Winner of the 2016 Boardman Tasker Award, The Bond is the story of two climbers, Briton Simon McCartney and American 'Stonemaster' Jack Roberts, and their lifelong bond forged in extreme adversity, on the most dangerous walls in the Alaska Range.
In the late 70's, brash young alpinist Simon McCartney was ticking off some of the hardest routes in the Alps. A chance meeting in Chamonix with Californian 'Stonemaster' Jack Roberts was set to dramatically change both their lives and almost proved fatal for McCartney.
Inspired by an Bradford Washburn photograph published in Mountain magazine, their first objective was the 5,500-foot north face of Mount Huntington, one of the most dangerous walls in the Alaska Range. The result was a route so hard and serious that for decades nobody believed they had climbed it - it is still unrepeated to this day.
Then, raising the bar even higher, they made the first ascent of the south-west face of Denali, a climb that would prove almost fatal for Simon, and one which would break the bond between him and climbing, separating the two young climbers for over three decades. But the bond between Simon and Jack couldn't remain dormant forever. A lifetime later, a chance reconnection with Jack gave Simon the chance to bury the ghosts of what happened high on Denali, when he had faced almost certain death.
The Bond is Simon McCartney's story of these legendary climbs.