Sadness vs. celebration;  A day of opposites, indeed, today.

On one hand, we gathered this morning at one of Lars's very favorite CA rivers to pay our respect to the passing of a true kayaking Legend while later, some of the same people getting together at my house to help celebrate my birthday. The celebrations of birth and passing, two concepts frequently separated in the minds of people, yet so intimately inter-connected by nature.

We heard of Lars's passing at the river takeout, Saturday afternoon. This came as a shock despite being aware of his battle with cancer. My friend, Mike (BT: "mikefen") had recently visited Lars at his home, found him in good spirits and they even enjoyed some hiking together. We had some hope for his staying power, despite the prognosis that was nearly all negative...

I last saw Lars less than a year ago. He had aged gracefully. Some white streaks of hair but, still a very handsome, athletic-looking guy, the kind females would be fond of looking at. But, something appeared odd regarding Lars. He was driving a nice, clean Mercedes automobile, a far cry from the "dirtbag" years of old when his wealth was measured in terms of how many gallons of gasoline he could afford to buy from the pooled monies for those river shuttles. OMG, I marveled, even Lars got consumed by the System! All hope is lost!

My fears subsided quickly when Lars patiently explained that this shiny Mercedes was a high-mileage project car for his bio-diesel conversion, to be powered by spent french-fries-smelling free restaurant cooking oils, always chased by a pack of salivating, hungry dogs. Now, that was more like the original Lars I remembered.

Way back in years we ran some rivers together but, our paths crossed more often over the kayak racing circuits. Lars threw himself into white water racing with the same abandon as he did into those death defying first runs that he was so good at. He had the perfect athletic build; lean and mean, hard, muscle-bound and plenty of dedicated aggression put into those racing moves. He and Chuck Stanley seemed to be inseparable those times. Going over my drawer of racing awards and medals today, I came up with a particular one, dated October 17, 1982. This was a First Place award for the Pacific Division Championship races, K1-Team Slalom with Stanley, Holbeck and myself teaming up for the gold. Great history and I will always cherish the memories of being on the same team with those guys.

The news of Lars's passing spread like a wildfire. In just a few hours an informal river tribute dedicated to Lars was organized. On this cold and rainy morning nearly 50 kayakers had gathered at the North Fork American put-in. There were some older folks who could directly relate and remember Lars but, also, surprisingly lots of young faces who would likely never had met him. Yet, there they were, all very much in awe of the Legend and respectfully present to pay their final respects.

My wife, Rozsa, has stripped our yard of her carefully grown and beloved yellow and white flowers. Hilde handed out a flowers to all at the put-in with the intent of placing them in the river and have those flowers float this gorgeous canyon that Lars used to boat and loved so much.



Hilde handing out flowers. Phil Boyer of Team Jackson(left), Hilde and Lyndsay Craig (right).


I had never seen so many kayakers on this river, all at the same time, in my 30+ years of boating it. Seemed like and endless stream of colorful boaters navigating the near-perfect technical rapids of this wonderful river section. At the take-out a somber gathering of boaters for a team picture; how great it was to be able to see and boat with all those older and younger friends all at once, at the same time and place. Thank you Lars for bringing us all together.





























The take out for the North Fork American, Chamberlain Falls run.



People, younger and not-so-young, all here on just a few hours notice to pay respect to the passing of Lars

I had one more task that I wanted to do prior to departing the Canyon today. I knew that Lars loved the Grand Canyon and the South West. He spent countless days and trips there, enjoying every day and every minute of it. A few weeks ago I had come across a YouTube video of Grand Canyon scenes, accompanied by wonderful, native-American flute sounds. The song is an improvisation, as most native American flute music tend to be. Since it had no dedicated title, in my mind I decided to dedicate this song to Lars. I carried my own flute with me to the river today and found a few minutes of quiet time to play a variation on this tune to the memory of Lars. Last year, a short time prior to the realization of his condition, I extended an invitation to Lars for my upcoming Grand Canyon trip. Since he had gone on to the Great Rivers of Transcendence now, his presence will be missed on our trip. Yet, I hope that he will be there listening as I intend to play this tune for him in those scenic and colorful side canyons and concert-halls of the Great Canyon that he frequented so often. The variations of this tune will be known as; "Lars's Song".

Please click on the YouTube link below and enjoy the wonderful sounds of the flute, the scenery and think and pay your respect to a Great Guy, the one and only Lars Holbeck. If the link is not clickable that means that I still don't know how to make a clickable link with the Fancy Editor of BT. Please go to the post below where I will place the same link into a Simple Editor that will hopefully be clickable. Or, copy and past the into the address line of your browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6BfAMxHk10&eurl=http://www.missiondelrey.com/native-american-flutes.html&feature=player_embedded

Albert