The Poetry of the Long Game

Steve: What does it mean work on something that you know you may never finish? What kind of vision does it take to equip a route that you have to wait 14 years for somebody to come along and climb? That’s what Randy Leavitt did when he equipped the route Jumbo Love. And Chris Sharma came along 14 years later and climbed what was then the hardest route in North America. This just proves that Randy Leavitt not only sees farther than us, but he sees farther than us both physically and metaphorically. But Randy’s story neither begins nor ends just with climbing. He grew up with parents that were deeply forged by the Great Depression. His father used to find bent nails and straighten them to use them in his work. Randy took this work ethic and applied it to his own vision of life. While his stone master friends in Yosemite Valley were dumpster diving and living the dirt bag dream, Randy was going down to San Diego and quietly building a real estate business to achieve his plan A, which was financial freedom and an entire lifetime spent climbing and developing routes all around the American Southwest. Randy pinned tax assessor maps on his walls and he would scour the foreclosure listings and at the same time he would take pictures of unclimbed granite walls and he would study the shadows looking for hidden crack systems and he would develop these crags and these walls at an incredible scale. Randy always worked with a long-term vision. He believed in delayed gratification. He built systems. He worked hard and he showed up every day.

In this episode of season two of Voice of the Mountains, we’re going to go into a different kind of business, a very personal business that was built expressly to enable Randy to climb more. We’re going to hear how Randy found his edge in his business and at the same time managed to climb and develop roots at an incredibly high level for five decades. If you listen closely, you’re gonna hear Randy describe being the architect of his life’s ambition and then building that dream. It’s amazing. This is a life lived as a meditation on vision, effort, and hard work. And listening to Randy, I was really struck- Is there any more compelling expression of the human experience than working hard day after day to build something that endures while acknowledging our own impermanence? It’s pure poetry. And Randy Leavitt has been writing verse after verse of poetry with his life. I think you’re going to want to listen to this episode. My name is Steve House, and this is Voice of the Mountains.

Steve: If you’re enjoying the show and want to take the next step in your training, join our newsletter and receive a free four week sample training plan. Head on over to uphillathlete.com/letsgo, and once you sign up, you’ll instantly get a link to try out some of our most popular training plans. It’s a great way to get a feel for how we train our athletes for big mountain goals. Check it out at uphillathlete.com/letsgo. That’s uphillathlete.com/letsgo.

Steve: Welcome Randy to Voice of the Mountains. It’s really great to have you here.

Randy: Well, thanks for inviting me here. And it’s nice to talk to a legend like yourself and you’ve, you’ve done a incredible amount of, uh, mountaineering, which I always had a high, high regard for.

Steve: yeah, and that’s actually something I’m gonna ask you about because in learning more about you before our conversation, I saw that you idolized alpinists as a, as a teenager when you’re coming up and climbing. And that was a curve ball. I didn’t, I, I associate you with, of course, Yosemite in Southern California and exploratory rock climbing and you know, the Virgin River Gorge and climbing in Baja.

But I never associated you with Alpinism. So to hear that you were like a fan of Boardman and Tasker, I was like, oh, wow. A fellow, a fellow spirit.

Randy: Uh huh. Yeah. I, I mean, when, when I started climbing, it was all focused towards what became, what would get you ready for the big mountains. Bouldering, which would get you ready for rock climbing. Rock climbing for big walls, big walls for dealing with logistics and, and big faces, and then ultimately to the mountains.

So really, that’s where I thought I was headed all along, and that’s where I wanted to be.

Steve: Nice. And did you, did you get there? Did you, did you go alpine climbing?

Randy: I did, I, I learned how to alpine climb. I went to Canada, did the normal routine there, and then I went on an expedition in 1986 to, Gasherbrum 4, in Pakistan. And we made the second ascent of Gasherbrum 4 of the mountain via new route. Uh, I wasn’t one of the summit climbers, but I was on that trip and it was, it was amazing.

Steve: Yeah. Greg Child. Who else was on that

Randy: Tom Hargis, Greg Child, and Steve McCartney-Snape and Steve Russi andseveral other really good climbers.

Steve: Yeah. Tom was a mentor of mine. I, you know, guided with him at different stages and did a bunch of ice climbing with him a long time ago. And of course, you know, uh, Greg Child shaped the way a lot of us of my generation thought of, thought of climbing. That’s a really cool side story. About something you said, and I quote, climbing doesn’t really do anything for humanity yet. From my vantage point at least, climbing seems to be one of the best things in your long career and lifetime. I just wanna start there because I think that there’s a tension between this sort of conquistador of the useless idea, this, you know, jousting at windmills, idea of climbing an alpinism, and the actual experience that we have in the mountains, whether it’s climbing or skiing or trail running, that people feel and, and derive and identify a lot of meaning from their time in these pursuits.

So someone in there is truth. What, what have mountains actually given you?

Randy: Well, they’ve given me a purpose to, I think there’s something in human nature where everyone needs something, whether it’s religion or whether it’s an activity, or whether it’s both religion and an activity or a hobby or maybe just a profession they wanna excel at or or do something meaningful to themselves.

And now, now that may be curing cancer, which is meaningful to humanity, or it may be climbing mountains, which is sort of not that meaningful to humanity in my opinion. But everything, everyone needs something. And I’ve been involved in so many different sports. Like, uh, foil surfing, big wave surfing, kite surfing, climbing, mountaineering, um, and everyone that is involved in these sports, that’s their whole world.

So I see all these different snapshots of these different worlds where everyone’s got their thing and they’re so into it. These guys that do wing foiling now on Mission Bay in San Diego where I go, that’s their whole world. And it’s so meaningful and so important to them. And yet there’s all these different pursuits.

You could be a stamp collector, you know, you could be, uh, anything and, and, you know, all these different pursuits that people have. And I just think that gives the, it’s human nature. It gives you some sort of meaning and some sort of way to connect with nature or to feel valuable about yourself. And so I think in that sense it’s important, but, but actually what it actually does is not important in my opinion.

What it, what it really does is it helps people. Kind of like-

Steve: How does it help people?

Randy: well, it keeps ’em grounded, gives ’em a purpose, gives ’em something to occupy their minds with and, and something to pursue and get better at. And maybe that’s just my perspective. That’s what I feel. But that’s, to me, that’s sort of an interpretation of, of those sports and however it wins into it.

Steve: And you know, when we were chatting before we started recording, I mentioned to you that, you know, this season is about this intersection between people who excel in the business world and people who have also excelled in the mountain sports world. And we have people in different, uh, places in that spectrum, I guess is the word.

And you also have, as you’ve called it, a plan A and a plan B, and climbing was your plan B. So what, tell us a little bit about your plan A and what that was, what that is.

Randy: Well plan A, I guess you could call it the financial part of my life where I wanted to secure a reasonable financial future and, you know, be able to be able to plan for that. So, um, I, I think the way it started is that when I was a young kid and I wanted to climb as much as I could, I found the best way to do it, uh, to afford it, was to paint houses.

I worked for a house painter and eventually started my own business. So here’s Randy, the house painter. Uh, someone calls me and says, Hey, can you do this job? And I can bust out a house painting job in a week, earn four times what someone would be working at a hardware store would earn, and then when that week is over, I’m free for three weeks, you know, for the same amount of money.

And that, that to me was a good formula. So I thought, oh, I need to work for myself. Um, I did still go to college. My parents, uh, helped put me through college, so that was a huge thing at the time. Uh, but I kept going, uh, with this house painting business and eventually turned into wallpapering. And, um, I think the story led to where I ended up meeting my future business partner that way. I was exposed to people with a, you know, fair amount of money in nice homes, in nice parts of San Diego.

So, um, as I would go on these climbing trips, work real hard, then go on a climbing trip, work real hard, you know, do a big wall in Yosemite, come back and do another paint job. Um, I, I ended up meeting some really interesting people and when I finished college, I started putting out letters to these people and I said, I wanna start a real estate business. That was what I had focused my myself on. And I could see, I grew up in the seventies, so I saw what inflation did to home prices and asset prices. So I thought, well, real estate is something tangible. I can understand it. This is way before the internet, artificial intelligence where these all, there are all these things you don’t understand or can’t touch.

But real estate was something I could touch. I had experience managing the painting business, and I understood maintenance on property. So I understood how properties were built. And anyway, I, I’ve put out a bunch of letters and I got a response from one of the guys. He was this gentleman and his wife, uh, in La Jolla, California.

They lived part-time in France and part-time in the United States. And he had a big business he was selling and wanted to put the money into real estate. So I became a, a co-partner with them, got my broker’s license. And the interesting part of that, Steve, was that when I was getting ready to cast off on that trip, I had this Himalayan trip planned to, uh, the 1986 Gasper four expedition to Gasherbrum 4 in Nameless Tower. So I went to my, my future business partner as he had just proposed this business plan. Um, and I said, look, I’ve, I’ve got this trip I want to do before I do this partnership. And I showed him the description of the trip and the details about it, and he said, absolutely, you’ve gotta do that.

You know, he understood the value of these experiences. So it was great. I, on that trip, I was reviewing this intense long contract that was between us that would form this 30 year partnership. So, uh, Greg Child was marveling at me, watching me pour through these contract pages, like 40 page contract as I was, you know, in a snow cave somewhere.

Steve: Did you carry the contract?

Randy: I really did. Yeah. There was a lot to understand in there. There was a lot of legalese. I mean, I really learned a lot in my business dealings because everything I signed in my name to had a, you know, had a consequence. And so it, you, you really start to look at the dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.

Steve: Yeah, and thinking through potential eventualities and implications of those words. But I would be afraid that my brain wouldn’t be functioning well enough at 7,000 meters to be able to catch any of that. So.

Randy: well, I, I, I was, I was reading Kurt Vonnegut at 7,000 Meters. I, the, the contract was more like at, at uh, base camp.

Steve: okay. Okay.

Randy: yeah.

Steve: Still base camp’s 5,000 meters. That’s, that’s not nothing. That’s so interesting. That’s so funny. So what made you focus on real estate? I mean, I understand this trajectory, like you started with, you know, so you understood houses, as you said, how they’re put together, how they’re. But you also said something a second ago about how, when you’re talking about sports and how you see these windows into all these different worlds that are people’s everything, whether it’s kite surfing or big wave surfing or rock climbing, is real estate one of those worlds?

And are there even subsets of real estate as and which, which one do you, uh, focus on? Or which one do you obsess about?

Randy: Real estate was one of those worlds. And in the world I was in, I, there were probably four other competitors to me in my particular niche of apartment buildings in Golden Hill area of San Diego. So basically it, we were like the, you know, the five best. Guys at that, at that job at the time were five most prominent, active.

And, uh, you know, they, their whole world was that some of these guys had other interests and some of these guys didn’t. Their real estate was, there was everything for them. And for me, I took my job very seriously and I worked really hard. But to, for me, it was, it was really a job and a way to secure a financial future.

It wasn’t something that I wanted to do forever.

Steve: Mm-hmm. Has that changed?

Randy: No, no, no. I, I’ve retired from the real estate business, more or less. I’m, I’m still a, a California real estate broker, but I, I’m very inactive compared to what I used to do.

Steve: Okay. And so was there ever like this fascination with the business of real estate? What were you doing? Were you, were you, were you buying and flipping? Were you a broker? Were you buying apartment complexes? What were, what was your niche?

Randy: I was a real estate broker and basically an asset manager and property manager all in one. So we would buy a building, you could do a 10 31 exchange, which was a tax deferred exchange, and we would say buy four units, exchange to eight units, exchange to 16 units. In the meantime, maybe pick up another eight unit building.

Um, this coincided with the early nineties where there was a financial downturn in, in California especially, it was like a depression here, way worse than oh eight, way worse than maybe what’s to come. It felt that way. It felt like California was in a complete depression, uh, especially in the real estate market.

So I had started my business in 87 and by 92, 93 when this was in full force, I really understood the business and that’s when I started making hay. And that was buying properties from banks who had foreclosed on them. I, I knew the asset managers of the banks, when something would come available, they would call me or I would call them, I would take the property off their hands, manage it, uh, because the banks didn’t want to own property.

They didn’t want to be a property manager.

Steve: Right. So let’s go back to climbing for a second. How do you, you you most famous at least, in for me as being just such a prolific root developer over your life, and I’ve developed roots for all kinds, from sport rock climbs to mixed climbs, trad, like all the whole gamut. And, you know, you’re, I’d say maybe like one generation ahead of me, and you came up in that era where strictly trad climbing, you lived through and adapted to the sport climbing era and, and now we’ve got this, I think, sort of equilibrium that we’re in now where everybody does, let’s say everything, I mean, at least climbers like you and I, we’re gonna clip bolts, we’re gonna place gear, doesn’t really make that much difference. So when you were, when you were getting into that and developing roots, like tell me about your process.
Like what, why, why develop roots? I, I mean, I know how much work it’s, I mean, not just this hiking around and trying to find the, the nice piece of rock that might have a little gem in it, but all of it, like spending the money, buying the equipment, cleaning, scraping, making it safe. I mean, there’s so much that goes into it.

I mean, you don’t really appreciate how much work has gone into developing the roots that we climb on a daily basis until you. Yourself realize how much just labor it’s, tell me about that process for you.

Randy: I, there’s a lot of reasons why I like it. There’s the exploration, the newness, the discovery, the excitement of seeing something that no one has ever done. Uh, the, you get your name in a guidebook. There’s all these little things that are perks about developing roots. But for me, it was very personal. It wasn’t about getting my name in guidebooks or a lot of this other stuff.

It was really about a way to push myself in a unique way. Um. I guess when you do a new route, you don’t know how hard it’s gonna be. You don’t know what kind of things you’re gonna have to work out in order to do it. And it presents itself to you. The rock does, and that’s what I loved about it. It made me a better climber.

I, I would be, let’s say for example, you go and you want to get in shape and you go into a gym and you have all these gym machines. Uh, to me, I walk into a gym and I wanna do nothing in a gym. I just, I, I see the bikes, I see the weightlifting machines, I see everything in there. And, and I’m uninspired. But finding a new climb is inspiration for me.

It’s like it lights a fire under me. And, and that is the part I loved about it. If you could imagine maybe a way, uh, a gym machine, you don’t even know what the gym machine looks like when you’re doing new route, you, you, this thing appears and it all of a sudden you have to, oh, I gotta get really good at this, or really good at that.

And you end up doing things you never thought you could do before that, that, that is, it is really inspiration for me.

Steve: And in that same way, when you were on your real estate career, that same thing happen? Did you end up doing things you never thought you’d do before?

Randy: So I got into situations, yeah. I never thought I would do, but not in a, in a nice way like you think. I mean, I was dealing with low income apartment buildings in San Diego, in rough, rough neighborhoods. And I, I, I got in situations where I wanted a bulletproof vest or other things like that where, uh, there was just such filth and squalor that you wouldn’t believe what you see on the street level, but.

I dealt with it all and you know, I made it work. And the, the, what, what satisfied me in those situations was say I would buy an apartment building that was just in horrible shape and had some good tenants, but had some really bad ones. And a year later that place would be all cleaned up and I’d have housing for people that needed it and they were good people.

And so, I mean, there was satisfaction, but it was completely different and sort of gnarly compared to rock climbing.

Steve: Really because rock climbing and developing new routes can be pretty gnarly, dirty and just beat you up.

Randy: it can, but I don’t know. I, I don’t mind the work. I’ve always been a hard worker. I didn’t mind the work.

Steve: Yeah. And the cleaning up low income apartment buildings, that’s also a lot of hard

Randy: It is.

Steve: So was there a similar fascination with what would, what you would, were you, was there a similar like sense of suspense? When I’m climbing or you know, trying to uncover a new route, there is a sense of suspense.

You’re, oh, how is this gonna unfold? What are those moves gonna be like? Is that hold gonna break? Is it, did you have that kind of experience like going into a new apartment complex, a new deal, you know, all of that? Or was it just like, oh, I have to do this now?

Randy: Well, I guess going into a new property, you, when, when they would become available, a lot of times they would advertise ’em and, and the, the etiquette was that you wouldn’t tell the tenants is for sale. You don’t want to go to an apartment building and say, Hey, I’m looking at this. It’s for sale. ’cause it just adds insecurity to the tenants.

They, they worry about what’s gonna happen. Uh, so generally speaking, you go there and you start look around as if maybe you’re a prospective tenant. Um, uh. I guess there is that discovery where you would go to a property and I would look at what the access is, what the traffic patterns are, what the plumbing is like, individually metered.

You know, is it a master meter? Am I paying for everyone’s power? Uh, what’s wrong with this property? What, what are, how, why are, is there all this dry rot and, you know, structural problems or are the bones of this property good? What kind of people are there? You know, I talked to the tenants and a lot of ’em were Hispanic, so I tried to learn how to speak Spanish as best I could.

So it was, it was a really interesting, but it wasn’t exciting and rewarding, like climbing. I mean, there’s nothing like climbing that I’ve found that is so, is so wonderful that you can create a climb that, that lasts for a long time and is, you know, is this sort of, um, represents your work. It, it’s not the same way it’s, but uh, there was some similarities.

Steve: You know. My grandfather was a, was a welder his whole life. He was a union welder and pipe fitter union. I forgot what number. And I have this picture of him that still sits on my desk and it’s him with his lunchbox, like one day going to work. And he’s, and I look, I keep that on my desk because it’s a reminder of, you know, he went every day and crawled inside pipes for the most part ’cause they were doing big infrastructure projects and welded the pipes together all day, every day for years. And then I think about what I get to do and how diverse it is. And I’m, I’m pushing pixels and I’m recording podcasts And I’m coaching, and I’m researching and I’m, and all of this stuff, it’s frankly feels more like play most of the time. It feels more like climbing.

And I realize that, you know, I’m super lucky that for him, my grandfather, it was, it was, it was a job in the kind of classic sense of like, he, he had to do it. It wasn’t a question and he did it. And, you know, when you talk to him about his work, he didn’t talk about like how much fun it was. He talked about like the, the, the cuts with the torch that he was able to do super well.

Um, the other guys that could do things that had skills that could make these incredible perfect welds. This like really high quality sort of craftsman level. And, and that’s what he talked about. And so what I’m fishing for here is where that is in, you know, your real estate career, where was that craftsmanship or that intrigue and, and or maybe there wasn’t, or was it really like a journeyman thing, like you just like put your cap on backwards and rolled up your sleeves and got in there and just did it?

Randy: One, one of the things you said that just reminded me of my experience in real estate was, uh, how hard your grandfather worked and the kind of people that I was around improving these properties. A lot of contractors and workers, concrete workers, you know, woodworkers, carpenters, uh, everything. And it made a, made me have a huge appreciation for people that work hard.

And in your grandfather’s case, that was his little niche. But you asked me about what, um, what kind of was my little thing in real estate and that was I was able to construct more information about properties that would give me an advantage over everyone else. And so I think that was the thing that kind of got me excited about the real estate business.

So there are things called tax assessor parcel maps, which basically is a, like a, a, a satellite view of all the tax boundaries, uh, parcel boundaries and their par tax parcel numbers. And with those numbers, you could find out who owned what. And I made giant maps that I posted on my wall that I, I taped together Xerox and taped these maps together of all the parcels in the areas that I was working, which was Bankers Hill, Golden Hill, and part of, uh, university Heights.

With those, I would go around and photograph each property with a tax parcel number on it. Now, I would follow notices of default, and this was all collecting information, sort of like the internet does for us now. But I was willing to do this and other people didn’t. And so I had more information, better information than I think any of my competitors.

And that kind of gave me the edge. So that, I mean, it, it’s also random deals that you get sometimes, but that, that’s, I spent a lot of time on that. I, I guess I’m pretty proud of that. I hadn’t really even thought about that for decades. Yeah. So I think my, my hack on the, uh, or, or, or sort of what I. Found as a really, uh, motivating thing for me was I was able to gather more information than my competitors using parcel maps, photographs, uh, notice of default information, foreclosure information, and just hitting the streets and walking around and, and knowing all these properties.

In fact, someone could come to me and say, Hey, you know that property on the corner of a and 30th? And I would go, oh yeah, the, uh, the three story building that’s gray. And I, so I would know all these properties. Um, and I, I worked really hard at that. I had a lot of, uh, sort of create a lot of inside information.

This is before information was more perfect as it is today with the internet and artificial intelligence.

Steve: Yeah,

Randy: Yeah.

Steve: I mean that’s a classic advantage, right? Like one of the things I’ve. Her, you know, picked up along the way is, you know, business usually happens because you either are faster than your competitors at getting to a particular product, or you have an information advantage, and whether that’s like an IP advantage or like you have a law degree, so you, you know, have a specialty special piece of knowledge and, and you had that in terms of understanding to a very detailed like level.

And you, because you did all the legwork and built these maps, paper maps, took photos, obviously like were printed on, you know, people forget in the age of digital cameras that we used to have to like, get the film developed and they’d get like the little, you know, three by four, you know, printed things and pick ’em up at the drugstore and all that.

You, you had those thumb tacked on the wall, I’m sure. And, and that was your information advantage. That was your business advantage. That was your running advantage.

Randy: Most people don’t know what a one hour photo developer is anymore, but that was revolutionary. You know, I could go and get a roll of film developed in an hour and have all these printed pictures,

Steve: Right. That was,

Randy: yeah, I mean, I’ve watched things change so much with climbing and everything else. It’s just amazing.

Steve: yeah, I mean, I just had someone recently request a image from my climbing path picture I took over, you know, let’s see, in 2003, so it would’ve been 22 years ago. And they, they, I, I was like, ah, that’s on a slide. Like, I have to get it scanned. I don’t have it. And they were, they just didn’t, like, the photo editor was like, what?

Like, I mean, he knows what it was, but he just hadn’t like encountered anyone. I’m like, yeah, I guess I’m old now. It was funny. So, um, you know. What is the, you know, so one of the stories, you know, we talked a little bit, chatted a little bit about the RuPaul face before we started recording and, and you were talking about like the size of the wall.

One of the things that was my competitive advantage, if you, if you will, when I was researching that, that climb, that trying to climb a route there, which was a multi-year thing, just the research, I got in touch with a photographer that was going on assignment for National Geographic and doing a assignment in the area where he would be right at the Rupal face and actually said like, what I need.

I told him what I needed, like, I needed like clear shots of the whole face from as far horizontally back as he could get with a, on a, you know, shot with a, a really good lens on a tripod. And he, he did that and I, and I had, I can’t remember how many there were, but it was roughly 30 pictures and then I printed the ball out eight by 10. And then I taped them all I got, and it was like a puzzle, right? Like I got like, he, he, he grid, he made a grid, uh, with the pictures. He just went, started at the top left and he went across the sky and worked his way down with these zooms. And there’s about 30 of them. And I had them all printed out. I taped them together and I had this map of, of this giant picture of the Rupal face.

It was probably like, you know, six feet tall and six feet wide. And that’s how we like, studied the face and like figured out like where we could go. Um, we didn’t take it to base camp ’cause it was this huge thing, right? Like, and you know, you had to tape it together. Like you can’t do that in a base camp.

But by then we didn’t need to, I just needed to do it at home. And that was like, I, I was, you know, I just did that legwork of like finding the guy, talking to him, convincing him, getting the film, you know, reimbursing him for it. And, you know, he was happy to not charge me for taking the pictures or anything but I paid for his materials and that stuff, you know, and, and like, nobody ever thinks of that, right? They’re like, oh, you climbed that thing. That’s so gnarly. Yeah, that was gnarly, but it was also really hard going, just getting all those pictures and mapping out the route was a huge task, and people don’t think about that.

And it’s same with like real estate. Oh, you bought apartments and rented ’em out. Sounds super easy. But like you, there’s like these, these depths to things, right? Like you, you went in deep. It’s super interesting.

Randy: Yeah, that’s handy on a mountain because I, one of the things I find so intriguing about climbing mountains is that one little passage can unlock a whole section of the mountain where, let’s say you come up to an impossible buttress, but you figured out that maybe there’s this little ledge system that skirts around to the right and that opens up some ice cooler or something that, that you don’t really see from, from anywhere else.

And in fact, we would do that kind of stuff on El Cap. When we would do new roots, we would photograph it also at different times of the day, so we could see shadows getting cast,

Steve: Yeah, for sure

Randy: then we’d be up on the wall and we’d look at these photographs, these kind of Xerox printouts that we had and go, oh yeah, I think we need to, you know, head over in this direction.

We can’t see where we’re going, but we, we think there’s something out there.

Steve: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Randy: but on the Rupal face, that that’s, that’s the whole thing on steroids. That’s the biggest, biggest arena in the world really is climbing on a wall like that.

Steve: yeah. An insanely complex wall, right? Like just so, so, so big, uh, in all dimensions, horizontally, vertically, everything. But, um. One of the things that you mentioned was there, there was a section we only had one time of day, right? We had this image from early morning or, you know, kind of not super early morning, not like five or six, but like, I think it was probably like eight 30 or nine, and there was a section where we could not see how we were gonna get through that.

It was just like, and it was quite high. It was like over around 7,000 meters and that we hit that section, uh, mid-morning, or maybe it was noon on day three. And it was like a huge gamble, right? Like if we didn’t fi and, and we, we ki and we couldn’t actually see, like you said, there was a koir and we couldn’t see the koir until literally we got right up under it.

And that whole morning we were just like our, we were like so nervous, like we could get completely shut, like this just could be turned into a big wall climb. And we are not equipped for that. There’s no way we can do that up here. we think there’s something in here, like it makes sense that there would be, and and there was, there was like a grade five ice pitch that went up to a bunch of grade three and grade four ice that, you know, we followed for a very long way.

So it was amazing, but we couldn’t see that until we got there. So it’s, but you have to do what, you know, that’s all great at all. Like we can talk about, oh, we found these amazing pitches and they were beautiful pitches and they were super rewarding to climb and discover and all of those things. But all those other pieces of the puzzle we’re talking about, like getting the pictures made, whether it’s El cap or your apartments, all that homework is pretty unglamorous, but it actually is what.

Kind of sets the, sets the foundation for being able to, to, you know, unlock a new pitch on El Cap. I mean, how cool, how cool is that to be able to, I’ve never climbed a new route on El Cap. Never Will, obviously. I mean, how cool is that to climb new roots in, you know, the valley of all places, right.

Randy: Well, it’s, you get lucky as you get more prepared, you know, the more prepared you are, the more lucky you get. You can see that in your climbing, and that’s the same in my climbing. And that, you know, that goes for everything. The, the safety preparations, the, the kind of food you’re bringing, uh, especially in mountaineering, just every little step you take is, is sort of preparing you to be well positioned to make a summit push, whether it’s your own health or the psych of the team or whatever it is.

So it all, it all adds up after time and in a lifetime it adds up big time.

Steve: Yeah. And that’s so interesting how things accrue over decades. And I think this is one of the things like, you know, as an older climber to an older climber, like if I had only known then what I know now, right.

Randy: Mm-hmm.

Steve: I, I think that like back about the club I did my twenties, I like, oh man, if I had known that what I know now would’ve completely been a different outcome.

And, and uh, you know, youth is

Randy: I, if I’d only had, if I’d only had, uh, tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal today.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right, right. Do you see your kind of, um. You know, you were of course part of the famous Stone Masters. People who follow climbing history will know that term and what that represents. And it’s been very celebrated in climbing as it should have been. And, you know, you had amazing, you know, contemporaries, whether it was backer or, or you know, Unarian or Calc or Bridwell or Dale Bard, who just very recently passed.

Very, very sad to hear that. Um, I know you knew him and climbed new roots with, with Dale, so sorry for your, for your loss there. How did that you there? That’s, that’s the, the. Stone Masters celebrated to me at least this sort of dirt bag approach to climbing, you know, living in Camp four, you know, eating out, dumpster diving, like that whole thing.

You took a very different path. You were sort of the anti dirt bag, I would say. You were, you were going, working hard, making a living, thinking about the future, thinking about financial security. You weren’t waiting for, you know, a dope plane to fall out of the sky so you could hike in and like, you know, pick up some free money.

You were, you were actively working on that. Do you see that as a radical choice? Was that radical in your friend group at the time, or were there other people doing the same thing?

Randy: No, it was, it was very different choice. But I did the dirt bagging thing with the Stone Masters and it was great, you know, but, but to me it was not, there wasn’t a future in it. And it was sort of like, well, hey, I’m 18, 19, 20 years old. Uh, sure we’ll do this for a while. But I, I could see that there wasn’t a future in it.

Steve: Could everybody see that though that was present?

Randy: now, a lot of these guys, they, they weren’t thinking about themselves being 40 or 50 years old or 60 years old. It just, and, and it’s part of being young, right? You can’t imagine, you know, youth is wasted on the young, as they say, because they don’t imagine what it’s like later on. But somehow I had a perspective on that.

My, you know, it could have been the way it was brought up, or, I mean, everyone’s different, but I, I had this sort of. Clock in my head. Like, I, I, I don’t wanna be doing this when I’m 50. You know? So, and, and I think I was ambitious too. It wasn’t just, it wasn’t just, oh, I wanna provide for myself financially, but I had ambitions to do something in business.

It always was of interest to me. So there, there was that aspect of it as well.

Steve: Tell me about that. Like where did it, what do you mean by ambition? What did, what was, um, what called you, what was the hunger? Like I understand like climbing, we talk about like feeding the rat or being hungry or feeling a drive to climb or put up a route. What, how did that manifest for you, like in your business life?

Randy: I, I think to answer that, I would say that I, I did a lot of reading when I was young. I read a lot of classics and I, I felt like one thing I’ve learned, and it’s really res resonated throughout my life, is that human nature doesn’t change. And so you can read these really old books and they would have all this stuff, which is involved, these old stories, but humans don’t really change.

You know, all the stuff around us changes and, but we don’t change. So I did a ton of reading. Uh, one of the authors I read was Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand. And, um, that left an impression on me, and I think that was kind of the business sort of side of me that latched onto that and said, that’s, that’s cool. I, I, I wanna experience some of that.

And, um, so that, I would say it was from reading. And, and, and also my dad, uh, grew up during the depression. My dad and, and mom grew up during the depression and it was really hard, I watched how hard he worked his whole life and how he straightened nails out, you know, that were used and would re use everything just uh that mentality.

And I, I wanted to provide for myself and, and not be caught in that, you know, as so many people were during that time.

Steve: Tell me about your, your father’s work ethic. Did that he was a child in the Great Depression? Or was he like a young man?

Randy: He was, he, he was a child in the great depression of. So probably he was 10, 12, 15 during the, the Great Depression and, um, so it, it, it was a very, you know, impressionable time for him. I mean, it just, it just stuck with him. And then he was part of the greatest generation during World War II, so there was, there was a pretty heavy load that, that, that generation carried.

Steve: This is one of the things that I think is interesting when we’re talking about human nature and how it’s eternal in a sense. But the greatest generation, you know, had the hardest road a hoe, right? Like they had the depression and they had. The war, many of them, whether you’re abroad, fighting or home manufacturing.

I mean, it was, you know, it was tough. It was hard. And then they came back and then had, you know, relative stability and all of a sudden thrived in, in so many ways. And I think that they paid a heavy price, right? Like, I think we celebrate them. But, you know, if I remember, you know, I was really close to my grandparents and, you know, they were very blue collar people.

And you know, their, they and their friends were very sullen. Like, they were like, I mean, they were part of the greatest generation, but they were tough. Like, like they were dis disciplined. They were harsh. They were, I don’t know, they didn’t, there was, there was no, no bullshit, you know? And there was no. Very little gray things were very black and white in their world.

Did did that affect, was that, like, was your experience of your father and his and your parents like that and that, how did, did that like, shape you as a climber and as a, as a business guy?

Randy: Oh, that was a lot of the way my parents were. And, but they also didn’t talk about it.

Steve: A hundred percent.

Randy: There was that aspect. And, you know, I have to ask ’em things like, what was it like? And you know, they were, oh, we were digging up turnips in the yard, you know? To, to eat and just stuff that, uh, you would just take for granted.

And people would, would roam by and everyone would try to help each other out and, you know, feed each other. And, uh, they lost everything. I, my parents were blue collar and their, you know, their so was their, their family. And that’s, that’s the way it was. I don’t know how it affected me as a climber.

It made me want to not waste time. You know? I, I felt like you, you never know what’s gonna happen in life and you want to take everything you can and do the best with it. So, kind of maybe a instilled a sense of urgency in me.

Steve: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So one of the sports we, I wanna dig into with you is surfing and you were water sports in general. But specifically I want you to tell us a little bit about this experience you had on Todos Santos Island, where, you know, you had a, a near death experience. You wanna walk us through what that experience real quick?

Randy: You know, big wave surfing is, is pretty exciting. You’re, you’re trying to catch a wave paddling in, this is before tow in surfing. This is before jet skis. Were in the channel to come and rescue you. This is before inflation vests, so you could pop these CO2 cartridges and float up to the top or just wear like an inflation suit.

So, um, yeah, I, I mean I, I wasn’t anything like a great big wave surfer. I was just a big wave surfer, a climber who idolized that or fantasized about that sort of thing. And so I, I went to. I met a guy named Chris Hubbard who took me kind of on the surfing tour to get ready for Todos Santos. And we would go to different places and he would step it up each time he saw that I was able to take some of the beatings involved and, and manage, uh, myself in the ocean, you know, know where to be for, to catch the wave.

So when you’re big wave surfing, you’re just basically sitting, waiting for this mountain to form in front of you. And it’s really kind of intimidating because you have to be willing to sit there and wait for it. You most people start panicking and paddling for the shoulder, for the channel, whatever. But if you figure out the spot you need to sit, you sit there and wait and you need to be at the bottom of the thing when it’s starting to unload, so that as you’re paddling down the face, it’s almost passing you by, but you’re catching it right at the right moment before it passes you by because it’s moving so fast and so big.

So we had a great day at Todos Santos. It was. It was huge out there. Uh, they would call it like, uh, 20 Hawaiian. So you can double the size of that to be the, the wave face on, on these waves. It was a big day, um, kind of unruly and rough. Anyway, I was, I thought I had figured out where to sit that day.

There’s all these different places to sit, depending on the size of the swell. And, uh, I saw Chris paddle pass me, and he, he’s pointed to the horizon and he goes, here it comes, here comes a big one. And I go, yeah, I know I’m waiting for it. And I, I miscalculated, I was too deep and too far inside, so the whole thing unloaded on me.

It was like a, having a sport climb break on your face, you know, it was just, it, it just explodes. And then the whitewater drives really deep, so you try to swim below it. And it held me down for two waves. And as it’s as the first wave passed and I wasn’t coming up for the second wave. I started to kind of check out, like my vision, uh, narrowed to like a tunnel where I was looking.

I looked like I was looking down a tunnel of light, and my fingers were getting tingly, and I thought to myself in a real calm way, wow, this is how you drowned. This is actually how it happens. Kind of just almost detached from myself. And then I thought, man, it’d be a really fricking good idea to get some air.

And I start pulling on the leash and pulling for the surface as I, as the second wave passed, and I got a breath of air, and then I got obliterated, like on every single wave after that. It just, first, you know, it was like. 40 foot faces breaking on you. And then at the end it was like 15 foot faces on the inside, just these little inside waves.

And I just got washed all the way through. But, uh, that was, that was quite an experience. And, and I thought, uh, I was done surfing that day. I, I, I paddled over to the boat and crawled into the panga and got in the fetal position and I was done. But after that date, I thought, wow, well that’s, that’s the worst it’s gonna get, so I can really do this.

So it had the opposite effect. Instead of stopping me from doing it, it made me more emboldened. Uh.

Steve: I’ve seen this with Alpinists, right? Like where they’re in situations, you know, the details are different, but the, the overall arc of the story is the same. Like, you almost die and you somehow survive, mostly out of luck, maybe a little scale whatever. And then they were like, oh, okay. That wasn’t so bad. I’m still here. And you’ve also talked, very eloquently about how you are not a risk taker, you’re a risk manager. And so talk to me about like how this near death experience turned into a risk management lesson rather than a risk taking lesson ’cause some people would say, oh, I was taking a risk. I almost died, so therefore I will take no more risk and then I won’t die. You took it a different way. You’re like, well, I didn’t die I can do this more and I know more about how to manage for it.

Randy: Also at the same time came toe in surfing. So I was doing this paddle in surfing. That was a big day. I did big days after that. And sort of as far as risk management, I would be a little better about lining up where, you know, where the channel is on that particular day, where the takeoff spot is.

Uh, I felt like, I felt like it was still under my control to some degree and that I could manage the risk. Whereas Alpine climbing, I went on that Gasherbrum 4 expedition, and that was the year that a, a bunch of prominent climbers died on K2. And I watched avalanches scream down faces on the nameless tower and on Gasherbrum 4 that were so random that I thought, wow, this is almost beyond what kind of risk management I can really deal with.

And so that scared me a bit out of alpine climbing. I mean, I think it’s way more serious than I knew it was serious. I left that experience thinking that it’s extremely serious and maybe it’s not something I wanna do if I wanna die old age, but surfing I, I felt like I still had it. Within my range of control.

And then maybe a couple of years after that, tow in surfing came along and it changed everything. Now we could, we could tow into these waves that were that big and not even be scared. It was crazy that you’d be towing behind a jet ski on a rope, and the jet ski would kind of position you in over the boil over where it’s gonna break and you could let go.

And you’re not outta breath. You’re not just paddling for your life to get into the wave. You’re just calm and you’re breathing and you’re standing straight up and down. You let go of the rope and you have this short board and you can decide what part of the wave you wanna be on, how deep you wanna go, and you just, it’s almost like a feeling of invincibility compared to and ease compared to what we were experiencing as big wave battling surfers.

And so as soon as I did that, that was like, oh my God, that is the. That is the e ticket, that is the stuff, you know, I want that. And it was so fun. We had 5, 6, 7 good years out there at Todos before it became too crowded really with paddle surfers to do that. ’cause they, they don’t, you know, you don’t wanna be towing with paddle guys.

We used to tow from first light till 9:30 when they showed up. And then we would take the day off and then go, you know, for the last hour, hour and a half of light.

Steve: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Randy: Now they all have their own jet skis and they all paddle. So anyway,

Steve: Yeah. But you know, one of the things that I hear you saying from my perspective is that, you know, you were, I can’t remember the words you used, but you’re so familiar with the ocean and the environment. Two things happened. One, you’re really comfortable in the ocean, you know where to be, where not to be.

You’re learning all the time and getting better at that. And two, your, the technology just changed and it, and it, it made it a, a order of magnitude easier, safer, more fun with I think, I don’t know that the technological part of that has happened with Alpinism, but I would say that for me. Getting to know every aspect of the mountain so deeply and so well, like one of the reasons I pursued a, a mountain guide track professionally was, okay, this forces me to learn everything about snow and avalanches and weather and all these other skills that I need to be safe in these complicated environments, you know, as safe as possible.

So, so I do think that like, you know, you see this with business guys too, where, uh, the, I’ve talked to the, where they’re, they can, they can take a lot of risk ’cause their understanding of a particular niche is so deep and they’re, they’re seeing patterns or recognizing things. ’cause they’ve, they’ve been, you know, they’ve, they’re at level 30, they started at level one, but they’ve sort of ratcheted up, ratcheted up, ratcheted up.

You went to, you know, you went to the Caricom one, one Expedition, did a number of climbs on that expedition, but you know, you didn’t go back year after year after year.

Randy: I, I think the, the hack on Alpinism that’s made it safer and the technology is really the weather prediction.

Steve: For sure.

Randy: but, but as far as going back to the Himalayas, um, that coincided with starting that partnership, and I didn’t think that I could do both Himalayan climbing and this business. I had to make a choice.

So I, I thought, well, I was never that good at, well, I was never as good as I thought I should be at free climbing, you know, sport climbing, and I can do this free climbing, drag climbing, sport climbing, and still be a businessman in San Diego. And I can’t do, I can’t be a Himalayan climber and still be this.

So if I’m a Himalayan climber, how do I support myself? I, well, it’s a full-time job getting ready for each expedition, as, you know, getting sponsors and all that. We had sponsors for our trip and it’s a lot of work, a lot of, a lot of commitment. So that, that was a decision I had to make and it was made it a little easier thinking that I’d probably die if I was Himalayan climber full time.

Steve: I’m still fascinated that this made you more bold and not more cautious. Did, did the near death experience give you sort of permission somehow to live differently, or was it, I’m still trying to understand how you reached this conclusion.

Randy: I, I think when you have near death experiences, you reflect on things differently. I’ve, I’ve had ’em with climbing, but they were more like, Hey, I was halfway chopped through that rope when I was ju marring, 2,500 feet above the deck, and I got past the chop and the rope. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t an experience.

It was more like a really bad situation. And you get past it, it, there was no physical, you know, and nothing happened physically. But yeah, I almost died ’cause of bad luck of where this rope was rigged. But the surfing was more of a physical process, almost like a birthing or something where you, you know, it is I, and so, at least an impression on you where you really feel like you’ve gone through something and reflected on your life. So, uh. It did make me more bold, um, for a while surfing until I started toe surfing and then you get used to the jet ski and not getting cleaned up all the time. Oh. You still get throttled pretty heavily on those ways when you wipe out, but it’s, it’s, it’s way different.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m sure some of the listeners can appreciate that. I am never been, you know, never been a surfer. My claim to fame was, ’cause I worked for Patagonia for so many years, uh, we would often be thrown into these little impromptu surf camps, and I was, my first rate wave I ever rode, I was pushed into byGerry Lopez.

And that’s pretty much the highlight of my surfing career. I was like, after that I was like, I think, I think I’m gonna retire. It’s not ever get, like, I’m never gonna get more like, uh, street cred than like being pushed into a wave by one of the absolute legends. So it’s like, so yeah.

Randy: Yeah, well I’ve, I’ve had the, uh, privilege of surfing with Chenard and, uh, I think Gerry Lopez was there too at, at Hollister Ranch. Um, so it’s, these guys are, you know, legends in the sport and it’s pretty cool to see ’em. I.

Steve: yeah, yeah. It’s still, and still surfing. Well, at least Jerry, I don’t know how much YC is surfing these days. So, um, you made a comment that, uh, big walls came naturally for you because they were a combination of risk management, systems engineering, and long-term physical strain and suffering. But sport climbing didn’t come naturally to you.

So you, and I don’t know what year this was, but you know, you can fill in the blanks here. You built a big climbing gym in your garage. Like you took a four car garage and you took, you turned it into a climbing, a bouldering gym. I mean, this is way before indoor climbing was a thing where there’s a gym on every corner, pretty much like there, like there is now.

I mean, now we have private equity money going around the country trying to open as many gyms as they can, as fast as they can. You did things like made dental, took dental impressions. You’ll have to tell me about this. To make the shapes of the holds of the out in the wild and then bring them back to your gyms.

You could train on the exact shapes, I mean. You know, people do this now and sometimes it’s almost like a little controversial. They’ll, you know, recreate, you know, certain sections. You know, Josh Wharton in his home gym has the, the, the crux of, of free rider, like set up and you can like, and he could, and he can cycle that crux and do it all day.

Right? Exactly right. It is all measured out like the, you know, and, and you were doing this decades before, so, you know, this was a time, and Tony Yaniro was a big part of this. Tony contributed an excellent essay in the training for the new albinism book that, that we published almost 10 years ago now, about his training and his Okay.

Because you guys were really early on this idea of, okay, I need to get my body stronger to be able to do these things that my mind wants it to do. Take us back there.

Randy: uh, I bought a home in 87 that had a four car garage, and that’s where I built that, that gym starting in 87, 19 87. Um, the, I had the crux of Scarface there. I had the crux of Planet Earth, and planet Earth is where I took dental impressions of this thing I call the bottomless pocket and the bone crusher pocket.

And so I, that was a very important, I don’t know, v. V whatever v double digit move high up on, on the wall. Uh, so some of this was sort of started by Tony. I mean, a lot of it was, he was, he was always thinking ahead one step or two or three or five steps ahead of everyone else. And so Tony thought, well, hey, we’re trying to do this climb, uh, let’s not lower to the ground each time we fall.

Let’s just hang on the rope and try it again. That’s hang dogging, right? And that was frowned on. And then he would train for specific muscles for like thin hand cracks. They have a, a certain set of muscles you need in your hands to actually climb those. Well, Tony trained on them, so he, he would figure out a lot of stuff and I was like a sponge just going, oh yeah, that makes sense.

That makes sense. You know, a lot of the stuff we’re doing made a lot of sense. So I just carried that forward in my climbing and I didn’t really let the, what was considered okay or not okay during that day as long as. Or during that time period, as long as I felt good about what I was doing, um, that’s, that’s the way I did my climbing.

So, um, that, that gym, unfortunately just, that house just got sold. I had sold it to my friend Rudy Hoffmeister, and Rudy owned it for, I don’t know, 11 or 12 or 15 years, and then he finally sold it into a flipper and they’ve just torn the gym out just recently. So that’s a sad ending to that gym. But, but I retained this, I had thought ahead, like I knew this gym wasn’t gonna last forever.

So I had all these famous climbers sign this access door that was to the storage on, on one of the storage pods within the wall. And so I took that, uh, with Rudy’s permission, I took that door and put it in my house. So I have that door with all the climber signatures, which is my memento from that wall.

Steve: Nice, nice. I mean, you know, this was ’87. I mean, I think that’s about the time that the vertical world opened in Seattle’s the, you know, the first climbing gym in North America was probably, or maybe it was early nineties. I don’t, I don’t remember. But could you even get climbing holds, or were you just making your own, just creating wooden blocks and gluing stones onto the wall or what?

Randy: You could get some, the entreprise was making holds, um, Tony made holds and he made custom holds. So a, a lot of the wall was also, uh, inset pockets that I made where you would cut a hole in the wall and put a, a pie tin, like a aluminum pie tin behind it, and fill it with Bondo, fill the hole with Bondo so that you could create sort of a finger pocket or however, one finger, two finger, four finger, and it wouldn’t present itself as a giant jug that you could stand on when you were climbing on the wall, so it actually made the wall feel taller. In other words, you, you’re, you’re down low on these just four finger jugs that are inset, and as you climb past ’em, you can barely get your toes in. So it wasn’t like having a giant jug there.

Steve: Mm-hmm.

Randy: It, it really made the climbing realistic on the wall

Steve: Which is, which is actually one of my complaints about climbing gyms is everything sticks out. And that’s not, that’s not realistic. Like that’s not how, that’s not how the rock is for the most part. Right? Like very few rocks have like big exo sort of features. They usually, like you said, pockets, cracks.

Edges that are flush.

Randy: Mm-hmm.

Steve: Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, I, I think that we need to bring back the Bondo pockets to the local climbing gyms. The problem with those is they can’t change them and wash them and clean them and move them. And I guess that’s the, the argument against Bondo pockets.

Randy: Yeah, and they, um, there’s just a lot of work we would, I’d spend so much time in my gym with a gas mask on and this Bondo and Tony and I had figured out the exact perfect kind of sand to use, you use silica sand to, and we were, I think we were using 120, we figured that was ultimately the best sand for skin wear and skin friction.

Um, and this stuff called Bondo household putty. I used gallons and gallons of that stuff.

Steve: You are like their big customer. They’re like, who’s buying all this stuff in San Diego?

Randy: I got it at Home Depot. So.

Steve: Nice. Nice. I wanna talk a little bit about, uh, Clark Mountain. And you’ve my understanding have, you know, kind of gone through these big periods of time where you’re developing an area like, you know, areas particular cra and I think that’s normal, right?

Like you find a crag and there’s not just one good route there, there’s a bunch of different, you know, climbing opportunities there and you develop that over time. And Clark Mountain is this sort of very unique, very stunning, uh, climbing area set up quite high outside of Las Vegas. Tell us about how you, you know, you were kind of one of the first on the scenes there, other Jorge Visser was there, like this was sort of the. Post sport climbing, boom. I would say, you know, a lot of sport climbing had been kind of established and accepted, and we’d been through that sort of little, you know, hiccup of climbing history and it was, and, and you found this incredible, I mean, I can’t call it a piece of limestone. It’s a really, a mountain of limestone that’s that’s up there.

Tell us a little bit about how you ended up there.

Randy: We would, you know, when I would take commercial flights, airline flights, I’d always look out the window, try to get a nonw window seat, and I saw this thing outside of Vegas that was this big mountain with, looked like cliffs on it. And when you would drive down the 15th freeway or drive north on the 15th freeway from California into Nevada on the, uh, west side of the freeway, this east facing mountain had shadows at 10 in the morning.

And we’re thinking, well, why isn’t east facing mountain? Cliff, the, and the cliff looks like dirt. Why does it have shadows at 10 in the morning? And, well, the, it’s the simple math is it’s severely overhanging. And that’s why, so finally after flying commercially and looking out the window where there might be roads, this is before Google Earth and all that, I, I made a trip out there, um, and I thought I found it.

And I was ecstatic. I would, I got down from the car and I looked back up it, and I go, that’s, that’s really good. I’m gonna start bolting that. And this was probably like 1989 or 1990. Um,

Steve: Oh, it’s earlier than I thought then because we were still in the sport climbing, uh, whatever we call it, uh, boom revolution.

Randy: yeah. And it was still controversial to be a sport climber in California.

Steve: for sure.

Randy: Um, and this crag, I saw this crag, I, I would see on my way to the Virgin River Gorge, which was my new hangout after. After I had some run-ins, uh, with backer at Joshua Tree, I was just like, I needed a new scene for a while. So anyway, I, uh, I found Clark, or we thought we found Clark.

And I’m driving down the road afterwards a different way than we came in. And I look in the rear view mirror and I see the real Clark and I thought, oh my gosh, I thought I was at this cliff and I was really at another satellite cliff on the mountain, and now here’s the real cliff. And so we just ran up there, uh, just bush whacking and hacking our way up.

Didn’t know where the road was, so we just incredibly long hike. I got to the base of the third tier and I thought, well, this is an amazing piece of porcelain, like limestone. Too bad, there’s no holds. But I’ll climb up to this traversing ledge and touch the, the actual wall. And I look up and I touch it, and my hands just wrap around buckets.

I thought, wow, this, I didn’t even see those from the ground. So that was a huge moment. And then I just ran back with the drill as fast as I could.

Steve: that, that sounds like every route developer’s a dream to like, because you’re right. Like if you, if I have been in that situation gap, oh, this is a, there was a, there’s a cliff where I used to live in Colorado. Limestone wasn’t very big, but so beautiful. And it’s just has just so smooth.

Randy: Mm-hmm.

Steve: Man, this would be such a great climb, such a great place to climb if it was, if it had any holds on it, it just didn’t.

So it’s like, it’s, it’s amazing how much has to come into, how much has to come together to allow us to even put up these routes. So you, you, that, that sounds like an incredible, I can really feel your excitement there.

Randy: The, the, unfortunately, the jugs ended after the first pitch, or the first say 80 feet, and then it became this smooth. Head wall, but still pocket lines. And that’s where I saw Jumbo love. And to me, I, I always look for the best route on the wall to bolt first, because that’s the king line. And Jumbo love was a king line on the third tier Clark.

It was a really incipient crack. You could hardly see a crack unless you have binoculars, but it almost a fracture running the length of the wall with pockets on the sort of this crack line. But you couldn’t really call it a crack. It just, you could see it once you see it, um, more like a seam. And, um, that became jumbo love.

I bolted that. I, you know, I just saw that that was, uh, everything I, I thought could be done on that route. But I thought there was no way I could do the whole thing. And I just shelved the idea of that one started doing all this other, all these other lines that were easier. And finally, uh, we got Sharma out there saying, I, I forgot 2007, whenever it was that he did that route.

And so it was really cool to see that. After, after seeing and bolting that route.

Steve: Yeah. So what? My notes say that it was 14 years between your bolting it and Chris climbing it. You know, what is it? You know? Okay, I understand. And maybe this is an explanation that you just bolted the king line. You’re like, that’s the king line. But if you didn’t have the feeling that you were gonna be able to actually climb it, why bother?

Why not just let somebody else put in that work and put in that invest that money and time and effort?

Randy: Well, you never know until, you know. You never know until you go. So, you know, the way I bolted that route was I started at the top and I would go down, uh, I think the top section was what I would call a slab, which means it was just gently overhanging. And that was, I forgot, 40, 50 feet. And I, I, I bolted, I wrapped down, swung in, put a bolt in, and I look at that section and go, that’s like 13 A.

Okay. I’ll go down farther. I go down farther and I go, oh, that’s like V 5, that boulder problem between these two holes. And I would just keep going. And then I’m finding bolder problems are like, that’s like V 10, you know, and I’m into my trainers on a cold day. Just trying kind, kind of, you sort of try the moves.

You get a really good idea after enough root development of how hard something’s gonna be. And every time I went down, I could still see myself doing each section. And then, but when I got to the bottom, I thought that’s, I just, I can’t see myself doing the whole thing ever. That’s, that is something that can be done, but not by me and not by anyone I knew at the time.

Steve: Mm. Well, not, not by anyone at the time. And that, that grade, I mean, at that time in 94, what was the top of the grade? Like 14 B, maybe

Randy: I think I bolted that in 92. And, uh, yeah. So then Sharma did it in 2007, which was what, 15 years or,

Steve: But in 92, the top of the, the, the highest grade anybody climb. When did, when was, when did Scott Franklin climb? Scarface? It was that was 14 a. That was right around that time.

Randy: Yeah. And this is so much harder than 14 a. It’s, it’s a joke.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Randy: Like people don’t, people that just look at grades and go, oh, 15 a, 15 B, 15 C, 15 D. The, when, when you get to the top of the grades, those are huge jumps.

Steve: They are. Yeah. Yeah.

Randy: and you know, I climb 14 b at the hardest, at my personal hardest. So I’m not anywhere close to climbing.

Jumbo love.

Steve: Right. What was the experience like of watching, you know, Chris climb this route that you’d envisioned?

Randy: It is the most fun I’ve had not climbing a route, you know, and I, it was weird to say that ’cause I’ve always wanted to climb every project I bolted, but I actually in a way enjoyed it more, that it was too hard for me and that I saw someone else do it, because that’s progress, right? That’s the sport. And we all wanna see that.

We all wanna see, you know, if, if we were as good as the best we got was the best we were in say the mid nineties when, when I was climbing my best, then that wouldn’t be that exciting. But look, the sport keeps moving ahead, so that’s cool.

Steve: That’s really cool, huh?

Randy: And Sharma will see someone climb something he bolted that he’ll never do.

It just happens that way.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that you said was you like to try to create classics that others will repeat and love when you’re setting up and, and, and developing roots and crags. This is, it’s such an interesting idea that you’re building an architecture for other people’s joy. Where does this, where does it come from? Like, why, why? What is the, what is the wellspring of this motivation for you to, to, to do this and to, and like you just said about the experience watching Chris and, and it, and I can attest to having experienced this from my side and in small ways. It is so fun to watch people climb your routes and love them, right?

Like, it’s such a cool experience, but, but why do it? Like, is it, is it like ego death? Is it ego manifestation? Like where does that come from? What, what, what is the, what is the impetus for that?

Randy: It is probably like walking into a, a house somewhere for a guy who’s done a tile job in his shower and it’s perfect. And you walk in and you go, you did that tile job. That is amazing. Look at that. And you know, they’re proud, right? It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s pride, I guess. And I work really hard at my routes to make ’em right.

If they’re, if they’re not right, I’ll spend a time cleaning ’em, um, moving the bolts, doing whatever I need to do to try to make it a really good route. And so if someone recognizes that and enjoys it, it’s satisfying. I, uh, you know, it’s a recognition of all the hard work you put in.

Steve: Hmm.

Randy: It would, it would be no fun to put up these routes and no one ever does ’em.

Steve: When you look back at sort of that teenage intensity that took you from, you know, first being exposed to climbing at 14, to climbing a big wall in Yosemite at age 17 to, you know, all the way through all your climbing achievements to jumbo love, what is the thread that connects all those versions of Randy, the climber?

Randy: Well, uh, all the climb and I’ve done a lot of different types of, of climbs, new climbs. And I also, the biggest compliment I get is when people say, oh, that’s a Leavitt route. You know, it’s really good. And so if it’s a Leavitt root, then hopefully people will like it if they’re challenged. It’s in a way that I intended not, not like a way I didn’t intend.

I don’t want people to hurt themselves, but I want them to have to push themselves a little higher above a bolt sometimes. And I want it to be a quality experience. And you can’t control the rock, but you can sort of choose what rocks you. You spend your time on and, and where you put your efforts. So it’s, it’s always nice to see that

Steve: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And what, what is the thread that connect? What is the thread that’s continuous from Randy, the house painter to Randy? The, you know, I. Are you retired? Is that a word we can use?

Randy: Yeah

Steve: What is, what is that? What is that thread and how is it similar to or different than the, that climber thread, because it feels very different, but maybe there’s a connection in there. I don’t see.

Randy: well you, I mean, as you get older, you have to change what your expectations of yourself are and what your goals are and what’s realistic. So I feel like I’m just trying to get old gracefully and still enjoy things and still be a good person and set a good example for people if they’re younger and they’re looking up to me.

Um, it’s just. Uh, I, I don’t know what the threat is when, when you’re done, I mean, in, in 50 years after I’m dead, probably no one will remember who I am. It’s just, that’s kind of the nature. Everyone sort of remembers George Washington, but all these other people who are probably in some ways as important or more to our country or in other situations, they just don’t remember ’em.

So you, at the end of the day, you just have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, that’s, I did, I did my best. And, uh, you know, I did the right thing. And as a person, that’s that I, that gives me joy. You know, I’ve, I’ve got a beautiful wife and a nice marriage, so I’m grateful for that. You know, things have gone pretty well for me.

I’ve had my challenges, but I just try to keep things moving forward. Not, not look, not try to rest on what I’ve done, but just be content and happy with what I’m doing.

Steve: How do, how do you be content and happy when you’re with what you’re doing, when you’re looking so far forward all the time? Because it feels to me like that’s what you’re doing. You’re, you know, jumbo love is like, well, I can’t do this, but I’m gonna bolt it up anyway. That’s, in a way, looking forward, you know?

Putting up routes for others, I think is, is by itself a, a, a looking forward like this doesn’t exist now I’m gonna bring it into existence so that others can experience this piece of rock.

Randy: You mean as far as the first ascent goes? Because all the routes that I bolted and developed for first ascents, I had every intention of being able to do ’em. But there’s some of ’em that, there’s probably a dozen of ’em, at least, that I left that I wasn’t able to do, and, and I knew someone else stronger had to do it.

So, you know, it starts out with the idea that you’re, you’re gonna do it yourself. I have, I have a belief in what I can do, but also I’m realistic. You know, I’m not the best climber, never was, but I, but I was maybe one of the most motivated ones. So I was willing to keep going back there and build a thing in my gym.

And remember one time when I was working on Planet Earth, my first five 14, I had built Planet Earth in my home climbing gym. I drove five and a half hours out to the Virgin River Gorge, and a half an hour short of getting there, you know, six hour mark, half hour short of that, they had closed the, the freeway and I couldn’t get there.

And so I had to turn around and drive home. So I’d left at four in the morning. I got home that afternoon and I did my planet Earth Boulder problem, like 10 outta 10 times in my garage, which is the first time I’d ever done it. And so I felt like, wow, I’d made a lot of progress on this route and I never even got to the route today.

And it was the biggest success. And I did the route soon after that. But, um. Yeah. I’m always, I’m always believing I can do it or, or working towards it.

Steve: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, I think there’s these threads like I’m, there’s this. Integrity that comes with like the, you know, the pride. I mean, you’ve used a lot of words like, you know, you around integrity, I would say, you know, leaving things for others, creating things for others. Of course you wanna do them like you said, but it’s beyond that.

You want to have good, good, if you just wanted to do them, you’d do the minimum, right? But you’re not just doing the minimum, you’re taking a lot of pride, a lot of integrity in what your creation is, and you expect it to have a long life after you, whether they remember you or not. You don’t seem to care.

And that’s, that’s fine, but there’s a work ethic and an integrity that you’re bringing to, to that, that I suspect. Whether you, I don’t know that, that, that was the same in your real estate career. Like there, you worked hard. I heard you talk about how hard you work and. You developed, you know, knowledge, you developed relationships, you developed an area, a narrow, like, you know, you had, it sounds like you had a specific area of San Diego where you worked and that, that, that gave you like this long-term advantage.

That, and I think a lot of people don’t see that kind of work as being valuable and they don’t put in that amount of time. And where does that, where does that come from? Like, what is the, what is the wellspring of that? What is the seed of that willingness to, first of all, envision it, and then second of all, to actually go up and show, go out and show up every day and like, you know, pay, make the maps on your wall and take the pictures and read about foreclosures every week or whatever, however it is that you got the information.

Then there’d be a different version of it now, as you said. But where does that, where does that come from?

Randy: I, I can’t really answer that. I, I do know I have it in me. Um, even a 60, even a 65-year-old guy, like last year I was, uh, 64 and I did a landscaping project in my yard, and I had to hire some laborers, and they would look at me like, whoa, look at this dude. He look at him, go, you know, they’d have to step up their game and they’re, they’re like 25 years old.

Uh, but, you know, so I was, I, I, I’ve always respected work and worked hard and, and the product of work being whether you’re building a house or building a climb or whatever you’re doing is important to me. And maybe that’s just inherent. Maybe it’s from my parents. I don’t know all the chemicals that make up a person, how, how it happens.

I can’t answer that, but I, I, I was blessed with it. I know I have that maybe cursed with it, some would say, because I have, I have partners that are that, that just like, oh my God, Randy. Randy, he, he, you know, we wanna quit for today, but he wants to do a whole nother pitch. You know, he wants to wrap down this other section of the wall and we just wanna go home and, oh, no, why is he running the show today? Uh, so yeah, it, it, it can be a blessing and it occurs.

Steve: yeah, I understand that when I, when I have hired people to work with me at Uphill Athlete, one of the things I’ll tell them in the, like, in sort of an interview, I don’t know if we really do interviews, but well, I’ll communicate early on, is like, I can, you know, I know I’m a little bit like that in the sense that I can be really intense.

I can be too much, and, and that’s, that’s what you’re signing up. Like I just, I’m just out with it now. Like, I used to sort of be almost ashamed of it, like people would, ’cause people will try to shame you for it. Like, why do you have to do that? We just wanna go home like that kind of thing. And it, and it takes a certain strength to be like, Hey, no, this is what I want to do.

This is what I came to do. This is what we came to do and we’re gonna see it through. And, and there’s like this kind of, uh, tension a lot of times around that.

Randy: Yeah, I, I’ve seen it and earlier in my life I didn’t see it. You know, I had these blinders on, I’m just moving towards that goal and working hard and doing stuff. But as you get older, you get more aware of actually how you interact with people and how it affects them. And so I, I do see it sometimes I try to, try to just kind of collar it a little bit so everyone can just kick back and have a good day.

But when it comes to climbing, I, I feel like, especially we’re in San Diego, we’ve been doing some really long approaches and we’re, we’ve hiked for two and a half hours to get to the crag. Let’s make the most of the day, let’s get up at four in the morning and then hike out in the dark. Um, so I. But I’m also the kind of guy where I was in my business.

I would be in a suit walking around looking at a, a property and there’s trash on the ground. I’d pick it up. I’ve just sort of, I don’t like to see stuff being undone that needs to be done, so, so I think it’s just programmed in me.

Steve: don’t collar that. Randy. Just, just unleash it all. I love it.

Randy: Okay.

Steve: So, you know, I think it’s, it’s so, uh, interesting. I sort of see this, you know, from my perspective. Randy, what one of the things that, you know, I’ve been an admirer of yours. You know, I grew up reading, you know, Climbing Magazine in Rock an Ice and the Hot Flashes. You know, remember that? That’s how we used to get our climbing news.

And you’re always in there doing so, you know something and pushing the boundaries, creating all these new roots and. I didn’t aspire to be like a rock climber so much. Of course. But I just loved that you were just out there in your zone, like creating Virgin River Gorge, creating, you know, Clark Mountain climbing, creating, climbing around San Diego, you know, not creating the, like, the rocks, but developing and, and and opening places up for people.

And it’s so interesting for me to get to hear about, you know, your, your business trajectory, your business life. Uh, one thing we didn’t get to talk about that I was hoping to talk about is as you’re flying, um, you know, I’m a, I consider myself a student pilot. You’ve been flying for a while and, and get to fly your own bonanza.

And, you know, you’ve been able to pull all these things together in this kind of combination of energy discipline, uh, kind of deferred. Gratification and, and just this, this, uh, I think the French would say this, this zest for life, this, this, this, this, the spice, the secret ingredient that makes Randy Leavitt, Randy Leavitt, that has, that enabled you to unlock all these things we didn’t even talk about off with climbing or levitation, right?

Like there’s, there’s all these aspects to, you know, you just being who you are and showing up authentically as you, as Randy. And that has opened up all these experiences and opportunities for other people, whether it’s having a nice apartment to live in or having a nice route to climb. And I just think it’s a, it’s a wonderful legacy that is not even close to being over.

I’m not, not reading your eulogy or anything here, but I think it is very poetic and I really admire it. So I just wanna say thank you for all that you’ve, you’ve contributed to, to my community and our community. It’s just been incredible.

Randy: I think one of the things I’ve learned is it’s okay to be a beginner. I see a lot of guys who are like me, that are good at their respective sports, that don’t want to get outside of their lane and. Try to be something new, to be a beginner. But I, everything that I’ve done, I had to be a, a total beginner at make mistakes.

I’m trying wing foiling now, and I’m finally to the point where, yeah, hey, I’m, I’m, you know, I’m not, I’m, I’m decent at it, but it took a lot of time. So time and being a beginner is, it’s, it’s a natural thing to have to go through. So don’t be afraid of that.

Steve: do you think it’s hard to be a beginner when you’re already an expert in something else?

Randy: For me, I like the process there, but, um, there’s a lot of people who don’t there. They just don’t wanna be a beginner at anything. They want to be the expert they are at what they do.

Steve: And what do you say to them?

Randy: Just open your mind. Just be a beginner. It’s okay. You know, it’s, it’s fun to learn. Learning is fun. Like, you, you, you know, as being a, a private pilot that you learn so much as a pilot.

It’s just you learn more about things that you never thought you’d have to learn. And it is just a great learning experience, so it’s just enjoy it. And are you a private pilot? Do you have your license or are you still a student pilot?

Steve: Yeah. I’m still a student pilot. I have only a check ride, so I’m, I’m close.

Randy: Oh, you’re, you’re getting ready for your check ride.

Steve: Yeah.

Randy: Well, you know, they say that the private pilot certificate is just a license to learn. So you’re, I consider myself still a student pilot. I’m commercial instrument rated, but I, I still feel like I’m learning and I’ll train and learn and it’s just, it’s just really interesting and that’s one reason I love aviation is just the rabbit hole of information and learning that you get to do.

Steve: That’s what I’m loving too, is just so, and and getting to be a beginner again. I also like you, I love being a beginner. I love learning and it’s just like, oh wow. Like there’s this whole, like all of these rabbit holes are universes, like you talked about earlier, and it’s just a fascinating one. It’s like, you know, I had to relearn trigonometry from my navigation.

I was like, oh man, I haven’t done this since I was 16. But it was like, what a great opportunity to get to remember how all this works and why and everything. So yeah, it’s.

Randy: and, and, and the great part is you’ll forget it all by the time you have as many hours as me because you have all these other aides, and then someday you’ll have to go back and say, oh, yeah, I, that’s something I learned as a private pilot. I, and I, and I suck, you know, because I don’t remember

Steve: I gotta learn it again, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. We’re always, always, always learning. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time, Randy. I really appreciate you. This has been an incredible conversation and I’m sure the voice of the mountains diehard listeners, will really love this episode. Uh, hope we, uh, get to cross paths again in real life sometime soon.

Randy: I think we’ll go flying together. How’s that?

Steve: Sounds amazing. I would love that.

Randy: Thanks for having me here. I I really appreciate it. It was great to talk with you.

Steve: Thanks, Randy. Thanks so much.

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