Voices from the summit

The world› s great mountaineers on the future of climbing: looking back at
climbing› s mile- stones and forward to new challenges. Celebrating 25 years
of The Banff Mountain Film Festival.

This large-format anthology showcases 32 important contemporary mountaineers–
men and women from every continent, from teenagers to ninetysomethings, from
the venerable Sir Edmund Hillary to the eponymously named rock climber Lynn
Hill. Complemented by vivid black-and-white photographs, the autobiographical
essays offer the mountaineers› observations on their careers as well as
offering tidbits of mountaineering history and reflections on the future of
the sport in the wake of the recent disaster on Everest (chronicled in Jon
Krakauer’s Into Thin Air ). Some of the essays contain a bit too much
mountaineering jargon for those not close to the sport, but in general, this
volume not only serves as a useful introduction to the superstars of
mountaineering, but also offers considerable insight into just what climbers
mean when they say they climbed a mountain ‹because it was there.› The volume
was published in conjunction with the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture to
celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Banff Mountain Film Festival.