The Climbing Majority

I don't know about you but when I first started climbing..creating a first ascent and developing a route was something my regular climbing partner and I would fantasize about—looking out the car window on long road trips for any rock formation that might have been untouched, a prize yet to be claimed. However, like most of you, I am sure, I was too enthralled in actually climbing to take the time, money, and focus to become a route developer. 

With climbing being so accessible, and there being over fifty thousand published routes on Mountain Project between California and Canada alone, it is easy to just enjoy climbs and forget all the work it took to establish them. Today, our topic is route development and we get to sit down with a local climber and route developer here in Reno, his name is Colby Wangler. In our conversation, we talk about how Colby found climbing and what lead him to become a route developer, the ins and out of the route developing process, and how Colby both developed and climbed his first own 5.13. We cover how we, the majority, the people who get enjoy the work of others, can support, maintain, and give back to the areas we love so much. And finally, we talk about a potential dark side to this amazing sport we call climbing. 

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

Resources: Please help support the development and maintenance of your local climbing area. Here are some places that will be a good start and could use our support.

Alpine Club of Canada

American Alpine Club

Squamish Access Society

Sea to Sky Climbing Hardware Fund

British Mountaineering Crag Care Fund

Access Fund USA (Register and Adopt a Crag)

We are celebrating one year of our podcast and taking a look back at the growth and development of the show. From discussing how to cope with traumatic injuries to interviewing climbing legends like Alan Burgess, we've covered a wide range of topics in the past year. These have included belaying, mental health and addiction, physical therapy, adaptive athletes, fear and risk, and much more. We are excited to continue exploring these topics in the coming year and are also excited to announce some updates to the show, including a new brand presence, improved equipment, and enhanced sound quality. In addition, we will be offering ways for listeners to support the show. We are grateful to all our guests who have shared their stories and experiences on the show, and to our listeners who have been with us from the beginning, you are the foundation of this show. Thank you for your support! Finally, we end this conversation with a montage of soundbites from each of the twenty-nine episodes of 2022.

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

As I am sure all of you are aware. Max and I simultaneously injured ourselves in climbing accidents. After my injury, I started to look at climbing in a completely different way. And one of the main things that struck me was that we never really know whether a piece of trad protection is truly going to hold a fall…. until you fall on it. That didn’t seem very safe to me, how are we supposed to learn the limits of our gear and understand what happens to them under load without risking our lives? Today we get to sit down with the man who has dedicated his life to exploring and fully understanding the limits, capabilities, and applications of climbing gear. Ryan Jenks started his Youtube channel "How Not 2 Highline" almost six years ago. Back then he simply wanted to create 10 videos that covered the ins and outs of how to set up a highline safely.  Fast forward to today, with over 400 videos posted and a community of over 125K, Ryan Jenks is blazing the trail when it comes to testing the limits and fully understanding the capabilities of climbing gear. In our conversation, we dive into the beginnings of his story and the creation of How Not 2. We ask him hot-topic questions about Totems, ropes, and V-threads. And finally, we discuss the future of his channel and the details of his new machine The Slack Snap 5.0

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

Resources:

Visit Ryan's Website

Donate to HowNot2

Watch This Episode on Youtube

In this episode, we sit down with Adam Campell. Adam is a man in motion who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of athletics and movement in the mountains. During his years as an athlete, Adam has been a member of five Canadian national teams in the sports of mountain running, ski mountaineering, and the duathlon/triathlon. His deep athletic base and hard work ethic have allowed him to become one of the best ultra runners on the planet. Arguably one of Adam’s most notable achievements was at the Hard Rock 100, a notorious race at high-elevation in the San Juan Mountains, where he placed 3rd not once but twice. When it didn't seem like anything could go wrong, Adam’s life came to a crashing halt after a 300ft fall while climbing the Horseshoe Traverse in BC. Thanks to luck, a helmet, and a full pack Adam survived, but with devastating injuries. Nonetheless, Adam defied logic and ended up running the Hard Rock 100 again only ten months after his injuries, a feat that is hard to believe even possible. Then Adams' story sadly took another turn for the worse in 2020 when he had to unbury his wife from a fatal avalanche. Needless to say, Adam has lived through a full spectrum of experiences in the mountains…, experiences that have tested his understanding of life, love, and what it means to be a mountain athlete. Adam has always spoken genuinely about his experiences in the mountains and he does so in our conversation. This episode provides a deep dive into the realities of the power that mountains carry. They give us life, energy, purpose, and meaning..but sometimes they take everything from us…

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

This episode really represents the foundational purpose of this podcast. That being, to hear climbing stories and chat about climbing topics with fellow recreational climbers. Climbers with full-time jobs, relationships, kids, and lives outside of their world of climbing. Climbing is such an amazing sport and one of the reasons is that you don’t need to climb extremely hard grades or dedicate your life to it in order to have life-changing, empowering, and inspiring experiences. In today’s conversation, we sit down with Chris Stephens Sr., a father, soldier, traveler, and of course a climber. Chris reached out to me via Instagram after hearing my episode on the Sharp End Podcast where I briefly mentioned my climbing trip in Albania. He too had just come back from a climbing trip to eastern Europe and wanted to swap stories. We decided to turn what would be a quick chat into an episode. We talk about how Chris was so inspired by the landscape around him that he chose to pursue the sport of climbing, how a close call turned him off the sport for 4 years, how fathership affects his mental game while climbing, and finally we swap stories about our experience climbing in the Balkans. A land where food limitations, access issues, and limited information make outdoor climbing a whole lot more adventurous.

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

Resources

Top 20 Climbing Podcasts FeedSpot Article

Rock Tirana | Climbing Gym in Albania

In our last episode, we sat down with legendary high-altitude climber Alan Burgess and discussed his upbringing and his most notable alpine & super alpine ascents. In this episode, we continue our conversation and dive into his most notable high-altitude climbs including the west ridge of Everest in winter, Dhaulagiri in winter, Annapurna IV in winter, and K2. We talk about the complicated logistics of large-scale expeditions, the dangers of climbing above 8000m, and what Al Burgess is doing now.

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

Resources

Documentary on the Attempt on the West Ridge of Everest in Winter - 1980

Purchase Alan's Book (The Burgess Book of Lies)

All right, people, today is a special day because we are sitting down with one of the most legendary high alpine climbers of the 20th century. His name is Alan Burgess. Alan first reached out to me after seeing a climbing majority poster at our local climbing gym here in Reno. We met at a coffee shop and I did not know what to expect, having not known who he was or about his stories up to this point. He handed a book to me. It was called The Burgess Book of Lies, and his vision was to turn it into an audiobook. To be honest, at this point, I had no idea who Alan was. And now, after hearing his stories, I'm a bit ashamed as a climber not to have known who he was. But after sitting down with him for probably an hour, I knew that he was special and his life needed to be shared. So I agreed. Unfortunately, after much effort, the project of turning his book into an audiobook just did not make any sense. And we had to call it quits. So instead, we are sitting here today to do the second best thing to get him on to the podcast, to hear his story. Alan lived a life that most of us couldn't even dream of. His vast experience in the mountains and the multitude of a sense worldwide that he is accomplished in his life would just be impossible to capture in a podcast episode. So we decided to break up his story into two parts. In this episode, we are going to talk about his childhood and what climbing was like in the 1950s. And then we're going to talk about his most notable super Alpine ascents. The first climb we're going to be talking about is his third ascent of the American route on Fitzroy in Patagonia. Next is the first alpine-style ascent of the French route on the north face of Huascaran Norte in Peru. And third, we're going to be talking about the first ascent of the southwest buttress of Mount Logan in Canada, a route that has never been repeated. And finally, we're going to close this episode out by talking about how he was able to fund and create a life of climbing around the world and how he was able to survive through countless situations where most fail.

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

Resources:

Buy Alan's Book HERE

As a relatively larger climber, sitting around 200lbs and having gone through recent traumatic injuries… my weight… and my positivity around my own body image have fluctuated a lot. As fellow climbers, I am sure you know the struggle of trying to juggle performance, health, weight gain…or weight loss. In today’s conversation, we discuss a topic that so many of us struggle with. It's the foundation of our energy, our happiness. Basically our entire lives…..I'm talking about nutrition. 

In this episode, we sit down with Caitlin Holmes. Caitlin is a board-certified Nutrition Specialist who received her Masters of Science in Human Nutrition & Functional Medicine from the University of Western States. After her graduation, she started her nutrition coaching business, Caitlin Holmes Nutrition, where she primarily works with climbers and outdoor enthusiasts to develop effective nutrition plans for long-term health and performance. Her passion and knowledge of nutrition are palpable.

Caitlin, like so many of us, has had her struggles and successes in the sport of climbing. She’s experienced injuries, body issues, and performance plateaus. Caitlin is a great boulderer and sport climber and she’s even climbed some v9s… which is an amazing accomplishment. In our conversation, we talk about the failure of the modern medical system, micro and macronutrients, how to fuel for climbing, our bodie’s energy systems, and much more. This episode is an awesome deep dive into what fuels our bodies and minds to do the activities that we love. Eat well, climb hard, and have fun. Enjoy the show.

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

Resources:

• Book a free 15-min call to learn what virtual nutrition coaching can do for you
• Empowered Nutrition, 8-week self-study (20% off to listeners when they use the code 'CLIMBINGMAJORITY')
• Caitlin's Website

As I am sure most of you are aware this podcast’s creation stemmed from Max and I’s traumatic climbing injuries that occurred just over a year ago. Within a week of each other and in different countries Max and I both took trad falls and sustained ankle injuries that required surgery.  If you haven’t heard those stories cruise back to episodes 2&3. As a patient of surgery, I was curious as to what the procedure was like. What was going through the surgeon's head? What was actually happening while I was under with a tourniquet wrapped around my leg?  In today’s episode, we get answers to those questions as we have the rare privilege of sitting down with Dr. Scott Whitlow THE orthopedic surgeon that performed my bilateral ankle surgery. Scott received his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine and completed his residency at UC Davis. He then went on to receive specialty training in foot and ankle surgery in Vail, CO. Over the years he has performed countless surgeries and is considered an expert in his field. In our conversation, we dive into the surgeon's perspective of handling a patient with lower extremity injuries, the future of joint replacements, post-procedure options like scoping and hardware removal, and we get to hear Scott's story about how HE became the patient for a serious of unfortunate orthopedic surgeries… that nearly claimed his life.

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

References

The Best Forearm Crutches
https://www.sidestix.com/

Pick Line Covers
https://mighty-well.com/

Summary

In today’s episode, we sit down with Catherine Pitura an ACMG apprentice rock guide and the founder of Mind Tools. Catherine as she puts it “is just a person with a big climbing experience”. Like so many of us, she fell quickly in love with the sport of climbing, but, unlike many of us, she had the opportunity to live the dirtbag dream. For nine years she lived and breathed climbing. During this time, she became a capable trad leader and certified apprentice rock guide. Towards the end of this nine-year climbing cycle, she started to feel that there were things about her life and herself that had been neglected. That there might be more to life than being fully immersed in climbing. So she began her dirtbag rehab, where she journeyed back into “everyday life” and worked on exploring the intricacies of the human mind. Now, she has combined her experience as a climber and the knowledge she obtained through her dirtbag rehab into a business called “The Conscious Climber” and developed an innovative product named “Mind Tools”. In our conversation, we dive deep into what it's like to return to life after living the dirtbag dream, the effect that climbing has on the mind, the relationship between our conscious and subconscious minds, and finally how we can use mind tools to help us stay present, calm, and collected while in the vertical world.

Please rate, review the show, and share this podcast with your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools to help us out.

Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: [email protected]

References

Cody Bradford Memorial

Purchase Mind Tools HERE

Mind Tool Reviews

https://www.vernonmorningstar.com/business/mind-over-matter-vernon-entrepreneur-creates-motivational-rock-climbing-gear/

https://gripped.com/events/watch-free-talk-by-mind-tools-for-climbers-on-april-21/

https://gripped.com/gear/mind-tools-aim-to-keep-you-psyched/

Follow Catherine Pitura: @climbingcovers @theconsciousclimber