Down: The Complete Descent Manual for Climbers, Alpinists and Mountaineers
About this ebook
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, retreats and F**k-ups.
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.
Book Structure
Foreword by Joe Simpson
Introduction
Chapter 1: Safety; How to stay alive.
Chapter 2: Feet; General notes on non-technical descent in both winter and summer.
Chapter 3: Tools; The tools of the trade and how to use those tools. This chapter covers all types of descenders, as well as notes on all associated software and hardware (abseil cord, hard-links, prusik cords etc).
Chapter 4: Anchors; Everything from slinging trees to retrievable ice screws, bounce testing to non-anchor anchors.
Chapter 5: Rappel; Here we start putting it all together, covering the core theory of descent, including back-ups, knots, and optimum set-ups.
Chapter 6: Lowering; This covers both standard lowering off sports routes and backing off climbs, to more advanced self-rescue lowering, passing knots etc.
Chapter 7: Advanced; This long chapter deals with pro techniques, many that will be new to many climbers, including blocking, ghosting and single rope rappels.
Chapter 8: Problems; Sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with problems in descent, such as stuck or damaged ropes, having ropes that don’t reach anchors, or having to return back up your ropes. This chapter aims to come up with practical solutions for worst-case scenarios.
Chapter 9: Comms: Many of the problems that arise in descent revolve around a failure in communication. This chapter offers some ideas and solutions surrounding this.
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About the author
‘I haven’t climbed Everest, skied to the poles, or 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 do, are about more than distance or altitude, they are about breaking barriers within myself.’
Andy Kirkpatrick 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 19. Thriving on this apparent adversity, Andy transformed himself into one of the world’s most driven and accomplished climbers, and an award- winning writer.
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 specialty is big wall climbing and winter expeditions, which involves pitting himself against a vertical climbs of over one thousand metres (almost three times as high as the Empire State Building), often in temperatures as low as minus 30C. Andy has scaled Yosemite’s El Capitan – one of the most difficult rock walls in America – over ten times, including two 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 one thousand 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.’
