For your weekend stoke: Meet John Shocklee - Mountain guide, river guide and ultimate peter pan.

Yeti Coolers has made a name for itself making coolers.  Big coolers, little coolers, soft sided coolers, tumblers, aluminum beer coozies… and video story telling.  They’ve made some 40+ movies over the years with mostly focusing on lives spent outdoors.  But It’s obvious they’ve found something special with a man named John Shocklee.  He seems to appear in more than a few of their movies… So who is this mountain man of mystery?

john schoklee and his cabin- Video still care of Yeti Coolers

John Schoklee and his cabin – Video still care of Yeti Coolers

John Shocklee is 52 years old. If you seen him on the mountain, however, you’d think he’s in his mid-twenties.  Behind his big, frozen beard hides a smile just as big and behind his wrap around sunglasses John hides his wide, blue kindergarten eyes. He is a mountain guide from Silverton, CO, and lives in a tiny, simple, if not slightly messy cabin. He doesn’t care about money. He doesn’t have a telephone, or credit cards.  He just lives, skis, and rafts which are his biggest passions.  In the first movie above, you’ll get to meet the snow sliding peter pan.

In the second you’ll meet him in the off season – river guiding along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.  The second video is narrated by Amber Shannon… an understudy of John’s.  He’s there, right behind her in the dory river boat helping her negotiate the river.  This video is taken four years ago and it’s interesting to see him over time.  You’ll get another peek into his mind at the 1 minute mark of the second movie, and it’s great.  Here you see another side of him – something more serious and more carefully intentional.  The waters of the Grand Canyon sort of insists that of people… without a sobering sense of risk, the Grand Canyon can swallow you whole.

 

I think what Yeti finds in John is that quintessential western spirit.  The prototypical mountain man that many of us aspired to be growing up.  John, stuck it out.  He kept to the mission.  Good parts and bad parts.

 


Thanks to Yeti…

… and their collaborative team of storytellers.  Each video is here to stoke your adventure fires before the start of the weekend.  So wherever your pursuits take you, take these memories to inspire you and remember to step out in the world and be yourself… however simple, unkempt, or old you may be.