Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Voice of the Mountains: Shift Your Understanding with Lydia Bradey (Replay)
2 Playsin 16 hours
Voice of the Mountains revisits one of its most memorable conversations (originally recorded in 2024, with a new intro from Steve House): Lydia Bradey, the New Zealand alpinist who in 1988 became the first woman to climb Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and who would go on to guide six successful Everest summits, more than any other woman in history. We're re-releasing this episode because the conversation was simply too good not to share again. Their discussion centers on a single, deceptively simple distinction: the difference between doing what people say you cannot do and doing what people say you should not do. Bradey traces her path from a self-described "wild child" raised by a single mother in New Zealand, through formative big-wall climbs in Yosemite and a near-fatal, avalanche-riddled epic in the Indian Himalaya, to the slopes of Everest itself, where she describes climbing "super altitude" not with dread but with pure curiosity. She and House dig into the bitter aftermath of her ascent — when senior male climbers on her own expedition publicly called her a liar, and half her teammates died descending the mountain — and how she navigated the threat of a ten-year climbing ban while quietly building a new life and career. Throughout, Bradey returns to themes of curiosity over fear, rejecting blame culture in favor of personal agency, and the idea that mastery of small, unglamorous tasks — sharp crampons, melted snow, a well-organized tent — is what earns a climber the right to take real risks. Asked how she wants to be remembered, her answer is unexpectedly modest: not for the summits, but simply as good company.
Recommended
Transcript
Surviving the Himalayas: Lydia's Avalanche Experience
00:00:00
Speaker
Two-thirds of a person. That's the line I missed the first time we ran this episode. Lydia got to talking, an hour or so in, about a near-death epic in the Garhwal Himalaya, the year before she became the first woman to climb Everest without bottled oxygen.
00:00:16
Speaker
She and her partner had been buried in six avalanches, and they had maybe 24 hours before the them. And in the middle of that, almost in passing, almost ah as if she didn't know what she was saying, she described the thing that kept them alive.
00:00:34
Speaker
They did not blame. Not the storm, not the root, not each other. And because they did not blame, each of them could bring what was left of themselves to the problem.
00:00:46
Speaker
Two thirds of a person plus two thirds of a person, she said, was enough to get down the mountain. I didn't hear it at the time, and I hear it now, and that sentence is one of the through lines of this whole show.
00:01:02
Speaker
So what I want you to listen for on this re-release isn't Lydia's Everest story. That story is well told, but it is not, in the end, the most interesting thing she has to say.
Guiding Life Principles: Beyond Blame
00:01:15
Speaker
What I want you to listen for is the moment a young woman on the side of a giant Himalayan peak that is trying to kill her decides that the only resource she has left is the choice not to collapse into blame.
00:01:29
Speaker
Listen for the moment that decision becomes the architecture of an entire life. When we first recorded this, I thought agency was a gift the mountain gives you.
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm not sure that's right anymore. What I've come to believe and what the rest of this season kept telling me in one voice after another is that agency is not the mountain's gift.
00:01:53
Speaker
The mountain is just the place where the agency you already had becomes visible to you. What you do with it after that the long descent that is the rest of your life, that is the actual work.
00:02:06
Speaker
And Lydia has been doing that work for 38 years. And I think she knew on the side of that mountain what I am only now beginning to understand. So listen for the moment and tell me, what did you hear?
00:02:31
Speaker
If you're enjoying the show and want to take the next step in your training, join our newsletter and receive a free four-week sample training plan. Head on over to uphillathlete.com slash let's go, and once you sign up, you'll instantly get a link to try out some of our most popular training plans.
00:02:48
Speaker
It's a great way to get a feel for how we train our athletes for big mountain goals. Check it out at uphillathlete.com slash let's go. That's uphillathlete.com slash L-E-T-S-G-O.
Introducing Lydia Brady: A Pioneering Climber
00:03:01
Speaker
From Uphill Athlete, I am founder and CEO Steve House, and this is Voice of the Mountains, where we explore the philosophy and humanity of mountain sports. This is where we ask ourselves who we are, what we learn, and who we want to become as a result of our adventures.
00:03:19
Speaker
This is Voice of the Mountains.
00:03:24
Speaker
It is my great privilege to have Lydia Brady joining me today. Lydia is a world-class climber and mountain guide who fell in love with climbing as a teenager in her native New Zealand.
00:03:36
Speaker
She quickly rose through the climbing ranks and did a lot of first ascents worldwide from Yosemite Valley to the United States to Pakistan, China, and the Antarctic Peninsula.
00:03:47
Speaker
One of her crowning achievements came in 1988 when she became the first woman to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen. Lydia is a physiotherapist, an acupuncturist, an inspirational speaker, and a sought-after ski and climbing guide.
00:04:03
Speaker
She has led groups in Europe, Kashmir, and Kyrgyzstan, and she has guided ah and she has guided her let's see and she has guided her guests to the top of Everest no less than six times more than any other woman in history.
00:04:20
Speaker
For her contributions to climbing, she was appointed an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit at the 2020 New Year's Honours. don't know. that do you Do you have a title I should use, Lydia? Should call you Lydia, Madame, ah Your Highness?
00:04:37
Speaker
No, no, Highness is way too high. ah I mean, you from the top of Everest, I don't know. it doesn't get higher than that. and i think we'll work on that on the on the podcast.
00:04:49
Speaker
Okay, great. we'll work on your title. ah Lydia published her book, Going Up Is Easy in 2015, recounting her accomplishments and the challenges she faced in her several decades of climbing.
Breaking Norms: Lydia's Career Highlights
00:05:02
Speaker
Lydia, it's it's really great to have you. Welcome to Voice of the Mountains. Thank you. Oh, thank you for inviting me to come and join you on this quite inspirational sounding podcast.
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's a different kind of adventure. It's a little bit more of an adventure in ideas and reflection and and vulnerability and um sharing.
00:05:27
Speaker
And I think that I have a feeling that you have a lot to share with her with our audience. before the ah Before I ask the first question, I want to just sort of be honest right out of the gate.
00:05:40
Speaker
I'm, I'm fast. The reason I had you here is that I'm fascinated by pioneers and you have been a pioneer simply by how you've lived your life, and but also how you've climbed over many years. i did, did,
00:05:54
Speaker
hard climbs in my career, things that people thought were impossible. But there's a huge difference between doing something that people say you cannot do and doing something that people say you should not do.
00:06:08
Speaker
And you have been a person that has sort of systematically, seems like, and what I see from your career and your life, dismissed the should nots and just been more of a why not kind of gal.
00:06:22
Speaker
You know, I think, does that does that reflect it or does that, um how does that land for you? Am I am i reading too much into your personality?
The Everest Climb: Challenges and Triumphs
00:06:31
Speaker
mean, we've only just met, we've never met in real life. But when i you know, remember seeing you on the cover of Summit Magazine in 1988, you know, um with an article about your climb and so on. you know, I mean, I was a 17-year-old kid really interested in mountaineering and climbing, and I was just like, you know, like you had gone to the moon for me. Well, that's amazing. ah
00:06:59
Speaker
Thank you. ah When you're reading this out, I sort of feel as if you're describing somebody else, I've not had the huge first ascent list that quite a lot of people have had. ah But thank you.
00:07:18
Speaker
and Perhaps well I've done a few things in the Himalayas in my early days that I maybe shouldn't have done. But when i'm i'm actually I'm going to riposte with a question so that I can answer my your question more specifically. And And that is when you say should not, do you mean should not in social terms? Like, I didn't have a permit to climb the route that I was on on Everest, for example.
00:07:48
Speaker
yeah um I was, a I didn't know about that. What I was thinking about was that you should not climb Everest without oxygen. okay You know, I mean, 1988 was only 10 years after 1978, Reinhold and and Peter climbed it without oxygen for the first time. And they had been told that they were going to come down and be vegetables for the rest of their lives.
00:08:14
Speaker
And, you know, I don't know how many people had climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen between 1978 and 1988, but I bet it wasn't very many. And, you know, that still feels very much like a place, you know, yeah. I mean, let's go back to 1988 for that matter. Like, you know, it was very different and in these places.
00:08:39
Speaker
And I think, I mean, I can say like i was there too, but as a young man, it was chauvinistic and the the attitude towards women was... evolving, but it was it was better. It was different. I don't want to make this about your gender either. I mean, I want to make this about your experience, but your gender is one dimension of your being and your personality and who you are. And you must have been having people tell you that you that you shouldn't do these these things like climb Everest without bottled oxygen.
00:09:14
Speaker
Well, it was quite funny because on Everest, we were a joint New Zealand Slovak expedition. And as you say, the politics, ah the way of climbing, everything was quite different.
00:09:26
Speaker
For example, in the olden days or the golden days. Yeah. ah then ah you know you had a liaison officer always. You still have a liaison officer. so But in those days, and you'll know this, your liaison officer was there in case you couldn't climb the route that you were wanting to climb. In Pakistan, these Americans changed the route on Gashabrom 1 because the the glacier below the beginning of their route had been mined because was on border disputes between Pakistan and India. And that's a good reason. And so the DA's and the officer gave them permits like that. And so, um you know, so things were dynamic and actually decisions were made in in that space. um However, we,
00:10:16
Speaker
did go to Everest with the ambition to climb it without oxygen. This is me and my New Zealand team. And the joint the Slovak team also had the intention to climb Everest without oxygen. They had a much greater heritage in climbing than we had and a different route in mind, you know, the southwest face of Everest. So the only...
00:10:42
Speaker
The only two-hour face you shouldn't climb Everest without oxygen was just that sort of general, well, good luck, but, you know, it's pretty hard.
00:10:53
Speaker
Who knows what's going to happen? I hope she'll be all right. I'm sure they people said that and discussed But, you know, we were pretty strong. I mean, in those days... You know, the French, everyone shared fixing of ropes on Everest. And so the French ah and another team, they they fixed the ropes through the ice ball, which in the ice ball was much smaller because there was more ice. So as I think it was as maybe at least half ah for of just disrupted terrain. And fixed the...
00:11:26
Speaker
fixed largely fixed the ropes on the Lhotse face. So I was fixing the ropes on Lhotse face for the Bois Nomel, a normal route with the Slovaks. And so we got strong.
00:11:41
Speaker
you People were carrying loads in those days. We were carrying loads up to Camp 1 and Camp 2. I mean, we had four shippers and nine c climbers and two different routes. So, ah yeah, you I think maybe it was more of a vibe of possibilities.
Curiosity as a Driving Force
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:06
Speaker
And that's not saying that the people who go to Everest now don't have that. No, that's not saying that the people in the world who are climbing don't have that. It's just that probably they go to other places where there's more of a vibe of possibilities, which is now why you're seeing you know people turning up to Annapurna, you know men and women, and climbing it in 15 days without oxygen.
00:12:34
Speaker
you Just you know the the vibe of possibilities has shifted as it does in all climbing, whether it's rock or ice or ice skating or traveling to the moon. Yeah, it's just human. and And what I think drives this is curiosity. So everyone is a climber at base camp in 1988.
00:12:58
Speaker
When I started guiding, and this is just a wee sort of sortie into the future, if you like. When I started guiding and I was at Everest Base Camp, and I was like, I met ah a team and they were Italian and they were there to try to climb Everest without oxygen or something like this. Or another team was there to try the West Ridge. And I was like really inspired. And I came back to my guiding guiding posse. My big expedition with quite a few guides and there was a total disinterest.
00:13:28
Speaker
And I was like, how can you be disinterested? This is really exciting. This is people trying really, really hard and it's going to be really interesting. but But there was a whole guiding world and they're interested in other guides and how other guides are doing it and the ethics of how they're doing it and the strategy of how they're getting their clients up. They're fascinated by that.
00:13:48
Speaker
but they weren't engaged by climbers being on Everest. So there was this two different worlds and I was kind of standing at the crossroads going left and right, just going, this is ah amazing. so That's really interesting. Editions change, yeah.
00:14:05
Speaker
And then on a micro level, you know, we these guys on my expedition, these Slovaks, you know, i said, oh, when I met them um on the walk-in to Everest, I went funny, and I go to Peter Bozik, who had just put up the magic line on K2 in 86, wasn't it, when all the 50% of the people on K2 died in a big, bad year. And and I said, oh, I didn't know that at the time. And I go, oh, hi, and have you been to the Himalayas before? And he goes,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ah vior new root south face blah blah blah with door new root east ah peak kenchin jungle with door new rot you know and ah everywhere he'd gone
00:14:43
Speaker
to eight thousand metre peaks he'd done the first de descend yeah and us so you know the they they were experienced Then, as the expedition went by, they throw occasionally they'd throw out a line like, ah, you know, mountains not a good place for women. Then they'd go, but you're very strong. you know And I'd be going, yes, I've earned my place.
00:15:11
Speaker
And so it was super interesting that this very chauvinistic, if you like, cohort of men, there were four climbers, Slovak climbers, and two of them, they were kind of, they were really nice, and they were but that was sort of quite staidly chauvinistic, if you like.
00:15:34
Speaker
as As were my New Zealand team. flat ah But the other two, I made two of the best friends I'd ever made in my life. you know, it's Peter Bozik with the Magic Line in K2 and this guy called Yarrow Yasko, who' much younger. And they were funny and they were curious. And this is what connected it. And if you say what drove you to climb Everest without oxygen, people ask that, of course, And I just go, well, I'm a climber to begin with.
00:16:05
Speaker
So climbers are always curious about things. And could it go in the area which is your strength? And my strength was just the plod, plod, plod.
00:16:17
Speaker
You know, I'm a high altitude hiker. You know, I can plod my, I could plod my way up and I could plod my way down and I could look after myself on a steep snow slope and keep going and keep going and keep going. So there's my strength. Technically, I'm not a whiz kid. I'm not, you know, super hardcore. I have to do things cerebrally and not... and sort of endurancey, but not super techy. And so that's my strength. And and then I could explore the the mountain world in that way. So they were curious about their climb, and I was curious about that climb. And it's this curiosity that that drives the whole, drives this questions of your podcast, you know, what are we, you know, what what do we learn and where do we want to go with our lives?
00:17:06
Speaker
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. so I mean, thank you for that. I mean, for, there's a bunch of things that you just said that I'd love to follow up on.
00:17:18
Speaker
I want to start by you know, by saying that the, the, the, the little line of, of prose, ah the muse, if you will, for our episode today is that good journeys end with your understanding of yourself shifted.
00:17:36
Speaker
And, you know, I think that this is one of the things that unites mountain people. I don't care if you label yourself a plotter or a sport climber or a mountain runner or whatever it is, is that, you know, you, you, as you said, you're, you're curious and, know,
00:17:55
Speaker
What is it do you think? What is it? Tell me more about that. Like, what is it that you're actually curious about? Do you think? i mean, curiosity is a broad thing that that, you know, you're curious, you say you're a climber, you're just curious as to what you can climb and how much or what is the cure? What is the curiosity?
00:18:13
Speaker
ah I think the curiosity is always shifting and it's a really dynamic... It's it's a thing, you know. So one day if I... Well, when I go sport climbing, when I come to America, I'll be curious about how I'll do on that rock or... It's... it's
00:18:33
Speaker
um and you And you know this. i mean, you're curious. That's why you have this podcast, because you you've been it gives you authority to ask people a whole lot of things. So it's it's ah ah it's ah it's an approach. And i um I don't think I'm telling you this. I'm just saying it, you know, because I know you already know it. But it's an approach that I think is one of the biggest things that we can give people if you have you've got children or ah people that you mentor or ah people who seek inspiration. It's just like you have it. Just start with curiosity. And other people call it engagement. and or In order to learn from you, in order to be curious, you need to engage and you just get so much more back.
00:19:18
Speaker
i to To take it down to a like a microscopic level and to apply it to my ascent of Everest in 1988, I remember sitting at Camp 3 on the west face of Lhotse just going...
00:19:35
Speaker
Looking up at the upper slopes of Everest above the South Cole, and I'd been to 8,000 metres on Gershaprum to the year before, ti Alpine style, but you know only going from a bar at Space Camp, so I so can't say that I climbed to Alpine style, and feeling really strong.
00:19:57
Speaker
And I'm just going, look at this. You know, it's it's just a simple mountain. It's a simple New Zealand mountain. It's just, you know, snow and rock and you walk up the snow and la-di-da. But there's this big challenge up there and it's invisible. And it's how hard can it be? And it's not like, oh, how hard can it be? It's like, well, it's got to change. You know, it's going to change. It changes when I get to 8,000 metres what's it going to be like? How will I how will i react?
00:20:30
Speaker
How can I manage it? You know, what's it going to be like? What's it going to be like? What's it going to be like? So it was just this massive curiosity because because I'd set myself up really well. I wasn't having to deal with, oh, I haven't drunk tumor enough or, oh, I'm not fit enough or I'm not acclimatized enough.
00:20:49
Speaker
Everything was pretty fat. i was I was feeling good and I was really strong. and So it was a luxury to be able to look up there and go, oh, how hard can it be? Not how hard can it be, but what's it going to be like?
00:21:04
Speaker
I
Motivation, Safety, and Mastery in Climbing
00:21:05
Speaker
love that. But, you know, what is it about your mindset that – said, how hard can it be? Instead of how hard can it be? You know, like, what is it? hadn her i I think I'm going, how hard can it be? Okay. So it's, ah that's a really,
00:21:26
Speaker
how yeah Yeah, it's not like, ha, I can do this. I mean, absolutely not that. Right, okay. it's it's this It's kind of going with the curiosity thing is what's it going to be like?
00:21:42
Speaker
yeah how hard will it How hard will it be? English language, you know. ah Yeah, how hard will it be? And then what's it? Well, you know, I...
00:21:53
Speaker
I'm lucky enough to grow up ah with somebody who encouraged my curiosity. And I've always seen it as a thing. We come back to this again. ah Yeah, I've always seen it as a thing. So i um treasure it. You know, I value it as opposed to being there going, I can't think how hard, I shouldn't think how hard will it be. I should just think I can do it. I can do it.
00:22:20
Speaker
ah They're just different motivating factors. i mean, you've got to pull on, you know, you've got to pull on that drive of I can do this or i can do this and get down or I can get down from here. You know, you've got to draw on that anyway because you need to motivate.
00:22:32
Speaker
mean There's so much motivation and discomfort. Yeah, that that's a good point. I mean, that was always, that was very often something that I so have said to myself in my climbing where it's like, yeah, I can get down from here. So why can't I just go a little bit higher? you know And I think that that is one of those tricks. Yeah.
00:22:54
Speaker
one of those tricks um an analogy would be i've used this with in-person coaching in the in the weight gym before when i know what some what my what or just with my training partners in the past when i used to train a lot and i would i would they would be like okay put put such and such a weight on and it would be maybe close to their pr but not over and i put put more on without telling them and it would be a personal record for them, but, and they would do it because if they had known mentally that, oh, this is a personal record, it would have created all this anxiety and it would have reduced, you know, and they wouldn't have, they, they, they would have self-sabotaged, right? So when you have that, know,
00:23:43
Speaker
that's a great mindset to have where you're like, yeah, I can, yeah i'm I'm okay right now. And I can, i can get myself out of the situation for ah ah ah the foreseeable future, everything I can foresee happening up there. And then you can sort of,
00:24:02
Speaker
<unk> Maybe it's a trick, maybe it's not, but you can sort of trick yourself into like trying a little more, when you when youre especially when you're at the end of your rope. and You're like, no, I'm still okay. like I'm at the end of my rope, but you know what difference would it make if I go 50 meters more? like It'll be fine. like It doesn't actually change anything. I might as well go 50 meters more, and then you might as well go another 50 meters. I might as well go, and then you know then you're on top.
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's it's it's more than a trick. It's a method to stay alive. if you don't keep checking that you can get down from here, then it's more like you you are tricking yourself as well, aren't you? It's like, oh, everything will be all right. Can I get down from here? Yeah, I can get down from here. Okay, let's go.
00:24:43
Speaker
and And then you've got your motivation, what's going to drive you forward, but you've kind of got, you've got your self-preservation and survival instinct. I think that too is key, uh, If we encourage ourselves, if we encourage society or people or our children or whatever to be curious or moving forward, you also need to encourage them to, that it's cool, that it's okay to make sure that you can get down.
00:25:14
Speaker
and then and so And this is where the craft of mountaineering or the craft of ah gardening, if you like, or the craft of being an ah athlete or even a writer is, you know, people who are great at something or people who are great craftspeople are really good at doing the monotonous everyday things well.
00:25:43
Speaker
You know, they're really good at checking their harness, you know, their belay loop, if you like. Or they're really good at buddy checking, or they're really good at making sure their crampons are sharp because, you know, when you get on terrain that the the ice is very, very hard, you do need a sharp pair of crampons.
00:26:01
Speaker
Those sorts of things, those kind of everyday things that can be seen as boring, but the people who are really good at the front end are often really, really good at those sorts of things and they do them really quickly and they do them really well. And they don't stop doing them because they're number one, they just keep doing them and then they push their, they do all their risk stuff at the at the top end.
00:26:27
Speaker
h Yeah, that's a great insight. And I think that that is, that is so true. Yeah. How, who, you know, you said something that triggered my curiosity. Who was that person for you that encouraged your curiosity?
00:26:42
Speaker
Oh, my mother, because that's all I had in my family. i didn't have any brothers and sisters or i didn't have a bigger brother. ah ah And I didn't have a father. I mean, he they my parents separated when I was being born.
00:26:56
Speaker
yeah so Yeah. So, yeah, she was really, and she ah she um brought me up to not, she brought me up So I wasn't the person she was because she didn't have a very nice childhood. So in the end, we're very very we were very, very different people. But she did a pretty good job, except that she knew I was a bit of a wild child. She thought I'd get into really, really big trouble when I was a teenager.
00:27:29
Speaker
Because I had a proverbial chip on my shoulder. Mm-hmm. whatever we have a lot do and the other half yeah don't be lucky. hey Yeah. lucky depending on the perspective, right? Like, um, you know, one of the, expose yourself a little, Yeah, well, you know, one of the one of the mutual friends that i called upon when I was going to, knew I was going to talk to you was Guy Cotter.
00:28:02
Speaker
and And this was exactly one of the things that Guy said. He was like, he was a bit of a wild child in her youth. he didn't He didn't expound on that, and I didn't ask him to. um but You know, where the question that came to my mind and what I actually wrote down is ah along with that note is if there's, if that's part of why you seek these journeys, I mean, your journeys happen to be in the mountains and you've already alluded to, you know, these different kinds of crafts, whether it's writing or, or, or other, other sports or whatever.
Early Climbing Adventures: Yosemite and Beyond
00:28:38
Speaker
so,
00:28:40
Speaker
Did this chip on your shoulder, did this inner wild child, was that somebody who drove you to do things like go to Yosemite? I don't know. When did you go to Yosemite? Paint that for me. You were like 18, 19, something like that. You show up in Yosemite Valley and find some people and go climb some big walls.
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, that ah that was the best thing to do when you were – I was 19. 100%. Oh, my God. So good. so ah So those days, of course, there wasn't sport climbing.
00:29:18
Speaker
Yeah, what year was sport climbing oh it? It in 1981. There was not sport climbing. Well, anyway, there certainly wasn't sport climbing in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Yeah. I wasn't, as you um as you know from reading my um ah writing to me and reading my book, I was really bad at sports. So ah I kind of, I wasn't strong.
00:29:42
Speaker
i mean, my legs were strong and the rest of me wasn't very strong. And I wasn't gymnastic. Like I couldn't do a handstand, even against the wall. And my... hand eye coordination, I didn't really catch balls very well. And i didn't learn fast in those areas either.
00:30:00
Speaker
And so you know, failure, failure, failure. And I'm Wait, whose voice was that? This failure, failure, failure. Whose voice was that? My voice, of course. Okay, okay. But also, you know, you're a kid, you know. Yeah.
00:30:15
Speaker
yeah it's It's not necessarily being a voice. It's just an experience of being last. Yeah. And teased because I kind of walked funny. I was a little bit wonky. And not wonky, but stiff, wong or whatever. And I was teased for walking funny and funny.
00:30:33
Speaker
you know, things like that, formative moments. Yes. ah And we however, by the time i had discovered the mountains or, no, I should say when i had when I discovered mountains through what we call tramping, which is hiking but off-trail hiking, so it's pretty full-on hiking,
00:30:59
Speaker
And then I realized that there was other ways to achieve goals, goals that you may not even be able to describe ah because you were young and inexperienced, and but physical goals. So I could be a physical person in this new environment and because I had other skills and doing a handstand and catching a ball wasn't that important. And people seem to forgive me if I wasn't very brave at down climbing and things like this. And I got stronger and stronger and I became better and better. And I also found out that so much of that is social because when you go in the mountains, you are living with people, you are managing people. your experience with, well, say I was, with one other person or two other people or three other people, depending on who you were hiking or tramping or mountaineering with. And therefore, it's partly become social. And so you're bringing other skills in. And and those lessons are about, say, if you like, achieving a goal, which might become becoming a physical person,
00:32:10
Speaker
or being recognizing you can achieve a goal via a different route. Okay, so then this concept has opened a massive door. La-dee-da, go mountaineering, go to Alaska because everyone in New Zealand was going to Peru, so I decided to go to Alaska because it was more interesting. i didn't know anything about it. um and then come down through the lower 48 into Yosemite. And I ah wasn't, I'd done a little bit of rock climbing at Squamish and I wasn't very brave, but one person had, if you like, taken me on a wall that was a one and, you know, the grand wall,
00:32:53
Speaker
One of the routes was A1 or something like this, maybe a two And I realized there was another way to be up there. And when I got to Yosemite, and it was all about big walls.
00:33:08
Speaker
And, of course, and people would talk about being up there. And then they'd have the come down, they'd have these experiences and these stories. And experiences and stories were really what drove me as well. And not stories so that I could tell, but stories that are inside of me. And so I realized that through aid climbing, I could get up there. was just a different route.
00:33:33
Speaker
a different way to experience this and and have the same experiences as my friends.
Learning from Experience: Mentorship in Climbing
00:33:38
Speaker
Yeah. So I started a climbing and, uh, what's, yeah what's the difference between a story and a journey and an experience.
00:33:48
Speaker
oh Well, Everything's an experience, like having a wasabi ice cream could be considered an experience. well That's definitely an experience. they or a very It's not a particularly interesting experience. Sounds interesting. that Sounds interesting, yeah. They got my $2. That's pretty boring, actually.
00:34:13
Speaker
ah yeah that's pretty boring actually oh ah So, you know, you you go, oh, this will be an experience. Oh, actually, it's not much of an experience. or It's the same as watching a movie, isn't it? Oh, this could I really love watching this person's movies.
00:34:31
Speaker
Oh, well, it wasn't as good an experience. You know, that's the whole way of it. well, hang on what was the thing? Experience? what was what we Journeys and stories. You were talking about like people would go up on these walls and come back with experiences and stories like and you wanted these stories within yourself and just trying to figure out if that's the same yeah don't you think thing I'm talking about. ah Don't you think a whole lot of experiences add up into a journey and sometimes those journeys make good stories?
00:35:04
Speaker
Actually, most of the time. Most of the time. Yes. Maybe all the time. so it's ah Honestly, it depends on to whom you're speaking. Now, here we go situations where – ah situations where In the world where, say, climbing, map let's use the parallel of climbing Mount Everest or the example of climbing Mount Everest. Climbing Mount Everest can be done in lots of ways. You can either be unassisted, which means you don't use fixed ropes. um
00:35:41
Speaker
and ah and then you could climb it and climb it without oxygen and you or climb it by a different route. Like all the different routes on Everest used to be climbed all the time, like North's route and then the Panacles got done and and um and then all these different, the Southwest phase got climbed a couple of times, the three times actually, didn't it? I'm sure maybe made me more than that. Yeah, there was the Australian route that,
00:36:10
Speaker
You know, those guys did on the north side. White limbo. White limbo. Yep. I know. All these people used to climb all these different routes. And nobody not that many people climbing all these different routes anymore. and So there's plenty of room. Anyway, their experience climbing a different route or a new route or even repeating an old route without oxygen and without support would be really, really different.
00:36:32
Speaker
And when you go to some countries, like you go to Georgia. I went to Georgia last year. We have some Georgian friends we met in the Tien Shan. ah wonderful, wonderful people and very good climbers. And when you go there or you meet these people in the Tien Shan or in the Pamir or something like this, and then yeah and they're from Poland or they're from Georgia or something like that, they know what it means if you have climbed Everest without oxygen. Right.
00:36:58
Speaker
But you go to a ah a more Western type of place, less European. If you go to a place that's less European, then the less European or Eastern European it is, the less do people differentiate in how you climb something.
00:37:21
Speaker
That's very big like that. Yeah. yeah Yeah. I don't know where I am there. Also, you know, they won't ask you about your journey. ah And to them, they won't expect that you'll have a story because they just want to know, you know, what are they like standing on top. Whereas ah Euro or an Eastern bloc or Eastern European person will go, well, what route did you take? And, you know, what were the conditions like? And how long did it take you? And how many people were you? And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They dig into the story. Like they dig into the the experience. yeah Yeah. The journey. Yeah. They see that there is a story there because there has to be.
00:38:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
How did the journey of climbing Everest in 1988 shift your understanding of yourself? Oh, well, or quickly, uh, perhaps, uh,
00:38:19
Speaker
Start with slowly. Start with slowly. No, maybe I should start with the short, the the fast learnings were how I did it at super altitude because that's what I called it. No one called it the death zone.
00:38:35
Speaker
ah ah yeah can we can we Can we please go back to super altitude? i like that way better than the death zone. know. Super is such a great word. Super altitude and the death zone. yeah Well, that's for some people, but so is the street.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah. yeah might like yeah So is being in your nineties. Yeah. Okay.
00:39:05
Speaker
Sorry. So the short learnings ah were that you did well at super altitude. The short learnings were thing. And and sometimes they're learnings that you you don't you reaffirm. For example, what I was going to say and way back was when I started tramping,
00:39:25
Speaker
hiking without trails. And when I started mountaineering, I realized that I could ah hang out with the people who were really experienced and they were happy to spend time with me and give me their time. And therefore I could learn a lot from them and also achieve better than on my own.
00:39:44
Speaker
if I pulled my share of the chores. So, you know, I'll go and collect more snow because they're basically making the decisions. So you have to recognize what they bring, have to honor it, and you bring what you can. And I'm funny sometimes.
00:40:01
Speaker
Okay, I mean, and people like to laugh and they like to wake up and then goof off rather than wake up and then have seriousness in the tent and yes, and melting the snow and you know, it's cool to create stories. And so if you can give this to people, you can give your positivity to them, then They can give what they have and it's an exchange, you know, and they realize you've gone outside and got more snow or you've dug the tent out or or you've melted more snow than anyone else because they're better and they do their stuff. So you bring this to, nowhere nowhere where were we? are But no, can i we we stop on that for a second? Because i think that that that is such a great analogy for so many things, right? Like you could be talking about
00:40:53
Speaker
being a young mountain guide, you know, or you could be talking about being a junior doctor working with a senior doctor that's been practicing for 35 years or physiotherapy. if you're a ah young physiotherapist or ah ah veteran, you know, I think that who I wish somebody had spelled it out for me like that when I was young.
00:41:18
Speaker
You know, I mean, I think that I mean, yeah, I know what you're going to say, but I, and and maybe I wouldn't have heard it. You're probably right. But maybe I would have, maybe I would have been like, you know what? The,
00:41:32
Speaker
That's right. Like, i need to i need to bring more snow. I need to do more of the dirty work because I need to realize that these people bring more of the experience or making the decisions. And you don't actually realize that until later, right? Like, if I reflect on my first expedition when I was 20, went to Parbat.
00:41:51
Speaker
with a very experienced group of people, five of whom had climbed 8,000-meter peaks. you know Maria Frantar, I don't know. Did you ever cross paths with Maria Frantar? She'd climbed five at 8,000-meter peaks, all without supplemental oxygen. She died on Kenchunjunga in 1992, sadly.
00:42:08
Speaker
But you know she was leading our team, fixing the ropes, making the decisions. And I didn't realize that until later, like years later.
00:42:20
Speaker
And what a moment when you realise this, though. you were You were always going to realise it. And perhaps, you know, you perhaps you were just gaining in so many other ways. You can only grow a certain amount, you know, and if maybe you're going to be world class at something from zero, from doing a paper round to, you know, climbing super hardcore, I mean, Nanga Pahwe and your twin, that's rad. Yeah.
00:42:47
Speaker
Well, I mean, I was part of a 18 member exp. So this is actually a really a testament to the Slovenian Alpine Association and how they ran their expeditions for many, many years.
00:43:01
Speaker
um And it's another story how I became a member of the Slovenian Alpine Association. and And I spent a year there as a student and I earned the Alpinist status. And what that meant was that I got invited on all the expeditions. that the Alpine Association put together. And the way they built teams was they deliberately, i i was one of two 20 year olds.
00:43:24
Speaker
you know And then we had five people who had climbed 8,000 meter peaks like Makalu, Everest, Kanshanjunga, you know you know, big, hard mountains. and we were such a mix, right? And that's how they did. That's how they mentored. That's how they, that you know, that's, it you know, so much of what we learned was just around the cook stove, you know, and around the the bowl of French fries and around the teapot. That's where I actually learned the most on that trip. That,
00:43:53
Speaker
You ah you've put the nail on the head for me for my Everest expedition and also for K2 and a lot because I hung out with some Slovenians there. Such hardcore. And then my Slovaks were so hardcore. And yet you learned so much from them. But you had to already have a humble corner of your stroppy 20-year-old life.
00:44:20
Speaker
brain to go, yeah, I can learn a whole lot from these guys. You were probably so busy learning, you didn't quite put it into perspective of some things. But hey, you know, you were already so busy learning. Yeah, and you got invited, so you weren't a totally boring person to be with.
00:44:41
Speaker
Or you could be twenty I were 20? Yeah. You know, I think I was actually pretty quiet for the most part. And i was in awe of these people most of the time and in awe of that place for all the time and feeling very much like an imposter 99% time.
00:45:04
Speaker
And, you know, frankly, I mean, that is also a reason I did i did ah bring a lot of snow. You know, i did i I never took the lead. I never did anything by the front of the team. I was always in the back carrying the load, doing that work. And I i was completely happy. i was so honored to be able to do that. Like, please just let me carry a load for you. Like, I don't, you know, I never had any fantasy about going to the top of the mountain. It was just like to be there and just,
00:45:34
Speaker
be with those people um was what it was about for me. But, you know, I want to go back to the, you know, kind
Controversies and Challenges Post-Everest
00:45:42
Speaker
of digging in. So these were the short term, what you became after Everest was some of these things. What were, and, but you said there was also some long-term, I mean, is this what, what we're talking, are we segwaying into that? yeah yeah yeah Yeah. So the fallout, I mean, I don't want to, so I didn't want to make it and I may, and I would like you to just describe,
00:46:02
Speaker
you know, the fallout, as you as you put it. Very briefly, because I don't want this talk to be about that. I want this to be about... But that was certainly... Part of your journey, part of your experience of of Everest was having, especially the years follow.
00:46:20
Speaker
It was a type four fund, you know, that never sounded like a good idea at the time. Wasn't very good to deal with. But yeah, it's always formative. Yeah. Well, you know, that...
00:46:33
Speaker
I think the best thing, especially for people who don't know the story and kind of how many times have I been asked the story, which, i'm and this is not you because you you totally get it, but often it obscures the fact that, hey, I did a cool climb. Yeah. I don't just want to talk about the, the um but it was a hashtag me too. It was a hashtag me too situation. I set myself up. I was a bit of a wild child. I was the one who, you know, I didn't sleep with the right people.
00:47:03
Speaker
yeah And I slept with the wrong people. ah And so, and I was a little bit of a rule breaker. You know, I climbed an 8,000-meter peak without a permit because I had changed from Gashaproon 1 to Gashaproon 2 the year before. And ah just at the last minute with some basques and so on and so forth. So I, i and I was...
00:47:31
Speaker
ah beat and And I made, as Rob Hall, the guy who the Everest movie was made about, um largely, as he said, you know, I always hung out with the cool people. I didn't see that. I just hung out with the people who...
00:47:44
Speaker
had that really positive approach and opened the door for people who carried the loads. Exactly what you were talking about on Nanga Parbat. And I just, I want to segue back to this, not right now, but I'd like to touch back on on that, that doing the stuff in the background in order to learn the stuff in the foreground um is what is what entitlement obscures the opportunity to do that.
00:48:13
Speaker
So you feel that you're entitled to be there or you're entitled to have something, that whole concept of entitlement and second generation wealth, you know, this as we as mountain guides have seen a lot, it obscures your opportunity to be part of this learning and growing team. It's actually a disability. Yeah.
00:48:35
Speaker
But anyway, so, but the fallout were my team, my New Zealand teammates who hadn't been successful on their final ah attempt on Everest. And I descended to base camp to sit out a storm. And remember, there was no weather forecasting in those days.
00:48:54
Speaker
So was the storm going to be one day or five days? So by going back down to base camp, you know, it's quite strenuous going camp two to base camp. base camp to camp two, less so in those days than nowadays because the icefall was shorter. It was still the same altitude gain.
00:49:11
Speaker
Well then, they had failed and they were really ambitious. They'd started this idea that they might open a, you know, do the seven summits and Yeah, in a year or whatever it was, and or two years or whatever. and um so And so they stated that it wasn't possible that I'd summited Everest. And, of course, it's a male-dominated society, as it still was, of course, and la-di-da. And so things went really pear-shaped after I got down from the summit
00:49:47
Speaker
To add to it, 50% of my expedition died, which are all the Slovaks. They died on the descent from down the normal route from climbing the southwest face of Everest, alpine style, and without oxygen.
00:50:02
Speaker
So, yes, that was a formative few years. or Did they die? were you Were you party to that in any way? or was that that that happened after you were already down and out?
00:50:15
Speaker
yeah yeah So got you. I'm sorry. to this You found out several days later. Yeah. So I summited. to So we all went up. New Zealanders were already at Camp 2, 6,450 meters, 6,500.
00:50:28
Speaker
Then I went down. I decided when the storm started, we went up for our summit of tent. The storm started. remember no weather forecasting. And then the next morning it's still storming. And I go, I'm going to decide. I'm going to go back down to base camp. And I was sharing a tent with one Slovak because there was no room in the New Zealand tent. I mean, that we were all a shared expedition. Yeah. But didn't really speak. he was It was Peter, one you know this really good friend. But at the same time,
00:50:54
Speaker
He didn't speak much English. And so I had no idea what their decisions were. But I knew their decisions were really sound because they were really, Peter was, he was graphing his ascent and descent. And he was really scientific in a in a simple way, super scientific about his climbing. And i could learn so much from him. So I decided that I needed to go down.
00:51:17
Speaker
and I can't ah stay healthy at 6,500 metres, you know, by cooking a little bit of water in your tent. and ah yeah And then I made that decision myself, and then I found out that the Slovaks had decided that they would also go down, and I like, yes! Yes!
00:51:35
Speaker
I've made the right decision. You know, it's a, they confirmed my decision, which I remember just being a moment of just like, I'm getting there. I'm learning. I'm making sound decisions, you know. and And then the other New Zealanders stayed up there. So five days later, I went down, had my 27th birthday, came back up again. Other New Zealanders were pretty tired. They probably weren't hydrated enough. They didn't have quite enough food. They attempted Everest,
00:52:05
Speaker
um via route we didn't have a permit for turned around that day they left even left camp really late like nine in the morning or something and ah by that time we got to camp two from base camp at 10 just after 10 o'clock in the morning I mean we were we were going pretty fast in those days yeah yeah my fastest time to camp two from base camp was four hours 20 or something But that's because... That's moving. Yeah, but it's not today's icefall.
00:52:33
Speaker
It's a much faster... Yeah, okay. It's only a third of the distance, I reckon. So, I mean, ah the broken stuff. So, and... and ah Anyway, so they went down.
00:52:45
Speaker
They said, we're out of here. And so I was the day behind them. And then I left the next morning for the normal route, Ed Hillary route, South East Ridge. And the Slovaks didn't go up on the southwest face because it was too windy. So they one day behind me. I summited. They were already on the mountain. Their stove had broken and Doosan wasn't very well. And the conditions were super hard.
00:53:08
Speaker
So Peter had said to me, if we spent... two nights on the mountain on the southwest face, we are okay. If we spend three nights, we are in a problem. And they were having to spend three nights. And then when they summited, one person summited, Peter turned around to help Yarrow, his teammate, and um because Yarrow was getting hypoxic blindness and he turned around from this, like above the Hillary step or at the Hillary step,
00:53:36
Speaker
came back down, and then they all got hit by a storm and died. By that time, I was already between Camp 2 and base camp. I talked to them at Camp 2 on the radio, and they said congratulations, and I was just – and then by the time I got to base camp, everyone was peeking out because they hadn't heard from them.
00:53:56
Speaker
And so you're you're managing – you come off of this climb. you You're managing, first of all, that you you just climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen. I mean, that's – and cry That's just an incredible achievement by any measure that for anyone. Without ropes from the South Coal.
00:54:13
Speaker
No ropes on the South. No ropes above the South. ropes above the South. No ropes the Coal either. Wow. A little rope. rope on the Hillary step. One little rope, but not on the traverse around it. And a piece of parachute cord on this other.
00:54:28
Speaker
A piece. No, seriously. It was like, but you know, on this ah like steeper section just above the um balcony, but just, yeah, you're better off not touching that. Right. Like, it's like, Oh, touched it. The, so you're, you're, you've just accomplished this and which is just all kinds of incredible things.
00:54:54
Speaker
And then you are also managing that you your friends that you've made on this trip that you are speaking very highly of. You clearly cared a lot for them. ah Go missing. They're gone.
00:55:06
Speaker
you know Then you have people saying that you there's no way you could have done what you say you did. you know you don't Those people were um Rob and Gary and Bill, really. they um Then they went out, the Slovaks, that there was Ivan Fiala, who was ah the leader.
00:55:27
Speaker
They were dealing with a massive tragedy. but I mean he was investigated by the police and in Slovakia because it was occupied by Russia, you know, it's a really big deal and he lost his friends, you know, his really big friends, you know, it was just awful, awful for him for years. And he never really um overcame that grief. And um and but they didn't deny they didn't question my ascent they were just super stoked um let's see um yeah but it was ah the new zealanders and then it was the reporters and then people and then that's where the ripple came from yeah and this is all part of your journey and this journey shifted
00:56:13
Speaker
A lot in you, I can imagine. I mean, any one of those things would affect someone indelibly, right? No, pretty lucky that, I mean, obviously, I guess, you know, terms like I went into a dark space, you know. I obviously got depressed, if you like, but, and not but, it was pretty horrible having people say that you're a liar.
00:56:35
Speaker
There were two things going on is that, you know, i wanted to go back and climb. And in those days, you either got banned, how to say, remember I said, well, the po where you would know the politics were quite different. So that if you did a route without a permit, you either did it as part of the team, and then you and the leader of the team would get penalised.
00:56:58
Speaker
ah the rest of the team wouldn't and you would get fined. And the penalize would either be 10 years of banning from climbing in Nepal or five years and And depending on how bad you are, that that was at that time, that was my understanding and it seemed consistent because we knew other people who'd done things like that. and ah um But ah if you left the team, and this is, I talked to my liaison officer before I'd gone up because I knew there was major consequences. And I didn't want to impose this problem on Ivan Fiala because this was the only opportunity he got to leave the country because it was occupied by Russia. And he was such a mentor, even though he could speak no English, well, like three words. And he was amazing, amazing mentor for me. Yeah.
00:57:49
Speaker
And so I wrote, you could leave the expedition. And if you left the expedition officially, like you said, the leaders tried to stop you climbing, but you decided to leave the expedition and the leader couldn't stop you climbing. And so you left the expedition, then you would get the one, be the one that penalized. This is how it seemed from talking to other people, seeing people in the past and talking to our liaison officer. So then I wrote a letter declaring that Ivan Fiala, our leader, because he was the official leader, he had the permit, was trying, had tried hard to stop me going climbing, but I had disobeyed, if you like, or whatever. And so I left the expedition and he, and therefore I was climbing on my own so that he wouldn't be penalised. You know, this is my, um'm I'm 27, you know, I'm Yeah, you're trying to make this this work. but like Yeah, let's see if I got this letter translated because with the one person who speaks Slovak and English, they had the doctor, and he looked at me and he goes, No, no you are part of the expedition, you go climbing.
00:58:58
Speaker
How was that, man? He was like there for me. And so ah then anyway, so so he was going to be in big trouble in Nepal as well. But actually, I think so much else was going on. They didn't bother him too much. And then when I went into, when I finally got my band, which came sometime afterwards, I only got two years.
00:59:20
Speaker
years. Two years. That's like amazing. No one had, I knew had ever had two years. They'd always had five or 10 years. and And there was all these other little political things, blah, blah, blah, blah. blah blah And so I still, yeah i still think I probably would have done roughly the same thing. But basically for decades, I had no idea what else I could have done um once I got out to the politics because the New Zealand guys had made official statements that it was not possible that I would, that was not possible that I climbed Everest without Oxford. Oh, I climbed Everest. Yeah.
00:59:54
Speaker
um What else? Oh, so yeah, no, that was a dark time. yeah Yeah, so what was that? So the dark time, wasn't was it from achieving your goal? Like, I mean, I certainly had that, like, from achieving goals, like, and been like, you know, there's sort of a high, and it's just like, oh, I don't have a goal now. What the hell do I do with my life? See, I've never had that. People talk about that.
01:00:16
Speaker
They talk about post-party, you know, when you have a really big party because you've turned 50 or 60 or something, or 40, and there's post-party low or post-expedition, I've never had that.
01:00:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:00:33
Speaker
So it wasn't that for you, no no no but it was, you know, you were being publicly called a liar. ah You were having this incredible achievement sort of, and you know, yeah by implications completely stripped from you. Like that's not what you did, even though you, you, you know that you did it, you were changed by it.
01:00:55
Speaker
How did, how did all that, how did all that How did that change you? Like, how did this dark time change you? Like, did it change your perspective on life, on climbing, on expeditions? Did you learn what lessons
Resilience in Adversity: Lydia's Continued Ambitions
01:01:12
Speaker
came? you know, it's like maybe it's the analogy is going back to the 20-year-old me or the young you on those expeditions. And, you know, you were...
01:01:21
Speaker
weren't know, weren't seeing what lessons were being offered you at the time, as is so often the case with these. And then later you'd make meaning out of it either creatively or, or are objectively, I don't know, but like what kind of things came from that journey for you?
01:01:37
Speaker
Uh,
01:01:42
Speaker
lots, lots and lots of things, as you said, ah quite some time later, and I knew at the time there would be learnings, but at the time for the first few couple of years until, you know, quite a few mountaineering researchers, so three particular mountaineering researchers did research you know, some stories about it and had talked to people and and rung up people and put two and two together, um then
01:02:17
Speaker
um then I just had to deal with ah being the object of sometimes derision. And I didn't publicly...
01:02:31
Speaker
stand up and defend it for two reasons, initially for one reason, and that was because I didn't say to the Ministry of Tourism that I did climb it because my I didn't know what to do, you know, and I was looking at a 10-year ban, and my goal was to go back and climb it. I saw the West Pillar on Makalu, and I just go, I ah don't know if I could do anything like that, but that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and it was of this beautiful mountain, and the sun was setting on it, and it was like,
01:03:01
Speaker
It was just so gorgeous. And I was coming down the down Everest and I was like, oh, –
01:03:08
Speaker
that's I want to go there. I've never been there yet, ah to Makalu. And ah I saw ah desperately wanted to go back because I was still a climber. And so I didn't want a big ban. That was my biggest thing. And so in order to avoid a big ban, I didn't go around saying i did I did summit. Because I've got these guys who are saying I didn't summit and I'm in a male-dominated thing. So saying I did summit would then make...
01:03:37
Speaker
the Nepali kind of pissed off with me. um I didn't say I didn't say. Far out. You know, I didn't know the only liaison officer was saying what I should say. Right, right, right. You know, I was on my own. There was nobody to hang out with and talk to in Kathmandu, except my LO was giving me this advice. He said, I think you should say you just went on the wrong route accidentally too high and just leave it like that. And then nobody is, everyone can not have their, um be embarrassed. Right. Yeah, plausible deniability kind of stuff. Absolutely. So what – Sorry,
01:04:13
Speaker
sorry go
01:04:16
Speaker
and you know I just am reflecting that you know I myself, and I'm sure everyone has been in situations where they felt cornered and accused unjustly. And those are definitely not situations where I ever felt I found my best self.
01:04:31
Speaker
And so, you know, you are actually making what it sounds like really measured decisions. You're like, well, I don't want to publicly stand up because i want to go climb Makaloon next year.
01:04:43
Speaker
I don't want to do this because I don't want to make... Yeah, I don't want a public stand up because a whole of guys have said I haven't, or two guys, three guys have said I haven't done it and I'm in a male.
01:04:54
Speaker
So we're not going and even playing. so And then that is utterly key. And everyone likes controversy. So, you know, you're sitting in a hotel and five telephones are going because there's not the internet. and they're from different countries saying, ah, they say that you're a liar, did you really? Oh, where's your photo?
01:05:12
Speaker
Now, I've climbed Aoraki Mount Cook by that time about 14 times by different routes, which in New Zealand's highest mountain, I mean, I've climbed other mountains, of course, overseas, but, um and it's really a significant climb. It's grunty. And ah how many summit photos that I got one.
01:05:33
Speaker
I just, we didn't have social media. We didn't necessarily social media. Right, wasn't part of the culture. and I took my camera and I was really, really careful and I knew that I was going to be on my own so i pre-organized everything and instead of having it around my neck, I put it on a little tripod in my pack ah but I'd never frozen my camera before because I'd always had it hanging around my neck. And remember, it's not like millions of people are doing this.
01:06:00
Speaker
I'd never carried a thermos. I'd never carried a thermos at altitude because it weighs more than a water bottle and who would carry a thermos? Remember, 1981 thermoses, no, 1988 thermoses versus these sexy lightweight new thermoses now they cost carried they were a kilo why would you carry a kilo of thermos plus your water and you'd carried water before and it never frozen and you'd climbed an alpine style 8 000 meter peak before and so and you'd been at 7 000 meters you know for days and you'd never had your water bottle frozen for like i mean maybe i was just lucky but so i hadn't even got a thermos
01:06:37
Speaker
If you've been wondering whether one-on-one coaching is the right next step for your training, this is the month to find out. Sign up for coaching and receive a free 30-minute call with one of our specialists.
01:06:49
Speaker
Visit uphillathlete.com to learn more. Now, back to that show.
01:06:57
Speaker
interviewed this morning by a German journalist about my experience on the summit of Nanga Parbat because they're still talking about what Reinhold and Gunther Mesner experienced on their summit day in 1970. And what I said to him was, you know, no one can sit in the pub or in their living room and make judgments about what people did or didn't do above 8,000 meters because you're just, it's just a different,
01:07:38
Speaker
You're just so barely surviving. You don't make the same decisions. You don't have the same cognitive abilities. There are ah super small, unexpected things can have major consequences.
01:07:52
Speaker
You just have so much less energy to like do anything so you can serve that energy so tightly and you know reaching across over here to the right to...
01:08:05
Speaker
ah g lend a hand to somebody might be that motion that tips you over the edge because you feel that close to the edge and you know and then people just sit down in their living room and be like oh why didn't you reach your hand over to help that person they were dying what kind of what kind of uh what what kind of what what kind of degenerate are you that's inhuman and like okay well you go up there and and do the we were doing and then you tell me how how you would have done it because it's just not and I'm not defending or or accusing but I think that you know I'm just it's interesting how these conversations still happen
01:08:46
Speaker
And for those people that are listening that have never been to a super high, super, ah super altitude, as we're going to call it now, you know, they, yeah you, until you've been up there, you just really don't honestly have any business saying what it's like or making judgments on people or what they did or didn't do or could or couldn't have done.
01:09:09
Speaker
And also there's not the internet. Sorry, I'll get off my box now. it's great. No, it's really great. But also it's that like I'm really proud of the fact that I preempted my camera situation because I wasn't going to spend, stand there on the summit of ever screwing my camera onto a tripod. yeah And I didn't have it.
01:09:29
Speaker
And we didn't do selfies. I would do selfies in those days. Well, anyway. and The lenses weren't wide enough. Yeah. basically i didn't know enough people who'd done this kind of stuff and so oh no probably if you do that and you leave it in your pack it'll freeze because i'd climbed to 8 000 meters i've never frozen frozen my camera it was a really cool wee robust super awesome camera so i'm proud of that and that gets turned around and that's my failure
01:10:00
Speaker
And, um you know, for example, and then when I got back down to the South Coal, the next day I was resting until midday because you actually, it was the old route. And so it wasn't straight down the Geneva Spur, it was up and over the top of the Geneva Spur. I didn't know if I was going to be strong enough to do the up. I had no idea. When I started a walking, I was like, oh, this is really easy.
01:10:19
Speaker
But anyway, I was kind of nervous for a long time, so I needed to keep drinking. And the only, the Spanish team were leaving. This is the day after. And their Sherpa called in and he opened the tent and he leaned in. And he leaned on my goggles and he broke my goggles. My goggles had a crack in it. Then ended up going, they were still okay, but they were cracked. And they ended up going down. It's, yeah, she was like this. And she had her goggles were broken. and Obviously I hadn't looked after myself.
01:10:44
Speaker
And it's like, Well, I was actually really organized in my tent and I was super, super proud of everything was ready for me when I got back into my tent. You were dialed. I was dialed, but yeah you know things happened. The guy had leaned on my goggles. He'd come right out put his elbow and leaned on my goggles, broken my goggles. I wasn't expecting anyone else to come in my tent. you know then just Right. that yeah so Yeah. So how does that feel to be – – i mean you know I think that there's there's two things i I want to pick up on. and and
01:11:18
Speaker
And again, i I don't want to make you know you be your gender, but I do want to pick up on this side thing that you've said a couple of times that you had three well-respected male mountain guides saying that you hadn't done something.
01:11:36
Speaker
you know you had people turning your successes into your failures. You know, that must have felt horrible. that must Yeah, but it happens to a lot of people. And so, h i fortunately, I grew up with with, and my family, my two-person family, we talked about people, we talked about whys and hows and things like this. So...
01:12:03
Speaker
bits we And I knew life wasn't fair. If it was fair, I'd be really good at sports. If it was fair. And so I think, and also I decided that in order for my mental survival, I had to assume that the good will prevail.
01:12:24
Speaker
And i had to trust that. And I just recently gave a presentation. Where did you get that idea I mean, honestly, like why didn't you think that – I knew that the good might not prevail. ah i also knew that I wasn't going to fight it because Rob Hall was way, way, way more savvy with the press than I was, and he was a man.
01:12:47
Speaker
And people weren't aside with things. And so I knew that even if I'm 100% right, unless I have a photo of the summit, because that's become the, that was that was the pinnacle of proof.
01:13:02
Speaker
That's the only indisputable proof and you didn't have it. La-di-da. um Well, then I wasn't going to win, even if I, which was, you know, I had every other bit of proof I needed. I wasn't going to win because he's way, way and weren't more savvy. So I just pulled inside myself, you know, quietly and kept real, real low profile and managed my sleepless nights and, And I'm lucky enough to, I just decided, no, I just decided that, you know, good will prevail in the end, I think.
01:13:40
Speaker
um You know. who Who did you have with you? Who did you have around you doing through that? Did you have anyone? Oh, yeah, i made friends and I made friends in other worlds, you know, so I would go to, ah I went to university. And i was always going to go to university. I just ah hadn't figured out what I wanted to do. And then I wanted to move to the States. And I decided that after spending a couple of years in the States, I wanted to become, I wanted to go and live in America
01:14:12
Speaker
And i knew that becoming a physical therapist by that time um would get me entry into America because it was a wanted profession. And so this is why I studied physical therapy so I could move to the United States. So, you know. So you dove into that.
01:14:32
Speaker
that path headlong and and and that was your that was your companion through this period? and And all the people I met on the way and, you know, and you and you did other things and but started rock climbing and sport climbing had hit New Zealand by then. And then I discovered a rock climbing where, you know, I wasn't so scared. And so that was really good for me. And, and you know and you know, you did you did small projects.
01:15:00
Speaker
oh But you were, but you know, I mean, can you, can we just pause for a minute and say how amazing that is that you turned all of that negativity into something profoundly positive?
01:15:13
Speaker
Because you did. I mean, not everybody could do that. And that's, that's pretty real. That's pretty big. Well, i you know, did that for yourself the chip smoothed out the wild child a little bit. It's like, okay, maybe there's consequences you
01:15:32
Speaker
I never, i one of the things i grew up, I was lucky enough to grow up with is that life actually isn't fair. And you can see that because there's people suffering extreme hardship of poverty or poverty or war or ah abuse within, so life isn't fair.
Survival Stories: Extreme Conditions and Lessons
01:15:52
Speaker
And so, you know, you can pretty much, if you push it too much, ah then life can be, you can make it unfair And so, rah, and I was super lucky. That kept me out of the blame. And actually, this is what I was going to say to you because I knew we'd be talking about this in the first thing, you see. And the year before, I had had this huge adventure and it turned into an epic with John Muir, who's an ah Australian climber.
01:16:27
Speaker
and a really amazing person. And we had been in India and on the Kedanaths and we'd been going to traverse the Kedanath Peak in another knob. ah And we got caught in a big storm. And of course, we didn't have a map because there were no maps. We did have a map, but it only had like five lines on it. Those are the kind of maps. I know those maps. That's crazy, isn't it? Like, oh yeah. There's a ridge. yeah Oh, that matches the ridge and that's it, like one line. Yeah. And people just care. It's just so surreal, isn't it?
01:16:57
Speaker
And so we hadn't seen – we descended the face of a mountain in a complete storm in a whiteout on day six. We just said from so over 7,000 metres without a rope and big storm. And we had we got caught in six avalanches and I got buried in a snow cave. It collapsed on me in an avalanche. It was a James Bond day. And then near the end of that day, 16 hours later or something like this, of epicness and nearly dying multiple times,
01:17:26
Speaker
then ah we ended up having that finding this little shelter under this little triangular ice cliff. And we were standing there and another avalanche came down, and and and but it wasn't so big. And we managed to not be buried and patted the down around our feet. And we were quite wet by then, of course, a a little bit. and And what anyway, we...
01:17:50
Speaker
we We were just looking and looking and looking at the storm because that last avalanche wasn't as big as the ones before. So does that mean, of course, is the snow falling less intensely? And I said to John, you know, how long do these storms happen and last and in this area? And with this is day two of the storm. And he, and the day one I'd spent vomiting at altitude. And, um and he said, oh, sometime, mostly two, but I have seen them last four. And I go, yeah, well, I won't last. Oh, tonight I'll probably just get a bit of cold damage because I'm a bit damp, but I'm not sure, even if we don't get buried, whether I last another 24 hours out in the open or 36 would be.
01:18:34
Speaker
And he goes, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty much the same, I reckon. And, then at that point and I thought about it a lot later of course and this is a really really momentous moment of learning is that we didn't have that much gas personal energy left not gas and stove and gas in our bodies and then he didn't complain that he was there and I didn't complain that I was here and because we got ourselves there and so Nowadays, we would say we didn't assume blame culture. We didn't buy into blame culture. It wasn't somebody else's fault. It wasn't the storm's fault. and We weren't innocent. We'd gone and plotted our way along the ridge and then got caught in a storm and then descended a mountain that we'd never seen before without a rope and it's really steep and got caught in avalanches. We'd done that. And yes, it wasn't fair, but you can, but life isn't fair. And that's the beauty of it And that's why great art is created and all this kind of stuff, you know, because it's, it's, it's mutating mutating left and right. And that's not fair. And, um and because we didn't complain, we didn't drag each other down and you would have had these experiences so many times, Steve. And,
01:19:48
Speaker
because and And therefore we were able to harness the third of Lydia that was left and the third of John that was left. And that's two-thirds of a person. And that got us down. And I took that and I came away from that. and I got PTSD and stared at wall for two days without talking after that because, you know, it's so traumatic. um you know Near death is very one of the one of the most severe traumas you can experience. yeah yeah I mean, to full stop. i mean most Multiple times. Yeah. ah yeah and But then I went on to climb in the gashiburms straight away and, you know, la-di-da. But um because I was young and motivated and um optimistic,
01:20:31
Speaker
but And because when you're young, you can sweep the trauma under the rug because it's the rug isn't it's not bulging with trauma yet. There's only there. It's still there's still relatively little dust trauma dust under there. So there's room for more. When you get older, that there's a lot more trauma dust under that rug and it's harder to sweep it under. But yeah.
01:20:50
Speaker
That's really good analogy, but I think the rug is the adventure and underneath is the trauma dust. And so it's another adventure, you know. Yeah, just throw another adventure over the trauma dust, yeah. Flatten it out a little bit, stomp on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:21:06
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. And then, ah and then so, um but I realized I had the resource to climb. By that time, I wanted to have a go on Mount Everest. But no, there wasn't an expedition yet. But i go, oh, an 8,000-meter peak, because that's what I was going to. i had the resource to climb to 8,000 because I had the resource to harness everything of mine. And I was a human, and other humans had done it So, you know, that took me ah into
01:21:40
Speaker
and took me away from blaming because I realized the power. If you accept responsibility, so this is what I say sometimes and and um in corporate presentations or or inspirational talks, is...
01:21:58
Speaker
If you teach your child or you teach yourself that the bad things that happen to you are somebody else's fault, oh, it's their fault, therefore I'll sue them, so to speak, then logically, most of the good things that happen to you are also somebody else's fault. So therefore you don't have, you take away your advocacy, you take away your so your ah your own empowerment, Your own agency. Create more good things, your own agency, because it's somebody else is the all... Doing all the things to you. yeah Yeah, exactly. They're doing all the things to you. And so no wonder our teenagers are really stressed because we've brought them up in a world of blame culture.
01:22:44
Speaker
ah Hello? Can we go back to that, what you said? because I agree wholeheartedly with this, but what why you said that I want to, you said you took that knowledge that you gained from this epic on Kerenath, and that's a mountain in the Indian Himalaya.
01:23:14
Speaker
You took that And and you you turned it into this knowledge, as you said, that you could dig really deep. and Yeah, but that took years.
01:23:27
Speaker
and But it did it, or was it available on Gashabrom immediately after? Oh, okay. It was available optimistically on Gashabrom when and I had a ball and I climbed with these basques and we did it.
01:23:38
Speaker
I'll find style in the end. You went straight over and and did this other other thing, like, you know, you know maybe these are Maybe there's some slow and some fast thinking here. maybe there's some Maybe there was some subconscious like, yeah, this is hard, but I'm hard. I'm tough.
01:23:59
Speaker
I can endure. and I'm human and they're human. like you know why can't if they can do it, why can't I do it? I mean, that's that's, I think, honestly, one of the most powerful things that you can say to yourself in almost any situation.
01:24:13
Speaker
human endeavor right
Appreciating Climbing History and Modern Advancements
01:24:14
Speaker
like and i've certainly said it to myself like and we've also all marveled at the pioneers like you know wow these guys climbed this mountain a hundred years ago with you know hobnail boots and you know we've all had these conversations with our mates in the mountains right and you're sort of, it's a combination. I think the real conversation there is one of, would we have been able to do that had we had only the resources, the limited resources and knowledge that they had?
01:24:46
Speaker
And, you know, aren't we lucky to live in this time where we have, you know, incredible steel crampons that stay sharp for days and GPS instead of, you know, blank maps and, you know, these kinds of things.
01:25:02
Speaker
I mean, I think that that that's really a ah gem of an insight, I think, that the that you learn that, but you had to learn that through six avalanche six avalanche burials or whatever it was. I lost count, you know, and this complete epic. And is there another way to learn that?
01:25:26
Speaker
yeah. I'm sure there is. you know Is there though? Is there really? I don't I don't know. I mean, perhaps some people are, maybe, you know, you do learn some things when you grow up in your family. And perhaps if your parents, you know, is that you you say, you know, you've got, how old are your sons, Steve? Yeah. Five and eight right now. Okay. Well, you know, you'll be talking to them and you'll be, they'll be hearing conversations like this.
01:25:55
Speaker
That goes into their DNA. For sure. They'll come they'll come away, they'll see how their parents think and and and react and they'll come away with knowledge. And, you know, if they've if they've got climbing skiing parents, they'll come away with the the experience of knowing how to climb and ski, but also how to think.
01:26:16
Speaker
You know, it's the biggest it's the biggest present that we can give people. And they don't have to be our own children, but... but They're often better not to be, I'd say. And if you've grown up in a house where people think about how people think, and I think that's probably what I did. I probably grew up in a house... where my mother taught me to think how people think and how do you think. And so I, oh, this isn't going so well. I'm feeling like shit. Is there another way to think about this? Is there another approach? And and then possibly retrospectively, you know, decades, decades later, I can philosophize about it. But basically post-Everest drama was shit to go through. Excuse the language. Sorry, I should say, not that simple.
01:27:02
Speaker
But, you know, it wasn't very nice. and and But yeah I'm very lucky that biochemically I didn't stay down, if you like. yeah Yeah, that's that's a good point of differentiation.
01:27:20
Speaker
You know, so… I mean, I imagine you often get asked, what advice would you give to young women climbers trying to find their way into the mountains and this kind of thing? But I actually want to ask you what you would say. and And you brought up my sons.
01:27:36
Speaker
you know, what would you say to both old guys like me, but also people? and you know, boys or the younger generation, know, but maybe more me, like, you know, looking back at the chauvinism and the sport and, you know, acknowledging that I don't want it to be like that anymore, you know, sort of what can I do? Like, what is, what is the answer to that? Like, what what would you say to, what would you say to me or my generation or other, other people that are going through, ah you know, you use the the the reference of hashtag me too, you
01:28:11
Speaker
You know, I, for me, that was very profound to realize just the extent of that kind of behavior. you know, it's like, it's like all of a sudden everyone i knew had was coming forward with these stories and I'd been blissfully unaware and yeah what What, how do we, how do we do better?
01:28:35
Speaker
ah
Raising the Next Generation: Curiosity and Respect
01:28:38
Speaker
the, The immediate advice that i give female people, female alpinists, if you like, is not to carry really heavy loads.
01:28:50
Speaker
not to trash themselves because women are finer, our joints are sloppier, our joints per body weight are ah smaller. We have, um you know, 12 to 24% fewer red blood cells per body, ah per um volume of red blood. And if they last, the red blood cells last way less time than the men's blood cells, you know, as they go through the body. And, and, uh,
01:29:15
Speaker
you know yeah for the same body weight, if you and I are the same body weight, you'll have up to 40% more muscle mass than me, blah, blah, blah, all of that kind of stuff. You know, men are machines. Lots of women are strong or stronger than men. But if you plant plotted the normal curve, so don't wear yourself out carrying huge loads just to be part, melt more snow.
01:29:37
Speaker
Melt more snow. Work it. Melt more snow, carry light packs, spend the money on packs that trash out. We didn't have the option of light packs. We had big heavy canvas packs back in the day. But, you know, the next generation will have different gear as well. You know, now we have 100-gram harnesses.
01:29:56
Speaker
Well, no, less. Less than 100-gram harnesses. Look at our harnesses in the olden days. And ah so on and so forth. So that's ah an immediate thing.
01:30:06
Speaker
And as far as… both all genders, then I think the best thing you can do is if you bring people up non-ageist, if the young people end up having to sit at the table, eat the adult food, not get their little precious meals cooked for them differently, they have to eat adult food,
01:30:28
Speaker
you know, they are treated like young young people and their opinions are respected for people of that age and that experience and they listened they're listened to at the table and they have to listen to other people, then they And they're encouraged with curiosity and they can have a conversation with somebody who, like an older woman, and they're just having a conversation with another person, then you're not going to have a problem.
01:31:02
Speaker
oh Because then you have this intrinsic respect for humanity and gender differences become less of an issue.
01:31:14
Speaker
The other thing is that life isn't fair.
01:31:18
Speaker
And you can do you know you can do the best with what you have, and you can't always do the best. You know you have to give yourself some slack because you know of insecure overachievers tend to always want to do their best, don't they?
01:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, I laughed out loud when I read that, that you described yourself as an insecure overachiever somewhere in my research, because I've used that term for myself. And i learned that term from a friend of mine who has done this in a very different way, you know, where he has...
01:31:53
Speaker
I think he has started something in the order of 12 tech companies. He's sold seven of them. you know He's probably a self-made billionaire.
01:32:03
Speaker
you know and he and he and he's like a total unassuming guy. is doesn't he doesn't he's not you would look at him and never think that he's wealthy because he's in his mind, he's not. He's an insecure overachiever and there's something in him that...
01:32:21
Speaker
is making him just prove himself over and over and over again to someone. And he doesn't really even need to reflect on it or figure it out, but it's working for him. and and, and that, you know, is something that I've marveled at because because I think that's largely what drove me. And it sounds like it was a similar thing for you, whether that's related to the wild child and you're nodding.
01:32:46
Speaker
But, you know, there's also these people that do it out of the pure love of it. Right. And they're just balanced and healthy emotionally. And and they they they have love for it and they have enthusiasm for it. And they're also healthy.
01:33:03
Speaker
incredibly successful and you know and life isn't fair yeah yeah i know i know but they don't well i think actually most ah most high achievers have sleepless nights they may not have sleepless nights going oh what will people think of me and i That was a relatively, yeah, yeah. um But they will have sleepless nights about doing their best because they want to, not necessarily because they're driven from competitiveness. They could be driven something else. And I also think that, You and I and a lot of people, just because you're an insecure overachiever doesn't mean that you're not passionate about nature and you're passionate about the experiences that you have in these beautiful places and you're not passionate about people. mean, you're so passionate, you have a podcast where you talk to a whole lot of different people.
01:33:58
Speaker
yeah because it feeds your curiosity about how people's minds work. Totally, yeah. Yeah, well, there, that's awesome. This is entirely ah creative project for me that doesn't really have any meaning or doesn't necessarily benefit the uphill athlete business and model in any way. it's just something I have to do because i want to find out. I want to talk to you and I want to talk to these other people. And I have it this thesis that when I was young,
01:34:27
Speaker
I was so
01:34:32
Speaker
so driven to achieve and it didn't matter if there was a future to it. And one of the things that I would like, one of the things that I've experienced in my life is having lost a lot of really dear, dear friends.
01:34:47
Speaker
And to mostly to the mountains, but also to cancer and other things. And...
01:34:56
Speaker
Especially the ones that I lost to climbing. I always felt like, man, I wish that they had seen how much good work there was still left to do for them. Because most of them were honestly quite young. you know, they're in their 20s and 30s.
01:35:10
Speaker
The occasional one was 40 or, you know, mug stump was 42. Right? Yeah.
01:35:17
Speaker
right I mean, talk about, imagine what Muggs would be like today, right? Like he was a, he was a walking like prophet 30 years ago. Like imagine if he was alive today and had what he would have to say to us, right? Like, but I don't think that there would be, so i guess what my thesis with some of this, this inquiry is to actually create something that hopefully will stand the test of time and people, young people will listen to and hear you and hear me and hear others that, and think, yeah, okay. I want like, that's real wisdom. That's, that's a life worth living. it And I want to have that part too. I want to have that,
01:36:03
Speaker
wisdom that is earned when I'm in my 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s and maybe ninety s you know, that would be that would be something that would be a legacy, right, to to really leave behind, to to get to show people that that's possible.
01:36:20
Speaker
Okay, so that's ah it's really interesting. and you And you're saying that, I'm going, well, maybe if we if If young people realise, if they're not sexist and ageist, so to speak, and they're sitting in base camp ah or they're sitting around the dinner table, actually say it listening, not all the time.
01:36:43
Speaker
just they can, they can engage, then the then they'll have this. They will grow more of the value. But there's so much. You've got to learn so much when you're young. I mean, it's just like you've got to learn how to hold a spoon when you're really young. And then after that, it's kind of like an adult version of the same thing, isn't it really? Learn how to hold a File a tax return. Yeah, file a tax return. And until you learn that you can pay someone else to do it, if you whatever. But, one ah you know, when we come to mentors, if we look at mentorship, I strongly believe that mentorship goes both ways. So the classic white middle class model of mentorship is the older person
01:37:31
Speaker
being a mentor to the younger person. Now, in Maori um maori philosophy or Maori culture, they have a taina and tukana. And that is the oh that that is the mentor and the mentee. And that can switch people.
01:37:53
Speaker
in an hour into reverse. So they have the belief that a young person can mentor an older person and an old person can mentor a younger person. It just depends on what you're talking about. If we brought this philosophy more, then the young person sitting at the table or in base camp or something would see the benefit of being older because there's more mutual respect.
01:38:21
Speaker
Therefore, that you would know that when you're older, you can still keep learning. and You know, that is it's just a binary system. It's just like you learn and you teach and you teach and you learn ah and it should be non-ageist. And therefore, then you open the door more to um the reason why you may as well live a bit longer because you can keep learning.
01:38:45
Speaker
It's more interesting. When
Life Lessons from Climbing: Philosophies and Reflections
01:38:47
Speaker
you're young, being old is really uninteresting. When I was a boy, I was really into the Boy Scouts. And one of the things that i learned in the Scouts was that, you know, I would go through these things of having to learn these tasks or whatever, like camping or something, first aid or something.
01:39:02
Speaker
And then shortly after that, I would have to teach it. And I actually didn't know it until I taught it. And I was like, that was a, I learned that really young and I was like, okay, so that's how this works. Okay. I i learned i learned the basics and then there's some time passes. Maybe I do a little practice and then I'm going to have to teach someone else. So then that's when I actually go and bone up and like really like fill in the gaps.
01:39:27
Speaker
And after I've done that for a while, then I actually know it. And I mean, even guiding is that way, right? Like, I mean, I don't think I knew, I think teaching ice climbing helped my ice climbing so much.
01:39:42
Speaker
yeah Yes, yes, absolutely. And, but that requires hard work and that, yeah. and hard work, even the term hard work is often said with, oh, that's hard work as opposed to, oh, wow, some hard work.
01:39:58
Speaker
You know, we don't celebrate the skill of embracing hard work, the actual knowledge that, know, that's okay, that's hard work. Oh, you know, sometimes it's not that pleasant and sometimes it's hard, but I can do it.
01:40:15
Speaker
And sometimes just because it's hard doesn't mean it's fun, not fun, I should say, or fun. yeah So, you know, and it's like when we talk about the word consequence, oh, my God, that's a really consequential decision.
01:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, but actually there's good consequences too. You know, the consequence of doing exercise is that you get fitter. The consequence of eating healthy food is that you get more healthy. The consequence of learning something is that you know it at the end. So so there's these, you know, we we load, we back load these terms which are really important for life.
01:40:50
Speaker
A real life, not a protected little bubble in a built environment. You know, we we we we need to love these terms for positivity as well as negativity.
01:41:01
Speaker
I love that, yeah. Yeah. yeah And real life and not not in protected bubbles, yes. More of that, please. Years ago, i did ah was doing a keynote for a big conference in New Zealand with a whole lot of scientists that had come over for this movement and or ergonomics in extreme environment. And ah so I was talking to this professor of science.
01:41:28
Speaker
physical science in one of the universities in New Zealand and I was talking was talking about extreme environments and he interrupted me and he said you know Lydia and this has stayed with me forever he said I actually think that the built environment is now one of the most extreme environments that we subject ourselves to
01:41:48
Speaker
And that stuck with me, you know. you know Boom, yeah. Yeah, you don't trigger but a whole lot of development and inside the brain if you live in ah a straight, flat, organized environment. You know, you don't do this, you don't do that. you don't There's no consequence to things. you're not going to break your leg and and and then die, if you like, or something like that. So, yes, the built environment is a really extreme environment. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
01:42:20
Speaker
Yeah. So at the outset of this project, I knew, as i said before, that I was going to call on those of us that have spent, you know, four or five, six decades in the mountains to help us work towards what hope to be sort of a philosophy of the mountains. and You know, you're currently 62 years old. You've done big wall, first ascents, and first female ascents. You're the first woman to climb an 8,000 meter peak in alpine style. you're the first woman to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen. You've guided Everest a bunch of times. You're a physiotherapist. You're an IFMJ certified guide, and you still are guiding and climbing actively. You've written an an incredible book.
01:43:02
Speaker
ah How do you want to be remembered? um It's funny.
01:43:09
Speaker
As positive and as good company, I guess. But, ah it's yeah, yeah somebody somebody would like to have as their friend. There's your insecurity. There's the insecurity. No, not really. I just think, how would it ah that's an interesting question.
01:43:30
Speaker
yeah It doesn't have to be from insecurity, though. I mean, like that's that's, I think, your your your inner critic talking there. But, you know, that's ah that's quite, ah I mean, frankly, like, that's a, being good company, that's not a small feat, right? Like, that's something that you might say offhand and it might sound light and might sound insignificant at first. But if you think about it,
01:44:01
Speaker
you know i'm i I immediately think of like a Winston Churchill-type character that would you know have like his brandy glass and just be like telling you these incredibly clever, witty, and subtle jokes and talking about the war, the stories, like all the things, kind of making fun of everything, but in a very...
01:44:26
Speaker
a way that enlightens and and and enlivens conversation. I mean, that that's that's a fine goal, I think. I mean, that's a very, very human fine goal.
01:44:40
Speaker
I think, too, um I'd like to... I want to die knowing that I used as much of my brain power as I can. um i think i'm I'm reasonably smart, but I think I try to use as much of my brain as I can.
01:44:57
Speaker
so i i you know, i like these philosopher I like these conversations, but just recently I went to a pla i went to a play last week and the and the actor, it was a single-person play, just phenomenal, and the actor came out afterwards and did a Q&A and he was...
01:45:11
Speaker
speaking about the bringing a Japanese Noel theatre in and where the Greek philosophy of theatres and he was just bringing in and I'm going, I am in the presence of a great teacher. Not a good teacher, but a great teacher. And do you know this, that that's when you, that's what I felt like when I was hanging out with the Slovaks on Everest, but I couldn't have verbalised it as well. These are, Peter is not a good teacher. He's a great teacher.
01:45:39
Speaker
And This ability to engage with the world, not to waste your life. You don't have to go and climb mountains, but just engage for to the world, care and and learn and grow and and develop ideas. And, you know, I'm sure that if we meet again, we'll, we'll oh, let's have a great conversation. Yeah.
01:46:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i think you are a great teacher, Lydia. I mean, I think that you owe it to yourself. And, you know, i I'm sure everyone listening to this conversation today will agree that, you know, you should you should own that because you you are that. and And, you know it you know, I think that this is one of the great beauties of the mountain experience is how...
01:46:34
Speaker
you know it can take you from, you know just to use abstractions, ah you know so single child of a single mother and whatever,
01:46:48
Speaker
somewhere in New Zealand who had a chip on her shoulder it was a wild child and went to Alaska climbed big walls in Yosemite and climbed Mount Everest and serve of and was was was called a liar for not having the right photo. And you know all of the things that he went through and learned through all of those things how to how to manage it, right? Like it's a little bit like, you know, I think what
01:47:27
Speaker
you know, makes great humans is hard, doing hard things. And, and finding, you know, it's, it's that, you know, I mean, I think we could talk, I could ask this question about Everest. Like, were you the person that could climb Everest before you climbed it?
01:47:45
Speaker
Or were you only the person who could climb Everest after you climbed it? During, actually. During, yeah, or during, yeah. Yeah. But were you already that person and then you just had to manifest it and and put one foot in front of the other? Or did it, could it not happen until you actually went through the actions?
01:48:07
Speaker
No, I think when you do really hard things, maybe you realise just before, you know, because it's only to just before, if they're really hard, that you've gained enough experience. Just say if you were a dancer and you were doing a really, really challenging you know,
01:48:25
Speaker
then it's the buildup. Or you go to the Olympics, they talk about the buildup. So essentially, you're the person who can do that solo piece or win a medal or just do really well.
01:48:39
Speaker
ah you know, you're pushing to that moment. That's what doing something new is. So it's just before you do it that you become the person who can do it just before. Yeah. And I think that gives you confidence, you know, that that gives you that sort of, okay, I'm ready.
01:48:56
Speaker
Oh, I don't know if I'm ready, but I think I'm ready, you know. Or let's find out if I'm ready. Yeah. it's Yeah. Yeah. And then like, let it, let the cards fall where they may and then come back and say, okay, I was ready or wasn't wasn't ready. Like, let's try again or not try again or change the objective.
01:49:16
Speaker
I think that that approach to, um to life, but also to, you know, personal development, organizational development, as you know, there's just so many ways to apply, know,
01:49:33
Speaker
apply that, you know, when I'm, you know, internally with a pill athlete and I, I tell my, my, my colleagues this, like everything's a test and it's not a pass or fail. It's well,
01:49:49
Speaker
um where you where are you strong and where do you need help? Where do you need assistance? And how and and can I assist you in those areas? And if I can't, who can?
01:50:00
Speaker
and do we have somebody in our team that can or do we have to go find somebody outside of our team that can? you know And let's just keep having this conversation about how we're all doing in these continual tests.
01:50:13
Speaker
And it's like every, i i tell them, like basically, we're on a a cycle where we do, ah there's ah there's a major test every three to four months. And then we take a little break.
01:50:24
Speaker
And then we do something hard again. And, you know, and then we talk about it. We we observe ourselves. We observe one another. We give feedback. And, you know, in the mountains, the feedback loop is much more personal. It's with yourself, right? Like, it's like, it's your feeling. Like, I'm feeling good today. I'm feeling bad today. Like, I feel strong, that kind of thing.
01:50:47
Speaker
um In team environments, the feedback loop is, you know, your colleague saying like, this this sucks. this This copy you wrote is terrible. i don't like it. i don't know why, but can you try again or whatever it is, right? Like, but in a compassionate way. Maybe that's not a good example, but...
01:51:07
Speaker
They're all good. And I think um I was going to say at the beginning of when you just started speaking, was i was thinking that we're talking, you're saying you're saying, did you become the person who could climb it before, during or after?
01:51:24
Speaker
And that really is focusing on the end goal. And I think what, in order to help people on the passage, we need to celebrate what already exists, and that's the journey more. So if you say not only will you be challenged you know you'll be getting fitter along the way, but...
01:51:49
Speaker
in order to achieve that, you've connected one of your clients, an uphill athlete, with, say, a psychologist, a sports psychologist. And then you're not just it's not just getting the information you need to try to get better at ah doing your exercises, which would be what I need, from that sports psychologist. You're also having the experience of spending time with this psychologist.
01:52:19
Speaker
So I am listening to you speak going, this is a cool experience spending time talking to Steve House. I'm so lucky because we can talk about philosophy and ideas. And it's really interesting. And I really hope that we do meet again soon, you know, because it'll be fun. Yeah. And
01:52:40
Speaker
yeah And so there's there's two layers. And so that that then reinforces the fact that it's the journey that gets us to the goal that what we are really relishing.
01:52:56
Speaker
And I mean, you've done this, I'm sure a thousand times as a mountain guide, but we do this every day with Uphill Athlete too, where people come to us and they say, I want to, I want to achieve the goal. I want to climb Everest or whatever the goal happens to be. I want to run this race.
01:53:13
Speaker
And Mike, what I know and what you know is that it's not the goal, it's the becoming the person that can do those things. Right. You know, and it's it's a process. Like you said in the beginning, you talked about the the person that could show up and do the do the basic things consistently well.
01:53:35
Speaker
without making a big fuss out of them, show up with sharp crampons, ah you know, goggles that are are at least at the beginning, not cracked and not scratched, um you know, boots that fit, whatever the thing is, right?
01:53:51
Speaker
And have all that sorted, be sorted, like, you know. yeah and And then you can work on the other things. and Yeah,
Future Aspirations: Practical Dreams and Inspirations
01:54:00
Speaker
absolutely. It's the becoming. Then you can put risk. Instead of having risk that your goggles are going to break properly because they've got a crack in them, it's of scratches.
01:54:10
Speaker
Scratches on your goggles that then ice up so you cannot see in a whiteout. You can't see in a whiteout. You fall off. Yeah. you know Yeah. And so, but if you're going to take that risk, if you're going to take a unit of, say, eight out of 10 risk or four out of 10 risk, whatever risk profile you want, um then put it at the top end.
01:54:33
Speaker
Hmm. You know, don't waste your risk taking because you got scratched goggles. Sort that out. You know, that's really boring place to take risk. Make it funny. I mean, it's like, it's really cool to turn up with good goggles because you've got a unit of lemons that you can absorb or whatever people want to do when they talk about risk profiles. You know, you've got a unit of risk that you're allowed to take before you die. Don't waste it on cracked goggles. Boring.
01:55:01
Speaker
yeah that's like Yeah. It's making life fun. Yeah. Yeah. you mentioned how you would like to be, i asked you how you'd like to be remembered.
01:55:16
Speaker
And i' going to ask you another really hard question. What is your, what is your dream at this point? Yeah. Oh, that's easy. um ah My joints are wearing out and my dream is to, but well a dream, a dream and I'm not sure we'll see because I am older. I'd like to climb another 8,000er for sure. I'd love to. And I need to, my my dream would be to just, you know, I do have a ah quite not very good knees and I've got one particular knee, at well, one of my two knees. Yeah.
01:55:53
Speaker
And that's not very good. So that would be my, it's a real practical in your face. Come on, Lydia, things are really happening. so a new knee, ah I get a new knee and climb an knee and climb another eight thousand er Yeah, something like that. I do love expedition life and I do love guiding at altitude and ah yeah And A dream, well, that would be kind of a practical dream. i don't necessarily, i'm I'm not sure if I can get another, how much I can get out of my knee, but, you know, just that's kind of managing it creatively and not missing out too much because, you know, I have the timescale of my age versus, and I hope that I can keep going high for a little bit longer.
01:56:38
Speaker
I've no idea. I haven't been to 8,000. I've been to 7,000 each year, but not to eight since 2018. my last everest in 2019, then we had COVID. And, you know, New Zealand closed down. It was pretty um hard. It was too hard to get back in. So I couldn't, yeah. And so those are sort of practical dreams. And I want to, i you know, i oh, there's other career. See the crazy thing.
01:57:06
Speaker
Oh, really like to start to make some films. I think I made a little film last year. i don't own it, but it was my idea. We'll link to it in the show notes because i ah I've watched it. It's really great. Do you like it? i do, yeah.
01:57:20
Speaker
yeah it's It's just been really, I mean, it's only been on YouTube at least a couple of weeks. has I don't even know. Okay. on This is Te Ara the Path. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Yeah.
01:57:32
Speaker
And so I, and and part of that is exploring how people think. It's exactly what we're doing here. We're exploring how people think who have had significant events in their life.
01:57:46
Speaker
That's your whole thing. How have these events changed you? How do you think now? What did you think before? That's your big question of this whole podcast. That's what I'd like to do. It's so exciting. it's The mind is so exciting.
01:58:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and and you have a lot to share about that. I think that that's a great dream. I love, I can't wait to, I'm sure we'll talk again before I have a feeling.
01:58:17
Speaker
And I can't wait to see what what happens with that. I think that you'll make that happen. Well, you know, it's ah it's ah it's a dream, but I'm also not, you know, I'm not living in Europe and I'm not living in America where where alpinism is a culture and where there's more money and so I'm not the current hot chick doing super hard ice climbs. i You know, just all that kind of stuff. I'm just a, you know, I'm just a sort of... No, no, no, no, no. don't You're not allowed to say that here. You're not just an anything. You're incredible. and
01:58:52
Speaker
You know, this goes back to, you know you know the pioneer piece that I mentioned before, how I'm fascinated with people. And there's a saying, you know, pioneers get arrows, settlers get land.
01:59:10
Speaker
Have you ever heard that? and Pioneers get what? Arrows. Arrows. Pioneers get arrows, settlers get land. and You know, you've been a pioneer, whether, you know, in so many ways.
01:59:26
Speaker
And, you know, it's in you. It's who you are. It's in your identity. It's just how you show up in the world. And it's um it's amazing. And that's the kind of, that's that's what we need more of. that's ah That's why, I mean, if you don't do it for yourself, do it for the pioneering aspect that you're like opening a trail that,
01:59:48
Speaker
Other people can be 62 and have done all these amazing things and still like have big, amazing things left that you want to do and that you will do.
02:00:00
Speaker
i mean, and because you will become person that can do it in the act of doing it or trying to do it. I mean, to bring it full circle, right? Like that's...
02:00:11
Speaker
Because you've done ah you've done all these other things before, so why can't you do that too? like There's no reason you can't do that too. Zero. You should have a ah company that inspires people to... yeah i'm just working No, that's... But but but you've you've done all of that and you I want you to... i just... i If I can offer you anything today and in in in exchange for you being here and having these conversations, it would just be that I see you and I see how amazing you are and I'm so happy to have had this chance to connect with you and have this conversation and share these ideas. And I think our listeners will... Also appreciate it really a ah lot. How can our listeners find you or connect you in the ever present digital world?
02:00:58
Speaker
Oh, Instagram, Lydia Brady. There you go. They can message me that way. or um yeah And I think my, yes, I think that's Instagram or Facebook or I think my email is pretty visible.
02:01:12
Speaker
fine Yeah. Yeah, Instagram and Facebook are always good. you're You're out there and we'll try to link to you in the the show notes. Thank you so much, Lydia. Thanks to our listeners for tuning in. do not forget to click the subscribe button to the Uphill Athlete podcast for more inspiring conversations like this one.
02:01:32
Speaker
Until next time, remember Lydia's words, the uphill is easy.
02:01:48
Speaker
Hey, real quick before you go, everything publish, the articles, new podcast episodes, and the live webinars are announced first in our newsletter. You can elect to receive between one and three newsletters a month written by myself and the coaching team. And if you want them, sign up at UphillAthlete.com.
02:02:09
Speaker
Thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next one.