The Thundercling Podcast
43 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 103 ratingsA Super Awesome Rock Climbing Explosion Thunderpod
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Episodes
Episode 42: Jamie Emerson – On the state of Mt. Evans bouldering, dropping the Sheriff’s badge, and assorted Thundercling goodbyes
November 25, 2022 17:52 - 1 hour - 142 MBBetcha didn't expect this! Jamie joins the boys once again for an in-depth chat on the state of Mt. Evans bouldering just after his beautiful new guidebook hit the shelves. If you're psyched on the alpine and want to know all the issues bubbling around access and best practices, you won't want to skip this one. Thanks for the listens, gang. Life is busy, trips are many, and this bonkers little podcast project just couldn't make the cut. Fidi switched careers, bought a house, and got engaged!...
Episode 41: Cameron Maier — The Rise of Bearcam
December 30, 2020 15:29 - 1 hour - 159 MBIt's funny where we end up, this random world kind of chucking us around like socks in the laundry. Existential mysteries aside, watching the folks around us land where they were meant to be is one of the great joys of being a human. After leaving Delaware for the mountains of Colorado, Cameron Maier joined a trail crew in Rocky Mountain National Park, already infatuated with climbing and hoping to put to use a college degree. When he was furloughed in 2010 as the season drew to a close, Cam...
Episode 40: Molly Mitchell — Good Enough
November 16, 2020 16:38 - 1 hour - 158 MBPhoto: Tory Powers Listening to her speak while reclined in bed, locked into a stabilizing back brace after a trad fall that saw her fracture two vertebrae, I couldn't help but think, Molly Mitchell makes sound and brave decisions. Weird, huh? While making a name for herself after crushing 5.14 sport and authoring bold and dangerous traditional first ascents, Molly kicked down the door when she became the 7th woman to climb 5.14 trad with her ascent of China Doll in Upper Dream Canyon, Boul...
Episode 39: Albert Ok — The Human Ghost Pepper
October 06, 2020 15:01 - 2 hours - 166 MBAlbert Ok showed up to my house with a package of raw ghost peppers. They remain on my porch table because I'm terrified of them. He began that day in Clear Creek Canyon, taking down "Moulin Rouge," a V10 rapidly gaining classic status on the Front Range. Then he joined Fidi for a session at Movement Baker. And after our chat he literally jogged off the porch because he was late for this third climbing session of the day, at the Denver Bouldering Club. The question is...is Albert Ok powered b...
Episode 38: Drew Ruana — Just Getting Started
September 02, 2020 19:11 - 1 hour - 116 MBWhen Drew Ruana (21) was nine years old, already deep into infatuation, he dreamed of becoming the greatest climber on the planet. Heady stuff for a kid who still slept with a night light. And yet, 12 years later, he's well on his way to making that starry-eyed little tyke proud. Drew is in the midst of one of the most head-spinning runs in bouldering history. After missing the cut for the US Olympic team by the slimmest of margins, which we discuss at length, Drew stepped away from the frus...
Episode 37: Mac Gaugh — “I’m just trying to save this thing”
August 11, 2020 14:35 - 1 hour - 156 MBAbout an hour into our chat with Mac Gaugh, climber and owner of fledgling climbing apparel brand Creag, a dry microburst exploded and for a few minutes the wind did all the talking. At this point in 2020, you just kinda nod and acquiesce... Mac is certainly no stranger to microbursts unsheathing chaos and struggle. For the majority of his life he's fluctuated wildly between a cyclical loop of achievement and sabotage. Addiction crept into his life early, along with rock climbing. When sobe...
Episode 36: Aman Anderson — The Rise of an Industry Leader
July 01, 2020 15:04 - 2 hours - 191 MBIt stands to reason many of you have never heard of Aman Anderson. He doesn't putz around on social media. His name, as far as I can tell, appears only once on his company's website. When his name is attached to work, it's generally citing his cutting edge data and analytics research, with titles such as, "Optimizing Muscular Strength-to-Weight Ratios in Rock Climbing." As a rule, spray does not equal import. Behind the scenes, for complicated reasons he elucidates in our conversation, Aman...
Episode 35: Jamie Emerson — Rocky Mountain Iconoclast
June 11, 2020 15:39 - 3 hours - 280 MBOur hearts and minds, like the rest of the sane nation, are focused on the Black Lives Matter movement. Frankly, along with the implications of Covid-19 and a looming election, it dominates our thoughts and conversations. With confederate iconography tumbling, once-silent voices rising, and police reform seemingly inevitable, it's no time to lose focus. It's really all we're thinking about, reflecting on, and sending our meager efforts towards. 2020 has beaten us down, collectively. If you'r...
Episode 34: Chris Kalman — The Author
May 19, 2020 15:00 - 2 hours - 172 MBChris Kalman wants you to know that he doesn't want to be famous anymore, not for writing and not for climbing. There was a time when he sought out heavy-hitting publishers and an agent to whisk him to climbing writing fame. This paradigm does not exist. There was a time when he was willing to give his life to the mountains, if that meant glory on the sharp end. This barter, also, doesn't really exist. Chris, after a life of honing his voice and etching his craft, has cemented his status as ...
Episode 33: Thomas Betterton and Don Bushey — A Defining Moment in the Climbing Industry
April 23, 2020 17:39 - 1 hour - 133 MBNobody is struggling more in the climbing industry than independent business owners, from gear shops to guiding services to climbing gyms. They've been forced to close their doors, furlough dedicated employees, navigate hazy government support programs, and figure out what the future looks like when the cloud of Coronavirus lifts and, hopefully, dissipates. Thomas Betterton is the majority owner of the Denver Bouldering Club (DBC), two gyms and a third in the making. It is the core gym in De...
Episode 32: Juliet Hammer, CSCS — Training Through the Lock Down
March 29, 2020 18:28 - 1 hour - 115 MBJuliet Hammer wants to work. After compiling certificates and gaining her Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) accreditation, she spent almost two years building a clientele, filling her schedule with 35 sessions a week. And then, the coronavirus pandemic struck...and here we are, stuck in our houses, banished from the crags, and wondering how to stay fit in a time of high anxiety and restless quarantine. After initially losing the lion's share of her weekly sessions, Juliet...
Tiny Episode: We’ll Be Back In A Week…
March 13, 2020 06:01 - 34 minutes - 47.4 MBYou guys, listeners and friends, have been with us for almost two years. We dearly love creating this podcast, but sometimes life and death and love and sorrow happen. The next podcast is going to be a couple weeks late, and we think you deserve to know why. Last Friday, on March 6th, my friends Nolan Smythe and Aaron Livingston were blasting up Logical Progression (5.13), a free route on the 2,800-foot El Gigante wall in Basaseachic Falls National Park, Chihuahua, Mexico. Nolan, leading up ...
Episode 31: Ian Powell — Feeding the Right Wolf
February 28, 2020 16:57 - 2 hours - 223 MBThree decades ago, a skinny climber, a kid, walked into the Straight Up climbing hold warehouse in Boulder, CO, pestering the owner for a job as a shaper. He kept haunting the joint until the owner gave him a job and stuck him in a dusty corner of the warehouse. All these years later, that kid has built the legacy of the greatest hold shaper to ever take sandpaper to foam. Ian Powell began climbing in Waco, TX, eventually moving to Boulder to be closer to the mecca. Once in the door with Str...
Episode 30: Hunter Damiani — What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been
February 06, 2020 06:25 - 2 hours - 179 MBIt's not every day that you meet a climber who can effortlessly breathe authenticity into rock climbing. A climber of eye-popping ability who doesn't care about Instagram followers, doesn't care about grades, who really doesn't give a simple shit what anyone thinks. Hunter Damiani is one of those guys. Here in Colorado, Hunter is a known quantity. He's the artist behind the Spot gym's crazy Psychedelia Competition, random logo and commissioned work, and even Access Fund clothing. He is also ...
Episode 29: Chelsea Rude — The Reinvention
January 20, 2020 14:43 - 1 hour - 164 MBSo, get this. Chelsea Rude, at the urging of her father, walked into a climbing gym for the first time at age 11. Two weeks later she entered a competition, having never really competed in any sporting event before. She took first place. That, obviously, is an auspicious start to a career in climbing. Chelsea began racking up victories so quickly and steadily that she dove into the JCCA (Junior Competition Climbing Association, formerly the American Sport Climber's Federation, and which shor...
Episode 28: Sauce Night — A Slightly Inebriated Holiday Celebration of Climbing in 2019
December 30, 2019 01:21 - 1 hour - 235 MBHappy holidays, ya grungy cabal of crushers! We're ringing in the New Year with a Sauce Night, which was far overdue. The hot pink Christmas tree is glowing. The conversation is chippy. The Hungarian liqueur is flowing from a mysterious goblet. Slurring, like the flowing sands of time, eventually overtakes another Sauce Night... The regular crew of Travis and Lynn join Fidi and I, tackling another lap around the sun in the climbing-verse. We each present the stories, movies, events, and achi...
Episode 27: Kynan Waggoner — The Branches of the Tree
December 11, 2019 15:15 - 2 hours - 330 MBCertain people exist in our little world, people who push the buttons and massage the infrastructure and leave fingerprints in every nook. These revolutionaries will never receive recognition from the wider climbing galaxy, let alone the average climber clipping bolts at the local crag. They are the people behind the scenes; providing jobs, building the gyms in which we train, constructing the ballast upon which the sport relies. So, let's talk about Kynan Waggoner. In one of my favorite cli...
Episode 26: Peter Mortimer — Director of Psych
November 18, 2019 03:58 - 1 hour - 210 MBYou may not know who Peter Mortimer is, and that's fine by him. You're almost certainly intimate with is filmography, however, an ever-evolving array of groundbreaking films three decades in the making. Peter and his partners Josh Lowell and Nick Rosen (among many others) have collaborated to define the climbing film medium. They have literally delivered more climbing psych than any other humans on the planet. Peter, and his newly minted company Sender Films, launched his career with quirky ...
Episode 25: Minko Nikolov — Survival After the Unimaginable
October 30, 2019 02:30 - 2 hours - 301 MBMinko Nikolov, 31, had lived a pretty charmed life up to a couple months ago. Originally from Bulgaria, Minko discovered rock climbing through his local crags and a powerhouse gym located just minutes from his house. In the early 2000s, as the competition scene lay fairly dormant in the States, Minko launched himself into the Bulgarian circuit. He walked out of his first competition in second-to-last place. Less than a year later, he won the second comp he ever entered. That was just the begi...
Episode 24: Boone Speed — Climbing’s DIY Maestro
October 11, 2019 17:16 - 1 hour - 273 MBBoone Speed. I was tempted to stop the intro right there... Boone Speed stands as one of the towering pillars in the climbing pantheon, a small town Utah kid who grew into an athletic and creative powerhouse, contributing more to the sport in half a life than most could in a couple. Let's spend just a moment dissecting his continuing legacy and then get down to business. Obviously, there's the climbing. Boone rocketed out of obscurity in the mid-80's, smack in the middle of the sport climbi...
Episode 23: Mack Maier — Extreme Entrepreneurship
September 20, 2019 14:07 - 1 hour - 216 MBWe're all busy. The hustle is real and sneaking climbing into life can be a helluva exercise. Perhaps we need some perspective? Let's take the case of Mack Maier. Mack, after discovering climbing in college, fell down the rabbit hole of infatuation, eventually moving to Salt Lake City. With wanderlust boring down on him, off he went to South Korea to teach English and climb as an "expat for life." While assuming a leadership role with a climbing advocacy group his friend and future business ...
Episode 22: Dakota Walz — True Tales of Rocks and Rails
September 06, 2019 13:57 - 1 hour - 262 MBSome folks sip life, swirling it around the palate, nodding contemplatively and slowly shuttering their eyes. Others punch a key through the bottom of the can and shotgun that shit while ropeless and reckless above a churning sea, howling to whichever gods they've buttonholed in their sights. I'll let you guess which type of fellow Dakota Walz is. Dakota, hailing from Denver via the plains of North Dakota, has steadily built a climbing resume that demands attention when it comes from a fla...
Episode 21: Joslynn Corredor — Bodies En Route
August 22, 2019 13:58 - 1 hour - 272 MBJosylnn Corredor has been running towards challenges all of her life. Encountering, conquering, running, repeat. After a starring role in high school, Jos launched into a Division I track and field career at the crushingly competitive Oregon State University. With her collegiate spikes hung up, however, she found herself casting about to fill the void that organized sports had so easily filled. Like you, like me, like almost all of us...she found rock climbing. You know the rest of that story...
Episode 20: Bruce Zou and Cesar Valencia — “Pure Joy”
August 08, 2019 14:03 - 2 hours - 272 MBThe winding paths we take to climbing is a story we all share, yet each journey unspools in such bizarre, unique chaos. Bruce Zou grew up in rural China, riding buffaloes in lieu of cars, climbing bamboo in the forest, and not standing too close to a television for fear he'd get zapped into the odd device and therein be trapped forever. An ambitious student, he eventually left China for Boulder, CO to pursue a PhD in mechanical engineering. His first day in the Bubble he laced up a pair of s...
Episode 19: Paul Robinson and Jeremy Fullerton — Tales From The Boulders
July 24, 2019 13:45 - 2 hours - 269 MBPaul Robinson has stood at the vanguard of difficult bouldering for years, one of the crop of young beasts to rise to international recognition in the wake of Dave Graham's and Chris Sharma's emergence. Along with climbing a score of V15s, Paul has sought out first ascents on almost every continent, starred in some of the finest climbing films ever made, and most importantly carried himself with humor, creativity, and dignity along the way. Jeremy Fullerton needs no introduction. Literally. ...
Episode 18: Sauce Night — Pity Party
July 10, 2019 03:41 - 1 hour - 94.2 MBDefending Game Night champ Lynn returns to battle for her crown in another round of Geo Party and a much-maligned lightning spin through the Thunder Quiz. Travis, returning to Sauce Night for a cool trifecta, hoping to stop Lynn in her tracks, suffers from a bad case of the grumps. Fidi, resolute and robed in his combat spats, cracks his knuckles in hopes of bringing glory to a Thundercling host. As alpine season has dawned in Colorado, the gang also chats about alpine ethics. Specifically, ...
Episode 17: Tyler Williams — Building A Culture
June 26, 2019 06:04 - 1 hour - 122 MBThis is a special episode over here at Thundercling HQ. About a year ago we hatched the idea to cobble together some sort of climbing podcast, heavy on character and story, light on what grades you climb and how sick your crew is. We hadn't the slightest notion of how to conduct a podcast, let alone launch one. Although we'd cultivated some connections, we had no idea with whom to launch the inaugural episode. We needed a guinea pig to test it out on. We needed a Patient Zero. Enter Tyler Wi...
Episode 16: Chris Winter — Pulling Climbing Back From the Tipping Point
June 12, 2019 05:17 - 1 hour - 185 MBChris Winter, the Executive Director for the Access Fund, has 99 problems but finding a solution ain't one. Chris, along with his tireless staff spread across the country, is forging a bold path forward for the Access Fund, tackling the issues attendant with climbing's massive explosion in popularity. Overcrowding, crag erosion, social trails, an often challenging federal political machine, human waste polka-dotting the crags, and the general ecological impact of millions of new climbers are...
Episode 15: Tony Yaniro — An American Pioneer
May 29, 2019 14:09 - 1 hour - 181 MBTony Yaniro came of age as the Stonemasters were just solidifying their legendary status in the mid ’70s. In the shadows, however, climbers like Tony, Randy Leavitt, Max Jones and Mark Hudon, Ray Jardine, and a host of others were starting to shed the crotchety ethics of the day and pushing the sport in a new, gymnastic, era-defining direction. Tony and the gang hung on ropes to work out moves, bolted lines at a level previously unimagined, and developed a super-divisive style of sendi...
Episode 14: Brendan Leonard — “If you’re gonna suffer, get in there…”
May 15, 2019 00:17 - 2 hours - 304 MBBrendan Leonard has this incredible knack for making you feel like you could do just about anything you set your mind to, while simultaneously filling you with existential dread that you'll never realize your full potential. How can that be? Because fulfilling potential, doing incredible things, all of it -- it's hard as shit. And he's the most distilled reflection of gritty, gumption-seeping grinding I can conjure. Brendan's made a career out of setting his jaw and getting down to the work,...
Episode 13: Sauce Night — “That is Correct!”
May 01, 2019 05:01 - 1 hour - 177 MBIt's game night at the Thundercling dinner table! Dave takes Fidi and return Sauce Night veterans, Lynn and Travis, through a couple of arduous trivia combat tours, the gang trying to hold it together after a few too many beers. First, Fidi hopes to take the lead in a lightning round of the Thunder Quiz. The contestants get 80 seconds to answer climbing trivia questions; some topical, some historical, and some embarrassingly personal. Dave is accused of nepotism, Fidi flexes a bit of muscle,...
Episode 12: Podiums, Petitions, and the Poopocalypse — The Assorted Adventures of Maureen Beck and Emmett Cookson
April 16, 2019 12:57 - 1 hour - 256 MBThe team in repose, Emmett squatting on the left and Maureen standing in the center. Maybe you've seen the award-winning film, Stumped, which introduced much of the world to adaptive climber Maureen Beck. Maybe you know that her trophy room includes numerous national titles and world championships. Perchance you've heard that National Geographic named Mo this year's incredibly prestigious Adventurer of the Year. You probably know that she's accomplished this all while being born without a le...
Episode 11: Rob Pizem — Managing the List
April 01, 2019 13:49 - 1 hour - 216 MBPhoto by Lane Mathis. Rob "Piz" Pizem, 42, is a man in perpetual motion. Along with raising two sons with his wife, Jane, Piz teaches high school science to at-risk youth, logs hours as the head trainer at his local gym in Grand Junction, CO, and carves out time away from his family to put up some of the most ascetic first ascents on terra firma. Between driving the kids to baseball practice, spending time with his wife, developing curriculum for his students, and designing climbing regiment...
Episode 10: Owen Summerscales and William Penner — The Roy Explosion
March 18, 2019 14:39 - 1 hour - 212 MBWilliam Penner Owen Summerscales The bouldering in Roy, New Mexico features some of the finest winter sandstone climbing that the United States has to offer, a fact highlighted by a massive influx of visiting climbers since 2016, when the New Mexico Bouldering guidebook hit the stands. It wasn't so long ago, however, that Roy was a loosely guarded secret that few knew about. For most of us, around 2015 or so, Roy simply did not exist. And then, one day, it did. What happens when a boulderi...
Episode 9: Dave Wahl — Digging Through the Mind of a Coaching Savant
March 04, 2019 04:54 - 1 hour - 233 MBBesides a dog with a head like a bowling ball slobbering all over you, the first thing you notice when you walk into Dave Wahl's house is the copious amount of training and sports science books scattered about his kitchen and living room. Beyond being one of the preeminent climbing coaches and trainers working in the States today, Dave is a student of athletic movement and efficiency. Dave's been refining his coaching/training process since his early days working with Rob Pizem, before Piz w...
Episode 8: Jeremy Fullerton — Managing the Hustle
February 18, 2019 16:35 - 1 hour - 224 MBPro climber Jeremy Fullerton, 28, ain't no trust-funder. Although he spends the majority of his waking minutes either climbing or shuffling his schedule to get to the crag, he's not riding the wake of mom's expenditure account. Instead, he plugs hours at Fed Ex, freelances as an auto mechanic, landscapes, walks dogs...he relentlessly hunts a way to fund his own path, whether it be paying rent in Boulder or hopping a flight to South Africa. Not every pro climber is so forthcoming, especially ...
Episode 7: Matt Samet and Kevin Corrigan — Editors and Writers and Climbers, Oh My!
February 04, 2019 16:25 - 1 hour - 256 MBNoted climber, writer, and cat whisperer, Matt Samet. Just another day in the Climbing offices for Kevin Corregan. Matt Samet is a sort of Renaissance Man. Top shelf climber and first-ascensionist, one of the best writers in the biz, Editor-in-Chief at Climbing Magazine, author, dad and husband, sweat pants aficionado, and cat lover. Seriously. He really likes cats. Kevin Corrigan jumped on board with Climbing Magazine around 2014, as Digital Editor, after sending a cold resume to Boulder ...
Episode 6: Jason Kehl — “Listen, man, I’m just exploring canvas.”
January 21, 2019 02:46 - 1 hour - 263 MBPhoto provided by J. Kehl, taken by the eminently talented Dawn Kish. Jason Kehl, one of the most iconic climbers to ever latch on a chalk bag, really has nothing left to prove. At 42, he's left a tidal wave of accomplishments behind him, all on his own terms and without the girders of convention or covenance. Jason helped kick off the highball revolution with his first ascent of the Buttermilk stunner Evilution (V12), in 2002. Straight Outta Squampton (5.13+, first bouldering ascent), The ...
Episode 5: Sauce Night — What We Talk About When We Talk About Climbing Movies
January 08, 2019 03:23 - 1 hour - 255 MBI was living in South Korea, teaching English during the weekdays and feverishly putting up FAs with a tight crew of expats during the weekends, when I first saw Sender Film's Pilgrimage. The film follows Chris Sharma, Katie Brown, and Nate Gold as they peruse the granite eggs dotting acre upon acre in Hampi, India. Sipping my Hite beer at night, I would watch it on repeat, mouth agape, heart quickening, annoying my non-climber roomie in some shithole apartment in an industrial enclave of Inc...
Episode 4: Brian Runnells and Chris Weidner — The Boys in the Booth
December 19, 2018 05:18 - 1 hour - 192 MBEmily Harrington joins Chris and Brian for the 2016 USA Bouldering Nationals, where they filled a mind-bending 14+ hours of time behind the mics. Brian Runnells and Chris Weidner have been climbing for a long time. They've also been writing about climbing for a long time. Before his identity was finally sleuthed out, Brian was the one-man aggregating super-bot behind the website Climbing Narc. In a torturous twist, you can still visit the page, where the last post logged falls in April of 20...
Episode 3: Whitney Pesek — “I won the lottery and I didn’t even buy a ticket.”
December 04, 2018 05:56 - 1 hour - 131 MBWhitney Pesek was 13 years old when she noticed her vision mysteriously turning blurry, sharp edges becoming soft. After a battery of tests she was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a condition that causes loss in the center of the field of vision. Despite her accelerating condition, a malady which she rarely discussed with others, Whitney discovered climbing and fell down the rabbit hole of obsession. After years of roping up and cruising boulderfields, she discovered a community of adap...
Episode 2: Ryan Sewell – Doing the Work for the Wisdom
November 19, 2018 05:02 - 2 hours - 345 MBRyan Sewell causing pain to geologic formations. Photo by our own Fidi! Ryan Sewell, Denver via Texas, has been constructing the building blocks of a sustainable career in climbing since his early teenage years. Youth World Cup competitions, scrubbing holds in dingy gyms, ascending to a world-class outdoor status (V14/.14d), and finally wrestling with the notion of going pro or finding another route for a career in the industry. He eschewed the jet-setting hustle of becoming a professiona...
Episode 1: Nina Williams and James Lucas — Charting New Territories
November 05, 2018 00:03 - 1 hour - 197 MBThe top of Ariana after their first trip up the Diamond. "We didn’t send. Nina went back and fired it a week or so later. I did Turning Point the night after we talked," according to James. Episode one, touch down. On Thunderpod's inaugural episode, we speak with Nina Williams and James Lucas, Fidi and I in a living room in Denver, Nina and James sharing a couch in Boulder. It's pretty romantic. Nina and James charted entirely different trajectories through the climbing world. James lived o...