Limited vacationing options alter students’ Spring break plans
At the end of March, Pacific students will trade in their textbooks and pencils for plane tickets and luggage as they embark on this year’s Spring break adventures. As anticipation builds for the long-awaited break, the annual question re-emerges; what are the plans for this Spring break?
In previous years, the answer to this question might have included Outdoor Pursuits’ adventure-filled retreat. Unfortunately, as Outdoor Pursuits seems to look for its footing, not this year.
Normally, Pacific students would have the opportunity to attend a trip over the break courtesy of Outdoor Pursuits. Over the course of several days, students would join a full itinerary of activities backpacking, rafting, canoeing, you name it, all meticulously planned out by Outdoor Pursuits.
This year, however, the Outdoor Pursuits Spring break trips have hit a snag.
It’s been about a year since Outdoor Pursuits was left without their Assistant Director, depriving them of the time and management required to plan their Voyages for the foreseeable future. And, this loss extends to Outdoor Pursuits’ Spring break trip as well.
“In order for Outdoor Pursuits to run as rigorous and long trips as we have in the past, it needs support from both a director and an assistant director,” Brooke Fritzler, a Staff Development Coordinator and last year’s Voyage Coordinator for Outdoor Pursuits, explains. “There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done to get both Voyages and Spring break trips running that we currently do not have the capacity for.”
It is still unlikely that Outdoor Pursuits will be able to get Voyages back on track anytime soon. Even without any lengthy trips to plan, the program’s staff has a lot on their hands at the moment. With moving into a new building, planning out Outdoor Pursuits’ shorter activities, and keeping the program’s day-to-day tasks afloat, hiring and training a new assistant director to help plan out Voyages and Spring break trips is simply not in the cards for the already very busy leadership team.
On the bright side, although getting Voyages going again is still a struggle, things are beginning to look up for Outdoor Pursuits’ Spring break trips.
“I think by next year Outdoor Pursuits should be able to run Spring break trips as we will have less load on our plates.” Fritzler estimates.
While this gives students something to look forward to for next spring, it still leaves a gap in for this year. Outdoor Pursuits, though unable to plan out any trips this year, has a solution to this; on their section of Pacific’s website can be found a map showing off a wide range of hot spots in the Pacific Northwest. From close-to-home adventures like the Clackamas River to locales outside of Oregon such as the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Peninsula National Park, there are still plenty of options to explore this Spring break.
In addition to this, Outdoor Pursuits is willing to lend their support this Spring break in any way they can; “We are currently working on making gear bundles that students can rent out during Spring break,” Fritzler mentions. “It is in the works and we will give more details when that is ready!”
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