Nuanced. - 75. Eric Carter: Skier, Endurance Coach & Trail Runner

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Aaron sits down with Eric Carter to discuss his experiences skiing around the world. Aaron also asks about Eric's research on the effects of competing at altitude and altitude chambers.Eric Carter is an elite ski mountaineering racer, endurance coach, and trail runner. He received a PhD for his research on high altitude and exercise physiology from the University of British Columbia. Eric is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is currently living in Squamish, BC. He is also a member of the U.S. National Ski Mountaineering Team and competed on the '14/'15 and '15/'16 World Cup Circuits as well as the 2015 World Championships. When he is not skiing, he enjoys alpine climbing and mountain running. He is sponsored by Arc'teryx and SkiUphill.Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

My name is Eric Carter, and I live in Squamish, British Columbia, and I'm essentially a professional mountain athlete. I kind of have different streams for that. I'm more or less a sponsored skier with the company Arcterics. And then I also work as a coach primarily for runners and other kind of mountain athletes, so climbers and skiers. Amazing. And you also just finished your PhD not too long ago. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yep. I came to UBC, originally to do my master's, but then stayed on for my PhD, and I worked in the environmental physiology laboratory, so it was a kind of division of human kinetics or kinesiology. And yeah, my PhD was focused on essentially endurance performance at high altitude or moderate altitude. So when athletes are

competing rather than at sea level, but at altitude, what? causes some of the inter-individual differences there. That's fascinating. When did this become an interest of yours? When did pursuing skiing, being outdoors, going up mountains? When did that kind of come onto your radar where you were like, this is something I'd like to figure out how I can do for the rest of my life? Yeah, I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was a cross-country skier in high school

and growing up. And so that was a really good introduction to endurance sports and outdoors as well. My family did a lot of canoeing and hiking and then skiing for sure. And so that was a big driver through high school and into college. And so I chose the University of Vermont for my undergrad, essentially only because of skiing. It seemed like a good place to go cross-country ski racing And so I raced for UVM all through my undergrad And then that definitely built out kind of the endurance

And just like aerobic capacity side of things But we didn't do a whole lot of mountain activities And I had been kind of exposed to rock climbing And getting in the mountains before going to university in Minnesota kind of believe it or not we actually do have some decent rock climbing there's kind of some cool river crags and and things like that as well as some gyms like some of the the first gyms in the country i think we're around there and so did kind of have that exposure then went to to vermont and and was focused on skiing and so choosing exercise science as an undergrad there was basically just to

to hopefully improve my skiing. It seemed like the most likely. And then as I was finishing university, my ski career was kind of on the downslope. I wasn't performing super well. And I was actually really enjoying school. I was working as a research assistant and kind of having a fun time there.

So I had lots of support from professors there and encouragement and stuff. And so grad school seemed like a good option. You know, it was kind of like a choice between maybe trying to continue the ski career and maybe going back home and living with my parents to try to train and compete and maybe hopefully make the national team kind of thing,

but more likely spend four years living with my parents and not have much to show for it. So I was like, okay, grad school actually sounds like a pretty good option. And looked at a couple different options, but UBC was a cool program doing interesting stuff and a really, really great professor potentially to work with. And then it was right before the Olympics. So I knew that that would probably be kind of rad to have the Olympics in town.

And a bunch of my friends were competing. And so it just seemed like a good chance. And then I also knew that it was in the mountains. And Canada is a little bit removed from the U.S. It's kind of like going to a foreign country, but not exactly. a little safer choice. So there were a lot of things that pushed me towards UBC, and it was a pretty easy choice to make.

But yeah, it didn't have a whole lot of real mountain experience before coming here. You know, I've seen slideshows and presentations and stuff like that. But again, like in Minnesota and even Vermont, they've got a bit of mountain terrain, but it's still much more like subalpine kind of stuff. so there are so many different aspects to skiing there is the speed that you can get some people like just moving along the snow some people enjoy just the different environment that you never

get to experience there's something fascinating to me about it which is like you're conquering an element that has been challenging for so many people over like human civilization the cold is very difficult to endure and so if you can kind of thrive in that environment you're kind of defying the strongest of odds that people have kind of been through what was it for you that made you so excited to to chase that path because it seems so unique not many people I know ski professionally have that experience what was it about it that that made you enjoy skiing so much uh that's a good question it's probably pretty multi-factorial like there's a lot of things about skiing that I love um you know coming from Minnesota I would say the cold is less of an

issue. You know, comparably here, it's pretty warm. So, um, so it's just kind of normal there. Um, but yeah, for, for competitive cross country skiing, it was a, it was a competitive outlet for sure. Um, I was able to push hard, train, you know, see what I was capable of. And there's, there's absolutely a component of comparing yourself to others that I think is appealing to me, you know, for whatever reason. So, yeah, racing, cross-country skiing was just this, you get to have fun, you feel like you're moving fast, and there's this major competitive element. And for a long time, that was kind of the most important thing for sure.

What was the process? Like when you talk about cross-country skiing and doing that competitively, what is that kind of look like. How do you prepare for that? And then what does that competition day sort of look like? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, here it's not quite as much of a thing. There is cross-country skiing and there are some teams and stuff. But in Minnesota, it is a much bigger thing. Like there's all the parks in the winter are groomed trails for skiing. So you can kind of, you have very easy access to it. It's relatively inexpensive other than getting the equipment. And then all the high schools have have open ski teams basically and so it's pretty easy to get involved um in the sport there

and for me it was initially kind of actually one of my better friends in high school was maybe he was the captain of the ski team or something i i can't remember but he was a he was an older older guy and he was really into skiing and so I was like I just wanted to be him and so it was like okay yep I'll be on the ski team and yeah there's the the training component is very similar to like cross-country running or or kind of similar sports mountain biking and yeah you kind of progress eventually through racing and so for me it was an easy choice then to want to go into university where you have the potential for scholarships and things like that and just kind of a cool group of people to participate with there what stood out to you about that person what made

him admirable that you would want to kind of follow in his footsteps was there a trait that he had was there an energy something that kind of made you go this is the person that I admire and I'd like to follow in those footsteps um that's a good question um I would say you know just I had known him he was like a family friend growing up um and so he was he was maybe perhaps that kind of older brother figure I would say um so basically I just thought everything he did was cool and that lasted all the way through high school. Not that I would admit that to him anymore, but yeah, you know, he was just an outdoorsy guy, was a good skier, was a good climber, you know, could do all that stuff. And that's pretty common, I'd say, in Minnesota to be like, you go fishing,

you go canoeing, all those kind of things. Was there a thrill element at all to it? Because you can go pretty fast on the mountain and there's no bumper rails, there's nothing preventing you from having a serious injury and people do get injured. Was there at all a thrill element of the speeds that you could hit or anything like that that stood out to you? Cross-country skiing is definitely pretty safe. You're on a nice groomed path for sure and especially in places like Minnesota where it's not very steep. But yeah, you go fast, you kind of feel like you're flying, especially when conditions all come together you have it feels a lot more effortless when conditions are bad if it's really wet or warm or anything like that there's like drag involved but once everything comes

together and you're feeling good it actually feels really easy and and you're just like wow this is awesome. I'm flying. And I think that then goes into like racing and talking a bit about the mental side of things. You get into that. People talk about flow. And so I think a big thing for competitive racers is that when everything is going well and you're racing kind of at your limit, you experience this kind of concept of flow where it just feels like you dissociate a bit. And you're cruising along without having to, you're working hard, but you don't feel like you're working in a sense. Yeah, you're almost just, and I think it's also compared to like being in the zone. Yeah.

And it's just everything kind of fades away and you're moving at a good pace and everything, all that training comes together in this one moment where you're not so focused on any one thing because everything is sort of coming together naturally. What was that experience like to have that happen to you? And did that become like a research interest of yours at all to try and figure? that out? Yeah, I mean, I find it more interesting now with kind of all my mountain sports experience, but it was definitely one of those things where you'd be in a race or a hard workout or whatever. And it doesn't happen every time. You know, some days you're just not feeling good or like I said, the conditions are slow. And so flow is one of those kind of things that comes and goes and I think in competition that's kind of a fast track to get into it you know to get

into that zone you're pushing yourself you're competing and it's a an easy-ish way to get there as I've progressed into other kind of components of mountain sports and you said you know kind of the the risk element like for me coming to bc i came here as a cross-country skier primarily and went cross-country skiing at Cyprus and Whist Olympic Park in those places. But all of a sudden, you're looking around at the mountains all around it. And it's like, hmm, I could have a lot more fun going out there than just staying on this little hamster wheel piece. And so that was my move into kind of other mountain sports. And then there's, you know, maybe for later in the conversation, but there's that feeling of being in the

the zone and my opinion is that it comes a lot easier when there's a more significant element of risk and and more complicated environment so yeah I think whether it's for good or bad you know these sports make that more appealing is there is there would you rather be there is there like some people are hungry sometimes and that's that's a feeling it's an energy but do you want to be in in the in the zone do you want to be in a flow state some people if you think about it are never in that state their whole life is completely detached from that idea sometimes i feel that when i'm running where it's just like everything sort of fades away and you all of a sudden you're 10 kilometers in and you're like that feels like no time went by at all but some people never experienced that so do you think that they're missing out? Is it something that is beneficial to be in, that is fulfilling to be in? I'm just interested in your thoughts of being in that zone. Is that a good place to be? Yeah, it's awesome. Beneficial, I don't know, probably. But yeah, I would think that there are lots of people that don't get to experience that. I mean, there's a lot of people that don't get

to experience a lot of the things that we do as kind of athletes or recreationalists. in the mountains, and that's super unfortunate. You know, I wish everybody could be exposed to the stuff that we get to see. But, yeah, in terms of being in a flow state, it is one of the major appeals to the sports that I do for sure. Yeah, because my understanding is it's like it's a place that people find incredibly meaningful. There's like a lot of feelings of depression and anxiety, and this is a way to kind of prove to yourself that you can be in like an opposite place, like the opposite of being depressed and anxious.

Seems like it could be in that flow state where everything is coming together. It doesn't happen by accident because you've put in work years of effort, of understanding, of developing good equipment, of understanding what works for you, that it all culminates in a meaningful moment of like everything can fade away now because I did the work. You can't really get into a flow state by accident, by like random chance. unless you're maybe in a stressful position. But even that, it's like there's an element of that risk you were talking about. And so I'm just fascinated by the idea of flow

because it can feel like a meaningful place for people and it kind of is the juxtaposition of that anxious, depressed person where it's like life is meaningless. There's no point to this. In that moment, it's like the point is to do this well and to do this to the best of my ability. Yeah, for sure. I don't know that it truly has meaning other than the fact,

that it is a somewhat euphoric kind of state in a way. So it's something that we chase for sure. But yeah, the ultimate outcome, like whether or not it makes me a better person or helps me handle my life or my situation better or worse. I don't know. Yeah, it's a tougher thing to transfer. and I was just talking to a criminologist about that.

Like, the idea is sports help with crime prevention. And he basically goes, it could, but you have to put in other safeguards into place. Just having, like, somebody who's about to start dealing drugs, play soccer, is not going to prevent them from doing that. You have to put in resources around that and have the other aspects. Like, when you're done a long soccer game or when you're done a long day of skiing, the meal that you have with your friends and your community afterwards can play a huge role in the decisions you make. and where you want to take your life after that,

and then you want to spend more time with those people instead of in a crime community or building those relationships. So you have to be mindful of how you're sort of approaching that. I'm interested, when did the science become an interest of yours? Sometimes we don't always understand how scientific the process of athleticism can be. We kind of disconnect the two. And certainly within universities, some professors get very, well, my mind is everything, but they don't exercise

and they don't try and stay fit or healthy and they think that their mind is so powerful they don't need to stress about the physical activity yet with the physical activity you've tied that in really well with the science I'm just interested when did you start to bring those two together yeah well like I said

so when I was finishing university I was actually really enjoying my program you know that I had just selected in order to be a better athlete but was, yeah, was finding it really fulfilling and a more interesting path at that time. And now in hindsight, I think all of the things that I'm really attracted to are related to like problem solving and complexity. And so whether that's being in a mountain environment or it's being or it's working on a research paper,

I just like that idea of kind of like piecing puzzles together. and doing it in a good style and kind of having this outcome or this product, whether it's a, you know, a completed day in the mountains or it's a paper. And so I think that's where the attraction is for me, for sure. What have you learned? What are some of the things where you've gone like, this is like a tool that I can add to my athleticism, to coaching other people? What are some tools that you've sort of gained over your education that stand out to you?

that's a long question um certainly you know throughout my education i've i've learned all the things that have contributed to my current career um i would say um you you need to do really well you do need insight both kind of coming from being an athlete and and a more academic approach to things. And so I grew up in what we call like the Norwegian style of endurance training because the Norwegian cross-country skiers are and now have been basically the best in the world and the most well-developed country in those training methods.

And so we base a lot of what we know around endurance training in those things. And so I- Can you describe what that is, the Norwegian training program? It's essentially that you need to train a lot very easily. So very high volume and low intensity. And there's more kind of components to it, but that's one of the major pillars, I guess. And so they, their style of training, you know, is what informed all of my training through high school and college. And I got comfortable with that, you know, with how. you go through either specific workouts or the whole training year as kind of a cycle.

And then on the academic side, I learned all the actual, you know, names and like ideas of these concepts that this training style is built around and what, how that actually works and why it's, you know, beneficial to your cells, basically your muscle cells or your body. And so learning about what is periodization, you know, what is the law of diminishing returns? All these things that you learn as an exercise scientist kind of supports anecdotally what I learned as an athlete. So I don't know if I actually answered your question there. Can you describe some of those, the law of diminishing returns? It's a concept that kind of surrounds the idea that at a certain point you're going to stop getting as much benefits as you were up into a certain point.

And so there is a point in time you need to pull back. For me, I enjoy the UFC. And so I get to kind of hear about the camps that people go through. It's a three-month camp before they go into their fight. And so strategizing when you hit that peak period, trying to make sure that you don't work so hard in the first month that the second month, you're like, I don't even want to go train where you're so discouraged. So you have to be strategic in when you time things out and making sure that you stay curious and, and, um, passionate about it all the way. And so when the point at which you're the most excited to fight is the week of your fighting is a strategy, but it's difficult for people to do.

So could you explain maybe that law of diminishing returns? Yeah. So that probably actually falls under periodization a bit more closely, which is the idea that you progressively build up your training to ideally hit a peak at the appropriate time. You know, we don't want to do things just randomly because when you're training, you're basically tearing down your body and then you recover and your body builds itself back up, hopefully like at a little bit higher level than you started at. And so you want to make sure that those valleys and peaks progressively increase. And then you want to make sure that when you go to compete, it's at the highest peak, basically. And so that's the idea of periodization. And those valleys and peaks could be specific workouts.

It could be weeks, could be months. So we look at our training year to try to figure out where can we put in a lot of hard work, where can we put in easier work, where do we need to recover most of time, which competitions are the most important. All these kind of things go into building this training calendar. And then a lot of diminishing returns is similar, but basically says that the more you work, the less benefit you get.

And so if we took somebody that's essentially not a runner and, you know, not fit and right off the couch and had them running a couple kilometers a day, pretty quickly, you're going to see a lot of benefit coming from that small amount of exercise, right? But if we took an Olympian who's running every day anyway and we had them run 5K a day there's not going to be any return to that. So the more input, the less payoff you get. That's why a lot of gym memberships, they're sweet at the start. You're like, oh, I'm getting so much stronger.

And then after four months or something, people drop off because it's like, oh, I have to work way harder to see the same gains. And then you're also, the inverse of that is you're more likely to have injury, the harder you work. So, yeah. Yeah, you have to be strategic. Do you, when you're working with people, is heart monitor is a big thing? That's my understanding is that it's becoming more and more scientific. So the assumption I think lay people often have is like Olympic skiers, professional, like, whatever the professional is, they're good all year round. There is no, like they don't think of the peak time.

And so from my understanding, they're starting to use heart rate monitors and trying to figure out when those peaks are within the body. And obviously there's a mental component, but that physiological component, I think it's like the whoop strap tells you like when today, this is like a light day. Like your heart rate does not suggest that you're in a peak time to perform. Is that true? Is this where the industry is sort of going? Yeah. So there's lots of data monitoring or data recording and wearable technology that exists in sports science. I think there's a lot of it that is not super effective.

So we've been using heart rate monitors for a long time. They're pretty simple, like basically two lead ECG straps that you wear and you have a watch. And in the last probably 15 years now, these watches have gotten a lot more advanced. They'll record your GPS track. And then you can graph your heart rate and all this stuff in kind of a really fancy data visualization in your training log basically but then there are other wearable technologies and things that look at I think the one that you're talking about it basically looks at something called heart rate variability so when we

have a when we look at heart rate you have the beats per minute and they're at you know say resting here we're at 60 beats per minute but those beats aren't perfectly equally apart, right? They might have a millisecond between them. Another one might be 1.2 milliseconds. Another might be 0.8 milliseconds and so on and so on. So there's variability between heartbeats. And then when you average them all out, they're one millisecond apart.

Or one second apart. We measure hurry variability in milliseconds, but 60 beats per minute would be one second. Anyway, not a mathematician. No problem. You know more about it than I do. Yeah. So we can actually measure the time between heartbeats, and we can use statistics that I don't totally understand

to evaluate the amount of variability. So you could have maybe that 0.2 seconds of variability in the heart rate. or you could have 0.4 or 0.6, whatever it might be. I'm kind of just making up numbers. But the more variability that you see between heart rates is associated with more stress on your nervous system. And it's been a little while since I've thought about heart rate variability. So I'm not going to go dig myself too deep a hole here. But there's a bunch of different apps and sports technology that look at,

at that variability and try to predict how either recovered you are from training or how stress you are or any of these things that might affect your nervous system and then that's shown in this hurry variability. So I think that's what WOOP does and a few others as well. And I think it's probably useful in some situations, but we also have to acknowledge that there's a lot of different stressors that affect our nervous systems. So we talk about that a lot with training. You know, we can quantify pretty carefully training stress that we program for an athlete,

you know, whether we're looking at time and distance or time and intensity, but we can come up with a number that says you have, you know, X units of stress on your body coming from this workout. And then we can look at what the athlete actually completed and all that stuff and heart rate's a good way to measure intensity because heart rate is relatively linear with intensity but there are all sorts of other things that add stress to your

body and so that could be you know family life you got to take care of kids during the day could be work stress could be you know major life events like a death in the family or something like that, not sleeping well at stress or prevents recovery. So all these other non-training stressors really affect how valuable the training stress is going to be. And so we talk about that a lot with our athletes in like, okay, you're having a hard time completing the workout. What else is going on? Or we're not seeing the numbers, you know, that we want to see completed now. What what kind of accounts for that because you should you know based off your training level you should be able to accomplish this so what's going on that is so fascinating because i think of just regular

people who bottle everything up all the time who have a death in the family and then they go into work the next day and they pretend that didn't happen and we suck outside of the athletic community addressing that and going hey what's what's going on bob like you're not you're not doing the work that you're doing you don't seem as happy to be here today we more just go like Bob get back to work what are you doing like we need you to perform we like we kind of put that in another box of like that's your personal life we don't care about that but for athletes they can't hide these things away they have to voice them I know more and more people are going to sports psychologists to try and make sure that their mental game is sharp

because when you're competing at the highest level it can be those small little things that make the difference between you winning or taking third place like there's not a lot of room for error when you're performing and you have to be open and honest about those things. Is that a challenge for people even within those worlds of like, I don't want to talk about it? No, that's not an issue. I'm fine. Everything's fine. Or are they more open to it because maybe the risk, the consequences are bigger if they're

performing for the Olympics or they're performing professionally or something like that. Yeah. I think, I mean, you can obviously, we can all understand that spending time outdoors and exercising at a reasonable level is all like helpful for mental health for sure but I think you could also throw that on its head and say like wow look at the lengths you know this guy is going to to avoid going to therapy you know like maybe instead of spending you know 20 hours this weekend going out running he should probably just talk to a therapist once or twice so I think there's there's a little bit of both and and you can be on this spectrum

of healthy and unhealthy no matter what. Yeah. Do you think that it's important to be able to have those conversations? Like, are you the person that goes to them? Do you have to sense like a close friend in? Are there any strategies you have to have when working with people in that regard? When you're like, hey, you're not performing the way you should. Is there something else going on externally? Is it a tough topic to have? I'd say usually most people are pretty aware when they're, they're not performing to what they expect.

So it's not like, I've never had to say, hey, you're not, you know, you're not doing well here, what's going on. It's more like an athlete comes to us and is like, okay, we've got to figure this out. And often their solution is to train more, train harder, which in the situation we're kind of describing is not the best approach. but as far as how we handle it was more of the question I guess and I think that is a tricky one because we're not therapists as much as some athletes would like us to be but you know we can be friends we can be supporters like just like anyone else can and so a lot of times in some of these

I guess more moderately serious situations, people are just looking for somebody to talk to and by providing kind of that ear, that's a helpful thing. But when it is a more serious situation, like a health concern for that athlete, then that's outside of my kind of scope of practice. And so right away, you know, I'm doing my best. make it clear to the athlete like, hey, you know, I care about you. We're friends and I'm open to talking about this. But at the same time, I also want to make it clear that I am not a therapist and I want you to go talk to somebody who can professionally help you in that respect, which luckily for me has been essentially a very rare occurrence that I have to have

that conversation. Right. You overcome some wild mountains. You've been to Nepal. You've been around the world at some of the most incredible spots, getting unique views that even if somebody travels there, they're not going where you went. Can you tell us about some of the places you've traveled to, what those experiences were like? Is there any that stand out to you that just seem, when I look at them, I think of the word surreal. Like, I just cannot believe some of the places you've gotten to see, some of the footage you've gathered. And then that you have to like discount the fact that I saw it on video because it's just got to be more shocking visually to be there in person and experience that. Yeah. No, I, I have certainly

been incredibly lucky in my career and I was thinking, um, I can't remember who I was talking to, but just recently, um, was talking to someone. We were kind of talking about this. Basically, you know, it's hard to imagine, really for me, it was at that decision point between going from university and choosing UBC for grad school. And I was looking at a few other places, one of which was the University of Virginia. And so now in hindsight, I'm like, oh, my God, you know, how would my life have been different between, you know, choosing what I did and going into the mountains, versus if I was living in Virginia, you know, as a triathlet or something.

But I guess I just can't acknowledge enough how how lucky I've been to have the resources and the support, whether it's from sponsors or from parents or from supporters, like all these things kind of come together to facilitate all the stuff that I've done. And so it's, it's, yeah, I just can't stress enough how important that is and how you just can't do it otherwise. Like, if you don't have those supports, it's basically impossible. And I'm very cognizant of that fact. So, yeah, by, but also there were choices that I made, essentially, that put me in this situation and allowed me to have those opportunities.

you know, I'm not, I'm not currently working in academia after finishing my PhD, right? Like, I could have chosen to go that way, but instead, you know, I wanted this more adaptive and flexible life that comes with being an athlete. So there's lots of those choices along the way as well. But it has all allowed this like incredible opportunity to go crazy places and do different things. And I think competition is a really good facilitator of that. When I was racing, cross-country skiing, certainly got to travel quite a lot. And then from there, I transitioned into ski mountaineering racing. And so raced on the World Cup for four years, kind of three and a half because of COVID. And that took me even more places internationally. And so I think that's

one of the really cool draws of competition is there are competitions in cool places and there are cool people that participate and you get to go do that and you make friends and then all of a sudden you know you have friends in Norway and in Iran and in France and all these cool places and then it's like well yeah I would go visit you know my buddy in Norway or whatever um so I think that's a really cool thing and you asked what the appeal to competing was I think that's a big one is is you go get to go do this cool stuff in cool places. The one downside to competing, and I've been thinking about this a lot as well lately,

is you spend all this time training, and it could be on a piece, does a cross-country skier, it could be skinning uphill at a resort, does a ski mountaineer, could just be in a gym, whatever, and you have these beautiful mountains all around you. And I remember I was living in Chamonie, and there's a small kind of ski resort at the end of the valley called Luzh, and they've got the piece that you're allowed to train on. And from that, you can kind of see the whole Mont Blanc range. And it's like spectacular views, you know.

And so I spent a lot of time that year skinning up and down this piece looking at these amazing mountains. And so it was kind of a funny thing where. I still did get to go to a lot of cool adventures that year, but I was like, oh my God, like there's so much more to do here than what I'm doing. Like, I'm just kind of doing this hamster wheel training thing and not getting out and skiing steep lines or taking summits and things like that. And then you go to a race and you, you know, the week before you're not doing a whole, whole lot, you're resting, kind of taking it easy and preparing, maybe getting your gear ready. And then you show up and you're like in a hotel in this beautiful place, but you're like resting

really hard in the hotel, feed up, that kind of thing, try not to walk around too much. And then you get up really early in the morning and you go to the race and you get to like say hi to your buddies and it's really exciting. But then you start racing and it's like heads down, working really hard. and there's certainly enjoyment to that but you know you finish and that's usually where the community kind of vibe is at the finish you everybody's there

you're all like kind of happy from the race and tired exhausts exactly and there's like a good community vibe there but then pretty much everybody goes on their way and then a lot of times for me you know I can barely walk the next day kind of thing and so it's like it's not like I'm going to be doing some cool adventure in the next few days.

And I find that such a funny thing because we use races almost as a community event, especially when you're not professional. You know, if you're just an amateur racer, you're not getting anything of value. Or let me refuse that. You're not winning anything. You're not making any money. You know, the benefits are all kind of intangible. Experiences.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. And so we go through this, this, like, kind of difficult and painful process for what reason? And the main reason is community. It's because you want to see your buddies, you want to have this experience together. And in my head, I'm kind of like, why do we go through the trouble of racing? Like, why don't we all just go for an adventure? And there's, of course, like, reasons and answers to that.

there's that competitive component and all those things. But I do find racing to be this kind of funny thing. And so now I've wandered way off the question. Ski mountaineering, where have you gone? Where have you been able to do that? And can you explain what ski mountaineering is for people who might not know? Yeah, totally. So cross-country skiing is kind of what you imagine,

like your grandfather's sport of like walking in the snow on skis. And then there's the the racing side of it. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there's alpine or downhill skiing. And that's like obviously huge in the world. Downhill racing is pretty big, but it's just the downhill component. You're writing the lifts up. And then in the recreational world, there's ski touring. And so that's where we have what are essentially downhill skis with metal edges.

So you can actually ski down. downhill just like an alpine ski and you have a big solid plastic boot but then they have bindings that are essentially hinged at the toe and they unlock at the heel so you can walk uphill and you use a used to be a seal skin but now it's um it's made out of like fake mohair basically so it'll slide one way and then the skin will grip the other way like a carpet um and that allows you to walk uphill without a ski lift and then ski downhill so somewhere else and so ski touring is kind of this this unlimited um check of all trades yeah and it is the original skiing like it's what skiing was before there were lifts before there were groomers

all these things that now we think of skiing actually ski touring is skiing um so then you can kind of parse that out and there's there's competitive ski mountaineering a lot of people call that ski-mo and that is the the racing form of ski touring and so you use much lighter equipment that's basically built for going uphill and it's an endurance sport typically like a world cup race would be about an hour and a half long and there'd be probably three climbs and three descents and often they're off-piece they're not in a ski resort sometimes they're kind of on the periphery of a ski resort but they are typically more wild than you'd think of as like a downhill race. There's no gates. There's no fences, things like that. You're going down a steep cul-ar, a steep face. Schemo, how far do you go?

What is the distance? Oh, good question. It honestly, it just varies so much because of the terrain. Depending on, you know, how flat or how steep it is, you might actually not go that far. So the races are typically more timed. But I would say, you probably go like 15 to 25K in like an hour and a half race which when you think about it half of that is like gliding

so it's not it's a little different from running but the other half is like climbing a mountain up yeah for sure how hard is that it's kind of akin to hiking yeah especially racing you have really really light equipment like my skis and boots

for racing are probably lighter than a lot of people's hiking boots if you got old burly hiking boots um and then the track itself is prepared so you're not breaking trail in fresh snow or anything um and so that that is the competitive side and then on the the more adventure side you have what i would consider kind of actual ski mountaineering and that is ski touring in the mountains with a technical component there's no there's not a competitive competitive component of it but it is it is just going in the mountains and climbing and descending those mountains fascinating so where have you gone because again you've been up some wild mountains in like Nepal can you tell us about where you've been and and what it's like to plan a trip like that like some people will never go to

these countries some people will never leave their city their province what is it like to go somewhere to plan this out and then to get to heights that most people you say you have to climb a mountain? It's like, no, I want to sit in Mexico and drink alcohol and hang out. You're doing almost the exact opposite. You're working incredibly hard. But when you conquer that, when you're at the top, it's not like there's a gallery of people standing around in the same spot as you. You're in a spot and nobody will really experience to the same degree as you. yeah totally um yeah places i've been sorry we keep getting far off that so when i was competing

um i was i spent three years or three winters i should say living in chamonie in france and that's a really great place to to be in the mountains and get to do cool stuff so even while i was training kind of longing for the mountains i still got to go out and occasionally and and do do fun days around Mont Blanc and then in that racing the World Cup is essentially spread around the alpine nations so spent a lot of time in Italy, a lot of time in Switzerland, go down to Spain and right between France and Spain is a small country called Andorra, which is a super weird kind of principality essentially like a tax haven but it's up in the Pyrenees Mountains and just a really like one of those places that you wouldn't even really think to go unless maybe you were some

Russian oligarch hiding your money, but it's a ski resort country. And so, yeah, all sorts of these places you go for these races. And as well as around North America and a bit elsewhere throughout Europe. But I guess kind of what I was getting at before is that, yeah, I got to go to these places, but you actually don't really experience them quite to the same extent that would if you were just there to travel, which is kind of a weird thing because you go all these places, but then you spend a lot of time in a hotel. So there were some things that I didn't absolutely love about the racing lifestyle. And so for me, with COVID, I already kind of knew that my racing career was nearing an end. I'd kind of hope to make one more cycle of world

championships, which are every, every second year, typically. But COVID shut everything down. There was no racing in North America. We couldn't travel. And so at that point, it was kind of an easy end to the racing career. And that's when I've pivoted more towards adventure and just actual ski mountaineering as kind of the goal of what I do. And that's definitely taken me to some unique places, whether it's in Canadian Rockies, in Europe, yeah, haven't been to South America, went to New Zealand, India, the spring.

And then really, like, a lot around the Coast Mountains of BC. I've been in Squamish for about 13 years now, I think, and everywhere else that I've lived, you know, I've lived for a few years, and then kind of said like, okay, I'm happy to move on and go explore someplace new, but Squamish has been unique in that I'm still really happy living here and have zero desire to go anywhere else.

And that is, I think, essentially because, well, it's probably two reasons. One is that we have a lot of options for fun activities. You know, you can ski, run, climb, bike, paddle, all these things, you know, see the sky, essentially. But also the Coast Mountains are just this incredibly diverse and really spectacular place, and relatively untouched. and that is that is really cool so just as cool as going to india and in norway and and some of those kind of exotic locations i think we're so lucky in the coast mountains here do you think other

people miss out on that that live here because we don't do what you do um i had another person on ilia posnack who um he enjoys traversing some of those same mountains you do um usually i think more in the summer of hiking up them but he's got tons of footage of him doing it in the winter and it takes an uncommon person to be willing to do that and uh to think that most of the people here who live in chiluac never make it to the top of shiam like there's a certain level of you can't be grateful for it unless you go and experience it to to its fullest extent and it seems like we're very proud in bc a lot of us of where we live but we don't get to experience maybe the pinnacles of where we live like i don't think many people

get to go to the top of some of the mountains you've gotten to see. And as you said, they're relatively unexplored, which seems wild. So do you think that maybe sometimes we don't even realize what we have in our own backyard? I think that's probably universal. And I think even as relatively active people, we probably don't fully realize it or maybe we take it for granted. But I think people can experience the mountains and the landscape in different ways as well. You know, maybe we don't all need to go to the top of Shem or, you know, the Tannis Range, those kind of things. But just being able to be out on the, what's the river here called?

Fraser River, Vetter River? Vetter, on the Vetter. You know, people go up and can. camp on the Vedder River and yeah they might be camping essentially in their car on the side of the road but if that's their way of getting out you know out of town and and seeing the river and seeing the trees and all that kind of stuff then hey that's that's fine with me I'm not too bothered um you know same same in squamish whether people want a mountain bike in the valley you know, ride snowmobiles in the, you know, the high trees or go skiing and climbing up

up on the tops of the mountains. Like, everybody kind of experiences it in our own way. And I think probably most people that live in BC at least somewhat appreciate the beauty that's around us and how the mountains kind of shape our lives because they totally do. You know, we see it even like in day-to-day life. I don't know where you were last year in the fall when there were the floods here. If that affected your life much, but I assume it did. We were an island for like a couple of months.

Yeah. And that's super crazy to, you know, my family in Minnesota, that is a weird concept because there's literally roads going in every direction. But here we have a road going west, a road going south, and a road going north, right? And they all got cut off because of what was happening in the mountains, because of floods and landslides and stuff. And so that literally impacted every single person in the south coast. And that's kind of crazy. Like, it was scary in the moment, but it is also pretty rad that we're so connected to that. And I think that's pretty cool.

So do you, would you say Squamish is like your favorite, the fact that you're living here the fact that you've stayed here for so long is it one of your favorite places that you've you've gotten to see in all your travels um it is definitely the place that i think i see myself wanting to live the most um it's really hard to say i have a favorite place uh or to talk about which is which our favorites because there's just like there's reasons to love one place or another that's what i'm curious about can you tell us about some of the places you go, this is great for that. It's just fascinating to see through your lens what you see because I think of, I want to go to Hawaii so I can go to the Keck Observatory and see space,

but you're going to want to travel different places based on your passion, and that's what I'm sort of fascinated by. Yeah. I mean, Chamonie certainly has a place in my heart, having spent a lot of time there. The access to the mountains is unparalleled. You know, there's cable cars and high roads. And so you can be, you can wake up at a very civilized time, go to a cafe and have your morning chocolate croissant and then hop on this cable car and eight minutes later you're stepping onto a glacier, you know, at 4,000 meters essentially and then heading out climbing for the day and then, you know, either skiing back to town or or running back to the cable car to try not to miss it back to the evening.

And so there you get a ton of mileage in really technical terrain because you don't have to deal with the approach, like you're just there. And so you get really good at all the technical skills that are involved, but it's also like heavily traffic. There's lots of people around. They're all doing the same things. there's not a whole lot of like mountain sense involved with doing stuff there unless you're really going somewhere off the beaten path whereas here in bc the approach is like 85% of the

day and you're starting like i live at four meters or something um above sea level and so to get to 2,500 meters like our mountains aren't huge the tops around us are 25 to 3,000 meters, but you have to start at zero. So the relief is massive, and a big chunk of that is through rainforest. And so you develop fitness for sure. And then when you get up in the mountains, the mountains themselves are much more wild. So you don't see other people as often. The anchors that we use to, like, establish ourselves on the rock and the ice.

they're not already there. They're not established. We're building them. All these kind of things like our differences. So anyway, Shamini, really awesome for that kind of developing technical skills and just like getting up there. I would say, like I just came back, kind of talked about it a little bit from India this spring.

And the thing that blew me away there. and a lot of people warn you about how chaotic and kind of crazy it is there and that there's going to be culture shock and certainly there was but I really kind of enjoyed how on one hand loud and chaotic and just like you couldn't really super well plan things like to the minute. There's just so much going on and you had to kind of go with the flow. But then on the other hand, people were just like there was a whole lot of chilling going on. It was just like lots of people hanging out on the side of the road doing their thing, whether it was in town, whether we were in villages. It just seemed like a lot of people weren't in that much of a hurry. And then everywhere

we went, you know, it was like, oh, come in for tea. Let's hang out. And so it was very slow going. because everybody wanted to talk and everybody wanted to just hang out and it was nice. It was like oh yeah, like we can take a half an hour of rest here for sure. Why not? Can I ask you about that? That's one area

within skiing the mountain experience that's somewhat to me unique. When you talk to people who have essential oils to try and stay calm, personally I find those people to be the most stressed out all the time. Like I just, when you see them

always grabbing that stuff out, to me doesn't seem like it works very well. But then you see the gym mentality. Often those people are stronger, fitter, but they're more aggressive. They've got a little bit more fuel in the tank on average, I would say, of like wanting to show they can lift the heaviest thing or move the heaviest objector, do something uncommon. The skiing community, the snowboarding community, was some of the most relaxed seeming people out there from my perspective. you go into a ski lodge it's a lot of chilling out it's a lot of relaxing burning a lot of energy during the day if you're skiing and then having that that chill time it's a it's a unique vibe because again when you think of going to mexico and tanning it's like it's a different energy

of relaxed i'm just interested is that something you see is that something that's common among the community um or am i just getting maybe a biased sample from here in bc maybe a little bit Yeah, BC is a pretty chill place. I would say with a lot of mountain sports, or a lot of the mountain sports that I participate in, patience is a benefit, and you can't really rush things. And I've seen, well, let me back up a little bit. I think when you look at trail runners coming into skiing and climbing, trail runners often bring a lot of fitness and just like they're able to get places right

but skiing climbing have this really technical component and pure fitness or power isn't going to get you where you need to be get you through that technical challenge perhaps as much as maybe just finesse and patience. And so I see a lot of runners jumping on skis, and I was describing the skins on the bottom of skis. You know, they slide one way and they grip the other way, but if you push too hard when you're gripping, they'll slip. And so I see runners slipping a little bit on skis,

and then, you know, rather than slowing down and trying to regain the grip, their solution is to like apply power. And then they just slip further. And I think that's like kind of a good illustration of how these sports, you do need to have this, yeah, amount of patience and kind of strategy to facilitate success. The calm, the other part is like, I've never done a double black diamond or anything like that. That seems crazy to me.

Part of me, when I get to go skiing, is just being able to go to the top of a mountain and just enjoy my way down and just take in that view and go this is people paid millions of dollars to have that lift up invested a lot of money in order for me to just soak this in so I know there's people who are like I've got to do the double black diamond

and get to the bottom as fast as I can and do all those crazy things and more power to them but for me it's just soaking in that like experience of like how many people get to come to the top of this mountain and coming from a financial background where we were in poverty it's like this seems so unlike

and skiing and snowboarding, they're definitely higher-end experiences. You don't just kind of have an extra 20 bucks in your pocket and end up on a ski hill. You have to plan that and invest in a hotel and usually take that kind of path. So I'm just interested. That calm experience you have to kind of maintain when you're flying down a mountain. Is that something people have to develop? Is that a challenge, do you think, for people? Because you're going so fast or you're at risk of hitting a tree at 50 kilometers an hour, 60 kilometers an hour. There's huge risks, as we were sort of talking about before. It's sort of unique from running, going to the gym.

The risks are lower. Do you think that has any impact on people's development? Yeah. Well, so I think to each their own, you know, if you just like to be at the top and see beautiful views, then that's, that's rad. I don't care. If you like to just see how fast you can go and bomb down. you know, as fast as you can, that's fine too.

I do laugh, you know, there's a common thing with hikers and trail runners. You know, you're jogging along and the hiker says like, hey, what's the rush? You know, slow down and enjoy the view. And I was just kind of laugh because some people are joking and some people are more serious. But it's like, hey, man, just so you know, like you might enjoy this view a little bit longer, but I'm going to see more views. you know, in the course of the same amount of time. So one is not better than the other.

It's just a different way of doing it. And the same goes for skiing. I think, though, I would also push back a little bit, I think a good skier when we're talking about, say, ski mountaineering or even just skiing at the resort on a more difficult run, you're not necessarily like on the edge of disaster all the time. um like that's not the goal i think really the goal especially in in the big remote mountains is to be as controlled as possible and and keep that kind of calm or that flow state whatever you want to

call it um consistent through doing something that's more risky so you know when i'm climbing or skiing in the in the mountains if i'm afraid i've probably done something wrong, whether it's just by like skiing too fast at control or getting into conditions that are problematic or whatever. But the goal for me anyway is still to be in control for sure. Yeah. Do you think the stakes, though, surrounding it are just a little bit higher when you're running, say, the Vetter Trail, there is no real risk of you falling off a cliff, even intentionally unintentionally. And so the same goes for skiing. Even if you're being safe and controlled, just something goes wrong deer runs out and then now you're flying into something else it's like

the odds just they seem more dangerous it's the same i just met somebody who uh broke his back because he was um mountain biking on better mountain and it's like these people are going 50 60 kilometers an hour yeah in like small trails winding through and i'm sure they felt control but then one misstep one mistake and the consequences seem so much more grave and i just find the person who can manage that really fascinating because it's a controlled chaos and a lot of the time you got control but that one misstep it seems so

it seems like there's a lot more bravery I guess involved or a sense of courage to be able to be comfortable in those environments where we're in a time where we want everything to be incredibly safe and I know but like bumpers on everything to keep people safe and there's a sense of bravery

to do that and say I'm going to be controlled old and responsible, but there's going to be a little bit more risk involved. Yeah, no, I think for sure, like, mountain sports are risky, steep skiing, ski mountaineering is exceptionally risky, like, no question. And there's an appeal to that, and I don't know what exactly that is. Like, before we talked about problem solving being a big appeal, but then you have to connect that to risk because I, like, I like, I like doing puzzles, but. I'm not going to make a career out of doing, you know, a puzzle on a table.

You know, that's problem solving. But then you add the component of risk, and that makes it a lot more interesting. And I don't know why, but I do know that that is an important component. Bravery, I don't think I would maybe argue a bit with that and say it's not so much bravery as it is like avoiding. it's like risk avoidance or um what's the word that i'm kind of looking for here but risk management yeah yeah you're trying to you're trying to avoid those situations where you do need to be afraid or you do need to be brave um because if you're having to be like okay i'm just going to go for it and rely on bravery then you you're not actually in control at that at that point so um it's more

about control than about bravery um that's a trip though because you think of i'm going to take to most people this big risk and i'm going to do it the safest way possible like that's such a i know it doesn't make sense it's like it's it's fascinating though because it goes back to my thoughts on like being in the extreme cold um i don't know about you but i love and this is very um counterproductive but going on like when it's 40 degrees outside going for a drive and black lasting the AC. I like the controlled, like it's hot outside, but I have control over it. And it's the same, I think, oftentimes with the cold is it's freezing cold, yet I have all the gear, everything I need to be perfectly room temperature and not to be bothered. And to me, that's like the ultimate

human endeavor is because there was a point in time where it was so cold, people would die and freeze to death. And when you can control the largest outlier experiences, the biggest risks, and you can have complete control over that, it's something about it that means a lot to us. To be in an outdoor pool on a very hot day, there's something we love about that. There's like a pride, but it's because we're taking the environment and beating it at its own game and we're like, we're completely showing it that not only am I not hot, I'm cool in an environment that makes me very uncomfortable. And it's the same with ice cold temperatures and people are skiing down the mountain having no issue and then going in and having a nice fire and being cozy and warm.

and it's like it's freezing and if you were to live out there you'd freeze to that yet here you are relaxed and comfortable i find it like part of the human endeavor is to find those moments but maybe it's not so much beating the environment but it's it's the self-control to to sustain yourself in those environments like you know it people talk about conquering mountains or whatever and I think, you know, that, like I always roll my eyes a little bit when somebody says that. I like to think more of, like, I managed to get myself through the challenge rather than overcome the challenge, if that makes sense. And so, like, all this stuff is inert. You know, the mountain, the cul-ar, the rock, the weather, it doesn't care about us.

it we're of no consequence to the cold but how we respond is kind of the interesting and controllable component there and so that's what i think is more of the the factor or whatever and so in terms of like taking risk it yeah it's like a totally arbitrary like exposing oneself to risk for some reward and you can't overlook what the rewards are to these risks you know and and no matter how much people talk about like oh i just do it for myself and you know i just love being out there but there are actually like extrinsic motivations and rewards and and certainly you know whether that's like glory or or um adoration or money or or whatever it might be,

you can't ignore that that is a component as well in motivation. But I think still how much you desire that intrinsically. You can also have both motivating factors, extrinsic and intrinsic. And so for me, like, I find this problem solving in a risky environment really motivating no matter what. And I would do it to a certain component as much as I could. regardless of the extrinsic factors. But I'm also really appreciative that somebody like Arcterics sees value in that and wants to pay me to participate in my sports. Not necessarily to take risks, but to be involved in the sport.

And so I would say, yeah, all these motivations are interesting. And your air conditioning story made me think of. something. And I don't want this to sound like an Arcteric's advertisement, but there is one of the ski areas that we ski really regularly is off the sea to sky gondola in Squamish. And so it's a and essentially a gondola that we can use for access. And then we go tour up from there and ski back to the gondola and then down. And they close at 6 p.m. in the winter. And so usually that's after dark. And because it's so close to town and so convenient, we ski there, quite a lot. And I know it's super well. It's kind of the backyard hill, basically. And there's

one spot at the end of the day, you climb back up to a ridge. And then from there, it's all downhill back to the gondola. And often in the winter, the weather is bad. You know, we just get storms coming right off the Pacific into how sound and up to that zone. And so I've multiple occasions, you know, it's been 5.30, and I know it takes me about 25 minutes to get back from there. So I can be standing there at 5.30. And this, you know, it's dark out. So I've got the headlamp on. Snow's blowing. Wind is blowing. You know, it's kind of nasty weather. But I can pull on my shell jacket, you know, zip it up tight on my chin, pull on my helmet, goggles, you know, big gloves and all that stuff and you feel like, or at least I feel like I'm in my, you know, my astronaut space suit.

And I'm like, all right, like, I'm in this crazy situation with this weather coming in. And, you know, a lot of people would just be like, oh, my God, that seems insane. But I'm perfectly comfortable. You know, I'm warm. I'm happy. And now I get to bomb down and be back at my house and, you know, 45 minutes kind of thing. And so it is funny. Like, I do know what you mean when you say that.

But I think all these swirling motivations just kind of depend on the person and all of them are valid, like whether it's intrinsic or extrinsic or what. Yeah, what benefits do you think you get out of it? Because there's sayings like, man cannot live by bread alone. The idea behind that is like just eating enough food is not going to mean anything to like your soul or to the meaning of your life. there's other ideas like Dostoevsky talked about the idea that if we had everything we needed if we just had cake and bonbons and we were able to just busy ourselves

with the continuation of the planet we would as humans destroy it all just for something interesting to do like it isn't enough and we're in this weird time where we want things to be 100% easy and there should be no barriers in place yet as humans we want a certain amount of barriers

We want a sense of like, okay, there was this thing in my way, whether it was, I needed a better grade to get into university, so I have to fix that. We need little barriers in our life in order to give us a sense of purpose, a sense of role. And we can't just have no problems because we as human beings enjoy problem solving. That's why the tech community is so thriving is because they're constantly going, oh, there's a small little adverse effect. maybe we can make a whole app out of it and fix it. And that's the passion that people seem to have. And it seems like you found a very unique area of problem solving. And I'm just interested into how do you look at some of these going up these mountains?

What is the process to get to the top? How long does that take? Is there a mental battle you ever have to go through? What is sort of that journey like? Yeah. No, I agree. I think, you know, obviously we could fly a helicopter to a summit if we just want to see the view. like there are there are much easier ways than touring up or hiking up or any those kind of things or you know why climb up the steep rock face when you can walk around the backside of the chief kind of thing um and so what yeah why do we put ourselves in those situations that unnecessarily i don't know i think again yeah it rolls back into that problem solving and and i think people have definitely you know hypothesized that early humans

were hunter gatherers right and they experienced these situations and now we have some evolutionary kind of like drive to to be challenged and to take risks and all that kind of stuff but I don't know I think in the end it probably doesn't matter too much um the really interesting one just on that note is psychopaths I just heard the argument like why would we still have psychopaths today it's like one I think out of a thousand people is a psychopaths the argument currently is that you get one community, and this is obviously 100 gatherer times, that would need to go pillage another community within a BC context. My understanding was it's the Kwokwaka Walk a Walk who almost wiped out all the Fraser Valley First Nations, starting with the Kwanlan. And they were killing people, taking wives, taking them back up to their community, taking children.

And so you have to, in those communities, you have to have somebody who's willing to go all out and then not feel the remorse afterwards. sure and oh like we don't need that today but isn't that fascinating that that may have played a role obviously we don't know we weren't there but it's fascinating to think that maybe at one point in time those people played a role yeah no totally i think that's i mean i don't know i'm not an evolutionary biologist but i think there's probably you could think a good case for it um and it's interesting to think about in a lot of different uh a lot different situations yeah um uh process of process of doing mountain stuff yeah like yeah how do you go about going up those mountains how to long it sounds like it you said it in BC it takes longer to get to the top and so there's more work involved

and then you get to come back down what is that process like yeah I think early in kind of a mountain career say you spend a lot of time just trying to familiarize yourself with a place and just like learn how to get into the mountains.

You know, you're reading guidebooks and and like figuring out how to get to a trailhead and then how that gets, you know, you're following a described route to a summit and then it's like, oh, wow, this is amazing. But a lot of it is just kind of logistical and you're learning how the mountains work. And then there's a point in your career

where you start to like realize it's not always about following that same path or the description in the guidebook or on a website or whatever, but you're recognizing, oh, there's a, you know, a ridge over there and another summit in the background and how am I going to get there? And then it's doing more research, whether it is, you know, reading other reports or looking at maps or or just going around and exploring like driving up a logging road and being like oh nope this you know just turns into older um and so all of a sudden your perception kind of starts to open up and i i imagine like the little the video games i played when i was a kid um there's like the little map of where you're running around and when you start it's all kind of gray you don't you haven't seen anything but

then as you run around that map gets more and more clear and and that's the same thing happens in the mountains like you know you first say move to Vancouver and all you see is the north shore mountains and so you're like well I guess I'll go check out the grouse grind and you hike up and down that and you see cypress and you know you look back and you see the deeper north shore mountains it's like oh wow that's pretty cool like there's some interesting looking peaks here it's not just trees. And then you get the guidebook and you explore a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And pretty quickly you're going up in Squamish and Whistler and Pemberton and Chilliwack,

you know, Hope. And you've really built out this mental map. And that's kind of how I think about my mountain activities as well. And it's funny because on one hand, that's what draws me back to places. like I like to go back to Chamonie because I'm finally starting to feel like I know the place. When you first go there, it's just like super overwhelming. And all you can do is like, okay, well, what is the most popular thing? I guess I'll go climb that.

I guess I'll go ski that. But then after spending some time, now I finally feel like I can go back there and do more interesting stuff. And the same goes here. I mean, that's what keeps me in BC and, Squamish is that the more I look, you know, the further I go, the more opens up around. And that is even the case, like, really locally in Squamish. The big peak, like the volcano in town there, Mount Garbaldi, is this crazy feature, like multi-summitted volcano.

know, and every year I go back and find some new portion of it that I haven't kind of checked out before. And I just think that's like the coolest thing. Yeah, that is really interesting because so many people, they get familiar. And I think it's what brilliant artists do, is they're good at showing you the beauty in something you already recognize. Because you can go, like, well, I've seen the Fraser River before. But did you get this angle? And did you see the light glisten off at sunrise or sunset like there's a beauty in something and when you're able to learn more about it and start to almost like develop a relationship with it where you you understand that it's a complex thing that's been here for thousands of years and we'll be here for thousands

of years after you're gone it's uh it's a good mental exercise that kind of builds in humility what is the process to get to the top of one of these is it like five kilometers up um are you soar by the time you're starting to get to the top? Is there times where you want to quit and just go home? Like, what is that mental process and that journey to kind of get up something? Because it seems hard enough to do it in the summer when there is no snow. To do it when there is snow, no matter how good your gear is, it seems like extra challenges in your way. And so how do you go about doing this and how, what's the farthest you've had to climb up to get to the top of one? Is it two kilometers?

Is it five kilometers? What is the kind of process to climb one of these? And what is that experience like when you're at the top and you get to go? Now I get to go all the way back down. Like that kind of relaxing like, okay, we're done here. Well, I would argue that, in fact, winter is easier for that exact reason because in the summer you have to walk back down and walking downhill sucks. But skiing downhill is way more fun.

but yeah i hate to say it depends but um i guess to to use that same example of of mount gerbaldi in squamish um one of the things that i love is being able to go in different styles and in different conditions and weather and to different places on it but on any given day like in the winter we can drive five minutes basically from my house and then unload snowmobiles and ride snowmobiles up the logging road and then basically park at tree line and then it's I don't know maybe a hour and a half probably five kilometers at the most no probably three kilometers and about 900 meters of vertical gain and then we can be at the summit and you're looking down on squamish and the ocean and that's coming from minnesota it's pretty cool to stand on a glacier

and look at the ocean that is not something we do there um so that that would be one day you know and then we can be back in town for like lunch basically um which is super sweet but then um one of the things that i really wanted to do because i think this mountain is super beautiful beautiful and it's an important one to me in my ski career. A couple of years ago, I wanted to basically start at the ocean, climb to the top, and then come back to the ocean. And so I left my house at about 10 p.m. kind of dip my toe in the water at the marina. And then with a buddy, we ran through town and up some mountain bike trails to the Elfin Lakes Trailhead for skiing. and then his wife met us there and she had my skis and so they headed back down into town

and I put my skis on and started skiing out onto what's called the Girbaldi Neve traverse and did that through the night and then just at dawn I came around to the kind of the classic route to the summit which is this face and I was actually a little bit early so I sat down and took a little nap, but some buddies came from the other way that I had just described and met me and we climbed up to the peak and then skied off of it and all the way back down the logging road on the other side and eventually I made it to their cars where they had snowmobiled from, left my skis there, changed back into my riding shoes and ran down the logging road to the highway and then ran along the highway for a bit to the Squamish River where some other friends met me

with paddle boards, and we rode the paddle boards down the river all the way to the ocean. And so it was like this really cool loop where I got to see every, I got to do all the sports that I love to do, which is sweet. But I also got to see every kind of stage of terrain going up the mountain. So everything from ocean estuary to essentially rainforest. and big trees and all that, and then high alpine skiing and then back down. That is probably one of the craziest stories I've heard hosting this. You started from the ocean.

How long did it take you 10 p.m. you dip your toe in to being at the ocean again. How long did that take you? It was just about 12 hours. I think it was just over 12 hours because I remember being like, oh, that would be really cool if I did this under 12 hours. How tired were you? I was pretty tired at the end of that because I didn't sleep the night, basically. It was funny, where I stopped and waited, I wanted to wait for my friends to climb the final bit because you have to cross some crevasses.

And so doing that alone is not quite as safe and to have a partner with some ropes. So anyway, I stopped. It was kind of a steep spot. I like scooped out some snow to create a little seat. And then I planted my poles in upside down. and then I was just kind of sitting with my arms over my poles to hold me in place and fell asleep immediately. And so the next thing, you know, my partner's standing there, like kind of poking me with his pole. And so I think I got about, I don't know, half an hour sleep or something.

But yeah, I mean, the nice thing is you climb all the way up there and then it's all downhill, like skiing, running and paddling. You're just flying down the river, basically. Food. How do you fuel yourself when you're doing stuff like this? I saw one, I think, interview you did, where you talked about how important carbs are to you. I'm just interested into how do you fuel yourself? What advice do you give to other people when they're putting out this kind of energy? How do you best fuel yourself? I've kind of, you know, I've coming from a competitive background,

I've been through the whole, like, trying to optimize fueling as best as possible. And so I have a pretty good handle on what works for me in terms of what I eat on a daily basis. And I don't really like to really like count out nutrients. You know, I don't want to be figuring out how many calories or, you know, this percent protein, this percent, whatever. I just, I find that to be, I mean, I just like enjoy eating. So when I have to like really analyze it. that kind of takes some of the fun out of it.

But over that time, like mostly through trial and error and kind of using the experience of others, I've settled on what does work for me. And that like in the mountains, that is having a lot of kind of readily available energy in the form of, yeah, bars and other kind of carbohydrate foods for actual mountain activities, like longer days in the mountains. just I like to have normal food with me you know it's a lot more fun to have a slice of pizza than be eating like gel packets and stuff so whether it's pizza or burritos like I try to try to pack some real food for sure that's that's the most important thing for me

interesting yeah because you burn probably a crazy amount of calories that at that point in time it matters just about refueling yourself no matter what then the exact things and then on those days you want to be focused. It sounds like you've just kind of grown a deeper understanding of the best foods to eat for you. Totally. Yeah. Interesting. So can you explain altitude for people who don't understand? I don't know if you watch the UFC, but they just did one in Utah. And it was a big deal because a lot of the fighters, no matter how much they trained, were worn out by the third round or the fifth round because they were at altitude in a place they weren't used to. And so as much as you can try and train for that, being in the circumstances so much

different. And I don't know what the mental pressures they're under, but all of that resulted in those, the third round and the fourth and fifth rounds being rough to see them because they were so exhausted. You've taken a deep interest in altitude and how it affects our body. Can you talk about your research and your understanding of how altitude impact us? Yeah. Okay, how to do this concisely basically we have

the atmosphere around us is made up of different molecules that make air and the vast majority of air is nitrogen and then there's also oxygen and carbon dioxide and oxygen makes about 21% of the air around us

like in this room and outside and every single one of those little molecules has a weight even though they're imperceptible, like a molecule of oxygen has mass and it is affected by gravity. And so when you imagine, like if we look straight up from here at the sky, if you imagine like a column going up from where we are all the way up through the atmosphere, you know, from the surface of the earth, all the way to, I can't remember how far away it is, but the atmosphere. eventually ends and it's all held in place by gravity but within that column there's many many many molecules of air that make up air and they're all pushing down ever so slightly and so the air down here is affected by

that entire column above it and that increases its density it packs it closer together and if you think about on Mount Everest at the top of, you know, the top of the earth, the column above it is much, much shorter. It's like a, I don't know, I think it's less than half. And so the air molecules around the summit have a lot less pushing them together. And so they spread out more. Okay. And so if you grab a volume of air here at sea level, where it's 21% oxygen, you can count the number of molecules in there. There's still going to be 21%. And then you go to Everest and you grab the same volume of air. They're still distributed the same percentages, 21%. But if you count them in that box that we've collected, there's going to be way less of them because they're spread out, right?

So there's less of everything and there's less of oxygen, even though the percentages stay the same. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Okay. So our bodies use basically passive, we call it passive diffusion, but a passive process to get oxygen to our cells. So we need oxygen like at the deepest cells of our bodies to make any process happen. But if you think about muscle fiber in the leg or in the arm, oxygen has to come in through your mouth or nose, go into your respiratory system, into your airways.

It gets slightly humidified. And then it has to pass through the blood gas barrier in your lungs to get into the blood. And so it literally has to go through a wall. It's a very thin wall, and it's only one single cell thick, and they're not very well connected. Like in muscle cells, our cells are really tightly woven, but in the lungs, they're like big gaps, and so the oxygen can go through it. And then it has to get onto a red blood cell, and then that has to go through your circulatory system, and then it has to go through another barrier out of the bloodstream and into the muscle or into the cell. So there's this huge

process and the only way that it's happening is through something called diffusion and I think of that like a waterfall like water flows downhill when there's less water here and there's more water up here it's going to flow down and it's the same thing with oxygen when it's in the air there's 21% of oxygen but then as it goes through our our respiratory and circulatory system that percentage decreases and it's kind of cascading down through our body more or less all the way to the tissue where because it's being actually used, it's being consumed, the fraction of oxygen there is down to zero or close to zero. And so oxygen is just passively making its way in there.

We don't have any active process to do that, which is kind of crazy. You'd think that there would be something like pumping oxygen, right? Like, that's what a lot of people kind of imagine is this, this active pump. But it is just a flow. So when we're here at sea level and there's lots of oxygen in our volume of air that we sampled, it's really easy to get it to like into a into the body and then into the cells. But up at the summit of Eversay or at altitude, that cascade is, is instead of being from here to here, it's like there. and so it's a much slower process

and less oxygen makes its way all the way to ourselves. So we can measure that by measuring the oxygen in the bloodstream and that's where you see the little fingertip pulse oxymeter like that they use in a hospital. And if somebody's got respiratory issues at sea level, their oxygen saturation might drop because they have less oxygen in the blood. When we're at altitude and we just clip that on, even though we're healthy, we see less oxygen

and in the blood. And then that corresponds to less oxygen in the cells as well. So our cells are having, well, they're essentially getting less oxygen. And then that is, because oxygen, we're consuming that for energy. It's, we're just not able to function as optimally as we would at sea level. As well, you have altitude illnesses that are caused by lack of oxygen, mostly in the brain. We don't understand those super well. But, there's kind of all sorts of other issues that come with hypoxia, which is no oxygen. That was really well explained. That is fascinating. I've listened to, I don't know if you've heard of Matthew Walker, Andrew Huberman, these are voices who have talked about the importance of breathing

through your nose. Apparently, your nose does a way better job of taking in that oxygen and actually utilizing it in comparison to your mouth. Mouth breathers, their face muscles end up getting weaker, and there's just deleterious effects due to that, but your nose also has a dehumidifier, as you kind of described, in it. And I don't know if we realize that. I don't know if we realize how important breathing through your nose is, and I'm just interested in your thoughts on that

when we're dealing with different altitudes and getting that access to oxygen. Yeah, I mean, you... Like when you're exercising, I can't remember what the percentages are, but like if you have blocked nasal passages, you lose a pretty, not insignificant amount of your intake capacity. So athletes with like sinus infections and stuff like that, that's like a pretty serious thing. You really want to avoid it. And then at altitude, yeah, I don't know. Um, the one other thing that I would say is, is, uh, kind of going back to what we're talking about with training and, and like lots of low intensity volume is looking at breathing is one of the best ways that we can actually judge intensity. And so you asked about heart rate monitors and other kind of technology, but often we tell our athletes like, don't look at your heart rate monitor, just change the screen. So it just shows the time or whatever. And focus on your breathing.

And if you're able to breathe through your nose, we know that you're training slow enough. You know, we want to see a low, a low intensity training for a lot of this. And so a lot of people end up running too fast most of the time. And, yeah, you can look at your heart rate and be like, okay, it's below 108, I'm doing good. But then you're always like staring at your watch and stuff.

So instead, if we say like, okay, you know, either if you're by yourself, focus on just breathing you through your nose for the most part you know that you're going slow because if you go any faster you're going to have to breathe through your mouth as well or when somebody's running in a group we say you got to keep a conversational pace and if you can kind of talk and not be you know gasping for breath every few sentences that means you're running at a low enough intensity that you're in the zone that we want you to be in so yeah there is definitely something there what role does sleep play in this? Do you have to help people kind of improve their sleep? As I mentioned, Matthew Walker,

he's a sleep expert, and he wrote the book on Why We Sleep. And listening to different voices, it's fascinating because it seems like the area that people don't focus on enough in the athletic community, it's like that kind of the underestimated one, but it's where if you strain your body, if you stress it out, lifting weights and stuff, it's where almost all of that recovery really takes place in a meaningful way. So how do you approach that? Well, I think if you look at actual professional athletes, they're getting eight, nine, ten hours of sleep in night, for sure. It's the recreationally competitive athletes that are, you know, are juggling a career or family or so on, that sleep is one of the first thing that gets compromised. And that, yeah, it absolutely affects their performance.

I think, yeah, I could look at a lot of our athletes or I could look at our group of athletes and I bet I could pick out the ones that aren't sleeping, you know, if I didn't know already, but I'm saying like I could look at their performance and their training and I could say like, he's not sleeping, she's not sleeping, he's not sleeping. It is for sure a factor, yeah. Have you heard of those weird, the chambers that people can sleep in to a customer? For altitude? Have you seen that? What are your thoughts on that? Is this the way of the future? Yeah, I mean, it is a form of experiencing hypoxia. And so it's actually, we use an industrial-sized version of that for the research that we do, or I was doing during my PhD, basically like a room.

But in terms of performance, the kind of key things to keep in mind are if you live at sea level, and you're competing at altitude, you want to be acclimatized to altitude before the competition. And so you can either do that by going to altitude early, or you can do it by acclimatizing in a tent or a chamber. And there it's quite effective. If you're living at sea level and competing at sea level, altitude training doesn't seem to have any beneficial, like.

So you don't get even better. You don't get better at sea level by training at altitude, which I think is a common misconception. It seems like because you're straining your body, there must be some sort of benefit. Yeah, no. There's no convincing scientific evidence that that's the case. And there's been pretty good, like randomized controlled studies on that. But the other thing to think about is when you're going to compete at altitude from sea level, or if you live at altitude and you're competing at sea level,

it's harder to train at a very high intensity at altitude. So if you think of like a good example as cross-country skiing, the sprint races are very fast, very intense, very short races. And often they occur at altitude. And a lot of those skiers spend a lot of their season at altitude. but they're they're kind of constantly dealing with the effects of altitude on their body when they're trying to train. So what they'll do is we call it live high, train low. And that is like sleeping at altitude at night and per part of the day.

And then you descend to a lower altitude to train really hard. And so you can you can work faster. and be more effective in your training at lower altitude, and then you go back to altitude at night or for your easier training. So there are some kind of nuance concepts to this for sure. That is fascinating. Bottled air. Have you heard about that?

What are your thoughts on it? Is that useful? I think I saw it on Shark Tank, and it's a very weird concept, but is that helpful to individuals? training at altitude. No. No.

No. Yeah, you're talking about like the cans you can buy at the gas station kind of thing. Yeah, you squirt. Like a breath of 100% oxygen or whatever those are is not going to make a significant difference physiologically. No. Right. Not a thing.

So even if you're at altitude and you just need to catch a breath and get that full, meaningful dose of oxygen or finishing that can, do you need to take a lot of it or is it just it's all like nonsense essentially it's nonsense i mean you might take a breath of it and be like oh that felt good um but in terms of how i don't know how many breaths you get out of that can 10 or 20 or 100 um probably not more than that it's not going to have a meaningful effect on your physiology so um unless you're breathing high flow oxygen through a mask for an extended period of time, you're still at altitude.

You're still going to have the effects of altitude. That's really interesting. How do you train someone to go and compete? What is the kind of process to get them ready if they are going really high up in the mountains? How do you guys go about helping that person succeed? Yeah. The best thing you can do in my mind is to go to altitude.

to prepare. And you wanted that to be the altitude that you are competing at, ideally. And I think you can effectively use a tent or a chamber, but you have a lot of downsides to that, whether it's just like humidity inside can get pretty gnarly or the noise of the machine. Like it's like an air conditioner on steroids next to your head. or like my wife would not be thrilled about sleeping in a tent with me if I wanted to do that. So like how that affects your personal life is a factor. But also like I think you gain something by going to a place.

Like there's an experience component to that as well. So I'm always encouraging my athletes to just go to the place that they need to go ahead of time if they can make it happen. And like for a lot of recreationally competitive athletes that I'm working with, you know, they're willing to spend all this money on a tent in their house or whatever. And I'm like, why don't you just spend the money on like going there a little, you know, like, but also time is a factor. So you've got to balance it all out. You know, if you're a businessman or a lawyer or something, that all kind of plays. a component but um typically we say you need uh like between 12 and 14 days to acclimatize uh to kind of the high competition uh levels of altitude so you're not really often competing

more than 4,000 meters um but yeah you want to be if you're going to um race somewhere in Colorado um you want to be there for a little more than a week for sure uh basically because as soon as you arrive there's some there's some immediate changes that happen in your body physiologically that would be negative overall in performance and then very gradually they progress back up to kind of equivalent or like acclimatized and so you kind of either want to arrive at altitude

and compete immediately before you have these negative physiological effects, or you want to be there long enough that the curve has come back up. And that's about 12 days, for sure. That is fascinating. I will definitely be looking at how people compete differently, knowing those challenges of choosing between those two options. How did this fit in with your PhD? And what did you learn from that?

What was sort of the thesis? Yeah. So my thesis was, say, we're both runners here. at sea level and we're training together and we're about the same age and same training history and all the things, you know, we run the exact same 10K time here at sea level. And then we go to compete in Denver at 1,600 meters or something. We're both going to do worse. You know, we're going to be a little bit slower, even if we're climatized, we're going to be a little bit slower. But one of us is probably going to be slower or faster than the other. And it might be

a little bit slower, it might be a lot slower. You know, we don't know. But there is inter-individual variation on how we perform an altitude, all other things being equal. And so my thesis was looking at what causes that inter-individual variation. And so I hypothesized that it was part of how our lungs respond to hypoxia and or low oxygen. and I thought it was essentially the circulatory system is so we have blood vessels going through our lungs and they constrict and relax based on different inputs and so I hypothesize that some people

when exposed to hypoxia their blood vessels really constrict and that exacerbates it and so they get less oxygen ultimately to their cells and then they would perform worse and then I think that other people when they're exposed to hypoxia they might have a lesser

constrictive effect or no constrictive effect like they may not experience this at all and so there's probably a spectrum like there's a normal curve right like some people have no effect some people have a really strong effect and then there's like the normal group in the middle

that is average. So that was essentially my hypothesis, that is that this, this vasoconstructive response accounts for that variation. And what I found is that it does not entirely account for that variation. I still think it is a factor. But I think there's most likely lots of different physiologic responses to altitude. And it's kind of like a bank of light switches.

And ideally you have every sway. switched on like you have the perfect response to hypoxia in every situation but most likely again this is a normal curve some people are going to be all switched on and they're the like the amazing athletes at altitude some people they're all switched off and those people are just like doomed no matter what they do no matter how hard they train and then some people have have half the switches and half half off and that's kind of normal and so Yeah, it's how your body handles all these different factors. Do you think this is going to be a weird one?

Do you think race plays a role or like historic backgrounds of people? I just think of like my indigenous community and how we've done things certain ways and we're used to this environment. And maybe there's communities that are more adaptable to or historically better at going up mountains and then coming back down mountains and then going up mountains and getting used to it. and then I think it's in South America where there's people who are some of the highest altitudes and they run like all day, all the time. And I think they're outliers or so. They're not outliers.

I thought they were outliers. Yeah. So there are high altitude populations. The highest, the highest, like, livable places are just under 5,000 meters. But there's communities in South America, in Africa, and in Nepal, or, yeah, generally in the Himalayas that all live at, say, like, 3,000 to 4,000 meters.

And they have developed, they have adapted, which is like an evolutionary adaptation, not just an individual acclimatization. But those cultures have adapted to high altitude living. And so that could be that they are less, less vis-constrictive response. They have more red blood cells. They have a greater affinity for oxygen within the blood cells. All these things, like, again, all those switches that I was talking about kind of flipped in their favor as a culture. But that is a function of where they live, not necessarily race per se, which is a bit of a weird one.

because there are high altitude populations in China that you can compare with low altitude Chinese populations and they are similar in some respects, but then different in terms of altitude. So, yeah, that's a little bit of a complicated one, but definitely there are adaptations to these communities. That is really interesting. And probably, like, it takes a long time

to kind of understand those nuances and the difference, whether it's based on evolutionary terms or what community you're from or how you've developed over time. How do you go about choosing gear? And more specifically, I think it's really admirable when companies come forward and support through sponsorships. I think it means a lot to the individual because it means they get to pursue their passion. I just had a close friend who started a leather working channel. And he's been working on it. He's done it himself.

He was fascinated by like heritage. items, whiskey, kind of like those things that maybe we're losing connection with, boots that are made out of like real leather that will last. And so somebody just recently reached out and was like, hey, we'd love to sponsor what you're doing. And it meant everything to him because he's poured himself for three years into this idea. And now somebody says, hey, we're actually going to throw money at you. And it's like, it's a huge statement of support.

And I'm just interested, what has that journey been like to have sponsors come out and support? And what sort of gear do you use when you're preparing? Because you said you need to be prepared and planned. And so it sounds like that's a key element of what you do. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, sponsorship is a whole conversation for sure. Again, I'm super lucky to work with Arcterics.

They're a cool brand based primarily here in Vancouver. And really, like, you know, they make a point of rooting themselves in the Coast Mountains. So it really sits well with like what I want to do and and and just like a fun brand to be a part of. And then like for me, a big portion of sponsorship is I am like a somewhat gear obsessed kind of athlete. And so I want to have the best possible equipment for any given activity or day or whatever. I don't want to be kind of compromising and using an average piece of equipment, which is very, like, entitled, I recognize. But there's just something about, like, tweaking things and evolving things.

Again, it's a problem-solving thing. So for me, like, working with Arcterics, yeah, it's great to get to get gear and to get recognized as an athlete and to get paid. like obviously that's that's huge but i also really love working with the design team and actually building equipment for what i do and so i think that's like that's the luckiest part about it because i i can go and talk with the footwear designer or the pack designer um the pack designer specifically actually like live right down the street from and so i walk over his a garage and you know we just hang out and and work on stuff and you know he's like whipping up

prototypes and we're cutting into things and trying this or that and and then I'll have the thing to test you know at the end of the the week or whatever and so um I really think that's awesome because I get to build you know this pack that is specifically designed you know for climbing this one mountain in the style that I want to do it and has all the little features that I think are important and none that I don't want. And then he then has to take that and figure out like, okay, is this something that we would be able to sell? How can I adapt this to have it be for everyone, you know, for other situations? Like there's a lot more to it. They can't just sell something that one person would buy. But you get to give them insights on those little

features. That's fascinating. It sounds way less corporate than other. Like when I imagine sponsorships, I'm imagining some hotshot CEO saying, you know, we're just going to add this little thing here. But it's, it's really designed by you, like you, you influence kind of the ideas and they go, this is how we're going to do it. And then how do we extrapolate that to work in a global market? Yeah. I mean, certainly there are sponsorships where it's like you are just a name on a list and you get your package at the beginning of the season of gear and they don't really want to hear from you and then you know they're not invested in you and then it's it's really hard for you to be invested in them like and i've i've been in that situation before um but i will say

like arcterics is i think somewhat unique in the fact that it is way more about supporting the athlete and creating a team and and then using that like that just ultimately results and better products. And then I'm really invested in the product. Even like I don't make any extra money if somebody goes and buys. So we're actually, we've been working really hard on a running mountain, like a mountain running backpack and a pair of shoes. And I think they're going to come out in October, basically.

And yeah, I've been a big part of this design process for this stuff. mostly because I really want these products to exist. Like they would be perfect for me. Yeah, I will definitely buy those shoes. I'm very interesting both of those things. And I think other people will like them. And so I'm not going to make any extra money if you or somebody else. Like, it doesn't matter how many gets sold.

I would love if I did. But ultimately it doesn't. And so for me, it's just like a, it's kind of like a pride thing. Like I'm still excited to talk about this stuff and to show it off and be like, yeah, I can tell you exactly why this feature is here and why we did it this way instead of this way and all that stuff. Like there's a point of pride in being involved in that process. And I think, you know, obviously there is a corporate overlord somewhere, even at Arcteric, but they have recognized the value in having athletes that involved and just like focus. focusing on core mountain sports and activities and stuff like that and really like prioritizing that. I really love that. My brutal skiing story is the first time I ever went skiing. It was with my school.

Luckily, we had like a process where you pay like 50 bucks and you get to go skiing. I didn't know that you needed ski gear when I went on that trip. So I wore jeans and a sweater and I had to ski the whole day, freezing cold. But I didn't want to waste the experience. And so I knew exactly what it was like to not have good gear. And throughout my life, that has been the constant fear is like being the person who was unprepared. And I think that's how a lot of people feel when they go hiking, when they're kind of experiencing real outdoors is like, I don't have the gear for this. Like I have my school backpack that I brought for this hike. And like you don't feel prepared. You don't feel like you have the water. And so when you can find a company or a place to go to where they're going to give you all the nooks and crannies of how to be best prepared, even when I did elk a few years ago, It wasn't crazy.

There was a little bit of snow, and I bought these simple, like, things you hook onto your shoes to kind of give you that grip. They didn't work even a little bit. And I was sliding on my butt down the mountain in fear of, like, I was not ready for this. And, like, I didn't know what I needed. And that's where I think sport check lacks is because they don't give you the, what are you exactly doing on this mountain? How can we make sure you're prepared so you don't die? Like, it seems like a good service to provide people. luckily we have Garrison Running Code

but even they don't have all the kind of resources you need and when somebody's able to say if this is something that interests you hear all the tools in some places are really good at that and I think that that's just it makes people feel more confident when they're going out there yeah for sure and I have like mixed feelings about that because I like

I absolutely recognize the the cost involved in participating in these sports running is a bit better because you can kind of get away with a pair running shoes and not much else. Even a lot of mountain running is pretty like minimally gear intensive. But as soon as you get into climbing and skiing, it does start to get pretty gear intensive.

And that is for sure a prohibitive factor. And I try not to like forget that because yeah, not everybody can have the full arctic space suit, you know, and the late, like, like I basically have a, a ski for every conditions that I could possibly encounter because I love having that perfect tool. And I have the resources behind me to do that. But I understand that there are other people who buy one pair of skis and they're going to do everything for the entire season on that one pair of skis. And so it has to do everything at least okay. And same, like they're going to have one jacket that they're going to go skiing, hiking, climbing in.

And it has to be comfortable for that for all those. situations and so that is a little bit of a balance um and i like i don't it's unfortunate because i feel like in my position as an athlete it does it's it's really easy to kind of forget that and to take or to like um not take advantage what's the word um take for granted that not everybody has that resource because we are continually like trying to develop gear and so you know we're running through prototypes and then also like we are expected basically to use the most recent gear for the most part you know the company wants to show off what they're actually selling and so it does feel like a fairly wasteful process sometimes

and I think like architectics and many other manufacturers or competitors do kind of acknowledge the waste that's involved in producing this stuff and they're you know they're really trying to not use forever chemicals in the DWR treatment and they're trying to use recycled fibers and lately they're really getting into like taking back old equipment and repairing it and then and then putting it back out in the world. And so I think there are good steps along the way there, but that's something that is definitely a bit kind of conflicting for me, I would say. Well, and I guess somewhat necessary because an advancement you find that you're like, hey, we could add this little piece here that allows us to get a little bit better grip in the circumstance can be extrapolated and applied so that when I buy my general gear, it has those kind of add-on benefits.

And so it takes time, just like how when the TV came out, it was like $5,000 for one TV that wasn't anywhere near the quality today. Now they're closer to $1,000, and they have all of those great features. So it's like the beginning process, the innovation part is huge risks and constant investment in R&D in order to develop something. And then you try and figure out what can we pull from this that everybody gets to use. And then maybe when I buy my Arterix jacket, it has all the little features that I might want. And then I can say, well, these professional people use it.

These pro people use it. And then there's a sense of pride that you know it's a useful set of equipment and it's not. Somebody, like the challenge, I guess, with Costco is like they don't develop it for any specific use. And so there's no real care and analysis on how to make it the best jacket where it's going to last you 20 years, 30 years that you can be proud of. Yeah, for sure. So I'm just interested, where do you hope to go now? What are some of your favorite passions within your space? What do you hope to accomplish moving forward?

Mm-hmm. I think, I would say I still have a lot of, I'm hesitant to use the word exploration because it's not like, you know, there are people that come before you in a lot of different senses. but for, yeah, lack of a better word, exploration around where we live and just things that I would like to do adventuring in the mountains. And so I still see hopefully a long career of cool skiing, climbing,

and running in the mountains. And I've got a lot of good role models. in that respect, like on the Arcterics team and elsewhere, just kind of colleagues. So I think that's, you know, there's no end in sight there. To me, I think figuring out a way that I can make what I do not purely about accomplishments, but also about sharing that and making it valuable to others. like it's one thing to be like oh this is inspirational and that that may be true but I also like I love facilitating other people getting to have those experiences and I think especially when we get into the more technical and and off the beaten path kind of aspects of the sports there's less and less opportunities for people to learn that kind of stuff and to and not have to make the same mistakes over and over.

So I'm really interested in the mentorship component and kind of the giving back to the community, you know, whether it's as simple as taking that jacket that's from last year that I can't wear anymore and passing it on to somebody else who can use it or to like full on going out in the mountains with people and like facilitating that. so I'm still kind of like figuring out where I sit there coaching is is spectacular like it's really fun but I also recognize that the people that more or less can afford it are not the people that I always want to be like they're not always the people who need it or a better way to say that is the people that need it can always afford it yeah sorry no I started to

go the wrong direction there um but uh but yeah figuring out how to how to offer that uh i think is is interesting and exciting to me that was going to be one of my questions is you seem to have like the thing i'm pulling out of this is that you have a deep understanding of take big risks do it in a calculated thoughtful manner uh like like do it mindfully what advice do you have for for people who are interested in pursuing an athletic endeavor, something in regards to maybe endurance, like, do you have any advice on how people can start to pursue that? Is there times where you've wanted to quit or, like, how do people kind of stay on this path? Because that seems, as you mentioned, with the gym, four months and then goodbye. Like, how do we keep people on the right track in terms

of their well-being? Yeah. Well, when we're talking about risk, I think, yeah, risk is a really an interesting conversation that we could spend a lot of time on. But I think really recognizing, well, one, recognizing that you're taking a risk is critical. And then two, recognizing how much a part like luck plays in our risk taking. You know, we can be as well trained as we want in the mountains. You know, we can take avalanche courses. we can take, go out with guides and learn climbing techniques and all that kind of stuff. But ultimately, like, even if you're in control, say, on a slope or climbing, there are other factors.

There's, we call them objective hazards. So it could be rock fall or avalanche or any number of things that can still completely ruin your day. And so understanding. those other hazards and that you are not always in control of those I think is really important and that's where I think you see the transition from

somebody who's like maybe a bit more, I don't want to say amateur but like that's where somebody transitions into being what I would consider more of an advanced mountain athlete is when they're starting to recognize

what those other factors are and how they're they're unable to control them. So you can control what you can control, and then you have to acknowledge the other stuff. That makes sense. Yeah. And then advice for an endurance athlete.

Yeah. I think, yeah, I mean, really, it's like doing what inspires you most. and is the most fun. Not everybody is looking for that problem solving. Not everybody's looking for risk. Some people are looking for the competitive side or the views or any of these other things that we've talked about as motivation. And so when you can kind of finally settle on what is most motivating for you rather than what you think should be most motivating or is motivating for other people or any of these things.

Like, that's the kind of recipe for success and happiness and all that kind of stuff is, is doing what your passion is. And so I think that takes some time in, I've seen a lot of people come into the racing community because it's like, I really want to do a 50K and like, oh, my gosh, I really want to do a 100-miler. And then people do it and they're like, wait, that wasn't actually that fun. I just thought, like, I just got cut up in it and everybody else wants to do it. And so it's easy to get rolling in excitement with other people. But once you've figured out what it is that you're looking for, then it's a lot easier to do it.

Finding that healthy community, was that a challenge at all for you? Having people who are willing to, like you had so many friends support you in that story. What has that journey been like? And do you have any advice on how to make healthy relationships with other people? yeah i think um well i've been really lucky with the community that i've had and i think the mountain community is pretty awesome um and there's probably like a lot of other communities that are similar um but in terms of people that are really into the same things really like

wanting to help others and facilitate you know the whole sport. I think the mountain community is pretty inclusive. But I'm saying that as also like a white guy with a lot of privilege. You know, it'd probably be a lot harder as a woman or any number of other situations. So I'll acknowledge that. But I think the mountain community is pretty rad. And so for me, it was it was just coming in and starting to connect with people that wanted to do the same stuff and that are at the same level and you learn a lot by developing your skills with somebody else that's in a similar situation you know it's like like teaching a skill you learn that skill better and so when you're learning it with someone you're kind of teaching each other and that's

huge and then I've been really lucky that as I've gone through this I've met mentors or maybe people that wouldn't even consider themselves mentors but you you kind of you you you do stuff with people and you learn along the way. And so I've been really lucky to have that as well. And I think for others to kind of get that same experience, just like reaching out is the first step. And so if you're willing to like actually send somebody a message or give them a call or say hi at a trailhead, like that's the biggest thing.

You know, that's the biggest hurdle. And then where somebody can do is ignore your message or be like, oh, no, sorry. You know, like nobody's going to be too harsh on you for doing that. But it is a really big hurdle to step over. And then I think, you know, really acknowledging your limits or your skills, you know, if I want to go out with you and do something that I'm not experienced at, I need to tell you where I'm at and what to expect. And then you can be like, oh, yeah, today's a good day for you to come out. We're going to go do this mellow thing. Or you're going to be like, actually, today's going to be pretty serious.

This is not a good, a good intro day. And then I think, like, in Mountain Stuff, being like, kind of being the keener, you know, if you're coming along on a day where you're the, like, lesser experienced person who's taking from kind of the, the mentor relationship, I guess. You know, you're showing up on time or early. You're like not complaining about the alpine start or getting out of bed early. You're willing to carry the rope or whatever. Like you still contribute something to the day.

And I think then that more experienced person is like, wow, this person's rad. Like, yeah, they may not have totally, you know, they're not on the same level, perhaps, but they want to be. And they're, they're enthusiastic and they're willing to. to like do something else to make up for it. I think those things make a huge difference. And then that just gets you invited on the next one and so on. And it totally is like a little bit of a,

you have to impress people along the way for lack of a better term. But it's not like you have to be a perfect skier or a climber. You just have to try. Being a good student, being like a student of the game. And again, when I think of academics, I think that that's often what they suck at the worst is now they're an expert in some nuclei or some sort of chemical engineer, and then they can't, now they're trying to cook something, and they bring that same kind of attitude of like, why aren't I great at this? I understand nuclear physics, and I can't make like a Pop-Tart. Like, you need to constantly, I think it's important that you stay a student with the podcast.

To me, it's important that I come in, and I don't bring what I think I know, that I remain open. open to whatever the person has to offer because it's a gift to be able to hear from someone like yourself and learn and go, I didn't even think of that or I didn't see it from that lens or this is something I hear all the time. Is it true? It's something that's hard, particularly with like neuroplasticity, is like we want to be right. That is our comfort zone is to be correct and say the smart thing at the party or whatever it is. So I think that that is so important that people learn how to be a good student. Can you tell people how they can connect with you on social media um i know you've posted some great videos um how can they follow your amazing journey

because you post some pretty incredible footage well thank you um yeah i'm on instagram is probably the easiest place to find me and i'm ski eric carter um and yeah i mean i i love getting messages and stuff i think it's rad when people ask questions and and uh reach out so i would encourage whether it's me or some other um person like just reach out like that's the the best way to get a response and get help or advice or whatever it is so incredible first i'd like to thank arterics because i think we're lucky again when people invest in in the athlete uh support them because then it gives people the space to pursue their passions um and i think that that is something i'm really that's important to me is because uh when somebody's not able to do something because

they can't afford it or they didn't have access or they didn't have a mentor that sucks for us because because we never get to know what their potential would have been. And I think when companies say, hey, there's this person here. Let's give them the shot. Let's open a door for them. We get to learn from you. We get to hear about what it's like. And then we learn more about these mountains and the ecosystems.

And there's cascading benefits to you being out there, learning about the area, learning about the terrain and sharing that with other people so that we have a better understanding of the environment up there, of what we can learn from people like yourself. And so I just think there's just a vast amount of benefits we get from individuals like yourself pursuing this. Some of it might be for the fun. But when you do stuff like this, when you share your story, I think there's so much people can learn from that because they can go. I never even thought of skiing as like a path that I'd ever pursue. And then it opens the doors for people to go, maybe that is something I'm interested in.

And so I'm grateful that you were willing to come out. I know that you've got other places to head to today. But it's such a pleasure that you're willing to do this. And I'm just so grateful that we were able to sit down. For sure. Yeah, no, I appreciate the time to chat.