House Lands Boardman Tasker Award

The winner of the 2009 Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain literature is Beyond The Mountain by Steve House, which was chosen from a shortlist of six mountain books in Kendal last Friday.

The prize commemorates the lives of climbers Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, who died in 1982 while attempting the first ascent of the desperately hard North East Ridge of Everest and exists to promote mountain literature.

This year there was a record number of entries, 31 of them, they were whittled down to a shortlist of six including Revelations, Jerry Moffatt's autobiography in association with Niall Grimes and Cairngorm John, the story of John Allen's 'half-a-lifetime involvement in mountain rescue'.

Beyond The Mountain

The winner though was Beyond The Mountain, the autobiography of Steve House, one of the world's top mountaineers - Reinhold Messner has described him as 'The best high-altitude climber in the world today.' At the award presentation, the chainrman of the judging panel Phil Bartlett commented:

'House’s commitment is exemplified by his outrageous solo climbs, including the second ascent of K7 in Pakistan.  And yet it is one of the mysteries of this book that the  value House claims to put on friendship does not ring hollow.  On the contrary; I cannot think of a  climbing book that better conveys the importance of friendship and mutual trust than this one.  And this is only one of its many subtleties.

'House rejects false modesty and also rejects the technique of lightweight humour that some other very talented alpinists have employed in their writing in recent  years. He is unashamedly serious. And yet he not only keeps our interest; he succeeds - and we regard this as very telling – in eliciting our sympathy.  We want him to succeed.'

Full details of this year's award including all the shortlisted books and the full text of Phil Bartlett's speach at www.boardmantasker.com.