The Currency of Toil

00:00:07:09 – 00:00:38:14

Steve

Imagine climbing 27,000ft. Each breath feels like you’re pulling air through a straw. Every step forward is a test of will. Every decision can be a matter of life or death. You’re alone, surrounded by an endless expanse of ice and rock and mountains. The summit just in view. It’s tempting. So tempting to push just a little further. But then you hear the quiet voice.

00:00:38:16 – 00:01:11:23

Steve

The one that’s kept you alive this long. It reminds you that getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory. Few climbers have left these words as faithfully as Ed. The first American to summit all 14 of the world’s 8000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. Ed is a legend. What makes him remarkable isn’t just his achievements. It’s the integrity with which he’s pursued them.

00:01:12:00 – 00:01:43:09

Steve

The mountains have a way of stripping us down to who we really are. And for Ed, every climb has been a lesson in humility, resilience and respect. Today, he’s here to share what the mountains taught him about life, risk, and the true meaning of success. This is voice of the mountains, and I’m your host, Steve House. Let’s listen to the mountains through the voice of at least.

00:01:43:11 – 00:02:10:21

Steve

Welcome to voice of the mountains. My name is Steve House. I’m really excited to introduce our guests today, who I’ve known for a long time. Few people in the world of mountaineering. Here are the mountains, as my guest does. Of course, few people have dedicated their lives to the sport of mountaineering. The way he has had Viesturs is perhaps best known for a lifetime spent climbing the greatest mountains on Earth.

00:02:10:23 – 00:02:30:03

Steve

He is the only American to have summited all 14 of the world’s 8000 meter peaks, which of course he did without supplemental oxygen and is only one of 12 people in the world to have ever done so. And while accomplishments like that have made him a legend in the world of high altitude mountaineering, that’s not the reason he’s here today.

00:02:30:07 – 00:03:08:01

Steve

Well, not the only reason Ed’s career wasn’t only notable for the peaks he climbed, but for the care and integrity with which he climbed up. In a world that seems to be singularly focused on reaching the top no matter what day stands out. His philosophy is famously getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory. And that line has made him a sage for climbers and non climbers alike for over 30 years and has been going on expeditions, and he’s been tested by some of the most unforgiving environments on earth.

00:03:08:03 – 00:03:39:03

Steve

And by tragic loss in our community. He’s synonymous with the Himalaya, Mount Everest and the are that these places inspire. But his legend status has not changed him. He still remains to me the humble young man who left Illinois at 18 and fell in love with mountaineering on the slopes of Mount Rainier. Mountaineering has taken him around the world, and he has shared his journeys and experiences as a writer, a cinematographer and a noted speaker.

00:03:39:05 – 00:04:04:23

Steve

He’s also been successful at another very difficult career, professional climbing, and is perhaps the only American climber to have ever been sponsored by Rolex. And if you think that’s easy to do, well, you’re welcome to try. I’ll be blunt. There is but a small handful of people on the planet that have accomplished what Ed has, and perhaps even fewer that understand that it isn’t about the accomplishments, it’s about the toil.

00:04:05:03 – 00:04:18:22

Steve

And, in his words, listening to the mountain. And that is why I can’t imagine a better guest for voice of the mountains. I want to welcome fellow mountain listener Ed Viesturs. Thanks for being on the show today, Ed.

00:04:18:24 – 00:04:20:11

Ed

Well, thanks for having me.

00:04:20:13 – 00:04:26:02

Steve

Tell us about the Ed Viesturs that fell in love with mountaineering all those years ago.

00:04:26:04 – 00:04:54:24

Ed

You know, I was growing up at the time in Illinois and, to escape and have adventure, which wasn’t available, really. I started reading adventure books, and one of the first mountaineering books that I read was Annapurna. And that was, you know, the event that took place in 1950 where the French, for the first time reached the summit of an 8000 meter peak, Annapurna.

00:04:55:01 – 00:05:20:23

Ed

And it was that book that flipped the switch. And after reading that, I knew that is something that I wanted to do to go climb big mountains. And I knew it wasn’t going to happen right away. Right. I was in the wrong place. I didn’t know anything about climbing. And it was because of that book that I decided right out of high school, I was going to move to Seattle.

00:05:21:00 – 00:05:49:16

Ed

Because of all my readings, I knew so many great American Himalayan climbers were from the Pacific Northwest. And I think if you want to do something in a certain arena, you surround yourself in an environment where you can practice, and then you surround yourself with the people that are doing what you’re doing as well, because they can hopefully become your teachers and your mentors and guide you and teach you.

00:05:49:18 – 00:05:55:24

Ed

And that’s what caused me to move. And, you know, it started for me as a dream and as a hobby.

00:05:56:01 – 00:06:10:08

Steve

Who were those people that you looked up to at that time? Those Himalayan mountaineers and why are Himalayan it? Was it strictly because of Annapurna or what was it? Was there something particular about the Himalayan at that point already in your life that called to you?

00:06:10:13 – 00:06:43:02

Ed

You know what I think? What I was intrigued with, especially with the Himalayan, was the altitude. You know, the struggle of moving uphill at 26,000, 27,000, 28,000ft, the, the the increase of the the difficulty. And to me, the intrigue seemed, you know, how do you do that physically. How do you train for that? How do you endure that mentally as well?

00:06:43:04 – 00:07:00:05

Ed

Those things were to me very interesting. You know, I enjoyed alpine climbing. I enjoyed rock climbing. But what for me was the cold and the high and the extreme and where you’re just really just stripped to your basics, right?

00:07:00:09 – 00:07:00:18

Steve

You.

00:07:00:18 – 00:07:02:14

Ed

Death in the mountain. That’s it.

00:07:02:15 – 00:07:03:13

Steve

Yeah. You know, and the mountain.

00:07:03:13 – 00:07:27:24

Ed

And that was what intrigued me. The people that I’d read about were obviously, you know, the Whittaker’s in Seattle and. And Ross Kelly and Sean Bean. You know, there were some much activity in the Washington state areas where those guys were innovative. The terrain was difficult. They had to work hard just to get to some of these mountains, even in the state of Washington.

00:07:27:24 – 00:07:28:15

Steve

Yeah.

00:07:28:17 – 00:07:52:16

Ed

And all that kind of hardship, set them up for the hardship of going into the bigger mountains. And. And those are the people that I kind of wanted to emulate. And then, of course, you know, I started reading about people like Messner, you know, who was really pushing the envelope in the Himalaya. No oxygen, small teams, alpine style.

00:07:52:18 – 00:07:58:15

Ed

But again, I started at zero, and this was all me just reading and dreaming about it.

00:07:58:17 – 00:08:04:09

Steve

How do you communicate what that’s like? What you described? Like moving up at 26, 27.

00:08:04:11 – 00:08:29:11

Ed

You know, all I can do is described to them. And one of the events I do talk about was my first time, going to the summit of Everest. And that was in 1987. And that was actually my third expedition to Everest, to my first two trips. You know, we got shut down by weather. My first trip, we had to turn around 300ft from the summit.

00:08:29:13 – 00:09:04:17

Ed

And I talk about how you make that decision, and you walk away while you’re, you know, standing there literally looking at the summit. And it was that day, in 1990 that I finally had my third opportunity to go for the summit. You know, on the North side high camp is at about 27,000ft, and you’ve got a long day ahead of you and without oxygen in each step becomes its own mountain, literally.

00:09:04:19 – 00:09:28:17

Ed

And I recall and I remember, you know, you’re moving at a snail’s pace. You’re going nowhere very slowly. And I had to breathe 15 times per step. And I had to make that my, my pace my mantra at breath 15. I had to you literally have to force yourself to take that next step.

00:09:28:20 – 00:09:36:19

Steve

And that’s not just like a little breath. Like it’s like a big breath. Right. It’s a full body, full torso.

00:09:36:21 – 00:10:02:05

Ed

15 gasping breaths. Yeah. Like a fish out of water. Yeah. And I kind of remember knowing what. What? Let me take a step at 14 and you can’t do it because then you’re out of breath. Yeah. And if you go to 16 or 17 breaths, then that’s too much. And then you’ll never get there. So you have to find that tipping point between hypoxia and just having enough energy that you’ve regained to take that next step.

00:10:02:07 – 00:10:28:18

Ed

And I tell people that that goes on for 8 or 10 hours. Yeah. And that’s all you think about literally. And I and I throw it out to the audience. I say, what have you done in a ten hour day? I mean, you do so many things. All I’m doing is stepping and breathing. Yeah. And then it starts to become a mind game because you start to think about this is not fun.

00:10:28:20 – 00:10:33:12

Ed

Why am I doing this? And how do I quit? Right. How do I stop?

00:10:33:16 – 00:10:34:15

Steve

Yeah.

00:10:34:17 – 00:10:41:12

Ed

Quitting is easy. Right. And. But if you can’t come up with a legitimate excuse to go. Can’t. I’m not going to quit.

00:10:41:14 – 00:11:04:15

Steve

I want you to stop right there. Because I think that that’s so. That’s the point where, like, just your mindset is you’re thinking about reasons you like. What’s a good reason I should quit? Right. As opposed to, like, you’ve got plenty of. I mean, anyone you objectively would think of, like a million good reasons to quit at any point that day, but you’re coming at it from completely the other side of the equation.

00:11:04:16 – 00:11:26:04

Ed

You know, you can come up with an excuse. And when things get really hard, I think a lot of people just come up with an idea or an excuse that I can’t. I don’t want to. It’s too hard and too cold is taking too long. I mean, those are all legitimate, right? I mean, I was up there alone that day, so I didn’t have a partner to pull me along or to discuss with.

00:11:26:04 – 00:11:52:09

Ed

And so it was just me. And I could have quit and I could have said, oh, I’m done. I get to go down. But I tend to be pretty stubborn, and I always reflect on when I don’t complete something. It always bothers me. And I’ll think about it until I finally finish it. And if I don’t have a legitimate excuse to stop I say okay I’m going to keep going.

00:11:52:11 – 00:12:08:21

Ed

And then the mental way that you break a giant event like that down is you’ve got to break it down into smaller, tangible, consumable steps. Right. Step by step and, you know, hour by hour, it’s got to be steps and breath.

00:12:09:02 – 00:12:21:06

Steve

I’ve done this with people similarly where, you know, I haven’t been as high as you, but, you know, say like above 8000m. I’m like, take ten big breaths. Those big gasping breaths and just see how long it takes you to walk across the room.

00:12:21:06 – 00:12:21:16

Ed

Yeah.

00:12:21:16 – 00:12:44:14

Steve

Or go from your living room to your bedroom in your house. And that starts to put it in jail for people like how hard it is, is to move. I think it’s always so interesting. And it’s something that all of us as mountaineers and climbers and every single person that ever ties into a rope at some point has to ask themself this question about, do I turn around now?

00:12:44:20 – 00:13:06:14

Steve

Right. Or not like that? That decision point. Right. And sometimes we’re blessed with days where it’s super easy, right? Like there’s the obvious storm or, I don’t know, whatever the obvious thing is. And it makes it so like it’s so blatantly obvious, like, okay, yeah, we can’t go on. We have to turn around. Whatever. That’s easy. Right? But it’s that’s 10% of the time or whatever it is.

00:13:06:14 – 00:13:27:01

Steve

It’s some small amount of the time. Most of the time, it’s somewhere in this gray middle where you’re like, you know, this is hard. I could turn now. I might keep going. I might be okay, but I might not be. I just don’t know. Like, talk to me about that space and how you how you exist in that space a little more and how you think about that.

00:13:27:03 – 00:13:51:09

Ed

You do wrestle with that decision at certain times. And like you said, there are days when it’s more than obvious, right? The weather, weather’s moving in, it’s late. Somebody might be going too slow, you know, and you start to calculate. If we keep going, well, we have time and energy to come down, right. Because a lot of people, I think they forget about the going down part.

00:13:51:11 – 00:14:26:14

Ed

It’s pushing and consuming all of your resources including daylight supplemental oxygen whatever. Just to get to the top. There’s no plan for coming down the. It’s going to be easy. We’re going downhill. No big deal. But by then, things start to fall apart. If you don’t have the energy or the resources to come down. My ascents were always dictated by my descent, so I always made sure I had a plan for going down before I had a plan for going up.

00:14:26:16 – 00:14:50:14

Ed

There are days, though, where the weather’s kind of maybe changing and you’re trying to figure out, do I have the endurance to get myself to the top? You know, after 12 hours of going uphill and then still have enough gas in the tank to come down? That’s always a kind of a mystery, right? And what I learned through experience was instinct, rules.

00:14:50:16 – 00:15:15:17

Ed

If you feel any inkling of trepidation as you’re going up, you’ve got to stop and ask yourself, why am I feeling this way? You know, instinct keeps us alive. And that’s based on a lot of things, including, you know, experience and training and all those things. And I always made the decision that I’m going to listen to that instinct and just be super conservative.

00:15:15:19 – 00:15:40:21

Ed

Right. Because at the end of the day, and I’ve said this, you know, I love climbing, but I like being alive a lot more. And that’s the thing you got to think about. Make sure you get home. Everything else is secondary. Yeah. You can go back. And I think the thing that I had was, I knew that I had the possibility to go back and try again if it didn’t work on a certain expedition.

00:15:41:02 – 00:15:41:13

Steve

Right.

00:15:41:19 – 00:15:52:18

Ed

Whereas they think a lot of people, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, right? And it might not never get to go back. And they’re willing to pay a bigger price for success.

00:15:52:19 – 00:16:12:22

Steve

Yeah. And that’s a key point. And I think that I’m glad you bring that up because I think you’re, you know, you’re giving people grace in a sense for being in that position. I mean, I’m not judging them. I’m just that’s their thing. They’ve got that one window. They’re going to do this. This one time. And if it doesn’t happen today, it’s never going to happen for them.

00:16:12:23 – 00:16:32:17

Steve

And so that is a different thing. Like, you know, I also thought about my expeditionary climbing career where I thought of it as sort of like a, you know, a very long game of 20, 30 years, knowing that some of those expeditions I was going to have bad weather and some of them I was going to have good weather and it’s just a matter of showing up every season.

00:16:32:19 – 00:16:50:11

Steve

Right? And if you could show up for the season and be unlucky with weather in conditions like okay, good, I got the bad weather season out of the way and the next year I have a better chance. That’s how I justified it. Right? But I think you’re right. Like a lot of people don’t have that kind of long game perspective.

00:16:50:11 – 00:16:52:22

Steve

And that is something that is very different.

00:16:52:24 – 00:17:18:15

Ed

Yeah, I agree. And you can see that. And I don’t like you said you don’t judge people based on that, you know, and everybody has their own price. They’re willing to pay for success. Everybody has their own level of acceptable risk. Right. Some people are willing to risk more. Some people willing and you just decide who you want to be with in the mountains based on your level of acceptable risk.

00:17:18:15 – 00:17:41:01

Ed

And if they’re if everybody’s on the same page, you’re going to have fun. You’re not going to have a disagreement. Nobody’s going to push somebody harder than they want to. And that’s hard along the way to find those perfect partnerships. And I know you know what that’s like. Once you work with certain people, you make the decisions in the same way you push each other, but you don’t push too hard.

00:17:41:03 – 00:17:46:20

Ed

Yeah. And you come away having a great event and you’re still friends at the end of the day.

00:17:46:22 – 00:18:09:22

Steve

I think that people listening to you and know they’ll like connected to what you just said about instinct and instinct keeps us alive. And I also want to say that something you said after that is that instinct is made up of a lot of things, one of which is experience. I think of this instinct that you’re talking about for me is actually quite movable.

00:18:09:24 – 00:18:34:17

Steve

You know, like if I’m on the West Buttress of Denali guiding and I have certain resources behind me and, you know, and I’m very comfortable and I’m not stretched by altitude, and I know my way around super well because I’ve been up there a couple dozen times, like all those things my, my, my quote unquote instinct. There is very different than it is in another location, another time, another place, another set of circumstances.

00:18:34:17 – 00:18:53:17

Steve

Right. And when people don’t have a lot of experience yet they have they don’t understand that. They think that we’re all the same and we’re not the same. Like, you are not the same. That you are not. You’re different than I am, and I’m different than another climber. And we’re each going to be different from your, you know, day to day, month to month, year to year.

00:18:53:18 – 00:19:12:09

Steve

What it is, is very human, right. Like the things that you’re talking about are the same things that every mountaineer that ever flipped on a headlamp at 12 in the morning and put on their crampons, ever thought about this? Is the meat of it. This is what everybody goes through every time they rope up and head off to try to climb a peak.

00:19:12:11 – 00:19:30:21

Steve

And, you know, some days it’s easy and some days it’s not. And I like your answer about instinct because it is, you know, we spend so much time with the athlete, like working on people’s physical preparedness. And that is a component, right. Like you kind of know what kind of fitness and health you have at any given time.

00:19:30:21 – 00:19:43:17

Steve

You can feel that that’s one of the things in forming your instinct. And one of the things that can move that, that is those variables is the like how far you’re willing to push. But we don’t ever spend much time talking about.

00:19:43:19 – 00:19:43:23

Ed

Or.

00:19:44:01 – 00:19:56:05

Steve

And we never basically talk about except here, this, this decision making, framework, I guess I’ll call it for making this tough call, which 80% of the time it’s a tough call.

00:19:56:07 – 00:20:23:20

Ed

It’s true. And, you know, it’s all based on managing risk. And, you know, when I started climbing, I don’t think any of us going to it going, oh, I’m going to become a risk manager. You know, that is something you learn along the way and you discover, wow, there are inherent risks. And what I’ve chosen to do. And a lot of people think, you know, we as climbers, we love risk, we seek risk.

00:20:23:20 – 00:20:47:10

Ed

And I say, no, we we don’t do it for the risk. We do it for other reasons. Risk happens to be a huge part of what we do. And I tend to separate the risk into two categories. I talk about the objective dangers. You know, the things that are inherent in the mountains, things we can’t avoid. We have to accept, we can’t ignore.

00:20:47:12 – 00:21:08:11

Ed

And but I think the biggest risk in the mountains is the decision making part. You know, how we choose what we do when we do it, how far we’re willing to push and that is, in my opinion, the biggest category that causes the problems in the mountain. It’s the decisions and the choices.

00:21:08:11 – 00:21:10:11

Steve

The human factor, for sure.

00:21:10:13 – 00:21:11:15

Ed

Yeah.

00:21:11:17 – 00:21:21:24

Steve

This dovetails into a question I wanted to ask you. What did guiding teach you and how did how did guiding shape your thought processes around this?

00:21:22:01 – 00:21:56:10

Ed

You know, when I became a guide, and I wanted to work, I thought, what a great summer job to be on Mount Rainier, going up and down, being in that environment, getting fit, learning about the, the, the, the activity of climbing. But more importantly for me, I knew that there were these senior guides like Eric Simonton and George, Don and Phil earlier, guys that had ten more years experience than me, and they actually became my teachers and my mentors.

00:21:56:10 – 00:22:23:24

Ed

I mean, I looked up to them and I thought, I want to take their best qualities, I want to emulate them. And I knew they were already doing big trips, you know, guiding all over the world, as well as going, to the Himalaya. And I said, if I learn from these guys and if I work hard and keep my mouth shut and show them that I’m a capable team member, maybe they’ll start inviting me to go with them.

00:22:24:01 – 00:22:50:01

Ed

And sure enough, they did. You know, Ursula invited me to Denali. Eric Simonton brought me to Denali, and here I was with my superstar teachers, and I was like, oh, my God, I can’t believe this. And eventually it was Eric that brought me on my first Himalayan expedition, and that was to Everest in 1987. And I remember telling him, I said, listen, I’ve never been that high before.

00:22:50:01 – 00:23:13:20

Ed

I’ve been to Denali 20,000ft. I don’t have experience at altitude. And he said, listen, if nobody allows you to gain the experience, how will you ever get the experience? And I thought that was an amazing gift that he gave to me to bring me as a team member to say, let’s go. Here’s your time to learn.

00:23:13:22 – 00:23:14:11

Steve

Yeah.

00:23:14:13 – 00:23:41:14

Ed

And another thing that I learned, that was really important to me as a guide. You know, we’re in charge of our clients that come to us, and we are there to teach them, to motivate them, to cheerlead them, but more importantly, to keep them safe. Right? We’re not just taking care of ourselves in the mountains. We’re taking care of other people.

00:23:41:16 – 00:24:16:24

Ed

And that makes you think about situational awareness, always processing information that’s happening in the moment the weather, the snow, the strength of the team, the time of day and those. And that information is how you make your decisions and choices and trying to make a decision before something happens. Right, instead of letting it happen. And the term that we had was listen, listen to the mountain because it is going to tell you what you’re allowed to do and what you shouldn’t do.

00:24:17:01 – 00:24:39:06

Ed

And that to me was my biggest takeaway as a guide. And you know how to have the mountain decide what I get to do. Not me. I don’t conquer, you know, I don’t like that word conquer. I think in the mountains we’re allowed to either proceed or we’re told to turn around and go home. And that was a big takeaway for me.

00:24:39:10 – 00:24:47:22

Steve

When the mountain is talking, what is it saying? Like, what are the what are the voices that it uses? What is it? How is it communicating with you? How are you hearing it?

00:24:48:03 – 00:25:11:22

Ed

It’s information that you’re seeing, you know, a cloud building on the horizon, the wind increasing. It’s things that you’re feeling. What does the snow sound like? You know, when you’re walking on funky snow, you’re like, I know this is not good. And again, all that stuff is experiential stuff that you’ve learned, right? Yeah.

00:25:12:00 – 00:25:32:10

Ed

Ignorance is bliss in the mountain. You can go out there and go, hey, we’re going to the summit without any idea of what could happen. The more you learn, I think the more information you take in because you know what to take in. And so it’s all that stuff. And then again, part of that again based on experience is your instinct.

00:25:32:15 – 00:25:47:04

Ed

You know, when things start to alarm bells start to go off for whatever reason, there’s there’s a reason for that. And that’s something you’ve got to stop and listen to and at least make a decision or have a conversation with your team.

00:25:47:09 – 00:26:16:12

Steve

There’s a couple things that you say and you know, I I’m getting calls from people that say, want to train to climb Mount Everest next year or something like that, right? And they have zero mountaineering experience. And they want to know how to do it. And they think it’s just about doing a certain number of vertical meters on the stair climber in the gym or something, and then they can go and these I’m going to start sending them this conversation and you talking about that because those experiential things.

00:26:16:17 – 00:26:39:21

Steve

Yeah. You, you there’s no way to download that information. There’s you can’t learn that from a book. You can’t learn it from another person telling you about it. You can’t learn it from a podcast. You could only learn it. You only know what funky snow feels like if you felt funky snow under your boots. I don’t know another way to communicate that to people, but I know viscerally what you mean.

00:26:39:21 – 00:26:59:23

Steve

Like in my body, I know what that is. And others who are listening to this have that experience will too. And so that’s what and we communicate about that. And you say, oh, the snow felt funky. Like I’ll know what you meant. I’d be like, oh, really? It felt funky where, you know, and we’ll start talking about it and we’ll have a conversation about this, about the snow pack.

00:27:00:00 – 00:27:06:19

Steve

But you know, that’s just not something you can get any other way other than doing the thing.

00:27:06:21 – 00:27:37:05

Ed

And, I think that’s the important thing that I’ve learned about guiding. Right? People think it’s people signing up for a trip. They pay their money, we take them up to the summit, we take them home, you know, and the faster the better, right? I think that’s the way the guiding industry is going today is shortcut. The trip for people, have all the camps established, takes all the rope, the clients show up, we race them at the top, we race them home, they ring the bell and they say they climbed whatever.

00:27:37:07 – 00:28:10:01

Ed

But did they actually learn anything? No. Did they experience anything? Probably not enough. And there’s no take away. They weren’t part of the process, right? They weren’t involved in the whole event of building the infrastructure and gaining experience and all that. And I think that’s kind of missing the point. You know, we as climbers and mountaineers, the journey, as trite as it mount might sound, is the biggest part of why we do what we do, right?

00:28:10:03 – 00:28:14:17

Ed

That’s why it’s called climbing. It’s not called summit.

00:28:14:19 – 00:28:20:04

Steve

It’s it’s called hunting, not shooting. Civil. Right. So fishing.

00:28:20:04 – 00:28:21:05

Ed

Not catching.

00:28:21:06 – 00:28:45:08

Steve

Yeah. Fishing. Touch it. Yeah. So you know, or to, to paraphrase Yvon Chouinard, like the whole point of going on an expedition is to, you know, sort of invoke some sort of change in yourself to do some sort of transformation. And if you don’t make time for that, you’re going to be an asshole when you go and you’re gonna be an asshole and you get back, that’s sort of like, what’s the point?

00:28:45:10 – 00:29:03:18

Steve

But that’s true. I could I see it from the kind of marketing point of view, too, especially in today’s, you know, I mean, can it move any faster? The world we live in, like, I just I just don’t know. But it’s just moving faster and faster. And people are more and more. They want it in less and less time.

00:29:03:20 – 00:29:21:09

Steve

And I gotta say, I do think that there’s the opposite is also true. I do think there are people swinging the other way or like, you know what, I don’t want to climb Everest in two weeks. I want to climb Everest in two months. Like I want to be part of setting up base camp and carrying loads to camp one.

00:29:21:09 – 00:29:40:03

Steve

And so I, I have to say, I do think the pendulum could swing a little bit and maybe or maybe it’s segmenting. Maybe there’s just people that are always going to want to have, you know, the short cut and there’s going to be other people that want more the deep kind of experience or have the space for it in their lives.

00:29:40:05 – 00:30:03:23

Ed

And I keep threatening and I see all these trips going so fast, so quick, so hugely expensive. Why not just offer an old school expedition like it’s going to take two and a half months? It’s going to cost a lot less, but you’re going to you’re going to earn it. You’re going to pay the price, the currency of toil, and you’re going to be involved in the day to day.

00:30:04:00 – 00:30:14:08

Ed

And I think you’re right, there’s going to be certain people that want to, you know, roll up their sleeves and really just dig deep. Yeah. And I think it’d be fun to do.

00:30:14:13 – 00:30:43:04

Steve

Yeah, I think you’d have a market. And I think I really do, I really do, I, I grew up, when my younger, a lot of my climbing career I spent with Slovenians, and on some of those first expeditions I went on, there was a lot of these guys who were around when in the old Yugoslavia, they used to, you know, buy an old truck, load all the expedition and drive it overland, you know, through Iran, through Afghanistan, through Pakistan and India.

00:30:43:06 – 00:31:06:09

Steve

That kind of thing is a totally different mentality. And the stories those guys had were more about the trip of driving through Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan, than they were about the actual climbing of the mountain. Like that was sort of like, yeah, they did that. But the real adventure stuff was actually all the other stuff that happened along the way.

00:31:06:11 – 00:31:22:18

Steve

And then of course, they would just trash these, you know, they’d sell these trucks in Nepal for like $400 or something. And they were probably broken down and they’d, they’d, they go fly home with the rest of the expedition. But I always I remember just being totally fascinated with those stories and thinking like, man, I want to do that.

00:31:22:18 – 00:31:28:02

Steve

But a, you know, that’s never going to happen. And, you know, and that never happened for me. I’m never gonna make that happen.

00:31:28:02 – 00:31:54:09

Ed

You know, again, it’s an event for them. They don’t have the time that, you know, they can’t break away. They’ve got family, they’ve got obligations at work. And that’s understandable. right. And I think the cool part is that these people are adventuring, you know, in whatever form that is, you know, there are people that are trying to push their limits, and see what’s capable for them.

00:31:54:15 – 00:32:09:12

Ed

And, and the guide services are providing that opportunity. So it’s kind of a, you know, a mixed emotion for me. But I guess the positive part is people are out there doing stuff, which is kind of cool and interesting.

00:32:09:15 – 00:32:31:07

Steve

Yeah. You’ve always used this, at least to my knowledge. In one of your books I first saw this. This, this phrase, the currency of toil, which I always loved, that turn of phrase. I thought that was a great phrase. Just as a writer, I always like that, you know, may sound a bit cliche when you, And you call that out, like to talk about process.

00:32:31:07 – 00:32:55:17

Steve

Now everybody’s talking about process. But, you know, in your career and in my expeditionary career, like, you know, I would go on 1 or 2, mostly two expeditions a year, and the rest of the year was spent in service of those 1 or 2 expeditions, right, like you were either training or you’re trying to find the money, or you’re working a job to pay for it or whatever.

00:32:55:17 – 00:33:20:02

Steve

And you know, you live that process for, for 20 or 30 years. And granted, we were on the, you know, kind of extreme end of that. Most people don’t experience that or don’t live in, in full time service, their expeditionary habit. But, you know, there there is a lot of that was in process over goal. Right?

00:33:20:02 – 00:33:24:21

Steve

Like your whole year was built around a few minutes.

00:33:24:23 – 00:33:26:05

Ed

Yeah.

00:33:26:07 – 00:33:38:12

Steve

That’s a different perspective. How do you talk to people about that now? Like how how do you make people understand what that’s actually like to be a professional mountaineer and to, like, go through all of that?

00:33:38:14 – 00:34:00:19

Ed

Yeah. You do spend a lot of time in preparation for an expedition. And I was, you know, like you said, 20 years of that, I’d come home from a trip. I give myself a couple of weeks to just decompress, not think about anything. But I already had a plan in my head, you know, what am I doing nine months from now?

00:34:00:21 – 00:34:29:11

Ed

Yeah. And then that became my motivator. Yeah. And my fear of failure was my motivator. I said, I need to start training yesterday. I need to start planning, permitting, raising the money. Who am I going to go with right. Gathering the equipment. And I like to call that doing my homework, you know. And then you go on that mountain, that expedition, some of these trips were a three months long.

00:34:29:13 – 00:34:55:23

Ed

And that’s where you’re tested, right? All that preparation and planning. Then you become tested. You know, your physical endurance, your mental fortitude, the logistics that you that you put together. And I thought, man, if I fail because I didn’t do my homework, I only have myself to blame. And so you have to embrace all that. You have to somehow, and I did.

00:34:55:23 – 00:35:16:20

Ed

I liked the process of getting ready because it kept me motivated and it gave me something to look forward to. I knew there was this carrot out there, and I talk about the carrot, right. The thing that you’re going for and, you know, I know a lot of people out there. I have a lot of friends. They go to the gym every day, right?

00:35:16:20 – 00:35:49:05

Ed

To go running or weightlifting for what reason? They don’t really have a reason. They just want to go to the gym. And I say, man, if you have something out there like a marathon or a mountain climb, your motivation is going to go up. Yeah, there’s, there’s it’s cool to have, a ball and then and we’re lucky as climbers we have those balls and, and we were attentive to the details and that I think, in the end helps you to be successful and be very satisfied.

00:35:49:07 – 00:35:50:14

Ed

Because you enjoy all that.

00:35:50:15 – 00:36:14:02

Steve

One of the hard things, I think about becoming a mountaineer, and you know this, but you know, you have someone like yourself at 18 or whatever that is that has this like, dream about going to the mountains. And there’s a big gap between that and actually being the person that that climbs Everest. Right. And yeah, you know, there’s it’s always a tricky bridge.

00:36:14:02 – 00:36:44:19

Steve

Where do I do I use guides, do I take courses. Do I find some guy on the, on the, you know, board on the whatever website I guess these days to, to go climbing with. How do you put in that apprenticeship I guess. And yeah, you know, you and I, I think both had a similar path in that we both knew that we loved this and we both got ourselves into situations very young where we were going to be around other people who had were basically mentoring us.

00:36:44:19 – 00:37:04:02

Steve

I mean, I went on my first Himalayan expedition when I was 19. Like it was just crazy that I that was even possible. But I, I moved pieces on the chessboard in a way that I got to go there and by that time the mountain obviously. But I had an incredible experience of what a learning, life changing experience it was.

00:37:04:02 – 00:37:14:02

Steve

But that’s that’s for so many people, very difficult to bridge. What do you take? Yeah. How do you coach people through that?

00:37:14:04 – 00:37:40:05

Ed

You know, I like the word apprenticeship which you put out there. And that’s what I felt when I decided to start climbing and learning and gaining experience. You know, that book gave me the dream and I said, if this is a goal of mine, I thought to be in the big leagues of Himalayan mountain climbing. I thought, ten years, you know, I wasn’t in a hurry.

00:37:40:05 – 00:37:57:06

Ed

I said, I want to take my time. I’m going to do it in the right way. I want to learn what I need to learn. I gave myself a ten year window. Right. And that’s a long time. But as an apprentice, I don’t think that’s too long. And I moved to Seattle and like you said, in those days, there was no internet.

00:37:57:06 – 00:38:17:10

Ed

It was later boards and an outdoor shop, people looking for climbing partners. Yeah. And I started to collect phone numbers and I said, you know, I know nothing if you’re willing to take me, I’m willing to go. I’ll be on your rope. And I just learned from others that were willing to teach me. You know, I gaining experience by watching by listening.

00:38:17:10 – 00:38:39:16

Ed

I didn’t take any courses. I didn’t take any classes. And that eventually, you know, I learned enough to become a guide. And I learned more as a guide through the mentorship and the apprenticeship program that we had on Mount Rainier. You know, there were the super senior guides, the senior guides, and then I was the first year guide, and I was called a peon.

00:38:39:18 – 00:38:47:09

Ed

Right. And you scrub the toilet and you sweep the floor and you waxed the boots. That’s a basic apprenticeship.

00:38:47:09 – 00:38:49:09

Steve

But you mowed Lou’s lawn.

00:38:49:11 – 00:39:10:06

Ed

Mostly as one, you know. Whatever, I didn’t care. I was like, I’m living the dream. I’m hanging out with these superstar mountain climbers, right? Yeah, yeah. And you slowly take your time and you work your way up the ladder of experience. I climbed higher and higher mountains, and I just enjoyed it. And I took my time.

00:39:10:08 – 00:39:29:19

Steve

And you put yourself out there, and you called people and said, I don’t know anything, but I will go with you. Like, I mean, not everyone can do that. Like, that’s already like, you know, just just on the personal bravery scale of things when you’re a young let’s quote unquote nobody and not no not to diminish know but is the pigeons.

00:39:29:19 – 00:39:42:22

Steve

Yeah. I mean that’s a big step to just put yourself out there. And not everyone can do that. But but we all did that. Like and I think that people fail to remember that advisors did that right. Like you did that.

00:39:42:24 – 00:40:19:18

Ed

Yeah. You don’t just arrive right? Right. And that’s true with any, you know, person of note, whether it’s a movie star or rock band or they don’t just come and become they’ve been in the garage for years. They’ve been doing it underground for years. And then all of a sudden, somehow you become notable, right? And I remember in my early days when I was seeking sponsors to try to do my endeavor project, you know, and I would make total calls to hundreds of phone companies and, you know, somebody would answer and I, they’d say, who is this?

00:40:19:18 – 00:40:44:12

Ed

And I’d say, my name is at these Oscars. And they’d say, at who? Right? So that became my nickname, Ed who because nobody had a clue. And I didn’t have a resumé at that point. And that became the biggest hurdle, right? You nobody knew me. Nobody knew what I was doing, why I was doing it. And that was a huge part of what I tried to do.

00:40:44:12 – 00:40:53:18

Ed

How do you become a professional climber? To support yourself financially so that you can go do what you do? It doesn’t happen much in the US, right?

00:40:53:24 – 00:40:54:09

Steve

No.

00:40:54:09 – 00:41:07:08

Ed

And in Europe it was a much easier thing because mountains are such a big part of the culture in Europe. Yeah. And mountaineers are looked up to and they’re revered and they’re famous. And it’s not true in the US.

00:41:07:09 – 00:41:25:09

Steve

Know now and especially at that time. I mean, obviously like especially with rock climbing being in the Olympics and things, I mean, the landscape is for sure changing. But, you know, you and maybe correct me if I get the dates wrong, but you climbed Everest in 90 or 92.

00:41:25:11 – 00:41:27:24

Ed

1990, my first night in the summer.

00:41:27:24 – 00:41:45:21

Steve

1990, and if I’m not mistaken, is not long after that where you said, okay, I’m going to do this endeavor 8000. I got to climb all 14, 8000 meter peaks in the world. I’ve climbed the highest one. The rest are lower than this. Was it like that or tell me about that. Maybe.

00:41:45:23 – 00:42:11:05

Ed

Well, after I climbed, Everest. You know, I had two attempts on Everest. First, 87, 88, 89. I got invited by Lou Whitaker, to go to Canyon Jungle. And he organized and he raised the money, and I and I’ve learned from people like Lou and people like Eric Simon said, how do you run an expedition?

00:42:11:07 – 00:42:28:02

Ed

How do you organize it? How do you fund it. How do you manage it. How do you lead a team. How do you put a team together. And it was in 89 that on Lou’s team. We reached the summit of Canyon Jungle. So there was my very first summit of an 8000 meter.

00:42:28:02 – 00:42:33:03

Steve

What an amazing mountain. Chance is like one of my favorite mountains in the world.

00:42:33:05 – 00:42:55:17

Ed

I mean, it was so spectacular. And I remember on the summit, you know, two years earlier, I turned around 300ft from the top of Everest and from the summit of Canyon Jungle, you can see Everest 80 miles away. And I’m like, 300ft of unfinished business, you know, that was. And the next year, Jim Whitaker invited me to go to Everest.

00:42:55:19 – 00:43:23:07

Ed

And that’s where I reached the summit. And the following year, I guided Everest, going to the summit again. And it was after that I thought, what am I going to do now? What was my plan? Right. I was kind of getting invitations, but I was still my career was as a veterinarian. I went to college and medical school, so I was half time working as of at half time going expedition thing.

00:43:23:09 – 00:43:43:02

Ed

And it came to a point where I had to make a decision. I couldn’t do both. Right. How do I maintain a job as a veterinarian working for somebody? It’s I can’t get three months off every year. Right? So I said, I’ve got to make a decision. So I said, I’m going to opt for climbing a mountain for a while.

00:43:43:04 – 00:43:48:12

Ed

And it was right after that in 92 that I climbed K2 with Scott Fisher.

00:43:48:14 – 00:43:49:22

Steve

Yeah.

00:43:49:24 – 00:44:08:00

Ed

So I had the three highest mountains in the world under my belt, and I hadn’t planned for that. It wasn’t like I’m going to do the three highest. It just happened, right? And I thought that was random. What I want to do now. Yeah. And I said, I want to make this a goal, you know, why not like Messner and K2?

00:44:08:00 – 00:44:15:09

Ed

Scott, go climb all 14. You know I done three. There’s only 11 left. And.

00:44:15:11 – 00:44:16:11

Steve

One.

00:44:16:13 – 00:44:22:21

Ed

Well, you know, I joke about it, right? Right. But I remember there’s only 11 left, and I said, that’s my goal.

00:44:22:24 – 00:44:33:22

Steve

And in all fairness, most of them are significantly easier than those three. So, I mean, there is a big difference between, you know, Cho, you and K2.

00:44:33:24 – 00:44:45:06

Ed

Yeah. But still it’s it’s their big mountain is your high altitude, you know, and my track record through the years was two out of three successes. Right. Yeah. Which isn’t bad.

00:44:45:06 – 00:44:45:19

Steve

That’s great.

00:44:45:19 – 00:45:00:06

Ed

But there’s never a guarantee of success. And I always say that you cannot guarantee success. And then that became my vision and that then. And I was full on immersion into 8000 meter climbing.

00:45:00:08 – 00:45:22:24

Steve

And so, you know, I didn’t just want people to understand what the landscape was like in 1991, 1992, like in, let’s see, there was climbing magazine, there was Rock and ice magazine. I bet each of those had subscriptions of like, roughly, I, you know, Rock and ice. The subscription was probably 2 to 4000 subscribers. Climbing was probably double that.

00:45:22:24 – 00:45:51:20

Steve

Maybe, you know, you’re calling people up for sponsorships. Your ad, who you know, climbing is not a sport in the United States. Yeah. And you’re trying to fundraise for mountains that are not Mount Everest, right? Which makes it right, you know, a factor of 100 harder. And yeah. So, you know, how did how did you actually and you know, you’re married, you’ve got a professional career, I mean, a veterinarian, a doctor of veterinary medicine.

00:45:51:22 – 00:45:56:23

Steve

Yeah. Maybe I’m just doing the quick math. He didn’t have kids yet.

00:45:57:00 – 00:45:58:09

Ed

No, I wasn’t married yet.

00:45:58:09 – 00:46:06:07

Steve

You were married? Yeah. Didn’t have kids yet. But you launched off on this, this thing. And it would have been extremely difficult to do this at that time.

00:46:06:09 – 00:46:20:23

Ed

It was raising the money and running it as like a quote unquote business I knew and ultimately was way harder than climbing. Right. How do I approach people? How do I convince them to give me money?

00:46:21:03 – 00:46:21:20

Steve

Yeah.

00:46:21:22 – 00:46:53:12

Ed

And what I learned along the way is, you know, I talked to so many people that had contributed to expeditions. They said, we gave this team, equipment. We provided money, but in the end they never heard back. So it was a very one sided event. And I knew that for me to garner support, long term financial support, the people that were investing in me, these companies would have to get some sort of return on investment.

00:46:53:13 – 00:47:00:17

Ed

Yeah, right. It had to be worth there. They didn’t just like me or want me to go climbing. They they’re saying, what do I get out of this?

00:47:00:17 – 00:47:01:18

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

00:47:01:20 – 00:47:26:03

Ed

And in return you had to make promises like, I will help grow your brand. I will be a spokesperson. I’ll go to climbing shops and do slideshows. I will go to your sales meeting. I’ll help design and develop. And as long as they finally found out that you lived up to your promises and you gave them a return, that’s how I garnered long term support.

00:47:26:05 – 00:47:46:18

Ed

Yeah, but it didn’t happen quickly. And there were many times where I had moments of doubt, thinking, what did I do? I gave up a career as a veterinarian so I could sit here in my basement trying to raise money. I was paying more in phone bills, and I was earning from financial support, and I was like, you’re an idiot, right?

00:47:46:22 – 00:47:47:06

Steve

Right.

00:47:47:09 – 00:48:11:11

Ed

But it’s like winning a startup. There’s a lot of guys that step away from a safe career, and they say, I’m going to create this startup. This is my dream, this is my vision. And they as well struggle and they as well look for financial support. Right. And if as long as you’re you keep that climbing attitude like I’m going to have some good days, I’m going to have a lot of bad days.

00:48:11:13 – 00:48:16:15

Ed

But it’s that long term vision that kind of gets you through that.

00:48:16:17 – 00:48:39:23

Steve

I just want people to pause and recognize that, you know, you. For anyone who is appreciated, a professional climber, of any brand, of any type, you know, they have a new part to thank for that, because you were one of the trail trailblazers in this area. You know, I certainly have you to thank for that. In the 90s, it just wasn’t a thing that there were sponsored professional climbers.

00:48:39:23 – 00:49:01:00

Steve

There just weren’t any. I mean, in the mid 90s, the first real kind of splashes, as you will recall, were, you know, with Alex Lowe and Conrad Anker and Greg Child, the North Face Dream Team. You know, that was kind of things that maybe 96, 97. But, you know, meanwhile, you’ve already been doing this for a few years.

00:49:01:02 – 00:49:25:10

Steve

And it was hard. And, you know, I think there’s two sides to this one. I think it’s hard. And the other thing that I think people underestimate is how cheaply you can do, can do these trips, especially these lesser known peaks. People are always blown away. And most of my expeditions cost less than $10,000 for the whole team, including airfare, because we we didn’t go to peaks that had big, expensive permits.

00:49:25:10 – 00:49:45:07

Steve

We went to peaks where the permit was $50. And, you know, we’d look at like how far the approach was because of two week approaches, a lot more expensive than a, you know, two day or four day or six day approach, you know, and somebody, you know, so these these things can factor in. And now like, you know, you can do these things for less than a fortune.

00:49:45:09 – 00:50:04:04

Steve

I think people see the $100,000 for Everest. And they just assume that all Mount Big mountains cost $100,000, but it’s just not the case. So you’re, you know, in your startup mentality, you’re doing both. You’re you’re cutting costs. You’re doing things on the cheap and you’re, you know, collecting as much money as you can and somehow, somehow you get just enough.

00:50:04:04 – 00:50:05:18

Steve

Right? That’s sort of the beauty of it.

00:50:05:19 – 00:50:32:15

Ed

You try to raise a collection of income from all the hopefully, supporters that you have, and with that income, you pay for expeditions, but you also live on that income. So that’s kind of what it means to be a professional climber, you know, but you’re not getting paid to climb. You’re earning the money doing other things so that you can pay for your climbing.

00:50:32:19 – 00:50:50:10

Ed

They’re not like, how much does that expedition cost? They don’t write a check for that. They’re writing a check to you to work for them. Yeah. And one of the first long term supporters that I had, was Mountain Hardware. And this was in 1993. Okay.

00:50:50:12 – 00:50:52:14

Steve

They were tiny then.

00:50:52:16 – 00:51:16:21

Ed

Oh, they were zero. They had just started. Okay. And what a friend of mine from guiding John coming, his father was the main bankroll for this group as a startup. And it was John that called me one morning out of the blue and said, and we’re starting this brand. It’s called Mountain Hardware. These people know what they’re doing.

00:51:16:23 – 00:51:40:11

Ed

We’re gonna, you know, put a wedge into the outdoor industry. You know, nobody needs another outdoor brand, but we’re going to do it, and we want you to be our athlete. Cool. And for me, that moment was, a turning point, like, oh my God, John was my Messiah, calling me and inviting me to be a part of that brand.

00:51:40:13 – 00:51:50:23

Ed

And I said, finally, somebody recognize the value of not only what I’m doing, but what I can contribute. And that was a huge moment for me.

00:51:51:00 – 00:51:53:10

Steve

That must have been really affirming to you, too. I mean, it.

00:51:53:10 – 00:52:01:07

Ed

Was, you know, and I was it finally that that proverbial snowball started to get bigger, you know, in a good way.

00:52:01:10 – 00:52:01:17

Steve

Yeah.

00:52:01:23 – 00:52:06:02

Ed

It was rolling now and things were starting to, to build.

00:52:06:04 – 00:52:30:01

Steve

So tell me about that moment. That and maybe it wasn’t a moment. Maybe I’m oversimplifying where you decided you were going to do this endeavor. 8000. You’re going to step back from your career as a as a vet. Like that’s quite a thing, right? Like, let’s say it’s like. Yeah. How how did that happen? Like, how did you think through that?

00:52:30:01 – 00:52:39:19

Steve

How did you decide for that? How did you I don’t really want to use this word, but how did you justify that? Nobody done that. Nobody in the US was doing that.

00:52:39:19 – 00:52:40:11

Ed

Yeah I know it.

00:52:40:11 – 00:52:57:15

Steve

Doesn’t makes it makes no sense. Right. Like there’s no logical argument for that. Yeah. I’m sure you did have a business plan like Mountain Harbor will start a new job. My friend John will start a new company, and they’ll need an athlete. And I’m just gonna, like, hang on until he calls me and I’m going to sit by my phone every day.

00:52:57:17 – 00:53:20:14

Ed

It’s luck. Fortune Pharma, I don’t know. I mean, it’s when I made the decision. I mean, I had to think long and hard and and fortunately, the two people that I was working for as a veterinarian, I had known them for years. They had their own clinics and they said, ad when you get out of school, come work for us.

00:53:20:16 – 00:53:42:07

Ed

Right? So I had jobs and I loved it. I really enjoyed it, but I still loved and enjoyed mountaineering and I knew it was going to be challenging, you know, going to these guys every several months saying, hey, can I have three months off? I got this invitation to go to Everest or I’m planning to do this.

00:53:42:09 – 00:54:01:24

Ed

And it worked okay for a couple of years. And then they finally and I kind of had the feeling, too. They’re like, okay, make a decision. Right. There’s a fork in the road. Yeah. You either got to go right or you got to go left. And I thought, I can’t do both things and do them well. And I had to choose one.

00:54:02:01 – 00:54:27:14

Ed

So I kind of made the decision. Cabinet put my career as a veterinarian aside for a while, quote unquote, and just see how it goes. Like you said, I’m in a basement making phone calls, thinking to myself, why did I do this? And had a lot of doubtful moments. And I just kept going thinking, it’s gotta work, it’s gonna work.

00:54:27:15 – 00:54:45:08

Ed

It has to work. I want it to work. And I knew it wasn’t going to happen quickly, and I just kind of pieced it together for a while. You know, I was working as a carpenter and I’d have a short sponsorship by somebody and then another short one. But it wasn’t anything long term. Right. Something that I couldn’t.

00:54:45:10 – 00:54:48:06

Steve

Or guiding gig here and there, baby.

00:54:48:08 – 00:55:17:14

Ed

Writing, you know, just putting it, just scraping it together. Right. And being single at the time, I didn’t have huge expenses. Right. You know, my biggest expenses might be going on an expedition and fortunately, my first few expedition, I was invited to go and they were fully funded. Yeah. But then when you start thinking about I’m putting my own trips together, how do I pay for those, let alone pay to my rent, my my grocery bill, my car payment?

00:55:17:16 – 00:55:21:18

Ed

And then, you know, things somehow started to click.

00:55:21:18 – 00:55:37:13

Steve

But what was the driver for you like? What pushed you into that decision? I mean, you said that there’s the fork in the road, but was it like what I want to see if I can actually do all 14? Was it I want to see how good I can become at is. I want to be I want to see if I can make a living.

00:55:37:13 – 00:55:39:23

Steve

Like what was the essence of that?

00:55:40:03 – 00:56:05:18

Ed

It was to complete what I decided I wanted to do. Once again, like I said, when I get fixated, I get kind of stubborn and I like to see something completed. You know, I’ll push as hard as I can to finish that project. And this became this dream project for me. You know, this kid from Illinois, I’m in the Himalayan mountaineering arena now.

00:56:05:20 – 00:56:33:21

Ed

Can I do this? The mysterious part was the physical, the mental, the climbing without oxygen, the journey. And it was fun. You know, I really enjoyed it too. And I said, this is something I want to try to do. And if I could maybe emulate people like Messner or other climbers that were European that were able to do it, how do I take that ingredient?

00:56:33:23 – 00:56:55:11

Ed

Or recipe that they’re using in Europe and try to bring it here to the U.S? But again, the hard part was, you know, products are consumer driven, right? And TV and commercials are driven by who’s watching. You know, it’s football, baseball, basketball. Those are the big earners in sports, right?

00:56:55:11 – 00:56:56:08

Steve

Eyeballs attention.

00:56:56:08 – 00:57:02:24

Ed

Mountaineering in the US is tiny and it’s all about eyeballs. And it’s all about marketing.

00:57:03:01 – 00:57:19:16

Steve

High altitude mountaineering. Yes. I mean, climbing is already boring enough, but yeah, I did. Mountaineering is by far the most boring. Yeah, watching somebody walk up a hill taking 50 breaths. First step is is not exact. It’s pretty pretty much the same as paint drying.

00:57:19:18 – 00:57:29:10

Ed

It is, it is or slower or slower. And I joke, I think, you know, if mountaineering was on TV, I can at least be a color commentator. But, you know, it’s not going to happen.

00:57:29:10 – 00:57:32:08

Steve

The right. So how did.

00:57:32:08 – 00:57:32:21

Ed

You reach.

00:57:32:21 – 00:57:48:13

Steve

A point where you really struggled with the balance between sort of the commercialization of yourself as a, as a and your personal brand and what and like what you were personally comfortable with the, you know, how did that play out for you in your.

00:57:48:13 – 00:58:27:17

Ed

Career? The biggest and most important thing was once I had, kind of a reputation of how I did what I did right. Conservative, not a risk taker. You know, I’m not a cowboy. I’m not a lot of glitz and glamor and, you know, big talker. I made sure that the people, the companies that I was working with, they understood that the story and the messaging and believe it or not, especially the ones that I kind of focused on, they loved that storyline.

00:58:27:19 – 00:58:50:19

Ed

This is going to take a while, right? This is all about planning and preparation and embracing the journey. And then I felt, okay, we are on the same page. You’re not pushing me to succeed because you want me to get to the top so that you control my picture, you know, an outside magazine or whatever. And I made that clear from the get go.

00:58:50:19 – 00:59:19:22

Ed

Right? And I was very careful to select the companies that I felt had the values, not just because they were going to support me, but they had those values and that understanding. But I do talk about as well further on in my career, and I saw that in my peer group, where you get closer to your goal, you have all this support, and you have by then a fan base.

00:59:19:24 – 00:59:47:10

Ed

And today the big issue is social media. Sure. And I call all of that those outside influences which create pressure not only your own pressure but outside pressure which could cause you to start to make decisions that you normally wouldn’t make. Yeah, right. And people start stepping over the edge because they’re thinking of others rather than thinking about themselves.

00:59:47:10 – 01:00:11:02

Ed

And I had to put blinders on, literally blinders to protect myself. And just remember all the time that I was doing it for me, not doing it to please others. You know, they can applaud me. They can criticize me. You literally tell yourself, I don’t care. I have to please myself and remember your foundation, right? How did you start climbing?

01:00:11:02 – 01:00:34:12

Ed

Why are you? Why did you begin climbing? And just remember that throughout your whole career, when it gets tougher and you can see how I saw and how it affected other climbers, you know, they’re going for they were doing 8000 meter peaks to some of these European guys. And they would vanish on number 14 and climbing in bad weather, you know, pushing beyond what was normal.

01:00:34:14 – 01:00:41:04

Ed

And they would die trying to complete their goal. And I think a lot of it had to do with those outside influences.

01:00:41:06 – 01:01:04:11

Steve

Yeah. There’s so much wisdom in what you’ve just said. At the one point that I want to come back to is that point about authenticity early on where you’re, you know, I think what are the misconceptions young climbers have that at least the ones I talked to are coming to me and being like, I want to be like, you know, a professional climber.

01:01:04:11 – 01:01:31:08

Steve

And I did, and they think they got to be famous somehow. Yeah. And then of course, everybody will just throw them. All the companies will throw themselves at them. And I’m, I’m and I always say no, like, you know, just exactly what you said. You need to be authentically you. And then the the there may or may not, I don’t know, be a brand who says, you know, because you got to put yourself in the brand’s perspective.

01:01:31:09 – 01:01:51:09

Steve

They have messaging that they want. They have something that they particularly want to be associated with, but they also have a whole lot. They don’t want to be associated with as a brand. It’s very hard actually to find the right ambassadors because people are complicated and, you know, and people can be messy. You, you double down on you.

01:01:51:13 – 01:02:15:10

Steve

Nobody else can do you. You only you can do you and you can be authentic with that. And if somebody says, hey, we want to be associated with that, we want our clothing brand or our watch brand whatever to be associated with your ethic, with your what you stand for, what you what you, what you accomplish. Yeah. Then now you’re now you’re good.

01:02:15:12 – 01:02:36:07

Steve

And, you know, like you and I both have had very long term, like I was Patagonia 23 years. I ended up at a my terms, you know, in a, in a friendly handshake like all good kind of way. And that’s what you want like in the, in the at least for me. Like that’s what I wanted and I think that the younger people that I see, they, they miss that point.

01:02:36:09 – 01:02:39:07

Steve

So I’m really glad to hear you say that.

01:02:39:09 – 01:02:53:07

Ed

And I think there’s a big difference between famous and having fortune. You know, people always immediately think that once you’re famous, the checks are just coming in the mail.

01:02:53:12 – 01:02:54:05

Steve

Right.

01:02:54:07 – 01:03:12:01

Ed

And that’s that’s not true. Right? You could be the most famous Instagram blogger in the world, but how do you garner the income to do that? There’s a huge difference. So there is a misconception there as well. You got to earn what you get. You really got to earn it.

01:03:12:03 – 01:03:41:04

Steve

Here’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you, Ed, because I’ve always looked at you as a, you know, this very authentic and introspective person. And I’ve always kind of identified with that part of you, you know, and maybe this is an oversimplification, but there’s some times where I’ve watched your career and it felt like there’s you know, Steady Eddie getting the job done, like kind of almost this blue collar.

01:03:41:06 – 01:04:08:14

Steve

And, I mean, not in the best possible way, like showing up, doing the job, like everything’s done to to spec and going home. And then there’s also part of me that always felt like, man, this guy’s on a vision quest. Like he’s just out. He’s like out there because, you know, climbing 14 peaks isn’t just 14 expeditions. I mean, I don’t know how many expeditions you actually went on, but it’s far more than 14, I’m sure of that.

01:04:08:16 – 01:04:17:03

Steve

And so, yeah, it takes a lot of that showing up over and over and over again. Like, yeah, what is true.

01:04:17:05 – 01:04:40:00

Ed

It was both I mean, I had, you know, this vision. And for me, again, it was a personal goal. I didn’t again, I wasn’t doing it to be the first American. I didn’t do it to become the fifth person I said, I want to be the first and the Easterners, because this is something I personally decided to do.

01:04:40:02 – 01:05:08:24

Ed

That was the only reason, right? And people always said, oh, you want to be the first or whatever? And I go, no, I don’t care. Now, that’s not a good reason. The reason is, is I love doing this reason. As I set up this goal, I want to challenge myself. And you’re right, ultimately to do the 14, I went on 21 expeditions and do the 14, and eventually I went on 30 Himalayan expeditions with 20 to 8000 meter summit.

01:05:09:01 – 01:05:27:00

Ed

Again, two out of three. But I love doing it. I really loved the adventure and the camaraderie and the journey and man had so much fun. Yeah, we worked hard, we struggled. But it became the fabric of my life again.

01:05:27:03 – 01:05:27:23

Steve

That I’ve been.

01:05:28:00 – 01:05:39:01

Ed

Doing. And they’re preparing and they’re talking about and the working for that was my life, you know, and I loved it. I have no regrets.

01:05:39:03 – 01:05:42:15

Steve

How did you wrestle with the meaning of what you were doing?

01:05:42:17 – 01:06:02:23

Ed

Well, you know, if you look at it really there’s no meaning, right? You’re you’re going to a big piece of rock and snow and ice and trying to get your to the top. Yeah. The meaning of it is you choose to live your life in a way that fulfills you. Right. And it doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s a business career, whether it’s a climbing career.

01:06:03:01 – 01:06:34:23

Ed

I tell young people, I tell my kids do and follow the direction that draws you, right? Don’t try to think. And I think this is normal, especially when I was growing up. The plan is you go to school, you go to college, you get a job so that you can retire. Right? That is the normal path. And once you leave that normal path you know people are scratching their head going as moving to Seattle and he’s going to go climb mountains.

01:06:35:00 – 01:06:37:11

Ed

Right. That was abnormal.

01:06:37:11 – 01:06:37:23

Steve

Yeah for.

01:06:37:23 – 01:07:00:09

Ed

Sure. And I have a lot of friends that I went to high school with. And they now say that you’re the only guy I know that had a dream and lived a dream. Right? That you kind of had the courage to step out of the box. Right. And that’s okay. You know, as long as you’re doing something that satisfies you, I think that’s the best reason in the world to do whatever you want to do.

01:07:00:11 – 01:07:22:03

Ed

There’s a lot of mental stuff going on, right? A lot of calculating, a lot of thinking. So it is very liberal. You know, there’s a spiritual part. I’m not super spiritual that I learned from the, the Sherpa who are Buddhist, you know, they Revere the mountains as entities. Yeah. And I think that gives you a sense of humility.

01:07:22:03 – 01:07:45:16

Ed

When you’re on a mountain, you know, you tread lightly and you climb with respect and with honor. And if you’re at the right place, at the right time, with the right attitude, you know, the mountain opens the gates and allows you to go to the top. And, and I think about when I’m there that this thing is feeling the it’s listening to me.

01:07:45:18 – 01:08:06:06

Ed

And every time I walk away from the mountain, you know that last glimpse I get as I’m walking home, I turn around and I say, thank you. You know, thank you for what you gave me. You know, because every event like that changes your life. And that’s what I love about guided. You know, you take people into the mountains when they go home.

01:08:06:06 – 01:08:21:18

Ed

They’re different in a good way. Right? They discovered something about themselves that they didn’t know was in there. And that’s a cool thing to see how their eyes light up when they’re on the summit. And they go home and they go, wow, that was an amazing event.

01:08:21:20 – 01:08:28:23

Steve

I, like you go on these journeys and you come back and you’re different in a good way. I like doesn’t have to be any more quantifiable than that.

01:08:29:00 – 01:08:31:16

Ed

It’s very satisfying. It really is.

01:08:31:18 – 01:08:32:10

Steve

It is.

01:08:32:12 – 01:08:50:17

Ed

It is. But again, that’s, that’s that’s a thing that you selected to do. And everybody gets satisfied in different ways. You know, whatever career path, whatever journey you’re on, hopefully it’s something that you’re passionate about because that then gives you satisfaction.

01:08:50:19 – 01:09:13:19

Steve

Yeah. You know, I have to admit that I am skeptical of this advice about following your passion because, you know, to certain some of it and, speaking as a person who did that, like some of it is bullshit because there’s also a middle way. Like, I think that there is also a way to be like, okay, I’m going to go to school and I’m going to get a skill, I’m going to find some competency I have.

01:09:13:22 – 01:09:44:23

Steve

I’m going to I’m going to enrich that competency through some furthering training or education, going to get really good at it to where I can be like one of the top performers in that area. I’m going to charge a lot of money for doing that, and I’m going to go and I’m going to work for myself, and I’m going to go climb mountains once a year or whatever, like so, and, you know, because I think that, you know, it’s easy for us to look at your career or, you know, you’re, you’re the, you know, you’re the one that made it like there was.

01:09:45:01 – 01:10:10:06

Steve

How many advisors were there that went out to Seattle or a similar place and tried to do a similar journey. And it one of those moments when it got hard, whether it was in their basement or whether it was at guide tryouts on Rainier or who knows what point, they said, you know, no, I can’t do it. Like, you know, like we’re talking about that, that instinct of when you turn around on a climb, it’s the same thing in life.

01:10:10:07 – 01:10:28:23

Steve

They. Yeah, they came up. I don’t know what the reason you could call it an excuse. You could call it a justification, whatever you call it. And there was probably hundreds of advisors that had that dream. I would, I would and one did it right. And so, you know, there’s a lot of variation in there.

01:10:28:23 – 01:10:45:07

Steve

There’s a lot of room for, I think, expression. And, and one of the things it’s tricky for me with voice of the mountains in particular, because I’m bringing you on and, you know, I know all these famous mountaineers and you guys are all you’re, you know, had all these experiences which have given you a lot of wisdom. And I want to elevate that.

01:10:45:12 – 01:11:07:19

Steve

And at the same time, I don’t want people who haven’t been able to have that lucky break. And there is a component of luck. Let’s be frank. Yeah. I don’t want to diminish their journey either. Like they still love the mountains just as much as you do or I did. And it you know, there is wisdom there too.

01:11:07:19 – 01:11:27:04

Steve

I just want to want to call that out because I’m always skeptical of whether, whether it’s being reflected on me or being reflected on you or any one of our peers that like, oh, we’re shining this, we’re putting it on this pedestal now. And I know you don’t like that either. And that’s why I know that I’m comfortable saying this to you because it’s, it’s it’s more complex than that, right?

01:11:27:04 – 01:11:33:13

Steve

Like there’s, there’s way more to, you know, living the life you lived or living the life that I lived.

01:11:33:15 – 01:11:57:23

Ed

I agree, and I think you’re right there. There’s the combination. Like you said, you get to a certain career and I could have done that as well. I could have stayed on the path of being a veterinarian. And maybe once every 2 or 3 years I could have gone climbing right? And could have had fun. As much fun as I had, I could have had a solid, stable financial career.

01:11:57:23 – 01:12:14:14

Ed

And that’s a great combination. And I agree with you. There’s so many friends that I have that I taken to the mountains and are doing that. People that I talk to and I go, wow, you, you’ve allowed yourself the flexibility and you have the resources to go do that.

01:12:14:16 – 01:12:15:11

Steve

Yeah.

01:12:15:13 – 01:12:42:14

Ed

When I was thinking about how I wanted to do it, I could have gone that path. But I just for some reason thought to be at the level that I wanted to be at, I needed full immersion, you know, like full commitment training. And that’s all I was thinking about. And that’s the course that I took and you know it, you know, and you’re right, it was putting the pieces together.

01:12:42:14 – 01:13:06:17

Ed

There was luck involved. I could have washed out. I could have failed. I could have lost motivation. All those things could have happened. Somehow it came together. And it is, you know. But to me, that was a dream, you know? And it was when I got to the summit of Annapurna, you know, the top, the 14th of I said, oh my God, I have lived my dream.

01:13:06:17 – 01:13:15:05

Ed

I really did, you know, and I’m and I’m so happy that, you know, I could have gone in multiple directions. That’s just the direction I chose.

01:13:15:06 – 01:13:15:15

Steve

Yeah.

01:13:15:15 – 01:13:19:24

Ed

And what got me through that was I loved doing it.

01:13:20:01 – 01:13:36:09

Steve

Yeah. That’s not to be underestimated. You have to get that far for. For what? Like. Yeah. You know, you’re not playing the game just because you want to win. You’re playing the game because you love playing the game. You love climbing the mountain. You’re not there just because you love standing on the summit. You love the fact of climbing.

01:13:36:11 – 01:13:37:20

Ed

Yeah, absolutely.

01:13:37:23 – 01:14:00:19

Steve

And there was something in you that you called out and I want to dig into that was like you said, you you needed to be fully immersed for you, like you needed to be that all in. And I identify with that completely. I did exactly the same thing. What does that voice sound like? And investors had in 1992, or whenever it was that was talking to you.

01:14:00:21 – 01:14:21:04

Ed

By full immersion? I knew how hard it would be. Right. Just, you know, I mean, talk about, you know, the fact that somebody ran a two hour and five minute marathon, right? Train for it did it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. Right. Unless they train for it. Unless they have the mental fortitude to do it again.

01:14:21:04 – 01:14:50:09

Ed

Right. Just because you climbed Everest once without oxygen doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to happen again. You’ve got to start at zero training just as hard. Be mentally just as prepared to do it again and to do it again. And that is always the mystery, right? And that was, to me, the motivator. And that’s why I thought, man, I want to do this at that level, not only to be successful, but more importantly to be safe and to be safe.

01:14:50:09 – 01:15:11:17

Ed

You’ve got to be strong. You have to have the endurance you have to have prepared. And that was, for me, more important than anything. How do I make sure that this is around trap. And there’s a lot of things that go into making sure that it’s a round trip, not just getting to the top but doing the downhill part as well.

01:15:11:19 – 01:15:21:07

Ed

And I think that is what caused me to want to be fully immersed. Right. How do I be the best? And also how do I make sure I’m as ready as I can be?

01:15:21:09 – 01:15:29:22

Steve

The round trip like that is part of your core, like that’s been part of you since it seems like the very beginning. Like.

01:15:30:21 – 01:15:37:10

Steve

Was that like? Who was that telling you that you had to come home? Because not everybody has that.

01:15:37:14 – 01:16:08:06

Ed

I always just knew. I thought personally, being live is the greatest thing in the world, right? Being alive just because I love climbing, I don’t love it more than being alive. Right? And as long as you have that in your head that this is an event I’ve chosen to participate in, I get to make the rules. You know how hard I’m going to push, how much risk I’m willing to take, who I’m going to go with.

01:16:08:08 – 01:16:32:01

Ed

All those things are how I thought about because I said my number one goal is to get home, and you have to have that in your head from the beginning. I don’t know that people can teach you that. You know, you tell your kids to be careful and don’t do this or be. And of course they’re going to do it right.

01:16:32:01 – 01:16:47:11

Ed

They’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to have little accidents along the way. And you kind of learn from that. Sometimes it’s it’s the thing that you have without anybody telling you. And I think I kind of had that without anybody telling me. And I don’t know why.

01:16:47:12 – 01:17:10:13

Steve

You don’t know why. Okay. That’s. Which is fair. Yeah. But that, that was there and yeah, I feel like there’s this sort of modern existential crisis going on among the mountaineering community. And, you know, I think it’s maybe, you know, I’m imagining a sort of a Venn diagram and there’s sort of, you know, white privilege guilt, maybe.

01:17:10:13 – 01:17:39:08

Steve

And there is maybe not having a purpose. And the way, say, the Great War generation did, like life doesn’t like the meaning of life seems much more ambiguous now. You know, we’re we’re always being told that everything we’re doing is killing our planet. And there’s this sense, like there’s this sense of, I think, kind of the hopelessness and dread that, that, that people have pain.

01:17:39:10 – 01:17:57:07

Steve

What else is fueling that? Like, I feel like when I see people and when I talk to people in the mountains that this is what they’re talking about, this is what they’re feeling. This is what they’re living. This is what’s on their minds. Do you have a similar experience or what are you seeing out there? What are you hearing?

01:17:57:09 – 01:18:21:11

Ed

I think the cool part is if you go on a journey in the mountains with either your climbing partners or the people you’re guiding, you kind of know what you know, and then you walk away and you have this connection that you’re never going to forget. You’re never going to lose. And you can just meet somebody five years later and go, God, remember that trip we went on?

01:18:21:11 – 01:18:43:15

Ed

And it’s just a wink and you go, and it’s so hard to explain to others what that event map, right. The thing that you went through together, you know, there’s the brotherhood. Brotherhood of the rope, right? Or the people hood. Maybe we should call it the people hood or the person hood. But there’s a there’s a camaraderie.

01:18:43:16 – 01:19:21:04

Ed

You know, the struggle you went through, the joy, the ups, the downs, the hardship. It’s a cool process. And it’s a cool event. And it’s memories, too, that fill your life. Right. Looking back on all those amazing memories. And we just had a memorial service for Lou Whitaker who passed, you know, living 95 years and all the guys that worked for him came to that event and it was I mean, it was an amazing moment to see the apprenticeship pyramid that he created, right?

01:19:21:06 – 01:19:44:24

Ed

Pyramid that he was the top of. That trickled down to the next level, to the next level, to the next level, everybody learning from everybody else. And that was, an amazing unity. And thankfully, you know, we had this reunion because of Lou Whitaker that created this, this brotherhood that we had on Mount Rainier.

01:19:45:00 – 01:19:48:09

Steve

And you had that not because of his death, but because of his life.

01:19:48:12 – 01:19:51:20

Ed

Because of his life. Yeah. It was a celebration of life and.

01:19:51:20 – 01:20:13:02

Steve

What you what but what he created during his life meant that all of those people came together. Like, those people wouldn’t have come together if it hadn’t been for RMI. All those expeditions, all the things that he did like, I mean, the list goes on and on. And what an incredible thing to witness. I mean, that’s, that’s meaningful, right?

01:20:13:02 – 01:20:18:10

Steve

Like, you can’t say that’s not meaningful. That is that is intensely meaningful.

01:20:18:12 – 01:20:37:05

Ed

He was a giant magnet, an amazing teacher. And, you know, I was there 40 years ago. And some of the guys I’d worked with, I hadn’t seen for 40 years, you know, and yeah, gray hair now and, you know, it was like, dude, you know, remember what? You know, it was like bunch of kids at camp again, right?

01:20:38:14 – 01:20:59:03

Ed

Yeah. Anyway, it was a he was an amazing man. And the effect that he had, I mean, not only with climbers but the general public, I mean, the stories he told, you know, people would go, oh, my God, he’s telling a story. And it would he just he was spreading the word of just go do what you do and be happy and adventure.

01:20:59:04 – 01:21:04:21

Ed

And, you know, it was this very fulfilling message that that he had for anybody.

01:21:05:01 – 01:21:26:18

Steve

You know, I want to connect that back and that hit like that. Life is an example of a life lived with a lot of purpose and meaning. That was, yeah, climbing mountains, which a minute ago we said had no purpose or meaning. Right. So, yeah, you know, I think that I think that we can, you know, solace ourselves a little bit with, with that.

01:21:26:20 – 01:21:49:02

Steve

One of the things I have been wanting to ask you is, you know, for me, in my experience, you know, especially young, you know, younger and through my 30s and I kind of like, finally wrestled this more. My 40s was this inner critic, you know, this voice that I wasn’t enough, that I wasn’t worthwhile, that I wasn’t worth anything.

01:21:49:02 – 01:22:02:23

Steve

And now an uphill athlete, I hear this all the time with people like, yeah, I’m thinking about a coach, but I don’t think I’m worth coaching. Did you have this inner critic at some point? Did you wrestle this to. I’ve always wanted to ask you.

01:22:03:00 – 01:22:27:07

Ed

You know, it’s kind of a double edged sword. You know, I did what I did. Is there a reason for climbing? Not in the scheme of the planetary scope of anything, you know. But my wife kind of reminds me all the time that because of what I did and because of what I talk about now, it inspires people.

01:22:27:09 – 01:22:53:03

Ed

And if anything, that is very rewarding, very satisfying. If I could be, you know, like this person people look out up to, not that they’re maybe going to go climb mountains, but there I created, a path that they might be able to follow in a different way, in a different arena. By the inspiration that I provided, that you can do something really hard, right?

01:22:53:05 – 01:23:10:08

Ed

You invest in it, you take your time, you don’t take a shortcut. And I think that those are very rewarding and very satisfying. And I never, ever thought that because of my book, you know, people were inspired. I was inspired by a book.

01:23:10:10 – 01:23:12:16

Steve

I was going to say that feels pretty.

01:23:12:17 – 01:23:13:05

Ed

Powerful.

01:23:13:05 – 01:23:25:06

Steve

To me. I mean, even that you lived a life, that you can write an autobiography and that people read it. Yeah, a lot of people read it like that’s already like. I mean, that says something about, you know, what you’ve done.

01:23:25:08 – 01:23:46:03

Ed

And I’d never planned on writing a book. It was never part of my end goal. Right? It was David Roberts who co-wrote it with me, said, Add, you’ve got to tell your story. You have to write about that. Yeah. And I wanted to make sure there was messaging in there, not just me, you know, going to camp, setting up camp, breaking camp there.

01:23:46:03 – 01:24:11:19

Ed

Had to I wanted people to come on the journey with me. Yeah, right. Yeah. How cold was I? What food did I eat? How did I go to the bathroom? What conversations that I had, you know, so you take people with you. Yeah. And then they get the metaphor of climbing, right? We’re all climbing. And that’s an amazing story that I was able hopefully to share, with others.

01:24:12:00 – 01:24:32:02

Ed

And I do that now when I’m speaking as well. Yeah. You talk to a sales team and they’re like, what’s a mountain climber going to tell me, right. How to go on a journey, how to struggle, how to embrace, you know, what you’re doing and look at the long term goal. But to break it down into something that’s consumable.

01:24:32:05 – 01:24:36:20

Steve

And how to stay authentic to what you actually are, who you are and what you’re doing.

01:24:36:20 – 01:24:37:23

Ed

Yeah, for sure.

01:24:38:04 – 01:25:01:02

Steve

You know, I’ve heard you speak. You’re an incredible speaker. And you’ve when I heard you you you use this quote from the, Rene dumbbells now analog. And one line from that quote is, there is an art of conducting oneself in a lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. You actually ended your talk with that.

01:25:01:04 – 01:25:12:04

Steve

How does that manifest for you? How do you teach people to bring what they so saw higher up into, the lower regions, as he has? He wrote.

01:25:12:06 – 01:25:37:20

Ed

It’s a big part about how you got to the top for me, the message title of my book, No Shortcuts to the top, right? Right. I think people are always looking for a shortcut. How do I do it? Faster, cheaper? How do I cut corners? You know, but you’re missing the point. And and it’s it’s getting there. Taking your time, learning, being with people.

01:25:37:22 – 01:26:06:01

Ed

And but also when you do get to the top, when you reach your goal to be proud about how you got there, you know, that trail of footprints you left behind? How did you treat people? You know where you honest? Did you maintain humility? Did you remember your core values? Are you proud about that? Instead of having regrets?

01:26:06:03 – 01:26:32:03

Ed

And I think that’s an important way to think about, you know, how you when you’re on or at sea level after climbing a mountain to remember that and, and it gives you a foundation of then how you go through the rest of your life. Yeah. You know, in the, in the story is those that are above can see what’s below, but those that are below don’t know what’s above.

01:26:32:05 – 01:26:45:01

Ed

And there’s that mystery. That’s part of the reason we climb, you know, you want to look over the ridge, right? You want to see what it looks like from the summit looking down the other. That’s that’s what draws you. Is that vision?

01:26:45:03 – 01:27:04:22

Steve

Yeah. I mean, to this day, that’s one of my favorite things about mountaineering is just going to all of these different little intricate pieces of topography around the globe and looking over the ridge and seeing what’s down there and climbing up here and seeing what’s down there, it’s like standing on the summit, looking around, being like, oh yeah, I’ve been over there and I’ve been over there.

01:27:04:22 – 01:27:05:10

Ed

Yeah.

01:27:05:12 – 01:27:33:18

Steve

Yeah. That’s a that’s an amazing part of the journey. You’ve done a lot more, you know, sort of public and corporate speaking that I have. But one of the things that I’ve really enjoyed with a little bit I’ve been able to do is the people that I’ve met and I’ve actually learned more and going and meeting these people that exist in these totally different but parallel worlds in many ways where they’re following their passion, they’re the best at what they do.

01:27:33:20 – 01:27:57:07

Steve

It’s a thing I didn’t even know existed before, maybe a few weeks ago, you know, what are some. And you’re nodding your head. You’ve met these people too. You’ve had these experiences. Like who? What are some of the things that you’ve learned, or what are the some of the types of people that you’ve met that have left an impression on you, that you’ve been able to share time with through this, through your ability to tell your story?

01:27:57:09 – 01:28:17:17

Ed

You know, when you meet entrepreneurs, you know, like somebody that started a company that happened to read my book and that says, oh my God, these are all the things that we’re going through that I’ve struggled with. And then they invite you to come and speak to their team, and you can tell they’re enthusiastic. They’re they’re collaborating, right.

01:28:17:17 – 01:28:47:13

Ed

Which is important. The teamwork. They know it’s going to be hard. But they are willing to struggle for that because they’re so happy to be where they are. And when they come up to you afterwards, they go, oh, I’m in the same position as you were a long time ago. I’m just starting. I’m just start learning. And what you told me about that step by step, that day by day, you know, that that’s given me energy and inspiration and those are the things you walk away with.

01:28:47:13 – 01:29:12:08

Ed

And you’re just as jazzed as they are. You know, when you’re done, because you can tell you affected them in a way, you know, this, this business world, that something I thought I never would be doing is speaking to business people. You know the inspirational part? I love talking to companies or groups that are looking for risk management decisions, right.

01:29:12:08 – 01:29:35:10

Ed

Which was a big factor in our careers. How do you make those decisions based on risk? And there’s a thing called smart risk, right. You’ve got to take a certain amount of risk, which is okay, but when do you take the risk? When what risk isn’t worth taking. And that’s not a black or white decision either. And that’s kind of more of a personal thing.

01:29:35:10 – 01:29:48:15

Ed

So it’s just very interesting to meet all these people doing different things in a different arena, but with the similar kind of ingredients as they climb, you know, to the top.

01:29:48:15 – 01:30:10:12

Steve

Yeah. And their instinct about the smart risk or win the smart risk is not smart anymore is probably no different than your instinct about the snow. They’ve just been there before. They’ve seen this. They’ve seen this before. They don’t know why, but they recognize a pattern because, you know, they spent 30 years and they had mentors and lived a bunch.

01:30:10:12 – 01:30:35:16

Steve

Right? I agree completely. I think it’s so interesting to see as a, you know, you know, I think you and I in separate ways, we’re just so laser focused on what we wanted to do with our climbing for so long. And it wasn’t about being the best or, I don’t know, whatever. It was just about doing it and continuing to do it and getting trying to get better at it.

01:30:35:16 – 01:30:54:07

Steve

It was more of a cross person mentality, right? Like just, yeah, just try to always improve and always be better and always do a great job and always a job that you could be proud of and that kind of thing. And then you go into these other parallel worlds and it’s just like, oh, this is humanity.

01:30:54:09 – 01:31:14:23

Steve

This is all of it. There’s ugly parts to it, but there is a big part of humanity that is just out there doing exactly what you did or I did in our climbing, but they’re doing it in, in, in business or in, you know, you know, you I don’t know if you’re still working with them. You were working with the Seahawks for a while, right?

01:31:14:23 – 01:31:43:09

Steve

Yeah. Playing professional level football like, you know, so many different ways that that can manifest. And, you know, it’s the same raw ingredients. It’s dedication, it’s passion, it’s breath steps. It’s a grinding. It’s the currency of toil. It’s the apprenticeship. It’s all of these things that we’ve talked about are all the all the ingredients. It’s so, so interesting how much of this overlaps.

01:31:43:11 – 01:32:02:09

Steve

You’ve often talked about the book Annapurna and you know, that was it’s an incredible book for anyone who hasn’t read it. And you just have to remember when you’re reading that it was 1950, it was not 19, you know, modern era. And do you know much about the rest of Morris Herzog’s life?

01:32:02:11 – 01:32:12:04

Ed

You know, he was very successful. He was the mayor of Shamone. He was, you know, the minister of Sport, I mean, extremely successful.

01:32:12:04 – 01:32:38:04

Steve

Minister of sport for Charles de Gaulle, the famous French president and then he was on the International Olympic Committee for like 25 years. Yeah, 15 to 25 years. I forget now. But, you know, that’s like the International Olympic Committee is like I think there’s ten of them, you know, from each from and they’re deciding everything about how the Olympic Games are where they are, all these things like incredibly influential.

01:32:38:08 – 01:32:57:14

Steve

And he had a massive influence not just on in the sport of mountaineering, but just think of he had a massive, global influence on sport. And he came from mountaineering. And I think that our community sells itself short a lot that, you know, we’re just we’re just off here in the boondocks climbing our mountains. Nobody, nobody cares about us.

01:32:57:14 – 01:33:19:17

Steve

How to do mountaineering is boring. Climbing is dull to watch all this stuff. But there’s plenty of stories like yourself, like Herzog, where, like, he literally affected every sport that’s in the Olympics for those 25 years in some way. And I’m sure you had an even bigger effect on mountain sports in France. Like, of course he affected you and affected me.

01:33:19:17 – 01:33:44:17

Steve

But imagine the figure he was in France. And how much, already mountain oriented culture was. It was driven even more to the mountains and all that that all that happened because of him going to Nepal and and climbing a mountain that nobody had ever climbed before. And of course, yeah, paying dearly for that, that’s another story.

01:33:44:19 – 01:34:07:12

Steve

He lost all his fingers and toes on that climb, but nevertheless, like he went on to you know, live a very long, very prosperous, very influential life. And I think we forget how many of these characters there are, out there in our community. It’s really interesting and really impressive. And I think we need to remember that.

01:34:07:14 – 01:34:31:23

Ed

Well, you know, he says in the book, succinctly that Annapurna changed his life, you know, reached his life in spite of the price he paid, you know, losing fingers and toes. And look what he did with his life. And I always say that that book he wrote changed my life, right? It completely. Had I never read that book, you know, we wouldn’t be talking right now.

01:34:31:23 – 01:34:50:22

Ed

I would have not done what it’s, you know, I always say, you know, young people are influenced by, a mentor, a teacher, a parent, a book, something, right, that that puts you on a path and you’re like, how did I end up on this path? And I love the last sentence of the book, which I quote all the time.

01:34:50:22 – 01:35:18:10

Ed

You know, there are other Annapurna as in the lives of men. And we could paraphrase that, that, you know, I say we all have an openness and an Annapurna is a perfect metaphor for life or for business, right? It’s this thing that you’re you’re it’s your ball, it’s your vision, but it drives you right. These Annapurna, some of them we choose and I’ve had people that have read my book and it, I talk about Annapurna.

01:35:18:10 – 01:35:49:11

Ed

They said, listen, I have cancer. Annapurna became my cancer or cancer became my Annapurna. And I knew it was going to be a struggle. But, you know, the inspiration that I got from reading your book is what got me through, you know, the chemotherapy or the struggle of being in the hospital. And it’s really amazing the stories that I’ve heard that where people take the word Anna Perna and turn it into something positive, you know, really kind of cool.

01:35:49:17 – 01:35:50:01

Ed

Yeah.

01:35:50:04 – 01:35:53:05

Steve

What other Annapurna are there? And at Vistas life.

01:35:53:07 – 01:36:11:17

Ed

Oh, you know, it’s you know, I’ve had to learn, you know, after that event, you know, you’re done with a gigantic 20 year event, right? How do you fill that space? And the big question I always get and got was like, well, what’s next?

01:36:11:17 – 01:36:13:15

Steve

Right. Oh, I hated that question.

01:36:13:17 – 01:36:38:21

Ed

I always get it. Like, does there have to be a next right? How do I outdo myself? And I think that can be scary. If you think you cannot do yourself, you’re going to have problems right? You should go out on top and that’s okay. And I you know, I’m quite happy climbing smaller mountains. I’m still guiding people, teaching people, which is very fulfilling, right?

01:36:38:21 – 01:37:01:12

Ed

I still get to be physical. I get to go into the mountains. We live in a wonderful place, Ketchum, Idaho. I see my kids romping around in the outdoors and living their lives. I mean, there’s plenty to keep me busy and plenty to fill that. That thing, that whole, I do miss it. I mean, I’m sure you do as well.

01:37:01:12 – 01:37:16:06

Ed

The intensity and the that the all and full immersion part of it. But it’s okay to just say I’m going to do something else and, and, and you can fill those gaps. You just got to think about what and where and how.

01:37:16:06 – 01:37:44:10

Steve

And I think it’s harder for other people than it is for you or for me, you know, because they’re they only see you as this guy that, you know, climbs 1000 meter peaks. And, so that’s if you’re not that, then they don’t know what. Like they need a label for you. They need to know who you are, what you like, you know, and maybe, you know, you say, I’m a corporate speaker now or I’m going to, like, focus on my family or I don’t, you know, we have these, these things.

01:37:44:10 – 01:38:16:05

Steve

But, you know, I think that honestly, for me, one of my answers has been I’ve been processing everything I experienced for those, you know, other 25, 30 years, however many expeditions I did, I don’t, you know, I’m, I’m literally just still processing that like mentally and physically processing what I just went through and what it all means and what I saw, what I did and what it happened and what it didn’t happen.

01:38:16:05 – 01:38:38:11

Steve

And, like all of the things. Right, like, you talk about the intensity and, you know, there’s there’s a lot of very, very intense. And, you know, you’ve been in part in so many situations that have been, you know, not only dangerous but have been involved in lots of tragedy. And we’ve both lost lots of friends to tragedy.

01:38:38:11 – 01:38:57:04

Steve

And we’ve also been very close to some of those moments and know I think that, you know, there’s it’s also just okay to be like, hey, I’m, I’m still I’m actually still living all of that in a lot of ways. And it’s still with me and I’m still figuring it out.

01:38:57:06 – 01:39:17:04

Ed

And you’re right. And the thing you do is you. You like you. You’re ready to write about it? Probably. I mean, there’s so much stuff in there that is important and worth sharing. Yeah. Speaking to people, you know, sharing what you’ve learned, they’re willing to listen. It keeps it interesting because you’re still kind of living it.

01:39:17:06 – 01:39:36:23

Ed

Yeah. Because you’re talking about it and you’re sharing it. Yeah. And I have to admit, you know, for the last ten years of what I was doing, you know, I, I, I met my wife, and she was completely supportive of what I was doing. You know, when I met her, she didn’t know I was a mountain climber.

01:39:37:03 – 01:40:03:00

Ed

Not why she liked me or fell in love with me. She said, I like you for what you are and because of what you do. And she fully supported and allowed me to keep living that life, right? Because she believed in me and trusted in me. And I think when you go on these trips and these long adventures and it’s it’s hard, but you got these people at home that are they become part of your team, right?

01:40:03:00 – 01:40:24:05

Ed

They give you energy because they’re they’re thinking about you. Yeah. And, and those all that stuff is important to write your family and your friends, they know what you’re doing. Your teammates. And I was very fortunate that I had all of that with me, you know, emotionally and physically and mentally as well.

01:40:24:10 – 01:40:27:22

Steve

How do you want adversaries to be remembered?

01:40:27:24 – 01:41:00:12

Ed

You know, just having lived a life that I chose, that that was different, but that made me happy. And hopefully, I was humble and respectful for the mountains and the people that I was with. And I treated people well, and I have no regrets. And that I just. Kind of went out there and honestly lived my dream.

01:41:00:17 – 01:41:32:09

Ed

I mean, that to me was the most important thing for me, I think, just to to have this vision as a kid and somehow climbing that ladder, you know, and getting to the end, and somehow poetically, you know, I read this book, Annapurna and the last peak on my list ended up being Annapurna completely by accident. Kind of a cool, full circle life right there.

01:41:32:12 – 01:41:59:21

Steve

Yeah, it is beautiful. And it’s very inspiring. It. And. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you’ve certainly inspired me. And I’ve looked up to you for years and it’s been really great to have this conversation with you. And I think what’s important for me and how I want you to be remembered is like as being authentic, you know, because, you know, living like you said, living your dream that comes through in every way.

01:41:59:21 – 01:42:04:18

Steve

So thank you for doing that. I think that’s really, really been a gift for me. So thank you.

01:42:04:20 – 01:42:09:10

Ed

Well, thank you as well. I like that word authentic. It’s a it’s a good word.

01:42:09:15 – 01:42:14:05

Steve

Well you’ve lived it. So thank you.

01:42:14:07 – 01:42:37:05

Steve

Voice of the mountains is a production of uphill athlete incorporated. Our producer is Alyssa Clark. Sound engineering and editing is done by Christoph Lucas. The voice of the mountains is scripted and hosted by me, Steve House with research and writing help from Jamie. Later. Thank you for listening to voice of the mountains.