David Smart, author of Emilio Comici, Angel of the Dolomites, Winner of the 2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature receives his certificate and prize from Marni Jackson, 2021 Judge and 2022 Chair of Judges, at his home in Canada.
2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature - The Winner
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.
Boardman Tasker Shortlisted Authors & Awards Event at Kendal Mountain Festival ONLINE
Tickets are available here for the Boardman Tasker Award Ceremony & Shortlisted Authors Event at Kendal Mountain Festival ONLINE.
This year it is an online event at 7pm on Saturday 20th November.
Individual tickets will are valid for the live stream event and catch up viewing until 28th November.
The event will also be available to watch after 28th November with an annual subscription to Kendal Mountain Player.
The Boardman Tasker Shortlisted Authors and Awards event is proudly supported by Mountain Equipment
There are many brilliant events as part of the LIVE Kendal Mountain Literature Festival - explore the events here.
Our highlights include:
Victor Saunders - Structured Chaos
Tharik Hussain - Minarets In The Mountains
Paul Pritchard - The Mountain Path
Julian Sancton - The Madhouse at the End of the Earth
Jemma Wadham - Ice Rivers
Rick Stanton - Aquanaut: A Life Beneath The Surface
Philippa Harrison - Mountain Republic: A Lake District Parish - The Lake Poets and the National Trust
Sarah-Jane Dobner - A Feeling For Rock
Outside magazine writes about Katie Ives
Outside magazine writes about Katie Ives - Boardman Tasker Panel Judge 2019 and Chair of Judges 2020.
2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature Shortlist Announced
The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature continues to attract a substantial level of entries. This year there were 41 entries, from Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, France, Norway and the USA. The Award will be made at the Boardman Tasker Shortlisted Authors and Awards event at the Kendal Mountain Festival On-Line, at 7 to 9pm (UK time) on Saturday 20th November 2021.
The judges for 2021 are David Canning (Chair) Natalie Berry and Marni Jackson.
They have selected the following 6 books for this year’s shortlist:
Ed Caesar
The Moth and The Mountain: A True Story of Love, War and Everest
Viking (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
Caesar's account of Maurice Wilson's attempt to fly to and climb Mount Everest is an often tragic and pathetic story but never judgmental. Wilson could be the woefully unprepared climber we'd all like to despise but Caesar helps us to develop a warm attachment to him; Wilson frankly deserved better in death and this book is a fitting tribute to his amazing journey.
Ed Douglas
Himalaya: A Human History
Penguin Random House
An extensively researched book exploring the human histories of the Himalaya and how the mountains and their geological and imagined boundaries have shaped people and place. Douglas breaks down the romanticised Western stereotypes of Sherpas and other native peoples in the region and the exchanges, exploits and exploitations that have occurred on the 'roof of the world'.
Stephen Fabes
Signs of Life: To the Ends of the World with a Doctor
Profile books: Pursuit Books
Engaging, heartwarming, and often very funny, Fabes' accounts of his journeys around the world on a bicycle, and the people he meets along the way, are culturally sympathetic, mature, and poignant.
Helen Mort
Never Leave the Dog Behind
Vertebrate Publishing
Explores the deep bond that exists between people, their dogs, and the mountains with delightful prose and poetry. The dogs that feature are often the main characters in Mort's storytelling, but she also manages to expertly weave in personal elements too.
Elisabeth Revol
To Live: Fighting for Life on the Killer Mountain
Vertebrate Publishing
The compelling account of Revol's survival on Nanga Parbat in winter, of survivor's guilt and the need to tell her story as an act of healing. The writing is visceral and honest, and Revol speaks a universal truth about mountaineering that needs to be heard.
David Smart
Emilio Comici, Angel of the Dolomites
Rocky Mountain Books
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.
Once again the Award continues to attract a high level of interest and entries on a variety of aspects of the mountain environment.
Steve Dean
Secretary
Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust
20/08/2021
Mountain Equipment is proud to be associated with the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, one of the most prestigious and respected international literary awards, and we’re delighted to be able to officially support it.
Climbing, mountaineering, and Alpinism in particular, have always been more than just a physical pursuit, and mountaineering literature more than just a physical record. Few other activities can have compelled so many of its participants to express themselves through writing, and even fewer seen so many of its most celebrated protagonists prove their worth as authors, a fact that the Award has sought to recognise and celebrate.
For sixty years we have been closely associated with Alpinism and we owe much to Pete and Joe, and those that they climbed with, not only for their achievements but for the generations since that they have challenged and inspired. We hope that by supporting the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature we can encourage others help to experience and understand the mountain environment through literature.
ABOUT MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT
Since 1961 Mountain Equipment has been at the forefront of Alpinism. Our philosophy is built around the pursuit of a raw, no-fuss, simple and lightweight approach to both mountaineering and life, where Alpinism is more than just how we climb, but about our entire approach to life and how we choose to live.
Richard Talbot
Mountain Equipment Product and Marketing Director
Best Laid Plans...
As you are aware The 2020 Boardman Tasker Shortlisted Authors event and announcement of the winner of the 2020 Award for Mountain Literature was all online last year. Our plan was for David Canning one of the 2020 Judging Panel and Chair of Judges 2021 to meet with the winner, Jessica J.Lee, author of Two Trees Make a Forest, to present the award and the framed winners certificate. This wasn’t to be, due to lockdowns, quarantines, isolation… so they were posted!
Congratulations again, Jessica, on two fronts, for winning the 2020 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature and Congratulations on the news that you are expecting a baby.
Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker Writing Classics now available
The following titles are all now available from Vertebrate Publishing:
The Shining Mountain by Peter Boardman
“It is wonderful to see Pete and Joe’s voices still out there, loud and clear.”
Dick's Table
The Mountain Heritage Trust were delighted that this collection came to the Trust, items of which will be included in appropriate, future events/exhibitions when telling the stories of eminent mountaineers and their achievements. Pete’s collection of items joins other important collections within the Trust such as Chris Bonington, Joe Brown, Doug Scott, John Hunt, and many other pioneering climbers. It also complements the collection of Joe Tasker with whom Pete did some notable climbs, and who sadly was lost with Pete on Mount Everest in 1982. It is in Pete and Joe’s name that the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature is set up in commemoration of their lives and literary legacy.
An important piece of the collection was the aforementioned ‘slide table’, which the family have always believed was made by Dick Renshaw, another climber from the same era. The table, which Pete always referred to as “Dick’s table” was used for sorting Pete’s slides. These slides demonstrated Pete’s photographic ability used throughout his published books and the lectures that he gave. The slide collection itself will help in telling the stories of Pete’s climbing career, which paved the way from first attempts at previously unclimbed routes, through to the fatal attempt on Everest’s North East Ridge.
The slide table is in pride of place in the Mountain Heritage Trust office at Blencathra and will be available for researchers and users of the vast slide collections that the Trust holds.
The plaque was made for the table to commemorate Pete reads - “Made by Dick Renshaw who gave this table to Pete Boardman. Much used by Pete when selecting images for shows and publications”. Donated by Pete’s family in 2018”.
Ms Terry Tasker
Boardman Tasker Trustee
A Good Read - Helen Mort & Mo Omar - BBC Sounds
Helen Mort, past BT Judge, chooses CLIMBERS by 1989 BT Award Winner M.J Harrison on BBC's A Good Read.
Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rw3d
“I pass through his novels feeling a mixture of wonder, calmness and disturbance.”
“This is a wonderful and very strange novel, that in an odd way is not really about climbing. Yet it goes right to the heart of the sport and why people do it. We have all met these characters!”
Savage Arena & The Shining Mountain available from Vertebrate Publishing
After a long absence two of the greatest ever mountaineering books are now back in single volume print.
The Shining Mountain by Peter Boardman (coming soon)
“It is wonderful to see Pete and Joe’s voices still out there, loud and clear.”