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JIM HERRINGTON
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Jim Whittaker, who summited Mount Everest 50 years ago today, May 1, 1963, making him the first American to do so.
I photographed him near his home in Port Townsend, WA in 2002.
RIP Layton Kor, one of the greats. Here’s my photo of him in 2009.
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LEGENDARY CLIMBER LAYTON KOR DIES
By: Adam Roy
Layton Kor, the legendary climber who established some of America’s hardest and most frightening routes during the 1950s and 60s, died on Sunday night. Kor, 75, had been fighting kidney failure and prostate cancer.
Born in Canby, Minnesota, Kor began his climbing career in Colorado’s Eldorado Canyon, where he established bold free and aid climbs like The Naked Edge and T2. Beginning in the 1960s, he took his act to the deserts of southern Utah, where he made the first ascents of cutting-edge routes on Moab’s sandstone spires, including the Kor-Ingalls route on Castleton Tower and Finger of Fate on the Titan, both of which were later featured in the seminal book Fifty Classic Climbs of North America.
Kor essentially quit climbing in 1968 when he became a Jehovah’s Witness, but came back to the sport later in his life. “Climbing is hard to give up,” he would say. “It’s just as hard as giving up cigarettes.”
In his later years, Kor struggled with medical bills, including daily medications and thrice-weekly dialysis. Despite the efforts of fellow climbers who organized fundraisers for his benefit, his biographer, Cameron Burns, said that Kor died “essentially in poverty.”
Glen Dawson - climber - Pasadena, CA
Born in 1912 Glen Dawson was a prolific California rock climber in the 1920s and 1930s. His most notable climb was the first ascent of the East Face of Mt. Whitney with Jules Eichorn, Norman Clyde and Robert Underhill in 1931.
David Brower - climber - Berkeley, CA
Jim Bridwell - climber - Palm Desert, CA
Thomas Hornbein - climber - Everett, WA
Thomas Hornbein, along with Willi Unsoeld, made the first ascent of the West Ridge of Mt. Everest in 1963. He also designed the oxygen masks for that expedition, one of which he is wearing here.
They were along on the expedition that put the first American (Jim Whittaker, seen elsewhere on this blog) on the summit of Everest. While summiting Everest by any route is to be commended, Whittaker had taken the already established South Col route and had done it expedition-style… using Sherpas, fixed ropes, etc. Hornbein and his partner, on the other hand, had climbed the much more difficult and daunting West Ridge in a fast and lightweight style and unsupported by others. They summited at 6pm and not long after starting their descent down the South Col route, they ran out of oxygen and were exhausted. They bivouacked over night, very high up the mountain, getting frostbite in the process… Hornbein managed to keep all of his toes, Unsoeld did not fare as lucky.
I’ll leave you with words from Hornbein’s account of the bivouac:
“The night was overwhelmingly empty. The black silhouette of Lhotse Mountain was lurking there, half to be seen, half to assume, and below us. In general there was nothing - simply nothing. We hung in a timeless gap, pained by the intensive cold air with nothing to do but shiver and wait for the sun to arise.”
Riccardo Cassin - Resinelli, Italy
He lived to the ripe old age of 100. He died a week after I took this photo of him at his home high in the mountains above Lake Como in Italy. One of the greatest mountain climbers of all time.
Jim Whittaker - first American to summit Mt. Everest - Port Townsend, WA
