Training For Manaslu

In this episode, I interview Seane Pieper, founder of Himalayan Guiding Australia, and he talks about his experience with Summit Strength and how he trained and prepared to tackle a Manaslu (an 8000m peak in Nepal). 

nTraining For An 8000m Peak In nepal - Interview With Seane

Inside this episode, he shares some great insights around trekking in Nepal, training for a big mountain climb, honing in his nutrition and hydration and many areas which will be incredibly beneficial for an aspiring hiker, trekker or mountaineer.

You will learn:

• Why physical preparation for high altitude adventures is so important
• Some great insights about the Manaslu region in Nepal
• What workouts Seane used with Summit Strength to get himself in the best physical position for his adventures
• A couple of significant speed bumps Seane came across in his training process (and how he overcame them)
• How Seane used a dietician to hone in his nutrition to best fuel his performance (plus a few simple strategies he put into place)
• How Seane altered his goals when COVID struck to ensure he stayed motivated and consistent
• Why reflection after a challenge is so important
  
  

===


Learn more about Himalayan Guiding Australia here: https://himalayanguidingaustralia.com.au/home/

Find Ashleigh from Body Fusion here: https://www.bodyfusion.com.au/

Learn more about our Online Personal Training For Mountaineers here: ​summitstrength.com.au/mountaineer

Episode Transcript:
​

[0:00] Hello, hello guys. Today we interview online client Sean Piper,

[0:04] who is an incredibly experienced trekker and an amazingly experienced mountaineer. And he talks about how he used the online summit program to prepare for an 8,000 meter plus mountain over in Nepal. And also what he transitioned into when the world went upside down and what challenge he set himself to use all the training and all the preparation he's used when he couldn't actually get over to Nepal. And this episode is full in some great insights around his training process, his outlook, his mindset, as well as some really great nutrition guidance, which he got from working with a dietician leading into this training. So for anyone who's looking to prepare for a big hiking adventure, who anyone's looking to prepare for a big mountaineering adventure, this is going to be a super valuable episode to get some really great insights so enough from me let's get into it.

[1:03] Hey, my name is Rowan Smith, and I want to welcome you to the Training for Trekking podcast. Now, this is the world's very first podcast, which is entirely dedicated to helping you train, prepare, and conquer your upcoming hike, trek, or mountain adventure. So once a week, I'm going to be giving you quality and practical information on the subjects of physical preparation for trekking, dealing with attitude, and nutrition on the trail, so you can know everything you need to be doing to have the best chance of a safe, enjoyable, and successful adventure. So now you know what you're in for, let's get into today's episode.

[1:39] Welcome, welcome, Sean. Very excited to have you on the show, mate. Absolutely stoked you chose to get on board and you're looking forward to getting into this. Yes, so am I, Rowan. So to get things rolling, do you want to give the listeners a little bit of background about yourself and just let us know where you're from, what you do, and what your background in the world of hiking and mountaineering is? Yeah, righto. So I live in Beechworth in Victoria, which is, for people who don't know, is about 100 kilometres away from Mount Hotham, Falls Creek, Mount Bogom, so it's a, Pretty nice place. I've got a farm up here. I also teach full-time, but my main passion and calling is climbing and trekking in the Himalaya, and I've got my own sort of business set up there. But I got into trekking when I went up to university, when I finished uni at the Uni of Sydney. A good mate of mine said, oh, let's go over to Nepal. And I said, oh, right on. Let's do that. So we went over there and trekked around for a good month, went to the Annapurna's and then up to the Everest region. It was with Australia's biggest company at the time, leading treks over there, that's World X. And then I just got infatuated with the place and went back again in 1993, met my best mate there, a bloke called Gary Hayes, who was the high altitude leader for World X.

[3:04] And he's a bit of a legend in the outdoor scene in Australia. So doing some high passes and then did my mountaineering training in New Zealand. That was with Alpine Guides.

[3:18] And, yeah, from then on in kept going back to the Himalaya, doing quite a lot of expeditions over there, some big peaks. And started to climb a few 8,000-metre peaks. And I was over there in the earthquake in 2015.

[3:37] And that sort of changed my whole approach to the Himalaya. I got caught there. I was up on the mountain called Choyo.

[3:46] I caught in the earthquake there and I ended up being repatriated back to Kathmandu and then from there I stayed there. A good mate of mine was there at the time, Gary Hayes was there and my sort of who's now my Serta in Nepal, Sundish Temang, his house was levelled. So I spent time with Sundish. We went up to his village and then spent some time there rebuilding and ever since then I've been going back every year just helping to build the tourism infrastructure in the Manusloo region, which is actually quite remote. There's a lot of really remote, untouched areas there, so I've been doing that. And I'm meant to be on Manusloo right now, climbing Manusloo, so hence the program with you, Rowan. That was designed to get me fit for that, but that ain't going to happen this year. So, let's see. So, there's my background. I've got a couple of young kids. They've been in Nepal with me a couple of times and they love it over there. So, I'm going to keep going back and hopefully it'll open up in January so I can get over there. Yeah. Yeah, fantastic, mate. So, how many years have you been going back to Nepal now? Well, I first went there in 91. So, I was only a stripling then. I would have only been 23, I think.

[5:14] So I'm 53 now, so that's pretty much 30 years. So I've probably been there 26 or 27 times, I suppose. Yeah, I've sort of lost count. I've been in and out of the country from Tibet a few times. I don't know if to count that or not, but a long time. Yeah, fair. And then, like, with the Manuslu region, why did you end up specialising or spending your time in that particular region?

[5:45] Well, I was there, as I said, in 2015. I went to a mate Sundash's village, Darrapani, which is in the Manislu region. And Manislu, the lower Manislu region, was the epicentre of the great earthquake. So I just went there and spent a couple of weeks there helping out and gradually got to know all the people there and was involved in distributing a lot of aid. But I just pretty much fell in love with the place because there were a lot of remote regions, wasn't it? It's not a tourist region. The lower Manislu, which is due south of Manislu, you can go around the Manislu circuit, that's a little bit more touristy but it's nowhere near like, say, the Everest region or the Annapurna's where it's all geared up for tourism. Here there's no lodges or anything, there might be one or two lodges but mostly there's a whole scope.

[6:45] For wilderness trekking and I thought, well, I can hang a whole network of treks in here and do a lot of exploration, go to places people have never been to and then maybe start bringing some people across. So that's the way it worked out and the infrastructure that we've sort of been building over there and the villages are now, they're all on board with us. So they love it when we come around And yeah, I love going back there They're still, they're not touristy type people They're just people who love seeing other people come in there, So pretty much all I could put in Nepal was, I suppose, when I first started going over there. Yeah. Yeah, amazing, amazing. And then tell us a little bit about Manaslu, the mountain itself. So you said, you know, you were leading into that and at the time of recording you were hoping to be over there. But just tell us a little bit about the mountain, sort of how big is it, what does it involve and what was sort of the inspiration behind wanting to climb it? Yeah, well, Manusloo is 8,163 metres high. It's quite a – well, it's obviously – it's one of the 14 8,000 metre peaks and it's a fairly serious undertaking.

[8:10] But it is a peak which is led commercially, so it's not an extreme 8,000 metre peak. I'd climbed Choyo 2016, which is over in Tibet, or it's on the Nepalese border. That's 8,200. So Manuslee was one of the peaks that was logical for there. I just want to go off and keep ticking off 8,000-metre peaks if I can.

[8:40] And it's got a bit of significance because it's the peak that overlooks the whole region that I take all my treks into. And also Sanderson's region. So it's a spiritual mountain for the people there and I'd be able to walk down on the villages and all the places that I've been. So it's got quite a bit of significance in that regard. With respect to its technical nature, so most of it is... Uh it's most of it's glaciated uh it's not a whole lot of rock involved so base camp is at around 4 800 meters and from there there's a series of camps pushed up the mountain um uh there's a few got quite a few crevasses to get through and there's a couple of ladders that are generally set up on some of the trickier bits. But it's a significant effort. Any climbing up above sort of 6,500 metres is very, very draining. You've got to know what you're doing. And you're actually doing it every day. And the way I climb, I climb effectively lugging my own stuff. And so it takes a fair bit more energy.

[10:08] And you feel a lot more free being able to do that sort of thing. But it's a pretty serious undertaking if you don't do things properly. Yep, but beautiful mountain. Yeah, fair, and it's definitely, yeah, definitely not a light adventure or a casual adventure you chose there. So leading into this, you said, you know, you've got quite a history in trekking and mountaineering, but you knew this was going to be a particular challenge. Like what were the things you knew you needed to particularly work on for this one? Um well I've learned some things from my climbing on Mount Choyo in 2016 um where, um my first day in there I pushed it too hard I carried about nearly 40 kilos in um and that was 18 18 kilometers up from Chinese base camp up to advanced base camp It knocked me around a bit.

[11:13] And from there I started to just become aware of how debilitating climbing altitude is and your recovery is a lot slower and you are more susceptible to, you know, illnesses and things when you get really tired. So I've generally, when I've gone to Nepal, I generally go over there a couple of weeks beforehand, do a bit of trekking around with a pack and um i've had a good level of base fitness and i thought that'd be enough um and i haven't really taken into account what i've eaten that much pretty old school sort of mountaineering type approach things but um, I cut a pretty fine line on choyo and I was lucky to get out of that one alive. So I just wanted to make sure that I'd prepared properly this time and was a lot fitter by the time I got over there and I was eating for performance.

[12:20] Um so um that's why i decided to um choose your program and also to get a nutritionist involved to make sure that i was at the optimum when i went over there because you really do need to be at your optimum particularly you know when you're 53 your um things don't seem to seem to recover as quickly as when you're 20 odd so yeah i chose the program to get me my optimum, level before i went over there and then all i really had to worry about was the technical issues on the mountain and the logistics rather than be worried about my fitness so that's that, yeah fair so uh so we're definitely going to dive into both of those areas so both the training and the nutrition stuff that you were talking about um so to start with do you want to just tell us a little bit about the training that you ended up doing through summit strength like what did the program kind of look like for you uh well it's it's interesting um.

[13:28] It evolved over time um you know i thought it was going to be a fairly linear process, um but you know because it's such a big run-in like i've been doing this for i think with you for four months now i think maybe longer um, The likelihood of getting through it without being injured is quite high. So I managed to hurt my back and I had a really bad issue with bruising on my bone underneath the ball of my left foot and that was fairly debilitating for a while and I'd been working on it. So I needed to do whatever I needed to do to get fit, had to take that into account. I didn't want to, you know, aggravate that. Um so uh the mix of things that i was doing was some um pack work and a lot of stuff on the bike, um so a mixture of that and i'd change the emphasis on either the bike or the pack work depending upon you know how good my foot was and how if my back was sort of playing up then And I just shift the emphasis a bit or just back off a little bit. So given that, the main focus was really –.

[14:50] A lot of cardio work with a pack going up and down hills, gradually increasing the amount of weight that I was carrying, and then choosing some, I suppose, benchmark hills.

[15:08] And benchmarking time on those. And, you know, being able to have that sort of benchmark was really good. I could see that my fitness was improving. so i tracked everything with um my um garmin stuff which was really useful uh just to see what my heart rate was doing each time my times and all that sort of stuff so hill intervals were a big part of it either loaded intervals or with a pack the other component that i found pretty useful was just the stuff on the bike because the interval work is something i'd really never done before i generally just gone out and sort of walked for 10 hours and then thought well i survived that i'll do it again next week and i'll do it i'll be faster um but i didn't really do anything that was going to, I suppose, improved my performance on that other than a bit of luck. So this time there was a lot of intervals, intervals on a bike and also the hill intervals where I'd just go as hard as I could for short periods of time and with gradually increasing loads. And I really did notice the impact that that had on my ability.

[16:29] To handle the big hills, particularly at the end of my long cardio sessions. So some of the pinches that I'd be going up, you know, at 500 metre ascents at about one in four, you know, 25%. I've got a couple of those at the end of my big walks and the time that it took me to get up those last sections improved out of sight after doing those intervals. And that was really obvious and something that, you know, I could make a reasonable connection that contributed to that. So I was really happy with that.

[17:12] Yeah, and, you know, I don't like stretching and doing that sort of stuff, but I incorporate that as much as I can into what I'm doing. And I really have noticed that my recovery from those things now is, you know, it's pretty good. I don't really get sore anymore. And so that's just focusing on that recovery a bit. So overall, I think the mixture of the intervals on the bike, long cardio work, the hill intervals, um, put me in a really good spot. So I'm very happy with that, and I'll keep using that model. Yeah. Fantastic. And then let's talk a little bit about the nutrition stuff that you were working on in the lead-up when Nepal was still going ahead. So you started working with a dietician, Ash from Body Fusion, who's an amazing dietician and really, really great, great girl all around. What sort of things were you focusing on there?

[18:27] Primarily, well, the emphasis sort of changed as I went through. At the start, I was actually just trying to lose a little bit of weight because I –, I just, you know, spending a lot of time on a bike, if you're carrying,

[18:47] you know, a few extra kilos, it just makes a lot of, it's just useless. It's like strapping, you know, milk cartons on your head and riding, it just doesn't make any sense. So I tried to do that and then the emphasis changed from that to making sure I was adequately fuelling for some of the long cardio sessions that I did. Like it wasn't unusual to spend, you know, four or five hours on the bike and the same out on the hills. So this area around here is there's no flat bits. It's all steep and it's sustained and you've really got to look after your nutrition to be able to bring it home without bonking.

[19:40] So for the first bit, I went on a program where I was just monitoring what I was putting into my body, and that was a really reflective sort of activity. I'd never done that before. And I changed what I was eating significantly as a result of that. I didn't eat a lot of processed stuff, but I would actually not eat either be full on or full off. So I didn't really have an adequate amount of fuel all day and particularly for a lot of the activities that I was doing, I wasn't fuelled up. So I changed... Change when and what I was eating, and it was a very structured sort of thing. Over time, I just sort of, it became behavioural. I sort of knew how many calories that I'd be putting in and what calories I'd need to pull off what I was doing. So it became a fairly organic thing in the end, and I just would catch up with Ashley once every few weeks to see how things were going and she would be aware of what activities I had coming up and tailor things around that.

[20:53] It's pretty rare to get access to someone with her level of expertise. I know she works with people from the AIS and a few other things. So, you know, it's nice to be able to talk to someone about that who can actually see through the issues and identify stuff really quickly and set you straight. So now I'm eating really well and I know exactly what I'm going to need to do when I've got some big activities coming up. Yeah, so that's been very, very good. And I lost, I started off. Um at about 87 kilos um and i'm just under six foot and now i'm down to 78 kilos so um and i noticed a big difference uh a big difference just in the um the time that it takes me to to do things and how how much uh how much better it feels yeah so it was good i didn't think it would be good I thought it would be a bit of fluff, but it's really helped and integrating the two of them, you know, I've been really happy about the whole thing.

[22:05] Awesome, awesome. And then with all the consultations you were doing and all the support you were doing with Ashley, that was all purely online, right? Yeah, well, Ashley's up in Sydney. I'm down here in Beechworth. So, you know, Victoria's persona non grata at the moment. So it's all been online yeah and zoom works pretty well like, Some of the stuff I found difficult was some of the metrics that I tried to get done that I couldn't do, like my body measurements and stuff because everything shut down over COVID. But I was able to modify some things there and that was okay. But it's one of the more pleasant Zoom interactions that I've had. Being a teacher. Being a teacher. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[23:01] It's it's it's quite good fun and very um it's insightful too i suppose yeah awesome well for anyone who's listening who were was interested in learning a little bit more about what ash does um and how she can help trekkers or mountaineers um i'll leave a i'll leave a link for her for her business in the show notes below because she's uh yeah there's an amazing dietician super knowledgeable and yeah definitely knows what she's talking about so anyone interested i'll just leave that drop that below but um back to the preparation process were there any were there any sort of speed bumps that came up or anything that went wrong during the process and then if so um what were they and what did you do to overcome them yeah i sort of there were a couple of sort of categories of things that went wrong um like so i've got a farm here so i do a lot of work around lifting and stuff here so i i put my back out, And I've got a good chiropractor here who generally can, she knows what's going on, and also my head guide for my company who does all my women's stretch, she's a bone therapist. So they got me back on the rails, but it knocked, it would have knocked a good two weeks out of my train.

[24:21] Um so yeah that was that was pretty tough because you actually see progress and then, it all gets stopped and if i'm not being physical then i'm generally not pretty happy so um, you know that was pretty tough but um after a while you sort of just expect that these things are going to happen and it's a pretty long time run into the actual climbs So, you know, as soon as I felt good, I got back on the rails and you modified some of the activities for me so I didn't –, I could do some things so I didn't feel completely useless. So, yeah, the back wasn't an issue.

[25:11] The other things, emotional sort of stuff that happens, you know, I had a couple of really close friends die during that stage, during the whole process, which wasn't easy. So thankfully, getting out and trekking around and getting out on the bike's pretty reflective and it actually lifts your mood. So those things knocked me around a bit, but... Thankfully, the actual program was as good as medicine as any. It's just you'd spend a couple of days having a bit of a cry and then get out and get back into it again. So, yeah, they were probably the two biggest roadblocks, that back injury and then, yeah, those untimely deaths.

[26:04] Yeah, fair and such a tough thing. But I'm glad that, you know, had the physical stuff definitely helped and I was glad to hear you say that. Yeah, I mean, you just, I think, and you mentioned this to me a couple of times, the preparation phase is very long. And so these things are going to happen. You know, it's not as though they're not going to happen. It's not as though you start doing a program and everything's going to be beautiful and rosy and then no interruptions. It's sort of, it's not a linear thing. It's up and down all over the place, but you've just got to get back on the bike. So obviously the whole plan for Nepal and Manaslu went out the window this year with COVID and everything going on. So can you tell us a little bit about the challenge that you set yourself to do instead?

[27:01] The one that I just passed. Okay. So, yeah, I was struggling a bit mentally with doing the program and then not having some goal to do it for. You know, the likelihood of me getting over to Nepal and applying the fitness that I got during the program was going to be pretty low. So I was thinking of other things to do. And one idea that I had, and I had a couple of blokes lined up to come and do that, was a big hike from Mount Bogong over the top to Hotham and Falls Creek and back over Mount Feathertop and back down.

[27:50] So that would be a mountaineerie type thing.

[27:54] And try and do it as quickly as we could. But then we got the second wave here in Victoria, so they've locked all the parks up, so that was impossible. So that was a bit of a bummer. So what I decided to do from there was I said, all right, let's try and replicate something that might be a little bit similar to the Manusloo. So one of the tracks that I've been walking on was a track called the Mumunji track. It's pretty steep, a 25% average gradient, and it's about 480 metres of ascent from the top to the bottom. So it's 2.2 k's long. So I worked out how far I'd have to climb from Manusloo Base Camp to the summit and back. And that was 3,363 metres, and then just converted that into how many laps of that track that I had to do.

[28:54] So you'd never climb from base camp to the summit of the day in Himalaya, but this is sort of something that would, I think, you know, replicate the sort of effort that I'd be doing. So I set myself the challenge doing that, and I did that last Saturday. So three, three, six, three up, three, three, six, three down. So, you know, nearly 7,000 metres of descent.

[29:22] And that took me about nine and a half hours, I think, nine and a half hours. Yeah. So, yeah, it was good. It was a big day. And it wasn't just walking along a nice flat thing looking at the lakes and trees and things. So it was a brutal track with very little views and you really had to be on your wits. So, yeah, a lot of similarities between that and climbing a big mountain just in terms of you had to be watching what you were doing. You had to fuel properly, you know. You know, you need people around you just to, you know, just have a laugh and stuff like that. So, yeah, it was at the end of the day, it was pretty close, probably a few bit harder than I would have done in Nepal, but I pulled up pretty well, so I was pretty happy with that.

[30:30] But one of the things that I suppose was even a little bit more sort of genuine about it was my very close mate and my expedition cook, Raju. He died on a Tuesday suddenly in Kathmandu.

[30:48] So that was what really knocked me around. So I ended up doing it for him. So I raised a fair bit of money for him and I sort of channeled him on the way going up and down the hill. So I'd set prayer flags up along the track and I'd go past and think of Raju whenever I was finding it a bit tough. So, yeah, there we go. Like everything in COVID, you'd modify things and, you know, try and change things and work out all right. Yeah. And then let's dive into the strategies that you used during the day. So you sort of briefly touched on them about fueling right and having a laugh with your mates. Like what specifically were you doing through the day to get through all of that? Oh, right. So it started a couple of days beforehand. I just loaded up with some carbs a couple of days beforehand. So I'd tape it off. I wasn't doing any heavy exercise. It'd been a week since I'd done any heavy exercise and light it up with a few carbs a couple of days before.

[32:04] Ash Brunner suggested that, you know, it can add up to 3% to 4% to your performance. And over that length of time that I was walking, that's a fair bit. So I did that. on the morning yeah got up, pretty early, five o'clock, and then just had a sort of big normal breakfast. I'd had all my food organised in little bags that had the right amount of calories for me to have each lap, and I left those at the top of the climb. So I prepared that. I estimated the amount of fluid that I was going to use based on what I'd been using before. So that was going to be, I was going to lose about eight to nine litres through sweat. So I had a fuel station at the top with some power aid and then water at the bottom of the hill.

[33:23] And I was very, very diligent about having at least a litre an hour mixed of some of it was power eight and some was just straight water. Previously, I'd go without drinking a lot, just keep pushing through, but that was impacting upon my experience.

[33:44] Decision making and just the level of energy they had so yeah i'd eat religiously at the top um i drink religiously at the top and then um i would i really noticed the difference in my cognitive ability um after eating like halfway going halfway back down the hill i was really switched on and that was important because it's very steep shaley stuff and i was worried about sort of tripping over so um that nutrition was really really important um i would do just a few little stretches and things at the top um a lot of it's sort of walking i use a ski pole when i walk um because it takes it actually takes a little bit of the pressure off as you're going and over a whole day it does take a lot of load off plus when you're descending steep shaly stuff it gives you that extra bit of support so using the ski pole was important but by using a ski pole it actually changes it changes your stature so my back started to get a bit sore because I was bending over all the time particularly going up a hill so I would stretch do some stretches at the top of the hill fuel up with my pre-prepared stuff and head down.

[35:14] So yeah, that was it. I had to have probably a 10-minute break. There'd be people up the top wanting to have a yarn and everything, and then some couple of blokes came down and did a lap or two with me, which is really good. The time goes a lot quicker then.

[35:29] So that was good. I also had music playing. Well, that was when the other people weren't walking with me, but I've got a list of songs that I've had over the years, good old trekking songs. And use that. So, yeah, that was pretty much it. Worked. Well, it sounds like you were covering all your bases there, which is fantastic. And then after the challenge, when you got through it all and, you know, when you sort of crossed that or finished that last repetition, how did you feel and what was going through your head?

[36:13] Um oh it's a bit emotional you know when you you know i was just thinking about my old mate um and you know when you commit to something over a long period of time and you you physically, challenge yourself to get there when you get there it's pretty emotional it's like any climbing any big mountain whenever you get to the summit and you know what's going on beforehand all the preparation, all the people that you've been over before with, you know, some aren't around anymore, all those things start to come up. So, yeah, it was a bit sort of emotional there. I felt, apart from that, I was tired, but...

[37:03] I didn't have, it wasn't as though I was really stiff in the legs or anything. My back was a bit sore, but I wasn't bound up in the legs, you know. It wasn't like someone had just filled me up with lactic acid. It really did feel like I'd just been on a long walk, not a big epic. And that, by and large, over the next few days, I was, I don't even notice it now. But I just noticed a little bit of stiffness in my quads, nothing in my calves, just a little bit of stuff in my quads and I think that was more due to the descents because you're just jamming down the whole time and you have to hold and stabilise. But no, my recovery is really good. Having five or six beers afterwards probably doesn't tick the boxes but I think I deserved them.

[38:03] Well that was my next question how you're going to celebrate so you're going to get the beers in after that's fair enough yeah yeah it's ended up camping out there at the top of it a mate bought a swag out and a lit a fire and sat around and had some beers and uh that was really nice i just spent the night in the bush um you know that's a good thing yeah so i just reflected on it and that's one of the things I've learned over the years, Rowan, is that, um, A lot of people, when they go on these big trips, like particularly to Nepal and places like that, they fly there, do it, and fly straight back out again.

[38:44] If you can take a couple of extra days, it doesn't have to be there, but somewhere else just to reflect, you know, and that might be with yourself or one of your close mates, not doing any epic stuff but just reflecting. It's really important and the thing becomes a lot more satisfying. And, you know, reflecting on significant things like that makes them seem, I suppose, more real and enduring. And then you don't get into that trap of, oh, you've done that, oh, it's going to do something else. So, you know, slow down and enjoy things and actually reflect on them is important. Yeah, that's amazing, mate, and that's such an incredibly important point to make. So I'm so glad that you brought that up because, yeah, you see that all the time. Like, you know, I'm not in firsthand with you, but from people who would just go from thing to thing and that would really take a second to appreciate what they've done. So such a great point to bring up.

[39:48] Yeah. Yeah, we get out of the bush to heal ourselves and connect with nature.

[39:57] So we're not doing ourselves any favours if we don't stop to think about what we've just experienced and just it becomes another box ticking exercise which you know life's too full of those things, Absolutely and then what's next on the agenda? What's the next challenge you're going to set yourself or what are you going to lead up to? Yeah well I was thinking after this I thought, oh, I'll just take six months off and, you know, chill out. I think Nepal, well, it's open for trekking again now. The only issues really are for us. We can't get out of the country. So that's a significant issue. So if...

[40:49] Things go the way I think they will, then I'm back on for Manuslu sometime next year. So, and then I've reorganised all my treks and my commercial stuff for the end of, towards the end of next year. So I've got my Manuslu climb. I've just moved that till next year. And then from there I've got a trek going up to Manuslu base camp, the remote way, and then a mirror trip, a couple of trips up to Everest base camp.

[41:31] A sort of quite a weird way, and then a meditation trek and a couple of other things. So all the trips that I had on for this time now I've moved to the next year. So I thought, well... If you don't do anything, you're just really not going to build on what you've done now fitness-wise before then. So what I'm going to do is do what's called the Three Peaks Challenge,

[42:00] which is a cycle race they have here in northeast Victoria. It starts at Falls Creek, goes down from Falls Creek, goes up a thing called the Tawonga Gap, then it climbs up Mount Hotham and then descends Mount Hotham the other side and then comes back up to Falls Creek. So it's 240 kilometres, but some of the gradients are really heavy and, yeah, it's a real test. That's in March.

[42:34] So I thought that's a reasonable goal. That can keep me fit. that can get my VO2 up, keep me pretty fit and it's not a high-impact thing unless I get run over by a semi-trailer or something. So it's something I think is pretty sustainable. So I thought, well, I'll just change the emphasis of I'll set a new goal and then have a yarn to you and Ash and see if we can change a training program a bit to get my performance up for that and then something that will be consistent with what I'm trying to achieve to climb Manaslu. I reckon if I can do that really well and get really fit for that, I'll be in a pretty good space to climb Manaslu. And I'm really interested in seeing if I can actually build on the base level of fitness I've got now and get some really high-performance stuff happening, even at my age. So, yeah, that's the next goal.

[43:42] Fantastic. Yeah, happy days ahead there, mate. And as you said, you've got such a good base now and you've done so much work over these last few months to build these foundations. And, yeah, it's only going to be up from here. So how good. And then to finish off today, I'd love if you could just dive into a little bit more about your company and Himalayan Guide in Australia and just tell us a little bit more about the trips you run, sort of what you do there and, yeah, just give us a bit of a rundown of all of that. Yeah, okay. Oh, thanks.

[44:21] It's interesting. I've been going to Nepal, you know, for 30 years. So I've done commercial trips. I've done treks on my own. I've seen what people do over there.

[44:32] And I wasn't actually thinking about doing anything. I was just going to go climbing and doing my own stuff.

[44:43] But spending time just in a particular village for a long period of time and actually connecting with the village rather than just blowing in and out, you know, on the way into a base camp really did, I suppose, bring to light for me some of the more deeper things that we could learn from going over there. So I thought, well, given what's going on at the moment, a lot of commercial trips going over there, they were just fluff, you know. It was pretty touristy, some of the things going up and down to base camp and stuff. I thought, well, I can shift the emphasis on, To move into this region, no one else does it, and I know the people really well there, so we can have a really authentic trekking experience, wilderness trekking experience, with a whole lot of people there we know really well in different villages. So it was more about, it was just the opportunity there to actually connect a lot of the areas within Manislu.

[46:01] And by doing that, you had the opportunity then to be able to bring people across and show them that this sort of lifestyle and beauty and simplicity over there actually still did exist in the world. And, you know, given what we've been going through now and the speed with which our life is sort of hurtling on and the shallowness of a lot of the stuff that we do, the consumerism and all that sort of stuff, I just sort of thought, well, there's some pretty powerful lessons in that, that it's very difficult to actually learn whilst you're over here in the middle of things, you know. So I thought, right, we'll set up some treks going in and around Manislu. So me and my mate Sundish, whose village is up there, and a few of the other villagers up there, spent time just working, doing reconnaissances and finding out where we could go. So we've set up some beautiful trails, some routes, sorry, that you won't see another tourist and some fantastic views and things like that.

[47:13] And so, yeah, done that. Got the whole website and everything in behind it. I'm lucky enough to have some pretty good friends over here who are experienced in that field. And now I've been running treks over there for the last four years. Most of the treks in the Manislea region, well, there's two real different types of treks. I do women's groups. So I've got a female guide here in Australia and also a Nepali guide. So I've taken groups of women over there. They really love it. Nothing's too extreme, but it's very authentic. Then I do a meditation trek. We found this really funky sacred lake at 3,500 metres. And met this llama who lives there, and he is just unbelievable. So we've developed a trek around that. We had to cancel that this year. That was 20-odd people going on that, which is a bit of a shame, but that'll run again next year. And then there's some other ones around there going into Manuslu base camp over quite a remote pass called the Rukangala. So that's pretty heavy sort of trekking, but I've done that now a few times. It's fantastic.

[48:32] Also, just because the people who've come on the treks with me and others are saying, oh, yeah, we just want to do some of the things we've heard about. So now I'm running trips into Mira Peak, which is 6,000, no, only 6,500 metres, but I'll go a different way in there and then come out up near Everest Base Camp and back way. And i'm going to run a few ever space camp trips um next year but going on slightly different routes and just using our ethos of finding new ways uh new ways to do things so yeah it's expanded a bit um this year's been a big hiccup obviously but i'm lucky enough not to um be really badly affected like some of the bigger companies are. I mean, I wouldn't like to be running some of the big international trekking companies now. They must be really, really struggling.

[49:34] So I've managed to keep paying my staff over there and I'm really looking forward to getting back over there and connecting with those guys again because they just make it. It's like family. So it's going to be great to get back over there next year. And a lot of the people who are coming along this year are going to come along next year. So that's a good thing. That was a long-winded explanation, Ron, but that's about the sum of it, mate. No, I loved it, mate. It's really cool to know a little bit more because I knew what you did and I knew where you went, but it's really cool to know a little bit more about the details around that and sort of where you're coming from with the whole company. So that's really cool. And if people did want to learn a little bit more about, you know, Himalayan guarding Australia and check out your trips or get in contact with you, how can they do that? Yeah, well, we spent a lot of time on the website, so I reckon it's not bad. And so, yeah, HimalayanGuidingAustralia.com.au or just type in Himalayan Guiding Australia and that'll bring up the website and all the information on the treks is there, plus the history of the business. There's some fantastic photographs in there and some good videos too. Last couple of times I've been over there, I've taken a professional guy with me.

[50:57] Who's um we've got a license to take a drone so there's some good really good drone footage there plus um some really good footage of a children's trek that i did there and a women's trek so there's some good videos on there that just give a bit of a flavor of what's going on so, yeah hit up the website my contact details are on there and i'm always happy to give people a hand even if they're going over there on their own and just want to do their own thing, um you know it's a favorite experience amongst a lot of us so um yeah just hook on the website and get in touch too easy well i'll um i'll leave that link in the show notes below for anyone who wants to check out a little bit more about what sean does and um you know what his business all about and the trips he's running so you can check that out in the show notes below below but um but thank you so much for coming on today mate it's been a really really cool episode and it's been really interesting just to dive into, you know, a few things around your preparations and what you do and, and this challenge that you've just completed. So I think there's been really some cool stuff you've shared today. So I really appreciate you coming on. And yeah, I think a lot of people are going to enjoy this.

[52:08] Yeah, oh, okay. Anyway, it's been nice talking about it. I love talking about the place over there, and I can't wait to get back over there. But, yeah, this way I've done it a bit differently this time around. You know, a structured program, nutritionist and stuff, and it feels – I definitely feel –.

Want to Get
Fit, Strong And Resilient
For Your
​Mountaineering Adventures?

Check Out
The Online Summit Program