In some ways, climbing in the clouds is comforting. You can no longer see how high off the ground you are.
Tommy Caldwell
One of the reasons the Dawn Wall climb went so viral is that you get great Internet access on El Cap. It's like the best Internet access in all of Yosemite, so we had our phones with us.
I grew up a clumsy kid with bad hand-eye coordination. Yet here on El Cap, I felt as though I had stumbled into a world where I thrived. Being up on those steep walls demanded the right amount of climbing skill, pain tolerance, and sheer bull-headedness that came naturally to me.
I crave time in Yosemite like I crave food and water.
I tend to walk through life sort of looking through a pair of binoculars, and I focus on certain things and push out the rest.
Climbs like the Dawn Wall don't come around every day.
I've always been really curious about the limits of human capability.
From an early age, Yosemite became the centre of my universe. I've been going every summer since I was a child. I love everything about that place: waterfalls, high-quality rock, history.
I have a very distinct goal all the time that I'm working toward, and I love the way it makes me live.
When I was super young, we were hiking to the top of the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. You know, when I was in my early teens, we went to Bolivia and climbed to the tops of the highest mountains in the Alps. You know, those experiences were so exciting that when I came back to school, I was actually quite bored.
Through climbing, I've learned to find goals and work toward them. That's just the way I love to live.
My natural abilities weren't necessarily brute power and strength. They were more about the ability to endure and not give up.
My earliest memory is being in a snow hole, aged two-and-a-half, with my dad somewhere up a mountain in a blizzard. I don't know what my dad saw in me - I was a geeky kid - but he had that philosophy: prepare the kid for the road, not the road for the kid.
The Dawn Wall and the Fitz Traverse were super-satisfying climbs. But I will always be searching for the next thing - the need to accomplish and explore are just woven into the fabric of who I am.
I feel this heavy weight to be a good ambassador for the sport.
One of the nice things about indoor training is you can make holds that are better on your skin, so you can train more before your fingers wear out. You can get stronger faster climbing inside.
Every climb is different. The Dawn Wall was so dry and aggressive that my fingers would dry out to the point where they would crack. So I actually had to add as much moisture as possible.
In rock climbing, people get strong enough, and then they pick goals they can do with their strengths at that moment.
I have different shoes for different types of climbing, six or seven different shoes that I alternate.
I tend to pick objectives that I feel are safe because I know that, in the moment, I always go for it. I have some rules for myself, though: Look for the rock faces without a lot of loose rock. Always rope up on glaciers where there is even a slight chance of falling into a crevasse. No pure free soloing. Never climb below hanging glaciers.
I have always let my motivation guide me, and that has served me well. Climbing has taught me how to thrive and created a life that I feel incredibly lucky to have.
There are specific things in our world that are incredibly dangerous. Wingsuit BASE jumping is the very, very top of that. Big alpine climbing objectives are maybe right below that. I've probably had 20 friends die - people who were pretty close to me. I would say about 18 of them were because of snow.
I pretty much bailed on high school. I mean, I graduated, but I wasn't even there for my own graduation.
Stand at the base and look up at 3,000 feet of blankness. It just looks like there's no way you can climb it. That's what you seek as a climber. You want to find something that looks absurd and figure out how to do it.
The types of climbing that I choose to do I'm good at justifying. I do really try and pick things that I'm going to live through. I don't want to die, and I'm relatively cautious. I play with that line all the time. I want things that are very exciting, so much so that they can feel almost spiritual.
El Capitan is the most chapping environment in the world: windy, cold, super dry. I wake up twice a night and reapply lotion to my hands. We sand our fingertips to keep them smooth.
For me, I love to dream big, and I love to find ways to be a bit of an explorer. These days, it seems like everything is padded and comes with warning labels.
I am at a climbing area called the Wendenstock in Switzerland. This area has some of the best quality multi-pitch climbing I have seen on limestone. There is about a two-hour approach on one of the steepest grass slopes I have ever seen. The setting is amazing.
I have been to Switzerland a handful of times, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to climb.
I travel and climb about eight months a year. That's pretty great training in itself. When I am home, I do a lot of bouldering, gym climbing, and specific strength training in a effort to get stronger for climbing.
My wife always says that I function better up on a big wall than I do anywhere else in life.
As I get more experienced, I love the idea of going into big mountains and doing big climbs. But the problem is, it's getting more dangerous, especially alpine climbing.
For me, I love to dream big, and I love to find ways to be a bit of an explorer.
I feel very lucky to be able to call my hobby my job, yet it doesn't feel like one.
My motivation is internal.
I love that idea of mastery.
I've climbed in a lot of places, but only once in the U.K., at Stanage Edge in the Peak District.
Climbing a big wall over several days is like running a giant construction project: constantly making lists, rigging ropes, organising food, figuring out camera angles - but you're in this crazy place with your best friends, and it does take on a party atmosphere sometimes, like a big dudes' camping trip.
If you don't have to worry about socializing because you don't like it, you can more fully immerse yourself in climbing.
I don't journal that much, honestly.
I've been climbing my whole life, so I know a lot of the feelings, the smells; these memories are pretty distinct in my mind still.
I'm always climbing.
I read all the Krakauer books.
I think retirement is a little bit like death. I want to always be incredibly engaged and challenged, but in climbing, you do have to be realistic that your body won't be able to keep up forever.
