JOHN HENRY HALL 1944–1971

John Hall was a student in geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. Before that he had studied medicine at Harvard University and chemistry at Reed College. It was at the latter that I came to know him in the climbing class of 1963. I was with him when he made his first climb. It was the south side of Mount Hood. So strong an im-pression did he make on me on that occasion that I can still vividly remember his running up the last hundred feet through untrodden, knee-deep powder snow to stand gasping and unsteady on the summit. I have never seen a happier climber than he was that day. His joy was awesome. He seemed to be entirely caught up in the experience of the ascent.

John was a gifted student who enjoyed the rewards of scholarship but he was usually dreaming of the hills and eagerly awaiting the vacations he would spend among them. His dreams took him on climbs in the Cascades, the Juneau Icefield, on the volcanoes of Mexico and Peru, in the Cordillera Blanca, the White Mountains in New Hampshire, the Coast Range in British Columbia, the Sierra Nevada and finally in the St. Elias Mountains. There he led an expedition which climbed Mount Logan and then while ascending Mount St. Elias, John and three of his companions were overwhelmed by a massive wet snow and ice avalanche.

It is no discredit to John's memory to say that in spite of the range of his mountaineering experience, he was not a highly skilled climber. He would never have claimed that he was. He had not learned or even attempted many of the finer, more difficult techniques of rock and ice climbing. He would have preferred a good hike to aid climbing or bouldering. Walls did not interest him. He was perfectly happy climbing on good snow with perhaps a little ice for variety and a modest rock scramble. Though John enjoyed the pleasures of exploration he did not disdain the use of an easy guide-book route if it enabled him to climb the peak he had chosen. John did not go to the mountains to set records, break new paths, or challenge the invincible. He did not seek to defy the elements or conquer the natural world but rather he sought the freedom of being one with them. He had an unusual ability to bear the discomforts imposed by a frequently hostile mountaineering environment. Wet, cold, scorching sunlight, wind, fatigue, hunger, thirst; all these mattered little to him. Mountaineering also provided John with a wilderness experience that could satisfy his restless energy and demand the utmost of his great strength and endurance.

John Hall loved the beauty of the hills and he knew the peace that is to be found in their vast, cold spaces and silences. Indeed, he seemed capable, as few men are, of comprehending and delighting in the full richness of the mountaineering experience. It was as if he had a special relationship with mountains. He was so alive among them.

GEORGE CUMMINGS