Podcasts by For the Love of Climbing
This is not a climbing podcast. Well, sorta. This is a podcast about choosing vulnerability and talking about our pain—and how we are all really just shining examples of this messy human existence.
Further podcasts by Kathy Karlo
Podcast on the topic Abenteuer Natur
All episodes
55: A Price Too Big from 2023-12-01T08:28:04
On October 29, 2019, Michelle Xue and her climbing partner, Jenny Shedden, set off to climb Red Slate Mountain in the Sierra Nevada when they were struck by rockfall and killed. This story is to...
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54: Good Mom, Bad Mom from 2023-11-01T05:19:46
“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Glinda asked Dorothy when she crash-landed in Oz for the first time. The theory of everything is that every element has an opposite. And by this logic, if ...
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53: A Guy Walks Out of a Bar... from 2023-10-01T05:51
Addiction is the kind of topic where judgment is easy, and empathy is hard. Shame is at the core of addiction. It thrives best in secrecy when we feel most alone, and keeps stories like these hi...
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52: My Friend Kris from 2023-09-01T08:01:35
This is Jess and Chelsea. They’re both climbers, they both live in Colorado. They both love dogs, and they’re forever inextricably tied together by these very common, un...
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Bonus Episode 51: 40 Years to Freedom (Part 2) from 2023-08-01T08:05
Amin has been climbing for over 23 years, starting in Shiraz, a historical city in Iran. In 2017, he moved to the U.S. to work as a head routesetter, and was shot in a senseless act of violence ...
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50: 40 Years to Freedom (Part 1) from 2023-08-01T08:00
Amin has been climbing for over 23 years, starting in Shiraz, a historical city in Iran. In 2017, he moved to the U.S. to work as a head routesetter, and was shot in a senseless act of violence ...
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49: Good Grief from 2023-07-01T08:40
There are those who see grief as the final form of love—this one final act that we give to those we’ve lost. It’s also been said that it’s the price we pay for love, which is a funny way to look at...
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48: We Are the Currents from 2023-06-01T07:19:49
Civil discourse is a dying art, a complex practice that takes patience and well-rounded perspective to really master. Asking folks to be brave enough to make their convictions vulnerable means r...
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47: How We Grow from 2023-05-01T08:18
Kids have a lot of questions when someone in their family is sick. But when you don't know to ask, certain things become the norm. In our parents' generation, bipolar disorder wasn't as widely t...
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Mini-Episode 11: Climbing Doesn't Change You from 2023-04-28T06:49
Welcome back to the podcast. I’ve always been a huge advocate of change, but not always the good kind. Usually the “shake the snow globe, throw caution to the wind” chaotic kind. Lorca from Listen
46: Mason’s Retirement Sucks Tour from 2023-04-24T10:27:07
Welcome back to the podcast. This is season five’s final episode which may or may not be two months late, but what are deadlines if not social constructs that we build to plan and schedule our l...
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45: The Letter from 2023-01-01T12:31
Rebecca spent hours of her childhood, outside on her front lawn, catching caterpillars and fireflies. She was timid, liked to play alone, and was never one to venture off on her own to explore.<...
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44: Mission Possible from 2022-12-01T09:07:15
Lucho grew up in San Francisco’s Mission District with the belief that the only way to survive his neighborhood was with the protection of a gang. So, he did the most logical thing: he joined a ...
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43: Becoming Katie from 2022-11-01T07:58
If you Google “Katie Brown” on the internet, there’s a Reddit thread called “What Ever Happened to Katie Brown?” and that’s a valid question. Katie wasn’t just a professional climber at the age ...
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42: Something's Gotta Give from 2022-10-01T07:36
The world of adaptive sports is changing, and quickly. Ronnie’s disability hasn’t held him back, but social stigmas that are still caught behind in outdated narratives can. And that’s where chan...
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41: Emily “Gwyneth Paltrow Rocked Apple” and She Doesn’t Want a Lemon Baby from 2022-09-01T12:37
Emily miscarried in March of 2021 and she struggled with how the experience felt so shameful. It was her job to keep him alive and growing, after all—right? Except, one of the worst parts about ...
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40: Lowest Common Denominator from 2022-08-01T08:00
Kyle destigmatizes substance use and mental health by opening up about his own journey through recovery after a two-decade-long battle with drugs and alcohol that almost took his life in October...
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39: Where the Redwoods Grow from 2022-07-01T09:16
Savannah lived in a truck for a year in an attempt to pursue a career in adventure photography. She learned that the privilege to electively suffer still comes at a cost. It didn’t give her more...
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38. Are You Safe There? from 2022-06-01T08:50
Dan always knew he was different growing up, but he didn’t have a name for it. Growing up gay in rural America shaped the way he moved through the world, and it led him to believe that the outdo...
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37. The Arc from 2022-05-01T04:54
Pam didn’t have a lot of tragedy in her life, so she didn’t know about the arc. And as a grieving person, it was hard to look forward to anything, especially on top of the pandemic. But the worl...
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Mini-Episode 10: Hope is Here from 2022-04-25T08:37
Hope isn’t perpetual optimism. It’s an inherent part of being human that requires determination for things to change for the better. We’re back this May with ten new stories from climbers about ...
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36: The Climber&the Poet from 2022-02-01T09:09
Climbing can be, er, kinda selfish. We go up, we go down—and then we do it all over again. It's also where Oliver and Alyssa’s interests diverge. For some, that’s a dealbreaker. Is this lifestyl...
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35: The Bipolar Ape from 2022-01-01T08:18
Humans are capable of acts of such bravery but also, acts of such cowardice from one moment to the next. And of course, sometimes we’re going to do terrible things—and sometimes, we’re going to ...
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34: Dreamers Only from 2021-12-01T07:54
Dreams don’t just fall into our heads out of nowhere. They require patience, self-compassion, and the courage to pursue them, regardless of the odds. Debbie credits her resilience to her childho...
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33: From the Inside, Out (Part 2) from 2021-11-01T09:21
This is one transgender climber’s story. And it’s hard to sum up in just a few sentences not just Lor’s identity, but the human being that they are. The impact that they’re having on our communi...
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32: From the Inside, Out (Part 1) from 2021-11-01T09:20
Lor had to decide. They could go on hating themself, or could be a part of making the world a place that was more healed—and that started with healing themself. This is part one of a two-part st...
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31: Sober as F*** from 2021-10-01T09:45
What role does excessive boozing in a community of athletes play? And let’s be really clear—this isn’t just the outdoor industry and trade show happy hours. It’s not about climbing culture or the r...
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30: The Prince from 2021-09-01T09:46
Phillip Schaal, an elite rock climber and one of the world’s best boulderers at the time, died in 2016 after a severe reaction to a suspicious drug overdose, as told by his mother Eloise. Franco...
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29: Cat Like a Cat from 2021-08-01T10:41
We’re increasingly pressured to parcel ourselves up in various social contexts, but identity is complex. Being transgender is just another way of being human, and the beauty within that is that ...
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28: Brittany from 2021-07-01T04:58
In 2017, a forty-foot fall broke Brittany’s L1 vertebrae, sending a piece of bone into her spinal cord. She describes it as one of those surreal dreams where you wake up and think, “T...
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27: A Splash in the Pan from 2021-06-01T09:49
On April 16th, 2019, elite climbers Jess Roskelley, David Lama, and Hansjörg Auer lost their lives in an avalanche climbing Howse Peak in Alberta’s BANFF National Park. The margin of ...
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26: I’m a Liver, Not a Fighter from 2021-05-01T07:48
Cedar, who was named after a tree, has something called Progressive Familial Intrahepatic Cholestasis, otherwise known as PFIC 2. This devastating genetic disorder affects 1 in 50,000 to 1 in 10...
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Mini-Episode 9: I Did Not Know from 2021-04-26T08:34
How do you measure something that definitively changes your life forever—whether it be for better or worse? Like, what kind of metrics are we supposed to be using for that kinda thing? Is the entir...
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25: A Knot Like Infinity from 2021-02-01T07:53
Last September, North Bennett sent me a personal essay and told me that he thought it wasn’t send-y enough for most sports publications, but also a little too climb-y for others. And—that’s wher...
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24: The Process from 2021-01-01T07:24
Just shy of twenty 5.12 free solos, Austin Howell had climbed nineteen unique routes without a rope—one of them without shoes and butt ass naked. In 2019, Austin died free soloing in Linville Go...
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23: Si me muero, me muero from 2020-12-01T08:05:43
Jack used to do all the things, like surfing and jiu jitsu. But an incomplete spinal cord injury in 2018 changed his plans indefinitely. What’s a little neck fracture at C4 and C5, right? It sti...
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22: The '59 Sound from 2020-11-01T07:32
On March 9th, 2016, Eric was working on linking the crux moves of Moonlight Buttress, one of the most classic test pieces for hard climbing in North America, when he fell from the upper pitches ...
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21: Come As You Are from 2020-10-01T10:29
Body positivity isn’t about “fat” versus “skinny”, despite barrages of criticism from armchair philosophers. The body positivity movement is about feeling comfortable in the skin you’re in now, ...
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19: Light at the End of the Tunnel from 2020-08-01T11:04
Throughout America’s history, hallmarks of our democracy have been largely reserved for cis white people through intentional exclusion of BIPOC people. Connie and Kai Lightner call attention to ...
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18: Life Through a Sieve from 2020-07-01T10:19
Going through a traumatic experience is kind of like putting your life through a sieve. In 2009, Kareemah was diagnosed with cancer and underwent an amputation on her left leg below the knee. Th...
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17: What We Know from 2020-06-01T10:47
If you’ve been paying attention to the news, this is what we know: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd are victims of three separate crimes against black people. Cases like these have...
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16: A Hunger For Joy from 2020-05-01T10:43
On May 12, 1986, students and teachers from the Oregon Episcopal School Basecamp Program set off to climb Mt. Hood. Three days later, nine of the climbers would die in what’s known as the second...
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Mini-Episode 8: How The F*ck Are You? (No, really.) from 2020-02-01T21:06
We’ll be back on May 1st with new episodes. Until then, enjoy a mini-episode while I try to do things like not burn a film festival into the ground (just kidding...I think!) and if you’re in Den...
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15: A Winter in Pakistan from 2020-01-01T12:02
When you go on a climbing trip, everybody thinks it’s a vacation. And you can’t get PTSD from a vacation, right? Except that a winter in the Himalaya nearly destroyed Ian. He survived unroped cr...
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14: Donuts for Savvy (Part 2) from 2019-12-01T07:55
To know Savannah was to love her. Nina and Court loved Savannah to the ends of the earth, and her unexpected death forever changed the climbing community. In their love and grief, Savannah’s par...
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13: Donuts for Savvy (Part 1) from 2019-11-01T08:30
Grief is the one human experience that we all have in common, but there are no words for losing a child. Savannah Buik was 22 years old when she died in a climbing...
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12: Life, Interrupted from 2019-10-01T07:41
Life is full of interruptions we’re rarely ready for, so the more doctors tried to convince Hans how serious his condition was, the more he denied it. We most commonly associate grief with death...
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11: A Woman Knows Her Place from 2019-09-01T02:44
Women are a lot of things. We’re complex, we’re coffee-fueled, we smell good—sometimes we smell bad. Sometimes we’re hangry. But one thing is certain—we’re hustlers, we are strong, and we are gr...
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Mini-Episode 7: The Moral of the Story from 2019-08-18T02:07
It's Still (Mostly) Not a Climbing Podcast. We took the summer off to stand fully in our truth, which means sometimes we have to sit in those uncomfortable feelings, too. But we’re back this Sep...
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10: I'll Spare You the Platitudes from 2019-05-15T09:04
Corey's dad introduced him to climbing and the outdoors. In 2010, Corey’s dad died by suicide. We don’t actually have a complete count of suicide attempt data because the stigma surrou...
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9: Shit in the Woods from 2019-04-15T04:23:41
This episode is about eating disorders, body positivity, and just owning your shit, specifically through the lens of climbing and one woman’s experience.
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8: The Heart of the Matter from 2019-03-15T00:24
Matt is the editor-in-chief of Climbing Magazine, a published author, a husband, a father, and a pretty well-seasoned climber. And even though most of his life has not been easy, Matt has found ...
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7: Why Not Now from 2019-02-15T02:02
Fact: fear stops so much of what we do. But after one life-altering day in the Gunks, Caitlin stopped putting things on hold and made some big changes because she saw what happens when you lose ...
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5: Hold Fast from 2018-12-15T12:13
There’s a remarkable beauty of relative perspective. Two weeks before leaving for Patagonia for a climbing trip, Alex’s life was turned upside down. Introduction from the one and only Conrad Anker ...
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4: All This Death from 2018-11-15T00:26
This episode is about best friends and healing, and it’s a reminder that grief happens, but so does joy.
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3: She, Her, Hers from 2018-10-15T01:11
When we're born, a doctor proclaims that we are male or female, based on what our bodies look like. But some people's gender identity is just different from what was initially expected at birth....
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2: A Unique Relationship from 2018-09-15T04:22
Bryce’s brother Tyler died in a climbing accident but because of his death, Bryce became more intrigued with the sport that took his brother’s life. He says he has a unique relationship with cli...
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1: Unbroken from 2018-08-15T02:04
You haven't heard this story yet. But, maybe you have. Maybe it's a sister, a girlfriend, a best friend. Maybe it's you. Survivor stories like these are creating a global framework for how to en...
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Mini-Episode 6: I Didn't Know at the Time from 2018-07-27T18:02
Did you ever do something you loved, but for all of the wrong reasons?
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Mini-Episode 5: Packing Up to Leave from 2018-07-19T14:44
Every job has its pros and cons. Some can be pretty chaotic and most, if not all, don’t always pay employees what they’re worth. But what if one of the downsides of your job was death...
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Mini-Episode 4: Dying Slowly from 2018-07-12T02:04
When you’re alive and vibrant and healthy enough to choose to go climbing, but your dying mother doesn’t have that choice. What do you call that kind of juxtaposition?
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Mini-Episode 3: I Got One of Those Brains from 2018-06-30T12:38
Scarecrow always wanted a brain, but sometimes those things don’t really work as well without the other two.
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Mini-Episode 2: All You Can Do from 2018-06-20T14:43
What do you look for in a climbing partner? Stoke, strength, or most importantly, suffering with you and feeding you cookies on top of pitch twelve? Hopefully the latter.
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Mini-Episode 1: Bleed Into My Life from 2018-06-16T12:46
Have you ever talked to a stranger about some of your deepest fears? Sometimes people mistake vulnerability for weakness, but it takes more strength to show people who you are, rather than hide ...
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0: This is Not a Climbing Podcast from 2018-06-08T20:21
This is not a climbing podcast. It's a podcast about choosing vulnerability and talking about real moments (even the painful ones) and how we are all really just shining examples of this messy h...
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