The Thundercling Podcast

Betcha didn’t expect this! Jamie joins the boys once again for an in-depth chat on the state of Mt. Evans bouldering just after his beautiful new guidebook hit the shelves. If you’re psyched on the alpine and want to know all the issues bubbling around access and best practices, you won’t want to skip this one.

Thanks for the listens, gang. Life is busy, trips are many, and this bonkers little podcast project just couldn’t make the cut. Fidi switched careers, bought a house, and got engaged! I also switched careers, got a new dog that may or may not be the spawn of Mephistopheles himself, and started running triathlons (I am objectively the worst triathlete in Colorado’s long and storied athletic history…seriously).

Maybe we’ll find time again. Maybe we won’t. Whatever happens, we both want to extend a sincere thank you for listening along with our warbling and honking. We love ya, we appreciate ya, and we’ll see ya on the sharp end.

It’s funny where we end up, this random world kind of chucking us around like socks in the laundry. Existential mysteries aside, watching the folks around us land where they were meant to be is one of the great joys of being a human.

After leaving Delaware for the mountains of Colorado, Cameron Maier joined a trail crew in Rocky Mountain National Park, already infatuated with climbing and hoping to put to use a college degree. When he was furloughed in 2010 as the season drew to a close, Cam used his government cheese to buy his first camera. And he met Dave Graham. The rest is…well, you know.

Whether by chance or fate, Cam found himself running in a ridiculously elite crew, with Dave Graham at the height of his powers and Daniel Woods, Isabelle Faus, Jon Cardwell, and a host of others crushing rigs and raising their standards on a seemingly weekly basis. Cam had his cameras at the ready.

In the years since those halcyon days, Cameron grew the fledgling Bearcam Media into one of the most recognizable entities in climbing film and photography. From those early stoke films came a sharpened eye and growing ambition, resulting in award-winning films like “Craig’s Reaction” and festival standards like “Concepcion” and “Sonnie Trotter Vs. The Totem Pole.” He messed around hilariously in “Bierstadt – Bierstadt” and dove deep into symbolism and iconography in my personal favorite, “Stone-Spirit.” Hell, he just dropped two episodes of his work covering a tour with the DJ/producer/songwriter, Diplo.

God forgive what I’m about to write…but there’s no hibernation in Bearcam’s future and we’re here for it. That you just had to read that sentence brings me unspeakable joy.

I imagine this episode – especially the outro – is going to demand some conversation. Drop us a line with pitches, concerns, gripes, or gifts and treasures at [email protected] or find us on Insta @thethundercling.

As always, thanks to Ryne Doughty for the delicious musical stylings!

Happy New Year, Thunder Friends. I’m raising my glass to a bit of hope and equanimity in the…LOLOLOLOL… Eh, let’s just survive.

Listening to her speak while reclined in bed, locked into a stabilizing back brace after a trad fall that saw her fracture two vertebrae, I couldn’t help but think, Molly Mitchell makes sound and brave decisions. Weird, huh?

While making a name for herself after crushing 5.14 sport and authoring bold and dangerous traditional first ascents, Molly kicked down the door when she became the 7th woman to climb 5.14 trad with her ascent of China Doll in Upper Dream Canyon, Boulder, CO. From the outside, you felt like you were watching the next crusher waltzing onto the scene, prepped and psyched to make mincemeat of trad standards across the globe.

Behind the scenes, however, Molly wages another battle, where clipping the ephemeral chains demands much more than weighted hangs and native talent. Diagnosed in her early 20s, Molly recently shared her struggles with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Trichotillomania in Climbing Magazine (Winter 2020 issue). In an extraordinary essay, Molly ushers us through a restless landscape of doubt, anxiety, and a struggle for self-worth, a Virgil to our Dante in a year where disquiet and dread define the zeitgeist of a nation in turmoil. She’s a worthy and careful guide.

Now, back to that back brace and those decisions. After tackling China Doll and taming her screaming doubts, Molly launched herself into her next objective: a trad ascent of Boulder Canyon’s notoriously flared and slippery Crank It (5.13c/d). After sussing the line on bolts (good decision) and diluting each gear placement down to the millimeter (good decision), Molly launched up the route on lead. About 10 feet above where Brad Gobright spit off the same line in the film Safety Third, breaking his back and ankle, Molly caught air, ripping four pieces of gear out of their shallow placements and decking from 30 feet, right onto her keister. Two spinal compression fractures later, Molly found herself braced up and forced away from the rock and suddenly intimate with a mind she has worked so hard to make an ally.

Molly Mitchell is exactly the person we need in 2020’s apocalyptic landscape of trauma and anxiety, an extraordinary athlete whose accomplishments on the rock are only superseded by her advocacy for mental health in a sometimes toxic public forum. Her bravery in the act of disclosure and candor without apology is a reminder to all of us, that behind the curtain of our achievements each of us must wrestle with the coiling serpents of our own burdens. It’s a call to empathy in a time of isolation and we couldn’t hope for a more humane messenger.

Have a question or a pitch or perhaps a gift of one million American dollars? Find us on Instagram @thethundercling or shoot us a missive at [email protected].

Thanks as always to Ryne Doughty for the svelte musical stylings.

Take care of each other, gang, and travel responsibly over the holiday season!

Albert Ok showed up to my house with a package of raw ghost peppers. They remain on my porch table because I’m terrified of them. He began that day in Clear Creek Canyon, taking down “Moulin Rouge,” a V10 rapidly gaining classic status on the Front Range. Then he joined Fidi for a session at Movement Baker. And after our chat he literally jogged off the porch because he was late for this third climbing session of the day, at the Denver Bouldering Club. The question is…is Albert Ok powered by ghost peppers? Where does he get this relentless energy?

From Jersey to Texas to Colorado and now back to the Lone Star State, Albert has been feeding himself not only ghost peppers, but a steady regimen of new experiences and challenges. Chess, parkour and tricking, beatboxing, climbing, and finally video content creation. After falling down the abyss of climbing addiction, he took note of a vacuum of steady and reliable climbing content on YouTube. Specifically, content that informed, taught, and entertained, outside the standard rock porn.

In earnest, he launched his inaugural video on his sparkling new YouTube page 8 months ago, an investigation of Japanese powerhouse Akiyo Noguchi breaking the beta during an international competition. This format would grow into the popular and massively viewed series “Beta Break,” while the page remains focused on the world of comp climbing, although Albert’s horizons are constantly expanding. As of today, his page has wrangled over 30,000 subscribers. His content has been viewed well over 4 million times. In eight months! For almost no money! All created on an $80 broke-ass laptop!

Albert’s future, with his manic energy and relentless curiosity, will be a joy to document. He’s invested in building a co-op, community owned gym in his home town of Trenton, NJ, catering to urban and underserved youth. His video content, seemingly polished and professional out of the gate, remains in its infancy. Most importantly, his drive to climb everything and everywhere…who knows where all this ambition and curiosity and passion will take him?

Listen, Albert Ok is a good person. He’s kind, curious, relentlessly energetic, and one of those guys that constantly uncovers his own talents through dogged investigation and experimentation. Check out his YouTube page. Follow his journey. This manic ghost pepper of a human is just getting started.

Got a question, comment, pitch, or dire concern for our well-being? Drop us a line at [email protected] or check us out on Instagram @thethundercling.

As always, thanks to Ryne Doughty for the lovely musical stylings. Check out his many albums on iTunes or wherever you shop for new tunes!

Be well, gang. Stay safe and diligent. Check in with your friends and family and show all that love you have beating in your hearts. And for the love of all that is holy and good, VOTE!

When Drew Ruana (21) was nine years old, already deep into infatuation, he dreamed of becoming the greatest climber on the planet. Heady stuff for a kid who still slept with a night light. And yet, 12 years later, he’s well on his way to making that starry-eyed little tyke proud.

Drew is in the midst of one of the most head-spinning runs in bouldering history. After missing the cut for the US Olympic team by the slimmest of margins, which we discuss at length, Drew stepped away from the frustrations and fickle beat downs of competition climbing for the boulderfields of the American West. With only one V14 on his ledger, he began his rampage in earnest in Utah’s Joe’s Valley, documented in the film “Three Days in Joe’s,” where he crushed 18 of Joe’s hardest in a single long weekend. From there, it was off to the races. At the time of release, Drew has also ticked three V16s and numerous V15s — in well under a year!

Drew ushers us from his early years in Washington to an adolescence spent jetting around the world for national and international competitions. Disillusioned after failing to land an Olympic spot, he explains his motivations for charging forward outdoors and his future plans, which are…bonkers.

As a climber with a growing platform and the will to elevate his voice, Drew also explains why he has engaged with the social issues and racial inequalities ravaging the nation right now. He knows he’s young. He knows he’s ridiculously privileged. He knows he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. But he’s dedicated to informing himself and staring racism in the face, even if only through social media. With a legion of young, engaged, and advocacy-minded climbers breaking onto the scene, Drew hopes their voices can highlight the ways in which climbing can dismantle barriers and become a more inclusive culture.

Got a question, pitch, gripe, or a briefcase of non-sequential bills you want to shoot our way? Get ahold of us at [email protected] or hunt us down @thethundercling on Instagram.

Thanks as always to the indelible Ryne Doughty for the tight tunes.

About an hour into our chat with Mac Gaugh, climber and owner of fledgling climbing apparel brand Creag, a dry microburst exploded and for a few minutes the wind did all the talking. At this point in 2020, you just kinda nod and acquiesce…

Mac is certainly no stranger to microbursts unsheathing chaos and struggle. For the majority of his life he’s fluctuated wildly between a cyclical loop of achievement and sabotage. Addiction crept into his life early, along with rock climbing. When sober he found himself crushing V12 boulder problems in the early 2000s, a time when that grade raised eyebrows. When surrendered to the chaos and alcohol and gambling, he bounced between homelessness and the liquidation of his aspirations.

Eventually, through the hard work of rehabilitation and determination and the support of his family, Mac found himself sober and itching to do something of import. A total neophyte, he decided to launch a climbing apparel brand, from scratch. He had no idea what he was doing.

With a mentor guiding him and some seed money in the coffer, Mac dove into the process of designing, sourcing, manufacturing, and marketing a technical clothing line, maneuvering along a ridiculous learning curve. He decided to make his products here at home, adding ironic complications to the entire process. Eventually, however, Creag coalesced into a tight collection of functional, technical, good-looking clothing built for his tribe, climbers and outdoor athletes.

Finally, after years of work, Creag was ready to launch…in March 2020. The global coronavirus pandemic dropped like an albatross just as Mac was taking his product to market, all on notoriously competitive terrain where giants like Patagonia and Arc’teryx devour competitors.

For months he navigated government assistance programs, rejected on various technicalities, although he represented an independent brand manufactured entirely in the United States while staffed almost entirely by climbers, from photographers to designers. Creag, vulnerable as all new things are, fluttered on the edge of oblivion.

Admirably clean and sober in a time of extraordinary tribulation and entirely dedicated to saving his company, Mac is in the midst of a re-launch. He frames it as Creag’s final push, against remarkable odds and historic calamities. Mac’s story is a modern fable, a story of despair and determination and entrepreneurship in the midst of a grim history being written in real time. And like any fable’s hero, he’s charging into the maw, clear-eyed and with everything on the line.

Got a question or pitch or good joke for the apocalypse? Get ahold of us on Instagram @thethundercling or shoot us a missive at [email protected].

Thanks as always to Ryne Doughty for the svelte musical stylings.

It stands to reason many of you have never heard of Aman Anderson. He doesn’t putz around on social media. His name, as far as I can tell, appears only once on his company’s website. When his name is attached to work, it’s generally citing his cutting edge data and analytics research, with titles such as, “Optimizing Muscular Strength-to-Weight Ratios in Rock Climbing.”

As a rule, spray does not equal import. Behind the scenes, for complicated reasons he elucidates in our conversation, Aman has become one of the most important thinkers, researchers, and pioneers in our sport. Hailing originally from Florida, Aman discovered climbing as he was diving into a career as a user experience and interface designer, building on a history of health sciences and nutritional data. Finally landing in Colorado, Aman launched into new and scary territory, leaving his career behind to launch his company, Beast Fingers Climbing.

Beast Fingers is many things. Aman has designed some of the most thoughtful, research-driven training tools ever to hit the climbing market. And that research, peer-reviewed and widely respected, has changed the way we in which we interact with performance, recovery, training, and the data underlying it all.

Most importantly, Aman endeavored to build an ethos and culture for his company. As one of the very few black entrepreneurs in the climbing world, he wanted to construct a Beast Fingers climbing team on a foundation of diversity, inclusivity, and, let’s face it, bad ass climbers. His team includes advocates and crushers like Melise Edwards, founder of MUSE Mentorship, whose “mission is to provide representation across STEM fields and to demystify pathways to higher education for underrepresented students in STEM.” World champion and advocate Maureen Beck has been a part of the team from the beginning. French National Team member Mickael Mawem calls Beast Fingers home, as does Maggie Yeung and Hunter Damiani. Advocates, athletes, engineers, classical pianists, artists, leaders. As outdoor industry titans scramble to rethink their messaging and inclusivity and team diversity, they need look no further than Aman’s ethos as both paragon and guiding light.

In this wonderful conversation we follow Aman from Florida to Colorado, from leaving his lucrative career to working at King Soopers so he could find time to foster his burgeoning company. He educated us on the challenges and barriers a black climber and entrepreneur face in the white-dominated world of rock climbing, tribulations that previously roiled in the shadows of a sport lacking diversity and inclusivity, a sport struggling with intersectionality. We also follow him as he kicks ass across the board, from cutting-edge data research to building one of the finest teams in the land to founding a company making a difference for athletes of all levels.

Shoot us your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @thethundercling.

Thanks to Ryne Doughty, once again, for the tunes. His newest album is now available on all platforms!

The second half of 2020 is here. We’re all responsible. Let’s flip the script and make the next six months a referendum on a culture we can no longer abide. It’s long past time to fight.

Our hearts and minds, like the rest of the sane nation, are focused on the Black Lives Matter movement. Frankly, along with the implications of Covid-19 and a looming election, it dominates our thoughts and conversations. With confederate iconography tumbling, once-silent voices rising, and police reform seemingly inevitable, it’s no time to lose focus. It’s really all we’re thinking about, reflecting on, and sending our meager efforts towards.

2020 has beaten us down, collectively. If you’re not angry, frustrated, anxious, or famished for change and systemic reform, then you’re not paying attention. But it is exhausting. For every single one of us it’s exhausting, and yet we see you on the streets protesting, on the front lines working double shifts, and fighting for a better America in myriad ways. It’s a marvel and an inspiration to see.

Before this chat with Jamie, we felt guilty talking about a privileged, historically white, and mostly frivolous activity like rock climbing. But as the conversation rolled on, each one of us shed our anxiety and rage for a couple hours. It was almost a physical sensation, like a deflation. It was the first time in a month any of us had just dug in to the ephemera of something so silly while so many others were fighting, at that exact moment, for a better future for the rest of us.

If you feel like taking a break, join us for a couple hours. If you feel like chatting about climbing is anathema to meaningful dialogue right now, we understand that, too, and mostly agree.

Jamie Emerson, through relentless energy and boundless curiosity, has cemented his place in the pantheon of western rock climbers. He’s had a hand in developing some of the most iconic areas in the Rocky Mountain region, from Mt. Evans to Roy to Rocky Mountain National Park to the vast boulderfields of Wyoming. He penned the seminal guide to Evans and RMNP and is working on a second addition right now. He’s a World Cup routesetter, an advocate for sustainable land management, and an outspoken voice when climbing delves into tricky waters.

He was the perfect person to sit down with, to find some reprieve from a brutal news cycle, to give ourselves the gift of two hours of fellowship around something so silly but so meaningful to so many of us. If you need to take a deep breath, have a listen.

You can get ahold of us on Instagram @thethundercling or via email at [email protected].

Thanks to Ryne Doughty for the tunes, as always.

We’re with you all the way. We want to be a part of the change. If you have any suggestions or criticisms or voices you’d like to hear from, please get ahold of us. We’re with you.

Chris Kalman wants you to know that he doesn’t want to be famous anymore, not for writing and not for climbing. There was a time when he sought out heavy-hitting publishers and an agent to whisk him to climbing writing fame. This paradigm does not exist. There was a time when he was willing to give his life to the mountains, if that meant glory on the sharp end. This barter, also, doesn’t really exist.

Chris, after a life of honing his voice and etching his craft, has cemented his status as one of the foremost writers in the outdoor adventure realm. He’s diversified his portfolio by chance, risk, and following the muse when it strikes. Kalman has penned pieces for almost every major outdoor publication in the country. He writes for the American Alpine Club and hosts it’s “The Cutting Edge Podcast.” He wrote a guidebook for Index, WA. After tragedy and loss flooded his life, he hunkered down and wrote his first novella, “As Above, So Below,” a spare and stunning rumination on what climbing and risk cost in a world given meaning by human relationships.

Chris has etched out first ascents, mostly adventure-style, all over the world. He’s been awarded grants and partnered with some of the finest climbers in the business. But where he’s found his true place in our tribe is with his voice, whether notching another byline, publishing a rare and esteemed book of climbing fiction, doing spoken-word shorts for “Dirtbag Diaries,” or slogging through a guidebook for Sharp End Publishing.

In episode 34 we follow along as Chris relays his long journey from a little kid’s wonder with the written word, to his discovery of climbing and his evolution to alpine first ascents, to the dirty work of finding his way in the tiny, competitive, and often pauper’s world of outdoor adventure writing. Finally, we take a deep dive into the inspiration that drove him to pen “As Above, So Below,” a book I believe will find it’s place in the pantheon of classic mountain literature. It’s a hell of a ride.

Chris was kind enough to offer Thundercling listeners a tidy discount on the novella. Listen to the pod and then head over to www.chriskalman.com and pick up “As Above, So Below” for a heavy discount by typing in the code THUNDER. I can’t vigorously enough recommend this book. It’s a three hour read that will vibrate in your soul for weeks after closing the cover. It’s an inspired piece of writing. It’s going to be a classic.

Have a question, a pitch, some feedback, a trunk of golden Spanish doubloons? Drop us a line at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @thethundercling.

Thanks as always to Ryne Doughty for the anthems. He’s throwing down another live “Work from Home” show on Facebook this Thursday night. Don’t miss it!

Nobody is struggling more in the climbing industry than independent business owners, from gear shops to guiding services to climbing gyms. They’ve been forced to close their doors, furlough dedicated employees, navigate hazy government support programs, and figure out what the future looks like when the cloud of Coronavirus lifts and, hopefully, dissipates.

Thomas Betterton is the majority owner of the Denver Bouldering Club (DBC), two gyms and a third in the making. It is the core gym in Denver, a community of climbers dedicated to improvement over chit-chatting and picking up the next Friday night date.

Don Bushey founded Wilderness Exchange in 2000, a gear shop for core climbers, backcountry skiers, and backpackers. Through atrophy and the rise of the internet, Wilderness Exchange is the last independent gear shop standing in Denver, one of the premier outdoor hubs in the country. Its Wildy and REI and, well, that’s all we got.

Thomas and Don share their experiences helming their respective ships through the choppy and unknown seas of the Covid-19 pandemic. They’ve lived a waking nightmare of cutting employees adrift, seeing their income drop to basically zero, studying subsidy programs, and building a foundation for an eventual re-opening to the public. Without any sensible federal plan or logical national leadership, they are forced to make it up as they go, all the while wondering how their businesses will survive in a post-pandemic world.

The positivity and alacrity with which they’re facing this scary and humbling reality drips through this conversation in shocking ways. It’s not what Fidi and I expected, but boy…it was wildly refreshing.

I’m really, really excited to share this episode because we need, more than anything else, some stories about people weaving through this tribulation with confidence, steadfast determination, and hope. It’s a tribute to the sport we all love so much, and the people who build businesses to support our passion.

Have a story about how you’re dealing with the “shelter in place” regulations and time away from stone? Drop us a message at [email protected] or shoot us a note on Instagram @thethundercling. We’d love to hear and maybe share your story.

Thanks to Ryne Doughty, who has been putting on some rad live social media shows, for the tunes.

Stay safe, be smart, and remember that your actions not only define you, but your neighbors’ well-being. The rocks will be there when this god-forsaken fever dream dissolves into a past we will, hopefully, extract meaningful lessons from.