Book Description

American Climber is a memoir loaded with epic climbing stories and adventures. It contains two underlying themes: a compelling narrative of Mehall's tumultuous journey to climbing that ultimately saved his life, and a detailed look at the American dirtbag climbing culture, which has never truly been examined in a memoir. "I started climbing during a time when people traveled and lived to climb. They scraped together anything they could and lived out of cars, trucks, tents or vans. Climbing was not only a lifestyle for them, but a purpose for life. With the popularity of climbing skyrocketing, a lot of this soul has been diluted or lost. Luke does an incredible job at capturing the essence of why so many of us climb, why so many of us devote our lives to this sport and lifestyle. It's these people that are the lifers, that keep the soul and character alive, and now there is a great memoir documenting one person's journey through it." Beth Rodden, climbing legend, prolific El Capitan first ascentionist "Luke Mehall emerged as a writer just in time to chronicle the dwindling light of the soul-climber: one who climbs for the aesthetics, who adventures for the freedom not the recognition, who's hi-tech gear is merely a tool rather than a totem. Luke and his cohorts embody the dream of the American West with all its promise of freedom and risk and reward. To dive into a Mehall book is to be brought along on a ride that we all wish we had the courage to board, but most of us trade that courage for comfort." Chris Kalous, host of the Enormocast podcast Luke Mehall is one of the few adventure writers out who handle the tricky first person voice as if it were made for him. John Long, climbing legend and Senior Contributing Editor, Rock and Ice Who's more in tune with the ethos of the dirtbag-and more able to write passionately and honestly about it-than Luke Mehall? I think no one. Brendan Leonard of Semi-rad.com, and author of 60 Meters to Nowhere and New American Road Trip Mixtape "American Climber isn't just about climbing; it is a strong and well-told story about climbing out of the gray cave of existential depression that infects so many young people today, an always-honest account of finding meaning in his life not through disposable McJobs or the standard-issue American dream, but through self-medicating on nature and nature's challenges, where the true highs of life and living are hard-earned doing strange things in strange places with a band of brothers and sisters equally disaffected but spirited. I've previously said that Mehall could be the Kerouac of his generation; with American Climber, he's there." George Sibley author of Dragons in Paradise and Water Wranglers, longtime contributor to the Mountain Gazette