alwaysforward
Apr 1, 2005, 12:45 AM
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Registered: Oct 22, 2002
Posts: 979
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"The Mugs Stump Alpine Climbing award is given each year to support small teams with climbing objectives that exemplify fast, light, and clean alpinism. Created in the memory of Mugs Stump, one of North America’s most visionary climbers, the award, now in its 14th year, helps climbers to pursue alpinism in its purest forms." (http://climbing.com/news/mugsstump05/)
Which of the winners objectives is most exciting?
1. "Kelly Cordes and Josh Wharton for their goal of establishing new routes on the two premier faces in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, the North Face of Huascaran Norte and the West Face of Taulliraju." These are the same guys who just FA'd the Azeem Ridge on Great Trango Tower in perfect style.
This is the Southwest Face of Taulliraju, offering a "smooth granite wall peppered with squeaky white ice streaks".
http://www.summitpost.org/images/104310.JPG
"The NE Face of Huascarán Norte shown here includes some of the most difficult routes in the range."
http://www.cosleyhouston.com/...hoto_huasc_norte.jpg
2 Steve House and Marko Prezelj for a trip to the North Face of Kalanka in the Indian Himalayas backed up by an attempt to complete their impressive effort last year on the huge Rupal Face on Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. The Charakusa Valley expedition and the North Face of North Twin last year.
Kalanka's north wall offers similar experiences to that of Changabang's, of which much literature/photo's are available.
http://www.risk.ru/...ga/photo/changa1.jpg
On Nanga Parbat's 4100m Rupal Face (worlds largest escarpment), Steve House said it would be "the greatest American accomplishment in the Himalaya since Unsoeld and Hornbein climbed the West Ridge of Everest".
3. "John Varco and Sue Nott for an attempt on the unclimbed Southeast Face of Kamet in India, a peak just recently opened by the Indian Mountaineering Federation."
The South-East Face of Kamet (7756m).
http://www.moran-mountain.co.uk/...et%20east%20face.jpg
4. "Tommy Caldwell, Adam Stack and Tim Kemple for the first free attempt on one of the most daunting granite walls in the world, the West Face of Mount Thor on Baffin Island. This is a rare rock-climbing award, chosen for the strength and promise of the team and the arctic nature of the face" Strong team. Big wall. Notorious for hard, often extreme, aid difficulties and tempermental weather.
http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos.php?Action=Show&PhotoID=6583
5. "Sean Isaac and Rob Owens for a light-and-fast attempt on an aesthetic and difficult unclimbed ice runnel – a “Supercouloir” – on the North Face of Kichatna Spire in Alaska". If anyone has found a picture of this face, please post up.
I am most looking forward to the results of the first two - Cordes and Wharton, and House and Prezelj. Both these teams have been coming up BIG over the last few years and I would really like to see their routes. The Rupal Face is enormous and legendary, the Northern Wall on Kalanka and Changabang is notorious in it's own right. Exciting climbing, bad bivouacs, good rock and daily storms. The Peruvian walls look fraught with difficulty as well. Taulliraju, featured in Alpinist 7, has produced many fine, aesthetic routes and, from the looks of the above image, Huascarán Norte makes a gorgeous objective.
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