Pritchard was born in Lancashire, UK, in 1967 and, at age 16 began a life of climbing. He soon moved to North Wales and that Mecca of rock climbing, Llanberis and by 1986 he was climbing the top grade of the day. He began a life of mountaineering that would take him to the Indian Himalaya, the Pakistani Karakorum, Patagonia, Baffin Island, The Pamirs, the European Alps and the American Rockies.
El Caballo de Diablo, Torre Norte del Paine.
When he won the Boardman/Tasker Award for mountain literature in 1997, with Deep Play, he spent the prize money on a world climbing tour that found him in Tasmania climbing a slender sea stack known as The Totem Pole. It was here that all that he had known before was turned on its head.
On Friday the 13th of February 1998 a TV-sized boulder falling from 25 meters inflicted such terrible head injuries that doctors thought he might never walk or even speak again. Pritchard has spent his time since the accident in contemplation of the hemiplegia which has robbed his right side of movement and played tricks with his speech and memory.
However, he is still making a remarkable recovery and re-directing his life in continually inspiring and rewarding ways.
He has since moved to Tasmania, the place that did him so much harm, and is raising two children.
Always looking to the future, Pritchard story gives the message that life doesn't have to stop with the trauma of head injury or disability.
Pritchard on his recumbent tricycle, Llanberis, Wales.
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