MEET THE OWNER

Wish I could talk about my decades of successful Silicon Valley experience working for Google or somebody important.  Didn't happen.  And it might be a better story if I could say I’ve been camping and backpacking since I was 3 years old.  Not exactly the case either.  The reality is I grew up on a poor excuse for a farm in Kentucky, and so the last thing I wanted to do after I was old enough to leave home was spend more time outdoors “roughing it” – I’d had enough of that.  But like the prodigal son, I came back around.

The genesis for this site came about some decades ago when I thought owning a Samoyed was a good idea, and had to walk it several thousand miles over a few years to keep it from rendering the places I called home in KY, TN and TX during that time.  Some of that time was on trails in the woods, which led to finally buying some backpacking gear to head out on some overnights with some friends. 

That proved to be an expensive proposition, but trying to rent at a local retailer got me the second-class citizen experience at the hands of the store clerk.  I figured there had to be a better way, which thus begat LowerGear.  That was many years ago, and what was intended as only a part-time business prospered into a full-blown division of my company, now based in Scottsdale. 

As far as the business formalities if anyone really cares, I do have a degree in Accounting - Summa Cum Laude in fact - and that entitled me to a sentence in a corporate cubicle for a few years.  After I escaped, I began an entrepreneurship odyssey in all kinds of businesses that continues for 30+ years, mostly in advertising and publishing, and even includes a partnership in what is planned as an eventual network of diabetes medical centers.  In addition to camping gear, through other sites we rent automobile navigation units, manage rental programs for others, and will soon rent other electronic gear and gadgets. We stay busy. Of course I like my camping gear rental customers the best. 

I still try to get out on a couple of backpacking trips each year, and just grab the same gear off the shelf we offer for rent.  Nothing beats the Sierras.  On weekends I hike the McDowells near my home, and nearly always have a few pups around the house I foster for the Arizona Humane Society.  If puppies trust me, so can you.  See my Owners' Guarantee.

For more information, photos and propaganda:

See my Linked-In profile
Or see my personal Facebook profile
Or see our company Facebook page

Thanks for visiting!

Dallas Shewmaker, Owner
480-348-8917

 

 

30+ years of advertising experience tells me to lead off with a baby or puppy.  I don't have babies, but here are 3 of the more than 100 pups I've fostered for various Humane Societies in KY, TN and now AZ.  Must be a nice guy in there somewhere.

    

  
 

An oh-wow moment for me in Sequoia National Park along the High Sierra Trail some years ago.  I leave the big packs home now and travel a little lighter these days.

  

  

 

   

 

Uh, don't step back - Colorado River rapids somewhere in a Primitive Area in the Grand Canyon.

  

   

 

 

 

This sign is on a popular trail in the Canyon, but I ignored it and then some on the "Arizona Death March" - hiking from the South Rim to the Norh Rim and back - in one shot, under 24 hours.  About 45 miles or so on the route I take, up and down about 10,000 ft elevation.  Serious day hike.  Have done it twice, for some reason.   

 

      

 

Obligatory group shot of team I was part of that mapped a section of the Continental Divide Trail for a Backpacker Magazine project in 2007.  The part we did was about 50 miles around Butte, MT.

  

 

 

 

 

Some of my rental gear on the moonscape that is the west side of Mt Whitney at about 12,000 ft.   We were all packing Sierra Designs tents on this trip.

 

 

 

    

  

On top of Whitney - about 14,500'.  I've made the trip 3 times so far, and we have outfitted dozens of backpackers from all over the country scratching this one off their hiking bucket list