I’m Joe and I’m a climber I’m here to
explain no go back to the Lion King I’m
gonna give this a minute it’s sort of
like my pictures I’m here to explain why
I and many of my friends aren’t crazy
why what I do is not abnormal my entire
life people have treated me like yeah
that’s sort of okay you’re weird I’ve
been involved in sports that many people
consider extreme I really just like that
term I’d call them adventurous at best
I’ve climbed rock I’ve climbed ice I’ve
climbed in Himalayas I’ve climbed on
overhanging rock in the Bondi agar
escarpment of West Africa I climbed
that’s what I do I’ve been a
professional guide for 40 years
okay gonna back up I’m a conquistador of
a useless but I’m here to tell you why
I’m normal I started climbing in 1969
and I climbed with a group of friends
one of which when I was 19 years old I
met and we went climbing in a place
called smugglers notch Vermont long
narrow icicle is we went to do a climb
that was about 500 feet of mixed snow
and ice we would belay our way up one of
us would climb up placing pieces of
protection anchoring systems along the
way for one hundred hundred and
twenty-five feet manipulate the rope for
the next person up they would come up
we’d get together one of us had lead the
next section eventually we got to the
top of the climb I led the last vertical
ice section which was quite exciting for
me when I got to the top I went over to
one side of the gully there was a rock
wall I put some Pitons in Pitons or this
is old school where chrome moly alloy
steel spikes that we’d stick into the
rock pound into the rock and then I’d
anchor myself to it with the rope that
was attached to me clip it in and I’d
manipulate the rope my partner he came
up to me and now above us who was two or
three hundred feet of load moderate
angle snow well we were we were hot
shoes through her good climbers so we
decided we just climbed this last
section without having to blame other I
took the equipment out of the wall we
started to climb up two or three steps
into it all of a sudden I had this very
uncomfortable feeling to this very day I
can close my eyes right now and I can
see the diagonal and fracture line like
lightning shooting left to right
diagonally up in watching in being aware
of my rate of acceleration how what I
was in was moving down and the first
four inches took longer than the next
four inches and I was actually aware of
that and then I was under the snow
I took my ice axe which is also called a
PLA pio le t pluralized with an S for
anybody who plays Scrabble it’s in the
Scrabble word dictionary my wife says
that’s cheating but it’s a scrabble word
dictionary and you take that and you put
it diagonally across your chest and you
press it into the snow underneath to
stop yourself it’s called self arrest if
you have to think about it it’s not
going to work it has to be instinctual
it has to be practiced eventually I came
to a stop by decelerated in the snow
that was and I was enveloped in shed off
me I looked to my left I didn’t see my
partner I hadn’t really thought about
the fact that if in fact he had been
pulled down off the rest of the climb I
would know soon enough the tug on the
Rope pulling me over the climb would be
enough he was I looked to my right and
he was about ten feet from where the
climb dropped off vertically
he was pretty badly hurt it was a bit of
an epic to get him up and it was a long
complicated descent to get him to the
hospital but we did it we had to move
fast
we had moved cautiously my slides
actually are sort of illustrate sort of
my climbing career to some degree
they’re not specifically based on the
parts of the story I’m talking about but
sitting in the hospital in the emergency
room it wasn’t fear that was
overwhelming affect me at that point it
was what had I done how had I gotten
myself into the situation I had realised
enough that the snow was unstable but
how did I even get myself into that
position where I was standing in
unstable snow without being properly
attached so that’s more what I was
thinking about I have to go back to
three years earlier this same friend of
mine who take me climbing think
carefully about your friends asked me to
go rock climbing when I was 16 years old
and having never done it of course if
you’re 16 years old you say yes I can’t
explain the level of terror
I felt a hundred feet up a 900 foot
cliff I swore if I ever get out of here
alive I’ll never do this again I will
never I’ll never climb again
I’ll never drink I’ll never smoke I’ll
become a priest I won’t have sex I’ll do
anything if I just get out of here alive
after a couple hundred feet of climbing
we pretty much had used up all of our
skills and we decided we have to rappel
back down and when I got back down to
the ground fear wasn’t the first emotion
I felt it was exhilaration which is pure
exhilaration so of course I went back
and was gonna do it again now I assumed
he knew what he was doing and I can tell
you as a guide for last month I
celebrated 40 years as a professional
climbing guide I’ve never had anybody
more afraid of heights and I was that
first day that’s why I sort of works
very well for me being a guide because I
can empathize I understand the fear I
also and this is a note to anybody who
has a friend who’s a great climber who’s
gonna take them climbing look into their
credentials a little bit my friend he
was a good climber
so of course I was going to be safe in
retrospect many of the things we did
were wholly unsafe and the fact that we
get out of there was fairly remarkable
now what’s the difference if I was at
home today I live in Conway New
Hampshire I would gladly go off and
climb one of the cliffs in my local area
either one that’s 500 and 900 feet high
and I’d climb without a rope without a
second thought my wife often encourages
me to go out and just just go sole or
something it could be something else
there but I’m not sure well the
difference is my path of Education in
high school I was your classic A or F
student if I was engaged in a class I
got a is school is very very easy for me
if I wasn’t engaged
I got apps they kept telling me all you
have such potential why don’t you try
harder so being being me in my junior
year
I decided to live up to my potential I
walked into the principal’s office and I
said see ya I had heard about another
school I had heard about a school that
had been founded a couple of years
earlier in Watertown Massachusetts it
was called the warehouse cooperative
school it was a free school based on the
work partially of the Summer Hill School
but it was a school it was a school that
encouraged in required an immense amount
of personal control in personal
motivation the school was well first of
all I should say that my parents were
Italian immigrants and me leaving a
somewhat well-known high school to go to
a weird alternative school really was
way outside the norm for them they were
not going to be involved in this I had
to get a job and work nights weekends
all summer long to pay my own tuition to
get into the school I had to show that I
had the self motivation to be able to
survive in the school to thrive in the
school and because I was paying my own
tuition I was my own parent listed in
the school not that my parents weren’t
loving caring people but this was way
outside the norm for them if the school
older students weren’t required to do
anything you’ve had to be self-motivated
you weren’t graded you had to be
comfortable with your own level of
satisfaction of what you were
accomplishing in the school teachers
would advertise their classes and we
would have to go and look at the
different classes talk to the teachers
and then select what courses we wanted
and this was a hundred kids K through 12
if there wasn’t a class that interested
you you could then go through our log of
volunteer teachers and you could then
pick a professor interview people I took
a philosophy class that way
so in this class I was also lucky enough
to be involved in a evening class that
involved graduate students from Harvard
it was educational analysis and it was
there that I learned about a theory
called upon origin theory which was
expounded upon by Richard – arms from
Saint Louis University in this he states
that we are all born as origins we
control everything that happens to us as
a child you cry if you want food but as
life goes on you were pushed towards the
pond side where life wants you to
conform it wants you to continue the
path other people think you should you
should be subscribing to Knowles
Daugherty who is now dr. Doherty the
founder of the school when I talked to
him last week for the first time in 40
years said well you know when you came
into the school you already had a full
head of steam which I did but I have to
say if it wasn’t for the nurturing for
the positive reinforcement of what the
school gave me a traditional school
would have continued to try to push me
back to make me normal or their
definition of normal I wouldn’t have got
to travel the places I have around the
world and do some of the things I’ve
done because I have this attitude that I
can do whatever I want
upon graduation from the warehouse
school I went into full time climbing
mode I climbed I trained I read I
studied at one point because I felt I
was incredibly strong and I felt that
was detrimental I took three years of
modern dance to improve my weight
transfers over my feet to allow me to
move more smoothly on the rock it was
never really pretty but it really helped
out it was that type of attitude that I
isolated what I
to accomplish and I moved in that
direction debt has allowed me to travel
around the world and do the things I
love to do in my early 20s I was also
offered a job to be a professional
climbing guide to offer to be a job
which I never really knew if it would be
if I could share my passion in my
profession a couple of years into it I
realized this really works for me and
I’ve spent the last 40 years working to
improve my guiding skills along with my
climbing skills they’re very different
climbing and guiding are very different
types of jobs but both of them fulfilled
the needs of my personal life I picked
up other interests in my life other than
climbing mountaineering ice climbing all
types of climbing I flew paragliders
competitively for a number of years and
I approached it the same way I
approached climbing it wasn’t a matter
of fear you know this is exciting I
looked at it I studied aerodynamics
I studied weather I studied anything I
could that had to do with aviation and
then got very involved in flying
competitively we would fly courses
during competitions that were anywhere
from 10 to 100 miles long where we have
to launch our paragliders catch thermals
ride the thermals up jump over to the
next one we’d be flying for hours at a
time I also am part of a technical
rescue squad that does above treeline
rescue work mostly in northern New
Hampshire up in the White Mountains but
it’s that same type of we’re we are
given a responsibility we are given a
this is where somebody is you need to
try to get to them and it’s the same
sort of I can do this I hear the skills
I need a lot of my close personal
friends
who are climbers and also professionals
not everybody has taken the path I have
because that’s a path I took I decided
to be a professional climbing guide and
that’s how I’d make my living but I have
many friends who have are just as
serious a climber but also have other
professions but also my close personal
friends all have the same attributes of
control of their own destiny I don’t
know where I’d be today if I hadn’t gone
to this school that empowered me that
gave me the ability to say there is no
norm I need to subscribe to I can make
the decision about what is normal and
what isn’t normal for me so I can tell
you that being in control of my own
destiny has allowed me a path that I
really have nothing but thanks for the
teachers in the environment that said to
me hey whatever you want can be yours as
proof to the fact that which I said here
at the beginning that I’m normal I have
this proof which is out of the new world
dictionary obviously this is a real
picture of the word normal and it is a
picture of me I took this out of the
book it’s all too easy to let life carry
along to let others determine what you
should be in to define the definition of
success and happiness it’s up to you to
make those decisions thank you very much
[Applause] [Music]