Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1151: Dr Matt Harmody, The 50 High Points in the USA

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Ep. 1151: Dr Matt Harmody, The 50 High Points in the USA · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: My personal story actually starts back in 1980.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a college student.
0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a dreaded call for my mom.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always a way of school.
0:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gone to the Cleveland Clinic right there.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: That tells you something.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It would take an active Congress to drag my father to a hospital.
0:23
[SPEAKER_00]: He was found to be a renal failure.
0:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So that means his kidney stopped working.
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: and it was put on emergent dialysis.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It snapped and put on dialysis.
0:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The toxins would have built up to a dangerous level.
0:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But that started his journey for about nine years of being dialysis.
0:42
[SPEAKER_03]: You're listening to the adventurous sports podcast.
0:45
[SPEAKER_03]: 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.
0:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Happy Monday, everybody.
0:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode is going to be very interesting and very inspirational.
1:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It is about a team of people that climb to the highest point in each of the 50 states and they did so in record time.
1:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very interesting attempt, but there's a catch.
1:17
[SPEAKER_01]: were people that had donated a kidney.
1:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So they did this to show that people can live normal active lives after being a kidney donor and bring more attention toward what it means to be a kidney donor to help other people.
1:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think it's super cool.
1:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we dive into that, I wanted to give you a short update on the Kilimanjaro project, where we are raising $20,000 to give to WCHOP, which is an organization that helps impoverished and homeless kids in Africa, super duper cool.
1:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Several people have donated over the weekend and that brought the Adventure Sports Podcast Family total to well over $2,000 so we're at 10th the way there now and that's good.
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a milestone.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a 10th the way there to the $20,000.
2:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We have five weeks before I head to Africa for this trip.
2:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So not a lot of time.
2:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to say a special thank you to everyone that has donated Dan Schaefer, Caleb Blinville, Lydia, and Matt Lescanic, Margaret Storkfinswell, Ed Vosserman, Laura Coates, Jonathan Blanchard, Alice Schneider, Paul Sorenson, Pete Waldrup, James Heweter,
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Polymold and Howard, Dean of Wampler, Marita Rees, and Hope Dice Clark have all donated on behalf of the Adventure Sports podcast family for climbing for change, 2026, to help We See Hope.
2:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so very, very much on behalf of the kids that are going to be benefiting from this and keep in mind, none of this money goes to any of the climbers.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all for We See Hope to help these kids.
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
3:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you and now on with the show in 2017 Matt Harmity, Dr. Matt Harmity, donated to Kidney undirected and will find out what that means but he did it for a reason and he's a huge advocate of organ donation
3:26
[SPEAKER_01]: to help other people.
3:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And one way that he wanted to prove to the world that you can still have a regular life after you've donated the kidney is by summiting the 50 highest points in all 50 states and he and his team actually did this in 41 days.
3:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
3:43
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also written a book entitled Ascending America and it's about the 50 high point climb and I am so excited
3:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Be here, Kurt.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
3:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You not only did the 50 high points in the 50 states, but you also have your a guy who likes to do trathones, altera, marathons, adventure races.
4:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You did the C to C race and Florida.
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that right?
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite an experience.
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So you are one of the people that gets it done.
4:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about the C to C. It just sounds wild to me.
4:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I had a friend or two having done that race previously.
4:29
[SPEAKER_00]: While eventually racing is mostly a team sport, as I'm sure many of your listeners know, I tend to do the races solo.
4:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, for many reasons, mostly because of a 25-year career as an ER doc, my schedule is so irregular that it was really tough to coordinate training with teammates.
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and I just enjoyed being out there by myself, and you know, you just lever die on your decisions and your abilities, but it was highly recommended that I do not try the C to see for the first time solo.
5:08
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife was pretty excited that I decided not to.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did it with kind of a friend of a friend and that was probably a hindsight a pretty good choice.
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember actually falling asleep while I was riding my bike and also paddling in one of the legs.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, that certainly a very well run event.
5:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's pretty flat, but you know, it got hot, we got rained on, you have your various mechanical challenges.
5:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it was quite an adventure.
5:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We finished and that was the primary goal.
5:48
[SPEAKER_00]: We really weren't that competitive, but we didn't expect to be and made it safely through and really had a great time.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, tell us about all the different modalities that you did in this race, because you already mentioned paddling and biking, but what all was there?
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so mostly in entailed hiking running, which became more hiking towards the end, right?
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, part of that on foot is trekking off trail.
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, there were a lot of checkpoints that were
6:20
[SPEAKER_00]: up in the woods somewhere that requires you to navigate off trail, and maybe just to back up a step, the bench racing is a map and compass sport.
6:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's no GPS.
6:32
[SPEAKER_00]: We probably had 30 or 40 pages of maps for those three days or 72 hours each of them and somewhat of a different format.
6:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The scale may have been different.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of them were topo maps, somewhere
6:49
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of a Google overhead view.
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a challenge in it itself.
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, on foot, paddling.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, see to see had paddling near the coast.
7:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, inland waterways.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And then mountain biking is the other primary mode of transportation, the paddling.
7:13
[SPEAKER_00]: was something else.
7:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we were just out kind of off the shores into these huge waterways.
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, my teammate was a very strong patler.
7:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So he just put me in front and I was much of an engine as I could be and he navigated around oyster beds that would potentially cut through your aluminum canoe.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the biggest part of the finish
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: especially as it comes to paddling is we're making our way into the finish into this huge headwind and we were so exhausted.
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the last leg you're paddling into the finish and we you would look across at some fixed reference point.
8:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We realized we weren't making any progress.
8:04
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a decent chop in the water.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And we would just kind of make it to the shoreline and head back out a little bit and get blown back to the shore.
8:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And we saw one team rescued out in that bay of goodness.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: They overturned their canoe.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So it, um, we're the last ones to paddle that last leg.
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that, they just had people riding from that last checkpoint.
8:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Goodness, it just too much wind to bigger waves.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy.
8:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So about how many miles was this total?
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We put in, oh, this is a big guess.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe 250 to 275.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I would think that maybe two thirds of it was bike and maybe a third each paddle and foot, maybe a little bit more foot than paddle.
8:56
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it was, it's quite an event.
9:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad I did it, but yeah, we saw just so many great places and if it's never done in an adventure race, it's, there's certainly the top teams
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: competing for podium spots, but the majority of us are weak end warriors, and people are out to help, you know, people get mechanical problems to stop and help, you know, you're out there for 72 hours.
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, a couple of minutes here, they're really not going to make too much of a difference.
9:29
[SPEAKER_01]: that's fantastic you know we could do this whole interview just on your your cdc adventure race because i think it sounds so cool and uh... if people want to get involved in that you have any recommendations because we're gonna move on to other topics but i just think it's so neat
9:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, both of us see disease, it'll find.
9:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are also some clearing house websites that are escaping me for the moment, but there are, I think there's an great, adventurous and collective, also the U.S.
9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Adventure Racing Association has.
10:01
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of resources there as well as, you know, most of the major adventure races.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, not to discourage someone from getting involved.
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember my first adventure race was actually with my teenage son.
10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: He was in high school.
10:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just an hour from us in a state park.
10:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it was a four or six hour event.
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's very easy entry points and you can do it as a team.
10:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Most teams are two to four people.
10:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I would just make sure that you have a decent mountain bike.
10:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one and number two.
10:34
[SPEAKER_00]: You have someone on your team that knows how to navigate.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the orientering sounds fascinating.
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So many people these days don't really have a context.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Might be the right word for it because we have
10:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Google Maps and we have GPS and I mean, a lot of people don't even drive across town and know how to get from point A to point B anymore because they just follow the lady.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's right.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel more comfortable navigating on a topo map than I do using Google Maps or somebody talking to me.
11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, okay, I have one question about that and we're going to move on, but if you need to know where you are, you can triangulate if you can find landmarks, but in a place like Florida, it's flat and their trees and you may not be able to see any landmarks.
11:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you sort out where you are?
11:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember one distinct time where we were,
11:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You never really say lost, think the euphemism is either off the map or, you know, off trail, but my teammate and I attempted to triangulate and we were able to find two towers, probably both cell phone towers.
11:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, we're marked on the map.
11:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there you go.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And because it was flat, we were better able to see them and we were out in an open area.
11:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if we were in a forested area, that would not have worked.
12:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's actually the first time in a race, I'd use triangulation.
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, she just have to take in all aspects.
12:07
[SPEAKER_00]: you get off map, you have to constantly, you're basically just taking a confluence of information and making your best determination of where you are.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And that includes having a backstop.
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, if I reach this mark, and maybe say a stream or a river, I've gone too far.
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know I need to turn around.
12:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to trust land features well before manmade features, you know, trails are traditionally relatively inaccurate some maps have all the trails some maps are missing some trails some trails appear in a map that are no longer there so you really have to be careful about.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: man-made marks on a topo map, but yeah, it's a lot of fun.
12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: With a career in emergency medicine where your attention span is measured in seconds and minutes because of all the interruptions, it's really the only thing that I found that once I start and get into it, I don't think about anything else.
13:08
[SPEAKER_00]: especially over night races because it gets far more difficult in the dark and if I'm by myself it's like it's me and me and you've got to pay attention so those brief little lapses you really can't afford because soon enough you're not sure where you are and the night goblins start entering your mind as you get tired and you know the race directors will also tell you
13:38
[SPEAKER_00]: you're on your own, and usually until the race is over, and they'll have some general degree of where you are, you know, if you're hurt and, you know, you can't be mobile, but, um, yeah, set puts a new, you know, an interesting
13:53
[SPEAKER_00]: perspective on it when that's at stake and I just find that challenging and very very fun to do.
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's neat.
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I have two things I have to throw out there just because they I've interviewed so many people who do their adventure sport, water, whatever it is so that they can just get present in the now and get out of their own head enough to just experience that flow state.
14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And for some people, that's the number one motivation.
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's why they do it, and you mentioned that as well.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very healthy thing to do.
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, even if that's just going to your local oriented club and going out in the woods for an hour or two on a map and compass, and certainly there are multi-day events and even longer events to participate in.
14:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's very easy to get started.
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all I did.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I never learned to orient here and scouts or the military like a lot of people.
14:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So I taught myself how to orient here in one to the orient, turn club events.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really how I got started in adventure racing.
15:01
[SPEAKER_01]: My sons and I, two of my sons and I did a nine day through hike in the Holy Cross wilderness here in Colorado and most of the area didn't have trails, it wasn't a matter of being off trail that just weren't trails, it was that remote and for nine days I had studied the terrain and the maps and things and for nine days we were fine.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We were exactly where we needed to be until we got to a trail and then we got lost.
15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what happens.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I wanted to mention, and maybe you can speak to this since you're an emergency room doc.
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: One of our guests, and I've heard of a variety of stories like this.
15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I've only experienced it once in my own life.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of our guests, Robin Binnockos, who was on a multi-day paddling event, and going without sleep and paddling and working that hard for that long, she came to a checkpoint, and her husband was there at a doc, and she paddled up to the doc and said,
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, no, she's not there, she goes, okay, I'm going to ignore.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll just keep going.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you experienced anything like that?
16:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, that's the advantage of racing with teammates, is that you can ask that question any time.
16:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But in her case, obviously, I had a checkpoint asking someone that's not as sleep deprived as she is.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen things moving that probably weren't there.
16:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially at night,
16:28
[SPEAKER_00]: the sounds start being mysterious, and I can remember distinctly in the A-Bike section, and they'll see that I was riding downhill in the dark, and I just thought there were like tens of 20s of cyclists around me, and I think there may have been like two or three of us.
16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, you're running into all kinds of wildlife, and then you start to imagine that, all right, that sound is another.
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: black bear that you saw on 30 minutes ago right so it's front and center in your mind and parts of four to have wild boar and we saw a lot of ground uprooted in areas especially some of the single track mountain biking that was part of race and you know you just come around these corners and you're just taff expecting to see a wild boar in your myths and from what I've
17:24
[SPEAKER_00]: and they're not terribly skittish so that presented a little extra fear, but yeah, we never ran into one, but we did come up on a black bear that was probably more frightened by us than vice versa.
17:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were on our bikes and he just was, you know, rummaging through trash cans and a kind of a low density camping area.
17:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're all sorts of amazing experiences we have when we put ourselves out there.
17:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That's for sure.
17:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go back to how I started the introduction.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: 2017, kidney donor, non-directed.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So non-directed.
18:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Also goes by other terms that people may have heard altruistic is another word.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't particularly like that word because I would argue that anyone that donates a kidney is being altruistic.
18:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Directed means I've identified a person, maybe a family friend, loved one, and I'm going to donate my kidney to that individual.
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm directed as
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: In most cases, I want to help someone.
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to help the person who best matches my kidney.
18:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would put that kidney in what I call the pool of kidneys available at any given point in time.
18:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can talk about the systems that are in place in this country to properly match.
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: a kidney being donated so that it does get to the right and the best match person is probably a better way to say that.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So a better match kidney allows for an average of longer life for that kidney and that also likely means less anti-rejection medications that a recipient needs to take.
19:06
[SPEAKER_00]: so they have a better life for law risk of getting serious infections.
19:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can get into all that detail, but that's somewhat of a long-winded explanation for one non-directed donor.
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically donating a kidney to a stranger.
19:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so a lot of people are going to have a lot of questions about that, Matt.
19:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have made it a focus, a mission of yours, to let people know, life goes on after kidney donation.
19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You can still do the things you want to do, and maybe it's something worth
19:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what were your motivations?
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what made you decide, I'm going to do this.
19:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to donate a kidney.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people have a story that leads them to wanting to be a kidney donor.
19:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that most people just wake up one day and decide to do.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, there's a lot of considerations to take into account.
19:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So my personal story actually starts back in 1980.
20:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gone to the Cleveland Clinic right there that tells you something it would take an active Congress to drag my father to a hospital.
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: He was found to be in renal failure, so that means his kidney stopped working and he was put on an emergent dialysis and we can talk about dialysis, but
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: that's a relatively poor substitute for your kidneys working, but if you had not been put on dialysis, the toxins would have built up to a dangerous level, and in most cases affect someone's heart and could potentially kill somebody if it's gone too far.
20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But that started his journey for about nine years of being dialysis.
20:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And for most people, that means going to a dialysis center, sitting on a machine for four to five hours, having basically your blood taken out, sent through a machine that filters out extra fluid and toxins, and then put your blood back in.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's devastating from an energy level.
21:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people do that three times a week.
21:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So my dad would come home,
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: be shot for the rest of the day, mostly recover the following day and I guess what he's going back in for another treatment.
21:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
21:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, Dallas is a very poor substitute in what happens is the difference that your real kidney does with respect to removing fluid and toxins versus dialysis that differential just begins to deteriorate your major organs that being your brain,
21:41
[SPEAKER_00]: and people began to become kind of generally sick and my dad, you know, was an attorney.
21:48
[SPEAKER_00]: He was an outdoorsman, hunted and fished as often as he could, and I watched him just spiral downward over time.
21:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, he did not want to consider having a family member be a living kidney donor.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how most people would first approach someone with kidney failure is to find a living kidney donor.
22:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And generally people that are related are much more apt to be a match than unrelated people.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But he felt pretty strongly that
22:20
[SPEAKER_00]: He did not want to accept a living kidney donation from either two of his brothers or from his children.
22:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the oldest of three, you know, was 20-ish at that time.
22:30
[SPEAKER_00]: He felt that he had lived a good life and he didn't want to jeopardize someone else's life on his behalf.
22:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always saw that as a missed opportunity to be able to help my father improve his life.
22:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always carried that with me.
22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I was an engineer at the time.
22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: His whole experience led me to go back to medical school.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: at age 30.
22:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And I went into emergency medicine and got reminded my father nearly every day.
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I was seeing at least one person on dialysis.
22:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And usually if they're coming to the emergency department, you're not seeing them at their finest hours.
23:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly some of them were in
23:06
[SPEAKER_00]: wife threatening conditions, but I finally reached a point where if I couldn't help my father, I could at least help someone else.
23:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So in 2017, I started the process of being evaluated to be a living kidney donor.
23:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And on further reflection, I saw my dad's situation as a missed opportunity.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I think at hindsight, it was a selfless act on his part that allowed me later
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: and save a little, hopefully a little bit wiser now than I probably was at 20 and I kind of felt like why not.
23:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not consider this and I just felt bad about that whole situation.
23:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but, you know, what's turned out has been a very positive event in my life.
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, you're right.
23:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've done some advocacy work while I've been working full time that a few years ago, I just reached a point where I wanted to do more advocacy work.
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, career in emergency medicine is pretty demanding and I wanted that extra time to shift gears and do more advocacy work.
24:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, your message is that people can live a normal life after donating and kidney.
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So speak to that a little bit.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the considerations?
24:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that the criteria are very stringent in becoming a living kiddy donor.
24:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't want to say that to discourage anyone for pursuing that, but they are taking a healthy person and a lot of people would argue, you're not gaining any benefit by being a donor.
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're putting you at risk because it is you're going to be under general anesthesia and that they want to be absolutely certain that mentally, physically, you're up for the task.
24:49
[SPEAKER_00]: a donor doesn't receive any benefit and we can certainly talk about that.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not age limited, and no people in their 70s that have donated a kidney.
25:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually you have to be 18 or 21 depending on which transplant center you're working with.
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, there's a series of tests that involve your past medical history, so there are some things that are called
25:12
[SPEAKER_00]: absolute contraindications.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So I always tell the example of, well, if you only have one kidney, obviously, that's a absolute contraindication, right?
25:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
25:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't live with zero kidneys, but a relative contraindication may be something that has an answer of it depends, right?
25:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So nowadays, you can actually have diabetes, and that'd be a relative contraindication.
25:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But very well controlled, you're simply on oral medications and not insulin in some other factors.
25:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You could still potentially be a living kidney donor.
25:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Why diabetes?
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that?
25:56
[SPEAKER_00]: consideration hypertension or high blood pressure and diabetes of the two greatest risk factors for developing kidney disease.
26:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously, if you're at risk for that, they don't want to, you know, further hinder you by removing a kidney.
26:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So back to the testing, there's some blood
26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: a lot of imaging, a cat scan of your abdomen and pelvis area.
26:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You meet with someone that does a psychiatric evaluation.
26:24
[SPEAKER_00]: That could be a social worker or psychiatrist.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's not an insignificant event.
26:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people do very well and have very little of any complications.
26:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to compare it to pregnancy and a woman delivering.
26:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually slightly less risky than a woman going through full-term pregnancy and delivery.
26:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that puts it in perspective.
26:51
[SPEAKER_00]: The risk is not zero.
26:53
[SPEAKER_00]: In either case, but it's extremely low risk.
26:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And the recovery generally is pretty straightforward for most people.
27:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I can speak about my own recovery.
27:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Surgery on the Tuesday.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It was up to a chair that afternoon walking the halls the next day.
27:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of had a borderline fever so they wanted to be extra cautious and keeping another night.
27:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was actually walking outside around the hospital day two.
27:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Went home day three, walked a few miles in the neighborhood.
27:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say my full recovery was measured by completing a hundred k trail race in the following January.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So lace up timber surgery and mid-January.
27:35
[SPEAKER_00]: The following year.
27:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So a handful of months I was doing a local hundred k trail race and I had done that race a handful of times.
27:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, that was when I finished that, it's like, all right, I'm 100% covered.
27:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it was it.
27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I best finish, but there's a little under train, but I completed it and that was the goal.
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I like the way that you're shining a light on this, Matt, so that people understand, and I can see how people would be concerned, but also anologist's power, right?
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're letting people know, this is a big deal, but it's something that you can actually do.
28:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there's, um,
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I think his last name is Chrisman.
28:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If people wanted a little bit more information, I'd just listen to another podcast.
28:25
[SPEAKER_00]: He is known for a podcast called The Great Social Experiment.
28:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And he takes people through the history of dialysis, how it started, how it got approved in Congress to be covered by
28:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Medicare, and that's a story I'm happy to discuss, but one of his best lines I feel that he had was that there's not a shortage of kidneys.
28:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about how many people are on the wait list.
28:53
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a shortage of kidneys.
28:54
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just a shortage of people unaware
28:58
[SPEAKER_00]: of the need and what's involved and how you can return to a normal life, even a very active life.
29:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And that gets to the heart of why we did the 50 states summit trip.
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So the 50 state summit trip.
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have the year written down here.
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it 2333?
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this is so cool.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: People like to have lists that they check off.
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a personality type, I think, that really enjoys that.
29:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then other people are like, well, I do it for this reason or that reason.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter what the motivation is for people.
29:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Having an excuse to go and do whatever your, you know, your reason is I think is great.
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But the idea of your list was the 50 peaks in the 50 states.
29:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And some people are thinking things like Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, right in there like what?
29:51
[SPEAKER_00]: We went to all those.
29:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is amazing.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You sum it at all these peaks in 41 days, and I could see how that would be pretty doable until you start thinking about peaks like Denali, you know, the big one.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're several that are very large.
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you've got Whitney, right?
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got Elbert as Rainier on the List.
30:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
30:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are a lot of big peaks.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, there are.
30:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So tell us about that.
30:18
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, how did you have the idea?
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: How did this come together?
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just to be clear, I want to find living kidney donors.
30:27
[SPEAKER_00]: that made up the team.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And Dave Ashley was our team captain, lead climber.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in a support role, so I provided all the medical care that anyone on the team needed.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did a lot,
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I personally got to about half of the high points, but our goal, we had two support people, and we started with three climbers, was to get all three climbers to all 50 high points.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: The day is an experienced climber.
31:02
[SPEAKER_00]: He's actually done the SEMFET summits, which again, for your listeners, the highest
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: peak in each of the seven continents.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It done that the previous year, which is just a huge accomplishment.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wanted to bring something closer to home.
31:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wanted to do something directly related to living kidney donation.
31:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And he did, you know, some research came up with, all right, we wanted to do something outdoors, we wanted to do something involving climbing and he visited some of the high-pointing websites
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, this is, you know, really a thing, not only is it really a thing, but there's actually a Guinness World record associated with doing it the fastest, our team as it came together, of course, we're all pretty competitive and it makes a course for much more interesting story, right?
31:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So we each are.
31:56
[SPEAKER_00]: We had, you know, pretty decent following on social media, we kept people updated on where we were had a map that we color each state after we accomplished it.
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was just a really neat way for people to follow us.
32:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So Dave actually did all the recon and climbed, had climbed every peak, mostly on his own.
32:17
[SPEAKER_00]: He picked up some other folks to climb with him.
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But he wanted, you know,
32:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Calculate how long it took them, how close we could get a 20 what ended up being a 23 foot RV to a trailhead.
32:29
[SPEAKER_00]: In some cases we could not get to a trailhead.
32:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And for different reasons we actually had in a couple of cases people with four-wheel drive vehicles meet us in the closest town and then that individual drove the climbers to the trailhead.
32:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And then one case actually accompanied a climbers to the peak and back so we had some help there and he built a team he thought that it was important that it was a team and not just one individual.
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: He's, of course, had a lot of contact with people that do a lot of climbing.
33:07
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a couple of large organizations, the kidney donor athletes, and the National Kidney Donation Organization.
33:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are pretty large advocacy groups and living kidney donor world.
33:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had met Jay, one of the other climbers.
33:23
[SPEAKER_00]: When he went to go climb Albert, and he became part of the team, he thought it was important to have the next men and women, so he put out a call for a woman that was interested, and that ended up being Jodi, who's actually summited Denali, which was a huge advantage and benefit for the team with her experience.
33:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Dave is also, of course, summited Denali.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Emily and I with the crew, Emily and Dave did most of the logistical planning and we can get into that detail as much as you care to.
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a tremendous effort trying to just determine what order they have states to do.
34:03
[SPEAKER_00]: They were all kinds of restrictions.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the high points are on private property.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Some need permits as you're unsure while aware.
34:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Some have random opening dates.
34:16
[SPEAKER_00]: like Baxter State Park, which is where Katadin is, and Maine's high point, and they opened a variable days of the year, and it's generally kind of in the May to June timeframe, but when you're on the clock, you can't come to the
34:31
[SPEAKER_00]: to the state park there and find that it's closed.
34:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, a lot of planning, a lot of great stories involved with that.
34:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I was actually kind of a late addition to the team, but yeah, so that was the constitution of the team and how we got started the National Kidney Registry is was our primary sponsor and we can talk a little bit about their role in living kidney donation and we set out and started on Denali.
35:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you're starting to do it with the Doughlin first.
35:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because if you don't, if you're not successful there, then you just have to regroup on the whole trip, right?
35:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, good point.
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Hawaii just geographically close.
35:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we met the team.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And Chicago, with our 23 foot rented RV, I'll stocked and ready to go, and then we travel mostly counterclockwise around the US.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can get into all the trials and tribulations.
35:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We had some major challenges.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like we were re-adjusting our strategy and plans sometimes by the hour, depending on circumstances that we ran into.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So flexibility was a big part of the success then.
35:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So it sounds fascinating.
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Just give us the kind of the highlights of what this looks like.
35:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have people that are climbing people that are supporting your traveling between.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: There's there's sleep to be concerned about nutrition to be concerned about all the normal human things.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And somehow all of this has to come together to set a new record.
36:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we had everything mapped out as to how we hoped things would go.
36:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't really even touched on Guinness.
36:17
[SPEAKER_00]: We felt that it was important to, you know, have an external goal more to
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: draw interest, right?
36:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So the primary goal is one to show that there's the myth of kidney donation affecting you physically afterward is just that a myth and that you can accomplish really anything that you did prior to donation.
36:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I've met so many people that have even accomplished more.
36:45
[SPEAKER_00]: They became more serious about their health after donation and have gotten involved with groups like kidney donor
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the primary goal, but you know, to make it a little bit more interesting and challenging, we decided to go after the Guinness World record.
37:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, so we started on Denali, the team went unguided.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'll make a little legal disclaimer at this point in time.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the climbing they did requires experience and technical know-how.
37:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to tell people I would have no business being on Denali because I have no technical climbing experience.
37:23
[SPEAKER_00]: the three climbers had various degrees of climbing experience with two of them having some of the Denali, but they went unguided mostly so that they could move at the pace they wanted to move at, which was generally going to be faster, probably than going upguided.
37:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also really saved
37:41
[SPEAKER_00]: the team a lot of money.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We were on a pretty tight budget.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes, Denali, the success rate there was about 50% in summiting for all the climbers that attempted.
37:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But that year was 15% for a lot of different reasons.
37:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And despite all that, the team was successful in summiting.
38:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It was both fascinating
38:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Our primary form of communication, we are trying to provide them weather forecasts, of course, the Rangers at Denali, you know, provide daily weather forecasts, which they were using.
38:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Jody, who's from Anchorage, is actually an airline captain, and she has a lot of contacts in the airline industry and she's getting all kinds of weather reports, because as I'm sure a lot of your listeners know,
38:36
[SPEAKER_00]: those weather windows open and closed, allowing some of the attempts that are reasonably safe with a high chance for success.
38:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are other times where you're just hunkered down, waiting for weather to pass.
38:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're providing weather forecasts, trying to provide some
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: through an enriched device.
39:00
[SPEAKER_00]: The team had a lot of troubles with blisters.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have loved to see pictures of how bad they were, where they're getting infected now.
39:07
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no bandwidth to send pictures, especially under those conditions.
39:13
[SPEAKER_00]: There was an accidental ingestion of some camp gas.
39:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That was small and didn't result in any harm.
39:23
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, and I'm not sure what altitude they were, but you know, they were 17-ish thousand feet and now worried about whether someone's had a toxic ingestion.
39:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I reassured the team after getting a little bit more detail that that should be fine, you know, here are the things to watch out for.
39:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, they summed it, raised down to the bottom, got off.
39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell Keaton and the glacier by the skin or their teeth.
39:48
[SPEAKER_00]: That's weather related.
39:50
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a whole, that's a whole other story.
39:53
[SPEAKER_00]: That's very interesting.
39:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It would have cost the team another four days had they not freed up and got off because the plane lined up behind them.
40:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Never got off.
40:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And the poor pilot apparently had to spend four days at base camp.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: without any clothes or food in preparation for that.
40:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it'd been years and years since that had ever happened here.
40:15
[SPEAKER_00]: She had a lot of support and, of course, people chipped in and provided shelter and food and clothing for the pilot.
40:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, then off back to Anchorage, kind of regrouped with equipment and then quick flight to Hawaii.
40:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And unlike I said, we met in Chicago.
40:31
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the first time a whole team was together and keep in mind we all knew each other to some degree some more than others But it was pretty close to putting five strangers in a 25 foot or 23 foot RV We also had a sixth individual young gentleman who's a
40:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Big time endurance athlete, FKT, record holder, who is our videographer and photographer on the trip.
40:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So he joined us to make six adults in this little RV.
41:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
41:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, Emily.
41:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
41:05
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
41:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
41:07
[SPEAKER_00]: A little bit of a big brother, a little bit of a family.
41:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe Chubby Chase's family vacation movie might come to mind.
41:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But the routine as much as there was routine was Emily and I split the driving.
41:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We drove to the next trailhead.
41:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We prep the team so that could be cooking, could be getting climbing gear out, could be reviewing kind of a cheat sheet for every climb.
41:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
41:34
[SPEAKER_00]: How long, altitude gain, weather, we had it down to and is mostly Emily's work.
41:40
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what the hazards were, you know, and I could distinctly remember like Minnesota was in Festa with mosquitoes.
41:47
[SPEAKER_00]: We opened that RV door to get going.
41:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just millions of mosquitoes everywhere.
41:56
[SPEAKER_00]: But no.
41:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all right, so there are worst hazards that Mosquito, trying to keep them, trying to keep them out of the RV, trying to get everyone sprayed down so they just didn't get eaten alive, so we get the climbers out and on their way, I would often join them.
42:12
[SPEAKER_00]: If I weren't trying to sleep, and I might just go for the first mile or two, because my primary responsibility was to have all the preparations done before they got back.
42:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the real easy climbs, the whole team did, and then we all came back and then headed out.
42:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But in some cases, we had, you know,
42:31
[SPEAKER_00]: In one case, we had 24 plus hours to get things done.
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the team would come back.
42:38
[SPEAKER_00]: They would kind of give us a heads up when they were getting close so that we could kind of be pointing in the right direction and have food cooked, have space to get what clothes out.
42:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Dry and make sure the shower is ready to go for,
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, five, you know, relative to the quick showers and then the team generally ate went right to bed and then we agreed on about how long it would be to the extraill head and what time people wanted wake up calls and we would rinse and repeat.
43:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of those longer climbs is when we would do things like getting oil changes on the RV, changing out water, you know,
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: refueling laundry grocery shopping the logistics map sound crazy just goes on and on and on and on and on you I mean a lot of people don't think of things like oh we have to change the oil during this world record attempt
43:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but you're covering the miles.
43:39
[SPEAKER_01]: How many miles did you put on that RV?
43:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It, um, I would put probably the total mileage driven for the trip at about 17,000.
43:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Now with some hiccups, we ended up using other vehicles and we can kind of get into some of the major hiccups that we had.
43:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, uh, you know, some of your audience that are RV owners will be laughing at
44:03
[SPEAKER_00]: a couple of those stories that I would tell on my self-paramerealy, but we weren't out of the Yellowstone area.
44:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It was well overdue for an oil change.
44:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, that's got to be one of the RV capitals of the country, right?
44:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
44:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, the oil service stations aren't your.
44:18
[SPEAKER_00]: your smaller regular vehicle there are just massive caverns because they're taken in these huge RVs into oil changes and we drove by one a couple of days were open like we could just stop in their real quick because we had to get back to the trailhead we walked in there and
44:36
[SPEAKER_00]: we saw we're here for an oil change and one's like, well, you have an appointment.
44:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, no, we're, you know, we explained our trip, and which we did a lot of minutes.
44:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're there for it was spreading the word.
44:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And she kind of looked at us and's like, we're booking six, eight weeks out for appointments.
44:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll oil change this.
44:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they are.
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You just don't pull in to get your RV oil change.
44:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a challenge in it of itself.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: They do have some mobile people.
45:05
[SPEAKER_00]: to meet a mobile technician in a gas station parking lot, so he could change the oil while we waited and then we got back to the team.
45:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And all those things are trying to be done.
45:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Kurt, so we didn't lose any time.
45:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you don't want to.
45:21
[SPEAKER_00]: got from it a climber sitting at a trailhead, wet, cold, hungry, and tired, and we're nowhere to be found.
45:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was always the goal.
45:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, it was a lot of challenges, a lot of logistics.
45:33
[SPEAKER_00]: The biggest challenge was actually the weather.
45:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you recall, but the Northwest, we received near record or record snowfall that previous winter.
45:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So once we left Illinois,
45:46
[SPEAKER_00]: We headed through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, all that area.
45:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the first big climb was going to be granite in Montana.
45:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got there and we couldn't even get to the trailhead.
46:00
[SPEAKER_00]: We decided we were about a mile short because of the snow.
46:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was going to be a long climb expected to be 18 hours round trip.
46:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And got the team ready, prepared, all the gear out.
46:15
[SPEAKER_00]: snow at times up to their waist almost from the trailhead.
46:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm we're needed snow shoes.
46:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it had snow shoes, but what they did not have were crampons and helmets unfortunately.
46:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, that was something we reviewed.
46:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Every trailhead, of course, when you're getting out in Florida, Delaware, there's not much to review, just get out, get to the marker and do what we need to do and get back.
46:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, so the decision was not
46:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that don't think the climbers realized how difficult the conditions were and hindsight, it probably would have made sense to just move on, just skip one to several.
46:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, you're there.
46:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm back, I'll rail that.
47:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that high point is hours from the next high point, so now just eaten all that time if you're going to drive back to it at some point.
47:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And people, you know, they're at the trailhead, they're relatively well-rested, they're excited.
47:15
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be a challenging climb by the first one since Denali.
47:19
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of adrenaline and, you know, we're here to do the climb, so they headed out
47:25
[SPEAKER_00]: got to the base of the summit, probably took them twice as long to get there as anticipated and kind of had to first fracture in the team.
47:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of the team was not comfortable with the risk involved with continuing, especially without it may take that back.
47:43
[SPEAKER_00]: They may very well have had cramp eyes, but I don't think they had ice axes, and I know they didn't have helmets,
47:51
[SPEAKER_00]: rock falling as they started up the the steep incline towards the summit and you know that was you know a risk concern to some of the climbers as it turns out Dave felt safe continuing so he continued onto the summit.
48:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of the climbers decided it was unsafe and turned around and started heading back so that presented both of us and I was presented the first big challenges
48:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
48:20
[SPEAKER_00]: On what do you do with part of the team making a summit the rest of the team not summoning to you come back later for the others to what's this weather going to be like through the rest of the Northwest and as it turns out with some phone calls we realize that it was likely going to be bad in several of those places, you know, hood for near Whitney for a peak in Idaho.
48:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So after that lesson on Granite, we decided to skip four of those Western summits and come back to them.
48:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a huge decision to make.
48:57
[SPEAKER_00]: As our ultimate goal, Kurt was to finish in Maine for several reasons.
49:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But now that meant once we did Katad and we were getting out of plane and going back to
49:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, to do those last four, plus it also turns out to be granite.
49:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So all the climbers had tracking devices, which was part of the Guinness World Record requirement, and it was also certainly a safety factor.
49:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So the way we knew roughly where people were and we could communicate.
49:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Dave had some climbing friends checking his GPS data, especially on the more difficult climbs, and maybe about halfway through the whole trip.
49:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Friend of his got up with him and said, Dave, you may want to look at your granite data.
49:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like you didn't quite hit the summit.
49:46
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
49:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, if all the snow and it was raining and sleeping, you know, temperatures are about freezing, it was at night and he determined he was 200 meters from the true summit.
50:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
50:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's just, you know,
50:03
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of sure that with the team it's like got to go back and do granite again so that added a fifth western summit that we went back to do and you know it is what it is in 51 plimes that's right two weeks later it's quite amazing how much more snow it melted and how much easier those climbs were they they certainly weren't a walk in the park but
50:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, they were much easier than the first attempts made.
50:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Matt, I have a partial list in front of me of what the peaks are.
50:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not a complete list for some reason.
50:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm struggling with that.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But some of these are kind of surprising.
50:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Resona is nearly 13,000 feet.
50:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Humphrey's peak.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, Cornese, Whitney, Colorado, Zelbert.
50:44
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the ones we know.
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's some, you look at it and say, Really, how did they get that high there, Georgia?
50:49
[SPEAKER_01]: almost 5,000 feet.
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not bad.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Hawaii is almost 14,000 feet.
50:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if people are aware of that, but that's a tall volcano.
50:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's quite cold up there too, despite it being Hawaii.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and then Granite Peak is almost 13,000.
51:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, well, 799, according to this, Nevada, I would not have thought of this, Nevada is 13,000 feet.
51:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That's boundary peak.
51:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, I don't know, it's a very interesting list.
51:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some that you think, well, they just kind of walked through a field probably and came back.
51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But you still have to get there and do that.
51:27
[SPEAKER_01]: All the logistics, still apply.
51:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd brief funny story about the lowest high point in the country, which is Florida, in Britain Hill.
51:36
[SPEAKER_00]: We had some early social media comments, one of which someone got under Dave Skin.
51:42
[SPEAKER_00]: The person was making fun of the fact that we were going to have to climb Britain Hill.
51:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it was sarcastic.
51:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't hurt yourself.
51:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't
51:51
[SPEAKER_00]: or a researcher, self kind of thing, and Dave was just like, you know why?
51:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't people just focus on the really challenging ones that are facing us?
52:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And that'd be diminishing our efforts and he just kind of took a personally.
52:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So Hunter, our videographer, bugged him a good part of the trip.
52:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, Dave, you just need to do something fun in Florida to just kind of, you know, nicely kind of point a finger back at the nasaers or
52:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, comedians in social media and Dave's pretty straight lace in a good way and he is like, I don't I don't want to make this comedy hour.
52:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be doing something silly.
52:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think either just fatigue or constant daduring by the team, but we had him dress up as if he were climbing Denali.
52:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So he had his ice axe, his helmet, his puffy coat, and he kind of
52:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Very high peak and then Hunter and his youthful exuberance and social media prowess overlaid some snow and some wind and opposed to the video on our social media page.
53:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It was probably one of the funnier episodes of the trip was watching it.
53:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, every high point had its unique features, a ton of history involved with many of them.
53:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you rallied off some of the more challenging ones.
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's, it's impressive.
53:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm, I'm looking here.
53:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, Renir.
53:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's, that's no joke right there.
53:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like there are nearly 20 that are above 10,000 feet.
53:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
53:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe not quite that many.
53:37
[SPEAKER_01]: but they're they're a but close so it's no small feet especially when you throw in the huge ones but just a logistical challenge so here's a question you did the thing did you set the world record yes and how did you celebrate setting the new fastest time for the fifty high points in the fifty US
53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Dave can fill in the details, but Dave, unfortunately, is the only one to successfully complete all 50, and he finished on GANET, which is Wyoming.
54:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very easy to get granite of Montana and GANET of Wyoming mixed up, but that was 14.
54:17
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just a...
54:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and to think he had to go back out and do the last five, all of which probably the most difficult five in the lower 48.
54:27
[SPEAKER_00]: He was able to make a phone call to the founder and CEO of the National Kidney Registry, our primary sponsor and Garrett Hill is his name and he was an
54:40
[SPEAKER_00]: He was able to say, hey, at the top of number 50, which officially is when the clock stops, is at the final summit.
54:49
[SPEAKER_00]: He was in a conference room of people in a meeting, and they all kind of gave a big cheer over the phone.
54:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, got congratulations from Garrett.
54:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But he quickly pointed out, especially since they're both,
55:00
[SPEAKER_00]: former military that the missions not complete until everyone's safe and back in the RV because it's not 100% easy coming back down.
55:13
[SPEAKER_00]: There have been plenty of stories of climbers falling to their death or incurring significant injury descending.
55:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And you think that that's kind of the easy part.
55:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously Hunter was with them and they obviously made it back down safely.
55:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Emily had a small cake and it cooked some food for the team.
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of gas station food and a lot of quick grocery store shops, so there wasn't too many regularly cooked meals on the whole trip.
55:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the cake was certainly appreciated.
55:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and then the National Kidney Registry, we didn't talk much about them.
55:56
[SPEAKER_00]: facilitator in the country.
55:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So they are the system that matches donors with recipients and they have a pretty complex algorithm that takes about half of the transplant centers in the country that they work with.
56:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's anywhere from maybe 150 to 200 kidneys that are potentially being donated and their algorithm uses that to match the best.
56:19
[SPEAKER_00]: donor kidney with the recipient and these surgeries are coordinated sometimes they occur in chains where someone like me would donate to an individual that needs a kidney and maybe they have a spouse that wants to donate but they're not a match to their spouse so then they subsequently donate to another pair and these chains can go on for quite a few 10 to 15 is not unusual
56:48
[SPEAKER_00]: often by, you know, commercial airlines and those surgeries occur most every day in this country and kidneys are being flown around.
56:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite a logistical challenge, but that's the gold standard for people with kidney failure is having a living kidney donor.
57:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And it lasts a kidney, living kidney lasts about 15 to 20 years or about twice as long as a deceased donor kidney.
57:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the gold standard that we advocate for and support and I mentioned that because our hope was to get to the National Kenny Registry's annual gala, which isn't late June and it ends up being that Dave was
57:31
[SPEAKER_00]: on granite number 50 during the gala.
57:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had to kind of just represent him at the gala.
57:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was well recognized the following year at the next gala.
57:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So we kind of missed that a bit in part because of the weather and part because of having to go back out last.
57:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But we came close.
57:54
[SPEAKER_00]: That's fantastic though.
57:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What a wonderful thing to do.
57:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mentioned to you before we hit record how much I encourage people to do adventure for a reason not just their ego.
58:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, doing that for yourself is still worth it.
58:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you can do adventure and make a bigger impact, why not?
58:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not and I love what you did it's appreciate that I know I listened to your conversation with Mike Chambers and talking about beating Mondays and some people may look at this is like others no way I can do any of this what I found personally and what a lot of people do is some of these are grouped pretty closely together and I know when I travel I'm I'm seeing how close we're going to be to a high point that I have it climbed yet yeah
58:41
[SPEAKER_00]: and I make it a point to put that in our schedule.
58:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned some of the ones in the east coast are mostly part of the Appalachian mountain range.
58:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned Georgia.
58:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are all pretty close together.
58:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And we really got cranking when we went through those areas.
59:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We did as many as five high points in a 24 hour period.
59:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, again, that's suggesting you drive all night and do them day and night, but it just goes to the point that in a weekend there are places in this country where you can easily do two with not three and beacher your Monday morning.
59:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
59:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
59:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you folks, you might not think you have time for an adventure, but you probably do.
59:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, I have to skill it correctly.
59:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Weekends are so wonderful.
59:30
[SPEAKER_01]: What it gives.
59:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and if you have someone that's with you that doesn't necessarily want to do the climbing, some of them are what are called drive ups, where you can drive up to the high point.
59:42
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
59:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done that before with my wife, a matter at the top,
59:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know the short distance to the actual high point marker and yeah, made a day of it So there's something out there for everyone.
59:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's great.
59:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Matt, we burned through our time But I really appreciate what you've done again the book is called ascending America with a sub title as five living kidney donors 50 peaks 50 states Did I get all of that one record breaking journey?
1:00:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:00:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So ascending America, congratulations on the world record.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that is really neat, especially because you did it for such a great reason.
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:00:22
[SPEAKER_01]: What other information would you like people to have about how to contact you or get more information about kidney donation, etc.
1:00:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So everything about the book, my background and other resources can be found at MattKarmity M.D.com.
1:00:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:00:37
[SPEAKER_00]: MattKarmityMD.com.
1:00:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and if people are looking for general information about kidney disease, donation, what's involved, I'm actually the chair of the Board of Directors for an organization called the National Kidney-Donation Organization or NKDL, and that is probably the single biggest clearinghouse of information on that subject.
1:01:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And that website is www.nkdo.org Okay, and I'll put that in the show notes.
1:01:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that'd be great.
1:01:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so people can find that.
1:01:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt, thank you very much for your time sharing this with us.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like you have an adventurous lifestyle, but this adventure, the 50 states.
1:01:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I, for some reason, it just sounds like so much fun.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So much fun, and I love that you're helping people find kidneys and a new chance in life.
1:01:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a best thing.
1:01:37
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the bottom line, Kurt, and I appreciate you having me out.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, you're most welcome, and all the listeners out there find a reason for your fun, but do get out there, and have some fun.