Michael and I talked about a lot of things — the big stuff, the painful stuff. His operating theory was that “We only get one shot on this dustball," so he was going to do his thing while he was here — player haters and gravity be damned. And so he did. Some will see poetry or fate or even irony in the sea's taking him, but such forces bar easy analysis. A wave came and took Michael when it did, and none of us could do a damned thing. There are two other things Michael told me, though. Firstly, that he wasn't going to die climbing. And secondly, Ireland felt like home.
     Walk out to Dohilla, a place older than everyone you know... combined. Pick your way along the faint track through bent grasses, flakes of grey-black slate shuffled about like cards in sea meadows popping with flowers and herbs. Watch the Atlantic below, pushing in edge-of-the-galaxy blues against a coastline teeming with rock hewn square cut, forming massive headlands that loom over the raw waters. Feel the wind come in, pressing higher the waves and sculpting finger-perfect fissures, pockets, and hollows into the stone's serpentinite skin. Go pay Michael a visit. Sit in the sun and pick out all the lines he would have climbed, or ask a local to show you where he high-marked white chalk against the jet-black stone, the last traces of his unstoppable play: ropeless, high above the deep, noodling around on little edges in a way only he could. Visit him in this place of power: he's there and he's climbing, and I know he'd be glad to see you.

Matt Samet is the Editor of Climbing.


Michael Reardon’s Top Free Solos:
• Palisade Traverse (VI 5.9; onsight), High Sierra, California
• Romantic Warrior (V 5.12b; onsight), Sorcerer Needle, California.
• Sea of Tranquility (V 5.11+; onsight), Sorcerer Needle, California
• Shikata Ga Nai (IV sandbag 5.11+; onsight first ascent; 800 feet), Witch Needle, California
• EBGBs (5.10d), Joshua Tree National Park, California
• Equinox (5.12c), Joshua Tree National Park, California
• MRSR (5.12a first ascent), Joshua Tree National Park, California
• Tic-tic Boom (5.12b), Joshua Tree National Park, California
• The Pirate (5.12c), Suicide Rock, Idyllwild, California
• The Vampire (III 5.11a), Tahquitz Rock, Idyllwild, California
• Ghettoblaster (5.13b), Malibu Creek, California
• Jules Verne (first pitch, 5.11a; onsight), Eldorado Springs Canyon, Colorado
• Sunset Boulevard (5.11b/c; onsight), Eldorado Springs Canyon, Colorado