"This book will save your life" Pete Whittaker (Wide Boyz)
Down is a groundbreaking encyclopedic study of the art of descent. Its purpose is to create a single source for all descent techniques, both the well established and ideal for the novice climber, as well as the cutting edge, high value techniques for experienced and pro climbers.
The book was written and illustrated over three years by award winning climber and writer Andy Kirkpatrick (Psychovertical, Cold Wars, 1001 Climbing Tips, Higher Education), and is based on four decades of epics and retreats.
At 80,000 words (400 pages) and 300 illustrations, this is both a labour of love and an important and timely book for a community that loses far too many climbers to rappelling accidents.
The US magazine Climbing once described Andy as a climber with a "strange penchant for the long, the cold and the difficult", with a reputation "for seeking out routes where the danger is real, and the return is questionable, pushing himself on some of the hardest walls and faces in the Alps and beyond, sometimes with partners and sometimes alone." Andy's speciality is big wall climbing and winter expeditions, which involves pitting himself against a vertical climbs of over 1000 metres (that's two and a half world trade centres), often in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees. Andy has scaled Yosemite's El Capitan - one of the hardest walls in America - over 35 times, including five solo ascents. One of these ascents was a 12 day solo of the Reticent Wall, viewed at the time as perhaps the hardest climb of its type in the world. In 2002 he undertook one of the hardest climbs in Europe: a 15 day winter ascent of the West face of the Dru. This 1000 metre pillar pushed him and his partner to their limits and was featured in the award winning film 'Cold Haul'. Andy has also taken part in three winter expeditions to Patagonia. The stories that Andy has brought back from these expeditions have become modern classics in the climbing world and have brought new meaning to the words 'epic' and 'cold'... " I haven't climbed Everest, skied to the poles, nor sailed single handed around the world. The goals I set out to accomplish aren't easily measured or quantified by world records or 'firsts'. The reasons I climb, and the climbs I do, are about more than distance or altitude, they are about breaking barriers within myself ". It is perhaps Andy's journey from remedial student to successful climber, writer and speaker that interests his audience most. Brought up on a council estate in one of Britain's flattest cities, Hull-born Andy suffered from severe dyslexia which went undiagnosed until he was 19. One of his greatest strengths is his ability to talk about his life and his climbs in a way that is totally accessible to the non-climber and allows the audience to experience the risk and tension of big wall climbing. Andy also works in film and TV, as a stunt safety advisor and this plays a part in many of his talks, which take you from the heights of Patagonia to the chocolaty depths of Charlie and the Chocolate factory!
