Down Book Reviews

Down by Andy Kirkpatrick Book Summary

"This book will save your life" Pete Whittaker (Wide Boyz)

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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