9:00 - 10:10 am
Max Bell Auditorium
Mountain Photography - Bill Hatcher
Camera in hand, Bill Hatcher searches the globe for wild adventure, culture and the unique story. For the past twenty years, he has explored the world’s wildest places, photographing adventure, science and expedition stories in mountain and desert regions. His images have illustrated several books, including Desire and Ice, Caves: Exploring Hidden Realms and Great Climbs: A Celebration of World Mountaineering. Bill is a regular contributor to National Geographic and Outside.

10:30 - 11:40 am
Max Bell Auditorium
Exploring Mountain Writing
Mountain writing has evolved from scriptural references of mountains as the home of the gods, through medieval imagery of mountains as a diabolical, godforsaken wilderness, to the Romantic sublime. As this evolution continues, contemporary mountain writing finds itself negotiating between concerns for vanishing mountain cultures and environments on one hand, and consumerist “extreme adventure” motifs on the other.  The audience joined Harry Vandervlist, Terry Gifford and David Roberts for readings and discussion of the ever-evolving prose and poetry that bring the mountain world to life.

Noon - 1:15 pm: Literary Lunch Break
Banff Centre Dining Room, Donald Cameron Hall
Warren MacDonald - A Test of Will
In 1997, Warren Macdonald, a fit and experienced hiker, set out to make the gruelling climb to the top of Australia’s spectacular Mount Bowen. But what began as a weekend adventure suddenly turned into a nightmare when Macdonald found himself lying in a creek bed, both his legs pinned by a giant boulder. Two days later he was rescued, only to undergo the amputation of both his legs. Just ten months after the accident, he climbed Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain using a modified wheelchair and the seat of his pants. The following year he reached the summit of Tasmania’s notoriously difficult Federation Peak after an epic four-week journey, walking on a specially developed pair of prosthetic “legs”. The Australian Geographic Society awarded Warren their Spirit of Adventure Award in recognition of his effort. A documentary film about the climb titled The Second Step has won four international awards, including the Grand Prize here in Banff. Macdonald read from his recently released book, A Test of Will.

1:30 - 2:40 pm
Max Bell Auditorium
Sandra Noel - Everest Pioneer: The Photographs of Captain John Noel
Sandra Noel’s father, Captain John Noel, was the official photographer for the 1924 Mallory Everest expedition, and the last to hear from Mallory before he and Irvine disappeared high on the mountain. Sandra’s latest book, Everest Pioneer: The Photographs of Captain John Noel, showcases her father’s best Everest photography, including many photographs that were discovered after his death at age 99 - photographs still in celluloid form and not yet converted from negatives to positives. Through a compilation of photos, unpublished accounts of Captain Noel’s early travels, and the anecdotes he told of his expeditions, Sandra captured the drama and tragedy that early explorers encountered while trying to reach the roof of the world.
Read more on The Caption John Noel Collection website

3:00 - 4:10 pm
Max Bell Auditorium
Jon Bowermaster - Into the Altiplano
Beginning at sea level on Chile’s Pacific coastline, Jon Bowermaster hauled a kayak to South America’s Altiplano - a massive, elevated flatland bordered by 19,000-foot Andean volcanoes, spanning portions of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Along the way, Bowermaster and his team visited small adobe village oases that have been continuously populated for the past 10,000 years. The indigenous people - and their tales of what it’s like to live in this high, arid part of the world - were an important part of the adventure. Through stories and images, Bowermaster described his expedition to the last place you would expect to find sea kayaks: one of the driest regions of the world, described by NASA as being “as close to Mars as we’ve found”.