The Rich Roll Podcast - Hilaree Nelson On The Virtues Of Living An Adventurous Life

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

It’s so easy to get comfortable. To accept life as it is. To kick back — and just settle. Luxury and ease are what we are taught to seek. But it's actually at odds with the vitality and fulfillment most desire. My experience is that life gets interesting when you have the courage, strength and fortitude to step outside your comfort zone, face a little fear and test your limits. Because extending your boundaries strips away the non-essential, and shows you exactly who you really are. Fail or succeed, this is where all the magic happens. The growth. And a life fueled by purpose and passion. Today we explore these themes with North Face athlete Hilaree Nelson, one of the world's most accomplished adventure athletes. Named one of National Geographic’s 2018 Adventurers of the Year, Hilaree specializes in ski-mountaineering — a discipline that involves huge and often technical mountain ascents either on skis or carrying them, then descending said peaks on skis. Over the course of her storied career, Hilaree has conquered some of the most exotic and treacherous mountain ranges on Earth. Among her many accomplishments: * the first woman to climb both Everest and its 8,000-meter neighbor, Lhotse, in a 24-hour period * the first person to ski down all five of the Mongolian Altai’s “Holy Peaks” * skied from the Himalayan summit of Cho Oyu in Tibet * summited peaks and volcanoes in remote locations across Russia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Bolivia, Argentina, Lebanon & Tibet I first came across Hilaree by way of Down To Nothing, a stunning documentary by Renan Ozturk that chronicles a 2014 National Geographic expedition to be the first to ascend the summit of Hkakabo Razi in Myanmar to determine if it is indeed Southeast Asia’s highest point. It’s a gorgeous and gripping glimpse of Hilaree’s skill and tenacity in the face of a uniquely extraordinary challenge. This is her story. It’s an incredible conversation about fear, risk resilience, adventure and potential. It’s about balancing the pull of adventure against her responsibilities as a single mom to two boys. It’s about the allure of the outdoors. But mostly, this is an exchange about the virtues of placing yourself outside that comfort zone – and what that can teach us about potential. The preciousness of life. And what it means to be truly alive. Hilaree is a badass. It's a pleasure to share her experience. And I sincerely hope it inspires you to seek more adventure in your life. For the visually inclined, you can watch the conversation on YouTube at: http://bit.ly/richandhilaree If you are enjoying the video versions of the show, do me a favor and subscribe! Peace + Plants, Rich

I think it comes down to, if you don't have suffering in your life, how do you experience the opposite? How do you understand what elation is, what fulfillment is, if you don't experience the opposite? And if you haven't had major failures in your life and been able to make something of them, turn them into something you've learned from, then how do you appreciate the successes that you have in life? That's Hilary Nelson, and this, my friends, is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. You know, it's so easy to just get comfortable. You know what I'm talking about?

To accept life as it is, to kick back, to just settle. But my experience is that when you do step outside of your comfort zone, when you have the courage, when you have the strength, the fortitude to face a little fear, to place yourself in a new or unfamiliar situation, to test your limits, well, this, my friends, is where things get really interesting. Because it's where, whether you fail or succeed, it's where all the magic happens, all the expansion, all the personal growth. And on a personal level, it's what makes me feel alive, because there's just something about pushing up against one's limits that really strips everything else away and shows you demonstrably, irrefutably, who you really are. What is up, people? This is Rich Roll. I am

your host. This is a podcast, my podcast. Welcome. Come on in, but don't get too relaxed because today's episode is all about exploring discomfort. It's a conversation about fear. It's about risk, resilience, adventure, potential, and what it means to be fully alive with North Face athlete Hillary Nelson, arguably one of the world's most accomplished adventure athletes. Named one of National Geographic's 2018 Adventurers of the Year, along with past podcast guests Alex Honnold and Myrna Valerio, I might add. Can you tell I'm a little bit proud of that fact? Yes, I am. Hillary is without a doubt one of the most adventurous women in the world of sports. And that title was made official by Outside Magazine. She specializes in something

called ski mountaineering. Yes, that is a term. That is a thing. It's this discipline that involves climbing mountains either on skis or carrying them and then descending said mountain on skis. And she's pretty much the best at this, conquering some of the most exotic and treacherous mountain ranges on planet Earth. And for a little perspective, get a load of a few of her accomplishments. She was the first woman to climb both Everest and its 8,000-meter neighbor, Lhotse, in a 24-hour period. She did both of those in one day. She was the first to ski down all five of the Mongolian Altai's holy peaks. I don't know exactly what that is, but it

sounds very impressive. Basically, she is ski mountaineered. I think that's a word. Crazy remote peaks and volcanoes all over the world. Russia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Tibet. In short, this woman is a total badass. And there's a couple more things I want to say about Hillary before we dig in. But first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care,

especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs.

They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients

to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay. Hillary Nelson. Well, what can I say? Well, I guess I can say this. I first came across Hilary

in this amazing documentary that she appears in. It's a documentary by Renan Ozturk entitled Down to Nothing. It's gorgeous. It basically chronicles this amazing 2014 National Geographic expedition to be the first group to ascend the summit of this peak in Myanmar called Kakabo Razi. I think that's how you pronounce it. To determine if that peak is indeed Southeast Asia's highest point. It's really a gripping watch. It's gorgeous.

And it gives you a fantastic glimpse of Hillary's skill and her tenacity and really the difficulty posed by all of these adventures that she tackles with frequent regularity. So among the many things that are really quite remarkable about Hillary is that not only does she do all of these extraordinary expeditions, she does it while juggling duties as a single mom of two boys. It's quite remarkable. And this is her story. It's an incredible conversation about fear, about risk, about resilience, about limits, about balancing the pull of adventure against

the responsibilities of motherhood. And it's about what the outdoors, what the mountains, what placing yourself outside that comfort zone can teach one about potential, the preciousness of life and what it means to be truly alive. But enough from me. Let's let her do the talking. All right, let's do it. Okay. What are we going to talk about? What are we going to talk about? I don't know. What do you want to talk about? I don't know. I got Okay, what are we gonna talk about? I don't know, what do you wanna talk about?

I don't know. I got lots of stuff I wanna talk about. We can talk about whatever you wanna talk about. I'm just delighted to be in your presence. Super nice to meet you. Thanks, thanks for having me. Yeah, welcome to Los Angeles. Yeah, summertime.

Yeah, I know, it's right. It's crazy. We actually are having like a really warm day, finally. It was pretty cold here. I mean, for LA a couple of days ago. Oh, really? We had frost in the mornings. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's crazy. We actually are having like a really warm day, finally. It was pretty cold here, I mean, for LA a couple of days ago. Oh, really? We had frost in the mornings. Oh, yeah, that's funny.

It was exciting. I notoriously don't necessarily look at the weather for places I'm going. I showed up with like a down jacket and like all kinds of warm winter clothes from Tahoe. Well, maybe last week that would have been appropriate. Yeah, maybe not today though. Yeah, well, I would imagine you're pretty prepared

wherever you go. Yeah, exactly. Usually for snow, maybe not for like traffic though. It's funny, I came in here earlier, we were setting up and that air conditioning was on. I was like, oh, it's so cold in here. It's gonna be really cold. And I was like, wait a minute,

like I think Hillary will be okay. I'll be more comfortable. Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, congratulations on being named one of the 2018 National Geographic, what is it, Adventurers of the Year. Yeah, thank you. That's exciting. Thanks.

It's cool. What does that mean? Yeah, it means a lot to me. Yeah. I worked really hard last year. I had kind of a crazy last couple of years just in my life in general. just in my life in general. And so to really go for it last year was a big deal for me.

And then to be recognized by National Geographic for it was pretty awesome. It's cool. Yeah, it's cool. I'm psyched. And it was, well, first of all, just for the listeners out there, I was super excited to also see Alex Honnold as one of the awardees.

Yeah, and what he did last year was absolutely incredible. He was just in here a couple of weeks ago. Oh, was he? Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was cool to talk to him. He's pretty awesome. And also maybe even more special was seeing Myrna Valerio. Right. And I don't know much about her, but I have done a little reading up on her. She's really cool.

She sounds pretty incredible. She's awesome. I've had her on the podcast too. So I'm honored to have my third National Geographic. There's two more, right? There's five total. So I'm going to have to track down the other two. No, I think there's like eight of us for this year.

Oh, there are eight. Yeah, there's Killian Jornet. Oh, yeah. He's one, of course. And then this female, this surfer. I don't know her very well. I don't know, I have to go back and look at the list. Cool, so that was really based on this expedition that you did this past year.

I mean, you've done like a bazillion. I can't keep track. I'm like, I don't even know. I can't pronounce any of these names anyway, but walk me through what you did this past year that got you on that inductee list. Well, I have been obsessed with this mountain in India ever since my very first expedition. And this is going to totally date me. It was like way back in 1999, a different century.

I'm way older than you. Don't worry about it. Yeah. 1999. A different century. I'm way older than you. Don't worry about it. So in 2017, I've made one attempt on the peak before in 2013 to no avail. We didn't really get very far on the mountain at all. And in 2017, between 2013 and 2017, just a lot kind of went on in my life in general. And I'd actually had kind of a lot of not successful expeditions that I'd been a part of. In fact, some were like just total disasters.

And I really wanted to go back to Pupsura. It's called the Peak of Evil, which you really can't get a better name. Which is like so epic. It's pretty epic. If you're going to name something like that, I can understand the call. Yeah. So it was just calling me to go back. And it was kind of like, I saw it as this circle of life, kind of of my life and sort of a place where I started and a place I wanted to go back to and ultimately, you know, end with some success. What is it that spoke to you or speaks to you about the peak of evil?

Like, I'm interested in how you make the choices that you make. And, like, it seems like you're very deliberate. You take your time. But once you're in, you're all in. So, what, you know, how do you make that decision? Like, why was that one so important? I know you'd been there before in 2013, but... Well, just to give you a little background of how I like to climb and where I like to go,

in nearly a 20-year career of expeditions, I've never been back to the same place twice. I like to... I've been back to regions, but never the same mountain. I've been back to regions, but never the same mountain. I really like the adventure and the mystery and the unknown and all that logistical planning that goes into it. But for some reason, Papsura just kept pulling me back in. friend of mine first showed it to me all those years ago it just looked so unattainable and so beyond anything i had the skill set for because because it was just this massive incredibly remote peak with to me and and i'm a skier first and a climber second, it just had this—I mean, I think about the aesthetic of the peak and the ski line on it, and it just gives me the chills. It's like this photo just seared in my brain of this mountain.

I mean, I was in my early 20s when I first saw this mountain and was very new to the combination of alpine climbing and combining it with skiing and big ski descents. And it just seemed like this absolutely perfect mountain that I would never be able to climb. mountain that I would never be able to climb. But then flash forward 17, 18 years and I just changed my skillset and I worked really hard at learning things and putting myself into different difficult situations in the mountains and just getting that skillset in general. So what is it that you had to master to do that one? Like what was specific about that? Like I know it wasn't, I think I read like, yeah, we're gonna talk about suffering. But I think I read, maybe I'm mixing up expeditions,

but doesn't this have like a 60 degree descent on it? Like it's super steep, right? Yeah, it's super steep. It was really steep. I was just talking about it the other day at this sort of speaking thing in Estes Park in Colorado. And this guy who was a climber in the back was like, well, I mean, you had your ice axes. So, you know, if you'd lost an edge, couldn't you have self-arrested? I don't even know what that means, by the way.

Self-arresting basically means if you fall on something steep, you have this really pointy, sharp metal thing that you use to, like, slam into the side of the mountain so you don't slide all the way down. But the conditions were such that if you lost an edge, there was no way you could possibly stop yourself. you lost an edge, there was no way you could possibly stop yourself. And it was that steep, and it was kind of this hard glacial ice with just a tiny bit, a couple centimeters of snow on top of it. So it was really, really intense. I mean, I can't say we made a lot of ski turns. We descended on our skis. Wow. How long did it take you to descend? Wow. How long did it take you to descend? Four hours to do about 3,000 feet, which if you compare that to skiing like a powdery spine in Alaska, it might take 30 seconds, you know? Wow. So a big difference in timing and just focus and a big challenge with that face is the top of it is over 21,000 feet.

And there's not really a way to acclimatize. Once you're on the face, you start at 17,000 and 17,800, and you have to go all the way to the top. And you can't really acclimatize in there. So, I mean, you're an endurance athlete yourself. Yeah, but nothing like that. I know, but it's like you have to train for this endurance side of things that is really unique because it's very slow paced

when you're at that high of altitude, but then also your decision-making is compromised. Right, without the oxygen. Yeah, yeah. But you trained, so you did this with this guy, his name's Jim Morrison, right? Yes, yes. So you weren't doing this alone. My significant other, yeah. Uh- trained, so you did this with this guy, his name's Jim Morrison, right? Yes, yes. So you weren't doing this alone.

My significant other, yeah. Uh-huh, and you guys trained like on Telluride, like doing crazy stuff. Right, so I think this was all part of the National Geographic recognition was that we started by training, because for me, it's not about training to be an athlete. It's training for exposure and mental state when you're in a tough position. I've been an athlete my whole life, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sorry to step on your toes with that. No, that's okay. But I'm interested in how you see it breaking down between the, you know, how much of this is mental versus physical? Ooh, I mean, I, this all kind of goes into suffering. It all comes back to suffering. But for me, I like to get into that space where it becomes way more mental than physical. And I only do that through kind of intense, long endurance climbing. But obviously you have to have a high physical level of training and then combine that with the mental side of it.

I mean, having kids really has helped train my mental fitness. kids really has helped train my mental fitness. But at some point, the physical fitness, the physicality of climbing only gets you so far. And what really helps me to succeed and maybe others like Alex Honnold or Conrad Anchor is being able to draw physical strength through mental toughness. Right. And beyond being a mother, how do you develop that for yourself? I mean, is that just a matter of putting you into those situations where you're tested? Yeah, it is. I mean, it's really easy for me to put on running shoes and go for a run and keep that physical fitness level, ride my road bike, go for a mountain bike. But to get that exposure training, I really have to put myself into situations where Telluride is a great place to do this because of these crazy couloirs that are in the mountains there. Telluride is a great place to do this because of these crazy couloirs that are in the mountains there.

I can get into a really tight couloir that, you know, rolls to 45 degrees. And then you have to pull out ropes and, you know, you can't fall or you're going to fall over a cliff. You have to really like be on every turn. And that to me is where the real training kicks in. And plus you're starting to work with all the gear you need, harnesses and ropes and knots. So much gear. For you, it's like even way more. Like, all right, let's-

Ridiculous. Let's like define our terms here. Okay, yeah. I know there's a lot of mountaineering terms that are really good. Well, first of all, like when you first came across my radar, I'm like, wait, what?

Like, she does what? Like, I thought like, you know, climbing or mountaineering, you know, Alpine climbing, that's its own little subculture. And then you've, you, you're even, you're into this subculture within a subculture of ski mountaineering. And I'm like, what is that even? And like, where did this person come from and how does that work? You know, like you're not only ascending these insane peaks, but you're doing it with skis and then skiing back down. Right. Yeah. So that complicates things because-

Why? What is it? I mean, in some ways, I like the skiing part of it because it keeps what you're climbing up to a certain level because you have to be able to ski down it. So I'm not climbing up El Cap carrying skis on my back. No, that would be interesting. That would be interesting. So it has to be some sort of, I don't know, mountain or objective that while it has pretty intense alpine climbing side to it, you still have to be able to ski down it. Right. Or ski descend.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how many people are in this little world? Oh my gosh, it's such a small little niche. Yeah. I mean, backcountry skiing or side country skiing, which is when you would go up Mammoth and you would go out a backcountry. I don't know if Mammoth has backcountry gates, but you'd go into the side country. Backcountry is where you're just ski touring.

There's tons of that in the Sierra Mountains. There's tons of that all over the U.S., the Alps, where you put skins on your skis and you walk up something and you ski back down. Ski mountaineering, I define it as something that's more multi-day and typically requires travel to some sort of foreign, exotic, adventurous place. That doesn't have to be, but that's ski mountaineering. And ski mountaineering to me involves crampons, which are the spiky things on your bottom of your boots, and ice axes, and harnesses, and there's a huge climbing aspect to it. Yeah, it's so dynamic because you have to be so multidisciplinary in your approach. Right. And it's different from alpine climbing in the sense that a lot of ski mountaineering, even though you're with partners, you're doing all the climbing

by soloing. You're not necessarily roped together. And that was the case on Popsura, which was, you know, a 3,000-foot, 50 to 60-degree, basically ice face that you're just soloing. And why do you think you were able to master it this time? Like, what happened in 2013? What changed that allowed you to conquer it? in 2013, what changed that allowed you to conquer it? Well, the beauty of going back to a second place or going back to a place a second time is you have done all the reconnaissance. And so that was new to me. And it really just allowed me to not have to focus so much on the logistical planning and really just focus on the mountain and the peak and having already seen it and knowing what it was all about.

There was a third member that went with us, so we were a team of three this time, and Chris Figgenshaw, he was with me in 2013. I made a lot of logistical changes in that we went later in the year, so we went this time in May instead of March. And we went with just three of us in 2013. There were like seven of us, which is just too many for a face like that. And we approached differently. So the biggest problem in 2013 was that we only had eyes for one particular route. And after coming home and thinking about it

and thinking how dangerous that particular approach was, I was able to look at the face differently and realize that there was a different approach that was much safer and longer and better skiing actually. So those kinds of changes were made between the two expeditions. And in my first try, we actually did this huge, like 40 to 50 mile ski traverse at altitude and tried to climb. And this time we just went straight in and straight out. Right. Interesting. So, well, congrats on that. Yeah, thanks. It's pretty amazing. And just kind of looking at your career, I mean, what you've done, I don't know, 40, 50 of these expeditions. Yeah, 40, yeah, a lot of expeditions. I mean, there's so many of them, I had to like make this like cheat sheet.

But it's like, you know, some of the highlights like first to climb Everest and Lhotse in 24 hours. Yeah, yeah. Has anybody done that since? Not the first woman, the first person, right? Well, first, I mean, probably, yeah. Well, and with my partner, yeah, 24 hours. Yeah, that's so crazy. Yeah.

So you had Kilimanjaro with a broken leg. Yeah, that was intense. And with my kids, oh my gosh, and they were four. Right, with your kids, four and six at the time. Which we're gonna to talk about. First ski descents of big peaks in Mongolia, India, Russia, and Greenland. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. And what's interesting is you're probably best known for this epic expedition in 2014 where you went to Burma. Yeah. And attempted this mountain called K Kakubo Raze. Kakubo Raze. Kakubo Raze. Yeah, yeah. I was almost there.

You were close, you had it. I almost got it. You pretty much had it. I watched the documentary, Down to Nothing, which was beautiful. Oh, really? I mean, the cinematography is so extraordinary. I mean, that is a story in and of itself with Renan Oztsterk and Corey Richards making massive efforts and sacrifices in making that film.

Yeah. So, I mean, let's find interesting about your career is, you know, there's a lot of missteps and, you know, quote unquote, I hate that word failure, but like where you miss the mark or what. But there's been a lot, yeah, yeah. And you just keep going. And so I'm interested in your relationship with failure. Like, what does that mean? What does it represent to you? How does it motivate you or play into how you approach each adventure and think about it in the aftermath? Well, ski mountaineering, alpine climbing, I think expeditions in general don't typically have over the span of a career a high percentage of success rate. So I would say, I mean, I'm probably pretty 50-50 on success.

And, you know, I like getting to the top of a mountain, as silly as that sounds. Well, of course, the amount of energy that would drive you to do this, you know, that's obviously very important. Yeah, I mean, and you put so much effort, like Burma, for example, was two years of planning before we actually even stepped foot in the country. And I mean,

I went to Pakistan for an 8,000 meter peak when my first son was 10 months old and didn't summit, you know, and that was like heartbreaking to make this time away and not be successful. So there's a lot of things that I perceive as failures, but I've also had to sort of redefine what success means to me along the way. Yeah. here, sitting here with you and telling stories about these expeditions and things that I've learned about the human nature and interpersonal relationships and banging your head against a wall sometimes and overcoming failure is become sort of, I guess, my success story in some weird twisted way. So if you had to distill down those lessons,

and I know you get up in front of people all the time, you're getting a talk tonight, what is that message that you're trying to convey when you tell these stories? I think it's truly, truly a necessity to have a passion as a compass in life. But to have a passion on some levels really sucks and it's worth it, you're going to fall on your face several times on your way to like sort of reaching the goal that is the fulfillment of this passion. And I've done it epically on many levels, but I think happiness is not a great word to use. I don't like that word.

I think just in search of happiness or fulfillment or just a deeper understanding of my own self and how I can inspire people has been really the culmination of those times falling on my face. Yeah, right, right, right. Reaching that passion, so. Yeah, so in other words, like passion is, you know, has its beauty and it has its dark side. It has a really dark side too. It's a, you know, it's a close bedfellow of obsession, which I know that you are familiar with. Fine line between the two.

And the pursuit of that passion or the following of that obsession, in your case, involves, you know, suffering and also elation, right? But suffering is unavoidable. In fact, suffering is a key component to connecting with yourself in that way, like on that path to like, you know, really trying to understand what makes you tick so that you can come back more fulfilled with something to say, right?

Is that accurate? Yeah, and I mean, I think it comes down to how, if you don't have suffering in your life, how do you experience the opposite? How do you understand what elation is, what fulfillment is, if you don't experience the opposite? And if you haven't had major failures in your life and been able to make something of them, turn them into something you've learned from, then how do you appreciate the successes that you have in life?

Yeah, I think- It's all connected. It is, it is. And I think, well, a couple observations. Most people, maybe not most people, but there's a lot of people who don't have that true north that drives them. They don't have a passion or they don't know that true north that drives them. They don't have a passion

or they don't know what it feels like to have some form of healthy obsession that propels them forward. And that combined with a culture that emphasizes security and safety and luxury and comfort at the forsaking of suffering creates a population of people who are not connected in the way that you're intimately familiar with, right? So I would imagine when you go and you speak, you probably meet a lot of people that might say something along those lines to you. Like, I don't know,

how does that feel to be that way? How do I find my passion? Right. I definitely get a lot of questions of like, what drives you? What makes you go back to continue doing this? And I don't always have- From a place of confusion or like, why, why? Why? Yeah.

And there's been plenty of times in my life when I'm, and take peak of evil, for instance, when I like wake up in the middle of the night obsessing, you know, this crazy dream that I'm back on that mountain and I have to go back. And I mean, believe me, I just wish it would go away sometimes and I could just be content with being comfortable and having showers and. Right. Almost like you have no free will. Like you're fulfilling some past life destiny. Yeah, maybe, geez. The reincarnation of a Himalayan Sherpa or something. Yeah, something.

Yeah, it's wild. It's cool. I mean, look, the subject of, I mean, suffering is something I appreciate and understand the value of. And I've had plenty of guests and lots of your North Face teammates sat across from me. And I'm remembering Dean Karnazes speaking eloquently

about the importance of suffering in his own life as a really, as a tool, as a vehicle to that deepening, that quickening of connection with self that allows you to really understand what makes you tick and be a fully integrated person, right? Right, right. And so whether it's running or climbing or whatever your driving North Star is.

Yeah, maybe it's music, maybe it's your job or your family, whatever it is, you have to work hard for it. It's something you just have to work hard for. And stop looking for the shortcut, but actually embrace that difficult journey ahead. Right, yeah. Yeah, I just popped into my mind that movie Whiplash. Did you see that movie about the drummer? Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I saw that movie. So it's like that's an analogous example. It's just a different context, but it's kind of that same message. Yeah, suffering and enduring discomfort. And I mean, and I've said this a bunch of times, like one of my biggest fears in life is getting, is just being too comfortable

and having every day be the same. And I think I go to sometimes unhealthy extremes to keep that from coming to pass, you know? So let me throw a word at you and if you could respond. What comes to mind when I say balance? I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is I get asked a lot, like, how do you balance it all? And I don't. To me, balance is a moving target. I think it's this sort of ever morphing thing that I strive for. How do I balance being a mom, doing these expeditions? I find myself compartmentalizing a lot.

And I don't have a lot of balance in my life. Well, I think, I think, you know, I think we're, we've become confused about this subject matter of like, how do you, how do you live a balanced life or how do you find balance? It's more for me, like reconciling, like my love for the suffering and all these other things that other people would think is out of balance. Like that's my equilibrium point. Like the pendulum is swinging, you know, it always has to come back to the center. Like you can't-

That's a good way of looking at it actually. Yeah, I like that. It's just, if you look at your, the way I describe it for myself and maybe you'll relate to this is like, if you look at your life over a one-year or two-year or three-year period, like, it probably looks balanced, the time with your kid, whatever. It's not going to look like somebody else's life. But yeah, it's not balanced to like,

okay, I'm going to, you know, my kids are going to stay at home and I'm going to go to Pakistan. Yeah. Yeah, that's not balanced in the traditional sense, but that's something that you are compelled to do in order for you to find your own equanimity, right? Right. Right. Yeah. When I look at my life over a longer stretch of time, I see the balance in that length of time when I look at, yeah, in the macro, when I look at it in this micro picture, to me, it's, you know, there's a lot of highs and lows and there's, you know, just swinging back and forth and craziness. And I think climbing and expedition life in general lends itself to crazy emotional swings where you're, and as an athlete yourself, I'm sure you can relate to this, you have these goals and you focus so hard within the moment to attain these goals. And then when you get there, it's kind of like this crazy letdown on some level.

And so emotionally, you're kind of this up and down yo-yo effect. But yeah, over time in the macro picture, it smooths out, it normalizes, it balances itself. I like how I cracked up when I saw this, that like you're trying to sort of, in an effort to kind of maybe normalize a little bit, you're like, I need to be home a little bit more. So rather than go out on three or four expeditions a year, I'm going to do one and I'm going to do an Ironman. Like that'll give me more time with my kids. Like most people is like an Ironman, you're never going to be home. You know, it's like for you, that's like really like shrinking it down to a manageable task. Yeah, that was my 2016.

I didn't go on a single expedition, but I- How'd the Ironman go? I did an Ironman. Which one did you do? It was in North Carolina. Uh-huh. And it was a new one. And I don't know if they did it again, but they cut the bike ride in half because they'd just gotten that big hurricane.

And so I got a little gypped. So now I guess now I'm like, I'll just do another one. All right, well, let's talk about the Kakubo Razi. Kakubo Razi, oh. So in this movie, I mean, well, let's talk about the Kakubo Razi. Kakubo Razi, oh. So in this movie, I mean, look, there's so many like interesting aspects to this expedition, but I think one of the things that made it super unique is, well, I want you to describe it,

but you had this like 30-day trek through the jungle just to get to like the base camp, right? And that was like, you know, before you even start actually ascending this incredible mountain, you guys are just have already met and faced and had to overcome like a bazillion unforeseen obstacles. Right. It's crazy. Right, it was crazy. Why don't you just like helicopter into base camp and harder than it already was? The premise behind that expedition, like the majority of us had just come off of the Mount Everest climb a few years before. And we were really like trying to do something very anti-Everest in the sense of just a complete

unknown adventure and that involved traveling overland so they're really first of all there isn't really an option to fly in with a helicopter it's just doesn't happen there and it's super sketchy and I wouldn't want to be in a helicopter that would fly that far north in that particular country, in that region. Right. So we're in Burma, Myanmar. So we're in Burma. It's the same thing, right? Myanmar, yes. So right before we went in 2014, Obama officially, as the United States,

recognized the new name and started calling it Myanmar. So we, you know, in the film, I think we refer to it as Myanmar. But yeah, Burma, Myanmar. And I go back and forth in how I use it because it's still the Burmese people that live in Myanmar. But we ended up, I mean, Myanmar is a unique place to begin with. It had been closed off for decades to Westerners, most definitely in that very northern region. And something a lot of people don't know, I didn't really even realize this, is that it's the Himalayas that drop down into the northern part of Burma. And that's where we were headed.

So it's the very eastern tail of the Himalayas that end in Burma. And so the idea was you're going to chart this mountain. It's never been ascended. And no one really knows exactly how high it is, right? So you're going to get a GPS reading on it and make it official. Right. So it had been climbed once in 1996 by this Japanese man who had subsequently been killed on Everest a few years later. And he was a famous, you know, Japanese climber. I'm totally spacing his name right now, of course, because I, whatever.

But he described it as the most difficult mountain he'd ever been on or near. And he made it to the top on his third climb, his third attempt, and didn't have any kind of GPS. And he did the jungle thing? He did the jungle trek too? He did the jungle thing. He did the jungle trek multiple times. Wow. But that was 20 years prior to our trip. And no one had really been in there since then. So it was just an adventure. And we went overland from Yangon, which is over a thousand miles south of the mountain and walked 150 miles through the jungle over two weeks to get to the base. It was like day 30 when you finally got to base camp.

It was day 30 when we got to base camp. From the day we left the United States to base camp was 30 days. And what was cool in the movie is there's little dials, like odometers for like your food, you know, like how much food you have. And you could see it like, oh man, it's gonna be a problem.

Yeah, and that was the biggest problem was running out of food. And they were just, you know, unforeseen things like getting bribed out of our rice reserves by the sort of military outposts in some of these remote villages. And like your gas didn't work right or something like that. Yeah. And we, you know, my history in planning expeditions is doing it in Nepal and India and even Pakistan where they have a huge history of climbers coming to their mountains. And that history just doesn't exist.

That infrastructure for climbers is non-existent in Burma. And so finding porters to help carry our loads back to this incredibly technical peak and having enough food to get us back there. Like, you know, we needed 80 porters. Yeah. We had about 25 or 30. So we had to cut our gear by two thirds. It just, you know, it was just, it was epic.

Yeah. Well, I mean, and I think I've heard you say this before, like, that's adventure. Adventure is, adventure begins when things start going wrong. Right, right, yeah. If it all goes smooth, then how much of an adventure was it really? Right. I mean, and the irony is that, you know, yeah, we spent two years planning this trip and then you get there and everything you plan just kind of goes out the window.

Right, you have to take time to get permits and just legal logistical things. And then once you're actually there and the immigration officers are stopping you in the airport and telling you that all these permits you worked so hard to get are no good and you can't get on the plane and you can't get – I mean, it was just one thing after another. Yeah. So you had to throw down some dollars here and there. There was a little bit of smoothing things out along the way. There was a little bit of a, a little bit of smoothing things out along the way. There was just craziness. You were trying to figure this out on Google Maps, right? There's no like route maps or anything like that.

There's no route maps. There's no information on the peak whatsoever. And Google only can take you so far. And of course, like a lot of, 90% of the technical part of the climb on Google Maps, when you look at the imagery, is all like blurred out. So you can't really tell what you're up against. And, yeah, I mean, it was, on one hand, it was totally awesome. Yeah. I mean, it was exactly what we were looking for.

We just forgot to remind ourselves of that when we were in it. And this was a National Geographic-sponsored expedition, and you were the team leader. There were five of you. There was one other woman. Yeah. And there's been, you know, there's sort of this widely, you know, documented, publicized rift that took place when it came to who was going to make the final push up to the summit. Right. And that was, you know, in the movie, it kind of just glossed over that aspect. Right, right.

It didn't make a big deal of that. Right. But there's certainly been a lot written about that. And you were, you know, kind of outspoken about not being one of those people. and about not being one of those people. And I think it's, if you're willing to talk about it, you know, in light of kind of, you know, we're having a cultural moment right now. Yeah.

Female empowerment. The male-team happiness. And, you know, this is your time, Hillary. Yeah. This is an amazing moment right now. And as somebody who is, you know, a phenomenal female role model, you know, an embodiment of female empowerment,

can you walk me through like what happened and kind of how you, I mean, that was, this was a couple of years ago now, how, you know, your perspective on it now in light of kind of what's happening at the moment. Right. So it, this has always been a hard thing for the last few years for me to really talk about it in a clear, succinct way. There are so many things in life. There were so many complicating factors and contributing personalities, contributing histories that made this situation so unique and so difficult. I have been climbing and skiing mountains for, like I said, a really long time, and I've never experienced this type of team dynamic before.

And I think, you know, whether or not I should have been on the three out of the five of us to go to the summit, I should have been included in the conversation. And that's where things really went south. But if I can paint you a picture of where we were, we left base camp with really like eight days of food to go off into more absolutely unknown terrain. We made it up to this high ridge at about 18,000 feet, and it's incredibly exposed. So maybe it's only eight feet wide at most and 50 feet long, and it just drops off into sheer cliffs all around it. So the wind was blowing, you know, gusting 50, 60 miles an hour,

and we're trying to have these conversations and figure out how we're going to go forward. And the stress, we were already, you know, fairly starving. We already felt like we just skirted death several times, just even getting to base camp. And there were, you know know really i conceived of this trip with a co-leader on the expedition mark jenkins and he was a writer for national geographic and has done tons of expeditions himself and is a writer which i said and um what happened was basically the disintegration of our relationship as climbing partners on this expedition. And I think my naivete, if you will, was that I thought the trip was about the two of us climbing. And to me, sometimes that's more important than really reaching the summit. It's really just

maintaining that partnership and that interpersonal relationship. And Mark had this whole back history going on of where he'd been there to try this mountain before with his two best friends, who in the intervening years had both been killed in climbing accidents. And I think his vision was that he was going to climb with Renan and Corey and sort of reenact this moment that he wanted to relive to honor his best friends. Right. And I knew nothing about that. And so he just sort of manipulated the situation to where he was climbing with Corey and Renan and just completely cut Emily and I out of the equation.

Emily admittedly was, Emily Harrington, who's an incredible climber. I mean, she kind of said like, I'm done, I'm good. She was done. She was pushed to her point. But in no small part because of the pressures from the rest of the team put on her. But this was new terrain for her. So her stepping out of it was totally understandable and the right thing. And I think it was just the way it came across at high camp

where I found myself in this position of like, totally shocked and like, what are you guys talking about? Like, what do you mean I'm not part of this climb to the summit? Like I know how to climb and my climbing came into question and it was just really an awful, uncomfortable situation and sent me into quite a tailspin for months after the expedition of, was this a female thing? Because as a female in a mostly male climbing world, I am constantly feeling like I have to prove myself. And at some point when I've been doing this long enough, it's like, all right, I am who I am. I am what I am. You National Geographic Adventure of the Year. Like, I don't think you have anything to prove to anybody, but I can imagine, you know, how challenging, I mean, I can barely imagine like how challenging that must've been. So these three guys go off, they make the push,

they ultimately have to retreat. Right. And then you've got like the movie just kind of, you know, suddenly, you know, flash forward and you guys are home, basically. But, like, you had to go, you had to do that hike again with them. Yeah, we had to hike all that way out again. And with the fractured, you know, there's no unity amongst the group anymore. Did you have to repair that to make it home? Yeah, we did.

We did repair it to some extent, for sure, with Corey and Renan. And Corey Richards, who's one of the most incredible photographers I've ever been able to work with, and he's a National Geographic photographer, and he just has incredible raw talent. But he's also a very temperamental person. He is incredibly confrontational, and we've done stuff together, and we have this interaction where we can like growl at each other and fight. And then we get over it. And then we get over it, and we talk about it, and we work through it, and we move on. And that is exactly what happened with Burma. And Renan is quite different in that he's very stoic. He's quiet. He doesn't go deep into conversation about these things, but that's just his way of dealing with a situation, but we, you know, talked quite a bit as well on the way out.

And really it was just Mark who really dug his heels in about both Emily and I, and not considering our skills to be up to par. There was, I don't know if you read some of Mark's blogs. No, I didn't go that deep in. Yeah, I was- What I heard there, I was fairly vilified in those. But I heard there were some remarks that were made, and then you were placed in a position of having to respond to that. Yeah, yeah.

Are you guys like, are you good now, or is that just broken? No, not really. And I'm okay with that, too. And with Renan also? No, no, Renan and I are great. You're cool. And Corey and I are great, and same with Emily. Is Ron also?

No, no, Ronan and I are great. You're cool. And Corey and I are great. And same with Emily. But Mark just, he beats to his own drum to begin with. And I am old enough in my, wise enough, if I could use that word, to just not need to repair certain relationships and to be okay with that. I gotcha. Well, let's take it back a little bit. Okay. Talk about nicer things. I wanted to talk about that, and I appreciate your being open about that.

In order to really kind of understand your career and what makes you tick, I think we really have to understand your background, your childhood a little bit. You grew up in a very interesting, adventuresome type of family situation. You guys would go on these crazy boat trips. But it wasn't like you were that little kid skier from day one, like you were playing all kinds of sports, right? Grew up in Seattle. playing all kinds of sports, right? I grew up in Seattle. I grew up in Seattle and I kind of had this same sort of life that I see myself in now, only mine's a little more extreme, but we were the very like normal mom stayed at home. Dad went to work. I played traditional sports. So did my brother and sister lived in the suburbs. And in the summers we would get on this old wooden Chris Craft boat and then go off and have these

crazy adventures up in the inside passage in Canada. And, you know, we'd be on the boat for weeks on end, you know, sometimes, you know, the whole summer, you name it. And this was before cell phones and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, the freedom and the kind of, I don't know, openness of that, I would imagine kind of informed your path on some level for what happened later. Right. I mean, the way I kind of look at it is I had these really two strong influences. And one is that structure of team sports. And for me, it was basketball, which was the main one. And then I had this freedom and this wild side, whereas like a five-year-old, I'm running my own boat in like black waters of Canada and on these beaches and there's bears and fishing and all of that.

And kind of pairing those two sides to me is very sort of mirrors where I'm at now, where I have this home life and kids and then I go off on these big expeditions. Right, right, right. And kind of how a lot of times I feel like I'm two different people. Yeah. It sounds like dad was kind of intense. My dad's pretty intense. Yeah? Yes.

He was like the guy at the soccer games or the basketball games, like getting heated. Yeah. He's that guy. Yeah. I can't, I mean, there are countless games, basketball games that he just got straight up thrown out of the gym. Uh-huh. And, you know, he was my coach. So basically I played basketball with the same group of women from the time I was seven years old to 18 years old.

And he wanted you to be like a college basketball player. He wanted me to be a college basketball player. And he was very much, I mean, he still watches the videotapes of my basketball games and still is like, I can't believe you missed that shot. Are you serious? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Wow. So that's, I mean, look, that's heavy, right? It's heavy. Yeah. I mean, when you're in it, when you're a kid, you don't know any different, but like-

Right, you don't know any different. That's an intense situation. Right, and he was really intense with my brother and my sister and just- And were you in the pecking order of your siblings? I am the youngest. You're the youngest. Yes.

Oh, wow. So he maintained that. And was he throwing down on your brothers and sisters too? Yeah, much more so than me. I think I got the- He mellowed by the time he got to you. He mellowed a little? Yeah, much more so than me. I think I got the, I got the- He mellowed by the time he got to you. He mellowed a little bit by the time he got to me. Not too much though.

Well, and I also learned how to like kind of duck and dive. I was pretty good at it, so. But with that comes generally, you know, that sort of, I mean, you want that approval, right? Like you're like, you know, if he's like, hey, you should have done this, you should have done that, like. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny. I mean, I, of course, then ultimately went down a path that he doesn't, an athletic path that he doesn't understand or relate to. And to his credit, he supported me

the whole way and has done, you know, a lot of effort trying to understand it a little bit better and, you know, would pull along the way of being like, when are you going to get a real job? When are you going to stop doing this? And I think in large part because what I do scares my parents. Yeah. Well, it scares most people. They don't understand it. Yeah. Yeah. They're not unique in that. But it doesn't even kick in until you're at Colorado College, right? Right. Yeah. So, I mean, were you going to play basketball at Colorado College or you just decided you weren't going to be a basketball player? Well, I had decided I wasn't going to be a basketball player, but dad did have a a different plan. So he went out to school.

And Colorado College doesn't have like a major basketball team. I've been there. It's not that kind of place. It's not their focus. It's not that kind of place. So he came out with me like that orientation week. And I'd already told him I wasn't going to play basketball. And I very much remember him being like, you know, I just want to, let's just go look at the gym.

They have a team though. They have a team. And he'd actually secretly set up this meeting with the coach telling her that I wanted to play. And oh my gosh, it resulted in probably one of the biggest fights I've ever had with my dad. But it also ping ponged me like off the sidelines and away from the structure. Yeah, you're going the other way. Yeah, I was like, I think I'm going to go into the mountains. Why is he wired like that?

I think it was a part of his kid's life that he could tangibly have an effect on and be present for. And he didn't have that in his own life growing up. And so he really went deep with it. And I, you know, I learned a lot from him. And some of it is the opposite of probably how he meant for me to absorb what he was. But the drive, the focus, the ability to like really like prepare, like all of that like diligence, I would imagine, you know, in some respect is driven by, you know, kind of growing up underneath his umbrella. Yeah, I would say, yeah. All right, so you're at Colorado College, you have the blowout with the dad, there's no basketball happening.

You figure out like, oh, skiing's pretty good here and there's lots of cool mountains and you just get into it. That's where it kind of begins. I mean, luckily, like the first week of going to Colorado College, I kind of fell in with this group of friends that were rock climbers and backcountry skiers and just way more into that adventure side of things that I didn't know anything about. I mean, I grew up in Seattle, Washington, where most mountaineers go to be mountaineers. And I left Seattle to learn how to be a mountaineer. So it was really just about who I started connecting with. And that school in particular really encourages sort of these alternative sports and adventures. Well, I have that cool thing where you just do one class for like, I don't know, a month,

and then you get like a week off or something like that. And so we'd have these block breaks where we'd go to Red Rocks in Nevada and do these huge climbs. Or, you know, you're surrounded by Colorado 14ers, and I started like climbing up mountains to ski down them and had never used my athleticism in that way. And I would never say that I am like this incredible downhill skier. I'm really good at it, but I'm not Ingrid Backstrom or I'm not like a Lindsey Vonn by any stretch of the imagination, but I put those together and it's like, ah. Yeah, like this magical thing, right?

So when you first tapped into this, is there like a knowingness? Like, oh, this is gonna be my thing? Or was it just a gradual like, yeah, I like this. I wanna do a little bit more. And it just kind of evolved or? Yeah, it was pretty gradual for me. It was gradual.

I just, the more more because i mean you have to understand i knew absolutely nothing about it i didn't even know rock climbing existed until i was 19 and went to the garden of the gods the first time and was like whoa ropes and harnesses and what is all this? And I, I mean, I just, I loved it. Right. So you decided to go to Chamonix. Yeah. That was right after you graduated. For a few months. Yeah. And then you were there for like five or six years, right?

I was there for a really long time. But that's like kind of the Mecca, right? This is where all these people are going. Yeah, it was the Mecca. And I went there really because of the downhill skiing that I'd seen in like all the ski movies of that era, the Blizzard of Oz and so on and so forth. And ended up realizing what a huge component climbing is to the skiing that takes place in Chamonix. the skiing that takes place in Chamonix. And that was when I started getting into ice axes and crampons and all that technical side that goes with ice and snow and glaciers and all of that. And was there a thing at that time called like ski mountaineering or were you, I mean, there's a community there, right? But was there a community in that specific discipline or does that just go with like, hey,

if you're going to ski, you got to like hike with the stuff. I think it was more of the latter. It was like, hey, if you're going to ski, you have to take, because there the lift access is so integrated with climbing mountains and skiing. So it's all, it was before we had sort of access off of our own ski areas in the United States. Everything was really boundaried in the US at that point. And it's not so much anymore. But in Chamonix, you could get off a lift and go anywhere you wanted. I mean, I remember the statistic when i first moved there that on average one person a day died in the chamonix valley one a day oh my god and it was just from falling in crevasses and ice before wingsuits this is before wingsuits and all that so i'm sure the number and

yeah base jumping and slacklining yeah whatever all of it doing. Everything. So it was also my introduction to the pitfalls of this thing that I love so much and, you know, starting to see people closer and closer to me, you know, dying in the mountains and what that meant and processing that. And that eventually was the reason I left Chamonix was because I was becoming very flippant and unemotional towards death. And I didn't think that was okay. It was really scary. Was there a moment? How many people that you knew passed away during that period of time? Oh, a lot. Yeah? Oh, a lot. Yeah. Yeah, a lot.

I mean. And you're 23 or something like that? Yeah, I was 23. Yeah. Wow. 24. Yeah, I think I left there by the time I was 28. And it was a lot.

You just start to normalize it. Yeah, and you start to really normalize it. And yeah, it's just not okay to kind of be in that. Does it make you feel like less precious about your own life though? Because you see it so much. And does, I mean, how did that impact how you assessed risk at that time?

I don't think I was good at assessing risk at that time. I think I just didn't know enough. I mean, I really, and I've said this before, it's a miracle I survived that first winter in Chamonix because I just was blindly following and woohoo, and let's go this way. So it was a wicked steep learning curve at first. And I mean, I was like flying tandem off the North face of the Aguita Medea in my first couple of weeks being there and just- I don't know what that is, but that sounds-

It was scary. Sounds radical. Yeah. Yeah, it's scary not knowing what you're doing. And I think it was 96 when you won like the extreme skiing- Right. Championships or, you know, so it's like- And the playing field was like me and two other women.

Right. So it was really new. and you could have just done that right like i would have thought like whoa oh well this is obviously my thing right but at the same time i was also doing these uh touring combo ski competitions where you're you're almost like they're called rando races now, where you're kind of ski touring through the peaks and then you rip the skins off and you ski something. And I was doing really well in those. And I just found sort of more satisfaction. I'm not somebody who really likes to jump off cliffs and stuff. And that was more the extreme comps. And it's a distinction between competition and pure adventure for the sake of adventure.

Right, yeah. All right, so then everything kind of changes when North Face enters the equation, right? Which is in the sort of tail end. Right in the middle of that. Yeah, like, well, no, kind of changes when North Face enters the equation, right? Which is in the sort of tail end. Right in the middle of that. Yeah, like, well, no, kind of the tail end. Yeah, it was in 99. So I'd been there three years.

It was a little, yeah, towards the tail end. And they're like, hey, we wanna pay you and you can go do all this cool stuff. And you're like, wait, I can have this as a career and get paid to do what I'm gonna be doing anyway? Like, that's crazy. Like, did it strike you before that? Like, oh, I can have a as a career and get paid to do what I'm going to be doing anyway? Yeah. Like, that's crazy. Like, did it strike you before that? Like, oh, I could have a career doing this?

I mean. No, not really. I mean, I thought I could. At the time in Chimney, I was doing great at making enough money to perpetuate staying there. So I was, you know, winning money from competitions. I was doing some really cheesy ski modeling and like, you know, Bognor one pieces. Yeah. I don't know.

They're pretty funny. Yeah. And then I kind of got on the map with North Base through a friend who was an athlete with them at the time. who was an athlete with them at the time. And he sort of bridged that connection, which is how a lot of paths get taken, I think, in life, is just connections and timing. And three weeks later, I was on an expedition in India,

which was where I saw Papsura, the peak of evil, to bring it all full circle. And I mean, that threw in like high altitude and winter camping and heavy packs and i just loved it i don't know it was i think a big part too was like this wide eyed girl who'd hardly traveled in her whole life and going to india and this culture and the craziness and madness of India was just really eye-opening for me. And now having visited all these amazing places over the years, like what do you take away from being immersed in these various cultures? Like how does that impact you in terms

of how you perceive life here in America? Like, is it, does it change or shift your value set at all? Most definitely. I, I, I talk about this a lot with my kids, even trying to explain like mom's re-entry into the United States of America and what that means. And I have a hard time with it. I think that some of the systems we have in place in this country are detrimental to the soul of us as human beings. We create too much comfort. Well, we're certainly not the happiest culture. No, we're not the happiest culture. And I think that's the thing that stuck with me the most from my very first trip to India

was going through, seeing real poverty for the first time and shacks and shanties and kids with no shoes and dirty clothes and families living in a hundred square foot hovel, basically. And what really struck me was the smiles on these kids' faces and the closeness of the family unit and the brightness in their eyes, to me, looked like happiness in a form I'd never seen it before and in a place I couldn't even conceive of. And how do you reconcile that with what we as Americans consider happiness of like the new car and the big house and the white picket fence and possessions. The latest phone. Right. So how do you reconcile that as a mother

with two boys that are what, like 10 and eight or something like that right now? Yeah, 10 and eight. You know, I like to, I have, I've taken my kids to Nepal. I've taken them to different places and I hope to continue doing that. And just, you know, we live in a very fairly utopic town, Telluride, Colorado, and it's an amazing place, an incredible community for kids to grow up in.

But they need to see and experience cultures outside of that particular culture and outside of the United States, because I don't think our way is the end all answer to a fulfilling life. And it's sort of your answer to, or your version of these five-week boat trips that you went on as a kid, right? It's your way of providing that for your boys. Yeah, that adventure, that unknown risk-taking, fear. I mean, I remember distinctly in Nepal coming into this village right at the time when all the kids were getting out of school. And they're all different ages, and my kids' eyes are just like, oh, my gosh, they've never seen anything

like this. And they proceeded to spend like four hours playing tag with 50 kids from this village, and none of them could communicate, but they're just, oh, my God, they had the best time ever. And running around and just getting dirty and, you know, watching our dinner, which was, you know, this local goat get slaughtered and cut up and put on the table. And just, it was really, I mean, they talk about it a lot still. Just like, remember those kids and how, you know, it made a huge impression on them. And I guess that is somehow how I reconcile it. It's often, it's really hard for me. If you can imagine being on an expedition like Burma, for example, where you are just out there for weeks and weeks on end.

And then you come back to mirrors where you can see yourself. I mean, I didn't have a shower for over a month. And running water and these little things that come back into your world slowly, and you just have this recognition of them and this appreciation of it. And of course, you know, then you're back in the States and six months later you forget about it. But at the time, it's really eye-op opening. It takes six months to forget about it. I mean, I remember first walking into this hotel and having a huge buffet of food and we'd been living off of white rice, two meals a day for two weeks. And I couldn't engage. I just wanted more white rice. I didn't know how to engage back into that world.

It's like the homeless person that you provide a bed and then they end up sleeping on the floor. Right. Because there's an acclimation period that has to take place. Yeah, it's interesting. As a mom, what sort of sets you apart from your fellow climbers beyond the fact

that you've done these extraordinary things and you're a woman is that you are a mom, right? And so that makes it heightened. When you decide like, okay, I'm gonna do this expedition. I mean, I read you did an expedition when your boy was 10 months old. Right. And so that's a very, I would imagine a difficult decision to make. And I would imagine also plays into how you assess risk now. Right. So how does that work for you? Like, and it kind of goes back to the balance question, right? Like, you're going to, like, this is who you are.

Like, to repress that because you're a mom, that would be to kind of contravene your blueprint, so to speak. Yet it's undeniable that, you know, children need their mother. And obviously you don't want to go take undue risk. So how does that, like, interplay? It's very complicated, it sounds like, to figure that out, right? terrified of not picking up that part of my life. And I think part of that goes back to my own childhood again and having an amazing mom who stayed at home and drove me to all those damn basketball games all over the place.

But also had this huge, she didn't have her own identity in the sense that once we were all gone, she had a really hard time and she talked about a lot of her regrets. I was the youngest child, so I basically spent my whole high school home as the only kid. And it was a hard friend that really left an impression on me of like, oh my God, I have to keep my own identity. I have to keep my own identity. Right. It was just, it got sublimated into the family equation, right? Like she wasn't able to express herself. Yeah. And just, yeah. And just always talked about all these things she wanted to do,

but was never, I mean, she came from, you know, a small family that lived on Orcas Island with like five kids in her high school. And so in her trajectory of life, she made a lot of changes and did a lot of crazy adventures, but just very different. And it just stuck with me that I had to keep this identity. I had to keep myself because I thought that would be a better way to be a better mom and to have my kids see me as a person. Uh-huh. And they're probably old enough now where they can understand what it is that you do, right? Yeah. Like, so what do they think? What do they say?

I mean, they think it's great. You know, someone asked me the other day if my kids have ever asked me to stop and- Stay home, don't go, mom. Just stay home, don't go, mom. And no, you know, they never have. Like, this is the way they are in our family and in my life, it's normal to them what I do. And they love it and they think it's great. And I try to incorporate it by going to their schools and talking about things.

And they've been to some of these National Geographic live shows and they get it. I mean, they hiked into Makalu Base Camp with me and instead, you know, they get out the globe and they're like, we want to go here next. We want to see this. Or I have a friend at school that's from Australia and when can we go there? And so they have almost the opposite reaction versus, you know, no mom, don't go. It's like, we want to go with you. Where are we going to go? So, but I didn't know that at the time. Like, I didn't know how following this path as a mother

and when my kids were young, I didn't know how it was going to turn out. And it was pretty terrifying for me. I was like, what, you know, what if I'm doing permanent damage to my kids or they hate me or, you know, I mean, I think every parent has that fear. Yeah, every parent. I mean, everything you do, you think you're doing that, you know?

And, you know, whatever we're doing, we're making mistakes. We're all making mistakes, right? Like nobody's doing this perfectly. But I think just the fact that you have that impulse means you're conscious of that, that you're aware of that, which probably means that you're a good parent. You know what I mean? It's the person who doesn't think about that kind of thing that I would worry about. But I think what's interesting about that, what you just said is, you know, a conservative traditionalist perspective would be, look, you know, you've had your good times, Hillary. It's time to like be a mom. You can't do all those crazy things. You have your prior, you got to do whatever.

But I think the alternative perspective and the perspective that I would share and offer is that there's something incredibly powerful and empowering about a parental figure or anyone for that matter, whose life is so consistent with their dharma. Like you are being who you are, right? Unapologetically, in a very fierce and strong way.

Well, but it's taken me a long time to get to that for sure. I know, come on, you gotta be quiet because I'm gonna paint these goblins. Okay, I'm like- But that is a powerful example for a child to see, hey, my mom's a badass. Like she, all these people are telling her, you shouldn't do this, shouldn't do that.

And she does it anyway. And she kicks ass. And she's not gonna apologize for who she is, you know? And there's something like so life-affirming about that, you know, that, and, you know, even at a young age, like they get that, you know, they get that. Like you've met obstacles, you, you know, even at a young age, like they get that, you know, they get that, like you've met obstacles, you've overcome them, or even when, you know, you don't reach the, you don't reach the peaks of the, whatever you tried, you know, you put yourself out there.

And I think as much as anything, that is a message that is important for kids to see, like to say, yeah, I have this other thing I want to do. And like, if she can go and do that, then like, maybe I can go and do this. Right. Right. Whatever that is, it will be, you know, different from you. But I think that, you know, we'd probably be better off with more, more people who, you know, lived boldly in that regard. And of course it comes with its risks, right? Yeah. But what would you do if one of your kids was like,

I just wanna play video games? You know, it's like, you go, Burma? No, like I'm staying here and I'm gonna be a video game guy. Like if it was just, you know, it's like- Right. I mean, I do worry about that. They really love their video games.

You know, like our kids are our greatest teachers, right? And it's like, oh, my kids are gonna to be, they're going to love the things that I love. And, you know, inevitably it's not, it's wired to not be that way so that you have that tension, right? And there's something to be learned from that. Right. And I see that even in my own childhood and growing up and how I like. So with your dad, right? Yeah, right.

You rebound a different direction. Exactly. And I mean, that is the point of a parent-child relationship. You live in Telluride. You have a kid who's like, I don't want to ski. I hate the snow. I want to live in Hawaii or whatever. I mean, unfortunately, like I have plenty of friends in Telluride whose kids are like that.

And, you know, it takes some getting used to, but, you know, they're interested in other things. And again, it makes me go back to, hopefully it's not video games, but I want my kids just to be passionate about something, about something, just to have some emotional attachment that gives them a north, as you said, gives them that is a compass in their life, gives them something to wake up in the morning for. And hopefully, because what I know, what that compass is for me is just wilderness and snow. Hopefully, I would love it if that was a part of their life, but it doesn't need to be all of their life. Right. But, you know.

Right. Well, maybe that's some growth. Like, you're not going to be your dad, right? Right. Yeah. And they're not going to be me, and they're not going to be their dad. Yeah, exactly. And they're not going to be me and they're not going to be their dad. Yeah, exactly, right? Well, more will be revealed, I suppose, right?

I suppose. I mean, you have kids too, like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's like, you know, you think it's going to be one way and then it's a different way.

And it's like, how do you flow with that? And how do you love and support them when they have interests that are in things that you wouldn't be interested in? You know what I mean? That's all part of it. And in some ways, it's been really, I mean, I think it's one of the most amazing aspects of being a parent is having these little minds that see things for the first time. that see things for the first time and remind me to not be so jaded and to see things through their eyes. And it sounds totally cliche, but it is.

That's the amazing part about being a parent is like, oh, yeah, like, this is an amazing thing. And notice the little things that affect their day or make them, you know. notice the little things that affect their day or make them, you know, that it's. Two, I have a friend, Rob Bell, and he says that, you know, we all need to live our lives with a little bit more awe and wonder. Right. And kids wake up in the morning with awe and wonder and we lose that. We lose it. Yeah. And, you know, living an adventurous life like you do, there's a lot of awe and wonder, I would imagine, right? Yeah, I think that's as much of what I'm passionate about as anything. What do you think people don't understand about what you do?

Like if people have some misapprehension or they don't really get, like, what is this ski mountaineering thing? What is it that you wish they understood that you understand about it? Or just adventure in general? I mean, I think I would like people to understand that there's so much more to it

than the summit at the end of the day. the summit at the end of the day, the most I've taken, what this adventuring has given me is the capacity to be present. I wish I could take that ability to be present into my day-to-day life at home, but it's just really hard for me. But on an expedition and when you're in these intense situations, you're really like focused on one step in front of the other. Your whole world is about shelter, water, food, food survival. And it's this incredibly simplistic and powerful experience that we've gotten so far away from. And really that is what keeps me going back and keeps me wanting to have these new adventures. And then of course, there's just all that path along the way of, take one expedition I did to the Isle of South Georgia, where it's where Shackleton was finally rescued.

And in order to get from the boat to the mountains, you had to walk through 300,000 penguins and elephant seals. And half the time, we'd never even get to the mountain because we'd just stop and sit down and hang out with this crazy wildlife scene that would unfold in front of us. And that's the stuff I take away from it, is having those experiences. Yeah. So when you think back on Burma, So when you think back on like Burma, it's probably not, you know, like the last day before you retreated, it's somewhere along the trail when the motorcycle wiped out or, you know. Yeah, totally. Like kind of like, you know. Stepping on the snake.

Yeah, it's the journey and the obstacles faced that give it value for you. Yeah. value for you. Yeah. And the thing about Burma is it is, it's the human dynamic as well. Getting to know myself, you get to know other people really quickly, but I wasn't like, I saw the worst side of myself on that trip as well. And I saw, you know, really worse sides of, we all, I saw really worse sides of, we all, it was so raw and we were so strung out that we all lost it at one point or another. And the beauty of it was that if somebody lost it, the rest would kind of come in to rally and pick up the slack. And as a unit, we were able to all get out of there alive, which I had my doubts along the way. And yeah, so I saw a really ugly side of myself on that trip. And to know that I'm capable of that as well as the good stuff is pretty enlightening in some way.

Yeah. Does it make you feel less judgmental of others or does it like deepen that reservoir of empathy, you know, for other people? Um, it definitely deepens the reservoir of empathy. And I've definitely had a lot of pedestals that I've stood on in my twenties and thirties and pretty much been knocked off of all of those. Humility. Humility, empathy. Yeah, definitely. I've learned to be less judgmental and understand that everyone has their own history that they're bringing into

the situation. So. Yeah. And I mean, the simplicity really is kind of what you were talking about earlier. Like just, if we can just simplify our lives, you know, we, we so overcomplicate everything unnecessarily. And it's interesting that you go and you're so in touch with that when you're on these expeditions and that even you who's gone out and done things, the vast majority of people will never ever do, it wears off when you come back.

It does, it wears off. It's like, why can't it stick? Why can't it stick? Yeah, I mean, I'm just as addicted to my Instagram feed or whatever as the next person. But yet, that's what I love about being in the mountains is like the phone is, nothing's ringing. Nothing's like- In India, they won't let you bring the sat phone. They won't let you bring the sat phone.

Is that still the law there? That's so crazy. They're working on changing it. But I did, I got a nice like stint. You snuck it in, right? I snuck it in in 2013, fortunately, because one of our team members got pulmonary edema. And so, we had to call in a rescue, but- But you had to call like somebody in Italy, right? You couldn't call anyone in India because you'd get arrested for having the phone.

Well, I got arrested for having the phone anyways. Yeah, but they wouldn't answer the phone because they can recognize a SAT number. So, we had to call through Italy and then Italy called. What's the deal with that? Like, why won't they? You know, because especially the region we're in is very close to, there's a lot of drug smuggling and they're just afraid of, you know, terrorism and all that. But there's, they're working on it. There's definitely ways to figure out how you can get a sat phone to an expedition. Yeah, I mean, like life hangs in the balance on something like that.

Like they could register them somehow or something like that. Yeah, they register them or you rent them. They have an Indian Mountaineering Federation there. So, you know, give phones to that federation and then you rent them from the Mountaineering Federation. It seems like an easy fix. It would be an easy fix, but there's a lot of red tape in India. But back to that earlier point, you know, it's so beautiful how you describe like being in these communities and seeing the kids and they're happy and they're living in, you know, like they have

nothing, you know, and there's joy. Right. And so we intellectualize that and we understand like, oh, those people are happy. And then you go to, you know, Bakersfield and you're like, yeah, people don't look as happy wherever it is. But we're not like going, well, I'm going to kids have— It's got to be incredibly hard. It's hard lives, and they don't have long life expectancies, and they don't have health care. And, I mean, it's a hard life. And I think we're not going to go backwards as a society to that degree. And hopefully, you know, the goal of humanity is to uplift everyone out of that poverty, but we have to find value in different things, I think. Yeah. Can we capture some aspect of where that joy is coming from and bring that into our own lives? And we're not so good at that.

No. No, we do like complicating things. We have to, how long have we, oh, an hour and a half. We got a few more minutes here. So you're speaking tonight. Speaking tonight, yes, about Burma. I know, so I'm sort of like wishing that I could have seen you talk before we do this

and bring a little bit more color into this. When you get up and you deliver these presentations, like you're telling the stories, but what is it that you want people to walk away with? Like what is the message that you're trying to deliver? I want people to, I mean, be inspired on one level, but also to embrace risk-taking and failure, which sounds like two kind of depressing things, but like embrace these things because I think it opens up your, this little box that we live in. And it opens up your ability to get to know yourself and your true potential through taking risks and through failing. And I mean, basically that's what this whole expedition, this Burma talk is about is

we took a huge risk and we failed on many levels, but we also succeeded because we're all still here and- Yeah. What is your metric for success and failure? And you know, it's still, I struggle with this word failure. It's like, there's the attempt to, you know, live and do something outside of your comfort zone. Right. And that should be celebrated no matter what the outcome, because, you know, upon your return, you're fortified with whatever you learned. You have the experience, and then there's whatever that experience delivered to you in terms of how you can live more, fulfill, live better,

give more of yourself to others. Yeah. So what we get hung up on this word failure is like, oh, well, you guys didn't make it to the summit, you failed. Right. Right? It's such a reductionist. And not one single person has ever said that to me. what we get hung up on this word failure is like, oh, well, you guys didn't make it to the summit. You failed. Right. Right. It's such a reductionist. And not one single person has ever said that to me.

I hope not. No, they're all like, what are you talking about? That wasn't a failure. That was amazing. You know, or like, what an adventure. You don't look at it as a failure, do you? Or do you struggle with that? I mean, I did for a while afterwards,

not so much because of reaching, not reaching the summit, but just because of how our team dynamics just imploded on that ridge. And I felt as I was supposed to be the glue for this team. And I think I just learned a lot about how not to lead, how to lead, how just the intricacies and, you know, sort of difficulties. And in the end, though, I always go back to like, God damn it, we signed up for an adventure and that's what we had. So what is all this about?

Like, that's what we got. We got what we wanted. You know, like buck up and like deal. you know, like buck up and like deal. You hear often, or I've heard often, you know, this refrain that there are no great female role models. It's like, we're in the Kardashian culture. And as a father of two young girls,

I take issue with that. There are amazing women role models all over the place, but we just don't do a very good job of celebrating them or making sure that they're in the spotlight because there's people like yourself that are, you know, doing amazing things everywhere. So how do you think about like your role as, you know, as a woman, as a female role model to young girls as somebody that they can look up to. Do you spend time thinking about that or you're just doing what you're doing? I do more and more. I mean, if you look up like female explorers on the great wide web.

Yeah. Are you the first Google person that comes up? No, you get Dora the Explorer. You know, it's like, come on. So I think it's, so more and more, I really do think about what it means to be a role model for young girls. And there are so many role models out there.

And really, it's just a matter of, you know, I think in a lot of ways, women are, you can correct me if you don't agree, but somewhat superior storytellers, especially in terms of adventure, because we talk about it so differently than the male story. And I agree with that. Yeah. Especially when it comes to like adventure and climbing. And in that genre, I feel like women speak about it very differently than men and have an incredibly different, unique perspective to be told.

What's an example of that? Well, I mean, just in us talking right now, and granted, you're asking the questions, but we're not talking about the peak of evil and climbing and standing on the top and how many summits I've made and this, that, and other. We're talking about- I don't care about that. Kids, I know, but it's just like you're talking about these stories of just more- What does it mean? What does it mean? What is the point? And I think you're seeing the sprouting up of a lot of female adventure writers as well as adventurous. And I think that through speaking for me, I can affect girls and their idea of what it means to be a woman in the workplace, a woman in adventure, a role model, what it means to, you know, occupy a space that is typically male dominated and how to still take on that space but be a woman and be a female and understand that there's huge value in that because of the different perspective you have. And yeah,

I guess did that answer your question? No, it's good. It's powerful. No, I mean, that's, that's the heart of it. Right. That's the heart of it. And it, you know, it's, we're talking about the perils of the modern world. And, you know, like I said, I have two daughters. It's like I see the influences and. And, you know, like I said, I have two daughters. Like, I see the influences. And as much as you try to guide and, you know, kind of like insulate them from some of that, it's impossible, right?

It's there. It is, you know, it is omnipresent in our culture. And you have to work to kind of get outside of that. Right. work to kind of get outside of that. And so. And I think like you can do that with like even the companies I work with that North Faith, for example, you know, they need to be able to represent their female athletes in the same way and with the same push as the males.

And they're working really hard at doing that. And I think that's how you get female role models out there. So that when you hit explore, you don't get Dora, you get Lynn Hill and you get Angel Collinson and Margo and Ashima and all of these incredible women out there doing incredible things. And I pay attention more than most people, and I don't know who those people are. Right. And I feel guilty. Like, I should, right?

Right. Yeah. So. They're just climbers and skiers. I know, but it's cool. It's cool. Well, we got to wrap this up, but that was awesome. How do you feel?

Did we do it? What did we not talk about? Is there more stuff we need to talk about? I think we got it. My head's spinning. Very inspiring. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for coming. But more than that, like, thank you for what you do. Thank you for, you know, being this example. And I just want more people to hear your voice and I want you to continue doing what you're doing. Do you have a sense of what your next adventure may be or is that percolating? Yeah, no, I'm going to spend a few weeks with Jim Morrison, my partner in life and all things,

and do some climbing in the Sierras sort of as a training platform for going back up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's one of my favorite places on this entire planet. I've never been anywhere like it. And as you know, there's a lot of political and environmental stuff going on up there. So I'm going to spend a couple of weeks up there with another athlete, Kit Delorier, at the end of April. Very cool.

And explore and sort of document what a beautiful, unique place it is in hopes of influencing some policy or something. We could use a little bit of that. We could use some of that, yeah. Well, that's the next podcast. Yeah. We can get into that. Yeah.

Well, that's very cool. And you're kind of on this speaking tour of sorts at the moment. I mean, the theater you're speaking at, it's the Thousand Oaks Civic. Civic Arts Center, yeah. Yeah, it's a beautiful theater. Yeah.

It's big. That's been the coolest part of touring is-. Yeah, it's a beautiful theater. Yeah. It's big. That's been the coolest part of touring. I mean, that's a big theater. Yeah. You know? So how many, do you have more cities coming up? Like where, how many? I'm kind of done for the season.

I just have one more at the Mesa Arts Center, I think in Mesa, Arizona, Phoenix. Yeah, yeah, cool. I've been in that theater too. That's nice. Those are good theaters. Those are good venues. Really good theaters. The Seattle Theater, the Bonar, yeah. Cool. I've been in that theater too. That's nice. Those are good theaters. Those are good venues. Really good theaters.

The Seattle Theater, the Bonaroya was in there. That was a really good theater. Awesome. One in Kansas City was incredible. There's some good ones. Pro Theater in Dallas. It's like been so cool. And this is all like a Nat Geo thing, National Geographic thing, right?

Yeah. They have this National Geographic Live series. So different cities host anywhere from three to five shows in a season. And you buy like seasons passes for it. It's pretty cool. It's cool. They usually do it in the winter, you know, when it's dark and cold. And people can go listen to good stories.

Awesome. Yeah. Well, good luck tonight. Thank you. And good luck to you in life in general. Yeah, thanks. Same to you. All right. And good luck to you in life in general. Yeah, thanks. Same to you. All right, so people wanna connect with Hillary.

First of all, final question. Is it still Hillary O'Neill or is it Hillary Nelson now? It's Hillary Nelson. Hillary Nelson. Okay, good, I'm glad I asked you that. Yeah, yeah. But it's still- It's transitioning, so.

Yeah, you're like Hillary O'Neill on Twitter. And I could tell, like your website's Hillary Nelson now. Yeah, some kind of Hillary Nelson O'Neill, but it's transitioning to Hillary Nelson. I gotcha. Cool. My maiden name from my, I'm divorced. Yes. Yeah.

All right, well, cool. After your next expedition, come back and talk to me about it some more maybe. All right. All right, cool. Sounds good. Thanks. Thanks for having me thank you all right we did it that was phenomenal hope you guys enjoyed that but the conversation is over this episode is in its sunset moment right now but before we go do me a favor

let hillary know what you thought of the conversation, hit her up on Twitter or Instagram at Hillary Nelson, H-I-L-L-A-R-E-E Nelson. And as always, check out the show notes for links and resources related to today's conversation on the episode page at richroll.com. Got tons of great information there. Quick reminder, Plant Power Way Italia, our brand new cookbook, is now officially out. Pick up your copy today. You will be delighted. It's a beautiful book, 125 delicious plant-based recipes inspired by the region of Tuscany and the rich culinary tradition of that area. We're super proud of it. If you want even more amazing plant-based recipes, check out our meal planner at meals.richroll.com. Thousands of plant-based recipes, literally thousands, all custom-based on your personal preferences

with unlimited grocery lists and even grocery delivery in most US cities. We're working on international delivery in certain cities coming soon. All of this is just $1.90 a week. When you sign up for a year to learn more, go to meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu

on my website at richroll.com. If you would like to support my work, you can just tell a friend, share it on social media, or better yet, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content. If you haven't done so already, you can also support the show on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music,

and all kinds of miscellaneous tasks. Blake Curtis for video and graphics. This episode is up on YouTube at youtube.com forward slash richroll and theme music, as always, by Annalima.

Thanks for the love, you guys. Now go out and have an adventure. Will you? Do that. And I'll see you back here soon. Peace plants. Thank you.