Thursday, November 6
Noon - 1:15 p.m.
Banff Centre Dining Room, Donald Cameron Hall

Geoff Powter - The Man Who Would be First: The Story of Earl Denman
In 1947, no one had been allowed near Everest in years, as a result of WWII and the closure of Tibet and Nepal. But Canadian Earl Denman didn’t let that stop him. Geoff Powter told the story of Denman’s attempt to illegally climb Everest from the North along with Sherpas Ang Dawa and Tenzing Norgay, the latter back after nine years for his fourth attempt on the mountain. After nearly being arrested by a Tibetan patrol en route, and using Denman's woefully inadequate equipment, and suffering terribly from the cold, they reached the foot of the North Col but in a terribly weakened condition. A buffet lunch is included.

Friday, November 7
Noon - 1:15 p.m.
Banff Centre Dining Room, Donald Cameron Hall

Simon Mawer - "The Fall"
No doubt this was the first time that the festival has presented an author whose recent books include one novel about genetics and another about ancient papyrus scrolls. The winner of the 2003 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountaineering Literature, Simon Mawer’s newest novel, "The Fall", leads the reader between families and generations, piecing together a portrait of a group of people ruled (and often misled) by their passions - both for the mountains and for one another. Set partly in the anarchic world of British rock climbing and mountaineering of the 1960s, it explores a number of falls: into love, off mountains, from grace. Mawer’s appearance was sponsored in part by Rocky Mountain Books.