Should You Just Try Harder and Climbing Culture with Jonathan Siegrist - Testpiece Climbing #162

For me, there's two things that are critically important to any climber that wants to climb things faster. One is that if you can visualize the movement from the ground to the top of the route, every try is a redpoint try. And the reason I say that is because the best possible training you could do for a route is to climb on the route amuert, right? Just go as hard as you can. And so the sooner you can get to that phase, I think a lot of people delay those actual tries until they feel like every bolt to bolt feels perfect and there's nothing weird. But ultimately, I think you're spending more time than you need to. I think as soon as you know the route, you go. And then the second thing is just eliminating hesitation. Chris Sharma is an amazing climber to watch, and he kind of sets the bar. And Adam Ondra is this way too, honestly. They hesitate almost never. If you see Adam Ondra and he's trying, he's not like, 'Oh, am I going? Is that where my foot goes?' I feel like even if he puts his foot in the wrong spot, he's just sticking with it. He trusts his gut. A lot of times even when you see him redpointing stuff without much practice on the route, there is probably some improvising that's happening. But I would say that depending on where you are and how hard the route is, eliminating the hesitation has more value than getting everything perfect.

This was actually kind of a short trip. We were there for just over five weeks. But you're right in saying that we spend a lot of time there, my wife and I. So we actually two years ago got French residency, which has allowed us to stay and come and go basically as much as we want. But yeah, the last couple years, the last two or three or four years, I've been there a lot. It's just like for what I like to do, it's the best.

I know. I realize that probably is going to sound like... No, it's the truth because that's what it takes to climb at the highest level and to put your time into these hard routes. You don't push your limits over a weekend. You push your limits over a month plus.

Yeah, no, I'm not French either. They have a really interesting program where basically if you can... it requires a lot of paperwork. I actually hired a lawyer to help with the whole process, especially because I don't speak French, and most of the paperwork you submit has to be in French. So it's definitely advisable to hire somebody. But yeah, they have a really compelling visa that applies to people in the realm of science, sports, or art. Short story is that if you're able to make a really sound argument that you need to be in France to do said activity, or make breakthroughs in the realm of science, or do some incredible art project, or some sporting project, they will grant you short-term residency. You don't get it for life, but you get residency for a little while. So it's pretty cool. There are little cracks. In Spain, for instance, you can get a one-year visa if you can prove that you work remotely and you're making enough money to satisfy Spanish minimum wage, then they'll let you stay there for a year. There are ways to make it work, but unfortunately, I think the whole visa process in Schengen is getting a lot more strict. It used to be just a stamp on your passport, they would flip through and check the stamps. But now starting, and I don't know the exact date, but I want to say this summer, basically all the Schengen countries are coordinating digitally, so it's going to be way more strict now as far as the 90-day period. I remember back in the day some pro climbers would overstay their welcome, but there was wiggle room where you would maybe depart from Spain because Spain seemed to be a little more chill. But I don't know if I want to put people on blast who maybe got some privileges revoked. But it happened. You couldn't just dirtbag forever in Europe and flaunt those rules.

Brutal. Yeah. So it is a thing, but if you're really ambitious about spending more time there, there are ways to make it work and do it totally legally.

Yeah. So, I mean, you're totally right in that Arco is a legacy crag in Europe for sure, and in Italy. I think it's kind of between Finale and Arco. Those are the legacy crags in Italy. And it's hosted a lot of incredible competitions over the years, but also the outdoor climbing, the pretty high-level climbing in Arco since the 80s has been crazy. So I don't exactly know what happened. I mean, there's a phenomenon that takes place, and I assume this happens in bouldering too, but in sport climbing, I feel like certain areas become super popular and are kind of crazy for a few years, and then for whatever reason, there's slightly less emphasis on that area and it kind of doesn't go all the way to obscurity, but it might go to something much more chill, and then the wave comes back and gets crazy again. Arco, I have a feeling too because there's so much... Excalibur has been in the spotlight a lot, and I know right now there are four really strong, all capable climbers that are trying it. So I have a feeling that it's going to get climbed a bunch, or not because it's very hard. So who knows? But I think Arco could be coming back into the spotlight. And I can't tell you exactly why it kind of faded away. I think it was probably just because Catalonia had this insane resurgence of hard routes when Chris moved there and started bolting tons of stuff. There have always been really ambitious climbers in Catalonia, really pushing it. But I think it had this period, maybe 2008, 2009, something like that, for about 10 years it was the place to go. And then it kind of felt like a lot of the emphasis moved back to southern France. Certainly, bibliography helped that motivation. And it's funny, because I'm mentioning all these super hard routes, but it is true that there's a correlation between an area getting a lot of attention because of a hard route. I mean, it's the same with Red Rock. Very few people are going to come to Red Rock and try Return of Sleepwalker, but that being so much in the media, in the forward space of the media, and drawing everyone's attention, it does... It's the same with the Olympics going to LA. I'm not going to be in the Olympics, but I might see so much imagery having to do with LA and it might motivate a trip. And so that's why I think some of these hard routes are relevant even for a 5.12 climber or a 5.11 climber.

Oh man, I mean, it's true. I've probably spent maybe two years of my life in Catalonia. It's a place I am totally in love with, and certainly close to that in France. I was in France for like six or seven months in 2023 and five months last year. And then in Italy, now we're all motivated on Italy, my wife and I, and myself included. And they're all totally unique places. I think that what I really enjoy about Catalonia is the density of hard routes is crazy. The style of climbing there is probably of all the areas my favorite style. It tends to be really pumpy, kind of longer routes, less bouldery. Your bouldering level can be a little bit lower and you can do kind of harder routes generally. I mean, it depends on which crag you're at, but the routes just tend to be fun and kind of user-friendly across all the grades. And the lifestyle there, the people, the attitude is awesome. It's undeniable. It's really friendly, really welcoming. It's a place where... and it shows. People go there. I think that if you were to offer up those three countries as a vacation climbing spot, most folks from the US at least would choose Spain because the vibe is just crazy. But then there's southern France, which is also a unique vibe. It's amazing. It's a little more green, a little more lush. And the rock quality is totally psycho. It's 10 out of 10. In my opinion, Ceuse and the Verdon basically set the standard for rock quality in the world for sport climbing. So in that regard, France is undisputably king. I remember my first international climbing trips. I went to the Verdon in 2012 and then to Ceuse shortly after that, and I was totally blown away by the raw quality. My next climbing trip was to go to Spain, and I can remember the first few days showing up there and being like, 'Dude, this rock sucks. What the hell? This isn't like insane, just perfect rock all the way from the ground to the anchor.' And then I completely fell in love with it. You learn to love everything about the style, the attitude there, and you completely erase out of your memory the fact that there are three bolts of choss at the start of some route. But to finish up that thought, Italy has become really interesting because I've traveled there much less than Spain and France. So there are not only cliffs I haven't even explored, but there's rest day stuff that I haven't done. There's so much to do in the country. It feels like culturally and from a scenery and landscape perspective, it's probably the most interesting. It's crazy. There's just stuff happening everywhere. And it's also really dense. Northern Italy is really dense population-wise, so there are more villages and museums to visit. And as far as the climbing goes, I almost feel like it's the perfect style, where you have the tufa climbing, you have the gritty, mix-and-match of different styles, and you've got the pumpy stuff, but then you also occasionally have these insane pristine cliffs with perfect rock like you find in southern France. They're all so interesting.

Yeah, you're nailing it, dude.

Totally. Yeah. I mean, actually, Arco for instance is lower elevation than Ceuse, or probably even lower than some of the stuff in Catalonia. But you're absolutely right that in Italy, and northern Italy in particular where most of the climbing is, it's really diverse. There's a little bit of everything. But Arco in particular is most certainly Italy's best resource when it comes to sport climbing. It's an enormous area. The guidebook is massive. I think the guidebook has like 80 crags that are all within the realm of Arco, within an hour drive or a 45-minute drive. So I think it's something I was really impressed with when I first went there because Ceuse is a monolith. It's one enormous crescent-shaped cliff at the top of a hill. There's certainly other climbing nearby, but Ceuse is like you do the same hike every day and you walk up and there are hundreds of routes all next to one another, and it's insane. And it's still in my opinion undeniably the best cliff in the world. But what's so interesting about Arco is that you can go to this place and you can pick almost any style you want. You can be like, 'Oh, I want a long, pumpy overhang tufa route that gets shade in the afternoon,' and there's a crag for that. Or if you're like, 'Oh, I'm really into this super short, bouldery, sharp crimp situation that gets shade in the morning,' then there's probably a crag for that. None of the crags are huge. They might have between 10 and 30 routes for the most part, but they're all really unique in character and they're all really close together, which is fun because you can go on one trip and pick different character routes based on what you're feeling each day. Or even if you have a partner that wants something totally different, you can combine two things in a day.

For sure. And I think that's a great next part of the conversation. It's funny. For so many years I was going on these trips, two to three months before I was together with my wife. I would just do three months all the time, and then I was doing a lot of trips alone, so I would cut them down to maybe two months or one and a half months. And I always felt this sense of time pressure. It always kind of got to me. In my mind, there was a part of me that said, 'Oh, if I just didn't have any time pressure and I could just live in this place, I could do greater and greater things.' That really was the stimulus that led to me getting residency in France and thinking about being there more long term. But in reality, I went and spent a big chunk of time in France in 2023 and also last year quite a bit. And what I discovered is that for me, as much of a dream as it is to live in these places, I think for me, especially being 39 years old and really pushing myself and knowing the type of environment and resources I need to do my best, I realized that it's kind of better to go for just six to eight weeks. The big reason for this is that most seasons last two months maximum. As the season changes, you either need to move or most of us would retreat into some kind of training and prepare for the next season. It just didn't really make a lot of sense for me to stay through the off-season waiting for the next season. If I was living in a truck or van, I would just move, which would totally work. But if I was going to live in an apartment in a single place, staying beyond one season started to feel like all those things I rely so heavily on, like my training resources, body work, physical therapy, my friends, and a sense of something else going on in my life other than just going to the cliff every single day. I was starting to feel like I'd be better off going home to recharge during those in-between moments and then coming back. I don't like all the air travel involved with that, so I try to cut my trips down to only twice a year maximum. But I do think that ultimately it's going to yield better results because what I found there is that the gym culture and training culture is very tough. We're used to an incredible standard in the US. I think that especially in France, the standard is really low in comparison to what we have. In Italy, it's better, but you're not going to find a gym that's properly air-conditioned in the summer, so you just have to make do. Basically, all these little things I felt like I was compromising on. And on top of that, you're spending extra money and time to be there. So it just made more sense for me to come back to the States in between trips and recharge, train, and be with my friends and family.

Totally. I know. I start to feel like... It's funny because when I came back from this previous trip to Italy, I was so broken. I saw my massage therapist and my PT, and within a week I was already like, 'Oh dude, I feel bad. My arms are working better and I'm not totally crooked and messed up.'

Yeah, to some degree I do think so. For a few different reasons. For one, what I found when I was in France for so long was that I love to see new crags. I've traveled so much and been on the road forever, and it sounds kind of crazy, but it's a novelty for me to go to a crag I've never been to before. To climb a totally new warm-up is really exciting. So it was impossible for me to not feel tempted when I had basically indefinite time. I'm like, 'Oh, I'll check this place out, check this place out.' So for one thing, having time pressure... For me to climb near my limit, at 9B level or at my limit, unless everything is perfect, that's going to be one month minimum, not including a potential week or two of bad weather or my skin going. So if I've got a five or six week trip, like the one I had in Italy, there are crags there I haven't seen yet that I would love to go check out. I'd love to just play around on random routes. But I trained for this route specifically. I arrived knowing I had five weeks plus a few days. So from day one, I didn't even think of doing anything else. I just only tried the one route. And if I had extra days where the weather was bad or I felt like I needed a break from the route, I would use that to train in a way that was targeted to help me progress on that route. So yes, I think that in the end it makes things more stressful, especially in the last week or two if you're still going for it and the weather's crazy and your time's running out, which always happens to me. But I think that overall it can actually really help you get things done. I say the same thing in large part about people that are on the weekend warrior program. I think that sometimes that can be the best schedule because during the week you just don't have time for outside climbing, so you're training. You're always kind of pinned to these training days, which is awesome if you can keep that up. And then on the weekends, you've got one thing and you're probably really focused on that one thing. A lot of times it can be really conducive to sending. I felt kind of similarly on trips like this where I'm reduced to an amount of time and I know the end is coming. A big mindset shift for me that I inherited from stronger peers or mentors was this concept of when you go out, you're going to do the climb. You're not going to kind of check it out. I mean, maybe if you're really looking at your limit and you know it's a long-term project, but when you have some kind of reduced amount of time, it was just this different shift in mind of, 'We're going to go see this boulder, and we're gonna do it. Not just go see it, we're gonna do it.' I think you can extend that thought process even to, 'I'm gonna go there for five or six weeks, do the route, not just check it out.' I think all of that gets amplified too when you're systematically training and preparing for it. It makes it easier to make that decision. If I were just going to go on a trip tomorrow unexpectedly and I showed up in Italy, there might be a route that I wanted to try, but it'd be way easier for me to be like, 'Oh, I have no responsibility to one route.' But in this case, I trained pretty targeted in January and February. So even when it feels like things aren't going right, I'm always thinking back to, 'No, I owe it to myself to stick with this thing because I invested all this time. This is my plan and I'm going to stick with it.' So it could be the same as what you were just saying, where when you go to the boulder and all week you're thinking about it, it's probably easier for you to stick with it than if randomly somebody's like, 'Oh, let's just go climbing today.' Then it feels more like, 'Oh, I'll do whatever strikes my interest.'

Yeah, so the route is called Arabore. It's a 9B in Arco. It's at this very cool little crag that's quite small and really historic. It has a couple old 8C+ from Bendhammer, I believe. They're like old school, some really hard 8C+ from way back in the day. But it's this cool, 40 to 45 degree overhanging wall. It's not terribly long, but it's got this little hermitage built into the mountain. You've probably seen photos of it before, with people climbing and in the background there's this little tiny building that's kind of built in and sheltered by the overhang of the wall. The reason I got psyched on this route, the first reason, I think typically I would have thought of it as being a little too bouldery and short because the bulk of the hard climbing is like 30 moves. But my friend, Gabriele Moroni, who I've climbed around with quite a bit, he's an amazing Italian climber. We're in a similar generation and we share a lot of values. He's a very cool guy and a strong climber. He recommended the route to me after I saw him in Ceuse. He recommended it while he was trying it, and it kind of went a little more on my radar. Then when we finally made plans to go to Arco, that was top of mind for me. So we actually went to Arco last fall and I tried a different route because at the time I didn't feel like I was quite in the best shape for that type of route. But at the end of the trip, I ended up trying Arabore just once to get an idea for how I could structure my training. I think that can be so helpful, to know exactly the holds, exactly the moves. So yeah, then we came back during the winter and I took some time off over the holidays. Then in January and February, I was doing a ton of board climbing and really trying to get my power and my bouldering at a level that I felt was sufficient to climb this route.

Totally it is. The last route that I did of a similar level to this was a route in Ceuse called Le Tronc Rivière d'Argent, and I spent a bunch of time on it in the fall. They couldn't be any more different. That's like 40 plus meters, enormous runouts, the full package, hard until the very end. It has bouldery sections and small holds, but the angle's more reasonable. It's not insane. I think for me, I've really thought about my priority in my climbing for a long time now, almost from the perspective of collecting redpoints. I almost consider it similar to that of a collector, somebody who's trying to check things off. I see it in two different ways. One is that I have a project in mind and it's a place on earth, and it draws me to that place. I get to collect the experiences of being in that new place. In this case, it was Italy, a place where I've spent relatively small amount of time. So there are all the cultural aspects, learning about people, the food, the environment, the way they climb. That's all a collection of amazing experiences adjacent to the climbing. But then I also think about it more broadly. Of the 9Bs that I've climbed, one is quite bouldery, but the others were all way more in this longer, more pure enduro style or strength endurance enduro adjacent. It felt like it would be cool to challenge myself in this new way and round out my collection by trying something that was a little more on the other end of the spectrum. I've tried to do that a couple of times, but this, as you said, felt like a big risk because it's not my best style. I'm on a relatively short trip, and it's overseas, a place that takes a lot of time, money, and energy to return to. But I tried my best.

Totally. No, absolutely. I think all the various climbing disciplines have a big range of styles and things they can offer, but I would argue that sport climbing has the largest range. Something like Excalibur is a sport climb. It's 18 moves long and you clip twice. That's a sport climb technically. But then there's also something like Chilam Balam, which is 70 meters long and takes a full hour to redpoint. Those two things are sport climbing. What else is sport climbing? Something short and steep on granite, and then something on... The other thing that's interesting about sport climbing, given we're mostly talking about limestone routes here, but you find it on volcanic tuff, granite, limestone, quartzite. All these can offer a really unique experience and set of holds and challenges. So yeah, I like thinking about it that way. I like thinking about this collection that I'm seeking to amass, all the different specific climb experiences, and then also all those climb-adjacent experiences, whether that's going to live in Barcelona and climb in Montserrat, or living in my truck in the middle of the desert out at the Pop Tiret or whatever. Very different.

Oh, dude, for sure. I really enjoy that aspect of it. I learn so much too because I think each culture... I even feel like I learn a lot when I hang out with young whippersnapper boulderers too, because climbing has so much in climbing culture, and I think everyone has a different way of approaching rock. So, yeah, I mean, there's no question in my mind that generally speaking, Italians seem to take things really lightly. For the most part, Italians are having fun, sometimes loud in an endearing way, enjoying themselves, and just kind of at the crag. Certainly, people are occasionally taking it really seriously, but I enjoy that kind of playful approach, a lot of laughing, a lot of joking around. I also thought it was really cool to step into the student mentality again. We've become really good friends with Stefano and Sara, Stefano Ghilfi, and we stayed in their apartment because they were in Spain while we were in Italy. That was really cool, even to train in Stefano's little dungeon. Brooke was there as well, trying Excalibur, training in the same spot. But it was even cool to see the way he put holds on his wall and the type of circuits he made. It gave me ideas for things I could do. In the past, in both Ceuse and in Spain, I've climbed with Jorge, who's one of the absolute best climbers in the world as well. To see the way he has this maniacal training, this crazy... We'd get down from long days in Ceuse and it'd be 11 PM and he'd hangboard for 90 minutes. That crazy, that early 20s, 90-plus insane vibes. And then there are also people you run into that are really high-level climbers that take it really chill and rest more and have a way more kind of mental approach. They try to change the way they attack routes mentally more so than physically. So it's hard to really pin down any big differences between the three. We never really experienced too much of the training culture while we were in France because near where we were living there are no gyms. When we traveled to go to gyms, in full honesty, they just weren't something we'd want to go to again. So I never really got a big experience for that. But in both Spain and in Italy, in Siurana and in Balaguer, near Santa Linya in Spain, there are these little grungy but awesome gyms. After climbing, everyone goes there and tops off their session, using the boards and all this stuff. So it's just so fun to see the different ways that everyone approaches climbing and training and where their mentality is with it all.

It's absolutely. And just from my experience, all the best Spanish climbers that I've climbed with, it's more than just a phrase. It truly is a lifestyle for sure. I mean, it's something that they... I often think about your climbing level and then how much of that level you're accessing in the moment. A role model for me forever has always been Tommy Caldwell. I've climbed with him a ton of times, and I always felt like at any given moment, assuming that there's the right stimulus, he can access 101% of his strength potential. His try-hard is crazy. I've seen him turn it on and you're just like, 'Whoa.' We tried the Dawn Wall together in 2012, and watching him up there in certain moments, and then even just bouldering or whatever, you go from being somewhere down here to just suddenly being there. I've experienced that certainly climbing with Jorge and also with other Spanish climbers. I just feel like they're accessing every ounce of their strength potential. They have the ability to try really hard, to eliminate hesitation, and to go full on into whatever project they have, which is really admirable. It's awesome. It's a difficult thing to maintain, but it's definitely part of the culture there. Something that I found I really loved on the really long limestone climbs, I'm going to just say Spain because it happened there a lot, is that when you have a really long climb, I feel like you get into these deep levels of try-hard. You go to 98% of your pump level, then you get a little rest, it comes down to 92%, and you just keep redlining. If you go 100%, even if you have a big rest, you may not drop back down to 85% anymore. But just continuing to bump into that absolute level is a whole different kind of try-hard that's different than putting your all into one lock-off. I love that deep dive that is unique to sport climbing for me, at least.

Yeah, totally. I mean, that's a really difficult balance. I think for me, it just depends a little bit. First of all, it depends on the style. I feel really strongly that strength endurance climbing, Arabore is a great example where there are basically 30 moves, some of those moves are very hard, some are hard, but none are easy. So when I was falling on move 26 or 27 of the 30, it wasn't because I was pumped. It was just because there's this fatigue that you start to incur when you're doing that really high-level strength endurance type stuff. For me, at least my process, it's very hard to train strength endurance because it feels so specific for that route. So you'll go through these really long periods of just hammering away where you're getting one move or a quarter of a move farther every couple of days. As long as I keep seeing slight improvements, even in my sensations, I can keep going in that kind of realm for a while. It's not always fun, but I think that's part of the process. For instance, on Arabore, I probably one-hung the route on day six or seven. I did the route with one fall, and then I didn't send until day 23 or 24, something like that. So there was a long period, probably at least 10 climbing days, where on paper I was basically doing the same thing, but I could feel that I was getting just ever so fractionally better. Because of the style of the route, I would continue that way. If I was trying a super pumpy route and I was falling off with my arms flamed at the 10th bolt or 15th bolt out of 20, and I didn't make improvements after a couple of rest days, then I would go back to, 'Okay, I need to refine. I need to make some part of this more efficient.' But ultimately, it is a really hard thing. This is part of the reason why sport climbing can be so difficult. We only get two, or if it's really short and bouldery, maybe three or four good quality tries a day. So it's hard to know. It always feels like a conservation of energy type risk management situation. Do you want to use some of that potential energy for the day to figure out something new, to stop early, to do a low point, or do you want to use that to have another good try? I think everyone has to figure it out. I know climbers who refine all the time, and that works pretty well for them. And I know other climbers who never refine and just beat their head against the wall. So it's kind of personal.

Totally. Yeah. I think my two... and you absolutely nailed it. I think ultimately we all like to send things faster because then there are more things to climb. We often pin this idea of doing things quickly with progress, so we're all trying to do things faster or a certain grade faster. For me, there are two things that are critically important to any climber that wants to climb things faster. One is, as soon as you know your beta well enough, the thing I always say is that if you can visualize the movement from the ground to the top of the route, every try is a redpoint try. There is a period of time in the beginning of trying a new route where you need to figure things out, find the most efficient way, figure out where to clip, extend the clips, do all that stuff. But as soon as that period is over, and sometimes it could be two tries depending on how hard the route is, every try is a redpoint try. The reason I say that is because the best possible training you could do for a route is to climb on the route amuert, right? Just go as hard as you can. The sooner you can get to that phase, I think a lot of people delay those actual tries until they feel like every bolt to bolt feels perfect and there's nothing weird. But ultimately, I think you're spending more time than you need to. I think as soon as you know the route, you go. And then the second thing is just eliminating hesitation. Chris Sharma is an amazing climber to watch, and he kind of sets the bar. And Adam Ondra is this way too, honestly. They hesitate almost never. If you see Adam Ondra and he's trying, he's not like, 'Oh, am I going? Is that where my foot goes?' I feel like even if he puts his foot in the wrong spot, he's just sticking with it. He trusts his gut. A lot of times even when you see him redpointing stuff without much practice on the route, there is probably some improvising that's happening. But I would say that depending on where you are and how hard the route is, eliminating the hesitation has more value than getting everything perfect. The sooner you can get to that phase, the sooner you can just feel like, 'That's where my foot goes. That foot sucks. I hate putting it there, but if that's where it's going, then I'm putting it there and I'm doing the next move,' versus trying to feel it out and, 'Oh, should I go back down?' All that stuff is just a big hindrance to doing things quickly and efficiently.

Stuff like that, I haven't done that really too much in the past. Like if I were ever going to try Action Direct or something that was so much boiled down to... I don't want to belittle the rest of Action Direct, but I think a route like that and many others are boiled down to largely one powerful move or one very specific move. I think that I would emulate, try and emulate that move as best I could. But like in the case of this, I think the key factors for me are angle, which essentially means how much body tension you're going to be using and what kind of engagement you're going to need. Hold type: pinches, crimps, pockets. Certainly when it comes to pinches and pockets, I feel like you have to be really specific with those things. And then the third one is duration. So those three things to me are everything. So how steep is it? What are the holds like? And then how long, how many moves or how many minutes are you going to be on the wall? If I can try and emulate those three things the best I can, then I feel like that is kind of generally speaking, I get 95% there without having to actually try and set the exact things.

I agree that can be the trickiest. Normally if there's a video from Adam Ondra, I just watch that and I trip all the time. No hesitation. I'm so slow, dude. I'm so slow. No, when I say duration, I try and think about number of moves as opposed to timing because you're right, that would be like some kind of level two info that you would have after a campaign when you're going back the next season. But as far as knowing not a ton about it, knowing the number of moves is generally a pretty good start.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And we did actually extend our trip once. There was a hard date that we needed to be back in town. So we pushed it to the limit because we had to be back on the 29th and we left on the 27th. So we basically had like one day at home before we then left again on a different trip. But yeah, I mean, the last three or four trips I've had have always ended up like this. And really things coming down to the end. One of the really memorable ones, probably the most memorable send of my entire life, was climbing Stoking the Fire in 2023 where the end date was very strict because I was getting married. So I could not push it. And that ended up coming down to the actual last day, last try situation, which is totally insane. My experience has been that I tend to perform pretty well under those circumstances, but I hate the pressure. I don't like it, but it tends to work out, which I'm very grateful for. It doesn't always work out, but it tends to work out. But I kind of just, if I can remove that pressure, I think I just wake up every day and I'm just a little bit happier person than if I wake up and I'm like, 'Three days left, the weather sucks today, so it's actually two days.' That kind of situation. And that's basically the way it ended up with Arabbor. We had two weeks left. So we were there for like three weeks. I had a breakthrough try where I kind of told you I was hitting a wall and then all of a sudden I broke through and had a try where, to be honest, I think that I had a piece of beta refinement, a tiny little thing that I changed that if I had that information before that try, I think I would have sent that try, but I didn't, and so I fell kind of on the last hard move. And then after that, we had two weeks left and the weather just completely shit the bed. It got much warmer and also it started to rain, and Arabbor is known to be dry pretty much all the time, but even that route got wet. Several holds were wet for quite a few days. So I was able to climb on it, but the conditions were never perfect. For instance, one of the main cruxy parts has a pocket and that pocket was soaked, so I couldn't try. I did the best I could with the amount of time I had left, but it became pretty clear that I was at the mercy of all these various factors lining up. And it ended up somehow all coming together. The route was dry. I felt good in my body. The conditions were decent just the day, the second day before we were going to leave. So I got the send that day and then I was able to support Shaina on the following day and just have a fun climbing day. But it was definitely close. To give you perspective, we were fully bought into the idea of going back in the fall. I had no like, 'I'm going to do this route tomorrow.' I was like, 'I'm going to give it one more try tomorrow and then I'm going to train this later in the fall and come back.' And that kind of helps alleviate some pressure, too, to be like, 'This isn't the actual last day. It's just it would just be very convenient if it happened today.'

Yeah. I mean, I think with any pursuit in life where you're really pushing yourself, doubt and confidence are always at odds. I know a lot of climbers, and typically they're young, that have a lot of success with hyperconfidence, you know, like, 'Oh, next try for sure. I'll just do it next try, or tomorrow. And then I'll go try that other thing in the afternoon.' And I just have not had a lot of luck with that. I think that maybe occasionally it goes that way. But part of the problem with accruing all these various experiences on climbs is that it can both benefit you because you've seen it come down to the wire and it's worked, but you've also seen all kinds of... I've experienced everything. I've experienced being like, 'Oh, I know I'm going to send this try,' and then I fall, I get a crazy split, and then the weather changes, and then I never do the route ever. So I think that what I try and do is I try and guide my optimism based on the experiences that... I try and bend my focus on the experiences that are the most optimistic, and that can really help me. But as I've gotten older, I've definitely gotten way better about still really wanting a climb or a trip to end the way that I want it to, but having a better sense of like, if this doesn't work out, I'm not going to hate myself. I'll come back and I'll try again and I'll give it my best, or I'm also looking forward to this other trip that I have coming up, and this could be good training for that. I think I've been a lot better at kind of... I don't even want to say self-love. I want to say more like not self-hate, if that makes sense. But no, man, it's tough. I always talk about this. I've talked about it a ton of times, but to do your absolute best, you have to really want it. That's the bottom line. There's no way that you can show up every day and just not care and it's going to work out. That doesn't work. So you have to really want it, but at the same time, too much attachment is actually going to be a hindrance. A big part of overcoming these obstacles is being able to find the balance between the two: to wake up in the morning and be like, 'Okay, today is fucking important because it's the last day and I really want to try, so I'm going to take care to eat a great breakfast, rest well, pack my bag properly, take the water I need, whatever, all those things.' But at the same time, you have to also have it running in your mind like it's not the end of the world if I don't send today. It's fine. And that balance is really hard, dude. It's so hard.

I think that as I mentioned earlier, having access to really specific training is important for me. What I mean by that is, as I kind of have mentioned, if I have a project that's coming up, I really like to have the resources to be able to say, 'I think that the Moon Board suits this crux the best,' or 'I think that having access to a Treadwall is the best,' or 'having access to a good hangboard setup or whatever is the best.' So I think that that trial and error over the many years, I've learned the different tools that work really well for different things. And I almost feel like in some ways my toolbox has shrunk, but at the same time I implore so many different things. So I don't know exactly how to describe that. But that, and then a key piece... when I talk to climbers in their late 30s or early 40s who don't get regular body work, I'm like, 'How on earth do you train?' Because dude, I do stretching and self-massage and stuff daily. But more than that, if I'm in town, I see my massage therapist. If I'm training, I'm seeing him like once a week or once every two weeks. And yes, it breaks the bank, but the amount of benefit I see, the extra hours I can put in training, even just waking up in the morning and feeling refreshed and feeling that extra piece of motivation to train, that is massive. And then the obvious other things, too. Nutrition matters way more than it used to. I'm crazy lucky because my wife is a nutrition therapist, so she has that totally wired. And then the last one I'll say, which thankfully is becoming common understanding now, is that dude, I just don't drink. I used to drink way more in my 20s. I would have a beer or two every night, especially on a climbing trip. And I'm not going to lie, I always joke because I say I'm not quite to the point of saying I don't drink. If someone offers me a drink, I'm not going to say I don't drink. I'm most likely just going to say, 'Oh, no thanks, I'm okay.' But at this point, I'm probably having a drink like every three months, something like that. And it helps immensely, I have to say. It just helps me sleep better, helps me recover better. If you're 24, you can probably do whatever you want and it's fine. You don't need massage therapy. You probably don't need the perfect gym. You don't need to watch your macros or anything. But I feel good, man. I feel as good as I did 10 years ago. I just need to pay attention to those aforementioned things and take an extra rest day every week. That's kind of it.

I think all those things... I just get more and more dialed with nutrition, sleep, body work. I actually... something I'll just say is typically as you get older, you do have more disposable income. It's just true. Usually you get things figured out, and I encourage people who are older to spend money on themselves in the sport that they love. Get coaching, get a nutritionist, get body work. What are you doing? Why not? It's different when you're 18 and you're like, 'I eat at McDonald's because it's the cheapest.' And it's like, okay, I get that. Something that I have been leaning into more that's been helping me is recognizing what it really means to be your best and being more honest and not just leaning into the things I like. I like trying hard, Jonathan. I like really hanging it out there. But then, I was climbing in Font with Carlo Traversy, who actually isn't super young anymore. Sorry. I think he's just a year or two younger than us, honestly. And he had his kid there, too. So he's got a baby. He's got a gym, dude. And Carlo, really physically strong. Always has been. He looks like a ball of muscle and uses it to his advantage. But as I watched him climb and talked with him, I watched him do The Big Island and something sick. It was the hardest send I've witnessed, or hardest boulder I've witnessed. And, you know, great climb. So I'm watching him and I think of him as just being burly. I mean, when I saw Carlo coming up too, he was burly, and I came out of gymnastics and I always love seeing people be strong because who doesn't? But then as I watched him climb and as I've been around people at that level, what I really have noticed is just the attention to nuance and details and not always just saying, 'Oh, I'm just going to put in some Metallica and try harder this time.' So all that is to say that as you get older, I think you become more aware of what it takes. It could be nutrition, it could be sleep or whatever, and being willing to put in that extra effort so that I really do my best. And I have not historically cared about conditions so much about skin care. I just want to show up and do my thing. And I think now, after having been exposed to all the pieces of the puzzle it requires to really climb at whatever one's limit is, I'm embracing the things that maybe before I just wanted to try hard, wake up hungover, but I'm going to try hard anyways, don't care, and just have whatever success I have. And now, dialing in my system, kind of like what you were saying.

Yeah. The other thing I will say that maybe isn't a performance thing but I think is really important is that when you have those days where everything does line up and all those percentages did stack and you're feeling good, maybe you're with your buddies. Just those days where you really feel in your body and good, of course utilize them, send, but also just recognize that you have less of those as you get older. And there's a finite amount of good days, and not just good where you send, just feeling good. And I really cherish those now. And I go, 'Oh, it's not just that.' Sometimes I'd have a good day and I would think to myself, 'Man, why can't I always be like that? I should be this strong always.' And now I just am like, 'Oh man, I feel great today. This is fun.'

Yeah. I think that holds true for even the young guns that send their first V16 and it's like, wow, that's no joke. And just reminding them, or trying to remind yourself if you are that young gun, that these highlights aren't forever. Whatever it is, it doesn't always have to be the hardest grade that you've ever climbed either. You will have highlights where you're like, 'Wow, I didn't die. That was never going to forget that one. That was great.' But I like the idea of kind of making space and just enjoying. And something... if you talk to any of the... I'll often get to meet some young guy who just made waves, a young guy or girl who just made waves, and I'm talking to them about it right, and they're on fire, they're just sending, sending, sending. And I often am like, 'Hey, why don't you take one more rest day?' Just like, it's often when everything is going great and you're feeling really strong and you just want to throw yourself against everything. And you can ask any of them, I'm always like, 'I know this is old man advice. I know the last thing you want to do is take one more rest day, but just saying, it probably won't wreck your streak, but an injury would.'

Totally. Well, you've been a professional climber for a long time, and somewhat recently you stepped into a new role at Arc'teryx. You're the Climb Captain, right? When did you start doing that and tell me a little bit more about it?

I just love this idea of someone who's been part of a brand for 17 years. Jeez, man. 17 years. Because it gives you the ability to look at both sides where, you know, a kid comes on and they think to themselves, 'Well, what I'd like is a million dollars a year. I'd like to do nothing and just climb.' And that sounds great. And then when you're there long enough, you kind of have, you can see the other side of things where it's like, 'I know that's what you want. Here's what brands need. Here's why they need it.' And it also just makes me curious, what was it like being a professional climber 17 years ago versus a professional climber today?

But I do think that what you hit on was really important, where there's no... I don't know if you call it like a middleman now between yourself and the people who may consume news or media about yourself. And I often advise younger climbers to think of themselves as kind of a brand. And I don't... that doesn't mean I encourage them to put on a mask and try to be something that they're not, but just to really know that when you hear this person's name, you're like, 'Oh, they are like this.' I mean, because I think back to those early years and you talk about Chris or Joe or Dave Graham, I have these images in my head of what kind of characters they were, and some of that was maybe crafted by people who help put that media out, but now we're really able to just tell our own story. And, you know, I do podcasts, things like that. Well, yeah. What would be some of your advice for people who are coming up through the ranks? We often talk about how being strong and sending hard is necessary, but it's not sufficient to be a professional. So any advice to people who are looking to kind of follow in your footsteps, man?

Well, and that's why I think it's so important that when you do have your own personal brand, it doesn't have a fake mask or something inauthentic, because otherwise the brand's not going to... you might sign up, you might have your heart set on some brand giving you money, but it's not going to work in the long run if you're faking it. You're not going to last 17 years. So, dude, a thousand percent. And I think my biggest piece of advice to anyone who is ambitious to have a career in climbing is to authentically tell your story and to share your story. And here's the thing, you might change as a person, but as long as you're always true to that person that you are, that is real. And no matter how hard people try to cover up and change their personality online or fight really hard to act a certain way to be perceived in a certain way, after a few seasons, a few years, that's going to fade away and it's going to be really clear what's really going on. And I think part of that authenticity, in my opinion, is people want to know the ups and downs of what it means to push it. And if you're only showing up and you're only showing your face when things are going really well, sure, that's great for headlines and it gets you on the 8a homepage and whatever. But the juice and that real authenticity, in my opinion, is also showing up when things aren't going well, talking about those things. Like when I'm deep in a project and I've been trying it forever and I feel like there's no way I'm going to do it, I look to the stories of people who overcame similar situations. I don't like to see that some person just easily did something in a weekend. That's not motivating me to try harder on my project. What's motivating me is to hear about that person, even if it means they're just climbing 5.13 or whatever, that put in this epic battle and when it felt like there was no way that it was going to turn out in their favor, it did. I'm like, 'Oh god, that happened to them. Maybe that could happen to me.' I'm not going to all of a sudden be inspired by learning that somebody did something in a weekend. How does that relate to what I'm doing right now?

Totally. And I just think it can feel difficult to share those parts of you that feel more vulnerable, but in the long run, it's so much easier to just be yourself than it is to try and be someone else. Because I can't tell you how difficult it is to be a different person for more than a couple of months. So yeah, that's my biggest piece of advice. And one other very small thing that's critically important: if you want to start a career in climbing and you want to be basically in business with a brand or in business with other aspects, you'll learn a lot about business, about yourself and marketing and strategy and all that kind of stuff. But dude, communication, 1000%. Respond to that email right away. If something is asked of you, if somebody is like, 'Hey, we need some photos. We're doing this thing or whatever.' And you're trying to stand out amongst a bunch of other people, dude, show up. I can't tell you... there are people that have gotten incredible opportunities simply because they're the ones that answer the email in a timely way. They're the ones that send in photos. They're the ones that show up on time for the event. They're the ones that write or review or give feedback on the product or whatever in a way that's robust and interesting. That goes a really long way. And I will say that from the inside looking out, brands are just going to prioritize that kind of person over the person that sends the NAR, but only writes when they need shoes and they don't write for any other reason. Maybe if you're Adam Ondra, but if you're not the best climber in the world, you need to communicate with these people. Tell them what you're up to. Not just when it's like, 'I need a rope,' and that's the only time you communicate.

Definitely. Yeah. And I think again, this especially pertains when people don't know you. If you're trying to make an impression on folks, put yourself... if you're a young athlete who's ambitious to have a long career in climbing, put yourself in the shoes of that person that you're trying to communicate with at the company. How many emails are they fielding every day? You've never seen their inbox, what they're dealing with. How stressful is their day and their time? What are the considerations? What are the demands of them from the brand? And all of a sudden you're like, 'Oh, I'll write back. I can make it to that event. Yeah, I'll sit at the booth and here's a couple photos you can use or whatever.' All of a sudden they get that email, they're like, 'Holy crap, you just made my job so much easier. This is the person I'm going to go to next time.' Versus if they're constantly trying to get in touch with you and there's nothing happening, and then at the last minute you bail from an event or you can't do the clinic or whatever, those kind of things really... you know, it makes their job easier or harder. And ultimately, I think that's going to matter a lot on this idea of having a long career in climbing. You've been an athlete, you still are an athlete with Arc'teryx, and maybe with others before this as a professional athlete. But we can't climb hard forever, except for maybe Bill Ramsey. What do you think about aging out of being an athlete? I think you told me Arc'teryx... I mean, they made this opportunity for you, which seems pretty congruent with you being an athlete, but just can you speak to how one can have longevity in a career as a climber who maybe can't always send the... maybe it'll be V18 next. Hamish will probably do V18 within the next couple months. You might be right there.

I would argue that you have much greater than a PhD when you've done something for decades, and it's also much more rare because climbing at a high level, especially in a specific discipline, and working with a brand or with many brands, you do acquire a lot of wisdom. But I think what you're saying that's really key is even when you're young, having just an awareness that not just that this is fleeting, but that you're acquiring more in your life and in your skills and your repertoire of knowledge than just a hard move or a lot of hard moves in a row. And something that would be hard to tell 19-year-old you or me is that actually you may not want to just climb always every day forever. And totally still love climbing. I still go on these trips and I come back and I'm plotting my return to Europe. But yeah, life grows and your maniacal focus which gets you success can wane a little bit, or not wane, but it can go in ebbs and flows. So just being open to the idea that perhaps you can contribute in a myriad of ways. I mean, I do a podcast.

You're just saying this because you just got done with a 9B send and you'll have the itch come back in a couple of weeks. What is true? What do you have your sight set on? I know you had said, 'Hey, I want to make a little bit of space to enjoy the previous send,' but I can't help but just poke you a little bit and wonder, because you get to look at the whole world. You get to say, 'Okay, what do I want to train for for two months and have a trip to?' So, is there anything that you're looking forward to?

I'm just wondering, have you or do you know anyone trying Supreme Jumbo Love? After Seb came and did it and put up 15C here in America, I was just like, 'Do we have someone that...' To me, that's the Just Do It of our age. Having a Frenchman come and put up a... it was a 14C, now it's a 15C. I was just wondering if you have any...

Well, that's like Jade. Maybe a couple of Jades on a rope. There you go. Couple of Jades. Yeah, I think it pretty much is. I think it's like a V16 or V17 boulder than it is even as a route. Well, just because we said something about Seb and you talked about China really early on. I've been watching those videos of Seb on some of that rock in China. It looks good. It looks really good, dude.

Yeah. I was in Yangshuo in 2010, I want to say, and sick, dude. I probably just missed you. Yeah, it was dope. I went with Ethan Pringle, and this is... I'm not putting words in his mouth, he said this, but this is 15 years ago so I don't know if he would still say it, but he said that he thought it was the best limestone he'd ever been on in the world, and he was still pretty well traveled back then too. So god, it was good. So fun. That's a good memory. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it is really good. There's tons to do there. I love hearing about new stuff, and like I said before, going to new crags for me is a novelty and something I get to do pretty rarely. So whenever I see a photo, that's probably the best thing I get from Instagram, is not only seeing what my friends are up to and congratulating them and following their stories and their ups and downs, but also seeing that photo where you're like, 'Wait, what? I've never seen that. That's crazy. Where is that?' Trying to figure out where it is on Google Maps and everything. I still feel like a kid when that type of thing happens. Gotta catch 'em all, dude.

How do you go from good to great? Oh, man. I think it is patience and dedication. Yeah, I think you got to be patient. There's no shortcut. And if you get that ingrained in your vibe and you recognize that a 1% improvement every year is eventually going to be pretty awesome. And then I think the dedication aspect, just like the more time and energy that you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it for sure. Both as a reward, but also as shows in your improvement. Gosh. Yeah. Mike, drop on that because there's just no shortcut. And even when you see kids who are great in the sense that they're climbing very hard, I wouldn't say that they're great yet because they haven't really reached their limit. And maybe they're great compared to those around them, the generation before them who are weak and didn't get to stand on the shoulders of the generation before them. But really, there's no one that I can think of that we think of as being a legend that don't really confront the hardest stuff in their physicality, in their minds, and the rock, and just grind away for their whole life, really. So, I love that, man. For sure. Yeah, I totally agree.

Yeah, thanks a ton, man. I really enjoyed it. I think it was fun to talk about a number of things I feel like I haven't talked about before, and I really value that. It was great.