Ryan Gosciejew

Many people knew Ryan better than I did, but I want to remember what sticks in my mind.

Sometime in the early summer of 2007, Ryan and I speed hiked up to Barr Camp on the lower slopes of Pikes Peak. I was thinking of it as training for the REI race up the Peak later that summer, but I got the sense that Ryan was more interested in just getting out into the pines and up on the mountain slopes. And in hanging out. Ryan couldn't get enough of hanging out. He'd hang out with anyone; he wasn't snooty.

We hiked hard, both of us at our limit. When we got up to the camp, we sat down on the main cabin porch and Ryan patched up his blistered heel with duct tape or something. He was trying to break in a new pair of shoes. I hadn't heard him mention any pain as we were going up, so I was surprised to see that his heel was actually bleeding. While we sat there Ryan talked with Neal and Teresa, the caretakers of the camp, like he had known them all his life. He had this gift of talking. It was also a curse. On the way down, I just wanted to get some peace and quiet, so I tried to speed ahead. But Ryan kept up. He was sort of limping, but he didn't once mention his heel. We talked about everything from religion to music to mountain biking. The day was really perfect. Not too hot. Beautiful early summer foliage. Birds. By the time we had reached the bottom, I realized Ryan wasn't just babbling, he had a lot to say. I was learning something.

Once we got down, Ryan invited me up to his and Carrie's house for some juice. Driving back to his place, we must have passed 10 people that Ryan knew and waved at. The morning stretched into the afternoon. Hanging out with Ryan had a tendency to do that. He made some fresh juice in his juicer with carrots and apples. Honestly, it was the best juice I've had. He told me what it meant for him to practice veganism. He explained bits of the Grateful Dead poster hanging on his wall; it had something on it, some character, or some image from almost every one of their songs. He showed me some of his strange paintings. And some of our mutual friend Jason's strange photographs. He showed me pictures from a recent cave surveying trip. And his new recording equipment. He was getting pretty heavily into recording techniques right then, and was also a sometime drummer for West Side Bus Project, which was an impressive Manitou Springs band that unfortunately lasted less than a year.

Coming away from my first day of hanging out with Ryan, it struck me that he was terribly interested in me. I've never known someone who talked so much, but of whose interest in me I was so certain. He wanted to connect and he had his fingers in a million different things to connect about. Hanging out with him was a full experience.

When we finally had the race up the Peak (in late July?) Ryan talked all kinds of smack to me and the other competitors. He was one of the few that had run the official race in the previous year and he knew what he was doing. But Ryan had this way of mouthing off that instead of making you feel trod upon, just made you feel like he liked you. He had not trained very hard, and so I beat him up the mountain. At the top, all I could feel coming from Ryan was good cheer. He asked me all kinds of questions about how the race went. He was genuinely curious about my experience. Everything about his face and eyes said, "Man, that was a fun race." He'd brought several bottles of Guinness up to the top and he shared them around with several of us.

He was an official cave surveyor and rescuer. He was a jazz drummer. He was a lover of the old stuff, the Stones, the Dead, Dylan. He didn't get caught up in complaints like the rest of us at REI, he just worked hard. He smiled in such a broad way that his eyes went all squinty. He was frank. Everything about him, his strengths and his flaws, were endearing. He was an avid mountain biker, a one-time owner of the infamous Rick Merril Instigator. He loved being with people.

Ryan died two Saturdays ago. He was 28.