100:00:00,001 --> 00:00:04,129Impro

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Improved By: Fidel33
Sub Upload Date: November 20, 2015

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- Mmm.
- Thank you, dear.

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'Cause they're
extra-special, filled with...

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Brussels sprouts.

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We get the surf and turf.
You guys get.

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- We get the full-on Brussels sprout...
- Nice.

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Extravaganza.

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I can always...

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put it back out there
a little bit if it's not...

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When Conrad and I first got
married, he made all these promises.

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"Oh, I'm never gonna
go to the big mountains again."

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I knew he would never quit climbing...

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but it wasn't long before he was dreaming
of some other big expedition.

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And I was just rolling my eyes,
going, "Right, okay."

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High-altitude Himalayan
climbing is very risky.

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It is the most dangerous
professional sport.

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But I think with Meru,
that risk is worth it.

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As an Alpinist,
Meru is the culmination of all I've done...

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and all I've wanted to do
is this peak and this climb.

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I knew he was gonna
continue to climb forever...

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but, you know, in what aspect,
I wasn't sure.

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I know that stuff can happen.

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You know, and that's what I always say.

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"Yeah, yeah."

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But stuff can happen.

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I've been super carsick
for about an hour now.

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How you doin', Jimmy?

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We just airmailed a bunch of our stuff
off the top of our... truck...

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so we're pickin' up the pieces right now.

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Meru definitely had a reputation
as this impossible climb.

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And I also knew, just by the way
that Conrad brought the trip up...

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it was very nonchalant, so...

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I think the more nonchalant Conrad is...

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about suggesting a trip,
the more worried you oughta be.

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Oh, yeah.

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I was blown away when Jimmy
and Conrad approached me about Meru.

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They didn't build it up very much.

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They didn't say, "This is the mountain
that everyone's tried and failed on."

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In their minds, I was probably...
"Oh, here's some young, fresh blood."

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He's gonna be good at...

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to get the rope up on certain pitches.

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Namaste.

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- Woo-hoo!
- Woo-hoo!

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Look at this reveal here. Yes! Om, om.

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Whoo.

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The Shark's Fin on Meru central.

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This climb has seen more attempts and more
failures than any route in the Himalaya.

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Wow.

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It's the headwaters
of the Ganges River...

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one of the most sacred rivers on Earth.

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The center of the universe.
It's this weird nexus...

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that sort of is the point where heaven and
Earth and hell all come together.

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The thing that gives it the name the
Shark's Fin is this 1,500-foot blade...

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of this beautiful, flawless granite...

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way up high, you know, 20,000 feet.

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This is the test of the master climber.

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You know, it's been tried by so many
great climbers. I don't know, 20 times.

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Some of the best climbers in the world
have tried and failed on this route.

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Meru is not just hard.

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It's hard in this really complicated way.

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You can't just be a good ice climber.

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You can't just be good at altitude.
You can't just be a good rock climber.

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You gotta be able to ice climb, mix climb.

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And you gotta be able to do
big-wall climbing at 20,000 feet.

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It's all that stuff
wrapped in one package...

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that's defeated so many good climbers...

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and will probably defeat you and maybe
will defeat everybody for all time.

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That, to a certain kind of mind-set...

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is an irresistible appeal.

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When we actually got there,
and I looked up at the mountain...

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I didn't know... what...

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what we were getting into, 'cause I'd
never seen something that complex before.

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Renan's inexperience
really didn't give me any reason to pause.

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I knew he was strong enough.
He knew the systems.

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And as a team, you're the sum total
of all your experience.

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I'd been on a number
of expeditions with Conrad.

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But I hadn't done any serious
climbs with him.

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And I had never done a climb with Jimmy.

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I'm so adamant about
only going on expeditions...

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with people that I know and that I trust.

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And there's one exception to that rule...

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and that's if somebody that I really,
really trust and know well, like Conrad...

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says, "This guy's worth bringing up."

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I had heard about Renan,
and I'd seen him in a climbing film...

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where he was, uh, free soloing
North Six Shooter.

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So I was like, "Okay. Gotta meet Renan."

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I saw this clip of Renan
free soloing Lighting Bolt Cracks.

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You see him do that stuff,
and it looks out there.

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He looks like something's
lit a fire under him.

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I heard about this kid
who's a super-talented climber.

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And he was living on the road...

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like most climbing bums...

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especially climbers
that are coming into the scene.

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Except for he didn't even have a car.

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He was literally just
dropped off in the desert.

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When I first met Renan,
he was mostly creating art in sketchbooks.

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Smaller-scale stuff.

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And then he started taking
big canvases out on expeditions.

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'Cause he was- At this point, he was
starting to go on more expeditions.

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Every opportunity was appreciated,
and he was basically going nonstop.

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Whew.

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5:30 in the evening.
Time to start the route.

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It's... crisp and cold.

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We're waiting for the sun to move away.

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So it'll set up and will freeze.

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Uh, this is the best moment-

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That... moment where everything
comes down, and you're really starting.

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Of course, I said that when we left
Gangotri and when we left Bozeman.

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But... now we're gonna camp
on the mountain tonight.

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Conrad first tried Meru in 2003...

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and got his ass kicked.

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It was super-technical climbing.
This isn't Everest.

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This is a whole different
kind of climbing.

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'Cause on Everest, you can hire Sherpas
to carry all your stuff...

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to fix the ropes for you,
to take most of the risks.

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Jimmy and Conrad have climbed
Everest four or five times.

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Jimmy's even skied off the top.

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But Meru is the anti-Everest.

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No one's gonna carry your stuff.

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If you need it, you need
to carry it on your back.

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And for Meru, you need
a lot of tools to do the job.

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Because the climbing covers
the whole spectrum.

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This upper 1,500 feet,
the Shark's Fin, is smooth.

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It's clean. It's nearly featureless.

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