FIRST TRACKS AT CSU: ADVENTURE FOR FRESHMAN STUDENTS
Submitted by Rodney Ley, Assistant Director, Campus Recreation
Sturdy backpack? Check. Sleeping bag? Check. Going to college? Check.
For many freshman students, the first step into academia means campus tours, stuffy lecture halls, and placement exams. But First Tracks students, who spend their first days at CSU rafting and hiking in the Colorado high country, take their adventure al fresco.
First Tracks, established in 2002, is a four-day in-coming student orientation program through the Outdoor Adventure Program in Campus Recreation. Over the 4-day summer weekend students call Pingree Park Mountain Campus home base, which puts them in the heart of the Colorado Rockies and just a short hike north of Rocky Mountain National Park.
The first day of First Tracks includes get-to-know-you games at the Student Recreation Center followed by rafting Colorado's only Wild and Scenic River, the Cache la Poudre. Here "teamwork" takes on real meaning as the students paddle their way through Class III and IV rapids in the company of a professional raft guide.
The second day includes 30-mile-per-hour swings off the Giant Swing on the Pingree Ropes Course, as well as climbing walls, tightrope walking, and other group challenges. All the while the students are surrounded by several 12,000-foot peaks like Fall Mountain, Comanche Peak, and Stormy Peaks, which hint of things to come. "I wanted the full Colorado experience," wrote one First Track student on her course evaluation. "My goals were to make new friends and get a taste of what Colorado had to offer before I came here. I met both those goals."
The culminating experience for most First Trackers is the ascent of Stormy Peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park. A tough 12-mile round trip hike and an elevation over 12,000 feet makes this a long day, but the rewards are a deep satisfaction. The motto for the day is "if I can do this, I can do anything".
The four days in the mountains isn't just fun and games though. "First Tracks is really a growth-through-challenge situation. Whether they're paddling a boat, summiting a 12,000-foot peak, or figuring out a ropes course problem, students are sharing a common experience, which means they're growing together," says Rodney Ley, director of the First Tracks program.
Students also have opportunities to get to know CSU faculty members who enjoy the outdoors as much as they do, as well as discuss their new lifestyles and responsibilities as university students with growing independence. "The relationships students make with faculty members and other students during First Tracks are the most important for the students because they feel connected to CSU from their first day on campus." says Ley.
John Wilcoxen, an incoming freshman and First Tracks student in 2006, confirms this when he says, "Everyone I went with has been talking about how cool it is to already have made those friends [from First Tracks] at CSU when we came back in the fall."
