1986, with Indian Face and the other routes, was a big year for you and for British climbing…
In 1986, there were probably 10 or 12 routes more bold than the Bachar-Yerian, and about three of those or four of those were in a very different league. Both much harder, more sustained, blinder, and probably looser, and not on bolts. But that was what we did. One guy soloed a route (E6 7b), and 80 foot up it started raining, and so he finished it in the rain, and it’s slate. 

We were all honest. And everybody’s made up for everybody, including people who were climbing – it was a lovely blend of elitism. If you were really in the top bunch for 20 minutes, you’re at a different table, and it was like “Wow, we’re really doing it,” but the basic fact was that everybody in the room was part of a more important thing, which was Llanberis, and that was what we were doing. And it was everything in a nice balance, and it wasn’t sort of – there were hard moves. We were doing really hard climbing, and some of the things were 8a+/8B and it was 1986, and they still haven’t been done in any better style. They’ve not been done onsight, and they’ve not been done regularly. Some of them have only been five or six times – it’s been 20 years. And you sort of think, “Do people like climbing or not?” They seem to like pulling. I think they like pulling rather than making love. 

Do you think you got away with anything that year?
I got away with lots of things. I got away with a wobbly foot on Indian Face and jabbing it up to the foothold w/o being able to look at it, cuz I had to know where it was. And all the dyno-ey techniques and all the kinds of thing I put into my instructional stuff all comes from things I’ve learned of that nature. Your body does know where holds are – you trust it, it’s there. [Knocks on the table]. It’s the suspension of disbelief that produces a belief that’s accurate. And you need to learn how that happens so you’re not conning yourself, and that can be done in a rigorous manner and in an enjoyable manner. 

I went up on some things, and I fell off things, but most of it was learning how fall as well. Because there weren’t bouldering mats. But we didn’t used to dig out the ground or flatten it. I used to take 25-foot falls to the ground, maybe five or six 25-foot falls, to do something onsight. So, it was quite a Spartan, hardcore ethic. It was brutal, cause to me climbing was worth that. It was the best thing since sliced bread. I thought the rest of the world was truly embarrassingly shit. I just thought people were really unreal, and a lot of it was just defensiveness. 

I didn’t really feel very collected myself and didn’t really feel like I could fit in. I was very self-obsessed, which is why my book has the title Full of Myself. Because I was embedded in this climbing for the sake of doing something unbelievable for itself, because it’s such an exacting and interesting activity, but also for to be part of a group and the joys of acclaim. It was very much a secondary thing, though  — I don’t think it would ever generate somebody to climb as hard as I was. I had a natural affinity – a love for the rock – that went beyond that, and also it showed me that something was amiss and some part of me was on the case, and was trying to get to a stage where I felt complete and happy. And so, Full of Myself also means being in a state of composure, and being calm and complete – full of myself is egocentric at one end and complete at the other. I feel like I’ve traversed a fair bit of that story. I’m ready to write that, to face that quite soon. 

Tell me a bit about the remaining superprojects on the grit.
There’s onsight, and then there’s climbing up something that nobody’s every climbed up before. And for me, the game I like the most is opening up the feasibility of a piece of rock – not even climbing it. I like to be able to hang on it, and feel how it would be climbed. And those are the climbs that really interest me. And of those, in the Peak, there’s about 10 of them, and I know how to do them, but they’re beyond me. And those are the ones I’m excited to see climbed by somebody. And I’m not telling you where they are. 

And they involve ridiculous things like blind dynos around roofs to blind slopers that are 7b to hang, and then subsequent V15 boulder problems. They’re there, and they look unclimbable ,and they’re just up the most gorgeous bits of rock, and they look impossible. They don’t look steep and – if I get fit I can do that – if I mortgage the whole rest of my life – they look, I can’t climb that anyway, because my brain just doesn’t program or work that fast or I just don’t get it! How do I get it? 

Unless it feels impossible, it’s just a sport. If it’s impossible, then it’s not a sport – it’s internal adventure and an external adventure. When the internal and external adventure plaque together beautifully, there is a spark of recognition between the invisible and the visible, which sets your heart alive. 

Have you ever seen anyone else who climbs like you do?
There’s a kid in Colorado Springs who was 8, she was climbing really, really continuously. She wouldn’t stop between moves. She didn’t get scared. She acknowledged that she felt scared, and then did something about it. She didn’t invent any extra fear. She was 15 foot up, and she just said, “Scared, scared,” and sort of slid down the holds, and then continued on. She was very, very absorbed in what she was doing. It was nice to see the parents trusting the innate sense of the human miracle.