Our Congratulations to David Smart for winning the 2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature with his book Emilio Comici - Angel of the Dolomites.
A very impressive biography, well written and researched, of one of Italy's foremost climbers, who put up some of the first big wall climbs and developed new climbing style and techniques.
David Smart has been climbing since 1975 throughout North America and Europe. He has completed hundreds of new routes in eastern Canada and is the founder of Gripped, Canada’s Climbing Magazine, Canadian Running magazine, Canadian Cycling Magazine and Triathlon Magazine Canada. He is also the author of five climbing guidebooks; a memoir entitled A Youth Wasted Climbing, short-listed by the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in 2015; Paul Preuss: Life and Death at the Birth of Free-Climbing, short-listed for awards by both the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival and The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature (UK); and he is the co-author with Brandon Pullan of Northern Stone: Canada’s Best Rock Climbs. He is the editorial director of Gripped Publishing and is still an active new-router in northern Ontario. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.
If you missed the Award Ceremony - you can watch it on Kendal Mountain Player here.
The Chair Of Judges’ speech by David Canning is available to read here.