A couple years ago I stumbled across this Tommy Caldwell interview and at first glance it seemed pretty standard. “How has Dawn Wall changed your life….What was the attention like…..What did the President say when he called?”. But then I found a couple insightful nuggets that I thought were different.
Tommy Caldwell mentioned how important good partners are and how friendships usually develop from them:
The mountains just have an amazing way of creating these lifelong friendships that I haven’t figured out how to do outside of climbing, really. Sometimes I look at other people and I think, “How do people become friends? How do you become close without going on these adventures together?” I don’t even really understand that because [in the climbing world] it happens in this so much more intense way.
I also like this question. It really shows how much a part of TC that Yosemite really is.
If you could have brought up any historical figure or inspiration to you, who would that have been?
Nobody’s ever asked me that. That would have been a trip! It would have been cool to have somebody like Tom Frost up there – he’s always been a big Yosemite legend and it would have been cool to experience El Cap through his eyes a little bit, because he was there when the wall was first being climbed in those very first years. Warren Harding would have been amazing, because he was just so good at partying up there and he loved the environment. For whatever reason, my mind goes toward the people who know Yosemite really well. I would want to learn more about El Cap from their vision.
Nice and quick read with some great photos.
Scott from California 