Students face fierce rapids

Two Chevrolet 15 passenger vans, both alike in dignity, left for Tennessee, where we lay our scene. The vans were packed with over 20 excited, rocking, ready-to-raft passengers in search of an adventure. An adventure is what they found.

April 16, Venture Out, an organization with the department of Student Activities, left on their final adventure of the year: whitewater rafting down the middle section of the Ocoee river in southeast Tennessee. Each Venture Out event is open to anyone who desires to participate – novice or experienced.

The trip started out with a “lock-in” the previous night in the new Student Activities Center, where participants prepared for their adventure by taking notes on Chunk in “The Goonies” and of course, “Indiana Jones.”

The next morning, the group drove (and rocked to 80′s music) four hours to Benton, Tennessee, where they set up their tents at a campsite that happened to be downwind from a chicken farm (no wonder it was so cheap). The group then hiked almost two miles to a waterfall and the more brave (or perhaps more stupid) of the few jumped in to the freezing cold water. Was the word “freezing” emphasized enough?

After their lungs thawed and were able to expand again, they dried off by playing ultimate frisbee. The students ended the night by sitting around a campfire munching on s’mores and telling stories about ghosts, clown dwarfs, and well…ghosts.

The next morning was the beginning of the real adventure: whitewater rafting.

The water was freezing, the raft guides were crazy and the rapids were raging. And with all those factors, Annie Geminder, a freshman majoring in nursing, was amazingly the only person to fall out.

“While shooting the rapids I fell out of the raft, and all I could think was ‘heck yeah!’” Geminder said. (She did make it back into the raft, by the way). The actual trip down the river only took about an hour, but it was packed with class III and IV rapids. Classification of rapids is based on water levels, rocks present, current strength, etc. and range from class I to class VI.

Most of the participants on this particular trip had been rafting before but for some it was a first.

“I’ve been white water kayaking and it was awesome, so I thought I’d try it in a raft.” Heather Morgan said. And freshman Courtney Kelly thought that “losing [her] rafting virginity was fun.”

Others, like sophomore Stacee Dunlap, had been several times before.

“Even though this was my fifth time rafting, it was the best one because we had a crazy guide,” Dunlap said. And when she says that her guide was crazy, she isn’t exaggerating. The raft guides, who steer the raft as the participants handle the paddle power, are usually the entertainment of the trip. In the words of one of their own, raft guide Chris Brand says the entire reason one should go whitewater rafting is “to see the drunken revelry of raft guides taking people’s lives into their hands every day.” Needless to say, the rapids aren’t the only thing to fear.

Venture Out is headed up by Graduate Assistant Mike Pletsch. This trip was the fourth and the last whitewater rafting trip with Venture Out that Pletsch will ever take. No, he did not die in the rapids. But he is graduating in May. Or as he prefers to say, “hopefully graduating.” Pletsch says he doesn’t know what he’s going to do next year but that he’ll miss the students the most, “It’s all about the kiddies.”

Venture Out does more than just a few trips every year. Almost every week throughout the year they offer services such as the indoor climbing wall at the Centennial Center, tree climbing clinics on front campus, and the kayak roll pool at the indoor pool in the Health/Science Building.

“Venture out is a great way to meet people and enjoy the outdoors at the same time,” freshman Christian Paredes said.

Despite the numb toes, bruised limbs and unbathed bodies, students returned with huge smiles.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 29 2005. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry