“You’re not human if you don’t feel fear. But I’ve learnt to treat fear as an emotion that sharpens me. It’s there to give me that edge for what I have to do.”

I loved climbing because of the freedom, and having time and space. I remember coming off Everest for the last time, thinking of Dad and wishing that he could have seen what I saw. He would have loved it.

Juice Plus+ is great stuff that I have used through all of my expeditions. What I like about it is that the research behind it is so strong.

My favorite moments? Where it’s all going swimmingly, the sun’s out and I’ve got a fire going and a nice snake on the barbecue.

I miss him still today: his long, whiskery eyebrows, his huge hands and hugs, his warmth, his prayers, his stories, but above all his shining example of how to live and how to die.

What I’ve learned over the years is that the path less traveled always makes for a more interesting journey. If you simply do what everyone else is doing, how can you ever expect to excel and create something wonderful and unique in your life?

The only difference between ‘try’ and ‘triumph’ is varying degrees of ‘umph’

Scouts should be progressive and should be adapting. If you’re gay or not it’s irrelevant, Scouting values respect.

Exercise helps my back. If I don’t exercise, that’s when it starts to hurt. The pain is a good motivator to run and exercise.

“But, we’re also going to learn to look after each other, who to work together and who to understand and manage that risk.” That’s what it’s about, you don’t empower kids if you don’t expose them to risk.

My faith isn’t very churchy, it’s a pretty personal, intimate thing and has been a huge source of strength in moments of life and death.

I learnt another valuable lesson that night: listen to the quiet voice inside. Intuition is the noise of the mind.

That feeling when you’re so cold you’d give anything to be warm – I’ve had it before, literally huddled around a candle flame on an ice sheet.

I do see a lot of the hard end of ecology, and my feeling is that we live on a super-exciting planet but a super-fragile one.

Textbook survival says stay still, don’t take any chances, wait for rescue. That’s a boring TV show. My thing was always, “Listen, shoelace, dead squirrel and no other way down this rock face. You can do this!”

I grew up on survival shows and they were always just so…anoraky.

The truth is, I need 10 lifetimes to scratch the surface of the things I’d love to do.