Andy Kirkpatrick (1)

Before anything else, it#s a very honest book. No bullshitting about how the dilemma Andy - and his family - are facing. He's acutely aware of his addiction and of the harm it causes and this is what the book is about - more so than about this or that climb. Great piece of confession literature wirth some hair-raising bits of bravery and foolishness thrown in.

The memoir-within-a-climb format worked quite well, and I mostly enjoyed the writing. But the story was a bit bland, and nothing grabbed me. The title is certainly appropriate, for Kirkpatrick's often unsafe approach to climbing.

> For most of the last few years I’d just felt more and more useless – the harder the route, the greater my apparent inadequacies. I didn’t see myself as a climber, yet climbing consumed me. Perhaps my problem was being married to someone who saw climbing only show more as a negative; there was no room for hero-worship or ego with Mandy. She saw through the bullshit. The greater the climb the greater the pain for her.

> All my confidence had left me, and now it was only blind fear of embarrassment that kept me going show less

Este no es un manual de escalada corriente. Es una generosa recopilación de todos esos trucos que marcan la diferencia entre ir todo bien o ir todo regular (o mal) cuando estamos en una pared, en una montaña, o sencillamente cuando planeamos nuestro próximo gran viaje. Es un libro para todos, sea un excursionista, un escalador o un alpinista. Son consejos que se basan en tres décadas de la obsesión de su autor por la escalada, diecinueve ascensiones a El Capitán, numerosas caras nortes show more en los Alpes, viajes a los Polos, y muchas más expediciones y escaladas, algunas espeluznantes. show less