Who are The Rugged Outdoorsmen?

This past year has brought about a lot of growth and change for the Outdoorsmen. We decided to take the opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to those who are new to our blog, website and journey as a family who run a business around our love for the outdoors.

First and foremost, The Rugged Outdoorsmen are a veteran family with homegrown values. We have 4 boys, three are now grown and out on their own adventures, Mike is our youngest outdoorsman. Our principles as a family, are to live a positive, healthy lifestyle and have a positive impact on others.

We take pride in doing what’s right, and it starts with simple things, like picking up trash from the sidewalk instead of walking on past. It’s the little things that make a difference. We believe in karma and providence. There’s a quote that means a lot to us, and it is this:

“You Can Have Everything in Life You Want, If You Will Just Help Enough Other People Get What They Want.”- Zig Ziglar

Let’s Begin,

Being Outdoorsmen, one obvious thing, is that we enjoy being outdoors, and that’s true, but it’s more than just that, a lot more.

We love to explore new places that are off the beaten path and camping in the wild- also known and referred to as ‘Boondocking’.

I’d say that we are part-time Overlanders, traveling to lesser-known places where we’re free to roam, with few restrictions.

Going to places like National Monuments, Preserves, National forests, and exploring public lands. Setting up camp in these places, we can freelance hike and explore where few have gone, on the paths we create.

Exploring these places has allowed us to immerse ourselves into the wild and experience all the outdoors has to offer.

With that being said, we do also enjoy visiting places of Historical significance as well as our State and National Parks around the country.

As with many other Outdoorsmen, our passion is not limited to just one activity, we also kayak, paddleboard, rock climb, rappel, and go whitewater rafting too.

Several years ago, we completed the work on our rustic summer camp- ‘Camp Riverview’. It consists of a main camp that sleeps 6, a guest camp for 4 and a fully enclosed tree cabin with bunkbeds for two. The camp is off-the-grid and nestled on 11 acres along the banks of the AuSable River in the Adirondack Mountains.

Our journey in late spring from Nevada to Camp Riverview is filled with exploration as we navigate across the country. The summer is spent on the river and exploring the surrounding mountains, until our return trek in August.

With all our travel and through trial and error, we’ve come to realize that we needed a more practical, functional Adventure Rig to fit our active lifestyle.

So, about 18 months ago, we began a custom build using a 2017 Thor 24’ Class C- Motorhome. Mrs. Rugged was very particular about the floorplan, specifically due to us downsizing from a 31′ motorhome to a 24-footer. We needed to create a rugged truck, on a proven platform, and went with the Ford E-450 Super Duty Chassis powered by a massive V-10 and a six-speed transmission. We literally searched the country, until we located the right one in Colorado. We refer to our rig as The Adventurer, and Mike lovingly calls this truck Hercules.

This build has afforded us an additional 7 ½ inches of ground clearance, with a custom heavy-duty lift, to include Fox reservoir shocks and BF Goodrich all-terrain tires. Dressed out with custom bumpers, a 12,000 lb. Warn winch, and ample recovery gear for the confidence to push a Class-C motorhome as far as one would dare to go. We have Solar power and an on-board generator, giving us the ability to easily operate off the grid for a week or more.

So-

how did the business end of The Rugged Outdoorsmen come to be?

It all starts with JB telling a story to a friend and fellow hiker one day about Mike’s climbing ability and fearless motivation. After hearing the story, this friend said, “You guys should be documenting and sharing these father and son adventures with the rest of the outdoor community on social media.”

Right about this same time, on one of our many hikes together, Mike and I were talking, and we were thinking of ideas for a collectable, or a gift, that hikers could share, that was different than traditional patches and so on, that’s when we came up with the idea for Rugged Coins. This idea was in part, due to an occasion when I passed one of my Drill Instructor coins to a fellow hiker, and that, had a pivotal impact on this idea, but that’s another story.

These two ideas created a spark, which led to our move of opening an Instagram account. So began the exhaustive process of finding a name that wasn’t taken. We needed to find a name that we could also use across multiple platforms and with a dot com, and that’s when ‘The Rugged Outdoorsmen’ was born.

The actual Brand is really built on the premise of a father and son just having a good time and spreading camaraderie to others out on the trail.

In all actuality, it is a father, son and occasionally mom too. (Mom or Mrs. Rugged as she is also known, is an absolute key component of this tribe, although she sometimes pretends otherwise).

Our Mission as this Brand, known as The Rugged Outdoorsmen, is to motivate others to get outside and set the example for others to follow. To encourage camaraderie among family, friends, and fellow hikers, with the passing of a coin and a handshake.

Where we are today.

A lot has happened since we began this journey documenting and sharing our adventures on Instagram and our Facebook business feed just over two years ago.

We started meeting great like-minded people on both platforms, created friendships, and a growing following of absolutely, incredible people. We love the feeling of belonging and community that we’ve experienced on Instagram- a rugged thank you to all who support and follow us.

Creating a healthy balance on social media has led to brand’s reaching out to us, to promote their products, and we’ve managed to reach out and create a rapport with several brands on our own. We have an official Outerwear Sponsor, ‘M-Tac‘ Brand- who we are proud to say are headquartered in the Ukraine. They provide us with Jackets, Pants, Footwear & other Outdoor Equipment for our rugged explorations.

We currently promote, review, and ‘field test’ products on our explorations as The Rugged Outdoorsmen, with 7 active accounts and an ongoing collaboration with BPP- Backpacker’s Pantry.

We have experience running our own podcast, and we have been guests on other podcasts which has been a lot of fun for us.

Today, we’re actively working on the direction of our brand, and we’re excited to see new growth in the future.

In Closing-

Being outside together is an incredible bonding experience for our family, and we cherish that experience.

We believe that the world was meant to be explored, and that as a people, we should be outside enjoying the beauty of the earth, and we want to encourage more people to do the same.

We’re a family of Outdoorsmen, freelance hikers, and we love adventure.

JB| Mike| and Mrs. Rugged

Get Outside – Hike the Earth – Be Rugged