The object in my hand in this photograph is a Zippo lighter. The way I hear it, John started using the handle "Zippo" on the rec.climbing.useful web forum, where I and many others had met and/or gotten to know him, after settling in on that brand following a series of lighter tests. After I heard about the accident and returned from the search and rescue operation in late-April, I decided to try to leave something on the mountain for John should I return there.

After this shot was taken I dug a shallow hole with my ice axe and buried the lighter there. If you should ever find yourself on that windswept col and you come across the lighter, which is antique silver and says on its cover in embossed letters "Windproof Zippo Lighter," please leave it on the mountain. I know it's environmentally incorrect of me to leave it there. Sometimes you bend the rules.

I was bummed. It didn't look like we were going to find John. We were all concerned about getting down out of the wind, which was gusting to probably 40mph (I later heard reports of 90mph wind gusts on the summit). The two climbers previously mentioned were sitting directly above us on some rocks, looking north toward a basin between the col on the south and a rib leading up to the climbers' route up the summit cone. The Whitney Glacier was beyond. The Jeffs and I hugged and I let a few last thoughts flow about John.

As we stood to head down, the two climbers began to walk toward us, intent on trying for the summit (they were later turned around by wind). Suddenly, one of them pointed behind us and said, indicating something far downslope from us, "Is that a body?"

Moments later, we would find John.