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Quest into the Unknown

My life as a climbing nomad

Signed paperback: ISBN: 978-1-911342-83-0
440 pages
Author: Tony Howard
Publication date: 4 Apr 2019

Signed copies

Highly Commended, Outdoor Book category, Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild Awards for Excellence 2019

We are all climbing where we are and with the gear we use in no small part due to Tony Howard’s quest for adventure.

Tony Howard rose to fame in 1965 as a member of a group of young climbers from northern England who made the first British ascent of Norway’s Troll Wall; a climb described by Joe Brown as, ‘One of the greatest ever achievements by British rock climbers’. Tony went on to design the modern sit harness, now used universally by every climber in the world. He founded the company Troll Climbing Equipment but never stopped exploring. Quest into the Unknown is his story.

Tony has dedicated his life to travelling the world in search of unclimbed rock faces and remote trekking adventures. The scale of his travels is vast: he has visited all of the North African countries, much of the Arab land of the Middle East, the mountainous regions of Scandinavia, Canada and the rocky spine of the Americas, the Himalaya, remote Indian provinces, South East Asia, Madagascar, South Georgia and Antarctica. This book, the last word in adventure travel, takes the reader from Tony’s youth spent developing the crags of the English Peak District, via whaling ships in the Southern Ocean, thousand-mile canoe trips in the Canadian Arctic, living amongst the Bedouin in the rocky mountains of Jordan, to the isolated opium tribes of Thailand.

Tony Howard’s Quest into the Unknown is the jaw-dropping account of a life of adventure that is the very definition of true exploration.

*We will publish 200 signed and numbered special edition hardback copies of Quest into the Unknown in April 2019. These will be bound in real cloth and feature head and tail bands and a dust jacket. They will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis for £24 inc. UK P&P and this special offer will go live on our website on Tuesday 22 January (SOLD OUT). The general release/trade edition of Quest into the Unknown will be paperback with an RRP of £14.95. This will also be published in April.

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His descriptions carry the reader from solo climbing in the Antarctic to the souks of Morocco, remote Bedouin camps in Jordan, and on to India and opium tribes in Thailand. Each story is brought to life by his dry humour and pleasure in connecting with the people that he meets, as well as his descriptions of routes and trails explored. Howard’s drive to go to areas otherwise unexplored by western travellers opened up many areas, such as the Jordan Trail, to adventure tourism, and paved the way for so many of the trips we can now take for granted. – Una Vejsbjerg, Irish Mountain Log

In no way would it be an exaggeration for me to say that Tony Howard is one of Britain’s most accomplished explorers left on this planet today. Having grown up in northern England making a name for himself with a group of young, ambitious climbers, he has since recorded many world-first climbs and blazed a trail for all to follow across the world.

His exploits have taken him through much of North Africa and the Middle East, Scandinavia, the Americas and Asia to name just a few. Over the years, he has scaled many unclimbed rock walls and trekked into many remote landscapes, engaging with the wonderful people he met along the way. In Quest Into The Unknown, Howard shares his life’s experiences in wonderful detail. – Adventure Travel magazine

Tony and Di are modern-day inquisitive wanderers. Their quest is to journey to astonishing places, enjoying the exhilaration of not always knowing where they are venturing and what they might find the next day. Tony’s observations are so vivid and colourful that you quickly become immersed in his excitement as he views new, overwhelming landscapes. We share how Tony and Di have savoured amazing beauty but how they have also witnessed the harsh realities of troubled lands. The book leaves the reader with so much to consider and reflect upon. The world is at our feet and it still offers the most enticing unknowns. – Noel Dawson, The Great Outdoors magazine

This is totally compelling as he manages to inject appropriate levels of detail and he does so with a high degree of humour. – Amazon reviewer

You cannot help but share Tony's excitement and awe and wonder as he ventures round each new corner to find experiences almost beyond his imagination. – Amazon reviewer