The Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival has revealed the category winners of its annual Mountain Book Competition, one of the most respected honours in adventure writing. Eight categories are up for grabs, with the grand prize still to be decided at the festival on November 5.
This year's list doubles as a ready-made reading list for anyone with mountain trips on the horizon. In Mountain Literature, Adam Weymouth took the prize for Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness, which examines how wild animals fit into a modern Europe being reshaped by climate and politics. Trina Moyles won Environmental Literature with Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival, drawing on her time in an Alberta fire watch tower and her relationship with her brother.
The Adventure Travel award went to Ben Weissenbach's North to the Future: An Offline Adventure through the Changing Wilds of Alaska — a story with obvious appeal for ordinary travellers, since the Los Angeles author set off into the Alaskan tundra with little wilderness experience, trekking alongside a colourful group of environmental scientists. Guidebook honours went to Ben Tibbetts' Cabin Wild: Alpine Bivouac Huts, an intimate tour of small alpine huts across Italy, Switzerland and France that could easily shape a summer walking itinerary.
Photography featured heavily. Orsolya Haarberg's Fjell: A Faithful Witness, a portrait of Norway's highlands that blurs the line between art book and mountain book, won the Mountain Image award. Jack Plant earned a Special Jury Mention for Spirit of the Great Bear, documenting the Great Bear Forest in British Columbia. Climbing Literature went to The Great Mixed Climbs of Scotland by Guy Robertson and Hamish Frost, combining photography and essays on Scottish winter routes told through their first ascensionists.
Rounding out the list: Chad Heddleston's magazine piece The Misfits won the Mountain Article prize for its profile of long-running American climbing couple Jan and Herb Conn, while Ian Nicholson's Glacier Travel & Crevasse Rescue took the second Special Jury Mention for making one of mountaineering's most intimidating skill sets approachable.
For travellers, the practical value here is real. Several winners double as trip inspiration or planning tools: Tibbetts' hut guide points to a quieter way of experiencing the Alps, Haarberg's Fjell makes a case for Norway's interior highlands, and Weissenbach's Alaska story is a useful reality check for anyone dreaming of tundra trekking. The cash-prize winners now wait to hear who takes the grand prize when the festival convenes in Banff in early November.
