Michaela Kiersch: The Path To Dreamtime

Climbing Gold

Duct Tape Then Beer

Sports, Wilderness

4.8 • 849 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2024, Michaela Kiersch became the first woman to climb both V15 and 5.15 putting her on climbing’s global radar. To midwest climbers and those in the know, she was already a legend for her incredible training sessions and ability to balance a career outside climbing. Alex and Michaela chat about what it’s like to become a part of history, the lessons learned from losing a parent at a young age and her incredible 2024. Watch Climbing Gold on YouTube Thanks to our sponsors The North Face Check out Summit Series at thenorthface.com AG1 AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit that includes a bottle of D3K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. DrinkAG1.com/climbinggold Kodiak Cakes Find Kodiak products at your local grocery store, they're the ones with the bear on the box or learn more at Kodiakcakes.com LMNT Get your free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase at www.drinklmnt.com/climbinggold. Try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. Want Climbing Gold Ad Free? Check out Climbing Gold: Unroped

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	As long as there's human beings, I'll be able to have a job.
0:08.0	And so that gave me a lot of stability in a time where I really needed that.
0:14.0	And like, I kind of just did each step and was like really diligent with that.
0:19.0	And climbing, I was able to preserve it as this safe space,
0:23.3	this fun space for myself.
0:25.6	Whereas if I had made it like my sole focus in my career, I think it would have taken that
0:30.6	away.
0:32.6	Alex, obviously when you were young, you were like 19 or 20, you took that chance where you dropped
0:38.2	out of UC Berkeley.
0:39.6	You were in the engineering program, right?
0:41.4	Yeah, I finished my freshman year as an aspiring civil engineer.
0:45.9	But I didn't exactly drop.
0:47.5	I took a semester off, you know, thinking that I just never returned.
0:52.6	Yeah, exactly, very slippery slope.
0:56.9	So you don't drop out, but you never returned. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You say to yourself, like, I'll follow this path for a little bit.
1:04.9	And that was at a time to when no one knew who you were, you never really considered yourself a generational talent. You
1:14.1	just loved it and you figured, hey, if it doesn't work out, like, I can always go back to school.
1:19.1	And I know it's hard to always go back to yourself 20 years ago, but what was your thinking at that
1:24.2	time? I'd gotten into the youth worlds that year. I'd randomly gotten second
1:28.8	at nationals. And so I was kind of like, oh, and it was during the same time as the school semester.
1:33.7	So I was like, I'll take the semester off. I'll go do the competition. I'll travel around a little
1:37.2	bit. I'll climb. And then I'll just kind of like see how it plays out. And then I just never went back. Yeah. I had this either fortune or misfortune of growing up in the same region as Ethan Pringle and
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 13 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Duct Tape Then Beer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Duct Tape Then Beer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.