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I call myself The Protagonist in this story
I spent twenty years climbing mountains and made first ascents all over the globe. After retiring in 2000 I trained various military and intelligence assets about mountain mobility, high altitude adaptation, nutrition and fitness. Eventually, I was hired as the subject matter expert to help develop the Protective Combat Uniform (PCU) cold weather clothing system, which was fielded to the Navy in 2004 and all of SOCOM in 2008. Between 2005 and 2017, as an extension of the gym I founded, Gym Jones, I trained actors for nine Hollywood action movies including “300”, “Man of Steel”, “Batman vs. Superman", “Wonder Woman”, “Justice League”, and “Aquaman”.
I walked away from that world and co-founded NonProphet, a media company producing Zines, books, and a podcast to examine the intersection of art and action. The project ran its course, it no longer exists so I am, once again, a "team of one" hence the name, an old name I've used since the mid-80s, "Équipe Solitaire".
I authored several books. “Extreme Alpinism" (1999) and "Kiss or Kill" (2001), both about climbing, won national awards and the latter was translated into five languages. In 2019 we published "REFUGE", which describes—via a photographic and literary journey—my descent from the mountains to the valley and the process of finding beauty and meaning in a life less exciting and less dangerous but no less challenging than that I lived among the highest peaks of the world. More recently I published a collection of 141 essays titled "POISON - Sermons on Suffering" (2022), generally focused on "the philosophy of effort". The first edition sold out quickly, which was cool.
Read some of those essays here. Surf to my website to find more words, tune in to the podcast, or check out some photographs.
What’s it mean?
Translated from French, it could mean The Lone Team, The Only Team, or, as I meant it when I was soloing a lot, the Team of One. I wanted to do it on my own and I often did. Once I discovered the value of a strong partnership and started tying into the rope as a matter of course, Equipe Solitaire was back-burnered but never forgotten. It seems appropriate now, during a period of growth and change. To quote Matthias Giraud, “Reframing, becoming, being ... l’Équipe Solitaire unites mind and body together through intention.”
Onward!
