"Cheryl Strayed, move over: End of the Rope is a rambunctious, funny, heartstopping memoir that carries us along on an electric current of risk and courage." (Marni Jackson, Mountain and Wilderness Writing Program, Banff Centre, and author of The Mother Zone)

In this funny and gritty debut memoir, Jan Redford grows from a nomadic rock climber to a mother who fights to win back her future.

As a teenager, in a fit of rage toward her father, Jan pits herself against a steep rock face near their cottage. At the top, fired up by the victory, she sets her sights on the improbable dream of climbing mountains. By age 20, she's a nomadic climber with a magnetic attraction to misadventures and the wrong men.

Jan finally finds the love of her life, an affable Banff climber. When he is killed in an avalanche in Alaska, a grieving Jan finds comfort in the arms of another extreme alpinist. Before long they are married, with a baby on the way. While her husband works as a logger and climbs distant peaks, Jan tackles the traditional role of wife and mother. But soon she pursues her own dream, one that pits her against her husband.

End of the Rope is Jan's telling of heart-stopping adventures, from being rescued off El Capitan to leading a group of bumbling cadets across a glacier. It is her laughter-filled memoir of learning to climb and of friendships with women in that masculine world. Most moving, this is the story of her struggle to make her own way in the mountains and in life. To lead, not follow.