Our guest in episode 38 is the globe-trotting adventurer Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll, who in February pulled off a mind-blowing feat of climbing: the first ever south to north traverse of the full Fitz Roy massif in Patagonia. This is the same spiky ridgeline that Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell traversed in 2014, but Sean did it in the opposite direction and he did all alone. And even though, as you’ll hear, he definitely wasn’t in any hurry, he took only two days longer than Tommy and Alex, despite carrying 10 days of food and self-belaying most of the climbing.

The traverse entailed more than 4,000 meters of vertical gain, and except for the rappels, he did it all free, with pitches up to 6c (5.11). Chris Kalman interviewed Sean in El Chaltén, where he has been living for the past year.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker, with additional support from Polartec and Lowa Boots. This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.