One Day As A Tiger: Alex MacIntyre and the Birth of Light and Fast Alpinism

A biography of British alpinist Alex MacIntyre, whose short, influential career helped define a faster and lighter style of Himalayan climbing.

In the autumn of 1982, a falling stone struck Alex MacIntyre on the south face of Annapurna and killed him instantly. He was only twenty-eight, but had already become one of the leading figures in a remarkable generation of British mountaineers.

MacIntyre’s climbing ranged from difficult new routes in the Alps and Andes to major Himalayan ascents on peaks including Dhaulagiri and Changabang. Yet his importance lay not only in the routes he completed, but also in the way he approached the mountains. With partners such as Voytek Kurtyka, he pursued a lighter, faster and more committed style on the world’s highest peaks, helping shift expectations about what small teams could attempt.

One Day As A Tiger places MacIntyre’s life within the culture of British and Himalayan alpinism, tracing the ambition, friendships, ideas and risks behind a career that ended early but left a lasting influence on modern mountaineering.

John Porter was born in Massachusetts and started climbing at the age of 12, serving his apprenticeship in the White Mountains, Rockies, Cascades and Yosemite. He moved to the U.K. in the early 1970s to do postgraduate work at Leeds University, where he joined a team of climbers dedicated to clean ethics, alpine-style, and the fostering of international partnerships.

Ascents of the north face of Koh-i-Bandaka (1977) and the south face of Changabang (1978) with Alex MacIntyre and Polish friends were achieved in the middle of the Cold War. Other climbs include lightweight attempts of the west ridge of Everest in winter, the northwest ridge of K2, the east face of Sepu Kangri, first ascents of Chong Kundam I and V in the Eastern Karakoram, and many other notable climbs around the world over a period of 55 years. In 1980 he founded the Kendal Mountain Festival with Brian Hall and Jim Curran, and in 2011, he and Brian founded the adventure-film website SteepEdge.com.

John is a vice president of the Alpine Club and has previously been a vice-president of the British Mountaineering Council and secretary to the Mountain Heritage Trust. He lives in the Cumbrian Lake District, U.K.