Factor Two
33 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsFactor Two is a climbing podcast with impact, brought to you by Wil Treasure and UKClimbing.com.
It brings you the best climbing stories straight from the people at their heart - and the best climbing stories are always about a little bit more than just climbing.
https://www.factortwo.co.uk
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Episodes
Birth Pains of New Nations - Pete Oxley
August 12, 2021 12:54 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MBThe whims and motivations of climbers really are another world to the person in the street. Understanding them is crossing a threshold, it requires a certain suspension of disbelief to start to see the world of risk, adventure, suffering and more in a different light. Those thresholds exist within climbing too. One of them is understanding the obsessive new-router. I think we can all appreciate the buzz of discovering something no-one else has done. We could probably imagine cleaning some...
Hateja - Louise Thomas and Glenda Huxter
June 24, 2021 15:37 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBIf you had to select your late 90s dream team for a British, all-female Himalayan big wall trip, you couldn’t go far wrong with this one. Glenda Huxter was onsighting E7, Kath Pyke had extensive experience on rock and alpine routes, and Louise Thomas brought even more big wall and expedition experience to the team. Their 1997 objective was a first ascent on Beatrice, by chance the first Himalayan Peak named after a woman: British mountaineer Beatrice Tomasson. The south-east face of Beatri...
Finding the Balance - Katherine Schirrmacher
March 23, 2021 12:19 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MBWe all get enjoyment from climbing for different reasons. For many of us those reasons change over time, according to our geography, time, money and other pressures in our lives. I’ve read Katherine Schirrmacher’s blog for years, and she’s unusually good at expressing all of those little things that can affect your motivation or self belief. Like many of us, she was excited for the adventure of trad climbing in her early days, but she became an all-rounder; sport climbing, bouldering and c...
El Capitan - a film by Fred Padula
December 10, 2020 12:00 - 54 minutes - 50.1 MBIn the spring of 1968 San Francisco film maker, Fred Padula, drove into the Yosemite Valley and gazed up at El Capitan. He had been approached by one of his film students, Glen Denny, a talented climber and photographer, to advise on making a film about climbing The Nose. Denny had been part of the team that made the third ascent of the route. He’d also made the first ascent of the Dihedral Wall and was well connected in big wall circles. The concept was to create a film that would be as a...
Hard Grit
October 28, 2020 16:12 - 38 minutes - 35 MBWhen it was released in 1998, Hard Grit gave us an insight into something we didn’t often see - the actual ascents of the hardest, most dangerous lines on grit. In an era before everyone had a smartphone, before digital photography was even mainstream, many of the photos we saw in the magazines were staged. The hardest lines captured on video were often toproped reconstructions. Hard Grit changed that, by virtue of a few lucky coincidences and a lot of hard work. Director Rich Heap had h...
Hard Grit - Rich Heap, Niall Grimes and Seb Grieve
October 28, 2020 16:12 - 38 minutes - 35 MBWhen it was released in 1998, Hard Grit gave us an insight into something we didn’t often see - the actual ascents of the hardest, most dangerous lines on grit. In an era before everyone had a smartphone, before digital photography was even mainstream, many of the photos we saw in the magazines were staged. The hardest lines captured on video were often toproped reconstructions. Hard Grit changed that, by virtue of a few lucky coincidences and a lot of hard work. Director Rich Heap had h...
A Play for Voices - Helen Mort and Anna Fleming
September 16, 2020 06:00 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBWhen you look at the books on a shelf of mountaineering literature one thing is quickly apparent: the vast majority are written by men. The same is true with the episodes I’ve produced for Factor Two. The simple fact is that there have historically been more men engaged in the kind of adventures that we choose to tell those high profile stories about. The kind of stories I’ve sought out have often fitted a similar mould. I came into this episode with a simplistic question. Would those st...
Brave New World - Tom Livingstone and Twid Turner
August 06, 2020 14:37 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MBIt’s hard to be truly disconnected these days. Even in the weirdness of isolation over the past few months many of us have been working from home, constantly bothered by the connections around us. Sometimes it’s just a little too much. I’ve missed the isolation of the mountains, but even they aren’t as isolated as they used to be. In most places in the UK you’re not far from a phone signal. If you’re calling for help that’s great, but if you’re trying to escape it’s not so good. There’s ...
Deep Play - Neil Gresham
July 07, 2020 11:36 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MB"I climb better when I'm scared." I've heard this quite a few times. I even thought it was true about myself for a while in my earlier climbing career, but it surely can't be true? After speaking with Hazel Findlay about maintaining the bubble of a flow state in the last episode, there was one part of her account which reminded me of something else. Something different. Hazel's story was about maintaining concentration and avoiding falling back into a distracted mind while climbing at ...
Deep Play - Neil Gresham and Dr Rebecca Williams
July 07, 2020 11:36 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MB"I climb better when I'm scared." I've heard this quite a few times. I even thought it was true about myself for a while in my earlier climbing career, but it surely can't be true? After speaking with Hazel Findlay about maintaining the bubble of a flow state in the last episode, there was one part of her account which reminded me of something else. Something different. Hazel's story was about maintaining concentration and avoiding falling back into a distracted mind while climbing at ...
Walking the Magic Line
May 27, 2020 14:34 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBFlow is a concept that can divide in climbing. For Dave Thomas it was the joyous experience that removed him from other problems in life. For Mina Leslie-Wujastyk it was a performance tool. Mina told me that a lot of her understanding of flow had come from conversations with Hazel Findlay and it had helped her to develop a different mindset both on and off the rock. Off the back of these interviews I wanted to know more, both to understand flow as a scientific concept and as a more etherea...
Walking the Magic Line - Hazel Findlay and Dr Rebecca Williams
May 27, 2020 14:34 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBFlow is a concept that can divide in climbing. For Dave Thomas it was the joyous experience that removed him from other problems in life. For Mina Leslie-Wujastyk it was a performance tool. Mina told me that a lot of her understanding of flow had come from conversations with Hazel Findlay and it had helped her to develop a different mindset both on and off the rock. Off the back of these interviews I wanted to know more, both to understand flow as a scientific concept and as a more etherea...
Walking the Magic Line - Hazel Findlay
May 27, 2020 14:34 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBFlow is a concept that can divide in climbing. For Dave Thomas it was the joyous experience that removed him from other problems in life. For Mina Leslie-Wujastyk it was a performance tool. Mina told me that a lot of her understanding of flow had come from conversations with Hazel Findlay and it had helped her to develop a different mindset both on and off the rock. Off the back of these interviews I wanted to know more, both to understand flow as a scientific concept and as a more etherea...
The Moment You Doubt - Ben Bransby
April 14, 2020 11:23 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBMany of the stories in Factor Two feature the same scenario - What next? You always imagine ticking the big goal might be enough, but it rarely is. For Ben Bransby and Jvan Tresch it seemed obvious what was next. Patagonia has long been the most difficult and revered home to big walls in the world. Notorious weather systems, complex peaks, difficult routes and tricky conditions create a mix where simply completing anything in a season is an achievement. In their first season in 2003 they...
Freebird - Ben Bransby
April 06, 2020 12:00 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBAfter hearing from Leo Houlding and Patch Hammond about their legendary Yosemite season in 1998 there was one obvious gap in our story - Ben Bransby. Before attempting Freerider with Patch, Ben had made an ascent of the Salathe Wall with Mark Reeves. It was his first taste of big wall climbing and gave him the confidence that he could get himself out of trouble if needed. The climbing world might have been astonished at his and Patch's efforts on Freerider - remember at this time that ther...
Living in the Shadows - Franco Cookson
March 03, 2020 05:00 - 30 minutes - 28 MBInternet forums wouldn’t be the same without their villains and heroes, would they? Franco Cookson appeared on the UKC forums back in February 2008. He began posting prolifically from the off and rarely stopped to consider the responses from others. In those early days, he was the classic antagonist, cocksure and loudmouthed, but also somewhat detached from the climbing scene at large. He was also only 16 at the time, but in many ways his obsession with the North Yorks Moors and new routing ...
No More Heroes?
September 11, 2019 12:00 - 43 minutes - 40.5 MBPatch Hammond has remained a bit of an enigma in the climbing world. If you flick through the magazines from the late 1990s you’ll see a scruffy youth with an impressive climbing CV – onsighting E6 and E7 in North Wales and climbing with the likes of Tim Emmett, Neil Gresham and Leo Houlding. In the last episode we heard from Leo about their ascent of El Niño on El Capitan – Leo’s first big wall. Patch and Leo had travelled to Yosemite together, but while Leo was socialising at Camp Four a...
No More Heroes? - Patch Hammond
September 11, 2019 12:00 - 43 minutes - 40.5 MBPatch Hammond has remained a bit of an enigma in the climbing world. If you flick through the magazines from the late 1990s you’ll see a scruffy youth with an impressive climbing CV – onsighting E6 and E7 in North Wales and climbing with the likes of Tim Emmett, Neil Gresham and Leo Houlding. In the last episode we heard from Leo about their ascent of El Niño on El Capitan – Leo’s first big wall. Patch and Leo had travelled to Yosemite together, but while Leo was socialising at Camp Four a...
No More Worlds
May 24, 2019 15:35 - 25 minutes - 23.4 MBBack in 1998 Leo Houlding and Patch Hammond achieved something almost unthinkable – a near onsight ascent of El Capitan. They were just 18, had no big wall experience and headed to Yosemite without any great ambitions for the big faces. They had intended to try to headpoint some bold, hard new lines, but quickly discovered that the sort of lines they were after didn’t exist in Yosemite. When they arrived there were just two free routes on the mai wall of the Captain. The Salathé Wall, fr...
No More Worlds - Leo Houlding
May 24, 2019 15:35 - 25 minutes - 24.6 MBBack in 1998 Leo Houlding and Patch Hammond achieved something almost unthinkable – a near onsight ascent of El Capitan. They were just 18, had no big wall experience and headed to Yosemite without any great ambitions for the big faces. They had intended to try to headpoint some bold, hard new lines, but quickly discovered that the sort of lines they were after didn’t exist in Yosemite. When they arrived there were just two free routes on the mai wall of the Captain. The Salathé Wall, fr...
On and Off - A headpointing story
January 30, 2019 18:38 - 11 minutes - 11 MBPrompted by Franco Cookson’s article on headpointing recently I thought I’d dig out this interview I recorded in November 2017 with Tim Lowe. Tim is a climber from Yorkshire with an enviable ticklist of routes, including the Yorkshire Triple Crown of The Groove, Urgent Action and Supercool. Over the years he’s been a keen sport climber, but Tim also likes to stick his neck out on trad routes. Back in 1992 he took a huge fall on The Cad, on North Stack Wall at Gogarth. A little hungover and...
Clouds Come and Go
January 22, 2019 12:54 - 39 minutes - 35.8 MBIn the last two episodes we looked at aspects of flow, whether seeking the euphoria as an escape or chasing it as a performance tool. But there’s an area of climbing where flow won’t be enough. The objectives are too long, too complex and too unpredictable. At altitude everything becomes harder, your muscles ache under the lack of oxygen and, as Rick Allen has found more than once, your mind can wander. Rick is one of the world’s most accomplished high altitude mountaineers. He’s climbed...
Me and My Shadow
December 17, 2018 10:37 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBMina Leslie-Wujastyk has already established herself as one of the best sport climbers in the country, with redpoints up to 8c. For the past few seasons she has been attempting Rainshadow, Steve McClure’s iconic 9a at Malham. It’s more than a step above her previous ascents, and initially something that it hadn’t even occurred to her to try. It seemed too unfeasible. When pushing the limit at some point you will find it. We often say this with risk taking, but the same is true when pushi...
Me and My Shadow - Mina Leslie-Wujastyk
December 17, 2018 10:37 - 32 minutes - 29.8 MBMina Leslie-Wujastyk has already established herself as one of the best sport climbers in the country, with redpoints up to 8c. For the past few seasons she has been attempting Rainshadow, Steve McClure’s iconic 9a at Malham. It’s more than a step above her previous ascents, and initially something that it hadn’t even occurred to her to try. It seemed too unfeasible. When pushing the limit at some point you will find it. We often say this with risk taking, but the same is true when pushi...
More Than a Dream - Dave Thomas
November 06, 2018 20:45 - 33 minutes - 31.1 MBThe young Dave Thomas was motivated by one thing above all others – soloing. In his own words he’s “Never climbed a hard route”, but anyone looking at his climbing C.V. would beg to differ. In 1989 he soloed the classic E6 Lord of the Flies at Dinas Cromlech. It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. He’d been putting the miles in on the Rubicon traverse in the weeks leading up to the day. In his mind he had set a date with destiny. He’d decided he wanted to do it, so he would. The logic here ...
More Than a Dream
November 06, 2018 20:45 - 33 minutes - 31.1 MBThe young Dave Thomas was motivated by one thing above all others – soloing. In his own words he’s “Never climbed a hard route”, but anyone looking at his climbing C.V. would beg to differ. In 1989 he soloed the classic E6 Lord of the Flies at Dinas Cromlech. It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. He’d been putting the miles in on the Rubicon traverse in the weeks leading up to the day. In his mind he had set a date with destiny. He’d decided he wanted to do it, so he would. The logic here ...
Sally Can Wait
February 05, 2018 05:00 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBThere's something both romantic and illogical about taking the ultimate risk in climbing; leaving the rope behind and going solo. Justifying that is a question which has always fascinated me. For many people it's such an absolute risk that the answer is easy, but I've always thought it was more grey than that. I've asked all of the climbers I've interviewed for this series the same question, about why we do it and how we justify the risks we take. It turns out that we're all motivated by sim...
The Black Dog
January 01, 2018 05:00 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBKaty Forrester is a former member of the British bouldering and ice climbing teams. She's a fell runner and an accomplished trad and sport climber, with routes up to 7c+ and E8 under her belt. She also has a black dog. Katy is open in talking about her experience of depression and how she tackled her metaphorical black dog with a real one - a 5 month old labrador called Jade. In this episode Katy talks about her experience of dealing with depression. As a naturally competitive person she bec...
Alone - Off the Wall
December 11, 2017 11:55 - 28 minutes - 26.5 MBIn part one of this story we saw how Duncan Critchley's quick judgment of his partner for The Nose resulted in a piece of big wall history. Despite his good judgment, he was left with the regret that they never climbed together again. In part two Duncan's judgment isn't so good, but it leaves him with few regrets and some firm friendships. What do you do when you've just set the speed record on The Nose? For Duncan the answer was to set out alone. First with a free solo ascent of the...
Nine and a Half Hours
December 04, 2017 05:00 - 28 minutes - 26.5 MBThe Nose on El Capitan is perhaps the most iconic rock climb on the planet. Its been big news even outside of the climbing world since its first ascent by a team led by Warren Harding in 1958. The crowds in El Cap meadow became so unmanageable that the park rangers asked Harding to halt his work on the route until the autumn when the tourists had left. Today a major first ascent or speed record is news even in the mainstream media. Back in 1984 mild-mannered British climber "Sir" Dunca...
Becoming the Master - Jerry Moffatt and James McHaffie
November 06, 2017 09:00 - 21 minutes - 19.7 MBEvery generation of climbers looks to improve on the performances of the last. The saga of the Great Wall on Clogwyn Du'r Arddu provides one of the best examples of this in British climbing.The climbers looked to improve the style and the difficulty of the lines: Joe Brown abandoned his efforts with a peg at his high point. Pete Crew surpassed it using pebbles for aid in the thin cracks of the top pitch. A young John Allen freed the line in 1974. In the early 80s the eyes of the best were ...
Becoming the Master
November 06, 2017 09:00 - 21 minutes - 19.7 MBEvery generation of climbers looks to improve on the performances of the last. The saga of the Great Wall on Clogwyn Du'r Arddu provides one of the best examples of this in British climbing.The climbers looked to improve the style and the difficulty of the lines: Joe Brown abandoned his efforts with a peg at his high point. Pete Crew surpassed it using pebbles for aid in the thin cracks of the top pitch. A young John Allen freed the line in 1974. In the early 80s the eyes of the best w...
Trailer
October 15, 2017 12:00 - 2 minutes - 2.68 MBFactor Two is a climbing podcast with impact, brought to you by Wil Treasure and UKClimbing.com. It brings you the best climbing stories straight from the people at their heart - and the best climbing stories are always about a little bit more than just climbing. Find Factor Two on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/factortwopod/ Twitter - @treasurewild