INTO THE WILD

Junior Sarah Colan knows what it feels like to fight waves and currents while tumbling over rapids with the looming threat of being flipped into the water at any moment. \nDuring her time living in an outdoor-adventure themed community, Colan, who had no previous white-water rafting experience, had the opportunity to go through Class IV rapids on an IU Outdoor Adventures trip.\n"Class V is the highest, and after Class V, it's pretty much impossible. It was a pretty incredible experience," Colan said. "It was cool to get to experience something that intense."\nIU Outdoor Adventures is a campus resource for students interested in taking outdoor trips and courses as well as becoming informed about a variety of outdoor experiences, such as kayaking, rock climbing and caving.\nThe trips are designed so that no skill level is required, and unless a trip is marketed toward students experienced in that activity, all trips are meant for novices.\n"Every planned event on the calendar is for beginners," said Kim Collins, interim assistant program coordinator for IU Outdoor Adventures.\nIU Outdoor Adventures has taken several trips this year, which have included hiking, hang gliding in Georgia, a rafting trip to Tennessee and a white-water rafting trip to North Carolina.\nThe organization is busy this time of year because the weather is nice, said Kelli Boner, senior office specialist for IU Outdoor Adventures. Boner said activities slow down from November to February, and adventure trips sometimes get canceled in these months due to lack of involvement. Spring break is the busiest time for the office, which sends most of its leaders on trips that week.\nAlong with planned adventures on the calendar, the organization has been offering custom experiences since fall 2005. Custom experiences cater to anyone interested in outdoor activities who is unable or does not want to attend scheduled IU Outdoor Adventures events. The office asks for a three-week notice in planning custom experiences.\nThe organization is planning a rock-climbing trip in the near future, said Collins, who estimates eight to 15 people will take the trip to Red River Gorge in Kentucky. Upcoming planned trips include a backpacking and trail-maintenance trip, coastal kayaking at Patoka Lake and a cave-cleanup trip.\nThis fall, the IU Outdoor Adventures office has seen more student traffic than non-student traffic. Anyone can rent gear for trips, but the office offers lower prices to students.\n"You don't have to own your own equipment and gear, so don't be afraid of signing up if you don't have the gear," Boner said.\nStudents wanting to take their love of the outdoors further than the occasional gear-rental can sign up for the Teter Outdoor Adventure Residence. The thematic community is not completely affiliated with IU Outdoor Adventures, but the organization provides guidance to those in the community.\n"It's a way to get people interested and give them leaders and gear," Boner said.\nCurrently, floors one through three in Teter-Elkins comprise the thematic community. IU Outdoor Adventures hopes soon to make Elkins a community like Collins Living-Learning Center with courses students can take related to wilderness experiences. Students pay a fee to live in the thematic community, and IU Outdoor Adventures helps students allocate funds and make the most of the money they have for trips that year.\n"I'm here to show the students around town in an outdoor way," Kim Collins said about her position as a residential fellow for one of the floors in Elkins. As a residential fellow, Collins mentors students interested in taking trips, invites students on IU Outdoor Adventures activities and provides materials students need for those trips.\nSophomore Abby Schmiesing lives in the thematic community and said her favorite IU Outdoor Adventures trip was a team-building experience where she went rock climbing with six other people in Kentucky last October.\n"The six people from the trip were really close when we got back," Schmiesing said. "It really helped me to know them a lot better."\nColan said she has lived in Teter-Elkins for three years, and despite the extra fees to live in the community, the people she lives with in the dorm have kept her coming back each year.\n"It's a really cool group of people, and the cool thing about O.A. is that everybody there wants to have fun," she said. "It's a great way to have some good experiences with good people"