Imagine an alien came down to Earth, stuck a probe into a climber’s brain – one who’d 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 – 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. 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 covered: Basics, Safety, Big Wall, Ice, Mixed, Mountain, Training, and Stuff.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Notes
Feedback and updates
This book sucks
1 Basics
Learning
Partnerships
Ropes
Passive protection
Active protection
Slings, quickdraws and cord
Karabiners
Knots
Leading
Harnesses
Building a rack on the cheap
Indoor climbing
Rock boots
Rock clothing
Route finding
2 Safety
Helmets
Descent
Dealing with heat
Loose rock
Rescue
Benightment
3 Big wall
Pegs
Jumaring
Hauling and haul bags
Speed climbing
Hand bolting
Hooks
Fifi hooks and connectors
4 Ice
Basics
Protection
Leading
5 Mixed
Leading
Gear
Footwork
6 Mountain
Crevasses
Clothing, boots and equipment
Sleeping bags and mats
Mountain bivvies
Navigation and storm tactics
Repair kit
Snow shelters
Food
First aid
Stoves, pans and kitchen stuff
Snow travel
Expedition and mountain tents
7 Training
Overcoming fear
Strength training
Food
Endurance training
8 Stuff
Don’t try this at home
Guiding principles of Andy Kirkpatrick
Choosing a guide or climbing course
Make your own kit
Photography and video
Sponsorship and media
Bodily functions
Trip packing and travel
9 Reading list
About the Author :
Andy Kirkpatrick is an award-winning author and climber. With a reputation for seeking out routes where the danger is real and the return questionable, he has pushed himself on some of the hardest walls and faces around the world. He was born and raised on a council estate in Hull, one of the UK’s flattest cities, and suffered from severe dyslexia which went undiagnosed until he was nineteen. Thriving on this apparent adversity, Andy transformed himself into one of the world’s most driven and accomplished climbers and an award-winning writer. In 2001 he undertook an eleven-day solo ascent of the Reticent Wall on El Capitan, Yosemite, one of the hardest solo climbs in the world. This climb was the central theme of his first book Psychovertical, which won the 2008 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature. His second book, Cold Wars, won the 2012 Boardman Tasker Award. In 2014 he partnered BBC One’s The One Show presenter Alex Jones as she climbed Moonlight Buttress in Zion National Park in aid of Sport Relief. Unknown Pleasures: Collected Writing on Life, Death, Climbing and Everything in Between was published in 2018. Andy lives in Ireland with his wife Vanessa.
