John was a great climbing mentor to me and several of my friends who recently went through the courses. I had the privilege of sharing many beautiful summits with him, including Olympus, Eldorado, and Baker, but the memories that really stand out belong in the "Hazelton epic" category for which he had a well deserved reputation!
The first was my first rope lead, a basic climb attempt of the NE Buttress of Chair Peak over Memorial Day weekend last year. We started out with clear skies and shortly after starting out from the trailhead John received a call on his cell with the great news of the birth of a grandchild in Colorado. We were all in good spirits, and John of course was at his storytelling best, the gleam in his eye of grandfatherly pride. A couple hours into the approach the weather started to turn, and we ran into more winter-esque conditions than we had anticipated, but John was ever optimistic and by God he had students to get to the top so we pressed on. Always enthusiastic, we kept going, stretching at least my limits, until we finally turned back 100' from the top. We ended up doing several rappels in the dark, me coughing up blood (as I later found I had pneumonia), getting back well after midnight, and had to cancel the next day's climb of The Tooth. John at one point said "I figured if the doctor was coughing up blood and he was still going we must still be OK to go on!" I think we blew the students' minds that day! I did get up Chair with John later in the summer, in slightly better conditions.
The second memorable epic was a private climb of Boston with John and Tyr over Labor Day last year. The pic above is near the summit of Boston. We scrambled and climbed the junk pile of loose rock and got up to the top with John taking the lead much of the way. We had no desire to downclimb the rubble we'd come up, so John suggested a "shortcut" to the Quien Sabe Glacier. The shortcut ended up involving rapping off 3 bollards and a dead man down 45+ degree snow at times, in the dark, the last rappel free-hanging for 20+ feet over a bergschrund, with a 70m turned 50m rope (thanks to rockfall) that we nonetheless rapped 5 times over the break in the rope because we had to! We made it back to camp again well after midnight after wandering around the moraine, but John showed us a lot about keeping moving and keeping our spirits up!
Through these epic experiences John helped to stretch me as a climber and as a person. I will miss his big heart for passing on his knowledge and humor and love of life to all he came in contact with.
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