“I was very sorry to read of the death of Simon Mawer (born 1947). Simon won the Boardman Tasker Award in 2003, with his book The Fall. Simon was an accomplished author, and his novel The Glass Room was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Simon was an enthusiastic climber, and The Fall is a very elegant novel, set mostly in Snowdonia.”
Steve Dean
Secretary, Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust
Read Simon’s obituary in The Bookseller here.
© Chris Bonington Picture Library
L-R: Joe Tasker, Pete Boardman & Dick Renshaw at base camp on K2 in 1980
1975 was a particularly significant year for both Pete and Joe. They already both had established reputations as alpinists of the top rank, but events that year were to have significant impact on both their lives, and on the relationship between themselves. Pete was selected for Chris Bonington’s large scale expedition to climb Everest’s South West Face, as part of a team that included Martin Boysen, Tut Braithwaite, Nick Estcourt, Mick Burke, Doug Scott, and Dougal Haston. It was a reflection of Pete’s ability, despite being only 24, that he was included in such esteemed company.
The expedition proceeded well, and after Paul Braithwaite and Nick Estcourt made a huge effort to force the route through the rock band, Doug Scott and Dougal Haston became the first British climbers to reach the summit of Everest on September 24th. Pete was chosen to make the second summit attempt along with Martin Boysen, Pertemba and Mick Burke. Chris Bonington described the events of the day:
“The second summit team reached Camp Six and set off the following morning for the summit. Martin turned back with malfunctioning oxygen equipment but Pete and Pertemba reached the summit at one o’clock. They assumed that Mick had returned to Camp Six with Martin so were amazed to meet up with him just above the Hillary Step as they descended. Mick even tried to persuade them to come back to the top so that he could film them. They agreed instead that Pete and Pertemba would wait at the South Summit. I’m sure that Mick reached the summit, but by four-thirty he still hadn’t returned. A storm was brewing, growing stronger by the minute. Daylight would soon begin to fade. Pete and Pertemba were dangerously exposed. If they had waited any longer they would most likely have perished. It seems likely that Mick stepped through a cornice on his way down from the top.”
Pete and Pertemba had an appalling time getting down to Camp Six, and it was a mark of Pete’s strength and ability that he got them both down safely, albeit utterly exhausted. Martin Boysen described to me the awful night the three of them spent in the tent at Camp Six, as he produced endless brews to help Pete and Pertemba recover as the storm raged on into the next day. This horrible experience and the death of Mick, had a profound effect on Pete, and it was heart-breaking for Martin, as Mick was an old friend from way back.
During that autumn of 1975, Joe Tasker was also out in the Himalayas, making his first visit there with Dick Renshaw. Driving out there in a badly beat up Ford Escort van, they made an audacious lightweight ascent of Dunagiri by its south-east ridge and spending ten days in ascent and descent of the mountain. The ascent went well, but during the descent they became separated and once back at Base Camp it was clear that Dick had suffered quite serious frost-bite, which required extensive treatment into the next year. Their ascent of Dunagiri was a superb achievement that brought Joe and Dick to the attention of the world’s mountaineering elite.
For some time, Joe had harboured a desire to climb Changabang and in the latter part of 1975, he approached Pete with a mind to attempting to climb the mountain’s unclimbed West Face. Joe and Pete had first met back in 1971 on a route at Chamonix. Joe was climbing with Dick; Pete was partnered by Martin Wragg. By 1975 they really only knew each other in passing and by reputation, but in the absence of Dick, Joe felt that Pete would be the ideal partner to attempt the route with on Changabang. Thus was the partnership of Pete and Joe formed in the last weeks of 1975. They would go on to have an enormous influence on the development of High Altitude climbing over the next seven years.
© Doug Scott’s Photography Collection
L to R: Dick Renshaw, Doug Scott, Pete Boardman & Joe Tasker
2025 is also the 45th Anniversary of Pete and Joe’s visit to K2 with Doug Scott and Dick Renshaw. It was Pete and Joe’s second visit to the mountain following the ill-fated 1978 Expedition when Nick Estcourt was killed. In 1980 the team was again attempting to climb the mountain by its West Ridge. Doug Scott’s biographer Catherine Moorhead takes up the story:
“The Expedition reached 7000m before biting hard winds then running out of time as the technical difficulties mounted. Scott proposed an Alpine-style ascent of the remaining 1,600m, but the others disagreed (Renshaw was anxious about frostbite, after a bad experience on Dunagiri). Scott had to return home, just 9n time to lead an expedition to Makalu. The others tried a switch to the Abruzzi Spur route, resulting in a near-fatal three-night epic in a storm just below 6000m.”
The epic Catherine mentions came very close to claiming the lives of Pete, Joe, and Dick. The team was avalanched at night in their tent only 1500ft below the summit. Joe’s description in Savage Arena (pages 282-304) tells a truly gripping story. The boys were very lucky to come home after that one, and they never did return to K2.
References:
‘Savage Arena’ by Joe Tasker
‘Ascent’ by Sir Chris Bonington
‘Mountain Guru’ by Catherine Moorehead
Steve Dean
April 2025
“I remember the lecture we gave in the autumn of 1978, and it was good to perform with Pete Boardman and Tut Braithwaite. The 1978 trip to K2 was a very tough one, and was marred by tragedy when my dear friend Nick Estcourt died in an avalanche.”
Sir Chris Bonington
Some of the 2024 Award Shortlisted Authors reflect on their experience of being shortlisted and the Shortlisted Authors event at Kendal Mountain Festival:
I was unaware that my editor had thoughtfully submitted Mountains of Fire for consideration, so it was a real thrill to be shortlisted for the BT Award. The trustees and jury gave each of us such an enthusiastic and affirming welcome, and the evening felt like true showbiz, especially with Helen's inspired questions for each of us on stage. It was a wonderfully convivial event, and a personal highlight for me was reconnecting with Sir Chris - half a century after a brief encounter when I was a schoolboy attending a talk he gave at the Royal Geographical Society (surely some vertical inspiration there!). It was a privilege to be part of such an uplifting celebration of mountain literature and tribute to the legacies of Peter and Joe. Thankyou!
Sorry, couldn't resist the pun!
Very best wishes,
Clive (Oppenheimer)
There is something about the annual gathering of writers and readers and book collectors at the Boardman Tasker event that is truly unique. Is it the low-ceilinged Malt Room at the Brewery Arts Centre? Perhaps the thrill of competition? The unmistakable critical mass of knowledge and passion for mountain literature that permeates the audience? The pleasure of reconnecting with old friends? I have experienced this event many times, including four times as a short-listed author and twice as a winner. It was such an honour to be short-listed this year, which I consider to be a banner year for mountain literature. The quality of the writing, the conversations, and the 'back stories' that authors love to share contributed to an evening that I will always remember. Heartfelt thanks to Maria Coffey and the Boardman Tasker committee, the illustrious jury, and all of the fine authors who submitted books this year. The overwhelming take-away for me is that mountain literature is alive and thriving.
Best, Bernadette (McDonald)
It is a great thing to be selected for an award you have, unknowingly, been tacking towards for over a decade. The organisers were fantastic and very tenacious in chasing up an invitation to submit 'Behind Everest – Ruth Mallory’s Story' to the long list. Janet and Stephen could not have been more kind. Helen Mort was a wonderful interviewer and the fellow shortlisters all friendly and fascinating – some lasting friendships made during the course of the two nail biting hours whilst we waited to hear who’d won. Like the award itself, bonds forged in adversity – albeit of the centrally heated kind. Maria Coffrey is a bit of a pin up for me and I had quoted Chris Bonington as the most reliable source of ‘did they [George Mallory and Sandy Irvine of Everest 1924 expedition] reach the top or didn’t they?’ He thought they didn’t. But to paraphrase Nan Shepherd of ‘Into the Mountains’ fame, the Boardman Tasker Award event proves, that perhaps winning a summit isn’t an exclusive organising principle.
Kate (Nichols)
Maria Coffey, Paul Pritchard & Nandini Purandare
Writing a book is brave undertaking. The vulnerability involved for the writer means that this endeavour is not for everyone. This year there were so many worthy books. The judges had to deliberate long and hard and make some difficult choices. We had to read 30-odd books this year, and to speak frankly, there could have been 9 or 10 on the shortlist, such was the quality of the writing.
Some of the books that the judges really struggled to omit from the shortlist were:
Mountain Guru by Catherine Moorehead, a truly comprehensive account of the life of one of climbing’s greats, Doug Scott.
Beth Rodden’s A Light Through the Cracks was something else, I tell you.
Survival Is Not Assured by Geoff Powter, this important book has glittering prose about a genius of mountaineering.
Mick Conefrey’s book, George Mallory -The Man, the Myth and the 1924 Everest Tragedy is a timely and well written book.
And Weathering, Ruth Allen’s book surely will go on to win another great writing prize.
Eventually, after months of deliberation, the judges put together a shortlist which I think reflects the diversity of, and in, mountaineering literature today.
First, we have Alpine Rising by that forceful voice in mountain literature, Bernadette MacDonald. One of the first books to explore the pivotal roles played by Nepali and Pakistani climbers in shaping the future of high-altitude endeavours. Traditionally in the western mountaineering canon, these climbers were unnamed, or only had first names.So, they take their rightful place alongside western climbers.
Next, the groundbreaking Everest book that explores what it is like to stay behind, for a very able partner, in a different age to ours. Kate Nicholson’s Behind Everest tells the story of Ruth Turner, ahem, Mallory, (as in the wife of George) through many previously unseen letters. The judges applaud Nicholson for achieving the virtually impossible featof taking the drowned-out voice of this woman (amidst the bluster of male voices), and making it seem strangely modern.
Then we have Clive Oppenheimer’s, Mountains of Fire which brings science to life, telling stories that are personal, yet global in reach. From Vesuvius to Krakatoa, from Paektu in North Korea to Erebus in Antarctica he considers the relationship between volcanoes and humanity.
Following on from Mountains of Fire is Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling by Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar.
It is a beautifully crafted tribute to the rich cultural heritage and climbing traditions of the Sherpa and Bhutia people of Darjeeling.
Headstrap is a genuinely untold story, and it took the authors more than a decade to conduct in-depth interviews with not only the Sherpas themselves but their family members, descendants – so it is a hard-won achievement.
With its vivid sense of place, community, and culture, Headstrap weaves a rich tapestry of this particular Sherpa society, giving the people of Darjeeling the recognition in mountaineering literature that they deserve.
Royal Robbins: The American Climber by David Smart is yet another meticulously well researched biography of an American legend. Charting Robbins’ journey from young enthusiast to legendary climber, and outdoor visionary.
Lastly, we have the cutting edge of alpinism well expressed by David Zimmerman in A Fine Line. Through some stunningly climactic tales, Zimmerman delves into the psychological and physical demands of the “sport” - though it soon becomes clear to the reader that mountaineering is much, much more than a simple sport to Zimmerman.
And the winner of this, the 41st Boardman Tasker Award, is Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling by Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar.
Maria Coffey
As the Chair of the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust I’m honored to welcome you to the 41st Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature.
41 years – it makes me feel a bit dizzy to say that. And to think back to those very first meetings, when family and close friends of Pete and Joe came together to find a way to celebrate them, to keep their memory alive, to create a legacy in their names. Since then, BT has inspired and encouraged mountain writers in all genres. It has helped to develop and raise the profile mountain literature. And it’s allowed us all to stay connected with Pete and Joe, and with each other, a strong thread through time. I know Pete and Joe would be very proud of how far BT has come, and all its potential for the future.
Before we get started on the important business of the evening, there are a number of people I wish to acknowledge and thank.
First, huge thanks to Mountain Equipment who sponsor this event through Kendal Mountain Festival and who from next year will also be directly sponsoring the BT prize.
It’s a huge honour and joy to have our award as part of the incredibly rich and diverse Kendal Mountain Festival. Thanks to Paul Scully, Jenny Rice, the KMF directors and everyone on the team for all you do for BT, and for the mountain and outdoor community.
My thanks to our patron Sir Chris Bonington and my fellow trustees – Martin Wragg, Paul Tasker, Chris Harle, Charlie Clarke, Kelyvn James, Matt Fry, as of today our newest trustee Helen Mort, and most especially Steve Dean and our administrator Janet Dean. Steve and Janet are the engine of BT, devoting huge amounts of time to it each year, and working closely with KMF to create this event. On that note, thanks to the Brewery Arts Centre technical staff here in the Malt Room with us this evening.
From personal experience I know how much work and commitment is involved in being a judgefor a book competition. I want to acknowledge and show our gratitude to our judges for this year’s prize. Joanne Croston couldn’t be here; Rehan Siddiqui and our Chair of Judges Paul Pritchard – himself a two times winner of this prize - please stand for a moment to accept our thanks.
All but two of our short-listed authors are with us tonight. Graham Zimmerman is at home with his five-week-old baby, and Deepa Balsavar couldn’t be here because of visa issues. But they are with us in spirit – and in Graham’s case he will be here on film. Our other authors: Bernadette McDonald, Kate Nicholson, Clive Oppenheimer, Nandini Purandare and David Smart, please stand and accept our congratulations.
For the past nine years, Stephen Venables, the esteemed author and mountaineer, took on the formidable task of interviewing the short-listed authors during this event. Live on this stage, and online during the pandemic, he conducted the interviews with professionalism, aplomb, and humour. We want to thank Stephen – our long-time friend - for all his work and commitment to the BT Award.
Stepping into Stephen’s shoes this year is Helen Mort. She’s well known to many of you as an award winning and incomparable writer and poet. Her memoir A Line Above the Sky was co-winner of the BT prize in 2022, and won the Grand Prize at the 2023 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. Helen is a professor of Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and she has just returned from Banff where she is on the faculty of the Mountain WritersIntensive Program. She downplays this, but she is also a keen fell runner and rock climber.
And so, without further ado, I’d like to welcome Helen, and hand things over to her.
Maria Coffey, Kendal Mountain Festival, November 22, 2024.
The 2024 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature goes to Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar for Headstrap.
Congratulations Nandini and Deepa!
Beautifully weaves together the rich cultural heritage and climbing traditions of the Sherpa and Bhutia community of Darjeeling. Through engaging stand-alone stories, many of which are recorded for the first time, this book offers readers a captivating glimpse into the lives of the legendary mountaineers that populate the ‘Kathmandu of India’.
Nandina Purandare is editor of the internationally renowned Himalayan Journal. As a writer and editor for the Avehi-Abacus Project, she has developed educational materials for public schools across India. With a background in economics, Purandare has consulted for various organizations and research centers and is an enthusiastic trekker and avid reader of mountain literature. She, along with co-author Deepa Balsavar, founded the Sherpa Project to record oral histories through in-depth interviews of members of the climbing Sherpa community.
A well-known illustrator and storyteller, Deepa Balsavar has created more than thirty children’s books. She has won numerous awards, including Tata Trusts’ Big Little Book Award for her contribution to children’s literature, worked as a consultant with UNICEF in South Asia, and served as a core team member of the Avehi-Abacus Project for two decades. Balsavar is an adjunct professor in communication design at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay.
The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain literature continues to attract a substantial degree of interest and level of entries. In this, our forty-first year, there were 32 entries, with authors from
Great Britain, Ireland, USA, Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic.
The Judges for 2024 are Paul Pritchard (Chair), Joanna Croston and Rehan Siddiqui.
They have selected the following six books for this year’s shortlist:
Mountaineers Books
A ground-breaking examination of the contemporary mountaineering landscape. McDonald focuses on the pivotal roles played by Nepali and Pakistani climbers in shaping the future of high-altitude endeavours. The Author skilfully highlights the incredible achievements of these mountaineers, who have often gone unrecognised by their Western counterparts, thereby elevating the voices of these mountaineers to their rightful place.
Bernadette McDonald was the founding Vice President of Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre and director of the Banff Mountain Festivals for 20 years, and few people have the relationships that McDonald does with the world’s most accomplished alpinists. The author of more than a dozen books about mountaineering and mountain culture, she regularly lectures on a variety of topics for universities, festivals, and alpine clubs. McDonald lives in Banff, Alberta, Canada.
Rheged Centre, 2024
Photo credit: Vanessa Powell.
Pen & Sword Books
A massive undertaking, it places Ruth Mallory in her rightful position as not merely the ‘wife’ of George Mallory. The book skillfully weaves Ruth’s personal struggles and contributions into the often-murky history of women in early 20th-century mountaineering.
Kate Nicholson is an historian and a writer. Both Kate and Ruth Mallory had three young children when their husbands left to climb Everest from the north. Kate’s husband returned safely. George Mallory died on the mountain on his third attempt in 1924, one hundred years ago this year. Kate researched Ruth's life as a way of making her visible. In order to process her own experiences, Kate wanted to understand Ruth’s. We all live with loved ones who take risks of some kind or another. This is an extreme version of life, it is what happens at the far edge of normal experience.
Ruth was there at the beginning of a revolution in attitudes to women’s climbing. A natural climber, in 1921 Ruth was invited to be a founder member of the first all female rock climbing club in the UK, the Pinnacle Club. Ruth did not see George’s expeditions from an armchair, but from a mountain. To understand her, Kate has learned to climb. She has felt the exposure of the routes Ruth climbed, the muscle tension of holding positions, the thrill, the danger and the story in those climbs: their beginning, middle and end.
Kate started researching this biography two decades ago when many of those who knew the Mallory’s were still alive. Together with friends and relations, she has been supported in this protracted endeavour by mountain literature giants Robert MacFarlane, Peter Gilliman and Sara Wheeler. Wade Davis says of ‘Behind Everest’ that ’The key to George is his beloved wife Ruth and yet until now, Ruth has remained a great mystery. Kate Ncholson’s biography is both vital and long overdue …'
Hodder & Stoughton
A captivating exploration of the intricate relationship between volcanoes and humanity. This in-depth study seamlessly blends scientific insight with some rarely told historical narratives.
Clive Oppenheimer is a volcanologist and filmmaker at the University of Cambridge. His research aims to understand how volcanoes work, the hazards they pose and the impacts of the world’s largest eruptions on climate and society. His favourite volcano is Erebus in Antarctica, where he spent 13 austral summers, and discovered campsites used by members of Captain Scott’s last expedition. He has written two-and-a-half books and made two film documentaries with Werner Herzog (Into the Inferno, Netflix, 2016, and Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, Apple TV+, 2020).
Nandini and Deepa
© Azra Bhagat
Mountaineers Books
Beautifully weaves together the rich cultural heritage and climbing traditions of the Sherpa and Bhutia community of Darjeeling. Through engaging stand-alone stories, many of which are recorded for the first time, this book offers readers a captivating glimpse into the lives of the legendary mountaineers that populate the ‘Kathmandu of India’.
Nandina Purandare is editor of the internationally renowned Himalayan Journal. As a writer and editor for the Avehi-Abacus Project, she has developed educational materials for public schools across India. With a background in economics, Purandare has consulted for various organizations and research centers and is an enthusiastic trekker and avid reader of mountain literature. She, along with co-author Deepa Balsavar, founded the Sherpa Project to record oral histories through in-depth interviews of members of the climbing Sherpa community.
A well-known illustrator and storyteller, Deepa Balsavar has created more than thirty children’s books. She has won numerous awards, including Tata Trusts’ Big Little Book Award for her contribution to children’s literature, worked as a consultant with UNICEF in South Asia, and served as a core team member of the Avehi-Abacus Project for two decades. Balsavar is an adjunct professor in communication design at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay.
© Peter Hoang
Mountaineers Books
Offers a captivating portrait of a pioneering figure in the world of climbing, detailing both Robbins’ ground-breaking ascents and his profound influence on the climbing community. Smart meticulously chronicles Robbins’ journey from a troubled upbringing to a legendary climber and visionary.
David Smart is founding editor of Gripped magazine, editorial director at Gripped Publishing, and author of five guidebooks. His biography of Austrian solo climber Paul Preuss was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize, and his biography of Italian climber Emilio Comici won that prize along with the Banff Award for Climbing Literature. Other honors include the H. Adams Carter Award for Mountain Literature from the American Alpine Club. His work has appeared in Climbing, Rock and Ice, The American Alpine Journal, The Canadian Alpine Journal, and Alpinist. Smart resides in Toronto.
Mountaineers Books
A gripping and introspective account of the challenges faced by the modern alpinist.
The book masterfully intertwines a thought-provoking exploration of ambition and courage with the pursuit of meaning in the face of a changing mountain and global landscape.
As a professional climber, Graham Zimmerman is one of the most acclaimed alpinists of his generation. After graduating from Otago University in 2007 with a degree in geography, he focused on alpinism, a pursuit that has taken him on expeditions to Alaska, Patagonia, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and all over the lower 48 and Canada. His awards include the 2020 Piolet d’Or, 2016 Cutting Edge Award for Excellence in Alpine Climbing, 2014 Piolet d’Or Top 5 Finalist, and 2010 New Zealand Alpinist of the Year. Dedicated to using his platform for good, he holds leadership roles in a range of nonprofits and outdoor companies, including the American Alpine Club and Protect Our Winters. He lives in Bend, Oregon with his wife, Shannon, and their dogs.
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
Continuing the commemoration of Pete and Joe’s achievements, Stephen Venables and Brian Hall read from Pete Boardman’s Sacred Summits and Joe Tasker’s Savage Arena, about the ascent of Kanchenjunga in 1979.
Congratulations on your 90th Birthday to our Patron Chris Bonington, from all at The Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust.
