Search results for ""Author Paul Pritchard""

An inspiring, moving, and unblinking view of a battered climber who refuses to turn his back on the mountains.Born in Bolton, England, Paul Pritchard started climbing when he was 16 years old. In time, he became one of the foremost British climbers of the 1980s and 1990s, climbing difficult routes across the United Kingdom and around the world, including the East Face of Central Tower in Torres del Paine, Patagonia, the first ascent of the West Face of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island, Trango Tower in northern Pakistan, and multiple attempts on the then-unclimbed Shark''s Fin on Meru Peak, in the Indian Himalayan region.On Friday, February 13, 1998, Paul''s life was dramatically altered when he was struck in the head by a falling boulder while climbing the Totem Pole, a slender sea stack off the coast of Tasmania. He received a traumatic head injury and was left suffering from hemiplegia, which has robbed his right side of movement and continues to play tricks with hi

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In 1998, Paul Pritchard was struck on the head by a falling rock as he climbed a sea stack in Tasmania. Close to death, Pritchard kept himself going with a promise that he would 'at least attempt to live'. The Mountain Path is an adventure book like no other, an exploration of a healing brain, a test of will and a triumph of hope.

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Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature.'As I sat cradling the man's head, with his blood and brains sticking to my hands, I heard a voice – my own voice. It was asking me something. Asking how I had ended up like this, desperate and lost among people who thought nothing of caving in a man's head and then standing back to watch him die.'Nick Bullock was a prison officer working in a maximum-security jail with some of Britain's most notorious criminals. Trapped in a world of aggression and fear, he felt frustrated and alone. Then he discovered the mountains. Making up for lost time, Bullock soon became one of Britain's best climbers, learning his trade in the mountains of Scotland and Wales, and travelling from Pakistan to Peru in his search for new routes and a new way of seeing the world – and ultimately an escape route from his life inside. Told that no one ever leaves the service – the security, the stability, the 'job for life' – Bullock focused his existence on a single goal: to walk free, with no shackles, into a mountain life.Echoes is a powerful and compelling exploration of freedom, and what it means to live life on your own terms.

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WINNER: Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature 1997Paul Pritchard's Deep Play is a unique, stylish and timeless commentary reflecting the pressures and rewards of climbing some of the world's hardest and most challenging rock climbs.Pritchard started climbing in Lancashire before moving to join the vibrant Llanberis scene of the mid-1980s, at a time when the adventurous development of the Dinorwig slate quarries was in full swing. Many of the new slate routes were notable for their fierce technical difficulty and sparse protection, and Pritchard took a full part in this arcane sub-culture of climbing and at the same time deployed his skills on the Anglesey sea cliffs to produce a clutch of equally demanding wall climbs.Born with an adventurous soul, it was not long before Pritchard and his friends were planning exotic trips. In 1987, paired with Johnny Dawes, Pritchard made an epoch-making visit to Scotland's Sron Ulladale to free its famous aid route, The Scoop. Pritchard and Dawes, with no previous high altitude experience, then attempted the Catalan Pillar of Bhagirathi III in the Garhwal Himalaya in India, a precocious first expedition prematurely curtailed when Pritchard was hit by stonefall at the foot of the face. In 1992, Pritchard and Noel Craine teamed up with the alpinists Sean Smith and Simon Yates to climb a big wall route on the East Face of the Central Tower of Paine, Patagonia. Pritchard followed this with an equally fine first ascent of the West Face of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island.Other trips – to Yosemite, Pakistan and Nepal as well as returns to Patagonia – resulted in a clutch of notable repeats, first ascents and some failures. The failure list also included two life-threatening falls (one on Gogarth, the other on Creag Meaghaidh), which prompted the author into thought-provoking personal re-assessments, in advance of his later near-terminal accident on The Totem Pole in Tasmania.A penetrating view of the adventures and preoccupations of a contemporary player, Deep Play stands alone as a unique first-hand account of what many consider to be the last great era in British climbing.

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