Wilderness Orientation

So the past weekend, I went to this thing at UCSD called Wilderness Orientation, which is part of this organization on campus called Outback Adventures. There, I went on a canoeing trip on the Colorado River. It lasted 4 days, and I didn't get to shower at all during it. Well, I'm pretty much going to summarize the 4 days. 

Day 1:

I left my house to the airport at 5:45 am. My family and girlfriend and her mom saw me off, which was pretty cool. Then the plane landed and I took a shuttle to the UCSD campus. There, I was greeted by some people with Outback Adventures shirts. As more people arrived, we were taking to this climbing wall on campus, which was hella sick. I tried climbing this one without using my legs, and I got about halfway before my hands started to hurt and I fell off. After everyone arrived, we sat down and the head woman, Lindsay, introduced herself and seperated us into groups. I was in the Canoeing B group, so I met the people in it. They were interesting. The guy to girl ratio was about 1:2, which was a little bizarre but I got used to it. We then packed our stuff and headed down to the Colorado River in vans. The trip took about 5 hours, during which I slept and evesdropped on this fat woman next to me talking to these people behind her. It was actually pretty interesting. The woman was extremely smart, as were the people in the back. These next 4 years will be very competitive...=[.

We got off the van 5 hours later, where our group settled down. We learned about leaving no trace behind (meaning don't throw garbage on the ground), and then we ate, set up our sleeping bags, and went to sleep.

Day 2: 

I got lots of bug bites, but whatever. I changed out of my shorts and put on trunks. I wore this same tshirt/trunks outfit for the rest of the trip. Disgusting. We then ate breakfast, and then we packed up all our gear and set off canoeing. 

It was ok. I was partnered with this asian girl named Audra, and she was ok. I was a bit stronger than her, so I tended to control the boat more. We paddled for like 6 hours until we hit this little camping spot. There were several families there with a big boat and several trailers, and they were bbqing and drinking beer. One drunk woman almost drowned. It was quite amusing. 

We ate lunch, swam around, did some teambuilding stuff, and then ate dinner and went to bed. 

Day 3: 

I got more bug bites. I got out of my sleeping bag and packed up. We went canoeing again, but this time for only an hour. Then we got off and ate lunch. Then we did this thing called a solo where we basically find a tree and sit in its shade for 6 hours reflecting on life. It was pretty boring. There were insects everywhere, and I spent most of the time fighting them off. I also threw rocks at nearby trees, which discouraged me because my aim sucked. So after 6 hours of that we ate dinner and went to sleep. 

Day 4:

So we woke up and packed up our gear and went canoeing. It was like 4:30 in the morning, so we got to see the sunrise. It was very...bright? We got off about 6 hours later and took a van back. We spent most of the time listening to disney songs. Then we got off and we cleaned our gear for like 2 hours and then we finally showered. I got to put on new clothes and be clean, which was awesome. We then went to the beach and ate food. I played some Ultimate Frisbee, and I found out I was extremely out of shape because I gassed easily during the running. I'll be working on that. I ate a lot of ice cream there. Then we got back and slept. 

Day 5: 

Out group leaders toured us around campus and we filled out surveys to tell the Outback Adventures how awesome/crappy our leaders were. When we got back, everything was officially over, so I packed up and went to the hotel. 

Well that's about it. I was hoping I'd get something useful out of writing this, but I guess I didn't...