EP 271: Kenton Cool. The super hero who climbed MT EVEREST 14 times with no end in sight.

I met Kenton Cool on Mt EVEREST in 2021. He is an amazing and talented Englishman who has scaled MT EVEREST 14 times with no end in sight. He guides clients all over the world and had scaled most of the major peaks out there. This is a super engaging conversation w/ Kenton on where he has been, his philosphy on life and where he's going in the future.

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Hey everybody, it's Mark Pattison.I'm back again with another great episode of
Finding Your Summit, all about peopleovercome university and finding their way. Before
we get into today's rockstar guest,I want to draw attention to my website
www dot Mark Pattison NFL dot com. There's a lot of stuff right there.
There's all over two hundred and seventypodcasts. I would appreciate a ratings

(00:31):
and review on Apple if you geta chance. It helps with the popularity
of the show. It's about mebeing popular, it's about all of us
being inspired by these amazing guests.I need to be inspired as well.
Number two searching for the Summit.The movie the NFL shot on my NFL
Journey up and Down Mount Everest isshown there through a link onto NFL three

(00:53):
sixty. It's an epic film,one Emmy Best Picture, so go check
that out. And finally, wecontinue to raise money for Emilias Everest,
my daughter z epilepsy, and allproceeds go to higher ground location here in
some valley, Los Angeles and NewYork. So on that note, let

(01:15):
me introduce my guest today. Hewill sound like a superhero, which he
is and sort. His name isKenton, Cool Kenton. How are you
doing? Yeah, I'm good.Yeah, that's quite the intro. Yeah,
Nick, when I want to sayto that, but how are you
I've already seen outside your window.Looks like you were having fair weather and

(01:36):
snow, which I'm always jealous about. Yeah, so we're broadcasting here from
Sun Valley, Idaho. Of courseyou were in the UK. You were
a Brett based I mean, evenmy brit standards, it's pretty dire.
It's being NonStop, relentless, soulsapping rain. He's been pretty bad.
Well remember I'm from Seattle, soI don't think he knew that, but

(01:56):
I'm telling you that. So Igrew up in the Ranso. I understand
you your weather, you know yourclimate. So let me introduce this to
the group, and then I wantto go backwards just a little bit,
because it's always interesting. We'll rEFIndthis different motivation. I met you on
Mount Everest at base camp really Adnamicheand the lodge I can't remember the name.
It was called up their Panoramic orsomething. Yeah, and you were

(02:19):
there with your wife and I thinkone or two or three kids, regrets
running around. It was great,and so ultimately you have your own expedition
going on with another member, butyou were somewhere another able to join the
Garrett Madison team. And so thekind of the net net and they'll jump
to kind of the end and thenwe'll go back to the beginning, is
that now you've now done Mount Everestsixteen times, which is completely insane,

(02:44):
which and it props to you.It takes tremendous amount of mindset and determination
and a lot of things that Ithink people are going to find interesting about
you and what you do and howyou go about doing it. But I
want to go back to kind ofthe early years, and I think you
know both you and I was.I was really inspired by a lot of
Northwest climbers, guys who you mayhave heard of or know at vistas,

(03:05):
um the Whittaker brothers and things likethat that they went on later to Jim
Whittaker, I actually I think itwas the first American in nineteen sixty three
to climb out on Everest. Andhe was inspired by Hillary and and and
uh their expedition party. Where didyou first get the bug? Like this

(03:25):
is something that you want to dobecause you've made it into a career.
It's just amazing how you can takeyour passion and turn that into something that
you can actually financially monetize on.Yeah. Well, I mean, I
mean, first and foremost, Ithink you probably know as much about that
as I do. You know,professional sports person guessing that you into football
because you loved it and then youfind a way of making it work.

(03:47):
But if we if we rewind theclock, I started climbing a seventeen or
so, so a bit late tothe scene. First us the local clo
climbing wall. Now we have toremember that climbing walls. This was back
in the early nineties. Climbing wallsaren't a climbing wall. Back there was
not a climbing gym, as manyof your audience may now sort of recognize.

(04:13):
You know, you didn't walk inand it's these fantastic facilities. Back
in it wouldn't been about ninety two, I think ninety two. I first
started climbing, and it was literally, I imagine, like a chicken mesh
wire structure that's had concrete sprayed ontoit. And this was at Brunel University,
close to where I grew up.And this will state the art.

(04:34):
Now, this is as good asit got. This is highly polished.
Now. It was almost glassy light, terrible climbing wall, which you would
now not even give a second thesecond look at. But I went down
there with a buddy of mine kindof fell in love with it a little
bit. I was a field hockeyplayer. You played field hockey to a
relatively high level. And then oneday my buddy said, hey, listen,

(04:59):
I'm the climbing on the sea cliffsin the south of the UK.
Do you want to come. I'mlike, hell yeah, And then bang,
all of a sudden, it wentfrom climbing indoors, which is kind
of fun, to climbing outdoors withthe adrenaline and the sea crashing and the
blue sky because we do occasionally getblue sky in the UK, and it

(05:21):
was a completely different experience. Andthen from there a little bit like you,
perhaps I deep dived into into climbing. And these names kept cropping up,
you know, Chris Bollington, DougScott, you know, to a
certain extent, Hillory, Mine,Whole Messner, Peter Harborer, and it

(05:44):
seemed back in the nineties it isa bit different now, but it seemed
to be to me in the ninetiesthat the place to go was the Alps
and that was a stepping stone tothe Himalaya. And from very early on
in my climbing careers, I wantto get to the Himalaya. That's where
it's at. Whereas today, Imean, I think the sport's changed a
little bit mark and maybe a lotof people will climb. A lot of

(06:06):
people will just climb indoors and that'sreally groovy. A lot of people would
just boulder the small, no ropes, just a bouldering mat, like a
crash mat, and there might onlybe ten feet high. It's a really
great way to get good technique,can get strong actually for rock climbing,
and that's also amazing. And it'sone of the beautiful things about the sport

(06:29):
of you know, air quotes hereclimbing. It's multifaceted. Whether you're climbing
Everest, whether you're climbing five thousandmeter peaks in Alaska, whether you're climbing
pencil high boulders in Joshua Tree.Now it's all climbing and that's so cool
about the sport. But for me, it was big mountains. I was

(06:51):
reading the books, I went toLeeds University to study and there was a
climbing club there which was on fire. The energy, Oh my god,
you haven't seen anything like it.And to give you an idea about how
much energy was around this this thisclimbing club, I mean it really was
off the charts. I'm a fullyqualified mountain guide. I'm I'm a pin

(07:15):
guide on i FMGA International Federation ofMountain Guide Association. It's like think top
gun. I'm a bit like thatwith a top x percent. And there's
maybe a one hundred and fifty Britishpin guides and five of us were at
Leeds University at the same time.So that just gives you an idea of

(07:36):
the energy. And it wasn't whena week on a climb. It was
what a week on a climb,and it's just relentless. It was all
encompassing. And it was at thatpoint that field hockey just dropped off and
became really focused on climbing. Andmy first Himalayan expedition, I was still

(07:57):
at university, organized trip to Pakistan. I never really look back. It
was like a crack edition. WellI never tried cracks, but I can
imagine that's what it's like, onceit got me, I just I'd love
with it. Yeah, that's whatI was going to say. You know,
as you were describing this and thisenergy at Leeds University and just you

(08:20):
know, kind of transitioning from fieldhockey to dabbling into other sports and then
you you kind of like really hookonto rock climbing and and and I'm in
this world with you, right,I mean, you are a professional at
it and I'm just a recreational It'smy hobby, but I do it every
day. I'm literally in the mountainsevery day, and like you said,
it becomes super addictive, and it'saddictive on multiple levels. Um. I

(08:43):
love the feeling of accomplishment. Ilove the feeling of a venture travel where
I'm going to a new foreign countryand experiencing all this. This last year
you were talking about the Alps.I went over to Zamant to do the
Matterhorn. I basically going off theMatterhorn in September until I retreated. I

(09:03):
went down back down to Shamanee andand I said, you know, I
can't do this one, and let'sgo after another one. So we climbed
Mount Blom and that was just agreat challenge, right, and so I
can say I've been I've done it. You know, I've been there,
done that, and and so nowI'm looking at like what's the next thing?
And what's the next thing? Andit's hard when people say, aren't

(09:24):
you aren't you just good enough withthe seven summits, And the answer is
no, And kind of like youwhere you've gone up, I mean it's
a little bit different, but whereyou've gone up Mount Everest, you know,
at least sixteen times, and you'vesummoned it, and you've done all
these other peaks, which which we'llget into. Um, it never gets
old or repetitious to me to continueto go up because I climb a lot

(09:46):
of the same mountains around here.When I say I go up, you
know, on a daily basis,it's not spending two months away from your
home and family and everything. Butbut it's still that like I've got something
in me. I've got all theseother things going on at work and things
like that, but I know thatsometime in my day I have to carry
out, you know, this timeto the time so I can get up
and get that fix which feeds mysword at the end of the day.

(10:09):
Yeah, I mean it's a there'sa fantastic book by ala vias Ll Feeding
the Rat, and its about malAntoine. He was a climber back in
the seventies early eighties. He wastaken from as far too early. And
feeding the rat is this, Isuppose metaphor for you know, inside you
you have this where he calls itthe rat, and the rat is gnawing
away at you and it's slowly eatingyou from the inside out. And the

(10:31):
only way you can state the ratis or satisfy the rat is you need
to feed it whatever it needs.Now, that could be if your cyclist
is going out in your bike,or maybe it's a runner, or in
my case, it's to be likeyou to be in the hills to go
climbing, you know, to dosomething. The rat needs to be fed.

(10:52):
And depending what you do, howmuch you put into the rat that
gives you a service amount of breathingspace before the rat needs be fed again.
Now I'll give you an example.Back in two thousand and three,
Io went in the pool. Iclimbed. Arguably my heart is him a
land peak. It left me physicallyand emotionally scarred, I think, and

(11:16):
for quite a while afterwards, therat was perfectly happy getting putting his feet
up, you know, kicking back, drinking the margarite or something. The
rat was super happy. Um,you know, if I go for a
day's climbing here, yeah, therat, the rat likes that. But
the rat needs that the next day. So occasionally the experiences that we can
have can almost overpe the rat,and the rat needs a little bit of

(11:41):
time to find an equal librium.But he's always there. He's always going
to chip away at your psyche andhe needs or she needs feeding. And
you know, it's a fantastic bookand it's really good analogy. And then
my friends, especially my wife's tunedinto it now and sometimes she just says,
you know what you need the Bookof Flight. I think the ratnee

(12:01):
feeding And it's true. And theother thing that you mentioned, mark,
which some people don't clue into now. You you mentioned adventure travel because one
thing that climbing I love travel aswell. And the one thing that I've
I've kind of learned is I thinkfor me, at least travel for the
sacred travel has very little meaning.One thing that climbing has given me is

(12:26):
a purpose to travel. And youknow, I've been to some amazing places.
I mean it was two thousand,No, it was ninety three.
I'm in Pakistan. I'm eighteen,nineteen years old, and we just climbed
a new mountain and by a newrobot. Obviously new mountain a lot high,
like five and a half thousand meters, is my first ever sort of

(12:48):
new Himalayan mountain. And we comeoff the back of it and we have
to descend the wrong side of themountain. So we come into this this
beautiful meadow. We come out ofthe snow line. We run out of
food, we run out fuel,as three of us, and we're coming
into a meadow and there's this youngman running towards us. He's got stick
and he's shouting. And I lookat my mates and we we look at

(13:11):
this this young man. It's probablyabout the same age as us. He's
probably like, I don't know,seventeen eighteen something like that. He can't
speak a word of English. Wedon't speak a word of of Urdu.
It doesn't matter, Okay, thesun's beginning to set. He invites us
into He's got this tiny, reallyyir and he's a he's a goat herder.
And he spends all summer on hisown in the ass end of nowhere,

(13:33):
like in the middle of nowhere,at like four four and a half
thousand meters, on his own,and he's never seen Michael Westerner. You
know, we just come just comedown, you know, out the mountains,
out of nowhere. He invites usin and he shares everything. We
have tea, we have um,cheese and bread. And my friend at
the time was vegan. Been unusualback in back in the early nineties,

(13:56):
and our I'm looking at our ancid, go butter, are you going to
eat that? And it looks atme and goes, how can I not
eat this? This hospitality? Youknow, I can't not eat this.
And it was at that point thatI think I fell in love with the
people in that in that instance specificallyof the Himalayas, but I think it

(14:18):
runs to Andy. I think itruns everywhere. The mountain people and that
adventure that you have around travel,being in the back of the bus or
on top of the bus, oryou get to the road's being washed away
by a landslide, the trek toK two base camp, or you know,
even a trek to every base camp. Yeah, I know, it's

(14:39):
relatively comfortable, but it's still ajaw dropping beautiful thing to do that for
me, certainly as I've got alittle bit older, that is almost as
exciting as the climb itself. Thatexperience of travel, of the people of
the communities that you touch, andthe community and the collective that you're the

(15:00):
team that you're with is happy.Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah.
I think you're literally the version,the British version of me, because
I think about it so much similarLike I've traveled all over and back when
my kids were younger. You know, I do the Hawaii thing and you
know, you go sit on thebeach and it really has no interest to
me anymore. And it's just likeI've been so you know in the last

(15:24):
ten years in particular, where I'vetaken this whole other level of the amount
of experiences that I've had and howmany times I'm sitting there sort of like
out in your field in the middleof Pakistan with this this sheepherder or goat
hurder, and you're saying, like, if my buddies could see me what

(15:45):
I'm doing right now, you know, like I'm actually saying these things in
my head because it's just such aunique and having that whole ability to adjust
and be flexible and things happen andnot everything has to be planned, and
that's when truly the magic comes out. And so and then you tie into
a big physical accomplishment around that,and then to me, that is the
goal, That is the magic.And and like I've been on all these

(16:07):
peaks, and you've been on youknow, way more peaks, I'm sure
than I have. But at theend of the day, Ad said this
the other day that I don't rememberthat many summonths, but I remember all
the training and all the process ittook to leading up to that particular moment
and then going up like like evengoing back to everys when we were there
with you, you know, thetwo months of leading up to May twenty

(16:30):
third, right, I mean Maytwenty third was that was its own animal.
But it was all the experiences,like you said, of flying into
Luke Law and in the world's dangerousairport and then trekking all the way up
and going across the swing bridges,which you've done, and interacting with the
different villagers and understanding their life andgoing into some of those huts. It
was just this is like like,this isn't sand, this is so this

(16:52):
is this is this is real lifeschool, right and reading something about in
the book and to me, there'sso fulfilling, you know, nature about
that. I want to go backto Pakistan for just a minute before we
jump back in the errors. Youhave climbed K two, I think the
world's most dangerous momentum. Where wasyour experience like on K two, Well,

(17:15):
I mean we were really lucky.I mean I first went to Pakistan
in ninety three. I went backto Pakistan in ninety nine, and you
know, I have big love afairy Pakistan. You know't didn't have the
opportunity to go back there for along time, and yeah, it's such
a misunderstood country as well. AndK two being one of these things because

(17:36):
you know, as I mentioned rightto start this, my sort heroes were
the likes of Chris Bonding and DougScott and they produced these big, coffy
table books, glorious photographs. Thisis pre internet obviously, and K two
featured heavily mainly because the Chris bonentonDoug Scott. They put a big expedition
together to try to climb the WestRidge and one of their cohort Nick Scott,

(17:57):
died and for me growing up,you know, these sorts of stories
were very, very powerful, andso Katie is always there and I actually
signed up to go there in twothousand and seven or eight, and then
just last minute just pulled out,lost their heap of cash on it.
But you know, these things happen, and the interesting enough. I always

(18:19):
said that I would never guide onK two. I always thought it was
too much of a dangerous mountain andmore than that, the weather systems.
But all of a sudden, there'sa long story. I was on elbows
with a client and there's a throwawaycomment from from the client, and I
started to think about it and thenchallenged the client. I said, we

(18:41):
said about climbing K two. Yeah, were you being serious or was that
just like a flipping comedy don't no's. And it took us about three years
to get our stuff together, andthere's a COVID year when we couldn't go.
And I think this particular client wasprobably the only client I'd be comfortable
to go to K two with.I don't know a lot of climbing with
him, and we just hit itright insomuch that it was just after COVID.

(19:04):
It was very difficult to get getinto Pakistan, even harder to get
the Sherper team into Pakistan. Sothere was only seventy permits on K two
in twenty when we were there twentytwenty one, so there's only seventy permits
forty nine summits I think, andthis includes sherpers. So, you know,

(19:26):
a big year for K two atthe time, but you know,
compared with Everest know, very verysmall year. All the teams were having
to pour together. We had greatweather when we read this big big period
in the middle of like thirteen daysof bad weather. But that's what you
get in the mountains, especially thecow Corp. The acclimatization went really well.
We had these big hiatus in themiddle. One or two people were

(19:49):
a bit bit pushy with a smallweather window in the middle. But you
know, I said to my client, we're just going to stick to our
guns. We're going to wait forthat good weather window, which hopefully will
come. And he did. Andto be honest, um, you know,
I went there expecting to have toslay slay dragons and and we we
found sheep. We found a veryconvivial, beautiful mountain or you know,

(20:14):
all the way up it was likeclockwork, and we summited and actually,
you know it glombs off on thetop. We spent about our on the
top. You know, it's arelatively short summit day if you just go
up the ABUTSI spur and the standardroute and yeah, and we were using
oxygen and fixed rope. So youknow, any of your listenership out there,
you know, we're not doing anew route. We're not climbing the
Magic line or anything like that.This is you know, commercialism in the

(20:38):
big mountains, and we're just ontop and out just thinking, God,
yeah, I feel like I probablycould have done that without oxygen. Summit
day is much shorter than every summitday, like six hours to the top.
That's all it was. But thenit changed and on the way down
it went from being this very benign, beautiful mountain to this saviash mistress out

(20:59):
of nowhere. And we got downto Camp three and we spent the night
at Camp three, and the nextday we came down. I was using
my body and backpack as a defenseto my clients. I've got the client
in front of me that the rocksare just whistling down. They hadn't been
there on the way up there whistlingdown. They hit me on the backpack.
What were little gullies of snow andnow not even rivulets of water.

(21:22):
That water is cascading down these things. And then finally we get to Camp
one. I dive in the tentto get one or two things we left
behind, and it looks like awar zone. Everything's melted out in space
of three or four days. Everything'smounted out. There's seven eight stones where
we had been sleeping. Just comestraight through the tent. And I'm saying

(21:44):
to the client, right, justyeah, I'll get the stuff. You
stay where you are. You wantto say zone. So I run across
dodge, grab all the stuff outof tent, and we literally run down
the last of the snow slopes toget down to an advanced space camp and
that would be safety. And we'vecome down and we we we end up
in this big avalanche. Debris islike deb everywhere Jesus where it is.

(22:07):
There's a big lumps our crisis likeconcrete. And we're trying to get through
this. And we get off toone side and on the rocks and we're
safe. And we get to Advancedbased Camp which is just down a little
bit, and there's the staff hadcome up and count of courbe We're like,
hey, you know, we justclimb came and then the whole the
whole slope avalanches which we had justbeen on, and honest to me,

(22:27):
Mark and we've been there five minutes, six minutes later, I don't think
we'd be here to tell a story. So so my my impression of K
two, I mean, we werereally lucky. And I always say this,
they're big mountains. They command somuch respect, they really do.

(22:48):
And same with everywhere, same withit, any big almost any mountain,
the mountain will allow us if theyare feeling generous, that we can sneak
up with humidity and we spect tothe summit and get back down again,
we hope. And I think Ktwo just kind of shook herself a little

(23:08):
bit just to say, you know, hey, I then you get to
the top, I could snuff youout like that. Yeah, well,
like you said, like, althoughlike all mountains are like that, in
particular the big mountains. And thenwhen you boiler right down to two K
two and it's like like every oneand four or some low percentage of people
that try to climb that mountain don'tend up coming back. They don't end

(23:32):
up coming back because the rocks comingdown, because of the steepness, because
of the avalanches, and so,I mean, it's intense, and I
think you said it perfectly, whichis the mountain. The mountains allow us
to visit. They allow us toclimb, to potentially get to the top
and then go back down flipping,disperseet and go into twenty twenty one,
when I was on average with you, and because you were much more nimble

(23:56):
and you're you were kind of justhad one client and the new client decided
I could go. I think youyou had summited like the fifteenth or or
before that. There's a little window. Yeah, it was something like that.
You had gone there was a windowthat had come open. We hadn't
continued to do our rotations, andyou said, I'm out of here.
So you had gone up, youhad come down, and you took off,

(24:17):
and then by the time we started, you know, our journey up,
there might have even been before that, like the tap, because when
we took off, you know,we got caught in a cyclone for three
days up there at Camp three,which is no place to be caught in
a cyclone, as you know.Ye, not not at all. I
mean I remember years ago, aswith John Tinker, and John Tinker was
a founder of OTT out there trackingone of the very early eight thousand meted

(24:40):
peak commercial teams, and John wastalking to me said, you have no
idea, You have no idea whathell is like until you experience a storm
at eight thousand meters yea, andtouch wood. I still don't know what
hell he's like because I managed toavoid that up to now by either luck

(25:00):
or good judgment or good weather forecasting. You know, I've been super super
lucky. But it's interesting, youknow what you say that. I mean,
I work in a very spoke way, as you know, I work
one to one and it gives methat ability to be nimble to take those
smaller opportunities. So by the timeyou guys are something to them twenty third,
I was back in the UK andfeet up, sipping a beer,

(25:21):
watching with trepidation because it's always thesame. I get home early and then
you know, social media or youknow whatever it is, you know,
I follow all my friends. Youknow I'll be following your journey through the
Madison website or know everything's being reported, and it's yeah, it's always with
trepidation because those mountains, no matterhow much we think we understand them,

(25:45):
and especially today and the and thethe vibe that's around big mountain climbing now,
and it's like we'll smash you,we'll conquer it. There's one hundred
percent success, right, you know, whether there is no thing as bad,
whether we just push on board that'sgoing to kill people. Yeah,
um stupid, Yeah yeah, andyeah, I'm every year I get back

(26:07):
and I literally hand in my mouth, like I check my social media every
day just to check how my friendsare doing, people like Garrett, people
like yourself, like Lucas or no, whoever it is, and it's willisome.
You know. I operate in adangerous environment and I think anybody that
forgets that. I mean clumb Anythousand meter peaks. It's called the death

(26:30):
zone for every reason. Yeah,it's not for ships and giggles, um,
you know, it's it's a dangerousplace to be. My friend,
Well, I do this is thisis what I say. It's I actually
I mean this because it actually happened, So we get, we get.
So, for those that don't know, Camp Camp three on Mount Everst is
twenty three thousand, five hundred feetI'm not sure that interprets to two meters,

(26:51):
but about seven thousand, three hundred, yeah, and you're on sleeping
in the town. They are wedgedin the side of the hill, you
know, essentially at this forty fivedegree angle, and I'm literally, you
know, you're you're just like,you can't do anything, you can't go
anywhere. You're locked in for threedays. And I was thinking, as
your mind wanders all over the boardin these random thoughts, I had thought

(27:12):
about you, because you had takenadvantage of this, you know, three
day weather window to like sprint upand come back down. And you're running
way back home and you're probably sittingin a pob having a beer in a
pizza, you know, and I'min hell. So anyways, those things
happened. I want to go backand something you said earlier, I think
it was two thousand and three wheresome mountain in the Hima Lab had kind

(27:36):
of rocked your world. And sowe were talking about the rat and feeding
the rat and all the kind ofstuff. What what happened that made you
kind of rethink is this something thatyou want to do as a career.
But it made me me think asa creator, said is it before as
a mountain guide? Oh? Guide? I was already guiding. Yeah,

(27:56):
Um, there's a certain place inthe world that you don't need to be
a pin guide. Now you wantto work in or say mont Blanc or
Matt Hall and the Iger, youneed to be a pin guide. If
you want to work in the poorHead, go for it. So I've
been working as a guide. Buttwo thousand and three there was three of
us and we've decided that what wewanted to do was there's a big unclimbed

(28:18):
route on Annapurna three been tried anumber of times by a big Slovenian teams,
and Slovenia is to climbing a littlebit like basilies to football, you
know, the Creme to the Creme. Some of the very best climbers in
the world ever have come out ofSlovenia and this had been pulsed. Two

(28:41):
or three big Slovenian teams have triedthis line and it was myself, the
American John Barko, and the otherother brit in Parnell, and we decided
that we're going to try this line. Seven and a half thousand meter peaks,
so none of us have been thathigh before. No fixed ropes,
no oxygen, no SHERPA support.We just got a cook and a cook
by a base camp. We've gotno weather forecasting, we've got no SAP

(29:03):
phone, there's no means of communication. Now. This is about as organic
and by fair means as you canget. Base camp was about ten miles
from the bottom of the mountain,so we were like humping ship up and
down the mountain for like days toget everything there. And we had a
climbatization foy on the mountain got abouthalfway up and then we cut loose and

(29:27):
we went for it and we wereout for forget now, ten twelve days
round trip, so carrying everything's Alpinestar climbing, carrying everything on our backs,
yea. And it was harder thanwe thought. We got bogged down
in the middle with some quite hardmixed climbing. Probably is an altitude like

(29:48):
probably m five m six, sonot super hard at sea level, but
seven thousand meters m five m sixfeels pretty damn hard with a big ruckstack
on your back, and it's daysix or day seven by now, and
there's one point in particular that JohnnyVarco wasn't very well, our powerhouse of
an American friend, and he wascoughing up blood, and you know,

(30:10):
I thought we had palm adema,which is a altitude issue, essentially fluid
on the lungs. And on thatparticular day, we had a really bad
days climbing, very slow, hard, climbing, loose, dangerous, and
we hacked out a tiny weeny ledge, maybe foot and a half two foot

(30:30):
wide maximum, you know, justlong enough for all three of us to
kind of lie down, and asthe sun set, I was convinced that
John wasn't going to be with usin the morning. I was convinced to
go and die overnight. And Iremember waking up in the middle of the
night absolutely freezing because you've got lightweightsleeping bags. We're trying to go light

(30:52):
and fast, and yeah, andI thought John was dead. There's no
noise coming from him. And whatI found myself doing is kind of regaling
further away down my end of theledge to try to disassociate myself with what
I thought might be going on atthe other end of the ledge, John
Dye and I really struggled to kindof unpacked that since I got back anyway,

(31:22):
I mean we find I mean Johnwoke up in the morning and it
was fine. I mean, wenever did quite fully established. And I
remember Harnell who was in the middleof saying John, John, and he's
like it sums up. Came outhis bivvy bag. It's like, yeah,
man, I'm here. I'm stillgood. And we were really lucky
that the next day we were wegot above most of the difficulties and we
were coming onto what we didn't knowat the time. It became the summit

(31:45):
Ridge, and I fell into acavass, and this cravat opened up and
we could camp inside the cavass,and for the first time in about four
or five days, we got relativelyflat ground and we could put the tent
up, and we stopped early andhydrated, and all of a sudden we
got control back because it felt likeit was really out of control, and

(32:06):
we got off that mountain were Ithink we're climbing for ten straight days plus
getting to and from base camp,and then the last day we come back
down onto the Glassier. We decidedwe're going to push down the base camp
carry everything, and I don't knowhow heavy the rucksacks were, and we
all got lost on the Glassier,all on the Marines, and we've all
split up. We're all in ourlittle worlds of hell with massive rucksacks.

(32:30):
We're hungry, run out food,we run out of fuel. We should
have been together, but it pushedus so far that that cohesive unit that
we speak on me and I doa load of motivation or speaking to organizations
have teamwork and risk management and thepower of the collective mindset and all these

(32:52):
things. But I kind of feelfluded them because when we got pushed right
to the edge, I mean,really beyond anything that a human being really
should do for fun, because there'sbasically it's meant to be fun. Then
we went to a really goddamn darkplace, and then we got on the
glass Here the friendship had been stretchedso much that we were three individuals,

(33:17):
we were no longer a team,and we're just struggling our way down these
things, lost in our own darkthoughts. And then I did a lecture
tour with John Varco immediately afterwards,so he flew to the UK with me
and we kind of went like this, ha, it been so close,
we just grew distant, and that'snever really been put back together. We

(33:43):
want to go to gash from fourthe following year, but his girlfriend soon
not unfortunately, died in Alaska andon our perhaps I should have gone to
the funeral. I was working inEurope as a mountain guide and I didn't
go to Europe, and I reallyregret that, and I don't think he
really forgave me for it. Andit all stems back to that experience on

(34:04):
the mountain, and that's before youget into the physicality of it. I
mean, we were wrecked, absolutelywrecked. And there's at that point that
I realized that this illusion that Ihad since almost sixteen seventeen of being you
know, I wanted to experience thesethings like Chris Bonington and Doug Scott.
I wanted to have the experience likeLaid had on the Ogre or K two

(34:27):
and things like this. And whenI actually experienced then went really deep,
as deep as you could go.Hell man, I don't want to go
back there. I really don't.And that I think was probably the pinnacle
of my personal climbing in the Himalayas. I mean, it was I think
of beauty, but at the sametime it was it was horrid, horrid,

(34:52):
horrid, horrid, and this Ithink it scarred all three of us.
John and In climb to gain togetherand I climb with the end,
but we never quite came back together. It was it was interesting. Think
we just pushed it that little bittoo far. But I think one of
the things that one of the thingsthat that the mountains can do to certain

(35:13):
people. And if you if youdo this long enough, it's just stretches.
It stretches you physically, emotionally,mentally, and then you get in
really stressful situations um where you know, like the storm or this or that,
and it's just that really tests thepersonality a lot of times when they
you know, you see these showshere in America, Survivor and these other

(35:35):
reality shows where they essentially try tostrip everybody down from everything and they put
them on an island or something,and then they have all these contests and
games and you see by that,you know, the first week, everybody's
happy and great, and by theend they're all eating at each other and
so it's just taken that the humanspirit and stressing that a is far and
there's like who can who can maintainwith their wets all the way through?

(35:58):
And a lot of times, youknow, people don't make it out of
that and they're scarred. And youknow, the thing that is at least
great in your situation is is thatyou could take a time out. You
could like rationalize it, internalize it, and then I don't know how much
time came by you were like,you know what, this is one of
those things that happened. These thingscan happen in the mountains, but you

(36:21):
can also have amazing experiences, whichyour amazing experiences probably dominate these isolated incidences
that occur you know, here andthere, but they do happen. No,
I understand, And yeah, it'sI think it's really important to go
through these things. I really do. I mean, I wouldn't want to
repeat anapoona three for all the teain China. Now. You could not

(36:45):
pay me enough money to go throughthat again. However, I am so
glad that I did go through it. There was so much learning to be
unpacked from it, I mean,and it's simplest for me and I say
this quite a lot when I talkon stage and things. It is only
when you really stare at the utmostfailure and when you overstep the line and

(37:06):
you realize you've gone too far andthis is potentially going to cascade into darkness.
Only then do you realize how lightthe other side is um and I
believe you know you've got to gothere. Otherwise you have no understanding about
what we actually have and that that'sreally experienced, any portant experience, and

(37:27):
that can come from lots of differentthings. That doesn't have to be climbing.
It just happens to be that mountainsis the environment that that I operate
in. So now you stare intothe abyss I e. Death and you
think, oh god, this couldgo wrong, and that's when you kind
of back away and realize how importantit is that we have what we have
and how rich it is, becauseyou know the cliche are going to get

(37:52):
the metaphor on, but you know, it's only when you realize that you're
going to lose something that's when youvalue it. And maybe the build up
to two thousand and three, I'vebeen doing expedition after expedition after expedition,
like two three four times a year. I'd be away for eight nine months
of the year and trying to livein Shamoney and climbing and skiing in Shamany.

(38:14):
And now perhaps I didn't realize whatI had and it took this for
me to realize. You know,actually I need to take my foot off
the gas a little bit, otherwisethis might go into wrong direction. So
yeah, I'm forever grateful of whathappened. I just wantn't want to go
back there. Yeah, I knowI can appreciate that you've done the triple

(38:34):
Crown, which is Everest, Lootsiand NUPSI. I was there in twenty
twenty one. You don't know this, but you know my whole Golders.
I think there is two or threeof us who had planned to climb.
Ever us coming down, get inyour tent a couple of hours and go
back up lotsy and I didn't makethat. I failed that. And a
lot of the way I failed thatis because I was like the super strong

(38:58):
guy on the entire group up untilsummer day, and then I got snowblind,
I ran out of oxygen, Ididn't have anything to eat. You
know, it's just like everything youwouldn't want to have happened, and so
kind of like what you were sayingabout going to the edge and appreciating,
and the easy thing would have beenfor me to just lie back down,
and you know, you just say, oh, if I could just take

(39:19):
five minutes and a quick snooze here, But you're never gonna wake up.
Yeah, I know. You getback up a game, you're never going
to get back up. And Iwas by myself too coming down, so
you know, it's it's it wasjust one of those things that played out.
I would love to go back touh To to experience going up a
Lotzi, but I don't want tospend two months to have that one day,

(39:43):
right, So that's my Yeah,yeah, that's just what it is.
But if I can figure out someother way just to kind of like
spend a week there and go getit, you know, I would.
I would certainly do that. ButI want to talk to you about so
so just setting this up because I'vebeen there. But when you were talking
about every and Lowsia, Nupsi,they all kind of sit one, two
three together, and Everest is thehighest man in the world. Of course,

(40:07):
Lotsi is the fourth house man inthe world. Where does Nupsi sit
in there? But it's a Nupsiesis like the little So so these these
three trying to set the scene forthe audiences. So these three mountains makeup
was known as the Western Coomb,this amazing hidden valley. Coomb is the
Welsh word for sort sort of valley, and it's one of the most beautiful
places in the world. It's maybeI mean, what is it marked mile

(40:30):
wide and its widest if that,yeah, and maybe a couple of miles
long, and you can't see itfrom anywhere. Yeah you got it's like
you're in the stadium. Yeah,yeah, yeah. You've got to climb
up into it. And it's justbounded at the end where LOTSI and the
lowsy face and everyze is on yourleft as you go uphill and nupsis on
your I mean, it's incredible.So they've got these three peaks and Nupsi

(40:54):
is the nineteen times mountain in theworld I think exactly what's height. It's
seven thousand, seven hundred and eightysix or something. I mean, it's
a pretty pretty bloody big big mountains, not one of top fourteen, but
it's only just underneath it they getreceives very little attention compared with the others.
And you know, it always struckme as being a pretty obvious thing

(41:17):
to do, because, like youmentioned, once you are climatized, then
you can climb multiple peaks. Thething that takes a long time is the
acclimatization less in your body physiologically changewith low pressure. Now there's one or
two ways that we can try tohack that these days, with like the

(41:37):
sort of auction tense and things likethat. And what we actually see in
now in the commercial world is oncepeople are acclimatized, they bounced by helicopter
from mountain to mountain to mountain tomountain. Probably not my thing, to
be honest, but you know,hey, lights on and burning brightly for
the masses and anybody that enjoys themselvesin the mountain. I'm going to high

(41:59):
five that, um. But forme, that the Triple Crown as it
became known, of those three mountainswas a pretty obvious one to try to
do. And added to that Lotzyunfortunately Mark is one of the most beautiful
lines on a eight thousand meter peak. Is this cool? WHI they're just
bi sex the upper upper part ofMount Losy. It's sublimely beautiful skied.

(42:23):
Christ knows how. By the lateHillary Nielsen had had her own my podcast
about Yeah, very sad when shepassed away on um so Ski. By
that, I mean god knows how. I mean I could touch either side
of the wall. I mean,I don't know how what she did straight
line that. I should watched theamazing film. I don't know if she

(42:43):
straight lined it quite anyway. Andthen Nutzi has this beautiful line on it
as well. The north Ridge firstclimbed by Doug Scott. Again this name
that just keeps haunting me all thetime. It was Doug Scott, locks
mudule, backs of Jones, BrianHall and for get who the fourth person
was, and they climbed at alpinestyle back in the seventies. So very

(43:06):
esthetically pleasing line. And it wasone of those occasions. In twenty thirteen,
I had a no show client.He didn't really turn up in Catmandu.
So I'm left, like twitty mythumbs a little it. I can
go home, well that's the easyoption, or I can go all in.
And I managed to get a permitfor Nupsie and the stars that aligned

(43:28):
and everything came together, and therewas another team fixing or the commercial permit
to climb NUPSI. So they putthe rope on most of it and then
right at the top, which hasbeen a bit of a challenge to some
people in recent years, the ropestopped and I was with the amazing Spanish

(43:49):
high aSTG climb at Alex Tritton,who's just climbed Man of Slow in winter
literally just a few days ago.And I was with Alex and I'm looking
at Alex as wants climber, Iwant to climate, and you know,
he's got a fantastic alpine background.He's like, hey, now let's cut
some rope and let's just go withoutwithout the fixed lines. It's just climate
how you and I would would climbatenormally. So he went down cut maybe

(44:13):
fifty sixty meters a line and thenwe just like bounced leads until we got
to the top and it was,you know, we had no auction with
us. Beautiful day, I meansuch a beautiful day in the mountains and
the view of Everest was just jawdropping. Um. But for me,
that was just the start of oneof the most intense five six days of

(44:34):
my life because we summited, webacked down NUPSI. I said goodbye to
Alex, so he spent the nightat the high Camp and I almost ran
round down to Camp two on Everage, which you know only too well.
And then the next day climbed upto Camp three, Camp four on Everest,
some of the Everest, and thenbackground to Lotsy. Gone involved with

(44:55):
a rescue which unfortunately didn't work out. On LOTSI trying to save a a
time when he's climber called mister Lee. That didn't work out, So that
took pretty much a last of myenergy on Lotsy. And it was nine
o'clock ten o'clock in the morning,maybe half us nine ten o'clock in the
morning, and I was like,I might you know what I'm out,

(45:16):
I'm checking out, I'm tapping out. I'm out of here. And my
sherpad looked at me. Doorgy.You'd probably remember Doorgy, he said,
looked at me. That's Kenton.Come on, and he knows exactly what
Buston suppressed. And he's looking atme because I've always wanted to climb Lotsy,
so he's now making it about him. Yeah, you never told me

(45:37):
that, Yeah, yeah, I'vealways wanted climb Loatsy, come on,
there's climbing together, you and meDOORGI is like caller to ten in the
morning, what hell we you knowyou don't climb an eight thousand meter peak
starting a quarter at ten in themorning, we can you know. Off
we went um and we were solucky. We get to the top just
as the weather was deteriorating. Wecame down in a bit of a storm.

(45:57):
Um it was avalanche in the sloughingon the way down. But we
got down, and we got backdown to Camp two, and I got
back down to base count the nextday, and then had the horror of
trying to unpick the whole mister Leething. I'm not being good with cop
on mentalizing death in the mountains andthe emotional havoc that things like the Johnny

(46:22):
Varco incident on Antipola three can haveor this mister Lee death. And I'm
just like, you know what,I'm on a chop her arm out out
here. But yeah, I lookback on twenty thirteen, I'm very proud
of that. I said at thetime it wouldn't be repeated for ten years.
A couple of people have tried iton and offer the last few years,
including Garrett, and as yet noone's quite managed to do that last

(46:45):
little bit. It's it's hard.I mean. The one thing that again
I'm super strong and you know Ihave my head, is after you.
It's always been after you in termsof your endurance and what you've been able
to do. And you know,I'd treamed like a mother for two years
because I was supposed to be thetwenty twenty and then the whole mountain shut
down COVID, right, and andjust the amount that the toll that it

(47:06):
takes. Now, I would arguethat if I was, if if I
had had the right kind of nutrition, I just hadn't eaten in like eighteen
twenty four hours, you know,I just had nothing in the tank,
right, Yeah, that's that's gonnacrush it. Yeah. And so it's
just like that played into a lotof it. But you know, at
the end of the day, itwas what it was. And to go
and do not one, but two, but three like that, you know,

(47:29):
in succession is and it's a mother. It's just a heavy load and
you have to have a tremendous amountof of self management on the way that
you hydrate yourself and you know,obviously you have to keep it going and
everything else like that. But um, getting back into that death thing for
a minute. You know, Iclimbed with a guy in Don Cash down

(47:49):
in Antarctica in twenty nineteen, andthen later that year he had gone up
and he's one of the guys thathad gone to the top, raised his
hand up and fell over it.You know, he just was not We
talked about self self management. You'rephenomenal of that. That's what you do,
and you know when to layer upand layer down, what to eat
and when not to eat, andyou know, hydrate and not hydrate,
and conditions are coming and when tohold back and go forward. And that

(48:13):
just wasn't his game, you know. And he was doing it more to
impress his friend versus having that justthat innate passion of being in the mountains
and accomplishing, you know, thingslike that and challenging himself. And you
know when I was going out there, of course I stepped over him.
And when I was at Camp four, Um, I think yeah, and
I think it was right around thetime that you had had climbed. I

(48:37):
had gone for the summit in twentyone, there was a British climber that
had had died and they he wassix feet from my tent. You know,
they just had him kind of youknow, I'm straight and that's just
the reality of mountain climbing. Andpeople have asked so like, how did
you feel about that? And Isaid, you know, it's different because
I was just trying to stay alivemyself and I was just worried about what

(49:00):
I had to do to make sureI didn't end up in the same boat
as that guy. So you know, in that moment, I didn't have
nearly as much emotion as I wouldhave now sitting here at sea level talking
about you know, the tragedy thatcan happen no on these different mountains.
But it is a really hard thingto do because when you get in the

(49:21):
death zone. So there's there's adeath on the north side of Everest back
in the early two thousands, nomid two thousand, David Sharp died on
the north side of Everest and there'sa you know, a British guys all
sorts of who hire in the press. You people were stepping over him as
he was dying. Apparently and allthis sort of thing. And I suppose
he was a mentor of mine,the owner of Jaggie Globe. IM going

(49:43):
to completely space his name now.So Jaggie Globe gave me my first guiding
gig on Everest, and I completelygoing space his name. Anyway, he
was on Radio four, which isa big, very serious radio show to
day program on Radio four, andyou know, he was at the defense
of the other climbers who were allegedlywalking around this this dying man, David

(50:06):
chap and he said on the radioshow, you have to understand this.
This isn't the same as coming acrosssomeone that's been run over in say a
high street in London. Okay,you are literally fighting for your own life,
yeah, eight thousand meters, letalone looking after somebody else. And

(50:27):
when you put it into that content, you realize, oh my god,
now that that is so true.And there's any when I overlay that on
what I do. I'm a professionalamount of guy. My usp is Everest.
Now, people pay me not inconsiderable amounts of money for my experience
on Everest, and it's all,it's all, it's all pretty easy until
summer day. But summer day,he's going to take no prisoners. And

(50:52):
I'm looking after myself, I'm lookingafter the SHERPA team. I'm looking after
the clients. And you know what, you know, your bandwidth is taken
up. You know, there's notmuch capacity for anything else. You know,
you're you're you're sucking nose. Yourmind's being starved of option, your
ability for rational thought, because thefirst thing that goes when you start your

(51:13):
brain of option is your ability forconcise cognitive thought process and making decisions.
He said, the iron he's notlost on me. And you're trying to
be like you're trying to assimilate yourwhat the weather's doing, you know,
how the planet is doing. Howmuch option you've got, you know,
and you're trying to look after yourown fingers and toes and noses and everything
else. I mean, it's ait's a mine field. And you know

(51:36):
what, I absolutely love it.I mean that death it's on the edge
all the way and you've got toget it right and touch word I've always
got. I mean, there'sn't bean hour of it. I've got it
right. Um, and when itgoes right, it's a thing of beauty.
But the boundary is so so thinthat tipping point from one side to

(52:00):
the other it's almost non existent.Um and you know, don cash,
you know, I didn't know who'sa buddy of yours. So that's a
stark reminder that we cannot learn ourdefenses. We need to be on it
from the moment you step out yourtent until the moment you step off the
mountain. You need to have yourguard up. And sometimes it's it's it's

(52:25):
into it. You know, it'ssome gutting intuition. It just doesn't feel
right or or it feels right.I mean, it could be either way.
And people are saying, well,well, how do you know in
your I don't know. Now,today's not the day, and today's not
the day that we go over tosumming today, you know we wait,
yeah, let's go to Mona.Well, everything you're target everything you just
said again, it just feeds backinto you know, your passion and all

(52:49):
that kind of stuff. Feeding therat, feeding the rat, feeding the
rat. You know, as longas everything's great and preparation does meet opportunity,
and you've got to make sure thatyou are prepared and when that opportunity
comes, you go for it.In. You know when the pole back.
You've done sixteen summertime Everest. Now, how many more are you?
Guy in here? Well, I'mgoing back in a few months, maybe

(53:12):
one or two more. I mean, the scene is changing, even from
when you and I were there intwenty twenty one. I means, let's
starting there, what two years ago? The scene is changing. We get
a whole new generation of napoti runcompanies coming into it, and that's great
for the Country's great for the people. I love it, um, But
we're also seeing a different mentality ofclientele come in and I'm not really vibing

(53:37):
with that. And that's probably asmuch me as anything else. I'm now
the old horse of Everest. Yeah, I'm I once wrote a piece with
GQ called the Young Guns on Everest, and I was one of the young
guns. I'm now not the younggun. I'm the old you know,
old guy in the corner. Um. Yeah, So maybe me needs to

(54:00):
change. But you know, Idon't like what I see in commercialism a
little bit on the mountain anymore.I've got some commitments of clients for this
year and certainly for next year,so we see how it goes. I'm
never going to say never. Ilove it, that absolutely adore it,
and I given a chance, I'lljust go back year on year. It's
it's you've been there. It's abeautiful place. Well, I also know

(54:23):
that there's thousands of mountains and mountainranges all over the world, and so
if the Everest, you know,there's other places to go. Where can
people fund you? I'm basy.Just just google my name Kenston Cool.
There is only one cool out there. See oh wet even go into the
the the behind the scenes about wherethat name came from. But yeah,

(54:44):
just google my name. Now I'vegot a I've got my own website,
and then I've also got a performancecoaching company called incol Company. I mean
you can find me through through youknow, either of those avenues, or
better still, find me out onthe hill in the mountains a lot,
all on social media, I meanon Twitter, Instagram, Yeah, all

(55:04):
in normal places. Yeah. No, love it, love it, love
it. Listen, I've been changingyou for over a year. It was
you know, when you're at Everest, even though there's downal time, there's
also things around going on. Youhad a client to manage. We didn't
talk that much. I'm glad wefinally get caught up. You're a good
dude, you got the right moralcompass gone. I'm so happy for you.
Um, and you know, hopefullyI don't know who knows, maybe

(55:27):
you and I can climb one inthese days because I'm about it. I
mean, there's gone there on theMantel one. I think I must have
just missed you. And now Iwas out there in September as well on
the Mantel one I got snowed off. So yeah, the mattel on the
Eiger or something further afield would begreat to rape up with. You'd be
great to get in the mountains.Ill opinion after So listen, um,
stay on, we're gonna we're gonnaend it right now. But I appreciate

(55:50):
you coming on. Awesome podcast,your stud keep us on, save travels,
all those things. So thank youso much, man, my pleasure
man. All right, there isthe one, the only captain cool.
Thank you, m