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Eric Owen has worked and played all over the US and has realized that you will not find a better playground than the Sierra Nevada. He says "I love my job. But I hate this typing thing"...
 Eric hard at work
He grew up "back east" in Winchester, Virginia, home of the Shenandoah Valley, between the Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachian Mountains (somewhat like the Owens Valley, the Eastern side of the Sierra, only older and smaller). At five he started in the Scouts and later participated in intercollegiate wrestling. He remembers meeting his grandparents at Seneca Rocks, West Virginia for family picnics during the summer, and seeing climbers cross the old swinging bridge. He recalls saying something like "I'm going to climb that rock one of these days".....and his mom saying "over my dead body." Well his parents are not dead, thank God; his father Bill was a Middle School wood shop teacher and his mom Joyce works for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (she just finished her second 6 month tour in Iraq).
Eric's parents supported his outdoor pursuits somewhat...probably thinking he would get into a lot less trouble in the middle of the woods than he would in town. At 15 he worked a summer at a Boy Scout camp where he taught environmental science, soil and water conservation, reptile study, fishing and somehow managed to get his ear pierced... Eric also got introduced to Spelunking and climbing at this time. The Shenandoah Valley is littered with Karst topography which is conducive to forming caves. After hundreds of hours being cold, dark, wet, and muddy he was ready for the light at the end of the tunnel.
At 17 he got his Eagle Badge and went on to finish high school and find a college. He chose Radford, Virginia. Why? Well one, it did not have wrestling team......then it was off to see his dad's relatives who lived off the shores of Lake Erie. There, in the winter, he would stuff newspaper (so my feet would fit) into the old leather telemark shoes and go cross-country skiing down the railroad tracks with piles of cloths and trashbags on to stay warm and dry.
So College......no wrestling team and it use to be a all girls school. So I started majoring in Commercial Fitness (personal training), and then somehow started taking off my cloths for money to pay my way though school...and it worked...but not before he changed his major to outdoor education. He remembers hearing a professor say "choose a job you like and you will never have to work a day in your life." So now, after guiding for five years in Seneca Rocks, West Virginia (the rock his mother told him he would never climb), ski patrol at Timberline WV, countless winter and spring break trips to North Conway, NH for ice climbing (he should have been with MTV down in Cancun or Daytona Beach or some other black sand beach drinking umbrella drinks and watching dirty naked freaks.) Two years with Aspen Expeditions and Sky's the Limit, Las Vegas, Nevada he finds himself here in Bishop, California, a mountaineer's playground. With 8 months of bottomless skiing, a stable snowpack (most of the time) and that sweet spring corn snow harvest, Tioga Pass, endless ridges of golden granite, splitter cracks, 12 months of shirtless climbing, and the weather to go with it, fly fishing, and the wine,...ohhh yes the California lifestyle.
 Eric hard at play
Education: Eric has a degree in Outdoor Education and In his ten years of guiding (four with SMC) Eric has successfully completed the AMGA Rock Instructor Exam, Advanced Alpine guides course, Ski guides course and the Ski Mountaineering guides course. He is a certified PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America) Nordic downhill instructor and holds a AIRIE level III (avalanche forcasting) certificate.
Other certifications include: Emergency Medical Technician, Wilderness First Responder, Wilderness Fire Fighter, AMGA Top Rope Site Provider. Eric hopes to be an IFMGA internationally certified Mountain Guide by 2007. |
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