Irvine Butterfield
The author of one of the best known hillwalking tomes was today granted a lifetime achievement award.
Irvine Butterfield, whose The High Mountains of Britain and Ireland is probably the closest thing to a walkers’ bible, was given the accolade by the John Muir Trust. He is only the fourth person to receive the honour in the trust’s 26-year existence.
The award was announced at the Dundee Mountain Festival. The Perthshire-based writer received the trust’s award in recognition of his dedication to conservation, his passion for wild landscapes and his support for mountain organisations.
Mr Butterfield was the fifth person to sign up to the newly formed John Muir Trust at its inception in the early 1980s.
He also helped set up the Mountain Bothies Association and the Munro Society, for those who have completed ascents of all 284 of Scotland’s 3,000-footers. He is also a big name in the Mountaineering Council of Scotland.
As well as The High Mountains, Irvine Butterfield published The Magic of the Munros, The Call of the Corbetts and The Famous Highland Drove Walk.
Nigel Hawkins, chief executive of the JMT, said: “Irvine’s commitment has always been underpinned by his extraordinarily detailed knowledge of our mountain country, and by his profound, understated and yet transparent passion for its wild landscapes and its history.
“His books on our high mountains, enriched by hundreds of his own superb photographs, have been a mighty inspiration to walkers and climbers, leading them on to share Irvine’s passion.”
The three previous recipients of a lifetime achievement award were mountaineer and broadcaster Tom Weir and two other mountaineers, Everest summitteer Doug Scott and Adam Watson, described by the trust as a ‘guru of the Cairngorms’.
Mr Hawkins said: “Irvine has brought back from his explorations a love of wild places that he has communicated with consummate skill and conviction.
“ Like John Muir, his influence and his inspiration have brought many of us to share his commitment to Britain’s mountains. He is a very worthy recipient of our John Muir Trust Lifetime Achievement Award.”
The trust is a leading charity dedicated to the preservation of wild landscapes. It takes its name from the Scottish-born pioneer of national parks. The recipient of the lifetime achievement award must be a person who ‘has made a lifetime’s contribution to the cause of conservation either in Britain or abroad’. Potential recipients will have inspired others in their particular field and beyond, and have influenced at a national or international level.
