If you’ve ever dreamed about climbing a big wall like Yosemite’s El Capitan, my friend Chris McNamara, main dude at the essential climbing website Supertopo.com, has just released a book that’ll teach you how to do it.
His new book, How to Big Wall Climb, released this week, promises to add tremendously to the how-to climbing genre. Chris is an exceptionally accomplished big wall climber, having climbed more than 100 of the beasts, including a whopping 70 times up the Yosemite behemoth El Capitan. He has forgotten more about big wall climbing than most of us are ever going to know, but he’s done his best to download his methodical, step-by-step brain into his How to Big Wall Climb book so the rest of us can glean some of his expertise. You can get a great sense for Chris and for what he has done watching the three and a half minute video on his How to Big Wall Climb page
Chris is a great guy, and I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on his book. His ability to get things done leaves me in awe. The only strike against Chris that I can think of is that he’s a “janitor,” a “sweeper,” a stand-up-paddle surfer, and although I’ve been amazed to watch how fast he’s made himself good at it, one of these days he’ll gird up his loins and learn to pop to his feet like the rest of us. ;-)