The Duffel Shuffle Podcast

In episode 67, Sam and Adrian open with quick hits on Nick Russell, Adam Fabricant, and Billy Haas's clean first descent of Dorje Lakpa's south face and Jonathan Siegrist's 100th route of 5.14d or harder, before sitting down with longtime North Face athlete Matt Segal, just eleven weeks into fatherhood.
Matt traces a career Adrian calls the ultimate blue-collar pro: a Miami gym kid turned competition climber, then a Boulder-based trad specialist putting up hard single-pitch gear routes, then expeditions from China to Pakistan. 
- A paragliding crash outside Bishop eight years ago broke a dozen bones and forced a restart, and from that hospital bed came a vow to climb 5.14 again before flying. He never flew again, but went on to tick his two childhood dreams: 5.14d and the summit of Nameless Tower.
- Now 42, with a son and a lot of lost friends behind him, Matt says he no longer accepts dying in the mountains. His focus is a short, safe Boulder Canyon crack he first tried 15 years ago that would be his hardest trad route ever, chosen because it's close to home. 
- The crew also gets into the controversy over his winter free ascent of D7 on the Diamond, how he thinks about risk for the next generation, and his plans to blend climbing and food through Alpine Start, coaching, and Never Skip Dinner retreats.
Follow our podcast on Instagram @duffelshufflepodcast where you can learn more about us and our guests. Visit our website at www.duffelshufflepodcast.com and join our mailing list.
The Duffel Shuffle Podcast is supported by Alpenglow Expeditions, an internationally renowned mountain guide service based in Lake Tahoe, California. Visit https://alpenglowexpeditions.com/ or follow @alpenglowexpeditions on Instagram to learn more.

On Episode 66, Sam and Adrian open with quick hits on early-season snow stoke and Andrzej Bargiel calling off his Dhaulagiri ski attempt before sitting down with IFMGA mountain guide, avalanche educator, and Black Diamond athlete Angela Hawse.
Angela traces her path from Prescott College and Outward Bound to the American Alpine Institute, five seasons on Denali, and nine seasons heli-ski guiding in the San Juans. 
In 2010 she became the 60th IFMGA guide in the US and only the sixth woman, and she has since helped lead the AMGA and served on the IFMGA technical commission. She breaks down how the American modular training system compares to Europe's entry-exam model, and why early mentorship from Kathy Cosley taught her to guide like herself rather than like the bigger guys around her.
The conversation turns to risk management, how climate change is tightening margins and making past experience less reliable, and her new short film with Protect Our Winters, Black Diamond, and Polar Bears International, Mountain Guides: Barometers of Change (watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dnnDO-SS6A). 
Plus: a 1993 Pakistan duffel saga that ends with her pack in Hong Kong, and why she took up skateboarding three years ago.
Follow our podcast on Instagram @duffelshufflepodcast where you can learn more about us and our guests. Visit our website at www.duffelshufflepodcast.com and join our mailing list.

The Duffel Shuffle Podcast is supported by Alpenglow Expeditions, an internationally renowned mountain guide service based in Lake Tahoe, California. Visit https://alpenglowexpeditions.com/ or follow @alpenglowexpeditions on Instagram to learn more.

On Episode 65, Alex Honnold returns for his second appearance on the show, this time flipping the script and taking over as guest host. 
Sam and Adrian open with the tragic avalanche that struck base camp on Nepal's Himlung Himal and a quick look at a storm-battered fall season in the Himalaya before handing Alex the mic.
Fresh off town-to-summit days on the Eiger and the Matterhorn, Alex arrives with the questions anyone who's climbed high has wondered about. 
Why does it feel like you're dying at altitude when your heart rate is barely 120? Adrian explains how the heart itself is starved of oxygen, why acclimatization comes in a fast phase over a few days and a slower red-blood-cell phase over weeks, and why it fades faster than it builds. 
Alex also opens up about the migraines that derailed his trips to Vinson and Aconcagua, and Adrian's theory that he's simply a slow acclimatizer.
From there the conversation turns to the trade-off between cardio and hard rock climbing: how much zone two is enough, whether sprinting the approach to the crag actually helps, and why fitness watches never give credit for slogging uphill with 70 pounds of kids on your back.
Follow our podcast on Instagram @duffelshufflepodcast where you can learn more about us and our guests. Visit our website at www.duffelshufflepodcast.com and join our mailing list.
The Duffel Shuffle Podcast is supported by Alpenglow Expeditions, an internationally renowned mountain guide service based in Lake Tahoe, California. Visit https://alpenglowexpeditions.com/ or follow @alpenglowexpeditions on Instagram to learn more.

*Editor's note: This episode was recorded on September 18, before an avalanche at Camp 3 on Manaslu killed two climbers. Our thoughts are with their families, their friends, and everyone involved in the rescue.*
In Episode 64, Sam and Adrian open with quick hits on The Gear Project, a new online consignment shop for used outdoor gear, and a wave of climbing and ski films landing on major streamers this fall, before turning to the autumn Himalaya season. 
Adrian opens the episode with why post-monsoon snowpack and long stable weather windows make fall the best time for technical and ski objectives below 8,000 meters, and why an unreliable jet stream makes the highest peaks a gamble.
Manaslu: With Cho Oyu closed and Pakistan seeing a quiet summer, more than 1,000 climbers have converged on Manaslu for a record season. Adrian, who spent four seasons there after Russell Brice first brought commercial teams in 2008, breaks down the mountain's history of massive avalanches, the wet tail of this year's monsoon, and a slide above Camp 3 that wiped out an estimated 1,300 meters of fixed rope just hours after the fixing team came down.
The rest of the map: Dhaulagiri's low commercial success rate (and Adrian's canceled expedition there as a young climber), autumn attempts on Makalu and Annapurna, and the case for a commercial fall season on Everest's south side, where shared infrastructure could make the Khumbu Icefall affordable.
Ama Dablam: Adrian's favorite mountain, which he has summited 13 times, and the hanging serac hazard that shapes Alpenglow's camp policy there.
Follow our podcast on Instagram @duffelshufflepodcast where you can learn more about us and our guests. Visit our website at www.duffelshufflepodcast.com and join our mailing list.

The Duffel Shuffle Podcast is supported by Alpenglow Expeditions, an internationally renowned mountain guide service based in Lake Tahoe, California. Visit https://alpenglowexpeditions.com/ or follow @alpenglowexpeditions on Instagram to learn more.

Episode 63 opens with Adrian and Sam's conversation on the devastating Nepal-China border flood at Gyirong Port, and a nod to Laura Rogora's blazing six-day ascent of Bibliographie, before settling into a wide-ranging interview with viral Minecraft-YouTuber-turned-mountaineer Ryan Mitchell.
Ryan built a following of millions making Minecraft videos before walking away to chase Mount Everest — a goal he set purely because he thought it would make a good video title. 
With no outdoor background and guidance from Everest expert Alan Arnette, he trained for a year and a half and summited in 2024. 
He quickly found himself hooked and a brutal, storm-battered K2 season in 2025 left him hungry to go bigger.
This spring he set out to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen, but a botched tonsil infection and a rushed return to altitude triggered HAPE at base camp, ending the attempt and sparking a season-long debate over what counts as a "legitimate" no-oxygen ascent. 
Ryan talks candidly about getting rescued, tuning out online criticism, and the hard lesson that ego, not fitness, is usually what gets climbers killed.
He's already looking ahead: Ryan is currently attempting Manaslu, aiming for another no-oxygen summit with a snowboard descent, and lays out a longer-term goal of climbing all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen.
Follow our podcast on Instagram @duffelshufflepodcast where you can learn more about us and our guests. Visit our website at www.duffelshufflepodcast.com and join our mailing list.
The Duffel Shuffle Podcast is supported by Alpenglow Expeditions, an internationally renowned mountain guide service based in Lake Tahoe, California. Visit https://alpenglowexpeditions.com/ or follow @alpenglowexpeditions on Instagram to learn more.