TREK AT 30
Taking the long way to freshman year
by Thomas Weaver
photography by Sally McCay
We experienced meditation sessions on rock ledges, chili mac overeating, epic tales, night-time frights, rain storms and midnight relocations, cramped sleeping arrangements, deep paddling conversations, sing-alongs, and much more …”
So Kianna Jensen ’10, student leader on a canoe trip for UVM TREK 2009, sums up her group’s journey through the watery wilds of the Adirondacks.
Across the past thirty years, thousands of new students have made similar blistered and enlightening, soggy and exhilarating journeys to campus via TREK. UVM’s wilderness-based orientation/intro to college life has grown beyond the original backpacking option to also include canoeing, sea kayaking on Lake Champlain, cycling, rock climbing, and a community service alternative.
For nearly half of TREK’s thirty years, John Abbott has headed up the wilderness component of the program. When choosing whom you’d want sharing your life raft while lost at sea, Abbott seems a likely first pick. He’s easy-going and affable, but it’s not difficult to imagine him using his pocket-sized Leatherman to spear, filet, and, possibly, broil a large tuna.
Beyond the innumerable logistical challenges of organizing the TREK wilderness program for approximately 230 students each fall, Abbott is in charge of helping student leaders guide experiences that teach more than how to string up a tarp.
“You’re going to be learning a lot about yourself and about working and living in community,” he says. “But if, in the process, you don’t think about how those things translate to your life as a student at UVM—whether it’s how you relate to people on your residence hall floor or in your academic department—there’s significant learning that may be lost.”
Abbott emphasizes that Trek isn’t meant to be Outward Bound, creating personal growth through highly challenging activities. On foot, paddling, or pedaling, the six-day trips are generally quite doable for most. Yet there are real tests inherent in giving your parents a goodbye hug in the Davis Center, climbing on a school bus, and, a few hours later, finding yourself deep in the woods with a fifty-pound pack and nine people you’ve just met.
Tim Perez ’10, who co-led a 2009 hiking group that dubbed itself “The Official 30th Anniversary TREK Group, Group,” says creating that shaky ground is one of the program’s strengths. “It throws a bunch of strangers together whose interactions with each other go from confused and discombobulated to confident and functional within a week.”
Travis Gerbatsch ’11 could be a poster boy for confused to confident via TREK. Two years ago, he had strong second thoughts that first night in the woods. With a bit of chagrin, he recalls concocting an “emergency” at home—something about realizing he accidentally locked the cat in the garage—so he could con the cell phone from a student leader. He called his parents and begged them to pick him up.
But poor cell reception and cooler heads prevailed; the student leaders convinced him to stick it out. Not only did he finish the week with a circle of lasting friendships, Gerbatsch has returned every year since as a seasoned student leader, a guy who knows what it is to start college powered by TREK.
Learn more: uvm.edu/~slife/trek