Abandoned fake spider webs dangle from trees, left over candy litters side-walks, and carved pumpkins warp and decay on doorsteps. October is a bright flash of melodramatic seasonal metamorphoses that embodies fall and then leaves with the extravagance of Halloween. But there is life after Oct. 31. November presents new opportunities to experience the season before the first flakes of snow coat the ground.
"November is a great time for new experiences, to find new ways to recreate," Stephanie Reinhart, assistant director of Outdoor Pursuits, said.
Outdoor Pursuits offers two trips in November to give partakers a last chance to catch the fall foliage.
"Earlier in the year, we sent out a survey as to what students would want to see for our adventure trips, and two ideas were extremely popular," Reinhart said. "So we set them in motion for November. Both are unique experiences and a chance to try something new."
From these ideas resulted the Canopy Tour which will be from Nov. 11 to 13 in Ohio's Hocking Hills State Park. The trip costs $165 per person and includes vendor costs, transportation and equipment. The Canopy Tour provides a zip-line tour stretching miles across the terrain.
"You go past areas called The Garden of Eden and Old Man's Cave, so it's really unique to get [to] see those places among many others in the tour," Reinhart said.
The Rock Climbing Trip also takes place Nov. 11 to 13 and is in Yellow Springs, Ohio. There, participants not only test their skill, but learn from experienced climbers. This is also a camping trip with a smaller cost of $45.
Another way to experience nature closer to campus is by visiting Christy Woods.
"Woodlands can be beautiful without the leaves — bare branches, with snow or frost," said John Taylor, land manager of the Field Station and Environmental Education Center. "Christy Woods is an easily accessible forest that people can enjoy in all seasons."
With the November weather on a sliding scale of temperatures, the greenhouses in Christy Woods serve as a "quick trip to the tropics" in windy weather, according to Taylor.
With two greenhouses, visitors can see a variety of plants.
"One is the orchid greenhouse, the largest university collection of orchids in the United States that is publicly accessible," Taylor said. "The other is an array of species from primitive to carnivorous plants, to lime, citrus and banana plants."
University Programming Board also presents a new experience for students this month with Sk8, a trip to a two-story indoor skate park in Kokomo, Ind., on Nov. 12 from 6 to 9 p.m.
"Originally, we were planning to bring a skate park to campus with ramps and rails — like you'd see in Tony Hawk, but that came to be too expensive, so we found the venue DK's Mainstreet Skatepark," Matthew "Slade" Kepler, UPB vice president of administration said. "We also hired a disc jockey to play music in the park that would appeal to the skating crowd like punk, rock, and metal."
Kepler came up with the idea through seeing the skate culture on campus.
"On my walk to classes, I always see someone skating around in an empty parking lot, and it looks actually kind of sad," Kepler said. "The most they can do is try to grind off of sidewalk ledges and hit gaps, and the authorities don't really like it. So it'd be cool if they had somewhere with real skate equipment. With Sk8, we are hoping to reach a whole other group of students that we don't normally get to with UPB."
The cost is $5, half-off regular admission, and there is a limited amount of free rentable equipment at the venue.
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