The Push

“I believe human relationships can and should follow the mindset of adventure, defined not by climbing but by its greater meaning: embracing the unknown.” Tommy Caldwell

Tommy Caldwell @tommycaldwell , the legendary rock climber who was the first to free climb the Dawn Wall route on Yosemite’s El Capitan with Kevin Jorgeson, showcases ‘The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits’, a chronicle of his adventures narrated in his own voice as “a child of rock-climbing privilege”.

The book takes us through his extraordinary journey of perseverance in all walks of life. It starts off on the colorful details of his days spent clinging to nearly invisible nubs on El Capitan’s most difficult routes “alone amid the arc of sunlight and shadow, the sweep of stone and the dive of swallows”. As an adult, he painfully recalls the time he was taken hostage by Islamic militants in Krygyzstan and fighting his way out. This dark twist didn’t deter him though. He turned around to find that his inner strength will never let him down.

To be honest, it took me quite a while to finish this book. Every time Caldwell recounts his childhood tales, idolizing his climber father, camping each weekend, I had to pause and think of my own, very different but equally humbling family getaways in the Indian summer where we got lost in the mountains a little too often and gathered a little too many pine cones in our bag packs back for our camp fire in the evenings. No, we didn’t scale mountains and sleep in snow caves like the Caldwells but to be able to relish in the resonance of our individual versions of the great outdoors, is truly a pleasant surprise in those early chapters for me.

Tommy’s writing style, like him, is fairly straightforward and coming from an introspective bite. It comes together quite like how you imagine his head works - unfolding, shifting, reorienting his climbing routes like solving a Rubik’s cube in his head. I adore his non-elitist attitude in explaining the climbing specifics and terms to the non-climbers, omitting the climber-bro jargon.

Just pack this up with your hammock next trip.