Mountain Equipment proudly supports the
Latest News
Featured
2026 Judges
The Judging Panel for the 2026 Boardman Tasker Award is:
Nandini Purandare (chair of judges)
Nandini is editor of the internationally renowned The Himalayan Journal (THJ) and President of the Himalayan Club. Purandare is an educator; a writer and editor for the Avehi-Abacus Project, which develops educational materials for schools across India. An economist by training, Purandare has worked as a consultant with several organizations and research centres. She is a devout reader of mountain literature and has hiked and travelled in the Himalaya for over 40 years.
Along with co-author Deepa Balsavar, she worked for over 10 years on The Sherpa Project, collecting oral histories from the forgotten climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling. The resulting book, Headstrap won the Boardman Tasker Award for Best Book on Mountain Literature 2024 as well as the Banff Climbing Literature Award 2024.
BRIAN HALL
Mountaineer, author, and filmmaker Brian Hall, started climbing at sixteen in the Lake District. After Leeds University and UCNW Bangor, mountaineering soon consumed his life, experiencing expeditions at the highest level in the Himalayas, Karakorum, and the Andes, including Everest (in winter), K2, Jannu, and Nuptse. He was Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Kendal Mountain Film Festival, in 1980 (until 2008). In recent years, Brian’s focus has been advising on safety, rigging, and location in the film industry, including the BAFTA-winning film Touching the Void.
In 2022, his memoir High Risk – Climbing to Extinction was the joint winner of the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature and won The Himalayan Club Kekoo Naoroji Book Award.
Recently retired but still a keen climber. Married to Louise, they became New Zealand residents, dividing their lives between the Southern Alps and the Peak District.
Tony whittome
Tony Whittome is a book publisher. For many years he was editorial director of Hutchinson and subsequently of Penguin Random House, during which time he published widely in fiction, poetry, politics and history and developed a list of award-winning climbing and mountaineering authors. Now retired, he still edits books for Penguin Random House and he has served on the boards of the Poetry Society and, under Philip Larkin, of the Poetry Book Society. He is on the arts steering board of Koestler Arts, the prison charity, where he judges its fiction awards.
For fifteen years he co-directed the Mountain and Wilderness Writing Program at Banff, which he founded in 2005 with the former Boardman Tasker judge Marni Jackson, and where he has had the privilege of working with an extraordinary range of exceptional writers. He has also twice been a book judge at the Banff Festival.
In past years Tony has climbed in the Alps and north Wales, trekked on Mount Athos and cycled across Europe on the pilgrimage to Santiago. He remains a keen mountain walker.
A word from our supporting partner
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.