EVANS

Friends point to the Thursday morning paddleboard and potluck at Evergreen Lake during the summer attended by as many as 25 people, where she also makes sure there’s enough food for the entire lake staff. It’s a way to enjoy the lake, for friends to enjoy each other’s company, to be outdoors and to chat with the young people working there.

For Evans, it’s about her family, her faith and her enduring love of the outdoors, especially the desert and water, calling being on the water her retreat.

Growing up

She grew up in a river family in southern New Mexico. Her dad, Bill Belknap, had a river outfitting business and was a photographer, leading river trips on Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon. He took photos for National Geographic, and Evans’ friends say she’s in an issue from 1967.

Her dad instilled in her an “insatiable love of the Grand Canyon and all things Native American,” she said.

Loie met her husband John Evans at Lake Powell in 1966, noting, “He was pretty cute.”

They married in 1967, and he worked for NASA in Houston, while Loie, a University of Colorado graduate with a degree in arts and sciences, worked in a brokerage firm.

Living in a big city was not for them, so they decided to move to Colorado, landing in the foothills in 1971, and John worked for Colorado Outward Bound, which provides outdoor experiential education for all ages.

Their daughter Lynn and her grandchildren still live in Evergreen, and their son Barry died in an accident at the age of 15.

The couple had many adventures together, and traveling was part of their DNA before John died in 2020. Loie has traveled all over the world from Antarctica to Africa, Mongolia to Bhutan. She still would love to travel to Iceland.

Loving the outdoors

Rafting has been a big part of Loie’s and John’s lives, so much so that Loie’s family started Belknap’s River Guides in 1969, and updating the books each year continues to be a project for Loie and her brother Biff. The books are considered the leader in river rafting guides, and Loie, who continues to be president of Westwater Books, takes orders and packages books for shipping from her Evergreen home.

Leading river expeditions is among her passions, teaching others how to row, read the river and run rapids. She is constantly leaving for trips on various rivers, especially in the western United States.

Loie also has become an avid birder, learning from the late Sylvia and Bill Brockner, who were heavily involved in Evergreen Audubon and taught others about different species of birds here. She called them her mentors.

Loie remembered attending her first dawn chorus sponsored by Evergreen Audubon where birders walk around the lake together to find different species. She didn’t think to bring a pair of binoculars. Now the binoculars are always around her neck, and she can be found during migration times in the spring and fall, walking the lake and cataloging the birds she finds.

A passion for baking and more Loie, who always liked baking and cooking, had friends who owned a ranch in Wyoming, and she thought it would be fun to work in the kitchen. She watched the baker and said, “I can do this.”

So she took pastry classes and became the ranch’s baker for three summers. She still does a lot of baking, and she also teaches river cooking and Dutch-oven cooking to river rafters.

Friends say she makes awesome chocolate chip cookies that she distributes freely to family, friends and soon-to-be friends.

She has a knack for making others feel welcome and accepted, and her enthusiasm for the simple joys in her life is contagious.

Loie put it simply: “I love life, and I love this community.”