"It’s Lara, not Laura!”

Only after scolding me a few times with her furrowed brow and scornful eye did I get her name correct. It was obvious that she believed that what’s in a name counts. How many times did we witness her correct the newly introduced…?

I feel privileged for being introduced, and making the cut, back in 1994. She was standing outside a classroom at Seattle central community college on Cap hill. I must have turned bright red when she came up to me and started a conversation, about climbing of all things! It must have been my ragged looking rucksack that tipped her off. Back then there was only one that did double duty for school as well as climbing. Lara could pull any introvert aside and open them up like a notebook. It was amazing. It turned out, from conversation, that she had just returned from some exotic locale south. Neat, I thought, and in classic Lara form she pulls this guy aside and says, “This is my friend Steve”. Lara was a connector. Lara could take many scattered communities and link them effortlessly. You see, invariably you would be standing around with her at the UW wall or the crags and she would have someone come to her and say “HEY Lara, its been so long, how are you…?!” To which she would reply, “Great! Say do you know my friend here so and so….” And so it went with Lara. It seemed like everyone I knew, knew her. Funny how that was.

In the short years I knew her, I came to appreciate the Lara that was the straight shooting, no BS side. One day she sauntered across the street with her punk rock face on and says, “what’s up with you and your down company… I mean come on man! Somebody has to start something around here!” It was great, and I can never forget it. Maybe it was her arrow-like ability to proceed forward in life, despite all hurdles, that made her seem taller and faster and more graceful. She always said what was true in her heart, which I think was inspirational to many of us who knew her well.

When you needed help or help finding help, she was there for her friends. She was deeply loved by all of us who know her, and was revered by those who knew of her and her talents. She was as special a person as you would ever hope to meet on the trail we all move along. I can only see Lara as the beauty and danger, the great juxtaposition in the mountains. It was as if the chaos and serenity of the hills were within her as well, all mixed up, yet in complete equilibrium.

Boy what a barn hoedown we had when Lara and Chad wed in 2000. Times were a-changing! It was around then when my then 1 year old daughter Emma, re-named them ChaCha and LaLa. As most of you may know, LaLa and ChaCha lived across the street from us. This was the union of two incredibly powerful individuals and it was here we witnessed them blossom. LaLa had arranged the rental for us, which at the time was a difficult thing to do in a bustling Seattle market with little coin. She knew we were in need of a house now that we had a little girl and Sockeya, the dog. Lara, knowing everyone everywhere, made it her personal mission to help us. Like all things for Lara, it was somehow magically within her power. She did more random good deeds than I know of, too numerous to count I’m sure. It was there I saw my two friends, of course with the supervision of Robert, tear apart Grandma’s house bit by bit and rebuild it into Lara’s dream home.

To say that we will miss our friend is too simple. The void that Lara leaves in the community and in the deepest places of our hearts is more powerful than any avalanche, bigger than any sea or mountain. One of the last acts of her seemingly endless generosity towards us was to give me the old windows from her house for my shop in Twisp. I look out at the North Cascades through them every day, and I think of you then my old friend. I think of the good times, which were many. And I think of the bad times, like Greedy biting me, which were thankfully few. I miss you terribly.

Tom Halpin, Twisp, WA 5.14.07

Lara & D ‘working’ at our wedding, 2001.