Too Old to Die Young: Inside the Secretive Cold War Climbing Scene, Quiet Free Solos, and Russ Clune’s Blueprint for Performing at 66

Ageless Athlete Recording - Russ Clune
===

Kush: , [00:00:00] Let's start with this very profound question that I always like to begin with, which is, Russ, where are you right now, and what did you have for breakfast this morning? 

Russ: Uh, right now I am in our home in New Paltz, New York, with a wonderful view of one of the cliffs Millbrook, mountain.

And, uh, it's a place I never get tired of because it's just a, it's a stellar, stellar area. And this morning for breakfast, I, uh, had a spinach and egg bagel and it was delicious. 

Kush: Spinach and egg bagel sounds delicious indeed. particularly while you're savoring the beautiful 

The foliage that is afforded by upstate New York. Yeah. Sounds like a, a really nourishing start to the morning. 

Russ: Right, right. Now you, we've, we had such a, typically, well, not, and they typically awful summer here, so we escaped for much of that. And we, of course, we saw you in [00:01:00] Wyoming, which was wonderful.

But being away from here when it's hot and humid, when you talk about 90 degrees and dew points in the seventies, it's not a place you wanna be. But coming back now, the end of August, we're having actually really a nice ude to hopefully what's gonna be an awesome fall. It's just that nice, cool dry air.

And the, it's the, the rock feels sticky when it's, when it's this kind of, uh, temperature. Everything feels good. So it's a real, a real change from just a few weeks ago. 

Kush: Wonderful. Ross. And the, the little I know about you, I know that you have been, Savvy about planning your time and your seasons to be able to go to visit these places when they are, let's say, peaking, and that includes returning to your home base after some travels.

We met recently out in Wyoming, and now you're back in time for enjoying the, the Christmas and the [00:02:00] beauty that Fall, brings. And I want to ask you more about where you live and why that place is so special and storied in the world of climbing. But before I do that, I thought as, uh, as a fun question to ask you about something from your Chronicles of Adventures over the decades.

You know, you've, yeah, you've had decades traveling and climbing. From where you are today at the gongs to Yosemite, to Europe, to Russia, to Korea, like you've been to all these places, and we can't trace them all though. I encourage listeners to read your excellent book, the Lifer. So I thought I would ask you instead, Russ, what's perhaps one of your [00:03:00] favorite climbing adventures?

And think of it as like, if you're sitting around a campfire with maybe, uh, a few people who may or may not be climbers, what story would you choose to relate? 

Russ: Well, that's a, that's a very good question. it would depend on the crowd and, uh, how X-rated I could be about things I suppose. You, you've gotta, you've gotta keep your audience in mind on that.

you know what, I'll, I'll tell a story that I tell right now when I'm doing a presentation, uh, for on book tour. And it really, and this is not something that occurs inside the book, so it's one of the, one of the outtakes.

But essentially when I think about what's meaningful in, you know, five decades of climbing, for me it's, uh, it's many things. You know, we go through a process. In climbing, or actually probably any pursuit we, we follow with passion of, uh, having it be about how well can we do with this thing and how many places can we go to.[00:04:00] 

But when you get to a certain stage and you're not gonna be getting any better and you visited 70 odd countries to go climb it, it becomes something about your relationships that you've built over the years. And the story I'll tell is about, uh, a trip I made back in, uh, 1984 with my friend Tony Herb. We went down to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

at the time, you know, it was, there was not a, there was some climbers down there, I'd read about climbing there in an article in, uh, an old British publication called Mountain Magazine. And, uh, contacted the author of that, that article. And, uh, via letter, of course, there's no internet or, e uh, email.

Uh, and, uh, he wrote, wrote back and invited us down. So Tony and I went down for a few weeks. In the process of climbing down there and meeting other climbers, uh, we saw this new line we thought we'd love to do. It was a, uh, about a six, 700 foot route on the major, uh, pinnacle you see in, uh, in ation narrow called, uh, Sugarloaf [00:05:00] Zuka.

And we had done some climbing on it, but we saw this beautiful line on it. But the thing is, this rock doesn't afford any cracks for natural protection. Generally speaking, you have to have bolts. we didn't have any bolts with us, but one of the kids who had been following us around, kind of like a puppy watching us climb their, their hard routes, and he really was inspired as Guy Marcello.

he's, we said, Hey, Marcello, can you get us any bolts? And he said. Yes, yes. I can find some bolts. Now, these bolts were horrendous. All they were pieces of rebar with a kind of ubar welded onto them and you drill a hole and it didn't affix themselves in any way, but using shims pieces of an aluminum can hammering in and trying to keep 'em in place.

Luckily this climb was not very steep. It was kind of like vertical to lessen vertical. But anyway, we did this route with minimal bolts 'cause it took a long time to hand drill these things. that was it. That was, you know, our, our time with Marcelo. And I'll fast forward now, Marcelo and I, you know, we, he was a kid.

Didn't see him anymore. That was that. But I'll fast forward to a couple of years [00:06:00] ago when, uh, a buddy of mine, Jim, Jim Lawyer, who climbs up in the Adirondacks, principally, he had been going down to this area in Brazil called Sara Depo. And Sara Depo has become Brazil's essentially their, their sport climbing mecca.

It's their Red River gorge to, so to speak, of the, of, of climbing. And when I got down there, who do I run into? Marcelo after 39 years of having not seen him, and now he also has a climbers camp there and a hostel. And you know, sometimes you just see somebody and you realize even though almost four decades have passed, nothing has really changed.

And we immediately just went right back to where we left office, started climbing together. And not long after that, he brought his son to come visit us in the gunks and stay for a few days and climb here. And that, that to me, kind of in a nutshell, shows what a beauty of the, of this activity, of this time we spend together and how these lifelong friendships, even if you stay, you don't stay in contact, the glue that is formed by these, these, [00:07:00] uh, these events.

You've had these adventures just as everlasting. 

Kush: That is beautiful, Russ. And yeah, it, encapsulates this continuity and community we have in the sport. And actually that made me think of like how you and I are connected. Like we have met in different climate bases over the decades in West Virginia, the new, a couple decades ago, and then we ran into each other and climbed together in Cuba Completely.

The happenstance. Yeah. And now just, uh, a few weeks ago we were in Wyoming together and I'm, yeah, I mean, meeting Marcelo and showing him a bit of the adventure that climbing presented in Rio four decades ago, and then, uh, [00:08:00] leaving this lasting impression on this kid who has now adopted the sport and the lifestyle.

To the fullest. I mean, that must make you feel, I don't know, make must give you like, all those gooey feelings. 

Russ: That, and plus makes me feel very old. But yeah. But I, I, I think that's one of the fun things. And, and of course I think you bring that up. You know, I don't think climbing's that different from a lot of lifestyle activities, I think lifestyle's kind of a bad way to think of 'em.

But they, but they're things that just direct your life. And I think surfing is another one that's similar to that, where you're gonna start going around and you're gonna run into people and you become part of your extended family. Climbing has gotten to be so huge now, there's so many people involved with it that you are bound to run into to folks at some point or another that you see a you, oh, I remember, I swear, did I meet you last?

And that, uh, that happens and you know, [00:09:00] it, it also just depends on what level you want to hang out with other folks as well. So, but I, I really do enjoy the relationships, the side, the relationship side of this, of this, uh, I don't, I don't know. I, I think sports is a bad word for climbing. although it obviously has its very sports side to it.

It's, uh, it, it never, it never started out for me, it was the antis sport activity. And it wasn't about all the things you usually find in sport. It had a much deeper, uh, meaning. It had a much deeper feeling to it than playing a game. I, I, I still kind of bridle, even though I use it a lot, I, I have a hard time calling it a sport.

Kush: And like you were saying earlier, I guess it depends on the context. Because Yes, if you meet another, let's say, lifestyle adventure athlete and you describe like a surfer or maybe a, a man biker, I think if you describe it as a sport, they get it. But if somebody is, does not have a similar pursuit or a [00:10:00] direction, I, and then I think it becomes a little bit more, intricate like, uh, explaining that to, to somebody else.

And you've had so many decades of traveling, of adventures, of creating connections. And I didn't realize you had been to 70 countries. That is insane. There are 70 countries to climb. Is that, is that true? Somewhat, 

Russ: it's, people often ask me like, how many, and, and I always start off with the, with the question of what is a country?

I mean, how do you wanna define that? Some of these countries don't exist. Like East Germany doesn't exist anymore. Czechoslovakia doesn't exist anymore. The USSR doesn't exist anymore. Yugoslavia doesn't exist anymore. So a how do we break these things out? And to even be a a, a, if you go, if you go to Wales and talk about being in England, you're not gonna be very welcome in Wales.

So, even in Great Britain, you've really got [00:11:00] several countries. so depending on how you break that out, it works out somewhere between 65, 75, something along along those lines. But there's still plenty more to go to, although some of 'em you don't want to go to. 

Kush: yes, I mean, national borders. they, they, they change sometimes for good reasons, but often not for good reasons. yes, I, I do wanna tease out a couple of more stories about those, uh, those travels from you before we end. But I think it is so apt that we are having this conversation when you are back at the place where it all began for you, the, the gongs.

for listeners who don't know, can you explain what exactly are the gongs? Where is this place that you are living in now and where, which, which shaped your identity as a climber? 

Russ: So the, the UNK Ridge is, uh, a geologic formation, [00:12:00] obviously, and it's, it's about, uh, 90 miles or so north of New York City, to the, uh, just to the, um, west side of the Hudson River, uh, near a town called New Paltz.

Uh, the ridge itself extends for some 15 or so miles of, uh, lot, a lot of, uh, a couple of major cliffs, uh, lots of those smaller satellite cliffs. And most of the climbing that occurs here occurs in a, uh, private preserve called the Mohawk Preserve. So the rock is an incredibly hard, uh, quartz conglomerate, and that makes it, if to think of it, you can think of it as a sandstone, but a really, really hard sandstone.

With larger pebbles or quartzite, but quartzite with also with larger pebbles inside of it. the rock is also fractured in a more, in a horizontal bedding. So the holes are often, uh, very natural holes to grab onto, like, you know, sharp edges, bigger holes, like, like handlebars on a, on a, or handlebars on a bike or, or a ladder.

but also because of the [00:13:00] nature of the horizontal fracturing has overhangs in it. So you oftentimes you'll come up a somewhat vertical wall and then come to a, an overhang that might be anything from two feet to 20 feet to go over. So the climbing is, uh, it's quite oftentimes quite powerful and gymnastic.

Um, it actually, uh, is. The climbs often have short heart sections followed by good rests or easier sections. So it's not so much an endurance fest as you would find at some like the red, but more like encountering difficult boulder problems along the way. and the climbing here is of course, traditionally protected, which means we use our own gear and those cracks we put in our own protection, which is removed by the second.

that also changes well before the aspect of sport climbing. That is how we all climbed. So up until the mid eighties, this is just basically how we climbed, and the, the gongs never did. Uh, it is a preserve, therefore the, uh, stewards of the property, the Mohawk preserve didn't really want to have a [00:14:00] lot of, uh, altercation to the, uh, to the rock face itself.

So remains a traditional sport, uh, traditional climbing area. 

Kush: So I last visited, I, I, I guess my only time at the gongs has, happened about seven years ago. Unfortunately, I, I only had a day to climb and spend, but I think it, it gave me a, a feel for the area And so I know that I, there's a trip in my, in my eminent future, the crazy thing about the gongs is like I was in New York City and then I took, uh, I think a couple of, public transit things. I think, I think I took the path, then I took the train, then I had somebody pick me up you know, here I am just, yeah.

New York City, like I said, just a couple of hours away. And, and the world knows New York for its skyscrapers, finance, art, right next door. There is this gorgeous natural [00:15:00] preserve. And when you entered the scene, you know, a few decades ago, there is this seminal dirt bag climbing culture that was taking shape, right?

So, pretty far removed from this giant metropolis. So how would you describe the scene that you walked into, Russ? 

Russ: so that's an interesting point you make because it's, it's close proximity to New York means that a lot of New York ends up being up here. Uh, there's many second homes for people who live down in the city.

Many became primary homes after COVID. So there's a very interesting selection of folks. when, uh, I started climbing here in mid seventies. 77 wasn't gonna be exact. climbing was definitely a much smaller activity. And the people who did it, it, it was interesting to see. It was a lot of young white guys like me, for sure.

But there was also, an interesting mix of people who were [00:16:00] scientists, mathematicians, you know, all kinds of, uh, people who work down the city are taught at school. So I think that it was partially due. I mean, climbing as you know, it's a puzzle. You know, you're, you're trying to figure out, ways through these obstacles on the rock.

And I think it really lent itself to the problem solving nature of people who like that stuff. And that oftentimes there are mathematicians and physicists, or they spend their entire careers for solving problems. you know, some of the seminal climbers at the time, like John Standard, who was uh.

Arguably the best rock climber in the world. In 1973, he was a physicist who worked in, uh, Washington DC and came up to the Gunks on a regular basis. Uh, rich Goldstone, who was a protege of John Gills, was a mathematician. He taught math down in, at, at, at, uh, Cooney in New York City. and they weren't, they weren't unusual.

They were more like the more like the regular kind of folks. Uh, we had, uh, people who worked at Bell Labs who, uh, climbed, climbed up here on a regular basis. So it really had, it was, I mean, in [00:17:00] a weird way to made, uh, dirt back intellectuals make sense because it was, there was plenty of that.

And there are a lot of kids, you know, a lot of college kids that were, uh, you know, same kind of age as me. And so it was, uh, you know, but it was much smaller. You, you knew, any weekend when you would gather at the Uber fall, which is a regular gathering place for people in the mornings, in the evenings, and you knew who was gonna be there.

It'd be the same like two dozen people you saw pretty much all the time. And then, you know, maybe some other folks that they brought up there. But it was a much smaller scene and very, very filled with regulars. But New York City was definitely that was the core of where people came from for sure.

And to this day, I believe it is too 

Kush: so fascinating. yeah, you had these intellectuals, I guess, left, their homes and their, uh, their lives in the city, and then they came up to, came up to the gunks, and I'm guessing you also likely had locals, uh, scrappy climbers who maybe [00:18:00] did other simpler things during the, during, you know, during, during the week to, to be able to continue funding their, uh.

climbing addiction or lifestyle was, was there like a clash of cultures of, of any kind, or did they kind of all, uh, coexist beautifully? 

Russ: Well, it's funny you said 'cause really locals, nobody, when I started climbing, very few people were what I would call a true local. I'm trying to think of anybody who actually lived in New Paltz or it was brought up in New Paltz.

I'm sure there were a couple that I'm forgetting, but it was rare. Uh, it was just not something they did. There was definitely a clash of cultures in the Gunks. Um, but for other reasons it was between climbers. as I mentioned, you know, the climbing occurs on, on private property back in the fifties was owned by a, a large resort hotel.

although property was by the Mohawk Mountain House, which is still in business, they had allowed climbing to occur and, uh, they kind of said, you know, outta sight outta mind. Go ahead and do your [00:19:00] thing. But then there was a bad accident, and I believe there was a death involved in the 1950s, the small climbing group here was very concerned that it was gonna get shut down.

So what they did is they, they assured the smiley family that, which owned the hotel, we have it under control. It was the, uh, Appalachian Mountain Club. And they, they instituted a, uh, very strict protocol for who could climb, what they could climb and what they could move up in. And this is, and basically they, they did that for a couple of years, but then some climbers, uh, coming out of New York City who are younger, or, and didn't wanna be part of the Appalachian Mountain Club, basically gave the finger to the Appalachian Mountain Club and they did their own thing.

They, uh, there was some good, good stories about wars between the Appies and the what became known as the Bulgarian, and there was a self ascribed group of very loosely associated people who basically just went climbing on their own. Uh, there were some wonderful antics they would, uh, perform with, uh, racing their cars around at night.

Uh, [00:20:00] I, I think one said is like, I think it was Joe Kelsey who was the, uh, the historian around the, uh, Bulgarian said some things, some things that were told we happened couldn't possibly have happened, but other things that never happened definitely did happen. So try trying to make sense of what actually was going on.

that, but the, the fact is the, uh, the Bulgarian and their, and their counterparts started climbing at a much higher level than the Appies ever had. And so they basically just, that that was the disappearance of the appies having any real, real, uh, effect in the area. But that was a big culture clash, that it was basically the 1960s really paved the way for interesting.

Being in a pursuit of difficulty. 

Kush: Yeah, sure. Talking of difficulty, you know, by all accounts, I mean, as majestic as the gunks is, it's not, it's not one of the, the largest or the most impressive climbing area in the country, or I mean, even in the east coast for that matter. But somehow it has left a [00:21:00] mark bigger than its, scale on the, you know, the, the, the, the history of climbing what made the gunks like stand out and how did it manage to create such an identity for itself? 

Russ: that's, uh, again, it's a good question. 'cause when you look at it, if you were a climber coming into this, into the sport, I hate to use that word right, well into it now. unless you brought up climbing in the gunks in New York City, it wouldn't really be registering so much on your radar.

Um, if you, and if you look at media, you'll see a lot about the Legend of the Stone Masters, Yosemite, and you'll see, uh, o you know, other places around Europe. And you'll see personalities athletes from various, uh, companies, creating their content. and that doesn't really happen so much in the gunk.

So I will mention an exception later on. what made the gunks put it on the map is you have to go back a little bit back to the, uh, to 1970s, sixties, seventies, eighties. And at that time, you know, like I said, the climbing world was much smaller, but you had, Yosemite [00:22:00] was Yosemite, always will be, always was.

And in you had Boulder, Colorado, and you had the, uh, El Dorado Canyon. Boulder Canyon, and all the, all the rock climbing happening around Colorado. In the east. The, the center of rock climbing in the east was the Schwan Gunks. And for some good reason, it's extensive. There's so much rock. There is tons. And the kind of climbing, just, uh, lent itself to, you could start as a beginner and doing some really easy, good routes.

If you think about granite, for example, which is a very common rock, it's hard to find good, easy climbs on granite that aren't just like slabs or dangerous or whatever. And then the gongs, you could have easy routes that were well protected and also quite interesting and steep. But really what made the difference.

Is, after when the pursuit of free climbing came forth, when people stopped trying to pull their way up roots and using aiders and ropes and get past hard parts, and just using the rock features to, uh, create their roots, the, uh, the Gunks really came into its [00:23:00] own, and that was going on through history, basically through the 1960s on from various climbers.

But I mentioned John Stanner before. And in 1973, or 72, 19 72, a new guidebook came out to the Gunks. It was Richard, uh, Dick Williams, second guidebook to the Gunks. there were 38 aid route in that guidebook. And John Standard believed there was no reason to have aid routes on the 200 foot cliff, 'cause any moron could have engineer that waits at the top of that with enough, with enough time and enough energy.

So he always thought it should be about what is the rock offer for you for holds. So John went on a quest with, three other climbers, principally he was Steve Wench, John Bragg, and to a degree Henry Barber. They became the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And John, those 38 rock climbs in, in one year.

They eliminated the aid from 33 of them leaving, only five left. And some were quite easy, but many were really quite hard. And remember, this is 1973, no [00:24:00] guide. Existed that had a five 12 in it. The hardest rock climbs in the world were gr graded five 11, and they really weren't sure how hard these things were.

Uh, so it became a lot of jokes about the grades, anything from like five, 10 plus plus, plus plus to, uh, you know, who knows how hard. And that culminated in 1974, Steve Wench did the first ascent, bursary ascent of super crack at Skytop. And he was the only one who was able to climb it at the time. And they, they weren't sure how hard that route was.

And they even gestured about, suggested maybe it would, could that be like a, I don't know, a five 13? And of course that that was way before five 13 existed anywhere else in the world. But you know, it settled in it depending on the guidebook 12 C or 12 D. But when you think about the roots that John Standard did in those guys in 73 were as hard as 12 C with bad protection.

And think about it, they were only using stoppers. There are no cams. They had stoppers, they had eccentrics. And also the ethic of the time is there was [00:25:00] no previewing. You couldn't top up beforehand. You couldn't hang on the rope. That was cheating. So if you fell or if you waited a nut, you had to return to the ground and start all over again.

And I was actually just thinking about this Kush, if, if I gave a good five 14 climber Steve Lunches shoes from 1973, the green ards, some hexes, some stoppers, and said Do super crack and you can't hang on it, you've gotta come down to the ground each time you fall. I wonder how hard that would feel. It might actually feel like five 13.

I don't know. So sure. What really put the gunks on the map was that in 1973 and 74, it had, I would argue, the hardest collection of rock climbs, free rock climbs in the world. and that is why basically, if you were a good climber in the 1970s, right through until the late to mid to late eighties, you came to the gunks to see if you could do those roots.

Kush: That makes a lot of sense. That list of eight lines. I, I guess that was this, [00:26:00] uh, tantalizing challenge that brought, all the bad asses of the day over to the gangs to try and test their metal and wow, that's crazy that so many of those lines so quickly went down and, I mean, there's so many amazing climbers that passed through the area and you were.

Right in the middle of the action. And one other thing I thought I would, I would poke you about is sometime in the eighties, you had some of the strongest climbers in the world at the gongs, and you guys were one-upping each other trying to outdo, outdo each other to come up with the hardest free solos.

Russ: So, 

Kush: yeah. And yeah, I'm just curious about that time. Can you take us to what was [00:27:00] actually going on? 

Russ: Well, yeah, I think you're referring to like in, uh, in 80, well. I had my own as I got better. You know, there was a group of us who were always looking to do something harder than that, than what existed. there were a bunch of good climbers in the early eighties that wasn't just me and, and two or three other people.

There were a little bit, there were little cliques. And my was mostly climbing with my friend Jeff Gruenberg, Jack Moleski you, her Lynn Hill, gross Raffa. So there's, there's a group of us, who climbed together, other groups as well. And they were climbing just as hard, pretty much. for a long time we were searching for a climb that would be harder than super crack that had rained as the hardest route in the gunks.

really up in, you know, for 10 years. From 74 to 80 to 84, still going strong at the early eighties. and we found one, we found, we found what would eventually be, uh, deemed the first five 13 back here. in, in 83, uh, Gruenberg, myself, you, her, and [00:28:00] Lynn. and you know, as we got better and we got, we, you know, we do the same climbs again and again, and Jeff Gruenberg, who really was, he was the, so he was the boldest climber I ever climbed with.

He, Jeff was not afraid. Maybe he was afraid, but he was willing to go into, uh, into terrain that, uh, none of us really wanted to you, because of course we didn't have bolts. We weren't top roping. This is just, you know, using the, the natural gear. And you could look up at a wall and say, there's no cracks for any gear on that thing.

But Jeff like, well, I'll find something, and he'd get himself into some horrific positions. but he was just super, super bold. And one day Jeff and I were talking, about what would be like, really like the raddest solos of the classic hard routes and the classic hard routes. We defined as, Kansas City, which is a 20 foot five 12 roof.

open cockpit, a 40 foot, uh, five 11 CD face. gravity's Rainbow, which is out at Lost City, another five 12 face and super crack. So these are like some of [00:29:00] the classic five twelves of, of kind of the air or hard roots of the era and oh, well, and troops. Troops is that iconic roof of skytop that John Standard freed in the sixties.

that was rated five 10 plus originally, and most people call it five 11 C or D now. Anyway, it wasn't an overt competition, but, I went over to go sell the F1 day on a, it was a week, I think it was a Friday, and I sold up the initial five nine wall to a rest before the roof.

And then I was by myself, but then some people came along in a tus below me and they looked up and they saw me and said, oh look. And they stopped to watch I waited them out till they finally left and I down climbed. I said, now it broke, it broke the mood. And I'd say probably about the next week, Jeff went out there and he sold it.

I said, that was, that was awesome. I'm not gonna go, you know, go do that. But I found myself outta Skytop one day, not that long after. And I ended up soloing open cockpit, which is the five 11 plus, uh, short face, which I had totally wired all these things by the way. We had, we had done them many, many, many times.

[00:30:00] and another time, uh, around then Jeff and I went up to Super Crack I led it and then came down, and then Jeff led it. Then I went up, cleaned it, then I down climbed it, and then I went back up it, and uh, Jeff said, wow, when you, when are you gonna solo it? And I thought to myself, never really, but, 'cause what's the point?

I have it ruthlessly wired. But it didn't, you know, it kind of became a, a thing. Matter of fact, it'll be 40 years ago in two days. The, the anniversary of, uh, I was just looking at my calendar. It's like, yeah, it'll be on the 28th of August, 1985 when I went and sold that thing. So I don't think I'll try it again.

But in a case, the, it became this goal and I really kind of mentally started going to work on it. when and when I did it, I, you know, it wasn't like I wanted to continue soloing. When I think about people, when I think people of my era who were really, soloists, there's like, Derek Sey, he's dead.

John Becker, he's dead. Peter Croft is the only one from that era that did it regularly. That's still alive. it's pretty much. Something's gonna get you [00:31:00] if you keep on pressing. And that was, uh, that was when I knew I was not gonna do anything else like that again. But I, that, I hate to, maybe it was a competition.

I don't know. I can't get back into my 26-year-old brain and think about exactly what, or that, and that's probably a good thing. I can't, but it definitely was a, a bit of a thing that year. But to tell you the truth, it kind of died out. And I can think that, you know, I think to this day, the hardest solo that I know of was done in the Gunks was when Scott Franklin soloed his route, survival of the Fittest, which is five 13.

Five 13 a. I guess he won up to all of us. And you can have it 

Kush: amazing. you were right that, there's only so long you can keep pushing the envelope and just the, aggregated exposure to. That kind of risk will ultimately claim as price. If you were to go back knowing what you know now, would you [00:32:00] have, done all those free solos?

Russ: Well, you know, it wasn't like I did tons of them. It wasn't like a, a thing. I mean, everybody in the gunks, you know, we, I mean, I mean, I still go out and solo, but I solo like five, four, you know, it's, it's, uh, uh, it's, it wasn't, you know, we all soloed well within our limits. It wasn't uncommon to go out after a day of doing some loose and going up some five eights, or five nines, or five sevens or whatever.

And the gunks lends itself to plenty of that fun stuff. but, uh, you know, I, I would, I mean, like I said, I was never drawn to it As a, a thing in itself just for pushing and pushing and pushing. It was that, that was, that year was, was a bit of an anomaly for, I think, you know, for all of us. It wasn't, uh, and to my knowledge, I'm getting people going out there and just like pressing on the solo thing super hard, uh, all the time.

if I, I can't go back in time and I mean, would I do it now? No. I'm too old to die young. 

Kush: was this like purely like a white boys club or let's say, did you have any women who were also [00:33:00] freeing? 

Russ: Um, uh, that's a good question. I'm trying to think of, I can't think, 

Kush: did Lynn, did Lynn, uh, do any disorders?

Um, 

Russ: no. Lynn, you know, Lynn. Lynn actually thought it was pretty stupid at the time. Um, and she was, you, Lynn, Lynn had a lot more sense than the rest of us, you know, less test, less testosterone and more brains. But, and I'm, I, if I'm missing somebody, then I apologize, but I can't think of, I, I can think of women who go out and do, you know, easy solos like the rest of us.

but it wasn't, uh, it wasn't as common. And also back then too, you know, there weren't as many women. I'd say. It's almost, uh, I I say it's almost 50 50 on your average weekend at the Gunks now of, uh, females to males. But back, back then, it was definitely not. It was more like, you know, 75% guys. 

Kush: So. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Women as usual are likely a little bit, smarter, [00:34:00] more self-aware about consequences and risk. 

Russ: Yeah. And you bring up a really good point about the soloing thing too. It's like if you do it all the time, it does become rather a root activity and a story that my friend Mark Robinson told me is, uh.

John Becker had a very bad car accident some years before he died. Um, and that accident left him with, uh, some neurological damage and some, some, uh, some issues and he improved. my friend Mark and Susan were having dinner with John and, uh, John Mark said that John had said he'd been having some more recent issues of dizziness and having a little trouble with his, uh, with his, with his arm losing some sensation.

And Mark is an orthopedic surgeon and he's like, well, I, I hope you're not soloing. And John said, nah, I'm just soloing some easy stuff. I gotta shake it off. And two weeks later he was dead. I think for somebody like John, so becomes like brushing your teeth. It's just something you do every day, whether you really feel like doing it or not.

and even though I think it's very [00:35:00] easy to delude yourself into believe, you got it under control and it doesn't take much to have it not be under control. 

Kush: You know, one interesting thing that I think about free soloing or climbing between now and then is like you guys were, you were in, you were ensconced in your own little cliques, like you said, or your communities and maybe wood would get out on what you were accomplishing or, or your ambitions.

But mostly it was just you and your group of friends and often just you doing it for yourself yeah, such so night and day from the world we live in today where news of somebody doing something, you know, gets out on the interwebs before you can say that, Hey, uh, what did you have for breakfast?

And I just heard about this kid. I don't know if you know about this kid who has this. Instagram account where he's on this quest to one up himself every successive day until he falls. [00:36:00] Have you heard about this? This guy? I, I literally just read that before 

Russ: we got onto this and I said, and my, first of all, I was like, well, I mean, why just put a gun in your mouth now and if, if, if that's really, I mean, that is essentially a definition of suicidal.

If you're going, it's like, I'm going to keep on pressing my soloing until I fall off. if that's really what he said then Darwin never sleeps. He's not going to be allowed to breed.

Kush: I I, I, I also want sometimes wonder if, if he's not also just another victim in a way of this culture and this world we live in, because I mean, apparently he is trying to also. Make a living or make some money through this. And it is, it is really bizarre that, yes, for sure. Like it seems Darwinian in some ways, but I feel like people are doing [00:37:00] such things all over the place.

Maybe not as dramatic as free soloing, but people have somehow like, sacrificed themselves at the alt altar of, uh, public, scrutiny, infamy, fame, whatever you want, want to call it, and, and doing insane things. It's just that I think now we actually have somebody who's in the world of climbing who's trying to do that.

Yeah. It's certainly a, a very different world we live in today. I, I would, you know, 

Russ: I mean, I remember, um. People like trying to shame Alex A. Little bit about, you know, free solo of El Cap. And I thought his response is perfect. Like, well, you're welcome to go ahead and try, but you're not being very, very far off the ground before you fall off.

It's, you know, I think people forget about how, uh, how calculated, Alex has been about the, the vast majority of his solo ADEs. but you know, but I think the point you bring up about the idea, like. social media is so pervasive and if you think you can make a name for yourself and somehow [00:38:00] very quick you do.

So it's almost like, what was the show with Johnny Knoxville? He did all the stupid stunts and, uh, I can't remember what, but you know, he would just do idiotic things like, put himself on fire and, you know, shock him just, oh, I forget the name of the TV show. But Johnny Knoxville, I think actually had more of an effect for having kids do stupid idiotic things that they thought might get them some, some kind of attention.

And, uh, and then much more, you know, kind of pedestrian matters in trying to go up in solo, solo. I ever a harder route you might, if this, if this person or this kid is really looking to do that, then he is definitely, I, I'm not feeling much, sorrow for him. I'm, I'm feeling more. He should get slapped across the face and said, what are you doing?

Uh, and why? But Ross, 

Kush: you, you have to reflect on the, on this thing that climbing is still an obscure sport. It might be the Olympics, but most people do not understand climbing. And the, the most famous climber in the world is famous [00:39:00] because of his free solo of El Capitan. So like, if people are, I don't know, succumbing or follow victim to, express themselves in that radical way, I mean, you know, we worship, you know, people from your, people like backer and now this large than life figure that is Alex, Harold and A lot of people who are not climbers think he's like. The world best climber, and he is in maybe this one way, but again, like I don't know. no, I think you, I think, 

Russ: I think, I think you went up a pretty good point in that climbing is still a relatively obscure sport. but you know, people don't know about Alex Honnold because he soloed El Cap.

People know about Alex Honnold because a Academy Award-winning documentary is made about Alex Honnold soloing El Cap. And if Alex had just gone off and done that, then only the climbing world would be aware of it. But instead, we have tens of millions of people who've [00:40:00] seen that and think that guy's fucking crazy.

And, uh, but it brings an awareness of what he's doing. And I'll tell you, I think it's the, I probably just like you or most other climbers who have non climbing friends. You, I can't even begin to, uh, you know, recount the amount of questions I've had from non climbers about Alex and what he did. Great. it's, uh, I mean, it's an amazing thing.

Yes. And, and the same thing is he's the best climber in the world. It's like, well, you're not gonna have a lineup of people going to go do that route in the way he did it. But you have many people who can do that route and, you know, in fact, like, you know, well, will Moss just, uh, this, this past, uh, couple months ago, he did that same route without falling on site in a day, uh, which is an amazing accomplishment.

And by the way, that same Will Moss here in the Gunks. I think he brought the Gunks back into a, uh, into a modern era. 'cause he did a, uh, he did a new, he freed an old aid route here, had never been done that quite possibly he might be the hardest trad route in the world now. So we're waiting to [00:41:00] see if we can get people to kind of come and check it out.

So, oh wow. He 14, Dr. But, uh. It might be a little bit harder than that according to now. Yeah. So we'll see. 

Kush: Yeah, I thought that the hardest roots at the gongs were top roped because bolting is not allowed and the protection was scant. Yeah. And it left choice. It sounds like Wil Moss has really upped the, uh, upped the ante.

Yeah. He's thrown the gauntlet. 

Russ: He, he ha Well, to a degree, but you, you bring up a great point. A couple of the hardest routes in the Gunks are top ropes because they could not be done without falling without, without bolts. Uh, they'd be solos and in both cases, at least one of the 14 a's another, 14 b, the fall would be, well, you're basically gonna, if you're not dead, you're gonna wish you were.

they come as top ropes, which makes they're still excellent. Climb the route that Will, was [00:42:00] able to do. Only really exists because of there's, uh, three bolts on it from previous, uh, other, so it's a link up of a couple of different things into the last bit. And that last bit though, uh, those bolts don't help you at all because you're a, a good 20 feet plus out from a, uh, from a stopper, uh, going through a V 11 slash 12 overhang.

So it's something to watch. Bill Rock has, has a video up now, and when you, when you watch him do it, he, he does it so effortlessly you can't understand, but you see with the Pi last piece of gear, he is like, I wouldn't want to take that fall.

Kush: So in Senia, and it must feel like something else that you personally, you know, who's been through that place, that era and has seen. Yeah. You know, fun, fun. Little tangent coming back to you now. yeah. Fast forwarding a little bit. You had this, from what I can tell this, crazy thirst for [00:43:00] adventure and for travel, and you found all these interesting ways to travel to difficult places to be able to climb.

One of your stories that I'm fascinated by is how you suddenly ended up in the USSR, another, you know, country that's no longer there in its old form. So you visited USSR at, I believe a, a government sanctioned speed climbing competition. You were probably the first Americans ever there.

And I'm just curious, I mean, this was This was like the era of the Cold War, right? this was this, this crazy era in the history of the west, and here you are, like a couple of Americans who found a way to travel to Russia to try to rock climb. can you [00:44:00] talk to us , like just what the scene was.

Sure. 

Russ: that came about. because actually, I, I, I, I met Todd Skinner and Waco Tanks. Uh, it was the very end of 83 in the start of 84. It was around Christmas time and New Year's. we knew of each other. We finally met and, you know, Todd was also big into traveling and exploring and rest.

And we, and we started talking about wouldn't it be cool to go to the USSR? I mean, place is huge. There's gonna be tons of rock around there. Beth's, uh, his girlfriend at the time, Beth Wald, she actually, uh, spoke and wrote some Russian and said, Hey, Beth, find out what we can do about going to Russia. And she quickly came back and said, there is no way that you are going to travel to the USSR, arrive in Moscow, rent a car, and just go exploring.

Ain't happening. No way. Impossible. And said, but the only thing I found that we could possibly do is, uh, every two years they have a speed climbing [00:45:00] contest, an international speed climbing contest, We thought, well, you know, I mean, I'm not really that much into doing that, but maybe if we got over there and we did that, maybe we'd have an opportunity to actually do some real rock climbing.

So, Beth came back and she did some more exploring and said, okay, we can do it, but the only way we can do it is if we are sanctioned as the official United States of America, rock climbing, speed climbing team. I said, okay, so that has to come from the American Alpine Club. She said, yeah. And Jim McCarthy, who was the president of the Alpine Club at the time, was a good friend.

I said, Hey Jim, this is what we need for 1986 to go over there. And he said, okay, but I just can't unilaterally call you guys that after you bring it to the board, the board of directors has to look at this. And he did. And he called me up. He said, you know, there's. Definitely some gring on the board.

'cause as you mentioned, this is during the Gorbachev area era. Uh, so Russia was changing. You were, out of, uh, lost nose and going to [00:46:00] Paris restructuring. But there was, it was still, it was still the USSR. And so the Cold War Warriors on the board of directors of the Alpine Club, or like the last thing we need is going over there embarrassing ourselves with a, with a US team.

And I had to admit, odds are really super high, we will embarrass ourselves. 'cause none of us know three. So fuck all about speed climbing and we're not gonna learn it either. eventually they acquiesced and said, okay, you guys can do it. They had a few rules. We weren't supposed to have uniforms or advertise ourselves or anything else for fundraising, but essentially, we broke up into two bits.

'cause I was in grad school at the time, so I, I was gonna just go meet those guys over at in Russia. Todd went with Beth and Dan, Michael, another, another friend of ours from Colorado who was on the team. They all were in, uh, climbing in, in, uh, East Germany. Uh, and then they took the train to Moscow.

And then, uh, eventually what I, I just flew over there and I, I met them down in [00:47:00] Yalta, which is where they had the, uh, down the Crimea Peninsula where they had the speed climbing comp. And it was hilarious. It was just, uh, there were all Eastern European teams, with the exception of three Western teams.

We had West Germany and West Germany was my friend, Norbert Saer, and uh, Stefan Loach and a couple of other folks. And then we had, uh, Japan and I knew a couple of the Japanese CLA from a trip I had taken there the year before, and then us otherwise it was Romania, Poland, you know, it was just all Eastern Europe, European, uh, teams.

And you know, the thing is. For us, it was kind of a joke. It didn't really matter. But, you know, this is a serious thing for all these, uh, Eastern European teams. 'cause they didn't just like call themselves the Polish rock climbing team or the Bulgarian rock climbing team. They all had to go through a process and qualifiers and all that stuff.

So it was a serious thing for them. you know, for them it could mean really a difference in their life and their lifestyle and money and all the rest of that kind of stuff. And for us, it was kind of a big joke, [00:48:00] it turned out to be a pretty hilarious adventure. and the, the roots, the, the rules.

Every morning there were just these, these meetings, this big kind of cafeteria and you can imagine a cacophony of different languages. We all had a translator. We had, Nina was our translator, spoke perfect English, and she would be telling us what the rules were and we'd have more questions about the rules, about what is that about, you know, where is that, you know.

In the, in the end, we, nobody understood what the rules were, but we, we kind of did sort of, sort of, kind of, but it was also, we did have a couple of days, uh, where we had free time to go climb with, uh, some of the Russian climbers and the other teams. And there were a few route that were actually pretty good.

But the competition itself it was just kind of a joke. It was, uh, we had Todd, Todd and I had to do, uh, two individual events, which were basically big pop ropes 'cause they didn't want us to fall to our desk. And we had one team event where we actually had to do a four pitch route and climb that as fast as we could and [00:49:00] best as we could.

And then Beth had to do two more on her own. She had two top ropes to do. So it was, you know, it wasn't really that much climbing, But the rock was good and, uh, the event itself was, was fun, but we basically got ourselves, into trouble, in the evenings, with the Germans and with the Japanese, because everybody else was taking it seriously.

And we had found out there was a, we were staying in this kind of, kind of grim concrete. You know, client, you know, hostile kind of place. But down the road there was this like super fancy hotel that had a nice bar on top and a dance floor. we convinced our translator even that no, well, we can, we can go do this.

We can go to this, go, go to this place. And she was like, well, kind of. Okay. And Norbert convinced the German translator, they did this all the time in the past, which is not true, but, so we'd go to this bar and hang out. And for the first night it went well. The second night we got too drunk. We started slam dancing with the, uh, with the paying guests.

And, uh, then we got summarily kicked outta there forever and need said you could never go back to his hotel again to be [00:50:00] under arrest. So typical ugly Americans or ugly westerners. But the, uh, the whole thing overall was one of those experiences that, uh, it, it was crazy and, it was nutty to also see.

The differences. 'cause even though I had been in Eastern Europe in the past, I'd been to Czechoslovak, east Germany. And, but Soviet Union was different. It was, um, it was grim. It was just kind of a, you know, the, there was, it, it just seemed so gray and the, the architecture was gray. It was lots of concrete and it was, uh, and, but it was changing.

You know, one of the things that, that is not as commonly known is actually, I, I hit it off with our translator and, uh, went back to visit her a couple of times after that trip. I went back there a couple months later around Christmas time cold. You don't wanna be in Moscow winter time. It's cold.

And then back again, the following spring and the changes that I saw happening with the real people of Moscow, like people who were involved with, uh, what they would be called, would've been called the intelligentsia. And they're basically from [00:51:00] the art communities. They were writers, they were involved with, with, uh, film production, tv and the things that they could do.

say that next May that they were not allowed to do. Even that December was phenomenal. That was just how fast the culture Oh wow. Changing in that place. And, uh, it was astounding. So Gorbachev really did, just change how people lived in a very short period of time. Unfortunately, it all collapsed because they didn't know how to handle it.

But there's a lot that went into the collapse of, uh, of the idea of a democracy in, in Russia. But the, uh, but it was just astounding to see how, how fast, it, the change was and how quickly everybody was adapting to the idea that they had some, uh, personal freedom of expression. 

Kush: Amazing. You got this window into this culture and this country, which was going through this, uh, crazy transition.

You mentioned that, that Russia somehow was yet more special than some [00:52:00] of the. Other Eastern Bloc countries, I think, I think some of them were also under some kind of, uh, social communism rule at the time. What made Russia that much more, uh, distinct? 

Russ: Well, it vari, it varied, right? I think had had to do with, with lots of stuff.

But for example, you're right, the, the, uh, the wall had not fallen yet. it was still still up. So there was still East Germany. There was still Czechoslovakia that that stuff was going on. But if you looked at a place like, okay, a good example is, uh, I went to Czechoslovakia in 84 and Prague had not been bombed during the war.

So these beautiful old buildings and beautiful old churches and museums were still standing, right? That was not an epicenter of World War ii. And as a result, at least, there was a certain beauty to the architecture and, and, uh, how it looked. But if you went inside those buildings was pretty grim because there was nothing inside.

But nonetheless, there's still this facade. Of, of, uh, [00:53:00] of pre-war existence. Then you go to Dresden, which was firebombed to hell, and it just looked like it had been firebombed two weeks ago. And it was still like, you know, the clock was still stopped. When, when that, when that center clock was bombed back in 1945.

it just, it held the echoes of the war really strongly in the Soviet Union. It almost was like, uh, it'd been so changed since the revolution of 1917. And the idea that nobody was special, that everybody was gonna live in concrete. I mean, it was just. It just looked gray. It was like lots of concrete and lots of statues to, Stalin and, and Lenin and, and nothing, nothing that had any feeling of expression whatsoever.

and I mean, I haven't been back there since 86 was the last time, but, or 87. But it, it'd be totally different now. I mean, MOS, I'm sure Moscow, if you look at Moscow now, it, it would look like nothing. Like it looked like, 40 years ago. There's no, no way. But [00:54:00] it just was, uh, it looked very utilitarian without any expression of, of individualism or of, or art except for the subways.

The Moscow subways were amazing. Absolutely amazing. They, I mean, why they, they hit, they, they hid it all underground, but they were beautiful. They had, you know, they, they were artistic. They, every, every, uh, subway station was different. They had, uh, they were always pristine. I mean, better than any, any subway you would ever see in the United States.

I mean, not even close. why that was, I'm 

Kush: not sure. Amazing. Yeah. I mean, maybe they recognized the need for efficient transportation in a way they didn't see other important human needs, uh, that their people needed. You went there once and then you went back again, and you developed this relationship with your dance leader.[00:55:00] 

Yeah. And sounds like despite, the closed political culture that. Existed in that country, in Russia back then. Sounds like maybe the people still welcomed you and the team and, you were able to create like, friendships with them. Like, was, did that surprise you? 

Russ: No, you know, not so much because I think you find, uh, for one thing, of course many of were just interested in Americans.

'cause a lot of them had never really met an American. They just know what, you know. I mean, the, the other thing to understand is, a lot of people just didn't in that group anyway. They knew they were being lied to all the time. Pravda was anything but Pravda. It was just bullshit. And they all knew that, you know, basically what the, the quotas were like, uh, they lie to us.

We may pretend we believe that they're telling the truth. They make believe. They actually believe that. We think they're not, they're telling us the truth. It's just like, just get along. Shut the fuck up. [00:56:00] And ignore the bullshit. But, so it wasn't like they had some, at least the people I was around then have some preconceived notion of like evil America and evil Americans.

And if any of them did that's quickly, uh, evaporates when you actually do hang out and you actually talk, you know? I mean, I, I really can't think of any place I ever went to. especially when you start talking about climbers. If you're a climber, it doesn't really matter where you come from, you're a climber, right?

So it's, uh, you have an instant bond, you have an instant thing that drives you to do things, and political shit just falls off the, off the back of the wagon very quickly. so I, I, I think we're, we're like that. And, and until it's, it's like you are innocent until proven otherwise, right? It's truly, you'd have to just go ahead and, and spew some bullshit you didn't agree with before.

You'd say, okay, I, I, we're in different planets, but I never, I, I never really had, I never had that problem at all. And, and I think mostly when you went to these countries that aren't used to Americans, they're just fascinated. Like, oh God, it's one of them, huh? Can we touch it? Poke it?

Kush: I, I [00:57:00] think what's reminding us that that was the era before, like again, the internet and social media and a lot of the information you would learn about in other culture was through, I am guessing, just secondhand through stories, maybe movies, maybe books. And you were visiting a, a culture which had restricted access to information, even in an era where, where information was not so globalized.

So I'm, I'm guessing just the same way you were, uh, learning about, uh, the locals. I mean, you were also meeting the curiosity, like you said, of your hosts and Yeah. I'm sure that you likely help to spell like many myths about. Americans maybe even confirm in some mix as well. 

Russ: I try to be a reasonably good ambassador, and I'm sure some of the people inside of that [00:58:00] dance hall that at Yalta would disagree.

But, uh, but for the most part I think it's, uh, it's quite common, you know, and it's really one thing I do look back at Coach sometimes, and I, and I, I try to figure out how the fuck did we manage? I mean, it was all letter writing, you know, and, and on, on the rare occasion, a super expensive phone call. just think these days pick up a phone to call.

So basically Australia is gonna cost you 40 bucks for the first minute. You know, it's, you know, that you're like, well, I'm gonna, that's gonna have to really be a worthwhile phone call, right? So he didn't do that. He basically wrote letters and he waited for a couple of weeks. He got a response. And, I think that now and go, how did I do that?

But I think, you know, one of the, one of the benefits, if you wanna call it a benefit. Is when I was doing the bulk of that travel during five or six years after, after, uh, college, before grad school is most of those trips for the vast majority of them, I, I did solo. And it wasn't because I didn't have a lot of friends who could just like bail on whatever they were doing for three to six [00:59:00] months and go someplace.

And I was able to do that. I'd work and I'd live at my folks' house and save all my money in split. And when you do that, you have no choice but to immerse yourself in the culture that you decide to visit. It's not like you have the safe haven of your buddy that you can call into a tent with and, and, uh, talk about.

So, you have to make friends, you have to find partners. And that, I mean, that was such a huge fun part of all that is like not having a choice, but. To be part of that current climbing culture. And again, you're all climbers, so at least you're, you have a lingo franca there, but at the same time you're gonna, you know, it's like, what about the rest of it?

Do we have a, a natural chemistry that makes us good partners? Do we wanna do the same route? Do we have, you know, similar ideas about how hard we wanna climb? I, I think that that's one reason why I ended up, uh, being able to, get a better feel for some of these places than maybe I would have if I'd gone with somebody else.

Sure. 

Kush: Sure. Well, for more juicy details [01:00:00] from that trip and for so many other incredible travels and stories from your, uh, life through climbing. you've written this excellent book, the Lifer, and I encourage people to go check that book out. So why did you write this book now, Russ? And, you know, the other, other interesting thing is.

I turned the pages, and at some point, maybe part of me was like, is he gonna talk about history to Cuba when I ran into him? But that, that, that trip doesn't come up. So, yeah. Why did you write this book now? Where, and maybe is there a sequel in the works as well? 

Russ: when I, when I retired, I had time to do it and I'd been encouraged by a lot of my friends who I said, oh my God, someday you've gotta write a book about this stuff.

And when I sat down to think about it, so I started out just by writing a bunch of these vignettes about a bunch of these stories, and I tried to find a glue, you know, you [01:01:00] can, there's lots of stories. What's, what's the glue? And I also had some great help. I mean, you know, I, I still have to give incredible, Thanks to uh, bill Finnegan. Bill Finnegan is a writer for the New Yorker. He wrote this fantastic, uh, in my opinion, memoir one of my favorites called Barbarian Days. It was about, uh, his surfing life and about this basically old endless summer trip he did for, for years and, and other the stories. But when I read his book, um, I didn't know Bill at all.

I actually, uh, I actually just wrote The New Yorker and said, Hey, I read this book of yours and it reminds me so much of what my life in climbing was, because, you know, what Bill was doing is he was going out into the wide world of water. With basically marine charts and not a lot of information. It was just like, you know, and he explored and he found these new places to surf, some of which were, had never really been surfed before.

And, and it reminded me of when I was climbing and I [01:02:00] was just kind of like, I'd, find a picture of a piece of rock someplace, or I read an article in some magazine about some far off thing and I had to go check it out anyway, so I write him a note and then he, surprisingly, he wrote back and he said, oh, that's great.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. And you know, my daughter is actually a rock climber. So I was like, that's, that's awesome. then in the course of the next, I don't know, year or so, I started writing this thing and I wrote, I sent him, I sent to him a, a bit, I was writing about soloing super crack.

And I said, I'm not sure if you'd be interested in this, but your daughter might dig it. And he wrote back goes, what are you doing? This is really good. I said, whoa. So, Long story short, we actually started getting together and, uh, climbing some with him and, uh, a little bit with his daughter. And then he actually was interested in reading, uh, one of my manuscripts.

And he gave me so many good tips and, and so much help on it. And I had other writer friends too, who helped me with it. I, I, I'm thankful to all of 'em, but Bill really was, uh, was, was huge in that, and I was really trying to mimic, you [01:03:00] know, bill, I mean, I'm not, I'm not a five 15 writer. Um, I'm not gonna wanna pull, pull a surprise for this, but I do think his, his help was great.

One of the things that Bill said to get to your point about why not everything's in there is just because it happened doesn't mean you have to write about it. And it's true. So again, when I was trying to find the glue to put this together, I thought, what is it I'm trying to tell a story about? And certainly it was several things.

One is I did wanna talk about, uh, some of the things we talked about before. Why, why is the gunks relevant at all in today's climbing world? Why should anybody know about it? So I did wanna explain why it was so relevant at the time and how it did help push standards beyond where they existed. I did want to talk about, the pre sport climbing t tra world and how it trans, how, how it just, uh, transformed into what most climbers know today as sport climbing and why that was important.

'cause I was in the middle of all that transformation as well in Europe with, uh, with good friends in Europe with, uh, Wolfgang and Kurt Albert, the guy who actually coined the term Red Red [01:04:00] Point. and explained how that transition happened and why it was controversial and what it was about. And also I really wanted to pay ho my homage to, uh, to Wolfgang.

Uh, 'cause Wolfgang was a great friend. I spent a lot of time climbing with him. you know, he was, uh, the last time I was actually in the Franken Europe climbing, where I'd spent a lot of time was the weekend he got killed in a car accident. And I wanted to explain why Wolfgang was so absolutely critical to, uh.

So much to the climbing world, and what a great guy he was. He was such a wonderful human being and a really warm person. the adventures I had with Wolfgang or Moel, I, I'll cherish forever. They were fantastic. So, and then really, every, for me, once I went to work for, for, uh, ARD equipment, which later became Black Diamond, I talk a little bit about that transition, but really what I thought about is my relevance inside of the, of the sport and the activity.

That bit of it was what was truly relevant and then at [01:05:00] least to me, What 'cause of what, of what I witnessed and what I part partook in from. Tried climbing the sport, climbing the first international climbing competition, how climbing competitions were changing all that is a bit of world that I think a lot of climbers would be interested in and maybe not know much about.

But after that, when I started talking about, when I talk about my stuff from like the mid nineties to the present, I think hundreds of people could, thousands of people could write about those things. 'cause there's so many more people experiencing the same kind of thing. And I don't have the same kind of relevancy in that world that, if you want me to write a travel log about a bunch of trips, sure I could do that.

But as it was, I chopped 60,000 words out of that manuscript anyway. So, I mean, there's a second book, but if I, if I ever did write another book, I'd have to think about the why of it. 'cause I, you know, I, I, I can't find anything that, for me makes the same kind of sense. I, if any of that, any of that rambling makes sense to you.

Kush: It actually does. Uh. quite a lot because, well, I [01:06:00] adore Bill Finnegan's writing, I read the Barbarian Days every few years. I, I'm probably due for like a third reading and yeah, I, I guess I never really thought of this, but because you know, you, you do have, I think a forward by, by Bill GaN or like, some testimonial from him in your book.

And Bill's book is civil in a way where he talks about all his global adventures of self discovery. but yeah, there is like this theme, there is this, this thread and when I was reading it, I'm sure I figured that there were other adventures he, he had been on just like you have been on that you chose Wiser to admit because at some point, you know like, uh uh, I guess they just all starts.

Sounding the same, but, uh, I'm grateful of the adventures you actually have included because Rasta make for [01:07:00] really delightful reading. Since you mentioned Wolfgang's name, you know, this larger than life figure in the world of rock climbing who left such a deep legacy. Sadly, he's no longer with us. Is there maybe one thing about, Wolfgang when you think about him that leaves you smiling?

Something that the rest of us may not know about? 

Russ: Yeah, I, I think it's really a pity that some, some of the great climbers today can't know Wolfgang's personally because he was, like I said, a very warm person and, and funny, he was, uh, now Wolfgang can be super serious and he can get, uh, you know, really kind of, uh, you get into good arguments about style and ethics and that kind of stuff.

But when you are hanging with him, classic day with Wolfgang is sometime after the morning climbing, he's gonna like, I think it's time now, some coffee and some cake, and you're gonna [01:08:00] go to the bakery and get a piece of cake and get a, get a cup of coffee and hang out and just laugh about what happened in the morning, how well you did or how poorly you did.

It's like you were climbing like shit today, but I think you'll be better this afternoon. he was just, uh, so encouraging and I think he, uh. And he just loved, he just loved climbing and he loved life. I, I don't know how to, to make him more alive than, than to just say he was, he had an easy smile.

He was so generous. If you were, uh, after we had been down to Baria in Italy, and it was a disaster for as far as we were concerned, it was such a bad place for climbing to go in that competition. we got back up and we did a new route together, and I had to leave. I, I was outta money.

And it's like, no, stay, stay, stay. Money's not a problem. Just stay. We'll figure it out. And he is just like, you know, no problem. You know, I'll, I'll cover you until, until something happens. He was just that, that kind of a guy. He could [01:09:00] be really serious about climbing and just take everything else as not being an issue, not a big problem.

And, uh, that, that lightheartedness was something that I don't think, uh, it, it's not easy to, well, he's not gonna experience it mean, but people know Wolfgang 'cause of the roots. They, and you know, they figured, oh my God, he, you know, what a hard man. And he was, he was, he was incredibly hard. But, you know, I Wolfgang also had really shitty days of climbing too.

You know, he just, some days just suck, like everybody. Yeah. But you know, when when he turned his focus on his power on it was, it was, uh, it was, it was something to behold. the part of Wolfgang that remains important to me is just how, what a great friend he was. What a, what a wonderful, warm human being.

He really was. That, and I can't say that for, I climbed with a lot of fantastic climbers in my era, and I'm still friends with a, with a lot of them. Some of 'em are dead, uh, and not so friend friendly with others. yeah, I think, as an example, I think the thing, if you're a really good climber, [01:10:00] there's gonna come a time in your climbing career where you're not a really good climber anymore.

You're gonna have some choices to make. Why do I do this? And I'll point, and he's a great friend, but I'll, I'll point to, uh, Jerry Moffitt. Jerry was a fantastic climber, absolutely top one of the best in the world, maybe the best in the world at one time. he was skilled, but he was, he worked hard.

Jerry worked hard to be the best climber, and when he couldn't really any longer be the best, he lost interest. He moved on to other things. And, uh, actually last, last, uh, October I got together. I was up in, I was up in Sheffield and we got Jerry out climbing, got him outside and we got, went out, went out to, uh, stand and she just meant to meet us there, but not climbing.

He was there with his dog and just, uh, hiking. And I convinced him, I was like, Jerry, come on. You gotta, you gotta get on. You gotta do ready, honestly, bring my shoes. I said, well, you remember I had to tie a bow on a coil. Oh yeah. And you know, you can borrow my shoes. And, you know, he just goes up to his viff.

I had a [01:11:00] rope on and typical Jerry just like goes up to the base of the rock, dip his hand in the chalk bag, blows his fingertips. I'm about to perform on, on a viff. And it was just like five three. And, you know, and it was just so great to just get him out there and be laughing again about that stuff. But, you know, for, but for Jerry climbing really much was about.

Well, he loved to burn you off. He loved to just, you know, show you that he was better, which believe me, I appreciated. He was always better. and I, I'm only gonna parallel that to Wolfgang and to a contrast, because I do believe if Wolfgang was alive today, he'd still be climbing.

I think he just loved it for more than being the best. But you know, also just for what had brought him inside of his soul, it just, the, the, the feeling that, uh, and that and truly, you know, I've, I've had people ask, you know, about, you know, the title of my book, the Lifer. It's like, well, I'm the lifer and you are the lifer as well.

If you're still doing [01:12:00] this thing and you're doing it for all, all the the reasons that it brings you joy, guess what? You know, they're a lifer. We're all lifers. If you just continue to do this thing on and on, and you can, if you read that book, I've had so many climbers, especially of closer to my generation, like, oh my God, that reminded me so much of what I was doing back then.

And other climbers were gonna like, oh my God, you were so lucky. How the hell could you, you know, we can't do that anymore because rec camping anywhere you want to and dirtbagging like that is, is harder these days. But so I think you know, it, it's, for me, a Wolfgang was, Just such a warm, loving soul who is dedicated, dedicated to the, the, the activity of climbing. 

Kush: Amazing and interesting contrast that you painted between these two, huge figures in as sport. yeah. Jerry Moffitt and Wil Gang. Actually, Jerry's been on the show before and one thing I learned and he shared in the [01:13:00] show was that he had, uh, a terrible surfing accident.

Yeah. And he went through, yeah, just, uh, I guess, a totally new relationship with his body because he got, he was in so much pain and he got so injured. So I, I guess he's just really, really careful about the type of physical activity he. chooses. But you're right. Like he was special in a way where he walked away at the very top when he decided that he couldn't.

So now coming back to you, you know, when we were climbing in Wyoming, I believe you said that you set yourself this goal of climbing a certain number of five twelves in a year. So it's obvious, like, like the challenge is still important to you. Like you are still competitive, but you know, maybe, maybe the, uh, the grades have shifted.

So how do you personally reconcile and, and just keep putting energy and [01:14:00] love into the sport? Uh, that's, you know, what that, that's, uh, interesting. 

Russ: you know, I, I think I've, for the last few years of climbing, I really haven't had any, any kind of goal. And it's still, I go out there and I enjoy it. Uh. But I, I realized that I get more out of it if I try harder.

And, and I think the try hard is pretty, well look at quantum's a grid for a reason, right? We all kind of wanna climb at a certain level. And I, the, uh, this year I just decided, well, you know, I picked five 12 for a couple reasons. One is, well, I can still climb them reasonably efficiently at the lower side of the grade.

And the second was, you know, 66 is a bunch. So I could be, I should be able to do like five and a half per month as the average. I should be able to do it. But when I started climbing, that was the grade that was the hardest, the hardest climbs in the world were five 12. And that's also why stylistically I've given myself [01:15:00] plenty of leeway.

They can be red points, you know, if I, I'll go up to the thing, I'll try and flash it. If I don't flash it, I'll yo-yo it, you know, and yo-yo climbing was really the stand. That's how people climb when I did it. Or I could do it on a top rope 'cause people are allowed to top rope. So I give myself those three styles as long as you do 'em without hanging, putting your weight on the rope.

And you know, it's like, good for, for real, do 'em. that's been fun. And on top of that, really, gosh, that also meant I can't stay home because it's really hard for me to find any five twelves around here that I've not done. That's a, it's a very, very small amount. So that's, so we've gone to Vegas and down to Puerto Rico and down to Arkansas and out to Colorado and over to Bosnia and Montenegro, and then did that big trip out west to Wyoming and, and, uh, Colorado and Salt Lake.

So. it's really is the travel for climbing with the benefit of seeing a ton of friends and also meeting, meeting new, new people and, and seeing places that, uh, I've not been. And, uh, for example, Martin Negro, what a, what an eye-opener. That place for climbing [01:16:00] is ridiculous. It's so good.

It's, it's crazy. And someday it'll, it'll, it'll get on the map. it's just, you know, there's, it's just, it's just crazy. So, yeah, it's nice to have the challenge. it's, uh, it's been fun as hell, but I do think it, I do think it's important. I'm only competitive with myself. I'm not competing against anybody else, especially at, at this stage, dude, I'm like, how many numbers off the hardest, the greater the day is what?

Five 15 d and I'm more than three numbers off of that. It's like there's no, and I do think if you really are thinking of yourself as a good climb. You gotta measure yourself against one of the hardest routes of the ti the time. And yeah, there was a time in my life where I could say, oh, I'm, I'm there, but certainly not anymore.

And, and that, that doesn't matter for me anymore. I'm not trying to be a good climber. I'm trying to be as good a climber as I can be

Kush: you know, your answer makes me think of performance and longevity in like [01:17:00] a slightly different way and the importance of having quests of challenges because I, I, I do think that as humans we are wired to want to seek progress and growth. And when we are newer to the sport, and it could be any sport or even any activity, I think, I think that fuels us.

The fact that, you know, we are going up like a letter grade every season, a number grade every year. And that is so addictive. And at some point that slows down and then for all kinds of reasons, and then a fire also slows down and I don't, yeah. Who knows what, which one happens first. I also sense be, because I speak to so many, athletes who have continued doing their sport.

And I think that this concept of challenges important and that challenge may not be the challenge you [01:18:00] had a decade ago, two decades ago, or. At your prime. But I feel like having that challenge, in your case, this, this arbitrary one, a cool sounding one that you came up with, which is like this fusion of like your, your age and this seminal, I don't know, this, this like landmark grade of five tobacco.

I, I, I sense that maybe it provides you that kind of challenge to maybe keep showing up at the cliff, maybe having a goal, maybe getting psyched for the next trip out there. Because I know that for myself, when I don't create that, I think the activity becomes somewhat, somewhat, uh, what's the word I'm looking for?

Somewhat like monochromatic uhhuh. It's not like, you know, like climbing is climbing or surfing or whatnot, you know, they're like so time intensive. 

Russ: Yeah. 

Kush: That it's not like one can go to the. Health club for some time on the treadmill or the weights, you know, follow a plan and come back because you have to just [01:19:00] put so much effort and sacrifice that I think some kind of a goal or challenge is important.

Can you, can you speak to, to how that, how you see that and why maybe that is somehow more important than maybe even you realize it. 

Russ: You know, I think you hit on it right there. I think, you know, being human means we are always constantly challenging ourselves in some way, because I don't think the activity matters really at all.

If you're a runner, you're trying to run a faster time. If you're going to the gym, you're trying to lift to height, bigger weights. If you are a, a surfer, oftentimes you're looking for bigger waves. Is there's, there's always, there's always a next level, right? And, and I think on an intellectual level, I mean, my God, if you're, you're always trying to do harder things intellectually as well, when you're trying to do solve problems, math problems, physics problems.

I, it's just human. It's just, it's the nature of human. But I think it you, the other point is it's very easy to get to a place either because it's getting really hard [01:20:00] or you've done as much as you can actually do as far as breaking into new levels. Then that, as you call it, this monochrome or staleness gets in there.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're not enjoying it. But it does mean that you are having a harder time pushing yourself to a new place. And I think that's also very, very common. and I, and like I was saying, I was, I was feeling that the last few years and climbing where I felt like I wasn't really climbing very, I was climbing a lot, but I wasn't really crying that much.

It's a big difference. And the other thing is too, the more time I spend at home is, even though I live just a scan couple of miles from the cliffs, I don't really climb there near as much as you might think because it's not that much fun to go to roots that were warmups that are now too hard to do.

It's just like, okay, there's a certain amount of ego in that as well. It's like, okay, great, whatever. but that's one of the things that when you travel, my motivation to do things is much higher when I'm traveling and trying to do something I've never done before. I think that's also very [01:21:00] natural, when you get, like right now I'm older, I'm retired, and I've got time, and I've got the luck and the health to go do some stuff that I'm very well aware is not going to be there for very much longer. In reality is at 66, as I said to my friends, I had a lot of friends this year who were turning 50 and turning 60 and were turning 50.

I said, oh, welcome to the decade of decay. They're like, what? I said, believe me, in the world of climbing, nothing's going to get better for you nine years from now than it is right now. You are not going to get better. You're just gonna be, see how slowly you can get worse. They're like, oh, that doesn't sound very good.

Is that, maybe it doesn't, but it's true. And I said, what about the sixties? I said, that's the decade of decimation. 'cause each year battling the stay anywhere close to what you were the year before, at least that's true for me. I guess what I'm getting at is if I'm gonna do anything that for me is satisfying in some manner, I'd better get on it now and not keep on waiting.

And that's part of what this year was about, doing these routes. [01:22:00] And maybe I'll come up with a new one for next year, maybe. Like, okay, I'll try and do, I don't know, a, a new mid-range, five 13 that would take me weeks to, uh, to do I, you know, it just if I can at all. I think these things are worthwhile.

Bill Ramsey, who's a contemporary of mine, great climber, lives out in Las Vegas. And, uh. Some, like he always has goals and bill's still climbing. You know, he is still climbing 14 a, which is pretty good for a 65-year-old guy. The thing is, and you know, people will say, well, yeah, well Bill spends a year on, on working, working, work, and, you know, eventually fall falls up it, and Bill would say, yeah, well see.

You have the determination and the patience to do that. To, to make progress a centimeter at a time and, and, uh, and, and take solace when you're having bad days not getting to your high point anymore. That, and I believe that's true. There's a persistence there that, uh, I think is a true art. I've never had anything close to that kind of patience, so.

You've all gotta work within your own parameters. Mine, I've never had the patience to do that, but I can [01:23:00] have the patience to go ahead and travel a bunch and go do these things. And the point being that you need, I think if you're going to get the most out of your life, you need to continue to have goals that want you to, that force you push you to get there and do it with some, some enjoyment, but at the same time work that you just makes you, we all feel better when we try hard and we succeed.

And even sometimes when we try hard but don't succeed, we take some pleasure in the fact we gave it our best. I think that's, I think it's very human. 

Kush: a great, great answer And yes, bill is remarkable indeed. He's also been on the show and I keep thinking about just the lessons I I got from speaking with Bill and I love your perspective as well, Ross, that you know, one can keep doing things, one just has to.

accept and maybe find joy in, one's abilities today. [01:24:00] What advice might you have for somebody else at a similar life stage? Doesn't have to be a climber on, on, on how and why they need to keep continuing thing and what it might give back to them. 

Russ: I think anybody who's listening to this and is of my age either already gets it or they never will.

you know, we all know people who kind of get older and, and don't do anything. You know, when, when like, it, it becomes. I think it's very easy, especially again, I think we're, we are lucky and blessed to have been, for whatever reason, born with either a hard wiring or software that makes us want to do something with a passion.

And that's its own gift. And when you think about how many people in the world really don't have that, or they're just working day to day to survive that, I mean, that's their, that's their thing. it's lucky to have had a lifestyle that [01:25:00] didn't destroy me working physically on a day-to-day basis, a construction site someplace or in an agricultural field that allowed me to have this free time to explore what would be a luxury.

I think that's why we probably know a lot of people who are kind of like us, who don't have real, you know, yeah, you have monetary concerns, but you have free time and you have a dedication to this thing. and if you don't have that, I'm not sure how you create that. I don't know how, how does one create some instinctual passion in their, in their lives.

it's almost like trying to explain consciousness. I don't, I don't know what it is. I don't, I, if you can't find something in your life that just makes that spark and I don't give a shit what it is, it could be playing chess. It can be, doing laundry. I mean, I what it has something that just makes you wanna get up out of bed in the morning and just live your day.

a lot of people just aren't lucky enough to have that. And I've always, uh, it's something I always told my daughters like, you found a passion. You are good. You're good to go. It'll guide your life. 

Kush: Yeah. 

Russ: [01:26:00] If you can figure out some way to create passion or a person who doesn't seem to have passion, then you, you found some kind of secret elixir out there that, uh, I don't know what that is.

Kush: Maybe that is the answer right there, which is, you know, you gotta just keep, experimenting and probing to find that passion and it could be anything really, but it could be the kind of thing that makes you want to, if not, if not, jump out of bed at least like, you know, creek outta bed and wanna, go, uh, fiddle around with that particular passion.

Russ, uh, nearing the end of our time, uh, just a few, few questions, uh, before we end. What might be a piece of advice you ignored when you were young, but you wish you had not? Oh, 

Russ: oh, I can think of plenty of pieces of advice I ignored. I'm happy I did. What did [01:27:00] I, ooh, that's a good question. hmm.

Wish I did not ignore.

I'm not sure I could even answer that, that that might take more time than we have in the rest of this thing. Even I ignored, I wish I had not ignored. well, I can think one very, very simple one, which was, for some whatever reason, when I was a kid, I liked to test tester, like to jump off of our garage roof, and my mother said.

You shouldn't do that. That's stupid. And at some point, I remember I, I jumped off and I, and I hurt my back a little bit. And later I, I'm not saying this was a cause, but, uh, later on in life, I would go through three back surgeries. Maybe there was a piece of advice I should not have ignored. But don't test yourself by jumping off the garage roof.

Kush: Fair enough. Thank you. Thank you for jogging your, uh, memory back for that one. Russ, what's one thing you have changed your mind about in the last 10 years? [01:28:00] Uh,

Russ: ooh. Last I've changed my mind about, oh boy, that's a hard question. I, I'm pretty, I'm pretty stuck in my way. I think Amy would, would admit that. okay. Uh, you know, One thing I remember when, when, uh, it was more than 10 years, I remembered that, uh, when the internet was first starting and we had, uh, things like, uh, before the web really was going, there was like these, these uh, dot com chat groups.

And, uh, I remember the first one, the climbing one, was called Wreck dot Climbing. And I remember I kind of logged into that thing and I saw the, the, the worst of all human behavior. I realized that anonymity and stone throwing was just like a, a thing that was going to be like, I thought I, I want zero part of this, zero part of this.

And I stopped and I was like, this, this is, this is really just [01:29:00] enabling the worst of human behavior. Then I'd say My perspective changed on it when I saw a bunch of the good things that had come out of social media, but then it flipped back again. So, I have zero social media presence, uh, because for one thing I think it's too much of a time suck.

I think it just ends up, uh, being a focus where you're too much on this two dimensional screen where you should be, you know, talking to people and be outside and do stuff. but I say what, what did change is I, I thought there was no good that's gonna come outta social media. And now I see there's some good, but I think there's still plenty of good.

Okay. 

Kush: Okay. So it sounds like, sounds like you've, you've flip flopped and twice. Okay. And you might flip flop again next time we chat. Alright. Fair. Uh, Ru Russ, what is one thing in climbing that's overrated? 

Russ: Most sport climbs were overrated. That's, yeah. No, that's, that's unfair. [01:30:00] I think what's overrated in climbing, even though we all do it, is the, uh, the, the grade chase.

I think, uh, even, and even though we all do it, and I certainly do it myself, I think that that can, eclipse much of what the essence of climbing really, really is. we all get great satisfaction of climbing harder and harder. But I think, uh, you know, as an example, just the other day with Amy, she, uh, said Let's go climb this late in the afternoon on, on, uh, Saturday I think it was.

And, uh, I thought I went to this, go do this, re-pitch five eight I'd never done in the middle of the near trap. So just not the best piece of rock in the trap in the area. And we went out there together and we, there was no grade chasing on this, and we just had this kind of super lovely late afternoon, you know, wrapping back down in the dusk of, of the, of the evening.

And it's like, that was [01:31:00] just so much fun and it was just nothing but fun. You know, climbing this thing with somebody I love and having a good time and, and, you know, make it, and it wasn't even a particularly good climb, but it was just one of those experiences like that was, that was just so enjoyable. It had nothing to do with the grade chase or anything, but besides being with somebody you wanna be around and, uh, and having a, having a good time.

So I think, uh, we can let the grades get in the way of that. 

Kush: Well, and it didn't have a five 12 attached to it, so 

Russ: didn't count. 

Kush: Didn't you could chase that one down Anyway. Hey, and Russ, what is one thing that you still get nervous about? 

Russ: well, in the world of climbing, I, I will say that, uh, since most of, or life or life, what do I get nervous about right now?

What I'm totally nervous about is the state of the United States I you about life. this was, you know, so off the top of climbing and, [01:32:00] but, but so, uh, when I was, uh, living at my folks' houses, mostly when I was after outta college, but I'd be working my working and staying at my fa my folks' house, Donald Trump was a, a golf partner of my father's.

And this is all because Oh, wow. Yeah. So this is, um, you know, my father was older than Donald by a fair bit. So this would've been, this would've been when Donald's in his, uh,

mid to late thirties. And Donald was a member of this golf club, Wingfoot, where my father had been a member for a year. And they, you know, they became, you know, partners playing golf once in a while. And I remember the first time I met him, at my folks' house. And of course everybody knew about Donald.

'cause every day he was in a newspaper and, you know, some, some publicity rag where he, you know, he was just this, this figure, this figure inside the New York world. I remember listening to him and, uh, when he left the house, I said to my dad, I was like, my father was a lawyer. I said, uh, are you working for Donald?

And my father started laughing. I said, he goes, nobody works for him. He doesn't pay his bills. [01:33:00] And I'm like, oh, wow. But that's, that's known. And I said, so what's the, he goes, he's amusing. You know, he is just, he is. And my father thought he was just kind of an amusing guy. He was kind of considered a clown by virtue.

Everybody who knew him, uh, in that world, I think if my father was alive today, would he be amazed that this guy actually became president? He would be like, hell in the world. Did that ever happen? I find it really distressing to, um, to see, so much of what I always thought this country was about to be, diminished and, and, uh, expunged as much as possible by a, a guy who's driven by his own ego and, and desire to, uh, to dominate.

I wouldn't have thought I'd, I'd be around to see it. And I do wonder, I, I'm kind of a perpetual optimist in many ways, but I'm not sure how much of the damage done is not going to be, uh, irreversible. So, and we're only, uh, half a year into it. So that causes me angst. Um, but also another reason to go to the Cliffs and forget about that shit.[01:34:00] 

Kush: That is one story. None of us expected from you. Thanks for sharing that. Sure. And then, Russ, final questions. What do you hope people remember the most about you beyond the countries visited? Beyond the tick list, beyond the travels? 

Russ: I hope people remember me with some fondness for good times and getting together and my smile.

and you know, I tell you if there's something I regret, it's basically if I caused somebody issues, if I caused problems for somebody, I, I do have that as like, I would rather have not had that happen. But for the most part, hopefully I've left some good memories of partners over the years and, uh, some stories they can relate in their own time over a campfire, even, even if they're derogatory.

Kush: Great having you [01:35:00] on the show today. Russ, thank you so much for your time. thank you for the lovely book. It was a treat to talk to you today. 

Russ: Thank you so much coach, and we'll see you at the Craigs somewhere soon I'm sure. Keep that Dan running.