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LONDON — L3 Adventures had its ribbon cutting ceremony on June 24, officially completing the full opening of London’s newest outdoors survival retail store.
L3 Adventures promises to bring camping, hiking and kayaking gear, as well as other standard survival and novelty equipment, to the Tri-County, something that locals previously had to travel all the way to Lexington to properly get.
The store is run by Stephen Jones, whose story to get to where he is now adds a special layer of intrigue to an already much-needed retail store.
Jones was a student at Eastern Kentucky studying law, something he admitted later that he hated, when he decided to take a kayaking trip with some friends that would change his life trajectory forever.
While biting off more than he could chew, pitch rapids caused his kayak to capsize and Jones to hit his head on the rocks underwater. While he was fine after the ordeal, a more pressing issue remained: he and his friends were soaking wet in the woods with the temperature getting as low as 40 degrees in the night.
“It was a long night,” Jones said. “All our gear had gotten wet and then it got down to around 40 degrees that night. We all brought our own tents, but we all ended up in one just trying not to freeze to death. We tried to dry everything off by the fire, but it never did work. There were also some random chainsaws in the background out in the middle of nowhere.”
The next morning the group hiked all the way back out the next morning, as melting snow had caused the river to rise. By the end, the hike back was around six hours, with the group lugging all their gear and kayaks while facing fatigue and hunger.
The experience, along with his own experience with emergency medical training, led Jones to open L3 Adventures, as well as plan to potentially offer basic wilderness survival classes in the future if he is able.
“I was trained as a wilderness EMT in New Hampshire,” he said. “I’m not a licensed EMT instructor, but I can get my first aid instructor [certification] with no problems so I can actually get everyone First Aid CPR certified. I can teach them a lot of neat tricks like how to build a splint with sticks, I can teach them how to make a femur traction device with a canoe paddle, sweatshirt and some string, I’ll do a couple on medicinal herbs and stuff like that, but just basic safety. A lot of don’t approach this animal, what to do if you’re approached by a bear, and then other basic stuff like how to build a fire, shelter out of tarps, basic bush crafting.”
While Jones hopes his business, like any, will make him money, he also mentioned he hopes that if nothing else it can be a positive thing for the local community and fill a much-needed hole in the area.
“I’m just trying to help out the community, this is something we don’t really have around here, and I think it’s a good business,” he said. “Yeah, I’ve got to make a buck too, but I’ve got everything priced at retail. If you find it in my store and you find it online, it should be about the same price.”
While his accident started him on this path toward L3 Adventures, Jones mentioned that he still takes time to traverse the outdoors, having hiked in Woods Creek less than a week before the ribbon cutting.
In terms of kayaking though, while he has kayaked Rockcastle River since his accident, he has yet to travel back to overcome pitch rapids, saying, “The pitch rapids probably aren’t as bad as my brain remembers them, but no I haven’t been [back there]. I don’t like the water; I still don’t like the water.”
Jones did comment that perhaps one day he’ll go back to conquer his old foe, but in the meantime, he still has other plans for improving the local community beyond just opening his store.
“Really what I want to do is, next year potentially, is purchase a kayak livery, my sister used to run Rockcastle Adventures Kayak Rentals and I’d like to buy the property,” he said. “Then I’d like to have a scout group like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts but actually really teach them survival skills and not just how to sell cookies and popcorn. There’s a great program in town called CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), and if I could work with the underprivileged kids and just get them out and give them something to think about, maybe a break.”
In the meantime, L3 Adventures looks to have a strong first year in business, supporting the local community and all of its trails, rivers and lakes that make the area such an attractive place to live.
Jones commented that a website is set to be up and running in a few weeks, but anybody is always welcome to stop in at 1022 North Mill Street. L3 Adventures is open from 10:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday.
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