YETI Presents Sandbagging Jimmy Chin

Those are some big shots. Big stats. Jesus, look at that thing. That's almost right up here. It's 100% rideable. That's like five feet. Are you kidding me? Five feet. Shh. We're going to some hollow outer reef. Sounds pretty casual. Yeah. Not a big deal. No, you'll be fine, man. Prospects for Jimmy at this moment are not so good. I don't think he's going to get feral today. He's probably going to get really scared and eat ---- probably. When we first showed up and we saw these sets lining up outside and I see Keith and John paddling out, I was just thinking, are they really just going to just like, sight unseen, never been here before, they're just going to roll right out and catch the first huge set rolling in? And that's exactly what they did. Shit. They're talking about towing me into this outer reef. I don't know what they call it in surfing, but in climbing you call it like getting sandbagged. Okay. Let's see. So a little while ago, John Rose did an interview with me and he asked me as his last question, if there's anything that I still want to do in my life that I hadn't done. I told him I wanted to get barreled and apparently Jeff Johnson found out about that and he was like, we got to get Jimmy Jim barreled. Like how fun would that be? Can he surf? Like, I mean, has he ever paddled? Like, can he get up? Can he get himself out on a lineup? Getting a tube ride or getting barreled in surfing is basically when the crest of a wave throws out over the top of you and you're in this tiny little zone and kind of witnessing it happen and you shoot directly through the crest of the wave, right through the curl and come out the other side. And it's the best thing you can do in surfing by a hundred times. What are the chances that I'm going to get barreled? Like it's 50-50. Like if I had to bet, it would be like a 30% chance. It's almost kind of a joke. I would give Jimmy a 90% chance of getting barreled at some point and making it. And before this trip, we didn't even know if Jimmy was goofy or regular foot, you know, which we probably should have done our research. Beyond the possibility of maybe getting tubed, he's going to have the possibility to get his ass handed to him. I'm saying a hundred percent. Yeah, he's going to get barreled. 20 years ago, I was a full dirt bag, climbing bum, ski bum. I've been living out of my car. I lived out of my car for seven years. For some reason, surfing always captured my imagination. And, you know, even the first time I met Keith and Dan and Jeff, even though we kind of come from different worlds, there was like an immediate mutual respect. Jimmy's one of those guys I always just kind of knew of. You know, he's world famous now, you know, with Free Solo and Meru and all the things he's done. But even back 10, 15 years ago, if you're in the climbing world, you knew who Jimmy Chin was. I've always just had a crazy appreciation for what Jimmy has done. One of the first times I hung out with him, somebody told me that he climbed Everest and then skied down. We've all spent so much time with each other. We've known Mark Healy since he was 12. I know Keith and Dan from seeing them on the North Shore, probably when I was like 12 years old. None of us are young bucks, that's for sure. And we kind of wanted to go on a trip for a long time. You know, it's easy to talk about trips, but like actually organizing and put them together is rare. Pretty special getting all these guys together. We all have a lot of history together. When I first got here and I was thinking, all right, here I am. And I'm sitting in the lineup with Mark Healy, Keith Malloy, John Rose, you know, Jeff Johnson and Dan Malloy. And I'm like, this is a pretty heavy crew. Like I'm rolling pretty deep right now. In climbing, there's this thing called a sandbag and I don't know the origins of it, but it's basically, you're not telling the whole truth when you take your friend out to do something. You're like, yeah, it'll be fine. You'll be fine. Well, the thing is, is Jeff, Jeff is definitely like the notorious, like a notorious sandbagger. Jeff convinced Keith to climb El Cap with them one time. It's classic Jeff Johnson sandbag. And Keith is legitimately afraid of heights. I mean, he has a phobia, you know, but he agreed to do it. Well, it's kind of funny because I took Keith on his first backcountry snowboarding trip. He took me up and showed me some things in the mountains and I just completely clueless. Kind of a neat thing to have that whole thing reversed. And now I'm helping him into these bigger waves. Taking a boat out to an outer reef, that's like literally the biggest waves I've ever, you know, seen live. And they're just like, yup, let's paddle out, you know. You know, you couldn't really tell how big it was because nobody was out. But then as soon as Healy got out there, you could tell it was like solid surf, like no joke at all, really heavy. Well, I've been in more sticky situations, getting caught inside or pounded in big surf than most humans. I have a lot of experience in this area. And today I got one of the worst beatings and hold downs, like top 10, I would say, out of my whole winter season in Hawaii. So that way, like it was real deal out there. As I was getting blown up underwater and in the air, I thought to myself immediately like, maybe I need to pump the brakes on pushing Jimmy into this right now. Somebody else at his skill level, I would not be telling them to go out today, you know, just cause it's not for everyone and not everybody can hold it together, you know. I'm not sure why they made me put this on, but it makes me a little nervous. Jimmy paddled out there and got his ass kicked, his ass handed to him and he stayed out. That guy is hungry. And before you know it, Jimmy's paddling into an outer reef wave and it's like double overhead. I paddle for a wave and I turned around and I looked outside and I, it was probably the biggest wave I've ever seen. Even on this trip, it was the biggest wave I've ever seen. And of course that's the one I got caught by. There was so much water and so much like power. I mean, it felt like a freight train. Yeah, in the back of my mind, I think I was also thinking like, oh, it's not as bad as some other things I've felt before, you know. He went and felt the power. Like he did not shy away from anything. He felt the full brunt of what was on hand out there and it was serious stuff. I thought I might get it, but. I'll call it in. I got f***ing whooped. In my mind, you know, it was like a perfect trip. I couldn't have asked for a better crew or a group of teachers. This is the one I stood up on. Is it? I like jumped up. I was like, oh my God, I'm in the barrel. Jimmy got barreled. He went from like having no idea kind of really how to do it to standing up in the barrel. I don't think he made one. I don't know if Jimmy got barreled. I saw a big old smile on his face a couple of times. Judging by his countenance, I suspect he got barreled. I don't know if I could say I got, I can't say that I got barreled. I just made that kind of arbitrary goal because I always love the process of trying to get to someplace that seems impossible because it forces you to do all these things that you might not necessarily push yourself at. I mean, I think a big part about staying young and happy and stoked is always being open to learn. And I think it keeps you young, you know? I think that I always wanna be learning something new or having a new experience or pushing myself in a new way. I think that's important. I would say that he did get in the barrel, which is very hard to do. Now, the next trip is gonna be him trying to make it out of one of them.