American Alpine Club Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, we sit down with AAC Librarian Natalie Siciliano to chat about a fascinating part of the American Alpine Club’s history: the days when you used to have to apply to be a member of the Club. The application membership system lasted for nearly 90 years–which means we have extensive records in our archives that feature the climbing resumes and recommendation letters from thousands of climbing's most fascinating characters. In this episode, we dive into the how and why of this application system, why it got dismantled, and what membership at the Club looks like now. Plus, we take a look at some highlights from the applications of legends like Lynn Hill, Yvon Chouinard, Ichiro Yoshizawa, and more.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes topics of death and loss in the mountains, as well as mention of some specific accidents you may or may not be familiar with. Please take care of yourself when listening. For this episode of the AAC podcast, we’re having a conversation with therapist Ashlee Langholz about grief, traumatic grief, and how the Climbing Grief Fund (CGF) can support climbers and other mountain athletes who are experiencing loss. While we’ve had a few CGF grant recipients on the podcast in recent years to reflect on their personal journeys with grief, this episode is more about demystifying grief therapy and what Ash has learned throughout the years of professionally supporting people in their grief journey. Plus, our host delves into some of her own personal experiences with the topic. Do you need mental health services as you grapple with loss and injury related to the mountains and mountain sports? Apply to the Climbing Grief Fund today at americanalpineclub.org/grieffund.

The AAC’s Climbing Grief Fund has a directory of therapists who are specialists in the unique risks, challenges, joys, and euphoria of outdoor recreation, and are informed practitioners who support climbers experiencing grief and trauma. And though the directory is an invaluable resource when people need support in the face of the most intense kinds of grief and tragedy, these counselors also have expertise in other areas, including sports performance psychology. Because it's all connected–just as grief and trauma impacts our relationship to climbing, so too, does working on resilience, self-compassion, and other mental health skills help us excel at our goals in climbing. In this episode, we have CGF therapist and sports psychologist Neal Palles on to chat about how to practice and stack various mental training techniques and concepts on top of each other to build towards peak performance. We periodize our physical training, and according to Palles, we can apply that same concept to mental skills as well. Dive in!

In this episode of the podcast, we are celebrating the recipient of the AAC’s 2025 David Brower Conservation Award: Outdoor Alliance. Outdoor Alliance is the only organization in the U.S. that unites the voices of outdoor enthusiasts to conserve public lands and waters. OA advocates and amplifies the voices of recreationists to help ensure those lands are managed in a way that embraces the human-powered experience. Over the last 10 years, Outdoor Alliance has been instrumental in helping pass the EXPLORE Act in 2024, and they are receiving the Brower award for their work on passing this instrumental recreation bill. Dive in to the episode to hear about the origins of Outdoor Alliance and the power behind their methods and perspectives, featuring Outdoor Alliance CEO Adam Cramer, and the AAC’s Policy Director Byron Harvison.

Every year, the AAC bestows awards to climbing changemakers and celebrates their accomplishments at the AAC Gala. We’ll be announcing those award winners soon! But first, we wanted to give our listeners a sneak peak into the stories awaiting you, through diving into the life and personality of one awardee. We invited the alpinist and climber Kelly Cordes (who will be receiving the Pinnacle Award this year) onto the pod to celebrate his outstanding mountaineering and climbing achievements, and simply to ramble a bit and tell good stories. Though too humble to brag, Cordes is known for his bold ascents, including the Azeem Ridge on Great Trango Tower, a link-up on Cerro Torre, many first ascents in Peru and Alaska, as well as his “disaster style” and “suffer well” philosophy. With a 20-year lens, we have Cordes reflect on the Azeem Ridge story and tell it anew with all that he’s learned since then. We also spend some time talking about his writing life, including supporting editing the AAJ for 12 years, and co-writing the bestseller, The Push, with his close friend Tommy Caldwell. Dive in to get just a taste of Cordes’ story, and why he’s committed to suffering well.

It’s that time of year again–the AAC has invited the editor of Accidents in North American Climbing, Pete Takeda, to hop on the pod to chat about emerging trends in climbing accidents. This year, we’re also delighted to have a conversation with Dr. Valerie Karr, a professor at UMASS who has stepped in to help us with a massive data analysis project. Valerie used grounded theory analysis to parse through 20 years of accidents data—picking out patterns in how human behavior contributes to accidents. Patterns like risk normalization, the mentor trap, and attitudes around fixed gear. Dive into the podcast to hear about her findings and learn more about the case studies that stuck out to the editors this year.

In this episode we have Allyson Gunsallus on the podcast to talk about an under-discussed part of the climbing community—the joys and struggles of parenting and climbing. Allyson recently produced "Hand Holds," an educational film series now free to watch on Youtube, which cover a range of topics, from shifting identities, logistical challenges, and new relationships to risk as a parent and climber. After all, a toddler waddling around at the crag isn’t just a cute climbing mascot—they can also be a seismic shift in a new parent’s relationship to climbing. The series features Becca and Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden, Chris Kalous and Steph Bergner, Kris Hampton, Jess and Jon Glassberg, Majka Burhardt, and Anna and Eddie Taylor. Hand Holds gets into the real (and messy) beta of negotiating life through climbing and parenting, and this episode gets a sneak peak of Allyson’s philosophies and personal experience behind the project.

In this episode, we talk to AAC member, alpinist, and ski mountaineer Maddie Miller about a Nepal trip gone wrong. What she hoped was going to be a level-up in her climbing career, turned into a medical evacuation. At 16,200 feet, Maddie started experiencing signs of the extremely life-threatening medical condition HAPE, or High Altitude Pulmonary Edema. Thankfully, she had the ability to call for a helicopter, and get emergency care–all covered by her AAC rescue benefit and medical expense coverage. We dive into her experience with the freaky feeling of gurgling lungs, what other people don’t realize about this extremely deadly medical diagnosis, and what it means to feel as fit as possible but still affected by altitude.

In this episode of the AAC podcast, we have adventure writer Cassidy Randall on to talk about her new book, "Thirty Below." Thirty Below is the gripping story of the Denali Damsels–a group of female adventurers who achieved the first all-women’s ascent of Denali, also known as Mt. McKinley, the tallest peak in North America. Everyone told the “Denali Damsels,” that it couldn’t be done, that women were incapable of climbing mountains on their own. It was 1970. Men had walked on the moon; but women still had not stood on the highest points on Earth. But these six women were unwilling to be limited. They pushed past barriers in society at large, the climbing world, and their own bodies. Following vibrant mountaineers with a lot of personality, like the stubborn Grace Hoemann and the brilliant chemist Arlene Blum, this book tells a rich tale of a community's set of limiting beliefs, and the women who dared to prove them wrong, despite disaster and risk on the expedition. In the episode, Cassidy and the AAC dive into some of the experiences of these women that pushed them to achieve more and more in their mountaineering careers, the challenges of archival research, and capturing a climbing story that is too often forgotten.

In this episode, we sit down with Kai Lightner to chat about his Reel Rock film, Death of Villains. Kai gives us a behind the scenes look at how the film came to be, some of the key themes of the film and how challenging it was to be so vulnerable about subjects like eating disorders and rediscovering how to climb in his growing body, and the big fight-->believing that he could meet his childhood dreams of climbing 5.15. We also talk about redpoint strategies, injury, the partners who have shaped him, and what he’s discovered recently about climbing, even after 20 years in the sport!