From an early age, Yosemite became the centre of my universe. I've been going every summer since I was a child. I love everything about that place: waterfalls, high-quality rock, history.

My earliest memory is being in a snow hole, aged two-and-a-half, with my dad somewhere up a mountain in a blizzard. I don't know what my dad saw in me - I was a geeky kid - but he had that philosophy: prepare the kid for the road, not the road for the kid.

I've climbed in a lot of places, but only once in the U.K., at Stanage Edge in the Peak District.

Tommy Caldwell Quotes