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Hello everybody, and welcome back for another

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episode of Modern Outdoor Survival. We
have a guest this week, or say

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a guest. This was more of
an opportunity for me because the other human

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on this podcast is a guy called
Andy Kirkpatrick. So Andy is a British

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mountaineer. He is an author,
best selling author, motivational speaker and all

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round interesting character. That pause was
there, I suppose because I and it's

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difficult to describe this, but my
career such as it was in the outdoors

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started in the mid two thousands.
Really, I've been climbing and doing stuff

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in the outdoors in the years before
that, but it was only I really

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started taking it seriously as a career
option from about I don't know, two

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thousand and four, two thousand and
five onwards. And it was around about

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that time that Andy really started to
come to a prominence. So around the

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mid two thousands he was known for
climbing big walls, very vertical sheets of

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rock, things over a thousand meters
high or thereabouts, things like the Troll

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Wall in Norway or El Capitan,
stuff like that, the sort of thing

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where it's less about athleticism and it's
more about siege tactics and suffering and being

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able to hack away with effort at
this ascent over hours and hours and hours

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or days in some cases. So
he was becoming famous for that, but

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he was also really becoming known in
British mountaineering circles for his talk. So

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it's been the standard for authors to
go and do sort of in person events

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around that, around the UK or
around Europe or wherever when they have a

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book to plug, and Andy's stuff
was different to that. Normally, you

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just get the author up on the
stage and he or she will have a

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PowerPoint and some photos and they'll say, oh, yes, I did this,

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I did this, and this bit
was in the book, and this

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bit and the anti brave Andy's stuff
was. It was like stand up comedy

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and it was a combination of real, down to earth expression about what he

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was doing and what these places meant
to him and how he achieved it,

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combined with not sort of a working
class ethic, But it was obvious that

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this wasn't a public schoolboy who had
had every opportunity in life and had the

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opportunity then to go off and be
a professional explorer without getting a real job.

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This was a guy with severe dyslexia
that he talks about in the books

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and in those talks, and who
isn't you know it doesn't You don't look

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at him and think that is a
honed natural athlete. You look at him

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and go, that's Andy lives down
the road. That's just a normal looking

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guy. But when you look at
what he has done, and I do

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urge you to go to his website
or go and look him up and see

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just all these amazing outdoor things he's
done, it he breaks the mold in

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that respect. He's also somebody who
has been inspirational to me, not just

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because of the outdoor stuff, but
because of the way he's gone about doing

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things for himself. I didn't bring
this up in the episode because it would

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be weird too, but it was
Andy and following his stuff and following his

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post and what he was writing about, what he was talking about that first

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put me onto the idea that you
didn't have to go through somebody else to

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learn to build a website, or
to create content or to write. If

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you could learn how to do those
mechanics, how to do those very basic

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things yourself, then you could reach
an audience yourself directly. And looking back

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on it, he effectively helped build
my business, even though he didn't realize

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it. So this was a really
special episode for me. And this is

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a longer intro than normal and anyone
who's listening for the outdoor Survival content probably

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I switched off by now, but
deuced say with us. This wasn't really

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an interview because I just let Andy
talk and he can keep He can talk

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for a long time because he has
a hell of a lot to say and

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he has done a hell of a
lot. But he has an interesting take

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on things and hopefully that really comes
across in this episode. And we carried

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on talking for about two hours after
we were recorded, about all sorts of

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things. And this is outside of
our normal content, But if you like

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everything else we do, I think
you'll really like this. And I do

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urge you to go and look up
what Andy has done and his doing and

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his writing, and go and try
and find one of his books, one

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of his best selling books. We've
talked about them, I think in episodes

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before, particularly one called Down,
which is basically the manual for how to

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descend, how to descend a mountain, a cliff face, whatever you want

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to talk about. So this is
a rambling intro, and I'm going to

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shut the hell up now and just
go to the episode. But please do

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listen to this one. I think
you'll enjoy it. So I've got this

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is our third interaction. Now yours
and mine properly, because like the email

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setting up, this podcast doesn't count. The first interaction was I reckon about

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two thousand and eight and you came
to North Wales to do us on a

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speaking tour and you came to climb
didno on the coast and you did one

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of your It was like the my
mater told me that there's this climber,

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is this mental climber who is like
a stand up comedian. We doesn't talk.

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It's not just a slide show with
here's me climbing a thing. Here's

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me climbing a thing. It is
like a stand up comedy tour, so

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I went along to that and it
was one of those there's a thing that

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happens with towns that are near an
outdoor center, because when a mountaineer or

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someone outdoors it comes to do a
talk, everyone gets out the oldest down

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jackets that are covered in bits of
duct tape and things, not the brand

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new, shiny one or a normal
coat. They get there, Oh yeah,

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I've been somewhere and done something down
jackets and they all wear that to

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go to that event, and you
never see that coat anywhere else. So

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that was the first interaction I saw
you there and we had about three seconds

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of talking afterwards. The second was
I did a review for UK Climbing for

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some trousers or something, and there's
a photo of me wearing the trousers in

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the review, and you commented saying, hey, it's it's good that they're

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finally getting someone with a proper sized
body on to do gear reviews, which

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you know has stayed with me as
a man of gentle size, and now

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this is now. So this is
my third interaction with you, and it's

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not the greatest opening to a podcast, but yeah, it's not meant to

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be funny. That's that I always
tell people. It's kind of you know,

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you don't like I did a I
went climbing once with What's your man?

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Um? Who does? He does
TV programs where he goes away with

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somebody Ed Burns, the comedian Ed
Burns, and we went we went climbing

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together. The ideas we had to
go climbing together and then we were going

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to do like a comedy routine like
a festival, which is a kind of

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bizarre because he had some sort of
outdoor I think he maybe wrote for like

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Trail magazine or somebody. So someone
said, why did we get Ed Burns

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and Andy Kettpatrick to go climbing together? So we spent this like romantic weekend

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together in North Wales And the biggest
problem was he didn't understand anything I was

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saying because of my accent. So
we were climbing. Is it Cluith or

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whatever it is? That thing they're
snowed that big CHOSSI pile of chos.

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I think it's like a thousand foot
long route. I don't think I've actually

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been climbing before, which only found
out at the end. And as as

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we're so, I just said I'll
start climbing. When the rope goes tight,

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you start climbing as well. So
I started. I just said,

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I remember we started through a waterfall. It was like this big green sponge

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and I just started up this green
sponge with water coming over it. And

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then the rope went tighten head started
coming up and I kept I kept saying

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to him, it's not far to
the summit, and he was like,

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there's something what. I was like, it's not far to the summer.

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Like what's she talking about? What
summer anyway? So um, So I

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think we should make a TV problem
called the Seven Summits. So um.

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But there was one point quite near
the top where we he was climbing up.

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I'm sure you've done some rock some
climbing. This is one. This

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is like grass climbing, wasn't really
rock climbing. So we were climb I

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was climbing. I got to the
top and there wasn't a beelis. I

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just like sat on the top with
the rope. I was like holding onto

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the rope like there was no way
this guy's going to fall off this Like

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it's impossible. You have to want
to throw yourself off. And I was

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like just pulling the rope up through
my hands, and I'm pulling the rope

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at pulling. He meets a rope
and suddenly the ropes started going out instead

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of going instead of going up coming, it was going out. I was

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like, I was like, I
was like ed ed ed, and I

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was like shouted ed and the ropes
going out and out. And what happened

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As he was climbing up, the
rope got caught on a spike of rock

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somehow, So as he was climbing
up, the rope was pulling downwards around

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this spike of rock. So as
he you know, when he when he

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climbed ten feet, he was going
to fall twenty feet, and when he

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climbed fifty feet, he was going
to fall like a hundred feet. And

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he suddenly realized what had happened,
you know, he suddenly had this terror

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of just realizing he was basically free
soloing like Alex Honold's style up this chelsea

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pile of grass. And he thought, I thought maybe I should untie the

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rope, you know, and let
him dangle fall down and then but anywhere.

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So luckily he managed to climb over
to the rope going up and he

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flicked it off and suddenly I got
all this slack and pulled him up anywhere.

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So so he climbed up, and
I think we did. I think

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we did. We did Bristly Rate, not Bristly Ridge. We did the

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Snowden Horseshoe the next day, just
because that's it's there for on crib Gork.

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But again he didn't I didn't realize
he hadn't really done a lot of

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scrambling. And there was one bit
where he was he thought he was going

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to fall to his death and he
realized the last thing he was going to

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shout was Andy, and people would
question who this Andy character was, like

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why didn't write shout for his wife
or something? So um So anyways,

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so that night I had to do
a talk somewhere in a climbing wall for

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the Matter Rescue. So we rushed
down and we kind of rushed in there

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and we almost had a lot of
climbing gear on basically, and there's all

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these climbers they're waiting. So so
I did my talk and afterwards Ed eds

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like a professional comedian, like successful
comedian, and he's like, oh Andy,

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can I give you some pointers?
Like I've noticed that when you say

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something really funny, everyone's laughing.
You just keep talking, you don't stop

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and give people pause to laugh.
And and he's giving all these pointers about

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being, you know, to be
funnier, and I was like, I

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was like, it's not ed.
It's not meant to be funny, Like

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I'm just I'm just telling this story. It's like kind of serious, and

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everyone keeps putting me off by laughing
all the time, and it's you know,

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it's not meant to be funny.
So then we end up coming to

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this festival. So Edard worked out
all this material, you know, he

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had like like cards with all the
with all his material for the for our

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from Our Adventure. And I'd just
been I'd just had some massive thing where

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I've just been to Venice. I
won an award in Venice for a book

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like a translation, and I think
I had to work on the Friday night

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at the Kendall Fun Festival. Then
I had to be in Venice on Saturday

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afternoon to get this award, otherwise
I won't get the money. It was

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like a you know, like you
can have the award, but you have

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to be here otherwise not going to
give you know, we're going to give

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you, you know, some money, and then I have you back on

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the Sunday to do this thing with
Ed. So it was so it was

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a mad I think I went Friday
night. I got in my car,

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drove all the way to East Midlands
Airport, slept in my car. I

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was like driving there was in such
a rush that I was trying to wee

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into a plastic bottle and like was
just pouring it all off of myself.

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Get to the airport, get on
this plane, thinking of Wei and being

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a total state. I arrived just
thinking it's going to be a load of

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climbers who are going to give me
this award. But it was actually in

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the like a Michelin starred restaurant in
Venice, and it was like it was

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like they were not like the Brits. It was like, you know,

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like it was a massive deal.
And there was only three people are winning

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awards, and the other two were
these old Italian academics, and then there

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was me, and everyone looked like
there was like a hundred judges in tuxedos,

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and there was a translator who was
dressing like a ball gown, and

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I was there with my jeans covered
in Wii and stinking of sweat and just

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looking at Absolute Mac a crazy person. And then these and each of us

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had to get up and say,
uh, say say something to the judges.

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And what I realized was as they
said, I'd won two thousand euros,

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which I was absolutely skinned at the
times. That was great, But

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on the night the judges would decide
who was who have these three books that

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won this prize, was that,
you know, it was a total winner.

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Would would get like I think it
was eight eight thousand euros or something.

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So I was like, I didn't
realize this anyway. And I was

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like I need to catch him a
plane back as well, so I hope

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this is not going to take too
long. So I had to go and

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each of these old men got upend
to give this speech, and they were

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so emotional, like yeah dad,
the Gunda lad have any CEO and they

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and everyone was like like in tears
and they were so emotional, these guys

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till it giving their their their you
know speech about the book. And I

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got up and I had no idea
what I was going to say. And

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I was like hello there, hi, and the woman was like hello Bonjo.

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No, you know, you know, retardio and and I was like,

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um, like until until the age
of nineteen and never had garlic.

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And that was and or being in
gladiatorial compass, and so everyone was like

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the woman was like hekkay. And
so it was. And it was eventually

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the speeches are all done out the
way, and then each of the judge

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00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:20,639
had to each judge had to come
and castro vote for which was the best

208
00:15:20,679 --> 00:15:24,919
of the three books. So this
book of mine was the trans Italian translation

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00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:30,399
of Psychovertical, which had nothing to
do with In fact, the publisher got

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00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,679
in touch me recently and was like, oh, we'd like to republish Psychovertical.

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00:15:35,039 --> 00:15:37,919
I was like, well, he
never paid me for the previous version,

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00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:41,399
so why not. So um.
So they were all casting, it

213
00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:43,960
was, and it was like so
the casting things with a big box and

214
00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:48,039
this the woman was like picking them
out at the end like and it was

215
00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:50,840
like, oh, Gondela the hysteria. And there was then that this little

216
00:15:52,159 --> 00:15:54,960
marker would move along like a race
and he was like the psychothetical and the

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00:15:56,279 --> 00:16:00,399
psychotical and he ended up winning this
this prize. So I think on the

218
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:03,200
Friday almost had no money whatsoever.
And then I suddenly had like a ten

219
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:07,240
thousand yeards or something, which was
great, and then they were like and

220
00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:10,320
then they were like, oh,
now we will go through into the Michelin

221
00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:11,600
Star restaurant. And I was like, I can't. I have to get

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00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:15,120
the plane back. I have to
get on the plane in like two hours.

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And they give me this big award
and I was like, I can't,

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00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:21,240
I can't take it. So I've
got you know, I'm getting luggage

225
00:16:21,639 --> 00:16:25,039
and they said you must sign your
book. So I was like sitting there

226
00:16:25,519 --> 00:16:30,240
signing these books and realizing how smelly
I was everything else, and this most

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00:16:30,279 --> 00:16:33,919
attractive man you've ever seen in your
life kind of came up and he was

228
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:37,080
looked like Italians look amazing, not
even like homeless Italians look you know,

229
00:16:37,279 --> 00:16:41,639
look like anyway, So he came
up and I was like, oh,

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00:16:41,679 --> 00:16:44,440
I'm really sorry, really sorry about
the way I look. I'm just such

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00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:47,919
a mess. And he was like, no, Endy, you are free.

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00:16:48,559 --> 00:16:52,320
So I always I was thinking about
that. Anyways, right arrive back

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00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:56,519
arrived back as somehow managed to get
back to the Kendall Film Festival for this

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00:16:56,600 --> 00:17:00,799
thing. So um so Ed goes
up and Ed's got some really good jokes,

235
00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:06,680
like he has this joke that dehydrated
food taste, like, you know,

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00:17:06,759 --> 00:17:11,000
taste awful, So he got his
himself for deydraator so he could make

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00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:15,599
his own food that tasted awful instead. And and then it was then it

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was my turn, and I got
up and I was just telling the story

239
00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:21,960
of going to this film festival and
all that kind of stuff, and it

240
00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:23,440
was kind of it was probably as
equally as funny as Eds, but he

241
00:17:23,559 --> 00:17:26,519
had nothing to do with going climbing. And then what had happened. I

242
00:17:26,559 --> 00:17:30,960
actually climbed El cap in Yosemite with
my daughter that year. So my daughter

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00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:34,440
was there, who was thirteen,
and Ed was like, oh, why

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00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:37,240
don't we get your daughter up and
your daughter can say something as well,

245
00:17:37,319 --> 00:17:40,559
because you're sitting in the audience.
I was like, I'm gone then,

246
00:17:40,599 --> 00:17:42,519
So so he got my daughter up
and he was trying to interview and he's

247
00:17:42,559 --> 00:17:47,119
like, Hella, do you realize
how amazing it is for like a twelve

248
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:48,960
years or thirteen year old girl to
climb El Capitan? And she's like,

249
00:17:49,119 --> 00:17:52,799
yeah, of course I do.
And anyways, basically, my daughter ended

250
00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:57,960
up being much funnier within me than
either me or ed with with no training,

251
00:17:59,039 --> 00:18:03,759
no experience whatever. So it was, yes, it was I always

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00:18:03,799 --> 00:18:07,039
I always said to people, it's
because sometimes if if people think it's going

253
00:18:07,079 --> 00:18:11,119
to be serious, like people are, they almost need like a laughter track,

254
00:18:11,799 --> 00:18:15,000
you know, otherwise it don't quite
know what to you know, how

255
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:19,559
how to take it. Is this
guy actually telling the truth here or um,

256
00:18:19,599 --> 00:18:22,519
you know, like I often say, like I've got three kids,

257
00:18:22,559 --> 00:18:26,920
I've got one of each, and
you know, and people like, it's

258
00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:30,440
that's always funny in America because people
actually that is actually, you know,

259
00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:33,319
these these days, that's not funny
anymore. It's kind of normal. But

260
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:37,160
at the time it was kind of
funny, like it used to be a

261
00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:38,799
boy or girl and the hairdresser.
That was like in the nineteen seventies,

262
00:18:38,839 --> 00:18:41,480
that was the joke. But now
I've got four kids, so it doesn't

263
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:45,799
work anymore, that joke. It's
balanced out now, wasn't it. Yeah,

264
00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:48,880
So yes, I do apologize.
If you thought you're going to go

265
00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:52,079
and see this talk and it was
going to be like Chris Bonnington or Doug

266
00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:55,200
Scott or me as or somebody,
and it was and it was me,

267
00:18:55,279 --> 00:19:00,400
So it was pretty good. You
weirdly have had an influence on my life

268
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:04,599
through business, my business development stuff. But I'm gonna talk about that later

269
00:19:04,599 --> 00:19:07,559
because that's a weird thing to do
at this part in the show. So

270
00:19:07,799 --> 00:19:11,799
I'm going to ask the really boring
question now. But yeah, my gets

271
00:19:11,799 --> 00:19:18,839
into some topics of you were born
and then you're here. Now, at

272
00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:23,079
some point you started doing something in
the outdoors. How did that come about?

273
00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:32,079
Well, luckily or unluckily, I
was born to My father was a

274
00:19:32,119 --> 00:19:37,480
PTI physical training instructor in the He
actually went into the RIF as a storeman

275
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:45,119
because my granddad was in the army. And this is a very long story,

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00:19:45,519 --> 00:19:49,039
is that my like all my stories, is my granddad. In nineteen

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00:19:49,759 --> 00:19:53,359
seventeen, when he was almost like
he must have been like no, he

278
00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:59,160
was already very young, his mother
started beating up his father started being up

279
00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:03,640
his mother, and he stepped in
to defend his mother. And because of

280
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:06,359
this both of them, his mother
and father, threw him out the house.

281
00:20:06,920 --> 00:20:10,799
And he had the only thing to
do in nineteen seventeen, you know,

282
00:20:10,839 --> 00:20:11,839
it was to join the army.
So he went to join the army,

283
00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:15,039
which is probably I think at the
time, someone turning up in nineteen

284
00:20:15,079 --> 00:20:18,799
seventeen say I'd like to join the
army. Was was, you know,

285
00:20:18,839 --> 00:20:21,839
it's like someone's going to join the
Russian Army now or something. It was

286
00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:26,359
probably not a big thing. So
he joined the army and he went to

287
00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:29,720
Like I live in Ireland these days, so I tried to not tell the

288
00:20:29,759 --> 00:20:34,319
story how my granddad was in the
East uprising, like he was one of

289
00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:37,400
the people like driving a tank.
I remember looking all these photographs when I

290
00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:41,319
was a kid of like tanks,
you know, because in the East in

291
00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:44,839
the uprising, and he had like
tanks in belt in Dublin. So he

292
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:48,279
wasn't then, and he was in
Egypt, he was in Palestine, he

293
00:20:48,359 --> 00:20:51,759
was in India. He had a
very interest a lot, like the whole

294
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:56,880
lifetime career in the army. And
so when my dad was born, well

295
00:20:56,920 --> 00:20:57,759
my dad grew up, you know, like you're going to go in the

296
00:20:57,839 --> 00:21:02,400
army, going to go on the
military anyway, and the best job you

297
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:04,920
can get is a storman because basically
I think a storm and they don't really

298
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:08,720
do anything, just sort of you
know, could take things in and out,

299
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:11,319
and his prep, you know,
the storman's don't get shot and things

300
00:21:11,319 --> 00:21:15,559
so it's probably a you know,
this is this is like a lifetime soldier's

301
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:18,640
idea of a perfect job. You
know, it's like to be the storman.

302
00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:22,640
Really so he m So, my
dad went into the RAF as a

303
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,680
storman, and within a very short
space of time he realized it was the

304
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:29,400
worst job in the in the world. It was the most boring job.

305
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:32,000
You know, you had to have, you know, learning about you know,

306
00:21:32,039 --> 00:21:34,720
what kind of nut this is,
and a you know, and it

307
00:21:34,759 --> 00:21:37,240
wasn't like it wasn't the cool stuff. It wasn't like, you know,

308
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:44,160
combat fatigues and things. So m
so he decided to become a PTI instead.

309
00:21:45,079 --> 00:21:48,119
So he became a PTI. So
he did all his running around with

310
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:52,240
a vest on and and all that
kind of stuff. And then for some

311
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:56,039
reason, I think at one place
where he was a PTI, they had

312
00:21:56,079 --> 00:21:59,599
a mountain rescue team r IF matt
Rescue. So people a lot of people

313
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:04,359
don't understand the original matter. I
guess the original mountain rescue we're like shepherds,

314
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:07,079
you know, the policeman would get
the farmers and the shepherds and they

315
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:11,839
go looking for people on the hills. And in the Second World War they

316
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:15,200
had a lot of crashes in the
mountains in the UK, so a lot

317
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:19,359
of people, a lot of pilots
would potentially have survived and died of exposure.

318
00:22:19,799 --> 00:22:25,920
So the RF formed these Matter Rescue
Teams which were trained to go into

319
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:30,440
the mountains and rescue people or to
secure wreckage and things. A lot of

320
00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:37,359
wreckage, a lot of dangerous things
on. So so my dad got involved

321
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:41,000
with the Matter Rescue Team and was
just a young, you know, young

322
00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:47,559
fit guy going the Matter Rescue Team. But he absolutely loved climbing, clark

323
00:22:47,599 --> 00:22:51,000
climbing, mountaineering, all that kind
of stuff, So I don't think he

324
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,680
really had any background in it.
Like he grew up in hole where I'm

325
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:56,079
from, and it was like this
as flat as you can find, and

326
00:22:56,160 --> 00:23:00,160
it's like you might, well,
it's like linky but like less kind of

327
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,400
sexy, like in fact it you
know, the Humber Bridge joins Lincolnshire and

328
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:07,480
Humber Side, like two places nobody
wants to go. That's why never worked

329
00:23:07,519 --> 00:23:15,079
out, so U so yes,
so he he then, through through being

330
00:23:15,079 --> 00:23:19,519
a physical training instructor, he managed
to go to just he went to Sardinia

331
00:23:19,599 --> 00:23:23,759
with Nate with like natal kind of
things and eventually end up being like an

332
00:23:23,759 --> 00:23:30,480
outdoor instructure in the raf in Tawing
in mid Wales and above near Aberdove,

333
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,720
like around that kind of area.
So as a child, I remember like

334
00:23:33,759 --> 00:23:38,319
growing up on these on in Tawing. That was that was my first kind

335
00:23:38,319 --> 00:23:41,960
of really strong memories. And he
was like he'd be getting up at you

336
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:45,599
know, like five in the morning
and taking all these young guys and throwing

337
00:23:45,599 --> 00:23:49,359
them in the sea and then you
know, going walking and climbing. So

338
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:55,279
my probably one of my earliest memories
of a class of them being on a

339
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:59,720
mountain was climbing cada Ridderus, probably
one I was like five years old.

340
00:23:59,759 --> 00:24:03,720
Maybe I was either four or five, but maybe maybe I was, But

341
00:24:03,799 --> 00:24:07,440
I remember going up there and remember
the top when it was very misty,

342
00:24:07,519 --> 00:24:11,279
and remember the when I don't know
if it's still there, like the shelter

343
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:15,400
on the top, and yeah,
so I have a few few memories of

344
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:19,319
that kind of thing. Then,
Unfortunately, I think it would be interesting

345
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:23,960
to have not interesting in your life
if life continued how it was, how

346
00:24:25,039 --> 00:24:27,640
things would how would things would turn
out? But my mum and dad split

347
00:24:27,759 --> 00:24:32,920
up when I was six, and
my mum took me and my brother and

348
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:37,799
sister back to Hull for some reason. And and and I spent like the

349
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,519
rest you know, a lot of
the next part of my life in the

350
00:24:41,799 --> 00:24:45,480
place where there was living in a
block of flats, the misery, mason

351
00:24:45,519 --> 00:24:52,200
nets were cold, which were fairly
fairly grim. And I think that I

352
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:56,400
think the trauma you have the trauma
of your parents splitting up, but I

353
00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:00,480
think it was the trauma of being
wrenched away from so much freedom. And

354
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,480
like literally as as a small child, five year old, I could walk

355
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:10,279
out the front door and I could
just walk out into the fields and the

356
00:25:10,319 --> 00:25:12,440
sand dunes and all this kind of
stuff, Like I had this amazing about

357
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,759
of freedom. There was very like
a few times I never came back and

358
00:25:15,799 --> 00:25:21,319
they had to get the entire army
camp out looking for me. Remember the

359
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:23,279
days you can reallys to like drain
lake, you know, put hooks in

360
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,240
lakes, all that kind of stuff, you know, But anyway, so

361
00:25:26,279 --> 00:25:29,880
that you know you'd have them a
mum would you know, My mum would

362
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,440
be so pleased to see how still
alive when they found me. You're sleep

363
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:37,279
in a haystack or something that she
would like belt me so um so yeah,

364
00:25:37,319 --> 00:25:40,519
So so the wrench from going from
there to living in a in this

365
00:25:40,559 --> 00:25:44,559
horrible block of flats where you've got
the lists, the lift stink of you

366
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:47,440
know what, and the you know, it's just it was just kind of

367
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:49,519
grim. Really well it wasn't grim. It wasn't grim. It was it

368
00:25:49,559 --> 00:25:55,839
was completely it was just really really
it was so different. It's only like

369
00:25:55,839 --> 00:25:57,200
I think my mum was really poshed
for some reason. I know why,

370
00:25:57,559 --> 00:26:00,799
but you know, she's always going
on that we didn't have garden. We

371
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:03,480
just had a We just had a
you know, like a balcony, and

372
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,720
we didn't really you know, your
kids like adapt so easily to where,

373
00:26:07,759 --> 00:26:11,359
you know, to to wherever you
are. So also I often say that

374
00:26:11,799 --> 00:26:17,279
all the green spaces where we lived, like the grass and the you know,

375
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:21,640
the bits of the school field with
trees in or uncut grass, they

376
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:26,599
kind of took on an amazing they
were kind of your wilderness. And also

377
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:30,880
just next where where where this was, was a place called Hezel Road where

378
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,240
all the fishermen used to live.
All of you know, people went in

379
00:26:33,279 --> 00:26:37,720
the fishing industry. So just before
we got there, the fishing industry was

380
00:26:37,759 --> 00:26:45,440
absolutely decimated and they basically bulldozed this
whole community and moved them to some new

381
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,119
town on the outside of Hall.
But there was still the remnants of this

382
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,160
one's huge fleet, you know Robinson
Crusow, he was supposed to have got

383
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:56,599
set off from Hall and there was
amazing history, but all of it was

384
00:26:56,799 --> 00:27:00,160
kind of you know that thing that
the end of the Second World War,

385
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:04,759
like two thirds of all people who
went in the countryside left. You know,

386
00:27:04,839 --> 00:27:10,559
you had a whole like ecosystem and
culture that just was vanished, like

387
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,240
in the space off months. Probably
well it's probably the same for whole so

388
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,480
was this um so. But we
used to go playing in all these one

389
00:27:18,559 --> 00:27:22,039
s mighty docks, so there was
like Victoria dark and Albert dark. And

390
00:27:22,559 --> 00:27:26,279
as it was over time, I
mean it was the way they were built.

391
00:27:26,279 --> 00:27:30,200
They were built to last for a
thousand years with these huge you know,

392
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,799
you know all nate you know,
metal bridges and everything else and cranes

393
00:27:33,839 --> 00:27:36,680
and stuff. And it was used
to go swimming in the docks, which

394
00:27:36,759 --> 00:27:38,640
looking back on it, it was
like, I don't know how we didn't

395
00:27:38,799 --> 00:27:44,279
die of bubonic plague or something.
You know, they'd be like dead animals,

396
00:27:44,319 --> 00:27:47,559
like floating in the water and all
that kind of stuff. It was.

397
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,279
It was like hideous and we used
to walk along the I used to

398
00:27:51,319 --> 00:27:55,759
get the train out o out of
hole and then walk along the river Humber,

399
00:27:55,799 --> 00:27:59,480
which is the most polluted which was
the most polluted river in Europe.

400
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,319
I think the time used to walk
along the mode and we were ten,

401
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:03,839
were in like Vietnam, you know, we think we've ten were a rambo

402
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,920
or something would be in the mode
like up to our waist. And then

403
00:28:07,279 --> 00:28:11,279
I remember once my brother once we
had an argument or something. So my

404
00:28:11,319 --> 00:28:14,599
brother was probably like six or something, and we had an argument. He

405
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,240
stormed off to get the train home, but he wasn't allowed on the train

406
00:28:17,279 --> 00:28:19,519
because he was so he looked like
he just you know, he's actually covered

407
00:28:19,559 --> 00:28:22,720
in mud. So yeah, he
had to walk all the way home.

408
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,720
But it was yeah. So but
but whenever you see my dad, because

409
00:28:26,839 --> 00:28:30,720
by now he's in the matter rescue. He ended up being like a team

410
00:28:30,839 --> 00:28:33,599
leader at the time. He ended
up being like quite a he was I

411
00:28:33,599 --> 00:28:37,799
think it was one of the longest
serving team leaders in the RAF Matt rescue

412
00:28:37,799 --> 00:28:41,960
teams. And the reason was was
he was actually a bit of a rebel.

413
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:45,279
He didn't really fit in the RAF, but he was actually very good

414
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,920
at that that one job. Like
he was too. He was too.

415
00:28:48,839 --> 00:28:51,759
He was a bit of an I
think it was a bit of an outsider,

416
00:28:52,319 --> 00:28:53,440
you know, like those kind of
people like I've met. I've done

417
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,480
it quite a lot of work for
the military, and those kind of people

418
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:02,119
they either kind of leave or end
up being going in the SAS or the

419
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:06,920
Special Forces because in those kind of
units, they're the people that's where you

420
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,160
kind of need. Those weird people. You remember some I remember when I

421
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:14,599
was a kid, some guy it
was training, some friend of my dad's

422
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,119
was training to go in the SAS. Remember him sating. You know,

423
00:29:17,119 --> 00:29:19,119
I had this, you know,
because obsessed with the army and everything else,

424
00:29:19,279 --> 00:29:22,640
was a kid and he was like
and he was like, the thing

425
00:29:22,759 --> 00:29:26,279
is andy all he wanted someone who
can can live in a hedge. You

426
00:29:26,359 --> 00:29:30,480
know, yeah, you know,
you have this idea like sas to be

427
00:29:30,559 --> 00:29:33,599
like abseiling in into buildings, but
it really they want someone who can live

428
00:29:33,599 --> 00:29:37,920
in a hedge. So so so
because my dad was involved in the amount

429
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:42,880
of rescue every weekend to be going
out doing the training. So that kind

430
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:48,640
of cut into how which time he
could travel to hole and see us.

431
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,839
So in my in my memory was
a lot of space where there was no

432
00:29:52,119 --> 00:29:59,079
Dad. But whenever he was there, he would try and do something outdoorsy,

433
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:03,960
so you know, going like hanging
out of hanging you absetlling out of

434
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:07,039
a tree or or something or something
like that. And then when we've gone

435
00:30:07,039 --> 00:30:10,799
to see him once a year in
Wales or in Scotland wherever he was living,

436
00:30:11,599 --> 00:30:14,200
we've got we do the sort of
climbing and stuff. So I think

437
00:30:14,359 --> 00:30:18,839
I think that gave I know,
you, like you need kind of meaning

438
00:30:18,839 --> 00:30:25,559
and purpose in life, and I
think that gave me some kind of like

439
00:30:25,599 --> 00:30:29,880
I'm kind of different. Like it's
like it's horrible to say it, but

440
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:33,440
like a lot of the kids that
grow up with there, they kind of

441
00:30:33,519 --> 00:30:37,079
never escape from. They're almost like
born like into a mold of who they

442
00:30:37,079 --> 00:30:41,279
were going to be. They're kind
of condemned. Really, it's very hard,

443
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:44,680
especially and it's to do. It's
not it's almost like your class,

444
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,480
your class. Like people will say
I'm obsessed with class, but your class

445
00:30:48,559 --> 00:30:51,920
is like what you're born into.
It doesn't it doesn't matter how rich you

446
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:53,799
are, you know, It's it's
like it's like kind of in, it's

447
00:30:53,799 --> 00:30:56,880
in you forever. Really, You're
like Michael Caine. You know, Michael

448
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,880
Caine could be a multimillionaire, but
he's you know, and he's been rich

449
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:04,720
for sixty years or whatever, but
he's still he's still kind of that person

450
00:31:04,759 --> 00:31:11,720
really, so um so. Yeah. But but this this outdoor stuff,

451
00:31:11,279 --> 00:31:15,680
it made me feel like I have
something I'm I'm not like everybody else.

452
00:31:15,759 --> 00:31:22,960
And I think also being a child
at a military child who had lived already

453
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:27,960
in several places before I got to
tow In, I think you have that

454
00:31:29,039 --> 00:31:33,599
kind of outsider mentality as well.
You know, you never ever feel like

455
00:31:33,599 --> 00:31:36,880
you're quite fit in. And it
were looking back like a lot of my

456
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:40,559
friends at school, like Hole was
a place where one of the one of

457
00:31:40,599 --> 00:31:44,480
the original places in the UK in
the seventies and eighties where they just dumped

458
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,799
a lot of refugees and so so
because they were also outsiders, I end

459
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:53,759
up having the best friends were like
a guy from lad from Lebanon, one

460
00:31:53,799 --> 00:31:57,359
from Ghana, you know, like
a seat guy. And and looking at

461
00:31:57,359 --> 00:32:02,480
that was why because I felt more, you know, I felt more like

462
00:32:02,519 --> 00:32:07,039
it's almost if you're an outsider,
it's almost better's going to live somewhere where

463
00:32:07,079 --> 00:32:12,839
you are completely alien to that place, because I don't know, it doesn't

464
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,960
make any sense. Like if you're
supported, if you're sport, I think

465
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:20,480
it's the same. Like if you're
like like an African American, you can

466
00:32:20,559 --> 00:32:23,519
never feel like if you know,
like I've met African Americans who are into

467
00:32:23,559 --> 00:32:27,440
Africa and the and you know,
and all the Africans are like, you're

468
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,599
American and they're like, no,
I'm hob No, no, you're an

469
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,480
American, you know. So there's
that weird thing about being like I think

470
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,960
being outside is a really really valuable
thing, but it's not. It's not.

471
00:32:38,319 --> 00:32:43,119
It's not that easy sometimes. So
so yeah, so I think I

472
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:47,279
had this um, I had this
feeling that this was something that was special,

473
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:51,839
that that I could do. So
so I left. I left school.

474
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,720
I didn't have any I didn't have
any qualifications. Like later on in

475
00:32:54,759 --> 00:32:59,240
life, tend out I was like
really dyslexic. So it's only when my

476
00:33:00,039 --> 00:33:01,799
when my brother was born, that
my mother realized there was something kind of

477
00:33:01,799 --> 00:33:07,480
wrong wrong with me. Like I
couldn't I couldn't like tie my shoelaces.

478
00:33:07,519 --> 00:33:09,599
I couldn't. I was I was
in those days you just said you were

479
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:14,799
slow basically. So I kind of
struggled with a lot of a lot of

480
00:33:14,799 --> 00:33:17,799
things at school and I just school
was it was kind of a punishing,

481
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,400
you know, punishing thing. You
didn't come out You kind of went in

482
00:33:22,519 --> 00:33:25,119
okay, and you came out pretty, you know, pretty torn up by

483
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:30,119
it all. So I just went
I didn't go to university. I remember

484
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:31,960
kids would be like, don't do
your A levels, You'd be overqualified.

485
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:36,160
So this is this is the thing
about your Your class kind of holds you

486
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,200
in, keeps you. So so
I just went on the doll and I

487
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:44,759
was living on the doll and I
had this idea about joining the Marines for

488
00:33:44,799 --> 00:33:47,279
some reason, and I think because
because I know I knew the Marines.

489
00:33:47,319 --> 00:33:52,160
They went and did stuff in the
in the in Norway and had some kind

490
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:57,400
of climbing related stuff, and I
didn't I really didn't understand. Like I

491
00:33:58,119 --> 00:34:01,359
knew there was things like expedition,
but I thought an expedition was like where

492
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:06,440
you you know, you're invited on
it by Chris Bonnets, their Chris Bonnington

493
00:34:06,559 --> 00:34:08,840
or something. I didn't realize it
was just a holiday, you know,

494
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:13,800
like anyone can go on an expedition
holiday like an expedition, it is a

495
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:19,239
holiday don't pay for. So it
was just so I didn't really understand like

496
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,239
the idea of like the idea now
you just google it and you'd be like,

497
00:34:22,519 --> 00:34:25,679
oh, I can get a job
in North Wales in an outdoor center,

498
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:30,159
or I can do a you know, some kind of qualification and I'll

499
00:34:30,159 --> 00:34:35,239
get on my outdoor qualifications. But
I think in the nineties that just didn't

500
00:34:35,559 --> 00:34:37,920
It just wasn't. I remember at
King's Lynn there was a course in King's

501
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:42,920
Lynn and it was something to do
with outdoor education, and remember thinking or

502
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,760
American do something like that. But
I couldn't have any air levels. I

503
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:47,159
just looked like I was an idiot
basically. So it was that was a

504
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,840
bit of a problem. So I
was so I was living, I was

505
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,840
living on the door, I was
living in a squat. Things were looking

506
00:34:55,400 --> 00:35:02,039
that great. But then I met
I met my few your ex wife and

507
00:35:02,039 --> 00:35:07,400
and and who was doing like a
French degree. And she she was the

508
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,719
one who said, oh, I
think there's I think you're not as stupid

509
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,960
as you think you are. You
should go and get yourself tested or something.

510
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,199
So I went and got a had
one of these dyslexia tests, and

511
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,880
the guy was like, after doing
this test, he was like, well,

512
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,679
you've got like ninety nine percent right
in your three dimensional problems stuff,

513
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,760
and you've got sixteen percent right in
your your numbers. So you're basically,

514
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,159
you know, you're you're an idiot. Basically you're you must be like a

515
00:35:32,199 --> 00:35:37,360
savant or something. So um so
yeah, So a joke that I said,

516
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,400
like, what what we're gonna do
with that skill? He says,

517
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:44,119
you need to get yourself a three
dimensional problem solving jobs. I got a

518
00:35:44,159 --> 00:35:47,639
job in a couble box factory,
but I actually we ended up I moved

519
00:35:47,679 --> 00:35:52,079
to London, and this was this
was probably what what's so I did actually

520
00:35:52,119 --> 00:35:55,840
go to the I did actually go
to the Navy recruiting place and asked about

521
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,519
joining the Marines. But I told
him I was I was going to London.

522
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,119
He said, when you get to
London, going in London, you

523
00:36:02,159 --> 00:36:05,760
know, go and ask in London. So I, um, so I

524
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:09,719
went to London and my my wife, future wife, she was gonna she

525
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,719
was trying to get a job as
a she had a degree in French.

526
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,559
She was going to get a job
with the government or something. So so

527
00:36:16,639 --> 00:36:19,760
I was like, I don't what
skills ever got. And I was like,

528
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,599
well, I do know a bit. I've got like Lofty Wiseman's Survival

529
00:36:22,639 --> 00:36:25,559
Handbook, you know, I know
of stuff like that. So there was

530
00:36:25,679 --> 00:36:30,599
do you remember Survival Aids? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So Survival Aids

531
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:37,320
in London in Houston Station, they
were looking for shop assist, a shop

532
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:39,719
assistant. So I went, I
don't know, I don't even know you'd

533
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:43,639
find out in those days, like
there'd be no no internet or anything.

534
00:36:43,679 --> 00:36:45,840
So anyway, so I found out
this job in the window. Yeah,

535
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,400
probably, so I went I went
down to went to went went there and

536
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,320
the manager was this guy called Paul, who was probably quite clueless about the

537
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,400
outdoors, used to work from Mark
Suspensers. But he was just like a

538
00:36:55,440 --> 00:37:00,880
manager, manager manager. So so
we go downstairs into this little little office

539
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:04,800
and he's like write in right right, you're in the jangle. What do

540
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,760
you need. I'm like, um, a hammock you You've got the job.

541
00:37:08,199 --> 00:37:15,920
So um. Then he was like
then he was like, what about

542
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,599
what about a down sleeping bag?
And I was like I was like,

543
00:37:19,639 --> 00:37:22,400
oh god, this is a trick
question. This is a trick question.

544
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:23,760
I was like, no, it
would get wet, and he was like

545
00:37:24,159 --> 00:37:25,880
really, I was like, yeah, yeah, I get wet. You

546
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,840
wanted to down sleeping bag? All
right? Yeah? Yeah yeah. Anyway,

547
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:34,440
so I got this job and I
suddly found myself my first real job

548
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,559
in my life working in this outdoor
shop with all these people who had like

549
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:43,760
degrees, you know, they were
all they were all you know there there

550
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:45,480
were they were just kind of an
odd bunch again, but a bunch of

551
00:37:45,519 --> 00:37:49,440
outsiders. Really, he didn't really
fit in. I think it was two

552
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,800
of them had like art degrees,
and there was someone I had like some

553
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:55,519
degree in philosophy or something. I
was the only one who wasn't qualified.

554
00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:00,440
But in a shop when it comes
to like talking about yeah, you don't

555
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:05,400
need a degree, you just need
to be enthusiastic and and I learned.

556
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,800
I learned like a lot of stuff
working there. I got made redundant because

557
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:13,039
it got assets stripped. So that
was that was that was a lesson being

558
00:38:13,079 --> 00:38:15,920
made redundant your first Joe. That
was good. But yeah, I just

559
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:19,599
learned, like there was lots of
there was a lot of weird characters came

560
00:38:19,679 --> 00:38:22,960
in that shop. There was there
was one guy who it was called Colin

561
00:38:23,039 --> 00:38:27,119
and used to come in and you
say, like, like, everything I

562
00:38:27,199 --> 00:38:30,639
own is in two bags so I
can move at moment's notice. And I

563
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:31,960
was like, that's a bit that's
a bit weird, but that's not that

564
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,480
weird compared to compared to other people
come in this shop. And then several

565
00:38:36,599 --> 00:38:39,360
years later, well maybe three years
later, Joel, who was the assistant

566
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,920
manager, he rings me up and
says, you'll never guess what kind of

567
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,440
that guy Colin outside at the in
five minutes something, Yeah, I said,

568
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,360
like he was a serial killer.
And it turned out to be this

569
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,840
guy called Colin Ireland who was a
serial killer who killed they kill like seven

570
00:38:54,880 --> 00:39:00,519
people in London. And and when
they when they'd readed his house and found

571
00:39:00,519 --> 00:39:05,440
all these survival ads catalogs, and
they'd gone gone to Joel and asked him

572
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:08,199
if he'd remember this, uh,
this this character stuff. But he was

573
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:12,360
probably one of the most sane people
came in that shop. You get all

574
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:15,159
these like like it was when the
war was going on in Yugoslavia, so

575
00:39:15,199 --> 00:39:19,880
you'd get all the what the walk
correspondence coming in from the BBST, and

576
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:22,000
then you get like the mercenaries coming
in or going over there, and the

577
00:39:22,639 --> 00:39:28,280
British soldiers and the French Foreign Legion
and it was really really mad. You

578
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:30,400
know. You get someone come in
and that we'd have this like lofty Wiseman

579
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:35,280
survival knife you know, in the
window, and someone would say, oh,

580
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:37,320
I've seen someone hecked to it with
one of those knives, and he'd

581
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:38,840
like, yeah, do you want
to buy it or not? Just you

582
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:45,960
know, And so eventually got eventually
got sacked, eventually made with made redundant,

583
00:39:46,119 --> 00:39:52,159
didn't get my resundancy money, and
and and and then it just led

584
00:39:52,199 --> 00:39:57,559
to like a series of working outdoor
shops. Like I waked in North Wales.

585
00:39:58,159 --> 00:40:00,599
I got this job in the Peak
district. I was, so I

586
00:40:00,599 --> 00:40:02,199
moved to Sheffield because that was where
all the climbing was. I had this

587
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:07,280
idea of like I really suddenly got
into actually going out with these guys at

588
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:09,960
the shop. We get the train
from London on a Friday night after work

589
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:14,320
and go all the way to we
just get you get dropped off it is

590
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:19,000
it Land for faken or one of
these plays on the coast like Harpus eleven

591
00:40:19,039 --> 00:40:22,679
at night and then we'd walk into
the hills until about two in the morning,

592
00:40:22,119 --> 00:40:25,760
walk around for two days and then
get the last get the train back

593
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:30,039
to But those those those days,
you're so keen when you when you live

594
00:40:30,079 --> 00:40:32,320
somewhere where there's no mountains, when
you're living in the mountains, you don't

595
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:37,840
do anything. You just just watch
him tell us so we so we um

596
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,119
so yes. I got this job
in the Pete district. And it was

597
00:40:42,159 --> 00:40:47,159
actually Hamish Hamilton, who who was
the inventor of the Buffalo Buffalo jacket Buffalo

598
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:52,440
Mountain Share, who had managed to
make friends with by pestering him on the

599
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:54,039
phone, ringing him up, asking
him about Buffalo, because I was really

600
00:40:54,039 --> 00:40:58,800
obsessed with with with Buffalo, and
I think I was always I think I've

601
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:05,599
always been interest did in niche things
or like borderline stuff. And they often

602
00:41:05,639 --> 00:41:08,719
think that people there's a lot of
interesting stuff that just kind of gets forgotten

603
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:15,719
or doesn't get doesn't get enough interest
because there's not enough stuff marketing or whatever.

604
00:41:15,199 --> 00:41:21,199
So things like like monopoint crampons like
And when I started later on in

605
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:23,280
life, I started writing gear articles
that you know, would I would find

606
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:27,159
something and I would get really into
it, and I start writing about it,

607
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:29,719
so I'd say it was one of
the first people to ever write about

608
00:41:30,079 --> 00:41:34,760
monopoint crampons or even even a lot
of the sort of soft what became soft

609
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,880
shell, you know, a lot, a lot of stuff that people just

610
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,760
didn't really you know, know about. Sonnyways, I got this job and

611
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:45,159
he's just have to cycle like twenty
four miles a day to cycle over this

612
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:53,000
from Sheffield about Sheffield down into into
Hope and near dal work in this shop.

613
00:41:53,039 --> 00:41:55,039
It's like a caving shop, which
is again it was like kind of

614
00:41:55,039 --> 00:42:00,400
interesting, like cavers are kind of
interesting people. So and then eventually got

615
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:04,920
a job in a shop called Outside, which some people might have heard of,

616
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,519
and the in between had a few
jobs. I'll move back to London,

617
00:42:07,559 --> 00:42:10,320
went to London for a bit in
the city, you know, and

618
00:42:14,679 --> 00:42:15,920
but yeah, because I then I
spent the rest of the rest of my

619
00:42:16,039 --> 00:42:22,559
next until I was at thirty years
old working in Outside in Hafsage And they're

620
00:42:22,599 --> 00:42:28,039
a kind of I think again like
I was. I was always so enthusiastic

621
00:42:28,519 --> 00:42:30,559
and in that shop at the time
was like a lot of really good outdoor

622
00:42:30,559 --> 00:42:34,760
shops and you would come in I
think someone say it was like come in

623
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,920
to buy a newspaper. You got
to buy like a copy of the Telegraph,

624
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,119
and someone's like, the guy behind
the camps, like, you don't

625
00:42:39,119 --> 00:42:42,280
want to read the Telegraph. You
want to read the Guard you know,

626
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,760
you want to read this or you
know, Private Eye or something. He's

627
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:45,039
like, no, I just want
to read this. That is why I

628
00:42:45,039 --> 00:42:47,199
want to, you know. So
that it was one of those outdoor shops,

629
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,719
or someone would come in and say
like I want to buy a gothic

630
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:52,880
shacket. Oh you don't want to
Oh I don't want a bout you gotic

631
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:57,679
shacket. You know about sympathext jacket, And you would like so confuse them

632
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,679
that they wouldn't buy anything, you
know. But it was I guess it

633
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:05,000
was that thing about you. You're
always selling the next car, you know.

634
00:43:05,559 --> 00:43:07,519
You know, so you'd often tell
people to spend less on something,

635
00:43:07,639 --> 00:43:10,320
or you would try you always say
like, well this is what i've this

636
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:14,000
is what I've got, And then
people would think, well, this guy's

637
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,519
an absolute you know, obsessive about
gear, like if he's got it,

638
00:43:16,559 --> 00:43:20,480
must he spends his whole life in
here. So there was so I worked

639
00:43:20,519 --> 00:43:24,519
for this guy. Dick Tambull who. Which is which is kind of weird

640
00:43:24,599 --> 00:43:30,920
is that Dick Turmbull was well known
for trying to climb the six North Faces

641
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:36,360
in winter in the Alps, and
he had written this article about winter climbing

642
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:37,920
in the Alps. And when I
was working in the other shop down the

643
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,800
road, the caving shop, had
read this article and I was like,

644
00:43:42,159 --> 00:43:44,199
oh my god, this is this
is what I need to do. I

645
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:45,320
need to get out in the Alps. Did even know what the Alps were.

646
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:47,880
I didn't even know, you know, I didn't even know the guy,

647
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,719
you know, not what the Guidebrock
was like. So I read this

648
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:53,559
article, I was inspired, I
need to go and do that. So

649
00:43:53,599 --> 00:43:59,639
I I packed in that job and
I had a friend had met met in

650
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,599
chef Field and we got the bus
from Sheffield to Shammony. I think it

651
00:44:02,599 --> 00:44:06,559
was one hundred quid. I don't
think it'd ever really been, you know,

652
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:08,639
obviously at that point, and I
was like everything was so it was

653
00:44:08,679 --> 00:44:12,400
like I can't believe it, you
know, it's so exotic, and it'd

654
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:16,400
be like next stop Victoria bus station, and so it was. We had

655
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,360
this like two weeks in the Alps
in the wintertime, which was a complete

656
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,519
waste of time, you know,
to go there, you know, with

657
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:27,119
not knowing what what in what's what
was? It was a disaster, But

658
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:30,719
we didn't die. We did all
sorts of stupid things and but we didn't

659
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:35,119
die. But for some reason,
again it was this like alaw wasn't very

660
00:44:35,119 --> 00:44:38,480
good at this Alpine stuff. It
felt it felt different, and I think

661
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:43,239
I was. I was always really
obsessed with science fiction as well as a

662
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,800
kid, because it had a very
good imagination. So this kind of going

663
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,719
to the Alps or being on a
glacier in winter and there was nobody around

664
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,239
in the storm, or digging a
snow hall, or being you know,

665
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:57,960
in the night, you know,
in the super cold temperatures. This was

666
00:44:58,039 --> 00:45:00,880
like being in a science fiction film. This was like being on a different

667
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,719
planet. And I think those two
things probably came together. And then so

668
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,159
what was weird was then by the
following year, I was actually working for

669
00:45:07,199 --> 00:45:12,519
the guy who had written this article. Anyway, so one day Dick Tambil

670
00:45:12,559 --> 00:45:14,719
comes up to me, It's like, here, you've been to the Alps

671
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:17,639
in the winter, And he made
he made a stupid assumption that if I'd

672
00:45:17,639 --> 00:45:20,960
been there in the winter, I
must have been the Lords in the summer,

673
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,159
I must be super experian And he
was like, do you want to

674
00:45:23,199 --> 00:45:25,559
come climbing with me this winter?
I was like, oh, yeah,

675
00:45:25,599 --> 00:45:29,679
yeah, that'd be great, like
you know, and when he went away,

676
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:30,599
I was like, oh my god, Oh my god, what I'm

677
00:45:30,599 --> 00:45:34,599
going to do. So anyways,
I end up going to the Alps with

678
00:45:34,679 --> 00:45:37,719
Dick, and I remember we drove
there there days in the days before we

679
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,639
went on the plane. We drove
away from Sheffield to Shammony and I remember

680
00:45:40,639 --> 00:45:45,159
We're driving through the Alp, you
know, driving through the you know,

681
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:47,599
through France, you know, two
in the morning, and Dick's like,

682
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:51,280
right, need to stop, you
know, so st I couldn't drive at

683
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:54,960
the time. Stops a car,
pulls out this huge down jacket, puts

684
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:59,239
it around himself and falls asleep.
And I'm just there in my my fleece

685
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:04,400
jacket and just like I'm just old, you know, for a couple of

686
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,519
hours, just like real really cold, debts say anything anyway. So Dick

687
00:46:07,599 --> 00:46:09,559
eventually wakes up, looks at me. He goes like sleep OK. I

688
00:46:09,639 --> 00:46:13,280
was like, oh, it's a
little bit cold. You're like, you're

689
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:17,320
not one of those people that complains
the whole time, are you? So

690
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,840
we get we get to the mountains
and he wanted to do this thing called

691
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:28,559
the Drew cool what was the drew? Nor face the drew? And anyway

692
00:46:28,599 --> 00:46:30,039
it was it was mad. It
was madness. It was madness. We

693
00:46:30,079 --> 00:46:32,960
almost died and it was god,
it was but any but but it was.

694
00:46:34,519 --> 00:46:37,840
I think there was that. It
was only eventually. I think it's

695
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:43,480
only on my third trip to the
Alps I ever actually climbed anything. And

696
00:46:43,559 --> 00:46:46,440
it was a route where it was
so grim that the guy was climbing with

697
00:46:46,559 --> 00:46:52,239
basically gave up climbing and never climbed
again. A friend of spare. It

698
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,280
was cold, and and as I
was climbing, I was like, this

699
00:46:55,400 --> 00:47:00,320
is I really really hate this,
but this is like the only thing I've

700
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:04,000
ever done that kind of makes any
sense. And I think that's probably when

701
00:47:04,039 --> 00:47:05,800
I sort of thought like, this
is what I'm gonna have to keep it,

702
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:07,320
this is what I need to do, and that's I kind of led

703
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:13,679
into. Eventually I wrote an article
about that climb, which talk me about

704
00:47:13,679 --> 00:47:16,960
two years because I was totally illiterate
at the start, and then we get

705
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:22,440
that got published in an American Climb
magazine, and that was kind of the

706
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:27,119
beginning of a career as not just
working the climbing shop, like working writing

707
00:47:27,199 --> 00:47:30,239
and getting up on the stage and
telling a very a very long story to

708
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:39,519
a very short question. So I
forget what no no I was going through

709
00:47:39,559 --> 00:47:42,400
that I was thinking, should I
just break into this and no, no,

710
00:47:42,519 --> 00:47:45,440
I want to hear this story.
So I've got some notes here because

711
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:51,280
I am there. You were saying
a few interesting things there that I thought,

712
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:53,760
Oh, yeah, I want to
look back onto that advert. If

713
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:58,159
you're annoyed by the advertisements in this
show, then why not become a patron.

714
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:01,119
If you do, they're all magically
away and we'll reward you with extra

715
00:48:01,199 --> 00:48:06,599
bonus content. Now back to the
show. You said about the outsider thing,

716
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:10,280
and I remember I was listening to
a podcast a year or so ago

717
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:16,280
is Brett Weinstein Weinsteinstein, which the
one that's not the one that's not half

718
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:23,519
No no U, And he was
talking about something called the weird sheep concept.

719
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:30,000
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
and that you that's it's an evolutionary

720
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:32,559
trait that you've got to have outsiders
because they're the ones that go off and

721
00:48:32,639 --> 00:48:37,719
find different ways of doing things or
look at a problem in a different way.

722
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,119
In any kind of tribal society,
including a flock of sheep, you've

723
00:48:40,159 --> 00:48:44,719
got to have the one that's a
bit weird, the one that does things

724
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:49,960
differently, because that often helps solve
the problem that no one else can solve

725
00:48:50,039 --> 00:48:54,519
because you can see it in a
different way. And you mentioned that that's

726
00:48:54,559 --> 00:49:00,920
a common trait within the special forces
or people who do specialists roles within whether

727
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:05,519
the military or maybe the police or
things like that. And you know,

728
00:49:05,519 --> 00:49:09,079
we've got a few of those people
in our audience, I know from other

729
00:49:09,079 --> 00:49:15,719
interactions. Is that something that you've
seen in yourself, you know, is

730
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:20,679
it something that's continued in your career
in the outdoors because you to me,

731
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:25,199
you look you know from I've been
following you for what nearly twenty years twenty

732
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:30,639
two, it's not fifteen years now, and your stuff is different to other

733
00:49:30,679 --> 00:49:35,960
people's like everyone else. When I'd
read an article from people and they're saying,

734
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:37,280
yeah, this is the best way
to do something, because it's the

735
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:43,719
best way, whereas your article or
your book would say these are twenty different

736
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:46,880
ways of doing something. I've tried
all of them. This works for this,

737
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:51,400
This works for that but sorted out
yourself. And that's a different approach

738
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:55,400
to what you would see from the
rest of climbing literature, climbing instructors,

739
00:49:55,639 --> 00:50:00,239
for want of a better word.
Is that something that you noticed through yourself,

740
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:04,480
you know, once you started doing
stuff in the outdoors under your own

741
00:50:04,519 --> 00:50:07,760
steam and doing bigger things and going
on to do the Arctic stuff and the

742
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:13,039
big wall stuff that you went on
too, did you did you carry on

743
00:50:13,119 --> 00:50:15,679
being an outsider or was there a
point where you kind of you fell into

744
00:50:15,679 --> 00:50:20,599
the pile with everyone else where you
were doing the same thing. I think,

745
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:25,559
I think, I think I am
like an autodid autodidectodiect. Remember I

746
00:50:25,599 --> 00:50:29,559
wanted to I wanted to know how
to make a harness, probably when I

747
00:50:29,639 --> 00:50:34,039
was it was like fourteen, and
I and I rang my dad up and

748
00:50:34,039 --> 00:50:36,400
I was like, Dad, like, you know, how do you make

749
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:38,599
a harness? He said, I'll
send you a book. And you sent

750
00:50:38,639 --> 00:50:43,320
me this book with a load of
white webbing, and I kind of had

751
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:46,320
to, you know, make this
harness myself that probably just would just fall

752
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:49,559
off as soon as you, you
know, took your weight off it.

753
00:50:50,039 --> 00:50:53,679
And and yeah, I think he
had that approach of you need to let

754
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:59,400
work it out for yourself. And
and I think like I kind of had

755
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:02,679
to lend to read myself, like
I just like I had a very I

756
00:51:04,079 --> 00:51:07,719
lent to read very late in life, and probably I'm still I'm still trying

757
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:10,320
to learn lent to write very little
late in life. And I and I

758
00:51:12,079 --> 00:51:15,400
think like even as an adult,
like even now after I would I can

759
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:19,679
spell. You know, I've written
nine books, and I've won lots of

760
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:22,400
awards for wright for writing and stuff
and and that kind of stuff, but

761
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:27,079
I still can't spell, you know. I still don't know what a present

762
00:51:27,119 --> 00:51:30,599
imperative is or a now nor a
verb. But I literally do not know

763
00:51:30,639 --> 00:51:35,159
what a verb is. And although
my kids will tell me it just it

764
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:38,800
just doesn't stick. It just kind
of it just it doesn't stick. So

765
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:43,679
I think I think like I call
it like my son they said he had

766
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:47,679
at tension definite syndrome, And I
think it's called a tension focus syndrome because

767
00:51:49,199 --> 00:51:52,559
you just can't focus on anything you're
interested in, no matter how much you

768
00:51:52,679 --> 00:51:57,000
try. So when if I was
interested in trying to solo a big wall

769
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:00,519
or climb a big wall like climbl
Capitan for the first time. You know,

770
00:52:00,519 --> 00:52:02,840
I'm living in Derbyshire. There's no
big walls, there's the highest routes

771
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:07,760
for twenty five meters, so I
just there was no internet. There was

772
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:10,599
one book that was like tiny,
little, tiny, almost like a pamphlet

773
00:52:10,599 --> 00:52:15,280
type book. So I just had
to go to this quarry and just work

774
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:19,880
it out for myself. And I
had all sorts of near death experiences because

775
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,639
I was climbing by myself. So
not only was it time to tie how

776
00:52:22,679 --> 00:52:25,320
you aid up a crack or something, and how your duma and how your

777
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:30,280
haul, I was also learning how
to solo it because it was only by

778
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:35,559
myself. So through that, through
that process, and you just had to

779
00:52:35,639 --> 00:52:38,039
work out yourself. There was no
one to ask. Maybe if someone came

780
00:52:38,079 --> 00:52:42,039
in the shop, I'd say,
oh, you've climbed all cap like what

781
00:52:42,199 --> 00:52:44,239
do you do? Like? You
know what? How you know, you

782
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:46,679
often make a lot of problems up
in your head. They just aren't true

783
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,000
in the you know, in the
in the in the at the time when

784
00:52:50,039 --> 00:52:52,440
you once you get there. If
in my mind it's always dark when you're

785
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:57,400
imagining something, but when you get
there, it's always light. It's always

786
00:52:57,639 --> 00:53:01,159
it's always very clear what to do. So, um, so I think

787
00:53:01,199 --> 00:53:05,440
that that like even lying too ski, Like I never I didn't have to

788
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:07,679
ski. And I went to Greenland, ski across Greenland, and I never

789
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:14,599
even clipped the boots onto the skis
in my life, Like and so you

790
00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:16,239
know, you're setting off it to
ski like five hundred miles. It was

791
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:22,159
called Greenland and with this guy who's
like Finish Special Forces and I'm like passy,

792
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:24,000
like how do you clip the boots
onto the skis? It's like,

793
00:53:24,079 --> 00:53:27,360
oh, you're very funny, ha
ha ha. I'm like, yeah,

794
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,800
but how do you do it?
And but five hundred miles later, I

795
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:34,039
was pretty I was pretty good at
it, you know what I mean.

796
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:38,440
So there's so so I think if
I've I haven't got any qualifications, so

797
00:53:38,599 --> 00:53:42,800
that probably helps, you know,
Like if once you've become an instructor,

798
00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:46,960
there's quite a quite of a rigid
this is way to do this because you're

799
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:51,760
trying to you know, it has
to be very to a formula like we

800
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:54,039
know this is going to keep you
safe and you know, blah blah blah.

801
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:59,239
But but if you haven't got any
qualifications, you kind of do what

802
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:05,199
you want. And one thing I
noticed I've climbed all cap thirty something times

803
00:54:05,239 --> 00:54:08,000
that I five times, and every
time I did it it was different.

804
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:12,320
You know, if I had a
really rigid way of doing it, it

805
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:15,679
wouldn't work the next time. So
things that things that stopped doing the second

806
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:21,079
time, I might start doing again
the fourth time, or the equipment might

807
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:25,559
change or so it was that and
people often say, you know I did.

808
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:29,199
I was like guiding people and I
would open the boot of the car

809
00:54:29,639 --> 00:54:32,840
and like everything would fall out.
It was just absolute mess. And people

810
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:36,360
would say, like, how is
your everything in your life as a mess,

811
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:40,360
But the second you start climbing,
everything is where everything works flawlessly.

812
00:54:42,119 --> 00:54:45,400
And I was kind of like,
well, like if everything's like on a

813
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:47,519
wall, everything's chaos. It's ropes, it's the wind, it's the gear,

814
00:54:47,639 --> 00:54:53,559
it's dropping stuff. So being adaptable
to that situation in your if every

815
00:54:53,599 --> 00:54:57,280
day, every day life's like that, you're always losing your wallet, you're

816
00:54:57,280 --> 00:55:00,679
always you know, running out of
money, you know this kind of stuff,

817
00:55:00,039 --> 00:55:02,639
then on the wall, if you're
really really rigid, and if you're

818
00:55:02,639 --> 00:55:07,239
a perfectionist, you just get destroyed. When when it's you and you know

819
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:15,000
you're on incompetence and nature and everything. So yeah, like I often,

820
00:55:15,079 --> 00:55:19,719
I often often have this thing where
I've been with people who are very qualified.

821
00:55:20,159 --> 00:55:23,000
There are level five this or level
you know there there's someone who has

822
00:55:23,039 --> 00:55:28,400
been training for something all their life
to be competent, but when things go

823
00:55:28,559 --> 00:55:32,400
really wrong, it's never quite in
the way they've trained. They've been told

824
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:37,320
how it would happen. You know, some something happens and they kind of

825
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:43,679
they don't know how to adapt to
that situation where you have no training or

826
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,639
no expectations of what's something that can
happen. You may be you may be

827
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:50,719
able to deal with it, you
know, you know, you know,

828
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:53,880
people are not written someone's name on
their forehead. I've not done you know,

829
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:58,440
some some stupid thing that someone told
you do on some wilderness first head

830
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:05,480
cast. So yes, you haven't
got that sometimes easy. Yet there's a

831
00:56:05,559 --> 00:56:09,639
thing that improvisation and being able to
it's not just think on the fly,

832
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:16,519
but it's also being able to see
the wider problem. That was something A

833
00:56:16,559 --> 00:56:21,760
couple of days ago, we interviewed
a guy who who is a senior Seer

834
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:24,800
instructor for the Mystery of Defense.
So his podcast, this episode would have

835
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:29,360
been out by the time this one
comes out. But we were talking about

836
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:34,800
that about where things have to be
prescriptive, you need to do something in

837
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:38,440
this way, you have to do
an then c and where it's just knowing

838
00:56:38,599 --> 00:56:43,280
principles and well, if you put
these things together in this order, this

839
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:45,039
will happen. But if you miss
this one out, it'll still work,

840
00:56:45,119 --> 00:56:50,679
it just won't work as well.
And the thing he came up with was

841
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:53,960
if other people are expecting you to
do something in the same order, so

842
00:56:54,119 --> 00:56:58,400
they're expecting you to do this,
then that then that so that they can

843
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:02,400
come and get you or the everyone
around you is working to that same standard.

844
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:07,840
That's the point where everything has to
happen in the right order. But

845
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:15,599
the vast majority of real survival training
after that then is is improvisation almost because

846
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:20,920
you can't train for every single scenario, and particularly if you're training once every

847
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:24,239
five years or so, if your
aircrew and you're you're not doing survival training

848
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:29,480
every weekend, you're going off to
do a very specific course and then you'll

849
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:32,440
have to do a refresher again in
five years time or whatever. Maybe there's

850
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:37,840
a parallel with that in in climbing
because if you're climbing as a pair,

851
00:57:38,559 --> 00:57:40,840
then the guy that the leader,
you're got to get to the top.

852
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:46,400
You're building the b lay. The
person the second has got to got to

853
00:57:46,679 --> 00:57:50,960
expect that leader to do things in
a certain way, to give the calls

854
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:53,639
in the right order, or give
the right call, or at least they've

855
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:58,039
built the b lay correctly, they've
equalized it. They've put everything incorrectly.

856
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:05,079
And I always found that when I
was doing because I pretended to be an

857
00:58:05,079 --> 00:58:08,760
outdoor instructor for about fifteen years and
I still am now, but I always

858
00:58:10,239 --> 00:58:15,119
in the first ten years of doing
that, I was very entrenched in the

859
00:58:16,039 --> 00:58:19,519
this is how you do things because
that's the way I was taught, and

860
00:58:19,599 --> 00:58:22,199
that's the way everyone I looked up
to they did it that way, and

861
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:24,960
that's the proper way of doing things. And I was in mountain rescue at

862
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:28,760
the same time as well, which
really didn't help. I think I was

863
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:34,000
an insufferable ass actually for their first
ten years because I was. I was

864
00:58:34,039 --> 00:58:38,760
a bit My partner is sat there
nodding at me. I felt like,

865
00:58:39,599 --> 00:58:45,119
yeah, by the book, and
also like passively judgmental on everyone else because

866
00:58:45,159 --> 00:58:50,480
they weren't doing it. By the
book and at some point something clicked that

867
00:58:50,679 --> 00:58:54,159
it was no. No. The
improvisation is the more important part of that,

868
00:58:55,119 --> 00:59:00,960
and the greater understanding comes from knowing
when to be when to be prescriptive,

869
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:04,119
when to do things in the right
order, when to do things you

870
00:59:04,239 --> 00:59:08,960
know, A, then B,
then C. And I felt like I

871
00:59:09,079 --> 00:59:13,440
understood things better then. But also, you know, you have those moments

872
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:15,800
in life when you look back at
who you were and you think, oh,

873
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:22,960
god, yeah, I guess you
meet people this guy Carston, who,

874
00:59:22,440 --> 00:59:27,039
like I did a lot of climbing
with Norwegians. Now Norwegians really have

875
00:59:27,199 --> 00:59:31,559
the stuff together, but they're they're
you know, the idea like the pole

876
00:59:31,639 --> 00:59:36,960
that our our polar heroes are people
who you know, they set off,

877
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:40,159
they get frostbite, frost biting genitalia, they have to like saw them off.

878
00:59:40,559 --> 00:59:44,440
You know, they lose all their
friends, die in a cravass,

879
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:46,199
and they keep on going and when
they get there, they've gone the wrong

880
00:59:46,519 --> 00:59:50,440
to the wrong pole or something they
fall off the edge of you know,

881
00:59:50,559 --> 00:59:52,360
you know, they die, but
they die heroically. You know. That's

882
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:57,840
how we're kind of our heroes.
Where the Norwegians, it's basically guy goes

883
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:00,280
somewhere, nothing happens, it comes
back them when he set off, and

884
01:00:00,559 --> 01:00:06,039
you know there there they're so good
what they do, but they don't.

885
01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:10,920
They don't. It's not it's not
like false bravado or try. There's not.

886
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:14,119
There's no, there's not a lot
of an ego there. He's like,

887
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:15,199
well, this is just what we
this is, this is just what

888
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:19,280
we do. And this guy cast
and he used to used to take like

889
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:23,800
this the Norwegian Special Forces and these
are people who've never been climbing in their

890
01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:29,639
lives and Caston was like a top
level climber and he would just get to

891
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:35,239
the somewhere like in Lafoten Islands and
they'll be a big like big big rocky

892
01:00:35,360 --> 01:00:37,760
mountain, big big face on the
mountain. You're like find with high and

893
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:40,679
he would he would just give them
a rope. He would just give them

894
01:00:40,719 --> 01:00:44,840
the gear with no experience of how
we've got to do with it, and

895
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:49,480
he got attack and he would just
pointing them at the mountain and that was

896
01:00:49,559 --> 01:00:54,039
it and he said like it was
but it always whacked because they would you

897
01:00:54,159 --> 01:00:58,280
know, like it's not actually that
difficult. Yeah, you know, if

898
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:00,960
you can strip a machine gun and
you can and you know, all that

899
01:01:00,079 --> 01:01:06,480
kind of stuff you'll quickly work out. So sometimes maybe you kind of over

900
01:01:06,599 --> 01:01:09,440
complicate it. I think. I
think later in life, I feel like

901
01:01:09,559 --> 01:01:15,760
I feel like I'm at set in
service to climbing in that I want to

902
01:01:15,079 --> 01:01:21,280
pass on all the stuff that's,
um, that's important, and none of

903
01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:23,159
the stuff that's not that important.
You know. So if I wrote a

904
01:01:23,199 --> 01:01:27,320
book, so this book. Written
a few books, the technical books,

905
01:01:27,719 --> 01:01:30,239
so one of them is, um, you know, I wrote this book

906
01:01:30,239 --> 01:01:32,039
Me, Me, Myself and Eye, which is how to solo a big

907
01:01:32,119 --> 01:01:36,920
wall. And it has has stuff
like someone said, like in this book,

908
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:40,119
it's got a bit about taking a
luggage strap so you can strap your

909
01:01:40,119 --> 01:01:45,280
whole bag onto a trolley, Like
that's why why you know, why you

910
01:01:45,440 --> 01:01:47,159
waste? And I'm like, have
you ever have you ever pushed like,

911
01:01:47,719 --> 01:01:51,840
you know, one hundred and fifty
whole bag through an airport or into a

912
01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:54,039
lift? You know, like that
is that's probably the best bits of advice

913
01:01:54,159 --> 01:01:59,199
in there. So it's like getting
away with a lot of getting away of

914
01:01:59,199 --> 01:02:01,519
all stuff you can wear for yourself. And it's all the stuff, all

915
01:02:01,559 --> 01:02:06,440
the stuff where it's like ah,
like you know, like not tying both

916
01:02:06,519 --> 01:02:08,679
ropes together when you're abseiling, you
know, at the end, so the

917
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:13,280
so the kinks can work the work
the way out, or tie figure of

918
01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:15,920
eights so you can clip them into
you if you get to the end,

919
01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:19,519
and you know. So it was
all these little bits of information that you've

920
01:02:19,639 --> 01:02:23,119
learned, the hardware that you're trying
to pass on to another generation. And

921
01:02:23,199 --> 01:02:28,280
maybe some people won't. You only
you only understand some things. You're like,

922
01:02:28,599 --> 01:02:32,159
don't pour fuel into a into a
transja while it's still lit. You

923
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:36,719
you only you only understand that lesson
you know when you when you've done it,

924
01:02:36,880 --> 01:02:39,920
or you know, don't try and
light an MSR stove by looking down

925
01:02:40,039 --> 01:02:45,039
the you know off you know.
So it's there's a lot there's a lot

926
01:02:45,079 --> 01:02:51,800
of things like petrol is a petrol
is something like that is that like petrol

927
01:02:51,880 --> 01:02:54,480
is something you think you know what
petrol is until you've got it really badly

928
01:02:54,559 --> 01:02:59,000
bent by it. There's always like
video other people like you know, putting

929
01:02:59,039 --> 01:03:01,199
petrol to someone's letter box and then
trying to light it and blowing themselves up,

930
01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:05,280
and like that guy's like I wish
I hadn't I wish i'd known.

931
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:07,320
You know, that's why they're not
actual in tanks. You know, they

932
01:03:07,400 --> 01:03:13,039
have diesel so um. But but
yeah, it's that. There was there

933
01:03:13,119 --> 01:03:15,719
was a really good story. It
was someone they were in like Delta Force

934
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:19,360
or something like. In the US
Army, you're not allowed to put your

935
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:21,960
fingers. You're not allowed to put
your hands in your pockets. You know,

936
01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:23,800
if someone sees you with your hands
in your pockets, it's like absolutely

937
01:03:24,199 --> 01:03:28,400
whatever. So this guy works,
you know, works in the military for

938
01:03:29,159 --> 01:03:34,519
you know, twenty years and eventually
gets to the Tier one ultimate fighting unit

939
01:03:34,880 --> 01:03:37,639
and we tends up on the first
day. The guys stood there, the

940
01:03:37,679 --> 01:03:40,760
guy, the instructor stood there with
his hands in his pockets. There goes

941
01:03:42,639 --> 01:03:45,480
hi, guys, do you know
why I got my hands in my pockets?

942
01:03:45,719 --> 01:03:47,760
And they're like, no, sergeant
or something, because I've got pockets.

943
01:03:53,519 --> 01:03:57,039
If you're not, it does not
make any sense. It just makes

944
01:03:57,079 --> 01:04:02,800
sense. There was a thing saying
that thing about you know, trying to

945
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:05,360
do things by the book and I'm
trying to be like everyone else. There

946
01:04:05,480 --> 01:04:12,559
was something I noticed once I got
into my own swing of of comfort because

947
01:04:12,559 --> 01:04:15,800
as the thing, because I stopped
my first qualification I got was Mountain Leader,

948
01:04:15,079 --> 01:04:23,719
which is like hiking leader without winter
conditions in the UK, so it's

949
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:28,119
fairly basic stuff. But it took
me a couple of years of working with

950
01:04:28,199 --> 01:04:31,039
that award that to me to actually
get my head together with it as to

951
01:04:31,480 --> 01:04:34,599
you know, what you do with
a group, how you interact with people

952
01:04:34,639 --> 01:04:39,920
in the mountains when my clients that
kind of thing, and I realized it

953
01:04:40,039 --> 01:04:43,679
was something that I was comfortable doing, which was talking about my mistakes,

954
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:49,000
which wasn't really prevalent within the outdoor
professional community as it's kind of they call

955
01:04:49,039 --> 01:04:53,559
themselves and you don't talk. You
only talk about, yes, I did

956
01:04:53,639 --> 01:04:55,639
this thing, and I did this
amazing thing, and I did this thing,

957
01:04:55,719 --> 01:04:58,519
and oh yes, someone I was
climbing here, whereas I be talking

958
01:04:58,519 --> 01:05:00,800
about, yeah, I fell over
over there doing that, and I did

959
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:02,159
this, and yeah I got a
bash my headloon in this because I was

960
01:05:02,199 --> 01:05:08,480
stupid. And I think that's a
valuable thing for any kind of instruction,

961
01:05:08,519 --> 01:05:10,719
because you are now an instructor,
whether you like it or not. With

962
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:13,400
the podcast, with the books,
you know you're doing it by proxy,

963
01:05:13,559 --> 01:05:19,719
but you are sharing the benefit of
your information and your experience There's a thing

964
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:28,000
I think that all instructors should do, which is normalize failure. Normalize that

965
01:05:28,599 --> 01:05:32,320
iterative failure of you make a mistake, you go on and make a different

966
01:05:32,360 --> 01:05:35,000
mistake next time, and then you
make a different mistake. And what I

967
01:05:35,079 --> 01:05:41,480
say to clients now is that I
anything I got right the first time by

968
01:05:41,559 --> 01:05:45,400
fluke is of no value to them
because I can't tell you how to replicate

969
01:05:45,480 --> 01:05:50,679
that. But I can sell the
sum total of all my mistakes every time

970
01:05:50,760 --> 01:05:56,880
I've cocked up every mistake I've made
of firelighting or stuff in the mountains,

971
01:05:56,960 --> 01:06:00,239
or doing stuff on the coast or
on rivers or wherever it might be,

972
01:06:00,519 --> 01:06:04,280
that all the cock ups have made
doing those things. That's where the real

973
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:11,159
information is. And again that's something
I've always value with your content, whether

974
01:06:11,239 --> 01:06:14,920
it's you speaking, whether it's the
films, the books and everything else like

975
01:06:15,000 --> 01:06:19,719
that, you seem to embrace those
failures. I think there's a lot of

976
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:23,599
them, That's why. But yeah, but that's the thing, and I

977
01:06:23,679 --> 01:06:27,239
think you're willing to experiment. You
were willing to experiment, And just like

978
01:06:27,360 --> 01:06:30,760
you say with the Big Wall stuff, get get the world's smallest book on

979
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:34,000
Big Wall climbing, go to the
probably not the worst county in England to

980
01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:36,159
try and learn how to do it, but you know, get on with

981
01:06:36,239 --> 01:06:40,840
it and then nearly die because of
flaky bits of rock of a quarry falling

982
01:06:40,840 --> 01:06:45,760
off on you. But I think
I think, like often, like I

983
01:06:45,360 --> 01:06:50,000
went through probably forty years of life, think I'd think I had low self

984
01:06:50,119 --> 01:06:56,119
esteem, but actually I didn't.
I just thought I did. I was

985
01:06:56,159 --> 01:07:01,199
actually like I was massively common infident, but I just never It's like it's

986
01:07:01,239 --> 01:07:05,760
like probably when I was also probably
the same time someone told me I was

987
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:10,599
very charming, you know, to
to women. I was like, really

988
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:15,840
really, you know, so like
I'd say things like I'm not clever enough

989
01:07:15,880 --> 01:07:18,400
to get a degree, but if
I did a degree, i'd get a

990
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:25,079
first like like there's some there's some
weird, there's something kind of weird,

991
01:07:25,159 --> 01:07:30,679
and often I think I think I'd
often write myself off so there's no ego

992
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:33,280
there, there's nothing to there's nothing
to lose. Like yesterday I was out

993
01:07:33,320 --> 01:07:38,519
on the on the corrub this lake
where I think it's the biggest lake in

994
01:07:38,599 --> 01:07:42,400
Ireland, one of the biggest lakes
in British child and I was lighting a

995
01:07:42,519 --> 01:07:45,920
fire. There was my son who
was like two, and there was a

996
01:07:45,199 --> 01:07:48,320
kid who was four, friend who
was four, and then their dad.

997
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:51,280
And I was like, oh,
I light a fire because we're on the

998
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:57,280
water levels go up several meters fund
of how much rain has been here.

999
01:07:57,599 --> 01:08:00,599
So I started making this fire.
But everything was wet. So I started

1000
01:08:00,639 --> 01:08:03,440
making this fire, and I kind
of knew, like a lot of it's

1001
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:06,360
wet, it's probably not gonna work, but you know, But there was

1002
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:11,519
no like, there's no like ego, like I didn't work, that's it.

1003
01:08:11,920 --> 01:08:14,960
It wasn't like I've got a lot
of pressure now I really need to.

1004
01:08:15,519 --> 01:08:17,000
I really need to, you know. And I kind of got I

1005
01:08:17,119 --> 01:08:21,960
got the I got the fire going, and but I wasn't. I wasn't

1006
01:08:23,000 --> 01:08:28,640
like like on the on the way
up coming back from this island in she

1007
01:08:28,760 --> 01:08:30,800
Gale, it's cold, so it's
a it's a fair distance and the core

1008
01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:34,319
of this this lake, a lot
of people drowned on it because you've got

1009
01:08:34,399 --> 01:08:39,079
these big mountains at the end and
it's very it's got a lot of shallow

1010
01:08:39,199 --> 01:08:44,560
parts of rocks, and when you
get a high wind as the fetch is

1011
01:08:44,640 --> 01:08:47,199
quite, it creates a lot of
very high waves and fishermen are always drowning

1012
01:08:47,279 --> 01:08:51,359
on there. Any So, we're
going we're going back and there's like four

1013
01:08:51,399 --> 01:08:58,319
adults and three chick kids in this
boat. Me we're going along and the

1014
01:08:58,479 --> 01:09:01,600
boat the engine just you can tell
like the engines got going. It's and

1015
01:09:01,720 --> 01:09:05,560
you start saying like, I'm hanging
on here. You know, I'm not

1016
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:09,199
feeling very well. You know,
I think I'm gonna you know, it's

1017
01:09:09,199 --> 01:09:13,600
like just keep just keep going,
and and any of the engine started working,

1018
01:09:15,239 --> 01:09:17,960
and you're there on this you know, it's getting dusky and you're on

1019
01:09:18,000 --> 01:09:21,800
the slick with all these people and
you and then it's not ego. You

1020
01:09:21,960 --> 01:09:28,439
just have to pretend that everything's okay. That's what the mountain instructors meant to

1021
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:31,600
do, or the mountain guide is
when something goes wrong, they just have

1022
01:09:31,720 --> 01:09:34,800
to say, oh, don't worry
about it. You know, this always

1023
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:38,880
happens, you know, you know, a stupid engine and anyway, I

1024
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:41,359
see you pull the engine a few
times, it comes back, it comes

1025
01:09:41,399 --> 01:09:44,920
back to life, and you're you're
going along, and it's that I think.

1026
01:09:44,960 --> 01:09:49,119
It's that's not ego. That's um. Just to remain calm when you

1027
01:09:49,199 --> 01:09:54,600
when you when something's not going right, and I think when you when you

1028
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:58,399
so back to this low self esteem
thing. It's like, often I would

1029
01:09:58,640 --> 01:10:02,439
solo big walls because I didn't feel
I was good enough to climb with somebody

1030
01:10:02,479 --> 01:10:06,399
else. I think that I would
think they would see that I was being

1031
01:10:06,600 --> 01:10:10,800
um, I was incompetent, or
didn't really know what I was doing.

1032
01:10:11,199 --> 01:10:13,520
But when you're by yourself, you
don't have to worry about that because there's

1033
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:16,079
there's any of you there you can
make as many mistakes. And also you

1034
01:10:16,119 --> 01:10:19,920
can't blame anybody. You know,
all the mistakes and all successes belong to

1035
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:26,119
you, So you become very accepting
of of either in a way, and

1036
01:10:26,239 --> 01:10:29,680
then you know that's the way.
That's how you end up soloing one of

1037
01:10:29,760 --> 01:10:33,720
the hardest routes in the world at
the time because you don't feel able to

1038
01:10:33,800 --> 01:10:38,359
climb with somebody on the route half
as hard because you're not good enough.

1039
01:10:38,840 --> 01:10:42,960
There's there's some weird, weird stuff
going on. But I think, yeah,

1040
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:45,640
I think that I think the ego
thing, that you always have some

1041
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:48,800
ego, But I think I think
sort of not being like look you're like,

1042
01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:51,199
look, I'm not qualified, you
know, you can't. You can't

1043
01:10:51,199 --> 01:10:55,439
sue me, you know not,
You're not you know so it's uh,

1044
01:10:56,239 --> 01:10:59,079
maybe that's a cop out. You
know you have enough, you have enough

1045
01:10:59,159 --> 01:11:02,279
experience to holp do it and work
out the things you can't do quickly enough

1046
01:11:02,319 --> 01:11:08,920
so people can't I don't notice.
But yeah, just just adapt to your

1047
01:11:08,960 --> 01:11:15,760
own your own incompetence. Do you
do you prefer doing solo trips or because

1048
01:11:15,960 --> 01:11:19,479
all the trips you've done with other
people, that seems to be almost an

1049
01:11:19,479 --> 01:11:23,760
element of challenge with the other person
being there, you know, doing things

1050
01:11:23,840 --> 01:11:29,560
with people who are severely disabled,
or doing things with children, Well that's

1051
01:11:29,560 --> 01:11:32,479
gonna be in context, isn't it. Well I think I think Alex Alex

1052
01:11:32,560 --> 01:11:35,479
Huber was like, you know,
super one of the best climbers in the

1053
01:11:35,520 --> 01:11:41,399
world. He once told me that
I was I was, I was self

1054
01:11:41,479 --> 01:11:45,560
sabotaging. But everything I did,
like I was either swallowing it or climbing

1055
01:11:45,560 --> 01:11:48,039
it in winter, or climbing it
with a blind person or something with a

1056
01:11:48,079 --> 01:11:54,079
ginger hair or something I'd always I'd
always been doing something that almost would be

1057
01:11:54,159 --> 01:11:58,319
an excuse why I didn't do it, But then when I did do it,

1058
01:11:58,800 --> 01:12:02,199
it just made it more interesting,
you know what I mean? Yeah,

1059
01:12:03,399 --> 01:12:06,840
because this is, you know,
ostensibly a survival podcast, but the

1060
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:12,800
way we talk about things is that
the best survival training is to do a

1061
01:12:12,960 --> 01:12:15,760
job before you get there, do
a good job while you're doing the thing,

1062
01:12:15,920 --> 01:12:19,640
and sort of review it well when
you get back afterwards. But I

1063
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:27,079
always classify survival as as being something
unplanned. If you're going out planning to

1064
01:12:27,159 --> 01:12:30,600
do a survival thing, then you're
let you're going out planning to do survival

1065
01:12:30,680 --> 01:12:33,600
camping. You are just going camping, but less comfortably or with fewer things.

1066
01:12:34,800 --> 01:12:42,520
And for you who someone who's habitually
put yourself in harm's way, you

1067
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:46,640
know you've done dangerous things willingly,
again and again and again. Do you

1068
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:51,760
have a sort of a point where
you switch from this is something I plan

1069
01:12:51,880 --> 01:12:58,119
to do to this is now a
survival situation or this is the edge of

1070
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:00,880
oh yeah, this isn't going as
well as I wanted it to. Now

1071
01:13:00,920 --> 01:13:03,960
I'm going to fight for my life. Is that a point you've reached?

1072
01:13:06,199 --> 01:13:11,279
Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Like I often say, there's a difference.

1073
01:13:11,640 --> 01:13:14,319
You know, people say how many
times have you thought you're gonna die?

1074
01:13:15,000 --> 01:13:15,880
And I'm like, well, it's
not how many times you thought you're

1075
01:13:15,880 --> 01:13:17,880
gonna die, So how many times
you knew you were going to die,

1076
01:13:18,039 --> 01:13:23,439
that's kind of that's a better measure. That's how kind of measure it these

1077
01:13:23,560 --> 01:13:29,279
days, Um like this, like
this, there's literally too many too ready

1078
01:13:29,279 --> 01:13:34,239
to list, but there's I think
it's generally when you're you're in a you're

1079
01:13:34,279 --> 01:13:39,479
in a situation where you're trying to
control everything, you know, everything,

1080
01:13:39,600 --> 01:13:43,319
everything that's potentially going to kill you
or kill the person you're with, You're

1081
01:13:43,359 --> 01:13:47,800
trying to control it. And it's
when things start going out of control that's

1082
01:13:47,840 --> 01:13:56,000
when things get really dangerous. Like
an example would be I was I was

1083
01:13:56,079 --> 01:14:00,439
climbing El Cap and there was there
was three or four of it, and

1084
01:14:00,560 --> 01:14:04,119
we got we knew this big stone
was coming, and we got to the

1085
01:14:04,279 --> 01:14:09,479
very last pitch of Elkapy Towns.
Elkappy town You've got basically a thousand,

1086
01:14:09,840 --> 01:14:14,760
nine hundred meters plus below your feet
and it just goes from you know,

1087
01:14:14,960 --> 01:14:18,399
an overhang at the very very top
into like a slab and then you've got

1088
01:14:18,560 --> 01:14:25,600
bushes and the top of the mountain
just just behind there. And we I

1089
01:14:25,760 --> 01:14:28,880
got to I got to the summit
and it was dark, and then the

1090
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:32,439
two other people with our friends,
like they climbed up the rope and I

1091
01:14:32,680 --> 01:14:36,439
said, like, go over there, find a tree, like cliff into

1092
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:41,760
the tree. And then I started
like hauling the whole bags, and the

1093
01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:45,279
whole bags have got all your your
bavy equipment and your stove and everything to

1094
01:14:45,880 --> 01:14:50,840
you know, but i'd actually i'd
made everyone put the waterproofs on before anything

1095
01:14:50,920 --> 01:14:55,560
had happened, because because the classic
thing is the storm comes and you're just

1096
01:14:55,720 --> 01:15:00,720
in your normal, normal clothes and
you're in the sea areas. So even

1097
01:15:00,760 --> 01:15:03,920
in the summertime, you can go
from being very very warm to being like

1098
01:15:04,119 --> 01:15:09,119
snowing or hailing on top of you. And I've had situations where I've literally

1099
01:15:09,159 --> 01:15:14,079
been in a short and T shirt
and the hailer has been pounding down on

1100
01:15:14,159 --> 01:15:17,840
top of me, and you know, you've probably got you've probably got ten

1101
01:15:18,000 --> 01:15:21,680
fifteen minutes before you can lose your
dexterity in your hands. And once you

1102
01:15:21,760 --> 01:15:25,560
lose your dexterity in your hands,
when you're on a big wall, you're

1103
01:15:25,600 --> 01:15:30,000
basically going to die of hypothermia.
And people have actually been like basically been

1104
01:15:30,119 --> 01:15:34,319
found just covered in ice because they
couldn't they couldn't go up, they couldn't

1105
01:15:34,359 --> 01:15:40,520
go down. They just got stuck
anyway. So so our friends went to

1106
01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:44,439
the top and my wife is climbing
up the rope in the dark below me,

1107
01:15:44,960 --> 01:15:48,239
and I see as she comes over
the top of the edge. I

1108
01:15:48,359 --> 01:15:51,720
see it from my head touch and
there she's maybe like ten meters below me.

1109
01:15:53,279 --> 01:15:57,000
And I'm hauling these bags up and
the rope is going off a bolt

1110
01:15:57,039 --> 01:16:00,960
bealer, solid bealer down over the
lip, and as the bags come up,

1111
01:16:01,000 --> 01:16:04,000
they kind of get stuck on the
very last bit. So I'm like,

1112
01:16:04,159 --> 01:16:08,840
Vanessa, just just go down over
the lip. So now she's like

1113
01:16:08,920 --> 01:16:12,159
hanging in space, you know.
So you're like, is it four times

1114
01:16:12,279 --> 01:16:15,039
higher than the Well Trade Center tower? You know, so you're pretty pretty

1115
01:16:15,119 --> 01:16:20,439
high up. You have a long
time of falling wondering what you did wrong

1116
01:16:20,520 --> 01:16:25,119
before you hit the ground. So
she goes over the edge, and then

1117
01:16:25,199 --> 01:16:30,399
there was there was just this noise
like how would you describe it, like

1118
01:16:30,479 --> 01:16:34,439
a wave, like a wave was
coming in, like a wave was crashing

1119
01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:38,840
in and what it was this storm
that was coming it was coming down from

1120
01:16:38,880 --> 01:16:44,159
Alaska and it was just it went
from one minute it was completely dry,

1121
01:16:45,279 --> 01:16:53,199
you know, fairly chilly Californian night, to just like a deluge of water

1122
01:16:53,359 --> 01:16:56,239
just coming down on top of us. Because the top of l Cap is

1123
01:16:56,239 --> 01:17:00,399
like a big dome. So within
a minute, a waterfall was coming down,

1124
01:17:00,199 --> 01:17:03,239
and it was going over the edge, and it was going over me,

1125
01:17:03,279 --> 01:17:08,479
and it's going over my wife who
was in the water. And having

1126
01:17:08,560 --> 01:17:12,840
been in that situation before, when
you suddenly when the temperature drops, what

1127
01:17:12,960 --> 01:17:15,960
happens is you rope start freezing and
you can no longer climb them. That's

1128
01:17:16,119 --> 01:17:20,520
that's one of these people might get
hypothermia or die because they literally cannot escape

1129
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:26,439
the situation, and again you lose
your dexterity. So so I was trying.

1130
01:17:26,479 --> 01:17:29,800
I knew I had to get this
bag up because the bag had all

1131
01:17:29,840 --> 01:17:31,560
out. We're already soaking, like
your water proofs. You're star't gonna do

1132
01:17:31,560 --> 01:17:35,479
anything when you're in a waterfall.
So in the in, the in the

1133
01:17:35,720 --> 01:17:40,920
in, the whole bag was all
our stuff would need to not get hypothermia

1134
01:17:40,920 --> 01:17:44,399
when we got to the top of
the top of the mountain. So I'm

1135
01:17:44,439 --> 01:17:48,680
trying to set this whole system and
my wife is just struggling, you know,

1136
01:17:48,720 --> 01:17:51,399
it's like do I hold the bags
up or do try and hold hair

1137
01:17:51,520 --> 01:17:57,840
up? And suddenly everything that go
wrong went wrong. Like my shoes for

1138
01:17:57,960 --> 01:18:00,439
some reason, they were at the
end of being super slippy when it was

1139
01:18:00,520 --> 01:18:04,239
wet, and I was trying to
step up to haul the bag up and

1140
01:18:04,319 --> 01:18:10,920
my feet were just slipping, and
the pulley, you know, the pulley

1141
01:18:10,960 --> 01:18:14,680
would normally work completely fine. He
had two three pulleys. They're trying to

1142
01:18:14,680 --> 01:18:16,800
do like a three to one to
get this bag up. For some reason,

1143
01:18:16,880 --> 01:18:21,119
one of them it had like a
little catch that kept clicking itself on,

1144
01:18:21,880 --> 01:18:27,520
so it was locking the whole system
rigid a micro traction. So if

1145
01:18:27,520 --> 01:18:30,720
I had it reverse the opposite way, it would wouldn't have done that.

1146
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:34,239
But this this started happening, all
these little tiny little things which were just

1147
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:42,800
annoying normally, was potentially going to
kill my wife and whatever. So I

1148
01:18:43,159 --> 01:18:49,039
remember, eventually I just physical just
physically the system wasn't working. I just

1149
01:18:49,199 --> 01:18:55,319
physically grabbed the rope with my hands
and just started pulling the whole bag up

1150
01:18:55,760 --> 01:19:00,319
hand over hand. So this whole
bag could have weighed fifty key those or

1151
01:19:00,399 --> 01:19:03,960
something, and I just started just
physically pulling this this bag up hand over

1152
01:19:04,079 --> 01:19:08,760
hand until I had hold of it, and then I kind of clipped into

1153
01:19:08,800 --> 01:19:12,680
the clipped into the bee layer.
And then because the whole bag wasn't there,

1154
01:19:12,760 --> 01:19:15,640
my wife was able to get over
this lip and managed to get to

1155
01:19:15,760 --> 01:19:21,119
me. And by then she was
so cold that she couldn't couldn't do anything.

1156
01:19:21,359 --> 01:19:27,920
She couldn't like unclip or untie not
whatever. So just getting from where

1157
01:19:27,960 --> 01:19:32,319
we were there maybe twenty feet,
ended up becoming like an epic just to

1158
01:19:32,439 --> 01:19:35,720
get off the point where you could
slide off the top of our cap.

1159
01:19:36,279 --> 01:19:42,279
And I remember, you know,
by the time we managed to get to

1160
01:19:42,800 --> 01:19:45,159
safety, one of our friends came
down. He was like, oh,

1161
01:19:45,239 --> 01:19:48,640
I'm getting very cold up here.
You know, I had no idea that

1162
01:19:48,800 --> 01:19:54,279
just found paying for our lives on
this thing. And I remember we got

1163
01:19:54,319 --> 01:19:57,640
all our bavy gear out, and
you know, we had like synthetic sleeping

1164
01:19:57,720 --> 01:20:01,000
bags. You did, We did
everything you would do to survive such a

1165
01:20:01,079 --> 01:20:05,720
situation. And although we had we
did have dry bags, like everything was

1166
01:20:05,960 --> 01:20:10,600
just wet. Our sleeping bags were
wet and everything else. And you have

1167
01:20:10,680 --> 01:20:13,680
like a fly sheet that goes on
the top of your of your portal edge,

1168
01:20:14,760 --> 01:20:18,920
So just laid that flat and we
just took all our clothes off rather

1169
01:20:18,960 --> 01:20:25,359
than getting in with any wet clothes
on. And instead of instead of getting

1170
01:20:25,399 --> 01:20:30,399
in one sleeping bag each or zipping
two sleeping bags together, we just opened

1171
01:20:30,439 --> 01:20:33,880
both sleeping bags and laid them one
on top of the other, so you

1172
01:20:34,079 --> 01:20:40,199
had you know, like, because
because I've had so many similar situations,

1173
01:20:40,520 --> 01:20:43,560
you know, when someone says,
oh, synthetic sleeping bag, it's almost

1174
01:20:43,600 --> 01:20:46,359
as warm when it's wet. Like
I'll tell you what a down sleeping bag

1175
01:20:46,920 --> 01:20:49,840
it's got zero warmth when it's wet, And I'd say, like a cynic

1176
01:20:49,880 --> 01:20:55,159
sleep bag is like fifty percent of
it's warmth something. But in this situation,

1177
01:20:55,279 --> 01:21:00,840
we were so cold already not hypothemic, but we're getting that way that

1178
01:21:01,560 --> 01:21:03,640
you know, we just got in
there and you needed the body heat of

1179
01:21:03,680 --> 01:21:10,000
the other person and you needed like
two layers of sleeping bag to just start

1180
01:21:10,079 --> 01:21:13,359
getting somewhere. And I remember thinking, like, if we get up,

1181
01:21:13,479 --> 01:21:16,600
if we get up in the morning
and this storm is still going everything,

1182
01:21:16,640 --> 01:21:20,199
we've got to wet all our clothes, our shoes, everything, Like we're

1183
01:21:20,199 --> 01:21:25,760
going to be in a real sticky
situation to get down off this off this

1184
01:21:25,960 --> 01:21:29,000
wall. But luckily when we woke
up in the morning, although it's everything

1185
01:21:29,079 --> 01:21:32,479
was covered in snow, it was
you know, it was the it was

1186
01:21:33,239 --> 01:21:38,720
we could get down. And I
remember it's like, it's such a tiny

1187
01:21:38,840 --> 01:21:41,960
little thing. You know, you've
done all these other things. You're on

1188
01:21:42,000 --> 01:21:45,520
the north face of the Eiger or
whatever that that you know somewhat so perilous,

1189
01:21:46,000 --> 01:21:49,560
but it was just such a little
tiny thing that was gonna get to

1190
01:21:49,640 --> 01:21:55,720
you. Then another example would be
went to try and climb d Nali in

1191
01:21:55,760 --> 01:21:59,920
Alaska in the wintertime. So again
with my wife Vanessa, who had basically

1192
01:22:00,039 --> 01:22:04,159
know no mountaineering experience really where she's
kind of Irish, you know, sending

1193
01:22:04,199 --> 01:22:11,279
the Irish so um, and she's
like, it's kind of a tough,

1194
01:22:11,840 --> 01:22:15,199
tough woman, so do that thing. Like the greatest things are done by

1195
01:22:15,239 --> 01:22:20,199
people are either really really stupid and
ignorant or astronauts. You're like, what

1196
01:22:20,319 --> 01:22:24,560
if once you start learning and know
you know you won't do it because you're

1197
01:22:24,560 --> 01:22:26,960
not experienced enough. But if you
don't know what you don't know, you

1198
01:22:27,239 --> 01:22:31,439
you'll give it a go. So
um, So we we've got we're going

1199
01:22:31,520 --> 01:22:35,079
to we're gone to Narlie and we
end up being there for over a month,

1200
01:22:35,600 --> 01:22:42,439
and the temperature how high point was
probably about minus fifty so so as

1201
01:22:42,760 --> 01:22:46,319
probably as cold as you're gonna gonna
get, probably on a mountain. And

1202
01:22:46,479 --> 01:22:50,199
what we had we had a we
had a sister. So you've spent like

1203
01:22:50,239 --> 01:22:54,399
a lot of time thinking about this. And the biggest thing that was going

1204
01:22:54,479 --> 01:22:58,800
to probably if we had an earthquake
in the snow hall that that potentially could

1205
01:22:58,880 --> 01:23:03,479
be quite serious. But one thing
was carbon monoxide poisoning. So I had

1206
01:23:03,560 --> 01:23:13,399
this system where the pan was elevated
about about twenty thirty centimeters above the position

1207
01:23:13,479 --> 01:23:15,000
where it should be on the stove. So we had a we had a

1208
01:23:15,039 --> 01:23:19,119
whisper light, which most people would
have like an XGK, but whisper light

1209
01:23:19,239 --> 01:23:23,239
is actually very good stove for this
kind of thing, so we had it.

1210
01:23:23,319 --> 01:23:26,000
And also it's like if you have
a month with like an XGK going,

1211
01:23:26,079 --> 01:23:29,199
you'd be deaf. I'd be deaf
by the end. So we had

1212
01:23:29,239 --> 01:23:33,600
the system where you just elevate elevate
the pan a little bit higher than normal,

1213
01:23:34,039 --> 01:23:39,399
like an old fashioned stoves, like
the stoves that like Nansen would use

1214
01:23:39,720 --> 01:23:44,680
and early early early mountaineering stoves,
they had winter legs and summer legs,

1215
01:23:45,039 --> 01:23:48,840
and winter legs were longer for this
very reason. But in the way that

1216
01:23:48,920 --> 01:23:54,159
the world works, someone was like, why are we giving people these long

1217
01:23:54,279 --> 01:23:57,159
legs? You know, we want
to have like as short as possible.

1218
01:23:57,239 --> 01:24:00,039
They want to get like the fastest
boiled time because people love that kind of

1219
01:24:00,119 --> 01:24:03,880
stuff. You know, this one's
ten seconds faster than this one. So

1220
01:24:04,960 --> 01:24:10,399
anyway, so we basically used this
stove in a snow hall, nearly all

1221
01:24:10,399 --> 01:24:14,560
of it was in a snow hall
for for a month, and with no

1222
01:24:14,800 --> 01:24:18,760
carbon monoxide kind of you know problems. And then and then we had to

1223
01:24:19,600 --> 01:24:23,479
go up to the high camp before
we went to the summit, so this

1224
01:24:23,600 --> 01:24:29,880
is like seventeen thousand feet, and
so we decided to leave the windshield and

1225
01:24:30,039 --> 01:24:32,680
just take the stove and the pan
to try and reduce the weight going up

1226
01:24:32,720 --> 01:24:36,880
there. So now we went back
to having a system which wasn't as good

1227
01:24:36,960 --> 01:24:41,439
for carbon wasn't as good as for
carbonoxide, which is a system most people

1228
01:24:41,479 --> 01:24:45,000
would use anywhere. So we climbed
up and we ended up having to bivouack

1229
01:24:45,159 --> 01:24:49,680
ones on this ridge, which was
pretty hairy, as we had spent two

1230
01:24:49,800 --> 01:24:53,359
nights on this ridge, it was
very hairy, and all we had was

1231
01:24:53,439 --> 01:24:56,640
the fly sheet of the tent.
We didn't have the inner tent. And

1232
01:24:56,760 --> 01:25:00,199
there you are in this you know, super extreme thing. But on that

1233
01:25:00,399 --> 01:25:04,319
trip, the biggest the biggest factor. It wasn't like we're going to get

1234
01:25:04,359 --> 01:25:09,159
to the top. It was all
about survivability. So everything we had,

1235
01:25:09,840 --> 01:25:16,159
clothing, stove, mitten's sleeping system, everything was about survivability. So everything

1236
01:25:16,279 --> 01:25:21,960
was synthetic and everything was he was
very heavy. But Vanessa was Vanessa's that

1237
01:25:23,039 --> 01:25:26,960
the highest woman to ever to you
know, the highest woman on denially in

1238
01:25:27,000 --> 01:25:29,960
winter. That she's got the she's
got the records, only one of the

1239
01:25:30,000 --> 01:25:32,119
woman though she got that. She
kind of got the record, which is

1240
01:25:32,159 --> 01:25:35,840
kind to be impressive since she had
no experience and she was dressed with a

1241
01:25:35,880 --> 01:25:40,359
lot of heavy, heavy gear.
Anyway, So but we get to the

1242
01:25:40,800 --> 01:25:44,079
we get to the camp. Now
this is probably that this is like being

1243
01:25:44,159 --> 01:25:46,199
on a different planet at this point. You know, you get up there

1244
01:25:46,880 --> 01:25:54,319
very short days in winter it's just
just just barren ice minus fifty unbelievable under

1245
01:25:54,359 --> 01:25:57,800
it. But it's a dry cold, you know, only doesn't feel any

1246
01:25:57,840 --> 01:26:01,399
colder than minus forty. So we
put the we put the tent up,

1247
01:26:01,439 --> 01:26:05,199
the fly sheet up, and we
get our sleeping bags, every everything,

1248
01:26:05,319 --> 01:26:11,760
everything's sort sorted out, and we
spend one We spend one night there and

1249
01:26:11,840 --> 01:26:14,560
the next day we just we just
stay there because we have to try and

1250
01:26:14,560 --> 01:26:19,199
get acclimatized going to the summit.
Then the following morning it maybe three in

1251
01:26:19,279 --> 01:26:24,720
the morning. I kind of really
it's very hard to like operate a stove

1252
01:26:24,800 --> 01:26:28,479
in those temperatures. So you know, everything is set up like you sleep

1253
01:26:28,560 --> 01:26:32,880
with your with your with the fuel
bottles inside your thing, because the sea

1254
01:26:32,920 --> 01:26:40,520
although you have like winter winter grade
fuel pumps in the stove, you have

1255
01:26:40,880 --> 01:26:45,119
because they're still not there're still not
designed for that temperature. So if you

1256
01:26:45,199 --> 01:26:47,960
don't have if they're not you know, warm enough, if they're not,

1257
01:26:48,079 --> 01:26:51,600
like then the fuel starts just leaking
out everywhere when you when you try and

1258
01:26:51,720 --> 01:26:56,800
use them. So I get the
stove, get the stove going. The

1259
01:26:56,880 --> 01:27:00,840
temperature in the tent warms up to
you know, minor start to or something,

1260
01:27:00,359 --> 01:27:05,039
and oh, I'm roasting. So
we put the stove on and Vanessa's

1261
01:27:05,079 --> 01:27:10,399
there next to me and suddenly she's
like, I'm falling. I'm falling and

1262
01:27:10,520 --> 01:27:15,279
falling, and I turned around.
She's just like like looking really really weird.

1263
01:27:15,760 --> 01:27:18,319
And what it was she got like
she got up carbon monoxide poisoning from

1264
01:27:18,359 --> 01:27:21,159
the from the stove. Like I
had my head right next to the stove

1265
01:27:21,439 --> 01:27:25,800
because I'm from a whole I think
I'm like commune to all that kind of

1266
01:27:25,840 --> 01:27:30,279
stuff. And anyway, so she
was like really out of it, and

1267
01:27:30,359 --> 01:27:34,199
I tend the stove off, and
I remember like I knocked over the pan,

1268
01:27:34,319 --> 01:27:38,000
the pan and a little bit of
icy water in it. I knocked

1269
01:27:38,039 --> 01:27:41,119
over the pan and trying to so
are we're trying to do all this without

1270
01:27:41,159 --> 01:27:44,840
getting frost by in your you know, while you're doing it all. And

1271
01:27:44,960 --> 01:27:46,199
then she was like, oh no, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm

1272
01:27:46,239 --> 01:27:50,239
okay, Okay. We only had
enough. We were very short of food,

1273
01:27:50,680 --> 01:27:54,960
and we only had enough food ready
to get back down the mountain if

1274
01:27:55,000 --> 01:27:59,159
nothing went wrong. We'd really pushed
it to the extreme end of things.

1275
01:27:59,239 --> 01:28:01,159
And Vanessa's like, no, norm, ok okay. And you have that

1276
01:28:01,319 --> 01:28:05,159
You've just invested so much time,
so much effort, so much money,

1277
01:28:06,479 --> 01:28:12,319
so much commitment, so much suffering
to get within like you know, maybe

1278
01:28:12,560 --> 01:28:15,680
eight hours there and back to the
top of the Narlie Winter and this could

1279
01:28:15,720 --> 01:28:17,800
be this would be amazing, you
know, amazing thing to do for Vanessa,

1280
01:28:18,640 --> 01:28:21,439
you know, it'd be great for
me and all that kind of stuff.

1281
01:28:23,039 --> 01:28:25,840
And I was like, no,
we can't, we can't go.

1282
01:28:25,960 --> 01:28:29,159
We have to go back down,
like we've just got carbon monoxide poisoning,

1283
01:28:30,680 --> 01:28:33,199
you know, and people do that
is a thing about experience, Like less

1284
01:28:33,279 --> 01:28:38,520
experienced people do have that summit fever. You know, they're just they're going

1285
01:28:38,560 --> 01:28:41,600
to give it one hundred percent to
get to the top. And it's like,

1286
01:28:42,039 --> 01:28:44,399
well, you know, you need
to leave it a good fifty percent,

1287
01:28:44,840 --> 01:28:46,439
you know, or maybe ninety percent
to get back down again. And

1288
01:28:47,319 --> 01:28:54,199
and she was like really like,
she was really like sad, basically that

1289
01:28:54,279 --> 01:28:57,359
we have to go back down.
So I packed everything up, Let's get

1290
01:28:57,439 --> 01:29:00,199
back down. And we started to
going back down. And we got down

1291
01:29:00,239 --> 01:29:03,119
and when we got down to fourteen
thousand feet we had a snow hole.

1292
01:29:03,159 --> 01:29:08,239
We've dug there. Getting the snow
hole. She's like, Oh, we

1293
01:29:08,279 --> 01:29:10,399
could have done it, we could
have done it, you know, like,

1294
01:29:10,680 --> 01:29:13,560
oh, I've made the right choice. So I'm like, don't even

1295
01:29:13,600 --> 01:29:15,039
think about it, you know,
like, if this is the choice we

1296
01:29:15,159 --> 01:29:18,079
made, this is the choice we
have to know. If no books,

1297
01:29:18,199 --> 01:29:20,640
you know, just just live with
it. Like I spent my whole life

1298
01:29:21,159 --> 01:29:27,199
bailing from stuff, and it means
I've had a life of some successes and

1299
01:29:27,720 --> 01:29:30,880
lots of failures, but I've had
a life. So and then the morning

1300
01:29:30,920 --> 01:29:33,359
when we got up there was a
you could just see all the wind blowing

1301
01:29:33,439 --> 01:29:38,439
off the off the ridge. So
like if we if we'd gone to the

1302
01:29:38,520 --> 01:29:41,319
summit, we we never got all
they back down again. We'd had to

1303
01:29:41,359 --> 01:29:45,239
bivvy up there one more time.
And in those temperatures, you're looking at

1304
01:29:45,319 --> 01:29:49,800
minus two hundred and two hundred or
something in that kind of in that kind

1305
01:29:49,800 --> 01:29:55,600
of wind. So like almost everything
always always it's like being made redundant by

1306
01:29:55,680 --> 01:30:00,800
survival aids. Like everything everything happens
for a reason, really, So we

1307
01:30:00,119 --> 01:30:03,159
uh, it's kind of funny because
we managed to get all the way back

1308
01:30:03,239 --> 01:30:08,560
down and we had almost no food
left. And when we got down to

1309
01:30:08,680 --> 01:30:12,199
the when we got down to the
bottom where the plane would pick us up,

1310
01:30:12,199 --> 01:30:15,279
it took us maybe two or three
days to get all the way back

1311
01:30:15,279 --> 01:30:16,720
down It took us a month to
get there. Took us two or three

1312
01:30:16,800 --> 01:30:20,479
days to get back down to the
to the where we'd left to stash of

1313
01:30:20,560 --> 01:30:25,359
food where the plane would pick us
up. And the rangers that said leave

1314
01:30:25,640 --> 01:30:28,960
a week's worth of food. And
I was like, oh, bag of

1315
01:30:29,079 --> 01:30:30,520
pasta, that's that'll lasts a week. It's like, you know, if

1316
01:30:30,560 --> 01:30:33,880
you're a student or something. So
I just left a big bag of a

1317
01:30:33,960 --> 01:30:38,159
big thing as spaghetti. You know, spaghetti would last you, you know,

1318
01:30:38,239 --> 01:30:41,399
a couple of meals, and I
just left it in the dugger hole,

1319
01:30:41,479 --> 01:30:44,039
put the spaghetti in there, and
we had we had quite a fuel

1320
01:30:44,640 --> 01:30:47,920
and said to us, if you
need to get to get to the pickup

1321
01:30:47,960 --> 01:30:53,960
point by nine am tomorrow, otherwise
we might not be able to get you

1322
01:30:53,960 --> 01:31:00,880
because the storm front's coming in and
we were we were absolutely exhaust posted trying

1323
01:31:00,920 --> 01:31:03,720
to get to this last any base, it's called it's called a heartbreak hill

1324
01:31:03,920 --> 01:31:06,840
because you've gone all the way down
from d Nali and then to get to

1325
01:31:06,920 --> 01:31:11,079
the where the plane takes off,
you actually go uphill. And we're going

1326
01:31:11,159 --> 01:31:14,439
up this hill maybe like two in
the morning, three in the morning,

1327
01:31:14,840 --> 01:31:18,399
and you're just kind of hallucinating,
and you're just like and we had like

1328
01:31:18,520 --> 01:31:24,119
a garment, little garment telling us
where to go, and I don't you

1329
01:31:24,159 --> 01:31:29,119
know, sometimes something is going on
where you know you're heading towards this point.

1330
01:31:29,560 --> 01:31:31,640
Then suddenly you know you're going away. It's point's what it's pointed to

1331
01:31:31,720 --> 01:31:35,600
go, but the numbers are going
up instead of down or something, and

1332
01:31:35,680 --> 01:31:39,720
you start getting really confused, like
what's going on? He started like having

1333
01:31:39,800 --> 01:31:44,039
those there's something wrong with the GPS
satellites are broken or something. There's something,

1334
01:31:44,239 --> 01:31:46,600
something really obvious is happening, but
you're so tired you can't work it

1335
01:31:46,640 --> 01:31:51,119
out. And we've suddenly gone to
an area of sarak debris and cravasses.

1336
01:31:51,640 --> 01:31:55,119
I was like, Vanessa, we
just have to stop, you know,

1337
01:31:55,159 --> 01:31:58,319
we have to put the tent up. It's just not safe to keep going.

1338
01:31:58,800 --> 01:32:01,079
So we put the tent up and
we'll set the alarm for seven o'clock.

1339
01:32:01,840 --> 01:32:04,319
And at seven o'clock we'll just getting
up with this race that we was

1340
01:32:04,359 --> 01:32:08,319
only eating. Maybe it's like three
hundred meters. Well, you know,

1341
01:32:08,359 --> 01:32:10,399
it's not really far to where we
have to get too fo hundred meters,

1342
01:32:10,880 --> 01:32:14,479
So get the tent up, fall
asleep, we wake up, it's like

1343
01:32:14,840 --> 01:32:18,840
eleven o'clock, eleven o'clock in the
morning and it's snowing outside and we've we've

1344
01:32:18,920 --> 01:32:23,800
blown it. So we managed to
get to where this where our stash was,

1345
01:32:24,279 --> 01:32:26,640
and they're like, we can't come, we can't come today, We'll

1346
01:32:26,640 --> 01:32:30,800
try and come tomorrow. And that
continued for like seven days. So we

1347
01:32:30,920 --> 01:32:36,920
basically had one bag of pasta to
last's seven days. And so if anybody

1348
01:32:36,960 --> 01:32:42,279
says leave leave a week's food,
leave a week's food. So I think

1349
01:32:42,359 --> 01:32:46,560
by day three we're eating all the
pasta. And the only food we had

1350
01:32:46,680 --> 01:32:53,560
was this. We had one thing
of porridge, American porridge with some with

1351
01:32:54,199 --> 01:32:57,359
something in it, and it was
thought, it's so disgusting, it was

1352
01:32:57,399 --> 01:33:00,720
like inedible, even though I was
going to unstaff to day before eating this

1353
01:33:00,880 --> 01:33:03,960
porridge. So we didn't. I
didn't. I didn't get out of that

1354
01:33:04,079 --> 01:33:08,399
tent for seven days. I didn't
need to have a crap or anything.

1355
01:33:08,439 --> 01:33:13,159
I just laid there for seven days
and we managed. We had like a

1356
01:33:13,239 --> 01:33:15,479
little on our radio. We can
manage to pick up a radio station.

1357
01:33:15,920 --> 01:33:18,800
Just laid over seven days. We
must have had tea bags, otherwise I

1358
01:33:18,840 --> 01:33:23,680
would have gone insane. But we
just ran the stove for seven days,

1359
01:33:23,840 --> 01:33:29,520
just keeping keeping our spirits up.
But Vanessa was really very hyperactive, so

1360
01:33:29,680 --> 01:33:32,159
you should just get up and start
digging a hole in the snow, or

1361
01:33:32,279 --> 01:33:35,319
like walking around the tent or doing
sit ups. And I was like,

1362
01:33:35,479 --> 01:33:39,239
Vanessa was starving. We could staff
to death here, like you just you

1363
01:33:39,359 --> 01:33:45,760
wasting too much energy. And after
seven days they were like, we can

1364
01:33:45,840 --> 01:33:48,439
see a break in the clouds.
We're gonna Basically, they say we don't

1365
01:33:48,479 --> 01:33:53,319
get you today. They kept saying. They kept saying his message saying how

1366
01:33:53,399 --> 01:33:56,720
much food have you got left?
And we'd be like none. They get

1367
01:33:56,760 --> 01:33:59,840
they got like no, but how
you know precisely how much food have you

1368
01:33:59,840 --> 01:34:03,279
got left? Were like it's gotten
on and they just didn't believe us.

1369
01:34:03,279 --> 01:34:06,640
We had no food. And and
then they were saying, give us a

1370
01:34:06,680 --> 01:34:15,359
weather forecast. And we had an
a what's what's the garment messenger thing?

1371
01:34:15,079 --> 01:34:18,119
In reach? In reach? You
had an inReach, So you know,

1372
01:34:18,319 --> 01:34:20,560
I don't if you have in reach, you have to It's like it's like

1373
01:34:21,079 --> 01:34:29,560
it's like hello, It's like h
So it's like give us a foot you

1374
01:34:29,640 --> 01:34:31,079
need to give us a full weather
forecast. For where you are, and

1375
01:34:31,199 --> 01:34:35,760
we'd go like crap, and and
they go, no, no, we

1376
01:34:35,840 --> 01:34:41,640
need like a more detailed weather forecast, and go like very crap because I

1377
01:34:41,680 --> 01:34:45,159
didn't realize all we had was a
stupid in reach thing. So after after

1378
01:34:45,319 --> 01:34:49,359
seven days, what we're going to
do the US Air Force, We're going

1379
01:34:49,439 --> 01:34:57,000
to fly high altitude over the Nali
and drop a parachute with a GPS something

1380
01:34:57,079 --> 01:35:00,119
that could steer the parachute, and
they're going to transteer it to us within

1381
01:35:00,199 --> 01:35:04,079
a football pitch sized area with food
on it, which would have been really

1382
01:35:04,119 --> 01:35:09,239
cool to have done that, but
because they were there by now everyone was

1383
01:35:09,279 --> 01:35:14,920
concerned, like my parents, you
know, Vanessa's Vanessa's dad who's basically he

1384
01:35:15,279 --> 01:35:16,520
had a bad car crash. You
can hardly walk, and he's like,

1385
01:35:16,880 --> 01:35:18,640
oh, do you want me to
come out, you know, come out

1386
01:35:18,680 --> 01:35:24,079
to Alaska to help to help.
It's like like everyone everyone thought we were

1387
01:35:24,119 --> 01:35:27,239
like we were dying. We just
laid in the ten listening to like NPR

1388
01:35:27,359 --> 01:35:30,840
or something, so yeah, so
um, you know, eventually it was

1389
01:35:30,920 --> 01:35:34,600
like there's a there's a clearing at
this end, Talkita, can you see

1390
01:35:34,640 --> 01:35:36,920
him out? Fica And we looked
out at the ten. It were like,

1391
01:35:38,359 --> 01:35:40,159
I can't see it, but tell
him we can see it. It

1392
01:35:40,279 --> 01:35:43,600
was like yes, like we're on
our way. I was like, please

1393
01:35:43,760 --> 01:35:47,680
let that clear because if they tell
up even it's not clear any The cloud

1394
01:35:47,920 --> 01:35:53,880
just cleared and we heard the the
plane like coming in coming in, coming

1395
01:35:53,920 --> 01:35:56,720
in, and it kind of it
came in. It couldn't believe it.

1396
01:35:56,960 --> 01:35:59,960
It kind of landed and it did
a circle. Then it just took off

1397
01:36:00,039 --> 01:36:02,279
forgetting and we're like, oh the
tricks. And what it was was they

1398
01:36:02,319 --> 01:36:08,359
have to land several times to to
create some kind of runway because the snow

1399
01:36:08,439 --> 01:36:11,720
so deep. And then you you've
gone from being like laying on your back

1400
01:36:11,760 --> 01:36:15,920
for seven days to like quick pack
everything up and get in the tent getting

1401
01:36:15,960 --> 01:36:19,720
the plane, and it's so exhausted
when you've not done it for seven days,

1402
01:36:19,880 --> 01:36:25,399
You're just everything is so exhausting,
and you know, gathered all of

1403
01:36:25,439 --> 01:36:28,600
stuff, shift it in, the
shift it in the shoved it in the

1404
01:36:28,720 --> 01:36:32,359
plane, and like maybe like half
an hour later, you're you're dumped out

1405
01:36:32,399 --> 01:36:36,439
on the airstrip, you know,
locked the plane up sear by. That's

1406
01:36:36,479 --> 01:36:40,479
the end of your adventure. So
but I think, but but when when

1407
01:36:40,479 --> 01:36:44,600
we went to the ranger station and
we did like a debrief of what happened.

1408
01:36:45,159 --> 01:36:48,279
Like I think maybe at the time
it was something like fifty percent of

1409
01:36:48,319 --> 01:36:54,640
people who tried to climb to Narlie
Winter had had died or had very serious

1410
01:36:55,279 --> 01:37:00,520
frostbite or something. So we've put
not two bad odds, so the average

1411
01:37:00,640 --> 01:37:03,640
was the average was, you know, it's not too bad. But the

1412
01:37:03,800 --> 01:37:08,840
ranger said that this was like the
most perfect, you know, blueprint for

1413
01:37:08,840 --> 01:37:12,680
an expedition, even though you didn't
get to the top, because you basically

1414
01:37:12,720 --> 01:37:16,199
did everything right, Like we were
super cautious. You know, we made

1415
01:37:16,239 --> 01:37:20,920
some mistakes, but we were super
super cautious. And but it's that moment

1416
01:37:21,039 --> 01:37:28,520
when you're in the most hostile environment
you could unless you're like scot unless you're

1417
01:37:28,520 --> 01:37:30,079
like at the bottom of the ocean, or you're like jumping out of a

1418
01:37:30,119 --> 01:37:35,560
plane or something, you're in an
incredibly hostile environment where there's no rescue undern

1419
01:37:35,600 --> 01:37:39,399
early in the wintertime, it's too
no one's going to fly up there,

1420
01:37:39,439 --> 01:37:42,279
No helicopter is going to go up
there, so you're really on your own,

1421
01:37:42,600 --> 01:37:47,319
and once you start feeling things,
you're losing control. You can't start,

1422
01:37:48,279 --> 01:37:53,319
you know, like, hope it's
not something it should be in your

1423
01:37:53,359 --> 01:37:57,399
tool kit really, like I hope, we hope we make it down.

1424
01:37:57,560 --> 01:38:01,479
You know you should really Yeah,
it's not it's not. It's not good.

1425
01:38:01,920 --> 01:38:06,039
Like like a lot of big wall
climbing is a little bit like bomb

1426
01:38:06,119 --> 01:38:10,760
disposal, is that you can't just
be like you don't want to be like

1427
01:38:10,840 --> 01:38:15,479
closing your eyes and just like you
know, like red or green, red

1428
01:38:15,640 --> 01:38:19,520
or green. You know, so
so there is that there is that like

1429
01:38:19,720 --> 01:38:25,119
am I in control of the situation. I can't afford to, you know,

1430
01:38:25,359 --> 01:38:28,720
for this to get out of control. Like the idea of you dying

1431
01:38:28,800 --> 01:38:30,880
would be bad, but the idea
of somebody else dying. Because if you're

1432
01:38:31,239 --> 01:38:36,920
like, like, optimism is probably
the most dangerous things to have in extreme

1433
01:38:38,079 --> 01:38:43,239
situations. Like optimistic people, like
they're very, very dangerous. You know

1434
01:38:43,319 --> 01:38:46,560
someone who's like a motivational speaker,
like I'm a sort of demotivational speaker,

1435
01:38:47,079 --> 01:38:51,640
But you know someone who's always like
positivity. They're often a bit of a

1436
01:38:51,720 --> 01:38:58,279
liability in those kind of places because
they're a lot often it's just an act

1437
01:38:58,720 --> 01:39:01,119
and when things don't go well,
and those people just have like a crushing

1438
01:39:01,800 --> 01:39:05,680
you know, it's just you just
fall apart and I've an ever breakdown where

1439
01:39:06,960 --> 01:39:09,920
you know, if you're you know, what's that thing you can be?

1440
01:39:11,039 --> 01:39:15,119
You can? Now what's that saying? You can? You can either have

1441
01:39:15,199 --> 01:39:21,279
it fast, you can kind of
quickly high quality or or cheap. We

1442
01:39:21,319 --> 01:39:25,960
can only have two or something.
Is that the right? Yeah? Yeah,

1443
01:39:26,000 --> 01:39:28,359
pick two. But the the other
one is like we might be crap,

1444
01:39:28,600 --> 01:39:31,479
but we're cheap. That's one of
That's like a that's a good sort

1445
01:39:31,520 --> 01:39:34,399
of mentality for for a lot of
these things. I just think that you're

1446
01:39:34,399 --> 01:39:38,479
actually not really good at this,
but you're cheap. You know. So

1447
01:39:38,640 --> 01:39:42,159
if you go in there thinking,
you know, I'm going to my force

1448
01:39:42,199 --> 01:39:45,800
of personality and confidence is going to
turn the situation around. When I've got

1449
01:39:45,840 --> 01:39:48,720
like a bone sticking out of my
leg, you know, like that's not

1450
01:39:48,840 --> 01:39:57,479
gonna that's not going to happen really, So man, that is I've got

1451
01:39:57,560 --> 01:40:01,319
a weird thing going on there where
I want to I want to keep talking

1452
01:40:01,359 --> 01:40:04,079
to you and keep asking you stuff, but it's going to go on for

1453
01:40:04,159 --> 01:40:08,079
hours and hours and hours and hours
and hours because I've got loads of stuff

1454
01:40:08,119 --> 01:40:10,399
written down here. I want to
ask, but do it. We'll do

1455
01:40:10,479 --> 01:40:13,079
it quickly. Yeah, I'll do
that. Well, what I'm gonna do

1456
01:40:13,159 --> 01:40:16,960
instead is can you thank you for
coming on? Can you tell people where

1457
01:40:17,039 --> 01:40:19,920
to find your information if they want
to find out more about you, get

1458
01:40:19,960 --> 01:40:25,119
in touch with you, see your
writing? Where read your writing and that's

1459
01:40:25,119 --> 01:40:30,439
where it should be. Where?
Where should they go? M probably whenever

1460
01:40:30,520 --> 01:40:33,640
one podcast if you will say like
where when people are like where, where

1461
01:40:33,680 --> 01:40:35,159
can we see you? And I
was like, oh, do bother?

1462
01:40:35,560 --> 01:40:39,079
You know, I've got nothing to
sell, Like, I've written a few

1463
01:40:39,159 --> 01:40:45,520
books Psycho Vertical, Cold Wars,
Unknown Pleasures. They're like story books about

1464
01:40:45,800 --> 01:40:51,079
adventures and all the other books like
more like technical books. Have a website

1465
01:40:51,119 --> 01:41:00,199
Andy hyphened Kirpatrick sounds a bit posh
Andy dash kittpatrick dot com, And uh

1466
01:41:00,800 --> 01:41:03,600
yeah I have. I have.
I have a lot of odd opinions,

1467
01:41:03,760 --> 01:41:11,000
so people people have to I have
a I am a bit of a lightning

1468
01:41:11,119 --> 01:41:14,000
rod for having strange opinions. But
I think that's just I think that's just

1469
01:41:14,039 --> 01:41:18,119
again, that's just part of embracing
being like an outsider. Like I'm always

1470
01:41:18,159 --> 01:41:26,520
fighting with Mountain Guide Associations and you
know, you know being being a dissident

1471
01:41:26,560 --> 01:41:29,000
and a rebel. I think so. But I think it's all again,

1472
01:41:29,039 --> 01:41:31,760
it's but I think it's all part
of of adversity. Like I think,

1473
01:41:31,840 --> 01:41:36,920
I think adversity creates opportunity. And
I think I'm always afraid that once you

1474
01:41:38,039 --> 01:41:42,079
start getting too comfortable and then you've
had you've had it basically, you know,

1475
01:41:42,199 --> 01:41:44,920
so you always need to be fighting
with somebody. I think it's in

1476
01:41:45,000 --> 01:41:47,880
your whole I think it's in my
genes, whole genes. I think I

1477
01:41:47,960 --> 01:41:53,279
think there's there's a penalty that comes
from thinking like everyone else does because that's

1478
01:41:53,319 --> 01:41:56,640
the way they think. That's the
way everyone thinks, so I should think

1479
01:41:56,720 --> 01:41:59,720
like that, Yeah, I think. I think also also I've in like

1480
01:41:59,800 --> 01:42:04,199
I've lived in the Middle East three
years, done a lot of traveling in

1481
01:42:04,239 --> 01:42:08,960
a loads of loads of places,
and I think people kind of forget that

1482
01:42:09,920 --> 01:42:13,880
not everyone thinks the same everywhere in
the world, you know, Like I

1483
01:42:13,920 --> 01:42:16,600
remember when I was living in a
living in qaight. So there to be

1484
01:42:16,960 --> 01:42:20,520
you know, to be a Holocaust
denier is normal. That's the default setting

1485
01:42:20,560 --> 01:42:25,039
for everybody, you know, So
if you start talking about the Holocaust happening,

1486
01:42:25,119 --> 01:42:29,359
people think you're like a crazy Alex
Jones kind of person. So so,

1487
01:42:29,720 --> 01:42:32,079
so I think people don't realize that, you know, like and also

1488
01:42:32,159 --> 01:42:35,880
it's a it's again, it's like
a stratified in class, you know,

1489
01:42:36,119 --> 01:42:43,000
cetain. Certain certain groups of people
in society believe completely different things to other

1490
01:42:43,079 --> 01:42:45,640
groups. So it's so yeah,
so it's I think, but it is.

1491
01:42:46,199 --> 01:42:50,960
I think I'm always willing to I'm
always willing and maybe that's a bad

1492
01:42:51,000 --> 01:42:55,680
thing these days. I'm always willing
to consider that I'm wrong, you know,

1493
01:42:55,840 --> 01:43:00,600
or someone who is a bad person
is might have some some point something.

1494
01:43:00,720 --> 01:43:02,960
So yeah, and that's why I
call like Africa, because think Africa

1495
01:43:03,000 --> 01:43:06,439
people have no filter. You know. It's like, hey, fat Mama,

1496
01:43:06,760 --> 01:43:10,520
you know what, We'll just I'll
just say they'll be they'll be like

1497
01:43:10,560 --> 01:43:15,039
the most racist, xenophobic, bigoted
people, but they're like Africans and just

1498
01:43:15,119 --> 01:43:17,199
say it in such a nice way, and I'd be like a child.

1499
01:43:18,000 --> 01:43:20,000
So I think that's what I am, actually, just like a child.

1500
01:43:20,279 --> 01:43:25,399
I think I just take things as
they are. Ye, that's probably a

1501
01:43:25,479 --> 01:43:29,560
good bombshell to end on the right. Andy, thank you so much for

1502
01:43:29,640 --> 01:43:31,720
your time. We're going to go
off and record the after show, Andy's

1503
01:43:31,720 --> 01:43:34,640
promised me a story about bear grylls, so we're going to go and record

1504
01:43:34,720 --> 01:43:43,039
that, and thank you to everyone
for listening. Thank you for listening to

1505
01:43:43,279 --> 01:43:46,840
this episode of Modern Outdoor Survival from
Original Outdoors. If you go along to

1506
01:43:47,039 --> 01:43:50,960
Modern outdoor Survival dot com. There
you will find links to all of the

1507
01:43:51,079 --> 01:43:56,720
content and everything we've talked about in
this episode, plus links to all of

1508
01:43:56,760 --> 01:44:00,319
the previous episodes and the show notes
for those episodes. You will also find

1509
01:44:00,479 --> 01:44:04,079
links to our Patreon page where you
can become a supporter of the show and

1510
01:44:04,159 --> 01:44:10,840
get rid of all of those pesky
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1511
01:44:10,920 --> 01:44:14,159
stuff that the public never gets to
hear, and behind the scenes stuff and

1512
01:44:14,760 --> 01:44:18,600
a few other things that are hidden
away within there. You've also got our

1513
01:44:18,800 --> 01:44:23,640
Instagram account, which is at Modern
Outdoor Survival. We don't post on there

1514
01:44:23,680 --> 01:44:27,239
a huge amount, but we do
post photos from things that we talk about

1515
01:44:27,319 --> 01:44:30,760
in the episodes. You will also
find a link to our discord platform,

1516
01:44:30,960 --> 01:44:35,920
where we have a group for Original
Outdoors as a wider community. There you

1517
01:44:36,039 --> 01:44:41,760
can meet and talk to people and
discuss things, but all with the anonymity

1518
01:44:41,920 --> 01:44:46,039
of a early two thousands forum or
bulletin board. It's a nice retro way

1519
01:44:46,079 --> 01:44:51,399
of going about things. I'm going
to leave you now with our three principles

1520
01:44:51,479 --> 01:44:58,000
of Modern Outdoor Survival, and they
are Number one, make good decisions at

1521
01:44:58,039 --> 01:45:04,399
the right times. Number two,
prioritize training over shiny new equipment. Number

1522
01:45:04,439 --> 01:45:24,239
three, remember Instagram is not your
training provider. Bye. Modern Outdoor Survival

1523
01:45:24,439 --> 01:45:29,439
is produced and edited by Amy Green
and is an original outdoor media production.