How to Climb Cowboy Direct: Jordan Cannon on The Struggle Climbing Show
We're featuring a great conversation between our friend Ryan Devlin, host and creator of the Struggle Climbing Show and member of the Plug Tone Collective, and Jordan Cannon.
In this bonus episode, Jordan takes us on the unbelievable adventure of tackling one of the toughest high-altitude big wall ascents in the world, the Cowboy Direct route of Trango (Nameless) Tower.
This is Jordan’s third appearance on the show and for good reason – just recently he and partners Matt Segal and Jesse Huey accomplished one of the most mind blowing and impressive high altitude ascents of recent memory– the second ascent of Trango (Nameless) Tower via the Cowboy Direct Route – a grade VII 5.13 big wall that reaches over 20,000 feet into the clouds of the Karakoram / Himalaya. If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to put together an expedition of this magnitude, get clipped in for one helluva ride. Jordan brings his storytelling A-game, covering:
How the trip came together
Breaking down the costs
Acclimatization hacks
Team dynamics
Risk assessment
The emotional and physical highs and lows
Assigning asterisks when it comes to high altitude big wall ascents
What happens to your body on an envelope-pushing adventure like this
And Jordan answers perhaps the biggest question of all… why do it in the first place.
Follow along with the Struggle Climbing Show here and with Jordan here.
