Media Release

October 26, 2009
Media accreditation and tickets

2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival finalists feature world’s best in adventure, environment, exploration

Banff Mountain Book Festival · November 5 to 6
The Banff Centre · Banff, Alberta, Canada
Tickets and information: 403.762.6301 or 1.800.413.8368
Book finalists and entries · Festival schedule
A presentation of Mountain Culture and Environment at The Banff Centre

Among the most popular non-fiction genres of the past 15 years, adventure books continue to chart high on bestseller lists, with no signs of fading away any time soon. The Banff Mountain Book Festival, which celebrates books on themes of adventure, exploration, culture, environment, and extreme sports, has become one of the most prestigious honours in the genre, in 2009 attracting 101 entries from 10 countries.

Among this year’s entries, personal tales of lives lived in climbing and mountaineering are among the most popular. David Roberts writes the life of one of the 20th century’s foremost mountaineers, a large-format photographer and cartographer of mountain landscapes in The Last of His Kind: The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn. Royal Robbins, a hero to the earliest, boldest climbers in Yosemite, put up first ascents on some of today’s most popular routes, including Half Dome and El Capitan. The first volume of his autobiography, To Be Brave: My Life, is in competition, and Robbins will read from it on Friday, November 6. On the other side of the climbing spectrum, one of the original U.K. climbing bums, a startlingly strong athlete, risk-taker, and consummate joker, Jerry Moffatt takes a less reverent journey up early ascents in his autobiography, Revelations, written with Niall Grimes.

Chronicles of individual mountains, routes, and expeditions are perennial favourites at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. This year brings a dissection of one of mountaineering’s most terrifying challenges, with Ed Viesturs and David Roberts’s K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain.

The festival also attracts the best in conservation and environmental writing into its competition. In 2009, finalists include Jake MacDonald’s revealing chronicle of life in the midst of essential Rocky Mountain wildlife, Grizzlyville: Adventures in Bear Country. This year’s books take readers on a paddle into the still waters of Quetico Provincial Park, on an epic solo paddle south from Idaho to the Pacific, and across Tibet’s central plateau.

Authors who will be in Banff to present and read from their books include Royal Robbins, Steve House, whose expedition-themed autobiography is called Beyond the Mountain, and Sarah Garlick, with her newly released Flakes, Jugs and Splitters: A Rock Climber’s Guide to Geology. Bow Valley writers to be featured include Jerry Auld, author of the novel Hooker & Brown, and Chic Scott, author of the biography Deep Powder and Steep Rock, about heli-skiing pioneer Hans Gmoser,

The 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival jury includes Susan E.B. Schwartz, author of Into the Unknown, Canadian climbing writer Jon Popowich, and U.K.-based journalist Stephen Goodwin. The winners of the following awards will be announced in advance of the festival on Thursday, October 29. The awards will be presented on stage the evening of Thursday, November 5, in the Eric Harvie Theatre:

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For more information on Mountain Culture and Environment at The Banff Centre

The Banff Mountain Book Festival is presented by National Geographic and Redwood Creek Wines, sponsored by Deuter, Outdoor Research (OR), Three Cups of Tea, Parks Canada, and PrimaLoft, with support from Alpine Club of Canada, Café Books, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and The Calgary Herald.