Running with Problems
A podcast about the lives of runners and the problems we face.
Running with Problems
Redemption on the LA Freeway - Aaron Lozier
Join us as we chat with Aaron Lozier, who comes back to the podcast after attempting the LA Freeway for the second time. Last time, he had to be rescued via helicopter. Listen in to hear how the second attempt goes.
== AI-Generated Description Follows ==
After being dramatically rescued from the LA Freeway last year, Aaron Lozier returns to share his redemption story on one of Colorado's most formidable mountain challenges. The LA Freeway isn't a highway in Los Angeles—it's a brutal 35-mile technical traverse connecting Longs Peak to Arapaho Peak across at least 19 summits, featuring exposed ridgelines and class five climbing sections.
Aaron takes us through his year-long journey from failure to success, detailing how he processed the shame of rescue and rebuilt his approach through extensive scouting trips and mindset work. His story reveals profound lessons about preparation, as he meticulously studied routes, developed personal rules like "if you find yourself on unexpected fifth-class terrain, you're off route," and assembled the perfect three-person team for his second attempt.
The expedition itself unfolds like a thriller, from strong early progress to hallucinations and near-breakdowns during the 36-hour journey. Aaron candidly shares moments of doubt when facing technical sections in darkness ("at night, it's an abyss"), water challenges solved by his teammate's brilliant syringe innovation, and the infamous "jump" section that everyone mysteriously forgets exists. His vulnerability in describing mental struggles brings us directly onto those exposed ridgelines alongside him.
What makes this story truly special is Aaron's evolved perspective on achievement. Rather than focusing on proving critics wrong, he embraced "proving people right"—honoring those who believed in him. This shift transformed his experience from personal redemption into shared accomplishment, creating a powerful framework for approaching our own challenges.
Listen now to experience this remarkable comeback story that will inspire your own relationship with failure, preparation, and the mountains that call to us despite their difficulties.
Thanks for listening to Running With Problems. Follow us on Instagram @runningwithproblems. DM us there with questions in text or audio messages! Or email us at podcast@runningwithproblems.run.
Hosted by Jon Eisen (@mildly_athletic) and Miranda Williamson (@peaksandjustice). Edited by Jon Eisen. Theme music by Matt Beer.
Hello and welcome to Running With Problems. My name is John Eisen.
Miranda Williamson:And I'm Miranda.
Jon Eisen:Williamson. Running With Problems is a podcast about runners and the problems they inevitably face. Today on the podcast, we have Erin Lozier coming back for redemption on the LA freeway. But before we get to that, Miranda, how are you doing?
Miranda Williamson:I'm doing great. I am chilling since my return from TMB running TMB, but we have a podcast planned where I talk about that a lot more, so I'm going to skip any thorough intro and check in on you. How are you doing?
Jon Eisen:Well, I mean, we did say that the next podcast would be Runcations and your TMB. By the way, that's Tour de Mont Blanc for those who aren't aware of that acronym. But yeah, we're pushing that back. Life gets in the way.
Miranda Williamson:Life gets in the way and we have a really great episode that we're dropping now.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, what about me? I mean, we just did a.
Miranda Williamson:Pam Abs and we are recording in the morning.
Jon Eisen:It's very odd for us.
Miranda Williamson:We usually record our intros and our podcasts in the evening, but we're Again.
Jon Eisen:life is getting in the way.
Miranda Williamson:Life is getting in the way. We took the dog for a walk very early, and then we did an ab workout, and now we're recording a podcast all before work.
Jon Eisen:Now I would love to ask you about PAMABs. What is PAMABs?
Miranda Williamson:That is, you know. I assume everyone knows what PAM ABS is, but that is a great point. No one does. But let me educate the listeners because PAM ABS is the best thing ever. So I, during COVID, I was on the hunt for a good ab workout because I'd used to go to yoga and I'd go to little workout classes, which would help me, you do Pilates.
Miranda Williamson:Pilates. I'd go to Pilates once a week during pre-COVID and then that all changed and I needed to find a replacement that worked my abs, obviously, and I went through a whole bunch of videos YouTube videos, online trying to find good ones. I've realized what I hated was people who are like good job, you got this, you can do this, like encouragement. People that talked the whole time. One more. I'm just like I don't need that, I just want the workout. And then I want to like play a podcast during and Pam, is this Eastern European chick, german, german, german chick? Yeah, we'll talk about Pamela Reif is her name.
Miranda Williamson:Yes, and she does not say a single word. In fact, I think her face is so full of Botox that she cannot move it.
Jon Eisen:Unconfirmed.
Miranda Williamson:Unconfirmed, but she does not say a word and she leads you through these intense ab workouts that are absolutely perfect. She has all different kinds Muffin top workout, which is your side abs. Lower ab workout, which is obvious. Some really intense ones where she has like guests come on and she does these extremely killer ab workouts. What's the guy's name?
Jon Eisen:Willie, willie. Yeah, willie looks ripped and he's got tattoos everywhere and Pam makes him look weak.
Miranda Williamson:Yeah, she is badass, I love her. A badass babe with Botox and I am into it.
Jon Eisen:And when we started dating, Pam Abs was one of the ways we enjoyed each other's time, Because we would just do. We would do the ab workouts together, trying to stay fit through COVID.
Miranda Williamson:Yeah, we would do PAM ABS. We also did virtual yoga once a week together. Yeah, we had our routines.
Jon Eisen:I think that doing more ab stuff with you really improved my trail running. Oh, thank you. I mean I think core on the trail is so important, Like anytime you take an odd step and you need to write yourself or just like hold a position through like a tricky move, like you're engaging the core in all sorts of weird ways. So having a strong core is really important. So, yeah, we recommend Pam Abs.
Miranda Williamson:Yeah, Google it or.
Jon Eisen:YouTube it. I mean, yeah, YouTube it's good. It was really funny.
Miranda Williamson:Oh, and they're 10 minutes. That's another caveat. They're 10 minutes of like killing your abs.
Jon Eisen:I went to Heidelberg in Germany and I was walking through the Frankfurt airport and I saw an ad like a bikini ad and I was like huh, I know that person. And then I was like, oh, that's Pamela Reeve. Turns out she's a bikini model in Germany. Anyway, it's like I had no idea. I had never seen her except in these ad videos.
Miranda Williamson:And you never hear her talk, so you have no idea what her accent is.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, it's definitely German, Great Love it. But yeah, coming back to me, I'm doing pretty good. I'm about to head out for Dark Divide next week to run 100 miles and I guess I'm feeling like, wow, I've pushed myself a lot, I guess.
Miranda Williamson:oh, I haven't really told the listeners yeah, tmr, I just ran the Telluride Mountain Run.
Jon Eisen:There were a lot of friends out there. It was really fun, but unfortunately I didn't finish. I didn't. I was running the 24-mile race and I actually got time cut, which is… Humbling. Got time cut, which is humbling. I think it's a wake up call that I have pushed myself quite hard this year.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, and I have not given myself the room to be my full capability, to be my full capability. Um it the essentially the reason for my DNF is was stomach issues. Uh, telluride mountain run is a very difficult 24 mile run. Uh, there's also a 40 mile run as well and a 13 miler, but I was doing the 24 and it's very difficult. It's very high. You go up to 13,000 feet twice and the second time you're up there for a long time.
Jon Eisen:And but I just started in the back because my stomach was really bad. All week it was, uh, I wasn't eating. One day I ate less than a thousand calories and I went to bed feeling full, like it was just crazy. Like the indigestion, the acid reflux, uh, everything was uh going wrong with my stomach that whole week leading up to the race. So I was coming in under nutrition. And then on race day it was even worse. I ended up throwing up my whole breakfast and dinner the night before like seven miles into the race, which is really early, for I mean, that's not altitude doing that, that's just my stomach being set wrong from the beginning. And then, after I threw up, I bonked really hard and then the aid stations ran out of water. I mean to be fair, I was one of the last 10 people to come into each aid station, so, like I was in definitely in the back back of this race from the beginning and fighting cutoffs from the beginning and just being totally bonked and unable to get out of it was pretty hard.
Jon Eisen:But I want to thank this woman named Becca. She is a leader in the Ouray Mountain Rescue and she was up on the course helping people on the technical ridge, because there is like a sort of class two ridge on the course, which is super fun and cool if I wasn't totally bonked out of my mind. But Becca gave me water when I was totally bonked and had no more water because the A station was out of water, and she gave me some from her stash, um and I. I looked her up later and she turns out she's a, she's a ceramic artist in and she's on the and she's a leader in the mountain rescue and I forget her last name. But anyway, I just want to shout out Thanks, becca, for that water. That really, really helped me.
Jon Eisen:After I got that water through I started feeling much better. It's really hard to unbonk without water, just generally speaking, even just like juice, like like electrolyte fluid doesn't work the same as your. Your body wants regular water when it's in a state that it's like really far down the hole. So I ended up being 30 minutes after the cutoff. I ran all the way back to the finish from where I was cut and I ended up still getting like 23 miles in a 24 mile run and doing eight ninths of the vert. So like I got, I got my run in, I got my training run for the stark divide in. But I also got humbled, yeah, because uh, that's the first time I've ever been time cut at a regular race. I mean, I've gotten time cut at Barkley and I got time cut at like, uh, you could bar massacre, but those are, that's another Barkley style race.
Miranda Williamson:And those are races where you expect to be time cut almost.
Jon Eisen:Almost, yeah, almost, yeah, almost. Everyone does get time cut Right. So this is this is one where most people get through and, yeah, I stomach was just really bad and it showed that it's something that I need to fix and that I've pushed myself quite hard this year. So now I'm turning my attention to dark divide and, you know, during the race, I will say that I definitely had thoughts of wow, I've pushed myself quite hard this year. So now I'm turning my attention to Dark Divide and you know, during the race, I will say that I definitely had thoughts of wow, like, can I even finish this hundred? And I've had a few more concerns about cutoffs than I would have before, but I still have a belief that, like, there's still a lot of strength in me, I ran a tiny little hill as fast as I've ever run it yesterday. It's a very short hill, it's like what 40 feet tall and I ran it in 25 seconds.
Miranda Williamson:You had some competition. Sherry was on your heels. Oh well, yeah.
Jon Eisen:I didn't even see her. I was just running flat out. But I ran it as fast as I've ever run it, like faster than I've run it in the last 18 months. So even a 25-second hill, it's like okay, cool, I still have something in my body, I still have fitness to tap into as long as I'm eating.
Miranda Williamson:And how's your stomach feeling now? It's feeling fine now Great, I don't know Great, it's feeling fine now I don't know Great All right.
Jon Eisen:Whatever it was a bug or a stress, but it's feeling now. It's feeling good now.
Miranda Williamson:Mild bout of Giardia. Something, something.
Jon Eisen:Well, yeah, I didn't have time to go to the urgent care before it cleared itself up, so as long as I can keep the stomach good, I think Dark Divide's going to be pretty fun, so I'm excited that's good, good. Well, shall we chat a little bit about aaron oh, aaron, yeah, yeah, aaron ran, walked, hiked the la freeway once again in his second attempt yes, he's, is he our uh second two-time guest? He is our third two-time guest, after Nathan and Michael.
Miranda Williamson:And we've had Hannah on a couple times too.
Jon Eisen:That's true, but never like just well. I guess Hannah is third, so then that makes Aaron fourth.
Miranda Williamson:Okay Well, yeah, worth it this story's fourth. Okay Well, yeah Worth it.
Jon Eisen:This story's great. Yeah, if you guys remember, the first time we had Aaron on, he had to be rescued off of the LA freeway. Yes, we should say that the LA freeway is not the 405. We are not talking about a highway in Los Angeles the 405. We are not talking about a highway in Los Angeles. We are talking about a difficult class five technical mountain ridge traverse from Longs Peak to Arapaho Peak along what's called the Indian Peaks, and it's about 45 minutes away from Boulder. It's the skyline that you can see from Boulder.
Miranda Williamson:And how many mountains do you summit during it?
Jon Eisen:Oh, I forget Five, something like 18.
Miranda Williamson:18.
Jon Eisen:20. Yeah.
Miranda Williamson:Oh, it's massive.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, you have to summit every named peak along the ridge in order to count it as the LA freeway. So you can't like drop off the ridge and take an easier route. You have to stay on the technical route between the peaks.
Miranda Williamson:To stay on the technical route between the peaks, and there is like sections where you're doing rock climbing type moves. Oh yeah, and it's really challenging.
Jon Eisen:I think some of the most difficult aspects of it are that you have to find the route that is the safest at night. Yes, because unless you're Anton Krupicka and most people aren't you are going to go into the darkness. For this effort, it took Aaron over 30 hours to get rescued the first time and now heading back out there trying to do it again around 36. I won't spoil what happens.
Miranda Williamson:Because this is a really fun story where he leads us through the entire journey.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, from the way he prepared, in between these efforts and the crew he took out there and what happened out on the LA freeway. So I hope y'all will enjoy the story.
Miranda Williamson:And I really like how he talks about his shift in mindset.
Jon Eisen:Yes, mindset's been a big topic this year.
Miranda Williamson:I like it. It's a big theme this year.
Jon Eisen:I'm going to have to set mine for Dark Divide.
Miranda Williamson:You are, I'll help.
Jon Eisen:Okay, well, thank y'all for listening. I just really want to send a shout out. I've been getting a ton of good feedback about the podcast and I just want to thank you, the listeners, for listening and sharing it with your friends. We love making it and we're going to continue to do so. We've got some great guests lined up. We really do. I'm excited about these next two. Yeah, we're pretty stoked, and then we have you coming up as well. We do. So, yeah, look forward to some great episodes coming out soon, and we'll catch you on the flip side.
Miranda Williamson:Enjoy, Erin. Welcome back to the pod. Thank you very much. So we'll have recapped your LA Freeway attempt number one in the intro, so we don't need to recap any of that.
Aaron Lozier:But what have you been up to since that last episode with us to prepare yourself for attempting the LA Freeway again? Well, you know, the interview last year was definitely a big part of processing and sort of reconstructing myself after that experience. Like I talked about a lot, it was a lot of sort of guilt and shame that I was feeling after, after you know, my spectacular failure or, as I think you said, epic failure.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, it was epic.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, um. So, you know, um, I had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people, a lot of different groups. You know BTR, of course, breakfast Club, rocky Mountain Runners, but gosh, I should have listened to that episode again before I came, because I can't remember which stories I had told.
Jon Eisen:Most of the listeners can't remember either.
Aaron Lozier:Okay, well, shortly after LA Freeway last year was the tour to Flatirons with the Minions, and I think that's the group the scrambling group which has a staged race every September. So it's coming up again, and that was the group I probably had the most trepidation about showing my face around. I even thought I might get kicked out of the group and I went on a scramble. It was a preview scramble for the first stage and Bill Wright was leading it and there were several other people and Bill just started talking about you know how. You know there had been three or two or three rescues on LA Freeway just in the last few weeks, and that's when I realized, okay, he doesn't know, so I just outed myself and told him and told him what happened. He doesn't know, so I just outed myself and told him and told him what happened.
Jon Eisen:That's probably the best way to clear, I mean, those feelings of guilt and shame and, you know, imposter syndrome are I mean? To me they sound ridiculous, right, but the best way to clear it, in my opinion, has always been just be honest about who you are around, these people who you respect and if, and you will quickly find out if your feelings are valid or not.
Aaron Lozier:Right, yeah, and that was thankfully kind of the approach I took and it went very well in almost every case. Um, very well in almost every case. You know Bill was extremely generous in his kind of response and you know there was a discussion on the Minions email list, you know a little bit after that and he outed himself to the Minions list and said I've been rescued three different times.
Miranda Williamson:Oh, wow, and.
Jon Eisen:Bill Wright. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about who Bill Wright is?
Aaron Lozier:So Bill Wright I don't even know if I know all of the claims to fame that Bill has. I mean, one of them is he skied the third flat iron. There's a lot. I guess most relevant to this conversation is he started the scrambling group called Satan's Minions, like in the 90s, and it started just because he was a climber. He had also written a book about speed climbing and he and some friends were starting to go for big trail runs in the morning where they would run to a crag and then with rope, climb and then run back and do that before work and then eventually they started doing it without ropes. So anyway, he's definitely someone I admire for a lot of different reasons. You know, he's got a lot of humility, he obviously has a lot of skill and he's just a good person overall and so he, you know, yeah, was just super supportive during that time. And then also, like I would call out also Paul Pomeroy, was someone whose response again kind of a legend in this area someone.
Jon Eisen:I really look up to. He's such a legend.
Miranda Williamson:We'd love to get him on the pod.
Jon Eisen:I've asked and we're working our way. Paul's a dream guest. Maybe Bill as well. Yeah, so these are very respected, like I mean you. You could easily call them legends in the Boulder running scene, both of those men, right.
Aaron Lozier:For sure. And, um, yeah, so the first thing Paul said to me and this is something that like I even get choked up, like thinking about it Like the first thing he said to me when I showed up at a happy hour run, he's like, hey man, way to go for it. And I was like really not expecting that kind of response and it was, you know, really, um, you know, just just really affirming and positive and made me feel like, oh, maybe there was some aspect of what I did that was good and not all just terrible and stupid. Yeah, we think it's great. Yeah, for the record, thank you. And then he gave me a piece of advice that I absolutely listened to and I'm really thankful that I did. Absolutely could not have happened if I hadn't listened to this advice. I had two things I wanted to do this year. One was run Leadville and the other was LA Freeway.
Jon Eisen:Aha, I think I know what his advice is.
Aaron Lozier:Well, you know, I wasn't there last weekend, right? So I had, you know, I had volunteered, I had my volunteer hours. Well, more than enough to get a free entry and um, or I guess, uh, kind of like an automatic S to pay for it. But um, and yeah, he said, basically, pick one objective. He said I it wasn't. I tried Nolan's twice before I got it and it wasn't until I cleared my whole schedule and made it the sole objective of the year that I was actually able to get it. And I wrestled with that because I kept telling myself you know, I can do both If I'm fit for you know, I'll just be working on my fitness and then you know, and I'll be fit for LA Freeway and it'll be fine. But in retrospect there's no, no, like it's hard to say. I mean I couldn't have gone the weekend that I went and still done leadville, right?
Jon Eisen:because you went the weekend before level despite despite me mistaking leadville weekend for that weekend, but yes, uh, yeah, because you wouldn't have been able to go to the weekend that you eventually did go I either would have had to not go when the weather window showed up or just go to leadville trashed and maybe not finish that and leadville, more than more than any other colorado 100 requires you trash yourself in order to I mean, I don't know just finish, or most people have the goal of sub 25, so everyone just goes for that, and then you end up I mean, you would definitely be, you know, recovering for a long time from that race.
Jon Eisen:It's very difficult. Very few people can run Leadville and then be like good in a couple of weeks, right, because it just requires so much effort.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, I mean, I've only run one sub-30 100.
Jon Eisen:Going and doing that at 10,000 feet is another Right. I was just there and my runner unfortunately didn't make it. And seeing the wear and tear Leadville puts on the runners up close and personal, it's a difficult one, yeah, Even if some of us stick our noses up on it occasionally.
Aaron Lozier:It's still on my bucket list, but it's kind of not going anywhere.
Jon Eisen:I can do it in five years or ten years. I wonder if it's something about these big efforts. I mean you referred to Paul's, nolan's 14 effort, or LA Freeway is similarly difficult, maybe, I guess, slightly shorter, but the difficulty in technicality is way higher. Is there something about these kinds of efforts that really requires this clearing of the focus?
Aaron Lozier:Right. And the other thing is I'm probably not fit enough for Leadville right now. I got somewhat fit, I would say in some ways I'm potentially less fit than I was in May. So one thing I did in May was I ran Hellbender 100 in North Carolina and that was an amazing experience for a lot of other reasons.
Aaron Lozier:Um, my uh, best friend, alan, he, his brother passed away in March while we were both training for this race and um, and that destroyed his training and so he kind of went into that race just sort of like. Kind of like, well, you know, I'm going to show up, I'm going to give it a shot, and he was really struggling for a long time. But then he pulled out some kind of strength that like I had no idea where it came from and it was like absolutely incredible and just so inspiring to see him just like sprint, like literally sprint the last you know half mile, um, and finish really strong. Um, so that was, that was an amazing experience.
Aaron Lozier:I I did want to get a another hard rock qualifier under my belt so I could continue applying, cause I was out of hard rock qualifiers, but I figured you know that's in may. So that was a little different than Leadville. You know, that was in May, 36 hour cutoff or something, and I just needed to finish and then I had the and I couldn't even start scouting until June anyway, so it seemed to work Because of the snow.
Miranda Williamson:Right, right, okay.
Aaron Lozier:But then once, once it came down to scouting season, I mean, but then once it came down to scouting season, I mean, I spent a lot of time in the Indian Peaks, but not necessarily moving at a fast pace, and it was mostly kind of a cerebral project, is what it felt like. I was really studying the lines and the route and making lots of videos along the way for myself and making notes and so um, kind of like you and Barkley. Yeah, that was a lot of like learning and studying.
Jon Eisen:I think there's a lot of study involved in some in some of these efforts.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah.
Jon Eisen:You know when the course isn't just marked for you, when the route is unclear uh, whether that's you know a situation where the race director is purposely making things hard for you, like Berkeley, or it's your own? You know choice of a difficult line, uh, yeah, there's a lot of study involved. You have to know it in and out, and we talked about that on the last uh episode. We did with you, right, like we talked about how you know knowing the route better would have been a good thing, right, and I imagine that that was, that was something you didn't want to fuck up again yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't imagine.
Miranda Williamson:So take us to the preparation. You got a crew there this time too. You had some folks out there. What else did you do to prepare for the day?
Aaron Lozier:Well, I went on a handful of scouting trips. The first one was actually right back to the scene of the crime. The first one was toll. You got to get to toll, yeah.
Jon Eisen:Got to get through toll.
Aaron Lozier:And it's funny because I had kind of that's how I envisioned, as the first thing I'm going to scout is that section. But I didn't. It didn't end up sort of just working out by coincidence that Greg and I I don't even remember how it came about we weren't even necessarily planning this as a scouting trip. I think it was just something like let's go to Audubon and if Toll looks good, maybe we'll continue.
Miranda Williamson:And so you traded partners to do this with. You traded Branton for Greg.
Aaron Lozier:Partners were all up in the air for a very long time, ah, up until very right up until the end. Okay, so brant, over most of the last year, uh, had been non-committal one way or the other, and then, in the kind of leading up to it getting closer to it, he was back in and Greg was. So I don't know if by this point, but somewhere along the way, early in scouting, brant was back in and Greg did not think that he was ready to do LA Freeway, but we, he still wanted to scout with me.
Miranda Williamson:Got it.
Aaron Lozier:So I think so Greg and I went to do Audubon. We looked at the ridge, to Toll, and I think we were both having a lot of doubts. I don't remember if it was just because of snow or just yeah. One thing I realized when I looked at Toll was that from that direction, it's like wow, it really is actually an intimidating, hard-to-read mountain.
Jon Eisen:Like it wasn't just that I was sleep deprived, Um, but you've got to pick the right chassis gully to climb out of what seems like 17 on the backside that you have to crisscross in order to get to the right one. Yeah, like it's not, it's not an easy.
Aaron Lozier:It is tricky, yeah, um, but you know not, yeah, it's not an easy. It is tricky, yeah, but you know not super technically hard, as I quickly figured out. So Greg and I kind of we split, like I said, well, let me go scout this upper part, you go scout lower, and we both sort of kind of came around and spotted the same gully, which have you been up to a little either of you. I've been up to a little.
Miranda Williamson:I have not.
Aaron Lozier:So you've been up this like loose third class gully, yeah, or the other side from Paiute.
Jon Eisen:No, I've done the third class gully from the Paiute side, yeah, and yeah, I mean there's like three or four gullies that look right but they're not right, but they're not right. If you follow the cairns which are tiny, yeah, and usually the snow is getting your way if you're early season, then you find the right one. You're like cool, that's it, and then it's like a straight up third class chossy gully like we had people. I was with a group and we had people behind me and I would. I looked back down and you could easily kick a rock on somebody on that gully. But the climbing is not super technical, it's just very loose, it's very loose yeah, and so just full disclosure.
Aaron Lozier:Like last year, I had zero clue, like I had never done it, I had no idea.
Jon Eisen:Oh, yeah, no idea at all what I was doing. When you read some of these class three it's easy to assume that like it's easier than say something that's class five right. To assume that like it's easier than say something that's classified right, because the whole point of the classification system is that you know how technically challenging is this right, but that doesn't really relay how difficult the route finding might be or how icky it might be to climb? Yeah.
Aaron Lozier:But Greg and I, you know, we got up just fine and it was definitely really exciting and it just felt like a very positive start to the season. The scouting, like okay, we got that one off the list and then I think we might have gone to tag Pawnee and then finished out the day and that was it the next scouting trip. Greg and I decided to do Longs to Buchanan, so that's basically half the route. So we intentionally planned to do it in like about 24 hours. We brought some like a little bit more bivvy equipment than we would normally have.
Aaron Lozier:You know, normally I just would take like an emergency bivy, um equipment than we would normally have. You know, normally I just would take like an emergency bivy. But we brought some like soft things to like, because I was I was wanting to kind of experiment with that, like what would it be like to sleep a couple hours and get going again? So, um and this was the first time greg had seen most of this and um, you were pretty confident because this is part of the route that you've completed right, um, one thing that we did was um, so last year brant and I split on isolation.
Aaron Lozier:I did this, uh, fifth class, the fifth class option, and he did the third class option, which I hadn't done before. So that was one thing we had to scout and it's sort of similar to toll, you know, just super steep and loose, but we found it and we got up it just fine. And then we got to Ozil, where there's a lot of water, and we're like okay, and it was like we were going pretty slow. I mean, we got there nine something. The sun's starting to go down, so we decided to bibby and I think we laid there for like two hours and neither of us slept at all and it was just this huge waste of time and my stomach, like my stomach turned on me. Oh no.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, while sleeping or trying to sleep yeah, and While sleeping or trying to sleep.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and I don't. My only theory is just when I do you know ultra type things, I just continuously eat, and so I think maybe just stopping eating for two hours just threw me off. So it was a good thing to learn. Okay, bivvying's out. Whatever we do, it's going to be. Oh. But I did a few mountains later. Um, going up Red Deer, we were almost to the summit and I said, greg, I'm going to lay down for a second, and I didn't even take my backpack off. I just laid down and passed out for like two minutes and then woke up and then I was like so much better. So what I felt like I learned was like, okay, if I literally just feel like I can lay down on the ground and fall asleep, then that, then a trail nap's okay, but I don't think I can do like an actual very, very john kelly of you is that what he does?
Miranda Williamson:oh yeah, john kelly's a big fan of the trail nap yeah, he likes to make it very uncomfortable too, so that he's not tempted to stay longer on the trail, like you'll see pictures of him sleeping on rocks yeah, in cold.
Jon Eisen:And he's like, oh, in five minutes I'll be shivering.
Aaron Lozier:That way I won't sleep too much yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard, uh, other people say the same thing, so, so that was a good learning experience, right? And um, oh my gosh, um, basically, we, we went slow but everything worked out and we figured everything out that we needed to. Um, but it was still pretty early and when we got to buchanan, um, from our vent, it was just before sunrise and from our vantage point, with our tired eyes, it looked like Buchanan Pass was completely snowed in and it looked like if we were to even try to descend, we would just start sliding down the snow forever. Of the reason we read, we read it wrong, because vanessa and some other people went up buchanan cat passed later and she sent me a picture of, uh, of a panda, like, running up the snow and I was like, but part of the context, I think, was besides being tired and not seeing very clearly was we had just been stressing about snow the whole time.
Aaron Lozier:Ah Because at any point there could just be snow. That would just be in your way and you couldn't get around it. And we kept coming across huge snow patches and we didn't know where snow was or wasn't. And especially the section between, like Ozuul, Ogala, Ulala, Unnamed Peak and Red Deer, Like I don't even know. I don't know how you would get out if you had to turn around. You just have to go all the way back. That's all we could figure.
Aaron Lozier:So we were really stressed about that. Every time we saw snow it was like where is the snow? Is it in the wrong spot? And then that section at night is also really scary. It just feels like there's these huge cliffs on either side. So you start getting in your head thinking about that. So we were just sort of primed to see snow as danger. And then we get to the top of Buchanan Pass and we're like danger. So we start discussing different options and Greg's like you know, why don't we go up to that ridge and we can scramble down, and I was like no, like I'm not doing a stupid thing right here. We've made it this far, we're getting down safe, Like even if it means we have to go the other way to Granby, and that's what we did. We went to Granby.
Jon Eisen:You went west.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, oh, wow Because it was either that in my mind, or continue the line to Paiute we weren't ready for that or go back the way we came and that would be forever. So, yeah, we just went west to Granby and my son Lennon drove two and a half hours to come get us. Oh wow, oh my gosh, that was rough. Thanks, lennon. Yeah, oh wow, oh my gosh that was rough.
Aaron Lozier:Thanks, lennon yeah, but I was. You know, this whole season I've been leaning on safety and the smarter choice. Always the smartest thing would have been to wait 20 minutes for the sun to come up and just see what it looks like. That would have been the actual smartest thing to do.
Jon Eisen:But what do you attribute the different choice to?
Aaron Lozier:You know, a saying that has been developing and just kind of like coming back to me in my mind over and over and over is my number one goal is to get home safely. My number one goal is to get home safely. And that's what you know I said the day we did LA Freeway, you know, to my team is just, I don't care if we finish, we're getting home safely, that's what matters. And trying to think about the safest option in every place. So, you know, eliminated as many fifth class options as we could, even if it could save time, we would do the harder, we would do the, you know, the, the safer or more mellow option, always Um, but uh. And then it also kind of led to why we ended up with a team of three. But I don't, I won't jump ahead yet, so, um.
Aaron Lozier:So then the next scouting trip was was Grant. So Grant came and we, we wanted to finish, basically finish the route, the part that we hadn't done. We ended up cutting off just the beginning of basically the toll section and Pawnee and instead we just went straight to Shoshone. So we did Shoshone to South Arapaho, and that was. There wasn't a section of that route. So there was a section and I had never done before, which was Navajo to Rikiri, to Dachawa. I hadn't done that section through the Boulder watershed.
Jon Eisen:Yes, well, technically, technically at least half a foot away from the border of the Boulder watershed. Because you're not allowed, because no one is allowed, to be in the Boulder watershed. It's restricted. But if you're on the ridge, you're technically not in the Boulder watershed.
Aaron Lozier:Right, so we'll just say I was never in the Boulder watershed, yeah.
Jon Eisen:I know that you were never there and we are. We are we're saying on the podcast, which I believe is legally binding, that you were never there.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and like GPS devices are super glitchy. They are, you can't trust them Um so yeah, we, so, so we, yeah, we, so we. I guess you get to Shoshone and then it gets pretty serious pretty quickly at the Kasparov Traverse and that.
Jon Eisen:This is my favorite named. It's a great name. It's such a great name. Yeah, because why is it named the Kasparov Traverse?
Aaron Lozier:Well, because Bill Wright actually named it that, because there's a bunch of towers that look like chess pieces.
Miranda Williamson:Oh, no wonder you love that name.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, so he and someone I don't remember who did that traverse and climbed all the chess pieces. So, technically, I've never done this Kasparov Traverse because I haven't climbed the chess pieces, but I would like to one day.
Jon Eisen:That's pretty cool. Gary Kasparov is a famous chess player. He was the world champion from in the eighties and nineties. He's from Russia and there's a joke that people say that Gary Kasparov invented chess. So Gary Kasparov, inventor of chess Awesome Anyway there's your little chess moment. He lost his world championship to Bobby Fischer. No, no, no, no. Bobby Fischer's in the 60s, garry Kasparov in the 80s and 90s I'll stay quiet on this, garry Kasparov had this famous match with Kasparov, had this famous match with Karpov, where Karpov deployed the Berlin defense.
Jon Eisen:I believe it was played in Berlin and the Berlin defense is still one of the most stable defenses for black against the Italian game, no, sorry, the Spanish against theoy Lopez. So when the bishop moves to B5, then the knight can move to F6 and defend using the Berlin defense, which goes into the Berlin endgame, and Karpov really surprised Kasparov on that. So that's one of Kasparov's famous like. He's known as this big attacking player. Okay, give me two more seconds. He's known as this big attacking player and Karpov to deploy a defense against him that nullified his great attacking style was really meaningful. And then he also, I believe he lost his world championship status to the great Vishwanathan Anand from India, who is one of the great chess players of our time. So yeah, there's your moment on Garry Kasparov.
Aaron Lozier:That's interesting, by the way, his name.
Jon Eisen:Garry is spelled G-E-R-R-Y. Is that how, garry? Who's the big climber? Garry, the one who wrote all the books oh, jerry Roach.
Aaron Lozier:Jerry Roach. Doesn't Jerry spell his name? Yes, he does, g-e-r-r-y he does. Anyway, ah, you connected it, I connected it. Yeah, nice. Tenuous at best, and the similarity between chess and something like LA Freeway is like very small mistakes early on can result in huge consequences. Ain't that the truth?
Jon Eisen:All right, so you were on the—you did the Kasparov Traverse coming off of Shoshone.
Aaron Lozier:I'm still unsure actually. So I was just basically following Anton's route, I mean, so Anton got the FKT the same day I got rescued and he was actually on toll as I was being rescued. It's pretty crazy, but I was using his route for kind of like the baseline for everything that I was doing, um, and so I'm still not clear whether I was following his route or if I went off, um, it's it's really hard to tell because it's like a sharp left turn.
Jon Eisen:But you know, these GPSs aren't like super you really, I mean on a on terrain like this you need you need to be accurate to the yard, right, right, and most GPS devices you know a really good signal will give you, accurate to like 10 feet, but like a poor signal would be accurate to 30 feet.
Aaron Lozier:And this was the section where 10 to 30 feet would make a huge difference. And this was the section where 10 to 30 feet would make a huge difference. So I was with Brant and I led us down this really steep gully and it got pretty thin, and I traversed this little section I'm like this just feels sketchy and then he ended up turning back and it was just like a moment, like, where I felt like really I, I, I had a lot of moments through this whole process and including the attempt, where I'm like questioning, like, should I be doing this? Can I actually justify this? You know and I did this actually I get even record a little video in that moment, just like reflecting on this but, um, anyway, found a different way for him to go that was much safer.
Aaron Lozier:And then, um, then we kind of had the same thing happen again a second time, where I did a traverse that he didn't like and then I had to help him find another way. And so we kind of came up with this rule that I ended up kind of like repeating, like with Greg, which is like you decide what looks good, I don't decide, but if you want me to scout something, I'll scout it and let you know. And so that kind of became our system. Because my downfall. I just, I guess maybe naively optimistic if when I see I'm like, oh, that that doesn't look like a problem and you know so anyway. Um, so did it did uh?
Jon Eisen:did this experience with Brant like bring up feelings, uh similar, similar to when you were rescued?
Aaron Lozier:No, not quite, but I did have definitely a big moment during the attempt that I'll talk about.
Jon Eisen:Okay, all right, yeah, well, we'll dig in.
Miranda Williamson:Are we ready to get into it yet?
Jon Eisen:Was there more scouting.
Aaron Lozier:Well, let's see. Well, yeah, I can kind of wrap it up, because this was like the, these two big scouting trips were kind of most of the route. So, yeah, we went, we got to Arikari, it was really awesome, and then down, and then the section from Arikari to Doshawa is so visually like it's just a mind fuck, like you're looking at it and you're like there's no way that goes. This looks terrifying. But then you just kind of peek around the corner and there's like grassy ledge and you peek around the other corner and you keep doing that and you find your way through and it's ultimately not that hard, except there's just this one part where the only way across you have to actually jump.
Aaron Lozier:You have to do a jump Like um, and it's not a jump, you want to mess up, and it's like maybe five or six feet and you're kind of jumping down and there's like a little ledge you can get your foot on and jump out. And we both did it and then completely forgot about it, literally forgot about it. And then we were able to finish the route and it felt really great to get to Fourth of July Trailhead and kind of like have this. And also I had a moment on South Arapaho where I could see longs and I was just kind of imagining what it would be like to actually finish this thing. That probably felt good. Yeah, it felt good. But also all these scouting trips.
Aaron Lozier:They increased my confidence and reduced it at the same time because it was like, okay, I did it, but like that was so hard. Can I put it all together? And the only other two scouting trips was another one with Greg where we did Algonquin Paiute during the day, kind of the crux of the route. We flew through it like it was nothing and I just was like wow, I cannot believe like how quickly and easily we did that thing. And I just was like wow, I cannot believe like how quickly and easily we did that. And then, and then just the last scouting trip, as I went by myself to check out cables route up longs, which I immediately knew was not how we were going to go, like cables route is it's low fifth class. It may not be any harder than like freeway on the second flat iron, but it's wet.
Jon Eisen:There's ice and snow up there.
Aaron Lozier:There was no ice at that time, but it was wet and there are good handholds, but like my foot slipped but I was holding on to good handholds but I'm like, no, this is not, this is not. I felt like if we did start with cables, I think it would be like the technically hardest part of the whole route and that just didn't feel like a good idea to start that way. So cables was out, but I was glad I scouted it.
Jon Eisen:So yeah. So now you've scouted the whole route.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, brant was having just kind of expressing a general lack of motivation and just a lack of stoke to do this route honestly and I basically suggested like I don't think you should do it because like we're going to need a lot of stoke to get through this.
Miranda Williamson:Right.
Jon Eisen:I mean more than anything. This is just going to be a long, long day out.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah.
Jon Eisen:Something like and you're going to have to work through low points. So I agree that, like, if you're not into it, it's probably not a good idea because you're just setting yourself up to quit more than likely or just have a really poor time. I mean, we've talked a lot on this podcast about races or experiences where you walked away from it being like, wow, that mostly was bad, and it does happen sometimes. But how do you know whether you're about to go into something that you come out with a negative experience on? I think a lot of it is about how you come into the experience right, Like the intentions you set, right, and if you're low on stoke, ie you don't really want to do it. I think you need to really want to do it to complete something of this magnitude. So that makes sense.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, yeah. And I really thought a lot about what Miranda was saying on that episode about mindset and really tried to get myself into that mindset Like this is inevitable, this is going to happen, I'm ready. Oh, I love the.
Jon Eisen:I love the inevitable mindset.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, it did. It did wear off a bit, but anyway. So Brent said hey, you know, but but my mentor, wade Gardner, really would like to join you guys and I definitely had to think about it. I had in my mind well, first off I had never really thought about a party of three, but so after the Paiute Algonquin scouting, I just felt that Greg was ready. All of a sudden I realized he was ready, and so when I asked him, he was like he was ready, he wanted to do it. And then Wade you know he has this huge reputation he's on his way. He's almost finished with all of the Colorado 14ers for the fifth time, oh geez. And then he's. I don't want to quote other things because I could get it wrong, but he's done a lot of really impressive things. He did nonce with Brandt and so I really trust Brandt.
Jon Eisen:I've heard of Wade.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, okay.
Jon Eisen:Wade's, mostly through Brandt, but yeah.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah. So reputation checked out and really it just came down to three is safer than two. Two people could help one person in the way one couldn't help one, so the safety alone made me like feel that that was the right choice and, um, and I think that was a decision that really paid off for sure, and so it was weighed and so, yeah, my only I just the only thing that I never wanted for LA Freeway is I never wanted to do it with someone who had done it before.
Jon Eisen:Interesting why.
Aaron Lozier:And I didn't want pacers because I didn't want to just be like carried through the route in any way. I wanted to feel that it was something I had done.
Jon Eisen:You wanted to navigate. Make sure that the reason it was completed was at least mostly due to your effort, your knowledge, your preparation Right.
Aaron Lozier:So, even though Wade's super experienced, he knew nothing of the route. So I felt that that was within the framework of what I wanted to do.
Jon Eisen:And you had brought Greg on and you guys had explored the route together, right Okay?
Aaron Lozier:So yeah, so Wade came to my house Thursday night. It was the 7th and yeah, we were doing it on August 8th, full moon, the Lionsgate portal, also in astrology.
Miranda Williamson:Wow.
Aaron Lozier:So, we're—.
Jon Eisen:What does the Lionsgate portal mean? Well, I— I mean, if you're going to bring it up.
Miranda Williamson:I'm surprised you asked.
Jon Eisen:You know our signs they don't align.
Aaron Lozier:I can't tell you. It's definitely some sort of a line. I think Sirius the star is involved.
Jon Eisen:I think maybe Venus, Sirius now he's that character from, uh, harry potter, right, no okay, maybe we'll fact check this.
Miranda Williamson:Continue on, you begin. You're gonna begin the next day yeah, so, um, so yeah.
Aaron Lozier:When I woke up I had the same feeling you know that I had last year. It was just like waking up and just knowing what I'm about to do, like LA Freeway for me just feels so like mythical and just like big, like not like any race I've done or anything else. So woke up with butterflies and then Anastasia drove us. Well, I drove, but we took her car so we wouldn't have to leave a car at the trailhead, and I just like scarfed down my breakfast during the drive and then we get there and it's really funny because it's like one of the actually the trickiest route. Finding parts of the whole thing is all the shortcuts at Longs. One thing I kind of realize is keyhole versus cables. Maybe doesn't matter a lot, but all those shortcuts through the trails make a huge difference.
Miranda Williamson:That cuts off miles. Like through the boulder field and such. Before that Okay.
Aaron Lozier:Like through the woods.
Miranda Williamson:Ah, gotcha.
Jon Eisen:So Cutting switchbacks over here, I see.
Aaron Lozier:Not going for an FKT.
Jon Eisen:Anton did the same thing. Oh, let's not tell the Rocky Mountain Park Rangers about this.
Aaron Lozier:But anyway, we got up longs really quickly, like three hours, and so we were already on like a 24 hour pace. So I was like, okay, this is awesome. Um, the other thing I forgot to mention is like when I'd gone up by myself and did cables, I also went to Pagoda and stashed water and a Red Bull, and I was really excited about this. And we got to Pagoda and I could not find the water stash. I'm like, how did this? This was a week ago. I have the waypoint on my Gaia and I have pictures of it and I cannot find it.
Miranda Williamson:Someone came and raided it perhaps. I doubt it.
Aaron Lozier:But I don't know, I don't know. But I was trying to like not let myself start spiraling, because you know like I felt really stupid.
Miranda Williamson:The disappointment yeah.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and that was going to be our clutch, like water refuel, but fortunately everyone still had a good amount of water. We did, you know, then there's Chief's Head. Chief's Head is just like this super long ridgeline, fall summit after fall summit. Mindset makes a huge difference, you know, you just have to. You know. This is just a little thing I learned throughout this process was just the best. Mindset seems to just be in the moment and I know that's so cliche and everyone says it, but it really seems to be true, Like if you're going up this forever summit, just be in the moment, Right, and that seems to be the way that it goes by the quickest with the least amount of suffering is just being in the moment.
Jon Eisen:Definitely true. Yeah, I mean I think the more you think about how far it is to go. Yeah, the human brain doesn't work well in that situation.
Aaron Lozier:I really learned that when Anastasia and I did the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim last year where we went down the south. You know, that's so fun, you're just starting the day and then you go through the bottom and then up north and going up the north rim, I just kept looking around the corner like almost there, almost there, almost there, almost there, almost there. And then when it's like continuously it's not there, and then just like it gets longer and more frustrated. So I'd like vowed to not do that again going back up the south rim. And it worked. You know, if you just let go of any expectation, stay in the moment, it's really, really helpful. So we got a chief's head and then down to alice. I'm just trying to think there wasn't really. We're moving at a really good pace. We're staying um, we're kind of like hovering around a 30 hour pace.
Jon Eisen:So are you monitoring pace?
Aaron Lozier:yeah, I'm looking at and why are you monitoring? Pace, because the only reason is because I feel like the longer it takes, the less likely you are to finish. I didn't really care how long it took, I just wanted to be able to finish before it became too safe for me to continue. Too unsafe to continue due to fatigue? What?
Jon Eisen:factors would prevent you from a finish if the time elongated to 45 hours, 50 hours.
Aaron Lozier:Well, I mean, there's like a fifth class section just going up North Arapaho near the end. So it would be less safe in my mind to do that after you're awake for 45 hours as opposed to 35.
Jon Eisen:Especially to the evening.
Aaron Lozier:Oh and then. Yeah, it would get dark again and the weather was forecast to get worse.
Jon Eisen:Okay, so you had a weather window.
Aaron Lozier:We needed to finish before Saturday evening.
Jon Eisen:Okay. Due to weather and and the time to finish before saturday evening you started on friday would be something around 36 to 40 hours I was really comfortable with 36 hours because I'd done it before twice before at different races.
Aaron Lozier:So it was. It was a known entity for me was greg and wade yeah, for wade, wade's done. You know Nolan, so he's done two nights. Wade's good, wade's good, greg had not done, different class.
Aaron Lozier:Greg had never done a 36-hour so that was new for Greg. Okay, oh, and then we did the okay. So isolation, yeah, went fine, everything was going great. And that section I was just talking about, with the really scary cliffs, like through Ulala and Unnamed Peak and Red Deer, was like almost trivial in the day, like it was so crazy how different it was. And even Greg and I had remembered sections like oh, remember this little down climb and how, like sketched out, we were about it and like look at it, it's like nothing and it was really crazy. Um, and that happened multiple times and the opposite way too, because so we, uh, we, I had told uh, so anastasia and van Anastasia is my fiance and Vanessa is one of our good friends, uh, and Boulder trail runners who loves to support things like this, and it's just really awesome crew. Um, they had hiked up to Buchanan pass and I told them best case scenario 7 PM. Worst case 11. I said I'm so sorry, that's such a wide window, that is a 7 pm Worst case 11.
Aaron Lozier:I said I'm so sorry that's such a wide window.
Miranda Williamson:That is a wide window, yeah.
Jon Eisen:Especially hanging out on a pass, which are notoriously good weather areas.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, Well, also, they had really just been thinking about us and they didn't even bring enough warm layers for themselves. Oh no, so because we were kind of moving so quickly, they got up there at 6 pm and we got there at 7. Wait, no, I'm sorry, they got up there just before 7, we got there at 8. So, okay, it was still pretty early in the weather window, but they were freezing to death. They were so cold. In fact, vanessa had brought out a poncho that they were both inside of like in like a tent. There's a picture.
Jon Eisen:It's really cute, oh my.
Aaron Lozier:God.
Miranda Williamson:I'll have to get the picture. We'll put it up on the socials.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, I have to get it, but we got there and they had hot coffee and burritos and candy and Cokes and it was just unbelievable.
Miranda Williamson:Life-giving.
Aaron Lozier:So life-giving.
Jon Eisen:Wow, what need station? That is amazing yeah.
Aaron Lozier:It was amazing and we needed it too. I mean, that really helped us, because the next section was rough. This was the same section that we had just done a few weeks before during the day, and it was like fresh and it was just like effortless and it was just cliffs are scarier at night, you know.
Aaron Lozier:My friend Peter said. It's like oh yeah, by the way, my friend Peter, he's someone he and I like have shared beta and talked about this route for the last couple years and he did it. He successfully completed LA freeway a week before we did in 25 hours. So I mean cliffs are scary at night, right, like this. He was saying like at night it's an abyss. Right, I thought that was a good way to put it.
Jon Eisen:Well, if you can see the bottom, you know how far you'll fall before you lose caution consciousness. Yeah, and if it's just an abyss, you think you might fall forever there are sections of hard rock that I'm like.
Miranda Williamson:I can't believe people do this at night I was talking with with nathan.
Jon Eisen:You know we did little giant um at night and coming down little giant, it was really sketchy for us at night. You know we did Little Giant at night and coming down Little Giant, it was really sketchy for us at night. You know, and you've done Little Giant and he did Little Giant in the daytime because he did the reverse route this year and he's like oh, it's just like a lake, just like 40 feet down, but it's just like a total abyss when you're, when it's at night, but you just don't know what's down there.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, yeah. So the Algonquin Ridge line is definitely like an abyss on both sides and, uh, the scrambling sections that I literally have a video of me doing the. There's kind of two halves of the Algonquin Ridge and the first half. I have a video where I literally say like, yeah, nothing really of note on that section, just maybe a little bit of fifth class down climbing near the end, but no big deal, and then we kind of struggled on that part a little bit at night. So, um, and yeah, a little bit of route finding trouble, a little bit of arguing.
Aaron Lozier:Arguing Well, I just at one point I don't remember how it happened, but we ended up on the wrong side of the ridge and I was like guys, we need to be on the other side of the ridge. And I remember Greg has a way of sometimes saying things he was like what do you mean the other side of the ridge? I said, well, this is this side of the ridge, I'm talking about the other side.
Miranda Williamson:I can hear him in my head saying that Greg is an absurdly literal person.
Jon Eisen:He was not being facetious or mocking. When he says that he was literally being like, I don't know. I just don't understand what you mean. By the other side of the ridge, yeah.
Aaron Lozier:But we did get on the right side of the ridge and then got our piute. It was fine, and then kind of toll, still dark, same kind of thing, but we still found our way up, toll. But I was like guys, I swear they've changed things. I swear I was like guys, I swear they've changed things. I swear I was like convinced. I was like, well, you know, I'll, I'll follow, you know we'll go this way. But if this is right, I'm checking myself into a mental hospital after this is over. Um, it was, it was just crazy. Again, a lot of it has to do with nighttime and daytime. Things look totally different, If you guys notice, do you feel mountains look bigger at night?
Aaron Lozier:They just look bigger when it's just like a shadow.
Jon Eisen:I swear, it's like. I think there is a phenomenon where you see scale and you think it's bigger, like you see a ridge. You know, I remember the first time I ran overnight at High Lonesome in 2018. And I saw the headwall with all the headlamps crisscrossing up on the switchbacks and I thought it was the tallest thing I had ever seen. And when I realized that it's like 600 feet, I was like, oh, it's not even that tall, right. So I think that there is some phenomenon where your eyes look up and they just don't have any more scale, so they just assume anything that's very tall is enormously tall. But I think, yeah, it definitely is an illusion.
Aaron Lozier:Maybe, Maybe I don't know, I'm questioning everything now, but anyway. So so yeah, toll goes fine, and then, uh, pawnee is just kind of a pain in the ass, and then, oh yeah, pawnee is a pain in the ass.
Jon Eisen:Yeah, it's kind of loose on toll. You're just like this should be a walk-up. Why isn't it a walk-up?
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and then we did that kind of traverse over to Shoshone and we're running out of water. And I'm getting a little nervous because I remember seeing water between Tolumpani and then Pani Pass and I looked, and we can't take a long time to look for things, and so we didn't find water and then we eventually find this like snow patch on, uh, paul paul shoney, have you heard that, like people call the hill between ponny and shoshone? Paul shoney just learned this. Yeah, and there's a snow field and, uh, and there is some running water, even though it's still like two, three in the morning. There's some running water, but I can't get my filter to capture this water. It's this shallow, like centimeter deep, like stream everywhere that I can see. And and then I hear greg say something like w Wade has a syringe. I was like, are you kidding me? And yeah, he brought a syringe for this exact situation.
Miranda Williamson:Wow.
Aaron Lozier:What, yeah, isn't that crazy.
Jon Eisen:Did it work.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, it worked great, Wow. I mean it was a little slow, but, but you got water. I mean it was a little slow but much faster, but you got water Absolutely. We refilled. Yeah, I mean, that was just genius.
Jon Eisen:I have never heard of using a syringe. I guess when you're sucking water out of tiny snowfields that are barely bleeding water.
Aaron Lozier:And then my other friend, Sam, who also just completed it this weekend. It's a little.
Jon Eisen:LA freeway fest yeah.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, so three, or well, three different parties. Finished it so far, but he just brought a straw.
Miranda Williamson:Like a life straw.
Aaron Lozier:No, just a straw, just to drink the.
Jon Eisen:Well, I mean, if it is literally melting snow, there is very little contaminant. Once it runs into a stream, there can be dead animals in it, but if it's just coming off the snow, it's probably okay. This is not advice. Yeah, what is happening here?
Aaron Lozier:Literally none of this is advice, but the syringe was. I couldn't believe how brilliant that seemed. So we refilled, then we get to shoshone, and then we started on the casper octoverse again, and so there's just these little things like we were talking about with the chest moves, the little things. Um, I realized like, oh you know, I didn't actually see how, you know how brant, like the other way that brant went. I don't actually know what the other way is, and I assumed it would be obvious, but it really wasn't. It was very not obvious. Um, but anyway, it's hard, too hard to explain, but we did end up figuring that out.
Jon Eisen:And then again— so your pace is slowing as you're trying to figure things out at night.
Aaron Lozier:Basically on that section, I kind of had sort of minimized in my brain the fact that there were still two sections that I didn't really have an answer to. I knew how I had done it, but I also knew that other people hadn't been. I knew how I had done it, but I also knew that other people hadn't been comfortable with the way I had done it and we would have to go a different way and both of those end up costing time. And then my brain went like all of a sudden, like I'm like I'm sort of haphazardly route finding, and then I look and realize they're following me. Wade and greg are following me and they think I know where I'm going. And I realize I don't know where I'm going and so I just tell them. I said, guys, my, I don't know where I'm going and my brain's not working very good right now.
Jon Eisen:How long into the effort are you?
Aaron Lozier:So the sun is coming up, so it's now just been a little yeah, it is 24 hours yeah.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah. And somehow I say something like, well, let me go scout this. And so Wade says, yeah, go ahead and go scout that, whatever that ridge or whatever it was I thought might lead to the summit, whatever that ridge or whatever it was I thought might lead to the summit.
Aaron Lozier:And, yeah, I kind of again found myself on fifth class terrain that I'd never done before and one thing I had kind of had become another sort of mantra or rule of thumb is like if you find yourself on unexpected fifth class on this route, you're off route because the fifth classes are sections, are known entities, and I know what they are, and if I'm not, if I'm on fifth, that's not one of those. It's the wrong way. And here I am, I'm on this fifth class, not not crazy hard, but like harder than it should be considering. I've never gone this way and I don't know where this goes. And, yeah, I did start having this sort of like, not exactly a flashback, but yeah, it's like, here it is, it's happening again. Here I am again, like you can see the helicopter coming yeah.
Aaron Lozier:The helicopter is on its way and like here we go. Like I just couldn't even. I really was kind of having this sort of mental like breakdown at this time and also starting to hallucinate like oh so, like I look down, I see greg. I start yelling at greg. He's not responding. And then I hear greg like respond from a completely different direction. I realize that's not greg. And then I hear wade say something like aaron, like that's the, that's the way that Anton went, like you're going Anton's route. And I'm like that doesn't sound right, like am I dreaming? Am I in a dream right now? Like it was. It was pretty wild the state of mind that I was in, but uh, wade ended up kind of like finding a different way up to kind of where I was and then found he Wade did the route finding to get us onto Apache and so that was fantastic he took you through the aricaree and no, no, just up to Apache just up to Apache oh, okay.
Aaron Lozier:Apache before Navajo, yeah, before aricaree right and he suggested he's like, do you have any caffeine? I was like, yeah, I've got a five, five hour energy shot and he's like you should have that, and I had it. And then I was like, yeah, I've got a five, five hour energy shot and he's like you should have that, and I had it. And then I was like good, like I had pretty much like decided, you know, this is all over, um on Apache. But then because we'd been doing this great pace and then now we're taking forever and now it's all going to shit, and then we get to the summit and I'm like you, what, none of that matters, we're done with that. That none of that has to inform you know, like that behind you, yeah and all you have is what's ahead.
Jon Eisen:Um, just a little aside, john kelly in his he made these videos as he was doing the at this year and he had one video where he talked about his like, how he like mentally approaches some of these giant efforts. He does, he's kind of a hero. Another dream guest. There you go, jk uh, and he was talking about how he just like tries to never look back. He tries to, he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to reflect on what's happened so far, he only wants to look forward to the next thing and and just approach it like that. So like, yes, you had difficulties, but now you're energetic, now you're what is it? Six peaks away, something like that, plus or minus one from the finish I think four rightajo.
Aaron Lozier:We had Navajo Rikri Dushawa North.
Jon Eisen:South, that's five.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, or what did I say? Anyway, five left.
Jon Eisen:All right.
Aaron Lozier:So, yeah, I just kind of wipe the slate clean and I tell them you know, I know the Navajo section very well. And I tell them we're going to do this, this and that, and we did this, this and and that and it was fine. Great, we went down to the tarn mountain lake at the base not one of my favorite words, tarn, yeah, by the way, only other.
Jon Eisen:It's the only time I've ever heard the word tarn is at the base of a reekery, a lake, at the base of an uh, glacier, is what a tarn is, yeah, oh, okay, or a pond, yeah.
Aaron Lozier:I call it an alpine beach. It feels like an alpine beach. Oh yes, it's really pretty. I love that little part. And we refilled and then we went up a reekery. We were going to take the. There is like a low fifth class kind of ramp. That's really cool when you're fresh, but we decided not to do that and just to follow, like kind of the gully to the side of it, which was kind of worse but maybe safer. Then we get to the summit of Reekery and and then the descent off of that is, I think, the worst descent on the whole route. I mean, everything's loose. It doesn't matter how big the boulder is. You step on a boulder the size of this table and it rocks Like I don't know how that happens sketchy, normally. Normally you can rely on the big boulders but you can't rely on anything. It feels like oof and then um, and then that tricky traverse to get to dashawa. You get a. You got this airplane goalie where there's a airplane crash from 1963. And that's really eerie and spooky.
Jon Eisen:And who's leading at this point? Are you back?
Aaron Lozier:I'm leading again, yeah.
Jon Eisen:You're back into your head space, yeah.
Aaron Lozier:And then we get to the job. The jump and I the jump that you forgot about, that. I completely forgot about Um, and I was like, oh, there's a jump here, but again it feels completely different now. It looks way longer. I feel way less confident. Greg doesn't like it at all. I hadn't even thought to mention it, I had completely forgotten about it. And this isn't just a me phenomenon, like. I've now corroborated this with two different people that, like people just forget about this jump, um, so also simultaneously, greg is. He's taking a nosedive now, okay, with his mental state, with his fatigue, he's falling asleep and um, so, um, so, uh w hey, so Anastasia had given me a Red Bull when we left Buchanan. He's like you saw that Red Bull? I was like, yeah, so we gave it to Greg.
Jon Eisen:Wow, it seems like Wade knows what he's doing.
Miranda Williamson:Yeah, Wade knows about sleep deprivation.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, the experience was very handy.
Jon Eisen:He's like do you have that caffeine? Now is the time to use it. Yep.
Aaron Lozier:And so, yeah, we made Greg chug the Red Bull and yeah, then we lost about two hours trying to find an alternative to that junk. We had to descend way low, we glissaded down a snow field, um, and then once we kind of had gotten sort of um, I guess, on the same plane that we needed to be, if that makes sense, I was visually lost. Like I looked, I look, I said I don't, I don't know, I can't, I don't recognize any of this, like I have no idea where we are, and I'm sure being tired didn't help. So I started scouting and I think Wade did some scouting, and now I'm starting to like really it's not exactly panic, cause it's too slow motion, but this kind of like, yeah, we're, we're not going to be able to finish this, but I'm also not sure what that means.
Aaron Lozier:Like can you cause you can't, even just not that I would ever want to call a rescue again, but like can you call rescue and be like I think this is going to get bad, like, or I'm just lost, I'm just tired, I'm too tired to get out of here, like you can't do that. So it was just like I'm just tired, I'm too tired to get out of here, like you can't do that, so it was just like it's kind of one of those situations where, like, the only person who's going to get you off this mountain is you.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and the clock's ticking and it's just like. And then I just kind of had like a moment of clarity where, like, basically we're trying to get to the head wall. There's a head wall on Dasha, on the like on the uh, I guess it would be like the North face of Dasha and I was like you know I don't know if I can really explain it, but it was a moment of clarity in my head Like there has to be a way. If we keep going, we're going to see it.
Jon Eisen:So I went and kind of went the opposite direction and ended up like finding I know I'm not describing this very well, but I've experienced something like this with the navigation style events that I've done, where you know I'll have made a mistake or somebody's made a mistake and we're lost, right, like we're off course and wandering around. Wandering around and you just feel pointless. You're like what are we even doing? Like, are we ever going to make it out of here? And there's just this moment where you're like, all right, I'm just going to fucking think through this thing and figure it out. And I'm like all right, you know it is, it's this way, I know we're in this area. So if I just head this way, then it has to be there.
Jon Eisen:And I'm at this point. It's a mix of like solving and intuition, and it's like I just have to believe that it's this way, because I really don't have a choice other. Like if I just stand here and I walk in circles, I'm going to go insane or quit one of the two. But if I just trust my intuition and I think and and I just usually I'm with people like you are right and you just have to convince them, it's like it must be here, yeah, and I'm gonna go find it right. And is that similar to what happened?
Aaron Lozier:yeah, that's a good way of putting it it was. It wasn't a visual realization, it was like intellectual realization of which way I needed to go and how it was going to be. And then I found it. That's a great feeling. Yeah, it was a great feeling, for whatever reason. You know that during this time period, you know that caffeine helped Greg a lot, but he was still fatigued and there was still this feeling of like wanting to provide Greg a lot of kind of assistance about like where to go, where to put your feet, where to put your hands?
Jon Eisen:You got to get them through it.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and so when we started going up first off, I remember the way the Doshawa being low fifth class like really chill, and now it felt like several degrees harder. And I'm in front of Greg and Wade is right behind Greg and we're like just inching our way up, move by move, like helping each other, supporting each other, and then and then we get to the summit of Dushawa. And then we kind of have another, another kind of like moment like that on the very last tracks going on North Arapaho, where we're just kind of like we're staying really close together and just taking it one move at a time and just really thinking it through and then yeah, sort of dragging out that finish like just making sure everyone's safe yeah, and then, um, and then that once that crux was done, we knew it was just suffering to the end.
Aaron Lozier:you know, like there's another super steep, super loose gully going up to north arapaho and it sucks, and but then, once we got to the summit of north arapaho, in my mind that's when it's over and that's when I, like, looked back and saw longs and and uh, that had been my joke all day to wade was like nice view of longs, nice view of longs. And like, yeah, it got really choked up and very emotional at that moment of just like everything that, uh, everything that had happened. And you know, just, these things are always just like so much about more about the people than anything, all the people that supported you, all the people that believed in you, and yeah, it was a really special moment. And then we did the traverse to South Arapaho and Greg asked a lot of questions and also the shortcut back to 4th of July. Greg was very delirious.
Miranda Williamson:Oh no, that's kind of fun.
Jon Eisen:I would like to see a delirious Greg. Yeah, yeah.
Miranda Williamson:What kind of questions was he asking? Life questions or just about the route?
Aaron Lozier:Lots of questions about the route.
Aaron Lozier:Like where is this going? Where is the shortcut? I was like, well, we haven't got to it yet. At one point he was like, does this route go anywhere special? I said no, go anywhere special? I said no, just the trail ahead, yes, to finish this journey. Um, but it was really funny, um. And then, uh, yeah, and then oh, and then I was very surprised to hear like a shout as we were coming down that super steep hill down to fourth of of July, the shortcut, yeah, the shortcut, and like my knees are just like screaming it's so steep. And then I see my friend Peter running up to like I didn't know he was coming and you know he came to join us and then he kind of, like you know, ran us into the finish and Anastasia was there with drinks and more snacks and it was just, yeah, it was a beautiful moment.
Jon Eisen:So congratulations. Thank you yeah.
Aaron Lozier:That's amazing.
Miranda Williamson:What an accomplishment.
Jon Eisen:The LA Freeway is a monster achievement, thank you. I applaud you for persistence and preparation. Persistence and preparation you know like clearly your preparation showed in the effort. I really I like some of the things you said, like the if you were on fifth, that you didn't recognize. You knew you were off right. You had these little rules that, like, help you stay within your boundaries. You, you, what, when preparing, you talked about how you started to understand something, about how your choice and routes didn't align with everyone's choice and routes, and you were conscious of that. I think all that's really um, mature and amazing, like you're able to see that outside of yourself and use that to accomplish this incredible thing. So I don't know, I'm just very impressed.
Miranda Williamson:Well, thank you. When you're with a group, too, it's not just about you as an individual, can I make this jump. It's about what does the group feel is best, and if someone feels uncomfortable in the group, it's like the person who feels the most uncomfortable is the one who dictates what routes we find and navigate through.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and in some ways that's an advantage, right, having the person. That's most because I asked. I never met Wade and I asked him. I said what's your comfort level with scrambling? He's like, honestly, I probably am a little overly reckless sometimes and I said me too. Greg is the decider and, um, yeah, so I definitely, like, I learned so much about myself. You know, I feel like the whole thing was really just about you know, I talked last year about how, like Euron did it solo, unsupported or self-supported no, unsupported, solo, unsupported onsite. That's so badass. But then, like I realized, like, like for me this, I don't feel that it's within my capabilities or comfort level to do this solo. Um, again, if the number one goal is to get home safely, right I am too prone.
Aaron Lozier:I learned a lot about, like, my shortcomings like I'm too prone to making like, maybe like not the smartest decision when it comes to scrambling. Uh, my memory is really bad, I think.
Jon Eisen:To be fair, you're talking about remembering specific routes in very samey looking rocks, on a route that's over 30 miles of samey looking rocks and every crux kind of looks the same when you're up close to it and that's where you have to navigate.
Jon Eisen:So so, memory like there's not a lot of uniqueness where you can be like, oh, yeah, you, just, you know, you look, you look for the tree that looks like this, like, uh, that's a joke, we have it, I watch, because there's a tree that like bends down, and so you always put your arm out and you're like there's a tree that looks like this, um, but there's none of that on this route. There's just, you know, ramps and ledges and fifth class and loose third class and that's all over the place and the differences are very minor and you have to remember specific routes in them. So I think it would, I don't think you should like your memory can be good and you can still like forget very specific lines in small areas, right, because you have to remember like during the day when you go scouting, you're working through an easier section, but at night, and tired, that section's not easy. So now you have to remember very specific movements in easy sections and hard sections right Am I making?
Miranda Williamson:connecting?
Aaron Lozier:with you, yeah, yeah, it's so subjective, you know, not just from one person to the next, but one moment to the next one. You know, one light condition to the next. But yeah, in a lot of ways it was about like really letting go of ego in a lot of ways. Why? Why, letting go of ego?
Aaron Lozier:Because, for me, it was so crucial to be aware of my shortcomings in order to actually do it and actually to figure out. Just because I can't do it solo on site doesn't mean I can't do it. So how can I do it? What do I need to do to make sure that I can actually do it safely? The other thing is, yeah, I've gone through a lot of therapy. You know, uh, um, over the last over a year and a half, I guess, I and I had kind of like a huge breakthrough. Uh, you know, um this like late spring, early summer, and um, I definitely I will admit that there have been times in the last several years where I haven't been in a great place in terms of depression and anxiety, and risk taking was somewhat of a not always a healthy thing that I was doing.
Miranda Williamson:Right, if that makes sense. It's a dopamine hit yeah.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, and kind of a sense of like, well, I don't really care. You know, if something were to happen. I don't really care, and now, like I really do care, and so the risk aspect of this became something extremely unfortunate, like an extremely. I saw it as a really unfortunate part of the route. I knew I had to do it. I knew I needed to do it for some reason, but unfortunately it was risky and all I wanted to do was minimize it as much as possible.
Miranda Williamson:To make it home.
Jon Eisen:Sometimes therapy makes you a worse runner. Yeah, it does happen. It makes you a better person generally, but it can make you a worse runner. But it helps you identify a way that you can still do the same thing you wanted to do before, but in a way that's more compatible with your actual self.
Aaron Lozier:I'm actually in a place now where I can just be at home and not running and not have anxiety. Whoa.
Miranda Williamson:Whoa Shut the front door.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, I know where I can just be at home and not running and not have anxiety. Whoa, whoa shut the front door. Yeah, I know it's hard to believe.
Jon Eisen:I love that. Back to the podcast.
Miranda Williamson:Congratulations One thing that struck me that I want to reflect on in your storytelling and this is common for our podcast, because we're running with problems is that when we're going through these journeys and describing them, we tend to move from one problem and one challenge to the next in our explanation of the journey. But there was so much on that journey that probably went really right and so much camaraderie and good times and laughter and so many of these other components that I think that's true.
Aaron Lozier:I would say it was the majority of it. Yes, yeah, the majority of it was things going right.
Miranda Williamson:Yeah.
Jon Eisen:Would you do another long effort with Greg or Wade?
Aaron Lozier:Oh, 100%. I love that. Yeah, that's amazing. But I'm not in any hurry to seek out anything that risky anytime soon.
Miranda Williamson:Well, aaron, thanks for being on the pod. We like to end our podcast by letting the guests share a piece of advice with our listeners. I know you had a chance to do that before and I wonder if you have a different piece of advice you'd like to share with our listeners.
Aaron Lozier:Yeah, I was thinking about that on my way here.
Jon Eisen:It's got to be really good.
Miranda Williamson:I think one guest shared eat more, so it doesn't have to be so revolutionary.
Jon Eisen:John Reyes was really good. He was like don't listen to people's advice on podcasts.
Aaron Lozier:This is what I'll say, and I'm actually just stealing from a mutual friend of Anastasia and I, pete Koselsnick, who's just got an incredible story. He was already a very accomplished you know ultra runner and then he got into a terrible car accident where his like pelvis was shattered and he was like in a wheelchair for a while and he couldn't walk and he's just made a full comeback. He's done a lot of amazing things We've got to get him on the pod.
Aaron Lozier:Oh, absolutely I can try to connect you and I could be saying his last name incorrectly. What's he known for? Well, he did like these two crazy transcontinental Transcons. He's the guy who owns the Transcon record. That would make sense. Or he used to own it. That would make sense. He pushed a scroller across from like the Keys to the Keys. Yeah, I've heard of this guy.
Jon Eisen:I was like is this the same person?
Aaron Lozier:Yeah.
Jon Eisen:Okay, so what's your piece of advice?
Aaron Lozier:sorry, I didn't well, he had just talked about how he had, uh, done so many things to try to like prove people wrong and I definitely had some of that energy at times going into this because 99 of everyone was like super supportive, but I definitely had a few haters and one or two, yeah or so. And you know, yeah, there was this feeling like prove proving this person wrong. But then, um, but, but Pete, pete said you know he learned like a stronger force was proving people right. Proving the people that loved him and cared about him and supported him proving him right.
Miranda Williamson:I love that so much, so you proved us right. Yeah, I proved you guys right.
Aaron Lozier:And then when I texted Paul when this was over and he was like I knew you'd prove me right, and so that felt really good.
Miranda Williamson:So prove people right.
Aaron Lozier:Because then it feels like we all did this together.
Jon Eisen:That's good advice.
Miranda Williamson:It was really good advice.
Jon Eisen:Well, I hope all you listeners at home enjoyed this wonderful episode with Aaron and I hope you go and prove somebody right in the near future and we'll see you next time.