Ultrarunning is community. Community is personal. Alex Pashley was both of those things. He will be so missed.
If you never met “Pash,” I’m sorry, that’s your loss. However, if you had met Pash, you suffered an even bigger loss when he and two others met an untimely end in an avalanche in the Kootenay Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, on March 24, 2025.
As I type this, I can hear Pash asking something like, “Hey bud, what have you been up to?” And it would be his whole being waiting to hear your answer. He was there. He was present. He was yours. It was that personal. And that’s where community comes from. That’s the heart of … and, gosh, did Pash have heart!
I was first introduced to Pash via email by a mutual friend when Pash was headed to pace someone at the 2012 Leadville 100 Mile and I’d be there covering the event. While that meetup didn’t work out, Pash immediately offered me a spot in his Steamboat Springs, Colorado, home when I would be covering the Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile a few weeks later, wrapping up by saying, “It would be our pleasure. Least we can do in support of the site.” All this from a budding ultrarunner who I was yet to meet. Fortunately, we met at a group run ahead of that Run Rabbit Run race.
Alex Pashley still full of energy after finishing the Hardrock 100 in 2022. Photo: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
Later in 2012, he was such a positive, supportive voice during our live coverage of The North Face 50 Mile Championships in San Francisco, California, that I wrote him after the event thank him. It never stopped. He was always out there supporting. A few years later, when he moved to a marketing role at Smartwool he reached out, “Hey Bryon, will iRunFar be at Run Rabbit Run this year, we’d love to support you.” Then, “I’ve got an idea … how many folks work at iRunFar?” Ahead of sending over some Smartwool jackets. If you ever bought iRunFar’s Smartwool tee shirts in support of our Hardrock 100 coverage, that also was Pash’s idea and execution.
Being an enthusiastic ultrarunner in one’s personal and professional life is pretty cool, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I may have seen him anywhere from once to a couple times a year at trade shows and races, but he always wanted to know what I was up to. Not the work. Not the business. No, what you were really up to, what you were striving for. And that sort of inquisition from an interesting person only makes you want to find out what’s lighting their fuse with equal vigor. For half the year, that was ultrarunning for Pash, while snowboarding was his wintertime passion. That’s what made him such a good fit as an athlete manager among other roles at Smartwool and, later, as an athlete manager on the snow sports side at The North Face.
As our various jobs evolved, I came to know Pash more as part of the Hardrock community. He was there in person as early as 2014, when he was supporting Smartwool athletes at the race and pacing fellow Steamboat Springs ultrarunner Amanda Grimes. Between pacing, racing, volunteering, and working in his roles as athlete manager and sponsor representative, I’m guessing Pash didn’t miss many Hardrocks after that. No matter what he was doing, he was sharing the stoke on the course.
He ran the race in 2017. He was cheering and taking photos at the 2018 race. I can’t find a photo of it, but I swear we hung out at Maggie Gulch in 2021, where we were both shooting photos. In 2022, I went for my annual Hardrock Saturday night streak-keeper run on the course nearby the finish line, randomly ran into Pash, and got to watch him finish his second Hardrock. In 2023, he was atop Dives-Little Giant Pass, handing out fist bumps and taking sweet photos. If he was at Hardrock, he was all in.
Pash, crouching with a camera at the far right, at Grant-Swamp Pass during the 2018 Hardrock 100. Photo: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
I can only imagine Pash was at least as passionate, personal, and community-driven on the snow side. That means multiple communities have now lost a luminary. Hopefully, in the years to come, a whole lot of us from all of Alex Pashley’s communities will stand atop a mountain, look out over the expanse, break into a Cheshire cat grin, and send it while thinking of him.
Now that he’s gone, I want to scream, “Why, damn it?!” This world has far too few people who maintain through all the challenges of life that spark in their eye that lets their spirit glow and light up the lives of others. If you ever looked Pash in the eye, you’d have seen that spark and, I hope, you’d understand how he lived his life with passion.
The entire iRunFar team sends its deepest condolences to all those who mourn Pash’s passing.
Call for Comments
Please, if you knew Pash, share a story or your favorite things about him.
Tributes from Others
- Amanda Grimes
- Billy Grimes
- Hardrock 100
- Salema Masekela
- Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile
- Smartwool
- The North Face
Sending a smile and fist bump back at ya, Pash! Photo: Alex Pashley
