Bonington was brought up near to the Northern Fellsmountain range at The Lake District, UK. His father is internationally recognised mountaineer Chris Bonington. Growing up among explorers and adventurers meant climbing and walking in the Northern Fells was a big part of his childhood. He embarked on his first expedition with his father in 1992, at the age of 24. In April 2000 Bonington accompanied his father on another expedition to Danga II which no other group had climbed before. The training required to achieve this expedition led to Joe qualifying as a Personal Trainer and Strength and Conditioning Coachin 2001 and kindled his interest in training people for outdoor and adventure sports.
Career
Bonington has been based in Sydney, Australia since 1998 and around this time he started to find it easier to work with his father. As a trek leader he has taken groups to the Annapurna region, Everest, Kokoda, Kilimanjaro in 1992 and Bhutan. The Kokoda Trail in 2004. Between 2005 and 2006 while managing bootcamps for Fitness First he was instrumental in trying to stop local councils from initiating license fees for trainers to use council land, beaches and parks. Since 2009 he has been the director of Bonington Treks LTD for which he is an expedition leader. In December 2014 Bonington formed Joe's Basecamp, a gym at Brookvale near the Northern Beaches of Sydney, that specialises in training people for endurance, wilderness and adventure sports, expeditions and treks There is also an altitude chamber. Bonington is an authority on training strategies for endurance, wilderness and adventure sports and recreational activities and often writes articles for mainstream publications giving advice on the subject. He has written for Auatralian Geographic Outdoors and since 2016 has written regular articles for Wild Magazine. He has appeared on television many times, including a three part news special, Daring The Kokoda for Channel 7 news in 2004 and was advisor, trek leader and wilderness expert in campDAREChannel 9 four part reality TV social experiment involving Australian teenagers from inner cities in 2005.
Australian Himalayan Foundation
Through his work and connections in Nepal, Bonington has been heavily involved in fundraising for the Nepalese people following the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and in 2017 was made an Ambassador for the Australian Himalayan Foundation. Throughout 2015, the altitude chamber at Joe's Basecamp was used by Stephen Bock and TV presenter Pete Wells to simulate the conditions of their previous climb to the summit of Everest with weighted backpacks, an initiative developed by Bonington to raise money for those affected by the earthquake. In February 2018 Joe organised the Australian film premiere of Bonington: Mountaineer, a documentary about his father. in part to raise money and awareness of the Australian Himalayan Foundation.
Personal life
Joe features heavily in his father's autobiographies, The Next Horizon, The Everest Years and Ascent, as well as in Jim Curran's High Achiever Both he and his brother Rupert struggled in the school system with the pressures accompanying their father's fame and career, leading to premature departure from school at the age of 16. He is an advocate of representing positive body images for women within the fitness industry, starting a body positive movement and campaign called My Body Moves in 2017. Bonington is married to Jude Bonington and they have two daughters, Edie and Honor.
