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BONUS // Meet Ashley from The Sharp End Podcast
1.9k Plays11 months ago
What better way to wrap up 2023 and season 1 of the Rescued Podcast, than by loading you up with fresh stories and podcasts for your Aussie Summer Christmas road trip listening.
I'm delighted to introduce you to Ashley Saupe and her immense library of work on The Sharp End podcast.
Download the Transcript here
LINKS
The Sharp End - Episode 53 // The Sleeper Wave (Hawaii) - https://www.thesharpendpodcast.com/episode-53
The Sharp End - Episode 76 // Live with Arc’teryx Athlete Adam Campbell (avalanche) https://www.thesharpendpodcast.com/episode-76
The Sharp End - Episode 26 // Live with Quinn Brett (fall on El Capitan) https://www.thesharpendpodcast.com/episode-26
The Sharp End - Episode 49 // Life & Death with Charlie Sassara and Jack Tackle (rockfall and leaving to get help) https://www.thesharpendpodcast.com/episode-49
Recommended
Transcript
Episode Introduction and Special Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to a bonus episode of Rescued Podcast. You might notice a few things are different. Number one is you can see me, which is the first time I've done video recording here in the podcast. And I thought, why not?
00:00:16
Speaker
not than for Christmas for a bonus episode. And speaking of a bonus episode and Christmas, I want to give everybody gifts. And the gift I want to give you for this holiday season is to give you something else to listen to because, hey, I've wrapped up season one for Rescue for the year. And while you're heading out on your road trips, you're heading out for some fabulous bushwalking, hiking,
00:00:41
Speaker
climbing, mountaineering, pack rafting, whatever it is that you're doing, you need to have some fresh things in your ears as you do those long road trips. So I am stoked to introduce you to the amazing Ashley. And Ashley runs a podcast out of her home. I'll get her to tell me a little bit more of where she is and what that is all about, which I hugely recommend. And not only do I recommend it,
00:01:07
Speaker
I have to give a massive nod to the work that she's done and how she has inspired this podcast that I do, that she's inspired the work of Rescued Podcast. And I had the absolute pleasure of meeting her when I was in the States a couple of months ago now, and I'm stoked to be able to introduce you guys to her.
Ashley's Podcast Journey
00:01:27
Speaker
So, Ashley, hi and welcome to Rescued Podcast.
00:01:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that was the most amazing introduction I've ever received in my life. I'm so flattered and honored. Thank you so much. It's very kind of you to invite me here to chat with you for a little bit. It's very nice.
00:01:45
Speaker
Aww, bless you. So, tell me about or tell everyone where you're coming to us from because, you know, obviously hearing an accent and a lot of the people who are listening to Rescue, you know, a big Australian audience, but you don't have an Aussie accent. Tell me where are you from and where are you coming to us today?
00:02:03
Speaker
I was born and raised in Alaska and I'm sitting here in my little home, my little ranch style home in Anchorage, Alaska right now and just got off work and it's just been snowing like crazy this last month. So we're getting tons of snow and it's nice and cold outside and big blanket of whiteness everywhere. So it's really beautiful. So that's where I am right now.
00:02:26
Speaker
Fantastic. So why don't you tell me about, and I'm just going to do that cheesy product placement thing. Some people might've picked up that I was, let me see, I'll just take those headphones off. There we go. That looks a bit better. You might've seen me on socials over the last couple of months wearing this, had it around a bit. So tell me about the Sharp End podcast. Why, how, where, what's the story? How long has it been going? So the Sharp End podcast is something that I came up with about
00:02:56
Speaker
Nine years ago, I was in Salt Lake City and I was driving from, you know, I was living in a van at the time and I was driving from climbing crag to climbing crag to climbing crag between my, you know, my outdoor educating work stints. And I was reading the book by American Alpine Club, the book called Accidents Pretty Religiously, just to learn from other people's mistakes.
00:03:23
Speaker
Um, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, I was telling my, the person that was in my, my best friend who was in the, in my van with me, I said, you know, Josh, I think that this book should come to life. This book should be a podcast. Somebody should make this book into a podcast. And he's like, that's a good idea. And then.
00:03:41
Speaker
You know, a day goes by and I said, You know what, Josh, I'm going to make that book into a podcast. I'm going to make those stories come to life. And I and I dreamed this idea up. And that's how it sort of was started because, you know, there's so much shame and guilt and embarrassment and judgment behind incidents and outdoor accidents and
00:04:01
Speaker
So many people I've found in my 15 years of doing outdoor education that nobody really wants to come forward and share their incident because it's a vulnerable space.
00:04:13
Speaker
it takes courage and bravery to come forward and be like, Hey, I made this mistake. And this is what
Balancing Life and Passion Projects
00:04:18
Speaker
I learned from it. And I want to share this so you don't make the same mistake. And what a concept, you know, and so, you know, I'm an empath, and I believe in learning from other people's mistakes to minimize future outdoor accidents. And so I really try to give people a nice, safe judgment, shame-free space to share
00:04:37
Speaker
their stories with with the outdoor community and so that's how it was birthed and I've been working on the show for about eight and a half nine years and I produce one and or two episodes a month depending on you know what else I'm doing in my life because I do work a full-time job and
00:05:00
Speaker
this podcast does not provide enough financials for me to do it full-time. So I do have a full-time job. So it's kind of a passion project that I do in between my other work. Yeah, that's a lot of work, two episodes a month. And most people will realize that you're a rescued podcast, maybe about one a month-ish. Yeah, a lot of work goes into it. So what about your
00:05:27
Speaker
outdoor background. You said that you were going from crag to crag when you had this idea. Would you say he's climbing your main child that you love if you had to pick all your favourite outdoors children? Would climbing be its favourite? Climbing definitely used to be
00:05:46
Speaker
my favorite. It used to define me. I was a climber, and that's what I did all through my 20s. Then I blew my knee out. Also living in Alaska, it's tough to be a climber in Alaska because the rock here is so few and far between, and the seasons aren't that long. Once you start climbing again in the summertime,
00:06:12
Speaker
you know, then you get better and better and better. And maybe you're climbing from, you know, beginning of the season to five, seven or five, eight. And then at the end of the season, maybe you're climbing five, 10 or five, 11, but then it's winter, you know, and so winter's, winter's along here. So then you're either climbing in the gym, which I've never really been super excited about doing. Um, and, but then if I don't climb all winter long, all fall in winter long and spring long, then it's, I'm back at climbing five, seven. So it kind of got,
00:06:41
Speaker
it kind of got difficult for me to keep going backwards with my climbing skill set. And so it's tough to be a climber to ask, like I said. And now, just sort of with my knee not being nearly as strong as it was previous to my injury, I have different hobbies these days.
Podcast Themes and Expanding Focus
00:06:59
Speaker
But I still love climbing, and I can't wait to get back on the rock at some point when I'm a little bit more strong.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah. And that time, that ice and snow has melted away. That's right. So what would you say? I mean, like we said, nine or 10 years you've been doing this, which is an amazing resource and library of great learnings for so many people. Thank you.
00:07:22
Speaker
in your collection there for the sharp end. What are some of the things now that you've you've learned, I guess, about learn about people as adventurers, as outdoors, people as sort of overall that you can glean from all of that experience of listening to stories? Mm hmm. There's been quite a few common themes throughout many of the incidents and causes of why they've happened.
00:07:50
Speaker
The biggest one would be complacency. I think for me, it's learning all the themes and threads that relate all the incidents together and also just being really compassionate and empathetic to everybody that has experienced an incident or an accident in the outdoors because
00:08:18
Speaker
So many people, including myself forever, have said, oh yeah, I'm invincible. Or maybe I didn't say that out loud, but I was definitely thinking it. Oh, I'm invincible. That can never happen to me. That would never happen to me. And it does. It happens to you. It will happen to you. Something will happen to you. And if you have a margin of safety or if you have increased experience outside and you're going outside and playing a lot and you're recreating a lot,
00:08:48
Speaker
Like you have an increased chance of being involved in an accident. It's just going to happen. It's statistics. And so I think for me, one of the biggest learnings has been, you know, stepping back and pausing and giving space and accepting that, you know, this can't anything can happen to anybody at any time and not judging and not shaming and not belittling and not making people feel lesser or that you are
00:09:15
Speaker
bigger or better or smarter because you're not. I think that's really important for all of us to just take a look in the mirror and realize that. It's a real humbling thing to actually realize actually we're all on a level playing field. Yes, exactly. That doesn't matter how many years experience or how much training or what our skill level is, nature has a way of bringing us all into that same playing field.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what about the nature of the stories that you hear on the sharp end? Is it all mountaineering and climbing or what's the kind of the mix there? It used to be pretty specific to climbing and alpinism and mountaineering. It did used to just sort of have those specific topics in the show. But then I was like, wait a minute. That's really pretty exclusive, Ashley. That's pretty exclusive.
00:10:15
Speaker
And so I decided to branch out and do other other activities like hiking and backpacking and, you know, and kind of by branching out that way I felt like it was allowing me to reach a wider audience.
00:10:33
Speaker
and I thought that was really important. There's one interview that I did with a woman who was hiking in Hawaii and she got taken out by a rogue wave. It was so interesting because that episode, I was like, I wonder if this is going to be
00:10:50
Speaker
a challenging one if this one's going to get a lot of listens. It got so many listens because it was so different.
Listener Engagement and Podcast Evolution
00:10:56
Speaker
You don't think about getting nailed by a rogue wave when you're hiking casually in Hawaii, but that's the prime example of like, okay, this can happen to you at any point in time. It's cool.
00:11:09
Speaker
So that was an interesting episode. So maybe check out the hiking in Hawaii one. Have you got another sort of, if people were looking for say, I want to say the gateway drug into the sharpened podcast, is there episodes that sort of stand out to you as ones you'd go, you know what, if you wanted to know where to start, because after nine years, you're going to have a load in there. Any sort of standout that people could go looking for? Oh my goodness. Well,
00:11:38
Speaker
If you're new to the podcast, the beginning couple of year episodes, like I said, I was doing one episode a month for many, many, many years, and just this last year, I'm trying to do two a month. But the beginning episodes of maybe the first 24 or so, I was recording in a bus that I lived in on the side of the road and outside of Haynes, Alaska. My heating element was a wood stove, so you hear crackling and I'm recording.
00:12:07
Speaker
in a bus like pirating some Wi Fi from this closest house and so the record the audio recording is really not that great and and really that's been a theme through the whole eight and a half nine years of doing this show is that my audio quality has never been that great or consistent because I'm
00:12:25
Speaker
Because of the nature of my full-time job, which is traveling for work as doing safety for TV shows and outdoor education. So I'm recording on the road most of the time. So my Wi-Fi is very sporadic and I do apologize for that. I do understand and I know that that is the case and I'm working on it for 2024. So just keep that in mind. But with that said,
00:12:47
Speaker
beginning episodes may be a little bit more rougher to listen to. And the later episodes have definitely gotten better as I've gotten much more mature with my style and my confidence as a podcaster. But if there's you know, if you're
00:13:01
Speaker
if you want to know about where you start in terms of which episode. There's been so many good ones. There's been so many good ones. I do like all three live ones that I've done. The first being with Charlie Sisera, who is this super amazing local bad-ass guy. He lives in Anchorage, Alaska. He is a really incredible alpinist. And I did a live interview with him at Alaska Mountaineering and hiking a couple of years back. And he talked about
00:13:31
Speaker
his and Jack Tackles epic. So tune into that one. The second live one I did was with Miss Quinn Brett, who is one of my most favorite female climbers in the history of the world. And she was climbing in Yosemite on El Capitan, and she fell about 100 feet and hit her back on the flake.
00:13:55
Speaker
and severed, I think she severed her spine and now she can't walk, she's in a wheelchair. So that one was really gripping. I definitely cried during that interview. And the third live interview that I've done is with Mr. Adam Campbell, who is an arcteric athlete. And he was backcountry skiing with his soulmate and another
00:14:22
Speaker
I don't want to call her an idol, but I definitely idolize her. His soulmate and his partner in crime and wife, they were backcountry skiing in Canada. It was the last run of the day and she was caught in an avalanche and buried 12 feet down from what I remember. When they got to her and they were digging and digging and digging and digging and digging like
00:14:46
Speaker
frantically to get Laura out of the snow. The first thing that Adam saw once they exposed a part of her body was her left hand. And on her left hand, he saw her wedding ring. And he was just like the most visually, emotionally descriptive thing that I think I've probably ever heard. So that was
00:15:15
Speaker
really touching. And so those three live interviews were really amazing, really great starts, but they are live interviews. So the recordings are, again, aren't that great?
Processing Trauma through Storytelling
00:15:26
Speaker
But yeah, I think you could just really start anywhere. And then if you decide that you like the format of my show, then start at the beginning.
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, you'll have things to listen to for a very long time. And just watching how, you know, how affecting these stories can be. I hear you on that. I think something that a lot of people don't realize is
00:15:54
Speaker
The trauma, actually, for not only the person who's maybe the victim or the patient then who recovers or the people in maybe who were there with them, people think, oh, you know, oh, well, you had your accident two years ago. Oh, you might have just, you know, you did your tip and fib and now you've had your moon boot and now you're back and isn't that great? And I think people don't recognize the ongoing healing and trauma
00:16:24
Speaker
that happens post-accident and that it's not just to that person, it's their whole circle. And when you think about, for those of us who love the outdoors and who find our mental, physical, spiritual and emotional and community health within those spaces,
00:16:44
Speaker
to face trauma within that place, which is a comfort place and a home place, can have a really long lasting effect on people. And it's not something that you can heal quickly. Do you have any sort of comments or thoughts about that? I think that you nailed it on the head and I think compassion can go a long way. And I'm not only 100% agree with what you just said, but I also think that
00:17:13
Speaker
another, another part of it is, you know, when there is a physical injury, when, when there's a physical injury that happens when you are recreating outdoors, like for me, when I blew my knee out, it, it changed me. It stripped me of my, of how, of how I identify as an outdoor woman and as a climber and as an, you know, mountain, you know, mountain person, mountain woman. It takes your identity away.
00:17:40
Speaker
and the recovery time and what that does to your mental health, it really does change a person. So I think compassion can go a long way. And I also think giving yourself grace is really important. And then also if you don't have, if you weren't the one that was involved in the incident and came out of it with a physical injury, so say you and I are climbing together and say you're climbing and I'm belaying you,
00:18:11
Speaker
and then all of a sudden you fall and I'm not paying attention for whatever reason or something happens and the rope slips through my ATC and all of a sudden you hit the ground and you get injured, you get physically injured. Maybe you break your arm or maybe you injure your ankle and then your climbing career is on a hard pause.
00:18:34
Speaker
But all that, and all that attention goes to you because you have this physical injury that you need to get healed up, right? And not a lot of people look at me and say, wow, Ashley, like, how are you doing? You know, yeah, you made this mistake that you, and that, yeah, I could tell you feel awful and you may, and you may never climb again because you may never blame anybody again because, you know, you have this PTSD that you are, that you can't forgive yourself for. And I think that, I think there's something you said for that too is, you know,
00:19:04
Speaker
obviously pay attention and give attention and give first aid to those that have been physically injured, but also give attention and first aid to those that are mentally injured. So it's a double-edged sword and they're both equally important and I can't stress that enough. Yeah, so true. It's so true. And I think the very nature of all that stuff is why
00:19:32
Speaker
podcasting is an excellent way to share story, to share a pathway to healing because there's not that instant, you know, you don't get the angry keyboard warriors jumping in like they can in social media. Trolling is awful.
00:19:56
Speaker
horrific to people who are already going through this stuff. The last thing they need is a pile on. So yeah, it's certainly, yeah, it's a nice way. And it also, it's that sense of bringing people around the campfire. Let's share the story. Let's share in this non-judgmental, non-shame based, you know, framework and think, well, how can this make me a better climber?
00:20:25
Speaker
bushwalker hiker, backcountry skier, whatever it is. If there were any comments, any nasty or rude or unhelpful comments on any of my posts at all, I'd delete them. There is no room for any of that on any of my social media.
00:20:46
Speaker
If you go on there and say, wow, what an idiot, I'd never do that. Your post is deleted. I will not tolerate anything that makes people feel worse than they already do. I won't do it. That's not okay. It's not okay. Have you had any sort of feedback or response from people who
00:21:06
Speaker
who have come onto The Sharp End and have told their story and have then come back to you and said, hey, thanks. That actually helped with my processing and dealing with it. So many. So many. I would say 50% of the guests that have been on the show have said that the space that they were given
00:21:25
Speaker
to work through and share, you know, verbally process and work through and share their incident with others has helped them tremendously, which is so worth it. And I've wanted to quit doing my own show probably a dozen times because for me, like I mentioned to you before, I am an empath and I carry these stories and I feel
00:21:50
Speaker
I feel their words and their experience in my gut and in my heart, and it really can weigh on me. I've thought about leaving and walking away so many times, but I see the value, and I don't mean a monetary value, but I see the importance and the value of continuing to produce the show because the importance
00:22:19
Speaker
you know, that appreciation, the importance that my guests tell me that they're getting from it.
Sustaining the Podcast and Future Plans
00:22:25
Speaker
And not only the guests experience, but it's also the listeners too. Like I get lots and lots and lots of fan mail saying, Ashley, I think you saved my life by me listening to this episode. And it's like, the thought of me saving somebody's life, you know, oh my gosh, like what a beautiful thing to give somebody is, is
00:22:48
Speaker
living longer, potentially, you know, and I don't know, but the thought of that being a possibility is just, God, it's like worth, it's worth the crying and it's worth the pain that I endure by
00:23:00
Speaker
producing the show. Yeah. And the hours of research, recording, admin, editing, marketing, commenting, the whole emailing, mailing. What an awesome merch, can I just say? Oh, thanks. Yeah. Thank you. By the way, yes, thank you, everyone. Ashley gave this to me very generously when we met up in the States. So yeah, that's maybe one way that you could even support
00:23:29
Speaker
the work of Ashley and the show, The Sharp End is by visiting her store. So in the show notes, I'm going to pop links to all of her stuff. I encourage you to absolutely check out her things, subscribe, share it with your friends. And I guess finally, is there anything else you wanted to say, Ashley, about The Sharp End or about your perspective?
00:23:55
Speaker
that you have after so many years of doing this, that you'd love the Listens of the Rescued podcast to know. I'd just like to say, well, thank you so much for having me on. I'm so grateful and honored and I'm just like,
00:24:10
Speaker
I can't believe it. And then, yeah, I do have a, I just started a YouTube channel. So it's like, you know, this is your, you're doing video right now. I'm transitioning as into doing video as well. So a lot of the podcasts or a lot of the episodes that I've done in the last, the last six episodes that I've done are now on YouTube and moving forward. Every episode that I will be doing will also be on YouTube. And I want to just lead the listeners with, with one final thing, which is
00:24:39
Speaker
You know, be kind, be compassionate and play hard and be smart. Play hard, be smart. Excellent words. Ashley, thank you so much. All the best for the holiday season for you and your family and all of your community of listeners. And I look forward to listening to more here and right back at you. And I look forward to listening to so much more of the Sharp End over my holidays and into next year as well.
00:25:07
Speaker
Thank you so much. I greatly appreciate the time.