Whitewater pioneer Lars Holbek passed away Friday March 13 at his home near Durango, Colorado. He was 51.
Holbek was born in San Francisco in 1957 and grew up in nearby Santa Rosa. He was one of the premier expedition kayakers of the 1970s and ’80s and totaled more than 70 river first descents throughout North America.
“That’s pretty astronomical,” says Tyler Williams, a Flagstaff, Arizona, author who profiled Holbek in his book Whitewater Classics. “Especially when you consider that a lot of those runs were super classic Class V runs. Groundbreaking stuff, really.”
The year 1985 was a good one for Holbek, one that paddlers will remember for generations. Two of his most noteworthy first descents came in that year: the Grand Canyon of the Stikine in northern British Columbia (along with Rob Lesser and Bob McDougall) and Chile's Futaleufu River (with Mark Allen, Phil DeReimer, and Eric Magneson.
Closer to home, Holbek amassed many landmark first descents in California, including: Bald Rock Canyon, Middle Fork of the Feather River; Fantasy Falls, North Fork of the Mokelumne; Golden Gate, South Fork of the American; Generation Gap, North Fork of the American; Hells Kitchen, North Fork of the Stanislaus; Lovers Leap, South Fork of the American; Hospital Rock, Middle Fork of the Kaweah; Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne; Little North Fork of the Middle Feather; Merced Gorge; and North Fork of the Trinity.
Holbek also became known for firing up Class V runs with exceptional speed, including the 10-mile Golden Gate section of the S.F. American in just 90 minutes.
His passion for exploration extended beyond the river, too. Growing up in Santa Rosa, Holbek first paddled at age 16, running swollen creeks on his high school lunch break. He was also a stout rock climber, and topped out on the 2,400-foot Dihedral Wall on Yosemite's hallowed El Capitan. He also took up paragliding in the 1990s.
"I remember Lars advising me, 'It's pretty dicey,' " says Williams, and I remember thinking, if Lars Holbek thinks it's pretty dicey, I better just forget it."
Holbek was on a two-week trip of the Grand Canyon in Arizona last October when he experienced excruciating pain in his abdomen and had to be evacuated to a hospital in Flagstaff, Arizona. Doctors performed a biopsy of his liver and detected a large tumor.
"I saw him just a few days before he was diagnosed," says Williams, "and he wasn't able to do the shuttle to Diamond Creek," where his partners on the Grand Canyon were to be picked up.
Holbek did much more than paddle. He is known for co-authoring The Best Whitewater in California, the definitive guidebook to rivers in his home state. He was also a filmmaker and instructor.
"I really thought of him as a boater's boater," says Williams. "Just a guy who could put you at ease. Obviously, he was very driven, too. Just look at his accomplishments."
Holbek is survived by his longtime partner Nancy Wiley; his mother Miriam Holbek, also of Durango; his father Erik Holbek (Glen Ellen, California), and his brother Suren Holbek (Mount Shasta, California).