Just before Christmas Andy Kirkpatrick set off on to solo the Harlin Route on the North Face of the Eiger, leaving behind his wife and kids. Now whilst I find it hard to criticize someone for soloing a hard and dangerous routes as a climber myself, it is important to remember that this wasn’t just a passionate climber out to test himself against nature; by offering an online blog updated via his phone, did Andy turn his ascent into a media circus. A death defying stunt of Dave Blane proportions. The fact that people engaged with this type of media is as screaming indictment to our morbid fascinations.
Like Ice cube man Dave Blane though, Andy is a professional and with that comes a responsibility to prepare properly. Andy will have done this through years of experience and good judgement. Having soloed Big Walls in Yosemite, and winter climbed prolifically on paper he certainly has credentials. So surely as a professional Andy will have trained up mentally and physical for this trip, however from the outset it seemed a little over ambitious. “Feel tottaly bolloxed after a real slog of an approach with 70kg of gear (did it in relays, breaking the load into 3 for the 200 metres up to the first real climbing).”
I have to admit that I am not the biggest Andy Kirkpatrick fan, mainly because of Dru stunt he pulled off a few years ago. Where if you are not aware the media declared his aided ascent of a route on a similar line to a route Jean Christophe Lafaille as ‘the hardest route in the Alps’. Now the claim probably came from the fact that JCL declared his route ‘the hardest route in the Alps’. Now my problem with that ascent is that to me it was misleading as whilst I certainly won’t be operating in the levels of hardest route in the Alps, as a climber I consider aid climbing a form of cheating. For instance where Andy K might tell you the hardest route on El Cap is the old school A5 Reticent Wall, I might choose one of the many free climbs like the El Nino, etc… If you’d like a quote then I choose Stevie Haston who at the age of 52 has just climbed F8c+ who several years ago made a snipe at aid climbing by saying that ‘Anyone can climb A5!’, the same can’t be said of hard free climbs.
As such I see Andy as a someone who is very adept at gain media attention for feats that really only show how much he is willing to suffer for his ‘Art’. I do however respect the man as someone successfully making a living out of climbing. Now personally having only seen him once live several years ago, and back then he had an air of comic genius about him, something that climbing desperately needs. However as a climber I am not sure that I can respect him for various media stunts.
In this latest escapade he appears to have barely gotten off the ground, on UKC well know and probably one of the few Brits capable of climbing the real hardest routes in the Alps, John Bracey commented that the hard climbing doesn’t start until you reach the gallery window. Interestingly in Andy’s penultimate blog installment puts him below this point where the going gets tough.
“Climbed 250 metres today. Boring/scary snow then 2 pitches of undrytoolable rock and thin 80 deg ice. Hauling my bag took a lot out of me and wasted a lot of time.
Finished in the dark below the gallery windows”
So I await to see the spin that Andy Kirkpatrick puts on the outing, and whether any media organisation picks up on the story that if it was me would ready. ‘Well known climbing comic Andy Kirkpatrick, made a joke of himself by publically attempting to solo the Harlin Route on the North Face of the Eiger. Fortunately for those who like his stand up act he came down before he hurt himself (ego aside).’
I am sure he’ll turn the whole experience into a very humorous aside in his act, and we’ll all be lining up to watch him. You never know he might be on Richard and Judy’s New Position next week.