What were some of the king lines of older generations? What were some of the last generation’s king lines that really inspired you?
The routes that inspired me…Just Do It at Smith Rock, that was a king line for sure. It was a line that was big and hard and beautiful. Necessary Evil at the Virgin River. Super Tweak. Those were all king lines. In terms of boulder problems, Midnight Lightning, Thriller, The Force. Those were all very inspiring.  They were big lines, highball. They were full-value boulder problems. 

More than a decade ago, when you broke onto the scene, a lot of the older generations were a little bit critical. They said you’re footwork was crummy, that you had no training regime. Looking back at those articles, the one thing that is really clear is that there was a certain amount of envy. Those writers and climbers saw that you were a special climbing talent. Mentally and physically you had an incredible amount of promise and potential.  Here you are at 14 or 15 years old being labeled as the future.  As a teen, did you ever feel that pressure?
I never really felt pressure. Climbing has always just been fun. It’s playful. Climbing is an expression of being happy. When I feel inspired, I feel like anything is possible. I will do whatever it takes to climb it. If I’m not pysched, I’m not even going to bother.  It’s hard for me to discipline myself if I don’t have a project. I’ve never trained. It’s always been a matter of finding an inspiring line, getting on it, and trying it a million times. The training happens on the route. It’s really hard for me train now so that I can be strong for a route in two months. I want to go straight to it and try and try it a million times. 

I never felt any pressure of living up to potential until just recently. I’ve never taken climbing very seriously. Until just recently, I never thought about that sort of thing. When you’re younger, you never think about the day when you might not be as strong. I still feel like I have potential. I’m 26 now and I’ve started realizing that the time is finite. I’m more motivated now to raise the bar on my personal level. To realize my potential as a climber. Every climb I work on teaches me a valuable lesson that I can take and combine with the other routes. I can build on that to find the next rad project. It’s this never-ending learning and processing of routes. It’s not something that going to stop. It’s not going to resolve. It will get to the point where I won’t be able to climb the hardest routes in the world. 

Boone Speed and Ron Kauk, they set the bar for US climbing. They were redpointing 5.14’s and defining what was possible. I saw that and it made me think it was possible. That’s what’s so hard about first ascents, is that you’re not totally sure whether it can be done. You have to have the vision to make it happen. So right now, I’m trying to set the bar as high as I can, so that the next generation can build on that. So that they can set the new limits. That’s how climbing evolves.