Mike Robertson’s Rockfax guidebook Deep Water has won the Mountain Exposition Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. This is a tremendous achievement for Mike and for Rockfax and is the first time a Rockfax publication has won the award.
Deep Water itself is a wonderful journey of exploration around the spectacular sea cliffs of the UK, Portugal, Spain and many other venues around the World. It represents the end of a huge personal effort by the author Mike Robertson who would probably be the first to admit that he was a little obsessed with deep water soloing. Here’s what Mike says about the book: “Deep Water’ for me is more than just a guidebook. Deep water soloing is now seen as a lifestyle, and even a genre.
The roots of the book go right back to 1992 and my first tentative solos at Dorset’s Conner Cove, in Southern England. From writing about DWS in the nineties, I moved on to the photography; the next step was the exploration in the Mediterranean and cataloguing the many venues that were coming to light over there, such as Mallorca’s amazing Diablo region. Some three years ago, the only avenue left to me (a mammoth task!) was to put it all together in one place. So Deep Water the book is simply that: DWS, everywhere,
the story so far...”
The book has received glowing reviews elsewhere: “20 pages of body watering madness on some of the most stunning sea side cliffs on this earth”, says Neil Monteith, editor of Australia’s CRUX magazine. “An awful lot of fun”, Ed Douglas, writer and jury member at Banff 2007.
Alan James, of Rockfax, says: “I am really pleased for Mike since I know how hard he worked and I am just glad that the finished product does justice to his effort. 2007 is the second year on the trot that this prestigious award has been won by a UK guidebook and with the BMC’s Stanage guidebook also making the final 7 entries this year, it shows how healthy British guidebooks are at the present time.”
Deep Water was selected from a field of 27 entries, which was whittled down to 7 finalists. Mike says, “I heard about Deep Water’s potential success with just 30 hours to spare before the ceremony, and got the next flight out, finally arriving in Banff with an hour left. Banff is a beautiful town, and the Festival itself is an incredible event; it’s a real high to win the Mountain Exposition category. Of course it’s a team win; without Mark Glaister and Alan at Rockfax, this just wouldn’t have been possible – big thanks to them for all their support.”
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