#977 - Jeff Evans & Bud Brutsman

Joe Rogan (0:00)

You can go right out your door and be in the most awesome hiking spot ever.

And we're live, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, thank you for joining NPR. Please, no, I don't want to do that. Bud Brutsman, Jeff Evans, Bud Brutsman, good friend of mine, next door neighbor, and Jeff Evans, his buddy, who apparently has lived a fucking crazy life rescuing people off of Everest, traveling up there, and Bud told me we were at this little carnival with our kids. He's like, gotta get this guy on, gotta talk to him. So, no pressure.

Jeff Evans (0:30)

Yeah, your arm got put behind your back.

Joe Rogan (0:34)

No, it didn't. It sounded good. I was interested.

Jeff Evans (0:36)

Bring this asshole on the show.

Joe Rogan (0:37)

How did you get involved with, first of all, when was the first time you summoned at Everest?

Jeff Evans (0:41)

2001

Joe Rogan (0:42)

God damn, man. How many times you done it?

Jeff Evans (0:44)

Just once. Just, good move, that's good. But I kinda get a 1.5, cause I had a blind dude with me.

Joe Rogan (0:49)

Yeah, so you took a blind dude all the way to the top. Why didn't you take him like halfway?

Jeff Evans (0:56)

Yeah, blowin his face.

Joe Rogan (0:58)

Dude, you made it. You're one of the rare ones.

Jeff Evans (1:01)

The funny part was we got to the top and we were like, man, we can see the curvature of the earth from here, bro. And he goes, I don't give a shit. Like, I wanna get out of here. I can't see anything.

Bud Brutsman (1:09)

I wanna go. That's actually not true. What he said is, hey, Eric, take a look around.

Jeff Evans (1:14)

Take a look around.

Bud Brutsman (1:14)

That's what he said to the blind dude.

Joe Rogan (1:16)

Take a look around. Was it instinctual or were you just fuckin with him?

Jeff Evans (1:19)

I mean, I think it was a little bit of both. I kind of instinctively fucked with him.

We've been bros for a long time. I mean, it's a very fraternal relationship that we have. So I, by nature, just sort of automatically fucked with this guy. And I enjoy it, and he enjoys it back, because he is super blind dude, you know? The whole world loves him, some Eric, and I'm probably one of the few people that just kick him in the nuts, you know?

Joe Rogan (1:45)

Give him a little bit of a hard time? Yeah, if you're a blind dude that climbs Mount Everest, people just give you a free pass, a lot of stuff.

Bud Brutsman (1:50)

It's not only that, he climbed, what else did he climb?

Jeff Evans (1:52)

Well, he's done a bunch of stuff, but he just kayaked the Grand Canyon two years ago in his own boat, the whole thing, 277 miles.

Bud Brutsman (2:02)

What, did he have a guy behind him going left, right, left, right, like you do skiing?

Jeff Evans (2:05)

Front and back, and they had these ear pieces, and he asked me to go, but I'm like, I'll climb Everest, but I sure as fuck ain't gonna take you down the Grand Canyon.

Joe Rogan (2:13)

There's something that people really love about someone risking their life, and then pulling it off, right? Something-

Jeff Evans (2:19)

Yeah, assuming you pull it off, yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:20)

Assuming, yeah, if you don't, then you make one of those Instagram greatest fails pages.

Jeff Evans (2:25)

They were telling us before we went up there, like, you know, blind dude's gonna die, and when he dies, what'd you think was gonna happen?

Joe Rogan (2:32)

They were telling that to you?

Jeff Evans (2:33)

Oh yeah, we heard that.

Joe Rogan (2:34)

Who, the Sherpas or who?

Jeff Evans (2:35)

No, no, just the Everest experts, you know. Remember, this is back in 1 This was when Everest was super dangerous.

This was a little bit more raw than it is now.

Joe Rogan (2:44)

How is that? What has happened? Because on the outside, what I've seen is all the exposés that show all the human waste that they leave behind, including actual shit, right? And the tents, and people pay people to kind of do all the hard work, and then you just kind of show up, and still hard, right? But not as hard.

Jeff Evans (3:03)

You gotta put in, you know, you gotta put in the steps. You gotta put in the work, but it's so commercialized that it's been it's been diluted to a certain extent. And, you know, I am a Sherpa advocate to the core.