One of the things that separates climbing from other sports is how independent and personal it is. With most sports, you either win or lose, but climbing is about your own personal experience.

When you do hard routes, you have to try hard. They're not easy routes. You have to give everything you have. You have to get totally animalistic. When you're super pumped, I have to yell to bear down. [...] It's like martial arts. When Bruce lee threw a punch, he had to mean it. Haahhh! Like that. When you're doing a hard move, there is this excess energy you have to let out. Air explodes out of you.

Climbing is this lifestyle activity that really works every muscle in your body.

I have done a fair bit of meditation practice, but I think through climbing it's definitely an easier way for me to tap into that mental state of being present and in the moment, very in tune with your body. But not in an intellectual way. Just really responding to the moment, where you don't have time to think.

I had a bad knee injury when I was about seventeen. I wasn't able to climb for about six months. It was kind of like a transformative time for me, because it was really hard for me not to be able to climb. It forced me to appreciate things without just climbing.

Climbing is an artistic, creative thing; it's about being spontaneous, traveling, seeing the world, hanging out. It's a balance of setting goals while enjoying the process, being ambitious without being too competitive.

As climbers, we need to learn to be good stewards of the land and take care of these places where we are spending so much time.