EP 257: Sol Wertkin — Surviving Cancer, a Richer Life After Climbing, and Saying Goodbye to Johnny G.

The Nugget Climbing Podcast

Steven Dimmitt

Steven Dimmitt, Fitness, American, The Struggle Climbing Show, The Struggle, @Thenuggetclimbing, Trad Climbing, Smith Rock, Climbing, The Climbing Nugget, Education, Power Company, Alpine Climbing, Dirtbag State Of Mind, Nugget, Nuggetclimbing, Climbing Podcast, The Nugget Climbing Podcast, The, Lattice, Climbing Nugget, Dirtbag Diaries, Testpiece, Health & Fitness, Sharp End, Sport Climbing, Gold, The American Climbing Project, Project, Climbing Training, Training, Lattice Training, Climbing Gold, Enormocast, Climbing History, Training Beta, Dirtbag, Self-improvement, Training For Climbing, Wilderness, Alex Honnold, Nugget Climbing Podcast, Yosemite, Nugget Climbing, Careless, Sports, Rock Climbing, Runout, Thenuggetclimbing, Steven Dimmit, Climber, The Nugget, The Nugget Climbing, Bouldering, Talk, Struggle, For The Love Of Climbing, Climb, Nugget Podcast

4.0 • 589 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2025

⏱️ 188 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sol Wertkin is a former rock climber, cancer survivor, nurse, and avid mountain biker. We talked about new routing in the PNW, the “Golden Era” of Leavenworth climbing, the passing of Johnny Goicoechea, Sol’s cancer diagnosis in 2020, the long and difficult road to recovery, how e-biking saved his life, sailing, why life feels richer now that he doesn’t climb, and nuggets to help your own health journey.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, friends, and welcome to the Nugget Climbing Podcast.
0:05.3	This is your host, Stephen Dimmit.
0:08.0	My guest today is Saul Wirtkin.
0:10.5	Saul is a former rock climber from Leavenworth, Washington.
0:15.0	He is a cancer survivor and a nurse and an avid mountain biker.
0:19.3	And this was a very beautiful episode. Saul got diagnosed with
0:23.4	cancer in 2020. He had a very long and difficult recovery with lots of complications. He nearly
0:30.5	lost his life and he has a very beautiful perspective on life as a result. So I really appreciate him
0:36.1	coming on the show. I really loved
0:37.7	hearing his story. This one's intense. So buckle up and please enjoy Saul working.
0:56.2	Do you remember the do it like we do it like we do it cause no one can do it like we do it like we do it like we do it like we do it like we do it.
1:03.2	Do you remember when we met? Do you remember the specifics? I was looking through, you know,
1:10.7	DMs and emails and I found an old Facebook messenger, you know, thread between the two of us. And I was like, hey, Saul, it's great to run into you again. Here's my number. I'm meeting Jess. I think it was Jess Campbell. You know, tomorrow at this time. Hope to see you there. And 2012. I was like, oh, wow. Okay.
1:24.5	2012. So we must have met earlier that season or sometime before that.
1:30.4	Yeah, I think we met.
1:31.9	Bouldering and Leavenworth at some point.
1:33.4	We met at the Sword Boulders working on Zorro together.
1:39.1	And I think at the time you were at Western Washington University.
1:42.8	Okay, yeah.
1:43.6	You went there, right?
1:44.5	Yeah.
1:44.9	Yeah, and you're back in town for whatever, maybe spring break.
	...

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