Big Magic: Legacy of the Man, For our friend John Duran

For our friend John Duran 

John Duran was bigger than life long before I ever met him, so much so that for a brief time we weren’t even sure he existed. We came of age bouldering in the area now known as the Dalla Mountain Park or, more colloquially, Sailing Hawks, near Durango, Colorado. Back then only a fraction of the boulders were on public land, and many of the climbs were accessed by forays onto private property. We would go to the Animas City Mountain trailhead, as that was the only access before the well-maintained trail system of today, and make the trek into the blocs.

by Garett Dickinson

Note: this essay is published in Volume 26, now available in print

banner photo: John Duran Collection

As we became more familiar with climbing and the local community as a whole, we would hear tales of a mythical figure who had already climbed everything, years ago, with only a carpet square and impeccable power and technique. From the Sacred Traverse to Legacy of the Kid, of which he was the Kid of legend, it seemed the spirit of John Duran had been everywhere and nabbed first ascents on everything. This was back before Google, so we couldn’t look John up and the fact that he had free soloed Fainting Imam, a Todd Skinner 5.12d, or that he had authored hard trad and highballs far across the Southwest and beyond.

Instead, we confirmed his existence via stories from the older climbers we looked up to who had actually spent time with him. They told us he was indeed real, and legends were facts. Then a member of our small circle ran into him at Sailing Hawks, excitedly reporting back that they climbed with the legendary Duran, and not only was he as powerful as reported but also totally chilled out.

Turns out, John Duran was cool as hell.

Before long, we all met John and got to climb with him. He was one of the first people I met who not only excelled at his passions fearlessly and to a world-class degree but was also so nice and down to earth it was utterly disarming. He had a laid-back way of speaking that was surfer-esque, and his soft-spoken cadence would draw out the vowels with his perpetual stoke about whatever topic was being discussed. His stoke was infectious, and it was a joy to get down with his sickness.

I can do my best to try to describe him, although it’s definitely an incomplete snapshot from my limited perspective, but here and there you can find some of his own words. I think this bit from his piece in a 2023 issue of Climbing helps illuminate how his spirituality and discipline walked hand in hand with his climbing, with that unquenchable stoke underpinning it all.

“I had a real purist’s attitude. That mentality of if you’re going to be out here soloing, you have to be on your business. I learned to block out the fear: OK, you have to perform and get in that place, be in the zone, not worried, confident, you know where the crux is. You kind of break it down mentally. I was Catholic, and I would pray an hour with a rosary before my hardest climbs. I was calm. I needed to calm myself. […] I could be so singularly focused: I have this goal, I need to get a job, I want to do this climb, I need to be a better person.”

With his skill, charisma, and résumé, he could have easily secured a bonanza of sponsorships and the like, but for John, climbing seemed to be a pursuit that was personally sacred to a degree it had to remain as free as possible from exterior obligations. In many ways, I observed him to embody that self-described purist, and I respect that about him a great deal. In an age of dilution and distraction, the purity of intense focus is like a cool breeze cutting through a sweltering day.

John explored all over the world, his entire life, and he was a powerful biker as well. Whether bombing along singletrack or logging mile after mile on the road, the man could roll two wheels like a champ and logged many journeys from his saddle.

When we first met him, John was teaching out on the Navajo Nation. He would ride his bike between Durango and Shiprock, shifting his focus from teaching to climbing and back again. This was a life that seemed predestined for him in some ways, a familial lineage he was carrying on. Again, from his 2023 article in Climbing:

“My folks were teachers. My family is from Ignacio, from the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. My dad grew up in Telluride. His father was a hard-rock miner. My father is Taos Pueblo Native and Latino. My mom is Southern Ute and Navajo and Latina. […] My grandparents were educated, my mom’s mother was a nurse, the first southern Ute Indian to become a nurse and have a higher education degree at that level. My father was a teacher, the first Navajo graduate out of UNM to get a university degree and a teaching certificate.”

John would go on to teach all over the world, including in Poland and China, and he would be a big part of the climbing scene at the University of New Mexico for a time. The integrity of his chosen profession was not lost on me. My very first climbing mentor was one of my high school teachers, and I can’t express my gratitude so that it would fully explain what that contribution has meant to my life. John is also like that, and it’s hard to guess how many others he has had a life-changing impact on through his years of teaching and just being himself.

John had a special spot out in the desert, a place you’d never find without him, but since he was so open and generous, he was always inviting others to join him. He took us out there a few times, and once I got to go out with just John. I climbed into his bright red Range Rover that morning looking forward to a whole day climbing with him. On the way out to the desert, we blasted Three 6 Mafia, a staple of his and always turned up to eleven, and talked about fascinating topics like his many ascents in the region and his spiritual views on life.

Once we arrived, he took me on a tour of boulders that I’d yet to see, and he was ever the hyped-up tour guide. The stone is volcanic and the boulders spherical, so the lines are steep and pocketed, and true power and technique are required to ascend all but the warm-ups. The lines were also tall, and the area, with the mighty desert geography looming in the background, seemed perfectly suited for John’s style and personality.

As he gave me the tour, bloc by bloc, he’d point to a line and say, “This one’s a cool warm-up,” and then he’d do it. Then he’d point and say, “Here’s a stellar 8,” and then he’d do it. Next, “Here’s a gnarly 9,” and then he’d do it. He made moves and entire climbs look so easy, as if anyone could do it. Even his deadpoints and dynos were so controlled they looked static, regardless of the grade of the line.

All day he cranked out steep, pocketed power-fests, letting out an exhale and spitting powerfully after each top out. We used to think it was some sort of cleansing practice, perhaps clearing stored energy or tension. I don’t believe I ever asked him about it, so yet another mystery to his magic.

John was certainly powerful, but he was also a superb technician, smooth as silk on every move. He would describe searching for the vectors on each climb and then how he’d apply the data for the send. I would simply nod and say “Oh” or “Ah” to his physicist-like descriptions of his beta, trying to absorb a new way of perceiving this thing called climbing.

While we ate lunch, he pointed to the large wall looming above us and described different multipitch sport routes he’d bolted and traced his finger along the lines of singletrack biking he’d developed on the hillside. Was there no end to the man’s energy and creation? Between the boulders, cliff face, and hillside trails, we were looking across hours and hours and hours of hard work.

At the time I’d just entered my twenties, and John was in his early forties. I’m so grateful that he showed me in the clearest way how one can age with power and maintain an excitement for life that continues to inspire me as I’ve aged myself. I’ve given my spiritual side more room to grow as well, and I’ve found much more fulfillment this way. Mentors like John have helped me arrive at this place. Again, from that same 2023 article about John:

“When I look back at my hardest climbs, there was a point of deep meditation for an hour or so before the climb. […] We are all spiritual beings on a deep level. It’s a profound feeling with the environment. We’re part of it.”

That evening, as we four-wheeled the Range Rover toward the highway over terrain that was pretty gnarly, a word John often used, he told me about the time he narrowly escaped a flash flood on this same road. He described fighting through rising water as he raced over increasingly treacherous rises and falls on the rain-soaked road until he had finally escaped danger. “Waaay gnarly, bro.” I must’ve smiled enough for half a lifetime that day, and I still smile when I think about it.

John would later go on to move to China for many years, and albeit few and far between, we would occasionally message or have long-overdue chats. I never forgot about his larger-than-life inspiration at the start of my adulthood though or the adventures that we had or the philosophies we grew into as we aged in climbing and life.

A few years ago, I went on a different type of adventure, the romantic kind, to take a long-distance connection to the next level of relationship. This person and I planned on me visiting her in Arkansas for my birthday. I had missed some indicators that this was a bad idea however, and she abruptly broke things off the day after I arrived. On my birthday.

This alone would have been a bit of a bummer, but much more important and difficult to deal with was the fact that I had just learned a best friend and lifelong climbing partner was losing his mother, who was also a friend. She was at the end of a fight with COVID, and when I checked in with my friend on my birthday, he informed me it would be very soon, and as it turned out, she passed away the next day.

Alone and heartbroken on a birthday that I had hoped to celebrate an exciting new beginning, I was instead mourning loss, and it was hitting hard. As I sat, vacillating between deep sadness and incredulous frustration, the phone rang. I looked and saw John’s name on the caller ID. I was surprised and taken aback as I answered. John was calling me now, of all times? As I sat alone and mourning in a strange state, I heard him wish me a happy birthday, live and in person all the way from Beijing. I couldn’t believe it, and I spent the evening catching up with my old friend for the first time in many years.

We’ve often said John is Big Magic, and this night I felt it all over again. His timing could not have been more perfect, and it was the first time I’d heard his voice in what felt like forever. He told me about developing entire climbing areas in China, that he’d gotten married, and we compared our experiences traveling in Poland. His stoke was as catching as I remembered, and with each laugh and story, I was, for a moment, free from loneliness and grief.

We spent nearly four hours talking that night, and later we would laugh about how I had to negotiate my way out of a $400 bill with the phone company. As it turns out, accepting long calls from Beijing without an international plan is pricey, but who says Big Magic should be cheap?

It also reminded me how much a simple phone call can mean, and in this way, John inspired me on a very simple and human level. As much as I want to climb well into old age like him and carry a perpetually emanating stoke as he did, I hope even more that I can be there for the people I care about. Sometimes a simple phone call is all that it takes, and you never know where the person on the other end of the line might be when you reach out to them.

John would move back to the Southwest not long after this call, and we were able to get out climbing one day. My best friend, myself, and our tight-knit crew showed John and his wife new boulders, some maybe even new to John. We spent the afternoon chatting about lines and vectors, the beauty of the blooming irises, and whatever else we ended up sharing with each other. Life doesn’t really get any better than that.

At the time, I thought we would climb more in the months to come, and I took that assumed eventuality for granted, because despite a few attempts, it never came to fruition. Now it is with a heavy but grateful heart that I realize this was one of the most special days of climbing I’ll ever have, and I’m so grateful the memories are with me and that I got to once again reconnect with my friend and inspiration from long ago. It’s a bittersweet feeling given the eventual circumstances, but one that I’d much rather have than not.

The day after John passed, I went up to Sailing Hawks to spend some time on top of the Euro boulder, an icon of Durango climbing and a bloc that is crisscrossed with some of John’s signature first ascents. I wanted to bring a small offering of items like fox hair, cornmeal, feathers, and tobacco and to spend some time talking to him and just listening to the wind. I spent a couple of hours reflecting on everything from gratitude to regret as I replayed the different times John had floated in and out of my life. Memories and tears flowed as I watched the local varieties of birds soar through the sky. After those couple of hours, I paid my respects to the four directions and then stood up to climb down.

Taking one last look around the horizon, I happened to see an eagle circling above the distant cliffs. At first, I thought it was one of the turkey vultures that frequent the area, but as it banked into the sun, the unmistakable white feathers caught the light and seemed to glow iridescent. The majestic bird slowly gained altitude as it made its way toward the La Plata Mountains, and I watched until it disappeared from my sight. Then I climbed back down to the forest floor.

For me, John was and always will be a bit larger than life, Big Magic, and a Jedi-master type of inspiration. Not just to myself, of course, but to a multitude of folks all over the world. But the reason the grief and gratitude are so strong is because I was also fortunate enough to call him a friend and to know that he was also just a human like me, with trials and struggles the same as anyone else. John was someone to laugh and tell stories with, to share a boulder’s shade on a hot day with, to offer advice to or receive inspiration from, and a friend who once showed up for me, totally out of the blue, at a time when it really meant a whole hell of a lot.

Thank you, John, we love you, and we’ll miss you. Fly high and free, brother.

Garett Dickinson is a lifelong weirdo spending his blink of time in this life writing stories and songs, hanging with his gatos, and frequently falling off moves that are too hard for him. You can find Garett on Substack as The Human Genome or in the desert/mountain nexus of the Southwest USA.

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