Over the course of the semester, the Outdoor Program at the University of Idaho has offered many fall trips for students to enjoy. The Outdoor Program has given many opportunities for students to be able to go outdoors throughout this time of uncertainty and explore while providing them with safety, education and a chance to figure out what they could personally explore on their own.
Each trip is very different and the many trip leaders that work with the Outdoor Program have provided a learning experience that many participants have enjoyed. Sandra Townsend, an Outdoor Program event coordinator, doesn’t go on many trips but she advises and trains all trip leaders. Townsend said that the trips have gone well this year, and that the trip leaders have taken every one very seriously.
“This past spring and early summer, we’ve been going over new protocols and inventing better practices,” Townsend said. “When it comes to COVID-19 protocols we haven’t actually changed them that much which is good to know that we’ve been conservative enough where we feel that we’re meeting the best practices. We keep everyone’s safety and health to the highest standard that we can while still running the trips.”
The Outdoor Program ran many different kinds of activities this semester that varied from outdoor trips, Rental Center deals and virtual adventures. The outdoor trips included fly fishing, river canyon backpacking and biking on different types of trails.
The Rental Center offered different activities like free rentals on the last Friday of each month, a bouldering league and a rock climb. Different virtual adventures included how to plan do-it-yourself adventure and a ski tuning clinic. Apart from these events, spring events are beginning to open up as avalanche awareness courses are available for registration to help people with safety.
“We had a fatal avalanche on Silver Mountain last year and tragically, some people’s lives were lost even being in a resort,” Townsend said. “It was just the wrong place at the wrong time I would say, but avalanches do happen.
They don’t happen on the Palouse much on where there is avalanche terrain that’s in the area, but definitely if folks are backcountry skiing past Clarkia in a freeze up area or up in the Silver Valley, those are areas that have avalanches for sure, and there are avalanche centers that will give forecasts, but they do happen. And thankfully there are resources out there to help people make better decisions.”
Compared to last year, trip attendance has gone down but the Outdoor Program is hopeful that in the future attendance will rise especially after a vaccine for COVID-19 has been distributed. The program has also seen an increase in people wanting to become trip leaders and leading other people on outdoor adventures.
“I would say we saw a little bit of a decrease for sure, which is not unexpected at all,” Townsend said. “We ran our first Vandal ventures trip this summer for incoming freshmen, and that was highly successful. We had all the spots filled for that program. For our students that are more on campus, we definitely were trying out new trips and we definitely had people that were interested in all of them. We just didn’t see quite as much return as we historically would have.”
Townsend hopes to see more people on trips in the future but ultimately she just hopes that more people will spend time outside.
“It has such a positive impact on people’s mental, social and physical well-being that even if you can’t go out on a trip with us, please go outside and enjoy some fresh air,” Townsend said.
Armin Mesinovic can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @arminmesinovic.