1984

Living High
by Linda Gill

1984

The Shishapangma Expedition
by Doug Scott & Alex Macintyre

1985

Menlove
by Jim Perrin

1986

Painted Mountains
by Stephen Venables

1987

In The Footsteps Of Scott
by Robert Swan & Roger Mear

1988

Touching The Void
by Joe Simpson

1989

Climbers
by M John Harrison

1990

Elusive Summits
by Victor Saunders

1991

Mer De Glace
by Alison Fell

1991

A View From The Ridge
by Ian R Mitchell & Dave Brown

1992

In Monte Viso's Horizon
by Will Mclewin

1993

The Ascent
by Jeff Long

1994

At The Rising Of The Moon
by Dermot Somers

1995

Geoffrey Winthrop Young
by Alan Hankinson

1996

A Portrait Of Leni Riefenstahl
by Audrey Salkeld

1997

Deep Play
by Paul Pritchard

1998

Eric Shipton, Everest And Beyond
by Peter Steele

1999

Totem Pole
by Paul Pritchard

2002

Fatal Mountaineer
by Robert Roper

2003

The Fall
by Simon Mawer

2004

When The Alps Cast Their Spell
by Trevor Braham

2005

Learning To Breathe
by Andy Cave

2005

The Villain: The Life Of Don Whillans
by Jim Perrin

2006

An Afterclap Of Fate
by Charles Lind

2007

The Wild Places
by Robert Macfarlane

2008

Psychovertical
by Andy Kirkpatrick

2009

Beyond the Mountain
by Steve House

2010

Ron Fawcett: Rock Athlete
by Ron Fawcett & Ed Douglas

2011

Freedom Climbers
by Bernadette McDonald

2012

Cold Wars: Climbing The Fine Line Between Risk And Reality
by Andy Kirkpatrick

2013

Everest: The First Ascent
by Harriet Tuckey

2014

Tears of the Dawn
by Jules Lines

2015

The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains
by Barry Blanchard

2016

The Bond
by Simon McCartney

2017

The Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka
by Bernadette MacDonald

2018

Limits of the Known
by David Roberts

2019

Lands of Lost Borders
by Kate Harris

2020

Two Trees Make A Forest
by Jessica J. Lee

2021

Emilio Comici: Angel Of The Dolomites
by David Smart

The 2023 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature goes to Katie Brown for Unraveled.

Congratulations Katie!

A compelling, raw and honest memoir from one of the most successful climbers of her generation. Brown’s bold book gives us a no-holds barred insight into her early life, her struggles with mental health and eating disorders, all against the backdrop of her meteoric rise to climbing fame as a teenager in the mid-90s. The question of ‘what happened?’ is constant and fascinating theme throughout this unforgettable read and shows how climbing can provide escapism in its rawest form.

Recognized as one of the greatest female rock climbers in history, Katie Brown began climbing at age 12 and soon dominated national and international competitions. She mastered the discipline of climbing hard outdoor sport routes quickly, often on the first try. Retired from climbing, Brown is a writer and mom. Find her on Instagram @katiebrownclimbs

The Chair Of Judges’ speech by Matt Fry is available to read here.

The 2022 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature went to both Brian Hall, for High Risk: Climbing to Extinction and to Helen Mort for A Line Above The Sky.

Congratulations to the winners!

HIGH RISK

Brian Hall grew up with the radical climbers who would come to define a wild and glorious chapter of Himalayan mountaineering in the late nineteen seventies and eighties. He partied with them, climbed with them, and grieved many of the eleven unforgettable climbers portrayed in his book. High Risk takes the reader right to the heart and soul of the golden age of UK climbing.

Climbing exploits worldwide led Brian Hall to become an internationally certified mountain guide who provides extreme location safety and rigging for the film industry. His numerous credits include the BAFTA award-winning film Touching the Void. Between 1980 and 2008, he co-directed the Kendal Mountain Film Festival of which he is a founder. Brian and his wife, Louise, divide their time between the UK’s Peak District and New Zealand’s Southern Alps.

A LINE ABOVE THE SKY

One of Britain’s best young poets draws a line between the risks and terrors of motherhood and an untethered life in the mountains. Shadowing the life of Alison Hargreaves, the pioneering UK climber who did not give up alpinism when she became a mother, Helen Mort brilliantly explores the visceral education that is part of climbing mountains, and giving birth.

Helen Mort was born in Sheffield in 1985, and grew up in nearby Chesterfield. Five times winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, she received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and won the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. Her first collection, Division Street (2013), was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa Poetry Award, and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2014, she was named as a 'Next Generation Poet', the prestigious accolade announced only once every ten years, recognising the 20 most exciting new poets from the UK and Ireland. No Map Could Show Them (2016), her second collection, about women and mountaineering, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Helen has been the Wordsworth Trust Poet in Residence and the Derbyshire Poet Laureate and was named one of the RSL's 40 under 40 Fellows in 2018. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and lives in Sheffield. Black Car Burning was her first novel, and A Line Above the Sky is her first work of narrative memoir.

If you missed the Award Ceremony - you can watch it on Kendal Mountain Player from Saturday 19 November.

The Chair Of Judges’ speech by Marni Jackson is available to read here.

Our Congratulations to David Smart for winning the 2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature with his book Emilio Comici - Angel of the Dolomites.

A very impressive biography, well written and researched, of one of Italy's foremost climbers, who put up some of the first big wall climbs and developed new climbing style and techniques.

David Smart has been climbing since 1975 throughout North America and Europe. He has completed hundreds of new routes in eastern Canada and is the founder of Gripped, Canada’s Climbing Magazine, Canadian Running magazine, Canadian Cycling Magazine and Triathlon Magazine Canada. He is also the author of five climbing guidebooks; a memoir entitled A Youth Wasted Climbing, short-listed by the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in 2015; Paul Preuss: Life and Death at the Birth of Free-Climbing, short-listed for awards by both the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival and The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature (UK); and he is the co-author with Brandon Pullan of Northern Stone: Canada’s Best Rock Climbs. He is the editorial director of Gripped Publishing and is still an active new-router in northern Ontario. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.

If you missed the Award Ceremony - you can watch it on Kendal Mountain Player here.

The Chair Of Judges’ speech by David Canning is available to read here.

Our Congratulations to Jessica J. Lee for winning the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature 2020 with her book ‘Two Trees Make A Forest’.

A poetic and deeply moving account of Taiwan’s mountains, waters and forests that interweaves the author’s experiences of hiking with recollections of political, cultural and family histories, creating portraits of landscapes haunted by memory and longing.

Jessica J. Lee is a British-Canadian-Taiwanese author, environmental historian, and winner of the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Author Award. She received a doctorate in environmental history and aesthetics in 2016, and her first book, Turning, was published in 2017.

If you’d like to read the speech from Katie Ives, the Chair of Judges, it’s available here.

Our Congratulations to Kate Harris for winning the 2019 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature with her book ‘Lands of Lost Borders’.

A gripping account of an epic journey, fraught with difficulties and dangers, made by the writer and her partner following the old Silk Road through many different countries.

Chair of Judges, Roger Hubank, says of the book:

“Readers of mountain books of my generation were brought up on the great epics: the Germans and Austrians on Nanga Parbat, the French on Annapurna, the Americans on K2, the Brits on Everest. Lands of Lost Borders, which has nothing to do with the great 8000 metre peaks, nevertheless reads like an expedition epic. It offers a gripping account of a challenging journey, fraught with many difficulties and dangers, following the old Silk Road. Each day a plunge into the unknown. As one of my fellow judges said, ‘the writing is suffused throughout with a sense of exuberance and joy in the present moment, and illuminated with such keen-eyed observations that its images linger long in the reader’s imagination"‘.

I myself was put in mind, again and again, of the question put by the great 19th C. explorer Sir Martin Conway:

‘What truth is it lies behind those mountain walls that is a lie here in the world beyond?’

Certainly ‘Land of Lost Borders’ might very well, in the words of the rubric,‘challenge and inspire readers’ to look at the world in a different way.’ It’s a truly life-affirming book.

Read the full speech here.

On November 16th the 2018 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature was awarded to David Roberts for his book Limits of the Known.

In his book the author explores how own lifelong commitment to adventuring, as well as the cultural contribution of explorers throughout history. The judges commented that the book is literary in the best sense of the word, at least as they defined it——elegant and lucid, rather than flowery and quasi-poetic.

Read the speech by Peter Gillman here.

Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature 2015

The winner of the 2015 Boardman Tasker Award is the Canadian mountaineer Barry Blanchard, with his book "The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains."

The irrepressible Barry Blanchard has vivid recall of every detail of his passionate struggle to escape poverty, throw himself into a hairy apprenticeship and establish himself as a non-establishment alpinist pushing himself through historic climbs and relishing the telling of the tale.

This is a gripping account of a climber's life from humble beginnings in Calgary to epic adventures in the great ranges. Known as 'The Bonatti of the Rockies', Barry has been at the cutting edge of high altitude climbing for many years and his book is a honest an visceral account of a life devoted to climbing at the highest levels, both on rock and ice.

This is one of the finest mountaineering books to appear for many years and it is destined to become a classic of that genre.

Boardman Tasker Lifetime Achievement Award 2015

A friend of the Boardman Tasker Trust from the outset, Ken’s contribution to mountain writing has been outstanding.

Initially a climber/photographer, Ken established Mountain Magazine in 1969.  Mountain soon acquired a worldwide reputation for excellence and established Ken as a figure in world mountain reporting.

Ken also produced the much loved books, Hard Rock, Classic Rock, Extreme Rock, Cold Climbs, Big Walks, Classic Walks & Wild Walks.  The revised edition of Classic Rock published in 2007 was of superb quality and fully reflected Ken’s deep love of British climbing.

Ken established his own publishing company Baton Wicks, which produced a number of excellent books (many of which were entered into the BT Award) and published The Boardman Tasker Omnibus comprising: Savage Arena, The Shining Mountain, Sacred Summits and Everest The Cruel Way.

Read more...

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1983
Lord Hunt (Chair), David Cox, Ronald Faux

1984
David Cox (Chair), Ronald Faux, Sir Jack Longland

1985
Sir Jack Longland (Chair), Al Alvarez, W.H.Murray,

1986
W.H.Murray (Chair), Al Alvarez, Jim Curran

1987
Jim Curran (Chair), Janet Adam-Smith, Rob Collister

1988
Janet Adam-Smith (Chair), G.J.F.Dutton, Tom Price

1989
G.J.F.Dutton (Chair), Robin Hodgkin, Tom Price

1990
Robin Hodgkin (Chair), Rob Collister, Lucy Rees

1991
Livia Gollancz (Chair), Harold Drasdo, Ronnie Wathen

1992
Ronnie Wathen (Chair), Livia Gollancz, Terry Gifford

1993
Terry Gifford (Chair), Sheila Harrison, Paul Nunn

1994
Paul Nunn (Chair), Sheila Harrison, Joss Lynam

1995
Joss Lynam (Chair), David Craig, Ed Douglas

1996
David Craig (Chair), Ed Douglas, Peter Gillman

1997
Peter Gillman (Chair), John Porter, Dawson Stelfox

1998
Dawson Stelfox (Chair), Dave Gregory, John Porter

1999
Dave Gregory (Chair), Alan Hankinson, Kathleen Jamie

2000
Kathleen Jamie (Chair), Stephen Goodwin, Alan Hankinson

2001
Stephen Goodwin (Chair), Andrew Greig, Mike Vause

2002
Mike Vause (Chair), Andrew Greig, David Hopkins

2003
David Hopkins (Chair), Eric Major, Chris Smith

2004
Eric Major (Chair), Steve Dean, Ian.R.Mitchell

2005
Steve Dean (Chair), Chris FitzHugh, Ian Mitchell

2006
Ronnie Faux (Chair), Rob Collister, Julie Taite

2007
Lord Chris Smith (Chair), Alison Fell, Tim Noble

2008
Tim Noble (Chair), Phil Bartlett, Alison Fell

2009
Phil Bartlett (Chair), Kym Martindale, Ian Smith

2010
Ian Smith (Chair), Barry Imeson, Kym Martindale

2011
Barry Imeson (Chair), Lindsay Griffin, Bernard Newman

2012
Bernard Newman (Chair), Lindsay Griffin, Shannon O’Donoghue

2013
Chris Harle (Chair), Shannon O’Donoghue, Audrey Salkeld

2014
Audrey Salkeld (Chair), Robin Campbell, Chris Harle

2015
Robin Campbell (Chair), Graham Desroy, Terry Gifford

2016
Graham Desroy (Chair), Terry Gifford, Helen Mort

2017
Helen Mort (Chair), Peter Gillman, Kate Moorehead

2018
Peter Gillman (Chair), Roger Hubank, Kate Moorehead

2019
Roger Hubank (Chair), Katie Ives, Tony Shaw

2020
Katie Ives (Chair), Natalie Berry, David Canning

2021
David Canning (Chair), Natalie Berry, Marni Jackson

2022
Marni Jackson (Chair), Natalie Berry, Matt Fry

2023
Matt Fry (Chair), Joanna Croston, Paul Pritchard

A friend of the Boardman Tasker Trust from the outset, Ken’s contribution to mountain writing has been outstanding. Initially a climber/photographer, Ken established Mountain Magazine in 1969.  Mountain soon acquired a worldwide reputation for excellence and established Ken as a figure in world mountain reporting. 

Ken also produced the much loved books, Hard Rock, Classic Rock, Extreme Rock, Cold Climbs, Big Walks, Classic Walks & Wild Walks. The revised edition of Classic Rock published in 2007 was of superb quality and fully reflected Ken’s deep love of British climbing.

Ken established his own publishing company Baton Wicks, which produced a number of excellent books (many of which were entered into the BT Award) and published The Boardman Tasker Omnibus comprising: Savage Arena, The Shining Mountain, Sacred Summits and Everest The Cruel Way.

In recent years Ken has suffered bad health, but he is remembered in the climbing world with much respect and affection. His great efforts in magazine production and book publishing have brought great pleasure to many people and helped several people get established as writers themselves.

Ken was great company whether on the crag, the hill or in the pub. Argumentative and opinionated, he was essentially good hearted and never hid his deep love of traditional climbing values.

When Ken finally retired he handed the keys to one of the world's finest ever mountain literature lists to Jon Barton and his team at Vertebrate Publishing. Jon will always credit Ken Wilson as the inspiration behind everything that Vertebrate produce. And one day, he promises, when they feel they are one-tenth the publishing house Ken was, Extreme Rock will finally get a second edition.

All Baton Wicks titles are now on v-publishing.co.uk