Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1123: Climbing El Cap in Your 70s - Diedre Wolownick

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Ep. 1123: Climbing El Cap in Your 70s - Diedre Wolownick · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But free hanging in front of a cave, there's nothing to stop you.
0:10
[SPEAKER_01]: The wind would spin me, it would flip me around.
0:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Episode 1123, Deja Wallenic on Climbing and Marathoning in your 50s, 60s, and even your 70s.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello and welcome again to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I am so excited about visiting with our guest today.
0:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a remarkable woman.
0:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me tell you some of the things that she's accomplished.
0:52
[SPEAKER_03]: She's a musician playing multiple instruments.
0:55
[SPEAKER_03]: She started a symphony.
0:57
[SPEAKER_03]: She has written several books.
1:00
[SPEAKER_03]: She set the world record for climbing El Capitan at the age of 66 and then broke it again by climbing it at the age of 70.
1:08
[SPEAKER_03]: At 73, she climbed the i-corn pinnacle.
1:11
[SPEAKER_03]: She speaks eight languages.
1:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw one place that seven another says eight.
1:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to go with age.
1:16
[SPEAKER_03]: She is a marathoner.
1:18
[SPEAKER_03]: She has documentaries.
1:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Can anybody guess who this lady is?
1:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Dear Dr. Wollinick.
1:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Dear Dr. Wollinick, welcome to the Adventures Sports podcast.
1:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me.
1:31
[SPEAKER_03]: It's pleasure.
1:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited to visit with you because not just all the things that you've done but the time and life when you did them and all of the ways that you have contributed back to the world, Deirdreite.
1:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's it's delightful to get to visit with someone who has has given back this much.
1:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Deirdre, you were on the Adventure Sports podcast a couple of times over the years, and I have not had the honor of interviewing you since Mason got to do those interviews, so I'm super excited to interview you this time, and I don't even know really where to start, except maybe we should ask some why questions, you started climbing at the age of 59 years old.
2:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that's not normal for most people.
2:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
2:19
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing at all normal about my life.
2:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And when did you start running marathons?
2:24
[SPEAKER_01]: At 55.
2:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I was running at 55, but marathons at 56.
2:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, in one year you made it to a marathon.
2:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
2:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, that's impressive.
2:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So most folks, they try to do all these things in their 20s and when they get to your 50s, they're kind of like, hey, I did the things and now I'm 50 and I don't have to.
2:44
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I got a rest.
2:45
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not what you did.
2:46
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I don't know.
2:48
[SPEAKER_03]: So what was it that inspired you to become so active in your 50s and above?
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was always active.
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: with the dog riding my bike, when everyone I was a kid, I was very active, but we all were back then.
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We always played out in the street all the time.
3:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I settled down, if you will.
3:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I got all my degrees, I started teaching, and I got married, I moved across the country, and I did all these things.
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of settled me into a life that was more or less sedentary, but that wasn't me though, you know, it wasn't me.
3:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It never felt like me.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I always wanted to be out there doing stuff.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But I had to do this and I had kids and then I had these outrageously, what do you want to come active?
3:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Active kids and two extreme athletes.
3:38
[SPEAKER_01]: They trained out to be extreme athletes both of them.
3:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's very, that's very demanding on a parent.
3:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was basically a single parent.
3:46
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband had very little to do with any of us, and he traveled all the time and, oh, wow.
3:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That didn't end well.
3:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was always alone with the kids and, oh, so I never had a minute to myself.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when that started, and then people started dying in the family and I inherited these houses I had to deal with, I had to remodel stuff in Pennsylvania from California by phone, all this stuff going on.
4:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I couldn't do anything really for me for years, decades, and then that started to lighten up.
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I got the houses done, I sold the ones I wanted to sell.
4:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, I think the kids moved out, started doing their own thing, and things settled down for me, and then I realized, okay, now it's my time.
4:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I can go back out there and do stuff, and I really wanted to, and I did.
4:38
[SPEAKER_03]: That's fantastic.
4:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I've long been a proponent of staying active.
4:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And I believe that especially as we age, staying active is one of the keys to being able to be active.
4:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when you start, it gets much harder to start again.
4:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
4:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Starting in your 50s, I mean, that took some determination.
4:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Was it hard at first?
4:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, heck yeah.
4:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Heck yeah, it was really hard.
4:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, well, it was hard, but I really wanted to try these things.
5:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had never tried, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Cunning wasn't a sport when I was young.
5:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it wasn't known by anybody.
5:14
[SPEAKER_01]: People in the Alps, perhaps, been mad here and I grew up in New York City.
5:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody, you know, we kind of trees, yeah, we kind of fences and things, but it wasn't a sport.
5:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my son started doing that and nothing but that, in fact.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to know what his life was like.
5:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh yeah.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: got to a point I mean I would get after he was like upper teens he started going out all the time climbing you know out out way out and I didn't know you know where he was exactly I mean he would tell me you know off-ended comments about what they done but he knew I didn't understand I knew I didn't understand so he would bother going into any detail so so every time he'd lead the house I kind of suspected that it might be the last time I'd ever see him
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, especially when I started getting all this in the publications, you know, his address was still my home, you know, so I get always mail and I get this at I'd open a magazine he got in the mail and I'd I'd see these pictures where you've seen some of the pictures of my son is and I'd see you saying I say I said oh, no, I must be misinterpreting that he can't really be doing that, you know, what I'm thinking
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: and I would put it aside and go remodeling on other house or go teaching other classes, and I'd always be busy, ridiculously busy.
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had no help, I had no friend.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no social connections in the Westhip because we had just moved there before all this started to happen.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband died, my father died, my father and my dad.
6:50
[SPEAKER_01]: All this started to happen.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was new in Northern California.
6:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know anybody.
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had no help with anything.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
6:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So when that started to calm down, you know, and now I started to go out, my daughter was already gone to went to college in the great Northwest up in Oregon and really never came back and she still lives up there.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I decided it was my time.
7:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I needed to find out what my son's life was like and more than that, I needed to find out how he and his friends.
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They were all, they were teenagers to me.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they were goofy teenagers.
7:28
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have jobs most of them.
7:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't, they didn't do anything but climb.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't know what that meant.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to know how these goofy teenagers kept themselves safe out there.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't understand how it worked, you know.
7:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to experience it a little bit.
7:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to see what it was like, how they kept themselves safe.
7:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And what he was up to when he left the house, and then after a while it started to be real expeditions, not just him going climbing, but with North Face or with Balak Diamond or with National Geographic.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I really wanted to know what this whole life was like, and so I had him take me to the climbing gym one day, when he was home, he was nursing an injury, an arm injury, so he couldn't climb.
8:16
[SPEAKER_01]: but he could be late.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So he took me around, you know, show me the ropes.
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So he took me to the gym and he showed me the ropes and showed me how to do everything.
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And next day he left again for, I don't know, how many months or so.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was on my own.
8:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So we were interrupted there, but Deirdre, you were talking about how you were getting into climbing in how your son had shown you the ropes briefly and then left for an extended period of time.
8:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And you were on your own.
8:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So what did you do?
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was still teaching, I always saw an overload, an overload.
8:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That means you have a full-time overload plus another course at the college.
8:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I was surprised.
8:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I was surprised.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Teaching, I did it for the money, a teaching doesn't pay worth the dawn, you know.
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I needed more because I was on my own now, you know.
9:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I always had no go.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was busy busy busy.
9:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And this bothered me and back in my mind, I had really enjoyed that afternoon with Alex and the Klimi gem.
9:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
9:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It had surprised me greatly, because all my life, everybody says, oh, I'm afraid of heights.
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, I know.
9:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's afraid of heights, which is a good thing.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's self-preservation.
9:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're not afraid of the height I discovered.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the falling off the height that they're afraid of.
9:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And so right, you know, he solved that for me.
9:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And while I was there at the gym with him, I figured maybe I'll do a half a wall, and I'll find out what it's all like, and then I'll go home happy.
9:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how it happened.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I did the whole wall.
9:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to the top and I was sure I wouldn't be able to look down because I'm afraid of heights and if like everybody else.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I got to the top.
9:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I looked at it.
9:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm giving my big smile away.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized that the strongest climber in the world is belaying me.
10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to fall anywhere.
10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that went away.
10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so...
10:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt good about it and I wanted to try it again so it took me like six seven weeks before I got up the courage to go back there alone because I didn't know anything I didn't know anything about the gear I didn't have any gear I had to rent everything I didn't know how anything when I went back I couldn't get the harness on
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It was one of those rental harnesses with all kinds of flaps and buckles and I almost had to go back up to the counters and say, I can't do this.
10:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if we learned to tie the rope once, well, that goes boy in about five minutes in your memory.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And you had to do it, you had to show me how to do it, but I don't be dying if I could.
10:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So that first day was rough, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.
11:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I have to let the audience in on our little secret here.
11:05
[SPEAKER_03]: So far, you've said you had two extreme athlete children.
11:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And a lot of people know who you are, but for those who don't, this is really funny.
11:13
[SPEAKER_03]: You also said that your son Alex was a climber.
11:16
[SPEAKER_03]: But you just said the strongest climber in the world.
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So, who is your son?
11:23
[SPEAKER_01]: This one, well, not the strongest climber in the world.
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But the most famous climber in the world.
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Alex Arnold.
11:28
[SPEAKER_01]: The guy who climbed, the guy who climbed El Capitán without a rope and what an awesome rope.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
11:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
11:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I've heard Alex interviewed several times about that day, D.D.D., and I don't want to dwell on that because I want to talk about what you've done.
11:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
11:43
[SPEAKER_03]: But one of the things that Alex said that I do want to throw out there, and he made a really good point of it, is...
11:50
[SPEAKER_03]: There are days when he wouldn't solo, and first of all because he knew he had to be on his game, but also that when you develop a skill and you're very, very, very good at it, then climbing something that might be a challenge for someone else is more like climbing a ladder for you, and he always tried to stay within his limits.
12:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And so while what he did was world record breaking astounding, phenomenal.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
12:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, phenomenal.
12:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I heard him outline how he learned how to do that and how cautious he was.
12:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And that he's more likely to get hurt on a rope because that's when he can take some chances.
12:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
12:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, I just wanted to highlight that because I really respected his approach to the sport.
12:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I do too.
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I do too.
12:36
[SPEAKER_03]: But I respect you as the mother.
12:39
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you raise these kids?
12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it was hard.
12:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they were he was he was born the way he is, you know, he was wow
12:50
[SPEAKER_01]: He was, the day he was born at 11 hours old, he could stand up, which is unheard of, babies, unheard of because they don't have the muscles yet.
13:02
[SPEAKER_01]: He had powerful thighs.
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you let him, you know, like babies, or always grasping, and if you put out your little pinky and let him hold onto your pinky on your lap, he could stand up, which is,
13:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely unheard of, but you know everyone you came in so I and the first thing everybody said We were living in my in-laws house when we had him because we had just come back from Japan where we lived for four years And so we didn't have a house.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't have jobs.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't have insurance So I had to leave the hospital at 11 hours because we didn't have insurance and so so all the neighbors Sorry to come in see the new baby at 11 hours.
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh and the first thing everybody said when they looked into the little bass And my mother-in-law had kept a little bass in it for a
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: or her grandchildren.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: First thing everybody said was not all how cute, not all jokes just like Mama did.
13:51
[SPEAKER_01]: None of that.
13:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What big hands he has.
13:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So first thing everybody said.
13:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was born Freddie at huge myths, powerful hands and powerful thighs.
14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's all he everyone had to do.
14:05
[SPEAKER_01]: so and that worked out well for him yeah it did but it was it was horrible for me for many years because we didn't know what he was capable of back then but at two he could you know he could do one arm pull ups at two I mean little kids can't do stuff like that and wow yeah he's crazy crazy capable physically you know
14:26
[SPEAKER_01]: but I had no experience with little boys.
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I had had the perfect little girl quiet, thoughtful, you know, able to entertain herself and then we had Alex.
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And mostly on my own with them and God, it was so hard.
14:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, dear Dr. Did you try to teach him to play the piano?
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I tried to teach them everything I know, you know, so he doesn't have the fine motor skills, you know, like in junior high he played the flute and they gave him the flute to play in the band, you know, and didn't work because he doesn't have the fine motor skills, like writing, writing script, can't do it, he just can't do it.
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not his forte.
15:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, of course.
15:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I was I was just kind of laughing because you said he had very large hands and piano rock Montenoff.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
15:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Great for someone with hands like that, you know.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: True.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: True.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: If you wanted that, but he didn't want that.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You wanted it to be outside.
15:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and I saw that coming.
15:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I was just thinking health.
15:30
[SPEAKER_03]: It would be a funny scene had you tried and tried and tried to try to teach at the piano and only wanted to do is Be outside scrambling around so basically it about everything everything everything we tried to teach or I tried to teach.
15:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, except language.
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He's very good at language.
15:47
[SPEAKER_01]: He's very articulate and he's trying to go, you know, now.
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So well,
15:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Not all fluently, you know, I can get by and several of them.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can get by and I sound good, you know, I sound a bit, everybody understands me, but several of them are fluent.
16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I raised my kids in foreign language just because I could.
16:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I know just a little of a few languages not enough to be leaving it by.
16:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I only speak English, and I feel like it's been one of the things in my life that I have yet to accomplish is becoming efficient in some language besides my birth tongue.
16:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So, why do you know so many languages?
16:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it sort of was a natural progression.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in New York City after World War II, like a few years, handful of years after the war ended.
16:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And New York was over one with people who had escaped the aftermath of the war all over Europe.
16:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
16:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's absolutely over all over, you know.
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like our block, it was like 50 houses long, you know, 25 and 25 across the city.
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And every house, it was a different culture, a different language, different music, different foods, you know.
17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'd go to my girlfriend's house and I'd have to be polite, sociable, you know, with grandma and grandpa, say hello.
17:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I grew up that way.
17:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And in our family, all the old people, to us, all the adults spoke, all the grown-up spoke Polish.
17:18
[SPEAKER_01]: and so when you know family gatherings and stuff, everything was impolished.
17:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up that way.
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It was totally, and everybody I knew also grew up that way.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, except the Irish kids that they all spoke English on me, but everybody else.
17:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was a fascinating way to grow up.
17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I learned so much about different foods in different languages and different cultures, different clothes, and different music, the music I loved.
17:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, everywhere I drove, it was different.
17:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They had different instruments, like a bazookie across a street, you know, the stringed instrument of Greece, and down the road, they had mandalans, and so it was an amazing way to grow up.
17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also loved the languages.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So because my brother grew up there too,
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't, he didn't know how that could be.
18:02
[SPEAKER_03]: But you were interested.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
18:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Good for you.
18:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to just recap here.
18:08
[SPEAKER_03]: You're a musician.
18:10
[SPEAKER_03]: You speak eight languages.
18:11
[SPEAKER_03]: You've run marathons.
18:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You climbed El Capitan twice.
18:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And I coined Pinnacle.
18:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And you didn't climb them when you were young.
18:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I didn't.
18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't.
18:24
[SPEAKER_03]: So how hard was it to get up El Cap?
18:26
[SPEAKER_03]: The first and second time.
18:28
[SPEAKER_03]: How stringuous is it?
18:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to correct a little bit of what you said.
18:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind it once with Alex on Jumar, using Jumar's, you know, Jumar's are a mechanical ascenders that attach to the rope, they also attach to your harness and to your foot.
18:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So you kind of ladder your way up the rope, which is extremely hard work.
18:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
18:50
[SPEAKER_01]: If you watch the pros out there, you know, scampering up the rope on their Jumars.
18:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just a scamper involved.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't have, I mean, I got these little chicken arms and I don't have any upper body strength.
19:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't back then.
19:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and I went up with that way.
19:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I climbed the face of El Cap with my son.
19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That was back in 2017.
19:17
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, COVID hit and it was going to be my 70th birthday, like three years, four years of COVID and I couldn't celebrate my birthday coming up, I couldn't have people over I couldn't go to the restaurant.
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I decided to do LCAP again, but we didn't climb the face at that time.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We climbed what they call the East Legends, they also called the Descent Route.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: If you climb LCAP, they're like over 200 climbs up LCAP and if you climb all the people who climb LCAP, they all come down that same way down the Descent Route.
19:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It involves ju-mar-well, ju-mar-ing if you're going up, repelling if you're coming down.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So it involves-it's still the 3,000 foot monolith of rock, but the first thousand feet you're scrambling to the forest over boulders, screen beds, it's a lot of work, physical work.
20:06
[SPEAKER_01]: The second thousand feet you're ju-mar-ing on ropes, going up, and the last thousand feet
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: featureless slabs of rock.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And those slabs of rock, that was the hardest part because you can't protect those.
20:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no place to put gear.
20:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to just scramble up them.
20:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know that right over there is a drop of 3,000 feet.
20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if anything goes wrong, if I stuff my toe and I start to slide or fall or roll, I know how it's going to end.
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not pretty.
20:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the last part,
20:44
[SPEAKER_01]: The last part was the hardest part for me, like, hardest from the neck up, you know, right here, probably did it, right?
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did it, although 11 of us went up that, that time.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I've done that many times since then.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I did it several times with my friend, Garrett, guy who made the movie about me, the videographer.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I did several times with him to see if I could do it before all my friends came out from New York and Arizona to do it with me, you know, for my 70th.
21:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to poop out when they were all there, so we did it several times.
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've gone up bill cap under five, six, seven times, but once climbing, once on, you know, with Alex and the other times, we'll all up on the East Legis.
21:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that sounds like an amazing accomplishment for anyone.
21:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you thought it would be exposure.
21:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
21:35
[SPEAKER_03]: At the top.
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just at the top.
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like that all the way up.
21:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:39
[SPEAKER_01]: The exposure.
21:40
[SPEAKER_01]: is what gets to you.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
21:44
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll describe the I-Corn Pinnacle for us, which, you know, you were 73, you celebrated that achievement.
21:52
[SPEAKER_03]: What way do you go up that?
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: The easiest.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: The easiest route.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: The easiest route.
21:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That one.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That one.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That one.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That one was a technical climb.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually climbed that hands and feet on the rock, you know.
22:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are harder climbs on it, but it's a Pinnacle.
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a Pinnacle.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And that little, that little tower, that little dot over there, right over there, that's me coming down off it, yay, so it's it's such a striking feature, it's just as pinnacle of rock stands straight up, I don't know where, you know, so you have to scramble up to get there, it was like a three hour hike scramble to get to the base of the climb.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where gets a lot of people, they show them.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Three hours of, hang on, that's not for me.
22:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you want to do it, you have to do that.
22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So three hours of ish of scrambling.
22:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the climb, and the climb was challenging.
22:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It was only like a five, five, or something.
22:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's at a five, six.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember.
22:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But which is fairly good.
22:56
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a legit climb.
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So a good climb.
22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's straight up, I mean, it's basically straight up.
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: it was within my capabilities, obviously I did it, you know, and but the exposure is the biggest factor on a thing like that because I mean you have to be really accustomed to it.
23:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean I got really used to it when I was training to do LCAP because I trained on the ropes, the fixed ropes that hang on the east side and on the west side of LCAP.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They hang there all the time.
23:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can use them to go up, you can use them to come down, whatever, you know.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was out there every week for 18 weeks, doing that.
23:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And that gave me a fair, what's the word, immunity to noticing the exposure?
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're really exposed out there.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This is you and the air, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing up there.
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you put your back to the wall, there's really nothing.
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like being in a helicopter without the helicopter.
23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I struggled with that at the beginning of my climbing, you know, like 13 years ago.
24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was starting.
24:02
[SPEAKER_01]: That used to really get to me.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have to make friends with it if you're going to do big wall stuff.
24:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, after.
24:07
[SPEAKER_03]: How did you make friends with it, Dieter?
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: just over and over doing it, but I was first time, the first time, first time I got my jumars.
24:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I asked my son if he thought there was any way that maybe someday he could leave me up, he'll cap it in.
24:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't really expect him to say yes, because I know how I climb.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: He knows how I climb.
24:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm no great shakes of a climb.
24:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, five, six, five, seven.
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I can climb outdoors up to five, ten.
24:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's really hard for me and so I can do it.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I could force myself, you know, but it's hard.
24:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But I asked him and he didn't bad at all.
24:44
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, yes sure.
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have to learn how to juck and then you left.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what that meant.
24:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea what that meant.
24:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I found out, you know, I went online, I asked all my friends, what's joking?
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I found out, and I got myself some tumors, and first I borrowed some to try it up.
25:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went to the gym once, there are two big nice gyms in the Sacramento area.
25:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I was still living there in Sacramento, and one would not let me do that in the gym.
25:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess it's an insurance thing, I don't know.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other one would, so I went there.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like 32 feet tall, something like that.
25:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we got it all set up.
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know how to set it up.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that somebody else do that.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got on the jumears.
25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you're on the rope, once your feet let go of terra firma, you start to spin and then went out towards it.
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: The wind hit you, you start to swing.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It was no swinging in the gym, but there was a lot of spinning.
25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time I did my first run up, you know, my hands were bleeding, my arms were so sore, my feet were sore because your toes were constantly banging into the wall as you walk up the wall with them, you know, as you place yourself.
25:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was in terrible shape, and I did the arithmetic.
26:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to be able to do that a hundred times in rapids without stop.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I sat down and crunched some numbers and set up a training schedule for myself and stuck to it, boy.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Fortunately we had Alex knows everybody and you know somebody practically lives there.
26:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a house to stay in and so I could go there for three days a week every week just what I did.
26:34
[SPEAKER_01]: because I knew that I was a teacher at the college, you know, the local college in Sacramento.
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew that like in 18 weeks, which was our semester, in 18 weeks, you can learn anything.
26:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You can learn to be a firefighter, a little bit at least.
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You can learn a little French in my glasses.
26:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You can learn a little arithmetic or math, you know?
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I set up an 18 weeks schedule for me.
26:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew I'd have to know more than a little.
27:03
[SPEAKER_01]: because once I got on ropes outdoors, it really scares the BJ Resedia the first time.
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's certainly good for me.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you want to do it badly enough, you just keep doing it.
27:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I have climbed robes on prusic nons, which is a parallel sort of thing, because that's hard to do.
27:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was hard work.
27:23
[SPEAKER_03]: It was very hard work.
27:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And the other thing I noticed, if you can attach your harness in the right place, so you can kind of sit on the rope it helps, but if you're just hands and feet, your feet try to go out in front of you and you're kind of hanging by your hands, and that's just exhausting.
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It is exhausting.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have to have a lot of core control to do that.
27:44
[SPEAKER_03]: When your feet go that way your head and body go the other way and you wind up outside your you know hanging horizontally yeah well dear to what kind of benefits did you get from learning how to jog up those ropes I mean you must have gained a lot of of course strength and arms
28:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes, yes.
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, it changed me physically.
28:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, in so many ways.
28:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I had nothing before there.
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Not nothing because I was climbing mild stuff, you know, but yeah, yeah, I'm a different body than I was back then, you know, different, but from the neck up is,
28:19
[SPEAKER_01]: where it really changed me the most.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a different world and it's what's the word I'm looking for.
28:25
[SPEAKER_01]: To pull the don't day, I can't think I had to say that in English.
28:29
[SPEAKER_01]: To vanquish your fears like that, to get to the other side of being terrified, which I was the first time I got on the ropes.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: To get to the other side of being absolutely terrified and fearful for your life, that changes things.
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to explain, it's really hard to explain, but that changes how you look on everything.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It explains a lot about Alex, too, because he doesn't see the world the way we do.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't see danger and stuff the way we do.
29:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's because of that, because he faces that every single day.
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And just those 18 weeks that I did, the first time I got on the ropes by myself,
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't tell you a heart carved into the rock, a thousand feet up, and from the bottom of that heart down to the ground, there are six fixed ropes at hangar.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And climbers use them for all kinds of things, to transfer gear, to get their gear up to the ledge, so they can come back down, sleep, and then start their climb, your all kinds of things.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: First off, I got on the ropes.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I was out there alone.
29:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know where I was going.
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I kept asking all the climbers, I said, do you know where the heart lines are?
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know where the heart lines are?
29:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And fortunately, they get pointing me in the right direction.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got out there, and there was a young duo, like teenage boys climbing that maybe 1920, whatever, you know, climbing ahead of me.
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were starting their climb of El Cap, you know, this was the real deal for them.
30:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I let them go first, because they were there with her.
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And very gratifying to me because the second guy,
30:12
[SPEAKER_01]: you have to wait for the leader to get up to the bolts that make an anchor or whatever they were doing and you have to get off the rope so that the second person could go up.
30:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So the second person, he and I were chatting and he kept asking me things like, am I doing this right?
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this the touch correctly?
30:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I became the expert.
30:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the mom out there.
30:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was gratifying.
30:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That was probably the reason I
30:38
[SPEAKER_01]: had the guts to get on the rope in the first place because he thought I knew everything and I gave him all these answers and I did know that you know I had learned a lot and so I got out on the rope after he got off you know he took him along another gratifying moment was took him a long time to get off the rope he was he was not good at transitioning from one rope to the next.
30:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's hard.
31:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard.
31:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very, it's very technical and it's very, you have to really be careful because that's the point where you fall off or kill somebody or drop something, you know, kill somebody that way.
31:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So it took him forever to get off the rope.
31:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm waiting and wait.
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I almost talked myself out of it.
31:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But finally you got out when I got on the rope and I did like, because I knew how to judge.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be doing it in the gym, you know,
31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: fingers no longer bled each time.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I had the right gloves.
31:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I got up about 10 feet off the ground.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you're on the LCAP and you're even like 10-12 feet off the ground.
31:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoa, that's messes with your head.
31:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Just knowing where you are.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you look to the right,
31:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So the left is all forest and trees, and it gets higher.
31:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The land gets higher and higher, the ground.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you look the other way, it's the valley.
31:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You're already high, you're already, you've already hiked up like half an hour to get here to the base.
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're already high up, and then you go up another 10 feet, and there's nothing below you, nothing around you, so I came back down.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I quickly changed it to the degree, and I came back down.
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I talked myself back into it, and I got up again.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that first time was horrible.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first time, the first rope that one that we shared had a knot in it, I didn't know.
32:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was way way up almost 200 feet up, it was 180, whatever, because the rope is about 200 feet.
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: All those fixed ropes are very long, and it's from end to end.
32:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got like,
32:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Three quarters of the way up and discovered, oh my god, there's a nut in the rope.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do?
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I had never encountered that in my learning curve, you know, nobody had mentioned the other way or not.
32:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So going up is easy, you just take the two more often, put it on above it, you know, and you just keep going.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Come in down, though.
32:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to unweight the rope, right?
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Use your degree.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that took me a long time to figure that out.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I first, I didn't trust myself, I tried to call my son because Alex was working on L. Cap whatever that meant to him.
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't understand what that meant back then.
33:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you going to want today Alex?
33:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm probably working on L. Cap.
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That's only ever told me because he worked on L. Cap in years.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: He worked on you.
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: worked hard on El Capra, like 10 years before he did his free solo.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: He talks about two years, but that's two years with the film crew, but 10 years every time I might say, you know, where are you going?
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going, I'll be working on El Capra.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I knew he was up there.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: He was up there.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are I was?
33:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But he wasn't answering his phone.
33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: He never does.
33:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I called it all busy.
33:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew exactly.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I called all of my friends and they were all at work.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like seven in the morning.
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody answered.
33:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I had no help and so I had to just figure it out just had to figure it out That sounds dear to that sounds terrifying.
33:56
[SPEAKER_03]: It really does was it was a lot of I've had to I've had to transition around knots on repels and things like that.
34:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's the only concept I have for it
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's it.
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was doing.
34:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they don't have a way to unload the rope.
34:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
34:14
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't have a ledge or a place where you can securely climb or wow, that's rough.
34:19
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just hanging there.
34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
34:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
34:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Good.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was up to the learning curve considerably.
34:30
[SPEAKER_03]: You know,
34:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I think most people, the first time to be outside on a rope like that, I think most people would be too terrified.
34:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Where did you get the presence of mind to do it?
34:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I, good genes.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
34:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't know.
34:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
34:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the second time I was on a rope outdoors.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: The first time was here in Vegas was visiting Alex.
34:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And that rope was hanging in front of a huge massive cave where they won't go work on their projects.
35:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And the bottom of the cave is a thousand feet off the ground, off the, where the cars aren't, you know, we're parked to hike up it.
35:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a photographer's rope.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my son said, we're all going to, to the cave.
35:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You should come with as you can use the rope.
35:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So as we're hiking up, I
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see this skinny little string hanging in the front of this mask.
35:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all the way up, I kept hanging out.
35:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Please don't let that be the rope he was talking about.
35:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, please don't let the rope he was talking about.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my first attempt on a rope outdoors.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was free hanging.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: On the LCAP at least, your feet bounce against the wall and kind of give you a little bit of relief.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You can stop me from spinning, at least.
35:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But free hanging in front of a cave, there's nothing to stop you.
35:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The wind would spin me, it would flip me around.
35:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was my real introduction to what it was on.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I did by the end of the day, got to the top of that road.
36:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a 92-foot road.
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: There I forget that.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So was my actual technical first time that one, but on a hillcap, but it might have swell up in.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's all comes down to what my mother used to tell me when I was a little kid.
36:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You're so stubborn.
36:20
[SPEAKER_03]: You're so stupid about not giving up, isn't it?
36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
36:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
36:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
36:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, that's amazing.
36:26
[SPEAKER_03]: So what projects are you working on now?
36:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that you must have a lot of irons in the fire.
36:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I usually do, well my birthday is coming up again, you know, it's August right now and September is the big day.
36:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going back to Yosemite for my birthday this year and there's something I've always wanted to climb that I try one or two times with friends and we always got crowded out, you know, we couldn't wait long enough, you know, we only had like a weekend to do it
37:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We got crowded out and so we're going to do that because it's September because they're back in school, families are back home, you know, they're not there, so we're going to do Washington column and that's that's this big column.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see it from curry village, you know, down that end of the valley, it's like above the Awani hotel.
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Washington column Washington column.
37:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I don't know anything about what kind of a climb that is It's a huge column.
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: There are several climbs around it and we're gonna do the easiest one I hope and how I'll be doing it with again with the videographer who did my movie and he's become a good friend and he's also a mountain guide So it's really good guy to come with
37:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And he knows me, he knows how I climb, you know.
37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to try it.
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure at this point whether I'm going to climb it technically or whether I'm going to do more.
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to get up at Sucker.
38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: One way or the other, and we're going to do it.
38:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I love the idea of setting yourself goals that you focused and active and doing.
38:09
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a beautiful way to live life.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I am very goal oriented.
38:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I have always been.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: that translates to any activity on the planet.
38:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you said yourself ago, and you just learn what you need to know, prepare everything you need to prepare, and just go do it.
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's basically the method.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, because I've done a lot of different things.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in orchestra, conductor, I've worked at the airlines, I've worked at tour guide, and multilinguals.
38:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't all kinds of different things in my lifetime, while teaching, always while teaching.
38:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I was teaching all my life.
38:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I have developed this method.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the book says seven steps, you know success and seven steps anybody I used to laugh I used to laugh on my son would say this kind of thing in interviews You know, he started doing interviews.
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess he was about 20 21 and People were starting to notice him, you know, and so he was being good for many years Like from his mid teens to his mid 20s.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess somewhere there about all the other climbers referred to him as no big deal-hanel
39:12
[SPEAKER_01]: because he would do these outrageous things and they get all excited and he said, what's no big deal?
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody can do this.
39:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And he really believes that.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I believe it too.
39:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that it's no big deal.
39:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It was to him, no big deal.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that it's no big deal, but anybody can do anything.
39:31
[SPEAKER_01]: If they have the right method to propel them towards that goal, and that's what this book is about.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people say, I love to open a hat shop, I love to do it, but they don't know how to start.
39:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And once a lot of people say to go, I want to run a marathon this year.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So they go out and they buy climbing, running shoes.
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And they start running on Monday morning and they discover how hard it is.
39:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they do stay there.
39:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything hurts.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: by the following week they're always hungry and they're because they didn't start right if you start there are three categories of recategories that you have to follow in order to achieve a goal any goal, any goal, whatever it is, whatever category of life it is, you don't open, I have chop, you want to climb Everest, whatever it is.
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't address category one first before you do the other two categories, that's what leads people to get frustrated and give up.
40:31
[SPEAKER_01]: okay so category one is the magic category one category one category one is one is you have to learn everything you can learn about your goal people go on by running shoes they don't know anything about pronation you know when you get the ground with your foot does it turn this way does it turn that way if you get the wrong kind of shoes it's going to be awkward and painful and you're going to get frustrated and give up
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you want to learn the ukulele?
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to learn the saxophone?
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to friend to her.
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, sure, I thought I was in the saxophone.
41:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Which kind of saxophone do you want to learn?
41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know the difference?
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know the different kinds of music written for the different kinds of saxophones?
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know whether your neighbors will tolerate it?
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know how much you cost?
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know if your husband will give you time to practice or are going to be stuck with the kids instead of practice?
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, all these things, you have to learn.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything you can possibly learn about your goal.
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: before moving to the other categories.
41:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where a lot of people get frustrated and give up.
41:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not rocket science, like for my son.
41:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, no big deal, anybody can do it.
41:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And they would laugh at him, anybody can do it.
41:40
[SPEAKER_01]: When you see what he does, you know anybody can't do it.
41:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I did it.
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Not roopless, but I mean I'm a 66, I kind of okay, not the way he does it, but none the less.
41:52
[SPEAKER_01]: None of it.
41:53
[SPEAKER_01]: None the less.
41:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's an amazing remarkable achievement.
41:56
[SPEAKER_03]: It really is.
41:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
41:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And I can't imagine which would be harder, actually.
42:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you had all the climbing skills and you were hand on rock, that may not be quite as drainuous as jug out that thing.
42:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had a lot of climbers say that to me.
42:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's hard.
42:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Harder work than climbing the darn thing.
42:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But climbing the darn thing is way too hard for my love, skill level of climbing, you know, so that wasn't an option.
42:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the idea of your teacher, so you understand in transit learning, and what you just described, if you have a goal, something you really, really want to do, then you'll be motivated to learn everything you can about it.
42:33
[SPEAKER_03]: It's actually learning easy and fun, but you can't get the cart in front of the horse.
42:39
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to take the time to do it.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what gets people frustrated and they give up on their dream and they say, well, well, I was to whatever.
42:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I was to uncoordinated to do this.
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I was to own.
42:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I was to skinny.
42:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was to whatever.
42:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's always an excuse.
42:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've used a lot of those excuses in my life and I believed them at the time, but they're not true.
43:03
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not true.
43:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody, like my son says, anybody can do anything.
43:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's just a matter of taking it a step at a time and learning how to take each step.
43:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, but the order, the order of those steps is what's the most important.
43:16
[SPEAKER_01]: The order, you know, category one and before category two.
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do it the other way around, you're not going to get there.
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get frustrated.
43:24
[SPEAKER_03]: So what's category two then?
43:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so category one is what what you need to know.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Category two is what you need to have.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people fall down on this part too.
43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they want to go run a marathon this year, they grew up by running shoes.
43:40
[SPEAKER_01]: What else do you need to have?
43:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I did this trap.
43:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I started running, you know, the Sacramento has lots and lots of road races all year long, you know, all kinds.
43:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I started running, you know, five caves, and I started running with my dog, but the long story.
43:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It said, it's in the book, sharp end of life.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I found out about this run called the Runt of Food, the Hungry.
44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just running at night with the dog.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't consider it running.
44:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just walking the dog, but the dog was big.
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: The dog was a malamute shirt.
44:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So when she started to go and I had to follow, I had to keep up.
44:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I would run in sneakers.
44:20
[SPEAKER_01]: My Kmart sneakers are my jeans and a sweaty sweatshirt or hoodie or whatever.
44:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I signed up for this run to feed the hungry.
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a good cause to feed, fill the food blockers,
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's great.
44:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
44:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a turkey trap, you know, basically.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But to feed the hungry.
44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, and I mentioned it to Alex, he was home, he was on his way out to the airport to go.
44:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He was doing a climbing competition in Scotland, I think, or England, Scotland.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's, I mentioned that to him, I wasn't a real runner yet, you know, I, it was just something I did with the dog, you know.
45:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started doing it.
45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: without the dog because the dog liked to stop all the time.
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I said, I signed up for this and he said, I'll sign the up too, that sounds like fun.
45:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But he was coming home from Scotland the night before the race.
45:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I could meet my head.
45:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
45:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, are you crazy?
45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You're becoming a mid-ninth season?
45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I didn't.
45:20
[SPEAKER_01]: yet no back then what he was capable of you know he can go go go go go for days and you know not rest not sleeping if it's something he wants to do can't pick up his socks in the house but he could do that you know so i signed him up and he did with me it was it was like 22,000 people
45:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Second this is the big race in Sacramento.
45:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that.
45:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
45:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We got there and I saw these people in their Spandex and their their turkey costumes.
45:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking go home.
45:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't belong here.
45:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't a real runner, you know at that point, but we had driven there.
45:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Alex was up and I'm so so we started the gun went off and I was wearing jeans and my Kmart sneakers and my glasses kept sliding down my nose and and
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so unprepared, and that's what kind of drove the point home to me about these categories.
46:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to do it in the right order, and I had skipped that part.
46:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you skipped that part, that's when everything hurts.
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my teens were digging into my waist, my things were falling off my, I was miserable.
46:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it hadn't been for Alex, Alex was running next to me or around me, he kept circling around me.
46:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He was running backwards in front of me telling me about Scotland and how the competition went.
46:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it hadn't been for him, I probably would not have finished because I was miserable.
46:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I began to realize how I had done these things on my life.
46:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm all these things I've done, all very different things because I knew how to set it up.
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't done that for running because I was just going out with the dog.
47:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't consider it running.
47:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't a real goal for me, you know.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But then it became a real goal.
47:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started using this method that's in the book.
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So the second thing is what you need to have.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I got myself some good running shoes.
47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I made a big difference.
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I got new glasses that stayed on my face.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Made a big difference.
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I got, you know, I had all of that stuff.
47:32
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have that stuff, you're setting yourself up for frustration.
47:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll quit.
47:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll quit.
47:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why our running machines that we put in our bedroom become our closed hangers.
47:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all we use them for because we don't know enough.
47:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't learn enough.
47:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't have the right gear.
47:49
[SPEAKER_01]: then you can move into category three which is doing it, going out and doing it, but most people don't ignore that first two, the first two categories and they set themselves up for frustration.
48:03
[SPEAKER_03]: yeah that's that's great and you know on the adventure sports podcast one of the reasons for the show from the very beginning was to encourage people to try new things right because I feel like it enriches our lives so much oh so much oh so much yeah but I had a one of our listeners the other days and a message in is as you know maybe more how to information might be right right this is how to book yeah
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if you want to, whatever you want to do, this is a how-to book, step by step, it will get you there.
48:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And my life has been living proof of that.
48:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, absolutely.
48:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So you bring seven books, right?
48:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I've written a lot of books, some of them are kind of behind, you can't see them on this, but I've written a lot myself, and I've written several in, you know, co-authored.
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: book work, you know, my life.
49:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been doing this all my life.
49:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But this one is the one I would really like to get out there because it's so helpful.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody has this little dream goal.
49:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, someday I'd like to open a flower shop.
49:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Some day I'd like to build a house with my own hands.
49:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever the goal is, this book is the step by step how to method to get you there.
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if any other books that does that.
49:30
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of inspirational books out there.
49:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody says, oh, this book is so inspiring.
49:34
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what it's about.
49:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a how-to step-by-step, you know?
49:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's inspiring because anybody who has a dream goal is already inspired.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't need me to tell them how exciting this was going to be.
49:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They know already, but they don't know what to do about it.
49:49
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't know how to start in what order to do things, to pursue things, you know?
49:54
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the how-to step-by-step.
49:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Deirdre that really is what people need, I think.
50:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I just finished a book last year.
50:03
[SPEAKER_03]: It was my first book to actually publish, and I was really happy about it.
50:06
[SPEAKER_03]: But you're not going to publish a book if you don't know how to do things in steps.
50:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you guys probably seeing a book as a lot of work.
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Congratulations.
50:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.
50:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Congratulations to you too.
50:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But all these other things like learning how to climb you were talking about learning to walk the dog You have run marathons now.
50:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you do not achieve these things if you don't follow the practical steps and learning to do something and keeping it enjoyable I think is one of the most important things to have to be fun.
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah
50:37
[SPEAKER_03]: off you're not having fun then.
50:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Well it's such a delight you also have a documentary that came out a couple of years ago this is you spoke about the videographer so this is climbing into life.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
50:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Is the is the documentary.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just finished its final film festival.
50:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We won 11 awards at film festivals.
50:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and now it's going into what you call that distribution.
51:02
[SPEAKER_01]: distribution distribution and last week I I only saw the trailer so I'm excited okay yeah that's all anybody it's seen up unless you went to the film festival you know but last week I just got back from Montreal where I was guest at the premiere of the second documentary about me you know that one is in French and English it's in French with English subtitles
51:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And it started out when I met the film crew and they came down here and it's a film with us first in Vegas and then in Yosemite.
51:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It started out to be about senior climbers because there's a man here.
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The man here, he's older than me, like 77 or 78.
51:50
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a really hardy climber here in Vegas.
51:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was up in use, somebody doing my thing.
51:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were going to make this move about the two of us.
51:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it turned out to be a little bit different.
52:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It turned out because we brought the film crew, like five or six of them, came to Vegas and filmed here.
52:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they met me in Yosemite later, and on the phone, like she said, you know, I'd like to come get some climbing scenes with you and interview you and stuff, and I said, well, are you climbers?
52:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and they were, they were, that's what kind of drew them to this topic.
52:29
[SPEAKER_01]: They were climbers up there, and all but one, the cameraman had never climbed, and just one that he'd remember the one hand and the rock with the other, I got it.
52:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So I invited them to come, I would guide them up, they'll cap.
52:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh wow.
52:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, to a climber, they'll cap, it's like cat-nip, you know, to a cap, or it's like neck, you know, the mecca of climbing.
52:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they said, yes, yes, so they came and it turned out to be the movie about her, the filmmaker is a young woman, third, thirty-ish young woman and it turned out to be her experience of going up the East Ledges on El Cap.
53:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Some that there were five of them I think and me and my friend who was helping and any.
53:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them made it, some of them did not make it all the way up, but it was a really hot day in your 70, and I didn't go all the way up.
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I had done it many times, and it was so hot.
53:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like 90 degrees, and the sun was baking on the wall.
53:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But she had some meltdowns, because it was really, she had to be out there.
53:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But some of them made it, so I didn't do that.
53:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's that Odyssey is what the movie is about.
53:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Odyssey.
53:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's really cool.
53:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the movie turned out that's fun.
53:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And it won, it won, audience scored.
53:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, off to a good start.
53:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I could visit with you about this stuff all day long.
53:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I had so much enjoyed this hour.
53:58
[SPEAKER_03]: The time just flew right by.
54:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
54:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been an hour already since we hit record.
54:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't believe it.
54:04
[SPEAKER_03]: But thank you.
54:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You have so much.
54:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we should do it again.
54:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, hey, I would love to.
54:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we'll have to do it again.
54:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, it sounds like you're up to new adventures at the time.
54:15
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's always something new to talk about.
54:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
54:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Keeps life interesting.
54:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
54:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
54:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, congratulations on a life really well-lived of whole life and in a accomplished life.
54:28
[SPEAKER_03]: That's got to feel great.
54:30
[SPEAKER_03]: The book is success in seven steps, two documentaries, climbing into life.
54:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And Opia de Mu slash inner walls.
54:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the initial walls.
54:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my word.
54:43
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a great title.
54:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it?
54:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
54:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Six other books, eight languages, marathons, big climbs, just just beautiful.
54:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it busy?
54:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
54:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for your time.
54:55
[SPEAKER_01]: As you wish.
54:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Always fun to talk.
54:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and for all the listeners out there, I hope this was as inspirational to you as it was for me.
55:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And do get out there and have some fun and get that success in seven steps books, books, so that you can do it in the right way and be six steps.
55:14
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, take care.
55:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Bye-bye.