Courtesy of the Sandall Family

Emily Sandall poses on the shore of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in 2003.

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In one of the photographs Emily Sandall's family shares of her in these weeks following her death, she is posed triumphantly before a glassy, glacial lake, a snowy peak in the distance fogged by the cream-clouded sky.

She's smiling, not her normal, big smile that is in all the other pictures, but a satisfied smile - or maybe a sly smile.

In her bare hand is a snowball.

It wouldn't have been a shock if she'd lobbed it at her companion or figured out another way to laugh and revel in such a glorious location.

That was her way for all 25 years of her life, enjoying nature, loving, helping and laughing with other people.

Sandall died Nov. 8 when she fell hundreds of feet off Yosemite National Park's famous Half Dome after a rainstorm created slippery footing.

Her death left family and friends digging into their souls looking for ways to honor her young, full life.

"The things she did in this short life I think are phenomenal," said Sandall's former teacher at Eldorado High School and dear friend, Joan Goessl. "She filled every corner. So many of us talk about the `I shoulds,' but she lived her life doing those things."

Just after graduating from Eldorado High School with a 4.0 grade-point average in 1999, she traveled to Nepal and Mexico, where she worked with homeless children to organize a school and raised money to support organizations opposing child labor.

There, she also forged a fair trade alliance with a group of women in Oaxaca, Mexico, and connected them with a market in Albuquerque.

Her parents, Paul and Rebecca Sandall, plan to continue this trade arrangement. The women, who called Emily "their sister," will be told of her death via e-mail, Rebecca Sandall said.

"She always looked out for the underdog, and she would kind of explain it as the people who might be forgotten," Rebecca Sandall said. "She was always beyond her years that way. But she had this playful side that kept her very pure and young."

Emily Sandall graduated from the University of Montana-Missoula in 2004 and most recently worked as an outdoor guide with children's camps in Montana.

She hoped to open an organic farm for battered women and had taken two months off work and school to help rebuild areas in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.

Her parents, along with her siblings Barry and Laura, are creating a foundation in Emily's name to fund tuition to the outdoor children's camps Emily cherished.

"She was a light for lots of people, a pretty unique person," Paul Sandall said. "I think everybody admired her sense of adventure and sense of humanitarianism."

Sandall was also an accomplished athlete, a runner. In 1998, she was selected as The Tribune's athlete of the year in Cross Country.

At that time, she answered The Tribune's questionnaire:

"My advice is: I hope everyone out there has a reason to smile that outweighs your reasons to frown.

"What people don't know is: I hate shopping. I always feel guilty getting new things when I'd much rather have homemade things or hand-me-downs. And, I like cheese."

This sense of humility, hopefulness and playfulness were always a part of Emily, friends and family say.

"Her death is causing me to reflect on the way I live and looking at this legacy," said Goessl, "her legacy of true beauty in every moment of every day."