Josie: Yes Simon, I can hear you ... but where the hell are you?
Simon: I'm on an island called Milnland.
JH: And what can you see from there?
SY: Well, I'm wandering around with two others on a glacier, just outside my tent. It's nice.
JH: How's the weather?
SY: Good, it's pretty mild really, just minus 10 degrees.
JH: Climbing mountains in remote places must have brought you into contact with quite a lot of different cultures. What is that like?
SY: It's fascinating to meet these people. I mean the Inuit guys who brought us here have never been to this exact place before but they just knew exactly where to go. And they are not using maps or compasses. It is actually quite difficult to see where you're going because the landscape is quite featureless, and we had to come up a fjord – a frozen bit of sea – to get here – and yet somehow they knew the route.
JH: And they don't have all the fancy kit?
SY: Well, they do actually – they have some very good clothes, and they know what to do with the skidoos. We actually crossed three sets of polar bears' tracks.
There's none in the mountains here, thankfully. I don't really want to run into a polar bear. It would have been fine to see them when we were on the skidoos, but we really wouldn't want to see them up here. Luckily at this time of year they're on the sea ice hunting seals. But you have to ha ve a rifle in case you have a run in with one...
JH: And are you quite high up now?
SY: We are at about 400 to 500 metres on a glacier, and we've been climbing 2000 metres mountains here.
JH: What do you do when you are not climbing mountains?
SY: Well I do quite normal things really. I sit in front of a computer and write emails and make telephone calls and play with the children, go out on little trips, have dinner with friends, and go to the pub.
JH: So how did you fund your early trips?
SY: For a long time I was an access worker hanging on ropes off buildings.
JH: And what about your family, what do they think of what you do?
SY: My children are quite small, nearly two and nearly four. They miss me but they have been to some quite nice places as well. And they have been to some mountains and some quite wild places so I hope they are going to like those sorts of places.I don't necessarily expect them to climb but it would be nice if they appreciate wild places anyway.

Simon is "Beyond the Void" at Preston Guild Hall on Tuesday, April 22. Box office: 0845 344 2012