Paul Belsey's The Search is shortlisted for the 2025 Boardman Tasker Award

Congratulations to Paul Besley whose memoir The Search has been shortlisted for the UK's most prestigious award for mountain literature. 

The Boardman Tasker prize, which was established to commemorate the lives and works of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, annually bestows a £3,000 award to authors of an original work concerned with the mountain environment. 

Selected from total of twenty-eight entries received from across the globe, The Search chronicles Paul's career in Sheffield steel to his very different life as a mountain rescue volunteer and training his own search dog, Scout, with whom he forms an interminable bond. 

Rehan Siddiqui, Chair of Judges, said, 'The author’s life journey was transformed following a mountain rescue team saving his life from a serious hillwalking accident. Inspired by his rescue he joined a mountain rescue team and trains his Border Collie puppy, Scout, to become a search dog. The book details rigorous training and rescue missions, while exploring Besley’s personal struggles and how his bond with Scout helps him confront his past and find purpose.'

The Search is Paul's third book with Vertebrate, following Day Walks in the South Pennines (2020) and 1001 Walking Tips (2022).

This is the fourteenth year Vertebrate titles have been selected for the shortlist, with four titles having previously won the prize: Ron Fawcett’s Rock Athlete in 2010, Andy Kirkpatrick’s Cold Wars in 2012, The Bond by Simon McCartney in 2016, and in 2017, Art of Freedom by Bernadette McDonald. 

The winner will be announced at the Kendal Mountain Festival on Friday 21 November.