The Joe Rogan Experience - #319 - Alex Honnold

Episode Date: January 28, 2013

Alex Honnold is a big wall free solo climber. As one of the best in the world, Alex has attained a number of speed records and also has been featured on programs such as 60 Minutes and Nat’l Geographic. Search for "Alex Honnold" on YouTube and prepare to blown away by a skill that few in the world have.

Honnold is here. We are going to talk to this young man about some crazy shit. Alright, so strap in and prepare yourself. Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Alex Honnold, greetings. Hello. Very nice to meet you in person and very nice to have you here on the show. I'm super psyched that you decided to come and join us because I watched one of your videos.

I've seen several of them online. For folks who don't know, Alex is what you call a free solo climber. Is that how you would describe it? Yeah, you could say that. And he essentially climbs gigantic, scary mountains with no aid. You don't have ropes. You just climb it with your hands and your feet. Yeah, I mean occasionally. Occasionally? Yeah. Normally don't have ropes. You just climb it with your hands and your feet. Yeah, I mean, occasionally.

Occasionally. Yeah. Normally, I climb with ropes. That's just special occasions. But you do it a lot. I mean, there's a lot of videos of you doing this. You're saying occasionally. For the average human being,

if they did something like this once, they would sit around the campfire, kids, grandpa's going to tell you about how he climbed the mountain with his bare hands. And everybody would go on and on about it like it was a once-in-a-lifetime, insane, death-defying event. How many times have you done it? Well, how many times have I soloed?

Free solo climbed. Well, I mean, it depends on how hard. I mean, I free solo easy routes all the time. But the big hard ones that you've seen videos of, I mean, that's a little more infrequent. Have you ever had a close call? Oh, it all depends what you call a close call, you know. But no, I haven't had any, like, serious accidents or anything. Well, have you ever had a moment where you're like, oh, shit, like, this could be a problem?

Well, I mean, certainly some moments where you're like, oh, this could become a problem, but never like, oh, it's all going downhill and it's about to come apart. But have you ever gotten to a point? I mean, I assume your process is you first climb it with ropes to find out where your route would be. Is that what you do? Generally. Actually, do you know anything about climbing?

Have you climbed or anything? No, never climbed. Okay. Because within climbing, there's more of a context for it. The thing is, generally, there's already a route established. You have a little topo. You have a map that tells you where you're supposed to go. So people have already gone before you?

Yeah. For the most part, the things that I've sold are established routes that people have done before. And for the most part, I've done them before too. So I already kind of know the series of movements. But you had to go through them once. So the first time you went through it, you followed a map of people who had already been there?

Yeah, generally. I mean, I have, it's called on-site when you do something without ever having done it before. So I have like on-site soloed big new routes before. Dude, my hands get sweaty talking to you. I just want to tell you right now. For real. My hands are getting sweaty when I'm thinking about this. We're watching a video right now of you on 60 Minutes,

and that was an established route that you were climbing? Yeah, so that route was put up in the 60s, I think, or maybe the 70s. They started doing this in the 60s? Yeah, but so when they established it, they used pitons and hammers, and they, like, wailed their way up the mountain, you know, because that was kind of the style of the day. I think they did it over multiple days, and then in the 70s, it got done in a day for the first time.

Dude. You know what I mean? It's just kind of the gradual progression of style so climbing as a sport has been around for a long time well climbing as a sport is like rooted back to alpinism people like you know climbing in the alps in the 1800s and all that i mean people have always climbed the mountain i mean look at all the monks and stuff in the himalaya what what attracted you to this? I don't know. I just like climbing on things. Why do you hate ground?

This has been since you were how old? How old are you now? I'm 27 now. I've been climbing all the time, like in the gym and stuff, since I was 10, I think. It just was attractive to you? Yeah. I mean, as a kid, I loved climbing trees.

I loved climbing buildings. I'd like play on stuff, you know, climb the roof, whatever. And then my parents read about this gym opening inside, like a climbing gym. So I started climbing buildings. I like play on stuff, climb the roof, whatever. And then my parents read about this gym opening and started climbing inside. What do your parents think about this? Mom's surprisingly supportive. Really? Yeah, I mean, she just kind of trusts me to do what I like to do and do it well and make good decisions or whatever.

Yeah, make good decisions. That's a huge understatement. It's one of those things, you know, son, if you want to get into the insurance business, you've got, make good decisions. That's a huge understatement. It's one of those things, you know, if you want to get into the insurance business, you've got to make good decisions. That's one way you can use it. The thing is, anybody in any course in life has to make good decisions.

Yes, you're correct. I mean, because if I was going out partying every weekend, I'd probably have almost as high of a risk of death driving drunk and all that kind of stuff is what I'm doing. You're probably right. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's all just how you view risk and reward, you know? It certainly is, but that, I mean, that really is an understatement

when you're saying making good decisions. You're climbing up these things. Like, what is the tallest thing you've climbed? Oh, like 3,000 feet maybe? Jesus! Oh my god! Holy shit, man! Well, yeah, but the difference between 3,000 and 75 doesn't make that big a difference. As far as death.

Yeah, I mean, once you pass 60, you're pretty much hosed. But doesn't it feel like a freakout when you're up there? Well, no. To me, the appeal is the bigness. I look at a huge face, and I'm like, that looks rad. If I look at a 60-foot face, I'm kind of like, no, that looks okay. But when you see a really huge impressive wall you're like that's inspiring you know that's what i get psyched about um do you

like people watching you do this uh not particularly and i've done very little that's actually like live and watched you know so most of the videos that you've seen and stuff for um you know repeated afterward well actually it's funny because the one that you're queuing right now is well, so semi live. Um, and the 60 minutes thing was live cause they're like a legitimate news organization. They had to shoot the real thing. Right.

Did it feel weird for you to have people filming you? Like, no. So that's, that's the thing is that generally when I film on projects like that, um, I do things that are like well within my abilities, kind of comfortable and easy and whatever.

So the 60 minutes thing, even though it looks awesome and it's really cool, that's actually kind of like a moderate route. It's not like, you know, it's not breaking new ground for rock climbing. I mean, it had never been soloed before, and it's pretty hard. But mostly I just chose something that was aesthetic and like cool. You know, it was like good enough, but it's not like. Would you say it had never been soloed before?

Like that's a crazy thing. Well, there aren't that many people that solo, you know. Like not that many folks are into it, so you kind of have your pick of the pick the litter you know well if there are that many folks into it how many of them aren't around anymore well yeah it depends how you count um well what is this i mean i can only think of one really high-end soloist who actually died so long really i think yeah only one yeah who was he uh john backer he was actually kind of like a you know childhood inspiration spell his last name uh b-a-c-h-a-r okay what happened to him he uh he fell so long thing is he was kind

of older i mean he was maybe 50 or something and um he died a car accident and had some like nerve damage and like you know who knows what actually happened oh jesus like maybe he broke a hold maybe he just i don't know but like he'd had you know like back issues and and things going on because he had this like horrible car accident oh wow so um it's one of the things where it's not like a clear cut like well i mean yeah i mean it is clear cut he fell off the mountain he died but um so but you know you look at it because he was he was by far the best of his generation for like the eighties and early nineties and actually the seventies until the nineties basically. Now when you see a guy and that's how it ends for him and he's a free soil climber, do you

look at that and say, you know, you know what? Everybody goes, I mean, that's kind of a cool way to do it. Definitely not like that's a cool way to do it. That's horrible. I mean, I know. I mean, honestly, he basically broke everything in his body, and he lay there for hours and died, you know? I mean, that's like a horrible, horrible thing to do.

Oh, he didn't die instantly? No, he was out at like a 60-foot cliff by his house or whatever. So he probably fell like 50 feet. He broke everything in his body, and he bled out, or I don't know what happened. I mean, it's like a horrible, I mean, it's a horrible thing to happen. Oh, shit. Yeah, I mean, if he fell like 2,000 feet, yeah, you would splat.

Like, you know, you would just explode like a bag of water. But from 50, it's like, that's pretty horrible. Yeah, that sounds like a terrible way to go. Yeah, I mean, it totally sucks. But, I mean, the thing is, you know, he lived his whole life doing that kind of thing. Right. You know, he'd obviously confronted those kinds of issues in his life. And, you know, he made his choice, and that's how it worked out you know wow how many people are doing it if you if you had a guess

is it a well so that's earlier i said the difference between high and so long and like recreational style so if you're counting recreational just going out and climbing fun routes after work or whatever there are tons of climbers that go so long but um high-end style like pushing it on hard you know hard hard routes like the kind of videos that you're watching where you're like that looks insane then they're right now there's maybe a half dozen dudes in the world that have things similar like that you know but you are known as the one who does the most uh ridiculous routes you're the one who's known as the guy well in in the u.s right now anyway

you know who else is doing this like where is this like popular there are a couple dudes in europe who have done maybe not like at this moment they aren't doing anything crazy but um that certainly like recently have done really hard things um you know i mean there's a there's a history of soul line all around the world. Wow. This is completely new to me. I mean, I had seen, like, maybe, you know, I'd randomly gone across videos on the Internet of people climbing things, but I really had never seen anything where people were climbing without ropes. So when I first saw you doing it, I mean...

I mean, there's a rich, like, tradition of it, especially in California. Actually, in Southern California, all the best climbers in the country in the 70s came from socal and they were all uh they were called the stone masters and uh like joshua tree you know which is just local has a like a huge history of solon you know so i mean i grew up like hearing so long stories and thinking it was cool and you know whatever wow yeah i mean there's a total like tradition of it so do you make a living doing this i do now yeah it's pretty pretty cool cool. Wow. And how did that happen? Do you have sponsors? Yes, I have sponsors. Um, sort of picked them up, you know,

through the climbing community as I went. And the sponsors just give you money and they pay you every month and just, you just go climbing. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It's totally awesome. Are there competitions or do you just go wherever you want to go and people follow you and the publicity helps them? Is that how it works? So there are competitions in climbing, but it's kind of like skiing or something where it kind of subdivides into like Olympic style competition skiing. And then there's like big mountain type dudes who make videos and just like go rage in Alaska. So I'm kind of one of those like big mountain type dudes that just goes and rages and makes videos and does whatever. Like I don't do competitions. It's kind of like two different sports yeah you don't want

to be rushed that doesn't seem like something you would want and how would you you know who would i compete with you know like nobody else even likes to do this kind of stuff right like that doesn't that sound crazy though you're talking about 300 million people in this country and this may be like five other dudes that are doing what you're doing well maybe five other in the world in the world okay in this country you're doing. Well, maybe five other in the world. In the world? Okay, in this country, you're the only guy. No, there's like another dude who's a little older than me. Do you guys look at each other weird?

Like, yeah, man. No, definitely not. Are you crazy? No, there are a handful of dudes in the States. And things you never know because so much of soloing just has to do with motivation. Because the actual technical difficulty of the climbing isn't very high like the thing that i did on on 60 minutes is actually like a pretty easy route it's very moderate um i mean like a lot of climbers who've only been climbing a few years could climb that

difficulty level but they just would never want to do it without a rope you know they don't have that motivation to be like i want to climb a huge face with no no protection no when you you know you say that it's no big deal that you were the first person to free solo something, that is a big deal. I mean, you're just being humble, okay? You are. You're being humble. You're crazy.

Listen to me. I'm older than you. Yeah, I get it. I'm not saying you're completely insane for doing that. I'm saying your point of view is very self-deprecating. your point of view is very self-deprecating. Your idea that that's not crazy to be the first person to

climb up it in the known human race without ropes. It's kind of fucking crazy, kid. It seems more normal when you do it all the time. I'm sure. But I'm just saying to a person like me, it's pretty impressive.

Do you go up something with ropes and say, like me. It's pretty impressive. When you, do you go up something with ropes and say you know what, I see enough spots. Do you map it out in your head? Yeah, for sure. So like for the 60 Minutes one for example, I'd climbed it a month before just to like see if it was reasonable and I was like okay, I could definitely do this.

And then maybe 10 days before I climbed it again with more like intention. And there are basically two hard parts on it and the rest is sort of like filler, you know, like moderate climbing. Like the type that I could easily do first try or whatever without. Now when you say hard parts and you get to a place, what makes it a hard part? So the crack is like thinner so you have less of your finger inside. So you have to like pull harder and the feet get bad and it gets steeper.

So the angle of the walls is steeper. Basically it just becomes more strenuous. But so both of those two sections were maybe, you know, 10 movements long. So there may be like 15, 20 foot sections. And I just have to memorize like 10 or 15 moves. So I'm like, okay, and then I do my left hand to that little thing. And then I pull really hard and then I raise my foot, you know. So as you're going up this in a rope, are you just visualizing going along it?

Are you actually fitting it with your hands? Yeah, I'm doing both. So I'm climbing it, and then some of it I marked with chalk, which is totally normal for climbers to put a little tick next to things so you remember which part of the crack is good. And then I would memorize, like, okay, this is the way to do it. And then while I had the rope on, I tried a couple different ways on one part to see which felt more secure, things like that. do you take notes or yeah so then afterward when i

was all done and uh you know that evening i like i drew out the sequences i have like a climbing journal i keep track of things like that and just make notes about life whatever and so i just mapped out the sequences so i could remember it well and would you ever publish that well no it wouldn't make any sense to anybody it's a bunch of of lines. Dude, people would buy it. That would be dope as fuck. Maybe. For a coffee table book? I'll sell you some lines.

Yeah. That would be cool as fuck for a coffee table. Maybe. I don't think I have enough volume for that kind of thing either. But maybe someday, you know, if I didn't. Dude, I really think that would be a dope coffee table book. Your maps. Tons of little roots and stuff.

And your just musings on life in a book. I think people would see me and be like, what the F? No, with photographs of the actual mountain itself, I think that would actually be a cool book. Maybe. I mean, if it was interspersed with real photos like this is what it corresponds to, maybe. Yeah, I'm telling you, man. I don't even climb. I would buy that shit.

I would. Yeah, I'm telling you. That's a golden opportunity. Jump on it, publishers. Find this young man. Shut it up. Have you ever been wrong? Have you ever done a route and said, well, I'm going to go solo it now, and been like, you know what, this is an error.

I shouldn't have done this. Not so much. I've had a handful. I mean, I wouldn't call it an error, but I've had a handful of times where I've gone out to solo something without pre-inspection where I'm just like, oh, I'm just going to go up it and see how it goes. Then I go maybe halfway up, and I'm just like, oh, I'm not call it an error, but I've had a handful of times where I've gone out to solo something without pre-inspection where I'm just like, oh, I'm just going to go up it and see how it goes. Then I go maybe halfway up and I'm just like, oh, I'm not feeling it.

And then I just climb back down. So do you proceed if you know for sure that you can't climb back down? Because you can't always. Can you always climb back down? Generally, I can climb back down. Almost always. Almost always. And if I know that I'm about to pass pass a point where there's like no no turning back

then you know i sort of know that that's a big deal and i think about it you know i think it through um because on a 60 minute piece that was actually something that i yeah the narrator who's talking about like is he incorrect actually so i just had lunch with him he's the guy i was hanging out with uh in uh whatever venice or wherever it was uh-huh and um uh well i don't know so he was a big big climber in the 70s, and he established a lot of those routes and all that. And I mean, I know what he means, that it is harder to down climb, but the thing is, like, nowadays, I mean, I don't know.

I practice down climbing. Like, I could down climb that, you know, for sure. So he was just hating. No, he wasn't hating, but from his perspective, people don't down climb and stuff like that. Right. Maybe it was a little bit of hyperbole. Yeah, a but no i mean i'm pretty sure that the route on 60 minutes like if i absolutely had to i could hike to the top and then down climb the thing you know they could

have been like oh we're filming it in reverse you know but it would be a lot less rad like that you'd be like that's fucking stupid that guy's climbing down the mountain you know but it's still just as scary but i see what you're saying like it doesn't give you that satisfaction yeah exactly climbing up the mountain you do a really hard doesn't give you that satisfaction that you can't climb up the mountain. You do a really hard hike, and then you freaking do an extremely dangerous down climb. Have you ever climbed to the top of something and then realized, holy shit, I have to climb down because I can't walk down? There's no other way to get down?

A little bit. I've had a handful of epics like that. A couple of my gnarliest experiences have been topping out routes that you conventionally rappel down. But since I don't have a rope on me, I'm like, okay, I'll just pioneer some kind of new descent. And so a couple of them involve, do you know Zion National Park in Utah? No. It's like a really pretty river canyon. It's like sandstone.

It's beautiful. But it's like a 1,000-foot wall. And then the rim of the canyon is like 2,000 feet above it, and it's a really, really steep sandstone. And normally you would climb the 1,000 feet and then rappel back down and be like, oh, sweet. So I climbed the 1,000-foot wall, and then I'm up there, and it's like 2,000 feet or really steep, and it was all covered in, like, snow or sort of like consolidated hail. It was all messed up.

Oh, God. Super hard to scramble in, you know, because you're like, oh, it's – anyway. And then it started snowing as soon as I topped out. Oh, jeez. And so I was, like, clawing my way up this hail in, like, this driving blizzard. And it actually – and then – It's a blizzard while you were up there? Yeah.

Well, so the day that I decided to do – I was a little angstful, and I was like, I'm going to do this, goddammit. How old were you at the time? This was, like, last – this was last February. It was a year ago. But – so the forecast said that it was going to start snowing at noon. And I was like, well, you know, I'll finish by then. So I finished at like 1130. It started snowing right on schedule.

And I was like, oh, no problem. I'll hike off. The thing is, even once I made it to the rim, which took me forever, and I was getting pretty wet and pretty cold, and it was kind of messed up. And visibility was so low, I was worried about getting lost. And then once you're up on the top, it's a big plateau and i was hoping to hit this one trail that it was like a 10 mile hike on the trail back around to get back to the car and uh and even that's all just a field of snow and like white out blizzard style and i was just running along

in my climbing shoes being like god i hope i can find something but miraculously i found the trail and made it all the way out and there's no problem holy shit but you're by yourself in all these experiences yeah it's pretty no satellite phone no nothing satellite phone you just why would i have a satellite phone i'm only climbing the top of a mountain no i mean well the the thing with that though is like so the whole time i did i was like this is hardcore you know right then as soon as i was back at the car i was like well it's like noon i had a very eventful morning but like it doesn't even feel like a full day you know very eventful morning, but like, it doesn't even feel like a full day. You know what I mean? The whole thing, like the whole thing, like feel surreal because you're like, did I just do that? Like, that was weird. You know, it only took a

few hours, but you're just like, whoa. Wow. Was that the most hair raising experience you've ever been on? No, for sure. No, but it was, but it was a very invigorating morning. You know, what, what is the most hairising experience you've ever had? I don't know. I mean, it depends what you call hair-raising. What's the most difficult climb you've ever done? I don't know. I mean, again, I need tighter definitions.

Okay. Has there ever been a climb that you did where you realized, like, wow, that might have been the most strenuous the hardest I've ever had to work yeah I have not yet shit my pants but I'm close but um so for free-souling maybe um the first time I free-sold at Half Dome which was in 2008 I think at the time I think it was maybe a little bit much for me you know like when I finished I was like oh maybe not that I like got away with it but that's kind of the feeling you know you get to the top and you're like whoa so you had nerves you had a yeah for sure I was like

yeah because the one of the hardest and least secure parts of the whole climb is up at the very top so you're at like the top of a 2,000 foot wall and um and it took me like 250 to climb the whole route so I was probably up there at 235 at this like super hard part i'm already kind of frazzled and you know because you've been really focused for like two and a half hours like trying really hard and you're just getting a little tired and whatever right and then you get to the hardest part that's also the least secure it's a really insecure style it's like there are no actual holds to hold on to it's just like a bald slab that and you just weight your feet. And so you just have to...

Weight your feet? What do you mean? It means... So you're wearing really tight climbing shoes with really precise edges on them and you basically just... It'd be like

if you took that brick wall and you leaned it back and made it a little smoother and then all you could do was stand on the little edges of the bricks. You know? Really?

Well, if you tilted it back to like 87 degrees, you could probably walk up that wall with no hands but just the edges, you know? We were joking around about that. You would look at this wall and start thinking about roots. Do you see a wall and look for areas to climb on them?

I mean, a little bit. Is there a difference between a guy who does your type of stuff, like mountain climbing stuff, and those crazy dudes that climb buildings? No, I mean, he's still just climbing stuff. Do you practice on the floor? Do you like practice climbing on the floor? Wouldn't that be called climb buildings? No, I mean, he's still just climbing stuff. Do you practice on the floor? Do you practice climbing on the floor? Wouldn't that be called laying down? No. I mean, like...

Brian, shut the fuck up. I mean, I do push-ups. Does that count? Do you have a strength or conditioning program that you do? I did a bunch of... Or do you just do a lot of climbing? No, a little bit when I'm motivated. Like, I did a bunch of planks this morning. I don lot of climbing? No, a little bit when I'm motivated. Like I did a bunch of planks this morning.

I don't know. Does that help your climbing? I don't know. That's the thing. But, I mean, it makes my core real strong. If your climbing is done right, how much of it actually does involve physical strength? A fair amount.

A fair amount. Eventually. The thing is, so what I was just talking about is slab. You know, that's all about technique and precision with footwork and all that kind of thing. That's mental and and i mean you have to have toned calves whatever but um but then if if you tip a wall back the other way and you're climbing out some kind of like overhanging ceiling then i mean it really does come down to having strong arms and strong pull yourself yeah yeah i mean in general for a recreational climber you should be

using your feet and you should be using good technique and you should keep your weight over your legs but um but when you get into really high end climbing, it's like, um, you know, you just got to be able to pull really hard too. So I saw a video or a photograph of you holding onto some pillars or some beams and doing chin ups. Can you do that? You really can. You can do chin ups. Yeah. I mean, but I mean, well, if the beam is really ergonomic and move and not just hold there. Yeah. I mean, there's a photo of it. Yeah, I mean, but I mean... Well, if the beam is really ergonomic. You can actually lift yourself up and move and... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not just hold there?

Yeah, I could do, like, two pull-ups on those beams before I'd fall over. Wow. I mean, it was really hard for me to hold on to them. Yeah, I would imagine, though. But that's got to be pretty rare that someone can even do it, too. Well, but, I mean, there are plenty of dudes who are a lot stronger on that kind of thing than I am. Is that, like, because I've heard crazy stories about these free solo climbers being able to do chin-ups with one finger.

Is that like a thing that you could do that? Right now, I could probably do two. Two fingers? When I was a kid, I could do like a one-finger, one-arm. I think now I'm too heavy. One-finger, one-arm chin-up. Yeah, I mean hanging off like a sling,

you know, like a little piece of rope or something. That's the photo of you hanging there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, classic. That chalk like a sling, you know, like a little piece of rope or something. That's the photo of you hanging there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, classic. That chalk stuff's huge, huh? Well, yeah, I mean, same as gymnasts and everything. Keeps your hands dry. Yeah, do you ever solo something without chalk?

You look at it like, I don't need chalk for that. No, you pretty much always take a chalk bag, unless it's like real easy and I'm just scrambling up it. Have you ever lost your chalk bag? I have. Actually, it's funny you ask. up it have you ever lost your chalk bag i have actually it's it's funny you ask um this last summer like one of the biggest things that i've done soloing the triple which is like climbing three big faces in yosemite in a day um the the second thing that i climbed was el capitan just like a 3 000 foot face and i climbed it through the night and i accidentally forgot my chalk bag

at the bottom oh my god yeah and so when i was all ready to start climbing i was like oh damn it you know and actually it was kind of messed up because the route was kind of wet because it rained a lot the day before oh and so it's the kind of thing where you like you really want a chalk bag but um i was like well bummer you know and then i did the first 800 feet and then i actually passed a party who was sleeping on the route because most people climb it over like four days what yeah well i mean a 3 000 foot face is like so you've you saw a guy that was like camped out on one of those crazy outcropping tents yeah yeah they were actually well so it's kind of a standard ledge it's like where people generally camp on the road it's a ledge well it's like the size of half

this table you know i mean so it's like but so there were two parties of two guys and they were all camped on it and so they each had the little tents that you're talking about so that you know because there's not much room so it's half the size of this table and everybody's on it and a big party? Yeah, but that's pretty comfortable compared to hanging on a vertical face. You're like, oh, sweet, I can stand. You can take off your harness if you want, whatever. Anyway, though, so I passed these dudes in the middle of the night who were camping there, and the guy gave me a chalk bag.

I was like, thank God. Oh, wow. So then when I got to the top, I tied that off to this little tree, so then he got it back later. Oh, that's pretty cool. So you just kept going. You climbed the whole thing. And once you got the chalk bag, you're like, dude. Then it was game on. Oh my god.

What did they say to you when you're like, I forgot my chalk? We're like, what the fuck, man? A little bit. I think they were like, huh. Well, you know, the fact that they're up there for like five days, you know, and then this dude climbs through and he's like, um, excuse me, do you have any chalk fact that they're up there for like five days, you know, and then this dude climbs through and he's like, excuse me, do you have any chalk? And they're like, what the fuck?

Like, what's this guy doing, you know? But, you know. Actually, so I met that guy again since then. I think that's his favorite story because I've probably met like half the climbers on the West Coast. They're like, hey, you met my buddy Steve. You gave him his chalk bag, whatever. Or he gave you his chalk bag.

I met like a dozen people who were like, Hey, I met this guy that, you know, I think they were pretty psyched, you know, just cause it's a funny story. Oh,

it's a very funny story. It's a very crazy story though, man. Just your reality is your reality to you. It's just normal. Well, yeah, I mean,

that's, that's normal, but I'm serious. I'm talking to you. My hands are sweaty. I get sweaty. I think about high heights and I get, that's normal. But I'm serious. I'm talking to you. My hands are sweaty. I get sweaty. I think about high heights, and I get the butterfly thing. I could just think about it being high up.

Yeah, I could do that. And freak myself out. Do you look at, like, when you're at a building and stuff, do you think, I could climb this bitch? Do you look at things like that? I don't know. I mean, buildings I do look at, and I'm like, oh, that would be rad, except you get arrested.

So I kind of nip that in the bud, you know? But with rocks, for sure. I mean, you see some things, you just I'm like, that would be rad, except you get arrested. I nip that in the bud. With rocks, for sure. Some things you're like, that looks rad. I'd love to climb that. Do climbers ever do things like that for publicity stunts? Know that they're going to get arrested, but just climb something anyway? Surely you've heard of Alain Robert, the French soloist guy who did the New York Times building

and climbed pretty much every skyscraper in the world. You know what? Probably peripherally I've heard of that guy, but I've never really read anything about him. When you talk about dudes sold on skyscrapers, he's the only dude sold on skyscrapers. Any skyscraper you've heard of being sold on, it's that guy.

And they don't lock him up? He's been arrested tons of times. He topped up some building in Japan and got punched in the face by a security guard. He's had all kinds of weird stories. But I met him in Poland at this, like, film festival thing last year. And I was like, oh, it's great to meet him, actually, because he was, like, a really good climber, like, in the 80s and 90s. And then he sort of transitioned into, like, he doesn't even call himself a climber anymore.

He's just like, oh, you know, I just climb buildings. It's fun, whatever. It's, like, his job. So does he sell books or does he do appearances or something? Yeah, he does, like, speaking stuff, appearances of books. Some of the buildings I think he gets paid for because in the Middle East, they unveil the biggest building in the world or whatever, and then they pay him to climb it.

That's ridiculous. Whatever. There was a guy, I don't know if it was him, but someone was doing something recently. It was on the news. I was walking through an airport or something. The guy had suction cups and was climbing up some fucking glass building. Was it Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible?

I don't think so I think it was an actual real person. Oh yeah? Yeah some guy he... I didn't think that shit existed. Yeah yeah yeah that no it does. Yeah he was climbing up a glass building and he was using suction cups. You can yeah you can actually do it. That seems like it'd be scary. Yeah it was real scary he was also at one. You can actually do it. That seems like it would be scary. Yeah, it was real scary. He was also, at one time, it was another video of another building, I guess.

He was in a crack like this. It was like a V crack going smaller as it got away from him. And he was climbing the wall that way, just pressing up against the wall and climbing that way. That's probably the same thing. Is that standard? Yeah. Like a standard technique?

Yeah, for sure. Do you ever get yourself in a situation like that where that's how you're climbing? You're pressing up against a wall and just going? And that's actually a lot easier probably than it might look to you. Really? Probably. I mean, generally when you're doing any kind of counterpressure type stuff like that, like pushing two sides, I mean, you're using your whole body as opposed to just your fingers.

Right. So, I mean, it's not that strenuous depending on what the angle is and everything. My God. Well, you know how little kids love to chimney up door frames or hallways or whatever? Yes. You know, where you put your back against one side, your feet against the other? I mean, that's pretty stable, and it's easy to do. What is that?

Here's the guy. See? He's got the... Oh, yeah. That's Alain Robert. Does he have suction cups, though? No, no. Not in this one.

But that's actually quite easy. I mean, he can go no hands right there, you know? So then when he has to do the movements in between levels. This is insane. You think this looks easy? Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, not that I'm diminishing his accomplishment, but that particular, like, feat of climbing does not look hard at all.

You should become a tagger. You'd be, like, the ultimate tagger. Yeah, but that goes back to not wanting to get arrested, you know? Yeah. That's why you dress up as Spider-Man or something. Honnold was here, bitch. Yeah, exactly. Put that.

Then we'd have to, like, carry paint with you and stuff. It's annoying. You gotta fuck up your whole balance thing. Yeah, exactly. No, just a sticker. A single sticker. A big old bucket hanging off me. This Alan Robert guy, he started off doing the regular climbing

and then just decided there's no money in this shit. Actually, I think part of it was that he had a couple of kind of terrible groundfalls where he fell soloing and got all messed up, like, different things. And so I think he now has a somewhat restricted range of motion, like, can't move his arms in certain ways. And so soloing on rock is kind of out of the question a little bit because rock requires, like real rock requires, such a diverse range of movements because you never know, like,

where the holds are going to be or what direction they'll be facing, whereas buildings are extremely uniform. Right. So, like, with a building, he can look at it and be like, okay, I'm going to be, like that little clip you just saw, he did that exact same movement over and over for 1,000 feet or however big that building is. So to you, this is like like i guess it's just another example of something where if you

don't know how to do it it looks impossible yeah but if you know how to do it your whole life i should know that by now yeah i mean isn't every guest that you have on like that you know where you're like astrophysics yeah it's crazy and they're like actually it's real boring like study physics no one has ever said that astrophysics is boring's crazy. Actually, it's real boring. All you do is study physics for 30 years. No one has ever said that astrophysics is boring. That hasn't, but I know what you're saying. It becomes commonplace. Don't you do MMA shit or something?

You punch people in the face? I don't really hit them that much. Most of what I do is jiu-jitsu these days. So you throw them into a wall? You strangle them. Have you ever climbed during a earthquake? Or is that a fear of yours, like having this big earthquake

while you're there? That would suck a fat one. Yeah. Yeah, but same mountain. Same as if you're driving over a bridge and the bridge falls down. You know, it's like

the same thing. Yeah, but you're in a car and if it's like a movie, the car might hit the water and then you can open up a window and you can get out. And most likely, huh, yeah.

I don't know. But the connection between looking at people doing martial arts, it totally makes sense to me. Yeah, I mean, I watch a video of an Aikido master or something throwing people around the room. Let me tell you something, son. Most of that's horse shit. Yeah, most of that's horse shit. Ah, well. Either way, it looks rad.

A martial art that really works if the other person doesn't know anything. If you have no idea what this guy's doing or if you're cooperating. And that's what a lot of it is. Yeah, the videos. The guy's running at you and he's committing to a very specific technique and you're throwing him on the ground. But you never see that applied in a UFC match. Very rarely. You see some of the principles of misdirection and manipulating bodies and throwing bodies with leverage.

But the way you see it in an Aikido demonstration, that shit never happens in the real world. It just doesn't. There's a lot of that left over. There was a time where martial arts had a great mysticism attached to it but because of the UFC because of mixed martial arts competition it's become much more pragmatic and now they really understand what works and what doesn't work so Aikido is one of those martial arts it has some practical application but as a lot of fuckery there's a lot of shit that just doesn't work so apply that mindset to climbing. Yeah, I'm sure.

Yeah, I have friends that will watch a martial arts thing on television. Like, how the fuck did that guy just do that? That's a wheel kick. That's like standard technique. So that's how you're looking at this climbing. When that guy is on those two buildings or those two sides, you're like, that's uniform. That's a hanger.

That's easy. There's nothing to do with it. Everyone's got their thing, you know? Some people don't have their things well they should find their thing they should knit you know they should start a garden like everybody can do something everybody should have a thing though i i completely agree i had a friend who was getting divorced and uh but what that's one of the things he said he said uh he goes if i find another woman he goes i swear to god i'm gonna find someone who likes something he goes, if I find another woman, he goes, I swear to God, I'm going to find someone who likes something. He goes, anything.

Yeah, totally. He even actually said rock climbing. Yeah, there you go. He said, if she's into fucking rock climbing. He was so mad. Yeah. Because he had, well, you know, he married someone who was a little bit vapid. It was a fascinating, fascinating situation.

There you go, dude. Everybody needs something to get them out of bed. Not just to get you out of bed, though. Just to make life fun. Well, yeah, to be fired up about it. To make life interesting. And it affects your health, too. It really does. It affects how you feel.

If you have something you really love to do, if there's anything I could ever tell anybody that's out there that's young that's got a lot of people that are telling them to take a safe route. Hopefully there are no young people listening to this. A lot of young people listening to this. I hope there are always 16. 8 to 14 is our target age.

Yeah, we go for 12-year-olds. 12-year-olds are more malleable. That's fair. Oh, man, it's on the internet. I'm sure there's fucking 12-year-olds listening. I get emails from 16-year-olds all the time. I just don't like to curse with kids, you know? Why?

It's just a word. Seven-year-olds are old enough. That's sweet. I feel bad for little kids. Well, you shouldn't, because they're going to say it when they become adults. It's crazy. Everybody should say fuck that way. Yeah, but it's nice to preserve it for a little bit, you don't think?

No. I say keep using it, but use it in moderation. No one to use it. It's like comedians. When comedians use the word fuck too many times, you over-fuck, it ruins the impact of the word. But when you don't use it that often and then you use it,

boom, it works. My point is, there's nothing wrong with little kids saying fuck. It's adorable. Didn't we watch that movie? What the fuck was that movie with Nicolas Cage? The Kick-Ass?

Kick-Ass. Remember the little girl who calls everybody a cunt? It's beautiful that's an awesome movie there's nothing wrong with that man we're silly people

with magic words but if there's anything that you can that young people can hear that can benefit them the big one is do what you're drawn to

whatever you're drawn to go to that just find something you love to do because your life will be different than someone who just works. Because we can all get by just working and have hobbies and have family and friends that keep us entertained and have people at work that we enjoy being around.

So we can have a good time working. I'm not saying you don't have a good life if you're a person who works. What I'm saying is if you have the choice, and you do when you're young, you do when you don't have commitments, you don't have a mortgage, you don't have a family, go to what you fucking love. Go there. Go find whatever it is because you're a perfect example of that. What you do would make me shit my pants every day of the week. I have no desire. No pants.

I don't ever look at mountains and go, fuck, man, I need to climb that shit. Never. It's not in me. It doesn't appeal to me. I look over the edge of buildings and I go, oh! And I fucking run away and hide. I am so not into that. But I love the fact that you are.

I love the fact that people are so different. Whatever it is, ones and zeros inside of your system make you look at a tree and want to fucking climb it. I don't know what that is, but I think it's awesome. It's shocking and it's weird, but it's awesome. It's a perfect example of that principle in action. You've always been drawn to climbing. You climb and look at you, you happy bastard. That's why I was saying that my family's always been surprisingly supportive. That's great. Because I think my mom values exactly what you're saying.

She's like, that's what he loves to do. He's doing it. He's working hard at it, doing it well. Can't do any better than that. You got a cool mom. If everybody had a mom like that, we'd be a better world. Do you have any fears? Are you scared of shih tzus or anything like that?

The little dogs. I don't know. No, nothing crazy. My friend's girlfriend has arachnophobia. Like, legit. If you say spider around her, just say the word spider, her throat starts to close up. Really?

She can't talk. Yeah. She freaks out. Brian, you know who it is. She was there the other day, Aubrey's girl. Oh, the one that threw the fake spider? Yeah, you remember that? Dude, if you say the word spider around her,

her throat starts to close up. Wow. For no reason. It's kind of weird. Yeah, and she has no idea. She has no life experience with a spider. There's never been any... Molestations.

Yeah, no spider molestations. She was molested by a tarantula when she was a baby. You know what it probably was? I bet someone in her chain of ancestry. This is just totally unscientific theory by me. Like a daddy long leg? I have this idea of genetic memory. And it's a shit, you know, I'm not a scientist, so I shouldn't even be talking here.

But I'm going to say it anyway, because it's just a thought. The idea is that when people have like reincarnations, you know, when people say like, is that when people have reincarnations, when people say, oh, I'm a soldier that lived in the 1600s and I've been reincarnated and I can tell you about the boat that I was on that got sunk by the British troops. When people have those stories,

I really wonder whether or not sperm, whether or not genetics, whether or not you're a bot, when a person makes another person, how much information is actually getting to that kid? It might be like a lot more than we have access to. And it might very well be that when you are a person who has, you know, how many mechs of thousands of traceable generations,

that all that information of all those people's lives might be somehow or another encoded in our DNA. So in her past, somewhere along that chain of life, someone had a fucking horrific experience with a spider and maybe almost died and shits their pants every time they see spiders and somehow or another that wacky gene, finds its way into her little personality toolbox

and now you say spider around way into her little personality toolbox. And now you say spider around her, and her throat closes shut. I mean, it makes sense to me. I mean, obviously, I know nothing about genetics. That doesn't make sense to me. Why does it make sense to you? I mean, you can get raped and feel that for like a month, but that will go away, you know?

Okay, where do instincts come from then? Why do we have instincts? Why do little children, why are they afraid of monsters if they live in cities? Why is everybody afraid of things with big teeth that's in the dark? I'll tell you why. Because at one point in time, we used to be hunted by leopards. We would go out of our

tents at night and we'd get fucked up. Because we were little monkey people. And that shit is still in our head. We're still terrified of monsters in the night. And I think that's a genetic thing. I think there's certain instincts that humans have that are relayed through generation after generation

of experience after experience. It only makes sense that somehow or another that shit's encoded in your DNA. It's different than personal experience. Well, I think it's not because memes, they know that racism can be transferred through genetics. There's direct evidence that people who do not have exposure to racism,

but their parents were racist and they were adopted, are more inclined to become racist or have racist ideology. Really? Where's that from? Oh, they did some study on memes where they had identical twins. I watched some documentary on the concept of memes. Aren't memes cultural genes, basically? It's not just. It's ideas, period.

And the concept is that there's a certain amount of things that you learn in life that's relayed to your children. And that's one of the reasons why children of musical people become very musical. It's very common that people have children and their children, not just because it's the environment they grow up in, but they show an instant proclivity towards some sort of a thing that you were very good at that wouldn't have to do with your

physical genetics, as we think of it, as body type, and athleticism, and things along those lines, which we've already assumed transfer on, and we know transfer on, but I think there's also life experience and mental things to transfer on. It know transfer on, but I think there's also life experience and mental things to transfer on. It doesn't mean that you're going to be racist

because your dad was racist, because we know that's not the case with people that grew up with a racist dad. I have a friend whose dad was, his dad just can't not be racist, no matter what it is in the news. He's like an Archie Bunker type dude, where it's kind of funny,

but he's just so racist. My friend, like as liberals, they come. He has no inclination towards any sort of judgment of anybody. And it's probably just his response to growing up with this idiot. You know, he's sort of figured out how dumb it is. You know, he's rebounded from it, which is pretty common with people.

But if he hadn't been around that guy and been in different environments, who knows how much of it is nature and nurture, but the concept is that some of it is being transmitted through information. Through genetics. I think it makes sense. So this poor bitch, somebody got jacked by a spider in her past. Maybe. I might be right. Makes sense.

What's so funny? So, like, her great-great-great-grandmother was, like, sitting there eating a pie once and the little spider bit her. She was like, oh. I know a girl who got bit by a fucking brown recluse in her pussy. It was in her underwear. She pulled her underwear on, didn't know the spider was in there,

and the spider bit her fucking pussy. And a brown recluse is the most horrific spider in North America. In fact, it doesn't just poison you. It literally turns your flesh into dead flesh. So what happened to her? Her pussy died! Can you imagine?

Does she still have a pussy? Is it just a hole? It's dead. It died. Did it really? Her pussy died. That's tragic. That's awful. I don't know the extent of the damage, but I have never seen a brown recluse bite

that didn't do some damage. I don't know how quickly she got to the damage, but I have never seen a brown recluse bite that didn't do some damage. I don't know how quickly she got to the doctor, but essentially, the toxins kills all the flesh around it to the point where you have to carve it out. Yeah, it leaves a big dead hole. It's totally disgusting. Yeah, so she has a hole in her hole. There's probably hair and stoker all around it.

Don't say it, you son of a bitch. They did do something with Jeremy Horn, one of the MMA fighters. He had a brown recluse sting on his leg, and it was like a golf ball hole. It was crazy. He had this giant hole that had just eaten through his leg, and he had to keep gauzing it and everything. It's happened to a lot of guys. These fucking brown recluses, they'll climb in your shoes, and you just put your shoeauze in it and everything. It's happened to a lot of guys. These fucking brown

reckless, they're climbing your shoes and you just put your shoe on and it'll sting you and your foot's jacked. I poured a scorpion out of my shoe in Yosemite. Did you really? You didn't know it was in there? No. This is before you put your shoe on?

Yeah. I was going to put my shoe on and pour it out of scorpion. I was like, huh. How poisonous are scorpions? There's differention. I was like, huh. Wow. Yeah. How poisonous are scorpions? There's different levels. It's not like a brown recluse. No, it probably would have been fine.

Some of them fuck you up, and some of them just hurt real bad, right? Like a bee sting. And I've heard the little ones are real poisonous, but I think it's just painful. It's not like you're going to die. Oh, okay. We used them on Fear Factor, but we used the big giant ones, which are really not that bad. Yeah, which I think aren't as bad. Yeah, it's kind of crazy, but they fuck you up.

That's counterintuitive. Yeah, they look horrific, those big black. Yeah. They look so evil, but they're just intimidating. What is Fear Factor? Fear Factor. Fear Factor, yeah. Yeah, what do you do with that?

You're the host or something? I'm the host. I'm running online. What does that mean? You just told people they were going to get messed up by weird animals and stuff? Do you spend all your time climbing trees and shit? Well, we didn't ever have

a TV and stuff. Really? It's one of those things I heard of. You never had a TV? No, we had a TV, but it was in my parents' room and we didn't have cable

and we didn't, you know, I don't know. I didn't see that much TV. Wow. Fear Factor was a game show and it was... And people got tortured, right? No, no.

They had to do things that were difficult. Like, sometimes they would have to flip a car off a building. Sometimes they would get stung by scorpions, or they'd have to eat bugs. Or drink a pitcher of cum. Or they could say no. For real? Like, bull semen?

Yeah. Like Red Bull, you mean? Yeah. Red Bull. No, it's white. And it was donkey. Yeah, they had to drink donkey. Wait, for real?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what got the show canceled. That got the show canceled? Yeah, that was it. That's what got the show canceled. That got the show canceled? Yeah, that was it. That's where they drew the line. No shit. Capital letter E, capital letter N-U-F-F. Enough.

Would you drink a pitcher of Donkey Kong for the chance to win $50,000? Not for the chance. Of course. If I was getting it. Exactly. For sure, you know? If you were definitely getting 50 grand, you would do it? Maybe.

I mean, yeah, probably. It's not that big a deal. If it was hard. That's what I never understood about those shows is that, like, if you had to do any of those things, it can't be that bad to do. But if you're just doing it for shits and giggles, like, why would you ever just let yourself get stung by scorpions for fun, you know? If this was warm and curdled, like, there was a top hard layer of cum. No, there wasn't.

No, there wasn't. Yeah. It was, it actually was No, there wasn't. Yeah. It actually was everything had to be temperature controlled to make sure it didn't go bad. Make sure it didn't harden up. Was there a yellow oil on the top of it that just kind of sat there in the middle? Oil?

Yeah. What's wrong with your cum? Your cum's broken. Too much Starbucks or whatever. Yeah, like mycotoxins pool. What's wrong with your cum? Your cum's broken. Too much Starbucks or whatever. Yeah, like mycotoxins pool. I bet if you took a syringe and stuck it in that yellow stuff and pulled it out, it would be pure mycotoxins.

Or DMT. That's your cum. It's just all pure toxin. Can you extract DMT from cum? I don't know. I don't know what the exact contents of cum are. You're extra talkative today with dumb shit. Is there something happening over the weekend? Did you hit your head?

Well, you can extract it from anything. Did you hit your head? No, you can extract it from humans and plants. Yeah, but cum is sperm. Can you get brain cells from cum? No, you can't. There's DNA in cum. Cum can make a brain cell by combining with a woman's egg and making a baby.

But you don't get brain cells out of cum, you silly bitch. Do you get brain cells in grass? Do you understand that this is a podcast that people listen to? Do you get brain cells in grass, though? Do you understand that? Are you aware of that concept? How do you extract DMT from grass, then? Okay, stop.

This is too dumb. This is too dumb. Can't do this. See what I have to deal with every day? You know what? That's a kid who grows up with nothing but TV. No parents. They put them in front of the fucking TV.

They never answered a question once. And they broke him. Well, tragedy. Tragedy for you because you've never been on a show before. You didn't know what you were expecting. Yeah. Guy thought he was going to come on here on some regular 60 Minutes type show. Yeah, I was expecting 60 Minutes, you know, super professional, super dialed.

How did 60 Minutes find out about you? The producer was like an amateur climber. He was kind of into it. Oh, wow. So it was his idea. Yeah. And actually, he had to pitch it a bunch of times, too, he said, because, you know, he pitched it and they were like, well, that sounds retarded.

You know, and so he pitched again and they're like, no, like, who cares about climbing, you know? And then he said that finally he cut himself his own little highlight reel type deal from stuff off the internet, whatever. And then showed it to his bosses, like, look, it's this. And they were like, oh, yeah, let's do that. Oh, visually, it's so stunning. That's the thing. That's the thing.

How could they miss that? If you just tell somebody, though, there's this kid that's basically homeless that rock climbs a lot, you know, they're like, that sounds stupid. How did you feed yourself before the 60 Minutes thing, before had well i mean i had sponsored before 60 minutes actually 60 minutes didn't even change my whole sponsorship scene i already had all the climbing stuff well yeah because you know the 60 minutes just catapulted me into like the mainstream but i mean i've been a pretty good climber for like years before that you know so how did people find out about you before they just you would start climbing word of mouth, whatever, like climbing magazines. Because it's such a small community.

Yeah, it's a fairly small community. And what were you doing for a living back then? Well, so for a couple years, so I dropped out of college after one year. I was going to UC Berkeley to do engineering. There's no climbing in this room. What am I doing? Get me out of here. I was like, this is kind of, I wasn't super fired up on it.

For engineering, what was the idea? I don't know. I was going to do civil engineering, like build big structures or something. I was like, this is kind of, I wasn't super fired up on it. For engineering, what was the idea? I don't know. I was going to do civil engineering, like build big structures or something. I don't know. I wasn't like super excited about it, though. And then I kind of stopped, and then I went climbing for a while. And so I spent a couple years just kind of road tripping and climbing, and then I had sponsors and did it more.

You know, it became more and more. When you first left college, what did you do? Did you get part-time jobs and just climb everywhere ads well so it's slightly more complicated but so um my dad died like this summer before i stopped going to college well actually so first off i got invited to youth nationals whatever so um like uh like the youth world cup type thing because i did well at u.S. Nationals. And so it gave me an excuse to be like,

I'm going to take the next semester off and just go to Europe, do this youth comp, and then travel Europe and climb a bit. So I was like, oh, I'm going to take next semester off. And then my dad died that summer. And so I was taking the semester off, and then he left enough money for my sister and I to finish school, like life insurance, for us both to finish college.

And so I went to Europe, did this little comp, didn't do very well, whatever. And then just never went back to college and then used the life insurance to like travel and climb for a couple years. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So when you first started doing that, did you ever believe that you could get to a point one day where you'd be a professional? I didn't even know there were professional climbers. You know, it'd be like, it's such a niche little thing.

I mean, all I knew is that I loved going climbing and that there wasn't anything else that I'd rather be doing and that I wasn't super fired up on school. And so I was just like, well, I'm just going to go on a road trip. The road trip is kind of like a classic climbing thing. Everybody goes on the road trip and just travels and climbs and, you know, follows the good weather. And so I just did that for a few years. That's just like a climber community thing? Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of, like, most climbers do that, basically. Because you kind of have to because you have to be at the different rocks and different places in good weather. So, I mean, you have to constantly move. Wow. So while you're doing this, you're just thinking, Hey, I've, I just, I've got the time to do this now. I'm enjoying doing this now. Let's just do it. Cause I want to do it. Yeah, basically. I mean, you know, at the time I was like, Oh, maybe if I get really good, they'll give me some free shoes, you know, because, uh, I mean, for sure I knew that you could get sponsored, whatever that meant, you know, it was like, Oh, they'll send you free

ropes and they'll give you free shoes and they'll give you a harness. Like, that's so rad, you know. And so I picked up little sponsors like that where I was like, oh, now I'm getting my free shoes. I'm so psyched, you know. Wow. And then it sort of has, like, slowly snowballed, you know, where, like, oh, now they're actually paying me. Like, my first rope sponsor was the first people to pay me and they were paying me $100 a month. And I was like, yeah, I'm making $100 a month. A rope sponsor. the first people to pay me, and they were paying me $100 a month. And I was like, yeah, I'm making $100 a month.

A rope sponsor? Yeah, totally. Wow. What are those ropes made of? Like nylon, same as every other. Does anybody make a hemp one? That's like the old school. It's been replaced.

Is the nylon better? Yeah, the nylon's way better. What is it? Does it get tighter? It can get stronger? Is that what it is? Yeah, it's probably durability, I think. And I think part of it's elasticity.

I think hemp stretches more and breaks easier and whatever. Nylon is just better. Yeah, there's no like dudes who try to keep it real and go climbing with hemp rope and everybody else is like, hey, what the fuck are you doing? For sure with ropes, nobody's like, I want to go old school. I want to use the oldest rope possible. Well, people are weird with hemp, man. No, dude.

Hemp has like a weird sort of attachment to it. Not for, when your life depends on it, nobody's like, I want hemp. You know? Well, maybe they do, and they're not here anymore. Well, exactly. Yeah, they smoked a little too much, and they're like, oops, it turns out hemp doesn't really hold.

Yeah, I got, I have this T-shirt line, Higher Primate, and the biggest complaint was that, why are you selling hemp T-shirts? Dude, why aren't they made out of hemp? Why aren't they made out of hemp? I've never met a hemp T-shirt that didn't feel like I was wearing a grain sack. Oh, what's that one guy that makes those bags that you're friends with? Datsura? Datsura.

I have a Datsura hemp-shirt, hemp t-shirt, and it is soft as fuck. Is it really? Yeah, it's really nice. It's thick and meaty. Well, that's not why I like it thin. This is thin. Yeah, you like...

This is like high-end, thin, lightweight. Yeah, it's nice. It's the most expensive. It's cotton, and it's like a blend. It's cotton, some sort of nylon or something like that. You like nice body shirts.

Just what feels... Oh, that's what it is? You get those Midwest guys, they're like, you can see my nipples through these shirts. You don't like that. So you're looking for something to drape over your frame. Yeah, we need to hide and accentuate my sexy.

That's what it is. I just like things that are lightweight. They don't restrict me when I move. But yeah, Datsura has great shit. He wants to sponsor the podcast. So we'll just do it that way. Datsura makes gym bags, laptop bags, book bags. All of it's high quality hemp.

Colorado recently, as far as the new thing that's been passed that makes marijuana legal, it also makes growing hemp legal. And the first guy is stepping up to start a hemp farm. That's awesome. We have to start a Kickstarter for his legal fund for when the DEA comes and locks him up. Because of the National Defense Authorization Act and the Patriot Act, that guy becomes a terrorist, and they lock him in some fucking cell in Guantanamo Bay.

And that's not a joke, folks. If you're selling drugs in any way, shape or form, you're like a terrorist now. And if you're selling hemp, even though it's not even psychoactive, it's not the psychoactive form of marijuana, it's still federally illegal. And they would treat you the same way they would treat someone who was growing heroin. It's so stupid. It's so fucking stupid. Because what people don't understand is we sell hemp on it.

We have hemp protein. It's delicious. It's nutritious. You don't test positive for THC because there's not any in it. You get this stuff from the male plant, the hemp plant, the cannabis plant. It doesn't have any psychoactive capability. You would have to get a whole forest of it to get high. But it is

very nutritious and it is very illegal. We have to buy it from Canada. So we're allowed to have it, but we can't grow it. It's the dumbest thing in the world. So they buy it, the Canadians have to grow it, we get it from them, and then we

sell it. But if we grow them, and then we sell it. But if we grow it, they'll lock us in jail for 100 years. If you grow the plants that you need to make hemp protein powder or hemp oil or any of that shit, they'll just lock you in jail for federal crimes. It's insane. It's unbelievable how dumb the world is. It hurts my brain sometimes that it's 2013 and that with the access to information that we have,

the world and the government still hasn't caught up. The people in positions of power are still operating like it's the 1950s and 1960s and everybody's fucking stupid. And it's really amazing. It drives me crazy. How many people get high and climb? Most. Whoa.

I'm not going to do it, though. I would think that maybe not most, but a lot. I'd say a lot. I wouldn't do it. Yeah, you're just the last place you want to be paranoid. Oh, munchies. Jesus. Yeah, or have the munchies.

You've got five hours to go To get to the top Before you can eat a quail egg Quail egg There's some Specific nest That you go to It's been mapped out

Hikers digest Number 60 Go up there And eat that fucking Poor bird's eggs And try to get enough energy To make it to the top So you can stay alive

Yeah You don't want to get the munchies While climbing a mountain Yeah Do you have a poop bag And the munchies while climbing a mountain. Yeah, do you have a poop bag and stuff when you go up there? If you're going up for like a week or something, then yeah. But, I mean, if you're doing day missions. Have you ever had diarrhea in the middle of a climb?

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. What happens? You just let it go? You just poop all over it. I mean, what do you think you do? I don't know. You just take a break.

Actually, my favorite. Do you attempt to take your pants off while you're up there? Yeah, for sure you take your pants off. You do while you're climbing? Well, no. There was little ledges and little stances or something you can... So you get there and you just go buck wild the rest of the way? Yeah, you just do whatever. You go naked?

No, no, no. You just... Shake the shit out, put it back on? No, you don't poop your pants. I mean, you put your pants on, you take a poop, and then... Oh! The best is to shit put, where you poop onto a rock and then you hurl the rock off into the abyss. You know, it's shit putting.

It's pretty legit. Okay, so you've never been climbing and you just shit your pants? No, no. That's what I thought you meant. When you said shit all over the place, I thought you just let it go. The worst case scenario is like you have a rope on and you have to poop immediately. And so you just like swing to the side. You pull your harness and pants as far as you can. You just poop all over the wall. That's like the have a rope on and you have to poop immediately. And so you just like swing to the side. You pull your harness and pants as far as you can.

You just poop all over the wall. That's like the worst case scenario. It would be really slippery for me. We need to make videos of this. Dude, there is – no. There's got to be videos. There's an amazing climbing video of a dude actually pooping his pants. Oh, pull that up.

How do you find it? Just Google boogie till you poop. Because the guy was climbing a route called boogie till you puke. And then he went up there and then he pooped himself. That's hilarious. Boogie till you poop.

Yeah, you just got to be careful about your diet when you're climbing up fucking mountains. Do you watch your diet? Do you have like a very specific nutritious diet? A little bit.

Actually, I've been vegetarian for like a month and a little bit. Yeah, how do you like that? I don't know. It seems all right. I mean, we'll see. I feel the exact same. Is this the one where the guy shows up?

Yeah, totally. It's actually one of my favorite climbing videos. Yeah. And is this... Requires a rescue. Let's see. Is he free soloing this? No.

So he has a rope and everything. But the thing is, he's climbing a wide crack. And like it's too big for him to put his hands and fists into or whatever. So he has a rope and everything, but the thing is, he's climbing a wide crack, and like it's too big for him to put his hands and fists into or whatever, so he has to wedge his leg in, and so he gets his legs stuck. He's like stuck stuck. Oh wow. So this is him being like, oh god, I'm stuck. And so then this other buddy who is filming it is down there trying to help him like extricate his leg. And he shits on him? Well, no, he shits on his pants, but... Now, has this ever happened to you where you get stuck like this?

Then he starts dry-eating because he's all hungover. It's like pretty gross. He's hungover climbing a fucking mountain. So this was during like the Squamish Mountain Festival. It's like a big climbing party up by Vancouver. And everybody parties all night. You just shit his pants.

I just shit my pants. Does he get out of this? By the way, this is two podcasts in a row where we've showed shit your pants videos. Yes. We showed the George Brett shit-your-pants story. That's pretty funny, actually. How does this guy get out of this? Eventually, they managed to wiggle his leg out with a lot of...

God, this is a torture video. This is scary. He's stuck and shits his pants. He's about to puke. And the guy below him is just downwind. The guy below him is actually one of my really good friends. He's just trying to help him out, you know? It's pretty funny. Wow. They of my really good friends. He's just trying to help him out. It's pretty funny.

They're both our good friends. When you do this climbing, I'm ignorant to this as well. When you climb up a mountain and you're using ropes, how do you do it? Do you start out? Do you knock something in? As soon as you climb to a certain part, knock something in that's secure and then

connect your rope to it and then keep unconnecting it? Do you reconnect it? No. So generally you start at the ground with what's called a rack of gear, like an assortment of gear that you have, little things that you can put into cracks or, like, you know, whatever, put into cracks generally.

And so you climb up and you put them in as you go. You clip your rope into them. So at any time if you fall, you just fall double the distance to the last piece of gear, know because you climb like say five feet above the last piece of gear so if you fall you fall that five feet plus the five feet of slack that you had out so how does it relax or how does the how does the rope disconnect from the one so a second person has to climb up it after you so if you're climbing like a thousand foot wall then the first person person climbs you know say 100 feet and stops and then brings up the second person.

And then they do it again over and over the whole way. It's called pitches or like rope lengths. So you climb like one rope length and then you do the next one and then you do the next one. Is the technology for these pieces of equipment so good that nothing ever fails? I mean, for the most part, I mean, like everything breaks, you know. Like everything in life will break in the right circumstances. But climbing gear is really well-made, well-manufactured, and, like, pretty well-tested.

So, I mean, yeah, there are circumstances where you can, like, trust your life to, like, a piece of gear, like one little widget that you put into a crack, and you're like, well... You know, but generally you back things up. You have it all tripled or whatever. And these things that you put into cracks, they separate or something? No, they're called cams.

They're camming devices. So they're two lobes, sort of like an umbrella or something. So you pull a trigger and they contract. And then you put it into the crack and then they expand outward. So then when you pull on them, they expand outward even further. And so they wedge themselves into the crack. You know, it's just a simple camming thing. So it's just the pressure of them pushing, just much like that guy was climbing that

building. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's counter pressure. And how is it designed? Like, what is it made out of? Like, aluminum, I think, because it's light. Wow. But, I mean, they're rated to, I mean, they go through a whole rigorous testing process,

and they're pretty solid stuff. The falling thing is what really freaks me out when they fall and hang on that thing yeah but you do that so often when as a climber you know that happens all the time and so it's just not you know it's totally normal so climbers are just used to falling and getting well i'm sure like as a fighter you used to get knocked over you know i mean a climber is used to falling because you're always to to get better you have to push yourself to failure and so you're constantly falling you know obviously not for solos but like but you know the majority of the time you have a rope on and you're climbing to failure now do you when i when i asked you about your diet do you try to stay light does that make it easier one of the things when we did fear factor one of the stunts

that we had was uh people they were hanging over this bridge by their hands, and they dropped into the water. It wasn't that far, but it was just the idea was like, who can hang on the longest? And women won. Because they were lighter. Yeah, because they were lighter. Because we had one guy who was like a football player. He was a big, strong guy. Yeah, but hands, I mean just hands are such small fine little muscles

yeah well being a big guy is like a huge liability if you're trying to hang on yeah that's what i would imagine so do you um make sure that you don't gain weight or do you i mean i try i mean i love eating pastries and stuff you know so i don't watch too much but um but i mean i try yeah but you're very thin it must be a lot of calories not that thin i mean chris well you're not fat muscular well i didn't mean that i mean you certainly have muscle but i mean you're not a fat guy yeah no for sure i mean well yeah i mean but you can't i mean you couldn't go climbing all the time and be a fat dude you know because it does burn a lot of calories right yeah i mean well just being outside all the time and exercising is gonna get you pretty fit like when you have

like a big climb that day do you do you prep? Do you have like a pre-climb meal? No, no. I eat pretty much the same all the time. I just eat stuff. Just whatever you want. Yeah. Let's see. You know, I just try not to eat too much or like go hog wild, you know.

Right. And no drinking. Yeah, but that's just because I'm not into it. I don't know. I just don't like it. That seems like the worst place to ever be, where that guy was, where he was hung over and he was in the middle of the climb. Yeah. That's part of the reason I don't drink.

I look at stuff like that and I'm just like, what a disaster. Yeah. What is your mindset while you're climbing? What are you thinking of when you're doing it? No one's around. It's just you. I mean, it depends. So on hard stuff, i'm probably not really thinking

about anything i'm just executing the movements that i have to do you know you know what people say about being in the moment or you know flow and all that kind of stuff i don't know i'm just doing what i do on easy stuff it's the same as like going jogging or swimming laps or anything where you just think about whatever you think about dinner i think about your to-do list things like that so when it when it gets to the point where you must focus exactly on what you're doing, that's where you like it. Yeah, well, I mean, there's something fun about just going out and going jogging, too. You know, like just climbing up a big peak or something, and then when you get to the top looking around and being like, oh, that was fun. But keeping it really mellow the whole time.

But for sure, the harder stuff, when it requires that extra little something, I mean, that is more rewarding. What does it feel like when you get to the top? Of, like, hard stuff? Giant, crazy shit. I mean, generally, it's just kind of a general satisfaction. You know, you're like, that's rad. And also, you're always in these beautiful places. The view is always amazing.

You know, you're always by yourself doing something really cool. So, I mean, there's always that, like, you know, elation with, like, being where you are. But then there's also that deep satisfaction of, like, I just did something very hard and did it well. Now, how many chicks started bombing on you once you had this 60 Minutes piece? Dude, not that many. Get the fuck out of here.

That's ridiculous. I don't believe that. Yeah, I don't have that much game, dude. You don't need any game. I live in a van. Well, as long as the van has a door that opens, there's a chick that's willing to come inside. Trust me.

Maybe I'm hanging in the wrong places. You can't say you have no game, dude. That's ridiculous. You're this climbing freak. That in itself is game. Maybe. Yeah, listen, it is. It might not be your main motivation,

but for most human beings, one of the reasons why they get really good at shit is to get pussy. Well, no, for sure, as I was getting better at climbing, every time I was like, oh, if I got on the cover of a climbing magazine, then I'd get laid. And then you get on the cover, and you're like, dude, nobody's calling, and nobody gives a shit. And then you're like, oh, if I get interviewed in Men's Journal or something,

then I'll start getting laid. And then you're like, dude, if I get interviewed in like Men's Journal or something, then I'll start getting laid. And then you're like, dude, turns out nobody reads that shit either, you know? Yeah, I would feel like Men's Journal, like all those fitness magazines, you buy it when you're at the airport. And you like go like that, like that, like that. And then you leave it in your fucking seat in front of you. Or like, you know, the cover of National Geographic. Like, oh, that'll get me laid. Like, turns out, no.

Yeah. Oh, well. Not a lot of people reading. Buy shit, look at the pictures. Obviously, that's the problem. Yeah. out no yeah but that 60 minutes piece that had to be a big difference between everything else you did and then the subsequent viewings of it on the internet yeah where I found out about it I didn't see it live it was I think Twitter I think someone sent me a link and said you got to check this out and I think I jumped out of my chair and I climbed on top of it like those cartoons

where there's a mouse on the ground you you know, where you're in a crouch, and my feet were on the chair. And I was watching you climb up there, and I was like, what the fuck is he doing? Jesus, son. You need a sex scandal or something. No, you don't need that. You just need a bigger van. Dude, I was in a pimp van. I was in a, what the heck?

There was some online thing. It was like an ESPN list of top athletes or some shit, and I beat Kobe Bryant because I hadn't had a sex scandal. You know, because they had this whole algorithm that took in all these different things that you've done but then divided by the number of terrible scandals you've had, and I was like, dude, I beat Kobe because I live clean. I was like, dude, there's something to be said for that.

It's kind of classic. That's hilarious. I forget what that was. It also shows how stupid that fucking thing is that that's algorithm well yeah no obviously i was like retarded but uh but you know i thought it was pretty funny it is pretty funny now um have have there been traditionally a lot of girls that do this so long yeah there are two i think two in the world ever i don't know yeah basically basically no but there are a handful of girls that do do that but are there girls that do like a lot of the rope stuff yeah yeah i mean especially in europe i mean it's probably 50 50 split you know real in the u.s maybe-40 or 70-30. But it's still that big.

Yeah, it's pretty close. So that's your target audience, buddy. Yeah, I mean, if you go to a gym... I'm going to nail this down for you. I'm going to nail this down. As far as chicks, you need to go... Those are the ones that are going to be the most impressed with you. Yeah, but they're all probably gravel faces.

You know? Like their faces have a bunch of holes all over it. Gravel face? Why? He doesn't have gravel. Just from hitting? No. He looks fine.

Yeah, but they probably might, I'm not even going to go there. They'll probably fuck up more, is that what you're saying? Is that what you were going to say? No. I mean, honestly, nowadays the majority of climbers

climb in the gym in a city, you know? So it's not like rugged mountain people. It's just like college kids and stuff that like to go boulder in the gym. And that's how you started? You started in Sacramento? Yeah, that's how I started too. Badass town. Love Sacramento. Really? Yeah, I love it. And that's how you started. You started in Sacramento. Badass town.

Love Sacramento. Really? Yeah. I like doing stand-up up there. They're wild. It's like a combination of country people and city people. It's like a weird sort of a blend. It's kind of a hickish city. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Now these people that

do these rock climbing gyms like that own them and stuff do most of them do the stuff that you like not the stuff that you do but the the mountain stuff or is there two distinct camps there's people who just do gym rock climbing and you know i wouldn't say they're distinct camps but for sure they're people who just climb in the gym especially like the bay area around uh you know, San Francisco and Berkeley and all that. There are probably, you know, thousands of climbers that to them rock climbing just means going to the gym, you know, but then maybe half the people in the gym also go outdoors every weekend and all that, you know.

It would seem to me that the rock climbing the gym could not be nearly as exciting, even if it was really good. No, but, you know, I mean, whatever. There are also people doing like Zumba in the gym to work out or whatever that means you know what i mean like everybody chooses something and climbing is certainly like more fun than than most ways to work out you know what i was going to get to is when you first started you did it in the gym and what when what was the feeling when you did your first like mountain you mean like big outdoor climbing it's just like going from doing it in the gym to going to a mountain and climbing the ropes.

Well, I mean, honestly, the first times I climbed outside, I didn't like it as much because I was like, oh, how do you find the holds and all that? How do you do it? Because it's like different sports, really. I didn't know how to do it. But then as I learned and as I got more into it, you start to appreciate it. And you're certainly in a more beautiful location. That's kind of the main thing. Does it give you a different sense of accomplishment

is what I was trying to get at? Oh, yeah, for sure it does. It just feels different, right? Yeah, I mean, when you get to the top of something in the gym, there's some satisfaction in the physical achievement. You're like, oh, I'm stronger than I used to be or I learned how to do some technique. But when you get to the top of something outside,

you're like, that was rad. This is a worthy objective, whatever. It has more inherent meaning. One of the things I saw on the 60 Minutes thing is they ask you to hold up your fingers. You have really big, like, fat fingers, right? I guess so, yeah. From just climbing

and clawing at things? Yeah, I think it's maybe from climbing cracks where you put them in a wedge and torque on them and stuff. Did you have to condition your hands in any way, or did it just happen naturally by doing it? This is 17 years of climbing, you know? Well, that's what you need to tell girls. Like, girls need to know that.

They know about his hands and his strong fingers. Do you think that means that he has a strong dick? No, I'm saying that he's really probably powerful hands. I haven't conditioned that for as many years. What's that? I haven't conditioned it for as many years as my hands. It helps you wedge into cracks. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah, so you have to, like, at some point in time, where you're literally getting, like, two inches of your fingers in a crack. Yeah, or less, I mean. Less, even less. What's the smallest amount that you're actually holding your body up with? An inch? I mean, just, like, half of your last pad.

So half of the... Half of your last pad. That's half an inch. I mean, you could be, yeah. Yeah. And that's you're holding your whole body up well i mean you have your feet on things too you know probably really really small things but jesus christ i mean it can't i mean that that would be like when it's really hard you know best case scenario you

have your whole hand sunk in you know and you're just like attached to the mountain like are cracks the most difficult thing to navigate? No, cracks are actually, like, the most secure thing to navigate. Really? Because once you put your fingers in or your hand in, you can, so, like, if you put your hand into a crack, you move your thumb down and it gets fatter, and then it wedges in shape. Oh, I see. Like, sort of like a camming device, like I was talking. You just make your hand fatter, and then it gets locked in place. Oh.

And so once you have your hand locked in like that, I mean, you could just, you know, I mean, you just hang off it like. Yeah, exactly. You shit your pants and you're totally fine. But, so like when I'm climbing hand jams, like it feels like I'm walking or something. You know, I'm just like, you know, I can climb. Well, I have climbed thousands and thousands of feet of hand jams like with no, you know, just whatever.

Now, you've been doing this for 17 years. What keeps you doing this? What is, you know. Because it's rad, dude. It's just rad. Yeah, you've been doing this for 17 years. What keeps you doing this? Because it's rad, dude. It's just rad. Yeah, that's awesome. You love it. I mean, as soon as we're done, I'm driving to Vegas to go climbing again. And then I'm flying to Mexico in a couple days for like a month road trip thing.

And when you're doing a lot of these, you're doing them just by yourself. You're just pulling up, showing up, and climbing. I wouldn't say off. I mean, the big solos, the stuff that you've seen, I mean, I maybe do, like, four or five days like that a year. Okay. You know? Most of it you're doing with ropes? Yeah, yeah.

I climb with a partner and a rope 99% of the time. And then, you know, the videos and stuff that you've seen are, like, the playoffs and the Super Bowl of climbing. You know? But you're not seeing all the practice and all the, like, you know, go into like getting ready for the super bowl wow so for you it's just a thrilling fun thing to do and it hasn't lost any of its charm i mean the charm has transitioned i think as i get older like now i love the travel more and like you know i'm pretty excited about going to mexico and traveling around and like seeing new places and all that you know whereas when i was younger it was just a matter of like trying to physically do hard moves,

being like, oh, I can do whatever this boulder problem that I couldn't do before. It was like seeing that growth. Now I'm kind of like there's always somebody who's going to be stronger and better and whatever. It doesn't really matter how hard the moves are. Now it's cooler for me to go to cool places and climb new things and all that. But, you know, I mean, I still love climbing. What is your life like now in terms of like media obligations and how much how much of that stuff has changed um i mean six since 60

minutes it's obviously kind of blown up quite a bit um yeah i'm juggling a lot more like speaking opportunities and you know i mean stuff like this where i'm like oh cool check out something new and like see what it's all about um but yeah i think it's cool you did this because for folks listening he had no idea what the podcast was and never listened to it just had been you know just hounded by people online i was like well i mean it must be cool but then also like my best friend lives in la so i was like oh it works out you know i'll just kind of put them together that's kind of how i try to do all my media slash you know whatever those kinds of obligations i try to lump it into what I'm already doing or, like, make it fit, right? Seems to work all right.

Do you still live in that van? Yeah, I mean, it's parked out front. Wow. But now I'm probably overseas, like, half the year. And so then I just leave the van parked somewhere and, you know, camp or do whatever. Now, like, when you live in a van, do you just like, uh, shower at a gym or something? Like what do you do? Or a river?

Or never? Yeah. I mean, whatever. Yeah. You just make it work. I mean, oftentimes, or like, so I'm going to Vegas and I'll be in the van, but, um, I mean, I'll be staying at one of my friend's houses probably. I'll probably be sleeping in the van, but I can use this house.

You can use the kitchen if I want, whatever, you know? So everything you own every year, your whole life is in a van? Mostly. I mean, my mom's house in Sacramento has some other random piles of stuff in it, like camping gear that I knew that I wouldn't need on this trip. I just leave it at mom's house. Wow. Do you ever say, man, I've got to get a fucking apartment?

No, definitely not. Why would you pay rent for a place that you don't ever go to? Well, a lot of people, they go and they lie down in a bed and then they watch a little TV. I'm just saying, you know. They're pussies with their silly bed while you're camping on a ledge.

Yeah, I sleep really well in the van, though. Honestly, it's, you know, I get in my sleeping bag and I'm just like out. How do you know where to go? Do you have like, like when you come to a out. How do you know where to go? When you come to a new town, do you have to find a good parking spot? Yeah, it takes a little doing. You sort of get the hang of it.

Suburban streets that don't seem to... Basically, if you see a van parked for a night, who cares? It's totally normal. And then 24-hour grocery stores are always fine. Gas stations, whatever, rest areas. Do you ever get hassled? Yeah, I mean, I've had a lot of cops, like, check in, you know, and, like, make sure the car is not stolen. Or, like, wake up and see a cop behind you, like, running your plates,

but then they just peace out and they see it's not stolen. Things like that. Do you ever have a cop go, dude, I'm a big fan. Actually, yeah, actually I have. But only in, like, a little climbing town in Utah. A climbing town? There's a whole town where everybody climbs? Well, no, no, but Mo in a little climbing town in Utah. A climbing town? There's a whole town where everybody climbs? No, but Moab.

Do you know Moab? It's a huge mountain biking area, but it's the heart of climbing. I've heard the word, but I don't know what it is. It's also from the Old Testament, if you've been reading a lot of Old Testament. No, I mean I've heard it as an actual geographic location. I thought it was actually in California for some reason. No, it's way eastern Utah like right by the border with Colorado. It's really cool.

It's the Red Sandstone Desert where you see like arches and like really pretty towers. Oh, those crazy things that are just carved because of the wind and the erosion. Yeah, exactly, exactly. That is so bizarre. Yeah, it's a really pretty landscape. You must see like some of the coolest spots in the world when it comes to, you know, all these climbs. For sure. That's what I'm saying.

Like that is becoming more of the appeal for me, you know, just to go to these amazing places and climb like cool things. Yeah. For folks who've never seen, we don't know what we're talking about. The sound somehow or another, the rock eroded to look, it looks like it was constructed. Yeah.

It's like a freestanding arch. Yeah. Crazy arch made out of stone. It just shows you all the, the randomness of nature with the weird things that can occur. I mean, I went on a North Face expedition to Chad in the dead center of Africa

to climb unclimbed sandstone towers and arches, like exactly what we're talking about in Utah, except it was in Chad. Wow. And we drove across blank, empty desert, like just completely flat sand with no road, just driving GPS for three days across like flat nothingness

until we got to these crazy towers. Oh my God, just desert? Driving for three days through the desert? until we got to these crazy towers. Oh my god, just desert? Driving for three days through the desert? It was out of control. Holy shit. We drove for two days, just flat nothingness. You don't see anything in any direction. How'd you have so much gas to drive that long?

I don't know. We had this outfitter that's what he does. He brought gas with you. He brought extra gas. Yeah, I think he knew how to do it. Jesus Christ, three days driving? Well, but driving at like 27 miles an hour. Through the sand?

Yeah, because you're driving across like, it'd be like going to the Mojave Desert and just driving cross country completely straight for three days. Anyway, but so after two days, we randomly passed these two dudes on camels that were doing the same thing. What? They were just questing across the desert on their camels.

Randomly, randomly, randomly. Well, I mean, I'm sure they were like going to trade or something. Yeah, we just. But is there a path you were following no no that's the thing is we were just we were following gps coordinates across the virgin desert you know it was like it was kind of out of control we were like what the fuck are these guys doing out here you know and like yeah who were the guys they're just like desert nomad dudes you know just like indigenous folks i mean they were just normal dudes on their normal life but you're just like it's hard to believe that that's their normal life just like taking a camel for five days across a blank desert with no food or

water yeah it's hard to wrap your head around the fact that that's how people lived for a long period that's how people still live that's what's so crazy about going to chad is like we were meeting you know people that live there that like in their entire life will probably never touch pavement or like asphalt you know they just live in there that, like, in their entire life will probably never touch pavement or, like, asphalt. You know, they just live in sand, and that's it for all of existence. They just tend their goats, tend their little donkeys and stuff. And, you know, you're just like, oh, my God. It's pretty hardcore.

And that's why, like, the travel experiences are becoming, like, more important to me than the actual climbing sort of. Yeah, I would imagine. That's really paradigm shifting. Yeah, it's pretty heavy stuff. You know, you're like, whoa. Whoa, indeed, man. Three days driving on virgin desert,

nothing to the left, nothing to the right, nothing in front of you. Like, in the morning, so we would drive until we got tired. We'd park, we'd do dinner, we'd go to bed. And then in the morning when you got to go take a poop, I mean, there's no cover in any direction because it's just flat so you'd basically just walk in any direction until everyone else got really small and then you would just take a poo and then you just walk back because there's no you know it's not like oh i'm gonna go behind that tree

it's like you just have to walk till people are small did you take photos of this yeah i mean it's all yeah it's all professional i didn't take photos so much. It must have been. Not your poop, man. I have photos of Brian Callen pooping when we were camping in Montana with a little flag in it. We were going to put it on Twitter that if you could find it, we'll give you $1,000. It's on the Missouri River. We were going to give rough coordinates. Take a picture of yourself by it. We'll give you $1,000. But you can't just leave poop there.

You have to put it in bio bags. Yeah, you got to pack yeah you gotta pack it out pack it out and human poop is really gross like if you run across like cows poop there's a lot of cows out there cow poop's kind of gross too it's kind of gross but it doesn't even smell that bad the difference between human shit and cow shit is pretty shocking no no cow shit also smells horrible until it's been sitting there for like a year and it's all baked by the sun that too like what you're talking about is like fried cow pies that are all dead and like sterilized yeah but i've been around an actual cow taking a shit and they can't fuck with a human i don't know but it depends it depends on the depends on the human's diet yeah exactly yeah just shitting out cheeseburgers and whiskey what that's that yeah just goes to show you guys

need to work on your diet a little bit. That's not me. I'm just saying. Some other dude. Some random dude just shit and we're grading it. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. But, yeah, you can't just leave your shit out there in the Missouri.

But you can in the desert. Fuck it. You can in the desert. Did you encounter any animals while you were doing this three-day drive? Yeah, we saw tons of little things, like little desert foxes and stuff. Really? Yeah, like gazelle-type, I don't know, you know, different antelopes. And what are they eating out there?

Like tiny little shrubs. I mean, there were, like, you know, there'd be a bush every 600 yards. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, there is some vegetation, but it's just, like, flat sand with, like, a shrub. And then, like, a mile later, you're like, there's a little tiny tree, you know,

and then whatever. No snakes, nothing like that? Not really, no. What a strange ecosystem that is. Well, so when we got to where we were going, there were these amazing sandstone towers. And then there was like more weather. There was more going on, I think, because of the cliffs and stuff. So maybe it traps more moisture or whatever.

And there were more people living there because there was more vegetation. But it was still pretty much desert. Yeah, I mean, it's still full-fledged desert, but there were at least, like, shrubs, kind of like the American desert where you see, you know, like the Mojave. And how did they get their water? They had wells every once in a while. I mean, I assume...

I mean, there was water running underground, I guess, because you could see, like, bands of vegetation that were supposedly, like, washes, you know, like an underground river. So one of the real mind fucks about the topography of this world is how it's variable. Yeah, how different parts of the world are. Not just variable, but variable in the same location over time. Like Egypt, like where the Nile Valley was like 9,000 years ago,

that was a rainforest. Yeah, that's the exact same type of area that I'm talking about. So, and actually so no while we were there it was rad we went into a cave and there were cave paintings and um and i mean it's all just you know we're in the middle of nowhere and so you could see these stick figure drawings and uh and it showed like these big herder people you know like drawings of dudes like tending their their big uh cows and then them being displaced by the camel people, like the people of the desert and all that. And our outfitter was telling us that was kind of showing the history of the whole area.

Because, like, as the desert advanced and, like, the grasslands and forests, you know, receded. Like, so Chad now, all the big cow people now live in, like, southern, southern Chad where there's still, like, vegetation. And the rest of the country is just desert, you know, as the Sahara or whatever, the Sahel has, like, moved south. And, you know, desertification, all that kind of of stuff it's a really strange thing that happens to the climate yeah i mean it's pretty it's pretty interesting though to see like cave paintings of like this whole process of you know like different populations being you know replaced how many paintings do they know well i mean yeah i think that the climate events are over the last like 10 000 years or whatever i Wow. Or maybe even older.

Wow. But it was pretty, I mean, it was neat stuff for us. We were like, whoa. Yeah. You know, just to. It's really, the cave paintings really freaked me out. Have you ever seen that Herzog documentary on, what is it called? The Cave of Dreams or something like that?

Hold on. Let me find that for the folks who are listening. Because it's really interesting. They found some really old cave paintings that predated the oldest before that by a pretty substantial amount. Let me find it real quick. Yeah, Cave of Forgotten Dreams

that's what it's called it's amazing where? it's in France oh yeah? yeah it's the oldest recorded cave paintings is it human or Neanderthal?

it's human I don't believe there's Neanderthal cave paintings oh yeah? I think we know that they made tools and have you heard

of this crazy bitch there's a guy who wants to bring back Neanderthals Oh, I just saw some news thing about that. Yeah, totally. I was like, that seems like an opening a bag of worms for sure. Yeah.

They're asking for a... It's some Harvard guy, right? Neanderthal baby? It's some guy is asking a woman to carry a fucking Neanderthal baby. I have no idea why anyone is letting this guy say this. Well, nothing wrong with saying it. Only a problem with doing it.

It sounds fucking crazy. But this guy, his name is George Church, and he's from Harvard. This is legit. This is not like some daily mail. It's like Jurassic Park, but for babies. Yeah. Well, the really scary thing is that we don't know shit about Neanderthals.

They're built more like gorillas than they are people, and their brains are bigger than us. No, they're built more like gorillas than they are people. Five foot tall, 200 pounds, really thick bones, big heads, bigger heads than human beings, much larger brain. It's a really trippy thing, the idea that this crazy fuck wants to bring these things back

and that the fact that you could do it inside of a woman's body, it's pretty ridiculous. Crazy asshole. No, I don't believe that this Werner Herzog thing was that. I'm pretty sure that it was a... It's all homo sapiens.

I hope the first one's a female. The first baby? Yeah. Yeah, better. Because if it's a man, it's just going to start raping. It's going to go on a rape and cannibal rampage when it gets to full grown. Who knows? We don't know the behavior of Neanderthals.

There's been a lot of speculation that Neanderthals preyed on humans. They might take boobs to the next level. Well, Neanderthals preying on humans obviously didn't prey enough because they got wiped out by humans. That might have been why we wiped them out. We were just a little bit smarter. There's a lot of speculation

as to what happened to them. There's also a debate as to whether or not they interbred with us or whether or not we have a common ancestor. Where our genetic material... Where we definitely have a common ancestor now. Yeah, we definitely have a common ancestor, but common enough that we have Neanderthal genes in us you know because they don't know if it's from breeding there's like it's like kind of an iffy area they're trying

to piece together now whether or not it's from humans breeding with it but interesting enough the pop the possibility of humans breeding with it was only neanderthal males and human females why i don't know i think it's a scientific reason for the the hybrid to be able to it's kind of weird because it seems like uh you'd want the neanderthal woman to be able to carry like the bigger baby yeah i mean because like a homo sapien woman got torn apart by i think they're just saying it was rape i think that's what they're saying i think they're saying it was a conquer thing. Because there's also speculation as to whether or not Neanderthals ate Homo sapiens.

That's the weirdest thing that I've been aware of recently that I didn't know about, was how often Native Americans were cannibalized. Yeah. Ate each other. Well, in Papua New Guinea, they're still into that kind of thing. Are they really? Yeah. They're still into cannibalism?

Sort of. They're also into a lot of other freaky shit, like they're into having the young boys ingest their semen. There's the semen tribes of New Guinea. I think a lot of people in the States are still into that, too, though. They're called Catholic priests. This is very different, though.

This is, like like ritualized and open whereas the Catholic priest thing is in the confession booth it's a little more sketch so these paintings in the Werner Herzog documentary

amazing stuff and they're cave bears, lions, horses bison, mammoths, rhinoceroses and there are other animals, lions, horses, bison, mammoths, rhinoceroses, and there are other animals between 30 and 32,000-year-old drawings. It's really amazing, man. I just think we managed to wipe out all those different animals in the last 30,000 years. Well, they don't believe that people had a play in wiping out the woolly mammoth.

There's thoughts about it, but one of the more interesting thoughts about the mammoth is the mammoth extinction coincides with what they are pretty sure now was significant meteor impacts, meteor showers somewhere around 12,000, 13,000 years ago. When they do the strata, when they take soil samples,

they found this thing called it's like a volcanic glass, an impact glass, this big, thick, it's like this green-looking glass that has come from either nuclear tests or meteor impacts. So when they find it all over the world like 12,000 years ago, and that sort of coincides with some mass extinctions, a lot of the scientists are starting to speculate that that might have been what wiped out a lot of things,, a lot of the scientists are starting to speculate that that might have been what wiped out a lot of

things, including a lot of major civilizations. The world just got bombarded by meteors at one point in time. Somewhere around 12,000 years ago. It's pretty crazy stuff. They think that might have had a part in the saber-toothed tiger and woolly mammoth, and that some

animals just weren't able to make it. That was another animal they're trying to bring back. They're trying to bring back a woolly mammoth, and that some animals just won't be able to make it. That was another animal they're trying to bring back. They're trying to bring back a woolly mammoth. The Russian scientists are trying to do that. They need bigger carpets. What the fuck is with people wanting to bring things back? Like, you know, enough already. How about someone make an alien? You know, why is everybody bringing old shit back?

You know, they probably are doing that. They're just not telling us. Maybe. You're out there camping. You ever see something freaky? Ever hear a Bigfoot? Ever see a UFO? No.

Nothing. I don't really do the weird stuff. You don't really do the weird stuff? Yeah, I'm not into all the weird, random stuff like that. I'm a very practical kind of guy. You're a very practical, crazy, mountain climber dude. Yeah, very rational. Rational.

Well, you know, by UFOs being irrational and saying just because you haven't seen something, that's irrational. Would you freak out if you're out there camping and all of a sudden... If an alien landed? A UFO flew overhead? Probably wouldn't freak out, no. But I'd be like, that is badass. Do you think you'd still keep climbing or would you, change your field of subject and start trying to... Well, it depends if I got to chat with the alien or not, you know? I mean, if...

Yeah, that's a good question, actually. I mean, for sure, if I had some kind of crazy experience like that, where I was like, I am 100% certain there are life on other planets, like, I probably would change my field a bit. Because all of a sudden, I'd be like, there's definitely something, like, more important going on in the world. The real problem with the, of course, with the idea that there's some life from another planet that's visiting us is like, where the fuck's the evidence? That's the real problem.

That's what I'm saying about rationalism. However, if they're much more sophisticated than us to the point where they can travel from other planets, it seems like they could be undetectable. That's the same kind of arguments for whether there's a god or not. It's like, whatever. Not really, because the actual fact of human life and the fact that we have technological superiority over all the animals, when you look at all the other planets and you extrapolate the amount of time that they could have existed, it's highly possible. Yeah, no, I think it's highly likely

that there is life in the universe. I mean, actually, I'm sure there's life in the rest of the universe. Yeah, I just don't think they're messing around here. But I see that, and I agree with you to a certain extent, but then I see the fact that there's so many fucking planets, and we are constantly trying to explore these planets. We're sending things to Mars.

We're looking with satellites and with telescopes and trying to observe planets. Yeah, but they are really, really far apart, too. Mm-hmm. Right. My point is, if we're constantly exploring the universe as far as we can with our limited technological capability in 2013, maybe that's just an aspect of intelligent life, period, that intelligent life constantly explores its dimensions and surroundings. Maybe it's not.

Maybe other really intelligent life explores spiritually or they go inward. That's a good point. Or both. I just feel like part of intelligence is being curious. Part of being curious is wondering if you're alone. Part of being curious and wondering if you're alone is looking. So if I was a smart, curious, intelligent thing from another planet, I think I'd go check out the space, the universe.

Hopefully, when the aliens come, they'll meet you. They're going to come to you, dude. You're going to be out there camping. They're going to go, how come you're not shitting your pants while you're climbing up that thing? What are you doing up here? Sleeping on a ledge 50,000 feet above the earth. 50,000, that's a big mountain.

What is the biggest one you've ever climbed? What is the biggest face? Biggest face is like 3,000 feet above the earth. 50,000. That's a big mountain. What is the biggest one you've ever climbed? What is the biggest face? Biggest face is like 3,000 feet probably. Is that? El Capitan and Yosemite. And Yosemite? Yeah, I think so. And what's the legality for that stuff?

It's all totally fine. Nobody hassles you about climbing these things? Yeah, it's a national park. I mean, it's just, you know, recreation, youth group, whatever. You just go climb. Does there ever been any talk of regulating it or keeping people from solo climbing or anything like that? No, no, definitely not.

I mean, how would you regulate it? I mean, you know, then you might as well be regulating, like, fat people hiking, you know, because they're more likely to have a heart attack or whatever. Well, that's the good point. The good point is personal freedom. They definitely should be. Someone should talk them into it, though. I don't think they should put a gun to their head.

The personal freedom aspect of it. I mean, I'm a big believer and a big supporter of personal freedom. And this is, I mean, it's one of the few that very few people are exercising, but is really a radically dangerous pursuit for the average person. For you, maybe not. You know, you shake your head because, A, you're competent, B, you're aware. And C, it's something you love to do and you've been doing it your whole life. You have a massive amount of experience for it. But for the average person to try to do it, it could be, I mean, if everybody had to free solo climb, just stop and think about

that. It'd be a disaster. It'd be a fucking raining people. But if everybody put like 17 years of work into learning how, then I mean, you know, it'd probably be like, there would be no tvs there would be no cell phones there'd be no cars if everybody did that no one would get anything done because they'd be just consistently focusing on not falling yeah and climbing um but it's an interesting personal freedom uh issue it's like there's certain things that we're restricted from doing in this country in this world and we're restricted from taking a certain amount of chances but that one is just still completely out there in the wild it's one that I think well I go in hiking any kind of outdoor recreation is pretty pretty unrestricted in the US I'm here let's just wander into the woods and let go have an adventure I know but I mean the nanny

state government that we have I'm surprised that someone doesn't like hey you can't climb get down from there, get down from there, son. Because that's sort of the attitude. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, no one ever gets in trouble at all for climbing anything as long as it's not a public building or something like that. I don't think so, unless it's on private property, in which case the landowner gets to choose.

Oh, wow. So all public property, like public land. Oh, actually. So national public property, like public land. Oh, actually. So, so national parks do have some kind of like recreational management plan. So, I mean,

you're not allowed to like drill bolts or like change the rock in different ways because when you climb, you often like put bolts for protection, you know, some people have bolts in there. Yeah. For if you're climbing up a blank face, like say your brick wall or something.

Like a big eye hook, a giant eye hook or something. Well, I mean, it's small. Yeah, but it's small enough that you can clip your carabiner into it and then clip your rope

into the beaner. But, so, I mean, most national parks have some kind of plan, you know, limiting, you know, bolting and things like that. Or, you know, they have some kind of, like,

management use thing. But for the most part, you can just go climb whatever you want. Do you have any other crazy hobbies? No. This is it.

This just fulfills all of your time. I read and I travel and I do stuff. Yeah. It's a fascinating life, man. I mean, I know it's yours and you're like, yeah, yeah. It's pretty normal, you know. It's not pretty normal. It's pretty normal to you.

Well, yeah. But I matter the most to me. You know what I mean? I would imagine so. To me, it's super would imagine to me it's super normal like i think it's cool well it is very cool it's very cool it's very interesting i mean your your approach this whole thing is very unique you're a very unique person and that's why um you uh are fascinating to people and i i think it's it's very charming that you have this well

yeah yeah i mean you've said that like 10 times The more I talk to you about how unique you are, I compliment you. That's your take on things, but that is also why you're so good, and that's why it's so compatible with you, your personality, like how you roll with things. That probably must somehow or another contribute to your ability to be so good at this,

or your passion and desire, the way it fits in, your square hole for your square peg, you know what I mean? I mean, I think I've always loved it. I mean, I put a lot of work into it, and I figure anybody that loves what they do and works hard at it is probably going to get pretty good at it. Do you have any goals? Are there certain mountains that you have not climbed that you want to? Yeah, for sure.

I got all kinds of – I have a lot of, like, travel goals, like places I want to go climbing. And then I have actual, like, climbing achievement goals, you know, things that I want to climb or new things to do or whatever. What's a big one? What's one? I don't know. They're all on the DL, you know.

Oh, you can't tell people? No, no. I mean – Okay. You don't want to talk about it? No. So I actually don't really set, like, specific soloing goals because I don't really like the – because normally when you set a goal you go

through the whole process of like you set the goal you train for it you achieve it whatever you know you make it happen but the thing with so long is i don't really like that pressure i don't want to feel like i have to go solo something so generally i set climbing goals like routes i want to climb with a rope or you know places i want to go but for so long it's more like a so long fantasy you know, something I'd love to do. And I'll sort of keep it in the back of my mind what kind of shape I'd have to be in to do it or what time of year I'd have

to be in what kind of shape. But it's never like that's my goal for the season. It's more like if it happens, it'd be sweet. If not, whatever. Why has no one come up with a television show that follows you climbing up mountains and broadcasts it? I mean, people have talked about it, but the thing is, after anybody chats with me for a while,

they're like, turns out that guy's actually really boring. I don't think you're boring at all, man. Yeah, yeah. I don't think you're boring at all. I think you're fascinating. No, you're mellow. You're confusing mellow with boring. You're very interesting.

There's nothing boring about you. You have a very distinct personality, a very distinct way of looking at this very odd life that you have that's very compatible for what you do. It's not boring. What you do is not even remotely fucking boring. It's hair-raising. It makes people shit their pants.

My hands sweat watching your videos. This is what I was talking about, you know, Super Bowl versus training. You know what I mean? Like you're saying the Super Bowl stuff looks amazing. You know, like the big solos, you're like, that's rad. Which you did on 60 Minutes. You said it wasn't even that big. Well, no, I mean, but still I only do that kind of thing a handful of times a year.

You know, the majority of the year I'm just going out and climbing with my friends. Just normal climbing. You know, the same thing that people are doing in a gym, except we're doing it outside. Dude, they have shows, okay, where guys have pawn shops. I don't even want to know how dumb a show they have. Like, I don't give a shit about bad TV. They have pawn shops, and they come in and they go, hey, man, how much you want to give me for this banjo? I have no interest in contributing to that.

And the guy's like, I'll give you $200. Man, I need $250. I can't go $250. I'll give you $225. That's the fucking show. They're selling banjos. That kind of shit makes the world worse, and I don't go $250. I'll give you $225. That's the fucking show. They're selling banjos. That kind of shit makes the world worse, and I don't want to contribute to that.

You would not be contributing to it, my friend. What I'm saying is that people are fascinated by shit that's not even close to as interesting as you or what you're doing. I really think it would be an amazing show. I think you're dead wrong. I don't think you'd be contributing. There's been talk.

I doubt there will ever be a show, but I think there probably will be some TV-type stuff. Why wouldn't there be a show? Someone needs to fucking step up. Honestly, there isn't that much content. Because, well, what? If you do 10 episodes or something

and you have to solo something big for each one, I don't want to freaking die. You clearly have not watched Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Dude, and I'm glad I haven't. This is the idea. This is my idea.

You ready for this? We make it a Death Squad production, and what we're going to do is we're going to bring you with Brian in between all of your climbing. You're going to hang out with Brian and all of his porn star friends. Does he have porn star friends? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He dates porn stars. Oh, yeah?

Kids a mess. Oh, I can introduce you to some girls. They would like you. Really? They would molest you. You'd climb up and down them. Yeah. Throw some shit on a rock. Yeah, look, you piqued his interest.

He's like, what kind of girls? I want to meet porn stars. Do you want to meet them? Well, you know. Well, this shit came to Vegas last week. We can make this happen. That's an easy thing to make happen. I'm not kidding.

That's a really easy thing to make happen. Yeah. You want to go hang out with him? How long in town for? Well, I was going to, from this parking lot, I was going to drive to. You want to go hang out with him? How long are you in town for? Well, I was going to, from this parking lot, I was going to drive to Vegas. Maybe you drive to hang out with Brian at Burbank. You all go to Olive Garden with a bunch of skanks. I bring seven of them.

And by skanks, I say that lovingly just because it was the funny thing to say. Ladies, don't be hating. Do what you got to do. Yeah, he can introduce you to that. See, so that world to you is like, holy smoke. Yeah, that seems exotic. You're like, your eyebrows went up in the air. It changed the entire tone. See, that's how the show gets exciting. We bring you with him in between solo climbs.

To hang out with porn stars. Exactly. We spice it up. Listen, you're a mellow guy. This would be a new, unique sort of experience push my boundaries and stuff exactly

it's like going to Chile or taking a fucking car and driving across the desert for three days basically or going to Chad

anywhere wherever you went what I'm saying is it's unique going to Chile you could drive across in about four hours could you really?

Chile's like this narrow oh is it really? I didn't know. I am geographically limited. Have you ever climbed in Japan? I have not, but my family lived there for a while, actually. Oh, really? Yeah.

Your family lived in Japan? Were they ninjas? I was conceived in Japan. They were not ninjas, but I wish they were. It would be so much cooler. What did your parents do? At the time, they were teaching English, and then they both were college professors

and are teaching language. Oh, wow. My mom's a French teacher. Wow. Yeah. So how many different countries have you been to climbing? I don't know, like 20, 30. Wow.

I don't know. Dude, you live a fascinating life. I think you're a really unique guy, and I love the fact that you don't think you are. Your humility is great. Everything seems normal when it's just you. I understand. That's why Brian hangs out with these porn stars.

You were like, hey, what? Yeah, exactly. It's a perfect example. I can take you to the UFC next weekend. Are you going to be in Vegas next weekend? Are you going to be in Vegas? No, I'm fine in Mexico on Thursday. Oh, dude.

Cancel that shit. Listen, you want to see a crazy experience? I'll take you to the UFC. I'll get you front row seats for one of the best UFCs ever. Dude, this weekend? It's happening this weekend, yeah. Oh, yeah? This Saturday night at Mandalay Bay,

Frankie Edgar's fighting Jose Aldo. Jose Aldo's this guy from Brazil. He's one of the top pound-for-pound fighters on the planet. So is Frankie Edgar. Frankie Edgar was a lightweight champion. He's dropping down to 145 to fight this kind of super fight. It's going to be fucking craziness. People are flying in

from Brazil. They're flying in from the East Coast. This guy's from New Jersey. It's two amazing fighters, and that's just one fight. Alistair Overeem, who's one of the biggest guys in the heavyweight division, 265 pounds, looks like a fucking superhero from a comic book, and he's fighting this guy, Antonio Bigfoot Silva, who

has to cut weight to make 265 pounds. I think I've heard of that guy. They're both giants, and Alistair is a former K-1 Grand Prix champion, like kickboxing. K-1 Grand Prix is like the craziest kickboxing event in the world, so he's this destroyer, this guy, just this stand-up destroyer. He's an ogre who can kick through a wall. He's a monster. Look, pull up a picture of Alistair Overeem, because if you haven't seen, just seeing this guy alone,

he's such a freak specimen of humanity. Six foot five, 265 pounds, and literally doesn't even look real. And Antonio Bigfoot Silva is like a literal giant. He actually is a giant. How big is he? Well, he's, look at that. That's Overeem. What the fuck? Yeah, what the fuck? And there's Joe in the background... Look at that. That's over him. What the fuck?

Yeah, what the fuck? And there's Joe in the background. That's me. Checking out his speech. That's my gig. Wait, that's you in the background? That's me. I'm a commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Show.

Joe, you need to make more crazy faces during this shit. Yeah, I do. When I don't do this or do stand-up comedy, I'm a commentator for Cage Fighting. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So you're back there being like, this guy is fucking yoked.

He's about to smash that guy's head. I'm announcing his official weigh-in. I'm introducing him, the former K-1 Grand Prix champion, the Strikeforce heavyweight champion. So you're like, this guy is officially yoked. Well, I don't say that. I call out the weight.

See, every fighter has to be introduced. No, no. I was like, how hard is that? Are we fucking losers? Yeah, I was like, 265. I can say 265. That's one day. And then the next day, I'm the commentator.

What I do is I explain the nuances of what's dangerous. Being like, he is choking that guy to death. No, like what he has to look out for, what's going to happen if he doesn't do that, what's going to happen. That's me at the weigh-ins. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. It's a fan-made video. People got silly because they took that one picture and they Photoshopped it. You know about Photoshop, right? I've heard of that Oh yeah. It's a fan-made video. People got silly because they took that one picture

and they photoshopped it. You know about Photoshop, right? I've heard of that. Out there in the woods. I'm a little backward. If you can make it, it would be a trip. It would freak you out. It's going to be 15,000, 16,000 people

completely sold out Mandalay Bay Event Center. It's going to be nuts. It's kind of badass. It's a wild thing to see live. It is wild. Because you're going to see the best martial artists on the face of the planet without a doubt. I mean, there's a few other guys that won't be competing

this Saturday night that are also the best. But the examples of excellence that you're going to get there between Overeem and Aldo and Edgar, just those guys, and Bigfoot Silva, and there's a guy named Damian Maia from Brazil who's the baddest fucking jiu-jitsu guy on the planet in MMA and he's fighting this guy John Fitch who's this badass American wrestler and oh it's gonna be fucking...

So your side. Oh my god. So are you commentating for him? Oh yeah yeah yeah that's my other job. That's your real job? It's one of my jobs. I keep a bunch of jobs. I'm like a Jamaican. I try to keep like three or four jobs. You're a Jamaican. I try to keep like three or four jobs. You're a hustler. I might.

But these are all things that I'm drawn to, just much like your thing with the mountain climbing. It probably seems unreal to you. That's what I'm saying. It would be another paradigm shifting moment for you to be at the UFC to see how fucking crazy it could be. If you can stay, please do. Could I actually get in?

Fuck yeah. Dude, I'll get you in front row. I will get you front row. I feel like it's a life experience. I will make sure that you are. I will have you sit behind me. I will give you a seat right behind me for the UFC. You will be right there.

The cage, you could step forward and touch it with your hand if you want to. Oh, shit. Yeah. It would be the nuttiest fucking thing you've ever seen in your life. Because I don't like seeing people get hurt. Yeah, they're going to get hurt. I don't like seeing people get hurt? Fuck yeah, they're going to get hurt. I don't like seeing people get hurt. Listen, this is their job.

Their job is to try to hurt the other guy, and the other guy tries to hurt them. But it's very scientific. It's very technical. I feel like it would be a good experience, though. It's a great experience. It's kind of badass. What it is is human competition, and it's one-on-one competition in its most difficult form. You're using your body to try to submit

and stop another person who's also using their body. And that's all you have. You have pads over your knuckles and your wits and your techniques and your conditioning and your training and your ability to overcome the pressure of the moment. All those things. It's going to be fucking crazy.

Dude, I might just move my thing. You should go. Because I'm just going to Mexico to go climb. If you go, we'll fly in Brian and he'll fly in a couple of gals with loose morals, and you'll have yourself a party. Do you have anything going on this weekend, Brian? You want to go? Sure.

It's time! We just made a party! We just brought in Brian, and you'll sit. How about you sit next to him at the UFC? With a bunch of porn stars. He'll give you booze, and he'll tell you where to get the good ecstasy. Sweet. We might ruin your climbing career, but trust tell you where to get the good ecstasy. Sweet. We might ruin your climbing career, but

trust me, you're going to have a memorable weekend. If you can get me a sex scandal, I'll be super psyched. He could definitely get you a sex scandal. All I have to do is fuck him and we'll fuck. Oh, I could do it, yeah. That would be a sex scandal. With all these cameras in here, we could just do it right here. We could do it right here. Just clear off these salt lamps and put the deer antlers away.

We'll go climb the Luxor. Yeah, you could climb the pyramid. That's really low angle. That seems kind of fruity. Pretty easy? Yeah. Yeah. That's hilarious.

I did it on Fear Factor where they climbed the Luxor. No, they actually slid down it. Slid down the Luxor. Like a toboggan ride? Yeah. That seems dangerous. It probably was. There was quite a few things they did on Fear Factor that were dangerous.

Did you have a call in deciding what they did? No, I did not. You just commentated or whatever? There was two a few things they did on Fear Factor that were dangerous. Did you have a call on deciding what they did? No, I did not. You just commentated or whatever? There was two times where I would have said no. One time where they had to ride bulls. I definitely was not into this. Because you thought they could actually get killed? Yes, they could have. We had two different stunt coordinators. There was this one guy

from the beginning who was like, you know, they're badass dudes. You know how you're looking at climbing? Yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, be fine yeah so his this guy's been a stuntman his whole life's name is perry great guy and his attitude was like yeah i would do it i'll fucking do it you know it's like if his idea was that they want to be on tv they should do it too but i'm cool with a lot of that until it gets to animals animals are very unpredictable and this thing was they were going to ride these i mean these bulls were fucking enormous i don't know if you've until it gets to animals. Animals are very unpredictable. And this thing was, they were going to ride these,

I mean, these bulls were fucking enormous. I don't know if you've ever been like right next to a riding bull before, but I was standing on the, like sort of, there's like a platform next to where the cage is. And I'm looking down at the bull and I'm like,

no fucking way. There's no way I would get on that thing. There are thousands of pounds and they're just bucking in there and you see his muscles. How long do they have to ride the bull? They don't get to ride the bull very long because the bull fucking sends them into orbit within

three seconds. A good rodeo guy tries to get to eight seconds. It's not like there's a guy who can just do it all day long like you can climb all day long. No one can do that. There's no one who's ever lived who rides a do it all day long, like you can climb all day long. No one can do that. There's no one who's ever lived who rides a bull until the bull's tired. It doesn't happen.

You go flying. So it's a matter of how long does it take before you fail. That's all it is. It's like try to succeed for as long as possible, but you can't win. And then what keeps the bull from crushing you? That's a good question. They have rodeo clowns. They have a bunch of different people that distract the bull from crushing you? That's a good question. They have rodeo clowns. They have a bunch of different people that distract the bull.

But my beef was the guy was like, well, these here are training clowns, or these are training bulls. What does that mean? He goes, well, they're not as aggressive. I'm like, does that bull know he's a fucking training bull? He doesn't know he's a training bull. It's a bull. So you're basing it on how he's thrown people off him in the past,

how he's going to throw these people off. It's just some sort of a random calculation they make in their cowboy mind. And so we put these people on it, and they got launched. Did they? Launched. It was really scary. One girl, it was really scary because she only weighed like 90-something pounds. And she just, I mean, the bull, like for one second she was on this bull.

And then she was literally flying through the air and the bulls kicking and the bulls foot just went right past her face and I was like okay if that bull kicked her face it would crush every bone in her face even though she has a helmet on it would still probably crush her helmet this is ridiculous and I think on that like who approved that shit NBC everybody that produced a show I think on that. So who approved that shit? NBC. Everybody that produced the show. I think on that occasion, they essentially rolled the dice. No one got hurt.

Everyone was fine. But I think it was a lot of luck. And then the other time was the Donkey Kong. That was the other time where I said, this is crazy. You shouldn't do this. I said, people don't want to eat cum, OK? You can't just serve people cum. I'm like, you're crossing some sort of hey, hey, hey, you're putting out

propaganda. It's funny you say that like what you were talking about earlier with the reality TV climbing stuff, people won't follow me. I actually saw a pitch for a climbing reality TV thing where they were going to... Put that down, son. Put that down. He bought me this photo. He went to

some AVN awards. He goes, I brought you a present. I'm like, oh, thanks, man. It's this photo of guys with giant cocks and their tight jeans. Oh, yeah, I like that. Anyway, so I saw this pitch for this climbing show where they were like, it was supposed to be Survivor meets Ultimate Fighter or something like that, but in a climbing sense. And so it was going to take non-climbers and then professional climbers,

and then we'd teach them to solo, and then we'd solo big walls, and it was this whole progression. And I was like, how are you ever going to have a show where you take non-climbers and you solo walls with them? It's like you can't. The liability is, you know, you're like, dude, that's retarded. It is retarded. Also, actually, I wrote back this scathing thing because they asked me for a casting call.

Can you take your email, forward it to me and I'll put it online? I'm sure I could. Please do. We do that? We do that? I can look for it, yeah. Send it to me. People would want to see it.

Well, I was like, what the heck? I was like, you might as well just have gladiators butchering each other on TV because you're basically just going to be watching Carnage. I mean, because people will actually die. Yeah, no question. That's kind of messed up. Yeah. And I was like, well well nobody wants to see someone actually die you know it's so funny that you say that but yet this is what you do every day you're

like people will actually die but you do that and you know that you won't 17 years preparing for it you know how much time would they need to be conditioned before they could do anything well it depends how easy it was i mean if it was something ultra easy i would just take any relatively fit person take them out with a lot of supervision. And, you know, if it's like a really easy solo. Would you have a bunch of dudes at the bottom holding a sheet by each corner? Exactly. No, like, you know, like my ex-girlfriend.

I mean, I took her up a handful of really, really easy. This is kind of like extreme hiking, you know? Right. But like, you know, I'd be soloing right next to her. She's, you know, taking her time and you're kind of like talking her through it. And you're like, oh, you're good, you're good. So I mean, really fit, like a normal person. And then you get to the top and give her some of that?

You know, something like that. That's how to do it, son. You're all freaked out, full of adrenaline. Ooh, I bet that's a wild ride. Yeah. Did you have to choose her or the mountain? Did you have to get in that situation? It's either me or the mountain.

Oh, that kind of shit. Listen, that's important. That's a good question. Thank you, Brian. Honestly, that me or the mountain. Oh, that kind of shit. Listen, that's important. That's a good question. Thank you, Brian. Honestly, that was actually kind of, yeah, that's about it. Did that happen before? Was there ever a girl who was like, I can't do this? Well, she wasn't like me or the mountain.

But yeah, I mean, those are basically the issues. Like, you're way too much. You're not involved enough, whatever. Yeah. It's always that way. It's always chicks. They want you. They're greedy.

Yeah. Once you give them some good dick, they want you they're greedy once you give them some good dick they want you all the time I don't know if that was not a problem it wasn't a problem probably not

you were doing your best though I was trying super hard I'm sure you tried super hard thanks for being honest with us listen Kat dude you're a fascinating guy I think I think what you're doing

is really very unusual and I'm I'm always glad when I meet someone who's doing something completely different, different than me. It's one of the coolest things about this podcast is that we can sit down with people. I mean, I probably would never meet you in real life. I mean, maybe we exchange e-mails. But to be able to sit down face-to-face with you and have this sort of conversation,

for whatever reason, it only exists because of a medium to display it you know it's it's really interesting i think it's um it's just important i think for a human being to realize there's a lot of different ways to be a person so a lot of different people out there you know you probably would not be happy if you were a singer in a band oh my god it'd be horrible you know i'm saying nobody else would be happy either you're like oh no but you know what i'm saying like some people that's their dream they're in front of the mirror with a hairbrush you know it's funny you say that like actually i got invited to speak at my old high school to uh to tell the kids i was in don't climb rocks no i was in like this like gifted and talented type program where everybody goes and becomes a doctor or whatever

and um they invited me there to speak to tell the kids that they don't have to go to college, that if they want, they can just go and live their dream and do their thing and whatever. So it was actually super satisfying for me to go back to my old high school to be like, look, kids. Where was this high school? Maraloma, just like a high school in Sacramento. Wow. What a cool program. I mean, well, it's the international baccalaureate.

It's kind of like AP program, but kind of like high-end, like, you know, academic program. So this is not specific to that area? This is a national program? Well, the program is national, but the one that is in that specific high school is, like, quite good. And they do really well nationally and everything. And, you know, it's just where I went to high school. So one of my old teachers asked me to come back and tell the kids that, like, you know, even though your parents are expecting you to become a doctor, you don't have to like you can just follow your dream

travel the world do what you love to do that kind of thing it was like it was very satisfying to go back and like have that talk you know after having gone through the program and been like oh i need to go to university i gotta get my degree you know and be like you know what i mean i mean i think that's great and i think and i really value education but like you know sometimes you just gotta do what you love to do yeah i value education value education as well, but I completely agree with you. And I had the same issues coming out of high school. I went to college just so that people didn't think I was a loser. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I was competing in Taekwondo tournaments back then. There was obviously no money in that either, but that's all I wanted to do. And so I had to figure out some way to not be a loser. So I started going to college while I was doing it. All I was doing was fucking up my training. Just taking away time that I could be napping. Time that I could be napping. Well, when you're training that hard.

Oh, yeah, yeah. When you're training for Taekwondo tournaments, especially that's like, I didn't party at all when I was in high school. I didn't do anything. I mean, a couple of times, randomly, I had gotten drunk at a party over my entire high school career. Maybe smoked pot twice or something like that.

But for the most part, throughout high school, I was terrified that I was going to get killed in a tournament and smashed. So all I was doing was just eating healthy and drinking water and trying to sleep as much as possible and training like a demon. So that feeling of being out of high school, I'm like, there's no future in this. I was like, what am I doing? This obsession doesn't go anywhere. It eventually worked out, though. That's the memory, exactly.

But the feeling that I had, that feeling of uncertainty, I think it's so important to let other people know that you had that same feeling. It's so important to do what you did and get in front of those kids and go, listen, nobody has a map of where the fuck you're supposed to go. You could go anywhere. And there's a lot of different ways to make a living.

And if, and if you see someone who's doing something, whether they're an author or a painter or they're flying plane, whatever it is, if someone's doing it, you can do it too. It can be done or you can do your own thing. Nobody's doing it. You know, no one's doing it, you can do it too. It can be done. Or you can do your own thing.

Or even if nobody's doing it. Yes. Even if no one's doing it, you can be like, that is what I want to do, and god damn it, I'm going to do it. As long as it's logical. Unless someone needs to take you to a doctor and tell you you're fucking crazy and you can't actually fly. Right.

There's a little of that. Yeah. But all extreme examples aside, I think it's so important to do that. It's so important to give kids. I mean, how many times in your life have you seen something that was inspiring, that sort of, like, pushed you and, like, give you, like, this feeling of confidence? Like, it's like, oh, okay, that guy did that. God, this world is kind of nutty.

There's a lot of different rooms. Yeah, for sure. Crazy shit. I think a guy like you is, you is a really important example of that. Yeah, maybe. What did it feel like to do that speech? Did you shit your pants when you were up there? Did you get nervous?

No, no. I mean, I'm talking to high school kids. It can't be that nervous. They're all like 16, all trying to get laid. Except they're never going to because they're all like little... They're all nerds? Yeah. That's where Brian comes in.

As long as they're willing to do this on film, we can get them all laid. There's not a problem. I don't think that's really the school to recruit for a... For porn? No. See, you say that, but... They got sticky hands. They all want to get laid.

So I don't see what you're saying. As long as their penises and vaginas work, I think we've got a problem. There you go. And we can solve it. Right, Brian? Yes. That could be something that could derail the career of an aspiring person, though.

You get too much high-end pussy at a young age. It's like winning the lottery. Because if you won the lottery, you're like, why would I work? Why would I be inspired to go do things? I have this free money. I'm going to play Xbox until I die. It can kill motivation.

Yeah. I think that also can happen if you fuck above your head at a young age. Thankfully, I never had that problem. It's ruined you. I'm still extremely motivated. It could ruin you. If you got a hold of some Tara Patrick-type chick

when you were 18 years old, do you really think you could survive that? That girl would wreck you. That would be all you'd think about. You'd be on those climbing peaks, and instead of thinking of your next foothold, you'd be thinking of her mouth on your penis, and then it could get really problematic. You wouldn't be focused. You wouldn't keep your eyes on the prize.

The thrill of getting to the top, but somehow or another be dwarfed. By the thrill of her mouth. By the, yeah. Yeah, the memory of. The thrill of the knowledge that you know. All you have to do is get in the same room with her and shut the door, and you'll be having sex with her. Is that all it takes?

No. I will hunt her down. She was your girlfriend. I think she's actually married now. I didn't use her as an example because she has loose morals. She's a good friend of yours. She's very nice. Very nice person.

We've met her before. She's very nice. But she's married. She's got a baby and everything so i don't think you can fuck her but i'm saying if you did when you were 18 yeah it'd be a disaster for your future productivity it could be right yeah how do you jerk off when you're um in a tent and it's like you're you're in the middle of nowhere like do you just save it until you get get back to civilization don't you do the same thing you do at home? In a tent? Out there hiking? Yeah, I mean, why not? I don't think I jerk off in tents.

I save it. It's waterproof. If you lived in a tent, you would jerk off in a tent. Yeah, for sure. Just gets to a certain point where you're like, alright, I gotta just do this. Yeah, for sure. You gotta keep the pipes clean. But it's all on memory. Do you bring porn on a phone or something like that? Set it up?

You could, but memory is kind of the way, I think. Or drawing it. Cave paintings? Have there ever been pornographic cave paintings that you've ever found? I'm sure there must be. Well, I mean, yeah, definitely. It's interesting, the idea that these cave paintings

represented reality, because there's a lot of weird shit that they drew. A lot of ufologists and Bigfoot people look to as proof of the fact these people experienced that. Imagine if you looked at all of human art.

Sketchy. Get it? There was a real Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse is real because there's a drawing of Mickey Mouse? Like that doesn't make any sense. Like there was these guys I watched finding Bigfoot. We've had the Bigfoot hunter Bobo on the show before. Fascinating conversation.

Is he legit? He's like honestly hunting Bigfoot? Yes. I mean, he's legit in the sense that he's honestly hunting Bigfoot. Does he really think there's a Bigfoot? Oh, yeah. He believes he's had experiences. Yeah.

Is he a weirdo? He's a little weird. Yeah. He could really think there's a Bigfoot? Oh yeah, he believes he's had experiences. Yeah. Is he a weirdo? He's a little weird. Yeah, he could benefit from Brian's program as well. Brian's, Brian's, you know,

whatever. He's, but his life is dedicated to finding Sasquatch. He apparently saw it once or twice or something like that and it's been,

he goes on these expeditions and they go looking for places where people... A lot of fuckery involved, but the reason people keep going is because there was an animal called Gigantopithecus that lived as recently as 100,000 years ago that was an 8 foot to

10 foot tall bipedal primate. An enormous animal that co-existed with humans. You know, just like we drew woolly Mammoth, this is a real animal. So when they have these cave paintings and drawings of this big, tall, hairy thing, it may very well have been something that existed and died off because it lived in Asia. And much like people came to North America following the Bering Strait, it also could have done the exact same thing.

They think it's really possible, especially because of the density of the forest in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, Jane Goodall, the primatologist, she's pretty certain that there's an actual undiscovered primate living in the Pacific Northwest. She said she believes 100%. She said, I'm absolutely certain or something like that. I forget her exact quote.

But I thought coming from a primatologist like her, that's something to be considered. But it also could be romantic confirmation bias. She could just be psyched about monkeys and hoping there's a big one out there. She finger blasts herself to sleep every night thinking about this big ape being real.

Catch him, please. Prove me right. Maybe not. I don't think i've ever heard anybody talk about jane goodall in a sexual sense that's how i got in trouble in science class um there was a uh there was a uh a woman uh who was uh this science teacher that was uh this a kid who was a high school quarterback who was like really smart kid he's very very charming and charismatic and he would flirt with all the teachers to try to get better grades. So I got to class early

and I drew a picture of him banging her and she was screaming out, do it to me monkey style like my hero Jane Goodall. And I got in trouble for that. I can see that.

Before I became a comedian, most of my comedy ideas were expressed from cartoons because I was sort of a drawer. I drew a lot.

I was an illustrator when I was young and I drew a lot of comic book type stuff and so I would draw like teachers doing something fucked up and get in trouble.

I could do this one teacher. She used to wear a lot of makeup so I drew without her makeup but she was a werewolf. I was like, that's fucking stupid. But they suspended me

for that. Some shit that you would get on the internet every day, and you would laugh at it. You would L-O-L, L-U-L-Z. Lulz.

But back in the day, yeah, back in the day, got in trouble. Bastards. Did you get in trouble at all in high school? No.

You were a good kid? I never got less than an A. Never got less than an A in anything? Nope. Wow. I graduated with like a 4.7 or something. That's amazing. And you went from there to college and just like, this is just not stimulating enough.

Yeah, I just wasn't interested, you know? Wow. I was like, I would rather be homeless. Wow. No, no, no. Do you anticipate keeping this lifestyle until you die? Traveling, living in a van, climbing whenever you can? Yeah, well, maybe not the full-time travel until I die.

Just because at some point I'm sure I want to settle down. Do you think you'll ever move up to a mobile home? No, I'll probably get a real house at some point. At some point in time? Yeah. The thing is, it's hard to find a place that I'd want to live full-time you ever been to boulder yeah i have boulder is actually that's like the heart of climbing in the u.s a bunch of climbing companies are based there is it really and there's so much climbing on the front range there that like

yeah that's like that's the heart of u.s climbing yeah while i was there someone died someone fell off one of those flat faces in eldo is that where was out of canyon probably yeah was it people i mean a handful of people die there every year probably every year huh seems like it and do you guys look at those people just people that are just inexperienced shouldn't have been there no generally there's a different i mean there's a there's a publication every year accidents in north american mountaineering and it's just a list of every accident that happened over the year and they have analysis and causes and you know i mean some accidents you read and you're like what an idiot you know and then some accidents what have you ever read uh okay like the first one

that comes to mind that i've always found just totally comedic is uh on half dome there's like this long horizontal traverse where like you basically walk across this little tiny ledge it's like the photos i don't know if you've seen any on the internet but there's a classic photo of me standing on this little tiny ledge and it looks all crazy but so um if you don't place protection across the length of the ledge and you fall you're gonna just swing like you know i mean it's just like a pendulum straight across and there's a corner at the other end of it so if you swing the distance you're just gonna swing into this corner and just get totally messed up and so um i read an accident of like a korean woman climbing you know going big walling or

whatever it's like their first wall and she gets up there and she like takes out the piece of production is like well i'm gonna take the swing rather than like crawling across the ledge or whatever she just like takes the swing augers into the corner breaks both her ankles and um you know and you're like what an idiot you know because it's basically like imagine holding onto a rope swing and looking at a brick wall and being like i'm gonna swing into that wall you know with a 90 degree angle like i mean you know so you read an accident like that and you're like what was she thinking because it's like simple you know any kid would be like this looks like it's going to be a terrible idea you know i mean it's pretty simple physics you know but then at the other end of the spectrum you see accidents where it's just like some totally safe family man or something and like you

know an ice pillar collapses on them like say winter climbing or something because that happens a lot when people are ice climbing things just collapse or whatever and you just get hit with ice and you're dead yeah or like rock fall or something or like freaking um the head of knolls i think you know the national outdoor leadership school like the outdoor program um he was climbing some peak in montana or wyoming or somewhere and tourists up on top were throwing rocks off the top, like, oh, we're on top. And he got hit by a rock and died. And you hear that kind of an accident, and you're

like, that just sucks. Because, I mean, you feel bad for the dude on top, though, too, because you're like... How could he know? And the rock had poop on it. Yeah, exactly. It's a big old rock full of poop. Yeah, it's you. You're hurling rocks into your dick. You ever thought about that? Good point, Brian. You ever thought about that? No, no, no, for sure. You say, hey there down below, I'm about to throw my shit, and it's attached to a rock.

Yeah. Is everyone cool with this? It's super poor form to throw rocks. I mean, shit-putting is actually strongly discouraged. But generally, that only happens early morning when you started during the night, and then you have to poo, and then whatever, and you assume there's nobody there. Have you ever had any weird wildlife experiences? Mountain lions, bears, anything like that? during the night, and then you have to poo, and then whatever, and you assume there's nobody there. Have you ever had any weird wildlife experiences?

Mountain lions, bears, anything like that? I mean, I've had bears eat my backpack a couple times. Really? I've got photos on my phone of a bear eating my pack. But that happens in Yosemite all the time, because the bears are so desensitized to humans that they're, like, used to interacting. There's been a few deaths in Yosemite recently. Not from bears.

Yes, there has. No. There's been two very recently. How recently?ite recently. Not from bears. Yes, there has. Yeah. It's been two very, very recently. Yeah. How recently? Really recently. People getting killed by a bear? Yeah.

Yeah. Are you sure? Because people died from hantavirus this last evening. I'm absolutely 100% positive. Yosemite. In the winter? Grizzly bear. Hold on.

There are no grizzlies in California. They're black bears. Yosemite is not just California though, right? Oh, you're talking about Yellowstone. Oh, did I say Yosemite is not just California, though, right? Oh, you're talking about Yellowstone. Oh, did I say Yosemite? Okay. Yeah, okay. In Yellowstone, there are grizzlies, and they probably did get killed by bears.

Yosemite, grizzly. Yeah. California. They killed the last grizzly. Yellowstone, grizzly, kills hikers. Yeah. Yeah, it's Yellowstone. It's Yellowstone.

Yellowstone recently. I confused the two of them together. No, that makes sense. Yeah, but Yellow... So they killed off all the bears. They had grizzlies in Yosemite, and they killed them. In the state flag of California or whatever, it's a grizzly bear, but they killed the last grizzly in like 1850 or something.

Yeah. The last California... It says it here that they were killed. That's fascinating because um do any of them because they know that um polar bears travel like long distances do grizzly bears ever try to come from places that they don't i don't think so i mean like how far they have to walk across nevada you know is that what it would be that is kind of a grim place to walk across it's a lot of desert that's probably there because they know that what it would be? Nevada's kind of a grim place to walk across. It's a lot of desert.

It's probably there. Because they know that mountain lions have made that trip, which is really kind of creepy. Because mountain lion, it's really interesting, mountain lion pressure has changed because they don't hunt them. 1922 was the last time a grizzly was killed in California. The Sierra Foothills in 1922. The last one.

The mountain lions are hunted in Nevada, but in California they don Sierra Foothills in 1922. The last one. The mountain lions are hunted in Nevada, but in California they don't hunt them anymore. So they've started moving in Nevada, or from Nevada into California. It's really interesting. It's like they've sort of figured out that there's no hunting pressure in California. Actually, I was just reading this article about

urban animals, about small predators like foxes and coyotes and stuff adapting to urban environments, and how there's foxes and coyotes and stuff adapting to urban environments, and how there's footage of a coyote going to an intersection, looking both ways, and then crossing the road. It's basically animals learn the same way anybody else does. It's pretty funny stuff to think about a little fox living in a skyscraper and using the streets just like everybody else. Yeah, it is interesting. They've got a bunch of coyotes that they have tagged

that are living in Chicago. That was actually the example. The article I was reading was about Chicago. Yeah, isn't that nuts? I mean, I think there's like 60 of them. They eat the rats and all that shit. It's really weird. But they have track of them.

I think they have radio bands on them and stuff. Yeah, all the bears in Yosemite are tagged. Are they all of them. I think they have radio bands on them and stuff. Yeah, all the bears in Yosemite are tagged. Well, I mean, except for little cubs and stuff. But yeah, they tag the bears each season. So, Yosemite is California. Yellowstone is part of it's California.

No. Yellowstone is Wyoming. I don't know if it's the surrounding states, but it's Wyoming. And that has bears. That has grizzlies, yeah. You ever go up there hiking? I mean, I have as a tourist and as a kid and stuff it's the surrounding states, but it's Wyoming. And that has bears. They have grizzlies. That has grizzlies, yeah. You ever go up there hiking? I mean, I have as a tourist and as a kid and stuff. And the Tetons, Grand Teton National Park is also like adjoining Yellowstone. So the Yosemite bears that attacked your bag were just black bears?

Yeah, they're just little black bears. They just eat your food and stuff. They don't really attack people? No. I don't think anyone's ever been attacked by a bear in Yosemite. Really? I mean, they're really like, they're cute little bears. And I mean, they're totally, I mean, they're cuddly looking, but it's just that they're around people so much that they

get used to it and then they eat your shit. It's kind of annoying. Yeah. When you see people, uh, feeding bears out of their car, you want to punch them in the face. Yeah. That's, that's a real problem. You don't see that in Yosemite, but you have to, uh, is that Yellowstone where they do that? Maybe. Did you ever see that video? It's one of those faces of death videos where a guy got out of the car to take photos with a grizzly. And they were feeding the bears.

Was he like an Asian tourist or something? He must have been completely retarded. I don't know what his deal was. But there's a video of the guy. He's in the car. Oh, yeah. You got a fucking mall in front of everybody while they were filming it. They wanted to take pictures of him out there feeding the bears.

That's pretty fucked up. The bear saw him. They're like, bitch. Yeah, it's like, well, I take the little piece of meat when I can take the whole piece of meat. That's pretty messed up. Yeah, people don't understand how dangerous grizzlies are. They think that just because they could be in their car and throw the stuff out the window that somehow or another you can stand outside the car

like a guy who's really ballsy thinks he can go out there and do that. That's a lot of meat to dangle in front of them. You look like meat, man. You smell like meat for sure. Have you seen the video? Did we show that video, Brian, of the guy in Antarctica who's in the

grizzly box? Not Antarctica. He's in the grizzly box. Wait, in the Arctic, you mean? Not Antarctica. He's in the Arctic, and he's in a polar bear plexiglass-like box. Did we show that? Yeah. Did he just get worked by bears? No, no, no. He went up there on purpose.

We'll pull it up for you just so you can take a look at it. Yeah, but he's in an armored case. Yeah, it's an upcoming documentary that they filmed that they designed this piece of equipment, this structure, just specifically so this guy could be dropped off there and have these bears try to get at him while he's like sitting there while these enormous polar bear is like chewing at it and sniffing it and opening his mouth and trying to bite it. It's so terrifying when you're watching it. It seems like it's kind of intense.

Oh, it's so intense. Well, he can't, they can't get in. They designed it well. The bear cannot get in. But there's like spots where, you know, like air slots. Yeah. When it gets to the air slot, it's like and then it opens its mouth and it's trying to bite it.

Yeah. It can't quite, but it's so big. I didn't understand for whatever reason. I knew they were big, but it takes seeing it next to a person to really conceptualize like, oh, oh, God. I mean, it's like 12 feet tall. It's unbelievably big. And this guy's in there, and this thing has just got its arms around the box and it's trying to bite it and it's trying to figure out

where the fuck it is. Here it is. Look at that box that this guy's in. And he's up there just chilling around for this... What is the BBC? I'll give it a plug so that people know what it is. Is it the BBC? Yeah, it's a BBC documentary polar bear.

It's from Gordon Buchanan. Gordon Buchanan. What is the name of the show? It's a nature documentary. Yeah. Oh, my God. He's right here. Hey, bear.

Look at this motherfucker. The bear's nose is thousands of times more powerful than mine. It's gathering information before it approaches, like it would when stalking a seal. My scent is strongest at the weakest point, the door. Imagine that door open. It's systematically trying from all angles. Look at the size of it. Being this close, you get an appreciation for what this animal is.

It is one of the most powerful animals on the planet, one of the most intimidating animals on the planet, and one of the few animals that actually see us as food. I wonder how that guy got signed bear's nose has led it to a gap you can sniff me gosh i could have actually touched his nose Look at that. Oh, God. If you haven't seen this video, folks,

you've got to go online and just watch it. This is just a clip. The video is, I believe it airs. Oh, okay, it aired already. It's called The Polar Bear Family and Me. It aired Monday, January 7th on BBC2, but you can find it online, and you've got to see it just to see how fucking insane that animal is. I want to watch the rest of that. I'm totally engrossed.

That was amazing. Well, I would imagine that a guy like you that's so into thrills, like that would be. Well, I'm not into getting eaten by bears. I mean, I'm not saying that you'd so into thrills, like that would be. Well, I'm not into getting eaten by bears. I mean, I'm not saying that you'd want to do it, but that would be fascinating to you. Yeah. That's pretty hardcore. Yeah.

Have you ever had to climb anything in ice? Anything like. Actually, I went ice climbing for the first time like last week in Salt Lake. Oh, really? Yeah. What'd you climb? Like where a waterfall is or something like that? Is that what it's called?

Ice climbing? Yeah. Yeah. Basically. It's like a water course and and, like, ice builds up, and, yeah. So, like, what we did was called the Great White Ice Coal, but it's kind of like a, it's almost like a steep sort of wall slash gully that, like, forms up with a lot of steps of ice.

So you, like, climb a little cliff of ice, and then you go up, like, a steep snow slope, and then another ice cliff, and whatever. Is that real unpredictable, climbing ice? Yeah, yeah, it can be. I would think that there's a lot. For sure, it's much less predictable than rock, you know, because it's constantly, like, changing temperature and, you know.

Do pieces fall off and hit you or anything like that? For sure. Really? Oh, shit. That's part of the reason I've never been that into it. I think it's kind of sketchy. So you just did it as a, just like, fuck it, let me just do this. Well, just to learn how, basically.

Because I'm pretty sure I might be doing some trips to Alaska or something this year to climb bigger granite rock faces. But the thing is, when you go to places like that, it's still climbing a big granite wall, which is what I normally do, but then on top there'll be some sections of ice or whatever. And you have to at least be comfortable hiking in your crampons and things like that. So I was like, well, I've got to at least learn how to use all this gear, you know. So I went out and practiced.

Do you have any desire to do Everest? I don't know. I mean, if somebody would pay for the trip, I probably would, just for, like, the life experience. But it's definitely not, like, a climbing thing. Actually, somebody posted some rant that you had maybe from stand-up comedy or something about making fun of people on mountains. Which I was like, you know, fair enough. The Everest one. Yeah, totally.

I have to. It's, you know, fair enough. The Everest one. Yeah, totally. I have to. It's, you know, it's material. I mean, well, the thing is, climbers make fun of that stuff too because, like, what people do on Everest is so far removed from actual climbing that it's like, you know, they don't even compare really.

It's more of a hike, right? Well, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's a hike, but I don't know if it was your rant or another one, but I mean, you're basically hiring Sherpas to do all the actual climbing for you, and then, you know, if you're like a conventional Western client, whatever, you know, I mean, you're basically being shuttled up a mountain. It's like, I don't know.

Yeah. Actually, so I climbed Kilimanjaro like that with my girlfriend and, well, my then girlfriend in September. And just as kind of like a tourist vacation, you know, like, oh, it'll be fun. And it was my first experience with people like carrying all your stuff for you and setting up your tent for you and doing all the work. And I was like, dude, this is pretty, it's pretty freaking funny. I mean, I felt weird about it, but like, I mean, it is a vacation. I can see why people would do that for, you know, to feel extreme. Cause you're like, Oh, I climbed the

biggest mountain in Africa, but it was like a dude brewing me tea every day and setting it up for me, you know? But, but as far as like going brewing me tea every day and setting it up for me, you know, but, but as far as like going somewhere with the girlfriend, you know, I was like, oh, it's a pretty legit vacation. It was cool. And we got to see more of Africa, you know, that's like full service camping. Yeah, no, it was, it was like, I was like, dude, this is as good as I live at home or better, you know, I was like, it's a pretty legit, you know, that's fascinating, man. Listen, dude, you live an amazing life it's really awesome and I really appreciate you taking the time

to come in here and sit down and shoot the shit with us it was fascinating and intriguing and thank you and best of luck to you and stay healthy

and we'd love to have you come back here and do this again man I'm sure people people love you we'd love to hear your stories and if you want to do that thing with Brian

he's down this weekend are you going to come to the UFC is it on maybe maybe I'll ask you about it well i mean you know this is a rare opportunity this doesn't happen that often where you're going to be in the same place i think i might actually we're gonna have to do this we'll talk about it we'll talk about it thank you very much really appreciate it alex honnold ladies and gentlemen please follow him on twitter it's alex honnold h-o-n-n-a-L-D O-L-D O-L-D

I'm sorry don't go to that A-L-D because that's a different dude yeah that guy's getting bombed on right now fuck I don't even climb yeah H

spell it for everybody H-O-N-N-O-L-D H-O-N-N-O-L-D thank you very much man follow Brian Redband R-E-D-B-A-N and you probably already follow me or you probably already follow Brian too

so whatever why am I talking? Thank you to Ting.com. Go to rogan.ting.com and save $25 off of a free phone, or free phone? Or an Android phone, or service. Contract free, is

what I meant to say. Awesome Android goodness, and a very ethical company. Thank you also to Kerosene Games for their Blade Runner game. Go check it out. Download it off iTunes. It's $2.99, and it's totally fucking worth it. Thank you to Onnit.com.

Go to O-N-N-I-T and use the code name Rogan, and you will save 10% off any supplements. Tomorrow we have Tim Ferriss. So we will see you guys all tomorrow. Tim Ferriss has some really crazy cool shit to tell us, and he's a fascinating and really unique individual. So if you've never heard of him, he's the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and just a brilliant dude and a great guy.

So we'll see him tomorrow, and we'll see you tomorrow. And that's it. Good night. See you. Big kiss. Bye. you