Carolyn (Cal, Rainbo) E. Beecher

Carolyn Elizabeth Beecher, “Cal”, “Rainbo”, died peacefully, surrounded by family and friends, on November 2, 2025 at her North Crow home in Ronan, MT, after suffering for two months from the double insults of lung cancer and strokes. Born August 18, 1954, in Plainfield, NJ, Carolyn was the second of Norman and Nancy Bartram Beecher’s four children. Before her first birthday the family had moved back to Massachusetts, to Concord, where she grew up, attending public schools, then Concord Academy for high school.

Carolyn felt blessed that during her upbringing she lived and summered in beautiful, natural surroundings (e.g. the White Mountains of NH, Mount Desert Island, ME), had parents who stressed health and exercise, and took their children adventuring in the great outdoors. That shaped her essence. Music was another significant influence; young Carolyn played the French horn, and as an adult, the recorder, and throughout her life sang along to records (later playlists), and while driving, sailing, camping, skiing, hiking, with family and willing others. As Carolyn grew up, the family hosted exchange students - doctoral students at MIT, and during her junior year at CA, AFS Italian “sister” Carla. Notable family travels included winter break ski vacations in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec; a tour of the Rocky Mountain west from Mesa Verde, CO to Lake Louise, Alberta; and a summer sojourn in a cabin above Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with side trips to Germany, France, and Italy. Her dad believed travel opened hearts and minds to other cultures, ways of thinking. Carolyn embraced that philosophy such that guiding travelers in the glorious outdoors became her life’s work.

After graduating from Stanford University, Carolyn moved to Seattle with a boyfriend with whom she once hopped freight trains across the country. In the fall of 1976 in the Boston area, participating in women’s rights activities, she devoted herself to another lifelong pursuit – advocating for the rights and health of women, Indigenous peoples, local businesses, pollinators, the environment, democracy. Realizing she felt more at home in the wide open spaces of the west, she explored WA, OR, eventually landing in Helena, MT, working at a bakery, living with and loving a woman who called her “Rainbo.” There she met Tary, whom she followed to Lake County, Montana. Together they ran North Crow Vacation Ranch, a gay and lesbian retreat. When Tary died tragically young, she inherited this, her home of decades and now her final resting place.

Over the years, Carolyn wrote for a newspaper, took courses at U of MT, created her own business making tourist maps of the Mission Valley and Flathead Lake region. In 1992 she began her dream job – guiding backcountry trips in Glacier National Park. Later she expanded her guiding to Utah’s Zion and Bryce, Maine’s Acadia. A hiking trip with Carolyn was nature-bathing at its best. She’d point out, teach about bear scratches on pines that smelled like butterscotch, dipper parents showing their chicks how to fish, the area’s unique geological formations and the physical traits of the mountain goats cavorting on them. She both led and inspired clients to stretch their minds, their physical abilities. During off-seasons she traveled to places like Italy, Bhutan, Nepal (where she hiked to Everest base camp), Thailand, Australia, Patagonia, Fiji... and fostered friendships and community in yoga classes, book club meetings, Solstice bonfires, holiday gatherings, ski weekends, and hiking trips. Carolyn guided her last hike in Glacier in August, 2025. At the time she was still swimming almost daily, kayaking, and bringing people together at “Sol Chantaria,” her dear cabin perched on a bluff overlooking Flathead Lake. Carolyn was a nature-lover and a force of nature, energetically following her family’s FOMTI model (fit one more thing in), tenacious, courageous, open-hearted, well-read, a trail-blazer, a free spirit, a rainbow.

Carolyn leaves behind scores of people to remember her fondly, including her partner, Marty Zajanc AKA “Bunny”; her siblings Catharine (Jack Christiansen), Norman B. (Jaci Ensminger ), and Ned Beecher (Christine Clyne); AFS sister Carla Piccinini and her family in Italy; nephews Gordon, Wilson (Desiree) and Steve Nitka; niece Juliana Beecher (Josh Bossin); nephew Jesse Beecher (Lyra Burch); grandnieces Elsa and Faye Beecher and Elena Nitka; and loving friends in MT and across the country.

Memorial celebrations are likely in Lake County, MT and New England over the next ~half-year. Email ebb4258@gmail.com to be on the mail list; please put "Carolyn" in the subject line.

In lieu of flowers, consider a donation that Carolyn would smile upon, to Montana Public Radio or the Flathead Lakers or a women's or conservation group that you are fond of.