Who Says Yes?

Steve:
There is a remote wall in Norway, 600 meters high. A man walking alone, believing it had never been climbed, and left his rope at the bottom on purpose. So the only way out was up and over. He reached the summit calm, and he came down proud.

And there is a crossing in the Mont Blanc massif, the mountains falling apart around him, blocks the size of cars coming down. He passed the last place he could have retreated, and he kept going. He solved every problem the route gave him that day. He survived all of it, and he came down furious at himself.

Same man, same acceptance of the same possibility. One day proud, one day furious. Listen for the difference between those two days, because I think they hold this entire conversation.

My guest today is Kilian Jornet, probably the most complete mountain athlete of his generation. And I promise you, this episode contains almost nothing about results. What you’ll hear instead is a man taking off his layers one at a time.

I ask every guest how they want to be remembered. Kilian’s answer is the most liberating idea he knows: we won’t be. Nobody in the future will be thinking about us. They will be busy, the same way we are busy. And once you accept that, only one audience is left, the one that lives inside you. That audience is the one that judged those two days so differently. That audience is why he feels more exposed at a party than in avalanche terrain.

I have spent much of my life learning to ask, before I say yes to something dangerous, which voice inside me is doing the deciding. Kilian has been asking that question since he was a boy in the Pyrenees, since the night his mother walked her two small children into the forest, barefoot, no light, to teach them that the dark is just dark.

So stay for the sentence that stopped me: that up there, at some point, success simply means staying alive one more day. And he wishes he did not need that to feel complete. And stay for the moment below les Droites when he says, “I don’t know why I accepted it.” Because the voice that said yes for him that day lives in you. This conversation is how you learn to hear it.

I’m Steve House, and this is Voice of the Mountains.

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[Voice of the Mountains title card, no dialogue]

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Steve:
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===== INTERVIEW (Steve House and Kilian Jornet) =====

Steve:
Kilian, thank you so much for being here. It’s an honor to have you on Voice of the Mountains. You’ve been probably one of our most requested guests.

Kilian:
No. Thank you. It’s a pleasure like I, I’ve been listening some of the of the cast. It’s a great job you are doing, among all the good work you are doing on coaching and all the inspiration that you have been bringing to me and to many of my generation of athletes and climbers to get out and explore what it’s possible to do there in the mountains.

Steve:
While you’re too kind, I. Where are you? Where were you? Where are you calling from tonight? Are you home?

Kilian:
Yeah. I’m home. I’m, I’m in Norway. I basically stay most of the year here. Just kind of trouble for races or things like 2 or 3 times a year, but mostly like, yeah, we try to stay home as long as possible.

Steve:
Great. I want to start with a question that I’ve been thinking about a lot. I’ve been thinking about what mountains are to people like you and me. Are they a place we go? Are they a language we speak or a place we live? So I just want to start with that. What is a mountain to you? Not what you do on one.

Kilian:
And.

Steve:
Like we all have seen your videos and. But what is it? What is the mountain for you?

Kilian:
Yeah, we start with a tough question. Yeah, it’s it’s hard. I think for me, I, I never had to discover mountains like I was born into mountains and, and I had never this experience of going to a place that it changed me or that it I saw that it was something different. But, it really feels for me it’s where I belong.

Steve:
Oh.

Kilian:
And it’s, it’s home. I feel like a foreigner when I’m not in the mountains. And that’s that’s the kind of feeling that where I’m in. If I’m in the mountains, in Colorado, in in the Himalayas, if I’m in a first time in a mountain range, I feel much more connected there. And I feel home compared to if I’m in Oslo, that it’s only a couple of hours ago from where I live, or if I go to Barcelona where like it was like one hour from where I was born. So probably for me, mountains, which has the place where I feel like, like myself, where I can be, you know, like we always like, put layers on ourselves, like to protect ourselves from, from anything, not only the weather, but to others to all these shells that we are putting on. And and probably the mountains is the place where I can take away most of those layers. And yeah. Besides, like the amazing terrain that they offer for for doing whatever we want to do there, it’s, it just were like, yeah, I feel like comfortable and I feel racial with the, their shapes and the, their that it feels like it’s, it’s familiar to me somehow.

Steve:
So I’m hearing familiarity home. Like maybe even where you can be yourself. Like where you can let those shells or those layers fall away.

Kilian:
Yeah. It’s like when. Yeah. Is the place where I feel myself like, basically. And, and that means like home. It’s always many things, like it’s homage where you can express yourself. It’s where you you get back when you are hard is where you, get excited, where you. Yeah, it’s many things. So it’s it’s not only like a place where I go if I want to feel something, but it’s where I always wherever I am and and I go to other places eventually to, to do other things.

Steve:
And. One of the ideas that comes up for me with this idea of being in the mountains and what the mountains are to me, is this idea of feeling safe, which I think is counterintuitive to most people think of mountains as being dangerous or risky, but safe in the sense like that’s where I first could be myself. And in that way. And I think that home like being home in our relationships, like your relationship with Emelie or my relationship with my wife, or like those are also places where I feel at home in the sense that I’m I’m safe to be myself and safe to like whatever that means. And, and mountains definitely have been that. Not just like in my 20s, but even now in my 50s, where an engaging with the mountains, of course, in a different way than I did at 1525. But it’s still the place where I’m myself most purely myself. That makes sense.

Kilian:
Yeah. It makes I think it makes complete sense. It’s, Yeah, it’s a relation. And it’s this place where you feel like, comfortable and where you feel that. Yeah, it’s. And like, I think safety, it has many different meanings, like, and like, yeah, it’s the risk that they are indeed like on mountain activities, but. Mountain is not just the cutting edge moments. It’s it’s also like when you are down in the valleys or when you are doing other activities. And, and it’s also those places, even if you are doing something that is risky, like it’s if you are familiar with that risk, it, it becomes like somehow, natural like compared to other like, yeah, you can go to places that they are with less objective risks, but where you have less control of what’s going on, and you might have a feeling of like being more exposed. Probably. Yeah. More, more, more like the feeling of exposure than the feeling of risk. But you feel exposed when you are in a city because, like, it’s many things that you can’t control or that you are not familiar with, that in the mountain, like, even if it’s a lot of objective risk, like maybe you are more familiar, like I’m more familiar with, like dealing like in an avalanche situation or an avalanche terrain than like being on a, I don’t know, a social event in a city that I feel like, okay, I’m very exposed, like I don’t know how to act, I don’t know how to what I need to do or like, what’s the

Steve:
Yeah.

Kilian:
fun thing of that or where where I should, like, fit in where like, okay, I’m in the mountain. It’s I, it can be a cornice, it can be an avalanche. It can be some things that. Yeah, they they might feel unsafe, but I’m familiar with it. And, and I develop this relation with my consciousness and those phenomena compared to other situations where I’m not that that used probably.

Steve:
And. That. Yeah, yeah. That’s great. Can just a quick can you turn your screen just down a little bit. Your, the camera is cutting off the bottom of your chin. There we go. That’s better.

Kilian:
fun thing of that or where where I should, like, fit in where like, okay, I’m in the mountain. It’s I, it can be a cornice, it can be an avalanche. It can be some things that. Yeah, they they might feel unsafe, but I’m familiar with it. And, and I develop this relation with my consciousness and those phenomena compared to other situations where I’m not that that used probably.

Steve:
Yeah, yeah. That’s great. Can just a quick can you turn your screen just down a little bit. Your, the camera is cutting off the bottom of your chin. There we go. That’s better. Yeah I love that that framing. And you know, one of the things that I have found is this, that I’ve been afraid of is that very comfort. Right. Like, it’s hard to know when should I be afraid? Because when you’re when you’re out in it so often, like you said, you’d have this immense amount of familiarity and you sort of have this confidence. You’re like, you know where the lines are, you know, like, yeah, this, this slope isn’t going to have a large, but this one is fine. I can ski down here, you know. And it is because you have a ton of experience. But at what point does that become complacency? And we both lost a lot of friends in the mountains. And you know, we both know that things can just happen. But knowing when to worry about that has been, I think, one of the things that one of the questions I haven’t solved.

Kilian:
It’s a, it’s a hard one because, if I look back and to the mistakes I have done in the mountains, most of the time they come either because I was it was too familiar, and then I turn out the like the alert system. And it’s places where, like you go every day or where you go often. Or is that the, you know, like you have climbed the mountain, you have passed all the dangers.

Steve:
Yeah, yeah.

Kilian:
You are just like getting down to the car. It’s just like you feel okay now. It’s I’m almost done. And then you, you turn out of all the alarms and and accidents happen. And that’s one point. Just these like that, you’ll lower your alert levels because you feel it’s, you are in a very, very comfortable place. And the other place, it’s it’s the ones that you accept that those also happen, that the the project itself, the route that you want to climb or ski or, or to do like it. It has a meaning that you, you accept a high amount of risk. So here is the opposite. It’s probably like you are very alert, because you know, the, the consequences of what might happen. But even with these knowledge, you, you still decide to keep going, very aware of like the probabilities and the consequences. And I would say those are like what I have experienced the most dangerous terrains. And one, it’s yeah, they are kind of in the, in the two complete edges like two opposites. But but it’s where we’re often like accidents are accidents happen.

Steve:
Yeah. And I think it’s really good for people to hear that conversation between you and me. Right. Like, I think so many people in the beginning, part of their mountain journey or even in the middle or even even they’ve been doing it for their whole life. And they look at what, what you do or look at what I’ve done, and they just think, man, like, those guys must just not have a risk alarm. They must just have not have a experienced fear the way I do. And I, I feel like that’s first of all, I feel like it’s inaccurate. And second of all, I feel like it. One of the things that I think is true is that the the biggest limits are, in people’s minds, the biggest limitations on what they can do. And I know that sounds like everybody would say that, but getting people to like, let go of what this go into this in English, we would use this term metacognition to go into metacognition mode and say, what is it that has trained my thinking to react to this situation this way? Like, what is that? What is the programing that says this is really dangerous?

Kilian:
And.

Steve:
Or what is the programing that says, I have to do that in three days, I can’t do that in one day, you know? And is there a way to start like almost empirically resetting that programing, be like, okay, well if I needed and I’ve seen people do this in my friend Barry Blanchard has this great story about, you know, going to I forget what which mountain it was, but it was some mountain in the Alps. Maybe it was a glut or something. When he was a young alpinist and meeting and more experienced alpinist and experienced alpinist was like, yeah, it’s just you’ve done A and you’ve done B, and you’ve done C and led what is just like A, B, and C all together. And you did A in six hours and B in six hours and C in six hours. So yeah, I mean worst case scenario it’s like 18 hours. Just bring some extra snacks and go try. And that gave him the confidence and gave him this mental model of the way to like kind of break down the problem and relate it to things that he knows or has already proven he can do and then start to. And I know that you’ve taken similar approaches to some some of your projects, not not all of them, but like, you know, obviously sometimes you just go up there so big you just have to go do them in one go. But you know, like that, that project that you and I, you know, I tried to help you with a little bit in Switzerland, whatever that was ten, 12 years ago was one where, you know, you wanted to do this enchantment and you were breaking it down into the sections and getting to to know them. And then you kind of building that, like doing it all together would have been a massive breakthrough and doesn’t just happen all at once, that the massive breakthrough comes through and people forget that process, I think.

Kilian:
Yeah, absolutely. And also that the more you do the more you are able to to navigate also like new terrain without needing to, to prepare for it. I mean, like I think the it’s not that you learn A, B and C and then you are able to do D. What is that? If you do A, B and C you are able to do. Y axis also because like you. You build your resilience and more than really you build your plasticity on the mind to you to use tools and to solve problems. I think in, in Montenegrin especially, it’s the biggest question is that is how to solve the problems that it appears in front of you. And those problems might be very diverse. But it’s, it’s to, to feel confident that you have enough tools, physical, technical knowledge, experience, wherever that if you encounter those problems, you will be able to solve it. And for that, I think it’s yeah, it’s it’s somewhat what experience brings us. It’s is that you feel this confidence and and also then like I think as you mentioned like with these mental limitations that we put ourselves it most of the time it comes like with how we, we react with the fear that we feel because like I think like I, I feel fear when I go to places that they are dangerous and, and most of my friends that they climb, they feel like afraid at times. And I think that’s that’s sane. And that’s important because it tells us that, yeah, it’s it’s risky and or it’s technical. It’s we need to, to, to be aware. But it’s that how we react in front of this danger that we react on a calm way, that it’s okay, it’s that’s going on here. I don’t panic, I, I just keep doing what I need to do to solve this problem.

Steve:
Be careful.

Kilian:
And the fun thing is that, many times, like I would react similarly if I’m like, do afraid and then you panic and then you do very stupid things because you are panicking. King. And that’s something that I think everyone that has been climbing has been feeling okay, like solving a route, like for example, you are soloing and you, you know, the moves and then you are panicking because you feel somehow unsafe. It’s too windy, whatever it is. And then you decide, like, I will climb these other places, that it looks easier. And it’s like it’s unreasonable. Like it’s like, you know, the moves and then you change because somehow and you put yourself in greater risk. So that’s like where you let, the fear to dominate your actions or the opposite. It’s also like I would say, when, when you feel like, for you, when you feel too happy and then you are like, feeling like somehow of ambiance about. And that’s probably why most accidents happen in the way down, because you are happy that you have achieved and then you feel, okay. That’s that’s not risky at all when like it might be. So I think like either because you are too afraid or because you are too happy that then you, you look at the problems differently than when you are like calm. And the fun thing is like, we love to go to mountains because it gives us very strong emotions that we can feel elsewhere, like it’s it’s impossible to describe what you feel like when you do something that you have been preparing for for a long time. And but at the same time, normally in these moments, like you need to be so cold blood that you, you are like cutting all the emotions that they are going through you because you know that you cannot get to to happy, to excited. Because that might mean that you are not able to to get back home. And and you need to be like very.

Steve:
And. You.

Kilian:
Very steady in the scary moments to, to not dominate your decision making. So that’s the fun thing of, of climbing that it’s it’s so strong emotionally. But during the action, if you want to succeed, you don’t allow yourself to to experience these emotions like you, you need to to kind of rewind when you are home and like go to those places and, and take away all these layers of that you have put to to not feel the emotions to, to succeed. And then like you can feel them afterwards.

Steve:
Yeah, yeah. I always felt like the honest summit photos were ones that show someone being how they truly feel at that moment, which is worried, scared, exhausted, you know, not like, yeah, happy I did it like because because that in reality it comes later. Like it comes back at the car or whatever. You know, when you’re when you’re down and say for the next day or the next week even, you know, something you said I want to connect back to. We had a guest last season, Greg Penner, who’s the chairman of the board of Walmart, biggest company in America. And when I asked him how he knew how to do, how to make all these decisions and he makes in business that affect, you know, large swaths of the world, he said. Like he just has a lot of reps, a lot of repetitions in business. And it made me think about, like, you know, what you were saying? You just, you know, you’ve done it a lot. You’ve done A, B and C a lot, and that because you’ve done A, B and C a lot, you can do x, y, z. Right. And I think that’s a similar map. Right. From, from whether you know somebody who’s spent their whole life looking and running, looking at businesses and running businesses on a big scale, they’ve seen the pattern so many times that they feel at home.

Kilian:
And.

Steve:
They’re right. Like the same way you do. Or I would on a on a mountain peak or on an exposed alpine ridge. And I think that that’s that’s sort of interesting observation because I think something else you said where you said that. It’s really hard or even impossible to describe what it feels like when you’re up there, when you do something you’ve been trying to do and planning on doing for a very long time. But is it because isn’t it the same feeling that someone would have if they’d been writing a novel and they finished their novel and it gets published, or they’ve been working in the lab and they’re they get the scientific breakthrough and their paper gets accepted into nature or whatever the thing is. Right. Like, is that actually is that actually unique to mountaineers, that experience, or is that something that’s a feature of being human for many of us?

Kilian:
Now I think it’s a big part. It’s it’s similar to other activities, but what I can say also like compared to other successes I had like in racing or that it’s it’s fun to but I mean like and it’s, it’s very, very primary. But the thing is that at some point, like when you are up there, you are also risking your life. And we are very aware of that. And, and somehow it’s it’s also this feeling of survival that it comes at some point like it’s a and it’s something that we don’t feel doing other activities like even achieving at the highest level, like I think the cars that we put on, they are not the same or we are playing with another person. Right? Kind of know when you are doing an activity in the mountains, like at those times, it’s like what success means. That then is like to stay alive one more day and and it’s like it’s somehow that I, I wish I didn’t need to feel that to to feel like complete because it’s not something that it’s easy to explain, like, to people like, why do we need to to get to the, to this exposure and to, to risk our lives to to feel that.

Steve:
For. Yeah.

Kilian:
But we do, and it’s something that, you know, like it’s strong; it’s different to everything else. And it doesn’t mean that it’s just like kind of a junkie adrenaline of like getting exposed to those things. But it’s just like this problem that you are trying to solve and into these intellectual problem that we are putting on. And that could be like the writing the book or like the solving this, or writing this paper or solving this thing. But we are putting that into like, okay, if we don’t succeed, it has very, very real consequences. And and I think that adds something that I’m not meaning that it’s sane, but it has something in the, in the experience.

Steve:
Yeah, yeah.

Kilian:
And then, yeah, absolutely.

Steve:
Yeah, I feel a little caught out because I’m usually the one making that point about like an alpinism. Yeah. It’s like if you make a mistake, you can die. And there’s not too many other venues where that can be true, though I the way I see it now at my age, which is not how I saw it when I was your age. What is that like? I don’t know that my brain knows the difference between falling off a mountain and dying and like my my business, going out of business and losing all my money and losing my job and disappointing all my friends. And like I think in my brain, it it actually feels like the same thing in a lot of ways. I’m not saying it is because of course, if a pill athlete, you know, stop, you know, working from one day to another and it and it failed. I would be like, I’ve poured so much of my life into this and I’ve got so much invested in it, it would be devastating in many ways. And I would continue to live right, as opposed to I fall off a mountain. I won’t continue to live. I would, you know, we would live off my wife’s salary for a while. I would find a new way. Like, I have other skills I could get a job like I would survive. So. But in the moment, I’m not sure that in the, you know, primitive parts of my brain that it knows the difference, though there is in fact a difference.

Kilian:
No. That makes it like it’s like in a race. Like in a race, you are feeling like, okay, if I lose, like I’m that that’s bad, like or like as you mentioned, in business or like with many things, I think that realization probably comes after when like, yeah, it’s it wasn’t that that bad. But and I think that’s how we find like ultimately I think like if to to succeed like on many things it’s like we we we say no, we need to succeed because like the stake is, is that important even like if it’s something that it’s very random, like a race.

Steve:
I think that’s.

Kilian:
But if you want to try to win, then you put these kind of high, yeah. High price mentally on like a, on the failure to, to really push the success of of the things. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. And if you have a great competition with like another runner, for example, and you’re pushing each other like you are somehow tapping into that same like this is almost fatal. Like I have, like, how else could you push that hard, right. Because you’re pushing into pain and discomfort and, and physical limits that you don’t even know you had, but that you actually I mean, that’s one of the reasons you raised right. Because you can’t access that unless that pressure is there. And if, if, if you’re ahead by two, two hours, I mean, you’re not going to run the last two hours as hard as if there’s somebody, you know, three minutes behind you. It’s that’s that’s in a way it seems obvious. And I think that’s sort of how our brains work, you know, to, to, to achieve a lot.

Kilian:
And and.

Steve:
But I want to go to you mentioned how you were born into the mountains. And one of the parallels that we’ve had going over the last ten years, and I’m a little bit ahead of you on this curve, is having kids. And I want to talk about your childhood a little bit. And you you know, you once told me that your mother used to take you and your sister into the forest at night and be barefoot out there. And your pajamas, no light. What was she trying to teach you? And do you find yourself trying to do things like that with your own daughters? I mean, obviously you’re not taking them out at night, in winter in Norway, barefoot. But, you know, you’re sometimes in Spain or I don’t know, there are there things like that that you’re carrying forward that your, your mother and father did as a childhood that you look back on with fondness or good memories that you try to recreate in your own family structure.

Kilian:
Yeah I don’t know he’s trying to recreate but like I think it’s just to, to get comfortable with this environment that we are and and it’s, we’re mentioning at the beginning of our conversation that is like where we feel home, but we have this kind of social pressure on, like when you are out there, you are exposed. They are risk. They are like dangerous in nature. It’s like and then you realize, okay, what are really those dangerous like like where, where we live like in Norway when I was in Spain. Like, what are the wild animals? That they can kill me. They are not many. They are probably not around my home. What are the dangers of, like, staying, like a call for a few hours in, in in the forest. They it’s it’s it’s to put some like sense into into that. And I think that’s what my mother was doing naturally. Like just going out from our heart and just like walking to the forest and saying, okay, just just the forest. It’s it’s just dark. It’s not the darkness that will endanger you or the forest itself. And, and it’s just to feel comfortable in those places and to to feel that we are part of it.

Steve:
And.

Kilian:
And, and at the end like that. Yeah. The food that we eat, it comes from there. It comes from, from that soil. It comes from those trees. The all the interactions that we have are like, if we look to the most elemental level, like we, we are just like. Like what we are like, if you look at the the last molecule, the last atom in our fingertip and the next atom in the air, they are exactly the same. So what makes like us as and and the billions of bacteria that they live inside us like they they go from the, the what we eat from the air that we are breathing, from the other beings that they are out in the, in the, in the world, like in bacteria and, and another it’s more like a one molecule or capital molecules, elements that we need for living. And we are like a multi-organism. So these exposure with our environment, it’s it’s key. And that’s something that also like I with Emelie we try with our kids that they feel that they belong to to the to this planet and that they belong to to the nature around. So like they can play outside, we can go to the forest and, and go outside of the trails and just like. Be comfortable outside, just like recognize the wild fruits that they can eat and the ones that they can’t, and the birds and, like, the ground. Like what? Like if it’s if it’s frozen. If it’s soft, if it’s if they can like what they can find what what’s the interaction that we have to get to get dirty and to get connected with it. And, and I think that’s yeah, it’s something that we are trying to put barriers into that like to be clean all the time. And that, that probably means that, yeah, we are cutting all those connections and, and we are like who we are. Like it’s a we are not really one person. Like we are just like a bunch of like or billions of different beings and bacterias that they decide somehow to work together and, and an organization of molecules that decide to, to find consciousness and to, to feel that we are one. But reality is a bit more complex than than that.

Steve:
It’s so great how parenting makes you face these questions that we try not to think about. Most of the time I’ve been trying to. I once answered one of these questions from my kids by explaining to them that, you know, we’re made of stardust and we’re all out of everything has made it like. And then I, you know, I had to go into the whole cosmology of how we how we currently believe the world, you know, the universe was formed and.

Kilian:
That’s the problem. Talking with kids that you start with an idea is like, how will I explain? Like, yeah.

Steve:
Now I have to explain the Big bang and they’re like, all this stuff. So every once in a while they’ll just randomly we’ll be driving to go somewhere or will just be hiking and they’ll just start asking me, like, now tell me again how we’re made of stardust. They’re just like, they’re still like, oh God, why didn’t I? This is why I wish I had more simplistic views sometimes that I just tell them a nice story, but. You know, you’ve told this story about how I think you were ten and your entire family walked this classic trail that is north, you know, goes along the crest of the Pyrenees from coast to coast. And I think that’s a really cool thing for a family to do together. And my family, we did similar things quite on that epic of a scale. But what I’m curious is, what do you think that did to the four of you as sort of as a unit? What was that? How did that affect your relationships?

Kilian:
I have like a few memories, like I was a kid. So like, memories are very selective at that time. But I think, like, how I saw was a kid, it was just like, yeah, that’s what people do. Like, because you see your parents and you think that that’s what everybody is doing. So for I just like, okay, when when we’re in holidays, we go to the mountains. Everybody is doing that. And, and we just hike and it’s fun. And we it’s like as a kid, you you explore and it’s it’s fun to be out and to to sleep in the tent and like and of course, like I was probably complaining a lot like at some points like I’m tired or I’m hungry, but then like, you see this nice tree or rock or like or get, get this small goal and, and get too excited about it. And now as a parent, like doing things like that, you see the other side of it, like it’s, it’s to it’s pretty amazing to see how kids adapt to to everything that you give them and like that, that. Yeah, it’s it’s not because, yeah. That they just want to explore and, and it’s normal that they are tired sometimes and that they are both sometimes, but that they, they want to keep going many times they just need a small break.

Steve:
And.

Kilian:
And, and that is really possible to do things, things as a family and, and developing these relationships. I think it’s also like a great way to do it to, to feel that you, you develop trust, you develop like this love for for what you are experiencing. It’s I think like the, the look of a kid when discovers that they can do something, it’s something unique. Like when they discover that, yeah, they, they can ski down this slope or they can, like, climb this rock and and it’s very. Yeah, it’s, it’s you can see on their look like the proud ness they have and the. Yeah confidence and, and just how they develop that they discover things they didn’t know that they existed inside their body or outside in the, in the world.

Steve:
The confidence? It’s been so fun to see that for my kids. And I think one of the things that I have liked about having my kids growing up in Austria is that there’s just always so many people out, whether it’s summer in, you’re hiking or obviously winter skiing, and I don’t really tell them any differently. They just think that’s normally what people do and that’s just sort of being ingrained in there.

Kilian:
And.

Steve:
I mean, it’s going to be part of their metacognition. They might have to deconstruct that someday if they are, if they become traumatized by going to the mountains too much, but they are really just think that that’s normal and that’s what their friends do too. On the weekends, like all their friends, they went, you know, half of them went skiing like on the weekend, and they see their friends out skiing and stuff. And I think that’s great. I love that. One of the things that I mentioned to you when I introduced this idea of having you today was, you know, trying to explore with this, with this podcast, with this little part of the project, try to understand, like and try to maybe develop. And this is a I still don’t have a good feel for what it is like. I’m just calling it a philosophy of the mountains, let’s say. And in the first season I talked to alpinist, in the second season, I talked to people from other walks of life, typically from business. I was looking for people who had been really successful, who also shared an intense connection with the mountains and, and mountain sports and was looking for like trying to pull threads and see where the commonalities were in this season. This will be the first episode of season three. Was was really looking at more runners and trail running ultra runners and try to understand more, because that’s not my native world and I’ll never be. I’m not. It’s not been my sport and but I’m adjacent to it. And we, we we talked to a lot of trail runners and ultra runners and coach a lot of them. And and I’ve gotten to learn and know so much about running over the years and used it in my own training so much and so on. And one of the ideas that came up when one time when we were talking was, this was years ago, and you, you, you said that you don’t consider yourself a runner, you consider yourself a mountaineer. And we kind of and I, we kind of clicked because I remember saying, yeah, I, I don’t consider I consider mountaineering to be the spectrum of activity that happens in the mountains from whether it’s it’s running or skiing or walking up a glacier or climbing the North Face, or they’re all sort of on this continuum of, of mountain sport mountaineering, I think in in the States at least, the term mountaineering has become the term for climbing the mountain by the easiest route sort of approach, whereas alpinism has become this term.

Kilian:
And and.

Steve:
That’s more like the technical side of mountaineering, which I think is a disservice. I don’t I think that the I think that the correct term for all of it is still mountaineering. And I think we are maybe we’re and I think that a lot of people, myself included, when I say I’m a mountaineer, I sort of like, oh, am I, am I mountaineer? I really I think I’m an alpinist. It feels maybe this is one of these shells I need to peel off. But, you know. If you’re not a runner and. What does this what makes someone a mountaineer? Is it the style that they go to the mountains in? Is it the intention that they go to the mountains with? Is it the suffering that they go undergo when they’re out there? Like, how do you think about that? And why do you think that your mountaineer or do you still.

Kilian:
Yeah. No I remember like one time it was Geordie. Mina’s a good. Yeah. Montenegro alpinist from from Catalonia, from from the Pyrenees that he said that you are not like an alpine or you are not like runner or whatever. Like is that some days you do alpinism, some days you do like running. So and I really like it because often we want to define ourselves with what we do, but that’s what we are doing at some point. And it’s not like, okay, today might be doing like a, a technical North face. And that day I might be an optimist. And then the evening I will be like home cooking food and, and I will be just like a parent. Like if I’m doing that for, for my kids. And another day we’ll go training, like for a race. And then I will feel as an athlete. So I would say it’s the actions that we are doing. They, they, they have a time where we are not only practicing, but thinking about it like it’s when I’m thinking, when I feel that I’m an outlet. It’s those moments when I’m thinking as an athlete, when I’m preparing and like thinking when I’m eating and sleeping, recovering, training as an athlete, when I feel like, a climber. Montaner, an alpinist, is when I’m thinking like, not not only during the activity, but when I’m thinking about, okay, what? You know, like you are in the evening home and you are saying, okay, what, what the conditions might look three months apart, like when I will be in the mountain and, and you are thinking about the gear if I will take like two kilometers or one or like. And you are being an alpinist at that point because you are like you, your body, your mind is immersing to do that activity. And at the end, like we, we are multiple things at the same time. Like it’s not that you disconnect like and I think at some point like with if you try to reach excellence, it’s when we are also able to to really disconnect from other things and have those moments where we say, okay, like now it’s nothing else exists. It’s only about like that climb or about that race. And and I’m so embarrassing to training that nothing else existed during those hours. But but it’s it’s kind of bubbles that they are out there and that we develop over time, like the skills to do it. But yeah, then I think it’s, it’s just semantics. Like, yeah, we are like coming to back like we are we really humans what it means to be human. Like it’s we are atoms like we are like like science cannot describe like what is consciousness like? We we have no idea. Like nobody has seen consciousness. So like. But you feel that you are someone like, you feel that you are you. And I feel that I am myself, but it’s there is up there. But we don’t have any proof that what we feel being it’s something that exists. So like, let alone to feel like to be like an alpine runner. So like it’s I think it goes to semantics and, and that’s more like what we feel confident unlike describing to the others. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah, I mean, we have labels because it makes it easy to describe ourselves to others. Right. And so some many times it’s easy to just describe yourself by the label of what you do. I am a coach. I am a alpinist.

Kilian:
Yeah. Basically. Yeah. And probably that’s also because how the world is. Yeah. And the world now like it’s probably like 3400 years ago that wasn’t a problem because like, you knew how many people could, you knew like 400 years ago. Like you knew people. Not a lot. And you develop relation, long term relations over the years. So like you didn’t need to describe yourself today we are like exposed to to millions of people. So we need to find like these easy way to to describe who we are, what our characteristics and and and yeah physiological psychological experience. Treats are in very short time to, to get introduced to others. And that’s something that that it’s very new to us like as a society or as humans. And yeah, it’s, it’s probably something that it’s.

Steve:
That’s true. Yeah.

Kilian:
Yeah, it’s been pretty new to who we are.

===== MID-ROLL AD (Steve, uphillathlete.com/trainsmart) =====

Steve:
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===== INTERVIEW (continued) =====

Steve:
Well, let me pivot a little bit, because one of the things that I would say kind of led me personally, at least to here today and being coming a coach and running uphill athlete was many, many years ago. I climbed Subalterns in Alaska and did pretty well at it, and then went to the Himalaya and tried to climb the south face of with Slovenian climber named Marco. And he was way better than I was and I thought, oh man, like I thought I was pretty good. And he’s just like so much faster and faster than I am. And I had to, like, really dig into training and start to figure out how to improve myself physically so that I could go back to that those places and be on his level.

Kilian:
And.

Steve:
That was that was because I saw there was another level for the first time, like a truly, truly different level. And a lot of that is connected to this tenet of being a mountaineer, which is that to move quickly through the mountains is better. And the reason it’s better is because it’s safer. And the reason it’s safer is because we’re exposed to the bad weather or the store, the storm, the serac fall, the avalanche risk, etc. for less time. And your career, even within running, has been built on this idea of going faster and lighter. And you spent a lot of time thinking about and improving your equipment and, you know, doing everything to be lighter and more efficient. Where does that come from philosophically? Because I think there’s so much sort of gear chatter out there. People talk about gear, they make YouTube videos about gear, etc., but. People have also argued, and I’m not sure that they don’t have a point, that that going to fast strips away some part of the experience. The suffering and the bivouac are part of the experience and part of what you’ve enjoyed, you know, are there for. And how do you see that? Like where do you balance that? Is it always as fast and light as possible? Is it sometimes, you know, you know, we used to joke fast and like cold and hungry versus, you know, you know, or slow and comfortable and warm and well fed. And I’ve done a little of both, I’ll admit, like, and, you know, particularly in places like Canada and the Alps, where I have done roots that I’ve done over three, 4 or 5 days with that wasn’t like, you know, like when I climbed the, the, the let’s see what would be an example when I climbed the northwest of the range with, with Vincent and Marco years ago and we climbed like in three days, it was like a normal amount of time. It was winter. There was another party ahead of us and like the whole thing was like, of course it was perfect weather. Like, I remember just sitting on the ledges and brewing up and watching the stars come out and watching the sunrise and all of those things just as much or even probably more now than I do the actual climbing. So philosophically, like, where are you landing now with this fast and light? And what is that? How is that evolved for you?

Kilian:
Yeah, I think it’s been diversifying probably. And it’s. It’s it they’re like, what is the experience that you are seeking for each place? And that would be very different. Like if I go like home and, and is that summit that I know, like I have been climbing for like 100 times and I want to see progress and I want to see if I’m getting better, then I will just go like try to go as fast as I can just to to see where I stand in terms of progression and if I’m developing new skills physically or technically. So there is just like pure going fast and going like, yeah, measure something. And that’s why speed, pure speed like the time has a has a meaning. But that I would say like as you mentioned, like going to to to expeditions in either in high mountains or link ups. Then like I think speed it’s, it’s a consequence of the style I would say.

Steve:
You’re going to measure something.

Kilian:
Or is the consequence of like what I want to feel like. The style I think at the end is like, what what we are seeking with this experience, what what we do want to feel and and for me, like it’s, it’s most of the times is the, the to find experience of being as close as possible to, to the mountain and that like means that like I think who was it was a Michael Michael Renton or Renton, like a free soloist, American Renton or something like that.

Steve:
And. You. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, I remember, yeah.

Kilian:
Yeah. That he was joking, saying like, I’m going like naked Barfoot without a magnesium on site is climbing. Anything else is a compromise. And like he it’s a point there. I mean like, yeah like and that’s probably what I’m trying to see, like when I do to, when I go to places and then it’s just like with this ideal of, like going on site naked and knowing that I have a lot of limitations as a human and as a person.

Steve:
Yeah yeah yeah.

Kilian:
What are the the things that might make me as close as possible to these ideal? So trying to go like as light as possible without much gear and try to to to go like without much like food and without the, the least possible just to, to be as close as possible and then you go fast because that’s the only way to, to be able to do those things.

Steve:
Yeah yeah.

Kilian:
And then like, it’s not that you are looking at the Crohn’s to say, okay, I’m, I’m going like one minute or one faster or slower, but it’s just that you keep moving quickly, no matter of like the actual time that you are doing it. Just like to to try to achieve this impossible ideal of like going naked to the mountains.

Steve:
Yeah. Or is it the Paul Price version where if you climb up something you also have to climb down it. You can’t like that was part of his thing. Like he had to be free solo and climb up and climb down. That’s that’s another thing. So. So yeah. So Alex hasn’t free soloed down free rider yet. So it didn’t count.

Kilian:
Yeah, exactly. Like. Yeah, that’s the ideal, but.

Steve:
Right. We got to call Alex and tell him no I’m kidding. But.

Kilian:
Well, like. Yeah, but he climbed down the mountain like by food. No, but I, I think it.

Steve:
Yeah I mean you repel down a bunch of fixed ropes. I mean there is a way to walk around, but yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Kilian:
Yeah, yeah. Or he climbed the other route like the other way now but I think like eventually like that’s why I think that’s why we are always kind of in satisfied. Like, I don’t know if you have this feeling many times of like if with your big climbs, it’s like you always feel that you could have done it better on this style.

Steve:
Yes, sir. Yeah.

Kilian:
Like it’s like, okay, why did I do like a small upsell there? Like a I couldn’t be done climb it or like, why did I take the tent and not like pushing during the night or like, why did I bring that? And I think it’s because we have this idea that it’s it’s impossible to achieve because we have big limitations as humans. But and then we are never satisfied. But but I think it’s this. Yeah, it’s, and the fun part of it, I think, is to accept that it’s also just a game and to try to get us as close as possible to this idea without taking it too seriously. I mean, like, it’s at the moment. Yeah. You want to do it right, but it’s just like inner game with yourself somehow.

Steve:
And you gave a couple of different reasons. One, you said you wanted to be close to the mountain, but I also heard you say that, you know, you wanted to be close to an ideal, so, so. Or is it have something to do with the other people that you’re with, or does it have something to do with you yourself? What? What is it?

Kilian:
Yeah. It’s like who we are, like. Like, we are who we are influenced by. And like, I have a funny anecdotal, like I remember like the first time I went to to the, to Nepal and today was with Jordi and Jordi and we went to climb like a to try 1000 meter peak on February. And starting from a lodge like 150km away from their only accepting like to bring like anything in our backpack, not any rope, nothing. So it was like, was saying like maybe we can do things like alpine style, but not that far away. Like, not that alpine we can allow ourselves almost like joking. But that was my introduction to to to mountaineering. Like or like more like technical mountaineering. So somehow that it keeps like it’s very different. Like who you are introduced, who are your mentor. And like I remember like I when I started dating with Emelie, like we started to do some climbs together and I had never been like. Trying to or we have never been talking about like the philosophy of like going to the mountains with her, like on that way. But the first time that we went to Nepal, she saw like some people like hiking there and they had like a portal and she was like going to them and saying, are you not ashamed that you are going to the base camp and you people is carrying things for you?

Steve:
You.

Kilian:
You are not really going to the base camp like you are being poured there. And like it was probably because like the influence that she had, like from me, like saying, okay, like Montenegrin and Montenegrin is like if you have zero help that, that, that. Yeah. She didn’t have any other exposure as I didn’t have any other exposure when I went to with with those. And so like I think like mentorship, it’s it’s important on how we develop like our, our vision. And it has been very influential to me. And, and I think then it’s more like it linked with what I was doing as a kid, just going out explore and playing naked in. There’s no. So we somehow like,

Steve:
Yeah.

Kilian:
The fun thing is that when I started to do mountaineering that way, it felt somehow that I was finding myself while before, when I was doing, I had done some other activities in the mountains, it was feeling. Yeah, it’s fun, but it’s not myself. So probably it’s like this construction of like, what are your, your values as a kid? And that probably comes from your parents. And then the influences that you get like along in, in life and, and sometimes they align, sometimes they don’t. And I think when you find the ones that align, it’s where you probably feel more, more, more comfortable with these ethics or with the style that you are with it. And, and I think I believe like with my that’s probably more my science kind of, interest of like this being naked. It’s just like to, to try to prove that. Yeah, our limitations that we have as humans. And for me, it’s the same with racing. Like why I try to raise faster than before. It’s just like to see what is our limitations as a person, as a species. And, and if you are putting, external elements then you are kind of cheating the results of of who we we are really.

Steve:
Yeah. And I think we have an inner compass. You’re talking about things aligning like we. I think maybe it’s childhood, but I also think that there’s something you’re trying to explain consciousness earlier, like there’s something deep inside the US as humans that sort of like points a certain way. And when other things point that way, we feel it. And that’s the way that works for us. That’s where we click like just with some other people, right? Like, I have people in my life that, you know, I immediately knew that this was going to be a person and I was going to really get, you know, spend time with and get to know and become long term friends with because everything was just so aligned in this way. That’s very hard to explain, but it’s innate. It’s part of being human, and we don’t really have to explain it even right. We can just we experience it. Therefore, it’s true. And you can explain it. You can observe it yourself. I can in myself. And I think that that’s going back to the mountains, like and how. One of the things that has continued to bring me so much joy in the mountains as I’ve gotten older is skiing, for example. And I’ve always loved skiing. And, you know, you’ve always loved skiing as well. I know when we’ve got we got to ski together and we get to ski the San Joaquin Cougar that you’re. Yeah. It was such a good.

Kilian:
Amazing. Yeah. It’s one of the. Yeah. It’s one of, it’s a classic for a reason.

Steve:
It’s a classic for a reason. Yeah. With Emelie, it was a great day. And we had the mazing snow. We had a perfect, perfect day of stable powder. It was incredible. But this, this, the skiing is like. It still feeds this part of me that just loves traveling through the mountains. That just like when I. It doesn’t matter if I’m skinning or going downhill or whatever, just I’m moving through the mountains and that I feel at home, like you initially said, like at peace, like this is who I am. This is what I do. This is like it’s identity. It’s, you know, maybe it’s a million bacteria, but it’s like a whole bunch of bacteria all singing in harmony because we’re, like, doing the thing that that that feels familiar, that we’re with the people that we love with, you know, so many other things. And and that’s something that I didn’t expect, to be honest.

Kilian:
And.

Steve:
Like, if you would ask me when 20 years ago, I would have assumed that I would still be getting that out of climbing. And I can get that out of climbing, but it’s much easier to access through skiing for me for some reason. And I don’t know why that is. You came into running, I would say really from from skiing. Is that, is that a like from schema and and I’m did that. I’m curious how that point of view of being a skier may have affected your running, or am I projecting or misunderstanding how you came into running?

Kilian:
No. Yeah. I came into running like as a training for, for my skill season. So my ski mountaineering was my main sport. And then it was like, okay, what I do on summer to train and start running. So I do try running for training and and yeah. And I think it’s. The relation that we bring with activities.

Steve:
Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Kilian:
It’s also like what we expect from it. And, and I think that’s the hard thing when, when you are very good at doing something that, that you are probably so fine-tuned to the activity that to feel the same connection, you need to really go to that limit. Not like if I, if I want to feel like connected to like connected to the mountain and connected to them, to them by like with, with the skiing, probably need to to go to places that I need to push myself like to, to that edge and to to really feel this, this the connection and my be the same with running and and that’s something that actually I now with kids I learn to to appreciate it otherwise to that now like we can take like a walk like here like the summit we have behind home and like be a few hours just like to climb 1000m with the kids and and just like stopping picking berries and like a. Yeah, doing like other things in the same activity. Like then it’s like moving with food and, and it’s just like, yeah, I kind of reconnected with. With the, with the mountains and with the data in a way that I kind of neglected during years and that, that I didn’t for years. I, I didn’t allow myself to feel this connection. Besides like when I was like really going to my edge. And now that I also kind of refound this connection, like on doing other activities.

Steve:
When.

Kilian:
And I think that’s like why changing activity is also like to find those things like from like being buried with climbing and then like it’s yeah, you need to really push the edge to, to feel that and going to, to another activity that, that you allow yourself to develop new connections with it.

Steve:
I think that resonates is true because one of the things is getting older as a climber is that you just aren’t as good or you’re not as strong, or it’s hard, you know, you you can’t do it. You used to be able to do. And so the, the, it’s a lot of struggle to be able to do things that used to be easy for you. That was my experience with it. And so not that I regret any of my climbing, but any means. I don’t want anybody to think that. But it that relate my personal relationship with it change that. I think that’s maybe you hit on a good point. Maybe that’s why shifting the skiing. I was able to find that because that was like not my primary sport, and I could still kind of connect to that sensation, to that identity. I like that, thank you. I want to like just for pivot to something else that we’ve also talked about at times, and that is loss and dealing with, you know, losing people in the mountains. But in life in 2012, when you’re doing your summits of My life project, your friends to fun Brasier, he fell and hundreds of meters and he died and you named your your book The Invisible Border and talked about that loss in that book. I’ve lost people too, as you know. And I found that these losses don’t get easier, they don’t get smaller. They somehow eventually get integrated. What does Stefan’s death mean to you now? It’s roughly 12, 13 years later. How is that integrated in you?

Kilian:
And. Or like it’s like, yeah, it never gets easier, I would say in our activity and it’s. It’s, it’s kind of difficult relation we have with. With we lost because it’s somehow that somehow we normalize it, which is very it’s not normal to normalize like that. Part of that like of, of like people that it’s healthy young and and and we like it don’t gets easier but we normalize it. That is like you don’t get it comes to a point that you don’t get surprise when like when a friend dies, like you get very sad, but you don’t get surprise. And, and it’s, yeah, I think that makes somehow also like, difficult to develop relations. That’s what I think I can, I don’t have a lot of friends and, and I have few very good friends, but it’s probably one of the reasons that I have not been like productivity, like working like friendships is because I want to protect myself also from that. Because it goes both ways, I think like to to lose a friend of to of to know the other side that that that you might also I and and and make people that you love to to feel that so yeah I think it, it probably works on that on like how we develop relations somehow that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s harder for us as mountaineers to then but probably comes out so like to reinforce our personality. I know some climbers that they are very extroverted and they. They look at that probability differently. But probably like as an introvert, like that’s also my way to, to to look at it and to deal with it. And it’s Yeah, it, you know, like, it’s not that it affects I like to, to, to rethink like what we are doing and, I, I don’t think I would stop to do activities that they are risky because of the loss of, of friend or someone that I love. Like, I don’t think I will never blame the mountain, if that makes sense to it. Just like, yeah, I think with time, like when I was younger, probably I was blaming the mountain much more and then like, Yeah, he really has that. It’s the mountain. It’s just there. It’s it’s just nothing that that we can act with.

Steve:
Yeah.

Kilian:
But it’s ourselves and our decisions, and and I can’t blame the person’s either or even my decisions at some point, because it’s something that I choose. And I think with experience is that, that you are more aware of, like the possibilities. And. And. That’s probably the hard part that and what I’m dealing of sometimes like why? Why do accept some risks that we are fully aware and, and we need to accept it. And I think that’s what makes it hard for most people to understand, and that’s something that I know other climbers feel the same way about. Probably. And that’s why like, yeah, if you can’t blame or you can feel like.

Steve:
And?

Kilian:
Hard on themselves because like I experienced that too. That. Yeah. It’s I have been in situations where I knew that that was very possible and I decided to continue. And I it’s something that I’m not proud of. But it was there and I decided it and, and and it’s somehow part of this activity to like. Some to to to have success as some things it it goes with a coast and that goes my it’s a, it’s a check that you put out and maybe you recover it or not. But, but you go out and at some point like you accept a one way journey and hoping that you will make it to like a, a return. But but you also accept that it can be one way and and it’s I don’t know what why we are doing it, but but it’s something that, that in this activity we, we have it and, and I think we, we learn to deal with, with the grieving, but it don’t get easier. And I think that’s why like, probably how I deal with it, it’s just to, to stay separate, like to not build a lot of friendships. So they so the, the the feeling it’s it’s a bit less when like this friend dies. Yeah. Somehow.

Steve:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve I’ve done the same. And to protect myself, I would say that, you know, don’t hold yourself back because you think that if you might die, it would hurt someone that you love because you’re not responsible for how other people feel. And we’re, we’re, we’re we’re big. We’re big boys and girls. I mean, not all of us. Your children are not. Right. But like but the rest of us are, you know, the people that would be your friends would would be able to have to, you know, they’re responsible for taking care of their own feelings. And I actually, you know, looking back at that part of my life where I selectively built friendships because of who I was worried might be around or not in a few years, regret it.

Kilian:
Yeah.

Steve:
I only regret it because I only means that I. New let fewer wonderful people. You know, it’s it’s not a negative like it’s not. It doesn’t come out of my bank account of life because someone is no longer in it. What comes out of my bank account of life is that they they never were part of it in the first place. And yeah, that if I could, that’s something I would have told my would tell my younger self if I, if I could. And you’re right, it never gets easier. Like if you think about Stefan or so many others, you know, you know, we both spent time with Uli and he’s like, you know, I was so mad at Uli for dying. Sounds ridiculous. Right? But I was so upset with him, you know, partially because he was like, he he was so close to. He was 40, you know, he was so close to sort of being at the stage of his career where I feel like I am finally at now where he was going to get to a place where he didn’t have to do these risky things anymore. It was that drive was going to be gone, you know, gone, but in a positive way, like burned up into a positive contribution. And I was so mad at him. But, you know, I’m so grateful for the conversations. And, you know, we climbed together. I don’t even think about the climbing. I just think about like, the conversations we had. That’s what I’m thankful for. Like, he was an amazing guy. And yeah, so I don’t know. I just think that these integrations, our part of it.

Kilian:
Yeah.

Steve:
And one of the things I think that is interesting is that I think that our generation or my generation, I should speak for that because you’re a couple generations younger than I am. But we didn’t grow up. I didn’t grow up with, like, I don’t know, a war or like some, some or in a society where, where people did die, like as a matter of course, because they didn’t have good medicine or like, like so much of human history, like life expectancy was much shorter than it is now. Life was a lot harder. And in a sense, it’s it’s natural that we complete the cycle by going back to wherever we came from. And I think that that there’s a reframing as a, as a, as a community. I wish we could figure out how to do. And I haven’t quite figured it out myself. So I don’t know why I expect anybody else to, but I’m hoping somebody wiser than myself out there is figuring that out, that we can figure out a way to integrate loss in a and reframe it. Not not as loss, actually, but as gain. Like we had this amazing person. I don’t want to sound corny, like, oh, we got to. So like it’s tragic. It’s sad. It’s all these terrible, like really hard emotions come up and it’s beautiful and it’s complete and it’s the full circle and it’s like, we all are born. We’re all going to die.

Kilian:
Yeah.

Steve:
And yeah, like.

Kilian:
I also think that it probably comes like, even if I’m like, I’m not a religious person, like, I’m. But we come from a. A background that it’s, it’s the Christian and and the, the the way that Christianity deal with death. It’s it’s the. Yeah. It’s not very sane if like you compare to other like a religions and philosophies like they have a much more sane relation with that I would say a much more open and much more, Yeah. Yeah, much more acceptance of, of, of that as part of, of life that the things like all we, we are all going to die and why then to hold this much weight on it. So I think that’s something that probably we should learn more from, from other cultures, because it’s, that’s something that sometimes, like I remember in Nepal when the quake and people that. Yeah, really lost like whole families, like kids. And they were very, very, very sad, as you can imagine. But they were much more entire than what I can imagine that how I would be if I can’t imagine how I will be or how I will feel if something like that happened to me and that was like that was strong.

Steve:
Yeah.

Kilian:
Like how there and it’s, it’s the, the yeah. The all these genetic kind of values that comes through like culture that we have in irritated from, from Christianity, even if we are like not Christian at all.

Steve:
Yeah, yeah. Now you’re getting into the metacognition. You’re like, why do we have these assumptions about death? Why do we culturally as a group treat a certain way? And like your experience in Nepal is a beautiful like counter view. Like there is another way and I think we need we have a lot of work to do. You mentioned like talking about like sometimes that you had that happen where you accepted that there was a risk of death and it was a big risk and you went anyway. Were you talking about Everest when you kind of like, I’m not sure exactly what happened. Blacked out, lost consciousness for a little bit. You I mean, I’ve only heard the stories and not directly from you, but, you know, you you were stranded somewhere on the North Face. You know, you dropped a rock and there was a big vertical drop below you. And it was difficult visibility. You were alone. It was dark. What do you remember from those hours? And even more interestingly, I’m wondering what what does it do to you when you’ve come that close? Because I’ve been in similar situations and have have thoughts, but I want to hear what that how that changed you or if it did.

Kilian:
Yeah. Yeah. I think like. For me it’s, it’s. Two very different kind of experiences. One is like I got in a sheet situation and I need to escape. And that would be there. For example, like every, like I got lost in the downhill. I was in the North Face. It was a storm like I was. I didn’t know where I was. So it’s like, okay, I’m, I’m, I’m on shit. Like I’m. Like. I’m going to die here. I don’t know where I am. And then I just need to to survive. So you like fight. And that’s the same like when I have been caught in an avalanche or like I was captain and avalanche in Harbin Couloir last time I was in Everest and, and, other situation like that. And it’s there you just like, fight for survival kind. Of and I would say like after that, it’s more like. Like you don’t question. Yourself that much. You just like, kind of analyze, okay, what was wrong, why it happened. And it’s it’s kind of like pretty straightforward. It’s like, okay, I did that mistake, that mistake, that mistake, or I need to do that, that, that in the future and then each other situations where is not this kind of accident, but where, where you go into a place that, you know, that it’s possible you die and I can think for like, I don’t think that happens many times in life, because if not, like probably is when you die for me probably have happen. I can think one time I was like, here in Norway, and I was going to, to climb a route that I had been looking for a long time, but I it was a first ascent like, or I had no information that nobody had climbed before and I, I. I felt that day that I. That I needed to climb it and I was it’s a nice route with some mixed sections on top, a big face like a 600 meter face. And I decided voluntarily to leave my rope down. So like it was the only exit possible. It’s on top because like, it’s it was some 90 sections and some mix. So I was like, okay, I commit to do that. And when I was at 80m, it was like, if I go higher, it’s only up an exit. And I didn’t know how the mixed sections that I was seeing would be. And, and I didn’t took my, my phone anything. So I was committing to that and it didn’t feel bad. I was just on the zone and it feel like. It feel like I was flowing there. And and I remember when I was up in the summit, it was I was happy. I felt like a big relief going down, like because, yeah, you survived wherever. But but I was pretty I was proud of myself to accept that. And the other time that that had happened, this acceptance, it was actually in the, in the when I did like two years ago, the project in the Alps, it was one day in the, you know, well, they are like the crossing from a good bird to the what’s and it was in very poor conditions like it was falling apart everything like and and going up to 12

Steve:
Yeah.

Kilian:
revert. It was also like I was and I knew already like is is in very, very bad conditions and then up to up to the. Jordan, up to there. I could turn around and down climb. But I decided to continue and and I knew that it was like blocks, like size of a car was falling like. So I knew that the possibility of dying was very, very high. And, and I don’t know why I accepted it. I, I keep going and, and then when I went down from the rats, I was, I was so mad at myself and like, somehow, like I was solving all the problems that happened very well. Like I had like some big rock falling on me. I had some, like, sometimes, like, everything on my feet was like falling down and I was like, hanging in one hand. And I was like, solving the situations very well, but that I was so mad, mad at myself of like that point that I knew that doing one more step, like down climbing from a villager than I knew what that was, what that meant, and that I continue. And so the, the, the outcome of the of the two experiences that I had of like accepting that as. Yeah, to accept that they were very different on one. I was very proud. On the other, I was very much a mother and myself and. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. I can remember the first time I was in a situation like what you described, where I went and actually originally just to see if a route that I thought would be climbable on the end of the West Buttress, not on the northwest buttress, but on the west buttress of Denali, you can’t quite see it from the west normal route. But this face we called the Washburn face after Bradford Washburn, and it only had one route on it at the time, and I thought there was a nice direct line, and I soloed up to the base of it, of the technical part to I told myself I was just going to look right, but then I got there and I saw like, oh, I think it’ll go like I think like and I think I could. And I sat there for like a few hours and really like played through all the scenarios. It was such a nice day. And in the end, when and I think it was a similar experience like you, like I was proud of myself, I felt good. Later, I thought, and in other situations like that, and particularly one of the experiences in you and I have talked about this, I spent like big parts of two summers in 2003 and 2004, trying to solo a new route on K7 in Pakistan and the Karakoram. And the first summer I tried three different times, three different ways. And the third time was like the way the, the and that was like that summer was just about like figuring it out.

Kilian:
And.

Steve:
And then the next summer, on the first try, I got pretty high, and I had to come down, and I remember. One of the things that happens most of the time in the mountains is it’s it’s not clear to go down or not. Right. Like it’s sometimes it’s really obvious. You just have to go back and sometimes it’s really obvious you can continue. But most of the time it’s in the gray area in the middle. And it was very much in the gray area. And I remember that I asked myself this question like if I go, you know, when I wanted to push and I thought, like, it’s pretty bad idea. I think this storm is actually getting worse. I’m, you know, getting wetter, you know, all these things like I and I asked myself this question, like, if I go back down now, who am I going to disappoint? Because I had to wonder, like where that was coming from. Like which and I meant who when I asked who, like, not who like, I don’t know, Frank or Julia, it was more like which one of the little voices in my head. Which one of the which one of the of the voices that form is me. Was like, was I going to disappoint? And my answer was that for myself was that it was. It was. It was like the I have this voice that I kind of called the bully. And he’s in my and he’s really has strong opinions and he doesn’t back down and he pushes really hard and he’s useful sometimes. Right. Like when you’re doing something hard, that’s like a good part of my personality. I could like bring up and be like, nope, I’m going to like, I just, I’m going to force this force my way through this with just sheer will. But by that time in my life, I was like, not so much looking for his approval, if that makes sense. And I was more like, well, he’s going to be disappointed. But the person that’s going to look back at this in 20 years is going to be proud and that like, made it really easy. And then and ever since that and I was already like almost your age at that time it was 34, 33. And so it took that long for that to kind of like for me to figure that out, that I had to ask myself, like, who was going to be proud? Who was going to be angry and why, and where does that come from? And I think that that’s a really useful framing. And I’ve told some friends that story before, because I think a lot of I’m, I think a lot of women are thankfully saved from this. It’s but I think a lot of young men in particular are like, do feel this compulsion, particularly those of us that are really strongly attracted to climbing and alpinism. And if we feel this draw, this need to push through and this need to confront fear and manage it and overcome it, and like, I think it’s like part of what we’re told is being manly, right? Like it’s we’re supposed to be brave. We’re supposed to be able to overcome fear. We’re supposed to be tough, we’re supposed to be all these things. And so we we have to prove it. And we don’t, you know, that’s our that’s our way of showing ourselves who we who we think that we really are, who we think we are. And I think that that’s a that’s a really interesting to hear you tell that story. And that’s what I would tell, like, that part of you that was angry on the drew, who who was was there someone that would have been disappointed if you would turn back at the.

Kilian:
And. That’s the thing that I have done many times, but on big projects like, like.

Steve:
Yeah, sure.

Kilian:
You know, like in everyday, like in Hardwick and, and another time in the southeast face like a like and I didn’t feel any regret and I was very like, like when I turned down, I was very like, confident, like or like not having this depth of, like who I’m disappointing. So that’s why probably I’m more. Angry about myself. It cause like why it came at that point, at that moment like this that normally like I’m for many years I’ve been pretty like good at like just like not letting my blubbering to to take over. But it happened at that moment. So and that’s the thing like it’s sometimes it’s this, that this flow, this intuition that you feel and that you follow sometimes. And many times I think it’s safe. My life and it’s been like very useful for the decisions I took in my life to follow it. And but yes, some other times, like, yeah, it’s Yeah. You don’t know where it brings you. Yeah.

Steve:
How do we say we both you and me. Like how do we still go to places that are so dangerous when we’re parents? Is there a real coherent ethical position here, or is this just a tension that we have to live with? Because it’s who we are? It’s how we show up in the world. We’re mountaineers. And what do you how do you how how you’re thinking evolving?

Kilian:
Yeah. Well, I, I mostly think that. Yeah, it’s. I. Probably it’s like also the interest like, and you know, if you live in mountain towns around people that it’s either mountain guides or people that they are climbers and that like it’s, it don’t makes it like look like a dangerous that way that probably if you live in like if you run to people that it’s doing like other activities probably looks very, very dangerous. If you don’t like people, that is going out to the mountains every day like it’s that’s where we are risking. And I think that’s something that it’s, I don’t know, like I feel personally that it’s the danger that mountains put me on. It’s something that I accept. It is not something that I search like. I want to stay alive and I want to scape all danger. But it’s something that I accept that it’s that is there. Why? Like in other things, like probably I, I don’t want to to to expose myself to other things probably. And I think that’s also like it’s because we do an effort to go to those places and expose ourselves like we do a physical effort to go to those places. But if I think like someone that is smoking, for example, like is not as like rapid, like if an accident happened, but like you’re exposing yourself, you have like also like to to that like and, or like if you are choosing like to have a very bad diet and, and have like a problems on that end like I mean it’s it’s probably not an effort that they are going to put themselves in that position. But still like I think it’s it’s being more conscious about like what are the risks that I don’t want to, to be around and what are the risks that I accept to be around. And yeah, probably that I think like it’s what it means for me to, to not go to the mountains and, and that what would that make to, to my person and, and how this person would be like around the case. Like I might not want to be that person. It will not be a happy parent. It will not be a so so I think it’s it’s never white and black. It’s all the gray; it’s that they are in between that that matters.

Steve:
Of course. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, to that point, you know, I know, you know, people that were the children of mountaineers and alpinist that died, who grew up without a father and that are, you know, great people, you know, they, they, they, you know, I’m thinking of of. Now, I’m not remembering his name. Petersen, the skier from British Columbia. His name, his dad’s was Trevor Peterson. Kyle. Kyle. It starts with a K shoot.

Kilian:
Oh yeah. Your Tom Lafe and yeah he’s a very nice nice kid. Yeah. And now I’m like seeing like kids as you mentioned some time ago. Like you find your way like like every person finds its way like an and it’s. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not something that you want to like. It’s not that you say okay. It’s, it’s this level or like it’s, it’s good or it’s, it’s some at any point positive at any point.

Steve:
Yeah. Tom is a great example. Yeah, yeah. The kids. The kids will be okay. Yeah.

Kilian:
No it’s it’s bad. But but we find our ways on on anything like thinking about like those people in Nepal that they lost everything like from an earthquake. They find their way. And it’s something that I would never want to leave in my life. But things happen like life happens to, and we need to adapt.

Steve:
Yeah. And you think of my friend Kai Peterson, who? I was a skier. And his father was, was Trevor Peterson, who died when Kai was just a little kid. And now she’s gone and made a whole career as a professional skier and has lived to be older age than his father was at this point when he died. And, you know, I think there’s two ways to look at it. You can look at it as the victim, like, oh, my father died. Isn’t that terrible? Well, yes, but that doesn’t have to define you. And you can define yourself and redefine yourself. And I mean, the alternative is that Kai isn’t. There is. Dad had never decided to father a child, you know. Right. And then and then not. That would be a tragedy, because Kyle Kai is an amazing person, an amazing skier and like, really moved the sport forward and continues to, you know, be a part of the culture, particularly in British Columbia, but worldwide. And so I think that that’s that’s important to realize that it’s not like you don’t have to take this victim mentality. I think you I just want to close with one final question, like, you know, you’ve done all these incredible events. I what do we want to call them? Like achievements. What we’ve talked about today hasn’t been about any of those things. It’s been about, you know, life and death and why and why not and disappointment and loss and grief and love. If you if you look at all of it and including the achievements, how do you want to be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be?

Kilian:
I think the great thing, and it’s very liberating is that we will not be, remember like and that’s something that it’s, it’s it brings a lot of freedom. Like we do so many things thinking about what the others are thinking, present and future. And it’s like, who will care? Like we are so egocentric, like to think that someone else will think about, like if what we did was good or not.

Steve:
Yeah.

Kilian:
It’s like, no people is like too busy doing things like they don’t think if what you are doing and it’s liberating, like, and it’s like, okay, like what I’m carrying is like at the present, like I’m a good parent, I’m a good husband, I’m a good friend to my friends. And and that’s all. Like, that’s all I care like I.

Steve:
Yeah.

Kilian:
Yeah.

Steve:
And that’s more than enough. It’s that’s sort of that’s a wonderful Life right there. And I love that you frame it that way as a relief. Because the reality is, I mean, it’s part of the human condition. We’re all focused on ourselves like we all, you know, and people in the future will be focused on themselves, not on what Kilian did, you know, 50 years ago or 100 years ago or 500 years ago, like, yeah, nobody nobody cares. Yeah. And I think that’s one of the, one of the lessons of the mountains is just this impermanence and how fleeting it all is. And then you become a parent and you get taught that all over again. Like my oldest just turned ten a few weeks ago. And that just felt so crazy because I swear he was just a baby.

Kilian:
A baby.

Steve:
Nighttime laying in the palm of my hands just months ago, and now all of a sudden he’s ten years old. I just can’t I just blows my mind and and it’s wonderful. And so thank you so much, Kelly and I. Yeah, let’s let’s stay in touch. I want to I want to stay in touch as a friend and, you know, be there for you when as your kids grow up as, as as we continue on this journey and, you know, anytime I can be of any friendly service to you, I’m at your disposal as your friends. So good luck with all your projects this year and take you for taking this time today.

Kilian:
Now. Thank you Steve. It’s been it’s been a great conversation. It’s good to talk with you and someone who have lived all these things a couple of years before me. And yeah, I need to meet next time with the kids. Like skiing somewhere.

Steve:
Yeah, that sounds amazing. Yeah, yeah, my boys love to take care of little kids, so they’ll be that. They would love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They love taking care of little kids. It’s their favorite thing right now. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Give my give my love to Emelie and the girls. And thank you.

Kilian:
I’ll be good. Yeah.

===== CLOSEOUT =====

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