Banff Mountain Book Competition Announces 2015 Finalists

The Banff Mountain Book Competition has announced its long-list finalists for 2015. Competition categories include Mountain Fiction &
Poetry, Mountain Image (i.e., books of photography and visual art), Mountain Guidebooks, Adventure Travel, Mountain & Wilderness Literature (non-fiction),
and Mountaineering Article (new this year). The Book Competition is part of the annual Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in Banff, Canada.

The Banff Mountain Book Competition celebrates literature and art dedicated to “adventure, nature, and mountain culture.” One piece, out of all entries
in any category, is selected each year to win the Grand Prize. Previous Grand Prize winners include Jim Curran’s K2: The Story of A Savage Mountain (1995),
investigating the history of mountaineering on K2, and John Long’s The Stonemasters: California Rock Climbers in the Seventies (2010), a combination of biographical photos
and essays detailing the iconoclastic figures of California’s early climbing.

Among this year’s finalist, Lone Wolf, by British author Ed Douglas—published in Rock and Ice issue 219 (July 2014) —made
the cut for Mountaineering Articles. Lone Wolf examines the life of Patrick Edlinger, “the first true icon of sport climbing, famous across
1980s France for his daring exploits and bohemian lifestyle.” Two additional works by Douglas were chosen as finalists: Crazy Wisdom (Alpinist, January 2015) for Mountaineering Article and Statement: The Ben Moon Story (Vertebrate Publishing, UK 2015) for Mountain & Wilderness
Literature.

Alone on the Wall by
Alex Honnold (with David Roberts) was nominated for Mountain & Wilderness Literature. The biography recounts seven of Honnold’s groundbreaking
ascents, including his free solo of Sendero Luminoso (5.12d) in El Potrero Chico, Mexico and his Fitz Traverse in Patagonia with Tommy Caldwell.

Panelists will announce winners in each Book Competition category in mid-October to receive a $2000 cash prize and consideration for the Grand Prize. On
November 5, the Grand Prize winner will be announced at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival to receive $4000 for their contribution to mountain
literature.

Judges continue to review the 347 entries in the Banff Mountain Film Competition.

Banff Mountain Book Competition

2015 Longlist – From the Banff Centre website:

Adventure Travel

Chasing Rumor: A Season Fly Fishing in Patagonia

Cameron Chambers, Patagonia Books (USA, 2015)

Drawn: The Art of Ascent

Jeremy Collins, The Mountaineers Books (USA, 2015)

The Last Unicorn: The Search for One of Earth’s Rarest Creatures

William deBuys, Little, Brown & Company (USA, 2015)

Mountain Fiction & Poetry

Medicine Walk

Richard Wagamese, Emblem/McClelland & Stewart (CAN, 2014)

Snowblind: Stories of Alpine Obsession

Daniel Arnold, Counterpoint (USA, 2015)

Steps

Mark Goodwin, Longbarrow Press (UK, 2014)

Mountain & Wilderness Literature – Non-Fiction

The Adventure Game: A Cameraman’s Tales from Films at the Edge

Keith Partridge, Sandstone Press. (UK, 2015)

Alone on the Wall

Alex Honnold with David Roberts, W.W. Norton & Company (USA, 2015)

Alpine Warriors

Bernadette McDonald, Rocky Mountain Books (CAN, 2015)

The Call of the Ice: Climbing 8000-Meter Peaks in Winter

Simone Moro, The Mountaineers Books (USA, 2014)

Going Up Is Easy

Lydia Bradey with Laurence Fearnley, Penguin Random House, (NZ, 2015)

Statement: The Ben Moon Story

Ed Douglas, Vertebrate Publishing (UK, 2015)

The Tower: A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre [ click here to read an excerpt]

Kelly Cordes, Patagonia Books (USA, 2014)

A Youth Wasted Climbing [click here to read an excerpt]

David Chaundy-Smart, Rocky Mountain Books (CAN, 2015)

Mountain Image

Alpine Exposures

Jon Griffith, Vertebrate Publishing (UK, 2014)

Il Sentiero Perduto

Stefano Unterthiner, Edizioni Ylaois. (ITA, 2015)

Nepal 1975-2011

Kevin Bubriski, Radius Books (USA, 2014)

Guidebooks

The Dolomites: Rock Climbs and Via Ferrata

James Rushforth, Rockfax (UK, 2014)

GeoBackcountry Rogers Pass: Uptracks, Bootpacks & Bushwhacks

Douglas Sproul, Uptrack Publishing (CAN, 2014)

Lake District Rock

Members of the FRCC Guidebooks Committee, Wired Guides (UK, 2015)

Rock Climbing in Ireland

David Flanagan, Three Rock Books (IRL, 2014)

Ski Touring in Norway

Trygve Sunde Kolderup, Arne Litlere, Anders Waage Nilsen and Erlend Sande, Fri Flyt (NOR, 2015)

Mountaineering Article

Crazy Wisdom

Ed Douglas, Alpinist (USA, January 2015)

He Would Just Go: Tobin Sorenson and the Alps, 1977

Rick Accomazzo, Alpinist (USA, January 2015)

Little Karim: What Makes a Climbing Hero?

Ian Welsted, Gripped Magazine (CAN, August 2015)

Lone Wolf

Ed Douglas, Rock and Ice Magazine. (USA, July 2014)

Mountaineering History

All titles that are shortlisted in the categories above that have a theme of mountaineering history are eligible for this award.

For more information, please visit https://www.banffcentre.ca/