Kor, Ingalls and Hurley and the FA of The Titan

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Messages 41 - 45 of total 45 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
Chiloe

Trad climber
Lee, NH
Feb 16, 2014 - 07:38pm PT
Hey Chiloe, maybe you could share some stories from your ascent.
Our Titan climb makes a brief appearance along with some other early-70s Moab adventures in this personal tale I wrote a while back. As a Moabian you might get a kick....
The town of Eldorado Springs was home to a close-knit community of five climbers in the fall of 1970. When I first moved into town, and joined their circle, it felt as if I had dropped in on a family -- albeit, one of the free-form and unrelated families that were flourishing around Boulder in those days. Paul Sibley opened the door by inviting me to stay in the attic of his unfinished house, until I could find something better. Something better appeared soon in the form of an opportunity to share the Rocky Rest, a tiny stone cabin, with Ron Cox for $25 a month rent. That became my home for the next two years. Much of my social life involved the five-climber community; besides Cox and Sibley, they were Margaret "Yum Yum" Durrance (daughter of Jack Durrance, of Tetons and Devil's Tower fame), Julie Clements and Bill Roos. Many of our conversations involved climbing. Sibley and Roos had made the third ascent of the Titan, and told stories about the unearthly spires around Moab. On the wall hung a photo from their 1969 first ascent of Ancient Art's corkscrew summit. During one winter-evening conversation, Roos drew my attention to a topographic map of Canyonlands, pointing out the steep contours of unclimbed Candlestick Tower. Fixated on El Cap, for which I was then getting ready, I noted Candlestick as a more distant goal....
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~lch/climb_07.htm
The Larry

climber
Moab, UT
Feb 16, 2014 - 09:05pm PT
Awesome! Thanks for the link!

1/2 of Team Larry on the Three Penguins. Arches NP
Smokey

Trad climber
Colorado
Feb 16, 2014 - 09:07pm PT
I had dinner with Huntley on Christmas eve 2013 in Hygiene CO (we ate potato latkes), and he related an interesting "fun fact" about the Fishers: Just before his big-deal climb of the Titan with Kor et al, the very first "real" climber to touch rock in the Fishers was Colorado's own Gerry Roach. Gerry started up a pitch on the Titan, realized it was total choss, and promptly retreated. And so marked the first climber to ever touch Fishers rock.
Brokedownclimber

Trad climber
Douglas, WY
Feb 16, 2014 - 11:50pm PT
I was only a climber with 2 years under my belt in the Summer of 1961, but became involved with Layton and Huntley's Glenwood Canyon "Mud Wall" project. How? I had a reliable car with room for 4 people plus gear. So...I was recruited to be a support team member and hump gear to the base of the climb, drive over there to Glenwood (before I-70 existed!), and take some pictures of the epic. They prussiked up to a previous high point established several weeks earlier by Layton and Bob Lagrange (my usual climbing partner). Sue Jones was also recruited to help, and we both had Advanced Red Cross skills to help load the body bags if anything bad happened. Quite predictably the climb was terminated after a giant block the size of a freight car groaned and shifted as Kor was nailing around the right edge into a dihedral. It scared the living schitt out of everyone. On the way home Kor was beside himself, so as a consolation we did the Northcutt-Carter the following day to wash away the bad taste of Glenwood Canyon.

After we returned to Boulder and met Huntley in the Sink where the conversation was steered to doing the Titan. Several recon trips followed, but I was opted out by leaving for Army Basic Training in September. I was still in the U.S. when they pulled off the climb in 1962, but the Army had other plans for me involving a possible trip to Cuba to deal with Fidel. I would have loved being able to participate, since Huntley really had a way of hyping climbs he wanted to do.

Missed a chance of a lifetime because of Uncle.
crunch

Social climber
CO
Feb 17, 2014 - 12:07am PT
Nice, Brokedown!

Great stories.
Messages 41 - 45 of total 45 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
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