Layton Kor Climbing

Layton Kor and Ed Webster made the Off Belay page in Alpinist 27, the Summer 2009 issue. The photograph, taken by Dennis Jump, is of Layton and Ed on the summit of Bloody Butte AKA Kor’s Kastle, a 150-foot-high volcanic spire that Layton, Ed, Dennis, and I made the first ascent of early last April in far western Arizona.

The climb, on a warm spring day, was memorable in lots of ways. For one, it was a first ascent with Layton, the master desert climber, the guy whose footholds I’ve been following for my entire climbing career since I was 12 years old in 1965. Then too it was another first ascent with my old climbing buddies Ed and Dennis.

We let Layton lead the first pitch. He launched up the rotten rock like in days of yore, chortling gleefully, “Rotten rock! I love rotten rock!” We watched as Layton wielded hammer and pitons, whailing angles, Lost Arrows, and knifeblades in every crack along the way. At the small belay ledge, he tied off a couple knifeblades and a baby angle and called it good.

After Layton belayed me up, I said, “Layton, we need more pins for this belay.” He smiled and said, “I think it’s good enough, isn’t it?” Ed and I looked at each other and said in unision, “No!” I welded a couple 3/4-inch angles and planted a couple Stoppers in cracks above for a bomber anchor.

Anyway, this is a great photograph of Layton and Ed. May Layton have many more first ascents in the years to come.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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