The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process.

I purposely try to hire people who are really self-motivated and good at what they do, and then I just leave them alone.

A real capitalist knows that $10 given today does a lot more good than $100 given 10 years from now.

Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.

Just why is Yosemite climbing so different ? Why does it have techniques, ethics and equipment all of its own ? The basic reason lies in the rock itself. Nowhere else in the world is the rock so exfoliated, so glacier-polished and so devoid of handholds. All of the climbing lines follow vertical crack systems. Every piton crack, every handhold is a vertical one. Special techniques and equipment have evolved through absolute necessity.

It's not an adventure until something goes wrong.

The more I make the more I can give away.