Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1214: Mountaineering in the Gap Years with Tom French

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Ep. 1214: Mountaineering in the Gap Years with Tom French · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:11
[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.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi friends, welcome today to the Adventure Sports podcast again.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so thankful that you're here.
0:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to enjoy this conversation a lot.
0:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I just met Tom French, who is our guest today.
0:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And Tom was in business for 33 years and decided to retire, but he had this idea of returning to the things that he had loved doing years and years and years and focusing on it, in a way that he called the gap here.
0:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're talking about things like Everest and Chilotsi and Cross Country ski racing.
0:53
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about all this kind of stuff, but what it's like to return to, I don't know if I should call it the first love, the early love, after retirement, Tom welcome to the Adventures Sports podcast.
1:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks Kurt, great to be here.
1:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Tom, I just told you before I hit record that this sounds fantastic.
1:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to do it.
1:14
[SPEAKER_02]: To say, you know what, it's time to get back into the things that I love.
1:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But let's rewind a little bit because you were doing the ski racing and mountaineering for a long time.
1:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So what's the back story on that?
1:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the backstory is I grew up in a community of people who were big and mountaineering in the outdoors in cross-country skiing.
1:37
[SPEAKER_01]: My father, in fact, owned and ran out of door sports shop that staff full of climbers and full of cross-country skiers and all that.
1:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of inhaled all of that in my brother with youth ended up doing a lot of climbing in my teens and my 20s and into my early 30s.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: then got very into competitive cross country ski racing.
1:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a national right cross country ski racer and that was my life for a long while So that's sort of the way back story is all that was what I lived and breathed and died for in my teens and 20s and late 20s and creeping up at the 30s
2:15
[SPEAKER_01]: and then I'll spare you the details, but I then I ended up traveling the world and leaving expeditions all over the place and then somehow out of all that and that up in business school and ended up in with a business career and a family to raise and all of that was wonderful, but all that early chunk of my life which which I loved just became happy memories.
2:34
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, very happy memories.
2:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was busy doing other things.
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of a sudden, I woke up one day and I was approaching 60 years old and three decades in flown by, faster than I could ever believe.
2:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was trying to figure out, well, what next?
2:47
[SPEAKER_01]: The classic, what next question?
2:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had this idea and there was kind of a couple ideas at the same time.
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But in my youth, I had taken a bunch of time-offs.
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: They're now called Gapiers, but I took a year-off before I went to college.
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I lived up on the Arctic Circle on just ski-raced.
3:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got out of college and said, I'm doing what people thought I might go do.
3:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I ended up traveling all over the world and planned and let expeditions kind of you name when I was there.
3:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And those were, as I looked back, some of the most formative experience and rich experiences in my life.
3:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, now I'm 60, I did it then at meant to ton, all these kids get to take gap here.
3:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't I get to take a gap here?
3:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a little bit branded at that, but the big idea for me was, now I'm 60 years old, there's some other things I maybe will end up doing, but I'm going to just sort of hit pause on all that, and I'm going to go back.
3:38
[SPEAKER_01]: to these things that meant so much to me then, which was mountaineering really in cross country ski racing.
3:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to get my body back in shape.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to train like a madman.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to take a year or two and I'm going to go climb some of the highest mountains in the world and jump in a bunch of these long cross country ski marathons and see what it feels.
3:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You're general and see what it's like when you're 60 years old not 20 years old.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's that's what it was.
4:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
4:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I would like to approach this interview, this conversation by two perspectives, right?
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: One perspective is how do young people get involved in these things?
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you did when you were young, right?
4:18
[SPEAKER_02]: But I want to make sure we have the other perspective too, which is
4:21
[SPEAKER_02]: a lot of people when they start to get a little bit older, more advanced in years, they might feel like they're aging out, or maybe just learning how to do the things they love in a new way.
4:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd also like to visit what it's like as you're thinking about retirement.
4:39
[SPEAKER_02]: to get back into these things and what that you know because our listeners are people of all ages from all places around the world and and I think it means something to each of them but as a young man you already said these were the things you loved right but what made let's let's start with the cross country ski racing what made that such a passion for you and what did
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the cross country ski racing started with a family that was doing it, of course, and but I'll never forget it about age, it must have been eight.
5:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I skied in this first thing that was called a citizens race when a lot of people jump in a cross country ski race, and it's the first time I've ever been in a race of any sort like that.
5:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up finishing way in front of not all my parents, but a whole lot of the adults and a whole lot of other people that were in the group.
5:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But I said, what just happened?
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a little bit of an element of, geez, I might be good at this.
5:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like the first time I actually felt good at something.
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I maybe I got something here.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That maybe might have been the spark, but I did turn out to be good at it.
5:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got very much involved in junior racing and got involved in racing for my schools and then got involved in racing with the junior national program.
5:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's this whole logical progression if you find something you like that you're good at and those often fuel each other.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just, it ended up being really starting in my mid to late teens.
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: that was my identity pretty much for a while and that's how it was training around and measuring my success and self-worth by my national ranking and how well I did and all of that.
6:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And also just getting immense amount of satisfaction out of that lifestyle.
6:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a little bit how it happened to me in cross-country ski racing.
6:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I want to dive into that a little bit.
6:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You just mentioned that your identity got wrapped up in it.
6:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But I could tell by the twinkle in your eyes that you learned some other things about your identity since then.
6:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So can you talk to us about that progression?
6:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I certainly, I did learn, thank heavens, but the best way maybe to describe what I learned is I recall certain races that at the time really mattered to me, like national championship type races and others and somewhat really well when I felt great forever and there are a couple that didn't go well.
7:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I felt like life had ended.
7:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I finished this race, didn't finish in the top 10, skied off to a corner, felt was full of self-loathing, full of like, you know, the whole world is falling apart, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is exactly how it felt.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But hang with me, then years later when I came back to ski racing, which I did after I turned 60, and jumped in some of these big races, these were races that back in the day I was winning.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And all that.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I was back in these races, and I was finishing 50 fifth, 56th, 58th, and the satisfaction, well, there were a couple of things coming out of that.
7:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But one, the realization that all the stuff that really mattered had nothing to do with
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was sort of like now with the benefit of a life-lived I could see that really what mattered about the racing and all that had very, very little to do with the number on the place order.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And it sort of had it in context.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I also could kind of laugh at my former self, which is my former self would literally think the world that I had that had been spent the next week, told me to press and all that.
8:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And now decades later I could look back and just see how I got how I was that way at the time, but I just have some context around it or some perspective around it.
8:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe that was the learning.
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, it's not, I'm not all just saying it.
8:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That was formative.
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That gave me some of the most meaningful experiences of my life and interest that I retained to this day.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a lot of good in the racing.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can just also see that when I was when it was all I did, I maybe lost a little bit of perspective or vantage point on that there were other sources of value and satisfaction in meeting as well.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that answers that, but that I love it.
8:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Though that was a great answer to them and I'm kind of chuckling because
8:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not super competitive.
8:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I love to be a part of the outdoors and to do big things and hard things, but coming in first was never a big deal to me, but I have to confess.
9:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I taught my kids how to downhill ski.
9:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I taught them how to cross country ski.
9:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I taught them how to mountain bike.
9:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I taught them to how to backpack and all the things.
9:14
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think so many parents can relate to this.
9:18
[SPEAKER_02]: They started getting better at it than I was.
9:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like the first time in my life I started to feel really competitive.
9:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember, especially with mountain biking, I helped to coach the racing team here in town and my sons were on it and, you know, we were going so hard.
9:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just didn't matter how hard I tried.
9:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I was never as fast as the 18 year olds for some reason, you know, and one day I went out on a ride by myself.
9:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was thinking, maybe it's my bike.
9:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe my bike's just not a fast enough bike, you know, of course, that has something to do with being in your 50s instead of being a team.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but I went out on my bike.
9:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It did a really hard ride.
9:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I came home and I looked at my sons and I said, You know what, guys?
10:02
[SPEAKER_02]: My bike's not as slow as I thought it was.
10:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes exactly as fast as I do.
10:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a crit.
10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a crit.
10:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have the data, by the way, if you want it on how your body slows with age, because when I got back into this in age 60, I studied it.
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is absolutely physiological.
10:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And on a whole host of dimensions, I've got the data.
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll just tell you that you were only going to go so fast in age 50.
10:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're going to go slower in age 60, by the way, than you did in 50.
10:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the thing that I'm really focused on now is trying to stay fit enough as I'm approaching 60.
10:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So that I can enjoy my 60s as much as possible.
10:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I've been learning from people who have tread these paths before us, Tom, is that don't stop.
10:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when you stop, it all starts to come apart.
10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And you have to keep going.
10:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would like to say to the younger generations that are out there.
10:58
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the people that are in their teens, 20s, 30s, enjoy it.
11:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It is so worth it.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I can see that it did a lot in your life to be active, to be a part of a competitive sport like that, to be in the outdoors, all those sorts of things.
11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just encourage the younger generation.
11:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's worth it.
11:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Do it.
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
11:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, okay, that was cool.
11:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's rewind a little bit.
11:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Where are you talking to us from today?
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I am, I'm talking to you from Dover, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Los Angeles.
11:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, outside of Boston.
11:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you did your ski racing, where were you living at that time?
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: home was was near not door Massachusetts but also a town in Massachusetts and a lot of we had a really good racing program where we were and then if you just head north from here you get into hamster Vermont and that would be the hottest bed of serious racing in New England and that's where a lot of the racing idea was and training.
12:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the reason I ask is there are just so many places in the United States where it's not really an option.
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not enough snow.
12:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, and so I knew it had to be someplace where at least there was snow and then I'm sure you traveled a lot with this.
12:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So what are some of your favorite races that you did over the years?
12:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, boy.
12:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the on.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was back doing it seriously, I mean, there's sort of two arrows for me.
12:25
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the back one I was doing it seriously in my teens and twenties and then I pretty much stopped as described and then there's the last five years when I've been back into it again, rediscovering it all.
12:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you go to that first era,
12:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say, um, we did a series of races every year in Canada, uh, particularly around Monsen on Quebec that has an amazing trail in that work.
12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, those were effectively North American championships.
12:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And combination of that trail system, which I love and that area, which I love.
12:59
[SPEAKER_01]: and the fact that I happen to have some just amazing races for me at the same time.
13:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So it all kind of came together and I've got a particular fondness in my heart for the months and on series of races that happened back in the day.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: There were other series.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We did a series.
13:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's at the time it was called the Danon series.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a sponsored by
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: A yogurt called Dan and it's now called something else, but that used to start.
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll have the order of ruffery right in Jackson Hole, Jackson, Wyoming, and that kind of was a little bit of a circuit.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It was Bozman, Montana, Sun Valley, Idaho, Steamboat Springs, and that series happened in March.
13:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was just a great time to be out in that part of the world, skiing these ski races, and you'd race a race or two, and then everybody getting the car and drive a day or two and get to that next location.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: and springtime and the rockies can be pretty darn nice as you know, don't know.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So those that was another favorite series of mine back then, I would say.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's some big ski marathons that we're always famous.
13:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been doing some of those recently and they exist all over the world.
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I just returned.
14:03
[SPEAKER_01]: six days ago from Greenland where I ski to race called the Arctic Circle Race, which is a 160 kilometer race over the course of three days out in the middle of nowhere in Greenland, where between each of the three legs you sleep and attempted camp out in this glacial valley.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are things like that, and that was just an amazing life experience, that sort of thing, and a serious ski race, just a kind of a crazy serious ski race.
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are some of the
14:32
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, so I'm just going to highlight one thing here.
14:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You just named all these places and things and the point I'm trying to get to is ski racing, gave you a reason to be there.
14:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Give you a reason to visit these places and have the experiences of the places.
14:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And some people just try to find the places and do things.
14:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But the beauty of having a sport that you love that takes you places, I just think it makes it so much easier to see more.
14:59
[SPEAKER_02]: to experience more when you have something like that that kind of pulls you along.
15:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that make sense in your own life?
15:07
[SPEAKER_01]: A 1,000 percent makes sense and both that this having a reason to be in a place and active reason to be in a place is right when the place really comes alive and yes that's true with the ski races as we were just describing for me it's intensely true in mountaineering
15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: the mountains that wherever it is, it can be an Ecuador, it can be in Chile, it can be in Nepal, it can be in Pakistan, and it might be a two month expedition, and it's really the whole journey that's the magic.
15:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, it's also the time you're climbing and hopefully getting with the summit, but for me, everything about learning about the area and flying into wherever the capital city is, and eventually you're on crazy jeeps or whatever, and then eventually you're walking, some of these things I would walk three weeks to get to the base of the mountain through the
15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: largely uninhabited landscapes.
16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're finally on the mountain.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, those to me are intensely what you're saying, which is the climb is rewarding, but if the whole experience and the whole reason for being, um, good going there and being there on the front and the back end.
16:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That, yeah, that's that fusion for me.
16:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just agreeing with you.
16:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
16:22
[SPEAKER_02]: just for clarification.
16:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Were you skiing and then we're going to talk about mountain nearing next, but were you skiing using wax based skis?
16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what you would use for racing.
16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no great and relevant question.
16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
16:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So waxed skis, which remains fundamentally if you're racing, the best performing skis are waxed skis.
16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So all the racing
16:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And how hard is it to get good at choosing the right wax for the temperature in that sort of thing?
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It is incredibly hard, particularly if you want to do it at a high level.
16:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is why these days, the national teams and Olympic teams and all the people competing on the World Cup have entire squads of wax technicians that are full-time employees and all they do is optimize the wax.
17:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a laboratory on wheels.
17:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the ultimate, but you can kind of take on as much of that as you want to.
17:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, before I got my alpine touring gear for years, I used wax with backcountry, you know, cross country skis, and I never got good at it.
17:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I just keep glum and more stuff on until I could get somewhere.
17:36
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you're trying to go fast, man, it's got to be a challenge.
17:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have metal edges on your skis or we're using skis without edges.
17:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the racing cross country ski racing that I was doing was we're super lightweight racing Yes, you know, there is chemo now that would be a different beast and nicer.
17:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I do my Sarah of a T skiing just like you.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But but and love it, by the way.
17:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And life is simple or one is just put the skin on take the skin off.
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't have to deal with all the rest of it, but but the racing I was doing was we're lightweight racing skis no edges skiing and prepared trails.
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's nice.
18:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So you weren't skate skiing either.
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: a good question, not at the time right when I stopped racing seriously was literally right about the year that skating came on the scene.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I raised hard and seriously through the early 1980s and right in the early 1980s skating just came on the scene.
18:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do it now because I've wanted to learn it and had to learn it, but when I was at the peak of really ski racing, it was all classic technique.
18:43
[SPEAKER_02]: for the sake of our listeners it might be from the south or something like that and not know what we're talking about can you explain the difference between your that well the two types of of skiing that we're talking about we'll talk about eighteen later but this this gate skiing versus just your regular uh... ski racing
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So the traditional cross-country skiing and what is traditional cross-country ski racing, that technique looks like if there's a listener that hasn't done this, but they picture themselves getting out of pair of cross-country skis and how are you going to move down a trail?
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: shuffle along, you move your legs, you diagonally, and move your arms diagonally, and you're going to kind of propel yourself along, like, striding.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like shuffle sliding, and but doing it quickly.
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And that, I'm not doing a good job of describing it, but that's that's the that image that is the classic ski technique, and it's kind of the basic part.
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah basic Nordic technique and the wax is on the bottom of your ski to let it be the case that when you push down the ski actually sticks enough that you can push off of it and then when you glide forward magically the magic of the wax looks the ski glide forward so that's the traditional technique and then the skating you're referring to came along where people realize you know
20:05
[SPEAKER_01]: what if we put none of that sticky wax on the bottom of our skis and instead we do just like if you pictured a hockey player skating and it's the best analogy just to how they're and they were skating down a rink and if their legs are going off the side or speed skater think of a speed skater what that looks like and people start doing that with cross country skis
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, on my lord, it's fast.
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to put that slow ax on my skis to get the kick sticky part.
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they started optimizing the equipment a little bit to be specific to doing that technique.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I eat the skis, we're designed to support it.
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's the skating technique.
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And they look quite different.
20:42
[SPEAKER_01]: One looks diagonal, it's called, it's more vertical moving down the track.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other is this skate notion.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks very much like a speed skater with these lightweight skis on their feet.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the two techniques.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: and they're both the Olympic games if you ever watch it, they'll have some that are called freestyle, that's the classic technique diagonal and they'll have some that are disgain.
21:06
[SPEAKER_02]: one of the things that I love about the Gunnison Valley where we are is that the community set up tracks, grim trails all over the place and most of them are free, you just go and enjoy however you want, you know, and both styles are very popular and but Skate skiing is hard.
21:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it takes a little bit more skill to learn how to do it and to become good at it and it feels almost more like a sprint to me.
21:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's also just right out of the shoot harder work as you know, out of this experience to keep moving, but it looks awesome.
21:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're both great.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how they're doing it.
21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, did you watch the ski mountaineering, the ski-mo events on the Olympics this year?
21:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, shame on me, no, I watched that tiny little bit, and I just was so consumed watching the cross country races.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I just really couldn't find my way over the skimo, but did you?
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I did.
22:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish I could have seen more.
22:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I kept on looking at all the replays.
22:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I love AT skiing so much, you know, that kind of tutored my whistle, so to speak, but
22:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, what a sport.
22:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was curious if that would be something that you would be interested in, having done, you know, so much competitive cross country work.
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, theory I should be both because I did so much of the regular cross country and then the other love is mountaineering and ski mountaineering are the two, you know, you put it right together and that's the stuff I'm generically loved to do and I'm pretty good at.
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So on paper, that ought to be exactly right up my alley and I ought to be all over it.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I
22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So why aren't I and maybe just a question of how many things you have time to get to in life and I've been so focused on the things I'm doing.
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I just haven't yet been able to bite that one off, but but like you, I'm a, I'm a diehard A T-Scare, which is not schema, but it's moving in that direction.
22:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's fantastic.
22:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So now we're talking about mountains.
23:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go to the mountains.
23:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You also did a lot of big expedition climbs give us a little bit of your portfolio there and why do you do it?
23:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So the, um, maybe I got to go back to answer that question because you know, I talked about the outdoor shop that my dad ran that had this cross-country ski equipment that got me interested in it.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That also, you know, he had sold climbing equipment and a lot of the people that hung around that shop were serious climbers.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And one guy who moved into our town just by chance was a guy in Willy Unsold who, if you're a climber, you know who that is.
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the first person along with another climber Tom Horn being to climb Everest West Ridge in 1963.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was a superstar in the climbing world.
23:47
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, and he was right up until the day he died climbing Mount Reneer, but done so this guy was a rock star of mountaineering And he landed in our hometown and he became a friend of my father's and he taught me how to climb when I was about eight years old So here I was being taught out of climb by this mountaineering legend and that sort of got me into it and
24:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I just a little bit worshiped the ground on which he walked and also was way wrapped up and I had this big poster on my bedroom wall growing up of the west ridge of Everest in which he is in the poster of this tiny little dot 9000 feet below the summit moving up the summit ridge.
24:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So it all started for me with a little bit
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: boyhood dreams of doing that and learning how to do it, but never thinking I would be on a amount like that or anything like an Everest.
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But I did though then end up spending quite a bit of time in my teens and end up by 20s and right up until my early 30s, climbing a fair amount of Europe, you know, climbed in Alaska, climbed in a whole bunch of ant, of course, around New England, but loved it.
24:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only reason I didn't do more was because of the cross-country
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that all was a big piece of what I did until I roughly turned 30 and then entered the business world and started raising a family, but then it all, you know, back then when I approached 60 and I started thinking about, well, kind of go reconnect with some things.
25:12
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I really wanted to connect with was Mount Earring.
25:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I,
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, including, I said, Doug, not at all, I'm going to go climb Mount Everest.
25:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Everest has changed a lot since I dreamt of doing it way, way, way back, way.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a lot of ways, in some ways, it made me wonder if I even wanted to go to the mountain because it's, it's a very changed place.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, I finally concluded, despite the fact that it's changed, I really do.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: ever since I was eight years old, dream of being wheely on sold.
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to climb that mountain.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't only about Everest.
25:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I ended up, um, I did go to Everest twice.
25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I, uh, climbed down.
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I climbed down in Antarctica, not Thenson.
25:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I climbed down in Argentina, uh, Kaguah, uh, climbed in Ecuador, a number of the peaks, including Kotopoxi.
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And this was over this more recent stretch of climbing,
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, a peak you mentioned at the outset of our conversation, Chilotsay, which might have ended up being my favorite climb of all oddly enough, it's not known to people, but it's near Everest, you walk past it on route to Everest.
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just not climbed that often.
26:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's super challenging, technically, or way more challenging, technically, than Everest is.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had just kind of an amazingly memorable experience on Shalatse, including getting to climb it with my 27-year-old daughter, which was just a whole nother gift to be able to have that experience with her.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are some of them.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I've just thrown a whole bunch of names out there, but all of them, every one of those and others I climbed, have been magical for me in different ways.
26:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, so you mentioned that ever sechanged.
26:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I hear that a lot.
26:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I heard one climber recently say, it's been tamed.
27:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if you could ever tame the world's highest peak.
27:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But, then you mentioned shallots that have been actually more technical, maybe more rewarding.
27:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe your favorite contrast that for us.
27:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So we understand how has ever changed and why is doing a lesser known peak so exciting.
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so every, it's, you read a lot about how it's changed and it is changing along those lines, although like everything we all tend to read, there's a basis of truth in it, but also it's not quite the way they say it, if that makes any sense.
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the things that are well known and written about
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: are deserved to be well-known and written about, and that includes just way more people climbing the mountain than used to, largely on the, you know, organized around commercial expeditions as opposed to back on the day when that didn't even exist.
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So, very, very organized groups of people being people signing up and paying to be guided up the mountain.
28:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So that would be one trend, just numbers and commercial
28:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you have a secondary trend right along with that, which is increasing numbers of inexperienced climbers on Mount.
28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they can basically write a check and get on an expedition.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody tells them they don't belong there.
28:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got more people on the mountain and people that are less perhaps prepared to be on the mountain.
28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say those are the biggest changes that have occurred just raw numbers and sort of absolute skill level of the people that are on the mountain.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some other nuances, technology's coming in the game, they're more helicopter's flying all over the place and moving people around and getting people in or not a base camp and moving loads up the mountain, drones are increasingly being used to move.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just, if you're picturing Everest the way I dreamt and pictured it back in 1963, when William saw the climb that, and you're thinking, that's the mountain, what it is now, and this is true not only of Everest, it's really all of the 8,000 meter peaks to some extent have this dynamic going on.
29:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go and I did go at one point and said, well, that was my dream.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that dream has been tarnished.
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I I don't know if I need to pursue that dream anymore.
29:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to a place I was like, oh, it's forget about ever.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I still do other mountains.
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you realize that everything I just said it has a basis in reality, but their butts, you know, it's okay.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of people on the mountain.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: The mountain is a huge mountain.
29:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You're still talking about hundreds of people on an immense mountain.
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So the vast majority of the mountain is untouched.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: you read a lot about garbage and trash on the mountain.
29:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, not really these days.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you look for it, you can find it.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But pretty well run, pretty organized mountain.
29:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the dominant experience when you're on that mountain is if you're in a very, very wild and very, very beautiful place.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's all that at the same time.
29:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, whether always people and some folks don't deserve to be here while the reality is
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You move pretty much with the team you're with, you know, your part of base camp is the team you're with.
30:00
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think it through and play it right, you can avoid waiting in, at least a bunch of the lines, you can otherwise end up waiting in other narrow spots.
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's the thing that got me there was, I remember talking to a climbing guide who climbs all over the world and, you know, asked him sort of like, what's your favorite climb?
30:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You do it for living, you've been doing it for 30 years.
30:21
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, Everest.
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, what?
30:23
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, Everest is Everest.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so for all that I just said, there remains an allure.
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't.
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's some of what's changed for sure.
30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a bunch that's special about it.
30:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And that made me very, very glad I decided to go climbing.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really glad I did.
30:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But
30:43
[SPEAKER_01]: having done it, if you then ask me, where am I going to spend precious weeks and free time and energy to go climb?
30:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I necessarily want to go do more like that?
30:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Or what I also would I prefer to more find an environment that is the way it all used to be?
31:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And that would be a chalances, an example.
31:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are just hundreds of mountains, thousands of mountains all over the world with nobody on them.
31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody near them.
31:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're all still there as you know, well,
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're asking me to compare and contrast, Chalotset, which was a very challenging peak, a very beautiful peak, it didn't have those dynamics I just described.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was one other team of Belgians on the mountain about 12 other climbers and our team of five climbers.
31:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you're at base camp and base camp as maybe a total of 10 tenths, and you're kind of glad that everybody's there.
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And on the mountain, there's zero questions about, are you gonna wait in line on our narrow spot and zero of that?
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just didn't have all the kind of hype and all the coming and going and there weren't helicopters buzzing in and out and all that.
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the comparing contrast.
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, and maybe why did it feel so special to me, part of it might be that unique atmosphere of being on an absolutely beautiful and challenging Himalayan peak, but have it be more the way I describe.
32:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And then for me, there were some other stuff going on, it's just that mountain stretched me and pushed me, it happened frankly harder than further than Everest did, just given the technical nature of it.
32:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of felt like grew personally in a bunch of ways, or it kind of became
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: validation that I had grown a lot in my 60s, in my climbing, in my approach to mountains, and if that makes any sense, it just became a kind of a capstone in a way climbing experience.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And pivot was just the challenge.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a far more difficult mountain to climb, and I felt pretty good about the fact that I could do it.
32:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I have two questions.
32:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Once again, kind of related to doing it as a young person versus doing it as we age.
32:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But the first question is, what did your family say when you said, I'm going to Everest?
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's interesting.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: The relevant.
33:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you think family, there's my wife, Jill, and she's got probably her vote matters the most, and she had the most intense reactions.
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one might expect, and then there would be my kids, and then there might be my parents and my sisters, and others, and they're all sort of varied.
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say, most of the family, it was basically good for you.
33:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We love it, it's exciting, dad wants to do it.
33:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're behind you.
33:23
[SPEAKER_01]: My wife, Jill, felt those things, but also just hated the whole concept of it, for completely understandable reasons.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: and so she sort of said basically look I hate this but if you want to go do this you know go do this and um that was the first time and then
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It turned out that we that year, everything went great until we got to camp for, at 26,000 feet and a cyclone at the mountain.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We were the only people up in camp for.
33:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And it all of a sudden we were in a monster snowstorm and there was no chance we could leave for the summit and then it was we had to get ourselves down the let's see face in a blizzard and all the way down the mountain in a blizzard.
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything that had gone so well, suddenly one going so well and finally got myself home after all that.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason I say all that is because then there was another conversation that ended up needed to happen with my wife, Jill, because I got back, thinking I was done, it had been great, okay, to get to the summer I almost did, I thought it had enough and I said, no, I just damn it all, I just got to go back one more time.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was a really hard conversation with my wife just because she'd already put up with all she'd put up with once and now I was asking her to put up with it again, but she was blister her basic statement was, um, on the other way, she said, look, you let me be me.
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to let you be you, but she said that and I said, God bless you.
34:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she said, but don't think you're getting a third shot at us.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's funny, but it's this or never.
34:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was very, very clear to me.
34:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
34:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, now put yourself back into the young person's shoes.
34:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do it?
34:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Why take up mountaineering at all?
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh boy.
35:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I could give a whole long list.
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, now we're going well beyond sort of Everest as its own beast, but just to mountaineering more broadly.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to be a certain person and it's got to ring certain times or your soul's got to be tuned into certain things, but I will say I'll just say here's what it is for me and what it was for me when I was a young person and what it is stayed for me as an older person and it's all there.
35:29
[SPEAKER_01]: for others, any young person who is naturally inclined, and okay, the naturally inclined probably has to be a affinity for the outdoors, nature transports you in some way, you know if you're that way or not, and then you first hike up some day hike and you either kind of like the whole idea that you don't.
35:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So you got to be a person to sort of like being outside and probably likes a little bit of physical challenge and likes the feeling of ascending.
35:54
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're that
35:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I could buy this, could go on and on and on, but I'll just say immense exposes to you to great beauty, just great, great natural beauty and puts you in situations where you're living at it and healing it and absorbing it and it's just surrounded by it and immersed in it.
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's all that aspect of just the natural world experience that mountaineering puts you in.
36:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the challenge.
36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the physical and mental challenge of doing really, really hard things.
36:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And the satisfaction of doing really, really hard things well.
36:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, lots of sports gives us those in different ways, but mountaineering gives it's version of it.
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just really fulfilling to go into a challenging situation, at least for me, and execute well.
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: punch through adversity and get to a summit or not, just climb well, whatever, however you define that.
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd say there's that.
36:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you alluded to it.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great excuse to go places and have journeys that are that because it's really about the full journey from the country you're visiting, the approach trek in, the approach trek out, the culture you're a part of, whether that's in the United States, just a different part of the United States, or it's a whole different part of the world.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a great way to
37:17
[SPEAKER_01]: to do all that.
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll stop at a minute because I could go on with reasons forever, but if I had to maybe add it, there's an intensity of experience that I get and I think most mountaineers get, which is, and I, you know, you were mentioning, you were on the killing of Jari, and I'll bet you felt it.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's a intensity of the moment.
37:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You are so at least, I'll be curious how you felt.
37:40
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm on a mountain, I am
37:42
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely every step matters.
37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a degree of consequence around where I put my hand matters, where I put my foot matters, how I manage myself in and out of my tent matters, how I eat matters and doesn't matter, you know, how it does matter.
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's this feeling of not the rest of the world beyond the rich I'm on, just phase away.
38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That is everything.
38:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And there aren't that many times in life or this is an a powerful way in life to have this intensity of in the moment, at least for me, that comes home so powerful in mountaineering.
38:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I were to add one more, I'd say the power of the shared experience.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually, sometimes you're soloing, and I've done that, and that's a power and a beauty of its own, which is the solo experience.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But more often than not, I climb, and I think most mountaineers climb in teams and in groups.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: and boy, you go through an experience like that with somebody and there's just a bond and a shared shared experience that creates its own value as well.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are elements of the stew, but if you take all those elements and throw them in the pot, for me it becomes a pretty rich or pretty rich stew.
39:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Tom, I love the answer.
39:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I climbed as a group of 15 on Kilimanjaro, and everybody that was climbing, we shared a lot of overlap in our quies, the reason that we were there, but everyone had his own unique perspective and experience, and it meant something different to everybody.
39:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's funny because we're all doing the same thing.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're all experiencing different life experiences.
39:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And there were three of us on the mountain, who had done a lot of lower mountain climbing, 14ers, that sort of thing, and climbing it always been a big part of our lives.
39:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It meant something to us, I could tell it was different than the people or like, oh, yeah, I should try to climb a mountain someday.
39:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.
39:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was just such a different experience.
39:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what happens is the more mountains you climb, or maybe once you've climbed enough, one might be a better way to say it.
40:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes on more meaning instead of less.
40:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like, go, I check that box I'm done.
40:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost more like, no, I've learned so much from this and that.
40:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this one was like that.
40:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Mountains that personalities and experiences and that that are also unique.
40:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you feel the same way, but every mountain is its own beast.
40:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I do feel the same way, and I also agree with you the more you do at the more you get out of it.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I completely agree.
40:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I remember my first 14er.
40:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I was 18 years old and I got to the top of my first 14er and I looked around and I thought it was pretty amazing.
40:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But I said to myself, then, well, I guess I don't have to do that again.
40:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And now, yeah, look at your peaks later.
40:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a log.
40:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I am doing it again.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: This is part of the richness of existence itself.
40:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So pretty pretty amazing stuff.
40:51
[SPEAKER_02]: you mentioned three or four of the seven summits that you've done is that a goal of yours have you done them all or you're on your way or how do you feel about that?
41:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I've done, I know I've done five of the seven.
41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done the hard ones, but it's not really a goal.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So if that makes any sense, it's I'm aware of it and I might do it.
41:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't really define what I wanted to climb by that list.
41:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've climbed with a lot of people who do, and I think they're all neat back to the kind of having excuse, gives you excuse to go to a place.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But I climbed over the years, I climbed Denali
41:29
[SPEAKER_01]: 1992, as an example, Kilimanjaro would like you, but that was 1980 to, so I kind of assembled a whole bunch of the seven summits at various times, and then some of the others were recently like Fenson and like, like Everiston.
41:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, so I think I'm like, Jesus, I've got, you know, I think the only ones left depends on which list you want to follow.
41:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but Elbrus, which is not a hard one, it's just politically a little challenging right now.
41:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you could either decide you want to go hike up Casiosco in, you know, Australia, you want to go do Carsten's pyramid or do both.
42:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And to get the, the so-called Asian one.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm sort of like, if it fits, I'll go do it.
42:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It'd be sort of fun to have done this seven.
42:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
42:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't feel the need to have that exact list isn't the primary driving force.
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So right now it's more like if I'm going to spend a month or more is that the way I want to spend my month or maybe I would spend it on a different mountain.
42:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I happily do the others and I might still or I might just decide to go to different mountains.
42:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, and not that it would be a goal necessarily, but you are somewhat uniquely equipped to do the grand slam to go ahead and go to the South Pole and North Pole on skis.
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I do know how to put one ski in front of the other, you're exactly right.
42:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a thought of yours?
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, again, interesting.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I've climbed with a bunch of people who've done that.
42:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, you know, the North Pole is getting tricky these days.
42:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Just as you probably know, climate-wise and all that, it really is hard.
43:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
43:01
[SPEAKER_01]: South Pole is pretty straightforward.
43:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't know why I'm not chomping at the bit.
43:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I, it's a, it falls in the same category of,
43:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like to do it, and if there's room, I would do it, but it's not the burning driving thing to check, that's not the list that's driving me, is I guess what I would say.
43:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, just in Greenland last week and I was looking down at the Greenland, I see it and I was getting all thinking about, maybe that is another amazing crossing and has a lot in common with the last degree in Antarctica or the bigger crossings and I might be just as tempted to go do one in Antarctica, excuse me, do one in Greenland, even though that wouldn't be on the official explorerslam list if you follow me.
43:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
43:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Well,
43:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I think people know this story, but I started doing 14ers because I love mountains.
43:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And then at some point I started doing 13ers because I could pick my own route and get away from the crowds.
43:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And it never became a matter of checking all the boxes for me, though I think that when people do decide to check all the boxes, it takes them to places they wouldn't have gone before.
44:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah.
44:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It's worth it.
44:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a great way to approach it.
44:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But for me, it was like, I just want to be out there.
44:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I don't know how many climbs I have, but I know that they've all been wonderful.
44:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess I kind of am asking that question about some of the classic cross-country ski trips.
44:28
[SPEAKER_02]: you are one of the people that could really really do it what would be the drivers and what calls to you.
44:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You already mentioned Greenland, but what else is out there for you?
44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think when I if you're if we're back into cross country skiing for me, so backing up what's out there for me at this now.
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely some more not airing expeditions and I'm sort of thinking which ones and all that.
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got some ideas and some that are more likely to happen and others that might be a little further out.
44:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's still skiing in me for sure.
45:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's more oriented toward what I would call traditional ski marathons or long marathons.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: As opposed to the ice cap crossing things, you know, we're that you're slug it it out.
45:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that and I admire the people who do it and I fully understand
45:17
[SPEAKER_01]: the power of it, and then the lure of it.
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm more inclined still to pick one of the major ski marathons, the Brookie Biner in Norway, which I haven't, is one of the classic long ski races, and go do that one.
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: As an example, and there are many all over the world, their races like that.
45:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I probably pick a few like that and do them, there's some that are even longer across northern Sweden and, you know, in Defendland.
45:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're more traditional cross-country ski races.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I've played around with and come very close to doing is entering the world masters.
45:55
[SPEAKER_01]: championships, so it's you know you master's racing, but it's the traditional racing that you'd see in the Olympics It's just for the older set and I was all going in fact I was entered into the world master's championships in 20 20 they were being held in in Canmore and Alberta that year and then COVID shot them all down so I didn't get to race in those
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't feel like I have to do that, but as I think about every year I start on, okay, what's the goal for the year?
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the one or two big projects?
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You're asking the skiing question, and it would be some of those big ski marathons, maybe pick a year when the world masters championships are having a place I'd particularly like to go and focus on that.
46:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
46:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I've just thinking about, well, here's, here's kind of a fun story.
46:46
[SPEAKER_02]: In Gunnison, there's a mountain bike race called the Graller.
46:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And it happens in May, and it's become very popular.
46:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And the man who started the Graller and, uh,
46:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess ran it for nine or 10 years, something like that is Dave Weans.
47:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Dave Weans beat Lance Armstrong in a couple of bike races.
47:08
[SPEAKER_02]: He's the real deal, but because he was running the growler, he couldn't race in the growler.
47:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And so all these years went by.
47:17
[SPEAKER_02]: and you know everyone stands on the podium and finally he took a position with another organization which freed him up to actually compete in his own race.
47:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And so he went in kind of in the open category instead of the 50 plus which he could have done.
47:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You know he says I want to race
47:39
[SPEAKER_02]: What for the first how straight out want it.
47:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow straight out want it because he's I mean he's just that tough But I used to look at that and here's kind of the point in the story.
47:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to look at that and I thought well If I entered the growler at my age, I have a pretty darn good chance of being on the podium because there wouldn't be many of us
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But now Dave Ween, he's he's racing against the the guys that are at the total peak of their game, so that's a whole different story But how does age enter into this Tom when you think about being competitive in these things you already mentioned what when you were young It was everything and that later Not so much But how do you feel about it now explain that to us?
48:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I first of all, that was part of what I wanted to understand how it would feel.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I really decided to be when I decided to jump back into all this and and committed a training really hard for a couple of years before I entered these races and went to these mountains, I was like, how's that going to feel?
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's it all going to be like, and then what's it going to feel like to be in a race or to be on
48:53
[SPEAKER_01]: one, the satisfaction and the feelings and the magic are all absolutely still there, even though I'm moving more slowly.
49:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just have to accept that moving more slowly.
49:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the minute I accept that, it's a little bit like it.
49:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's why they have age categories.
49:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the physiologically, I can't raise a 30-year-old.
49:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't do it.
49:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can raise a 60-year-old.
49:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But even that aside,
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: how I felt when I was one of the top skiers in this country and going that fast and winning it.
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just I'm not one of the top skiers in the country and I'm not winning it.
49:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel the same excitement, the same satisfaction when I'm done because it's all sort of versus what bar.
49:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so what that for me, what I feel like is I'm still
49:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm training it.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I use the term age adjusted shape.
49:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in the best age adjusted shape I've been in since my thirties or twenties when I was I was supremely fit and I'm not that fit now that way but for a 65 year old I really am you know and and because I you know I train hard.
50:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So that whole feeling.
50:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's the same old package.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just watered down, but you don't know it's watered down.
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe is one way I feel about it, but the satisfaction are all there for me.
50:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the big wonderful surprise about it.
50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's all maybe one point just made it a very long way to do it, which is I feel that you can still do it and get a ton out of it.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You just adjust your expectations on how fast you're moving or whatever for me.
50:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing, you got to be a realist also, I think about what the body can't do and when, and I studied super carefully.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: This is particularly true in mountaineering.
50:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the death rates, I've researched them, and they go up when you're over 60, and they keep climbing the older you are, and you know, they just do.
50:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're taking a different kind of risk when you put a mid-60s body out above 8,000 meters, and then younger.
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So you just
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, you know that movie's ends and there's going to come a time that you don't belong up there anymore.
50:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess one needs to be a realist.
50:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I have found I do same in these cross-country ski races where you're putting your body through extreme stress at times and now you're like occasionally have a word with the docs and just go, hey, just want to make sure this is okay for this old potty kind of thing.
51:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a little
51:16
[SPEAKER_01]: and maybe the other reality is I got to be it's a little bit like when do they finally take the keys of the car away from you at some point some of these things I'm you know not kind of able to do but for now I can and then maybe the last thing I'd say about that
51:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, there it's just what I think is neat about endurance sports also is the science that goes into it and the prep that can go into it and and just all the thinking that goes into getting your body ready to whether it's do the bike ride well or do the AT ski well or do the ski rides well or climb the mountain well.
51:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's just a different there's some different considerations for master's athletes but they're real and it's neat.
51:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a whole the third thing I think is that you can go and do it if you want to take it seriously and just a value yourself of a lot of really good thinking around what does it look like to get a 60 year old body, you know, ready to excel on 60 year old bodies terms.
52:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's I find that fascinating.
52:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's uh, because there's a whole science to that.
52:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
52:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
52:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Tom, man, I could talk to you for another two or three hours because I'm having so much fun.
52:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm learning a lot as well.
52:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But other people may want to learn about this.
52:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you wrote a book on it.
52:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
52:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I did.
52:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And the book is called The Gap Years, climbing skiing in the journey back and I'm going to make sure that I mentioned this in the intro.
52:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So everyone knows that there's a book earlier on in the show too because I think people are going to want to be aware of that.
52:45
[SPEAKER_02]: But the gap years.
52:50
[SPEAKER_02]: How many years does the book cover?
52:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So the book, the primary focus of the book covers three and a half years between what I retired at age 60, said I'm going to take a gap here, which I knew is going to be a gap here and a half, but became three and a half.
53:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And that covers a lot of these ski races I jumped in and a lot of these big mountain expeditions that I jumped in and needed to go back to Everest the
53:20
[SPEAKER_01]: the book also introduces that with setting some context for experiences I'd had early in my life that were the reasons that I wanted now.
53:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what I was trying to reconnect with if that makes sense.
53:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a taste of what it was like to the climbing I was doing in my 20s.
53:40
[SPEAKER_01]: time I spent in Nepal, which I was a country.
53:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I just fell in love with and spent a lot of time in my youth there, kayaking, climbing, trekking.
53:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to get that into the book because so much of the journey for me, my gap year is post 60.
53:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the idea of the journey back.
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I was also reconnecting the power of reconnecting with, you mentioned places, places I'd been in my 20s and 30s and seeing what they were still like.
54:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Going back to the same valleys, those same ridge lines,
54:10
[SPEAKER_01]: but direct answer to your question that the book is primarily about three years not too long ago when I climbed mountains all over the world and got my body back in shape to do ski races, but it also refers to some of the formative experiences of my youth that I was trying to reconnect with.
54:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I tell you one of the challenges of hosting this podcast is I meet so many people of written, so many amazing books and it's so hard to read them all, but I'm going to read yours.
54:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Please do.
54:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Please do.
54:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
54:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel a kindred spirit there, you know, I'm 58 now.
54:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think there's a lot in there for you.
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know you'll get it.
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Give it near interest and give it in your background.
54:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, please let me know what you think.
54:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think you'll, I think you'll, the theme's a little resonate, I really do.
54:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And this whole notion of the power of what's still there for,
55:00
[SPEAKER_01]: guys roughly are my age, people are my age, what we can still access and really how it sets up, it totally helped me think about what the next decade looks like for me or the next two and and by the way I'd talk about Kilimanjaro and there as well so you can compare my experience the years.
55:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, for a parting shot, why should a young person read your book?
55:22
[SPEAKER_01]: A young person, but I really, I thought about this and I really wrote it, hoping and thinking it would be relevant to young people, and that is because a good early chunk of the book.
55:35
[SPEAKER_01]: takes choices that one young person me made that set that young person up for a life that he ended up treasuring.
55:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And argue is very strongly that stepping out of the mainstream at times whether you brand it a gap year or you just call it time off or you call it a little bit of a U-turn versus where the flow of life seems to be taking you
56:03
[SPEAKER_01]: that it speaks to the power of doing that and how much it can set you up for.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think there are a lot of young people a, going through important life transitions and also thinking through kind of how they want to spend their time and some of them, particularly if they have an interest in the outdoors and the power of the outdoors and the power of mountains and of beautiful places, I hope and think it will resonate with them as well.
56:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So Tom of course, if people want more information, how to find your book, more information about what you're up to, where can they do that?
56:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a place to do that would be my author website, which is Tom French author.com.
56:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's got book info, it's got photos from a bunch of my expeditions, maps from a bunch of my expeditions and a blog I write and all sorts of stuff.
56:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So Tom, www.TomFrenchOther.com.
56:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect.
56:58
[SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
56:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep getting out there and doing the things, man.
57:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want you to ever slow down.
57:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It just sounds like so much fun.
57:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So much fun.
57:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to slow down either.
57:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I'm going to do is look for you when I'm on those 14 and 13ers out there.
57:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
57:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, come out here and we'll try to chase a couple of them down.
57:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I would enjoy that very much.
57:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that would be great for all the listeners out there, me and what a testimony.
57:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's wonderful to hear from Tom because he's a bin there done that guy who's still doing it.
57:33
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so much we can learn from that.
57:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But you might want to consider seriously.
57:38
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to be a bin there done that person as well, and make sure you do get out there and have some fun.