On the Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan asks Kenneth Lacovara about the dangers of fieldwork. "When you've been on these expeditions," Rogan says, "you must have had a few sketchy experiences." Lacovara answers right away: "Oh, yeah, for sure." Then comes the follow-up: "What's the sketchiest?"
Clip: Viral Podcast Shorts YouTube Short from the full source linked below.
The official description of Joe Rogan Experience #2580, uploaded November 12, 2026, identifies Lacovara as a paleontologist, founding dean of the School of Earth & Environment at Rowan University, director of the Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park, and author of Why Dinosaurs Matter. Those titles are not in the Short; they are here only to say who is speaking.
This article stays with the close call he describes in the clip, in his own words.
A health hazard
Lacovara does not rush to a single story. "Well, it depends," he says. Then he names the risk that matters here: "Falling is a big, uh, health hazard to us."
The incident he chooses is the one that felt final at the time. "The probably the the time that I thought I was about to die," he says, was on "the Montana, Wyoming border." He is careful about the map. "I'm not actually sure which state I was in at the moment."
The Short never picks a state for him, and this article does not either.
A slab of pterosaur tracks
What made the climb worse was what he was carrying. "I had a a slab of rock tied on my back that had pterosaur tracks on it, you know, flying reptiles." He estimates the weight as he goes: "It was probably, I don't know, 75 pounds."
He is already on the rock face. "I'm I'm climbing up this rock face," he says. "And I should have had ropes, but I thought like, ah, it's not that big. I could I could do it." The height, as he remembers it, "was like 20 or 30 feet."
Halfway up, the rock itself turns on him. "I get about halfway up and the rock starts breaking off in my hands." And then, he says, "Oh s***."
No way back down
He looks for a retreat and cannot find one. "I look down and I can't see where to put my feet to go back down."
Rogan's reaction in the clip is a quiet "Oh wow." Lacovara is still hanging there. "So now I'm hanging on the side of this outcrop," he says, "and I'm thinking like this is how it's going to be, you know?"
He does not know how long he stayed in that position. "I hung there for I don't know how long. It seemed like a long time for me." Then he makes the only choice that still feels open. "I decided, well, I I'm just gonna have to try."
Over the lip
He starts climbing again, and the rock keeps failing. "I start going up and the rock is breaking off of my hand. I'm going up and it's breaking off of my hand." He finally rolls over the lip of the cliff, and the fear catches up with him at the top. "I was shaking when I got to the top of that," he says. "I thought I thought that was going to be the end of me."
Rogan underlines the detail that makes the story harder to shake: "Yeah. With a 75-lb rock on your back. That's crazy."
The Short ends there, on the shaking at the top of a 20- or 30-foot face, with the slab still tied on. It does not say how he got the rock down, or what happened to the tracks after he made it over the lip. In his telling, hanging on that crumbling outcrop, he thought the climb would be the end of him.
Related reading
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- Joe Rogan bio
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FAQ
Who is Kenneth Lacovara?
The official description of Joe Rogan Experience #2580 identifies him as a paleontologist, founding dean of the School of Earth & Environment at Rowan University, director of the Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park, and the author of Why Dinosaurs Matter. The Short itself does not give that background.
Where did the climb happen?
He says he was on the Montana–Wyoming border, and that he is not actually sure which state he was in at the moment.
What was he carrying?
A slab of rock with pterosaur tracks on it, tied to his back. He estimates it at about 75 pounds. Rogan later calls it "a 75-lb rock on your back."
Did he have ropes?
No. He says he should have had ropes, but the face looked small enough — about 20 or 30 feet — that he thought he could do it without them.