Note: The film Jirishanca will debut in the world premiere of REEL ROCK 18 at Macky Auditorium in Boulder, Feb. 16-17. You can buy tickets here.
“There’s this dirty little secret — or, not so much a secret, but no one’s talking about it — that we’re flying all over the world to climb these mountains that are melting, as we cause them to melt by jetting all over the world,” Josh Wharton told me recently.
Climate change surfaced as we discussed a groundbreaking first ascent he and Vince Anderson climbed in July 2022 in Peru, on the beautiful mountain, Jirishanca (19,993 feet).
“It was something I thought about in the course of going to the peak,” said Wharton. “I took four trips and got really close on the third trip. It’s like, is it worth going back to climb the last 100 meters?”
Ultimately, he decided it was worth it. He and Anderson became the first to climb the Italian route, Suerte, to the summit of Jirishanca. With sustained rock, mixed and ice climbing up to 5.13a, M7 and WI6, it’s among the most technically diverse and difficult free climbs in the world.
I asked Wharton about personal ambition versus climate impact, and how he judges which mountains he can justify traveling for, and which ones he can’t.
“I don’t know that I have a good answer,” he admitted. “I just think it’s a conversation alpine climbers should be having. Everybody talks about climate change and how it’s affecting alpinism, but nobody talks about how we’re all contributing to it. And the sponsors and the brands just keep supporting these far-away trips.”
The Jirishanca climb was, in fact, supported by Patagonia (Wharton’s primary sponsor), who partnered with Boulder-based Sender Films to produce a movie of their ascent. In addition to the incredible footage of high-end alpinism, the film, which premiers in REEL ROCK 18 at Macky Auditorium on Feb. 16-17, includes a warning about how quickly the glaciers and snowfields of the world’s mountains are melting.
“It was painfully obvious that climate change has had a dramatic effect on the mountain,” wrote Wharton on patagonia.com. “In the seven years that I made four trips to Jirishanca, we walked on less glacier to get to the base, found less ice through key passages and saw the dramatic upper ice roofs recede to reveal more … rock.”
In response to this mountain’s daunting metamorphosis, Wharton has vowed to travel less, instead turning toward objectives closer to home.
He lives in Estes Park with his wife and 10-year-old daughter. Just shy of 45 years old, Wharton is lean and muscular with a chiseled jaw, buzz-cut hair and stern, narrow eyes that give him a serious veneer. But when he looks you in the eye — and he will — a kind, almost playful light belies his intensity.
Throughout his 30-year climbing career he’s become a master of all trades, from extreme boulders and sport routes to multi-day alpine climbs on some of the world’s most challenging mountains.
Where you won’t find Wharton is on social media — a significant divergence from most professional climbers.
“At first it struck me as narcissistic or voyeuristic,” he explained. “More recently I’ve chosen not to participate because I think it’s a net negative in the world thus far. I have a daughter, and I can’t say, ‘This is a bad thing for you’ while participating in it.”
Wharton simply loves climbing, irrespective of whatever attention he may or may not receive. And he climbs as much as possible.
“All the years I’ve been climbing, my idea of what it meant to be the best climber I could be was to be good at everything. Jirishanca epitomized that,” he said. “In order to free climb it you kind of had to be a good climber in every genre.”
While Colorado has no Andes or Himalaya, Wharton has imagined some creative local goals, like winter alpine routes and enchainments (multiple peaks back-to-back) that can rival the great challenges found overseas.
“That’s one of my favorite things about climbing,” said Wharton. “You can have ambition, be purposeful and go after goals, but it doesn’t have to be the normal rat race most people live. You’re doing it because it’s personally rewarding.”
Contact Chris Weidner at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and X @cweidner8.
