BOB LEWIS, 1921-2005

Bob Lewis, the founder of the Independence Pass Foundation, was born in 1921 in Atascadero, California. His father was an attorney and watercolor artist, for whom Bob, a lifelong inventor, was inspired to create useful devices. Bob’s family summered in Estes Park, Colorado, where Bob began his lifelong connection with and love of nature. He spent his youth camping in the Sierras with the Boy Scouts. On one of these trips, the Scouts heard of the invasion of Pearl Harbor, which led Bob to join the Army. He served in the 10th Mountain Division’s first campaign.

While training at Camp Hale, Bob visited Aspen on the weekends to ski. In 1951, he moved to Aspen and taught biology at Aspen High School. Always looking for ways to connect people with nature, Bob frequently took his students on field trips to Hallam Lake, which he later helped establish as a nature preserve, now the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies.

Bob taught science until 1959, after which he designed lab equipment, worked as an art director for McGraw Hill, and made science film strips for Encyclopedia Britannica. In 1963, he started the Aspen Institute of Field Biology for high school science teachers. At the same time, after reading a book about Louis Braille that belonged to his 12-year-old daughter, he was inspired to create the first of its kind Braille Trail on Independence Pass, designed for sight-impaired people to navigate. The Braille Trail has inspired hundreds of similar trails around the world. Bob then went on to create and found the Wildwood School, an environmentally-oriented preschool in 1974. The school consists of earth-covered domes that mimic nature and emphasize the school’s mission to teach through sensory experiences with the environment.

In 1976, Bob became concerned about the damage to headwaters caused by hard rock mining, especially in Climax, Colorado. He conceived and co-produced with Christopher McLeod a documentary entitled “Down Wind, Down Stream,” and lobbied for tougher regulations against mining pollution. In 1978, Bob started a campaign to restore eroded areas caused by road construction on Independence Pass. As Bob explained, “the Pass road was destroying four ecosystems. By walking over it and seeing the gravel fans covering over wildflowers, I thought, “this is crazy and it should stop.” To support that effort, he founded the Environmental Research Group (ERG), a small, grass-roots organization dedicated to environmental education and conservation. ERG’s work included revegetating and reseeding the damaged readouts along Independence Pass. “The first work on the Pass was done by children in my classes who came up and planted trees.”

In 1989, seeing that the restoration work needed on the Pass would require large projects underwritten by well-funded partners and supported by a team of people who shared his deep respect and admiration for the Pass, Bob founded the Independence Pass Foundation. With his famous passion and persistence, Bob brought together members from federal, state, and local governments, as well as prominent community members, who shared a goal of stewarding and protecting the Pass. The group was called the “Restoration Team.” It was paramount to Bob that the people working with him loved and understood the Pass.

Bob’s dual mission to protect and educate people about the environment ran through everything he did, including his own home. As Mark Fuller, the Executive Director of the Independence Pass Foundation from 1999- 2015 put it: “Bob was a unique mix of passion and scientist. He recognized rational thinking and appreciated it and brought it to bear on many things he did, but he was also emotional and very passionate about the things he believed in. He had three Aspen trees growing through the ceiling in his house, accompanied by storyboards, maps and books. He was a voice for the wildlife that could not speak, the conscience for environmentalism in Aspen.”

For over four decades, Bob continued to be an influential figure in the community, leaving an indelible mark as a local visionary and environmentalist. His former home near North Star Nature Preserve was a wildlife sanctuary with deer, elk, foxes, and a diversity of birdlife visiting. Surrounded by nature, Bob was a teacher of conservation. His unwavering commitment to nature and education has left a lasting impact, including the ongoing work of the Independence Pass Foundation, now in its 35th year, and inspiring generations to cherish and protect the environment he held so dear. “From Aspen, we can all look east towards to rising Roaring Fork Valley and see an actual wilderness.” Bob Lewis passed away in 2005 at the age of 84.