Fred Nicole's name is synonymous with hard bouldering. The dude is legend, responsible for establishing the world's first V14 and first V15, always while bringing an artistic, quiet approach that has defined the soul of bouldering for over four decades. Today Fred works as a shoe designer for So Ill, and continues to explore the forests of his native Switzerland—among other areas around the world—for new boulders that capture his imagination.

But first, Chris shares some stories about an escape to what's arguably the best rock in the country, the New River Gorge. 

Our Final Bit is from none other than Margo Hayes, the first woman to climb 5.15. This song is called Jaded and it’s off her new album Notes to You.

Show Notes

Follow Fred Nicole on Instagram

Fred Nicole interview with UP Climbing

Dreamtime on Youtube

Follow Margo Hayes on Instagram

Listen to Notes to You wherever you get your music

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Today’s guest is climbing's Captain America, Tommy Cadlwell. Tommy’s latest film is called The Devil’s Climb, and it documents an epic adventure in which he and Alex Honnold rode their bike’s to Alaska and enchained all the summits on the striking and infamous Devil’s Thumb massif. The film was pitched as an environmental film, but the directors decided that global warming was less interesting than Tommy and Alex's bromance.  We catch up with one of the world's greatest climbers of all time and hear about making this film, and all the other things in life.

But first, we open up the official record book of climbing, and discuss the recent news of Michaela Kirsh becoming the first woman to do a V15 and 5.15a, Babsi Zangerl’s flash of Freerider, and other achievements. 

For our final bit, we're pleased to share the heady music of longtime climber Dave Pomeranz's band, Whale Fall, with their track Chronophobia.

Show Notes

Watch the trailer for The Devil's Climb and stream the whole film on Disney+.

Sign up for Tommy Caldwell's newsletter Routefinding at Patagonia

Michaela Kiersch becomes first woman to send 5.15 and V15

Setting and Revising the Record on Evening Sends

Whale Fall on Bandcamp and Spotify

Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast

Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. [email protected] // [email protected]

Today we’re honored to be speaking with Jerry Moffatt. Jerry was one of the most influential and best climbers in the 1980s and ‘90s, whose groundbreaking first ascents pushed the limits and also was incredibly influential on the direction of our sport. His autobiography Revelations is one of the best climbing books ever, and a must read for everyone who listens to this show.

But first, we break down the news of the closures at Mt. Arapiles in Australia. Mt. Arapiles is arguably Australia’s best, most historic crag, and is widely considered to have some of the finest stone of any crag on earth. Now, nearly half of that climbing is being shut down. But why? It’s a complicated question, involving special interests and the government’s unwillingness to rein them in, alongside a general animosity toward climbers.

Last, our final bit is from Seattle based Mamas New Cult featuring Zoey Huynh.

Show Notes

Buy Jerry Moffatt’s book “Revelations”

Visit SaveGrampians.org

Sign this open letter

Change.org Petition

Donate to the Climb Victoria Advocacy Fund

Tattoo Artist Zoey Huynh

Mamas New Cult on Spotify

Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. [email protected] // [email protected]

Armando Menocal was a civil rights lawyer and climber who helped found the Access Fund. It’s safe to say that without Armando’s silent but hugely significant contributions, climbing would look very different today. Sadly, Armando recently died at the age of 83 from cancer. Here today to help memorialize Armando is Armando’s friend and colleague Brady Robinson. Brady is the former Executive Director of the Access Fund. He is a veteran of numerous expeditions, with first ascents in Pakistan, Patagonia, and Peru. Today he works as the director of philanthropy at the Freja Foundation and is working on conservation projects in South America.

But first, your hosts listen to another climbing podcast, get redpilled, freak out, and launch into a conspiracy of our own about Jimmy Chin and Sandy Irvine. Something’s afoot on Everest …

For today’s final bit, climber / musician Jessica Roki Kilroy is back with Right Here Remix. Roki is a climber and musician from Montana, whose experimental, brooding, emotional folk music incorporates the sounds of the natural world, including those that she captured while on El Cap.

Show Notes

“Remembering Armando Menocal” on Climbing

Cuba Climbing

Armando Fund on Access Fund

Freyja Foundation

The Nugget’s Instagram

Remains of Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine believed to have been found on Everest

Rokifolk.com

Follow Jessica Roki Kilroy on Instagram

Jessica Roki Kilroy Bandcamp

Jessica Roki Kilroy on Spotify

Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. [email protected] // [email protected]

Last year, Becca Steinbrecher broke a foothold while climbing in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and took a 30-foot fall onto a ledge. It was only a couple of months later that Becca woke up and learned what had happened to her that day, including the heroic and miraculous search and rescue operation that navigated a thorny web of very tough decisions in order to get her out of the Black Canyon and to a hospital. Becca recounts the events of that fateful as they were told to her, and shares what her experience has been like living with a traumatic brain injury, and ultimately returning back to the sport she loves.

But first, some lighter fare as your curmudgeonly podcast hosts go back for round two of ‘Mudgeon Mania. We roll up our sociologist sleeves and build a taxonomy of different curmudgeons in the climbing world, including: the Hermudgeon, the Newmudgeon, and the Sportmudgeon (all now TM properties of The RunOut podcast but available for a Creative Commons license as long as you support our podcast on Patreon.)

Today’s final bit is from Moab-based rock climber Sam Newman, who created spooky, silly climbing-themed spoof of Edgar Allen Poe’s seminal poem, The Raven.

Show Notes

Climbing.com: Major Accident and Dramatic Rescue in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison

YouTube: The Great White Wall: Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Friends of the Black Canyon Search and Rescue Team

Love Your Brain

SOAR

Adaptive Adventures

High Fives Foundation

Craig Hospital

Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. [email protected] // [email protected]

Fitz Cahall is the founder of the Dirtbag Diaries, a podcast that’s been downloaded over 18 million times. His new book is “States of Adventure: 30 outdoor adventure stories about finding yourself by getting lost.”

But first, childless cat ladies may be a topic for some politicians, but we look at the childless climbers bringing their cats to the crags. Suffice to say, crag dogs are not happy, but at least we have figured out what animal is the best crag companion of all.

Today’s final bit comes from Dan Cauthorn’s Seattle-based band Dragontail Peak. Dan climbed Cerro Torre in 1992, which was a major influence on his life, including the inspiration for this song, also called Cerro Torre. Check out Dragontail Peak — links are in Show Notes.

Show Notes

“States of Adventure: 30 outdoor adventure stories about finding yourself by getting lost”

Follow Fitz Cahall on social media

Listen to The Dirtbag Diaries

Dragontail Peak: Bandcamp // Facebook

Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. [email protected] // [email protected]

Hobbs Kessler is a 21-year-old professional runner who ran a 3:34 in the 1500m in his senior year of high school. He has also climbed as hard as 5.14c with an ascent of Southern Smoke in the Red River Gorge. Hobbs just returned from the Paris Olympics, where he competed in both the 800 and 1500m races.

But first, your curmudgeonly hosts roll their eyes at one of climbing’s most bitter personas: the climbing curmudgeon. It’s like we’re looking in the mirror!

Today’s final bit is a mother-daughter violin performance of the Appalachian Waltz. The musicians behind this composition are my good friend Kate McGinnis, a nurse from Atlanta who is one of the most talented and strong climbers I’ve ever met, and her 13 year old daughter Annie, who is crushing rock climbs just like her mom.

Show Notes

Follow Hobbs on Instagram

“Hobbs Kessler Climbs 5.14+ and Runs a Sub 4-Minute Mile. And He's Just 17.”

Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. [email protected] // [email protected]

Amity Warme is a professional rock climber and dietician, who has not only free climbed El Capitan five times, but has done so each time in true ground-up style. This ground-up style is captured in an awesome new film that tells the story Amity and Brent Barghahn’s ground-up free ascent of El Niño via the Pineapple Express Variation on El Capitan. Our conversation ranges from big-wall style and ethics, to her philosophy and approach to nutrition.

But first we dive into what the American Alpine Club is calling the greatest access issue in climbing: expensive day passes to climbing gyms.

Last, Gunky and Professor Wayne Burleson brings us his livingroom version of the Dead's Franklin's Tower.

Show Notes

Amity Warme on Instagram

Amity Warme website

Amity Warme and Brent Barghahn free climb El Niño.

Watch Amity climb Book of Hate

“Can Climbing Outrun Its Own Elitism With Inclusive Gym Pricing?” on Climbing.com

Pay What You Can Toolkit on the AAC

Out #131: Drew Ruana Climbs Hard and Thinks Ahead

Drew Ruana started climbing on the slabs of Smith Rock, and has since become one of America’s most prolific boulderers, with over 100 V14 and harder problems ticked. He’s currently a student at the Colorado School of Mines, and thinking ahead of what kind of career he wants in life, and how climbing fits into it all.

But first, yr friendly podcast hosts debrief on their Olympic fever, and talk about where Paris soared, and where it fell short.

Today’s final bit is from the all-girl punk band Fire Party, who was part of the DC punk scene in the late 1980s. In true punk fashion, the members of Fire Party — including the lead singer, badass climber and friend of the pod Amy Pickering — rejected the label of being an all-girl band.

Show Notes

Watch Drew Ruana climb the Ice Knife

Follow Drew on Instagram

Follow Amy Pickering on Instagram

Thomas Huber is our favorite Huber brother—no offense to Alex. He needs little introduction, and is one of the most prolific climbers of the last 30 years thanks to a resume that includes establishing some of the best free climbs on El Capitan and across Europe, to winning the Piolet d’Or for his bold alpine ascents, to being a member of the beloved Stone Monkeys. His new book Freiheit, In the Mountains There is Freedom, is now available in English from DiAngelo.

But first, yer hosts consider the question of giving and receiving encouragement while climbing. Why do we feel the need to yell, “You got it!” at people who clearly Do. Not. Have. It.? And is a little peace and silence too much to ask around here?

Last but never least, our final bit is another awkward collision between climbing and mainstream media, as the news tries to capture the heroism of a dramatic, life-saving rescue.

Show Notes

Buy Thomas Huber’s book

Follow Thomas Huber on Instagram

Read an excerpt from Huber’s book on Evening Sends

Follow Jordan Cannon

Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. [email protected] // [email protected]