The Peak 7 warehouse sits off a quiet road in southeast Spokane just outside of Cheney. From the outside it looks like any other nondescript shop. But inside, behind the rolling garage door, is the lifeblood of this non-profi t adventure outfitter.
Racks, bins and shelves are stuff ed with clothing, boots, tents and food. Sleeping bags, ropes and helmets hang from rafters. There are shovels and ice axes, kayaks and rafts — all the gear you’d ever need to set out for the great outdoors. This is, after all, the hub of the organization, the place where youth come to be outfi tted for their hiking, mountain climbing and rafting trips — adventures Peak 7 has been providing for the past decade.
“This is where the magic happens,” says one of Peak 7’s guides as he and others unpack from a mountain climbing trip up the North Cascades’ Sahale Peak. He jokes, but this IS where the magic happens. It’s where thousands of young teens begin what is far more than an outdoor adventure. It’s where they begin a journey of self-discovery. At least that’s the hope for every kid who participates in Peak 7’s program, says Ryan Kerrigan, the charismatic man who started the organization on a shoestring and a vision 11 years ago.
“This year, we’ll serve about 4,500 kids,” Ryan says. “And we’ll do it on a lean budget.”
Peak 7 Adventures has come a long way since Ryan started it out of his Spokane home in 2006.
He laughs when he talks about the meager beginnings.
“I personally had a lot of gear. I kayaked a lot,” he says. “I bought two rafts with my personal money and ran everything out of my home. My kitchen was food lines. My living room was full of tents and sleeping bags and stuff.”
His small-but-growing staff of guides lived in his house until 2008 when a donor gave Peak 7 use of a small warehouse and office space that became the hub. The organization quickly outgrew that and moved into its current and also partially donated space. Two other warehouses and offices are in Seattle and Oregon, but the Spokane location is the largest.
Ryan recalls that difficult first summer in business.
“I was just calling groups saying ‘Hey, would you like to go rafting?’ It just grew more than I ever thought it would.”
The first year he signed up 137 kids, which he thought was a lot. His board of directors thought otherwise.
“I wanted to do 150 the next year, but the board wanted 500. I said, ‘This isn’t going to work.’ We served 589 the next year. I fought it but I was wrong. We then jumped 500 kids every year. There’s obviously a huge need for it.”
It’s not so much the adventure trips Peak 7 is providing youth. The trips are a vehicle for Ryan’s greater vision:
to provide an experience that changes kids from within, something he believes is difficult, if not impossible, to do from the confines of four walls.
He points to how busy people are and how connected everyone is to electronic devices. People are distracted. They don’t slow down. They don’t reflect. He goes on…
Ryan gets revved up fairly easily, as passionate people do when they start talking about things they deeply care about.
Through Peak 7, Ryan wants to help kids disconnect from electronics, from their problems at home and in their social circles, and from their insecurities. He wants them to connect with nature and ultimately themselves. He’s quick to say Peak 7 is not in the business of “fixing” kids but rather giving them perspective so they can fix themselves.
“We listen. We hear their story,” he says. “We don’t have answers. My job is to let them know they matter. I’m not going to enable you, but I’m here for you.”
Peak 7’s outdoor adventures are designed to challenge youth to overcome perceived limits.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t have access to these challenges,” he says.
He knows first-hand the benefit.
As a kid, Ryan struggled. He traveled every couple years with his missionary doctor/nurse parents. While his home life was “amazing,” he says his social life was not.
“I didn’t have friends,” he says. “I got left out a lot.”
He also didn’t hear very well, had a speech impediment and struggled in school, compounding his feelings of isolation.
When he started Peak 7, he was determined to ensure no kid ever felt left out.
Story continues after a quick message from our sponsor below.
“We are here for kids,” he says. “If any kids walk away not feeling they fit in, we didn’t do our job.”
Ryan knows what Peak 7 is doing matters. And that alone fuels him.
Kids talk about the adrenaline rush being the first high they’ve had that wasn’t from drugs. Others say their adventure experience gave them the motivation to accomplish important things in their life.
That kind of feedback is constant, Ryan says.
“Does it work? Yeah, it works.”
On a sunny morning at the warehouse in Spokane, Ryan talks with a few of his guides as they dry and put away tents from their climb up Sahale Mountain. He jokes around with the group. They joke back. It’s an easy interaction that speaks volumes about the kind of culture Ryan’s created over the years.
He remains overwhelmed and amazed at what his little adventure idea has become.
“It’s way bigger than me,” he says.
And he hopes the organization will get bigger. He’d like to see Peak 7 serve youth in more regions, perhaps even internationally. But it won’t be Ryan leading the charge, entirely. He is stepping back. A new executive director has taken over Peak 7’s existing programs.
“It’s time to let someone else who is gifted in the administrative and managing realm continue the momentum,” he says.
It has been all-consuming running a busy non-profit, raising money to keep it going and finding the time to be a devoted dad to his two young children.
It’s a bit ironic that the man who has helped so many in their journey to self-discovery is in many ways starting his own. Though he won’t disappear completely. He’ll stay involved by developing new programs and helping bring in necessary funds to keep the organization moving forward.
“I believe in what we do,” he says.
And Peak 7 has done a lot, so much that Ryan struggles to find the one word to describe what the organization has given youth over the years.
He pauses. Then he looks up, as if plucking the word from the sky.
“Hope,” he says, with resolution. “Hope that there is something better in life.” N
By Kristina Lyman
Photography By Joel Riner
As Featured In: 2018 Summer/Fall SPO Edition
