132 | Shea McCrary: The Strangers, Mentors & Mountains That Shaped My Life

00:00:00:17 - 00:00:07:01 Kyle What is one of the most influential questions someone has ever asked you?

00:00:07:04 - 00:00:13:29 Shea Where will I be in 10 to 15 years?

00:00:14:01 - 00:00:26:05 Shea Sunny star, who I can only introduce by saying she's a powerhouse in the mountains and in business as well.

00:00:26:07 - 00:00:55:16 Shea Sonny was a huge mentor to me and we began working together in 2022, but originally I was introduced to her through the Summit Scholarship Program, and it's a foundation that puts together funding to put girls in the mountains, girls and women, and they have a scholarship program that's open every year. So back when I was just a climber, I was really aspiring to branch out and do something in the big mountains.

00:00:55:16 - 00:01:44:10 Shea And I found the scholarship offered through the Summit Scholarship program, and I applied, and I didn't get it that year, but it introduced me to Sonny and the foundation and the company that she was running that was putting together these all women's expeditions and really cool locations around the world. Flash forward two years later is when we finally got in touch and began working together, which kind of, you know, in the long run, made all of those dreams come true in terms of having applied for that scholarship and kind of seen through the whole process of going from basically not a mountaineer at all to now working and operating a women's mountaineering organization here.

00:01:44:12 - 00:01:46:24 Kyle Can you repeat the question she asked you again.

00:01:46:27 - 00:01:50:00 Shea Where do you see yourself in 10 to 15 years?

00:01:50:03 - 00:01:52:03 Kyle was your answer?

00:01:52:05 - 00:02:20:27 Shea It was a question that really struck me, mostly because I answered initially in the ways that I thought were like the most palatable or the most employable at the time. She asked me that question. I'm pretty sure when we were meeting for like the very first time. Yeah. For like the job interview, she was looking for someone to help step in and run or expeditions, the expedition company that she owned at the time.

00:02:20:27 - 00:02:52:27 Shea And I remember thinking about what answer would make me like the most attractive operations manager, which is what she was essentially hiring me to be, or saying, like, oh, just like a very organized and stable life and really dedicated to the mission, working really well on my computer. And I remember her questioning then being like, you don't have any interest in, like, guiding or in, you know, climbing big mountains.

00:02:52:28 - 00:03:17:16 Shea Tell me more about that. And so from the beginning, she was really a catalyst for like planting the idea in my head that all of the skills that I had gained rock climbing were transferable to this world of mountaineering that I knew little to nothing about. And it was kind of through those questions that we began to shape together.

00:03:17:16 - 00:03:44:00 Shea What a vision of the future of oxidations would look like. The company that she was kind of handing over some leadership in, and my life as well. You know, I think the two have become really intertwined in the last couple of years. So having that question early on to frame, you know, not only what I wanted to be doing, but where I wanted to be and how that would evolve over time.

00:03:44:03 - 00:03:56:06 Shea And a really large scale, you know, 10 to 15 years, not like a 2 to 3 year plan or like even a five year plan. It was on a scale of, you know, your life at a large

00:03:56:09 - 00:03:56:27 Kyle Yeah.

00:03:57:03 - 00:03:59:03 Shea view, what it would look like.

00:03:59:05 - 00:04:05:01 Kyle Have you at that point, had you ever thought about, like, your life that far in the future? Because, I mean, 10 to 15 years is quite a long

00:04:05:05 - 00:04:05:16 Shea time?

00:04:05:17 - 00:04:45:07 Shea No. And I guess we were having this conversation like 4 or 5 years ago. So I was like mid 20s. I had really only been climbing for a couple of years at this point and had made climbing my life. I had started climbing, working in climbing gyms and then transitioning that to more outdoor work and organizing groups. But all my professional careers had been in climbing, so to think about expanding, it was a little bit of a new concept for sure.

00:04:45:07 - 00:04:53:23 Shea And then to think about like business ownership and all of these much bigger avenues was also kind of a stretch at the time.

00:04:53:25 - 00:05:02:27 Kyle Take us back to kind of like who you were leading up to this moment, like how did you progress to this moment of her asking you this question?

00:05:02:29 - 00:05:35:01 Shea I so I started climbing when I lived in Arkansas and that was wearing went to college. I got my degree in crop, soil and environmental studies and quickly decided that laboratory work and crop engineering weren't like my life passions or anything. Crop engineering? Yeah, it's like environmental science, soil science. And so I began working in climbing gyms in Arkansas, which is a great place to pick up.

00:05:35:01 - 00:05:41:28 Shea Climbing was pretty fantastic. Horseshoe hell, which I think you just went to this past year. You weren't

00:05:42:01 - 00:05:44:03 Kyle No, I've been invited. I think I need to go

00:05:44:05 - 00:05:52:21 Shea Oh, you should absolutely go. I mean, it's one of the best, if not the best climbing event in the country.

00:05:52:23 - 00:05:55:16 Shea Oh, cool. Beautiful place.

00:05:55:17 - 00:05:55:28 Shea My

00:05:55:28 - 00:05:58:18 Kyle place that you can climb, camp and hug horses.

00:05:58:21 - 00:06:02:00 Shea Via Virata. Getting a hot tub.

00:06:02:03 - 00:06:02:17 Kyle yeah.

00:06:02:19 - 00:06:28:03 Shea it's. Yeah. Arkansas is a great place to get started in climbing, but when I was there, I mostly just rock climbed. I didn't really dream of climbing mountains or anything like that and moved around the country. I moved to Tennessee working for climbing gyms. Still there, got to climb and a lot of the great locations of the southeast.

00:06:28:03 - 00:06:54:24 Shea And then that's when I decided I wanted to kind of pick up and move my life out west, and ended up posting on a job board on Facebook, essentially laying out the skills that I had to offer and what work I was interested in doing. Talking a lot about how I wanted to join the guiding space and like more travel based industries.

00:06:54:24 - 00:07:13:06 Shea And that's when Sonny and I got connected together and had our first chat, kind of looking at what the next 5 or 10 years would look like. So really from the beginning, we were building the vision of expeditions together.

00:07:13:09 - 00:07:19:12 Kyle Circling back to a little bit more of your progression as a climber in Arkansas. It seemed like you got into trad pretty quick.

00:07:19:17 - 00:07:21:10 Shea

00:07:21:12 - 00:07:35:27 Shea A lot of the climbing that I started to do when I lived in Arkansas pretty much came out of the really thick book.

00:07:35:29 - 00:08:12:16 Shea The mountaineering Bible, they say freedom of the Hills. Yeah, exactly. So I read freedom of the Hills a lot when I started climbing. Bought a double rack off of Facebook Marketplace within, I think the first month or two of climbing it all, just because it was going to be impossible to learn if none of my friends had any of the gear, if we were just, you know, relying on meeting someone else who is going to teach us.

00:08:12:18 - 00:08:25:26 Shea Arkansas wasn't at least like Northwest Arkansas, where I lived at the time, wasn't like a huge climber hub. And we were really starting one of the first big gyms with ropes there and kind of kicking off the

00:08:25:29 - 00:08:27:03 Kyle scene.

00:08:27:05 - 00:08:46:25 Shea I had been outdoor climbing, I think once when I was in college through the outdoor program, and that made me one of the more like, I would say, experienced people that was working at the gym when it first opened, just because there were a lot of people that weren't climbers at all.

00:08:46:28 - 00:09:11:17 Shea So I ended up answering a ton of questions as the resident expert. And so it took it upon myself to like, really self educate. I spent a lot of time reading, watching videos, and then took a course through the AMG to teach basically indoors. I don't even know if they have this program anymore, but it was like the climbing wall instructor program.

00:09:11:19 - 00:09:40:07 Shea And through that, I kind of got plugged into a circuit of spies who were also guiding trips for college groups at the time and began meeting a lot of really great mentors and kind of getting exposure to the climbing community at large, like the AMA and different mentorship opportunities that were outside of Arkansas. And a lot of it came down to what I was able to find online.

00:09:40:09 - 00:10:07:28 Shea Like Mountain Project was a great resource from the beginning of my climbing career. It was always kind of a great place for not only beta, but inspiration and then also like partner finding because I really wanted to do bigger and larger objectives, and it seemed like a little bit of travel and like creativity was going to be required in order to meet those goals and keep learning new things all the time.

00:10:08:00 - 00:10:28:05 Kyle Do you feel like that kind of like exposure to the the guide seen in that path that you were on? Because one of my questions I was about to ask, it seems like you kind of like almost answered. It was like you're working at a gym, smaller town, not like a big climbing community. I could see that being just where you stayed.

00:10:28:07 - 00:10:32:22 Kyle Why didn't you stay?

00:10:32:24 - 00:11:05:06 Shea I loved the idea of multi pitch climbing and the mentor that I had back then. He was kind of an old ex Army Ranger mountaineer kind of guy who was actually going the opposite direction than I've been in my career in terms of like starting out climbing really big mountains. And now he was learning to rock climb for the first time, but he was in the process of getting his spy and his rock guide and going through the program.

00:11:05:06 - 00:11:37:29 Shea So I was his guinea pig for a lot of those lessons getting into climbing. And so I developed like this really keen desire to like do really big multi pitches, really big rock climbs. And we were practicing a ton on single pitch climbs out in Arkansas. All these multi pitch systems and I think I love the technical side of it as well as the.

00:11:38:01 - 00:12:11:22 Shea Idea of these really big adventures that don't necessarily have a super defined path, something that you kind of get to scout out on your way. The adventure aspect of climbing. The very first year I was in climbing, I applied for this grant called the Blake Croc. Still, Grant through the local Gear outfitter in Arkansas. Packrat shout out packrat!

00:12:11:24 - 00:12:36:13 Shea And I ended up writing an essay about how I really wanted to climb in the winds and do the Cirque of the Towers traverse, which again, this is my first year ever climbing. This was maybe like a few months on the tail of buying that double rack in a parking lot and promising the guy that I was going to wrestling everything because he was like, can't climb on this.

00:12:36:16 - 00:13:16:08 Shea So holding up fine to this day, to be honest. But yeah. So I ended up winning this gear scholarship based on the essay that I had written, and I ended up getting my first, like, backpacking backpack, hiking poles, and a few other pieces of, like, real camping kit. And that was kind of my first time ever backpacking or doing a big objective, but kind of like after winning this opportunity, like all good things in life, you're like, oh wow, I really have to go do this thing now.

00:13:16:09 - 00:13:42:13 Shea So I got some fresh gear and ended up spending my summer, like doing a big road trip up to the winds. And, you know, a hilarious story comes from that of, like, meeting someone on Mountain Project. And, you know, that's who I decided to have as, like, the partner for this objective, we're not able to meet up for the months leading up to the climb.

00:13:42:13 - 00:14:01:28 Shea And so we meet up at the beginning of the summer to do a bunch of climbs around Colorado before heading up to Wyoming. And each time we do one of these, like, test climbs to prepare, it just goes from bad to worse in terms of.

00:14:02:00 - 00:14:15:15 Shea Compatibility, his ability to, you know, lead a lot of the terrain required or to like, do it at a reasonable pace.

00:14:15:17 - 00:14:22:27 Shea A time with just like general attitude all.

00:14:22:29 - 00:14:38:17 Shea At one point we decided one person would bring. Well, he said he'd bring the rack and the rope and brought everything but alpine drawers, so it made for the pitch on the first flat iron. Kind of painful.

00:14:38:19 - 00:14:39:27 Shea Who's really.

00:14:39:29 - 00:15:07:16 Shea No extensions, tons of rope drag. We basically had to just untie and soloing. It was, you know, that much rope drag. And it was horrible. So after like a couple of botched climbs in Colorado, we were hiking down from one and I was like, hey, so we should talk about the winds. And he was like, yeah, I'm super excited.

00:15:07:16 - 00:15:34:13 Shea It's going to be so great. And I was like, I don't think we should. I mean, this just isn't going to work. I don't think we should go. He was like, I demand. I remember he said, I demand to know why you won't go with me. So I laid out a number of reasons just in terms of like safety, the amount of work we had shared over the other climbs that we'd done and just general vibe.

00:15:34:13 - 00:16:12:05 Shea I was like, I don't think you're having a really great time either. But he was furious and he like, basically throws all of the gear down and just runs to his car and leaves and he says, I'm going to go find someone else to climb in the winds with. I was like, okay, good riddance. You do what you gotta do, and I end up going to Wyoming, going to like the International Climbers Festival, going to ten sleeve, having just like amazing adult summer camp sort of holiday summer.

00:16:12:06 - 00:16:40:19 Shea So I didn't at that moment ended up getting to the winds. I did by the end of the summer. But so I ended up sitting around a campfire for a couple of weeks, searching for another partner and climbing some really awesome sport climbs. And eventually someone stumbles into camp and they sit down and they grab a whiskey bottle and they just start drinking and they say, I've just had the most horrifying experience out in the winds.

00:16:40:21 - 00:17:02:24 Shea And they start to describe all of these different scenes with this partner that are just two identical. They're just it's like shot for shot remake of what I went through. And at the end, he reveals that he found this guy on, you know, Mountain Project.

00:17:02:27 - 00:17:05:15 Kyle Wow. That's wild. You're like that. I could have been.

00:17:05:15 - 00:17:05:18 Shea you.

00:17:05:19 - 00:17:20:16 Shea I could have been me. I totally dodged a bullet on that. And, Yeah. So you can get infamous by having a rough string of misadventures in your formation to becoming a climber. You're meant to be.

00:17:20:18 - 00:17:39:27 Kyle Yeah, yeah, it brings up an interesting topic. So, I mean, this isn't the first time you have, like, had a long distance with someone, you know what I mean? You know, you had told me before that you used to drive 12 hours each way to Colorado to climb multi pitch climbs with people. This is probably one of those experiences.

00:17:39:29 - 00:17:40:09 Shea Yeah.

00:17:40:09 - 00:17:47:28 Kyle It's like a unique situation that I've heard of. Like were you driving with people 12 hours each way or

00:17:48:00 - 00:18:12:13 Shea It kind of depends. Meeting people a lot of times who lived out there. One one of the things I find super useful is someone with like local experience. So I would intentionally look for people who, you know, were locals to the area, knew the terrain pretty well. Yeah, more experience than I was, especially when I was first getting started.

00:18:12:16 - 00:18:15:18 Shea Nobody has experienced as I am.

00:18:15:20 - 00:18:17:16 Shea Please.

00:18:17:18 - 00:18:48:15 Kyle Oh, yeah. Like you're I don't have a lot of experience doing that. Like at all really. Most most, if not all of my climbing partners have been like close friends or people I've met through, like, acquaintances, you know what I mean? So there's always, like a rapport before I go out with somebody usually. So to be like, no show or like, what's the word?

00:18:48:16 - 00:18:51:01 Kyle Like just upon site meeting someone

00:18:51:04 - 00:18:51:11 Shea like.

00:18:51:16 - 00:18:53:22 Shea You know, blind dating. Yeah.

00:18:53:24 - 00:19:05:17 Kyle dating, climbing partners with such an investment of time to get out there is. It's pretty wild, like I. You've been doing that for how long you been climbing? Seven years.

00:19:05:23 - 00:19:06:22 Shea Yeah. Seven years.

00:19:06:22 - 00:19:08:24 Shea About

00:19:08:27 - 00:19:16:09 Kyle It's a lot of partners. It's a lot of people. And you said you keep a journal about most or all of the climbing partners that you meet.

00:19:16:11 - 00:19:21:28 Shea I would say most, you know, as much as I can. Nobody's perfect.

00:19:22:01 - 00:19:25:15 Kyle What was the precipice for starting that?

00:19:25:17 - 00:20:05:10 Shea You know, I keep a journal anyway. I love writing, and I find that so often, especially in the periods of my life where I'm climbing a ton, climbing almost every single day, you can kind of lose sight of what makes every single day super unique. And for me, it's mostly the people, the partnerships, the connections. The climbing is awesome, but I have experienced days of splitter climbing, perfect weather.

00:20:05:10 - 00:20:34:12 Shea But if the partnership isn't there, or if you don't like really connect with the person you're out with, it pales in comparison to like the worst climbing day ever with someone that you really enjoy being around. And I also think every day holds at least a line or two of a story. Like what makes it such a interesting day?

00:20:34:15 - 00:20:54:26 Shea We all climb for different reasons and have such different personalities. I love the diversity of the community, so meeting people so randomly is sometimes just so fun. You meet people you would never cross paths with most of the time.

00:20:54:26 - 00:20:57:13 Kyle I feel like a lot of people would be scared of that.

00:20:57:16 - 00:21:02:09 Shea Yeah, you have a good reason to be scared. I would say,

00:21:02:16 - 00:21:07:27 Shea I mean, I'm out there, so you better be careful. You watch out.

00:21:07:29 - 00:21:27:16 Kyle Like, do you have a selection process? Do you have a way? So like for for somebody that is listening to your story and already kind of feels like they're in your shoes and they're either in a midwestern town or they're somewhere where climate is kind of far away and they're like, I don't have a partner. And that seems like a barrier for them, you know?

00:21:27:17 - 00:21:44:18 Kyle Okay, they're like, they're like, I'm going to do what she does, and I'm going to reach out to random people on Mountain Project. Like for people who are interested in doing that, whether there's fear attached to it or not. What are some of the things that you learn to make, like stack the odds in their favor to make it a pleasurable experience?

00:21:44:18 - 00:21:47:11 Kyle More often than not?

00:21:47:13 - 00:22:19:11 Shea You know, I think be brave, be bold. Get out there. The goal is to climb. So even if you go out and you're kind of mismatched in your personalities, or if you go to a new crag or a new area and the climbing just totally sucks, that's nobody's fault. But it can kind of ruin your day. Just realize that you've made the accomplishment by getting out there, by putting yourself out there and being vulnerable to climb with someone new.

00:22:19:11 - 00:22:42:18 Shea And it can work out in your favor as well. I would say if people I hear all the time like I've got no one to climb with, oh, I really want to get out there, but I'm just not connected enough. And I know that there's almost always someone out there wanting to climb, even in, like, the strangest places.

00:22:42:19 - 00:23:13:13 Shea I'm from Missouri, and that has even fewer climbers than most places. It's incredibly flat, and even so, I find a lot of folks that want to go climb in southern Illinois or make the really long road trip down to Arkansas to climb, and it is intimidating to meet up with people for the first time. I think. Luckily, I come from a place of knowing how to be friendly and I try to open people up as well.

00:23:13:13 - 00:23:37:01 Shea So that's it's like a 50 over 50 job of being like, oh, hey, we're both kind of like doing something weird and meeting up with a stranger from the internet to hold the other side of the rope for the day. You're both taking that risk. You know, very rarely have I ever found someone with totally mismatched intentions of wanting to meet up.

00:23:37:03 - 00:24:02:29 Shea I mean, most of the time it's for the love of climbing, which is pretty strong. And I've had great partnerships where we talk all day long and we just we Kiki, and we have a great time and it's just never enough. And then I have amazing partnerships where we maybe say like three dozen words to each other because you're, you know, 30 plus meters away for the entire day.

00:24:03:01 - 00:24:20:08 Shea But you get back to the car and you're like, that was so awesome, so solid, so seamless. Like you've known you my whole life. See? See, you probably never again. And that's totally okay. You can love being in someone's presence and then just let them part ways and go somewhere else.

00:24:20:11 - 00:24:25:29 Kyle Yeah, I love that phrase. I say that to some people. I'm like, yeah, I'll probably never see you again. And they always go like, that's

00:24:26:01 - 00:24:53:27 Shea No, I mean like that. To hear it to my face, it would kill me. I would be like, well, now I have to make sure that we run into each other again, which I do. I mean, all the time people will say like, oh, I only time with people I know. And I think immediately about how many people I am best friends with, who we both took that risk on each other to be strangers who were getting committed really fast.

00:24:53:27 - 00:25:06:21 Shea And now we're best friends and can't imagine life without each other. So it's like, whoa, if I stop making those risks, taking those chances on people I might miss out.

00:25:06:23 - 00:25:13:11 Kyle Is safety ever a concern? Not climbing safety, but like safety. Safety.

00:25:13:13 - 00:25:27:17 Kyle Is it like is it something to consider like I guess I guess I'm, I like I don't have sisters, I don't have like that many women friends like is is safety a concern when you're meeting up with strangers?

00:25:27:19 - 00:25:54:03 Shea It is. And it's definitely disappointing. I think when like I said, for the most time, most of the time it's this love of climbing and you feel like you're coming together as equals. But I have met up with some people who have had other things than climbing in mind, and they've been like super upfront about that or just incredibly pushy.

00:25:54:10 - 00:26:27:23 Shea And usually that makes them climb really bad, you know, like having, I don't know, other goals. You know, you're usually red flag, terrible climber, totally unfocused. And so, I mean, I think women and girls kind of always have to have their head on a swivel, especially not only through the internet, where I feel like I can't get a great gauge on how, like misogynist or creepy or like patriarchal some guy is before we meet up.

00:26:27:29 - 00:26:53:15 Shea Usually it is a total risk, and then you also have people that will approach you at different crags. Or when you're traveling, strike up a conversation, and you do always have to be a little bit more aware that they might have a totally different interpretation of what climbing together means, and just be ready to shut that down if you're not feeling the vibe.

00:26:53:17 - 00:26:55:18 Shea It's also a great way to meet people.

00:26:55:21 - 00:26:58:06 Kyle Yeah, yeah. Unspoken expectations.

00:26:58:09 - 00:26:59:05 Shea Yeah. Or is that

00:26:59:05 - 00:27:01:29 Kyle Unspoken expectations. There's premeditated

00:27:02:02 - 00:27:02:16 Shea resentment?

00:27:02:19 - 00:27:07:24 Shea Oh, I like that. That's a spin on one that I've heard before. Okay.

00:27:07:27 - 00:27:10:03 Kyle Because like you're expecting something without speaking

00:27:10:03 - 00:27:10:28 Shea it. Yeah.

00:27:10:28 - 00:27:14:10 Kyle happen. And so you silently resent them for something that you didn't even express in the first

00:27:14:14 - 00:27:14:22 Shea place?

00:27:14:23 - 00:27:25:25 Shea Yeah. And I can't imagine, like, turning to a climbing forum for that kind of thing, but. Yeah, it happens.

00:27:25:28 - 00:27:26:19 Kyle What?

00:27:26:22 - 00:27:33:18 Kyle What makes a good climbing partner?

00:27:33:21 - 00:27:58:01 Shea I think a great climbing partner is someone who has good self-assessment. And whether that is like, oh, I don't climb very well or I'm not very fun to be around when I'm hungry or when I don't feel like I have all the route beta memorized. Or it can be someone who's like, hey, I haven't taken the sharp end in a long time.

00:27:58:01 - 00:28:27:15 Shea I'd love to lead like hand these leads over versus doing something that will take longer and potentially put the mission in jeopardy. You know, I think self-assessment is really hard for a lot of us to wrap our minds around just because we feel like we're letting the other person down. Like, that's what I see the most in partnerships is they'll try to.

00:28:27:17 - 00:29:01:23 Shea Kind of like, project their expectations of themselves into where they're at. And then, you know, rather than sharing the load. I think one of the best things in a good partner is someone that compliments your skills and can kind of do the things that you're not great at, and vice versa. So having someone who knows themself really well is going to be someone who has the availability to get to know you and then feed off of each other's skills and energy.

00:29:01:25 - 00:29:10:01 Kyle You had said, we all come to climbing with some baggage on who we want to be as a partner. What do you mean by that?

00:29:10:04 - 00:29:32:04 Shea I think when we think about what makes a bad partner, we can all think of those examples, whether it's someone who's like shouting beta at you while you're trying to figure something out, or someone who kind of like, brings the stress level up when you go to rappel and like, has a lot of anxiety that kind of sponges onto the group.

00:29:32:05 - 00:29:38:01 Shea Like, those are just like two examples that I can think of.

00:29:38:04 - 00:30:24:05 Shea And I think sometimes we carry like whatever we don't like either in other people or in ourselves into climbing. Like if we think, oh, I'm really uptight, you know, we can have that come out in our climbing if we're not careful or, I don't know, like baggage can be like perfectionism. If you or someone who did really well in school or in sports all through growing up, and then you immediately transition into climbing or some sort of endurance sport, like that's kind of the baggage you'll carry forward is like this need to get the gold medal or to push to that level of athleticism that you were at maybe before.

00:30:24:07 - 00:30:51:07 Shea And I hear people sometimes talk about climbing as like going to war or like going to battle, trying to defeat their demons and enemies. And, and I think that's fine. Get really deep into your law if that's what motivates you. But I would say that person probably has a little bit of baggage if they're if they're attacking climbing that way.

00:30:51:09 - 00:30:52:15 Shea Yeah.

00:30:52:18 - 00:30:56:27 Kyle It's funny, you actually, like, you just mentioned two things that I think were like things I had to grow out of.

00:30:56:27 - 00:30:57:03 Shea of.

00:30:57:05 - 00:30:57:22 Shea Really.

00:30:57:22 - 00:30:58:00 Kyle

00:30:58:03 - 00:30:59:13 Kyle Which was shouting baited

00:30:59:18 - 00:30:59:25 Shea people.

00:30:59:27 - 00:31:02:23 Shea Oh no, you're recovering

00:31:02:26 - 00:31:03:06 Kyle I'm a

00:31:03:06 - 00:31:04:11 Shea beta.

00:31:04:14 - 00:31:04:29 Kyle beta.

00:31:05:01 - 00:31:05:15 Shea Oh.

00:31:05:18 - 00:31:05:23 Kyle yeah.

00:31:05:24 - 00:31:06:17 Kyle If everybody starts.

00:31:06:17 - 00:31:08:23 Kyle I'm like, maybe you should look at the croup on the left over

00:31:08:25 - 00:31:10:06 Shea It is hard sometimes.

00:31:10:13 - 00:31:11:19 Kyle hard sometimes, especially if you.

00:31:11:19 - 00:31:12:23 Kyle Feel like you can.

00:31:12:23 - 00:31:13:21 Kyle See the move.

00:31:13:28 - 00:31:14:17 Shea

00:31:14:17 - 00:31:19:18 Kyle But what I've done recently now is it's like, all right, if you want anything from me, just let me know. I

00:31:19:24 - 00:31:25:24 Shea Now, how many times do you say that? Right beside them, if you want. I'm still here if you need any of it.

00:31:25:28 - 00:31:27:29 Kyle Yeah. It was.

00:31:28:01 - 00:31:31:29 Shea Hey, I'm just letting you know I'm down here in case you need anything.

00:31:32:01 - 00:31:33:02 Kyle know, I don't think it's that

00:31:33:04 - 00:31:34:03 Shea bad.

00:31:34:03 - 00:31:36:12 Kyle I think it's usually at the beginning of the climb.

00:31:36:12 - 00:31:36:27 Shea climax,

00:31:37:00 - 00:31:40:14 Kyle Especially if it's one I've done before. And I know the other person's going to struggle on

00:31:40:18 - 00:31:42:19 Shea Yeah.

00:31:42:22 - 00:31:48:27 Kyle when it starts to get messy. So. Yeah. And then the other one was repel anxiety. I used to have

00:31:48:29 - 00:31:49:22 Shea really.

00:31:49:24 - 00:31:51:03 Shea Wow. Got you on both.

00:31:51:03 - 00:31:51:15 Kyle got me on

00:31:51:15 - 00:31:54:18 Shea know I got trigger. Oh gosh.

00:31:54:21 - 00:31:56:03 Shea What do you mean.

00:31:56:05 - 00:31:57:13 Kyle Like I'm a terrible partner.

00:31:57:18 - 00:31:58:29 Shea Are you okay.

00:31:58:29 - 00:32:11:17 Shea That's I mean repel anxiety. Also totally reasonable. You know, it's all things that we again have deep. And I just probably have mine in a couple of bags deep in the baggage that is climbing.

00:32:11:18 - 00:32:11:24 Kyle yeah.

00:32:11:24 - 00:32:13:18 Kyle That's funny.

00:32:13:20 - 00:32:43:28 Kyle Let's be real for a second. The blueprint for a successful climbing podcast is simple. Interview the most famous climbers in the world. Big names mean big followings, lots of SEO power, and a built in audience that helps boost every episode. But this show, this show has never been about that. From the beginning, I have made it my mission to interview the climbing majority, the people who don't live in the limelight, people quietly putting up roots, building communities and giving back to us in ways that are hardly recognized.

00:32:44:00 - 00:32:59:14 Kyle Well, that's what makes this show special. It also means we have an uphill battle when it comes to growth, and that is where you come in. If you've been psyched on the show. Word of mouth is one of the single most important ways you can help. Support. Share an episode with a friend. Post about us on social media.

00:32:59:15 - 00:33:09:10 Kyle Jump onto Reddit threads and Mountain Project forums and tell people what you've been listening to. You are a part of the majority as well, and it's time to let people know about it.

00:33:09:12 - 00:33:13:01 Kyle Have you had a, like regular climbing partner.

00:33:13:03 - 00:33:14:02 Shea Yeah.

00:33:14:04 - 00:33:24:09 Kyle Describe the differences. Like pros and cons, I guess. Pros like the pros of strangers and the pros of a regular partner.

00:33:24:11 - 00:33:55:28 Shea The pros of strangers are meeting new people and having kind of that fresh dynamic to always work off of. You're always learning something new from different people, or just observing different ways in which people work through certain problems on the wall, either with their body or in systems. Maybe they set their anchors up differently. Maybe they teach you a new way to stick clip like I think the knowledge is so fresh when you're climbing with strangers.

00:33:55:28 - 00:34:28:17 Shea And you also get this like feedback loop from a wide and diverse audience of what you're doing, whether or not it's working, whether it's not, it's like easy to interpret, you know, even down to like climbing commands and different languages. If you're always climbing with new people, you're adapting to different ways of communicating on the wall. I think makes you really mentally flexible.

00:34:28:17 - 00:35:01:16 Shea So I like climbing with strangers for that reason. It's always stretching me. But when it comes to bigger objectives, larger risk, more time away. So like more tent time, I kind of want to be with my regular partners, especially to do those like bigger or more difficult climbs. Anything where I feel like I have to dial in that mental support, like who's on the other side of the rope?

00:35:01:18 - 00:35:03:13 Kyle I don't want to have to think about my partner.

00:35:03:15 - 00:35:29:07 Shea I don't want to have to think about my partner. I want them to not only not stress me out, but like actually bolster my confidence. And I think the right partners will absolutely do that for you. And just because they know you, they know more accurately what they can encourage you to do, you know, push you to be in that flow state.

00:35:29:07 - 00:35:56:15 Shea Whereas like I do always feel a little layer of, Oh, I really can't fall when I'm climbing with someone who I really don't know. You know, even down to the point where if I were to get an accident or fall climbing with someone new, like, how are they going to help organize for a rescue or treat me in the aftermath?

00:35:56:15 - 00:36:10:07 Shea It's so much nicer to climb with regular people when you feel like that is somewhere in there. All possibility because you know how they're going to care for you in the event of anything happening.

00:36:10:09 - 00:36:31:08 Shea So yeah, and then just way more fun with like friends. And you can also be a little more silly and like, suggest the suffer climbs or the stuff that only the two of you are interested in and kind of have no preconceived notions. So I like that about my regular partnerships.

00:36:31:08 - 00:36:32:12 Shea Yeah,

00:36:32:15 - 00:36:59:00 Kyle Yeah, I've like I said before, I've like pretty much only done like main climbing partners. And yeah, I mean it's it's been amazing. I love the rapport and just the silent communication that you have. And yeah, just like that level of comfort where you're like, you know exactly what you're getting yourself into. Yeah, it's really cool. Let's talk about some of your actual, like, partners that you've linked up with.

00:36:59:02 - 00:37:04:02 Kyle Some of these people I've either spoken to on the podcast or I know in person.

00:37:04:05 - 00:37:10:22 Kyle after we tell these stories, there's like this question at the end of the difference between a male female partnership and a female female partnership.

00:37:10:25 - 00:37:15:21 Kyle So let's talk. Let's talk first with the story of like a male female partnership. This is with Taylor Fahey.

00:37:15:25 - 00:37:16:02 Shea cool.

00:37:16:02 - 00:37:16:23 Kyle you know how to say his last

00:37:16:26 - 00:37:17:12 Shea Fahey

00:37:17:12 - 00:37:18:02 Kyle Fahey.

00:37:18:05 - 00:37:18:17 Kyle Sorry,

00:37:18:20 - 00:37:22:10 Shea I think so. I like I said it with my chest.

00:37:22:10 - 00:37:23:08 Shea So

00:37:23:11 - 00:37:23:25 Kyle that was pretty

00:37:23:25 - 00:37:24:18 Shea Comfortable.

00:37:24:21 - 00:37:27:25 Kyle So with Taylor, tell me that that story.

00:37:27:28 - 00:38:08:25 Shea Yeah. So when I decided I wanted to move out to Vegas, I was mostly exploring different housing options and slowly making my way out west because I had a lot of free time to climb. And one of the first things I really wanted to climb when I got to Red Rock was levitation 29. It was, you know, it's classically, famously, one of Lynn Hill's favorite routes, put up in a really iconic time in red rock climbing and holds a very fantastic view in the back of Oak Creek Canyon.

00:38:08:25 - 00:38:46:26 Shea And yeah, a bunch of reasons I really wanted to climb it. And I actually think I saw Taylor post on Mountain Project looking for a partner to climb at the time. So we had set up to climb on Monday, and I really wanted to climb and send this route so bad, but it was a little bit like at the limit of things that I'd been doing, like even, I think flashing or on sighting and 11 see sport climb at the time would have been pretty impressive.

00:38:46:28 - 00:39:08:09 Shea So doing it like on a multi pitch, having these other pitches of 511, I was like, I'm going to need to really hedge my bets and like plan well if I want to send this route. So I lined up not one but two other partners later in the week to go back and climb this, to climb levitation again.

00:39:08:09 - 00:39:35:27 Shea And also I just just kind of on a tear. I was like really enjoying climbing and wanted to get to know the area well. So on Monday, when Taylor and I met up, we went out there in the approach up to levitation 29. You can take a couple of different options, but Taylor was a long time local by then, so he knew the way, the approach that was rather scrambling.

00:39:35:27 - 00:40:06:17 Shea So I remember kind of being introduced to Red Rock through this like epic approach scramble of hundreds of feet of prickly climbing. And we see bighorn sheep and we're arriving into, like, the pain and bull area and then make our way up to the climb. So it had already been pretty magical. And the way we had broken the route down at the base, we were going to swap leads, and Taylor was going to be taking the crux pitch at that time.

00:40:06:20 - 00:40:28:04 Shea And as we start up, things are going really well, and Taylor links a few pitches, which eventually puts me at like the base of the crux pitch. And I remember just thinking, oh my God, I'm really not ready for this. I did everything in my power to prevent this from happening. I have to be so brave at this moment.

00:40:28:07 - 00:41:07:10 Shea So I went up the pitch and I remember it being quite hard. I do remember like really digging deep, sending the pitch, and it was one of the most memorable days of climbing. I remember Taylor being such a incredibly supportive and insightful partner, very calm energy, but also, so encouraging to this day. We've done other climbs and done other little projects out in the canyons, and I think he just gives this.

00:41:07:15 - 00:41:31:23 Shea It's like not beta, but it's specific tips that'll help you at that moment, whether it's reminding you to breathe at the right time or, you know, reminding you that your gear is really good when it's thin, he has a really fine tuned way of providing that support when you're on the wall. So that was one of the most magical days of climbing in Red Rock.

00:41:31:23 - 00:41:51:15 Shea Or like maybe climbing in my career thus far. And then I got to kind of do it again for two more times later that week, and was able to kind of give that crux pitch over to the other people I was climbing with, and it took a lot of pressure off this.

00:41:51:15 - 00:41:52:08 Kyle You got the on site.

00:41:52:11 - 00:41:55:03 Shea It's yeah, I know, and that's like my favorite thing.

00:41:55:03 - 00:41:57:27 Shea So it just all felt like everything fell into place for

00:41:57:29 - 00:41:58:20 Kyle That's so cool.

00:41:58:20 - 00:42:06:11 Shea Yeah. And then Taylor and I have remained really good friends to this day, and that's one of my Mountain Project super success stories.

00:42:06:14 - 00:42:15:20 Kyle Taylor's great. I have a similar experience. We did Rainbow Wall. We've gotten a couple routes together, but recently we did Rainbow Wall and I was going for my like red point of the the route.

00:42:15:23 - 00:42:22:15 Kyle And yeah, I mean, I have videos of it and you can hear him in the background. He's like breathe. He's like, nah, you got this dude.

00:42:22:16 - 00:42:23:25 Kyle Like, yeah, calm,

00:42:23:27 - 00:42:24:20 Shea Yes.

00:42:24:22 - 00:42:25:14 Shea Said it all.

00:42:25:17 - 00:42:34:16 Kyle You know, just like doing that. And people in the comments are like, wow. Like that's the belay, right? The belayer right there, like shout out to the ballet or, you know, stuff like that. And

00:42:34:16 - 00:42:35:05 Shea That's totally

00:42:35:12 - 00:42:44:04 Kyle on an Instagram video from like, like the layer noise coming from off camera, people were recognizing what you're talking

00:42:44:06 - 00:42:44:21 Shea about.

00:42:44:23 - 00:42:51:12 Shea It's a massively good energy sat out. Taylor

00:42:51:14 - 00:43:09:24 Kyle We'll get back to talking in just one minute. First, there's something I need to be honest with you about after five years of producing this podcast. There's been a hard truth that I had to realize. It's been a terrible business decision in person. Interviews with professional video and audio quality take a lot of money to produce, and they give back very little.

00:43:09:25 - 00:43:39:18 Kyle For instance, my trip to Washington to interview Noah Kane, Ryan Jenks and Stephen Dimmitt in person literally cost me thousands of dollars out of pocket. Even other big creators in this space have questioned my entire approach, but I'm unwilling to sacrifice the quality that I want to bring to this show. So if you value the production level just as much as I do, value the depth of the conversations that we have on this show, or just have had an episode that's really stuck with you, there is a real way you can help become a Patreon member.

00:43:39:19 - 00:43:50:23 Kyle You'll help offset the real costs that it takes to produce this show. You'll unlock the ad free version of every episode and get access to exclusive content. If any of this resonates with you. Click the link in the show notes,

00:43:50:23 - 00:43:53:27 Kyle Thanks for listening. And now back to the show.

00:43:54:00 - 00:43:56:09 Kyle Tell me about the big wall you climbed in Peru.

00:43:56:12 - 00:44:33:01 Shea Down in Peru, there is a pretty large wall called La Fin. It is a 5700ft mountain out near artisan Rahu and meter. And I believe the original route, which is what we did, breaks it down into 18 pitches over somewhere around like 600m. And a lot of folks will do it in a couple of days, because there's a pretty nice ledge about halfway up.

00:44:33:03 - 00:45:06:20 Shea I went there in 2025 with a partner of mine. His name was Paco, and we met guiding on and Argentina earlier that year. We set out to climb lozenge through like kind of a super fast and light style, which, you know, looking back could have ended really bad, I would say, just because the temperature dropped so much at night.

00:45:06:21 - 00:45:35:02 Shea We started at 3 or 4 in the morning, and by the time it was like 10 or 11, we were boiling on the wall because we had worn base layers trying to like climb with as much on us as possible and then trying not to have a backpack. So neither of us had a backpack, and we were mostly, you know, tying jackets around us or using as little water as possible to try and keep things light.

00:45:35:04 - 00:46:28:06 Shea Yeah, it was a little brutal. And the climbing gets all the way up to ten D, I think, at one of the lower pitches, and we had worked through most of that pretty quickly. And then on the upper pitches it gets a little bit more slappy and wandering. We got a little bit off route, so we start wandering and trying to match like topos up with things, and we just keep doing these full 60 meter pitches, trying to work our way towards more reasonable, like familiar terrain we had started at, like what I said, like 3 or 4 in the morning and maybe an hour after we started, the only other team out in the

00:46:28:06 - 00:46:56:21 Shea Cirque there was starting as well. So they were maybe like an hour behind us, and we had seen them on the wall at a couple of points, but when we got lost, we totally lost track of where the other party had gone. When we made it to the top, it was just after 630 in the sun was setting, and we still had a couple of wraps to do in order to get off the top, but super lucky to have made it.

00:46:56:22 - 00:47:25:25 Shea We were incredibly cold by the time we topped out. Completely out of water and made our way over to the repels and made it down in like 2 or 3 hours through the moraine field back to the Boulder Bibi. So it was a super, super long day. It felt a little bit shorter when we looked up and noticed the other party of Chilean guys still about halfway up the wall.

00:47:25:25 - 00:47:47:06 Shea They must have stopped somewhere just shy of like 500m. So they still had quite a bit of climbing to do. And they had, I guess, just found like a small ledge or something. So I think it's a great climb. I think it's, totally approachable to do in a couple of days and to like fire it in one day.

00:47:47:08 - 00:48:11:07 Shea You have to have really dialed tactics and be ready for the altitude as well. You know, you're up above 14,000ft when you're doing this climb, so it does kind of wear on you, especially if you're carrying like a ton of stuff. Luckily, I think the team that was on the wall, I think they had packs with full night gear and were prepared for that.

00:48:11:07 - 00:48:22:03 Shea So that was good. I know that in the future, the margin for error is just like a little bit less thick out there.

00:48:22:05 - 00:48:22:13 Kyle say.

00:48:22:14 - 00:48:25:04 Kyle Did you learn anything about yourself as a climber on that

00:48:25:07 - 00:48:27:21 Shea

00:48:27:24 - 00:48:56:13 Shea It was a day that kind of really redefined climbing in a lot of ways, just because it was kind of so to the limit. I remember at one point when we were not lost anymore on the upper pitches, but we had still been swapping leads every time. And I was beginning to get really worried that we were going to get benighted on the wall.

00:48:56:13 - 00:49:38:03 Shea And then from that point, it was going to be really hard to find around these huge granite gender. And it's just it's a it's a labyrinth up there when you're trying to find the summit ridge and you just keep looking into these crazy off widths and you're tired of picking, like, harder climbing, you know, in the beginning when you're like, lost, you're like, oh, I'll just blaze up through this part onto like, you know, you make your game plan and it can get a little hard where you're like, okay, like we're still thrashing forward and at a certain point you're like, oh man, is there any like, small staircase around the corner?

00:49:38:08 - 00:50:04:10 Shea Is there any easier way than what I'm picking right now? And I remember my partner being really awesome, because I think what I've experienced is that in a lot of scenarios, my experience has been in a male female partnership. The guy will oftentimes offer to like, take over. I think quickly in a way

00:50:04:13 - 00:50:05:06 Kyle like be the

00:50:05:08 - 00:50:09:23 Shea yeah, in a way that I don't notice it as much with like my female partners.

00:50:09:23 - 00:50:32:06 Shea And I notice it in sport climbing to, you know, like when you struggle on a move or when you're, you know, trying something. I feel as though it's a much quicker offer to have someone else take over. Take the reins here. Step aside. Let me do that for you. Hey, do you want to come down now? That's like my triggers.

00:50:32:06 - 00:51:07:26 Shea I'm like, no, I'll let you know 100% if I want to, you know, give away this moment. And I feel like my greatest male partners. And what Paco did on this climb was make no assumption, like his job in that moment was to support me as his partner, who is about to lead the next pitch. And I was definitely a little bit over the adventure aspect of not knowing what was around every corner.

00:51:07:26 - 00:51:29:07 Shea But I think through a good partnership you become ready. So he like encouraged me to eat something. He gave me some of the water he had left on his harness. I think he even like warmed my hands because we were like pretty freezing cold at that point. And he said, you got this. And I think that's the kind of partnership you really want to have.

00:51:29:09 - 00:51:40:03 Shea It leaves you feeling a lot more powerful in moments where that's what you need to have someone. You say you can just keep doing it like you can do hard things.

00:51:40:03 - 00:51:56:09 Shea And so I always hope to do that for my friends and partners too, because I think we've all felt the impulse to when we want to take the pain or discomfort away from someone we love or someone that we care about. And that's like people I climb with.

00:51:56:09 - 00:51:59:20 Kyle Especially if you know that you could

00:51:59:25 - 00:52:00:08 Shea Yeah.

00:52:00:08 - 00:52:00:29 Kyle solve the problem

00:52:01:05 - 00:52:01:14 Shea Yeah.

00:52:01:17 - 00:52:06:12 Kyle could, like, help the solution. It's like, this could be easier if I just like, do

00:52:06:12 - 00:52:07:25 Shea Do it, you know.

00:52:07:28 - 00:52:43:11 Shea Yeah. So sometimes I'm like, you know, maybe maybe they are uncomfortable. Maybe this is at their limit. But I know how rewarding it'll be if I help them push through this moment versus take the challenge away from them, because I think that's where you get a sense of agency. Whereas in, you know, those times where I haven't been ready to give up, but someone's like, here, you want me to lower you, you know, suddenly you doubt yourself in ways that you really weren't up until that moment.

00:52:43:11 - 00:52:51:01 Shea It feels like this almost public recognition of your giving up or like your failure.

00:52:51:03 - 00:52:52:26 Kyle What about your experience climbing with Steph?

00:52:53:02 - 00:53:17:25 Shea So part of the journaling exercise that I do also includes writing climbs that I think are inspirational, that I'd like to do someday, places I'd like to visit, and people I'd like to climb with. So I have this list that I'll say right now, absolutely, I will not share the list, but it's people that I really love to climb with.

00:53:17:26 - 00:53:27:28 Shea And mostly it started as a list of women I'd love to climb with. Women who have been influential in climbing, who.

00:53:28:01 - 00:53:51:18 Shea Really help advance the community, who have interesting stories to tell, who I think kind of represent the person I would want to be in climbing as well. And Steph was on that list. She and I happened to be in the Valley at the same time last year in October, and she posted on Mountain Project, I kind of gal.

00:53:51:20 - 00:54:16:02 Shea And so I jumped to the chance and I was like, I'll be a partner, whatever you need. She was like, oh, I've already got a couple of people lined up. I was like, of course! But she said, if they fall through, if they don't answer, something happens. We'll go climb, we'll climb. Serenity sons. And I was like, awesome, that sounds great.

00:54:16:04 - 00:54:38:29 Shea So I waited by my phone for the next 24 hours and all my prayers were answered. Whoever that original Mountain Project ghost was disappeared and she and I ended up climbing together. Which funny story? I had my bike in Yosemite and we were meeting really early because we wanted to get ahead of the

00:54:39:02 - 00:54:45:13 Shea eventual conga line that builds the base of such an iconic climb.

00:54:45:15 - 00:55:09:12 Shea So we were meeting up at like maybe 5 or 530 pretty early, and I was riding my bike and I don't have bike lights, and I crashed my bike over this boulder. That was like splitting one of the paths. I just didn't see it. So I go over my handlebars with my climbing backpack and everything. I pick myself up.

00:55:09:13 - 00:55:33:16 Shea I'm like, oh, I'm so glad I'm not injured. I go meet up with Steph. We totally vibe. We have a great day. We get ahead of all of the, you know, parties that show up at the base and we end up being the first people on the route, kind of looking down all day and seeing a massive amount of people.

00:55:33:19 - 00:55:35:29 Kyle am like such a proponent of get there first.

00:55:36:02 - 00:55:37:12 Shea Oh man, is like

00:55:37:17 - 00:55:41:15 Kyle multi pitch trad. Climbing behind other people is like I almost won't do

00:55:41:17 - 00:55:41:25 Shea it.

00:55:41:26 - 00:55:43:06 Shea Yeah.

00:55:43:08 - 00:56:10:22 Shea I, I, we seriously look down at one point and saw nine pairs lined up. Ready. Yeah, yeah. Really wild. And we did the whole thing. How Steph likes to climb and like her fix and follow style. So you know, for me, I feel like so much of the time I am at least doing equal parts leading, if not like doing the majority of the leading.

00:56:10:25 - 00:56:50:18 Shea So to have a rope gun like Steph, just to be able to like ride the micro tracks all day behind her was so sweet. I thought that was just vacation climbing at its finest. And I really love the time and energy she puts into her route topos. And the information like that was the kind of stuff that propelled me to do things like go to Colorado and find partners on Mountain Project to do fun multi pitches with, to climb on the diamond or to move out to Las Vegas.

00:56:50:19 - 00:57:02:09 Shea It's kind of like these really awesome stories that she would tell about all these incredible places. So it's cool to see her not only just like doing it, but ramping it up lately.

00:57:02:09 - 00:57:04:06 Kyle Yeah. Have you listened to the most recent episode

00:57:04:06 - 00:57:05:03 Shea upsurge.

00:57:05:06 - 00:57:05:29 Shea Yeah

00:57:06:02 - 00:57:09:10 Kyle cool. Yeah, she's super rad. I saw her in the needles recently

00:57:09:13 - 00:57:10:07 Shea Oh yeah.

00:57:10:08 - 00:57:21:15 Shea She's all over the place right now. She's in New Mexico. I'm pretty much always jealous of where Steph is, even if I'm like on the other side of the world doing my total own thing.

00:57:21:23 - 00:57:29:22 Kyle Yeah. It's funny, like, if I were chasing people, like doing objectives, like, in, like, get on the podcast. I'd have to, like, reach out to her every

00:57:29:25 - 00:57:30:07 Shea week.

00:57:30:08 - 00:57:31:16 Shea Yeah.

00:57:31:19 - 00:57:33:04 Kyle yeah. Looks like you need to be back on the show, Steph.

00:57:33:06 - 00:57:35:28 Shea Yeah. We've got another request coming in.

00:57:36:01 - 00:57:38:06 Kyle Yeah. She's been on a wild tear recently.

00:57:38:08 - 00:57:58:25 Kyle So people have more of an understanding of kind of like who you are as a climber. We've talked about some of your, you know, your rock climbing, levitation in terms of like a route, like what are some recognizable mountain summits that you have on your roster, roster, checklist, tick

00:57:58:28 - 00:58:00:11 Shea My CV.

00:58:00:13 - 00:58:03:11 Kyle Yeah CV is there a your summit

00:58:03:13 - 00:58:05:00 Shea Yeah. I yeah.

00:58:05:02 - 00:58:10:12 Shea My professional members only jacket with all of my accomplishments pinned to

00:58:10:14 - 00:58:11:05 Kyle it.

00:58:11:08 - 00:58:22:04 Shea I don't know. No it's not like totally my style. I feel very lucky for every mountain that I've been fortunate enough to climb.

00:58:22:09 - 00:58:22:14 Kyle they.

00:58:22:14 - 00:58:23:03 Kyle Still speak.

00:58:23:03 - 00:58:36:14 Kyle To, you know, it's not marked on, you know, talks about trophies on the wall. It's not necessarily that I'm more that was more facetious than anything. It's more about like because I think objectives, like climbing objectives, whether you like it or not.

00:58:36:15 - 00:58:36:25 Kyle They.

00:58:36:25 - 00:58:54:19 Kyle Say a lot about who you are as a climber, like you chose it to do it in the first place. So that's that's style. That's like preference. It requires something of you to complete so you can speak to other people who have done it, and you have a commonality because you know what that person went through to do it.

00:58:54:21 - 00:59:01:11 Kyle And so yeah, I think that there's like there's a language there. It's not boastful, it's connective. You know what I

00:59:01:18 - 00:59:01:23 Shea mean?

00:59:01:25 - 00:59:11:23 Shea Totally. I think it's one of the things I struggle with the most. And maybe it's just.

00:59:11:26 - 00:59:45:26 Shea You know, like the imposter syndrome that comes from being surrounded by people all the time who are doing such cool things, really, you know, not just pushing the envelope and doing cutting edge stuff, but, you know, constantly getting after it. And so I feel like a lot of times, all of the things that I do are just my like, best attempt at emulation of all the really cool people that I admire and all of the adventures that they're getting into.

00:59:45:27 - 00:59:48:11 Kyle every person that you look up to, there's someone that looks up.

00:59:48:11 - 00:59:48:13 Kyle To

00:59:48:17 - 00:59:48:27 Shea you.

00:59:48:28 - 00:59:53:29 Shea Oh, so hard to imagine those poor people out there.

00:59:54:07 - 01:00:01:08 Shea I'd like to dedicate a dollar for every. View on this podcast to those people.

01:00:01:11 - 01:00:04:04 Kyle We have one or a couple. Give me, give me like 2 or 3. Give me

01:00:04:07 - 01:00:05:01 Shea Of.

01:00:05:06 - 01:00:08:26 Kyle mountains that you stood on. That meant a lot that, you know, people would recognize.

01:00:08:28 - 01:00:57:13 Shea Yeah. Aconcagua is one of the coolest mountains I've ever climbed. Just it's history, its significance. It's like 6900 some meters. The highest peak in North and South America. And I think Argentina is a lovely place. So I've loved getting to connect with the culture and community there through African, Kagawa, all expeditions, my company, we run the 360 route, which kind of circumnavigate the mountain and goes up the Vacas Valley, which is a little bit lesser known and a little bit less populated than the normal route.

01:00:57:15 - 01:01:13:13 Shea And just due to extreme weather, it's not a summit that everyone gets to see. The altitude and the weather create a combination that makes the summit rate somewhere around 30%, I want to

01:01:13:16 - 01:01:26:02 Shea So a lot of times it's just not a given. Even as a guide or someone who works repeated seasons on the mountain that you'll get to see the summit.

01:01:26:04 - 01:02:03:28 Shea Another kind of point wrapped in that is that with being an expedition leader or being a guide, you're often the first person to turn around. If clients or if other folks on your team aren't feeling well, you're the point person to forgo your summit. So for that reason, I feel like it wasn't only a combination of really good weather and really good at climate of myself, but of the entire team that we were traveling with, we got very lucky and had a very strong group that year.

01:02:03:29 - 01:02:46:08 Shea So Aconcagua is super memorable for that reason. And then I think so many peaks in Peru come to mind. This past season, I was there for nearly two months and was able to do what to say like 9 or 10 different 5 or 6000 meter peaks. Just it's just amazing. You know, I just, I was the couple months of saying yes, like, every time I would meet someone random or friends of mine that were coming down from Argentina, I climbed with a lot of different combinations and groups of friends and some really memorable ones.

01:02:46:08 - 01:03:17:07 Shea And one of my most memorable down there this year was Kalki, which is a 6000 meter peak. And I did it with just this random Kiwi guy, this guy from New Zealand that I had met and climbed with a few times. Shout out Fabi! And we got along famously. We got along great and spent three days up there climbing what is known to be a pretty like, I would say difficult, a little bit more advanced.

01:03:17:07 - 01:03:38:11 Shea It's pretty like steep and rough to get up to high camp and then again, pushing at that altitude is can be really challenging. So that was one of the favorites from this past year's trip. But yeah, a countless number. One of my other favorites was.

01:03:38:14 - 01:04:06:14 Shea A climb that we summited that had a glacier at the top. So there was like 2 or 3 pitches of glacier, but it started with six pitches of like granite crack climbing. So we had all of our rock stuff, and then we had these, this one giant backpack that the follower was carrying with both pairs of double boots, crampons, ice axes, you know, the whole kit for the top glacier part.

01:04:06:16 - 01:04:21:23 Shea So like doing like following an overhanging pitch with that pack on at like 5000m was incredibly thrilling. We'll say it was an experience that we'll definitely haul next time.

01:04:22:01 - 01:04:23:16 Shea That's cool. I love that, and I think

01:04:23:18 - 01:04:36:19 Kyle that yeah, I mean, for someone listening that doesn't know who's sitting across the table and even for me, like even just hearing those short stories gives me such a great idea of like, what you've done and where you've been. It's really

01:04:36:24 - 01:04:37:09 Shea cool.

01:04:37:11 - 01:04:38:09 Shea Thanks. Yeah.

01:04:38:12 - 01:04:40:01 Kyle Are you dead inside yet?

01:04:40:03 - 01:04:45:23 Shea Yeah, yeah, I'm actually lost all of my power.

01:04:45:25 - 01:04:47:03 Kyle So if you know, if climbing.

01:04:47:03 - 01:04:54:18 Kyle Isn't about the trophies, about the badges, let's talk about what it means to you.

01:04:54:18 - 01:05:06:10 Kyle you chose four words to to define climbing for you in terms of what it means in order of importance. It was challenge, choice, freedom and return.

01:05:06:12 - 01:05:12:07 Kyle Let's break down each one. What does challenge mean to you in the lens of Climbing.

01:05:12:10 - 01:05:16:10 Shea Challenge, I think.

01:05:16:12 - 01:05:54:16 Shea Is a word that comes to mind just because it's one that's defined by each of us. There's obviously the level of difficulty that we assign to different climbs, different modalities of getting up the wall. But I think if your challenge is different, like let it be anxiety, or maybe it's perfectionism, like those challenges, kind of like what we talked about earlier, just like what baggage you bring to climbing or what baggage you bring to your partnership.

01:05:54:18 - 01:06:12:04 Shea I think climbing can be a really therapeutic way to address those challenges within yourself. And then I think it's also so beautiful and rare to be able to dial in the level of difficulty that you want for your day and kind of,

01:06:12:06 - 01:06:12:14 Shea Like the

01:06:12:14 - 01:06:15:18 Kyle ability to choose the level of challenge you want to have in

01:06:15:20 - 01:06:27:00 Shea Yeah, absolutely. Like set yourself up for success in a way, or to set yourself up for the unknown. You kind of get to choose. Each time you go out.

01:06:27:00 - 01:06:31:00 Kyle Yeah. It's like, yeah, there's like a dial. You get to choose.

01:06:31:02 - 01:06:43:10 Shea Sometimes I'm like, I'll admit, sometimes I just need a win. I'm like, oh, well, let's do something that's just going to boost your tail feathers and make you feel like a super climber,

01:06:43:10 - 01:07:07:00 Kyle Yeah, I think it's cool to like there's the challenge lever is not only I mean, there's so many different ways. It's not only intensity but variety. Right. Like you could do. Okay, I'm going to climb nothing harder than five eight, but I'm going to try to climb 3000ft and link up all these climbs and do it as fast as possible, like, that's, you know, challenge meter up here, but down in the technical side of it.

01:07:07:00 - 01:07:12:01 Kyle And so you got all these different ways to like shape the experience you have in the mountains, which is really cool.

01:07:12:02 - 01:07:33:10 Shea And I think the biggest challenge can be sometimes when you get really deep into it, like, how am I having the most fun possible? Like how am I turning this into a joyful activity and not focusing on the challenge? Is this thing that has to be character building all the time and such, like a brutalist sort of way.

01:07:33:14 - 01:07:36:24 Kyle was the last time you lost fauna and climbing?

01:07:36:26 - 01:08:03:25 Shea I kind of have been through the I've been flow through it. It goes through seasons, I think, where if I'm very fixated on a goal or if I'm feeling like an imbalance of the other work that I'm doing in my life, like if I feel that other parts of my life are lacking and climbing has a little bit less joy.

01:08:04:00 - 01:08:20:08 Shea So it's important to be well-rounded because I think it's going to allow you to let go and really tap into it's just climbing, you know, it's not this escape from something else.

01:08:20:13 - 01:08:24:20 Kyle What about choice? What does choice mean to you?

01:08:24:22 - 01:08:48:27 Shea I feel like choice ties a lot into challenge what we were just talking about. But it's also the choice of how you spend your days. Yeah I forget the probably graphic that they make where it's just like a sea of dots on a sheet of paper. And those are all of the days of your life that you get to spend.

01:08:49:01 - 01:09:29:01 Shea And each day one of those dots disappeared. Because that's kind of the overview of your life, you know, how are you spending each one of these days? I think it's a choice, you know, a very privileged choice, to be honest, to be able to go out and climb and to spend so many days committed to what we've all kind of established is a very nihilistic goal of seeing the tops of mountains, looking at beautiful things and immersing ourselves and climbing and calling it like a spiritual divination or something.

01:09:29:03 - 01:09:34:23 Shea But it's, you know, it's the choice that we get to make and how we spend that time.

01:09:34:25 - 01:09:38:08 Kyle How does that differ from the word freedom that you've chosen?

01:09:38:10 - 01:10:12:15 Shea Freedom. I think, I always like to say freedom is the struggle that you choose. So it is kind of, you know, tied into choice in a way. My climbers on the teams that we run all over up the mountains, a lot of times I'll hear them saying like, oh, this is the worst. This is torture. I'm miserable.

01:10:12:17 - 01:10:59:22 Shea When will it end? Yeah, stuff like that. And I always go back to how we all chose to be there. Not only like, chose to, but prayed for it. Like truly pined for these moments for months, you know, paid a lot of money, maybe worked really hard, visualized it, put it on your vision board. Now you're living in that dream of your vision board, and you're saying such negative things like, oh yeah, this is suffering, you know, and and I get the fun connotation of suffering and, you know, suffer well.

01:10:59:25 - 01:11:29:04 Shea But I always go back to the I think that there's very real suffering in the world. There's very real things that people don't have the ability to escape from in their lives. So to be able to choose to do something like arbitrarily walk up a hill for weeks at a time in order to have this transformational experience, which I do think is very real and very important.

01:11:29:05 - 01:11:50:26 Shea You have to acknowledge that, like that's a choice that represents a huge level of freedom that you get to express in your life. You know, and it's something, again, you've hoped for and worked for for months. So to not enjoy the moments is such a waste.

01:11:50:29 - 01:11:59:16 Kyle Return. This one was a curveball for me. I'm interested to hear your answer on this one.

01:11:59:19 - 01:12:40:08 Shea I think it can be taken a couple different ways, but I think of climbing is this amazing activity where you get a great return on investment, more or less, where whatever you put into it will precipitate out the level of enthusiasm that you give your goals. In climbing, the outcome will be proportional to that. And so if you really dedicate yourself.

01:12:40:10 - 01:12:56:25 Shea You get to reap the rewards. You get to see the results. And that goes for the more technical aspects. But it also applies to like the community. If you pour into the people around you, it's going to have that return effect as well.

01:12:56:27 - 01:13:10:29 Shea We talked a little bit about mentorship, and I think it's just as important to openly and empathetically provide that mentorship to other people.

01:13:11:02 - 01:13:12:05 Shea You know,

01:13:12:08 - 01:13:40:19 Shea nobody gets anywhere on their own easily. And I owe so much of what I do in climbing, who I believe myself to be to the amazing mentors I've had along the way. So I think it is beneficial to pour back into the community when you can, or to be able to return some of the gifts that climbing has given and pay it forward.

01:13:40:19 - 01:13:41:10 Shea In a way.

01:13:41:11 - 01:13:42:23 Shea Yeah,

01:13:42:25 - 01:13:49:27 Kyle you there's a good example of someone kind of like doing that for you.

01:13:50:00 - 01:14:00:10 Kyle The quote, at least, that I have written down here is you're going to free the nose one day. You're going to climb the nose. Who said that to you?

01:14:00:12 - 01:14:29:04 Shea that was Scott, the Army Ranger, who I would, you know, multi pitch on 30ft walls in Arkansas with. He you know was learning a lot about climbing at the time to and is quite a bit older. So I believe now he's like up in his 60s. And essentially he was projecting all of these things forward that were like places I had to go look up.

01:14:29:05 - 01:14:52:03 Shea I was like, what are you talking about here? Absolutely crazy. But I still have so many things that I learned from him that he kind of spoke words into those dreams of being like, oh, you're going to go and see all of these places climbing Patagonia and, you know, Fitzroy, all of the things.

01:14:52:05 - 01:14:53:25 Kyle you believe them in any sense of the

01:14:54:00 - 01:14:55:11 Shea for?

01:14:55:14 - 01:15:51:02 Shea You know, I think I must have I think there was that, like, light switch that went off. Same with the way that sunny speaks, that confidence into me just being like, oh, you see the vision for what's needed and this community or like your vision for what could be is going to pay off. You know, someone who is really knowledgeable and established and, you know, a great role model when they speak that kind of energy into existence, you just kind of have to believe it's the the wise words that, yeah, belief, I think is a huge part of it, like the faith you have in yourself will pay off.

01:15:51:05 - 01:15:57:02 Kyle I think it's also important to have people believe in us.

01:15:57:04 - 01:16:02:00 Kyle I have a similar example, like, you know, Joey Latina.

01:16:02:02 - 01:16:11:05 Kyle Yeah. When I was like fresh into the community here, you know, I was like, oh, I think you did OG route. And I was like, that's like a dream route. And he's like, oh, you got it, man.

01:16:11:06 - 01:16:20:17 Kyle You could do it. It's like I've seen you climb on your videos like, you totally got this. And like, you know, there's a part of me that was like, this kid's an idiot. He doesn't know who I am.

01:16:20:20 - 01:16:24:00 Kyle And then there was another part of me that was like, maybe I can,

01:16:24:02 - 01:16:24:16 Shea you know,

01:16:24:16 - 01:16:36:11 Kyle you know. And so, like, I just think that the the point here is just like, you know, you had talked about the cyclical nature of mentorship and how it's like, you know, you've had these people influence you in this way.

01:16:36:11 - 01:16:57:04 Kyle And I think that this is like just a great example of that. It's like, I think that, yeah, having surrounding yourself with people who encourage you and like people who have belief in you, it can be really powerful because I think that, like, there's a lot of times we can hold ourselves back with the narratives that we tell ourselves.

01:16:57:07 - 01:17:13:19 Kyle Quick favor. If you've been enjoying the show, please head on over to Apple Podcasts to leave us a review. Not an Apple listener? You can leave a review on the show's website. Reviews help more than you'd know, and they take less time than it takes for your partner to put you on belay. So what are you waiting for?

01:17:13:21 - 01:17:16:17 Kyle Go on, start typing.

01:17:16:20 - 01:17:36:01 Kyle kind of circling back to the opening question with Sonny's question and kind of like that was the beginning stages of her mentorship for you, right? Talk to me about like what? That mentorship that you had with her looked like. And how did that shape your climbing?

01:17:36:04 - 01:17:57:15 Shea When sunny and I first met, I hadn't really ever considered what it would actually take to pivot into a career in the mountains or like, do bigger mountaineering trips or even delve fully into alpine climbing.

01:17:57:17 - 01:18:43:05 Shea I always felt like I was at a huge disadvantage, kind of learning to climb in the southeast, not having this huge connection to the mountains, not being some child prodigy, skier or anything. You know, as influential as growing up in the mountains would have been, and hearing her story, her progression into ultra racing and how she deals with fears well, in climbing all kind of opened up the possibility for me of, joining the community and like being part of the conversation.

01:18:43:07 - 01:19:16:11 Shea When we first met, she was still doing like all of the organization for oxidations and leading all of the expeditions herself, which I think made it incredibly difficult to manage her schedule. And so she was also looking for someone to step into the role of leading some of the expeditions. And I felt like I wasn't really poised to get started.

01:19:16:11 - 01:19:41:21 Shea But she made the really great point of like, the best time to start is yesterday. The best time to start is, you know, to already be doing it. The only way to do it is to start. So that was a really influential way that she pushed me into the career in sport that I'm in now.

01:19:41:23 - 01:20:05:10 Kyle Mentorship in like, the modern day. I've heard a lot of people say that it's like lacking. Do you think that people just aren't seeking it out in the right ways, or do you think that there is actual, like a disparity between people with knowledge and people seeking knowledge?

01:20:05:12 - 01:20:39:04 Shea I think in a lot of ways, mentorship hasn't totally changed from this original archetype of being a little standoffish, a little, cliquey, I guess. Or like, you have to kind of know someone in order to get on this short list for the perfect kind of mentorship. And then I think also as people, as a society, we become more closed off.

01:20:39:05 - 01:21:21:24 Shea You know, I feel like I meet more and more people who, like, we've been talking about, are less likely to meet up with strangers. Trust someone, random for the first time. And that's how I've met some of my mentors, is through this seemingly very random process. But you really don't know when you're seeking out a mentor. It's almost like trying out therapists, you know, you don't know who's going to, like, actually be able to connect to your problems, move at the pace you want, provide their wisdom in a way that's compatible with the way that you learn.

01:21:21:24 - 01:22:02:17 Shea And one of the things that I think is big and mentorship, kind of like with the mentors I've had, speaking really awesome visions into existence, is having someone that makes you feel seen. And I know a lot of really awesome, super professional guides who do an amazing job but are not great mentors because they don't know how to connect with people on that level of like interpersonal, making them feel seen and turning it into a relationship that goes beyond like criticizing their cam placements.

01:22:02:18 - 01:22:29:24 Shea You know, like if I think a lot of people do that type of thing and call it mentorship, and it provides a certain, like, classroom background for getting information, feedback in the sport. But it's not mentorship in terms of, you know, inspiring people to look beyond themselves. You're going to free the nose. You're going to climb in Patagonia someday.

01:22:29:25 - 01:22:30:08 Shea Oh,

01:22:30:14 - 01:22:31:26 Kyle yes,

01:22:31:29 - 01:22:49:28 Shea you know, you're going to do amazing things that takes someone like, I don't know, stepping outside of the. Application of all of these tools and seeing you as a person with a career in climbing, even if we're not professional

01:22:50:00 - 01:22:57:26 Kyle Or even if. Yeah. Even if I get. Yeah, it's a weird one. Like a good example that comes to mind is do you know Joshua Renege?

01:22:57:29 - 01:22:58:20 Shea I don't think so.

01:22:58:20 - 01:22:58:29 Kyle

01:22:59:02 - 01:23:19:21 Kyle He lives out in Lone Pine. You said like, have some people be seen. I think that was that was great. He like, I went into Nomad Ventures a bunch and when he worked there out in Escondido and he like just walked behind the shop and I was like a new trad guy came in. I was just like, he's the guy who has knowledge, right?

01:23:19:21 - 01:23:26:03 Kyle And so I just came in just like, you know, asking all these questions and stuff. I would just kind of like hang out there, you know,

01:23:26:06 - 01:23:26:23 Shea not

01:23:26:23 - 01:23:27:16 Kyle be annoying.

01:23:27:20 - 01:23:29:08 Shea Yeah. Gotta be somewhere.

01:23:29:08 - 01:23:52:24 Kyle he, like, invited me out to go up to talk, eats and like, took me on a first ascent of his and like, he gave me one of the pitches, you know, and it's like it was just him taking some kid out, you know, just on some random climb, you know, and but that, like, that single small gesture that he did, like, changed how I approached everything, you know, it's like.

01:23:52:24 - 01:24:00:25 Kyle And I think that's what it is, it's like to have someone that you put up on a pedestal, like make you feel seen is super powerful.

01:24:01:01 - 01:24:02:03 Shea Yeah.

01:24:02:05 - 01:24:23:14 Kyle That was well said. I think another thing too, that people might be getting wrong with mentorship is thinking that there's one person that's going to teach them everything. Like, we, you know, you hear the stories of certain people who have that, or it's like I just had, you know, I had Bob teach me everything I know.

01:24:23:14 - 01:24:43:06 Kyle And like, I just like, I was on a fast track to knowledge and. Sure, I mean, I think that's great, but I don't think that it's the only way. Right. Like, I think that part of mentorship or at least acquiring knowledge is like all the people that you've met as climbing partners to write all the strangers, maybe like little bits of knowledge that you pull from every single partnership.

01:24:43:08 - 01:25:01:07 Kyle Like there's there's weird forms of mentorship in that way as well. And so there's like this approach towards just variety climbing with more people on, you're going to help, you're going to learn, and then people might learn from you. And so there's like this exchange of knowledge. And so we can all kind of be mentors to each other in a way.

01:25:01:11 - 01:25:44:06 Shea Totally. I mean, it is more of a gradient of mentorship than it is this badge that anyone just gets to put on all of a sudden. And that's where I think, you know, mountain Project and random partner matches have been so great, is I've met so many people that are on like that budding edge of being fantastic mentors, but not quite in the place where they're putting up a post on Mountain Project being like, hi, I'm a mentor with space available in my schedule for one student, and I actually think those posts are kind of like hokey when you see people that are like dear community at large looking for someone

01:25:44:09 - 01:25:44:27 Kyle Looking for a

01:25:45:00 - 01:25:46:02 Shea a mentor or

01:25:46:02 - 01:26:20:20 Shea you're looking for mentor like either one, you know, you're like asking so much outright. Whereas I feel like the best mentors I've gotten have been through, you know, they needed a partner for that day. And if we meet up and things go well, then look, they've just found their new with like, Merlin's the Wizard and then like Mickey, I don't know, I don't know, but I'm like, you know, magicians assistant, but you have to vibe with the people.

01:26:20:20 - 01:26:53:00 Shea You have to really get along with them. I won't name his name, but when I was first arriving here in Red Rock, I was on Mountain Project, and I ended up exchanging quite a few emails with a like, big name and climbing around the desert southwest. And essentially we had gone back and forth several times, and they pretty much outlined, like a detailed day by day schedule of how we would be going around the desert southwest.

01:26:53:01 - 01:27:16:07 Shea And they needed someone that could, like, carry really heavy bags for these first ascents they wanted to do. And it came like a very detailed itinerary, essentially, of like, you know, all of the things places a list of like rules for as we were traveling together had to be up by this time. And, you know, it was very rigorous.

01:27:16:07 - 01:27:26:04 Shea And I was like, thank you. I am no longer interested in the position. I thought this was just a short couple days of climbing.

01:27:26:04 - 01:27:28:08 Kyle But for the right person, that could have

01:27:28:11 - 01:27:51:29 Shea Exactly, exactly. I was like, and it just didn't work. I really, actually really strongly considered it, but it just didn't work for my current schedule. I was like, I can't commit to these extensive days that you would like to reserve my undivided attention in advance. Stranger from the internet, who I had not met at this point have met since.

01:27:52:04 - 01:27:52:15 Kyle Yeah.

01:27:52:15 - 01:27:54:12 Shea

01:27:54:14 - 01:28:10:16 Shea But again, that's someone's dream. And if you're willing to go out on a limb and meet that guy in the desert for six weeks, you would learn so much. I'm sure I just didn't want to be that. That wasn't my story that time.

01:28:10:21 - 01:28:12:25 Kyle Have you heard of the 20 1620 rule?

01:28:12:28 - 01:28:13:28 Shea I have? Yeah.

01:28:13:28 - 01:28:14:06 Shea Yeah,

01:28:14:11 - 01:28:16:06 Kyle yeah, I just love that

01:28:16:09 - 01:28:25:00 Kyle 20% of the partners should be like better than you, 60% should be at your level, and then 20% should be you should be acting as a mentor.

01:28:25:03 - 01:28:25:25 Kyle Two

01:28:25:28 - 01:28:32:29 Shea Do you feel like you easily put people into those buckets?

01:28:33:02 - 01:28:33:26 Kyle Yes.

01:28:33:29 - 01:28:39:24 Shea Do you feel like they know the bucket you put them in?

01:28:39:26 - 01:28:40:12 Shea Yes.

01:28:40:13 - 01:28:40:28 Shea Okay.

01:28:40:29 - 01:28:42:24 Kyle think the people act as a mentor to. It's very

01:28:43:00 - 01:28:43:21 Shea obvious.

01:28:43:23 - 01:28:54:06 Kyle I think one skill disparity that's like a key thing. And then I think it's also like.

01:28:54:09 - 01:29:08:24 Kyle I think when I'm acting more as a mentor, it's like, what do you want to climb? Like, let me help you achieve a goal of yours, you know, and then it's yeah, I think that I feel like it's pretty clear. That's an interesting question.

01:29:08:26 - 01:29:14:05 Shea What do you do as a mentor that you feel like is different or.

01:29:14:05 - 01:29:15:29 Kyle A little more teaching?

01:29:16:01 - 01:29:26:02 Kyle I come from a background of like teaching CrossFit leadership roles, kind of like instructor kind of stuff. And so I think that I turned that faucet

01:29:26:04 - 01:29:27:13 Shea

01:29:27:13 - 01:29:40:10 Kyle Obviously it needs to be warranted. But yeah, I think that, yeah, there's systems you can teach. It's just kind of like you're you're you're the one that's kind of like leading the the experience.

01:29:40:13 - 01:29:41:11 Kyle You know what I

01:29:41:14 - 01:29:56:05 Kyle And then when it's like 60%, the 60% the people, it's like that's just a climbing partnership, you know? And then the 20% experience was like, this person is way better than me. And I'm kind of like letting them make the decisions. And I'm here to, like, absorb knowledge,

01:29:56:11 - 01:29:57:16 Shea you know.

01:29:57:18 - 01:30:02:23 Kyle And that was like an example of I'm going to bring back Joey like an example of like a 20%.

01:30:02:23 - 01:30:18:28 Kyle Where he was a mentor to me was when he just like, I followed him up the rainbow wall, you know, and like, that was such a that was a 20% that mattered so much to me. And so, like, how can I give that experience to somebody else? Like what? What objective is somebody else? That's really a gem, but it's out of their realm.

01:30:18:28 - 01:30:24:05 Kyle And like, I can be the rope gun for that objective. And it's like about them. It's not about my objective.

01:30:24:07 - 01:30:24:17 Shea

01:30:24:19 - 01:30:41:17 Shea Especially when you know kind of what it takes to get to that objective. Like, you know, that's the best part is you can look back and be like, no, you're absolutely there. Or, you know, very close. Here's the final step to get you through your goal.

01:30:41:21 - 01:31:01:24 Kyle I mean, I think even an example of like the 20% where you're acting as a mentor could be exposing someone to a route that they haven't done yet. You know, it's like you have the beta, you've got the approach, you've got the gear, like, you know everything. It's all dialed. And this person is kind of like, I can climb it, but I'm like, there's all these unknowns and it's like, let me take you out.

01:31:01:26 - 01:31:08:06 Kyle Let me just show you the route. I can take whatever you want. Like that's another example of like a 20% you can act as a mentor

01:31:08:08 - 01:31:10:00 Shea in.

01:31:10:02 - 01:31:22:06 Shea What do you do when you have someone that you're like working with who's playing it too safe that you think needs an extra push.

01:31:22:09 - 01:31:31:27 Kyle I don't know if I've run into that too safe.

01:31:31:29 - 01:31:33:22 Kyle And what does two safe look

01:31:33:25 - 01:31:34:17 Shea

01:31:34:19 - 01:31:45:10 Shea Maybe doing stuff that they know is well within their ability versus choosing something that is.

01:31:45:12 - 01:32:03:18 Kyle Yeah, I don't know if I have that enough experience to have like where I'm in a position to like recommend a route that they might be leading that, you know, might be out of their comfort zone, like I've, you know, I took my buddy Pete out on Eichhorn Pinnacle, it was Tenby. And I can kind of assume sometimes I was like, oh, this is what we're doing, and we're going out.

01:32:03:18 - 01:32:09:03 Kyle And like, I find out after the fact, he's like, yeah, that was like wild for me, you know?

01:32:09:05 - 01:32:13:23 Kyle say anything to me until afterward. I'm just like, oh, okay. Shit. You know? Well, glad you had a good

01:32:13:25 - 01:32:21:10 Shea Yeah, yeah. But still a lot of fun. Okay, good. Do you feel like people make assumptions about you?

01:32:21:12 - 01:32:22:12 Kyle I'm sure

01:32:22:14 - 01:32:22:20 Shea Yeah.

01:32:22:24 - 01:32:33:04 Kyle always been interested in. So I love this question. Like, you never know, like what people version of you is.

01:32:33:06 - 01:32:33:10 Shea The

01:32:33:10 - 01:32:34:24 Kyle person has a different version of

01:32:35:00 - 01:32:35:18 Shea you.

01:32:35:21 - 01:32:40:26 Kyle And I wish that I could collect that data. You know,

01:32:41:00 - 01:32:41:12 Shea like.

01:32:41:13 - 01:32:42:07 Shea Big data guy.

01:32:42:07 - 01:32:48:21 Kyle I feel like I just like that word. I just feel like it's a big into, like self-reflection.

01:32:48:23 - 01:32:53:03 Kyle I feel like it's so it would be insightful.

01:32:53:06 - 01:33:12:29 Kyle And I don't think that you can candidly get that response from most people. And when I brought this up before, someone commented back, like, make sure you're getting that from people who you like want it for, like the people who you want it from. Like, don't take everybody's opinion.

01:33:12:29 - 01:33:22:20 Kyle Yours of of of you to heart. Right? It's like, be selective about the people who you want to hear that from, because maybe the people who are most willing to give it to you aren't necessarily the people that you want to

01:33:22:20 - 01:33:23:28 Shea to listen to it come from.

01:33:24:00 - 01:33:25:09 Kyle place of judgment or something like

01:33:25:12 - 01:33:25:20 Shea that.

01:33:25:28 - 01:33:51:29 Shea Yeah. They don't have your best interest at heart. Yeah. I've been listening to a audiobook recently called How to Know a Person. It's just like a psychology book, but it was talking about how only 20 to 30% of what we think someone else is thinking is actually true, and it actually decreases the ability to, like, predict what someone else is thinking.

01:33:52:00 - 01:34:10:12 Shea The more you know a person, funny enough. Yeah. It's like you start to like solidify all these scripts of who you think or what you think. Their response to something will be like, if I knew you really well, I would already have in my mind, like, oh,

01:34:10:14 - 01:34:17:07 Shea Braque always brushes off X, Y, and Z, so I'm sure he's not bothered at all.

01:34:17:07 - 01:34:49:25 Shea And so it's like my intimate knowledge of who you are actually inhibits me from being able to objectively look at the information and guess at what you might be like, how you might be reacting to something. And basically, all of this study was to prove that there's very little we can do to predict or control what other people are thinking or feeling or not thinking or not feeling at any one time.

01:34:49:28 - 01:34:54:00 Shea But yeah, you have to wonder. That's human nature. Yeah.

01:34:54:06 - 01:35:01:14 Kyle I think it's also something I wonder more because of the public nature of the content that I produce,

01:35:01:17 - 01:35:02:22 Shea Yeah, I

01:35:02:24 - 01:35:06:00 Kyle the Instagram, the podcast. It's like very

01:35:06:02 - 01:35:07:03 Shea It's so public.,

01:35:07:03 - 01:35:08:25 Kyle public and vulnerable.

01:35:08:28 - 01:35:09:28 Shea So vulnerable.

01:35:09:28 - 01:35:14:03 Kyle And yeah, I wonder sometimes, who knows.

01:35:14:08 - 01:35:43:00 Shea Yeah. One of the things with the business and with sunny is like, she's this really, you know, to me, she was a really notable endurance athlete in this Instagram personality. And she has, you know, this huge platform in which to stand on. And as we're kind of transitioning the ownership of and, you know, I feel like in a lot of ways I'm stepping into her shoes.

01:35:43:04 - 01:35:59:25 Shea There's this pressure to become like a social media personality of some type or, yeah, have the vulnerability to be very forward facing. I find it very brave.

01:35:59:28 - 01:36:00:22 Shea That's all I have to

01:36:00:28 - 01:36:01:14 Kyle Yeah.

01:36:01:17 - 01:36:04:00 Shea that's rated R.

01:36:04:03 - 01:36:28:15 Kyle I think one of the, one of the things I was trying to communicate that I missed was in the search for understanding what people think or know about you or assume about you. I think in the quest for personal development, like you, I want to know where my blind spots are, right? It's like we we we think we're in control of our actions.

01:36:28:15 - 01:36:47:29 Kyle We think we're in control of how we respond and how we react to things. But I think that from a third person's perspective, you might be able to witness like certain patterns and like behaviors or ways you think or respond to things that you might be unaware of. Those are the things that I wish I could pull out of people.

01:36:48:00 - 01:36:52:01 Kyle It's like, oh yeah, you do this all the time. It's like, oh, really? Do I

01:36:52:04 - 01:36:53:12 Shea like

01:36:53:15 - 01:36:54:28 Kyle information that I would love to get

01:36:54:28 - 01:36:55:12 Shea Yeah,

01:36:55:12 - 01:37:10:02 Kyle because it would help me like, analyze more of, like how I'm interacting with the world because we all think that we're conscious and in control. But I think that sometimes we're more we're acting more subconsciously than we think we are.

01:37:10:05 - 01:37:31:14 Shea What are what are like 2 or 3 words of who you would want the world to see you as, like, what are the 2 or 3 words that you're trying to embody? You know, someone glances over and they say, well, that guy, he is just really, you know, what's that assumption you want to put out?

01:37:31:16 - 01:37:32:28 Kyle I think transparent

01:37:33:00 - 01:37:41:14 Shea is one.

01:37:41:16 - 01:37:45:25 Kyle Confident. I've been called arrogant before.

01:37:45:25 - 01:37:51:04 Shea Really? That hurt your feelings?

01:37:51:06 - 01:37:51:29 Shea You can say

01:37:52:02 - 01:37:55:01 Kyle past. Well, yeah. I mean, it's more just like, you know,

01:37:55:02 - 01:37:55:08 Shea like.

01:37:55:10 - 01:37:55:25 Shea Yeah.

01:37:56:02 - 01:37:56:27 Kyle not socially

01:37:57:00 - 01:37:57:11 Shea accept.

01:37:57:13 - 01:38:05:24 Shea Yeah, yeah, that's not a usually a positive thing. Repackage that confidence. Yeah.

01:38:05:24 - 01:38:10:24 Kyle That's been like a self, like a journey that I've been

01:38:10:26 - 01:38:14:23 Shea I wish I was more confident, so,

01:38:14:26 - 01:38:20:18 Kyle Third word.

01:38:20:21 - 01:38:22:16 Kyle I don't know, nothing comes to mind at the

01:38:22:18 - 01:38:32:05 Shea You can save it. You can think about it.

01:38:32:07 - 01:38:35:11 Shea I think.

01:38:35:13 - 01:38:39:13 Shea Knowledgeable.

01:38:39:16 - 01:38:42:19 Shea Kind.

01:38:42:22 - 01:38:46:12 Shea And joyful.

01:38:46:14 - 01:38:47:17 Kyle Knowledgeable.

01:38:47:23 - 01:38:49:23 Shea

01:38:49:26 - 01:38:55:10 Shea Yeah. I'm also psychoanalyze why I chose that first.

01:38:55:13 - 01:39:07:16 Kyle I mean, maybe it's reflective of where you are right now in terms of, like, what you're starting to do. You kind of need to have that as, like a pillar of something you stand on,

01:39:07:22 - 01:39:08:16 Shea right?

01:39:08:16 - 01:39:10:09 Kyle Yeah.

01:39:10:11 - 01:39:24:29 Kyle Did you know that Spotify and Apple podcast ratings helped the show reach more viewers? So if you like the show. Take 10s to leave the show five stars. If you're on YouTube. Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe to make sure you get notified about the most recent episodes. And now back to the show.

01:39:25:02 - 01:39:29:00 Kyle So we've kind of like danced around or

01:39:29:03 - 01:39:30:03 Kyle are

01:39:30:05 - 01:39:30:19 Kyle a lot.

01:39:30:24 - 01:39:31:08 Shea Yeah.

01:39:31:08 - 01:39:42:22 Kyle Let's let's dive into it. So what is or and talk to me about this new chapter that you're kind of like stepping into.

01:39:42:24 - 01:40:17:29 Shea Yeah. So, or or or expeditions, it's A.W. expeditions is kind of like the nomenclature of it, but it's a high altitude and climbing organization for women by women. So I operate or expeditions at this point. I'm the general manager, kind of like putting on all of our trips, as well as hiring guides for the ones that I'm not physically present on or acting as, like the expedition leader for some.

01:40:17:29 - 01:41:03:16 Shea But we operate trips in a lot of different countries around the world, so we'll do things from like a mountaineering school on Mount Baker up in Washington to multi peak trips like I was talking about in Peru, climbing Aconcagua, Lenin in Kyrgyzstan, some peaks in Nepal. We've operated in Tanzania, climbing Kilimanjaro and several other places, mostly with the intention to amplify the voices and stories of women climbing specifically on these really unique high altitude teams.

01:41:03:18 - 01:41:04:24 Shea And then.

01:41:04:26 - 01:41:35:11 Shea also to basically build a community of high altitude climbers that can connect to create different expeditions and kind of push the boundaries of where all women's expeditions have gone in the past. I started with all expeditions in 2022 when I met sunny, and we worked together for the past four years, kind of building or to what it is now.

01:41:35:17 - 01:41:56:04 Shea And in 2027, Sonny's actually stepping into a more full time position with the Summit Scholarship Foundation, and I'll be purchasing our editions and becoming the sole owner and operator. So that's a pretty big shift in terms of my, like, career path at the moment.

01:41:56:04 - 01:41:56:18 Kyle Yeah.

01:41:56:25 - 01:41:58:08 Kyle How do you feel about that shift right

01:41:58:09 - 01:42:01:20 Shea now?

01:42:01:23 - 01:42:26:15 Shea It's definitely a bit of a mountain that's in front of me, you know? And it's, I think, tough to do any kind of work that's in your field of passion because you feel really protective of it. This, like level of.

01:42:26:18 - 01:42:50:09 Shea You're kind of, like, all consumed by the thought of doing it well. And like, I think that also comes from being a, a business owner to is really the work doesn't get done unless you're the one doing it or turning those wheels at the end of the day. So there is a lot of pressure, but I don't think any of it stuff that is necessarily new.

01:42:50:09 - 01:43:12:29 Shea I've been kind of in all of the different parts of operations for oxidations for many years now, and so stepping more into the owner operator role will hopefully just give a little bit more creative freedom in terms of direction, what kinds of trips we want to produce for our community and how we want to kind of spread our messaging.

01:43:13:01 - 01:43:43:15 Shea And then hopefully the ability to build a really fantastic guide and expedition leader team. So the model that we typically will work on at or is having expedition leaders that can come from anywhere but are really tuned into the model of how our trips are run and kind of, more aware of like the disadvantages that we face as all women's teams.

01:43:43:17 - 01:44:33:08 Shea You know, it's a common, really common question that I get of like, why have women's teams at all? That seems a little bit, you know, silly. Mostly because I think until you've experienced kind of like prejudice or segregation or even like gender based violence, when you're trying to do an activity or sport that you really love, you don't really come from a place of understanding of like why an environment like an all women's team would be so crucial, you know, not even to mention a lot of the expeditions that we do, like Aconcagua in Nepal or in Kyrgyzstan there multi-week expeditions.

01:44:33:08 - 01:45:12:06 Shea You're with these people for 2 or 3 weeks minimum, and we are confronted often with stories from climbers, from women who have gone on other trips and been the only woman on like a team of 12 or 13 other people. And there are real examples of how that can, you know, not only make you feel othered when you're a part of a group, but just leave you without this sense of feeling like you're part of that community, you know?

01:45:12:07 - 01:45:59:13 Shea And that's kind of like just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, we do hear stories from people who have been on teams that have been less than accommodating to, you know, just not making sexist remarks or not allowing for sexism to leak into this sport that honestly, you know, has no scientific basis saying that there's any advantage to being a man versus being a woman, you know, and we get questions all the time when we're out on the mountain, which a lot of people assume would be a little bit antiquated.

01:45:59:15 - 01:46:11:02 Shea You know, people often ask us, like where all of our husbands are, or I was in kind of like one of the.

01:46:11:05 - 01:46:15:05 Shea That question I actually get all the time.

01:46:15:07 - 01:46:40:14 Shea And sometimes it'll be like 6 or 7 of us. And I'm like, what is this, like a divorcees club? Or like it's just, you know, we'll be like actively climbing a mountain and people will be like, are you going to the top? And it's like, yeah, absolutely. We're going to the top. And you view a lot of things through the lens of like, oh, I wonder how many like men's groups are out here that they're like, where are your wives right now?

01:46:40:15 - 01:47:06:05 Shea Like, they must be so worried about you. You know, and there was a tent that I was in earlier this season where a couple of climbers were trying to work with the camp organizer to coordinate, like a last minute guide. She was like, oh, we'll have a guide here for you tomorrow morning. She'll meet you at 9 a.m. and they, like, ask, you know, well, is it a guide or is it a woman?

01:47:06:05 - 01:47:22:07 Shea And you know, the employer, the outfitter at this time was like, don't worry, she's pretty. You'll have a lot to look at. So it's kind of like goes both ways. You know, you're not even really always being.

01:47:22:10 - 01:47:23:13 Shea American culture.

01:47:23:14 - 01:47:55:10 Shea This isn't this wasn't like a US based guiding service. Yeah. A lot of times I think in the US we've taken it to this newer standard of like what equity means. There's reporting processes for, you know, gender based discrimination like that. But even still, one of my good friends who guides on Denali, she will occasionally get poor reviews for being too aggressive.

01:47:55:15 - 01:48:22:06 Shea You know, and there's this idea that, like women, especially women guides should be like warmer, more accommodating, a little bit more like feely. And then when when they're not, when they don't emulate these, like very classically like feminine traits, they get negative reviews and sometimes like poor tips. And it's kind of like this conversation in the guiding industry.

01:48:22:08 - 01:49:07:04 Shea But, you know, one day maybe I'll write a book or something because there are just this endless trove of stories like this where I watch, you know, I operate in this bubble sometimes of thinking that we're all just climbers out here and that I've just picked this band of really amazing women to climb with. And then, you know, we'll hear stories of discrimination or mistreatment of other team members on other groups or just like a lack of, yeah, a lack of equity up on the mountain.

01:49:07:04 - 01:49:18:24 Shea And we realize that, like, having all women's teams is actually not necessarily like a stylistic choice as much as a safety choice.

01:49:18:26 - 01:49:36:11 Kyle Yeah. It's interesting. I live in a bubble. And so like these, these concepts that you're these situations that you're like describing like seem ridiculous to me. You know what I mean. It's like it's so far out of my purview that I'm like shocked that it's real.

01:49:36:13 - 01:49:37:03 Shea Not

01:49:37:07 - 01:49:41:15 Kyle in disbelief, but just like I am just like shocked to hear this.

01:49:41:18 - 01:50:22:04 Shea Yeah. And I think I'm shocked every time just because you can, if you live in a bubble, grow this like blind eye and be like, oh, we've like achieved this amazing level of gender equity. Like there's no such thing as, like misogyny in my world. But it's still very real, very prevalent. And, you know, something that for me comes in and is kind of like a backdrop to a lot of the climbing that I do, just because it usually is an environment where I'm one of the few women around.

01:50:22:06 - 01:50:24:08 Shea Yeah,

01:50:24:11 - 01:50:28:04 Kyle Well, it's awesome that you're in a position to help people.

01:50:28:07 - 01:51:08:03 Shea Yeah. And I do think that one of the other goals that we have is increasing this demand for female leadership in the mountains. So when we partner with companies in other countries specifically, like Argentina or Kirsten or Peru, we're creating a demand for female guides because that's who we want to work with. And that, you know, we're willing to pay more, especially if it helps them achieve like a greater level of equity in a very unequal system.

01:51:08:06 - 01:51:33:01 Shea And then it creates like kind of that standard basis for work on a year over year basis, because we'll return to the same destinations, the same mountains year after year, build those relationships, hopefully build those women as guides and as climbers, and then create that demand so that they're able to more or less like set better rates for themselves across the season.

01:51:33:02 - 01:51:53:06 Shea It kind of like raises that floor of what they're worth. Can you think about it? You know, women are massively undervalued from like a labor perspective. You're less likely to get raises or be paid the same as a male colleague.

01:51:53:08 - 01:51:56:18 Kyle I'm sure that disparity is like magnified in other countries as

01:51:56:21 - 01:51:57:01 Shea well.

01:51:57:02 - 01:51:58:17 Shea Yeah, I would say so.

01:51:58:20 - 01:51:59:26 Kyle yeah.

01:51:59:29 - 01:52:06:29 Kyle How many guides does your company work with on a is a it's this is global at this point. Yeah.

01:52:07:06 - 01:52:40:04 Shea We partner with a lot of different organizations. And what I like a lot about the structure that we have is we have our expedition leaders who are usually certified guides that have different home mountains that they work in throughout the year, and they'll come and do specific contracts for us, like going to Peru and climbing in the Cordillera Blanca as like a special contract, partnering with the company that we have in that country.

01:52:40:04 - 01:53:24:00 Shea So for Peru, for example, we have our local logistics outfitter and they'll coordinate kind of the back end logistics for the expedition. And we'll get in touch with a local female guide in the area and then partner them with our expedition leaders so that they're kind of creating, like a cross organizational leadership team. I would say overall, some of our expedition leaders, they'll work in several different mountain areas for us, but our community of guides that we work with is probably somewhere around like 20.

01:53:24:01 - 01:53:24:21 Shea I would say.

01:53:24:26 - 01:53:28:09 Kyle Okay. How many guided trips are you managing in a year?

01:53:28:09 - 01:53:52:24 Shea I should know that number. Off the top of my head, it's somewhere around like 13 or 14. Yeah. We operate a Grand Canyon rim trim backpacking trip that usually takes a couple of departures in the spring and fall. And then we also do like custom trips. So sometimes we'll have people request like, a specific mountain they want to climb.

01:53:52:24 - 01:53:56:06 Shea And we'll coordinate that for them as well.

01:53:56:08 - 01:54:11:18 Kyle Now that you're in this position of ownership, where do you want to? How do you what do you want to bring to or what is your contribution?

01:54:11:20 - 01:54:54:23 Shea I see a lot of really strong, adventurous and capable women come in and join teams with the same problem that they can't find this base community of people who they can share these goals with, and that also want to join them and get out and get after it. A lot of what I hear from our climbers is that they would love to take the next step to make it more like self-sufficient, that they would love to be able to coordinate their own expeditions and to level up the intensity or like the technicality of it.

01:54:54:24 - 01:55:23:07 Shea So for an example, like Peru, there's a lot of really great technical objectives down there, and our climbers will use our Cordillera Blanca multi peak course to kind of train a little bit in high altitude climbing the logistics and setup down there. But one of the biggest things that all of our trips act as is this kind of like springboard for community.

01:55:23:08 - 01:55:55:00 Shea Like where are you going to meet these consistent forever partners? You know, I see something like showing up for an expedition trip being 100 times more intimidating than meeting up with a partner for Mountain Project. Like, I'm meeting up with someone most of the time for like a day. A lot of people who sign up for our expeditions, they're coming to spend multiple weeks with a group of maybe like six other people who they're meeting for the very first time.

01:55:55:05 - 01:56:47:15 Shea I think that's incredibly brave. That's incredibly bold. You know, that takes a lot of courage and can honestly, like, make a mountaineering expedition, like way better or way harder, depending on the mix of people that show up, which as a climber signing up for a commercial tip you really have no control over. So I think that's what we do well at or is we have interviews with people were kind of hand selecting most of these team members so that you're coming in with a few less unknowns in terms of who you're going to be staged with for several weeks, and you also are hopefully getting matched up with a community of people that share

01:56:47:15 - 01:57:53:27 Shea similar ambitions, share similar like mindsets and temperaments or desires for growth in mountaineering or in climbing. So where I'd like to see Argo is to continue to build a platform where folks can get connected. A lot of times what I will say is that our expeditions is an organization that I hope doesn't last forever, mostly because I hope that there eventually is this kind of ubiquitous cloud that exists in mountaineering, where there's a lot of women that are already connected, knowledgeable, providing mentorship, planning awesome expeditions, going out there and getting after it because there are a lot of great organizations that do like courses or education and make them like women specific.

01:57:54:00 - 01:58:25:24 Shea But my hope would be almost that like the sport is representative of the communities that were in that there is a great enough share of women and a great enough understanding from, like our male counterparts as to how to make like one cohesive mountaineering community. You know, I think there's so much power in women's trips. I think there's so much power in my personal climbing objectives that I take on with my female partners.

01:58:25:24 - 01:58:40:06 Shea But at the same time, I think what true gender equity would mean on the mountain and off the mountain would be that that kind of stuff just isn't as necessary. I think we're a long ways off.

01:58:40:09 - 01:59:01:23 Kyle Yeah, it's funny, the guiding vision that I think certain guides have had recently, this is kind of what you're spoken to, is like teaching people not to need a guide. In a way. It's like self-sufficiency. It's like, I think the older kind of style of guiding is like, you hire me every year. We do the do do the objective.

01:59:01:23 - 01:59:32:23 Kyle I take you up and then I take you to your car and you give me cash and then it's over. I think that, yeah, the more modern day guiding approach is, is that what you just talked about? It's like we're we're teaching people to become a part of the community rather than this, like exchange. And I think the funny part about that is like, if you think of it like in a business sense, it's like you're putting yourself out of a job in a way, you know, but it's like there are so many people that I don't think that's ever really going to be the

01:59:32:27 - 01:59:34:05 Shea case.

01:59:34:07 - 02:00:12:03 Shea When I see people come in with like, great ambition, great skills, great capacity to learn, like I don't see anything inhibiting them from, like you were saying, like following my footsteps and just like figuring out a lot of it and getting after it. And I find that one of the flattering but unique things that our trip offers is that, you know, I'm there, or an amazing expedition leader that works with us who's even better than me, is there?

02:00:12:03 - 02:00:32:24 Shea And we're telling you like, this is how we did it, and this is how we found our people. This is how we got connected to the right information. And this is how you take something from like, a dream to reality. Because I'm kind of, of that mindset. Like, if I can do it, anyone can do it like you.

02:00:32:26 - 02:01:00:09 Shea That's what I say to a lot of folks on our climbing teams. I'm like, look, you've you've done some plenty of hard stuff. You're always learning from everybody that comes in. We all come from different backgrounds and experiences. I remember when I first started just leading backpacking trips, I was just doing like 2 or 3 nights in Yosemite, like as much as I could, just for like fun and extra money.

02:01:00:09 - 02:01:39:04 Shea I really just liked doing the little backpacking guiding, and I ended up with a 68 year old woman on one of my trips who had been backpacking like hundreds of times in her life. And I think this was, you know, I could still count on two hands the number of times I'd been like, backpacking. I was like, wow, I am not sure why you were signing up for my, like, intro to backpacking trip, but I'm happy to try to teach you things, and you kind of hit that weird spot in guiding all the time where you're like.

02:01:39:06 - 02:01:39:26 Kyle Do you want to teach me

02:01:39:26 - 02:01:40:03 Shea something?

02:01:40:05 - 02:01:43:11 Shea Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, you you hired me.

02:01:43:12 - 02:01:44:14 Kyle Yeah.

02:01:44:17 - 02:02:09:03 Shea When I was leading backpacking trips as well. I had a three day backpacking trip that was off trail navigation. So it was all map and compass that we were doing. And two of the three clients backed out the morning of the trip. So it was just me and one other client who turned out to be like a somatic healing and therapy guru.

02:02:09:08 - 02:02:36:09 Shea So I ended up doing like a lot of gratitude ceremonies and talk therapy through this, like three days alone together in the woods. Just map compass, me and this lady. And at the end of it I was like, I really feel like I should have paid for that. That was a really intense, like, therapeutic experience. And somehow I'm getting a tip right now, which is awesome.

02:02:36:12 - 02:02:38:18 Shea Would do that again 100% of the time.

02:02:38:18 - 02:02:38:28 Kyle time.

02:02:39:01 - 02:02:49:22 Kyle Where can if someone is interested in joining, learning, participating, where can they go? Where should we direct

02:02:49:29 - 02:02:50:27 Shea people?

02:02:51:00 - 02:03:29:09 Shea So I recommend that all women who are interested in mountaineering go to the Women of Mountaineering Facebook page. It's kind of like this huge open source community, that hosts a lot of information. And you'll see trips for women get plugged there all the time, not just Oz trips. And then if you are interested in finding out about all expeditions, we have a website, WW expeditions, and I am always available over email.

02:03:29:09 - 02:03:58:15 Shea So I kind of like run the one woman show over there. But I love talking about mountains. It's like absolutely my favorite part of my job. So I do have like open office hours where people can chat to me about their goals and that includes men to we get like quite a few inquiries from men. I'm not sure if they're just like not the best readers or if they are just feeling really welcome in the verbiage, but we'll pretty much chat with anyone about their goals.

02:03:58:15 - 02:04:33:19 Shea We're happy to help coordinate people's itineraries or like I said, do custom climbs with folks. And that's just Shay at Oxidations or for my email. And then we've got a couple of, like, really fun YouTube videos with the Summit Scholarship. They've produced a couple of videos through another grant, the Adventure Lens grant. They've made some short films that include Mount Baker and Peru, and give a little background into those programs that are helping women get out there and climb.

02:04:33:23 - 02:04:37:00 Kyle awesome. Well, thank you. I mean, I appreciate your time so

02:04:37:05 - 02:04:37:18 Shea much.

02:04:37:25 - 02:04:38:13 Shea Thank you.

02:04:38:14 - 02:04:38:21 Shea It's

02:04:38:23 - 02:04:42:21 Kyle really cool to to sit down and to hear your stories and great.

02:04:42:27 - 02:05:02:23 Shea Thank you. I really appreciate it. It's yeah, it's great to have a community that's so willing to uplift each other and chat and, I don't know, make for some of the best partners out there. So very grateful.

02:05:02:25 - 02:05:05:06 Kyle Awesome. I mean, that's it for me.

02:05:05:08 - 02:05:05:26 Shea Amazing. There's

02:05:06:01 - 02:05:09:00 Kyle anything we missed.

02:05:09:02 - 02:05:11:18 Shea I don't think so. Not that I can think of. No.

02:05:11:21 - 02:05:15:06 Kyle Awesome. You got Nyad coming up, right? Are you

02:05:15:08 - 02:05:47:11 Shea Gonna try? Yeah. I'm super nervous. Yeah, definitely. Like, I don't feel like I'm in the shape for it, but we'll see when I get to the valley and do, like. Yeah. Good. No problems. My friends done it, like, 5 or 6 times. The nose. I think this would maybe be his first on maybe his second. Not sure, but I'm really leaning on him to do a little bit of the legwork for it.

02:05:47:11 - 02:05:53:04 Shea And then I'm gonna do a double run with a friend of mine when I get there, so that'll probably be pretty telling.

02:05:53:10 - 02:05:56:04 Kyle Yeah. It will. Don't run. My biggest I just did

02:05:56:07 - 02:05:57:02 Shea it.

02:05:57:05 - 02:05:57:16 Shea Yeah.

02:05:57:18 - 02:05:59:10 Kyle advice. Have you listened to the Nyad episode

02:05:59:12 - 02:05:59:17 Shea yet?

02:05:59:21 - 02:06:01:13 Shea No. Not yet.

02:06:01:16 - 02:06:14:09 Kyle Don't rush like it's not a race. Like, when I got on the route, it was like. It was like, gotta go. Because, like, I've got a background in cross country

02:06:14:09 - 02:06:14:29 Shea and so

02:06:14:29 - 02:06:15:19 Kyle what it means to move

02:06:15:25 - 02:06:16:16 Shea that. Yeah.

02:06:16:22 - 02:06:37:28 Kyle And yeah, it's it's not that. It's just like, yes, you need to be moved. You need to be moving, like, more often than not. But while you're moving, don't have this, like, pressure of like God. Like, go really fast. Like just it's all about just being efficient and making the right decision over and over and over again. So you don't cost time.

02:06:37:29 - 02:06:45:08 Kyle It's like it's not about how fast you are in the moment. It's how little mistakes you can make over the entire wall.

02:06:45:13 - 02:06:45:29 Shea

02:06:46:01 - 02:06:47:25 Kyle It's that it's like the scale of it

02:06:47:29 - 02:06:48:18 Shea Smooth

02:06:48:18 - 02:06:51:05 Kyle the the speed in the

02:06:51:07 - 02:06:52:06 Shea Yeah.

02:06:52:08 - 02:06:59:18 Shea you know again knowledgeable, kind, joyful. That's what I'm going to try and be out there.

02:06:59:21 - 02:07:02:02 Kyle Do you know what blocks are doing? Are you leading any of

02:07:02:05 - 02:07:02:21 Shea

02:07:02:24 - 02:07:11:03 Shea No. I'll probably do stuff on the lower though, like he'll probably do changing corners for sure.

02:07:11:07 - 02:07:12:14 Kyle Are you taking leads? Are you going

02:07:12:14 - 02:07:12:29 Shea to take

02:07:13:01 - 02:07:15:12 Kyle Okay. So, like, I guess the way I've

02:07:15:17 - 02:07:25:11 Shea No, I just have no idea how we're breaking it down. I'm like. Like, this is a friend who knows me pretty well. Yeah. I swear, if he makes me do that, I'm out.

02:07:25:17 - 02:07:30:17 Kyle I've heard it. Like, you can break it up like we did it where the first block is basically from the ground to the great

02:07:30:22 - 02:07:31:09 Shea roof,

02:07:31:12 - 02:07:31:29 Kyle you lead the whole

02:07:32:03 - 02:07:32:08 Shea thing.

02:07:32:09 - 02:07:32:19 Shea Yeah.

02:07:32:22 - 02:07:33:24 Kyle and then you swap

02:07:33:29 - 02:07:34:17 Shea or

02:07:34:24 - 02:07:40:08 Kyle it's lead to double swap to great roof, swap to camp six, swap to the top.

02:07:40:10 - 02:07:49:08 Shea Yeah. We'll probably do the just two swaps. Oh yeah. Probably stop building other great roof. That's what I was assuming anyway.

02:07:49:11 - 02:07:50:08 Kyle if unless

02:07:50:11 - 02:07:51:13 Shea That's what I'm saying.

02:07:51:13 - 02:07:57:27 Kyle crosser free climber and you can climb to some of those 11 pitches free climb them up at the top, then I'd take the bottom

02:07:58:01 - 02:08:14:14 Shea you always have such like bright ideas when you're sitting on the ground, you're like, oh, I remember last time I was up there and I was like, there's no way. I was like, I'm eating this and we're taking another day.

02:08:14:17 - 02:08:15:27 Kyle Well that's awesome. I'm psyched for

02:08:15:29 - 02:08:16:10 Shea Thanks.

02:08:16:10 - 02:08:23:23 Kyle Yeah. I mean, it looks like you've got like a really cool chapter ahead of you and both climbing and business wise

02:08:23:25 - 02:08:24:15 Shea and

02:08:24:18 - 02:08:26:27 Kyle everything. Cool to see where you all

02:08:26:28 - 02:08:27:10 Shea to take it?

02:08:27:11 - 02:08:33:27 Shea Yeah. Thank you so much. Same for you and hope. Yeah. If there's anything I can do, let me know.

02:08:34:00 - 02:08:34:20 Kyle Yeah.

02:08:34:22 - 02:08:35:13 Shea Help out.

02:08:35:17 - 02:08:36:14 Shea Sounds good.

02:08:36:17 - 02:08:40:18 Kyle Awesome. Well, sweet. That's it.

02:08:40:19 - 02:08:41:26 Kyle That's a podcast.

02:08:41:28 - 02:08:43:23 Shea Wow. Just like that.

02:08:43:27 - 02:08:45:02 Kyle Just like that.