The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains

“I Hurt, Therefore I Am”

“An extraordinarily well-written mountaineering memoir.  -- Foreword Reviews

 “I laughed. I cried. I thought about life. I couldn’t put down [this] long-awaited memoir.” -- Rocky Mountain Outlook 

 “A memoir that reads like a conversation over beers around the campfire, deep into the night.” -- Thecampsiteblog.com

With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, Barry Blanchard chronicles his transformation from a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in the world. 

At thirteen, he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone’s Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end his family’s cycle of poverty. He describes early climbs attempted with nothing to guide him but written trail descriptions and the cajones of youth. 

He slowly acquires the skills, equipment and partners necessary to tackle more and more difficult climbs, farther and farther afield: throughout the Canadian Rockies, into Alaska and the French Alps and on to Everest, Peru, and the challenging mountains in Pakistan. From each he learns lessons that only nature and extreme endeavor can teach. 

This is the story of the culture of climbing in the days of punk rock, spurred on by the rhythm of adrenaline and the arrogance of youth. It is also a portrait of the power of the mountains to lift us – physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually – and the depths of relationships based on total trust in the person at the other end of a rope. 

With an accompanying playlist of classic punk and rock ’n’ roll, includes climbs with renowned alpinists such as Kevin Doyle, Mark Twight, David Cheesmond, and Ward Robinson. 

Canadian Mountain Guide and alpinist, Barry Blanchard, was born in Calgary, March 29, 1959. Twelve years later three boys navigated the Bow River through the western side of the city on a raft of nailed together railway ties, Barry was at the helm steering the adventure. He found mountain climbing in the books of his high school library, some of which are still in his possession. A six-month trip to the French Alps in 1980 set the course of Barry’s life: to climb the steepest and most complicated faces of the world’s great glaciated peaks. Barry moved to the mountains in 1982 to pursue his Mountain Guiding career (he is an internationally certified -UIAGM- mountain guide) and has included making Hollywood features such as K2, Cliffhanger, and  The Vertical Limit in his professional life.  In 2024, Blanchard was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, a prestigious honor in Canada. Barry lives in Canmore, Alberta, with his fiancé, Nicole, and his two daughters, Rosemary and Eowyn, and cats, Orion and Lemmy, and dog, Strummer.