By Julia Caulfield
Patrick Eells was kind, a lifelong learner, brilliant. He was an avid outdoorsman, passionate, the definition of carpe diem.
“You know Pat, on the outside, when you were first getting to know him, was a little quiet and shy, but you could always tell that he was thinking about something,” remembers Peter Fogg, a friend of Eells, “Then when you get to know him more, he’s just a really goofy, silly guy who really just loved everything he did. He was wildly intelligent, and just incredibly kind and generous.”
“I would always turn to him and say ‘Pat, you live the best life’,” says Kristen Lamb, Eells’ friend and roommate. “He worked three years in consulting and it’s not what he wanted, and he just manifested what he felt was a happy life, and he lived that every day.”
Eells died Sunday, May 30th after traumatic injuries suffered from an apparent fall while climbing Gilpin Peak north of Telluride.
On Sunday, Eells told his partner he was going for a run on Sneffels Highline. According to the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office, he was reported missing around 11 p.m. that night. On Monday, Search and Rescue launched a rescue mission. Eells was located and his body recovered on Monday afternoon. He was 29 years old.
A lover of the outdoor, Eells climbed, ran, hiked, and snowboarded. According to those who knew him, always ready to get after the next adventure.
“I mean; Pat was an amazing snowboarder. The best snowboarder I’ve ever known. Absolutely,” says Fogg.
But it wasn’t all about climbing the hardest route, or snowboarding the steepest line. Fogg remembers recently a trip to Wilson Peak. He and Eells were planning to ski the mountain, but decided to turn back when conditions looked unsafe.
“I feel like that was really exemplary of how Pat was in the mountains. He was always willing to go up and take a look, and he was equally willing to go back if it didn’t look safe. We talked a lot about that after that day, and basically came to the conclusion that we hadn’t gone up and done what we intended to do at the start of the day, but it still ended up being amazingly fun and we’re both just really happy that we’d managed to get out and have a great day in the mountains and have fun and enjoy each other’s company,” Fogg adds, “I think that’s really what it was about for him. Obviously it’s great to ski the big lines, but he was really just out there to enjoy life.”
“He was the guy who had the gear, and the plan, and the map, and the snacks – always the snacks and the seltzer,” remembers Hope Logan, a friend of Eells. She remembers skiing Sheep Chute with Eells.
“We had gotten up at like 3 a.m. and it was super cold, and you have to walk up a bunch of talus to get up there. I was super scared. I had a moment,” says Logan, “He just walked behind me and said ‘foot there, foot there, foot there’. He was a total go getter, but he also was the guy who would go behind you with the most patience, and wait for you to take your steps.”
Beyond the outdoors, Eells was imbedded in the community. He was a volunteer for the San Miguel Resource Center. He worked for the Telluride Academy. He was a teacher and mentor at the Pinhead Institute.
“If you could take the adjective ‘nice’ and explode it into a million directions, like our solar system, just all that niceness radiating outward in so many different directions, that was Patrick,” says Sarah Holbrooke, Director of the Pinhead Institute, “He was nice to the kids, and he was nice to the parents, and he was nice to the parents.
She says he was the complete package.
“There’s some STEMy people who are outward facing, but maybe aren’t so good at the laser cutter or the calculus. And then there are some people who are really STEMy who are really good at the calculus or the computer science, but maybe not so good at outward facing,” says Holbrooke. “He was so good at both. He was the guy who could figure how to unplug the stuck 3D printer, and make the laser cutter work on leather, or something weird like that, and then he was also incredibly gentle and kind with the kids in a really genuine way that reached them, that made them feel special and heard.”
Pinhead is creating a scholarship in Eells’ honor: The Pinhead Patrick Eells Memorial Engineering Scholarship.
Eells’ thirst for knowledge was infinite.
“He always had a ton of library books at the house. During quarantine I think he had a third of the Wilkinson Public Library at hour house,” Lamb remembers, “I don’t know how he got away with that. But there were just stacks and stacks of books everywhere. If he wasn’t adventuring in the mountains, he was home on the couch with a book.”
She notes of course their household partook in the quarantine pastime of doing puzzles “and we also did a lot of watching the ‘Great British Baking Show’ every single night. I learned that Pat actually knew a lot about baking. Always, the following day, Pat would be in the kitchen cooking new cookies or some kind of sweet. So throughout COVID times, we always called him our star baker.”
But for those who knew him, there was one person at the center of Eells’ life. His partner Marisa.
“They were partners in everything they did,” says Logan, “They had this beautiful ebb and flow. They were on a ship together and they were making compromises for their relationship, that I don’t think felt like compromises. I think it just felt them contributing their future together.”
Friend Marissa Lampe says, “I work at a victim’s advocacy center for domestic violence and it’s hard at times. Marisa and Pat were a very needed reminder that healthy and beautiful relationships can exist and thrive. They were just a perfect balance to one another.”
“Every time we would have dinner, he was always beaming at her,” remembers Lamb, “He loved her so much.”
Eells is survived by his siblings Andrew and Melisa, his parents Walter and Renee, and the love of his life, Marisa.