Royal Robbins: The American Climber

2023 Banff Mountain Book Competition Climbing Literature Winner
＂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

• Robbins’s passing in 2017 was covered from the BBC News to NPR to the New York Times, which deemed him the ＂conscience of rock climbers＂
• Includes never-before-published information drawn from Robbins’s family archives and personal papers
• International interest in the Golden Age of Yosemite only continues to grow

Acclaimed writer David Smart illuminates the fascinating life of Royal Robbins---in all its soulful ambition, rivalry, and romance. Royal Robbins chronicles his early years growing up as a latchkey kid in Southern California, the push and pull between being an aspiring banker or one of the original Camp 4 dirtbags, and his later decades as a father, husband, kayaker, and the trailblazing founder of the outdoor apparel company that bears his name. This intimate, colorful tour of climbing history covering Yosemite, the Tetons, the Gunks, the Alps, the United Kingdom, and more from the 1960s onward features star characters such as Liz Robbins-- Robbins’s wife and a pioneering adventurer in her own right-- Yvon Chouinard, John Harlin, Steve Roper, Warren Harding, Tom Frost, and Doug Tompkins.

An important addition to our knowledge of the Golden Age of rock climbing in Yosemite and the development of the clean climbing ethos, Royal Robbins sheds new light on an elemental figure of outdoor culture.