Photographs by Jim Herrington
Essay by Greg Child
Foreword by Alex Honnold
For nearly two decades, professional photographer Jim Herrington has been working on a portrait series of influential rock and mountain climbers. The Climbers (Mountaineers Books; October 2017) documents these rugged individualists who, from roughly the 1930s to 1970s, used primitive gear along with their considerable wits, talent, and fortitude to tackle unscaled peaks around the world. Today, these men and women are renowned for their past accomplishments and, in many cases, are the last of the remaining practitioners from the so-called “Golden Age” of 20th century climbing.
Herrington’s images—the result of his own passion for climbing—allow us to study the faces of climbers who were driven to do the impossible for no other reason than the challenge. In these portraits we find people who ascended bold, visionary lines, often in remote regions, away from the media spotlight and without any hope for reward. Yet in many ways the severe routes these men and women established outshine today’s ascents due, in part, to the fact that rope and other gear were so strikingly inferior to today. And often our pioneering predecessors were climbing into a malevolent unknown—if compromised or injured, the only people in the world likely capable of initiating their rescue were the climbers themselves. Innovation emerged frequently and in unlikely ways. In these images, Herrington has captured the utter humanity of obsession, determination, intellect, and frailty.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jim Herrington began taking pictures as a teenager in his native North Carolina. Over the past forty years he has photographed scores of luminaries, including Benny Goodman, Willie Nelson, The Rolling Stones, Cormac McCarthy, Morgan Freeman, and Dolly Parton, as well as the iconic mountaineers found in The Climbers. Jim’s work has appeared on album covers, in international ad campaigns, and in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and GQ. Herrington’s photography has been exhibited in solo and group gallery shows in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Nashville, Milwaukee, and Charlotte, and is in numerous private collections. He divides his time between New York City; Owens Valley, California; and Southern Europe. The Climbers is his first book.
Greg Child started rock climbing as a teenager in his native Australia. In 1981 he made his first expedition to the Himalaya, climbing a new route on 21,500-foot Shivling. He returned to the great ranges many times, climbing peaks like Gasherbrum IV, K2, and Everest, and the vertical Trango Tower. In Yosemite he racked up two new routes on El Capitan: Aurora, and Lost in America. These big wall climbs led him to Baffin Island for a first ascent on the 4000-foot face of Great Sail Peak. Throughout his career Greg has written about the climbing life, in numerous articles and in his books Thin Air, Mixed Emotions, Postcards from the Ledge, and Over the Edge. In 1996 he received the American Alpine Club’s Robert and Miriam Underhill Award for outstanding mountaineering achievement. He lives in Utah.
Alex Honnold is a professional adventure rock climber, known best for his audacious free-solo ascents of dizzyingly tall cliffs including the first free solo ascent of the 3,000 foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. He has been profiled by 60 Minutes and the New York Times, was featured on the cover of National Geographic, and has starred in numerous adventure films including the Emmy-nominated Alone on the Wall. Honnold is the founder of the Honnold Foundation, an environmental nonprofit. His autobiography, coauthored with David Roberts, is Alone on the Wall.