Mugs
Stump Climbing Award Winners Announced for 2008
16th
Annual Mugs Stump Award Grants Financial Support to Small
Climbing Teams with Light and Fast Alpine Objectives
January
16, 2008: The recipients of the 2008 Mugs Stump Award were
announced at the Ouray Ice Festival in mid-January, at
Ouray, Colorado. The awards, sponsored by Black
Diamond Equipment, Climbing
Magazine, Mountain
Gear, Patagonia, PrimaLoft,
and W.L.
Gore, were created in 1992 in memory of Mugs Stump,
one of North America’s most visionary climbers. The
award annually grants $30,000 to small teams pursuing climbing
objectives that exemplify light, fast, and clean alpinism.
The applications received for 2008 included many strong
teams with objectives in far-flung corners of the mountaineering
world, from South America to China to Greenland to India.
In the end, seven teams with outstanding talent and objectives
were granted awards ranging from $1,000 to $9,000.
2008
Mugs Stump Award Winners:
- Ryan Johnson, Mendenhall Towers, Alaska; with Sam Magro,
Kyler Pallister, Erik Pallister, and Mike Thompson. The
climbers seek 800- to 1,000-meter ice and mixed lines on
the north walls of these seldom-visited peaks, in the Coastal
Range of southeast Alaska.
- Craig
McGee, Mount Logan, Alaska; with Brad White. The 3,000-meter
unclimbed Southeast Rib of Canada’s
highest peak.
- Eric Decaria, Kedar Dome, India; with Zack Smith. Bid
for a complete alpine-style first ascent of the Central
Spur, then up an unclimbed snow ridge to the summit
(6,831 meters), for 6,000 to 7,000 feet of rock, mixed,
and snow climbing.
- Jonny Copp, Dojitsenga, Tibet; with Micah Dash. First
ascent of this 5,800-meter Tibetan rock peak via
the continuously steep East Ridge (1,500 meters). The mountain
lies between Rawu and Lhagu in the Kangri Garpo range
of southeastern Tibet.
- Kevin Mahoney, Kangtega, Nepal; with Ben Gilmore and
Freddie Wilkinson. Direct route on the North Face
of this 6,799-meter peak, in the Khumbu Valley, Nepal.
- Vince
Anderson, Makalu, Pakistan; with Steve House and Marko
Prezelj. The climbers propose an alpine-style bid on
the West Face of the planet’s fifth-highest
peak, an objective unclimbed in its entirety and
described by Messner as one of the greatest high-mountain
walls in the world.
- Dave Turner, South Tower of Paine, Argentine Patagonia;
solo. The virgin south face of the South Tower of
Paine: an 800-meter VI+ alpine wall capped by 350 meters
of steep, difficult mixed climbing.
More
About the Mugs Stump Award
 All
of the alpine objectives awarded embody the spirit of
the late Mugs Stump. Mugs Stump was best known for his
first ascent of the Emperor Face on Mount Robson in the
Canadian Rockies and a triptych of brilliant Alaskan
climbs—the
East Face of the Moose's Tooth, the Moonflower Buttress
on Mount Hunter, and a one-day solo of Denali's Cassin
Ridge. He sought out striking and highly technical objectives,
preferably first ascents, in some of the most remote
mountains of the world. Mugs saw climbing as a celebration
of boldness, purity, and simplicity.
Applications
are reviewed for how they further the legacy of Mugs Stump
with climbs proposed in the spirit of adventure and exploration,
and that emphasize light, fast, leave-no-trace climbing.
Award applicants are evaluated on the strength of their
objective, the strength of their team, and on an objective
that raises the bar defining what is possible in alpinism
today. For more information on the award, past recipients
and their trip reports visit www.mugsstumpaward.com.
Applications are due by December 1 and trips
must be taken between February, of the year awarded, and
the following January. Winners will be announced by January
31st of each year.
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