Quotes from Steph Davis

Climbing, simply and joyfully, is the way I love the world.

Whatever might happen in life, whether I liked it or didn't like it, I could know one thing for sure: it would change. There was absolute certainty in uncertainty, in some ways an enormous comfort.

Undoubtedly, the mind is restless and hard to control But it can be trained by constant practice and by freedom from desire." - B.K.S. Iyengar. Climbing is really great, we all love climbing. But what's interesting to me is what happens in my head or in my life because of it. Ultimately, I think climbing is a vehicle for exploration - of the world, of the self.

As a free solo climber, when trying extremely difficult or dangerous movements on rock for the first time, I try it first with the safety of a rope.

It's enough.

Virgil cheered me up with his usual gentle logic, helping me get some perspective larger than the pencil point of reality my focus had narrowed into.

I just wanted to fly, for that one weightless minute of time streaking through the sky. It felt like nothing I'd ever experienced.

I liked that they didn't ask me about anything other than here and now, because here and now was working for me. I liked the intense, fun-loving energy around me, the feeling of being part of a group. Even more, I liked being a stranger to the new friends I was making in this new world.

I have always felt safest alone on the side of a hard-to-reach wall or a mountain. Although I understand that I could die in the mountains, I trust the hand of nature, and I know it will do me no harm. People seem to change and do confusing things. Places, on the other hand, I can count on.

I felt strong enough to go back down to piece together the exposed, powerful moves on the second pitch of the headwall, the "boulder problem pitch.

I am perhaps excessively independent and generally reclusive, and I hated having to ask people for help, but I could see that this was yet another opportunity to work on a weakness. Free Rider was stretching me in ways I had never anticipated.

The darkness hid the wild exposure, and I was surprised to feel totally relaxed, climbing much faster and more efficiently than I had hoped.

Falling out of a plane was a potentially life-threatening situation where I was an incompetent passenger with no chance of saving myself if I had to. Those were the elements of my ultimate nightmare, and in retrospect I realized I could never have liked it.