The Mountain Path – Paul Pritchard

Paul was a cutting-edge rock climber and mountaineer hailing from the UK.

When he won the Boardman/Tasker Award for mountain literature in 1997, with his book Deep Play, he used the prize money on a world climbing tour that found him in Tasmania climbing a slender sea stack known as The Totem Pole.

It was here that all he had known before was turned on its head. On Friday the 13th of February 1998 a TV-sized boulder falling from twenty-five meters inflicted such terrible head injuries that doctors thought he might never walk or even speak again.

Being in hospital for a year gave Paul the impetus to write his second book: The Totem Pole. This narrative about his personal journey through hemiplegia won him an unprecedented second Boardman/Tasker prize, and the Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize. His most recent book is The Mountain Path published in 2021.