The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #977

00:00:00.000 You can go right out your door and be in the most awesome hiking spot ever.

00:00:05.000 And we're live, ladies and gentlemen.

00:00:07.000 Thank you, thank you for joining NPR. Please, no, I don't want to do that.

00:00:12.000 Bud Brutzman, Jeff Evans, Bud Brutzman, good friend of mine, next door neighbor, and Jeff Evans, his buddy, who apparently has lived a fucking crazy life rescuing people off of Everest, traveling up there, and Bud told me we were at this little carnival with our kids, he's like, gotta get this guy on,

00:00:28.000 gotta talk to him, so no pressure.

00:00:30.000 Yeah.

00:00:31.000 Your arm got put behind your back.

00:00:34.000 No, it didn't.

00:00:34.000 It sounded good.

00:00:35.000 I was interested.

00:00:36.000 Bring this asshole on your show.

00:00:37.000 How did you get involved with, first of all, when was the first time you summited Everest?

00:00:41.000 2001. Goddamn, man.

00:00:43.000 How many times have you done it?

00:00:44.000 Just once.

00:00:44.000 Just a good move.

00:00:45.000 I kind of get a 1.5 because I had a blind dude with me.

00:00:49.000 Yeah, so you took a blind dude all the way to the top.

00:00:53.000 Why didn't you take him like halfway?

00:00:57.000 Blowing his face.

00:00:58.000 Dude, you made it.

00:01:00.000 You're one of the rare ones.

00:01:01.000 The funny part was we got to the top and we were like, man, we can see the curvature of the earth from here, bro.

00:01:06.000 And he goes, I don't give a shit.

00:01:07.000 I want to get out of here.

00:01:08.000 I can't see anything.

00:01:09.000 I want to go.

00:01:10.000 That's weird.

00:01:11.000 That's actually not true.

00:01:12.000 What he said is, hey, Eric, take a look around.

00:01:14.000 Take a look around.

00:01:16.000 Was it instinctual or were you just fucking with him?

00:01:19.000 I mean, I think it was a little bit of both.

00:01:21.000 I kind of instinctively fuck with him.

00:01:23.000 Right.

00:01:24.000 We've been bros for a long time.

00:01:26.000 I mean, it's a very fraternal relationship that we have.

00:01:29.000 So I, by nature, just sort of automatically fuck with this guy.

00:01:33.000 And I enjoy it.

00:01:34.000 And he enjoys it back.

00:01:35.000 Because he is a super blonde dude.

00:01:38.000 Right.

00:01:38.000 You know, the whole world loves him some Eric.

00:01:41.000 And I'm probably one of the few people that just kick him in the nuts, you know.

00:01:45.000 Give him a little bit of a hard time.

00:01:46.000 Yeah.

00:01:46.000 Yeah, if you're a blind dude that climbs Mount Everest, people just give you a free pass.

00:01:50.000 A lot of stuff.

00:01:50.000 It's not only that.

00:01:51.000 What else did he climb?

00:01:52.000 Well, he's done a bunch of stuff, but he just kayaked the Grand Canyon two years ago in his own boat.

00:01:59.000 The whole thing.

00:02:01.000 277 miles.

00:02:02.000 What did you have, a guy behind him going left, right, left, right?

00:02:05.000 Front and back, and they had, you know, these earpieces, and, you know, he asked me to go, but I'm like, that's, I'll climb Everest, but I sure as fuck ain't gonna take you down the Grand Canyon.

00:02:13.000 There's something that people really love about someone risking their life, and then pulling it off, right?

00:02:19.000 Something...

00:02:19.000 Assuming you pull it off, yeah.

00:02:20.000 Assuming, yeah.

00:02:21.000 If you don't, then you make one of those Instagram greatest fails pages.

00:02:25.000 Yeah, I mean, they were telling us before we went up there, like, you know, blind dude's gonna die, and when he dies, what'd you think was gonna happen?

00:02:32.000 They were telling that?

00:02:33.000 Oh yeah, we heard that.

00:02:34.000 The Sherpas?

00:02:34.000 No, no, just the Everest experts.

00:02:37.000 Remember, this was back in 01. This was when Everest was super dangerous.

00:02:42.000 It was a little bit more raw than it is now.

00:02:44.000 How is that?

00:02:45.000 What has happened?

00:02:46.000 Because on the outside, what I've seen is all the exposés that show all the human waste that they leave behind, including actual shit, right?

00:02:54.000 And the tents and...

00:02:55.000 People pay people to kind of do all the hard work, and then you just kind of show up.

00:03:00.000 Still hard, but not as hard.

00:03:04.000 You've got to put in the steps.

00:03:07.000 You've got to put in the work, but it's so commercialized that it's been diluted to a certain extent.

00:03:15.000 I am a Sherpa advocate to the core.

00:03:20.000 You know, these guys do the work.

00:03:23.000 I mean, they put it in every single day.

00:03:25.000 They're humping the loads.

00:03:27.000 They're cooking the food.

00:03:27.000 They're setting the lines.

00:03:28.000 They're taking the biggest risk and then allowing, you know, other folks to move through a little bit more effectively and faster and, you know, not have to expend as much energy.

00:03:39.000 So, we kind of got in there in 01 towards, I think, ahead of the curve just a little bit as to when it started to The face of Everest changed a little bit.

00:03:52.000 So how did they make it easier?

00:03:53.000 What did they do that made it more commercial?

00:03:59.000 Money, number one.

00:04:00.000 Gets in there and pays a lot more Sherpas to do a lot more work.

00:04:05.000 So the lines are fixed.

00:04:07.000 The weather forecasting models are more effective and more efficient.

00:04:11.000 Wouldn't you say the lines are fixed?

00:04:12.000 The lines are fixed, meaning the ropes.

00:04:14.000 The ropes on the mountain all get fixed in.

00:04:17.000 You clip in.

00:04:17.000 Yeah, you clip into ropes when you go up.

00:04:19.000 Okay, so the ropes are there before you get there.

00:04:21.000 All you have to do is just kind of like hoof it.

00:04:23.000 So it's not like before...

00:04:25.000 So you kind of...

00:04:26.000 Wow, that's weird.

00:04:26.000 So it's almost like you're on like a theme park.

00:04:30.000 You're still in Everest, and you still could get fucked up by an avalanche, right?

00:04:34.000 There's no question.

00:04:34.000 It's very dangerous.

00:04:35.000 There's no way to mitigate all of that.

00:04:37.000 But, you know, it has been eased up a little bit.

00:04:43.000 The edges have been taken off just a slight bit.

00:04:45.000 But it also adds that they're dangerous, because if I was looking at it, it's sometimes more dangerous now because there's lines.

00:04:51.000 There's sometimes 300 people, 600 people in a line, and you're waiting for some asshole who didn't train, and you're watching him try to climb up this little 20-foot cliff, and they don't know how to work a jumar, they can't climb.

00:05:02.000 What's a jumar?

00:05:04.000 It's an ascending device.

00:05:06.000 It's like a one-way ascending device to go up a rope, so you can slide it up and it catches on the way down.

00:05:10.000 And then you use a pole.

00:05:11.000 But people go up there, and when we were up there, They had people, they literally, without talking shit about trekking companies, there were some companies like, all right, we're going to show you how to put your crampons as you're going on the icefall.

00:05:23.000 Jesus Christ.

00:05:24.000 Yeah, they've learned.

00:05:25.000 Like, we're going to learn.

00:05:26.000 They've never had crampons before.

00:05:28.000 We had to, Jeff, not me, Jeff had to risk his life in helicopters going to high, high altitude to pick up people who shouldn't, no business on the mountains.

00:05:37.000 So, they didn't manage to get their body acclimated?

00:05:41.000 Is that what the issue is?

00:05:42.000 It's not that.

00:05:42.000 They didn't put in the apprenticeship.

00:05:46.000 Because, you know, nowadays, the commercial component allows folks that have enough money to pay and then show up and get guided, basically, to the top.

00:05:59.000 So, back in the day, you know, if you didn't have your teeth cut, you know, it was on you.

00:06:06.000 And nowadays you can just show up and generally someone will be taking care of you, whether it's a guide or whether it's a Sherpa.

00:06:14.000 And so it's changed.

00:06:17.000 But I don't want to take anything from the folks who still go out there.

00:06:20.000 It's a dream for so many people.

00:06:22.000 It's still an aspiration and a life goal for a lot of folks.

00:06:28.000 And it's still very difficult.

00:06:30.000 Yeah.

00:06:30.000 And so, for instance, last year, we just saw, I mean, we saw a really nice cross-section of skilled, experienced climbers trying it, but then we saw a shit show.

00:06:40.000 You know, we saw a lot of folks who should have been on other peaks first, and then they weren't.

00:06:44.000 They skipped to the top.

00:06:46.000 Right.

00:06:47.000 Anything in life.

00:06:48.000 You bypass the work and you get smoked.

00:06:52.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:06:53.000 Our rescue team, ARS rescue team, our five Sherpas did the highest altitude rescue in history, 28,500 off the balcony.

00:07:01.000 And a girl, husband and wife, I don't know if they did, did she summit?

00:07:04.000 I don't think she summited though.

00:07:07.000 She was coming down to Summit.

00:07:08.000 Summit's at 29, 35. She's at 28, 500, and she decides to sit down.

00:07:14.000 Her husband left her.

00:07:15.000 She's tapped out.

00:07:15.000 Husband left her.

00:07:16.000 People quit.

00:07:17.000 Yeah, people quit.

00:07:18.000 So she sat down, but she sat down, and he left her?

00:07:22.000 Wait, there's more to that story.

00:07:23.000 So he left her, and then we go rescue her.

00:07:26.000 What did he say?

00:07:26.000 Did he say, sit right here, I'll be back in a couple days?

00:07:29.000 This is up for questions.

00:07:30.000 There's two ways to look at it.

00:07:31.000 We were talking about this last night.

00:07:33.000 She may have just been a tap-out bitch and just said, I quit.

00:07:37.000 And he tried to, please, come on, come on, come on, and finally just left her.

00:07:41.000 That's one scenario.

00:07:42.000 The other scenario is, you know, he just was like, peace out, good luck, I'm out.

00:07:48.000 Here's the problem.

00:07:49.000 I do it this way, and I understand about diving.

00:07:52.000 So let's say you and I are diving.

00:07:53.000 We're 300 feet below the water, right?

00:07:55.000 And my air goes out.

00:07:57.000 And I know we can buddy breathe, but let's pretend there's no buddy breathing.

00:08:00.000 And you're going to stick around and watch me die, and you're going to end up dying, or I'm going to grab ahold of you and grab your regulator, and we're both going to die.

00:08:07.000 You can't help anybody at that level.

00:08:09.000 You can't.

00:08:11.000 You're tired.

00:08:12.000 Your body is eating itself.

00:08:14.000 You're basically dying in the death zone.

00:08:15.000 He could explain that.

00:08:17.000 Basically, if your wife says, I'm sitting down.

00:08:21.000 I'm going to get up in five minutes.

00:08:22.000 You go ahead, and she's got a Sherpa with her.

00:08:25.000 And then you go, I go ahead.

00:08:27.000 And you get back to Camp 4, which is exactly what happened.

00:08:29.000 Get down to Camp 4 and look around.

00:08:31.000 Your wife's not there.

00:08:32.000 Holy shit.

00:08:33.000 And then they call us.

00:08:34.000 And they wake Jeff and I up, and we're like, you're going to what?

00:08:37.000 So I was with her, right, at base camp when we delivered her to her husband, and I was trying to gauge, like, is he going to be one of these guys that's like, oh my god, I'm so glad you're alive, or holy shit, she's alive.

00:08:50.000 Ha ha ha ha!

00:08:52.000 Oh, fuck.

00:08:53.000 And I think it was the former.

00:08:56.000 I think he was really ecstatic.

00:08:57.000 He was crying.

00:08:58.000 Remember, he was really upset.

00:09:00.000 But then...

00:09:01.000 Hold on.

00:09:02.000 We've got to go.

00:09:03.000 You have to go back.

00:09:04.000 No, no, no.

00:09:05.000 It goes back.

00:09:05.000 Because actually, the first kick in the ball...

00:09:09.000 Without taking the whole thing to do this.

00:09:10.000 So what had to happen is Jeff and I and our base camp manager, Anthony, had to take four Sherpas from Camp 4, took two Sherpas and then two more in the middle of the night.

00:09:22.000 So 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock at night, the most dangerous start.

00:09:25.000 Winds are blowing 30, 40 miles an hour.

00:09:27.000 It's 20 degrees below zero.

00:09:29.000 Nobody, nobody's ever done it.

00:09:31.000 You don't do it.

00:09:31.000 And we sent them up there and we said, can you go get her?

00:09:34.000 Oh, God.

00:09:36.000 And you've got to find this person on the line.

00:09:38.000 So they walked, and they kept walking, and they kept walking.

00:09:41.000 And we have video.

00:09:42.000 Remember Mingma's video?

00:09:43.000 How long does it take to get up the line?

00:09:45.000 Normal human being.

00:09:47.000 You, the three of us.

00:09:48.000 How long would it take the three of us to get from...

00:09:50.000 From the south call to where she was, probably three or four hours.

00:09:56.000 If you're in shape, so take me out of that.

00:09:58.000 You're a runner, though.

00:09:59.000 Yeah, but I'm not doing any high-altitude hiking.

00:10:03.000 Give me five hours.

00:10:04.000 Okay, so it's very dangerous.

00:10:07.000 Extremely dangerous, especially at night.

00:10:09.000 At the worst time.

00:10:09.000 You're hanging it out.

00:10:10.000 Yeah, at the worst time.

00:10:12.000 No one knows where she is.

00:10:14.000 But the terrain dictates that she has to be, unless she's falling off the side, she's on a spine, basically.

00:10:22.000 And if you go up the ridge, you're either going to find her if she's alive or she's tossed off the side.

00:10:28.000 And also, she's dealing with super low air.

00:10:31.000 No air.

00:10:32.000 Extremely cold.

00:10:33.000 No air.

00:10:34.000 Did she bring any tanks?

00:10:35.000 A third of what you got from here.

00:10:35.000 Did they bring tanks?

00:10:36.000 Yeah, but her air was gone.

00:10:38.000 So you're drinking...

00:10:38.000 So she brought no air with her, or the air that she brought with her was done?

00:10:42.000 She was abandoned, basically.

00:10:44.000 So they left her.

00:10:45.000 So generally you would have somebody with an extra tank to be able to help her out.

00:10:49.000 But I get the sense that she just said, I'm done.

00:10:52.000 And she sat down and everybody tried to...

00:10:54.000 And then no one could get her to get up.

00:10:56.000 And they didn't want to walk back with her?

00:10:59.000 Probably tried, but you can't carry somebody at 28,000 feet.

00:11:03.000 So keep going.

00:11:04.000 So the oxygen up there is 33% less than what's here at sea level.

00:11:09.000 It's at 33%, so it's 67% less.

00:11:12.000 A third, yeah.

00:11:14.000 Wow.

00:11:14.000 Normal auction.

00:11:15.000 She was no auction.

00:11:16.000 So she sat down.

00:11:17.000 So the boys, we have GoPros on them.

00:11:18.000 We had special cameras and pockets and all kinds of weird shit to film on the mountain.

00:11:22.000 And the boys are walking.

00:11:23.000 I have footage of Mingma.

00:11:25.000 Mingma's walking up there and he's going, I swear to God, I'll say this for you.

00:11:30.000 He speaks decent English the whole time.

00:11:32.000 I'll send you the clip.

00:11:33.000 It's the funniest clip you've ever seen.

00:11:35.000 He's like, goddamn motherfucking fucking fucking mother.

00:11:37.000 He's just cussing every step of the way.

00:11:39.000 It's a fucked up scenario, man.

00:11:42.000 You know, it's middle of the night.

00:11:43.000 He's looking for some, you know, potentially dead person in the death zone.

00:11:48.000 Yeah, in the death zone.

00:11:49.000 It's not a cool situation.

00:11:50.000 Why is it the death zone?

00:11:52.000 Because of the oxygen?

00:11:53.000 Because of the lack of oxygen, yeah.

00:11:54.000 Your body starts to conspire against you.

00:11:57.000 I mean, you...

00:11:58.000 You know, you can't assimilate any nutrition.

00:12:01.000 The fluid in your body starts to go to places it's not supposed to go.

00:12:06.000 Think about that.

00:12:07.000 So it goes up in your brain, and you get cerebral edema, and you make bad decisions, and you get a headache, and you lose your vision, and then you get pulmonary edema, your lungs fill up with fluid, and you drown in your own fluid.

00:12:17.000 This is like stepping out of the spade capsule at Mars and going, I wonder what this is going to do to my body, and you step out and shit starts popping.

00:12:23.000 It's strange up there.

00:12:25.000 Wow.

00:12:25.000 They've done MRI studies, actually.

00:12:27.000 So that's where it is right there?

00:12:28.000 This is the line?

00:12:29.000 Jamie pulled up the death zone.

00:12:31.000 Lack of oxygen above 8,000 meters can be fatal to climbers.

00:12:34.000 8,000 feet is fucking high.

00:12:37.000 8,000 meters.

00:12:38.000 That's insane.

00:12:40.000 See that last dot before the summit?

00:12:42.000 That's 26,000 feet, which is right there.

00:12:45.000 Yep, exactly, Jamie.

00:12:46.000 And is that where she was above that?

00:12:49.000 No, so go about halfway up, and that's the balcony right in there.

00:12:52.000 Oh, she was almost there.

00:12:53.000 500 feet.

00:12:54.000 She was 500 feet from the top?

00:12:55.000 She may have.

00:12:56.000 Who knows?

00:12:57.000 I don't know if she made it.

00:12:58.000 She was at 28,500, and we have a GPS coordinates on it.

00:13:01.000 She was at 28,500 feet from the top.

00:13:04.000 So she could almost say she summited Everest.

00:13:06.000 She's like, she could see.

00:13:08.000 Like, Everest was like where your car's parked.

00:13:10.000 Yeah.

00:13:11.000 Except there was a lot of crazy-ass terrain between where she was and across.

00:13:15.000 That's where the Hillary Step is, and that's where the ridge goes.

00:13:17.000 It's no hotter than your laptop in sections, and it's a 10,000-foot drop into Tibet to the right.

00:13:23.000 And a 6,000 foot drop into Nepal to the left.

00:13:25.000 Either way, it would hurt pretty fucking bad.

00:13:27.000 It's as wide as a laptop?

00:13:28.000 In sections, it's pretty narrow.

00:13:31.000 Oh, fucking Christ.

00:13:32.000 It opens up and it shrinks down.

00:13:36.000 But, I mean, it's no place to screw the pooch.

00:13:39.000 And she did.

00:13:41.000 Oh my god.

00:13:42.000 This is it right here?

00:13:43.000 Well, that's the Hillary step right there.

00:13:44.000 Which, by the way, this is really interesting.

00:13:47.000 Two years ago, remember the earthquake two years ago in Nepal?

00:13:50.000 So it knocked that whole boulder off.

00:13:52.000 That boulder that people are standing on right there?

00:13:54.000 That's the Hillary step.

00:13:55.000 Imagine if you were on that, you're like, I made it.

00:13:57.000 It's gone.

00:13:59.000 You're going for the ride.

00:14:00.000 That's the peak of Everest.

00:14:02.000 Maybe you, bro.

00:14:03.000 I'll fucking hop off and grab ahold of...

00:14:05.000 Wingsuit.

00:14:07.000 Maybe you, bro.

00:14:09.000 Look at that clown show.

00:14:12.000 There's so many people.

00:14:14.000 So if someone falls onto you, you've got a real problem, too.

00:14:17.000 Yeah, so the year we were up there in 2000, the year before, the fall before, there was a British guy, I can't remember his name, but he got caught up in the ropes, descending from the summit down the Hillary Step and got caught.

00:14:28.000 And there was nobody there with him.

00:14:31.000 And he got caught, caught, and he got stuck in perpetuity.

00:14:38.000 So we thought...

00:14:40.000 That, for sure, the first people that were going up in 01, that were a few weeks before us, had to cut him free.

00:14:47.000 Because we were speculating, like, if we're the first group that gets up there, we're going to have to scoot around this fellow, you know?

00:14:54.000 Whoa, so he's just stuck on this line.

00:14:56.000 But he wasn't there when we got up there.

00:14:58.000 He wasn't, somebody already cut him free?

00:14:59.000 Yeah.

00:14:59.000 Now, what do they do, push him off the side?

00:15:01.000 Well, here's something for Jamie.

00:15:02.000 So there's 248 bodies on Everest.

00:15:05.000 Yeah.

00:15:05.000 Right now.

00:15:06.000 Still there.

00:15:06.000 And these climbers, I didn't go up.

00:15:08.000 I was at base camp.

00:15:09.000 The climbers use them as...

00:15:12.000 Markers.

00:15:12.000 Right.

00:15:13.000 You kind of go up here.

00:15:14.000 Isn't the original climber, the first guy to make it?

00:15:17.000 Well, they found one, yeah, but he's on the south summit.

00:15:19.000 He's on the other side.

00:15:20.000 On the north side in Tibet.

00:15:21.000 Mallory.

00:15:22.000 Yeah, Mallory.

00:15:23.000 They found Mallory's body.

00:15:24.000 They didn't find Irvine's body.

00:15:25.000 You see just his back, right?

00:15:26.000 His back.

00:15:27.000 Still there, frozen solid.

00:15:29.000 Skin's there.

00:15:29.000 It's pretty weird.

00:15:30.000 Yeah.

00:15:30.000 It's like ivory skin.

00:15:31.000 Yeah.

00:15:32.000 It's still flesh.

00:15:33.000 Like, still flesh there.

00:15:35.000 But the crow, right?

00:15:36.000 It's cryogenically frozen.

00:15:37.000 The crows pick at them.

00:15:38.000 They eat them.

00:15:39.000 There's crows at that altitude.

00:15:41.000 They pick at him?

00:15:42.000 This guy?

00:15:43.000 Yeah, that's Mallory.

00:15:44.000 Jesus, look at that.

00:15:45.000 That's so weird.

00:15:46.000 But that dude's a bad dude, man.

00:15:48.000 That is a very bad man right there, because they went out with some hobnail boots and some marginal equipment, and everybody was telling them that they were going to be dead for sure, and they said, we're going to charge ahead.

00:15:58.000 And they did.

00:15:58.000 I mean, this was way back, man.

00:16:01.000 This was in the 20s, right?

00:16:03.000 And there's the controversy.

00:16:04.000 Look at that boot.

00:16:06.000 The controversy is that they summited first, but they can't prove it.

00:16:09.000 So that's a big controversy.

00:16:10.000 They thought Irvine and Mallory summited, and then they fell on their way down.

00:16:14.000 So Crows pick at him?

00:16:15.000 Oh, yeah.

00:16:16.000 But obviously he's still there.

00:16:19.000 Yeah, I mean, I don't think they get at him as much.

00:16:21.000 But there's, you know, there's things, there's a lot of stuff there.

00:16:26.000 You know, I ain't gonna lie to you.

00:16:28.000 There's a lot happening there.

00:16:29.000 Look at that.

00:16:30.000 That's sitting on the mountain.

00:16:31.000 You have to walk past that.

00:16:32.000 Yeah, I mean, I didn't see that guy, but.

00:16:35.000 You've never seen that guy?

00:16:36.000 I didn't see that guy.

00:16:36.000 How many of the 200-plus bodies have you seen up there?

00:16:39.000 Well, you know, the conditions change so dramatically over each season, depending on snowfall.

00:16:46.000 Whoa, look at that dude.

00:16:47.000 Jesus.

00:16:47.000 There's some creepy things up there.

00:16:49.000 Zoom in on that dude's face.

00:16:50.000 I mean, there's...

00:16:51.000 He looks happy.

00:16:53.000 Ah, I made it.

00:16:54.000 I don't think he...

00:16:56.000 Nice jacket.

00:16:57.000 That's pretty fresh.

00:16:58.000 That's a nice looking down suit.

00:16:59.000 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

00:17:01.000 Like, how many people die a year?

00:17:02.000 Well, I think the average is, you know, nowadays is usually, I think, somewhere under 10. You know, between 6 and 10 every season.

00:17:11.000 How many people attempt it?

00:17:13.000 I think the grade is increasing every year.

00:17:18.000 I think this year was the most that summited, the most attempted and most summited was this year, and I think close to 300 people summited this year.

00:17:25.000 Jesus.

00:17:25.000 Pull that picture up again, that image of death's Sherpas and regular folks.

00:17:29.000 So a lot of the Sherpas died too, huh?

00:17:30.000 Yeah, well, I mean, there they go.

00:17:32.000 They're higher in concentration.

00:17:33.000 They do the majority of the work.

00:17:35.000 Fuck, mate.

00:17:35.000 Well, and that's one of the reasons why we went out there.

00:17:37.000 We saved more Sherpas, and we pulled a lot of Sherpas off, because more often than not, They don't have helicopters and they don't have helicopter insurance.

00:17:45.000 And so we would go and I would pay for it.

00:17:47.000 They would go, there's a Sherpa who's really sick and he's going to die.

00:17:50.000 And then Jeff and I would just decide to pull him off.

00:17:53.000 The other thing they don't have is they don't have life insurance.

00:17:55.000 And you can imagine.

00:17:57.000 So a lot of these families, a lot of the Nepali and the high altitude workers' families, We're good to go.

00:18:23.000 Loved ones are killed on the mountain.

00:18:25.000 Oh, that's nice.

00:18:25.000 And it's good.

00:18:26.000 It keeps them straight.

00:18:27.000 Because they don't have a choice.

00:18:28.000 This is high altitude.

00:18:29.000 You live in that area, you're going to be a Sherpa or a porter.

00:18:32.000 Yeah.

00:18:32.000 The highest level you can be, you're a Sherpa, you're a guide.

00:18:35.000 Wow.

00:18:36.000 So what happened to this lady again?

00:18:39.000 So Mingma goes up there.

00:18:41.000 They're walking up there and they need some help.

00:18:43.000 And I have it all on video.

00:18:45.000 And he's going, fuck, motherfucker.

00:18:47.000 It's the funniest thing in the world.

00:18:48.000 It's a comedy show.

00:18:50.000 So then they hear music.

00:18:52.000 Not kidding.

00:18:53.000 They hear music.

00:18:54.000 So she has a phone on her.

00:18:57.000 I don't know how the battery's lasting.

00:18:58.000 And she's sitting at the balcony.

00:19:01.000 But on the ice and just barely breathing and listening to music.

00:19:06.000 And then so they go to her.

00:19:08.000 Like Rihanna or some shit.

00:19:09.000 No, it was some kind of Indian music.

00:19:13.000 Curry rock or whatever the hell it was.

00:19:16.000 Was she Indian?

00:19:17.000 Yeah, she was Indian.

00:19:18.000 Her name was Chetna.

00:19:19.000 You don't want to say her name, man.

00:19:21.000 Well, no.

00:19:21.000 You're going to disparage her.

00:19:23.000 No, no.

00:19:23.000 She's alive.

00:19:23.000 She's good.

00:19:24.000 She's alive.

00:19:24.000 She's stoked.

00:19:25.000 She sent me a Christmas card.

00:19:26.000 Okay.

00:19:27.000 Yeah, no.

00:19:27.000 That's nice.

00:19:28.000 Yeah, very cool.

00:19:29.000 Christmas card with her kid.

00:19:30.000 So what happened?

00:19:30.000 So then they get to her and they start calling her mama.

00:19:34.000 They're like, mama, mama, you need to wake up.

00:19:35.000 You need to wake up.

00:19:36.000 We need to go.

00:19:36.000 And she's like, no, no.

00:19:37.000 It's all on video.

00:19:38.000 Like, leave me alone.

00:19:39.000 Leave me alone.

00:19:39.000 I don't want to do it.

00:19:40.000 I don't want to do it.

00:19:42.000 And then they put oxygen on her, crank up the bottle, try to get some blood flowing, get stuff going.

00:19:46.000 They sit up there at 8,000 feet, 35 minutes, 45 minutes.

00:19:50.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:19:51.000 Trying to coax her?

00:19:52.000 Yep, trying to coax her to get her down.

00:19:54.000 And now, is it because of her personality, or is it because she's so, like...

00:20:02.000 Diminished.

00:20:02.000 Cognitively, things go south too, right?

00:20:05.000 So she probably had pretty profound cerebral edema, so her decision-making was in the toilet.

00:20:10.000 So you become really apathetic.

00:20:13.000 And it's impossible to carry someone down.

00:20:14.000 You can't carry someone down.

00:20:15.000 You can lower them down, which is what happened.

00:20:18.000 Tie a rope to their harness and short rope them down with two or three dudes working really, really hard and sort of lowering her down.

00:20:25.000 And that's how they got her down.

00:20:27.000 She quit, and a lot of people quit.

00:20:30.000 I worked search and rescue in Alaska on Denali for years, and you'd be amazed at how many people are just like, Done.

00:20:37.000 Jesus.

00:20:38.000 And they just lay down and they're done.

00:20:39.000 Because they're not rational enough to know, like, if I sit down and I just take just a little bitty nap, you ain't getting back up.

00:20:45.000 You're taking a snow nap and you're done.

00:20:47.000 Snow nap.

00:20:49.000 Yeah.

00:20:49.000 Snow nap.

00:20:50.000 I don't like that sound.

00:20:52.000 That's a weird term.

00:20:54.000 But with hypothermia, the interesting thing that happens is you get euphoric.

00:20:59.000 You go through this stage of super cold, super cold, and then your core temperature drops low enough to where euphoria comes in.

00:21:06.000 So oftentimes those same people we would find are undressed.

00:21:10.000 So you get hot, you get warm, so their gloves come off, the hats come off, the pants unzipped, and everybody's buck naked on the side of the mountain.

00:21:19.000 Right before they die.

00:21:20.000 Right before they die.

00:21:22.000 Not that I want to go out that way, but, you know, I can think of worse ways.

00:21:26.000 Like, it's euphoric, apparently.

00:21:28.000 Wow.

00:21:29.000 Because we've also pulled people back.

00:21:31.000 I've seen multiple times when we've pulled people back and they discussed that.

00:21:36.000 They described it.

00:21:38.000 And then we start re-warming their frostbite, and then it's not right after that.

00:21:43.000 That hurts.

00:21:44.000 Turns out that hurts when you re-thaw stuff.

00:21:45.000 Frostbite is so horrible to look at, too.

00:21:48.000 Oh, you should see the stuff we had to see.

00:21:49.000 And her fingers are still, half fingers are off.

00:21:52.000 She got messed up pretty good.

00:21:53.000 Yeah, she sent me pictures.

00:21:54.000 She's missing fingers?

00:21:55.000 Missing tips.

00:21:56.000 Tips, yeah.

00:21:57.000 She's lucky.

00:21:58.000 Some of the phalanges are gone.

00:22:00.000 Chopped off.

00:22:01.000 So they got her down.

00:22:02.000 They ended up hours and hours and hours.

00:22:04.000 And we're tracking and we're trying to talk to them.

00:22:06.000 They get her down to Camp 4, which is that track that you saw.

00:22:10.000 Then the trickiest part, as he'll tell you because I can't tell you, Camp 4 to Camp 3. Yeah, camp 4 to camp 3, and then camp 3 to camp 2, which they didn't even do.

00:22:21.000 They couldn't get to camp 2, which is straight on the Lhotse face.

00:22:26.000 It's about a 60 degree ice face, which is slick.

00:22:31.000 So when you're roping somebody down, It actually does provide less friction.

00:22:37.000 You can actually slide somebody down, but you can't get going too fast.

00:22:43.000 So now you're at 26-27,000 feet.

00:22:46.000 You're a 130-pound, 125-pound Sherpa, and you've got to lower this 200-pound lady down.

00:22:52.000 Hard oxygen.

00:22:53.000 These guys are working their asses off.

00:22:54.000 Wait a minute.

00:22:54.000 She's 200 pounds?

00:22:55.000 Well, nah.

00:22:56.000 She wasn't that big.

00:22:58.000 But, you know, with all her gear and all her shit on her, yeah.

00:23:00.000 I mean, she was 160, 170 pounds worth of weight.

00:23:03.000 You know, dead weight.

00:23:05.000 Just getting lowered down.

00:23:06.000 So we got her down.

00:23:07.000 We got her down to where we could go in with the helicopter.

00:23:10.000 And we picked her up and took her back down to base camp.

00:23:12.000 And that was when the meeting took place between her and her husband and the tearful rejoicing.

00:23:18.000 No, so the part you missed was the helicopter landed it.

00:23:21.000 It couldn't land at Camp 2. We weren't supposed to go up to 23,500, which is the base of Crampon Point.

00:23:27.000 Andrew got there and said, I can only pick one of you.

00:23:31.000 And she looked at her husband and said, you stay.

00:23:33.000 Wow.

00:23:34.000 And so she made him stay and take the next helicopter out.

00:23:37.000 So we got her down.

00:23:38.000 She looked at her husband and said, you stay.

00:23:40.000 He's like, bitch, you quit!

00:23:42.000 Well, she was mad because she got left.

00:23:44.000 She was pissed off that she got left.

00:23:45.000 She was pissed that she got left, but he couldn't have carried her.

00:23:48.000 No, you're switching.

00:23:50.000 It depends.

00:23:51.000 There's ways of looking at it both ways.

00:23:52.000 Somebody quit.

00:23:53.000 Somebody gave up.

00:23:55.000 Somebody said no.

00:23:55.000 I mean, who knows?

00:23:56.000 But I'm sure they had to go through some deep-ass therapy.

00:23:59.000 When they got home.

00:24:00.000 Okay, so I'm going to fill in the gaps here.

00:24:03.000 So fast forward nine or ten months and dude, husband, has a heart attack and dies.

00:24:12.000 So he died.

00:24:14.000 I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing at that.

00:24:17.000 That's kind of fucked up.

00:24:19.000 It is kind of fucked up, but man, you made it to Everest and then you fucking...

00:24:23.000 But what's the karma, though?

00:24:24.000 That he left her?

00:24:25.000 I mean, maybe.

00:24:26.000 But what is he going to do?

00:24:28.000 If he doesn't leave her, what does he do?

00:24:30.000 He sits up there with her?

00:24:31.000 I've told people that she's up there and she's alive.

00:24:34.000 And he panicked.

00:24:34.000 He was panicking on the phone.

00:24:35.000 He was there.

00:24:36.000 I don't know.

00:24:37.000 We talked about it last night.

00:24:38.000 It's a romantic story.

00:24:40.000 You huddle up with your girl and you're going to die together.

00:24:42.000 Whoa.

00:24:43.000 Right?

00:24:43.000 Or you go down there and try to get her saved and you get ridiculed for leaving her.

00:24:48.000 It's easy to Monday morning quarterback any of those situations because all bets off when you get above 26,000 feet.

00:24:54.000 I mean, it's...

00:24:55.000 It is.

00:24:56.000 You're kind of hanging on a little bit, and that's why you get these big into thin air stories that happen.

00:25:02.000 No one really can remember exactly the details.

00:25:06.000 It's a little bit sketchy.

00:25:09.000 My intentions were, and I did, and you did.

00:25:13.000 Summit nights on 26,000 foot peaks.

00:25:18.000 There's always variables that come into play, and it turns into theater.

00:25:23.000 I mean, it's a stage.

00:25:25.000 People make choices.

00:25:26.000 People make mistakes.

00:25:27.000 We had that one guy on Grace's team.

00:25:32.000 He was a triathlete.

00:25:33.000 He went up, broke a bunch of rules, respectfully.

00:25:37.000 With regards to acclimatization and stuff.

00:25:40.000 Acclimatization.

00:25:41.000 Pushed himself too much.

00:25:42.000 Summited.

00:25:42.000 Got back down and died in his tent.

00:25:44.000 Oh!

00:25:45.000 His fifth attempt up there.

00:25:47.000 You can look it up.

00:25:48.000 It's on the internet.

00:25:48.000 His fifth attempt up there.

00:25:50.000 Pushed himself way too hard.

00:25:52.000 The rules are, if you don't make it to a certain point by a certain time, you should turn around and save your life and come back another day.

00:25:58.000 And he said, no.

00:25:59.000 He said, no, I'm pushing through.

00:26:00.000 Got to the summit too late.

00:26:01.000 Came back, really exhausted.

00:26:03.000 16, 17-hour day.

00:26:04.000 Died in a tent.

00:26:05.000 He was 35 years old.

00:26:07.000 What did he die from?

00:26:09.000 Exposure, cerebral edema.

00:26:10.000 He might have thrown a clot.

00:26:12.000 I mean, I don't know.

00:26:13.000 I don't know the autopsy, but...

00:26:14.000 It was something fairly acute.

00:26:17.000 It wasn't just exhaustion.

00:26:19.000 It wasn't just hypothermia.

00:26:20.000 He made it back to the tent and then just expired in the tent.

00:26:24.000 There's a lot of things that can go wrong, and you have a small window to get it right.

00:26:30.000 What is good about it?

00:26:32.000 Well, about what?

00:26:33.000 Summoning a big ass mountain?

00:26:35.000 Yeah.

00:26:35.000 You know, I think it's a tough question.

00:26:38.000 It's a pretty nebulous thing.

00:26:39.000 It's very subjective.

00:26:40.000 It's very selfish.

00:26:42.000 There's no, you know, there's no chance.

00:26:43.000 I used to climb pretty hard and then I had a kid.

00:26:47.000 And my sense of objective risk changed significantly at that point because climbing by nature is a very selfish pursuit.

00:26:58.000 You're going out there to do something that brings me joy and it brings me fulfillment.

00:27:06.000 And it gives me a sense of connection to the people that I'm sharing a rope with.

00:27:11.000 Because we're on a rope, man.

00:27:13.000 I mean, we're going to win together, lose together.

00:27:15.000 I mean, it's...

00:27:16.000 But Jeff doesn't do it selfishly.

00:27:17.000 You give all these climbers shit.

00:27:19.000 That's a very selfish thing to do for him.

00:27:22.000 But he did it because Eric did it.

00:27:24.000 Eric wanted to do it.

00:27:25.000 So he's like, oh, you're a selfish prick.

00:27:27.000 You summited Everest.

00:27:28.000 He goes, no, I've helped my blind friend go to the Everest.

00:27:30.000 It really wasn't his goal.

00:27:31.000 His goal was to help the first blind guy to summit.

00:27:34.000 And everybody on my team.

00:27:35.000 It wasn't just me.

00:27:36.000 I had an amazing team.

00:27:37.000 There was...

00:27:39.000 You know, with all our Sherpas on Summit Day, we were 19 of us.

00:27:43.000 And at that point, I think this record still stands, we're still the highest number from one team in one day to stand on top together.

00:27:52.000 And I attribute that to the fact that, just as you said, bud, that was just a bunch of bros who weren't commercially guided.

00:28:00.000 We were just friends and we were there for something that was bigger than us.

00:28:03.000 We were there for Eric.

00:28:04.000 We wanted to get him as high up as we could and get him back down.

00:28:07.000 And if that meant the summit, awesome.

00:28:09.000 If not, We'll come back and we'll still be bros and maybe we'll go do some other cool shit.

00:28:15.000 So what happens when you don't go up there for me to plant my flag is we got to summit.

00:28:21.000 I got to stand on top.

00:28:23.000 It's pretty cool.

00:28:25.000 What is the feeling like when you get to that top and you realize that you have summited Mount Everest?

00:28:32.000 You're up there and you're looking around and you're like, holy shit.

00:28:36.000 Top of the world, ma.

00:28:39.000 Just like so many other times with him and the stuff that I've done with Eric, I was worried about him getting down.

00:28:47.000 That's all I was.

00:28:48.000 I was obsessing on it because there was a storm coming in and we heard all the radio chatter.

00:28:52.000 How much time do you have for the storm?

00:28:54.000 I mean, the shit is barreling.

00:28:56.000 I mean, it is moving quick from Tibet across.

00:29:02.000 We could see it coming.

00:29:03.000 It was probably 9, 10 in the morning.

00:29:05.000 And, you know, that's early.

00:29:06.000 And when it comes that early, the monsoon, the edge of the monsoon, this is late May, so the monsoon starts to pick up in late May.

00:29:12.000 You don't want to be anywhere near the top.

00:29:14.000 But Joe, you talk about all the time the adrenaline dump.

00:29:16.000 So imagine adrenaline dump in a cage that you talk about all the time.

00:29:19.000 Now you just summited Mount Everest, but you're only halfway done.

00:29:23.000 80% of all mountaineering accidents happen on the descent.

00:29:28.000 Wow, 80%.

00:29:28.000 That's awesome.

00:29:29.000 Why is that?

00:29:30.000 Because your decision making is compromised?

00:29:32.000 Yep.

00:29:33.000 And you did what you went to do.

00:29:36.000 You're done.

00:29:37.000 You know, you're like...

00:29:38.000 Oh, you relax.

00:29:40.000 It's adrenaline.

00:29:41.000 You're like, I did it!

00:29:42.000 And all of a sudden, they're like, I gotta get down.

00:29:44.000 That's way more technical.

00:29:45.000 To be honest with you, that's somewhat of a rookie move.

00:29:49.000 And, you know, experienced climbers always know to have a little bit more in the tank.

00:29:52.000 You know, it's just like a fighter, right?

00:29:54.000 Yeah.

00:29:54.000 You know, you gotta save some for the fifth round.

00:29:56.000 Right.

00:29:56.000 And you gotta know that it's coming, and it's gonna hurt.

00:30:00.000 Right.

00:30:01.000 It's gonna hurt bad.

00:30:02.000 I remember my legs, like, they were jelly, man.

00:30:06.000 I mean, trying to come down from that Hillary stuff.

00:30:08.000 I was just jacked.

00:30:10.000 I was like the Gumby, man, coming down.

00:30:12.000 And I actually fell.

00:30:13.000 I fell onto a fixed rope right above the Hillary step.

00:30:17.000 And I got caught by a rope.

00:30:19.000 And it was one of the only times I clipped in that whole day.

00:30:22.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.

00:30:23.000 It was kooky shit.

00:30:25.000 Did you clip in because you felt like your body was getting a little wishy-washy?

00:30:28.000 Once again, I knew, like, a little bit not right.

00:30:31.000 I shot my wad coming up.

00:30:33.000 I dug some ropes out with my buddy Brad Bull.

00:30:36.000 For the team earlier that morning that were buried.

00:30:41.000 We were the first people up.

00:30:43.000 We were the first people up and all these ropes were buried and we were digging them out.

00:30:46.000 In the ice.

00:30:47.000 And they were buried under a foot to two foot of snow at 28,000 feet.

00:30:51.000 Brad and I made that decision to dig those ropes out because, not to know which way to go up, but to make sure they were there for the descent.

00:30:59.000 Because that's when the weather comes in, and that's when the blind lead the blind down, you know?

00:31:04.000 So we dug the ropes up, and I knew when I did that that I was going to be out of gas.

00:31:11.000 And sure enough, like, coming down, I knew it.

00:31:13.000 So...

00:31:14.000 That's when I was clipping in.

00:31:16.000 I was a little bit more fastidious on making sure if I fell, that I'd be caught.

00:31:23.000 Sure enough, I fell onto a rope.

00:31:26.000 And then got back up and was like, good night.

00:31:27.000 That woke me up.

00:31:28.000 Did you get a jolt?

00:31:29.000 Yeah.

00:31:30.000 Shake it off or look around and go, God damn, I wonder if anybody saw that.

00:31:33.000 And then start heading back.

00:31:35.000 So is it the appeal of, like, accomplishing something that very few people accomplish and joining, like, a very special club?

00:31:42.000 Is that what motivates these people?

00:31:44.000 Is it just a really difficult task and they want to see if they have it in them?

00:31:48.000 I mean, obviously everybody's got a subjective answer to that.

00:31:50.000 And mine is, I like to be with my people in the hills.

00:31:54.000 That's my church.

00:31:55.000 That's where I feel the most comfortable.

00:31:57.000 It's where I feel safe, actually, in the hills, right?

00:32:01.000 Because you know you're around other very rugged people?

00:32:05.000 Well, just people who make good decisions, you know?

00:32:07.000 And then, you know, the cathedral of the big mountains makes me happy and sort of rejuvenates my soul.

00:32:14.000 But there's something to be said for seeing what my body and my mind can do.

00:32:23.000 You know, I think that a lot of people would agree that that's probably one of the main reasons why we get out and do these things.

00:32:31.000 But, I mean, it's no joke.

00:32:32.000 It's dangerous, man.

00:32:33.000 I mean, You saw one of the most accomplished mountaineers, probably the best mountaineer in the world, just died, you know, under two months ago.

00:32:41.000 Really?

00:32:41.000 ULA Steck, yeah.

00:32:42.000 How did he die?

00:32:43.000 He fell.

00:32:44.000 He was getting ready to go do, he was training up in the valley, in that western coombe from that Camp 2 on Everest, that you saw that image.

00:32:53.000 He was going up the west shoulder of Everest with one other Sherpa who's a friend of his, not just a paid Sherpa.

00:32:59.000 It was his climbing partner.

00:33:00.000 And they were going to go up a route that has yet to be successfully seconded.

00:33:05.000 So these Americans...

00:33:07.000 Seconded?

00:33:07.000 It's like, so it's been done once and people have died trying to do it again.

00:33:12.000 Oh, geez.

00:33:13.000 Several parties.

00:33:13.000 And he was going to go do it.

00:33:15.000 These two Americans, Willie Unsold and Tom Hornbein, did it.

00:33:19.000 And it hadn't been repeated because it's straight up.

00:33:23.000 Thank you very much.

00:33:24.000 Commitment, man.

00:33:25.000 Balls.

00:33:25.000 But his Sherpa was sick.

00:33:27.000 His Sherpa was sick, so Yule was out training one morning, and I think it was around 4 or 5 in the morning.

00:33:33.000 It was on Nupse, right?

00:33:34.000 Yeah, so he was up in that sort of cirque, and he was over on a mountain called Nupse, which is beside Everest, and he fell.

00:33:42.000 Who knows why?

00:33:43.000 Maybe he slipped or he got hit or something.

00:33:44.000 You have to see this guy.

00:33:45.000 This guy, you can see the videos online.

00:33:47.000 Yuri Stek is this guy, no ropes, no nothing.

00:33:49.000 He's got two ice axes, and he runs up the hill faster than you can run on pavement.

00:33:54.000 For sure.

00:33:55.000 They call him the Swiss machine.

00:33:57.000 Unbelievable.

00:33:58.000 There's a video of him doing this?

00:33:59.000 Oh, there's lots of them.

00:34:00.000 How do you spell his name?

00:34:02.000 Ule, so it's U-L-I-Shtek.

00:34:05.000 Now, when you see it, the incredible thing about it is you're at this six-degree pitch, ice walls, he's at 26, 27, you know, 23,000 feet, and he's just going bang.

00:34:16.000 Like a video game.

00:34:17.000 He's a ridiculously committed, he was, athlete.

00:34:22.000 I mean, he was committed to his craft, being as strong as he could be, you know, technically capable.

00:34:28.000 But, you know, it's still a roll of the dice.

00:34:32.000 How many people have died trying to do this summit?

00:34:34.000 To do Everest?

00:34:35.000 The seconded one.

00:34:36.000 Oh, a good handful.

00:34:38.000 I don't know exact numbers, but several from different nationalities.

00:34:41.000 So everybody is either failed or died, except one person.

00:34:46.000 Who's the one person?

00:34:46.000 Two.

00:34:47.000 Two Americans.

00:34:48.000 That was Willie Unsold and Tom Hornbein.

00:34:49.000 And that's what they do.

00:34:50.000 Once they summit, once the climbers are, and it's just, you know, humans in general, these climbers do it, then they want to find a more difficult route, or they do it without oxygen.

00:34:58.000 So Yuli was going to go up and do that.

00:35:00.000 Look at this fucking guy.

00:35:01.000 He's going to go do that and then come around, summit Everest, and then go down.

00:35:05.000 Check that out.

00:35:06.000 Dude, he's like a fucking goat.

00:35:07.000 Oh, yeah.

00:35:08.000 Look at this.

00:35:08.000 Look at that.

00:35:10.000 That's incredible.

00:35:11.000 So his aerobic, you know, he's got that ability to kick out the lactic acid.

00:35:14.000 Oh, my God.

00:35:15.000 That is insane.

00:35:17.000 He's an absolute beast.

00:35:18.000 It's a shame.

00:35:19.000 It was a big loss.

00:35:20.000 Is it just because he's been doing it for so long?

00:35:22.000 Look at that.

00:35:22.000 I mean, it's like any other crap.

00:35:24.000 Holy shit!

00:35:25.000 No ropes.

00:35:26.000 Oh my god!

00:35:27.000 Okay, for people just listening, what is the name of this video, Jamie?

00:35:31.000 So, U-E-L-I-S-T-E-C-K, New Speed Record, Iger 2015. So this is the north face of the Iger.

00:35:44.000 And so he's a Swiss dude, and he grew up, sort of cut his teeth in the Alps, and just...

00:35:48.000 All this.

00:35:48.000 Now, I want to be clear, though.

00:35:50.000 No ropes.

00:35:51.000 This isn't like the first time he did this, right?

00:35:53.000 This is probably the 50th time he climbed that route.

00:35:56.000 He did it over and over and over, got it dialed, figured it out, and then went out and did these speed records and set these speed records.

00:36:04.000 Very similar to what just happened on El Capitan last week.

00:36:08.000 Did you hear about Alex Arnold and what Alex did?

00:36:10.000 Yes.

00:36:10.000 Oh, yeah, I did.

00:36:11.000 I watched the pictures and video of that.

00:36:14.000 Yeah.

00:36:14.000 He's been on the podcast before.

00:36:16.000 Alex has?

00:36:16.000 Yeah, he's a freak.

00:36:18.000 What an odd dude he is.

00:36:19.000 What he did in my mind...

00:36:22.000 In a great way.

00:36:23.000 Was like landing on the moon, dude.

00:36:26.000 The ability to pocket fear and just focus on the three square feet in front of you is unparalleled.

00:36:39.000 I've climbed El Cap and I can't imagine being up on those slabs.

00:36:45.000 How long did it take you when you climbed El Cap?

00:36:46.000 Three days.

00:36:48.000 Three days.

00:36:49.000 So it took him four hours.

00:36:50.000 And he free soloed it.

00:36:50.000 No ropes.

00:36:51.000 But the point was, like, Yule, you know, people look at that and they're like, whoa.

00:36:53.000 My hands just got super sweaty.

00:36:55.000 No, mine are too, by the way.

00:36:56.000 You know, and I think about it.

00:36:57.000 So if you look at Yule and you see this video and you're like, wow, he's crazy, he's crazy.

00:37:01.000 No, he's calculated.

00:37:03.000 And so is Alex.

00:37:04.000 Alex, super calculated.

00:37:05.000 Like, he'd climbed Freerider, the route that he did a few weeks ago.

00:37:09.000 He did it...

00:37:10.000 Several dozen times and would fall on it with a rope.

00:37:15.000 And he just was in the right headspace that day and went up and did it without a whole lot of pomp and circumstance.

00:37:23.000 Just went out and nailed it.

00:37:25.000 Look at this.

00:37:25.000 There's going to be a crazy ass video that Jimmy Chin...

00:37:28.000 Oh, Jimmy was shooting it?

00:37:29.000 Yeah, Jimmy was near the top with No.

00:37:31.000 Did he shoot it like next to him with ropes?

00:37:34.000 Is that what they do?

00:37:35.000 Good question.

00:37:35.000 No.

00:37:35.000 So Jimmy was very respectful of not getting in his way.

00:37:39.000 Because this is a very, obviously, very intense thing.

00:37:41.000 Oh, yeah.

00:37:41.000 Hey, man.

00:37:42.000 How's it going?

00:37:43.000 It's going good?

00:37:43.000 Hey, dude.

00:37:44.000 Look down there.

00:37:45.000 Fuck.

00:37:46.000 What a crazy view.

00:37:46.000 Can you do that again?

00:37:47.000 Yeah, I missed a shot.

00:37:48.000 Can you go back up?

00:37:49.000 Hey, man.

00:37:49.000 Can you give me a thumbs up?

00:37:52.000 Selfie!

00:37:53.000 Look over and smile!

00:37:54.000 But Jimmy's a very accomplished climber, and he's an amazing cinematographer.

00:37:57.000 Jimmy Chin, National Geographic.

00:37:59.000 Shout out to Jimmy Chin.

00:38:01.000 He was at the top, and him and his team, I think, lowered down.

00:38:04.000 And, yeah, greatest athletic human feat.

00:38:09.000 Jesus Christ!

00:38:10.000 I ain't gonna lie to you, I have to agree.

00:38:12.000 Because if you think about true athletic feats, it's not just, obviously, the corporal sort of You know, event.

00:38:23.000 It's just the whole mixed bag of who you are as an athlete.

00:38:28.000 Mentally, emotionally, behaviorally, physically, how you execute in the moment when shit is just on point, like right in your face.

00:38:36.000 And he did it like to this level that I can't even...

00:38:39.000 It's unbelievable, man.

00:38:42.000 That is tripping out of my hands.

00:38:43.000 I mean, once you get 30 feet off the deck, it's game on.

00:38:49.000 Now, put a power of 100 on that.

00:38:53.000 But there's very few sports where one mess-up, you're dead.

00:38:56.000 That's right.

00:38:56.000 Does he have any guys that are trying to be the next Alex Honnold that are chasing him?

00:39:02.000 Well, I just read something today, this morning, about...

00:39:05.000 That there could be some emulators.

00:39:08.000 Who knows?

00:39:10.000 There's other super tough, badass climbers that are out there that are also freestyle on and doing shit without ropes, but he's at another level and everyone knows that.

00:39:21.000 How is he at this other level?

00:39:22.000 Well, first of all, What separates him?

00:39:26.000 Yeah, well, there's a lot of body chemistry that is sort of a mystery.

00:39:32.000 Like, how does his pituitary, how does his adrenal gland not just flame out, right?

00:39:38.000 How does he control that in a way that I can't?

00:39:42.000 Right.

00:39:43.000 I mean, yeah, we're sitting here at the desk and my hands are sweaty just thinking about it, right?

00:39:47.000 So there he is, as calm and collected as he can be.

00:39:50.000 They've done studies on Alex.

00:39:52.000 They brought him in and, like, you know, buzzed his brains.

00:39:54.000 Like, where are you, you know, chemically, biochemically, when we introduce assaulting sort of variables on you?

00:40:02.000 And he's just...

00:40:04.000 Oh, flatline.

00:40:04.000 So he's the perfect blend of biochemistry and physical capacity, but also devotion and commitment to his craft.

00:40:14.000 I mean, he's an artist, right?

00:40:16.000 He got down from that climb that day, just a couple weeks ago, and they were like, what are you going to go do now?

00:40:22.000 Disneyland.

00:40:22.000 He was going on his fingerboard, and he was going to go train and do a fingerboard workout that afternoon.

00:40:28.000 Because climbing El Cap for four hours was...

00:40:33.000 Not enough workout for the day.

00:40:34.000 It was like whatever he says.

00:40:37.000 Put him in an MRI and showed him images and that's what his response was.

00:40:41.000 Yeah, his brain's fear levels.

00:40:44.000 After looking at gruesome and arousing images, he commented it was like whatever.

00:40:48.000 That is that dude.

00:40:50.000 He's so mellow.

00:40:51.000 But that's how he described it.

00:40:53.000 When I said to him, I said, like, what is it like?

00:40:55.000 Are you freaking out?

00:40:56.000 Are you trying to keep calm?

00:40:57.000 He's like, you're really mellow.

00:40:58.000 He goes, if anything is, like, if there's anything wrong, it's so wrong.

00:41:04.000 Like, when it goes wrong...

00:41:06.000 Cascades.

00:41:07.000 Yeah.

00:41:07.000 Like, you're fucked.

00:41:08.000 Like, so you're always...

00:41:09.000 His way of putting it was mellow.

00:41:12.000 Like, you're really mellow.

00:41:13.000 I think there's a video, I believe, and it may be Alex and maybe some other climber, but I think there's a video of him probably at El Cap.

00:41:18.000 When he was three soloing before this one, where he says, give me a minute?

00:41:22.000 It was Northwest Direct Face of Half Dome.

00:41:25.000 And I've climbed that route, too.

00:41:26.000 And I tell you.

00:41:26.000 The only time I've ever seen him flap.

00:41:28.000 That was the iconic image on Nat Geo, on National Geographic Magazine, of him standing just in his plaid short shirt, like on the ledge, you know, leaning back.

00:41:38.000 And it was, he reflected on that.

00:41:40.000 They asked him about it later.

00:41:41.000 And they said, you know, what was going on?

00:41:42.000 He says, I just needed a minute.

00:41:44.000 And he got it, and he calmed himself down.

00:41:46.000 Whatever was happening in his head, who knows?

00:41:48.000 And he recalibrated and went up.

00:41:51.000 You know, no gear.

00:41:52.000 So it's just, who knows?

00:41:54.000 That's him right there?

00:41:55.000 That's when he needed a minute?

00:41:56.000 No, no.

00:41:58.000 There's another one of Jamie.

00:42:00.000 He's in that green.

00:42:01.000 There he is over there on the right.

00:42:03.000 Yeah, that one.

00:42:04.000 The green?

00:42:05.000 Right above it, right there?

00:42:07.000 It's the one where you stand and they're sort of on the left.

00:42:10.000 Yeah, that's the one that I think was the Nat Geo show.

00:42:13.000 Yeah, and that's the one he says, I just need a minute.

00:42:15.000 Just need a minute.

00:42:16.000 That's a thousand feet off the deck.

00:42:23.000 Imagine if that's your kid.

00:42:25.000 You know, and you're like, what are you doing today, honey?

00:42:28.000 So apparently he has a very, very close relationship with his mama.

00:42:32.000 He grew up in Sacramento, I guess.

00:42:34.000 And I guess he just tells his mama what she needs to know.

00:42:38.000 Yeah, he doesn't tell her until after it's over.

00:42:40.000 Yeah.

00:42:40.000 Fucking Christ.

00:42:42.000 It's just like, that's a crazy thing to be awesome at.

00:42:46.000 You know...

00:42:47.000 Alright, hold on.

00:42:48.000 So we're talking a lot about climbing, but the other reason I wanted to bring Jeff here...

00:42:51.000 But hold on.

00:42:52.000 We're not changing subjects.

00:42:53.000 I don't know where the fuck you think you're going.

00:42:55.000 This guy, like...

00:42:58.000 So you said that there are a few people that are trying to emulate what he's doing.

00:43:02.000 Well, I think there's just a few guys doing their own thing, and it happens to be free soloing.

00:43:07.000 And, you know, he's the pioneer.

00:43:10.000 There were other guys before him.

00:43:12.000 There was a guy named Peter Croft that was out there for many years, sort of.

00:43:15.000 You know, he did a route called Astro Man in the valley that was...

00:43:19.000 At the time, and I remember, you know, I was in my, I think my early 20s when Peter did that, and I remember reading about it and thinking, no, like, what?

00:43:30.000 How does one want to do, and I was just really getting into climbing a lot.

00:43:35.000 It didn't compute.

00:43:37.000 But Peter Croft, I think, and guys like him and like Alex just have a wiring that's very, very different than the rest of us.

00:43:45.000 And it seems reckless to many, many people.

00:43:48.000 But what I do seems reckless to many people.

00:43:50.000 So it's so relative.

00:43:51.000 And there's a scale.

00:43:52.000 And people that would look at Alex and be like, you're crazy, man.

00:43:56.000 That shit, you're going to get dead.

00:43:57.000 And he's like, whatever, man.

00:43:58.000 Yeah, there is a scale.

00:43:59.000 There's a scale.

00:44:01.000 Yeah.

00:44:01.000 Well, what about physically?

00:44:04.000 Like, is there like an optimum build?

00:44:06.000 Like, for basketball, you really want to be tall and thin, right?

00:44:08.000 Yeah.

00:44:09.000 Is there an optimum build for what he does?

00:44:12.000 I mean, I think, you know, sinewy and the strength to weight ratio is obviously, you know, the best climbers are usually.

00:44:20.000 Thin.

00:44:20.000 Pretty thin.

00:44:21.000 Carry themselves well.

00:44:24.000 He's got big hands.

00:44:27.000 Not necessarily big basketball player, but his fingers are sausages.

00:44:32.000 His fat fingers from constantly training them.

00:44:35.000 Almost calloused.

00:44:36.000 Just the amount of weight that he can carry on his hands has got to be...

00:44:41.000 Pretty unusual.

00:44:43.000 So this finger thing that he does, what is the thing that he did?

00:44:46.000 The campus board or a finger...

00:44:48.000 Like one of those pegboards from wrestling?

00:44:50.000 That's kind of like a campus board.

00:44:51.000 It's like an inverted sort of board that you climb up just for strength.

00:44:54.000 And it works your core and your arms and your chest and your delts and stuff.

00:44:58.000 But then...

00:44:58.000 Then the fingerboard allows you to get, you know, mono-doit, double-doit, you know, two-finger strength.

00:45:04.000 So he can then slot and then pull on one of those.

00:45:08.000 So it strengthens all your tendons in your hands, in your fingers particularly.

00:45:12.000 What does it look like?

00:45:13.000 Just little holes carved out of a...

00:45:16.000 Sometimes it's a...

00:45:17.000 Oh, that's it right there?

00:45:18.000 Yeah.

00:45:19.000 So sometimes it's wood, sometimes it's a composite.

00:45:22.000 It's almost like a little cubby shelf.

00:45:24.000 And so you stick your hands in there...

00:45:26.000 Yeah.

00:45:27.000 And then there's routines.

00:45:28.000 I use one at home.

00:45:29.000 And there's two finger pockets and three finger pockets.

00:45:30.000 Oh, wow.

00:45:31.000 You use one, too, huh?

00:45:32.000 I do.

00:45:33.000 Yeah.

00:45:33.000 Wow.

00:45:33.000 I use one, too.

00:45:34.000 And then I'll try and hang, you know, and then count to 30. Hang.

00:45:37.000 And then go two finger and hang.

00:45:39.000 He did this after he summited?

00:45:42.000 Yeah.

00:45:42.000 So we went down and got interviewed and he goes, sorry man, I gotta go do a workout now.

00:45:47.000 How's he not tired?

00:45:49.000 That's why he's the best, right?

00:45:52.000 That's why he's where he is.

00:45:53.000 Wow.

00:45:55.000 So did this exist 20 years ago?

00:45:57.000 Was there a lot of people free soloing 20 years Well, no, I was like, that's the Peter Croft of the, you know, those guys.

00:46:03.000 There was a few, and back in the old Camp 4 Yosemite days, like in Yosemite Valley, I mean, this was the place.

00:46:09.000 This was the birth of it.

00:46:11.000 And then there was some dudes that were not far from here in Joshua Tree that were doing some pretty balls-out soloing as well.

00:46:18.000 In Joshua Tree?

00:46:19.000 Yeah, in J Tree.

00:46:20.000 And I lived in Joshua Tree for a while, just living in my van down by the river there and climbing all the time and eating ramen noodles and...

00:46:28.000 Growing my head a little bit.

00:46:29.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:46:32.000 In the tree, man.

00:46:33.000 Because there's a lot of climbing there that's pretty highball stuff.

00:46:39.000 I bet if you could look at the amount of mushrooms that are done in a specific location and then look at Joshua Tree, the high concentration.

00:46:46.000 I know so many people go to Joshua Tree just to shroom out.

00:46:50.000 I'd like to look at that map.

00:46:53.000 Could be a big target.

00:46:54.000 Yeah, seriously.

00:46:55.000 Probably a big cluster, right?

00:46:56.000 Yeah.

00:46:57.000 I mean, I've seen some good stuff there, man.

00:47:00.000 I mean, that was when I was sort of really, really diving in.

00:47:03.000 I was diving into climbing.

00:47:05.000 Those two things were conjoined, was psychotropics in a way and climbing.

00:47:10.000 Yeah, they are with a lot of folks.

00:47:12.000 Well, it's that extreme connection to nature, right?

00:47:16.000 And to life.

00:47:17.000 And like you were talking about a little bit ago before we came on air was, you know, when you're stoned, you see the ball track better when you're playing pool.

00:47:24.000 Oh, yeah.

00:47:25.000 Well, you feel like the revolutions of the ball.

00:47:27.000 Like you feel like how well you could touch the ball and get it to move, like your cue ball, for me at least.

00:47:32.000 Yeah.

00:47:33.000 You know, I play like 10% better when I'm high.

00:47:35.000 Yeah.

00:47:36.000 For whatever reason.

00:47:37.000 I just feel more in touch with things.

00:47:39.000 Yeah.

00:47:39.000 That's why I like the social sliver.

00:47:42.000 Social sliver?

00:47:42.000 Ooh, yeah.

00:47:43.000 What's that mean?

00:47:44.000 The social sliver.

00:47:45.000 Microdose.

00:47:46.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:47:46.000 So just the microdose of...

00:47:48.000 Mushrooms or acid?

00:47:50.000 Mushrooms.

00:47:50.000 But I'm...

00:47:51.000 Yeah.

00:47:51.000 So the new medium for us, I don't know if you've heard of it, is goo.

00:47:58.000 Do you know the goo?

00:47:59.000 Goo.

00:47:59.000 No.

00:48:00.000 So it's super concentrated psilocybin.

00:48:03.000 So they take mushrooms and they distill it down, concentrate it up, get this liquid, turn it into a Tootsie Roll appearing consistency, color.

00:48:17.000 Give it up Halloween.

00:48:18.000 You get a stick.

00:48:19.000 Yeah.

00:48:19.000 And you get a stick.

00:48:20.000 And it's literally the size of a Tootsie Roll.

00:48:22.000 And we just take like a little, just a little nip.

00:48:25.000 And that's the social sliver.

00:48:27.000 Oh, and then it makes you just a little more tuned in.

00:48:29.000 I mean, a lot more tuned in.

00:48:31.000 I have a buddy who's a high-level kickboxer, world champion kickboxer.

00:48:34.000 Started microdosing a few months back.

00:48:36.000 Does it every day.

00:48:38.000 Every day?

00:48:38.000 Every day microdoses.

00:48:39.000 And he competes on it.

00:48:41.000 Fucks people up.

00:48:42.000 Well, he's microdosing.

00:48:43.000 So with what?

00:48:44.000 With L or with mushrooms?

00:48:45.000 No, mushrooms.

00:48:46.000 So the, I think, and you might know this more than me, but if you take it serially, it starts, you lose, it gets diluted over time.

00:48:54.000 Yeah, but when he takes, when he stops taking it, he feels that he misses it.

00:48:58.000 It does.

00:48:59.000 Every day?

00:49:00.000 Like a vitamin?

00:49:01.000 Yep.

00:49:01.000 I think that's called addiction, maybe?

00:49:03.000 I don't think so.

00:49:03.000 We can't get addicted to it.

00:49:05.000 You can get addicted to washing your hands if you're one crazy OCD guy.

00:49:09.000 I gotta wash my hands one more time.

00:49:10.000 You can get a mental pathway that's very destructive.

00:49:13.000 And you can call it addictive, but it doesn't demonize washing your hands.

00:49:17.000 I think his issue is when he doesn't take it, he says things aren't as fun, it doesn't feel as good, but I've been around him when he's taking it and he's 100% there.

00:49:28.000 He's like, wow, man, I can see your eyes and I'm thinking your eyes are looking at me.

00:49:33.000 And what are your eyes seeing?

00:49:35.000 I assume they're seeing what I'm seeing.

00:49:36.000 No, he's there.

00:49:37.000 He's there like you're there.

00:49:39.000 Bud needs a little experience in his life.

00:49:41.000 Don't you agree?

00:49:42.000 I'm really quiet over here because I have no idea what the fuck you guys are talking about.

00:49:45.000 I've threatened him with a social sliver before just to see what happens.

00:49:47.000 It could go either way with him.

00:49:49.000 We should hotbox him right now.

00:49:50.000 Let's fuck him up.

00:49:51.000 No.

00:49:52.000 Scared?

00:49:53.000 He's got to do P-Tests.

00:49:54.000 Interesting.

00:49:55.000 P-Tests?

00:49:56.000 He owns his own company.

00:49:57.000 I don't know.

00:49:57.000 That's the funny part.

00:49:58.000 Who's P-Testing me?

00:49:59.000 P-Testing himself.

00:50:01.000 Joe's been trying to get me high.

00:50:02.000 He just likes to piss his ass.

00:50:03.000 Joe's been trying to be high for about 18 years.

00:50:04.000 Yeah, I have.

00:50:05.000 It's not exaggerated.

00:50:06.000 No, so the microdosing, the goo, man, it is just...

00:50:11.000 How do you get...

00:50:11.000 Well, let's talk later about that.

00:50:12.000 I know.

00:50:13.000 Well, I've...

00:50:14.000 There's people.

00:50:15.000 There's conversations that need to happen.

00:50:17.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:50:18.000 So are a lot of these climbers doing that?

00:50:21.000 I don't think so.

00:50:23.000 No?

00:50:23.000 I think that...

00:50:25.000 You know, there's probably a handful of us that like to mess around with those things all together.

00:50:30.000 And not to say that I don't like to, you know, trip my balls off and go get on a rock.

00:50:35.000 Of course.

00:50:36.000 Right.

00:50:36.000 Matter of fact, I've had a few sort of spooky times just being really stoned and being on a rock and not liking the situation I was in.

00:50:44.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:45.000 I've been that way in normal life.

00:50:48.000 You get too stoned, especially like edibles.

00:50:51.000 Chibichu, fuck me up.

00:50:52.000 Oh, they'll fuck you up!

00:50:54.000 Fuck me up.

00:50:54.000 Oh, they'll fuck you.

00:50:55.000 I had a bit off my last special that's based on the truth.

00:50:57.000 I ate a fucking gummy bear.

00:50:59.000 A pot gummy bear.

00:51:01.000 And the guy told me to just eat the leg.

00:51:04.000 It really is a true thing.

00:51:05.000 I'm like, why the fuck are you making a whole bear then if you want someone to eat a leg?

00:51:08.000 It's this tiny little thing, and I ate the whole bear.

00:51:11.000 And oh my god!

00:51:12.000 For a while, too.

00:51:14.000 It's a long time until it's metabolized, right?

00:51:16.000 It takes hours, hours.

00:51:17.000 You wanted it to be over.

00:51:18.000 But you feel so good when it's over.

00:51:19.000 You feel like, I needed that.

00:51:21.000 I needed all that pain and fear.

00:51:23.000 I got through it.

00:51:24.000 It's like a near-death experience.

00:51:26.000 Something about it.

00:51:28.000 It's cleansing.

00:51:29.000 I'm not sure if eating a gummy bear should have that kind of effect.

00:51:32.000 It shouldn't, but it does.

00:51:33.000 And when it comes through on the other side, it's beneficial.

00:51:36.000 As long as you can keep it together.

00:51:38.000 As a person who's...

00:51:40.000 That's why it bums me out that you don't smoke pot or do anything.

00:51:43.000 It's because I know you can keep it together.

00:51:44.000 Because you're a tough guy.

00:51:45.000 You keep life together.

00:51:47.000 It would just make you more aware of shit.

00:51:50.000 19 years ago we started this conversation.

00:51:52.000 But here's my take on it.

00:51:54.000 Bud is...

00:51:55.000 On the deathbed, I'm going to get him high.

00:51:56.000 Smoke it!

00:51:57.000 Bud likes to be in control.

00:51:58.000 Yeah, that's the problem.

00:52:00.000 And he's afraid that he might not be.

00:52:01.000 You ever look at Bud's closet?

00:52:02.000 I did.

00:52:03.000 Does it shock you when everything's black?

00:52:06.000 It's a little confusing.

00:52:07.000 So I had a 10-minute conversation with this dude last night, like, dude, that kind of fucked me up looking at your closet.

00:52:14.000 Stay the fuck out of my closet, man.

00:52:15.000 He's like, I don't like other colors.

00:52:16.000 Everything's black.

00:52:17.000 It was 20 linear feet of one shade variation of the other black shirt of the other black shirt of the other black shirt.

00:52:23.000 He's a fucking ninja.

00:52:24.000 All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

00:52:26.000 All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

00:52:28.000 Oh, yeah.

00:52:29.000 No, no, no.

00:52:31.000 It's efficient decision making, right?

00:52:32.000 I don't have to make that decision, right?

00:52:34.000 I have too many other shit to go in life, so I'm gonna wear that.

00:52:37.000 I can feel that.

00:52:39.000 I can feel that.

00:52:39.000 I get it.

00:52:40.000 I understand it.

00:52:41.000 Guys, everybody develops a uniform in life, right?

00:52:44.000 It doesn't matter if it's khaki shorts and a blue.

00:52:46.000 Everybody, that's your uniform.

00:52:49.000 You develop it.

00:52:50.000 You know what's interesting, though?

00:52:51.000 If it was orange, it would be a big issue.

00:52:54.000 If you were walking around with orange sneakers and orange pants and an orange shirt, like this wacky motherfucker.

00:52:59.000 But somehow or another, because it's black, you're like, oh, it's Bud.

00:53:01.000 A friend of mine, Tom DuPont, he owns DuPont Registry Magazine.

00:53:05.000 Green pants.

00:53:06.000 Like, shitty-looking green pants.

00:53:08.000 All the time.

00:53:09.000 Like, what's with us shitty green pants?

00:53:10.000 He's like, I'm rich, bitch!

00:53:14.000 I'll wear whatever the fuck I want.

00:53:15.000 I'm a DuPont.

00:53:16.000 We invented chemicals.

00:53:17.000 Fuck off.

00:53:18.000 Bitch, I got so much money!

00:53:20.000 I like wearing green!

00:53:22.000 His reality is probably so confusing.

00:53:25.000 He's like, everybody remembers me in my green pants.

00:53:27.000 Yeah, I was in Lanai recently, and Larry Ellison owns the whole fucking island.

00:53:33.000 He owns the whole island.

00:53:33.000 Yeah, he bought it and rebuilt it.

00:53:35.000 Yeah.

00:53:36.000 Well, was Dole Pineapple owned it?

00:53:38.000 First of all, Dole Pineapple bought it off of, I was there, I read the history of the island's amazing, a Mormon Owned it.

00:53:44.000 Some crazy, but they don't even think he was really a Mormon.

00:53:47.000 They think he was just a con man who used being a Mormon to lock people up and fuck their wives.

00:53:52.000 I'll make no comments on that, though.

00:53:53.000 Yeah.

00:53:53.000 There's probably a lot of stories just like that.

00:53:56.000 Oh, yeah.

00:53:57.000 There's quite a few, especially with Mormons.

00:53:59.000 That's right.

00:53:59.000 That's what I mean.

00:54:00.000 Very, very interesting religion, right?

00:54:02.000 When you know the guy who made the religion, like there's two religions that are pretty prominent.

00:54:06.000 L. Ron Hubbard, of course, and then Joseph Smith, the Mormons.

00:54:09.000 You know the guy...

00:54:11.000 That's kind of a con, man.

00:54:11.000 Yeah, 100%.

00:54:12.000 He invented it when he was 14. He found golden tablets that contained the lost work of Jesus, and only he could read them because he had a magic seer stone.

00:54:21.000 He had a stone that he could look through to read these.

00:54:24.000 Fucking Christ.

00:54:25.000 He broke out of jail.

00:54:26.000 He jumped out of the window.

00:54:27.000 He was murdered.

00:54:28.000 Yeah, he got murdered in jail.

00:54:29.000 Yeah.

00:54:29.000 He got killed in jail.

00:54:30.000 I think the funny thing is that it was him or somebody else who invented the polygamy part.

00:54:35.000 They're like, wait a minute.

00:54:35.000 I got another tablet.

00:54:37.000 I can fuck all the bitches I want.

00:54:38.000 Hold on.

00:54:39.000 Yep, everybody.

00:54:40.000 I can have as many wives as I want.

00:54:41.000 Yeah, good luck with all that.

00:54:44.000 That never works.

00:54:46.000 Why would you want more than one?

00:54:47.000 I know, I can't handle one, man.

00:54:49.000 Some people just like danger, like Alex Honnold likes to solo climb.

00:54:53.000 Yeah.

00:54:54.000 You know?

00:54:54.000 It's just people like it.

00:54:56.000 It's all subjective.

00:54:56.000 They're like 19 chicks yelling at them.

00:54:58.000 I don't know.

00:54:58.000 Whatever.

00:54:59.000 Sounds like it.

00:55:00.000 I'm not here to judge.

00:55:01.000 Overload.

00:55:01.000 I think it should be legal.

00:55:02.000 I think if those 19 women are into it and you're into it, why is it even legal to get married at all?

00:55:07.000 When you see 50% divorce and people get their lives devastated, when does the government step in and go, hey, you've got to stop doing this.

00:55:14.000 This is just ruining all these people.

00:55:17.000 All these kids.

00:55:17.000 It ruins more people than anything.

00:55:19.000 Just stop getting married.

00:55:21.000 Keeps the lawyers afloat?

00:55:22.000 Yeah.

00:55:22.000 It does.

00:55:23.000 That's who they should stop, the fucking lawyers.

00:55:25.000 It's a big business in weddings and lawyers.

00:55:28.000 We can't stop that.

00:55:29.000 We won't make any money.

00:55:30.000 Jesus Christ.

00:55:31.000 Yeah.

00:55:31.000 Fuck all that.

00:55:32.000 But so this guy, who's this crazy Mormon guy, sold it to the Dole Company, who used to run pineapples there.

00:55:40.000 They used to have a just massive pineapple plantation.

00:55:43.000 And that was what it was forever.

00:55:45.000 And then some other dude, Murdoch, but not Rupert Murdoch, another Murdoch.

00:55:50.000 Murdoch.

00:55:50.000 He owns half of Westlake.

00:55:52.000 Yeah.

00:55:52.000 Almost all of it.

00:55:53.000 That dude bought it, and then he sold it to Larry Ellison, who just runs around in gold underwear and fucking has people carry him like he's an emperor.

00:56:01.000 Colonel Kurtz.

00:56:01.000 I don't know, I'm just making that up.

00:56:02.000 Colonel Kurtz on the nye.

00:56:04.000 Yeah, I don't even know where he keeps a place out there, I guess, but he just wanted to own it.

00:56:08.000 It's a fucking baller place to live, though.

00:56:10.000 So there's not...

00:56:11.000 How many people live there?

00:56:12.000 3,000.

00:56:13.000 That's it.

00:56:14.000 There's 15,000 Axis deer, though.

00:56:16.000 Oh.

00:56:17.000 Yeah.

00:56:18.000 So am I right in remembering that the concentration of people is not necessarily on the coastline.

00:56:23.000 No.

00:56:23.000 It's in the middle.

00:56:24.000 Yes.

00:56:25.000 Right?

00:56:25.000 It's in the middle.

00:56:25.000 Smart people don't live on the coast.

00:56:26.000 Yeah, they're smart.

00:56:28.000 They're like, this island's not that big and sometimes shit goes bad.

00:56:31.000 Yeah.

00:56:32.000 Let's not be where the water is, guys.

00:56:34.000 We can go to the fucking water.

00:56:36.000 It's right there.

00:56:37.000 It's the asshole America.

00:56:37.000 I'm like, oh, I want to live there.

00:56:39.000 Anywhere you are, you can take a hike to the water.

00:56:42.000 It'll take a few hours if you're in the middle, but you can get there.

00:56:45.000 You don't have to live there.

00:56:47.000 Jesus Christ.

00:56:48.000 So tell me about the axis deer.

00:56:49.000 It's insane.

00:56:51.000 They're everywhere?

00:56:51.000 Was it not even sporting?

00:56:52.000 Oh, it was definitely sporting.

00:56:54.000 Because these animals, they evolved to run from tigers.

00:56:57.000 They are the fastest fucking animals I have ever seen in my life.

00:57:01.000 In terms of their ability to react.

00:57:04.000 There would be a deer 60 yards away, you draw back on it, launch the arrow, and it would be nowhere near that arrow by the time the arrow got through.

00:57:12.000 So you lost a few sharp sticks while you were there?

00:57:14.000 Oh, yeah.

00:57:14.000 Well, you'd go five lighted knocks.

00:57:16.000 I could see them in the grass.

00:57:17.000 But I lost two.

00:57:19.000 But the arrows are going 275 feet a second.

00:57:24.000 And the deer's like, bitch!

00:57:27.000 No chance!

00:57:28.000 So they're not indigenous to the island?

00:57:30.000 No, there's no indigenous mammals on that island.

00:57:33.000 Everything is invasive and everything has no predators.

00:57:36.000 So they bring in these rangers and seals, these snipers, they bring them in, they set up on a bench, and they just start, ba-bang!

00:57:44.000 Ba-bang!

00:57:44.000 They start taking them out.

00:57:45.000 They have to.

00:57:46.000 Yeah, well, no, they don't have to use a 50 cal.

00:57:49.000 They'd probably use like, I don't know, a 7mm or something.

00:57:51.000 But why do that when you want the meat?

00:57:52.000 The meat is outstanding.

00:57:54.000 It is some of the most delicious meat in the world.

00:57:56.000 But these animals are so on point.

00:57:58.000 So for bow hunters, it is like one of the best places for spot and stalk.

00:58:03.000 Like, if you could put the smack down on an axis deer, like, you either got lucky, which is me, or you got some skill.

00:58:11.000 You know, like, I've got a little bit of skill, but...

00:58:13.000 The guys that I went with that are really good, like Remy Warren, I think he shot three or four while I was there.

00:58:18.000 My friend John Dudley shot four.

00:58:19.000 World-class bow hunters, like as good as it gets.

00:58:22.000 Those guys killed quite a few.

00:58:24.000 But it's a great learning ground, like for stalking, because you blow so many stalks.

00:58:31.000 Screw them up.

00:58:31.000 How long were you there?

00:58:33.000 I only hunted for three days because I had a problem with my bow that I had to fix once I got there, and it took a day to do that.

00:58:41.000 Once you get there and you see how many deer, you realize, like, oh, okay, this place is overpopulated.

00:58:48.000 But in those three days...

00:58:50.000 I saw thousands of deer.

00:58:51.000 You saw a shit ton of deer.

00:58:52.000 Thousands.

00:58:52.000 I mean thousands.

00:58:53.000 And you took a few shots.

00:58:54.000 Yes.

00:58:55.000 I took a few shots.

00:58:56.000 Yeah.

00:58:57.000 They're tough animals, too.

00:58:59.000 So are you moving?

00:58:59.000 Are you moving and stalking and pausing and holding?

00:59:03.000 Yeah, you're doing what you call still hunting.

00:59:05.000 Yeah, still hunting.

00:59:05.000 You're walking and then you're looking for an animal that you're constantly using your wind checker, which is like a Visine bottle with talcum powder in it.

00:59:14.000 Do you bow hunt at all?

00:59:15.000 Yeah, well, I've just recently started, yeah.

00:59:16.000 So you puff that in the air and you find out which way the wind is going.

00:59:19.000 My guide, though, he knew where the wind was going.

00:59:23.000 He just knew from his face and his neck and skin like he can tell like where's the wind blowing and he's like like this and he just puffed that smoke in the air and sure enough it was going exactly where it was shout out to Roman But his ability to sneak up on these animals is pretty fucking impressive,

00:59:39.000 too.

00:59:40.000 You know, you do a lot of crawling.

00:59:42.000 Like, a lot of the grass is, like, waist-high, so you're doing, like, crawling, where you're moving, like, literally at a snail's pace.

00:59:48.000 Try not to make too much noise.

00:59:50.000 Because you know they're over there, right?

00:59:51.000 Oh, yeah.

00:59:52.000 You sighted them already when you glassed them, and you know they're there.

00:59:54.000 And you're on an island, so they can't really go that far.

00:59:56.000 There's plenty of room for them to go.

00:59:59.000 I mean, this is not like you're hunting them in a 100-acre, confined, high-fence place.

01:00:04.000 It's all wild and free-range, and there's mountain terrain, and there's plenty of places for them to get away from.

01:00:10.000 But they're aware of one predator, humans.

01:00:13.000 So they're not scared of anything other than people.

01:00:16.000 So when they see a person like, Fuck this!

01:00:18.000 But are there a lot of bow hunters that go over there?

01:00:20.000 There's plenty of bow hunters that go over there.

01:00:22.000 Yeah.

01:00:23.000 It's a pretty amazing place, man.

01:00:25.000 But Maui's another really great place for bow hunting, too, apparently.

01:00:28.000 And Maui also has pigs.

01:00:30.000 Maui has axis deer.

01:00:32.000 They have a ram called a mouflon.

01:00:35.000 That apparently is unbelievably delicious, but the locals think it tastes like shit.

01:00:39.000 Some locals said it tastes like shit, and some locals said it's the most delicious meat ever.

01:00:42.000 But the bowhunters that I was there with, there's a mouflon.

01:00:45.000 The bowhunters I was there with, see if it's on Remy Warren's page.

01:00:49.000 Remy Warren's Instagram, I think, has...

01:00:51.000 It's like a ram.

01:00:52.000 Because he shot one.

01:00:52.000 He shot a beautiful one.

01:00:53.000 You like that axe.

01:00:54.000 It's better than venison?

01:00:55.000 It's not better than elk.

01:00:57.000 It is delicious.

01:00:58.000 I mean, it is delicious.

01:01:00.000 I wouldn't say it's better than elk.

01:01:01.000 Elk is my favorite meat.

01:01:03.000 But it's right there.

01:01:04.000 It's right there.

01:01:05.000 It's really good.

01:01:06.000 Yeah.

01:01:07.000 Yeah.

01:01:07.000 Because, you know, I'm not trying to relate those, but analog is just super sagey.

01:01:12.000 This is the one that he shot in Lanai.

01:01:14.000 So it's a really small animal, right?

01:01:16.000 And they're on this really rugged mountain terrain.

01:01:21.000 Lanai is so fascinating.

01:01:23.000 It's such a fascinating place.

01:01:24.000 And the people that live there could not be nicer, could not be cooler.

01:01:28.000 It's beautiful, gorgeous paradise.

01:01:31.000 Yeah.

01:01:32.000 But yeah, it's weird because they've decided to introduce these animals.

01:01:36.000 I think they did it way, way hundreds of years ago.

01:01:39.000 And they have to keep those populations in check.

01:01:42.000 And sometimes, again, they bring in snipers and they put a bench down and they just set up shop and get those long range skills going.

01:01:49.000 So I was on Maui probably about, I guess, a month ago now, and I went over to my buddy's house, and he has a pretty sweet spread.

01:01:57.000 It's at the top of this canyon and looking down up on the hill going towards Haleakala.

01:02:03.000 And he's like, man, you can come on my property anytime and shoot these fucking deer.

01:02:09.000 Wow.

01:02:10.000 Because they come, because he's like, they're a pain in the ass.

01:02:13.000 Yeah.

01:02:13.000 They're everywhere.

01:02:14.000 Yeah.

01:02:14.000 Like, we need to get rid of them.

01:02:15.000 They come in and eat my oranges and this and that.

01:02:18.000 But what's the tag situation like?

01:02:20.000 Is it private land?

01:02:22.000 You get a hunting license.

01:02:23.000 There's public land.

01:02:24.000 We hunted public land and we hunted private land.

01:02:27.000 But you get a license and then you shoot as many as you want.

01:02:30.000 No limit?

01:02:31.000 No limit.

01:02:32.000 They have a problem.

01:02:34.000 Yeah, get rid of them.

01:02:34.000 I mean, it's not a problem.

01:02:35.000 It's not like they're not sick.

01:02:37.000 There's plenty of food for these deer.

01:02:39.000 So they're not getting chronic wasting.

01:02:40.000 No, no, no.

01:02:41.000 It's beautiful, lush, and green.

01:02:43.000 But they're just everywhere.

01:02:45.000 They're everywhere.

01:02:46.000 But they're not easy.

01:02:48.000 If you had a rifle, it's pretty easy.

01:02:50.000 You also have to pay and pack and get them back to the States as you go over there.

01:02:53.000 You want to shoot 10 of them as long as But it's fantastic meat, pure, organic, couldn't be healthier.

01:02:59.000 They even serve it at the restaurant at the Four Seasons in Lanai.

01:03:03.000 You know, it's just, goddamn, it's good.

01:03:05.000 So good.

01:03:06.000 Lean and good.

01:03:07.000 Oh, so delicious.

01:03:08.000 You feel the nutrition in it.

01:03:10.000 It's just so fantastic, you know?

01:03:12.000 And when it comes to, like, sustainability and ethics, it's, like, one of the best places.

01:03:16.000 Like, that's the place where you actually should be hunting these animals.

01:03:20.000 Whenever I go to Hawaii, I always just feel like I should show my passport.

01:03:23.000 It's not America.

01:03:25.000 It ain't America, man.

01:03:26.000 They stole that shit.

01:03:26.000 That shit is straight up like, it's a foreign country.

01:03:28.000 It is.

01:03:29.000 In a beautiful way.

01:03:30.000 Yeah, in a beautiful way.

01:03:31.000 It's its own thing.

01:03:32.000 I mean, I like the fact that you can go there without a passport, but I agree.

01:03:36.000 But I'm one of those weirdos who think there shouldn't be passports.

01:03:38.000 You should be able to go anywhere.

01:03:39.000 It's part of our problem.

01:03:41.000 Everybody's all locked into these landmasses and these forbidden areas.

01:03:45.000 Break those boundaries.

01:03:46.000 Tear down that wall.

01:03:48.000 I was just in Iraq, and you're talking about some boundaries and sort of lines in the sand and so forth.

01:03:55.000 Boy, you know.

01:03:56.000 Oh, sure.

01:03:56.000 What were you doing over there?

01:03:58.000 So I went with...

01:04:00.000 So back up two years ago, the earthquake in Nepal that killed nine, almost 10,000 people throughout the country.

01:04:11.000 19 on the mountain on Everest, right?

01:04:13.000 Yep.

01:04:13.000 A lot of people got dead.

01:04:15.000 19 people died in that one...

01:04:17.000 Was it an avalanche that got them?

01:04:19.000 Yeah.

01:04:19.000 Well, so the earthquake triggered a lot of glaciers that are hanging up around in that cirque and it released and a lot of stuff just blew through base camp and killed folks.

01:04:29.000 But throughout Nepal, throughout the countryside, I mean, we're talking villages that have stone huts and no mortar and no rebar and, you know, just...

01:04:38.000 It shakes just a little bit and shit falls down.

01:04:40.000 Ancient temples.

01:04:42.000 It's a house of cards.

01:04:44.000 So lots of devastation, lots of people dead, and lots of injuries.

01:04:49.000 So that day that happened, I knew I wanted to go to Nepal to help.

01:04:54.000 I'm a PA. I'm a physician assistant and I've specialized in emergency medicine.

01:04:57.000 So I knew I wanted to be there.

01:04:59.000 And more than anything, like focused on sort of Austere medicine, you know, like I want to go out there where shit's a little bit off and try and help the best I can.

01:05:08.000 So I went over there, I located an NGO called NYC Medics.

01:05:15.000 What's NGO? A non-governmental organization.

01:05:18.000 So not supplied or, you know, subsidized by the feds.

01:05:23.000 This is just like sponsorship, basically donation money gets you over there and you do your work.

01:05:28.000 So you're not under the auspices of the feds.

01:05:32.000 So I went over there with these guys, NYC Medics, which is a group of former New York City paramedics that realized they wanted to take their skills and go do some cool shit around the world.

01:05:43.000 So I found these guys.

01:05:45.000 I went over with them.

01:05:47.000 I was on the ground for a month way, way back, like in the way back.

01:05:51.000 This place called Dading Bessie, which is right at the base of the Ganesha Mall.

01:05:57.000 So this is a place that we landed in some helicopters and set up shop and there was a lot of these Nepalese that they're Tamang, Nepali.

01:06:06.000 That's their ethnic tribe, not Sherpa, but Tamang.

01:06:09.000 They see the helicopter come in and these white dudes get out of the helicopter and they're like, what the fuck?

01:06:13.000 We need help.

01:06:14.000 Are you here to help?

01:06:15.000 Yes, we're here to help.

01:06:16.000 So we had three helicopters worth of gear, downloaded it, set up our clinic, and we're there for a month.

01:06:21.000 We saw...

01:06:23.000 I don't know seven or eight hundred patients in the course of a month and it what started as trauma from the earthquake Sort of then segued into primary care Infections and yeah, I mean well and also believe it or not like a lot of You know Psychological pain.

01:06:44.000 Like, they were scared.

01:06:45.000 The earth was shaking still.

01:06:46.000 I mean, there was tremor after tremor after tremor.

01:06:49.000 I mean, every day, the earth would shake.

01:06:51.000 I got home, and for a month after I got back from there, I still felt the ground shaking in Boulder, Colorado.

01:06:56.000 Because it was just...

01:06:57.000 My body was still sort of...

01:06:59.000 The equilibrium was weird.

01:07:00.000 So, tremors every single day.

01:07:02.000 So, these people needed...

01:07:04.000 You know, anxiety medicines, you know, to be able to take the edge off.

01:07:07.000 So I was over there for a month.

01:07:08.000 We saw a bunch of people and it was very worthwhile.

01:07:10.000 So got connected to this organization and became good friends with all the folks who run it.

01:07:16.000 They do amazing work.

01:07:18.000 And so I got a call in January from one of the heads of the organization that says, We got this kind of kooky thing that we've been asked to do by the World Health Organization.

01:07:29.000 Would you be interested?

01:07:31.000 Kooky?

01:07:31.000 Kooky.

01:07:32.000 Is that the word?

01:07:33.000 That's the word he used.

01:07:34.000 Kooky?

01:07:35.000 Kooky.

01:07:35.000 Jesus.

01:07:36.000 Who the fuck uses kooky when it comes to going to Iraq?

01:07:41.000 12 years of medical school.

01:07:42.000 Not understanding what sniper fire is.

01:07:45.000 It was a little bit kooky.

01:07:46.000 So he frames it up for me and he's like, listen, here's what's going on.

01:07:50.000 We've been asked by the World Health Organization to go in and be a trauma stabilization point in Mosul.

01:07:56.000 Which means you will be as close to the front line as possible, embedded with the Iraqi Special Operations Forces.

01:08:05.000 And your job will be to lead a medical team of, we had nine of us, within 2,000 meters of the front line.

01:08:18.000 That was the way it was framed up, and that's what we all sort of signed up for, and that was the agreement with the World Health Organization.

01:08:25.000 So we would be the first point of contact as these Iraqi special operations guys were going in and putting the fight to ISIS to liberate Western Mosul.

01:08:35.000 So, you know, Eastern Mosul had been liberated, you know, months before.

01:08:40.000 He volunteered for this, by the way.

01:08:42.000 So that's all eastern Mosul on the east side of the Tigris.

01:08:45.000 And then on the west side, you know, ISIS was still sort of dug in right there.

01:08:49.000 And they were ready to put the fight down.

01:08:51.000 They wanted to get after it and save, you know, that's where their caliphate supposedly started or was settled.

01:08:57.000 And so our job as the TSP, this Trauma Stabilization Point, was to be as close to the front line as we could be, and this was the kicker, you know, within a margin of safety, but still be close enough to where we could receive the casualties.

01:09:10.000 As quickly as possible, stabilize them, and then get them to a forward operating suite, which was typically run by Allied forces, so our guys.

01:09:21.000 So, I said yes before I asked my wife.

01:09:28.000 Now, in retrospect, probably wasn't the best strategy because she was not super stoked, but I pitched it to her.

01:09:39.000 I've got an 11-year-old kid, and she gave me, I think, the least amount of pushback as anybody around me in my close network.

01:09:52.000 I mean, a lot of my boys were like, What the fuck, dude?

01:09:54.000 What are you thinking, man?

01:09:56.000 What's your point?

01:09:57.000 What are you doing this for?

01:09:59.000 What's your intention to go over there to a war zone, to a combat zone, volunteering, you know, and helping a group of people that you have no affinity for?

01:10:10.000 It made sense going in Nepal.

01:10:12.000 Because I love Nepal.

01:10:13.000 I love everything about Nepal.

01:10:15.000 I love the Nepali people.

01:10:16.000 So that, good.

01:10:17.000 Everybody got that.

01:10:18.000 But that's the weird thing about Jeff, because he was on the phone with me at the same time saying, hey, are we going back to Everest to go rescue?

01:10:23.000 So he's going to, no matter what, sometime in spring, he's going to put his ass on the line to help save people.

01:10:28.000 He was calling me and going, are we going back?

01:10:29.000 And I'm like, I don't know if we're going back.

01:10:31.000 The network may order another season.

01:10:33.000 We'll probably go back.

01:10:33.000 And I started lining stuff up, just in case the network's true.

01:10:36.000 Has any of this stuff aired yet?

01:10:37.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:10:38.000 Everest Air.

01:10:38.000 The name of the show is Everest Air.

01:10:40.000 It aired November of last year.

01:10:41.000 Everest Air?

01:10:42.000 Mm-hmm.

01:10:42.000 And what network did it air on?

01:10:44.000 Travel Channel.

01:10:45.000 Six episodes on Travel Channel.

01:10:47.000 It's on iTunes and a couple other places too.

01:10:49.000 Okay, so people could get it right now.

01:10:51.000 So you tell your wife.

01:10:55.000 Yeah, and she knew what she signed up for when she married me.

01:11:00.000 So she knew she was kind of getting a little bit of a wild buck in her hands.

01:11:07.000 But this was different.

01:11:09.000 I can go climbing.

01:11:10.000 I can set my sights on this and that.

01:11:12.000 Get out there in the mountains or do adventure races and stuff.

01:11:15.000 And all that's cool.

01:11:16.000 But then...

01:11:18.000 Mad respect to the men and women that serve in our military, man, and put it out there every day.

01:11:22.000 But I've never been in a combat zone, and that shit is crazy, man.

01:11:24.000 I mean, it was real.

01:11:28.000 And I have no, you know, predications that I had any experience close to what our men and women have experienced.

01:11:35.000 But from a medical perspective, it was...

01:11:39.000 Intense, to say the least.

01:11:41.000 I mean, it was a mind-bender.

01:11:42.000 After the first three days, I remember texting my wife just saying, like, I don't know if this is sustainable.

01:11:48.000 Like, just this, my emotional state.

01:11:51.000 Because every day was immense volume of profound penetrating trauma.

01:11:57.000 I mean, never was there, very rarely was there a guy who had one gunshot wound.

01:12:03.000 Typically, seven or eight or nine, they were leaking from lots of places.

01:12:08.000 These dudes were getting shot up.

01:12:10.000 And then the IEDs would blow these guys up, and we would get them.

01:12:15.000 The ambulances would just scream in and drop these guys off.

01:12:19.000 And then five minutes later, another ambulance would come in with two other dudes, and it was just constant, constant.

01:12:24.000 And we would do the best we could to stabilize them or call it.

01:12:31.000 And the ones we could save, we'd package them up and stabilize them, try and control the bleeding.

01:12:37.000 We'd intubate them if we needed to and put chest tubes in and crack them in some cases and stabilize their extremities and patch their hulls and then send them on.

01:12:48.000 He would do these weekly, daily blogs, right?

01:12:50.000 So people who know him are over there, we're waiting, watching CNN, see if he's going to be on, which he was.

01:12:55.000 And he'd do these daily blogs, these long, long diatribe, which is, I think, how he stays somewhat sane.

01:13:00.000 But they're getting shot at.

01:13:02.000 There's mortars coming into their compound.

01:13:04.000 Where are these blogs?

01:13:06.000 On my blog, which is, yeah, it's on my website, Jeff B. Evans.

01:13:10.000 I like to write.

01:13:11.000 JeffBEvans.com?

01:13:12.000 Yep, JeffBEvans.com.

01:13:14.000 So I like to write, and Bud, you're right.

01:13:16.000 How do you have the time?

01:13:17.000 Well, so this is what I would do at night.

01:13:19.000 Like, if I would lay down, we were sleeping on the floor on these, you know, these racky blankets, you know, and we would just lay down on this.

01:13:27.000 So we'd go into these abandoned homes, and we'd set up these trauma bays, and we'd sleep in a room off the trauma bay.

01:13:33.000 And so, you know, we do our day.

01:13:36.000 I very rarely wasn't dressed and ready to get up and go.

01:13:40.000 Because at any time, the head logistician would be like, patience, you know, and everybody would pop up and...

01:13:47.000 And get ready, didn't go out, and the ambulance would throw people on, mostly during the day, but fighting would generally subside at night, and we'd get a little bit of rest, and then I'd write, and I'd write.

01:13:58.000 And it was important, I think, to sort of, you know, percolate that shit out a little bit and let it sit.

01:14:04.000 So, we were in this one place for a couple weeks, and then came the request from the head of ISAF, Special Operations General Abbas.

01:14:15.000 And he came to our head logistical gal, and he's like, listen, you know, as the front line is moving forward, we would like for you guys, if you are up for it, to move forward as well.

01:14:28.000 The only problem is it's not going to be within that 2,500-meter cushion from the front line.

01:14:39.000 It's going to be more like 500 meters from the front line.

01:14:43.000 500 meters?

01:14:45.000 Yeah, which, you know...

01:14:48.000 That's really close.

01:14:49.000 That's really close, especially since the front line's pretty fluid anyway, right?

01:14:53.000 And this isn't conventional warfare, right?

01:14:56.000 ISIS was reinforcing these vehicles and steel-plating them up and then taking civilians and handcuffing them to these steering wheels and telling them you best drive.

01:15:09.000 And they'd drive and then they'd be packed full of explosives and C4 and they'd blow them up.

01:15:15.000 Our guys, Iraqi dudes, would be trying to pelt him to take the dude out.

01:15:20.000 Shit was really archaic, but effective.

01:15:24.000 So they told us, we'd like for you to move.

01:15:28.000 And then our head logistical gal, Kathy, she came to the whole team and she said, this is our option.

01:15:34.000 You don't have to do it.

01:15:36.000 No one's obligated to do it.

01:15:37.000 Y'all are volunteers.

01:15:40.000 And by the way, we were close to begin with.

01:15:42.000 I mean, it was constant every day, just mortars and small arms fire, and there was a bunch of artillery that was set up all around us, outgoing.

01:15:55.000 So we got used to the sound of outgoing artillery.

01:15:59.000 We didn't hear a lot of incoming because they just had pushed them back.

01:16:03.000 So, okay, we all said, let's do it.

01:16:05.000 You know, if we can create positive impact and we can save more lives by being closer, let's do it.

01:16:10.000 So we all got in this big Oshkosh and Humvee convoy and...

01:16:18.000 And drove down past the airport.

01:16:20.000 And I think a lot of military folks that listen will know that airport in West Mosul very well, probably.

01:16:26.000 We drove right through the old busted up, you know, it was just rubble.

01:16:30.000 The whole airport's rubble.

01:16:31.000 It's just completely, it looks like fucking, you know, bedrock Flintstones, you know, it's just a mess.

01:16:37.000 Drove all the way through there and then went to this house.

01:16:40.000 And we set up our clinic on a street corner, covered by a corrugated metal roof.

01:16:47.000 And we put six trauma beds and got our trauma sleeves up and everything was ready to go.

01:16:52.000 And then we set up our residence across the street.

01:16:56.000 At some other abandoned house.

01:16:59.000 And we're down in this sort of concrete bunker, so to speak.

01:17:02.000 And we started seeing patients.

01:17:05.000 And, you know, day one, shit ton of people and lots of things happening.

01:17:10.000 I mean, I'm talking dozens and dozens of, you know, multiple gunshot wound patients.

01:17:17.000 Multiple careers that I experienced in that month of just the flow of volume of penetrating trauma.

01:17:23.000 So then...

01:17:25.000 It was day two or three, all these displaced locals basically got released.

01:17:34.000 So they've been holding them at a checkpoint, fingerprinting the fighting age males, making sure they're not on a record and, you know, making sure everybody's not strapped and letting them through.

01:17:45.000 So on day three or four, they just let this flow of humanity started walking down the street about 60, 70 yards from us, from where we were set up.

01:17:55.000 And they'd see the Americans, and they'd see the stethoscopes, and they'd just start running towards us.

01:18:01.000 Because these people had been captivated and held captive and hiding out in their basements, eating grass.

01:18:11.000 You know, trying to find any fluids at all to drink.

01:18:15.000 There's no rainwater.

01:18:16.000 You know, there's some fucking rain there.

01:18:18.000 And just eking by.

01:18:21.000 And little kids.

01:18:22.000 I mean, these are civilians.

01:18:23.000 These are little bitty kids.

01:18:24.000 And they're hiding out in these homes.

01:18:26.000 And they would just run.

01:18:28.000 They would just take off running and get to these checkpoints.

01:18:31.000 So on day three or something, this flow of humanity comes by.

01:18:34.000 These guys are starting to sort of bum rush our spot.

01:18:37.000 And everybody starts to get a little bit panicked because we weren't quite sure what was, Turns out a lot of bad things could happen, you know, in that situation.

01:18:47.000 So we sort of get our security detail to keep everybody away and we treat a shit ton of people.

01:18:54.000 Day four rolls around.

01:18:57.000 And we wake up that morning and the first patient I have is a five-year-old little girl that had been just absolutely like homicide, like killed, shot right in the head, assassinated.

01:19:08.000 Back of the head, right?

01:19:09.000 Back of the head, yeah.

01:19:10.000 And that was how our day started at like, you know, seven in the morning.

01:19:14.000 That was it.

01:19:15.000 And the day got worse.

01:19:16.000 So the first incoming Landed about, I'd say about 75 yards from us.

01:19:27.000 An RPG. It landed in the neighbor's yard next to us.

01:19:32.000 And it just blew a bunch of debris up and it landed on our corrugated roof there.

01:19:38.000 And we were all like, damn!

01:19:39.000 But we kept working.

01:19:41.000 Then 10 minutes later, maybe, another one came in and it was 50 yards.

01:19:46.000 And just getting closer.

01:19:48.000 It's called a grid.

01:19:49.000 It's a clit.

01:19:50.000 It's a little click.

01:19:51.000 75, 50, 25. So we didn't know it at the time, though.

01:19:55.000 But yeah, you're right.

01:19:55.000 We did not know this at the time.

01:19:57.000 So that one obviously got everybody super tingly.

01:20:02.000 But there was still a shit ton of people coming in.

01:20:06.000 We had patience.

01:20:07.000 I mean...

01:20:08.000 We were working and we had our Kevlar vests on and we were trying to, you know, stay.

01:20:12.000 Then the third one hit and it landed right outside the door.

01:20:19.000 And it blew shit ton of debris.

01:20:22.000 I mean, we felt the blast.

01:20:24.000 And one of our medics got a big piece of debris in the back of his leg.

01:20:28.000 It knocked him down.

01:20:28.000 So we went into this bunker, basically the staging bunker, and we sat down in there.

01:20:33.000 And, you know, no matter what, we couldn't, we weren't going to go out into that.

01:20:39.000 But then 30 seconds later, one of our security detail dudes carried in our head of security.

01:20:48.000 And he was lifeless and dropped him on the table.

01:20:51.000 This is a dude we'd been, you know, eating cookies with and drinking tea with like a half hour before, you know, an hour before, you know, standing at the door in between, you know, ambulances.

01:21:01.000 This is our guy, you know, and he was dead.

01:21:04.000 And so we all looked at each other, and I was the team lead, and I tell you, man, I wasn't about to ask anybody to go out into that, and no one even hesitated.

01:21:14.000 Like, we went out and started working on Hasib, and we...

01:21:19.000 We got on him quick and he was out and I listened to his lungs.

01:21:22.000 He didn't have any lung sounds on one side.

01:21:24.000 I saw some penetrating entry wound in his chest, put a chest tube in his right thorax and about a liter of blood poured out from his pleural space just like that.

01:21:35.000 And as soon as that happened, he could inspire again.

01:21:38.000 And so we started breathing and Resuscitated him.

01:21:42.000 So he was dead and he came back to life just from that?

01:21:45.000 Well, he was unable to inspire.

01:21:49.000 So, you know, his whole body had shut down from, number one, from the shock blast, right?

01:21:55.000 And being hit that hard by a piece of shrapnel and just being that close to the impact.

01:22:01.000 But then also, you know, this penetrating piece of shrapnel went right through his chest and didn't hit any of his vital organs.

01:22:09.000 Cause this hemothorax, this blood to fill up in his plural space.

01:22:12.000 So, you know, I evacuated all that blood and he started to be able to breathe again.

01:22:16.000 So there he is.

01:22:17.000 He's back.

01:22:18.000 We get him out.

01:22:19.000 We go back inside the bunker there and a couple hours later we got out.

01:22:24.000 So we find out the next day That a dude, not of fighting age, a local guy, was a sleeper cell.

01:22:34.000 And that he had come back in the neighborhood and was three or four houses down and was communicating with his operatives and his ISIS bros, you know, two, three hundred meters away, and was releasing pigeons to identify our position.

01:22:52.000 So the way they figured this out, one of our security guys would see a pigeon go up, and he didn't think much about it, and then a mortar hit.

01:22:59.000 And then, you know, 10 minutes later, he's like, there's no pigeons around there, right?

01:23:03.000 Because, I mean, shit's crazy.

01:23:05.000 It's combat zone, and birds don't dig combat zones.

01:23:08.000 So, he kind of started to piece it together, and then he realized, on the third one, he's like, he saw a pigeon go up, and he goes, we're about to get hit.

01:23:17.000 Sure enough.

01:23:19.000 So, we got out of there.

01:23:20.000 Saved Haseeb's life.

01:23:21.000 He got out.

01:23:23.000 And they went and found this dude and got his phone.

01:23:25.000 And sure enough, he was doing all this and he admitted it.

01:23:27.000 He's like, yep, that was me.

01:23:29.000 I was doing it.

01:23:29.000 I was releasing pigeons to identify your spot.

01:23:32.000 And I was told they took care of the situation.

01:23:35.000 That was what I was saying.

01:23:36.000 To try to kill the Americans who were trying to help everybody.

01:23:38.000 Well, yeah.

01:23:39.000 So ISIS wanted us.

01:23:41.000 I mean, they wanted to get us because we were there.

01:23:43.000 We were helping the enemy, right?

01:23:44.000 Jesus.

01:23:45.000 So that was a couple months ago.

01:23:47.000 So they documented on his website, CNN was interviewing him, and there's mortars dropping.

01:23:53.000 Crazy.

01:23:54.000 Yeah, it was heavy.

01:23:55.000 How long were you over there for?

01:23:56.000 About a month.

01:23:57.000 Yeah.

01:23:58.000 How do you decide when you're leaving?

01:24:00.000 Well, they knew, this NYC Medics, they knew this NGO, it was hard to sustain that.

01:24:06.000 I mean, with the concentration, it can't help but affect you.

01:24:11.000 I mean, that's why so many of our military folks have such profound PTSD, right?

01:24:15.000 It's just from getting your ass kicked like that.

01:24:17.000 I mean, these guys go through these deployments that are just months on end of that, right?

01:24:21.000 Right.

01:24:22.000 Just can't imagine how much you know how that hurts and then go back to Kansas and they go to the grocery store Yeah, it's it's it's hard to fathom, you know, it's the black tar Tootsie Rolls Social black tar young kids It took me a little bit to roll out of that.

01:24:49.000 Thank God for my wife.

01:24:50.000 I came back and we went on a run up in the hills a few days later.

01:24:54.000 We got up to the top of this hill and I just cried on her shoulder.

01:24:59.000 I just let it go.

01:25:00.000 Since then I'm fine, but it gives me such a deep appreciation for how hard it must be for these men and women who come back from these deployments.

01:25:11.000 They've been a part of these things.

01:25:13.000 And been affected so profoundly, it's got to hurt, you know, on a very deep emotional level.

01:25:21.000 God, I can only imagine, man.

01:25:23.000 What a crazy life you live, helping people that are involved in traumatic situations over and over again, various traumatic situations, whether it's getting stuck on K2 or whether it's getting...

01:25:34.000 Yeah.

01:25:35.000 But he seeks it out.

01:25:36.000 That's what he does.

01:25:36.000 I just wanted to bring him.

01:25:37.000 He's like, what am I going to do this spring that's going to change 50 people's lives?

01:25:41.000 Where's K2? K2's in Pakistan.

01:25:44.000 Pakistan, yeah.

01:25:45.000 Is that a more dangerous one than Everest?

01:25:48.000 Yeah, I think generally the consensus is it's more technical, it's more dangerous, and it's not as commercialized, right?

01:25:53.000 When they say more technical, what do they mean by that?

01:25:55.000 Well, there's just longer bits of terrain that require more high-level technical climbing skill.

01:26:01.000 So, more exposed, steeper, you know, longer stretches of...

01:26:08.000 Of hanging it out there kind of terrain.

01:26:10.000 You better have your shit dialed or you're going to get smoked.

01:26:13.000 And when they go on these crazy hikes, you have to have very specific kind of gear, too, right?

01:26:23.000 They must have the clothing pretty dialed in.

01:26:25.000 Yeah, I mean, remember those pictures of Mallory, right?

01:26:28.000 Look where it's come.

01:26:29.000 This dude was in wool, which, by the way, wool's pretty good.

01:26:32.000 Pretty good.

01:26:32.000 Yeah, it's pretty good.

01:26:33.000 A lot better than cotton.

01:26:35.000 But now, you know, it's a matter of getting the right gear that works and you can rely on it.

01:26:42.000 You know, I mean, I don't want to be 20 miles back and, you know, in the backcountry hunting elk and have my thermorest have a hole in it so I sleep in the dirt for five days, which is what happened to me last fall.

01:26:54.000 I was by myself and, you know, it was way, way back in the first night.

01:26:58.000 You know, my Therm-Rest had a hole.

01:27:00.000 I didn't have a patch, so I just laid in the dirt for five nights.

01:27:02.000 How was that?

01:27:04.000 Yeah, you get cold from it, too.

01:27:07.000 Fucking cold.

01:27:07.000 If you're a pad.

01:27:08.000 I have to put my pack under it.

01:27:10.000 You just, you know, whatever.

01:27:11.000 Yeah.

01:27:12.000 Fat some nights like that.

01:27:13.000 So, yeah.

01:27:14.000 Wait a minute, you were upset because you had a hole in your air mattress?

01:27:16.000 It was flat, man.

01:27:18.000 I had nothing.

01:27:19.000 But you bagged on the Japanese guy because he had a hole in his mattress.

01:27:22.000 Well...

01:27:23.000 Which guy?

01:27:23.000 The guy that came down?

01:27:25.000 Yeah, well, he called a helicopter in.

01:27:26.000 I sucked it up.

01:27:27.000 He called a helicopter in because he had a hole in his mattress?

01:27:30.000 This is a funny story.

01:27:31.000 So I got a call, said there's a Japanese guy and he's dying at Camp 2. Dying.

01:27:36.000 Dying?

01:27:37.000 Yeah, he's telling everybody he's fucking dying.

01:27:38.000 He's dying.

01:27:39.000 So we're like, holy shit, alright.

01:27:41.000 So I got to get the helicopter, get the helicopter.

01:27:43.000 They risked their lives, they go up there, they get him, fly him down base camp, base camp to Lukla, where our air station was, get that helicopter, and I'll let Jeff take over.

01:27:53.000 Well, yeah.

01:27:54.000 I started asking him.

01:27:56.000 He's as pleasant as he can be.

01:27:57.000 What's going on?

01:27:58.000 Do you hurt?

01:27:59.000 Do you have pain?

01:28:01.000 Very, very tired.

01:28:04.000 Hole in mattress.

01:28:06.000 And I'm like, you have a what?

01:28:08.000 He what?

01:28:09.000 And he said, I have a hole in a mattress.

01:28:11.000 And he was at Camp 2 and was sleeping in the snow and had a hole in his mattress and didn't tell anybody.

01:28:18.000 Basically, he was done.

01:28:20.000 Like we were talking about earlier.

01:28:21.000 He was done.

01:28:22.000 And because he's got money, he calls in the cavalry and says, bring me a helicopter.

01:28:28.000 Jeff was pissed.

01:28:29.000 I was fucking pissed.

01:28:30.000 A lot of people risked their lives.

01:28:32.000 I saw a dude on Denali do that at base camp in 1996 or 7. This dude shows up with a Boy Scout, old school Boy Scout, like Weebelo looking fucking thing.

01:28:44.000 You know, like made of cotton, I guess.

01:28:47.000 You know, with like some weird synthetic shit.

01:28:49.000 And he asked me for a knife to be able to cut the plastic off of it.

01:28:53.000 You know, and I'm like, man, that's not a good idea.

01:28:56.000 Where are you going?

01:28:57.000 And I didn't want to I should have questioned him.

01:28:59.000 Two weeks later, we get a call and have to go up to 17,000 feet for a guy who had broken his ankle.

01:29:05.000 So we land the helicopter down at 17, and he runs towards the helicopter, which everybody knows is you don't run towards a helicopter.

01:29:13.000 It makes a little difficult.

01:29:13.000 He runs to the helicopter.

01:29:14.000 I'm like, he's got to...

01:29:15.000 So it turns out he was just cold.

01:29:18.000 I'm telling you, man, like a lot of people just tap out and because they know there's an infrastructure around that will pull them out instead of being accountable for themselves.

01:29:29.000 That's where I get pissed.

01:29:30.000 So we pulled this guy off and we interviewed him and then Jeff goes, the nicest thing he says, have a nice life, walks up and just starts cussing and piss.

01:29:38.000 He didn't want to do an interview.

01:29:39.000 This is the Japanese guy?

01:29:40.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:29:41.000 Didn't want to talk about him.

01:29:42.000 Well, I mean, it's very dangerous to fly a helicopter at that altitude, right?

01:29:45.000 Selfish.

01:29:46.000 Anything can go wrong.

01:29:47.000 I mean, we...

01:29:47.000 Our helicopter pilots were, I mean, absolutely.

01:29:52.000 Other than military pilots, got to be the best helicopter pilots in the world.

01:29:56.000 I mean, these guys are so skilled and understand what those conditions make you do as a pilot.

01:30:02.000 It was phenomenal.

01:30:04.000 But that being said, machines break.

01:30:07.000 I put him in a helicopter one time.

01:30:09.000 We put him in a bunch of helicopters one time, and that helicopter and that pilot are dead.

01:30:13.000 Now.

01:30:14.000 Yeah.

01:30:15.000 From that.

01:30:15.000 Well, no, like a few months later, I was in the bird with that guy from flying.

01:30:19.000 He crashed into a cliff.

01:30:20.000 He crashed, yeah.

01:30:21.000 Won't name the company, but yeah, there was that one little flight, we put him in there.

01:30:25.000 Yeah.

01:30:26.000 And that was a rickety old helicopter.

01:30:28.000 When you do all these really high-stressful, high-danger sort of situations, you're constantly around people that have this extremely high threshold of For the extremely high tolerance, to discomfort,

01:30:45.000 to pushing your endurance levels, overcoming obstacles.

01:30:52.000 You're around people that are really solid human beings.

01:30:58.000 We're talking about people that are willing to summit Everest, people that will rescue people that summit Everest, people that are willing to do These medical stations 500 yards or 500 meters from the front line.

01:31:12.000 I mean, you're talking about some really solid human beings.

01:31:16.000 Very, very unusually solid human beings.

01:31:19.000 When you come back from that and deal with people like, oh, my fucking cell phone's such a piece of shit.

01:31:24.000 You know, like, oh my god, there's traffic.

01:31:26.000 Oh my god.

01:31:27.000 Like...

01:31:28.000 Is that one of the hardest transitions, like the modern first world problems, gripes, the bullshit that people whine and bitch about?

01:31:36.000 Yeah.

01:31:36.000 That was part of the discomfort I had when I came back from Iraq, specifically, was the delay in flights and just how pissed businessman Bob gets.

01:31:51.000 I like Louis C.K. bit about, you know, you're not fucking walking, you know, like 13 of you are dead when you get back, you know.

01:31:59.000 No, I'm just, I've been on a gratitude tour since I got back.

01:32:03.000 Like, I'm just grateful for everything.

01:32:05.000 I'm so grateful that I was born by random stroke of luck.

01:32:11.000 You know, in Roanoke, Virginia with good parents and a good family structure and was given all the opportunities that I was given.

01:32:19.000 And I wasn't born in Mosul and hiding in a, you know, a cellar from the most evil dudes on the planet.

01:32:25.000 Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's great.

01:32:27.000 So I've come back and instead of getting mad at those people or frustrated with those people, I just try and smile through it and just think, You know, to myself, like, man, I wish you could taste what I tasted just not that long ago.

01:32:43.000 You know, like, it really recalibrated me, where it just doesn't, you know, I just let it Teflon off, you know, to a certain extent.

01:32:54.000 And with regards to the people that I work with, I tend to, I think, gravitate towards people who like these chaotic sort of environments.

01:33:05.000 And I got turned on to this thing, this concept, this acronym that the American Military Academy kicked off a few decades ago.

01:33:15.000 30 years ago or something.

01:33:16.000 And they started referring to working in these VUCA environments, right?

01:33:22.000 Volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous environments.

01:33:25.000 And how we operate in those environments.

01:33:28.000 And how true champions and leaders like Alex can operate in these places, in these atmospheres that are just absolutely shithouse sideways.

01:33:37.000 And when things go crazy, how do you handle?

01:33:40.000 How do you manifest it?

01:33:42.000 What are you doing?

01:33:43.000 Are you flipping the fuck out?

01:33:46.000 Are you withdrawing?

01:33:49.000 And we all have different methods for dealing, but I feel like I've kind of gravitated towards those kind of people.

01:33:55.000 Yeah, I just got done reading Sebastian Junger's book, Tribe.

01:33:59.000 I just read it, too, when I got back.

01:34:00.000 Amazing.

01:34:01.000 It's amazing.

01:34:02.000 It reminds you of where we are and where we've been.

01:34:05.000 And also why people do gravitate towards those environments and what they get out of it and how this life in these intense environments sort of magnifies so much of what it means to be human.

01:34:22.000 And to be a part of something that's bigger than you.

01:34:25.000 That's the phenomenal thing.

01:34:27.000 I read that book too, right when I got back.

01:34:31.000 So just like last month I read it.

01:34:32.000 And it was a great tool for me.

01:34:36.000 My SEAL team buddy told me to read it when I got back.

01:34:41.000 And he says, all the team guys have read it because of that.

01:34:45.000 It reminds them of why.

01:34:48.000 Yeah.

01:34:49.000 Why?

01:34:49.000 And then why things are a little bit...

01:34:51.000 The threads come undone a little bit when you're not in that tribe, right?

01:34:55.000 Yeah.

01:34:56.000 Pretty remarkable.

01:34:56.000 And how many people live in environments where they don't know their neighbors, there's no danger, there's no excitement, there's no nothing, and they live this muted, terrifying life.

01:35:08.000 In a lot of ways, it's terrifying because there's nothing there.

01:35:11.000 It's empty.

01:35:12.000 There's a void.

01:35:13.000 And it's not how human beings are supposed to be.

01:35:16.000 We're supposed to be confronted by a certain amount of difficulty.

01:35:18.000 Supposed to be challenged, right?

01:35:20.000 Yeah.

01:35:20.000 And life's very insulated and soft.

01:35:23.000 And as a result, we insulate further, I think, from that.

01:35:28.000 And then we medicate to deal with the hollow feeling that you get from being isolated and insulated.

01:35:33.000 Yeah.

01:35:34.000 But I answered the question for earlier, which is why people climb Everest, why you climb K2, why you go there and push yourself.

01:35:39.000 I did not climb K2. I know, but you push yourself.

01:35:41.000 Why anybody does that, why do the people push themselves?

01:35:43.000 Yeah.

01:35:44.000 Well, and why do we hunt?

01:35:47.000 Yeah.

01:35:47.000 Why do we run?

01:35:48.000 Yeah.

01:35:49.000 Why do we do the things that we do?

01:35:50.000 Because it creates engagement for me.

01:35:53.000 And no, I'm not running for my life, but...

01:35:55.000 Creates struggle.

01:35:57.000 I did run for my life just a few months ago, you know, and I, you know, I look back now and that was, that's the fucked up thing that I think so many military folks really struggle with.

01:36:06.000 And that's what Younger talked about in that book was, how would you find the, you know, the environment you were in was so precarious, and it was just so tenuous, like, it could be wiped out in any second.

01:36:22.000 And yet you want to go back there.

01:36:24.000 I got an avalanche on that mountain, almost dead, but turns out I want to go back.

01:36:31.000 Why?

01:36:31.000 What is that wiring that makes you want to...

01:36:36.000 But you know why?

01:36:37.000 Because they want to be with their boys and their gals and in it, connected, feeling like our shit is tied together.

01:36:45.000 Why do I want to go back in the mountains?

01:36:47.000 The same reason, because I want to go with the same boys and get the same...

01:36:50.000 Sort of, you know, intense experience and I think that we miss that.

01:36:55.000 I miss that.

01:36:56.000 I really do.

01:36:58.000 Jeff's got this thing.

01:36:58.000 He wants to teach his son and when we were up there in Everest, he kept on talking about teaching his son to serve others.

01:37:04.000 Be positive role model and serve others.

01:37:07.000 And I don't know where that comes from in him, but that's what he always talks about.

01:37:10.000 Well, I think it started with Eric, right?

01:37:11.000 Because that was the foundation of my relationship with my blind buddy.

01:37:15.000 I was a selfish dirtbag climber in J-Tree, you know, in the mid-90s.

01:37:20.000 And I met this blind dude who needed an ally.

01:37:24.000 He needed a friend.

01:37:26.000 He needed a guide.

01:37:27.000 Not just a guide, but he needed a teammate.

01:37:30.000 And not somebody that he could trust, but somebody that would eventually trust him.

01:37:35.000 And that was pretty wild for him to ask at some point for a sighted person to trust a blind person on the side of a rock face or the side of a mountain.

01:37:47.000 Because, you know, it's hard enough with everything.

01:37:49.000 And you take away your vision and, you know, shit just gets amplified.

01:37:54.000 And Eric's pretty famous.

01:37:55.000 I mean, he's summited.

01:37:56.000 What is he summited?

01:37:57.000 Well, he's done the seven summits, so the highest point on each of the seven continents.

01:38:00.000 I was on six of them with him, and he went down to Antarctica while I was in medical school.

01:38:05.000 But then, you know, he's gone on to do a lot of stuff.

01:38:07.000 He's a bad dude, man.

01:38:09.000 Motivational speaker.

01:38:10.000 I mean, he's a great dude.

01:38:11.000 Yeah, Eric Weinmayer.

01:38:12.000 But to be honest with you, he'll be the first to tell you that kayaking in a boat by himself down the Grand Canyon was way scarier than anything he's ever done.

01:38:23.000 How could you?

01:38:24.000 You don't know what's going.

01:38:25.000 The violence and talking about chaotic environment around you.

01:38:29.000 You can barely hear the dude in your ear and sometimes not at all.

01:38:33.000 All you can hear is this violence and somehow he just paddles through and then, you know, he'll get tossed and go under and have to roll back up.

01:38:41.000 He tells me that, you know, he had his own little version of PTSD from that, from just being freaked the fuck out and having nightmares.

01:38:50.000 How long was that travel?

01:38:51.000 200 and something miles?

01:38:52.000 How long did that take?

01:38:53.000 I think it was a couple weeks.

01:38:54.000 Yeah, 12 days maybe, something like that.

01:38:56.000 I think it was.

01:38:57.000 Yeah, pretty remarkable, man.

01:38:59.000 Pretty remarkable.

01:38:59.000 Yeah, I can't imagine.

01:39:01.000 Yeah, it's a bad dude.

01:39:03.000 But it is a reoccurring theme.

01:39:06.000 This thing where people are in these incredibly hostile, dangerous scenarios and they want to go back.

01:39:12.000 They get over it and then they want to go back.

01:39:14.000 Yep, yep.

01:39:16.000 The challenge, whatever you get out of it.

01:39:19.000 Is that him?

01:39:20.000 Yeah, that's him.

01:39:20.000 Oh, there's a video of him doing it?

01:39:22.000 Oh, yeah, you bet.

01:39:23.000 Was he born blind?

01:39:24.000 So he was born with a degenerative retina disease called retina.

01:39:27.000 Look at that shit.

01:39:27.000 Oh, my God.

01:39:28.000 I mean, that'll swallow you, bro.

01:39:30.000 How do you spell his last name, Jamie?

01:39:32.000 W-E-I-H-E-N-M-A-Y-E-R. So wine is what he does in the mountains sometimes, or what you drink, and then mayor of the city.

01:39:41.000 Wow, that's an old image.

01:39:43.000 He's got hair right there.

01:39:44.000 Wow.

01:39:45.000 But yeah, that's him right there.

01:39:46.000 That's on Everest.

01:39:47.000 That's pulling up the top.

01:39:48.000 But he's a bad man, dude.

01:39:50.000 And, you know, everybody loves him some super blind dude, you know?

01:39:54.000 And I think that's why our relationship is so strong is because I'm not afraid to give him some shit and kind of keep him grounded.

01:40:00.000 But behind the scenes, he blows me away.

01:40:05.000 I ain't gonna lie to you.

01:40:06.000 He's a very special human being.

01:40:08.000 Crazy that he could figure out how to balance that and figure out how to go left and go right.

01:40:13.000 Well, he's an amazing athlete first and foremost.

01:40:16.000 I mean if he was sighted he could have been like a pro ballplayer.

01:40:20.000 You know, he's just got that sort of body awareness and then so he's born with a degenerate retina disease so he was under he was blind Legally blind, but then his retinas unraveled.

01:40:32.000 And at the age of 13, it was totally lights out.

01:40:35.000 And then his mama got killed in a car wreck two years later.

01:40:39.000 And so he, I mean, it was step up.

01:40:43.000 Fortunately for him, his dad is, was a Marine fighter pilot.

01:40:49.000 Ed.

01:40:50.000 And Ed was not about to let his blind son sit back and let life go by.

01:40:55.000 So he grabbed him by the scuff of the neck and took him on all these around the world as he got stationed in different places.

01:41:04.000 And Eric just realized, like, pony up.

01:41:08.000 Ain't got time for sitting around, son.

01:41:11.000 Get up.

01:41:12.000 And he did.

01:41:13.000 And he found rock climbing, and then rock climbing turned into mountaineering, and that's when we met.

01:41:18.000 Twenty-three years ago.

01:41:20.000 Twenty-three, four years ago now.

01:41:22.000 I think this is all very hard for some people to process, especially people that haven't experienced very difficult things or very scary things or dangerous things.

01:41:30.000 You know, that people would long to do this, to be a blind guy who's going through 270 plus miles of water in a kayak or to be someone who wants to summit Mount Everest or to be someone who wants to be a medic in a war zone or to be Sebastian Younger who's out there,

01:41:47.000 you know...

01:41:48.000 Embedded.

01:41:49.000 Embedded for years.

01:41:50.000 Right.

01:41:51.000 Years.

01:41:52.000 And I think that maybe the general population might look at that and feel like maybe it's reckless or some are super inspired and like, man, that's so great.

01:42:01.000 And then others are like, yeah, I mean, I'm down, dude.

01:42:05.000 I'm psyched that you're out there charging because then that sets the template.

01:42:09.000 And what it does, I think, for a lot of people, it just says, oh, that blind guy can do it.

01:42:13.000 Well, then, that means I should stop feeling sorry for myself because I'm feeling low today.

01:42:18.000 I guarantee you, there's a lot of times when I don't feel like training.

01:42:21.000 I don't really feel like going out and doing something hard.

01:42:25.000 And then I'll think, I need to train harder to be strong enough that when shit goes sideways, I'll have his back.

01:42:34.000 Yeah, and when you do train for something like Everest, how do you prepare for something like that?

01:42:39.000 Climb.

01:42:39.000 Just climb?

01:42:40.000 Up and down, up and down, lots of weight.

01:42:43.000 Like a place like, you know, you go to Boulder or somewhere in the mountains above it or something like that?

01:42:46.000 Bigger mountains, yeah, like way up in the hills.

01:42:48.000 And like big, long days.

01:42:50.000 Like long days, like 10-12 hour days.

01:42:52.000 That's how you train?

01:42:53.000 Yeah.

01:42:54.000 And how many of those do you do a week?

01:42:55.000 I don't know.

01:42:56.000 You know, I mean two or three probably like big long days I try to you know get broke the fuck off at least You know a couple times a week, right where I'm like, okay, and are you carrying weight on your pack and Those days of carrying big heavy weight.

01:43:12.000 I've kind of stopped doing that and I just go Because I like to feel a little bit more free.

01:43:16.000 There was a time when I would put on a big pack and Just to feel that weight on my traps.

01:43:23.000 Joe's only asking if he's experiencing 45 pounds.

01:43:26.000 He has a new vest he was testing out the other day.

01:43:29.000 Well, I'm asking because it's crazy how 45 pounds is just not much at all.

01:43:33.000 No, but it's a lot.

01:43:34.000 When you start walking up hills.

01:43:36.000 It's a lot.

01:43:37.000 Some of these guys are probably carrying way more than that, right?

01:43:41.000 Like 60, 70. Oh, on Denali?

01:43:43.000 Like a Denali pack's close to 100 as a guide.

01:43:46.000 100 pound pack.

01:43:47.000 That's insane.

01:43:49.000 The clients would typically have, oh, it's a 100 pound pack and a 20 or 30 pound sled.

01:43:53.000 Those were Denali days.

01:43:55.000 And that's at 12, 13, 14,000 feet.

01:43:57.000 That's not Bell Canyon.

01:43:57.000 Yeah, what are these guys built like?

01:44:00.000 Well, I mean, the ones who are good are pretty narrow.

01:44:04.000 How the fuck are they carrying that much weight?

01:44:07.000 I carried that much weight for years and years.

01:44:08.000 I mean, I was a buck fifty back then, you know, and would carry a hundred pounds.

01:44:14.000 And it hurt, you know?

01:44:15.000 But you just...

01:44:15.000 I mean, remember, mountaineering is slog.

01:44:19.000 I mean, when you're really moving, like on that kind of mountain, it's a slog.

01:44:23.000 It's really slow.

01:44:24.000 And then you get on technical terrain, and you best lighten your load.

01:44:27.000 You're not carrying 100 pounds then.

01:44:29.000 You're carrying a light, light pack.

01:44:32.000 Light is right.

01:44:33.000 Ounces make pounds, pounds make pain.

01:44:35.000 Right.

01:44:36.000 You've got to feel like someone carrying 100 pounds, you have to build up to that, no?

01:44:40.000 Yeah, yeah, for sure.

01:44:41.000 There's all these weird stabilizing muscles in your hip muscles and your lower back.

01:44:46.000 Oh, man.

01:44:47.000 I couldn't do it now.

01:44:48.000 I mean, I couldn't do it.

01:44:50.000 I get sore thinking about it, but this was back in my 20s when I was doing back-to-back Denali trips.

01:44:56.000 And you didn't know any better.

01:44:57.000 I didn't know any better.

01:44:57.000 And I was like, this is fun.

01:44:58.000 It was fun.

01:44:59.000 And it was cool.

01:45:00.000 I used to do a lot of expeditions because I was the quintessential dirtbag just so I could go eat.

01:45:05.000 You know, so I could get fed.

01:45:06.000 And I didn't even care.

01:45:07.000 I mean, I would have done it for free.

01:45:08.000 You would go on expeditions just so you could get some food?

01:45:10.000 Just to know I was going to eat some dehydrated food, yeah.

01:45:14.000 I mean, I was living in my van, man.

01:45:18.000 How did you start out being this guy?

01:45:22.000 I was born in North Carolina in the Smokies, and I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia.

01:45:28.000 And my parents are not adventurous at all, but my dad and mom were both just working, middle-class, hard-working middle-class folks.

01:45:39.000 And I was just a restless punk.

01:45:41.000 I was just super restless, getting in trouble all the time.

01:45:45.000 You know, I got arrested several times before I was 18 and just bad.

01:45:49.000 Just restless and dumb, like most of us, I think.

01:45:53.000 And went to school at Tennessee for a year and got a 1.2 my first semester and a.6.

01:46:01.000 It's possible to get a.6.

01:46:03.000 Wow.

01:46:04.000 Yep.

01:46:04.000 I got a D in racquetball.

01:46:06.000 No.

01:46:08.000 No.

01:46:09.000 True story.

01:46:09.000 You just weren't paying attention?

01:46:11.000 No, I was drinking brown liquor and chasing women.

01:46:16.000 I was good at it.

01:46:21.000 I was good at both those things.

01:46:22.000 And so I failed out and then moved to Colorado in 1989. And moved to Boulder and it was just a bunch of hippies and like I was into the Grateful Dead and I was, you know, tapping into some good fun things and growing my head and I fell in with a group of climbers pretty quick off who were a couple years older than me and they basically took me under their wing and sort of gave me this apprenticeship and taught me how to not get dead.

01:46:51.000 Wow.

01:46:52.000 Boulder's a real weird spot, right?

01:46:54.000 There's like fly fishing there and kayaking and hikers and everyone's riding mountain bikes and everyone's fit.

01:47:01.000 It's weird.

01:47:02.000 Everybody's fit.

01:47:03.000 Where's the fat people?

01:47:04.000 There's no fat people in Boulder.

01:47:05.000 It's so weird.

01:47:06.000 No, no.

01:47:07.000 You walk around, everybody's got like Salomons on and shit.

01:47:10.000 Everybody's coming in from a workout.

01:47:12.000 Yeah.

01:47:12.000 Whole Foods, everybody's stinky and buying some granola.

01:47:16.000 They're all sinewy and shit.

01:47:17.000 Yeah.

01:47:18.000 Ranchers.

01:47:19.000 There's a lot of people.

01:47:20.000 So I've lived in Boulder on and off for 28 years.

01:47:23.000 I went to medical school in Philadelphia at Drexel Medical College, Pennsylvania.

01:47:27.000 Other than that, I've been in and out of Boulder for 28 years.

01:47:30.000 And we're moving to Evergreen.

01:47:32.000 We're moving to Evergreen, Colorado, which is a super sweet spot.

01:47:36.000 Yeah, it's gorgeous.

01:47:36.000 The reason I'm leaving Boulder is because it's pretty congested, man.

01:47:40.000 A lot of people live there.

01:47:41.000 That's hilarious.

01:47:42.000 A lot of people live there.

01:47:43.000 And now I'm riding on the 405 here.

01:47:46.000 200,000 people?

01:47:47.000 I don't know how y'all do it, man.

01:47:49.000 One of the people I was talking to, Lanai, she was saying that she's going to bring her nieces to California.

01:47:54.000 They've never been outside of Maui.

01:47:56.000 They've been to Lanai and Maui.

01:47:58.000 That's it.

01:47:59.000 So they haven't even been to fucking Honolulu.

01:48:01.000 And now she's going to fly them to Los Angeles.

01:48:04.000 They're going to go to Disneyland.

01:48:06.000 Universal.

01:48:07.000 Like, what in the fuck?

01:48:08.000 She'd give them some mushrooms and see what happens.

01:48:10.000 What?

01:48:11.000 You don't need to.

01:48:11.000 That would just be overload.

01:48:12.000 I remember when I was a kid and we went from New York to, or from Boston rather than New York for some, I think it was for a karate tournament or something like that, but we were driving up the West Side Highway and you see the city looming in the distance like the Death Star.

01:48:29.000 And I remember thinking, what in the fuck is this?

01:48:32.000 How are there so many buildings?

01:48:35.000 Boston's a city, but it's not that kind of city.

01:48:37.000 It's not Manhattan.

01:48:38.000 Yeah, Manhattan is something very unique and special.

01:48:41.000 Death Star.

01:48:42.000 Yeah, and you pull up to it, you're like, what is this?

01:48:45.000 It was so intimidating.

01:48:47.000 Well, that could go either way for those kids, right?

01:48:48.000 That could just be fascinated by the energy or bug the fuck out.

01:48:53.000 Yeah.

01:48:54.000 Can't wait to get back to Lanai.

01:48:55.000 Well, the amount of stimuli that you get in an environment like that is just overwhelming.

01:49:00.000 Yeah.

01:49:00.000 But you're like, Boulder's too much.

01:49:02.000 It's too much.

01:49:02.000 Too many people, man.

01:49:04.000 There's almost 100,000.

01:49:05.000 We can't do this any longer.

01:49:07.000 I don't like to sit in my truck.

01:49:08.000 I like to move.

01:49:10.000 If I'm going to go drive somewhere, I want to drive there and park and get out and go in and do my deal and come back.

01:49:16.000 And then the trails are pretty populated too.

01:49:19.000 You go climbing, you've got to wait in line.

01:49:23.000 Sometimes.

01:49:24.000 So you go up like rope climbing, like when people are going up sides of mountains and stuff?

01:49:29.000 You better get there at dawn.

01:49:31.000 Really?

01:49:32.000 Get up, yeah.

01:49:33.000 It's a lot of people getting busy out in the woods, which is cool.

01:49:36.000 But, you know, I'm just feeling like, you know, there's a lot of folks.

01:49:41.000 Turns out the older I get, The less people he wants to talk to.

01:49:44.000 But do you think also that you're involved in these intense situations like being in Iraq or like being on Everson?

01:49:51.000 Sometimes you just want to sit back and process it all.

01:49:54.000 Yeah, and sit on the rocking chair.

01:49:55.000 I like to, you know, I want to mow my yard on a tractor.

01:49:59.000 I want to drive my tractor around.

01:50:00.000 Yeah.

01:50:01.000 You know, sip on a beer.

01:50:02.000 I'm a southern boy at heart, and I like quiet things.

01:50:06.000 I know a bunch of guys who've moved out there for that very reason.

01:50:09.000 Yeah.

01:50:09.000 It makes sense.

01:50:11.000 So we're moving there in a couple weeks.

01:50:13.000 That's awesome.

01:50:13.000 And the landscape couldn't be prettier.

01:50:15.000 It's nice.

01:50:16.000 Beautiful.

01:50:17.000 It's real nice.

01:50:18.000 How are the winters?

01:50:19.000 Brutal.

01:50:20.000 Ain't Gold Hill winners, though.

01:50:22.000 No.

01:50:22.000 No, that's way worse.

01:50:24.000 But it's brutal, you know.

01:50:26.000 No, it's real.

01:50:26.000 You gotta get ready.

01:50:28.000 Yeah, we live on a dirt road.

01:50:30.000 Holla.

01:50:30.000 Yeah.

01:50:31.000 Out there, huh?

01:50:32.000 I pulled up to Joe's house.

01:50:33.000 There's an old power wagon, his old house in Boulder, an old power wagon with a snow plow, and there's a couple snow machines out there, and I'm pulling my...

01:50:39.000 Do you know why those things are there, Joe?

01:50:42.000 Because you gotta plow yourself out.

01:50:43.000 Yeah.

01:50:44.000 I'm not scared of snow, man.

01:50:46.000 When I lived in Boston, I drove a van.

01:50:49.000 I drove delivered newspapers.

01:50:51.000 I drove 365 days a year.

01:50:53.000 So I drove every fucking day.

01:50:56.000 Every time a blizzard hit, every time snow hit.

01:50:58.000 I'm not scared of snow.

01:50:59.000 I know how to drive in snow.

01:51:01.000 I mean, it's not fun to get stuck, and you will get stuck, but it doesn't bother me.

01:51:05.000 It doesn't freak me out.

01:51:06.000 But to someone who's never been in snow, it ain't the place.

01:51:09.000 It ain't the place.

01:51:10.000 But if you had to choose between like...

01:51:12.000 It's a tough call.

01:51:14.000 Would you rather live in...

01:51:15.000 Like Phoenix right now, I heard.

01:51:17.000 It's 124 degrees.

01:51:18.000 They're canceling flights.

01:51:20.000 Because it's so hot.

01:51:21.000 They're canceling flights.

01:51:23.000 You know?

01:51:23.000 I mean, I don't...

01:51:26.000 There's something about that cold and snow, too, that's, like, really peaceful.

01:51:30.000 Like, there's something that people don't like.

01:51:32.000 I remember when I was a kid, one of the things that I really liked about snow is, especially when I had to deliver newspapers, is, like, I would have to be out there.

01:51:39.000 And you would hear nothing because the snow muffles all the sound.

01:51:45.000 So it's like you get a kind of peace and quiet that you don't...

01:51:48.000 No one's driving because, you know, there's two feet of snow.

01:51:51.000 So you're out there and it's just...

01:51:54.000 Nothing.

01:51:55.000 And everything's soft.

01:51:56.000 And you hear the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of your feet on the ground and that's it.

01:52:00.000 You know, it's like you...

01:52:02.000 And then I think people that live in those environments, like live in the cold, you appreciate summer for real.

01:52:10.000 Like you really appreciate summer.

01:52:11.000 Out here, every day is summer.

01:52:14.000 Nobody gives a shit.

01:52:15.000 It's 75 degrees and perfect in January, you know?

01:52:19.000 Yeah.

01:52:19.000 And you go into Boulder, and on the CU campus, you know, like, you get a 60-degree, 50-degree day in the spring, and all the bitches just go down to their Daisy Dukes.

01:52:29.000 Whoa.

01:52:29.000 You know?

01:52:30.000 Like, they're like, woo-hoo!

01:52:32.000 Time to put up those feathers.

01:52:34.000 Yeah.

01:52:34.000 Let that scent fly.

01:52:35.000 Woo!

01:52:37.000 Yeah.

01:52:38.000 Wow.

01:52:39.000 So what's next for you, man?

01:52:40.000 What are you going to do now?

01:52:41.000 I don't know.

01:52:41.000 We're going to figure it out between now and next spring, because spring's when I start to get the itch, you know, to go do something.

01:52:47.000 So how do you guys work it out?

01:52:49.000 Do you, like, come to him with an idea, or do you guys sit down and talk about it?

01:52:53.000 Well, we can't talk about our potential.

01:52:56.000 Well, he just pitched something to me yesterday that's pretty interesting and adventurous and fun and curious and a mystery to a bit of a...

01:53:05.000 Jeff's good TV. I mean, he's a good person in general, but he's also really good TV. We have a mystery.

01:53:10.000 Two guys have already died trying to do it.

01:53:12.000 Oh, Jesus.

01:53:15.000 Check, check.

01:53:16.000 Yes, and it's pretty dangerous, and I want to put a team together and Jeff leading the team and see if we can go pull it off.

01:53:22.000 Oh, my God, dude.

01:53:24.000 Listen, don't die and come back when you live and we'll talk about it.

01:53:30.000 Come back when I live.

01:53:31.000 Yeah.

01:53:31.000 Yes.

01:53:31.000 I like that idea.

01:53:33.000 It's fun living, turns out.

01:53:34.000 Oh, yeah.

01:53:35.000 I enjoy life.

01:53:36.000 And do you enjoy it more when you come back?

01:53:39.000 Yeah.

01:53:40.000 Yeah.

01:53:40.000 Once again, like, gratitude tour.

01:53:41.000 Like, you know, like, I love it all.

01:53:43.000 I don't...

01:53:44.000 My kid's a total slob and, like, really just drops shit and makes mess everywhere.

01:53:49.000 And I'm like...

01:53:50.000 I love that boy.

01:53:51.000 You know, like, you're a little fuck up and I just love you.

01:53:55.000 Well, just remember what you were like, right?

01:53:56.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:53:57.000 And boy, I mean, that's the universe.

01:54:01.000 Saying, what's up, bitch?

01:54:02.000 Yeah, here you go.

01:54:03.000 Here you go.

01:54:04.000 What are you going to do with this kid?

01:54:05.000 You going to take him to Everest?

01:54:07.000 Yeah.

01:54:08.000 He's a little long-haired kid that's just trying to find his way and I can relate.

01:54:11.000 You know, he's trying to figure it out.

01:54:14.000 No one just knows their way.

01:54:16.000 There is no...

01:54:16.000 Everyone finds their way.

01:54:17.000 No.

01:54:18.000 You have to.

01:54:19.000 I'm still looking, man.

01:54:20.000 You always will be.

01:54:21.000 Yeah, and that's the good thing.

01:54:22.000 I think that's part of why I'm doing it.

01:54:24.000 I'm still looking.

01:54:26.000 100%.

01:54:26.000 I'm still trying to figure it out.

01:54:28.000 I'm trying to do the best I can helping people where I can.

01:54:32.000 I don't have a wide array of skills, but I know how to help people when they're having a hard go.

01:54:40.000 That's a great path though.

01:54:41.000 I mean the path of service, the path of helping people and the gratitude and the experience that you get from that.

01:54:47.000 It's very positive.

01:54:49.000 Yeah.

01:54:50.000 I mean, I feel like if I can instill any of that into my boy, I win.

01:54:57.000 Be grateful.

01:54:59.000 Live.

01:55:00.000 Live a grateful life.

01:55:01.000 And by living that, what does that mean?

01:55:03.000 Pay it forward.

01:55:05.000 Show gratitude.

01:55:06.000 Show love.

01:55:07.000 Show compassion.

01:55:09.000 And allow people to be the best version of them and do the best you can to make them better.

01:55:16.000 Right.

01:55:17.000 Well said.

01:55:17.000 And I didn't know that until I met Eric, to be honest with you.

01:55:20.000 He was a catalyst for all that.

01:55:21.000 Wow!

01:55:22.000 That's amazing that one person can change the course of your life that much just by existing and being around them and experiencing how they navigate life.

01:55:32.000 Yeah, that's what I learned.

01:55:34.000 Well, listen, man, thanks for doing this.

01:55:35.000 Really appreciate it.

01:55:36.000 I'm on.

01:55:37.000 Bud, thanks for bringing him on.

01:55:38.000 We'll do it again, back when you guys survive, because you're going to survive, right?

01:55:42.000 Yeah, you know.

01:55:42.000 Okay, we'll do it again.

01:55:44.000 Yeah, it's not that bad.

01:55:44.000 We'll do it again, and we'll talk about it.

01:55:46.000 All right.

01:55:46.000 That was fun, brother.

01:55:47.000 Thanks for having us.

01:55:47.000 Thanks, man.

01:55:47.000 Thank you.

01:55:48.000 Thank you, Joe.

01:55:48.000 See ya.

The Joe Rogan Experience - June 21, 2017

Joe Rogan Experience #977 - Jeff Evans & Bud Brutsman

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