About

People aren’t simple. There is nuance, history, narrative and dreams.

Whilst I don’t want to give away everything about me, I think it is important to disclose a bit about where I’m coming from, what I’m informed by and what I hold to because the rich story about who I am is important for contextualising what I’m on about.

I was an outdoor abseiling, climbing, hiking and canyoning guide for over 10 years. I’m also a qualified trainer and assessor and for a long time I owned a small business that conducted abseiling, hiking, climbing and canyoning tours in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia. To find out about my professional life, you can check out my LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylan-a-jones/ 

I’m most interested in experiences and work that involves people doing activities that are:

• In the outdoors

• In natural places (vs artificial/man made facilities), generally in remote or wilderness locations (vs semi urban contexts)

• Active (not passive or motorised pursuits)

• Non-competitive (recreation, not sport)

• Based on complex activities

  • eg. Multi pitch lead climbing or canyoning

  • As opposed to archery or single pitch abseiling on an artificial wall

• Conducted in dynamic (vs static) environments

  • i.e. there is the potential for rapid and continuous change. There is a complex interplay of a number of different factors and feedback loops.

Also, I’m not here to:

• Push education for participants as an agenda – however I acknowledge the real power of these contexts for that outcome.

• Argue the health benefits (mental and physical) of these activities. I take these as given.

• Debate the importance of conservation – although I certainly believe that conservation of natural spaces and wild places is critically important.