Ep. 503: Climbing in the ‘80s and the Race to 5.14 - Jeff Smoot
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2019
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jeff has always had a passion for climbing and writing. After a whirlwind of experiences in the ‘70s and ‘80s Jeff moved on to a professional career in law as he recounted his epic youth and continued his adventures in the outdoors through hiking and writing guidebooks.
He sits on the Seattle’s Camp Long Advisory Council and is the founder of Camp Long’s annual Mountain fest, which celebrates Seattle’s climbing history and culture.
His most recent project, Hangdog Days, recalls the stories of his days of traveling from one climbing area to the next witnessing many firsts and getting to know some of the most influential personalities in climbing history all while watching the sport as a whole grow from adolescence into full maturity.
Hangdog Days: Conflict, Change, and the Race for 5.14
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm a big fan of blank, unclimable rock because there's somebody who's going to come along |
| 0:05.2 | in the future and figure out how to do it. And if we chip some holds or drill some holds to |
| 0:10.6 | make it in our image, then we're robbing a future climber of something really special. |
| 0:19.5 | This is the Adventure Sports podcast where we talk to athletes, adventurers, and business owners from around the world of adventure sports. |
| 0:27.8 | Whether you're climbing Mount Everest, starting a bike shop, or getting up off your couch to take your kids hiking for the first time, |
| 0:34.5 | we want you to have the motivation and inspiration you need to chase that |
| 0:38.5 | next adventure. |
| 0:40.0 | The Adventure Sports podcast is brought to you by Camp Crate, the leaders in fully planned |
| 0:45.2 | self-guided backpacking adventures, as well as backpacking gear rental. |
| 0:49.9 | You can check them out at camp crate.net. |
| 1:06.1 | Hey, folks, hope you had a good weekend. |
| 1:10.2 | This is Mason, and you are listening to the Adventure Sports podcast. |
| 1:11.4 | I'm sure you already know that, |
| 1:18.3 | but I figured I'd remind you just in case, just in case it was a slow and groggy Monday morning for you. |
| 1:29.4 | Well, we hope to lift your spirits today with a very, very good episode with a guy who was there for a lot of the big firsts in the climbing world. His name is Jeff Smoot, and we do a little intro in the interview itself, but I figured I'd tell a little |
| 1:34.3 | bit more about him. He has a book, a memoir essentially, of his stories and experiences in |
| 1:41.7 | climbing in the 70s and 80s. In his new book that just came out a few days ago |
| 1:47.4 | April 1st a week ago called hang dog days you can find that on Amazon you can find it at |
| 1:53.3 | Mountaineers books and it's his stories as well as like the the race to the first 514 route which which if you're familiar with climbing, you'll know what that |
| 2:05.1 | means if you're not. |
| 2:06.4 | It's the Yosemite decimal system. |
| 2:08.4 | It's how they rate the difficulty of climbs. |
... |
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