November 25, 2022 • 42 mins
Tom French is an American mountaineer who I have climbed with on Mt Vinson in Antartica, Cotapaxi in Ecaudor and Mt EVEREST in 2021. Unfortunately, Tom didn't make it to the top in 2021 due to a cyclone storm but reset his mind and came back strong in 2022 and got it done. Tom talks about his facinating tale of how he was able to pull it off.
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Hey, everybody, it's Mark Pattisonback with another great episode of Finding Your
Summit, all about people overcome universityin finding their way. And before we
get into today's amazing guest, can'twait to have him on, I want
to direct your attention to my website. I do this every time I have
a pot that comes out because it'sso important. Repetition is everything. First
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of all, there's over two hundredand seventy episodes that are out there.
I would to appreciate a ratings andreview through Apple. It helps elevate the
popularity of the show. And weall need inspiration, even myself, and
so if you go there and dothat, I would greatly appreciate it.
Number two is that I continue toraise money for Emilia Zeverest. It directly
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goes to Higher Ground, a nonprofithere in some Valley Los Angeles and New
York. It's all about empowering otherpeople. Many of these people out there
are military folks who need our help. My daughter also was epilepsy, so
at the end of the day,it's all about impowerment and helping. So
if you want to go there,check it out. And finally, the
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NFL did an amazing movie. Actuallywon Best Picture an Emmy for that documentary
they did on my twenty twenty onejourney up and down Mount Everest, and
so if you want to check itout there you can do. So.
There's links at tqu right to thatwonderful film. So go check it out.
Okay. On that note, andon the Everest note, I want
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to bring in my buddy that Ioriginally met in an Arctica. I think
about that an article who goes toan articles had a bunch of penguins and
this guy Tom French. Tom,how you doing. I'm well, thanks
smart, good to see you.It's great to see you. And actually
I just saw you last week.I had my world tour on the East
Coast and then I made my wayup to Boston. But let's let's start
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in. Well, today's topic reallyis about your drive and your focus.
And after being turned back in twentytwenty one on Mountain Everst, we actually
passed each other on my way asI was stumbling down the mountain down the
loads you face, and you wereclimbing going up to climb what I had
just come off the top. Ultimatelydidn't make it, and then came back
this last year. We're going toget into that, but I want to
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start first with you know, yourlove of climbing, and you've you've recounted
it to me, and it youknow, it takes you way back to
when you're twenties and these crazy adventuresthat you had in the pollen and climbing
all over. But you always kindof had that bug. And a lot
of times what happens to us iswhere you have that bug and oh,
I remember when I used to dothat when as a kid. And then
life happens, right these jobs thatwe have, and you get married and
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you have kids and everything else,and then you just kind of stop.
But I'm interested in that bug thatyou got. And then where did that
flame kind of get re lit again? Where you and I find each other
in Antarctica? Yeah, no,absolutely, And as I think you and
I talked about in a tent somewhere, it the climbing bug for me got
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lit when I was about seven oreight years old. A whole long story,
but as I've told you, Igrew up looking at a poster of
the west Ridge of Everest on mybedroom wall and one of those climbers really
unsold A guy you know, spenta lot of time out in your neck
of the woods. Was a frontof my fathers and actually taught me how
to rock climb when I was eightyears old, when I sort of idolized
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really as a climber and idolized everestclimbers, and that got me into climbing
and really young age, and Idid a sort of a whole lot of
mountaineering and climbing all over the placeinto my early thirties, as you were
alluding to, and then sort ofgot away from it for a while,
which I'll come back to. Andthe parallel track is I got big into
cross country ski racing and did thatpretty seriously up to my early twenties,
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and then sort of got away fromthat, you know, And then kind
of really what got me away fromboth was some coming of career and raising
a family, all of which wasgreat. But I got out toward the
back end of the career and thefamily and and just realized, really I
sort of got back into climbing tosome extent. My now adult kids got
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interested in it and got me backcloser to it, and I remember how
much I loved it, which wasa ton and started to have some more
time on my hand. So Igot back into climbing and decided to do
more and more and more of itas opposed to less than less, And
also got back into master's cross countryski racing, which is a whole other
conversation, except the two sort oflink because you throw yourself into endurance training
and it sort of feeds the abilityto go to do a bunch of climbing.
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So, yes, I did comeback to some things I loved growing
up, and we're a huge partof my life growing into my early thirties.
And they were never gone in myforties and fifties, but they were
toned down a lot, and thencame back to them late in my fifties,
and I've been sort of back Adamin a big way for call of
the last five years or so.Yeah, well again, let's go back
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to an Arctica. So you mentionedyour kids, right, and and I
know I met your your daughter Holly, and when gosh, twenty nineteen,
um, you and I find ourselvesin Antarctica, right, and so we
start in Chili. Uh, PuntaArenas? Is that how we said that?
Yeah? Yeah, so that's that'ssouthern Uh, that's southern Chile,
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and it's kind of the launching point. You we take this charter and then
we enter end up in this crazyairplane which you think at any time is
going to crash. And you know, the one thing I always remember from
that is that I've never gone throughor been in the airport where I've got
all my like my climbing you're on. Our boots are like big window jackets
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and they're like, hey, thisplane crashes. Man, you're on your
own. You need to be preparedto have that happened. But nonetheless,
you're you're with your son, you'rewith You're with Will. And I could
see at that time that both youand Will, you know, you just
had that passion to climb. SoI think there's there's part of it.
Are you good at climbing or ornot? We both know another guy that
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was on that expedition that ultimately endedup passing away on Mount Everest, but
he didn't seem like he had areally passion towards that sport. And then
do you have good endurance? Andso that means that your training, you're
getting out, do you love theoutdoors and you check all those boxes?
But you know why did you pickan Arctica of all places? I can
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tell you why I picked it,but why did you pick it? Yeah?
A combination of um always wanted togo to in Arctica and never had,
and talk to people who could climbVincent and been down there climbing,
and thought that just sounded amazing.And then that was about at the stage
that I'd sort of been a yearor two back into doing some climbing in
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a bunch of places, was beginningto think about taking on Everest, and
that was just a good logical thingto do en route to Everest. It
really the logic there was go,you know, thirty balls ut, forty
balls zero. I'll get used toa sort of thing. But that was
third in the consideration. I reallyjust always wanted to go to Antarctica and
thought the idea of getting dropped inthe middle of nowhere Antarctica, I think
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a mountain would be about as coolas I could imagine. And by the
way I thought it was, that'sway up there in my life experiences that
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Iactually I brought this rock back and you
can see from the top. Yeah, I actually was Camp three. Then
when we're up there two or threewhatever, the one that we came back
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down to. But but anyway,so we make it up that mountain and
then and then all of a sudden, now like you and I were talking
about, hey, let's go doEverston twenty twenty, right, and of
course the world shuts down to thepandemic, and there's nothing any of us
could do about it. I meannot just Nepal and the world shutting down,
I mean your local grocery store,the airlines, I mean everything that
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you never thought that could ever bepossible was happening. Right. It was
just a complete cluster for the entireplanet in the way we were used to
doing commerce with each other, inthe interaction and everything else. But now
we get into twenty twenty one andwe end up in a place in Nepal.
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You you, you decided to gowith a different outfit earth than what
I went with Garret Madison. Weactually had a podcast that we did in
our tent um in base camp atseventeen hundred feet. You win the record
for the highest podcast ever done atelevation. For sure, you get the
blue ribbon, But you know,you decide to go with somebody, and
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the one thing that was really clearthrough your experience is that you had the
strength, you had the mental fortitudeto do everything. At the end of
the day, it kind of getsdown to luck and choice, and we
just happened to choose the right dayto go for the top and put ourselves
in a position, and your expeditionleader, not you, your expeditional leader,
chose a different day and the resultwas is that you ran into this
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cyclone that landed on top of theMount Everest, and certainly the twenty six
five hundred, five hundred feet whichprevented you from from going forward that day.
And I can't imagine how disappointing youmust have been. I know it
hugely was. I will say,you know, even the several things,
as you know, is a reallytough year twenty one on Everest, and
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you know, not a lot ofpeople got up. You guys were fortunate
to, And huge kudos to yourwhole team for doing it, because it
was tricky to get near the summitgiven all the craziness going on. Otherwise,
I don't even, and I don'tthink. I don't even. It's
not even like I fault the decisionmaking on the timing. I actually chose
to climb with the group. Idid, in part because very explicitly the
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model was goal late in the season, meaning wait for people to kind of
get up and get out of theway. It was sort of shooting for
climbing the mountain with less people around, and that the goalate strategy often works
well and does not when two cyclonesin the road slam ended Everest late in
the season, which is exactly whathappened, which caused go late to not
work at all. So but that'swhy I didn't never even questioned it.
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I sort of felt like the decisionmaking was what I bought into going in
to your point, everything except thedamn cyclone hitting the mountain when it did,
went just how I wanted it to. My body was kind of delivering
the way I wanted it to.The team members I was with, I
thought were doing great. The wholething was like going fine right until it
wasn't, and wasn't as you know, was we got up to camp four
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twenty six thousand feet. We werefour hours from leaving for the summit.
I mean, I thought we wereleaving, but we were ready to go.
We thought we were going to sneakit in. As you guys did
the day before. By the way, we thought we had one more shot
to sneak it in before the youknow, a storm came in and then
it just started snowing and just keptsnowing, and all of a sudden,
it went from we're four hours fromleaving for the summit too. We got
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to get down fast, you know, or bad stuff's going to happen.
And we came down that mountain ina blizzard, all the way down Malitsei
facing a snowstorm and to back toCamp two and then down ultimately through the
ice fall and complete white out backto base camp, and that was sort
of a game over. So soyeah, And I mean so on the
one hand, I mean early on, you don't you don't have time.
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You'd be just the point where you'rejust trying to get down the mountain a
snow storm and you can get backto base camp and then you get back
to base camp and you're safe,and then it hits you and you go,
oh man, you know, andit's a huge gut punch. Um.
You know, although I you know, as we talked about, I
there was a lot of good init. I really did feel like I
got ninety percent of what I wentto the mountain for, and I did
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get ninety, not one hundred ninety, you know, and if I was
if the expedition was sixty days long, it was longer than that. But
college sixty days and fifty nine ofthem went exactly the way I wanted them
to, and one didn't. Andthat was the summit. Uh yeah,
yeah, and that pert and stuntquite a bit. Yeah, And you
know, look, I was there, and so as I'm escaping the mountain
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like a day or two before,you know, you're just trying to do
everything you can to get back.And then I literally was able to escape
the country before it shut down dueto another gigantic of ad outbreak. And
then you end up getting stuck therefor another two weeks. And so just
you know, going that long,sixty days, going after a certain goal,
living in this very stressful environment,not knowing how it's all going to
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play out. Some people die,stepping over dead, bought it, you
know, just a whole thing,your diet, everything, and then you
come up short. And again notyour fault. You're a strong climber,
but choices that you're expedition leader andweather and circumstance you just fell into.
So so now you and I arehaving this conversation and I'm just going I'm
so glad to have made it tosay I'm never going back in terms of
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that to Nepal necessarily a but justto climb Mount Everest, Right, it's
a huge undertaking. And remember weboth of us have been training since that
twenty nineteen in Arctica expedition thinking thatwe're going to go the next year in
twenty twenty, and then we hadto purpose. So now it's it's for
you. It's not just one year, it's not two years. But now
you're going three years into this interms of the time training, right,
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And that's hard, that's hard mentalfortitude to keep that thing going. But
you you ultimately came to the decisionif you took a gigantic timeout of like
and do I want to go backthrough that hell with no certainty that even
though you do all the right thingsand you put yourself in the best position,
that that's going to result in thetouchdown of you touched on the top
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of the mountain. So you finallydecide like this is this is going to
be a go. You've got toit's a green light. And by the
way, I think I would havemade the same decision. I don't think
I could delivered myself knowing that Iwas right there in a position I felt
great, and I didn't succeed whenI know I could have, And you
had all those those same boxes checkthat. I think my mental process would
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have went through as well. Andso tell me what happens now when you've
come together with your wife and yourkids and your family and you've made this
decision, but now you're going towould do it a little bit differently.
So tell me what that process waslike. Yeah, and the first I
mean there was the first deciding togo back, and then there was a
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little bit, well how am Igoing to go back? And you know,
I think they're designed to go backwhen I came back, as I
alluded to, I wasn't sure initiallyI was going back for some of the
reasons I said. Got ninety percentof it, big ask on the family
to go again, huge chunk oftime, a whole other year, all
that. But pretty quickly, youknow, it just does come down to
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some extent dreams or dreams and summitsor summits and you know, we all
whether it's an actual summit, peopleclimb mountains, there's something about the actual
definitional top. It's a little bitsymbolic, but it's it's what the goal
is. And if you're goal drivenor you've built your life around goals,
and that summits the goal. There'sa notable difference emotionally between having stood on
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the summer or not right, andthat just, you know, it just
kind of hit me. And itwas more a feeling of, you know,
I just the more I thought aboutit, the more I realized I
and the kept popping into my headwas unfinished business. I just felt like
I got unfinished business emotionally, notin a bad way. It was all
positive way. I mean, Ihad a really good experience, but there
was ten percent more and it justmeant a ton, you know, in
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ways you can't it's not really rational, but it meant a ton and I
just really wanted to give it anothergo. And the other thing I'd say,
I'm sure for you, And Iknow for a lot of climbers,
you've thought about Everest, You've readabout Everest, you've taught, you've looked
at picture of Everest, your wholelife and being on the mountain actually going
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over the features that you've thought about, the Geneva Spur, the Yellow band
through the Kumbois ball. That tome was really powerful the first year I
was on the mountain actually being there. But then I came home and where
hadn't I been. Well, Ihadn't been on the Southeast Summit Ridge,
I hadn't been on the balcony,I hadn't been over the South Summit,
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the Hillary Step, and it wasjust like, I just felt like a
powerful desire to in my life timeif I could to see those things myself,
climb over them and get to thetop. So that was the unfinished
business kind of spiritually or whatever.And you know, it came down to
a conversation with my wife Jill,because it really does come down to,
you know, a lot of supportfrom the family and bless her. She
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didn't love the idea, but sheshe said, look now I get why
you want to do it. Shesort of said, you got one more
shot, like not a lot moreshots, but okay. So that was
you know, that was kind ofa decision to go back, And of
course I'm really glad I did.I frankly, I was really glad I
did the moment I made it,and then you were alluding to differences.
I did make a you know,I decided to do a few things differently,
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And really that started from the thoughtthat if I was going to go
back in those same sixty days,and you know, fifty nine of them
were going to be the same fiftynine days, I'd already done for the
one day that was going to benew and different the summit climb. That
was cool, but I wouldn't beneater if I could get some new life
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experience in the best just while Iwas doing just I mean, it would
be good enough to go repeat thewhole thing, but you're repeating the whole
thing and you're a training in twomonths, and that's where, um,
you know a couple Well, really, one thing popped in my mind.
It just it occurred to me thatI could approach the mountain a different way.
And there there's the traditional track youand I have done, and I
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had done it years ago as well, from Lokla up to the Kumbu Valley
to Everspace Camp. I had thirtyyears ago heard about a way you can
get to the Everest region. Trekkingthrough the Mahalou Baroon region, which is,
you know, relatively speaking remote inNepaul. And once you get up
to the base of Knocal of thefifth highest mountain in the world, you
can actually if you want to climbover three twenty thousand foot passes and you
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literally climb up the one, yourepel down the backside onto a glacier,
walk across the glasier for a day, you get to that next pass and
if you do all that, threeweeks in you get to the Everest region.
And that was that was that wasa big piece of the newdice for
me. I kind of figured outI could do that, and that just
was a whole new life experience gettingto the base of Everest, a totally
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different way through a totally different landscapeand part of Nepal in a part of
all I always wanted to see andwasn't sure I ever would. So that
got me even more excited, andit was sort of newness in the mist,
I say, and let me askyou this a couple of questions with
that, just sticking on this onenew route, my understanding is that I
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mean Nepal just in general is apretty remote country, not Katmandu, of
course, but these pockets that youwere in, this one, you were
super remote. There was a wholelot of going on. Whenever you're out
in the mountains and you're in theback country, there's always, at whatever
level you want to call it,there's some element of danger, right,
And if I remember right, andwhen some of the journaling that you were
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doing, there was some huge boulderor something that came tumbling down the mountain
and it was either you or whenyour partners got whacked by this rock.
And that was not a pleasant experiencethat you had to deal with on this
side. So just talk about thatremoteness of the angle that you came in
on, and then about that particularincident that happened. Yeah, So the
truck was three weeks, and inthe three weeks we saw one farmer,
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one you know, of any nationalityother than a few local people, and
that one figner. It was likeglimpsed in a hut across the room.
We think that somebody is not inAppalli. That was it in three weeks.
And in the last week, whenwe were going over these three passes
where you're up high, we sellone human being. So I mean,
it was remote to say the leastin that regard and the hand and by
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the way, the Nepalis we sawfirst broad tract. It was a handful.
It was not a lot of people, and went through a few villages
down low and then I got tohire and stop seeing people. So remote
it was didn't have the infrastructure thatyou know, the Kumboo has in terms
of trucking, lodges and all thatsort of stuff and ways to get it
out, none of that. Andso as we were going over these three
passes where we were between you know, seventeen and twenty thousand feet for a
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week, going over the second ofthose two, you're right, we had
a two RPA guides who had beenon evers by the way right at the
same time you and I were theprevious year. And and one of our
two SCHERPA guides got got hit inthe head by a falling rock. And
honestly that you know, it waspotentially a super bad situation because we were
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at minimum of three days walked climbfrom from the nearest village of any sort,
and this guy was badly hurt inthe head and bleeding badly. And
and then it turned out the satphonethat our lead guide had. The battery
was dead, so we couldn't geton the statphone doinging about it. And
there's a whole long story about it, but it's kind of amazing we were
able to get a helicopter rescue forthe guy, and had we not,
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he would not live. And thegood news is he did what we were
able to get one. It tookhours, but we got a helicopter in
there, gotten back to Captain Ndiley, was in the hospital for three weeks
but now they're very happily he's fine. But but that really could have gone
the other way. And when itwas playing out, we were just in
the middle of absolutely little high ortwenty thousand feet but nothing around for as
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far as the eye could see.And when when accidents happened in situations like
that, you know, not toomany years ago, there's no way you
could have gotten a message out levelon a helicopter ins and that was just
sort of really good fortune. WouldI would assume that you guys were carrying
these garments where you can you know, give you at least the hail Mary's
chance of trying to connect with thesatellite up in the sky and bring in
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some kind of helicopter to rescue whateversituation was going on. In fact,
what you just held the garment endreaches what I had, and I had
it for different purposes, and youknow, I was occasionally could get a
satellite text out to my family andsitting there on that sort of knife edge
ridge at twenty thousand feet trying tofigure out what to do that the shirtple
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was down by the way about athousand feet now below us. He'd been
down climbing when he was hit.He's balloming lacier and I just grabbed the
garment and I didn't even really knowwho to text, you know, but
I had the number of our logisticsorganizer in Katmandu, and I just fired
up a text that said, weneed you here with the ordinance and we
need alicopter rescue. And I hadn't. I thought the odds that that got
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picked up in any way, shapeor form were extremely small, and the
odds and somebody picked them up anddo anything with it were even smaller.
And I didn't even know if thatwas happening. And low and behold,
we just sat there checking in everyhour, and after a couple of hours
we got a message back that saida message receiver. We're going to work
on it. It was amazing,but and it was that, yeah,
it's the device, you just ye, it's the end. So it actually
works. Okay, So so okay, So now now you're in this region.
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The guy gets whacked and being ina helicopter, you survived that,
and you keep going, and nowyou end up at seventeen thousand, five
hundred feet where you and I hadconvened together, although one separate camps in
twenty twenty one. Now it's twotwenty two, and now the real climbing
starts, right, So walk methrough some of the experiences that you were
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talking about the newness of going throughthe komba, all the same things that
you know, I felt as well. But you know, the first time
you go through the komba with that, what's that like in clembing ice walls
and going across ladders and doing allthat and making up to Camp one,
Camp two, Camp three, Butfor you, like what was new in
terms of the experience that you feltlike you hadn't got, you know,
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the year before when you've done prettymuch everything there was to do except for
clem you know, the summit,going from twenty six five to twenty nine
thirty two feet and back down tothe bottom. Yeah. Well, the
first thing, whether it was newmore it was a surprise, was actually
that the stuff I'd already done wassuper meaningful. Again, as I described,
I went with the mindset, I'vesort of done fifteen out of the
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sixty days, and that's just goingto be a new over for the one
new day. I came rolling ina base camp again and I just had
this out of nowhere. I don'tknow what my expectations were, but it
was more like it's going to bea routine. I'm back at this place
I spent weeks last year, andit was it feels great to be back.
I mean, as you know,the place is spectacularly beautiful, and
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there was something about being back,climbing back up through the com voice,
fall back up to Camp one,back up to Camp two, back up
to Camp three. All that wassuper positive. Not just like check the
box so I can get the summit. I didn't get and that was a
surprise, And maybe it should beobvious in retrospect, but there's something about
going back to places that are deeplymeaningful to you. That are beautiful,
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you know, and then going backsort of knowing what you're getting into and
having a sort of a whole differentmindset was sort of like I've been here,
maybe I could appreciate a different way, I appreciate the beauty in a
different way, or just the feeling. It was a really good calm neat
feeling of I'm glad I'm back,and I'm I'm glad I'm experiencing even the
stuff I've already experienced multiple times.So that was a surprise to me anyway,
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versus my expectation in a very positivesense. The second one was I
mean, as I said, Ifelt like the first year it had all
gone physically as well as I couldhope for, and if anything, it
kind of went even better this year. And I think that was a combination
of another year's training, maybe evenjust on the margin smarter than the previous
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years. I dialed in a fewthings. Maybe again this expectation point,
I just every you know, it'slike on that mountain, you're you're doing
some challenging stuff, and you're doingit at strange times the day and night,
with a risk all around you.But when you've been there and done
it before, and no, youcan do it. I just had a
different mindset. It was. Iwas more relaxed about the whole thing.
It all came just a little biteasier and you and I know, nothing's
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easy on that mountain, but relativelyspeaking, and that was a positive surprise
to me. It was almost anew experience in a way. I was
climbing at a slightly different model.Yeah, we you know, one aspect
of it was the previous year itwould be sort of like five of us
on the team and a couple ofguys and we'd all sort of line up
and we all sort of climbed together, which had its benefits. But this
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time was way more sort of meand a shrba kind of climbing at our
own pace. We had a coupleother team members, but they sort of
climb at their pace. And Iend up really liking that, just because
there was this freedom to do exactlywhat you wanted to do and go faster
when you wanted to go faster,and stop and look around and you wanted
to stop and look around. Andthat was sort of a positive surprise,
like just how that was an additive. It was really a really positive way
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to interact with the whole mountain.I liked that a lot. Uh.
You know, another new thing.The first year, we climbed the mountain,
as did you, as do mostteams, you know, w a
so called three rotation model. Youknow, you give about halfway up the
mountain up through the coop ye fallhalfway up the mountain to Camp two,
and then all the way back down, and then you rest for a while.
Then you climb up through the iceball all way up to Camp three
(26:48):
and all the way back down asthe second rotation, and then you're climatized
and ready, and then you gofor the summit. And that's what you
did and what we did. Andthis year I explicitly chose a group that
was going to do a two rotationball, so we only climbed once up
the mountain before our summit did andwe actually only went up to the base
of the lozzy face, so betweenCamp two and Camp three came back down,
(27:10):
you know. And the concern wouldbe have we spent enough time at
altitude to be ready for it,but you know, we kind of felt
we had and my body had generallydone well at altitude. So that was
a new deal, which was afterthat one rotation, you know, do
recall it's like to do a wholeanother one, So a who another week
of climbing. It's wearing right,and I didn't have that. I got
down from the first rotation, Iwas like, Okay, now we're ready
(27:32):
to go. Now a few thingshave to come together to be ready to
go, like the ropes have tobe in, and the weather it has
to be good. But we wereamong the first people this year going for
the summit, and that was justnew and sort of neat. There was
an energy level to like, I'mready to go for it now, more
than I'd had the previous year.And then that was new, you know.
And then you know, and thenthen of course the summit itself,
(27:52):
which we didn't get into if youwanted that, that was all. That
was the part. I really knewwhat I was going back for. So
we got back up to Camp four, you know, and I was time
to go for the summit. Anda year ago and time to go for
the summit was a big u turnand back down at a blizzard. At
this time, I could tell theweather was good, you know, and
that was different. And then Igot the whole that I got the whole
time to the summit, and factthat I hadn't gotten the previous year,
(28:14):
and that was all note. Sowell, I think the other thing that's
that was different too from most people'sthat just like me, you know,
I left around midnight or something,and you know, I wasn't in great
shape, and I've documented that plentyof times on these different shows. But
but for you, you guys hada different strategy, which is basically started
at six or seven o'clock at nightand knowing that you're going to climb throughout
(28:37):
the night, but really knowing thatyou're going to be on the summit in
Pitts Black and most people want tobe there like I was at ten thirty
or something in the morning so youcan take a picture and then you know,
you can actually see the skuys andand overlook the planet. And that
wasn't your strategy. But on theflip side of that whole thing, there
was nobody that you ran into goingup there coming back down. Yeah,
it was amazing. So the likeyou probably the boyhood dream and the vision
(29:04):
of what it was all going tobe always involved cresting the summit ridge in
daylight sort of thing, but probablyalso like you, even the first year
I went to the mountain and thengoing back, the one thing that really
wigged me out was not wanting tobump into other folks on those knife edge
ridges up high, because it justslows you down, and that's where things
get riskier. And I've always feltanything I could do to avoid that possible
(29:27):
situation would be better. So therewe were at the South Call at twenty
six thousand feet and one is hugelycrowded, but there were probably seventy other
climbers that would be leaving for thesummit that night, all leaving it probably
about midnight, and we could climbwith them and that would work. But
then you're going to sort of moveat the pace they move and have potential
(29:47):
risks of getting stuck in places,and it's a hard decision, as you
alluded to, was let's leave atseven in the evening. We're basically got
a five hour head start on everybody. Now if we moved quickly, which
we did because we didn't have towait on anybody, we were on summit
in about seven hours. So wedidn't know quite what we get up there,
but we got up there at twoin the morning. But and I
was prepared to do that, likein my mind, that's so worth the
(30:08):
trade off, just because we'll havefreedom and we're de risking this whole thing,
etc. And then a few amazingthings happened. I mean one was
we got climbed through some snow initially, and then we got about halfway up
up toward the summit, up abovethe balcony on the southeast bridge, we
broke out into a complete clear night, and not only clear night, but
(30:29):
full moon I e. I meanone hundred percent full moon. And it
was magical, magical, magical.I mean you could see all the surrounding
peaks of the moonlight. You couldsee all the original lines of Everest in
the moonlight. I would say itwas like the most etheroroughly beautiful experience I
possibly could have had. And bythe way, we were alone up there.
It was me and for shirt wasby the way, it was a
whole nother story. That's what thewhole the whole team could boil down to
(30:52):
by the end of it, andthat was it, you know, and
all this never forget it. Andyeah, so anyway, so it not
to be not only just sort ofthe middle of the night so we can
avoid people. Became a really coolexperience in its own right, and became
a safer experience in my mind becausewe didn't have to deal with other folks.
So yeah, yeah, so let'sfocus on the top. So,
(31:14):
um, you know I've said onthe show before that when I got to
the top, I mean I wasjust with dread and I can believe I
just like, it's just, ohmy god, I've gotta now I have
to go over there. I mean, it wasn't the elation that you think
you normally have. And now youand I climbed in two twenty one December,
this would have been last December.You agree to meet me down in
Ecuador so that we could climb Codeto POxy together. And of the hundred
(31:38):
people that went out, only sixpeople made the top. And you know,
in our party it was you andI and a guy, so there
was three of the six. Andthen we get at the top. It's
absolutely bluebird magical day after this drivingrainstorm sleep that we had had to encounter,
and so many others had been turnedback by and we get up there,
We're hogging, I'm doing push ups, you know, and it was
(31:59):
a wonderful spirits that would be like, that's what it should be like.
For me. That wasn't the situationfor me on Everest because of all the
different things I was dealing with.But for you, I think you were
way better shape physically, mentally andeverything else. What was that moment like
for you when you finally hit thatpinnacle? Yeah, I had a bit
of a different version of your experienceas well, because, like you,
(32:22):
I remember, by the way,our code of Boxy Summit is another cherished
life experience, and well, justso amazing to be up there, and
you know, as you're saying,and probably like you most mountains I've climbed,
I get to the summit and havethis kind of cathartic emotional release and
I'm up there and I'm sort oftears of joy and it's all this magical
thing. And I had zero ofthat feeling on Everest, which, by
(32:45):
the way, I was feeling relevantwas beking good. So I climbed the
summit with one other shirt that wasjust the two of us initially, then
the others of our team caught upto us. You know, felt physically
as fine as you can feel upthere, had gotten up seven hours,
and knew we had a ton oftime to get back down. But it
was all It wasn't like massive emotionalrelease at all. It was all business.
(33:07):
It's like I had three things Iwanted to do, and I want
to do them as almost quickly asI could and then get back down.
And that's as you know, wellbecause particularly however, so it's true of
other mountains, but my nervous youare absolutely only halfway at best on the
summit, you know, just becauseto climb down so many bad things can
happen, and often due to people, and disproportionately the accidents happen on the
(33:30):
descent, and I was mindful ofthat. And you know those ridges,
as you experienced, the top ridges, the Hillary Step and right below those
traverses are pretty narrow and pretty steep, and you kind of just wanted to
get back down and not mess up. And I also was mindful that the
rest of those climbers that we hadgot given ourselves, I had start on
would be coming up, and Iwant to get down off of those the
(33:51):
knife edge ridge portions before we bumpedinto other climbers. So for all those
reasons, I was like totally whereI was on the summit. Very glad
I was on the summit, andI was like, Okay, I'm going
to get that garment that you alludeto, and I'm going to send the
preprogram text to my family telling themI'm on the summit. Guess what the
garden I was frozen solid, soI couldn't send the message, but I
tried. I was like, Iwant to get a photograph and as you
(34:12):
know, it's usually drill at thataltitude, but get the camera out and
you know, I have the shirtif i'm climbing with take a picture.
That was step two and I thinkthree. I remember I said, I
I'm going to change my oxygen bottle. I want to damn sure I've got
a full bottle of oxygen going downjust in case, and so focused on
don't forget to do that, changethe oxygen bottle. And I was at
boom, boom boom. We wereprobably on the summit for twenty five minutes,
(34:34):
and it was like, I wasglad I was there, but I
wasn't like jumping for joy at all. And then I was like, now
I just it was all about gettingdown safe. I was like, I
just need to not mess up gettingdown, and that was the way it
was all the way until I gotback to base camp. And then back
at base camp boom. Then youget to feel all though wonderful. Yeah.
And I went through that same thingtoo. I mean as bad as
(34:54):
I was feeling up there physically andmentally, you know, I was very
consciously a air of like this iswhere it all goes down. And unfortunately
I think you stepped over down Cash. I stepped over down Cash. Of
course he's a guy that had hadclimbed with this in two thousand and nineteen
in article it was my tent mate. And then we later or head later
(35:15):
went to Mount Everson twenty nineteen,but three four months later and then ended
up dying. Got to the top, raised his hand, fell over,
and we both stepped over him.And in the story I don't think I've
ever told you is since I wasI think one of the last guys to
make it to the summit on myexpedition. This would have been the twenty
third of May twenty twenty one.As the hordes of people that were coming
(35:39):
down, my back was against oneof those razor edges, and for them
to get around meant that they hadto unclipp I was holding them like bear
hugging them so that they could reacharound me if I want to just push
them back. They're going for youknow, a seven thousand foot drop into
Tibet, you know, which ispretty much what you're looking at. So
(36:00):
you know not to fine, Okay, so you make it. You have
a joint. Now you get stuckin the pall because the cyclone and weather
and I mean you had COVID,you had every single thing awful happening to
you. And I know that whenyou get down these climbs, all you
want to do is skiddattle home.And you've been out in the wilderness,
you've been deprived of everything. Youwant a hot shower, and you got
(36:22):
to stick around now for a couplemore weeks, and that's not a fun
thing to do. Yeah, thatwas absolutely the first year I had.
I had both hands of that spectrum, right, because in twenty twenty one,
that's right, the first year.Yeah, you know, that was
it. We got down to basecamp. It stunned for five days.
We couldn't get out of base camp. I mean you couldn't even send a
message out of base camp. Andfinally we were able to get out of
(36:43):
base camp and get to cat Matdoing as you alluded to cat Mendos in
full COVID lockdown all the flights.I think you got one of the last
flights out if I'm not recharted rechartedto fly out to it. So so
let's jump out. So I meantto say, I was I was just
getting my my fact confused. Butnow we're twenty twenty two and just the
opposite happened. You did come down, Now you're able to get off.
Now you're able to get a shower, have a real meal, jump on
(37:06):
a plane, and now you're going. And so, by the way,
what was your date again that youhave made that you that you actually summoned
May twelve, May twelve, soyou've got it almost in twelve, so
you're you didn't make it to sixtydays, which is great for you.
Yeah, it was fast. Imean it was a combination of this two
rotation, not three model, right, and so we like it cut like
(37:29):
at least a week to two weeksout of the middle of the climb because
you weren't going to go go back. We weren't. We didn't do a
second rotation to climb up to Campthree and all the way back down again.
We just went up the mountain onceback down ready for the summit.
So we were ready for the summitlike early, you know, still,
and then we needed the weather tobe good, which it was this year
so it didn't have to be butit was like really good. So there
(37:50):
we were ready to go. Ourshirt was who were amazing? It really
comes down to can they get thecamp stocked up high soon enough with oxygen
and food, food, fuel andheroes that they were. They did,
so we were basically other than theteam fixing the ropes to the summit.
We were the first people ready togo, you know, and that and
(38:12):
then and then you meet everything tocrap right, which it did. So
we were up and down quickly,like really quickly. It was I think
that's awesome. I think I wouldhave repared better with that type of model
than stretching it out as long andjust depriving yourself of food and everything else
going on. All right, Sothe grand finale question for you is what
is next for Tom French? Yeah, so I'm I'm busy figuring that out.
(38:37):
The easy way to say it ismore mountains and more you know,
this is spiritually and soul fulfilling.Trips and endurance activities are definitely next.
Um that's going to include more climbingfor sure. Um you know all over
the world the places I really wantto go. What I don't think is
in the midst for me is moreeight thousand meter peaks. You and I've
(38:59):
got lots of times to do those. They're asking us to do it all
the time. You and I bothknow why that's rewarding and tempting, but
I don't really feel the need forthat, or said another way, I
think the costs that come with thatare not worth what you what you get
out of it, having both ofus, not for me anyway, and
you too haven't gotten up Everest.I have been on the Dark Mountain twice,
so I don't see myself going toKTU or not as flu or gosh
(39:21):
your brow broad peak. It's justthe costs involved time, pask on family,
increased risk. You keep doing thesethings enough, and I think your
number comes up eventually, you knowso, or it might come up more
likely eventually. So for me,it's not that. But there are a
lot of really cool mountains, andI know about to talk about a lot
that I do want to keep climbingas long as I can keep climbing with
(39:42):
friends, with family, and Igot I got some adventures cooking already in
various parts of the world in thecoming years, which I you know,
I tend to go do. Sothere'll be some actual just climbs, and
there's some remote trucking. I gottatell you, this trek through the muckle
of a room that you asked meabout was in its own right, just
an incredible experience, you know.And that was a combination of some some
(40:04):
technical climbing to get over some things, but it was mostly just a remote
trek, and I'd like to dothat in some places. I want to,
as I think I've told you about, get to the north side of
Everest and poke around from the Tibetside into some of those valleys that the
Brits back in the thirties were kindof all exploring when they were trying to
figure out how to get up Everest. There's just some very remote stuff to
be done in Tibet that I'd liketo do on that side of the MLA
(40:28):
and range and some other things.But it's that sort of stuff I think
in the very near term. Itmore falls in the category of doing exactly
what you know, my beloved wifeJill would like to do. It was
put up with me climbing mountains formuch of the last four years, and
everest twice in the last two years. So there'll be a little less you
know, big mountain stuff in thevery very near term, but meaning the
(40:52):
rest of you for much of momentmost as I say that, until at
least the middle of twenty twenty three, and then maybe I started sneaking in
some more mountains. Hopefully come withyou, by the way, hopefully.
Yeah, yeah, I was gonnadon't forget about your climbing buddy, Mark
pattis all right, Tom, listen, where can people find you? And
I don't know if you sell ofyour blog going on, but very fascinating.
(41:13):
You're a very good writer. I'vementioned that before. But where can
people reach out and find more Adventuresof Tell French? No? Well thanks,
yeah, thanks rafting. I amkind of hard to find because I
haven't done either done a good jobor been out there with it, and
I've stopped writing the blog. Butif people fired interesting and the blog's name
is T D. French gapyear dotcom, so as in Tom David French
(41:37):
t d French gap year dot com. I think you find it there.
And there's a whole raft of writingsof Roy the last two or three years
of climbing all over the world andboth of the years on ever, so
that we just talked about and allthat sort of stuff. So it's there.
That's good stuff, good stuff,all right, buddy, listen,
I am really excited that you wereable to pull that off. You came
(41:58):
back to share your story. You'reback on the pod. I'm at six
thousand feet, not seventeen thousand,five hundred. You're in Boston. I'm
in some valley, so a fewdifferences there, and most of all,
you're safe. You're a good guy, and I really enjoyed my time with
you last week in the greater Bostonarea. So thank you so much for
coming on, Thanks for having me, and by the way, thanks for
the encouragement all along the way.You are among the early people firing me
(42:22):
up to go back. You knewhow much it meant to get to the
top, because you've been there,and you knew how much it meant to
me. You were, you know, early on encouraging me and supporting me.
I really appreciate it, so andthe other climbs we've done together.
But in high points, se Ido look forward to more. Well,
there's gonna be a lot more,all right, everybody there is the one,
the only French. Thank you,
Hey, everybody, it's Mark Pattisonback with another great episode of Finding Your
Summit, all about people overcome universityin finding their way. And before we
get into today's amazing guest, can'twait to have him on, I want
to direct your attention to my website. I do this every time I have
a pot that comes out because it'sso important. Repetition is everything. First
(00:32):
of all, there's over two hundredand seventy episodes that are out there.
I would to appreciate a ratings andreview through Apple. It helps elevate the
popularity of the show. And weall need inspiration, even myself, and
so if you go there and dothat, I would greatly appreciate it.
Number two is that I continue toraise money for Emilia Zeverest. It directly
(00:53):
goes to Higher Ground, a nonprofithere in some Valley Los Angeles and New
York. It's all about empowering otherpeople. Many of these people out there
are military folks who need our help. My daughter also was epilepsy, so
at the end of the day,it's all about impowerment and helping. So
if you want to go there,check it out. And finally, the
(01:15):
NFL did an amazing movie. Actuallywon Best Picture an Emmy for that documentary
they did on my twenty twenty onejourney up and down Mount Everest, and
so if you want to check itout there you can do. So.
There's links at tqu right to thatwonderful film. So go check it out.
Okay. On that note, andon the Everest note, I want
(01:36):
to bring in my buddy that Ioriginally met in an Arctica. I think
about that an article who goes toan articles had a bunch of penguins and
this guy Tom French. Tom,how you doing. I'm well, thanks
smart, good to see you.It's great to see you. And actually
I just saw you last week.I had my world tour on the East
Coast and then I made my wayup to Boston. But let's let's start
(01:59):
in. Well, today's topic reallyis about your drive and your focus.
And after being turned back in twentytwenty one on Mountain Everst, we actually
passed each other on my way asI was stumbling down the mountain down the
loads you face, and you wereclimbing going up to climb what I had
just come off the top. Ultimatelydidn't make it, and then came back
this last year. We're going toget into that, but I want to
(02:21):
start first with you know, yourlove of climbing, and you've you've recounted
it to me, and it youknow, it takes you way back to
when you're twenties and these crazy adventuresthat you had in the pollen and climbing
all over. But you always kindof had that bug. And a lot
of times what happens to us iswhere you have that bug and oh,
I remember when I used to dothat when as a kid. And then
life happens, right these jobs thatwe have, and you get married and
(02:43):
you have kids and everything else,and then you just kind of stop.
But I'm interested in that bug thatyou got. And then where did that
flame kind of get re lit again? Where you and I find each other
in Antarctica? Yeah, no,absolutely, And as I think you and
I talked about in a tent somewhere, it the climbing bug for me got
(03:07):
lit when I was about seven oreight years old. A whole long story,
but as I've told you, Igrew up looking at a poster of
the west Ridge of Everest on mybedroom wall and one of those climbers really
unsold A guy you know, spenta lot of time out in your neck
of the woods. Was a frontof my fathers and actually taught me how
to rock climb when I was eightyears old, when I sort of idolized
(03:30):
really as a climber and idolized everestclimbers, and that got me into climbing
and really young age, and Idid a sort of a whole lot of
mountaineering and climbing all over the placeinto my early thirties, as you were
alluding to, and then sort ofgot away from it for a while,
which I'll come back to. Andthe parallel track is I got big into
cross country ski racing and did thatpretty seriously up to my early twenties,
(03:53):
and then sort of got away fromthat, you know, And then kind
of really what got me away fromboth was some coming of career and raising
a family, all of which wasgreat. But I got out toward the
back end of the career and thefamily and and just realized, really I
sort of got back into climbing tosome extent. My now adult kids got
(04:13):
interested in it and got me backcloser to it, and I remember how
much I loved it, which wasa ton and started to have some more
time on my hand. So Igot back into climbing and decided to do
more and more and more of itas opposed to less than less, And
also got back into master's cross countryski racing, which is a whole other
conversation, except the two sort oflink because you throw yourself into endurance training
and it sort of feeds the abilityto go to do a bunch of climbing.
(04:35):
So, yes, I did comeback to some things I loved growing
up, and we're a huge partof my life growing into my early thirties.
And they were never gone in myforties and fifties, but they were
toned down a lot, and thencame back to them late in my fifties,
and I've been sort of back Adamin a big way for call of
the last five years or so.Yeah, well again, let's go back
(04:57):
to an Arctica. So you mentionedyour kids, right, and and I
know I met your your daughter Holly, and when gosh, twenty nineteen,
um, you and I find ourselvesin Antarctica, right, and so we
start in Chili. Uh, PuntaArenas? Is that how we said that?
Yeah? Yeah, so that's that'ssouthern Uh, that's southern Chile,
(05:21):
and it's kind of the launching point. You we take this charter and then
we enter end up in this crazyairplane which you think at any time is
going to crash. And you know, the one thing I always remember from
that is that I've never gone throughor been in the airport where I've got
all my like my climbing you're on. Our boots are like big window jackets
(05:42):
and they're like, hey, thisplane crashes. Man, you're on your
own. You need to be preparedto have that happened. But nonetheless,
you're you're with your son, you'rewith You're with Will. And I could
see at that time that both youand Will, you know, you just
had that passion to climb. SoI think there's there's part of it.
Are you good at climbing or ornot? We both know another guy that
(06:02):
was on that expedition that ultimately endedup passing away on Mount Everest, but
he didn't seem like he had areally passion towards that sport. And then
do you have good endurance? Andso that means that your training, you're
getting out, do you love theoutdoors and you check all those boxes?
But you know why did you pickan Arctica of all places? I can
(06:23):
tell you why I picked it,but why did you pick it? Yeah?
A combination of um always wanted togo to in Arctica and never had,
and talk to people who could climbVincent and been down there climbing,
and thought that just sounded amazing.And then that was about at the stage
that I'd sort of been a yearor two back into doing some climbing in
(06:44):
a bunch of places, was beginningto think about taking on Everest, and
that was just a good logical thingto do en route to Everest. It
really the logic there was go,you know, thirty balls ut, forty
balls zero. I'll get used toa sort of thing. But that was
third in the consideration. I reallyjust always wanted to go to Antarctica and
thought the idea of getting dropped inthe middle of nowhere Antarctica, I think
(07:05):
a mountain would be about as coolas I could imagine. And by the
way I thought it was, that'sway up there in my life experiences that
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Iactually I brought this rock back and you
can see from the top. Yeah, I actually was Camp three. Then
when we're up there two or threewhatever, the one that we came back
(07:25):
down to. But but anyway,so we make it up that mountain and
then and then all of a sudden, now like you and I were talking
about, hey, let's go doEverston twenty twenty, right, and of
course the world shuts down to thepandemic, and there's nothing any of us
could do about it. I meannot just Nepal and the world shutting down,
I mean your local grocery store,the airlines, I mean everything that
(07:46):
you never thought that could ever bepossible was happening. Right. It was
just a complete cluster for the entireplanet in the way we were used to
doing commerce with each other, inthe interaction and everything else. But now
we get into twenty twenty one andwe end up in a place in Nepal.
(08:07):
You you, you decided to gowith a different outfit earth than what
I went with Garret Madison. Weactually had a podcast that we did in
our tent um in base camp atseventeen hundred feet. You win the record
for the highest podcast ever done atelevation. For sure, you get the
blue ribbon, But you know,you decide to go with somebody, and
(08:30):
the one thing that was really clearthrough your experience is that you had the
strength, you had the mental fortitudeto do everything. At the end of
the day, it kind of getsdown to luck and choice, and we
just happened to choose the right dayto go for the top and put ourselves
in a position, and your expeditionleader, not you, your expeditional leader,
chose a different day and the resultwas is that you ran into this
(08:56):
cyclone that landed on top of theMount Everest, and certainly the twenty six
five hundred, five hundred feet whichprevented you from from going forward that day.
And I can't imagine how disappointing youmust have been. I know it
hugely was. I will say,you know, even the several things,
as you know, is a reallytough year twenty one on Everest, and
(09:20):
you know, not a lot ofpeople got up. You guys were fortunate
to, And huge kudos to yourwhole team for doing it, because it
was tricky to get near the summitgiven all the craziness going on. Otherwise,
I don't even, and I don'tthink. I don't even. It's
not even like I fault the decisionmaking on the timing. I actually chose
to climb with the group. Idid, in part because very explicitly the
(09:41):
model was goal late in the season, meaning wait for people to kind of
get up and get out of theway. It was sort of shooting for
climbing the mountain with less people around, and that the goalate strategy often works
well and does not when two cyclonesin the road slam ended Everest late in
the season, which is exactly whathappened, which caused go late to not
work at all. So but that'swhy I didn't never even questioned it.
(10:03):
I sort of felt like the decisionmaking was what I bought into going in
to your point, everything except thedamn cyclone hitting the mountain when it did,
went just how I wanted it to. My body was kind of delivering
the way I wanted it to.The team members I was with, I
thought were doing great. The wholething was like going fine right until it
wasn't, and wasn't as you know, was we got up to camp four
(10:24):
twenty six thousand feet. We werefour hours from leaving for the summit.
I mean, I thought we wereleaving, but we were ready to go.
We thought we were going to sneakit in. As you guys did
the day before. By the way, we thought we had one more shot
to sneak it in before the youknow, a storm came in and then
it just started snowing and just keptsnowing, and all of a sudden,
it went from we're four hours fromleaving for the summit too. We got
(10:46):
to get down fast, you know, or bad stuff's going to happen.
And we came down that mountain ina blizzard, all the way down Malitsei
facing a snowstorm and to back toCamp two and then down ultimately through the
ice fall and complete white out backto base camp, and that was sort
of a game over. So soyeah, And I mean so on the
one hand, I mean early on, you don't you don't have time.
(11:07):
You'd be just the point where you'rejust trying to get down the mountain a
snow storm and you can get backto base camp and then you get back
to base camp and you're safe,and then it hits you and you go,
oh man, you know, andit's a huge gut punch. Um.
You know, although I you know, as we talked about, I
there was a lot of good init. I really did feel like I
got ninety percent of what I wentto the mountain for, and I did
(11:28):
get ninety, not one hundred ninety, you know, and if I was
if the expedition was sixty days long, it was longer than that. But
college sixty days and fifty nine ofthem went exactly the way I wanted them
to, and one didn't. Andthat was the summit. Uh yeah,
yeah, and that pert and stuntquite a bit. Yeah, And you
know, look, I was there, and so as I'm escaping the mountain
(11:50):
like a day or two before,you know, you're just trying to do
everything you can to get back.And then I literally was able to escape
the country before it shut down dueto another gigantic of ad outbreak. And
then you end up getting stuck therefor another two weeks. And so just
you know, going that long,sixty days, going after a certain goal,
living in this very stressful environment,not knowing how it's all going to
(12:13):
play out. Some people die,stepping over dead, bought it, you
know, just a whole thing,your diet, everything, and then you
come up short. And again notyour fault. You're a strong climber,
but choices that you're expedition leader andweather and circumstance you just fell into.
So so now you and I arehaving this conversation and I'm just going I'm
so glad to have made it tosay I'm never going back in terms of
(12:39):
that to Nepal necessarily a but justto climb Mount Everest, Right, it's
a huge undertaking. And remember weboth of us have been training since that
twenty nineteen in Arctica expedition thinking thatwe're going to go the next year in
twenty twenty, and then we hadto purpose. So now it's it's for
you. It's not just one year, it's not two years. But now
you're going three years into this interms of the time training, right,
(13:01):
And that's hard, that's hard mentalfortitude to keep that thing going. But
you you ultimately came to the decisionif you took a gigantic timeout of like
and do I want to go backthrough that hell with no certainty that even
though you do all the right thingsand you put yourself in the best position,
that that's going to result in thetouchdown of you touched on the top
(13:24):
of the mountain. So you finallydecide like this is this is going to
be a go. You've got toit's a green light. And by the
way, I think I would havemade the same decision. I don't think
I could delivered myself knowing that Iwas right there in a position I felt
great, and I didn't succeed whenI know I could have, And you
had all those those same boxes checkthat. I think my mental process would
(13:46):
have went through as well. Andso tell me what happens now when you've
come together with your wife and yourkids and your family and you've made this
decision, but now you're going towould do it a little bit differently.
So tell me what that process waslike. Yeah, and the first I
mean there was the first deciding togo back, and then there was a
(14:09):
little bit, well how am Igoing to go back? And you know,
I think they're designed to go backwhen I came back, as I
alluded to, I wasn't sure initiallyI was going back for some of the
reasons I said. Got ninety percentof it, big ask on the family
to go again, huge chunk oftime, a whole other year, all
that. But pretty quickly, youknow, it just does come down to
(14:30):
some extent dreams or dreams and summitsor summits and you know, we all
whether it's an actual summit, peopleclimb mountains, there's something about the actual
definitional top. It's a little bitsymbolic, but it's it's what the goal
is. And if you're goal drivenor you've built your life around goals,
and that summits the goal. There'sa notable difference emotionally between having stood on
(14:50):
the summer or not right, andthat just, you know, it just
kind of hit me. And itwas more a feeling of, you know,
I just the more I thought aboutit, the more I realized I
and the kept popping into my headwas unfinished business. I just felt like
I got unfinished business emotionally, notin a bad way. It was all
positive way. I mean, Ihad a really good experience, but there
was ten percent more and it justmeant a ton, you know, in
(15:13):
ways you can't it's not really rational, but it meant a ton and I
just really wanted to give it anothergo. And the other thing I'd say,
I'm sure for you, And Iknow for a lot of climbers,
you've thought about Everest, You've readabout Everest, you've taught, you've looked
at picture of Everest, your wholelife and being on the mountain actually going
(15:33):
over the features that you've thought about, the Geneva Spur, the Yellow band
through the Kumbois ball. That tome was really powerful the first year I
was on the mountain actually being there. But then I came home and where
hadn't I been. Well, Ihadn't been on the Southeast Summit Ridge,
I hadn't been on the balcony,I hadn't been over the South Summit,
(15:54):
the Hillary Step, and it wasjust like, I just felt like a
powerful desire to in my life timeif I could to see those things myself,
climb over them and get to thetop. So that was the unfinished
business kind of spiritually or whatever.And you know, it came down to
a conversation with my wife Jill,because it really does come down to,
you know, a lot of supportfrom the family and bless her. She
(16:15):
didn't love the idea, but sheshe said, look now I get why
you want to do it. Shesort of said, you got one more
shot, like not a lot moreshots, but okay. So that was
you know, that was kind ofa decision to go back, And of
course I'm really glad I did.I frankly, I was really glad I
did the moment I made it,and then you were alluding to differences.
I did make a you know,I decided to do a few things differently,
(16:37):
And really that started from the thoughtthat if I was going to go
back in those same sixty days,and you know, fifty nine of them
were going to be the same fiftynine days, I'd already done for the
one day that was going to benew and different the summit climb. That
was cool, but I wouldn't beneater if I could get some new life
(16:57):
experience in the best just while Iwas doing just I mean, it would
be good enough to go repeat thewhole thing, but you're repeating the whole
thing and you're a training in twomonths, and that's where, um,
you know a couple Well, really, one thing popped in my mind.
It just it occurred to me thatI could approach the mountain a different way.
And there there's the traditional track youand I have done, and I
(17:18):
had done it years ago as well, from Lokla up to the Kumbu Valley
to Everspace Camp. I had thirtyyears ago heard about a way you can
get to the Everest region. Trekkingthrough the Mahalou Baroon region, which is,
you know, relatively speaking remote inNepaul. And once you get up
to the base of Knocal of thefifth highest mountain in the world, you
can actually if you want to climbover three twenty thousand foot passes and you
(17:41):
literally climb up the one, yourepel down the backside onto a glacier,
walk across the glasier for a day, you get to that next pass and
if you do all that, threeweeks in you get to the Everest region.
And that was that was that wasa big piece of the newdice for
me. I kind of figured outI could do that, and that just
was a whole new life experience gettingto the base of Everest, a totally
(18:02):
different way through a totally different landscapeand part of Nepal in a part of
all I always wanted to see andwasn't sure I ever would. So that
got me even more excited, andit was sort of newness in the mist,
I say, and let me askyou this a couple of questions with
that, just sticking on this onenew route, my understanding is that I
(18:26):
mean Nepal just in general is apretty remote country, not Katmandu, of
course, but these pockets that youwere in, this one, you were
super remote. There was a wholelot of going on. Whenever you're out
in the mountains and you're in theback country, there's always, at whatever
level you want to call it,there's some element of danger, right,
And if I remember right, andwhen some of the journaling that you were
(18:48):
doing, there was some huge boulderor something that came tumbling down the mountain
and it was either you or whenyour partners got whacked by this rock.
And that was not a pleasant experiencethat you had to deal with on this
side. So just talk about thatremoteness of the angle that you came in
on, and then about that particularincident that happened. Yeah, So the
truck was three weeks, and inthe three weeks we saw one farmer,
(19:14):
one you know, of any nationalityother than a few local people, and
that one figner. It was likeglimpsed in a hut across the room.
We think that somebody is not inAppalli. That was it in three weeks.
And in the last week, whenwe were going over these three passes
where you're up high, we sellone human being. So I mean,
it was remote to say the leastin that regard and the hand and by
(19:37):
the way, the Nepalis we sawfirst broad tract. It was a handful.
It was not a lot of people, and went through a few villages
down low and then I got tohire and stop seeing people. So remote
it was didn't have the infrastructure thatyou know, the Kumboo has in terms
of trucking, lodges and all thatsort of stuff and ways to get it
out, none of that. Andso as we were going over these three
passes where we were between you know, seventeen and twenty thousand feet for a
(20:02):
week, going over the second ofthose two, you're right, we had
a two RPA guides who had beenon evers by the way right at the
same time you and I were theprevious year. And and one of our
two SCHERPA guides got got hit inthe head by a falling rock. And
honestly that you know, it waspotentially a super bad situation because we were
(20:23):
at minimum of three days walked climbfrom from the nearest village of any sort,
and this guy was badly hurt inthe head and bleeding badly. And
and then it turned out the satphonethat our lead guide had. The battery
was dead, so we couldn't geton the statphone doinging about it. And
there's a whole long story about it, but it's kind of amazing we were
able to get a helicopter rescue forthe guy, and had we not,
(20:47):
he would not live. And thegood news is he did what we were
able to get one. It tookhours, but we got a helicopter in
there, gotten back to Captain Ndiley, was in the hospital for three weeks
but now they're very happily he's fine. But but that really could have gone
the other way. And when itwas playing out, we were just in
the middle of absolutely little high ortwenty thousand feet but nothing around for as
(21:08):
far as the eye could see.And when when accidents happened in situations like
that, you know, not toomany years ago, there's no way you
could have gotten a message out levelon a helicopter ins and that was just
sort of really good fortune. WouldI would assume that you guys were carrying
these garments where you can you know, give you at least the hail Mary's
chance of trying to connect with thesatellite up in the sky and bring in
(21:32):
some kind of helicopter to rescue whateversituation was going on. In fact,
what you just held the garment endreaches what I had, and I had
it for different purposes, and youknow, I was occasionally could get a
satellite text out to my family andsitting there on that sort of knife edge
ridge at twenty thousand feet trying tofigure out what to do that the shirtple
(21:52):
was down by the way about athousand feet now below us. He'd been
down climbing when he was hit.He's balloming lacier and I just grabbed the
garment and I didn't even really knowwho to text, you know, but
I had the number of our logisticsorganizer in Katmandu, and I just fired
up a text that said, weneed you here with the ordinance and we
need alicopter rescue. And I hadn't. I thought the odds that that got
(22:15):
picked up in any way, shapeor form were extremely small, and the
odds and somebody picked them up anddo anything with it were even smaller.
And I didn't even know if thatwas happening. And low and behold,
we just sat there checking in everyhour, and after a couple of hours
we got a message back that saida message receiver. We're going to work
on it. It was amazing,but and it was that, yeah,
it's the device, you just ye, it's the end. So it actually
works. Okay, So so okay, So now now you're in this region.
(22:38):
The guy gets whacked and being ina helicopter, you survived that,
and you keep going, and nowyou end up at seventeen thousand, five
hundred feet where you and I hadconvened together, although one separate camps in
twenty twenty one. Now it's twotwenty two, and now the real climbing
starts, right, So walk methrough some of the experiences that you were
(23:03):
talking about the newness of going throughthe komba, all the same things that
you know, I felt as well. But you know, the first time
you go through the komba with that, what's that like in clembing ice walls
and going across ladders and doing allthat and making up to Camp one,
Camp two, Camp three, Butfor you, like what was new in
terms of the experience that you feltlike you hadn't got, you know,
(23:26):
the year before when you've done prettymuch everything there was to do except for
clem you know, the summit,going from twenty six five to twenty nine
thirty two feet and back down tothe bottom. Yeah. Well, the
first thing, whether it was newmore it was a surprise, was actually
that the stuff I'd already done wassuper meaningful. Again, as I described,
I went with the mindset, I'vesort of done fifteen out of the
(23:48):
sixty days, and that's just goingto be a new over for the one
new day. I came rolling ina base camp again and I just had
this out of nowhere. I don'tknow what my expectations were, but it
was more like it's going to bea routine. I'm back at this place
I spent weeks last year, andit was it feels great to be back.
I mean, as you know,the place is spectacularly beautiful, and
(24:10):
there was something about being back,climbing back up through the com voice,
fall back up to Camp one,back up to Camp two, back up
to Camp three. All that wassuper positive. Not just like check the
box so I can get the summit. I didn't get and that was a
surprise, And maybe it should beobvious in retrospect, but there's something about
going back to places that are deeplymeaningful to you. That are beautiful,
(24:33):
you know, and then going backsort of knowing what you're getting into and
having a sort of a whole differentmindset was sort of like I've been here,
maybe I could appreciate a different way, I appreciate the beauty in a
different way, or just the feeling. It was a really good calm neat
feeling of I'm glad I'm back,and I'm I'm glad I'm experiencing even the
stuff I've already experienced multiple times.So that was a surprise to me anyway,
(24:56):
versus my expectation in a very positivesense. The second one was I
mean, as I said, Ifelt like the first year it had all
gone physically as well as I couldhope for, and if anything, it
kind of went even better this year. And I think that was a combination
of another year's training, maybe evenjust on the margin smarter than the previous
(25:17):
years. I dialed in a fewthings. Maybe again this expectation point,
I just every you know, it'slike on that mountain, you're you're doing
some challenging stuff, and you're doingit at strange times the day and night,
with a risk all around you.But when you've been there and done
it before, and no, youcan do it. I just had a
different mindset. It was. Iwas more relaxed about the whole thing.
It all came just a little biteasier and you and I know, nothing's
(25:38):
easy on that mountain, but relativelyspeaking, and that was a positive surprise
to me. It was almost anew experience in a way. I was
climbing at a slightly different model.Yeah, we you know, one aspect
of it was the previous year itwould be sort of like five of us
on the team and a couple ofguys and we'd all sort of line up
and we all sort of climbed together, which had its benefits. But this
(26:02):
time was way more sort of meand a shrba kind of climbing at our
own pace. We had a coupleother team members, but they sort of
climb at their pace. And Iend up really liking that, just because
there was this freedom to do exactlywhat you wanted to do and go faster
when you wanted to go faster,and stop and look around and you wanted
to stop and look around. Andthat was sort of a positive surprise,
like just how that was an additive. It was really a really positive way
(26:25):
to interact with the whole mountain.I liked that a lot. Uh.
You know, another new thing.The first year, we climbed the mountain,
as did you, as do mostteams, you know, w a
so called three rotation model. Youknow, you give about halfway up the
mountain up through the coop ye fallhalfway up the mountain to Camp two,
and then all the way back down, and then you rest for a while.
Then you climb up through the iceball all way up to Camp three
(26:48):
and all the way back down asthe second rotation, and then you're climatized
and ready, and then you gofor the summit. And that's what you
did and what we did. Andthis year I explicitly chose a group that
was going to do a two rotationball, so we only climbed once up
the mountain before our summit did andwe actually only went up to the base
of the lozzy face, so betweenCamp two and Camp three came back down,
(27:10):
you know. And the concern wouldbe have we spent enough time at
altitude to be ready for it,but you know, we kind of felt
we had and my body had generallydone well at altitude. So that was
a new deal, which was afterthat one rotation, you know, do
recall it's like to do a wholeanother one, So a who another week
of climbing. It's wearing right,and I didn't have that. I got
down from the first rotation, Iwas like, Okay, now we're ready
(27:32):
to go. Now a few thingshave to come together to be ready to
go, like the ropes have tobe in, and the weather it has
to be good. But we wereamong the first people this year going for
the summit, and that was justnew and sort of neat. There was
an energy level to like, I'mready to go for it now, more
than I'd had the previous year.And then that was new, you know.
And then you know, and thenthen of course the summit itself,
(27:52):
which we didn't get into if youwanted that, that was all. That
was the part. I really knewwhat I was going back for. So
we got back up to Camp four, you know, and I was time
to go for the summit. Anda year ago and time to go for
the summit was a big u turnand back down at a blizzard. At
this time, I could tell theweather was good, you know, and
that was different. And then Igot the whole that I got the whole
time to the summit, and factthat I hadn't gotten the previous year,
(28:14):
and that was all note. Sowell, I think the other thing that's
that was different too from most people'sthat just like me, you know,
I left around midnight or something,and you know, I wasn't in great
shape, and I've documented that plentyof times on these different shows. But
but for you, you guys hada different strategy, which is basically started
at six or seven o'clock at nightand knowing that you're going to climb throughout
(28:37):
the night, but really knowing thatyou're going to be on the summit in
Pitts Black and most people want tobe there like I was at ten thirty
or something in the morning so youcan take a picture and then you know,
you can actually see the skuys andand overlook the planet. And that
wasn't your strategy. But on theflip side of that whole thing, there
was nobody that you ran into goingup there coming back down. Yeah,
it was amazing. So the likeyou probably the boyhood dream and the vision
(29:04):
of what it was all going tobe always involved cresting the summit ridge in
daylight sort of thing, but probablyalso like you, even the first year
I went to the mountain and thengoing back, the one thing that really
wigged me out was not wanting tobump into other folks on those knife edge
ridges up high, because it justslows you down, and that's where things
get riskier. And I've always feltanything I could do to avoid that possible
(29:27):
situation would be better. So therewe were at the South Call at twenty
six thousand feet and one is hugelycrowded, but there were probably seventy other
climbers that would be leaving for thesummit that night, all leaving it probably
about midnight, and we could climbwith them and that would work. But
then you're going to sort of moveat the pace they move and have potential
(29:47):
risks of getting stuck in places,and it's a hard decision, as you
alluded to, was let's leave atseven in the evening. We're basically got
a five hour head start on everybody. Now if we moved quickly, which
we did because we didn't have towait on anybody, we were on summit
in about seven hours. So wedidn't know quite what we get up there,
but we got up there at twoin the morning. But and I
was prepared to do that, likein my mind, that's so worth the
(30:08):
trade off, just because we'll havefreedom and we're de risking this whole thing,
etc. And then a few amazingthings happened. I mean one was
we got climbed through some snow initially, and then we got about halfway up
up toward the summit, up abovethe balcony on the southeast bridge, we
broke out into a complete clear night, and not only clear night, but
(30:29):
full moon I e. I meanone hundred percent full moon. And it
was magical, magical, magical.I mean you could see all the surrounding
peaks of the moonlight. You couldsee all the original lines of Everest in
the moonlight. I would say itwas like the most etheroroughly beautiful experience I
possibly could have had. And bythe way, we were alone up there.
It was me and for shirt wasby the way, it was a
whole nother story. That's what thewhole the whole team could boil down to
(30:52):
by the end of it, andthat was it, you know, and
all this never forget it. Andyeah, so anyway, so it not
to be not only just sort ofthe middle of the night so we can
avoid people. Became a really coolexperience in its own right, and became
a safer experience in my mind becausewe didn't have to deal with other folks.
So yeah, yeah, so let'sfocus on the top. So,
(31:14):
um, you know I've said onthe show before that when I got to
the top, I mean I wasjust with dread and I can believe I
just like, it's just, ohmy god, I've gotta now I have
to go over there. I mean, it wasn't the elation that you think
you normally have. And now youand I climbed in two twenty one December,
this would have been last December.You agree to meet me down in
Ecuador so that we could climb Codeto POxy together. And of the hundred
(31:38):
people that went out, only sixpeople made the top. And you know,
in our party it was you andI and a guy, so there
was three of the six. Andthen we get at the top. It's
absolutely bluebird magical day after this drivingrainstorm sleep that we had had to encounter,
and so many others had been turnedback by and we get up there,
We're hogging, I'm doing push ups, you know, and it was
(31:59):
a wonderful spirits that would be like, that's what it should be like.
For me. That wasn't the situationfor me on Everest because of all the
different things I was dealing with.But for you, I think you were
way better shape physically, mentally andeverything else. What was that moment like
for you when you finally hit thatpinnacle? Yeah, I had a bit
of a different version of your experienceas well, because, like you,
(32:22):
I remember, by the way,our code of Boxy Summit is another cherished
life experience, and well, justso amazing to be up there, and
you know, as you're saying,and probably like you most mountains I've climbed,
I get to the summit and havethis kind of cathartic emotional release and
I'm up there and I'm sort oftears of joy and it's all this magical
thing. And I had zero ofthat feeling on Everest, which, by
(32:45):
the way, I was feeling relevantwas beking good. So I climbed the
summit with one other shirt that wasjust the two of us initially, then
the others of our team caught upto us. You know, felt physically
as fine as you can feel upthere, had gotten up seven hours,
and knew we had a ton oftime to get back down. But it
was all It wasn't like massive emotionalrelease at all. It was all business.
(33:07):
It's like I had three things Iwanted to do, and I want
to do them as almost quickly asI could and then get back down.
And that's as you know, wellbecause particularly however, so it's true of
other mountains, but my nervous youare absolutely only halfway at best on the
summit, you know, just becauseto climb down so many bad things can
happen, and often due to people, and disproportionately the accidents happen on the
(33:30):
descent, and I was mindful ofthat. And you know those ridges,
as you experienced, the top ridges, the Hillary Step and right below those
traverses are pretty narrow and pretty steep, and you kind of just wanted to
get back down and not mess up. And I also was mindful that the
rest of those climbers that we hadgot given ourselves, I had start on
would be coming up, and Iwant to get down off of those the
(33:51):
knife edge ridge portions before we bumpedinto other climbers. So for all those
reasons, I was like totally whereI was on the summit. Very glad
I was on the summit, andI was like, Okay, I'm going
to get that garment that you alludeto, and I'm going to send the
preprogram text to my family telling themI'm on the summit. Guess what the
garden I was frozen solid, soI couldn't send the message, but I
tried. I was like, Iwant to get a photograph and as you
(34:12):
know, it's usually drill at thataltitude, but get the camera out and
you know, I have the shirtif i'm climbing with take a picture.
That was step two and I thinkthree. I remember I said, I
I'm going to change my oxygen bottle. I want to damn sure I've got
a full bottle of oxygen going downjust in case, and so focused on
don't forget to do that, changethe oxygen bottle. And I was at
boom, boom boom. We wereprobably on the summit for twenty five minutes,
(34:34):
and it was like, I wasglad I was there, but I
wasn't like jumping for joy at all. And then I was like, now
I just it was all about gettingdown safe. I was like, I
just need to not mess up gettingdown, and that was the way it
was all the way until I gotback to base camp. And then back
at base camp boom. Then youget to feel all though wonderful. Yeah.
And I went through that same thingtoo. I mean as bad as
(34:54):
I was feeling up there physically andmentally, you know, I was very
consciously a air of like this iswhere it all goes down. And unfortunately
I think you stepped over down Cash. I stepped over down Cash. Of
course he's a guy that had hadclimbed with this in two thousand and nineteen
in article it was my tent mate. And then we later or head later
(35:15):
went to Mount Everson twenty nineteen,but three four months later and then ended
up dying. Got to the top, raised his hand, fell over,
and we both stepped over him.And in the story I don't think I've
ever told you is since I wasI think one of the last guys to
make it to the summit on myexpedition. This would have been the twenty
third of May twenty twenty one.As the hordes of people that were coming
(35:39):
down, my back was against oneof those razor edges, and for them
to get around meant that they hadto unclipp I was holding them like bear
hugging them so that they could reacharound me if I want to just push
them back. They're going for youknow, a seven thousand foot drop into
Tibet, you know, which ispretty much what you're looking at. So
(36:00):
you know not to fine, Okay, so you make it. You have
a joint. Now you get stuckin the pall because the cyclone and weather
and I mean you had COVID,you had every single thing awful happening to
you. And I know that whenyou get down these climbs, all you
want to do is skiddattle home.And you've been out in the wilderness,
you've been deprived of everything. Youwant a hot shower, and you got
(36:22):
to stick around now for a couplemore weeks, and that's not a fun
thing to do. Yeah, thatwas absolutely the first year I had.
I had both hands of that spectrum, right, because in twenty twenty one,
that's right, the first year.Yeah, you know, that was
it. We got down to basecamp. It stunned for five days.
We couldn't get out of base camp. I mean you couldn't even send a
message out of base camp. Andfinally we were able to get out of
(36:43):
base camp and get to cat Matdoing as you alluded to cat Mendos in
full COVID lockdown all the flights.I think you got one of the last
flights out if I'm not recharted rechartedto fly out to it. So so
let's jump out. So I meantto say, I was I was just
getting my my fact confused. Butnow we're twenty twenty two and just the
opposite happened. You did come down, Now you're able to get off.
Now you're able to get a shower, have a real meal, jump on
(37:06):
a plane, and now you're going. And so, by the way,
what was your date again that youhave made that you that you actually summoned
May twelve, May twelve, soyou've got it almost in twelve, so
you're you didn't make it to sixtydays, which is great for you.
Yeah, it was fast. Imean it was a combination of this two
rotation, not three model, right, and so we like it cut like
(37:29):
at least a week to two weeksout of the middle of the climb because
you weren't going to go go back. We weren't. We didn't do a
second rotation to climb up to Campthree and all the way back down again.
We just went up the mountain onceback down ready for the summit.
So we were ready for the summitlike early, you know, still,
and then we needed the weather tobe good, which it was this year
so it didn't have to be butit was like really good. So there
(37:50):
we were ready to go. Ourshirt was who were amazing? It really
comes down to can they get thecamp stocked up high soon enough with oxygen
and food, food, fuel andheroes that they were. They did,
so we were basically other than theteam fixing the ropes to the summit.
We were the first people ready togo, you know, and that and
(38:12):
then and then you meet everything tocrap right, which it did. So
we were up and down quickly,like really quickly. It was I think
that's awesome. I think I wouldhave repared better with that type of model
than stretching it out as long andjust depriving yourself of food and everything else
going on. All right, Sothe grand finale question for you is what
is next for Tom French? Yeah, so I'm I'm busy figuring that out.
(38:37):
The easy way to say it ismore mountains and more you know,
this is spiritually and soul fulfilling.Trips and endurance activities are definitely next.
Um that's going to include more climbingfor sure. Um you know all over
the world the places I really wantto go. What I don't think is
in the midst for me is moreeight thousand meter peaks. You and I've
(38:59):
got lots of times to do those. They're asking us to do it all
the time. You and I bothknow why that's rewarding and tempting, but
I don't really feel the need forthat, or said another way, I
think the costs that come with thatare not worth what you what you get
out of it, having both ofus, not for me anyway, and
you too haven't gotten up Everest.I have been on the Dark Mountain twice,
so I don't see myself going toKTU or not as flu or gosh
(39:21):
your brow broad peak. It's justthe costs involved time, pask on family,
increased risk. You keep doing thesethings enough, and I think your
number comes up eventually, you knowso, or it might come up more
likely eventually. So for me,it's not that. But there are a
lot of really cool mountains, andI know about to talk about a lot
that I do want to keep climbingas long as I can keep climbing with
(39:42):
friends, with family, and Igot I got some adventures cooking already in
various parts of the world in thecoming years, which I you know,
I tend to go do. Sothere'll be some actual just climbs, and
there's some remote trucking. I gottatell you, this trek through the muckle
of a room that you asked meabout was in its own right, just
an incredible experience, you know.And that was a combination of some some
(40:04):
technical climbing to get over some things, but it was mostly just a remote
trek, and I'd like to dothat in some places. I want to,
as I think I've told you about, get to the north side of
Everest and poke around from the Tibetside into some of those valleys that the
Brits back in the thirties were kindof all exploring when they were trying to
figure out how to get up Everest. There's just some very remote stuff to
be done in Tibet that I'd liketo do on that side of the MLA
(40:28):
and range and some other things.But it's that sort of stuff I think
in the very near term. Itmore falls in the category of doing exactly
what you know, my beloved wifeJill would like to do. It was
put up with me climbing mountains formuch of the last four years, and
everest twice in the last two years. So there'll be a little less you
know, big mountain stuff in thevery very near term, but meaning the
(40:52):
rest of you for much of momentmost as I say that, until at
least the middle of twenty twenty three, and then maybe I started sneaking in
some more mountains. Hopefully come withyou, by the way, hopefully.
Yeah, yeah, I was gonnadon't forget about your climbing buddy, Mark
pattis all right, Tom, listen, where can people find you? And
I don't know if you sell ofyour blog going on, but very fascinating.
(41:13):
You're a very good writer. I'vementioned that before. But where can
people reach out and find more Adventuresof Tell French? No? Well thanks,
yeah, thanks rafting. I amkind of hard to find because I
haven't done either done a good jobor been out there with it, and
I've stopped writing the blog. Butif people fired interesting and the blog's name
is T D. French gapyear dotcom, so as in Tom David French
(41:37):
t d French gap year dot com. I think you find it there.
And there's a whole raft of writingsof Roy the last two or three years
of climbing all over the world andboth of the years on ever, so
that we just talked about and allthat sort of stuff. So it's there.
That's good stuff, good stuff,all right, buddy, listen,
I am really excited that you wereable to pull that off. You came
(41:58):
back to share your story. You'reback on the pod. I'm at six
thousand feet, not seventeen thousand,five hundred. You're in Boston. I'm
in some valley, so a fewdifferences there, and most of all,
you're safe. You're a good guy, and I really enjoyed my time with
you last week in the greater Bostonarea. So thank you so much for
coming on, Thanks for having me, and by the way, thanks for
the encouragement all along the way.You are among the early people firing me
(42:22):
up to go back. You knewhow much it meant to get to the
top, because you've been there,and you knew how much it meant to
me. You were, you know, early on encouraging me and supporting me.
I really appreciate it, so andthe other climbs we've done together.
But in high points, se Ido look forward to more. Well,
there's gonna be a lot more,all right, everybody there is the one,
the only French. Thank you,
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