He Carefully Plans To Have Fun In The Outdoors, And Then Does
To Jason Luker, having fun is serious business.
Whether it’s whitewater rafting, rock climbing or winter camping, Luker’s approach is a no-nonsense one - at least initially.
As coordinator of the Outdoor Pursuits program at North Idaho College, the 27-year-old Luker is responsible for ensuring that the outdoor adventures he leads are as safe as possible.
“As a recreation professional, I have to do everything I can to limit the risks,” he says. “When a lawsuit does happen, I’m going to be tried against my peers.”
But that doesn’t mean that Luker’s a stick-in-the-mud out on the trail.
A hint that another Luker lurks beneath the surface is scrawled on a board above his cluttered desk;
“You can learn more about a person in an hour’s worth of play than in a day of conversation.”
That quote from Plato rings true to students who have been on Outdoor Pursuits trips.
“He’s almost like one of the students,” said Wade Dorrell, who’s hiked in the Utah desert and Seven Devils Mountains with Luker.
Luker’s silly side emerges when he leaves the office environment - and with the NIC Student Union Building closed for remodeling, his office is crammed into the basement of Siebert Hall. The staff there fondly refers to it as a dungeon.
En route to Moab, Utah, “he drove the van the whole way,” Dorrell said. “He makes that even kind of fun…He’d be singing and stuff. He never seems to get tired.”
What allows Luker to relax in the outdoors is his organized preparation.
“He makes it comfortable even for the beginner who’s nervous their first time out,” said Paul Dione, a student who’s been on several Outdoor Pursuits trips.
Luker knows what it’s like to be in over your head in the elements. And he doesn’t like the feeling.
As a student at Washington State University, he and some friends decided to go rafting on the Salmon River near Riggins, Idaho. None of them had experience.
“We were flinging ourselves at Mother Nature as we went down the rapids, and I got spanked,” Luker recalled.
The raft hit a rock and Luker was thrown into the water. He was trapped under the raft, which was still stuck on the rock. His friends eventually fished him out, but it took years for Luker to get over the butterflies that invaded him whenever he’d approach the river.
“It was almost no fun for me, because I would get sick nervous,” he said.
Luker was at WSU for just a semester, bound for engineering school, before he quit and decided he wanted to do something else.
He took an 83-day Outward Bound leadership course and found his calling. He returned to school at Eastern Washington University and majored in outdoor recreation.
Each weekend and summer was spent mastering the different skills he’d need to be an all-around outdoor guide; rafting, climbing, skiing, mountain-biking and more.
But while he’s been unwavering in his pursuit of becoming an outdoor leader, he’s also found time to bag a few peaks for fun. Mountaineering, he said, is his real love.
“I look at it as the culmination of all the land sports, rock-climbing, snow camping, ice climbing…,” he said.
He’s climbed Mount McKinley, and two volcanos in Mexico - 18,850-foot El Pico de Orizaloa and 17,343-foot Iztaccihuatl.
This past Christmas, he and Matt Chase, EWU’s dean of students, climbed Cotopaxi in Ecuador, the highest active volcano in the world at 19,342 feet.
Luker’s goals include traveling and climbing around the world, and eventually getting a masters degree in counseling. But for the time being, he wants to make the Outdoor Pursuits program the best it can be.
On reflection, he says he might stick around for quite awhile, considering how much he enjoys taking people into the woods, up mountainsides and through the rapids.
“The outdoors is a neutral medium for everybody. Everybody’s usually very open,” Luker said. “Everybody’s a guest.”
Everybody, except maybe Luker, who feels he belongs there.
“I see that as my home away from home.”
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