The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains is book one in legendary alpinist Barry Blanchard's two-part story.

With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, The Calling chronicles his transformation from a poor Native American/white kid from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in the world.

At thirteen, he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone’s Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end his family’s cycle of poverty. He describes early climbs attempted with nothing to guide him but written trail descriptions and the cajones of youth. He slowly acquires the skills, equipment and partners necessary to tackle more and more difficult climbs, farther and farther afield: throughout the Canadian Rockies, into Alaska and the French Alps and on to Everest, Peru, and the challenging mountains in Pakistan.

From each he learns lessons that only nature and extreme endeavor can teach. This is the story of the culture of climbing in the days of punk rock, spurred on by the rhythm of adrenaline and the arrogance of youth. It is also a portrait of the power of the mountains to lift us – physically, emotionally, intellectually,

Consider following it with Blanchard's follow-up book, The Echo: Stories from the Edge of Survival (Sept. 22, 2026, Patagonia, hardcover), which releases simultaneously with the paperback edition of this climbing classic. 

Picking up where The Calling left off, The Echo shows a different side of the legendary alpinist: one whose edges have been softened by age, parenthood, mentorship, loss and a life-changing accident that reset everything.