For many students, weekends revolve around socializing at parties or using the time to catch up on homework, but for some Cal Poly students, the urge to escape the typical school scene and head for the outdoors causes them to forgo mundane activities in exchange for adventure.
Cal Poly’s Poly Escapes club offers brave students an inexpensive way of doing just that. With weekend trips to various locations around the western United States, Poly Escapes’ fees aren’t that high when compared with what it usually costs, said mechanical engineering senior and trip leader for Poly Escapes, Grant Sperry, who also serves as the club’s front desk assistant.
“The cost varies on the trip. (They) can go from $100 to over $300, but that is still relatively cheap when you consider that they can easily go for $1,000,” Sperry said “A lot of our trips are at cost, or we make very little money on them,” Sperry added.
Students can also save money by renting equipment from Poly Escapes with fees for daily, weekend and weekly rates. Poly Escapes also rents out most of the sleeping, eating, hiking, aquatic, rock climbing, and snow equipment essential for enjoying the outdoors for a weekend or more, so that everyone can be included.
Members of the club can choose from an array of trips such as river rafting, rock climbing, kayaking, mountain biking, surfing and many more.
For those that wish to plan out their adventure for themselves, the club also rents out books and maps with the information needed for a successful trip.
This quarter Poly Escapes has already led trips to Yosemite for hiking, Joshua Tree National Park for climbing and the San Gabriel Mountains for canyoneering. They have more events planned for the quarter, including trips to Death Valley and Sequoia National Park, which are scheduled later this month.
And it’s not just students that can join in on the outdoor fun. “Our love and appreciation for the outdoors is open to everyone, not just students,” Sperry added.
Recent rule changes have made their outings more difficult. For example, Sperry said one of Poly Escapes most popular trips, river rafting, has been suffering because of recent changes to the club program.
“Before, the trip leaders would all be volunteers, but now ASI changed it to where they have to get paid and when trip leaders get paid, it requires that they get permits to take people out on these trips and that means more money people have to pay,” Sperry said. So far they are only scheduled to go on one rafting trip this year.
Sperry said rock climbing and canyoneering are very popular trips because they involve going places where many people want to go. “The trips to Yosemite fill up fast, but so do trips to Sequoia,” Sperry said.
Poly Escapes offers a climbing wall behind the University Union. The wall is free for all Cal Poly students and provides an opportunity for more people to participate in club activities. There, students can stop by on their breaks or after they are done with classes to do some bouldering or top-roping said mechanical engineering senior and rock climbing supervisor Drew LaPlante.
“(The wall) is pretty popular at noon times when people climb during their breaks, or are just getting out of class. We get a lot of regulars coming by, but we also get a lot of beginners,” LaPlante said.
LaPlante whose job consists of setting up different routes said he runs into people of all skill levels and class year.