Margo Talbot

All That Glitters: A Climbers Journey through Addiction and Depression

In All That Glitters: A Climbers Journey through Addiction and Depression, world-renowned ice climber Margo Talbot shares her compelling story of healing and self-discovery amid the frozen landscapes of the planet. Rescued from the depths of drug addiction and crime by the lure of climbing frozen waterfalls, Margo rises from the brink of suicidal depression in a jail cell to being envied by a client in Antarctica for having a “dream life”.

“All That Glitters” is a story of healing and redemption; a story about losing oneself, and then finding one’s way back home.
Margo Talbot is a world-renowned ice climber whose love for the mountains sprang from her discovery of the Canadian Rockies over 20 years ago. With a drive to participate in winter sports that began in childhood, these amazing mountains added fuel to the fire, leading her to ski and climb her way from Canada to the furthest and coldest ends of the Earth. Personal highlights up to this point in her life include leading the grade six test pieces that she dreamed about when she first started ice climbing, travelling to some of the most remote wildernesses on the planet, and overcoming lifelong debilitating depression. Margo shares her passion for ice through guided expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica and through courses she teaches for The Glitter Girls and Chicks with Picks. Margo co-founded The Glitter Girls with Karen McNeill in 2003 and continues their mission of helping women find and grow their own inner goddesses through guided adventures on ice, rock and snow.

Jasmin Caton

Babes, Big Walls and Bad Shrooms - Climbing in the Tasermiut Fjord, Greenland

Rock climbers Jasmin Caton and Kate Rutherford went to southern Greenland in search of long free routes on granite big walls. Finding themselves in a mind-blowingly beautiful landscape with high quality stone and a tragic amount of rainy weather they sucked it up and completed ascents of two of the major features in the area, but only after they had finished all the wine, chocolate and US magazines in basecamp.

Jasmin Caton was introduced to a love of mountains by her backcountry ski enthusiast parents during her childhood in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Ever since, she has enjoyed the physical and mental challenges that outdoor adventures provide. After a life-changing three months spent trekking in Nepal when she was 19, Jasmin decided she wanted to try out climbing. She packed up her Chevy Corsica and moved to Squamish, where she was lucky to find some solid climbers who were looking for a roommate and didn’t mind letting her tag along to the crags. She even found a job where she could hone her belaying skills at the outdoor kiddie wall for tourists in Whistler. By the end of the summer, she was taking whippers on her own gear and had caught the climbing bug in a bad way.

Since that fateful summer Jasmin has chased climbing across four continents, and spent a shocking amount of time in a harness. When she isn’t on a climbing trip, Jasmin can be found working as a rock guide in Squamish or ski touring at Valhalla Mountain Touring, her family’s ski touring lodge.

Nina Caprez

My passion for climbing started as soon as I stepped into my first real climbing shoes, I knew that this is my sport.

I grew up in the middle of the Swiss mountains in a valley called Prattigau. After finishing high school, finding no solid direction in normal life I decided to leave the "routine" and chose to continue my life as a climber. My desire to practice this sport with all his facets was so strong, that I was able to overcome all the obstacles that I came across to peruse my lifestyle.

Besides rockclimbing and mountaineering I also spent time competing. During this time, I learned a lot how I have to train and what I have to do, to become a stronger climber. This made me become an even stronger rock-climber, quickly making it possible for me to red-point my first 8b route.
After a while, I lost the motivation for competitions and I started to concentrate more and more on what was for me pure rockclimbing. I travelled all around the world and climbed on all kinds of rocks. From big wall climbing in Patagonia and Kirgistan to boulder trips in Argentina, from deep water soloing in Thailand to sport climbing all around Europe and America. All these experiences and all these different styles of rock climbing gave so much practice, that it made me the well rounded climber I am now.

Through all these experiences as a rock climber, I found my big challenge: I want to climb the hardest multi pitch routes in the world. To be able to climb a hard multi pitch route in one day, that is my goal and what I am searching for.

Routes like 'Ultime démence', 5 pitches 8a+ or 'la Ramirole', 5 pitches 8b, are the most beautiful sucesses in my climbing life.
I love my 'non-system' life. To be able to decide myself how I will earn my money, where I will live, when I will get up in the morning. To do what I need to do to survive. And most importantly: to enjoy every single day, with the least amount of seriousness as possible and to climb to my very best!

Cory Richards

I am not sure what possessed my dad to take my brother and I climbing when we were only five yrs old.  I dare say that my mom wasn't overly keen.  But as luck would have it, we forewent the life of team sports, and spent most of our weekends climbing rocks.

23 yrs later, I feel like I should be a lot better than I am.  That said, my life has become saturated by the pursuit I love most…and in that, I find myself progressing every time I put on a pair of boots, rock shoes, or runners.  I have become obsessed with incremental progress and the evolution of skill…and climbing is the perfect venue to observe that.

Three years ago, I moved to Canmore, AB with more balls than brains.  The learning curve was steep.  Given that my job as climbing and adventure-sports photographer required me to climb, I found myself getting better by default.  It wasn't long before I wanted to test myself, being drawn to the alpine to tap into the skill set that I had acquired over the years.

 
In the past five years, I have visited six continents for work and climbing. I've established new routes from the Canadian Rockies to the Himalaya and have had the privilege of sharing those experiences with the most talented crop of climbers the world over. I have learned to focus on being the best I can be vs. being the best…and in the long run, it has paid off.  I have encountered some amazing people, and climbed with some of the finest athletes of our time giving me ample opportunity to absorb and learn from their mastery while developing my own. It has been a wild ride.

Recently, I've been really excited about climbing in Nepal.  I've been twice in the past eight months…once on a successful expedition…and the other time, a heartbreaking failure.  But that is part of it…failure is inevitable when the stakes go up. All that said, the expedition can't come soon enough…

Ed Cooper

The 50th Anniversary of the Grand Wall Ascent
50 years after the historic first ascent of the Squamish Chief’s Grand Wall route Ed Cooper returns to Squamish to reflect on the climb and show some of the photos he took during the ascent that have never been seen since those early days.

Fascinated by the challenge of the heights, Ed Cooper became the first “climbing bum” in the Pacific Northwest, where he rapidly acquired a reputation as one of the most important all-around climbers of his generation. This book provides rare insight into the world of mountaineering and rock climbing during that era, revealing the intensely competitive nature of the sport at a time when so many opportunities were available for carving a place in climbing history as the first to complete a new challenge.

The young climber’s evolving quest to photograph the essence of the mountains he held in such awe resulted in a series of spectacular portraits of many of the best-known peaks of North America. These images provide the visual drama in Ed Cooper’s story, which also contains many historically interesting photographs of early climbs, and of such noted mountain personalities as Norman Clyde, Warren Harding, and Galen Rowell.

Tim Emmett

Nominated for the prestigious Piolet D’ Or award, TIM EMMETT is one of the UK and the world’s adventure athletes excelling in Rock/Ice/Alpine Climbers and pioneers Deep Water Solo climbing. He is also renowned for BASE Jumping, Wingsuit flying and Para Alpinisme. Some of his career highlights are: Climbing the Kedar Dome 6984M, South East Face 1st free Ascent, “Spray On” the Hardest Ice climb in the world 2010, a Podium position in Ice Climbing World Cup 2000-04, Flying a wingsuit past the Dru in Chamonix, and Pioneering Para-Alpinism in Thailand, Spain and “Old Man Of Hoy”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUCLPJpdbV0

Tim is also a notable TV presenter, documentary maker, and speaker- with appearances on Top Gear, The Ultimate Climb and numerous climbing movies, Tim demonstrates his world class abilities and his traits of enthusiasm, energy and positive thinking. Tim has considerable experience giving motivating lectures famed for projecting insight from his athletic experiences that capture and inspire his audience. He is a first class presenter leveraging enthusiasm, charisma and a dynamic approach.

Tim encourages people to “believe in strengths, work on weaknesses, pursue dreams and find whatever it is they’re looking for. Boundaries are only formed by a limitation of imagination."