Summit

Did you have a favorite piece of gear?

Well, so I went on the trip with a bunch of Summit Series jackets, all the nice pants, and then I literally only wore shorts and a sun hoodie for the whole trip [laughs] because Europe's going through a historic heatwave.

So I was kind of like, "Well, mountaineering is really taking a turn."

[laughs]

Summit Series is made and tested by me and other athletes on The North Face team.

It's made for anyone who wants the best gear, the most capable system, the gear you don't have to think about.

Basically, for anybody who's at their own edge.

The North Face has you covered with Summit Series.

Believe it or not, this will be our first ever episode about the Kachatnas on this show, which is long overdue.

This new climb, which they've named the Hologram Wall, follows 60 years of fascinating history, leading up to the adventurous first ascent in July of 2026, when Eli Spitolnik and Michael Telstad made it to the summit and back over a four-day alpine-style push with only seven total hours of sleep, requiring endurance and resolve through a tight weather window on one of the last great unclimbed faces in the country.

We'll dig into the infamous hoax from the 1960s when a group of climbers submitted a photo of the Kachatnas to Summit Magazine under a false name and location to spoof the climbing community, which went on to inspire the first expedition to the zone in 1965 by a collection of climbers from the Gunks.

We'll hear from two of the climbers on that first 1965 expedition, Al DiMaria and Peter Geiser, with more insights on this wacky chapter in climbing history.

We'll also learn about the more modern history in the Kachatnas from Conrad Anker, whose first major expedition as an alpine climber was flying into the Kachatnas on an American Alpine Club grant in 1987.

Considering how few people have stood on top of that mountain, it's pretty remarkable to see two new routes go up in the same season.

The Fairbanks route goes up the northwest face and was climbed by Alaskans Ethan Berkland, Jonathan Koenig, and Tristan O'Donoghue.

As for the Riesenstein hoax, after that 1965 expedition, Al DiMaria published a follow-up in Summit Magazine, this time sharing the true story of their expedition and setting the record straight about this world-class destination.

At the time that they were active, you know, there were these kind of national climbing journals.

There was Summit Magazine, um, Appalachia Magazine, and so they were submitting some different, like, documentation of, of some of their adventures and climbs and first ascents.

And there's some really cool accounts of all the stuff that they did back then, and, and stuff that you read and you're just like, "Holy crap." What was it, Cannon in New Hampshire? Like, [laughs] the account of that one, they just, like, w- took a bus and went up there and did it, and they didn't even know that they were doing a new route, 'cause they didn't even know where the other routes were.

I've climbed 100 mountains.