![]() ![]() It’s busy even with three full-time staff members and the 40 students who work there. Backpacks, climbing shoes, ski gear, boots, bikes. Just beyond Davis’ door is a constant stream of gear coming and going at the service desk. By the time they get in their sophomore and junior year, they’ve outgrown the trips because they’ve developed their own communities.” ![]() “The first year students find us, we’re available for equipment for them to check out, and we’re here for trips. “I think the program works in a couple of ways,” he says. Mountain Belle Hut Red Mountain Pass, Colorado. The walls are layered with overlapped photographs of trips from around the world. His office is stacked with guidebooks and maps. “The whole deal is to get students outside to explore the Four Corners and broaden their world,” says Brett Davis, assistant director of recreational services at FLC. In the following 40 years, OP would become a hub for aspiring outdoor-oriented students living and studying on Colorado’s so-called “campus in the sky.” With modest funding and a few pieces of gear, Outdoor Pursuits was developed. Kuss was already instrumental in developing ski programs, working with the parks and recreation programs put on by the city of Durango, and Bird was an avid member of a young and growing climbing community. In 1977, FLC faculty member Dolph Kuss and student John Bird wanted to created a program to support the needs of students interested in the outdoors. Not bad for a program that started 40 years ago with a few sleeping bags and backpacks. Patrons of “OP” can do anything from a guided snowshoe hike, to learning avalanche skills, to riding nearby singletrack, to backpacking into the wilderness or even summiting some of the world’s tallest peaks. It’s part gear shack, part trip planner, all outdoors. It’s a health club, plus a full service bike shop and headquarters of the college’s Outdoor Pursuits Program - a campus based guide service/outfitter. It’s a fitting place for students who embrace the outdoors, but better yet a place primed to entice newcomers with the call of adventure. Skis, snowboards and kayaks rest on cars. Small pelotons of cyclists whiz down roads. ![]() A ridge to the east juts up with more trails still, and on any given day runners, hikers and mountain bikers regularly emerge from the sage and pinion pines that line the mesa. Views follow the Animas River Valley 30 miles north to the skyline of the San Juan Mountains, and a web of trails wraps the campus. Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, aims to use adventure, travel and challenge across the globe to churn out graduates with a higher education.įort Lewis College sits on a mesa overlooking the town crowned to the west by the La Plata Mountains. ![]()
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