World-renowned climber Steph Davis has spent twenty years chasing the thrill of ascending awe-inspiring and dangerous peaks. In her new memoir Learning to Fly, she embraces the aerial world of skydiving and BASE jumping, while coming to grips with radical changes in her personal life.
This isn’t your first book. What compels you to write?
I started writing about the same time I started climbing, though I’ve been a serious reader since I was three. For years, I’ve kept journals, and in college I majored in literature with an emphasis on writing short essays. For the last six years, I’ve been blogging. I spend a lot of time doing active things and a lot of time thinking about life. Writing feels like a natural extension of that.
You share deeply personal information in Learning to Fly—not only about your career and finances, but also about a failed marriage. Did you have any reservations about being so open, so public?
Most people don’t talk a lot about the hard times, and not everyone does get through them. One of my motivations for writing this book was to share my experience because it just might help someone else who finds themselves lost and afraid. Another reason I wanted to write it was to put that time to rest by giving it form and its own life. I also have nostalgic feelings toward that time in my life—I met my current husband Mario then and discovered a new life. There was a lot of struggle, but it led me to a very happy place.
You write about fear as a part of not only free soloing and BASE, but also life. How do you push past that fear?
Above all, controlling fear is about focus. Choosing to focus on something besides feeling afraid can allow you to operate with much more control.
Your book came out in April. What’s your next project?
Mario and I have started a business in Moab, Moab Base Adventures. We offer tandem BASE jumping and guiding and Indian Creek climbing clinics, along with stunt work. I also have a film project coming up that combines climbing and wingsuit BASE. Learning to Fly has taken a lot of my attention for the past four years, so it feels good to let it fly on its own wings now.
