The Rich Roll Podcast - Climber Conrad Anker on Suffering, Risk, Reward & The Allure of Meru

Episode Date: August 24, 2015

Imagine bivouacking in a portaledge — you and two other guys crammed into a small mountaineering tent pitched vertically and dangling on the side of a sheer Himalayan cliff 19,000 feet above solid ground with nothing but nothing below you. Then imagine staying put for 12 days straight to weather a ferocious storm, torrential winds and temperatures that dip into twenty below territory. That’s just one harrowing peek into the life of today’s guest, Conrad Anker – a man widely considered to be the most accomplished high altitude climber in the world and one of the most respected adventure athletes of all time. The team leader of The North Face climbing team as well as the subject of not one but several Outside Magazine cover profiles, Conrad is renown for specializing in not just the highest mountains but the most technically challenging ascents — conquering the trickiest peaks spread across the high Himalaya, Antarctica, Alaska and the big walls of Patagonia. Conrad has summited Everest 3 times, including a successful 2012 ascent without the aid of supplemental oxygen — a feat reserved for only the most elite mountaineers. In a 1999 Everest expedition, Conrad famously located the remains of George Mallory– the legendary British climber who disappeared in the midst of his historic 1924 attempt to be the first to summit the world's highest peak. Last seen about 800 vertical feet from the summit, speculation as to whether Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine had reached the summit before dying has been a subject of much dispute. But Conrad's discovery shed much light on the mystery of this and other pioneering climbs of early expeditions. On a personal level, in 1999 Conrad survived an avalanche in Tibet — a massive wall of snow and ice that tossed his body 100 feet, beat him up badly and took the life of his best friend and climbing companion Alex Lowe. Conrad would later marry Alex's widow Jennifer and raise his three sons, Max, Sam and Isaac. A few years ago I had the good fortune of meeting Conrad, including the privilege of hearing him share the story of his internationally celebrated 2011 attempt to summit a peak previously thought impossible – the Shark's Fin of Meru. Considered the most technically complicated and dangerous peak in the Himalayas, it's an astonishing tale. Now this expedition is the subject of a new documentary aptly named Meru, feted with the prestigious Audience Award at last winter's Sundance Film Festival. I had an opportunity to see the film and I can say first hand that it is extraordinary. Visceral. Harrowing. And terrifying as much as it is inspiring. “A meditation on life, death and everything in between” according to Newsweek, the film works as a true character study, winning mainstream hearts previously unfamiliar with the world of climbing. A redemptive deep look into the lives and complicated pasts of Conrad and his talented climbing teammates Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk (both responsible for not only scaling the peak but also capturing the entire experience on film),

And I think for certain individuals, they're hardwired in their DNA to go explore and to have a higher risk acceptance level. And those have always been the explorers. That's climber Conrad Anker. And this, this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. What's happening? What's going on? What's the news? I am Rich Roll. That's my name. I am the host of this podcast, the podcast where I sit down with the outliers, the paradigm breakers, the big forward thinkers, and in the case of this week's guest, the courageous adventurers. People across all categories of excellence and positive culture change to mine the tools, the insights, and the principles that can help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves.

So thank you for tuning into the show. Thanks for subscribing on iTunes. And thank you for tuning into the show. Thanks for subscribing on iTunes. And thank you for subscribing to my weekly newsletter. If you want to support the show, do us a quick solid. Give us a review on iTunes. We love that. And before your next Amazon purchase, just click through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. It's right there on the podcast page.

Won't cost you anything extra. And it's a great free way to support the mission. And it really does put some nice wind in our sails. So thank you anything extra. And it's a great free way to support the mission. And it really does put some nice wind in our sails. So thank you guys. All right. So imagine this. Imagine you're bivouacking on a portal edge. What does that mean? That means that you are at high altitude climbing and that's when your mountaineering tent is pitched and dangling vertically on the side of a sheer cliff, let's say 19,000 feet up in the Himalayas, en route to the summit of the shark's fin of Meru, with nothing but nothing below you.

Then you're staying put for four days to weather a storm in temperatures that reach 20 below. That's just one harrowing peek into the life of today's guest, Conrad Anker, widely considered to be one of, if not the most accomplished high altitude climbers in the world. Conrad is a beautiful, amazing guy, amazing. And I'm like over the moon to have him on the show today to share his extraordinary life. And I got a lot more to say about Conrad before we get into the interview. But first, all right, Conrad Anker, you might have seen Conrad gracing the July 2015 cover of Outside Magazine. He's been on the cover of that magazine,

like, I don't know, three or four times at least. He is one of the most respected adventure athletes of all time. In the world of adventure, this guy has pretty much done it all. He's the team leader of the North Face climbing team, and he's famous for specializing in climbing not just the highest peaks, but the most technically challenging ascents in the High Himalaya, Antarctica, Alaska, and the big walls of Patagonia. He summited Everest three times, including a successful 2012 summit without supplemental oxygen, a feat reserved for really only the most elite mountaineers. And in a 1999 Everest expedition, he's the guy who located the body of George Mallory on Everest as a member of a search team looking for the remains of the legendary British climber who disappeared in the

midst of the historic early ascent of Everest in 1924. And this was a discovery that shed much light on the pioneering climbs of early expedition. There's a cool documentary about it called The Wildest Dream. You should check that out. Anyway, I met Conrad a few years ago at an event hosted by Summit Series up in Eden, Utah, and I had the privilege of hearing him talk about Meru, his internationally celebrated 2011 attempt, along with fellow climbers Jimmy Chin and Renan Otsurk, to summit a peak previously thought impossible, the shark fin of Meru in the Himalayas, considered the most technically complicated and dangerous peak in all of the Himalayas. And it's an astonishing tale. And now it's the subject of a new documentary called Meru

that won the Audience Award for Best best documentary at Sundance this past winter. And I had an opportunity to see the film and I can tell you that, uh, it's unbelievable. Uh, it's far more than your average adventure film. Uh, and it's really breaking out and connecting with wide audiences. People that have no previous connection to climbing are really kind of, um, connecting with this movie in a powerful way. It's visceral, it's harrowing, it's inspiring, and it's absolutely terrifying. But what distinguishes the film is that at its core, it's really a character study. It's a redemptive, deep look into Conrad, Jimmy, and Renan's complicated past. It's a film about facing tragedy, family, friendship, risk, and the sheer suffering that's required to battle the odds and nature's harshest elements to achieve something extraordinary.

Conrad is really an exemplary ambassador of adventure and the outdoors. Not only is he a mountaineering savant, he is a passionate environmentalist working to combat climate change. And he's just a he's a grounded, deeply mindful person who is very connected to nature with a truly palpable and laudable humility. I really love this man. I'm so proud and excited to share this conversation with you. So without further ado, let's step into the amazing world of Conrad Anker. Conrad Anker in the house. Good to see you, man. It's really great to see you, actually. This has been a long time in the coming, ever since we met up at summit and i got to hear you uh give your give your talk and we bonded a little bit i've been wanting to make this day happen so it took a

little while but i'm really psyched to be sitting with you oh thank you rich it's um i learned more about you from your podcast than you know about me yeah i don't know about that there's there's plenty there's plenty of information out there about you, and I think the world at large is on the cusp of learning quite a bit more about you coming in a couple weeks, yeah, with the release of Meru. Yeah, that will be thanks to Jimmy, Renan, and Chai for making a great movie. It really is a great movie. I would just have a couple of snapshots and a campfire story from it but they've uh they've put it there for many people to enjoy yeah and it's um

i would say that it is exceptional on many levels um i think first and foremost because uh it has the potential to break through the typical kind of adventure movie genre to touch mainstream audiences. And I think that it's already been sort of pre-vetted in that regard by winning the audience award at Sundance, sort of proving its mettle in terms of having a broad appeal to a wider audience. wider audience. So, I'm interested in kind of exploring why you think, I mean, I have some ideas myself, but why you think this movie perhaps is a little bit different from the average climbing or adventure-themed movie. Great. Well, yeah. Well, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it, if it goes a bit bigger. But yeah, there's always, there's climbing movies and then there's movies about climbers. And I think this one is about climbers

and why we go out there and why we do it. And it's a real film. There's no recreation. Everything that we shot on Meru was there. So we didn't go back and make something up. And then interwoven into everything is the story of Jimmy and what led up to that point. And then Renan and then mentorship and friendship and then my personal story interwoven it.

So there's three or four stories that go into it in addition to the story of the Meru climb. Right, and you just mentioned a whole bunch of inflection points that I want to get into. But I think in terms of the film, I mean, certainly the cinematography and the storytelling is exceptional. I mean, I think from the very first, whoops, spill there, from the very first kind of sequence where it opens up. And you guys are perched on that portal edge. And you can kind of hear the wind and you can hear

very distinctly like the rippling in the tent. And then there's that avalanche. I mean, it's so vivid and harrowing. It really transports you like right to that place. And, you know, you can almost, you know, I wouldn't say empathize because I think only you guys know exactly what that's like. But for an audience member to get about as close to what that must feel like as possible on film, I mean, it's really you're gripped from the get go. But then beyond that, it's it is it's a character movie. It's your story. It's the story of your teammates. it's the story of your teammates it's the story of your families and i think that that provides an entry point an emotional connection point for the audience to kind of go on this journey with you and relate to it perhaps in a

way that um a more typical kind of climbing movie or adventure movie would allow you to yeah so yeah i'm, I'm excited. I'm excited. How many theaters is it going to be rolling out in? It starts on the 14th of August, and it opens in New York, Minneapolis, Denver, and Los Angeles. And then the next rollout is a few days later, and then it has a broader. But each day, the people at Music Box are adding new theaters to it.

So, yeah, I'm pretty new to it. I've been in the outdoor industry for 30 years, but the big movie stuff is kind of not, I really don't know much about it. And so, I guess someone related to me that one theater picks it up and it starts going bigger. And then all of a sudden, you get a dog pile effect. Right. It starts going bigger, and then all of a sudden you get a dog pile effect. Right. Well, hopefully that happens, and people in Kansas and Arkansas are going to, in Tennessee,

they're going to want to see something like this. So that would be the best thing. Because obviously within the circles that we travel and people that are into exercise. Yeah, they're going to see it. They're already tuned into it. Right. that are into exercise. Yeah, they're going to see it. They're already tuned into it.

Right. But to break out into that larger audience, I think, has a good potential. I think so. I think so, for sure. Were you at Sundance when it screened, when it premiered? Yeah, we were there at Sundance. So it was really touching to see it. It was the first time I'd seen it on a large screen. And then to be in the back of the audience and to observe

how they're reacting to it. They're sitting on the edge of their seat and you can see them gripping their armrest or going like that. Some of our little humorous moments in there that they chuckle at them too.

And at the end of the day it's real stuff. And as you pointed out some of our little humorous moments in there that they chuckle at them too. Right. And at the end of the day, it's real stuff. And as you pointed out, the opening scene when we were there on the side of the mountain, we were living that. We were up on the side of that Meru for 12 days on that 2011 journey. And so it was like that was the – that look on the face is the, that's what happened up there. Better you than me. And I'm not a good actor, so I'm always like. Well, I mean, everyone looks really pretty calm, but there's a palpable kind of, not foreboding, because that's too negative, but like sort of an undercurrent of tension and nervous expectation about what is to come.

Yeah, when you're up there on a big wall of that size, and so imagine this thing is probably 7,000 feet of gravity. And so you're in this ocean of gravity and you drop your sunglasses, they're going to go tumbling down. And if you don't have a backup, you're going to go snow blind because you're in the Himalayas and the sun's out. If you drop your ropes, you don't have a way to get down. So there's this sense of immediacy and urgency that you have to,

it's you and your team that have to, everything you've prepared for is on the line at that moment, at that time. And I don't find that in day-to-day life. We're just so oversubscribed, overstimulated. There's just too much stuff going on, and you're driving around and this and that. Nothing's really that immediate or important. And when you're on a climb like that,

it's like you have a goal of making it to the summit, but if you screw up, gravity doesn't play favorites. It's going to let you know right away that you made a mistake. Right. Certainly anchoring you in the moment in a way that is probably, you know, escapes you in your daily life. Of course. Right. Which is why I like it.

I'm a hyperactive, high strung, you know, I was a bouncing up the wall kid. Right, right, right, right. Well, let's, let's take it back and, and set the stage a little bit on, you know, kind of how you got into all of this. I mean, I know that you, you grew up, your dad was in the service, and your mother was German, right? And they met when he was overseas. But you kind of grew up in a household where backpacking trips were, that was the summer vacation, right? So you were introduced to this culture at a fairly young age. Yep, that's correct. And my father's side of the family is from Tuolumne County here in California.

And my mother, sister, and brother still live there. still live there and so we would get up into the high sierra and we'd go up with mules and fly fishing and and and that was what we did we kind of lived you know went up there and ate pancakes and i would make little mud dams and float twigs down the creek and we did that every summer for two weeks and so that was my introduction to it and then started out peak bagging and then into roped climbing in my teen years was that something that you did with your dad or you just started you started to kind of take it next level as you matured he gave me an introduction to it so it was we went rappelling with gold line and around your waist and and the dulphur sits and i remember getting a rope burn and all those things and then it it was like, okay, I'm going to find, I'm going to do more of that.

So was it something that during those early backpack trips you locked in on and knew kind of from the get go, like, Oh, I have a passion for this that maybe surpasses the other people that I'm doing this with. I mean, did it happen gradually, like your passion and your love for adventure sport? Yeah, there was this one moment when we'd been out for two weeks and we would go up in the high country

and we'd come back through the High Sierra camps. And so there were these pack animal stocked camps up in the high country and we were coming back in and there was this moment after being out for two weeks and hiking down the trail that i was like wow this is the happiest i am and i was 14 and it was just sort of it wasn't like i needed to be competitive with someone else because it was um it wasn't like oh i'm going to be a better climber than them and um and part of the reason i really got into that is because I was turned off by competitive sports and the pressure and just sort of the way that children are forced to antagonize other kids

and to be competitive and to be better. And so I was like, wow, I'm not into that, but I'm into sports. I'm into physical activity. And so that moment hiking out of the mountains, I was like, wow, this is it. This is my happy place. And so I was like, whatever work I need to do. So this is it. Carpentry, yeah.

This is what it's going to be. I'm going to work to live a good quality of life. And that was, I've always stayed true to that. Yeah, and it is a very unique sport in that regard. It isn't competitive. There's certainly teamwork plays in a gigantic way, but it's about your relationship with yourself and your environment. Yeah, and that, for me, is the most significant part of it. It was that if you and I go out climbing or we do a long 30-mile run in the middle of nowhere, we're a team.

We have to make sure that we're working together and that we're not going to make a mistake. And the adversary is the elements. It's the mountain. It's gravity. It's the storm. It's the bad rock or something like that. like that so rather than say if we're playing tennis where we go back and forth and then the goal is to sort of become a um is to is to beat them and then you hop over the net and you shake your hand and this this like false modesty and you're like yeah but i crushed him and so you're

like it's um and i was always um it just was um it was a it was it just wasn't the right way to interact with humans. And I think that, I mean, part of it, playing football as a kid in middle school. I signed up and I played it and it was just this, I liked sports. I had a lot of energy, a surfeit of energy. I had to put it somewhere. But then I realized that it was just so intense, and then the verb of hitting someone, I mean, that's what they call it when you tackle them.

You come away from it, and it's sort of like, wow, it's not a very healthy way to have humans interact with other humans. And so I really latched on to scouting, and I had a great scout master, and he's this guy that was a Korean War vet. And he was convinced all the youth of today, especially the young men, were turning into a bunch of candy asses. And it was his job to go out and instill character.

So he would do these winter camping trips and all these great things. Well, he's right about that, by the way. Yeah, and I still, yeah, I want to pass that on to the next generation, too. You go out and you try something more challenging, and you come away with a sense of what you can do and your ability, but you're also humbled by it. I think that being humble to yourself and to other people is a really healthy foundation. And I think probably in the next sort of big meta-evolution of human mind,

of where we're going to be, is that we're coming into a more kind and more reciprocal, a more loving society rather than something that's antagonistic. I hope so. But that being said, I watch the Super Bowl every year. It is absolutely crazy. Yeah. You're like, watch this. Well, we live in the world, you know. You're not living in a cave like those amazing sadhus that you pass on the path on your way up to Meru. Oh, man.

How beautiful are those guys? Unbelievable, right? Yeah, and the film where you're walking through there and they're just, their look in their eyes and the way that they bow and they touch their heart to you and just meeting them. I mean, that is the, every time those, all three expeditions that I went to Meru to go visit, it was interacting with the sadhus and going and visiting with them, asking them for their blessing before we go and climb on the mountain. And they're like, yeah, tell us what's up there. Yeah. It's a really special place. They weren't like, oh, you can't go there. It's a bad thing.

It's like, wow, you, there's something that's driven.'s driven. You're a pilgrim and you are a seeker. And so, they respected that. Interesting. Yeah. And I mean, they're holding a lot of energy, those guys. They're carrying a certain vibration up there, I think. I mean, can you feel that when you interact with those guys? Yeah. The sadhus and the matajis, the women that are of the holy life, they've renounced material things and they live off the benevolence of other people.

And so here we are trekking up, going up to 14,000 feet, Tabo Van, which is the meadow at the base of Shivling. So we have all these sadhus that worship Shiva, which is a deity in the Hindu religion. And so they live there at 14,000 feet.

And you'll have these really wise men and an occasional woman that are up there. And they're living under a rock with some tarps and and and a cotton sari type wrap clothing and we're up there with insulated like all right now we're the candy yeah well they're not quite taking it up to the notch that you are but it is interesting what was that ceremony that that you attended that's in the film the um yeah the start that ceremony is at the inotri, which is the jumping off point. So, it's the end of the road and it's the town of Gangotri. And upstream is the source of the Ganges River. So, the Ganges is the most sacred river for the Hindu religion.

And this valley where Shivling and Bhangarathi and Meru is steeped in the hindu mythology yeah i mean that's that's like the vortex yeah so you're going in there and it's like wow and lord shiva hung out on top of shivling for 40 000 years and then brought the ganga river down with his hair and and then his wife is the peak across the way and then meru is the peak across the way, and then Meru is the center of the universe. And if we think about this, that when Hindu religion came into being, it's probably three to five thousand years, it's a very old religion, that when the pilgrims came up and they hiked up into this valley

and saw these immense peaks that probably had more ice on them than they do now, fording the river was just an incredible thing. There was no bridges, not even rope bridges. I mean, they'd have to go on one side of the mountain. It was a real challenge to get there. And they finally got up and they looked at these peaks and they were just going all the way up to the there. And they finally got up and they looked at these peaks and they were just going all the way up to the sky. And I mean, now we're, before we're even born, we know that jets exist and airplanes, and you can have a building this tall as the Empire State Building, all these

things. So, but without knowing that, if you were, you lived out in the plains of India and a seeker came and told you that there was a mountain that went to the top of the world and that was it. So that Meru and then seeing that peak and then having that come out and being a spreading all the way as far as Myanmar where they have

in Indochina where there is a temple of Meru there that's part of Angkor Wat. So it's just kind of how that reach of it and everything like that. So it's a pretty – there's many mountains in the world, but this having that sense of connection to the culture was pretty special. Yeah, that's cool. It has a whole history in that culture that I was not aware of. That's amazing. Very cool. So, taking it back to

you as this, I mean, you've sort of self-described yourself as a hyperactive kid, right? I mean, do you think that if you were growing up now, like, you probably would have been medicated, right? Like, let's calm this guy down. Let's, you know know get him to fit in the box as opposed to you know you were lucky enough fortunate enough to have you know a loving family that said well we got this kid like we got to figure out a way to get him to channel this energy that he has in a productive way yeah right you were supported in that yeah and i think in in the 60s they were medicating children at my age. And that was my mother, particularly my mother and my father, too.

But my mother was she was the one that put her foot down. She said no. And she's still at this date, doesn't like to go to the hospital or doctors or medications or anything like that. And I'm that way, too. I'm averse to it. I'd rather I just don't I don't have a need for it. And so she said no. And she simply attributed it to, okay, he's got too much sugar and there's not enough physical exercise. So it was like, let's just burn him out every day. More exercise and less sugar.

That was her remedy for it. And I think it really made sense to see that. And it'd be great when we have children now, especially young boys, and when I visit classrooms and stuff. Now, there's a weird buzzing noise. Hold on. Let me just pause it for a second. Starting up again. Sorry about that.

We had a weird buzzing noise. Had a little time out. So, where were we? We were talking about medicating children and this sort of level of where we're at. And so I enjoy talking to children about science, fourth and fifth graders, giving them going to classrooms. And I see these children, a lot of them young boys, that are just bouncing up the wall. They're hyperactive, and there's all this energy in them and rather than trying to say okay we're going to solve this with ritalin or something like that or some sort of medication what can we

do to encourage these and work it to their benefit and i think that's i was just as a kid i was hyperactive high strung i can look back at my report cards from second and third grade he couldn't sit still he couldn't hold his attention for 10 minutes he's a bright kid but we just don't know what to do with them right i'm like ah so and i think to this where i am now i'm a very hyper situationally aware person i mean both you and i are we heard the buzz in this microphone right away right okay we're gonna start distracting like i had to stop yeah and so if i'm driving down the road i'm i'm like okay this is the this is la is four four lanes wide of traffic and everyone's going 70 and there's a scrap hauler up there is this load secure if there was to be a piece of metal that came off what would i do or if i'm climbing

if i don't protect the second put a piece of of gear in there, there could be a potential mistake. So I'm thinking about a worst case scenario and then planning about it in reverse. And so if you have that hyper situational awareness, you make for to be a good pilot, a good climber. You want someone that really takes in all that data point. And in a classroom as a young kid, it was absolute craziness because I tried to attend to them all. And I still, when I sit down to my computer, if I don't have a list of the emails I need to do and how I'm going to structure my time,

I just totally... Yeah, I would imagine that... I'm going everywhere. Yeah, if you lived in New York City, you'd be in a constant state of freak out, right? Because there's too much stimuli, right? But when you're on the mountain, you can channel all of that hypervigilance onto the one task at hand. Because there's really just one thing you've got to do at a time.

You're aware of all the variables, but it's like, what's the next thing? You're just on a mission and you're doing one thing. Yeah, and that's what brings it into me. So, climbing gyms provide that. And that play with gravity where you're there and you step off the ground and you're pulling on the holds. And when you're outdoors rock climbing, that's that thing. And so the expeditions are sort of the culmination of all those experiences under one grand journey. those experiences under one grand journey.

When you think of, you look back on your career as a climber, I would imagine that this hypersensitivity, you would reflect on that as being part of your success equation, right? But what do you think it is about you specifically that distinguishes you from your peers or that's allowed you to kind of be in this you know pardon the pun like rarefied air in terms of the world of climbers i i enjoy it every day i guess i mean so there's always that sense of but they all enjoy it yeah but i'm gonna i'm gonna make you step out of your sense of modesty here for a minute um i've got good distal circulation so my hands stay warm in cold places so there's sort of um

and then having done enough trips to the altitude i've um my lungs do well and maybe i've self selected to to climate altitude that's another thing on that but um i that sense of um just being on the edge and being in a really remote place is incredible and i remember as a kid i would set up like pillow forts and i would pretend i was in a in a tent in antarctica and it would be like really there was nothing else out there. And that was like, you would just be like, make wind sounds. And it would just, it was, you know, I'd transport myself out of there. And those kid imaginations are always so rich and vivid.

Right. So, it's almost like you came out of the womb like this. Almost like you're channeling some past life experience, you know? Like, this was bred into your imagination from as far back as you can remember. Yeah, and I think for certain individuals, they're hardwired in their DNA to go explore and to have a higher risk acceptance level. And those have always been the explorers.

You go back in the course of history and in the great books homer's odysseys about that where a few people would go out and leave the comfort of the tribe or the clan and then seek something and with a reward if they come back safely and successfully but then also the risk of failure and and not coming back being part of it and some people that's still there and it's still part of who they are. I mean, why do some people end up being astronauts? Because the confines of nine to five are not there, and they would rather do that than have some other path in life

that wouldn't be as risk and with as much exploration. Right. I mean, I think it brings up a really interesting kind of point about our culture. I mean, we're, you know, our whole society is sort of founded upon this idea of, you know, security and having the good life and trying to create, you know, extra ease in our day to day existence. You know, at the same time, we herald the heroes, we herald the risk takers, you know extra ease in our day-to-day existence uh you know at the same time we herald the heroes we herald the risk takers you know we love to enjoy those stories but the message that we're getting is really not so much to pursue that it's like oh you know the life of moderation is best and you know you'd be best served by having this big screen tv or getting a nicer car or a nicer house. And so, I'm always thinking about

how to reconcile those two worlds. You know what I mean? Like, you know, a big part of your message is to go outside and explore, right? And at the same time, you know, we're telling school children, you know, we're putting helmets on them the minute they walk outside the house, You know, we're putting helmets on them the minute they walk outside the house because we're a fear-based culture. So, you know, how does that play into how you communicate, you know, to the world and to young people? Because I know you talk to young people quite a bit. Yeah. People, we are so conditioned.

And the media is a big part of it. They want us to buy a bigger house, a more comfortable car, more food. And they want us to take on less risk. They want us to be consuming members of society, which means you're productive and you have a job and you can afford more things and status is accorded with fancier cars and all this and any sort of these material measures of life that are there and and and we relate it to the children we have it at a very young age and on my part that there's people that they're like send me letters they're like you're irresponsible you can't be a parent. Alex already died climbing. And come on, you're doing this to the kids again, and you're just incredibly selfish. It's the wrong thing to do. And get a life, grow up, all these things.

So one, I don't like to pass judgment on other people, and I accept everyone as good. And I won't say, okay, that's fine. That's your point of view. And I won't say, okay, that's fine. That's your point of view. But we have this, we have to constantly be growth in our society. We need 4% annually. We need to catch up with China.

They're growing faster than we are. And so this growth versus quality is a thing. So it's that quantity versus quality of life type thing. is a thing. So it's that quantity versus quality of life type thing. And so rather than every time I go shopping for something that isn't essential, i.e. it's not food, I hold it and I go, do I really need this, whatever it might be? And am I just getting it because it's a newer one and that there's like the shopping crave, that urge that that reward or and i deserve it i've earned it or i mean life is hard i should treat myself to these really nice headphones right i'm always like yeah and so there's like that there's that um and then a push and pull yeah and yet i go over to the time i spent in nepal and the nepali people are some of the the

happiest people and we go into these villages and they're like they they're really happy people and they want to um they're i mean and yes there are many people that are happy in the united states but oftentimes there's people that in that you interact in a public space, and they're just, they're not, something's wearing at them. They just, I mean, they're walking around with this weight of unhappiness. And sometimes I want to say, hello, guess what? Life is really short.

You can't go through thinking like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you see these people, these sadhus in India, the monks in Tibet, and so they're living in the moment, and they realize success in life isn't equated to material acquisition. What else about that culture do you think informs their happiness quotient? In Nepal, they're very resourceful people. I mean, yeah, certainly there's unhappiness. There's tragedy and there's things that happen, but there's...

Certainly recently. Yeah. And they, but yeah, they tend to be, there's... It's simple they're. It's simple. Yeah. Right. I'm struggling for words because I really don't know what it is.

And I guess I'm still trying to answer that when I go over there. And so, yeah, a lot of them do want to have a new pair of jeans and a better cell phone and things like that. And it's easy for us, having all these things that make life comfortable and life easy, to say, oh, wouldn't it be great to just go sit on the side of the mountain in a cave? But I think part of it is that in Nepal, it's a pedestrian society, so people are walking. And when you walk on the trail, you interact with everyone. You see them in their eye. Or if it's a friend or something like that, you say hello. And when you're walking with a friend from Nepal and you see how they interact with their people, it's way different than we're driving in a car or in a bus or something like that, where you don't have that sort of connection. Families are very connected and very tight with it.

So maybe that has an underlying part of it. And that there's this, for most of Nepal, is pretty rural. I mean, Kathmandu is a teeming metropolis, an overcrowded, polluted Southeast Asian city, like Jakarta and Bangkok. I mean, the world is full of those places, but the people, when you get out into the sticks, they're, I mean, there's roosters

and there's a simple life. And so there's some happiness there. Yeah, well, I think it's sort of like the Blue Zones. Have you heard of the Blue Zones? Yeah, so Dan, yeah, I've had Dan on the podcast. And a big part of it from his exploration into this question is that communal aspect of having an extended family close and being close with your neighbors and the walking

and all of that, I think, informs all of that. So much to be learned, right? Yeah, it's nice to see that there's it's nice to see that and it's nice to see dan and his work looking at data driven so not just or yeah it's not just observational right yeah yeah yeah because you're always observational and then you end up extrapolating your own views so if it works for me then it's got to work for someone else right and so having that those those data points is really an important thing. And as we have more data, we can then work through leap into, you know, all right, this is what I'm doing. This is my profession.

And I know that, like, you know, the line into becoming a professional climber, you know, isn't exactly like, you know, LeBron James entering the NBA. But, you know, at some point, this becomes basically all that you're doing. And, you know, what was the first big expedition for you? I was 23, and I received a grant from the American Alpine Club to go to Alaska. And so, yeah, there was four of us, and we got $400, $100 each. Whoa. Party down. Yeah.

1987, we were living big. And so we drove a blue, a spray-painted blue Ford Econo line from Salt Lake up to Alaska. I love it. Climbed in the Alaska range and had this great time. And so that was, I think that was, it was a grant from the American Alpine Club. So it was sort of something going on with that. But it wasn't, I continued to climb full-time. After I graduated from the University of Utah, I would work carpentry.

I enjoyed that work. At the end of the day, my job was done, and then I would work really hard for four or five months, and then I would go on a trip. So carpentry, high-scaling work where you're working on rope access, cliffs, and buildings and things like that, and then working hard and then going climbing, and that was how I got my start. And then starting in 92, working with the North Face. Right, and you've been with them ever since. I mean, that's been an amazing relationship. Yeah, it's been wonderful and um yeah i started with them in 83 at my retail work so selling

and there was a holly bar gear shop and they were the old roy holly bar is to sew your own down jacket kids they sold carabiners and that was my my college job. I enjoyed that. And then 92, working and helping with sports marketing to create the story the brand uses now. Right. And what's your role with them today? I mean, I know you're sort of the athlete team captain, right? Is that correct? Yeah. How does that work?

I mean, I know they have these summits where all the North Face athletes get together from all disciplines, all different kinds of sports. And you guys share stories and all that kind of stuff. I'm super jealous. I want to know what that's like and kind of peek into the world of the North Face athlete team. Oh, yeah. On paper, it's athlete team captain, but probably maybe brand compass over the years. So working with our marketing team and our strategic partnerships, corporate social responsibility, film projects, things like that, and having this sort of what is legitimate climbing, what's not climbing, what's good, what's not.

what is legitimate climbing, what's not climbing, what's good, what's not. And then with our athlete team, we have three areas, action, performance, and outdoor. And so action is snowboarding, skiing, free skiing, things like that. Performance is predominantly trail running, and outdoor is climbing and ski mountaineering. And so probably globally about 40 athletes that we have. Probably globally, about 40 athletes that we have. And so recruitment and development of the athlete team, which I really enjoy doing, and meeting the prospective athletes. And with what we do is if you, at Lucien Bolt, you run the 100 meters, you win. It's a quantitative win.

We get that. But what we're doing is experiential. And when you go out in the mountains, whether you're in Shackleton's time or Lewis and Clark's time, you experience it and you come back and you share it. You would write about it in those guys. And in Shackleton, they had still cameras that came along and using these as examples. And so that experiential part of it is key to what we do. So in finding athletes that are good at what they do

and that have an ability to share their story with people that are nice, affable people, they're charismatic, they're intelligent, and all these sort of great things that we do. So it's been a great part of doing that. And then fostering sort of a team, and then cross-pollinating between the various disciplines, and being able to work with the product development team and the sales team to get what we hope the athletes can then do for the brand and then sharing them and helping them to go with that. I mean, all the big brands use athletes, whether you're selling golf clubs or baseballs or anything like that, and we're selling outdoor gear. And so it's been a great journey.

I really enjoy the brand. They've trusted with me what we're doing. And then also now is we're trying to get more people outdoors and more people healthier. And they're like these ideas that we're going to touch on here in a little bit. They're like, here's the runway. Go with that and find out the people that you can work with. And what are we going to do to get this going? Because they're like, yeah, sure, we want to sell more raincoats, sleeping bags and tents.

But at the end of the day, if we get, if we, the BMI of America is less and we're healthier and all these key metrics are lower, then we've done a good thing. And that's, you can look at it from any prism. You can look at it from the prism of I'm an American, it's the patriotic thing to do. Or you can look at the prism that I tend to look at things, it's the right thing. this next growth in terms of kindness and understanding of humans and that this fundamental experience of being outdoors is at the foundation of that. Right. Yeah. Well, it's, you've done a great job and the brand's done a great job because the content

that gets put out is always of a super high quality and the storytelling is always extraordinary. And it's not really, you know, they're not ads, you know, it's like, yeah, you'll see like,

Oh, this is the North face, you know, presents or something like that. But then it's really just about whatever adventure is being told in that, in that film. So they're always really cool. It's the team over there that does that.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know, but it's cool. And I've had a couple of the, the runner guys. I had Timothy Olson on the podcast and I've had Dean Karnazes on too. And those guys are both, you know, I know, I know, but it's cool. And I've had a couple of the runner guys. I had Timothy Olson on the podcast

and I've had Dean Karnazes on too. And those guys are both, you know, they're in a, I mean, Dean's different because he's more, it's more like lifestyle with his running now. You know, Timothy's still competing, but he's such a charismatic, beautiful guy. And he has such an adept way of like sharing his experience of the world.

So I think it's a good fit with you guys which is cool so all right so when did the big you know like you've climbed everest three times you know the big sort of things that have put you on the map when does that start to begin probably in the mid 90s so um there's um probably most climbers have sort of a two-decade window of when they're at their peak and their prime. And so starting in the 90s, that was my trips. And in 96, I did an expedition to Antarctica with National Geographic. I was with Alex Lowe and Rick Ridgway and Gordon Wiltsie, Mike Graber and John Krakauer. And we climbed this granite tower in the middle of the ice cap.

And so that was a fun expedition and sort of a break going a little bit bigger. And then on the 1st of May 1999, on an expedition to the north side of Everest, I came across the frozen, well-preserved body of George Mallory. Right. So that was, for better or worse, I mean, it went around the world. It was just in the nascent age of the Internet and Internet reporting and sort of the mountain zone was the conduit that all that information went out from. So some people thought it was a great thing. Other people, it was, it was vilified and understandable.

Well, yeah, I mean, from what I understand, I mean, for better or worse, that kind of put you on the map in certain ways and overshadowed some of the other things that you've done. I mean, it is an amazing thing to discover his body. It was more in the, I mean, you didn't really have anything to do with how the photographs got disseminated, right? They just sort of leaked out and then that sort of cast a shadow on how the story was being told. Is that fair to say? Yeah, there's, yeah, the photos went through a...

So, the family got upset. Yeah, through an agency. And then the agency went to the highest bidder, and it was the tabloid press. So, that was something as important as this. There was, and significant, it would have been, and that's many years back, and neither here or there. Right, but just explain who George Mallory was. I mean, he attempted this Everest climb in 1924, a very different age in climbing. Yeah. George Mallory was the one English climber that was part of all three of the early Everest expeditions.

So, he was there 21, 22, and 24. And 21, they figured out how to get to the north cold via the northeast fork of the rungbook glacier i mean this is an area that was unmapped it was blank they had to walk all the way in over um from darjeeling up over the julep la through shigatse i mean just an incredible journey on foot with with pack animals to get to the base came back in 1922 they were a little late in getting there. And a monsoon avalanche came in and swept away seven of the Sherpas that were climbing with them. And the expedition turned back in the face of that loss. They took 23 off because they needed more time to organize and to get prepared. And then they came back in 24

early enough to beat the monsoon, which usually sets in around the 1st of June and lasts until the 1st of September. And that's when the majority of the moisture comes onto the Himalayas, especially at altitude. And they gave it a go. And it was on the 8th of June that they disappeared into the clouds around noon local time, last seen by Noel O'Dell, a geologist a day behind them in support. And he had commented that they were moving expeditiously as if to make up for lost time. Subsequently, the question always became, could they have made it to the top 29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay did in 1953? No one ever knew.

It's generally accepted they didn't make it to the top, that they lost their lives somewhere in between the first step and the yellow band, or maybe moving up towards the second step, but not above the second step. These are cliff features on the northeast ridge of Mount Everest. But he was a great character. He had served in the First World War, the Battle of Ypres. And so he'd seen the loss of life and combat and sort of that harsh end of things. But he was also passionate about climbing and the arts and letters.

He was a schoolteacher. And his wife had given him a blessing to go on this expedition. And he disappeared on June 8th, left behind three children. Claire was still alive in 1999 when we made the discovery. and his son John is still alive living in South Africa, and his grandson George is in Australia. So there's a connection with their family. Part of the intention of your expedition was to retrace these steps and perhaps solve this mystery, right? Yeah. Could they have overcome this second step, this cliff band up at 28,300 feet.

Right. And as you're making your way up, you kind of diverged off the path that you were headed on, right? And then something caught your eye. Yeah. We had set out to look for George Mallory's body. We were very clear about that. It was the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition. clear about that it was the mallory and irvine research expedition it was uh funded by pbs and bbc zdf in germany and hk so most of the those four countries their national uh

the republic television exhibition organized and led by eric simonson so our goal was specifically to look for the body of george mall. I wasn't specifically a searcher. I was more on the, to have a go at the second step, to see how difficult that cliff band was. And that was, so we went on to traversing, contouring around at 8,300 meters. I hadn't been to that elevation before. And looking on the features of the mountain, when people fall on big mountains, not a cliff where you kind of, it's like a wily coyote anvil coming off the edge of a boom at the bottom. And then the rotor gets up and runs away.

But this, you tumble down. You tumble, yeah. And you end up in certain places, in eddies, just like you do in the rivers, where a stick might come in behind a rock, something like that. And so there were certain places on the mountain that I realized that there was a good chance that a body would be there.

And then it was a very dry year in 1999. And a very humbling moment to come across his body 75 years after he had passed away. And yeah. And so, how did you deal with that discovery? I mean, did everybody come together? We came together and we, from a very quasi-scientific point, we performed high-altitude archaeology. I wish I had had more archaeological training going into it. I would have treated the site vastly different in terms of measuring it in quadrants. But you're also at 24,000 feet.

A lot of air up there. But, yeah, we brought back some of his personal effects, and they were returned to the family and performed a committal service, read the 103rd Psalm, and did what we could to bury his body there at that moment and sort of bring circle to his life. and sort of bring circle to his life. Right. And based on your observation and your rudimentary archaeological skills, I mean, were you able to make a reasonable conclusion about whether he had summited or not? The best of, yeah, the best of my understanding on it would be, this would be their summit day.

They left June 8th. They were a little late leaving camp. They didn't leave. Nowadays, climbers leave as early as 9 p.m. the night before, or we left at that time about 1 in the morning and climbed through the night. But when Odell had got to their camp, their flashlights were still in the tent. So they'd left the tent without taking their flashlights. And were flashlights that were they weren't headlamps they weren't these fancy things and batteries were i mean they'd hold these batteries on a ship through the suez canal all the way around i mean just gone for the longest not to mention all the champagne too right champagne

so they finally get all this stuff there and they left their their flashlights in the tent they headed out and they climbed up through the um the yellow band which is pretty tricky terrain it's the steepest section on the north to northeast ridge at that point the route that mallory had pioneered and they got above that and they traversed over probably to the base of the first step and it was in that vicinity that Odell had last seen them as the clouds built up in the afternoon, which is typical pre-monsoon accumulation of clouds, condensation. They build, and then they dissipate in the evening as the temperature drops. And they had turned around.

We're coming back down. And one or the two of them had slipped descending the yellow band, which is, it's not outward facing, you're just marching downhill, you have to turn inside and climb. And they weren't using protection as we now use it, which is to put in either a piton, which was the first type of protection, or a stopper, or a spring-loaded camming device, all three of those things. You can then put them in a cliff, and then you can attach a carabiner,

and then you clip your rope through there. And this is the technique that climbers use that came from sailing. So the original, the belay, the bollard, carabiners, all these things came from sailing. So there was someone that cross-pollinated between sailing and climbing and using those techniques, but they were not using those techniques in 1924. So they were probably down-soloing. So each person, they have a rope between them, and the rope has about as much security, say, as when you're in the subway

and it's rocking along and you grab the handle. A little handle hanging from the ceiling. Yeah, it'll keep you from toppling over, but you're not putting 100% of your weight on there. So if someone were to slip, you could grab that rope real quick and keep them from tumbling down. But it's not in the sense that, say, on the Meru film where you see that, I mean, it's very elaborate. We're using ropes for upward progress, and then we rappel down on them, and how we use the modern climbing protection, equalizing them.

And it's very much a different sport than it was in 1924. So one of them slipped, pulled the other one off, and the rope snapped. Mallory fell down and had a compound fracture of his right leg. And my guess is that he was still cognizant at those last moments in his life because his body is resting uphill most of the time when you're unconscious because we're top heavy we end up with our heads downhill and so when you uh see someone that's had a bad fall they end up bought head downhill and that right so this case his head was uphill and it seemed like he'd crossed his like i mean he could have

been moved by another climber in subsequent years, but he probably for a moment or two he thought that he could rescue, someone would come help him out. But life left him, and then there he was. There he was, yeah. Well, in your occupation, I would imagine coming upon a dead body is part of what happens. Especially on a mountain like Everest, you get up above 26,000 feet, 8,000 meters, and you're on borrowed time. I mean, the human body, we have not evolved to survive there. We use tools to get through there, insulative tools, crampons, and supplemental oxygen along those lines.

But if you are a climber, you have to make peace with death. You have to understand that you could die. And then when you see a body in the mountains, it's a little bit shocking initially when you see that body. But then you accept it and i guess in that sense i i think that we've sort of taken mortality and morbidity and we've made it into a carnival type thing you look at all the movies now and you'll be people get killed 20 times in the movie and we're just sort of, it's like,

well, it just happens. They got shot five times. You turn on the TV and there's like boom, boom, boom. And if you think back 200 years, um,

there wasn't that there might be a spy novel where, Oh, he shot them. Right. Well, it's a weird thing because yeah, on television or in movies, it's,

you're constantly bombarded with images of death. But in our daily lives, we walk around really not giving it its proper due. And we all sort of think that we're somehow going to be the exception to the rule or, you know, we defer thinking about it and try to deny its inevitability in our life. But with what you do, it's ever-present, right? It's in the forefront of your consciousness, I would imagine, in a way that it isn't for most people. And it's a, I think it's a good thing. I mean, you look at how we treat our elderly, rather than trying to embrace them. And, you know, maybe it's one of these things in Dan's book about how you live with your elderly and you're there with them,

rather than saying, okay, they're a burden to us, let's move them to the rest home, and then they go into the hospital. And when they finally expire, there's not that, maybe they might be surrounded by friends and family or something like that, but we're just not there in that full. not there in that in that full and our whole industry is about you have to be younger, healthier, fitter, happier go to the plastic surgeon

go do this and it's I think accepting where you are in your stage of life and that the foundation of that is today is the best day of your life and tomorrow is going to be the next best day of your life and that yeah I'm not as strong as i was in my 30s and when i was in my 30s i wasn't as strong as alex and old as a hammer so i and not trying to catch up and be competitive with them but to

celebrate that next generation being better artists being better scientists being better athletes and that we're all on this spinning globe for just a very short period of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that gets into mentorship and the importance of mentorship. And I want to get into that in a minute. But while we're kind of stuck on Everest here for a minute, you know, you've summited Everest three times. And, you know, I think to the average, you know, person, you know, Everest is the ultimate. It's the highest peak.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the most difficult ascent as becomes evident when you watch a film like Meru. But with respect to Everest specifically, over the last, I don't know, 10 or 20 years, you would know better than me, it's almost become

like this bucket list item for, you know, the investment banker of the day to say, I'm going to do this, right? So, you have this, you know, influx of more people than ever descending on this mountain, perhaps, you know, most of which or many of which are not, are ill-equipped or ill-prepared to do it. You know, what is your perspective on that your perspective on that in terms of the amount of people that are treading up this hallowed peak, so to speak? Everest will continue to attract people to go climb it. There is only one point.

If only 3,000 people have climbed it out of seven and a half billion people it's still a sought after goal and um the the people of nepal the sherpa they have created an industry around getting people to the top and they are hard workers they the route has fixed rope from the bottom all the way to the top so um it's not a conveyor belt, but it's a safety line that goes all the way to the top. And it's not— This is permanently there. Each season it gets re-equipped. And so there's a tremendous amount of work that the Nepali,

and particularly the Sherpa people, are doing on behalf of these expeditions that go up there. And the standard route on the south side and the north side, both those routes are— they're unique sort of Everest-type climbing they're not adventure climbing it's not first ascent climbing it's not a different type of climbing and to to compare them to those other types of climbing sort of like the climbing on meru or the climbing on yosemite is you're looking at apples to oranges and so yes it is there's a lot of people going up Mount Everest. It is a sought-after peak. But at the end of the day, I'd rather see the investment banker going to climb a mountain

because rather than hunting a rare animal. I mean, we don't have enough animals left on this planet, especially those charismatic megafauna that look good above your mantelpiece. So, I mean, that's in the news the last day or two. And so it's... It's not just investment bankers. It's dentists. Yeah, everyone.

You could be a mechanic. Yeah. And so it's a real... Climbing a big mountain, it's a good thing, especially something like Everest. It employs a lot of people in Nepal. And Nepal and Tibet, as they manage and regulate the mountain, until they have done an overview of the carrying capacity and how that mountain can then be managed it's going to be a bit of a um it's a goat farm over there right so but this year is the first year since 1974

or something like that that everest will not have a summit on it so it's going to sort of recuperate and oh really so i didn't know that so what is that about yeah the um with the avalanche that uh struck base camp as a result of the earthquake on the 25th of april 2015 there um it's this lockdown yeah they closed up the season and i um i don't think there are any um post monsoon expeditions going over there they'd be setting up right now and there'd be right it'd be in the news but i haven't heard of anyone so yeah giving the mountain a rest and um yeah there is some talk in the mountaineering communities to to have another rest year to say okay we're no no climbing on everest everyone go climb other peaks Well, the amount of debris that must be accumulating up there has got to be vast, right, and extensive.

I mean, when you're going up, you must see stuff all over the place. They're doing a good job. Are they? Yeah. They're starting in the 90s. They had Everest Cleanup Expeditions. And now when you go there, you have to post a bond per person of about $1,000 or so that you bring your rubbish down. I see.

So they're doing a good job with that. They're getting it out of there. Things like oxygen cylinders are souvenirs, so there's a value to them. So you have a market force encouraging people to bring them down, and the ones that can be reused or recycled but yeah there's some how we handle that many people and the challenges of human waste and fresh water on a small village of a thousand people that are trying to climb one route are pretty outstanding and so until Nepal and Sagamore at the National Park comes up with a management plan similar to what Denali National Park has for climbing Denali, the highest point in Alaska and North America, there'll be a little bit of a challenge of how they accommodate that many people. Interesting.

So, back to this issue of death and the ever-present kind of awareness of its possibility with what you do. Alex Lowe, right? Who you lost in an avalanche in which you were, you know, because you took a different tack, were able to survive, but you still, you were in an avalanche, yes. Pete Yeah. Pete And what year was that? Pete That was 99. Pete Right. Pete October 5th. Pete And in the wake of that, you ultimately ended up marrying his bride and taking in his three sons. And you guys have been married now for 12 years?

14. 14 years. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's a very unique and interesting experience that the film explores in some respects. But what was that like, sort of stepping into, you know, that family and being responsible for raising those boys? It was a gift. It's been a wonderful journey.

And it's sort of, Shishapangma is um a fatality it's the brother that then steps in and takes care of that the brother's family and so when we were there the the guys that were helping us out and they were like oh my gosh and even as we walked out of the mountains and my shoulder was in a sling and i had been banged up and cracked ribs and they were like, we've got to take care of them. And the conversations you have with a lot of these people there, they're not the volume that you and I have had in our own native tongue, our mother tongue back and forth and big ideas and things like this. There's always sort of simple ideas.

So that might have been the foundation to it and then coming back and being with jenny knowing um max sam and isaac since max was two and then being there for sam and isaac's birth and and being with them and um that uh love is a you put love in the equation it's a great healing thing and max is with with us here and jenny's with us here and and when we're here in southern california and just working on a film together and kind of um it's been a great journey to have a family in that sense and um to uh yeah it's a unique story i guess yeah and i think i think what's also you know an interesting kind of thing to mine is how that impacted your perception of climbing your risk analysis and you know how you made choices about future expeditions because at your core, you are a climber. This is who you are. This is what you

do. And you could, you know, couldn't avoid climbing as much as you could avoid having to go to the bathroom. Like this is, this is, you know, who you are. It's in your DNA, right? So, how do you, so it's this journey of reconciling that with the fact that you're now responsible for these boys who already lost their father and this woman who already lost her husband. Does that change how you decide to tackle a climb? Certain climbs that have a higher level of objective risk, and that's walking under something with a potential to avalanche on you or ice block breaking off and that would be um um but that was what killed alex and david and and shishapangla and so trying to avoid those type of climbs but that being said having made 10 trips through the ice fall that people can say well that's a load of malarkey.

Yeah, I mean, like... You still went through everything. Yeah, so like, all right, so what is acceptable risk? I mean, your definition is fluid and distinct from the average human being, right? Like, that's a moving target. Yeah, and I've spent a lifetime understanding the mountains and what they...

the dynamics of snow and ice and that's really the challenge in himalayan peaks is that you have that level of um all the ice that's hanging up there and how do you how do you get around that but um there's uh yeah um and if i were to go to if i were to go into a surgery theater and perform a surgery, I would botch it and I would kill that person. That's an unacceptable risk analysis. Yeah, and so it's whatever you do and whatever you know best. And a good firefighter is going to know every time they step into an incident, they're going to learn more about that building. And that's what we're built upon.

an incident they're going to learn more about that building right and that's what we're built upon and in your experience in terms of um where you are with with your podcasting uh that's funny but we all build on experience and so there was um there's a um but i But I – this might sound crazy, but I think that, yeah, what I do, I know when it's going to be risky. Right. I'll go to Nepal again and I'll do another trip and I'll climb these climbs. But I'm there at that moment and then I have to make decisions and assess the situation and the locale and whether is it good to go up and things like that and make sound decisions the best I can whether or not and then also knowing that you can always turn around come back and it's not climbing ultimately isn't worth dying for and you want to come back and and share that but that moment of making that decision to turn around that like critical decision point moment, I would imagine is informed by deep intuition,

which is informed by a lifetime of experience, which is contributed to by your sense of hypervigilance, right? All of these things come into play to help you make that decision. So, I would imagine when an instinct creeps up in you you like we got to go down or we keep going that's not coming out of nowhere that's coming out of a lifetime of doing this yeah so it's a much more reliable intuition or instinct than the investment bankers instinct yeah and they might they might be able to make sound decisions based on their experience with it so um yeah it goes um it's a yeah it's i mean i could be a race car driver that's dangerous stuff or i mean or i could have played football for a bunch i mean there we know there's risk associated with that and there's there's many people that don't take care of their bodies.

And where is that? Right. Yeah, I mean, people watch what Alex Honnold does, and it's absolutely mind-boggling that somebody could be so composed in the process of climbing up know, climbing up, you know, the, those faces that he climbs without any ropes, without any safety net. Uh, but he will tell you that he's done a risk analysis and that there, that he's completely comfortable in, in what he's tackling and to the average person that it doesn't compute at all right so that's what i mean about like a sort of moving target of risk analysis based on experience um but when you look at like you're like on this subject of death you know we're kind of still in the wake of dean potter's passing and and we're

in this kind of phase of of that version of climbing which is very different kind of climbing than you do where the envelope is getting pushed and pushed and pushed. And it seems like to me as a lay person that it's accelerating at a quite rapid rate with the wingsuit jumps and the slack lining and all this sort of thing, to the extent that even Cliff pulled out of sponsoring some of these athletes

because they're freaked out at the risk level. pulled out of sponsoring some of these athletes because they're freaked out at the risk level you know what is your perception of that as somebody who knows more about these things than almost anyone else yeah and i'm happy that people go out and they push the limit and they they accept risk and it's um yeah people are going to say oh they're absolutely crazy and you know these proximity wingsuit jumpers the fellows that thread needles and all these things and they know what they're doing and they know what the risk and the consequences of those um of what's going on there and that um there's i'm i think it's a healthy thing people need to go out there and need to push the envelope.

And whenever this happens, everyone's like, oh, Dean and this and that. And there's this huge burden and this cost to society. And it's like, well, yeah, having to do a body recovery in Yosemite is less expensive than someone going into critical care or chronic care as an old person or something like that. I'm using that as a very numbers-based type thing. So, yeah, Dean is a great guy. Respect, and, yeah, it's tragic and it's sad, especially for his family that were there, that were so close to him and to be affected by it.

But to say that we should should any of these pursuits where your where body injury is is is a chance is should not be good is a little bit crazy and so we're we single out base jumpers and and climbers soloists and all these himalayan climbers because it's super risky but yet on the other side of it's like's like, well, we love football. And in football, you're probably 80%, 90% chance that you're going to have concussive cerebral injuries. And when you're my age, then we're about the same age, there's challenges that you're going to have because you played football that whole time.

And so does Bud Light pull out of sponsoring NFL because they know it's injurious to people and it's a bad thing, and yet everyone's like, we have an energy bar that says, oh, we can't do this on there. So there's sort of, because we do this on our own volition, and there is a high mortality rate, it's a very brutal death flying into the mountain. There's nothing— Well, yeah, they're spectacular. And car wrecks are the same thing. they're being filmed because everybody's got a gopro and that's a whole other you know conversation about um the sharing of these exploits and how they might fuel and inform you know some people

taking an unacceptable level of risk you know to get the clip or whatever um but at the same time this is the burden of the explorer and the pioneer it's sort of like they've accepted that mantle and that's that goes with the territory and culturally you, you know, it's this not love-hate, but like this weird relationship where we want to see them do it. But then this weird schadenfreude when something bad happens and then we have to have, you know, a cultural regrouping where we say we can't do this anymore. You know what I mean? Like we love our heroes, but we like to then attack them or criticize them as well. So, but it's fascinating to watch how climbing is progressing in that regard. Like I saw Valley Uprising and that was quite amazing to see kind of the history in

Yosemite and how it's evolved by these guys, you know, sort of learning from each other and, you know, each person taking it to the next level. But it does seem like it's accelerating quite quickly right now. Yeah. I mean, what's next? Yeah. Well, I look at the mountain biking. It was like, it was sort of like, remember the coaster bikes with the reverse brake?

Yeah. And you'd like do a skid turn around the trees and that was like mountain biking. Right. Riding these spines. Right, with Danny McCaskill, what he does in those movies, it's unbelievable. And I'm happy for it. This is, let's go. I mean, we've got 350 million people in the United States, and we are here because, or 320 or whatever million. We have seven and a half billion on this planet.

And you can, as long as you're not harming other people and malicious and mean and things like that, go out and have fun. And so, yeah, it's an intense conversation and i'm at the i have a very firm views on it because i get i have a target on my back because of that because i'm they're like well you know here you are you lost your best friend climbing and then you marry his widow and you raise his kids to be climbers and the same thing and just that's not a good thing and so some people think it's their prerogative to come in and tell other people how to live right so how do you respond to that i'm a it's uh well there's one way you can say it you know opinions are like toothbrushes everyone has their own toothbrush so you don't necessarily mean i don't don't engage i don't engage because it

just doesn't it doesn't uh the people that mean a lot to me they understand and people that are our friends and they know where we're at and that have a meaningful life, they understand that. And there's a meaningful life by my standards, people that have the same value set. And you understand why we go out and do these things and what's important in life. And perhaps many of the listeners out there do, too. Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that May Rue addresses. You know, like Mallory, isn't Mallory the one who's responsible for the quote when asked, like, why do you climb and why do you tackle these mountains? And he said, because it's there.

So we all know that quote. We didn't necessarily know that it was Mallory who said it, but May Rue kind of updates that response in some regard. Yeah. And I won't spoil it. You should go out and see the movie. But it's a much more nuanced thing than that. And I've been thinking a lot about balance lately, subject of balance and moderation.

And as somebody who's done ultra endurance events, and I know what that's like, and it's kind of a different version of what you do. It has some kind of overlap. And, you know, last weekend I went out to Utah to help the Iron Cowboy finish his 50th Ironman in 50 states in 50 days. And, you know, what he's accomplished is just extraordinary. You know, it really, it defies, I think it's one of the greatest achievements in human endurance. It was really touching and beautiful to be there to witness it and to see the response of people. Like, he had like over a thousand people there cheering him on in his home state of Utah,

and it was the amount of love that was surrounding him. It was really cool. And yet, we're in this culture where this idea of balance is reinforced like live a balanced life and everything in moderation and all this sort of thing and and i've always said like i struggle with balance like i vacillate between extremes and i'm just prone to that i'm attracted to that i'm magnetized to that and what does that mean is that a a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Should I refrain from judging that? But when you look at sort of the great achievements of mankind, these were achieved by people who were arguably out of balance by our sort of cultural paradigm definition of what that is.

It's sort of like we're told to be in balance, yet we celebrate people that are out of balance, but then we tell them you're out of balance. You know what I mean? Like, does that make sense to you? Like, how do you kind of, you know, approach balance? And, you know, I think in the macro sense, you're living a very balanced life.

You're a great dad to these three boys. You're, you know, you're a loving husband. You've been married 14 years. You go off and do these extreme things. But if someone's, you know, like when you're on the mountain, maybe your life is temporarily out of balance. But in the macro, like, I think you're living a balanced life where your priorities are in check. Thank you. You know what I mean? So I'm sure you get this question all the time or that criticism of living out of balance. I mean, maybe that's just a different variation on the question I just asked you.

Yeah. Well, I hope that it is in balance and that being in the mountains and doing these expeditions brings some degree of balance back to it. So it's that adventure out there. And yes, we do. You look at Lewis and Clark that marched across North America and they were seen as crazy.

And they weren't. Same thing with Shackleton. At his time, in his time, he wasn't. Same thing with Shackleton. At his time, in his time, he wasn't, when he came back, not having made it across Antarctica in 1917, he became a hero later in life. So, yeah, it's one of those things, public figures. It's a different. Well, I also think that because being a climber is who you are and climbing is what you do that when you're

climbing you are in your bliss so you are balanced in that regard like you are grounded and present and you are you are the best version of yourself when you are engaged in doing that because that's what you love to do and if people can find that in whatever they do, and whether it's becoming the best barista that makes the most perfect flowers on the foam, or the best chess player or artist, when people have a sense of purpose and a drive in what they want to do, that is probably the most important thing. And a lot of people that I communicate with that are in HR and employing people, that's one of the things they look for is,

does this person have something they're passionate about and they want to excel and they want to do good at? And then ask about that. And those are traits that then encourage people to do good. And I'm fortunate to have found that climbing was my calling and being able to follow it and especially people to do good. And I'm fortunate to have found that climbing was my calling and being able to follow it and especially thankful to society for allowing me to pursue it to the degree that I have. But also giving back, right? Like, so let's talk about mentorship a little

bit. I mean, you had great mentors and now you're at a point in your career where mentoring the younger generation has become an important thing to you. And that's reflected in the movie as well with Jimmy and Renard. And I'm interested in exploring kind of what that means to you and how you carry that mantle. Well, we're the sum total of everyone that came before us. So if we look at this collective ball of knowledge, and each generation passes it on and is able to add to it and then move it on to the next one. And so if you can get close to that ball of energy or hold the ball or touch it, and then you're there to bring it to the hands of the next mean, that's sort of what mentorship is about. And you look at where we are as humans today with everything from technology and science and the arts and philosophy. It's all related to humans moving that ball of knowledge forward and then sharing it with the previous generation.

that ball of knowledge forward and then sharing it with the next with the previous generation and climbing is very particular in that way because it's so it's a mechanical type things you have to set up the ropes you have the carabiners there's belay techniques there's you have to setting things up and so i had someone that literally showed me the ropes. And so there's that learning of how to do it. And, yes, you can learn to climb as a kid without any prior education. You see kids climbing up trees and on boulders, and it's just innate in them. They get out, and they want to go to the top of that little hump there. They want to climb that tree. And mom's like, ah, get down.

And dad's like, be safe. So we're kind of untraining them from that and then right you want to see a mountain you go i want to go climb there and then you have to learn from those those uh that rope and everything on that and there's um in terms of like mentorship there's nothing i can teach alex and old i mean the guy's way better climber than ever was or ever will be and so there's not like from a climbing standpoint, but. But he doesn't have experience in the kind of climbing that you do. Yeah, or life experience and things like that.

And then encouraging them. And that was for me what my great, when Muggs, who was my mentor, said, yeah, you can do it and to give them that responsibility rather than sort of hanging on to it and being possessive of it, but to say, okay, it's your turn now, and you move on with it. And I think that for an athlete that's our age, rather than trying to say, oh, I'm going to try to be there with those guys and try to compete with them and all this and that, it should be like, well, age gracefully and be supportive of the people and realize that when you pursue it at whatever level you're doing, that the essence of doing it, that joy of doing it is the same as when you were doing it at the very highest level. So there's like the old-time climbers that were climbing the gunks into their 80s. And so they had pioneered the sport, but they were still going out there and climbing at this very level that gave them a ton of fun.

Right. Interesting. a very at a level that gave them a ton of fun right interesting yeah and there's the beautiful moment in the movie where uh you're about to finally summit meru and it's all lined up for you to be the first one up and and you sort of pass the mantle on to jimmy and that's sort of a very palpable like tactile way of saying you know i'm the mentor and you're the next generation it's a beautiful moment it was uh i heard that it wasn't originally in the movie either right like that's such a huge character you know moment in the movie yeah chai discovered it so she's like ah this is it yeah it was um it's sort of like uh the um but at that point we had we were so close in 2008.

And then, so we basically did the second ascent all the way up, except for those last two pitches. Right. And one of them was really time-consuming and difficult. That was the one that we turned back on that would have forced us in overnight. And it would have just been, we did the right thing. We got back and no one was injured. And looking back now on the story of Meru, 2003 to 2011, the time that took me eight years to climb it, it was fitting that it was there. But when we got to being that close, it was like, okay, Jimmy, it's your lead. And we're going to get to the top, but it's always when I'm with my climbing partners, I'm always like

you go first and I remember a great guy, Jay Smith, that I climbed with and we'd always be like, oh no, you first. Get to the summit. No, no, no, after you. To be the first person to stand on the summit because you were kind of a team. And it's one of those.

Well, the level of trust and the bond that you have with those guys when your life is literally in their hands has got to be like nothing else. And as a kid, I loved running and I loved going out and doing track. And I always hear about these races where there'd be two guys and they would be like struggling doing the marathon and then they would come through the finish line hand in hand and win it as a team. I would be just like, wow, that's pretty cool. I mean, those things.

Well, that goes back to your earliest sort of perception of sport and being kind of anti the competitive aspect of it the the victor versus the also ran yeah and it was i mean there's probably other things in it but it was um um you know having a a unique name and kind of in just you know playing football on a military base in frankfurt, Germany as a kid. And I was just like, whoa. I mean, it was sort of this, I didn't respond.

It just was difficult. I mean, the bullying that went on there as a kid, I was like, so I'm going to do the opposite whenever I see someone that I can lend a hand or help out to. I think it changed my life because I wasn't the one that had to be. Maybe it changed who I am, but I sort of was like, oh, this isn't. At the end of the day, I didn't feel like a good person. I didn't feel like they were my, it was my team, but I just, it was just sort of like. Wasn't you.

I didn't. Wasn't you. So. Well, I realized that we didn't even set the stage about what Meru is and sort of the mystique around this particular mountain, the Shark's Fin in particular, and how that had kind of defied climbers for 30 years of attempts, right? No one had been able to summit this and you'd made a couple attempts and the movie is really a chronicle of, you know, trying to finally be the first guys up there. Yeah.

Yeah. Is that there. Yeah. Yeah. Is that accurate? Yeah, it's accurate. Yeah, there was this one, there's three peaks on Meru, and the central has this shark's fin that looks like a, almost like a shark's fin or like the flame of a candle that kind of comes up out of the base of this glacier. And it was really aesthetic looking.

And teams had tried it, but it was many climbs. You'll have the most difficult stuff at the lower part and then intermediate stuff in the middle and the easiest stuff on the top. The middle stuff was still middle stuff on this climb, but the easiest stuff was at the bottom and the most typical stuff was at the top so that slow going big wall climbing like you have on yosemite and el capitan that required we had to get that equipment up to the base of that and that brought the necessity of more equipment and more time going into it one of the themes that kind of comes across is your approach to climbing in terms of perceiving the long game, right? Like not just not rushing things, being able to have a responsible level of patience and knowing when to back down. And that goes back into acceptable risk, but always having the long game in mind, right? Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

There, well, I guess the base of it, the mountain's always there another day. So if you don't make it up that day, you can try it again. But that we're always climbing at the, being fortunate with the weather, that there's a break in the weather and that we're not conquering it necessarily, but rather we're finding an opportunity to climb it

that gives us sort of a break in that. So that's sort of the basis of that. But also that just to be always a little bit more patient so um it's you'll get there eventually so which is tough because if you're too patient and driving here in la you'll never get there you know i'm like you really want to get ahead of me go ahead right people just drive fast and like but you have to not bow swim this is not yeah we will slow down and let pedestrians cross or something like that but it um yeah they're the long game we're always um live to see another day i'm interested interested in exploring something I'm sure you get asked about

all the time, so my apologies, but it has to do with, you know, your relationship with fear, right? Which I think is probably unique

and it's interesting because we kind of live in a fear-based culture, right? If you watch the news, everything is premised upon like making us very afraid, right? Like don't go outside or terrorist attacks or what have you. And the kind of fear that you deal with is very different. Is it about conquering fear?

Is it accepting fear? Is it that you're not afraid? Like how does that work for you? Fear at its very basic instinct is our self-preservation instinct. And so that's what has driven humans to become where we are. So we can see what fear is and then change it and make decisions based upon it. And the fear that I encounter is by my own volition. So I'm going to go up on this big wall, and it's a scary place.

Humans aren't meant to be with that amount of exposure and those type of temperatures and things like that. So I can overcome that fear with experience and by having the right equipment and things like that, and then that knowledge that I've been in a similar situation in the past and i can then do it but um i tend to um i'm very accepting of humans so i'm not like oh i'm in a this is a rough part of town i should be afraid i'll be like okay i'm here and i have good intent i'm not i'm not trying to do anything and I've never had any problems with that. Maybe I'm naive or something like that. But I think a lot of fear is conditioned upon what society tells us.

And so we might be like, we make snap judgments. We're looking at a certain person and saying, well, that person is going to be bad. There's going to be problems with it and they're going to see things in a different way. And to really not make judgments about people particularly or locations or places that you are will make you less fearful. And there's, you know, what do I fear in life? Driving, because it's so fast. And you see car accidents, and you're like, oh, my gosh. Driving keeps coming up as a theme here. It's definitely something that triggers you.

Well, I spent three hours driving yesterday, and it was, I mean, yeah, you drive from Bozeman to Missoula, and you it on cruise control and you can download a couple podcasts and you're just looking out there. But yeah, when you're on the 405 in rush hour, like I was last night, it was a scary experience. I was like white knuckling that. Conrad Anker is terrified of the 4055 but meru is not an issue yeah well meru i knew what i was getting into and the cold is an adversary that i can understand and i can i can work with it but um so the semi on the 405 and lane changers and the motorcyclists that are splitting lanes i mean those guys scare me because what if I wasn't paying 100% attention at that time

and I clipped them and they had to wipe out? I don't want to have that on my shoulders. I mean, it's just like all these things are landing on you. I'm trying to deal with them at one moment. How do these high-stakes adventures that you've been on kind of inform how you navigate your daily life? You know, I think somebody might say, well, you're so used to this extreme level of excitement that the rest of your life might be boring. But I have a feeling that that's not the case. that the rest of your life might be boring. But I have a feeling that that's not the case.

It's things, if you, on most of these expeditions, the ones that I've done with Jimmy, like walking across Tibet, you end up running out of food. So it's like, okay. And you end up dehydrating yourself and all those things. So when you come back, you're like, wow, this is tea. This is really cool. And I went to the coffee shop, and the person made me a cup of coffee, and it cost me $2. I mean, it's like really.

Amazing. Yeah, and I'm like happy and thankful for that person. And they're like, it's like a good human interaction. And you're able to hold on to that. Not having all these creature comforts. I mean, so many people are like, they're just like, so my coffee is five degrees off and I'm in a rush. And does it take you that long?

And just a little bit of patience and courtesy with those things, especially for the people that are working there. And I think that influences us. So sort of that being on these long expeditions makes you appreciate the simple things in life, like a soft bed and a well-prepared meal and conversations and your cell phone working, things like that. And, I mean, nowadays it's sort of like we're so programmed that, my gosh, I don't have five bars on my 3G. That's a disaster. Or I spilled coffee on my outfit.

You only have 3G. Oh, now it's 4G 3G. That's a disaster. Or I spilled coffee on my outfit. You only have 3G? Oh, now it's 4G. Yeah, come on, Conrad. Jesus. But yeah, I guess I'm really out of it now. So I can't even get the fastest. Come on, old man. Yeah, I mean, my phone has a clip-in loop on it.

I know, I noticed that. That's what I do with my phone. You clip that onto your belt? Like, how does that work? Oh, yeah. So you can hang it there. I'm going to take a picture of that. Yeah, how you...

And you can also put it on your wrist. You can girth hitch it. Uh-huh. You can hang it in your tent so you could... Right, gotcha. Listen to a Rich Roll podcast. Of course, right. Or sit in your tent, which is...

You know, download a bunch of them. Right. These things have changed. Up on the portal edge. These have changed expedition climbing. I mean, it's sort of like, I mean, back in the day, we would have Walkmans and we'd have cassettes.

And I remember, it was always one side of the cassette that was better than the other. And so you'd sit there, and you'd get a number two pencil, and you'd rewind the whole thing so you could listen to that tape again. And then the batteries would get low, and it wouldn't just shut off. It'd go... Right, right, right. Now you can watch movies and TV shows.

Movies, TV shows. Listen to all your music. You can update your address book. I mean, it's, I mean, this technology, the way technology has advanced in the last 10 or 15 years has got me completely excited for what it's going to be doing in the next 10 to 15 years. Well, that gets into kind of, you know, you're also an entrepreneur. It seems like you've got, you know, 10 businesses going and all kinds of other stuff, you know, off the mountain as well, right? What's going on? What's the latest thing that you're working on right now? And so I'm kind of an idea person. I get people excited about them, and then I want to get them rolling on that idea and build them together. But in working with meeting various people from various disciplines, and so Bruce Johnson, who's a research clinician from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, he and I were in Everest together in 2012,

and then working with another fellow, Alex Phillip, out of Missoula, Montana, who's at Data, and another fellow, Stephen Marshall, who's out of London, San Francisco area. And so coming together with these different ideas that we can then, and pulling into different areas. And what we're working on now is this, our working title on this is, working group, it's METALIS, which is Medical is medical data and lifestyle and so if we have three each of these three medalists yeah so there's um so it's just an acronym right i gotcha

so i pulled them all together so we have um we're looking at the health of the people in the united states so this what we're talking about now is health, where people are, how they're staying healthy, and the cost to it. So Alex is a data guy, and so he works with big data. So he's from a GIS background, and so they've done mapping and things like that. And then now that we can keep adding layers and layers of data, so you can add in stuff from the census, you can add in stuff, data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. And you can look at all these different areas and then kind of figure out the health of individuals. And it comes down to where you live, down to a really, so if you are-

Again, another sort of blue zones analogy. It is. And so working with that and trying to tie in with what dan boynton has been working on with that so it's again extrapolating on that so they're able to look at say if you are in an area that is downwind of an oil refinery your chance you're going to be that much more likely to have melanoma if you live in east. and this is your demographic and you live in a food desert, your risk of type 2 diabetes is going to be that much greater. And so breaking it down into each of these individual areas, and you can look at it county by county in the United States of where people are healthy and what they're not doing. And so taking that information and then that's the data part of it. So we can look at macro data, which is big amounts of data that looks at every level

of where people are, where they're healthy, what they're doing in society. And then you have the micro data, which is the data that you would get off, say, of a fitness watch or your own medical test that tells you on a day-to-day basis how healthy you are and that's improving all the time because you can look on your right you can track what you're eating on your phone and be more aware of that and the more aware of it that you are so trying to combine big data micro data macro and micro data on that um so that's the data compartment and then there's the medical component of this and that is the hospitals which are the providers

there's the insurance companies which are the payers and then there's pharma which is the other part of that and then the third component of it is lifestyle and that's where guys like you and i fit in because we're out there as proponents for a healthy lifestyle what are we going to do to get healthier and be healthier and so having read Dan's book, having met Dan at a conference and interacted with him, great guy, kind of like I'm fascinated by that. So he's taking data.

He's not just saying, oh, I heard about guys, families that live in Georgia or in the Caucasus that eat yogurt that live to be 120. He's actually gone down and mined the data and knows exactly where they are and then trying to pull that out. And some of your podcasts are about those those you know linking data the guy that says okay there's more phds in switzerland they eat more chocolate so if you eat chocolate you're gonna be

smarter i mean it's like let's let's get really focused on this and looking at it so then working with our group that we have there and we sort of meet in a way that we're just brainstorming we're not trying to sell anything to anyone like that but how can we bend the curve on the health of of people and so the lifestyle part of it is where we get out and we exercise we encourage people to to live a healthy life to eat healthier to be more mindful of what they're doing to their bodies and then the other part of the lifestyle is that it does come into our society, which is governed by government, and that is run by politics. So you have an example in New York City where they say the 72-ounce drinks,

there's something we have to sue that. Some people have to change that. There's too much sugar in there. And so other people are saying you're taking away the right to be in that point. So bringing all of those groups together and then brainstorming on ways that we can help create a healthier society. That's kind of our— That's a big lofty goal. It's a big lofty goal.

But it's a worthy one. Yeah. It's a worthy one. And we have fun with it. And it's really neat to see neat to engage all these different areas. Right. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's really similar to what Dan's doing with his Blue Zones projects and how he goes into these cities.

Because he'll tell you, and he probably said to you, the best way to help people is to change their environment. So when you look at, for example, the example you used, you know, an East LA neighborhood, that's a food desert. Well, we now realize that the incidence of type two diabetes there is because it's a food desert. So how do we change that? Like, you know, we're not going to get all these people to move and, you know, you, they can all go see Meru and be inspired,

but is that going to translate into them changing their habits like that's a harder thing you know what i mean but if you can surround them with healthier options that are at an arm's length away or you know build bike paths or you know i don't know you know certain kinds of kinds of um you know uh things that are in the environment that kind of foster a healthier lifestyle is the way that you're going to ultimately get these communities to improve. And the harsh reality is that people respond to economic incentive. And so the insurance companies are seeing this.

They're saying, a type 2 diabetic is going to cost us $200,000 or something like that, especially if it's – I mean, it can be really – and that's just one of the five top killers that are lifestyle related. So, they have an incentive to say, let's see if we can incentivize people to become healthier rather than paying for another three wings in a big hospital like that so the employers too because they're the ones who have to pay these insurance premiums you know for their workforce those are what wellness programs yeah and as companies become more progressive and they understand their their wellness programs and so it's um and it's i'm i'm excited because i'm a mountain climber but i get to hang out with these really bright people in medicine and data and kind of get ideas going there.

I'm sure they're very excited to hang out with you too. You're probably the coolest guy that they get to hang out with. I brought the basketball. All right, so a couple questions I want to ask you before we wrap it up. The first one is, you know, in raising these three boys, what are the values that are most important to you that you instill in them as they mature into men? I guess there's a sense of decency and compassion for other humans is the end goal that we want to have with raising the children, Jenny and I.

So to be kind and generous to other people. And so that's a good foundation for that. And as a parent, to get there, there's expectations and boundaries. And I've set them on myself. And so what are those expectations and boundaries? And everyone has a different set of them. And with our boys, our expectations is that you'll play an instrument in high school, you'll learn a second language in high school, and you'll graduate university.

And so they get those three things done i think they'll have those and we're fortunate to be able to do that not everyone has that ability i realize that and i don't want to sound like i'm like i want to sound i don't want to sound pompous i want to know i got grounded i got you those are the values and that's what's important to us the instrument thing though because you were a trumpet player and your dad was a trumpet player right yeah so music yeah there's a sense of tenacity that you and repetition practice and then language and music they build neural pathways that we now understand that are beneficial so and maybe computer games are doing the same things. They're still out there, but the computer games are kind of more of a treat.

They're kind of like a soft serve ice cream cone. They're not really, like you've got to go learn a second language. So, have any of your boys discovered like that passion that's going to fuel their life yet? Do they know what they want to do and be yeah um max is the oldest and he's a photographer and videographer he's really enjoying that um in the outdoor space and so not as an athlete as alex and i am um but more in sort of the sharing the story and doing things. He loves that.

Sam is going into his senior year as a film student at Montana State, so he loves stop animation and making movies and those kind of things. And Isaac is a freshman at Western Washington in Bellingham with a keen interest in the natural sciences and ecology. That's cool. So they all have a pretty good idea of what they're interested in. They want to do something that's really good. If they wanted to lounge around and eat potato chips,

I would find joy in that. I wouldn't want to be too harsh on them, but I guess I'm a taskmaster. Are you a little bit of a hard-ass no i think so are you i mean yeah my fellow teammates joke about it and i'm on expedition and i'm that way with myself and it um and it's uh there's um you know as when those formative years those the the boundaries expectations, I think, are two key parts to parenting that you can understand that. And so there's certain things. It doesn't come as a surprise.

And you want to get your children set to when they eventually become to go out into society that it is – you you have to earn your keep it's hard work out there not everyone's going to be friendly but if you're friendlier you'll you'll have better luck and you might be happier at it so if you could go back in time and uh give a 20 year old conrad anchor a little piece of advice based upon what you've learned what would that be i would be uh probably do more stretching and more yoga that's it well like there's probably other bigger philosophically maybe philosophically um we could all stretch a little more yeah i mean it's so, yeah, yoga is great. It's just, but the breathing aspect of it, probably in your 20s as a young person, you're kind of self-absorbed. I mean, the world is about you. You don't realize that your impact with other people and things like that.

And that comes with that knowledge, that wisdom comes with experience and age. And some people are born with it and some people have it through circumstance and experiences that have changed them. If you got a tap on your shoulder by the next president said, Conrad, I'd like you to be secretary of the interior.

You know, as somebody who's more in touch with our natural resources and our natural environment, you know, if you were given that kind of responsibility over managing our resources, resources what do you think what do you think needs us to what do you where do you think our attention should be focused well hats off first to sally jule she's doing a great job as secretary interior and she comes from a recreation background and it's she manages her department and team manages more land in the united States than anyone along those lines. But the challenge is when in the interior is that you have national forests and you have BLM land, you have public land that has resources on them. And how do we look at those various, the assets that are held within those lands, whether

it's timber, coal, or natural gas. Those are sort of the three peak ones that were there. And yes, we need to have energy to run our society, and these microphones are powered by it, and we can't escape that. And the first step to understanding energy consumption is knowing that we consume it and at what level and trying to be mindful of that. But some of the other ways that we would see the price

that we pay for carbon fuel here as citizens of the United States is below the market value in the rest of the world. So I go to Nepal and it's a poor landlocked country. They have no coal or natural gas. They have some hydro. And how do they, what is the price of gasoline for their vehicles? It's about four times what we pay here. So that influences their decisions and how they do that. And so, again, it comes back to what we were mentioning about the market economy affecting change within people. We look at Hawaii, where electricity is something far more expensive than it is here on the mainland United States, because all the carbon that's used to generate that electricity has to be imported.

So all of a sudden, solar is very cost-effective. So as the price of conventional electricity rises and the price of alternative energy, wind, solar, and hydro drops, hydro is more fixed than those other two because the technology is continually improving, then it becomes more of a, it's a different change. And so if I had that job, I wouldn't want it. Yeah, it can't be an easy job. Yeah, you have a lot of people that you're trying to keep happy. And it's a lot of respect for anyone that works in the government.

I always thank people that work in the government rather than being antagonistic and angry at them. But finding that point where we can address that energy consumption is sort of the key thing that we need to get as a country in the United States. When we're something like 7% of the world's population, yet we consume about 30% of the world's resources. Although China emits more CO2 than we do, we are per capita far more as each individual will use more energy. And so there's that, um, this point now where, where maybe peak oil isn't the debate that we're going to have as much because we, we become more efficient in terms of ways that we can get carbon out of the ground by being more resourceful and drilling deeper

and cracking the rock and steaming it out of there. All these different techniques. We're becoming more efficient at it. But instead of peak oil becoming the point that we have to be concerned about, it might be peak carbon. So what do we do as we go above 400 parts per million? And how is that ocean acidification, atmospheric CO2, and glacial recession,

those are the three undeniable ways that we can measure our anthropogenic impact on climate. Have you seen Cowspiracy yet? Cowspiracy, it's a documentary. Oh, Cowspiracy. Cowspiracy. Oh, I'm familiar. I haven't seen it, but it's about the methane. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, I think I got a DVD in my car. I'll give it to you. But it basically is looking at that very issue through the prism of the impact of animal agriculture on the environment and really evaluating the extent to which that's kind of the elephant in the room that no one's talking about but it really is having a devastating impact on on everything from you know desertification rainforest destruction ocean pollution you know you name it carbon emissions through the roof all those sorts of things but i think you'd be interested in checking it out yeah yeah that's uh yeah and thanks to you for inspiring a healthier lifestyle. Since I've gotten to know you, I've changed my, you know, it's a cool thing. Cool, man. That's good to hear. Thank you. But, I mean, you're quite the inspirational figure, and I hope that you continue doing what you do.

I think you inspire a lot of people and your message is very powerful. And so I think the way to close it down is just to maybe have you share a few words for somebody who's out there who perhaps is yearning for a little bit more adventure or outdoors in their life, but they're stuck. You know, they're sitting in their cubicle. They're at work right now listening to this, wishing they were outdoors. But that person who just has trouble taking that first step. Yeah. Well, wherever you are, probably in North America where you're listening to this, in Europe, or pretty much anywhere, there is some degree of nature close by. You can always find a place that has trees and plants and things that are that the random beauty of nature. And so we're so you're in a cubicle, you're in this human right angle construct, there's plastic, there's steel, there's concrete, and even like the tablecloth

here has right angles. And it's everything is built into that and when you go outdoors and you go for a run on the trail even the trail and the dirt on it is is chaos it's random and then there's the trees and all that and that's knowing that that wilderness this might not be wilderness but that nature is there can rejuvenate your soul and make you happy. So start out by going for a walk. Go for a run. Check out the climbing gym. It'll help you understand what climbing is. Go visit a cliff.

Don't fall off the cliff. Don't fall off the cliff, but challenge yourself. But yeah, instead of doing something that you've always done, do something that challenges yourself. And let that fear, that grip of anxiety in your stomach saying, I can't do this, let that be your motivator. And as you say, be good, be kind, and be happy. Yeah, a little. That's my, like like that's your mantra yeah so i i like to share it with people so because um goodness leads to kindness and kindness plus goodness

equals happiness so but it's nothing i created i mean it's out out there. There's people that are there. So, thank you, Rich. Yeah, thank you so much, man. This is a joy and a pleasure and an honor. It was really great to talk to you. You inspire me every day and I love following your journey online as it continues to unfold. And I'm really excited for everybody to see this movie and learn more about not just climbing, but, but your life and, and kind of,

um, have that own dialogue with themselves about challenging themselves. So it's going to be cool, man. You're in for a good ride when this movie comes out, I think it's going to be cool. Thank you. So,

uh, if you're digging on, on Conrad, the best place to check them out, ConradAnchor.com. And his Instagram feed is epic. It's at Conrad underscore anchor, right? Anywhere else to check you out? Yeah.

Those are, yeah. That's the main thing, right? Yeah. There's Facebook and those things. Right. But yeah, Instagram's a great community. Yeah. Pictures.

Yeah, your feed's amazing. I love it. So cool. All right, man. Well, come back and talk to me again. We'll talk soon. Will you do that? Yeah.

All right, man. Thanks so much. Peace. Plants. Really special guy, that Conrad it was an honor to talk to him a privilege uh I'm honored to call him my friend and I really hope that you enjoyed it do yourself a favor and check out Meru as of today it's rolling out in theaters across the United States and it's going to be continuing to expand throughout December for a list of theaters go to merufilm, M-E-R-U, film.com, forward slash theaters. For all your plant power needs, visit richroll.com.

We've got all kinds of cool stuff there. We've got Julie's Guided Meditation Program, which has been a hot item lately. We've got nutrition products, signed copies of Finding Ultra, organic cotton garments. We've got plant power tech tees. We've got peace and plants sticker packs. We have fine art prints, temporary tattoos, all kinds of cool stuff. Basically, everything you need to take your health

and your life to the next level. We've got your bases covered at richroll.com. Keep sending in your questions for future Q&A podcasts to info at richroll.com. Having fun with that. If you're into online courses, I've got two at mindbodygreen.com, the fun with that. If you're into online courses, I've got two at mindbodygreen.com, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, as well as The Art of Living

with Purpose, which is about goal setting. They're both multiple hours of streaming video content and online community. Really proud of these courses, very affordably priced. Just go to mindbodygreen.com, click on video courses, and you can find out much more information about them there. Thank you, everybody, for supporting the show. It really means a lot to me. Thank you for sharing it with your friends and on social media. I really appreciate all of that. And thank you for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases.

Have a great week, everybody, and I'll see you back in a couple days with another episode of the RRP. Keep rocking. Peace. Plants. I'm out of here.