Laurence
(Larry) Joseph Campbell, long time member of the Mountaineers,
died from cancer on June 2, 2011. He was born in West
Virginia on February 26, 1937.
A Snippet of Climbing History:
Larry, along with other early Los Alamos Mountaineers
including Don Liska , George Bell, Bill Hendry, Len Margolin and
Eiichi Fukushima were very active in the area putting up climbs
in the Brazos and other areas:
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Eiichi
Fukushima recalls that he and Larry climbed Battleship Rock
(near Jemez Springs) right on the prow and found it to be an
"easy" rock climb.
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In the summer of 1969, Eiichi
and Larry did a first ascent of the steep south face of
Little Annapurna Peak in the Eastern Cascades. This peak is
located in the Enchantment Lakes region, near Mt. Stuart.
The climb is now described in Fred Beckey's guidebook for
that region.
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Along with Don Liska and
others, Larry was one of the "extreme Shiprock enthusiasts"
in the days before the accident that officially closed it to
climbing.
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Larry and Don Liska put up Cat
Burglar in 1971, one of the best climbs in the Brazos.
-
Also in 1971 Larry along with
Don Liska and Eiichi Fukushima were part of an expedition to
east Greenland, on whose glaciers they like to say they
pioneered a number of "first descents".
Larry was elected to the American Alpine Club in 1972. During
the 70's he worked with others to improve the coordination of
government and volunteer search and rescue activity in New
Mexico.
Education and Career: After
receiving Bachelor and Masters degrees in physics from MIT he
obtained a Ph.D. in physics from U.C. San Diego, then joined the
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) in 1967. While at the
laboratory he worked as a theoretical physicist on projects in
cryogenics and condensed matter including quantum fluids,
superconductivity and some speculative areas such as anti-proton
containment. He was appointed the first program manager for the
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Los Alamos, and was a
Fellow of the American Physical Society. Larry retired from Los
Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in 2001 after 35 years of
service.
Other Interests: Besides
mountaineering, Larry also had a passion for photography. This
led to his participation in the Forum on Science and Art of
Santa Fe for several years, and he contributed to juried shows.
He was interested in the possibilities of black-and-white
photography. He experimented with innumerable cameras, lenses,
filters, and printing techniques. His subjects were often Los
Alamos and New Mexico scenes, from distant views to close-ups,
but there are many other things in his portfolio, including
photographs of petroglyphs and pictographs and a series of
abstract water patterns from a "water table" that occupied his
studio for over a year. In the last decade of his life, Larry
started to work with digital photography, but that never
replaced his love of the subtle possibilities and painstaking
requirements of analog work.
Larry also served as president of both the L.A. Historical
Society and the L.A. Rotary Club, and was on the board of the
New Mexico Historical Society.
Family: Larry is survived by
his wife Katherine Campbell of Los Alamos; daughter Elizabeth
Campbell of Boulder, Colorado; and sister Connie Lunsford
(Gordon) of Lillian, Alabama.
Larry is
mentioned repeatedly in LAM's
History!
