There is of course one other web site with a great book-based mountain logo and that is the much more worthy and indeed illustrious web site for the Boardman Tasker Award.

Established in 1983, the Boardman-Tasker Award for Mountain Literature was originally set up to commemorate the lives of Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker and is run by the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust. There is also a Lifetime Achievement Award by the same name.

In their own words:

"The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature is awarded annually to the author or authors of the best literary work, whether fiction, non-fiction, drama or poetry, the central theme of which is concerned with mountain environment"

For any mountain writer it is a sort of holy grail.

Recently they launched this new logo and a new web site which served to refresh my mind that we are nearing the closing date for submissions for the 2016 prize. Alas another year passes in which my name is not amongst the final few! To be fair this is largely due to the fact that I haven't written a book. Perhaps by this time next year I will have had time to commit to paper my impressions of the importance of mountains to my own rather insignificant existence. I am a third of the way there - I think - but not convinced of the relevance of my words.

Anyway, I did not start this post as a means to air my own self-doubt and wallow in self-pity at my lack of spontaneous literary genius so back to Boardman Tasker matters.

See a full list of Boardman Tasker Award Winners since 1984.

For anyone who is not aware Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker were two highly talented climbers who rose to prominence in the late 1970s. They were last seen on Everest in 1982, attempting the unclimbed North-East Ridge. Their literary legacies live on through a handful of published works and the Boardman Tasker Award.

Boardman published The Shining Mountain: Two men on Changabang's West Wall and Sacred Summits: A Climber's Year. Tasker penned Everest The Cruel Way and Savage Arena, two instant classics.

You can find a complete list of this year's submissions on this page of the BT web site: http://www.boardmantasker.com/submissions/

I have not read any of this year's yet but I do intend to over the coming months. I have spoken about a couple of winners from years gone by in my article about some of the best mountaineering fiction but here list of my favourites.

1989 M. John Harrison, Climbers (Fiction)
1988 Joe Simpson, Touching the Void
1996 Audrey Salkeld, A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl
2000 Peter Gillman and Leni Gillman, The Wildest Dream: Mallory – His Life and Conflicting Passions
2003 Simon Mawer, The Fall (Fiction)

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Cleveland Way - Scarborough to High Hawsker

In October 2020, my friend Dave and I walked a section of the Cleveland Way in Yorkshire over a couple of days. We started from Scarborough and walked to Ravenscar (18 km). The next day we walked to High Hawsker (15 km).

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Packrafting the River Tamiš

In July 2020, in a brief respite from the worries of the covid pandemic, I had the good fortune to be able to escape for a little adventure, spending 3 days paddling down the Tamiš river in northern Serbia, in my packraft.

Interview with Emily Woodhouse - Founder of Intrepid Magazine

I recently had the pleasure to interview Emily Woodhouse, someone who is well known and someone who has been somewhat of a pioneer in giving a voice to many women in the adventure / outdoor sports world.

In this interview Emily gives me some insight into her whirlwind entrepreneurial journey and how much there is to learn from diving into a (business) adventure.

Not only has Intrepid Magazine provided something that was missing in the outdoor space but it is doubly satisfying to know it was the vision of someone who cares passionately about the subject matter, saw the importance of it and had the courage to go through with it… although I am not sure Emily herself see it as “courage”. As she says in the interview: “I looked at the hole in the magazine world and thought: I can do that”.

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Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the wallaby)

The loch was like a mirror as we set off from Luss on Friday to explore. Having walked to the high point on Inchtavannach to admire the views, and paddled around Inchmoan, watching the deer come down to the water’s edge, we agreed to spend the night on Inchconnachan for no other reason than it appeared absolutely idyllic as the sun began to sink and the evening light bathed the lake in a silvery light.

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Weekend Adventure - From lying in the sun to crying on a plane

I have mentioned a few times that my daughter is neither naturally sporty, particularly active or indeed fearless. She is perhaps the opposite. So I was especially proud that she decided on the Saturday morning, as we dithered whether to have an hour in the water at Buzz Active Cuckmere, that this was indeed the ideal opportunity for her to go solo in a kayak for the first time.

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Canoeing the Wye: Happiness V Social Media [Video]

I had so much fun this weekend that I didn’t tell anyone about it. Imagine that! The moment was way more important to me than broadcasting about it. Yes, I know it should be, but if we are honest with ourselves, it isn’t alway, is it?

I spent Friday and Saturday canoeing down the Wye with my 7 year old daughter, from Hoarwithy to Symonds Yat. It is the first time either of us has done this kind of trip and to share this adventure together was the sort of experience that makes me go all mushy and emotional…

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Wild Night Out 2019: The Whining

Travelling in ultra lightweight style (we only carried four cricket stumps instead of the full compliment of six) Emma and I marched along the coast path, over the dunes and onto the vast sands of our beautiful coast for a perfect Wild Night Out 2019, until the high-pitched whining started…

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30 Days Wild: Suburban Springwatch

One thing I decided to do this year was leave one corner of the garden wild. I don’t know how long it will last as pressure builds from within the family to “do something” with that corner but while it does last it has had a positive effect in terms of wildlife.

Perhaps the best aspect of this experiment is the fact that every night around 9pm we have a fat hedgehog who comes through our front gate, wanders through the garden to this unkempt patch of land and roots around for a couple of hours before waddling off to check out what the neighbours have to offer.

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30 Days Wild: Freshwalks: Networking in the Outdoors

This filthy-wet month, I am trying to spend time outside in nature during my working day as part of the Wildlife Trusts 30 Days Wild. I cannot pretend it has been as easy as last year’s sun-drenched June when gently swaying flower meadows and deserted Norfolk beaches called out to me.

However, recently a client of mine drew my attention to an innovative and inspiring initiative getting business people into the outdoors, for Freshwalks. The benefits of which might surprise a few…

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30 days Wild: Welcome to my office

“Can you repeat that please sir?” I could hear a slightly exasperated tone on the other end of the line.

This morning, a few days into June and woefully short of what I hope to achieve during 30 Days Wild, I ventured out into the meadow to make a few phone calls. I took my office outdoors! The helpful assistant from Barclays Business Banking went off for a few minutes to find out some information, and probably to curse me as my microphone was buffeted by the breeze, that bent the tall flowers surrounding me and repeatedly flicked my hood over my head.

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30 Days Wild: Switch off with Nature

We are just a few days away from June and the start of 30 Days Wild; the Wildlife Trusts amazing initiative to get people outside, enjoying and appreciating nature.

This year, as part of 30 Days Wild I will be focussing on how nature can help alleviate the stresses and strains of work and how to get more of it into the working day.

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Do you want to live more adventurously?

The decision to change my life and live more adventurously was utterly instinctive, borne of exasperation, a last resort. I was burnt out, suffering from anxiety, depressed.

How I got to the point of changing the direction of my life was a couple of years of mental wrangling and torture, until I stumbled across some inspiration.