Trips
Outdoor Adventures runs weekend and day trips all year — flatwater and whitewater paddling, rock climbing, backpacking, day hikes, cycling, caving, cross-country and downhill ski days, winter camping, and longer expeditions over spring and winter break. Most are explicitly built for beginners: the trip description lists the difficulty, what is provided, and what you need to bring, and "no experience necessary" means it. You sign up in the rec app, pay a modest fee that covers transportation, group gear, permits, and food, attend a short pre-trip meeting, and show up. Trips fill early in the semester, and there is a waitlist that moves.
If cost is the barrier, ask — there is a subsidy for students on financial aid so the fee is not the reason someone stays home.
The gear room
The equipment rental center lends the expensive stuff cheaply by the day or weekend so you can go on your own: tents, sleeping bags and pads, backpacks, stoves and cook kits, canoes and kayaks with paddles and PFDs, snowshoes, cross-country skis, bike-camping setups, and bear canisters. Reserve online, especially before a holiday weekend. Staff will show you how to use anything you rent and help you plan a first solo trip — where to go within an hour of Porter Falls, what the conditions are, what to leave behind.
The climbing wall and clinics
The rec center's 35-foot wall and bouldering cave are open during building hours with staff belayers and free rental shoes and harnesses — walk up, no reservation, no experience. Regular clinics teach belaying and lead climbing (belay certification lets you climb with a partner outside staffed times), plus intro sessions in kayaking rolls, backpacking skills, map and compass, and avalanche awareness for the ski crowd. Most clinics are free or a few dollars for materials.
Becoming a trip leader
Trip leaders are trained students, and it is one of the better campus jobs. The leadership development path runs across a semester or two: a leadership course or seminar, wilderness first aid and CPR certification (the program pays for it), activity-specific skills checks, co-leading trips under a mentor, then leading your own. Leaders are paid, travel free, and build a genuine outdoor-education resume. You do not need to arrive an expert — several current leaders took their first-ever trip with the program as first-year students.
Questions?
See the full staff & office directory for any phone number or email. Because this is a fictional parody site, addresses and phone numbers are illustrative and do not reach a real university.