Podcasts about rupal face

Steve House began venturing into the high mountains as a teenager, and has since built a career on climbing, guiding and coaching. By the time he published his book Beyond the Mountain in 2009, Reinhold Messner said House was “at the top of mountaineering.”  House's life in climbing has taken him all over the world. His most famous ascent may be the Central Pillar of Nanga Parbat's Rupal Face, a climb he completed with Vince Anderson. But he has compiled an impressive list of first ascents and new routes in Alaska, the Canadian Rockies, the Alps and the Karakoram. Steve has been a professional mountain guide since 1992, and in 1999 he became the ninth American to achieve IFMGA certification. But these days House lives in a small Austrian mountain town with his wife and two kids. In the mornings he spends time getting outside, while the later part of the day is dedicated to working with his company Uphill Athlete. He retired from professional climbing in 2020.  In this episode, we revisit passages from Steve's book Beyond the Mountain, discuss fatherhood, and finding his way in his new home in Austria. We learn about the climb that drove him to focus more on training and preparation, and eventually led him to start his company, Uphill Athlete.  And, we learn more about how he thinks about climbing and what it is to be human—to focus on the act of becoming rather than being. Support for this episode of the Alpinist Podcast comes from Osprey. Alpinist Magazine: Website | Instagram | Facebook Host: Abbey Collins Guest: Steve House Producer + Engineer: Mike Horn

On Episode 263 of the Enormocast, I sit down for a long overdue conversation with one of the greatest alpinists of all time, Steve House. Steve house spent 20 years riding the cutting edge of alpinism. His ascents of K7, The Rupal Face, and the Slovak Direct, among many more, represented a sea change in … Continue reading "Enormocast 263: Steve House – The Art of Alpinism"

Steve House is Founder of Uphill Athlete and a proudly retired professional climber and mountain guide. Jan has known him for years. For 21 years, Steve was a professional climber. In 1999 he became only the ninth American to achieve IFMGA certification, which is the highest level to guide all over the world. He has guided trips all across the world. In this discussion, Steve shares his journey from mountain sports to high-altitude climbing, to a nearly fatal fall, to coaching. Besides coaching mountain athletes, his current challenge is getting his pilot's license. Steve talks about the purposes of mountain sports and how separation from daily distractions while moving your body through nature guides you on your journey.   https://bit.ly/TLP-354   Key Takeaways   [1:53] Jan shares Steve's bio. (See at the end of the show notes.) [4:19] Steve thanks Jan and Jim for the invitation to The Leadership Podcast. As a professional athlete, there's not much that's not in his public bio. He's almost a private pilot and is less than a month from taking his final practical exam. He describes a recent incredible flight and the energy flying gives him. [7:09] When Steve was 20, he was studying in college to be an aeronautical engineer. Then he got hijacked by climbing. Now he has the chance to come back and do something he has always loved. [8:17] In 2010, Steve was doing a training climb preparing for an expedition to do a new route on the west face of K2 with an expert fellow climber. He had a bad fall of around 100 feet. He broke 24 ribs. Two ribs were smashed into innumerable pieces. He had multiple pelvis fractures, knocked all the spinal processes off his vertebrae, and had many internal injuries. [9:18] Steve lay on his back for about two hours. He knew he had hemopneumothorax. His breathing grew shallow as his chest cavity filled with blood. What came out of that was a lot of self-reflection. He had to come to terms with his drive to become the very best at what he did. That was his mission statement. [10:45] As Steve reflected, at age 39, he was trying to figure out if he would function again. He had to think about what his values were, and what he cared about and wanted to do. Was it time to change his mission statement? He hadn't accomplished everything in climbing but he decided he had accomplished enough. He could be proud of what he did do, and he was going to pivot to other values and other goals. [11:57] In elite sports, you're boxed off from the world. You eat, sleep, train, and go climb. You save all your energy to be better. It's how you achieve individual greatness. But you're not part of a team. Steve saw his crisis as a time to reflect and redirect. [13:48] Steve thinks that due to the intensity with which he pursued his goals, he required an intense jolt to trigger reflection. Anything less wasn't going to work. He notes that most of the people he climbed with are dead. That's how risky and dangerous climbing is. Steve has only a handful of friends from that era that are still alive. Steve realized he was going to join those who were no longer alive if he continued. [15:29] As a mountain sports trainer, Steve is in a position to help athletes get past the binary narrative of success or failure. There's a much greater range of possible experiences. We have often seen that the one that came in first cheated or used performance-enhancing substances. The whole paradigm is broken. There is another way to experience sports. Mountain sports do not have a history of competition. [17:02] Steve would tell his younger self he was always going to feel like an imposter, and that was completely OK, and that everybody else does, too. That feeling was one of the things that were hardest for him to overcome. It goes back to childhood. He was the scrawny little kid that wasn't good at sports. [18:49] One of the things that Steve learned from childhood was grit. He loved gritty experiences from a very early age. When he was 10, he backpacked his first 50-mile hike. When he was 11, he climbed Mount Hood. These were just things they did as a family or with his father. He enjoyed it. [20:37] Steve and his Uphill Athlete team talk about Campbell's Hero's Journey paradigm and try to figure out what step their client is on for that journey. The goal is to help them through that one step. Everyone is on the same journey, at a different step. [23:22] Uphill Athlete doesn't exist to motivate people but to educate and inspire. Coaching is education and teaching people how they can apply endurance training methodologies and see the changes in their bodies. It takes a couple of months for people to get fully bought in and see their progress. When they get to that epiphany, they are committed to the journey for life and remain in the Uphill Athlete community. [25:17] Going back to the imposter syndrome, Steve is often surprised that he knows the answer. And the only reason he can know the answer is because he lived it through 20 years of being an athlete. These are things you cannot learn in a physiology textbook. [26:05] What holds people back is their minds, their fears, their insecurities, and the pieces that they don't understand, or can't conceptualize well. Those are the questions Steven can clear up easily, but he is always surprised. [27:37] Steve tried to teach a man with a Ph.D. in exercise physiology how to coach but it was impossible because he didn't understand what it felt like in his body to do what was written on the training plan. He couldn't relate to the people even though he'd run circles around everybody on the science. [28:27] When Steve interviews people to be coaches, he's looking for people who have a unique superpower. He doesn't need 15 people that all know the same thing. He needs people that have different backgrounds and experiences and are willing and eager to share with other people and also learn from them. They have to be far enough along on their journey that they can take feedback constructively. [29:17] When you have a team that can do all of those things, it's incredible. Steve's team includes physical therapists, medical doctors, masters in high altitude physiology, and coaches that have coached every endurance sport you can imagine. They have great energy between them. [30:29] Some people Steven hires have well-defined superpowers. Some younger people don't know their superpower. Steven describes how he leverages coaches to develop the superpower in people within a relationship that is entirely a safe place for them to ask those “dumb questions.” [33:39] Steve has a lot of athletes that do not have a set goal. They want to learn and experience and be in a community of like-minded people. Steve tells them it's OK not to have an Everest goal. Sometimes it's enough to engage with people as you learn. [36:10] Arthur Brooks's new book, From Strength to Strength, is about finding clarity in the second chapter of life. [36:47] Steve uses the phrase, “naming the uncertainty.” Write down what you don't know. Let that sit. People come back to him in a month and say it was great to let that sink in. There are more than two chapters for a lot of people. [37:38] Mountain sports have an important role to play in people's journeys. Being in the wilderness in small teams and overcoming obstacles lets the noise go away. So much more happens out there than we give it credit for. People are not getting pings out there moving their bodies through nature and letting their subconscious minds do the work. Steve has solved writer's block many times with a long walk. [43:52] Steven's final thought: “It's joyful to learn something. It's joyful to become fitter. It's joyful to climb a mountain. … Walking up a summit ridge and standing on top of a mountain is ultimately no different than walking into the grocery store and going to the cereal aisle. But what is different is if you've been to the top of the mountain, you have an appreciation for all the rest.” [45:34] Closing quote: Remember, “People say, ‘Are you insane?' But the most successful climbers are the most calculating, with the most refined sense of risk. They're hyper-conscious of safety. They're the least insane people I know.” — Jimmy Chin   Quotable Quotes “I'm almost a private pilot. … I'm less than a month away. … I just had an amazing flight. … I flew from Slovenia down into Croatia, landed on an island, … flew back to Slovenia, landed … in the mountains in Slovenia, Took off from there, and returned to the home airport.” “[After a difficult accomplishment], at the end of the day, you just feel so full of energy and experience and awe.” “In 2010, I was doing a training climb. I was preparing for an expedition to climb a new route, … and … I fell around 100 feet. I broke 24 ribs, … I had multiple pelvis fractures, … [and] internal injuries. … I lay there for about two hours. I had a hemopneumothorax.” “We don't always need a crisis. Sometimes it just takes a long walk in the woods. But I think that reassessing our values and making sure that they align with our purpose and our mission is probably something that all of us have to do many times throughout our lives.”  “This whole thing of like, ‘If you're not first, you're last,' invalidates pretty much everyone's  experience except one person's.” “I loved gritty experiences from a very early age.” “I'm often surprised that I know the answer. And the only reason I can know the answer is because I lived it through 20 years of being an athlete. These are things you cannot learn in a physiology textbook.” “I've written four books now and I can't tell you how many times writer's block has just been solved by a long walk — and with no purpose. A walk with no purpose.”   Resources Mentioned Theleadershippodcast.com Sponsored by: Darley.com Rafti Advisors. LLC Self-Reliant Leadership. LLC Steve House Uphill Athlete Vince Anderson Central Pillar of the Rupal Face Piolet d'Or (Golden Ice Ace) Reinhold Messner Campbell's Hero's Journey Krebs Cycle Tom Higley From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, by Arthur Brooks  Crucible Expeditions   Steve House Bio For 21 years, Steve was a professional climber. His most famous ascent was with Vince Anderson. They did the central pillar of the Rupal Face and won the Piolet d'Or (Golden Ice Axe). Steve has done first ascents and new routes in Alaska, the Rockies, and the Alps, and is a famed climber. Renowned mountaineer Reinhold Messner called him the best high-altitude climber in the world. He's been an ambassador athlete for Patagonia, Grivola, Sportiva, Zeal Optics, and Coros Watches. Steve retired from professional climbing at the end of 2020 to dedicate himself to his family and Uphill Athlete. He currently lives in Austria with his Wife Eva and two sons. Steve has been a professional mountain guide since 1992. In 1999, he became only the ninth American to achieve IFMGA certification, which is the highest level to guide all over the world. There are less than 200 certified in the U.S. to this day. He has guided trips across the world.  

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/J3wemDGtsy5gzD3xa/toni-kurz-and-the-insanity-of-climbing-mountainsContent warning: deathI've been on a YouTube binge lately. My current favorite genre is disaster stories about mountain climbing. The death statistics for some of these mountains, especially ones in the Himalayas are truly insane.To give an example, let me tell you about a mountain most people have never heard of: Nanga Parbat. It's a 8,126 meter "wall of ice and rock", sporting the tallest mountain face and the fastest change in elevation in the entire world: the Rupal Face.I've posted a picture above, but these really don't do justice to just how gigantic this wall is. This single face is as tall as the largest mountain in the Alps. It is the size of ten empire state buildings stacked on top of one another. If you could somehow walk straight up starting from the bottom, it would take you an entire HOUR to reach the summit.31 people died trying to climb this mountain before its first successful ascent. Imagine being climber number 32 and thinking "Well I know no one has ascended this mountain and thirty one people have died trying, but why not, let's give it a go!"The stories of deaths on these mountains (and even much shorter peaks in the Alps or in North America) sound like they are out of a novel. Stories of one mountain in particular have stuck with me: the first attempts to climb tallest mountain face in the alps: The Eigerwand.The Eigerwand: First AttemptThe Eigerwand is the North face of a 14,000 foot peak named "The Eiger". After three generations of Europeans had conquered every peak in the Alps, few great challenges remained in the area. The Eigerwand was one of these: widely considered to be the greatest unclimbed route in the Alps.The peak had already been reached in the 1850s, during the golden age of Alpine exploration. But the north face of the mountain remained unclimbed.Many things can make a climb challenging: steep slopes, avalanches, long ascents, no easy resting spots and more. The Eigerwand had all of those, but one hazard in particular stood out: loose rock and snow.In the summer months (usually considered the best time for climbing), the mountain crumbles. Fist-sized boulders routinely tumble down the mountain. Huge avalanaches sweep down its 70-degree slopes at incredible speed. And the huge, concave face is perpetually in shadow. It is extremely cold and windy, and the concave face seems to cause local weather patterns that can be completely different from the pass below. The face is deadly.Before 1935, no team had made a serious attempt at the face. But that year, two young German climbers from Bavaria, both extremely experienced but relatively unknown outside the climbing community, decided they would make the first serious attempt.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/J3wemDGtsy5gzD3xa/toni-kurz-and-the-insanity-of-climbing-mountains Content warning: death I've been on a YouTube binge lately. My current favorite genre is disaster stories about mountain climbing. The death statistics for some of these mountains, especially ones in the Himalayas are truly insane. To give an example, let me tell you about a mountain most people have never heard of: Nanga Parbat. It's a 8,126 meter "wall of ice and rock", sporting the tallest mountain face and the fastest change in elevation in the entire world: the Rupal Face. I've posted a picture above, but these really don't do justice to just how gigantic this wall is. This single face is as tall as the largest mountain in the Alps. It is the size of ten empire state buildings stacked on top of one another. If you could somehow walk straight up starting from the bottom, it would take you an entire HOUR to reach the summit. 31 people died trying to climb this mountain before its first successful ascent. Imagine being climber number 32 and thinking "Well I know no one has ascended this mountain and thirty one people have died trying, but why not, let's give it a go!" The stories of deaths on these mountains (and even much shorter peaks in the Alps or in North America) sound like they are out of a novel. Stories of one mountain in particular have stuck with me: the first attempts to climb tallest mountain face in the alps: The Eigerwand. The Eigerwand: First Attempt The Eigerwand is the North face of a 14,000 foot peak named "The Eiger". After three generations of Europeans had conquered every peak in the Alps, few great challenges remained in the area. The Eigerwand was one of these: widely considered to be the greatest unclimbed route in the Alps. The peak had already been reached in the 1850s, during the golden age of Alpine exploration. But the north face of the mountain remained unclimbed. Many things can make a climb challenging: steep slopes, avalanches, long ascents, no easy resting spots and more. The Eigerwand had all of those, but one hazard in particular stood out: loose rock and snow. In the summer months (usually considered the best time for climbing), the mountain crumbles. Fist-sized boulders routinely tumble down the mountain. Huge avalanaches sweep down its 70-degree slopes at incredible speed. And the huge, concave face is perpetually in shadow. It is extremely cold and windy, and the concave face seems to cause local weather patterns that can be completely different from the pass below. The face is deadly. Before 1935, no team had made a serious attempt at the face. But that year, two young German climbers from Bavaria, both extremely experienced but relatively unknown outside the climbing community, decided they would make the first serious attempt.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Toni Kurz and the Insanity of Climbing Mountains, published by GeneSmith on July 3, 2022 on LessWrong. Content warning: death I've been on a YouTube binge lately. My current favorite genre is disaster stories about mountain climbing. The death statistics for some of these mountains, especially ones in the Himalayas are truly insane. To give an example, let me tell you about a mountain most people have never heard of: Nanga Parbat. It's a 8,126 meter "wall of ice and rock", sporting the tallest mountain face and the fastest change in elevation in the entire world: the Rupal Face. I've posted a picture above, but these really don't do justice to just how gigantic this wall is. This single face is as tall as the largest mountain in the Alps. It is the size of ten empire state buildings stacked on top of one another. If you could somehow walk straight up starting from the bottom, it would take you an entire HOUR to reach the summit. 31 people died trying to climb this mountain before its first successful ascent. Imagine being climber number 32 and thinking "Well I know this mountain has a 100% fatality rate, but why not, let's give it a go!" The stories of deaths on these mountains (and even much shorter peaks in the Alps or in North America) sound like they are out of a novel. Stories of one mountain in particular have stuck with me: the first attempts to climb tallest mountain face in the alps: The Eigerwand. The Eigerwand: First Attempt The Eigerwand is the North face of a 14,000 foot peak named "The Eiger". After three generations of Europeans had conquered every peak in the Alps, few great challenges remained in the area. The Eigerwand was one of these: widely considered to be the greatest unclimbed route in the Alps. The peak had already been reached in the 1850s, during the golden age of Alpine exploration. But the north face of the mountain remained unclimbed. Many things can make a climb challenging: steep slopes, avalanches, long ascents, no easy resting spots and more. The Eigerwand had all of those, but one hazard in particular stood out: loose rock and snow. In the summer months (usually considered the best time for climbing), the mountain crumbles. Fist-sized boulders routinely tumble down the mountain. Huge avalanaches sweep down its 70-degree slopes at incredible speed. And the huge, concave face is perpetually in shadow. It is extremely cold and windy, and the concave face seems to cause local weather patterns that can be completely different from the pass below. The face is deadly. Before 1935, no team had made a serious attempt at the face. But that year, two young German climbers from Bavaria, both extremely experienced but relatively unknown outside the climbing community, decided they would make the first serious attempt. One of the things which makes the climb of the Eiger unique is that nearly the entire face is visible from a mountain resort below. Residents of Kleine Scheidegg, a small resort town in the pass, could look directly at the north face when the weather cleared and observe all of these attempts to climb the face. All of this was in place long before the first attempt was made, so when the two young Bavarians decide to make an attempt, the world's press was literally staying at the hotel watching the men through binoculars when the clouds cleared. Not knowing how long the attempt would take, they brought six days of supplies, estimating it would take two to three days to achieve the summit. They started off quite strong, making it all the way up to Eigerwand station before setting up camp for the night. Yes, you read that correctly. There are train tracks a third of the up the mountain. Here's the view from a window looking down on (again, I'm not making this up), Grindelwald. On the second day, they made little progress, having to con...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Toni Kurz and the Insanity of Climbing Mountains, published by GeneSmith on July 3, 2022 on LessWrong. Content warning: death I've been on a YouTube binge lately. My current favorite genre is disaster stories about mountain climbing. The death statistics for some of these mountains, especially ones in the Himalayas are truly insane. To give an example, let me tell you about a mountain most people have never heard of: Nanga Parbat. It's a 8,126 meter "wall of ice and rock", sporting the tallest mountain face and the fastest change in elevation in the entire world: the Rupal Face. I've posted a picture above, but these really don't do justice to just how gigantic this wall is. This single face is as tall as the largest mountain in the Alps. It is the size of ten empire state buildings stacked on top of one another. If you could somehow walk straight up starting from the bottom, it would take you an entire HOUR to reach the summit. 31 people died trying to climb this mountain before its first successful ascent. Imagine being climber number 32 and thinking "Well I know this mountain has a 100% fatality rate, but why not, let's give it a go!" The stories of deaths on these mountains (and even much shorter peaks in the Alps or in North America) sound like they are out of a novel. Stories of one mountain in particular have stuck with me: the first attempts to climb tallest mountain face in the alps: The Eigerwand. The Eigerwand: First Attempt The Eigerwand is the North face of a 14,000 foot peak named "The Eiger". After three generations of Europeans had conquered every peak in the Alps, few great challenges remained in the area. The Eigerwand was one of these: widely considered to be the greatest unclimbed route in the Alps. The peak had already been reached in the 1850s, during the golden age of Alpine exploration. But the north face of the mountain remained unclimbed. Many things can make a climb challenging: steep slopes, avalanches, long ascents, no easy resting spots and more. The Eigerwand had all of those, but one hazard in particular stood out: loose rock and snow. In the summer months (usually considered the best time for climbing), the mountain crumbles. Fist-sized boulders routinely tumble down the mountain. Huge avalanaches sweep down its 70-degree slopes at incredible speed. And the huge, concave face is perpetually in shadow. It is extremely cold and windy, and the concave face seems to cause local weather patterns that can be completely different from the pass below. The face is deadly. Before 1935, no team had made a serious attempt at the face. But that year, two young German climbers from Bavaria, both extremely experienced but relatively unknown outside the climbing community, decided they would make the first serious attempt. One of the things which makes the climb of the Eiger unique is that nearly the entire face is visible from a mountain resort below. Residents of Kleine Scheidegg, a small resort town in the pass, could look directly at the north face when the weather cleared and observe all of these attempts to climb the face. All of this was in place long before the first attempt was made, so when the two young Bavarians decide to make an attempt, the world's press was literally staying at the hotel watching the men through binoculars when the clouds cleared. Not knowing how long the attempt would take, they brought six days of supplies, estimating it would take two to three days to achieve the summit. They started off quite strong, making it all the way up to Eigerwand station before setting up camp for the night. Yes, you read that correctly. There are train tracks a third of the up the mountain. Here's the view from a window looking down on (again, I'm not making this up), Grindelwald. On the second day, they made little progress, having to con...

Steve is perhaps most notable for his ascent of the Central Pillar of the Rupal Face, a 4100m wall on Nanga Parbat in northern Pakistan with his fellow climber Vince Anderson. They completed the climb in a little over a week and the accent won him and Anderson the prestigious Piolet d'Or accolade. Steve House, knows that “success must never be assured.” The times he succeeds he learns that success is as temporary as the snow in spring. There are no words of the “climax” on the summit, no words of victory. Instead, Steve talks about suffering through freezing cold bivouacs, the discomfort of high altitude, and the deep emptiness after a high success. www.meetingexplorers.com

Episode #6 manages to make mention of both Nanga Parbat (8,126m, home to the towering four-and-a-half-kilometre tall Rupal Face), and the exquisite Roseberry Topping (320m, 16th highest point in the North York Moors). That's because the man doing most of the talking is Alan Hinkes: acclaimed climber, photographer, author, motivational speaker, environmentalist, mountain guide, Yorkshireman, and summiteer of all 14 of the world's 8,000m mountains. This last feat being one of tremendous objective danger, Alan is one of fewer than 50 climbers who have stood atop Shishapangma, Gasherbrum II, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I, Annapurna, Nanga Parbat, Manaslu, Dhaulagiri, Cho Oyu, Makalu, Lhotse, Kangchenjunga, K2, and (of course) Everest, without being claimed by avalanche, rockfall, edema or human error. What drives a person to attempt such a thing? Is 10 per cent risk of death ever acceptable? Does it rain more in Cumbria or Yorkshire? Let's find out together. 00:00 - Introduction 02:34 - Welcome (Yorkshireman of the Year) 04:04 - “More and more I think kindness is the way forward” 05:05 - Life across the mountainous swathe of northern England 06:20 - Introduction to the 8,000ers (“Buy my book! It's brilliaaaaaaaant!”) 13:35 - Kukuczka, Messner and more 19:45 - A big digression leading to Cust's Gully and some pretty sobering avalanche chat. 24:35 - “No mountain is worth a life, coming back is a success, and the summit is a bonus.” 26:09 - Growing up near North Allerton 31:02 - Lockdown in the Lakes, a tough time for instructors 37:30 - The considerable risks of extreme altitude mountains 42:50 - “K2 had had roughly 300 ascents and around 80 or 90 deaths” 49:16 - “I feel like I've done what I want to do in life, and everything else is a bonus” 50:18 - Why all climbing on 8000ers is “exploratory climbing” 53:30 - Greatest Mountain Memory: a reverie atop K2 56:25 - Time, money, freedom… where do you go? “I'd still be happy in this band across northern England… but maybe the Seven Summits?”

"Mark Twight began his self-described “descent into the black depths of extreme alpinism” in 1984. “This obsession,” as he wrote in the essay, “Kiss or Kill,” “destroyed my relationships, drove me into depression, and changed me from a happy, future-hopeful young man into an embittered cynic.” Twight is well-known for pushing the margins, both in his climbs and in his writing. In 1988, he and Randy Rackliff made the first ascent of “The Reality Bath,” a 600-meter ice climb in the Canadian Rockies that has yet to be repeated. That same year, Twight joined Barry Blanchard, Ward Robinson and Kevin Doyle in an alpine-style attempt of Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face. The climbers reached 7700 meters before a storm forced them to retreat amid lightning and multiple avalanches. In his writing of the same era, Twight often adopted a bold, brusque voice that earned him the persona “Dr. Doom.” Now a classic of mountain literature, the 2001 anthology Kiss or Kill includes writing that helped canonize the Dr. Doom persona, who delivered lines such as, “The new climbs of the age are yesterday’s death routes,” and “Punish your body to perfect your soul.” Twight stepped away from extreme alpinism in 2000. In his recently released book of photography, Refuge, Twight reflected, “Twenty-five of my years were governed by the demands imposed by mountains and climbing them, and the most difficult challenge I faced after having survived was to find satisfaction in the valley.” Deputy editor Paula Wright spoke with Twight at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival in November 2019. [Photo] Mike Thurk"

What do racing an IRONMAN and climbing the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat have in common? Perhaps more than we originally thought. This week, co-author of Training for the New Alpinism and Training for the Uphill Athlete, Scott Johnston sat down with us to chat about the training commonalities between 'traditional' endurance athletes and elite alpinists. We'll also explore the science behind Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome (or ADS) and how it feels to work with athletes such as legendary Alex Honnold and Kilian Jornet.

Steve House and partner Vince Anderson summitted the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat and were awarded the Piolet d'Or- in 2005.  Steve and Vince at Skyward Mountaineering train SOF. Steve has also codified and incorporated modern PT to optimize performance in the mountains. This is a great discussion with a world class athlete to enjoy and learn from. He talks about the mountains and how his training program evolved. Find Steve at uphillathlete.com Find Steve and Vince at skyward mountaineering  Read his books- Training for the New Alpinism and Training for the Uphill Athlete   Happy Holidays!

In our 8th and final episode of season two … we sit down with Barry Blanchard, one of the most bold and accomplished alpine climbers the world has ever seen. Blanchard is best known for his dangerous, cutting-edge ascents on high alpine faces across the globe. Many of Barry’s first ascents were well before their time and have consequently become test pieces for generations following in his footsteps. Most notably, these include the first ascent of Infinite Patience on the Emperor Face of Mt. Robson, the first ascent of the North Pillar of North Twin, a first ascent on the North Face of Les Droites, and a heroic attempt on the 15,000-foot Rupal Face on Nanga Parbat. He is perhaps most well known for outrageous alpine climbing feats with partners Mark Twight, Steve House, David Cheeseman and Scott Backes. The “brotherhood” as they are often referred to, actively challenged death on bold and cold alpine faces in what can only be considered a golden era of alpine climbing. We talk at length about his death-defying alpine climbing feats amidst a life wrought with hardship, personal struggle and ultimate redemption. Barry and I take a deep dive into how growing up fatherless in a mixed race family led to his rebellious alpine climbing mentality, how the closest bonds in his life have been realized through the power of partnerships, and how the great spirit has guided him on cold faces in order to abate the lethal risk of alpine climbing. Barry refers to alpinism as “pushing the door of a radiant, dangerous cathedral” and his philosophical take on the sport can be summed up in one beautiful and simple quote from his book “The Calling:" BARRY WRITES “WHAT BINDS US IS THE BOND OF BROTHERS, LINKED BY THE BELIEF THAT ACTION IS VIRTUE AND BY COMMITMENT TO CLIMBING MOUNTAINS VIA THEIR MOST COMPELLING LINES, IN SMALL PARTNERSHIPS, WITH ONLY THE THE TIME-HONORED ACCOUTREMENTS OF A ROPE, A RACK AND A PACK.” I hope you enjoy a deep and intimate conversation with one of the most fascinating, kind and intellectual people I have ever had the honor of recording with.

Barry Blanchard has known fear. The legendary big wall climber is the author of the new book, The Calling: A Life Rocked By Mountains. He talks to Jon Turk about a bad day on the world's highest vertical-distance wall climb: the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, an escarpment that rises at an average of 50 degrees for more than three miles. If you've never braced against an avalanche for fully 27 minutes amidst 70 mile per hour winds and three-foot an hour snowfall, if you've never dropped your ropes 10,000 feet because of miscommunication with your climbing partner, we have a whole new definition of fear for you. Oh, and there's no air up there either. 

If you are base jumping from Victoria Falls, kayaking through the Gauley River’s Lost Paddle Rapids, climbing up Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face, or jumping a Segway over the Snake River Canyon; have we go the listening companion for you. In this week’s episodeof All Purpose Cleaner we discuss Daredevils and learn why: John takes out […]