Ep. 211 | Brian Dickinson | Navy Rescue Swimmer and Everest Summiteer

It's a fun name to have in the military. Oh, I bet it's not as bad as Wagner, though it could have been worse. You know, you always got to look at the positive. When were you in ninety three to ninety nine? Ninety three? Was that a thing? Did you ever see the Wagner loves cock in ninety three to ninety nine timeframe? Okay, so maybe this is a gwat thing. Only then it was almost like that. You know that picture of World War Two of the I can't remember the dude looking over the They would will always draw on vehicles, his like nose would be hanging over something. It was like that. But every portagehn literally it no, no, no, it wasn't even that. It was just every portage on in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever you were said Wagner loves

cock in it, everyone of them. And if your name was Wagner, you know obviously that has second third order effects. So it's unfortunate. But yeah, so I just want to make sure, well, I appreciate you having or I appreciate you coming on the show man. I'm I mean, for people that haven't heard your story, this is pretty wild that you went you. You know, you summited everest, went blind basically, and made your way down. And I want to get to all that. And I'm fascinated with mountaineering and stuff like that. And you know, I read Into Thin Air back in the day when I was like in middle school or high school, and ever since I read that, I was just so fascinated with it. But you were also a rescue swimmer in the Navy, correct,

So let's talk about that. I mean, that's a pretty tough job on its own. You know, that's a tough gig by itself. What made you decide to join the navy and pursue a job that's, you know, known to be difficult. Yeah, I don't know. You know, just like yourself getting into jay tackets, you were wired differently, and you know there's you know, just a it's a special breed, I think, and you you don't really realize that until you're presented with the opportunity. I didn't want to go in and just you know, clean toilets or anything, which I did plenty of that too, but we all do you know, I wanted to at least set my you know, my eyes on something a little bit more extreme. And actually had my whole risky swimmer class. The whole

plan was for most of us to go into the seal teams and right you know, after we've you know, finished it, most of us past the end test, and it was right after the first Gulf War, so they kind of like recoiled on our ability to go right into that. So a lot of folks did later, But after my six years, I decided to get out. I think really it just ultimately just comes down to, you know, how we're wired. And you know, I've always been into you know, outdoors and extreme things and just pushing myself beyond the limits, just you know, never just really settling for mediocricy. How did you even hear about that job? I mean, you grew up in southern Oregon, correct and basically like an outdoor environment. How do you hear about a job like

that? Yeah, especially in the eighties, right, So I went ninety three, but still there's no internet or anything back then. So top gun was they have when Goose you know ejets out and you got the it was actually the coasties came in and jumped the swimmers. I'm like, oh, that's that's kind of cool. And then back. Yet you know, it's probably the same when you went in. You had like the book that you went through and you looked at rates and different things and pictures, and and then talking to the recruiter, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, just we'll figure that out later, and you know, just go in now. And I'm like, yeah, screw that. Yeah, sure, I made sure to you know, demand the job that I wanted, you

know, and ultimately wanted to you know, go into seals, but you know, didn't want to start there, and you know, had some good coaching from the recruiter once they actually knew I was serious, and and then from there just I had to wait like another like six months before I could get that billet, like going to boot camp and then you know, go right into air crew and rescue swimmer school. Yeah. I mean that's funny that top gun pulled in someone else but not a pilot, you know, like made you want to come in and do something else. Those other jobs.

I mean, it makes looking it makes working on a flight deck look cool, even though that is not you know, I haven't worked on the flight deck, but it doesn't look cool. It doesn't look fun. You know when I was on ship and stuff. Yeah, I mean it's legit. I mean it's one of the most dangerous areas you could ever work.

That's going on and then permanent you know, hearing damage and just everything else that you know, all the perks you get from just working out there. But it was cool to be able to actually take off and go see different parts of the world and then come back to the carrier where like people are stuck on there for months at a time. Yeah. Yeah, you have the best gig or one of the best gigs on ship because you get to leave the ship occasionally, you know, even if it's to fly to another ship or something like that. It's just getting out of that space. Like people may not. The only people that probably understand what that's like people in prison, you know, or something like where you just can't there's no I

can't do anything. I can't leave, you know, when you're deployed, you're you're on that ship. And I remember getting off ship for an exercise and was able to We started doing work in Kuwait, like with the Royal Marines and stuff, doing close air support stuff, and while we were ashore, what's the uh, no, in the is it that. I don't know, it's the OP ten or something like that. I can't remember what it is. They haven't painted now because at some point somebody actually bombed themselves on that op So it's like a big black yeah, big on that one.

But while we were ashore, the ship got tasked, it got pulled, and we got we stayed ashore and we just made the best of it and did work and stuff like that. And by the time we got back to the ship like two months later, everyone looked like ghost like. It was just crazy how pale everybody was because we just came out of the desert.

You know. We were in Kuwait, and we went to Saudi Arabian and did some work there and then we flew. It's so we're all like, tam, we've been out on the op and stuff when we show up and everybody's like you can almost see their organs through their skin because taste, especially like the engineers, I mean, they're below deck. They never see the light of day. It's nuts. It's very easy to I mean and it's hard to like fathom this unless you're there, but it's very easy to not see sunlight for a very long time if you don't make yourself do it because you if you have no reason to be outside of the ship, then you're never outside of the ship. You have to go, hey, man, I should probably go outside for a little bit and get twenty minutes of

sun to day or something. You know, It's like it has to be part of your like thinking and routine to like go get sun if you're you know, someone that's indoors the whole time. And I wonder even today, you know, just even when we were in it was they just didn't I don't know know or care, but just you know, vitamin D and just the things that are so necessary for just you know, healthy and you know, you know, a good mental health as well. Like you almost think they would force them to just get out there at least, you know, give them some vitamin D or something, some pills. Well, I know, I mean the Marines were they don't have anything else to do but train.

But the Marines were pretty good about when there weren't flight deck operations going on, taking their guys up and doing pt on the flight deck, like running or doing whatever. But yeah, it's just one of those things, man. And being a rescue swimmer again, that's one of those cool jobs where you get to you know, leave that environment for a little bit.

But you know, cool jobs come with cool risk. Also, you know that's a that's an extremely dangerous job. So can you tell us kind of the role for people that don't know what the rescue swimmer does? Sure? So there's there's different versions of rescue swimmer. There's the surface swimmers, which are like on the boat, which you know, they if there's like some sort of man overboard or something and the sea states not too bad or it's close by, they'll they launch like a little like rib and go and pick them up and they're attached to like a rope and stuff. So that's all good. But I was aviation rescue swimmer. So that's that's a guy, is it aus and girls that flying the helicopters and jump from the helicopters and

rescue down pilots. Kind of jack of all trades too. I mean we're not just doing rescue swimmer or doing combat search and rescue, deploying Marine Corps Seal Teams e O D, anti surface warfare, anti submarine warfare, so kind of like everything that you can imagine vert REP you know, doing the supplies on and off the carrier or whatever ship you're on. But for the most part, it's you know, our the main thing is aviation rescue swimmer.

So if a F eighteen e jacks, you know, someone has to pick that pilot up and we would go into a ten foot hover ten to fifteen foot hover jump, or if c state's too bad, or at night, you know, we'll go down sixty feet on the hoist, go through our disentanglement, you know, make sure there's there's no you know, medical emergency, or we got get a litter involved and you know, strap the pilot in and get them back him or her back to the aircraft and to the carrier, to some sort of medical facility that has more of a clue than our advanced first aid. You know, our job was to keep them alive long enough to you know, get them to someone who had more of a clue. Mm hm. Now would you say, is that something that

really kind of separates you guys from like Pj's is that you don't get that more advanced medical training like they do. Yeah, and even nowadays they have corman that'll that'll fly along, which is is great. We would have you know, the Advanced First Aid, which is you know, pretty it's it's definitely beyond like your normal you know first aid some of the training we went through. But yeah, pj's are legit, you know, doing IVS and you know everything else. They're also parachuting and you know, just some of the like CSR stuff that they're working on is you know, more you know, combat focused. I know, like in the Navy they're doing a lot more than that. I think when I was in we were just kind of

like you know, breaching the surface there. And then if you look at the extremes of like the how three Sea Wolves back in like Vietnam, they were like really paving the way, like you know, jumping out there and you know, getting down pilots and you know other crew you know, well the Vietcong we're just you know firing, firing down on their position, you know, losing a lot of helos. So it's like you get these extremes and you know, these ebbs and flows of the needs of the world and the military, and I think we're finally kind of getting to this point where we have like a you know, a pretty good solution and they're just ever evolving. So it's it's neat because I just finished another book, Cammon the

Chaos, and the whole point of that book was to tell stories of these rescues that have never been told, back from the Apollo thirteen extraction to Vietnam to stuff that I did too. You know, current rescues and you know survival, you know situations that there's just never been a book written about it.

And I know a lot of people have been asking for it, so like, uh, I'm in a good opportunity, and you know, there's no books about rescue swimmers. There's there's like there's PJ, there's Coast Guard, but there's none dedicated to Navy aviation And oh, I didn't know. That's crazy. Yeah, with all the books that are out there, you know, including the bad ones that are out there, that's crazy that there's not. That's you know what I mean. And that's kind of why I wanted to have you on the podcast, man, because one, I haven't had a rescue swimmer on. I haven't had a PJ on. I'd like to have more of both on just to kind of get those experiences because they're doing something every day that the average person can't fathom. You know, they're

not doing it every day. Let's be honest, right, You're not jumping into the ocean every day, But when that call comes, they're ready to go, you know. So every day they're ready to go out and do that crazy and it's just gotta be, is it. What? So I often talk to people on the podcast and say, we talk about how the jobs are so inherently dangerous, but we do it so often and we put safeties in place that we kind of start to forget how dangerous it actually is.

Outsiders looking in or like what you guys are crazy, but you know you're like, oh, we do this all the time, Like that's is that how it is? Or are you stressed knowing like fuck about to jump into this stormy ocean and get this dude? Yeah, I mean you're we're human, right, but yeah, when you're when you're working in the I guess in the red all the time, like you have that adaptive unconscious of you're just you can respond. You've trained so hard and you're it's so normalized, and I think anytime you get further away from that, you know that lessons that's why we trained so hard, That's why you know there's such a high attrition rate in our in this school because not everyone works well in oxygen

deprived you know, underwater chaotic environments where someone sees you as flotation because they're panicked, and you have to get control of them and get them in the helicopter safely without killing both of you. So it's, uh, they weed a lot of a lot of people out and it's it's an interesting process.

But yeah, I mean, you're every time you fly, every time you launch, you may have a mission set that you're on and it can it can be anti submarine warfare. It could be you need to go check out, you know, or take down a ship that's been taken over by you know, enemy forces and we're going to deploy a seal team or whatever.

Or you know, just you're sleeping in the middle of the night and you know, EA six back in my day, ejected and there's four pilots in the water, two or dead, two are alive, you know, now launch So you're like, yeah, you're amped and you're you're ready, but you're locked in. You're you're doing your job. You never know truly what what you're launching for. I got launched the night because a major airliner went down off of the coast of Mexico, and you know, I'm half asleep and didn't even like realize like is this real or not, you know, because you get launched so many times just you go into the head and taking a whiz. And then they got the guy, the duty dude comes in.

He's like, dude, you got to launch now. And I'm like, oh, this is real and take off. I'm still like, you know, peeing in my shorts and go get dressed out in my wetsuit, and my crew chief is running out with a litter attached to his back and like gets hung up in the you know the knee knockers, you know, the watertight doors, and you know, next thing, you're in the aircraft spinning up and launch and you search through the night and don't find anything.

And that's just how it is. So it's this constant like just amps. You know, I don't really know what you're launching for, well brief in the air, but you're just you're ready for anything. And yeah, it's it's exciting, but it's emotionally, yeah, it's a roller coaster. What's that like to do a cert man An airliner going down, Like, being a part of a search for that has got to be crazy, Like what can you you would think something that large would be kind of this is night time, so that's going to make it more difficult obviously, but it'd be hard OR'd be easy to spot stuff. But I mean, we've seen cases in the past where airliners have gone down and we've never found them. We've never found any trace of them. What is it like to be on a

search like that? You do you have to remind yourself constantly like I'm looking for you know, or because I can see how it can kind of get like you're just staring at the ocean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, you can get complacent. Yeah. So yeah, we will do search patterns, you know, last last point of origin or whatever, just searching in those areas and you're just you're sweeping and you're looking, and you're looking out at the horizon and you'll see a reflection or something and we divert and now our pattern has been disrupted and we're kind of you know, look around there and it's a false positive and so it's yeah, it's the adrenaline high well amp. At some point it'll spike and then it's just like tanks and

that just really does you know, a toll on your body as well as just the torque of the helicopter because you're just the g forces just pulling you left and right. And so it's you know, after four or five hours of flight, you know, it's a lot. And then it's you know, if you don't get the rescue or you don't you know, you just almost like you wasted all that time. And then you feel like, you know, if these people died, you know, and we weren't a part of that. You know, we searched but couldn't come up with anything or was it even a false you know search and rescue mission? You know, did the the aircraft just you know go missing. And then it's you know, shows up, came off, radar, came back on a lot of

times. We don't even hear the end result of that. Oh really, man, that's wild, dude. That's not back from the nineties at least. I don't know if things have changed. But you know, so you mentioned your crew chief running out. That was a question I had was are you considered a crew chief on the helo or is that like, are you like a third man in the back, like there's a two crew chiefs in you or how does that? How does the layout of the helo look?

So? Yeah, so in my day, in my day in the age sixties, the foxtrot and the hotels. So the foxtrots were more anti submarine, had the sonar dome and all that, so less less space. And then we had the hotels which were just pretty much gutted more for csarw but more space. So if you're doing like a more significant rescue, you can fit more people in there. But back when I was in we'd have we'd alternate, so we're all aviation rescue swimmers in the back, we would just alternate. Today, I'm going to be the hoist operator, the crew chief.

You're going to dress out in the the suit and you know, some people were just ampt to get a rescue or something, so they they'll wear the wetsuit all the time when it's a you know, one hundred and forty degrees in the Persian Gulf. And last thing like, I'll be the crew chief today, and then we have two pilots, the hack and then the co pilot. Okay, okay, so yeah that yeah, Okay, I was wondering. I didn't know, because I mean, do you guys ever fly armed. You're talking about flying in the Persian golf, I mean you're not just a rescue platform obviously. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we'd have.

So my first deployment in ninety five, ninety four, ninety five, it was like M sixties and we were just transitioning to the M two forties. So we'd go over in Kuwait just lighting up like the tank so that we're all out there and you know, AM sixty. After you know, five shots, it'll jam. So the M two forty was a nice change.

And now they have you know, mini guns and hell fire and all kinds of cool stuff. Yeah, in those areas of the world, we'd we'd always fly armed. Are there any rest that, really, you know, that you think about and you're like, man, that was crazy or that was awesome? Like is there anything that stands out in your mind?

Yeah? I mean just they're so unique. So I think as time goes on, you know, and it's just your normal job, you don't really think too much about it, and the fact that we are we're dealing with trauma on on every level every time. As soon as you you know, years decades past, you may have time to kind of to settle in.

And even writing this book kind of messed me up, like I didn't realize all all of the stuff that I had stuffed. And you know, it's it's always tough because when when we're in, you know, we don't ever want to admit to to anything that's you know, harming us mentally. And and then you get in this comparative game of you know, this person got you know, shot down and they're no longer with us. That's that's a disabled veteran. You know, that's not me. I can still function and whatever, you know, maybe painful or maybe mental whatever. But I think about to answer your question, there's there's just so many unique launches that we would go on. You know, seeing a forty six, you know, the the two propellers like coupling together and just crashing in front of us and

launching to to pick up the crew, and you know, just just seeing stuff like that. You know, I metavac off of a submarine that had to emergency surface to to get a guy off of there. So you're just hovering, matching the speed and you know, pulling someone up and you know, things like that are pretty pretty unique. One of the one of the maybe the most unique for my scenario is the things you don't see on the news. Is a Iraqi fishing boat that had sunk like five days earlier, like prior, and half the crew like they were just holding on to like pieces of driftwood. Half the crew had been eaten by sharks, and the other half was just swollen, you know, just because the water will just like permeate the body. And we got launched and we couldn't hoist them because

they probably would have their skin would have just degloved and slipped through. So we just held the empty forty on them. We don't know if they're good or bad rate. They didn't look good, but they didn't they look barely alive. But we that's where we launched a actually some marine corps with some shotguns trained on them, and then jumped the rescue swimmers or rolled the rusty swimmers out of the boat to to like roll their bodies on, you know, without separating their skin, and got them back on and just barely alive.

But you know, it's these unique scenarios where you know, I don't think I was trained necessarily for that, but I was basically trained for anything, so you just you respond to it. That's crazy, that's something you know. I mean again or the average person doesn't even consider that that you've been in the water for so long that your skin could just you know, slough off, like just be gone. That's wow. What a miracle though, right that you guys did you you just came across them randomly. Yeah, it was early in the morning, so on the on the ship you probably remember like the whistle they'll blow like if there's some sort of alert, so it's kind of that. It was like launched the alert thirty heilo I

was. I happen to be on alert. That means we have to launch within thirty or thirty minutes, and we geared up, got out there and yeah, just kind of had to assess the situation in the air and yeah. Fortunately, Yeah, a miracle for those guys who knows where they're at today and hopefully hopefully on the good side. Have you ever have you ever had anybody reach out to you that you rescued, like later on in life and you know just be like, yeah, that was crazy. Thanks, it's h h no, And it's it's very common. So like I've had rescue civilian wise, like in the mountains and different things as well, and I described one of them. And just because it's uniqueness, right place, right time, when I was on leave and there was a I was just

fishing with my brother in southern Oregon, way out of Nowhere's land, like you know, no one should be out there. Next thing, there's three heads bobbing down the high rapids and before my brother even knew it was happening, and I just I was in the water and rescued I think a five year old girl who got swept away. The mom jumped in she couldn't swim, pulled her in, and then this like eighty year old retired fireman who was a hero but just couldn't keep up as high pretty high rapids and got them all all in. And I was taking care of the older man just because his heart wasn't doing so well, and the mom just raced off with the girl. She was so embarrassed of her situation. And we find you know, that's pretty common. I do, hear you like pilots and stuff

like they'll they'll send like a case of bourbon or something. But yeah, for the most part, it's kind of if you're doing it for that, you're you're probably in it for the wrong reason. Yeah, it's just more of an observation that I've heard, you know, people like giving the heimlich in a restaurant. It's just you get in these embarrassing situations and you know, I've been in plenty of those, and that's that's totally fine, and you know, just as you're leaving and just say, hey, you're you're welcome, like, yeah, thanks for letting me see another day life.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely don't think you would be getting into it for that, but it's definitely I mean, you hear about it, you see it on the news sometimes and stuff. They have those feel good stories where you know that and that's a good feel I think those are the kind of stories we should see more of, you know, like people that did heroic or did things for their community like that and really stood out. I don't know, man, that's just so crazy, Like at any time you're sitting here pulling people out of the river, pulling people out of the ocean.

I mean, I never wanted I always respected our corman and you know, the different like medics and stuff that you'd run into. But I would never want that job because, like what you said earlier, it's like different levels of trauma all the time, and it no matter what your profession is. If you're in something where it's like, I don't know, it'd be like being a nurse or even a doctor at you have to start compartmentalizing all these like things where almost like what normal people would see is crazy trauma. They're like, eh, you know, that's just another day on the job, and that's I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing, you know, like that you get to that point, I mean you kind of have to

write to operate at that level and do the things that you gotta do. But at the same time, I feel like you kind of lose a little bit of your humanity when you're like that, right, m hmm, Yeah, it definitely changes you. And I think being young, naive, you know, that's you know, you can do anything at that point, you know everything. So you get into that and then then you're in it and you're good at it and you don't even realize that you're chasing trauma. So you get out, what do you do? Go climb Everest. Yeah.

Yeah, So were you climbing before you got out of the military. No. I was stationed down in San Diego, did two deployments to the Persian Gulf with Operation Southern Freedom, and you know I would get out and repel and you know, do whatever. But not I wasn't doing any high altitude mountaineering. That all happened after I got out. Yeah. I think the highest spot around here is Mount Baldy, you know, and that's just over ten thousand So that's not that's not what you're you know, anywhere near like Everest, Ordanali even stuff like that. Yeah, it's a I always like getting out and hiking and stuff, but mountaineering is completely different. It's so technical, the rope work. And I mentioned Mount Baldy because that's that's not

too far from here, and I've actually gone up it. And you hear every year about someone dying on that mountain. Normally it's in the wintertime, and it's normally when they're going across an area called Devil's Backbone, and they don't they're not you know, they don't have crampons on or something like that where they're not prepared to be doing what they're supposed to they're doing. And once you go down that side of Devil's Back. I'm not sure if you've been up there or not, but there's an area it's like super narrow, and I imagine I've only gone up in summertime, but I imagine in the wintertime if you go off either side, it's a drop like hundreds of feet on each side and it's only like four to eight feet wide in some areas,

you know, as you're going across it. So I don't know. I've always thought that that was great doing stuff like that, like getting up there, but alpine work is on another level. So how do you get to that level where you're like, man, I don't want to strap on oxygen and all these ropes and you know that's a whole other level. Yeah, no, that is, I mean you and you don't just show up and do it. You know, it's a transition. So I went through the I think the right route and went through training with professionals. I live in Washington State, so I have Mount Rainier, you know, fourteen and a half thousand foot peak, highly glaciated, so it's it's just a great like even in our like the North Cascades, Like, we have so many

different options, just a variety of good training mountains. So just getting out there doing some winter sense and you know, working with a team, understanding all that, and then to the point, I feel, to the point where you're going to tackle something like DNUALI R Everest. You know, some of these these bigger, dangerous, more dangerous peaks, you want to be able to guide on some of the smaller ones. So I've you know, got into that or I'm actually leading because there's one thing. If you're just you know, trailing along tied up to a rope, you know there's there's a lot there, and there's it's dangerous and everything else. But once you're in charge, and not only just in charge technically, but like assessing the

mental state of every person and their technical abilities, and you know, you live and die by these decisions. I think at that point you gain that confidence and you learn so much. You come back and you know assess, Okay, this didn't go so well, or I made a maybe not such a great choice here, or I made a great choice here. I'm glad I turned us around because we'd probably be dead otherwise. Yeah. I mean, how often having gone out again hiking and stuff quite a bit. How often are you running into people that are trying to climb even some of these smaller mountains that are just not prepared for it, like showing up like who are you man? What are you doing? Yeah? Always, and I've had to rope people up, put a bowline in the middle of our rope

and like get people down like Mount Baker because they didn't have the right gear and they I mean, they'd probably be dead otherwise. There's just there's no way. It's it's dangerous. It's a split up mountain. There's crevasses everywhere, and you know, if I wasn't there, I would hope someone else would have helped. But you just you never know, because then you hear these stories of people, and you know, the headlines will always say like experienced, but experience because they've walked around the park a few times with a you know, a weighted vest. Well, once you get up and you know, these these areas that are just you know, unforgivable, like you said, and Imbaldi, like the drop there, like if you accelerate off

of that, especially if there's ice on it, like it's game over. You're not gonna you can't pull out of that. Yeah. Yeah, it blows my mind every time I go out and do. There's another spot out there in the San Gabriel Mountains call old the Bridge to Nowhere, and it's like a ten mile round trip. No is it round trip? Yeah?

I think it's ten miles round trip hike. And I remember hiking out one day and I was going to camp out there. There's a spot. It's a bridge that got the roads got washed away in like the twenties or thirties, and they never rebuilt the roads because there was another bridge that satisfied then there was. It just wasn't worth it. So there's this crazy arch bridge out in the uh in the wilderness. They actually do bungee jumping off of it on Saturdays, I think, And uh yeah. I remember hiking out and getting ready to set up camp, and there was this older gentleman and this is five miles now it's daytime, it's summertime, so it's like in the eighties, upper eighties. There's this older gentleman that comes down to the

river with this lady and I see him like he's got one of those like one liter of water bottles and he like finishes it, he like, and I'm like sitting there just kind of doing my thing and I don't want to bother them. And I'm like, man, they don't have any I don't see any other water on these guys or on on either one of them.

I'm like, hey, man, you need some water and he's like, no, no, I'm okay, And I'm like, are you sure. I was like, I got a pump and a filter right here, you know, right here on the river. I'll just fill you up. And he's just like us it okay, And I'm like yeah, dude, And he's like, man, you must be some kind of country boy, you know, out here doing that. And I'm like, I just don't want to die in the wilderness, you know, Like that's crazy. You're like, this guy had to be in his sixties and he was about to hike five miles in the heat with no water, and I was just like, dude, you're not gonna make it back. Let me get you some water and stuff. And just seeing that though, it's like crazy that people put

themselves in that situation. And then you know, a guy like you had to come around and rescue him, did you that's like Mount Hood and Mount you know, like some of these more accessible peaks, you'll have a lot more deaths because they're right there. And it's like, oh, not even realize, Okay, I'm gonna get an altitude or I'm gonna fall into crevasse and you're not only putting yourself but others at risk. And then that's you know, are going to have to you know, give up their i'm under whatever to help rescue you. And yeah, it's just I don't know, it's this whole emotional intelligence, this lack of situational awareness, I think, and you know who knows. And social media probably doesn't help because I could

put a selfie on a cool peak and people look at me and like you don't look like much, and then the next thing like I'm not much, but I will experience I know what I'm doing though. Yeah. That's like I was talking to someone the other day. I was talking to I think it was one of the Delta guys I had on and we were talking about map work. You know, being able to understand like contour lines and stuff like that, how it makes moving through the woods so much easier because you understand, like it's not a straight day, I need it'd be easier to go this way. And those technical things, you know, are skills that you have to kind of learn and then hone along the way to become proficient enough to tackle like something like Everest. Now let's say I come to you

and I'm like, hey, man, I want to climb Everest Ike. The longest tick I've ever done is forty five miles, but it's mostly flat land. The highest peak I've been on is Baldy ten thousand feet. What should I do to prep what's like the easy like entry level into technical climbing like mountain you know, yeah it's and yes, I get that often so and I'm happy to have these conversations, but a lot of it's like really truly assessing, you know, why do you want to do this? You know, let's kick it back because if it's to tag a peak, or you see the media and it's like anyone can do it type thing, like that's that's not the reality. Like you may have a handful of bad actors or people that have paid and you know are still up there. You know

they've never made it down or they just happened to thread that needle and they survived. You know, you got to do it for the right reason. But if you don't have a portfolio of other peaks and skills and know just knowledge those experiences leading up, you don't you know, everest can be on that long term plan. But I mean that's that could be five plus years out. There's there's a lot of other peaks to just see how you'll do.

Ten thousand is if that's your highest point. That's where you know planes start pressurizing, So that's nothing. Yeah, yeah, so you don't you don't even you don't need anything at that point, so you don't know how you're you're going to respond at higher altitudes. So you definitely want to get highed just to see because not everybody can respond well to altitude. And you don't mess around with the death zone, you know when you're on in the Himalayas, because you will pass out and die. The reason they pressurize be above ten thousand is because the pilots and everyone would everyone would just pass out and die. That's why you have oxygen that falls down. So but if we're if you're really serious you want to do this, then we put together

a plan. I think Rainierhood some of these are a really good first alpine mountains. You know, in the Pacific Northwest, you just have a couple good options. Shasta in the winter can be good. Baker Mount Baker up in Washington is great because it's not at too high of altitude. It's just over ten thousand, but you're you're it's so split up with just crevasses and curracs and just it's got all the obstacles for like a really good mountaineering experience, but not having to deal with the altitude as much. So it's like that's a good starter, going guided, really learning the skill sets, rope work, everything else. And then and then rainier and rainier will no matter what it's, it's a long couple days, and it'll tell you something about

who you are and why you're there. And if it's not thing, then you're gonna find out really quick. You know. I've I've brought I bring groups up all the time, you know, groups and Navy seals and just other folks from military, NFL players, and and we reach a point where it's the reality sets in and we have those conversations and in most cases we can get up to the top and back down safely. But sometimes it's not.

You know, it's a good day to live and we turn around it's a slugfest, you know something like that. You got to like just put one foot in front of the other and just keep going right, you know. Yeah, And it's just so crazy, dude, It's such a it's such a wild thing to think of, you know, climbing that high.

You know you're talking about on Everest, the bodies and stuff that you'll see because you know, people may not know, no one you no one can rescue you. You're at a level where every every little bit of oxygen everything matters, and every little bit of energy you have matters. You probably don't have the energy to rescue someone. So if you sit down and stop, you know, that's is it is that exclusive to Everest. Are there bodies on other mountains, but we always hear about them on Everest, but I'd never hear anybody talk about on any other like high peaks, Yeah, of course. Yeah, Everest's just gets the spotlight. Yeah, it's the highest peak, right, Yeah. Yeah, there's there's bodies all over and a

lot of times there if you can, it's tough because they they will try to do recoveries. You know, if you can get a helicopter up in certain areas, but you know, anything that's above the death Zone or the Kara Korum in Pakistan or some of these areas, you just you can't. It's you're you're in survival mode yourself to then try to save someone else or you know, to recover a body. It's it's difficult, and you know it happens sometimes, but it's it's risky. And for the most part, if I'm up there, I made a choice to go up there. If I die up there, leave me up there. And that's it's kind of this rule that you know, most climbers habits the people down below that you know, will never touch step foot on one of these mountains that claim to

have this knowledge. And I don't know, that's just a pet peeve of mine. If I'm not there, I can't really comment, you know, if there's an incident on Everest or some you know, some of these peaks like the Media Today Show or whoever will call and have me on to be like that resident expert. And I don't know, I'm pretty pretty disciplined about I wasn't there. I can tell you about my experience, which is completely different. Yeah, that's what the body's going through. But you know, I can't necessarily comment and it would kind of be inappropriate for something that's so you know, if it's something that just happened, like you wouldn't want to comment on that and inject some kind of opinion that's you don't even know the

facts of what happened and what actually occurred and stuff like that. You know. Yeah, now totally, because their family is just holding on to hope and if I give that false sense of hope or you know, either way either way, yeah, be a miracle. Yeah, dude, it's so crazy. I mean when when you see that, like when you're climbing and you see like a body or something that's that's still there? Is that Is it always a reminder? Are you like, man, this is I mean, what goes to your mind when you see something like that? Yeah, No, it's it's definitely. I don't know. I'm I have strong faith, you know, I just I pray and it just gives me a moment to just you know, pray and have the reality of this person was a

you know, had a family, has a family and they're missing this person and they were going after their dream and something outside of their control probably took them out and that's unfortunate, but probably in a better place. And up on Everest is like your bodies are The bodies are preserved because you're up there in the death zone and you know, just they don't really weather away's change color. But for the most part, they try to stash, you know, out of respect, like the bodies, because when I summitted, a famous Japanese climber died the day prior and he was like stashed near the South Summit. So but yeah, no, it's you know, you walk by a tent. I'm walking through the Western comb at like twenty to twenty one

thousand feet and there's a collapsed tent. I know there's a body in it. You know, it's just that kind of eerie or going through the ice fall and sirpare carrying down a wrapped up body, and yeah, it's it's sad, it's you know, it definitely makes you question your motives and I think when you're in those scenarios, you know it will never happen to me type of thing, like I've made good choices in the past, but you know, we're all human and single avalanche to just take you out. Yeah, I mean when you get to when you're doing stuff that extreme, it becomes a game of experience versus luck, right, good luck, bad luck, you know, and the numbers at some point it's I don't know, it's again though people love it, you know, people think it's worth it,

and they continue to go up. They know the risk. It's not like any people don't know it's hard to get up Everest, and that it's a deadly place, especially after incidents that occur, like I was talking about earlier that Into Thin Air book, you know, I think it was ninety six or ninety five, and yeah, where a whole bunch of people got lost, you know, because of some storms that rolled in. Those things unfortunately happen, you know. Yeah, And even like the year twenty fifteen and sixteen it was like back to back years on Everest where the mountain was shut down because this map the first year, the massive cornice overhanging the ice fall, which is super dangerous, just broke loose and like in case like

fifteen sixteen, climbers sure I p you know, just boom dead the whole time. Eyes there, I'm I'm looking at that thing like that thing's gonna break loose at some point, because that's just how the world works. Then the next year was earthquakes that just rocked the place, and yeah, I mean that's yeah, you're right. You. I always say you train for the things within your control, but you have to be ready to respond to the things outside of your control. And that's you're always your head's always on a swivel. And when you're at high altitude, it's amazing how slow motion life is and you have to react in that. So, yes, some people might get lucky and make it to the top and back down, whereas something goes sideways, you have to be you have to have the ability and

awareness to be able to respond. Yeah, when it seems like, you know, when you're talking about high altitude climbing, that's not something you casually do. That's a lifestyle, right, can you You know you can someone really aspire to go climb Everest when they don't even live in an area where they can climb that often. I mean, I feel like to even get to that level, or not even Everest, maybe even say the top ten highest peaks, any of them, you have to build up to that.

I mean, how do you do it? I mean you place yourself in an area where you can constantly be honing your skills, right, you know, so, I guess. So it has to be a lifestyle. You can't just say, hey, I'm going to do this and then train for the next year and then go try Everest. People do and it's it's amazing, and I don't know how they do. You can't train for the altitudes.

I mean, you can just pull that piece out anyways, because there's nowhere in the world except like the himlays in Caricorum, So you can get in a hyperbolic chamber and you know try to you know, fake your way through it. But if you're not getting you know, the steps in in the elevation with a heavy pack, if you're doing that in a gym, it I don't know how people do it. I mean, just the short answer, like, I have the luxury of having so many different options and that's what inspires me. It's not about you know, tagging the top and whatever. It's it's your lifestyle, correct, correct. Yeah, it's good to have those goals that are you know, pretty audacious, and if you don't achieve them. That's fine. At least you're working towards something, not

just you know, sitting on the couch. But yeah, I I don't know, there's people like in you know, I don't know in the South and south there's Florida where the highest elevation is like below sea level. Ye how they do it? Yeah? Will power right. I mean when I was in high school, I remember a someone I think it was either local to my town or he may have been a graduate high school. I can't remember, but he had climbed Everest and he came as a as a speaker, and it was not long, probably a couple of years after I read in the Thin Air and I and I remember just thinking he said the same thing like he or he said that he trained for a year to do that climb, And I'm like, man, that's really you can just train for

I was thinking, like, what did you just get on a stair climber every day for like a year, just put in you know, get those quads going or what like I gots it'd be so boring. But there's there's so much more than just fitness that goes into climbing these peaks. I mean, you're immersed in these other countries, there's technical Like in Everest, there's the kumbu Ice Fall. I mean it's a river of building sized blocks of ice. You're crossing ladders, you got the temperatures, you got avalanches kicking off. There's just there's so many variables. I mean, even just getting to base camp is thirty eight miles on foot going from you know, nine thousand to seventeen thousand, five hundred. So it's like, just getting to

base camp is legit. Base camp is higher than any three thousand feet, higher than any peak in the lower forty eight. So just consider that just getting into base camp is pretty impressive for a lot of people. And then you look at this massive like obstacle, this kumbu Ice Fall, and it's like, holy crap, And I got to go through that like, you know, six to eight times as I'm acclimating. Yeah, that's right, that's right. I actually knew a marine officer who uh I think he might have gotten out and done that. I can't remember, but he went and did the hike to base camp and ended up getting altitude sickness, you know, and it's like it's crazy, like you have to does that you know, when you go and you're doing these high peaks all the time, do

you acclimate faster? You know? Does that something you never get used to that right? Well, so it depends. So I have some guiding friends. They're like, in fact, they're going for the summit right now, and Everest they they go, they travel the sun, so they're they're always at altitude. Yeah, so it takes a long time and I can just kind of go through the process. So Everest is at twenty nine thousand and thirty five feet, so same altitude major jet airliners crews at. So if you're to pluck your body from where you're at or where I'm at go on the surface, you would just pass out and die. So in order to survive, you have to acclimate. So you climb high, sleep low.

So you go up to these oxygen deprived you know, forcing your body into these areas, which then creates more red blood cells in your body, which carry oxygen. So that's the process of acclimatization. So then you keep going a little bit further up, come back down, rest for a few days, then head back up and pretty much camp three on Everest at twenty three thousand feet is as high as you can acclimate, because above that you're getting in the death zone at twenty six thousand feet where there's only a third of the air, third of the ozone, and you just can't survive long.

If you cut your finger, it won't heal. And that's really where you start using supplemental oxygen where it just mixes with the outside air. You know, it's not like scuba because if you came off oxygen you would just again die. So it's that extra weight. But you know, it's that balance of you know, survival and not. But yeah, as far as like holding onto that, it could it could take a long time. You know, there's a month of acclimatization before you even consider going for the summit on Everest. But then you'll lose it just you know, within a week.

And it's yeah, it's it's it's quick. It's nice when you have it because I you know, you can come back and like run a marathon on your hands, like I bet, yeah, after being at that kind of altitude for sure. Yeah, that's interesting. I remember even climbing up the first time I went to Baldy. I'm at sea level and I drove up to where you start, which is at six thousand feet, and then the top is just over ten thousand feet and that last like quarter mile or so.

I mean, I could see the top was just killer on my cat, Like my muscles were locking up. And I think it was mostly it wasn't. I don't think I was dehydrated. I think it was mostly that was my first time like climbing like that up into that mortem and that's like the like you said, that's like the entry level of Oh no, there's less oxygen, you know, and that's like the most so even I can't imagine that acklam is you know, acclimatizing for that long. I mean, God, the dedication is just out of control. Now when you let's talk about let's talk about you know, the trip and the planning and stuff like that. I think your whole goal was to do the seven highest peaks on the seven continents, correct, and that was just one of obviously one of

those, yeah, yep, yeah, exactly. And at this point I had been on Denali, Kilimanjaro, Mount Elberis, which is in Russia, and then Everest was my fourth. Is that out of I mean, obviously that's a dangerous one is what is the most technical climb right now other than Everest. I mean Everest, it's not the most technical right because we have people that can just come off their couch in a year later climbing it is possible, hardly possible, but they're all very unique. Dnale is up there, but it's it's kind of similar technicoloity allergies. So Denali is and I've climbed Denali three times and never Summit did, so that's the one that's oh wow, I snowboarded at once, but all always good decision making. They

I was pinned down at high Camp at seventeen thousand feet for a week, and yeah, we got within a thousand feet on a summit attempt. One guy got blown off the top from another team, so we're searching for his body but they still haven't found them. So we made a good choice come back. But it's just it's one of those things, so that one.

There's sections of it that are that are pretty technical, but it's more the weather that's just so unpredictable and you just got to make good choices. Down in the Antarctica. Vincent massif is amazing. It's like kind of a mini I mean it's still up there. With the barometric pressure, it feels like just under twenty thousand feet even though it's at sixteen. But it's very similar to Denali in just the length. You're pulling sleds, carrying another seventy in your pack. It was a negative seventy degrees when I was on the summit, so it's a little chilly, a little cold, but yeah, they're all unique. In Everest had it definitely has its technical sections. I mean, you're you're climbing up loads of Face, which is the fourth highest mountain

in the world, and it is a straight up ice climb for a couple miles, so if you fall your you know, game over. You're you're sliding forever. What makes it maybe safer is that we fix lines, so during certain areas, even on in Antarctica and Denali, will put fixed lines. So that's where you have like an ice crew or picket, and you connect the rope for a section of it so that you can then have a harness and clip into that rope, so if you fall, you only fall to the next anchor point theoretically, So on Everest you pretty much do that from base camp to the summit. There's some sections that aren't. But but you're definitely one small step at a time, and you have a sender or a jumar, which is like this device that has backwards teeth on it that

cuts into the rope or doesn't cut the rope, but you know, snaps into it. Yep. So yeah, but yeah, as far as most technical, I don't know. I throw Denali up there just because it's I haven't been at the top yet, but that's a part of my story. And you know, sometimes you can just keep trying to hammer something out and then you realize like, like I'm good, like I'm alive, and there's probably a reason that I'm not at the top end. I've seen him like it's like right there, which is like my kick in the nuts, right, But yeah, still a good day to live. Yeah, you can't be ambitious when you're doing stuff like that. You gotta playing it safe is the way to go. Uh especially Yeah, I mean it's just like you

said, it's just such a dangerous area and anything can happen, and if something you know, someone else on another team gets killed or gets you know, doing that, I don't know. It's just so many things that can go wrong or alter what your your plan was for your climb and stuff like that. Now, when you're planning for these seven peaks, do you do you plan them out strategically? I mean I assume like there's got to be some kind of weather. You know, some areas are better to climb on certain times of the year. So how did you plan that out? And I met? Were they building on each other or how how did that process go? Yes, sort of, some of it's opportunistic. Some you know, it's financial. There's you know, looking at you know, sponsors and

just the timing and the team that I'd go with. So so yes, and yes, there's the southern and northern hemispheres, so opposite times of the year are better for like Aconcagua down in Argentina or Antarctica, then some massif for Kilimanjaro where is you know, flip it around, and so you could do like our summer for some of the northern hemisphere ones, and then like in February and even down in Antarctica. I went down in like November, I summit did the day before Thanksgiving and then we had a little Thanksgiving dinner down at base camp. Nice. Nice Now as you're climbing up. You know. The thing is is when you're when you're climbing up Everest and you're getting to these different camps along the way, it's not it's it's not a

normal camp. You're hanging around the campfire and like chilling and stuff like that. You're mostly in your tent, right, Yeah, how do you fight becoming like lethargic or like laying sitting there on your legs and stuff tightening up from all the work it's doing, you know, and like being ready to go from sitting there all day or in acclimating to now exerting an immense amount of effort to get to the next spot. Yeah, you're you're definitely losing it as you're you're there. But like even when when I was there, I went from base camp, went all the way down like fifteen miles and then climbed Island Peak, a twenty thousand foot peak. So getting these other experiences, getting out walking a mile outside of base camp, So I'm not

just sitting around and making a call to my wife or doing like a skype or something to my church. You know, I was or sponsors, So I don't know, I was always pretty active. As you get higher up, it's tough because you want to conserve that energy as well, so you don't want to be doing like too much but not too little. So it's it's just a constant game of assessing your own physical abilities but also mentally and emotionally spiritually, just you know, making sure you're like you're focused, and you know, it's so easy to to just overthink a mountain climbing, Like when you just break it down in its simplest form, it's pretty stupid.

It's like, there's this mountain, I'm going to climb to the top, and then when you come back down while my family's at home and I'm missing them and everything else. You know, it's you know, being deployed and stuff in the military. You know, people get it, but normal people that don't have those experiences don't really get it. Yeah, you get waves of like sadness, you know, like events happen. You're like, man, I could have been there for that, but I'm out here doing this thing. You know. That's yeah, that's for sure. So you know, most people when they go and climb Everest, they're going in like they have a guide. They got the groups you went by yourself though, with your shirpa, right, So let's talk about how that came about and your

descent or excuse me, you're a scent. You know, getting to the top of the mountain. You there was no traffic because you always hear about that, and you would see the photos of like the line of people waiting to get their photo at the top and then start their way back down. You somehow made it into a period where there were other people there. So let's talk about how you got linked up with a shirpa, what they do?

Can you explain that for people that don't know, and how you got lucky enough to be able to climb with no other you know, traffic in the way. Yeah, I don't know if that's luck or not, but you know, yeah, wellens, so are the local people that live in like Tibet and Nepal. I was on the Nepalese I so flew into Katmandu and then up to Lukla and then on foot from there. I have been in the Pacific Northwest. A lot of the guides are here or in Colorado, and just one of the one of the guides that goes up at least a base camp and some other mountains around the world. Happened to go to my church and just had the conversation and then we're able to figure out the logistics and get connected with Passong and some like cooking, and I was basically

sharing resources with RMI, which is a major guiding company, but like with Dave Han and some of these famous, you know, amazing guides up there. So it's it was pretty pretty good. But for the most part, I didn't want to go as a as a guided group, you know, just being a part of like a large group, like I had plenty of experience, and you know, wanted to be i don't know a little a little more pure. And I actually wanted to try without oxygen, but my wife said no, So happy wife. That's crazy, man, that's crazy to even consider that. Yeah, well I sort of ended up without, but we'll get to that. Yeah, so I got my wish, but yeah, no, I got connected with Pasong and we're still like close friends.

Just a good dude. At that point, he had two summits, young dude, and yeah, it's just it's just amazing. The sherpa are just so you know, it's just they're they're basic. They have their basic lives and family is so important, and their faith it's important to them, and it's just they'll give you the shirt off their back and just just really really cool. Like I always recommend, like just go into base camp or even any type of track around that area and just be immersed with Shirpa just to get to know them and just really cool people. What was the other question? I mean, I've only heard good things about those dudes, you know, and they everyone obviously like what a wild job? Did they ever travel to other places in climb or do they just hang around? They're like,

I'm at Everest, Why would I go anywhere else? Oh? Yeah, I've tried to get the song out to go do Dnali, Rainier and stuff. It's hard. It's it's easy for us to get there, it's really really difficult for them to come back here. Like I've sent all the paperwork, talked to you know, people in the I don't know the US diplomat whatever over there, And I don't know, that's crazy. I know that's wild you think that'd be. I mean, those guys are world world famous, well famous amongst their their own people and amongst climbers that go in that area. Some of those guys. There was one the other day, like a week or two ago. I think he just summited and that was like he set the record for the most summits by a sherpa or something.

I think it was like does nuts. Yeah, so crazy. You were talking about considering doing it without oxygen? How many people even what's the percentage of people that sum up without oxygen? Yeah, it's it's extremely low. And that's that's naivity too. I mean it's I don't know, it's just one of those things. And you know, you got to watch Ego and Pride and luckily my wife so check. Yeah, it's that's that's wild.

You mentioned also the Tibetan and Nepalese kind of routes, which one is considered the harder route. I mean, is there one that's harder than the other. I know there's summer easier, easier to do because that it's more diplomatically easy to get a pass to go on, right. Yeah. Yeah. Nepal is such a poor country that they're you know, major part of their GDP as the tourism, so they I'll always figure out how to make things work to get their money Tibet's not so much, so it's more difficult to get in. Plus I don't I haven't done Tibet, so again back to my my earlier comment, but I know plenty of people that have. It seems like the weather is quite quite a bit worse on the northern side, just the way that the where they're exposed and the weather comes in. You

drive to base camp, so you don't have to hike in that that far. You have the second step, which is kind of like a ladder right near the summit, and that can be a little sketchy, you know, when you're trying to work a little technically getting up something like that, because if you follow, you're falling for a couple miles. But on the Nepalese side, just to me, it just seemed more interesting, and I've heard that it's it is more difficult, just from a technical perspective, just because you're going through the Kumu ice Fall multiple times, going through the western comb where there's like five ladders tied together with this bottomless crevass. I see those photos of that and I'm like, what are they doing? They're climbing over

these crevasses on a ladder that's insane genius. I know, like back in the day they would bring like logs and like try to like throw a log across like that's so like at the Pacific Northwest or they're spinning on the logs with their spikes. That's what I would say. I think, just spins. I don't know how you'd anchor that thing down. Yeah, who wants to be the first guy across? You know, the ankle up on the other side, like paper rock scissors, you know, it's something like that.

You talk about the ice fall area and it's ever changing, right because it's it's so even if you go back, it's not gonna be what you remember, it's gonna be like a completely different obstacle. Correct. Yeah, every time I went through its different. So they employ like and they employ like five ice fall doctors, they call them so sure, but that's all they do. They don't really go above that. Every safe day they'll go through and reroute, you know, or fix the route. You know, I've I went through and you know, look like a bomb went off at one point, like totally different. Ladders are just like broken but then kind of tied back together. I one day you might have to like ice climb up, you know, a fifty foot wall, repel down it. The

next that whole thing's gone and you just walk right through, you know. I even like these little pyramids had collapsed, you know, on the way up. I went up and coming down like huh, this is different. And even one of them there was like four ladders tied together, and I was by myself a lot like I went. I went through this like by myself, and acrossing this ladder, you have like ropes that are anchored on the other side, so you can connect into that and like hold it like for the stability. Well that thing. I was halfway across and the whole anchor came loose, so I was just like free standing over this crevasse where I couldn't even see the bottom, and I remember just laying down and on it, you know, and like crawling across. Like there's nothing glamorous about

mountaineering by any means. It's the crawl whatever to get across. It's all survival. That's wild, dude. That's like something that would happen. And I'd be like, you know what, maybe not, maybe I'm good, maybe I'm right. It's just like yeah, I'm not smart enough to recognize the signs. You just have to, like, you have to put that aside and go, you know what, It's okay. I almost fell into a couple hundred foot you know thing where no one would have ever found me.

But it's fine, totally fine, it's fine. We'll just come up tomorrow and d it again. It's cool. Yeah, you know, you mentioned you have to go through a multiple times. I think that's something that people that don't really know much about Everest kind of understand. As you're doing that acclamation and you're you're going up, you're going down, you're going up.

What is from the time you got to base camp to the time you made it to the peak? How many days were you on Everest from base camp? Yeah, so the whole expedition is two months, so you figure it took a little over a week to get to base camp. So then the remaining portion of that is is there, and that's a month of acclimating.

That's going up, touch camp one, come back down, sleep for a few days, go up bypass Camp one, or sleep there. I slept there. It was easter and I watched the Empire strikes back. I had a little many nice uh laptop, and then went up to Camp two, touched it, came down, and it's just kind of this yo yo until you go up stay in. I at Camp three and Camp three is on this that's where you see the tents on the side of the cliff, the ice cliff, that are just anchored in there. So if you yeah, you don't want to slip there. So you're pretty much always just kind of roped up and the everything's just attached to the ice wall. But when you're in the tent, you can't even tell until you open the vestibule and

you're like, oh gosh, we're up here, don't mess that up. Can't just step out and use the bathroom real quick? No, just just arc it out. Yeah, oh many, bring up bottle so I had like a gatorade bow or whatever. You just you want to make sure you get the right bottle. Yeah, take a swig. Oh. And so every day you're just learning more about the mountain. You're learning more about the path you're taking and stuff like that. And you know, as someone that's been doing mountaineering for a while at this point, and this is like the pinnacle for a lot of people. What did it feel like to actually be working your way through these iconic areas of Mount Everest. Yeah, that's surreal.

So yeah, I've I've read all the books that you've read. And anytime you read a book, I think in your mind you put the characters, You just form a character. It's the same with you know, depending how they describe an area, you you just you form this in your mind. And all of that was different. So I had it in my mind like even like the ice fall was on the opposite side of camp type of thing, so it was like it just felt all like, I don't know, just shattered all of my own thoughts. But it was just it was so surreal to just create these impressions in these you know where you just you know, you have limited time and you just you want to like capture it all and embrace it at the same time get it done with. You know.

It's like this this extreme you know, both ways, but it it is amazing when you're on these things and you've you've read these these books and these stories and I've you know, followed other climbers and this. They're amazing experiences and just to be walking there and and at the same time, some of those amazing guides are still there and I'm interacting with them as we're passing each other in different areas. So yeah, it's it was awesome, I guess to sum it up. Yeah, So when it gets to to the day, you know, the summit day, what's going through your mind?

Like today's day, We're ready to go. Let's get this, you know, let's get going. Yeah, it's it's it is nuts because I've I've summoned it. I've I've I've solowed a lot of a lot of mountains, you know, I'm what's interesting is my job, you know, flashed back to the military. My my job is one of very few where we're we're on our own. You jump from the helicopter. You know, in most jobs you're a part of a team. And we're still part of a team, the air crew. But once I'm in the water, I'm in it's may you know, and it's might be hand to hand, you know, with a with a survivor who's you know, not happy or whatever. So I think I'm just comfortable in that. So I train a lot by myself.

I've soloed a lot of mountains myself, So so I was on the mountain quite a bit by myself, but the song was with me and heading up towards the summit. So as we you actually start at Camp three, so you don't spend too much time at the high camp. That's in the death zone. The south coal at twenty six thousand feet, so when we were heading up, you got to go another mile just straight up up this rock and ice face, and there was like seventy mile an hour winds.

It was. It was legit. Most people there was a couple groups that attempted the summit. I think a couple did make it. The Japanese climber I mentioned earlier did not. He passed away, but most people retreated and they were heading down. But we had triangulated the weather and the next day would be sufficient for a summit. It's just you get some crazy weather up there and you have to you know, there's only a couple days where you can summit on everest because the monsoon season comes in and you just get these these crazy winds and weather. So going up it was it was tough because it seemed like every step forward, it was just you had to time it within the wind gusts of like pushing you back, but you just take a

step, hunker down, you know, take another step, and it was it just took a while. So a lot of times you're not even thinking about just how surreal this the fact that you're actually making a summit push is. It's like, I just need to get to point B, like just you know, break these little milestones down and just you know, accomplish these little goals. But that's where I had ended up cracking my goggles. Tell me just to get into this yeah, yeah, okay, So I got about I think it was like fifteen hundred feet above Camp three, so I'm still in this this ice face, and the weather would just fluctuate. And that's what's crazy, is as soon as a calm comes, you're roasting because I'm in this full down suit, oxygen goggles, you know, gloves,

massive boots that go up to your knees, crampons, harness. I'm attached to this rope and as soon as it stops, it's like eighty degrees. So you have to really like kind of filled like on zip and you know, just make sure you don't go from like sweating to hypothermic to you know, so you're totally just managing this whole scene, you know, this personal scene, because everyone's body is different. So I stopped to get a drink and I anchored off and again I'm like on this wall. And as soon as I've anchored off, I had a carabiner with like some webbing into an anchor point. I have to remove my mask and my goggles and my mask to then you know, be able to find my mouth so I could actually drink. Well, as soon as I'm there, my my foot slipped off

and my goggles released from my hand because I had put them around my wrist, and they just they're gone. They're just they're heading on them out, And I'm like, crap, because you don't typically bring extra goggles like I will, and like I did an an art well, now I will, but in Antarctica and different places. But it's not usually because you're gonna lose them or whatever. It's because they freeze, so you just alternate goggles so you can have like a less frozen pear on. But they went down and I thought they were gone, but looking down like about one thousand or five hundred feet probably there was some sherpa that were coming up to a higher camp three, and they were waving at me, and they were like pointing that

they got the goggles. So that's a miracle in itself. So I told Pasong, you go up to high camp. I'm gonna repel down. So I left my bag, my oxygen, everything I wrapped down got to them, and when I saw them, they were cracked in the So goggles have two lenses. The internal lens was cracked, so I put them on, and then with the contrast of my warm breath and the cold outside, they were freezing between the layers, so I couldn't really see too well, but I still I donned them, and I continued up, climbed back up, got my gear and kept moving. I eventually just ripped out those internal the internal lens I was cracked and just tossed it. So then effectively cut their effectiveness in half. So not realizing at the time, and I have blue

eyes, a more susceptible to the bright lights. So made it up to high camp twenty six thousand feet search for Pasong. There's a few tents, a lot of them are collapsed just because of the high winds, and found them, and then you know, we made some radio calls just to make sure we were good to go for that night. Because you on highly glaciated peaks, you climbed through the night because that's when the ice is the most frozen. Once the sun comes up, things become very unstable. All those anchor points are metal, so those are conductors of heat, so they can melt out, so it just becomes more dangerous avalanches everything else. So you always want to climb through the night, try to get to the summit when

the sun is rising, and then use gravity to get your way back down. So we laid in our tents with eyes wide open, trying to get some rest. It's not possible because it's like, oh, they were going for the summit and are out eight nine o'clock the sun went down. It was pretty amazing to watch the sun go down at the highest camp in the world. You know. It took a couple of picks and then we geared up and started heading up and from there it's just it's slow moving and I don't think we realized at the time we were the only two people going for the summit on either side, the Tibet or Nepali's side. So again, very very unusual because you only have a couple of days where you can summit.

There's only one way up, one way down, which is why when you see crowds, you know, that amount of people on any other peak wouldn't be that many people. It's just when you're in a line, you know, and everyone's you know, brave behind a keyboard, they make their comments and that's just kind of how it is. In my situation, I was, you know, it's just a song in myself, so it's pretty pretty amazing from that perspective. So heading up to the balcony, so if you read in the thin air, there's a lot of stuff that happened there on the balcony with deck weathers and different people. And I started edging away from the song, and you know, we're we're not roped together, we're on the fixed lines. And I got to the balcony at twenty seven five

hundred feet about an hour before he got there. So I waited for him, just kind of hung out, and it's pitch black, but there was like an electrical storm way in the distance below me, like it was just just so again, just amazing, just to I'm at the highest point. I'm the highest person in the world at this point and just you know, just trying to take all this in. And he eventually showed up and he just he let me know he wasn't feeling well. So and he said he ran out of water, and I'm like, okay, here, I have extra, so I give him some water and he throws up. I remember just saying keep it, like you need this, and we had a conversation at that point. It's I figured we were done. If he's sick, we need to get back down. So we had that conversation. He's like,

no, no, no, I'm fine. I just needed some water. And you know he has more experience on Everest than I do. So again, you live and die by the decisions. You make those decisions with the information you have at the at the time. So we continued, went up to about twenty eight thousand feet, which is where it starts getting more technical, and that's where he tapped out. He's like, I'm I'm done, Like I'm gonna head back to the balcony, which is you know, pretty close, and he's like, I want you to continue up and I'm like I'm like, no, if you're sick, we need to go down.

So we had this conversation at twenty eight thousand feet and I'm weighing out things like how am I doing I'm I felt strong, I was doing good. How's the weather. The weather was no wind whatsoever at this point, so typically the wind will stop during the middle of the night and it'll kick up later in the next day. So completely calm. Most importantly, can my friend Pasong get down? And he's like, no, no, no, I'm fine. I'm gonna wait right here, and he, without hesitation, he pulled out an extra oxygen bottle, buried it in the snow right there, and he turned around and walked down to the balcony. And I turned around and started moving up the south rock step. He ended up not waiting at the balcony. He went all the way down to high camp,

which he needed to do. Yeah otherwise, So but that's just that's the situation. So in that moment, it was the right choice. So I continue up and get up about halfway to the south summit, and I look out and I see that perfect pyramid being cast, that shadow of the sun rising behind the highest point in the world down over the Himalayas. It was just I took my camera my video camera a little handheld and captured that.

I just posted that on Instagram. That's what I posted on my summit day, which is May fifteenth. Just an amazing thing. But my camera did the froze after that, and I didn't wasn't able to un thought for like a couple of weeks. I'm so so grateful that I got that because it was just to be in that moment and to see that I'm so high up, you know, in the death zone, five vertical miles up and just you know, can after that, just put it away and continued moving.

Got to the South Summit, which is degrading because you actually drop down and then have to climb up to get to the of Hillary's Step, which is you know, like a forty foot rock climb, and it usually a point of contention because you're up there and if there's a lot of people, there's only one way up, one way down. You got to wait, yeah, there's no one there. So I just kind of bounced up that.

And then there's this area called the Cornice Traverse, which is you know, it's a couple feet wide and is literally a two mile drop on each side of you, So two miles onto the left into Nepal, or two miles to the right into Tibet. It's like, you have these options, but I just kept moving forward, and at that point I could see the true summit, and it's it's a lot to take in, like you can work your whole life or something, and then it's there and it's like, I don't know, everything's moving so slow, but it's so fast at the same time where you just you cannot process it. And knowing how you know, thirteen years later, I still haven't processed it and I probably never will.

And just taking those final steps was just just insane. You know, you're just there and you're looking around. You can go no high. I could go no higher on this earth than I was at that moment. That's wild man, and you have to do it alone. That just still blows my mind. You know, that opportunity is something that I mean, there's probably only a handful of people that have gotten to go up and experience the summit by themselves, you know, so in the Himalayan database, so they're they're very adamant about capturing the data of who climbs in the highest peaks. I haven't checked lately, but I'm one of two people to have ever had the top to myself completely on a given day. There's probably more, it's just

documented there's two. Yeah, you bring that up, that database. I don't know if it was in that book or I read it. I think I might have read something about it in like Outdoor magazine, but I remember they were saying that there's like an old lady in like the village. I would keep the record of every no one actually summited unless she said that they summitted like she was, like the record is that? Is that still the case or how does that work? I mean, how do they confirm that you did it when you were at the top. Yeah, she was still around, but she passed away just a couple of years ago. So yeah, I don't know who's doing it now, but I still yeah, it was it was still a process like I had to submit pictures, selfies,

times, like radio calls like all of that. So yeah, it's it's good. I mean some people I don't know what AI now. I guess you and I could get on the top right now if we wanted. I remember a few years ago someone got called out for faking it. There was a they had a fake photo. They had a photo that said that you know that they said they made it to the summit, but something in their photo like no, you didn't, and so they weren't. I think they were actually on everest, but they never actually summited. And there's something with the photo. I don't know if it was photoshopped or maybe the photo they took wasn't where they said they were or something like that. Yeah, it's they take it seriously. They should, though, well they should, but

I mean flip it around, like who the heck would take like lie about something like that, Like for what reason are you doing it? Like that's just san fame, right or you know, some kind of notoriety. Imagine all the people that lie about serving in the military, you know. Yeah, and think of this too. Think about the guys that are in the military that lie about the shit that they did after they got out. And it's like, bro, you did enough, Like what are you lying about?

You? What are you doing? I know, man, go to go to go to a therapy session with those guys because they're they're definitely trying to check some box that they never got from their family or something. I don't know, man, that's yeah, I agree. Yeah, so I'm not surprised that people would lie or fake it or whatever, but it's I do remember, and I always thought that was super cool that there was like a lady that she was like the one person that, you know, everyone went to to verify if someone had been up. I saw a list online the other day, a website, but I don't know if it's like an official list or anything. But man, so how long did you spend at the summit? Yeah, that's that's the thing, right, You could spend

your whole life trying to get there, and you you cannot stay for long. And that's that's a lot of summits. It's just it's too dangerous, So I wouldn't. I don't know time wise, I know it was less than an hour. I know I had time to make a radio call down, and like that was tough in itself. I had to practice a few times. Like I didn't realize how choked up I was, and I didn't want to like come across as like a you know that was my voice totally.

That's funny the things you think about, But yeah, there is anybody would judge you. You're on top of the world. You just climbed everest this pussy crying totally. How dare you be happy? Oh? That's me. Yeah. It just made a very radio call down and you know, talk to some people that were down at you know, one of the main people that was sharing the camp one of my camps, he was coming up going to make his attempt that night. So he was at Camp three and I had been climbing with him and Lockba his his shirt. I had five summits at that point, and at that point, no one knew I was alone. So that radio call was pretty significant because they're you know, he's like, congratulations, like you and Pasong you know, you know, be

careful on your way down, And it was at that moment it registers like, oh, that's cool. But Pasong went down like over an hour ago. He's like you're alone. He's like yeah, He's like, oh, be careful. And we had a conversation after and I have it in my book Blind Ascent their conversation, but he asked Lockba who knew me, and you know, I'd been climbing with me, knew my skill set, just how long it was going to take for me to get down to high camp and He's like, oh, Brian, I'll be maybe two three hours, and they wouldn't hear from me for seven. Yeah. I can't imagine what they were thinking, you know, like I mean, obviously thinking the worst.

You might be a little late, but once you start pushing that five six seven hour timeline, they're probably like, man, it's you know, before we talk about the descent and everything, what's it like to even I mean, what's the sky look like on top of Everest? Is is it darker? Is it like? Tell us some of the things that are just so different that you just you know, you have to kind of be there to see it. It's it's tough to take it all in because you hear so many stories and then you you start trying to like look for those like the curvature earth and everything else. I didn't, I honestly, I did take a dump And tell me you took a dump on this I I don't know record or something, but I lit it up. I mean the pressure

and everything, so it's hard to go and the wind was kicking up, so it's like you go to wipe and the wind would you know, just launch? So I kind of crept in Nepal and wiped in Tibet so to the winds. How do you I mean, even that's got to be hard though, right when you're talking about you're in the negative temperatures. I don't know what it is at the summit. It's got to be negative temperatures.

Yeah, I mean it was at least negative thirty with wind sheill. How do you not get frostbited on your ass cheeks when you're so like the down suit has like a back zipper flap, So I was like holding that up because it was it was cold, and you know, I don't want to lose my butt cheeks. I don't want to lose any anything up there.

But it's tough and then the zippers freeze and it's like you're just trying to you know, I don't know. It's almost like, oh, I don't even know if I wiped efficiently. I'll figure it out later. Use my ice axe. The berries. Yeah, that's hilarious, man, that's so wild. I mean, I just it's such an awesome thing, you know.

I can't I can't imagine what that was like at the summit itself. Is there what kind of marker is at the top? Yeah, there's there's a there's a lot there's like pickets and flags, and because it's you know and you know Buddhists and everything, there's a lot of prayer flags and these you know, white silk flags. So it's yeah, there's you know, you're at the top, like you take those pictures, it's like it's like boom, it's right there. So yeah, it's it's neat. And there was there was bags like these yellow bags of like additional like rope and stuff, so like they had left some supplies, I think, just in case and some anchors and everything. I remember not because the wind gusts were getting you know, they were kicking up. You could definitely hear them come up

over the ridge. Like I didn't want to get necessarily launched off the side because it's kind of overhanging area. So I remember like not wanting to get too close, you know, and looking over and so I never really looked over into like the Tibetan side. I just kind of sat and got a snack in some water, like right on the kind of the safer downward side.

That's crazy. That's so it's just it's just so crazy. You're sitting there like having a snack. I'm the highest point in the world. No one else is higher than me right now, like just you know, taking it all in. I mean, that's wild. But as we know, no mountaineering trip is over until you're back down. You know, that's only half the trip is going up, you know, that's what people like to remember. But the trip down can be as dangerous, more dangerous, you know. And obviously yours didn't go great, so let's talk about let's talk about that. You decide, all right, I got everything I needed, I got my selfies, I took my radio call, got a snack.

Time to head back. What's going on now? Yeah, it's tough because you kind of want to stay forever. It's like you just you don't want it to end, but you know it has to. You have to have that discipline. And when you're by yourself, you don't have someone else going, hey, we got to go now. And in a lot of cases, like if I'm guiding on rainier or something else, I am that person.

So I guess I know, no when it's time. So I yeah, I stood up, got all my gear just back together, and just started heading down. And yes, most accidents occur on the way down because the weather can change. The sun is up, things become less stable. But a lot of times people blow their load on the way up. I mean you're given everything to get up there, you've went through the night.

I had been climbing from the morning prior to that night, so I'm at I don't know, twenty some hours at this point, never getting rest, you know, other than just laying down in high camp for a couple hours, but no sleep. So I just I started moving down in about I don't have ten feet into it. Everything just went completely white and I just remember just dropping down, grabbing the rope tight the fixed line that I was attached to, and assessing the situation. And I went snowblind. So because of the crack and the goggles, the exposure in the death zone, as soon as the sun banked off the ice, it fried my cornea. And with snow blindness, it's not like blind where everything's black is it's bright white.

It's very painful. It's like breaking potato chips and putting them in your eyelids. I mean, you realize how often your eyelids flutter, but you can't see anything. It's if you put your finger in front of you. You'll know that something moved, but there's no way that you can focus on it. And I just remember, at that point, I was the highest person in the world, completely alone and blind, and I just remember as simple as that, I got up, no one's coming to get me, and I started moving and hand over hand, I just I started making my way down the mountain. And I tried so hard throughout all of this to use my eyes. Not going to say that I was just mister superman or anything. It was keep the panic in check, keep moving forward, final

reason to take a step forward. And I would take the rope and like be looking at it and I just couldn't see anything, so I was forced to use my other senses. So I would hear the wind gusts coming up over the ridge and I would just hunker down to lower my my center of mass as it would just blow over and kind of like knock me sideways.

I'd stand up, take another step and went across that cornice traverse that two mile drop on each side, and was very much aware of it. Got to the other side of that, and I hunkered down often because that wouldn't have been fun, but I mean it would it would be a cool way to go, but that's one way. I suppose that's one way to go.

But I yeah, I just I had to to find a way. I had to get home to my family, and this this whole time, I just I couldn't see anything, but I felt this presence around me. Like I didn't overthink it, but it just it felt like like if you and I are in a room and you close your eyes. I don't say a thing, but you know I'm there. It's just this I don't know, but I again, I didn't really think too much about it. I just I didn't feel alone. So I got to the top of Hillary Step, which is that forty foot rock climb. I reversed my gear and repelled down and I remember just kind of slipping out because it's metal steel crampons on rock. Slipped out, pendulumed around, hit the wall, slid down to the bay, and I remember just laying there kind of contorted, but assessing

the situation, like was I broken. It's like I think I'm I think I'm okay. I just sat there, got a thermos out, which was a lot of work to get some water, but I was so thirsty, and again just just felt his presence drinking and then had to climb back up the South Summit, and on the other side of the South Summit, I had lost I felt a pop you mentioned earlier. Pop. It's never a good good sound. My crampon actually came loose and fell down the South Summit the direction I was going, and I'm like, I have to get that, Like I can't get down without it. So I put my left foot down being purchased. Right foot just slipped out and I was head over heels, just falling, just completely. I've equated to go to your roof,

close your eyes, and jump off. It's that helplessness. I was attached to the rope. Eventually it shockloaded and pulled on the anchor. I'm upside down, my arms, everything's sprawled out, my mask is ripped from my face, my oxygen bottle is coming out of my pack, and I'm upside down, and I have so much effort to write yourself and I do, and I'm just laying there and I'm like trying to get my mask back on it, just taking these deep breaths and my heart is just ripping out of my chest and calmed down and miracle I don't know where we're at on Miracles, but my cramp on I saw this yellow, blurry object like above me, and I remember crawling up to it and getting it, and I put it on, torqued it down, tork the other one down, and started

side traversing over to the rock area, which is way I came up and a slab avalanche that's where a layer of snow on top of snow broke loose, and I remember immediately feeling just both feet slipped out. I grabbed with my my climbing glove, my leather glove, and it actually I was accelerating so fast it burnt a line straight through my glove. Oh man. And I felt that, and I've just I stopped myself and again my heart is just racing. So it's all these things that when you're at high altitude you can get pulmonary cerebral edema where things are swelling and you're reacting to the altitude.

Your body's reacting. You know, there's there's a lot of a lot of times when I just I look back and I probably shouldn't be alive. But I didn't overthink it, didn't ever think this presence around me I got back to where pas song had turned around, and I almost walked right past that oxygen bottle, and I knew i'd be out soon, and it was just this orange thing, and I remember just laying down next to it and fumbling with my regulator. Can't see put it on, and it just wouldn't work. And tried for a little bit. Can't troubleshoot forever. So I don't know why to this day, but I put my other oxygen bottle, got that one working again, still had some air in it. I put that other fifteen pounds in my pack and I start walking. So I don't

think Guy's looking for more exercise, but it's just you get in a state of mind of, you know, leave no trace or whatever. I don't. I don't have no idea. So I got to the balcony and where the song should have been, and I remember like calling out for him and nothing, so I assumed he went down. So I remember getting to this point I was I just I felt this wave of happiness, like like I got through some pretty sketchy stuff up top. I'm lucky to be alive.

Now it's like twenty pitches of repel. I'll get down. I'm gonna I'm gonna make this. So I reversed my gear start repelling down in a few minutes, and my mask just sucks into my face and I remember just ripping it off where I had run out of oxygen. And typically if you're on oxygen and you run out in the death zone, you're not going to survive.

At this point, I had been climbing for thirty three hours from the day prior to this point, completely blind, just completely done, and I'd been trying so hard to do it on my own, and at that point I just I dropped to my knees and prayed and just very simple, God, I cannot do this, Please help me. And at that moment around the world, my wife felt the need. She didn't know where I was at at that point, felt the need to pray for me. A good friend and did the same. And people I didn't even know that just knew I was climbing, reached out, you know, months later, telling me, at this time, I just felt an urge I needed to pray for you. So I'm on the mountain, I say that simple prayer, and immediately I just it felt like someone lifted me to my feet. I had

this unexplained energy, and the first thing I did was tried the other oxygen bodle and I got a positive flow and I remember taking like five deep breaths and just the air it was like fire in my veins. It hurt, it like burned. I remember physically it burned, and I remember thinking I'm alive, and a second ago, I don't think I was going to be alive. And I can't overthink this. I put all my gear and I just started repelling as fast as I could, which was super slow, and just stumbling over rocks and everything, and got into like the last quarter mile and just kind of like in a daze, thinking maybe I did die, and just thinking like if this is heaven, this sucks, and like out of nowhere, a song hugs me. He walked the quarter mile. He's

like, Brian, you alive, and he's like, I'm so sorry I leave you. And I'm just like, oh, don't worry about it, dude. You know, it's just kind of chilling. We get we get back, stumble over the rocks and like I'd collapse in the tent, and I threw my camera to a song. He's like validating pictures I'm laying there on you know, fresh oxygen, getting some water, and I pretty much passed out for I think it was like fourteen hours. My eyes were completely glued shut. I still had to get down, you know, it's still two days to get down and across the ladders everything else, another day until I could talk to my wife, but I was alive. I wouldn't regain my eyesight for about a month and a half and lost twenty pounds and black

eyes. Definitely had the worst phone call in history to a spouse. Oh yeah, it's down at Camp two and borrowed someone's had them dial the well, not even that that had them dial her number on a SAT phone, and I just said she was all excited. I'm like, yeah, I just soloed the summit and I'm blind, and then it cut out. Yeah, and I wouldn't feeble to get back to her for another day, so it's like, oh, no way, that was all you said, and then it cut off my So I the worst phone called a spouse ever.

But yeah, I just just very blessed and just really witnessed a miracle. Just how did you you know, it's so crazy to think like you're repelling Now when you get to the bottom of a repel, what do you do to start reaching around like trying to figure out like grabbing for the next rope or you know, I mean, that's so crazy to eat even think about it is. And it's a good point, which I don't always talk about because of the downward pressure. So how the fixed lines are, So if you have whatever type of anchor points, it could be through ice, like a hole in the ice, could be an ice screw, it could be a picket, could be you know, whatever is holding it in place, some sort of rock piton or something. The rope is long rope, and

it might have some sort of hitch that is attached to a carabiner. So as you're coming to it, I have two devices that are always attached to the rope so that if I fall, you know, I'm still secured. So I'm coming in and out of one with a locking carabiner. When there's fifty mile an hour GUS and it's freezing, those things get icy and they're really hard to open up. And if you get too close to that anchor point, your full body weight times whatever. Because a gravity is it's almost impossible to get yourself off, so I have one hand feeling the whole way down. As soon as I get close, then I start the process.

And there was a few times where I did get too close and I was pinned on it had to climb back up. So it's it's a lot so yeah, there's not a lot of areas where you're completely off rope. Yeah, And honestly, that was a one of the factors of how of why I did continue up. If there weren't fixed lines, you know, it had been probably a worse decision than it was, Oh for sure. I mean there would have been no way to find your way back down. No, you know, the reality, it's like a hand hold. I mean not great still, situation, not great, but better than nothing, you know, trying to feel your way around. You probably would have just fallen off the side of something. Yeah, that's so crazy exposed there when you

got past that that high camp area. You know, what was it like trying to get across these crevasses and stuff, because that's people. I mean, it's again and if you haven't looked into it, really look into it, because it's wild. These crevasses are hundreds of feet deep and open up, constantly, open and close, like you can easily fall into one and it closes. No one over know that you were there, you know, kind of deal. So how are you navigating through this kind of terrain without being able to? At this point you have other people, which probably helps obviously, but still. Yeah, So the whole section of the Western Comb, it's this valley. There are no ropes, so I had a I almost walked right into an open crevass because there's like stepover ones and He's like,

whoa. And that was getting into camp two. But yeah, getting down it was it was kind of the same. I was still on my own, but Pasong came down with me, and you know, at least I had someone there. But it was you know, for the most part, we're all still just going down and at our own pace, and it was it was painful. It's just so bright and on the ladders. Yeah, I just I crawled. It was ugly. I care what you gotta do, man, I mean, dude, it's so wild. When it happened, you know, it happened suddenly. You know, you explain that that kind of thing happened suddenly. Did you know what it was or did you think you might be having some kind of other medical emergency and like, oh shit, you know I'm stroking out. Yeah yeah, I mean everything

kind of flies through your head. But it was it was pretty obvious everything else was functioning. I couldn't see. Had that excited. Had you experienced no blindness before? No? No, No, I don't recommend it. Oh man, I've heard about it. I remember when I was a kid, my dad was in the Army and he had like an Army like survival handbook or something like that, and I remember reading through it and it would show like making the glasses you you'd have to make if you were like in the Arctic or whatever and you don't have goggles. It still slit, yeah, like bark with a little slit in it to help block some of the sun rays that are going in. I had heard about it, but i'd never heard anybody explain it. I didn't know it was like a bright white

light like that and just yeah, it's like a light bulb right in front of your face. I've seen plenty of people that have experienced it. One guy was coming down being helped down the day I was heading up to high Camp because he was snowblind. Like that was almost a premonition in itself. Yeah, and yeah, I went through seer school in the in the Navy, and yeah, we kind of went you brief through that stuff like if you're not operating in that area. But yeah, I haven't had it since and hopefully never do again. It's funny because I was on Anderson cooper As in studio with him, you know, when my book came out, and he's telling me about he was in Portugal and on his wave runner and you know, you can get it from you know, snowblindness that can come from

just banking off the ocean and stuff. And he's like, I don't know how you did it, Like I couldn't even get from one side of the hotel room to the bathroom. Yeah, like you gotta figure it out. I mean, that's one of those situations where you can sit down and feel sorry for yourself and just die, you know, or do something about it, you know, And that's really the choice you had. I figured I was probably gonna die, so I'm just gonna give it all. Like, if I'm gonna die anyways, let's do everything I can. I'm not gonna think about that because that's just going to put me in a you know, a closed mindset. I'm gonna have this fixed mindset and I'm gonna survive this.

And if not, at least I tried. I imagine, you know, the experience of being a rescue swimmer and the the ability to manage your own like fear and emotions every time you're jumping into the ocean, you know, to go save somebody probably helped you in that situation to be able to manage that kind of like I mean immense, immense stress. Yeah, so it's in and yes, all of that. So the whole reason I wrote this next book that's coming out in the fall, called Common the Chaos is because when I go around and give talks about Everest, in my experience, that is the biggest question, how did you not panic up there? And the job that I did, In a lot of jobs that we do in the military, but ours in particular, they induced panic every day. Because

if you can't, you know, get beyond that panic to save another life, then you're no good. And so what I wanted to do, I thought, oh, this could be interesting. So one telling stories I've never been told and panic inducing situations. Some of these rescues are just incredible and I can't wait for people to read them. But what can I abstract from our training and experiences to help normal people in their lives that are panicking because of their relationships or financeers, COVID whatever in their life if they can like get a small glimpse. Obviously we're wired differently. We've been through some pretty intense training and experiences and different mission sets. But you know, if there's like a mindset or you know, just what can help people with their attitude,

their breathing and their faith or focus, you know, embracing the suck in these situations that seem like they suck in the moment. But all you have to do is, I don't know, get away from it for a second, Go get some outdoor therapy, whatever it takes. You have to find a reason to survive, figure out a reason to take one more step forward. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot of people wouldn't have.

Man, a lot of people would have let that panic overwhelm them and then you know, that would have been it. But the a lot of jobs in the military really push that, you know, get comfortable being uncomfortable, you know kind of kind of mentality and how to operate in these stressful environments and stuff like that. And again we were talking about it earlier.

You know, sometimes we don't realize how prevalent that really is, like how much stress were actually under until you know later on, because it's constant. It's like it just becomes the norm. The stress is normal. So yeah, I mean, oh man, that's just so wild. I just can't believe it, you know, like a miracle. You know, it really is one of those things. It's just like it's hard to believe that.

If you if I met you somewhere and you told me that you didn't have like actual proof like photos or something, I'd be like, okay, man, sure sure that happened. Oh you came down from Everest by yourself with big blind you know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, no, there's there's plenty of geniuses out there on the Information super Highway that I'll you know, criticize or whatever as if whatever, what does anybody question your account of it? Oh yeah, of course. Well yeah, feel me for one being having faith, one for having large adventures, one for being in the military. You know, it just it doesn't matter. You can't please everyone out there and There's there's a lot that want to chalk it up to my

military experience as opposed to the miracle, and I've my answer to that is I would love to be able to take credit because I tried. I reached a point where I could not and I can't explain otherwise cause and effect. I reached out. I felt that presence, people were praying for me around the world, and I witnessed a miracle and I'm here. That's good man.

I mean, hey, that's your thing, dude, That's why. Who am I to question what brought you know, what enabled you to do that? You know, if that's that's it for you, then that's it. Like it's so yeah, I hate people that are just kind of like that, you know, but you're gonna get that, right. You're gonna get people that I just hate on you for whatever reason. Anything different or I I met? Is it? Are people in the climbing community kind of snag? You know? Are you sure? Are we sure he made it?

You know? Are they always like fact checking each other? Is that? I mean? How is that? How is the community? Is it more embracing or is it more like bullshit? Prove it? Oh? Yeah, if you it's a small community. Yeah, so we all kind of know each other and we know the ones that you would question, and it's it's not like you're alone on the mountain. Even though I'm alone at above the death zone at that point, there's people at high camp everything else.

And so so now for the most part now and there's a lot of accountability. It's the ones that kind of like squeak through, you know, you get those baut apples. It's stuff like that's always going to happen. There's always a ten percent when you when you got back and you're recovering from this, how long was it before you went and did your next you know, high altitude climb. Yeah, kind of one of those things where you know, is should I not ever do this again? And I don't know.

It's one of those things I needed to get back in the mountains. The best therapy for me was getting back there, because this, you know, it's just another layer of PTSD, but getting out there doing rainier leading up there and actually ran into a white out. It was almost like similar like okay, and I had to turn people around. But later that year is when I climbed in Antarctica and down in like Patagonia, Chile and stuff.

So so yeah, I obviously took time so I could regain my eyesight and just kind of process everything. But there was definitely there's life before and life after. Did you ever did you ever consider hanging up your crampons and you know, not doing it again? Yeah, of course, yeah, And I don't know, it's just at a point, you know, you can.

It's tough because it's climbing at least. Mountaineering is very like military. You have the camaraderie, you have the gear, you have the adventure in the missions that you're doing, and it's you know, it's a lot of work, but it's a huge accomplishment that not many people will do. Yeah, and you know, when you get out of the military, it's like you'll jump on a grenade for someone and next thing, you're sitting at a desk doing like a normal job. It doesn't equate. That's you know, And that's something I've talked about on the podcast a lot, is people they hate the military or whatever, they just want to get out and they want to get away from it and just go live a regular life or whatever.

And then they get out into the real world. And see that most people just don't care about stuff and there's not really any kind of you know, in the military, everyone's working towards a goal. You know, your unit has a goal. There's a task coming up, there's a field up, there's a deployment, there's something you're working towards, and you're all working together in your section or whatever it is, to be the best at it, to be better at it, your job, and you know, to come and you know, perform right. And then when you get out and you go into a job and you see people that just don't care, and you're like, this is crazy that no one gives a fuck. You know, like even just going off base. You know, on base, everyone there's

a dress code, when you go to the commissary, there's a dress code at the PX. You can't you know, the base is clean and taking, you know, and then you come off base. I'm in southern California at San Diego, which you come off base and you see like homeless people and you see like all this other trash blowing around. You know, it's just like people just don't give a fuck, and you don't realize how much that matters until you get out and you're kind of away from that and you're like, damn. And that's where people have to find a purpose following their military service. You know, find something that you do care about and get in with those like minded people in that community that also care. That's the

only way you're going to experience. I think anything similar to the military camaraderie and stuff is because you guys are all, you know, all about this one thing, and everyone gives a fuck and everyone, you know, we all try and we you know, I don't know, you know what I'm saying. I know it's maybe I feel like I'm being confusing for people that aren't, you know, in the military or whatever. But there's there's no way you could explain it that they might get it. You know, if you haven't served, you don't have that camaraderie. It's it's tough. And I think what's important too, is you can't do twenty years and then boom, decide to do whatever that is next. You gotta have some overlap.

You gotta start planning because that day will come and you just you're not prepared for it. You're so used to doing one thing, you know, the mind doesn't work that quickly. It could be exciting at first, but then it'll it'll fizzle. It'll be exciting because it's new, and it'll fizzle and you realize, oh, this sucks, and I missed the chaos. I fucked up. Yeah. I knew a guy who's who's planning on getting out, and then like a month of right before he like it was a month before he got out. He's like, I have zero plans, Like, I don't have anything planned, and he ended up going into the reserves for a little while, which he hadn't planned on. But it was an easy like Okay, well, here's a guaranteed check every month, I get a

little bit of money while I figure out whatever else I'm gonna do. And it's it's you know, guys that do that have a tough time. You really gotta. When I decided to get out of the Marine Corps, it was two years out from my eas I was like, fuck it, this is it. I'm done. You know what? Do I what? And that the week that I decided to get out, or actually was the following week. The following week I went down to the Education center on base for the first time and got signed up for college classes. And started just trying to crush college classes so that I didn't have to take those one I got out, And yeah, people definitely got to do that, you know, have a plan and everything. But man, I don't know, I really

appreciate you coming on and telling your story. People got to check out your book Blind Assent, and I checked it out on on Amazon and it has four and a half stars out of thirteen hundred review so it's not like only like fifteen people reviewed it. Like that's a lot of reviews. Man, that's awesome that you're getting that kind of I don't know how they haven't made a movie about this. I mean, I know there's been some reenactments created and stuff for different programs. I saw when when I googled your name and stuff, but there should be like an actual movie because that would be a thriller for sure, just that whole experience. I mean, just I don't know. I'm fascinated by anybody that can go and do something like that.

So I appreciate you coming on. Where can people find you and find your book? Yeah, probably the best. I mean, you can google me Brian Dickinson, But Brian Dickinson dot Net. It's got everything linked there and every social media flavor out there, Brian C. Dickinson. But yeah, no, I appreciate you having me on as well. It's a great podcast.

Yeah, man, I appreciate it. I will put your link in the description my website Jakremergraphics dot com and Anglicashop dot com. My Instagram is former Action Guys and former Action News. Hit me up. And that's it, man, I really appreciate it. That's it. Thanks world, done.

Ep. 211 | Brian Dickinson | Navy Rescue Swimmer and Everest Summiteer

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