Episode 46: Mason’s Retirement Sucks Tour
Mason went from pro-climbing to no-climbing after a slow descent into the depths of his illness. In 2018, he was diagnosed with ME/CFS—a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition.
Living with invisible illness is a high-density experience. There are no breaks or days off. It’s not like being on a big wall where you could bail or get to the top and have it be over. Mason learned on the proverbial “other side” that in climbing, you could never have the intensity of experiences you could with prolonged circumstances like being sick.
You are deep in the shit, and that comes with a lot of big, often ugly, emotions. Maybe one of the hardest parts of this condition is knowing that remission isn’t guaranteed. Healing from an incurable illness is exactly as unglamorous as it sounds, but Mason’s Come Back Tour proceeds as scheduled.
For the Love of Climbing is presented by Patagonia. Additional support is from deuter USA, Allez Outdoor, and Ocún.
Music is by Chad Crouch. Additional music is licensed by Music Bed.
Photography courtesy of Benjamin Ditto.
This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Because therapy is for everyone.
Catch up on podcast (pod-Kath?) updates and general life things: @inheadlights
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
(KATHY KARLO): This podcast is presented by Patagonia. Not bound by convention, Patagonia’s in business to save our home planet.
- This podcast is sponsored by deuter, one of the leading backpack brands that will help you hit the trails with confidence and comfort, but most importantly–your snacks.
deuter has a history of first ascents and alpine roots. Their head of product development even climbed Everest once, in jeans (hashtag not fake news.) deuter is known for fit, comfort, and ventilation. Founded in 1898, deuter believes in good fitting backpacks, so you can focus on way cooler things like puppies, pocket bacon, and gettin’ sendy, whether at the crag or in the alpine.
(FEMALE VOICE): Today we’re going to talk about “allez”. “Allez” means “come on!” in a way, or to encourage. Ok! We are done with the simple and normal uses of “allez”, now let’s cut to the chase:
(KATHY KARLO): Allez Outdoor Personal Care products are made by climbers for those who love the outdoors. Their rich and repairing ingredients for their skincare collection are inspired by desert landscapes, and their simple and recyclable packaging makes them eco-sustainable. Allez commits to protecting the open spaces that we love by partnering with the Access Fund and 1% for the Planet. That’s Allez Outdoor: “A-L-L-E-Z”). Allez Outdoor—made by climbers, for those who love the outdoors.
- This podcast gets support from Gnarly Nutrition, one of the leading protein supplements that tastes “whey” better than they need to, because they use quality natural ingredients. So, whether you’re a working mom who runs circles around your kids on weekends or an unprofessional climber trying to send that 5.13 in the gym, Gnarly Nutrition has all of your recovery needs.
The only question you need to ask yourself is: Are you a sucker for anything that tastes like chocolate ice cream? (Yeah, me neither.) Gnarly Nutrition is designed to enhance your progress—and taste like a milkshake, without all the crap.
(MALE VOICE): Ocún?
(bell dinging)
(FEMALE VOICE): No.
(MALE VOICE #2): Ocún?
(MALE VOICE #3): Nope.
(MALE VOICE #4): Ocún?
(MALE VOICE #3): Really?
(FEMALE VOICE #2): Ocún?
(NON-GENDERED VOICE): No!
(KK): Who is Ocún? More than prolific crack climbing gloves, Ocún has been making innovative gear engineered for climbing to improve your performance since 1998. Their climbing shoe designs are all original, developed and manufactured in Czech Republic and one hundred percent gender neutral. Beyond their sticky rubber, Ocún is renowned for their hardware, harnesses, and the biggest lightest crash pad on the market. Find your new favorite climbing shoes and accessories at Backcountry, Moosejaw, Camp Saver, and Amazon.
- Every year, I’m amazed at how impactful storytelling can be, and we recognize that it’s a vital step towards cultivating change, growth mindset, and belonging.
I think that humans are instinctively drawn to storytelling too, which makes it a natural medium for making connections. As social beings, we evolved to share knowledge with community in order to increase chances of survival, and inevitably, with the need for communication, we developed language. Today, we utilize this language to share experiences, build engagement, and actively shape more inclusive spaces.
If any of you are a Schitt’s Creek fan, Dan Levy said in an after-series interview: “When someone with opposing beliefs sits down and watches, we’re showing them what life could be like. People feel safe enough to question, ‘Are my beliefs outdated? Am I being told to believe something that isn’t true?
Because I love this character and I want him to succeed, so why am I feeling like he shouldn’t politically or religiously?’ And I think we all just need a safe space to learn because I never learn when I’m being taught a lesson.”
These words have been so profound and life-changing for me personally, and moving forward, it’s less about “teaching the lesson” and more about expanding our knowledge of the world and showing people—from all different sides—how things are, and how they can be.
It’s an open invitation for every person, every gender and background, in our community to rise to the occasion. Because we all have a role to play in racial and gender equity, and in creating a world where everyone, including men, feels safe to use their physical and emotional strength in advocating for more women, Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ communities as much as we do for athletic sport.
The lesson’s already embedded in the story. And sharing it with the world is a labor of love. There’s always someone, right now, who can benefit from where you’ve been, and the more of us who are transparent about our journey—the more open the world can be. And that’s the change.
This is season five’s final episode which may or may not be two months late, but what are deadlines if not social constructs that we build to plan and schedule our lives around? And sometimes, life blows the fuck up and you roll with the chaos and see where it takes you. Stay tuned for more updates and bonus episodes to come. Here’s the show.
(MASON EARLE): Yeah, I have one friend—Jade. She was a hotshot climber back in the eighties and nineties. And when she was my age—like, early thirties—she had a similar sort of thing. It lasted for four years for her being in bed, basically. But she made a full recovery. And so, her story is one that I’ve kinda been clinging to.
I’m like, “I can fucking do it. I can get better.”
(laughs)
Yeah, with most of this, there’s not a lot of readily available hope to cling to. It’s really grim.
With ME/CFS, the symptoms and the sensation—they really aren’t stuff that’s part of the normal human experience. So actually, my closest experience to what ME/CFS was like, before being sick, was the several days after a bad concussion.
And so, anyone who’s had a bad concussion will know that you just feel horrific afterwards. And it’s like being really hungover or something. That’s the closest thing that I can relate it to.
But yeah, it’s been known as chronic fatigue syndrome for many years— which is like, the most bullshit thing to call such a serious condition. And fatigue isn’t even really one of the primary symptoms. It’s like, this full-body dysfunction.
You know, it’d be like if you had cancer and it was like, “Oh, you have Not Feel Good Syndrome. That’s your diagnosis.” You’d be like, “What?”
(laughs)
“What is this bullshit?”
Yeah. So, anyone with ME—we mostly call it ME, which stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis. It sounds a little more dignified.
(KK): ME, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, is a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition. It’s also known as “chronic fatigue syndrome”, although alternative names to describe this condition are used globally. Patient groups have criticized the old name, stating that it trivializes the illness.
It’s a systemic disease associated with neurological, autonomic, and energy metabolism dysfunction. The causes of ME/CFS are still unknown, but many individuals with the disease remain ill after an acute infection with symptoms that persist for six or more months. There is no diagnostic test or FDA-approved treatment for ME/CFS.
According to the CDC, 836,000 to 2.5 million Americans are affected. At least one-quarter of individuals with ME/CFS are bedbound at some point and most never regain pre-disease level of functioning. It can strike people of all ages, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, and is diagnosed two to four times more often in women.
Despite these staggering numbers, there’s controversy within the medical community over the pathophysiology, how it should be diagnosed, and how to treat it. Many professionals still don’t recognize ME/CFS as a genuine condition, as its etiology is still not fully understood.
(ME): Yeah, and that’s like a big insult to injury thing with this condition. You know, not only is it horrible and I mean, on the severe end, people are completely bedbound. Can’t talk. Can’t lift their arms. Can’t eat. You know, what does fatigue have to do with that? How is that a relevant word?
So yeah, there’s a lot of insult to injury. And, you know, you spend your entire illness in bed. You’re never seen. And that’s tough. I was having dinner with a friend the other night and I was kinda just talking about how things are and how I’m still nowhere near being out of the woods. And she just said very simply, “That’s so fucked. That’s so fucked.”
And that was like, the nicest thing anyone could say to me. I’m like, “Yes. Yes, it is. Thank you. It’s fucked.”
(pauses)
And, you know—
(laughs)
—it’s a hard thing to know how to talk to someone about stuff like this. I’m like, “What do you say to somebody who’s so debilitated by adverse life circumstances?” And for me, that knocks it out of the park. Just tell me that sounds fucking awful. That sounds like shit.
I’m like “Thank you. Yes, it is. Thank you.”
(ALEX HONNOLD) (to himself): Ok, I’m Alex Honnold. You’re listening to the love of climbing podcast. It’s a funny, sad, somewhat uncomfortable podcast—
(louder)
I was like, “Wow, this is the opposite of my podcast. But, you know, here we go!”
(laughs)
(upbeat music)
“I’m Alex Honnold and you’re listening to For the Love of Climbing—”
—is it “to the”? Or “to—“ Do you say “to For the Love of Climbing Podcast”?
“I’m Alex Honnold and you’re listening to For the Love of Climbing Podcast.”
Yeah. Yeah, I see it.
“You’re listening to For the Love of Climbing Podcast. This is not a climbing podcast. Well, sorta. It’s a funny, sad, and somewhat uncomfortable podcast about choosing vulnerability. Here’s the show.”
Easy cheesy!
(KK): Hey, a quick heads up. Episode 46 contains brief discussion about suicide.
(ME): There are success stories. But one person will say, “Oh, well—I took turmeric!” or another person will say, “Well, I did this!” or “I did that,”
For the record, I love turmeric.
(laughs)
But yeah, it’s not like a critical mass of stories that share specific treatment. I have been doing a lot better after these two neurosurgeries I had this past year. And early in my illness, mid-2018—I was having a lot of neck pain and I was already pretty severe, at that point.
You know, I couldn’t even look at a phone screen. It was like, opening my eyes was painful for my brain to look at anything. I couldn’t listen to music, couldn’t read a book, no movies—just laying in bed all day. It was horrific.
But I had this neck pain and so, my PT, she said “I think your C1 is out of place.” And so, she told me that I needed to see this chiropractor. So, I went to the chiropractor. She cracks the upper part of my neck.
And within a few hours, I wasn’t sick anymore. It was like a full-blown miracle—the only thing I’ve experienced in life that I can say, “That was a miracle.” And so, I had a three-day remission from my illness.
(KK): What were those three days like for you?
(ME): I mean, it was just—it was unbelievable. It was like being on some really amazing drug. I just felt normal and healthy. And it was like I was alive again.
It was just pure gratitude straight to the main vein. I was doing yard work. I biked down to the climbing gym and hung out with Ally and I was like, “Oh my gosh. I’m gonna be fine. It’s all good. It’s over.”
Little did I know the much deeper levels of horror that were awaiting me, but the takeaway from that—it only lasted three days—but the takeaway was: whatever was going in my upper cervical spine was causing my illness. Because for those three days, it was, in a way, you know—whatever the structural issue was, it was resolved temporarily.
Yeah basically, I went to see the local spine doctors and the other little piece of the puzzle that I learned around that time was that when my head was lifted up in cervical traction, it would have a similar effect instantaneously and my symptoms would improve, sometimes drastically.
And so, I kinda forgot about it because I just didn’t get anywhere with it. And the following year, there were these stories that started emerging of ME/CFS people being treated for cranial cervical instability, which is basically a degeneration of the joint capsule where your skull meets your spine.
And so, these people were having a cranial cervical fusion—getting their heads bolted onto their necks—and there are some remission stories from ME/CFS. And I was reading these, and one of the main parts of the diagnosis was improvement with cervical traction.
I’m like, “Oh my god, that’s me! When my head is lifted up, I feel much, much better.” And so, it’s a small, new corner of neurosurgery and the patients who are having this procedure are pioneers.
So, yeah. I found one of these doctors and had lengthy chats with him and did a lot of my own research—and it seemed like the best option for getting some sort of life back.
(KK): Mason describes ME/CFS as a high-density experience. There are no breaks or days off. There’s no easy way to pass the time, and the best he could do during those years was to manage the condition enough to keep suffering at a minimum. Maybe the hardest part of this condition has been knowing that remission is not guaranteed.
But in 2020, a promising treatment was on the horizon. A neurosurgery on hold due to the pandemic finally took place. Doctors lifted Mason’s skull up, pulled it away from his spine and bolted it into a position of relief. It wasn’t a cure by any means, but it did spark some change.
(ME): It’s been a massive improvement in my quality of life. Yeah, I just had my first night of camping for the first time in over three years. And it’s this amazing mountain range right in the middle of Nevada. My wife Ally—her parents lent us their little teardrop trailer. Yeah, we were giddy. It was really special.
We pull into Lamoille Canyon and get to our campsite. It’s kinda dark and looks like it’s gonna rain, and we get everything all setup. And sure enough, it starts raining for about an hour. And it was just so joyful, hearing the rain on the roof of the trailer and hanging out all comfy.
(sound of rainfall on camper)
I still have symptoms, all day, every day. My brain fog is just—it’s still bad. It’s not horrific, but it’s always present. And so, everything’s kinda filtered through that and moments of real pure joy where I forget about everything are very brief, but I still have them.
Sensory sensitivity is kinda one of the bad ones. Like, my brain just can’t process noise and light. Like, I have to wear glacier glasses any time I leave the house—I’m wearing really dark sunglasses. And what that basically prevents me doing is: I can’t just listen to music. I can listen to a song and it has to be a very deliberate sort of planned out thing. Like, “I’m gonna listen to this song or part of it,” but I can’t just jam out to music all day.
With ME/CFS, the defining characteristic symptom is exertion intolerance. So, doing anything mental exertion, physical exertion, kinda makes all that brain fog and sensitivities and fatigue and weakness and malaise—it all just gets worse. You feel really horrible. So, I still can’t exercise. I haven’t exercised since May of 2018. And so, I mean, that’s fucked up.
(laughs)
How can you be ok without that?
(KK): With increased growth of climbing gyms and accessibility to training facilities, this would be a lot of climbers’ worst nightmare. Not being able to moonboard was only a fraction of the misery and the least of Mason’s problems.
It wasn’t exactly like tearing a pulley and taking a few weeks off—Mason gave up essentially all forms of movement and exercise, all the while medical experts continued to debate probable cause, diagnosis, and treatment.
And this isn’t new—historically, contrasting opinions have been expressed by different research, such as a 1993 Lancet paper that argued that ME/CFS should be classified as a psychiatric condition. A major divide still persists as to whether funding should be directed toward biomedical or psychosomatic research.
There are a number of conditions that fall into the frustrating category of medically unexplained symptoms. But what they all share, to varying degrees, is scientific uncertainty about cause.
(ME): You know, my doctor would be like, “I’m not quite sure. You know, I want you to talk to the psychiatrist.” It’s always being directed in kind of a mental health direction, which I will say emphatically, is a dead end road for people with ME/CFS.
It’s so obviously not an illness that’s driven by psychosomatic process or mental health stuff. It’s just a dead end road and it has been, for many years.
And actually, you go back in history and the names of these diagnoses are always evolving and actually, hundreds of years ago, this was known as “hysteria”. ME/CFS affects, I think, about eighty percent in women. And so, medical misogyny is still a big thing. And you go back in the literature and it’s like, “She was hysteric. That was her thing—“
(laughs)
—She’s just crazy.” And so, we’ve come—I don’t know if a long way from there but—
(inhales)
Yeah, we have a long way to go. And obviously, for me, I know in my heart that I have a structural neurological condition because what better proof can you have than three days of immediate, radical remission after someone cracking my neck back into place?
And it’s likely a lot more complicated in—how did my connective tissue do this? There’s likely genetic components and maybe environmental and there’s a lot we need to learn. So, I know in my heart that that’s—you know.
(laughs)
I’m rambling.
(KK): How often have we been caught in an awkward conversation and our natural instinct is to wriggle out of it by making a sad situation seem less sad?
Privilege and modern amenities (like the ability to scroll the internet from any device) acculturate society to minimize discomfort at its onset. It’s not always a bad thing—as I’ve definitely been one to also utilize Netflix and next-day shipping as a stand-in coping mechanism. Time and a place, right?
But the thing about discomfort is that when used as a signal to hold space for tense, heavy conversations that we don’t really want to have, it can designate a path for knowledge, awareness, and growth—especially in the realm of empathy.
(ME): I think, with my friend saying that—what she did in that moment was she allowed herself to be uncomfortable and be with the fact that it’s really a shitty situation. People don’t wanna be uncomfortable and it’s hard to be uncomfortable.
But that’s all you can do for someone, I think, in that sorta position—is you can kinda just let that truth wash over you. And, you know—
(lightly laughs)
—at this point, I love talking about dark shit. That’s the only conversations I wanna have. I wanna get down, deep to the intense stuff. You know, I wanna feel all that. I can’t really show up and be present for small talk like I used to. For me to get engaged in a conversation, you gotta get into the good shit.
And that’s a big part of coping with my situation is at, you know, many points throughout every day, my head will get to this place where it’s like, “How can I go on? How can I keep doing this?”
And now, I’ve gotten so good at my little dance that I do. And I get to that point and I remember to just kind of let it be and let it go, and get back to whatever day I have and kinda being with my own discomfort.
Early in my illness, I was a fucking wreck. I mean, I was just flailing—arms and legs flailing all the way down to rock bottom. Or you know, somewhere close to rock bottom.
Rock bottom for me was the periods that were completely devoid of any hope. Where I would just kind of lose that “I know I’m gonna be ok—even if it’s years in the future,” or whatever. But the times when I lose that and it’s just completely hopeless, and my symptoms are so severe that I can hardly even think, and really just don’t even wanna exist anymore.
(pauses)
To me, that’s the real kinda the depth of my suffering. When suffering physically, but also knowing that this might not end.
I get triggered when people talk about like, “Oh yeah, we did climb this big wall and we suffered up there!” I’m like, “That’s not suffering! That’s Type 2 fun. It has “fun” in the phrase! It’s fun, damnit!”
(laughs)
It’s like, you could bail or you could get to the top and it’s over. And that’s why climbing, you know, you could never have the intensity of experiences you could with prolonged circumstances like being sick.
I talk shit about climbing now. I’m like, old and washed up and I don’t climb anymore, so.
“Yeah, when I did that, we didn’t need no bolts!”
(both laugh)
I’ve kind of gone away and then, come back and more recently to valuing climbing. You know, it is valuable. And I have my community because of climbing. And I’d be fucked without my community. That’s why I’m alive and why I get up in the morning.
I mean, I’m still a climber! Even if I never climb again, I’ll still feel like a climber.
Yeah, I mean, I got to live all my climbing dreams that I wanted—that I could have ever dreamed. And so, for a climbing career to end where mine did, you know, that was such a small thing to lose, compared to everything else.
Climbing felt very important back then, and I resented that for a while. I’m like, “How could I have taken it so seriously, now that I’m suffering and I know about all these millions of other people suffering with this condition? Like, how could something like climbing have felt so important? It’s so stupid!”
I’ve kinda realized that—yes, it isn’t important like developing a cure for a condition that ruins lives. But it is important, and it’s a nice thing to do. It’s a really nice thing to do, and I think climbers are a really great group of people. As a community, I think we’re pretty damn mindful. And I think that’s something to be proud of.
(KK): Sitting in the shit and these big, often ugly, emotions, and not rushing to fix it or numb it all down takes a lot of courage. And we can read all the books, consult every psychic and guru and mentor or master, but, by and large, what we learn on the proverbial “other side” of things is that these natural catalysts for change are what actually leave more room for healing and discovery.
(ME): Yeah, something I was just thinking about this morning was: I wish for everybody to go a little bit deeper into the human experience and have a little bit more empathy for other people. And I think that’s gonna be crucial for the survival for our species—to care about other people.
This really isn’t a climbing podcast, is it?
(both laugh)
I think you told me that. You’re like, “It’s not really a climbing podcast.”
I’m like, “Alright, that sounds cool.”
(laughs)
Yeah, it’s funny. I do spend a lot of time in thought just trying to sort of craft the best way to explain everything I’ve gone through, and if people could just understand, there’d be a cure for this shit.
(laughs)
(KK): Do you believe that?
(ME): There’s millions of people worldwide that have ME/CFS. You know, it can be fatal. It usually isn’t—only in the most severe cases, but it can be. But even mild ME/CFS, I think, is defined as a fifty percent reduction in your day-to-day abilities and function.
Fifty percent is pretty severe, I think. I think if you, right now, cut in half everything you did. You know, like you could only do half as much as you’re doing, I mean, that’d be devastating. And so, that’s mild ME/CFS.
I’ve been moderate. And then, maybe six months or so in the kind of lower part of severe. And in the community, it’s such a thing saying, “Oh well, gosh. It’d be so much easier to have terminal cancer,” or you talk about HIV.
And when you hear those letters, that acronym, it’s like, “Oh, yeah. That’s a bad one. Cancer.”
(exhales)
“Yeah, that’s a bad one. That kills so many people.”
And when you hear someone say, “Chronic fatigue syndrome!”
You’re like, “What?”
(laughs)
And actually, right now, most people with ME/CFS had a viral trigger—had a virus of some sort. I had mumps—that’s how it started for me.
So, right now, with the Covid pandemic, you’ve probably heard of “long Covid”. So there’s now millions of people who maybe only even had a mild Covid infection, but never get better, and you know, some who are sick like I am now.
And so, that’s shining a lot of light on ME/CFS ‘cause it’s likely related if not kinda the same sort of things going on with these people. And so, I think that Western medicine is being forced to take these things much more seriously, which is really good.
(inhales and exhales)
Yeah, being sick sucks.”
My case isn’t severe enough and it likely won’t become that severe, especially since I’ve already recovered as much as I have from these surgeries. But yeah, the way the happens is basically, your entire body—your organs shut down. And I can still eat, I don’t have feeding [tubes]. Severe ME people will have feeding tubes a lot of times. You know, I’m nowhere near that.
I mean, I think the suicide rates with people with ME/CFS are just like, in the stratosphere. It’s horrific. And I mean, for myself, I could have never imagined that I would ever feel even close to suicidal and that this illness has brought me there on a number of occasions.
(pauses)
Yeah, you know. It’s…
(trails off)
To not want to live anymore, you know, that’s such a painful place to be.
(pauses)
Yeah. It’s awful. For me, I have such incredible support with Ally, and my parents during my more severe years, you know, they were living with us at times.
And the other thing worth mentioning is, you know, as much shit as we talk about social media, it’s really a blessing for people that are homebound and have these invisible illnesses. It’s been a blessing for me.
And, you know, it’s a weak, flimsy connection, but I’ve kinda been able to maintain certain friendships, and I’ve been thankful for that.
(KK): It can take years to diagnose an invisible illness, as far too many folks already know that finding that trifecta in a physician is sort of like finding a needle in a haystack.
If you’re a part of this community, you may have heard of the Spoon Theory, originally coined in 2003 by a woman living with Lupus, Christine Miserandino. This visual theory is a metaphor describing the amount of physical or mental energy that a person has available throughout their day.
Initially used within autoimmune and chronic illness communities, it’s since been more commonly used to describe a wide range of physical disabilities, mental health issues, neurodivergent communities, and forms of marginalization.
So, we all start the day with the same number of spoons, and each task, such as going to work, running an errand, or having coffee with a friend, depletes that inventory.
Most healthy individuals have more spoons than they need to get through any given day. But for those who have a limited number, they have to use them more intentionally because once they’re gone, they’re gone.
That’s the impact of invisible illnesses. There are only so many spoons to spare, and on those days, folks experience a separation of what they want to do from what they can do, in order to prioritize self-compassion and well-being.
(ME): And, I mean, I think that terrible adverse circumstances don’t necessarily make us better people.
(laughs)
I think it has for me, and I think it has a lot to do with my privilege that, you know, everything else in my life is really great. I’m financially secure, I live in a nice house, I’m married to an amazing woman, I have amazing family, amazing friends. I mean, I literally have it all—except the health part.
So, that was really kind of a good place to be able to do a lot of growth—personal growth.
Yeah, for me, I mean, a part of my coping mechanism with this is just being completely honest about every feeling that comes up and, you know, I kinda hate the word “vulnerable” but I guess it’s appropriate.
Learning to be vulnerable, and that way nothing sorta catches you out of—you don’t get a left hook outta nowhere that surprises you.
(KK): We’re gonna take a short break. We’ll be back.
- Patagonia introduces its newest podcast, Patagonia Stories. In each episode, they’ll explore how we gather knowledge and ask questions about our relationship to each other and the natural world.
(FEMALE VOICE): It was like one of those cartoons where the lightbulb goes off. I thought, “Oh, my god! Plants aren’t just takers—they’re also givers!”
(MALE VOICE): Humans have gotten it wrong so many times, you know, why should we assume that we’re getting it right this time?
(MALE VOICE): I was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. I used to look outside and I would see all of the birds lined up in the morning. And that almost kind of became a ritual for me—some kinda way to feel the harmony of nature and the flow.
(NON-BINARY VOICE): Something that’s often thrown around as a cliche in the climbing world is you have the other person’s life in your hands! It’s not really what you’re thinking about most of the time, but you definitely have someone’s well-being in your hands.
(KK): Questions like, how do lessons get passed down through generations? What barriers prevent us from acquiring natural wisdom? And how can we adapt in the face of a rapidly changing climate?
Tune in for a new episode every Thursday—that’s wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll see you there.
Doesn’t this music just scream “quintessential podcast ad?” I love it.
(ME): Yeah, you know, for the most part, I’m still mostly in survival mode and I don’t quite have enough function that I’m really able to just be like, “What do I wanna do?”
There’s no gaps in my day-to-day that I can fill up with stuff quite yet. And, very slowly, as I’ve been recovering this past year, you know, I’m playing more music. I started fucking around on Garage Band again—little things like that that I literally couldn’t do for years.
And I’ve now, in the past seven months that I’ve been able to leave the house more, I’ve actually gone up with Ally and friends to go bouldering—but just hanging out at the boulders and seeing the holds and feeling the rock, and even chalking up. Just like, feeling start holds. I’m like, “God, I miss this!” Climbing is so good—all I wanna do is boulder and explore.
Those were like, my two favorite things in climbing—bouldering and kinda putting that focus to doing a first ascent. But yeah, in terms of other life goals—I mean if I make a full recovery, I think a lot of my energy will go into advocacy work for chronic illness. You know, I joke about starting the Earle Foundation—
(laughs)
—which is me making a joke on the Honnold Foundation. But I think that’s really cool that Alex does that and I think that’s a worthy cause. And I think more people should be doing that with their time and energy and resources and money. I don’t really know what that’s gonna look like, but—
(laughs)
Oh, and actually, I wanna show you this.
(Mason gets up; shuffling)
So, um—
(KK): Did you make this?
(ME): Yeah, in like, the first two months of my illness. I didn’t have any cognitive dysfunction yet. It was just like, I couldn’t exercise. And so, I said, “I’m gonna design a new climbing shoe.”
And so I, from the scratch, made this prototype climbing shoe. And I was going full-steam ahead with this. I’m like, “I’m gonna be a cobbler! I’m gonna start a shoe company.” Honnold’s worn this thing. He’s like, “Yeah, this fits really well. This seems like a good shoe.”
You know, still a little protective of my intellectual property. But yeah, I got way into it. But then, I became too sick to really do anything with it.
A friend of mine in Salt Lake who was involved with designing shoes with Five 10 looked at it and he’s like, “Yeah, you’re not too far off.” I’ve got a tote filled with expensive Italian suede for the climbing shoe leather.
(KK): It’s really stiff.
(ME): Yes.
(KK): It’s like a TC Pro, Moccasym almost?
(ME): You couldn’t have said it better. It’s the love child of a TC Pro and a Mocc!
(laughs)
(KK): This is amazing!
(both laughing)
(ME): Hopefully, that doesn’t give away too much. Like, I haven’t ever posted a picture of this ‘cause I’m like…
(fades)
(KK): Mason has his good days, and bad ones. And on the better days, he fills that time with tinkering away, indulging in his affection for loose-leaf tea and aromatic incense, reading more frequently, and small bursts of music making.
(This is Mason playing, by the way.)
Mason has endured these last five years living with ME/CFS, both grateful for his memories and grieving the loss of his once-abled body. He’s also been feeling a lot better, though still debilitated by his condition. Thanks to his surgery, Mason’s symptoms have become much less severe.
(sound of water boiling in kettle)
(ME): I despise coffee. It’s complicated. I love coffee. I love the taste of it, but it’s always made me feel like shit. I’ve never tolerated it—but I would drink a lot of it because I was like, “Well, I guess this is how you’re supposed to feel.”
But I would love drinking it ‘cause tastes so good. And when people talk about how good coffee makes them feel, you know, it’s something that I’ve never had access to and certainly now—I can’t do any caffeine.
And so, I’m really bitter about it because it’s something I’m not a part of. So, I’m really bitter about coffee. I’m like, “Fuckin’ coffee and people—getting up in the morning and drinking something that makes them feel good, damnit!”
I’m sure you know Matt Segal and he’s a good friend and he has his coffee company, Alpine Start. And I follow them on Instagram because he’s my buddy. But they’ll be like, “How are you drinking your coffee this morning?”
I’m like, “Fuck you! I’m not drinking any goddamn coffee, damnit!”
(laughs)
No, I was a hundred percent a weed person before I got sick. But then, as soon as I was sick, I stopped tolerating it and it also made me feel horrible. And so, I pretty much quit cold turkey.
(KK): Do you miss it?
(ME): Fuck yeah!
(laughs)
I mean, I did a funny thing. I was sitting out on my porch the other night and I was kinda feeling ok and enjoying being out there. And like—man, healthy Mason would have rolled up a little doobie right now and sparked it up.
And I pantomimed, just sitting there by myself, pantomimed rolling a joint and lighting it up. And I was like, “Actually, that sort of meditative process was a lot of what I enjoyed about it.” I just thought that was kind of a funny moment.
(KK): (laughs)
(ME): Yeah, I took a big drag!
(inhales)
Like, yeah. It’s all good. It’s all gonna be ok.
(both laugh)
But no, I don’t get FOMO. I think that I’m too far—I’ve overshot that sort of place. Like, if I was healthy and all I couldn’t do was climb. But, what I miss is feeling good. That’s what I miss—is feeling good and alive. Just the ability to go walk outside and say, “I’m gonna walk down to the river. It’s a mile away. I’m gonna walk down there and it’s gonna be amazing,”
Or ride my bike or just socialize more. You know, do something on a whim. Say, “Oh, I’m gonna go out here and spend a night and go explore this area for new climbs.” That was like, my favorite thing to do—was exploring, try to find that new crack. That I just loved exploring and turning the corner and seeing new rocks.
(laughs)
I loved that. But yeah, I don’t really have FOMO because I couldn’t do that right now. My symptoms are too bad [and I can’t exert myself.] Yeah, I definitely remember experiencing FOMO as a healthy person. But actually, when I think back on amazing days that I had, um—
(pauses)
Yeah, I had a thought. What was I gonna try to say? We’re starting to get into brain disintegration mode.
Oh, yeah! I saw a picture of some people hanging out in Squamish, and I was thinking about climbing in Squamish. And climbing in Squamish in the summer, I think, was probably some of just the most carefree, fun times I’ve ever had.
And when I think back, it was like, hanging out in the campground, going into town, going to the lake, rest days. Like, oh yeah. I mean, I guess I climbed Cobra Crack that one time. But that’s not even top ten days of climbing in Squamish.
Riding around on—
(laughs)
—with Will Stanhope on his little moped. Just that shit. That was great.
There was one moment of FOMO in my illness that’s sort of poignant, I think. This all started in Yosemite. Nik Berry and I were climbing on Leaning Tower and we had an amazing day of climbing. We both sent the 13d crux pitch on Leaning Tower.
By the time I got back down to my car—it was sort of a slow descent, but I was sick. And I sorta hung around the Valley for a few days and wasn’t getting better—at all. And so, I remember I finally got in my van and I left.
And as I was pulling past El Cap Meadow, I remember seeing all my friends were there, right then. And just pulling out and being like, “Damn. I wanna hang out with my friends right now. I wanna be hanging out in the Meadow with everybody, and here I am having to bail because I’m sick. This is awful.”
This is actually kinda making me emotional thinking about that. Back then, it was like, that was the moment that I kinda left that world. That was it. Yeah.
(inhales)
Climbing was in the rearview mirror from there on out.
And, you know, I think I should probably mention that probably part of the reason that I’m ok with not climbing is that I did get to live all my climbing dreams. You know, I got to establish the craziest crack climb I’ve ever seen in the Utah desert. I got to do a new free route on El Cap with Brad and go on cool trips to Venezuela, the Yukon, French Polynesia.
I went to Patagonia a couple times. I got to do all that. And, you know, if this had started when I was younger—
(pauses)
I think it’d be much different to not have gotten to live all those dreams.
Ah, I guess if I could solve this illness and literally find a cure, which is something that I put a little bit of energy into—is like, trying to figure out, you know, at least my own situation—obviously, ‘cause I wanna get better.
That’s my goal—is to cure a disease that has ruined the lives of millions of people. And it’s like, well, the medical community has failed to do this in a hundred years of research. So, that’s lofty.
But you know what? I looked up at El Cap and I said, “No one’s climbed up that way, and I’m gonna climb up that way.” And I did it.
(gear clanking)
(Mason breathing)
(MALE VOICE): Come on. Come on, Mason. Good! Come on.
Come on, Mason—come on! Come on! Come on!
(wind blowing)
(RECORDING OF MASON): Oh, Jesus. Oh, shit.
Oh, christ in heaven. What am I doing?
(FEMALE VOICE): Nice job.
(ME): That was rough.
(heavy wind blowing)
(Mason shouting joyfully)
(ME): That was fucking rad!
(laughs)
(wind blowing)
(ME): Ok, so we’re at the Washoe Boulders and I’m kinda feeling inspired. So, I think I’m gonna try to do this climb. It’s by far the most extreme thing that I’ve attempted in the past few years, so I don’t know if I’m gonna get to the top. But here goes nothing. Come back tour starts now.
(KK): You’re listening to For the Love of Climbing Podcast. A huge thank you to deuter, one of the leading backpack brands that will help you hit the trails with confidence and comfort. And a big thank you to Gnarly Nutrition for supporting this podcast and the messages that we share. Gnarly Nutrition supports a community of vulnerability and equality—and tastes like a milkshake, without all the crap. A big shout out to Allez Outdoor for supporting the Access Fund and 1% for the Planet. And to Ocún—innovative gear engineered for climbing to improve your performance.
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