The Banff festival kicks off October 29-November 6! Feature films, engaging speakers, book premieres, and an arts and crafts fair are some of the incredible opportunities to be inspired and share a love for sport and the outdoors with the community. For a full list of events, tickets, and information on the festival as well as dates for the world tour, go to www.banffcentre.ca/mountainfestival

Come join Outdoor Research at this year’s Banff Mountain Film Festival held October 30th through November 7th at the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada.  This year’s festival will be highlighted by speakers, presentations and of course films from around the world.  For more information on the Banff Mountain Film Festival and the Banff Mountain World tour please visit The Banff Center Web site.

Margo Talbot

The Banff Mountain Writers Program has ended, and the six participants and their two editors have all gone their separate ways. The retreat had elements of an expedition, or rehab, where you live through an intense group experience with all of its attendant highs and lows.

I can honestly say that this course has exceeded my expectations. In the final analysis we all got what we came for, namely the skills to take our project post course to the stage where we are ready to deliver the manuscript into the hands of an editor and publisher.

I can’t say it was easy delving into my past for three weeks straight. When I resurfaced I felt like I needed more therapy. Instead I got to hang out with my friends’ children in Canmore, do Crossfit with Kim and Sarah, and train on Will’s new drytooling ladder in the backyard.

When you live for decades without a network of support, you feel infinitely grateful once you have one. In this vein I would like to thank all of the people that helped bring me to the point where I can write about depression in the past tense.

And I would like to thank my sponsor, Outdoor Research, for their ongoing support of my journey, this time into the wilderness of my psyche.

Descending from Silverton Falls and a great day out ice climbing with Cheryl Wallace, January 2009 near Silverton, Colorado

For twenty years now I have been climbing mountains, rock faces and frozen waterfalls. It has been the perfect analogy to what I have really been doing, which is climbing the mountains of my heart.

When I discovered climbing I quickly realized that this was an endeavor that caused me to focus my energies, both physical and mental, in a way that nothing else had previously done. This focus drew forth an ability to be in the present moment that I had heretofore never experienced. And each time I went out and attained this feeling it only served to make me want to go out climbing more.

Margot enjoying a moment of pure joy while posing as a leopard in Ouray Ice Park, January 2008, Photo by Chris Giles

My close friend and climbing partner, Karen McNeill, was an integral part of this journey. Her death on the flanks of Mount Foraker in Alaska in May of 2006 sent me into a tailspin of tragedy and loss. I use the timeline of her last days on earth as the starting point for my book, and my ten-year friendship with her as the platform of the present from which I delve into the past.

Margot enjoying the barren wilderness of the Antarctic Peninsula, February 2005

I will be writing in an online journal while at Banff, and I invite you to follow me on my blog at Glitter Girls as well as on the OR VertiCulture site.