PROFILE
By Glenda Graves
Rick Spicer
Finding Purpose in the Wild
On any given day, you might find Rick Spicer deep in the Ozarks with a compass and map in hand, guiding a survival workshop, or chatting with new hikers at Fayetteville’s beloved Pack Rat Outdoor Center. As co-owner and longtime soul of the shop, Rick’s passion for nature runs far deeper than gear; it’s about community and a lifelong love of the wild.
​
Rick’s connection to nature began early. “My love for the outdoors was just a part of my family,” he said. “Like a lot of Arkansas kids, I grew up with a grandpa and dad for whom fishing was a way of life. My dad was a hunter from the Delta, and my grandpa an avid angler. From the time I was old enough to tag along, I was outside.”
​
Since moving to Fayetteville at age 10, Rick has always thought of Northwest Arkansas as home. However, his path did lead him briefly to the University of Tennessee after graduating from Fayetteville High School. While there, he found himself balancing night shifts loading semi-trucks with daytime classes and studying, not leaving much time for sleep or making friends.
​
By the time he returned to Northwest Arkansas after his first year, he realized how lonely he was and made the decision to stay in Fayetteville and enroll at the University of Arkansas. He graduated in 2001 with a degree in environmental soil science, an academic choice that reflected his growing interest in the intersection of land and sustainability.
​
Rick’s journey with Pack Rat Outdoor Center began when he was in college. “I was working there during college, and the owners Scott and Carolyn were so good to me,” he said. “I didn’t have a lot of material possessions. My life revolved around climbing, backpacking and fishing.”
Photo by Krescent Studios
Photo by Krescent Studios
Photo by Krescent Studios
He recalled, laughing, that at one point all his worldly belongings could fit in a backpack. “That store became like home,” he said.
​
But still, Rick said if you’d told him back then that this is where his career would lead, he would have never believed you.
​
Founded in 1973 by Scott and Carolyn Crook, Pack Rat has grown immensely. When Rick first started, they were housed in a modest 5,000-square-foot store on Township Street and now have a 15,000-square-foot store on Sunbridge Drive in Fayetteville, which serves as the cornerstone of the local outdoor scene. Throughout the past 26 years, Rick has helped shape that evolution, first as a part-time employee, then as manager and eventually co-owner. He now serves as the equipment buyer, event coordinator and guiding force behind the store’s community outreach.
In his time at Pack Rat, Rick said he has learned so much. “Community building is one of the skills I’m most proud of,” he said. “We host community nights, organize trail runs, paddle meetups, and educational clinics and support local nonprofits like the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust. If we don’t protect the spaces we love, we will eventually lose them.”
​
That commitment to community is part of the culture at Pack Rat and influences the way employees are mentored and customers are welcomed. “It’s not technically a family business,” he said, “but it feels like one. We care deeply about our employees, our customers and our community.”
​
He said it was Scott and Carolyn who created that mindset for the business.
​
To Rick, being brick-and-mortar retail is not a limitation but a strength. “The question is: What can we do that the internet can’t? And that’s the human component. That’s building community.”
​​
Rick Spicer during a 10-day climbing, backpacking and fishing trip in Wyoming’s Wind River Range in August 2024
Rick and Keely Spicer with their children, Rylan and Laurel, during a 7-day backpacking and fishing trip in the Sawtooth wilderness in Idaho in July 2024
Rick is candid about the challenges of running a small business in an Amazon-driven world, but he’s not deterred. Instead, he leans into what makes Pack Rat irreplaceable: authenticity and community. “When people walk in here, they’re not just looking for a jacket,” he said. “They’re looking for direction, for connection, and we can give them that.”
​
Pack Rat’s Instagram (@packratoc) and Rick’s own account (@packratbushcraft) offer glimpses of this philosophy. Photos of trail cleanups, survival workshops and impromptu trailhead conversations emphasize his belief that outdoor connection should be inclusive and empowering.
​
Beyond Pack Rat, Rick is a certified wilderness survival instructor with the Boulder Outdoor Survival School based in Utah, where he teaches immersive — often grueling — field courses in primitive living and backcountry navigation. “It’s about mindset as much as skillset,” he said. “You don’t learn just how to survive; you learn how to think.”
​
In 2020, his survival skills were put on national display when he appeared in episode five of Alone: The Beast, a History Channel reality series where contestants endure harsh, wild terrain with no food, water or fire-starting tools. Rick spent a month in the Louisiana swamps with two strangers and no gear. “It was brutal,” he said, “but also one of the most humbling and beautiful experiences I’ve ever had.”
Rick’s love of wild spaces extends into his advocacy. He serves as the public waters chair for the Arkansas Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, working to protect public access and healthy ecosystems. He’s also a vocal supporter of the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust’s 10K4NWA initiative, aimed at preserving 10,000 acres of critical green space amid the region’s rapid development.
​
“Access and habitat — that’s what matters,” Rick said. “If we don’t have wild places, we lose more than recreation. We lose part of ourselves.”
That belief shapes his parenting, too. He and his wife, Keely, a physical therapist and lifelong outdoor enthusiast, have instilled those values in their two children. “Doing hard things is one of my personal creeds,” Rick said. “Last year, we took the kids on a seven-day backpacking trip in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. They carried their own gear. It was rugged, but I was so proud of them for how they handled it all.”
​
Keely and Rick married in 2007, reconnecting years after meeting in high school. “She’s amazing,” Rick said. “She supports all this outdoor stuff, even if she draws the line at climbing the big mountains. But she’s a solid paddler, hiker and backpacker in her own right.”
​
The couple has traveled the world together and now finds joy in weekend camping trips and stargazing from their backyard.
​
The events Rick leads, whether it’s the winter survival series Vinterläger, bushcraft clinics or community fundraisers such as Brewha Bushwhack, reflect his vision of learning through experience. “I don’t want to just lecture,” Rick said. “I want people to feel it in their bones. I facilitate, and then, I get out of the way.”
​
When asked about his favorite trail in the Ozarks, Rick doesn’t hesitate: “I like going where there are no trails. I teach land navigation, so when I backpack with buddies, we’re finding drainages and using creeks as trails. That’s how I recharge.”
​
And the outdoor gear he never leaves home without? “A good knife and the GRAYL water filter,” Rick said. “It works like a coffee press. You can drink wild water in seconds. We carry it in the store, of course.”
​
Despite the rapid urbanization of Northwest Arkansas, Rick is optimistic about the future of outdoor culture. “The challenge is education,” he said. “We can’t just get people outside; we have to teach them how to behave out there. It’s not just about trash. It’s about noise, about respect and about responsibility.”
​
For Rick, the outdoors is both a place to recharge and a space to learn. “There’s something about sleeping under the stars, about being uncomfortable and working through it that makes you a better human,” he said.
​
Rick Spicer is rooted in something steady: an honest connection to nature, community and meaningful work. “If more people focused on their local communities,” he said, “we’d see real change. That’s what I’m trying to do.”