On June 5, 2024, just 15 days shy of his 27th birthday, our beloved Tyler tragically drowned in the McKenzie River while camping near Eugene, OR. Tyler was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, attending public schools through his 2015 graduation from Lowell High. He was always an excellent student and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Tyler was a true sports fanatic growing up, a rabid devotee of the Giants, Warriors, and other local teams, and he excelled playing organized baseball and soccer from a young child into his teen years. He relished nature and the outdoors, enjoyed helping his mother in the garden, loved the many camping and ski trips, and other travel destinations he experienced with his family, loved watching his sister dance, and had a fond appreciation for music and writing. More than anything though, Tyler’s favorite moments in life were when he was surrounded by family, such as at the large annual Thanksgiving gatherings in San Francisco and during lengthy summer vacations and Christmas visits in San Diego, where his grandparents, cousins, and many aunts and uncles live.

His enduring kindness and compassion for others manifested distinctly during Tyler’s high school years when he became involved with Best Buddies, an international organization that, among other things, works to create opportunities for one-to-one friendships for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Tyler served as the President of Lowell’s Best Buddies chapter during his junior and senior years, expending countless volunteer hours shaping it into one of the strongest high school chapters around. Then, in college, he worked to establish a new Best Buddies chapter at U.C. Santa Cruz.

Tyler enjoyed his college years living in Santa Cruz and made many lasting friends. After graduating, driven by the desire to meet new people and experience different cultures, he embarked on a three-month backpacking journey through Europe, where he stayed in hostels and survived on inexpensive street food. His life then, like so many others’, was placed “on pause” by the COVID pandemic, during which time Tyler’s spiritual journey and search for existential meaning began to flourish. Viewing it as an opportunity for self-reflection (as well as a grand adventure!), in April of 2022, after much preparation and training, Tyler began a long, straight-through solo backpacking hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, launching from the Mexican border in San Diego County and finishing nearly five months and 2,650 miles later at the Canadian border in Washington. Hikers on the PCT tend to acquire “trail names” coined by other hikers, and Ghostface (Tyler’s christened name based on his propensity to lather his face with large amounts of sunscreen) found that wildfires had closed the final 17 miles of the trail. Not to be denied, Ghostface stashed his backpack, ignored the closure signs, and literally ran those final smoke-filled miles to complete his amazing journey!

Following his PCT adventure, and after much research on progressive, but more affordable locales than California, Tyler lived briefly in Madison, WI, before moving to Eugene at the beginning of 2023. Eugene suited Tyler well. He immediately began volunteering at a local food kitchen, engaged in a multitude of diverse social groups and other new activities, and became an avid writer. Several months after his arrival in Eugene, Tyler interviewed and was accepted into one of the 22 housing units owned by the nonprofit East Blair Housing Cooperative. His parents visited and were impressed by his spacious and beautifully furnished—mostly through giveaways and thrift store acquisitions—one-bedroom apartment, and heartened meeting many fellow residents of the supportive EBHC community. To help meet the cooperative’s monthly volunteer hours requirement, Tyler devoted significant time working to improve the community garden, which he considered a haven, in addition to personal time tending to his own assigned garden plot, where he grew vegetables and flowers. He also continued his spiritual search for enlightenment in Eugene and was a dedicated member of a local meditation fellowship.

With his high level of commitment and perseverance, no challenge was ever too big for Tyler. Early in 2024, for example, Tyler decided to train for the Eugene Marathon, which he completed in late April in slightly over three hours; a highly respectable time for anyone!

Ultimately, Tyler was a spiritualist who shunned materialism and lived a disciplined life under principles of kindness and service to others, healthy lifestyle, self-reflection and assessment, and constant search for knowledge and meaning. He was universally loved and admired and a true adventurer, who had more meaningful moments and connections with people during his short life than many will ever experience, and his much-too-young passing leaves a devastating void in our own lives that will never be filled. There is no question that the corporeal world was a better place with Tyler in it, and possibly a worse place without him, although we know his kind, loving, selfless, and adventuresome spirit has infected many and made us better for it.

Tyler is survived by his parents, Susan and Charley Perkins; sister Madeline Perkins; grandparents Carol and Cy Perkins, and Audrey and Vince Quasarano; aunts Anne Quasarano, Suzy (and husband Gary Vincent) Perkins, Karen (Mark) Russo, and Janine (Russell) Deich, and uncle Rich (Sue) Quasarano; cousins Michelle May, Marco Russo, Samantha Quasarano, Ryan Quasarano, Hannah Platt, Phoebe Deich, and Noah Deich; and countless other dedicated loved ones.

A casual celebration of Tyler’s life will take place on August 4, 2024, from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the American Legion banquet hall located at 8188 University Avenue, La Mesa, CA 91942. All are welcome. A second celebration will be held in San Francisco sometime in the fall. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to any organization that provides assistance to the homeless population in your community or works to protect the natural environment, or to the Pacific Crest Trail Association.

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