Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1158: Ziplining Over Active Volcanoes and Much More - Frederick Schuett Revisited

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Ep. 1158: Ziplining Over Active Volcanoes and Much More - Frederick Schuett Revisited · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:22
[SPEAKER_03]: This is Caleb.
0:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Today, I've got a really interesting revisited episode for you all, where Mason interviewed Frederick Shullet.
0:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Fred is an avid rock climber and ice climber, but where his specialty lies is actually in zipline and slackline rigging.
0:46
[SPEAKER_03]: and when I say zip line and slack line rigging, what I'm really talking about is like zip lining over a volcano, or insane things like that, and Fred has been doing that for over 20 years.
1:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a super interesting episode.
1:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope you enjoy it.
1:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's Mason.
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Frederick, shoot it.
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the show.
1:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
1:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for having me.
1:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's awesome to have you on.
1:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to get into it.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't mind me asking where are you coming from today and where is home if those aren't the same places.
1:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, home for me and my home office is in a Laura Ontario.
1:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's kind of where I run my business and yeah, we've we actually run our office out of as large church that we bought purchased and turned into our home in office.
1:36
[SPEAKER_01]: a church of a different kind now.
1:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, different cathedrals, rock cathedrals.
1:41
[SPEAKER_04]: What's in the Lord?
1:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a very small town.
1:45
[SPEAKER_04]: It's very touristy.
1:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It's been cold.
1:47
[SPEAKER_04]: The most beautiful town in one of the most beautiful towns in Canada.
1:52
[SPEAKER_04]: It has a very quick downtown with a park central park with a lot of statues around town.
1:57
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of artists are working out of a Lord, so pottery,
2:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, we have a couple, the, one of the heritage rivers, uh, the Grand River runs right through Alora.
2:11
[SPEAKER_04]: It also is covered with cliffs.
2:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's cliffs on either side in a giant waterfall right downtown.
2:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And then there's another gore.
2:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's all these like cliffs and gorges and big beautiful bridges over the water, um, nice vistas.
2:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And there is some rock climbing and ice climb in, uh, to be had on the cliffs as well.
2:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And in kayakins really big in Alora, especially in the spring.
2:31
[SPEAKER_04]: When the melt water comes, so a lot of kayakers will become them to allora as well to play in rapids.
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, did you grow up there?
2:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry, I grew up in a wooden gulf, which is probably about 20 minutes south of allora.
2:45
[SPEAKER_04]: But I was able to travel here on weekends or ride my bike.
2:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe about 20 kilometers or so to allora.
2:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And as I was growing up, I did quite a few adventures in allora.
2:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what you're doing now with Volcanoes and with climbing and zip lining.
3:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But where did it start?
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: What was your adventure sports background?
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Were you from a family that was adventurous or did you have to discover it on your own?
3:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of just was adventurous as a child.
3:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So growing up, I was kind of like the kid that was like, I was catching snakes and frogs in the swamp, coming home all dirty and muddy.
3:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And that led to more, you know, exploring wilderness areas and stuff like that.
3:25
[SPEAKER_04]: would take us to took us on a hike to a conservation area in Rockwood, once and a a lot of cliffs and rocks.
3:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And that really was exciting for me.
3:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So from my birthday, whenever at a birthday, my request was he takes me and my friends on a big hike somewhere.
3:41
[SPEAKER_04]: This would be really young.
3:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe eight years old, that may be a request like a day hike with his cliffs and rocks and some caves and do some really exciting stuff.
3:50
[SPEAKER_04]: That was kind of my birthday request
3:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was kind of, yeah, that was my passion to do that.
3:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and at a young age, my dad would probably run like 8 to 10, even to 12, my dad would just drop me my friend off in rockwood conservation area, which is a beautiful conservation area.
4:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Kind of wilderness like, at least at that time, a lot of cliffs and rivers and rock formations there.
4:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And he just leaves there for five hours.
4:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And we would just scramble and explore and go and caves.
4:23
[SPEAKER_04]: and then he just come back and pick us up later after the intercom thing.
4:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that was kind of, that was just exploring.
4:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's how it all started for me, really.
4:31
[SPEAKER_04]: That kind of got my passion going.
4:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And by 12, I stood around my bicycle there.
4:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So my friends and I, or I would just go by myself and then I'd write my bike about 20 kilometers to this conservation area in explore.
4:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That is fantastic.
4:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So when did it start getting into climbing and in some of those other disciplines?
4:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just a natural progression.
4:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It was natural progression because there's all these cliffs in Rockwood and there was some cliffs in Guelph to smaller ones that I explored in close to my house there's some like smaller cliffs.
5:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And it naturally, as you explore cliffs, then you're like, well, maybe I could climb this one or this one doesn't look as aggressive, maybe I could scramble up this and then you would do it and you'd be like, that was kind of fun and scary, but well, and then maybe if I can do this, so I'm making do that one and it kind of progress that way.
5:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and I think around, I don't know how old we were.
5:23
[SPEAKER_04]: We were quite young.
5:24
[SPEAKER_04]: We, we kind of, we also did winter camp in really young.
5:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how we play me 12, 13.
5:28
[SPEAKER_04]: We're a winter camp in, um, in the conservation area in the wilderness areas.
5:32
[SPEAKER_04]: It actually wasn't in the conservation, but beside it, there's more like kind of natural land that's owned by a university that no one goes to.
5:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And we actually went winter camp in there when we were like 12 or 13.
5:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And we started, we brought a rope one time and we started to lower each other down like cliffs
5:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And it wasn't anything special.
5:50
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a rope from a hardware store.
5:52
[SPEAKER_04]: My friend had it in his garage.
5:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And we just tied a loop and put our foot in it and held on to the rope.
5:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And we lowered each other.
6:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a bit crazy.
6:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And we would wrap the rope around a tree or two for friction.
6:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So we wouldn't be just bare-handed at it.
6:08
[SPEAKER_04]: The trees would have friction on them.
6:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And then as a person got over the edge, the other people would let rope out and it would run around the tree and that would create the friction, be the friction device to kind of lower each other.
6:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, and it kind of started that way, we kind of learned early on on actually that first trip we started to do in that that there's a lot of danger involved because I decided again, it scared me to bit so I was totally scared, but I wanted to do it because I felt like it was scary, but in my mind it was safe and off we could do it, but we didn't measure the rope and then I decided to do a bigger cliff and the rope wasn't long enough.
6:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So you can imagine a bunch of kids lowering each other off the cliff.
6:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And now I'm on this huge cliff and the ropes not long enough to get me to get the ground.
6:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So the story goes, I had no idea.
6:58
[SPEAKER_04]: As their lower and me, I'm about halfway down this 80-foot cliff.
7:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And I hear how close you did to the ground.
7:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm kind of like, why are they asking this question?
7:09
[SPEAKER_04]: This is halfway, you know?
7:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm 40 feet from the ground.
7:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm halfway down, but I go, okay.
7:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And then they keep, I keep moving.
7:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I get another call or they call down later, like, how close you the ground now?
7:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're like, I don't know, 20 feet.
7:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, okay, and then I keep moving.
7:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, why are they keeping asking that?
7:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And never dawned on me that maybe the rope wasn't long enough?
7:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Because it looked like a long rope.
7:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And then they stopped one more time and they go, how close you'd to the ground now?
7:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, name me 10 feet.
7:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I just fell.
7:40
[SPEAKER_04]: They just dropped me.
7:42
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my gosh.
7:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But luckily, I was only 10 feet.
7:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, the ground was frozen.
7:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So it kind of hit in the ground, kind of hurt, but I was not expecting them to let me go.
7:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So I kind of landed a bit on my kind of, hit the ground, my feet, and then fell back on my back, which was good.
7:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't hurt anything really.
7:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Just as kind of surprised it happened.
8:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and that was, yeah, one, that was the last one.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, wow, I really loved this.
8:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I should do this for a living.
8:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Finally, again, I didn't get hurt.
8:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and we moved on to, I think the next winter camping trip, I think we are bored, because all these adventurous stuff happened in the winter.
8:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Another winter camping trip we set up a zip line, tension zip line over a gully in the same kind of area.
8:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, we didn't have ropes long enough, so we tied two ropes together.
8:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And, which is not a good idea on a zip line, because your past go over the knot, which won't go over.
8:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and we knew that, but we figured, you know,
8:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a lot of snow, you know, that, you know, 35 years ago, whenever that was three years ago.
8:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So we said, make a big pile of snow.
8:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And when you get to the knot, you let go.
8:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And you fall into the big pile of snow.
8:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Because we're about 40 feet off the ground when we jump onto the zip line.
8:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was pretty high.
8:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And of course, I was the first to go.
9:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know why I was just as scared as everyone else.
9:03
[SPEAKER_04]: But I guess I had the guts to do it.
9:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And the ropes stretch so much.
9:07
[SPEAKER_04]: We didn't expect that because where kids we had never seen
9:12
[SPEAKER_04]: The rope stretched locks we didn't pull it very tight or as tight as we could pull it and then and was just a hold on zip line it was just like a like a handlebar and The knot came so fast and I was so scared there's no way I was going to let go so I hit the knot and then the momentum of the zip line hitting the knot through me off of the zip line so I'm flying through the air flipping it up and down like doing cartwheels in the sky.
9:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And then apparently I bang I kind of landed upside down on the far cliff and then fell into the positive snow we put we built there.
9:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, I didn't get hurt.
9:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I was I kind of woke up.
9:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I never I don't know if I blacked out or something.
9:53
[SPEAKER_04]: But I never lay in there in the snow.
9:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't remember.
9:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of remember a bit of flying through the air.
9:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just remember laying in the snow and looking up at the tree branches and being like, I don't feel any pain or warm like blood.
10:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Does this arm work?
10:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Kind of like, yeah.
10:08
[SPEAKER_04]: No, okay.
10:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Is this arm work?
10:10
[SPEAKER_04]: That works.
10:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Does this leg work?
10:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
10:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
10:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that leg work?
10:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, hey, I get up.
10:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, that didn't hurt at all.
10:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's next?
10:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And everyone's like, no way.
10:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I remember it when I was laying in the snow, I remember one kid was yelling, he's dead.
10:23
[SPEAKER_04]: He's dead.
10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my gosh.
10:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the other kid was yelling, that was awesome.
10:29
[SPEAKER_04]: That was awesome.
10:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So after those two experiences,
10:39
[SPEAKER_04]: realize that we need to do things safer and start as a look a little more into how to do things safe, I guess.
10:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I went to grade nine, there was a mountaineer in book in my school library because it was an old mountaineer book from like early 1900s because the school was a very old school and had this old mountaineer in book from the 1940s or something in there.
11:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was like the book I signed out all the time and I learned everything I could from the book and that kind of and
11:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It's slowly progress from there.
11:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Learn in different skills through that old mountain yearn book and very old skills that don't exist anymore.
11:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It was pretty interesting to start that way and progress.
11:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And then eventually, when I was 16, I took some climb in courses through a college.
11:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's when I kind of really, by then I was doing stuff kind of safe, but not safe enough still.
11:31
[SPEAKER_04]: But I had built my own climb in harness and stuff.
11:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I only saw, in the book, they showed you how to tie your own climb an harness.
11:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, they didn't have climb an harness back in the 40s, you tied your own.
11:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So I kind of just made my own, but then I kind of went a little too far.
11:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was able to get one climb an harness, eventually from a climbing store.
11:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Took a long time, even know where to get stuff, because there was no internet.
11:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I would be looking in the foam book and I'd call my friends and no one would know where to get climbing gear.
12:07
[SPEAKER_04]: and Toronto did have some places, but I wasn't from Toronto, and I didn't have any access to get to Toronto, really.
12:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So eventually, some gave me a mountain, you're a mountain equipment co-op, mail-order catalog, and that was like, I don't know, I must have looked at that book every day.
12:23
[SPEAKER_04]: This flippens through the pages of all their technical clothing, all their robes and carabiners, and all the stuff that I've had never seen before.
12:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So eventually, I got my mom to drive into Toronto,
12:36
[SPEAKER_04]: blue tons of money and mountain equipment co-op and I bought lots of stuff.
12:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got one climate harness.
12:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I didn't really see the danger of someone and another one with my mom's sewing machine.
12:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So then I made another climate harness to her or my friends to climb with, because you need kind of need two people if you're doing top rope climbing.
12:52
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'd sew to another harness on my mom's sewing machine, which was obviously very dangerous.
12:57
[SPEAKER_04]: But I didn't know any better.
12:58
[SPEAKER_04]: No one else.
13:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was a bad idea.
13:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone else though, it was a great idea.
13:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So I just took my harness and I saw how they build it.
13:05
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a much simpler back then.
13:07
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a diaper style harness they call it.
13:09
[SPEAKER_04]: A waist belt with a leg loop that flips through the crotch and clips of the carabiner.
13:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's much simpler.
13:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just went to a fabric store and bought web and strap and started sewing it on my mom's sewing machine and made another harness.
13:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And the scary part was that I couldn't get an aluminum buckle for it.
13:31
[SPEAKER_04]: My dad had a tool belt in the basement that looked pretty heavy duty.
13:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And I took the buckle off of the tool belt and put it on the climate harness.
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Which again was a bad idea.
13:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But it worked and nobody found out what he got hurt.
13:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And we used it for like quite a while.
13:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you want really basic climbing like work top rope climbing?
13:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, not building proper anchors or not no one how to.
13:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I had like hay bail pulleys at the top that I got from the hardware store.
13:58
[SPEAKER_04]: It was really, it was a pretty shot.
14:01
[SPEAKER_04]: If I saw someone doing that now, like, wow, I've never seen anything that primitive before, but yeah, so that's how we kind of get started.
14:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And but when I time I turn 16, I acquired some climbing gear and I took a course and then I learned that, you know, I shouldn't so stuff myself and it's better to tie the knots and the web in and all that stuff.
14:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So I kind of.
14:24
[SPEAKER_04]: got a much safer practice after that.
14:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I also learned about more to get more equipment and people to climb with and stuff.
14:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So things took off very quickly at 16 for me.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe not long after that, you got the nickname of one axe Fred.
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that true?
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It is true.
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: How did that happen?
14:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's the name of your company, one axe pursuers, or one axe, you're kind of known, is that?
14:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Could you tell us that?
14:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
14:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So after 16, I took some rock climbing courses, got really experienced right quickly and did gotten to ice climb in right away and bought some ice climbing equipment.
15:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I kind of booked myself on a mountaineer course for when I was 18.
15:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So no one else, people would say they'd go with me and the end was just me, so I'm like, I'm going anyway because this is my passion.
15:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to do this.
15:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So I kind of booked a trip of west.
15:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I went out by myself and joined the Mountaineer course there.
15:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And on the course, I was probably the most experienced person there, even though it was the youngest.
15:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I was only just at turned 18 or just 18, but I was the most experienced person there in the sense of knowledge and ropes.
15:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And also I was eating a stuff up like crazy.
15:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was buying books and reading about stuff.
15:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So on the course, I've, I'd already done technical ice climb in and climb some pretty hard rock climbs and on the course on day seven of the course we were doing Mount or we're doing ice climbing on the course and in my head, I had envisioned 1000 foot ice climb on the side of a mountain or something and it wasn't quite that spectacular it was still beautiful and it was about a 200 foot ice climb.
16:08
[SPEAKER_04]: But it wasn't totally vertical is it may be 80 degrees or something maybe 70 to 80 degrees.
16:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and it was about 200 feet.
16:16
[SPEAKER_04]: We started the top and they lowered us down the side of this glacier about 200 feet as long as the rope was.
16:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And then they had left you there and then you had to climb back up to them.
16:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And they pulled the rope tight as you climb back up.
16:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So right before it was my turn to go, I was kind of like, I talked to the guide.
16:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And by then we had a relationship already.
16:36
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was kind of joking with them like, oh,
16:38
[SPEAKER_04]: When you guys said ice climbing on your mount here and you know schedule I thought you guys meant like realize climbing like not less than vertical ice climbing and the guy ice guys are laughing at me.
16:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So and then he's like break before he lower me down we had old like technical mountaineer and axes too they weren't really technical axes they have now but he kind of said let me see one of those axes for a second with let me see your tool and he took it and then he stuck it in a snow behind him and I thought he was just going to adjust it
17:08
[SPEAKER_04]: with only one ice axe.
17:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So that was kind of the, you know, except the challenge kind of thing.
17:15
[SPEAKER_04]: If this is too easy for you, this will make it harder.
17:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll take one of your ice axes away.
17:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And he lowered me down the whole way and then I climbed up with only one ice axe.
17:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And from the way we were, we were practiced in some other mountaineering skills, some were also in the glacier and you could look across and see the people ice climate.
17:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So when I was climbing with only one ice axe, everyone was like, what's going on?
17:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, why is he going up with the only one Isaac?
17:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So why is he making it look so easy?
17:41
[SPEAKER_04]: He's like, there's a lot of people who are really struggling.
17:43
[SPEAKER_04]: If you had never ice climbing for it, it's kind of like throwing you just throwing in the deep end, really like they lure you down.
17:50
[SPEAKER_04]: You got to get back up.
17:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's no one down there to coach you.
17:52
[SPEAKER_04]: So they talked a little bit how to do it.
17:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And then it is lure you down and you're by yourself.
17:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So but I had ice climbing for.
17:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was able to go up quite quickly with one ice axe and then everyone called me one axe after that little adventure.
18:08
[SPEAKER_04]: literally known, called me by my name on the rest of that trip.
18:11
[SPEAKER_04]: It was always, hey, what acts?
18:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was quite quite hilarious.
18:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So when I came back to Ontario, I put one ax on all my gear.
18:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So instead of writing my name or whatever, just to, I don't know my hat, helmet, it said one ax on it and stuff.
18:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and that's kind of the story of the name.
18:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You go from climbing ice with one axe to walking over lava, but really your specialty is rigging and like zip lines set up, and that's what you've been doing for over 20 years now.
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: How did it start to grow into that?
18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Where was the need for that to start doing these extreme kind of events almost?
18:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so we started my girlfriend or my wife at the time, or girlfriend at the time, wife now.
18:56
[SPEAKER_04]: We started the company 20 years ago, and we started as a rock climbing company.
19:01
[SPEAKER_04]: So rock climbing, ice climbing, mountaineering.
19:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So I did a used to do a trip on North America's third-highest peak in Mexico, not a guy, a trip or two down there every year.
19:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we do ice climbing and rock climbing, and we added zip lines into the system as well, because I was just fascinated with anything with ropes
19:21
[SPEAKER_04]: After the mountaineering course, I did at 18.
19:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I did some more rescue light courses, so I learned in more rigging and police systems and hall systems and stuff like that.
19:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And I really liked the zip lines.
19:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And I had done those starting at 13.
19:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So we started rigging these.
19:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'd been doing some really technical zip lines before I started the company.
19:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So when I started the company, I just said, well, we should add that zip line that I do where we were piled off the zip line into the river.
19:47
[SPEAKER_04]: because it was a lot of fun when we did it with my friends.
19:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So we added that to our curriculum of programs that we offered through one-axx pursuits.
19:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And that course we called a Zipline Extreme, which is really probably better phrases, rappel extreme, but Zipline in kind of gives you a ring.
20:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And back then, no one else ran Zipline in for the public.
20:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It was more like adventure camps and military camps.
20:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So we were the only ones that really an Ontario, the Rand Public Ziplines.
20:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was the one we did where you learned to repel and then repeled off the middle of the zip line down 80 feet into the river.
20:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And we still offer that course today.
20:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's still probably one of our most favorite courses that from our clients.
20:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So I started doing that.
20:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And then people would start needing people to do special rig in for special events.
20:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Richard Branson in 2004, launched Virgin Mobile.
20:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And they needed a Zipline expert to rig a Zipline for Richard Branson downtown Toronto.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we feel.
20:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And for some reason, my name came up as the guy that can put up, and we would set up our Ziplines and take the Ziplines down every day, and we still do that now.
20:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So people knew me as a guy that can rig a Zipline in a couple hours running a day and take it down again.
21:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So I could set up anywhere.
21:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So I kind of got no one for that, and I would get.
21:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So we did the stunt for Richard Branson in 2004,
21:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Just multiple TV shows and behind the scenes for movies and stunts like that with a lot of zip lines and some other like just repelling off buildings or other kind of creative stunts For reality TV shows like slack lines are really popular now, which is like a tension web and strap about a one inch wide and you walk on it like a tight rope.
21:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You may have seen people do this at the park or and.
21:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So we've done that between apartment buildings for TV shows now, like multiple times.
21:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So anything that do with like high-rope rigid, it's a little bit above what your standard stunt company would be able to rig.
21:51
[SPEAKER_04]: We get these interesting calls.
21:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And we'll work with the stunt people or stunt rigors or we'll train them to do these a little more elaborate stunts.
22:01
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of times we'll just come in and operate it and we may train the stunt people to do it or we train them individually for face first repellent.
22:09
[SPEAKER_04]: running down a building face first or something, or kicking through windows.
22:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So the nice thing about the church building we own is we actually have, we do a lot of stunt training on it with people that are learning to either get better at their stunts.
22:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So look better and like they know how to repel, but they're not looking like they're a superhero yet.
22:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So they have to look really cool.
22:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you want it?
22:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Or kicking through windows, or repel with machine gun in their hand and stuff like that, so we'll kind of do that kind of training as well.
22:39
[SPEAKER_04]: are regular rock climbing company, but that we kept getting all these really interesting TV and movie calls and special event calls to help with the other Reagan.
22:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and then eventually that led to Reagan fireproof robes over a pit of fire and Turkmenistan for National Geographic.
22:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And lower in George Caronis, which was the host of Anger Planet, sent in him a cross and a metal suit, like reflective suit and then lower him down
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: How nervous were you when Richard Branson got on your zip line where you like, hey, this is just like any other day or was it, oh, my gosh, I better not mess this up.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's take a quick message break in here from the folks that help make this show possible.
23:26
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23:29
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23:41
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23:55
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24:05
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24:54
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25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That is plenty of that for now.
25:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back into the episode.
25:13
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it was kind of, uh, I kind of didn't know who he was really when I first scouted it.
25:19
[SPEAKER_04]: They brought me to Toronto.
25:24
[SPEAKER_04]: the top of the Olympic spirit tower, and I'm scoutin' Dundas Square, and they're like, yeah, can we want to set the zip line here?
25:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And all this, I'm like, yeah, we can do that.
25:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're like, yeah, I mean, we're really seen anything, I'm like, well, I can see that.
25:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I can see this, we can anchor there and there.
25:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I could have it set up in a couple hours.
25:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's all the permissions and shutting the road down and everything, but as I did, the rig is pretty simple, and this is like, you're making it look too easy, right?
25:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, well, you know, I can take some measurements and I can, you know,
25:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Right along paper and make it look really complicated.
25:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And she's like, oh, yeah, I need to do that the next time you come out, right?
25:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Just make it feel like it's make it feel like it's really, really.
26:02
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really intense.
26:03
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and of course, I do that stuff as well.
26:05
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't need to do that to say if it can go or not.
26:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So what they did then is they got the people that was hiring the agency from Virgin, they came out.
26:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And she wanted me to be like, take a measurements and using my laser,
26:23
[SPEAKER_04]: My protractors out there, I'm calculating angles and stuff.
26:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's like, yeah, we do do that, but I don't have to do always do it right there on the second on site.
26:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's not always necessary to even do that.
26:35
[SPEAKER_04]: But anyway, so it's just funny.
26:36
[SPEAKER_04]: So I wasn't really nervous about it.
26:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought I was really exciting to do it.
26:40
[SPEAKER_04]: The day Richard King was interested in though, because it was the middle.
26:45
[SPEAKER_04]: It was March, but they had a huge snowstorm on the day on that the night before.
26:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So that made it a little bit,
26:51
[SPEAKER_04]: interesting because we ever snow everywhere and Richard had a climb up this big tower on top of the building to do the zip line and I told them I needed 25 minutes or something to get them up and rigged and ready to go and then they said, well, we'll give you 15.
27:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, what is this?
27:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not like an negotiate and I just told you I mean,
27:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Like the guy isn't old.
27:13
[SPEAKER_04]: He's like he's older now, but he was still old then.
27:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like he's in his 50s.
27:16
[SPEAKER_04]: He's not going to just run up this 150 foot tower.
27:20
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like a vertical ladders, right?
27:22
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be tire and he's in this silly suit they haven't wearing.
27:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like we need time.
27:27
[SPEAKER_04]: He's going to be out of breath, right?
27:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And they also told me that there's a big timer on the LCD screen.
27:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Young and done desk where that's going to camp down, you know, from 10.
27:38
[SPEAKER_04]: At this time, and they can't stall it or change it.
27:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like a pre-recorded movie, right?
27:45
[SPEAKER_04]: It's been put into it, but nowadays I'm sure they have more technology, but back then it was like, it was programmed a week ago, and it's gonna do this, and then after that it's gonna do like, hooray, and then play music, right?
27:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was like, it has to be all to the second.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And but then here I am telling my knee, 25 minutes and they're like, we'll give you 15.
28:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, how's this gonna work?
28:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was kind of a bit, I don't know if stressful.
28:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was a bit funny.
28:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, one, they're going to make me look bad because Richard's not going to go up there in time.
28:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And then it's going to make a look.
28:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to blame me for not happening on schedule.
28:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So as we're climbing the tower, there's kind of like a Richard has like this like posse that follows him everywhere he goes.
28:27
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like group of people, like a mob, like a mob.
28:31
[SPEAKER_04]: He's kind of leading it, but there's like this mob of 2015,
28:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Someone carries his water, someone like all these different assistants stuff.
28:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was interesting as we went higher up the building and eventually people would like, like, you're not needed anymore.
28:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And at the end it was just like five people left with Richard.
28:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And at the very end it was just Richard and I going up this tower.
28:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I'm on a radio so they can hear me talking to Richard and I can hear them.
28:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Richard didn't have any earpiece and I don't think.
28:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And as I was climbing the tower and I had it delayed too because Richard's, you know, super important.
29:05
[SPEAKER_04]: a belay on every ladder.
29:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'd clip him in, I'd climb the ladder, like 30 feet or something and I'd belay him up to me.
29:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we'd move across the catwalk, clip him to the next rope, I'd climb up first, I'd belay him up to me.
29:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And we kept doing that till we got to the top of the tower where I had additional staff.
29:20
[SPEAKER_04]: In half way up, he's exhausted, right?
29:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So he's like Frederick, I just need to take a rest.
29:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's like, totally out of breath, but I'm like, Richard, I'm sorry, but there's no time for rest.
29:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, sorry, Richard, I wanted more time to get you up the tap.
29:34
[SPEAKER_04]: They didn't give it to me.
29:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's either you get up there really quick or the whole thing's going to get shot, right?
29:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So he was like, ah, so he just, he just did it, right?
29:44
[SPEAKER_04]: He was fine.
29:44
[SPEAKER_04]: He kind of dismyiling was like, all right, I just were going.
29:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So he just kind of motored his way up as fast as we could.
29:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, right when he got to the top, he's like exhausted and it's scary up there.
29:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's all covered in snow now.
29:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So he hugs onto this bar and he's like,
30:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And I kind of like literally just as soon as he grabs a bar clip him in the back, I'm like, you got to go.
30:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So he was just like rolling his eyes again, like, oh, he jumped it and then he sat down the edge of the building and then we are the this, the scaffolding we had set up and we had to lower him right away and then right away, it was like 30 countdown.
30:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was just, I didn't get any real time with Richard other than, you know, making him keep going, encouraging him to keep going so we could get this done on time.
30:26
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, it went really smooth really.
30:30
[SPEAKER_04]: But since Richard, I worked with a lot of other high-end clients, celebrities, and even a princess inside of Alcano.
30:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So I've been pretty fortunate that way to meet lots.
30:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And they've all been really good great people, actually.
30:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't got anyone that's been, you know, to fold themselves or anything.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about that experience, the experience of taking folks across Alcano.
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What was that?
30:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Where was that?
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: How did that even come about?
30:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So after I did the ropes after I did the rope system with George in Turkmenistan, the gateway to hell with National Geographic, that got in the Guinness Book World Records in 2017, I believe.
31:15
[SPEAKER_04]: That was actually a funny story because we didn't know it was in the Guinness Book World Records, but my son got the Guinness Book World Records from Christmas from an answer uncle and he flipped to the book and he found us in the book.
31:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So that was quite hilarious.
31:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So he's like, dad, you're in the book.
31:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, what are you talking about?
31:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And he flipped through the pages and I'm like, what, like, how did this get in the book?
31:36
[SPEAKER_04]: No one even told us about it.
31:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So it got in the Guinness Book World Records.
31:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And a woman from Brazil saw that in there.
31:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And she also saw the, she actually watched the documentary on National Graphic National Geographic.
31:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And she, she's kind of, her name is Crina Olioni.
31:55
[SPEAKER_04]: She's like a female Bear Grills.
31:58
[SPEAKER_04]: in Brazil.
32:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So she's a TV personality.
32:02
[SPEAKER_04]: She's a doctor, helicopter pilot.
32:04
[SPEAKER_04]: She's a wakeboard champion, super fit.
32:07
[SPEAKER_04]: She does all these really crazy things.
32:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And she's climbed Everest twice now and K2.
32:16
[SPEAKER_04]: But nothing she's done has been a world's first.
32:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And she's never been the first woman ever to do anything.
32:23
[SPEAKER_04]: She's always so.
32:25
[SPEAKER_04]: She's done a lot of awesome stuff, but not a world's first, not a woman's first.
32:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So she contacted me and said, I saw what you did with George in the pit of fire.
32:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And I wanted to be the first woman to do it.
32:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was like, oh, that sounds like awesome, right?
32:40
[SPEAKER_04]: We could totally do that.
32:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So we started playing in this expedition there.
32:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And in the end, they wouldn't, the government wouldn't let us film it for TV.
32:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's who was gonna pay for her expedition.
32:53
[SPEAKER_04]: It was kind of not going to happen so she was going to she was willing to just give up and and do something different like in the sense for the TV show go to somewhere else and and not do that at all, but then I was like, well, I already spent a lot of time.
33:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I got sponsorships through a few different companies and actually built two new lava suits or fire suits or heat suits designs specifically for her and I to go to this pit of fire.
33:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And they were all custom built for us.
33:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was kind of like, well, I need to come through for these sponsors, otherwise, no one's gonna ever sponsor me again, right?
33:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, I have an idea that I haven't put a lot of thought into it, but I have an idea of going and doing a world first over lava.
33:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, would you be interested in using the budget you have and we go to Ethiopia or go to another volcano and we try and do a world's first, not a woman's first, but a world's first over lava.
33:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, everyone thinks it's crazy, but I think I can do it.
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And she was like, yes, let's do that.
33:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, she, again, she was, she didn't really even when we were there, she didn't believe I could do it.
34:00
[SPEAKER_04]: There's doubts.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Even up to the moment, like the day before I was rigging it, she still had doubts, but they would actually be able to pull it off.
34:07
[SPEAKER_04]: But so we went to Ethiopia, and I started rigging this zip line over little lava, and her main concerns were
34:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Around the crater was all dried lava.
34:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's all very porous rock but lava rock.
34:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's full of air bubbles and it's in the layers like it's all kind of dries and layers.
34:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So you have a layer of crumbly rock.
34:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like crumbly kind of thing.
34:33
[SPEAKER_04]: You can break right through it and then it's in the layer and then there's another layer and there's no solid rocks.
34:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So she hurt for a question was how can I actually anchor safely to this.
34:43
[SPEAKER_04]: crumbly stuff right to rate something that takes such high forces as a zipline.
34:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's where her doubt was not that I could physically do it, but she's like, I don't think the anchors will be strong enough.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but how did you do it?
34:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so it's kind of a trade secret, but I did do it.
35:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I had lots of equipment there.
35:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And I, I had anticipated problems, but maybe not as bad as that.
35:06
[SPEAKER_04]: That was, I did have a couple doubts, but I was figure in my head.
35:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like,
35:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So I teach mountaineer and skills and I teach people how to anchor off of powder snow and really crummy snow and really bad ice and how to build anchors that can hold thousands of pounds off of snow and ice and even bad snow and ice and I said well in my head I'm like if I can anchor off of snow and ice I should be able to anchor off of crappy rock.
35:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And I did bring tools to even I had like a face shield and I did bring a small pickaxe that I could actually chop rock and shape it and dig deeper to find better rock.
35:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So I kind of was like, I just going to be a lot of labor.
35:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was for me.
35:55
[SPEAKER_04]: It was more do I have enough time because she only allowed me two days on the volcano to do this.
36:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, partially I think because she didn't wasn't positive I could do it.
36:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So she had a plan a bunch of other stuff to do in Ethiopia.
36:08
[SPEAKER_04]: for her TV show because what if the volcano didn't work and she had nothing to give to the TV people.
36:14
[SPEAKER_04]: She would be, yeah, again, no one would want to fund her again.
36:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So, um, but yeah, I was able to rig it.
36:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I had multiple different ways of anchoring and they all got used.
36:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Some were, I had big rods drilled into the rock.
36:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I had shaped some rock and slung it.
36:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I had snowpickets that I jammed into
36:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, over a safe area.
36:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So I could tell that was to stay in the loads and then we went out and she went first across the lava and um, and did the world first and then I'm part of the, the arrangement I went with her is that I go second.
36:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was the second duo across because you got to say it.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're there.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do it.
36:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I was there and normally I wouldn't, but she couldn't really pay me what I wanted to get paid for the expedition.
37:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So I said, well, as part of the thing was,
37:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll get the sponsors, because she tried to get sponsors, but people wouldn't sponsor her, which is understandable.
37:11
[SPEAKER_04]: But when I gave my credentials and what I've done in the past, I had no problem getting sponsors for this kind of activity where she didn't have the background.
37:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So I said, if I get sponsors, then anything they sponsor, I get to keep it.
37:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And if I can that in that way, I'll build the heat suits, but I get to keep the heat suits, because I'm building them and they're with my sponsors.
37:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'll pay to get them someone and stuff, but it's their mind.
37:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So I still have the heat suits from that.
37:35
[SPEAKER_04]: that I can use on future expeditions.
37:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, that was part of the thing.
37:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and part of the thing was that I get to go second.
37:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and that just got added to the Guinness Book World Records like a couple weeks ago.
37:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So, wow.
37:52
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a new record.
37:53
[SPEAKER_04]: They started a whole new record, the longest Tyraeli introverse over lava over an eruptant volcano.
38:03
[SPEAKER_04]: for a women's day.
38:04
[SPEAKER_04]: They announced it in March.
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
38:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
38:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to be a part of that big time.
38:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
38:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So I got to be a part of that.
38:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And then yeah, there's there's all these other crazy expeditions that are going on behind the scenes that are in plan and process.
38:19
[SPEAKER_01]: whether they go or not is another question, but yeah, so I was going to say, you know, I did, I did see on your Instagram, a picture of an article and something about maybe maybe something happened in the works, but you couldn't share much what can you share.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I don't know what I can share I promise it's not going to be another volcano, you're going over.
38:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, you can't be too sure, but yeah, so.
38:47
[SPEAKER_04]: This is another TV show, or we're pitching another TV show, or episode kind of thing.
38:54
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a few things going on with TV, but this was a TV show we're pitching and it requires an expedition to Antarctica.
39:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So mounting climbers involved and all this stuff and climb mountains that haven't been climbed before, all this sort of thing.
39:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's a pitch, so we can't really talk about it too much because you don't want some and to, you know,
39:12
[SPEAKER_04]: piggyback on that and steal the idea or something or try to get there before us in climb, whatever we're climbing.
39:19
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, definitely not cheap expedition tent, Artica.
39:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So we do need, it looks like we're gonna need sponsorship on that one.
39:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So we need another Richard Branson that wants to join our expedition and help fund it.
39:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And we have a few other expeditions too.
39:36
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of them just need, like I've great, all these different ideas, a different volcanoes and different places around the world.
39:41
[SPEAKER_04]: They really just need funding to do.
39:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And heat suit designs for even crazier heat suits that can get even better closer to the lava.
39:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But again, everything requires the money.
39:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And my small rock climb company does not make enough money to fund those things.
39:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So I've always rely on either a TV production to give the money or someone as a little more wealthy and has a bit more disposal income that wants to do some crazy thing.
40:09
[SPEAKER_04]: They're willing to pay some money instead of going to like Everest.
40:12
[SPEAKER_04]: They can spend that money and do a volcano or something.
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, super exciting, super exciting.
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, is it was there anything else you wanted to share?
40:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I know you we kind of wrapped it up kind of quick, but I've got a hard stop at four for sure, but I'd love to ask you or let you share anything that you thought would be interesting to talk about with either the volcano or the first expedition just walking across fire in general, what that's like, how scary that is compared to other types of zip lining.
40:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so the things I've been doing lately
40:51
[SPEAKER_04]: involve in the heat and the fire and the lava and I don't find it it's definitely scary the the volcanoes are terrifying like to go there and be that close to an eruptant volcano or be in it.
41:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes you may have even slept in a eruptant volcano for three weeks in Venonatu and when you get close to the lava it's quite terrifying you feel very tiny.
41:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and just the atmosphere at those cannibal canos is so inhospitable like the air you breathe that burned your lungs and uh, things, um, will rust like even stay in the steel will sort of rust in immediately in those environments like my titanium watch has like corrosion on it from acid from the acid rain.
41:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, so when it rains and in some of the, if it rains near volcano, the rain goes through the acid clout or the acid cloud and turns the rain to
41:43
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're literally being rained on with self-heroic acid.
41:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course, it's about 100% potency, but it's quite high.
41:50
[SPEAKER_04]: It's high enough that you feel it burning your skin.
41:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Like a chemical burns you.
41:54
[SPEAKER_04]: It burns your eyes.
41:57
[SPEAKER_04]: It feels like someone's flicking after shave at you after you've shaved, like that kind of stinging feeling but you'll get it everywhere, anywhere it touches.
42:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So just it's such a unique environment.
42:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's just, yeah, it's very strange to be there.
42:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes the wind in the volcano is strong
42:14
[SPEAKER_04]: small marble size rocks and starts throwing them around so you can get like pumble by rocks in the volcano by wind it's it's it's every volcano seems different but none of them really seem very friendly like you're not supposed to be there which makes it really exciting for me because I thrive on that so the wind's strong and it's throwing rocks around I'm like this is awesome it hurts but it's pretty cool that you can look at the ground and you see rocks flying across the ground like you would see
42:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you don't mind me, how did you ensure that it was safe like the the ropes and all the equipment was safe in that environment?
42:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you mean from the chemicals itself?
42:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just from the heat, the chemicals and just making sure nothing was being overlooked in that sense.
43:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so with the chemicals and heat, heat, we can keep track of with temperature probes and we know the temperature we're using a techno our ropes or steel cables.
43:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I like to keep them at a temperature below 200 degrees Celsius, which is quite warm.
43:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's quite easy to keep them at a reasonable temperature.
43:22
[SPEAKER_04]: If they're over lava or something, obviously we have to probe and know the temperatures before we stretch them.
43:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Like over the pit of fire, we would rig the ropes at night and then we would rig it right before we did the stunt and then we would do it and then we take the ropes down right away and then the next day we'd rig it again.
43:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Do more, take it down right away.
43:44
[SPEAKER_04]: for prolonged period of time, but the ropes do show signs of where I damage from the heat.
43:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Almost like a nylon rope would show melton from, if you took a lighter, you'd see the she's starting to melt.
43:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Same thing would happen with the techno or you'd see the change of the molecular structure of the material.
44:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't melt, but it turns hard.
44:06
[SPEAKER_04]: But again, we try and keep the temperature so low that we don't have to worry about that.
44:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Aluminum
44:13
[SPEAKER_04]: not nonlands really bad the volcanoes we try to stick with polyesters and they all have we have some sulfuric acid here that I can actually melt or kind of like dilute and I can actually test on on different fabrics and different metals and stuff and we pull test equipment to know how we kind of damage when it's a look what kind of damage is it require before it's not safe.
44:42
[SPEAKER_04]: maybe a month of exposure.
44:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So four weeks of exposure before it's kind of time to retire it.
44:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's kind of one of those things where you get in, you do what you need to do, you get out.
44:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And then half the time or a lot of the time, your key or may just be thrown out, pick it's almost garbage, which is really sad, considering how expensive the stuff is.
45:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's worth it though, you don't want to, you don't want to try to get a deal.
45:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, you guys.
45:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, when you see the,
45:09
[SPEAKER_04]: the aluminum beeners like peeling like an onion layers are coming off of it.
45:14
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's not, there's no way to salvage that one.
45:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, we can.
45:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Or the stainless steel is rust in.
45:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So I did try to like I kept my pocket knife on my harness.
45:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a knife on my harness.
45:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's not a safety thing.
45:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So I didn't, it was I had three, three weeks of exposure in a volcano and I didn't throw it out.
45:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm like, well, it's a knife.
45:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It just has to cut stuff, it's not.
45:35
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was funny, because I pull it out.
45:38
[SPEAKER_04]: a couple of months later to cut something and I was literally cutting rope on the field and it's the blade snapped in half.
45:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It was like a stainless steel buck knife with the lockable blade it locked open and lock closed and it was, you know, I was straighted blade and when the serrated blade hooked on the rope and I was trying to cut it, it just snapped the knife in half, which was unbelievable, considering how little force I wasn't trying to pry something up.
46:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I was just trying to cut a rope and it broke the knife so
46:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Just one of those the reality checks is once you go take this stuff in this really inhospitable environment, it's pretty much, you don't try to reuse it.
46:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And the more it rains or the weather, the environment, the worse because the gases react with moisture in that creates a sulfuric acid.
46:21
[SPEAKER_04]: So if there's no moisture, there's no sulfuric acid.
46:24
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why your eyes burn because there's moisture in the gases mixes the water in your eyes
46:32
[SPEAKER_04]: In your sweat, you start your sweat litter turns into acid on your skin.
46:37
[SPEAKER_04]: It's very strange.
46:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, but it's not to the point where you can't survive there.
46:42
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just not friendly and you don't like to be there.
46:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Some people break it with really bad rashes everywhere and you're like, you got to get them out.
46:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I had one day where I was rigging 14 hours in the volcano, a several, like we're sleeping in the volcano, but then we rigged and we did some zip lines like
47:03
[SPEAKER_04]: and it started to rain in, but once you start, you gotta keep going.
47:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And the rain, I guess I was rigging above my head and I guess I had my wrists strapped, really tight on my wrist, but water still seat down and it went down to my armpits and it totally burned my armpits.
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.
47:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, like, chemical, you burn them because the skin's more sensitive there.
47:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was, as down there for like eight hours, the whole time, like, all of my armpits are so sore, but I couldn't do anything because it's still raining out.
47:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I can't do anything.
47:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I just had a suffer until I finally go back to camping, had like baby wipes, like white my armpits with, and then they were, you could see they come and go burn on them for weeks later.
47:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Not like hospitalized in you, but you're definitely not, you're not always enjoying yourself in there sometimes, or you can suffer some.
47:52
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, very, very cool just to be there.
47:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Just being there, I feel really privileged.
47:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Just when I'm there watching the lava explode, I'm just like, wow, just being here as a pillar,
48:01
[SPEAKER_04]: see in this is awesome.
48:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you know, to bring something that no one else has done before is even better.
48:07
[SPEAKER_04]: It's really, really special.
48:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Such a unique thing that you're doing excited to see what this next adventure is, too.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really, what can people find out more about you?
48:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So our website for our, my one company is 1xpersuits.com.
48:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And so you can follow us on, check out our website.
48:31
[SPEAKER_04]: We also
48:31
[SPEAKER_04]: all the big banks and cell phone companies and like farm sewer companies, a lot of them use us for a really adventurous unique team building programs, plus all our rock climbing and ice climbing programs are there.
48:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And then on that website, there's also a link to the film and stunt page, which has some real cool pictures of behind the scenes, seen stuff at down with green screens or lava or urban buildings for movies and TV shows.
48:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So,
48:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Oneaxpersuits.com and then on social media, oneaxpersuits as well, but I do have a oneax extreme website and a oneax extreme on social media that I kinda try to update when I get a chance with.
49:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Most of the stuff is like top secret, so you can't.
49:13
[SPEAKER_04]: share anything which is unfortunate.
49:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
49:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You found the way to turn an adventure sport passion into a career.
49:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's really cool.
49:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Very hard to do.
49:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you've done it.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So congratulations.
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: 20 years in.
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: 20 something years in.
49:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So well, great.
49:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Frederick, I appreciate it.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll let you know when this comes out.
49:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, this was awesome.
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
49:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Awesome.
49:36
[SPEAKER_04]: What's next?
49:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Next time with you.
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, thank you so much for listening and means the world to us that you choose a lesson of the show.
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to help us further, you can leave a review on iTunes, share us with your friends or family, it goes a long way to grow in the show.
49:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also support us financially through patreon.com slash adventure sports podcast.
49:59
[SPEAKER_01]: link is in the show notes and also if you have an idea of who could be a good guest for the show we're always looking for people to tell their story about the outdoors or adventure so if you know someone please reach out email us at info at adventuresportspodcast.com and until then get out there and have some fun.