Banff Book Awards
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A survival story, a history of North American climbing, and an ice-climbing instruction manual were among the prize winners announced Nov. 4 at the 11th annual . But the grand-prize winner, selected from 137 entries, was a kayaking tale: Southern Exposure, by Chris Duff. Southern Exposure chronicles the author’s sea-kayak journey around the South Pacific and Tasman Sea near New Zealand. Life and Limb by Jamie Andrew took the Jon Whyte Award for Mountain Literature at Banff. Andrew’s book tells the story of his survival and rescue during a five-day storm on Mont Blanc. Ways to the Sky by Andy Selters, the latest installment in the American Alpine Club’s Historical Guidebook series, won the James Monroe Thorington Award for Best Work of Mountaineering History. Will Gadd’s Ice & Mixed Climbing: Modern Technique was named Best Book – Mountain Exposition. Rounding out the Banff award winners were Wade Davis’ The Lost Amazon, a book on explorer and botanist Richard Evans Schultes, John B. Weller’s Great Sand Dunes National Park: Between Light and Shadow, a photo book on the new national park in Colorado, and Jonathan Rollins’ Caves of the Canadian Rockies and Columbia Mountains.