Dolores LaChapelle
Encyclopedia
Dolores LaChapelle was a mountaineer
Mountaineer
-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...

, skier, T'ai chi teacher, independent scholar
Independent scholar
An independent scholar is anyone who conducts scholarly research outside universities and traditional academia. Independent scholars play an especially important role in areas such as art history and other humanities fields...

, and leader in the Deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...

 movement. She graduated from Denver University in 1947 and then spent three years teaching skiing in Aspen, Colorado
Aspen, Colorado
The City of Aspen is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 5,804 in 2005...

. In 1950, she made the first ski ascent
Ski mountaineering
Ski mountaineering is form of ski touring that variously combines the sports of Telemark, Alpine, and backcountry skiing with that of mountaineering...

 of Mount Columbia
Mount Columbia (Alberta)
Mount Columbia is the highest point in Alberta, Canada and the second highest peak in the Canadian Rockies after Mount Robson. It is located on the border between Alberta and British Columbia on the northern edge of the Columbia Icefield. Its highest point, however, lies within Jasper National Park...

, the second highest peak in the Canadian Rockies
Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies comprise the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains range. They are the eastern part of the Canadian Cordillera, extending from the Interior Plains of Alberta to the Rocky Mountain Trench of British Columbia. The southern end borders Idaho and Montana of the USA...

, and also of Snow Dome
Snow Dome (Canada)
Snow Dome is a mountain located on the Continental Divide in the Columbia Icefield, at the intersection of Banff National Park, and Jasper National Park, on the Alberta and British Columbia border in Canada.The mountain was named in 1898 by J...

, the hydrographic
Hydrography
Hydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...

 apex of the continent
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. After marrying Edward LaChapelle
Edward LaChapelle
Edward Randle "Ed" LaChapelle was an American avalanche researcher, glaciologist, mountaineer, skier, author, and professor. He was a pioneer in the field of avalanche research and forecasting in North America....

, she spent a year with him in Davos, Switzerland from 1950–51, and then they moved to Alta, Utah
Alta, Utah
Alta is a town in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 370 at the 2000 census, a slight decrease from the 1990 figure of 397....

. In 1952, their son Randy was born in Denver, Colorado (Randy changed his name to David LaChapelle in his adult years). As a family they would rotate three times a year to their homes and workstations in Alta, Utah, where they spent winters and Randy/David was homeschooled; the Olympic Mountains Blue Glacier Washington, where they spent summers; and Kirkland Washington. Dolores and Ed moved to Silverton, Colorado
Silverton, Colorado
The town of Silverton is a Statutory Town that is the county seat of, and the only incorporated municipality in, San Juan County, Colorado, United States. Silverton is a former silver mining camp, most or all of which is now included in a federally designated National Historic Landmark District,...

 in 1973 initially because it was here that Ed carried out avalanche research. Later they would separate though they maintained their friendship and professional literary companionship. Ed set up life in Alaska. Dolores, however, enjoyed the San Juan Mountains the rest of her life. She operated Way of the Mountain center from her home publishing, writing, teaching, skiing, sharing ceremony and music.

Dolores was first and foremost a philosopher and researcher. The extent of her research spanned a complex set of topics, which she tracked in a vast library of books and articles. She noted and cross-referenced every text in such a tight web of interrelated material that she would eventually include in her collection, over a dozen thick and hand-typed, three-ring binder compendiums linking it all together. This rare and fascinating body of research includes hundreds of biographical files chronicling a rich lifetime of mountain climbs (she climbed all 14K mountain of Colorado Rockies by age 20), letter correspondence with authors and poets such as Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

 and Art Goodtimes
Green Party of Colorado
The Green Party of Colorado is the state party organization for Colorado of the Green Party.The Green Party of Colorado first attempted to qualify for statewide ballot status in 1994. While the party was unsuccessful in gaining ballot access, the party did qualify for Qualified Political...

 and her overlapping years married to pioneering avalanche and snow scientist Ed LaChapelle. This body of wisdom was stored in Silverton awaiting the opportunity for better archiving and accessibility until July 2011 when the collection's steward, Ananda Foley, (equivalent of Dolores' daughter-in-law) arranged a proper home for this unique collection with Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. Ananda has organized the biographical materials and her interest in personal unfolding to tell the stories of the LaChapelle lives. A posting of this project can be found at the LaChapelle Legacy website. She looks forward to hearing from persons interested in participating (info current as of October 2011).

In 2004 Dolores LaChapelle was received a "Ski History Maker" award from the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

as one of the ten women who figured most prominently in the history of skiing.

LaChapelle died on January 21, 2007.

Books by Dolores LaChapelle


Quotations

"In traditional cultures, when a woman is through bearing her children she automatically becomes an elder who is consulted by all the tribe because she "knows." - Sacred Sex, Sacred Land, and Relationship at: http://lebendig.org/lachapelle.htm

"Contrary to generally accepted opinions, it was neither Christianity nor the development of agriculture alone which created the split between humans and the rest of nature in our European tradition." - Sacred Land, Sacred Sex: Rapture of the Deep, p. 24

Articles by Dolores LaChapelle

  • Ritual is Essential, Art and Ceremony in Sustainable Culture, Spring, 1984, Context Institute, http://www.lib.utah.edu/spc/photo/P981/P0981.html

  • Sacred Sex, Sacred Land, and Relationship, By Dolores LaChapelle. Talking Leaves, Winter 2001. Volume 10, Number 3. http://lebendig.org/lachapelle.htm

Further reading

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