Mugs Stump Award Winners Announced

The Mugs Stump Award is comprised of a series of grants that are presented annually to strong climbers that are in the process of planning alpine climbing objectives that exemplify fast, light and clean tactics. The awards, sponsored by Black Diamond Equipment, Climbing Magazine, Mountain Gear, Patagonia, PrimaLoft, and W.L. Gore, are a tribute to the late Mugs Stump, one of North America's most prolific and visionary climbers. Mugs died in a crevasse fall on Denali in 1992.

The awards amounting to a total of more than $30,000 were presented at the Ouray Ice Festival on Saturday night. This amount will be broken down into grants that range between $1,500 to $9,500.

The following breakdown of the awards was posted on the Climbing magzine website on January 13th:

• Clint Helander, the Revelation Range, Alaska; with Seth Holden. The climbers propose a trip into one of the least-explored (20 parties have visited since 1966) clusters of granite mountains in Alaska, to pursue rock, ice, and ridge-running objectives on three unclimbed massifs.
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• Ryan Hokanson, the southeast face of Mount Logan, Alaska; with Samuel Johnson. The two climbers will make an alpine-style bid on the unclimbed southeast face, expecting mixed ground on an exact line TBD tackling a wall two miles high, one of the largest on the planet.
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• Sam Magro, north face of Broken Tooth, Alaska; with Aaron Thrasher. The climbers have spotted a diagonalling weakness on the 1,000-meter north face of Broken Tooth, climbed to half-height, with difficulties up to M6, on a previous bid but never completed.
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• Jim Martinello, Mount Bute, British Columbia, Canada; with Bruce Kay and Jason Sinnes. The climbers look to pioneer a new free route on Bute’s unclimbed lower buttress (2,500 feet), and then either free the existing route on the upper west face (20 pitches; 3,000 feet) or climb a new line on the upper wall.
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• Doug Chabot, Kuk Sar II, Pakistan; with Bruce Miller. The pair will attempt the sheer north face of this unclimbed 6,925-meter Karakoram peak, one that’s never been visited by climbers; the face has locally been rumored to be “impossible,” as well as up to 3,000 meters tall.
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• Colin Haley, North Ridge of Latok 1, Pakistan; with Josh Wharton and Dylan Johnson. The climbers propose an attempt on this longstanding, oft-attempted (20 attempts) prize of Himalayan Mountaineering, climbed nearly to the summit in 1978. They propose beginning on snow and ice beside the ridge crest, to make quicker progress down low.
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• Josh Beckner, El Lonko, Argentine Patagonia; with Dave Anderson and Jared Spaulding. The east face of the El Cap-sized, unclimbed “El Lonko,” in the back of the remote Pirate Valley, in alpine style; a secondary goal will be a new route on the North Arête of the nearby Mariposa (2,220 vertical feet), in the same style.

--Jason D. Martin