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The craziest thing about being outdoors and being in nature
is that you realize how insignificant your problems are
compared to the vast, open terrain that's in front of you.
For students, when you're spending
so many hours in a library and a classroom,
having the serenity of being outdoors
does a lot for mental health and mental sanity.
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The Outdoors Club is a completely student-run
organization.
We have over 300 active members.
We've led so far this year 287 trips
from mountain biking, climbing, hiking, kayaking, skiing.
Charlottesville's literally nestled
at the foot of the Blue Ridge.
That's something that is really special about the location
of UVA.
Any scale that you want to be getting outside and seeing
incredible sites, we're in a place that can facilitate that.
People can get up, go see sunrise from a mountain,
come back, and be there in time for their 9:30 AM class.
That's amazing.
Every single time I go on a trip,
people are sharing their experiences
and sharing who they are.
You might be out in the middle of the national forest
and don't have cell service, and it's
a time when you have really authentic, digitally
unencumbered conversations with people that you might never
have met before.
To me, there's something really ideologically
important about getting a preservationist instinct
for the environment, a desire to conserve,
and a desire to protect the natural world.
I think personally, for me, the Outdoors Club
has been a really cool way of helping
people understand their larger place on the Earth.
You're growing as a person and taking the time
to focus on something other than your schoolwork.
I think for students, that's when
you'll find the proper balance.
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A lot of the people in the club that lead the mountain biking
trips or the climbing trips-- they had never
done those things before they joined the Outdoors Club.
It's honestly just a never-ending cycle
of passing down knowledge and spreading
the love for the outdoors.
That's what makes the club just a really beautiful thing.
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