Retreating from the ruins of his marriage, Mike leaves London for the wildness of the Yorkshire moors, where he falls in with a group of climbers – a band of misfits and mavericks bound by the pursuit of the unattainable: the perfect climb. Travelling from abandoned urban quarries to misty, lichened crags, Mike discovers an intensity of experience – a wash of pain, fear and excitement – that causes the rest of his world to recede.

Increasingly addicted to the adrenaline, folklore and camaraderie of the sport, he begins to lose his grip on the line between passion and obsession – at a cost.