I've been lucky to have lots and lots of mentors. I think that is incredibly important in anyone's life to encourage and inspire them, let them understand that their own potential is a reality that they can strive for.

You can't have self confidence without some real skills that enable you to be successful.

There is a very blurry line between the things we can't do and the things that we can.

It's kind of too movie-like to say, "When I started climbing, I knew I wanted to climb Everest some day." Instead, I just started rock climbing as a kid, when I was 16, and then I started teaching and a buddy of mine started taking me out.

You can't always get out on the mountain, so I'll put rubber on the end of my ice tools and climb the tread wall, a rotating rock wall I have in my backyard.

The truth is that adversity is a part of most days. Whether you are ultimately weakened or strengthened by each event, or the accumulation of events, will depend on you first mastering the ability to Take It On!

Climbing is actually a great sport for blind people and that carried me on to climbing bigger and bigger mountains, snowy mountains, ice faces, and developing different techniques to be able to do that.