MAY 1, 2025 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Sydney McGarr & Michaela Ocko
As Earth Week came to a close, Colorado College students celebrated “Pride Outside” on Yampa Field on Friday, April 25.
The event, which celebrates the intersection between queer identities and outdoor activities and spaces, included the spring Gear House sale, various vendors, a raffle, a food truck and an inflatable obstacle course.
The Ahlberg Gear House is an on-campus supply of gear that students, faculty and staff can rent throughout the year. The event sale allowed students to browse used outdoor gear and purchase things like tents, outerwear, camping supplies, fly rods and more for low prices.
Dozens of students showed up to browse through tents offering free merchandise, pick up cheap outdoor gear and even make s’mores.
Colorado College Outdoor Education trip leaders held workshops to teach attendees different outdoor skills. Beau Toepfer ‘28 led a workshop where people could make quesadillas on Jet-Boil camping stoves.
“We’re trying to teach, sort of, introductory level outdoor skills to the campus community,” Toepfer said. “It’s a part of a broader attempt to make the outdoors more accessible to people because a lot of times it’s a knowledge barrier.”
Even under cloudy skies and 40-degree temperatures, students enjoyed all of the festivities the event had to offer, including the mountain bike course.
Polly Penasenko ‘28 compared the day to summer camp.
“People who like the outdoors are usually cool,” she said. “There are so many arts and crafts and outdoor ed clinics. It’s really cool.”
The local organization Pikes Peak Pride had a booth at the event and provided rainbow stickers and pins. Information regarding the upcoming Pikes Peak Pride, on June 14 and 15, was also displayed.
In a time when queer people are frequently under attack by the Trump administration, students say events like this, that celebrate queer people and queer spaces, are more important than ever.
“It’s important to have acts of joy in queer spaces in a time like this because not everything should be about organizing and protesting,” said Ian Yoon ‘27. “I really like the idea of queerness in the outdoor space being more normalized, because especially in a lot of the circles I’m in, it’s not common at all.”