Exploring Deep Wilderness

Barry Blanchard has known fear. The legendary big wall climber is the author of the new book, The Calling: A Life Rocked By Mountains. He talks to Jon Turk about a bad day on the world's highest vertical-distance wall climb: the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, an escarpment that rises at an average of 50 degrees for more than three miles. If you've never braced against an avalanche for fully 27 minutes amidst 70 mile per hour winds and three-foot an hour snowfall, if you've never dropped your ropes 10,000 feet because of miscommunication with your climbing partner, we have a whole new definition of fear for you. Oh, and there's no air up there either.