I don't know, like climbing
with Shawn Raboutou I was like, That's the next generation
talent, you know? I was like, this. This is what the next generation
looks like. It's like, totally different. I think that's crazy, he’s
so good and makes it look so easy. Like his style. Like,
I don't know, it just like, looks chill. When you look at it
like you through, through your life, like who have you admired the most, in the climbing world? I mean, I have all my my sort of childhood heroes,
you know, people like Chris Sharma, you know,
I mean, Peter Croft, Dean Potter, I mean, John Bachar, Tommy, you know, all the sort of obvious like,
Lynn Hill, you know I mean, you know, the obvious names
that come to mind, like people who are, you know, heroes of their generation. I mean, even somebody like John Long
or something, you know, climbed The Nose in a day for the first time
and so much of his cool stories. I mean, part of that is growing up
in California and being sort of exposed to the Stone Masters
a lot as I was getting into climbing, I don't know. I mean, nowadays I'd say
I'm just as inspired by by all the the best climbers in the world,
the people you'd expect, you know, people like like, you know, Adam Ondra or Alex Megos,
things like that. Where you're like, they just have put in
an incredible amount of hard work for... Actually. Did you see the World Cup a while back
or maybe the World Championship? Like there was a comp awhile back
where I think Adam, Alex Megos and Jakob
Schubert were on the podium as top three and then everybody else in finals
had an average age of like 19 or something like that,
it was like totally crazy where everybody else was,
you know, below 22. And then the top three were, were each,
you know, I mean, they're each like 32 or something
and they're each like 30 ish. And you're just like, that,
that kind of shows something in a way that that they've been
at the top of the game for a while. Like working really hard at it,
you know, was like, that's pretty proud. yeah. Are there, like, in terms of just like,
the current generation or even that younger generation, have there
been people that you've that you're inspired by like inside of,
like the Mellow crew or just like, like there's just so many people
that are pulling down so hard. Are there people
in this younger generation that are either doing super creative stuff,
they're just super strong, or they're doing it in a way where you're
like, it's just a little bit better? I don't know. I mean, there's so much of that. It's hard to... I don't know, like climbing
with Shawn Raboutou. I was like, That's the next generation
talent, you know? I was like, this. This is what the next generation
looks like. It's like, totally different. I think that's crazy, he’s
so good and makes it look so easy. Like his style. Like,
I don't know, it just like, looks chill I don't know. I mean, there are a lot of people
like that, like just on my on my in my home gym. You know, I have a training board and these kids came over the other day, like Owen Whaley, who lives in Vegas, he’s
a really strong climber. And then his friend, who I think was named Brian,
like just some random kid from Salt Lake. And I told him that that I'd been watching
Jonathan Siegrist and and Ravioli Biceps basically like two professional climbers
climbing on the board and like sort of rapid firing v10s
like kind of chill. And to me that was really impressive
seeing these two professional climbers like climbing V10 nonstop on this really hard board
on the the TB2 like the tension board. It's like pretty small, holds
pretty aggressive. And so watching them,
I was like, that's incredible. So then these two kids show up, you know, like, Owen and I think Brian,
I don't know his name. He’s just a random kid. And they're like, Yeah, cool. So they put up a V10. They both did it, they’re
like that’s chill and then I think they skipped 11
and put up a 12 and they maybe didn't do it, but like,
you know, they could have done it
in like three or four tries. And then they were sort of like,
I wonder how hard the app goes. And they like put up a 13 and then tried it and then I had to like
go pick up my daughter or something. Basically I stepped out for 20 minutes. And when I came back, the one guy who I think was
Brian had like sent this V13 on the board. And it was the kind of thing where I was
like, Dude, I've been gone 20 minutes and you just climbed
like the hardest thing on the board. Like that's it was so next level
that I didn't even, you know, I was like, man, like, is that,
is that where we are now? Like, is this the new standard?
I was like, This is crazy. Like in some ways I think boards provide an opportunity
to see someone's strength and sort of skill
in a way that a commercial gym doesn't. Because, like, you know, if I
if I'd seen that kid climbing in the gym, you'd be like,
wow, he's really, really good. But there wouldn't be hard
enough problems to differentiate how much better he is
than than everybody else. Whereas with the board,
he could just crank the difficulty as high as it goes and be like, Yup,
I can do that too. And you're like, God damn, that's
that's just different, you know? It's like, I just don't even get it. That's funny. That's like, yeah, in the time it takes
you to get June from daycare, it's like he's just annihilated the entire,
like community's efforts on the board. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, Yeah, he's climbed
harder than I will ever climb in my life. I'm just like, That is so crazy, you know? Like, come on. Brian. Brian from Salt Lake. Yeah. If, if you're Brian from. If I don't remember if that was his name,
you know, cause I only met him for, like,
30 minutes. I was like, basically,
he just randomly came over with this friend of mine who was like,
this random guy. And then I was like,
Damn, that kid's strong. But if you're Brian from Salt Lake,
you know, comment on this. Like,
you know, Do you do you think we'll see like the the next grade out there is 5.16
which I think we'll see. Yeah, we'll obviously see that in the next
like five years. And then but like is 5.17 possible? Do you think we'll see that
in our lifetime? Ooh, I think that's a good question. I, Like because there's some level
where the holds just must get so small and the distance
between them must get so far, I don't know. Like, are we close to the limit? But so if you think of something like 1-5-9 having been a benchmark
in campusing for so long, you know, imagine
1-5-9-13-17-21-25-29 or so, you know, and you're kind of like,
okay, well, there's like I've heard I've heard
J Star actually say that 1-5-9 is sort of a benchmark
like the way 14d would be like grade rise or 9a like if you can do 1-5-9,
that's like kind of comparable to to 9a and, you know,
I mean, maybe something like that, like, you know, 1-6-10 or like 1-6-11-16
is just like 5.16 right there. You know, I don't know. I mean,
I think standards change, standards rise. I mean, the other day I was
I was climbing with this kid, Cam Horst, you know, like Cameron Horst,
Eric Horst's son. And and we were talking about campusing
and I was like, can you do 1-5-9? And he was like, yeah, I do. I do 1-6-10. And I was like, Really?
I think that's what he said. But it was more than 1-5-9, you know, And
I was just like, That is a lot, you know? And he's not even that tall or anything. He's not like a big guy. He's just incredibly powerful. And and he doesn't even represent
the best climber in the world right now. You know, it's not like it's not like
that's the limit of human potential. He's a really talented, strong kid. You're sort of like, man, Yeah. I mean, people are definitely going to be
climbing 5.16 within within the decade.
