A climber’s odyssey through passion, belief and truth @ Chautauqua Community House

A climber’s odyssey through passion, belief and truth

As an undersized kid who wanted to be a cowboy, Kelly Cordes never dreamed that the mountains would define his life. He stumbled upon an obsession that took him to places of unimaginable beauty, infused his world with meaning and forced an endless confrontation with failure. His experiences in climbing and in life intersected with a larger journey as he sought to uncover the truth in his award-winning book, “The Tower: A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre.”

About the Speaker:
Climber, writer and self-proclaimed margarita specialist, Kelly Cordes was an editor for the American Alpine Journal from 2000-2012, and his book, “The Tower,” won the 2015 nonfiction outdoor literature categories of the Banff Mountain Book Awards and the National Outdoor Book Awards. He also co-authored Tommy Caldwell’s 2017 bestselling autobiography, “The Push.” Kelly lives in Estes Park, and has established major new alpine routes in Alaska, Peru, Patagonia and Pakistan.