Blog

Hellos From All Over

• January 2008
• Uncategorized

Thank you so much for your wonderful letters, and all your kind thoughts! I love hearing from everyone.
I want to wish you all a Happy New Year, full of adventure, joy, and safe times at home–to savor the exciting moments that have happened….
xx Steph

Hi Steph!
I’m reading High Infatuation and I love it! Thanks for writing it and for being who you are. You are an inspiration to this 38-year old female climber.
Rock on –
Katiti Crawford
Major and Planned Giving Officer
Planned Parenthood Golden Gate

Dear Steph,
I read Irina’s letter and your reply on your blog. As somebody said in a comment, it is a great seed for another book. What struck me most was the sincerity of it. Sincerity of not lying to yourself, which is so rare to come by.

Somebody said that the reason that everything around us is such a huge pile of lies is that out of laziness, or cowardice, or just plain comfort people choose to lie to themselves in the first place. I think whenever people meet somebody who has made a different decision they have something like a knee-jerk reflex. You become dangerous to their way of life, something best to avoid. Although you are just a regular kind of person, only with a bit different life perspective. But finding something about yourself that nobody can take away makes it all worth it.

The issue of loneliness as a price of following your heart – so true, so true. Death as the only certainty in our life, the only truly unshakable source of perspective. Boy, there are so many intertwined aspects – you should definitely write a book :-).

It was very sad to witness the solo-controversy. In a way it was like a litmus paper, indicating people’s motivations. So many people trying to elevate themselves by pulling someone else down. Just amazing. I wanted to write you about that during summertime, wish you good luck, show my support. Unfortunately, I didn’t do it. I figured you are probably not interested in hearing something like that from somebody you just saw once. Moreover, Russians are very reserved, so it’s kind of against our culture to “mess with somebody’s else business”. I guess better late than never :-).

Steph, I want to wish you a Happy New Year (it’s THE celebration in Russia, something like Christmas here). I hope this coming year will bring you many very happy surprises. And astounding, absolutely HUGE quantities of luck.

I know I am not anybody close to you, and most likely we will never meet, but for some reason I want to let you know that you have my support. That there are people who care. I know it’s not much, but I thought you might get at least a tiny bit of something out of this email. Not that you need it, you are plenty strong. But sometimes it still makes one feel a little better :-).

Best wishes, Steph!!!
Igor

Thank you Igor, your letter brought tears to my eyes. I’m wishing you a Happy New Year too–and I can’t think of anything nicer in this world than flowers and glass 🙂 My PO Box is on the homepage, so I’m easy to find. Thank you so much for taking the time to send me your good thoughts.
xxx Steph

Steph,
I refrain from Mrs. Davis, since having read your book makes me feel as though I have met a part of you, only without the handshake, or a day at the crag. Months ago you only existed on a climbing poster. One of the pictures in your book, poster sized at the top of the stairs in the bouldering room. “Who the hell is Steph Davis?”-Me. Every time I’d go in there, there was this poster of a chick crushing this route. I’d wonder what was going through your head. Having never been on big wall, I could only assume that you were past the point in your climbing journey where you were no longer tweaking out. Instead, you mentally in a place I could only dream of. So, I bought your book. Read it all in one sitting. Loved it. It was inspiring to rad about your life and how climbing fit into it. Your ascent with Cybele. Awesome. I’ve never lived on a wall like that. Now it’s my goal. I’ve done a good deal of sport, and boulder all of the time. But never really thought of doing a big wall trip. Then today, Christmas Day (by the way Merry Christmas), my mom gave me a Ansel Adams book. All morning, I paged through pictures of Yosemite, connecting your story to the images. Now, I can’t stop thinking about it. As soon as it is financially possible I WILL make it happen. Who knows maybe I’ll catch you Fletch and Dean bumming around Yosemite one day. That’d be rad. If that happens I’ll warn you now of the 101 questions I would ask you. And if you ever find yourself needing a partner to jug your gear up your next free ascent, get in touch. THAT would be epic. And if you ever get lost in central Pennsylvania, and wanna check out come local Diabase crags, you know what to do.
Take care and happy holidays,
Gus! (Justin Laffey)

Hi Steph!
Just finished reading your book. Got it last Wednesday at a climbing gym in London. I really enjoyed reading it!
If you guys fancy some climbing in China you got yourselves a couch and… will find a mattress somewhere it that’ll prove to small. :oD
Am off to Sichuan at the end of January till mid February for some unclimbed walls and peaks with a couple of friends. If you can get yourselves to Hong Kong (cheap flights with Oasis airlines) I’ll pick you up from there and the rest it’s cheap and fairly easy. Give it a thought.
From rainy London (but not for long), with every best wish, yours.
C

Hello steph,
I wanted to tell you and Dean that my son and I really respect and love you guys. I love your book and I’m so glad you and Dean are such grounded and spiritually gifted people, by that I mean, you and Dean climb for as much as the spiritual side of being outside as the challenge. By that I mean, you climb with compassion for the mountain and that’s hard to find in climbers today!
My son and I met Dean several years ago in Tennessee (Foster Falls) and he was so down to earth and friendly to us. The next day we were setting up to climb and he came up to us and remembered our names, he said: Hello, Brad and Bradley, and that was all he had time to say because there were a lot of people chasing him up the trail. But that meant so much to us, and it was so gracious of him to remember us the next day! Anyway, you guys deserve all the love, compassion, and joy your hearts can hold and we love you both!! So, I’ll shut up for now, and please tell Dean we said “All Is One”
Thank You,
God Bless/ Psalms 63:6
Brad Killough, AC-SRCFC

hi Steph..
I’m writing you from Italy..thanks so much..you are absolutely an inspiration for many climbers woman…keep on climbing strong!!!!
Sarah