The following story was featured in the Creede Magazine in the Summer of 2009. Story by Kirk Dooley. Photos by Michael Lewis.

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Ryan Daugherty – The New Mountain Man

When Creede’s Mountain Man, Greg Coln, died in January,nobody took it harder than Daugherty. Coln had trained his wife’s grandson on the ways of the Mountain Man and prepared him to take over the family river rafting business, MountainMan Tours. But it is much more spiritual than that.

Ryan Daugherty Learned the Ways of the World at the Knee of “Grandpa Greg” Coln. Over the Years Greg Taught Ryan About the River, About the Mountains and About Life. Now That The Mountain Man Has Passed On, Ryan is Prepared to Continue His Mentor’s Legacy as The New Mountain Man

It was a bitterly cold Colorado day, a week into the new year. This past January 7 was a day Ryan Daugherty will never forget. It was the day he lost his mentor, his spiritual guide, his father figure and his hero –Greg Coln, the well-known “Mountain Man” of Creede.

Greg, who had been married to Ryan’s grandmother, Delen, for 24 years, died of cancer at the age of 52. The loss deeply touched the Creede community, as well as the thousands of summer visitors who discovered the thrill of river rafting through Greg and Delen’s Mountain Man Tours. But other than Delen, nobody was more devastated over Greg’s passing than Ryan.

Ryan had learned the “Mountain Man Ways” at the knee of his grandpa, and shared the Mountain Man’s strong spiritual connection to the river, to the mountains and to life. A capable young man, Ryan was being groomed to take over the management of the family business.

The other reason that Ryan will never for-get January 7 is that in the midst of his anguish and grief, he was suddenly handed the mantle. With Greg gone, Ryan became the new Mountain Man. “Greg took me – and many of us – places we never would have gone on our own,” said Ryan when Greg died. “Without a word he could immerse us all in the beauty that surrounds everything around us, and within ourselves. He was a very spiritual man and he loved the river, he loved people and he loved the magic that happens when you connect those three things.”

Ryan was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in1981. When he was five years old his mother, Lauren Sheldrake brought Ryan and his younger brother, Matt, to Creede, where her mother, Delen, had married Greg Coln and started Mountain Man Tours in 1985. Lauren was a rafting guide for the company, and her boys would enter the Creedes chools.

“I went all the way through the Creede school system, except I spent third grade in Fort Worth and then fourth through sixth grade with my family in Lamar, Colorado,” recalled Ryan. “I spent all my other years here and graduated from Creede High School in 2000.“It was unique because the class sizes are so small. There were 40 kids in the school and we all got to know each other well. It was a tight-knit unit. Some classes had as few as two people so it was almost like tutoring. From seventh through 12th grade we had the same teachers so they would get to know our learning styles and that maximized our education. I already had several college credits when I graduated from high school.“ The dating pool was small but it was a great place to grow up.

In addition to guiding, my mom was a ski instructor at Wolf Creek and as a family we would go skiing, hiking and rafting. Whether we knew it or not at the time, this was a great town for a kid.” Ryan took to the small-town atmosphere where everybody knows everybody. He enjoyed the freedom of walking into anyone’s back door and saying, “I don’t know where my parents are right now and I’m hungry. Can I have a sandwich?” He estimates that half the people who leave Creede after graduating from high school come back when it comes time to raising a family. “People really do miss the mountains, the river and the community,” he said. “I know I did.”

After working with Greg as a rafting guide during the summer of 2000, Ryan operated a ski lift at Wolf Creek that winter. He was back on the river in the summer of 2001 then attended Ft. Lewis College in Durango, majoring in business and music. His passion for music was strong and he mastered the piano, guitar, trumpet, bass and drums. He began singing and writing songs.

He had spent three summers interning at the Creede Repertory Theatre – two acting and one doing lighting and sound. He did three shows on the main stage and did the lighting and sound for the touring show. He recalls the advantages of the CRT being a part of his junior high and high school theater curriculum. Ryan figured that he would spent the rest of his life guiding on the river during the summer and playing music in the winter. “I thought that with a schedule like that, I’d never have to work,” he said. “The whole workin’ thing is overrated.”

When the summer of 2001 was over, he decided to get serious about music. With Greg’s gentle pushing, it was time for Ryan to go out and taste the outside world. He narrowed it down to the four major music centers in America – Los Angeles, New York City, Nashville and Austin. The thought of living in New York or L.A. was distasteful, and Nashville was too country, so he headed south to Austin, known as the “live music capital of the world.” He enrolled in a highly-recommended music industry trade school called Mediatech Institute, where he studied Business of Music, Audio for TV and Film and earned a degree in Audio Recording Engineering and Studio Techniques.

At Arlen Studios he worked on recordings with Robert Plant and Los Lonely Boys. He worked at Willie Nelson’s studio, Perdernales Studio, and worked under Paul Rogers doing sound for the sold-out George Strait concert at the Erwin Center in Austin. At Arlen Studios Ryan was recording a band called Anomaly when there was a dust-up between band members and the bass player quit the band and walked out the door. As the remaining Anomaly band members wondered what to do next, Ryan raised his hand and said, “I can play bass.”

One rehearsal later, he joined the band. “Anomaly was big in the indie rock scene and we opened for some cool bands,” recalled Ryan, who was now a professional musician. He and a friend of his opened a hip-hop recording studio called 45s on 33 Records.

Over the next 36 months they recorded 40 hip-hop albums. “I was sampling albums and producing my own beats,” he said. “Different big-name bands came through. We worked with or around Living Legends, Atmosphere, Heiroglyphics, Old Dominion, Organic Thump Crew and Jedi Mind Tricks. At one point he met legendary Austin guitarist Eric Johnson, acknowledged as one of the fivet op guitar players in the world. Ryan discovered that Johnson had (what they say in the music industry) bat ears. “Eric can tell the difference between a Durocell battery and an Energizer battery in an effects pedal,” said Ryan, with a great deal of soundman respect in his voice. Musicians Ryan worked with included Asleep at the Wheel, Reckless Kelly, George Strait’s Ace in the Hole Band, Hubert Sumlin, Bo Didley, Spoon and Polyphonic Spree.

While Ryan was playing bass for Anomaly and Standard Issue and cranking out hip-hop beats, he bartended a little. Then lightening struck.“ I was tending bar one evening and this girl walked in. She was thirsty and gave me trouble because I had bowling on the TV above the bar. I carded her when she ordered her third drink. She thought that was weird but I had forgotten her name and knew it was on her driver’s license. I got to know her a little and we went out later that night. Two weeks later we were engaged, and two years later we were married.”

While he and his sweetheart Cecilia dated in Austin, Anomaly broke up and Ryan joined a band called the Sun of Sultans, a rock bandthat toured Texas for a couple of years. Ryan would take Cecilia to Hip Hop Hump Day at the Legendary Victory Grill, where the improv jazz and hip-hop sound inspired graffiti art on canvas which was created while the music played. During the day Ryan worked at Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music, one of the oldest music stores in the U.S. It is where Stevie Ray Vaughan got his number one guitar. Ryan helped Hennig’s son, Stephen, make PA, recording and guitar systems for George Strait, Eric Johnson, Jimmy Vaughan and others.

Then Ryan got hooked up with Eric Paul, who did engineering for Townes Van Zandt and Willie Nelson. “Being in Austin was great because there was so much people-watching in the music industry there,” said Ryan. “People can play 30 different venues 30 nights in a row in Austin. It gets you good at what you do and you can rub shoulders with major players in the music industry.” A singer named Christina Bell was getting a lot of attention from Warner Brothers and RCANashville and so a band was put togetherto showcase her talents. The bass player selected to play for her band was Ryan Daugherty. He traveled to Nashville with the band and played shows in Texas.

But when Ryan had finally gotten near the top of his profession, he didn’t like what he saw. “I learned that the music business has very little to do with music. Ninety percent of it is about things other than music. It burned me out and it lost its flavor. One night I was onstage and I thought to myself, ‘I’m not having fun anymore.’ It crushed me because the view from the top wasn’t what I thought it would be and I had never really considered doing anything else.”

Ryan looked around and saw musicians on their fifth wife, in poor health and their kids hated them. It was time to re-evaluate. Following their September 2006 wedding in Austin, Ryan and Ceci gave it a few more months and then decided to spend the summer in Creede. They arrived in May of 2007 and settled in, helping Greg guide on the river.

That summer a friend from Austin called and was developing a large auditorium there. He wanted Ryan to come back and be the onstage sound mixer. Ryan and Ceci talked about the opportunity and decided to go to Austin in September and see their buddies and check out the promising job opportunity. “I went up to Love Lake and went fishing by myself,” he recalled. “The leaves were turning and it was beautiful. Then I heard several moose calling each other. I looked around me and it all came together. I experienced a major turning point in my life. I said out loud, ‘I’m not leaving.’

“My wife didn’t want to leave, so we were both happy with our decision to live in Creede full time. We talked about what we needed to do during the winter. I ended up working in restaurants and helping John Graham run a trash route. Ceci and I both knew we had made the right decision to stay.”

While he was a young boy growing up in Creede, Ryan didn’t realize how hard it was for his single mom to make ends meet for her two boys. She drove a potato truck, was a ski instructor and worked several other jobs. Her major obstacle was what to do with her boys after school while she was still at work. Enter Delen and Greg. “My brother and I were always at Grandma and Grandpa’s,” recalled Ryan. “Greg was so wild. He would take us ice-fishing and taught us how to skin mice. He was a father figure our whole lives. He always encouraged us to get out and see the world, knowing we always had an open door back home.”

After 16 years of waiting to get a permit to raft through the Grand Canyon, in 2006 Greg finally had his chance of a lifetime. Ryan greatly regretted missing that trip as he was in Nashville working at the time. But Greg took Ben Vaughan, Bill Philbern, Jr., Diane Dempko, Paul Steward, Scott Warrington and Charlie Valesquez. It was a religious experience for Greg. The ultimate river ride.
The next year Ryan and Greg did get to ride a river together, spending seven days surging 97 miles with their guides through Desolation Canyon and Grey Canyon in Utah. They camped out five nights in a row, looking tsraight up at 4,000-foot walls, including some of the largest petroglyph walls in the U.S.

For seven days they never saw another person. “Being with Greg and being in that canyon added a seriousness to the trip,” recalled Ryan. “It made me very aware.” Ryan didn’t think much of it at the time but that winter Greg got tired easily and didn’t want to ski. By spring of 2008 he was visibly ill. Ryan took him to the hospital in Del Norte and tests were run. The results revealed a brain tumor that has mastisized from melanoma. Ryan took Greg straight to Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs. Doctors told the stunned Ryan that there was a chance Greg wouldn’t make it through the night. “I couldn’t believe his reaction to the bad prognosis,” recalled Ryan. He said, ‘Well, at least I got to do the Grand.’”

It was as if the Mountain Man was ready for his final adventure because he had already done what he considered life’s ultimate river ride through the Grand Canyon. But when doctors told him they needed to operate on his brain the next day, Greg said, “Whoa. I need a minute to think.” After letting it all sink in and talking with his loved ones, Greg agreed to brain surgery, which took place a few days later. Nobody knew what the outcome would be. “Three weeks before, he seemed healthier than me,” recalled Ryan, who was stunned at the time. “I stayed at the hospital with him day and night. I just needed to. He was one of my best friends.” When the surgery was over, and Greg had recovered enough to talk with his doctor, who told him, “Greg, bad news. You now have one of the worst haircuts I’ve ever seen.” Then he smiled.

The surgery had gone as well as could be expected. “He came through surgery and stayed strong all summer,” said Ryan. “In a way, I hadn’t known why I had come back to Creede but if nothing else, I was here to help. I have always been so grateful to Greg and my grandmother for everything they had done for me. I was glad to be able to help them. I stayed close to Greg that summer and fall.”

The way Ryan stepped up his responsibilities at Mountain Man Tours, picking up the slack and managing the business, made Greg proud. That winter Greg got sick again. It was hard for his family and friends to see him go downhill because he had been so independent and had done so many things in his life. His death on Jan. 7 was a tough pill to swallow for a small town that was already reeling from the deaths of Gene Dooley and Ed Johnson, among others.

Greg left his beloved BMW motorcycle to Jeremy McComas, who Greg had loved like a son. He wanted his wife, Delen, to move into town and not live their rugged wilderness lifestyle all by herself. He arranged to move the small house away from the Mountain Man Tours headquarters at Hwy. 149 and South Main Street, and have a new adobe-style home built for Delen on that corner. It is a beautiful addition to the town of Creede and is located on one of the town’s highest profile corners.

The Mountain Man Tours headquarters is next door and the rafts in the parking lot give visitors passing through a reason to stop and enjoy the river and see the town. “My grandmother Delen loves her new place,” said Ryan, who helped build it. “A whole lot of love went into building it. Without Greg she has her good days and bad days. I am genuinely proud of her.”
“It’s really been weird not having Greg here,” said Ryan from his office above the company headquarters. “There are days when a bunch of us cry. Sometimes I turn to tell Greg something and he’s not there. As far as Mountain Man Tours goes, it is business as usual, which is the most unusual because he WAS this place.

“There was one day this summer I felt him out on the river. I knew he was there that moment. I heard the flapping of wings and I looked up and saw the biggest golden eagle I had ever seen. It landed nearby and completely spread its wings. Call me crazy but I looked at that majestic bird with its blond hair and said, ‘I see ya Greg’. Before it flew away I imagined hearing the words, “I got your back. I won’t be far away.”

Although Greg is gone, his spirit lives on inthe people he had instilled a love of the Rio Grande River. Many of Greg’s summer guests will be back this year, as they are every year. Ryan promises that the magic of the Mountain Man will not change for them. Ryan and Greg both loved the river and loved people, and they enjoyed the magic that happened when they mixed the two. “And you can still count on a big smile when you walk in our door,” added Ryan, who will be the one smiling.

He also realizes that there are other Mountain Man Ways that go beyond the river. Like Greg, Ryan is a volunteer with Mineral County Search and Rescue. He recently passed his EMT course and is set to take the national EMT registry test. Every year he is involved with several river rescues. “The Mineral County Search and Rescue, the EMTs, the fire department, they’re on it. They are all so good. They all take it seriously and professionally.”

When reminded that he is, indeed, the new Mountain Man, Ryan backpedals. “I’m more like a Sherpa,” he insisted. “There was only one Mountain Man, and that was Greg Coln. But there is nothing that makes me more proud than to continue to carry on his legacy.” His eyes fill with tears as he recalled his relationship with his beloved mentor and father-figure. Then he pauses and smiles with sincere pride. “No one could have taught me better.”