Laura LaFrate – An Xperience Interview

Laura LaFrate – An Xperience Interview – by Liam Sweeny.

Laura LaFrate is a model, skydiver and all-around adventurer who so loves long walks with her pup that they’ll both be making tracks from coast to coast.

RRX: OK, so tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do for a living, and what do you do for fun?

LL: OK. My name is Laura Lafrate, and I was a full-time model for about 15 years. I actually got into that by accident. After my first month of college, I realized that I just wasn’t focused enough to be in that kind of student setting. I talked to my grandfather, and he said, “If you can get out, get out now. School is always gonna be there, but you can only have certain experiences when you’re young with no responsibilities.” So I ended up getting into a pageant, forced by my mother. I ended up winning, and I signed a modeling contract. From there, I was able to travel to South Africa, Italy, Switzerland, France, and so forth and so on. When I came home, I was contacted by America’s Next Top Model to be on Season 18. I went on that, and I ended up getting 2nd place in the show.

It was a learning experience. I realized from the show that I love modeling, but I don’t like fame. It’s a very different thing in that a lot of people believe what they see on TV; they think it’s the real truth, and that’s who you are. After I got home, I got death threats. I got people showing up at my house. No privacy, no security, and I spent about the next year just sitting at home isolated because I couldn’t take it. I was a young kid. I had just turned 20. I didn’t have that much life experience under my belt.

One of my favorite movies ever was “Power Rangers,” the very first Power Rangers. And I remember Tommy, the White Ranger, jumping out of the airplane with his skyboard, and I always wanted to skydive. My mom ended up working with the skydiver. And he said, “Well, I’ll take her.” I went up for the weekend, and after my first jump, I just knew that this was what I wanted to do.

I ended up working during the day, sometimes nights or weekends or whatever, but any free chance I had, I would drive down to New Paltz and work on my license, and jump and jump and jump. And it just really opened me up to a whole different world and new people. It’s basically like Neverland. You know, kids that just never want to grow up, and people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities. It was just really beautiful that you could have such a group of people that come together for one thing, and just have the time of your life. That’s really what got me into it and what kept me with it.

RRX: So would you say that there is a skydiver culture in our area, or is it a broader adventure culture? And in either case, what of that culture is, like, greater than the sum of its parts?

LL: If you’re talking specifically about the Capital Region, there used to be a skydiving culture here. But the problem, like any business, is that there’s high risk. So, there used to be a drop zone very close to my parents’ house in Scotia, but because of the flood, it ruined the landing area. They were completely washed out. There is some stuff in Saratoga, but really New Paltz is the main hub in New York.

But the one thing is, is that if you’re a skydiver, you have family all over the world, in every state, in every country. I can drive; I’m going to go on this cross-country trip with my dog in a couple of months. And I know for a fact that any job I’m gonna go to, there’s gonna be someone that I know, or knows someone that I know, and it’s just a family that you’ll have for the rest of your life. And that’s something that I really related to as a kid, because I didn’t have that sense of community and family. So it’s just a really wonderful feeling to know that I can show up anywhere and I’m always gonna be welcome.

RRX: You recently got injured. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how your thirst for adventure aided in your recovery?

LL: For the first part, the reason that I got into the accident was 100% my fault. And I take full responsibility for that. I was living in Mexico for the last 12 years. I was in a tumultuous and abusive relationship, and I finally separated and I said, “I need to get back to my family, my skydiving family.” I did not take into consideration that I had not jumped there in a while. I was using a rig that was not mine. I didn’t do test jumps. Also, I was just so overwhelmed. I didn’t do the correct procedures like my forefathers of the sport taught me to do. You have to take every single jump like it’s your first time. And my ego took over, so I jumped the rig that wasn’t mine, a parachute that was too small that I shouldn’t have been using. I fell too fast, and I did not flare fully like I should have. And uh, yeah, help me real quick.

RRX: Well, what happened, the last part, what happened?

LL: It was a naked skydive. It was actually the tradition every year. And so I was doing it, and the ground where we used to jump (back in the day when I was jumping there) was all grass, but they had let it overgrow. So I was jumping into a very bumpy terrain. What I did was like on my old parachute, I used to half flare and then fully flare out as I’m sliding in. Because when you’re naked, the last thing you want is to have grass burns. I did not do the full form. I did not do the full function, and I ended up eating the ground. I bounced and I broke three vertebrae in my back.

RRX: So now that you’ve recovered, what are your plans vis-à-vis skydiving?

LL: What I’m gonna do is, this next season, I’m gonna get a big canopy, so I land very slowly, and I’m gonna go right back to square one, start from zero. So I’m gonna do that.

More from Liam Sweeny…