Describe the scariest moment in your life.
While approaching an ice climb in Provo Canyon I was kicking steps without crampons and without an axe in my hand. When I got close to the pillar, I went to kick a step, committed to that foot, which glanced off the ice, and I started to slide with increasing speed toward a 30-foot cliff. I couldn’t stop, and I thought, ‘This is the last mistake I’ll ever make.’ I went over the cliff, head first, did a full front flip, landed on my pack and slid an additional 200 feet down a steep chute. My friend Vince, who’d watched the whole thing from just behind me, thought I’d be dead, which I wasn’t, nor was I hurt, so I hiked back up the slope, and we climbed the route. 

What’s the most important thing in life?
The moment, in all its iterations. 

What must we pass on to the next generation of climbers?
That we are not the end-all, be-all. And that upcoming generations will accomplish the unthinkable — we can’t spoil their opportunities by being selfish. 

What brought you to bouldering?
Where I started climbing, the guys I started climbing with, we all bouldered, all the time in the early days. In fact, Mike Call and I became friends on a trip we took to Hueco in the late 1980s. Right after that Hueco trip, we discovered the limestone in American Fork Canyon and at the same time got these brand-new inventions called “power drills”; so we went to work developing the hardest climbs we could.

Between 1989-1991, I/we maybe just forgot about bouldering and how strong you could get from it until we rediscovered the granite in Little Cottonwood ... and then discovered Joe’s Valley and Ibex ... and then we couldn’t be fussed to climb on a rope. It was always the simplicity of bouldering and the camaraderie that was so attractive. But now “bouldering” has become every bit as cumbersome, if not more complicated than, roped climbing. What’s with all the pads and the multitudes of spotters? I still love it, but I’m happiest going light pad or no pad, no guide, just shoes and chalk and skill — old-school style. Or lazy-old-man style maybe. 

How did you get into photography?
I started in college with black and white and fell in love with the whole process, especially in the darkroom. One of my jobs at the Foundry was processing signage. I’d use a stat camera to make crisp transparencies and then I’d slather photosensitive solution on a bronze plate and expose it in the sun, and then etch the detail with acid. I’ve always been fascinated with the photographic process and manipulating it in different ways. For years I shot cross-processed shots, or I’d shoot with Polaroida or Lomos in low light making pictures with texture, color, light. I like the picture making process — from seeing it, to capturing it, to developing it. I consider myself more of a picture maker than a typical photographer. 

What are you up to now?
Creative pursuits. Photography is my primary interest right now. 

I’d like to have some gallery shows. I’d like to do more artistic stuff. I’d like to get into painting, more into sculpture and somehow work these processes all together. I’d like to transfer some photographs into paint. I think if you want to be an artist, you have to stay put and do it for a while — you have to develop it. This is a work in progress. But, I’m not going to stop traveling and doing what I’m doing right now. I want to enjoy my life. My long-term plan is to be painting and sculpting. … I’ve been taking pictures for 20 years — more like weird art pictures. Pictures that are blurry with textures, space, and weird things that don’t really have a home, other than I just think they are beautiful. I think in the end… I’m definitely steering my life toward: I’m 60 chilling on the beach in Mexico and being an artist. 

[Also,] I just finished a big glass job. I documented glass blowing. Andy Cobel and Justin Parker are world-class glass blowers who live in Portland, Oregon, and have a design studio called Esque. They were on the top 50 most influential designers list in Time last year. These guys are taking glass and doing crazy things with it, and individually they’ve worked for Robert Rauschenberg and Damien Hirst. Either collaborating or individually they are brilliant artists and it was a great experience to shoot their most recent catalogue. I literally spent hundreds of hours dealing with the logistics of shooting glass in a studio atmosphere.