Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube; there are some things one would rather have done than do.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
You can't say you're going to jump the Grand Canyon and then jump some other canyon.
Where I live, there's a lot of canyons. We're climbing constantly - we're like mountain goats. I'm just trying to get better at that.
I love to read about the exploits of technical mountain climbers, but I've never done any vertical climbing.
I used to climb mountains a lot; I decided to go to Pakistan to climb K2, the world's second-highest mountain. I didn't get quite to the top.
I used to take my car and go down to the South Island for five or six days and climb glaciers and jump out of planes and jump off bridges and go white water rafting - a bit of thrill-seeking.
Climbing is what I do.
Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.
I'd pull my little brother on our motorcycle on an inner tube behind it. We would go fishing, we would hunt some, growing up.
Climbing, as my grandmother said, it's a pretty frivolous thing. She always wondered when I was going to get a real job. But climbing is a real job for me now, and I enjoy it. It's a gift that I'm able to do it, share adventure and motivation with people.
I was accustomed to being in far, far riskier environments. So I thought going into that canyon was a walk in the park - there were no avalanches, it was a beautiful day and I was essentially just walking.