The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival has announced Sir Chris Bonington, mountaineer extraordinaire, is the headline presenter for the 2017 Festival in Banff.

Sir Chris Bonington is easily one of the most celebrated adventurers of all time. He is a “sir” after all. And his career includes 19 expeditions to the Himalayas and numerous first ascents, including the South Face of Annapurna in 1970, and reaching Everest’s summit in 1985.

Sir Chris Bonington

This year the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival will take place from October 29 – November 5, 2017, and over 75 films will be presented during that time. Audiences will also have the opportunity to meet, ask questions, and learn from the world’s finest climbers, photographers, writers, explorers, and more.

Kootenay Mountain Culture magazine is a proud partner with the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival and will be on hand for most of the nine-day Festival, which also showcases the best in mountain books as well. There’ll also be appearances by climbers Tommy Caldwell, Nico Favresse and Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll; alpinist Voytek Kurtyka, explorer Huw Lewis-Jones, and Italian mountaineer Tamara Lunger.

Here is the presenter schedule:

October 28 – Sir Chris Bonington

During his illustrious career, Chris Bonington reached the summit of Everest, wrote 17 books and, now in his 80s, is still active in the mountains. The World Premiere of Bonington: Mountaineer, will be followed by an in-depth discussion between Bonington and writer, climber, and psychologist, Geoff Powter.

November 2 – Explorers’ Sketchbooks, Huw Lewis-Jones

Witness the art of exploration across high mountains, barren desserts, and lush rainforests from the 1600s until today—through the sketchbooks of 70 explorers. British historian and award-winning author Lewis-Jones delivers the stunning profiles, expedition details, and artwork of pioneering explorers, ecologists, mapmakers, and anthropologists.

November 3 – World Premiere of Psycho Vertical

Follow Britain’s unlikeliest hero-mountaineer and funny man Andy Kirkpatrick, on an 18-day solo ascent of El Capitan, Yosemite, in the World Premiere of Psycho Vertical – a raw and intimate portrait of one of climbing’s most adored figures.

November 3 – Tamara Lunger

Born in Southern Tyrol in 1986, Tamara Lunger holds numerous ski mountaineering national titles, is the youngest woman to have reached the summit of Lhotse, and has summited K2 without supplementary oxygen. She joins us to talk about her illustrious career.

November 3 – Nico Favresse & Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll

The stars of the 2016 Festival film Dodo’s Delight, Favresse and O’Driscoll always seem to push the harsh realities of life on the big wall aside with the help of a few musical interludes and the occasional bout of humorous, nonsensical behaviour. They join us to recount the laughs they had on the Coconut Connection (5.12d), a challenging, big wall route on Baffin Island.

November 4 – Tommy Caldwell

Legendary American rock climber Tommy Caldwell joins us to share his latest accomplishment—a newly published memoir The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going beyond Limits which he fine-tuned at Banff Centre under a Paul D. Fleck Fellowship (a fully-funded writer’s residence specifically for a mountain culture related artist) in 2016.

Notable authors in attendance for this year’s Banff Mountain Book Festival include Steve Swenson (Karakoram: Climbing Through the Kashmir Conflict), Gudrun Pflüger (Wolf Spirit: A Story of Healing, Wolves and Wonder), and Kevin Vallely (Rowing the Northwest Passage).

To see a list of the film finalists that will be judged at the festival, click here. And for more information on the 2017 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival lineup, log on to www.banffmountainfestival.ca.