Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1202: Climbing Montana's 50 Highest Peaks Revisited with Branden Joy

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Ep. 1202: Climbing Montana's 50 Highest Peaks Revisited with Branden Joy · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:10
[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_01]: Hello and welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:22
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Caleb.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a really interesting revisited episode for you guys today.
0:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Today we join Brandon Joy on his mountaineering adventure from 2020 when he can do anything because of COVID and in this adventure he decided to set out climbing Montana's 50 highest peaks in a growing 18-day journey.
0:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Mason and Brandon talk about, injuries which he endured on the trip, hunger, mental toughness, and what it's like to be mostly above tree line for that long period of time.
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.
1:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's Mason.
1:04
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, folks, welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.
1:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for tuning in again.
1:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Today we've got a really cool story.
1:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm actually very excited to hear this just because it's such a crazy idea to climb all of Montana's top 50 mountains.
1:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, we get to talk to Brandon who just really got off the trip, not that long ago, and still processing it.
1:29
[SPEAKER_02]: But Brandon, welcome to the show.
1:30
[SPEAKER_04]: How's it going?
1:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It's an honor to be here.
1:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going good.
1:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, man.
1:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're traveling, you said, right now, taking some time off and you're coming at us from the road.
1:41
[SPEAKER_02]: When did you get off the route?
1:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I finished the route on August 29th.
1:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think it's about five weeks post the project ending.
1:52
[SPEAKER_02]: How does it feel five weeks later?
1:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Ha ha.
1:56
[SPEAKER_04]: It's interesting now.
1:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Now the project is just a series of memories.
2:04
[SPEAKER_04]: As soon as it ended, my, I had some family kind of pick me up at the end and we camped out that night and I was just looking up at the mountains and realize this thing is over and and their phenomenal memories, but it's it's a huge shift in in your day to day activities and what you're doing, what how you approach your day, it's all different still feels like that now and I'm just taking some time to try and reflect and
2:33
[SPEAKER_04]: understand what was going through my head.
2:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And I guess what the future looks like.
2:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's it is weird.
2:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I compare it to a wave that's coming at you on the beach.
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's coming at you coming at you coming at you and you see it and then you're getting bracing for it and you take it on and it's short, it's intense and then it's just gone
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, now what?
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And inevitably, another way it was going to come, but you're just kind of on the backside of this wave, just sitting there, processing what just happened to you.
3:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Certainly.
3:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's much more than the 18 days that I was out there.
3:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I pretty, pretty dedicated to my training.
3:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was preparing for 200 mile foot race.
3:26
[SPEAKER_04]: This, this fall called the Bigfoot 200,
3:33
[SPEAKER_04]: with COVID, you know, everything got swept away, were most things.
3:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And in this was the case here.
3:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, I had all of this training and I had developed all of this fitness and I was ready for something big and when the race was canceled, I just said, hey, I'll just design something of my own.
3:55
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's still part of that massive wave that's coming towards you in this massive build.
4:03
[SPEAKER_04]: and in daunting singular project, which you're just out on your own.
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a suspicion that COVID's going to give us a lot of adventures to talk about in coming years, just because it's such a distinction between like before and after, like pre-COVID and post-COVID, and it's gonna cause people to like you just to take on these giant projects, where did this idea come from for doing the highest summits?
4:31
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, in Montana, the 50 highest summit.
4:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it something you were already thinking about doing, but just needed the time or needed the reason to go after it or did you just really put it together when you found out you couldn't do your ultra.
4:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was it was really once I realized that.
4:49
[SPEAKER_04]: The ultra was not happening.
4:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I started brainstorming.
4:54
[SPEAKER_04]: What I what I could be doing and I went anywhere from.
5:00
[SPEAKER_04]: thinking about doing their own a trail or or the gripped vibe, um, you know, bike packing style, just in Simone, who you had on your show was a big inspiration as well as another guy, Nate Bender, who established the Montana 12ers route and he did that in one push in 2018, and I guess I wanted to do
5:28
[SPEAKER_04]: bicycle.
5:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to do multi-sports, some multi-dimensional challenge, something that was a bit more comprehensive than getting on a flagged course and something that someone else sets the structural framework for in which you just test your cardiovascular engine.
5:45
[SPEAKER_04]: You're at the start lining your revving and then you just go guns blazing.
5:49
[SPEAKER_04]: It's fun and exciting, but I've been in my, I've
5:58
[SPEAKER_04]: and have spent majority of my time in Montana's sense and developed a bunch of different skills, backpacking, backcountry, navigating, rock climbing, running, you know, I've kind of played around with a lot of different things and I just wanted to be able to design something that
6:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I thought, well, Nate's done the the 12ers and yeah, I could repeat that.
6:32
[SPEAKER_04]: It'd be awesome.
6:33
[SPEAKER_04]: But I wanted to do something solo.
6:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to do something fully on my own and self supported.
6:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So no external help.
6:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't want to rely on anyone for anything because it was kind of a, I don't know, a rebellion against being.
6:57
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a rebellion against being having my schedule dictated by these races and, you know, Saints, events, you know, permits, you know, state regulations for COVID and and group size.
7:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You have all of these things coming into play and I just wanted, I mean, it'd be great to have some family or friends come out and give me oatmeal at trailhead here and there.
7:20
[SPEAKER_04]: But I wanted to do something too long to wear the logistics would be too extreme.
7:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And I had five weeks to plan this trip.
7:29
[SPEAKER_04]: It was almost just the planning it.
7:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought was a success in and of itself.
7:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I had to plan the entire route.
7:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I also had to plan gear and all the food.
7:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And I set four caches in the bear tooths a week before I started.
7:54
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, that the 12ers that would be an awesome project, but I figured it would take me just a bit over a week, and I wanted to do something longer.
8:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's really was a deciding factor for me to start looking into the top 50 and I did some research and found so quite surprising that all of the tallest 50 peaks in Montana are in one mountain range.
8:19
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty wild, man.
8:20
[SPEAKER_02]: That how big of an area do you know?
8:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Cause obviously, you know, it's in one area in one range, but that can that can be pretty big.
8:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So the mountains are in the Absoroke of Bear Tooth Wilderness.
8:33
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just on the north boundary of Yellowstone National Park.
8:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And if I remember correctly, it's just under a million acres, 900,000 in change,
8:46
[SPEAKER_04]: For me, it's perspective wise, pretty difficult to conceptualize 900,000 acres, but I can tell you it would take like an entire day to drive around the mountain range.
9:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's huge.
9:01
[SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.
9:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a, yeah, I'm looking at it.
9:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is, it's just crazy how how that that one range dominates the top, you know, top quite a few man.
9:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that and it says the Madison range starts to.
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: see some higher peaks as well.
9:18
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, why this route?
9:21
[SPEAKER_02]: What were some of the ideas that were going through your head to make you go after the top 50?
9:25
[SPEAKER_02]: What was 50 a number that you just had in your head versus, I don't know, 25 or even 100 was it based on time?
9:33
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you come up with that?
9:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was sort of based on time.
9:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to do something probably between two and four weeks
9:47
[SPEAKER_04]: test me from a lot of different angles.
9:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So I looked at first looked at doing the Montana Elevenors, which I think there are 83 or so, and those are spread out over six different ranges.
10:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So between the 50-tallot, 50th-tallus peak in the 83rd-tallus peak, there's quite a spread, and there would be a significant amount of biking, and it would just make,
10:16
[SPEAKER_04]: top 83 peaks are in the bare-tooths, and the more I looked at that, it's a logistical nightmare to try to figure out five weeks.
10:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it would also be a two-month project.
10:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Once I started mapping out the biking, so I tried to consolidate it down, I said, okay, well, what about
10:43
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, are there any trails that can be utilized, and really there aren't, I mean, there are there are two main through trails, they're more like horseshoe shaped that go through the baretooths, there are very, very little trick very few trails that go through, at least the baretooth side, and the mountains are fairly undocumented as well.
11:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I know in Colorado, you know, there are books dedicated to.
11:13
[SPEAKER_04]: to say the 14ers, right?
11:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think their 58 is that right?
11:18
[SPEAKER_02]: between 54 and 58, depending on how you define them.
11:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, 55, 50, yeah, you're right.
11:25
[SPEAKER_02]: There's, there's, there's the main guide book then there's tons of other guide books about them.
11:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're not going to be probably not going to be alone on any of them all summer and even in the winter, you're going to have folks up there.
11:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, it's not by any means an isolated wilderness experience.
11:44
[SPEAKER_02]: This range that you're talking about, man, you're not getting it's out there, man.
11:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really out there.
11:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
11:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I came back, so I basically just looked at Topo, Topographic maps and Google Earth.
12:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Those were my main references to figure out what kind of route
12:12
[SPEAKER_04]: say in a bit mount in a bit on summit posts.
12:16
[SPEAKER_04]: There are multiple routes to get to the summit, but I might not necessarily be coming from the closest trailhead or the easiest access point.
12:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm coming from the peak prior and I'm going on the ridge line in the other direction.
12:40
[SPEAKER_04]: it was too much information to try to try and think or try to figure out people's notes where, and it everything gets so vague and arbitrary because it's all rock.
12:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think tree line ends around 9,500 feet and I figured I was around 11,000 feet on average throughout the entirety of the 18 days.
13:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was 1500 feet above tree line.
13:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything is just rocks.
13:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, it was felt like I was on the moon and there are no trails, there's no, there's not a single trail to any summit.
13:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I came back, I cross referenced the route that I did versus what's available online.
13:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And I figured that on my trip, I navigated 31 significant lines, slopes.
13:38
[SPEAKER_04]: cliff faces or ridge lines, 31 unique things that just aren't out there.
13:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And then 16 of the 50 mountains, there is no information on online about no routes, no do's and don'ts, no close access points, no, hey, by the way, this is a class five mandatory type of type of spire and and there are multiple of multiple of
14:08
[SPEAKER_04]: multiple peaks where all I could see from Google Earth is that they were these giant spires coming out of fridge lines that had a 2,000 foot vertical drop onto a glacier on one side.
14:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And the other side, it was just the, I don't know what takes the images on Google Earth, but it's just blurry.
14:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, a couple of the spires just looked impossible.
14:38
[SPEAKER_04]: pretty ridiculous and borderline and possible.
14:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But those are the types of things that I really find satisfying.
14:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And I derive, yeah, I feel like help develop me.
14:53
[SPEAKER_04]: If I went out and knew that this thing would go and I knew it was possible, it wouldn't be the same.
15:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you have to
15:04
[SPEAKER_04]: just just toe the line and and give it everything you've got and there was a lot that went wrong out there and and honestly up until I got through probably peak 40 I was really discouraged because there were a couple of these spires that I sat on Google Earth that looked unclimable like and I was in I didn't have I was unroped I didn't have a harness I had no climb you know no
15:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was in running shoes.
15:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I had one pair of shoes, the entire time.
15:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was doing all this traversing of the landscape and technical climbing and down climbing, descending with a 30 pound pack and in running shoes.
15:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So I did be very careful about what I was on.
15:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And a lot of these routes, I don't know if any,
15:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Who knows if people have touched the rock out there?
16:00
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it could be virgin, ancient.
16:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just crumbling rock, and you have to test every hold.
16:08
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't make a mistake.
16:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
16:10
[SPEAKER_02]: brand and that is, I mean, I'm just looking at images right now of this area and I mean, just it's such a crazy idea to go after and for you to say that you were discouraged the whole time, that's so fascinating because it's it's obviously
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: incredibly difficult achievement to even think about doing and then to plan in five weeks and to prepare and you said you put out food cashes.
16:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw pictures.
16:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like in five gallon buckets.
16:40
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you do that?
16:41
[SPEAKER_02]: What did you do?
16:42
[SPEAKER_02]: What was in those?
16:44
[SPEAKER_02]: What kind of food did you pack and what did you carry with you the whole time?
16:48
[SPEAKER_04]: What did I carry in terms of food or gear?
16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been told that I don't ask enough about that, so I want to be sure I ask about it.
16:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It is like people who appear here these inspiring stories and I forget to ask like, what physically did you have with you because people are interested in that?
17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And where as I just want to hear like, why did you do this?
17:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, no, certainly.
17:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So in terms of food, my general nutrition strategy, I guess first off,
17:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't have a stove.
17:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I was trying to go as light as possible.
17:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I figured that having warm water or having that capability was more of a comfort and not an necessity.
17:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Although it would have been really nice to be able to boil water because I've been had to find running water or try to collect snow from the top of glaciers or snow fields in a two liter reservoir
17:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So I didn't have a stove.
17:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So everything was not all because I non-parishable.
17:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess everything will perish after a certain amount of time.
17:57
[SPEAKER_04]: But all kinds of nut mixes, trail mix.
18:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And I took quite a bit of beef jerky.
18:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And I ate a lot of candy.
18:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I definitely got my sweet tooth on when I was out there.
18:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And I drank, I would say I drank about a quarter
18:20
[SPEAKER_04]: powders one is called ultra gen.
18:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's by.
18:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't I don't know who makes it it's ultra gen and it's in it's it's a recovery drink that's roughly three quarters carbon hydrate to one quarter protein and that was really good to use during the day and I can you can really pound calories just in a 16 ounce collapsible bottle just fill it up with some water.
18:47
[SPEAKER_04]: dump four or five, 600 calories in it and just slam it versus trying to eat that much.
18:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I would have to eat like an entire bag, big bag of beef jerky to try to get that same caloric intake.
18:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the protein takes longer for your body to utilize.
19:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So during the day I was going a lot more carbohydrate-based and I had a bunch of different bars and I did have some gels like
19:16
[SPEAKER_04]: maple syrup.
19:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So I went with that approach in terms of food, some granola in the morning, I took some powdered milk to try to mix in the water with the granola to make it a little bit more palatable and then peanut butter.
19:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I took a one pound each cache had a one pound jar of peanut butter, but essentially all of my food and all of the caches, each cache had
19:46
[SPEAKER_04]: and some basic medical resupplies, each cash had a power bank, 20,000 milliamp, and I also brought a small solar panel as a backup, because I had a Garmin, I had my watch and I had my phone, which I was usually, mostly using to navigate, and a backup cable here or there, that was another stressful point is, you have,
20:13
[SPEAKER_04]: If you it's super easy to leave a cable somewhere or cord charging cord and if you do that or you leave it out overnight and some some critter comes by and choose it choose it up you you're going to it's going to be it's going to be a problem because I have no resupply I can't being self supported I can't call a friend and say hey SOS I need this cord because I can't charge my phone I lost it.
20:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So I had to be very attentive even as fatigue was just piling on and regardless of the situation.
20:49
[SPEAKER_04]: If there's all sorts of types of things that came up to just put additional stress, you know, you have daylight issues, where am I going to camp in coming weather?
21:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So you just have to stay super focused the entire time.
21:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's kind of overall the nutrition strategy
21:11
[SPEAKER_04]: As far as gear, I took an ultimate direction fast pack 35 later, which works great.
21:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I took a pair of ski poles, telescoping ski poles.
21:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't want to take carbon fiber because that breaks too easily.
21:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I needed something to really withstand a beating and this ski poles worked great.
21:33
[SPEAKER_04]: They're a little bit heavier, but it's all good.
21:41
[SPEAKER_04]: The combination of those things, I was prepared to withstand a blizzard because the baritutes can get that any time of year and I needed to be prepared for anything.
21:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And I needed to be prepared to hunker down, you know, if I'm up at 12,000 feet and some storm rolls in and the rock gets iced over, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be moving when the rocks in bad condition.
22:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Also, I gave myself 30 days to do this thing in case of injury, I needed or, you know, this was far beyond anything I'd experienced from a physical and mental fatigue standpoint, so I had no idea halfway through if I, I might just need a couple of days off, you know, I might have a strain muscle.
22:41
[SPEAKER_04]: quite a bit of a buffer.
22:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And I guess in terms of other gear, like I said, I had that small solar panel and medical supplies, some basic fire starter.
22:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't bring a water filter either.
22:57
[SPEAKER_02]: No water filter and no stove.
23:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you just drink what you found?
23:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so that the water was another,
23:09
[SPEAKER_04]: complication out there, because it is a high route, you're high.
23:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's not water necessarily on ridge lines.
23:21
[SPEAKER_04]: There are each day.
23:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I found myself waking up and crawling out of my baby probably still in my sleeping bag because it was freezing.
23:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'd open my phone and try to figure out where I was going to go that day.
23:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I just asked my fatigue, how much water I had, where I thought the next possible water source was.
23:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And what the weather was doing, I had all these, how much food I had, what how many peaks until the next cache and how I could spread that out evenly.
23:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And the water, there were some high alpine lakes and you can kind of,
24:03
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you're at anywhere on the glacier or above it, there's not running water.
24:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it just became trying me trying to utilize my knowledge and experience being out there to best predict where I could find running water, which I did take directly from Glacial Runoff, snow melt in high alpine streams.
24:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And then every once in a while, there would just be this beautiful,
24:33
[SPEAKER_04]: pool or series of just water that comes out of nowhere.
24:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, I don't know how this is here, or even seats in the mountain, where there were a couple of times that I was kind of desperate.
24:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Some days I'd wake up and I'd have a lot of water for the day and then eight hours later, there still don't have any water supply.
24:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's just baking hot, there's no trees, no cloud cover.
25:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's, you know, it starts to get a little bit stressful.
25:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I see, you know, as I'm hiking along the rocks below me start sloughing and moving beneath me.
25:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I see that the dirt is wet and there's water trickling.
25:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So I would just I was kind of.
25:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Caveman style.
25:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I would just drop my pack and try and develop some small pool or something that I could I could get water from.
25:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Thankfully, that didn't happen too often.
25:33
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, before I also, I unsighted the entire route.
25:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'd only climbed one of these 50 peaks before.
25:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Had I gone out and done scouting missions, I would have been able to identify these unpredictable water sources and the satellite imagery that I had downloaded for offline maps,
25:58
[SPEAKER_04]: was probably in early winter or late spring, so there was a lot of snow cover.
26:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So I still, and even if it was in high summer, I wouldn't have been able to identify these small pools of water.
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just great getting great.
26:13
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many things I want to ask you about.
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: This is unbelievable.
26:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You just showed up and made the route as you went.
26:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, you knew where the 50 peaks you wanted to hit were.
26:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But did you know generally, obviously, a list of the peaks you wanted in order, and then as you made your way towards that peak made decisions on where to go?
26:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
26:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, when I
26:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I set sort of a backbone just that a framework for what I would be doing out there based on the topographic maps, I'm like, well, this looks like a more okay, well, I'll try to go up this rocky, whatever this it could everything is all rocks.
26:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So you can't really, it's not, well, this area has trees in this area has rocks, so I can
27:02
[SPEAKER_04]: make a decision based on the terrain.
27:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's all rocks.
27:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So I would try to then choose just based off the topographic imagery.
27:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think, okay, well, I'll get up to the saddle.
27:13
[SPEAKER_04]: It looks like the average slope or the vertical gain per horizontal distance is more digestible.
27:21
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'd go up to the saddle via my initial planned route and then go up to some ridge line to the summit.
27:30
[SPEAKER_04]: The very first peak I did I got to the base of it and I saw the street field that I would go up and I thought that looks loose that looks I mean it really it just looked loose and not super interesting and I said I looked directly at the peak and there was a direct route.
27:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean it I wouldn't say most people probably wouldn't look at it and be like oh that's a good way to go but from where I was I just looked and it was more technical and it had more solid rock and I just went directly to the summit from where I was.
27:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And I found myself doing that for almost every peak.
28:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So as I was on one peak, I would be looking to the next series of peaks and cross-referencing my planned route versus what I saw.
28:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And oftentimes, I would say definitely in the first third and up to the first half, I was making decisions on my route based on what looked more interesting
28:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe a little more adventurous, you know, I had that adventure because I was primed I was I had my several days of of scrambling.
28:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I got adjusted with the pack in the terrain and I was I was just comfortable.
28:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I had exposed class four or low class five terrain every day.
28:49
[SPEAKER_04]: There was terrain every day that you that you can't you cannot make a mistake.
28:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So how was that how were you processing that was that you know I've only been in a handful of situations where it's like okay this takes absolute focus and when I get down from that without a harness or anything it's really taxing it really takes a while to kind of get over it and to just realize what what you know how how risky it was how did you deal with that on a daily
29:26
[SPEAKER_04]: In the first half, I felt fine and I actually enjoyed the technical climbing.
29:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I felt really strong even 30, 40, or 50,000 feet of vertical gain on my legs and to
29:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it totaled to be 195 miles and 10 miles were on trail.
30:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's off trail the entire time.
30:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And then just choosing lines and just analyzing one route to one summit to the next.
30:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And sometimes I get turned around to get bottlenecked into glaciers.
30:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's just gloss ice.
30:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can't do that.
30:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have crampons.
30:21
[SPEAKER_04]: It's if you try to cross it and you fall,
30:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So the first half I was my my confidence and my strength was just sky high and in the competency to be able to do that and handle that technical terrain.
30:41
[SPEAKER_04]: What I realized and I did a couple climbs out there that were very bold and in one case on day six I.
30:54
[SPEAKER_04]: approach sky pilot is an out and back.
30:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was able to kind of put gear in in one place to go do sky pilot because I knew I was coming back to that same exact spot.
31:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got to the base of sky pilot.
31:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going south and in the route, the intended route that I knew would be reasonable would be to horse you around and then go up kind of the street goalie and plateau summit to.
31:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know, it's a plateau-ish slope plateau to the summit and I got to the base of the north end of this mountain and it was like it was a just a five hundred four five hundred foot vertical cliff and I looked at it and I would just I just saw a line immediately and I just I went for it and I could really only see the first the contour and the texture and and the
31:52
[SPEAKER_04]: anticipated route of that first 100 feet or so, vertical feet.
31:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And then beyond that, I just, I was piecing everything together.
32:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, pulling rocks off the wall, you know, trying to kick this gravelly kitty letter off ledges.
32:12
[SPEAKER_04]: This was the day, I think day six was the day that my fingers really started getting cut up and bleeding from the constant climbing.
32:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And this was the climate really sparked the bleeding frenzy that would plague my the rest of my trip basically and almost I think my fingers were one thing that really almost took me out of the project.
32:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I was I the cuts were getting big enough.
32:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I was concerned about infection and I had all I had was duct tape.
32:48
[SPEAKER_04]: which I used and I duct tape all my fingers.
32:51
[SPEAKER_04]: We can get into that in a minute.
32:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I know we're getting sidetracked.
32:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But basically, I got to the summit.
32:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It was this super aesthetic, just rush, and just a violent flow state.
33:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Just the most, I mean, pure focus.
33:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, when you're climbing in general, it doesn't have to be on sighting some route, crazy route somewhere on your own.
33:18
[SPEAKER_04]: When you're climbing, Mark Twight, the famous American mountaineer, I read his book recently, Kisser Kill.
33:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And he has a quote in there that really resonated with me, that was a reflection of pretty much my entire trip.
33:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And he said, the soloist must realize that he is 100% responsible.
33:40
[SPEAKER_04]: There is, I can, and I can't.
33:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There is no, I will try.
33:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you're out there, you're at least at 100%.
33:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I was at the summit, I took a video at every summit in photo, just to documentation and also just for memories.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: But in my photo, I basically said, that was an incredible climb, but I can't be doing that every day.
34:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Like there was this immediate taxation.
34:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I was on the vertical cliff in that, there were points where I mean,
34:17
[SPEAKER_04]: two, three, or 400 feet, where if I made a mistake, that's how far I would fall before I hit the deck.
34:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're very aware of that.
34:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And I felt super solid on that entire climb.
34:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was very focused on the technicality of the terrain and before I went, I was out, local, I live in Helena,
34:47
[SPEAKER_04]: on Mount Helena, some limestone and I went up there and practiced some soloing, not some easier terrain.
34:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So I just went up and was climbing things that I would never normally climb because they're not challenging with climbing shoes, chalk and someone belaying you.
35:05
[SPEAKER_04]: But I went up there and I started stripping myself of this climbing gear to where I was not using chalk
35:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I was just freestyling up these 50 or 60 foot cliffs to get a feel for what that would be like when I experience that with that specific gear in the bear tooth.
35:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, that's it's the to think you put all this together in in five weeks is astounding can I ask you this you know did did you run across a lot of other people did and when you if you did what was that like I know you're out there 18 days, but
35:46
[SPEAKER_02]: As all adventures talk about a week on an adventure feels like a month.
35:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm sure if you went time without seeing people, it was a joy to see them.
35:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Certainly.
35:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I saw people probably every handful of days.
36:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And the few, there was one day where I saw probably 90% of the people, which I was on the beaten path, one of these through hikes through the
36:13
[SPEAKER_04]: through the baritooth, and it got to be overwhelming.
36:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I was walking along this trail.
36:19
[SPEAKER_04]: All of my fingertips were duct tape.
36:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I probably smelled like a dumpster fire and just, I just felt out of, you know, people are out hiking, families, and screaming kids.
36:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean, it really wasn't that bad.
36:34
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was kind of sensory overload because I'm doing this intense project.
36:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And, and,
36:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's hard for people to relate and I talked to a few people and they were excited but ultimately I just needed to keep making progress and the experiences that I did have.
36:52
[SPEAKER_04]: With people where I really got to kind of sit down and and and talk and especially people that knew the bear to those moments were particularly special and just before granted granted peak is the tallest in Montana and it's it's a high point.
37:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So there are a lot of people that like to go out and climb it for that reason.
37:13
[SPEAKER_04]: It's also, it's just a beautiful climb.
37:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a low class five.
37:18
[SPEAKER_04]: It's exposed.
37:20
[SPEAKER_04]: People, it gives people a flavor for for that type of terrain.
37:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's a really good challenge.
37:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, it's, it's not an easy task.
37:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So there is a guy, there's a guy that grew up in some guides.
37:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew where these people normally are at the base of granite.
37:39
[SPEAKER_04]: and just started talking with them.
37:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean, that was probably as far as just a human interaction to sit down with some serious climbers and be able to share some of the experiences was very memorable.
37:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And then one of those people, one of those climbers in that group worked for the company, but wasn't a guide.
38:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And so her and I actually climbed grain at the next day
38:09
[SPEAKER_04]: and then did the West Granite to verse, which is it's significantly more spicy than the granite climate itself, and it's mostly downclining, and it doesn't see a lot of traffic, so you're dealing with a lot of that loose ancient rock.
38:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And those were the only two summits that I saw a human the entire trip.
38:31
[SPEAKER_02]: What an experience.
38:32
[SPEAKER_02]: What a wilderness experience.
38:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know,
38:37
[SPEAKER_02]: COVID and being out there and in social distancing and preparing, despite all the preparing and all the precautions and all the experience early on, you hurt your ankle pretty bad.
38:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Could you tell us about that and how you are processing and how you dealt with that?
38:56
[SPEAKER_04]: The ankle injury was quite discouraging.
38:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I was actually on the
39:05
[SPEAKER_04]: easiest terrain.
39:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I had navigated the entire trip.
39:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I had five miles, five of my 10 trail miles.
39:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was just hiking a long, long, having a jolly time.
39:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Greece for a granola bar in my, in my, the front pouch of my backpack.
39:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just hit the ground.
39:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just had a serene pain in my ankle.
39:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew what had happened.
39:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I just stepped on a rock wrong.
39:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I just, this, this, this brief,
39:35
[SPEAKER_04]: thinking I was safe because I was on the trail and my ankle is pretty messed up.
39:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, oh, they had to be frustrating.
39:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, it was in I was I was very upset with myself for allowing that to happen.
39:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I was 100 miles in at this point in about 50,000 vertical
40:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was able to move my ankle or sorry, my foot up and down, but any sort of side to side movement would drop me in pain.
40:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, and so I had to read, I basically restructured the way that I moved.
40:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And that I was leading everything with my strong legs, strong foot, and putting that, putting that risk there because when you're on rocks,
40:34
[SPEAKER_04]: everything wants to move.
40:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing's really that stable.
40:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And just being able, at least I was halfway in, so I was very well tuned in to the geologic coneciology of the areas that I was in.
40:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And, and then I just dragged not quite literally, but kind of dragged my my trailing foot
41:05
[SPEAKER_04]: on making sure that every step was completely solid.
41:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I was working with my coach.
41:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I had a garment, so I'm like texting back and forth.
41:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a phenomenal coach and working through some different techniques, tips, tricks, whatever you wanna call them to keep getting blood flow back to that area and try to reduce incoming damage.
41:35
[SPEAKER_04]: two-liter reservoir from the top of glaciers or snowpack and using that as nice pack, elevating the leg, doing ankle rolls at night and in the morning before I got up to help sort of, just to get blood flow to that area.
41:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're not standing up on something that's essentially suffocated.
41:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And I honestly in retrospect, and I was still doing big days, like really big days.
42:05
[SPEAKER_04]: 6,000 vertical game in 6,000 loss per day on average, which some days was more, I think up to 10 or 11,000, and some days, you know, when I hit a cash point, I probably had a half day and I maybe had two or 3,000.
42:34
[SPEAKER_04]: 20% of the reason my ankle healed over the course of the next six days, 20% was because of these tips and tricks that I had at my sleeve and working with my coach.
42:46
[SPEAKER_04]: In 80% I think was just luck.
42:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't or just some some grace of something.
42:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I just I don't have an explanation for it, but I
42:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't slow down.
42:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I was just extra cognizant.
43:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, I mean, this is just another aspect of mental stress that goes into what we were talking about earlier.
43:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And it wasn't just the climbing.
43:13
[SPEAKER_04]: It was finding water.
43:14
[SPEAKER_04]: It was watching the weather, the California wildfire smoke rolled in for the middle third of that trip.
43:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I was blind to incoming weather.
43:28
[SPEAKER_04]: out there by weather systems.
43:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And sometimes I couldn't even see them coming.
43:33
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, I couldn't see where they were going.
43:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And when the smoke rolled in, I also, as I mentioned, was on, I was scouting out my future lines from points where I had a good vantage point.
43:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, with this thick smoke that rolled in, I couldn't do that.
43:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And so there's this additional, so then I have to get closer and closer
43:57
[SPEAKER_04]: the mountain clearly enough to make coherent and smart decisions.
44:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And then by the time, I think granite was around peak 27.
44:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So in the beaten half, I must have been around peak 22 or 23.
44:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So all of this stress was building up.
44:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And it got to a point after the 40th peak,
44:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Exposure from the rock climbing and exposure just being just having this extreme isolation not having anyone to talk things through it to say, you know, hey, is this a good idea.
44:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're like, no, that's a terrible idea.
44:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Why are you, you know, why would you suggest that?
44:42
[SPEAKER_04]: no one to check in with your fatigue to think about where we could find, I mean, water, I mean, all of these things, wildlife, it's prime grizzly bear habitat mountain lion, I followed mountain lion tracks over over an 11,500 foot pass so you have all of these different things swirling around and after 40 peaks after 14 days I was just I couldn't handle it and this is something far beyond what I've experienced in the past is and it's also far more.
45:12
[SPEAKER_04]: or tense and comprehensive, as I mentioned.
45:16
[SPEAKER_04]: But I started making decisions that I would avoid technical terrain.
45:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And instead, I would add on thousands and thousands and thousands of feet of elevation cannon loss.
45:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'd get to a point, I'd make a summit and then I head down some slope field
45:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I see two options in front of me.
45:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a ridge line that I have no information on.
45:46
[SPEAKER_04]: The extends may be half or three quarters of a mile.
45:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Or I can descend the steep loose, bolder slope.
45:56
[SPEAKER_04]: with a 30 pound bag, two to 3,000 vertical feet before then I traverse that horizontal half or three quarters mile and then I have to go up two to 3,000 vertical feet to get to where this ridge line would have popped me on the first place.
46:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And I started getting on one point I was on this ridge line.
46:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And it wasn't even that technical of terrain.
46:20
[SPEAKER_04]: It was exposed, but it wasn't technical.
46:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just felt my legs just wobbly.
46:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, my fingers at this point had been just cut up and constantly, my finger tips.
46:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I wore these, I got pair of just, I'd say medium weight, car heart gloves, and I just cut the fingertips off at the last knuckle.
46:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted that dexterity to be able to climb, feel the rock and also kind of coordinate with my phone.
46:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And at this point too, I mean, I'd probably had 80,000, 80,000 gain, 80,000 loss on the legs and around 150 miles.
47:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just, I just felt my legs wobbling and I just, I couldn't do it.
47:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just descended and I went around.
47:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And there weren't a whole lot of decision points in the last 10 peaks where I had to make that, but it was clear to me that I was no longer.
47:22
[SPEAKER_04]: taking the lines that were interesting, or maybe a little fun, more fun.
47:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I was just trying to survive.
47:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I was just trying to get out in one piece.
47:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I was just trying to make it home.
47:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And there was one peak coming down the east ridge from Mount Hague, which I think was peak 43 on the second to last day, was likely the most stressful peak I had the entire trip.
47:53
[SPEAKER_04]: which is down in the series of lakes near Mystic Lake, Island Lake, and I had a, it's roughly 4,000 foot vertical direct climb to the summit.
48:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Narlie Bushwack, which was good.
48:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean, I just got to a point where I could just keep going, like my body hurt, but it was, it was, it would function.
48:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And if I was walking through bushes and I got poked in the arm or scratched in my legs, bleeding, like it's just a flush wound or whatever and it's fine.
48:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And I could keep going.
48:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Like if I fell, I would just slip in like falling, brace myself with my hands.
48:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's no big deal.
48:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got to the summit, which was not technical, but then I had to send the East Ridge.
48:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And there was really no way around.
48:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe upwards of 10,000 feet of vertical change to go around.
48:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And at this point, I was just so roasted physically.
48:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I just said, OK, I'll just try it.
49:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And it turned out to be this probably the worst quality rock I had.
49:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I was on the entire trip.
49:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Anything you touched would just fall off.
49:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing was solid.
49:13
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm trying to grab this rock.
49:15
[SPEAKER_04]: and not put any real pressure on it, but use it more as pressure points and stabilization rather than actually, because if you yank, it's just gonna yank off with you and it's gonna fall on your feet, on your legs and you're gonna have a bad time.
49:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So just this weird climbing, I wouldn't even call it climbing, but then your feet are on this 40 to 60 degree,
49:45
[SPEAKER_04]: in the rock and also the dirt, there were ice lenses, just unpredictable everywhere.
49:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And on this compact dirt, if you slip, it's essentially, it's a slope with marbles.
49:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, there's with scree, you can dig in the sides of your feet or heels and actually stop with this compact dirt.
50:06
[SPEAKER_04]: If you start sliding, you're just going down.
50:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you can't, there's no way around it.
50:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And it just turned out to be this ultra stressful situation.
50:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And I made it through, but I was just not having a good time.
50:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew that would happen though.
50:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I didn't go out on this project to be comfortable.
50:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't go out on this project to be, because I knew I'd get a good night's sleep.
50:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd have some fine cuisine to enjoy.
50:41
[SPEAKER_04]: test myself and test where my perceived physiological and psychological limitations were, where they are.
50:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And, and I wanted to see how the the project itself was just a structural framework, top 50 peaks.
51:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a number, top 50.
51:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't matter what mountains they were.
51:11
[SPEAKER_04]: That's all that mattered.
51:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So being a little more than a month out of the experience, what will you say is the lasting impact that the experience has on you and what you've learned?
51:26
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a good question.
51:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have a very good answer.
51:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's something that I am still trying to process.
51:35
[SPEAKER_04]: The trip went so far beyond anything I've experienced
51:41
[SPEAKER_04]: could have anticipated it would be.
51:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It was nothing short of soul stirring.
51:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And the one certainty I can say coming out of the trip is that if you asked me a year ago, Brandon, what is 2020 look like for you?
52:05
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you wanna spend your time, your energy,
52:10
[SPEAKER_04]: and what are your goals look like?
52:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I could have given you a laundry list of races, ultramarathons, and things were some races contingent on others and lotteries, and this and that, and as soon as I finish this project and up until now, those, the idea of participating in an organized event in spending time
52:41
[SPEAKER_04]: it no longer seems relevant to my life when in the future when I spend a year planning or more for some event that I'm going to go out and really push and test myself in the future it will be adventure oriented and I would also say that it will be long duration
53:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the 200 mileer that I was going to race, would have taken me roughly three days.
53:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And in my mind, that's too short.
53:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I think really a week's too short.
53:16
[SPEAKER_04]: In two weeks, two weeks is a good amount of time.
53:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And this guy's the limit.
53:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do a lot in two weeks.
53:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're saying that organized events just are not going to organize events where a lot of logistics or handle and you have to have to show up and race.
53:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Even if their outdoors is not as much appealing to you, you want the entire experience of being out there.
53:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I want the entire experience.
53:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, there are some very enjoyable qualities to races,
53:53
[SPEAKER_04]: This trip just illustrated to me.
53:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I don't feel creative when I'm racing.
53:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It's fairly mechanical.
54:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And this trip was incredibly creative, not just like the idea itself, planning everything, planning the food, setting the caches, where to put the caches, all the gear, and then actually being out there,
54:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Fairly undocumented things, it was really for me for me at the heart of adventure and exploration, not only of the landscape, but of myself.
54:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what I want to experience more of.
54:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's no one way to the top of a mountain.
54:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you can, there are so many different ways.
54:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And you could just pick whatever you want,
54:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't have to be on a trail.
54:53
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't have to be on the path of least resistance or even go with what you find online or some opposed or mountain project.
55:03
[SPEAKER_04]: You can just be out there and experience the landscape in any way you want to.
55:13
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, man, we often feature lots of folks on this show that are just incredibly inspiring and then others that are incredibly relatable.
55:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the inspiration or folks like Alex Honel would say he's doing something you would never want to do, but it's obviously incredible to see.
55:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have other folks that are...
55:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, okay, you know, that's, that's a, that's just a person, just a guy or, or a woman that just does this between work and, and I can do that too.
55:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you fall in the former, the, the more, like, holy crap, this is really inspiring.
55:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I love that you say that that you, you know, people might not want to set out and do the highest fifties like you did in an experience that exposure in that absolute primal instinctive adventurous side of themselves, but
56:06
[SPEAKER_02]: they might enjoy just as much going out and seeing the places that you were doing all that or going to look at LCAP and take pictures and walk around it and they can get that sense of adventure and that joy from that type one fun even from something like that and so I love that you mentioned that and that you can experience these same places just in totally different ways but they fill us all in a different way.
56:31
[SPEAKER_02]: But what would you say now that this world is opened up to you in a larger sense?
56:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything on the horizon that excites you?
56:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Or is it just too early to even start thinking about that?
56:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I would say I'm still in a recovery phase.
56:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I have just a lot.
57:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I am taking some time to really recognize and appreciate that.
57:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And as much as I've been reflecting on the trip that I just did, I cannot help but to brainstorm ideas for the future.
57:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And I haven't really locked anything in to do that, I mean, certainly it's too early, but,
57:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Whatever I do next, I will definitely, whatever I do next for a big project, will be thinking, I will be thinking outside of the box.
57:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'll try to express that creativity and do something pretty unique.
57:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That's really the foundation for my philosophy moving forward.
57:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Where can folks find you?
57:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Where can they find out more about this journey and what you've done?
57:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So I have an Instagram, my Instagram is the wild med with underscores of the underscores wild underscores med and on my Instagram I've actually been since I got out about every other day I've been doing a recap of each day.
58:18
[SPEAKER_04]: the distance I covered, the vertical gain and loss, and then a series of nine or 10 photos and videos with the description and then also sort of, what I kind of a snapshot is into what I encountered that day.
58:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So that would be the best method of trying to get a more formal story of the scenery, what I was climbing and what I was seeing.
58:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm working on a trip report in tandem,
58:48
[SPEAKER_04]: That's another beast in and of itself.
58:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you know, we, we hear from folks all the time saying, you know, writing the writing the journey or writing a book or typing it out is almost harder than doing it.
59:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So good, good luck typing out the trip report and processing it and the pictures and all that.
59:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Also just congratulations on such an incredible adventure.
59:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Very, very proud of you.
59:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Very excited.
59:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this is not necessarily something I want to do, but I listening to you talk about it.
59:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just very inspiring, man.
59:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate you telling us about this.
59:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And I really think it was, gosh, just such a unique, such a cool experience that you can know that,
59:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You might be one of a handful of people in the world that's experienced something quite like that or in that way, that area, especially.
59:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, congratulations.
59:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm excited for your time off to process it and for your next projects.
59:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for joining us and telling your story.
1:00:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, thank you, Mason.
1:00:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It's been a pleasure chatting with you.
1:00:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
1:00:06
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
1:00:06
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll have a great afternoon and evening and we'll talk soon.
1:00:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Have a good time off.
1:00:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
1:00:11
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
1:00:12
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
1:00:12
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you.
1:00:12
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
1:00:13
[SPEAKER_02]: See you.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, thank you so much for listening and means the world to us that you choose a lesson of this show.
1:00:21
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1:00:29
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1:00:36
[SPEAKER_02]: 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.
1:00:45
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1:00:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And until then, get out there and have some fun.