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I was a very spastic kid who loved to see how high he could climb a tree. That's just the way I've always been.

I was a wild kid. I was left to climb trees. And you know those railways logs, they piled them up, six feet apart, and I'd jump from one to the other. Without a safety net! I was an incredible tomboy.

I started very early, from five or six years old, to climb. To climb trees, to climb rocks everywhere I could. At some point, of course, I used a rope.

As a little kid, I climbed a lot of trees because I always loved the bird's-eye view.

I spent my childhood outdoors on my grandparents' farm. I learned to ride a motorbike when I was about six, a little PeeWee 50. I'd climb trees - there was a big weeping willow.

When I was 23, I went to Alaska by myself into the glaciers of the coast range and climbed a mountain by myself. It was incredibly reckless, incredibly stupid. But I was lucky. And I survived, and I came back to tell my story.

When I was growing up, and other people I knew were getting into trouble, I was somewhere in a deer stand or going to bed early so I could be up before dawn to hunt turkeys. My love of the outdoors kept me solid.

When I was young, I was on a real hot streak with 'Crazy Climber.' There was a good three-week span where I couldn't get that game out of my head. I could not get back to the arcade fast enough to try and climb up there and not get kicked by a potted plant this time. That one got under my skin.

The tree I had in the garden as a child, my beech tree, I used to climb up there and spend hours. I took my homework up there, my books, I went up there if I was sad, and it just felt very good to be up there among the green leaves and the birds and the sky.

Before it was decided that I was going to be adopted, my mother was going to abort me. I was born with tangled legs; they never thought I'd be able to dance... without knowing it, as a child I overcame a lot thanks to really doting, loving parents and a great family and a hard work ethic on my part.