Though approaching his 72nd birthday you wouldn't know it. Peter Habeler has a certain presence that means even if you had no idea who he was you'd know instincltively that he was someone. Over the course of 4 days in Keswick I must have met him half a dozen times, both for an arranged interview and less formally as our paths crossed and we shared conversations on our way to common destinations, and whether reminiscing about climbing in his youth or signing ice axes for a cottage industry manufacturer he's one of those men who when they talk others listen. The quiet voice carries an authority you couldn't imagine questioning but the genuine smile sets you at ease; it's a smile that accompanied him throughout the 4 days of Keswick Festival whether he was on stage talking to an audience or taking time out unobserved with the PR people from his home Tirol region of Austria. You get the feeling with Peter Habeler that you're with someone who's happy to be amongst mountains and mountain people and that like Rugby's Johnny Wilkinson he's a little embarrassed by the hero worship.

Welcoming guests to the Tirolean night Peter said "whenever I come to England everyone asks about only one thing, Everest. Yes, Everest was special but it is not everything" and with that statement a notebook full of pre-planned questions for the following day went out of the window. Over the two or thee conversations of the next three days Everest was rarely mentioned as I asked him first about his early years and inspiration. The resulting Q and A is therefore a combination of several conversations.

MyO: Was there anything or anyone who inspired you in your early years to take up mountaineering.

Peter Habeler: Sitting here this could be my homeland. The mountains may be a bit smaller but the setting is the same and how could you not climb if you lived here?  I was born with the mountains around me and they were always there. As a child the mountains were my place to walk to play and to ski and climb and I didn't decide to be a mountaineer it was something that was always going to be.

As a child and starting climbing there were people who inspired me. Hermann Buhl, of course, with his ascent of Nanga Parbat, but most of all it was Walter Bonatti. Bonatti kep pushing, pushing, pushing the limits and me it took everything just to follow and keep up with the climbs he was doing. There was Cassin as well, just a little earlier and there were the British climbers. Growing up I knew of Whymper and Mummery and the history of the great early mountaineers but by the time I was climbing you had a new set of British climbers leading the world with Doug Scott and Joe Brown. At home though it was always Bonatti. He set the targets on the Dru and the Grand Jorasses and the rest of us tried to follow.

MyO: How important was the style of climbing to you and how were you able to transfer alpine style ascents to the 8000m peaks of the imalayas?

Peter Habeler: What is called alpine style now was, of course, the way we climbed at home but it is more than moving fast and light it is about how you are on the mountain. You do not fight to climb a mountain, you work with the mountain to find a way to the top. To climb free you have to feel the mountain, you move where it permits you to move; you are part of the mountain and it is part of you.

Before 1978 alpine style existed, it was just climbing Everest that way that made all the news. Again it was Hermann Buhl and Bonatti who led the way. on Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum (IV). We also had new equipment that made it possible; The first plastic boots, the down suit and the Rohan jacket all made using new technology. Climbing fast you work with the mountain more and for me this is the right way to climb, as Bonatti said "in the simplest and most aesthetic way possible" and it has less impact on the mountain. To show it was possible to climb the hardest routes and the highest mountains in this style was more important than not using oxygen to more mountaineers even if the story was all about oxygen in the newspapers.

MyO: What about today, do you still climb or is the new Peter Habeler Route (A new hut to hut multi-day route in the Tirol) your main focus?

Peter Habeler: I still guide regularly with clients and climb every week. The new hiking route is based on the mountain huts I used as I started exploring around my home and give a little of everything that makes the Tirol special. The huts are part of the history of mountaineering in the area and all six are the same huts I first used when I was a boy. From these huts you can launch your own adventures in the mountains, climbing the summits near each or as a single walk. The mountains are not so big at 3000m but they are still my favourite summits in the world.

You do not have to climb when in the mountains and many choose to climb but many more choose to walk and like here (Keswick) just to be amongst the mountains. Walking is the measure of all things, it is time to be you and to think, time to look around, when climbing is always time to focus straight ahead. Walking these mountains (Tirol) is part of me, it's where I started and where I will always return. To share it with others is an honour.

Later on the same day I was up at Rohan's Keswick store when Peter walked in, having again waked through the "Adventure Capital of England" anonymously, for a historic reunion. 36 years earlier Rohan's co-founder Sarah Howcroft had been instrumental in designing and making the first Rohan Windlord jacket, which Peter subsequently used in the 1978 02 free ascent and referred to earlier in the day, and despite giving away much of his Everest kit he still had the original, and unwashed, jacket. For the first time since 1978 manufacurer Sarah saw the jacket that helped both make history and found one of the most respected outdoor brands.

Before the weekend was over Peter Habeler joined an Alpine Club forum and hosted his own talk at the Theatre by the Lake to a packed audience. Even at 71 his energy levels are phenomenal and his passion for the outdoors is obvious. Sit across the table from him and you can see it in his eyes, join in a conversation with him and his words shout while hs voice remains quiet and you get an inkling of the steel inside that must have driven him step by step to what many regarded as an impossible summit 36 years ago. Sitting in the Keswick sunshine Peter Habeler remarked "This is a wonderful place, a wonderful place to talk about mountains" - it was a wonderful place to listen too!