Short description
Words like boldness, adventure and risk are surely coined especially for Andy Kirkpatrick. As one of the world's accomplished mountaineers and big-wall climbers, he goes vertically where other climbers fear to tread. This autobiography provides his thirteen-day ascent of Reticent Wall on El Capitan in California - the hardest big-wall climb.
Long description
This title is Winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize 2008. Metro magazine recently wrote that Andy Kirkpatrick makes Ray Mears look like Paris Hilton. Words like boldness, adventure and risk were surely coined especially for him. As one of the world's most accomplished mountaineers and big-wall climbers, he goes vertically where other climbers (to say nothing of the general public) fear to tread. For the first time, this cult hero of vertical rock has written a book, in which his thirteen-day ascent of Reticent Wall on El Capitan in California - the hardest big-wall climb ever soloed by a Briton - frames a challenging autobiography. From childhood on a grim inner-city housing estate in Hull, the story moves through horrific encounters and unique athletic achievements at the extremes of the earth. As he writes, 'Climbs like this make no sense ...the chances of dying on the route are high'. Yet Andy, in his thirties with young children, has everything to live for. This is the paradox at the heart of the story. This book - by turns gut-wrenching, entertaining and challenging - appeals to the adventurer in all of us.
Review
Andy is one of the funniest of Britain's top climbers and represents what is the best in modern British climbing: boldness, innovation, sense of humour, irreverence, commitment, and an appetite for risk.
-- Climber Chris Bonnington
Thrilling . . . Most compelling are his psychological battles.
-- Financial Times