Student hikers enjoy the view on Haituo Mountain, located on the border of northwest Beijing and Hebei Province. Photo: Courtesy of Lei Ming

When Yang Rujun, 21, a graduate student at Beijing Foreign Studies University, was stuck on campus during the May Day holiday two years ago, she came across a grisly-sounding website called The Savages. The site's slogan intrigued her: "This is where it all begins in finding utopia."

Although she didn't realize it at the time, Yang's life was about to change forever.

"There was a message on the homepage calling on people to join them to travel," she recalls. "I didn't have any plans for my holiday, so I signed up."

Yang soon found herself on a two-day trip to Zhangjiakou, a city in North China's Hebei Province. It seemed like a cheap way to get away from the drudgery of campus life. Most of all, it was a great way for the self-confessed introvert to make new friends.

In fact, Yang is just one of an increasing number of Beijing students signing up for The Savages, a student club that offers supervised outdoor activity programs such as hiking, rock climbing and caving. 

Founded in 2005, it now boasts branches at Beijing Foreign Studies University, Minzu University of China and five other city campuses.

The Savages now has more than 2,400 members - and they're even not the largest organization of its kind. A student adventure club based in Jilin Province, called 17 Walking Around the World, has over 5,000 members and achieved a wide-reaching influence. Do these figures suggest an emerging trend of Chinese students taking the initiative to head for the great outdoors?

For Pang Xinxin, 22, a master's student at Beijing Foreign Studies University, the impetus to explore further afield owes something to the haze of Beijing's downtown core. Two weeks ago, the Shandong native set out for the Beijing suburbs with five others at 7:30 am and arrived at the destination at 11 am. Autumn was in full swing and the scenery had a desolate beauty. 

"But the best part was that after breathing the polluted air in Beijing for so many days, I could finally breathe in something a bit healthier. That was comforting," Pang says. "It's also a good opportunity to take a break from the pressures of studying."

Twenty-year-old Li Xiqian, an undergraduate student, moonlights as an organizer for The Savages.

"I think it's becoming increasingly popular nowadays," Li says of the upsurge of students signing up for local excursions. When she joined the organization two years ago, membership was at a paltry "few dozen," she says - a stark contrast with its popularity now. Just the other day, Li recruited 40 new members.

"You have to realize that we are a nonprofit student club," Li emphasizes. "So instead of visiting tourist resorts, we choose to visit places where the environment is rugged."

Last Friday evening, Li led a group up to Fragrant Hills Park, the old imperial gardens at the foot of the Western Mountains in Haidian district. They hiked to the top and camped until Sunday morning.

"The organizers were very responsible and the participants enthusiastic," Yang concludes of her debut outing as a Savage. The only thing that made Yang uncomfortable were the mandatory interactive games played to encourage group bonding.

"Some of them were too open for me," she winces. "I'm an introverted girl."

Wang Siqi contributed to this story