Savage River, MD

The Savage is a dam-controlled river that only has 3 water releases a year.  It is a special river because it is essentially one long 5 mile long rapid without any pools in between.  Therefore, a strong roll and boat control are essential.  The release lasts from 9am-3pm and a shuttle is provided, this allowed us to make three laps on the river.  The river is a cold 45 degrees because the water comes from the bottom of the reservoir.  I think that Ivan was the only person on the river who was not wearing at least a paddling jacket!  We all had a great day on the river!  We only had 2 swims, and that is good because it is really hard to catch a swamped kayak on this river!  Unfortunately, David broke his new paddle that barely even had an scratches on it!  Matt got to hand-paddle the rest of the river. After we got off the river, we all camped out at Piney Mountain Campground near the Upper Yough Put-in.

-B. Kish

McConnell's Mills State Park, PA

Mathew Mooty, Ameya Kanitkar, Tamar Melman, Brendan Ryan, and I departed for hiking at McConnells Mill State Park at noon on Sunday. Amy and Lux also set off for the park to do some climbing. After the hour drive, we began the hike at the mill under a sunny blue sky with a temperature in the low 80s. After hiking along the Gorge Trail for a few hours, we stopped for lunch on a large rock next to Slippery Rock Creek. Before heading back, we took advantage of a nice section of the creek to skip some rocks and discuss the merits of rock skipping as a competitive sport. At the end of the hike we ran into Lux and Amy, back from climbing. Back at the mill we watched some kayakers fool around above the waterfall before returning to Pittsburgh.

-E. Goldblum

Cooper's Rock, PA

Summer was coming to an end. So we took advantage of the lack of excuses and went out to Coopers Rock. We made it out around ten with three cars and more crash bad then have ever come on a single explores club trip. We arrived and headed over to tilted tree area. We can into a nice sized crowd from Pitt at the crag, but for the first time in recent memory CMU outnumbered them. Everyone got in plenty of good sends. Tibo threw down on Twist-Dah-Hick, and Amy topped out her first outdoor problems.

-M. Schnall

Canton Air Sports, OH

Mike Jehn (me!), his sister Beth, and CMU student Yatish Mamniya spent the day at Canton Air Sports. Beth's tandem jump was my birthday present to her. She swore that she'd never even get into a little aircraft like that, much less jump; but she did it, LOVED it, and wants to do it again!

Canton Air Sports, OH

Alastair Firth, Steven Benders, Greg MacLean, Sarah Shade, and I spent the whole day at Canton Air Sports. It was a hot and humid afternoon but excellent for skydiving. The DZ was a lot busier than we expected it would be; we ended up staying until nearly sunset so that everyone could get their jumps in. Steven and Sarah did their first tandems while Alastair continued with his AFF training. Sarah and I both worked on our respective tans (sunburns!), and I kissed a toad and a frog--neither of which turned into anything, unfortunately. Greg and I attempted a two-way maneuver known as a "Mr. Bill" in which one skydiver hangs onto the other on exit. The person on top opens his parachute at high altitude while the other person hangs on, only later dropping away and opening his own parachute at a lower altitude. It didn't quite work out because we spent too much time getting into the correct body position (opening should happen within a few seconds of jumping), and Greg got wrenched away from me with tremendous force when I opened. However, we're looking forward to trying again soon.

-M. Jehn