
EP 273: Brendan Baars — Developing ‘The Nooks’, How His Big Toe Saved His Life, & Choosing Adventure Over Grades
The Nugget Climbing PodcastShow Notes
Brendan Baars is a boulderer from Grand Rapids, MI, who has spent the past seven years developing a new bouldering area called The Nooks in Ontario, Canada. We talked about what a day of developing looks like, his go-to gear, how his big toe saved his life, the untapped potential in Canada, the reward of establishing and sharing new climbs, undone projects, the logistics of visiting The Nooks, his upcoming film The Developer, and much more.
More from The Nugget Climbing Podcast
New interview featuring Steven on The Climbing Majority podcast. I really enjoyed this chat with Kyle Broxterman. We talked about what I’ve learned from over 300 interviews with top climbers, the root of why I climb, my pivot to coaching, podcasting in 2026, and more. Kyle asked insightful questions and did a great job. Check out his podcast if you’ve run out of Nugget episodes—I highly recommend it.
George Lowe is a Colorado-based climber and alpinist who was awarded the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Access Fund. We talked about his early life, what keeps him returning to the mountains at age 82, how his physics career paralleled his climbing, getting too close to the edge on the North Twin, his “magnificent failure” on Latok I, life advice for climbers in their 30s, and more.
Dr. Mohammad Ashori is a board-certified family medicine physician, health coach, and rock climber. We talked about the importance of putting on muscle, how much rest we need between training sessions, nutrition and metabolic health, zone 2 cardio, key metrics and blood markers to track, different levels of data, why some data can be misleading or harmful, relative vs. absolute risk, and much more.
Justen Sjong (The Climbing Sensei) returns to the podcast to discuss the unique challenges of being tall or short in climbing. We talk about the disadvantages tall climbers face, how injury risk and training volume change with size, mindset shifts for both tall and short climbers, why climbing is inherently unfair, practical tips, and much more.
Adam Ondra is back on the podcast to discuss his incredible winter bouldering season, including four V15 (8C) flashes. We talked about why the best sport climbers can keep up with the bouldering specialists, his winter training in Arco, boards vs. spray walls, go-to bouldering circuits, tactics for hard flash attempts, catching the moment, and much more.