Where did you grow up?
I grew up around Wellesley and Sherborn, outside Boston. I went to public school. I was a complete dork, probably still am, I’m not sure. I couldn’t do a pull-up, couldn’t do a push-up.

I played baseball as a kid 24-7, but I had no talent. I was terrible. I was an anemic hitter and I couldn’t throw. But I loved it.

I played on the Sherborn junior-high team and little league in Wellesley. I used to practice in Sherborn and ride my bike 10 miles to play in Wellesley. I had a single speed and I did it three times a week. I loved the independence. Finally, I got bullied and I had bad coaches and I was, like, screw it, I’m going to be a rock climber.

I went to a summer camp and spent an entire summer hiking around the White Mountains. I’d see the people coming down off Cannon Cliff with ropes and I said I have to do that. My parents sent me to Ashcrofters, in Aspen, Colorado, where Lou Dawson, Neil Beidelman, Don Peterson, and John Middendorf all learned to climb. I came back and I started climbing every day. Pretty soon I started scheming to get out to Boulder or Yosemite.

When did you first realize that you actually had some talent?
It took me five years solid to get decent. My first 5.10 was Final Exam, on Castle Rock in Boulder Canyon. Jim Logan, who did the first ascent of the Emperor Face, and some other guys were working it and couldn’t do it. I walked up and I did it. And I’ll never forget it, because the way those guys treated me was really exceptional. They were just very sincere and they made me feel really killer good. Because of my baseball, I kind of looked at everything like a fluke, a mistake. That’s why later we all rated these Cathedral Ledge routes 5.8 and 5.9 — we just figured we couldn’t possibly be climbing the hardest routes in the world.

When was your first season in the Valley?
I went to Yosemite in 1972 and I did the first continuous ascent of New Dimensions. But the Yosemite lads didn’t really like me. I don’t really know why. In my particular case, I was 19 and I wasn’t very mature. I could be brash and offensive one moment, and then humble and quiet the next. They didn’t like that dichotomy between brazen and the quiet, wallflower type. Bridwell and Mark Clemens were really, really good to me initially. They were really supportive. I had locking carabiner on my swami belt, and they were like, “Dude, you don’t want to be doing that. You want to be tying in.” I didn’t really get the cold shoulder until the following year, when I did the Steck-Salathé, Butterballs, and some other stuff. After that they would give me the stinkeye. It could have been a jealousy thing, or I could have been an asshole, I don’t know. It just got worse over the years.