Kedrowski: 2017 Dr. Jon Kedrowski is teaching a class through REI...

[jmanner]

Whether you're talking about voting for Trump or buying Kedrowksi's products a quotation from PT Barnum is applicable, "there's a sucker born every minute."

+1

[EZsummits]

If Trump deported Dr. K from Colorado that may be something we could all get behind. Make Colorado Great Again

[Sean Nunn]

Look, I am not a huge Donald Trump fan, but if all you are going to do is bash the president, why don't you start a new thread under the "Off Route"? That would be a more appropriate place than under "General Mountaineering".

[highpilgrim]

That would be a more appropriate place than under "General Mountaineering".

Yeah, and just go back to bashing kedrowski. No sense muddying the bashing with politics.

[AnnaG22]

One last comment on that point: somebody should bring it to the gilded golfer's attention that "Little Rocket Man," according to NK media, has summited the tallest peak in HIS country. Then they can say that the tallest or second tallest in the contiguous US would count as better than Kim Jong Un since they're still way taller. Basically because I would pay money to see that man hike a mountain.

[XterraRob]

Kudos to the person who has the cojones to approach him in person about his "accolades" instead of jamming away on their keyboard on an internet forum.

[Bean]

Kudos to the person who has the cojones to approach him in person about his "accolades" instead of jamming away on their keyboard on an internet forum.

I'm (almost) disappointed that I'm busy trying to help people that night. It'd be fun to rustle some jimmies for old times' sake.

[12ersRule]

Kudos to the person who has the cojones to approach him in person about his "accolades" instead of jamming away on their keyboard on an internet forum.

Going all the way down there to discredit him is actually a compliment. It means you give enough of a s**t to slot out a chunk of time and then drive all the way over there to tell him what you think.

[tmahon]

Kudos to the person who has the cojones to approach him in person about his "accolades" instead of jamming away on their keyboard on an internet forum.

I'll do both.

I ran into him at the CMC Backcountry Bash on Saturday. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since the whole 14er ski thing blew up in June 2016. Back then I had let him know in no uncertain terms and on multiple channels that I thought he was a fraud, he was dishonest, and he was lying when he claimed to have skied all of the 14ers.

He actually approached me to talk. Small talk at first, about his new ski book to which I asked why anyone would hire him to write a book about backcountry skiing and he declared “I’m a ski mountaineer.”

After the small talk went on for a few minutes and I realized he wasn’t going to take the conversation to the topic I wanted to discuss, I interrupted. “Jon, that’s enough. I don’t really care and I want you to know that I stand by everything I said back then… I think you’re a fraud and a liar, and that you didn’t ski the 14ers as you said you did.”

He disagreed.

We went back forth for a while, probably 15 minutes. I presented concerns I had in various different ways but he was always totally unwilling to admit anything and he seemed unable to understand any part of my point of view.

Some of the conversation:

When asked about why he thought it was OK to not ski complete lines other guys and girls had done before him, he said he didn’t need to ski on rocks. I told him that if there were rocks and he was too early or late in the season, he needed to return at a time when the line was in, to do it in the style of those before him. He said he didn’t have to do that.

He actually said he thinks it's harder to hike down a 14er with skis on his back than it is to ski down them, that I didn’t understand how tough down climbing actually was.

I asked about his day on Blanca, where his partner reported that there wasn’t any snow to ski. Apparently he stood on the summit in his skis on a patch of snow and had this partner take his photo after which he took his skis off and walked down the dry, unskiable West Face. His reply was that he shouldn’t have to ski down rocks, and that he might have actually skied more vertical feet than anyone else when you measure how far down the road he skied, that is once he downclimbed far enough to get to the snow.

I asked about Little Bear, where he took a fall at the top of the Hourglass and then proceeded to walk a really long way down to near Como Lake, and if that was acceptable style. He said it was, and besides, he actually skied Little Bear back in 2003, so he’s good with that. I’m not sure that’s true.

I asked about his multiple failed attempts on Pyramid and he attempted to dismiss it, and rather disrespectfully claimed he’s climbed that mountain more times than me, and again, he shouldn’t have to ski on rocks.

Regarding coming up short on South Maroon-- he said he's been up there so many times and had skied it before.

I asked about Capitol and the fact that he didn’t ski anywhere near the summit and he actually asked why I was so “butthurt” over this and I told him I found his actions disrespectful to the community and everyone who worked so hard to do this in good style.

I told him he lacked integrity. I asked him if it mattered to him that his peers in the Colorado ski and climbing community don’t have respect for him and he said he didn’t care.

I asked how he was so comfortable misrepresenting what he did to reporters from the Denver Post and the Aspen Times. He denied misrepresenting anything, he reiterated his belief he did everything right.

He said that that he actually skied the 14ers in 160-odd days and what he did was harder than anything anyone else in the 14er community has ever done. He said so long as he reached the summit of the peaks, the details of how much he skied or how far he downclimbed didn't matter. He reminded me that he grew up in CO, as though that should grant him some special pass. He often brought the conversation to a strange Mount Everest/oxygen analogy, which I had trouble following.

He wouldn’t admit anything, and when pressed he often took the conversation in a different direction because he didn't like being pinned down on any one detail. He either misrepresented, pivoted to other topics, or outright lied so as to avoid saying anything of consequence. I felt like it was pointless to be talking with him. This went for a while. I can’t recall every exchange. And then my wife Christy came over and tagged in.

She asked why he thought it was OK to be so dishonest about what he did, and why he had such a hard time understanding why people were upset. He denied again being dishonest. He told us he just posted a video online praising others in the community who skied the 14ers before him, he was declaring to us that he pays his dues to those before him. We told him not to bother with that and just quit lying about what he did.

The nonsense went on for a few more minutes, he told Christy he initially approached me to tell me he was sorry, which was just another lie. He never said anything about being sorry. She called him out on that and said that he violated our trust. (Reminder: I went to bat for him the DP story, Christy, Dav, and I had him come along on several Centennials, Chris and I literally had to act as lead and tail guides for him on North Maroon, Christy invited him to present at ACES where he promoted his book, etc.)

We told him we were done and exited the conversation.

Some 20 minutes later he approached Christy when I wasn’t there and said he was sorry. She told him not to be sorry for us, that it was just sad that he had a chance to be transparent about this and wasn’t, and he violated the trust of a lot of people who were willing to support his effort. Then he said something along the lines of,”Why can’t you just let me in the group” or something like that. Crazy.

She said he was missing the point, that it wasn’t about people not wanting to give him credit, it was about him being dishonest in his claims.

Through it all, one thing was clear, he is a compulsive liar. In particular he lies to himself about this stuff. That’s how he’s able to convince himself that he’s done everything properly and that everyone else around him just isn’t being nice.

I was glad to tell him my thoughts, I know he was listening to what I was saying, but I couldn’t help but leave the event with the feeling that he’s a lost cause in terms of ever understanding.

[lodgling]

Wow, thanks for sharing.

[justiner]

and what he did was harder than anything anyone else in the 14er community has ever done.

If I give someone one of his business cards I found that he left on Yale, will someone get it signed for me?

[SolarAlex]

classic