Hard Lara, Soft Lara

I've known Lara for at least 13 years, but only in the past few have I gotten close enough to her to officially join the teeming ranks of her friends. And what an experience it has been! I know if I hadn't gotten this close to her recently, it wouldn't hurt so bad to know she's gone. But all I can think about is how much I wished I had spent even more time with her. She had a knack... well, she had lots of knacks... but the one I'm talking about is her knack for friendship. It's absolutely true that all her friends were her best friends, and she made me feel that way too.

Everything she did was the perfect mix of hard and soft. She would push herself hard, but keep everything in soft perspective. She would say what was on her mind with brutal honesty, but you knew she meant it with the utmost tenderness. She would push for the summit with raw and unstoppable determination, but if she was denied the summit for some reason, well, the mountain would still be there next time.



In late September 2005 we had the opportunity to join Don Serl on one of his trademark quests for a new route on a Coast Range peak. Don almost couldn't make it because of monetary concerns - he wasn't sure he could justify the expenses of the required boat ride and long drive and taking a couple days off work. But Lara was so psyched that she said "That's silly, we'll pay!" I agreed with her, and that did the trick. With the pent-up energy of two previous failed Coast Range trips, we headed to the great white north in my car, picking up Don in Abbottsford and driving through the night. Lara was driving at 1:00 am in a snowstorm just outside of 100 Mile House, when she noticed my temperature gauge skyrocket! She started hyperventilating and pulled over... the radiator was dead cold! Bad news. We couldn't figure out the problem there, so we rolled down the hill to 100 Mile House where there was, thankfully, a tiny Subaru dealer. Over the next 3 days, while my engine was being taken apart piece by piece and put back together to no avail, Lara and I explored every inch of that beautiful town. During that time she exposed me to her life through her stories, which came in an endless, enrapturing, hilarious stream. She talked about her family, friends, and the concept of friendship, and I was amazed by her insight into relationships. She had an incredible intuition about people, she instantly knew who could and couldn't be trusted, and she was able to connect at a very deep level with people very quickly.




On the bus ride home, she struck up a friendship with a young Swiss kid who was on a whirlwind solo tour of Canada, and I listened between dozing off to them talking about live in Switzerland and the details of his relationship with his girlfriend back home late into the night. We didn't get to do any climbing, but in spite of how excited she was to go on the trip, she didn't seem to express anything but the most superficial disappointment. It was as if her time with me there, even though it was just wandering around some podunk town in BFE BC, was the most important thing.

She said "Mother Hubbard, I'm never driving your car again!" Turns out she was right.



The saddest thing about losing her, for me, is that there will be no more times with her. I still have my memories, which have in fact become more vivid now, but all the things I'd been looking forward to doing with her in the future are now no longer possible. She and Chad and I made an attempt on a new route on Colonial Peak, and she always was pestering me about going back there. Once again, our failed attempt didn't faze her one bit, she smiled the whole way up and down, and just got more excited about the next time we could try it!

Listening to her tell her crazy snowboarding stories of when she lived in Valdez on the drive to Valdez after Mark's wedding last year, then seeing the very mountains she had shredded as we drove over Thompson pass, I wondered how she ever survived those years in such high avalanche hazard day after day, before she even knew much about avalanche safety! She did a lot of things I don't know how she survived. She was a survivor by every definition. Until now.

She was obsessed by the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains! The remoteness and beauty and quality of climbing, it was a place that just fired her up. Five of us were finally able to piece together plans to go in there and climb Mt. Kennedy, and I was really looking forward to the trip, a little because of the cool location, a little because I hadn't had a chance to go on a big climbing trip for a couple years, but mostly because I was just excited to spend 3 weeks with friends in the mountains. Unfortunately a number of factors conspired to dismantle the trip over these past few months... Forrest's and Ade's jobs clamped down their vacations, and the conditions turned out to be unsuitable for flying in to Kennedy. It was only in the wake of this failed trip that Lara and Jed salvaged some plans to go to the Alaska range, and I bowed out with the intention of making their trip more successful as a party of two, since I had more flexible vacation and could take another trip. She touched me once again by her efforts to accommodate my climbing needs, begging me to go in spite of the obvious advantage a 2-person team would have. In some ways I'm glad I didn't go, but in other ways I know things would have been different if I had gone... but it's easy to play the "only if" game, and I know it's a pointless exercise.

Lara packed her life with many things, but the most important was her friends. She had her priorities straight. What she taught me and continues to teach me every time I recall memories with her was how important it is to be close to our friends. Friends are the core of our existence. Cherish the time we spend together. Time goes by, and we don't have forever. But don't stress about it. :-)

Lara, you will forever be one of the most incredible people I have ever met, and I will miss you terribly! You can sleep when you're dead. Peanut butter jelly time. Rest in peace.

Love, Dan Aylward