A Life of Stoke and Steel with Roger Strong

Ice Ice Beta

Roger Strong made his catch king crab fishing so he could ski and climb the rest of the year. His life was forged by sea and steel, commercial fishing hardening him for both alpinism and captainship.

As he says, it was some of the best and worst times.

But to continue the metaphor, the metallurgy of life also requires tempering, annealing, and healing too.

In this episode, we chat about:

• 🧊 Life and times of commercial crab fishing
• 🧊 Establishing mixed lines in Washington, including the first M8, M9, and M11
• 🧊 Why having a child was the best thing that ever happened to him
• 🧊 Learning to smell the moss

"Being part of that environment is as important, if not more important than the accomplishment — humans just put too much value on the summit, too much value on numbers.

I don't know what the difference between 15 a, b, c, and d is, but that's for those people that can do that. And so is their ascent more important than my soloing 5.6, 5.7, 5.8? Maybe it is to them, but, it's the movement, it's the touching the stone, it's the swinging of the ice tool, looking for the perfect swing, looking for the perfect amount of footwork, and it's just this, I'm just always looking for."

🎁 Giveaway

Roger works for Black Diamond, America’s quintessential climbing company. For this episode, they are generously giving away:

• 🐉 A set of Hydras!

Only members of the podcast will be able to enter, luckily, you can become a member for FREE, which gives you access to special giveaways like this (and other goodies).

👉 To enter:

In this week's newsletter, we share a question which Roger answers in this week's episode.

Once you have the answer:

1. Follow @blackdiamond and @ice_ice_beta on Instagram
2. DM the answer to the question to @ice_ice_beta
3. Comment on Roger's episode post on our Instagram: “#manyheadedbeast” once you’ve sent in your answer

📣 Winners will be randomly selected from submissions that meet all the rules on Monday, February 10

🧊 Resources and links

You can follow Roger on Instagram, @roger_strong.

If you’d like to learn more about Roger’s accident, this is the video Fitz Cahall produced about his recovery.

🧊 Credits

📸: Cover photo courtesy of Roger.

Credits:

• Intro music by Hannah Noelle Enomoto (thanks, sis!).
• This episode was edited by Andrew Salomone of salomonesound.com.
• And of course, a big thanks to our sponsors, Aniiu Gloves and Furnace Industries!

Become a member:

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed the conversation and want to help us do many more episodes like this, please consider becoming a member.

(For less than the price of a bougie beer per month!).

🗣️ Leave us a review!:

You can also help us out by subscribing to the podcast and leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice. Reviews are helpful for new listeners that come across the show, and a good rating means Spotify, Apple, and other platforms are more likely to recommend it to others.