Hello and welcome to the Outdoor Gear Buying Guide!
I am your host Warren B. Jones, and I want to tell you a little bit about my background.
I began my journey of outdoor discovery as a child growing up in a rural area outside of Waukegan, Illinois. Our house was located in a patch of second growth woods just south of the municipal airport. Even at age 4 or so, I would spend whole days exploring these woods and I learned to climb by climbing trees (mostly hardwoods Oak, Ash, Hickory, etc.). This fostered in me a strong sense of independence and self reliance, as well as developing an excellent sense of direction, both of which would stand me in good stead later. I was a Cub Scout and my mom was a Den Mother but the involvement with outdoor adventure really came with the family camping trips to Peninsula Park in the tip of the thumb in Wisconson. Having learned to swim at the local YMCA I got an early start to water based recreation. We owned boats and would water ski and fish in Lake Michigan. I also attended the local YMCA day camp in the summers and did a couple overnight camps through the YMCA. These camps were located near Boulder, Wisconson, very far north in the midst of the forest. This was my first introduction to canoeing and sailing. My grandfather also owned an island in northern Ontario near the town of Sioux Lookout and family trips to the island provided me with my first taste of untrammeled wilderness. I loved the feeling of remoteness. On these trips I also had my first encounters with true wildlife. I saw wolves and moose and osprey, to name a few.
At age 10 my family moved to San Diego. When I was 12 I joined the local Boy Scout troop, Troop 920. All my neighborhood friends were in this troop and it was here I really began a life dedicated to the exploration of wilderness. Troop 920 was not your ordinary Boy Scout troop. As well as camping, it offered backpacking and wilderness travel. Yearly ten-day backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada and trips to the Grand Canyon, or ten day canoe trips on the Colorado river. Training hikes for these trips were required and featured locales like the San Jacinto and San Gabriel mountains, the Anza-Borrego low desert and places like Joshua Tree National Monument (now a national park) in the Mojave high desert. My Scoutmasters were accomplished backpackers and mountaineers and were teaching what is today referred to as “No Trace” ethics. That term did not yet exist in the early 1970s. These early backpacking trips ignited my love of the mountains and wilderness which have become central to my identity and lifestyle.
When I was 16 a friend of mine from my scout troop, Todd Tremble, and I started a Search and Rescue Explorer post. Among other useful skills like tracking and radio protocols we were introduced to to the then obscure sport of technical rock climbing. This soon became the main focus of the post and continued my journey of exploration and discovery. Bouldering and climbing at the nearby Mission Gorge Regional Park became a nearly daily activity.
In 1985 I started working for Adventure-16, the local backpacking and climbing store. At the time they had manufacturing and wholesale sales divisions and guided classes in backpacking, climbing, X-C skiing and this launched my career in outdoor retail and guiding. Through A-16 I taught classes and led trips in backpacking, rock climbing and later X-C skiing. It was also at this time I was introduced to whitewater rafting and eventually, I went on to become a whitewater rafting and canoeing/kayaking guide. My guide training was done on the Kern river and I spent several summers guiding and living in a tent on the Upper Kern. Also during this time I learned to X-C ski and I spent the winter of 1987-88 in Aspen where I perfected my X-C skills and learned Alpine and Telemark skiing. I also became acquainted with The Ute Mountaineer, Aspen’s premier mountain shop, (my girlfriend at the time and I had moved to Aspen with another couple who also worked at A-16. My girlfriend and my friend both got hired at the Ute). After the ski season in Aspen was over my girlfriend and I took a 3 month road trip through the western US and Canada. We backpacked in the Wind River mountains in Wyoming, Glacier NP, Idaho’s Sawtooth wilderness and the coastline of Olympic NP.
At the end of the Kern river whitewater season in 1991 I joined a 21 day private whitewater rafting trip through the Grand Canyon organized by one of my fellow guides.
In 1993 I was living in Reseda Ca., and working at the A-16 store there. My girlfriend at the time was just finishing up her outdoor recreation degree at Cal Northridge and after seeing an ad in the classified section of Sea Kayaker magazine decided, basically on whim, to move to Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington state to learn to be a sea kayak guide. Having been curious about the area in general and sea kayaking in particular, I jumped on the bandwagon and moved to Doe Bay as an unpaid sea kayak intern. At the end of the summer I became the co-manager and head guide for Island Kayak Guides. We spent a year there, skied Mt. Baker, rafted some of the local rivers (notably the Skagit and the Squamish in B.C.), and took 3 trips to Deception Pass for sea kayak guide training. For those unfamiliar with Deception Pass it is a narrow gap between Whidbey and Fidalgo islands. On a day with a large tidal exchange it becomes a challenging (to say the least, actually a potentially lethal) site for practicing sea kayaking skills. The flow through the straight on a large tidal exchange is like a river but running at somewhere between 500,00 and a 1,000,000 cfs. Unfathomable hydrodynamics.
At the end of my tenure in Doe Bay my girlfriend and I relocated to Aspen Co. I spent the next 25 years in the Roaring Fork Valley. The Valley is a world class destination for skiing, backpacking, camping, climbing, rafting and it was here I continued my journey of making my passion for wilderness adventures pay by working in the outdoor retail industry. First at the Ute Mountaineer and Bristlecone Mountain Sports, later with the Aspen Skiing Company and other local ski shops. My motto has long been “get paid to play.”
Now you have an idea of who I am, here are a few examples of trips/expeditions that I have facilitated. In 1996 I outfitted Neil Beidleman, Charlotte Fox and Tim Madsen for their expedition to climb Everest. I was working at The Ute Mountaineer in Aspen at the time. I equipped them with specific soft goods and technical rock and ice gear. I sold Sandy Hill-Pittman her ice axe.
I have outfitted many clients for Antarctica, dozens of people for the Grand Canyon, for both hiking and rafting trips. I’ve equipped dozens and dozens of people for through-hikes like the PCT, the AT, the Continental Divide, the Colorado trail, etc.. I also have extensive experience with a number of international destinations like the Camino Real in Spain, The Milford Track in New Zealand, the Haute Route in France, (this is an extreme ski tour in the Alps). Wherever your next adventure takes you, check my blog for tips, tricks and gear suggestions and ideas so you don’t get caught out in the cold!
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