Banff Mountain Book Festival 2006

Wednesday , November 1, 7:30 p.m.

Eric Harvie Theatre

Andy Kirkpatrick

Supercouloir on Fitzroy
Photo: Andy Kirkpatrick

One of the UK’s most accomplished mountaineers and big-wall climbers, Andy Kirkpatrick is known for sharing colourful, spirited, and off-the-wall tales of his defining moments. His boldness, determination, and hearty appetite for both humour and risk have made him one of the better-known British climbers.

Climbing magazine claims he has a “strange penchant for the long, the cold, and the difficult”. Kirkpatrick has climbed Yosemite’s El Capitan more than ten times, including a 12-day solo ascent of Reticent Wall. He also made a 15-day winter ascent of the Lafaille route on the Petit Dru, a 1000-metre pillar in the Alps, considered one of the most difficult climbs in Europe.

Kirkpatrick specializes in fearsome winter climbs in the Alps, Alaska, and Patagonia. On one of his three expeditions to Patagonia, his party was stormbound on the Supercouloir, just below the summit on Fitzroy — hanging precariously in a bivy tent as it was filling with snow and being shredded by 125 kilometre per hour gusts. “I just couldn’t see how we could possibly survive. It’s like being in a war. Afterwards you’re drawn back to the fighting, to the danger, because without it life seems empty and pointless… a grim thing to admit but true.”

“A web site for the committed” is the title of his own website, www.psychovertical.com — one of the web’s best sources for advice on gear and techniques. Commitment and passion extend through all aspects of his life. Kirkpatrick is also a writer, photographer, and filmmaker, and lives in the UK with his wife and two children.

“Andy is one of the funniest of Britain’s top climbers and represents what is best in modern British climbing: boldness, innovation, sense of humour, irreverence, commitment, and an appetite for risk.”

— Sir Christian Bonington