Ground Up 28: Record-Setting Do's and Don'ts of Horseshoe Hell with Nadya Vorotnikova & Sean Vallefuoco

0:02 Ari Grode Go ahead, Rob. Robert I'm in New York. Yeah, I'm in New York City. So not exactly the ah climbing Mecca of North America, but we're making it work for sure. Sean i girl Sean Yeah. Ari Grode Yeah, and I'm in Lakewood, Colorado. Sean Oh, cool. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, nice. Ari Grode yeah Sean Nice. Quite close to Nadia. Nadya Vorotnikova There you go. Robert Yeah. Ari Grode Yeah. Yeah, you're in the Denver area as well, right? Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, Englewood. Should have come to seaal Rock. Ari Grode Okay. Okay. Yeah, I know that sounded way better than working did today. Nadya Vorotnikova yeah Sean You guys should have just done the ah the interview sitting together in one room. Nadya Vorotnikova The benefits. Ari Grode Yeah, there we go. Nadya Vorotnikova There you go. Robert There we go. little van action. Ari Grode How about you, Sean? Sean I'm in Salt Lake.

0:43 Robert That was nice. Ari Grode Oh, nice. Sean Yeah. So same same time as you guys. Robert's just on the late end, I guess. Robert Yeah, that's all right. Ari Grode Yeah. Sean Yeah. Sean Hopefully you don't fall asleep, though. Robert Bit of a night. Ari Grode And I believe. Robert No, no, I no i'm actually did standing desk just to make sure that I stay awake. Ari Grode he's ah This is this is it's training for hell, you know? Sean Nice. Robert Yeah, we're just gearing up. Ari Grode Like, we need to prepare. Sean Yeah. Ari Grode If you're falling asleep at 9 o'clock, we're in trouble. Robert we but We might be in trouble whether or not I'm falling asleep at nine o'clock, but that's neither here nor there. Ari Grode Sean, I believe congratulations are in order. Sean Are you guys pretty psyched? Oh, thank you Nadya Vorotnikova yeah Sean Thank you very much. Ari Grode Yeah, that's awesome. Sean Yeah, I appreciate Ari Grode you have a boy or a girl? All right. Sean Yeah, he's a boy. ah come in Coming to us next month. Probably, unless he's very early or very late.

1:27 Ari Grode Oh, okay. Ari Grode Oh, I thought, okay. Sean but Ari Grode I thought he was already born. My bad. Sean Oh, no, no. Yeah, hold' be he'll be coming nearish to hell time, which is which is why Nadia and I won't be there this year, unfortunately. Ari Grode Okay. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Ari Grode Okay. Okay. Sean Which I'm assuming, i guess I might be jumping to conclusions, but how much do you guys know? Robert Fair enough. Ari Grode Yeah. Yeah. Sean We officially dropped out um pretty recently by sending... Jeremy the email. um But yeah, the plan a while ago, we had signed up as a team again. And then um as soon as the due date for for our baby was figured out, we were like, oh, well, that probably won't work this year, unfortunately.

2:16 Ari Grode Yeah, nothing like a 2 a.m. call or something in the middle of the 24. Like, um I'm going into labor. Sean Yeah, Sean, get back to Salt Lake right now. Robert Yeah. Sean it Robert Yeah. I have a hard enough time convincing my wife to let me go each year and I don't have a kid. Nadya Vorotnikova It's funny because... Ari Grode yeah. Robert So I can only imagine if you, uh, but due date was on the cards. There's just absolutely no way that's happening. Sean Yeah. Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, I remember one that... Sean Well, she's, she's very into it. She and I have done it together one year as well. So no, extremely supportive of that. Robert Okay. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, yeah. Sean Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Um... I remember when the phone call came through where Sean told me that they were having a baby. i was so stoked and and immediately knew, like, we're not doing a hell this year.

3:00 Nadya Vorotnikova and but but But Sean was like, no, Harumi said. Ari Grode No. Nadya Vorotnikova Harumi said that we could go. And I'm like, is she due in October or September? Because if that's the case, there's no way. Nadya Vorotnikova So for or a little bit there, there was some hesitancy. There was like... oh no, we could still go. and I'm like, definitely not. So I was just waiting for Sean to get back to me later on. Robert Bye. Nadya Vorotnikova Like, yeah, that's not happening. Sean Yeah, Sean yeah it wasn't after until after a few more conversations together that we both realized ah we probably don't want to push it that close. Ari Grode Yeah. Sean Definitely big bummer because Nadia and I finished Hell last year um with a ton of stoke, which I think is quite where quite rare in my experience. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah.

3:49 Sean It's usually like a few months later that you come around to getting excited about Hell again. We were driving out of the ranch and like talking about routes we were going to do this year and how we were going to up our strategy. Nadya Vorotnikova We're talking strategy yeah immediately. Sean Yeah, Hermie was like, are you guys kidding me? What what are you doing? Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova can you guys celebrate a little bit of her? Robert Enjoy it. Sean Yeah. Robert Enjoy it. No, that's funny. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Robert What, what was like, um mean, i don't know if you want divulge the full strategy for the next year, but what was like top of the list of like, oh, this is what we definitely have to change. Cause already know the same way. Robert We're like, like pretty much immediately we go get little breakfast and like on the drive from that, we're already like, man, what could we have done better?

4:30 Sean Yeah. Robert What could we like, what's more efficient? Like, what do we want to do next year? Like, it's like almost immediate. Sean Well, I will say that um what but the plan was in our conversation is fairly, um like wouldn't really matter at this point with the the new rule changes. Robert Oh, true. Very true. Sean um So yeah, we were talking about certain things, doing doing um some more hard routes and even calculating what scores would be if if we we had made those changes. Ari Grode Yeah, yeah, sure. Robert Yeah. Sean And then of course the rule changes came out with single lap and we're like, all right, well, no one is gonna know what to do now. All the, all the beta that people have ah been working on will have to change a little bit, which by the way, I wanna say I'm very psyched about the rule change.

5:17 Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Sean um And I think it'll make it ah pretty awesome when we do come back next year, but it's gonna be so interesting to see happens. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. yeah Sean what happens Ari Grode Yeah, I agree. Robert What, uh, I'm curious. Yeah, Ari and I are on different sides of the fence on this one. So I'm i'm curious, what's the, what are you like most excited about in regards to the rule change? Robert And just from the list students that aren't necessarily akin to the rule change, historically speaking, horseshoe hell, Sean Yeah, Robert, I... Robert every route that you do, you're allowed to climb it twice. Your partner's allowed to climb it twice. This year, 20th year of horseshoe hell, the rules have changed and you can only do one lap per person on each route.

6:07 Robert So that is the route that Sean is referring or the rule change Sean's referring to. So yeah, curious, Sean, what what for you is like most exciting about that? Sean I think it's just that it brings about a new challenge. um People have gotten really freaking good ah doing hell in its current format. And um I've done it now... Sean I think six or six or seven. I'll have to count. There were a couple of years that I missed, including COVID. But um yeah, i I feel like going back to hell each year now, and know roughly what to expect. Sean And I'm excited that I can go into it with a completely new mindset and not really know what to expect. and not have that pressure on myself to achieve certain goals and better last year.

6:58 Sean Because whatever my score was last year, whatever route count I did, won't really matter. It's going to be a ah totally new game. um And I think that's going to be really cool. Ari Grode How about you, Nadia? Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Ari Grode You got got any thoughts on the new rule change? Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, man. When the rule change came out initially, i was a little bit bummed because I was really excited from last year because I really wanted to go pitch for pitch with Sean and and break the points record for for women. Nadya Vorotnikova ah But we haven't done the event together, and Sean and Harumi wanted to get the points record for me and that was really incredible but what I wanted was for us to go pitch for pitch and see how well we could do together as a team and everything went so well with the same rules so that's why I was a little bit bummed initially like oh sweet like doing the two laps and when the rule came out I was like no like all of our plans are foiled but Nadya Vorotnikova ah like Sean said, like, no, it's like a clean slate. We get to we get to like, see how we do and, you know, push it in a very different like arena.

8:16 Nadya Vorotnikova What I'm most stoked about, honestly, is to climb on the east side. Ari Grode Oh yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Because I've never gotten to the east side yet. Robert Don't start over there. That's all I'll say. Nadya Vorotnikova No, i don't think so. i like my starting point of Ren and Stimpy getting a little bit 12s there. Robert Yeah. Ari Grode Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Sean Yeah, agreed. Ari Grode Yeah. I kind of thought I felt the same way. Like when I saw the rule, I was like, oh man, that's kind of a bummer. Like we got our, we got everything kind of figured out for the two laps. And then like the more I thought about it, I was like, okay, well, Ari Grode This will be interesting at at a bare minimum. So I'm a little bit more optimistic on the rule change as well. ah Rob's still a little bit more leaning towards he wishes it was two laps. Nadya Vorotnikova Heck yeah.

8:59 Robert Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's... Sean Rob, I saw your reaction to it with like sucking your teeth a little bit. I could tell there was, there was something there. Yeah. How, how are you feeling about it? Robert Well, I don't think it's that big of deal. I do think there are some positives. I think it'll, like you said, be a fun challenge at the very least to figure out. I think for me, like the two biggest aspects of why I... I wish it would stay the chain. Like I'm like a, if it's not broken, don't fix it kind of guy. Robert ah But for me, I feel like I love like that flow state of the second lap. So I'm gonna miss that for sure. But I also love that the second lap can also be like, all right, like, here we go. Like meet the challenge. you know what i mean? Like there's certain routes where you're like, oh, it's so fun doing a second lap, but there's certain routes where it's like, oh I don't know how this second lap is going to So sometimes I kind of like that fight.

9:43 Sean Yeah. Yeah. Robert But I think the other thing to me is just like overall, I think it's probably going to be less climbing, more logistics, which I think suits me and Ari better. Like I don't think we're the strongest climbers at hell necessarily. Like we kind of like the logistics side of it, but I like, I would rather it be more climbing than logistics if I fall. But I still think it could be really good. Like you said, new challenge. Robert It'll be fun either way. I'm not, I'm not worried about that. So still should be a great event. Ari Grode So maybe before we get too deep into this conversation, we should, you know, give you guys just a chance to introduce yourselves, you know, maybe give a little bit of info on who you are, your background, little bit about kind of your climbing history. Sean yeah Ari Grode That way we have a little bit of context for this conversation.

10:30 Sean Yeah, Nadia, ah I'm Nadia's partner in hell. um Nadya Vorotnikova yeah Sean I'll let her ah let her take the the start of that and then I'll jump in after. Nadya Vorotnikova Wait, what? That's Sean. Yep, he's my partner in hell. I'm Nadia. I'm Sean's partner in hell. ah Yeah, oh gosh, I'm really bad with introductions. I... Nadya Vorotnikova i'm I'm really good at saying I'm Vazzy's sister. Robert Thank you. Nadya Vorotnikova um i love horseshoe hell. I haven't done it for very long. I've gotten the opportunity to ah do hell twice before I got to climb with Sean.

11:21 Nadya Vorotnikova And I've been climbing since was three years old. My parents are... big mountaineers. They met in mountaineering camps and I grew up in Moscow, Russia. Nadya Vorotnikova ah My first climbing was in the Crimea, Ukraine. um I climbed since I can remember. um i like fun, arbitrary challenges. i love where climbing takes me and the most important thing for me within climbing is community. Nadya Vorotnikova And I think that's what horseshoe hell is kind of all about. 2000, so when i was years old, Ari Grode Awesome. Awesome. What, what, uh, curious what, cause you're in Colorado now, what year did you come over to the States?

12:16 Nadya Vorotnikova um Ari Grode Okay. Nadya Vorotnikova And I moved New Hampshire initially, so I grew up on the East Coast, um climbed a lot at Rumney, Cathedral Ledge, and Cannon, close. Ari Grode Okay. Nice. Nadya Vorotnikova I wish I made it to the Gunks a bunch. I'm i'm sure you go to the Gunks a lot, Robert. Robert Yeah, that's kind of like the closest noteworthy crag, I guess you would say. There are like some smaller ones that are like a little closer, but yeah, the Gunks is kind of the backyard, which is a pretty good backyard. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, heck yeah, it's awesome. Robert Yeah. Sean Okay, me, I guess. Robert Yeah, let's jump back you, sir. Ari Grode Yeah, go for it. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, that was my cue like when I went like this, that means go to Sean.

12:57 Robert ha Robert She threw it over. Sean Okay, so I'm Sean. I also love climbing. I guess that's the main thing I can say about climbing. I haven't done anything crazy impressive. i just have a wild passion for it and love where it takes me. Sean I love the people that allows me to meet and spend time with. um I love the feeling of being up on ah wall for a long period of time, which I also think is why hell appealed to me. Sean And I love um ah challenge that initially feels really daunting and crazy, um which I believe is what a lot of people look at hell as and allowing it to um sink in and just become a little bit less crazy and understand it a little bit more. um and yeah, I grew up in Austin.

14:03 Sean i started climbing there, um moved to Salt Lake City about four and a half years ago, and now climb all over the West. Ari Grode Awesome. Robert Amazing. amazing Ari Grode And you both, so I know you both mentioned that this is, this was your first year climbing together at hell, but you've climbed, you've done the event several years before that. I mean, what was your introduction? Ari Grode Like, how'd you both kind of hear about it and get it, get involved? Sean Yeah, so i I guess I was introduced to hell a little bit before Nadia. I think my first year was 2016 or 2017. Sean um I heard about it through my friend Dalen, who had been doing it for a few years as well. He was really into it, really, really psyched and wanted to push the upper ends of it. Ari Grode Mm-hmm.

14:53 Sean And I remember I was on a road trip to Waco Tanks with him. And we were talking about hell a little bit and it got me pretty psyched thinking about it. Sean um But I didn't sign up until way later that year. the the first year of hell for me was actually kind of a crazy story. Sean I did this 12 hour indoor comp um in September, I think early September, maybe late August. um And horseshoe hell is in late September. So it was pretty darn close to the actual competition.

15:34 Sean And I did that competition in Dallas just for fun. thought it was pretty cool. And our team ended up winning. It was a very horseshoe style competition. Sean um All of your laps accumulate. And um the the winners are just who has the most points at the end. And the team ended up winning and the grand prize was free entrance to Horseshoe Hell. Sean And I was like, oh, cool. Robert that. Ari Grode Nice. Sean Yeah, I like i thought about this a while ago. that would be crazy, but I'm totally not ready. and don't think I want to do it yeah. um this ah other climber who was at the competition in Dallas, he came up to me and um was really trying to like pursue a partnership. Like, Hey, if you have a free ticket, let's, let's partner up.

16:31 Sean And I didn't really know this guy at all, but he was just really passionate about it. So um yeah, crazy enough. We ended up doing horseshoe hell together that year. Sean I'd never roped up with him. um And two weeks before the comp, I think is when we signed up. um So that was my first year and i just couldn't kick it. I felt like there was a lot of growth that I could get out of it and always keep improving. So I just kept coming back every year and every year that I could. Sean And I've been doing it since. Ari Grode what did I'm curious, what did that first year look like? like i mean What new mistakes did you make, especially two weeks in? i mean That's like barely any time that you didn't gather any info.

17:15 Sean It was horrible. Yeah, no, I... It was horrendous. I actually made a list um while preparing for this. I made a list of things that first-time competitors should not do. Sean And they're all based on stories from my mishaps. Robert the Sean So i can i can go through a few of those. And yeah, hopefully first-time competitors can learn a little bit from it. um I went into the comp with... Sean only one pair of shoes in my bag and they were brand new um la sportiva solutions so my plan was to wear tight gym solutions for the entire 24 hours um don't don't do that uh that's that's horrible um Nadya Vorotnikova Bye.

18:02 Ari Grode Yeah. Robert no Robert I mean, you say your plan, I'm curious, like not to cut the list too short, but and we definitely want to come back to but like, did you, what did you end up doing? Like, cause that is a long time to be wearing solutions and even just taking them on and off like 55 times if something sounds terrible. Sean up Yeah, no, I barely achieved 100 laps. um Like, it it was a huge wake-up call. I i thought I was going to do pretty well. And um I don't know. Sean i didn't I didn't know what to expect. So I just thought, yeah, i I wore these shoes the whole time in the gym during the comp.

18:47 Robert yeah Sean And I will probably be able to wear them outdoors the whole time too. So um that's what I did. And it led to a lot of failure. Sean um I but was really just saved in the dawn hours when I was at the shortest routes and I barely squeaked over. I think I did 103 laps, um which at the time you just needed 100 laps to requalify. Sean So ah that was the goal for the year was to do 100 and it barely worked. Robert Yeah, I mean, the fact that you even kept the shoes on for the whole comp is admirable, say the least. Sean Well, Robert That's wild. that's wild Sean Well, I kind of did and I kind of didn't because um the next the next point on the list is don't climb barefoot because i was kind of forced to climb barefoot ah for part of part of the competition.

19:36 Ari Grode laughter Sean I literally could not put my feet into those shoes for... any longer and I had to give myself like 20 or 30 minute breaks. Sean And when it was my time to climb, i just went up the wall and, was using my toes on the rocks and hating my life. Robert Wow. Nadya Vorotnikova You're no Barefoot channeler, I guess. Robert Yeah. Sean Yeah. Yeah. Nope. Definitely not. Robert Yeah. I mean, the first, I think it was the first year, maybe the second year we were there. because all This is Ari and I's sixth year doing it now.

20:19 Sean Nice. Robert There was a girl, think she still goes, at least I think she was there last year, who does the whole comp barefoot, which is absolutely mind-blowing to me. I can't even begin to think about how torn up your feet would be at the end of that. But... Robert Yeah, wow. Okay, so you had solutions or barefoot, which like both combos sounds terrible. What else ended up on that list? And like, I'm also very curious how you had that experience. And you're like, all right, I definitely want to come back next year. Sean Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, another, another huge thing in horseshoe hell is nutrition, obviously. Nadya Vorotnikova I Ari Grode Good question. Robert Right. Sean And I think the only things that I had packed were, um, a large pack ah of Oreos and Gatorade. And that was literally it.

21:10 Nadya Vorotnikova see no problem. Sean I was just like, I'm going to, going to push through 24 hours on Oreos and Gatorade. And, um, Yeah, it led a significant bonk, obviously. Sean And I think that the reason why i ended up going back and not hating the whole experience is because... Nadya Vorotnikova Thank Sean um it was just so different. It, it showed me something that I was capable of, um, that I never really imagined. Sean And I'm saying that as someone who barely, barely scraped by, um and got laps and, you know, had a miserable hours, but finished nine fifty five ten am m coming down to turn in the scorecard.

22:07 Sean And i was just like, wow, that is the craziest thing I've ever done. What if I did it well? um So that like from then on out became the mission. Robert yeah Ari Grode Nice. Ari Grode nice Robert That's awesome. I mean, our first year, would not say went exactly the same, but we had a lot of errors as well, too. i mean, it's kind of funny hearing you talk because like I didn't know i was doing hell until like a month before you had a little bit shorter notice, but like Ari's original partner got hurt, so I got pulled in. Sean Mm-hmm. Robert ah So I didn't quite know what I was walking into, but Ari at least had been prepping for it. Robert So like there was a bit of information going into it as opposed to the two week thing. But ah yeah, I even brought a pair of vapors, but like did those did not last long. I at least had a backup shoot.

22:53 Robert That's wild to ah just imagine that that whole thing. But I think you hit the nail on the head because it's like we were playing catch up a bit that one and like kind of raced to the finish line. Robert And same thing, it was like, Oh my God, that was incredible. What an insane experience. So cool to push ourselves like that. What like what if we didn't make all the terrible mistakes we made? Robert like How much more fun would this be? Sean Yeah. Yeah. Robert Is like the immediate thought. And our friends did it again last year for the first time and they had a very similar experience. so I think there's something about hell where it's like it like breaks you to the point where you're like, all right, that was it. Robert But now we get to rebuild and it's like kind of inspiring in that way. So it's a lot of fun. Nadia, I'm curious, like what was but was your first introduction to health? How did you get started?

23:39 Nadya Vorotnikova um Robert How did you hear about it? Did you bring more solutions? Nadya Vorotnikova as you can Nadya Vorotnikova um As you can imagine, ah well, actually, i i was living in Austin when I was introduced to hell because a couple of my friends did Horseshoe Hell. Nadya Vorotnikova And I remember like seeing video clips of the creed and just some snippets. of people climbing through the night and as somebody who loves to, i don't know, just climb in cold, hot, like any temperatures, dark.

24:22 Nadya Vorotnikova I remember ice climbing at night and like just really enjoying just different, different circumstances of climbing. And I really wanted to a do it since I've heard about it but my brother has done hell for for a while and he would try to strategize each year and he's probably one of the most obsessed with chat for it so I've wanted to very long time and then the year Ari Grode Oh yeah. Understatement. Nadya Vorotnikova for a very long time and then the year that i got in. Me and my partner were pretty stoked and I feel like our pace was pretty good, but he got a concussion like halfway through. So we had to stop.

25:15 Nadya Vorotnikova It was, I think it was a fairly mild concussion, but I couldn't tell in the moment. So i was just kind of like rip the bandaid off, let's stop. um Robert Good choice, good choice. Ari Grode What, what happened? Nadya Vorotnikova And he literally stood up and like hit his head on like a five, five or five, six, maybe five, four. i don't know. Ari Grode Just like on a chicken head? Oh my gosh. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, I think so. Just like at the very top. I'm like, what's taking him so long? He's clipped what the anchor. And then I just see him clutching on his head. I'm like, okay, I'll take. And I lowered him. And yeah, i I think he had a minor concussion. And yeah, after assessing him, he's like, I can still belay you. I'm like, no, I'm not.

25:57 Nadya Vorotnikova I'm not going to make you belay me after getting a concussion. Robert if yeah Nadya Vorotnikova That's silly. And then I think it was COVID year. And then the year following, um, got to compete with him again, but, I don't think he was stoked at all. And like halfway through, he just stopped climbing. And then afterwards he said, like, i don't feel comfortable bullying. I think I'm too tired. So the big lesson is go with somebody who is incredibly s stoked to do this and is Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, just like over stoker is ah qualification for this. You need to love to suffer. You just need to love to suffer and you can make it fun. Yeah, I think that's probably the most important ah rule.

26:47 Nadya Vorotnikova So that was what I learned. Like you need over stoker energy. ah Rule number two the first two years I've been tying in but instead of mean using carabiners. Robert Oh, yeah. Ari Grode yeah okay Robert We made that mistake, too. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, okay, good. I'm not the only one. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova See, Sean? Sean I am. Nadya Vorotnikova Sean was laughing as we were going going into the competition. and He's like, you were tying in? What? um Ari Grode the the this The second year decision to tie in is a little questionable. Nadya Vorotnikova so You know, I guess I haven't talked to my brother enough or something about, like, using the carabiners. I was just like, no. Oh, I didn't and didn't have...

27:28 Nadya Vorotnikova I didn't have self-locking carabiners and i think i I think I was just thinking, it was like no, I'm going to rub off all of my skin was you know using a twist lock. But yeah, I just didn't give it much thought. I was like, no, I just need to go fast. That's all. Robert Yeah. Ari Grode yeah Nadya Vorotnikova um Robert yeah There's so many little decisions like that, that you, you like either overthink way too much when planning for hell or you hear from someone, you don't believe it until you try it. Nadya Vorotnikova But Robert And then like, once you try the other option, you're like, I cannot believe what I was doing. Nadya Vorotnikova yeah. Robert Like the stories I was telling myself were just all lies, like it's awful. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova That's nail on the head. Ari Grode I remember, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Nadya Vorotnikova No, you're good. Ari Grode ah yeah I remember the first year Rob and I were talking about, we're like, that can't be any faster. Cause we saw people at the carabiners were like, that can't be any faster. We can tie in just fine.

28:19 Ari Grode And like my fingers are raw by the end from like untying the rope. Robert Oh, terrible. Ari Grode and And then we tried it the next year, like the day before. And I was like, what, this is so much faster. What have we been doing this whole time? Robert yeah Ari Grode Yeah. Robert Well, I mean, to be fair, our first year, we also brought a 70 meter rope. Nadya Vorotnikova Losing time. Robert So like we were like, yeah the idea of pulling, not having to pull all way through, like that's got to take so much. Sean Oh my goodness. Wow. Nadya Vorotnikova I didn't make that mistake. Robert We didn't realize we were using 30 meter ropes half the time. So yeah, the map was a little flawed in that capacity too. Nadya Vorotnikova Wow. Nadya Vorotnikova Well, for that, it's a good thing you were untying, right? Robert Yeah. Ari Grode Yeah. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova ah I would counter Sean. I say, yeah, wear shoes for 24 hours. It's only 24 hours. um I wore TC Pros the whole time last year, and my feet were fine.

29:11 Robert Oh my goodness. Nadya Vorotnikova They were, like, oversized by half a size. Ari Grode Were they, did you size them up a little bit? Okay. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, yeah, I did. Ari Grode Oh, only half a size. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Ari Grode Okay. Okay. Robert Throw the socks in there. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Ari Grode That is impressive. That would, I think that would really hurt after. A few hours. Nadya Vorotnikova I felt, I felt great, but I think, I think it was just like the perfect hell. It was so good. it was so much fun. um yeah, Stoke, uh, having ah really supportive crew, that is scorekeeping. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Ari Grode Okay. Nadya Vorotnikova Uh, Ari Grode Okay. Nadya Vorotnikova Harumi and Kiyomi, Sean's wife and sister Harumi's sister were like keeping the stoke alive, playing the tunes we wanted. We created a horseshoe held playlist.

29:59 Nadya Vorotnikova oh i I find it crazy that my my brother would time, he he would cut songs just to the right the right amount of time to pace himself on climbs. Nadya Vorotnikova So his Strat and his like logistics is absolutely fascinating for me and Sean with like, I live in Colorado, he lives in Utah. We didn't even rehearse like most of our strategies. Nadya Vorotnikova So we're just kind of winging it. um We came out kind of early and then went through and rehearse some of the harder climbs, but for the most part, Nadya Vorotnikova it just we just kind of clicked and it was we're kind of reading each other's cues without speaking most of the time and yeah it worked out really really well so I feel like just just got lucky with the right partnership because like that that makes it breaks it for for me Robert Yeah, we're curious.

31:10 Sean 100%. Sean think by far the most important thing in Horseshoe Hell is the partnership. Robert Okay. Sean um And it makes me really excited thinking about what um coming in with only a very loose strategy and not knowing the climbs that we would do very well, what that would mean for a future year. Sean um And I guess we'll have to wait and see a little bit. But yeah, it's it's nice to think about that for sure. Robert Yeah, well, it sounds like you'll have one more person in the support crew for the next round. So that'll be that'll be good. But what I'm curious, like, how did you guys get linked up in terms of partnerships? You both been to hell, climb with other partners.

31:56 Robert Did you start climbing together outside of hell? Was it like, a oh, hey, my partner is dropping, your partner is dropping. Let's let's do it. Or was it how did all come about? Nadya Vorotnikova Um, yeah, I, I first met Sean, uh, while i ago when I lived in Austin, Texas for a couple of years and, uh, he, actually, coached on a climbing team there and, um, Nadya Vorotnikova I was coaching my now friend, Maya Madera, and she put on this um awesome program that worked with kids with disabilities. It was like a rock climbing um program that she established for school. So I was helping her out with that. So we were seeking volunteers and and I first like interacted with Sean during that program and then um was like through the Austin climbing network. We started climbing outside together when I moved to Colorado and just taking big group trips.

33:07 Nadya Vorotnikova And we climbed at 10 sleep. We've climbed in Utah. And one of our friends, Nadya Vorotnikova um was talking to Sean that I had a rough rough year at Horseshoe Hell and like really, really wanted to do the whole thing. All I wanted was to climb and watch the sunrise as I'm climbing and doing the full 24 hours during the 24 hours. Nadya Vorotnikova um And Melissa, I guess, talked to Sean and said like, you guys would be such good hell partners.

33:49 Nadya Vorotnikova Am I correct? Sean Yeah. So I came to like but Colorado, um I think it was October the year previously. And we just made a pact. Like we're we're going to do this together and we are going to have a very successful hell year. Sean And then um we had that in mind and we did it. But I think in between that time when we talked about it and when we ended up going to to the ranch, did we did we climb together outside at all in that time? Ari Grode So, Nadya Vorotnikova ah Nadya Vorotnikova Was the... No. No, we did not.

34:30 Sean Yeah, I don't think so. Nadya Vorotnikova did Not at all. Sean um good so I think we just knew knew each other um quite well and um knew that the the stoke was mutual and the climbing strength um and fitness was fairly mutual too. Sean And that translates to very good health partners. Ari Grode yeah Okay. Okay. So i know you went into the year with the idea of trying to break the women's point record. i mean, that's an audacious goal, especially if you've never really climbed that much together. Ari Grode i mean, you want to talk a little bit about that? Like when, when did you get your, your sights set on that? Especially like, like you said, you'd never even completed the full 24 for various reasons. Like that's, that's an extremely audacious goal. Yeah. You mind speaking that a little bit?

35:17 Nadya Vorotnikova ah oh A little bit audacious, but maybe maybe not because in 2019, was just looking at how many points I'm getting just in the, because I climbed for maybe 12 hours. Nadya Vorotnikova And then I looked at the points and I looked at the prior points records for a female and Ari Grode Okay. Nadya Vorotnikova I thought, was like if i can if I can continue climbing 10s and 11s and do a handful of 12s, I feel like it's a pretty reasonable goal. and I was kind of bummed I couldn't complete the 24 hours that year because Vassia and Rob set the all-time record that year. and I was like, darn it! It would have been so cool to break the female points record when my brother does it.

36:10 Nadya Vorotnikova and Last year, like that's exactly what happened. But ah it just it just seemed very feasible um because of the pace that I kept that particular year. Nadya Vorotnikova And it was with a partner that wasn't as matched up, ah I guess like strength wise and maybe endurance wise for route climbing. Nadya Vorotnikova brow climbing um So I thought if I'm going with somebody who is more matched up and like just as psyched on the event, it would probably up the pace and...

36:52 Nadya Vorotnikova I don't know. I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to do it, honestly. I just wanted to i just wanted to go into it with Sean going pitch for pitch, but it was more Sean and Harumi that convinced me that it's possible. I really didn't believe in myself, to be honest. Sean I think i think Nadya Vorotnikova like In 2019, I did. Sean i think the only person in the community um that knew you were doing Horseshoe Hell who didn't know you were going to break it was you because... Sean Right. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, but it was because it was after Genevieve set set that record, right? It was beforehand. Sean right Nadya Vorotnikova I was like, oh, I could, it's totally doable. And then Genevieve got, what was it? I have it written down. She got 30,630 points and did 302 pitches.

37:44 Nadya Vorotnikova And I was like, yeah, it's no longer seeming like a feasible goal. Like it was not audacious in 2019. more audacious for 2024. Ari Grode Do you know how much you broke that record by? Nadya Vorotnikova i i don't off the top of my head. Ari Grode yeah it's unfortunate. the web like the The app is down. Normally, I would like look up all these stats, but it's like... Nadya Vorotnikova oh is it down? Ari Grode it's Well, it's like they're revamping it and they haven't put... Nadya Vorotnikova oh shoot. Ari Grode So it's like I couldn't get to the archived events. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, ah bummer. Ari Grode um I can like see my own archive scores, but I can't see like everybody else's. Sean Yeah, Ari Grode um Sean that's tough. Ari Grode So I don't i don't have... I don't have all the stats. I kind of know roughly what your score was, but I didn't know. I don't have like all the, you know, how it's progressed over the years. um Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, yeah, it was.

38:29 Ari Grode But okay. Yeah. Genevieve, we, we had her on the show and yeah, she smashed it that year. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, she I mean, she blew it out of the water. So that's why that year is like, um, I'm just happy to do the 24. Sean I don't know exactly what it was, Nadia, um but I do remember um speaking about it and that you were somewhere in the ballpark of 33,000. Sean three thousand Nadya Vorotnikova oh Oh, for for for what i um i i broke the record by um Well, we finished, too. Robert It was like thirty three over 33,000 points over pitches or something like that, right?

39:10 Nadya Vorotnikova I was like, wait minute. thirty four thousand two hundred twenty and two hundred fifty six labps Robert Oh, my goodness. Ari Grode Wow. 256. That was more than I thought. Holy shit. Robert Oh, my goodness. Nadya Vorotnikova it was more than i thought when we finished to i was like wait a minute Robert Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova 300 is not that far. Robert Yeah, yeah, Ari Grode No kidding. Nadya Vorotnikova But the new rules, though, clean slate. Ari Grode Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Robert yeah. Ari Grode 300 is going to be, it would be insane. um Okay. So, but, but that was the goal, right? The goal was to try and break the record or was it just like, we're just going to go as hard as possible. Nadya Vorotnikova sha Sean and Harumi were like, we're getting you that record. I really wanted to go pitch for pitch, but as, like, as close to, like, good style as possible. I told Sean like you have to do all the 12s, you have to do ah all the 11s, you have to also qualified by points and by routes at the very least.

40:11 Sean We also wanted to make sure that I got the mile high, I think. So at the end of it, yeah, I had enough points or I had enough routes to do the mile high as well. Ari Grode Yeah. Sean But yeah, that that is one of the things when we were leaving the ranch that year and we were talking about what do we want to do next year? I think there's there's certainly levels to the style, right? And in Horseshoe, the most... Sean ideal partnership that would be coveted and looked upon the most impressively um is is what Vossi and Rob do every year. They do the exact same pitch count, um climb climb the same routes, and that is just the the gold standard of partnership.

40:56 Sean Um, it is what we aspire to do. And next time that we do horseshoe together, we're going to do the exact same routes. Um, but in order to prioritize Nadia getting the female points record, um, I wanted to take a slight step back this year and make sure that that was not in jeopardy in order to just, just so that we had the same everything because I thought it would be amazing. She deserved the record and I thought um we really wanted to do that. And in order to keep our team style um fairly impressive and not just along the lines of me holding the rope for her the whole time, um it ended up evolving to, yeah, I'll still meet her on the harder climbs Sean and climb enough to get a vertical mile.

41:58 Ari Grode Yeah, i mean, your score was no slouch, if I remember it correctly. it was you You had a pretty impressive year as well. Sean Yeah, which is what I think surprised me the most. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Sean I was imagining there being... um it I don't know. i didn't I didn't think it would look like that. But I think when I look at my previous years, years that I was pretty proud of, it was pretty much right up there. Sean And I guess that is what really happens when the difficulty of the routes go up. Because usually my focus is doing as many routes as possible. Ari Grode Mm-hmm. Sean the majority of them are five eights five nine s and um the The route count is very high, but the points don't go that high um because none of them individually are worth a lot.

42:50 Sean But when we ended up skewing the routes that we did towards the harder ones, then it just got there so much quicker. Ari Grode Yeah, for for the listeners, like it's interesting how the scoring kind of works. Robert Yeah. Ari Grode like I think it's you know like a five six is worth 60 points, and they kind of scale by 10 points for a bit. but then it's there's I don't remember where the cutoffs are, but they start to the gap between each letter grade starts to increase as you go up. Sean Mm-hmm. Ari Grode so like as you get to the harder grades, they start to become worth quite a few more points, which is valid because, you know, they're they're quite a bit harder. ah So yeah, I can, it's like, you know, you can do one hard pitch and that might be equivalent to three to five easy pitches.

43:34 Ari Grode So yeah. Sean Yeah, definitely. I think, um, I don't want to get it totally wrong, but a 512B, like doing one of those is something like two 10Ds and it seemed more feasible to do one 12B, um, than like still get fairly tired on a 10D, but do it twice. Sean Um, and yeah, just the efficiency works that way Nadya Vorotnikova You say that now, Sean, but I do recall that last year you were just, you know, you were kind of like reining me in a little bit because I wanted to do more hard routes and you're like, Nadya Vorotnikova Nadia, think of about how much quicker you're going to do 510 than you would like multiple 512s.

44:17 Sean Mm-hmm. Nadya Vorotnikova And he wasn't wrong. Like climbing multiple laps on each 510 definitely got us a lot of points fairly quickly. And we weren't as tired. And skin was definitely in jeopardy when you're getting on a crimpy five wall But i think with this new rule change, it's going to be interesting because you're going run out of some of the easier stuff faster. Nadya Vorotnikova So having to do more difficult climbs at the very beginning is going to be very important.

44:58 Sean Yeah, it's certainly a balance. Like last year, um knowing Nadia's strength and fitness, um we knew that we'd be able to do um a handful of 512s at the beginning, not too difficultly. Sean But then being able to sustain that over 24 hours would be quite tricky. So we did end up going towards the high volume on 10s and 11s. Sean um But yeah, I mean, I'd love to do a little bit of theorizing for what this year will look like since it's coming so close. um and we can only do one lap on each climb, I think it's going to change things in a really interesting way.

45:44 Robert Yeah, absolutely. i would I would love to dive into that. know Ari like also loves nerding out on the logistics side of it. Before we do that for this year, we're super curious to hear how you all went about it. with You mentioned potentially front-loading 12s and things like that. Robert For your strategy, were you going through an area? A lot of people will pick an area, right? Start running snippy and be like, work east or work west or whatever it is right were you kind of clearing out areas or were you like oh we need to hit this 12 now while we're fresh and then we can go back over here and double back and come through and then we'll go hit this one and like are you bouncing around at all or what did the strategy look like and how you guys approach it Nadya Vorotnikova um i From what I recall, we started running Stimpy.

46:32 Robert i blacked out Nadya Vorotnikova like, oh my gosh. ah Yeah, started running Stimpy and we tried to clear each cliff so we would minimize the running back and forth. Nadya Vorotnikova And also kind of gauging the vibe of the cliff, right? Robert Sure. Nadya Vorotnikova If it's too packed, you're like, we gotta to go. We gotta to go. Oh, that's empty. Sweet. um Is that your recollection of two, Shawn? Sean Yeah, um I think there was a little bit of running back and forth just um at the far right end of the wall. But we started at Run and Stimpy where we did a few five twelve s and definitely wanted to make sure that we did those like right at the beginning of the comp.

47:20 Sean I think that's a pretty standard thing. at least it it was in the past, that was fairly standard for some of the more top end teams, it seemed like, i wanting to knock out some 512s early. Sean And then we just worked down to the right. um Actually, no, that's not true. we After running Stimpy, we did go a little bit left um to a couple of different walls. Sean um Street Fighter and Arcade, are those the two? Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Robert Yeah. Sean Okay. Ari Grode Yeah. Sean And then after we hit those, then we worked to the right of run and Stim B and just kept on going to Nadya Vorotnikova That's right. We ran into Voss and crew and they were like doing those tents and their approach shoes.

48:10 Robert Always, always so humbling seeing those guys just fly up whatever product is, you know, every time. Nadya Vorotnikova Just watching them like Nadya Vorotnikova yeah. There I am suckers. I'm just wearing my TC process. It's great. Yeah. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova yeah Ari Grode Were you guys, um were were you clearing like everything? Was it like if a route's open, we'll get on it, doesn't matter the grade? Or was it like we're kind of trying to, you know, avoid avoid certain grades or, you know, if it's not worth enough points, it doesn't make sense to spend the time on it? Robert 5'8 and above. Nadya Vorotnikova I think there were a couple that Sean was like, it's not worth it. Keep going. Pretty sure. Sean Yeah. um Nadya Vorotnikova You're like, no, no, no, no. That's that's not that's not hard enough for you. Sean Pretty, pretty much. Nadya Vorotnikova I was like, no, that's fine. Sean Yeah. Cause um if, if there was a five, 10 open um rather than sticking in a line for a five, eight, it just made a lot more sense to to hop on the five, 10.

49:01 Sean And I think when we were doing the math earlier in the week too, we were like, well, there's definitely enough 510s and 11s that if we get mainly on those, um and I don't think as many people will be on those, um then Nadia will easily get the points. Sean And it seemed like a fitness achievement that wouldn't be too hard, staying on like averaging 510 plus. um So the way that looked in the competition was, yeah, hitting walls and um especially for the first half, Ari Grode Okay. okay Robert is there.

49:47 Sean kind of avoiding those those easier ones, 5'8". And then when it got later in the competition um and they were available and they were very quick and easy points, why not? Sean um But still trying to make sure that the scorecard mainly looked like tens and 11s. Ari Grode Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine the tens probably stay very open. I mean, Rob and I even noticed like even our first year, but we've we've always climbed a lot of five nines, whether that was like one year, that was our goal to climb the most five nines. Sean Yeah. Ari Grode But ah even those tend to be pretty open compared to it's like five, eight seems to be that magical cutoff, but I can like, I can imagine a lot of the five tens stay quite empty.

50:34 Ari Grode Like that's a hard pace to continue. Sean Ranch is so crazy, right? Because, uh, no other place in the world could you have this competition and people climbing five eights, five nines and below for 24 Ari Grode Yeah. Ari Grode Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, there's, it's just jam packed. That's why I'm, that's why I'm still like really sad that I'm gonna miss out on this. The, the, ah like the rule change and the 20 year celebration. I think that's really, really cool. Nadya Vorotnikova just introducing a very different, Nadya Vorotnikova yeah, it's going to be different, but I'm excited to hear how it goes. Are you stoked?

51:15 Robert Well, assuming, yeah, I mean, assuming the rule change is for the better, like I'm i'm sure it'll be there year 21 as well. Sean Mm-hmm. Nadya Vorotnikova ah you guys know Robert You know what i mean? So hopefully you do get to experience it. Sean, you mentioned as well too, like 10 stay open. you think that that'll change at all now with the rule change and people only get in one lap on certain routes? You think five nines are to busy? Like, what do you think is going one of the biggest changes? Robert You talked about theorizing. Let's go down some rabbit holes. so What do you think going to look like? Ari Grode Yeah. Sean Man, yeah, it's so hard to say, right? um I tend to think that the 510s will get a lot more traffic because if people are trying to keep climbing for 24 hours, they're just going to run out of things to do.

52:01 Sean um the The alternative to that, though, is maybe not if they just travel across the canyon and... um yeah, are are more open to that idea. Sean i know that people like we didn't cross the Canyon at all and we didn't run out of anything, but and maybe it'll just look like people, um, doing a lot of, of hiking, um, in order to keep what they can. Sean But I, I tend to think that there's going to be more traffic on the five tens. I also think that, um, ah At the top end, in order to um get a lot of points, I think there's going to be much more traffic on the 12s.

52:50 Sean And even we don't tend to see a lot of scorecards with 513s, but I think the people that are trying to podium or trying to win are definitely going to sprinkle more of those in there. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova ah I don't know. Robert It makes sense to me. Ari Grode Yeah. Sean I don't know. Robert i mean, Ari and I did, so like last year we did the 36, kind of focused on the 12, but the year before we did the golden and like that obviously involves quite a bit of travel. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Robert And I will say that was like a pretty fun experience that I don't think is, the norm for a lot of people that are doing hell right like a lot of people don't leave the north 40. Sean Mm-hmm. Robert obviously we all know that so maybe the rule change will like kind of continue to drive people to travel bit more like you said where okay yeah the horseshoe was starting to do that and now the single laps might do that even more we'll see Ari Grode Yeah. I'm pretty curious to see like that year that we did the golden horseshoe. I mean, when we crossed, we crossed the Canyon. I don't remember what time it was, Rob, like two or three in the morning, 4am.

53:50 Robert 4 a.m. It was 4. Ari Grode Yeah. Robert Yeah, yeah. Ari Grode 4am. We were like, that was our cutoff. Robert I was on cloud nine. Ari Grode It was like, when we hit 4am, we're going to go to the East side and do all the routes we had to do over there. Robert Yeah. Ari Grode And like, I mean, Maybe we saw a couple other parties. Like there was definitely points where you couldn't see anybody, like no headlamps, like, and it was just the two of us. Robert Yeah. Ari Grode Like it's a very different experience leaving the North 40 and going over there. Robert Right. Ari Grode So I'm curious if people, like you said, well if people will be more stubborn and stay in the North 40 and just be like, suck it up and climb more harder routes, or if they'll be like, all right, we got to travel if we want to, you know, keep the grade a little bit more moderate. Robert Yeah, i think we saw Hans and Mario like on the trail at 440 in the morning. And it was just like but like, what is coming towards us right now? Like what what is happening? No one should be here right now.

54:38 Robert But yeah, the east side at night is like kind of kind of a whole different world than compared to the North 40. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, that's kind of what my brother would say, just kind of like a no man's land. They're just alone on the east side over there um But i i personally think that the issues that people are going to run into is, yeah, they're going to um run out of easier stuff to do and the uh nurse 40 and uh they're gonna uh run into skin issues pretty early on getting on harder climbs so it is gonna force people to travel a lot more so i i don't think the east side's gonna stay very empty Ari Grode Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious.

55:25 Sean think Ari Grode There's, there's some really great climbing over there, so it would be cool to see some of those walls get a little bit more traffic, uh, you know, throughout the competition. Sean I think one really um optimistic and probably likely outcome from it too is um fewer lines. If people are spreading out more in their difficulty plus traveling more, I think that it could mean we're dealing with lines less, which would be incredible. Ari Grode Right. Ari Grode Oh, definitely. Definitely. I agree. Robert i I don't know if I'm sold. i don't know. I'm hoping I'm wrong on this, but I just, there's part of me that thinks it's going to be a little more chaotic. So like there'll be technically less lines, but it'll be like, there'll still be traffic jams. I don't know how to describe it, but I'm hoping I'm wrong on that.

56:14 Nadya Vorotnikova Is that your main qualm about it or is there other reservations? Robert No, I mean, I think the the biggest one for me is that like, it just feels like it's going to less climbing, but it could be the opposite. Like it could be a situation where, because you can hit more routes, like if you're willing to move quickly, you actually end up climbing more. So I'm trying to be neutral about it. I just, i have my doubts. i don't know. Nadya Vorotnikova I do love the flow of the second lap where you're like, you rehearsed it and then you're like, oh, I already knew know the moves. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova I think it feels really cool. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova But... At the same time, I do think it's, you can still do two laps each and you know, if you're trying to go pitch for pitch with your partner, you can still like, you clean it and then you climb the next one and then you you switch and it probably allows you a little bit more rest time as you're maybe getting on some harder climbs.

57:08 Robert Yeah, definitely. Nadya Vorotnikova But there's there's different logistics, if there's less people at each cliff, then you could probably do you know, four or six and then you switch and then you can go a little faster maybe. Robert Just rip. Robert Yeah. Oh, true. Nadya Vorotnikova i don't know. well Well, no, you you still have to clean. Robert Yeah, yeah, If you're like, I mean, it depends how many draws you have, right? Nadya Vorotnikova Wow. Ari Grode you would I was just thinking like, you know, 20 draws on the harness. Robert Maybe you bring more draws. Yeah, yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova More draws. Definitely more draws. Robert Throw some alpines on there, or you know? Nadya Vorotnikova I was also thinking, oh, heck it. Robert You're good. Nadya Vorotnikova There you go. Yeah, definitely. oh Ari Grode did Did you guys, curious, did you work any trad into the plan that you guys did this last year? Nadya Vorotnikova yeah Nadya Vorotnikova I wanted to. Sean Nadia did.

57:49 Nadya Vorotnikova I wanted to do more. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, Sean Yeah, it's not my, it's not my forte. Ari Grode there there won't was a little bit or? OK. Sean um Not what I'm most psyched on and most comfortable with either. um So i didn't, I didn't do as much following Nadia on those, especially the, um the ones above five, nine probably. Sean But I mean, yeah, there's, there's so much opportunity there. Ari Grode okay Sean I told her that, next time that we come back to the ranch and partner up together, i would um be much more comfortable to to do more trad. Sean So I'm going to hold myself to that and make sure that that's good, good.

58:30 Nadya Vorotnikova I'm going hold you to that too. Don't you worry. Sean But I ah definitely want to make sure that that's more of an option for us and yeah, not limiting. Ari Grode do you Do you remember any of the trad routes you did above 5.9? There's really not that many. so Or you mentioned Nadia did did a few. Sean Me personally? No, no. If I did, i probably blacked out. Ari Grode Okay. Nadya Vorotnikova No, Sean was like, no, we're not, we're not, we're not carrying a bunch of drag gear around. No. And I was just like, please. please. There was one 11 that I really wanted to do. and because of my rule that Sean has to do every 11 and every 12 that I do, he was like, no, I'm not doing this.

59:11 Nadya Vorotnikova You're not making me do this. Ari Grode Okay. That was one thing, like when Rob and I's first year, we were like, doing trad seems crazy during this event. Nadya Vorotnikova Like I really, Ari Grode Like you'd have to be out of your mind. And then like, i don't know, I somehow convinced you the second year, like it would be a good idea to bring a small rack. And then like, it was kind of like climbing harder routes. Like there's all these trad routes that are just open. Ari Grode So when you're waiting in line for something, you'd be like, Oh, we'll just go get a couple laps. And you can even, sometimes you can get two laps and then your route opens up and you just leave your gear and you climb it. And then you go back and you finish your route. Sean Yeah, that's true. Ari Grode and Nobody's, nobody's climbing, especially at night. Cause there's just less people. But, uh, yeah, even last year we did, we did all trad during the 12. Nadya Vorotnikova See Sean?

59:53 Ari Grode So it's, we've really come full circle on that. Robert Yeah, i was going to say, already just slowly sprinkled more and more into the mix. Sean There is also a lot of trad that... Robert And I was like, I guess is what we're doing. Sean There is also a lot of trad that's just ah slinging chicken heads, which I'm a lot more comfortable with. Nadya Vorotnikova Heck yeah. Robert True. Ari Grode So Sean That that would be totally fine. Robert yeah the Yeah, the Webster's six laps is unfortunately no more, but you can get trad laps on those as well too. Yeah. Sean yeah Ari Grode um so Curious, like, I mean, how did the whole thing, it sounds like it went pretty well, like the partnership worked, like how did it play out, you know, for, for when you guys actually went for the record? I mean, did everything go smoothly?

1:00:35 Ari Grode did the psych psych stay high or were there moments where it was like, you know, in an absolute fight? Nadya Vorotnikova i love I love that you just said steak. I like combining psych and stoke at the same time. Ari Grode Stike, Stoke psych. Yeah. Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova That's exactly that but exactly exactly the level that we reached. We reached the level of stike. Ari Grode All right. Nadya Vorotnikova So um there was probably one point where um i started to feel myself bonking. And I think the part about having the right partner ah so important where they anticipate that like, okay, Nadya Vorotnikova her energy is starting to go down. um And we talked a lot about like what we could do to keep each other stoked throughout the competition.

1:01:24 Nadya Vorotnikova And we had like Ari Grode keep each other stiked. Nadya Vorotnikova Stiked, stiked. Robert a Nadya Vorotnikova You can't go down to stoke level or psych level. Ari Grode ah Nadya Vorotnikova That's when you're starting to bonk. And as I was starting to bonk, I was reaching stoke. And then ah Sean just hands me like a hand carved spoon that he made for me and a like a little note. Nadya Vorotnikova and And I got I got stiked again. Robert Oh, yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova And um absolutely nerds clusters, that is Robert yeah Nadya Vorotnikova um that is incredibly important, like the types of snacks you're essentially eating like a child again, where just getting into the candy jar. Nadya Vorotnikova And we kind of sprinkled that all across the the, you know, just like and we would get to the stashes and there's just a bunch of sugar and I think for the coming years, Valsia talked to me about how important it is not to eat like a ton of what like heavy stuff because you don't want to take the time to poop.

1:02:29 Nadya Vorotnikova So tailwind's a big idea. Ari Grode Yeah. Robert I've done it. Nadya Vorotnikova um But i i was pretty surprised with how how quickly and the record came about. did do Sean, do you remember what time it was? Sean it was ah Nadya Vorotnikova i don't quite remember. It was still dark. Sean It was well before sunrise. I think it was 3 to 4 a.m. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Sean Somewhere in there. You had you would already surpassed the record. Nadya Vorotnikova And at that point, we switched over. I was like, okay, Sean, go, go, go. And we were making up time for him to do a ton of laps. So I was on belay duty for a while until he got tired. And then we started to switch back and forth and um man like just remember like really awesome music and um you know the energy of hell is just really hard to describe until you're in it and there's nothing quite like you feeling alone at a cliff and then just like a big uh group of um Nadya Vorotnikova ah like volunteers comes through and they have like all these lights and they have music and they have snacks to share and it's just like your energy level just skyrockets in those moments and then stike levels achieved again Ari Grode Hahaha.

1:03:49 Nadya Vorotnikova and um man it just just folks that you run into and meet during the event and uh veterans um that you're seeing time and again and like my brother and and his like his crew of people just going through like zooming through like okay you've got draws in this you you mind if I filter in here you can climb this let's go like bossy's just like orchestrating around like okay Tyler you go here Rob go here Jill goes here like it's just it's you know your your energy level well like as you're starting to bonk all of a sudden some someone else is doing something around you that that like is gonna get you Ari Grode Yeah.

1:04:39 Nadya Vorotnikova um energized again. And it's really fun to ride that way of like the community kind of working with you and just talking about like, okay, you finished that climb, I finished this climb, you want to swap? Yeah, let's go. Nadya Vorotnikova Collaborate also is like, hey, you have beta for this climb, I have some beta here, you go grab that hold. And I love that community aspect of it. Just, you know, everybody's helping each other with their silly goals, like whatever they're trying to achieve. And and like, it's such fun, silly, arbitrary goals, but we're all suffering together. And, and you know, it's like, it's like, are you in pain right now? Nadya Vorotnikova Hell yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova But we're in it together.

1:05:22 Sean Yeah. um From my end, I would also say that it went incredibly well, really smooth. um We achieved the overall goal quite quickly, um but it didn't always feel that smooth to me. I was very nervous at the start. Sean i um I remember wearing wearing a hoodie. It was lightly drizzling when we were doing the creed and i ah I'm always so so stoked, ready to just run and get into it. Ari Grode Oh, yeah. Sean And I think I was like shaking a little bit from nerves that nerves that really don't matter. um Especially because this was primarily a ah support year, but I just remember thinking, what if I get to the base of the first climb?

1:06:22 Sean And i can't pull a single move. And, um, especially cause we were starting on the five 12s. I had this huge fear that we would kind of fail the competition right there. And I wouldn't be able to climb like normal. Sean And, um, that that luckily went away pretty quickly. We, um, we both were able to, um, get all the five 12s first go. Sean um and then from there that it was kind of a smooth sailing for quite a while. There were, um, a couple of climbs that we had on our list.

1:07:03 Sean If you remember Nadia, um, we ended up having to scrap, I think a couple, um, what was what was that wall? It was just to the left of the corridor. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, Nadya Vorotnikova it was like the taller walls with 11s and like the tall 11s. Robert Which area? Nadya Vorotnikova Is that what you're talking about? What is it? Robert like East side or North 40? Ari Grode You're talking like circus wall? Sean No, so it was just to the left of the the corridor in the North 40. um There were a couple of 11 pluses that we had. Ari Grode don't know. Oh, the steep the steep wall. Sean yeah Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Sean yeah Ari Grode Yeah, okay. By like Love Slave. Yeah, Mech Mech.

1:07:44 Robert Mechmech? Sean Exactly. Robert Yeah. Sean Exactly. Robert yeah Sean Yeah. We had a couple of those on the list, um, that we ended up, um, scrapping in the moment. And think that was maybe the first and only point of the competition that the plan didn't really, um, go the way we envisioned it on the day, but it was no big deal at all. We just kept moving on and, um, didn't lose the momentum. Sean I, Nadya Vorotnikova We did have pivot points. Yeah. Sean Yeah, yeah. i ended up getting a fairly significant feeling um arm cramp in like both my arms, actually, around my elbow and like up on the side of the bicep.

1:08:26 Sean um And that made me pretty grateful that I was doing a lot of belaying instead of climbing. um But um those were those were really the only points that it it didn't feel... Sean like perfect but it ended up working out quite perfectly Ari Grode So if you had to make one change, I know the rules are changing a bit here, but if you had to make one change, to kind of your tactics for the year this past year to the following year, what what would that be? Sean harder climbs Yeah, more 512s.

1:09:07 Ari Grode Harder climbs. Sean We were like, um when we were driving out of the ranch, that's basically what we were telling to each other. like um We could have slightly slowed the pace, done fewer routes, and if we had put harder climbs on there, then still would have bumped up the score a lot. So I think when we go back next year, we're going to do significantly more five twelve s Nadya Vorotnikova We were playing it more safe, I think, to make sure we weren't bonking. Sean yeah Nadya Vorotnikova And um I think climbing last year together proved that we can push wakened push ourselves we and we can push each other way more.

1:09:55 Nadya Vorotnikova And we can definitely ramp it up because I feel like we finished 24 and I had so much energy left over. So that was amazing. Sean nadia you told me that you could climb the next day Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. I don't know. I don't understand how my skin felt good. Ari Grode Wow. Nadya Vorotnikova Like, it was such a good year. do you guys remember? Like, it it was supposed to rain. Robert Yeah, yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova So i my expectations. Robert The hurricane was scheduled and everything. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh, yeah. My expectations went out the window. I think that was huge. Just not having expectations. Ari Grode And Nadya Vorotnikova Just like, no, it's going to be fun Rain or shine. Ari Grode no pressure, right? Nadya Vorotnikova Expectations gone. Zero pressure. This is going to be fun. Ari Grode Yeah, we actually... Nadya Vorotnikova And that's how.

1:10:36 Ari Grode Go ahead. Nadya Vorotnikova Go ahead. Ari Grode Sorry. No, no, no, no, no. Nadya Vorotnikova No, you're good. Ari Grode Please. Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Well, ah I was just gonna say like, I think that's the most important thing you you have to go into it and just enjoy it. Sean so Nadya Vorotnikova You have your like arbitrary goal, but at the end of the day, you are back in hell. Robert yeah Nadya Vorotnikova It's great. Ari Grode Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova You're climbing wood. Ari Grode Yeah. the The weather ended up being great. We actually broke our rule and we started in the east side because it was not super hot and sunny. Yeah. Robert Yeah, yeah. Bold choice, bold choice. Nadya Vorotnikova That's awesome. Robert But we we actually had friends last year who did it for the first time last year, and they were so concerned about the weather and like they potentially blowing up their chance to re-qualify and everything that an opening for the 12 happened like the night before the 12. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah.

1:11:21 Robert And they were like, they jumped on it. Nadya Vorotnikova ah Robert They're like, we're doing the 36. Like, this is our best chance to re-qualify. So their first year they did the 36 because of the weather. So yeah, I think when they when we all realized, okay, the rain is not, Nadya Vorotnikova Wow. Robert going actually hit, there was a huge sense of relief that came through, which was kind of nice. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, I had no idea till like We were in it. I thought we were goingnna we were going to be climbing in the rain and I was kind of like buckling up. Okay. i've done I've done climbing on wet rock before. This is fun. Robert Yeah. I mean, I think you said something that really hit it, struck a chord for me it was, but I think, I think that's one of the best things about hell is that you describe like this scenario, right?

1:12:04 Robert Where we make up these huge audacious goals that seem borderline impossible. Sean Thank you. Robert And until they're at the point where, we're worried about whether or not we're going to do the first route, right, Sean? And then you do it, you complete it and you're like, oh, I had a lot more left in the tank. Like what else is possible? What can I do? Robert think that's one of the best things about health that like makes you realize like, okay, there is a bit more in me than I realized I am stronger. And I think there are limitations that I'm setting that maybe don't need to be there. Robert And I think that's one of the best things about it. Sean and And I think that can manifest in so many different ways too. Like the first handful of years that I did it, um well, the first year was just seeing what I could do, period.

1:12:50 Sean Like, what is this possible? Ari Grode Trying to survive the solutions. Robert Yeah. Sean Yeah. Can I survive hell? Robert oh Sean Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova to Sean can i survive off just Oreos and Gatorade? Um, and yeah, when when the answer was yes, it was like, um, all right, well, can I do this many routes, this many routes? Sean And so many people will, push their limit in how many routes they can climb. And we decided to do um a slightly different avenue and go for difficulty. And i don't think it means that one is better than the other. there's so many amazing ways that hell can push your limits and make you into, um ah stronger person and just want to come back and keep pushing your box a little bit further.

1:13:46 Ari Grode Yeah. Well said. Robert yeah hit Hit the nail on the head. Ari Grode Very well said. Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Thank you. Ari Grode Yeah. It's amazing. Sean do it. Go. Ari Grode Yeah. It's amazing how many different categories there are. It's, it's, it's, I think the way they've set it up is so cool. Like you can, you can change your strategy every year and try something different and it plays to everybody's like, there's all, there's a, there's a category out there that's going to play to your strengths. Ari Grode Uh, Sean Yeah. Ari Grode you know, if you pick the right one, so they've, they've done an awesome job setting it up. And like you said, the ranch couldn't be a more perfect location. Sean yeah Robert Yeah. And it's also amazing because it's relative, right? Like at the end of the day, you're pushing yourself to your limits. And so if your limits are five, eight, if your limits are five, 14, if your limits are somewhere in the middle, like it doesn't matter.

1:14:29 Sean it Robert Like you can have a similar experience to everyone that's there just in a completely different way. So yeah, we freaking love it, obviously. Sean I think that's another cool thing about the competition is that um you're not going to go there because you want to get mega recognition or some big prize. Sean you You get like a horseshoe, you know? um you You go there for yourself and want to see what you can achieve. And i think to another extent, like we want to see what we can all achieve together. Sean Um, and i just think that's so unique. There's no other event that has that emphasis and yeah, it's incredible.

1:15:20 Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah, that collaboration aspect of it is so awesome. Ari Grode Perfect. Nadya Vorotnikova I know that when Voss talked with you guys, he emphasized that too. It's just, you know, it's fun to try to achieve like your own arbitrary goals like within climbing, but when you get to collaborate with other people, it just makes it that much better. Ari Grode Yeah. Perfectly said. Um, and that might be a, great place to kind of wrap this conversation up like you guys kind of nailed it there with the outros uh any um anything else we want to cover or you think think that's pretty good Robert I think think we did it, yeah. Yeah, Sean yeah Sean ah i'm I mean, I'm just psyched to see you guys out there in 2026 and give us all the beta on ah what the comp looks like with these new rule changes.

1:16:07 Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Robert yeah yeah, well... Ari Grode Yeah, Nadia, there'll be a new female record to go chase. Nadya Vorotnikova Yeah. Sean Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Heck yeah. Sean Yeah. Ari Grode ah Robert We knew every record to go of Trace. Nadya Vorotnikova And I'm Ari Grode Yeah. Sean Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova oh Robert Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova I'm excited for you guys. What are you guys most stoked about for this year? Robert Well, I mean, for us, this is kind of one of the first years where besides the first year where we're prioritizing points more so than routes. Like we've, we've kind of done a couple of different ways of prioritizing the number routes, but at the end of most of our goals have been centered around volume and this is obviously still volume, but we're gonna kind of push our difficulty a bit more than we have in the past.

1:16:52 Robert So it should be fun experience in that regard. Ari Grode Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Hell yeah. Ari Grode Yeah. Sean Nice. Nadya Vorotnikova we Sean All Ari Grode see what we're See what we're made of. Robert What about you, Ari? Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova That's awesome. Super stoked for you guys. Robert Also very stoked to not be doing the 36. Nadya Vorotnikova We'll be rooting for you. Robert Like that was, that was a one and done thing for us. Ari Grode Oh my God. Nadya Vorotnikova Oh yeah. Robert We are good on that. No, thanks. Robert Yeah. But yeah, this was, yeah, jump in there, Ari. Sean right, what are you, Saigon? Ari Grode Uh, Oh, man. um um I am super excited to try some harder routes. like there Robert Oh no, Ari, you can't say the same thing. That doesn't count. Nadya Vorotnikova Thank Ari Grode I'm curious to see what the pacing is going to be like.

1:17:35 Robert Yeah. Ari Grode that's When I was like playing with like putting together a couple like mock scorecards, and and like I just couldn't figure it out. I was like, is 100 routes realistic? Is 125 routes realistic? Is 75 routes realistic? like I have no idea. so i'm I'm actually really curious to see what we're kind of capable of without that second lap. Like, is it going to be a you know, a 50% reduction or is it going to be much smaller than I I'm kind of anticipating? Ari Grode So, yeah. and And I think the relay is going to be pretty cool. They they did that whole like relay thing with the 12 hour. It's like a 24 hour team, a 12 hour team and a bouldering team. So maybe that'll add a little bit more like, you know, like, yeah, like camaraderie there around the whole thing. Sean That's so cool. That's really, really cool.

1:18:17 Nadya Vorotnikova It's super neat, yeah. Ari Grode So. We'll see how that plays out. Robert Yeah, I'm hoping that that like a ah good amount of teams buy into that. Sean Yeah. Nadya Vorotnikova Heck yeah. Robert We'll see. That'd be fun. Nadya Vorotnikova I'm sure it'll build like with the years to come too. Robert Yeah, definitely. Ari Grode Yeah. Robert Definitely. Ari Grode All right. I'm going to kill this thing.