Tuesday, Who Cares, 2014 | TechNews

KAMPHUIS

What happens in ASB, staysin ASB

Utsav Gandhi
THE LESSER KNOWN GANDHI

What an extraordinarily successful
season for Alternative Spring Break!

The most number of applications
ever, the largest team size ever, correspond-
ingly the biggest’budget and the most success-
ful fundraising season! This included the an—
nual Pie in the Face with President Anderson
himself dropping by ever so sportingly to get
pied for charity and a Tamale Sale that was
deeply appreciated by all. This was also the
year with the first ever ASB Fall Build as well
as ASB Chicago, for those unable to attend the
spring build trip to West Virginia. Speaking of
which, is a starkly beautiful part of the country,
there is no doubt. Nestled in the Appalachians,
sparsely populated, beautiful scenery all
around with endless fields, bubbling streams,
trek worthy national parks and snow capped
peaks. Serving Habitat for Humanity in this
humbling setting was definitely a memorable

eirperience for many reasons — the homeown-
ers we were serving were so warm, afiectionate,
and genuinely thankful of our assistance.
Okay, so that’s what we were sup—
posed to tell you all. After all, we did enlist
heavy campus support in funding twenty
nine individuals for an entire week. But hon-
estly, what did you think — we would honestly
dedicate the time, money and energy solely to
volunteering efforts for an entire spring break
after a gruelingly long winter in Chicago? Of
course not — the twenty nine who were chosen
to go beat out some really tough competition,
and they deserved some non-traditional, off—
the—road fun. Our holiday involved more than
just the safe activities of hiking and exploring
the national parks. Sure, we visited the reputed
tourist locations of Seneca Rocks and Black-
water Falls, but our trips also included several
dangerous detours, shortcuts, venturing into
restricted areas and unexpected encounters
with the wild. One of our hikes was interrupt-
ed by a terrible snowstorm, and to navigate

the mountain’s crevasses, we decided to rope chemically “ambiguous” water and taking shel-

ourselves together. Suddenly, the unthinkable
happened. One of our trip members, Omar,
fell, injuring his leg. We couldn’t continue
climbing. We decided to lower him down the
mountain, and once he had anchored himself,
to climb down. However, after the snowstorm
hit, he was left dangling mid-air. In order to
survive, we had to do the unthinkable: we had
to cut the rope. Miraculously, he landed in a
crevice and was able to use the remains of the
rope to lower himself down the mountain.
That wasn’t the last of our troubles,
though. We went hiking on the second to last
day, again, and unknown to us no one had ever
been down this one side trail we were explor-
ing. At many points, huge trees were down
across the trail, which was etched narrowly
into a ridge side with a rocky creek 50 to 80
feet directly below. This was extremely rough
going. Stranded in the woods several miles
outside civilization, for hours without food,
water or warm clothing, surviving by drinking

I ter in a hollowed out tree, we even had search

parties dispatched for us covering a 4-square-
mile area. At the first sense of sunlight, we were
finally able to flash a signal using the glare off
a cell phone screen and a knife blade to a he-
licopter. On this trip, we also learned that
“playing dead” is only effective at discouraging
grizzlies — not all kinds of bears, and then only
under certain circumstances. For now, I’ll say
that attacks could potentially be avoided alto-
gether with pepper spray, but you’ll have to ask
us more in person about this — what happens
at ASB stays at ASB, and we really don’t want to
give out all the details publicly.

In the future, we recommend going
forward a little more cautiously if you’re con-
sidering the application for Alternative Spring
Break. Not all our stories are documented, and
remember — in the end you always sign the
liability waiver; and more importantly, there
reallyare no rules with spring break. See you
next year!

Rare images of "nerdicus geekius nticus” found in the West Virginian wastelands. This social behavior is uncommon for the nerdicus.
This feral display could possibly extend from the recent water contamination by Freedom Industries.*
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