People travel all over the world to experience the outdoor adventures right here in our back yard. Utah is a place that is filled with mountains to ski, cliffs to climb, rivers to raft and trails to bike. It is a place that is surrounded by beauty and filled with diversity. Utah Valley University is unique in that it takes the opportunity to show students how to get involved in many different outdoor activities through their Outdoor Adventure Center located in the Sorensen Student Center room SC-103h.
The Outdoor Adventure Center is a place where students can go to interact with other students with similar interests, go on awesome beginner level trips, rent a variety of gear and shop a little in their retail.
“The Outdoor Adventure Center is great because it gives people a place to fit in on campus. It has a sense of community to it in which it’s easy to meet people with similar interests and it allows students to get away from the computer screens and get outside,” said trip leader Dylan Dustup.
The Outdoor Adventure Center has a variety of activities and trips to appeal to almost anyone’s interests. This center usually does one big trip a month. These trips are at a beginner level so anyone can participate even if they have no previous experience. The only requirements are to pay the fee to attend the trips. These fees are cheap and only to pay for the equipment and/ or food for the trip.
“I lot of people think that they can go cheaper with their buddies but really they can’t. We don’t make any profit off of the fees. They are solely to pay for the cost of equipment, gas and food for our longer trips,” said Dustup.
Some of the trips that the Outdoor Adventure Center has taken this semester are: a Strawberry ice fishing trip, a spring break trip down the San Juan River, a cross country skiing/snowshoeing trip at Midway, rock climbing down Indian Creek and a canyoneering trip to Robbers Roost.
“One of the highlights for this year was when we had a great turn out of international students for the ice fishing trip. We had a lot of fun teaching them to ice fish,” said Dustup.
The Outdoor Adventure Center has one more trip planned for this semester. This trip will be to Havasupai Arizona and will be held April 26-May 1. During this trip students will be back packing down to the waterfalls and spending the next few days swimming and playing in the water. The cost is $255.
Students can find more information about the trips, gear rental and registration for this trip or for future trips online at www.uvu.edu/oac.
