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Banff Mountain Book Competition Announces 2017 Category Winners

Here are the eight category winners, and a special mention given to Tommy Caldwell’s book.

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The Banff Mountain Book Competition has announced its eight category winners for 2017, out of the 28 total books that made the long list of finalists. A $2,000 award will be given to each of the winners.

In addition to the category winners, a special mention was given to Tommy Caldwell’s The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits. Caldwell’s book is a story about his evolution as a climber including memories as a young boy with his mountain-guide father, the accident that caused him to lose a finger, divorce, his first free ascent of the Dawn Wall in 2015 and more.

The grand prize winner will be announced Thursday, November 2, 2017 at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in Banff, Canada.

Winner of the Mountaineering History award The Climbers by Jim Herrington showcases a series of sixty portraits of influential climbers between the 1930s and 1970s, such as Royal Robbins, Reinhold Messner and Yvon Chouinard. Alex Honnold wrote the foreward for the book.

Other category winners include: Adventure Travel: The Names of the Stars by Pete Fromm; Mountain Fiction & Poetry: Rising Abruptly: Stories by Gisèle Villeneuve; Mountain Literature – Non-Fiction: Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka by Bernadette McDonald; Mountain Environment and Natural History: Tracking Gobi Grizzlies by Douglas Chadwick; Mountain Image: Racconto D’Inverno – Eine Wintererzaehlung by Albert Ceolan; Guidebook: Chasing the Ephemeral: 50 Routes for a Successful Scottish Winter by Simon Richardson; Mountaineering Article: Threshold Shift by Nick Bullock.

2017 Banff Mountain Book Competition

From the Banff Centre website – Category winners highlighted

Adventure Travel

The Man Who Climbs Trees
James Aldred, Ebury Press, Penguin Random House (UK, 2017)

The Names of the Stars
Pete Fromm, St. Martin’s Press (USA, 2016)

Rowing the Northwest Passage
Kevin Vallely, Greystone Books (CAN, 2017)

Stories from the Dirt: Indiscretions of an Adventure Junkie
John Long, Globe Pequot (USA, 2017)

Walking the Americas
Levison Wood, Hodder & Stoughton (UK, 2017)

Mountain Fiction & Poetry

Ice Mountain: An Elegy
Dave Bonta, Phoenicia Publishing (CAN, 2017)

In Case I Go
Angie Abdou, Arsenal Pulp Press (CAN, 2017)

Rising Abruptly: Stories
Gisèle Villeneuve, University of Alberta Press (CAN, 2016)

9781772122619

Mountain Literature – Non-Fiction

Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka
Bernadette McDonald, Rocky Mountain Books (CAN, 2017)

Karakorum: Climbing Through the Kashmir Conflict
Steve Swenson, Mountaineers Books (USA, 2017)

My Old Man and the Mountain: A Memoir
Leif Whittaker, Mountaineers Books (USA, 2017)

On Trails: An Exploration
Robert Moor,Simon & Schuster (USA, 2016)

The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits
Tommy Caldwell, Viking Books (USA, 2017)

Mountain Environment and Natural History

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens
Steve Olson, W.W. Norton & Company (USA, 2016)

The Peace in Peril: The Real Cost of the Site C Dam
Christopher Pollon, Harbour Publishing (CAN, 2016)

Tracking Gobi Grizzlies
Douglas Chadwick, Patagonia Books (USA, 2016)

TGG_3D_cover

Mountain Image

The Climbers
Jim Herrington, Mountaineers Books (USA, 2017)

The Edge of the World
The Editors of Outside Magazine, Globe Pequot (USA, 2017)

Racconto D’Inverno – Eine Wintererzaehlung
Albert Ceolan (ITA, 2016)

Guidebooks

Chasing the Ephemeral: 50 Routes for a Successful Scottish Winter
Simon Richardson, Mica Publishing (UK, 2016)

Haines Pass Backcountry Skiing
Claude Vallier, Yukon Backcountry Skiing (CAN, 2017)

Skiing the Balkans
Dimitar Dimitrov, XCoPublishing OOD (BGR, 2017)

Ski Touring and Snowshoeing in the Dolomites
James Rushforth, Cicerone Press (UK, 2017)

Squamish Hiking
Marc Bourdon, Quickdraw Publications (CAN, 2017)

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Mountaineering Article

Gravity
John Long, Rock and Ice Magazine (USA, November 2016)

The Pleasure and Pain of the Climbing Life
Kelly Cordes, The New York Times (USA, November 2016)

Poumaka
Angie Payne, Sidetracked (UK, October 2016)

Threshold Shift
Nick Bullock, Alpinist (USA, February 2017)