The Calling – A Life Rocked by Mountains

With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, Barry
Blanchard chronicles his transformation from a poor Native American/white kid
from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in
the world.

At thirteen, he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone’s
Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked
on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end
his family’s cycle of poverty. He describes early climbs attempted with
nothing to guide him but written trail descriptions and the cajones of youth.
He slowly acquires the skills, equipment and partners necessary to tackle more
and more difficult climbs, farther and farther afield: throughout the Canadian
Rockies, into Alaska and the French Alps and on to Everest, Peru, and the
challenging mountains in Pakistan. From each he learns lessons that only
nature and extreme endeavor can teach.

This is the story of the culture of climbing in the days of punk rock, spurred
on by the rhythm of adrenaline and the arrogance of youth. It is also a
portrait of the power of the mountains to lift us — physically, emotionally,
intellectually.