I wanted to try out camping this semester and worked a bit with Cat in organizing my first trip. I ended up going with one of my residents Gabriel who had some prior experience with camping. Things definitely would not have gone as smoothly if Gabriel was not there to yell at me.
On Saturday morning, I picked up the zipcar and drove towards Ohiopyle after making a brief pit stop at Geagle. Upon reaching the park, we got some food from Paddlers Pizza and got ready to hike. We began with just exploring the falls and walking the Ferncliff trails. Afterwards we went towards Cucumber Falls and along the Meadow Run Trail. We were planning to try out the natural rock water slides but the water seemed far too cold and fast for it to not injure one of us.
Camping at the Kentuck Campgrounds was actually my favorite part of the trip. We set up tents as it just began to rain and prepared some food. Neither of us had change so we ended up buying $20 worth of firewood and started a fire which we huddled around for quite some time. I think my clothes still smell a bit of smoke from that.
After roasting smores, making hot cocoa, and watching The Blair Witch Project, we headed off to bed. My sleeping bag got slightly damp so it ended up being a very cold night. The next morning, we packed up camp and left pretty early to campus. Overall, the trip was very enjoyable and look forward to trips like this in the future!
-Brian Zhang
