Outdoor Recreation with Nate

Transcript

All right, everyone. Now, we’re heading to meet Nate Decremer. He’s the senior here at Fort Lewis College, an outdoor adventurer in every sense of the word. And he’s gonna talk to us about outdoor recreation here at Fort Lewis. Nate, how you doing? Take it away.

How’s it going, everyone? One of my favorite parts about the Fort is the fact that I have all this great access to outdoor recreation out here. I’m a raft guide during the summertime, rafting down the Colorado River in the desert. During the winter time when I’m not in school, I’ll dedicate my time to backcountry snowboarding. During the spring, I go and do ski mountaineering, which is riding technical lines down the big high peaks out here in the San Juans. During the fall, I explore the infinite canyons of the desert.

What’s really cool about Durango is that the San Juans are right there in our backyard and the desert’s only about two and a half hours away. So that means that you got world-class skiing, climbing, mountaineering, hiking, backpacking, it’s awesome. Durango is home to the Animas River. It flows right through the heart of downtown Durango and it’s an awesome spot for whitewater kayaking and rafting out here.

Durango is also home to the end of the Colorado Trail. We got a ton of trails out here, hundreds of miles weaving in and around town that is great for trail running, mountain biking, hiking, you name it. If you like national parks, then you will have a ton of options out here. We’ve got places like Grand Staircase-Escalante, Chaco Canyon, Canyons of the Ancients, Arches, Canyonlands and Mesa Verde is only about an hour away. Not to mention all the national forests as well as all the designated wilderness areas that you can explore and camp in all by yourself.

Whether you’ve been exploring the outdoors for your entire life or if you’re just getting into it, outdoor pursuits here at FLC is an awesome resource. It’s located right here on campus at the Student Life Center and they provide free gear rentals to all the students. You can rent anything from a mountain bike to split boards to hiking and backpacking gear, anything you need to be successful out there in the wilderness. Not only do they provide free gear, they also provide guided trips and training tutorials so that you can hone your skills before you go out there on your own. These trips are provided by student outdoor leaders and guiding professionals themselves in the field and range anywhere between backpacking trips over the weekend here in our backyard or mountaineering trips all the way around the world.

I love going to college here because this place has really allowed me to explore all of these new recreational activities and truly find all these cool outdoor experiences. And it has really shaped who I am today. Back to you.

Nate, next time I’m back here, you have to take me on one of those awesome adventures you do all the time. That was awesome, great job.