Episode 40: Lowest Common Denominator
Kyle destigmatizes substance use and mental health by opening up about a two-decade-long recovery from drugs and alcohol that almost took his life in October of 2021.
Episode 39: Where the Redwoods Grow
Savannah lived in a truck for a year and learned that the privilege to electively suffer still comes at a cost, but she was willing to pay that price.
Episode 38: Are You Safe There?
Dan always knew he was different growing up, but he didn’t have a name for it. Growing up gay in rural America shaped the way he moved through the world, and it led him to believe that the outdoors wasn’t a safe place for him.
Episode 37: The Arc
Pam didn’t have a lot of tragedy in her life, so she didn’t know about the arc. And as a grieving person, it was hard to look forward to anything, especially on top of the pandemic.
Mini-Episode 10: Hope is Here
We’re back this May with ten new stories from climbers about what hope means to them. Oh, and we got a 2022 glow-up and Alex Johnson partially sings Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”.
Episode 36: The Climber & the Poet
Climbing can be, er, kinda selfish. We go up, we go down—and then we do it all over again. It’s also where Oliver and Alyssa’s interests diverge. Is this lifestyle sport so unique that it’s the be-all-end-all for relationships?
Episode 35: The Bipolar Ape
Humans are capable of acts of such bravery but also, acts of such cowardice from one moment to the next. And of course, sometimes we’re going to do terrible things and sometimes, we’re going to do amazing and beautiful things.
Episode 34: Dreamers Only
Debbie credits her resilience to her childhood struggles in Catalonia and learned that sometimes, you have to travel to the other side of the world to discover what moves you the most.
Episode 33: From the Inside, Out (Part 2)
It’s hard to sum up in just a few sentences not just Lor’s identity, but the human being that they are. The impact that they’re having on our community in a meaningful way, and how it’s growing because of it. Just by simply existing.
This is part two of a two-part story.
Episode 32: From the Inside, Out (Part 1)
Lor had to decide. They could go on hating themself, or could be a part of making the world a place that was more healed—and that started with healing themself.
This is part one of a two-part story.
Episode 31: Sober as F***
America has a drinking problem, and Ari’s story isn’t unique. It prompts us to ask the question of why we’re drinking in the first place—is it coping or conviviality?
Episode 30: The Prince
Phillip Schaal, “The Prince P”, died in 2016 after a severe reaction to a suspicious drug overdose. His story is told through Eloise’s lens and experience.
Episode 29: Cat Like a Cat
Identity is this complicated, biological pizza and we show different slices of ourselves at different times. Cat navigates his transgender identity by indulging in his community to connect with stories that go beyond his own.
Episode 28: Brittany
A forty-foot fall broke Brittany’s L1 vertebrae, sending a piece of bone into her spinal cord and leaving her partially paralyzed. But Brittany has been gritting her way through life long before her accident.
Episode 27: A Splash in the Pan
On April 16th, 2019, elite climbers Jess Roskelley, David Lama, and Hansjörg Auer lost their lives in an avalanche climbing Howse Peak in Alberta’s BANFF National Park. The margin of error for alpinism is unnervingly thin, and the truth of it all is that you are not in control—the mountain is.
Episode 26: I’m a Liver, Not a Fighter
Cedar has achieved a lot in her almost-decade of being alive—including getting a liver transplant at the age of five.
Mini-Episode 9: I Did Not Know
How do you measure something that definitively changes your life forever? Like, what kind of metrics are we supposed to be using for that kinda thing?
Episode 25: A Knot Like Infinity
Last September, North Bennett sent me a personal essay and told me that he thought it wasn’t send-y enough for most sports publications, but also a little too climb-y for others. And—that’s where we come in. As it turns out, it was actually *just* the sort of story that we’d share on this podcast.
Episode 24: The Process
Austin’s story is complicated, but life is complicated. Austin understood a lot of that, but as the pendulum in life swings both ways, he embraced both its highs and lows and especially reveled in the joy that free soloing brought him.
Episode 23: Si me muero, me muero
Jack used to do all the things, like surfing and jiu jitsu. But an incomplete spinal cord injury in 2018 changed his plans indefinitely. What’s a little neck fracture at C4 and C5, right?