Students and faculty spend spring break hiking through Canyonlands National Park
While you are reading this, WSU Vancouver students are currently backpacking through the canyons and valleys of Utah. Many VanCougs take the opportunity to travel over spring break. Some go on a road trip, some go overseas, but every year, through the Office of Student Involvement at WSU Vancouver, a handful of students go on a backpacking trip.
OSI Outdoor Recreation Intern and senior environmental science major, Salvador Robb-Chavez, said the trip is just short of a “transcendent experience.”
-Salvador Robb-Chavez
“The stars are actually the biggest highlight to me. Out there in Utah it’s clear as a bell, the sky has nothing in it most nights, and you can see every single star. And Mars looks like a red L.E.D. light up there.”
This backpacking trip will be Robb-Chavez’s second spring break excursion with OSI. Upon reflection of past trips, Robb-Chavez said, “The best part of the trip is the solitude you get.” He added, “The stars are actually the biggest highlight to me. Out there in Utah it’s clear as a bell, the sky has nothing in it most nights, and you can see every single star. And Mars looks like a red L.E.D. light up there.”
OSI can only take 12 people; eight students and four facilitators, due to party size restrictions on hiking in a national park. The five-day backpacking trip to Canyonlands National Park in Utah includes a 16 hour drive in a university provided vehicle. Facilitators rotate who is behind the wheel and the group stops near Lake Walcott in Idaho for a one night.
“We end up camping on the way down; actually at this place in Idaho [Lake Walcott] that has these giant pirate racoons, which is always fun,” Robb-Chavez said. “They’re always trying to steal your food and take your bag out of your vestibule [tent].”
The spring break backpacking trip brings students of diverse interests, from engineering majors to psychology majors, and experience levels, given that no experience is required to attend. Robb-Chavez said it is common to have a mix of returners with two or three first-timers on each trip.
The annual trip welcomes first time students knowing the facilitators will have the opportunity to educate trip attendees prior to departure, to ensure a safe and comfortable trip. “It’s not just our job as facilitators to get you in and get you out. We try very hard to educate our students, and in order to do that we have to educate our facilitators first,” Robb-Chavez.
Robb-Chavez said staff are trained at a retreat where they learn the basics of facilitating a trip like this, such as pitching a tent, what things to pack and “poop school” (how to responsibly dispose of your waste in nature).
Robb-Chavez said there are two challenges with the trip. “One of them is just straight-up driving through Idaho. It’s just this barren wasteland,” he said. The second is risk management.
In fact, Robb-Chavez said that risk-management is so paramount to facilitators, that it often backfires on themselves by sometimes forgetting their own needs to focus on everyone else’s safety. During last year’s trip, Robb-Chavez forgot his toothbrush and had to find a natural alternative.
-Salvador Robb-Chavez
“I actually found a really cool piece of mesquite out in the desert and I sort of shaved it down into like a fork, and I was picking my teeth with it and putting toothpaste on it and brushing my teeth like that – it actually worked really well.”
“I actually found a really cool piece of mesquite out in the desert and I sort of shaved it down into like a fork, and I was picking my teeth with it and putting toothpaste on it and brushing my teeth like that – it actually worked really well,” Robb-Chavez said.
Spending a week in the desert of Utah is an eye-opening experience, according to Robb-Chavez. The environment offers abundant and diverse natural aspects, including petrified wood and walls of sandstone.
Cambria Griffith, a WSU Vancouver senior biology major, went on last year’s backpacking trip. She said, “I had gone on plenty of hikes, but never backpacked before. It was so much fun and you’re with people who know what they’re doing.” She added, “If you’ve been wanting to try, but have never gone, it’s the perfect opportunity because you learn tips from people that have backpacked before.”
Griffith also gave some more personal advice to first-time travellers. “Trim your toenails before you go. I completely forgot to do this and I had two toenails fall off. Completely painless, but pretty gross,” she said.
Robb Chavez said, “I’d want students to know that these things are possible for most everyone with the right guidance and education.”
If planning a backpacking trip is up your alley, the Office of Student Involvement will be accepting applications for an outdoor recreational intern starting in April.
Anna Nelson is the Editor in Chief for the VanCougar. She is a senior and is studying strategic communications.