Last year, Becca Steinbrecher broke a foothold while climbing in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and took a 30-foot fall onto a ledge. It was only a couple of months later that Becca woke up and learned what had happened to her that day, including the heroic and miraculous search and rescue operation that navigated a thorny web of very tough decisions in order to get her out of the Black Canyon and to a hospital. Becca recounts the events of that fateful as they were told to her, and shares wha...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Fitz Cahall is the founder of the Dirtbag Diaries, a podcast that’s been downloaded over 18 million times. His new book is “States of Adventure: 30 outdoor adventure stories about finding yourself by getting lost.” But first, childless cat ladies may be a topic for some politicians, but we look at the childless climbers bringing their cats to the crags. Suffice to say, crag dogs are not happy, but at least we have figured out what animal is the best crag companion of all. Today’s final bit comes...
Oct 02, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Hobbs Kessler is a 21-year-old professional runner who ran a 3:34 in the 1500m in his senior year of high school. He has also climbed as hard as 5.14c with an ascent of Southern Smoke in the Red River Gorge. Hobbs just returned from the Paris Olympics, where he competed in both the 800 and 1500m races. But first, your curmudgeonly hosts roll their eyes at one of climbing’s most bitter personas: the climbing curmudgeon. It’s like we’re looking in the mirror! Today’s final bit is a mother-daughter...
Sep 20, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Amity Warme is a professional rock climber and dietician, who has not only free climbed El Capitan five times, but has done so each time in true ground-up style. This ground-up style is captured in an awesome new film that tells the story Amity and Brent Barghahn’s ground-up free ascent of El Niño via the Pineapple Express Variation on El Capitan. Our conversation ranges from big-wall style and ethics, to her philosophy and approach to nutrition. But first we dive into what the American Alpine C...
Sep 02, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Out #131: Drew Ruana Climbs Hard and Thinks Ahead Drew Ruana started climbing on the slabs of Smith Rock, and has since become one of America’s most prolific boulderers, with over 100 V14 and harder problems ticked. He’s currently a student at the Colorado School of Mines, and thinking ahead of what kind of career he wants in life, and how climbing fits into it all. But first, yr friendly podcast hosts debrief on their Olympic fever, and talk about where Paris soared, and where it fell short. To...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 21 min
Thomas Huber is our favorite Huber brother—no offense to Alex. He needs little introduction, and is one of the most prolific climbers of the last 30 years thanks to a resume that includes establishing some of the best free climbs on El Capitan and across Europe, to winning the Piolet d’Or for his bold alpine ascents, to being a member of the beloved Stone Monkeys. His new book Freiheit, In the Mountains There is Freedom, is now available in English from DiAngelo. But first, yer hosts consider th...
Aug 01, 2024•1 hr 19 min
Allyson Gunsallus is a climber and lawyer who serves on the board of the American Alpine Club. She is also the producer and director of Hand Holds, a new film interview series providing resources for climbing parents. Our conversation explores how climbing parents navigate the risks inherent to our sport with the demands of their new identity, not to mention the little person in their lives. But first, we’ve got a tepid Olympic fever and the only cure is more speed climbing. We give the run-down...
Jul 24, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Miranda Oakley is an AMGA certified rock climbing guide, who set the record for being the first woman to rope solo the Nose in a day. As a Palestinian-American, she recently made headlines by hanging a political banner on the side of El Cap. We discuss this unlikely nexus between climbing and activism, and imagine how it can go right or wrong. But first, fresh off a week of climbing in America’s new favorite sport crag, Kalous has some observations he wants to share. For our final bit, we’re sto...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Today’s guest is climbing coach Justen Sjong. Justen is known for his first free ascents of Magic Mushroom (VI 5.14a) and The PreMuir (VI 5.13c/d) on El Capitan, and redpoints of 5.14 sport climbs. His approach to improvement in climbing is far more cerebral than most standard training fare, and his intuitions and sensibilities as a coach have helped numerous climbers mine their untapped potential by clearly mental barriers and finding the present. But first, your egotistical hosts talk about th...
Jun 20, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Today we have a double-header. Two guests, same great show. First up is Rajiv Ayyangar—an entrepreneur, CEO, and host of The China Beach podcast, a show about his obsession with arguably the best sport climb on earth (at least according to him!). Rajiv might have the most niche podcast on earth, and we dive into where his obsession with this one route comes from. Next is OG Stonemaster Rick Accomazzo, who has just completed a new book on Tobin Sorenson. In the 1970s, Tobin completed some of the ...
May 31, 2024•1 hr 16 min
After Rock and Ice and Climbing magazines stopped printing issues, a hole was left in the climbing media landscape. Enter Michael Levy, a writer based in New York City and a former editor at Rock and Ice. He has recently revived Summit Journal, and reimagined it as a heavy stock climbing magazine for climbers today. We talk about climbing media and the viability of print, and what it takes to make it in today’s digital world. But first, yr crooked-helmet wearing hosts talk about Gumbies. What ar...
May 17, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Last fall, Jesse Grupper took home the gold medal at the Pan Am games, securing his spot on Team USA for the Paris Olympics in 2024. Now just a few months out from the Games, we caught up with Jesse to hear about how he is preparing and getting psyched to represent our country in lead and bouldering at the Olympics—all while balancing life as a mechanical engineer pushing the limits of soft robotics to improve people’s lives. But first, yr sticky, sweet podcast hosts get into a debate about glue...
Apr 30, 2024•55 min
Our guest today is #71 for the New York Jets: Wes Schweitzer, an offensive guard whose injuries sent him down a curious path of recovery: rock climbing. Since discovering the sport, Wes has fallen in love with climbing and uses it as a tool to improve his performance on and off the field. At 6’4” 330-pounds, Wes is considered one of the strongest lineman in the game, putting up 765-pound deadlifts well over twice his body weight. As a true professional athlete, Wes delivers some fascinating insi...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Will Moss is a comp climber turned traddie from New York City, who has been quietly ticking some of the hardest gear-protected routes in the country over the past couple of years. His most recent notable ascent is the FA of the Gunks hardest: The Best Things in Life Are Free (5.14d R). But first, we wind our way into a discussion about the elusive “undercover crusher,” and whether this mythical beast actually climbed the thing before everyone else, or if this is just what some bro is saying in o...
Mar 26, 2024•1 hr 31 min
Today’s guest is a climbing icon and legend: the great Beth Rodden. Beth was a youth national comp champ who went on to become one of the greatest female climbers of her time, with important first free ascents of El Cap and single-pitch trad test pieces such as Meltdown, a 5.14c crack that many say is harder and took a decade before it was repeated. Her new book is called A Light Through the Cracks. But first we talk about the elusive “all-around” climber, with Bronwyn Hodgins at the top of mind...
Mar 08, 2024
Josh Wharton is one of America’s top alpine climbers, with light and fast ascents of iconic peaks from Patagonia to Alaska to the Himalaya. His latest first free ascent with Vince Anderson, is called Suerte (5.13a, WI6, M7, 3,500 feet) and it’s located on Jirishanca (20,100 feet) in Peru. This ascent, which took years to “alpine redpoint,” is featured in a new film headlining Reel Rock 18. But first, yer friendly RunOut hosts discuss Kalous’ recent trip out to his namesake dance party at the Mic...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Dean Fidelman is a legendary climbing photographer, whose body of work and portraitures have come as close to capturing the elusive soul of our sport as any photographer ever has. He’s perhaps best known for his Stone Nudes series of fine-art black-and-white bouldering photographs, but his career first began as a 16 year old kid with a camera, documenting the Stone Masters era of Yosemite and all the legendary characters associated with it. His latest book is “Fidelman: A Body of Work,” an ambit...
Jan 30, 2024•1 hr 26 min
Colorado Climber Get Goin’ from his EP Get Goin’ https://open.spotify.com/album/3rZ3LOjSIw92djPAPerMkG?si=wUR1_MyuQ12mJjrLYlHn_Q
Jan 15, 2024
Alex Waterhouse and Billy Ridal are both 26 years old, from Sheffield, England, and have been competing on plastic since they were 12. But once slapping plastic lost its allure, these two climbers found themselves dreaming of adventure. And adventure they found, as they spent a month fumbling their way into the world of big-wall climbing during a month long trip to Yosemite National Park earlier this year. And the unlikely duo emerged from their trip with one of the greatest prizes in climbing: ...
Dec 29, 2023•1 hr 46 min
Mary Catherine Eden is probably best known for popular Instagram account @tradprincess, but she’s far more than just another online influencer. She’s recently ticked one of the hardest crack climbs in the country, Black Mamba (5.14b), joining a small group of women, if not people of any flavor, who have climbed 5.14 on gear. We talk about her love of crack climbing, progression, “eating her veggies,” and balancing it all in life. But first, your lovable disgruntled show hosts grumble about new p...
Dec 13, 2023•1 hr 18 min
Jakob Schubert is a four-time World Champion, an Olympic bronze medalist, and he has more IFSC gold medals than any other male competitor. He’s also sent some of the hardest routes in the world, including, most recently, a first ascent of Project B.I.G. in Flatanger, which he rated 9c, making it only the third route ever to be given this grade. Our interview with Jakob takes us behind the scenes on his livestream of sending B.I.G.; his ticklist of some of the hardest routes in the world, especia...
Nov 23, 2023•1 hr 34 min
Kris Hampton is the brains and brawn behind Power Company Climbing and the cohost of the podcast by the same name. His insatiable love of creating new things, whether that’s training plans for climbers or music, has led him to launch Written in Stone, a new climbing history podcast looking at monumental moments in our sport, decade by decade. But first, we respond to a couple of show listeners who had an absolutely insane exchange with climbing’s most notorious authority. No, we’re not talking a...
Nov 10, 2023•1 hr 12 min
RunOut #113: How a Race to Get a Climbing Record Turned Deadly This fall, two American women found themselves in an unlikely race to reach the summit of Shishapangma, and thereby earn themselves a place in the record books as being the first American woman to have done all 14 8,000-meter peaks (with oxygen). Unfortunately, both Anna Gutu and Gina Rzucidło, alongside their respective Sherpa guides Mingmar Sherpa and Tenjen Lama, perished in two separate avalanches about 30 minutes apart around 7,...
Oct 24, 2023•1 hr 24 min
Our guest today is Rich Johnston, the president and owner of Vertical World in Seattle, known as America’s First Climbing Gym (TM). He’s also the founding chairman of the Climbing Wall Association, where he served for 16 years, and a board member on The Mountaineers. Rich tells us about the earliest days of the climbing-wall industry, why he never thought climbing gyms would succeed, and how important culture and philosophy are to creating a community of climbers that abide by the inherent risk ...
Oct 10, 2023•1 hr 31 min
Today’s guest is Graham Zimmerman, an alpinist, a recipient of the Piolet d’Or and a director at Protect Our Winters, a climate-advocacy group. His new book is “A Fine Line: Searching for Balance Among Mountains.” But first, cave raves are all fun and games until your favorite crag gets shut down. Your favorite climbing podcaster hosts try to figure out where their personal boundaries lie for self-policing the climbing world. Our final bit is an original ode to Vedauwoo by climbing couple Morgan...
Sep 19, 2023•1 hr 25 min
Today, we’re releasing one of our bonus episodes from our Rope Gun feed on Patreon because the content is a PSA and super important for as many climbers out there to hear. Our conversation is with Alannah Yip, an Olympic sport climber from Canada with an incredible career. This summer, Alannah started a conversation about the prevalence of eating disorders in high-end comp climbing, fears about RED-S afflicting athletes, and what many view as foot-dragging by the IFSC, comp climbing’s governing ...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr
Our guest today is the esteemed Russ Clune, a climbing legend of the Shawangunks in New York, where he has established notable first ascents and from where he bases in between trips to dozens of countries and crags around the world. His new book is “The Lifer: Rock Climbing Adventures In The Gunks And Beyond.” But first, yr hosts try to figure out why everyone hates trustfunding dirtbags so much. Our final bit is some music from Lambros Markousis, a climber, metal fabricator, musician, and amate...
Sep 03, 2023•1 hr 40 min
Our guest today is a genuine legend and one of the pioneers of big-wall climbing. John Middendorf is a mechanical engineer, gear designer, researcher, writer, and teacher based in Tasmania. His climbing accomplishments pushed the limits of big-walls, adventure, and exploration throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. Most notably, he’s responsible for the first ascent of the East Face of Great Trango Tower, widely considered the largest and steepest continuous wall in the world at 4,400 feet, which he ach...
Aug 12, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Our guest today is one of the all-time great alpinists of our time. Colin Haley joins to the show in the wake of an uneventful trip to Alaska, and explains why such missions are part of a healthy approach to pursuing a lifetime of adventure and alpine climbing in the mountains. But first, your hosts return from separate vacations and commiserate over how easy and glamorous it is to climb abroad with kids, while still making space to sneak in some deep-water solos. For our final bit, we present a...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr 23 min
Our guest today is Albert Ok, a YouTuber and speed-climbing coach. Albert goes by the handle Professor Ok, and creates content that breaks down movement. He tries to break climbing down into its most fundamental parts in order to best understand it. He’s also a talented speed climber, boulderer, and all-around athlete. But first, Andrew reports on a little local controversy from Chamonix regarding one of the most decorated alpine climbers of his generation who was prosecuted by an authoritarian ...
Jul 15, 2023•1 hr 28 min
