The Grey NATO - Ep 85 - A Chat With Cory Richards

Published on Thu, 18 Jul 2019 06:00:04 -0400

Synopsis

In this podcast episode, Corey Richards, a photographer and adventurer, is interviewed about his career, his approach to exploring and climbing, and his recent endeavors on Mount Everest. He discusses his passion for adventure and discovery, his philosophy on risk and failure, and the design process behind a custom watch he collaborated on with Vacheron Constantin for his Everest expedition. The conversation touches on topics like finding fulfillment in challenging environments, balancing risk with safety, and the importance of authenticity in partnerships and creative pursuits.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 85 and it's a special presentation of a chat between myself and photographer-adventurer Corey Richards. Corey recently became an ambassador for Vacheron Constantin and they were kind enough to connect us for a chat while he was in NYC promoting his recent and daring bid on Everest, while highlighting a very cool prototype titanium overseas dual time, which you can see in the show notes along with a bunch of other stuff. One note before we jump into this chat, this episode does feature a bit of bad language. While Jason and I are always ready to avoid swearing in our one-on-one chats, for these sorts of interviews I hate the idea of bleeping anything and I always want the guests to speak in their own voice. It's not frequent or offensive, but we know that many of you listen with your children, so I thought it worth a quick heads up. From the entire TGN family, a huge thank you to both Corey and Vacheron Constantin for making this happen. Without further delay, here's the tape. I hope you love it. All right, Corey, thanks so much for being on the show. This is awesome.
Corey Richards Yeah, no, I really appreciate it. And it's fun to... These are kind of my favorites. Podcasts are... They're so different than TV or You know, they're just fun. I think so. You kind of just bullshit a little bit.
Unknown I like that. I like that angle of it. The other thing that I find that I really dig into podcast is I like conversations, but if I'm honest, I really don't always like being involved in them.
Corey Richards Right. Come on now.
Unknown I'm good at it, though. I like I like chatting, but like I'm sure we'll discover over the course of this chat. But, you know, people are introverts or extroverts. And when I'm out of energy, I still like to have the intellectual right side of listening to a fun conversation. So I hope that's what we can kind of build here. I think, um, we've, we've spoken about your work previously on the show, uh, as both Jason, my normal co-host and myself are big fans of your Instagram and your photography and such. Um, but for anyone who maybe have missed those episodes or don't remember the name specifically Corey Richards, I'm sure I've already precluded this interview with some sort of my introduction of you, but how do you introduce yourself to people?
Corey Richards Well, it's funny. I, you know, it depends. Uh, it's a really good question. I'm always awkward introducing myself because it really, you know, we throw out these identifiers. And, and it's hard. Um, you know, I, at one time I probably would have introduced myself. I'm a climber. Uh, at other times I'd still do introduce myself as a photographer. I rarely use the term explorer. Um, but the funny thing is that that's, those are the terms that get used, but quite honestly, usually I just say, my name's Corey and, uh, I work a lot for national geographic magazine. Um, I've spent a lot of time climbing around the world and in the Himalaya. Uh, and I've done a certain amount of, um, uh, work that has spanned beyond certainly the, uh, the adventure and exploration genre. Um, I've tried to expand, so.
Unknown Certainly, you know, we, we were, thank you to Vacheron Constantin. We, we, we had this lovely opportunity to listen to you speak for quite, quite some time this morning. Uh, you know, when you sit down at these things, at a press thing, sometimes you think like, oh, we'll get 10 minutes to hear you talk about one or two pictures that you really like, but that's not what it was. It was this very like introspective, thoughtful, kind of thought provoking for me look at not only your sort of origin story and the sort of framework that brought you to where you are now, but also like this consideration of things like failure and improvement and reduction and minimalism and at some level the concept of perfection. These are things that I'm obsessed with. Yeah. And I absolutely love the talk.
Corey Richards Yeah. Thank you very much.
Unknown For our purposes, I think it'd be most fun to talk about how you got started in this career. We get a lot of people who write in who maybe they're really great climbers, but they've never touched a camera. Maybe they love their camera and they like reading John Krakauer books, but they haven't made the connection to actually go into the mountains and do something. Right. How did you bring those disparate things together and move forward holding them all in one?
Corey Richards So combining photography, combining that with alpinism or adventure, to use the term loosely or broadly, I think, really came about because there was no other way for me to vocalize the experience that I was having, right? And I know that vocalize is not exactly the right word, but celebrating the experience of alpinism, celebrating the experience of actually pushing myself felt like a valuable story to tell, not because it was me, but because I think it celebrates certain universal truths about humankind. And so the combination of the two came pretty instinctually in that I was always driven creatively. I was driven as sort of an artistic kid. I wanted to create things, whether it was art or writing or crafts for that matter. I just wanted to make stuff. And as climbing took a larger and larger role in my life, I felt as though There was a story that needed to be told and photography was more of an instant way or a more immediate way to tell that story effectively. And I know that sounds a little self-indulgent, like why does it matter to tell the story of climbing a mountain? And really it's not the story of climbing the mountain, it's the story around that process, you know. Did that answer your question?
Unknown Absolutely. My follow up would be, what's the first love? Travel, mountains, cameras? Is it movement? Is it going somewhere?
Corey Richards I think it's the idea of discovery and curiosity. That moves me. That drives me. That excites me. I love the concept of reigniting a youthful sense of curiosity in everybody. And if that is what photography or exploration can accomplish in the way that we, you know, through imagery or really, I mean, through any form of storytelling, if we can reignite the curiosity in people, that generates a sense of discovery and that discovery more often than not generates a sense of compassion, oneness, and sort of a respect for our environment and one another. So there is no one first love. The one first love is of really this kind of human experience. It's messy. It's weird. It's non-linear. And I think the more we celebrate how non-binary it is and how fluid it all is, I think the more we can extend ourselves to one another and hopefully build bridges. I know that sounds a little kumbaya, but at the same time, that's just me.
Unknown I mean, if that's the philosophy that you bring to the way that you move through your work and the places you go, then if it's truthful, it's truthful, right?
Corey Richards So I mean, that's one thing that I've really tried. I hate the overuse and really the abuse of the word authenticity, um, in our current environment. But at any, at any juncture, uh, the success of, of whether we're telling our own story, telling the story of a brand, telling the story of really anything. It comes down to how authentically we can do it. And honestly, that's why I do what I do is because I think humans are beautiful and I think we're worth working towards.
Unknown Right. When you approach a task or something like this, is there a moment in your past, whether it be in your creative past or just simply in your past as a person, that you kind of anchor on that allows you to pivot towards these grand photos that are in some way surrounding us here.
Corey Richards You know, there isn't one moment, there's no one thing that happened that I anchor to. There's an underlying, my own underlying sense of curiosity and awe that is pervasive in In my day-to-day life, and I think I anchor to that which is is this you know again? It's when it's messy, and it's complex, and I think The more we can get in the weeds with one another the more we can we can celebrate sort of Shared perspective a shared perspective. That's a good way. That's a really great way to put it We can always find something that we can come back to together and share right It's really not that hard to search for. It's not that hard to find once we dedicate ourselves to it. But I think right now we are so siloed in our own sort of, again, binary ways of thinking that we've lost sight of how much we actually share.
Unknown Right.
Corey Richards Which is far more than makes us different.
Unknown I mean, yeah, I would entirely agree. If you consider kind of your standing now, you know, a very successful photographer, a working adventurer, we'll say, Um, and then of course we saw a fantastic history with this, not just mountains, it's, uh, it's Burma, it's jungles, it's all far, far flung places in the world. Do you think that you possess a character trait, even one that you might consider a flaw or a plus or minus, just a character trait that makes you specifically good at this? Cause this isn't a job where there's a lot of other, you don't have a lot of peers in this work. Like there's other people that do it. If you flip through a magazine, the right magazines, you would find your buddies in there, but it's not like, the same as selling insurance or serving coffee or other perfectly fine walks of life. Yeah. Do you think there's something that bent you in this direction? Is it tenacity?
Corey Richards Well, I think tenacity. I think initially, if I'm being honest, there was a desire to prove people wrong about my value. I wanted people to understand that I wasn't... That you could do it. That I was valued. You know, and like coming out of that sort of adolescence where you are consistently told that you're a problem and that you're messed up and you're, I mean, excuse my language, you're fucked up and you're, and you're wrong. And you're, I wanted to scream loudly, uh, that, you know, that, that that was just not true. That was not factual. Um, and I had value and there's a, there's an interesting flip that happens a lot of times with people that suffer early childhood trauma, and that's they choose to be inhuman or superhuman. And I went both roads, you know, and I chose the inhuman road, and I lived that life for a long time. And then I chose the superhuman road, which is not healthy either, but it does tend to propel people, right?
Unknown So... New heights.
Corey Richards New heights, they're not always, you know, it's not always great. Because no matter what you do to prove to other people you're valuable, if you don't believe you yourself are valuable, it has no meaning. So, and that's sort of the, that's the crumbling point that happens. There's a critical mass that's reached where you're just like, it doesn't matter how much external validation I get. You know, I could have everybody in the world telling me I'm great, but if I myself don't actually believe it. You don't believe it, you're gonna keep going. Then I keep, you know, keep doing whatever it is that I'm doing to live up to the belief I have in myself or the belief that others have in me.
Unknown Yeah. So, I mean, it's that, uh, it's that kind of never ending math, you know, very successful yourself on Instagram. And, but you have that, we talk about this a lot with comments and that, that side of the internet where you have, um, you have a hundred supportive comments that you'd never think about again. You have one negative one that kind of redefines your day or something like that. And a lot of it, just feeds into some level of insecurity that was probably there beforehand.
Corey Richards And it's just the way our brains, I think that's a really beautiful point. I also think that's just the way our brains are designed. Functionally, I think we are, you know, we are predisposed to pay attention to negative attention versus positive attention. And the reason is because it protects us, right? So we learn much more quickly from a negative interaction to avoid it. A positive one, we just keep Returning to over and over and over again. So we need to understand like Okay, this was negative. I'm gonna I'm gonna jump ship on this but Truth be told that serves us negatively in a lot of ways as well Because yeah, you you look at your comments and it's like wait one person doesn't like me out of the you know 30,000 likes and and comments that one person It's kind of hysterical.
Unknown It is. It's really funny. If you can take a wider perspective on it, it's hilarious. But in the moment, in that interaction, especially whatever that brain chemistry is, it's not hilarious.
Corey Richards It's not hilarious. You're like, dick, I'm going to get you. I'm going to respond. I'm going to totally slam you. I'm going to win this somehow. Isn't it funny, too, how designed we are, how ingrained it is in us to be right? Oh, yeah. We just want to be right. And I'm not saying that I don't believe in morals or right action, but I do see it for what it is, which is a human invention. And what is right today was totally wrong 100 years ago, and what was right 100 years ago was completely different 500 years before that. Imagine what is going to be right and wrong 500 years from now.
Unknown I mean, it's a funny thing, because we very quickly, in a matter of minutes, could move into a couple other topics that these sorts of things deal with, politics and such. But something that I often talk with Jason about is the idea of strong opinions loosely held. So, yeah, have conviction, of course, but if you're given new data, move, pivot, move.
Corey Richards The earth, I'm sorry, it's not flat. I'm sorry if that pisses any of your listeners off, but we've got to get beyond that.
Unknown If you've got any flat earthers, they can delete the podcast.
Corey Richards That's fine. It's just not flat. And it's OK to have empirical evidence and be like, OK, it just isn't. And it's OK. And that's the same thing. Again, I shudder to use the word activist, because I believe I am an inclusion-based person. Activism tends to polarize things. But when you talk about things like climate change, It's not a debate. It just is. It's like arguing over gravity. And it's like, well, if gravity's not a thing, then literally walking doesn't work. None of this works. So when I try to phrase things in that tone, sometimes it can alienate people. But when you think of it, it's like you are entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. Now, that's not to say that facts aren't They do change. It was a fact 500 years ago that the Earth was flat. It's not a fact anymore because we learned more, but we've learned enough to not argue about this anymore, right?
Unknown Preferably.
Corey Richards Yeah, right. But still, it's never too early to start arguing.
Unknown And with these sorts of kind of bigger concepts, and certainly a lot of your presentation was about your background, in your past and how it informed your progress into these hard places in the world where you were confronting hard things inside you. Yeah. And hard realities of your upbringing and your past. Assuming that most people experience some sort of trauma and then carry it with them throughout their life. I think a fair assumption, not always equal, but I think it's a fair enough assumption. What do you think is more, um, what do you think is more important, a skill set to have looking forward, especially into something like a creative career, passion or thoughtfulness?
Corey Richards Oh, God, what that is a it's something I think about a lot. I mean, it's a it's an absolutely fabulous question. And I've never ever been asked that. And I've been asked a lot of questions. So, dude, high five. That's a I mean, It's a chicken or egg question, right? I think it is a little bit. It's kind of rhetorical. It's in that, like, without passion, you're unlikely to think about things. But in order to articulate passion, you need to be thoughtful and to refine passion. But I would genuinely, or I guess I would tend towards thinking that first comes passion, because that's what drives you, right? That's the ignition. And in that We refine ourselves so but again, I think being thoughtful and Exploring the world from a thoughtful perspective and I don't you know, obviously we know that we're saying it and it's not we're not talking about being kind we're talking about Consider consider it and thinking everything for considering all angles. I Think that's gonna inform how passion even starts. I don't know the answer to that question. I guess my answer is yes.
Unknown You probably don't get one without the other.
Corey Richards Yeah.
Unknown Maybe it's the idea of a snake. You have one turn one way, one turn the other. Yeah. I think I would agree with that. The other thing that stands out for me is in a lot of the stuff that you talked about in your presentation, and obviously when we get into alpinism, everyone who's in these sorts of modes has their own feeling about risk and death. Right. How do you, what's, if you can externalize your internal things you tell yourself when you try and maybe balance that so that it feels like an accessible amount of risk versus an inaccessible amount of risk or an unfair amount of risk for everybody else in your life or something like that. How do you make those decisions?
Corey Richards Well, From a very, very high view, lofty view here, I have to say that I can get lost in risk and potential death. And I can go down that rabbit hole really easily because I have a vivid imagination and a huge amount of creativity that I can lay in my tent the night before a climb and envision every single way I'm going to die the next day in a horrific amount of detail. And I do that. And it's horrible.
Unknown And it's healthy or counterproductive or it's part. It's part of the math.
Corey Richards I think it's part of the math. I think it is right. It's not right. It's not wrong. It just is. And it happens. And rather than fighting it anymore, I've just simply accepted that this is this is part of the process for me. But then I take a step back and I go, how many times have I done this? A lot. How many times have any of those things come to pass? Never. One time I got caught in an avalanche and I didn't die. Many times I've fallen in crevasses and I didn't die, you know, I've been rocks of zoom past. I mean, we're talking hundreds, thousands of times where things could have gone totally sideways. Every step on every climb never happened. Right. Um, so you fall back on the numbers, you fall back on the statistics. The other thing I look at is, yeah, and you're training, right? The other thing I look at is like, you know, we, we focus so heavily on the death aspect or the mortality aspect of a sport like alpinism because it does claim lives. However, far more people survive it than die doing it. It's a dramatic way out if it goes down that way. There's a lot of attention put on the few lives that are lost and there's you know, not so much attention put on the celebration of so much that's happened without lives being lost. And I, I also, I'll even go one step further and be like, you know what? Like if you extract death from it, it's just another sport, right? No different from running a marathon. No different. It's just a sport. It just so happens that the consequence of this sport, uh, is, is elevated. So if you can think of the two almost, mutually exclusively like they're they're different just because you can die doing something doesn't mean you know it has more gravity necessarily it's just the necessary consequence of the sport itself does that make sense like it's I suppose I think I think if you can die doing it that does give it more gravity at least from a mortality standpoint yeah but I would also my follow-up question might might bring some clarity to your first responses are do you feel that you're afraid of death Totally. Yeah, actually, let me let me clarify I'm not afraid of death that doesn't bother me The process of dying bothers me from when it starts to when you don't feel anything else. Yeah Yeah, I feel you being trapped under snow, right, you know falling It's it's the moments before the lights go out Those fleeting moments those scare me. Oh, yeah, but the death part Actually losing life is not scary to me. I because again, it's, it's, that's complete surrender. You don't, I don't have control over that. None of us do. No, it's coming for all of us and that's okay. So I'm very at peace with that component. It's how it happens. That's mortifying. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, for sure. And which is also why once you start climbing, like once you start up a route, a lot of the fear dissipates because you're like, I'm in it and whatever happens happens, you know, and you know, that, You've committed, you're in it, and you're gonna do everything you can to avoid that, but you're just, you're not thinking about it in the same way anymore. It's the days leading up to it. It's the, you know, from now, basically, it's 10 months until I leave again that I have to think about this, visualize it, think about the avalanches, think about the, and it's miserable. But then you come home, and it was just two nights ago that I finally woke up in the middle of the night. I've been home for about two weeks, And I woke up and I was like, yeah, I could, I could go back.
Unknown And by saying I can go back, that's, you have to go back, right? Almost.
Corey Richards That's what, that's where, that's what it feels like. Um, it's almost right now it's a little bit of a drag. I'm like, I can go back, but it's like, ah, I can go back. I got this. Yeah. But by the time I leave, I'll be like, I'm so ready for this. You know, like I have to do this, but.
Unknown So, I mean, then, then I would say that you, you got 10 months ahead before you head back to Everson. We'll get to Everson in just a moment. For the next 10 months, what gets you out of bed? What gets you on your next plane?
Corey Richards That's a two-part question because coming back, I struggle a lot.
Unknown Like when you have to leave that environment to come back to a quote-unquote normal space?
Corey Richards Well, when I arrive back in a normal space, I struggle with it. I suffer from sort of a little bit of depression when I come back. It's just hard. I feel very separate. I feel very alone. But that's part of the creative process too. That's what drives me back into a place of having goals. Because I understand that in those moments when I feel most isolated, most separate, what's given me strength to get through that same sort of isolation at previous points in my life is setting goals and working towards them. And then I can compartmentalize. Then I can work through things. But if I have no goals and if I'm not working actively towards something else, I feel aimless and that aimlessness sort of generates a sense of self self loathing that that is really hard to get through. So what gets me out of bed is engaging with genuinely fascinating, interesting projects that push my capacity for growth They help me evolve. And they help me learn more about myself and more about the planet. So there's several things that are coming up this year that I'm going to do. But, you know, right now, Everest being 10 months away is, it's a looming one. But now it's, you know, it's funny, because I'm like, well, I did it before 10 months actually doesn't seem that long. All of a sudden, it's like, yeah, It's really I mean, it's it's ten busy months. It's ten busy months, right? Ten months a long time if you don't have anything to do, but if you're getting ready for a mountain Yeah, that much time ten months is a really long time But it's also a really short time and when you think about it from like a female perspective of giving birth, that's That's making a baby and that's what we're doing. You know, we're just making another baby. It's not quite the same I am not trying to take that experience at all from women, you know, we can't do that but In terms of a time frame, that's a perfect analogy. And it's painful, and it's miserable sometimes, but it's also really beautiful. You watch your body change. I'm not kidding, like it's really cool, you know. And then you go and you try. And either way, in terms of climbing mountains, it's still, you're giving life to something.
Unknown I agree. I think tenable to continue in a job. I already have a job that's a lot of hours a week and family and that kind of thing. But the other side of it is when you actually get a chance to set foot in that space, when that pregnancy has come to term in such a remote part of the world, it doesn't always go your way. Yeah, no, it doesn't. Do you want to talk about Everest this year?
Corey Richards Yeah. I mean, you know, I, even when I talked today, I quoted Edison and Henry Ford, um, two good quotes as well. They're amazing.
Unknown We love, we finish every episode with a quote.
Corey Richards Yeah.
Unknown I mean, I'll take at least one of those.
Corey Richards Yeah. I mean, it's really, and I'm paraphrasing them, but I think Edison said something to the effect of I've never failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work. That's your inventor. Yeah. Which is like amazing. And, and, and Henry Ford's quote was, um, You know, every failure is simply an opportunity to start again this time more intelligently or next time more intelligently. And viewing failure in those terms can be a little bit rosy. I don't try to rob the failure of its power by painting it with a silver lining. I don't believe in that. We failed this year on Everest and it was painful and it was horrible. However, we also learned a lot. We learned a lot about what we need. We learned a lot about what it takes. We learned a lot about, uh, our fitness. We learned a lot about our tactics. We learned really a lot about the mountain and, and, and we also, um, learned a lot about our, our capacity, uh, at least this year in what we, you know, what we had in regards to what the mountain demanded.
Unknown So, um, and just, just for the people who are listening, cause there'll be people who are listening, who have read every book about Everest on the market.
Corey Richards Yeah.
Unknown Explain the mechanics. You were on your own route?
Corey Richards Yes.
Unknown And you were doing so without supplemental oxygen?
Corey Richards Right. So most of the climbers that climb Everest, I would say, you know, 99.9% are doing it with oxygen on the normal two routes, on the north side or the south side. In 2016, I climbed Everest without oxygen. In 2013, my climbing partner Topo, Esteban Topo Mena, climb This this old school yes consider a hard assault alone like a solo unassisted assault basically yeah I mean it and you know it's hard to say unassisted because you know we went up on the normal route to acclimatize and we use the fixed lines there and we use the infrastructure there so we were assisted in that way you know in the earliest iterations of climbing there was massive teams that were climbing these things and fixing ropes and stocking camps and our attempt this year was about sort of what I think a lot of people would refer to as sort of what happened in the golden age of alpinism, where going to 8,000 meter peaks without Sherpa support, without stocking camps, and putting up hard alpine climbs on these big faces. So that's what we were trying to do. And we crashed and burned at 7,600, 7,700 meters, so around just below 25,000 feet. And it was horrible.
Unknown It's funny because I think a lot of people, a lot of people listening and certainly me sitting here, sitting across from you, I can't, I can't be that harsh.
Corey Richards Yeah.
Unknown Because not only, not only did you, you know, like you, you compared, you had, you made some comparison earlier to, you know, you take mountaineering and you remove the danger and it becomes like a marathon. Right. But like if, if you, let's say your goal, like the big thing in marathon running right now is a two hour marathon. And so if they're at 202, you just didn't run fast enough. Right, right. You could call that a failure, I guess. Yeah. 202 is still an insane time. Getting to 7,700 meters on an unclaimed route without assistance and without oxygen and getting down not dead doesn't feel like that big of a failure. I mean, you didn't make the peak, but you also have the means to get there a year later.
Corey Richards Well, it's funny because we hope I have the means. I've got a lot of fundraising to do. You know, it's not as simple I mean, you make a great point, and I think most people are more forgiving with this kind of failure, because it's like, hey, you didn't die. And that takes a lot of understanding of the nature of the sport, because we do abide by sort of three simple rules that define success or failure. So your success can be parceled out in a third success, two-thirds success, or total success. And one part of success is come home. So we accomplished that, come home. Second part of success is come home friends. We accomplished that, we love each other, we're going back. There you go. Go to the top. So we have a two-third success and one-third failure. But still, that's not full success. You know what I mean?
Unknown I do know what you mean, for sure. I'm a huge fan of Ed Veester's.
Corey Richards Yeah, yeah.
Unknown And in his book, one of my favorite books was No Shortcuts to the Top. He says that his only role was getting up there is getting to the top is optional coming down is mandatory. Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, like, like you were joking, like, in it, I could see. And if you've read enough Everest books, you find these stories about people who they won't get another shot at this. Yeah, they blow their daylight. Yeah, they blow their their turnaround time. Yeah, it's not two o'clock at the top. Yeah. For they're waiting in line at 230 or something like that. And that's how that's how people die.
Corey Richards Well, and it's funny, you say they blow their daylight. And I'm like thinking, that's a great way to actually describe dying. That too? You blew your daylight, bro. Yeah. You know, and that sucks.
Unknown I mean, it's... But there's just, like, it's a scenario in which, like, I think alpinism is not that different than scuba diving, where there's a very real type of consequence... Yeah. ...when something goes wrong. Yeah. And it doesn't happen in slow motion.
Corey Richards No, no. Well, although it happens in... It doesn't happen in slow motion, but it doesn't happen in fast motion either. You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing about... When we see free soloing, or something like that, if somebody makes a mistake, or even at low down on our route, if somebody makes a mistake and we fall, lights are out fast. You know, it might seem like a long time, but it's really four or five seconds, maybe less, before it's over. If you get in trouble high on an 8,000 meter peak, it is a long, slow, drawn out, it is slow motion. As your body sort of consumes itself or drowns itself in fluid, those things are, It happens slowly and you can watch and see things, watch and sort of see death coming. And that's, that's, that's a little horrifying, you know?
Unknown Yeah, I think so. I, you know, I think, I think about those, those scenarios where we've, we've done something as humans to just keep death just outside of a mask, just outside of a tent, just outside of a little tin can as we go to the moon. Right, right, right. Like it's right there.
Corey Richards It's right there. And you can touch it.
Unknown You could reach out and touch it. You can pull your mask away and feel that water do what it's supposed to do. Yeah. I think it's just kind of a remarkable thing that whether it's, yeah, whatever sort of adventure or exploration people are into, the fact that people, it's so addictive.
Corey Richards Right.
Unknown It's so weirdly fulfilling, especially like personally. I find that everyone I know who's given their life to kind of, not oddball adventures, but legitimate, Things where, yeah, something goes wrong, it goes wrong in a pretty bad way. They find a very personal, internal fulfillment from it.
Corey Richards Yeah. Well, it's an intangible, right? Like it's indescribable. People ask, why do you climb? And the reason why there's no better answer than because it's there, which I find to be, you know, it's like, well, it's perfect, but it's also like, can't we do better? You know, like, well, there's no way to describe it. It's indescribable. It's outside the realm of description or words. You just cannot.
Unknown It's like asking somebody, you know, why play the guitar? Like, ask Jimi Hendrix, why do you play guitar? Or something like, he's not going to give you an answer. It's what he does.
Corey Richards To me, it's what does love feel like? Yeah. And you're like, I don't know. I don't know. What does it feel like to you?
Unknown Think of a color you haven't seen.
Corey Richards Yeah, right. Think of a color you haven't seen. I love that. It's like, that's a great way to answer that. Why do I do this? I don't know. Think of a color you haven't seen.
Unknown Yeah. There's an intangible romance to it. That's hard to beat. You know, if we consider something a little bit more tangible from that time on Everest, tell me about the watch. I mean, people listening will have already read about it. You know, we're going to take some pictures of it and that sort of thing. But I would dare say probably the coolest Vacheron I've ever come across.
Corey Richards I just love it. It's so cool because Look, I mean, it's modeled after the dual time overseas so that as a design, it serves a very real purpose, but it's not their flashiest watch. It's not their shiniest. It's very understated and it's very... Toolish. Yeah.
Unknown I like it. Intentional.
Corey Richards It's intentional. It's not wanting. And that's one of the things that I love really about Vacheron as a brand, but they're not wanting. They don't demand it.
Unknown Nothing's really a flex. They're moving at their own pace. They're doing what they're good at. It doesn't insist upon itself. For them to make a titanium sport watch with a dual time, people who listen will know I'm obsessed with watches that have multiple time zones. I love to travel and move around and that watch is gorgeous. I saw it last night on the titanium bracelet. Yeah. And then today you've got it. Today we have it on like a textile.
Corey Richards Yeah. Strap. Yeah. They designs. That's the one that I actually wore on the. Yeah. The textile. It's beautiful. And we did that you know the orange detailing because I just love those little pops of color. But at the same time what makes that watch so special. And I talk about this and I think people kind of roll their eyes sometimes at me. But the truth is the dual time for me is such a it's an emphatic reminder of of who's home. in
Unknown You don't exist only in that one moment, right? You're on a mountain or I you know I spent some time in the last few years just driving really fast cars for a living which doesn't suck a great Yeah, but every now and then it's good to have a reality check and remember like oh no like there's still a world Where I do dishes or yeah, or you know care for a couple kids. Yeah. Yeah, you know theoretically mow a patch of grass I don't You're not just that one While that can be your life's pursuit, right? That's not your life
Corey Richards That is not your life. It is not the entirety of your life. Yeah. You say things really eloquently. You have a way of phrasing them that resonates with me.
Unknown You've said a couple of things that I like. I'm glad. I'm enjoying this conversation quite a bit. With that watch, where was your involvement in its design?
Corey Richards I mean, we talked about the basic design that we were going to pull from one of the existing designs to begin with, so that we talked about what made the most sense uh, for what we were doing. And obviously like the tourbillon wouldn't, that wouldn't make sense for what we're doing as much as I love those pieces. Um, so we, we talked about sort of the utility, you know, utilitarian nature, nature of it and what we wanted to make. And then, so then the designers pulled from that, uh, from that base design. And then we got into discussion of materials, how much we wanted it to weigh, why we needed it to not weigh what, you know, what lubrication we used actually on the inside to, so it wouldn't freeze. All sorts of stuff pressurizing it but but I left the the nitty-gritty to You know the deep design work to to the team at Vacheron And I we talked about aesthetic a lot because so that kind of texture dial the orange the orange Yeah, 24-hour feet or two second time zone features, and you know all of that stuff We talked a lot about because I wanted something that is understated, but still sporty Sporty, but well, I mean, it's it's like elegant sporty, but it also says hello in its own little minor way when you're not expecting it And it's an entirely different appeal than the normal dual time.
Unknown Yeah, totally which is red totally which is a great watch I think that's a yeah watch as well, but to see it in titanium Yeah, and that gray dial and it's very much um a palladium.
Corey Richards There's some palladium in there like it's crazy.
Unknown It's really cool You're talking about, you know, reducing Yeah, there's a reduction feature in that where it really starts the gray on gray really gives it just the display is what you're seeing. And then you notice the crown and it's made out of something that kind of catches light differently.
Corey Richards I mean, the whole crown was, I mean, the crown in and of itself is a design decision that we took. But that metal is so hard that we couldn't actually stamp it, right? We had to laser engrave it, which is crazy. That's so rad. So, I mean, the watch is designed to be tough. It's designed to withstand, but it's also designed to be elegant in that is something that I really like is being able to walk that line between the three-piece suit and the down suit. Sure. And that to me has always been something of a hat trick that I like to pull off. I think people expect the bearded, rugged, you know, mountain man in flannel at all junctions. Or wearing North Face all the time. Right. And I just, that's never been my interest. I want to be elegant. I want to surprise people in that way. And I think we wanted the watch to do the same thing. And especially with the engraving on the back, you know, I mean that the first view of Everest as it comes over the pass as you drive to base camp is like it's this pop that's so understated, but so intricate and so beautiful.
Unknown Yeah. And for anyone listening who has no idea the watch we're talking about because you somehow missed it, I'll just go to the show notes. We'll put a link into some nice photos and an explanation of what the watch is. Sadly, at least right now, it's one of one.
Corey Richards It's one of one.
Unknown Do you get to hang on to it, or it goes back to Switzerland?
Corey Richards I mean, I'm still working on that piece of the contract. No, I don't know.
Unknown It's really cool. That'd be a tough one to give up.
Corey Richards Yeah, it would be a tough one. Well, it has my name on it, so I'd imagine the only other place it could go is into the museum at Vacheron.
Unknown Some sort of museum, for sure. Or come back out in 10 months, I guess.
Corey Richards Yeah, yeah. Or maybe we'll make it. Who knows? I'm not promising anything, but I'm not not promising anything.
Unknown I think it would be really good to see it made. I think that would be fun. I think that'd be fun. I think it's a really rad piece. And then, you know, I think we're pretty much on the edge of our time. So I would say if you could just have just even a minute or two, what do you think both sides of the coin get out of an ambassador agreement like what you have with Vacheron? Because some are much more vapid, like you've explained what you do here. And you clearly have an appreciation for watches, which I like. And obviously they're helping support your endeavors and you're in some way helping support theirs. But when you choose to be an ambassador for them or for somebody else to put a logo on your climbing suit or whatever?
Corey Richards What's the math? I mean, the math for me is really I go by feel. It's a gut thing? It's a gut thing. And I also, you know, I believe in if I believe in what they're trying to do. And sometimes I end up on the wrong side of history. But I also believe, you know, I have very few partnerships. And that's by choice. It's not because the opportunity isn't there, it's because there's an element of authenticity that I believe has to be innate. If we are going to truly help each other, I have to actually believe in what I'm trying to help you with. The fact that I love watches, just love them, doesn't hurt with this one. But the math is, what are the core principles that this company stands for, or this entity stands for, and do they align with my own? And if they don't, then I don't do it. But in this case, you know, you're looking at craftsmanship and artistry. You're looking at commitment and time. You're looking at legacy. You're looking at really a pursuit of perfection. And if there's anything that is celebrated in alpinism, especially high altitude alpinism, and if there's anything that's celebrated in photography, it's that pursuit of perfection. And whether we achieve it, I don't think we ever can. But I think somebody like Vacheron gets as close as you possibly can.
Unknown Right. And from my standpoint, to have a brand like Vacheron, one of the finest watchmaking companies in the history of the watch, to be connected with a sport that I'm very much interested in, I really like because normally I think you would think of more erudite, maybe arts or things that are more Vacheron. But then you see not only their connection with you and when I meet you, it makes a lot of sense that, like you said, there is certain sort of an elegance to the way that you consider your work and the photography and that sort of thing. And I think it aligns with their kind of pursuit of, of nicely made, uh, well-implemented properly executed things, uh, endeavors, if you will. And, uh, and I think, uh, beyond that, it, it, it's just kind of fun to see a, a big brand like Asheron supporting something like Alpinism, which is, uh, you know, has gone through its highs and lows, especially on Everest. Um, but I, I'm, I'm excited to see, where you get to next year and over the next year. I think it'll be really exciting. I would have only one more question for you, and it's if there's somebody listening or they're listening to their dad's podcast and they love maybe climbing or they like going in the mountains, what would you say to someone who says, I want your job when I'm older? It doesn't have to be a tip. It doesn't have to be a progress chart.
Corey Richards Well, I would just say there is no path. Trust your instincts. Because if you take my path, it's not a good path to take. However, it was the right path for me. So there is no one way. There's no right way to do this. Just stay true to your desire, your passion, and give it everything you have. But know that there will be twists and turns, and that's OK. That's OK. Trust them. They'll land you where you need to be. I love it. I can't thank you enough, Corey. This has been fantastic. Cheers, man. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Yeah, no, it's my pleasure. Take care, man. All the best.