Climbing Gold

Kai Lightner is on a tear. When we last spoke with Kai, his path in professional climbing was unclear. He’d struggled with disordered eating, injuries, and growing into his adult body after a decade of success in competition and his path back to the upper limits of climbing seemed uncertain. Last year, Kai turned his attention to climbing outside and took the emphasis off results. An incredible string of sends followed, and once again Kai has found himself at the forefront.  

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A decade ago, climbing’s most controversial figure wasn’t someone who’d lied, chopped routes, or chipped holds. It was a young woman who’d savvily harnessed the internet and social media to power her competitive career. Unintentionally, Sierra Blair became a lightning rod. Today, Sierra’s approach might simply be considered best practice for an athlete on social media, but a decade ago it sparked conversations about who gets to call themselves an athlete or a “real” climber, and it exposed a vein of misogyny flowing through our sport. With that period firmly in the rearview mirror and climbing harder than ever, Sierra shares her journey through climbing, professionalism, and the Internet. 

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Sometimes we all need healthy competition. Last summer Alex, Tommy Caldwell, and Sonnie Trotter hatched a plan – each would attempt to climb 9a in the coming year. Climbing at your limit demands attention and accountability, something each was struggling with on their own. Together, the goal seemed a little more probable.

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When Kris Hampton launched the Power Company, training for climbing was in an awkward adolescence. Research and tactics were woefully behind adjacent sports like gymnastics. Gym sessions were a stop gap for time outside and training programs were the realm of competitive youth teams and a few hardened professionals. We dive into the evolution of training, the difference between a coach and a trainer, and how close we are to the limits of human possibility. 

Written in Stone Kris' podcast

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News flash: having kids changes things. Paige Claassen and Emily Harrington join Alex to discuss the new normal, reaching limits while sleep deprived and the calculus of risk as they move into parenthood.

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For the last decade, no climber has moved our sport closer to the future than Adam Ondra. While he’s known for his visionary sport routes, he’s excelled in every aspect of rock climbing from competition to big walls. Adam sat down for a wide ranging interview to talk about the limits of what’s humanly possible, the Olympics and shiver bivying on El Cap with his father.

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We will be back later this spring with all new episodes of Climbing Gold, but in the meantime we wanted to rerun an episode from our first season: “This Place Will Change Climbing”. We dive into what makes Memphis Rox a unique climbing gym. And right now, Memphis Rox needs the climbing community to step up and help them through a tough financial moment. Good ideas need champions. 

Support Memphis Rox  

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In Part 2 of Adapted, Mo Beck and Jim Ewing head to the Lotus Flower Tower. Hugh Herr embarks on life after climbing and tackles one of humanity’s greatest challenges. Denny Kowska seeks to build an adaptive community from the ground up. 

Resources

Hugh Herr's Ted Talk

Jim Ewing's Film Adaptive

ParaCliffHangers

Paradox Sports

Adaptive Climbing Group

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Climbing’s first phenom survives a near death experience and life altering accident on Mount Washington. In rural Maine, a young girl born without a hand discovers climbing. In the aftermath of an accident, an engineer resolves to complete a lifelong dream. Hugh Herr, Mo Beck and Jim Ewing take us on a journey in a two part series about human potential, generational friendships and the power of climbing.

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Style vs substance-- they are one and the same in climbing. It governs how we aspire to do routes. It inspires us. Done right, it will stand the test of time. Today, we sit down with climber Katie Lambert and photographer Ben Ditto. 

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When protests erupted in Iran in fall of 2022, human rights activist and professional climber Nasim Eshqi was climbing in France. As she watched the uprising back home unfold, Nasim knew that returning home at that moment would mean arrest and imprisonment at the hands of the government. She doubled down on her criticism of Iran’s repressive regime and used her climbing to bring the struggle to the international climbing community.

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Underground legend and editor of Accidents in North American Climbing, Pete Takeda joins us to talk safety. We can learn from mistakes, but sometimes it’s worth speaking up before they happen. 

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After successfully establishing the first fair means ascent of Cerro Torre’s SE Ridge and chopping Maestri’s bolt ladder, Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk smash into reality. In the mountains, a rescue for their friend is under way. In El Chaltén, frustration boils over and the police get involved. Meanwhile, David Lama heads back up the mountain. Years later, the community reflects on the Cerro Torre. 

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In the 2000’s, a new, global generation of alpinists armed with a broad toolkit of skills and advancements in weather forecasting led a climbing golden age in Patagonia. While popular, Maestri’s Compressor Route becomes the target of climbers looking to leave a lasting impression on the sport. 

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How big of a problem is lying in climbing? Jonathan Siegrist returns to the show to talk about dishonesty in our sport. 

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With doubts circling in the press, Cesare Maestri returns to Cerro Torre with hundreds of bolts, a compressor engine and gallons of gasoline intent on conquering the mountain. What ensues borders on madness leaving the next generation to untangle Maestri’s lies and correct an abomination.

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In 1959, Cesare Maestri, an outsider and rebel drawn to the siren song of the world’s fiercest mountain, Cerro Torre, ripped a hole in climbing’s only true rule – a climber is only as good as their word.

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In May 2022, The Full Circle Everest team made history when seven of the members reached the world’s highest point. They were the first all black expedition team to do so. Today, we talk with Phil Henderson, Adina Scott and Eddie Taylor about their experiences on Chomolungma and the power of summits. 

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Is reaching a summit the true measure of success or is there something deeper? In 1978 a dream team of alpinists – Jim Donini, Jeff Lowe, George Lowe, and Michael Kennedy – spent 26 days tackling the North Ridge of Latok 1 in the Karakoram range and came up just short of the summit after illness struck. Their attempt became legend and a testament to the power of friendship. The North Ridge suddenly became the most coveted alpine climb on the planet, rebuffing new generations of climbers for the next 40 years. 

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A route’s history is important, but does it make it sacred? As our sport grows, people are considering whether adding bolts to existing routes to make it safer or more accessible might be a valid idea. Prolific first ascensionist, student of the sport and arguably America’s best sport climber Jonathan Siegrist joins the Climbing Gold team to discuss.

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We journey through the world of Moonboarding with the world’s best – Ravioli Biceps. And Ben Moon walks us through the underground climbing trend that started in the cellars of Sheffield, England and has now spread across the globe. Everybody can play. Everybody can contribute. Everybody can connect.  

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Could a route change you? Kareemah Batts joins Alex, Fitz, Lauren and Leici to talk about the routes that changed what they thought was possible. 

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In April of 2022, Anna Pfaff set out to tick an Alaska classic – the Harvard Route on Mount Huntington. With her partner Priti Wright, Anna romped up the 3,000 foot face of ice, rock and snow, but the climb would prove to be a life changing experience. Frostbite would force doctors to amputate most of her toes. As a professional athlete, Anna would have to come to terms with her new best.

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The next generation needs its inspiration. The Mellow crew provides it. Between sends of the world's hardest boulders, Daniel Woods, Shawn Raboutou, Giuliano Cameroni and Jimmy Webb took climbing media into their own hands, authoring YouTube ready videos of climbing’s cutting edge with an aesthetic more akin to skate films than National Geographic. 

Shawn on Spectre (V13)

Elijah Kiser on Levity (V14)

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Philosophy professor and member of the exclusive 5.14 after 60 club, Bill Ramsey has a bone to pick with those who value strength over technique. In this roundtable discussion, we dive into our bias towards power and Bill’s concept of the pain box. Nothing’s worse than the pain of sucking.

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Quiet and humble, Lucho Rivera was the antithesis to the wild, loud and over the top antics of the Stone Monkey generation. Yet in that band of misfits, he found a home. Now, after three decades of climbing in Yosemite, Lucho may have made the greatest contribution of his generation to the Valley’s history.

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In the 1970’s, no flame burned brighter than Hot Henry Barber. Often heralded as the first traveling climber, Henry redefined standards for free climbing and free soloing not just the US, but every country he visited. Along the way, he shattered egos before learning to check his own.

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After Jack Dorn’s death, conspiracies begin to fly in the Valley. Camp 4’s dirtbags figure out what to do with their spoils. And the plane crash becomes the stuff of Hollywood, literally. Our final installment of the Dope Lake series.

By early April, the rumors of Dope Lake began to spread far beyond the Valley. What was once an under-the-radar get rich mission had spiraled out of control. When the rangers get a tip, they decide it’s time to take back the lake, but not before one of the legendary Stonemasters escapes with a kilo of cocaine and the black book. The party has to end.

Yosemite, 1970’s – it was the heart of the climbing revolution. You’ve heard a lot of voices and names in the Dope Lake series – John Long, Jim Bridwell, John Bachar, Dale Bard, Vern Clevenger, John Yablonski. Big names with big personalities that helped write the history of Yosemite Valley across all the disciplines – big wall, free climbing and bouldering. When the decade started, the hardest route in Yosemite checked in at 5.10. By the end of the decade, that standard would climb to 5.13.

The gold rush begins. When two skiers reported a possible plane crash, Yosemite Ranger Tim Setnicka started making calls. Pretty soon he realized the Park Service had a serious investigation on their hands. When federal agents landed in El Cap Meadow, the Camp 4 climbers knew something was up, but had no idea their lives were about to change.  

In 1976, a plane carrying four million dollars in marijuana crashed into a small alpine lake in the Yosemite high country. Broke and living off discarded scraps of tourist meals in the valley below, America’s best climbers smelled opportunity. The events at Dope Lake became climbing’s most potent myth and inspired a Hollywood blockbuster, but the real story and the lives it changed is stranger than fiction.

What happens when you unexpectedly find yourself in the global spotlight? Tommy Caldwell offers a candid perspective into the personal impacts that the Dawn Wall media coverage had on his life. Almost overnight, the ascent arguably made Tommy the first household name in climbing and inspired an influx of new climbers to the sport.

In 2015, climbing became a cultural avalanche. The Dawn Wall was its tipping point. In part one, we talk with the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times reporter John Branch. We hear about Sandy Russell’s novel project to put The Nose on Google Street View and Tommy Caldwell helps us make sense of the year climbing finally hit the mainstream. 

This month, Alex completed his multi-year project to traverse Red Rock’s iconic skyline. In 32 hours, Alex ticked off 35 miles, 23k feet of climbing up to 5.11- and 20 named summits to complete the HURT – Honnold's Ultimate Red Rock Traverse. Fitz and Alex’s conversation digs into what went into this cutting edge effort.   

For many of us, social media is the portal into the lives of outdoor photographers and filmmakers. We see the images and the films they create, but it can be a bit of a mystery for how it all works behind the lens. Today we talk to climbers Colette McInerney and Austin Siadak, both photographers and filmmakers who have worked on many different outdoor film projects, to get a glimpse of what it takes to create incredible outdoor stories. 

Films and photographers mentioned in this episode:

Pretty Strong by Never Not Collective

The Alpinist with Marc-Andre Leclerc

Mikey Schaefer

Meru by Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk

How can you turn your fear into excitement? Today, we’re sharing an episode of Re:Thinking with Adam Grant, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective. In this episode, Alex sits down with Adam to talk about regulating emotions when you’re hanging off the edge of a cliff, what still scares him, and how he stays motivated to pursue ambitious goals.

If you’d like to hear more from leading thinkers and creators, follow ReThinking wherever you get your podcasts. Each week, Adam dives into the minds of interesting people to learn the unique ways they think and find practices we can all apply in our daily lives to live a little better. This season, the show features guests like bestselling author Celeste Ng, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, and Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon. 

Does climbing have inherent value? We kick off season 4 of Climbing Gold by talking about finding meaning in our lives, whether through climbing or other pursuits. Nik Berry, an ER nurse and rock climber, reflects on his pursuit of climbing hard routes and how that shifted and guided him during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How do you decide to take on risk? Alex and Fitz discuss their five takeaways from talking to climbers, alpinists and experts for this season on risk.  

We’ve spent this season trying to better understand the risks climbers take, but we had one last question. How do you walk away? Steve House gave his entire attention and focus to alpinism. He was an iconic figure who seemed poised to finish out a career as a sponsored athlete. Then in April of 2021, Steve announced that he was done with elite climbing, embarking on a new chapter of life.

Learn more about Steve's work at Uphill Athlete.

Big, audacious dreams come with real risks. The dreamers are presented with a labyrinth of physical hazards, possible outcomes, hurdles, and dead ends. Often, we are told that success comes down to positive thinking, but maybe there’s a flip side to that coin. Few people have thought about risk more than Will Gadd, pioneer of modern mixed and ice climbing. And he’s got a lot to say. We also get some insight from Brette Harrington.

Sometimes you don’t get to choose the risks you take. It’s a matter of survival. Alex talks with climber and photographer Nikki Smith about what she gained when she took one of the biggest risks of her life, how her passion for climbing has evolved as she’s forged her path to live authentically, and the importance of standing up for others. We ask some hard questions and get honest answers.

To manage risk, you first have to see the threat. Best-selling author Michele Wucker and Alex talk about how he evaluates risk, creating safety nets and his greatest fear. 

In early 1980’s Yosemite, big wall climbing was tedious, difficult and often terrifying. Enter Lydia Bradey, a 19-year-old New Zealander. She’s not good at free climbing, but she has this overwhelming desire to experience the feeling of being on one the steepest bits of El Capitan thousands of feet above the ground. There are people who dream of doing things and there are the people that go do them. Today, we talk with Lydia about the dark art of aid climbing, Mount Everest and the power of big nature. Lauren Delaunay Miller, author of Valley of Giants, joins us to help tell her story.

As humans, we sometimes prefer to ignore big risks that are lurking within our view. See climate change or storm clouds building over a ridge. Best-selling author Michele Wucker has dedicated her career to understanding how humans interact with risk in big and small systems. Her hypothesis: the risks we take create a unique fingerprint. Colin Haley, aka Captain Safety, has shaped his fingerprint through two decades of elite alpinism, soloing and identifying risk factors.

Hazel Findlay and Alex dive deeper into the intricacies of British trad climbing. Just don’t hit the ground.

Far away from Yosemite’s spotlight on a crumbly backwater cliff, an unknown climber was about to change a sport by breaking some of its most sacred rules. Today, we are all very grateful he did. We talk with Alan Watts, pioneer of sport climbing in America, about the highs and lows of breaking the status quo. There’s an upside and a downside to every risk we take. 

British trad climbing might be the most unique flavor of all. Is it an audacious game of risk or merely a fast track to a Darwin award? In 2000, while following in the footsteps of his heroes, a young James McHaffie booted up in front of the famed Masters Wall and launched upwards. What followed was a four hour fight for survival. Hazel Findlay helps supply perspective on the strange craft of British trad. 

This year's Olympic climbers weren’t the original USA climbing team. That honor actually goes to a rag-tag group of adventurous dirtbags including Beth Wald, Russ Clune and Todd Skinner, who managed to travel to the USSR at the tail end of the Cold War to compete in a one of a kind climbing competition.

Were the Olympics more a bust than a boom? If you had $20 million to grow the sport of climbing how would you spend it? Are we at the end of the era where we climb alongside the pros? The Climbing Gold Team takes a look back at the learnings from season 2 and looks into the future of our sport.

These are the things in the shadows that no one wants to talk about. The open secrets elite athletes carry. The behaviors coaches would prefer not to see. The hard realities fans tend to ignore about the sport playing out in front of them. Today, Kai Lightner and Beth Rodden help us shine a light on disordered eating in climbing.

As climbing grows and enters into mainstream consciousness, we’d be naive to think that money won’t play a role. What does it take to “go pro” in climbing? How does the business of climbing evolve so that it doesn't fall into the same pitfalls that plague other sports? We dive into these questions with Rick Burton, a professor at Syracuse University Professor and Jonathan Retseck, founder of RXR Sports. 

What goes through a climber’s brain when the lights shine and the cameras go live at a world cup stop? Ashima Shiraishi takes us on a journey into the heart and mind of a true competitor. 

To move a sport forward, you have to take it apart and put it back together again. Today, we talk with two thought leaders in climbing’s next chapter -- routesetters Tondé Katiyo and Adam Pustelnik -- about the craft of creating movement and we introduce a concept every climber should know about.

Right now, the spotlight shines brightly on the newest generation of competition climbers, but the path they’re following was blazed by those before them. Today, we talk with Alex Johnson, or AJ, who has ridden the highs and lows of professional climbing over the last 20 years. She won her first bouldering national competition at age 12 before going on to win two golds at Bouldering World Cups. Her career charts a fascinating shift in climbing culture, the comp circuit and the hurdles to being a professional climber. 

Armando Menocal worked to save climbing in America and helped kickstart it in Cuba. While developing the international climbing destination of Viñales, Armando met the love of his life. They planned to get married, but the Cuban government had other ideas. 

After four days of alpine starts to watch climbing at the Olympics, Alex and Fitz catch up with producers John Burgman and Leici Hendrix for a laugh-filled breakdown of the good, the bad and the ugly. Ultimate fandom. Cable subscriptions. Math on the fly. 

In 2019, The US Olympic Committee gave USA Climbing a one in 10,000 chance of winning a medal. Two years later, USA Climbing sent four climbers to Tokyo. Americans are winning World Cup competitions like never before. What happened? The sleeping giant woke up. 

When it comes to the Olympics, we will probably never see a climbing competitor like Kyra Condie again. While other competitors in Tokyo have had the benefit of robust, government-funded national programs or boutique climbing teams, 25-year-old Kyra has spent the better part of a decade as her own coach and trainer while navigating the highest levels of international competition. 

Alex and producer John Burgman walk us through the upcoming competition, make their picks for the gold and explain why the world’s best climber is probably the underdog.

The decades long courtship between the Olympics and climbing reads like some bizarro script for a rom com. It seemed like a sure fire thing until curling got in the way. Alex and Fitz interview John Burgman, author of High Drama and an expert on competition climbing. We breakdown climbing’s journey to make its Olympic debut.

Is climbing defined by adventure or athleticism? How does a sport grow and evolve? Alex and Fitz discuss these questions and other nuggets as they reflect on the first part of the series. And we reveal one of Alex’s pet peeves. 

Ship Rock. The Totem Pole. Spider Rock. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean we should climb it. We dive into the troubled relationship between climbers and tribes and take apart the inaccurate story the climbing community has been telling itself for decades. Climbers Aaron Mike, Len Necefer and Tara Kerzhner help brush away the chalk to reveal a deeper story.

Sean “Stanley” Leary never got a lot of media attention, but he was a driving force in the progression of the sport and beloved by the climbing community. He held numerous speed records in Yosemite, pioneered new routes on Baffin Island and was on the leading edge of wingsuit flying. Alex shares some of his memories of climbing with Stanley. 

After a protracted battle over bolts and sport climbing, American climbers nearly lost the ability to climb on public lands in the early 1990s. It would have completely altered the course of our sport. Fortunately, lawyer and climber Armando Menocal rose to the challenge of protecting climbing for generations to come, despite the fact that many climbers hoped he would fail. We take a peek into the early days of the Access Fund and Leici Hendrix adds perspective on the importance of local climbing organizations. 

From our co-creators at the Dirtbag Diaries, we're sharing a story about a type of climbing that we haven’t touched on in this series: Alpinism. In the summer of 2019, Steve Swenson, Mark Richey, Graham Zimmerman, and Chris Wright, made the first ascent of Link Sar, a 7,041 meter peak in the Karakoram. Steve, who’s been climbing for over 50 years, had attempted the peak two other times. This time, he returned with a multi-generational team, continuing to break a different kind of trail for younger climbers to follow. "When I think about it, I'm not happy because I got to the top of some point on the planet," says Steve. "I'm happy because of all the things we had to do to get there."

As climbing gyms become a global crag of sorts, how do we welcome people in? Do climbing gyms become a country club or the mechanism for broadening the community and unleashing a wave of new talent into climbing? Memphis Rox has redrawn the model for what a climbing gym can do. Designed to be more than just a state of the art climbing gym, it is a not-for-profit community center located in the heart of Memphis, TN. Photographer Malik Martin and industry veteran Jon Hawk bring us ideas on the future of our sport with a little help from Conrad Anker.

Beth Rodden inspired a generation of climbers with her incredible free ascents of El Cap and hard trad climbs. Her leap into that realm began at an impromptu pizza party hosted by Lynn Hill. When a living legend asks you to ditch university and come to Madagascar, the only answer is “Yes.”

By the mid 2000’s climbing was growing, but the ephemeral first ascents were harder to find. Enter BASE jumping. The leaders of our sport stepped to the edge and jumped into the golden age of human flight. With it, a whole new element of risk arrived in climbing. We talk with Randy Leavitt, Chris McNamara and Steph Davis, who helped pioneer the movement. 

El Cap. Free. In a day. Putting those words on your resume puts you in the league of legends. How did that become the bar? Lynn Hill. A singular athlete who stepped up to the biggest stage in climbing, Lynn redefined what was athletically possible for not just her generation, but generations to come. Emily Harrington and Beth Rodden add their perspective on the momentous achievement.

In the summer of 1954, John Gill took his first climbing trip to Colorado. Tired of trudging up the steep mountain peaks and without a partner, Gill hitched a ride with a milkman to solo the east face of Longs Peak, a remarkable feat for a 17-year-old beginner climber from Georgia. 

A physical and intellectual anomaly, John Gill’s vision for climbing would ultimately drive the sport’s athletic progression and help bring it to a larger audience. It would just take the sport decades to catch up to him and acknowledge Gill’s contribution to modern bouldering that began in an intro to gymnastics class his freshman year. Also in this chapter, Alex and Nina Williams break down their shared respect for Bishop’s world class highballs. 

In the 1980’s, a Wells Fargo parking garage in the San Fernando Valley became a clandestine climbing laboratory and pre-runner to climbing gyms. We talk with the legendary Randy Leavitt about how he and Tony Yaniro invented a climbing move that’s withstood the test of time.

Cultural trends, new gear and community have powered the growth of climbing rather than individual athletes. Occasionally though, a generational talent comes along and blows the whole sport wide open. Chris Sharma was climbing’s first bonafide phenom and ushered in a new chapter of athleticism.

Watch Sharma climb Es Pontàs.

The online climbing route database Mountain Project lists more than 200,000 routes in the U. S. alone. Behind each route is a person who took the time and energy to create something for their community. How do they do it? Why do they do it? We talk with prolific first ascensionist Joanne Urioste who pioneered some of the most popular routes in the world and helped bring climbing into the future.

Climbing doesn’t have a rule book. So who decides how climbing changes and evolves? Peter Croft and Alex talk about their climbing heroes and pushing the mentality of possible. Discover how 1940’s bebop jazz connects to free-soloing Yosemite's famed Astroman.

What connects the past, present and future of rock climbing? 

In season one of Climbing Gold, the sport’s biggest star Alex Honnold and co-host Fitz Cahall take you on a tour through climbing, from the early days of the lunatic fringe where dirtbag climbers gambled with their lives to chase the edge of human imagination, to today’s new generation of athletes who have risen to the top of their sport without ever having touched the world’s most famous summits. Pushing the boundaries of climbing has always meant challenging the assumptions and status quo of the previous generation. 

Athletes. Risk takers. Dirtbags. Pioneers. Community builders. Outsiders. Leaders. Please join us to hear the voices and stories of climbing’s past and future.

It is coming. Climbing Gold. Stories from the past, present and future of climbing. Alex Honnold and co-host Fitz Cahall share stories from the people who define the sport of climbing by pushing the boundaries and challenging the status quo of the previous generation.

Episodes drop March 26th.

Learn more at www.climbinggold.com