Anniversary of climber famed for his adrenaline and glamour but whose remains were never found

Irish Examiner

14-07-2025

The eternal human quest for adrenaline-fueled adventure took on a new aspect in the 1970s. This involved finding a sheer cliff, maybe 50 metres high, and climbing to the top without the aid of ropes or safety equipment. Fall early on and you had a sporting chance of spending the remainder of your life in a wheelchair; come off anywhere near the top and you were headed for 'the pearly gates'.
The reasons not to take part in such an activity seem irrefutable, yet the sport of free solo climbing was soon attracting growing numbers of participants.
Michael Reardon climbs on the Gap of Dunloe, County Kerry. Picture: Damon Corso
One reason why some were prepared to ignore the possible gravitational consequences from such activities may be a reaction to living in an increasingly anodyne world where every effort is made to engineer risk from our lives.
Children no longer walk to school, are often discouraged from running in playgrounds, while some schools require them to wear goggles when playing conkers.
Adults can't buy more than two packets of paracetamol, are advised to only to go outside in the morning and evening on hot, summer days, while some universities ban students from throwing mortarboards at graduation.
If Christopher Columbus lived today, he could hardly have discovered America. An apparatchik would surely have appeared on the quayside before he sailed and listed several reasons why the Santa Maria could not be licensed for transatlantic travel.
Health and safety inspections may have made our lives safer and more comfortable, but they have also assuredly made them less challenging and more boring.
Invariably, however, some free-spirited people will resolutely refuse to accept the constraints that safety experts impose on the rest of us.
Free soloist Michael Reardon climbing in his beloved Gap of Dunloe, Killarney. Picture: Valerie O'Sullivan
Rockclimber Michael Reardon was one such person. American-born, but of Irish ancestry, he lived from an early age the expansive life common among those who eventually broaden the boundaries of human achievement. In the 1980s he was a member of a heavy metal band and later worked as a writer and film producer.
He was best known, however, for belonging to an elite group of top-level climbers — known as the Outlaws — whose members insisted on making ascents of cliff faces while unfettered by ropes. For some people, this is climbing in its purest and most stylish form — to the rest of us, it appears foolhardy in the extreme.
But then we should remember the age-old truism that those who dare to push back the frontiers of the possible are invariably considered foolhardy by their contemporaries.
Public opprobrium was heaped on the 'reckless' first climbers to reach the summit of the Matterhorn. It also fell upon those who battled with the north face of the Eiger Mountain in the 1930s.
And in more recent years, it has fallen upon women — but not so much on men — who have continued with cutting-edge climbing after having children.
Nevertheless, without people prepared to take risks and push themselves beyond their comfort zone, the world's greatest mountains would remain unclimbed, European explorers could hardly have reached America and the lunar dust would remain footprint-free.
A restless search for advancement is a key element of the human condition. If it exists, then sooner or later somebody, possessing raw courage beyond what the vast majority of us can comprehend, will want to reach it, climb it, traverse it, or explore it.
Reardon was such a person, and inevitably on his Irish visits, he hit the local climbing scene like a tornado. Spurning long-held conventions on safety, he soloed 240 of our hardest climbs. Locals observed in awe as, with his trademark blonde locks flowing in the breeze, he glided unprotected up cliffs that heretofore had only been attempted by Ireland's best climbers using ropes and modern equipment.
Irish Examiner, Saturday, July 14, 2007: Search for missing climber Michael Reardon
In the end, it was not a fall but the ocean that claimed him. This July marks 18 years since he was swept out to sea while climbing in Kerry.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, many concluded that the world's best-known solo climber had finally overreached himself and that his loss was the result of a climbing error and an ocean fall. Reality was more mundane, but no less tragic. A rogue wave knocked Reardon from a rock during a photo shoot following another successful ascent, and his remains were never recovered.
When I spoke to his friend, Kerry mountain climber, Con Moriarty, he quickly pointed out that Reardon was — despite his awesome reputation — no daredevil': He was an extremely cautious and calculating climber, and I never saw him take an unnecessary or foolhardy risk.'
Irish Examiner. Wednesday, October 3 2007 Inquest rules that climber Michael Reardon died by misadventure
Reardon is now remembered for the fact that in a tragically short career, he put adrenaline and glamour into rockclimbing that would later be harnessed by world-renowned climbers such as Alex Honnold.
Locals and climbers, family and friends of climber free soloist Michael Reardon US waving at the memorial service on Valentia Island for climber Michael Reardon in 2007. Picture: Don MacMonagle
With his simple, flowing technique, he brought challenges that would have previously been considered outlandish firmly within the realm of possibility for future generations of climbers.
Michael Reardon: May 1, 1965 – July 13, 2007. Picture: Valerie O'Sullivan