Rock and Rice

EP 04: Julie De Jesus — being an all-around climber, developing Priest Draw, and playing the long game

• Tim Casasola • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Julie is a longtime rock climber. She's been climbing in the West Coast since the 90's.

Most of you might know her from the films Rampage or Free Hueco.

Bouldering, sport, trad, bigwall — she's done it all. And guess what? She still climbs!

She also started a coalition with Al. The name? Rock and Rice. It was a coalition of two until some dude decided to make it a podcast...

Anyway. Hope you enjoy this interview.

Land Acknowledgement: Payahǖǖnadǖ

We talk a lot about Bishop! As such, I want to acknowledge that Bishop are the ancestral lands of the Nüümü and Newe People, in the land known as Payahǖǖnadǖ, the “land of flowing water.”

Nüümü were the stewards of the Owens River, before LADWP took it from them. More on that here. If you're in Bishop, I highly suggest you check out the Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center. It show their story in quality detail.

Notes

 Hello, welcome to rock and rice episode four. I'm your host, Tim Casasola. And on this episode, I'm joined by Julie de Jesus. And I feel very lucky to be. Having her on the show. Julie is a climber that I didn't really know much about until I watched Rampage. So Rampage is a 1999  I guess you can say documentary filmed by Some of Chris Sharma's friends and it's on YouTube now.

It's free. But when I had watched rampage for the first time Say, I think three or four years ago I noticed there was one climber in the film who was I think she was filipina, right? Every filipino has their filipino radar. So I looked at the credits I'm, like i'm curious if she's filipina and I see the last name de jesus.

I'm like, she's totally filipina thinking it was really cool that there was a Filipina climber, making a ruckus in the Priest's Draw area in Arizona back in the day. And, years later I meet Al, who is the guest of our first episode, and he tells me that he knows Julie. Him and her have run into each other in Bishop back in the day, which you've heard about in episode one, right?

Julie's the climber where that Al ran into In his early days in Bishop, and she had started their All Filipino climbing crew called rock and rice. You might remember that joke from the first episode. So she's the reason that this podcast is the way it's named today. And I've learned that Julie's a lot long time rock climber, she's still climbing to this day.

She's 50  and she still boulders still sports climbs and still lives in Bishop. She's lived in The eastern Sierras for over 10 years now she was a ranger in Yosemite and she even owns her own medical practice. And we talk a lot about the long game of climbing. And how, we have a we have a lot of privilege in being able to do this sport.

Again, we're going to begin this episode with some definitions. The first word we use a lot are whips. Whips are short for whippers. Whippers is basically when a sport climber or a trad climber who's leading a climb,  Takes a fall and their piece of protection is below them. So they take a fall that  Is protected from below not from above that's called a whipper.

You might have seen videos on Instagram of whipper media of people taking whippers whips is short for whippers moderates are moderately level The rock climbs. So I think of moderates as subjective. You can say that maybe, for example, if the hardest thing you've climbed is a V8, like me, then something that's more moderately leveled is a V4 or a V5.

So moderates depend on, I think of it as like problems that are easier to send compared to your harder problems. They're not difficult, but they're not necessarily easy. They're in that kind of middle range of difficulty for you. And again, difficulty is subjective to everyone. Last word we use is TR, which is a shorthand for top rope and top rope is in contrast to lead.

Top rope is when an the rope is through an anchor and anchor is what keeps  the climber attached to the rock. So when a lead climber sets up top rope or TR, they can have other climbers do the climb with the, with their point of protection being higher than them, reducing their falls. So whips, moderates, TR.

Last, Definition I'll put out there that I'll segue into a bit of a land acknowledgement. We use the word local and I've thought a lot about how, locals just really means people who moved to the area or live in the area. And that's to distinguish locals is different from native are people who are from whose ancestry are from that specific area.

So you can be a local to Bishop and not necessarily native to Bishop. So local versus native big difference as such. I want to do a land acknowledgement. So we do talk a lot about Bishop and while we know Bishop as a place of beautiful, big granite boulders to be climbed on there are people that  know this land as the Paiahunaru land or just Paiahunaru, which means the land of flowing water.

And, these are the ancestral hands, lands of the Numu and Nui people or Nui, if someone knows the correct pronunciation of that, please let me know. Lastly, I want to surface the fact that, the water that, Is in the Owens Valley, or is in the Paihunaru land that, that water really belonged to, to, to the indigenous people there, the Numu people had thrived throughout the Owens Valley using that water to basically sustain their community and a lot of that water was taken away from them by white European settlers and eventually Los Angeles department water and power.

There are still conflicts over water and water rights between the native people and LADWP to this day. And I will, I'll link an article about the history of the water in that land. In the show notes, I would also recommend if you're in Bishop checking out the cultural center in town, it does a really good job of displaying, the history of the native peoples. 

and how the water was taken water and water rights were taken away from them. So go to the cultural center the next time you're in Bishop. I highly recommend that this is for the folks who live in California or in the US, please go there. And it's just something I try to keep in mind when, I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, but  I think it's important for climbers to just be aware of complex histories of the lands they climb on, especially in places like the Owens River Gorge and Bishop.

All right, without further ado, let's get into the episode. 

You said you were in the happies today? Yeah, I was pretty busy. Yeah, it's supposed to rain today, no? It looks like something's rolling in right now. So yeah,  it's still early. It might still rain, but it was, I go out early, cause I live here. It's I can get away with it.

And I try to go out at 7 and be back by 11. Gotcha. That was the deal today. Yeah, from, I've spent some time in Bishop during the weekdays too, and it seems like a lot of the locals prefer to climb during the weekdays in the morning. You're, that's your preference. Has that been like your experience?

Like most locals will climb during the weekends and avoid people like me who are coming from out  I would like to speak on behalf of everybody in Bishop and we love Bishop. Having visitors  support, dude, this is a boring place to live. If there wasn't climbers here, there'd be just Cowboys.

Yeah. It's and we could, we welcome people. We have plenty of room.  There's, it's no big deal.  We've tried the class. You're not being sarcastic, but y'all No, I try to be as friendly as I can to everybody because like I I experienced it myself You know and one day some of these people will come move here and be our neighbors and dude It's frickin California, man.

We got to be cool Yeah, But I love seeing lots of people like today. There were a lot of families and I think that's really cool. Yeah, that's awesome I have noticed the same thing to like seeing a lot of locals not a lot But some locals bringing their kids to the crag on a weekday and yeah weekend I should say and I that's been really cool.

That's awesome to see. Yeah. They can kill it in a jumper while the parents are projecting. Yeah, I think we need more kids out there. My own personal opinion, it's a good environment. Yeah. And kids like climbing. But but anyways, there was a lot of families today. It was pretty cool.

That's awesome. Hey, I don't know. It's a good family activity, I think.  Yeah, it is a great family activity. Thanks Julie, for being down to chat. Yeah, I think so. The name of this podcast, I actually credit to you from a story that Al told me he had said one day he had walked into Bishop.

and met you, and the day he had met you, he had said you had told him and you can correct me if I'm wrong, if this story recollection isn't correct on our side, I want that to be on the record and, it's your, you coined it, so we want to hear how you thought it was coined.

I'll meet you, you meet Al, you both notice your Filipinos at the crag, and you ask him, hey do you want to join my my all Asian or all Filipino rock climbing club? I was like, what's that? But that's my understanding of the story. Maybe, tell me about that moment.  Oh yeah. We were at the birthday boulders and I think I was with Chris and I think Al topped out or something, or he was there and I was just chit chatting for a little bit and he's You're Filipino, aren't you? 

And I was like, oh yeah, are you Filipino? And he was like, oh yeah. He's you're the only one I've met. And I think I was like, it was at a club, I was like, dude, you know what we should do? We should get together and form a coalition.  And we were like, we'll call it Rock and Rice.  That was pretty much it.

And Al, yeah. He was living in Mammoth after that, so he was around for a long time. Our coalition of two people I don't know. It's lasted a while. I think  it's getting bigger. It's getting bigger for sure. Yeah. It's an entire podcast now, which is a baby one. I'll be it, but yeah. How long have you lived in Bishop for?

I first came here like in high school that was like early nineties. Then I was a ranger in Yosemite for eight years, and I moved here right after that. I don't know, like I've been here maybe  20 something, 20 years maybe. Oh my gosh. I don't know. A lot off and on. A long time. A long time.

Yeah.  Yeah. I climbed at the Gorge when I was in high school. Wow. Yeah. And I what did the Happys were they named Diana? The Happys used to be called the Boulder Farm.  Wow. And I think it had just gotten its name and the SADS had just gotten its name and I climbed there. We used to be able to just drive up to the SADS and just  basically just bivvy right at the parking lot.

Everybody, all the boulders that bouldered here stayed at one dude's house.  Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. Believe it or not, the scene hasn't changed very much. It still has the same. Energy, I think in a, in what way? There's more people, but it's just I don't know. People are, they come here.

They're psych, they go climbing. The campings are really good. They hang out in the hot spring afterwards. It's the same.  Yeah,  it's nice to be outside with good weather, good California weather, yeah. Did you ever envision yourself like placing roots there or did it just happen?

Yeah, it just happened. Cause I was living here. I left, yeah, I was living in Flagstaff, and then cause that's where I went to school. And then I just ended up coming back here and finally like five years ago or four years ago, I went to grad school and. After that, I went on a, like a year long around the world climbing trip.

And then I ended up just bivvying at my friend's house in my RV in his front yard for six months, and I was like shoot, I'll just buy a place. Nice. That's when I moved here officially.  I guess you live here when you own property here, I think.  Yeah, for sure. Today I think you have a list of questions that I've sent to you, but want to just make it a pretty open conversation.

You have a lot of folks like me who are really stoked to discover that there are some awesome, strong Filipino climbers out there. And so that's the, podcast. I'm, for a lot of us, like  we,  I don't know how to explain this, but at least when I had found out about you, it was obviously through both free Waco and rampage, which are now maybe not back then, but definitely now pretty iconic.

Yeah. Yeah, I,  and you're not actually, I don't really experience you to be like posting on Instagram or much or anything ever  conventional or, is that, is it, did it just happen to be that way for you? I'm, I, um, I'm a pretty low key person, I don't, I'm, I have a medical practice for one thing, and I have to keep things on the down low a little bit, you know.

I separate my professional and private life big time, because it's just the way it is. I think it's because of the population that I serve which is low socioeconomic peoples, you don't really want to, Have all everybody, I see  hundreds of people a week and I don't want all those people to know what I'm up to  all my days off.

And also I come from a different generation of climbers. Like we didn't even take pictures, which is why I think rampage is so iconic. Cause there's just no spray in that movie, and these days there were things about self promotion, which is fine, but I don't know. I just come from a different, totally different generation of climber, which is probably why.

No one knows about us,  which is fine by me. I don't know. I'm just a pretty private person in general, but sometimes I'm on Facebook, but most of the time I'm not,  right? I'm in the not phase. Gotcha. Yeah. That makes sense. I feel like a lot of Filipinos there's some statistics on how like Facebook is  in the Philippines.

Like we're, we often use Facebook other countries and.  It's been just a way for people to stay connected. So it's good to hear that you still have a foot in the door with Facebook, but yeah, what happened is it got hijacked by my fan, my Filipino family classic.  And it's Oh man, I don't want them to know I'm ready to quit my job now.

It's just it's way different from like my fit. You have Asian parents, right? They want you to do a certain thing. And it's just I've never done what they wanted me to do. And it's oh man, now I gotta be like, okay, now I'm going to quit my job and hit the road again.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, I don't want these people to know that's what I do for fun, but I guess that they have, they figured it out by now. Yeah,  you're going on the road and climbing. You should be studying. Yeah, it's  exactly classic or like practicing the piano or something or whatever Asian parents make their kids do.

Yeah. Do you have kids yourself? Are you a parent? No, not at all. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, it's It is interesting thinking about the previous generation and I guess us. I assume you're second generation, were you born in the States? Yeah. Yeah. You were born in the States too, right? Yeah, I was.

I was born in Long Beach like many other Filipinos. Oh, I was born in Detroit, but like we moved to California when I was not even a year old. Gotcha. Do you remember, do you know where your family's from in the Philippines? Yeah, from my mom's from, my dad's from Manila, but my mom's is from the hundred islands.

Oh Cool. Yeah, it's nice place. I've been there. Really? Yeah,  no climbing. I wish there was climbing. That'd be like Al, right? Yeah  That'd be cool. Yeah for sure Yeah, what's the hundred islands like you got to visit before? Yeah, it has good, we went there and went snorkeling, it's like a national park, and then just trawled around on boats, and it's a small town, it's 10, 000 people, it's a nice place. 

That's awesome. Yeah, I'm just looking at a map. It's in Luzon, so you'll access it from Manila, I'm guessing. Awesome. I'm curious to hear, so y'all moved to California where exactly in California and, what was your upbringing like? Cerritos? Cerritos? Yeah, very Filipino place. I went to Whitney high school as a punk rocker in high school.

That kind of trailed into that actually helped by climbing  in a weird way, like coming from the LA punk scene, like going to Yosemite was,  but anyways what happened is I learned to climb and. High school, and I was, me and my climbing friends were much older than me, and they were taking me, one of my climbing friends is this dude named Bernie Rifa DeNera, he's actually, I don't know if he's still the manager of the mountain shop in Yosemite still, but he's like the the caretaker of the Glacier Point Ski Lodge.

He's still in Yosemite, he's an old school Yosemite climber from Mexico City, but he lived in Hollywood. And I had a group of friends. We had go to Joshua tree in the. Took me climbing and I actually didn't finish high school. I left. Yeah. I left when I was like, I tested out of it when I was a junior.

And the first thing I did is I went on a big road trip  and then I moved to Yosemite when I turned 18,  I went to college for a little bit. They moved to Yosemite. And so I've been a climber my entire adult life and basically became an adult in Yosemite  for good or bad. I don't know. Yeah. Wow, what was that like?

So many questions, you take a road trip you leave school, take a road trip, and, that kind of started your climbing journey. I'm curious what Yosemite was like back then, and, Yeah, let's start there. Yosemite it was still like Ron Kalk, and like Peter Croft and Dave Schultz they'd just done the record knows, Lynn Hill was still on the scene.

It was a whole old school scene, but I was like a crappy climber, so they didn't really look at me, like I didn't raise any eyebrows, I had zero talent when I first started, it was really hard to learn how to climb back then. Like today you just go to a gym and you could TR, but back then the climbers they're pretty rough.

Like they don't really, they're not super friendly. Like they were they had this sort of old school ethics ideal where you, if you fell, you had to get lowered to the ground and start over again. Like hang dogging was a thing. Like you weren't allowed to do that. You weren't allowed to stick clip.

There was trad climbers versus sport climbers, and there was no, no crossover whatsoever. And bouldering was not a thing. Bouldering was practice. Wow. It's a rough scene and those dudes, you have to understand like the old school Yosemite guys, like if they didn't like the way You bolted something, they just punch you out.

That's how they, that's what they were aggro. It's just another scene. Yeah. And then you didn't really get accepted into any scene, and I didn't really care, I just wanted to go climbing and I came from the LA punk scene, so I didn't care, like those guys didn't intimidate me, like I'd been in mosh pits, I didn't care. I didn't care. It's there's, it's just a different, like people were jerks back then. And you had to prove yourself, but I never proved myself because I just never got very good until way, way later. But I was definitely guilty of seeing those people, doing the whole hero worship thing, that I'm not sure.

I guess it still exists today. People are a lot more inclusive today than they were back then. But yeah, I was like, so interesting way to learn how to climb.  Yeah. Did you have like mentors or friends that you also shared similar experiences with in terms of just learning how to climb in Yosemite or were you like purely self taught?

And so I climbed in Yosemite for two years and then I went to Flagstaff to go to college. And like these I like just TR stuff, with people. My first climb was a slab climb. Run For Your Life and Joshua Tree.  My mentors were this dude, Scott Crawford. He's one of the early riggers.

Yeah, you heard it year climbing, climbers becoming riggers in Las Vegas. He was like the first dude to do that. And I don't know if he climbs anymore, but he was actually on tour. He did, he worked rock and roll shows, and he'd actually I didn't know if he actually went on tour with David Lee Roth, but David Lee Roth was like this heavy metal dude.

It's heavy metal band Van Halen and they were actually all climbers and they'd all go climbing  in the like late 80s. Wow. But anyways, he was one of my mentors. One time they made me lead a climb that was like 10c so I could learn how to fall.  So of course I'm taking wingers because I've only been climbing like two years.

I'm trying to lead this 10c trad climb, like they're like that.  Yeah. I don't know. And then when I moved to Flagstaff, I was still a trad climber and I think I had Yeah. Yeah. a set of stoppers and my buddy had a rope and somebody else had one friend or something and we would pull our all our gear together and we'd do a high point like i'd get up some high point put in two pieces of gear in the lower off and someone else would get up and we'd hope to that's what it was like we'd hope to get the rope up and then finally get the rope up and we all TR it until submission.

But it was worse when I was at high school, like I had a pair of shoes, but I got my three friends into climbing and they shared a pair of shoes. Wow. So like we'd go to Stony Point and I'd climb and then they would, like one person would try a problem and they'd have to take the shoes off, give it to the friend to put it on. 

It was pretty sad. That was what it was like to learn how to climb. That's wild. That's crazy.  Sad. It's sad but true. But yeah, yeah, it was rough. Yeah  That sounds rough. I it obviously yeah, it's such a different experience now. So it's so great It's so interesting to hear how you're literally just pulling the gear with the money and friends you have Or lack thereof to go as high as you can on a route.

And you're saying you were using stoppers so Back then, was there no active protection for cracks and stuff, or was that just harder to get, or did you just not have  We couldn't afford it.  Oh yeah.  We're like, 19, 20 year olds, and it's a friend with 50 bucks, or like 40 bucks, that's we could all go, we could all go to like Joshua Tree for that much money. 

Why buy protection when we can use that money to climb some more? Yeah yeah, and there wasn't really bouldering, bouldering wasn't really a thing yeah, it took, so it took me like two years to do 510A  because of all the hang dogging and stuff and borrowing gear.

It was just heinous. I don't know, but  now everybody gets, they get better faster, which I really, I, it's good. That's the way it should be.  Yeah, for sure. That, that adds a layer of respect I have for you. And obviously, you know, I think it's interesting to, you first started as a trad climber.

I remember asking,  Yeah, Al too and that must, that's just, that just sounds like an incredibly different experience going to a bouldering gym and in L. A., right? Yeah.  I would have loved to do that. Shoot, if I didn't have to do all this B. S. with my stoppers, man.  We didn't have gyms yeah.

What was the transition like going from trad to bouldering?  Oh, yeah so what had happened was, like, I don't know, that's in if you wanted, there was a lot of road tripping, right? Because there weren't any gyms, so if you wanted to get better at climbing, you pretty much have to quit everything and go and hit the road.

And I've hit the road with my boyfriend at the time, and we went, we, quit everything. One college semester, I was living in Flagstaff and we went to Porchero Chico, which is being developed.  And my boyfriend at the time, he had worked in Pete's. In Waco tanks. And as a cook. And so we went to Waco because what we were going to do is we're going to drop off his truck there.

And we're going to take a bus to Portura Chico, which is pretty fricking heinous. I don't really recommend it. It takes two days, but that's what we did.  It's totally epic. Yeah. So we took the bus to Portura Chico and they're developing it. Then we came back. Climbed Potrero, it was pretty cool, then took the bus back, and then hung out in Waco, and I realized I really like bouldering, right?

We went back to Flagstaff, and I realized, oh, holy shit, Flagstaff has tons of really good bouldering, the Pre Straw.  And I invited some people from Waco to Flagstaff when we started developing the pre straw.  Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.  You're part of the early developers. Early pre straw climber. Yeah. 

Yeah. And there, there was a lot of flack because at some point I quit, I was really pretty augured into the trad climbing scene and I quit. Trad climbing and went to bouldering. And people were giving me so much flack because I was like, quote, bringing all these people from Boulder into, flagstaffs so we could just destroy all the Boulder problems and run, chop trees down and, blah, blah, blah at the pre straw. 

So I made the switch. And then I worked at Pete's in Waco Tanks. I was the cook there three winters in a row. And then, went from Pete's to, to Bishop, and then never really trad climbed until I, then I finished college. I think I was like, no wait, did I finish college? No, I went to Flagstaff.

Oh yeah, I was at Flagstaff, and then I finished college and then moved to Yosemite and became a trad climber again.  Wow.  So you went back to Yosemite and went back to trad climbing. Yeah, I got into like full tried climbing walls and stuff  and then got back into bouldering.  That's awesome.

I know. It's been a weird, it's been a weird climbing trip for,  yeah, I've been in all of them. For climbing bouldering walls, 

climbing, I've done all because I've been climbing a long time and that's what happens. Yeah, it's cool. It's inspiring to hear too. I want to go back to pre straw. What was that experience like, developing those routes? What were you logistically, what were you doing?

Obviously it's a different time now with gear and stuff, but yeah, I want to hear about that.  Yeah. I don't know. We're just, there are boulders everywhere, man, and it's a very specific type of style and it takes a lot of effort, cause it's totally overhanging. But yeah, I don't know.

I didn't think the draw was going to be this popular. It's like a full on climbing area now, quite honestly. It's I just never would believe I'd never believe that would happen. I knew the climbing was good, but I didn't know it was that good. It's pretty good. It's good. Yeah. I got a guidebook from I got like a PDF of the guidebook from a friendly climber there and it's, it, yeah, it's really comprehensive and thorough and whatnot.

I'm glad someone made a guidebook. It  took long enough, and I'm like,  I think.  Yeah,  we just never had one, and people were like, oh, I don't think it needs one and blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, yeah, but then there's a lot of history behind these problems and it's lost if you don't document it, I don't know, it's just the way it is.

Yeah. Do you know the guidebook author or did it just happen without you knowing? Oh, I have no idea. I don't know. I don't even know who wrote it. Yeah. Cool. I don't follow those things, like I know some people do, but I just, I don't know what I do know is we need to go, we need a new guidebook in Bishop.

That's, whoever decides they want to write the guidebook. I'm Tim Steele  for the record. He pretty much edited the last one. Gotcha. Seems like he would be the natural person, but I'm not sure if he's climbing anymore, so I don't know. Tim, if you're out there.  Please drop one, Tim Steele. Yeah I'll ask Al to second that, that message but yeah.

It's crazy. It, we can go into guidebook politics and stuff, but maybe let's not rabbit hole, but just hearing the stories Alice told me. Yeah I'm curious, when did you feel like you first developed like your stride as a climber? You mentioned that you were really trying to piece together experiences to learn.

In a time where it was maybe not as accessible compared to today to learn how to tri climb. Do you remember your years piecing it together and feeling like you were on a streak? I don't, not really. I think it's because I never listening to Al he's so dedicated, right?

He even went to therapy, dude. That's some serious shit right there. You know what I mean? And I was listening to him, and I was like, shit, maybe that's what I should do, because I feel like I'm at a like I feel like my climbing right now is like at a limit, like maybe I should go to therapy, but he, I'm just, it took me for one thing, it took me a long time to get better at bouldering, because I'm just lazy, and I'm like, Oh, yeah, I never I don't know it's been long and drawn out.

It's not like all of a sudden, in six months, I got really good. You know what I mean? It was just like, it took six years and then I got good. 

Yeah it's definitely, it definitely takes a long time. I think a lot of it has to do with going back between shred climbing and bouldering. Yeah. It's I can't, I could never focus on the one thing because I love all of it is the problem, yeah. Yeah, it's it.

Did you ever feel like you deliberately had trad phases and then bouldering phases? I know you mentioned that you were bouncing between from trad to bouldering back to trad back to bouldering or did you find yourself? Yeah, just doing both maybe when you're in Yosemite you were doing boulders, but also joining with friends to go up some routes  Yeah,  tell me about that. 

I think the problem with doing both is you don't get better, you don't get good at one or the other. And I right now I'm doing both. I'm going bouldering. I just went bouldering this morning, and the last time, two days ago, I went to the gorge, and, but I don't know, you get stuck in a whole different scene.

There was really, yeah, and especially living in Yosemite sometimes I'd go there, and I would just be into bouldering, and I didn't try to climb at all.  I don't know. It's just one of those things, whatever I feel like it, I'm going to do. I don't really feel obligated to do one or the other.

Yeah. I still like it. I like all of it. And even now, like I just, if I don't feel like bouldering, maybe I'll go back at peak, just for the hell of it.  But I don't know. It's it's fun to do everything because every, the whole scene's different, like the trad scenes way different than the bouldering scene. 

Have you noticed more specialization over the years of climbing? I would say yes. There, there aren't that many people like I, my regular climbing partners do everything. And I like  climbing partners that climb every style because you, when you go on a road trip with them, it's Oh what kind of trip do you want to go on?

Trad climbing trip or, whatever. But yeah, I think people specialize in one or the other, but we, what's happening right now is Like you got a guy like Honnold, like he, he was a great boulder, he's a really good boulder and he's a super good trad climber and he's a sport climber.

And back like when I started to climb, if you were a sport climber, you weren't a trad climber. And if you're a trad climber, you look down on sport climbers and there wasn't much crossover. And I always thought that was stupid, in like people should cross over because. all the climbing complements each other and it's just, that's just the way it is, and Al talked about that, how, he was able to  master a move where he did an undercling with the hand jam, on a sport climb, on a sport climb to clip something.

I think that was his story and I'm like yeah, it all complements each other. Yeah, the best but the best climbers like Honnold and Caldwell like they've done everything. They're good at everything I think those guys are just mutants  They're different species for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's been something I think a lot about because I do meet a lot of people who are Specifically  they identify with their specialty and yes, there's some psychology around, you know there's like a psychology to like  I don't do things that I don't feel comfortable doing.

I meet so many people who are afraid to take whips or people like me who boulder and sport climb who are learning to trad climb and leading some 10 stuff that are afraid to place their weight on gear. Yeah. It's interesting every form has an opportunity to put you in a place of feeling a certain level of discomfort, but Yes.

Fitting in that discomfort and learning what to do there seems to be where, you learn. It's awesome that you do that.  Yeah, but you know what I really is I like being off the deck. That you get on a long trad coin, or on a peak, top of a peak, and, you get that in bouldering, but not so much. And I just, sometimes I just want to get off the deck. I don't really care about doing a hard move. I just want to get up on top and look down where the birds are. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I don't know.  That feeling just never goes away, yeah, that's awesome. It's something that is really cool about like triad and multi pitch. And yeah, you were saying that you still do different styles of climbing. What is your climbing like looking like these days? Oh God, I fit not, I have moderates. I climb a lot of moderates because dude, the really, the Honest thing is I'm working a lot.

I hate to say that's what it's boiled down to. But yeah I work in a clinic and I work six on eight off and basically I get to climb basically every other day for three or four days. And then I take a week off and I do nothing. And these days I feel like it all the time I don't climb is time wasted, yeah. So I just feel like I just don't climb enough.  Yeah, but yeah, I mostly I do a lot of sport climbing bouldering here and there, but I'm just working a lot, man. It happens, if you've been climbing a few decades, you can't be all just climb, and there's going to be a lot of downtime.

And for, I'll admit this is the most downtime I've ever had. But I'm trying to get out of it.  I changed my, I'm changing my schedule and like in, in three or four months, I'm,  Entering more climbing  more time off. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know it's gonna happen in a few months, but it's good It's definitely happening.

Awesome. That's great. I was yeah, I remember you saying that you make your own schedules So that's yeah, though is a nice role to have at work for sure, especially Yeah I was like I have to find someone to replace me and that's not so easy right and it's just yeah it's If I could, it's just a, I don't know, I got into this job.

So I'm a nurse practitioner at Urgent Care and I worked 12, six, 12 hour shifts in a row and I get eight offs and I got into this because I wanted to work less and climb more, and it's working out that way. But the problem with healthcare is they want more and more of you.

Yeah. Especially if you're, I want you to work as much as more and more. Yeah, the key is you want to keep climbing is just to say no, but it's like I think about climbing every day, it hasn't left. I've been climbing a long time. I'm still always thinking about it.

It I'm like, man, I need to climb like today. I was just like, ah it's really busy here. At least I get to go climbing because, what I learned about being in health care providers we're privileged to climb, a lot of people can't do it. We're privileged to just to go out to the crag and walk to the crag and walk uphill to the crag, it's a,  even that's like a huge feat for many people. 

Yeah. Yeah. So every time I call them, sometimes I'm just like, man I'm, So psyched I could just do this because this is really a hard sport. It's a remarkable thing to do for a human, and the fact that I, my house isn't being bombed and stuff. Like I could actually just walk to the crag and climb.

It's no big deal. Yeah. It's so refreshing to hear that because, I think a lot of climbers hearing this will, a lot of them are, and I sometimes put myself in this bucket too, are pretty performance oriented and yeah. Yeah. Which is great. And. At least for me, I'm, if I'm walking to the crag with goals, and then I walk out of the crag  feeling bad about myself for not hitting those goals takes away from the essence of it, right?

I've had to do some work on myself to understand that every day is a good day at the crag. And no expectations, whatever, if I'm projecting or doing moderates, whatever, but it's been interesting thinking about how it's great to have goals and it doesn't, it really doesn't define your experience.

The experience is awesome. And regardless of what happens, like you said, this is, it's such a privilege to be able to do this sport. It's awesome to hear that, that from you.  Yeah, I think people forget that  The other thing is Like you said you're very goal oriented. I think that's rad You know what?

What I like about climbers is they can focus, and really a climber any climber is a unique person You know, it's a, it's a weird sport, and the fact that people are willing to do this kind of hairball sport, that's super difficult, they're going to put a lot of effort into it.

That's really cool. Cause like a lot of people, they don't do anything.  Yeah. Like they're not motivated by anything, and it's just like to be motivated by something it's climb was difficult, man. And it's just, it's amazing. And it's actually an amazing feat of athleticism, to do it. 

But, I don't know,  I admit when I work with sick people and when I come home, I just want to be around climbers, I'm like, man, I'm hearing all these people just bitch about their health, man. They should just get out and take a walk. Yeah, 

but most people don't like most people don't exercises. reality, for sure. It's been a way, so my mom is a also she's a retired nurse. She's really actually interested in mental health. She's nearly 50 and stuff. And, I, she's also, her and my dad are big right now pickleball is the big craze. 

Huge, especially among the Filipinos and  oh my god. It's insane. It's pretty wild  Yeah, it's so fun to if you've ever get if you ever have a chance to try it I don't think they have it in sports and Bishop, right? They do. Oh, they have a whole oh, yeah shit yeah, they have a whole pickleball coalition thing, right?

Oh, heck. Yeah. It, they turn, I think they turned the tennis courts downtown into pickleball because people are just so obsessed. Yeah. People are just obsessed with it. Hell yeah. Yeah. Have you ever tried it? No. But I know there's it's super, super popular. It seems dorky, huh?

Not dorky.  Yeah, it's definitely more dorky than tennis for sure. But  yeah, my, my dad's a big he's a big tennis guy and I think he had to lower his pride, my mom loves pickleball to pick a sport that his wife loves and now he loves it, but all this is to say that I think.

Compared to other Filipino parents, they understand climbing a bit more than most in the sense that, Oh, as long as they're happy and healthy and around friends, I get it. We are experiencing the same thing in Pickleball. So it's nice to feel understood in that sense.  Yeah, it's such a, it's just such a great way to be in community and friendship and whatnot for sure.

That's funny. Pickleball, man. Isn't that all underhand? Like when you serve underhanded? Yeah compared to tennis, you serve underhanded, which is nice. The reason it's pretty popular is one of the reasons it's popular is it's pretty easy to pick up. And a lot of people are playing, so it's an easy, in the, in a post pandemic world where we were isolated for a while, I think it's given people a way to connect and yeah, you just got to try it sometime. 

Super absurd. I don't know. I don't know. I'll check it out. I'll check it out for sure. Awesome. But yeah, I guess back to climbing, we talked a little bit about how, every day is a good day at the crag and whatnot. Back when you were talking about like Waco tanks and flags and priest rob what was bouldering like back then?

Was it?  I guess culturally was it very different compared to how you're seeing it now? Oh yeah, like in Waco Tanks, so my first season in Waco Tanks, there were no pad companies. Everybody had made their own pads,  which is like out of duct tape and like carpet and stuff. It's like super old school, and we would talk about how like Cloning Magazine, they didn't give Bouldering any coverage whatsoever. Because they didn't consider bouldering as practice. They didn't consider bouldering like legitimate climbing. Wow. There's certain, I know it's weird, but this is true. There are certain factions, like in the United States, that did it.

That understood it. Like boulder climbers and salt lake climbers. Because they have sport climbing, they have good bouldering, with Joe's Valley and stuff. And Bouldering, or Boulder, Colorado, they had gyms, they respected Boulder, Bouldering, but pretty much every place didn't.

And if you're seen as a Boulderer, you're an outcast. And no one took you seriously. Wow.  I don't know, it just, it sounds like, Total BS, doesn't it? I mean, we would pick up a climbing magazine and be like, oh, is there any bouldering in it? No. I just climbed recently with this guy Clark Schell.

He had a a climbing company called Cordless. I don't know if you've heard of Cordless. It was the first bouldering. Yeah, Cordless Hatch Kats. Now they're vintage. Yeah, it was the first boulder. We just climbed a few months ago here in Bishop. And we're laughing about it. We're like, yeah now there's tons of boulders and it's no big deal.

But, back in the day there was nobody, and everybody met at Pete's, at Waco tanks, but it's, the weird thing is all the climbers that climbed at Waco tanks back then, you like Cordless Clark, et cetera. This is like mid nineties. They all formed gyms, they all formed gyms and climbing companies.

And they're like huge. Big name climbing companies now,  it's totally hard to believe. Wow. That's that makes sense. That's incredible.  I actually met his name's Dustin Sabo. Oh yeah. Dustin.  Does he live in Tahoe still? No, he's in LA. I actually mentioned to him that I was interviewing you.

Cause I was like, Oh, I was like, Oh wait, you're the guy who had FAA acid wash. I'm assuming that was back in early two thousands or even before that. You must know Al or Julian. So I had floated Hey, do you happen to know Al or. Or Julie. And he is Oh, I do remember Julie. And he was just at the gym at Stronghold in Lincoln Heights in LA and just doing some double digit problems on the tension board.

It's wow it's so cool to see, people like him who had established routes that now get flocked on the weekends and are so popular, still climbing to this day. Yeah. Remember I told you, like all the boulders stayed at one point.  He was one of the boulders that stayed at the house.

Really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He was, him and this dude, Vic Copeland, they were inseparable. They're friends. And they're had come up from, I think, Davis. Davis, yeah. And they're, those guys were putting up tons of FAs all over the place.  That's cool. That's incredible. Tell us about some FAs you've put up in, I don't know, even in Blackstaff or wherever you want to talk about.

I, so I have a real  They put up many FAs. I put up one here on the east side and, you know what happened is that I really, I was really proud of it, and it freaking got documented wrong in the guidebook. What?  And I never, and I never got any credit for it,  except for Mick Ryan this dude that wrote the first guidebook, he named it after me, and it was like, I can't remember something, DeJesus, pull down Degasus or something like that.

Yeah. It's over at Rock Creek, but that wasn't even my problem. My problem was the thing around the corner that traversed into that problem. Oh,  gotcha. What was the name of the problem and I paid it.  Yeah, no I didn't.  What was that? What was the name of the traverse into that's, said named something like his, his, what was your name of the.

SARAH HANSEN Oh, I never named it. JASON LENGSTORF Oh. SARAH HANSEN But I put it up. I know. It's super convoluted. I probably should have said something. JASON LENGSTORF sARAH HANSEN It's on Mt. Project. It's this problem that's named after me. JASON LENGSTORF Gotcha. SARAH HANSEN It wasn't the problem I put up.

The problem I put up was a route, a problem to the right of it that went into the problem that was named after me because McRyan thought I put up that problem and I didn't put up that problem. That was put up by somebody else. Anyways,  that's it. That's my only thing I've done here. I see.  To hear that on that for the record.

Um, my one contribution, I'm not, I'm just not a first ascensionist, my one contribution. It's all sucked up whatever. It's okay.  Gotcha. So I'm just here on mountain project. It's documented as pull down. I'm Mike. 

The problem you established is to the, it starts to the right of it and tops out the same way. Yeah. And it's in the guidebook, but it's in the guidebook with an FA of some other person  that did it after me. It didn't.  Oh my God. I don't care. Whatever. Yeah.  Let it be known when you were developing stuff and, or around developing, I should say were you all using like a fixed line at all?

Or were you just Oh, that looks like a problem. Let's place the crash pads we have and try it out. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, gotcha.  Yeah especially at the draw no one ever wrote anything down, so I think a lot of this stuff got, it disappeared and got re essayed and, you know how it happens with climbing areas, which is why I think they we need a new climbing guide here in Bishop, because there's been a lot of new climbing development and it's all gonna be gone, unless someone writes it all down.

Yeah. Oh, wow. Where has the new climbing development taken place in Bishop?  Oh, all over. There's, so the Happy and the Sads is like one area out of tons of different areas. And there's I, there's some, I heard new stuff over by Little Egypt. There's some stuff going in over at South Lake.

It's all over the place, different places on the Tablelands, that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah.  But yeah, we should probably get together and decide what goes in and what doesn't go in because I admit a lot of Bishop climbers like to keep shit unknown, right? Because Happy Boulders is totally run over with people and it's nice to have our own crags and  I'm extremely guilty of that myself, but I don't know.

I think we need to have a new guidebook. The reality is, okay we're right now, we're talking during California spring break and happy boulders and sads, or they're super in the boulder milks is really crowded. But you know what? In middle of summer, there's nobody out there, and you could climb, you can climb in the mornings.

It doesn't get hot until after 11 o'clock. There's no one there. And people bitch about, oh, it's overrun. It's no, it's not. It's only overrun a few months out of the year. And for the most part, it's, it stays, it's pretty empty. May through, August it is, it's totally empty, and it's climbable, if you're willing to wake up early and or do an evening session.

Which is a really fun thing to do. Yeah, that's awesome. That's so cool to hear. Yeah, I've heard similar experiences from people who live in Vegas, too. Yeah! Yeah, Vegas does that. That's awesome to hear. You gotta take what you can get, especially if it's in the summer, where there's less traffic. 

It must feel awesome to go out. When there's not a lot of people there. I'm gonna ask you a question I asked Al. Have you ever been the only Filipino at the crag?  Oh god, so many times.  Many, for decades. It doesn't bother me, right? I came from the punk scene. So I'm used to being the odd person out, it just didn't bug me, but  there's a lot, been more, a lot more emphasis on, gender and race and I get it, like now I'm a bit more conscious of it but yeah it's,  I don't know, I think being Filipino is a superpower, like in traveling, if you go travel to Central South America and you put his pair of sunglasses on, no one really hassles you, and you seriously, like I do a lot of solo traveling and that's how I roll, and man, I never get hassled, but if I had blonde hair, I'd totally get hassled. And we can go all through everywhere in Asia and Latin America and we totally fit in  and it sounds bizarre, but. But in climbing, I've never, no, I don't really, I see myself as a climber.

I don't really see myself as oh yeah, I'm the only Filipino climber, but it's funny I don't know I get, you, did you read the Stone Masters article that was in climbing. com? I have. I haven't finished the whole thing. Oh my god. There is a picture of me in it. Yes. Like at the end.

So I wasn't a Stone Master. But I did hang out in Yosemite and it's just it's funny. Cause I'm like, somebody told me about it. And I was like, wait, I'm about, cause I don't really get on climbing. com. And I was like, oh my God, it's that picture of me, but the reality is this, there were no women of color  for a really long time.

There was a black woman.  that I climb with, a trad climbing woman, and she would actually ride a motorcycle. This gal named Chelsea Griff, she did walls too, and she would ride a motorcycle up from LA. Yeah she was hardcore, man. There was, she had no peers, right? It was just Chelsea, black chick, did walls.

Who else? Who else? Nobody else, but yeah, she was rad, but yeah, it, but it's the reality. This is the stone masters was pretty homogenous group. 

And I don't know why, but I don't know. I don't know. I was thinking today, I was like. Because one of your questions that you sent me was like, what's one of your most memorable experiences? And I'm like, my one of my most memorable experiences is probably, I don't know, maybe climbing Half Dome or something like that.

And I was thinking,  yeah, it is. I don't know if it'd be Filipino.  I think there needs to be more Filipino triad climbers and big wall climbers, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, it cut out a little bit, but you were saying doing Half Dome was like one of your most memorable experiences and then you were like, wait, have there been any other Filipinos who have done Half Dome or done El Cap?

I don't think so. I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah. Maybe Al knows. It's weird. Maybe Al does. We I actually, before you interviewed a friend of mine his name's Jerry Agbalik, and he's a trad climber. He's 50, and he lives out of his van, really good trad climber. And it's me, him, and our friend Ivan.

Ivan's 27. He lives in St. George. He's from the Philippines, yet he picked up trad so fast because he just posted Lion every weekend. And Really, I've done levitation with him in red rocks and I've seen his skills and he's quite good. So the three of us we, it's like a dream of ours, it's go up, maybe the nose and put the flag at the top.

Yeah. Yeah. So cool.  That would be all share the same dream. Yeah. It's a little bit. Yeah. I don't know. A part of me doesn't like saying it because we also, I've also, we also are like, okay, cool. If we're serious about this, let's actually do some ground school and then  open up like Washington column and just feel the vibe of the three of us climbing together and get our systems down.

And, that feels very intimidating, but yeah it's the question that three of us have always held and, it's cool to hear they've been up after them. That's fucking awesome.  Yeah. I've been, I don't know, I it's in Filipino American culture the outdoors is getting more popular.

But let me tell you, my cousins and stuff, they're just not into it.  Is that true with you, too? Yeah okay.  I go to Red Rocks, I go to Red Rocks common experience, go to Red Rocks Park, my Tacoma has, like, all these fucking stickers on the campus.  I'm pulling out my crash pads. There's some titas like walking out with their Gucci bags and Nike  fun glasses and they're like, what is that?

You know  That's one  and when you have a crash pad  I always I always vary my responses to people, what do you use that crash pad for sometimes? I'll say oh I use I just fall on my back and sleep on it, you know  I'm feeling particularly snarky, but with titas, I try to be very accurate very generous because I want them to understand and so it's cool to see people.

I think there's more and more Filipinos and Filipino Americans who have that kind of I don't want to say work first mentality, but the  quality of creating a good life. Starting to understand the value of just going outside and being, it's cool to see. And I think. There's a lot of Filipino American boulders, I can tell you that, and  a decent amount of sport climbers, some of which, some of the, some of which I'll interview but in terms of trad, there's like right now, just not many, anyone knows hit me up and, it's just cool to keep in mind.

Yeah, because I bet there's some big walls in the Philippines.  That's like next level, man. We're talking like, going through the jungle here, yeah. That's a lot of hard work in 100 percent humidity, there was, so there was a Filipino climber that came before me, this guy Dan DeLang, and he lived in Southern California, and he was a really good sport climber. 

Cool. I don't know if you've heard of this dude, but no, I don't think he's climbing anymore But he's like from he's like before me. He was from the 80s  Yeah, he was super early but really low key guy But like a real a really good climber back then. I am you know The funny thing is when i'm i've met him several times And we never talked about being filipino and I knew he was filipino, but we never talked about it, right?

Yeah  Which is strange, but it's true. It's not surprising because of it, back then it wasn't a big deal, like I, it's just something I never thought of that was going to be a part of my climbing. I just thought of myself as a climber. Now it's a Filipino climber, and I think he did the same way, but but yeah, I don't know. 

Yeah I think his name is Dan DeLange. I think I'm seeing his, I'm just doing some quick Googling. I think I have his Facebook profile in front of me.  Yes, that's him.  That's him. Wow. I should reach out. I would love to hear his story because there's no other Filipino climber, but he, that guy climbed hard. 

back in the day. It was a really hard sport climber. I think Filipinos are natural climbers, I think natural athletes, so yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's, having experienced the Philippines too, I can Attest that myself. The climbers there are quite dedicated and strong.

Yeah, great sport climbers. It's so awesome to see I'm, just seeing dan geling's handle. His handle is climb underscore ski. That's how intense he is climbing  That's it. Yeah, that's pretty intense  I definitely looked up to him I admit, I didn't really know him very well, and I'd see him out the crag, and I knew he was Filipino, but I was like, wow, that, that guy just shreds, and he was pretty he didn't spray at all. He was really pretty low key. That's rad. It's the experience now, my, my friend Jerry puts it like,  At a trad area, the experience is more to acknowledge it. Oh, who's going to be the first? Yeah. Who's going to be the first to ask if they're Filipino, and Jerry was at a bouldering area. Now it's obviously it's way more common, especially in Bishop, but yeah, it's, it, hearing your point about how it's just not something you really talk about, but you just see, like that's really cool.  Yeah. It's you don't want to be, you're right, you don't want to be the first person to acknowledge it, but it's they are, you're like a person, Filipino until they are oh man.

What is one thing you would maybe say to the, at least to Filipino Americans today who are getting into climbing and, seeing more of themselves outdoors, what advice or what wisdom would you want to pass on to us?  Oh, to Filipino climbers? I don't know. I think there should be more.

Yeah.  But mostly I think that it's, climbing's positive, it's exercise, it's fitness it's, I think it's a positive for your health to be into climbing long term I don't know, how do you see yourself climbing for the rest of your life? Absolutely. What do you think? Oh, okay.

Okay. So you're in for the long haul. It's hard to be in for the long haul. I'll tell you that. Like you have to be super into fitness and Al's totally right. You remember what he said? He had to get his mind under control, his body under control and his fitness and his nutrition. And I think all of that plays together in doing it for the long haul.

Like I'm 50. And I've been climbing 30 years now, two years or something like that. And I just came off of a knee injury. I injured my knee four years ago, like right after, basically right after I finished this year long climbing trip yeah, I fucked up my knee. And it just hasn't been the same since, I just have a lot, I have a lot of knee pain and I'm getting better, but it's taken forever. And, but. I haven't been climbing as much as I wanted to, but there was a time when I was rehabbing my knee where I didn't climb at all, right? So I got into road biking. I got into like cardio.

And I think in the long haul, if you want to climb for a long time, you got to get into fitness, there's no other way around it.  Bouldering is a strong, it's a hard sport. It's a good sport, but it's not good. It, you don't really climb. If you think about how much you your time on the rock, versus sitting down, it's not a lot of time on the rock.

Maybe you're climbing 15 minutes, but the reality is the fitness happens when you're out.  You know working your heart, you know at a high rate for four hours, right five hours and that when you get older that's what really that's what really comes into play not the the you can go bouldering and stay fit, just bouldering.

But  yeah, it's, I don't know. I don't know if I'm making any sense. What would happen was I turned 40, I think I was 45 when I turned 40. Everybody around me quit climbing and like hardly, and I, I'm like 50 now and I have climbing partners here in Bishop, but for the most part, most everybody quit  climbing.

Like they don't climb anymore, and and the people that. Kept climbing. They do other stuff, when they're not climbing, like when they're not cl when they're not climbing, they're either mountain biking or skiing or trail running or something else, yeah. Yeah, hey, if you wanna see it from the longer the long term.

The long haul, it's going to be fitness. And also it's going to be like, how successful are you to integrate climbing into your life? Because basically if you decide to have a family, unless you take your kids climbing. Which is what a lot of people are doing right now. You have kids and you stop climbing. 

That's just the way it is. That's how it is, yeah.  It's the way it is, and some kids, I have some of my friends, they stop climbing because their kids don't climb, their kids aren't into climbing, but I have friends I have other friends that are, they're blessed because their kids climb 513, and they climb with their kids, right? That's rad. That's the ideal, right? Yeah. But yeah, I don't know, something to think about. But I 

agree with Al it's, It ends up becoming less about chasing the numbers. You can still chase numbers, but man, the amount of work you have to get to do just to keep climbing is it's more than climbing, right?  Yeah,  definitely. It's one thing I always try to remember is it's less about ticking stuff and more about my ability to stay in it for the long run.

Cause I first started, I was it's overly training like many people and it's, of course, cause it's always cause I'm trying to send a certain project and stuff and  I'm into it and then that's led to injuries and then it's Oh yeah, actually sending stuff doesn't matter as much as me being able to do it the next day.

And it's just awesome to hear that's your life is a testament to that in a way where you've really been in it for the long run and are still climbing and. Prioritize fitness. You mentioned that you travel, you do a lot of solo traveling. So I, do you do other things besides climbing when you're traveling alone?

Mostly I climb yeah, cause I, I'm lucky. Cause I've been climbing a long time. I have friends that live in other countries that I could just go climbing with, I'm lucky like that. But like I just went to Japan and I went in the middle of winter. There was no climbing involved because it was snowy, but I did ride a bike, which is rad, I would have, and I hiked, I did a lot of hiking.

Kyoto actually has a ton of hiking. Oh yeah it's worth so you go up to the temples, but a lot of the temples are built on a hillside. And above there's usually a peaked bag behind the temple. And so you could actually go to Kyoto and do the whole tourist thing and do a bunch of really easy, accessible hiking after you do the tourist stuff.

So I, yeah, I did that. I was a lot of my last trip, but I don't know, if I don't climb him, like I try to like either rent a bike, sometimes I bring a bicycle and I, you know, do some bike touring that sort of thing. Yeah, that's rad But anything that's it has to be it has to involve fitness, right because it's like I'm into fitness Climbing is a part of my fitness.

I'm super into climbing but  more when I get older like I've been to fitness because there's the amount of fitness you have to do to get Just keep climbing is a whole lot.  Climbing is a hard sport. It beats you down. Yeah. There's some people that can do it without doing a ton of weightlifting.

Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know how the, Al's right. I don't know. These people are like freaks, right? They get, I do that kind of thing and I just get injured, yeah. But.  Yeah,  that makes sense. But it's good to hear you're in it for the long haul. That's pretty rad.

Yeah. And the other thing I wanna say to, to younger climbers is  dudes like the people that you meet climbing. If you end up playing for 30 years, you're going to know them that long. For sure. No, they're going to be like, you're really good friends. Like people you've gone on long trips with that you've known, through multiple relationships through, you know, have suffered on different trips and routes and stuff and you make some pretty solid friendships that way that it in, in, in In retrospect, like my best friends, like I have.

Just  two or three, more like three, four, like 30 or climbing friendships. Wow. And it's a different type of friendship than like a normal friendship because I've really suffered with these people.  Like I haven't traveled with them you know I've seen them like in different locations and I don't know it's cool like that.

It's fun. Climbing's interesting that way than in different friendships, it puts you both in a transcendence or something.  Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to explain, but it's it's funny. It's, but it's hard to explain it. Only, I think only it's from one climate or another, you'd only be able to.

It's remember when we slept in that handicap bathroom, cause it rained all night and had the spoon and then, you're pissed off at me. Cause I dropped the roof and awesome. Julie, I think that's a good place to draw it to a close. Man, again, just thank you so much for your time.

And I, I think a lot of folks are going to be excited to, to hear this. Is there any final thoughts or final words you want to leave with us before we wrap? Yeah, actually. I'll tell you, I'll tell, I'll be honest with you. I think it's a really cool project. If you had Asian climbers.

Asian climbers have been around the climbing scene in the U. S. for a long time. And I think we've been really underrepresented. And there are some players that will get like Yuji Furuyama, for example. He's not an American climber, but dude, I'd love to hear an interview about him because he has a really interesting history.

He left Japan, learned French and lived in France for a long time. And that's how he became a good climber. Wow. Yeah. He has an interesting history and it's every, I feel like it's like with a lot of Asian people in the beginning, you have to leave the group  to launch because no one's going to go with you.

Like you can take your posse with you, but really you're out on your own and love, like he did that. He learned French. And having come from Japan, that's remarkable, man. Learning French from Japanese, totally different. But then he came back to Japan and became a famous Japanese carver after he had spent all this time in France. 

And I don't know you get enough interviews. And and it could become a book and it would be rad to have the can that in the cannon, the climbing cannon, because basically we have a bunch of stone masters in the climbing cannon.  Yeah. Yeah. And I just thought I'd throw that out there. That's an awesome.

It's more than just the stone masters.  Yeah, that's an awesome idea. I, this really was inspired by there's a book called Valley of the Giants that this journalist who I think is also part of Yosar, she had documented a bunch of female Yosemite climbers  in the book.  Yeah, she does she live in Bishop?

She just came out with this book, right? Yeah, I think she either lives in Yosemite or Bishop, but that was, that book actually was one of the kind of few sources of inspiration for this podcast. Oh, wow, these are all, I read the book and it was like, wow, these are some awesome stories. Yes, I feel like there are similar stories to be gathered here in the, yes, and broader community.

Yeah I, that's your idea is an awesome one and Yuji's story is super intriguing. Yeah. I play, I'll definitely keep that in mind, for sure. Yeah. Hidetaka Suzuki, he has a similar, he's another Japanese corner, he, I think his, I don't know a whole lot about him, but he has a similar story to Yuji.

It's just these these dudes that started way early, they just, they had to do it on their own, and it's interesting. Yeah. Interesting.  But it would be cool to see that as part of the canon, because I like climbing literature and it's just you never read about Asian climbers and Asian, and it would also in, which included in Asian climbers are definitely like all the Nepali Sherpas, they're missing, from it. 

Yeah. I don't know. That's a whole other  can of worms though. Yeah, no.  The great thing you're mentioning. It's funny. I, UG, actually, I remember that him and James, this guy named James Pearson had done some bolting in the Philippines. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was through a project called I forgot, I think it was called the spot project and they had.

Yeah. This area called Monstarella, which now is a pretty a pretty popular spot amongst Cebu climbers. And yeah there's five, four teens there, there's an over pretty rad Philippines. Okay. Yes. Yeah, he has. Yeah,  that's getting me even more intrigued to, to think about interviewing him for sure.

Yeah, he doesn't really, he's not your typical Japanese climber for sure. Like it, having just recently cut, went to, I would just recently went to Japan. I just came back like a month ago. It's like, they're a certain way, and he's just not he does what he does. Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. He's not collective. He's like way off the bell curve. Yeah, no, for sure. Man, Julie, thank you so much I I appreciate it and, I'll hit you up if I spend some time in Bishop for a good amount of time, yeah. Enjoy your time changing up your schedule so that you can get some time outside.

I don't work. And yeah, just thanks for, thanks for being visible to the community. This is awesome. Okay, yeah, thanks for interviewing me, it was fun.