Sílvia Vidal: "I live loneliness in a positive way because I am the one who chooses it"

BarcelonaSilvia Vidal (Barcelona, ​​​​1971) discovered climbing as an adult. Graduated from the INEF, where she worked as a teacher, she changed her life to excel in climbing, where she stood out with solo expeditions and the opening of large walls. She often spends weeks away from home, alone in nature. More than once she has spent many days hanging from giant walls, and has slept in a tent over a large void. Considered one of the best climbers of all time, she is a free, discreet and perfectionist soul, who managed to be the first person linked to Catalan and Spanish climbing to win the Piolet de Oro award in 2021. She is now publishing the book There is light between the strings, an open door to your world.

After years of travelling and talking, you have decided to publish this book. How did this idea come about?

— I had been asked to write it for years, but I didn't get around to it. This time I was caught in a moment of confusion and said yes, and now I feel grateful for the opportunity.

You talk about confusion. In fact, the book begins with a moment when you were stuck. It's a very honest way to start.

— That was the reason I started writing the book; the circumstances, what I was experiencing. It was what I had in my head, and since I write as I think, I was putting it into the text.

You spend weeks climbing walls in remote places alone. There is always risk when you climb. Do you have the feeling that most people don't understand you? Do you care?

— I don't expect everyone to think the same way, it is part of human wealth, and we can all help each other to improve ourselves without trying to change the essence of each one.

In this sense, do you feel the need to tell yourself? What do you feel when hundreds of people come to your talks? Do you think you can help them by explaining how you live?

— The conferences help me digest what I do and how I do it. They make me relive intense experiences that have left their mark on me and sharing them helps me understand what I have experienced. Receiving the suggestions The feedback from the attendees is wonderful. There are people who come to the talks and then write to me to thank me or comment that they have started to make small changes in their daily lives. When this happens, it excites me and gives more meaning to everything that perhaps some find meaningless, and it spurs me on to continue along this path.

When you look back, is there any climb that is more special than others?

— They all have their own thing, because each expedition has been a challenge for me. At every moment I have tried to go to the maximum of my possibilities, and they have all been special and have marked a before and after in my life. As a physical place, I prefer Alaska because of how wild the environment is.

Just to say that you live the same way as stairs, right? A key aspect of this way of living is daring to overcome fears to do things?

— We all have fears of some things, and I would say that we are mostly afraid of things that are neither happening nor likely to happen, and these fears prevent us from dreaming big. Taking fears by the horns and facing them head on is a way of functioning that works!

At one point you say, "If I never try it, I won't know and I don't want to be left wondering." Have you always been like this or have you been working on it?

— I would say that I have always been pretty much like that. What changes over time is that you become more aware of how you do it and, therefore, you are more capable of telling yourself and telling yourself about it.

How do you deal with fear? Is it about living with it, rather than denying it?

— Learning to manage it precisely without denying it, ignoring it, or living with the thought that it is like this and nothing can be done. Sending it away, because it is then that fear takes another form, it usually becomes smaller or disappears, or at least changes.

You say that sometimes, if the weather is bad, you can spend 10 days locked in the tent. Doesn't that seem long? How do you manage it?

— It is long and hard, but if you want to continue with the climb, you will need to be patient, because the other option is to abandon the activity. In situations like this I think that everything is temporary and that at some point it will change. In the end, I am there of my own free will, because of a previous and very real illusion and motivation, which are what helped me to move to try.

The part where you reflect on the illness and also on the loss of loved ones is striking. Have those been the hardest parts to write?

— It's funny, because one of the reasons I didn't start writing the book was because of these two topics, which I knew would be interesting to talk about, but I didn't want to. When I decided to go ahead with the book, the first thing I did was write these two chapters, and to my surprise it was easy and fluid. It's about the fears I was talking about...

You say that your third trip to India was the hardest, a kind of fight for survival. Did you ever regret being there?

— I know I suffered and that at times I probably wondered what the hell I was doing there in those weather conditions, but I don't regret my experiences, especially those that make me search until I find the positive side.

Where do you think this need to be alone comes from?

— It is a need that appears from time to time, it is not usual for me to want to be alone, but when I feel it I try to live it.

When you go on expeditions, you do it in isolation. No phone, no contact. Your people know where you go and when you leave, nothing more until you come back. When did you decide to do it like this?

— Since the first expedition I have been isolated, it was not something planned, nor an issue to consider, it is simply how it was. On my own, it makes even more sense for me to go isolated because if I go alone it is, among other things, to experience that solitude chosen by me, which I live in a positive way. Going in communication would break that state.

When you are on a trip and moments of great beauty occur, such as the light, seeing an animal, achieving a milestone... don't you feel bad not sharing it with someone?

— You can capture beauty without having to be with someone by your side. Even though I go alone and am physically alone, I don't feel alone when I'm on an expedition, because the people I love are there. comes with me. Later I have the opportunity to share the moments with many people; I give lectures and for years I relive those moments. Not only to see the images again, but because I am sharing the memories, often and with different people.

Who is more alone? You when you go on a trip or a large part of society when they spend hours looking at a screen?

— Each case would have to be looked at individually.

Espiademonios, Sangtraït, Sol Solet, Life is Lilac... You've been asked this before, but where do you get the names you give to the routes and paths you open for the first time?

— They are usually names that appear during the weeks of climbing; from situations experienced there, from thoughts that may have arisen, from anecdotes...

What is your first memory of a mountain, how did you get into the world of climbing?

— My first memory of a mountain is probably in Aneto with my parents and friends from the athletics group, when I was little.

You had practiced athletics. Has climbing walls and peaks changed the way you understand your body and how we relate to nature?

— What has changed the way I understand my body has been pushing it to its physical limits. I would say that my relationship with nature is natural, and again, what has changed has been being able to put words to a way of relating to it that allows me to understand myself better.