Lyn Ann Yarroll

Lyn Ann Yarroll, 53, passed away May 23, 2010 in Lakewood, Colorado. She was born August 2, 1956 in Provo, Utah to Warren and Verda Yarroll. Lyn died of cancer and was in the care of hospice for the last months of her life. Survived by husband and best friend, Tod Bacigalupi, of Conifer, CO; special niece, Vicki Lyn Yarroll; step-son, Paolo Bacigalupi; grandson, Arjun Bacigalupi; siblings: Don Yarroll, Marjorie Nierman, Helen Bodle, William Yarroll and Kathy McIntyre; and numerous wonderful nieces and nephews. A memorial service and celebration of Lyn's life will be held on Monday, June 14, 2010, 4:00pm, at the Conifer Community Park at Beaver Ranch - in the Tipi Lodge, 11369 Foxton Road, Conifer (http://www.beaverranch.org). In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to: Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club 1536 Winkoop Street, 4th Floor Denver CO 80202 (online at http://rmc.sierraclub.org) OR The Denver Hospice 501 South Cherry Street, Suite 700 Denver CO 80246-1328 (online at http://thedenverhospice.org) In a recent letter describing her life Lyn wrote: ""I was a hiker and climber, a writer, a small time remodeling contractor and a librarian. I volunteered for environmental groups and actually won awards from both the state Sierra Club and the Evergreen Audubon Society. I loved being involved with other activists, hiking with my friends and driving the ""Feds"" crazy with my dedicated drive to make them pay attention to the environment. I also am an amateur composer of little songs, and playing the piano is my means of relaxing."" Lyn's life was an adventure and she lived it well. She left home at the age of sixteen to live with her sister Kathy and finish High School a year early. She married, divorced and set out hitchhiking around the southwest United States. She found herself in Texas where a truck driver warned her that hitching in Texas wasn't safe, so she set out with him for Arizona, and he gave her a job caretaking his house for six weeks while he was on the road. She left there for the Grand Canyon, where she hiked to the bottom of the canyon and up to the north rim only to find the park was closed for the winter. With snow on the ground, a Park Ranger closing things down found her and took her to the highway where she continued to Utah and finally back to Colorado. She next moved to Leadville for six weeks, flopping in an abandoned school, fending off rats at night and waiting tables in a bar. Glenwood Springs was next, where she found a home in a boarding house on Main Street. While riding her bicycle to work she was hit by a drunk driver and got a severely broken leg, that due to complications never healed quite right. Always wanting to pay her own way, and still with a full leg cast, she got a job in the kitchen at Colorado Mountain College. After a couple of months, her boss thought she had too much potential to stay in a kitchen, and got her in touch with Colorado Department of Disability. She was given a grant to go to college and become a teacher. She chose Adams State College where she met her second husband Tod in 1979. That summer, with Lyn using a cane because her leg was still not working well after the bicycle accident, they climbed Mt. Blanca, cheered on by a Colorado Mountain Club group that gave her an ovation when she finally pulled herself to the summit. With that accomplishment, all the peaks of Colorado were possible, and Lyn flourished. Together, Lyn and Tod moved to Ft. Collins so Tod could get his Ph.D. in sociology. Lyn finished her Bachelors Degree at CSU in Social Science and graduated Suma Cum Laude. While in Ft. Collins, Tod's son Paolo came to live with them and overnight Lyn became a step-mom. She spent hours with Paolo, always being home after school to play with him and coach him in reading and math. After three years in the Fort, Lyn and Tod moved to Ridgeway, where Lyn became active in the local Episcopal Church, singing in the choir. Lyn had always loved books, and when a job opened up for librarian in Ouray, she applied. She was the Ouray librarian for two years, and during that time applied for and won a grant to remodel and expand the library. Lyn loved libraries because they give knowledge and entertainment to anyone for free. She used to say, ""they are the one truly socialist institution in the United States."" At the same time, Lyn was an active member in Ouray County Search and Rescue and served as the radio operator for the group. Ouray provided an opportunity to hike and climb every week, and she and Tod went to all the peaks, lakes and valleys they could find. But, after Tod fell through a plate glass window while running his fix-it business, Lyn told him to ""go get a real job."" Their next stop was Greeley where Tod taught at UNC. In Greeley, Lyn's skills as a writer grew. She wrote for Greely Style, State Farm, and the Greeley Tribune. She won the Best Writer award from the Northern Colorado Writers Association for her article, ""Greely, A City for the 90s"". Her contacts through writing led to her leading a campaign to successfully organize the first Earth Day celebration in Greeley in 1990. This was the beginning of her career as an environmental activist. She moved from Greeley when Tod got a job in Denver teaching at Metro State. They spent three years there remodeling their house, and helping friends do remodels on their homes. At the same time Lyn was writing songs, mostly for herself but also for others. She wrote one protest opera about Desert Storm and numerous other songs. After Denver, she and Tod moved to Conifer where Lyn became the Chair of the Mount Evans Group of the Sierra Club. Lyn's accomplishments as an environmentalist were many but the most important were her successes in the campaign to keep the Federal Highway Administration from turning Guanella Pass, west of Denver, into a true highway between Georgetown and Grant. She organized citizens, found engineers, and created an alternative plan that ultimately the FHWA accepted. This new plan kept the steep hills, sharp switchbacks, and the original alignment of the road, but more importantly maintained the rural backcountry nature of the road. Without her dedication Guanella Pass would have become a two lane highway like Berthoud Pass to the north. Instead, it will remain a rural backcountry scenic byway. While she was busy fighting the Feds over Guanella Pass she was also Chair of the Mount Evans Group of the Sierra Club, and a mapper for the Upper Arkansas and South Platte Project. Along with her husband, she mapped hundreds of miles of trails and road along the Continental Divide north of South Park and in the Collegiate Peaks in order to create accurate maps of the true boundaries of roadless areas so they could be protected. As part of this project she and Tod followed old, long overgrown trails into pristine valleys that rarely, since mining days, felt the tread of human feet. They measured the diameters of trees, and went off-trail to find spots no one had gone to before. On these trips she frequently found old growth trees which even two people could not wrap their arms around, and she hugged them listening to their spirit. Throughout their years together, she and Tod climbed numerous mountains, especially the ones that others distained because they weren't fourteeners. These were the places she loved; quiet valleys, clear lakes and isolated peaks. She loved the backcountry of Colorado and some of it will be preserved for the future generations because of her dedication to the environment. To share memories of Lyn and condolences with her family, please click on the ""sign guestbook"" tab below.