Cat: Welcome to The Broad Beta Podcast. I'm your producer and co-host Cat Coe.

Jeannie: And I'm Jeannie Wall, co-founder of Broad Beta. And today we're excited to share stories of mountain women's adventures and to take a deep dive into how their lives have been transformed by their connection to wildness, both inside and out.

Cat: Our guest on today's episode is Kate Kelleghan. She is on the cutting edge of big wall speed climbing, and this spring, she and Laura Pineau became the first female team to complete the Triple Crown in Yosemite. The Triple Crown consists of climbing El Capitan, Mt.

Watkins and Half Dome–all in under 24 hours. Prior to June of this year, only 10 parties of men, and Alex Honnold alone, had completed the Triple Crown, which was established 24 years ago by Dean Potter and Timmy O'Neill. Kate has progressed incredibly fast from climbing the Flatirons as a newbie to pushing the limits of trad climbing. Her sense of humor and determination are infectious, and this episode will leave you inspired and thinking about your own personal limits and what goals to set next. Without further ado, let's welcome Kate Kelleghan.

Jeannie: I'd love to hear a little bit more about your past, and kind of just a summary of what led you to where you are today. And where are you right now?

Kate: I'm in my childhood home in Boulder, Colorado.

Jeannie: Okay, there we go.

Kate: Yeah, I grew up in Boulder, like between Boulder and Longmont. Yeah, I mean, I guess like the long and the short of it is, I was actually never like athletic as a kid. I was like the polar opposite of athletic. I have five siblings, and all of my siblings are very athletic, but I grew up doing mostly art. I stayed away from sports of any kind. I was the kid that when you had to test out the 12 minute mile, I would walk as much as possible and only run if I had to.

Cat: What kind of art did you do?

Kate: I actually majored in painting like fine art in college. So I do a lot of watercolor painting, but all types of painting and drawing, that kind of stuff. Yeah, so I didn't actually like get into the outdoors until pretty late, college is when I started trail running. And my dad and my little brother were hiking 14’ers at the time. So I started doing some of those with them. And that was kind of what led me into like, wow, this is like really, really dope. Like these mountains are totally crazy. And I was having more fun the more technical it got. And then finally my dad took me to climb the third Flatiron. And that was where I was like, whoa, this is insane. And like, this is the thing that I've been looking for.

Jeannie: Wait, how old were you when that happened?

Kate: I was like 20 years old.

Jeannie: Are you the oldest?

Kate: No, I'm number three.

Jeannie: I'm just curious, cause I come from an even bigger family, but as the middle kid, that's an interesting one. I'm the youngest, but it's amazing to me if your sibs were all pretty athletic and your dad was into the mountains, was that a pushback or just a lack of interest? You just happened to be the anomaly in the family who was more the artist than the athlete or…?

Kate: Yeah, maybe a little bit of both. I was definitely one of the more rebellious children. I loved going to music shows and yeah, I smoked cigarettes, did the whole art student scene for quite a while. But yeah, I ended up getting sucked into the outdoors anyway. My family is all shocked at what happened. The transformation was totally out of the blue for everybody. But yeah, finding the Third Flatiron really was the thing that flipped that switch. Then I poured everything into trying to rock climb as much as possible from that point on. I went to some classes that are offered by the Colorado Mountain Club here. I was just looking for the cheapest classes to learn how to rock climb. They had a whole course that was like single-pitch and multi-pitch and cleaning anchors and climbing outside and that kind of thing. So I went through that whole roster of classes.

That was pretty much it. From then on, the whole trajectory of my life shifted towards rock climbing. Not that I left art and design behind - I work as a designer - but I went half and half. Climbing took over most of my free time and all of my weekends and vacations. Yeah, I just kind of got obsessed with it. And it was this thing that I found that I was finally good at. I never really felt good at coordination sports or ball sports or anything like that. And team sports felt really high pressure to me. I didn't want to disappoint anyone, but with climbing, you're really just competing with yourself most of the time. So yeah, and then getting outside and starting to travel, I think was the next big thing that really changed my life was traveling to climb. So I had grown up in Boulder and I went to CU Boulder and I'd done a few trips here and there, but starting to travel to climb was super eye-opening, and I fell in love with traveling and going around the world, chasing remote places just for rocks. I started going places on weekends. I found my community of friends, and then we were going sport climbing, and going to Wyoming, and then we started… I always was drawn towards trad climbing, like the adventure climbing was like the coolest type of climbing to me. So then we were like, yeah, going to Devil's Tower, and then we went to Indian Creek, and starting to go to all these places, that just blew my mind, like so beautiful, so different from Colorado. And then my first international trip was Thailand, and that was like…Thai food is my favorite food, so that was an insane experience. Yeah, and then of course, like eventually you hear about Yosemite, and crack climbing was really fun for me. I think I'm intuitively better at that than any other style.

And the first time I went to Yosemite was actually with my dad. So my dad's been a climber since he was really young, and he was friends with Jim Bridwell and some of the OG Yosemite folks. And so when Jim Bridwell passed, he kind of helped set up the memorial service in Yosemite. And so I went to Yosemite with him and met all these people who were like my heroes. Lynn Hill and Ron Kauk were there, and I was just like, wow, this is so crazy to meet these people. And I walked up to the base of El Cap with my dad and put my hands on it. The trail brings you up to the apron that is not really climbable. It's just completely bare. But I was like one day I want to climb this thing. But it seemed so far away. But it turned out it wasn't that far away.

Jeannie: And he never taught you to climb when you were younger? Like the Flatiron couldn't have been your first climb.

Kate: He took us climbing. He definitely took us climbing indoors sometimes and occasionally outdoors. But like back then, I also have this huge fear of bugs. So camping and outdoorsy stuff, really, I just hated it. And so I just pushed away from anything like that. And then, yeah, like our childhood was a bit like…we had a crazy divorce between my parents, which detracted from a lot of the activities that we were doing. So eventually it was kind of like, yeah, just figuring out what you wanted to do for yourself. I ended up gravitating more towards art and music than anything outdoors to begin with.

Jeannie: I love…I have to say I'm more of a traddy myself, and I can make an excuse that I didn't grow up in gyms, you know, for the very flat learning curve of climbing. Not really, that's not really the case. But I love that you just naturally had a love for trad and didn't really grow up in a gym. And how fast you progressed into crushing, though, in the trad world is still mind boggling. Where did the whole part of falling come in for you? Were you ever afraid? I mean, you got into it so fast and started doing big stuff so fast. Is it, was that ever a factor for you or not?

Kate: Not really. I've always wondered if it was nature versus nurture for fear of exposure and fear of heights, because I've never struggled with fear of heights or fear of exposure. And I've taken some bad falls for sure. Nothing super catastrophic, but I've never…honestly, I'm probably more scared of falling right now than I ever have been in my life because of speed climbing, because it is like such a no-fall mindset. And I've really just been doing that for the past couple of years. So I'm just starting to shift back into trying to train myself to be okay being above a bolt when I'm free from that aspect of climbing.

Jeannie: And did you, when you started climbing in Boulder and finding those partners, were they mainly women to begin with or was it a real mix? Was there anything profound in terms of a partnership or a mentorship?

Kate: So the first class I took with the CMC was taught by this guy, Tim Hill, a bit older than me, but super sweet, super nice. He was my OG mentor. He kind of like taught me the basics and fundamentals of outdoor climbing and trad climbing and everything. We ended up climbing together in the gym pretty consistently together as well. So he was like the first person who kind of was a mentor for me. And then once I started, he actually kind of introduced me to the next crew who are my main crew even today, that I just gym climbed really consistently with. And then we were going on those weekend trips. But almost all, I would say probably 95%, of my partners early on were men. It was actually pretty difficult to find female partners that wanted to push it as hard as I did and climb trad as hard as I did. There were and there are a handful of women who are super rad and arguably a lot stronger than me that I climb with now. But early on, it was mostly men. And that was something I did struggle with. Because, and maybe you two have experienced this too, but like a lot of times men are also interested in more than a partnership or a climbing partnership. And like early on in climbing, I had to learn that lesson that was, okay, now I have to sort between who's actually interested in climbing and who's interested in trying to date me. And if you don't, they just don't climb with you anymore.

Jeannie: Was there ever a woman partner once you did find them? Was that different for you once you found more female partnerships? Because of what you just mentioned? I feel like two things. One is you find a woman who you know for sure you're just going climbing in most cases. And then two is like you can be more at an equal level a lot of the time. Or it might just be less pressure. Or was there anyone who came along? And did you find that very different?

Or was it just like a natural progression where you finally met some women and went climbing and it wasn't really that different? Because you kind of sound like you had a mission from the get-go.

Kate: Yeah, I guess a little bit of both. I definitely found a couple partners like Becca Droz, who I set the first record on the Naked Edge with for women, has been a life-changing partner for me. She's so rad. She's so strong. And also just so goofy as well. And we were in each other's circles for a little bit. And our friends were like, you guys have to climb together. It's just going to be such an awesome partnership. And we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then finally, we ended up making plans to climb together. And the first thing we climbed together was Spare Me the Details on Spearhead in Rocky Mountain National Park, which is like an 11d with like some 10+ R climbing. And it's funny because Becca doesn't like to wake up early and, and I don't like to bivy. So she was like, well, I'm going to bivy up there. And I was like, well, I'm not, I'm going to sleep in my bed. And she's like, okay, just meet me at the Black Lake at like 7 a.m. I was like, okay. So the first time I ever actually went climbing with her, I was hiking into Rocky Mountain National Park at like 5 a.m. I showed up early because I was nervous I was going to be slow or something and didn't want to be late. And then I remember just like getting to Black Lake and I see these socks, like rainbow striped socks sticking out from behind a tree. I was like, that's got to be her. And I had showed up a little early, so she was all mad because she didn't get to sleep the extra half hour. But we ended up having this epic day of climbing, and she's a lot stronger than me. And so she took the crux pitch, which I was like, that's terrifying. But then the 10+R, I was like, this is great. She was like, that's terrifying. So we had this perfect partnership where like my head game was pretty good and her strength is really good. So we were just like, I take the really run out pitches and she would take the technical, hard pitches. And yeah, it was like a really awesome way to start the partnership.

Cat: So tell me about getting to know Laura and getting to the point where y'all decided to do the Triple Crown together.

Kate: Yeah, Laura. We have a couple of jokes I've made of how I met Laura. The first one is that she slid into my DMs, which is true. She technically did. But yeah, she had overheard that I was looking for someone to do the Triple with. That I was, well, looking for anyone really. But like at that point, I had kind of given up almost on finding a female partner. I had been looking for a partner for two years, ever since I'd completed the double and that had been with a guy. At the time when I did the double, I kind of was like, it had been easy enough to find partners for those kinds of things. They were mostly men. But yeah, the pool becomes exponentially smaller, the bigger you go with that. Then obviously with the Triple, it was like no women had ever done it. I started reaching out to women I knew who were capable. But most of the women who are capable are focused on freeing The Nose or freeing El Cap or something like that. Mostly hard free climbing.

Jeannie: Can I interject for a half sec? What about women like Maya and Josie? I feel like they were all in that realm for a while, but maybe then dropped out when you were looking?

Kate: No, I did reach out to a few of them. Josie is a friend of mine, but she was focused on other goals too. I think also because of some of the accidents that had happened, some of the people from that era were less psyched on speed climbing. I was looking for someone who was strong enough, capable enough, willing to spend the time to do it and wanted to do it within the next year or two.

Cat: Sorry to interrupt, did you always want it to be a female ascent or were you kind of ambivalent about that part of it?

Kate: I wanted it to be and at first I was like this is going to be. But after two years of trying to find someone, I was like I can't just wait anymore. I need to get this done and I'm sacrificing all of my free climbing strength for this goal. I want to get back to doing other stuff and I have other goals I want to do. So I couldn't just really vortex in Yosemite any longer and so I started reaching out to whoever I knew was maybe available, maybe capable. That's actually how Laura ended up hearing about it was because I asked her partner at the time, his triple partner, but they were doing it together. But then that's when she messaged me and we got to talking. So yeah, initially I knew she had freed Free Rider but she had never even speed climbed El Cap and so I was kind of like, I don't know.

Jeannie: I'm unbelievable because you basically just taught her everything and then you guys just went for it, which is pretty astounding.

Kate: I didn't know if it was going to work. Yeah, I don't know. It seemed serendipitous and really what I needed was someone who was psyched on the goal. That was the biggest thing. You can teach speed climbing skills, and she's climbing 5.13, 5.14- minus, she's strong enough to basically free solo 5.11. I knew she had the capability. My biggest fear was that she wouldn't have the riskiness. You do have to take quite a bit of risk and that's something not a lot of people are very psyched on, even people who are super strong climbers. Then it became a matter of like, okay, well, let's climb together and see one, if you have the head for this and two, if you can put up with me being dumb and goofy the whole time.

Jeannie: Okay, so we got to back up on your trajectory. I read a little bit about hers. But you landed in the valley at some point and got into YOSAR. How long did you do that? What hooked you on wanting to do just the big walls fast versus just get stronger at free climbing? I mean, I feel like being in the valley, most YOSAR friends of mine always, the walls are the thing.

Kate: Yeah, I started going to Yosemite, and around the same time here in Boulder, we were speed climbing on the Naked Edge, which is just like a local speed climbing thing. I got in with this group of people who were really obsessed with that and that was super fun. Then once I started climbing in Yosemite, big walls seemed like the epitome of climbing. They're like the coolest thing. Climbing El Cap is like the coolest thing. I had climbed the Nose over three days and it went very smoothly. Then I started hanging out with the search and rescue team and they're all climbing the Nose in like eight hours. I was like, wow, Nose in a day would be the next big goal. Then I prepped a bunch and I climbed the Nose in a day with a friend of mine from Boulder. That was it. It's just the slippery slope of like, okay, you do it in three days. You do it in one day, like 20 hours was our first NIAD. And then after that, once I started climbing with the SAR team, speed climbing was, finding speed climbing partners was pretty easy between them. So I was just like focused on getting, trying to get my Nose in a day time down when I could, or like climbing Lurking Fear in a day, or like, you know, Leaning Tower and Washington Column and trying to take these big adventures all while honing the skill of speed climbing, which it just seems like that's the thing I am naturally the best at. I did attempt to free El Cap three years ago. And it was like a crazy experience and really fun. I didn't send, my partner did, which was cool, but it was so much work and so much training to try and get strong enough to free El Cap.

But then it was like, I turned around and liked climbing the nose in a day. It just felt so chill compared to that.

Jeannie: Did you ever have, you said you had some falls…was there anything pivotal? Like anything that kind of stopped you a little bit, you know, or slowed you down a little or kind of gripped you?

Kate: Yeah, totally. Probably the biggest thing is I got rescued off of Half Dome in a snowstorm. Yeah, the first time I attempted the double was with another SAR team member. This was before I was on the team. But we had planned to do El Cap and Half Dome in a day. And we saw that there was some weather coming in like the next night around midnight. But we were like, oh, it's a chance of rain predicted, probably fine. Like we're probably going to be around the top by then anyway. Kind of just rationalized it away. And we did the Nose in nine hours and we were super psyched. And so we're like, let's just go for it. And we like, yeah, we brought a very light puffy for the two of us and like hardshells. And we each wore leggings under our pants. That was like our prep. But we had one 60 meter rope and like one Gri-Gri and, yeah, we ended up around the chimneys on Half Dome when the storm hit. And it was much more intense at 8,500 feet than it was down in the valley. And I remember like belaying my partner in the chimneys and starting to see the snowflakes and just like hoping it was chalk, please be chalk. But it was definitely snow. And within an hour, it was just a full-on blizzard. Really really sketchy conditions, really cold and really wet. I was wearing glasses at the time, which just became completely useless. I was a little bit blind. I climbed up to the big sandy ledge wearing my gloves because my hands were so cold. And thank God we brought our approach shoes because I think like I would have gotten frostbite in my toes if it hadn't been for that.

Jeannie: It's not like you can go down because you don't have enough gear to even go down. And it's not an easy place to go down from, really.

Kate: Yeah, we were definitely not set up to go down.

Jeannie: Right, you just wanted to get to the ledge and then see if you could get hunkered down or get a rescue or something?
Kate: Yeah, I started going to Yosemite, and around the same time here in Boulder, we were speed climbing on the Naked Edge, which is just like a local speed climbing thing. I got in with this group of people who were really obsessed with that and that was super fun. Then once I started climbing in Yosemite, big walls seemed like the epitome of climbing. They're like the coolest thing. Climbing El Cap is like the coolest thing. I had climbed the Nose over three days and it went very smoothly. Then I started hanging out with the search and rescue team and they're all climbing the Nose in like eight hours. I was like, wow, Nose in a day would be the next big goal. Then I prepped a bunch and I climbed the Nose in a day with a friend of mine from Boulder. That was it. It's just the slippery slope of like, okay, you do it in three days. You do it in one day, like 20 hours was our first NIAD. And then after that, once I started climbing with the SAR team, speed climbing was, finding speed climbing partners was pretty easy between them. So I was just like focused on getting, trying to get my Nose in a day time down when I could, or like climbing Lurking Fear in a day, or like, you know, Leaning Tower and Washington Column and trying to take these big adventures all while honing the skill of speed climbing, which it just seems like that's the thing I am naturally the best at. I did attempt to free El Cap three years ago. And it was like a crazy experience and really fun. I didn't send, my partner did, which was cool, but it was so much work and so much training to try and get strong enough to free El Cap.

But then it was like, I turned around and liked climbing the nose in a day. It just felt so chill compared to that.

Jeannie: Did you ever have, you said you had some falls…was there anything pivotal? Like anything that kind of stopped you a little bit, you know, or slowed you down a little or kind of gripped you?

Kate: Yeah, totally. Probably the biggest thing is I got rescued off of Half Dome in a snowstorm. Yeah, the first time I attempted the double was with another SAR team member. This was before I was on the team. But we had planned to do El Cap and Half Dome in a day. And we saw that there was some weather coming in like the next night around midnight. But we were like, oh, it's a chance of rain predicted, probably fine. Like we're probably going to be around the top by then anyway. Kind of just rationalized it away. And we did the Nose in nine hours and we were super psyched. And so we're like, let's just go for it. And we like, yeah, we brought a very light puffy for the two of us and like hardshells. And we each wore leggings under our pants. That was like our prep. But we had one 60 meter rope and like one Gri-Gri and, yeah, we ended up around the chimneys on Half Dome when the storm hit. And it was much more intense at 8,500 feet than it was down in the valley. And I remember like belaying my partner in the chimneys and starting to see the snowflakes and just like hoping it was chalk, please be chalk. But it was definitely snow. And within an hour, it was just a full-on blizzard. Really really sketchy conditions, really cold and really wet. I was wearing glasses at the time, which just became completely useless. I was a little bit blind. I climbed up to the big sandy ledge wearing my gloves because my hands were so cold. And thank God we brought our approach shoes because I think like I would have gotten frostbite in my toes if it hadn't been for that.

Jeannie: It's not like you can go down because you don't have enough gear to even go down. And it's not an easy place to go down from, really.

Kate: Yeah, we were definitely not set up to go down.

Jeannie: Right, you just wanted to get to the ledge and then see if you could get hunkered down or get a rescue or something?

Kate: Yeah, well, we got to the ledge and we tried to continue up. And the first pitch off the big sandy took him like an hour. And at that point, I remember just thinking like that's the coldest I'll ever be in my life, sitting at that belay soaked as the storm raged around us, watching him like try and do this tension move on ice and snow over and over thinking like this is actually really dangerous now. And I started jugging and my fingers just were so cold. They just almost didn't function. And I got to the first carabiner to like unclip from the rope. And it took me like 10 minutes to unclip it because of how useless the hands were. And that was the moment where I was like, OK, I don't think we should keep going. Because if one of us falls and gets injured. Now that's like hypothermia and potentially really bad land. So I got up to him and was like, hey, I think we need to call for help. I don't think we're getting out of here. There's like mandatory slab moves and this is like covered in snow and ice now. If one of us gets hurt, it's going to be really bad because they don't fly the helicopter at night. And like that, we just both knew that rescue would be really heinous. So we rapped back the Big Sandy and called the SAR team. And they rallied a helicopter and came up the next morning. We waited out the night.

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Kate: Yeah, well, we got to the ledge and we tried to continue up. And the first pitch off the big sandy took him like an hour. And at that point, I remember just thinking like that's the coldest I'll ever be in my life, sitting at that belay soaked as the storm raged around us, watching him like try and do this tension move on ice and snow over and over thinking like this is actually really dangerous now. And I started jugging and my fingers just were so cold. They just almost didn't function. And I got to the first carabiner to like unclip from the rope. And it took me like 10 minutes to unclip it because of how useless the hands were. And that was the moment where I was like, OK, I don't think we should keep going. Because if one of us falls and gets injured. Now that's like hypothermia and potentially really bad land. So I got up to him and was like, hey, I think we need to call for help. I don't think we're getting out of here. There's like mandatory slab moves and this is like covered in snow and ice now. If one of us gets hurt, it's going to be really bad because they don't fly the helicopter at night. And like that, we just both knew that rescue would be really heinous. So we rapped back the Big Sandy and called the SAR team. And they rallied a helicopter and came up the next morning. We waited out the night.

Jeannie: Wait, you waited out the night?

Kate: Yeah.

Jeannie: I'm surprised you weren't hypothermic.

Kate: Yeah. Well, because we weren't injured, they were like, okay, if you're not injured, you have to hang out until it's daytime, then we'll get the helicopters up there. And so we sat on big Sandy ledge, well, we stood on big Sandy ledge and did squats and ran in place to stay warm.

And occasionally for long periods of time to stay warm.

Jeannie: Yeah. Yeah. I just had a little snowstorm epic in the Sierra. And it was like another reminder of getting close to feeling hypothermic and you're like, whoa, you don't have a lot of time. You got to keep moving, which is scary. That's impressive. So you managed to hold out for a ship. For how many hours were you hanging out on Big Sandy?

Kate: We called rescue around 2 AM, I think, and they ended up pulling us off around 11 AM. But the storm ceased around early morning hours and around 5 AM, it cleared. And that's like, yeah, I mean, you're like, yay, the snow's over, but now it gets really cold. So that's when all the temps just dropped and it was 16 or 18 degrees. And like watching the valley, like, wow, this is a view like almost nobody ever gets covered in snow from Half Dome, really beautiful, but wouldn't recommend.

Jeannie: Did that change anything in your perspective or your drive or your direction or was it just a, you know, I mean, a lot of times you just get through those and you're like, yeah, that happens.

Kate: But yeah, definitely. I had spent the whole summer before that season, getting back, like getting really close calls, getting out of really close calls in Rocky Mountain National Park, kind of squeaking out big days where storms went around us, like on the Diamond, Mount Evans, a bunch of the like 14’ers around here where I was climbing. One friend and I had one like almost every weekend. We were going to the alpine and doing bigger and bigger objectives and we were just like kind of getting lucky. And so I went into Yosemite with that mindset of like, we'll squeak it out. And that was like a huge wake up call to be like, actually, you're not always going to squeak it out and like you shouldn't risk it. So after that, I reeled it in, I reeled it in pretty aggressively and that kind of set a precedent for, even while I was doing the Triple with Laura on days that were like more than 20 percent, I was like, we're not going up there. We're definitely not doing like Half Dome on 20 percent days. And it's funny because the day we did the Triple, both of those days we had pushed it because of storms. It was like the one week in California where it was like huge thunderstorms every day. And I was like, no, pushing it further. We were resting for six days, and rested for seven days, and rested for eight days. And she was getting antsy and I was too, but like, I just didn't want to risk it. And so we waited until there was a two day window of 0% chance. And then as we're hiking out to Watkins, and we didn't notice, it changed to 20% chance and then became 30% chance. And so while we were on Watkins, it started thunderstorming. It was my worst nightmare. It was like thundering and huge dark clouds building. And my first pitch on that climb is 5.9R, no fall, like literally no gear to the crux. I was just very stressed out. But once I got past that, raindrops were starting to hit my arms as I was climbing as fast as I could up to that crux move. And then I pulled the crux move and then I was like, okay, anything can happen now because we can aid out of this. But getting past that, it was stressful. Luckily, it didn't end up like it was just a few raindrops and that was it.

Jeannie: Hey, I'm curious. I feel like I should know this, but why did you go from Watkins to the Nose back to Half Dome?

Kate: So the tactics for the Triple, if you're doing it not human powered, there's like the general way people do the triple and then some people do human powered where they don't use any cars or anything. But like the general way is to chase shade because you have the longest days of the year in June. But it's really hot. So 4 p.m. is when Mt. Watkins goes into the shade. So we would like spend the whole morning hiking out really slowly to conserve energy. And then 4 p.m. goes in the shade. Timer starts when we start climbing. And so that way you start climbing.

Jeannie: Okay. Okay. But then you count the distance, you count the time between climbs, obviously, right? And you guys were not human powered?

Kate: Correct. Yeah. We climbed Watkins, you hiked to Tuolumne. And then someone picks you up or you have a car, you drive back down to the valley, and then climb El Cap through the night. And then you top out like early morning. And then you can hike up the Death Slabs in the shade in the morning and hopefully climb Half Dome while it’s in the shade as well.

Jeannie: There's only what, like 10 parties or 11 parties, all men who've done it. Has it been done under 24 human powered?

Kate: Yeah. In fact, The Triple has only ever, to my knowledge, been done under 24 hours, which is another-

Jeannie: Okay. So, and it's been done human powered, like they actually, what did they do? Did they rap from Watkins then somehow? Did they come down like Royal or somewhere?

Kate: Let's see, Jordan Cannon did it. He ended on Watkins.

Jeannie: So you can end at the top, yeah.

Kate: Yes. Cedar and Ima forged a new path from the top of Half Dome down and over to Watkins bushwhacking trails that don't exist. Yeah.

Jeannie: Got you. Okay. That makes sense. So is Laura hooked on this now or is she like, yeah, thanks, I'm good?

Kate: I think I was always the one who was a little obsessive about speed climbing. I think Laura, she's someone who chases really big goals. So this was a super challenging and very big goal. And yeah, she was totally up for the challenge. And yeah, she's a quick learner. Obviously, she's a crusher and bringing her, she came to Colorado before Yosemite and we did, we basically mini tested on the Naked Edge. So I taught her all the speed tactics and then we just started going for it. So within like, I think it was her 9th lap that we re-broke the female speed record on the Edge, which is crazy.

Jeannie: It's, what, 30:00, what is it? How much?

Kate: It's 37:08 now for women, but for men, it's like 22.

Jeannie: I know, I did it with Scott because he was an athlete for Rab and I was working for Rab and we got done with like a focus group and he's like, let's run up the edge. And I'd never done it. I mean, of course, like the first pitch I lead, I like drop the nuts because I'm freaking out if I try to go too fast and then I'm just like, oh, I just want to cry and go back down and do this with a normal partner the first time. But that's, it's unreal to me that you guys do it that fast. 20, 30, anything right in there is like so fast to do that. It's so slippery.

Kate: Yeah, it's definitely right now, like we, I still do it for fun and it's like a 5:30 a.m. type thing right now. It's like if it's past like 8 a.m. it's too hot.

Jeannie: Yeah, you're like Dawn Patrol, let's just go to the Naked Edge. It's pretty, pretty outrageous. I mean, what a cool thing to feel the kind of freedom that you feel now to be able to do that. I just, that would be amazing.

Kate: Yeah, it's funny too though, like it's a good standard of like where I'm at in terms of my climbing. Right now it still feels kind of hard. Like there are times when it feels really easy and I know I'm in good shape, both speed and strength wise. But right now, I'm in really good shape speed wise, but strength wise, I'm like, oh.

Jeannie: Most of us have like one pitch we go out to, you know, that we know like where we're at. You go out and do like a 30-minute, what is it, eight pitches or seven pitches, you know. That's great.

Kate: Yeah, it's fun.

Jeannie: Do you still, where does this all leave you and Laura? Yeah. Like how do you feel about your goals and your climbing and your partnerships? Do you work together too?

Kate: Yeah. I think Laura and I would definitely do some cool things together. We talked about, I have some link up goals, like the Black Canyon here in Colorado, she wants to come out to Colorado and then like the Verdone, I think is where there's also potential for some big link up goals or big days that both of us would probably be psyched on. But I think we both were a little done with speed climbing and how risky it was and like the no fall mentality is just pretty stressful. Throughout the whole season, Laura took two falls and I took zero, and they were both like, yeah, it's definitely a little bit of like a irksome kind of like, oh, got lucky, you know, like depending on where you fall, like you might get really lucky or you might not, and she was lucky that those two places were okay places to fall. But I think both of us are excited to go back to training and getting strong again, and learning to fall again and being in places that are like all safe and okay to fall.

Jeannie: Have there been women who have come up to you since this and gotten inspired?

Kate: Yeah, I mean, definitely like, I think no one who's like, hey, I want to do the Triple. But definitely people who are like, this is inspiring to chase bigger things. And that, I mean, that's the whole thing for me. Like ever since I started taking those rock climbing classes, I started teaching them too. And that's just like maybe the most fulfilling part of rock climbing for me. Hands down is like seeing other women and other people who didn't believe in themselves before break that barrier and be like, oh, I am strong and I can do that move. And I actually can totally be autonomous in the mountains. I can clean an anchor and I know how to like build an anchor and I know how to place gear and watching especially women break that barrier because so many women get into climbing with men and there is a dynamic where like if it's a woman and a man, like typically the man is almost expected to like be in charge of things, build the anchors, climb hard pitches, whatever. So it's really fun and really fulfilling to watch women, especially climbing with other women, take on those responsibilities and be the leader, be autonomous, make decisions, pull the moves, surprise themselves.

Jeannie: That's awesome.

Kate: It's really cool.

Jeannie: I want to let Cat jump in with some questions, but I just have one more in that vein. We interviewed Britany and she's given up like a year of her life to train inside for this one goal, right? And it's a one-pitch goal. But I mean, it just blew me away because she admitted, she's like, my mental health is compromised. I love being outside and I'm not outside. And all my friends are outside, but I'm willing to do this to see what I'm capable of. And I thought a lot about that and I'm really curious, especially with your trajectory of being so fast and that climbing wasn't even really part of your lexicon for so, I mean, it was in your family, but it really wasn't on your radar. And just what you described, I think just the capability for women is awesome to see more women embracing confidence. But the big goals, like the goals that are so big, it's like something you would never dream that you could do, right? Like, you know, I didn't grow up with that being in my realm. Like, I didn't think, I mean, I would do stuff hard, but I never, even in climbing today, I'm really curious, where does that come from? And how do you inspire that in the rest of us to just look at something so far beyond? But obviously, it takes a lot of discipline and a lot of, you know, the pain cave to, you know, desire to be in, and to want to go after something so big that it's not anything you ever dreamed you could do. But I don't know, if you can expand on that, I'd be really curious.

Kate: Yeah, I think the first inkling I had of, like, breaking that mental barrier was climbing the Diamond. And it was like, arguably, maybe I wasn't, like, really ready for it. But, like, what it came down to was my friends being like, oh, absolutely, you can do that. And I had, like, put The Diiamond on this pedestal of, like, that's a five-year goal. Like, there's no way I could do something that big. And then within a year, I was up there. And everyone was like, no, this is just, like, 5.10a. You know, like, you can climb way harder than that. Like, and of course, that's not all that's involved in something like going alpine climbing. But it was like, I don't know, I think women have a tendency to be like, I want to be 100% certain. I know 100% of the things I need to know before I get into a situation like that. And that's just not necessarily true

Jeannie: Do you think that's lack of ego? Or just a lack of testosterone? I mean, honest to God, it's like men don't have that problem in work or anything else. It's just like, oh, I know, when they're completely incapable.

Kate: It's so true. I see so many people get on like El Cap who have never, who like did zero prep and I'm like, how did you think this was going to work out? Not only that, but you're like putting people in danger. So there's like a good balance of like, you're not ready for this. You're actually going to put yourself and other people in danger if you do it. Then there's like the theory of like, you're ready enough and you have the skills to figure it out. And you have a smart - what my OG mentor Tim said, he called it mountain sense. So like you have decision making skills to get out of things or decide when to bail. And then there's like the very, very prepared zone where it's like you're going to wait years to go get on The Diamond because you want to be 100 percent prepared. And then once you do it, you're going to be like, well, I probably should have done that three years ago. But there's no harm necessarily in being like overprepared. But like for women, it's like we're just more capable than we think usually. And all it really takes is giving yourself a chance to prove it to yourself, to go out there and climb something hard and scary, and be with a partner who you trust and is competent as well. But pushing those boundaries so that you can like, yes, see what your capabilities really are. And like that just builds on itself.

So once I did climb The Diamond, I was like, okay, what else am I putting on a pedestal that shouldn't really be on a pedestal? And I was like, okay, El Cap, like The Nose, let's just do the nose as my first big wall. And everyone's like, don't do the nose, it's your first big wall, do Washington Column or Leaning Tower. And I was like, no, if we like practice this, this and this, like we're gonna be ready. And we did, and we pulled it off so smoothly. And so it was just like building that confidence of like, okay, I know the steps I need to take. I know when to bail usually, like the rescue was definitely a knockdown, or if you get too confident, you're gonna get knocked down. Hopefully that's like a, something like that where you're not injured really catastrophically or anything, but within reason, push those boundaries and start to build up that confidence. And that's really, that's really what did it for me was putting tokens in the confidence bucket.

Jeannie: Yeah, that's cool. I think there's a lot of women in front of you too, who've done some in the last five to 10 years, who've done some amazing things that have opened a lot of our minds, you know, to what we're capable of. And that's really inspiring.

Kate: Yeah, I mean, Lynn Hill, the OG. She was like, I'm just going to free El Cap, and then I'm going to do it in a day.

Jeannie: But I feel like at that time for me…I worked with Lynn when I worked at Patagonia. And I, you know, and Lynn's always been a superhero for sure. But at the same time, like at that time, and this could just be where I was at in my climbing, that wasn't anything I could aspire to.

It was like, oh, that's just an anomaly, right? She was the anomaly. You know, she was a gymnast. She was short, yes, but I was always, you know, there was the excuse she was a gymnast and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And nowadays it's like, there's you, there's Maya, there's Britany, there's Josie, there's Quinn, there's, you know, Jane. I mean, they’re all like...Jane runs up to do the nose in a day in 12 when she hasn't even done it in a while, you know, because she did what you did and worked down there and cut her teeth. But yeah, I think back then it was harder to look at that as like opening doors. I think there are women who did see Lynn that way like you. And, you know, today I feel like, wow, there's no excuse. There are some, there are a lot more women crushing it and setting these high goals and getting them and really making the commitment. And that's really inspiring.

Kate: Yeah. I mean, it's also like, I'm really privileged. I grew up in Boulder. I have like, I got into a good job. That afforded me to like have the time, the free time to like climb as much as I did. So like it's a balance to have privilege and a little bit of obsessive nature.

Jeannie: I'd say partnerships too. You know, Boulder, I think, I don't know if you're aware of this probably, but like for Cat and I, it's way harder to find women partners where we live for the kinds of bigger adventures. Than where you live and when you're in YOSAR, you know, part of YOSAR.

Kate: So totally. Yeah. I mean, I do have women constantly asking me, how do I find other women partners? I'm like, it's really hard.

Jeannie: I mean, one thing we've been thinking of - I was asking for just suggestions for Broad Beta - was like, do we have some kind of forum on our site for women to connect with women partners? Because you know, you can do that on the Project, but it's a little bit tricky. But yeah, I think there's maybe some new ways to think about that or do it.

Kate: Yeah, totally. That's a great idea. Yeah, it is a bummer how many women come to me and say, like, I've struggled finding partners because men just want to date me. Like one, how do you deal with that? And two, how do you find women who like to climb trad? There's just not that many. It seems like more so now, though.

Cat: I'm curious to go back to how you came to be a YOSAR team member and what that work means to you. You said that teaching and I assume guiding too is like one of the most fulfilling parts of climbing for you. But yeah, where does the rescue work fit in for you?

Kate: Yeah, I met the SAR team when I started hanging out in Yosemite and YOSAR is just famous almost around the climbing world. This crazy team of highly specialized people who live in Yosemite in tents and climb all the time and climb all this crazy stuff. So when I first met Marin - my friend who was on the team for a bunch of years - we were doing ladies’ bouldering every weekend, which was something that was like a super cool initiative Alison Kaplan started. And I met her at ladies bouldering and was like, that's the person I need to climb with. She's so rad, she's so strong. And she was on YOSAR, which was so cool. So that's how I got integrated into that scene. And then getting to know them and seeing the type of work they were doing was so inspiring. And yeah, I got certified as a Rock Guide, but I never ended up guiding full time or anything, or guiding as a job. I ended up just guiding friends and one-off things here or there. But rescue seemed in the same vein of helping people and being able to use those skills to help people, which I thought was really cool. And so, yeah, as I hung out with the YOSAR team and climbed with them more, I was working in tech and was kind of balancing a full-time job and then climbing on weekends. And I ended up renting a room from a friend in Midpines so I could be closer to the valley. And eventually I was like, I really need to figure out how to join the team. Every year I was like this is going to be the year. And then I was like, I don't know if I can drop this and this and move this around. And then in the tech layoffs, I got laid off and I was like, well, I guess I'm going to YOSAR. Like the universe was telling me to just do it. So I got really lucky too because midway through the season, they had someone who left and I got a text from one of the other people on the team who was like, hey, this person left with no notice. Do you want to come join the team? And I was like, yep, I'll be there in two weeks. So that was like how it started. And it was really like a dream come true. I had wanted it so badly for years and then finally fell into place there. And it was pretty unreal living in the valley and climbing all the time. And yeah, rescuing people was, I mean, it's such a crazy job. It's like, you never really know what's going to happen. Every day is just a mystery. You might be going on a 16 mile crazy hike to go rescue someone or you're just hanging out by the river all day or you're climbing a big wall. And so yeah, I did like a half season and then did a full season the following year.

And it was, yeah, a really cool experience. I mean, it's traumatic. There's definitely…you see things that you'll never forget and a lot more accidents happen in the park than people hear about. And there's so many people in the park too. It's just kind of a matter of numbers as well. And on top of that, with how hot it's getting, that causes a ton of rescues and like rescue-adjacent things happening in the park. With the summer that - the full season I did - we had like over 30 days of 100 degrees or plus. And it was just every day people were dehydrated. People, like when people get dehydrated, they end up twisting their ankle or breaking their leg or whatever. And yeah, it was just like not only that, but we're sleeping in tents. So it's like in the heat constantly, constantly exerting yourself. And then also trying to climb your own goals.

Cat: But yeah, I've always wondered, I mean, a job like that takes a lot of your mental capacity. And yet there's a lot of YOSAR members that are really on the cutting edge of speed climbing, which is so high risk. How do you balance the mental energy that you're giving to rescue with pursuing really cutting edge goals?

Kate: Yeah, it's like, it was difficult. One of the main reasons actually, I didn't continue doing YOSAR this year was because of the Triple. I knew I wouldn't be able to do both. Like mostly because of the physical aspect on the team, you are half on call, half off. So 15 days a month, you're on call. 15 days you're not. To do a big wall or a big goal like that, you need probably two days to rest beforehand. Then your goal is going to take like around 24 hours, and then you probably need the day after off. So four days off for one objective. And so it kind of came down to like a balancing act of not even the mental capacity for SAR but like the physical capacity. Like you could be going hiking for 20 miles for 18 hours if you were on call for a day. And so like you had to budget all these huge time chunks to try one thing. And I knew for The Triple we would have to be doing like a big wall every three or four days. I was like, this just isn't gonna work. But like you do see, I mean, you see climbing accidents happen, and like you know how and why they happened. And pretty often, it's like, yeah, a lot of accidents are rapelling accidents or a falling on easy terrain kind of thing. And there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance there. I was like, I wouldn't do that. It wouldn't happen to me because X, Y, and Z. So it is a bit of that rationalizing. But it did cause me to be a lot more aware and safer. I mean, I definitely place more gear than I did before SAR, now. And just be more aware of always thinking of what I'm going to do if things go wrong.

Jeannie: Did you ever have a time when you were tired, where you didn't tie in right or, you know, went to do a rappel? I mean, I think we've all had these if we've been in the mountains long enough, but kind of an eye opener? Of like, I’ve got to slow it down and focus here because I'm going to make another mistake that's not going to be catchable, you know?

Kate: Yeah, something that's always actually kind of shocking to me is how many close calls people have rock climbing, like all the time. You know anecdotally how many you've had, where you're like, oh, that was really close or, oh, that could have been really bad. And then how few accidents there actually are. I'm always actually pretty surprised because like, yeah, even once I was climbing the nose in a day and I was climbing the upper block and we transitioned below the great roof and I started climbing and my partner was like, whoa, whoa, you didn't tie in. I was like free-soloing the first like 10 feet. It's easy climbing.

Jeannie: That's the kind of stuff where it's like, whoa, okay. Back down. Let's refocus.

Kate: Well, like definitely, yeah, the more I was in SAR and the more I like, especially like teaching Laura, it was like, okay, redundancy, double checking. We're never redlining. Like some of the other parties who were attempting the Triple this season with us, we're doing these crazy laps where they are redlining. And we were like, we're never, like there is no need to do that. We don't ever need to be more out of control than like…there's a limit to how out of control you have to be for the triple. We don't need to go past that.

Jeannie: Yeah, to be fair, that limit is still a big, there's a big gap there, you know, just that two, you know, two pieces in certain pitches was all you could afford for the time. And I mean, I think we, anyone who climbs now knows, yeah, the risk of doing it that fast is just, like you said, if you fall in the right place…I got lucky on Lurking Fear and I wasn't trying to speed climb it. It was just a stupid mistake, but…you're really lucky. You're like, okay, we're willing to take this much risk, you know, we have to be that fast. But I think I would have gone up without tying in just for fear of the spiders under the great roof that you described. It sounded so awful.

Kate: I cannot kick the fear of spiders.

Jeannie: I'm sure, I would have just passed out of like total fear.

Kate: It plagues me, it's the hardest thing. Same thing happened on the Double, like when I did two El Cap routes in a day with Michelle Pallette, she's also on SAR. The worst part is like, top of Lurking Fear is covered in grass and vegetation, and there's just all these huge spiders that live on El Cap and you just don't see them in the daytime. And then at night, they come out and they have tons of eyeballs.

Jeannie: I did not need to read that. I was like, no, I never saw any up there. And now I'm just like, oh, God.

Kate: Yeah, you don't think about it when you don't see them. And then it's totally fine. But yeah, that's one thing that's been hard for me, is like getting past that. Like for speed climbing, you're just like, I cannot slow down. And that's the one thing that just like freezes me in place.

Cat: Kate, kind of going back to the talking about mental capacity and things like that. Do you have any rituals for mentally preparing for something like The Triple Crown and or rituals for dealing with fear?

Kate: Yeah, totally. I think mantras have always been pretty helpful for me ever since the beginning of my climbing. It started as a tool for trying to get stronger. Like my first mantra ever was don't hesitate. Cause I was noticing that like when I got scared at a crux move, I would just freeze and pause. And then I would try to move. The next one I came up with was one more move. And that's really helpful for hard climbing because you usually…at the crux is where you start to freak out. And if you could just do one more move, you'll get past it. But when I got into speed climbing, my mantra became climb easy stuff fast. And that was like, don't pause and wait to look around to see what's going on or like place a piece here that might be weird or whatever. Like, don't fiddle with stuff. Just like, you know what good gear is. You know what easy climbing is. That helped me with moving really quickly. And then when it came to like, yeah, the really scary parts, like getting to that 5.9 crux on Watkins, thinking it's about to downpour rain was just like almost like a disassociation really of like execution over emotion and like putting away all those emotions and figuring out like rationally what are the steps I need to take to do this as fast or as safely as possible and then executing that. And that's something that like, I feel like my dad always kind of functioned that way or kind of talked to us about doing that when we were stressed out or like having a hard time with things in life. And so that's kind of like what I resort to in climbing is like, okay, here's the situation, like let's take all the fear and the emotion out of it. Now, what are the steps to take to get through this quickly and safely or as safe as possible? And like, what makes the most sense? Is it bailing? Is it going up? Like breaking it down rationally. And that's really been the backbone of my climbing, progressing as fast as it has, I think, is like...

Jeannie: I mean, that sounds so emotional, sitting here, you know, talking about it. But in the moment, it's like, of course, you're all emotional, you know? And it's, yeah, I like the mantra thing, because if you tell yourself that enough times, maybe then you can take yourself out of the emotions in the moment you need to. But usually that's the hardest thing, right? Is you get emotional and then things fall apart.

Cat: Did you ever think about quitting on The Triple Crown?

Kate: When we started climbing Half Dome, I was like, I don't care if we do sub 24, we're not doing sub 24, we just need to get to the top of this mountain. Like at that moment, like just feeling as fatigued as I felt, I kind of lost hope that we were going to do sub 24. I was like, there's no way we're going to PR on Half Dome with the way I feel right now. But also then like, yeah, we simuled the first nine pitches and I was dragging for sure. Laura was definitely like pulling on the rope for most of it and when I got up to her, she was like, I pulled on the rope for most of that. I was like, I know, I'm sorry. I was like, I'm really tired. But we looked at the clock and we were still actually moving just as fast as we needed to be moving, which we were like, what? That makes no sense. But we were maybe a little bit slower. Then when I took over leading, I knew I was going slower. I think we wrote about this in the article, but she just kept telling me I was going as fast as I had ever gone. I was like, really? This is crazy. It feels so slow. Then when I got to the base of the chimneys, she was like, if you do your next block in one and a half hours, and I do my block in one and a half hours, we're going to be sub 24. That was the moment where I was like, okay, all muscle fatigue aside, foot pain, put it away, fingers and hands burning, don't think about it. As fast as you can possibly get her to her block, you just need to do it. That was like, I have hit this wall on some of my bigger objectives before. I think this is pretty common for people to do endurance events as well, like ultra runners and stuff.

We were quoting Courtney DeWalter, who has run the 300 milers. When you're in the pain cave, instead of being sad that you're in the pain cave, make the pain cave comfortable. We're adding couches to the pain cave. The pain cave has a bean bag now. There's art in the pain cave, putting a bathroom in the pain cave. It was breaking that wall of, okay, we're in it now. There's no getting out of it, but you just need to execute now. Because I knew when I had climbed in the snow on Half Dome that time, I knew I had the energy reserves. Because if I had it then, I definitely had it on the Triple. I was like, it's not snowing, weather is great. Well, it was not great, but it was good. I know I can do it. It was like that token of confidence I had from before. I was like, you just need to break that barrier. Once I did and committed to it, I did my block in an hour, which is the fastest I've ever climbed the chimneys. I was like screaming and I was yelling down at Laura, like, you're so glad you're not leading this block. Scary run outs in the chimneys. But yeah, I don't know. It's like humans have a limit. They have a mental limit and then they have a limit. The mental limit is pretty far back. There's all this space in here for you to push through.

Cat: More along the practical lines of this, what foods make the pain cave more comfy and get you through those moments when you don't want to keep going?

Kate: Yeah, it was cool. We basically trained like ultra runners. Yeah, Laura was awesome. She got us hooked up with Coros. So Coros gave us these devices that clip to your harness and you have an arm band that reads a heart rate. So that tells you how many calories you're burning on these big days. So every training day, we had equipment that was telling us how far we're going, how many calories we're burning, how many feet we're climbing. Then we went with mostly Skratch Lab products. They're located in Boulder, so they hooked us up with some stuff and so it became mathematical. We trained using the foods we knew we were going to have on The Triple, which was, for me, peanut butter and chocolate Skratch Bars. Then High Carb Drink Mix. That was something that I think is underrated, at least for big climbing objectives or at least 24-hour type pushes. We drank High Carb Drink Mix the whole 24 hours and neither of us ever cramped. It was like we didn't have to force a bunch of food into ourselves because we had this High Carb Drink Mix. We had her sister come in, her whole family came from France and made us this amazing food to eat in transitions. We had a dinner, mashed potatoes, my favorite go-to for stuff like that, and then pasta and fried rice. Then the morning after climbing El Cap, it was so hot. We were so dehydrated. We had watermelon and cantaloupe to eat in the car and then little breakfast burritos, but I think I just ended up eating watermelon. And then with Skratch bars and some Bolt chews, that was what we were trying to just consistently be eating while we were doing the whole effort.

Jeannie: I think that's a big part of why some of these things are getting done these days is just the transfer of endurance athletes' knowledge into climbing. I mean, it's just, you're not taking cans of Spam up anymore. I mean, it kind of was what everybody did, right, and ravioli. And I mean, it's just now, it's like a proper athletic pursuit and now you have even more tools like the monitors we never had, you know. I mean, I remember wearing the heart rate monitor on my chest, you know, under my sports bra and it was just like, it didn't even register that accurately and it was super uncomfortable and now you can have everything, you know. And the carb thing as an endurance athlete, that was like a game changer for long runs and bike rides for us.

And to do that, climbers just didn't really think to go that direction, but now there's so much knowledge and shared knowledge. It's really fun to see what's happening and that it works.

Kate: Yeah, it's funny. We were making a movie about The Triple and we interviewed, we've interviewed a couple of people, we interviewed Libby Sauter and hearing about her and Quinn's speed climbing, looking at some of their footage there, just like eating cheese puffs in between, like…we're soft. Like they're hard, they're doing it like, OG, under the radar with cheese puffs.

Like we have all this like beta and all this really lightweight gear and like-

Jeannie: So funny because it wasn't that long ago really, in the grand scheme, you know, that they were doing that. It's like, but yeah, it's changed a lot.

Kate: Yeah. Definitely cool. Like people back then were really hardcore.

Jeannie: Their pain cave was a little bigger and had maybe more couches in their minds.

Kate: Multi-level pain cave.

Jeannie: Water beds.

Cat: Kate, what's next for you? Do you have any more big goals on the short-term horizon or long-term that you're willing to talk about?

Kate: Yeah. Mostly just trying to get my fingers strong again. I signed up for a training plan with Lattice, with Maddy Cope as my coach. So I'm really psyched to honestly get back in the gym and train again. I feel as weak as I've felt probably since I started climbing. It's funny, you have to sacrifice one for the other, and my endurance is so good right now. I've been running a lot and trail running has been super fun right now. But my climbing has suffered a lot in terms of grades. So I'm focused on trying to get back to climbing 5.13. And that's pretty much the big thing for now. I have some routes here in Colorado picked out that will be milestone goals. But other than that, I think it's mostly kind of hinged on what my partners are psyched on. And we'll figure out some fun big trips to do. I think when the movie premieres in the spring - it's premiering in Europe. So I'll go out to Europe and hopefully Laura and I can start to climb some fun stuff again. But yeah, I'm guiding in Greece this New Year's with Becca, and doing Horseshoe Hell. And those are like the only two things I really have on the docket right now.

Jeannie: What about after The Triple? What for you is the most profound thing you felt or learned?

Kate: Yeah, I think the biggest thing I took away from it was, and this is something I felt a little bit in the last few years from climbing so much, is that the things that were the most important to me wasn't really the climbing, and it wasn't really the goal. And I'm like, it never really was that. It was always the partnerships and meeting these people, really cool people doing really rad things, but also friends for life. Like people, I just, yeah, these relationships I've made are so profound and so impactful to me. And the climbing doesn't really even matter that much. Like I left, I walked away from the Triple and was just like, well, I did the thing. But, what am I going to remember from it? It was all the people that showed up for us. We had so many people show up for us to carry our backpacks and carry our gear and bring us water and hike to the top of El Cap at 5 a.m. to meet us, just to hike us down. And that's definitely, that's definitely been like more eye opening the last few years. Like, I can pick hard goals and I can chase grades. But the thing that is the most fun for me is going to the Naked Edge at 5:30 a.m. with Eddie or like whoever it is, Becca, and getting a lap in before we go to work that day. Or, you know, like it's the friendships and the partnerships that have really shown through.

Jeannie: I think that's what makes climbing so unique and maybe just big mountain adventures and our connection to wildness and wilderness is the people and partnerships. And, you know, that's what Broad Beta is all about, is sharing these stories to inspire all of us to go out and find those. And they don't, you know, whatever our Triple Crown is in our own minds, and the partnerships and that support and the community is just such a rare and beautiful thing.

And the fact that we get to be in real wilderness and mountains and share that with great people…it's super nice to hear your story and get inspired and think about all of what you mentioned. I love the mantras. I think that's probably the most helpful thing to keep in mind in the mountains. And you know, we all get in those places where we're just like, I can't do this, I can't do this. And it's like, you can do this. This is in your wheel house. Yeah, I'm just like, that's what you felt and that you were able to share with us. I appreciate that a lot.

Kate: Yeah, totally. Thanks for having me on. It's a cool podcast and yeah, I'm excited to listen to more of the stories you have on there. It would be great if you got Laura on, even if it was for a written story. She also has a cute French accent, which is fun to listen to. Sweet. Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks again. It was really cool to meet both of you.

Cat: Thanks so much for listening to The Broad Beta Podcast today. For more stories, gear reviews, recipes and photos, check out broadbeta.com. If you liked this episode, please help us out by writing a review wherever you get your podcasts. For questions, feedback or anything else, don't hesitate to reach out to us at admin at broadbeta.com. Music in today's episode was sourced from freemusicarchive.org. Intro music is by Holizna Radio. Segue music is by Kirk Osomayo. And conclusion music in the background right now is by Ketsa.