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 On his first trip to Joshua Tree National Park as a
Pomona College student, Bryant Cannon wound up with 250 tiny
cholla cactus barbs in his arm after he made a wrong move
playing Frisbee in the desert. But the park didn’t just draw
a touch of blood – it drew Cannon back again and again. He
had visited “J-Tree,” as Pomona students call it, a dozen
times by the end of his sophomore year.
Growing up in Alabama, Cannon loved the outdoors. But the
trails back home were relatively flat and the scenery
universally green. At Pomona College, Cannon could explore
California’s scenic extremes, from the searing beauty of
Death Valley to piney snow packed peaks in the Sierras to misty cliffs along the
northern “lost coast.”
A neuroscience major, Cannon has managed to combine Pomona’s
intense academics with outdoor adventure by adding a second
major in Environmental Analysis, in which Southern
California’s deserts and mountains often serve as a
classroom. Back on
campus, he lingered after class for long talks, going on for
hours with Geology and Environmental Analysis Professor Rick
Hazlett. You can do that at a place like Pomona.
”I’ve been encouraged by everyone at just about every bend
or twist in the road,” says Cannon. “Those kinds of personal
relationship have, more than anything else, allowed me to do
whatever I wanted to do.”
By his junior year, Cannon was helping other students get
back to nature by becoming the leader of On The Loose, the
longstanding outdoors club that serves all of the Claremont
Colleges. He gained valuable experience managing a $40,000
budget
and helping to stage some 400 trips every year. But his
favorite moments, of course, came out in the wilderness.
Social barriers melt away as student gather around a
dancing campfire or watch the sun rise over the desert. A
sure sign of a successful trip: On the long drive home from
a spring-break trek to the slot canyons of Southern Utah,
students were so
unplugged from their usually wired world that nobody thought
to ask for their cell phones –safely locked away in the
glove box – until they were within 30 minutes of campus. And
Cannon finds the friendships forged in the outdoors carry
over to life
on campus. His goal is to convince every student to spend at
least one night outdoors once a year. “It changes people’s
perspective on what’s important,” he says."
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