In the climbers' deadzone of November a spate of Mountain Film Festivals appears every year like a media rash encouraged by the damp weather and darkening skies. Across the Northern Hemisphere, from the perfect powder slopes of the Rockies, through the pastoral prettiness of the Lake District, to the, er, marmalade municipality of Dundee, thousands of frustrated climbers, walkers and skiers pack darkened theatres and watch films about people doing what they'd rather be doing if they weren't watching films.

>> View from the festival. Rundle Headwall - Replicant is the central icefall. All pics Colin Wells.

Banff International Mountain Film and Book Festival
Alberta, Canada. Oct 29 - Nov 4

The Grand Trilogy of November Fests kicks off in North America. As befits the scale of the Canadian landscape itself, the Banff International Mountain Film and Book Festival is the biggest in the world. It's also the oldest. Now in its 26th year it boasts a large permanent staff, an enormous venue and a truly world-class setting, the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture and Environment. Surrounding the theatre complex are the awesome Rockies peaks of Mount Rundle and Cascade Mountain. This year Rundle's headwall was already sporting the scary 1000-ft ice line of Replicant, while five centimetres of fresh powder lay invitingly on the top slopes of nearby ski- and board paradise of Lake Louise. Such a dazzling winter playground comes as a shock to Scottish visitors flying in from typically dreich late autumn weather, where the most inviting outdoor activity is queuing for a bus back from the pub. So, presented with the dazzling Rockies landscape, the last thing you want to do is go indoors for a week and watch lectures and films. Yes, a week. In order to do justice to the vastness of the annual Banff programme, the events are spread over nearly seven days.

Coffee and TV
The one word summing up the Banff Film Fest is 'professional'. They've got a 24-hour media access communications room with helpdesk, three computers, free internet access, steaming coffee on tap and an endless supply of blueberry and choc-chip muffins. They know how to butter up journos all right, those cunning Canucks. They also bribe you with loads of free gifts (travel bags, T-shirts, promo magazines, free meals and, most importantly, beer tokens for a Banff pub) and there's a 'Video-on-demand' room where you can watch any film in competition, any time you like. In fact, I noticed some of my colleagues of the press never seemed to stir from the free coffee and food of the media room and the video-on-demand facility, except when there was free food on offer at any receptions. Not me, of course. In the interests of investigative reporting I actually went to find 'The Official Pub of the Banff Festival' ('The Old Irish Pub': 26 real ales permanently on draught including Boddingtons). Here, you usually found Festival speaker Simon Yates propping up the very long bar and smoking a cigarillo. "Aright mate? Fancy a pint?" was his usual cheery greeting, despite the fact there were normally at least two pints stacked up in a holding pattern in front of him waiting to land. Indeed, it would be very easy indeed to go to Banff and not see any of the films, lectures or exhibitions at all - and many folk do just that and simply get trapped in the Irish Pub. This would be a pity, as the festival is actually quite something else.

>> Banff books - lot of 'em

Everests of books
The first four days are actually a book -oops, sorry - 'Mountain Literature' Festival with lots of top, specially invited speakers. To get to the live performances you have to negotiate a veritable mall of stalls groaning with climbing and outdoorsy books vying for attention. Unfortunately, as observant readers will be only too aware, the North American publishing industry is still in thrall to an obsession with a certain well-known very large mountain. This means that all these stalls look remarkably similar. "Have you got anything without Everest in the title?" You enquire, optimistically. "No", is the answer. Stupid question really. The other thing which draws the punters is the chance of getting some famous adventurer who isn't dead yet to sign their copy of their hero's book. Then when they do pop off down a crevasse or get lost at sea it'll be hopefully worth a fortune. This year there was a variation of the 'Pop Will Eat Itself' theme provided by the unedifying spectacle of US Everest veteran Ed Webster and our very own Simon Yates actually signing massive amounts of each other's books. Yates pulled a face when Webster proffered a copy of Joe Simpson's Storms of Silence, but signed it all the same, like the true pro he is.

Literary lows
The heart of the book fest is an international competition to which literally hundreds of struggling authors and desperate publishers submit their precious volumes in the hope of scooping the kudos and glory of being a Banff prize-winner. It's actually quite hard just getting onto the short-list. This year for instance, 122 titles were entered and only 34 made it to the final draw in categories as diverse as 'Adventure Travel', 'Mountain Literature', Mountain Exposition', and 'Mountain Image'. Here the books are at the mercy of a jury of three people picked from the Great and the Good of the Mountaineering Establishment; what Jim Curran (who has never won a prize, coincidentally) joshingly called the 'illiterati'.

This year a very dull novel called 'Hazard's Way' (In my opinion - others like it! See my colleague Tom Prentice's piece) about Edwardian cragsmen inhabiting Ye Olde Wastdale Head won the Grand Prize. However I was heartened to see that another novel, 'Raven's End', about a fine glossy Raven called, 'Colin', (I kid you not) won the prize for 'Best Book about the Rocky Mountains'. Raven's End is an anthropomorphised story about a flock of ravens (but I was disappointed to find the other birds weren't called Keith, Shirley or Alan) who roam around the high tops of the Canadian Rockies in search of adventure, a bit like Watership Down in the sky. I'd like to meet the author, Ben Gadd, and ask him exactly what the hell he's on. Because I'd like some. Sadly, Mr Gadd wasn't performing live, but plenty other book-plugging authors were. For the lure used to bring the public into the book bit of the fest is the opportunity to see live performances by the likes of Ed Webster and Royal Robbins.

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