Last year I had several great conversations with John about an obscure place I wanted to visit. Of all the multiple round 46ers, and even all the 100ers I asked, only John had been to the spot. We had a great talk about the mountains, bushwhacking, and as the conversation went on he remembered more and more of the hike. He had left a peanut butter jar and some stamped postcards hoping to hear from anyone who had made it this place, but had never received one in the 10 or so years since he left them. I searched but never found them.
As Christine mentioned, John had all but given up on the bushwhacking thing. However, when I called after my hike, and told him of my trip he became excited with the different route I ended up taking and why. Along the way I found something he felt he had to see, and by the end of the conversation he had decided he had to make another trip to this place. And of course we would be bringing another mason jar and postcards!
As irony would have it, just before my trip a friend found another person who had journeyed to this very place, and only the week before my hike. Two days ago, I met this guy for the first time and we compared our routes and talked about our trips. I mentioned I had gotten some advice from John, and that I still needed to send him some pictures from the trip. (John has no email, and I had not gotten around to printing them up) It made me think of John and that we still needed to make that trek. The next morning over breakfast I heard the news he had passed away. While looking through the beautiful pictures of his two books, I couldn't help think that the night before, in that remote parking area, commiserating after an obscure and rewarding bushwhack, John would have been right at home.
May the hills above welcome another intrepid tramper, and the light be always warm and perfect for capturing the perfect shot.
John could always invoke the sublime with his photographs. This is the last one I took before hearing this sad news. Somewhere, I think he approves:
