On July 13, the climbing world lost a great one: Michael Reardon, 42, the accomplished free soloist from Oak Park, California. Reardon met with a freak accident at the headland of Dohilla, on the island of Valentia off the southwest coast of Ireland. The ocean conjured a rogue wave, and the wave took Michael while he stood just feet above the water.

“I’ve never been a middle-of- the-road kind of guy. It is too easy and causes complacency. You’re never wrong when you’re in the middle, but you’re never right.”

     In the last five years, Michael Reardon went big with ropeless free climbing — routes up to 5.13b in difficulty, some 900 feet high, some done as onsight first ascents. He was without peer in the free-soloing realm today, and his 2005 onsight solo of the Needles' Romantic Warrior (V 5.12b) and 2006 onsight-solo first ascent of the nearby arête Shikata Ga Nai (sandbag 5.11+, 800 feet), have left a high mark not likely to be equaled for some time.
     During his fourth climbing trip in Ireland, a country he — with his great-great grandfather hailing from Cork — had come to call home, Reardon met with a freak accident at the headland of Dohilla (aka Reenadrolaun). Dohilla sits at the sea-lashed tip of a stony peninsula of ancient beauty on the island of Valentia, off the southwest coast. The ocean conjured a rogue wave, and the wave took Michael while he stood just feet above the waters, at the base of a 100-foot cliff on which he'd been playing. The current carried him quickly, and rescuers and searchers, on the scene within 15 minutes, have not found him.
     Some 150-plus people gathered July 17 atop Dohilla to celebrate Michael Reardon, and a plaque reading "An solas geal lonrach" — "bright, shining light," in Irish — carved from slate taken from just up the hill, sits in commemoration, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Michael leaves behind his beloved wife, Marci; cherished daughter, Nikki; a giant white Husky mutt, Reno; a Papillon, Bailey... and too many friends (climbers and otherwise) to list.

     Some climbers "tackle" the rock, and some climbers “crush” it, but Michael Reardon resonated. To free solo — and to do so with any sort of meaningful longevity in a realm where the only laws are physics and gravity — you must resonate. Michael was blunt about the possible motivations for soloing: you either did it out of angst (the break-up solo), ego (quite dangerous), or zen. In the four years I knew Michael, I never saw him do aught but the latter. Whether he was in Zone 1 (OK to fall), Zone 2 (if you fall, you hurt), or Zone 3 (death), he climbed exactly the same: cement-crushers for fingers, high-stepping honed to perfection, untrembling motion, and a surety and flow that let you know the only way out was up. And if up wasn't happening that day... he downclimbed, staying within the "eight-foot eggshell" that surrounds a soloist properly immersed in the moment.