NEWS

Mammut athlete Josh Wharton awarded Mugs Stump Grant

Mammut athlete Josh Wharton, with alpinist Kelly Cordes, has been awarded a Mugs Stump grant for a proposed new route on Peru’s Huascaran Norte. The Himalayan-scale north face of Huascaran Norte (6664m) in the Llanganuco Valley is one of the great alpine faces of South America, rising over 5,000 vertical feet—a rarity in the Cordillera Blanca, where the faces tend to be steep and challenging but of lesser size. The face is known for its scale and difficulty, at a significant altitiude, as well as for rockfall hazard that has claimed at least one life. Wharton and Cordes proposed an attempt of the route during the month of June, in hopes that some ice may be formed on the steep rock of the middle and upper portions—both for speedy climbing and to keep everything frozen together. While Cordes is recovering from a back injury, Wharton will attempt the route with Brain McMahon, his partner from an alpine-style first ascent of Under Fire, on The Flame in Pakistan.