thanks for the dreams

Many people never have the honor of knowing how important they are to others. When Layton Kor, age 70 and seriously ill with kidney disease, agreed to a slide show at Neptune Mountaineering, in Boulder, the presentation sold out in nine minutes. The show was moved to Macky Auditorium at the University of Colorado, and filled 1,200 seats.
“One word: iconic,” said Jim Donini—recent president of the American Alpine Club, which partnered with Neptune for the October show—in his introduction. Following a wild standing ovation, a visibly overwhelmed Kor gave the audience his all.
“Back in the early days I made my living as a bricklayer,” he began. “Then climbing took over my life. Back at that time very little had been done. We made pigs of ourselves.”
The packed audience was dotted with his onetime climbing partners: Larry Dalke, Cub Schafer, Bob Culp, Jim McCarthy, Steve Komito, Pat Ament, Huntley Ingalls, Harvey T. Carter, Cort Richards, Dave Rearick and Jim Logan. John Harlin III, son of the partner lost to Kor on the North Face of the Eiger, sat in the balcony. After the death of John Harlin, Jr., a devastated Kor dropped out of sight for years.
Today, the climbers Steph Davis of Moab, Utah, and Stewart Green of Colorado Springs, Colorado, are launching a website to benefit Kor, whose Medicare benefits do not cover all the costs of his thrice-weekly dialysis treatments, drugs or a hoped-for kidney transplant. The website, www.laytonkorclimbing.com, will sell signed prints of Kor (at $55, the photos have already been available through Green, who has sold 70), while the launch will begin with monthly raffles, the first to be November 1.
Says Davis, “A lot of companies want to donate gear. Like, a lot.” Her own personal impetus has simply been, “This is Layton Kor”—one of the first climbers to inspire her, as well as generations of others.
Raffles will follow on the first of every month, and after a target total has been reached, the organizers will also offer up guiding days.
Four people have offered to guide days on various of Kor’s first ascents: Davis will be guiding the Kor-Ingalls (5.9+) on Castleton Tower, near Moab, Utah; Jimmie Dunn, the Scenic Cruise (5.10) in the Black Canyon, Colorado; and Tommy Caldwell, Kor’s Flake (5.8), Lumpy Ridge, Colorado; and Conrad Anker, the South Face of Washington Column, Yosemite.
Kor, now living in Arizona, is currently receiving care and working on his second book, a scrapbook-style compilation. His first book, Beyond the Vertical, is out of print.
Says Davis, “If the only thing that happens right now is that Layton knows that people want to help him, that’s going to make him feel better. But I also think [the effort is] going to be really productive.”
Stewart Green says, “He is extremely grateful for the aid everyone is giving him. Layton is a very proud man and really doesn’t like having to do this but the continuing medical bills give him no choice.
“He still has the fire for climbing, though, and doing first ascents, and says he looks forward to ‘getting better and getting my life back.’”
Kor’s routes extend from the Colorado bastions of Eldorado Canyon and the Diamond Face of Long’s Peak, to Utah’s boldest desert towers, including the Titan and Standing Rock; to Red Rocks, Yosemite, the Dolomites and Proboscis in the Northwest Territory, Canada. Anyone want to guide that?
“We had no way of knowing if people were ever going to do these things again,” Kor ruminated at his show. Thanks to his lead and the dreams he lent us, we do.