43:07:16 - 01:43:27:06
Mark
What do you sit there and do? Emails all day? I mean, I don't I just don't understand that, you know, and even to this day I don't understand that. But so to me it has to be physical. And I looked into that with the coffee thing. So if she had said, oh, we're going to do something else that required all this sort of,

01:43:27:08 - 01:43:28:01
Kyle
analytics

01:43:28:01 - 01:43:30:13
Mark
yeah, I would have totally failed or something.

01:43:30:13 - 01:44:02:24
Mark
So. So yes, I totally lucked out. I am the luckiest guy in the world, but I did. I did help my luck by having the, the, the the confidence from climbing, having the agency to deciding that this is what I want to do. You know, also, I told you before, I'm a freaking dickhead. You know, I ain't going to go do this or do that because that's going to make you more money.

01:44:02:24 - 01:44:13:28
Mark
It's like, nah, I ain't doing that. You know, I you know, I'm not. You want me to sit here and dig piers all day for this deck? I ain't doing that. I'm just going to be the guy who tells you to go dig the piers.

01:44:14:01 - 01:44:15:28
Kyle
or I'm just going to take work that I want to do.

01:44:15:28 - 01:44:16:12
Mark
write.

01:44:16:12 - 01:44:19:07
Kyle
And that's that's the willingness to say no to certain

01:44:19:10 - 01:44:19:21
Mark
Yeah,

01:44:19:21 - 01:44:20:16
Kyle
or no to certain

01:44:20:23 - 01:44:21:01
Mark
yeah,

01:44:21:05 - 01:44:22:11
Kyle
you have a vision for what you

01:44:22:13 - 01:44:22:23
Mark
yeah.

01:44:22:24 - 01:44:42:16
Mark
Up in Tahoe it would be like, oh, we're going to go shovel roofs, you know, and I go, no, I mean yeah, I make, I make $20 an hour during the day, but on weekends I make $100 because I'm going to sit there and shovel a roof or I'm going to go skiing. So if you wanted to pay me a hundred bucks, sure, I'll go shovel your roof for a hundred bucks.

01:44:42:16 - 01:44:57:12
Mark
You know, this is back in the 70s, but no, other than that, I don't need to shovel your roof. You go shovel your own fricking roof, I don't care, I'm going to go skiing. So, you know, you sort of got to be a dick to, you know, it's like, no, I'm not working. Friday isn't what you're talking about

01:44:57:12 - 01:44:59:02
Kyle
Yeah, yeah. Set

01:44:59:05 - 01:44:59:25
Mark
Yeah.

01:44:59:28 - 01:45:01:08
Kyle
No. It's important.

01:45:01:12 - 01:45:01:22
Mark
but.

01:45:01:22 - 01:45:04:17
Mark
It's this is your life.

01:45:04:19 - 01:45:05:25
Kyle
Shape it how you want it.

01:45:05:25 - 01:45:11:08
Mark
you can control your life, but you have to take control of your life.

01:45:11:11 - 01:45:26:14
Mark
you have to know that. No. You know, like, what's that? One movie a long time ago, The Office. It's like. And the guy goes, no, no, no, there was a movie. Maybe that's not the name of it, but the one guy, it's a pretty classic meme.

01:45:26:14 - 01:45:35:05
Mark
And he goes, well, I'm going to have to have you come in this weekend and do this. It's like, no, I'm not coming to this weekend office, but yes yes yes.

01:45:35:05 - 01:45:35:29
Kyle
guy with the

01:45:36:01 - 01:45:36:29
Mark
Yeah yeah yeah.

01:45:37:00 - 01:45:38:01
Kyle
It's like Peter,

01:45:38:08 - 01:45:38:22
Kyle
how's it

01:45:38:27 - 01:45:47:01
Mark
I'm going to have to have you come in this weekend. Well tough luck for you because I ain't coming in this weekend. I mean, what are you going to pay me like triple

01:45:47:08 - 01:45:47:28
Kyle
Yeah.

01:45:48:00 - 01:45:49:01
Mark
you know, take a hike.

01:45:49:01 - 01:45:49:20
Kyle
Yeah, exactly.

01:45:49:20 - 01:45:52:28
Mark
But you got to be willing to walk away from that job, too.

01:45:53:00 - 01:45:59:19
Kyle
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you have to be willing to weigh willing to walk away from a lot of things. I think that's the same thing in relationships.

01:45:59:22 - 01:46:11:29
Kyle
I think that, like, in my experience in a romantic relationship, I think that it's not a threat. It's not like I'm going to leave you. It's not that. It's just inside your your your body and your mind and your soul.

01:46:11:29 - 01:46:16:25
Kyle
You need to have certain boundaries, and you need to know that you're willing to walk away to protect

01:46:16:28 - 01:46:17:06
Mark
Right.

01:46:17:06 - 01:46:24:25
Kyle
And like, if that's what needs to happen, it's like and sometimes that's all it needs. It's that energy you carry. It's just like, these are my boundaries and this is how I feel.

01:46:24:28 - 01:46:25:07
Mark
Right? And

01:46:25:09 - 01:46:26:21
Kyle
usually the world respects those,

01:46:26:26 - 01:46:31:17
Mark
Yes, yes yeah. And you've got to be you know, you got to be rock solid.

01:46:31:17 - 01:46:32:19
Mark
About it.

01:46:32:22 - 01:46:34:07
Mark
Yeah yeah yeah

01:46:34:10 - 01:46:34:26
Kyle
I

01:46:34:28 - 01:46:44:16
Kyle
think too, like with the sense of agency and like having a vision, I think there's almost a level of like I use the word arrogance, but that's probably a little too charged.

01:46:44:18 - 01:46:46:22
Mark
It is, but it's a good word for it.

01:46:46:24 - 01:46:47:23
Kyle
Order

01:46:47:25 - 01:46:49:18
Mark
yeah yeah yeah yeah.

01:46:49:21 - 01:46:51:21
Kyle
your vision is something that can be real or

01:46:51:26 - 01:46:52:03
Mark
bad

01:46:52:08 - 01:46:58:15
Kyle
or. I mean, I feel this I feel that with this podcast or like certain other ventures that I'm doing, it's like, who am I?

01:46:58:18 - 01:46:58:26
Mark
Yeah.

01:46:58:26 - 01:47:09:15
Kyle
am I to create this show and believe that people are going to listen to it like I'm just some random climber who straps a GoPro to his head and climbs on, you know, and whatever it's like.

01:47:09:19 - 01:47:16:07
Kyle
But I just, I, I want to do this, and I see a vision. I see it with my eyes.

01:47:16:12 - 01:47:16:20
Mark
Yes.

01:47:16:22 - 01:47:19:25
Kyle
my mind's eye. I see what this can become.

01:47:19:28 - 01:47:20:05
Mark
Right?

01:47:20:05 - 01:47:24:02
Kyle
I'm willing to just, like, throw myself into the black void

01:47:24:04 - 01:47:24:23
Kyle
see what

01:47:24:26 - 01:47:45:04
Mark
That's exactly it. Yeah. Like when I my first job there in in hood River, I just said I'm not going to do it often, but I'm going to line the guys out and I'm going to go in surfing and it's, you know, I made those guys money on every single frame I ever did for them, and I just made sure that their life was easy.

01:47:45:04 - 01:47:48:10
Mark
But, you know, so you got to back up your BS.

01:47:48:14 - 01:47:51:28
Kyle
can't just be like, oh, I'm not going to do this. And they're like, well, yeah, you're costing us money. You're fired.

01:47:51:28 - 01:47:52:06
Mark
fired.

01:47:52:07 - 01:47:52:19
Mark
Yeah.

01:47:52:20 - 01:47:52:28
Mark
Yeah,

01:47:52:28 - 01:47:54:13
Kyle
understand what you value.

01:47:54:17 - 01:47:54:28
Mark
Yeah.

01:47:55:00 - 01:47:56:06
Kyle
This is what I

01:47:56:08 - 01:47:56:18
Mark
Yeah.

01:47:56:18 - 01:47:58:00
Kyle
Let's meet in the middle

01:47:58:01 - 01:48:00:11
Mark
And I will provide this to you. Yeah.

01:48:00:16 - 01:48:00:22
Kyle
as

01:48:00:22 - 01:48:01:05
Mark
Well

01:48:01:05 - 01:48:02:13
Kyle
respect the boundaries that I have.

01:48:02:14 - 01:48:11:09
Mark
and sort of a little bit back to our story of putting your, you know, your name on the bulletin board wants to climb the nose and you walk up and say, yeah, I can climb five Tennessee.

01:48:11:12 - 01:48:13:07
Mark
It's like, well, okay, can you really

01:48:13:13 - 01:48:14:24
Mark
can you really

01:48:14:26 - 01:48:15:26
Mark
do

01:48:15:29 - 01:48:16:16
Mark
You know.

01:48:16:21 - 01:48:36:22
Kyle
Yeah. I mean, I think the job I have now, it's like technically a 9 to 5, but I mean, that was one thing when I, it was a job opportunity that I had. It was for more money. But the stipulation that I laid out to my boss, I was like, look like full transparency. I'm creating a podcast, I'm a climber.

01:48:36:22 - 01:48:53:08
Kyle
I'm going to take days off to climb. And like, I need you to understand the passion that I have for my life, and I need you to understand that I'm going to be, like, fluid in my schedule a little bit, and that I might be working on some other things while I do it. I will always get the work done.

01:48:53:10 - 01:48:58:21
Kyle
You will never have to worry about deadlines for me. You never have to worry about like quality of work,

01:48:58:23 - 01:49:04:01
Kyle
at the same time, like I'm not going to just be there 9 to 5, just doing wasting time

01:49:04:04 - 01:49:06:08
Kyle
like we need to have like an understanding there.

01:49:06:08 - 01:49:06:18
Mark
there. Right.

01:49:06:23 - 01:49:09:19
Kyle
it's been three years and that has been just like nothing but respected

01:49:09:24 - 01:49:32:12
Mark
Well and because when you did that you were honest and, and they could just sense that that you could back up what you're saying and, and certainly if you couldn't, you'd been out of there quick. And so that just, that just builds up. Now they go, oh yeah Kyle, that guy, when he says something he'll do it, you know.

01:49:32:13 - 01:49:48:00
Mark
And that's it's sort of like with Max, you know our, our our our partnership you know. And he says it, he can do it, you know. And I go climb El Cap with Scott. Scott says he can do it. We're going to do it. You know that's the with Jordan. It's that's that's the kind of thing.

01:49:48:00 - 01:49:49:08
Kyle
Yeah, yeah.

01:49:49:09 - 01:49:50:13
Kyle
Trust is earned.

01:49:50:19 - 01:49:53:02
Mark
Yeah. Trust is earned. Yeah, yeah.

01:49:53:05 - 01:50:14:21
Kyle
Before we get back to it, if you've been listening to the show, you probably know how much time and effort and love I put into this project. The research, the conversations, the production, the editing, all of it. And while it might seem like I've got a team of people on this project, I don't. It's just me. And even with sponsors, I spend a large amount of my own personal money on this project simply because I love it.

01:50:14:23 - 01:50:38:28
Kyle
If you are a listener that's looking for a way to give back to the show in a meaningful way. Please become a Patreon subscriber. Once you become a supporting member of the Climbing Majority, not only will you feel really good about yourself, but you'll also get access to the ad free version of the show and exclusive content. If this speaks to you, click the link in the description or go to Patreon.com Slash the Climbing Majority podcast to become a supporting member of the show today.

01:50:39:00 - 01:50:48:23
Kyle
Kind of like wrapping this up a little bit. I have a couple questions. There's like that phrase tall people reach and short people climb.

01:50:48:25 - 01:50:52:05
Kyle
How do you feel about that phrase?

01:50:52:07 - 01:50:57:12
Mark
That's sort of another thing that, that.

01:50:57:14 - 01:50:59:26
Mark
It's just something to put people down

01:50:59:29 - 01:51:00:29
Mark
really.

01:51:01:01 - 01:51:09:06
Mark
You know, John Bragg used to say I'm not good, I'm just tall, which he was told he was the person saying it. So that's okay.

01:51:09:12 - 01:51:12:17
Kyle
It's it's comedic. When you put the shame or the put the

01:51:12:19 - 01:51:32:14
Mark
On yourself. Yeah. But there's, you know, in my whole life. I've been truly stopped by only a couple of routes. And it doesn't I mean, I look at Lynn, Lynn Hill, you know, when she and I get together, we always argue about who's shorter, you know?

01:51:32:17 - 01:51:39:15
Mark
Well, I used to be five foot two and a half. Now I'm five foot one and 7/8

01:51:39:17 - 01:51:40:14
Kyle
Well, we're five foot two.

01:51:40:14 - 01:51:40:25
Kyle
It's

01:51:40:27 - 01:51:52:04
Mark
Yeah, yeah, well it's important to us little people and which it's really funny. I used to have a, I used to have a four inch ape index.

01:51:52:07 - 01:52:02:21
Mark
Well, now since I'm shrinking, my ape index is six inches, you know, but it, you know, it's just climbing.

01:52:02:23 - 01:52:23:11
Mark
We're climbing rocks. There's just it fits different people. I remember I did a route in New Hampshire. It turned out to be the first 512 in New Hampshire, this thing called white I. And I went there and Jimmy Dunn was there and Henry Barbour was there, you know, when Henry was hot. Henry. And they're all going, oh, you're too short, you're too short.

01:52:23:11 - 01:52:41:07
Mark
You're never going to do it. But I could get all balled up in this one thing. I did it first try and did it. And they were all going, oh my God, you know. So so of course I did the pitch and lower down and said, well you guys will never do it. You're too tall, you know. But so it's, it's that kind of thing climbing.

01:52:41:09 - 01:52:48:19
Mark
We're climbing these rocks that vary. And if you think you're if you think you're short or tall or whatever, and that helps whatever.

01:52:48:20 - 01:52:48:26
Mark
How

01:52:48:26 - 01:53:02:17
Kyle
much would you say like, because like, how much would you say? Normalized movement beta, whether it's in guidebooks or mountain project, is biased towards taller people.

01:53:02:19 - 01:53:11:15
Kyle
Like do you when you read beta or you get beta from people, it's like you don't even take it seriously because you're just like, no, I'm going to have to like, I'm going to be doing what I need to do up there.

01:53:11:15 - 01:53:11:20
Mark
there.

01:53:11:21 - 01:53:40:25
Mark
It's certainly biased more towards the average height person. I don't think it's biased towards tall people, but yeah, definitely biased. I mean, as seems that would seem pretty obvious actually. Yeah, that's just the bell curve. But if you're what was it I was on? I was doing VMC direct direct on, on on canon Cliff in New Hampshire a million years ago.

01:53:40:27 - 01:54:00:21
Mark
And the guys ahead of us were doing the second ascent. We were doing the third free ascent, and it was John Bragg, who's very tall, and another friend of mine who's six feet. And I was doing the crux, and there was just below the anchor, and they're both going, well, reach this, reach that. Well, I don't know what you're going to do.

01:54:00:23 - 01:54:03:10
Mark
And I did it. And I did a first try,

01:54:03:13 - 01:54:21:12
Mark
and they had both fallen on it and they went, well, I guess that proves that, you know. And so so it's never I've never really this never really bothered me too much. I mean okay, so like the rocker blocker on on. Well for me it's a freaking 16 inch jump.

01:54:21:17 - 01:54:47:12
Mark
You know it's far. And I think if I went to the gym and practiced jumping for a couple weeks, I could probably do it. But Jordan just stood there and did this little hop and he grabbed it and I'm going, hey, well, fuck you, you know? So yeah, so in that kind of situation, but you know, and I've heard of who was it really, really good woman climber.

01:54:47:12 - 01:55:04:14
Mark
But she's really short to. And she was trying to run across the rocker blocker and jump and grab the thing. And I don't know if she ever did it, but anyway. And so Jordan. Jordan just bent down and I stood on his knee to grab it. And then I hung there and I went, okay, is this good? And then I just did all the pull up.

01:55:04:14 - 01:55:11:22
Mark
So something like that. But I don't care. You know, if someone wants to say, well, don't shoot on, you didn't do it, I'll go. Whatever.

01:55:11:22 - 01:55:21:25
Kyle
Yeah. Of course. Yeah. It's just funny. My fiancee, she's small. She's. I don't even know how tall for probably sub five. And I'm six two plus

01:55:21:27 - 01:55:23:18
Mark
Yeah yeah yeah.

01:55:23:18 - 01:55:24:02
Mark
Oh yeah.

01:55:24:02 - 01:55:24:16
Mark
Yeah yeah.

01:55:24:16 - 01:55:27:22
Kyle
so like, I like shout beat at her and she's just like, just stop,

01:55:27:27 - 01:55:28:11
Mark
right.

01:55:28:11 - 01:55:29:14
Mark
Yeah yeah

01:55:29:19 - 01:55:37:00
Kyle
usually it's all like, I definitely use my high to an advantage. And I like, love to like pull up really high and do like long extended reaches.

01:55:37:02 - 01:55:37:09
Mark
Yeah.

01:55:37:12 - 01:55:43:10
Kyle
so I'm always just like, yeah, there's a crimp like up there on the left. And she's like, no, it's like, it's like, Will you be the one I have to die no

01:55:43:10 - 01:55:44:19
Mark
too. Yeah yeah yeah.

01:55:44:20 - 01:55:45:17
Mark
Yeah yeah.

01:55:45:19 - 01:55:46:06
Kyle
it's funny.

01:55:46:11 - 01:55:50:06
Mark
That's part of climbing, you know, it's it's figuring out that puzzle.

01:55:50:09 - 01:55:53:14
Mark
I've never, I've never really worried too much about.

01:55:53:14 - 01:55:56:13
Kyle
it's your personal experience, so it's not like you're comparing it to anything else. You're just

01:55:56:17 - 01:55:56:27
Mark
Yeah.

01:55:57:03 - 01:55:57:16
Kyle
climb. This

01:55:57:18 - 01:55:58:12
Mark
Yeah,

01:55:58:15 - 01:55:59:04
Kyle
are the moves.

01:55:59:07 - 01:56:10:00
Mark
I get to stuff like that and I just laugh, you know, just because it's like. I remember Jordan and I were on, Rainbow Country. The harder. Yeah.

01:56:10:02 - 01:56:20:13
Mark
there's this 112 B pitch that off this ledge, and I'm just making this giant stretch even. Even with my ape index, there's just no way. And I'm going, Jordan, you fucker.

01:56:20:14 - 01:56:37:07
Mark
You're just going to be able to grab this and grab that and walk across this. You know, I said I should be able to have a sling that I could, you know, give myself a, you know, so I couldn't do it, you know, and there's another part up there that was really, really hard because you know how that sandstone breaks really cleanly.

01:56:37:11 - 01:56:43:03
Mark
No features in between that I couldn't do. I want what ever, you know, it's just it's it's.

01:56:43:05 - 01:56:44:05
Kyle
You're there for the

01:56:44:07 - 01:57:05:05
Mark
You can't be pod at every I mean, it's not unfair. It's just this is your life. Life is not unfair. Life is just life. Rock climbing is just rock climbing. Just sit there and laugh at it. Laugh at the situation. You know when you're. When you're squirreling through some little chimney, you know? And Max. Max was really sort of chesty.

01:57:05:05 - 01:57:17:03
Mark
And he's like, I have this picture of him. It looks like he's toothpaste being squirted out of a tube, and he's breathing hard and he's struggling and struggling. Struggling. And I just squirmed right up the thing, you know, I mean, there's pluses and minuses.

01:57:17:05 - 01:57:17:17
Kyle
minuses.

01:57:17:23 - 01:57:18:01
Mark
Yeah,

01:57:18:01 - 01:57:22:11
Kyle
Exactly. You've been climbing for 54 years.

01:57:22:14 - 01:57:42:17
Kyle
You're 70 now. And you I mean, you seem like you're an extremely good shape. You just you had some crazy climbing accomplishments. You've climbed 22 times in the last 12 years. Not every climber your age is in your shoes. Especially like, given your line of work. Like blue collar work

01:57:42:19 - 01:57:44:16
Kyle
hard on the body.

01:57:44:18 - 01:57:56:13
Kyle
Why are you so fit? Why are you still climbing as hard as you are? Like, are you? Do you have some sort of Brian Johnson routine? Like what? What's your secret?

01:57:56:18 - 01:58:24:11
Mark
The. My only secret, I mean, I and it's really crazy because I have no pains. I my knees don't hurt, my hips don't hurt. I have a little bit of Arthur in my thumbs. My back. Yes. With all my construction, my back is still just fine. I have no idea. My mom is 94 years old. She walks with a walker, but my mom is the ever ready bunny.

01:58:24:12 - 01:58:29:12
Mark
I'm taking bets that my mom last to beyond 100.

01:58:29:14 - 01:58:34:08
Mark
so it's just I have good genes. That's just all there is to it

01:58:34:11 - 01:58:39:22
Mark
now. I've never spent much time on the couch.

01:58:39:25 - 01:58:51:07
Mark
I've never spent much time watching TV, and I eat pretty well. You know, I, I don't go to McDonald's or any of that fast food stuff.

01:58:51:07 - 01:58:56:15
Mark
I don't I can't remember the last time I ever drank a Coke or any of that kind of thing.

01:58:56:18 - 01:59:17:14
Mark
I eat pretty well. I exercise a lot. I was, I was at the gym this morning lifting weights. I ride my mountain bike. And I just I've just stayed active my whole life. It's it's just it's crazy. I mean, I am amazed at what I can do.

01:59:17:15 - 01:59:39:07
Mark
I've just go, well, you know, like, I'm not climbing out cap anymore or I'm not, you know, I'm getting ready to be done. And this is interesting. This is it's it's interesting and it's hard. I could keep doing it and I, I could, you know, it's hard to say that I could do the nose if I wanted to.

01:59:39:08 - 01:59:50:01
Mark
That sort of diminishes people who are really out doing it. That's sort of a little slight to them because wanting to is so important.

01:59:50:04 - 02:00:01:19
Mark
I say that there's there's three things to be a great climber. You need to be. You need to have strength. You need to have technique. And you need you need desire.

02:00:01:21 - 02:00:02:24
Mark
You can get strength.

02:00:02:24 - 02:00:07:26
Mark
We can teach you how to get strength. We can teach technique. But if you don't have desire,

02:00:07:29 - 02:00:10:07
Mark
there's no book you can read

02:00:10:09 - 02:00:28:12
Mark
that's going to teach you desire. You just have to have desire. And I have that desire. But right now I'm just going. Things are it's interesting. And I was just I'm trying to write about this, but it's just I can go climb out cap.

02:00:28:12 - 02:00:51:24
Mark
I can hall a 250 pound bag. I can hump loads to the base. I can, you know, I can do those pitches and all that kind of stuff, but it's just it's getting. I'm just getting that feeling of, I could be done. It's really interesting that I love it so much, but I have that feeling that I, that I could be done

02:00:51:24 - 02:00:53:26
Kyle
Done was done with climbing.

02:00:53:29 - 02:01:15:13
Mark
I done with climbing El Cap. I don't think that I'm going to be done with climbing, but I'm really fading. I mean, like I'm really fading out of climbing right now. Actually. I want to still climb. I've made it for my project of the year that I want a red point panic in Detroit at Donner. 512. See that?

02:01:15:13 - 02:01:38:00
Mark
I've never. I did the first ascent of it, you know, a million years ago on a top rope, back when those things were. But now I want to lead it. So. So I've just given myself this project to sort of have something to do, but I, like we were talked about earlier, I get rabid with doing something and I'm a little bit rabid with the public speaking right now.

02:01:38:00 - 02:01:59:00
Mark
So I'm really working on that. And I'm really I really want to do that. And I feel like I feel like I've done everything I need to do with climbing El Cap. I've sort of I've got I showed a really good article and I think they're going to print it in Summit Journal

02:01:59:01 - 02:01:59:13
Kyle
Cool.

02:01:59:14 - 02:02:00:06
Mark
soon.

02:02:00:06 - 02:02:01:16
Kyle
guy's read I interviewed him.

02:02:01:20 - 02:02:04:08
Mark
it's yeah, it's a good article.

02:02:04:14 - 02:02:30:05
Mark
I mean I it took me a long time to write and I think it's really heartfelt, but I'm trying to work through why I feel done with it. And then who will I be when I'm done with it? Because it's been such a such an identity of me. And and then there's all like, I just need to do stuff.

02:02:30:07 - 02:02:48:11
Mark
What will I do? And so I'm thinking, okay, so I'm, you know, is this public speaking going to going to, going to grab me. Is that something that I'm going to want to do. Am I going to feel the rewards from that I feel I feel that yes, I will, but still, you know, I'm still ain't.

02:02:48:15 - 02:02:51:03
Kyle
world of climbing. So it's like this big step into something new.

02:02:51:03 - 02:03:17:21
Mark
Yes. And it's, you know, it's like I'm just I'm just stepping out there into the unknown. I'm going to give it a try. Well, and that's the thing that's that desire. You know, back in the day, I used to say that I have more desire than anyone else. I wanted to do it. And sort of to your question, why are you still doing it now?

02:03:17:21 - 02:03:22:11
Mark
It's like, because I want to do it, you know, because I'm ready to go do it.

02:03:22:13 - 02:03:25:14
Kyle
I mean, that desire shapes like how you make decisions.

02:03:25:19 - 02:03:43:29
Mark
That's, that's and, you know, that's it's back to when you're telling your boss that I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that, but I ain't going to do this, and I ain't going to do that. That's your desire for the life that you want creating your podcast. That's, you know, that's what you need to do.

02:03:43:29 - 02:03:50:05
Mark
That's you just have it. You just nothing was going to stop you.

02:03:50:07 - 02:03:50:28
Mark
You.

02:03:51:00 - 02:04:02:29
Kyle
I dedicated my entire weekend to drive eight hours both ways to come out here and sit with you and spend time creating this show. And like, that's desire. I could I could have spent the entire weekend climbing.

02:04:03:05 - 02:04:03:27
Mark
Yeah, yeah.

02:04:03:27 - 02:04:04:06
Mark
Yeah,

02:04:04:09 - 02:04:04:22
Kyle
I am not

02:04:04:26 - 02:04:05:21
Mark
yeah.

02:04:05:24 - 02:04:17:24
Mark
You ripped up my whole living room. You didn't have to put my furniture. All. You'd have to put my furniture all back and and everything. Yeah. And so. But it's it's interesting. I ain't going to live forever.

02:04:17:27 - 02:04:33:29
Mark
And I'm on the downhill side of it, so I've got to. I've got to appreciate that. And I have to continue doing things that make me feel like I'm still valid.

02:04:34:01 - 02:05:09:07
Mark
You know, when people get old, they just they realize they don't. People don't need them anymore. And so I don't need to be needed, but I need to still produce. I really, really I feel that I can influence people and help people in their lives. And, you know, I've done that with Jordan. I help Scott get his big wall gear business off, and it just makes me so happy that I was able to help these people in their lives.

02:05:09:07 - 02:05:20:13
Mark
And if I can do that in speaking, that's just going to make me immensely happy and it'll make me feel like I'm still doing something positive and serious.

02:05:20:16 - 02:05:22:07
Kyle
I see it, I think it's

02:05:22:10 - 02:05:45:21
Kyle
Yeah, I think it brings a question of legacy. A little bit is like part of it wanting to obviously not as the sole desire, but like imprint some sort of legacy, like, like because I mean, doing speeches like you're archiving your voice into history. Is there like part of that, like leave some sort of legacy behind?

02:05:45:24 - 02:06:01:11
Mark
If I had a legacy in climbing, I would like people to think that through all the changes that I've seen.

02:06:01:13 - 02:06:12:15
Mark
I still enjoyed it, that it was still valid, that that I wasn't stuck in one spot. I didn't become a curmudgeonly old guy who says, oh, you.

02:06:12:17 - 02:06:16:24
Mark
Back in the day, we used to do it like that. You kids these days.

02:06:16:25 - 02:06:29:12
Mark
You know, and that's not that's not it. Every everyone's everyone's day is valid for them, you know. And I'm not going to put you down going.

02:06:29:13 - 02:06:34:08
Mark
Oh, I did that rule. We were using nuts. We didn't use these cam things.

02:06:34:08 - 02:06:37:11
Kyle
think that's like that's defending the past rather than living in

02:06:37:14 - 02:06:47:19
Mark
Yeah yeah yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That was then people were always saying, oh, I can't believe you climb this route with hexes. It's like, that's what we

02:06:47:22 - 02:06:48:08
Mark
You know.

02:06:48:14 - 02:06:53:09
Kyle
imagine. I can't tell you how many times I get comments on Facebook or like, I climbed out.

02:06:53:09 - 02:06:54:29
Kyle
Route back in the 60s with hexes.

02:06:54:29 - 02:06:56:01
Kyle
I'm like,

02:06:56:03 - 02:06:57:22
Mark
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

02:06:57:22 - 02:06:59:00
Kyle
Like, I not going to do that.

02:06:59:00 - 02:07:14:26
Mark
And you know what? If we were standing at the base of that route and we showed you cams, you would have taken those camps, you know? So. So don't give me this like I'm such a hero because I climb this thing with hexes. It's like, that's the tool we had, you know? So,

02:07:14:29 - 02:07:16:24
Kyle
That's cool. That's awesome.

02:07:16:26 - 02:07:39:01
Kyle
But yeah. So I'm, as I told you before, I'm going to be going for the nose in May and Nyad in October for anybody listening that has similar objectives. Wants to get into Big Wally. And you're kind of like a legend in that space. Obviously you can't break down big walling and you know, the next five minutes.

02:07:39:01 - 02:07:44:08
Kyle
But what what are some what are some advice that you have for for someone picking these goals?

02:07:44:10 - 02:08:10:02
Mark
don't figure it out up there. Figure it out beforehand. There's I tell this to I mean I give big wall clinics and this is one of my big things is figure it out beforehand. I've climbed big walls with guys who know what they're doing, you know, with Max, with Shane, Lemp, with Scott. And every single time we've been up on a wall, we've sat there and looked before going up, we've said, okay, what are you going to do here?

02:08:10:02 - 02:08:28:09
Mark
What am I going to do there? How are you going to clean this? What happens? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, every single freaking pitch. And so certainly people on the nose, you know, you've got to be able to the communication. How are you going to clean this? How are you going to lead this? What happens if I can't hear you?

02:08:28:09 - 02:08:46:18
Mark
So sit down there and have no ego. Be a total weenie and just sit there and go, I'm going to do this. You're going to do that, we're going to do this, blah, blah, blah, every single freaking pitch. How are you going to thread on top of boot flake? Are we going to leave beans or are you going to tie or what?

02:08:46:19 - 02:09:07:14
Mark
You know, like, okay, are we going to do this the whole nine yards and just and learn it? Just how are you going to set up anchors? What happens if I can't hear you? You're going to have done the King swing. And Eagle Ledge is around the corner so you can't see them. And it might be nuking winds.

02:09:07:14 - 02:09:24:20
Mark
And so you can't hear them either. But okay, you feed out some rope, you feed out about ten feet of rope. Okay. He's probably tying the knots for the anchor. Then the whole line sort of twitches and it, you know, comes tight to the hall back. He's not free climbing with the whole line. Dang. You know, on his on his waist.

02:09:24:20 - 02:09:46:06
Mark
So lower out the bag. You don't need to go. Ready to haul Hall one. Ready. La la la la. All that bullshit, you know. So just know understand what's going to happen. You know what's going to happen next. Have a plan, have a plan. People. People. If you don't plan, you know, just what are you going to do here?

02:09:46:06 - 02:09:55:27
Mark
How are we going to do that? How is your second going to follow the great roof. Like if you, you know, if you.

02:09:56:00 - 02:10:10:07
Mark
Leapfrog some gear, how is that going to happen. The whole nine yards, you know, and then and then be positive and just fucking get going and have a fun time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:10:10:07 - 02:10:12:28
Kyle
What what his life look like for you now.

02:10:13:01 - 02:10:34:07
Mark
Well, I'm, I'm giving a slide show this Wednesday. Rock climbing slide show. My slide shows a little bit are a little bit more these days. I'm done talking about my, you know, slideshows, rock climbing slideshows are pretty much. This is me doing badass shit. This is me, this is me, this is me, this is me. I'm totally done with that.

02:10:34:07 - 02:11:05:25
Mark
That's. That's me telling you about my achievements. And I don't really care about that anymore. The what I want to do. And I make my slideshows more speaker oriented where I want to involve the audience. I gave a slideshow at the at the facelift a couple of years ago, and it's about experiences and memories like, okay, it's completely valid to show up in Yosemite the very first time and have a big list.

02:11:05:25 - 02:11:23:09
Mark
Oh, I want to do this. I want to do that and run around like a chicken with your head cut off, ticking off these routes. It's totally valid. You don't even remember who you did the routes with because you're just you just need to do those routes. Well, ten years later, you want to do Astro man, but you wanted.

02:11:23:10 - 02:11:52:16
Mark
Now you're not that kid anymore and you want to have an experience. And so no, I want to do it with this guy. You know, he and I are going to do this route together. So you the way you experience your life changes. It becomes less about achievements and more about memories, which is sort of back to my the prize or the memory kind of thing, you know, back to when you're in that bed, you're not going to be going.

02:11:52:22 - 02:12:07:20
Mark
Remember when we speed climb the nose and remember we hiked into the Hulk. It's going to be remember, we remember that sunset and we were benighted somewhere. Where the hell were we? But remember that sunset. Remember we shivered all night. Where the hell were

02:12:07:27 - 02:12:10:01
Kyle
Remember we ran out of space in the poop tube?

02:12:10:01 - 02:12:10:25
Mark
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:12:10:29 - 02:12:24:07
Mark
Exactly that. Remember, you dropped the cap off the water bottle. We know any more water and, you know, remember, we dropped the rope and, you know, those kind of things. So that's what's going to be imprinted in you. The.

02:12:24:09 - 02:12:50:26
Mark
Probably the best speaking event I've done so far is that at that slideshow at the facelift, I got people to cry because I got them to realize that they are going to move through this path where it's brand new, it's wonderful. It's these experiences, they're growing. And then one of these days it's not going to be there. They're going to move on.

02:12:50:27 - 02:13:20:16
Mark
They're going to leave the valley. And we're probably all not going to know the last time we drive out of the valley. But but what if what would you be thinking? If you knew, what would how would you be looking at it? You know, what memories would you want to keep really close. And and it's you could sort of take that with life to like, be present in your life, be that.

02:13:20:19 - 02:13:40:24
Mark
Don't just pass it off. It's you don't want to die with a bunch of ribbons on the wall and no memories. You want to be the person with the memories you want. You want people to be sitting around. You want us to walk out of that room after you've taken that last breath and say, yeah, Kyle was a great guy.

02:13:40:24 - 02:13:55:01
Mark
We did this and we did that. And that's where you that's where you will have affected lives. That's where you will continue to live. Really.

02:13:55:03 - 02:14:08:03
Kyle
I love it. I love your story. I, I appreciate again giving me the time to sit here and share your story. It's been awesome. Where can where can people follow your story? Where can people follow what you're doing?

02:14:08:10 - 02:14:09:01
Mark
well.

02:14:09:06 - 02:14:40:09
Mark
I don't have a spot yet, but I've got the market on climbing. Com where people can sign up for the The Human Academy where I, you know, you sort of by my time to tell you all about wall climbing and stuff like that. I'm going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It ends up my, my little tagline is 50 years of experience in your pocket, you know, so you get to talk to me, which sounds sort of dickish,

02:14:40:12 - 02:14:44:21
Kyle
Do you ever think about doing, like, prerecorded, like, coursing kind of thing?

02:14:44:24 - 02:14:48:00
Mark
I would.

02:14:48:02 - 02:15:10:02
Mark
And that and I might be doing more of that kind of stuff. I have someone who's helping me with my public speaking, and so I'm trying to develop that public speaking site. So just dealing with someone who's more into that video and kind of thing, I might do that. I don't know. I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm really lazy, but other times I don't.

02:15:10:09 - 02:15:20:27
Mark
It's hard to I'm sort of an old guy to and like, I didn't exactly fluent with Instagram and Facebook and all that stuff, but

02:15:21:01 - 02:15:21:06
Kyle
it's.

02:15:21:06 - 02:15:22:01
Kyle
A whole beast.

02:15:22:01 - 02:15:40:24
Mark
it would, you know, hopefully that the mountain, the Summit Journal article gets published and people really appreciate that. I've got a bunch of my my trip reports on my site Mark climbing com, and I thought I did a good job on a few of my trip reports.

02:15:40:24 - 02:15:57:26
Mark
So you can go there and read those things. There's some old photos, you know, like me on Tales of Power and Separate Reality back in the 70s kind of thing. Free climbing the Phoenix, you know, with freaking hexes kind of stuff.

02:15:57:28 - 02:15:59:14
Kyle
No one cares about your

02:15:59:16 - 02:16:04:08
Mark
Yeah, I know.

02:16:04:10 - 02:16:15:21
Mark
Are you jabbing me there? Yeah. No one cares. No, but it's just it's interesting. It's fun. It's like, oh holy moly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:16:15:24 - 02:16:17:20
Kyle
Instagram. People can follow you. I think you've

02:16:17:20 - 02:16:33:10
Mark
I do I do have an Instagram and I do post things on it, but it's a little bit it's more speaker. I've been trying to give slideshows and stuff I like. I like doing the slideshows. I'm giving one in Sacramento in.

02:16:33:13 - 02:16:57:26
Mark
Middle of May. I think it is, along with a big wall clinic. But those are those are fun. I'm also Jordan and I are giving the keynote speech at the Lander Film or Lander Climbers Festival. Yeah, so that's fun. That'll be neat. I can't wait. We haven't we haven't written anything. Amy hasn't told us what she wants us to talk about yet, but I'm sure it'll be interesting.

02:16:57:28 - 02:17:03:19
Kyle
Nice. It's awesome. It's very cool. It's you. You're like, at the end of a chapter and beginning a new

02:17:03:19 - 02:17:04:13
Mark
one. Yeah,

02:17:04:16 - 02:17:06:22
Kyle
it must be exciting. And I can't wait to see what you do with

02:17:06:24 - 02:17:06:27
Mark
it.

02:17:06:28 - 02:17:11:04
Mark
Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah.

02:17:11:07 - 02:17:12:25
Kyle
Well, I appreciate your

02:17:12:28 - 02:17:13:11
Mark
time.

02:17:13:14 - 02:17:16:26
Mark
Sure. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, this has been great.