45 Quotes by Tommy Caldwell

My wife always says that I function better up on a big wall than I do anywhere else in life.

Through climbing, I've learned to find goals and work toward them. That's just the way I love to live.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.