After nearly three decades Next Adventure, a mainstay in Portland’s outdoor community, is closing its doors.

The used and new outdoor gear shop was started in 1997 by childhood friends Deek Heykamp and Bryan Knudsen, and grew into multiple locations around the Portland metro area. But after 28 years, the owners are eyeing retirement and planning to close all locations by the fall.

Heykamp joined OPB’s “All Things Considered” host Crystal Ligori to talk about the mission to outdoors “accessible to everyone” and the decision to close after three decades.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Crystal Ligori: Can we start off with a little history? Let’s talk about how Next Adventure started and what was different about it.

Deek Heykamp: Well, we started in 1997 and we were just a fun and funky gear store: mainly used gear, some closeouts.

But the whole concept of Next Adventure actually comes from Bryan and my childhood. Our mothers started first grade together and were best friends in high school, and we met when we were children at their 10-year class reunion.

I was five, he was eight, and we just hit it off — we were adventure buddies. We would go on these crazy adventures and that’s actually where the name of the business comes from.

We would get together and our parents would be like, “What’s your next adventure? What crazy adventure are you going on?” And it kind of stuck. And so, it’s just the lifestyle that we have had our whole lives and realizing that we didn’t have much money growing up and we used different sources to get the gear that we needed.

There was a model I saw up in Seattle: there was a store called 2nd Base and another one called Second Bounce that dealt in the used gear, and Portland didn’t have something like that.

And if we would’ve known then what we know now, it was a much more competitive market, we probably should not have even opened, but somehow it struck a chord with Portland and we’ve just felt amazing support.

People get what we’re into, they get that we’re trying to give people good, high-quality gear that they can get out and use, and get into the sports and the outdoors that they love at the price they can afford.

Ligori: Can you talk about that mission to make the outdoors accessible to everyone?

Heykamp: Yeah. We run on a clear set of values, and one of them definitely is making it available for everyone, and those barriers started out as just price barriers.

Gear can be very expensive, but you don’t need a $600 Gore-Tex jacket to go and have a good day of skiing or to go and push your grandchildren on a swing on a rainy day, but you do need a nice Gore-Tex jacket.

So being able to meet those price barriers and beat those price barriers, whether that was with new product or close-out product, which is last year’s gear at a discounted price, and that was our main purpose in the beginning.

We definitely grew as people and as a business and understand that there were other barriers that we didn’t understand in the beginning, whether that was getting people of color out in the outdoors, we learned a lot about how to make that accessible as well.

At our Scappoose Bay Paddle Sports Center, we have a way to get people that aren’t typically mobile enough to get into a kayak, into kayaks and get them out on the water. It’s been kind of the joy of our life to see people from all walks and all ability levels not be intimidated when they come into our store and get the gear they need to do the adventures that they want.

When I talk about the business side of it, it’s a business. It’s just a business. People open and close businesses all the time.

When I start talking about the people, that’s what I get choked up.

Ligori: After 28 years of owning Next Adventure and many more in the Pacific Northwest, I’m sure that you’ve got a lot of great outdoor stories. Can you tell us about one of your favorite adventures?

Heykamp: I think one of the capstone adventures — it may not sound that adventurous at all — but Bryan and I were working early in the business and we had just been slaving, and I looked at him and it was in the afternoon and it’s like, “You know what? We got to stop working. We got to go get outside,” and we grabbed some backpacks, used stuff out of the store, and we just went and hiked up Eagle Creek up to the falls and spent the night.

Just the ability to leave from your work and be in one of the most beautiful areas that you can imagine in such a short period of time. Get up the next morning, get back out, and still be to work on time, that’s one of those adventures that you just never forget.

Ligori: You’d think out of all the things that Portland could keep in business, an outdoor gear shop would be one of them. Was there one thing that led to this decision to close or was it a mix of everything?

Heykamp: As you’re looking at your business and you’re looking at your life, you have to consider all the sides.

Retirement is the number one thing. Bryan and I, we’re both in our 60s now, and we’re both healthy and we’re able to go and still do the adventures that we want to go on, and so it’s a nice sendoff and we get to go out the way that we would choose on our terms.

We are incredibly privileged to be able to go out on our terms. There are so many businesses in Portland and in the United States now that they’re not. The nation is kind of an unstable place for business right now, there’s a lot of variables.

Understanding that, knowing that, and also our city — while Bryan and I are so incredibly thankful for Portland and the way Portland has treated us and the opportunities that it’s given us, it’s also been challenging.

I feel like now is the right time because of all those factors.

Ligori: I know you’re shuttering multiple locations over the summer, so what’s going to happen to all that gear?

Heykamp: We are going to start a retirement sale on May 28. We’ll be closed a couple of days before that and won’t be selling on the website during the sale, and then the sale will start on May 28.

We do have a lot of inventory. You see what’s in the stores, but you don’t see what’s in our warehouse, which is a huge space, and so we expect that it’ll take us probably early fall.

We’re hoping to kind of button things up by September and then be off on our next adventure.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/14/portland-next-adventure-closing/