Chattanoogan: Dawson Wheeler - Happy Trails

Marveling at the natural surroundings, getting fresh air along with a sense of peacefulness and calm, is only part of what attracts Dawson Wheeler to the great outdoors – it’s also an adventure.

Dawson moved from Etowah to Chattanooga when he was 13 years old to go to Baylor School in the ninth grade. “I went through high school and I loved it, but after graduating, I drove out of town saying that I would never return,” he pauses for a moment and then smiles, “be careful what you say.”

Dawson ended up back in Chattanooga after college, “I started my adult life here.

I went to UT and studied business and forestry…  I kind of thought I would be a park ranger walking around checking parking permits, being Euell Gibbons, eating granola and pine nuts,” Dawson admits.

Forrest rangers in the early 80’s were a little different than what a young Dawson expected, “A forest manager was about working in pulp mills and timber productions… I wanted to work in the Smokey Mountains Park or something like that - but that also comes with law enforcement and carrying a gun. I was naïve about it all back then,” grins Dawson.

Where did it all start for the adventure lover? “I started camping out at about six years old. My parents were very outdoor-oriented.  You know, you start sleeping under the carport when you are five and then the back yard when you were seven and at eight you got to go across the street and sleep in the field - then you were getting dropped off six or eight blocks away and camping overnight,” Dawson recalls.

Perry and Myrtle Wheeler gave their son Dawson the privilege of spending summers at Montreat in North Carolina - a Presbyterian retreat center.

Dawson went on to college but admits, “I had no direction. I worked at Thrifty Rent-A-Car washing cars all night and then mowing grass and working for landscapers. Then I settled in and worked at the Nature Center as a grounds keeper for a few years and from there - I got married. For our honeymoon we hiked the Appalachian Trail.”

Dawson continues, “That was kind of the big news then and while we were on the Appalachian Trail, we bumped into National Geographic. They were out making a book… we were able to be a part in that book. We were consistent in our reporting to them and we became a good information source. We worked with them during our whole hike and finished up with Mount Katahdin, which is the highest mountain in Maine, and they had their whole photo team up there doing photography.  Then they produced a book - a big coffee table book,” Dawson gestures.

“We took trips back then, took people to the Wind River Range and Shenandoah and all these different excursions. Then I would cut firewood and do educational programming and then spent five years working in the mental health industry.” Dawson says, “After coming back I went to work at Valley Psychiatric Hospital. I was an activity-therapy-guy for the adolescents.”

Dawson told his boss that he may last five years there. He lasted five years and two days. “It was a rewarding job but I could not detach from it. It became a job that I slept with and tasted and just could not turn it off,” Dawson states, “It can be very stressful. It was tough working with kids and seeing some of the pain and suffering. A lot of kids are bi-products of their environment, which means their environment was not good. Sometimes you’d work with those kids and they’d have to go back to those environments… as an employee there - you can’t fix the environment.”

Dawson tells of how there was a little store in Chattanooga called Canoeist Headquarters and the owners were trying to sell the company. He explains, “The gentleman who was helping him sell it, had the National Geographic book on the Appalachian Trail and he said, ‘Here is Dawson Wheeler - he is in the book, he is obviously an outdoor guy and he lives in Chattanooga, maybe we ought to call him up and see if he has an interest in the company’,” Dawson recalls.

“Six months later- we made a deal and I bought the company. Literally within weeks my partner Marvin Webb and I had a conversation and he asked if I remembered when we were young and talked about opening up an outdoors store when we grew up. I told that him I did and two hours later, I asked if he wanted to be my business partner and three hours later we drove to Atlanta to tell his wife that they were moving from Atlanta and that he was going to be in the camping business. We have been partners ever since - a childhood dream with a childhood friend, a dear friend,” Dawson says.

“We have maintained a great partnership ever since. Nov 3 of this year will be 25 years. We moved to the North Shore on the corner of Frazier and Tremont. Then we opened Rock Creek Down Under – it was in front of Coolidge Park, now on Riverside Drive. The warehouse and Internet operation is there now. Sixty percent of our business is through the Internet. We have four stores and the Internet company, which makes a fifth store,” Dawson says.

How has business been in the throes of the failed economy? “We are not immune from the economy… anyth ing you look at as far as stock market or real estate retail trends… all those things impact us- we are no different than anybody else. If the stock market is going bad and people cannot afford the mortgages on their homes, our business is obviously not flourishing… we are very methodical and conservative people and have been good stewards of our money. We build good relationships with people.  We give people good advice and they value it, they will trade with us and we have a consistency in our customer base.”

Dawson adds, “I don’t think Marvin and I got into this thinking that we were not going to be successful. We didn’t know how we were going to be successful, in the early years - we just knew that we wouldn’t quit.  At all cost if we had to work 200 hours - whatever. If it was all night, 24 hours a day - that was going to be our M.O. and that M.O. paid off,” he says proudly.

“Our recreation and our work are so melded together. I enjoy being at work as much as I enjoy hiking or climbing or biking. I go at it the exact same way. That passion and commitment is the same,” Dawson contends. Rock Creek employs almost 100 people.

Snow skiing is his favorite activity, going west to Utah or Colorado at least twice a year. “We run 13 trail races a year. Rock Creek has its own non-profit, called ‘Wild Trail’. Wild Trail’s mission is to improve and keep trail systems open and clean and safe and do some trail building. We take proceeds from our races and we fund those projects. The ‘Stump Jump’ race is our oldest race. It is in October and is the third biggest 50k race in the United States at this point. We have almost 800 people taking part in this race. It’s a wonderful way for us to involve the community and to be out and show that our trail systems generate money and to work with everyone from the Cumberland Trail to Friends of Lula Lake, River Gorge Trust, Prentice Cooper, all the non-profits in the region. Like the project that is going up here in Stringers Ridge, it generates the money to help fund all these projects.”

Of the latest trails project, Dawson explains, “We have given Lookout Mountain Land Conservancy funds through our grant program and we are going to help through trail building and try to build a trail that will ultimately pick up on the Riverwalk. The Riverwalk will someday come all the way around the river and to the base of Lookout Mountain and then that trail will pick up from there.  The hope is that you can take the Riverwalk all the way up Lookout Mountain on trails that are established today all the way to Cloudland Canyon. It’s a great resource for Chattanooga.” The retailer is also a member of the Outdoor Industry Association.

Would Dawson consider himself an adrenaline junkie? “Probably in my thirties… but there is something about raising children and having a family, a point that both my partner and I got to, where you are out rock climbing in the Tetons or the Wind River Range or Yosemite Valley and you start thinking about your children and that you are a thousand feet off the ground or on something very steep that could avalanche, or being on some river where  you could drown - you are becoming distracted and it’s time to pull that activity back a little bit… for us it was just about growing up. We had a guiding business and we were taking people all over the U.S. and doing all these wonderful things, but we also had small children and we wanted to be soccer coaches and baseball coaches and go to church and you can’t really do both. There is a  point where you have to come back to the enthusiast level. When you come back to the enthusiast level instead of doing it seven days a week- you are doing it three days a week.  Then as you get older it may be two days a week… and as you pull back a little bit, you begin to lose a little of your skill set.  And you need to be more mindful of the big trips that you do.”

One of the most dangerous things Dawson still does is cross-country skiing in the winter. Working around avalanches and dealing with that cold of an environment there is not a lot of opportunity for rescue. “My partner is a much better rock climber than me, he is great in fact. Marvin has always been heads and shoulders above me.  He has climbed all over the world and I have only been in North America,” Dawson recounts. “But again, rock slides and things that can happen out in nature- they’re pretty dangerous - but you can do the same thing on the Colorado River. You can be in a raft and turn eight or nine people over and be in 50 degree water and class four or class five white water- it can be dangerous.”

“Wild Trails promotes a little more of fast walking to running trails,” Dawson says, “We have meet-up groups every week that are going out at different distances."

Have there been any funny experiences on your trips? He pauses, “Not that you can publish,” Dawson teases, “There are always things that make you giggle and chuckle. You shouldn’t even be out there if you don’t have a smile on your face.”

Dawson has two boys. Josh, 24, and Jake, 21, are in college. He has been married to Stephanie for five years, “She is an avid trail runner and a sailor. We have taken boat trips and we went to Exuma Sea last year. She is great on the water and is a great runner – that is how we spend our time. She doesn’t like the cold so we don’t do a lot of skiing together. She is a resort skier, but it’s mostly about the hiking and camping for us,” Dawson states.

“I think for Marvin and I … it’s not about selling the most North Face jackets in Chattanooga… it’s about being a good neighbor.”