Communion With The High Places

The High Places On a worldwide search, Jonathan Daniels acquired a passion for the journey itself. But, in the end, the destination found him.

JONATHAN DANIELS'S NAME was inspired by a memorial service for John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. The text was from the second book of Samuel, David's dirge for his son: "Oh Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places." David's words came to seem like an awful biblical prophecy when, 27 years later, Jonathan died in the mountains of southern Poland. Yet those who knew him understand that his death was not utterly tragic.

"How does an absence flower?" asked the Irish poet John Montague. The story of Jonathan's life may provide an answer. Being the person he was, the story must begin early. At the age of three he made his first unassisted ascent of New Hampshire's Mt.Monadnock. He fell in love with climbing and, more importantly, with mountains themselves. When he and I were still too young to drive, we would hop a Greyhound bus to the White Mountains and talk the drivers into letting us off at the trailheads. Early on, Jon saw climbing as something more than a sport. To him, it was a dangerous form of art. "The grace and elegance is easily compatible to ballet or figure skating," he wrote in his highschool paper. "But in ballet, the beauty is not interrupted by the possibility of a 500 foot fall." Jon clearly understood the risks of climbing. He was unable to go on his own freshman trip because a month earlier he had torn all the ligaments in his ankle in a fall at Cathedral Ledge.

But he led trips each succeeding year, relishing Talmadge fingers, green eggs, Moosilauke, the Salty Dog Rag, shucking corn. He served as an undergraduate advisor, taught climbing, became a "Big Brother," and majored in computer science, saying he liked the discipline's combination of simple logic and creative complexity. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and received a citation for creative writing. Packing up to leave that last night at Dartmouth, he sat on the steps of mid-Mass and cried.

Like many graduates, Jon was uncertain about his future when he left the Hanover Plain. He explored the problem for months, even making a trip to France. "I want to dream in French,"he said.

Jon eventually settled in New York City working in public finance for two large firms. He soon found himself on the executive fast track unusual for a 24 year old without an M.B.A. But he struggled with the inequities of New York. As he walked to work each day, he had to pass a man who had spent the winter in a refrigerator box. Jon searched for ways to help,often taking homeless people to get something to eat, but he could not accept the imbalance between this poverty and the high rise investment banking world. He finally chose to leave Wall Street and explore the world.

He and two companions arrived in eastern Europe in the autumn of 1989. They were in Berlin just before the Wall fell, rode trains across East Germany that carried Hungarians to freedom, and arrived in Poland as Solidarity triumphed. During their 15 days in Poland they never once stayed in a hotel; newfound friends insisted on putting them up. They continued around the world: the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia, Hungary's declaration as a republic, an ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro, a trek around Annapurna at altitudes up to 18,000 feet, the democratic uprising in Katmandu, the gentle culture and devastating poverty of Indonesia.

What came through to Jon on his travels is that life is not about the destination but about the path itself. "Day 1 of the trek," reads a journal entry in Bhulbule, Nepal. "This is bliss. There is no destination—or rather, each step of the trek, each suspension bridge, each stunning mountain, the whole trek is the destination. Therefore it's all about getting there, and not at all about where you are going."

Following his journey, in November 1990 Jon returned to Poland and took a job in Warsaw with the Task Force for Company Assistance Limited, a consulting group that assists eastern European manufacturers to operate in market driven economies. Each weekend, to escape the dreary confines of Warsaw, Jon would head off to climb in the High Tatra mountains, a beautiful, jagged, snow-covered range in southern Poland. It was there that he fell to his death in a winter avalanche, a life that ended too soon.

And yet,there is something about that life that continues to flower for the rest of us—his willingness to live his contradictions: between the wilderness and the city, between family and loneliness, between the inward mind and the outward heart. For all of his passion for the journey itself, Jon discovered an early destination—one that is evoked in one of his favorite quotations. The climber Hudson Stuck said it upon reaching the summit of Mt. Mckinley in 1913: "A privileged communion with the high places of the world had been granted."

Explorer Jonathan Daniels '86

AND YET, thereis something about thatlife that continues toflower for the rest of us his willingness to live hiscontradictions: betweenthe wilderness and thecity, between family andloneliness, betweenthe inward mind andthe outward heart.

The brother of Jonathan Daniels, ANDREW DANIELS is studyingoceanography at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole,Massachusetts.