Signups for the 2024 trip have finished, but we are putting smiles on our faces by starting planning for 2025.
We will update this page closer to the 2025 trip.
To signup for the De Anza College Outdoor Club between summer and fall quarter trip
to Grand Teton National Park
any or all days, August 14 – 31 2024 +/- (each student chooses which days they will attend)
there are things you must do before you come to sign up.
You always need to bring a valid government-issued photo ID.
(which could be a drivers license or a clear photo on your cell phone of your passport)
and proof you are a De Anza student to be able to sign up for an event.
(For proof of enrollment you can show us, on your smart-enough phone, your enrollment at the Portal.)
Students attending De Anza for the first time Fall quarter 2024 can sign up after they are enrolled in a class and go on this August trip before they start classes in September.
You can’t just show up for an off-campus event and expect to participate without having signed up in advance in person and having paid in advance, in part because the college has a release everyone who goes off campus must sign before they go off-campus.
The college release needs to be completed for each person for every off-campus event. It covers what should be done in a medical emergency, Rules of Conduct, and an acknowledgement that the college is not providing transportation. You sign, for example, “it is my responsibility to arrange for transportation to and from the activity.” It has to be signed by the student (or by the parent/guardian of a student under 18 years old), then the faculty or staff member leading the trip is responsible for getting it turned in to the administration before the trip.
You will need to write in your eight-digit De Anza College student identification number Campuswide ID (CWID),
(and we have found that some people coming to sign up for events do not remember their ID Number).
In the release you will give info about your health coverage and in the event of a medical emergency, who to notify.
(And we have found that some people coming to sign up for events do not know their type / brand of health insurance).
Take a look at a sample of the required-by-the-college release.
You can’t sign up on-line, by email or at this website, each student must appear in person to sign trip agreements/releases.
Your friend or even your spouse can’t sign the required paperwork.
There are no waitlists for club events.
Step One
All De Anza Outdoor Club events require an in-person, on campus signup.
There were Covid vaccination and booster requirements in effect before the 2023 trip, and they could come back again.
IF THE VACCINATION RULE CHANGES again, new info will be at:
https://www.deanza.edu/return-to-campus/students.html
Step Two
If you read the Grand Teton trip webpage
and the Grand Teton sample trip agreement
before you come to sign up, it will go much faster and you will better be able to pass the trip pre-test.
(The first people who took the test in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 got perfect or near-perfect scores.)
Step Three
To sign up for the trip you must show us your waterproof hooded rain jacket and pants.
We will not accept a rain poncho.
We will not accept thin, easily torn temporary rain gear like they sell at airports for emergencies.
(If you do not have the rain gear with you when we are going kayaking, you will not kayak that day.)
Buy your waterproof outer layer a size larger than normal to have room for warm things under it. On a budget? Get a set (pants and jacket with a hood) of ($30 to $60+ in 2024) construction worker raingear at a hardware store.
Yes, it could be bright yellow, but you won’t be the only one.
Be sure you get a set with a hood, some rain jackets do not have one.
If you can sew, you can Improve your inexpensive rain gear and turn a less expensive set into one with more features.
Read more details about the right gear/tent and more at snow or rain camp must-haves
Step Four
If you choose to camp, we would also like to see your tent, to be sure it will be adequate. You can pitch it at the pool deck or whatever classroom we meet at.
There are crucial things wrong with each of these tents.
If you do not recognize why they are bad tents (or why the tents were set up poorly)
please read Don’t buy a cheap tent.
It can be difficult to coordinate timing of activities if we don’t all stay in the same area, so we’ve all stayed at Colter Bay for at least part of the time, if not most of the time, on previous trips.
The “Outdoor Club” does not get campsites (or any overnight accommodations),
students on the trip get them and share them as they want to.
Five people who went on the 2023 trip and are sure they are going on the 2024 trip got five campsites in the Colter Bay campground for August 14 – depart Aug. 28 they intend to share with students / faculty who sign up for the trip. The campsites are in a tents-only loop (no motorhome generator noise). The loop also is at a slightly higher elevation that we have found has better cell phone reception (we drove around and checked). It is a short walk to the pay showers, laundromat with free wifi, store, restaurants. We got campsites around the outside edge of the loop, with forest behind and fewer nearby neighbors, (certainly not in the center of the loop next to the restroom and dumpster noise, or with a road and traffic noise right behind a site). People have camped in these previous years and liked them the best. Close to the start of the adventure, some of the days and some of the campsites will be cancelled if they are not needed.
The sites are $65.49 per night. They can accommodate up to 6 people and up to two vehicles each. This means that depending on how they are shared, they will cost between $10.92 and $32.75 per person, per night.
See info at: Colter Bay campground,
Some people on the trip will share cabins, see: Colter Bay Cabins
and people on previous trips have also shared a
(The bear dining on watermelon above was NOT from one of our trips.)
Step FIVE
You must bring a valid government-issued photo ID and your money order payment when you come to sign up.
(You can come to one of the early signups meetings and get questions answered
and/or take the pretest
and show us your waterproof rain gear,
but you can’t sign up unless you have your trip payment with you.)
see: how to get a money order to pay for an Outdoor Club trip
Step Six
The sign ups for the 2024 Grand Teton trip will be:
announced here as we decide when to have them.
We had early signups for people who went on the trip before (some of whom already got campsites to share for the 2024 trip) noon to 1 or maybe later, Saturday, March 16 and Saturday, March 23, at the De Anza pool. Anyone can come and get questions answered.
And at classroom S56, 4:30 p.m. Fridays, April 12, 19, and 26 and May 3
And at Club Day, Thursday, April 25, for more than the official time of 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
We had a get-questions-answered -and sign up if you are ready to meeting
Saturday, May 18 and June 15 at noon to 1 or maybe later at the De Anza pool.
We had a get questions answered meeting at the tables outside the Campus Center on Friday, June 27 at 2 p.m.
At this meeting, people tried pitching a large tent that is available for people to borrow for the trip instead of renting or buying one. See: How to Pitch the Cabela tent.
While doing this they were able to talk to each other about who is the best instructor to take calculus from (according to a student who went on the Grand Teton trip last year and is going again this year), and how French spoken in France is so different than French spoken in Canada, and how, according to an international student who is working on it, transitioning from a Portuguese driver’s license, for example, to California is not all that easily or quickly done
The last get-questions-answered -and sign up if you are ready to meetings are
Saturday, July 13, Saturday, July 20, Saturday July 27 and Saturday, August 3 at noon until possibly as late as 1 p.m. at the De Anza pool.
(There will be people there who went on the trip previously that you can talk to.)
You could bring a tent you want to use, pitch it and get it looked at (or do that later when you finally find that tent).
There will be an activity going on in the pool, and the club advisor might be in the pool, but it should not take much time for you to get our attention.
The De Anza College Olympic-sized swimming pool and diving well are just about in the center of the campus. Look for the light blue square and rectangle on campus maps https://www.deanza.edu/maps-and-tours/
as seen in this section of the map:
The photo below is taken from the direction of the Stelling Parking Garage looking towards the main entrance to the pool complex.
If you find that these two big double doors are locked, you might find an open entrance by turning right and going around that end of the pool complex to another entrance at the side, to about where it says PE5 on the map above. If that is not open you can give us a shout down to the pool.
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At the July 27 meeting, two people decided to fly into Jackson, Wyoming and one of the people driving there will pick them up at the airport and take them to their campsite. Everyone so far going wants to stay for at least the days the campsites are reserved for (Aug. 14 – depart Aug 28). As of the July 27 meeting, there are still other available campsites and a cabin people could take over the reservation of (for any or all days they are reserved for).
The last chance to sign up (Saturday, August 3, at noon until possibly as late as 1 p.m. at the De Anza pool) will be the time people finally fully arrange carpools or caravans, or make final arrangements to share campsites, overnight accommodations.
The last chance to sign up needs to be weeks before the official trip first day.
Because:
The people who got campsite and cabin reservations in advance of the trip have a
deadline to get their deposits refunded
if people do not use all the extra campsites and cabins.
Once we know for sure how many people are going, we have lots of prep work to do, including a detailed cleaning of each kayak and canoe we bring so they can pass the required inspections in Idaho on the way there and in Grand Teton National Park before they can be permitted and used there.
Cleaning and loading, and fitting people for lifejackets will happen
Sunday, August 4, 10 a.m. until done, possibly taking hours of time. We can also loan out some tents, insulating sleeping pads and hiking staffs then. Maybe even a backpack. (But it would be good to know in advance what you want to borrow.) Driving directions to where we will do these chores will be given to people actually signed up and paid for the trip by August 3.
People who wait until the last minute to sign up for Outdoor Club adventures
are sometimes left out.
