Article

WINTER SPORTS FOR ALL

AUGUST 1929
Article
WINTER SPORTS FOR ALL
AUGUST 1929

Of a somewhat different aspect are the winter sports around Hanover, one of the Club's most important activities. A staff of instructors are employed to teach the fundamentals of skiing to novices and it is not unusual to find some "pea green" freshman from the far South doing telemarks and jumpturns before the winter is over. For those who become proficient the winter sports team offers a chance for competition with other colleges and the much coveted varsity "D." This team which is directly under the control of the Outing Club is always a formidable entree in the Eastern United States Winter Sports championships and the Canadian championships, as well as other open tournaments. Ski runs and jumps are maintained on the nearby golf links by the Club and each afternoon a hundred students may be seen there in various stages of learning.

Two smaller winter sports tournaments are conducted each year by the Outing Club, one between the four classes of students, the other for the children of Hanover. The skiing and skating ability of these younger boys and girls is remarkable. Many of the boys are using the varsity ski jump at the age of fourteen or fifteen. The present national junior ski-jumping champion is from the Hanover Ski Club.

All these winter activities are now centered around the new $50,000 D. O. C. House presented this year by the class of 1900, located at one end of the skating pond. It is of a beautiful low bungalow type with a spacious club-room, several council rooms, a public locker room for changing skates, and a dining hall in which meals are served daily.

Even into the summer we find the work of the Club extending. On the summit of Mount Moosilauke, a peak fifty miles north of Hanover, the Outing Club operates the Moosilauke Summit Camp during the summer months for tourists and campers. It is in charge of a hutmaster and three other students who pack all the supplies up a four-mile trail. This camp has sixty steel bunks with accommodations for more if necessary. Because of the wonderful view which it offers south along the Connecticut Valley and northward into the Presidential and Franconia ranges it has become more and more popular each season. During the past summer the students accommodated more than 2800 guests. In the winter a separate and smaller cabin is used. Incidentally, one of the big events of the skiing season at Dartmouth is the annual down-mountain Moosilauke Race. The best skiers in college compete in this for the College championship. They are divided into two classes, those who have participated in intercollegiate circles and those who haven't yet attained such proficiency. The record for the course, which is about two and a half miles in length, is eleven minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

The interior organization of the Club is rather complicated. The actual management is carried on by a council of directors to whom projects are referred by a representative organization of selected Club members known as Cabin and Trail, all of whom must be of at least second semester standing. The entire student body and college personnel are eligible to membership in the Club, the dues of which are two dollars per year. As Cabin and Trail serves as the executive body, it is the ambition of all those working in the Outing Club to be elected to this select group. These men are divided into sub-committees such as northern cabins, southern cabins, trails, cabin reservations, membership and instruc tion, publicity and fall, winter, thanksgiving, or spring trips.

The idea of the college outing club is rapidly gaining favor all over the country. Students, both men and women, are welcoming the chance to become better acquainted with nature. They feel, too, that it is in this kind of life that the true qualities of a person cannot help showing. Last year the first intercollegiate outing club conference was held here at Dartmouth. To it came thirty-odd representatives from 14 institutions. After mingling in various forms of entertainment and discussing problems of outing club organization for three days, the delegates agreed unanimously that the conference plan should be continued in future years. The colleges represented were: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Connecticut College for Women, McGill University, University of Maine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mount Holyoke, University of New Hampshire, Skidmore, Smith, Vassar, Williams and Yale.

"WAWONA" Where the California Alumni will gather for a Pow Wow of their own August 31-September 20. All Dartmouth men are invited. Wawona is located high in the Sierras.