Show to summit all up
Lifestyle - He has explored some of the most inhospitable places on Earth, but extreme climber Andy Kirkpatrick says Galway is one of the coldest places he has ever been. The adventurer and comic will talk about his experiences in The Town Hall Theatre next month, and ahead of that show, he sat down and spoke to Judy Murphy
Extreme climber Andy Kirkpatrick has been to the most inhospitable reaches of Antarctica. He has spent 15 days during Winter on a solo climb of The Dru, a vertical mountain in the French Alps. He made the first ascent of the South ridge of the Ulvertanna in Antarctica, spending 14 days climbing in minus 30 degrees to reach the top.
So, the 46-year-old is a hardy soul. But despite first-hand experiences of some very chilly spots, Andy regards his wife Vanessa’s homeplace of Galway as one of the coldest places on Earth. That was his opinion in 2015 on his first visit here, and it’s a view he still holds.
“It’s the wind,” says the English adventurer and comic who will be at the Town Hall Theatre on Tuesday, April 3, to present his show Psychovertical: A Higher Education.
Despite that, Andy would live in Galway if he had his way but Vanessa hates the rain, so while they are based in Ireland, Bray is home.
Not at the moment, though, as the pair have leased their house to go travelling and enjoy more rocky adventures worldwide. And there’s Andy’s tour, in which he shares his experiences of climbing in some of the world’s most dangerous places, adding a dash of humour to his tales of derring-do.
Everest may be the world’s highest mountain, but it doesn’t interest him because it’s not vertical and it doesn’t have an overhanging rock; “it’s a walk”, he remarks.
Andy’s speciality is vertical climbing on rocks of more than 1,000 metres in height – the equivalent of two and a half World Trade Centers. And he tends to climb them in winter, in temperatures of minus 30 degrees,
He has scaled the 1,000-metre high El Capitan in California’s Yosemite Park more than 24 times, including three solo ascents and a one-day ascent, which lasted 18 hours.
Growing up in a block of flats in the English city of Hull might not seem like a usual background for a rock-climber, but as Andy points out, people are often drawn to what they don’t have.
“People in the desert might like to go and live in Galway where it rains all the time,” he says with a laugh. In his case, his love of the great outdoors developed via his father. His parents were separated and when “I’d go to see my dad, he’d take us into the country and the hills”.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.