Unknown Pleasures : Collected Writing on Life, Death, Climbing and Everything in Between

Do you want to climb a big wall, wake with a start in the dark clipped to a ledge the size of a dustbin lid? Do you have dreams of nailing pin scar cracks a kilometre up, or maybe hand jamming your way to victory? Have you read other books, watched endless videos, asked around but still dont have a bloody clue how to go about it? Yes you can climb 5.12 but youve been shut down by hauling? Maybe youve never even set foot on a big wall because the weight of questions cannot be resolved, even though youve read all the books. If only there was a way to long jump some of that learning curve. Behind the book Last year, sat on the El Caps East Ledges descent, someone asked me how many days Id spent up on big walls in my life. I did a quick count, my brain a bit fried after nineteen days soloing South Seas, thinking about the walls and faces, totting up the numbers on battered fingers. The rough answer was about three hundred days, maybe over a year if I included bivys and camps at the bases of walls. If I threw in just being in the mountains then it would be twice as long. You must understand rock at the granular level? they said. I thought back to the last two weeks, where placing a cam or hook one millimetre either way would see me fall, taking a whip that may yank out piece after carefully placed piece, my body free-falling down the wall. Yes - youre probably right. Ive climbed walls fast, sped up El Cap in a day, but really Im a man who likes to take his time, believing in the Karma Sutras dictum that, Whatever youre doing, do it at half the speed. When you take your time you have time to consider things, to get things right, to think of better ways rather than simply the way. Learning all the techniques necessary to climb big walls has become as much the kick of climbing as the climbing itself, to be able to scale not only clean and sunny walls, but cold and chossy ones too, any new wall just an excuse to learn new skills. This obsession with climbing big walls has seen me spending many months living the high life, from thirty+ ascents of El Cap (including 5 solos, 2 one day ascents, 1 winter ascent), routes on the Troll Wall, Dru, Eiger, places like Patagonia, Zion, Alaska and Antarctica, five failures for every summit. My solo climbs led to a lot of questions from climbers about that black art, and so led to the writing of Me, Myself and I, one of the few big wall soloing manuals around (maybe the only one?). When I wrote Me, Myself and I, I imagined it so niche that few would buy it, and gave it a heavy price tag to match. In the end I found there were many climbers who wanted this book, a good percentage who went on to solo walls with its help, but also many who just liked to know more stuff about the sport they love. Since then the number of questions about big walls has steadily increased, with at least one person a day asking me how to do something wall related, from small technical details to more expansive questions about motivation and getting it done. At the moment there are a small number of dedicated big wall books, all excellent, but most were written over twenty years ago, and so tend to feature outdated ideas, advice, or are missing new cutting edge techniques. Another issue is that they tend to be limited in their detail due to the need to keep the book within reasonable cost, meaning the real nitty gritty, the granular stuff, tends to be missing, as books like this need to be sold for about 20, meaning much of the good stuff is left out (a war is won on details!). But climbers love the nitty gritty, like how to remove a beak without breaking it, drilling a rivet or bat hook, how to rig a portaledge in a storm or rig a parachute for a wildness retreat (on that last one, dont buy a 19 parachute off eBay!). Its often these little details that make or break a climb, not the big things. Andy is one of the funniest of Britain's top climbers and represents what is best in modern British climbing: boldness, innovation, sense of humour, irreverence, commitment, and an appetite for risk.' Chris BoningtonMetro 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. 'The idea of owning anything except the experience is hubris.'Unknown Pleasures is a collection of works by the climber and award-winning author Andy Kirkpatrick. Obsessed with climbing and addicted to writing, Kirkpatrick is a master storyteller. Covering subjects as diverse as climbing, relationships, fatherhood, mental health and the media, it is easy to read, sometimes difficult to digest, and impossible to forget. One moment he is attempting a rare solo ascent of Norway's Troll Wall, the next he is surrounded by the TV circus while climbing Moonlight Buttress with the BBC's The One Show presenter Alex Jones. Yosemite's El Capitan is ever-present; he climbs it alone – strung out for weeks, and he climbs it with his thirteen-year-old daughter Ella – her first big wall. His eye for observation and skilled wordcraft make for laugh-out-loud funny moments, while in more hard-hitting pieces he is unflinchingly honest about past and present love and relationships, and pulls no punches with an alternative perspective of our place in the world. Unknown Pleasures is Andy Kirkpatrick at his brilliant best. "Words like boldness, adventure and risk were surely coined especially for Andy Kirkpatrick. 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."--Jacket Imagine an alien came down to Earth, stuck a probe into a climbers brain one whod been climbing for over thirty years and then transmogrified the contents into a big book of climbing tips. Well, 1001 Climbing Tips by Andy Kirkpatrick is just such a book. This is no regular instruction manual its much more useful than that. This is a massive collection of all those little tips that make a real difference when at the crag , in the mountains , or when youre planning your next big trip. Its for anyone who hangs off stuff, or just hangs around in the mountains. These tips are based on three decades of climbing obsession, as well as nineteen ascents of El Cap , numerous Alpine north faces , trips to the polar ice caps , and many other scary climbs and expeditions . The following areas are Basics, Safety, Big Wall, Ice, Mixed, Mountain, Training, and Stuff. I was aware that I was cold - beyond cold. I was a lump of meat left for too long in a freezer, a body trapped beneath the ice, sinking down into the dark.'I was freezing to death.'In this brilliant sequel to his award-winning debut'Psychovertical', mountaineering stand-up Andy Kirkpatrick has achieved his life's ambition to become one of the world's leading climbers. Pushing himself to new extremes, he embarks on his toughest climbs yet - on big walls in the Alps and Patagonia - in the depths of winter. Kirkpatrick has more success, but the savagery and danger of these encounters comes at huge personal cost. Questioning his commitment to his chosen craft, Kirkpatrick is torn between family life and the dangerous path he has chosen. Written with his trademark wit and honesty,'Cold Wars'is a gripping account of modern adventure. Me, Myself & I - the forbidden dark art of roped soloing, for climbers who either need to know in order to make the ultimate climb come true, or those who just like technique nerdiness.Me, Myself & I draws on fifteen years of experience on these solo projects, as well as nearly thirty years of general climbing experience, to bring the most specialised big wall instruction book ever written for climbers. Rope soloing will be undertaken by less than 1% of climbers, yet these skills open up the potential for the equivalent of an 'Iron Man' for climbers, to scale the biggest walls - alone and safely. 1001 Climbing Tips is no regular instruction manual - it's much more useful than that. This is a massive collection of all those little tips that make a real difference when at the crag, in the mountains, or when you're planning your next big trip. It's for anyone who hangs off stuff, or just hangs around in the mountains. 1001 Climbing Tips covers the following areas: basics, safety, knowledge on tackling large multi-pitch climbs, ice climbing, mountain climbing and training "Me, Myself & I" draws on fifteen years of experience on these solo projects, as well as nearly thirty years of general climbing experience, to bring the most specialised big wall instruction book ever written for climbers. Rope soloing will be undertaken by less than 1% of climbers, yet these skills open up the potential for the equivalent of an 'Iron Man' for climbers, to scale the biggest walls -- alone and safely"--Back cover 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. "In this ... sequel to his ... debut Psychovertical, mountaineering stand-up Andy Kirkpatrick has achieved his life's ambition to become one of the world's leading climbers. Pushing himself to new extremes, he embarks on his toughest climbs yet - on big walls in the Alps and Patagonia - in the depths of winter."--Jacket Winner of the 2012 Boardman Tasker Prize. Andy Kirkpatrick has achieved his life's ambition to become one of the world's leading climbers. Pushing himself to new extremes, he embarks on his toughest climbs yet in the depths of winter, but the savagery and danger of these encounters comes at huge personal cost. 1001 Climbing Tips by Andy Kirkpatrick is a massive collection, acquired from three decades of climbing obsession, of all those little tips that make a real difference when at the crag, in the mountains, or when you're planning your next big trip.