Heidi Lieben Hochstrasser | Obituaries
Heidi Lieben Hochstrasser died on December 4, 2016 after a traffic accident in Driggs, Idaho. She was 29 years old, but in those short years she lived a full and remarkable life that touched many people with her adventurous spirit, her many skills and her sparkling energy.
Heidi was born on March 21, 1987 in San Francisco, California. She started her preschool in the Netherlands, where her family lived for a year before moving back to Fairfax, California. There she attended Manor Elementary School, played soccer and softball, and played plays. She was in sixth grade when the family moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where they attended Wickham Elementary, Northwest Junior High, and West High School. She played the flute and volleyball, toured Italy and the Galapagos Islands with school classes and traveled with her family to Europe, Canada, Mexico and Turkey. She enjoyed making art and music, riding horses, hiking with her family, fishing and skiing, and looking after pets.
Her college years at the University of California at Santa Cruz began with her wilderness orientation. She then helped direct these trips, was certified as a Wilderness First Responder, and worked for UCSC Recreational Services where she directed other student excursions, from backpacking and kayaking to wine tasting. She lived on Laurel Manor’s Food Not Lawns cooperative and maintained an extensive garden with fruit trees, ducks, rabbits and chickens, which she slaughtered when they needed chicken soup. She made jams and wine from her plums and wood-fired pizzas in her homemade Cobb oven. She has taught children in the Life Lab of the UCSC Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, taught classes on gardening, baking, and permaculture at the Santa Cruz Free Skool, and interned in the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program in Watsonville, California.
Her semester abroad in Concepción, Chile, prompted her whole family to meet her in Peru to hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu. She and her friend Jacob continued to hike through the Atacama Desert and down to Tierra del Fuego. She graduated from UCSC in 2010 with a BA in Women’s Studies and a BS in Health Sciences.
After college, Heidi helped found Companion Bakeshop in Santa Cruz, where she took over pastry production, sold at farmers’ markets, bike deliveries through town and co-managed the bakery. She led the voluntary urban foraging for the Santa Cruz Fruit Tree Project, participated in CSAs (Consumer Supported Agriculture) and WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). She built her own bike and toured from Barcelona across the Pyrenees and rugged France, exploring baking methods in pastry shops along the way, and ending with a cooking class in Paris.
Two years ago she and Jacob moved to Driggs, Idaho, where they helped build and operate the Teton Rock Gym. She designed her logos, taught climbing, started and trained a traveling team, founded and ran a summer youth climbing camp, and ran a climbing program for local schools where she also worked as a substitute teacher. The adventures with the food continued: Proofbrot for 460 Bakery, catering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming; When she and Jacob slaughtered their own venison, she made jerks and pies. This fall, they successfully hunted a moose and brought it back on themselves. And she kept hiking and climbing, skiing and fishing all over the western United States, indulging her happy friends and family with beautiful handcrafted maps, delicious, healthy food and masterful baked goods from profiteroles to canelés. The graceful climber and skier, experienced baker and artist, popular teacher and trainer Heidi was fearless in the kitchen, fearless in the wilderness, full of joy and loving energy.
She is survived by her parents, Scott L and Julie Berger Hochstrasser (Tomales, CA); her two brothers Franz (Washington DC) and Hans (Elkhorn, WI) along with Hans’ wife Renee and their children Aubree, Cohen and Eldin; her grandparents John and Viola Berger (Chico, CA); and her friend Jacob Yufa (Driggs, ID). A memorial service was held in Driggs on Sunday, December 11th. Another celebration of her life is slated for Fairfax, California on March 25, 2017. Details will follow. Donations are welcome at HeidiLieben.org to support the causes she has so passionately promoted.
