Hello everybody, and welcome to episode four of The Dean Lounge. I call the Dean Lounge only to not confuse people, because we are changing the name of this segment starting right now. I put on my Instagram what we could name this because I am not creative enough to come up with anything. And there were some very good submissions. The one that I enjoyed the most was been There Dean That, So that's what we're gonna call this. So I'm gonna start this all over. Hello everybody, and welcome
to episode four of Been There Dean That. Today's episode is a very special episode because it's today's episode. I it did lie to you guys a little bit last week. I did say I wanted to go through these episodes chronologically or I'm sorry my trips chronologically, and I am getting off of that path right now. But I saw an opportunity and I had no choice but to seize it because I have a friend staying at the house
with us. Not only is she staying here now, but she stayed here for the whole week and got to ski and hang out with our dog. Gosh, what a great week that must have been having this house all to yourself. But if you follow me on Instagram, which I hope you do, you will know that I climbed all of the fourteen ers in Colorado last summer, with the exception of three because I'd already climbed them. It
was a big accomplishment for me. It was an incredible summer, best summer of my life, and I'm excited to talk to you about it. I might talk about it again later at some point. But my friend here, can we call you by your real name? Sure? Do you want to introduce yourself?
Hi?
Am Hannah, Hi Hannah, Hi.
My friend here. We probably did what like twelve of the mountains together, sixteen, you know, off the top of your head, sixteen, which is fifteen more than any other person that I climbed the mountains with. Probably well Austin I did three with, but it's significantly more than anyone else I climbed any other mountains with. So since you're here, I figured, why not just talk to you and see what's going on?
Sounds good?
It's so tricky because this is it's with this It's like, what do you What do I talk about? Because I mean, I don't know. It's easy to tell a story in a conversational aspect. But it's hard to be like, well, this is in this and that and that and this happened, you know what I mean, Especially when you're holding a microphone.
It's intimidated.
You've done interviews before, though, I sure have. So Hannah here for the uninitiated. She's a great marathon runner. She's been She's completed the what is it called the World World Majors, World Majors, And that's six marathons.
In six well in different countries and.
Different because there's the New York, the New.
York, Boston, Tokyo, London, Chicago, and I'm blanking on the last.
One Australia, Oh, Los Angeles.
What is the last one?
It doesn't matter. You did all six anyways, And that's great because I would never I would never run more than a mile. Even running a mile, I would just run out to the ice cream truck, run by that, driving by the house. That's about as far as I get. So for me to even be standing on equal ground with you in some other aspect of a physical accomplishment is it's you know, I'm proud of myself for that, I guess is all I have to say, but a true testament to your ability as an athlete. So I
met Hannah. She reached out to me on Instagram because I posted that I wanted to climb all fifty eight and I had done zero research. I had no idea what I was doing. I listed the mountains I wanted to climb by dates, and Hannah reached out and she was like, you're an absolute idiot, And I was like, what do you mean. She goes that you did, but at first you were a little at that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now that I know your personality, it was nice, but like you know, I was a little like, whoa this girl? To set me straight? Because there's a lot that you can do in the same day. There's a lot that you want to like link in the same loop or whatever it is, and I didn't know any of that stuff. And so Hannah reached out and she, like very graciously, was just offering up information, which is all I really
wanted at that point too. And little did I know that she you were probably at what like thirty or something at the beginning of last day was at four. I was at thirty two, thirty two, And so not only were you able to draw that experience and kind of help me plan my stuff. But you had obviously I had fifty five more to go, and so of those fifty five, you had twenty five to do. When we didn't do all of those, but you did for your much to your credit. Like let's say you'd already
climbed one of them or hiked one of them. I hadn't done it. You're like, yeah, I got nothing going on. I'll just come out and do that here for the day, which is great.
Right, And yeah, I wanted to do some repeats. I mean, I had a good time and it's good to stand shape.
Yeah. I think the very first one we did was like it was like the fourth or fifth one I did. It was Toys and Grays off of I seventy there and it was like early or late spring, so early yeah, late spring, so there was still a little bit of snow on the ground and we were like, screw it, let's just ski. It was great ski yep. Man, where are we going to go with this? I think it's going to be interesting because a lot of people, I don't want to say they like count girls out when
it comes to like the outdoor space. But I do think that there is like a perceived like harder barrier to entry.
Yeah, I would agree. I feel like this is a very it's a male dominated space.
Yeah yeah, And so how did you get into it?
So? I got into it with a friend friend from college, lived in Colorado, and was like, actually, we're sitting at a bar having some drinks and he's like, hey, do you want to hike a fourteen to tomorrow?
And I was like sure, went home googled what is a fourteen er?
Yeah, because I had no idea, and I saw it's a five mile hike, so much elevation gain.
I was Familinois. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I showed up.
We started at two pm on a snowy November day, and yeah, I had no idea.
What I was getting myself into.
And which one was that?
That was quandary. Actually, after that one, I promised myself I'd never do that ever again. I never wanted to do anymore. Yeah, that was one and done for me, and that obviously changed, obviously changed. Yeah, my first one actually so quandary. I showed up in cotton leggings, which is a big no no, and cyrel snow boots with the fur.
I remember that story. Yeah, yeah, I was looking good. Fortunately, the quandary is considered one of the easier ones. It is, yeah, but still not easy if you're unsure of what you're getting self into and you're wearing Currel's in November. Yeah, and in November, and didn't you say it snowed there or something?
Oh?
It was it was super snowy.
Yeah.
We were postholing down tour thighs.
It was yeah, okay, so you climb that with your friend and then did you take time off or did you just have the right away?
Oh?
No, I didn't want to do anymore.
Ever, Again, I had a friend reach out a couple months later and wanted to do the calibron, so the four that it's together, and so just to appease her, I was like, sure, I'll do those two with you. And then at that point I'd done five, so I was like, what's another However many more fifty of the math?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, what's another fifty three? You're already six percent of the way down with the challenge. Yeah. So the calibran is one of those things that I was talking about earlier, where it's four peaks within it's probably what like a nine mile hike that day or something like that, and it just it would be stupid to go up there and just do one of them and then go down. You might as well just do all four in the same day and then boom, you're done
with the four. So yeah, so I remember, well I did the Calibron and that was right after we did Toys and Grace together, and then you reach back out
and you're like, yeah, we're gonna go do Carson and Challenging. Sure, which that was the first real taste that I had of like big overnight backpacking for the summer at least, because we hiked up I think it was like a five four or five mile hike to base camp at the Beautiful Lakes, and then we woke up early in air quotations because it's never really early when when I'm going, And then we climbed those two and I remember because it was still at the point in the season where
there was so much snow And do you remember like having to go through the snow on the way up the Challenger.
Oh?
Yeah, well you and I took a different route on my friend Tyler kind of went up the snowy route and we just kept looking at him like what an idiot?
Yeah, and then didn't end up beating us the time. Yeah, well that's just a testaments how strong he is, I guess. And then the traverse on the way up to kick Carson, it was like, you guys were more micro spikes, definitely like what you needed to do. There was like ice down this big cliff side with like a tiny narrow ledge. It was very sketchy. I remember it.
Yeah, you didn't wear micro spikes.
I was too stubborn too, and I think I only had yak tracks too, so I was like these probably wouldn't even help me out if I needed them. Yeah. And then yeah, the way down that I remember, we were like this hitting all the way down. That was pretty awesome at that point too. In my experience or my journey, for lack of a better word, I was like, man, I have to do this fifty more times. It's hard when you first start out, you.
Know, Yeah, especially when you use the tougher ones. You're just like I have to do this again, Like this was really hard and I'm exhausted.
But in hindsight, do you think Carson and Challenger were the tougher one of the tougher ones, like top fifty percent.
Yeah, I would say top fifty percent for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, those ones were fun though, I do I and it just like because it started off kind of early with one of those ones. I do really enjoy like the overnight trips a lot more. Yeah, yeah, because you finished on Windom and Sunlight and yeah, Chicago Basin just to summarize that, which is great, and we'll get to that, I guess later, because I want to hear more about your finishing experience with it all. But so, how long did it take you to do fifty eight? Pretty quick?
Still, I started in twenty sixteen, yeah, and twenty twenty three, so seven you're good at math Son years.
Seven years? And what this last summer was the most active you were with it? Yeah?
So I did thirty five this summer, thirty.
Five, right, I remember that one of the ones we were hiking near the end. For me, you were like, well, I've already done twenty three, I might as well just do thirty And I'm like, who are you doing this for? Like what is the what is itself? Actually?
Which is funny, this podcast it myself looks really cool.
And it's mission accomplished. So you climbed all fifty eight, but how many do you think you've climbed? Like repeats included?
Probably, Oh yeah, I would say probably like sixty or seventy.
No more than that, I'd say like eighty okay, maybe eighty, let's call it eighty okay. And then the third you haven't done many thirteen years or now I have done like two okay? Is that it ever going to be a list for you to knock you out?
Yeah?
But a fourteen er is a mountain peak that stands over fourteen thousand feet. And correct me if I'm wrong on any of this stuff. There is According to Google, there's ninety eight in the U in the Northern America, and fifty eight of those sit in Colorado, surprisingly enough, in the Colorado Rocky. So there's like fourteen in California, twenty five in Alaska, one in Washington. I think that's it right for the most part. Sure, Maybe no, not Hawaii. Maybe I have no idea, no ideas, And so it's
really cool, especially like living in Colorado. You know, you have all of these huge mountains in your backyard, and a lot of people do make it their goal to climb them. A lot of people make it a goal just to climb one, just to climb three, five, ten. It doesn't really matter what it is. But the thing is they're not easy. And coming from Illinois, how did you adjust to the I guess the elevation, Like, did you struggle with the altitude sickness at all?
On?
Oh yeah, not on a fourteen, but just in general, just like in the mountains, I've definitely had a lot of elevation sickness.
I remember you ever having it when we did it.
No, the only time I've really kind of felt it was when my friend and I did handies and we slept on the top and the first few hours trying to breathe and sleep. Yeah, like I was waking up like every like two seconds because I would like try and fall asleep and then wake right back up because I couldn't breathe. So that was like the only time. But it wasn't elevation sickness. It was just like couldn't breathe.
Well, was it cold? It was your sleeping bag over your face or something?
Oh yeah, I was cooking.
Oh yeah.
When I met you and then you introduced me to Tyler, and you introduced me to Carly. Like your group, it seemed like it was pretty fifty to fifty split men and women, maybe even more, maybe even more favorable towards women.
Right, Yeah, So Carly and I had met on a hike prior, and I was with my friend Tyler. So the two of us were hiking and we met with Carly and we all realized we had the same pretty similar peaks to finish. So we all made a pack. This this is twenty twenty two, made a pack to finish them all together. So that was our goal for twenty three. That they had like half of what I had left, So a lot of those I was gonna have to do by myself.
Yeah, and how many? But you did zero by yourself.
Right, I've never done a fourteen and by myself, which that is correct.
That is quite the feat in itself. I like, I kind of wish I had more friends to hang out with going with me. There were times and you'll you'll you obviously know this, maybe not firsthand, but just through my stories. Is like when I'm hiking by myself, I'll just like literally sit down on a rock for like an hour doing crosswords and like take a nap and then I'm like, oh my gosh, it's getting late. I gotta finish this. And then I'm like finishing in the dark.
But what's nice is when you're hiking with friends is like they keep you, they hold you accountable, Like, dude, you can't just stop, man, Like we gotta go.
There was a couple of what you did stop on a rock and I was like, are we ever gonna move again?
Yeah, my legs are getting tired. I would like to keep moving, And You're like, well, hold on, I got two more crosswords to do, right, Yeah.
When we did Yale, I do remember like walking and doing crosswords and well, I don't know why I do that. I do just get kind of I don't want to say bored, because like that sounds really shallow capit of me to say. But when you do all of those, it's like they start to look the same, right, and you just kind of want to get them over with. Like there are so many peaks that I did where I was just like I just am doing this just to get it done, like I'm not really enjoying myself.
Yeahha here, And that's why, like the more challenging ones like obviously you're not going to sit and do a crossword puzzle on capital. Yeah, so they're just a lot more fun and there's things to you're really focusing on what you're doing versus just like looking at nature, which is obviously really cool and.
That's a really important thing to know it too for anyone that's listening to this wondering more about it is there's of the fifty eight, like thirty five of them are basically hikes, and you could do it with any type of fitness level as long as you're like capable to handle the elevation. It's just it would just take you longer. I kind of mentioned this last week on last week's episode. You could you could do it at any fitness level, just like just slow down and take
your time. But then there are certain ones where like it gets a little more challenging, you have to use your hands and climb sometimes, or there's a lot of those traverses that we did where it's like you could fall to the right two feet and your debt and obviously no one wants that to happen, but majority of them are pretty pretty straightforward. I still think to this day, my favorite day in the mountains was when we did the Little Bear Blanco Traverse.
Yes, hands down, that was awesome.
We so similar to what we were talking about with Carson and Challenger. You hike up, well, Hannah drove us up pretty dangful. So we only had a hike like two miles up, but typically you would hike like six miles I think something like that into this beautiful basin and then you like set up camp there and then you wake up the next morning. And I never wake up early. I am the absolute early worst early riser. I was the first one out of the tent that morning you were.
I was so shocked. Carly and I were sharing a tent and I was like, we can land, we can sleep in a little bit longer, Deane. It's going to take another like probably forty five minutes, and then you woke up and you're like, I'm ready to go. I looked at Carly, I was like, this is not normal.
Yeah, And that was my first time, meaning Carl two, she's everyone that we were doing those web I felt like I was the least physically capable person there. I don't know if that's true, think it's I think the only thing I had to stay humble. No, I swear to God. The only thing that I had it like maybe that I could have been better at you guys, was I was just like I didn't I wouldn't say, you guys are scared of heights, but I just like
that stuff doesn't bother me. So like when it gets like kind of sketchy like that, I'll just be like, oh whatever, this is fine. But like the hiking and the climbing and like all of the endurance stuff, like I'm getting my ass kicked all the time, so I have to make.
It until we go down and then you and Carly just left Tyler and I am the dust.
Yeah.
I think that was just a matter of like I just want to get to at this point. But no, that hike was amazing. So you we hiked up at sunrise before, so I guess we got to the first speak around sunrise. And this is touted as maybe the most dangerous of the of the whole escapades minus like the Bells Traverse or Capital Yeah, or Longs if you want to get technical, because most people die on lungs.
But that's just because most people go do lungs underprepared, and it I posted videos on my Instagram and you posted a lot of amazing pictures too. It's like you're literally just walking a tight rope for a mile and there are two thousand four dropped to your left, two
thousand foot dropped to your right. The stakes are so high, and that's what makes it so fun and what's great too, Like I would have hated doing that alone, yeah, because it what made it so enjoyable for me was like, you know, one of us are going into doing issue. I would be scared to do something, and then Tyler or you or Carly would step around and be like, oh, it's so easy. You just put your hand here and you just pull up onto this, and then you're like, oh, okay, I guess I can do that.
Yeah.
There were so many instances where we were like switching leaders too, you know, like Tyler led the first quarter, I did the second quarter, You did the third quarter, and they probably did the last quarter. Yeah. It was pretty great. So if you're thinking about doing that, make sure you're ready for it. But still, to this day, the best day.
Of mon Yeah, Oh my gosh, so much fun and you're just on the entire time you're just think like thinking about the next step in front of you.
You're just yeah, it's really good time.
Yeah. And then we went up and did Humboldt right after that too, which is actually really fun. I was I was pleasantly surprised by how fun humble it was. But yeah, and then what did we do? So then we kind of then I was at like forty or something and you were at like fifty.
Yeah, I think I hit fifty or maybe fifty one on that.
You were like going so hard from like late spring to midsummer, and then I think that you like kind of knew that you were going to finish on this day, and so you're like, Okay, I'm gonna take like a little bit of a break now, right.
Yeah.
Well, we had our finisher date already set in stone, like we had planned everything because Chicago Basin, which is where we finished, we had to have a train ticket to get into the Basin, so you have to book that ahead of time. So we knew the date that we were going to finish. We had a whole crew of people that was coming with us, so yeah, we just kind of planned everything around that day. So there was some timeframes where I wasn't really doing a whole locks they didn't really have to do.
Right because you already knew. It was like a foregone conclusion that unless you got up there and like weather didn't let you do it, yeah, that's how you were going to finish. And honestly, you saved my butt because when we were doing Carson and Challenger, you were talking about that Chicago Basin trip and you were like, yeah, we had to book our tickets. Thankfully we got the last ones, and I was like, wait a second, you
have to reserve those tickets. And I like immediately got on the phone with my brother when I got into service and I was like, hey, we have to get tickets for this train, and like you can't just show up and he goes, no, you're wrong, You're wrong. I was like, no, we need to call these guys, and he called them and he was like, we literally got the last two or it's sozing, which is so fortunate.
But let's talk about Chicago Basin for a second, because that Rivals It maybe wasn't as fun of a day as a little Bear Blanco traverse, but the experience as
a whole was maybe one of the best backpacking experience. Yeah, so you drive to Durango, you jump on the steam train that takes you up into Needletin, and then you hike six miles into this Again, it's so hard to not sound redundant when you're talking about this stuff, but like, and then you hike six miles up into this beautiful little basin area, and then from there you're surrounded by four peaks and they're not just like you know, we were talking earlier about the easy ones and the hard ones.
Those ones are all pretty technical more or less, but not super challenging, but like technical enough to keep you interested. I guess. Yeah, And that was an amazing weekend because we did it. I did it with my brother, and I know you did it with your friends to finish. It's just it's amazing up there, and you were with like twenty people.
Yeah, we had a crew of people. Yeah, it was awesome.
I mean, I made it super special because people flew in from all over Tennessee California just to come support, which is really really cool.
Did they climb them with you?
So it was like fifty to fifty.
So the first day we did the two elios and I don't even know how to say that word. But Elios and North Fiolis. Yeah, so we did those the first day, trying to wait for the snow to fall off of the or melt on window, which was our finisher, because it had snowed and it was probably going to be pretty dangerous. So did the first two first, and we had probably fifty percent of us do those, and then six of us I think were on the finisher day.
And what did you to celebrate up there?
I pop some champagne, We had some balloons. Yeah, it was great.
Yeah, my finisher funny enough actually, because you're in this story as well. It was an equally I don't want to say equally challenging because they're challenging in different ways. But we did the Bells traverse to finish, which you had done maybe like a week or two prior, but you had done the bells separately.
Right, I had done them separately.
And then the day that we wanted to do the traverse, it was just too stormy, So we ended up not doing that, and so I I knew I wanted to go back and get the traverse to do all four traverses. Yeah, so went back and did it again.
So yeah, so the Bells traverse is considered and I would vouch for it as well being the most challenging of the of anything that we did in the fourteen ers.
Right, Yeah, I would say give or take between that and Little Bear Blanca, But.
Little Bear Blanca was more like mentally challenging.
Yeah, and yeah, I would say the Bells is more challenging because you're upward climbing, so there are some parts where you're.
Like, do I need a rope for this? Like, am I okay?
Well, and we were when we were climbing it. We were like, I know I can climb up that, but if I go the wrong way and I have to turn around, I definitely cannot climb down that. Yeah, you
know what I mean. And so that was my big mental crux in the Bells was because your the roote is not at all well defined and there's not really much beta you can find online, so you're you're using your best judgment and and most times you're probably going to be right, but there are so many horror stories you have people up there where they go the wrong way and they get mountain rescued off or whatever. So that was my big thing with their Bells traverse because
there was a super vertical pitch. I'm sure you probably did the same one where it's like, you know, not super long, like they're you're forty feet, but you are vertical climbing. Yeah, and you're like kind of on like this little rat thing and so you're super exposed, no ropes or anything, and you're pretty tired of that point too. Fortunately, I think everyone probably goes through this. At that section, you're like, you get to the top and you're like, oh, thank god, that was the right way.
Yeah, well, if you do it the opposite direction, So we went south. Both of us went south to north. If you do north to south, you do need a rope to repel that part. So that was the part where I was like, hopefully this is right, because if I need to get down from here, I don't have a rope.
So I didn't know that's that good. I know that people will do it north to south of the interesting because I didn't really see any blay rings or anything up there.
Yeah, I don't know what they do, like slinging around a rock or something.
Yeah, but yeah, So then I did North Maroon the day before my wedding, and so Kaylen was an Aspen. My brother was an Aspen. I did it with him. And then my best friend was an Aspen. He lives here, I guess, so I did it with him as well. Got to the bottom and Hannah and Carly and Kaylin and my brother's wife were all sitting there waiting with balloons and cake. It's great experience.
Part was when we were waiting for you guys, and Kaylen is kind of duck down and we're like, okay, you're gonna give them this balloons and whatever. And I look over to Kaylin, I'm like, I love surprises, and she's like.
Oh shit, do you hate surprises?
Do I do you hate surprises? And also, weren't you, like, didn't you plan for us to be done by like two and we didn't get done till like five.
For yeah, yeah, I was like, I don't know what where they're at. They should be downe already. I wasn't trying to pan at Kaylan.
But I don't know why it took us so long. I mean when it started late, But I do remember it being like extra scary because it had it was the first snow of the new season, and like the descent down South Moroon into the saddle area was like super slippery and sketchy, and so we were like very very slow through that area. And also I'm not a very fast Sometimes I'm fast, but I would say majority of the time, I'm not fast.
Hey, folks, Amy and TJ. Here Matt James, a Bachelor Nation is our guest on the next episode of the Amy and TJ podcast.
That's right.
Everybody wants to know if and when he and Rachel will finally get married. Well, he's going to fill us in on the destination wedding.
Also, he'll talk about his heartbreak over a fellow Bachelor Nation alum, also talk about his fantasy relationship with Chris Harrison and would you believe this dude tried to blame me and Roeboch for missing a very important weekend with Rachel.
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We want to make sure you know that this is a rare and it's an extensive conversation with Matt James February eighth on Amy and TJ everywhere you get your podcasts.
When we hiked Laplata, do you remember that one? Yes, we were so slow that day and we got like such a crappy weather system rolled in on us.
That's because we started at two pm.
Which is also something I really enjoy doing.
Yes, I just remember I drove from Denver that day and I left at six am, and I was like, I'm gonna be at the trailhead at nine am.
We'll start And You're like, do you want to be for breakfast? I'm like, not really, I just drove three hours to come hike this, but okay, let's go get breakfast first. That's honestly why you're and we didn't start till two That's.
Why you're a great HEGs partner though, because so many people would be like, this is not happening, this is bullshit, whatever, blah blah blah. But you're just like, yeah, whatever, I guess you know, it's good to have someone that's willing to go with the flow, because if I'm always going with the flow, and if you're going with the flow and your partner is like very type A and not go with the flow, it could be a bad oil and water kind of situation.
Yeah.
That almost it gives in trouble because we started it too and it hailed it kind of storm, but it was like enough away, it didn't storm. On us, but it was there and it was just super windy and super windy, and I like ran down it. I was like, I'm leaving you.
Yeah, And I remember being way steeper than I thought it was going to be, so I like mentally wasn't ready for it, and so I just was so slow going up it. God, Laplata sucked. It was horrible.
I hate it. And that was my second time doing it. The first time around, I was like, I am never doing thea Plata ever again. Yeah, And then you're like, you want to do la Plata with.
Another mountain as well? I know you did Yale a couple of times.
Yeah, well I didn't sum Yes I did.
We don't even get into that. But didn't you say that you did it again or something after we did it Yale? No?
No, But there was a couple that I was like, I will never do this one again.
And then I did it again with you. Yeah, but I was just trying to be a good friend.
And and you were kicking ass. You got thirty five peaks.
Sometimes you get to ones where you're like, I'm never going to do this again. It was a horrible experience. I just am I just don't ever want to do this and then you're like, maybe I can redeem it, like maybe the next time I do this it'll be better. Yeah, some of them I would say were, But some of them I was.
Like, NOPEA definitely did not.
Read laplata, did not redeem it.
So there is how many ranges do you think there are with fourteen years? Like five or five? I think it's five five? Yeah, okay. One of those ranges in particular, I would can and I would text back in there like little group chat that I put myself into with Tyler entirely, and every chance I got, I would lament about how much I hated the what was it? Not the was it the littlest hoals? No, the little hous are in Utah?
It was the what is the collegiate peaks are?
Yeah? What is that one called?
I'm blinking collegiate peak range?
Wherever the collegiate peak are? That mountain range? And I would mention it every chance I got, like on social media to be like I will never come back here again, and I got so many people being like, you just don't get it. I love that place so much, and I'm like that's fine, that's great. You can love this as much as you want, but for me personally, an absolute grind. And there was like, there's like fourteen mountains in that range, and they're all like ten plus mile hikes.
And they're all very similar, and they're all very similar.
None of them are like exciting enough to be fun. They're just long ekes. They're long, horrible.
You're not selling these at all.
Yeah, And so by the I think the last one I did in that range was I was gonna say enormous Peak, but that's obviously not what it's called. What is the one next to Albert mass enormous.
Not a massive, it's just it's not enormous, it's just massive.
When I got done with that one, I like literally screamed on this peak and I was like, yes, I'm finally done with these mountains because I only had fun ones left. I had like the Elks and holy Cross, which I was dreading holy Cross but actually had a blast.
I love toly Cross.
Yeah, sneaky fun, but yeah, I mean that's basically all of you we got time for. Did it go by faster than any thought? Yes? I want to ask you some more questions about being a female hiker, because I feel like the listeners of this podcast, believe it or not, I would say I'm a majority female and a perspective like yours is so unique and so lucky. I'm so lucky to have you on here, and so I want to be able to pick your brain for as many questions as I can, But I can't think of anything
right now. What advice do you have for women who are considering getting into backpacking or hiking or anything like that.
I would say, find people to go with, Find like cool females to go with, because I think for me, like the biggest thing was if I'd HiPE with the guy, you'd always be like, oh, well, he's just gonna lead, like it's fine. But when you go by yourself or you're with other females, you're like you're the ones that are in charge, and it just gives you so much I don't know, you just feel so good about yourself,
like I can do this. I'm out here with my girlfriends and this is like so much fun and not like discrediting go with guys, and like, you know, it was awesome to hike with you, but like it's really cool and it's like just you and your girlfriend and you're like this, we can do really cool shit together.
I loved hiking with you guys, because like if as you were karly leading, I'd be like, great, I'm following these women. I'm not at all mad about it. This is awesome, Like just it's so funny because like the mountain doesn't care if you're a guy or girl, obviously, And I think a lot of ego gets put into that too, Like with guys, like you're saying like they just feel like they need to lead, but in reality
it's like, no, they don't. But there is just like this weird stigma around around that for some reason, I don't know.
I think a majority of people that do hiker guys or that hike these fourteen ers or guys.
Yeah, So it's really cool.
I found a group on Instagram who they're all females and they've all finished the fourteen years and I thought it was the coolest thing and I wanted to be a part of this group so bad that I like message them all and now we're friends, which is really cool. So just finding like that community of people.
So if you're a girl looking to get into hiking or backpacking or rock climbing or anything you would suggest that they would go on like Facebook can try to join a.
Group, Yeah, Facebook fourteen ers groups, Instagram. I just started messaging people. I would like use the hashtag fourteen ers or females doing fourteen ers or whatever the hashtag was, and just find girls that were doing it and I would just instagram message them.
Yeah, what do you think about like the gatekeeping of the mountains, How do you feel about not like this isn't particular to men or women, how do you just feel about that in general?
Mm?
I question it actually is for you because this is why it's such an interesting question for you and for probably majority of people too. It's like if it wasn't for if like you got into the sport at it, you know, in your twenties, and so if people gate kept all their information, it would be so much harder
for you to answer the sport. But now that you're into it and you're like ingrained in it, there are certain things that you want to hold sacred to yourself and to the people that you know that you've been through it with. But like, without without people opening up your eyes to it, it never would have happened for you.
Yeah, that's true to gatekeeping.
Yeah, and yeah, I mean I don't know. I don't know that's fair. So pro or anti I would say pro pro gatekeeping.
No anti anti gaypee take it back to get back.
I'm also insisted the question anti gatekeeper.
I hate when people gatekeep. I get it to an extent, you know what I mean. But I hate when I'm like it happens in photography all the time, where it's like you see someone post this beautiful spot you it's like a friend, and you reach out and you're like, hey, where is this just want to know for future reference, and they're like, ah, man, it's a secret spot of mine. I can't tell anyone.
And it's like, come on, I just think there's a level too.
Like the only part of me that would be pro for like for it would be just like the safety aspect, like I'm not just going to tell anyone they can go do some of this stuff because I don't know your safety level or your level of skill. Yeah, so that would be Yeah, that's my only reason to.
Your credit with that. I did catch some flax sometimes because I would always like underplay the severity of on like social media. I did the cables up longs, which is like a five to four, and it was not a five four. It was like maybe five maybe it
was maybe even less than fifth class. And I wrote about this on social media and I had a couple of people reach out and they were like, this, this is dangerous of you to be encouraging people to go do it or like you're like basically saying it's more safe than it is, and so someone could go up
there and hurt themselves. And I totally get that. Yeah, but if you're going up there to do that and you're not doing your own research separate of just my little Instagram caption, like you're kind of saying, yeah, that's kind of unyas anyway. Yeah, yeah, any other advice for girls out there? Do you wish you started younger?
No?
I don't think so. I mean, I mean I was pretty I'm when I started.
I guess you are.
Thank you. It's like, are you calling me old?
Well, I wish I started my late teens. My knees would be a lot more grateful.
Yeah that's true. Yeah, I mean my body would hurt less, recovery would be probably better.
Yeah, But I feel like you never really had an issue with recovery, maybe like some soreness.
I just hit it.
Yeah, I mean I was popping two thousand milligrams of ivy prof and every single day just to get through. And then I stopped after I was done finding everything, I stopped taking it, and my body would just ache every single day, And I'm like, what is that? This is horrible?
Is this what it feels like to be old?
Is this what it feels like? That's a a illegal dose of I'd be broken in my body every single day. What's your next goal?
Oh?
Man, I want to do half dome cables down. I want to climb the Grand possibly free sol.
Of the Grand.
Then Spalding right, yes.
Big term time goals. L Cap is up there and the Diamond on Longs.
Oh my god, your diamond is the coolest rock I've ever seen in my entire life. Yes, it's crazy, but it's also crazy too to think about. Like l Cap has to It's like the same thing but just twenty times longer. Right, Yeah, But what's special about the diamond is you get up onto Capitol and you're just standing right on top of it or lungs. That's what I meant.
I'm so sorry. Once you get up on top of Longs, you're like literally standing on top of the diamond, right and you look you don't really look down, I guess, because you'd probably fall off, but like you can get off to the side and like see this sheer two hundred three hundred foot clip just sheer. Granted, it's the most aesthetic looking rock I've ever seen in my entire life.
And that's the cool thing about the fourteen years is there so many different routes you can do, so now that I finish them, going back and doing like you did the Cables rout and Longs, Like doing the Cables route would be like a goal to do that, or just we saw Laplata that had like a really cool route, we didn't do it, but going back and doing that along.
The ridge over there, yeah, yeah.
And just doing different iterations of the same thing.
Do you feel like now that you you've made this joke a couple of times when we were hiking, and I totally agree with it too. You're like, you've kind of I don't want to say, like you made it your personality, but you did make it like such a big part of your life for the especially the remaining year. Oh yeah, you know, and then you finish it and then you're like, now what I like laid.
In bed for two weeks? Like what am I supposed to do with myself?
Oh?
Is this how life ends? Am I done?
Because a lot of those goals that you mentioned are they're great goals, but you could do those in you know, theoretically, like a day or two. Except for l CAAP, I guess ituld probably take a little bit longer. Yeah, plus the training for it. But it's hard to find a goal that takes you years, you know.
And yeah, that's why you always got set different goals, new goals after have a goal before you start the next goal, so that you always have something to look forward to.
It's really smart. Actually, that's good advice from Hannah. Start a goal before you finish the last goal. I might need to take your advice on that one. That's good. Okay, So we'll be sure to keep a look out for that. What's your Instagram plug it so we can.
All follow you, Hannah underscore on the road.
Oh wow, you shared your whole Instagram handle there. You just don't tell me to no, I know, but you didn't obviously you have to. You were just talking about how how you wanted to go under a fake alias for this podcast, Heather underscore on the Road Off the Bike Road. Yeah yeah, sweet, Well, is there anything else you want to add?
That's pretty much sums it up.
Are you sure?
I'm pretty sure.
I'll give you a second a thing. Okay, Yeah, that's all you want to add? Well, Hey, I wanted to say thank you so much for hiking those mountains of me. Absolutely, thanks for being a great friend. Absolutely, thanks for reaching out to me on Instagram. Absolutely anything you want to thank me for. All Right, that's gonna do it. That's
gonna do it. Thank you guys so much for listening to this week's episode of Been There Dean That be sure to tune in next week, where maybe we suggest a little bit less