Ryan O’Donoghue — father, husband and boss at outdoor nonprofit First Descents — dies at 46

There’s a Cherokee fable that describes two wolves battling in the heart of every human. 

One is darkness, representing hate, anger, resentment and guilt. The other is light, representing love, beauty, peace and empathy. A young boy asks his grandfather which wolf would win. 

The grandfather answers: “Whichever one you feed.” 

Ryan O’Donoghue, father, husband and 12-year boss of the First Descents organization that brings young people with life-threatening injuries on outdoor adventures, often shared that story. It earned him his nickname of “Wolf.” Everyone associated with First Descents gets a nickname. More people called him Wolf than Ryan. 

O’Donoghue — let’s just call him Wolf, like everyone else did — always shared that there was more to the Cherokee story. The old man actually tells his grandson that he needs to feed both wolves because each is critical to a balanced existence. 

“Feeding both wolves means they will serve you and everything you do will be part of something greater, something good, something that makes lives richer,” Wolf told a new friend several years ago in a text, sharing the background of his moniker. “And when there is no internal battle inside of us we can hear the timeless voices of wisdom that will guide us in all decisions. Peace and harmony are the mission.”

Wolf was felled by the evil wolf last week. After laboring to overcome a mental health illness, he took his life on Friday, May 9. He was 46.

A perfect fit for First Descents

The tragedy of this crushing loss will never eclipse Wolf’s gifts to our world. 

Wolf and his First Descents team delivered joy and laughter to thousands of ailing people whose lives were shadowed by pain and fear. First Descents’ adventures on rivers, beaches and cliff faces offered hope and infused life into lives threatened by disease. Wolf helped carry the organization’s mission of “Out Living It” with a promise that adventure might not only add days to young lives savaged by cancer, but it could add life to those days.  

Kayaking, climbing and surfing anchored the Out Living It ethos. Under Wolf’s leadership, First Descents began offering camps for young adults with multiple sclerosis as well as caregivers stressed by the pandemic. The organization last year launched a fundraising campaign to build permanent facilities for its kayaking, climbing and surfing camps. 

Volunteer slots — which rank among life’s most transformative experiences for everyone who helps out at a First Descents camp — fill up in mere hours every time the organization releases sign-up sheets. The group’s annual gala at Beaver Creek raises hundreds of thousands of dollars in an emotional and inspiring night. 

First Descents has hosted weeklong adventures for more than 13,000 young adults in the last 24 years. The organization offers as many as 100 programs a year for an overlooked demographic of cancer fighters. 

“It’s so cool when people recognize and celebrate the healing power of adventure,” Wolf told The Sun in 2022 as a group of more than 100 donors and alumni plundered deep snow at Silverton Mountain as part of an inspiring annual fundraiser. “We see it so often. Everyone who gets involved in supporting First Descents, they end up getting out more than they put in.”

The job was a perfect fit for Wolf. His brother Colin died in August 2005 of cancer. He was 28. After helping his brother weather the ravages of cancer and treatment at a time when he should be launching into life, Wolf created a nonprofit called Rise Above It to help young adults navigate a cancer diagnosis.

He tapped his background in finance as well as the years he spent at Colin’s side during his prolonged cancer fight to build the nonprofit, helping desperate people at the start of their adult life find support and hope. He was a natural team builder, dating back to his days as the captain of the Georgetown University football team and an Academic All American. 

He served at the Livestrong Foundation before joining First Descents as executive director in 2013.  

“After seeing what his brother went through, you could not have drawn up a better person to help lead and build up First Descents,” said Brad Ludden, a professional kayaker who founded the organization in Eagle County a quarter century ago.

Back then, First Descents “was pretty fragile,” said Ludden, who goes by “Man Salmon.”  A few dollars would roll in and it would immediately go into camps. 

Wolf changed that. 

He came in and built a team that has forged a one-of-a-kind community and a structure to sustain First Descents for decades. 

“The flame was burning, but he just poured a ton of gas on the fire,” Ludden said. 

A statement from the organization this week said that the team Wolf built was moving forward with the mission. Camps are underway and Ludden is taking over as CEO. 

Ludden, like most of Wolf’s friends, counted the man as a brother. They skied and rode mountain bikes often. Ludden helped Wolf learn to kayak.

“He was a life coach for me in so many ways. You could go so deep with that guy,” Ludden said. “He would always show up for you and he could challenge you and present new perspectives. He just cared. Maybe too much sometimes. He put it all out there and I told him a thousand times, ‘Dude, make sure and take time for yourself.’ But that was not his default.”

Sowing community at every stage of his life

Wolf created lasting friendships and community everywhere he went. He was still very close with friends from high school in Ohio. He kept in close contact with friends from Washington, D.C., and college. The home he renovated with his wife, Tara, and their 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Marley Joy, was a community hub for neighbors around Sloan’s Lake. His crew of friends in Colorado numbered in the hundreds.

“A lot of people really f-ing loved that dude,” Ludden said. “If he could come back I would say, ‘Brother, I have talked to 70 people in the last four days and every single one of them has broken down sobbing.’”

The First Descents family — a worldwide colony of donors, participants, alumni and volunteers pulsing with a relentless drive to help people stricken at the launchpad of their lives — was among Wolf’s most vibrant gifts to the world. (Second to Marley Joy, of course.)

“What we have made it to in terms of being a community machine is in no small part because of what he did behind the scenes,” said Willie Kern, a world renowned expedition kayaker who helps First Descents craft its camps. 

Those camps include not just adventures but evenings around campfires, with reflective discussion among peers enduring an arduous journey. Those flame-flashed talks often explore hidden corners that rarely see light. They are space to grow. Progression was an inspirational hallmark of Wolf’s life. He pushed everyone around him toward a brighter horizon.

“He was committed to growth. He wanted to grow as a person and as a dad. He wanted to grow professionally. He wanted this organization to grow and keep reaching new people,” Kern said.  “God, I learned so much from him.”

Kern, who goes by “Sweet D,” was there, in a shallow blue pond in Clyde Park, Montana, where Wolf first learned to roll a kayak more than a decade ago. 

“The shock, the excitement on his face,” Kern said. “He really liked to be in control and kayaking is a shedding of those protections. I will never forget his eyes. Earlier today I was trying to describe them to a friend. You know there are people with blue eyes but his eyes, his looked like the pounding waves of the sea of samsara. You know what that is? It’s the endless ocean of nothing and everything that we all must cross. I think of his eyes. They were a window into his intensity.”

In 2021, Wolf and Tara wrote an essay for Elephants and Tea — a cancer advocacy magazine for young adults — entitled “Learning to Love Through Loss.” In it, the two described bonding over grief and falling in love. 

Ryan wrote that grieving over the death of Colin — as well as his front row seat to sorrow and mourning as an advocate for young people battling cancer — fueled his passion and purpose. 

“I am fortunate the course of my life has created an opportunity to contribute to a greater purpose,” he wrote. “But in some ways, it feels like stepping through a revolving door of grief. The reward of committing a life to the service of others also comes with recurring exposure to tragedy, trauma, and loss. Herein lies an ultimate duality — the ability to hold space for diametrically opposing emotions.”

“The spirit of what Ryan built … will live on in every First Descents experience”

Michele Friedmann was 25 when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She was teaching in Steamboat Springs and the treatments were brutal. She was isolated and scared as her body withered. 

She joined a First Descents camp a few years later, learning to stand-up paddleboard on the Colorado River with 20 other 20-somethings fighting cancer. Around the campfire on the edge of the river that trip, she spoke openly for the first time about her cancer journey. 

“It was a healing experience with a group that got it,” she said. 

Now she runs a travel agency and helps the organization fundraise as well as connect with donors and participants. A ripping skier, she organizes the group’s annual ski day at Loveland. 

Shortly after her first camp she skied with Wolf at Arapahoe Basin. They rode the Pali chair and he peppered her with questions about her nickname — she goes by “Leadfoot” — her story and her plans. 

“He was genuinely curious about my life,” she said. “We are skiing down and he turns to me and says, ‘I never forget anyone I ski with.’ I remember thinking that was so profound and I  started to see him not as a CEO but as a brother. For years now we have had so many real and deep conversations. I think that’s what makes First Descents so special. And it’s why this loss feels so close to our hearts, because of the connections he built with so many of us and the way he chose to lead.”

Every spring, Wolf would emcee the First Descents gala at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch in Beaver Creek, not far from where Ludden first started slipping cancer fighters into kayaks. It was not lost on him that the gritty roots of the organization he captained were shining bright inside a gilded resort ballroom. So he made sure everyone wore jaunty hats to keep a focus on the fun that fastens the First Descents mission.

His deft navigation of the light and heavy themes of First Descents, coupled with an emotional slideshow of participants who had succumbed to their illnesses in the last year, typically pushed the evening’s fundraising past $1 million. The generosity was a testament to Wolf’s dedication to the function of First Descents.  

In a letter to tens of thousands of First Descents supporters sent this week, the group honored Wolf’s unwavering commitment to young adults facing challenges in their prime. 

“Many of you shared life-changing moments with him on programs, around campfires or in heartfelt conversations. He believed fiercely in your strength and your stories, as well as in the power of healing adventures,” the note read. “As we grieve this loss together, please know that the spirit of what Ryan built — with and for you — will live on in every First Descents experience. We will continue to honor his legacy by showing up for each other with vulnerability, courage and love.”