The RunOut Podcast

Tag: el cap

  • RunOut #138: The Bromance of Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold

    RunOut #138: The Bromance of Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold

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    Today’s guest is climbing’s Captain America, Tommy Cadlwell. Tommy’s latest film is called The Devil’s Climb, and it documents an epic adventure in which he and Alex Honnold rode their bike’s to Alaska and enchained all the summits on the striking and infamous Devil’s Thumb massif. The film was pitched as an environmental film, but the directors decided that global warming was less interesting than Tommy and Alex’s bromance.  We catch up with one of the world’s greatest climbers of all time and hear about making this film, and all the other things in life.

    But first, we open up the official record book of climbing, and discuss the recent news of Michaela Kirsh becoming the first woman to do a V15 and 5.15a, Babsi Zangerl’s flash of Freerider, and other achievements. 

    For our final bit, we’re pleased to share the heady music of longtime climber Dave Pomeranz’s band, Whale Fall, with their track Chronophobia.

    Show Notes

    Watch the trailer for The Devil’s Climb and stream the whole film on Disney+.

    Sign up for Tommy Caldwell’s newsletter Routefinding at Patagonia

    Michaela Kiersch becomes first woman to send 5.15 and V15

    Babsi Flashes Freerider

    Setting and Revising the Record on Evening Sends

    Tommy’s book recommendation: Waking the Tiger by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.

    Whale Fall on Bandcamp and Spotify

    Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast

    Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. andrew@runoutpodcast.com // chris@runoutpodcast.com

  • RunOut #132: Amity Warme is Bringing Stoke—and Style—Back to Climbing

    RunOut #132: Amity Warme is Bringing Stoke—and Style—Back to Climbing

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    Amity Warme is a professional rock climber and dietician, who has not only free climbed El Capitan five times, but has done so each time in true ground-up style. This ground-up style is captured in an awesome new film that tells the story Amity and Brent Barghahn’s ground-up free ascent of El Niño via the Pineapple Express Variation on El Capitan. Our conversation ranges from big-wall style and ethics, to her philosophy and approach to nutrition.

    But first we dive into what the American Alpine Club is calling the greatest access issue in climbing: expensive day passes to climbing gyms.

    Last, Gunky and Professor Wayne Burleson brings us his livingroom version of the Dead’s Franklin’s Tower.

    Show Notes

    Amity Warme on Instagram

    Amity Warme website

    Amity Warme and Brent Barghahn free climb El Niño.

    Watch Amity climb Book of Hate

    “Can Climbing Outrun Its Own Elitism With Inclusive Gym Pricing?” on Climbing.com

    Pay What You Can Toolkit on the AAC

    Professor Burleson

  • RunOut #91: Katie Brown is Back

    RunOut #91: Katie Brown is Back

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    Last month, an 8-year-old boy and his dad “climbed” El Capitan with the help of two other anonymous climbers who presumably guided the father-son team, fixing all the ropes so they could jug up the wall. We look at the media attention this ascent received, and discuss our concerns over claiming these kinds of records.

    Our main guest is a woman who Lynn Hill once called, “the greatest female sport climber” — Katie Brown. Katie has produced a new memoir about her precocious life as a world-class competition and sport climber, as well as her fraught relationship with her mom, her struggles with eating disorders, and how becoming a mom herself has helped her reframe everything.

    Our final bit is pulled from the archives of The Davenports with this yacht rock classic cover of Jay Ferguson’s 1977 song Thunder Island. Who’s that on bass, you ask? None other than our own Chris Kalous.

    Show Notes

    Did an 8-year-old actually climb Yosemite’s El Capitan? Not really. It’s complicated

    Father of 8-year-old who ascended El Capitan challenges criticism of his son’s feat

    Unraveled: A Climber’s Journey through Darkness and Back

    Jay Ferguson – Thunder Island (1978 – HD)

    Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast

    Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. andrew@runoutpodcast.com // chris@runoutpodcast.com

  • RunOut #90: The Permit Debate Continues

    RunOut #90: The Permit Debate Continues

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    If there is one thing you can say about this show, it’s that we are the most fair and balanced climbing podcast in the world. Following last episode’s discussion about Yosemite’s proposed overnight permits for big-wall climbers, we are speaking to two guests from the opposite side of the debate: Jesse McGahey is Yosemite National Park’s head climbing ranger. And Timmy O’Neill is a longtime professional athlete, founder of Paradox Sports, and board member of the Yosemite Climbing Association. Our discussion over this important rule-change proposal continues.

    But first, we muse about the art of the sandbag. When is it totes aprops to hose your friend, and when is it just downright cruel? And what does it say about YOU when you’re the only climber not getting sandbagged by your peers?

    Finally, Lucas Roman returns to the show to read an excerpt from his new book “The Greater Fool: Brad Gobright and the Blinding Shine of Originality.”

    Show Notes

    Read about the Wilderness Climbing Permits from the NPS

    Add your voice to the discussion! Submit your comment about the Wilderness Climbing Permits here by November 16.

    Lucas Roman’s new book “The Greater Fool: Brad Gobright and the Blinding Shine of Originality” is available at DiAngelo Publications.

    Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast

    Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. andrew@runoutpodcast.com // chris@runoutpodcast.com

  • RunOut #62: Climbing’s New Regs. Plus, John Branch & Sidecountry

    RunOut #62: Climbing’s New Regs. Plus, John Branch & Sidecountry

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    The days of unbridled climbing freedom are OVER! Or are they? With new regulations for climbing big walls in Yosemite installed this year, and the threat of similar regulations coming to crags around the country, climbers are waking up to the new reality of what it means to have a sport that’s popular. We consider the slippery slope of where this all leads next.

    Our main guest today is the venerable New York Times journalist John Branch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and the guy who made the Dawn Wall the Dawn Wall with his viral coverage. We dive into the state of media and storytelling, get some more backstory on the Dawn Wall, and discuss his new book “Sidecountry: Tales of Death and Life from the Back Roads of Sports.”

    For the final bit, ADAM ONDRA—as played by comedian / route setter Dylan Taylor, aka @climberisms on Instagram—gives us the latest update from life at the cutting edge.

    Show Notes

  • RunOut #51: Emily Harrington Has Arrived

    RunOut #51: Emily Harrington Has Arrived

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    Fresh off her historic first female ascent of Golden Gate in a day (GGIAD), Emily Harrington joins us, the unworthy podcast hosts, as we grovel in the dirt and prostrate ourselves before her majesty’s feet—still ensconced in Alex Honnold’s TC Pros. With GGIAD, Harrington has really arrived as one of the best female climbers of all time. It’s hard to think of another woman who has done as much across all disciplines, from big mountains to national competitions and ice fests, to hard sport. Though we aren’t worthy, we did enjoy this inspiring dive into one of the great bits of news in the climbing world this year.

    Speaking of news, one place you won’t be reading it is in the pages of Rock and Ice magazine, which has sold / merged with Climbing magazine. We reminisce about the golden era of climbing magazines, bemoan social media, and bemuse the sort of whimper with which the news was seemingly received about Rock and Ice’s folding.

    And for the final bit, introducing everyone’s new favorite game, Whose PSAAT! Is That Anyway?

    Photo by Jon Glassberg / Louder Than 11.

  • RunOut #34: Yosemite Is Still the Center of the Universe

    RunOut #34: Yosemite Is Still the Center of the Universe

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    The very first time I drove into Yosemite, I almost couldn’t wait to lay eyes on El Cap and Half Dome after so much time spent dreaming about one day climbing these formations. I paid my entrance fee and hit the gas on my Nissan Sentra, sputtering ahead until I found myself soon stuck behind a slow-moving rental RV, which was one of those RVs with a cheesy depiction of Yosemite’s famous tunnel view plastered across the back of the rig.

    The irony of the moment was not lost on me, nor did it ultimately detract from the moment when El Cap finally came into view. It literally took my breath away.

    Yosemite is the center of the climbing universe. It’s the place where style, ethics, rules, techniques, gear, myths, stories, and legends were born. And even after all these years, Yosemite is still very much where it’s at. What happens here is almost automatically interesting.

    Which is why Chris and I are talking about what went down in Yosemite this past season. Big sends, grand failures, and run-of-the-mill world-class climbing on the best granite in America.

    This is Andrew Bisharat, and I’m here with Chris Kalous and you’re listening to The RunOut. And today we’re geeking out on Yosemite and all the rad people doing rad things there. And before we begin the episode, I must include a serious shout out to one of the stories we missed, that of big-wall climbing pioneer Mark Hudon returning, at age 63, to Freerider, and damn near sending. He free-climbed all but 15 feet of the Freerider, which is definitely one of the best efforts of the year.

    Hudon, of course, was one of the first people even to consider El Cap as a free-climbing project, exactly 40 years ago when he and his partner Max Jones made an audacious bid at free climbing the Salathe wall. The fact that he returned 40 years later and almost sent the Freerider Variation, is just awesome.

    What an incredible story. What an incredible sport we have here. Gives me the all the feels.

    OK, hope you enjoy this episode. On with the show.

    PHOTO: Tara Kerzhner

  • RunOut #11: Connor Herson Frees the Nose.

    RunOut #11: Connor Herson Frees the Nose.

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    On November 19th, Connor Herson, a 15-year-old high school freshman from Emerald Hills, California became the 6th human to free-climb the Nose, only missing the 5th ascent to Keita Kurakami’s extraordinary free rope solo by a few days.

    Supported by his father Jim, a longtime valley climber, Connor freed the famous climb in a three-day push, only falling on, then redpointing, the Changing Corners pitch rated 5.14a.

    Connor has been surrounded his whole life by a climbing family including his dad, his mother Anne, and his badass older sister Kara, who, incidentally, climbed Half Dome in winter and the Nose in a Day sans jumars as a mere tween.

    On today’s RunOut, Andrew Bisharat and I – two climbers well past their prime – grill Connor Herson – a climber only on the cusp of his vast potential – about what makes him tick.