A lot of thrill-seekers have trouble getting their partner to understand
their desires and what makes them want to participate in risky activities.
But my guests today,
Kris and Jess, don't have this problem.
As a pair of thrill-seekers,
they are each other's most trustworthy companion as they
pursue their mutual love for outdoor adventure and rock climbing.
Listen in as we chat about why they loved rock climbing together,
how it enriches their relationship,
and what advice they have for other thrill-seeking couples.
This call is being recorded.
Hey, how are you?
Good. How are you?
I'm great, great.
Is Jess there, too?
Yes, I am on here as well.
I'm glad you're both here. Thank you so much.
I've been interviewing lots of different people
that do lots of different kinds of things.
And, one of the areas that I'm curious about is
how sort of adventure-seeking kinds of relationships,
and how they may be different,
and how the kinds of things that you do
enhance the relationship or add a new sort of layer to it,
or how it even affects your relationship.
And so, I was looking at your website, Kris,
and I saw that you had almost a little hidden section about outdoor shenanigans.
Yeah.
And, I thought, maybe you both could tell me a little bit about
some of the outdoor shenanigans that you participate in?
Kris, do you want to start?
Sure. So, Jess and I we've been married for over 10 years.
And we've been rock climbing together since before then.
And so, we've done like long,
alpine, multi-pitch type climbing.
We've done a lot of sport climbing,
which is sort of hard.
We've been climbing partners like harder mode.
They're usually single pitches.
We did a lot of bouldering together and were taking trips.
And what's the difference between the bouldering and sport climbing?
What's the difference between those?
So, sport climbing, there are expansion bulk.
The people are put in a cliff until you connect what's called,
a quick-draw to carabiners with some webbing in between them,
and so you connect that to the bolt and then pull your rope through there.
So if you fall, the extension bolt catches you.
And so, you're probably going 100 feet, perhaps.
I was bouldering there.
You're not using ropes,
you're climbing maybe as big as
house-size boulders and you have some pads underneath you to help soften the fall.
Oh, okay. And have you fallen before?
Have you ever fallen before?
There are lot's of falling.
Lots of falling involved.
And so, Jess, how does it feel when you see Kris doing this kind of thing?
Is it frightening to you?
Or if you see him fall,
or are you frightened that he might see you fall?
Is that something that you think about?
Well, everything within climbing is just a calculated risk.
Right.
So, I mean, you can do the safest form of climbing.
You can do it in a stupid way and hurt yourself.
So, everything that we do,
there's always that thought which actually keeps you safe, the what-if.
But typically, this is not like overwhelmingly scared for him or for myself.
I don't really know.
We haven't actually talked about like how he feels when
I'm climbing and what I feel when he is.
But yeah, I mean, it's usually on average,
I'm always like a little bit nervous, like "Oh,
I hopefully set everything up well."
But, I trust in his ability to look at the risk and my ability to look at the risk.
And we sometimes make decisions to not do something based on a lot of different factors.
But for the most part, like during activities,
I'm not really worried about him,
not to like it debilitating point.
I don't know if that makes sense or not.
No, no, it does.
Go ahead.
Oh, I was going to say, what about you Kris?
Does that pop in your head?
I mean, a lot of the thrill-seekers I've talked to said they
don't actually feel fear very much in general.
And I'm wondering whether or not, not for themselves.
Is that something that you feel for yourself or even for Jess?
Or is it just sort of not something that is part of the equation?
It's definitely part of the equation.
But I would say,
I mean, Jess is more
Careful.
That Jess is more cautious or careful than I am.
My level of comfort with
something is usually higher than her level of comfort for something.
So, I'm as good
because all around it's good because you sort of keep each other in check.
So, I'm not worried when she's climbing.
I'm generally not worried for her because I know that she isn't going
to push it to a point where it's dangerous for her.
But like Jess said,
there's always variables you can't control that are in the back of your head, for sure.
We have been in situations like where
something kind of went wrong when we were out and we
we've had a couple of efficient ways in where I was like, "Oh, crap!"
I really hope accidents don't happen because if it does,
we are going to be seriously injured.
And like in those couple of times when that happened,
I was not really worried about myself.
I was like, "Oh, please,
don't let my husband fall because it would be a really big problem."
But I mean, what did you say, Kris?
That happened only like once in a really,
really potentially bad, bad way.
Yes, it's happened a couple of times.
Usually, we calculate our risks beforehand,
so we feel like we are well within our limits most of the time.
But the couple times it did happen,
I was terrified for him,
not really for myself.
I would say that in those situations,
my mind turned differently than Jess's does a little bit.
But my mind turned immediately into a proble-solving,
even whether I'm in a situation where it's sketchy or we're in that situation,
my mind sort of pushes that fear away and says,
"How do I solve this problem?"
And the way that sort of my brain operates I guess.
Yeah.
The usual I've know a lot of the thrill seekers say that it's almost like
their body knows what to do and they're just trying to figure out what the next step is.
Now, a lot of the people,
I know a lot of couples that play cards together,
do board games, and really sort of low risk kinds of things.
How do you think that the climbing,
the fact that it's adventurous,
the fact that there's lots of stimulation going on there.
Do you think it adds to your relationship in a way?
I think it does.
It's definitely, some of our most heated fights is probably surrounded to,
because you're just really,
anytime your emotions are severely hiking.
If we're trying to make a decision on
whether something is safe or not and we should
continue or whether we should not continue,
sometimes it's an argument or a discussion like anybody else has.
But I think our climbing is probably added a different dynamic because we like really,
really, really, really, have to trust each other.
Yeah.
Even if we're in a situation and I say,
"Kris, I don't think this is safe.
I'm not exactly comfortable with it."
He says, "It is.
We need to do this to get out of here."
And then I have to say okay.
And I have to turn my brain off and just trust that yes,
he did make a good decision and go from there.
Well, I've never thought about that, there's really cute things there.
One of them is you're in the middle of this sort of
intense experience where the decisions are really
important and probably have lots of heated conversations then.
And it probably makes conversations about the dishwasher less intense in some ways.
Or does it make it more intense?
I don't know.
I don't know about that.
No. So always the dishwasher.
Who knows?
I think the climbing off though,
I agree with anything that Jess has said,
the fact that we share those type of experiences is
enriches our relationship in that we're
experiencing more things that we're passionate about together too.
Yes.
So, and we play board games together too and our.
That never goes well.
Yeah, it doesn't go well because we're both competitive.
But for us like I'm not passionate about board game,
but I'm passionate about the outdoors and passionate
about climbing and being in the mountain and stuff.
And so that we can share that,
I think enriches our relationship and that we share more.
Have more shared experiences and interests.
Some of the climbing experiences,
I feel like our climbing experience and our experiences outside are
sometimes even made fuller because we get to experience it with each other.
Because we have a level of trust outside of
our activities that most people who just have
a random climbing partner, don't really have.
I think the relationship enriches the climbing experience and vice versa.
Yeah, because it is an enduring sense of that trust.
And I know that a lot of couples will say that we trust each other.
But no one ever asked them,
well how do you know that?
Well, prove it.
Well, you are in an experience where you can say that you've seen that trust.
So something must come from that, right?
There is something that must endure from that experience where you
need to trust each other or you need to coax each other through something.
That must really enhance the relationship.
I hadn't even thought about that.
Yeah.
Yeah. Climbing, being kind of burners a little more intense than a trust ball.
Yeah, there's no pillow.
What about your friends and your family?
Are your family also sort of adventure seekers as well?
No, what do you say Kris?
Not really. I think my dad was a bit back in the day.
But he had kids pretty early and so he powered attribute that to him.
Becoming more responsible.
Quote unquote responsible and not doing many crazy things.
So what do they say about your activities that you do?
I don't think your parents understand it.
My dad thinks it's really awesome,
but I don't think he understands it, really.
Yeah, I would say they're supportive of us,
but both my parents and Jess's parents.
But perhaps my parents in the same way that you
just accept your crazy aunt or uncle for who they are.
They just accept that we're going to climb and that's not going to change.
I know. I told someone once that most parents want their kids to have really,
really, dull lives that they're very happy with.
Yeah.
I think my dad has a,
he definitely has an adventurous side to him.
He doesn't do the real sports or anything like that.
But he really likes getting out of his comfort zone.
And I don't know,
I think he likes the fact that we climb together.
And he just always, whenever we
put something on Facebook or something he's like, "That's so cool.
I'm glad you guys get to do that together."
I think he's pretty supportive.
So yes, we definitely,
neither one of us inherited any of our activities or anything from our parents.
So do you think on the other side of that,
do you think having kids would change those activities that you did together?
Yes. Don't you think Kris some of the Alpine climbing, I don't.
Yeah, we've talked about it actually.
Yeah.
I think the instances we're in like Alpine climbing where you're
both in a situation that if something went really wrong, those people would.
Die.
This is what people would dive in.
We've talked about perhaps not hearing that so much or perhaps even at all.
Yeah.
Given that we would leave any kid we had childless.
But as far as the actual climbing lifestyle,
no, I mean I don't think it's going to change.
No, we just we just put them in
a baby carrier and strap them to a tree. We talked about this, right?
Exactly.
And they'd probably love it. They'd probably love it.
Yeah.
Yeah, we definitely, again,
there's a safety factor and all the planning.
But definitely, some of the climbing that we've done,
some together and Kris has done more of them than I usually feel comfortable with.
There's just, I don't know,
too much potential for something to go wrong.
Like a storm comes up and you get struck by lightning because you're stranded,
that kind of stuff. I don't know.
I think early in our relationship,
that kind of stuff would be easier for me and I don't know,
maybe the further we get in our relationship,
some of the risks doesn't seem to outweigh all of the benefit.
I think adding kids into that definitely slides the button of what's okay or not.
Kind of slides a little bit farther,
it doesn't slide all the way.