Jon Keakuer was born on April 12, 1954. He was the third out of five children. Jon was raised in Corvallis, Oregon and has been raised there since the age of two. He was introduced to mountaineering at age eight by his father, and this led him to his career. He graduated from college in 1977 and a year after, he stayed in the wilderness in  Alaska for three weeks. In this three week time period, he climbed the Devil's Thumb. Jon Keakuer wrote the book Into the Wild.