Written by Sarah Turner

CORE Outdoors will be taking up to 15 students from campus to the great outdoors this weekend for their Stress Relief Campout Getaway.

The trip still has available spots, and interested students should contact CORE Outdoors to sign up.

The campout will begin with a bus ride to Reed Bingham Park on Saturday and end with the return to campus on Sunday.

The campout is focused on beginner campers.

“It’s for all the students that have never had an opportunity to go camping and we give them that experience,” Brent Gibson, CORE employee, said.

CORE hosts at least one beginner camping experience each year. The experiences teach students the basics of camping. Along with other skills, students will learn how to start a fire and pitch a tent.

“We were planning on just doing a camping trip to Reed Bingham and when we talked to them they were telling us they just opened this new island for camping,” Sean Wilkinson, manager of the Rental Center and trips, said. “This is the first month it has opened, so we will be one of the first groups out on this island. It’s pretty exciting.”

Students will have the opportunity to canoe out to the island, set up and spend the night there. On the island, students will get to hike, play putt-putt and make s’mores.

“It’s going to be awesome, this is the first time we are doing this particular trip,” Wilkinson said.

CORE trips offer students opportunities to gain physical and social qualities.

“They get a since of community and they always meet new friends,” Wilkinson said. “ It’s really cool– a lot of times we get people who have never met each other before and they come back two weeks later to go on a trip and so on.”

William Taylor, CORE director, along with Gibson, who is also in charge of the ropes course, will be supervising the campers.

For students, the cost is $25 and for faculty the cost is $30.

Wilkinson feels that students will take more than they expect from the trip.

“They really do make college and lifelong friends on these trips,” Wilkinson said.