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Girl Climber with Emily Harrington · Dear Chelsea

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I just announced all my tour dates. It's called the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Height and Mighty Tour. I'm coming to Washington, d c Norfolk, Virginia, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Columbus,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and Cincinnati, Ohio, Denver, Colorado, Portland, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island, Springfield, Massachusetts, Chicago,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of Course, Indianapolis, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Albuquerque, Masa, Arizona, Kansas City, Missouri,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis, Missouri, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, Tennessee, Charlotte, North Carolina, Durham,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: North of Carolina, Saratoga, California, Monterey, California, Modeesto, California, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: port Chester, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I will be touring.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: From February through June, So go get your tickets now.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: If you want good seats and you want to come
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: see me perform, I will be on the High and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Mighty Tour.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Hello Hi Catherine, Oh Hi Chelsea.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm on the heels of taking my adventure on the road.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I'm heading to Ance, Arctica in the morning, and that
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is not a joke.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I have three flights.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I'm fly through Houston, Buenos Aires and then Patagonia, and
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: then I bored my barco and travel across Drake's Passage.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I heard that that is like the
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: choppiest water in the planet.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: I have anti NAJA pills.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Well I okay, well this is what and I'm knocking
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: on it.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I have never had motion sickness, right, I mean not
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: unless a lot of you know, drugs are alcohol were involved.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Which well they will be.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: But I'm a very good seaworthy person, so I don't
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: think I will. But I am bringing it just in case,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: because this is going to be serious.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, I will say the scopolamine patches can make your
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: vision a.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: Little bit blurry.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Well we got dramamine.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, all right, so is that I don't know
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: that will make your vision blurry? I don't pay yeah,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: but if you do have to upgrade discopolamine patches, just
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: cut it in half it we'll make your vision so blurry.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, my vision is typically blurry.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I mean think think about everything I'm putting in my
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: body also because of.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: The drugs and alcohol.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Drugs and alcohol.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So yes, I will be in Antarctica doing LSD with
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: penguins and everyone will see me when I return.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: I'm sure the penguins will make you a changed woman.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: So. Emily Herrington is the first woman to free climb
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the Golden Gate route on El Capitan in under twenty
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: four hours. She is a five time US national champion climber,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: has summited Mount Everest and skied most of the eight
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: thousand meter peaks. Her new documentary is called Girl Climber
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and it's out now. Please welcome Emily Harrington.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Hi, Emily, Hi, good morning, top of the morning to you.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Are you on a mountain peak as we speak to
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: you right now?
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: No? No, I'm in Tahoe.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I had to watch your movie twice because, oh really,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it the first time, so I had
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to watch it again.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I had to rewatch it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It's called Girl Climber and it will be available for
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: everybody to stream. It's out on Jolts right now, and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: then it comes on some streaming.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Platforms I believe. Correct.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay, so let's talk about you and your peaks.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: First of all, how are you doing now? You have
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a baby, You're married. I feel like your energy and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: ambition has probably recalibrated a little bit.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's a very accurate statement.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: I've had some life changes since the movie, all good things,
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: but yeah, just you know, different, different challenging and yeah,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: energy sapping energy.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah right.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, congratulations on being the first woman
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to climb El Capitan the Golden Gate.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: You did that in less than twenty four hours.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: You also climbed Mount Everest when you were twenty five
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: years old, So it's like, I don't know where to begin.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Let's begin there since that happened first. You did that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: without really any training. You went and climbed Mount Everest
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: with a group of people, left your Shirpa and the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: dust because he couldn't keep up with you.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: So talk to us.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: About that decision and about how one decides to do
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: something like that without the proper quote unquote training. I
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: don't say quote unquote because you do fucking need training to.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Do that, right, ice climbing and all.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: That, Yes you do, and you know, yeah, without specific training,
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: but you have to remember that I've been a rock
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: climber since the age of ten.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: But that's not nice snow though, is that? I mean?
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: No?
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: But I also grew up skiing, and then you know,
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: in my early twenties, I started kind of diversifying my
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: climbing and I learned how to ice climb. I actually
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: like one an ice climbing competition like earlier that year,
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: so I had like started acquiring the skills. I would say,
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: I just didn't have very much altitude experience, which I
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: think is is very important for something like Mount Everest.
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: But thankfully it all worked out. Well, yeah, it did
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: work out. Tell us about it, though.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was this there's a great scene in
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the movie where you're stuck at the tent with your
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: girlfriend who has since sadly passed away in an hour lanche.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Which but as you were, as you were talking about
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: climbing Mount Everest, there's a part of it where there
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: are like five avalanches a day that happen and you
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: have to just kind of time it right so that
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: you don't get caught in one. I mean that sounds
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely fucking crazy.
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: I think, to you know, the lay person, it might
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: be a bit insane. Mount Everest is a very interesting place.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: I've learned a lot since being there myself. I think
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: as a young twenty five year old, I was pretty naive.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: Now I'm married to a mountain guyde who goes to
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: Mount Everest every year, so have quite a different perspective
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: on it. But yeah, it was a wild experience. It
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: taught me a lot.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: It was a radical departure from anything that I was
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: used to in my climbing. You know, Mount Everest is
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: walking up a big snowy hill for a very long
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: period of time with this like excruciating suffering of high altitude.
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: It's not technically difficult like I was used to in
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: rock climbing, so those types of skills are actually quite
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: easy for me. But at the same time, there was
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: there was a lot of suffering. There was a lot
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: of what we call type two fun, which is like
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: the in hindsight looking back, like, oh that was actually
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: pretty cool, even though I was fucking miserable the whole time.
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: So yeah, it was it was a really I think
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: it was a valuable experience. It changed my entire life
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: because that was where I did meet my husband, So
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: I have a lot to thank for Everest.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: That's not good advice for our listeners. That's how you
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: meet your soulmate climbing Mount Everest. Because I mean, how
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: many people are going to be able to just whip
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: it out and do that when you're doing these things,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: because like I think a through line of this movie
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: is your fear, you not your fearlessness. It's pushing beyond
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: your fear, and it's it's about it's about really kind
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of get the adrenaline that comes from beating your fear
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and moving past any sort of boundaries that we may
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: set for ourselves, and also committing to the pain of it. Right,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the pain is a side It's kind of almost a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: side notion. It's like that's part of the process to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: get where you're going. Was kind of one of my
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: takeaways from watching this is that a you wanted to
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: be up there, like, you know, you don't want to
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: be thought less than as a woman, because women are
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: you say this in the beginning of the film infurior
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: or thought to be inferior physically to men, and you
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: wanted to prove that that's not necessarily true, correct.
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think more than anything, I wanted to
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: prove something to myself. And I think throughout that journey
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: on Golden Gate it became more evident that it was
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: much more an internal struggle than an external sess. That said,
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: I do think the film did a really nice job
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: of kind of like expressing these more feminine characteristics of vulnerability,
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: of expressing fear, crying, showing emotion, and it kind of,
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: you know, a lot of these things that are perceived
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: of as weaknesses, I think the film does a really
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: nice job of kind of revealing those things as strengths.
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  Speaker 5: I was very vulnerable. I was very honest about my
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: fears and my struggles and my failures. But I think
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  Speaker 5: think a lot of those things are what eventually enabled
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: me to be successful, because I did become comfortable sitting
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: in those spaces of fear and struggle and failure, And
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  Speaker 5: I think those are pretty important human experiences to have
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  Speaker 5: that a lot of us just don't get to have
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  Speaker 5: in daily life. We don't get to confront those uncomfortable
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: things very often.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: The movie starts out with you attempting El Capitan with
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Alex Hunnold, who we all know from Free Solo, and
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: you kind of weren't really as prepared as you would
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: want to have been. And then then you go back
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: again the next year, you do more training, and then
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you train on Al Capitan and then you make a third,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: you make your next attempt, right, So it's kind of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: like how do you frame those periods of time that
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: were in the movie from the beginning to the end,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Like when you look at that, do you think, oh,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I wasn't prepared enough?
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Like do you accept that?
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 5: Absolutely, Like I think that first attempt, I actually knew
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: that I wasn't prepared. But sometimes you need to kind
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: of like try the thing in order to figure out
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: what you need to do. Differently, like you have to
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: go fail in order to find out what needs to
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: change and what you need to improve upon. And so
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: for me, that attempt was actually just I didn't really
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: expect to be successful. Like the weather didn't look good,
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: the season was really tough, the entire wall was wet,
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: Like the odds of success were pretty slim. But it
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: was like I need to go try to kind of
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: like see where I'm at and see where my fitness
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: is and see the weak points so that I can
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: like go back and train and then I can come
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: back and be better. So you kind of have to
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: go I had to go fail in order to like
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: figure out what to.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Do, almost like a dry run, right as a job
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: and to be fair, you got like a way run
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: and hailed off the side of the mountains, so fair.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so and then you go, okay, so then you
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: go back and start trading with him, which, by the way,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: great support system. I mean, he's like the best but
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the best climbing buddy you could possibly have. And your husband,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: of course is also a great support system. But I
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: mean it felt like, you know, the first time, I
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure how many times you had done it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I was like, wait, did I just watch her four
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: or five times do the same thing? And then I realized, oh, okay,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: this is you practicing, and this is you want to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: pitch where you fall down a pitch and then you
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: redo the pitch. So there's all these kind of different
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: there's all these different kind of technical terms that I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: wasn't familiar with. But I mean, it's an incredible feat
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and it's incredible strength of mind because you talk us
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: through when you were younger, and you know, you.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Had an eating disorder.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: You were eating only carrots for a sort of period
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: in your life where your mother was said you your
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: hands turned orange because you were only eating carrots.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: And to be doing your.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Physical activities with that little nutrition and what you were
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: doing in terms of rock climbing and ice picking at
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: all of those things, like the wear and tear that
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that must have had on your body, and the innate
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: strength that you had to even continue to do that
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: in those conditions.
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think eating disorders are pretty pervasive
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: in the sport of climbing, just because it is kind
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: of a strength to wait ratio sport and you do
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: see like really short gains and it's very obvious when
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: it happens, but like it is short term, like it
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: doesn't last. And so I think for me, I just
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: started emotionally and physically breaking down and recognizing that climbing
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: was making me really unhappy and it was becoming a punishment.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: And that's actually when I started transitioning into other avenues
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: of climbing, different disciplines. That's when I had the opportunity
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: to go to Nepal to go to the Himalaya, and
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: then the following year I went to Mount Everest. And
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: with that kind of climbing, you really cannot get away
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: with not fueling properly, Like it's just not an option.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: You just won't go anywhere on the mountain and so
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: that was really eye opening for me. Was like, oh, actually,
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: like I need to feel my body in order to
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: be successful. And it took several years for me to
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: kind of like wrap my brain around it. I kept
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: kind of having falling back into the bad habits, but
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, thankfully I had some really good
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: mentors and really good influences on me, and then I
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: did kind of diversify and go into this other realm
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: of climbing and and recognize essentially what I was doing wrong,
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: that the approach was just flawed.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: And how was the approach flawed because of the eating
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: disorder or because of everything surrounding that.
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: I think everything. I think the idea of trying to
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: control every single thing in my life and having this
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: really like perfectionist mindset and being super hard on myself
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: if things didn't go perfectly, it was just beating me down.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: And then the eating disorder was kind of a you know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: it was kind of just like an effect of all
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: of those feelings, and then it was like a cycle
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: of punishment, like if I didn't succeed, then I had
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: to train harder, and I had to eat less and
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: I had to do more, and so it was just
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: like this cycle of exhaustion and punishment and honestly just unhappiness.
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: And I think a lot of like athletes can can
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: relate to being kind of stuck in that space.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And do you think that's more of a female thing,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: female athlete thing, or do you think eating disorders are
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: pervasive among men in sport as well.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: I think it's pervasive among men as well. I just
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: don't think it's as talked about, right. I don't think
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: it's as accepted for men to talk about it even
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: But I do know some men who have struggled with it,
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: and you know, I think that they're much more prone
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: to kind of like hiding it and not talking about
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: it and having it. People not really like think it's
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: an issue with men, but I very much think it is.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, So halfway through this movie, you're attempting to climb
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: you start, I think at four in the morning, you're
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: attempting again to climb Al Capitan.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: You're with Alex and his girlfriend and you have a fall.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: You fall.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: How many feet did you fall?
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: I think I fell like fifty feet. It's something I.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Mean, how did you not get more injured during that fall?
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: Honestly, I think it was like one of those super
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: lucky situations. I completely like flipped upside down, and I
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: think I flipped upside down and there was so much rope,
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: there was so much slack in the system that the
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: rope actually caught me on my neck and like burned
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: my I had like this crazy rope burn all up
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: and down my neck and I did hit my head.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: I lost consciousness.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: So for me, like, I don't remember a whole lot
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: because I did lose consciousness. I think it was like
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: far more traumatic for the people who were there and
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: rescued me.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's all caught on camera.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So that was also because you're hearing you scream and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: you don't know exactly what has happened to you. And
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: then we see you in the hospital and we realize
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that you you are injured, but you're not It's not
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: like you can't walk again, which is what Alex was
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: worried about when he heard that fall.
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: I think we were all worried about that.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: I did have back pain, but then like I went
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: to the hospital and they were kind of in disbelief too.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: They were like you fell how far?
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: Like oh my god, and then they did all these
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: tests and they were like, you're fine, you can you
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: can leave. So you know, I had a concussion obviously,
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: but and mentally, I think I was pretty shaken, and
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: it took me a while to kind of like get
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: back to a place where I felt comfortable climbing again,
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: where I could really trust myself. But yeah, I got
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: I got incredibly lucky.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And it's just such a mental Like when you were
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: watching this movie and watching you, I just felt such
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: an understanding of like it's almost I mean, of course
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it's physical, it's all physical, but it is so if
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: not more mental than commensurateto how physical it is.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I want you to talk to me about that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: What part of you do you think is mental and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: for this kind of thing, or and what part is physical?
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think it's massively mental. I think the
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: ability to kind of look at this three thy two
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: hundred foot wall and say, Okay, I'm gonna try to
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: climb it in under twenty four hours. It's just a
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: massive mental and emotional undertaking. And it's really hard to
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: not feel incredibly daunted when you're standing at the bottom.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: So it very much is the process of like breaking
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: it down into these more digestible pieces and maintaining composure
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: of this really long, long period of time. And then
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: there is a level of exhaustion that you eventually reach,
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: you know, halfway up the wall too, they'd the way
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: up the wall or whatever.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: That may be.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: And there is like this mental component of like you
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: have to keep going even though you feel exhausted. I mean,
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: it's just like any endurance sport where you really have
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: to kind of like dig into those mental reserves and
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: the mental endurance in order to kind of like keep moving.
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: And you have to have a lot of belief and
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: a lot of faith that you do have that little
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: bit of extra to keep going.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what would you say to people who are I mean,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: who are struggling with that?
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Because it's any athlete, you know.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I was just at the US Open and you could
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: see people who are not mentally like you know, they're
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: tougher physically than they are mentally, their mental game isn't there.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And then when you see people who are mentally clicked in,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you could see how they are just unbeatable,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: like they just keep going and they keep going. But
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: it's not something that is you know, it's it's not
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: a permanent state of mind to be mentally prepared for something.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: No, it's not.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: But I think that it has to be trained, just
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: like your body has to be trained. And I think
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: that's a lot of things that like maybe amateur athletes
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: don't often recognize, is a lot of these elite athletes
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: are doing mental training alongside their physical training, so they're
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: prepared baring their minds just as well as they're preparing
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: their bodies for like the big the big day or
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: the game or whatever, the match or whatever that is.
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: And it does it takes a lot of work up
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: front to kind of prepare your mind and then you know,
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: be ready for when circumstances arise that are out of
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: your control on the day to kind of like deal
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: with those circumstances and deal with the pitfalls and keep going.
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: I think it it you have to think of it
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: like a muscle. Like I do work with a sports
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: psychologist who kind of like has helped me for years
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: get to the point where I'm ready on the day.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: And I just think that that's often something that's missed
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: is that we also like train our minds just as much.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And do you think you were leaning I mean, of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: course you were leaning on Alex kind of in an
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: emotional way, right, even though he was there to climb
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: with you, you know, because watching it first of all, but
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: they don't show your sports psychologists in this movie.
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: No, it's like a little clip of me talking to
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: her on the phone. Okay, there's like quite a bit
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: of like liability. Liability with that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I would imagine, how did you feel? How did you
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: feel watching this film and seeing yourself at all these
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: different stages in your life.
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: It's funny because everybody sees the film and then they,
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: you know, everybody kind of like thinks they know you
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: and they know your story, and part of that is true.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: But it really truly is just like this little stap
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: shot of my life. And thankfully I really like the movie.
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: I think it's done quite well. I'm really proud of it,
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: and I'm proud of the whole team. And so it's
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: been a really fun kind of reliving of the whole journey.
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: It's been pretty nostalgic, and I think after after I
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: did Golden Gate, I went through this period of time
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: where I was like kind.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: Of downplaying it into my head.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of athletes go through this, you
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: kind of like do the thing, and then you're like
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: a little depressed and everything feels like melancholy and you're like, well,
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: what am I doing now?
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: I'm lost.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: I definitely went through that, and so now that the
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: movies out and I've had some distance from it, it's
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: been really fun to kind of like feel proud. I
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: don't think I felt like this is the most proud
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: I've felt of the actual achievement because I got to
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: kind of like relive it with all these people and
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: people are like inspired by it, and that's just been
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: such a cool process to go through.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how many times have you climbed it since then?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Since you've since you've had a baby.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: No, I haven't. I haven't been back. I mean no,
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: I have been back. I've been back every year. I
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: just haven't been to El Cap. I've climbed in the
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: valley at other areas, other walls that are quite a
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: bit shorter. I haven't quite I haven't quite gotten the
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: like fire back to climb on that wall. Every time
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: I drive into Yosemite, I look at it and I'm like,
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: oh my god, it's so big.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: I can't believe I did that.
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: So I'm yeah, I'm getting there slowly, but it's been
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: kind of a long road to get back to that
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: style of climbing for me. I do still climb a ton,
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: and I train really hard, and thankfully there's all these
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: different styles of climbing that kind of like are a
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: bit easier and less time consuming than free climbing on
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: El Cap. So I still rock climb a bunch. I
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: haven't made it back to El Cap yet, but I
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: really hope, So hope.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So and now.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And you climb with your baby, right, I mean, I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: guess they're not a baby anymore.
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: How, he's two and a half. Yeah, we we try
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: to do trips that are like kind of like friendly
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: for families. We have a bunch of like all of
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: us have kids now. We're just all like aging athletes,
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: like Donald has two kids now. So we all go
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: together and like bring the vans and go and it's
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: just like complete chaos, but we all get to climb
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: and kind of help each other out and it's it's
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: super fun. But yeah, we bring him along. He's like
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: pretty excited. He's pretty stoked on like swinging around on
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: the ropes and like talking about climbing.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: But yeah, it's kind of like a family affair.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Now, another thing I'm really jealous of is that you've
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: skied so many peaks in so many different countries.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: What is it? Eight thousand peaks? Is that what it says?
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Four thousand foot peaks, eight thousand meters, eight thousand meters,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: thousand peaks. Who's counting all those peaks eight thousand meters?
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: I haven't done eight thousand peaks. Yeah, I'm a skier,
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: you're a skier.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I love steeing, yes, but I mean I've ever done
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: anything like that. No, I would be fucking shitting my pants.
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, skiing was my first passion. I started skiing
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: when I was two years old, and I was a
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: ski racer and I quit for climbing, and then I
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: moved to Tahoe when I met my husband and he's
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: he's like a professional big mountain skier, so he's skied
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: like a lot of the biggest mountains in the world,
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: and I've like joined for some of the trips. But
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: for me, skiing is like since rediscovered it. It's a
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: total second passion and it's just like this really amazing
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: alternative to climbing that I have where like I don't
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: have any like weird expectations or performance or like anxiety
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: or identity like wrapped up in skiing, Like skiing is
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: for me, It's like this amazing, fun, lovely activity for
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: me to do with my husband, and it's just like
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: one of my favorite things. Like sometimes I'd much rather
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: go skiing than go climbing because it just is such
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: a like refreshing alternative to like my career, which is
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: right climbing.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Right, right?
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And what ways do you think that you've applied what
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: you've learned from actually accomplishing that and having such not
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a bumpy road, but you know your challenge is along
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the way to accomplish what you set out to do,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: which was climate Capitan in less than twenty four hours.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: On that route.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Like how have you been able to measure how that
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: experience has influenced your like mother, you know, being a mother,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: or and having a baby and being a parent, Like
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: how does it influence your decisions or challenges that you
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: face in your real life?
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I just like to say that having
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: a kid is like embarking on a lifelong expedition. Like
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: when you go on an expedition, it's like you're you're
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: like sleep gets all fucked up, You're like not eating
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: as well as you want. You know, you don't have
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: a routine. Like you're exhausted, but you still have to
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: like perform and you still have to like keep moving
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: forward and you still have to keep trying. And that's
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: kind of what parenting is. It's like some days it
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: like sucks and you're tired and like nobody's had but
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: you just like keep moving and every phase is temporary
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: and you just keep going and like when you look
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: back on it, you're kind of like, oh, yeah, actually,
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: like that was a great memory. That was a super
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: fun time, even though it was like really hard. And
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: so I think we've sort of applied that to our parenting.
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: It's just like another adventure that we're embarking on and
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: we're still like trying to do all the same things.
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: We're still trying to go places. We're trying to be skiers,
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: we're trying to be climbers, we're trying to be athletes,
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: and we're trying to incorporate our son into it. Of course,
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: like things have changed and we've like pivoted a little
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: bit and we have different priorities and we approach risk
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: completely differently than we used to. But that's not to
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: say that we don't still take risks. I think risk
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: is like a very healthy part of living and it's
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: something that we should all like talk more about. So yeah,
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: we just kind of like view it in that framework
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: of like what we've always done in our lives, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: like we're gonna keep doing what we do. We're gonna
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: keep trying hard, We're gonna keep trying to do hard things.
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: Being a parent is also hard, but it's also like
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: really fun and we've chosen it and so this is
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: like our chosen like suffering and our chosen adventure and
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: it's mostly awesome.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I like what you said about taking risks, Like
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: how does that apply to being a parent, Like, what
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: are some ways in which you take risks as a parent,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Because I think people think about that as like a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: solo journey, right, risk taking, Like, oh, that's about me,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and you're only putting yourself at risk.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: But is there any way in which you do that
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: as a parent.
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we take risks in our own like
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: athletic endeavors still my husband and I and we talk
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: very clearly about those things and we you know, kind
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: of like way whether or not the experience of the
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: achievement is going to be worth the risk, and some
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: things just nowadays just aren't as worth it, so we
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: kind of don't do them.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: We back off.
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: But also we like encourage our kid to take risks.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: We encourage him to think about risks, and like if
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: he falls down, he falls down and you learn something
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: from it. We don't really feel like we want to
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: be like the bubble rep parents and kind of like
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: today from yeah, prevent him from mix experiencing like failure
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: and you know, getting hurt and stuff like that. I mean,
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: obviously there's like guardrails that we have, but I think
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: for the most part we're like pretty soaked on bringing
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: him along for adventures and you know, really opened to
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: talking about risks, and I think, you know, it's going
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: to be harder as he gets older. I think that's
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: the trick with parenting is like when your kid finds
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: their passion, hopefully they find their passion, you know, not
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: really worrying about about those things and really worrying about
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: what could happen to them. I think that's going to
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: be like one of the biggest hurdles right now, it's
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: like all very simple. He's too, so like's not it's
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: not that hard. The decisions aren't that hard yet.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the movie you talk about the first time
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: you went rock climbing and like that you said a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: light turned off.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I would say probably on or off. Right, when you.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Experience that, just talk to a little bit about finding
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the thing that moves you.
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: I feel super lucky that I had that experience. I
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: was ten years old and we.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Were at this I grew up in Colorado.
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: We're at this lake and there was one of those
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: artificial walls and I climbed the wall and I just
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: remember like I was really afraid because I could like
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: feel the air under my feet and I felt exposure
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: and I was like feeling fear, but I just like
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: kept going, kept going and got to the top and
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: came down. And it was just like this really empowering
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: feeling to like be afraid and feel exposure but continue
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: to work through it and get to the top. And
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: it was just one of those feelings where I just
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: I immediately went to my dad and I was like,
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: how do I do this again? Like this is what
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: I want to do. I just I want to do
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: that again. So I went, he took me to the
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: climbing gym and then everything just took off from there.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: And I know it's obviously a mostly male sport, like
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: everything in the world is. So what is the community
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: like with climbers because in the movie there's feature you know,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: there's other climbers featured summer, mostly male, there's a couple
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: of women in there. What's the vibe like, do you
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: go in a group typically? Do you ever go by
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: yourself or is that a no no, you always need
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a buddy.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it depends on what you're doing. I will say
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: that climbing is is it's growing massively. It's an Olympic
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: sport now, and it's just like exploding across the world
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: in terms because of climbing gyms, I think, and the
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: female participation has just skyrocketed. And it is one of
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: the only sports I think where the difference between men
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: and women is quite a bit narrower, and it's getting
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: more narrow Like some of the best climbers in the
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: world are females. Some of the most well known climbers
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: in the world are females. Because it is a very
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: complicated sport, it rewards strength, but it also rewards flexibility,
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: and it also rewards like you know, puzzle like the
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: ability to solve puzzles, and it rewards body awareness. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: so there are these spaces where females can really excel
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: and we have and we do have these like standout
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: achievements in climbing, like what Lynn Hill did in the
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: early nineties when she was the first person to free
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: climb l Cap in a day like that is like
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: the most groundbreaking achievement in rock climbing and it is
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: owned by a woman and everybody knows it. So in
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: that way, climbing is very unique. That said, there are
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: you know, there's obviously more male participation than female. And
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: when I was growing up, I basically like just climbed
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: with boys. There weren't that many girls. But now it's
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: like just so different. Yeah, when we go round climbing, generally,
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: if you're climbing with a rope, you have a partner.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: And so I go with my husband or I have
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: friends around. I have a lot of friends, like I said,
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: who have kids now, so we kind of can all
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: go together. If I'm going to the climbing gym, I
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: sometimes will just go by myself and put my headphones
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: in and just like go get my workout in. That's
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: like the most effective, easiest way to train is to
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: just like go by yourself and do your thing. So, yeah,
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: it's a mix. But if you're going outside, generally I
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: have a partner because I like to climb on a
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: rope or with a rope.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Do you mentor any young climbers and a young females.
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think I'm sort of stepping into
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: that role as a mentor right now, especially with the
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: film coming out. I'm also a part of the north
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: Face Global Athlete Team, which is this really amazing like
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: it's a very well formed team of athletes and we
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: get together and there are opportunities to mentor the younger athletes.
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: I've now been on the team since two thousand and eight,
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: so I'm like one of the older athletes on the team.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: And growing up I had mentors like Conrad Ankor who
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: brought me to Mount Everest and Hillary Nelson who's in
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: the film. And so now I'm sort of stepping into
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: that role with the younger athletes on the team, which
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: has been super fun. And then also I'm now working
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: with this nonprofit called z Girls, which is like mental
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: health coaching for adolescent girls. And what it is is
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: they like pair a professional athlete with a mental health
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: coach and we do these like virtual calls where we
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: kind of help young girls they're like ages eleven to fourteen,
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: kind of like deal with all the struggles of being
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: an adolescent and confidence and all of those things. And
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: so that's been kind of a really cool way to
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: like mentor just more young women.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I was so amazed watching the film, Like when you
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: guys whipped out of bed like on the side of
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the mountain, I was like, wait, they're gonna go fucking
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: sleep now. I'm like, I mean, it's kind of amazing
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: what you can bring up there with you. Because the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: definition of free climbing. You tell me, what's the definition
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: of free climbing?
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so free climbing is exactly what you imagine it
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: to be. It is using your hands and feet to
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: ascend a wall and no, you're use No, you use
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: a rope. So this is where it gets confused. Okay,
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: free climbing is using your hands and feet to ascend
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: a wall, and you use a rope and protection in
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: case of a fall. Now, that's so it's meant to
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: be compared against aid climbing, which is how like back
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: in the sixties they climbed walls like l cap they
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: would like place protection and pull on the protection and
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: they would use the ropes. That's called aid climbing because
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: they thought it was impossible to free climb, like they
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: thought it was impossible to climb just the rock itself.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: And now we have free climbing. The reason that it
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: got fucked up is I blame Alex Honald because of
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: free solo. Everybody the term free everybody just associates that
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: with like no ropes. Free solo is actually free climbing
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: without a rope. Okay, it's the term solo that differentiates it.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: So free climbing is anything. If you've ever been to
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: a climbing gym and you're like climbing on the little
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: the colored holes, that is free climbing. Like anytime you're
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: just using your hands and feet to a sand that's
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: free climbing. It's just like this umbrella term. And in
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: general we use rope and protection in case of a fall.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: And what are you doing to eat on your way up?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: What are you taking for nutrients?
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: I'm kind of like a snacker, so I would bring
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: just like a variety of like bars and dried fruit
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: and nuts and salty things, a lot of water.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: We had like a good support crew with us, so
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: like Alex had a backpack with a bunch of stuff
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: in it, and he wasn't free climbing. He was like
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: ascending the rope behind me, so he could carry like.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: A lot more.
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: And then yeah, we had Adrian brought down some food
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: for me. So yeah, it's just like kind of it's
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: kind of like running an ultra marathon or like running
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: a long race. It's like you kind of want to
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: be fueling a little bit every hour essentially.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what did you think, Catherine when you watched the movie?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, did you have to watch it twice?
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: Like me?
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: I didn't watch it twice. I was wrapped, Like my
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: attention was just so wicky.
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: Up.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: It's really intense. I mean it really like real, just
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: tough stuff.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: Two things that really were shocking to me, one being
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: the choice to sort of announce that you were going
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: to do this project, that you were going to free
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: climb l Cap. Not the easiest route, but you know,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: a different route a harder route in under twenty four
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: hours before you did it, because if you hadn't announced it,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: like no one would know that you, you know, quote
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: unquote failed a few times. No one would know if
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: you never made it. But I thought that was so
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: interesting that you chose to do that.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Did you do that so that you would do it?
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know.
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: I think like in this day and age, like as
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: an athlete, you're kind of like your own brand, and
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: so you do have to tell stories. And I'm a
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: firm believer in kind of like bringing people along for
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: the ride in all of its forms, like it in
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: the failure and the success. And I think people are
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: the people are so like kind of drawn to the
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: film is because they can relate to it because there
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: is a lot of failure and because they did tell
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: the story. And I wasn't afraid to like be vulnerable.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: And you wanted to give up, and there were times
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: where you wanted to give up even while you were climbing.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: You were like, forget it, I can't do it, And
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: they're like you're gonna do your husband, and I believe
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: was like you're going to do it today, you know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Like I mean that is anything that is something that
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: anybody can relate to, is failing and wanting to give
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: up and throw in the towel. But the perseverance really
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: what separates you know, the winners.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: And the other thing about that is that was after
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: you had had a fall on that success, you know,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: the attempt that you were successful, and that fall is
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: so excruciating to watch where you just head first hit
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: the wall, I mean.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: And then end up with a hole in your head. Yeah.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: But the fact that you.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Like stop, you have yourself a little cry, and then
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: you go the rest of the way the fuck up
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: the mountain Like that, to me was so incredible. And
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: you know what you were saying earlier about showing emotion,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: that is a perfect example of that. Like you got
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: that out of your system and then you kept going.
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's what I tell people. It's like people
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: are like, how did you keep going?
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: Like you wanted to give.
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: Up, and it's like, yeah, I didn't want to give up,
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: but I kind of knew, Like I also needed Adrian
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: there to be like, Nope, you're not You're not done.
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: I would tell you if you were done, like you
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: you're fine, Like we did first aid and everything. I
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: didn't actually have a concussion, but I really needed to,
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: like like you said, I needed to like get it
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: out of my system and like have the cry express
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: all the doubts, like express that I wasn't feeling confident.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: And then it was like, okay, like all of that's
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: out there. I got it off my chest and now
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: I can like try again, which, honestly, like logistically it
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: kind of was the easiest thing to do. Like, bailing
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: at that position on the wall is quite difficult, Like
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: you're not it's not just like you're gonna like hop
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: in your car and you know, go home and have
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: an idea.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: It does happen when one bails at that point, because
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I would think you would just lay down or repel down.
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: Or super convoluted and really difficult to do, Like you
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: can't really repel straight down off that section the wall
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: for various nuanced reasons. The easiest way is up, so
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: you could like ascend ropes basically or aid climb out.
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: But at that point it's like, why don't you just
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: try to climb the pitch one more time? You know,
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: so I like kind of big wall free climbing is cool,
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: and it kind of like forces you into these positions,
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: like you're kind of like forced into trying because it's
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: actually just like kind of the easiest thing to do
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: in the moment.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: And what is that called?
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: When you're sandwiched in between like like in a cave,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: when you're a crack, Yeah, the crack is what's the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: term for that?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Is just a crack?
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, it's crack climbing when you're ascending a crack.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: But what we when it's like wider then your your
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: hands can fit, then that's called like wide climbing or
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: off with climbing. And it's this super like uncomfortable, like
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: specific style of climbing that is very unique to l
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: cap and other like you know granite.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it seems impossible. It's like it like sucks.
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: It's like my least favorite kind of climbing, and I'm
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: like not that good at it.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: So when you summitted and you got to the top
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: for the first time, when you i mean the way
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: you wanted to, I think you had done it before,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: but not that like not free climbing, right, So the
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: first time you did it and you break down and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: you're emotional and you're joyful and all the things, and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: you say this really great line about like you're hungry,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you're wet, you're cold, but everything is perfect something along
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: those lines.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Which I thought is a great love that line. Yeah,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: it's really.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Beautiful, and I kind of sums up everything that anyone
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: would feel after fighting your way to get somewhere. What
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: was it like for you to watch yourself do that
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and be in that state?
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: It's so awesome.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Like I always whenever the film is premiering and I
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: have to be at a premiere, I always leave for
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: the middle, and then I always make sure to come
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: back for the end because I do. It's like it's
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: just so special and I just feel so lucky that,
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: you know, I got to I get to experience it again.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: It was just such a relief, honestly, like a relief
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: and surreal and joyful.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: I was just so stoked.
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: And then what people often don't realize is like you
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: have to like walk back down off the top, and
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: it takes like three and a half hours. So we
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: were just like at the top and then we had
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: to walk back down. We got back at like three
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: am or so.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: You walk down off the back of the mountain or
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: you repel back down you.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: Like, no, you don't repel down.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: You kind of like walk back and then wind your
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: way around and you actually end up having to do
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: like three or four repels and then you hike through
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: the woods and down. But it takes like three hours
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: and it's super easy to get lost. It's it's just
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: like a whole thing.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: Especially in the middle of the night.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: And I know, I know, I don't understand how people
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: do this in the middle of the night with a
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: miner's lamp.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: And also all of those hooks.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Are those hooks already on all these mountains, because where
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: do these hooks come from? Like are they permanent on
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: El Capitan that you're hooking.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Your ropes to.
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: Yes, So some of it is so there are bolts
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: that the first ascension is like the people who go
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: up there and like find the line and make the route.
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: Sometimes they put in bolts where they drill a hole
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: in the wall and then they hammer in a bolt
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: and you can clip a carabiner to that and that's
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: how you clip your open. So the bolts are permanent.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: And then we have like traditional gear, which is like
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: we have these devices called cams and they're like they're
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: like pieces of metal and you squeeze, you squeeze a
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: trigger and it like contracts and you stick it in
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: the crack and it expands and it's actually super solid
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: and we'll hold a fall. But you put those in
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: and then you remove them. So we have like gear
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: that can be placed permanently and then gear that can
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: be removed, and it kind of just depends on the
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: style of climbing in the place. Some places have specific
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: rules about bolts, like some don't allow it, so it's
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: all like again, very nuanced, but yes, some of the
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: gears up there and some of them we bring with
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: us and like put it in and take it out.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, we're going to take a break and we're
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: going to be right back with Emily Harrington from a
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Girl Climber. And we're back with Emily Harrington from Girl Climber,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: who set a record, well, she said a lot of records.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: You've won a lot of awards, but we'll cover all
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: of that in your intro, so you don't have to
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: listen to all of your awards for me, because you're
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: a five time US National Champion climber.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: So okay, we're back.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: We are back.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: We're back with Emily.
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: Are you ready to get.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to feel some We're going to field some
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: questions from callers and give some advice and I'm sure
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: these are related to your experience.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: And I'll be in your wheelhouse more.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, our first question, this one's an email, comes
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: from Molly. She says, Dear Chelsea, I need travel recommendations
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: and advice on how to have fun, feel empowered, but
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: stay safe while traveling solo as a forty four year
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: old female. I'm finally out of a twenty year toxic
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: marriage and looking forward to finding myself again on the
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: slopes after years of raising kids without much of a
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: partner financially, scraping by, and wasting so much time, money,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: and energy on getting legally unhitched. On December twenty fifth,
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: at twelve pm, I will be child free and on
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: winter break from work for over a week.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: Chelsea, where should I go? Taho go ski?
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah? So, she says.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: I used to love to travel Europe, but that was
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: always in his shadow, on his schedule, with his rules.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: I'm an avid s gear I've got all the gear,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: but finances are a thing I've been saving and we'll
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: have about thirty five hundred dollars to spend on the
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: whole trip, soup to nuts. I love all the places
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: you travel, and I'm hoping to reconnect with the independent, intelligent,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: twenty year old woman I was just before I met
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: my ex. In the meantime, maybe I can know what
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: it feels like to reclaim my narrative, even for a week.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: I know you love Whistler, and I'd be all in
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: if I can financially swing it. What are some other
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: places of your favorite places to go in the middle
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: of winter to get away.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: And have fun.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I think Tahoe has the most options and is the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: most affordable. Tell me if I'm wrong. I mean Aspen's expensive,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Whistler's expensive. Tahoe's a little bit more affordable with a
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: lot of array, and they've been having great snow for
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the last like five years.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Do you agree with that, Emily?
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I'm biased, but I love Tahoe and
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: there are that We have so many ski resorts around
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: Lake Tahoe that you can kind of like pick and choose.
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: Some are more expensive than others, Some are more you know,
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: for expert skiers, some are more for beginner skiers. The
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: terrain differs, but you do have a lot of options.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: And a lot of traffic, Like there's gonna be a
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: lot of people there, like in a good way.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: It's Tahoe's really popular and it's accessible. It's not as
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: bad as like some of these other ski towns where
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: there's only one way in and one way out and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: if your flight gets delayed, you're on a bus for
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: eight hours. I feel like Tahoe doesn't have that problem
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: as often as like a place like Aspen does, or
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: even some of like you know, Tell You Ride or
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Jackson Hole, same kind of thing.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think you should go to Tahoe.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: All right, Molly, You're going to Tahoe.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: Excellent.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Well, we do have people calling in, so our first
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: caller today is Scarlet. She says, Dear Chelsea, I could
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: really use your take on a recurring family vacation issue.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: I live in the Rockies with my long term boyfriend.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: My family and his are both on the East Coast.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: To keep things fair, my boyfriend and I split the
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: holidays Thanksgiving with my family Christmas with his, especially because
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: my family is Jewish and Christmas is my boyfriend's favorite
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: holiday to spend with his family. The issue is my
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: mom has a long standing tradition of surprise family Christmas vacations.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: She books the whole thing without telling us the destination,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: just sends a packing list and.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: Reveals where we're going at the airport.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Cute as a kid, but as an adult, she still
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: books my flights and accommodations without asking me, and it
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: has made it difficult to balance the surprise trip and
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: whatever else is going on in my life. I've directly
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: asked her many times to please run trips by me
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: before booking anything on my behalf, but it seems to
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: fall on deaf years or she just ignores me. When
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: you're in law school, I had a chance to go
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: abroad over winter break. I explicitly asked her to wait
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: until I had my travel dates for the program and
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: told her it would be my only opportunity to go
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: before I was done with law school. As soon as
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: I had the dates, I called her and lo and behold,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: she'd already booked the family trip. Anyway, I ended up
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: cramming in both trips, bounced across four time zones, and
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: crashed so hard afterward that I barely kept up with classes.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: I fear this set a bad precedent because now it
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: seems like as long as she books the trip first,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: she gets dips on my ability.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: This, it's a book your trip. This, this is ridiculous.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: So another Christmas issue that came up was the first
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: year that she and her boyfriend decided to spend the
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: holidays together. Her mom booked the Christmas trip without telling her,
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: and so she wound up having to go with her family,
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: and they'd already spent Thanksgiving with her family, so it
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: was a little unfair on his behalf. So now this
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: behavior has expanded to all family events. She gets passive
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: aggressive and I say no. It keeps asking me to reconsider,
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: and honestly, I'm exhausted trying to juggle her expectations with
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: my job as a brand new baby lawyer and my
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: life in law school. I learned that if I don't
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: make in time for myself to recharge, my body will
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: force me to repay that debt later via blinding migraines.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: So here's my question. Is it reasonable to skip family
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: trips even if I'm technically available. Do reasons like work,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: needing a break, or just not wanting to go make
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: me an asshole. I'm so resentful that even her generosity
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: she pays for everything, is starting to feel suffocating.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: Do I need to adjust my attitude, Scarlet?
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: No, I'm suffocated by this letter.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: It's too much. It's too much. She needs to chill out,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: and you need to put it in writing. Like I
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: have asked you repeatedly. You are not listening to me.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: You are not hearing me. You guys are both splitting
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the holidays. Like she has to respect that, Like she
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: has to respect that You're in a different part of
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: your life now, you're an adult. You live with her,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: You're not her little daughter that she has to pay
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: for to take you everywhere. Like that's just not the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: way it needs to go down. So I would recommend
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: writing a very stern email saying you've left me no
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: recourse but to actually write this letter to you. And
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: these are the rules moving forward, Like you're not telling
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: me where I'm going, We're not doing surprise trips anymore.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: You have to get my permission before I agree to
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: go on a vacation. What do you think, Emily?
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, I mean I could never let someone book a
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: flight for me. I can't do and I like, way
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: too controlling to handle that. Yeah, you gotta lay down
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: the lot for sure.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think unfortunately you're going to tell her
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: this again, She's gonna do it again. And I think
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: the only way she's actually going to stop is when
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: you say, like, sorry, those dates are ones I told
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: you we're not a available and then you don't go
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: on the trip. I think this is when she's going
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: to have to learn the hard way.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're gonna have to actually follow through on not
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: going on some of these trips.
• 45:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And I think that's been the hard part, is
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: like I actually have to even though she's paid for it,
• 45:12
  Speaker 7: even if she beat me to booking my own trip,
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: to still say no. And maybe that will finally be
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: when it sinks in What about timing? Do you have
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: any I think putting it in writing is a good idea,
• 45:24
  Speaker 7: but I guess trying to find like a good time
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: to talk about it, you know what I mean?
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Or I don't know any.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly today, you should do this today, like start
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: crafting that email today so that because the holidays are
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: coming up and you're going to face this issue again
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: and you have to give her something that's close enough
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: to the holidays. It's perfect timing. Go in preparation for
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the holidays this year. That's how you could start it out.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I'm giving you this advance warning. I do not want
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: you planning a vacation. Unfortunately, I've tried to express myself
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: over the years, and you're not listening to me. This
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: is what we're doing. We're spending Thanksgiving here or do
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: you know whatever? You decide that how you guys are
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: going to split like what you've been doing.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: And you can even give her the range of dates now,
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: you know, because I guarantee she's already looking.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: She's already looking.
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: For all like she's already booked it.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I get that, But that's if you want to go.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Do you want to go away with her this year?
• 46:12
  Speaker 7: Not over Christmas? No? And I don't, And I think that, yeah,
• 46:17
  Speaker 7: Like I think from here on out, I'm just not going.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: And I think what's been tough is that like if
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: I miss.
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: That or like she's kind of been like score keeping
• 46:26
  Speaker 7: or she kind of like tracks stuff. So it's like
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: for other family vacations too, She'll be like, well, you
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: can work remote over here.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: We'll pay for everything.
• 46:33
  Speaker 7: Versus like kind of unders like she only accepts a
• 46:36
  Speaker 7: logistical reason for why I can't go. She doesn't really
• 46:39
  Speaker 7: accept like a I don't have the bandwidth for it
• 46:42
  Speaker 7: right now, you know what I mean, Like she wants
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: like a real issue versus like, yeah, I don't know
• 46:47
  Speaker 7: how to kindly explain, like it's not that I don't
• 46:50
  Speaker 7: want to see them, it's that I'm too I don't know,
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: like I just don't have the bandwidth or the energy
• 46:54
  Speaker 7: or I just like would rather spend that time doing
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: something else.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, you don't have to say that,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: but you can just say that her controlling at like
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: nature is taking the fun out of these vacations for you. Also,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: you know that it makes you want to withdraw or
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: retreat that you don't necessarily want to go because of
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: her insistence upon going.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: And I think the blinding migraines are a really solid
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: reason I do need to take that time to restore,
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: because that's when people are gone, that's when nobody needs me.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Like that, we find ourselves in that situation as well
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: as like people who don't live in the same place
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: as we grew up, it's sort of on us to
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: travel and we had to make the decision a few
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: years ago of like that's the only time we get
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: to rest for the year, so like we're going to
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: stay home and we do miss Christmas with our families.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Emily, what do you guys do with your families, your
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: respective families and the holidays.
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's pretty similar. Like we we definitely
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: have to kind of like massage the situation a little
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: bit sometimes and like accommodate people. But at the same time,
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: I think traveling is exhausting and I think it can
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: be really hard on like your body, and so I
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: like being home for holidays and I kind of like
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: laid on the law with it a little bit. We'll
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: do like Okay, we'll do Thanksgiving with you, but we're
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: not doing Christmas or vice versa.
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's kind of one of those things.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: It's like you kind of like you want to be
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: there and you want to like show that you love them,
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: but only to a certain extent. Like sometimes vacations can
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: be like super stressful, stressful and.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Hard, especially with your families.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and like the family is important, but also
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: like if you you want to be like in a
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: good mood, and having good time with people when you're
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: on the vacation. You don't want to be like resentful
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: the whole time.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Also, you can also threatn like like if you don't
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: listen to me now, then our next step is going
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: to therapy together, you know what I mean. If you
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: don't if you don't care me now, we're gonna have
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: to go to a therapist, because that's what you're gonna
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: have to do.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: You're gonna have to have someone mediate.
• 48:43
  Speaker 7: Mm hmmm, yeah, because I think that's what's the other
• 48:46
  Speaker 7: thing that's interesting about She gets to plan everything. She
• 48:49
  Speaker 7: picks the destination and all of that sort of stuff.
• 48:51
  Speaker 7: There's no buy in from anybody, you know, Like there
• 48:54
  Speaker 7: isn't like a back and forth. It's just this thing
• 48:56
  Speaker 7: that's decided for us. And it's just been hard to
• 48:59
  Speaker 7: yeah that, and I'm getting like very resentful of the
• 49:02
  Speaker 7: whole thing.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: So okay, well good luck. Let us know what happens. Yeah,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I will, even though we know what's going to happen
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: right away. We want the long term repercussions or the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: long term outcome not repercussion.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Email us after you write the email, and then also
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: in January, when you've had to have her cancel your
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: part of the tree.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll see all right. Thanks Carle.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Joe. So night's meet you.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Bye bye, Scarlett, thanks for calling in.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: Thanks bys nice.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: So let's go to another caller here. We've got Rachel
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: calling in, she says, Dear Chelsea. I'll start off by saying,
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: I have a difficult relationship with my brother's wife. They've
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: been together for over a decade, and our family has
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: stayed mom and just accepted the fact that she's not
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: going anywhere until I found out that they've been having
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: marital issues and she suggested a divorce. As much as
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: I want to celebrate this news, my heart broke for
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: my brother. Fast forward to now and I find out
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: they're supposedly doing great. How am I supposed to accept
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: this and act like I don't know about their past issues.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Everyone telling me to leave it alone because I'm not
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: supposed to even know this in the first place, But
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: I want to talk to.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: My brother about it. What should I do? Rachel?
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Hi?
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Rachel, this is our special guest, Emily Harrington's here today.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 50:12
  Speaker 6: Hello, nice to meet you both.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: Hi.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Are you hiding in a closet? Right now calling us
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I am perfect. Okay.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: So you heard that they were having problems from who
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: told you?
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: I was praying?
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, And so you've never heard anything from your brother
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: regarding that.
• 50:31
  Speaker 6: I have not heard anything from the source, but I
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: have heard it from now multiple sources at this point.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: But you're and he's saying everything's fine with their marriage.
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: Well, as of the latest update about a week ago,
• 50:43
  Speaker 6: things are back to not being great.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, Well, I think what you should do is
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: very innocently let your brother know that you're there to
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: lean on if he needs that. But I would I
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: would assume, just from what you've told me and the
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: fact that you are in a closet, that your brother
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: knows how you feel about his wife and is probably
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: not going to come to you with any information. So
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: all you can do is just let him know that
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: you're there if he needs to talk to you about anything.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: And I wouldn't even make it specific to his marriage.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I would just remind him that you're his sister and
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: that you love him, and that if there's anything he
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: ever needs or wants to talk about, that you're available,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and I would leave it at that.
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: Okay. I've been thinking about doing that. I just worry
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: about by doing that, he's gonna know something's up, which then.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're going to like even if no one
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: told you.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: You can tell when people are like not getting along
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: having a difficult time, Like you can just say I've
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: picked up on some things, you know, if he asks.
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what I was kind of hoping towards. Like
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: the vibe seemed to be kind of weird.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: You can say something like that, but just don't be
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: you know, like when people aren't revealing things, it's hard
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: to go in on them hard, you know, like tell
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: me everything, Like it can't be gossip. It's his life,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: So just be sensitive to the fact. Emily, do you
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: agree with that?
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: I think being sensitive and being like, yeah, expressing that
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: you're you're there and you're supportive and you're a sounding
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: board and you're always available to chat is good. It's
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: hard because you kind of like never know what's really
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: going on in a relationship. Yeah, unless you're like in
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: the relationship.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Even then sometimes you don't know what's going on, yeah, exactly.
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: And it just seems to be so like lip flop
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: back and forth, so I never know, like where they
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: stand one day, and so I'm like, when do I
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: approach it? What do I say? Yeah, even though I've
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: never said anything, You're right, like he knows my feelings
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: about his life.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's better to come, especially if he's having
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: trouble with her like he might have. You know, Oh,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I can't talk to you because you already don't like her,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? You have to kind of
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: open up the avenue to say, like, anything is safe here,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: it's okay. You don't have to gang up on whatever's
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: going on with her. It's like you just want to
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: be there to be a support and listen to him.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: You don't have to go, yeah she's such a bitch,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: or I can't believe her. When are you gonna leave her?
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: That's not the right approach. I think you should really
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: just be dialed into showing up for him and helping
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: him in any way that he feels comfortable asking for help,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: because men are hard to help sometimes, you know, they
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: don't they're not effusive like women.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: We're not emotional. I mean, Emily and I were just
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: speaking about that.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: You know how it's so much healthier to be able
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: to express your emotions, and I think the people that
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: bring that out best in men are typically women.
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, especially my brother.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we wish you well.
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: Thank you, appreciate it was so nice meeting you both.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Nice to meet you too. Take care, take care.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Take care, okay, and we'll be right back with Emily Harrington. Okay,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and we're back with Emily Harrington from Girl Climber, which
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: is going to be available for everyone to see. It's
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: a fucking awesome movie displaying true grit, true strength, and
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: true determination three things and follow through. I think follow
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: through is the most important thing here. Setting a goal
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: and doing whatever it took to get there, and making
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: adjustments along the way after failing, after falling, literally falling,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and making those adjustments to actually achieve a goal. So
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: it's a great example and testament to a strength of mind,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: you know, great fortitude. So thank you so much for
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: being our guest today, Emily. I loved the movie. I'm
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: going to watch it again and again and again. I
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: think it's just a great movie for every woman to watch. Yeah, agreed, Yeah,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: thank you, well, thank you so much. Yes, take care
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: for having me on. Yes, absolutely, bye bye bye. Guys,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I just announced all my tour dates. They just went
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: on sale this week. It's called the High and Mighty Tour.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I will be starting in February of next year.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: So I will be touring from February through June.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: So go get your tickets now.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: If you want good seats and you want to come
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: see me perform, I will be on the High and.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: My Do you want advice from Chelsea, Write into Dear
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: Chelsea Podcast at gmail dot com. Find full video episodes
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching at Dear Chelsea Pod.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert executive
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: producer Katherine law And be sure to check out our
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: merch at Chelseahandler dot com