About a year ago both Kyle and I were involved in bone-shattering climbing accidents that changed the way we view the world and ultimately became the spark for the creation of this podcast. In our earlier episodes, we spent time discussing our accidents, recovery processes, and the psychological effects traumatic injuries have on the mind. Having now recovered to a point where we both are participating in climbing and living a pseudo-normal life we felt it was time to talk with some professionals. In this episode, we talk with physical therapists Matthew and Kevin about the bio, psycho, social model of patient care, specific return to sport measures, climbing strain injuries, proper warm-up protocol for injury prevention, and much more.

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Today, in episode 16, we sit down, in person, with Jack Ryan an adaptive trad climber and mountaineer and founder of Paralyzed to Peaks. Jack is not your average trad climber. On November 29th Jack’s neck was crushed in an illegal move done by his blackbelt instructor during a Jiu-Jitsu sparing session. He suffered a broken neck at C4-C5 resulting in paralysis from the neck down as well as numerous strokes due to blood clotting the following morning. He lost everything that day and has been fighting to regain it all ever since. Since his life-changing injury, and having never climbed before, he has begun to forge a new path in the world of adaptive climbing. In August 2020, in tandem with the founding of Paralyzed to Peaks, Jack Ryan became the first and only individual with a spinal cord injury and incomplete quadriplegia to summit mount Whitney and is currently the only individual in the world with incomplete quadriplegia taking the sharp end on sport/trad climbs. He has a large vision for the future including several large technical mountaineering objectives and aims to change the world's perception of adaptive athletes.

Links:

1) Paralyzed to Peaks | https://paralyzedtopeaks.com/

2) IG | https://www.instagram.com/paralyzedtopeaks/

3) Paralyzed to Peaks - The Story of Jack Greener

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLgo20ZAbKk

Harvey is a musician, hairdresser, and climber from Vancouver BC. He is best known for the recent award-winning documentary Crux, a full-length film about his life, his struggle with addiction, and his relationship with climbing. In this conversation we discuss how Harvey fell in love with climbing, the process of filming Crux, and dive deep into mental health, drug addiction and consumption.

The negative stigmatization and false imprisonment of those who use illegal substances has a drastic impact on so many people's lives. We hope that this conversation is apart of reducing this stigmatization and normalizing the struggle people are going through in their own personal journey with addiction.

Watch Harvey's Film "Crux" Here:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/cruxfilm

Harvey's IG:
@harveyharvey

In this episode, we sit down with Max Lurie. Max is an AMGA-certified Rock and Alpine guide and an accomplished alpinist. We get his perspective on several topics, including risk and social media. We talk about the best and worst ways of obtaining climbing knowledge, what it's like to hire a guide, how to best prepare for an objective, and how even a professional guide gets criticism and shame in his DM's.

Resources:

1) Max Lurie's Website

https://alpinetothemax.com/

2) Instagram

@alpinetothemax

3) The American Alpine Club

https://americanalpineclub.org/

In the sport of climbing, we are almost always focused on what's happening on the sharp end, the leader, the art of climbing. But what we seem to miss is that without a belayer climbers are free soloing. While climbing, our ability to stay attached to the wall and the gear we place are our primary line of safety, but our belayers are the ones that in the end save our lives when we make mistakes. We feel that the art of belaying is underrepresented and feel that it needs to be talked about and given more appreciation so in this episode, we sit down with Cody Bradford, an AMGA Rock Guide, to discuss his background and thoughts on the topic of belaying. 

James Pymn, is a British climber who loves routes with character, even if that means assuming lots of risk. From free soloing large multi-pitch routes to leading 7c (12c) trad routes with obligatory 8m (24ft.) runouts, James has had a climbing career one could say is of "full value".  In this episode, we take a look into James' life as a climber, discuss the elusive British grading system, and talk about his accident involving a 70ft fall and an obliterated calcaneus, all while in a foreign country 1,700 miles from home.

Links:

IG: @dirtyroadhard

In this episode, we interview Eric, a personal trainer, entrepreneur and health coach who resides in Reno, Nevada. With his clients, he focuses on the four fundamentals of health: sleep, food, movement, and connection to breath in tandem with sub-perceptual or micro-doses of psilocybin. We dive into our own personal anecdotes and experiences with psilocybin and its use to reduce anxiety and depression by creating new neural pathways that can reframe the negative beliefs we create our reality around.

**Please reach out to a professional before considering psilocybin as a medicinal option.

Links:

1) Psilocybin for Treating Depression
https://wordpress.viu.ca/biol427blogpost/2020/03/31/psilocybin-for-treatment-resistant-depression/

2) John Hopkins Studies on Psilocybin
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/psychedelic-treatment-with-psilocybin-relieves-major-depression-study-shows

3) Patients in Medical Need of Psilocybin
https://therapsil.ca/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgMqSBhDCARIsAIIVN1UpGc4P2DxdNvBwlkjDh4mMx2KHSELGzdD21MxjlFSD-3_-XnuBaRgaAlNtEALw_wcB

4) Mushroom Encyclopedia
https://www.psilopedia.com/strains

5) Making Sense Podcast Episode #242 - Psychedelics and the Self

In this episode, Max and Kyle speak with Josh Ourada. A climber who survived a harrowing 175ft fall while free soloing "The Nutcracker" in Yosemite Valley. His story has been covered in Climbing Magazine and talked about across the web, and for good reason. Beyond the miracle of his survival and the details of his accident, Max, Kyle, and Josh dive into the ethics behind free soloing, how media plays a role in our perception of risk, and what life is like on the other side of cheating death.

Links:

Outside Magazine:
https://www.climbing.com/news/climber-survives-150-foot-free-solo-fall

In the episode,  launched this week, called "Helmets, Shame, and Social Media" Kyle and Max spoke about the controversial topic of helmets, explored why there seems to be so much shame and negativity built into our sport, and discussed the positives and negatives of media for the everyday climber. In this bonus episode, Kyle has the chance to talk to climbing photographer Rob Kepley about his experience in climbing and discuss his point of view on these controversial and engaging topics.

Check out Rob's work:

IG: @robkepley_photography

Website: https://www.robkepley.com/

Kyle was cruising Instagram one day and stumbled upon a post by famous climbing photographer Jim Thornburg titled "100 Classic Crack Week". In which, all ten pictures featured climbers sending super hard classic tad routes...without a helmet. After looking into the comments Kyle found that someone had expressed concern over this and got completely shamed for it. In this episode, Max and Kyle dive deep into the controversial topic of helmets, explore why there seems to be so much shame and negativity built into our sport, and discuss the positives and negatives of social media for the everyday climber.

Jim Thornburg's Instagram Post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CY62gddFY6t/

Article on Helmets:

https://www.climbing.com/news/no-brainer-helmet/