Ground Up 18: The Sandstone School of Rock with Professor Joel Brady

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Joel Bradycool

(00:01):
Ari Grodebeen, Joel?
Joel BradyPretty good. Yeah, pretty good. Just, a you know, keeping on with university stuff and coalition stuff. Just got back from Harrisburg.
Joel BradyWe were litigating with the State Game Commission, which, you know, is an ongoing saga for the last three years in southwestern Pennsylvania.

(00:28):
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel Bradyand rock climbing.
Ari GrodeWhat, what's your role in the coalition?
Joel BradySo I'm the founding president of the Southwestern PA Climbers Coalition, and now I'm a board member and the current president and another board member of the director of the Access and Stewardship Committee and i and our lawyer all went down to Harrisburg because we had a mediation session with the lawyer for the State Game Commission and the regional director um to try to, there was a closure to like 20 of the best bouldering areas, climbing areas and bouldering areas in southwestern PA two and a half years ago.

(01:18):
Joel BradyBiggest closure in the history of the state and big deal for us. and we've just been going through a now pretty lengthy legal process.
Joel Bradywest with the game commission to try to get those areas reopened.
RobertHow's it looking?
Joel BradyHow's it look? Yesterday was super positive, I have to say. um Yeah, I mean, it it took me a while. We did like, there's a lot of legalese.

(01:47):
Joel Bradyaround it and you know like we have a uh we we have a really really a good lawyer who's also a rock climber who's doing all of our stuff pro bono ben khan is his name and bless you and uh we are like he has to explain stuff to me because i you know it's we're not
Ari GrodeOkay.

(02:12):
Ari GrodeYou don't speak? Speak lawyer.
Joel BradyI don't speak lawyer. there was There was an old reality TV show called Paradise Island. and was This was like early 2000s. And there was a guy on that show.
Joel Bradyhis name was Zach. And he would he would get into arguments and he would go, come at me or something like that. And he would andnie would go, I got lawyer in me.

(02:35):
RobertThank you.
Joel BradyI got lawyer in me. And he just like did not have lawyer in him, this character. and that's, I, every time we're at these things, I'm thinking about how much I don't have lawyer in me, like, I think I know how to argue, but then when, when we're doing the legalese stuff, I'm just like that, but anyway, it was, you know, we, we reached an agreement with the, with the game commission um that we didn't know that we might be able to reach, it's still not reopened, but we,

(03:05):
Joel Bradyessentially established some terms where they'll come back to us with some preliminary results from some ongoing research around threatened and endangered species um that will help them determine if they can do maybe a partial reopening or reopening.
Joel Bradyand we'll we'll see how that goes. The process continues. But yeah, we we all drove out to Harrisburg, which is like three, three hour, three and half, three and a half hour drive. um and litigated some stuff yesterday, which was... but It was a big... We've been building to this thing for months and months and months, and it happened, and now I'm coming off it.

(03:48):
Joel BradyYeah.
RobertYeah, I can imagine that's like a ah mixed emotions type of to say the least.
Ari GrodeYeah, well.
Joel Bradyyeah Yeah, it was. And yeah, at the end, I didn't know what had happened really, but our lawyer was like, wanted wanted to give us a big hug. And I was like, oh, I guess, we yeah, we won, I think. I don't know.
Joel BradyWe still can't climb there, but I think maybe someday we will be able to. And, um you know, it was, yeah, it was positive.

(04:15):
Ari GrodeThat's good. That's good. Yeah. Oh man. 20 bouldering areas. That's, that's pretty major. Um, I don't, I guess I don't know what the scene is like in Southwest Pennsylvania, but obviously that, that sounds very significant.
Ari GrodeUm,
RobertSounds substantial to say the least.
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah. It's the majority of our best climbing areas got shut down, honestly. i mean, there, there are still places to climb in Southwestern PA, but the, the best, best ones are currently shut down. It's a real bummer.

(04:41):
Joel Bradyum And, you know, it's the, it's the like standard story of rock climbers and sustainability and, you know, balancing recreation and conservation, all this stuff that is,
Joel Bradyongoing nationally with access fund and, you know, the stuff around, you know, fixed, fixed anchors in the wilderness and all that, like we're essentially dealing with it on a local level. And on the one hand, it's a, it's a huge bummer to have our best areas closed down, but it's also positive in the sense that it, it you know, it's like a real reckoning for us as rock climbers to,

(05:25):
Joel Bradytake seriously our mission for conservation and not just you know paying paying lip service to it, but like really doing data informed ah you know kind of conservation stuff. So and it's whatever. There's a silver lining to it.
RobertThat's good. Sounds like hopefully there's some progress on a couple different levels coming.
Ari GrodeYeah.

(05:47):
RobertIf everything goes according to plan, which areas are you most excited to regain the ability to boulder at?
Joel BradyYeah.
Joel BradyWell, as I mean, since I was a boulderer for so long, it is the there there are some roped climbing areas that are affected by this. um But the the bouldering areas, and I think bouldering is really where climbing shines in southwestern PA. There's there's good route climbing areas too, but you wouldn't travel for them.

(06:14):
Joel Bradyum they're they're great for They're great local crags, but no one's really going travel for them, especially since we have the new and Seneca and the red and the gunks. in, you know, some kind of proximity to us.
Joel Bradyum The bouldering areas, i would absolutely travel for, and people do, you know, people who who know about them, who take climbing very seriously, do travel for them.

(06:40):
Joel BradySo, Coles Cove is certainly one of those areas. um people People may know Coles Cove. I mean, southwestern PA bouldering is pretty under the radar, but I'd put it up there with, you know, anything in the south, you know, like stone fort horse pens and all that stuff like coals is rad and the vault is another zone that is currently closed and you know yeah probably probably coals probably coals would be the most the the most significant one but there's yeah yeah gritstone yeah like that that like perfect grit you know i don't know what the number is but the whatever the number is it's

(07:12):
Ari Grodethat, is it that same kind of Appalachian sandstone style? Oh yeah.
Joel Bradyyou know the the grit here is amazing and that's something i actually didn't know growing up um you know i grew up in this area and and started i grew up in the south actually but i wasn't climbing when i was growing up in the south and we moved up here to pennsylvania in about third grade and it still took me a little while after that to start climbing and then once i started climbing around here um All we all I really knew was the new and Seneca.

(07:54):
Joel BradyAnd eventually I, I found out about the Morgantown, West Virginia stuff, which is Cooper's Rock and then the Cheek Canyon stuff. But it it really was really late that I realized that Southwestern PA is just loaded with bouldering and like fantastic bouldering, not just sort of like, ah, you're close by, so you go do what you You know, you go do what you have to do.

(08:20):
Joel BradyIt's, you know, I would, I would absolutely travel for Southwestern PA bouldering. And I, you know, I don't really have to, a little bit. It's like, for me, north I'm Northwest of, or Northwest of Pittsburgh. So pretty much everywhere in the range is hour and a half hour and 45 minutes. So it's all day trip, day trip stuff and really, really good.

(08:45):
Ari GrodeSo it sounds like you've been in that area then for quite a while. you said you moved up there and have you been there the whole time? And then this could be a good transition, I guess, to jump into your introduction, your kind of what your earlier climbing looked like. I mean, Rob and I met you at horseshoe hell over the last maybe like five years or so. So I've only really followed along to your more recent climbing, but I, you know, I think I'd, I'd like to know, and I'm sure the listeners would like to know a little bit more about your earlier day climbing.

(09:15):
Joel BradySure. Yeah, I mean, we we moved up to Pennsylvania in 89, which I can't quite do that math at the moment. What is that? 20, 30, I don't know what that is.
RobertThat's about 36 years ago.
Joel Brady36, thank you.
RobertYeah.
Joel BradyAppreciate it.
RobertGot you.
Joel Bradyum Yeah, we moved up here in 89, and I think I started climbing in 95, maybe. 95. Yeah. five maybe

(09:38):
RobertOkay.
Joel Bradyyeah ninety five um so i was uh like 13 14 when i started climbing um and uh we had been in georgia and tennessee before that couple years in japan and uh but wasn't rock climbing uh and then but i did part of starting to climb i started climbing at a church camp in northwestern pa in imlington there was a little church camp presbyterian church camp called westminster highlands that had

(10:10):
Joel Bradylittle outcrop on the grounds of the camp. And it was like a rocks, rivers, and ropes thing. you do rock climbing, ropes course, and go rafting. And there was like a part of that camp that was, you know, it was like the most extreme I could get in my little bubble was, you know, like, yeah, we're going to go rafting and jump.

(10:33):
Joel BradyI don't know. I don't think the climbing part mattered so much to me. I remember the ropes course thing being made me a little bit more Dan Burke M.D.A.: : intriguing to me the the and maybe even the rafting thing I don't know, but once once I did the climbing thing I was really, really excited about it, and then we the second year did that I did that same camp, but it was like the more advanced version.

(10:57):
Joel BradyAnd we went climbing just a ah little crag in southwestern PA called Kralik, which is currently a closed one, not for the reasons I just was talking about. It's closed because it's on private property. And um just, you know, i was really i took to i took to it.
Joel Bradyah You know, there was something about that that was. I don't know what it was, but I, I did pretty well at it in having no experience. And it might just be because I was like, you know, ah kind of a wiry skinny kid who could, you know, had reasonable flexibility.

(11:33):
Joel BradyI don't know what, but it was just really fun to me.
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel BradyAnd we met a couple guys at that camp who already had their own climbing equipment. And we, uh, my buddy, Mike and I, We saw what they were doing, and we went to the camp the old Campmore catalogs, which I don't know if you guys know what Campmore catalogs are.
Joel BradyYeah, no. Yeah, just like two.

(11:53):
RobertI don't think so.
Joel Bradyah Yeah, I don't know how old you guys are. you How old are you?
Robertum We're both 32.
Ari Grodeyeah
Joel Brady32. Okay, all right. yeah i don't Yeah, maybe Campmore catalogs were done by the time you guys would become aware of them. It was just like a little paper, like a half-sized paper catalog, and it had camping equipment.
Joel Bradyand you could get like blue water ropes and we got that and like a belay eight and a carabiner and some harness and or couple harnesses and we started ah just we started climbing trees in southwestern pa because we couldn't find any rock we would just like but you know i didn't even know if we would belay each other no we would like climb a tree and then rappel out of a tree that was the extent of our uh stuff, pretty exciting stuff, you know, sport repellent and all that.

(12:45):
Joel BradyAussie, we would Aussie style repel, you know, just like running straight down the thing, just ridiculous stuff. And, um and then um i got connected with let me think what the sequence was we we went so my my grandparents lived in Asheville North Carolina and so I we we would always go down to Asheville which is where I would always pick back up my southern accent like I grew up with a really strong southern accent and then we moved up north and I kind of lost it and then we would go back down there and as soon as we would go back down down there I'd pick it back up and you know every single syllable word would be two syllables and
RobertOkay.
Ari GrodeOkay.

(13:26):
Joel Bradyum and you know because it was just I had friends down there and that's that's how we'd talk you know like that that was just it and uh and then we there was a gym down there in Asheville an old school gym and I remember seeing like people climbing out the the roof of the gym like a horizontal thing some old school goofy thing and I was just I thought that was the coolest thing I'd I had seen and we went and did, um we got, uh, we went out to Looking Glass with Steve Longnecker.

(14:00):
Joel Bradydon't you know the, who that is? He probably, yeah his name's on ah bunch of FAs, you know, all around the South.
Ari GrodeI feel like I have heard that name.
RobertYeah, I've heard the name. I don't know him, though.
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel BradyAnd, um, he was on the first ascent party of the nose on Looking Glass.
Ari GrodeOh, right on.
Joel Bradylike in like 67 or 71 or like early or, you know, long time ago.
RobertNice.

(14:23):
Ari GrodeI believe Rob and I have the ah the slowest recorded time up that route.
Joel BradyAnd.
RobertThe SKT, baby, SKT.
Joel BradyOh, yeah.
RobertTo be fair, we were doing it with my wife as well. So we had a party of three. So certainly slowed some things down. But ah we did not do ourselves any favors on that thing.
Ari GrodeBut I think it took us over eight hours to climb those four pitches.
RobertNo.
Joel BradySure.
RobertGreat route, though.
Joel BradyOkay.
RobertGreat route.

(14:43):
Joel BradyYeah. Great route. Yeah. Way to throw your wife under the bus. Jeez.
RobertNo, no, I was saying the party of three. She was actually speeding us up.
Joel BradyParty of three.
RobertYeah, yeah, yeah.
Joel Bradyand Okay. All right. Well, don't let her hear the podcast here because you have some explaining to do.
Robertso That's okay. She doesn't listen to it.
Joel BradyOkay.
Robertyeah
Joel BradyYeah. um Well, yeah, so we did, we did the, we, we, we went up the nose and I do remember. So by that point, I think I'd been climbing a little bit in the gyms in Pittsburgh.

(15:11):
Joel BradyAnd um because I remember Steve, we, we did the first pitch of the nose and then for some reason he let me lead the second pitch of the nose on, and this was like my, you know, it was like my third time climbing outside i think maybe so i must have been climbing technically well enough that he made some kind of assessment that you know like i wasn't gonna fall or something i don't know what but i know he let i know he let me lead the second pitch of the nose which it's not you know i think it's like five seven or five eight or it's it's nothing yeah yeah that's right yep

(15:47):
RobertThat's one that kind of goes like diagonal up and right though, right?
Ari Grodelike
RobertYeah.
Ari GrodeIt's like...
RobertIt's not, it's not nothing.
Ari GrodeThat's where the crux is. Yeah.
RobertYeah.
Joel BradyOkay.
Ari Grodeyeah
Joel BradyYeah. I don't know. He, I know he like told me how to, you know, do the TC. Like he was like, Oh, you flip the TCU upside down and you're like pulling it. Like it was very, I don't even, know, I think I had like followed one gear line, which was the first pitch of the nose that day.

(16:10):
Joel BradyAnd then, and, uh, and I, I know I asked, I know I was like chomping at the bit. Like that was fun. Can I just lead this thing? And he was like, yeah, go ahead kid.
Joel BradyYou know, say what you can do. because he was pretty old at the time.
Ari GrodeThat's awesome.
Joel Bradythink he was like in his mid sixties or something like that. Maybe he was just like, didn't care don't know what, but, um, yeah. And then, um let me think, you know, then, so somewhere in there, I just, I started climbing in the, in the gyms in Pittsburgh, which was, uh,

(16:44):
Joel BradyI didn't, I was just thinking through it recently. I didn't realize that those gyms had really only opened a year or two before I started rock climbing. So, you know, 90, I think 93 about is when the gyms in Pittsburgh open, which is when a lot of the gyms were opening across the country.
Joel BradyAnd, you know, I was new to it. So I just, I didn't register that this was like a new cultural shift in climbing that was happening the gym climber thing.

(17:13):
Joel BradyAnd, um, you know, I didn't start climbing in the gym, but I, you know, cause of of those like three times I went climbing outside, but the definitely, um, I was, you know, in that really like early period of the like gym to crag sort of thing.
Joel BradyThat means something very different now, and like being a gym climber in the early nineties is not what it's like now. And, you know, like teen kids and all that, but yeah, started

(17:40):
Ari GrodeBut that was kind of the age when i feel like a lot of like really proficient climbers came out of like, I mean, that must've been similar to like when Chris Sharma started climbing in the gyms and Tommy Caldwell and like, cause they were all kind of like right at that early stage of real commercial gyms.
Joel BradyIt's exactly that era.
Joel BradyYeah. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was exactly that. um Like, i'm I'm basically the, you know, I think Chris Sharma is like a year younger than me, maybe.

(18:02):
RobertThank
Joel BradyAnd tom Tommy is, therere we're all like in our mid 40s now, basically, or like early to mid And
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel Bradyand
Ari Grodedid Did you kind of stick to that? Did you get pulled into that gym scene more or was it more focused on, you know, that experience on the nose kind of kept you more outdoors or was it just a good blend?

(18:26):
Joel BradyIt was just a it was a blend. Yeah, it was a blend. It definitely, there wasn't, there there weren't, I don't remember anyone just being a gym climber in that era.
Ari GrodeMm-hmm.
Joel BradyAnd it's also, it's like, it's going to be different. You know, those guys are out West. You know, Pittsburgh has its own it's a very small climbing scene without like a, you know, long sustained extensive tradition of climbing and mountaineering.

(18:57):
Joel BradyUm, most, most climbers in who are around like that part of the East coast were, as I said, going to Seneca, um, the new since, you know, like, especially from the mid eighties on, and then into the early nineties, a lot of Pittsburghers were, were new river climbers.

(19:19):
Joel BradyNo, like hardly anybody was bouldering. it it just was, there were, people who lived in morgantown who were bouldering and there was an eighty s crew who did do some of the bouldering down there like rick thompson and cal soger and bob rinka carl samples these were like all the eighty s guys
RobertThank you.
Joel Bradydoing some bouldering but but for the most part it was like sport climbing and tribe climbing at the new or Seneca. And then occasionally people would go a little bit further afield to the gunks of the red.

(19:51):
Joel BradyAnd, um, there weren't, I don't remember a ton of people who were just gym climbers. Uh, that wasn't, that wasn't a thing.
Ari Grodeyoga
Joel BradyI remember.
Ari GrodeBut but but there was like there was kind of like an early competition scene, right?
Joel Bradyre
Ari Grodethat was kind of
Joel BradyYeah, for sure.
Ari Grodewas
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari Grodewas i guess maybe not just gym climbers, but like more, I guess, towards that competition scene is what I was thinking.

(20:13):
Joel BradyYeah, no, and that definitely was, yeah, that that was definitely something that i I was, back then it was the JCCA, the Junior Climbers Competition Association, I think is what it was. It's basically basically like the current USAC.
Joel Bradyah So there had been the JCCA and the ASCF, which was the American Sport Climbers Federation, And the JCCA and the ASCF eventually merged and became USA climbing.

(20:45):
Joel BradyLike there was a junior circuit and then then then the adult circuit. And I did a ton of the junior circuit stuff. We traveled all over the East Coast, basically. And then as I got a little bit older, I started doing the adult circuit and I did like the, um essentially the ABS, which is the American bouldering series.

(21:07):
Joel BradyI did a lot of the the those competitions. And I was just, there's like a, there's a history of ah American competition climbing that came out in the last three years.
Joel Bradyum And I was like, oh, this is interesting. I'll go look through. and it was like, ah it was essentially, it it has like all the results going back to the eighty s And I was looking at the USAC and then ABS results.

(21:35):
Joel BradyAnd I think it was the, it might've been the first American bouldering series championship, which is, that's the predecessor to usa the USA climbing bouldering championship.
Joel BradyAnd in, I don't know, 98 or 99 or 2000, somewhere in there at the first one, I took second place at the national one. And I was like, I was like, I don't have any memory of this at all, for sure.

(22:06):
Joel Bradyas you know You know, because like, well, it's it's just like yeah somebody i know, somebody I know, an acquaintance said something like, it's like you got, you know, you got really good at the thing before a bunch of people like actually got good at the thing.
RobertBlacked out. You fell off the podium. You're like fainted. There it is.
Joel Bradybecause it's like, yeah, okay, it was the it it was the equivalent of winning the the national championship for bouldering now. i don't even know if that's the terminology. It probably sounds goofy.

(22:37):
Joel BradyBut it it just didn't, I don't know, it just didn't mean the same thing it meant. But I like i i legit had no no memory of that. And then the um the PCA era was like this short-lived,
Joel Bradyperiod where there was like suddenly an influx of capital from the guys who own pusher and cordless it was like mike you could tell and his ownership group um they tried to pump a bunch of money into american ah competition climbing and they they created this new organization the professional climbers association and it lasted for all of

(23:00):
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel Bradythree years, two years, something like that. it was like 99 to 2001 or two or something like that. And like suddenly you could win ah thousand dollars or something for winning first place.

(23:32):
Joel BradyAnd that was like the most money we had ever heard of in competition climbing.
Ari GrodeHa ha ha ha.
Joel BradyAnd, um, and so I did the PCA. Well, well what happened was, i I moved out to Salt Lake in 99 and I worked for Pusher actually, which was like, um so put Pusher was like the coolest climbing company that there was in the 90s. They really had this aesthetic that was just super cool.

(24:01):
Joel BradyAnd so I moved to Salt Lake and I got the opportunity to work for them. I was pouring holes for pusher and, um, which was together with cordless, which was the early, uh, making pads, uh, bouldering pads.
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel BradyAnd, um, and then I, I moved back to Pittsburgh, my wife and I got engaged. So I moved away to college and then ah in Salt Lake,

(24:25):
Joel BradyAnd then I was bouldering and climbing out there. That's actually where I really got into bouldering, working for pusher, living the dream, you know, and then, and then my wife and I got engaged and I was really excited about that too. And I moved back to Pittsburgh, but then um the, the, one of the guys associated with pusher and court cordless, Mark Russo started up a media company called First it was called SmackMag and then it became Climax Media. And it was really like the first climbing internet media thing you could find.

(25:01):
Joel BradyAnd it was like quick time videos that were like this small on your screen, you know, like tiny little thumbnails that took 12 hours to download.
RobertYou get a buffer of huh?
Joel BradyAnd you had to, well, there was no buffering. It was like, there there wasn't buffering. You couldn't like, uh, You couldn't, you had to download the whole thing before you could play it.

(25:22):
Joel Bradyyou couldn't You couldn't even like play a quarter of it until the whole thing had downloaded.
RobertThere you go. Yeah. yeah
Joel Bradyand And Mark Russo wanted me to come out and cover the new Professional Climbers Association because he knew that I wrote i was a writer. and And so they flew me out.

(25:43):
Joel Bradyto cover the, the first PCA comp, um, they flew me out first class. is the only time in my life that I've flown first class. And I remember they, I got like Bailey's Irish cream and cashews on this first class flight out.
Joel BradyAnd I was just very excited.
Robertlivin living the dream, dude. That's...
Joel BradyLive in the, yeah, just riding high. And, um, I, and then they were like, oh, and you can compete too if you want.

(26:12):
RobertNot bad.
Joel BradyAnd so I competed and then I did like I ended up performing well, according to my own standards. And like that season, I ended up in I finished second place on the tour. And, you know, and it was like and there were like big names that came, but they didn't show up for all the competitions. I just happened to compete in every competition because they were flying me to all of them to cover them.

(26:34):
Joel BradyAnd, you know, like Chris Sharma was competing and Tommy Caldwell and Dave Graham and like all those all those 90s folks were there. But I just like went to every competition. So I had an advantage because they, they just like, you know, they didn't show up to everyone.
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel BradySo, um, but anyway.
Ari GrodeI think I saw an old climbing reel on Instagram or something recently.
RobertI was going to say, Yeah.

(26:55):
Ari Grodeand And, you know, yeah, it had like Jason Kale and and Dave Graham and Chris Sharman.
Joel BradyYep. Yep.
Ari GrodeAnd you showed up in there. You know, it was like everybody was trying some, you know, old school looking boulder problem in a competition that was just like micro crimps going out a roof.
Joel BradyYeah.
Robertyeah It's like a steep, it's like 45 degree angle.
Ari GrodeYeah.
RobertYeah. Yeah. I've seen that video as well.
Joel BradyYeah, yeah, yeah, that little, yeah that, I, I, people have been sending that my way, like, ah you know, like, this, this is you, and I'm like, yeah, that's me, that was, you know, that was a decent rock climber, and that was, like, 2000, I think, yeah, 2000, something like that, um but yeah, the the indoor comp scene was a lot of fun during that period, I do remember,
RobertYep.

(27:34):
Joel Bradyjust, you know, being very, it was kind of like, yes, I'd been out to Salt Lake, but I, and I'd done some local comps and, but, but this was like, I showed up all the, all the guys from the U S and world cup climbers were there from Europe. It was like, uh, uh, Francois Legrand and Jerome Maillet and like all these world cup guys showed up too. And I was like, no, I can hang with these guys a little bit. And I remember just being, you know, like, okay, this is,

(28:02):
Joel Bradyyou know, now I'm going to, now I'm going to go do World Cups and now I'm going to like all this stuff. And then I, I had like one, one or two good seasons. And then it, it, I just like got injured and started not performing well. And it didn't, the the competition thing never went anywhere for me. And I was like, oh, okay, that's not a thing that I do. And so I just, you know, focused on mainly on real rock climbing from, from then on. And I had been,

(28:31):
Joel Bradydoing it and the whole time too, climb climbing outside concurrently with competition climbing. um And, you know, like nobody was, nobody was exclusively competition climbing that I could think of at that time. Everybody was both, you're you're climbing outside and you're comp climbing.
RobertThat's awesome.
Ari GrodeYeah, it makes sense.
RobertI mean, mean getting the getting to kind of go head to head with at least looking back on it, like some pretty big names must have been a lot of fun, and but

(28:57):
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah. It was, yeah. Like pretty much anybody from the, that you could think of who was u s climbers anyway, from the mid nineties, was, was there at those competitions.
Joel BradyAnd, um, yeah, it was, you know, it was a cool, it was a cool time. And, um, yeah.
Robertyeah

(29:18):
Joel BradyYeah.
RobertSounds like it.
Ari GrodeSo we can.
RobertReal quick. So you were, you're living in Salt Lake, you're getting flown out to cover all of these competitions. You're occasionally getting some decent ah results as well, if you're getting in a second and all of that.
Joel Bradyyeah
Joel BradySure.
RobertBut um where are you also like spending most of your time climbing outside? Cause you said there's this balance, right? And you're living in Salt Lake. So just curious a little bit where you're putting in most of the hours.

(29:44):
Joel BradyWell, um I mean, so before that, so where I really came up climbing outside was the New River Gorge, for sure. So that's before I moved out to Salt Lake.
Joel BradyAnd, you know, that's more like when I was doing the junior comps. So I was like 16, 17, 18 when I was really coming up the new.
RobertOkay.

(30:05):
Joel BradyI think I was 16 when I went to the new for the first time. And I had been climbing for about two years. um Had a couple experiences outdoors, like I said, at Looking Glass and a couple other areas, but mainly in the gym for that first two years.
Joel BradyAnd then
Ari GrodeWould this be like the then, mid-90s? OK, mid to late
Joel BradyYeah, yeah, yeah. So like 90, I started climbing in 95-ish.

(30:30):
Ari GrodeOK.
Joel BradyAnd I think, yeah, and I think my my first trip to the new must have been 97.
Ari Grodeokay
Joel BradyYeah, i know it was 97, actually, because um i was, I know, because I had just gotten my license. And the first time I was going to go to the new, Uh, I had, I just gotten the license and I'd had it for all of about a month. And that, and there was like a weekend coming up when I was going to go to the new for the first time.

(30:56):
Joel BradyBut that week I totaled my dad's car.
Ari GrodeOh, shit.
RobertOh no, that's fertile.
Joel BradyI, I, I, uh, yeah, I flipped it. I flipped it upside down. We spun around on the roof a bunch. We, and, and when we stopped, my buddy and I were like, the roof had been crumpled and we were, we were like down hunched down because ah how much the roof had been crushed and neither of us had a scratch on us.

(31:22):
RobertOh my, oh my days.
Joel BradyThankfully. Um, But, but my dad was like upset about it for some reason. And he said, you you can't, I was like, I remember might've been that night, like while we're dealing with the police and the police had done this whole thing. They said, uh, it was a stick shift. it was like a little Geo Metro. I was driving my dad's little tiny tin can three cylinder Geo Metro.

(31:47):
Joel BradyAnd, uh, the police, officer said he was like how fast are you going were you going and i said the speed limit was 25 and it had been raining and i was like oh i don't know officer you know 20 25 or something like that and and he he looked over at the car which was crumpled and like the door open the and he he's like so he was like you were going 25 miles an hour in fourth gear because the car was i had just like abandoned the car and it was like still stuck in fourth gear And I was like, yeah, you know how you like ease down into it, ah you know, just make it up nonsense, you know.

(32:22):
Robertah
Joel BradyAnd um and then my dad eventually showed up. And I think one of my first questions was like, hey, can I still go to the new this weekend? You know, like, is that cool? He was like, no, what you can't go to the you.
Joel BradyYou have destroyed my car. So um I think.
RobertYou're like, but mom's got a car. Like, let me drive that. Come on, dad.

(32:44):
Joel BradyYeah, what the heck, you know. um so uh i was i think i was grounded for a month or something and at the end of that month i finally got to go to the new and uh i i went with my buddy uh well my friend spider his he goes by spider that's not his real name but nobody knows what his real name is spider with a y um yeah right right uh i think for some reason that the spider nickname has nothing to do with his rock climbing but you know he's a was an avid climber and

(33:04):
Roberti was going to say, if his real name is spider, that man is born to climb.
Joel BradyI think it was like at least 10, 15 years older than me or something, which was during my early climbing, it was like a lot of ah connecting with older climbers and mentors, basically like people who could who had cars and would drive me down to the new. And um in my parents would, there was like there was always a conversation that would happen between my dad and whoever it was. spectacular.

(33:45):
Joel Bradyspider i had ah there was a couple I would always go down with Brian and Jen we're all still friends this woman Lynette who was like when I was 17 she was like 30 you know you understand that there's like parents might have some questions about this but essentially my dad would take whoever it was out by the wood pile of our house it was always I'm just literally take them out to the wood pile and give them some equivalent of like, you know, don't, don't take advantage of my son or something like, and then they, then we would drive down and have an awkward drive down where they'd be like, yeah, your dad really thinks I'm going to take advantage of you.

(34:25):
Joel BradyAnd I'd be like, well, are you, is that where, are you going to do that?
Joel BradyAnd they were like, no, no, no.
RobertThe old cleaning the gun on the front porch type of talk.
Joel BradyAnd I was like, okay, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
RobertYeah, yeah. Yep.
Joel BradyYeah. And, you know, so we, um, I went climbing with spider and, uh, you know, we, we started, I started climbing down at the new a ton that season and because I'd been climbing in the gym.

(34:48):
Joel Bradyum so now it's very normal for the gym kids to come out and they, you know, they immediately are, you know, they're immediately crushing. But in those days, because the, like our gyms had just opened, so nobody was really familiar with
RobertYep.
Joel Bradyyou know, so, you know, I, I came out and was like, was immediately climbing mid five 12, which for the old school, you know, the people who had come up in the eighties was like, you you know, it it took you a while to get to that, to be able to climb it. But if you've got the benefit of a gym and you're reasonably motivated, you can do that. So there, it was a little bit, there was a bit of like a something unusual about,

(35:30):
Joel Bradyyou know, my coming out and just ah like, I think the first, our first trip down, I onsided some mid, mid five, 12, like 12 B or something. And it was like, I remember the other guys being like, you know, like whatever, like cheese off or, you know, so something there was, I noticed there was something strange about this.

(35:54):
Joel BradyAnd also I became very competitive and wanted to, you know, beat up on the old guys and all of that. And yeah, spent a bunch of seasons climbing at the new two years, two, two three years.
Ari GrodeI mean, that, that must've been, i mean, we just, we just had dug on not too long ago. i mean, and I know a lot of that development was kind of late eighties, mid,
Joel BradyYeah.

(36:15):
Ari Grodethrough like the mid 90s i mean that must have been like the golden age of the new river gorge like or like post golden age i guess
Joel BradyYeah. Well, it was like all that had just... well so Yeah. So the stuff that was ongoing right when I started was that there was – so Doug – I think Doug took split in like 93, right around right round then was when he took off.
Joel Bradywhen he and know and I know he talked about like he was working on the crouch there near the end and he he made that fateful decision to go to Australia –

(36:35):
Ari Grodeokay okay
Joel Bradywith with his girlfriend at the time and like never looked back and quit quit rock climbing and all that. And I was like 93, so you know a year or two before I started climbing. And in that in by the time I was climbing at the new in 97,

(36:59):
Joel Bradyseven it the The main development that was happening, like the note the big like pushing the grade stuff was flying Brian McRae.
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel Bradyand And he was doing all the stuff at the Cirque and he was putting up some of the harder lines at Summersville, like BC and Deep Throat, the stuff that was more like in the thirteen the like plus range.
Ari GrodeMm-hmm.

(37:22):
Joel BradyAnd then in 97, I think Flying Brian put up Proper Soul, which was like then the claimed first 514 at the new.
Joel Bradythere's a There's a real question around what is the first 514 at the new, but anyway, Flying Brian put that up in 97. um And so like, i it definitely I did not start climbing in what I would call the golden age because i think of that as like mid 80s to early ninety s because that's when Doug and Porter and, you know, Rick Thompson and his old crew, Eric Hurst, and all of that was going on.

(37:59):
Joel BradyThat was definitely like right after.
Ari GrodeOkay. Yeah, you were like right after that, I guess.
Joel BradyYeah. And, and once that,
Ari Grodeokay Okay. So what did the new kind of look like then? I mean, we Rob and I know it pretty well from the last five or so years, but...
Joel Bradyyeah, well, I mean, it's, it's probably, I mean, It's somewhere in between what it would have looked like in the eighties when those guys first started traipsing around there and what it looks like now. So, um you know, in the eighties, those guys were bushwhacking to to all these crags. There were no trails and, you know, it was just like a jungle to, to get to any of the roots.

(38:33):
Joel BradyThat's not, it was pretty domesticated, honestly, by the time I got there.
Ari GrodeOkay, okay. okay
Joel Bradyum There were some off the beaten, like the Meadow River was not, there was no guide to the Meadow River. Back then, there was a bunch of there had been a bunch of routes established, but nobody, you know, you could you could if you knew through word of mouth that Meadow River development had happened, you could go out there.

(38:56):
Joel BradyBut if you weren't with the guys who had bolted those things, you had no idea what you were looking at.
RobertAll right.
Joel Bradylike So like Mango Tango is a good example, right? So Mango Tango, Scott Franklin put that up in 1989. And I'm there in like 98, just walking in because someone told me there was climbing at the meadow. And you don't, you don't, you see bolts all over the place, really.

(39:21):
Joel Bradyand you don't really know what it is. But you know Mango Tango when you see it, because you heard it was like, a brilliant orange arete, like the best looking thing you ever saw in your life. And then when you get there, you're like, oh, okay, that's the best thing I ever saw in my life.
Joel BradyThat has to be, that has to be mango tango. But then, you know, the other areas were, you know, Somersville had good, you know, good trails all the way down in. and it was, you know, Somersville more or less looked like it did up until about this season.

(39:51):
Joel BradyYou know, this season they put in like Somersville looks radically different as of the last four months because they've turned it into a state park and they built a they put in a road all the way back there all these roads like Somersville looks radically different but that's only in the last couple months that that's changed um the oh it's like on the one hand it's like super convenient because you can drive basically all the way back down into the into you don't have to do that big long hike out that you used to have to do
Ari GrodeYeah.
RobertI hadn't heard about that, actually.

(40:13):
Ari Grodeyeah
RobertYep.
Joel Bradyum On the other hand, it's, you know, it's it's domesticating, a you know, like there's going to, the crowds will be even more and all that stuff. um But, you know, the endless wall and all of that, it kind of, it kind of looked like the the crag itself looked more or less like it does now. It's definitely the traffic, especially since the national park designation has been much, much higher. especially So that's like in the last five years.

(40:50):
Joel BradyBut the new has always been, you know, like compared to somewhere like the red, the new has always, for so for whatever reason, it's been less heavily traveled, you know.
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel Bradythe And so it's been somewhat immune to like the newer culture around climbing and the like, you know, people who are just gym climbers who are out there who, um yeah you know, who who have like, who are less informed about best practices, about how you act out there. I'm being charitable, you know, like people showing up with hammocks and speakers and blah, blah, blah. Speaking of someone who had a kid in a hammock this weekend, I'm not trying to judge. I, you know, I get it.

(41:32):
Joel BradyBut um there there was definitely less crowds and like um less of a youth culture That's for sure. Like I was, i was there and, you know, as a 16 year old, i was like, if I wanted to climb with someone else, I'm climbing with guys who are in their, in their mid, like early thirties.
Robertwell
Joel BradyAnd there wasn't like a youth culture.

(41:52):
Ari GrodeOkay. So,
Joel Bradyi would, that I could, could say.
RobertAnd were you at that time, were you mainly doing like weekend trips down? it Like if you know he found some mentor that was willing to have a conversation with your dad by the woodshed, like you'd go down for the weekend or did you ever post up for like a couple of weeks at a time during the summer?
Joel BradyYeah.
RobertAnd obviously the summer is not ideal there, but like, were you just like, I'm i'm here whenever I can be there?
Joel BradyYeah, well, yeah, it was mainly weekends because I was in high school.

(42:17):
RobertYeah. True.
Joel BradySo most like most of the the my formative years of the new I was in high school. And so I would go down yeah on weekends. And i would you know I just remember missing a ton of parties in high school on the weekends.
Joel Bradybecause I was like, I'm going rock climbing. I don't, you know, that's not my, I mean, I, well, anyway, I just wanted rock climb.

(42:41):
RobertYep. Sure.
Joel Bradyum And then some summers, i I do remember a couple summers where I would spend like a week down there maybe, but I wasn't, like I never lived at the new, and to this day, I've never lived at the at the new.
Joel BradyUm, and I've never really lived with this. I lived in Boston for, for two years when I was in graduate school. Um, and I ended up kind of inadvertently living in a really cool bouldering, uh, zone on the North shore of Boston.

(43:08):
Joel BradyAnd so I did kind of live in a climbing area, but it's not an area that's known for climbing. It just, I, I happened to like end up in a place where there were all these under the radar granite boulders.
Joel BradyAnd so I was like, woohoo, you know, like I can,
RobertDon't mind that, yeah.
Joel Bradygo i can go crazy you know bouldering here while i'm on a break uh working as a i worked as a custodian at this at this theological seminary where i was getting my masters at the time and um i was carpet cleaning carpets and i would just like take these long breaks where i would just go and boulder but um you know i no i never lived at the new it was like the yeah weekend warrior thing and i basically just connected with partners from the gym um Yeah, Spider, I mentioned.

(43:53):
Joel BradyBrian and Jen were this couple who I climbed a lot with them. And I would just kind of like climb at the gym during the week and do the like the puppy dog eyes thing. And like, hey, what are you guys doing this weekend?
Joel BradyAre you um guys going down to the new, you know, and they would take pity on me and let me let me tag along.
Ari GrodeHa ha ha.
Joel BradyAnd and it's funny because, you know, I'm 16, 17. They're 23, 24, probably. And they had just gotten married. And they're like having to drag this teenager down, you know, every weekend. But yeah, that's that's how we would do it. Yeah.

(44:31):
Ari GrodeSo what did, what did your progression at the new look like then? Cause I mean, we kinda, I know you got into the, the, um, the comp scene, you said like early two thousands, I mean, and you started out at the new climbing relatively hard, like mid five 12.
Joel Bradyyeah well
Ari GrodeI mean, did you progress pretty rapidly there?
Joel BradyYeah, I think, yeah, so the first season, like I really, I think I, so I think, as I said, I, my first time out at the new, and it was really like my third time climbing outside, third or fourth time, I was onsiding mid 512.

(45:01):
Joel BradyAnd so then I spent that first season just kind of solidifying the 512 climbing at the new, which, as you know, there's just like, it's the world is your oyster at the new for mid 512 bangers.
Robertendless.
Ari GrodeSo many good ones.
Joel Bradybanger So I did that, and I think the hardest thing I had done by the end of that first season might have been like 12C. There's a route called Chaos at Camor, which is kind of like a dinky little bouldery route.

(45:24):
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel Bradyum But um I did, and this is actually this came back around a couple weeks ago. um That first season, near the end of the season, i got on a route called Titan's Dice, which is a overhanging, flaring, off-width,

(45:45):
Joel Brady13A at Endless Wall. It's a Doug Reed route. And my whole point of getting on that was get my butt kicked, find out what real hard rock climbing is about, both to have the goal, but also to put into perspective the stuff I was on and make it seem like not that hard, you know, like 12C, 12B, 12C, 12D. Like those are not hard. This thing is hard.

(46:11):
Joel BradyAnd that thing... it gets a 13a grade but it's it's it's an overhanging flaring off it's it's unique for any route at the new there's no other route like this it's you could be a 514 you could be a 515 climber and you're going to find that route to be hard if you don't know how to climb overhanging flaring off with which is like what sport climber does that you know like not really yes and

(46:35):
RobertThat's a little little niche for sure.
Joel Bradyum Sure enough, I got my butt kicked. I bailed off the third bolt and just got blown up on the thing. And it was hot. You know, you mentioned seasons at the new and like climbing.
Joel BradyLike we didn't, I had no concept of seasons, honestly, in those days. And eventually once I got super psyched on climbing, we would climb all the way through the year. And when when we would be there in the winter, it would be, and would be me and my climbing partner. And there wasn't a soul at the you know everybody else was the gone there's nobody there in the winter and we would climb all the way through but for the most part we would you know the summer was like when you would climb and you know i don't know it doesn't make any sense to me now but we'd climb all through the summer and you just dealt with it and i only in recent years have thought about like oh yeah it's kind of nice to have 40 degrees

(47:30):
Joel Bradyweather and friction and all that stuff but um i got on titan's dice got destroyed and then that was kind of the end of the season that year but it like lit this fire in my belly to go climb hard roots and uh that the next year was like did a ton of the 513s at central endless and Stuff around Honeymooners Ladders, Dial 911, and the Confirmation, the Racist, that that route that Doug talked about on on that last interview. um Eventually, like Quintana, Satanic Verse, all those really 10-star...

(48:10):
Joel Bradyuh, central MS 513. And I got really comfortable with that, like gently overhanging or like vertical to gently overhanging style that is, is so common at those areas.
Ari GrodeThank you.
Joel BradyAnd that's like really nicely featured there. Um, And then never went back to Titan's Dice. It was like, you know, it it served its purpose. It put me on a trajectory to go start climbing hard stuff. And eventually, like the season after that was when I was like, oh, now I can start climbing routes that have never been climbed before and, you know, do some first ascents.

(48:43):
Joel Bradyum And I never went back. And then a couple weeks ago, i was watching. There's a have you guys seen South Steepest? I feel like you have to have seen South Steepest.
Ari GrodeNo, haven't.
Joel BradyNo, no.
Robertfeel like I feel like we have some homework.
Ari Grodethat on Is that on YouTube or like an old VHS or something?
Joel BradyOh yeah. Yeah. Go. It's on, I mean, it's somebody, somebody, you know, ah transposed it or whatever the word is from, from VHS.
RobertYep,

(49:06):
Joel BradyYeah.
Robertye yep.
Joel BradyIt was originally on VHS. I think it's like 93 that thing came out and it's like, uh, the new there's like Doug Reed's in it, climbing stuff, uh, Foster Falls. And I, you know, all there's, it's, it's,
Joel Bradydeep southern rock climbing so um but there's a there's a uh scene of gibet tribo when he came to the new he uh flashed titan's dice uh the this 13a flaring off with and it and i was watching that film i hadn't seen in a while and i was i was like man this thing looks super cool And it had always been a joke between me and my buddy Brian, who had belayed me at the time.

(49:49):
Joel Bradyum You know, like, oh, let's go get on Titan's Dice this weekend again. Like, of course, we're not going to go do that because it's it's a ridiculously, stupidly hard route. And for years, it was like a joke. Like, oh, yeah, we'll get on Titan's Dice.
Joel BradyAnd then i I watched that video and i was like, why have I never gone back and done Titan's Dice? I'm, you know, I've climbed multiple 514s at this point. Why would I not... go do this route that destroyed me.

(50:15):
Joel BradyAnd I realized that there was like this unconscious thing in my head, like that is the hardest route in the world. Like I, that route can, I cannot climb that route. It can't be climbed because it's such an unusual thing. And, and I, and I, once I said that out loud, you know, named it, I was like, that's ridiculous.

(50:36):
Joel BradyLike you're, you know, you can rock climb, go, you should go do that thing. So then, ah like two weeks ago, I went down and I first I wanted to I wanted to retro flash it because I had no memory of anything. I was like, I'll just try to do it first go. I'll try to I'll try to do the Gilles Vaitrebeau thing.
Joel BradyAnd ah I immediately fell like could it was like so hard.
RobertYeah.
Ari GrodeYeah.

(50:57):
Joel BradyLike, you know, it's just as hard as I remembered. And, um you know, it actually took me like two days. I had to i had to like figure stuff out. And, you know, there's like weird hand jams and body jams and stuff on it. And it took me, you know, two days and I did it and like, like fighting from the ground to the top, I was screaming and fighting full body ah struggle and did it. And, you know, that's like, I've done some, you know, what stuff that has like a much harder number grade on it. But like that, doing that for me three weeks ago is like one of the most significant ascents of my climbing career, just going back and

(51:38):
Joel Bradyfinishing off the thing that like put me on my trajectory to climb hard stuff so yeah that was pretty that was pretty cool yeah yep
Ari GrodeIt's like full circle.
RobertYeah, that's amazing. Yeah, you kind of getting the monkey off your back, which must have been a really good feeling. you You did mention you put some time into climbing new things, right?
RobertGetting some FAs.

(51:58):
Joel Bradyyes i did
RobertWould love to hear more about like some of those FAs at the new. And then obviously you also have some pretty significant FAs at Seneca. So just would but love to hear what that initial push into that FA world looked like and then how that sort of progressed into what it is today, obviously.
Joel BradySure. Yeah. I mean, so I will say this, so it's funny. I did listen to the Doug Reed interview as did every single person I know in this world, because we were like, we, the, the entire new river world, as far as I'm concerned, or anybody who, anybody who matters not to be a gatekeeper was listening to that interview.

(52:40):
Joel BradyCause, cause you know, Doug, Doug Reed is,
Ari GrodeWe like to think so too.
Joel Bradyyeah I think you're, yes.
Robertyeah maybe Maybe just you say that one more time for the people who haven't listened to it yet.
Joel BradyYeah, right.
RobertWe'll clip that up, right?
Joel BradyYeah. There's not a single soul in America that didn't listen to the Doug Reed interview that you guys did. Climber or not climber, all 320 million Americans listened to that. And I'm sure your view count reflects that and you can provide the data to support that claim.

(53:08):
Joel Bradyum But I, you know, like, Doug, I forget what the number is, like, 400, 500, 600, 600 plus.
Robert600 plus 600 plus right
Joel BradyYeah. six hundred plus yeah It's like, it's, it's outrageous. It's numbers that I can't process as far as doing FAs. I think the number of FAs I've done is like, I don't think I've hit 10. I don't think I've hit double digits of a root of, of, of roots.

(53:33):
Joel BradyRight.
Robertright
Joel BradySo, you know, I'm not like anywhere, you know, like the, the, the, the difference is extreme, let's say in terms of FAs. However,
Joel BradyThe ones that I have done, um i like to think they're like, they have some significance. Some of them do anyway. And um the way it ended up happening was that I, like the, I guess my my third season climbing at the new, so I was 18. So don't know if that would be my second season maybe, but I was 18 and I had done a lot of the hardest routes that were established at the new. And like I was climbing at Summersville a lot that year I did. There's a route called Deep Throat, which was a flying Brian 13 C. I'd done a bunch of routes in, in that, in that range, like 13 C range.

(54:28):
Joel BradyOr, or it's funny, like a lot of the routes have gotten upgrades. So like BC and the Coliseum, I think they maybe call that C now. Satanic versus was a slash grade BC. I think they call it C now.
Joel BradySo like the, The things they get called now are different than the way I think of them in my head. But once we all collectively made the decision that slash grades were stupid, we, you know, they they got revised or at the new anyway, Mikey decided they were stupid.

(54:56):
Joel Bradymike Mikey Williams decided that slash grades were dumb. And he, you know, decided is which which way you're going to Just call it hard this or soft that. Why are we doing slash grades? um But so I had done a lot of routes in that range. And um I had just done that deep throat route, which is Flying Brian's 13C.
Joel BradyAnd I think probably my buddy Spider maybe mentioned, hey, look, like you've now you've done everything here that that's hard. There's ah this uncline project in the Coliseum on the far right side.

(55:29):
Joel Bradythat Porter Girard had bolted and and abandoned because he'd moved on to the red, I think. And I don't know if even at that point, if he was still developing at the red, I'm not sure when his, that ended for him, but he was gone from the new, as far as I know by that point.
Joel BradyAnd we would see all those things like, so basically there were all these routes at the new that had a, you know, a faded tag on the first bolt. And you could tell it was abandoned if the tag was really faded.

(55:58):
Joel BradyLike, oh, it's been a while since somebody has been on this.
RobertOkay.
Joel BradyAnd if you knew that Doug Reed had done it, it was abandoned because he had split. If you knew Porter had done it, it was abandoned because he had split. um After like 98, I think is when Flying Brian split. So if it was something Flying Brian had bolted after 98, you knew it was it was abandoned.

(56:21):
Joel Bradyum And um so this route on the right side of the Coliseum was like that. And i went and checked it out and i had been bouldering a lot in the gym at that point.
Joel BradyAnd this was a kind of atypical route. And then you had to do, there there was like, there's a very distinctive move on still life, which is still there even after all the hold breaks that have happened. but it was like a you would do a dead point to a Gaston that was like a pretty violent dead point and pretty atypical to do that on a steep like 30 degree wall at the new where it's like really heavily emphasizing static climbing. and um and Anyway, my first trip up it, I felt like everything on that route suited me.

(57:05):
Joel BradyAnd so I started put pouring a lot of energy into it right at the same time as three other guys started getting excited about that route too. It was Jason Keel, Ivan Green, and Jeremy Smith, a Canadian climber. So Jason Keel was out of Maryland at the time. Ivan Green was out of New York.
Joel BradyAnd all those guys were older than me. I think Jason's like four years older than me. ivan's I think Ivan's in his 50s now. And Jeremy Smith was somewhere in that range too. And they all had a you know, pretty established track record and they had been competing for a long time. And, you know, I was kind of like new on this and this would be the first, first ascent I had ever done.

(57:48):
Joel BradyAnd we were all kind of vying for it. We all had our own beta. um There were more, there were, there were more options back then because holds had not yet broken. um And like Jeremy Smith would go to the left and ah Jason Keel was trying to go direct.
RobertBye.
Joel BradyIvan Green, I think, was going to the right. And I was also trying to go to the right, um like at the at the crux section. And eventually those guys like moved on basically. I just kept like hammering away at it. And those guys ended up having like, they, they were on road trips and they went out West or, you know, it's, they would have all eventually done that route if they had stuck around with it, but they just had other priorities and they headed elsewhere. And I just kept hammering away at it in my, it was my senior year of high school.

(58:34):
Joel BradyAnd, uh, the summer after I graduated, um like, like right after I graduated, like ah the week after I graduated high school, I finally ended up putting that thing down. And um it was like, I, there's a, know how technical I should get with the root, but there was like a, the the crux ah was like, do some entry moves on a head wall, do this Gaston dead point, and then do a really difficult reach to a second Gaston. So you're going Gaston to Gaston, iron cross, you'd have to like piano roll,

(59:08):
Joel Bradyyour index finger, like you just get a little bit of your index on and then your middle and then your ring. And then you have to like turn it into a closed crimp and then hand foot match the other Gaston. Super cool sequence.
Joel BradyIt doesn't exist anymore because that right hand is one of the holds that eventually broke.
RobertOh.
Joel BradyBut then you would do a final dead point to the top. And I, many times I fell slapping the final hold. And because I would skip the last two bolts, I would just take the screaming 40 footer or 35 footer something like, you know, over and over again. and And eventually I hit that thing. And I remember Spider, my buddy Spider was belaying me.

(59:49):
Joel BradyI hit the thing, they hit the hold. And I was like, okay, it's in the bag. And I'm cheering, I'm cheering, like blah, blah, blah. And I remember Spider, i was annoyed with Spider because he like interrupted my celebration to be like, you know you're going to take a 45-foot fall here. Could you clip the anchors? Would you just please clip the anchors? And you know he he would he he was correct.

(01:00:09):
Joel BradyI should have not been...
RobertRespect the top.
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari Grodeyeah
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And that that was so that was like the that was... I guess that was probably the first ascent that I ever did. And it was like... um It also was... ah you know the the only known...

(01:00:29):
Joel Brady514 at the new at that time the one that was like known and accepted was flying brian's proper soul um there were two other routes though there was uh gus glitches uh super whiny bugs which the majority of local climbers at the new had not accepted that gus had done that route they didn't believe that he had done that route um i i think based on conversations i've had subsequently and people in the know like i think he i think he did that route my my view based on people i trust is that he did that route and he did that all the way back in 93 and that gets a fourteen a grade i actually just got on that route for the first time two weeks ago and then of course scott franklin had done mango tango in 89 but he graded it thirteen d

(01:01:18):
Ari GrodeMm-hmm.
RobertMm-hmm.
Joel Bradyum So, 89, you've got Scott Franklin's 13D Mango Tango. 93, you've got Gus Glitch's 14A Whiny Bugs that nobody at the time locally accepts actually got done.
Joel BradyFlying Brian does proper soul in 97 ish. And then I did still life in 99. And I, I gave it a grade of 13 D at the time, mainly because I had a conversation with this guy, Johnny, I don't even know his last name, but like I did the route.

(01:01:49):
Joel BradyAnd then I was just like chilling out in the Coliseum. And this guy, Johnny was, ah he was like, oh what are you going to grade it? You know? And I said, I don't know. I like, I'm, I have no frame of reference. I've never even been on a five 14 route at this point.
Joel BradyAnd ah he said, well, you know, if you call it 13D, it'll never get downgraded. He said that to me and I was like, all right, that sounds logical. I'll call it 13D. I don't know. And, um you know, and and the other guys who had been trying it all had different, like, I think, I think Jason had suggested somewhere like 14AB. I think Ivan thought it might be thirteen d and i don't know what Jeremy thought it would be.

(01:02:28):
Joel Bradyum So I called it that, but um you know in retrospect like so eventually the next and two years later i did the second ascent of mango tango the scott the scott franklin route which again was rated 13d when i did it at the time it was called 13d and still life when i did it was the same difficulty essentially um maybe a little bit harder or just comparable And now that route gets consensus hard 514A and nothing's happened to that route. No holds broke or anything. So, you know, there's this like, there is ah an ego driven part of me that is like, you know, um well, you know, so still life, I called it 13D, but by today's standards, it was 514A, but no one will ever know that because all the holds ended up breaking on it.

(01:03:22):
Ari GrodeHa ha ha.
Joel BradyAnd, you know, now it gets now it's it's a consensus 514B, but that's because the the hold I mentioned just now broke and another hold broke down lower. And, um you know, so but anyway, that it was ah it was a big deal for me. And, um you know, I think it was like ended up being, um you know, it was the hardest route at Summersville at the time. And, you know, one of the like the four hardest routes of the new at the time. And so, yeah, it mattered. And I was I was proud of it.

(01:03:51):
Joel Bradyum But that's that that was like my first foray into first dissenting.
RobertI bet.
RobertI mean, I think if as many people listen to this episode as the Doug episode, we'll have 320 million people that know you put down 14 AB in like the worst summer conditions you could imagine.
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah.
Joel BradyIn June, yeah, in June.
RobertYou're just taking fucking 40 foot wingers off of that.

(01:04:12):
Ari GrodeOh man, in June.
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah.
RobertYeah, it was right after you said right after you graduated high school, went down there and just put it up. I mean, that sounds like a miserable experience, but it also sounds incredible.
Joel BradyYeah.
Joel BradyYeah, I don't i don't remember. it See, that's the thing. I don't remember it being miserable. I just remember...
Robertjust didn't know any better.
Joel BradyYeah, exactly. I didn't have... Yeah, like, ah it's very Buddhist, right? That, you know, desire is the origin of suffering. And you don't have desire unless you, like, find out something that's better, like temperatures that are 10 degrees cooler or 15.

(01:04:41):
RobertYeah, true.
RobertWell, I say all that, but like Ari and I have definitely climbed into the new in the middle of summer.
Joel BradyYeah.
RobertLike, it's like, if it, if if it lines up, we'll go, you know what mean? It's just,
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari GrodeThat's
Joel BradyYeah, but yes, it's having just come off. ah It was like 75 degree. It was the first 75 degree weekend when it was like super humid. And I was like, oh, man, like, what are what am I doing here? This is miserable. So yeah, yeah.

(01:05:09):
Joel BradyBut now I now i know better.
Ari Grodethat's awesome Man, thats that's really cool. So you were you were pretty early in your climbing and you're pushing into the, or setting the new standards basically at the New River Gorge. That's pretty special.
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah. I mean, i yeah, I'd probably been climbing for three or four years at that point, climbing outside for two years, seriously. um And it wasn't, it certainly wasn't pushing standards nationally, like internationally or nationally, like, you know, that by that time, 14D had been climbed in the world. And, you know, certainly there were like, I think, um what, like,

(01:05:47):
Joel BradyJust Do It was done in like 90 or 89, right? So like, you know, like hard 514 had been climbed elsewhere in the country, but it's a new, it was like, you know, it was new. It's a new.
Joel BradySo, yeah, and I'm a good, I've been very good at like finding small ponds to be a, try to be a big fish in, which is not to like naysay that what's going on is the new, but like standards got pushed like much earlier out West.

(01:06:14):
Joel Bradythan they did on the East coast. And, um, yeah, yeah. I've like some 515.
Ari GrodeI mean, it took what? until i mean Not too long ago before the new even saw its first 5.15. Sorry. or five fifteen sorry
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah. When J star put up a full metal brisket, um, that's what five, like five years ago now, or four, four or five years ago. um Yeah. And I mean, that's still on the East coast.

(01:06:38):
Joel BradyHow many five fifteens are there? Is it still just, there's, there's like two, am I right about that? I think there's still just two, um, unless I'm, uh,
Ari GrodeThere's one up at... ah ah Where's like...
Joel Bradyah Romney.
Ari GrodeWhere's Rumney?
RobertOh, Rumley, right?
Ari GrodeYeah, China Beach over in that area.
Joel BradyYeah.
RobertYeah, yeah.
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah. Jaws, uh, Jaws too, which, uh, my, my good friend or friend of me, uh, uh, Vassia put up.

(01:07:03):
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari GrodeYeah, yeah. do Do you think that's just that the nature of the rock out here? Like the style? I mean, I can't imagine... Like the style of the New River Gorge, you know, as things get harder, it's really just like smaller holds, more space between them.
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari GrodeYou know, you got to get more creative. And then like, you know, limestone, I guess it's just so featured that you can tip the angle back. And mean, do you think that's just a little bit of the nature of that type of rock or...

(01:07:25):
Joel BradyYeah. Well, I mean... Yeah. So it's interesting because this is a, what the question you're asking is a question that I believe Steve Cater asked in his guidebook of the new and the, in the mid nineties where very famously he, he asked that, is it the style of the rock that doesn't lend itself to the harder climbing?

(01:07:50):
Joel BradyOr is it that there just hasn't been, is it, is it really just that the the rock is, not any different it's just that it's waiting on that proper soul to come do it and that's why flying brian named his route proper soul because steve cater was so steve cater was posing the question like who's going to come establish 514 nitha new and flying brian was like i'm him you know and he and he was he he he he put a proper soul which is an incredible route proper soul is like you know 20 stars
RobertAh.

(01:08:19):
Ari GrodeThat's cool.
Joel Bradyum A route I've never done, by the way, I've never put any kind of serious effort into it. I've been ah I've been up it and, you know, it's it's fantastic route. I've just I I haven't been it's such a popular 514 that the popularity of it tends to if ah if a route is very popular, I kind of get dissuaded by that. But um the ah it's, you know, i think there is something about the rock style like on limestone.

(01:08:55):
Joel BradyYou know, when you're doing limestone... developing you're doing a lot of like aggressive cleaning you know like and there's it's so much more heavily featured and you can kind of like you know the line between aggressively cleaning and manufacturing is notoriously fuzzy and whereas and on the sandstone if you like chip a hold it's very clear you chipped a hold if you glue a hold on it's very clear that you glued the hold on and um

(01:09:27):
Joel BradyThat has something to do with it. ah But I think it's also, you know, yeah, it's the there has always been like the number, it's a numbers game, right? You get like vastly larger pool.
Joel Bradyof climbers out west who have uh know a larger like a ah more accessible canvas of rock maybe um yeah but yeah there's still like two 515s on the east coast not that there's a ton of there's ah just aren't a ton of 515s in the u.s honestly like you compare it to europe there's there's so many more

(01:10:08):
Ari Grodeyeah yeah that's a it's an interesting i was curious to get your take i mean do you know of any other projects there that are like you know potentials or like or yeah guess east coast in general i mean you seem like you've climbed quite a bit along the east coast
Joel BradyIn that range? at Like at the new? ah
Joel BradyYeah. um

(01:10:30):
RobertThank
Joel BradyNo. I don't think so. No. Well, hang on. Let me think. and So...
Ari GrodeI know there's like there's some bolts on the, ah not the golden ticket, the pure imagination. They're like direct, maybe.
Joel BradyOh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that thing... Yeah, yeah. Pure Imagination Direct. So I've actually spent a fair bit, like a lot of time actually on Pure Imagination, the 14C at the Red.

(01:10:54):
Joel BradyThat's ah like a life lister for me. And there was a season like three, four years ago where I put a ton of time into it because I was, I, like basically I hit, let me see
Ari Grodeokay
Joel BradyYeah, I hit 40. And I, um, I was like, okay. Um, also the pandemic hit. And so I had like more time to train cause I was in my house and I got my gym and, and I, I talked to a friend who he said he started, he got a trainer and his trainer was, uh, um, Adam Ondra's, uh, coach.

(01:11:31):
Joel BradyAnd I was like, how did you get Adam Ondra's coach? And he was like, you just pay him, dude. they They're trying to make money. You just pay them. And I was like ah like, oh, you just pay them.
Robertah
Joel BradyRight.
RobertThank you.
Joel BradyBecause climbers don't, you know, like, say you know, like there's there's not a lot of money in climbing and people want to make money. And like, you know, the people who are really good at that stuff want to get paid for what they do. It's just very logical, but never occurred to me. And I was like, oh, I can just hire Adam Ondra's coach. And so, ah you know, Pachi Usobiaga is, you know, he's a well-known, um you know, ah climber. He's known for his very difficult climbs that he's done. He's done like biography and, you know, really famous ascents around the world. But he also was training at a Moundra for a long time. And I, so I, I like hired the guy to like help build, build me a new training plan. Cause for, you know, I was using like nineties era training plans. Just what I always did, which is like campus, Boulder, do four by fours.

(01:12:31):
Joel BradyAnd that was it basically. And, um, Apache gave me a bunch of, you know, newfangled stuff that some of which I found to be very helpful, other stuff that would have been helpful if I like tried to stick with it, but I was, you know, stuck in my ways and, you know, I took what I could basically.
RobertThank you.

(01:12:52):
Joel BradyAnd I started trying to do ah pure imagination and I was going there like pretty regularly trying to do that thing, but it's really hard for me to get to the red because it's six hours instead of four.
Joel BradyAnd that really is more like a three day trip instead of a two day trip. And, You know, I've got a wife and four kids and familial responsibilities and doing the three day weekend instead of the two is like it just it became tricky. But to answer your question in a very long winded way, yes, that line to the right of pure imagination, the direct start that Megos has been trying is supposed to be like 15B or C or or somewhere in there. And it looks, you know, I've looked at it a lot and I haven't actually gone up and felt the holds, but it, you know, it looks properly hard.

(01:13:37):
Joel BradyBut yeah, it's, they're hard, they're they are hard to find. And the conditions are like, the conditions are a big part of the the issue at the red too.
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel Bradyum The red, the new, and um yeah, it you can't, it's hard to get away from conditions being a significant factor. It's just like, you know, so much of my, like I said, the, in the old days, I didn't think about conditions, but certainly the projects I've done in more recent years, like,

(01:14:06):
Joel BradyGreen Magic at Seneca, Grief Eater in Morgantown, any of my bouldering projects in southwestern PA, I'm like definitely checking the temps and it's the condition struggle is never ending on on those kinds of rigs.
Ari GrodeYeah. Yeah. Maybe we can chat about those a little bit. Um, I know we're jumping on or we're skipping some time here, but, uh, you, you obviously got involved in the Seneca climbing scene, um, or, or must've started climbing there quite a bit, but you, you, you put up a couple pretty significant first ascents at a significantly difficult grade.

(01:14:30):
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari GrodeUh, would you mind talking about those a little bit?
Joel BradySure. Yeah. Okay. So so it's interesting. the For Pittsburgh-based climbers, the main destination areas that we go to is either the new or Seneca.

(01:15:02):
Joel BradyI've also mentioned the red and the gunks, but it's basically like you're goingnna climb you're going to be a Seneca climber are you're going to be a new river climber. If you're a new river climber, you're primarily a sport climber. If you're a Seneca climber, you're primarily a traditional climber.
Joel Bradyclimber and you'd let you like doing multi-pitch stuff. And it's just, there's there's a real kind of division. There's plenty of people who do both, but there is like, you know, there's a kind of, there's like a type, essentially. One type of climber goes one place.

(01:15:32):
Joel BradyAnd who knows if if I had been connected with different people, i might have been more of a Seneca climber. But for whatever reason, I ended up doing the New River thing And I was primarily a sport climber. I tried climb some.
Joel BradyI usually say I've been tried climbing for 30 years, but that means like one trad route a year for 30 years, you know.

(01:15:54):
RobertYep.
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel BradyAnd um I honestly never went to Seneca until. I guess, 2022 or something like that. I never had been. i never even had seen the place.
Joel Bradyand um And the only reason I went there was specifically because my partner, Andrew Like, who's my 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell partner and my partner and many other climbing endeavors,

(01:16:20):
Joel BradyHe had said there was a ah face there that was unclimbed, an old aid route that um like he was like, we should go we should go do that thing.
Robertyou
Joel BradyAnd so my first visit to this traditional climbing area with a long history of not only traditional climbing, but a real antipathy towards bolts.

(01:16:42):
Joel Bradyum my first trip there was to go look at the space and decide like are we going to bolt this thing and that like literally i showed up in 20 guess that was 22 yeah 2022 Andrew and I did we went right up to to Greenwall which is like you know this it's it's in the a super you know classic area of Seneca it's just to the right of the gun sight notch if you're looking down from down in the valley it's on the north peak famous roots there are tomato and green wall and pleasant overhangs and Debbie and banana and like things that people go and do all the time.

(01:17:21):
Joel BradyAnd um like bring on the new Biles is there on the right. And um anyway, um and we just like climbed up green wall specifically to get to the top of the North peak to wrap down and inspect this wall. So that like my first time ever at Seneca was on a mission to like maybe go establish this like egregious sport route in the middle of Seneca, you know?

(01:17:51):
Joel BradySo anyway, but yeah, I had never been. um so it really like the way you put it, you know, I don't, I think you said like you've been, you know, a part of the Seneca community.
Joel BradyI can't remember.
Ari Grodei guess ah I guess I had assumed you had been climbing at Seneca for you know a long time and been ah you know an established piece of that community, but clearly not not the case.
RobertThank you.
Joel Bradyno, nope.
Joel Bradynope no Nope, not at all. Not at all. No. And, and so, you know, I'll like, I'll talk you through a little bit of that. And we, you know, we, we, we, we knew we were doing something a little like quite different.

(01:18:24):
Joel BradyAnd we, we tried to talk to some folks and feel out what the reaction was going to be. And we did some things right. And we did other things wrong.
Joel BradySo I'll, you know, I'll be frank about all those things, so um we, we, so I had been climbing at another ah adjacent crag with Andrew, just a little bit down the road from Seneca, and we, I had seen a face, and I was like, oh, that face really cool, and and Andrew said, no, you know, what be really cool is this green wall project at Seneca, and he described it and he's like,

(01:18:59):
Joel Bradyyou'll love it, dude. It's dead vert. There's no holds on it, you know, which is like, that's my jam. Like, give me a dead vert wall with no just tiny little crimps.
Ari Grodea new New River Gorge style for sure.
Joel BradyI'm very, New River Gorge style face climbing. um I'm excited. And um he sent me some pictures he had taken from Greenwall, the 5-7 that skirts it to the right. Like, he had just like taken out his camera, hanging on the spot.

(01:19:24):
Joel Bradyfive, seven and like taking some shots of it. And and it just, it looked so cool. And so we went, um we wrapped it that, like I said, that was the first thing we did. We went there and we wrapped it. um I didn't that. So my first route at Seneca was Greenwall. I just thought Andrew did it in a, I think we maybe even simul climbed it. I can't remember, but we, we got to the top, wrapped down and just, you know, we found a set, we found, we found a subsidiary set of anchors.

(01:19:54):
Joel Bradyah Which we didn't know existed, but somebody had put anchors in there like 15 years earlier, precisely with the idea that we had, which was that this thing could be freed. And they, for whatever reason, had decided that it was, you know, too much for them or they had other priorities. I don't know exactly the story.
Joel BradyBut we wrapped it and felt the stuff and, you know, it like seemed like it went. And our assessment at the time was like, we think this might be like in the 12D, 13A range, just like kind of half pulling on stuff. and And then we had to decide then, okay, what are we going to do?

(01:20:32):
Joel BradyUm, and initially, I will say we were, before we even did that, we had an idea to go ground up on this thing. We weren't even going to inspect it. We were going to go ground up.
Joel BradyAnd we talked to Tom Cecil, who's like, you know, uh, an institution there at at Seneca.
RobertYeah.
Robertyeah
Joel BradyHe's been there for a lot of years. He runs Seneca Rocks Mountain Guides and he's all like He's got a strong sense of the history. um He's rather opinionated and he's he's got strong views on a lot of things and he'll let you know about them too.

(01:21:05):
Joel BradyAnd we talked to him and and his advice to us was don't go ground up because... like he he's essentially my assessment of Tom is he's made a kind of shift as he's moved into the later portion of his climbing career that there's there's these like death roots that have been established at Seneca that are these like bold test pieces but nobody ever goes and does them and his view is like something like you know and he he can correct me on this if he feels differently it's something like

(01:21:38):
Joel BradyJust because the first ascensionists went and did it in that way, they've like closed off an opportunity for fantastic climbing that many people could have access to if it had not been established in the death route style. right And there's a counter argument to that.
Joel Bradyright like and i And I can hear, I've got someone in mind in particular who would be like, you know like who immediately would be like, Yeah, but like it's the experience and there's like there needs to be a place for adventure and boldness and climbing. And that's the counter argument. And, you know, whatever um it's both, both things are true.

(01:22:13):
Joel BradyAnd, but anyway, Tom was like, you're going you're going put up a garbage route. That's a death route. That's like basically just there to stroke your own ego. If you go ground up and nobody will ever go do it.
Joel BradyAnd yeah, you know, when he said that it was influential for us. And, um you know, like our idea of going ground up was that, that nobody could, we were going to bolt ah this route, but nobody could say anything to us about it.

(01:22:41):
Joel BradyThat was why we were going to go ground up. Like, you know, like we, you know, we, but when Tom said that we were like, uh, okay, let's just rappel down and bolt it, which is, you know, we,
RobertThank you.
Joel Bradywhich But when we bolted it, we we left it gamey. um we There's a couple of spots that like through the crux you know the crux of that route, um I took falls there that were you know pretty good 40-foot falls, that you know big screaming 40-foot falls.

(01:23:14):
Joel Bradyum safe but large and then the last like 35 feet are are traditional like we we basically just bolted up to the existing set of subsidiary anchors and then the last 35 feet is is um gear you know gear climbing you base and there's like two pieces in that 35 feet that you just you take and do some run out climbing through there so we bolted at sporty um A lot of people don't know that there are a significant number of sport routes at Seneca already. There's about 20 of them, 20 or 25. And most people have no idea that they're there.

(01:23:48):
Joel Bradythat people know about the cave on the south end of it. um But most people don't know that like Eddie Bagoon put up a bunch of sport routes and Tom and I think Mike Arts was on some of those first ascents of the sport routes.
Joel Bradyum Chris Tolan put up some sport routes. I've i've joked about like writing a sport climbing guide to Seneca. um And, you know, and like if I really wanted to poke the bull, that's what I would do.

(01:24:15):
RobertOh,
Joel BradyBut um we actually bolted that route in the middle of the night. And the reason we did that, ah the reason we did it was because we were willing to have a confrontation with anyone who thought that this was not cool to do.
Robertoh nice
Joel Bradyum But we didn't want to have that confrontation while we were in the process of equipping the route. right so we were like we we felt strongly that the route you it's a it would be you could not climb it traditionally so it it wasn't it wasn't uh an aid route um uh that harrison shull had established in like 92 or i forget the year it was mid ninety s early 90s somewhere in there it was an aid route and all his old aid gear was on there but If you tried to climb using his aid gear plus whatever else you could plug in, you would immediately die.

(01:25:10):
Joel BradyThat would be the end of that thing. There's no way. There's just no way. You would just die.
RobertOkay.
Joel Bradyum and And I don't mean like it's a death route that like an X route that if you were really good and really bold. No, like I don't care how good a climber you are. If you tried to do that route, you would die. There's no question about it.
Joel BradySo if somebody was going to free it, it needed to be bolted. Now, did it need to be wrap bolted? No, you probably could have gone ground up like hanging on hooks and putting in the stuff, but we made that decision for the reasons I mentioned.

(01:25:44):
Joel BradySo we figured that if we put in the bolts and then did the root, and then did the root the quality of the route and the way that we were conservative about the spacing of the bolts and we left part of it gear, hopefully it would speak for itself.
Joel BradyAnd honestly, we haven't, you know, we have, nobody said anything to my face anyway. There might be old, you know, there might be old timers who feel a certain kind of way about it.

(01:26:05):
RobertThank
Joel BradyAnd honestly, I'm looking at Ari, like, you know, you're shifting in your seat and you're like, you're like a poker face right now. I'm waiting for you to like,
Robertyou.
Joel Bradylike you like I'm like, oh, does Ari feel a certain kind of way about what we did there? and yeah i'm and i'm like We did it knowing full well what we were doing. the response that it might create.

(01:26:29):
Joel BradyAnd honestly, we, all we, we, all we heard was, was support for it, especially once we did it. And like, it's, it's a 20 star route. It is like mega, mega, like the, it is like, as far as first ascent contributions, for sure. That's my magnum opus. I'm not tapping that thing.
Joel Bradyit is, you know, I'm partial to it, but it is, ah It's incredible. And it's on top of the mountain and and it's on the most striking feature at Seneca. And it's incredible. So like I stand by everything we did there.

(01:27:02):
Joel BradyThere is one part of it that i I definitely feel like was a misstep, which was um we did not reach out to Harrison about equipping it.
Joel BradySo Harrison had put up the first ascent as an aid route. And I did hear through the grapevine that, um ah like, basically what I'd heard was that Harrison thought it was super cool that we had done it, but was like, why wouldn't you reach out to me since, um you know, I put up the first ascent, which I fully get, you know, like I'm...

(01:27:36):
Joel Bradyespecially being with a climbing coalition and like having some sense of climbing ethics and, you know, like I, I fully understand that point of view. Um, we hadn't reached out because we had basically, we had heard some suggestion that he wouldn't be cool with it.
Joel BradyAnd that if we did raise it, it would turn into a whole conflict. And we believed so strongly that this thing needed to be equipped that I will say that we felt like if there was going to be a conflict, we felt like we, we were, war we it was warranted.

(01:28:05):
RobertYeah.
Joel BradyLike if, if he opposed it, we felt like we were warranted in doing it anyway. So I'll, I'll stand by that.
Ari GrodeOkay. Yeah.
Robertyeah
Joel BradyThe thing is, and and, and like, and I don't even know if I, if I said it that way to Harrison, because Harrison and ended up having a conversation afterward. And we, you know, i basically said me a culpa, man, for not reaching out to you that like,

(01:28:28):
Joel Bradyif I were in your shoes, I would feel like that's a Bush league, you know, like you should, you should reach out to a first ascensionist about like, you're going to make modifications to whatever it is. Even if it's an aid route,
Joel Bradyif you can, and the person's still around, like, you you talk to them, and knowing what I know now, i would have, I definitely would have, hindsight is 20-20, but that's why we made the decision, we didn't want to get into a conflict, because we thought there would be a conflict, now I know there wouldn't have been, now I know that he had always thought this thing needs to be be freed one day, this thing should be freed, and um you know And and he he he has said it's like super cool that we did that, just like we should talk to him first, and we should have.

(01:29:09):
Joel Bradyyou know we We should have.
Ari GrodeIt's, it's, it's always hard to know though, cause you never know if somebody would have reacted differently in, in upfront versus having seen the finished product and realizing it is a extremely quality, uh, route that, you know, came from their vision, their, you know, their vision, uh, to begin with.
Joel BradyYeah,
Joel Bradyyeah how they're going to react.
Joel BradyYep.
RobertYeah.
Joel BradyYes.
Joel BradyYep, yep.
Ari GrodeSo, yeah.

(01:29:29):
Joel BradyYeah. Yeah. And we, had I mean, we had, there's a, there's a sign at Seneca on the way in. It says, this is a primarily traditional climbing area.
Joel BradyThink twice before you bolt. it Like it says something like that on the big sign as you're walking in. And Andrew and I, we have a picture of ourselves Like this is this is where it gets a little like, you know, well, how much do I want to say like we become the villains here, but we have a picture of us with our with our drills next to the sign like, you know, like, ah you know, doing that kind of thing.

(01:30:05):
Joel BradyAnd it's, you know, we're obviously joking around. it Like I said, I think we we we tried to strike a balance here and and essentially stay within the Seneca ethic, make something that was, you know, equip it in a way that was safe.
Joel BradyBut um I'm trying to remember why. Oh, it says think twice. And we always joke, like we did think twice. We almost thought about putting titanium bolts in so that nobody would chop that stuff, you know, like we...

(01:30:29):
RobertYeah.
Joel Bradybecause we we were concerned that somebody would come in and have a problem with it.
Robertyeah
Joel BradyAnd um I think, you know, like at this point, it's been two years. And if somebody, you know, went in and I don't know, it's like, I'm partial, as I said, but like, you'd be hard pressed to find a harder, a better, ah better route on the East Coast, or like, i'd I put that route up there with anything in the country.

(01:30:56):
Joel BradyIt is, like I'm, I am so blessed and fortunate to have, uh, had that experience.
RobertThank
Joel BradyAnd, um, you know, it it also was the fruition of a lot of the partnership stuff with Andrew, you know, it was like, it really was Andrew who said like, we should go we should go do that thing.

(01:31:16):
Joel BradyAnd I was like, yeah, we should absolutely go do that thing. And, and we went and did it and we spent six months with it. And, um, yeah, I'll, you know, it basically is, it's kind of a I had still life when I was 18 years old, ah Green Magic when I was, I don't know, 42, I guess, is when we put that up. And it's like um that that thing means a lot to me in terms of my in terms of my climbing contributions.

(01:31:42):
RobertI mean, I think it's pretty safe to say, like from everything I've heard, at least, it sounds like you guys thought about it like three or four times, not just twice. So, I mean, you talked to Tom, you guys really took some precautions.
Joel BradyYeah. Yep.
RobertSo i think I think that probably shows, you know, when you're talking to the first ascensionist, and that's probably probably the reason he was pretty cool with it all. But sounds like a mega, mega thing to be a part of.
Joel BradyYeah.

(01:32:03):
Joel BradyYeah, yeah, we reached, yeah, we reached, you know, I think an agreement with each other. And and like I said, I took responsibility for for that. And i I still take responsibility um for that.
Joel BradyYeah. But it's also like, it's a funny, you know, um there's i did i did put up another route over on the South Peak, which I called, I didn't put it up. I didn't bolt that one. This one had been bolted in the 90s by Chris Tolan.

(01:32:32):
Joel BradyAnd it's like mid 513. So it's still, yeah. Yeah. so it's still
Ari Grodethis is ah This is also at Seneca?
Joel Bradyyeah Yeah, it's at Seneca on South on south Peak.
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel Bradyum And it was just an abandoned ah route that had been bolted in like 99. I think like the same year I did Still Life at the new, Chris Tolan equipped this route that I ended up doing and I called it Northern Sky.
RobertThank you.

(01:32:56):
Joel BradyAnd um it's this like really, that one that one went rather quickly because it's like 13B-ish and you know I didn't have to really project that thing for long, but it's like if that thing were at the new, um it would be a five-star classic new river climb. But because you have to use Seneca tactics to get up to it, you basically have to quest up this ledge system and fourth class it to get up there and then like build an anchor at the base of it. And it just, you know, I i think it's, i I would be surprised if anyone's repeated that thing. If it was at the new, it would have been done like, you know, it would have been done back in the eighties and it would have been done

(01:33:37):
Joel Brady5,000 times at this point. But yeah, Northern Sky.
Ari Grodethat Is that the route Northern Sky? Okay.
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari GrodeOkay.
Joel BradyYeah, that one, I named it that because, so um I was, that there was a fire on the backside of of South Peak.
Joel BradyAnd when you looked up at the peak, at South Peak, the the ridge looked like it was on fire behind it because of the the the woods that were on fire behind south peak and um or north peak that's north peak that's north peak and there's a like uh norwegian death metal album a famous one called a blaze in the northern sky and i almost named it a blaze in the northern sky for like referencing that but then also like i have some real problems with

(01:34:21):
Ari GrodeHoly shit.
Joel Bradywhat ended up happening with that whole death metal scene. Like, like basically they went, ended up like murdering each other and burning down like 50 churches in Norway. And like it like, it turned into that whole scene became a, quite a disaster, but yeah, yeah.

(01:34:45):
Ari Grodeholy shit
RobertYeah, that's that's pretty heavy.
Joel BradyThere's, Yeah, like look the ah the band ah this is not the band Mayhem, that's not who whos who did A Blaze in the Northern Sky, but Mayhem is like notorious for the all the band members like killing each other and you know like drinking blood from each other's skulls, or I don't know what, just doing awful things.

(01:35:07):
Joel Bradyum But anyway, the route's called Northern Sky. But what I was getting at is those two routes, Northern Sky and Green Magic and the Hills, even though there's other sport routes around that like Eddie Bagoon put up, like Eddie Bagoon put up a bunch of really cool like mid 512, 11 plus mid 512 routes all over Seneca. And they're like old school 512, like nails hard, you know, like properly, properly old school hard routes.

(01:35:38):
Joel BradyYou know, these routes are like
RobertThank you.
Joel BradyNorthern sky is 13 B, um which is like not, it's not cutting edge by modern sport climbing standards. um ah Green magic in the Hills is I called it 14 B. We'll see. Like if you put it into the like Darth grader, you can come out with a grade of 14 C. And I thought like, I don't know, I just kind of played a little conservative on the grading and we'll see where that grade shakes out. I don't know.

(01:36:08):
Joel BradyBut
Ari GrodeIf you call it 13D, you can't get downgraded.
Joel BradyI know, I know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Well, that was my concern. I was like, what if somebody says this thing is 13D? I don't want it get downgraded. and like so And then I was like, oh, I don't know. Did I do the same thing as I did when I was 18? I don't know.
Joel Bradybut um
Robertso what what we're hearing is that joel brady fas are notoriously sandbagged mean that's what yeah

(01:36:29):
Joel BradySandbag, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robertyeah
Joel Bradyum But um what's funny about that root is like, everyone else is climbing 5.7 and 5.8 classic trad lines all around you.
Joel BradyYou're at the new and you get on 5.14, like that's still, that's still quite hard at the new, but there's people around who have like that, that as a near reference point, because like they're on the 5.13 next to it or whatever.

(01:36:59):
Joel BradyBut like at, at Seneca, you might as well be like climbing on the moon or something you know because it's like the the the difference between a 5-7 multi-pitch and 14b bolted like it's just like you know and and people we would have parties coming through while we were working on it you know you'd you'd see like 10 parties roll through your belay all day and um it was just kind of a funny uh juxtaposition with like what usually happens at at seneca yeah

(01:37:31):
Ari GrodeDo you know if anyone's been trying that route for to get the second ascent?
Joel BradyNo. ah Well, OK, so um I shouldn't say no. I do know two people who have been trying it. So one, my partner, Andrew. So um Andrew, ah who I did many years of horseshoe hell with until he unfortunately got bitten by a rattlesnake.

(01:37:52):
Joel Bradyah And but so he and I were both. trying to do the first ascent together and we equipped it together. um That route is like, and, and, you know, i like I logged it in Mountain Project as a, as a team ascent because Andrew was extremely important in that ascent. And I believe strongly he will do it someday.

(01:38:13):
Joel BradyAnd, you know, it's, that's a route he and I put up together basically. his He's yet to free it but he was super close before he got a finger injury, and then he got bit by the rattlesnake.
Joel BradyAnd he's been trying to come back from that rattlesnake bite for like two years now, two and a half, ah two years. He almost died. Like legit almost died and has all these neurological issues and respiratory issues. And um and he is now like finally kind of getting back to form.

(01:38:44):
Joel BradyAnd I know that he is is very interested in it, although he's been very much ah consumed with bouldering in Morgantown. he's writing the He's been writing the comprehensive guides to Morgantown bouldering.
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel Bradyin West Virginia. um And then our friend ah ah Dylan, who goes by Slab Justice Warrior on his socials. And if you're it everybody, if you are not following Slab Justice Warrior, you need to follow him right away because but he's been trying it, too. So I'll just give you a quick version of what Slab Justice is all about.

(01:39:19):
Joel BradyHe when I first saw him, he was posting these things on Instagram. under Slab Justice Warrior, and he's climbing, like, the dirtiest, mossiest, grossest slabs you ever saw in your life, and just, like, you know, like, the worst-looking boulders I ever saw around Morgantown, and that was his thing, was, like, it was, ah I don't know if it was him or his friend, he was, like,

(01:39:46):
Joel Bradysaid every slab deserves its justice. And, and um and then I think his friend said to him, you're like a slab justice warrior. And you're making sure that, you know, every slab gets, gets its, gets its day.
Joel BradyAnd um I honestly did not know whether this was a joke when I was watching it. I thought it was a joke, you know, like

(01:40:10):
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel Bradyit And, or, or I thought it, I almost thought it was like a like an artistic project or, you know, he was doing like an art installation thing. Cause why would anybody climb this stuff? It made no sense to me.
Joel BradyAnd he would just put up some, you know, here's this gross looking slab I climbed today. And like, and eventually I was so curious. I, I contacted him. i was like, Hey man, I'm in Morgantown all the time, bouldering or whatever.

(01:40:37):
Joel BradyCan I come and hang out with you? And, go do this thing you're doing and he was like yeah man come on down so I came down and he's at the time he had this big beard like you know foot long beard long hair looks like this mountain man his pants are completely shredded completely shredded from cheese grating down these gross slabs his yes yeah and that's just like every day he's just like you know

(01:41:02):
Robertthe whips The whips we all have night terrors about.
Joel BradyShe's grading downclubs. um His home woody, I find out, is a slab. ah and And he's telling me about, like, how suited he, like, what why physically he's suited specifically for these kinds of slabs.
Ari GrodeWhat?

(01:41:26):
Joel BradyAnd I'm legit, I'm still like, I don't know if this guy is messing with me. I didn't. ah any And then eventually I realized he's very serious. and And then over the years, he's gone on to climb, like,
Joel BradyV11, V12 slabs, like like very hard slabs. Like he he is a he is a proper slab aficionado. And he has come out to green magic. And he's not ah he's not really a root climber, but he the the crux on green magic, I estimated it's about an 11 move V11. It's about where I estimated it to be. So you basically do a like technical like technical technical thirteen c into a V11.

(01:42:11):
Joel BradyAnd, you know, he comes at this, like doing the hardest, hardest labs. And he's like, yeah, i don't know if it's V11, you know, like, uh, cause he's, you know, that's just like, it's so in his wheelhouse.
Joel BradyAnd, you know, he, he like, uh, he, he suggested like maybe that, but Andrew and I are like, get out of here, dude. Like that is, you know, like we we've been on, we've been on like,

(01:42:38):
Joel Bradythe hard crux is out there on sport routes and this one feels pretty hard, but you know, he's, that's just, his so I know he's tried it, but I don't know where his progress is with it. Anna Hazelnut or Anna, she, she has expressed some,
RobertYeah.
Joel Bradyinterest. i actually, I ran into her and she was like in town at the Pittsburgh gym and we started talking and, um and, and I, I mentioned that route, like, Hey, there's this route that, you know, you're, a you're a slab aficionado and that, yep.

(01:43:11):
RobertSlab is sexy, right? Yeah.
Joel BradySlab is sexy. Like she gave, actually I got it like a slap. She gave me like a slab, a slab is sexy sticker or something like that, that she had with her. And um oh she gave me a chalk she gave me a uh she gave me what was it oh i had my daughter's chalk bag uh that she had stopped using and on a wrote the slab is sexy thing and i gave that to slab justice warrior because i knew that he he would be very but anyway i was talking ana and um she uh i mentioned this route and she was like wait a second she's like i i know that route she was like

(01:43:36):
RobertOh, look at that.
Ari GrodeNice.
Joel Bradyi Look, it's on my I have it on my vision board already. So she had already somehow ah seen it, and it's already like in her list of to-dos, and she keeps she keeps saying she's going to do ah an East Coast swing, and it sounds like she may come through this fall and try. We'll see. I don't know. and

(01:44:07):
RobertThat's sick. Yeah, she's awesome. I was just down in El Salto filming a climbing documentary with a different rab athlete, but she was down there. we were all chatting.
RobertShe's a riot, but I'll have to reach out and see if she's made any progress on that.
Joel Bradyyeah
Robertwe'll ah We'll see you when her when her potential days are, but that's pretty cool.
Joel Bradyyeah be cool i would love to see mean don't know like i said you'd be hard-pressed to find a better route on the east coast than that one and the setting is spectacular so yeah certainly i hope

(01:44:39):
Ari Grodebut's ah That's a, that's a, that's a call out all you, uh, all you, all you five 14 level vert climbers come, come give it a try.
Joel Bradyyeah Yeah, for sure. and like there's people down you know i know there's like there's folks down in the South who are putting up you know hard hard lines down there in North Carolina. and like come Come get it, man.

(01:44:59):
Joel BradyYeah, come do it.
Ari GrodeAwesome.
RobertI love it. I love it. Well, I feel like we certainly want to talk about horseshoe hell and we know you're writing a book, but it also feel like we we, were getting pretty long on this episode.
Joel BradyYeah, yeah.
RobertSo I feel like it might be worth a callback and having you back on as we get closer to horseshoe hell. And then we kind of dive deep into the depths of hell because I think that could be a fun round too.

(01:45:21):
Joel BradySure.
Joel BradyYeah.
Joel BradyYeah. If you guys are doing like another, like mini series on, on hell again, like you did the last time around. um Yeah, that would be sweet. Yeah. Cause that, the time you guys did that, I, I would like the, the episode you guys did with Foss and Rob, i was actually listening to that in real time as we were prepping for last year's hell.

(01:45:48):
Joel BradyLike we would go out and do the prep and then I'd come back and like, listen to 20 minutes of that.
Ari GrodeOh, nice.
Joel BradyAnd then we'd go back and prep and, um yeah it was cool but yeah I'm always happy to talk horseshoe hell for sure
Ari GrodeYeah, I feel like we could probably spend at least an hour just shooting the shit about Horseshoe Hell. And and yeah, it sounds like you're writing writing a book that'll be...
Joel Bradyyeah for sure
Ari GrodeIs that going to come out before Hell this year?

(01:46:10):
Joel BradyNo, I'm no no it'll like um'm going to be at least another year on writing that, is if not two.
Ari GrodeLand or no? Okay, okay.
Ari GrodeOkay. OK.
Joel BradyI'm all in on that, but it's going to be a bit before before that would come out.
Ari GrodeOK. Well, we could still can still chat about you know what what your vision is and and the progress and stuff.
Joel Bradyyeah Yeah, and then when it's then then when we're doing the book tour, maybe we can do it again.

(01:46:32):
Ari GrodeOK.
RobertThere it is. Yeah, of course.
Ari GrodeYeah.
Joel BradyYeah.
Robertthey're Third visit for sure.
Joel BradyYeah.
Ari GrodeAwesome.
Ari GrodeYou guys feel good? Should kill the recording?
Robertah feel pretty solid. Joel Brady Yeah. Yeah. This was fun.

(01:46:53):
RobertYeah, this is a blast.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ground Up 18: The Sandstone School of Rock with Professor Joel Brady

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Ground Up 18: The Sandstone School of Rock with Professor Joel Brady

24/7 News: The Latest