Rock and Rice

EP 05: Ivan Cataluña — from Mindanao to Utah, bigwall at 27, and having dreams to bigwall with Filipinos

• Tim Casasola • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Ivan Cataluña is a 27-year old trad, bigwall, and alpine climber from Mindanao, the southmost major island in the Philippines. Kind, humble, and hardworking, he works and goes to school in St George, Utah. Zion is where he spends his weekends.

Ivan's IG: @ivangino

💪🏽 Some of Ivan’s climbs in 2023

🏜️ Land Acknowledgement

The Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute) are the peoples who lived on the land that we now know as St George. The term Paiute comes from paa Ute meaning water, and refers to their preference for living near water sources.

🧗🏽‍♀️Climbing Terms We Use

  • Dihedral  — a <90 degree angle formed by two faces. A corner! 
  • Offwidth — a crack too wide for fist jams and too narrow to be a chimney.
  • Chimney — think: Santa clause going up the chimney. . You can fit your whole body in this crack.
  • Incut crimps — tiny holds that you crimp on. They’re “incut” — the holds trend downward for your fingers to hold onto.
  • 3’s and 4’s — these are sizes of trad gear.
  • Alpine Climbing is when you climb a mountain that’s in a remote area. You can use techniques from rock climbing, ice climbing, and even mixed climbing.
  • C1, C2, C3, A1 — these are aid climbing ratings.
    • A1 least dangerous, in theory, while A5 is total death.
    • C is the clean aid grading system, where you don’t need to hammer in gear.
    • C1 is the least dangerous, while C3 is a lil more risky than C1. For example, The Nose is 5.9 C2, meaning if you can lead 5.9 on trad, it’s a C2 aid climb.

🔗 Links

  • Born in Manila. Lived in Midsayap, Cotobato, Mindanao, then to General Trial, Cavite (back near Manila!). Then moved to St George, Utah.
  • He started sport climbing in Zion at Namaste Wall.
  • One of his favorite routes in Zion? Shune's Buttress.  People say it’s like “The Rostrum” of Zion.
  • Kuya Gerry (you heard him in episode 3!) did pitch 3 on Shune’s super different from Ivan. He kept his torso out of the crack as much as possible. And knee barred it until he got a hand jam.
  • Arturo Calvo is a climbing hero of Ivan’s. From Mexico and now lives in St George. He’s done a lot of hard routes and took him to Incredible Hulk.

🗓️ Next episode comes out in two weeks! May 24.

  What up? What up? Welcome to episode five of rock and rice. I'm your host, Tim Casasola. And I'm joined today with a friend of mine, Ivan Gino Catalunya. Ivan is 27 and he's done some incredible big wall aid climbs. And  free routes in the West Coast of the United States. He's also from  The Philippines, which we're going to get into is from Mindanao and spent a lot of time in Manila before immigrating to St.

George. Ivan's done routes like Tricks of the Trade, which is 19 pitches. It's a big wall climb. It's in Zion National Park. Lurking Fear in Yosemite, also a big wall climb  on El Capitan. If you can lead five, seven, it goes at a C2. Grade we're gonna get into aid climbing grades later in this episode He's done half dome in a day and he's also climbed in the incredible Hulk which is in the high Sierra  Lots of routes done there by Peter Croft, one of his heroes.

He's led Positive Vibrations and Red Dihedral, The Incredible Hulk. These are the, and he did all this in last year. So imagine what he's going to do as he keeps progressing. Ivan was also born in Mindanao. So he lived there until he was six.  to Manila and moved with his family to St. George, Utah which he will go in more depth on in this episode. 

As such, we're going to do another land acknowledgement in this episode. So because he does reside in and climbs a lot in the St. George area. I do want to acknowledge that the Southern Paiute tribe are the peoples who've lived on the land that we now know as St. George or the Nuuvi. People, the term Paiute we've heard this word Paiute in our last episode with Julie comes from Paiute,  meaning water and refers to their preference for living near water sources.

So that's a fun fact.  We're going to explain some climbing definitions. Once the interview gets into the part where Ivan talks about climbing, but we're going to get into the episode, the part of this episode where Ivan talks about his upbringing. The first four minutes of this interview was a bit choppy.

So we're going to start four minutes in our conversation. And. The question I had asked him was, tell us about your upbringing. And he's going to talk about how his grandma had raised him until he was six in Cotabato and moved to Manila. And then he's going to talk about how he moved to St. George, Utah.

Enjoy! 

My grandma, my mama, my covert mama, my lolak took care of me in Midsibe, Cotabato.  So I stayed there since, I think, I remember correctly,  till I was six or seven years old.  And I would fly back to Manila back and forth. My mom would visit often, although my dad did not,  but yeah, I'll actually  after when I turned seven or six or seven,  I moved to Manila with specifically in Valenzuela, Malinta,  Valenzuela. 

And I lived there for quite a bit. I so first and second grade. I was in Mid Syup, kinder, first, second grade, and then I moved to Manila for like maybe a few months, part of my second grade, and then I was taken back to Kuwait and studied there during my third grade. And then after, yeah, I moved quite a bit.

I didn't really, I actually didn't know that about you. You moved around a lot.  So I was, yeah, I was exposed in several languages.  Since my dad is actually Tubong their family. My grandpa is from Iloilo and my grandma on my side is from Bicol. Yeah. Cool. There is some Iloilo listeners for this podcast, so I'm sure they're going to be excited to hear that.

I'm really excited too, cause like I've heard your trips your trip over there this year, just this year, right? And I didn't know that. There's such a huge climbing community in Iloilo, and one day I'd love to meet them. Yeah, they're great.  But yeah, so  Iloilo, so I was exposed to Ilologo language from my dad's side.

And also when I moved to Manila I learned Tagalog.  And when I moved to Kuwait,  I learned a little bit of  Arabic.  But I went to a Philippine international English school. So they spoke both and mostly English, a little bit Arabic. And a lot of them are like half Filipino and half Arabs and like a handful of  Filipinos. 

So I stayed there still only for a year, like third grade. And then I went back to the Philippines and in Manila for another year.  And then when I turned fourth grade, My fam, so my family  bought a house in Cavite,  in General Trias Cavite in Mangahan.  And that's where I spent the most time in the Philippines actually since, so 4th  grade.

So grade 4, grade 5, grade 6. First year of high school, second year of high school, so five years.  And before I went to, in the United States. 

That's amazing. I didn't realize you moved around a lot, not only in the Philippines, but to Kuwait for a little bit. How old were you when you moved to St. George?  I was 14 when I moved to St. George.  Yeah. Was tough age to, to move for sure. Yeah.  Yeah. Totally. Time when friends are super important, right?

During that age.  Yeah. Definitely. Did you what was the adjustment like?  It was tough. Cause,  so our papers came from my the petition came from my grandpa, which served a world war. He was a world war two vet. So he served under us army during world war two.  He was I think he recruited when he was 16 and he faked his age actually just so he can.

Get into the military. Nice. Yeah.  He was always going in actuality. So that was pretty badass. I think so. So when the war was over, I think later on all the Filipino troops that serve under the U S United States reward, which is a citizenship today in the United States.  And I heard not a lot of Filipino military took that, but my grandpa took that chance. 

He went here.  He went here, I'm not really sure what year I think in the early nineties or late eighties, I would say, but it took a long while before my dad and I, my family got to go.  Like the immigration process is, it's such a,  it's like a complicated process. I don't know why it took that long.

I think my dad told me like 25, 26 years of wait. Yeah. They even, they applied. So then my grandpa tried to petition his son and daughters, but it took a while, so when the process actually started, I, my brother and I weren't even born yet.  Suddenly, 2011 we got a mail from the U S immigration said that,  Hey, you're you're allowed to, here's your green card.

You're allowed to go to the States now.  Wow. That's amazing. Oh, go ahead.  So it was like really quick and we were finishing up. I was finishing up my second year of college.  At that time in the Philippines, there's no I think there's no K 12 at that time yet.  So there's 6th grade and then the first year of high school.

There's no 8th or 7th, 8th or 9th grade.  So I had, so I was ending my  second year of high school in the Philippines and we got that news that, oh, here's your green card. We had to leave as soon as the school year was over. So it was a shock.  Yeah. It was almost unexpected. Really?  Yeah.

And I imagine, I wonder if your family felt the need to take the chance then because, Hey, this is our chance. We got to do it.  Big move. Yeah, that definitely my mom and my dad agreed that yeah, this is chance Jake. My dad had really good work in the Middle East. He worked for the  American oil company, so he had to leave that. 

So literally when we moved to United States, great. We went back to zero.  So  yeah, it was tough.  Yeah. Do you remember what your parents like first jobs were in the States?  Oh yeah. That's how I am. States. So my.  My dad, let's see. He worked in a hotel  here in a local, in St. George. It was actually owned by a Filipino. 

Oh, Filipino. So he got a job there,  and  he jumped around several jobs. At one point he had three jobs. Wow. Yeah. And he carried all that hardworking trait from just being an OFW, and the Middle East he he's got a great story because  when he became a OFW  in the Middle East, he started like a really low paying job.

Like I think he started as a waiter  and then jump around at great jobs until he, he got a really, a good opportunity to work for a contract, be a contract in an oil, US oil company. Yeah when my dad had me, we were doing okay when you have OFW parents and you're sending money back in the Philippines you're pretty, I would say you're pretty comfortable. 

Although my mom and dad back home, there were,  there aren't really, they're not extremely rich at all. They were actually  really poor growing up. Like my mom was in Manila.  They lived around squatters area. Although they were like the first people who lived in that area in Malinta, Valenzuela back in the day was just rice fields.

Then, in Manila just got overpopulated and a lot of squatters just took some land and where my mom grew up to actually, yeah, it's quite  like the Philippines squatter scene, just really dirty and polluted. On a different side, my dad grew up in a very province, very rural, so very provincial,  so I didn't yeah both sides of  a different side of the Philippines. 

Humble beginnings. Humble beginnings. So when, but when they had me, they, it's pretty nice. Cause. Like they never made me felt like I was poor, just, they always supported me, paid for my for my school took me to private school and yeah, even though like they all came from humble beginnings, started poor, they never made me felt like I was, we were not rich  at all costs, but it never made me felt like I was, maybe for maybe I don't know what I'm doing, like key it up. 

My English is running out. I've been here all of years, but  Still no sleep sometimes. 

We're sure there's some words in Tagalog. I imagine that are best expressed in Tagalog. So I I appreciate that for sure. Yeah. I'm actually really proud for keeping my Tagalog after I've lived here 12 years. A lot of kids move that young age here, like they  forget the language, which. It's a little, it's a little sad, but yeah, we tried hard.

My Tagalog, my family and I still speak Tagalog at home.  I wish I could have kept some Ilogo with me. I wish I can relearn it. I can understand Ilogo and Bisaya actually.  You can understand. I can understand. Yeah. Wow.  , that's really useful because a lot of climbing in the visas  or a lot of climbing is in the visas, so that's quite useful. 

Yeah. Man, that's interesting. It's, we could eat little bit in tag,  so yeah, like half of my foot, 14, the whole, when I left here in 20, I'm 27 now, so almost half of my life here in the United States. Half good English, half bad English, half good Tagalog, half  bad Tagalog.  For sure. Yeah. It's it's almost like a superpower because, as a Filipino, you and I, of course I want to acknowledge you and I have very different lived experiences, but from what I've noticed from Filipinos, you always are just context switching. 

Because of that, you have to know how to speak a language of a certain group, but then still maintain your dominant language. That's why you see blends of Taglish or Visayat with some Tagalog or, even people from Visayat don't speak Tagalog. It's just a lot of yeah, I don't know.

It just, it's so interesting to think about. Yeah. I think that's a beautiful thing about the Philippines for  basically a lot of Filipinos are trilingual, which is quite  unique.  Tagalog and they're another native language.  Yeah, it's those who are OFWs, like my dad who speaks Arabic  fluently, he worked there for 10 or more years, and yeah, three, four languages easily spoken by him.

A lot of Filipinos.  You started climbing in high school and had a couple of important mentors, first you learned it in class and eventually started climbing outside and immediately fell in love with it. And obviously the style you choose to practice all the different styles of climbing.

Like I experienced you to be a very, rounded climber. It's something you're you put a lot of importance around. However, your what you put out there and what, at least I experienced your skillset to be is in trad climbing, which is a very rare at least in, from the people I've run into from the Filipinos I've run into, there's not many Filipino trad climbers.

And I think you have a very unique story to offer to. Yeah, let's start there. My first experience of rock climbing actually was second year of high school. My brother had a coworker, a friend, his name is Cody, and he just took us on a climb. He's a, He's really a psych adventurist. He does canyoneering, climbing, hiking, backpacking. 

Now I believe he's into base jumping. But yeah, Cody and my brother Cody and I, and my brother went on a climbing just a local trip here and he took us to Green Valley Gap, it's a local area in George where there's a lot of 5. 8s, 5. 9s for beginners.  So he set up some top ropes and I remember he, he had a extremely large approach shoes borrowed to me.

And I tried it in on top rope and for some reason it just felt natural for me and  after that experience, like I just, I felt. I felt that  sense of adventure that I want to keep going.  I got hooked basically, after that first experience, my brother, on the other hand, though he was still, he was afraid of heights and he didn't do as well even now, but for some reason I was never afraid of heights.

My, my mom was also afraid of heights and my dad, but for some reason I'm slightly different than them.  And actually after the experience. I asked my dad to maybe buy me some climbing gears because I want to keep going.  Although I didn't really have any friends who does it. I didn't have, at this time I was second year in high school here in the States. 

And, I was really extremely quiet and shy. I didn't have much friends in school. I kept to myself during that time of my life, so I didn't know anyone who climbed at all.  But, since I experienced that a little bit first climbing I wanted to keep going. So I asked my dad, Hey, maybe there's some climbing story in Vegas let's go try it there and check it out. 

And then we did, cause at the time I didn't know that St. George is such a big climbing area or a community. I didn't even know we have a climbing gear here. So we drove all the way down to Vegas. Did you drive to Desert Rock Sports near the OG climbing gym? Maybe that's the one. I can't remember the  name.

It was definitely not REI.  Not REI. It's a typical climbing gym. A lot of climbing climbing store. Not REI. Yeah, we went there to the shop and then we went straight to the rope. Cause I thought, Oh, maybe let's start with the rope first. And when I, dad saw the price, they're like, what, like close to 200.

And then he looked at me, okay, I'm sorry, but can we just go to Ace and buy?  Oh, at that time I was really upset because I was really sad because he drove all the way to Vegas and ended up not buying anything. I'm not holding against my dad because of this, but I know like my dad is just, like he saves money for more important stuff, right? 

300 is like a full day's shift for him. I know. At that time he had two or three jobs and he knew the value of money. Yeah.  And just not spend it on unnecessary stuff like climbing. So at that time I remember I was really upset and sad. We drove back home to St. George, which is two hours drive from Vegas.

It's not too bad, but still,  and I so from that moment, I just gave up graduated high school. So all throughout high school, I just focused myself on swimming because I was a swimmer since I was nine years old.  And kept going. It was competitively swimming since that age. I was swimming for a club in the Philippines and then we moved here all throughout high school, was in a high school team. 

And I was also in the water polo team. So my athletic background is, swimming and water polo.  So I kept myself busy on that sport and I enjoyed it.  And all I did was just go into school, study and swimming. I never hung out with any friends cause I was really shy. A lot of people that don't know Utah, but it's very, it's not as diverse as Vegas or California.

So not a lot of Asian here, not a lot of Filipinos, especially when I moved here 12 years ago,  we probably know all the Filipino families back then we all gather like maybe five or a handful Filipino families.  So yeah,  90% Caucasian. It was hard for me to connect with kids because they also have their own religion, right?

Mormon, and I love the Inuit community, they're all so nice, but it's just so different.  Yeah, and it's hard to connect with them, from just different culture. But I had good experiences all throughout my high school. Everybody was nice.  Nobody was a bully, but yeah, Utah is just so different.

It's hard to connect. So that's why whenever I come across a Filipino, like here in St. George, like I really get. Excited, like meeting you in the contact climbing gym, Kuya Tim. Yeah, at that time I was like a little stepping back because I've met some Filipinos who aren't as friendly, or maybe they're disconnected from the culture.

So I'm afraid to reach out sometimes, but every time I meet, I get a chance to meet a Filipino here in St. Jury, I get really happy. I'm so excited. I get so excited.  I know you and Christine, just bringing back to present day connected recently at Comcast. Oh yeah, that was awesome.  Yeah, she she had an interview as well.

She did really great. She also asked for a second interview cause she wants to, do a revision, but I, we worked quite hard to see that you both connected, so cool to see,  but anyways, coming back from to the climbing origin story. They didn't get back into climbing until I was. 

In college.  So I believe so  I took a class when my college built the new athletic building, we call it the HPC building. It was nice world class athletic facility with swimming pool, weight lifting gym, and a climbing gym.  And when they built that, they had a rock climbing class and they took that.

So I took that climbing class and learned basic stuff very basic, like how to lead, how to set up top rope or anchors. And this was in the fall of  2019  fall.  And  so I took it with a  professor named Rob Myers, and he's very influential to my climbing. He made. Learning climbing learning climbing really fun and just awesome.

So from then on,  like learning the basics, I was still shy. I just, I was, I still haven't gotten to open up. Yeah,  I still haven't had to gotten over my shyness.  But eventually like the following semester they were making a, the first climbing team in the university.  And so I was really new to climbing and what I wanted, I really tried hard to get into the team.

There's some tryouts. So I was showing up in the gym all the time, bouldering and doing the auto belays, doing laps in the  walls.  And I met a few more climbers and what.  I still haven't gotten close to any of them and I, luckily I got in. It wasn't really strict for the tryouts because it was slow, but I worked really hard to get into that and I got in  and that's when I, where I started meeting more, more like minded people who was into climbing and adventure.

And  made few friends and one of them, her name is Hailey, and she's the one who took me my first lean climb outdoors, both Wheat and Rad  and Adam Haley  . Yeah, shout out.  And I love talking about Hailey because she literally  was the one that I would say changed my life because. Big part of my life is track climbing, right?

And then she took me on my first lead on track. But first, before that, she took me on my first lead climb outdoors which is in a local area Chuck Walla Wall.  So that's like the local gym at that time when contact climbing gym wasn't built yet. That's where everybody goes and do laps and project their head stuff. 

And then and then one day he just showed me a video  of her climbing a crack. And the moment I saw that video of her climbing a crack, blew my, totally blew my mind. Was like, I never imagined someone could actually climb something like that, like a crack. So many questions in my mind as soon as I saw that video.

And then from that moment, I was like, Oh, I want to learn adventurous that way. I like to try new things, everything that looks cool and just looks  interesting to me. I really wanted to try  and try climbing or crack climbing was one of those things that I just wanted to try. So as soon as I found out you could do that I actually bought my first track, like two.

Trad racks before I even tried crack climbing. Whoa. What was, so what were your pieces? What did you get?  So it's I had a black diamond from point three to number three. Two of them.  solid. No, it's  . The ultralight C threes. Do you know, do you remember? Not the Ultra lights not Okay. Not the ultra light.

I don't know if they made ultra lights at that time, but Brand new.  Yeah, they're brand new. And so my plan was I'll, I'm gonna wait till I met someone who could teach me how to Chad climb or like a mentor,  Haley was there and he knew the spots. But five months later, I got really frustrated.

Oh, I can't meet anyone who  more experienced who could teach me. But  I said, Hey, Lisa has some experience. He doesn't lead yet. He's not a confident leader, but I told her, you know what? Just take me to this area and I'll lead it.  And I'll leave my first traffic  hang on my trad route. And I did, we went to bluff street cracks, another local area here in St.

George. And I attempted weedy bee face crack at 510.  So the way, how we came about was, so we went there to the area and looked at the crack of Oh my goodness, this is intimidating. I was really scared. Because I don't know are these, a question so are these counts really going to hold me?

Cause  at this point I was like, bouldering outdoors and leading outdoors, so I was not used to placing protection.  Yeah. Let alone on a 5'10 crack. That's that's a level up for sure.  Yeah. Anyways, cause I think it might be,  let's see, yeah, 

it's just maybe a semester, four or five months of me climbing  consistently and I got introduced to trad and  yeah, so the way I led it was it really all inspiring? Because so I placed the gear clip and take, and then climb again, place the gear clip and take.  Just so I can test out if the gears are really like, like going to hold. 

And I was shaking the whole time, was nervous. And eventually after a while, I don't know how long it took me, maybe close to 30 minutes or  who knows, like an hour, I made it to the anchors.  And then I got lowered, let me say, didn't lower me.  And as, as I was lowering, actually, for some reason, I had this, and then this burst of emotion just came out of me.

I actually teared up a little bit. Wow. And I don't remember these, but she actually, she also teared up. She's very, she's I'm quite sensitive dude. And then he's just a little sensitive too. And we just started crying.  Wow. Because it's overcome by emotion. Yeah. My emotions not because I'm, I was scared as well, but more It was a long time coming, because I really trad so bad.

And then five months later, I was actually able to do it. So that route, after that, it's just history, and I got hooked on trad climbing,  which Yeah, and it took me to the most amazing places  I've ever seen. 

So this is the part of the episode where we're gonna get into the nitty gritty of climbs he's done and as such I want to explain a few terms at least to the best I can because I'm still learning these terms so that you all have context. So we use three terms in To talk about some climbing specific things, dihedral off with and chimney.

So a dihedral, what is a dihedral? A dihedral is basically an angle formed by two rock faces. Think about a corner. This angle is less than 90 degrees. So it's not an aret. An aret is when the angle is a lot when the two faces are creating kind of  An angle that's larger than like an 180 degrees.

I'm using a lot of math here. Basically, a dihedral is a corner that you can climb by stemming your hands and feet and going up  off width. What is an off width climb? It helps to understand first what a chimney climb is. A chimney is. Think Santa Claus going up the chimney  track. Think like being in an in a really narrow space that you can fit your entire body in and.

Climb up that space. That's a chimney off with is not is a crack. That's too wide for jamming your fists, but it's too narrow to be a chimney. So this is this kind of type of crack requires specific types of techniques that helps you go up. He's going to talk about pitch three, which is an off with crack on.

Schoen's buttress, pitch three of Schoen's buttress. I'm actually going to experience this very soon as I take off to Zion. But I'm off with is a, it's a really unique style of climbing. You're using what's called like stacking. Your hands and fists to create friction between both of your hands.

You're, you may be stacking two fists. He talks about how Jerry even gets a knee bar in an off with crack while his body is outside of it. So there's plenty of ways to do it and it's an art as Ivan's going to talk about. We also use the words in cut crimps, and a crimp is basically like a tiny hold that you put your fingers on, but you can't necessarily grab.

If we're saying a crimp is in cut, the hold trends downward for your fingers to hold onto. So we like crimps that are in cut. Cause it's a little easier to slot your fingers in versus maybe a crimp that's flat or sharp. Or curvy, but not super not trending downward at all. We also use we we've used already gear sizes.

And we're going to talk more about gear sizes. So you're going to hear Ivan use the words threes and fours. What are threes and fours? Number threes and number fours are sizes. They refer to sizes of cams or camelots. So cams range from many different sizes From 0.02 or even less than that to up to six or seven.

I used to think these numbers meant like a certain amount of centimeters or inches, but these numbers are just meant to give you a relative understanding of how big the protection is compared to other pieces of protection. So when we say threes and fours, we mean relatively big cams that we're gonna use for placing.

On cracks. So that those are threes and fours sizes of protection. Alpine climbing again, that's a style of climbing. That's when you climb in a mountain, that's Usually in a remote area. So it can, you can even use techniques from ice climbing, rock climbing, both types of climbing. Oftentimes Alpine climbing is in higher elevation environments.

So you're going to hear him talk about the incredible Hulk in the Eastern the high Sierra.  And last last thing he talks about, Ivan is going to talk about aid grades and you're going to hear him use the words C1, C2, C3, A1. These are aid climbing ratings. And I'm actually going to link a video that explains this really well, but in short,  Aid climbing has a very different grading system that  indicates how dangerous or risky the thing is to climb.

It's not necessarily indicative of climbing movement, so it's not like a 513 or a V8,  but it's more like, how risky is this climb when you're using aid? When you're hammering in aid versus using clean aid. So C2 is clean. It's the grading system for using what's called clean style of aiding.

And clean means you're not using a hammer to hammer on, say, hammer in, say pitons or things like that. Whereas a, the A1 to A5 grading system is when you use things, when you hammer in pitons. Aid gear into the rock. So C1, C2, A1, watch the video that does a better job of explaining it than I do, since I'm very new to this stuff.

And with that, we're back to the show.  Just took a break. You told the listeners about your climbing origin story and specifically how you trad route, looking for a mentor and Taking, but climbing a 510. Let's talk about Shun's Buttress. That's a pretty important route to you.

It's in Zion and tons of pitches. It's amazing. I'm excited. I want to do it someday with you at some point, but tell us about it.  Yeah. Yeah. Schoen's buttress. First of all so Zion national park is 15 minutes away from where I live.  So it's the local track climbing area for me. It's the biggest one.

So next to bluff street cracks which has maybe four or five handful cracks  to learn from it's just enough to learn  basic crack climbing.  And then you have Zion, which is 50 minutes away. It's literally, Zion is like a mecca of  sandstone, big wall climbing. It's on top, it's like right next to Yosemite and Red Rocks level.

So it's one of those bigger areas. So  it's Zion has red sandstone. It's a lot of cracks and slither and tread.  And then  I started climbing there back in summer of 2020. And then the interest, interesting part about the time I started climbing in Zion is actually was the peak of COVID. So I barely just got into crack.

I got this rack. I even bought like an 80 meter rope for a specific route in Zion. And then suddenly.  2020, they closed the national park for any visitors for a while. And then they reopened it.  They reopened it for for hiking only without any buses. So all the people who wanted to hike a trail in Zion still had to walk a long ways to get to your trail on the road.

Because it was COVID with all the social distancing, you gotta have your mask and stuff like that.  And so they reopened climbing finally after waiting for so long. I couldn't, it was, I couldn't even remember how long they closed it for climbing. But I believe in 2020 of August wait.  It was the last weekend of August, 2020.

I have my notes here. The Zion reopened for climbing. And the very first weekend that I have, off I went straight to an area called Namaste Wall in Zion. This is in Kolo. Call of Canyon, a part of Zion, a different side of Zion, which is a Call of Canyon.  And yeah, that's where I bought my 80 meter rope.

I was holding for a long time and finally got to use it. Although this area is mostly sport. It has only five routes and I had hiked to Namaste Wall prior. Climbing, and I hiked with my dad and looked it up. It's absolutely a beautiful area. It's one of the most beautiful or climbing area I've ever seen.

I really want to go. It gets shade too. I forget when, but it seems like a nice place to climb in the shade at some point during the day. Huh. Yeah. But it's all sport climbing, like you said. It's mostly sport climbing, yeah. I wanted to try something in Xayah that is like more sport than trad, because I'm still really intimidated in trad at this time. 

So I just took a couple of my friends and my first climbing partners were like, so Haley and I have my friend Pierce and Saira, those two became my,  my first consistent partners and yeah, we went to Namaste Wall and tried some routes. It's overhanging, and it was run out, and it's typical in Zion to have run out balls, because you can't use power drills there, you gotta hand hand drill.

And this was set up I don't know what year, but it was quite a long time ago, maybe 80s. Conrad Anchor has some routes in here too but yeah, it's extremely run out, it's scary, and it's so bumpy. And then that's when I realized wow, Zion is quite run out and sandbagged.  And so since it was still quite, the COVID  protocol is still going on.

And I was unemployed for a while at this time, it had became like I think for me to visit Zion as much as I can, like every single weekend, Saturday and Sunday. I started climbing there and then I started from like the easiest trying some sport and then trying short multi pitches, five nines, five eights.

There aren't much five eights or five nines in Zion or so long or five tens. So from doing a couple of five nines. I had to jump into 510s right away, which in trad is quite hard if you're still learning.  So I built it up and, I was quite chasing the grades at this time yet still.

Going to an 11 was quite difficult for trad.  I remember My first 5. 11 was Crimson King 11c. It's just a single pitch.  And I, that was I think my first project in trad really on that grade. And it's a very beautiful line. And yeah, eventually I built it up to, I wanted to do more harder and longer stuff.

And eventually I heard about Schoen's buttress. This is what's great about the climbing community. Like you meet all the different kinds of people and you just get connected because of climbing. So I met a local ER doctor here. His name is Dr. Larson, Gordon Larson.  And I started becoming becoming a climbing partner with him.

He used to have a partner who was a park ranger, who was taking him climbing all the time. In court Dr. Larson is a little older now. He's 62, but he's one of the fittest guy I've ever met. He still climbs trad and do all sorts of adventure, mountain biking and stuff. One time we went on a climb in Zion did a different route at this time, but he'd point, he's the one who pointed it out, Schoensbüttras to me. 

We were just driving and he pointed out, hey, that's Schoensbüttras, do you know anything about that? No. Oh yeah, that's one of the classic routes here in Zion. And it has a gatekeeper first pitch that's quite hard and a lot of people turn back, after doing the first pitch, cause it's some people think it's the crux.

But yeah, and from that moment I was like, Oh, I don't want to try Schoensten. I looked it up, the beta in the book, in the mountain project. So it was in my list for a while.  And finally I got to try it.  And,  yeah, like it was actually described as  the Rostrum of of Zion. The Rostrum is, I think another classic in Yosemite, a lot of people know, and  yeah, it has similarities with Rostrum, and  every single pitch is such a classic pitch. There was only one takeaway pitch, which is like a A weird chimney,  but starting from the first pitch you got this a thin finger corner lie back with plenty of good with plenty of good feet  and then a cruxy thin section where you had to Go out to the crack and do some crampy moves,  and it turns to a dihedral. 

And eventually the cracks just ends. And it's just amazing. I, and I love dihedrals.  So the second pitch is this takeaway. You have to do a really insecure friction. Stemming.  Pitch is just like a typical Zion ching wool sandy.  And then on top of that, the third pitch is the off width.

It's quite a stout off width. 5'10 plus.  In Mountain Project it's 5'10 plus. A lot of people think it's extremely hard. It's a squeeze chimney.  So you got to go into this chimney  and do some frog legs.  And eventually it ends out to like almost your, it's really squeezing your chest. So you have to get out the crack slightly. 

And then my beta, I have to do an arm bar to a hands and chest, and then  And it's, you have to go out chimney to a number four or three sizes for me, a four or a five. So  it's like from a five to a four, but you'll do these insecure heart off width moves before you get to a bomber hands.  And it's gonna make you breathe hard for sure.

And it's quite a short route, off widths.  Outfits are like a battle of inches. You make two or three inches of progress. It's a lot.  And so after that off with it's another corner system threes and fours and another little weird chimney,  and it takes you to this pitch that is a traverse, a five 11 traverse with in cut crimps, very airy, very exposed. 

And then this is the pitch before the best pitch of all, I believe it's considered the sixth pitch.  But before you get to this amazing, it's one of the best 5. 11 you can do in the nation I suppose. You have to down climb  10 feet  around an arete, an area arete,  exposed Traverse, you could I'm in Zion,  and you reach out to a  finger locker gem, and that's when the splitter starts, so it's wide, so it starts from a 2, I believe it's a black totem and it widens to a 3, a 4, a 5,  And then you have this bulge, a mini roof that is a 0.

75 with a  couple holds, external holds that helps it to be not as hard.  And you do a ring lock. My beta is I do a ring lock there, have a high foot, and it's quite a desperate pull to get over that roof. It turns to a lot of ones. Maybe you place four ones.  In a tight hands and it's extremely pumpy, but it's one of my favorite pitches of all time.

And then the last pitch is actually a really nice warm down a five, nine hand crack littered with  jugs and a lot of holds it's like red rock styles except it's a little chossier  and yeah, it takes you to on top of, it's like a real summit, but it's in red mountain.  Area in zion and it's amazing view of angels landing to the summit  and yeah, I love it because it's Yeah, it's everything like if you want to learn all sorts of crack or trad climbing Schoen's buttress is a great route with it's not extremely hard where you have to, project it at a long time,  but so yeah, I consider it as a benchmark  route where, you know I do it a lot to get trained for my next big trip or just to see where I'm at.

If I do well in Schoen's buttress, I can start projecting a lot of hard stuff. If I don't, then I need more training,  but yeah, that is the first 5. 11 wall free route I've done  that gave me confidence to do even harder routes. So it's just yeah, that's very special route for me. And  yeah, I do it many times again.

And yeah,  that's awesome. As you were describing it, I was also reading the mountain project beta and just going back to pitch three you talked about how this is the off with, right? Yeah get it. It's going to be a bumpy ride. The beta here says, I'm curious if you do this or if you do it differently,  chimney up the Omrius corner until it starts to pinch down.

So you're chimneying up in the corner until it narrows. Like you said it goes from a five to a four and don't clip the bolt in the bowels instead. Place a number four. Above your head and try to get out and then until out of the Bombay and switch to stacks and fist jams.

Do you, is that how you do that pitch or do you do it a little differently?  So that bolt is really all these, it's so deep into the chimney. It doesn't make sense if you clip it. Because if you do click it, you'll have to have a long runner,  but still we'll get a really bad drag once you get to the anchor.

So I don't flip it at all. You just quite run it out. It's quite committing and it's a little scary if you're not used to off weds. It's run out before you can get a number five in. So you're already high up and run out before you get the number five. Oh, I see. So it's, you're already like, Running out before even getting pro in.

So you gotta be committing.  25 feet up before you can get a pro in. So if you do fall, you're a ledge. Dang, I might die in my pants. If I leave that,  not only that. Yo hands just stack and you have your left knee in there. And do a knee in a heel cam is very insecure, the whole I saw the only person I saw did that pitch really flawlessly is Kuya Jerry,  shout out to Jerry.

Shout outs to episode three.  He he actually did not do any stacks at all. He kept his torso out of the crack as much as possible.  He just knee bar. Wow. Knee bar all the way to till he got the hand jam. I tried his beta, but for some reason I could not do it. Maybe.  Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's just the size of the chest or anything.

Yeah. Like you do in cracks.  Really the difficulty of the the route itself.  It's different for different people because you have different sizes of limbs, hands. So a 5'11 might feel a little harder for you if you have big hands, but if you have smaller hands, a 5'11, which is a lot of them are like number ones.

A lot of small people think that's it's easier for a lot of ladies, 5'11s are easier because they're a lot of them are tight hands.  Wow. It was very subjective. The knee bar is interesting we, when we did Mitt in Yosemite, I think that's a 5,  8, or 7, I'll have to double check, or 9, I'll have to double check, but there's a section where he you can, there is a off width, there is a chimney moment, but our partner is me and Cass me, it was me, Cass, and Jerry, Cass is a friend of ours.

Yeah. Jerry was leading it and he just went in the chimney, didn't even grab the holds on the side of the roof, which you could have done. Which is what Cass and I did. He just straight up climbed it like an off with climb and looks so chill. So it's cool how it's cool to see him problem solve and do things in his own way.

Off with style is such a, an art.  A lot, not a lot of people understand it. I like, yeah. It's I like what. A video I saw often described as like a boxing, like a sweet science. Only people who understand the art, if you will. They know the techniques, like if a regular person who seen off with climbing done and don't understand the techniques, you think it's nonsense or what,  but there's some art to it.

And Jerry queer, Jerry definitely has that. Yeah. Queer Jerry definitely does. You do too, obviously doing this pitch three. Man, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing about Schoen's buttress. It, I think Trad's taken you to some really incredible lines. You've been, you've done the Incredible Hulk and the High Sierras.

Do you want to talk about your experience doing that? And also, it was Arturo who showed you that route. Tell us about your experience on the Incredible Hulk.  Incredible Hulk was one of the best trips I've done. And it's actually my first Alpine climb route. So this is in the High Sierras and in Sawtooth Range,  and I had been, I have done a handful of Zion routes already before coming here in the Sierras.

It would, I was really excited. I remember.  And to test out my, if my sandstone climbing in Zion will transfer in this granite, because I had experience in Yosemite and I actually didn't like my first experience in Yosemite because how.  How different it is from sandstone. I'm a sandstone guy.

I, I learned how to climb in Zion in sandstone  in terms of trike.  And I'm used to that. I'm like, a lot of people are not used to Zion climbing because it's chossy and sandy, but that's where I learned how to climb. And I'm, I actually adapted to that. So when I first tried granite in Yosemite doing single pitches, I did not like it.

I wasn't used to it. I. I wasn't used to like the slippery,  slipperiness of granite and very trafficked route  and actually I hated it. Wow, like this is so much different. And then when I made a trip to the high sierras, that's where I started liking granite. Wow. That's when I realized, oh, granite can actually be really fun.

And yeah. This is,  this sits up really high at 9, 000 feet and the peak is 11, 000 feet. So it's considered Alpine climbing because it's on the higher elevation.  So get to get up there. We hiked  over three miles or five miles and it's quite steep. And we had to bring our overnight gears and climbing gears,  and we spent four days there. 

So there's four of us. I was with Arturo.  This is, Arturo is my first winter, so on this trip, I was with Arturo, James, one of his main partner, also served as one of my mentor, and Rebecca, one of my consistent climbing partners here, until now, here in Zion. We went up there for four days, and first day hike three, four or five miles.

I'm not quite sure.  I was not used to backpacking at all. I think this is my second backpacking trip, actually. I did one backpacking trip prior to this, me a week before and our local mountain here in Pine Valley with my friend.  And just so I, cause I was really worried, like the elevation, like I'm from the Philippines and here in St.

George's we're part of Utah where it's like really low and in the desert. So I'm not used to the elevation. So just for training, we, I went up to Pine Valley with my friend and spend the night there with our backpacking  I struggled, I'm not going to lie, I really struggled. I have bad  cramps all the time when I hike too low. 

And  yeah I'm glad I did my Pine Valley trip before the high Sierras though,  because at least I got the feel  and we had to bring some ice spikes because there's some ice as you go up to the trail, a lot of loose rocks, some boulder hopping the weather was nice at that time. We actually chose a perfect perfect week to go there.

It was July, middle of summer, and it was the warmest it could be.  And Incredible Hole is known for high winds, but for some reason, all those four days were  No winds at all. Very calm.  So we got up there first day, set up base camp. 10 minutes below the climb. The climbing base or the wall base. 

And, yeah, we took our rest. Got used to it. I had slight elevation sickness or altitude sickness. I had headaches, but it took me a couple hours to get used to it and I felt better. So I just ate food and yeah, and just, I feel like I just thought I'd be hydrated after three to five miles hiking, sleep  and with heavy pack  and slept for the night.

And the plan was doing positive vibration the next day and then read the hydro.  We woke up quite early, I believe we woke up like 3. 30. I heard I have 4  to 15 minutes to get to the base of the climb.  So Arturo, my mentor, and James was doing the same route. And Rebecca and I were doing  Rebecca and I are learning.

I'm still, I would still consider myself new to, a new to this,  although I have done several design routes. And yeah they were the first party to go positive vibration and we just follow them.  And since Rebecca is still learning how to lead. And  so I was her rope gun. I let every single pitch and positive vibration  in.

Yeah, I'm quite proud of it because probably the best the best perform, performance I've done in a route especially being new. So I let every single pitch and only, I didn't send two pitches. But although I did send the crux pitch the harder five 11 pitch, which is a finger tips, one protection when sport moves, I said that  I didn't send two pitches because I got off route and one, and then one pitch was pulling over a roof and I had bad drop drag. 

I it's okay.  Like I think about, Oh, I wish I could have done better, but I'm still happy with how I perform.  Yeah. And Rebecca, on the other hand was carrying a dick pack the whole time,  and the whole pitch without falling really impressed it  that this granite is one of the best texture. It's more.

It has more grip than Yosemite. It's not as traffic as Yosemite and it's just made for free climbing. Yeah. It's amazing. And.  We had to wrap  the route  and then got back in before sundown. Forgot how fast we did it, but we got plenty of sun left.  Got to eat dinner and slept for the night.  I slept really well and temperature wasn't bad at all.

I was worried about that. We didn't have a tent. We just slept like cowboy style with our sleeping bag  because we didn't want to worry about carrying a heavy pack. Then the next day. Same thing, woke up early morning to do red dihedral, and I remember waking up that morning feeling so stiff and sore, and I almost didn't want to get up and  think about climbing another route. 

That is slightly longer positive vibration  I do with you. And yeah,  I, we had to do another climb, which was exciting because one of this is one of the classics route in in incredible Hulk. It's a five 10 route  and it's 1,500 feet, 12 pitches.  And I.  I gave some leads to Rebecca  because I just asked her, Hey, you want to take some leads?

Sure. And, but I still ended up leading most of the pitch. Cause big walls like this, it's,  the difficulty is navigating the route. You can, there's such a big wall. You can easily get lost. You might take the wrong route and stuff like that. So you have to do your research and read your beta carefully.

Cause you might take the long route and that could be a bad day for you.  And yeah, that just takes time to to learn. And  yeah if I had not done much Zion routes, I wouldn't be able to perform good on,  on Incredible Hulk doing positive vibe and red dihedral.  Man, it sounds incredible. It sounds like a huge adventure.

To get there, set up base camp, wake up early, climb, lead every pitch, eat, go back to sleep, climb again, and then Was this during one of your weekends, where you also, we can, we're hearing this trip or did you have some time off? This is summertime. So I asked a week off and four days. So that was just in the high Sierras and the rest of the day Rebecca and I just  We had three more days.

We actually went to Tuolumne Meadows and climbed  Classic route there.  Cool. I can't remember the name. It's one of the classic I have nine.  Anyways, it was like a week long trip, but for the most part, most of my trips are only a long weekend,  if I get a Friday better. I better be doing something worth it, which is  climbing something amazing.

A route that I've always wanted to. To do, or an area I wanted to visit.  Yeah, Weekend Warrior.  Yeah, that's awesome. It's cool to see, like, how much you've accomplished just by being consistent, going out on the weekends, and, Yeah. Going on trips that challenge you and inspire you. Because, yeah, I work. 

It's quite hard, but I still managed to make it happen, which I'm happy. I'm happy with my schedule. First, I go to school.  And balancing climbing and sometimes you, I wanted to just climb and climb, had to make money and go to school.  So I make the most out of my office, really.

Like I get really sad and frustrated if I have a day.  Where a partner had bailed or a plan is really Oh my gosh, I guess I have to go bouldering alone. Boulder or go ride bikes, but  I'd really rather do be doing some long, big walls or free routes in Zion or somewhere else like Red Rock.

Yeah.  That's awesome. I want to  eventually talk about one of your dreams to. Which is doing, Alpine and, big wall with Filipinos, right? That's something that matters a lot to you. It's something that there are barriers for Filipino climbers to be able to do stuff like that. Not only from a monetary perspective, but also from a visibility perspective.

I don't see many other Filipino climbers doing big wall, so it's inspiring to see. You do that. Tell us about that dream. Why is that so inspiring and important to you? I've, so climbing is so important to me and  ever since I got into it, it had became my lifestyle, but also my heritage being Filipino is very important to me too. 

I'm really proud to be Filipino and I love, I don't want to say I'm proud, but just, I.  I love our culture. Like I wouldn't trade any art culture for anything else. Even though I've moved here in the United States I'm still  Filipino by heart. In fact, when I got my citizenship back in 2019,  like I had mixed feelings becoming a U cause I love, and just love Being Filipino,  but I, United States have been the opportunity, like climbing and stuff because, things like this, like climbing, it's such a luxury.

It's, it's hard pursuing something you love  when there's a barrier, like money.  Like a lot of these hobbies in the, when you live in the Philippines, there, it's hard to pursue them because they cost money. They, it's really expensive, but living here, I'm really privileged that it doesn't  cost much to have fun.

Not like in the Philippines. That's what I observed.  So  yeah that's why I wonder, are there, I want to like,  I'm really excited that you made this podcast and see and meet other Filipinos who have the same dreams and inspired on doing big stuff in climbing. , like when I  was able to do  climb an El Cap route, I just had a thought like, Oh, maybe. 

Maybe one day I'll find a partner who I can climb El Cap with or not even El Cap, just something big.  And I actually shared that first with Kuya Jerry. And one of my trips, actually in Yosemite, Kuya Jerry was there.  And my, my partner at this time, when 

it's hard to talk to me it's hard for me to talk about this partner of mine because We were such good partners, but we didn't match in terms of ideals. In fact I almost didn't like my trip to Yosemite there. I love Yosemite because. It's the center of the universe in climbing and we're all, I have so much, a lot of dream routes to do there and I partnered up with this old partner of mine and I didn't enjoy it much because of some comments he made  and I actually felt really homesick.

When I went this guy and, Kuya Jerry saved me. He actually, we were at camp four. That's where we stayed for a whole week and Kuya Jerry was there and he actually cooked me a corned beef with rice, so I, we had finished a couple routes in El Cap and, like I was climbing there and then, I was doing  the thing that I loved the most, which is climbing and it was in Yosemite, but still I felt empty.

Cause I didn't have this connection with my partner,  but all my partners that I had are, have been amazing.  I just have just this one, one partner of mine that I didn't get connected. But I, I realized. Climbing, it's such a good connection for people. Like it made me feel at home when I first  were climbing in St.

George, even though I was different from a lot of people.  And  by having  to meet Kuya Jerry or like you, Kuya Tim, who also shares a similar cultural background will understand the same humor and hardships. It's a bit much more special feeling to share that with you guys, isn't it?  Yeah, definitely.

I think, feeling connected with the people you're climbing with is important to me too. And it's, it was really cool to hear Kuya Jerry, like he was joking when he said to me, Oh, it's like my dream to go up El Cap and put up a Filipino flag at the top. And I'm like, Oh, I would love to do that too, and then when you shared that with me, and learning now that he, you both shared that with each other. 

Who knows, man, maybe we can make that happen someday, but it's really nice to share the same dream and feel connected, with with people who have the same ideals and same, similar ambitions. And of course there's a lot of work that comes with it. And a lot of, at least for me, I have a lot to learn in terms of big wall and stuff, but Hey, it's nice.

It's nice to have a dream and put the steps to move towards it. Yeah. Let's go to, I think we're, I know we could also talk a bit about lurking fear in Yosemite, but I think we should maybe talk about what it would take to have more Filipinos, because we're on the topic, how to get more Filipinos involved in Big Wall, in trad, what is your advice for an aspiring Filipino, an aspiring trad climber who is Filipino, Who, of course, wants to learn trad, but also wants to learn to be connected to other Filipino climbers.

What kind of advice would you have for them? And, it's, you also are open or down to partner with others other Filipino climbers. Is that something you're interested in doing for the community? But anyway, I'm asking a bunch of questions in one question. What's your advice for aspiring Filipino trad climbers?

This is really not an advice. This is more like a wish and, I wish  that we see more of  us in like medias, right? Like when I heard the first, the term representation, I didn't understand it first, but I realized how important it was when I actually met my, like a climbing gear bicycles Arturo. 

So Arturo is a local, they consider a local legend here in St. George because he's done some incredible ascents in everywhere in Zion. He's resold some stuff and he has a lot of routes first ascent routes around the area and worth of 10 years, 15 years of working. And But yeah, he, when I, so the way I met Arturo actually was really special for me because I had heard his name in the community and heard about what he's done.

And just, he inspired me this is my first time actually  me seeing someone who's like around my proximity. That is a different background, he's from Mexico and he's very proud Mexican. He's also a first generation immigrant.  And for me, when I first saw him how much of a crusher he was, it's just inspired me, even though he wasn't a Filipino, but just a fellow first generation immigrant who's crushing it.

Here in the United States is just  amazing. And that inspired me to do even like better competitive within myself.  But when you just see someone who's just like you, you have similarities with I  think the inspiration is even,  it grows even more. And I think I owe him a lot of things. Like initially I was looking up to him. 

And eventually when I met him, he just took me under his wing and he served as my mentor.  And  so anyways, for it's just, coming back to like how I wish we are,  there's some more medias like showing some more Filipinos doing amazing things. It'll be, it will be But advice is really like in terms of climbing if you're into, if you're really interested in one type of climbing, really pursue it Filipinos are really hard, hardworking in nature, like super masipag tayong lahat.

So I think a lot of Filipinos can achieve amazing things. That's why I love the Philippines because  I just love the idea that there's so much potential. There's so much, there's so much room. For potential improvements for us because climbing is such a young thing for me. I don't know, like how far it goes back to in the Philippines, but it looks like it's, we're just starting, developing routes.

Yeah I will add we had an interview with Sam Kass. So she's from the Philippines and she's she moved over here with her family and now lives in Colorado with her partner. But her dad actually, they're from QC, Quezon City. Her dad was a trad climber in the Philippines and he had made harnesses out of seat belts.

She had posted this photo of him on Instagram and I shared it on the Rock and Rice story, but yeah, apparently there's even traces of climbers in the Philippines going back and, I'm really curious and excited to learn more about that. It's. It's wild. And the scene out there still seems to be pretty nascent and growing and at least from like a, more of a worldwide perspective, it seems to be a lot less there's a lot less information and media around it, so it still feels like very new and nascent.

And you're doing such a big step, we Tim for making a podcast like this, because I would like me, I, it's such a bubble in Utah where I don't really know what's going on quite yet especially in the Filipino climbing community. So when you first made this podcast, that's when I start like seeing people like just through Instagram and like looking at their stuff and there's actually people who loves climbing.

This is my first time feeling not alone. Like when I first met you and Queer Jerry. And and then Christine wow, there are people like me,  not a lot.  Yeah. We have a community and we're celebrating it through this podcast. Thank you, Ivan. That's really you. Maybe my last question to you is what are you looking forward to?

What are your goals for, this year climbing wise? This year, I don't have any plans. I'm just, I'm I have made a lot of I'm happy with my last year's achievements, I would say. So as of now, this year,  I don't have any specific plans here.

Although I do want to make a NAYAD attempt, like a Nose in One Day attempt with I do want to visit new areas like Wyoming, Devil's Tower. I want to visit, I want to spend more time in Arizona as well. Some basalt, there are supposedly amazing basalt cracks up there.  And yeah make more Alpine trips.

Actually. I really enjoyed the last Alpine trip. I did an incredible Holt. I want to do more Eastern Sierra stuff. I bought this book from Peter Kroff. Peter Kroff is one of my, he's one of my favorite rock climber.  And he is the style that he does is what I actually really enjoy just long free routes.

And then yeah, it's actually that's my, where my stoke is long free routes. And just so happens that I got into aid climbing just, a year ago because I met one of my best climbing partner, Kyle,  and that's when my 2023 year got really better just meeting Kyle, because, That's when I started doing long routes.

We, we had the same psych on a lot of things giving  like half dome last year. So I, the first time I climbed with Kyle was Shones,  more Zion, long Zion stuff in  with him, like Silmaril and the tricks of the trade. And eventually we had the idea to do half dome in a day and then lurking fear, almost in a day.

Really it's long, free routes that are I really love, but also I want to learn all the different aspects of climbing. Like big wall is really like my long term goal, like doing something and have more in path, do more the high Sierra. So learning eight climbing also will help me achieve all of that.

Cause when you're doing long stuff like that, really, you got to learn everything. You got to learn all the systems, falling.  I'm setting up portal ledges,  lowering outs, placing gears leading C1, C2, C3, A1s, all those so Also, I do want to visit the Philippines.  Yeah.  I do, I want Get into sport shape, baby.

Ah, yes, although I'm still recovering from an injury and hopefully at that time I could regain my strength and do some more limestone climbing. But yeah, my goal is visiting the Philippines. Hopefully cross fingers, I can get to visit this year. I've never been back since 2011. So it's going to be,  yeah.

So I have a lot of families I haven't seen for a while and, I'm weird because at one point when you haven't had a podcast yet, Kuya Tim, I I just bought the Philippine climbing team and started like adding random climbers. Cause I wasn't into, I wasn't in the community yet.

I don't know who is who. But yeah when you did this podcast, I'm so happy. And I got to, see more Filipino climbers and areas and got more connected. And yeah, all of them, a lot of them like ignore me, but, a handful of them added me back, which is I'm happy about. So whoever, yeah, you know who you are.

Thank you for following me.  You're also nice, welcoming.  And I love it.  I'm excited to put out your story in a way that feels authentic to you. The listeners are going to have a lot to, they're going to value this a lot and just keep doing your thing, man. Keep being stoked on climbing and public about it.

I think it's really advancing what's possible in the Filipino climbing community. So thank you for what you do. And I'm excited to, for when our next trip's going to happen.  I'm excited too. Let's yeah, cool. Stay soap queer and we'll climb again.