In a collaborative effort to profile the late Bill Denz for our spring issue, Peter Haan and Paul Maxim enlisted David "Zappa" Austin to record his memories of one hard-fought link-up of Mescalito and the Dawn Wall of El Capitan in 1978. A snippet of Austin's story helps shape Denz's tough and tenacious character in "Boldness, Genius Magic: The Life of Bill Denz," Alpinist 42. Herein, Austin tells the rest of the unpublished story.
The name says it all. Everyone who is a climber has heard his name. Every climber has seen his name plastered all over the guidebooks and on route names like Kor's Flake, Kor's Door, Kor's Korner and the Kor-Ingalls Route. Layton Kor was ubiquitous in the 1960s. The man was everywhere, stirring up an impatient storm on the rocks wherever he landed.
One year ago I sat idly and watched as my friends enjoyed a beautiful, warm winter day of cragging at the New River Gorge in West Virginia.... I reminisced of moments from weeks prior: the sound of our machete as it cut through thick vines; the unmistakable metallic squawk of the Bearded Bellbird; waterfalls; flowers; heaven on earth; black flies; dazzling views; big walls; dirt in my eyes; ant bites; the sound of a breaking bone...
Each year, the Everest situation comes under greater scrutiny, with new stories of crowds and deaths and with new allegations of climbers lacking compassion for each other.... Each person's choice of style is his or her own, a decision that has to do with highly personal variables. Regardless of how we feel about the use of various aids, the people who stand atop these peaks still take each step themselves.
We already introduced their objectives. Now meet the nine teams chasing those summits with all of Mug Stump's boldness and commitment to light and clean alpinism.
We were on the North Face of the Eiger. Clint Eastwood was dangling free over an ugly overhang with his rope attached to the end of a ladder that was rigged like a diving board. It protruded about 20 feet over the edge of a rock ledge....
You don't have to be in Bozeman to see the ice tower competition and talks by Hayden and Michael Kennedy, Doug Chabot and others at the Ice Fest! Find the live footage here.
When we meet people for the first time, we ask their name, and we ask them their job. And although I know climbers who've adopted unorthodox monikers such as Trout Man, Chongo, Coach or Alf, they have no trouble answering their names. The job category, that one's often tougher. If you're like me, you put on a sheepish grin and give a halfway-there explanation, and struggle until failure to explain what you're doing with yourself and why.
