UKC

I haven't found any mention of John's passing here and the search function turns up nothing. According to a post by Ed Webster on Supertopo, John died at home in the UK on March 30.

Turner was, I think, among the good climbers of the Brown/Whillans generation, but he came to the US, studied at MIT, and went to work as a chemist in Canada before returning to the UK in 1962.

Turner made a series of ascents at Cathedral Ledge and the Adirondacks in the East and Bon Echo in Canada that were futuristic by the US standards of the day, but he received little recognition from a climbing community that thought the center of progress in the US was in Calfornia. Turner was well ahead of the Californians of the day, both in boldness and technical difficulty.

But he hasn't been forgotten over on this side of the pond, and there is a substantial appreciation of him on SuperTopo that now stands as his climbing memorial. It's worth a read; http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/999872/John-Turner-Appreciation-Thr... .

In reply to rgold:

Thank you for putting this on. To my shame, I'd never heard of John Turner. There are always quiet ones, under the radar, doing stuff that's often conveniently overlooked by the establishment. His routes seem very impressive for their time.

Mick

In reply to rgold:

Another thank you for posting.

In reply to rgold:

Wow. Thanks for posting. I'd never heard of him either, and I'd wager 99% of British climbers haven't.

There's an article to be written about the university climbers of that era. They deserve better, as a group, than appearing as extras in Whillans stories larged up in Dennis Gray's entertaining works. John Streetly is only the most obvious.

jcm

In reply to rgold:

New routing at a high standard and riding to hounds must be a more or less unique double. It's hard to think of anyone else one can visualise doing it, though I can see Dave Birkett at a hare coursing meet.

jcm

In reply to rgold:

I've made contact with Ed Webster to see if it's possible to get a copy of his interviews with Turner for the Mountain Heritage Trust Archive Collection so that more people will get to know about him and his climbs.