He picked fruit to save up and beat a climbing world record
Standing on top of Mt Rainier in Washington, D.C, in July last year, 28-year-old Kiwi Matheson Brown just claimed the new fastest known time for climbing the highest peak in every US state.
The previous record-holder used a private jet to fly between each state. Matheson flew economy and had a car driven by his Dad.
The record attempt was a long time in the making…
When Matheson finished high school, he took off from home.
“I didn’t tell my parents where I was going or when I’d be back,” he said. It was while on the road that he met someone studying Outdoor Leadership. Climbing was included in the course, and he quickly discovered it was the part he loved the most.
“As soon as I learned about rock climbing and mountaineering, I knew the day would come when I committed completely to it.” Luckily, he’s never been scared of heights.
Between his studies, Matheson and a mate would often hitchhike to Queenstown. “With five days off, we’d pack our bags with food, sleep in a cave, swim and cool off under waterfalls,” he said. “It was about the whole adventure.”
Straight after graduation in 2018, Matheson headed to Georgia, in the USA, to begin the Appalachian Trail. Hiking more than 3500 kilometres in the bush over 139 days, he finished the trail in Maine.
But still, the endless road called. He hitchhiked across Europe from Sweden to Spain. Next was the US, and then Canada. In winter.
“Yeah, that was pretty cold,” he said.
While out waiting for a lift in negative 40, Matheson would be facing the first stages of frostbite across his cheeks, ears and fingers. “I didn’t have the good gear back then. I was borrowing a pair of ski pants from my friend’s Mum.” His gloves were also borrowed, with duct tape around the fingers to patch up the holes.
He’d be running back and forth. Dropping to the ground for a set of push-ups. “If I stopped moving, I was going to die; it was that cold,” he said. “I loved it.” He even slept in a park, no tent, at negative 37 degrees Celsius.
Matheson tells me that uncomfortable situations are eased by exposure therapy. “You get more and more used to this level of intensity,” he said. “You can’t let fear ruin your trip or ruin the fun.”
With just $6 in his pocket after his hitchhiking, he took a plane to Australia and used his outdoor instructing degree to work seven days for the next six months.
“I don’t really get too stressed. I feel like a stressful situation is one thing, but being stressed by it is a choice in my opinion. I don’t choose to let it bother me… Things are more enjoyable if you just don’t worry about it.”
He made the money that he needed and headed back to New Zealand to make a documentary on climbing. Chasing Vertical follows Matheson’s nine-month training journey to climb the formidable Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. It was a goal he’d had in his mind since 2019.
The success of a simple documentary he’d originally made about his Appalachian Trail journey had inspired him to turn to the long-form storytelling format again.
“I didn’t put too much effort into that documentary, but people were searching me up on Facebook and sending me messages about how it had changed their life, had inspired them to go hiking,” he said. “It was crazy to see how much good had come from some trip that I had just wanted to do for myself.”
“If we could do that much good by accident, what could we do if we were trying to do it on purpose,” he thought.
The goal of Chasing Vertical was to show people that they could go after their own limits; to share the knowledge that when faced with a challenging situation, rather than quitting, you just have to figure out the next steps of how to make it work.
“A lot of the time, we put these limits on ourselves and think some dreams are for a different category of person and not for you,” he said. “And that’s stuff I’ve been told in the past too, but I didn’t believe it, or at least, I wanted to see if it was true.”
Matheson wondered how many people were out there like him, sitting there, wanting to try something but thinking it wasn’t for them.
“So I went out and did it for myself, I climbed Half Dome, and was like, Oh shit, this is for me.”
After the documentary was released, someone reached out to him asking for advice on climbing Half Dome, and Matheson spent six weeks training him. The guy was so determined, he even had the route tattooed on his chest beforehand. Luckily, he made it to the top.
“This guy had it in him to do it. He just didn’t realise it,” Matheson said. “There are a lot of people out there not achieving their own dreams - and not because they aren’t capable of it, but because they don’t believe they’re capable of it.”
Still murmuring in the back of Matheson’s mind was an idea dreamed up back when he was hitchhiking in the US: climbing the highest peak in every state, and doing it the fastest.
A slow period during lockdown allowed him to crunch the numbers on how to get to each peak quickly. He thought it seemed doable.
Matheson’s passion for the challenge flared when he realised the current record holder had used a private jet to fly between each peak.
“It almost seemed like someone had come in and paid to win. It put world records for regular people into an entirely different bracket: rich people with private jets,” he said. It ruined the game for regular people, Matheson thought. At first.
No North Face or Patagonia sponsors, Matheson worked as a painter, scaffolder, picked apples and cherries, did construction and worked in forestry to make the money he needed for the record.
After a 12-hour day of forestry, he’d run a half-marathon before dinner for his training. Before sleep was a core workout.
“It sucked,” he confirmed.
“But by the time I started the record attempt, it was barely harder than the training. I’d busted my ass for a year for this, and so when I started running and climbing, I was never gonna stop.”
“I realised the difficult parts of those past circumstances actually gave me the edge when I got to the start line. It made me reflect that in tough times, don’t wish them away as you never know when that hard work will pay off.”
The other record holders had an RV, Matheson had a car, driven by his Dad, to race between each peak. Starting at 6190m Mt Denali in Alaska, over the next three weeks, he never slept more than four hours in any given 24-hour period. He fueled himself on freeze-dried meals and burgers and fries from McDonald’s.
His thoughts once he’d bet the record? “I was just glad that everyone who helped me hadn’t helped me for no reason.”
Matheson is still committing his time to showing people that they can do the things they want. “And I’m trying to do that while doing the things that I want,” he said. “But that doesn’t pay, so I do a lot of work as well.”
This year, he’s been working in an orchard, tree planting, waiting tables in a Mexican restaurant, and acting as a stunt double (with ginger hair and a mo). Sixty hours a week plus training to get him to his next mission…
“If you want the thing, you’re either going to prove to yourself that you want it, or prove to yourself that you don’t want it that bad,” Matheson said.
“If you really want it, you’ll just do whatever it takes and have some fun while you’re at it.”
