Don Serl Awarded 2017 BMFF Summit of Excellence

The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival ( bmff) announced that B.C. climber Don Serl is the 2017 recipient of the Summit of Excellence Award, which recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to mountain life in Canada. Serl is credited with over 200 first ascents and was an important climber for many decades. “I am honoured to be chosen as the recipient of this year’s Summit of Excellence Award,” said Don Serl. “Over nearly four decades of chasing summits, I experienced many beautiful, challenging, and alluring ridges, faces, and couloirs, mostly in remote and obscure places. These wonderful features, and the strong, competent partners with whom I adventured, also share the honour, as do my wife and family, without whose tolerance little of this would have happened.”

Remembering Fred is New Shoulder Season Alpine John Price and Kris Irwin climbed a new long moderate alpine route at M6 they called Remembering Fred, in honour of the late Fred Beckey.

New Storm Mountain Mixed Route Toshiyuki Yamada and Noboru Kikuchi climbed a new route above Arnica Lake on Storm Mountain east of Lake Louise. Their new climb is a 400- metre M6R WI4.

New Kananaskis Country Ice Route Toshiyuki Yamada and Noboru Kikuchi assumed they climbed Dr. Evil in Kananaskis Country. But they ended up climbing a new 70- metre WI5 they called Over Slept.

Canadian/Scott Duo’s New Variation Canadian Jon Walsh and Scottish climber Greg Boswell completed a mixed start to a 2004 ice route in Storm Creek. In the end, they established the new four-pitch The Silmarillion Indirect M6 WI5.