Man: Quest to Find Meaning
Man: A Quest to Find Meaning is the podcast for men who feel stuck, disconnected, or uncertain about their place in the world — and are ready to reconnect with purpose, emotional strength, and a more authentic way of being.
Hosted by [Your Name], each episode explores the deeper questions of modern masculinity through honest, unfiltered conversations. You’ll hear from men who’ve overcome inner battles — and from women offering powerful perspectives that challenge, inspire, and expand how we think about growth, relationships, and healing.
From purpose and vulnerability to fatherhood, fear, and identity — this is a space for men who want more than just surface-level success. It’s for those on a journey to live with intention, courage, and truth.
New episodes weekly. Real talk. No ego. Just the quest.
Man: Quest to Find Meaning
Resilience and Recovery: Nigel's Inspirational Story
Imagine braving minus 60°C temperatures and 60-mile-an-hour crosswinds on North America's highest peak. In this gripping episode, we sit down with seasoned mountaineer Nigel Vardy, who recounts his harrowing survival story on Denali. From his childhood passion for the outdoors, nurtured by his parents, to facing life-threatening challenges, Nigel takes us through the critical decisions that led to his survival and the severe frostbite that forever changed his life. His story is not just about survival but about sheer resilience and the human spirit's capacity to endure.
Nigel opens up about the grueling physical and mental road to recovery, emphasizing the importance of celebrating small victories and maintaining realistic expectations. He shares the setbacks he faced, like failed skin grafts, and how patience and persistence became his greatest allies. Hear how sharing his experiences publicly has been a crucial coping mechanism, reinforcing the idea that recovery is a journey that requires time, support, and mental fortitude. Nigel's personal anecdotes offer invaluable insights into the necessity of perseverance in overcoming life’s toughest challenges.
We also explore deeper themes of healing and self-care, discussing how pain can be a profound teacher. Nigel reflects on returning to Alaska after 25 years, the emotional impact of thanking the people who saved his life, and how nature and personal reflection play vital roles in processing trauma. The conversation shifts to societal expectations and the erosion of traditional values, with Nigel sharing how his family influenced his understanding of masculinity. This episode is a testament to the power of the human spirit, the importance of self-care, and the enduring lessons of resilience and determination.
In this week's episode, I talk with Nigel about an incredible survival story that almost took his life. We talk about using pain as a teacher and learning its lessons, and about facing challenges head on and the impact this can have on your life. Welcome to man Quest, defying Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose and redefine manhood. I'm your host, james, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear, embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes, get practical advice and powerful insights, struggling with career relationships or personal growth. We've got you covered. Join us on man Questify Meaning. Now let's dive in. Today I'm a special guest, nigel Fardy. Hello Nigel, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm very well. Thank you, James. How's yourself, Fardy? Hello Nigel, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm very well. Thank you, James. As yourself, I'm absolutely amazing, and so I've interviewed Nigel before, so Nigel's a mountaineer and he has an absolutely amazing story to tell.
Speaker 2:So let's start there. Can you tell us about your journey? Crikey depends where you want to start. I started getting into the outdoors as a young lad. My parents were very big hill walkers and I suppose it's there that I got my love for being outside and also that I had childhood catarrh. My lungs were forever filled up with gunk and the doctors told my mom just get him outside, mrsardy, give him lots of fresh air, and she did so. From a very young age I've been in the Peak District I live just on the south side of it and from a childhood hill walking with my family to then hill walking with on my own, to then meeting people and doing challenge walks, to then getting into Scottish winter hills, scottish winter mountaineering and then, obviously, international mountaineering across the world, which has been a 45 50 year journey that's tried to kill me on a number of occasions, and yet I still keep going back. I still keep doing it and I still love it, even though it's physically cost me parts of my body as well.
Speaker 1:Obviously they nickname you, Mr Frostbite. What mountain was it that you got stuck on?
Speaker 2:Initially we used to call it Mount McKinley, we now call it Denali, but it's in Alaska. It's the tallest peak in North America. It's just over 20,000 feet high, and it's renowned for its weather. It's so polar, if you want to put it that way, so far north for its height, that it's literally Greenland one side of you, siberia the other, and there's nothing else out there. So the weather can be beautiful and it can be horrific, and the reason I say I'm called mr frostbite is because I survived with two other friends a night very close to the summit of mckinley, in minus 60 centigrade, and though we were rescued the next day by a very daring helicopter rescue, we all suffered severe frostbite, and so I ended up losing all my fingertips, all of my toes, both heels, all of my nose and my left cheek.
Speaker 1:Could you take us through what happened and how did you survive that instance?
Speaker 2:We'd got together as a team of three. We'd all been around the world a few times and many other trips, so we we hope we knew what we're talking about and we had what I always say is the 17 days most wonderful mountaineering of my life really taxing, thought-provoking, dramatic mountaineering. It was wonderful. And then we went for the summit because being a mountaineer, that's what you do and we set ourselves the highest camp that we could set out early the next morning to go, and we got caught in a storm at the end of that day, high on the summit plateau. Lots of people think mountains are big, pointy things with tiny little summits and, believe me, there are a few of those. But a lot of them actually have quite large meandering areas, and the top of denali it's called the football field. It really is that big and we got caught up there in about a 60 mile an hour crosswind. You can't talk to each other. You have to scream, even if you're next to each other. You're buffeted around like a toy really, and you stood still and you freeze into death in your own boots. Quite literally, you will die in minutes. So what you have to start doing is taking decisions, and you take them based on not a lot of information sometimes, but you have to take them, you have to live with them, you have to run with them and keep retaking them because the situation changes so quickly. But because we took those decisions, we decided to get out of the snow and ice, or out of the wind with the snow and ice, and we got in a snow hole, protected ourselves from the elements even though it's colder in there, you're not being blown around, you can think, you can speak, you can look what's in your rucksack without it being threatened to be blown away. And we spent hours and I'm taking this to 12, 14, I don't know how many hours in there before I came out and sent a radio message, a distress call. Another few hours in there, all the rest of it horror, and just freezing, literally freezing to death.
Speaker 2:Before the next day came and the weather was a little better, we decided that the only thing we can do here is try and get back to our tents because, though I got a very garbled message to base camp, it was by no means certain what was going on and we thought nobody will see us while we're under the ground. So we've got to get out. We've got to be visible, we've got to get back to the camp, sort our lives out and take life from there really. And that was the plan, and loads of us have made plans and loads of us with any sense will understand that very few of those plans actually go as smoothly as that and it became very apparent. I couldn't walk. Both my feet were frostbitten. Looking back on it At the time, you don't think about these things.
Speaker 2:And so we split the team, myself and Anthony. One of the other men, anthony stayed together and tried to get out some rocks for some wind protection, while one of the guys, steve, went basically for help to save my life. And a number of hours later a helicopter popped up and took myself and Anthony off the mountain, setting an altitude record for a rescue, really pushing the helicopter's limit quite seriously to get us off alive. And we made that awful assumption that Steve's gone for hell. He's found some help, he's now safe, we're okay, we're all going to meet in hospital.
Speaker 2:And, of course, steve actually never did get to help and fell, broke both his legs, spent another night out on the mountain, nearly froze to death, but was found the next day and brought into hospital a day behind us and all of our lives changed from that moment. We'd gone from being fit, active mountaineers to horrifically injured and also told to stay in bed. You can't walk, you can't get up, you can't put pressure on your feet, you can't use your hands, you can't go to the toilet, you can't get out of bed. You will be completely useless I think is not a bad word to put in it and you'll literally have to watch and see what happens to your injuries over time. And if your digits are going to die, we're not going to hide it from you. And that was where the next part of my life began so can you talk us through the next part please?
Speaker 2:yes, certainly the. We all had two weeks in hospital and it was quite obvious to me that my toes were going black, my fingers were going back, my face was, and they were not coming back, and there's no two ways about that. That's it. We're airlifted then from Alaska to the UK. I was brought to the city hospital at Nottingham as a burns unit, and a frostbite is a burn. It's just a cold burn, because in Britain we associate burns with heat or chemicals usually, or electrical burns, but there is a cold burn and within the burns unit we had week after week of just watching because there's nothing anybody can do. But then the day comes that, frankly, they cut all your fingers off, or the tips of all your fingers, all your toes. The ball from my left foot went as well. I was looking at the heel bone hanging out the back of my left foot. My nose fell away, my cheek fell away and you're greeted with a very different body. But the world has not changed. And you've got to, and I was 30 years old.
Speaker 2:You've got to learn many of the lessons that you took in as a child again. So how to walk, how to hold a knife and fork, hold a pen, do up your shoelaces, wash, bathe, turn the TV channel over, whatever it is. You start off with the things that you can do from a bed and it then progresses to walking. Perhaps you've got to learn to drive again. You've got to learn to hold things and be in a mountaineer. That could be everything from a rope to a camera, to a mountaineering boot, to an ice axe, and you have to go through all these physical challenges, which is one thing, but on the other side you've got to get your head straight because you've literally just had the backside kicked out of you by a peak and you're very lucky to be alive. And it scares you. It really scared me.
Speaker 2:I for many days at one point was quite happy to end it all and just have done with it. I'd had enough. I was in a lot of pain, a lot of discomfort, I just couldn't do with it and a nurse came and gave me the biggest kick up the backside I think I've ever had in my life and he did me the world of good. I know some people say in this modern world we need to think more about people. This guy gave me both barrels and I am so glad he did, because it gave me the Nige. Stop sitting here feeling sorry for yourself. It is not going to get any better by doing that. It might get better if you fight, if you pick yourself up, if you do something positive learn to walk again.
Speaker 2:Or the simplest things like feed yourself, because for weeks I couldn't even feed myself. Go to the toilet. This is simple stuff. We think when it's a difficult thing to do.
Speaker 2:It's not so simple, and I was wheelchair-based for a long time. That taught me a lot of lessons as well. The smallest curb can be quite a thing to assault when you're on wheels and people don't look at you. If you're in a wheelchair, people keep their own eye height, so you're down at the floor level and they don't even converse with you because you're not at their level. All these things I've never considered. But after about 13 months I ended up getting back on some simple rock climbing, which did hurt, and I bled a lot and screamed with pain a lot, but also with joy because I realized I can do it. It's not easy. It's a whole new world, but I can work this out somehow and within less than two years I was back on ice and snow, skiing, mountaineering. It all sounds simple. I assure you it wasn't, and I wasn't skiing to a good standard or mountaineering to a good standard either, but I was out and I was giving it a go.
Speaker 1:And to this day, and this 25 years ago, every day is a learning day so, for those people who are perhaps out in the world, who are struggling to know what to do or to take the first step, what kind of advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:start off slowly. If you're doing anything, from learning a new skill to opening a business, to recovering from injury, to whatever it happens to be, start slowly and take small steps, because what I learned is you don't even know if those steps are in the right direction. So take a few, learn. You may have to face some physical or mental pain. There's two ways of dealing with it and the way I deal with it has to be I've just got to face it head on and understand. That is part of the experience and it hurts really, but if you don't face it you'll never understand it. So you have to take these little steps and for me it was like taking the first step the first day. It was understanding. I could stand up again and I wasn't going off for a hill walk on the next morning. I walked 50 yards the first day, about 150 the second day and did a few steps the third, and it took weeks to build up that momentum again, and also fitness. I'd been laid in a bed for three months, feet that didn't want to feel, the same Balance that was different. So every little step was a learning experience and it's so tempting sometimes to say the nurse has got me up this morning and they're gone now. But I know I can walk, so I'll walk.
Speaker 2:And you sometimes have to say to yourself just slow down. You've walked 15 paces today and you haven't walked for three months. Celebrate that 15 paces, understand it, be great about it. But do 20 tomorrow, not today. It's very easy to rush in and it is the age old thing fools. Rush in, so take the steps slowly. And also, if there's small steps and you're in the wrong direction, it's much easier to correct it and you can go. Actually, this isn't working for me. What do we move? What do we change? How do we do different things and just keep working in that fashion? It took me crikey six months to walk reasonably because I had lots of further surgery and other things. So don't think from day one you're going to be an Olympic sprinter. It takes years to recover from something or to learn something. Reading one page of Wikipedia does not make you an expert. Reading one blog about something does not make you an expert. This is a very long lesson to learn. Be prepared to take the time.
Speaker 1:I can imagine over that year and a half, that you had many setbacks throughout that time. How did you personally overcome the setbacks?
Speaker 2:I think it was an enormous dose of reality. Just to give you an example, the backs of my feet didn't want to close up. There's very little blood circulation in your heels and you need blood to grow skin and tissue and carcass and all the rest of it. So when they put a skin graft on, I'd gone from being able to walk not well, but being able to walk to. All of a sudden you're going into theatre and we're going to put you back in bed for two weeks and you can't get out. And you go, oh go, oh great, thanks a lot. But what you have to remember is this is a long-term journey and you have to go through that for the greater good at the end. So I'd go to hospital and do the grafting and on three occasions they took the dressings off and the grafts had failed. So you think I've learned to walk a bit. But now you've sat me down again, you've done more surgery and it's gone wrong. So you go home and you think I've learned to walk a bit. But now you've sat me down again, you've done more surgery and it's gone wrong. So you go home and you think, well, that was a waste of time. And then you do it again and then you do it again and you think surely something's got to happen. But what you've got to get in your head is certainly in my case, with the skin grafting, they're doing what works and they know it works.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have a 100% outcome, however. Nothing in this world is certain. I worked in the electricity industry for thousands of hours of being on standby and being out 24 hours a day, and loads of us just go to a light switch, flick it on and expect it to work. You don't call people like me until it stops working and then you don't know what to do. I had to purely just understand the skin grafts have failed. It's a pain, but I can't alter it. I can't make it get any better. I can't make it heal any faster. I can do what I'm told with the nurses and staff with dressings and keeping clean and such. I can do what I'm told with the nurses and staff with dressings and keeping clean and such. But we just have to keep repeating that process till we get there and it can feel like banging your head on a wall. But if you stick at it and do stick- at it, it will work.
Speaker 1:How did you mentally overcome it? Because I can imagine there's times when you're like oh please, just Do you know?
Speaker 2:that's a really searching question because up to not long ago I'd have said I've dealt with it and I've just dealt with it by being in the environment. Initially I had some counseling while I was in Burns and it was very disjointed and I think after about three or four sessions the chap says I can't come anymore. They've moved me to another unit and I thought, great, wonderful, that's a deal of use then. But what I found was speaking. I decided when I was able to stand and get around, I would go out and actually speak about the experience, and I live in a town called Bellprint, derbyshire. I went to, I rented a local hall and we packed it out and I gave this lecture on slides in those days. That's how old it is and at the end of it everybody's happy, they've all gone home and had the tea and cake. And I sat and cried my eyes out and I'll always remember I sat with my cousin Laura and she'd come to support me and I just bawled my eyes out because I think what I'd done is let a lot of the pressure out and I told it to people. I didn't know Whether it be in a town. I knew a lot of people, but I just felt I need to vent this somehow and I'm not for one going into the woods and screaming or dancing or whatever, and for me, speaking has been a fabulous outlay to relieve a lot of the tension and to allow me to relive the story in a good way, because I know of people that have had things happen to them in their lives and they never want to relive that story ever again because it's so traumatic and they never want to relive that story ever again because it's so traumatic. I've managed to turn it from its bad side into a good news story.
Speaker 2:Now, as I say, I thought I'd dealt with it, but this year I went back to Alaska, 25 years later, to meet with and thank a number of the people to whom I owe my life and the people that treated me and helped me and quite physically rescued me, and to meet them and talk about it and talk about them. And we also flew over the mountain with a film crew making a documentary about it, and an awful lot went through my mind that I don't know was hiding in the back. Was it just stuck in a sort of drawer at the back room somewhere in my mind with don't open this drawer. It's fine, I don't know, but it's.
Speaker 2:A lot of things have re-emerged. I've learned a lot of stories that I didn't know about my rescue, medical things that were done to me and that I had no idea, and it's opened a lot of doors and it's opened a lot of thoughts and I've done quite a lot of reflection since. I find sitting in the fields and woods of my childhood, where I used to play as a boy, I find being there peaceful and quiet, really quite beautiful and reflective and peaceful and they allow me to breathe and I try and take time there. And I'm still now dealing with this last bit from the 25th year trip and dealing with it in the best that I can. I've cried a lot, I've lost both my parents, but I've talked to them about it an awful lot to try and make sense of not only what happened then but how that has then affected the last 25 years of my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you don't digest that in five minutes. You don't just press a button and it goes away. We're human human beings and we need to remember that more often. I think we're living in an increasingly digital world and yet we are still human, and I think this latest trip will take me another few months to even consider digest. Do you know what, james? I really don't know myself.
Speaker 1:I find myself as well that going into a woodland is a great place for me to to ground but also to speak out loud what I might be having problems with throughout the day or throughout the week or whatever crops up, and it gives me an opportunity speak out loud, whether there's something out there listening to me or there's. I can hear myself, to really hear from a outside perspective, because I suppose when you speak out loud especially for like myself there's a sense of hearing it yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I often I like things like bike riding and fish and I often, when I'm out there and just studying the river or out on my bike, I can have a conversation with myself that's quite thorough, quite deep, quite thought-provoking, and there's certain things you don't want to share with other people. There's certain things you don't want to share with other people. There's certain things you do. You just get to make the choice while you're out and the choice when you're in nature, because, again, we are natural things, we are members of the ape family, and just because we live in a brick box and wear clothes doesn't make us any different from anything else on this planet.
Speaker 2:And I don't think there's something that bothers me, and I've worked with a lot of people in mental health and I've worked with a lot of people who are struggling and all I see that get assaulted by is log on to this app and we can help you or buy this program and we can help you or take these drugs. Sometimes I know some people do need medication and I think if you can't be happy within yourself, nobody can help you, because if you can't when I say love myself, I don't mean in a nasty way. But if you can't self-care, don't expect anybody else to do it for you. They can help you, they can guide you. They can't do it for you and they must never do it to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of people who don't like to go into the pain Within the pain that we have inside our body, whether it's physical pain or emotional pain or mental pain.
Speaker 1:That's where the answers are and, as a human race not just men, women as well or mental pain, that's where the answers are and as a human race not just men, women as well will run away because they know that as soon as they go into the pain, it's going to be painful, but the pains were the biggest lessons.
Speaker 1:I feel I've learned so much from going into the pain and this is one of the reasons I've started the podcast is to help men who are suffering, so that they can hear other people's stories, to help understand, to hear from other men, to understand that they go through the same things and everybody is the same, regardless of whether you're doing really well and you're high up or you perhaps aren't doing so well. Everybody has insecurities, everybody has pain, everybody has struggles, and it's one common denominator we all have and it's one common denominator we can all ourselves look to go into, to help us to almost embrace that part of ourselves, because the more that we try to deny it and put it down, the more it becomes bigger and deny it and push it down the harder, the more it becomes bigger and strong and it gets harder. It starts to deal with.
Speaker 2:I'm a great believer in facing the pain and I've taken quite a lot of physical pain through the injuries themselves and other things as well. I've had appendicitis, as I've had. I've taken pretty major falls in my time but surprisingly, I've never broken a bone because I've. I now get pain through my injuries, I get throbbing nerve pain through my feet. I'm having issues with both my hands. That's just part of life, and if you don't want to face pain, don't get older for a start, because it's a world of pain, I assure you. But the fact is that if you can feel pain, you're alive. And though I know we need anestheticsics we're going to take your leg off, mr vardy fine, please put the anesthetic and that would be lovely we have to understand, as you say, that people used to say years ago, no pain, no gain. It was a bit of a saying, really, but unless you're prepared to face the pain, how can you understand, firstly, what pain is? If you can you understand, firstly, what pain is, if you can't understand pain, you'll never know what joy is, or comfort, or peace, and we can't have it laid out on a plate for us, we can't just press a button and read an app or something else and go hey, the life is good and wonderful. Because if you want to do that, you can get the hell out of my world right away. Because you're not in the real world. Things hurt. Sometimes decisions have to be taken that hurt. Sometimes you get a physical injury. It hurts. It hurts for a reason. Your nerves are telling you that there's something wrong, and whether that means you go to hospital, to I&E or whatever, or you take some pain relief or you have a headache, whatever it is, it's a message.
Speaker 2:And I often think I like old cars, I like things you could take a hammer to and belt them. And so I drive an old Land Rover, an old camper van, but I've got a modern car. And you think, with people, we're quite the opposite to the car. Because if you turn a car on and you get a warning light on the screen, you go oh, I've got to deal with it, I need to take it to the garage, get it reset, get something looked at. If you had warning lights at the back of your eyes, give me a person that didn't have 10 going right now do you deal with them? Do you look at them? Do you care? Do you just say I'll do it tomorrow? None of us are perfect, but we put them by thinking it'll go away, whereas an innate object like a vehicle, that five lights come up and you stop the car and you all think the world's ended. You deal with it. Start dealing with yourself.
Speaker 1:That leads me quite nicely how would you define a healthy man?
Speaker 2:That depends on, of course, how you define health, doesn't it? We can be physically fit, which would be nice. We can be not overweight, which would be great. Upstanding and decent members of society would be good too. But what I do find is there's things like what people call toxic masculinity, where it's all a little bit too far and and I I just can't cope with people that are like that.
Speaker 2:I remember when I first had my injuries and I was getting better, I used to go down to a gym to try and help me build some strength back, and you'd have some of the lads in there posing in front of a mirror about how good they looked and all the rest of it, and I just thought I just can't be dealing with any of this. I'd rather just be me. I also think being a man's been eroded for a long time. The views and skills I was brought up with as a boy. Almost people feel offensive now, like opening a door for a lady waiting at a dinner table before they either say grace or the host gives you permission to eat, doffing your cap, dressing correctly. I often get told that actually it's really nice to see it Nige and I keep thinking that's lovely. So why is it nice to see? When it's not the norm then? Why are people not polite? I've stood before my partner when she was being verbally assaulted by another lady and I just stood between them and said to this lady look, that's enough, stop it. Now I've also been criticized for doing that by people, for saying a lady can defend herself. She probably can, and I'm not denying that.
Speaker 2:But I was bought up to protect other people, regardless of who they are, and to stand in the way of idiots and tell them there's a time and a place for this, and it's certainly not here now. I know in this modern world people say you don't know if they're carrying a knife. I admit that, um, but I was taught to be polite to ladies, respectful to ladies, respectful to the elderly, to act well, not to swear all these sorts of things, that I'll walk down the street in this modern world and perhaps I am getting old and grumpy that people have got their trousers around their knees, every third word begins with F and they think that's socially acceptable. I work at the Kendall Mountain Festival and we have some films coming now that people think are really cool and I find them abhorrent because they're full of foul language and there's no need for it.
Speaker 2:Now, to me, being a man would be we can get our point across. There's no need to be vulgar about it. We can defend the weak, if that's what you want to call some people, or other people, or the elderly, the infirm I've picked elderly people up off the road before as other people have walked by. That, to me, is what being a man's been to me, but also setting a good example. My father set the example to me. My grandfathers although I only knew the one set what they thought was their example to me. Some of it good, some of it bad, and I've tried to take the best bits out of what they think is right for my life. But also, I feel that sometimes the modern world doesn't appreciate that. My view is, though they don't have to appreciate it. I'm not here to offend anybody and I'm not here to hurt anybody, and if they don't like it, it's their problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, nice, nicely said. Thank you very much, nigel. If somebody wants to get in contact with you or wants to hear what you do, what can they do?
Speaker 2:Quite simply. Just start Nigel Vardy into Google. I've got a website, nigelvardycom or mrfrostbitecom. I'm on all the social networking channels, all the details are there. So just Nigel Vardy into Google. Drop me a line, say hello.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Thank you very much, Nigel.
Speaker 2:Cheers though.
