Hi
there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloud-Based Mayhem. Got a special one for you today. Those of you in the free flight world, no doubt, have heard about Nathan Longhurst. He completed, was only the second person to ever do so, the 100 Peaks Challenge down in New Zealand. And the only other person to have done it was a mentor of his and followed along very closely the whole time. Did that gentleman a belief. Nathan told me 20 or 25 years to complete it. Nathan did it in 103 days. These are not necessarily the hardest or most iconic peaks in New Zealand, although many of them are very hard. Some of them are easy, some are hard, some are remote, but they're just 100 very cool peaks on the North and South Island, mostly South Island of New Zealand.
And Nathan got into flying. He's an alpine climber and climber and hails out of the area of Spokane in eastern Washington. He's only 25 years old and went from climbing and got interested in flying just only a couple years ago and then decided that what a cool way to connect these. So not by top landing and flying necessarily from peak to peak, but by using any means possible together. To get to all these peaks, he could drive to the trailheads, but not use, of course, you know, helicopters, which they do a lot in New Zealand. So no helicopters allowed, but style was pretty loose and that he could get to from one trailhead to another. But then once on the trailhead, ice climb, kayak,
paraglide, you name it, to try to get into this stuff in New Zealand. The bush is obviously can be really thick. His longest time out in one go was somewhere around 20 days. He gives all the numbers in the show and we recorded this about a month and a half ago. I apologize for taking this long to get it out, but I've had a bunch of shows in the can. Nathan is incredibly humble. He did all of this without any corporate sponsors or big flashy stuff. He just thought it'd be a cool project and went and banged it out. Did a ton of research on the front end. And of course, these kind of things had some scary moments, but kept it between the lines. And got it done in an incredible 103 days.
So this is his story. The story could go on for much longer than we did, but we nailed down some of the really wild things. And he did much of it with a mini wing and then had a mishap with that one and changed it out. Borrowed another glider, a dew deck, and completed it out. So for those of you hungry for adventure and itching to do something pretty wild, this is... A testament to how you do it. You just go do it. It's
like I said, he's incredibly humble, very articulate. I really enjoyed him. He was like an old soul.
Nathan, the wider world, I think, has heard a little bit about your amazing expedition that you just completed. XCMAG just put it up. By the time this goes up, I'm sure many more people will know about it. But I think the place to start is, who are you? And... And what did you... Give us the real glass over, what did you just do? And then we'll take a deeper dive. But hi.
Yeah, absolutely. Hello. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I'm a longtime fan. Excited to chat. Yeah. So my background, I'm from Washington State, Spokane, Washington.
And yeah, I grew up spending a lot of time in the outdoors with my family, which I'm super grateful for. Did a lot of backpacking, skiing, hiking. I have a lot of siblings and very active parents, and so I have that as my background. And yeah, I kind of started rock climbing some more and doing more technical things in the mountains as I got older into high school. Started getting a little more independence.
That was all in the Cascades or all over the place?
Yeah, mostly in the North Cascades, some stuff in North Idaho and Western Montana as well. Okay. So I did some scrambling in the Cabinet Mountains and the Sawtooth. But yeah, mostly focused in the North Cascades, like the Leavenworth area, enchantments, things like that. So yeah, I kind of started to cut my teeth in the alpine rock world, both solo and with some friends from Spokane, going and doing big routes out there.
How old are you, Nathan? I'm 25. Okay. Yeah.
So this was where alpine stuff, was that post-school or were you doing it all the way through school and stuff? Yeah. So I
was starting to do stuff like in my summers, probably starting when I was 16. Okay. Yeah. When I could first go drive, going and doing trips out those first couple of summers. And then, yeah, the summer after I graduated high school, so when I was 18, that's when I sort of really dove into it, basically living in my car that summer, traveling around the Cascades, doing a bunch of alpine stuff. And that summer it was mostly solo. So that was when I sort of really got into like the big alpine solos and scrambles and more mountaineering stuff, did some of the volcanoes for the first time that summer.
So what was drawing you then and now to solo? Why do it alone?
Good question. Yeah. So for me, like, obviously I love being in the mountains with other people that I care about, and I certainly do a good bit of that as well. But when I'm solo, I find myself to be much more mentally engaged and connected with the terrain itself rather than sort of like the more social part of the experience and what's going on with my partner and the interaction. I
think that's the most important thing. I like to have those interactions
between my partner and myself. And again, I like, I love those interactions as well. But if I'm doing something that's like really sort of at the, like really challenging for me and kind of at the limit of my abilities, I find that I'm the most connected and the most present when I'm solo and just focusing only on the terrain and my movement through it.
Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. Cool. All right. So you're, you're moving along through the mountains, you're, you're, you're playing in the mountains. When did Flybeck? Line come into the equation?
So actually quite recently, um, I started flying in Utah. I took, I took classes at the point of the mountain in summer of 2023. So just a couple of years ago. Um, okay. Yeah. And, and just was immediately hooked, flew there a bunch. Um, and yeah, started doing more sort of hike and fly stuff in, in the Wasatch mountains, which transitioned to, to some like speed flying, many wing flying. And yeah, just sort of. Right from the beginning knew that that was the style I was the most interested in, because I love climbing mountains. I love, you know, using my own, my own power and my fitness to climb mountains, especially technical routes and, uh, this idea of, of climbing technical routes and then using a lightweight wing to fly off has always intrigued me since, you know, many years before I started, started flying myself.
And so, yeah, that was kind of, tell me more
about the, the climbing you're, are you, are like out in the enchantments? Are you aid climbing? Are you free climbing? What's give us a little bit of what? What, what's your jam?
Yeah. So most, I mean, I, I've done some aid climbing in Yosemite, but other than that, I haven't really done it anywhere else. So yeah, definitely free climbing. Um, I was actually, or it might be kind of backwards, but earlier in my climbing career, I was actually more focused on like harder free routes with a partner. Um,
so doing
maybe some like the harder climbs on press peak and the culture balanced rock and some of like the, the, the big steep faces. And then as I progressed, I actually started to gravitate more towards. It's going in soloing the more moderate Alpine ridges and trying to link up multiple of those in a day and things like that.
Okay. Yep. All right. So more kind of endurance type stuff, exposure type stuff rather than hard technical sport climbing. Yeah. Okay. But,
but, but definitely some of both. And my, my initial climbing background was in, in, in sport climbing. So all through high school, I was a gym rat and, and, and yeah, love just pulling hard on sport climbs.
Right. Okay. And was the initial catalyst to get. Into flying just to get into flying, or did you see it as I need the, I need this, I need this for my toolkit. I need this for access. I need this for descent.
There's definitely a combination of both. Um, I mean, I, you know, the climbing community and flying community are certainly somewhat intertwined. And so I had connections and had friends and I would watch, you know, their videos and hear their stories, whether it be a big XC flight or, you know, some spectacular speed flying footage. And. Yeah, the, the flying on its own, uh, absolutely had, had captured my imagination, but, uh, so yeah, it was, it was a combination of that, but also being intrigued at the possibilities of what I could do with it, combining it with my, my climbing and, and peak linkups.
Hmm. I mean, I imagine to where you were doing it, you're, you know, you're seeing people fly all the time. I mean, you're up in Leavenworth and cashmere and land, and, um, you were certainly in a part of the world that was conducive to flying.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it's funny, cause like I'd seen people flying around Shalane, but, um, until I got closer to starting my own flying career and got more into it, I had no idea how much of a world-class site it was. I didn't know that people were out flying these huge, you know, hundreds of kilometer flights from there. Right. And then I was like, oh, like that's my hometown. I need to go get into this. Uh, neat. Yes. So I go
down to the point where many of us learn I'm a, I'm an original that's where I learned as well, much longer ago than you did, but, uh, so you're getting into it. You're getting into mini wing speed, flying then. Um,
yeah, so then I started to travel a little bit with it, start flying other places, um, spent a good chunk of time flying in the Eastern Sierra. Um, that's a place that I'd, I'd spent a fair amount of time climbing and scrambling and skiing and such in the years before I started flying. And so it was super fun to then go out there with the wing and, you know, go speed, fly all these lines that I'd done on skis previously. Um, and yeah, that was a good introduction to, you know, launch. Off of higher peaks, doing some more technical launches, managing like proper big mountain conditions, uh, you know, learning about, uh, flying the speed wing early before it got thermic and before the air got all mixy. And then I would go out and fly XCs and some of the afternoons as well, early in the season and sort of, yeah, dipped my toes in the XC world there a little bit flying in the Owens Valley, flying the East side and then the whites as well.
And yeah, so I had a really good
time with that. I mean, that'll, that'll, that's a ramp up in education. I mean, considering you're just getting into flying, going to the Owens, it doesn't get much rougher or wilder than the Owens.
It was definitely rather, yeah. Literally, in the world. Yeah, I was, I was fortunate to have some, some mentors and, you know, people who would tell me, you know, how, how to get the more moderate conditions and to not go out when I was just going to kill myself. But yeah, it's a really good flight. It's my best flight was probably doing a, uh, an out and back from Flynn's up to boundary peak and back on the white mountains, which is pretty sweet from Bishop. Yeah. North. A good, good chunk of distance and back into town. Yeah. Excellent.
Okay. So how did this a hundred peaks? I mean, we, there hasn't been a lot of time since you learned how to fly. So when did this pop into your mind? How did it pop in your mind? And what is it? Define what it is. Cause a lot of listeners are probably unclear what we're talking about.
Yeah, sure. So I came to New Zealand for the first time about a year ago, last March, um, which is the end of the end of the summer season down here in the Southern hemisphere. And. Yeah, I came down for about three weeks, had a fantastic trip, um, had pretty marginal conditions. It was, it was quite windy for most of the trip, but I did get some good flying days and was able to fly off a couple of the high Alpine peaks. Um, sort of did this, this fun little outing that I made a short film about establishing a new round trip speed record on Mount aspiring, which is one of the prominent 3000 meter peaks down here by running up it and flying off. Um, and yeah, during that trip was just like absolutely. Yeah. In thrall with the natural beauty of the mountains down here, the diversity, the, I mean, they have really incredible steep vertical relief.
The mountains aren't particularly tall, but the valleys are all very deep. Uh, most of the valleys are close to sea level and yeah, so there's all these huge, like huge steep terrain. Um. So yeah, I knew that I wanted to come back, um, to give a little bit more context. I had done a couple of these peak list, like in a season projects before I did one in Washington and one in California. Um, and so, yeah, there's kind of all these pieces coming together of like, I knew that I liked doing this peak list in a season thing. I knew that I love flying and I came to New Zealand and it was like my favorite place I'd ever been. Um, and so I sort of spent the back in the Northern hemisphere summer sort of was, was scheming and thinking about how I could combine all these things and do a big peak list in New Zealand.
And yeah, I did some research and found this article online about this gentleman named Don French. He's a local. Kiwi climber. Um, and it was an article about him completing this a hundred peaks challenge and saying that it took like his whole climbing career. He spent 35 years climbing all these peaks. And so of course I was, I was quite intrigued and I did some more digging and yeah, I learned about this list. Uh, it was created by the New Zealand Alpine club in 1991 to commemorate their set their centennial year. So a hundred peaks for a hundred years of the Alpine club. Um, and it was basically put together as just kind of like a, a little, little game, little challenge for all the. Members to like, see how many they could climb that summer. And they're sort of hands. And is
this, is this the hundred tallest peaks on the South Island or in the whole country?
So it's actually not based on any numbers. It's not based on height or prominence. It's just kind of a, a, like a handpicked selection of peaks, um, intended to be sort of a diverse set to showcase, uh, yeah, just kind of the diversity of amounts here. So it has the, the shorter North Island volcanoes. It has like, it does include a lot of the highest peaks. So Mount Coke and Mount Tasma. And mass firing the, most of the 3000 meter peaks are on the list, but there's also a lot of lower peaks that wouldn't make any kind of a height list, but have their own sort of interesting aesthetics, interesting climbing, cultural significance, things like that. Um, which I really appreciate because like, for me, like applying the hard numbers to the mountains, like feels quite limiting, um, versus going out and hand selecting the peaks that are aesthetic from a human perspective, um, results in a much more interesting list.
Yeah, love it. Oh, very cool. That's so that, that list began, what was his name and when was that?
So Don French completed the list in 2020, I believe it was.
Oh, recently. Yeah. Oh, wow.
Yeah. But the list was created in 1991. Yeah. So, so he's been, he's been a good while on it. Um, I've been fortunate to, to meet and become friends with Don. He's, he's an absolutely wonderful guy. And we've had, we've shared a lot of good stories. Um, cool. But yeah, so that's how I found out about the list. I was intrigued. I plotted all the points out on a map, looked at it and my first impression was like, oh yeah, this will totally work. And then I looked at it some more and then I thought, oh no, this is completely impossible. There's no way. Um, and then just sort of spent several months untangling this, this web of peaks.
And when you say, oh, no way it was, was the first thought to do it like Don, you're going to climb them all or was the, was, was having the wing aspect always a part of the plan?
Yeah, it was always a part. I knew since. I'd done some flying in that first trip in March that I wanted to figure out some sort of link up project where I could incorporate climbing and flying and, you know, in chaining multiple peaks, using the wing to fly in between them. Um, the thing that I didn't sort of anticipate, you know, cause, cause the, the weather in New Zealand is sort of infamously volatile and fickle. It can be super windy. Uh, you get these really heinous storms that come through, you know, it's kind of just out by itself in the middle of the South Pacific. So, um, it can be. Quite bad, but I got fortunate that this summer was actually, uh, quite good for a number of reasons. Um, just the, the way that the pressure differentials on the side of the, either side of the island worked out and sort of the angle of the jet stream blowing more parallel to the crest of the mountains rather than perpendicular as it, as it typically does, um, resulted in generally lower winds and longer high pressure windows than average.
Um, and so I was anticipating being able to fly. I was expecting that I was going to be able to just like pick. A select few, like most crucial link ups that I'd be doing, like, you know, maybe one or two of a month and then otherwise it was just going to be a lot of traditional climbing on foot, but just sort of the way that things worked out with the conditions, um, I ended up being able to fly a lot more than that, which was awesome.
And what, you know, Will Gadd taught me that style's really important. What, what were your rules? If any, did you have any rules?
Yeah, absolutely. So, um, first and foremost, no. Helicopter transport, that's kind of becoming a standard for climbing in New Zealand where people are using helicopters to approach a high Alpine hut or a high base camp. Um, there's obviously pros and cons of either style, but for me personally, like, you know, the experience starts at the bottom of the mountain and, and a long heinous approach is, is a part of the challenge and the appeal of climbing these mountains and, and that's just part of the game. And so, yeah, I did use a helicopter to drop off three food caches. But I never personally flew in one. Um, and then you did
that before you started kind of thing, or was this, okay, this, this zone here is going to need some food caches. Yeah.
And it, it actually, the, the, the caches went in, I had a friend who sent them in a couple of with a friend and then a couple were just, or the third was with some climbers who are going in anyways. Um, but I didn't drop them off myself. So I never rode in a helicopter. Um, okay. And then, yeah, I also used a two wheel drive van. That was more. Just a matter of like practicality and saving money. But a lot of people use like big overlanding rigs to drive up some of these long river valleys. Um, and I ended up doing some very long walks and bike rides instead. So it was all kind of human, human power from the two wheel drive car park. Um, and yeah, I didn't use any power boats either. So a couple of spots where I could have used like a, a, a power boat to approach, but used to see kayak instead.
You mean like down in the sounds, like in doubtful and Milford and that, some of that. Yeah, exactly. So
I paddled on Milford sound and I paddled on Lake town, the, which has some long fjords on it.
Holy cow, man. I mean, that's some super treat zone. Yeah. Well, okay. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get to that. Uh, and I know that area, not like you do, but I know that area. I remember the, uh, what do they call them down there? The not no see them. Uh,
oh, the sand flies. Yeah. Oh my God. They can be pretty horrific. Yeah. Yeah.
I'll take, I'll take Alaska mosquitoes a hundred times over. Those little guys. Oh my God. They're vicious and vicious for weeks afterwards. The
interesting thing about sand flies is that different people's reaction to them can vary pretty massively. So for me, I react to mosquitoes way worse than the sand flies. So the sand flies were certainly annoying, but, but Alaska mosquitoes definitely worse for me.
Oh my God, man. My ankles just look like I needed to go to the hospital.
My, my, my, my girlfriend is the same way. I looked like she had some like crazy leprosy or something after the sand flies. Oh my God. Got to
her. Okay. So how many people have done it other than Don? One me. Really? Yeah. Really? Whoa. Yeah. It took him most of his life. It, how long did it take you?
Uh, 103 days.
You did a hundred peaks in 103 days. Was it, was that a goal or did, I mean, or did it just go?
So the, like the inner season was definitely the goal. Um, oh, so, so yeah. Yeah. So that's how I'd approached those, those previous two people. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a totally different style than, than making it like a life bucket list. Um, it's kind of taking like a, a, a through hiker mentality and applying it to these peak lists, just being like, okay, I'm going to go out every day, day after day, after day until I'm done with it. Um, I did kind of deliberately avoid having a specific time goal. Um, a lot of people asked me if I was going to try to do it in under a hundred days. And I was, I was very sort of deliberately trying to avoid slipping into that mentality. Just because of the nature of these technical routes and, and doing the climb and fly. And you
just didn't want to put that kind of pressure, right? Exactly. I wanted to, I wanted to make mistakes. Don't you?
Yeah. I wanted to avoid putting any external pressures on myself to like fly if the conditions weren't right for it. Um, so yeah, I was really trying to manage that, that risk.
How many, how many, what was the most peaks you got in a 24 hour period?
I think, let's see.
Okay. Okay. Okay. So the day that I did four peaks, which were on the list, and there's also a fifth peak that I climbed that day that wasn't on the list. I climbed it essentially to be able to launch higher and get a better glide to a spot on the glacier I was trying to get to. So four list peaks, five total.
And what were, what was your kit? What was, what was on your back mostly? Did it change constantly depending on the, I mean, did you have really good information on all these places and you kind of knew, okay, this was going to require some gear and this was a hike and this was a fly potentially, or how do you do, how do you handle all that?
Yeah, it was a little bit of a mixed bag with the, um, sort of the route information that I got. Some of these peaks are relatively popular and get climbed often. I was able to find good information on those routes, but many of them are quite, quite obscure. Um, some of them have seen less than 10 total ascents and yeah, really just really, yep. Yep. Some of them are pretty, pretty remote and seldom climbed. So yeah, it was definitely the, the, the whole spectrum of, of route information. Um, my kit varied equally as much, um, just cause the diversity of the train, but for example, in that sort of that highest high Alpine section, the, the, the Mount Cook region, um, I was carrying, uh, you know, my, my wing Nova Bantam was, was my standard. I used a couple of different wings, but, but that one was my preferred, um, with of course lightweight harness.
And then I had, you know, mountaineering boots, steel crampons for the steep ice climbing two tools, two Petzl goalie ice tools. Um, I carried a, a repel line, a 60 meter repel line for that section. Um, a couple of ice screws, V-thread tool, you know, food for the day, fats and sugars, um, lightweight mountaineering harness and yeah, just the other odds and ends, electronics, rescue beacon, uh, tracking camera, phone, things like that.
Your harness was just webbing harness. Are you carrying a reserve and any kind of that, or just like a thin red line or something?
Yeah, it was just a, uh, it was the ozone F light and yeah, I wasn't flying with a reserve and yeah, so it was basically just the absolute minimal flying kit. It was like less than two kilogram flying kit.
Okay. And the Nova Bantam, I'm not familiar with that wing. Is that a lightweight, what, is that a single surface or is that an XC wing?
No, it's, it's, it's a, it's a mini wing. Um, so it gets a, a class D rating, but it's like a 12 meter wing. So it's like hard to, hard to translate. Um,
so you're just descending, you're not going anywhere with that wing. You're, you're just getting down to try to get to the next descent.
Exactly. But I ended up flying two wings. So I flew that, um, definitely preferred that it's, it's, it's a much more dynamic fun wing to fly. So if I was doing any, like any kind of terrain flying or speed flying style, I would prefer to have that wing. It's also better for launching in high winds. Um, but I also flew a, uh, 16 meter do deck run and fly single skin a fair bit as well. Just cause that one's, you know, it's lighter. It's a smaller pack. Okay. Um, and that one, I actually did fly some like fairly short XCs. I was never launching low and landing high, but I had a couple of times where I'd launch off a summit into like mid afternoon conditions and be able to boat my way along to get further out towards my exit. So I think my longest flight on the, on the single skin was 25 kilometers.
What was the longest period of time between resupplies or like car to car kind of thing where you often out days at a time, just bagging peaks or. Was it, was it mostly each day kind of attacks?
Yeah. So I had my, my one longest one was 11 days that was in the Mount Cook region, which I had sent in those, those resupplies for, um, I also did a couple of trips that were about a week and those I was carrying all of my own stuff on my back for, so I had some heavy packs to start out for those with a, with a week's worth of food. Other than those three, it was mostly, you know, one to three day outings fairly short.
Okay. You, and you said you didn't want to put external. Pressure on yourself, but when you're getting to kind of 80 and you're looking at, um, about 80 days in, was there some, I mean, was there, did it become a, was there any time you're just racing? You just go, okay, I gotta get, I gotta, I gotta take these off. I'm going to try to do this a hundred days.
Honestly. No. Um, like it was definitely, I was aware of it, but I had like put so much like deliberate decision-making into avoiding any external time pressure that it. I just didn't really bother me. Um, especially because like, as I was getting close to that a hundred day window, I knew, cause I still had this, this one quite technical link up left, which ended up being what I finished with on the last day. And I knew that I needed perfect weather for that. It was going to be flying off one of the highest peaks, a 3000 meter peak, and then doing a top landing, like high on the shoulder of the next peak over. And I knew I didn't want to do that in anything less than perfect conditions. And so I kind of just surrendered to like, okay, like I'm going to do this day when the weather's perfect for it and not any sooner. So like, it's not really up to me at that point.
It's just waiting for the perfect day for it.
You just finished a little over a week ago. Uh, you're young, 25, you've been playing in the mountains for quite a while. I've done, I've never done something exactly like this at all, but I've done some long trips in the mountains. Uh, when it's fresh like this, I'm wondering what surprising thing has happened in the last week. What, what, what is. Kind of come home. To roost in your mind about what you've just done that maybe you weren't prepared for.
I'd know about not being prepared for this, but maybe it wasn't expecting it. Um, after all of my other previous big trips and projects and things like that, um, I finished and kind of immediately had like, sort of this feeling of like, you know, something missing and like a little bit of anxiety and emptiness, like the post-trip depression. A lot of people call it where, you know, like. I had like done this big thing and I'd been planning it and so focused on it for months and months and months, and then it sort of left this hole of like, Oh, like what, what am I supposed to do now? I hate the, that's exactly what I
was getting at. I hate the getting it done, but,
but shockingly, and this generally was surprising and a pleasant surprise upon finishing this, there hasn't been any of that. Really? And I think it was, I think it was because it was just like such a significant emotional and mental load that it just feels good
that we got through it.
to just like relax and just like turn my brain off a little bit and and just i've basically just been living a an easy vacation life here in wanaka for the last couple weeks after finishing i've been i mean i've still been flying but i've just been flying at the uh that's sort of the standard paragliding site it's a nice drive up launch i've been doing some some short hikes above it but nothing technical at all just having fun flying my speed wing and yeah going and eating good food with my girlfriend and it's definitely it's it's it's a new feeling for me as someone who's like always sort of waking up and be like okay like what's next like what's what's the big adventure for the day it actually feels quite good to feel like i've almost like earned some space to just relax for a little bit and i'm sure that that's going to come back soon and the you know the itchy feet and the antsiness is going to be here soon but i've been pleasantly surprised by by how how much i've been willing to just sort of settle down and relax for a little bit
hmm tell me about your girlfriend uh how was this on her you mean was there's there's always room
for a little bit of time to like to do that stuff you know there's always room for a little
risk involved in the mountains especially big ones and especially when you add a wing to it how what was this like for her have you had a chance to ask her
yeah yeah we definitely had some discussions about and lots of long discussions about it uh when i was in the planning phase before i before i started before i left um and because yeah i mean it definitely is a decision that we had to make together because you know obviously we care about each other a lot and you know she wants to see me excel and and do things that that challenge me and things that i'm excited about but at the same time of course she wants me to be safe and so yeah we had a lot of discussion about how i was gonna you know how my decision making process was going to work how i was going to really do my best to manage the risks um but yeah it was definitely hard for her i know that she spent a lot of late nights up watching the tracker and you know there were because i had a live tracker on on a website throughout the project and there were plenty of times that you know i'd be going and maybe get to a crux section and not move for a couple hours trying to figure out some technical bit of climbing and i'm sure that was really stressful for her
um but yeah she actually she ended up coming down and and sort of being a support crew for the last few weeks of the project which was fantastic being able to have someone to drive the van around and you know buy me food and feed me and and keep keep me moving keep me motivated so yeah she's been a huge emotional help for sure um but yeah i'm sure that i'm sure that both both she and my parents are are pretty relieved to see me done with it
did you keep pretty good stats i mean do you have any that you could rattle off you know vertical ascent miles on foot or kilometers it would be more accurate i guess and uh you know like how many peaks did you fly off let's hear some of those yeah
so i actually uh just put together a slideshow which i gave for the first time last night here in wanaka um and so yeah let's see if i can remember it was 160 000 kilometers about 500 000 vertical meters of ascent and i did 80 flights and i think 60 64 of those flights were off of off of the summits of mountains so out of 100 i flew off well over half of them yep and then i did i did five top landings either on top of or quite near to to the summit of a peak and yeah give
me the the distance between the summits of the mountains and the mountains and then i did the distance again what did you say 160 000 kilometers no
1600 1600 kilometers i was gonna say
wait what um
and that that was just the human power distance that doesn't include the flying distance
right right right okay so you between you know to get to another zone you could use your car you could use your van
correct yeah so i was driving from trailhead to trailhead and then on any given day i would show up at the trailhead go climb the peak maybe like fly down to the shoulder the next peak climb that one then fly back to the car sort of the standard day
gotcha yeah okay hardest moment and that could be mental or physical what was what was the was there a time in it where you're doubting yourself yeah
definitely a a lot it was probably the most emotionally challenging three months of my life um but the a significant one that comes to mind was i uh actually in in the zone that we were talking about kayak and i was in the zone that we were talking about kayak and i was in the zone that we were talking about kayak and i was in the zone that we were talking about kayak and i was in the in the fjordlands i had paddled up lake tayano um to approach this peak called mount irene it's one of the most remote peaks in new zealand it's just really difficult to get to by any any route so i paddled like uh i think it was close to a 20 mile paddle up the southward of lake tayano and then spent you know basically a full day bush bashing up to a high camp and then did this long alpine traverse to get out there climbed the peak and then was actually on my way back to kind of reversing this alpine traverse and it was kind of kind of a funny almost like a silly use of the wing but basically there's a section on this alpine traverse that i had to drop below bush line for a second do some bush bashing and then come back up and into the sort of subalpine grassiness and just because the shape of the terrain i realized that i could make this like literally like 30 second long flight to sort of cut across this gully to bypass this bush whacking section and so and conditions were fine the wind was fairly light it was like an easy
launch like a grassy you know slope landing and i was like oh yeah there's no problem so i launched made the flight landed it felt like i was coming in for a fine landing but some of the grass here they call it tussock it's like these really lumpy sort of tufts of grass yeah and so i landed in it and just came down with my feet a little weird and sprained one of my ankles quite badly it was like the full like loud pop it swelled up it got huge and so i basically had to do this exit you know finishing doing all this like butt scooting over talus and stuff and then the whole big bushwhack and this long kayak out so i ended up traveling for like two days getting back out from this really remote place on this very painful very swollen ankle and that was definitely quite quite emotionally taxing and at that point you know for the first couple of days there it felt bad enough that i was wondering whether the whole project was in jeopardy and whether i was just gonna have to call it quits how
fast you come back from the i mean sprains can take weeks that was it was it pretty quick recovery yeah
so i spent a few days just sitting on the couch not moving which honestly aside from the spray and like my body totally appreciated like my the first day out i literally just slept the entire day i would like wake up for like 20 minutes at a time to just like eat a bunch of food and chocolate and stuff and go back to sleep um so yeah i got some good recovery there um and yeah did my best to you know do all the all the pt things and was back on it a few days later and spent the next week kind of just like hobbling just like doing this peg leg thing like I could, I could wait it straight down. I just couldn't really articulate it. So I was doing this like peg leg hobbling. I'd be like up scrambling on a ridge and like, instead of using my toe to stand on edges, I'd be using my heel to stand on edges. Oh man, which is hard on the other side of your
body. Then you start, then you start seeing how that's all affecting the other foot and the other ankle and the other hip.
Absolutely. Yeah. My hips got super sore from the imbalance, but it all kind of ironed itself out. And by, yeah, maybe two weeks later felt fairly normal again.
How much as a percentage of the trip, would you say you were starving? Starving? Not like you're going to die starving, but how much, how much would you say, how much, how often did you think about food?
Oh, pretty constantly. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe 85 % anytime other than having just eaten a good meal. Yeah. And that's honestly, that's one of the sort of one of the logistical cruxes of doing these long continuous physical efforts is just keeping enough calories in your body. So yeah, I was eating constantly. Fortunately, the, um, the, there's this absolutely wonderful snack they have down here. They have these meat pies and they sell them just like at all the grocery stores and gas stations. They're totally delicious. They have these like mince and cheese meat pies. And I already like three or four of those a day.
Right. High calorie. Oh yeah. It's like
this dense brick of buttery deliciousness.
Right. It's funny that you say buttery delicious. I've spent enough time in New Zealand that I got so sick of meat pies.
I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I'm actually kind of, I'm dreading, I'm dreading coming back to the States. Cause I know that I won't have my meat pies.
Yeah. You just, you need a couple more years. I've spent a lot of time down there, but uh, that's okay. So how about the flip side of that? What was, you know, 10 years from now, what do you think will be the highlight of this trip? What, what, what moment most sits with you? In terms of, I don't know, I feel like we do these things because we're chasing moments, right. And it must, there must be one or more. I mean, go for it, but which one do you think will live the longest?
Yeah. Once again, with a, with a project of this magnitude, there were many, um, but yeah, the, the, the one that really stands out, uh, probably my favorite sort of single day of the whole project was, uh, in this mountain down in the Darren mountains called Mount Totoko.
It's not super tall. It's about 2,500 meters, 2,700 meters. Um, but it's right near the ocean. Uh, it's in a really, really beautiful part of the country with all these just like super deep sort of steep walled valleys, um, sort of dense rainforest. And that's just like this incredible sort of complex mountain of, of really steep ridges. And it's just completely coated in, in, in glaciers and these incredible ice falls on all sides. Um, so yeah, I went and climbed that, um, had a fantastic alpine, climb, uh, the, the Darren's are kind of the exception in New Zealand and that they have really, really good rock. Generally the other mountains have pretty terrible rock, but the Darren's have great rock. So did this, uh, the Southeast Ridge route, which is a classic alpine or rock climb.
Um, so had a super enjoyable climb, perfect weather, you know, sunny, no wind, um, had this wonderful, wonderful climb, got on the summit and then just had the, uh, probably the coolest flight of my life doing, you know, a little terrain flight down the, uh, down the age glacier there diving, literally diving through crevasses and over these insane, you know, 200 foot tall, uh, Syracs, just diving down these ice cliffs following the terrain. Um, and so yeah, landing at the bottom of that flight after having this incredible climb and then like the coolest flight of my life, that was just like pure, just like bliss and, and yeah, it's about as good as it gets to
see. Yeah. Wow. Cool. Given the, you know, your, your, your, your, your, your, your flying part of your career has not been very long. How much, how, how many times, you know, at a peak like that, were you really questioning, do I have this? I mean, from what I remember, maybe I, you know, I guess the South Island is not totally treated everywhere, but a lot of the places that you're talking about, like doubtful sound and that kind of thing, you know, glide ratio and these kinds of things, was this something you looked at in advance when you were doing all your prep? You kind of felt pretty good about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or was there a lot of, man, I think I got this, but I'm not sure.
Yeah, no, I was pretty obsessed with my planning about, uh, you know, scrolling around on the satellite imagery, zoomed all the way in, picking out potential landing options, then drawing lines to each of them to check the, check the glide ratio and then checking the wind direction for the day and thinking about the valley flow and how that was all going to work. Um, I probably actually spent significantly more time planning hypothetical flights than I did planning my climbing routes. And so, yeah, I have this, uh, this Cal topo map. I did all my planning on, it's just covered in all these little lines that I was drawing and then checking the glide ratio and then drawing another one and doing all these things. Um, for the most part, just because of, you know, how, how steep the vertical relief is off of these peaks. Um, the glide wasn't really a major issue. I'd be able to get down to a river valley that was grassy in the bottom and then just fly as far as I could out that.
Um, but there were certainly, certainly a good number of peaks where it was really crucial. And it was like, I, if I get a headwind, like I'm going to be landing out in the trees. And it's going to suck. Um, and so I like had to pick, like plan those flights around good conditions when I knew there wasn't going to be any valley wind coming up. Um, and then, yeah, some technical landings in like, you know, narrow riverbeds landing on the one little sandbar that's, you know, forest for miles in either direction. It's the one spot that it's open enough to, to squeeze in between the trees and land. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of obsessive planning about exactly where I was going to fly. And, but, but like in the moment while I, while I was up on the mountains, I, for the most part was able to sort of trust that planning and trust the numbers and evaluate the conditions and see it. Yeah.
See how it would work. And then, yeah.
How much planning went into this?
Oh, months. Yeah. Hundreds of hours.
Hundreds of hours back home. You were back in Washington just pouring over everything.
Yeah, absolutely. And then the, like the planning didn't stop when the project started as I was moving. And as I was becoming more familiar with the mountains and the conditions, I was definitely continuing to update, you know, what I, what I thought was possible, what I realized wouldn't work, what I realized would actually work really well. And so yeah, it was definitely sort of a continuous process of, of updating my, my plans and, and yeah.
You had the, you had the bad sprain, any other injuries or close calls?
Yeah, I had a couple, um, the most significant of which, um, I probably won't go into a ton of detail here. I spoke about it on, on another podcast, but basically had an incident where, um, I had an incident where, um, I had an incident where, um, I had an incident where, um, I, I had, um, I had repaired some lines in the fields and then, uh, made a couple of flights on the, on the wing, which were just straight glides and then had to do, uh, another flight and do some rapid descending and, you know, while doing some spirals and wing overs to descend had, had one of those repairs fail and, um, basically bombed out with, with very little control of the wing. Um, but it was fortunate to be above just a nice grassy slope. Um,
but it was fortunate to be above just a nice grassy slope
and, and was really fortunate to walk away from that one. Um, but yeah, otherwise, uh, yes, several times you
had to, you had to rapidly descent because of weather.
No, it was actually because I was coming out of the end of this Valley and there's a, um, uh, uh, airfields where helicopters come in and out and, you know, it's, it's open, it's open airspace and I had, you know, it's a mentor broadcast on, but I have my radio. So I was in touch with them, but, um, yeah, I just didn't want to like, be in their business, you know? And so I was, I was basically above the car, just like, okay, I'm just going to get down quick. Um, so yeah, definitely a, a, a less than ideal situation. Definitely some, some questionable decision-making they're partially influenced by being so deep in the project. Um, but yeah, definitely a learning experience. So you had
to have some hard, hard self-talk. It sounds like.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was another definite low moment where I wasn't sure if I was going to continue or not. That was about halfway through. I think I was about 50 peaks in at that time. Um, and
why was that just because it was, it, it suddenly hit you the, the level of risk or was it more self-doubt more just, yeah, maybe, maybe I'm in over my head here.
Kind of a combination of those two in the, it, it just made me realize like how, how much my decision-making could be influenced by being deep in that project because it, it was the kind of thing where like, I never would have flown that wing in that situation. Otherwise, like if I was just out, you know, flying for fun and in Utah or California or whatever, and it was specifically because I was like so invested and so single-mindedly focused on getting this thing done is the only reason that I, that I was flying it to begin with. Um, and so, yeah, it, it made me very aware of like the fact that the being in this project had clearly compromised my risk management and decision-making. So I had to take several steps back and really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, you know, basically change my approach of how I was going to, how I was going to think about the rest of the project.
And I did sort of make a significant mental shift of from then on was really deliberate about not focusing on, on, you know, the timeline or, or completing the project as a whole, but really just sort of looking at each day as like an individual outing with its own, you know, with its own bubble of, of decisions. And I would just sort of approach, I mean, just kind of classic one day at a time thing. I just try to make, um, uninfluenced decisions for each individual day.
You said there were a couple of incidents. What was another one?
Um, others that come to mind are just like landing out in strong afternoon Valley flow. Um, nothing that, nothing that went badly, but yeah, just like flying these relatively low performance, especially on the single skin, it's a fairly slow wing. And so landing out, you know, in a lot of wind going backwards and then, you know, pulling the wing down. So it would drag me through the grass. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing, maybe super dangerous. Cause I was often landing out in just big grassy valleys, but definitely like, yeah, a little bit frightening.
Huh? What about, I mean, it sounds like with all this prep, maybe not too much of it was presented too many surprises, but I would imagine that you got into some areas that were, Oh, I didn't anticipate this. What was some, what was something that you really had to, uh, get creative to pull off?
Um, there are a couple of peaks, uh, like technical climbing routes that come to mind. Um, so one, for example, it's called Mount Barnacote. Um, it's a bit of a obscurity most commonly known for its ice climbing on, on its South face in the wintertime. I was up when I was up there, the, uh, ice routes were already out of condition. Um, the bottom half of all these routes had melted out. And so I had to figure out a different way to climb it and basically climbed one Ridge almost all the way to the summit. And then I had to figure out a different way to climb it, but then got stopped by this, uh, steep, steep cliff right at the top. And so I had to down climb all the way back down that Ridge wrap around to an entirely different side of the mountain and then climb a whole different face. And both of those routes were like total chossy horror shows. Um, so basically did like, like two of the worst climbs of the whole project on the same mountain, um, both up and down.
So up, down, around, up, down, it just like ended up taking a whole day. It's not even that large of a peak. It's, it's up on like the high glaciers and it only sticks out like maybe 2000 feet above the glaciers. Um, but I spent like a whole day on it. And so that was a bit, bit of a bit of a project, but yeah, end up figuring out a way up that worked. Um, yeah. And then another one that comes to mind also a bit of an obscurity it's called Mount Alba. Um, and that one, you know, had quite limited route information and the way that I interpreted one of the, you know, sentence long route descriptions was that I'd be able to go up the certain Ridge at a fairly moderate grade. I got up there, got to the base of the Ridge and looked at it and it was like, Oh, there's no way this is like very sustained fifth class climbing on really bad rock. So I figured out a different Ridge, um, which I ended up climbing.
It had this one crux section up this, uh, really striking a rep features like this 30 foot or that with not really any holds on it that I ended up doing this probably five, nine lie back move to get up it. And then learned after the fact that that was actually a first descent and that several parties had gone, tried to go up that Ridge and gotten to that Arrette and gotten stumped and turned back. So that was definitely some, uh, you know, making it work on the fly. And it's kind of funny. So the, uh, uh, a local climbing guidebook author was actually at my talk last night and he was like, Oh yeah, like send me the, send me the photos and the route description for your, for your first ascent.
Yeah.
Very cool. Yeah. When you think about what you've just done, is there one aspect of it that really stands out as the most difficult part? You know, was it being hungry? Was it the technical climbing? Was it the flying? Was it, uh, being alone? Was it being tired? Uh, was it being scared? I don't know. What, what, what was the hardest thing about what you just did?
Definitely just the, um, the, the mental load of the constant decision-making and yeah, the constant risk evaluation. And yeah, I, I found, you know, cause I have, I have a pretty deep background now in physical endurance. Um, and, and so yeah, the, the, the mental, the mental load and the mental capacity was much more of a limiting factor than the physical. And so, yeah, that was certainly the hardest part was just being out making these, these challenging decisions and conditions evaluations and all these things. And yeah, the fact that I was incorporating the flying was definitely a big part of that. Like the mountains were challenging regardless and the technical climbing was challenging. But I think the biggest part, of that mental weight was just constantly evaluating the flying conditions, what the air was doing, what the development of the day was doing and thinking about how that was going to affect my launch, my flight, my landing, all these different things.
What was the scariest moment?
Probably fairly early in the project. I had a moment where I, um, I, I essentially was stemming in a corner and pulled a block virtually out onto myself. It was maybe like a hundred pounds. I was like, Oh my God, I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I was so scared. I'm so scared. I didn't even pull on it. I'm like, I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I didn't even pull on it. It was like like a little bolt down block of rock and, um, touched it. I didn't even pull on it. I touched it to test it to see if I could pull on it. And that little test was enough to just slide it out of place and basically had to hold it up above myself, reposition in the stem and then like press out of the way and let it slide by and then fall back into this, this stem in this corner. And so, yeah, definitely. Um,
well that's too Alex Honnold for me. Yeah.
I had a moment there as I was
fine. Yeah.
I had a moment there as I was just, you know stuck in this stem holding this rock into the cliff above me that i was like what have i done like i'm gonna die for sure how am i gonna get out of this because it was a pretty exposed spot so in terms of like yeah just like a few seconds of like pure fear and and you know awareness of my own mortality that was definitely definitely the most intense i
want to ask you about the solo part of it i keep thinking back to when i did the alaska trip with dave and i've said this many times on the show so i don't want to go into it but the you know there was stage one of that and stage two stage one we had the film crew and we had dave and then after denali he had to leave film crew left red bull cut us off the whole final part of that which was a significant chunk in terms of the distance it was more than a third but the weather was better and it didn't take me very long uh way way way easier that part because of the decision making like you said i
there was a lot less stress making decisions because it was only on me uh you know i didn't if i screwed it up who cares it's me i have to live with it but not oh man sorry dave i not that he would ever put that kind of pressure on you working as a team but it was just interesting it was it was a science experiment for me having the two sides of it i'm wondering if you've thought about that at all to me listening to some of your stories and knowing what you've just done i feel like it'd be impossible to do with somebody else i feel like you would have just gotten uh decision paralysis in some of these places yeah i agree i mean it was
it was such like a yeah such an intense thing and um such an like just an objectively hazardous thing like i can't imagine being on one of these technical launches where it's like you know mandatory throw and go to one step off and it's like kind of high wind like i can't imagine being in that situation with another person and and you know looking over at them and being like yeah yeah go for it like you first um or or or vice versa like yeah it yeah i i i don't think i would have even i guess the chances for
something to go wrong also are exponentially worse it's just one more yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah interesting yeah
so so i i can't really picture a way that it would have worked as a anything anything other than a solo project any
of it disappointing in some way and were there any were there lulls in it uh i mean imagine what the ankle is but was there ever any time where let me ask this more clearly what i love about these kinds of projects is that you're all in there's no anything else you don't have to worry about anything else you don't have to be anywhere else there's no social media back in my day we didn't have that now it's the that's a big thing but you know this fomo thing that you know many people struggle with all of us struggle with at some point is real right uh is there it was there any point in this where i mean i imagine some ways it's kind of difficult being out there and then coming back into the real world and then going back out you know you had to resupply you saw your girlfriend you had to drive you had to be around you know reality for a bit i don't know
i'm not asking a very clear question but just talk about that side of it
yeah i mean to speak to the sort of coming back out into the uh the front country uh it was quite consistent that the hardest part of my day would be leaving the car um just like yeah you know initiating going from being warm and safe in bed to you know putting the pack on and stepping out into the wilderness knowing sort of how intense and and potentially dangerous and potentially frightening the day could be um so yeah that was very consistently the hardest part of the day um but yeah otherwise like yeah i i love being fully immersed in a big project like this um you know there were times that i was intimidated and times i didn't know if i would do it but i would say the vast majority of the whole time i was you know glad to be doing it glad to be sort of making this this vision and this dream a reality and yeah i mean it's easy to talk about all the scary moments and on all the challenging moments but the reality is like so so much of it i was just in my favorite place on earth and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die right now just the most beautiful mountains i've ever seen and just absolutely loving it
that says something you know growing up in the cascades that you these are the most beautiful mountains you've ever seen i mean the cascades are awful special they're fantastic
yeah and i think that's part of the reason that i love the mountains here in new zealand so much is because they're a very similar flavor with the steep vertical relief that you know the hanging glaciers the tumbling ice falls down to the these deep deep green valleys yeah
did you use any packraft did you use packraft for any outs
i didn't know but there are definitely many times that i wish i had um i don't really have any any whitewater experience and that sort of felt like a lot to sort of take on in addition to everything else that was going on with the project um but yeah there are lots of long walks out these river valleys when it was just like a nice moderate you know wandering wandering river that i know i could have floated that it was like oh like i really wish i could just hop hop in that just cruise it all the way out to the car that's kind of a
sexy way out sometimes it
it really is yeah yeah maybe if i start flying more xc's here i'll uh add a packraft to the xc kit and then try to land at the head of a valley and float back out there's
a good buddy of mine this guy ty is up in alaska has been doing some really wicked big xc and and exit with the packraft it's such a nice way to go yeah that's that's very cool uh what's next how do you where do you go from here
that's that's that's the question isn't it um i'm definitely yeah i'm still intrigued and still fascinated by this climb and fly thing um but honestly i'm really excited to dive more into the world of xc and big mountain flying um it's you know i've dabbled a little bit but it's something that i very much still consider myself a beginner at um you know i've never flown in any comps or anything like that so i'm really excited to dive more into the world of xc and big mountain so i'm hoping to sort of go down that road a little bit and learn more about flying you know big routes figure out how to fly big triangles and things like that um but then yeah continuing off the climb and fly i like i have ideas of you know multiple technical routes to link up um i'd love to go to some of the greater ranges go to south america go to the himalaya and and you know see what might be possible before
you started the project what was the
perceived crux zone versus maybe the what was the real crux yeah the
perceived crux was definitely that uh that two-week mount cook area link up where i was doing you know a lot of the most technical routes some of the steepest you know ice climbing mixed climbing um and that actually all ends up going quite smoothly like it was certainly challenging and it was technical as expected um but i got quite good weather a couple really good weather windows for that i also had a lot of good weather windows for that and i also had a lot of good weather to wait out a couple storms but um that all actually went went fairly smoothly um and then yeah the the there were a couple of the shorter link ups like the the hopkins river link up um which ended up being about five days was quite challenging with um you know more technical than expected flying tricky launching conditions um i lost a pair of sunglasses on that link up and ended up like pretty badly sunburning my eyes and so i had to deal with that for the last couple of days which was quite painful and this is this
duct tape mask this is the duct tape viral and everywhere that was wild
yeah yeah that's
a cool idea it
worked i mean it was the only way that i was able to get up the last mountain i basically was committed to like a deep valley and had to essentially climb up and over this mountain climb up and then fly off the other side to get out and yeah i had a section of glacier that i had to go up it was the last day my eyes were like totally cooked and the only way i was going to get up that glacier if i figured out some kind of solution and see i made that up and i was able to get up that glacier and i was able to mask and squinted my way up it oh
we'll have that in the show notes it's hysterical i mean it's gone everywhere i'm sure everybody's seen it but pretty funny nathan there's a lot of people i'm sure and i'm one of them listening who most definitely have i would think considering your background have the flying skills to you know they're hearing your story going i like this idea i'd like to do some of this or maybe do that or what kind of climbing background expertise how how hard are you as a climber i mean what what do you what how much of this was pretty gnarly climbing where you've got to have a lot of technical experience and wrapping off stuff and not leaving stuff behind you know that what talk
about that side of it
yeah i mean it's definitely pretty pretty involved complex alpine terrain um a lot of my alpine background comes from the the eastern sierra now i spent a lot of time running around up there and yeah the the stuff i mean the routes in the sierra like they're technically challenging so you know i've done a lot of these long ridges like the evolution traverse the palisades traverse things like that and they have maybe harder like pure rock climbing on them um but the mountains in new zealand the rock quality and managing mixed snow and ice conditions maybe deteriorating ice conditions if it's a warmer day becomes much more of a factor um they're sort of like this this weird like in the summertime it's kind of this weird in between of like uh they're not high enough to be like pure alpine ice climbs like you might find in alaska or high in the european alps um but they're not low enough to just be pure dry rock climbs and so yeah you definitely have to manage you're like you know doing some like dry rock climbing on the bottom part but then you start getting bits of snow and ice mixed in as well and it's like you're trying to stay on the rock but then you have to switch over and you're avoiding the rock and trying to stay on the ice
um so yeah definitely having experience in that mixed terrain and and moving efficiently through and managing sort of the objective hazards and stuff with it is is crucial for specifically the mountains here now
my time in new zealand was really wet uh and i spent a lot more on the north island because i was sailing when i was there i was doing a lot of sailing and i was there for the america's cup and stuff so uh but it was incredibly wet even in the summer was that much of a factor for you less
than i expected certainly um and you you know you're you're you're accurate in that the north island is generally wetter than the south island um the south island also kind of in
the rain shadow and most of the places you're climbing i'm imagining
exactly yes the south island has a very dramatic rain shadow effect where the west coast um it rains like 300 days a year and then the east side of the mountains is all a little more of an arid almost a desert and so uh partially because of that i did most of my approaching from the east side up these up these drier valleys um and so it was able to get a little bit better conditions and i was able to get a little bit better conditions and i was able to get a little bit better conditions because that i mean i did certainly have a handful of climbs that i was just in like full-on like pissing rain nasty wet conditions um needless to say wasn't flying on those days um but yeah for the for the most part i got you know i i was able to pick and choose the days for the more complex technical peaks and and was able to get good weather for most of those
if you could rewind the clock to whatever it is 120 days ago you're just getting started anything you would have done differently and i'm looking for big stuff i mean obviously little things but you know was was there something you just totally missed yeah
or so there there are definitely many many little things that i would have done differently just like subtle subtle route finding differences and stuff sure um it's it's you can't be perfect on something this complex um but i'd say maybe a a significant one is um there's one mountain it's called it's one of the 3 000 meter peaks it's called mount ely de beaumont like the the um and and yeah so it has the main summit the highest point which is above 3 000 meters um it's a really beautiful aesthetic peak um it also has sort of this ridge that extends from that main summit out to the west to a lower high point it's really just kind of a bump and that ridge is is a bit technical and kind of a classic traverse um but when i was doing my planning uh basically the version of the list that i was referencing just said mount ely de beaumont and so i went and climbed it and flew off it and it was all sweet but then several weeks later i was on the phone with don french and he was like oh by the way like you climbed the wrong mountain um the one on the list is actually that west the after this technical traverse out to um and so the well the combination because of that and then also because i was doing like some of this top landing um i don't really consider like an official list finish in the traditional sense um don has been very i had a good chat with him about and he was very gracious of like oh yeah like it was your experience you took the list as a framework and made your own thing but that is definitely kind of a regret and a little bit of a thorn in my side of like oh if you follow me i'd known like i was up there with plenty of daylight left you know i had all the right right with me like i could have done the traverse
that's just but
i mean it gives me a good reason to go back up there it's the most beautiful one of the most beautiful areas of the mountains here so i'll go back up on another and and go visit that west peak for sure that's
really cool that he so he was he watching your live tracking the whole time imagine he was fascinated
he was and yeah so i didn't end i didn't end up meeting him in person until i was like 90 peaks in like it was really late in the project he lives on the north island and so i went and and paid him a visit as i was doing my little loop of the of the five peaks up there um and he like i i knew that he'd been following along i had no idea how like engaged he'd been in it and i was like oh my god i'm gonna go back up there um i found out there's this one night in particular um it was it ended up being my longest single day it was like a 23 hour continuous push and i found out he he told me that he'd been watching that night and you know i ended up going into like 3 a.m and he said that he couldn't fall asleep he just kept checking the tracker and just watching my dog knew like that last section when i was going late into the night like it wasn't interesting terrain it wasn't technical it's just incredibly
boring just watching a little dot on a map just walking
down this river valley but he just like
i was like oh my god i'm gonna go back up there and
couldn't go he was just like so invested and and wanted to make sure that i made it back to the hot safe and like i got emotional when he told me that like i was so touched that he was so invested and in you know my experience and and sort of this this shared connection that we have over the shared experience so yeah that was super cool
yeah oh man what a mate that's great yeah nathan uh congratulations uh this is really cool man i've been smiling so hard my cheeks are getting tired here but uh i'm really psyched on what you did i love these kind of pushing the boundaries things and you're young man i can't wait to see what you do with the future but congratulations nice push and uh i hope you enjoy your i don't know if they're your final days there in your new zealand or you can be down there for a while but uh enjoy have fun spend some nice time with your gal yeah
thank you i appreciate it and thanks for the chat appreciate it man talk
soon if
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