Moffatt Book Wins Grand Prize at Banff

by Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com Nov/2009
This news story has been read 4,161 times

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The winners of the 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival

Jerry Moffatt and Niall Grimes' book, Revelations — Jerry Moffatt has won the prestigious Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. They will also receive $2,000 as this award is sponsored by the Phyllis and Don Munday Award and the Alberta Sections of the Alpine Club of Canada. The Mountain Literature Award, with a prize of $1,000, was given to Beyond the Mountain by Steve House.

The Banff Mountain Festival is held each year in the town of Banff, located in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, Alberta. It celebrates and awards all forms of mountain culture.

The 2009 judges of the Banff Mountain Book Festival were Stephen Goodwin (United Kingdom), Jon Popowich (Canada) and Susan E.B. Schwartz (United States) and they received 101 entries from 10 countries in this 16th annual competition.

TWICE FOR GRIMER

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+Jerry climbing Ulysses at Stanage on the cover. Photo credit: Heinz Zak/Vertebrate Publishing. , 98 kb
Jerry climbing Ulysses at Stanage on the cover. © Heinz Zak/Vertebrate Publishing.

Niall Grimes, who is just about to leave for the prize giving at Banff, told UKClimbing.com: "“This is the icing on an already very tasty cake. Lots have been great about the whole project. The times sat in front of a computer with a headful of ideas are unbeatable, chats to Jerry, listening to his great stories and inspiring attitude, working with Vertebrate was a real privilege, and hearing how much folk enjoyed it made it all feel worthwhile. But getting an award, especially one as major as this, really lets you to sit back for a moment and allow yourself a satisfied little glow. I've been to the Banff Festival a couple of times so have a real link with it. Winning this is right up there with something like the Boardman Tasker.”

This is a second win at Banff for Niall, who will be sharing this years prize with Jerry Moffatt, Niall won the exposition/guidebook category at Banff in 2006 with David Simmonite for their BMC guidebook Burbage, Millstone and Beyond.

Rockfax guidebooks have also won the exposition/guidebook category twice with Deep Water by Mike Robertson in 2007 and in 2008 with Lofoten Rock by Chris Craggs and Thorbjørn Enevold

The UK's Stephen Venables won the Best Book — Mountain Literature with his, Higher Than the Eagle Soars in 2007.

DOUBLE WHAMMY?.. B-T and Banff!

Revelations — Jerry Moffatt is also on the short list for this years Boardman Tasker Prize to be announced on Friday 20th November during the Boardman-Tasker Award Ceremony at the Kendal Mountain Festival

Congratulations also to Jon Barton and John Coefield of Vertebrate Outdoor who published Revelations — Jerry Moffatt and are now hard at work finishing the biography of Ron Fawcett with Ed Douglas. Publication is slated for early 2010, possibly January.

This is what Stephen Goodwin said about Revelations — Jerry Moffatt at the Banff Mountain Book Festival.

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Jerry Moffatt and Niall Grimes. Jerry has quite a cult following from younger climbers. photo © Mick Ryan.
'Margaret Thatcher's great contribution to pushing rock climbing standards in the 1980s can now be better appreciated: mass unemployment, climbers existing on the dole (welfare payments), dossing in caves and tumble-down shacks at the foot of crags in North Wales and the Peak District, and all the while, in Jerry's case, training, training, training, to produce (a random selection this) first ascents of Masters Wall, Cloggy, The Face, Frankenjura, the first X-in Germany, Messiah (E6 6c), hardest route on UK gritstone at the time, first one-day ascent of Kauk's Midnight Lightning boulder problem at Yosemite, a one-day ascent of The Nose in 1993, and Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square, London, to publicize the plight of Canada's Innu people.

He was the best, and not backward in saying so, yet this story is told with a disarming ordinariness.
Who would have thought there was a readable book to be got out of sport climbing, competitions and bouldering? Well this is it.

What impresses is Jerry's obsessive training regime and his sheer dedication, hauling himself back from injury and performing superbly across a range of rock climbing disciplines. He was the best, and not backward in saying so, yet this story is told with a disarming ordinariness, droll at times. There's none of the familiar ice-gripped “heroics” we've become inured to in climbing books, and instead of dark introspection, the diversions from the actual climbing are bikes, dossing, travel, having fun and becoming a businessman (a founder of Sheffield's The Foundry climbing wall.)

Moffatt and Grimes have done climbing history a service in setting down the story of UK climbing in the “dole era” of the 1980s — a story that was quickly becoming forgotten.'

You can view more info and buy the book on the Vertebrate Publishing website: www.v-outdoor.co.uk

Niall and Jerry will be appearing at this years Kendal Mountain Festival.

Revelations: A Rock Climber's Story - Literature Event

Niall Grimes interviews Jerry on his successes and motivations.


TIME & DATE Friday 20 November at 5.30pm in Kendal Parish Hall.:
TICKET: £5.00. Click to Buy

Boardman Tasker Short List

Boardman Tasker Award, 6 kb

Revelations — Jerry Moffatt is also on the short list for this years Boardman Tasker Prize to be announced on Friday 20th November during the Boardman-Tasker Award Ceremony at the Kendal Mountain Festival

  • John Allen - Cairngorm John
  • Jerry Auld - Hooker & Brown
  • Dominic Faulkner - The Longest Climb
  • Steve House - Beyond the Mountain
  • Jerry Moffatt - Revelations
  • Chic Scott - Deep Powder and Steep Rock

The winners of the Banff Mountain Book Festival are:

Grand Prize


Phyllis and Don Munday Award, sponsored by the Alberta Sections of the Alpine Club of Canada: $2000
Revelations — Jerry Moffatt by Jerry Moffatt and Niall Grimes
Vertebrate Publishing (UK, 2009) 978-1906148119

Best Book — Mountain Literature


Jon Whyte Award for Mountain Literature, sponsored by the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff: $1000
Beyond the Mountain by Steve House
Patagonia Books (USA, 2009) 978-0979065958

Best Book — Adventure Travel ($500)


The Great Polar Journey — In the Footsteps of Nansen by Børge Ousland
Ousland Design AS (Norway, 2009) 978-82-994379-5-0

Best Book — Mountain Image ($500)


The Alps — A Bird's Eye View by Matevž Lenarčič
Panalp d.o.o. (Slovenia, 2009) 978-961-6111-19-5

Best Book — Mountain Exposition


Sponsored by Yamnuska Mountain Adventures: $500
Flakes, Jugs & Splitters by Sarah Garlick
Globe Pequot Press (USA, 2009) 978-0-7627-4837-2

Best Book — Mountaineering History


James Monroe Thorington Award for the Best Work of Mountaineering History, sponsored by UIAA: $500
The Last of His Kind: the Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer by David Roberts
HarperCollins (USA, 2009) 978-0061560941

Special Jury Mention


Royal Robbins: To Be Brave — My Life, Volume One by Royal Robbins
Pink Moment Press (USA, 2009)


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