FREE TO ATTEND. No reservation required.
Join us Monday, September 25th at 7pm at Pegasus Downtown when we welcome David Smart in celebration of the release of his new biography, Royal Robbins: The American Climber, from Mountaineer Books.
About the book:
Royal Robbins: The American Climber is the definitive biography of one of history’s most influential climbers, from a hardscrabble youth to the heights of Yosemite and beyond. Royal’s “clean climbing” ethos (not scarring the rock with pitons) and other outdoor philosophies, styles, and techniques are foundational to today’s climbing culture, and this impact has influenced everything from the pages of Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills to the famous 2016 Dawn Wall climb by Tommy Caldwell, Kevin Jorgeson, and Adam Ondra, leading The New York Times to deem Royal the “conscience of rock climbers.”
Now for the first time, the story of this iconic figure is illuminated in full by award-winning author David Smart, drawing from unparalleled access to the Robbins’s family archives and personal papers along with hundreds of interviews with Royal’s family, friends, climbing partners, and more.
This essential biography provides an intimate, colorful tour of climbing history covering Yosemite, the Tetons, Gunks, Alps, United Kingdom, and more from the 1960s onward, starring such greats as Liz Robbins—Royal’s wife and a pioneering adventurer in her own right—Yvon Chouinard, John Harlin, Steve Roper, Warren Harding, Tom Frost, and Doug Tompkins. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Royal Robbins sheds new light on this elemental figure of outdoor culture.
“Royal Robbins had an outsized impact on climbing history. This great new biography by David Smart brings the man behind the famous climbs to life in a way that’s both relatable and inspiring.” – Alex Honnold
About the author:
David Smart is founding editor of Gripped magazine, editorial director at Gripped Publishing, and author of five guidebooks. His biography of Austrian solo climber Paul Preuss was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize, and his biography of Italian climber Emilio Comici won that prize along with the Banff Award for Climbing Literature. Other honors include the H. Adams Carter Award for Mountain Literature from the American Alpine Club. His work has appeared in Climbing, Rock and Ice, The American Alpine Journal, The Canadian Alpine Journal, and Alpinist. Smart resides in Toronto.
