David Smart

David Smart has been climbing since 1975 across North America and Europe, completing hundreds of new routes in eastern Canada. He is the founder of Gripped, Canadian Running, Canadian Cycling, and Triathlon Magazine Canada, and serves as the editorial director of Gripped Publishing. An award-winning author, his work with RMB includes the memoir A Youth Wasted Climbing (shortlisted for the 2015 Banff Mountain Book Festival) and Paul Preuss: Lord of the Abyss (shortlisted for the Banff and Boardman Tasker awards). His biography Emilio Comici: Angel of the Dolomites won both the Banff Mountain Book Festival Award for Mountain Literature and the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 2021. In Among the Pale Spires, Smart continues to reclaim lost alpine legacies with the historical rigor and literary depth that have established him as a leading voice in mountain literature. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.