The OU Outdoor Program can help plan your wilderness adventure

By Joe Hansen

But imagine if that idea were expanded to create a program where like-minded people who have common interests could coordinate trips together, and have access to vans, rental gear and information such as maps and guides. That is exactly what the University of Oregon Outdoor Program has become.

“The Outdoor Program started in 1966, basically as a bulletin board in the EMU building,” says Dan Geiger, director of the Outdoor Program (OP) since 1999. “Now it is recognized as one of the first real campus outdoor programs in the country, but it still pretty much operates like that original ride board.”

University of Oregon students pause for a photo before setting off on an Outdoor Program backpacking trip in the Broken Top area.

In 2004-05, 140 trips – which encompass any and all outdoor activities; skiing, rafting, climbing, hiking, you name it – were organized through the OP, with 1,140 participants. But trips are only a part of what the OP does. In the same year, the program also put together 49 outdoor clinics and 21 other events involving more than 4,000 individuals.

Those numbers do not even include the major service that the OP provides, however – rentals. According to Geiger, the number of people who use the OP gear-rental program in a given year is close to 6,000. But the success of the program is also its largest problem.

The OP is just not equipped to deal with this kind of demand. The equipment “barn” where all of the outdoor gear is stored – everything from skis to whitewater rafts to climbing ropes and carabiners – is too small and not set up to handle such a volume of customers.

“Basically the biggest problem that we are working on right now is the fact that the rental program has succeeded beyond all of our expectations,” says Geiger.

Recognizing the popularity of the program and the need, the University of Oregon has allocated $220,000 in funds to upgrade the rental center. According to Geiger, this will cover about half of what the OP actually needs to serve its regular users.

The OP currently deals with the demand by outsourcing its rental requests to local shops such as REI, Berg’s Ski Shop and the Backcountry Gear Shack. This is one of the strengths of the program in general - community involvement.

The trips are not organized by staffers at the OP office, but rather by members who become certified as “trip initiators.” These need not be students at the UO. In fact many people involved in the OP are alumni, faculty and other residents of Eugene who have an interest in seeing the program continue to be a venue for people who are avid about the outdoors to congregate and organize. Membership in the OP is free for UO students and employees, others may join for a $15-a-year fee.

Outdoor Program participants ready themselves to push off into the McKenzie River during a rafting outing in 2005.

“The Outdoor Program is really about creating and nurturing an outdoor community on campus and in Eugene,” says Geiger, who is himself a product of the OP. A student at the University of Oregon from 1987 to1990, Geiger became a trip initiator before eventually working his way up to the position of director.

“I basically grew up in the Outdoor Program,” says Geiger. “I am a product of the philosophy and scope of it.”

OP events cover the broad range of interests of people at the UO and in Eugene at large. Typical weekender trips usually consist of treks up to Willamette Pass to ski or rafting on the McKenzie River. But the program also facilitates more ambitious outings and projects.

People have used the OP to coordinate trips to Tibet, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park and British Columbia, to name a few. The program works just as well for distant trips as it does for afternoon hikes up local Spencer’s Butte. And the OP is not limited to purely recreational activities.

Every year about 30 people from the OP participate in the Rogue River Cleanup, a multi-day rafting trip along a wild stretch of the Rogue to pick up trash, mainly old tires. Since the inception of the Rogue River Cleanup annual trip, OP members have removed more than 1,300 tires from the depths of the river.

For the 2006 year, the OP will also organize various movie screenings of outdoor films, an avalanche awareness clinic, slide shows and field trips about Oregon’s old growth forests, an introduction to snowshoeing clinic, telemark skiing lessons and various other activities. People involved in the program generally agree that its strength is not in planned events but in the spontaneous trips that happen overnight.

“People come in here trying to figure out what to do for spring break or over the weekend,” says Cory Lescher, a UO freshman and OP employee. “We can help them do both.”

Trip initiator Choel Graham snaps a picture of himself near the Three Sisters during an Outdoor Program backpacking trip.

Lescher doesn’t plan people’s trips for them, though. He provides information – such as maps, weather forecasts and general advice – about how they can plan their own trips safely and effectively.

“Some people know exactly what they want to do; others want as much help as possible. Basically my job is just to make sure that it is a fun experience for them,” says Lescher.

But the trips, while fun and worthwhile, are really just a means to an end, or so says Geiger.

“The real strength of this program is the way that it brings people together. There aren’t really any other places on campus that offer such a great bridge to the community of Eugene. It’s very special.”