"Crazy kids on the loose, but on the loose in the wilderness, and that made all the difference."
Crazy Kids On the Loose
Eight hikers moved up along the cliff face. They formed a thin moving line, like a millipede on the sheer granite wall. The group moved quickly, half jogging up the steps that had been cut into the stone. On one side was rock, carved and polished smooth by Ice Age glaciers. On the other was thin cold mountain air and sky the shade of blue that only happens on bright autumn days.
"Only the eight of us made it all the way to the top," recalls Torrin Hultgren '00. "There was a bridge farther down with a great view of Crystal Falls and most people stopped there."
The hikers were students on a fall break trip in Mammoth organized by On the Loose (OTL), a five-college outdoors club. On this particular day, they had driven to Yosemite Valley and made the trek to Crystal Falls. Most had been content to view the cascade from the bottom, but Hultgren and the others wanted to see it from above. When they got to the top they walked around to where the river plunged off the precipice and looked down. The waterfall dropped hundreds of feet, disappearing into spray and rainbows.
"We looked over the edge and were like, 'Yeehawaah!'" Hultgren says, reenacting the strangled cry of fear and excitement. "Then we decided to go swimming. The river formed a pool a safe distance back from the ledge and some of us wanted to swim across. I think there were some rocks we could crawl up and run around on."
Translation: We went swimming for the hell of it. Don't ask me why!
There is something that drives people, especially college students, to seek adventure and do things like jog up cliff faces and swim in glacial meltwaters.
The name--On the Loose--is from a book by Terry and Renny Russell. The club also takes its motto from the last line of the same book: "Crazy kids on the loose, but on the loose in the wilderness, and that made all the difference."
"People are going to go do crazy things one way or another," remarks Nate Gilbert '99, a former OTL leader. "OTL just channels that desire to test yourself into something positive."
The club is based at Pomona but has members from all five colleges. The only condition for membership is an interest in the outdoors. All skill levels are welcomed, from first-timers to Patagonia-clad veterans. Anyone can participate--even become a leader--by passing through OTL's training program.
Until recently, OTL was the relatively unknown "Outings Club." Then students Derek Churchill '94 and Brian Cross '96 began working with Dean of Students Ann Quinley to improve the club. Four paid positions were created--a coordinator to organize trips and finances, a safety manager/futurist to help minimize risk and continue improvements and two "gearheads" to keep the equipment in working condition. Other changes included a new gear room, expanded college insurance to cover rock climbing and more publicity. In addition, the group helped create Orientation Adventure and began leading first years in pre-orientation trips in 1995. Today, OTL is the biggest club on campus.
Besides rock climbing, students go backpacking, mountain biking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and camping with OTL. The wilderness north of Claremont provides a backyard playground. Weekends find Sagehens spread in four directions: north to the Sierra and Mount Whitney, south to the deserts of Anza-Borrego, west to the coast and east to Joshua Tree National Park.
For many students, OTL provides a chance to get away. "I didn't manage to get out much this semester," says Zach Feldman '02. "It just started to get ... weird." His eyes had that glazed-over, mid-finals-week cast. Clearly, it had been too long since he had gotten away.
Explained a more lucid Gilbert: "It clears my head. In a snowstorm or trying to find a trail out in the middle of the desert, a lot of the things I usually think about and worry about just seem pointless. Often, I don't realize how much I need to do stuff like that until after I'm already out there."
OTL also provides a good setting for making friends. Because the trips are open to all comers, OTL members often make the acquaintance of students that they might not have met otherwise. In addition, the nature of the trips tends to forge lasting relationships. "I think friendships are a lot stronger when you have to help each other out--in the cold or the rain, or on a rock wall, huddled around a fire cooking pasta," says Gilbert. "Or the stove doesn't work and you're eating Power Bars."
Boyar Naito '00 concurs: "If you took a random group of people and sent them to Disneyland, they wouldn't have the same bond. Working together, suffering together and taking care of each other builds friendships."
Besides building friendships, those real-world hardships are also a vital part of what the group has to offer educationally.
"The strength of a program like OTL is the positive feedback," states August Zajonc '01. "Everything is hands-on. Interpersonal relationships, team building, the laws of physics--all that becomes very real and important when you are hanging by a rope on a cliff face. The environment, the challenge that the wilderness represents, is the most effective teacher of all."
--Nathan Johnson '01
