WHITEWATER RAFT TRIP
Honors College
Annual Honors Whitewater Raft Trip
October 2-3 and October 3-4, 2009
Reminders for Honors Raft Trip Participants
October 2-3 or October 3-4, 2009
Here is the link to Cantrell
Ultimate Rafting, just to get you really excited! You will be camping
overnight at the Fayetteville base camp.
If you missed the Safety Sessions with Professor John Newman on
Monday, September 21, 2009 please contact Daria Murosko (dmurosko@umd.edu).
Generous donations
from Honors parents, friends, and alumni are supporting most of the cost
for this trip. Students are only asked to pay a small part of the total
cost.
In the unlikely event that you must cancel your reservation, please understand
that Honors will not be able to refund your payment as we must pay for
every seat we reserve on this trip.
Travel Schedule
Friday-Saturday, October 2-3, 2009
Departure on Friday, October 2, will be at 2:00 pm from Anne Arundel Hall.
Please arrive at 1:30 pm. Estimated return time is after midnight on Saturday
night.
Saturday-Sunday, October 3-4, 2009
Departure on Saturday, October 3, will be at 10:00 am from Anne Arundel
Hall. Please arrive at 9:30 am. Estimated return time is after midnight
on Sunday night.
Questions:
Please email the student trip coordinator, Daria Murosko (dmurosko@umd.edu)
or call the Honors College Office at 301-405-6771.
Packing Suggestions for Honors Raft Trip 2009
What NOT to wear:
No Cotton
No Loose clothing
No 2 piece swimsuit
No hats, jewelry, glasses (without support strap), no necklaces
No flip-flops
What to wear:
Rafting shoes or sandals with ankle straps or sneakers
1 piece swimsuit
Fleece, polypropylene, wool – stays warm while wet
What to wear/bring for evenings (40-50 degrees):
Fleece, jacket, sweater (plan on layers)
Dry clothes and shoes other than sandals
Raincoat- in case of weather
Sleeping Bag (You can rent one from ORC
on campus, if needed.)
Pillow
Towel and Toiletries
Plastic bags for wet gear
Flashlight (an absolute must)
Games (Cards, Frisbees, Volleyball)
DVDs for the bus ride
Cash for food (small bills are best, try not to bring only $20’s)
Waterproof camera, if you wish – it will have to be strapped to your wrist
while rafting
Tennis shoes or rafting shoes are most appropriate for the river. Flip-flops
and loose sandals will be lost in the rapids. Plan on getting soaked and
do not wear jewelry or carry items of value. If you wear glasses you should
bring a secure head strap. Cotton and similar materials should be avoided
as they will hold cold water.
The campsite has a shower house with ample facilities and electrical
outlets.
Cantrell rents wet suits to rafters if they wish ($15).
Senior Honors student, Leslie Wells, wrote a great article when she returned from the Honors White Water Raft Trip on September 28, 2008. It really captures the joys and challenges of the 2008 trip! Thanks to Leslie for allowing Honors to reprint her article below.
Senior Memories
Leslie Wells
Like my fellow seniors, I want my final year at Maryland to be memorable. This being said, my roommate and I decided to take part in the annual Honors whitewater rafting trip this past weekend. To be honest, we weren't quite sure what we had gotten ourselves into when we signed up, and it turned out to be, well, a lot.
The trip began with a six-hour bus ride to West Virginia, setting up confusing tents, and making s'mores around a campfire. We woke up to the sound of rain sometime in the middle of the night and several tents-full of people more unfortunate than I coped with dripping tent-tops and wet sleeping bags for the remainder of the night. No biggie, though, because we were all too excited for rafting to let a little rain get us down.
The next day we ate breakfast at 7:30 and lunch at 10:00 before getting outfitted with helmets, life vests, and paddles and piled onto another bus for that dropped us off at the Gauley River. We were informed that the bus had two temperatures: A/C was "windows down" and heat was "windows up." We were in West Virginia, alright. We carried 14-foot rafts to the river's edge and sought the best places to put our feet so we wouldn't get launched when we hit the first rapids. After a very short introductory lesson, we found ourselves catching fantastic waves and eddies, paddling forward and backwards, spinning off rocks, and swimming- sometimes voluntarily, mostly not. Our rafts came together for our guides to exchange stories, return lost shoes, and share cigarettes.
Unknown to us, when we settled onto the bus that would take us back to College Park, our adventure was just beginning. Thirty minutes away from the camp, before Cady got her full tour of the high school cafeteria in Mean Girls, the bus broke down in front of a toll booth. Neither the driver nor the road--service mechanics could fix it, and finally a tow truck towed our bus with all 50 passengers to the nearest truck stop. The most immediate concern was vanquished- after not having eaten for about 10 hours, we found a meal. Little did we know that we would be stranded at that truck stop for the next 12 hours.
When we heard that our rescue bus would be coming from Maryland, six hours away from where we were, we settled in. Some returned to the bus to sleep (although, it smelled like urine, likely from the toilet rocking when the bus was towed), some went to get homework or cards. A sympathetic cashier told a few of us where the trucker's lounge was. It turned out to be equipped with a few cushy sofas and some tables-- a great find for a long night.
By 2 a.m. a lot of us had fallen asleep- on the bus, sofas in the lounge, the floor in front of Burger King, or fashioned "beds" made of chairs and tables. At least we had sleeping bags and pillows from camping the night before. We bonded with curious truckers as they came and left the stop. 4:00 passed. So did 5:00, 6:00, and 7:00. By 8:00 we heard threats that the broken down bus would be towed if we didn't move it, but it still had most of our belongings on it. Luckily, in the nick of time, our rescue arrived at 8:30. We could finally go home.
Some may have called it an unsuccessful weekend, but I disagree. This trip did exactly what it was meant to do. Not only did we all come home with a great story- better than most of us imagined- but we also came out of it with new friends, including one highly entertaining bus driver who spent the night with us. We also have a new appreciation for a fantastic Honors program staff. The trip itself was amazing- it was well-organized and the majority of it was paid for by the Honors program. On top of this, the staff worked hard all night to get us home as fast as possible when our bus broke down and even fed us an amazing lunchtime feast when we finally made it home on Sunday.
As a senior, I regret not participating in more Honors events as an underclassman.
I would like to thank the Honors program and my fellow rafters for a great
experience to start off my final year at Maryland.
