Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. You guys are in for quite a treat today, because my guest is none other than the great Alex Honnold returning for his second appearance on the show, his first being almost exactly three years ago. That was episode 351, if you missed it on the first go around. Most of all of you are familiar at this point with Alex's death and gravity-defying, ropeless ascent of El Capitan on the big screen. That was a feat that landed the film "Free Solo" a documentary Oscar, of course, and also cemented Alex in the history books as truly one of the greatest athletes of all time. This conversation picks up where our last one left off to explore some of Alex's life experiences and interests post "Free Solo" as an adventurer, as the co-host of the recently released Climbing Gold podcast, also as an environmentalist at the helm of the Honnold Foundation and many other topics. It's such a good one, definitely quite a bit different from other conversations with Alex that you might have enjoyed over the years. So without further ado, let's do the thing. This is me and the great Alex Honnold. Cool man. Are we good?
All good. Oh, we're rolling. Excellent, man. Oh, we're recording? Yeah, we're already recording. Good to see you.
Yeah, good to see you. Do I need to worry about where anything is or? I don't think so. Just worry about where the mic is, But you know that, because now you're a professional podcaster. Well, I don't really do the technical side of it. (Rich laughs) You do have to talk into a mic though? I bring nothing to the team except for the witty banter with the guests. Well, I listened to like the first little, like the little trailer thing and it's all, you do the little like, "Hey, is this thing on?" Or like, "Let's do take two" or whatever. I actually, I don't know if I've heard it yet. You haven't, oh, you haven't even listened to your own podcast yet? Well, I've been gone. But the idea, I mean, it's called Climbing Gold. The idea, was the idea at the inception that it was gonna be more about the Olympics and then that had to pivot a little bit? Yeah, exactly. The idea for the podcast was to focus on the road to the Olympics, sort of the buildup, because going into 2020, it felt like climbing was having a huge moment. It's funny, I'm on the board of a climbing gym organization as well, and it felt like it was this huge moment for climbing, 'cause climbing is in the Olympics for the first time. And it's like going off. Obviously COVID changed that quite a bit. And so when we started talking about doing a podcast, it made sense to explore sort of the history and the future of climbing during this moment. And then when the Olympics got pushed because of COVID, we sort of went forward with it anyway, mostly because we felt like there were still interesting stories to tell. But so now we're still doing, I think we're doing 20 episodes, and the second 10 are focused more on the lead up to the Olympics, which we'll be doing this summer. So it's sort of like the history and the untold stories and the kind of things that happen. Because so much of climbing occurs outside of the spotlight of the media completely. Well, and so much of climbing history has occurred before there was media to some extent, you know, before things were easily recorded or digified and shared. And so there are just so many classic climbing stories that are sort of lost to history a little bit. So it's pretty fun to uncover some of those and share some. So did you have to be like a journalist and go and find these people and talk to them and have them tell their stories? Like a very unprofessional journalist, like a very unskilled journalist. A podcaster.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, quote podcaster.
Let's not confuse journalism with podcasting.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, it's not fair to say that we did any journalism, but we did seek out interesting guests in different spaces. And I think the thing that we're trying to sort of add to the space of climbing podcasting as it were is a little bit more editing and a little bit more of a thematic focus, like, you know, having multiple voices from different people in the same episode talking about specific themes to sort of help educate about certain aspects of climbing and share a little bit about where climbing has come from. And your cohost has, he did another podcast, right? Dirtbag Diaries or something like that? Yeah, my cohost is Fitz Cahall who's an actual professional podcaster. He actually knows what he's doing. He's the one that sent me the microphone that I use and told me how to set it up and how to use everything. Yeah, he's the one that really... And I mean, really the whole reason the podcast exists is because he approached me about working on a project together. And I was like, "Oh, he's the perfect person to work with, "because he already knows how to do it." Was there an original plan before the Olympics got pushed that you would go to Tokyo and be, make covering the climbing competition there part of the podcast? No, so fun story. I am actually supposed to be going to Tokyo to do commentary for the Olympic Channel. So technically I have a contract already with the actual Olympic Committee or whatever to go do commentary for climbing.
To do that. And so part of doing the podcast was because I personally felt like it would be a great way to learn how to commentate. Because I don't know anything about sports commentation, but I figured I'd learn before the Olympics. And so the podcast seemed like a really great way to get to know some of the backstory, meet some of the competitors, learn about their process. And you know, so as it turns out, we haven't focused on that so far, because the Olympics got pushed. So we just decided to kind of wait and see on that side. But it's almost better this way, because this way the episodes that we have recorded are like the deeper backstory and then it allows us to sort of set the stage so that when we get to the Olympic side of the podcast there's already a good context for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So somebody who doesn't know anything can listen to that, and then by the time the competition starts, they feel like they have a context- Exactly. For everything that's happening. That's exactly the hope is that someone who's interested in the outdoors and has maybe climbed once or, you know, just sort of a general interest could listen to the podcast, understand and appreciate the stories and still feel like they learned something important about the sport. How do you feel in general about climbing being in the Olympics? I'm pretty into it. I mean, there are a lot of climbers, particularly older climbers that are sort of crusty about it that think that it's, you know, degrades the sport in some way or sort of, or really the fact that I'm calling climbing a sport. I think some climbers would take umbrage with that. Because a lot of people consider climbing more of a lifestyle or more of like an adventure. But you know, I come from a gym climbing background. I grew up going to a climbing gym. So I've always thought of climbing at least in some part as a sport. And so I'm excited about the Olympics. I mean, I'm psyched to go. I'm psyched to see it. I saw a rendering of the venue. It looked incredible.
I haven't seen it yet. It's like this huge like amphitheater with the walls and like, you know, the seating. Cool. I don't know what it's gonna be like now that they're restricting kind of attendance, right? Like if you're a foreigner you can't go or- I think there'd be enough domestic attendance that it'll still be crazy. I mean, climbing in Japan is a big deal. Is it?
Yeah, it's really popular. And Japanese competitors have sort of dominated the World Cup scene for the last few years, which I think is maybe part of the reason that climbing is in the Olympics in Tokyo this year is because I think the host country has some influence on that. But yeah, Japanese competitors will likely do very well and will likely have enthusiastic support from the home crowd. Well, what's interesting about it now being a sport, where there's the controversy of it being a sport to begin with and then there's controversy around how they're constructing the competition, right? Like you have these three events essentially, like speed, boulder, lead, and it's kind of your cumulative score across those three disciplines that determines your ranking. Yeah, that's exactly it. And so it's a slightly confused system in some ways. I mean, I think it's fine. It skews towards doing it fast though, right, which is kind of a weird thing, isn't it? No, sort of. It's like, should we just dive into it? It's like slightly complicated. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, this is like inside baseball, but this is interesting, and especially since the Olympics are going to be happening and we're all gonna be watching this. And actually, so yeah, I'll dive into like the nitty gritty of climbing scoring. But I think what's interesting about it is that you can kind of apply this to all sports, because the decathlete or the biathlon or whatever, like to some extent any sport you see in the Olympics is being arbitrarily scored in a way that the competitors or at least the organizing committees have agreed upon. And so, you know, any sport that you're watching is slightly arbitrary. I mean, other than just the purely elemental swimming or running, like strictly for speed. Other than that, you're always getting into formatting issues and it's just interesting. And so with climbing, like you said, it's the combination of the three disciplines. It's a combined format. But it's actually, you multiply the scores in them. And so it sort of disproportionately weights excellence in specific categories in a weird way. You know what I mean? In theory if someone's average, if someone's pretty good at all three disciplines, like they get fourth in all three, you think that's great, but it actually, they would do worse than someone who was a great speed climber but not as good as the other two disciplines. So it's this kind of weird formatting style that favors dominance in one category. And that's one of the reasons that a lot of climbers have complained about speed climbing being included, because most people focus on the other two aspects. Most people focus on bouldering and lead climbing and sort of exclude speed calming. And so by combining them all into this combined format it's suddenly forced these otherwise elite competitors to sort of learn this new sport, that they didn't really want. Right, like trying to tell a middle distance runner that suddenly they have to be 100-meter sprinter. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's not a, yeah. It's like telling a middle distance runner that all of a sudden they're gonna have to do a 100-meter sprint, and that's gonna count into their score. And they're like physiologically it's different things, you know? And more than the physiological difference, there's also a skill difference with the speed climbing. 'Cause the speed wall for climbing is like a specific track basically. It's a specific sequence of movements. So you do have to learn that track, like learn how to jump between the holds well. So it's made for TV, because you would have two people right next to each other scurrying up the wall.
But that's the thing. As fast as possible.
Me personally- In like five seconds or something. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly, yeah, five seconds up a 15-meter wall. It looks completely insane. Yeah, so for me as a spectator, I think it's awesome. Like it's easy to understand. It's incredibly, it's an incredible display of athleticism. Like when you see people with speed climb in an elite level you're like, "That guy is a good athlete," just hands down. And you know, I can understand why the climbing competitors aren't into it, but I'm like I don't know. From an outside perspective, it looks amazing. It's great for TV. It's easy to understand. And I kind of like the well-rounded, you know, the fact that it forces the competitors to be well-rounded. It's like a holistic-
Rather than just making like swimming or track and field where these would each be individual events. That's part of the thing is that because climbing is an exhibition sport in 2020, the sport is only allowed one metal. And so that's why they did a combined format, because that way, had they just excluded speed climbing altogether, that's not fair to the speed athletes. But with only one metal, like how are you gonna do it? So they just combined it into one. Yeah. So the other one is how far you can climb, like the height that you can climb in a six-minute interval or something like that? No, so lead climbing and bouldering both basically, so lead climbing is climbing a taller wall with a rope. Bouldering is climbing a short wall without a rope. And both of those are basically just measures of pure difficulty. So the bouldering, the boulder routes that you have to climb are incredibly difficult. And so they're like a test of max physical power. So it's almost like power lifting but with an incredible amount of gymnastic skill and technique built into it. And then the lead climbing wall is the same thing but on a higher, you know, because you're climbing higher, it's a more of an endurance test basically. So are any of them scored like diving though with like numbers, or is it all on a watch? No, they are scored with numbers, but they're scored by numbers because you basically count how many holds up the route you make it. So if the lead route is, you know, 50 holds long, like 50 hand movements up, your score is basically which hand movement you made it to before you fall off. But in general, if you see somebody successfully climb from the bottom to the top, they're basically gonna win. Like if someone makes it to the top, you're like, "That guy's the champion." He's the dude. Who are the standouts? Are there any runaway favorites here? Yeah, yeah, there are a few. Careful.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly, I'm like, "Well." Okay, so there's, I mean this is a real test of my future Olympic commentating. Yeah, here you go. Let's just say that by August, I will be much better versed in this. So the three for men, the three that come to mind right now that are obvious standouts are a Japanese man named Tomoa Narasaki who dominated World Cup scene, has incredible boulder but also happens to be a very good speed climber. So he kind of has this leg up in the combined format where he can really win in any of the three disciplines, which makes him incredibly competitive. And then there's Adam Ondra, who's a Czech climber. He's the Czech guy.
From the Czech Republic who is arguably the best climber in the world. He's pushed the standards of difficulty twice now, like breaking into new categories of difficulty for climbing. And he's also repeated all the hardest walls in the world and he's an incredible climber. And he basically won all the World Cups that he entered last year. So I mean he's, or the year before last, since they kind of canceled the COVID season. But incredible climber, not a great speed climber, sort of a self-described poor speed calmer, which is ironic because he actually climbs very, very fast, but he's just not good at the sport of speed climbing. I mean, which is that's where all this stuff gets so weird, because any casual climber looking at Adam Ondra climb would be like, "Wow, he's so fast." But then when it comes to speed climbing, he just doesn't quite sprint fast enough. It's like, it's so weird. I think that over time though once this becomes institutionalized as an Olympic sport going forward that young people who get enthusiastic about this are gonna be doing almost all of their training and learning in an indoor climbing wall. What is the relationship between outdoor climbing and kind of how you, I mean, I know you do a lot of indoor climbing, but essentially you're an outdoor climber? Yeah, I'm essentially an adventurer. By the standards of Olympic competition, I'm not even a climber, like I'm not even climbing at the difficulty that these competitors warm up on basically. But your relationship to climbing is one of adventure and outdoors more than it is about indoor climbing? Yeah, though I bridge it a little bit, because I came from the indoor world. I still love climbing indoors. I still train in a similar way to competitors but just at a much lower level. But at least I'm still trying to do the same things. But yeah, it is interesting. I mean, and that's a big part of what we get into in the podcast talking about in Climbing Gold is this contrast between adventure and athleticism and like where is the sport going? Because like you said, people that get into it now get into it in the gym and train indoors. And I mean, it's just interesting that an Olympic climber could potentially never climb outdoors. And then even more interesting when you think that the history of rock climbing sort of branches off from classical mountaineering and people summiting peaks in the Alps and things like that. And when you think that an Olympic rock climber nowadays could have never even hiked up a mountain outside, never even gone hiking. Just divorced from that entire tradition. Yeah, which I'm not saying that's good or bad, but it's just interesting to see how the sport has sort of splintered over time. Yeah, it's cool that it's in there though. And I guess there's, when you look at Tokyo, there's karate, skateboarding, surfing.
Yeah, totally. The Olympics have changed quite a bit. As they should.
It's cool. I mean, the Olympics should reflect the times, I think. And you know, in like the what '40s or '50s, the Olympics included mountaineering. They gave metals-
I didn't know that. For mountaineering back in the day. Wow. You know, when you think of old school, like the first ascent of the Eiger and things like that, like classic mountains in Europe, like those received Olympic metals, some. Oh, I didn't know that. And you know, and that went away. That feels like a story you should tell in the podcast. Yeah, we haven't gotten into it, but we probably will. Cool. When does the podcast launch? I think the podcast-
At the end of the month? Yeah, I think at the end of the month. So I think the 26th of March is the first episode, but honestly, I'm uninvolved with the whole launch. Come on. You're the host though. No, but I'm the unskilled host. Everybody's got a podcast. Come on. Just embrace it. It's been fun though, because you know, so many of our guests, so many of the people I get to talk to are personal heroes of mine from childhood, people whose films I watched or books I read or whose posters I had in my room, things like that. And so it's fun to be able to talk to them about how they got into climbing and what it means to them and just hear some of their opinions about where the sport's going. Because so many of them, I'm like, "That's my hero." That's cool. What do you think this whole thing is that I've created here?
Totally, totally. It's like the ultimate excuse to like call up cool people and talk to them. Yeah, learn from smart people. And then you get to share that. Imagine yourself, you know, young Alex at age 12 if a resource like that had been available to you, like be the person that you needed when you were that young person searching for the thing for you. I mean, that is cool. And it's interesting because I think a big part of what made me somewhat successful as a climber in my life was the fact that I had access to a climbing gym earlier than most. And the gym, the climbing gym that I was going to had, it had a little gear shop built-in. It had this little video display constantly going with certain climate films. So you'd always see like certain climbing films going, old school VHS. You're like, "This is awesome." Super inspiring. I'd be climbing and then I'd like read all the climbing magazines and watch the films. And, you know, to have that opportunity as a young person is a big part of what allowed me to become a decent climber. Yeah, and nowadays people have that, you know, exponentially more of that, like more access to information, more climbing footage available to them. Yeah, it's cool. And they've way better facilities, like way better gyms. The gyms seem to be ubiquitous these days. Yeah, and not just more common but just better, better lit, more open, cleaner, like nicer, better holds, better setting, like higher quality training facilities, better pads, like better flooring, which is a big deal. You know, I broke my arm in the gym when I was a kid. Not so much because the flooring was bad, but that kind of thing does factor in. If you can safely climb in a, like basically modern gyms are just safe. And so you can climb, you can push yourself super hard physically with no risk of injury. When you were doing the "Free Solo" tour, I mean, it would be, you would share like in every city that you would go to for the tour. It was all about like where's the climbing gym and like the workout that day before the screening or whatever. I've sampled like almost every gym in the country. You must have been in every climbing gym in America. Yeah, it feels like it, but actually there's so many gyms in American now that I've probably sampled a tiny percentage actually. But it is true that every major city in the country I've sampled the gym. 'Cause I typically would land. I would go from the airport straight to the gym. I would train. I'd take a shower at the gym. I would go straight to the venue, do whatever event I was supposed to do and then basically either go to a hotel or go back to the airport. But it's like, gyms have always felt like a second home to me almost. I walk into a climbing gym anywhere and I'm like, "Ah, home sweet home." I take your shoes off. I want around, I dump my stuff everywhere. But it has to be complicated with you now, because if you just want to go and get a workout in, you're gonna have to be a bit of a politician for a while first. Depends, depends. You know, you wear your hood. You keep your head down and just like climb. To some extent, it's always a little bit of a scene. But on the other hand, any gym in the country, I mean everyone's there to do the same thing as you. It is nice because you're all just there to climb together. So when you get past the initial, like, "Oh, what are you doing here? "That's crazy. Can I take a picture?" Ultimately you're like, "Let's just session all these boulders together." Because it's like we're all just there to do same thing. Well, it's been a crazy couple of years for you. The first time that you did the show, we talked about the "Free Solo" climb, but it was before the movie came out. You remember that?
Yeah, yeah. So I just remember thinking that I had a grip on what it is exactly that you had done and feeling confident that I understood it, (laughs) and then you invited me to the premiere, I remember, in Beverly Hills that screening. And I watched the movie and I was like, "Oh, I didn't understand it at all." Like, I'm sure I still don't. But the movie took it quite a bit further in terms of getting me to fully grok what had actually happened. And then of course, you know, your story's well told with everything that happened with the movie. And you went on this crazy press tour and did eight bazillion interviews. And I'm sure completely talked out on this movie. So I wanna talk about other stuff today, but before we kind of move off of "Free Solo," I mean, in the wake of being so exhaustively interviewed about that, do you feel like there's anything left to say or anything left unsaid or anything, you know, looking back on it that you feel like people misunderstood about the movie or you or is it just your time for the next chapter? No, I think it's all pretty well- It's been said. Yeah, well, I mean, I think part of why the film did so well is that it is an incredibly honest look at the process leading up to free soloing El Cap. So I don't know, I've got nothing but positive... It's like the media tour around it was crazy and like going to the Oscars was crazy and meeting Prince William or whatever, because we won a BAFTA. So like you're in the UK, like meeting royalty or whatever. Like it's all totally crazy whirlwind tour, but I can still look back on it and be happy about the whole thing, you know? 'Cause I am, you know, understandably proud of free soloing El Cap. It was something very difficult that I worked hard for, that I'm proud of. And I think the film reflected that really well and very honestly. And so I'm like proud of the film, I'm proud of the whole deal. It's like, it's cool. It was a phenomenon though. I mean, everybody was talking about this movie. For a documentary to break out like that was just extraordinary. Yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, I was like so in it that I can't really say. I was just surviving the tour. It was like such a whirlwind. But no, now looking back on it with a little bit of perspective a few years away, I'm like, "What a life experience, "what a crazy whirlwind." Crazy, man. I mean, before the movie was made, I joked that all I wanted was to see El Cap on IMAX, just because El Cap to me is the most meaningful wall in the world. It's like the most beautiful, iconic face. And to see it on the biggest possible screen, it was like, that's cool. And you know, sure enough, "Free Solo" showed on IMAX and I got to see the movie on IMAX a couple of times. And I was like, "This is so awesome." (laughs) You love it. You know, it's just, it's cool. I was like, oh, we did the wall justice. We did, you know, we did Yosemite justice. It was like, I'm pretty proud of that. And you did the world of climbing justice. I mean, it was so effective in introducing the magnitude of what you do to the world and what's so kind of cherished about the community. Or maybe too effective because then everyone that doesn't know anything about climbing, they're like, "So do you use a rope?" And you're like, "Yeah, mostly use of rope. "It's just this one crazy movie like happened to," 'cause I know a lot of my serious climbing friends, their families watched the movie and then they're like, "Is that what you're doing?" And they're like, "No, no, that's not what I'm doing." And that's not even what I'm mostly doing, because I'm typically climbing with partners and training and just like climbing normally. But obviously the documentary is focused entirely on this, you know, this one sort of quixotic goal. But you know, even that, I mean, they filmed for two years, you know, the preparation training and like getting ready for that climb. And I did maybe a half dozen sort of cutting edge free solos to build up to that. But still that's like seven days of soloing in the two years that we were filming. So you watch the film and you're like, "He's a crazy soloist." And you're like, "Yeah, for seven days out of two years." You gotta keep it in perspective. So you go from being, living a certain kind of lifestyle to be the climber that you are. And then you have this whirlwind crazy like Hollywood year where you're just on planes and going, I mean, your life is upside down. So I would suspect that the pandemic for better or worse has kind of suited you to like kind of get back to just doing what you do and like being left alone, so you can just climb and live your life. Yeah, it has. Yeah, I mean, so I live in Las Vegas. And through the whole pandemic, even during like lockdowns and shutdowns and everything, outdoor recreation was always explicitly allowed in the state of Nevada. So combined with the fact that there's almost limitless rock around town, it was always totally okay for us to go out and develop some new climbing areas and go climbing and do things near the house. And so it was an incredible place to live. Yeah, I mean the whole pandemic for me has just been sort of returning to roots. You know, I have no obligations. I go climb every day. I explore new crags, you know, develop new climbs. But it's like, oh, you know, it's not that bad. And I know that's an incredibly fortunate position to be in. Though it's also, I mean, I do live there for a reason. It's like, I moved there because it's the best rock and because of that degree of access. And you're married now. I am married now. Yeah, that also happened during the pandemic. But that's the thing is, I mean, personally it's been kind of a good year. But it's like embarrassing to say so, because obviously there's been so much hardship for so many other people. But you know, sometimes things just work out in life, and you're like, nothing wrong with it. So how are you settling in? How's Sanni doing? No, Sanni's good. Sanni is actually great. Sanni is in a weird, like, I don't know if podcasts listeners care about this kind of thing, but she's like climbing really hard right now, which has started this whole interesting positive feedback thing where because she's really strong, she's like more excited about it. Because it's like more fun for her, which makes her more excited to train harder, which is making her stronger. She's like in this total positive phase of life right now where she's like really cranking. She's like climbing her hardest grades. She's all fired up.
That's cool. Yeah, we just trained in the gym last night, and she was like performing to a degree that I was like, "Huh." It's like damn. You know, because I've been gone on expedition for a month, and she's been basically just like cranking for the month I was gone. And I came home and I'm like, "Whoa." Was she even a climber when you guys first met? She had barely started climbing when we first met. Her sister was into it and her cousin to some extent, basically like her family got her into it a tiny bit. And then when we started dating, obviously she started climbing more. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, now she's like pretty good. She's super into it. Well, it's just like anything, you get good at it and you get strong and then you're more emotionally connected to it. Yeah, of course.
You're more excited. And I think for her, you know, I don't know for sure, but I think as she started climbing, there was a little more fear involved. You know, 'cause climbing is kind of serious and kind of hardcore. And I think that because she was dating me, she kind of like went into the deep end right away and was maybe exposed to like a little too much of the like hardcore side of climbing straight away. And I think now as she gets like stronger and more able and can like do more as a climber, it's all like much less scary. And so it's like obviously more fun when you're not scared at all. It's like she's doing it in reverse. Let's start with free soloing El Cap, and we'll work our way backwards to the climbing gym. Yeah. No, I mean, it kind of is. Certainly psychologically I think that's right. That's funny. And there's some degree of luck involved with it all too, because like, because she's been connected with me for years and I know like basically everybody in the climbing community, over the last few years there were sort of like a series of unfortunate accidents where like people, prominent climbers died in various ways. And so, you know, all of those sorts of accidents like affected her personally in a way that had she just started climbing in the gym and not known me, she wouldn't know any of the people and it wouldn't have like touched her quite as much. I don't know. That's the kind of thing that you're like, you know, sorry to drag her into it. This is the world you're in though. Yeah. Well, but there is a degree of luck to that, because for several years it seemed like really bad where like there were just a bunch of high profile accidents that were kind of terrible. But then you can go five years and have nobody that you know die. I don't know. Yeah, but it's one of the few sports where like what you just said would even come up. Yeah, well, I don't know. If you're road biking all the time, people- Yeah, that's true. That's true. There was just a terrible road biking thing in Vegas that like totally shook the cycling community. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. It was like a truck basically like drove over like seven cyclists on a group run and killed six of them or something. It was like crazy. Oh man. I hate hearing that. I know. That's the thing is I'm always like, "Oh." And you're out on your bike. I've noticed that you've done, like during the pandemic, you kind of have created, we're gonna talk about Guyana, but you've kind of created these endurance challenges for yourself, like I'm gonna ride my bike 100 miles and then climb this mountain and ride home in the dark. Yeah, that sums it up. (Rich laughs) Well, you know, because if you live in one place and you don't have access to big mountains, you can at least make the mountains that you do have challenging in an appropriate way. I'm gonna show up exhausted and see how I do when- Well, I really love challenges that you can do from home when you just bike out of your driveway and then have this crazy epic day in the mountains, then bike back to your home. And you know, to be able to do that in the suburbs in Las Vegas is pretty awesome. You know, you're like biking along surface streets just like, and especially in Vegas, I actually ride on the sidewalk a lot, which is kind of embarrassing, but it's the best way to not get hit by a car. I feel like a little kid or something who's like afraid to bike in the shoulder. But there are big sections of Vegas where it's definitely safer to ride the sidewalk. And you know, you're like, "This is totally absurd," but then three hours later, you're grinding up this crazy hill, like a mountainside. And then a couple hours after that, you're like hiking through the woods by yourself. And it's pretty amazing to have that kind of access. So let's talk about Guyana. You were like off the grid for like a month. It's like this Nat Geo project. Can you talk about that or? I think so. I mean, who's gonna stop me?
I don't know. I'm not. (laughs) Yeah, exactly. No, no, I think it's all totally fine. There's no network bosses that's gonna call here and tell you to shut up. Yeah. No, I think it's all fine. Yeah, so it was being filmed for an episode of National Geographic Explorer, which I think is a series. It was being filmed by some friends of mine. And it was a crazy trip. Yeah, so we flew into Guyana into Georgetown. And then the goal was to climb this tepui, which is like a big sandstone, well, sort of quartzitic sandstone wall that sticks out of the jungle. And there are a bunch of tepuis that are kind of scattered across Venezuela and Guyana and Brazil. Actually, have you seen the movie "Up"? The really like charming Disney movie, Pixar movie or whatever? With like floating balloon house like over the... Those are tepuis. So that's like what we were trying to climb. Wow. or if you've seen the new "Point Break," that was also filmed in tepuis. There's something like that in "Avatar" too. No, the ones in "Avatar" are modeled on this area in China. That's like limestone. It's like a different, it's caused in a different way. Like it's a different geological process that creates the "Avatar" mountains. But yeah, it is kind of a similarly surreal mountain landscape with dense jungle around it. But anyway, so we were going to climb this wall that hadn't been climbed. And then we also had this sort of renowned biologist with us, this guy Bruce Means who had done extensive work researching the frog species in the area. So he was gonna sort of finish this transect of the river basin that this wall formed the top of. And he was basically researching different species of frog along the way. And so it was kind of a combined trip where we were gonna get him up the wall so that he could find some of the frogs on the summit and possibly on the cliff itself. So it's like adventure meets science experiment? Yeah, adventure meets science. Which is sort of the perfect Nat Geo thing, where it's like adventurous but there's a strong educational scientific component to it. And why had those peaks not been climbed before? So that particular peak hadn't been climbed, I think largely because it's next to this mountain called Roraima, which is, I forget what the name means, but it's like source of waters or something. Roraima is the, it marks the boundary between Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. So like this one point in the middle of this big mountain, it's the highest mountain in the region. And then from that summit, the water that comes off the various sides, like one aspect drains into the Amazon River, one drains into the Orinoco in Venezuela, I think, and the other into Guyana. But so basically it's a, you know, imagine a big mountain that splits three countries and splits the headwaters of three distinct basins. So it's like this really famous sort of important peak. And we were climbing the little peak next to it. So you can kind of see why the little peak next to it hadn't really had much action over the years. Yeah, 'cause like people love Roraima and Roraima has this huge history to it. And like people were doing expeditions there in 1800s. People are all about Roraima. Nobody cares about Wei-Assipu, which is the little peak next to it that we were doing. And one of the things, I mean, based on what you were sharing on social media was just like how wet it was and just the condensation. Yeah, I mean, technically we were there in the dry season, but it rained something like eight hours a day. It was like totally insane. Every day we would joke. We're like, "What the heck kind of dry season is this?" It's like so crazy. But technically was it a difficult climb? Or it just hadn't been done? It hadn't been done. I mean, we didn't know, obviously, 'cause it'd never been done. So we climbed this sort of large overhanging wall. You kind of have to only climb the overhangs there, because otherwise they're covered in vegetation and water, which is cool. It makes the style of the climbing really fun. The rock is incredible. It's some of the best rock on Earth, it's like this amazing quartzite, really hard, really solid. And then what we did for climbers is a six-pitch, 12B. So it's like, you know, hard enough that it's like it's not easy by any means, but it's not like cutting edge elite climbing either. But for an expedition like that, it's pretty, you know, it's solid. We did something that we're proud of. Well, you were there a month. Did he find his frogs?
Yeah, he did. Did he get the frogs sorted out? Yeah. So Bruce, so actually he probably doesn't want too much said about it, because I think he's gonna publish it all in scientific journals and things. But basically he left the jungle with many, many specimens. Like he had glass jars full of specimens. And then he'll take them back to his university and do DNA sequencing on all of them to see whether or not they're new species, whether or not they're related to existing things, just basically to break it all down. But he was personally focused on the frogs, but he also took many other creepy crawlies of interest. 'Cause basically anything, the thing with where we were is that no one's ever been there before. So there's been like no science done, because there's the rainforest approach to get into the mountains. But then between the rainforest and the actual mountain, which is say three or 4,000 feet higher, there's a big, steep, long hillside which is sort of the cloud forest, which is like if you imagine like stunted kind of gnarly trees growing over the talus field, like the rocks that would have been below the cliff, it's like a whole different ecosystem. And so no one had ever been through the cloud forest at all in this area. So potentially anything that he found there alive could be new to science. So, you know, I think he cast a pretty wide net in terms of collecting specimens, because like anything could be new and it could all contribute to scientists' understanding of that biome. Wow. So did you have to like bushwhack in and were you camping out in there the whole time? How difficult was it to actually just to even get in there? Dude, bushwhacking does not begin to describe the whole... The cloud forest, we called it the slime forest, because it's like, it was really interesting. I read a couple of books about sort of natural history of Guyana while we were there, 'cause you know, it's the tropics. So it's dark from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. every day. And we were staying in hammocks the whole time. There's nothing like, there's no flat ground. Basically the whole trip, there's no flat ground. So you're always just rigging your hammock between trees. And so I was in my hammock for like 12 hours a day, basically reading books and like, you know, learning and stuff. It was kind of fun. But it's just wild. I mean, the cloud forest, there's no soil. It's like, it rains so much that it washes away soil. And this is particularly true on the summits of the tepuis, like on top of the wall that we were climbing. It rained so much that any kind of earth gets washed away. So you wind up with plants just stuck to the rock itself. And then that means because there's no soil, it means that the plants all have to get their nutrients in other ways. So the summits of tepuis have some of the highest rates of carnivory in plants. The plants all eat insects and things. And then, or they're like big like teacup-type things where like things will fall into the water, collect in the bottom and drown and then rot, and then the plant will absorb the material basically. It's just like this crazy landscape. So like crazy plant kingdom out of like- Dude, I'll show you some pictures. Totally insane. Wow, that's wild.
Totally insane. And also the highest rates of endemism on Earth, like endemic species, species that are unique to that specific place, because these tepuis are so isolated from the jungle below. Because there's like a 2000-foot wall, let's say sticking up out of the jungle, the summits are a totally different climate basically than the area down below, because it's higher, it gets higher UV exposure, more rain, harsher conditions. And then the summits have been separated from the jungle below for like 40 million years or something because of the erosion and the way it winds up being an island. So it means that all the species have been diverging for 40 million years. I don't know. So it's sort of like a last vestige, Galapagos-type situation where it's like a Petri dish for studying. No, exactly. It's exactly like the Galapagos. I was about to say welcome to the Rich Roll Science Podcast. I was like super, I got super into it on the trip. I thought we were gonna talk about mindset. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Let's talk about biomes.
No, that's cool. No, it was a crazy trip, but it's just- I mean, it must. I mean, you did that one climb but like what were you doing for the rest of the month? Dude, I read a lot of books. And it's so grim being in the hammock for, I mean, it's one thing, you're like, oh, you're in a hammock. But like my hammock had a puddle in the bottom for like the whole time we were at the wall basically. Because we're in the cloud forest- You're waiting for an opening? No, we were just toiling away, you know. It takes a long time to get to the wall, and because we were filming, because it's a TV project, everything's a little bit slower. 'Cause obviously you have to wait for cameras, and there's just more equipment to move around. And it's an incredibly difficult environment to move equipment around in because you're like literally crawling through roots and vines and things. You know, that's why we called it the slime forest, because you're basically like climbing up this lattice of roots and like shriveled little tree trunks. But like I was saying, because it's kind of a difficult environment, it's not like the plants are like rooted in soil. Most of the plants are growing on other plants. So it's like, there'll be a tree trunk, but the tree trunk is like covered in moss. And then there are little parasitic flowers growing out of the tree trunk as well. And then, you know, it's like there's all kinds of like epiphytes, I guess like plants growing on other plants. And so it's just like this crazy dense wall of life, and you're just like crawling through it. And it's like not an easy place to get around. It's not like, "Oh, I'm walking on a flat trail." It's like so grim. Are there predators? No, there aren't that many living things actually, aren't that many animals, because the whole place is like pretty tough actually. You know, we saw birds. We saw, apparently we saw sloth droppings at the wall. So there were sloths there, I guess, But we didn't see that much. You know, most things come out after dark. Like the frogs come out after dark. We heard lots of things. I mean, tons of spiders and snakes and all kinds of things like that. But nothing, you know nothing like exciting when you think of the jungle, and you're like, oh, monkeys all over. It's like just not that kind of scene, because we were kind of in like alpine jungle, you know, like up high towards the base of the walls. It's all like a little bit more inhospitable than like a tropical rainforest. Well, as somebody who's so environmentally conscious and environmentally minded, to visit a place like that where it's just bursting with life in a way that you just don't see, that's almost impossible to see, what a unique, cool experience. When you come back from that, I mean, I know you just got back, but that's got to, kind of land as a meaningful experience in terms of how you think about all the advocacy work that you're doing with the foundation. This is what's at stake, right? This protected place is what is at risk? Yeah, so you mentioned my foundation, the Honnold Foundation. Actually this year we funded, like last year we funded this project called the Kara Solar which does solar-powered boats in the Amazon. I saw that.
In Ecuador. Oh yeah, you saw that? I read the annual report. Oh cool. It's very professional. I love how, speaking of professional, I was like, man, you sure do your homework. No, but so part of the reason I was excited about this trip to Guyana and like climbing this wall was because, you know, we had just funded this project in the Amazon. And I was kind of like, oh, that's interesting. And a big part of that project, Kara Solar, was that by keeping transportation costs on rivers low, like basically by enabling boats to navigate these rivers easily without, with low fuel cost basically, solar-powered boats with electric motor, it prevents the need to cut roads through the jungle. And it was interesting because we did exactly that. We basically flew to the most remote airstrip and then took a whole day in a dugout canoe up this river, which was totally insane. It felt like an amusement park ride, because there's so many big logs that fall over the river that you're constantly ducking and like, you know, avoiding vines. And each time you go, your boat barely makes it under some log, all kinds of things like fall into your boat. And then there are like spiders all over the boat. And there's just so much life and it's so crazy. But you know, I was like, this is exactly the type of project that we were supporting through the Honnold Foundation is like making sure that this type of transit is economical and functional so that you don't have to cut roads through places like this. Because rivers really are the primary means of transit through that whole, like basically all of the upper half of South America. You know, it's like, there's so much water. I've never been somewhere where it rained so much. There's just water everywhere. The dry season though. Dude, it was crazy, crazy. Well, those boats are really cool. They're like these low slung, super long canoes. And they're just tiled with solar panels all across them. Yeah, solar on top. You're calling it like the ghost boat or something like that? Yeah, I forget. 'Cause they're silent. There's no (imitates boat rumbling) like motor that you would, you know, or the smell of the gasoline.
Totally. That you would typically hear. And more importantly, you don't have to import the gasoline or the diesel or whatever. Because in these super remote villages to get gasoline in there to power your boat, first it has to fly in one or more small flights and then take other boats before you even get to the villages at the very end of the rivers basically. So it means that the cost of gas in those communities is incredibly high, because it's really hard to get gasoline there. So when you can do something like a solar-powered boat, it's just a lot more economical option. So how many boats now are outfitted with solar? I actually don't know. The Kara Solar project, I think they built a couple. It was not quite a demonstration project, but I think it was like, they were creating this new idea basically. And I think, you know, moving forward, they'll just keep building boats as demand dictates.
Yeah. We'll be back in a sec, but first, if you enjoy this podcast, and I hope you're enjoying it, then something tells me I think I'll really dig my latest book "Voicing Change," featuring excerpts from, poignant essays by and glorious photography of some 50 of my favorite guests over the last eight plus years of doing this thing, this podcast. It's a gorgeous, artful compendium of the show and copious wisdom shared there in, all wrapped in a hardcover, coffee table form that provides a great taste of what we do here at the RRP and also serves as a beautiful keepsake or gift or primer for the ardent fan. The book is only and exclusively available on our website. Signed copies are available, and we're shipping globally direct to any coffee table on planet Earth. So to learn more and snag your copy today, visit richroll.com/vc. That's richroll.com/vc. All right, let's get back into it. Well, it's cool the work that you're doing with the foundation. I mean, the last time we talked was at that event in Denver, that Rivian thing where it was kind of an announcement about the project that you're doing in Puerto Rico creating this community organized and operated, micro solar grid
Microgrid. Using batteries from the Rivian trucks, right, as like solar cells-
Storage. Which is pretty cool. So let's talk about that a little bit, what an amazing project this town overridden by the hurricane, has no power. I mean, how did you even find like Arturo and like the people to like make that happen? Yeah, that's one of the projects I'm most proud of through the Honnold Foundation, because it's just such an interesting and potentially transformative project. But so just for context it's in Adjuntas in Puerto Rico, which is kind of the center of Puerto Rico, which was pretty hard hit by the hurricane. And basically, because it's sort of in the center of the island, it was cut off, you know, transmission distribution lines for power were sort of severed for a long time. So you wound up with the whole city off the grid for like months after the hurricane. And so sort of just as luck would have it, that community has this community organization called Casa Pueblo, which has already done sort of environmentally-focused community organizing for many years, like opposing a big mine in the middle of the country and a couple other sort of environmental advocacy type projects. And they've always embraced solar. Like Casa Pueblo has always had solar on their own facility. And so after the hurricane, they became sort of this energy oasis in the middle of an otherwise blacked-out town. And so I think that's a big part of why there's such community buy-in in Adjuntas, because they had months where there was basically one structure in the whole city that has power, and it's Casa Pueblo, and it's because they embraced solar. And so there's tremendous community buy-in, and combined with the fact that utility rates are really high, people are basically paying way too much for their power anyway. So they're really open to other solutions. And so Casa Pueblo is looking to institute a microgrid in the whole city center. So basically all the main businesses downtown could go onto a microgrid and sort of separate from the utility. And the executive director of the Honnold Foundation reached out to him, because she heard about his work. Dory.
Yeah, Dory, Dory Trimble. She's incredible. So she reached out to Casa Pueblo and was like, "Oh, we'd love to help support this project." And then we wound up wrangling Rivian, which is a personal sponsor of mine, the electric truck manufacturer. They offered to supply the batteries for storage for the project, because half the microgrid is being able to store the energy they use, and that's basically how it all came together. Right, it's pretty cool. What was really cool was hearing RJ, the founder of Rivian, talk about how they've created this battery technology, such that when the car has run its course and people are done with it or whatever, they can pull the battery out and then they can repurpose it for this very thing to like power these grids. Yeah, that's exactly it. And that's an important part of the Rivian design, because some electric cars haven't really designed their batteries with the second life applications in mind. They just make the cheapest battery they can. And then when it's done, it just kind of gets shredded. So I think that when you go into the design process with the intention of using the batteries for something else useful after their life om the car, that's an important, and really that should be a design principle for all products. Thinking about what happens to it when it no longer can do what it's designed for.
Especially when the mining, the minerals and every, I mean. it's so intensive now.
Totally, totally. And the environmental impact of that is so traumatic for the planet.
Totally. But the thing that, I think, the thing that, the biggest like personal thing from the Adjuntas project, I don't even know what you call it, but like the thing that struck me the most from the microgrid in Adjuntas is that when you're in Adjuntas and you're in the city center, it's like a classic sort of plaza, like what you think of, you know, small town America or something with the city square. It's like this bustling town center. There are tons of cars, tons of people. It's like, you know, it's the center of this whole community. And to power the whole thing, it's something like eight Rivian truck batteries. And so if you think of it as eight trucks that are gonna power that whole downtown, when you're standing in the downtown and you look at how many cars are around you, there are like hundreds of cars parked on both sides of the street, bumper-to-bumper going around the square. It's like crazy, it's super dense, you know? And you're like, "Man, eight of those "can power the whole thing." It's like pretty striking actually, because Rivian, I think Amazon has already pre-ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, maybe even more now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a big deal. That's like a huge part of Rivian's business is gonna be powering the Amazon fleet. Totally, but so 100,000 electric delivery vans, and you think that, you know, all of those will be sort of phasing out in 10, 15 years. And it only takes eight of them to power this whole city center in a way that's like transformative for the community. And you're like, when you multiply that out, you're like, "Man, that's a lot of communities "that could be positively impacted in that way." And so that's kind of the exciting opportunity for the Honnold Foundation, I think, is to help establish sort of a pipeline for second-life batteries and potentially implement more microgrids like this around say the Caribbean or something. I mean, I suppose we should say, you created this foundation, what like three years ago or something like that?
No, no. I made it like in 2012 or something. Oh, it's been around that long? It's been this slow-
It's kind of hit this stride in the last couple years. And a big part of that is hiring the executive director Dory, who's actually very smart and is, because for many years it was just a way of me personally donating money. And so I would just, you know, donate some money. It'd be split into let's say two grants to two different organizations. And like, that's it. And then in the last three or four years, sort of since "Free Solo" and the whole crazy movie tour, it's really become like much more of its own organization. It started as your own personal effective altruism experiment. Yeah, exactly. And then it's become institutionalized. I think you guys donate like 1.3 million, you had like 1.3 million?
Almost a million this year. You donated like 87%, like a really high percentage of what came in like went directly to projects. And you've picked solar as the primary focus at least for now. So I have lots of things I want to say about that, but maybe explain as somebody who's very, you know, environmentally literate and has spent a lot of time studying environmentalism, thinking about it, why is solar the primary focus right now? So when I started the foundation, like you said, it was just my way of sort of trying to affect, you know, effective altruism. So I was basically just looking for any kind of, well, I guess, starting at the beginning, I think that the most important issue facing humanity is climate change or sort of environmental degradation, more broadly let's say. And at the same time, I think there's no point in trying to solve environmental problems that don't also improve quality of life that like help the human populations in the area. Because you know, I've been on enough expeditions to various parts of the world where you see communities that, you know, like they'll cut down the last tree on Earth if it means boiling water for their family to keep their kids safe and things like that. And the solution can't be premised on us all being martyrs. No, exactly. That's the thing. And anywhere you go in the world, and it's funny, 'cause we're talking about Guyana. Like we were just hanging with these, all the Amerindian folks like deep in the interior, like basically Native Americans from South America. And you know, a bunch of the villages, they're living super traditional lifestyles. It's like, you know, basically still practicing slash and burn agriculture, cultivating cassava. It's all, you know, as it has been for thousands of years to some extent, and they're all like, "We want DirecTV." And you're like, "You don't even have power." Like there's no grid, there's no cell service, there's no connectivity, there's no transportation. You know, they have to take a boat for a day to get to the closest town. It's like so disconnected, and they're like, "When's the DirecTV getting here?" And you're like, "I think it might be a minute." Like, you're like first you gotta, there are a lot of things like, first you need a metal roof. You need to be able to keep stuff dry, you know? Plumbing.
Yeah, totally. General electricity. So I've been on enough trips like that where you realize that there are really humans all over Earth, you know. Even if they're actively trying to preserve their traditional lifestyle, like they still want refrigeration. They want access to medicine. They want communication. Pretty much all humans want some degree of material comfort in their life. And that's only fair, you know. It's like, I want to be relatively comfortable. I want climate control, at least to some extent. I want like flooring. I want to not get parasites, things like that. Like I want access to clean food and water. And so, you know, I think that when you focus on environmental issues, it's important to also sort of focus on the equity issues of like, well, humans, like all humans should be entitled to certain standards of living. And so I think that if you're trying to solve environmental issues without also focusing on the equity side, like making sure that all humans are equally able to take care of themselves, basically it's just not fair to not do those both at the same time. And so that sort of informed the initial projects from the Honnold Foundation is like looking for environmental projects that also improve standard of living that like helped folks. And over the years, we basically always wound up choosing solar projects, because they just often are the most elegant solutions to those kinds of problems where it's like good for the environment, good for people, you know, a clear win-win. And then after several years of supporting a bunch of different solar projects, we were like, "We should just make this explicit." 'Cause at a certain point, you know, you may as well focus on what you already know and what you're kind of good at. And I just think solar is such an obvious solution to many human problems. Yeah, I mean, the sun is shining down and beating us with all kinds of power that we can utilize if we can figure it out. And you know, what's problematic about that, I mean, it seems like it's easier to implement a solar solution in a developing country than it is in the United States. Like solar has been so problematic and tricky to get implemented in houses across America. Bill Maher talks about it all the time. Like every show he has like a countdown. He's been trying to get solar at his house for like, you know, years. And he's like, it's day 1000. And there's all these like regulatory hurdles. Like we've had a couple companies come out to our house and do like an evaluation. And there's always some reason why it was just ridiculously expensive or way too complicated. I just feel like it should be easy, you know? My larger point is like why isn't it just like super easy to get this done? It is. I mean, I don't know. I think a lot of that is personal experience and depending on your home. 'Cause, you know, I've put solar on a couple of homes, well, a bunch of homes now through the foundation and then but my own as well. And it's like super easy. Is it?
Yeah, I mean- I'd like to talk to you about who I should be calling. Yeah, totally. I mean, I've done most of that stuff remotely too where like my home in suburban Las Vegas, I was actually on a climbing trip in Wyoming at the time living in the van. I basically made some calls. People went to the house, they installed solar, turned it on, all worked fine. I was like never even involved. I just wired money online. It was like totally chill. Wow. I think a lot of that just has to do with, you know, where you live and how difficult the system is and things like that. But either way, I mean, in general, it's not that hard in the U.S. And I mean, and you see that, because rates of solar adoption are steadily increasing. It's all sort of exponential growth. It's like, it seems to be doing pretty well. All right, well, I need to revisit this then. Yeah, you should, because also the cost of panels has been exponentially dropping to the point that nowadays, you know, the panels themselves aren't even the most expensive part of the install anymore. It's like the actual labor and like the racking, you know, like the other things, like everything else that goes into installation. Right. So what are the projects that you want to be working on? What's the next level of what you're trying to accomplish? Well, so we actually just closed our latest open call for what we call the Core Fund grants, which are sort of like the interesting, like what we were talking about, Kara Solar, the Ecuadorian Amazon solar boat project. Things like that come through the Core Fund, which are basically like grants around the world for interesting solar projects. So the latest round, you know, we'll probably fund, you know, 10ish projects like that. But we got, well, we got hundreds of applications, and of those we probably had about 50 or 60 that are legitimately good applications. But we can only fund the top 10 or so. So really there's tons of incredible ideas and good projects out there. It's just a matter of having enough money to actually implement them all, which, you know, we've, as you said, we gave away over a million dollars this year, which for me personally counts as tremendous success, because when I started the foundation it was me donating 50K a year of just my own money. So to see, you know, 20 times the impact as when I started, I'm like, "Oh, that's awesome to do 20 times more work. "That's great." But then also knowing that we could have a $10 million budget and still, I think 10 probably actually would pretty much fill all the things that we're seeing right now. But, but you know, there are like hundreds of millions of dollars worth of good projects out there that that could be done. There are individual changes that we can all make to live more sustainably. And then there are kind of institutional, social changes that we need to see move forward in order to really kind of affect the problem, the existential crisis that we're facing. And, you know, those personal changes can be everything from composting to your diet and where you buy your clothes and all that kind of thing. One of the things that you said in some article or someplace you wrote this I believe that I hadn't really thought a lot about but it's so obvious, which is like, where are you banking? Yeah, I wrote an op-ed about that. Yeah, talk a little bit about that. Yes, and actually I'll talk about that, but then I also have some things to say about personal choice like that also, because so banking is pretty much the number one thing that you can do for personal impact, which is funny because it's so much less satisfying than like changing your diet, let's say. 'Cause it's less obvious. But the thing is wherever you bank, they're using your money the whole time that it sits in whatever account. You put it into an account, and then they're investing it in things. They're spending it, they're using it basically. And so, you know, a famous example is like Wells Fargo with the Dakota Access Pipeline or something. But in general, every bank, every major bank in America is supporting both sides of the political aisle. They're making political donations. They're investing in fossil fuels. Basically if you're using a mainstream big bank, it for sure is doing stuff that you personally wouldn't do. Whether you're on the left or the right, it's like your bank is for sure doing stuff that you wouldn't want it to do. And so, you know, the solution there is to do bank with nonprofit credit unions, things like that, like local banks, smaller scale banks. Just bank with a bank that is not going to be investing in like fossil fuel infrastructure and things like that that you might not personally support. Right, is there a resource where you can go online and get like somebody who's done like a consumer reports on this where there's like a clearing house of like seeing what all the banks are doing? Yeah, I'm sure there is.
There must be. Yeah, there must be. So my sister actually many years ago before I started my foundation, before I started any of this stuff, she gave me this book called "The Better World Shopping Guide," which I think is out of print now but at the time was this incredible resource where for any consumer product, including banking and things like that, you could flip through and basically see all brands listed from A to F. And it was eye-opening for me at the time, because I realized I could go to the grocery store, look at breads and see two different breads on the shelf, same price point, same basic quality, except one, you know, is basically actively supporting the type of world that I want to live in. You know, like paying its employees good living wages and like providing maternity leave and things like that. And the other is like ruthlessly exploiting its workers and degrading the Earth and it's the exact same product. And you're kind of like, "Well, obviously I should support the one "that makes for a better world." And so yeah, "The Better World Shopping Guide." My sister, she signed it for me. It said, "For Alex, in case you ever start giving a shit. "Love, Stasia." Like it was a pretty classic, you know, because especially when I was younger, I was just all a little more like hard line. I was just so focused on climbing. Yeah, but you now, you're all about it. Yeah, but that's the interesting thing about like the long gradual awakening, like you just learn more and you start to care more about it and then it's sort of a virtuous cycle. Yeah, well that keys into something I think he wanted to talk about, which is like this personal choice thing. Yeah, it's funny 'cause I've sort of come full circle on this a little bit, because obviously I care a lot about personal choice. I'm a vegetarian because or like sort of aspirationally vegan basically, personally because I'm lactose intolerant, partially because basically just it's a much lower impact for diet. You know, I changed my banking. I've changed all kinds of lifestyle things in an effort to minimize my personal impact on Earth and even starting the Honnold Foundation was to some extent to know that I personally was doing as much good as harm. Because just by living and traveling to climb and all that, like obviously I'm having a negative impact on the world. And so I'd like to think that I'm doing as much good as harm. But now I'm sort of coming back around to it where I feel like the whole onus on personal choice has been sort of foisted upon us by outside forces. It's like basically industry telling us like, "You should think about your choices" rather than have the industry regulated in a way that is appropriate. You know, because even if and actually COVID has been an interesting measure of this, because even with travel lockdowns for the whole world for the last year, global emissions have only dropped seven or 10% or something like 7%. I mean, that's still barely in line with Paris Accord type things. And so if you think that all of human society is fundamentally changed for the last year and we're still barely hitting the numbers that we pledged to meet for the latest round of climate accord negotiations, you're kinda like, "That's crazy." You know what I mean? It just shows the scale of this. It shows the scale of real change that has to happen. And that kind of thing only happens with policy, because it's one thing for individuals to like choose the right product all the time, but it's another thing to just make sure that all the products have to be made well to begin with. You know what I mean? Like eliminating pollution in different ways. But policy is also a reflection of popular sentiment, right? Like if people are thinking harder about their personal choices and that becomes more important, then culture reflects that and society becomes or policy becomes a downstream kind of reflection of that, like you need both. Yeah, yeah, you do need both, but it's basically like, that's like a chicken or the egg sort of thing. And I'm sort of arguing that I think that it's probably easier to lead with policy changes. You know, like in the U.S. the adoption of electric cars and things like that and like basically public transit and changing transportation models, you know transit accounts for like 1/3 of our carbon emissions. And so, you know, it's like an area ripe for change. An easy way would just be to basically put a tax on gasoline or something like that basically on carbon emissions. And that would drive all kinds of changes in consumer behavior. You know, rather than just hoping that individuals will go out and buy a Prius or buy a Rivian or whatever. It's tricky though, man, when you have legislators who are beholden to their constituents and the lobbyists that are well-funded to push a certain agenda on behalf of a sector of the economy. And that's why these things move at a glacial pace. And I feel like voter pressure on our legislators is so important. And that's why you do need to, you do need to kind of take these personal choices to heart and make them known so that there is that pressure. Yeah, I agree with that. But I know what you're saying. I mean, just like you can't move the needle on like I'm gonna go vegan and this is gonna solve the problem. It's not gonna work.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, you going vegan is a good step for sure. But it's like-
The impact is tiny. Farmers in Brazil will still be cutting down the Amazon. There's a symbolic power. Or like, when you, you as somebody who so many people look up to and you have a lot of people that follow your lead and all of that, like there's meaning in these choices that you're making because there's a downstream impact on how everyone else is gonna think about those choices. A little bit, but I still think that- I know you get a lot of shit though. Yeah, well, that's whatever. I mean, the thing is you get a lot of shit no matter what. So it doesn't totally matter. And, you know, and while we're talking about getting a lot of shit, like it's not like I'm just like advocating for gas tax. Because I know that kind of thing is super nuanced, because in a lot of ways that's regressive because it affects lower income folks way more than higher and that's not totally fair. So it has to be very finely executed, you know? It's like, yeah, I get all that. I'm just saying that, I think that starting from the policy side can potentially have bigger impacts in the world. Mostly because I think that, you know, individual choice is great for individuals that have the bandwidth to think about it. You know what I mean? And like, I have plenty of free time. I read books about the environment and think about it. But like the vast majority of Americans, like if you're working a minimum wage job, you are not going home and reading books about the environment to like think about minimizing your footprint. You're struggling. You know, like it's hard, I don't know. So when are you gonna- Basically, so I think that putting the responsibility on the individual is sort of, you know, most individuals are never gonna have the time to think about it. They don't have that luxury-
No, I get it, of course. To reflect on that.
Of course, of course. And it's not, it shouldn't be their responsibility. Exactly.
When they're just trying to survive, of course. But in an ideal world when you go to a store or something, every product would be justly made, like fairly manufactured with no pollution and like no externalized costs and all that. And that's kind of the world that I think most of us would like to live in. You know, like you would like to think that anything you buy will not be, you know, exploiting child labor in other parts of the world or something like that. It is like an arms race though, because I do feel like we're moving into an economic culture in which people really do care about those kinds of things. And it's incumbent upon these corporations to be transparent about their supply chain and how they treat their workers and the like. And the average consumer if given the opportunity to think about it for a minute is gonna make the better choice. We're good people, and we all want a better world. But these changes are glacial. They're so slow, and we're running out of time. So short of massive sweeping policy change, do you, and as somebody who has spent, I know this past year you've gone down the rabbit hole on a lot of this stuff, are you optimistic? Where's your head at in terms of like how are we doing? I mean, I'm personally always pretty optimistic. And even I think, you know, optimism and pessimism aside, I think that a realistic assessment of global climate or basically a realistic assessment is that my personal lifestyle will probably be fine regardless. You know what I mean? Like I'm lucky enough that I go climbing all the time and if like climate impacts affect me I can move to other places. And so I don't know. I mean, that's kind of the, and that's the real thing about climate change is that for most of us, it's not gonna affect us personally. You know what I mean? Like anyone listening to this podcast basically is comfortable enough that they're not gonna be the ones that suffer from the effects of climate change. It's like, you know, subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa that have crushing drought and then have crop failures and can't feed their families. You know what I mean? But like, that's so far removed from our reality that it seems to be like, oh, we don't even know what that is. So we're not stressed about it. I don't know. So, I mean, I don't know. I mean, yeah, I'm optimistic that humanity can sort of confront and solve some of these problems. But even if we do move too slowly and it doesn't really work out, I also sort of recognize the fact that, you know, like realistically my life will probably play out along a certain path regardless, which is incredibly unfair, which is a big part of why I started the Honnold Foundation and things like that. Because it's like- Do you think you guys are gonna have kids? Yeah, I think so. That changes like how you see all this stuff. Oh yeah. You mean, 'cause you worry about the world- Well, you just to start thinking, yeah, your perspective is tweaked. But the thing is like, your lane is solar right now, but that's an example of technology that currently exists to solve these problems. Most of these problems we have the ability to solve now. It's really about, it's about political will. You read "Drawdown" and it's like, here's all the things. Exactly. If we just do all these things, we're good. And it's like, why can't we just do them? No, that's exactly. I know. And that's like probably the most frustrating thing about reading environmental books is that you're like, all the solutions are here. It's like a buffet of solutions. Like "Drawdown" is a literal buffet of solutions.
There's so many. Yeah, there's so many. Yeah, let's just do five of these. Totally, totally. And so many of them are just such obvious, and that's my thing with solar is it's like an obvious win-win. And you're like, "This is such a clear solution "to certain problems." And in "Drawdown" one of the biggest climate impacts we can have is women's education around the world. And you're like, "Well, that seems "like an obvious thing regardless." Climate aside, even if you don't believe in climate change, you should definitely believe in educating women. It's like, that's like basic fairness. (Rich sighs) Here we both like sigh. I know. Well, you know, it is frustrating because there is a ticking clock here. And you can say like, yeah, your lifestyle probably won't be that changed. But you know, if you live in Miami or you live in like the low-lying areas of Southeast Asia, this is a very real threat to you. Yeah, though even last year in California, the wildfire season was so crazy because of drought that, and I think this kind of, I don't know. I hadn't experienced, my family has a place in Tahoe that I like grew up going to this like cabin in Tahoe. And last summer, the wildfire smoke was so thick across the lake that you couldn't see the other side of Lake Tahoe. And at one point I saw this like party boat coming into shore that like a big, like tug almost with tons of people on it like partying on the boat. I don't really know what was going on, but I sort of jokingly was like, "Oh, look, it's climate refugees like escaping," because it looks like the ocean and it looks like a barge. It's like the kind of scene that you expect to see in Southern Europe with folks fleeing North Africa-
From Syria. Or something, yeah, exactly. Like fleeing to Italy. And, you know, I was kind of like, kind of tongue in cheek and I was like, "This is kind of true." 'Cause all these folks in California- The sky is on fire.
Yeah, the sky's on fire, and people were bailing out of the Bay Area to try to come to the mountains, but then the mountains were on fire. 'Cause the Bay Area was like crazy fire this year too. And I don't know if this will wind up mattering in the world, but it is interesting when effects of climate change start to be felt closer to home. It's like when you can't spend a summer in California, people are like, "What the heck?" That's crazy. You know, especially, I've spent my whole life spending summers in California and kind of like, that's a first. That's kind of unprecedented. Yeah, I've lived here for, I don't know, 25 years. And the fire season when we had the big fires down here and had to get evacuated, it was bananas. Yeah, that's crazy. I've gone through fires, plenty of fire seasons. That was completely another animal altogether. Especially when you consider that, I mean, fires are a natural part of the life cycle of the forest. It's like when you're in the Sierra Nevada, you're like, "Yeah, this is natural. "It should be fine." And yet, you know, the sky is blacked out for almost a month in Tahoe this summer. It was totally insane. And you're like, "That's not natural." That's different.
Totally, that's craziness. A different thing. Switching gears a little bit. Yeah, totally from environmental apocalyptic. How much more can we dig into this? Dude, I could talk about it all day. I could too. It's like super depressing, but also super important, or like this is probably the most important issue facing- We need to be talking about it. Yeah, exactly. And if that just moves the needle with one person that's a win. What else are we doing here? What's the point of doing it?
To talk about climbing. We talk about climbing. You are in a unique situation though because you did this crazy climb. Like, you know, how do you, and your life is kind of devoted to iterative difficulty, like continuing to put yourself in difficult situations and master those. But you know, it's hard to trump free soloing El Cap. So like, what are you gonna do? How do you shift gears and find meaning in a different way in this thing that you do? I mean, you've kind of already answered it. You're doing all these other things. You've devoted your life to these environmental causes. There's a lot in your, you live a very big life that is providing meaning, not just for yourself but for a lot of people. But it is, you know, just from the pure athlete mindset, how do you get jacked-up about another adventure when you've climbed a mountain? You know, you literally climbed the mountain. Yeah, no, that's a totally fair question. And I think it's taken, I mean, I free soloed El Cap, I think, in 2017, and the tour was in 2018. And so it's kind of taken me a year and a half, but really the season is sort of the beginning of like a real fire or like real hunger for challenging things again. And so, I mean, you're right that nothing will ever trump El Cap, nothing will be better than El Cap. But there's still some other things that are pretty cool that I'm excited about. The world's a big place.
Yeah, exactly. And actually a couple of things I'm excited about right now are just at home like projects in Red Rock, which is the climbing area outside of Las Vegas. And you know, I mean, sometimes you just get inspired by certain things, and you're like, "This seems crazy and really hard," but then you're like, "I think I could do it." And then you're like, "Can I do it?" And then you have to find out if you can do it. And really that's like the whole joy of the process is the finding out like, well, can I do it? Is it crazy? Let's find out. Right. Am I right in thinking that before COVID hit you were thinking of doing the Seven Summits? Yeah, though that, I mean, I still would like to in my life. That's not really like a big climbing goal, which is funny- I mean, that's a whole different kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, for me that stems, like I don't know if you've ever read the book, "The Seven Summits" by Dick Bass. He was the first person-
No. He's kind of a non-climber. He owned Snowbird back in the day. He was a businessman. I think he may have been oil or something, but I think he was like a Texas businessman or something. But he just got this like wild idea that he wanted to climb the highest points on Earth. And so he was guided on them. And this is like before it was the thing and people did it. Anyway, it's a great book. It's kind of like classic adventure writing. And you know, I read that many, many years ago and was like, "That's awesome. "I'd like to do that in my life." And now it's a little bit weird, because Seven Summits is so commercialized that real climbers kind of thumb their nose at it. Like that's not cool. But I'm like, I still kind of want to, you know? But that's not like a rad climbing project. That's just like a personal, I'd love to do that in my life but we'll see how it plays out, you know? Yeah, I mean, for what you do to not climb the seven tallest mountains, like why wouldn't you do that? Yeah, I've climbed a lot of other mountains. What do you think when you see, you know, remember when those images were coming through from Everest and it was like the, there were just so many people up there and it was like a traffic jam and? Yeah, that's crazy. No, I find that somewhat distasteful. I'm just like, oh, basically that's just not the experience that I'm seeking in the mountains. And especially on Everest in particular, there are ropes going the whole way up. So everyone's just like clipped into a rope the whole way. And somebody else has put those ropes out for them. And so, you know, I personally have sort of mixed feelings about like outsourcing the risk and the challenge of climbing. Like I don't want to pay somebody else to put the rope up for me. It's like, if I can't put the rope up myself, I probably shouldn't be climbing it. And not to say that that's a standard that all people should hold. 'Cause you know, I'm sure, and I think climbing Everest is really, really hard regardless. You know, I think that even if you are just following the rope that somebody put, it's still quite difficult, you know, it's a challenging physical experience. But I don't know. I just feel like if I want to go up there, I want to like actually climb something. Are you gonna climb mountains? I don't think so.
Why not? I don't think that's my thing, man. But you could. I mean I could- You've got the energy for it. I don't feel the pull. I don't feel like the allure. You don't care about getting on top of things?
It doesn't like- I love getting on top of things. It's not my thing. I want to go like in the ocean and swim down. That's not my thing.
Or swim across. But I don't think about going up that much. It's different, you know. I went climbing a couple of times with some friends and I was like, "I don't think this is for me." That's fair.
It was weird. But mountaineering though might be a, 'cause that's basically like ultra running, like trudging up hills.
It's different. I like the idea of all these like FTKs that these guys, you know, like Kilian's running up these mountains and seeing how fast he can do it. I just like the idea of like creating your own adventure like you were doing. Like here's this thing. We have all of this here. Like we don't need some, you know, like race or event.
Exactly. Let's just figure it out. So one of the things I'm playing with this season is a traverse of the entire range in Red Rock, which is like this actually as the crow flies, it's probably only like 10 or 15 miles like linearly, but you're growing up and over all these different peaks. And so I haven't quite pieced it all together yet 'cause it's incredibly complicated, route finding and climbing. And I'm climbing classic climbing routes and then down soloing other climbing routes and going up and down to tag the different summits but also do a bunch of good climbs. But it's coming in at like 25,000 feet of vertical or something. It's like a really, really big traverse. And you know, we'll see if a man should do it and how exactly it shapes up. But I'm like, what an adventure to leave your house and then just climb this entire skyline that you can see from anywhere in town. It's similar to the thing you did with Tommy Caldwell, right?
Exactly. What is it like 17 peaks or something like that and like 20K of-
Something like that. Yeah, actually it was funny, because with these really long and technical rock climbing traverses, it's actually hard to quantify the vert in the numbers, because GPS doesn't really work when you're climbing vertical routes. You know, like when you're doing sheer vertical walls, your GPS will like ping you all over the place. So it like messes up all the numbers. So I don't know. Have you had that experience? Like if you go up really steep hills with GPS- I don't go up hills that steep, steep enough to do that. 'Cause basically GPS doesn't really work on a vertical plan. It's like more for like a horizontal. And then the thing I did with Tommy last summer in Rocky Mountain National Park wound up taking us like 36 hours. So all of our devices died anyway. 'Cause your batteries don't last that long if they're tracking GPS. Wasn't there like a, you missed a drop-off or something happened-
There was a bit of a botch. And you had no lights at night and stuff? Yeah, well more importantly we had no pants. So we were like at 13,000 feet in running shorts all night. And it was pretty character building. What has Tommy been up to? He's like your main, he's like your main guy, right? He's like your go-to adventurer? He's one of my best adventure partners for sure. Actually I just climbed with him last week, like the day I got home from this expedition in Guyana. Tommy just happened to be in Las Vegas climbing something. So we managed to sneak out for a day. But he's been doing some home repair. He's like doing something, but he's doing a plumbing project on his house. Hasn't been climbing that much this winter. But he's just such an incredible climber, even relatively off the couch, he's just like, he's done it his whole life. And are you doing, back to the environmental stuff, are you doing another podcast with the Washington Post? With that, I'm not sure. There's nothing official. I might be and I might be yeah, basically interviewing environmental leaders or sort of scientists about climate change, I think. Which if it happens, I'd be pretty excited about but honestly sort of intimidated. Because as you know, most podcasting is just chit-chatting with people. You rarely have to know a subject super well. But the thing is you don't have to hold yourself out. They'll be so excited to talk to you. And they know that you're not, you know, a PhD in whatever it is that they are. And so they'll explain it to you. Yeah, but you think you'd feel like- And you're trying to be a cipher for the audience anyway.
That's true. But you still feel like you should have enough of an understanding to at least ask interesting questions. Yeah, but you read books. You'll be fine. We'll see if that, I don't know. Speaking of that, like on this deep dive that you did this past year, what have you learned that you didn't know like before COVID when it comes to the environmental stuff? I don't know. That's an interesting question. I mean, so on this trip in Guyana, I just finished this book "Energy and Civilization," this like Vaclav Smil's, like this super dense tome about sort of the progression of different energy systems in human civilization. And it was interesting. I mean, I think that book gave me an appreciation of how long and slowly the transitions between energy systems are, basically like going from human power to like the introduction of the steam engine to coal fired to eventually, you know, oil, like full-on fossil fuels. It's just like each transition takes quite a long time. And it's given me an interesting perspective, I guess, on like our current transition to renewables and what that will take. And one of the interesting things I got from the book was that, you know, every transition has been powered by the previous fuel, let's say. So like the transition to coal use was like, you know, powered by steam engines and whatever else. You're reliant on the-
The previous energy model, which is funny because that's a common criticism of renewable is it's like, "Oh, well it's all based on fossil fuels." And you're kinda like, "Well, yeah, because any transition "is gonna be based on the previous system," which I found slightly heartening in a way, because I've always found that like, you know, it's a little bit of a bummer that to build wind turbines, let's say, you have to mill a bunch of steel. And like that steel is all being powered by, those plants are all being powered by fossil fuels. And so you're kinda like, "Is it even worth building wind turbines "if all the raw materials behind it "are being mined and milled through fossil fuel extraction?" You're like, "Is that worth it?" You're kind of like, yeah. I mean basically- It's like a necessary evil of iterating to the next thing. I mean, that's a big thing with the electric cars. Who's powering the Tesla grid? What's the carbon footprint of that? Like, it's massive. Though that though, I mean, when you do the math on it, even if it's all powered by coal, it's still better than an internal combustion engine car. So, you know, it's like, yeah, it's still a step in the right direction. But I think the takeaway with all those, you know, sort of the messy technical questions of energy transition is like, you still have to take these small steps in a different direction if you're ever gonna get anywhere. It's like, if you're hoping to decarbonize a grid or change energy systems, it's like, you have to start taking some steps, even if they're not perfect, even if it's not 100% correct. You have to at least move in a direction. And an appreciation that these things take time. Yeah. No, totally. I mean, it's not that removed from like athletic performance, you know? It's like, if you want to get better at something, you have to just put in the days like grinding away, you know, training. It's like, you know, some days you suck, and you just keep grinding away at it and eventually, you know, hopefully eventually you do something that's actually meaningful. Have you gotten your Rivian truck yet? No. No. When is he gonna start shipping those things? In June, I think. I just got an email that was like, "Configure your pre-order blah, blah blah." I figured it's got to be getting close, because RJ started posting a lot, like taking the trucks out and like yeah. And I was like, "Oh, they must be getting ready." 'Cause like it's been underground for a long time. No, it's happening. I just configured my pre-order. Oh, you did?
Yeah. It's pretty cool what they've done. So they took over, like they took over like an old, I don't know, Nissan factory or something like that, like outside of Chicago and like just retrofitted the whole thing and made it like sustainable and brought in like amazing chefs and like used materials from the area to recyclable materials and wood that was in the vicinity to build the whole place out. Totally. Have you been to the factory? I haven't been to the manufacturing plant. I've been to the headquarters, which is outside of Detroit, sort of classic auto manufacturer, you know. No, it's super, I mean, when I went to the headquarters for the company outside of Detroit, it was like full-on vision of futurist. It's like kind of what you would expect from like a new, you know, technological startup started happening. I was like blown away. I had this VR experience there where I was like in a room, and I put on like a VR headset and then basically like sampled an assortment of their like futuristic ideas, like concept vehicles. But you could like walk around the space with a VR headset and like interact with their concept vehicles. And I was like, totally blew my mind. I was like, "Is this Star Trek?" It's like, "Where am I?" In a classic, like nice new facility with, it's like just clean and well-lit and classy with like electric trucks all over. And I was like, this is so- Right, like not what you think of Detroit- Yeah, so futuristic.
And the auto industry. No, it was like, this is the future for sure. That's cool.
It's really cool. Have you done any VR stuff around climbing? Actually I'm supposed to be doing a VR project this year, like filming in the next month and then something in Europe. That's cool. Yeah, I think it actually has the potential to be really cool, but we'll see. Yeah, I had this guy Michael Muller in here, who's a big photographer. With the shark stuff? Yeah, so he showed me his stuff. Dude, it's VR shark tank.
It's insane. Yeah, totally blows your mind. Yeah, he actually, he showed me the same thing. You put it on, you're like, "Oh," it's like pretty mega. Right. And they're using it for like PTSD in people, not just like an experience-
To trigger PTSD? No, to like help with people's fear responses. It's pretty interesting. And so I was just imagining like that in the climbing context. Somebody who's afraid of heights or like that's their big thing- I think if somebody's afraid of heights, they probably should not watch my VR experience. I think that might be a bit much. (laughs) I know. But you know, listen, to have that, like somebody who's not able to ever have that kind of, somebody who's in a wheelchair or whatever, never gonna be able to have that experience to be able to like feel-
Totally. What that feels like. Or even just a gym climber who's just realistically never gonna go to some of these places. Like the guy that I'm working with on the VR experience shot an Everest VR piece, like a three episode, you know, basically he goes to the summit of Mount Everest in VR. And I found it incredibly immersive and rich in a way that I did not expect. Because I've read tons of books about Everest over the years and then to actually be in it in VR and to be able to look around and like interact with the landscape. I was like, "This is so much better "than all the books I've read." I was like, "This is crazy." That's the future. I mean, those experiences are gonna be there for us in the next five or 10 years. Yeah, I mean like wearing noise-canceling headphones with a good headset with like hi-res, really good, you know, not too like jerky. And I mean like obviously the technical side of it will only improve. And you're just like, "It's just so real."
It's getting there. It's like, it's still not quite there, but I feel like they're right on the precipice of it just being- Yeah, I've always felt like it wasn't quite there and then I watched the VR experience, and I was like, "This is pretty there." And that's kind of what inspired me to feel like it was worth shooting a VR piece. So it was like, even if the current headsets aren't perfect, someone will be able to use that footage on better models soon. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. So when you do that then like, so if you were gonna produce that, you got to get up on some wall and then you have like some kind of headset with cameras all around? How do they do that? No, it's the opposite. So the idea is that the subject like climbs through the frame. So the camera's fixed in a certain place, and it's like full 360 camera, crazy VR setup. And then the climber climbs through the frame. I got it. And that's to apparently to minimize motion sickness, because if the subject itself is the VR focus, like basically if you're wearing the VR headset and everything's moving around you, you get incredibly motion sick. But if, when you're wearing the headset, you feel like you're in a stable place and you're able to control the vision and like look around and then you can just see someone doing an action in your frame, then it makes you way less sick. I see. But how would they do that on a big wall? The lights. It's hard work. Yeah, I would imagine. You have to like rig a separate repel line near the route, fix the camera to the wall like near the climbing route and then sort of center the camera so that you're looking at the climber as the climber goes up the wall. The camera remains static or can it move too?
Yeah, the camera remains static. It seems like they could do some stuff with drones too. No, no, it's too shaky. And the point is for the camera to stay totally static. Because ideally I think for the viewer, they want to be in like a swivel chair or something or like standing in a room where they can fully move around at their own pace and the way they want. And there'll be something happening in the frame that's like the movie. But they can also just not watch the movie and just look behind them and like look at the view the whole time. Right, right, right. But I think with the Muller stuff, it's his point of view, like someone outside of the cages and all that. Yeah, yeah. Different deal. But maybe that's also why his felt so traumatic to me. It's because it like makes you vaguely motion sick. And like, it's all kind of crazy. The trauma might have something to do with the fact that he's outside of a cage and he's with great whites. Yeah, that too.
It's unbelievable. No, I think the climbing stuff that we'll be shooting is sort of the other end of the spectrum where it's like more expansive, broader views. You know, a lot of it is about putting somebody in a position that they could never see. Like the Muller shark stuff feels very like intimate and tight. You're like, "Oh my God, the shark's about to eat me." It's like super close and seems scary. I think the climbing footage is more about being in a spectacular place and having super broad vistas-
I got it. Yeah, where you can like see the world around you and then also witness somebody climbing something totally spectacular. Unless we get a great white to make a cameo. (Rich laughs) We'll just see. Combine these two worlds. Yeah, exactly.
Two in a day. Shark climbers. You're in a, speaking of production, you're in LA. You're doing like "Leno's Garage"? I guess. What is that about? I honestly don't know. I just do what I'm told. They're like, "We want you to be on the show." So you're gonna go to like his warehouse and like see all his cars? Yeah, I think "Jay Leno's Garage" is where he like chats with people about the cars. And I think he's a car collector. So he has all kinds of interesting- He's kind of a car collector. He's got like multiple warehouses or like hundreds of cars, like crazy. He has one of the craziest car collections in the world, yeah.
Really? Well, so I know nothing about cars, and I have my scrappy van. (laughs) I know. That's why I find this so interesting and hilarious. But I think there's something to be said for talking about, you know, the utility of cars. 'Cause basically I don't care at all about my car, but I care about what it allows me to do and the life that it allows me to lead, like being on the road and be able to climb full time. And I'm sure that or let's hope that that's a useful perspective for his show. You know, where I'm like, "Oh, it's not so much about the car. "It's about what I get to do with the car." He's got all these crazy antique cars like steam-powered engines and all this wild stuff. And he, like every weekend, there's this spot that's not far from where I live, where a lot of like motorcyclists and car enthusiasts go. It's called the Rock Store. It's like a little bar cafe or whatever. And it's like right where all these windy, cool, like canyon roads are. So he like drives past my house like every weekend. And if you're just at the right place at the right time, you'll see him. But it's always like some completely crazy car-
Crazy car. That shouldn't, I'm like, is it even legal to drive that thing on the road? You know, like stuff like that. So I'm sure it'll blow your mind. But I'm just curious like what that conversation's gonna be like. (laughs) We'll see. We'll see. I think I might be taking him climbing too or something. So we'll just see-
Oh, there you go. How it all plays out.
Right on. Yeah, I'm psyched. Out in Burbank somewhere. Or in a climbing gym? I think Stoney Point. It's kind of historic climbing area like north of here. Oh, that's cool.
But we'll see. I don't know, like all things in my life, I'm like, I don't really know. I'll just show up, see how it goes. I'll just have a good time. Alex, you have a say in these things. Maybe. It's easier not to. Honestly, my whole life, it's like easier to just go with the flow with it. And you're like, "Cool, it's all a crazy adventure. "I'm just on the ride and see how it plays out." During the whole "Free Solo" craziness did you ever max out and just be like, "I can't, "I need like a break, "I gotta get out of here"? I think I skipped one event, like in the whole "Free Solo" film tour, which was like six or eight months of like nonstop scheduling, sometimes two events in two different cities in the same day, like something in Chicago and something in SF in the same day, which is like pretty rugged when you add the flights in between everything. I think in the whole tour, there was one event that I was supposed to go to that I was just like, "I just can't" and had to go into the climbing gym instead. And it was only because either Jimmy or Chai, the co-directors took it over for me. They did the event for me that night or something. But, you know, I felt like it was pretty solid. But then funny enough- You show up with a smile on your face. I mean, just from what I saw, you completely were 100% present for it. Well, that's the thing. 'Cause I knew it was like a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. You know, instead of looking at it as like this heinous work experience, if you look at it as like, this is a crazy adventure that I'll tell my grandkids about, like the one time I got to sample the movie star life, then it makes it not that bad because... I kept calling it my deployment to Hollywood. 'Cause I think that people being like deployed overseas for six months. And it did kind of feel like that, because it was totally different world, totally different scene. You know, I'm being taken places by car service. And I'm like, "I don't use a car service." Like I'm not used to having like a fancy SUV sitting out front waiting for me to like whisk me to a hotel, but I'm just like, "I'm just going with it." I'm doing what Brad does, Brad Pitt or whatever. I loved how North Face made a tuxedo for you, which is pretty cool. Is that where you got married, did you get married in the suit and tux? I did, yeah, same tux. Yeah, classy. And funny enough, the formal wear stuff like that actually does get more comfortable if you wear it more. Because I've only ever worn formal wear like once. And you're like, "Oh, it's so starchy and painful. "and not that nice." And then if you wear them a couple of times, you're actually like, "Yeah, it starts to break in a little." I'm breaking out the tux like once a week. Yeah, totally.
For the deployment. Dude, at the Oscars, the tux was like so tight and crisp that I felt like my nipples chafed like in the way that you read about that like with the marathon runners, like if you're running 20 miles in the rain or whatever that you start chafing in weird ways. You had an injury at the Oscars. Totally. I was like, "Oh," like I feel like I sandpapered my nipples with this like starched shirt. It was like, this is heinous. I'm sure you had some surreal conversations with people. Yeah, I know. Yeah, Sanni too, like my now wife had a, who was it? He won best supporting actor I think for like "Green Book" or I forget his name. Viggo Mortensen.
No, his costar. Mahershala Ali.
Yeah, Mahershala Ali. Yeah, Mahershala Ali. He was like walking by and basically like said hi to me and then was like turning to introduce himself to Sanni or something. And she was like holding little like appetizer pizzas in both hands and fully just threw it on the floor and was like, "So great to meet you." Had this really nice moment with him. She was like so charmed. And then like he wandered on, he had this whole entourage with like a crew. And then as soon as he walked away, Sanni's like cleaning up her pizza off the floor. You know, but it was like, "This is my chance "to meet Mahershala Ali." So it's like just like food on the floor and "Hello, "so great to meet you." Just things like that, it's just fun.
I love that, well, the story that I heard and maybe it's apocryphal was that Jason Mamoa was gonna be giving out the award, but it was like, he wanted to be, if "Free Solo" was gonna win, then he wanted to be the one to like say it. Yeah, he's a big climber.
He's a climber buddy and all that. Yeah, he's a serious climber. So it was pretty cool that he was the one who- Yeah, he was genuinely like, gave everybody big hugs and super psyched. He seems like a good dude. Dude, yeah. I mean, you know, I only met him briefly through the tour, but super nice guy. And he has like a really legit climbing wall. Super into climbing. Yeah, he has climbing walls at his house. And so we went to his house and like climbed with he and his family. And I was like, "You're really strong for a very big man." He's huge.
He's so big. How do you climb when you're that big? Well, you just have to be really strong and burly. I belayed him in the climbing gym, and it was fully, like it's like scary to catch him on the other end of the rope. 'Cause he's so much bigger than me that I was like, "I don't know what's going to happen." (laughs) Like I can't hold this guy up. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, obviously I caught him, but I like shot like a cork out of a bottle, just like shooting up. When I caught him, I was like, "Whoa." It was so exciting. I heard this interview that you did with Anderson Cooper not that long ago. And he was, he was super into like hearing about like your mindfulness practice and how like climbing is sort of like meditation in that it forces you to be so present with your environment. And it wasn't until you were extracted out of that environment and deployed to Hollywood that you actually had to like reckon with that and realize like that's part of what I miss about it. And you had to like create a practice around mindfulness and meditation to kind of ground yourself through the whole thing. Yeah, I got into the Waking Up app if you know that Sam Harris meditation thing. But I can't remember if I talked about it with Anderson Cooper or not, but recently I kind of abandoned the app and abandoned meditation. 'Cause I was like, "I just don't know "if I actually need that." Now that I'm climbing full time again and outdoors all the time.
Now, you're doing the thing. You get that in a different way. But most people, you know, they're not living that lifestyle. Totally. Well, I think for me personally, I was like, I don't know if I need to practice less attachment or like be less, 'cause like I already get very- That's not your malfunction. Yeah, exactly. That is not my problem. And I was like, if anything, I need more reasons to like care more, to like get amped up more, you know? And I was like, I think the time that I spend meditating could almost be better spent listening to like heavy rock and like thinking about climbing projects and like getting psyched. So I was like, if anything, I need to be more amped, you know? You should create a counter-programming app. Yeah, totally. For the too mindful people out there. I'm not saying I'm too mindful. I know what you mean. Because definitely, I'm far from like any actual mindful practice. I mean, a lot of it I found just as challenging as anybody else to like stay- But the activity is what gets you into that head space. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just find that hiking, like being, I spend a lot of time by myself in nature and beautiful places just kind of like wandering and in my own thoughts. And I'm like, you know, I think that works enough for me. Like I just don't know if I need to consciously spend time during my day doing that same thing when like I could just do it through outdoor exercise basically. Yeah, fair enough, man. I think that's a good place to end it. Yeah, let's go walk outside. Lay down. Cool. You can climb up the wall that's on the roof of the building if you want. I might be able to. I have to go look outside. Yeah, nice. Well, have fun with Jay. Yeah, we'll see. Just another adventure. Every day you're like, "What an unusual." It's cool. You live a cool life, man. Well, it's just nice to have variety. Variety's the spice of life. Well, good. Come back and talk to me anytime, dude. No, thank you. Thanks, always a pleasure to chat. Yeah. Nice. In the meantime, check out Climbing Gold coming into your podcast. If you want to listen to a less professional podcast. I don't know. The thing I heard was super polished. This is the thing, like the new thing with like these like really highly polished documentary style podcasts. Like that's not what I do, man. I'm old school with this. So that's like, you're on the cutting edge of like what is working and what people really like to listen to. More like the team that I'm working with is on the cutting edge. I am far from it.
Fair enough, fair enough. Cool, check that out. And Alex is easy to find on the internet. Just Google him. That's it, man, right? Yeah, that's it.
Anything else? How do you feel?
Just, you know. Very good. All right, man, peace. Thank you.
Thanks.
