Banff Mountain Book Festival 2006

Friday , November 3, 1:30 – 2:40 p.m.

Clint Willis: The Boys of Everest

A climber since he was ten years old, Clint Willis has a passion for writing about the mountains and adventure. He is an award-winning author and editor who has published over 40 books, including anthologies on diverse topics ranging from adventure to religion, politics and war. His work has appeared in publications such as Men’s Journal, Outside, and the New York Times.

His recent book, The Boys of Everest, is the compelling account of a significant and historic period in mountaineering history. Willis tells the story of a group of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest’s first ascent. It is a story of courage, remarkable achievements and heartbreaking loss. Their leader was the highly driven Chris Bonington, whose inner circle became known as Bonington’s Boys and included a dozen men who were to form one of the greatest generations in climbing. Bonington’s Boys gave birth to a new brand of mountaineering. They took increasingly high risks on now-legendary expeditions to the world’s most formidable peaks and, with death as a constant companion, paid an enormous price for their achievements.

The question has remained: Was it worth it? The Boys of Everest — based on five decades of journals, expedition accounts, letters, and interviews with surviving climbers — provides the closest thing to an answer that we’ll ever have. It offers riveting descriptions of what Bonington’s Boys found in the mountains, as well as an understanding of what they lost there.

Many in the Banff audience will be familiar with the “Adrenaline Series” of anthologies edited by Willis, which includes Epic: Stories of Survival from the World’s Highest Peaks, High: Stories of Survival from Everest and K2 and Climb: Stories of Survival from Rock, Snow and Ice.

“Author Clint Willis’s climbing accounts are riveting, detailed, and full of insight, and his is a refreshingly honest perspective on the tragic, selfish nature of our sport.”

— Climbing

“The Boys of Everest is as exquisite as it is exciting. Clint Willis has propelled himself onto that rarified shelf where only the most accomplished and ambitious writers can survive. Willis will rank with the likes of Peter Matthiessen (The Snow Leopard), Heinrich Harrer (Seven Years in Tibet), and Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air).”

— Peter Kadzis, editor, the Boston Phoenix