Edward LaChapelle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward LaChapelle
Ed LaChapelle in 2006
Ed LaChapelle in 2006
Born May 31, 1926
Tacoma, Washington
Died February 1, 2007
Monarch Ski Area, Colorado
Residence USA
Nationality American
Fields Geology, Glaciology, Snow Science
Institutions University of Washington, 1967-1982
Alma mater University of Puget Sound, 1949
Known for Avalanche research and forecasting

Edward Randle "Ed" LaChapelle (May 31, 1926–February 1, 2007) 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.

LaChapelle was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington. Following high school at Stadium High School, he served in the Navy from 1944–1946 and then attended the University of Puget Sound, graduating in 1949 with degrees in physics and math. He then studied at the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, Switzerland from 1950–1951, and returned to the US to work as a snow ranger for the Forest Service in Alta, Utah starting in 1952. Montgomery Atwater, who had established the first avalanche research center in the Western Hemisphere at Alta over the preceding 7 years, said of his hew hire: "To describe Ed LaChapelle is to write the specifications for an avalanche researcher: graduate physicist, glaciologist with a year's study at the Avalanche Institute, skilled craftsman in the shop, expert ski mountaineer. He even looked like a scientist, tall and slender with a slight stoop and that remote look in his eye which means peering into one's own mind."[1] LaChapelle worked at Alta for the next two decades, eventually becoming head of the avalanche center.

From 1967 to 1982, LaChapelle was professor of atmospheric sciences and geophysics at the University of Washington, and then professor emeritus following his retirement until his death. From 1973 to 1977, he was involved in avalanche studies at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) of the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1968, he was involved in the development of the avalanche transceiver, which has since become a standard piece of safety equipment for backcountry skiing. He also travelled extensively to do research on snowfall and glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, and notably the Blue Glacier on Mount Olympus in Washington. He retired to live with his partner, Meg Hunt, in a one-room log cabin in McCarthy, Alaska.

He died while skiing powder snow at Monarch Ski Area near Silverton, Colorado. He was in Colorado to attend the memorial service of his former wife, Dolores LaChapelle, who had died only 10 days before him.

[edit] Books by Edward LaChapelle

[edit] References

  1. ^ Atwater (1968), p. 114.