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Mountaineering Training with expedition guide Adrian Ballinger
3.1k Plays3 years ago
Several years ago UA coach Scott Johnston helped Adrian Ballinger and his partner Cory Richards prepare for his successful ascent of Mt Everest's North Ridge without the use of supplemental bottled oxygen. In this episode the two of us discuss the training and preparation process for attempting big mountains, and having realistic expectations while on expedition.. Adrian is an IFMGA certified mountain guide and the owner of Alpenglow Expeditions. Adrian has lead over one-hundred fifty international climbing expeditions on six continents, and made seventeen successful summits of 8000 meter peaks. In sharp contrast Scott as tried and failed to summit three 8000 meter peaks.
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Transcript
Introduction to Adrian Ballinger
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Uphill Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, Scott Johnston, co-founder of Uphill Athlete. Today, I'm going to be speaking with Adrian Ballinger, who is an IFMGA-certified mountain guide.
00:00:14
Speaker
He's also probably most notably the owner of Alpen Glow Expeditions and has been guiding full time for 25 years. He's led over 150 international climbing expeditions on six continents and made 17 successful summits of 8,000 meter peaks.
Preparedness for Big Peaks
00:00:32
Speaker
So I think Adrian has the chops to talk about what I want to speak with him today about, which is the preparedness of some of the clients that come to both of our organizations seeking help to get to the summit of these bigger peaks. And Adrian and I have had a working relationship in that
00:00:52
Speaker
I helped prepare him for his two years ago, a sense of both Mount Everest and K2 without the use of supplemental oxygen. So without further ado, let's jump into this with Adrian.
00:01:07
Speaker
But I was very focused. I'm sure. Yeah. And you're racking up the dollar signs. Fixed wings aren't as expensive as helicopters, but they're still pretty expensive. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, mine is an old 1976 Cessna that I share with three other partners. It's pretty reasonable, but still. Yeah. It's a car. Which model is it?
00:01:35
Speaker
We have a 182, so it's Skylane. So four-seater, but enough to fly in the mountains. And to go, you know, it'll fly five hours. So for around the West, it works really well. I have it out here in rifle right now. And, you know, on days off, we can fly and visit friends and tell your idol Christ if you and things like that. Nice.
00:01:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's handy. It's been a lot of fun and I think I've realized I'm not getting any better at climbing anymore and probably not getting any better at skiing anymore, but I could still get better as a pilot. Yeah, I get it. I'm at the stage, I'm just a bit older than you are, so I'm at the stage where not only I'm not getting better at climbing, I'm just trying to slow the decline.
Passions Beyond Guiding: Flying and Rock Climbing
00:02:21
Speaker
So you're in rifle for some sport climbing, huh?
00:02:24
Speaker
I'm in rifle for the month of September, um, with Emily and, uh, having a great time, you know, really. I probably said this on my text or somewhere really since K two last summer or sorry, in summer 2019, both because of COVID and because of how, you know, my experience on that mountain and my contentedness, I sort of shifted and really focused on rock climbing for the last two years.
00:02:48
Speaker
And it's been amazing, you know, kind of climb a number of, you know, 13 A's. I climbed my first 8A, 13B this fast winter. Done a lot of big trips for them in Yosemite and we were just in Kyrgyzstan for the whole summer attempting a big free route on a big formation over there. So it's been a heck of a lot of fun, but it's been two years really of rock focus and, you know, training and it's
Training Focus: One Goal at a Time
00:03:16
Speaker
been great.
00:03:16
Speaker
Well it takes that focus as you know I mean you really and that's another interesting topic we could touch on too if you want but I certainly see that you know we have people who come to us who want to do everything all at once and you know it's that I don't know if you call it the the Killian-Jornet effect or the Uli-Stek effect is you know they want to be able to run a hundred miler and climb 514 and climb Everest or you know whatever there's this huge
00:03:46
Speaker
basket of things they want to do, which each of which would be a formidable accomplishment in your life. And as you know, the training for hard rock climbing does not look at all like the training for mountaineering. In fact, the training for mountaineering is definitely going to hurt your training for rock climbing.
00:04:05
Speaker
Exactly. I think you're right how few people kind of recognize and honor that fact that it, except for a very few individuals, it really does take a focus on what you want to prioritize and then putting the energy into that. I really see and feel that now.
00:04:24
Speaker
I've maintained a base and kept running and backcountry skiing, but really not as a priority. And that's allowed me to gain muscle mass in different places and become a better climber. And it's been amazing. But as I felt that kind of like burn growing again for going to the big mountains and doing something personally.
00:04:44
Speaker
Like, you know, I'm ready to let go of some of that rock. I mean, you know, I'm pretty sure I can remain a 512a rock climber, but I'm pretty sure I can't be a 513 rock climber while putting the focus in that I want me to. Yeah, I think that's absolutely the case when you have high aspirations. I mean, it's one thing to, you know, want to be able to climb 5.7 or 5.8 and be a mountaineer.
00:05:08
Speaker
I mean those are that's pretty compatible but once you get up into those double digits you know in the 512 and above range it takes a really concerted effort and but what I tend to try to convince people to do is use more of a serial approach rather than a parallel approach it's like okay either this year is a rock climbing focus and next year is a mountaineering focus or even
00:05:32
Speaker
Well, I've done it with folks where we do a shorter, a block, like, OK, these three weeks are going to be focused on preparing you for the mountaineering expedition with a little bit of maintenance work on rock climbing. And then the next three weeks, we'll do a block that focuses on rock climbing and with a maintenance program for the mountaineering type training. And that seems to work, although it's not ideal for either. But I think it's one of the reasons that
00:06:02
Speaker
especially in alpinism where you have all these combined sets of skills where you need to be very good technically, but you also need to have this big endurance capacity. It takes years and years to build that kind of capacity for that sort of work. And I think that's something that isn't well
Everest and K2: Stories and Challenges
00:06:23
Speaker
either understood and maybe I'm doing a crappy job of communicating it, which is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on today to talk about some of this kind of stuff. So I'm glad we're starting to scratch the surface a little bit. By the way,
00:06:37
Speaker
Whoa, would you look at that wearing your K2 shirt? I love it. Is that from like an original expedition? Yeah, that's from 1995 when I was there. Did you have you stayed in the K2 hotel?
00:06:55
Speaker
No, no, we stayed in some other place now. Yeah, so we stayed in the K2 Motel, which is a strange name for it, because it does not look like a Motel 6. Sure. But we left all of our gear there.
00:07:11
Speaker
And we came back two months later. The proprietor couldn't find my duffel bag with my sort of street clothes in it. And I've been wearing these other clothes for, as you know, months at a time. And they were, if not ready to be burned, at least need a good washing. And he was mortified. He was so embarrassed that he could not find my clothes. That he gave me this sort of awesome.
00:07:36
Speaker
I have a souvenir t-shirt for K2. And then that evening at dinner. And that's where you wore home. Well, no, because that evening at dinner, they somehow managed to find my bag of clothes. It wasn't like somebody would have wanted to steal a pair of blue jeans and a couple of t-shirts. So I'm not sure why it had gone missing. But yeah, every now and then, I break this out. And I thought, today, I'll send some talking to you. And the last time we worked together was to get you ready for K2. Absolutely.
00:08:05
Speaker
That t-shirt. Oh, that's great. I love it The only piece one of the only pieces of clean clothing I had for today. So yeah Emily and I had planned to go back to pakistan this summer that had been our intention to attempt the eternal flame on nameless tower. Yeah, and um, we had a media side to it and ultimately decided that the delta surge and the hospital availability and things like that were not a good fit and that's why we ended up kurgis thin which was also incredible, uh, but
Podcast Growth and Coaching Demand
00:08:35
Speaker
I'm very excited to get back to Pakistan sometime because you know that was my one trip K2 is such a special one.
00:08:45
Speaker
I think you would agree that walking up the Bal Toro Glacier is one of the most spectacular, it's gotta be one of the most spectacular places on the earth. Easily, hands down. Yeah, I was just walking, I'd seen pictures of course before I went, but I couldn't believe how dramatic that scenery was compared to almost any other mountain scenery I've ever seen. So it's not very accessible, but a lot of people,
00:09:12
Speaker
want to see something just that you can't see anywhere else. That's a great place to go. Yeah, yeah. You know, Alpinglow is starting to run tracks there. You know, we don't want to guide K2 personally, but the K2 base camp track is just an insane experience, just like you said. And so we had offered that this year and then canceled again because of fears of the situation, but hopefully next year. Yeah. And so you've got plans to go back to Everest, it sounds like.
00:09:43
Speaker
Say that again. You have plans to go back to Everest? I do, of course, as a mountain guide, you know, running Alpenglor Expedition's trip. It's still a goal of mine to kind of, you know, work myself out of a job on Mount Everest. So, you know, my team there is incredible with Monica involved, of course, and then Topo Esteban-Mena sort of running the team now and working with the Sherpa. And our Sherpa Sodor is really strong.
00:10:11
Speaker
And so, you know, had we had these past two years on the mountain, I think I would have been, quote unquote, retired by now. But at this point, I think I had a couple more years on Everest leading the team, both from a client marketing perspective. They want to see my name attached still.
00:10:29
Speaker
I'll be tight, you know, the trajectory of Alpinglow has been tough the last two years, financially. So me staying involved and running the trip just changes the finances of some trips. So I am planning on being there in the spring, guiding a private client and running the trip. And then I'm hoping to do a Kenshin Chungga trip personally in the autumn. So that's kind of nectar. And then we'll see where I stand at that.
00:10:58
Speaker
Never a dull moment in the world. I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying it. I love Alpinglow. I still love guiding, even though I do a lot less of it now. And so, like, going back to Everest in the spring doesn't feel like a chore. It feels like a privilege, you know? Yeah.
00:11:17
Speaker
But Emily and I are getting closer to wanting to start a family and things like that. And so there are all those balancing things. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Life is like that, isn't it? Absolutely. The dance. Yeah, exactly. Well, let's, if you don't mind, let's kind of dive into this because I know you said you're not free for too much longer, another maybe 40 minutes or so.
00:11:41
Speaker
No, I think I'm okay until, um, 4.30 my time. So that's like hour and 10 minutes. I don't know how long you like. Yeah, I think we could cover, I think we could cover the stuff I wanted to talk about, but I'm certainly open to, you know, anything else you want to chat about is fine too.
Preparing Clients for Everest
00:11:59
Speaker
Sure. I'll try not to be too long-winded. I think I did a podcast with an on net a little while ago and ended up going, you know, three and a half hours. I think no one is ever going to listen to this.
00:12:11
Speaker
I don't know, some of those, if I'm out for a long run, I enjoy those long form podcasts. I really do. Like the Joe Rogan style. Yeah, they can just go on and on and on and they need chapters and you need to have pee breaks in the middle of them. Yeah. Really quickly before we start, like how is the podcast going? Are you having good interests? Have you done that? It has been remarkably, surprisingly, let's say successful. Awesome.
00:12:37
Speaker
I don't think we're going to knock Joe Rogan off of the pinnacle yet. Another few months maybe. And this is actually the first podcast we've done in a few months because one of the things we noticed was happening when we started doing the podcast is it was driving a lot more traffic to the website and much of that traffic was requesting coaching.
00:13:01
Speaker
And we just did not have the capacity for handling more athletes. Wow. And so we had to, we've kind of pulled no more Facebook ads, no more, you know, promotion of any kind. And, and then just stop doing the podcast thinking we've got to stem this tide of demand. And, or, you know, we were just, we were kind of pulling our hair out. It was really crazy. I mean, I love doing these are fun. We always fun to chat with people like yourself and listen to, you know, other people's ideas.
00:13:31
Speaker
And so I'm eager to get back to them, but I'm going to have to see what happens when we throw this one out there and see what kind of response we get. What a great problem to have. Yeah, I guess it is. But it's still a problem. And that kind of ties in again with one of you would ask about geriatrics, you know, the old geysers. Yeah.
00:13:56
Speaker
So I don't know if you've listened to it, probably haven't or you wouldn't have asked that question, but one of the last podcasts I did was in I think late May, early June with this guy named Art Muir who we had coached and he summited Everest this year and is the third oldest person ever to summit Everest. And this was his second attempt with us and he
00:14:20
Speaker
uh that podcast all of a sudden we were getting tons and tons of requests from people who were in that same age category and you know looking to do something like art had done and I can only call it the art mirror effect now that um we and and some of the folks that we're getting which I really want to
00:14:43
Speaker
dive into with you, not some, but I would say half the people that come to us who want to climb Everest have little to no climbing experience at all. And perhaps you see the same thing in your guide service. 100%. Yeah. And so what I and other coaches who talk to these folks have
00:15:04
Speaker
tried to do is without wanting to I don't want to burst anyone's bubble and having a dream and you know a long-term goal like that is a fantastic thing but we also want to have people have sort of a realistic expectation of what it's going to take and you know many people just have because they've never climbed
00:15:25
Speaker
any big mountains at all. I really don't know what's all involved, which is one of the areas I want to dive into with you today. But I thought it would be helpful to have someone of your stature in the industry so that I'm not always the one playing bad cop and telling people...
00:15:42
Speaker
Well, instead of next spring, how about if we think of one or two springs from now, so you can have this time in between now and then to actually learn how to climb these big mountains as well as get fit. Absolutely. Are we on? Are we on?
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, we are, we are. Should I save everything or should I save everything? No, hit me with it, hit me with it. Yeah, you know, well, 100% I'm excited. It's funny, there's probably quite a few of us playing bad cop in different places, but maybe we all think we're all alone. Like a lot of times I feel like bad cop talking to people who have so much excitement and I think
00:16:25
Speaker
You know, first and foremost, like obviously as a guide and a mountain guide and someone who loves Everest, I don't want to shoot down anyone's dreams, right? People's dreams of climbing Everest or other mountains, be it K2 or Amadablam. We get requests for these really famous mountains and probably 50% of those requests are like you said, people who haven't climbed before and don't necessarily know the takes.
00:16:51
Speaker
like i love that i love that we're touching people and creating this passion through our industry or whatever our sport um but the flip side of that is then trying to persuade people to what the correct approach is to have hopefully the most fun and the most success and save people themselves and their teammates and you know i do feel
00:17:13
Speaker
Sometimes not everyone in the mountain guide industry is maintaining the same standards or beliefs those same things. And so the challenge we sometimes have is when we try to slow people down, there is always another option with going someone else who is willing to go faster or to skip steps.
00:17:33
Speaker
I get frustrated with that. And that's when I get so foxy and start yelling and screaming and things like that. And Emily has to talk me down. So there is that side. But what I always try to start with people is it's not specifically a number of years it takes to get to Everest.
Experience Through Expeditions
00:17:51
Speaker
It's a number of expeditions and climbing days.
00:17:57
Speaker
I have successfully seen someone in 12 to 18 months go from zero to Everest, but it's someone without a job, usually without a family or with kids out of the house and with the financial ability to say, okay, over the next 12 to 18 months, I'm going to do six expeditions. And in between those expeditions, I'm going to fill in with basic rock climbing training in Red Rocks or in Colorado.
00:18:22
Speaker
you know, I already have a great base of fitness from my triathlon career or whatever it was and, you know, these different pieces. But the big thing I pushed is like people always talk about wanting to hack the system and go faster, but it's not really for me about like learning how to use your crampons or your ice axes or knots to tie. It's like having enough expeditions under your belt
00:18:45
Speaker
You failed. A lot of times is what I explained to people, like enough expeditions to have been out in the mountains when things go terribly wrong and unexpectedly wrong, whether it's big storms or avalanches or sick partners or the crazy stuff you never expect, like earthquakes or political upheaval.
00:19:04
Speaker
It just takes time out there to have those experiences. And when someone comes to me, you know, when they're like, I've climbed these three mountains and I've succeeded on every one, I'm like, oh, they're definitely not ready for Everest because they haven't been out there and just gotten their asses kicked. Yeah. And that's what we need to be ready for when we're
00:19:25
Speaker
Up on Everest, you know, like, I think, you know, I've spent 13 seasons on Everest now and six of those seasons, my entire team has failed. And that might not be a great advertisement for my company, but I think I'm very good at my job and Alpin Glow is very good at what it's done. And that's how much is out of our control. Right. And that's why we have to go in prepared and experienced and check all the boxes we can ourselves.
00:19:51
Speaker
I couldn't agree more and this fellow Art Muir who I mentioned that we coached to his successful summit this year. The first time he went, I told him he wasn't ready and he got his ass kicked and in fact probably actually came pretty close to dying. I mean he could have easily been killed with the fall that he took because he wasn't prepared for that kind of thing and that
00:20:20
Speaker
Luckily, he didn't even suffer too much injury from that, but it really reframed his approach after that. He came back and went, okay, now I see what you were talking about. This is really dangerous, and I wasn't ready, and I took a completely different approach to his training. As you know, we focus primarily on the physical preparation, getting people
00:20:44
Speaker
fit to do these sorts of things. We can't do what you do by taking people into the field and, you know, teaching them skills or being with them in different situations. We're basically, you know, going to help them get fit and that's all we can do. And we rely a fair bit on guide services that we work with to, and I think we deal with the reputable guide services like yourself and who will also
00:21:12
Speaker
tell a client that they're not really ready for some of these goals that they've chosen for themselves. The trick I have, and the thing I'm, maybe this is something you feel too, is when I say that to someone, I try to couch it in terms of my experience, which is pretty 50-some years of being in the mountains.
00:21:35
Speaker
but also trying to make this a realistically obtainable process for them so that they can go through this process knowing that it's not going to happen in six months perhaps.
00:21:50
Speaker
But doing it in a way that doesn't make it sound like I'm just trying to sell them coaching for a year and a half instead of six months. Or in your case, sell them other trips. Absolutely. It's a rather delicate position. I think that you, as well as I do, know very well that
00:22:11
Speaker
These failed attempts or even successful attempts are really needed in order for somebody to have the skill and the confidence that they're going to be able to deal with even a perfect trip, let alone a trip where, as you know, on these big mountains, in your case, the wheels have come off 50% of the time.
00:22:33
Speaker
And I know that in my climbing career, my personal climbing career has been much worse batting average than that. Absolutely. My personal career as well has been worse than that.
00:22:49
Speaker
Long ago, one of my climbing partners, Charlie Fowler, I don't know if you remember Charlie's name very well, but Charlie and I were very close and climbed a
Realistic Expectations for Climbers
00:22:58
Speaker
lot together. We used to do a lot of winter climbs in Rocky Mountain Park back in the early 70s and mid-70s. We once calculated that our success rate on those was about 10%.
00:23:12
Speaker
And so I actually even wrote a little bit about this in training for the new alpinism. It was like, you know, learning how to fail gracefully and, you know, and not being ashamed of those failures that, you know, Charlie had it down to an art. Charlie would actually brag about getting his ass kicked and say, woof, I really wasn't ready for that. And I think that that's a gate that gave me a healthy perspective on, you know, these, these failures and this gaining experience kind of thing. And so I,
00:23:42
Speaker
I've been struggling, actually, honestly, which is one of the reasons I reached out to you, is to how we can convey this to our audience and hopefully, you know, some of the folks in your audience as well, that this, realistically, this could be a
00:23:59
Speaker
two-plus year process, really, for most people. And in fact, we can probably save the money because if they pay for an Everest trip that they're not ready for, that's going to cost a lot more than climbing on the doublom or a couple of other more kind of intermediate goals that they could have.
00:24:19
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, I think the money savings is a funny thing that we talk about to our clients as well. You know, a big one is, I think you might know that before climbing Mount Everest, we on our group trip, we require a client to have climbed another 8,000 meter peak. And for us, that's usually show you, although some people go to Montessori with another company and then come to us.
00:24:40
Speaker
And probably 25% of our business now is actually people who have tried Everest as their first 8,000-meter peak with someone else. And we count that towards, okay, they've attempted an 8,000-meter peak, now they're eligible to climb with us. So it's not about going to the summit, it's about having that experience like we're talking about.
00:24:59
Speaker
One of the reasons Alpen Glow came up with that, and again, I'm talking a little more on the experience side than the training side, but I think they both tie so intimately together, right? The reason so many of Alpen Glow's clients work with you, uphill athlete, is because that is your expertise is training people for these big mountains, and then our expertise is getting them this technical experience and kind of
00:25:22
Speaker
life experience to be ready for Everest. But the reason we came up with that 8,000-meter peak requirement is because, as you know, I used to guide for Russell Bryce for years for Himalayan experience, kind of one of the great legends who created guiding in the 8,000-meter peaks in the 90s, along with Eric Symons and other guides.
00:25:44
Speaker
And I've, you know, just so much respect for Russell and what I learned through those years working with him. And he kept statistics and he had an Excel spreadsheet that showed his success ratio for clients who had climbed to OU before going to Everest.
00:26:01
Speaker
And his success ratio for clients who climbed Everest without going to show you first. And the difference was something like 30% in success ratios, keeping everything else the same. And it just really clicked for me that.
00:26:19
Speaker
You know, it's not about standing on the stomach of Choyu, but it was about lessening anxiety, gaining efficiency, understanding what training is necessary to be successful marathon of an 8,000 meter peak, which no level of Aconcagua or Cotopaxi or even Denali prepares you for the length of an 8,000 meter peak trip.
00:26:45
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a good point. And I think there's the kind of life lessons you're talking about, like how to dress, how to eat, how long it's going to take you to put those boots on in the morning, how not to drop your glove or your mitten.
00:27:04
Speaker
when you're going to get the drink. There's just a million little details like that that you're not going to learn them on the Stairmaster in your gym. You probably won't even learn a lot of that stuff. Something like Rainier.
00:27:22
Speaker
And I guess tying back around, yeah, like what we always tell people is like the $25,000 or the $30,000 that Joe or you costs is a fraction of what a failed they're priced to. While you can't guarantee, you know, there will always be things out of your control. I think, you know, really what we're talking about is how to maximize that potential of success and that is, and safety. And that is controlling the things you can control.
00:27:47
Speaker
and going in with the experience and going in with the proper amount of training, those are the things we can control.
00:27:58
Speaker
You know, I, I think back to, you know, maybe one good example for me is thinking back my non-successful Everest 8000 without oxygen and my successful Everest without oxygen. You know, the, the largest difference between the two, I think was training. And that not only encompasses, you know, yes, I did train without Pilath from my second successful season. So I was cracking the whip. I was cracking the whip. Yep.
00:28:24
Speaker
But it's everything about it, right? I went in in 2016 as a very fit and capable climber, but I hadn't really yet put the time into, I think, to truly take my base building to the next level. And that
00:28:43
Speaker
Takes a long time. I mean, you know, we always talk about I think the David Gottler you're like he's still improving years into his phases right and yes, I just don't think we can underestimate the time that takes and so, you know, I think
00:28:59
Speaker
What you're doing here on this podcast and through your blog and through, I think through storytelling is the best way. Hopefully we can get that message out that like a 12 week series or a 16 week series just doesn't get you ready for Everest. You might be successful and there are plenty of examples of people who have been successful, but that successful is different, I think, than actually prepared.
00:29:24
Speaker
Right. I think that it's easy to look at anomalous data like this. You met somebody at a cocktail party or you read a story in a magazine or on the internet about some guy who went from zero to Everest in six months and succeeded. That's not the norm by a large margin. I think that that gives people this
00:29:48
Speaker
false perception of what's involved in any of these big mountains. Even Denali, which we deal with a lot more Denali athletes and clients for ourselves than we do Everest. It's just more reachable for most folks. But it's the same sort of thing just on a slightly different scale. But I believe that- It's still a massive amount of work, massive endurance event.
00:30:17
Speaker
It is, and you have to be sort of half pack animal for that thing.
00:30:26
Speaker
But when we're looking at any of these big mountains and the challenges that they present to us, I think it can be difficult for people that don't have that climbing experience or just time in the mountains, you know, these success and failure that goes along with it. They're coming from a different
00:30:50
Speaker
lifestyle they're coming from a different part of life and often these people have been very successful at other things they've chosen to do or they wouldn't probably be able to afford to go to Everest and so they think okay if I just put my mind to it you know I've succeeded at these other things and if I put my mind to it I can succeed at this and chances are they're right they can I mean we've worked with a lot of folks and gotten to the top of the of many big mountains but
00:31:16
Speaker
I think along the way, in that process, what usually happens in our experience, when we can convince somebody, okay, this needs to be a multi-year approach, where we're going to start off with, you know, if you haven't ever been on a glacier, glaciated mountain, you know, we should be thinking about Rainier as your first intermediate goal. And then we can talk about other mountains and maybe slightly higher altitudes and perhaps Denali.
00:31:44
Speaker
And it's usually during that process of attaining those intermediate goals that they go, oh, now I see what you're talking about. I'm not ready for this. They don't know what they don't know, I think. If you and I were thrown into their world, we wouldn't know what we don't know either. 100%. Yeah.
00:32:10
Speaker
I've had this talk, I guess, most recently a couple of years ago with a guy who is a very successful attorney. And I said, you know, if I came into your office and I asked your legal opinion on something, but then told you I wasn't going to do it,
00:32:25
Speaker
You think I was an idiot, right? Yeah. And I said, okay, this is just the position, the roles are reversed here. You're coming into my office and you're asking my professional opinion on, you know, your preparedness to go do an 8,000-meter peak.
00:32:40
Speaker
And you're telling me, oh, I don't need to do those things. I'm special. I can do this. And perhaps you could. I mean, like you, we don't know what people are capable of. We've seen people who we shake our heads and think, oh, my God, how did that person do that? And so it is possible. And like you, I don't want to
00:33:03
Speaker
tell people their dream is completely unrealistic, I just want to prepare them in a way so that, you know, I think if they have that long-term time horizon and perspective and they realize they're sort of chipping away at this goal with these intermediate
00:33:19
Speaker
goals along the way, they'll be gaining confidence, which I think is a huge, as you know, huge thing. And going into the climb with confidence can make a really big difference. 100%. I mean, I still think so much of the
00:33:41
Speaker
I was going to say failure, but like many times when I see a client struggling to be successful on a bigger mountain, it's because of I think anxiety, which I think ties to that confidence issue, right? Like when, when so much is new or when perhaps someone's not as well prepared as they could be or should be, whether that's learning their nutritional system, learning how to sleep, you know, learning all the ins and outs of a big expedition, or just they haven't prepared
00:34:10
Speaker
physically well enough. They haven't trained well enough. Well, that all then lends to this fall of anxiety that then makes sleep harder and nutrition harder. And it just builds and builds and builds. And it cracks people. And I've cracked under anxiety and that feeling before. But that is what I think a measured kind of slower approach can really help.
00:34:37
Speaker
what is more fun than seeing someone truly ready for the goal that they're going to achieve or attempt, even if it's still audacious, but that like knowledge that they're ready and kind of ease that that can put in that they can take the ups and the downs and the sick days or the days where they feel weaker or different things around resting as well, because there is that overall confidence. Like it's,
00:35:03
Speaker
It's so much more fun as well when someone comes into a goal like that. Yeah, I think you can't overstate that component. And as you know, in my not too distant past, I was coaching Olympic level cross country skiers.
00:35:22
Speaker
One of the things that I found to be really successful for very high level athletes like them was if they could see progress in their training. So doing measured types of workouts, you know, not unlike, you know, a track athlete would do going to the track and doing 800 meter repeats, that sort of thing.
Confidence Through Progressive Training
00:35:43
Speaker
If we could build a gradual progressive program during which they saw their times dropping and they saw improvement from time to time, the confidence just kept building and building and building. This is all pre-season, you know, before we go into the racing season.
00:36:00
Speaker
so that then when they hit the racing season they knew they were ready because they were you know they could actually we had a barometer for measuring their fitness and there's or more maybe less we weren't measuring so much their fitness we were measuring their speed but you know that was kind of the speed is a proxy for fitness but
00:36:18
Speaker
I really saw that across the board with these athletes that for them when they stand on the starting line and they know yep I got this you know I can do this I know what I'm capable of and have these realistic expectations you know maybe they're not going to win a gold medal perhaps but they although one of them did win a silver but you know they they they just be able to
00:36:40
Speaker
despite the fact that they may not be a world champion or something, they are going to be able to say, OK, I know what I'm capable of. I'm ready. I can do this. I have this confidence, rather than standing on the starting line going, I don't know what is going to happen when that gun goes off.
00:36:56
Speaker
And I think the analogy to what you and I are talking about with these big mountains of just knowing what it's going to be like to sleep in a tent at 6,000 or 7,000 meters when the wind is blowing 80 miles an hour, just knowing what that's going to feel like is really an important thing.
00:37:17
Speaker
Absolutely. It can be really scary, especially if you've never done it before. But I think that's an interesting point that specifically uphill athlete training and the programs, having these benchmarks or ways to show progression. Now, of course, only a different mount on the way can be one way to do that, right? To have these big goals, successes, like that's a fantastic way. But I also think, you know, I do think
00:37:44
Speaker
This type of training can be quite solitary. It has been for me at times in the past, and it can be hard to notice the improvements sometimes when you're just months into this building.
00:38:01
Speaker
You know, I remember one thing that really helped me was I remember my first year working with you, like, you know, in order to stay in my zones, I suddenly found that I could no longer ski with my friend Tahoe, like that country ski, because they were, you know, more in these higher zones of black holes or, you know, just as I was having to do this, like, and I remember for, for months at first, I couldn't ski with my friends anymore. And I was all alone out there doing my trainings and hoping they were doing something. But then I remember like.
00:38:31
Speaker
there was a point where, okay, I could start to ski with my friends again. As long as I wasn't breaking trail, I could maintain my zones. And all of a sudden I felt way, way better. And I was skiing in Tahoe with my fast friends, but I was there. And then finally getting to the point where I was like, oh, I can even take my turn at breaking trail now and still meet my workout goals.
00:38:55
Speaker
that was a way that I found I could finally I could see progression but making sure athletes have a way to see and feel that I think is really important. Yeah and you know one of the I think the easiest ways and we did this if you remember that there was that uh really steep hill that you used for your muscular endurance workouts part way down to Reno from your from your place. Pete divine hill I'll never forget. Looking forward another year down there.
00:39:24
Speaker
But when you do that on the same piece of dirt, time after time, that's when you were able to see like, oh, whoa, I'm four minutes faster on this climb than I was two weeks ago. That's another one of those little confidence boosters that really does help you. But you're right.
00:39:44
Speaker
Endurance training in general is a solitary undertaking. And I think it's, you know, for many people that's really challenging, especially if you've grown up doing like, you know, team sports and things like that. It's hard to kind of wrap your head around, you know, having to go out the door at six o'clock in the dark and go for a run.
00:40:05
Speaker
But I think one of, a lot of folks I have worked with have come to embrace that and say, I never, I'd read about the kind of this, you know, zen moment that runners would have, the runners high or whatever. And I even had somebody refer, this is beyond, this is before you were probably even born, but there was a really famous movie in the sixties, I think called The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
00:40:30
Speaker
It was a British film. And it wasn't really about running. It was about a kid trying to run away from a terrible life. But he used running as a way to do that. But I think that I've always thought of that term, the loneliness of the long distance runner. That's kind of the story of life for people who are training for these undertakings is you better really enjoy your own company because you're probably going to be spending a lot of time with yourself.
00:40:58
Speaker
Podcasts have made it a lot easier. Yes, they have. Oh yeah. I have to say, traction is good too sometimes. Yeah. No, I think it was when I, one of the last communications you and I had was after I was out for a long day in the mountains and had listened to Emily's Joe Rogan podcast and really enjoyed it. And I think you're right. Those types of things have made it much easier to go and spend, you know,
00:41:26
Speaker
hours doing this. And sometimes I don't want to quite, I don't want to get back to the car too quickly or I might not be to the end of the podcast. So do a few laps around the park. That's a good podcast. Do some laps around the parking lot before I head home. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I know we're kind of coming up on your time, but, or actually my time. I'm sorry, I've got another call in 10 or 12 minutes. That's great.
00:41:56
Speaker
Anything else that you think we might have skipped over or do you think needs to be re-emphasized? I think what you said earlier on that I kind of want to restate, which is the idea that we will all hear stories of people who succeed on these big mountains.
00:42:20
Speaker
maybe with a complete lack of training or a complete lack of experience or just the six months or just, you know, I know there are people out there who have just been to Kilimanjaro and then gone to Everest and probably been successful at times and like
00:42:38
Speaker
I just think it's so important. I think about this in avalanche education and avalanche mitigation a lot that a successful outcome doesn't mean you made the right decision, right? And that's one of the dangers of avalanches is so often we might be making the wrong decision in our analysis of the avalanche hazard, but we didn't get caught that day. And so it reinforces
00:42:57
Speaker
those decision patterns until eventually some very experienced people sometimes get caught. And that's possibly one of the factors in that. And one of the things I think about so much about these big mountains is like,
00:43:11
Speaker
I tied to no one needs a mountain guide on a good day on any of these mountains. But when things go wrong is when we need mountain guides, when hopefully you have a good infrastructure around you and a safety net and chose the right company that has the right resources for those times that things go wrong. And I think the same is 100% true about experience and training.
00:43:36
Speaker
things will go wrong in the mountains. And the best example I have is in 2018. I think you might remember when Alpen Glow had a failure of our oxygen systems. They're your regulators. Yes, I remember that. So did some other companies, but we lost in the vicinity of 70% of our oxygen regulators within 45 minutes of each other, all above 28,000 feet.
00:44:00
Speaker
And all of a sudden, we had non acclimatized, essentially acclimatized to a little over 7,000 meter clients, sherpa, and guides at, you know, 8,500 meters with not enough oxygen regulators to go around the whole team.
00:44:16
Speaker
And we fought for our lives that day to get everyone down. And in some way, you know, luck, of course, was part of that. But I would also say skill of the guide company and the guides and the Sherpa was part of that. And I would also absolutely say that the training and experience of our clients was part of that. That in a very scary situation where everyone was being physically pushed to their limits,
00:44:41
Speaker
Every single person on that team was able to play a role to help everyone get down safe. And those things will happen in the big mountains. And training and preparing and building experiences is what will help us all to hopefully stay safe and happy up there.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think enjoying the experience is really key because it's going to be hard enough and miserable enough a lot of the time that if you're not really ready to accept that level of discomfort or whatever and you don't enjoy that, then it's going to be a miserable trip even if you succeed. 100%. Yeah.
00:45:24
Speaker
And I think that is the other cool thing, the whole process of training and experience on other mountains, like hopefully it's an incredible part of someone's life, right? Like the vast majority of people who come to me and say, I want to climb Everest. And then we say, let's start on Mount Shasta and then go to Ecuador and then go to Bolivia and then go to, just like you're saying, build experience through these other mountains.
00:45:47
Speaker
The vast majority will actually never get to Everest and that's perfectly fine. But hope, you know, like I've watched just so many people have incredible experiences on those other mountains and find out if it's truly for them before spending $85,000 in two months of their life on the big one. Yeah, yep. One of the things you just mentioned about
00:46:12
Speaker
this graduated approach that we've been talking about here that has really resonated with me over the years is that as you pointed out, things will go wrong. And you kind of need to be prepared for that worst situation and not just be hoping that everything's going to be OK.
00:46:35
Speaker
because in those types of situations, when things go wrong, they can go wrong. Like in your case, they can go wrong terribly fast. And what can turn out, turn from, can start out as a rather benign day. Maybe in this case, it's already a pretty difficult day, but a really pleasant benign day can certainly suddenly turn into a near disaster or an actual disaster. And you, I know,
00:47:02
Speaker
You saw on K2 how terrible a mountain that is in terms of rockfall, I'm sure. I was with a partner who was nearly killed in the Black Pyramid by a rockfall that just came from nowhere. It wasn't bouncing. It was airborne and just almost took his head off. It went from being a nice day out in the mountains to two days of trying to get this guy down before he died. Luckily, we made it.
00:47:32
Speaker
It just can happen in the blink of an eye or in your case over the course of 45 minutes and having that ability to shift gears from that pleasant day out in the mountains to disaster mitigation and having a skill set that allows you to do that or even if you don't have the skill set being with people that do and
00:47:55
Speaker
be understanding how to be an effective part of that team. You've never been there before. Exactly. It would be like throwing me with a bunch of firemen in a house fire. I would love to help, but I don't have any idea what I'd be doing.
00:48:12
Speaker
That's right. I think, yeah, and it's a great thing to stress like hiring mountain guides and hiring the best guide company in the world. It doesn't replace personal responsibility or the personal need for strength and experience. And I think
00:48:31
Speaker
Like Alpin Glow is like in our mission statement, it's to develop competent team members. We're not saying every single person needs to go out and plan their own Denali expedition and go there. That's not Alpin Glow's goal, although we love it when someone's trying to get to that point through our programs. But to become a competent team member takes time and it takes experience and it takes effort and it takes training in fitness. And that's all our expectation in our goal.
Guiding Philosophy and Contact Info
00:48:59
Speaker
So let's wrap this up. Where can people get
00:49:04
Speaker
more information from you, your website, or can it follow you on any social media? Yeah, thanks. You know, so my guide company is Alpin Glow Expeditions, and you know, our whole reason for being is to take people for human-powered climbing and skiing adventures in the mountains, and we love the big mountains. So our website, of course, and also on Instagram, Alpin Glow Expeditions, and then my personal account is Adrian Ballinger, and it's kind of a mix of my own climbing as well as being a mountain guide.
00:49:34
Speaker
It was a great place to follow. Well, Adrian, this has been really helpful. You've bolstered my confidence that I'm not being the complete bad cop here when I tell people these things. Keep up the good fight. Yeah, I really appreciate that. Because like you said, sometimes you feel like kind of the lone ranger out here. But I'm glad that you've had similar experiences. And I think we're
00:50:01
Speaker
definitely on the same page with regards to this approach. And I hope that people can take away the real message that you and I are trying to impart here is not that you shouldn't aspire or even try to climb these mountains. It's just that you need to be ready. And now we've discussed how that readiness can happen because there is a way. We were all beginners at one point.
00:50:26
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's, it's one of the most fun stages, I think we were talking earlier about me flying. I mean, part of me flying is being a beginner again and feeling that progress. And so, you know, I think it's something to embrace and to own like in those early phases of mountaineering career and to put the effort in the sport will certainly give back for that. Like we know, you and I have both developed a life around mountains and it's worth it.
00:50:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think that the excitement of learning, learning something new, especially learning it in a fantastic environment like the mountains offer. Well, thanks again, Adrian. It's been a pleasure catching up after a long time of not really seeing each other, but I really appreciate your taking the time. I'll let you know when we're ready to put this thing out there. That sounds great.
00:51:21
Speaker
I look forward to sharing it and hearing it and really enjoyed the chat. Yeah. And hopefully look forward to working with you again. That can be a separate conversation, but I know how busy you all are, but I hope we can make it work. Yeah, I hope so too. We'll definitely have that talk in the future. Maybe do a little persuading.
00:51:47
Speaker
Thanks for joining us today. For more information about what we do, please go to our website uphillathlete.com.