Join us in Banff for the 2009 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festivals from October 31 through November 8. Featured speakers include Ultramarathon Man Dean Karnazes, Swiss Alpinist Ueli Steck, the King of sport climbing, Chris Sharma, Conservationist Mike Fay, Climber and entrepreneur Royal Robbins, and more!

New for 2009, the Banff Mountain Photography Competition has gone digital…

When he began his new role two years ago, David Cox, executive director of Mountain Culture and Environment at The Banff Centre had a vision. “With environmental awareness at an all-time high around the world, there is a huge opportunity to be highly creative – and the Centre has such amazing resources for the development of new ideas.”

Greg Hill is used to moving up in the world. Renowned for his backcountry skiing, one of his biggest achievements was gaining one million feet of vertical in a single season, a feat that included 40,000-feet in a single day, 40 separate peaks, 37 days of 10,000 or more feet, and 145 days in the backcountry. Greg’s accomplishment involved no helicopters or lift lines, only skins on his skis for traction and an immeasurable amount of will power.

Climbing is what sparked Majka Burhardt’s interest in Ethiopia but it’s the coffee that’s bringing her back.

A writer, climber, and guide, Burhardt first travelled to Ethiopia to research the country’s coffee industry, where she discovered instead a climber’s paradise. This mission resulted in her first book, Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Toward Possibility in the Horn of Africa which was entered into the Banff Mountain Book Festival competition – and subsequently led to her coming to Banff as a guest speaker for the 2008 Banff Mountain Book Festival. She also participated in the 2008 Banff Mountain Writing Program, held during the festival.

In fall 2008, Mountain Culture and Environment welcomed the return of Karin Stubenvoll to the World Tour team. Karin had worked briefly in the Mountain Culture office in 2006 as a World Tour Program Coordinator for the Banff Mountain Film Festival. However, her history with Mountain Culture and the Banff Mountain Film Festival is much deeper and broader than it might appear.

The Banff Mountain Festivals is the latest in a series of special events in the Bow Valley that have committed to keeping at least 80 per cent of their waste from going to landfill disposal. To do so, a total of four Resource Recovery Centre stations were set-up around campus. “The idea was that people had to think about what they had to do with their waste. They had an item and they had to figure out which bin to place it in,”adds Peck.

Did you know there will be approximately 530 screenings of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour this year. Find out what else you didn’t know.

Mountain Culture recently released Splash! a learning journey in mountain freshwater on its Bow Valley Mountain Forum website. The website is dedicated to publicizing community events, activities and information for residents of the Bow Valley. Splash!, created for children, is an animated tour of the relationship between mountains and freshwater and explains how mountains store water and help create precipitation, how lowlands depend on mountains to store and release moisture at appropriate times, and how climate change is impacting this critical relationship. Finally, interactive features quiz site visitors about freshwater …

Mountain Culture and National Geographic are thrilled that The North Face will join National Geographic as a co-presenting partner of the Banff Mountain Film Festival and North American Tour.