Ian and I moved to Page, Arizona this spring, and almost immediately, Ian got the idea to train for the Antelope Canyon Ultra running race. The course for the race circumnavigates Page on the rim rock, overlooking the blue waters of Glen Canyon against the white cliffs of Escalante, with red towering buttes and a blue Navajo mountain resting on top of it all. Then the race course will drop runners down into a narrow red slot canyon with wavy walls. Essentially, it’s a run through one of the most photographed places in the country, and Ian wanted to sign up to run fifty miles through it.

“Do you want to train with me?” Ian asked me, referring to the fifty miles part.

“No,” I said from the couch.

“Fine,” Ian said, waving me off. “I’m going to call Travis and ask him.”

“That’s a great idea,” I smiled, petting our new puppy who was curled up next to me. When Ian hung up the phone ten minutes later, he came into the room bouncing up and down like a kid on Christmas morning.

“What?” I asked, looking up from my computer. Ian was so giddy he couldn’t stop pacing around our empty living room. We hadn’t yet acquired furniture.

“Travis and I are going to run the hundred mile race!” Ian said, his smile filling up the whole room. Then he started filling up water bottles and looking for his shoes, mumbling something about needing to go on a run right now. The idea of training took over Ian’s life. He was a sucker for discipline, the guy loved patterns and thrived when repeating routine.

“Go, Ian go!” I cheered him on from my bike as I cruised next to him, swaying in figure eight loops around him as he ran down the street toward the trail.

Ian went in and out of periods of intense running throughout his life. In high school, he ran to train for skiing. In college, he ran dogs for money. Ian even ran when he had cancer and his doctors told him not to.

But I mostly knew Ian as a biker. For the last three years of his life, running took the backseat to biking. He spent hours tinkering in the garage when he ordered all the tools and parts to build himself a brand new bike, named the Ogre. Quickly after that, he bought another bike, this time with fat tires named the Ice Cream Truck. With both bikes he could mountain bike in the summer with the Ogre and ride over sand and snow in the Ice Cream Truck. Ian regularly took multi-day solo bikepacking trips into the desert and mountains. Whether it was running or biking, Ian always loved endurance challenges that brought him deep into the backcountry,

The sudden switch from biking to running may have been a result of everything we owned being stolen in our van (more on that another time).

“I guess I’m back into running now,” was the first thing Ian said when the only things we owned were on our bodies. He smirked, looking down at his clothes. He was wearing sneakers, athletic shorts and a tank top, ready to run. Ian embraced the minimalism challenge with enthusiasm.

“Running barely requires any gear, just shoes!” Ian said after his first long run in years. Off the couch, Ian ran fifteen miles.

Watching Ian get back into running was fun because I could see how happy he was doing it.

“Running is a meditation, you know?” Ian asked before his strict 8:30pm yoga then bedtime routine. Running became the best part of his day again. As we settled into our mostly empty house in Page, Ian woke up each day at 5:00am to beat the desert heat. He ran ten miles before breakfast and would come home energized and chatty.

“I’m gonna go on another run tonight, it was getting too hot,” Ian said, opening the refrigerator. I snorted but tried not to let him distract me.

“Tomorrow I need to find some deep sand to run in, know of any?” Ian asked, shoveling bites of a yogurt parfait in his mouth in between words.

“Uh, yeah…deep sand is everywhere. Why?” I asked, looking up from my computer.

“It’s good training. It will burn,” Ian said, smiling.

“Okay,” I smirked, returning my attention to writing. Ian would finish his morning running routine with crunches and pushups, then pull out his sketchbook until I was ready to go hiking for the rest of the afternoon. It was a nice routine, having a couch and a kitchen table to return to in between jaunts outside. After living in a van, tipi, truck, treehouse, and tarp for the last year and a half, our house was an oasis.

We moved to Page to work at an elementary school, the Glen Canyon Outdoor Academy (GCOA). GCOA aims to provide an outdoor learning classroom for students in Page, Arizona.

When Ian signed up for the Antelope 100 Ultra, he chose to take a charity bib; which means that in lieu of paying to run, he agreed to raise $2,000 for a charity of his choice. He chose to raise money for the kids at GCOA.

But on June 24, 2023, Ian drowned in a river while out for a run in the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado. It was sudden and shocking to lose Ian to the wilderness. Travis, along with hundreds of other people across the nation, came to help search for Ian when he didn’t return from his run. Ian’s body was not recovered until September, and his worldwide community is still grieving his absence today. (Ian’s obituary can be found here.)

It took some time for Travis to decide if he would run the race or not. When he called to tell me that he was going to run the 100 miles and take over Ian’s charity bib, I cried. Because the money raised would help the GCOA students go on a badass river trip. In less than 24 hours, Travis reached his goal of raising $2,000 for the school, so he decided to expand his goal to $5,000.

Along with Travis, the sixth graders have been raising money to fund a San Juan river trip this upcoming spring. For most of the students it will be their first overnight wilderness experience and first river rafting experience. Many students at GCOA are Dine/Navajo, and the San Juan River flows through the Navajo Nation, but most students have never seen the river. This trip will provide an opportunity for all GCOA students to connect with the natural world and play outside. The money that Travis has raised so far will go directly to helping these students get on the river!

Travis is still raising money (and he’s super closes to his goal) for Glen Canyon Outdoor Academy, so if you’re interested in donating click here.

Travis and Ian met at Prescott College in 2014 in the freshman orientation line, waiting to get their school photo taken. Ian looked at Travis and said, “Hey man, wanna go on a run after this?” And they did. From there, their friendship was centered around time in the backcountry. Running, climbing, hiking, backpacking, biking, and river running became the backdrop of their college years together.

The San Juan became particularly impactful for Travis and Ian. Several Thanksgivings in a row, Ian and Travis, along with their other friends, opted to float down the San Juan River instead of fly home to sit at their family’s dinner tables. Below is a grainy photo from one of the river trips:

After Ian died this summer, a group of twenty five people floated down the San Juan River for Thanksgiving, perhaps rekindling an old tradition. It was my first time seeing the San Juan, and the river took my breath away with some of the largest petroglyph panels I’ve ever seen and the freakiest uplift of rainbow rocks waiting around each bend in the river.

The San Juan is a special place to many. The headwaters of the San Juan River begins as a patch of snow in the San Juan Mountains and flows into the Colorado river north of Page.

Ian is forever a part of the San Juan River in a physical and spiritual way. He died in one of it’s tributaries, joining the water cycle of the Southwest forever. As I walk by the waters of Lake Powell daily, where the San Juan joins the reservoir, I feel connected to Ian. I can picture him everywhere, running and smiling on the slickrock.

As time passes, I continue to wonder how we can honor Ian, a man so full of zest and love. He was a life long outdoor educator, dedicated to teaching youth in the outdoor classroom. He showed just as much dedication to deepening his own sense of place and learning in the wilderness.

I believe that Ian would love to see the kids at GCOA get to experience the same wonders of the river that he did. I can imagine Ian smiling at the thought of Travis coming to Page to run 100 miles.

In honor of Ian, Travis is training to run 100 miles and fulfilling a charity bib that Ian was unable to complete. I’ve started running too, as I plan to help pace Travis throughout the race, which of course means that my dog Mallow is in training too.

It turns out I actually like running in deep sand. Ian was right, it’s a slow burn workout that I choose when I’m tired and don’t want to run very fast. I get it.

Luckily for us, the side effects of running is better emotional management, more sleep, connection to nature and our bodies, and a clear mind; which is really all a griever could ask for.

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A message from Travis’s Instagram:

Help Travis reach his donation goal here.

Update:

Travis Ran 102.29 Miles For Ian!!