Climbing Self-Rescue: Essential Skills, Technical Tips & Improvised Solutions

A must have for any mountaineers

This is a great book, especially if you have already encountered many of these topics and are looking to refine your technique or learn new tips and tricks. However, I think this book falls short of what it could be due to the layout and the selected images for demoing complex tasks. Throughout the book the authors follow a format of describing the steps and then show a full series of photos with abbreviated captions. Particularly for the more complex tasks later in the books, the photos are taken from too far away and are too busy to pick out exactly what the authors want you to focus on unless you are already familiar with what they are trying to demo. From a learning perspective, it is much better to have the full-value description right alongside the photo demoing the technique so folks can practice at home without constantly flipping back and forth between the description section and the photo section. Many of the photos could be replaced with well-illustrated diagrams to make it easier for the reader to understand what they are meant to focus on. I think a combination of reformatting + redoing the photos would make this a 5/5 and the go-to book for learning self-rescue regardless of prior exposure. I am glad I bought this book, and I will certainly be referencing it in the future during self-rescue practice sessions. For those completely new to these topics, I would recommend taking a self-rescue course with a qualified guide or reading a more approachable book like Andy Kirkpatrick's Down and practicing the skills there before progressing to this book to refine your technique.

Awesome book even for a climbing veteran!

A+ for content. So high-value, it’s climbing gold when it comes to vital skills that are needed to navigate the vertical world when issues come up while climbing. Agree with some reviews in that some photos are not as easy to follow, for example when discussing how to escape the belay and transition to baseline when belaying a leader from below, the referenced photos are demonstrating escaping the belay from above which makes it a bit harder to follow if visual illustration is a key component for the learner and trying to work through that skill on their own. Regardless, the book is 100% 5 stars in my book. The reality is, the more ways a climber is exposed to information in various modalities the more helpful information in a book will be in terms of solidifying that knowledge to translate to real life when situations arise and call on improvisation and management of the issues. Highly recommend this book!

Outstanding climbing reference! The real deal from an experienced AMGA guide and climber! I have climbed with Ian in the North Cascades. My grown son has ice climbed with Ian in Canada. He is eminently qualified to write this excellent text on skills that all climbers should know. Practical, with excellent illustrations, and added material from a Who’s Who list of climbers. If you climb, do yourself a favor and buy this book. Knowledge is the most valuable part of your climbing kit—and weighs nothing on the climb!!

This book is an update to the original Climbing Self Rescue book by Andy Tyson and Molly Loomis. They have updated it with a modern discussions of gear and many high resolution photos taken by the author and other guides such as Dale Remsberg. Personally, I do not understand the choice to use photos instead of illustrations. This book has almost no cartoon style illustrations and I believe that hurts the readability. It's easy to look at the illustrations in Andy Kirkpatrick's Down, for example, and immediately understand the system. It's takes much more energy to glance at an actual photo where objects are smaller at greater distances, and things are easily obscured. The more complicated the system, the harder it is to see what's going on. Early in my climbing career, I took a snapshot on my phone of an illustration in the Tyson and Loomis book, that showed how to pull a climber up using a 3:1 drop line. I ended up needing to reference that when my follower fell on a traverse into free hanging space and could not ascend on their own. I could pull up this illustration and immediately be reminded of how this drop line should be rigged. Unfortunately, this book does not have the same utility as it is much harder to convey information in the photograph format.

Good info with updated techniques. I’m not wild about the pictures versus diagrams. Many will like the real life pictures. Sometimes the pics are hard to decipher with the background and instructors hands.

There is so much to learn from this book. I will probably refer back to it many times. I have been climbing for over 40 years and this is the first book that covers this subject in depth with a modern approach. It is obvious to me that the author is very knowledgeable in this subject. There are tons of pictures that really help visualize the processes.