Why and What—the Outing Club

VARIOUS persons, especially students from other colleges, sometimes undergraduates at Dartmouth and occasionally Dartmouth alumni, have asked me what there is in the Outing Club that should attract men so deeply. "What," they ask, can be the fun and value of tramping with wet and sore feet through all kinds of weather to some distant cabin there to cook meals which are delectable only because of hunger, there to sleep with varying degrees of success and from there perhaps after toiling up some mountain to return to Hanover too weary for studying?" "It must be,' they continue, "that the only fellows who go into this activity are those who can find no other opening on campus and so turn to the Outing Club merely to keep busy." They admit that there are probably a few, hailing from New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine to whom outdoor life is a necessary part of living. I shall not immediately discuss these pointsthey will be answered during the course of this article.

There are many others who are just as quick to affirm that the Outing Club is a wonderful organization, that it typifies Dartmouth, that it yearly draws a number of applicants to seek admission, that it has been repeatedly voted by the senior class as that activity doing the most for the College, that it is the largest college outdoor body in the world, and finally that its activities are a wonderful means of moulding character. We directly connected with the Club are taught these beliefs as soon as we enter Dartmouth and, like to many Dartmouth men who have never been even connected with the D. O. C. we soon accept them as truths not to be questioned. In view of this I welcome this opportunity of pausing to reflect on just what the Outing Club is and what it means.

Let us consider first the most important aspect, what the Club does for the individual student from the time he enters Dartmouth, not until he graduates, but throughout his life. Entering College at the age of seventeen he still has a boyish enthusiasm for hiking and camping lasting over from camp summers. This seems to be true of about one-quarter of the freshman class. After a few days in college he begins to hear about the Outing Club and at D. O. C. Night he receives a hazy impression from the directors as to the Club organization. Perhaps he meets some upperclassman in his dorm who is a member of Cabin and Trail and can tell him more about this activity. In a few days the Cabin and Trail competition is called out and along with 120 others from his class he becomes a part of that complicated machine, the Dartmouth Outing Club.

EACH MAN FINDS HIS NICHE

On the very first week-end he signs up for an exploration trip down part of the chain of cabins and Saturday noon finds him starting for Cube cabin in an old dilapidated Ford with a party of eight. It is this first trip which may leave a lasting impression on him throughout life for there are few of us who cannot appreciate the beauty of Hanover's woods in the fall. However, it may not be nature's grandeur that will make him recall this particular trip. Perhaps some incident occurs. He may burn up his pants in the cabin while trying to dry them out, he may kill a couple of porkys, he may have to push the Ford several miles, or he may eat about three times as much food as he ever did before.

Meanwhile the leader is looking him over as a possible asset to the future functioning of the Club. How easy this is, and how easy it is to gauge his entire character on this one little hike. Does he complain at inconveniences, does he do a job assigned to him, how does he do that job, is he quiet, does he wish to learnP He may not be adaptable to this type of College activity but it is easy to determine whether he is adaptable to any.

These trips continue throughout the fall, some as real work trips on which cabin repairs have to be made or trails must be reblazed and painted, others to points of interest in New Hampshire and Vermont, each one to be remembered in some way. He may climb Mount Chocorua in the heart of New Hampshire's lake region, or hike along the Franconia Eidge Trail, or sit on the forehead of the Old Man of the Mountain, or explore the tortuous passages of Lost River, or travel far north to the College Grant near the Canadian border, or get caught in a raging blizzard on the Presidentials. It does not matter greatly where he goes for there is always that pleasure of comradeship in the out-of-doors, of common troubles to be solved, of unexpected situations and difficulties, of ripening friendships fed by that inevitable exchange of confidences which contact with nature always seems to promulgate; and meanwhile he is gradually assimilating a stock of wood lore and campi ng knowledge which may not do him any practical good after he leaves College, any more than his later course in English poetry of the eighteenth century—but he is learning to think for himself, and to increase his confidence in his own abilities. He is continually thrown in with other fellows, total strangers whose homes may be thousands of miles from where he has been reared, whose social class may be far above or below his, whose ideas conflict with his ideals, whose very character may be totally different. He is in a veritable melting pot—from which he will issue a better man.

Many of his classmates find Outing Club work not to their liking. They prefer more leisure on their weekends, the Cabin and Trail competition seems too hopeless to them, they turn to The Dartmouth or the Aegis, they feel that studies do not permit diversions freshman year, but in nine cases out of ten they remember those first two or three contacts with the D. O. C. and throughout their stay in college they come back occasionally for private trips or official hikes—and this is what the Club hopes for. It does not matter greatly whether or not students enter actively into the organization and work of the Club, it is more important that they are given a chance to take advantage of the great out-of-doors around Hanover. If they do work actively, they will benefit the more, but there are a limited number of places to work for. It is my firm belief that any association with outdoor life such as the Outing Club makes possible is of the greatest benefit to the individual.

BREAKING IN FRESHMEN!

To go back to our freshman. To make outing easier for him he hears a weekly talk on some phase of camping or equipment or cabin maintenance, etc. If he shows ability he may be permitted to lead a work trip to one of the cabins. His carnival work I will discuss later. Then in the spring from a group of fifty of his classmates, those who have stuck through, he is chosen with fourteen others for Cabin and Trail, governing body of the Outing Club. He has already paid his two dollars as one of the 1600 members of the club; now he is ent itled to a charm and a C & T shirt.

As can readily be seen the selection of fifteen men from a group of over fifty, all of whom have worked steadily throughout the year, is no easy matter. The heelers have been under the department of Membership and Instruction with a close record kept of their work. To aid in the final selection each candidate is given a card in the fall on which he writes the various trips he makes during the year and the various jobs he does. A second group of cards are filled out by the members of Cabin and Trail; thus there is a double check on the work each man has done. But of course work alone does not mean election. The directors and upperclassmen in closest touch with the freshmen each give a graded rating-to those members of the competition who stand out fairly definitely above the others and these ratings are summed up and presented to Cabin and Trail for discussion in April. That body thrashes them out and selects ten men, then these ten with the data before them elect the remaining five. A man is judged partly on work done and partly on his future value to the Club.

Our ambitious freshman now has his choice of several types of work, corresponding to the various departments. He may sign up for the department of cabin and trails in which case he will be assigned to take care of a section of the trails or several cabins, or per- haps one cabin needing a good deal of attention. He may be chairman of a committee of several of his classmates to take care of the northern or southern or feed cabins, or of all of the 150 miles of cabin trails. In the trips department he will be chairman of either the fall, Thanksgiving, winter or spring trips, while in the publicity department he takes turns for a week at a time with several others at collecting and writing articles for The Dartmouth and occasionally for outside magazines and newspapers. As The Dartmouth averages two articles daily on D. O. C. activities this is a fairly good way of learning something about the writing game. It likewise gives the man a better insight into the workings of the Club than do the other departments. In addition to these positions there are several others, such as the charge of the storeroom and the ordering of supplies, that of the cabin reservations and that of recreational cuts. Cabin reservations are made at any date and priority of application determines the reservation. The slips are deposited in a box in the office and on Monday night the student in charge posts a list of cabins reserved for that week-end. The cabins generally are full by Friday night, which means that each week-end finds some hundred students hiking over the D. O. C. trails. This, of course, does not include men making special trips to points off the Outing Club chain. Recreational cuts are given to men making trips or doing outdoor work for the club. A freshman or sophomore may earn two such credits per week to take the place of his regular elected recreation such as track. These cut slips are signed by the leader of the trip or the man in charge of the work.

As a member of Cabin and Trail, our friend now finds himself a small but important cog in the machinery of the Outing Club. He meets with that body at fortnightly intervals, learns what is going on in the various departments and discusses questions of policy or conduct of the Club. He soon finds that there is much more to the organization than he had ever supposed from the outside.

OPPORTUNITY FOB SUMMER JOBS

Summer vacation comes along and our freshman decides to apply for a position in the Moosilauke Summit Camp as one of the summit crew. This camp, he has found, is a sort of retreat for hikers and campers who have toiled their way up Moosilauke in an afternoon and wish to spend the night on top. It can accommodate over a hundred for the night and frequently does, for its popularity has steadily grown throughout New England. Moosilauke, situated fifty miles north of Hanover in the Connecticut Valley, rises majestically 4811 feet to offer a beautiful panorama north into the Canadian peaks, east into the heart of the Presidentials and Franconias, west across Lake Champlain into the Adirondacks and south far below Hanover to where Pico and Killington and Ascutney and Monadnock cut into the sky. Our student is one of a crew of four with a junior or senior as hutmaster. It is his job to take turns cooking for over two thousand visitors during two summer months, to carry food up the trail from Glencliff, to keep the camp in shape, to learn a vast number of songs of the trails, and above all to entertain the visitors and earn their respect for what he represents, Dartmouth and the Dartmouth Outing Club. He be- comes adept at telling ghost Itories to camp children, at gauging just how much Moosilauke stew a party can consume, at cheerfully answering the most absurd questions, at giving all a good time. It is hard work and the pay is not great but the experience is fine. By the end of the summer he has developed a reverence and love for that old Mountain that time will never dim. He sees old camp crews and hutmasters return for their annual reunion from all over the country, he sees Dartmouth men suddenly drop in at night from nowhere, "just back to Hanover for a visit and—had to climb Moosilauke again."

Sophomore year in the Outing Club is a busy one with more and more responsibility coming into view. During the fall he is busy getting his cabins into shape or clearing trails or keeping some committee active; often he is leading special trips himself to distant peaks. It is now his delegation which is carrying on the more burdensome work of the Club.

Another summer rolls around and our sophomore resolves to apply for one of the trail crew positions. This work consists of going over the entire chain of nineteen cabins and as many of the trails as possible in order to put all in the best of condition for fall use. By the end of the spring term the cabins all need minor and occasional major repairs generally in the way of carpentry work. For example last summer the interiors of several cabins were lined with wall board as an experiment to retain more heat. The wood supply must be in as soon as possible so that it may be fairly well seasoned by fall, and this means a good deal of dickering with farmers for reasonable prices. The crew travels about in some old car they pick up and are on the go all of the time. Certain of the cabins, generally every other one up the chain, have their blankets removed and are locked up, a policy to prevent theft. This work, of course, is highly interesting and certainly fine for putting a man in the best of physical condition.

WORK FOR JUNIORS

Junior year in D. O. C. work is a peculiar one under the present system. The junior delegation have no delegated work. They are included under and form the main part of the department of Membership and Instruction. Our friend will find that he is expected to lead trips as often as possible, especially the freshman trips in the fall and any special official trips. His two to three years' experience in the club have left him with a supposedly good ability at leading and as the other three delegations are tied up with routine work, he is looked upon as the logical trip leader. In addition, as instituted in the past year, he is called upon to talk to the freshman at one of their weekly meetings on some phase of the club, or he may be selected to act as the D. O. C. delegate to some convention of college Outing Clubs. This experience is given him for obvious reasons, one of course being that the senior officers may thus check on his ability.

Each year there are a number of projects which arise more or less unexpectedly and not having been previously assigned to any one department are turned over to juniors. It has been my policy this past year to see that nearly every one of the juniors and any inactive senior be appointed to one of these positions. While this carries the risk of a job not going to the best man available, on the other hand it means that all Cabin and Trail men have a chance to remain active in the Outing Club. In a purely business organization such a policy would probably be unadvisable, in a college activity in which experience and fun are the goals, business ethics must be occasionally overlooked. These extra projects include such work as jobs at the D. O. C. House, the new handbook of the Outing Club, the new cabins on Smart's Mountain and at Thistle Hill (north of Woodstock), arrangements for Commander Byrd's reception, arrangements for a Grantland Rice Sportlight, work on the toboggan slide, articles for the ALXJMNI MAGAZINE and for other publicity markets, arrangements for Cabin and Trail feeds, etc.

Elections to the Outing Club Council come immediately after Easter vacation. The out-going council serve as a nominating committee but other members of Cabin and Trail are free to make nominations. The election itself is carried on by Cabin and Trail who elect the following directors: Secretariate, Membership and Instruction, Cabins and Trails, Trips, and Shelters. The other two members of the council, the directors of Winter Sports and of Carnival I shall discuss later. The members of the newly formed council then meet with the comptroller and elect one of their number as their chairman and as the official head of the Outing Club.

The Outing Club is fortunate in being that organization at Dartmouth probably least subject to campus politics. While this is not a fact every year, on the average, I believe it is true. This situation arises from several reasons. Naturally the freshmen elections into Cabin and Trail offer very little chance for politics because of their being still non-fraternity men. As other positions are made by appointment, there is left only the council election for five directors and the chairman. But here the men suited for these posts are generally so outstanding as to offer no excuse for fraternity handling. Furthermore most of the members of Cabin and Trail rightfully feel that these positions are too important for the name and future of the Club to be endangered through politics. So in general, our junior friend if elected to a directorship will find himself one of a group of students who have shown a continued interest in D. O. C. work, and who measure up to fairly high standards of leadership and ability. The Club also differs from other organizations in that it can offer eight major positions to its senior delegation, whereas in all other activities the important offices are fewer in number. In any one of these posts the student can develop his work so as to become the most important part of the council; here again is the opportunity for a man to evidence his initiative and ability. Besides these eight directors are the four others comprising the heads of the carnival departments.

The Outing Club council controls the policies and operations of the club and in additon to the student members mentioned includes the graduate comptroller and three other faculty men, the latter chosen by the faculty because of their interest in such an organization. Coming together every other week just before the Cabin and Trail meetings this body thrashes out the problems, projects and conduct of the Club and hears reports from the directors as to the work each department is doing. The maturer wisdom of the faculty members and of the comptroller acts as a safety valve on any impractical schemes. Two of the main duties of this body are to look into the actual success of various projects and to be ever watchful that the utmost precautions are taken for emergency situations arising on trips.

SEVEN LARGE DEPARTMENTS

Glancing for a moment at the work of the directors we find each with enough to keep him decidedly busy. Cabins and Trails, on which the largest portion of the budget is spent, demands that there be a continual check on the chain throughout the year. The director meets his sophomore committee once a week and outlines to them the work to be accomplished that week. If he feels that some cabin needs special attention he delegates one man to have full charge of it for the time being. He conducts regular inspection trips, generally with the council chairman and the comptroller, up and down the chain to satisfy himself that all is shipshape. It is his duty to be always on the watch for possible improvements and alterations in the cabins and along the trails.

Trips demand a man who is thoroughly acquainted with all territory covered by D. 0. C. parties. He draws up a schedule for each part of the year, assures publicity in The Dartmouth, helps his sophomore workers in obtaining leaders and above all makes sure that all precautions are taken. Winter trips to dangerous terrains demand special attention. Men making them must pass a physical examination, their equipment must be examined, their schedule carefully gone over, and they must have had conditioning trips within a short time before. The Outing Club can take no chances. With such trips go emergency rations, rope, first-aid equipment and often ice creepers. The trips director cooperates with the head of the cabins and trails department \in sending out work trips to clean up the cabins and make necessary repairs. Recently his field has spread beyond these duties. Faculty trips have become popular and demand a certain type of leader and itinerary. Of more importance are the recently organized intercollegiate hikes with members of the Outing Clubs of Williams, Bates, Amherst, Yale, M. A. C. and others. Dartmouth with its splendid hiking territ ory is popular among other college outing clubs and the D. O. C. itself welcomes this chance to offer its opportunities to other college students.

The department of membership and instruction is very important from the standpoint of the life of the Club, for the man at the head of this is responsible for the yearly membership drive in the fall and winter. The canvassing is started with members of Cabin and Trail and after the first month is turned over to the freshman heelers. As this income is an integral part of the budget for operating expenses the drive is very important. The yearly membership runs around 1600 or about two-thirds of the student body. It is evident that a percentage of these members never actually go out hiking, but they do all use some part of Outing Club equipment during the year, whether the Outing Club House on Occom Pond, entertainment at Carnival, one of the feed cabins or some other feature. This director must also line up a practical instruction course for the freshmen and sophomore heelers and must watch their competition carefully making sure that they receive proper attention and are given a good time throughout their work, for drudgery is something the Club endeavors to keep away from as much as possible.

PUBLICITY AND SHELTER

The director of publicity holds a peculiar position in that he does not come in as close contact with the outdoor part of the club as the others. He must handle all publicity both at home and outside of Hanover. He edits an annual report of the Club's activities and in addition has a weekly report made up for posting in dormitories and fraternity houses. This report is sent at fortnightly intervals to all alumni interested in the Club. His post is perhaps that one in which personal initiative counts the most.

Shelters have opened up a new field and this director is certainly a busy man these days. The proposed chain of shelters running somewhat parallel to the present system of cabins offers a field for those men who are not tied down with other positions. The director must personally check on all prospective sites and the rights to those sites. With New Hampshire land generally owned by unsettled estates, lost relatives and town boards, it is indeed a task to seek merely the right of erecting a three sided lean-to anywhere. This type of work must fall on the more hardy members of the club as it generally means sleeping in the open on a week-end and cooking over a hastily constructed fireplace. The work, however, is interesting and different, for each shelter is assigned to a crew who are permitted to go ahead and solve their own building problems subject to a fixed budget. A stranger wandering onto one of these groups way off in a remote corner of the woods would think it was some pioneer family starting their little log cabin.

One might wonder just what there is left for the chairman of all this to do. The answer is that no human machine, let alone a college one, is perfect. The chairman must keep all tied together. He must see that all departments are functioning, that cooperation is shown, that projects are carried out, that new ideas are introduced, in short that the Outing Club carries on better than ever. He conducts Council and Cabin and Trails meetings and sits in on all others ex-officio, and he is responsible to his council, to the Club, to Dartmouth and to the Alumni as to whether the year is a success or failure—he is a harassed individual who turns the reins over to the incoming chairman with a sigh of relief, but who looks back on his position as the best experience he has ever had.

CARNIVAL A JOB IN ITSELF

There are a number of other activities which should be included. Carnival! To what Dartmouth man does this not bring memories, and to how many girls does it bring similar reminiscences! There is really no need here to enlarge on Carnival—it is known throughout the country, in its size and importance it is unique in college circles throughout the world, and to Dartmouth itself it is a three-day festival at which Father Time takes a back seat and youth reigns supreme in joyous abandon. I need go no further in describing the life of Carnival; when the reader glances at this article Dartmouth's Twenty-First Carnival will be holding full sway in Hanover.

I would like to mention the preparation and work that each Carnival entails. The committee, comprised of the directors of Finance (the comptroller), Publicity, Ball, Outdoor Evening and Competitions, several directors at large, including the director of officials, and lastly the chairman of Carnival, is selected shortly after Carnival is over. Work towards the following year then begins immediately. This work, occurring between February and the following fall, deals largely with any important changes that the committee may decide to institute after the reports of the preceding directors have been scrutinized, in addition letters are sent to all winter sports colleges calling to their attention the date of Carnival and urging them to think of entries as soon as possible. The plan for Outdoor Evening, which changes each year, is outlined as much as possible and the general order of events is discussed.

As soon as College opens in the fall intensive work begins. The publicity department with its greatest amount of work before Carnival schedules its releases to The Dartmouth, to neighboring towns and to metropolitan papers, each class requiring a different approach. It arranges for posters and placards for Hanover and its vicinity and for metropolitan areas. Large and fashionable ladies' clothing stores in Boston and New York are approached with the suggestion that they set up winter sports costumes for window display featuring Dartmouth's Carnival. Ski-jumping placards are taken up and down the Connecticut Valley and other posters are sent to women's schools and colleges of the east. One of the most laborious tasks, strange as it may seem, is the making up of the Carnival Program. The contents of this must be passed upon by the committee, each of whom generally has personal ideas on the policy to be followed. Cuts must be arranged for and bids solicited for its printing, and it should be ready for sale by January.

Then there are the newspaper men and photographers to be approached; the Outing Club is always host to a score of them during Carnival. All printing jobs, too, are in the hands of this department, and finally there is the information booth which opens in Robinson Hall the week before Carnival and which must have students acquainted with all phases of Carnival.

The Carnival Ball, one of the main attractions of the program, changes its atmosphere or setting each year. Its director must figure out his decorations to correspond with his budget and have all well under way by early fall. One of the hardest tasks is obtaining an orchestra which will please most of the guests. Managers of orchestras generally consider college men as suckers to whom they can send a third-string orchestra under their name without detection. Hence the Ball director and his cohorts go through a good deal of red tape involving pictures, lengthy contracts, personal interviews, etc. As the actual decorating of the gymnasium floor cannot begin until examinations are over, the few days left for work before Carnival must be busy ones. Furthermore there are such items as the Ball program, patronesses, refreshments, specialty acts, additional music during intermission and coat checking.

DEVELOPING OUTDOOR EVENING

That department requiring the greatest amount of imagination and initiative is Outdoor Evening, Carnival's opening night. Outdoor Evening must each year change its entire program; one year, fancy skating may be featured; another, an elaborate musical comedy; and a third, exhibition skiing and fireworks. It must be developed so as to entice students and their guests away from a comfortable lounge in the fraternity house, and that is no easy task. It has grown to be a coherent entity in order that it may be given some special name each year and in order that the publicity department may use its program to advantage. Adding to the difficulties of this department is the fact that the director has nothing to go on from the previous years for his general theme.

Outdoor Evening always includes some form of snow and ice structure and some amount of electrical display. The Queen of the Snows is chosen during the program and ceremoniously enthroned. This is another delicate bit of planning as the girls must be given just the right amount of public display. Dartmouth's Queen of the Snows must feel herself honored but not embarrassed.

As in the case of the chairman of the Outing Club Council, the chairman, or director, of Carnival must keep his departments working together. His work, like that of his directors, is very intensive during the fall and winter. In the spring he plans out the probable distribution of expense and income for his Carnival by going over the budgets for the preceding years and by outlining his own ideas and changes. This is done with the comptroller. During the remainder of the spring he occasionally calls his directors together and assures himself that they 'are developing their plans. In the fall and the months just preceding Carnival he must continually go over all of the departmental programs and try to find items which have been overlooked, and in December the sub-committees from Cabin and Trail are lined up for the different departments. Practically this entire group offers itself for work. Then there are the volunteer workers to be called out from the college at large, these men to carry out the plans now completed in the departments.

The special trains are handled by the chairman who confers with a representative from the B. & M. The most suitable schedules and accommodations must be settled at an early date. Then there are numerous other items such as the organization of the features department (those who build the ice tower and decorate the campus) special events at Carnival such as ski joring and the display of dog teams, and the operation and supervision of the toboggan slide.

It is really impossible here to enumerate the thousand and one details included in these preparations. During the week before Carnival the committee meets daily and eats together and during Carnival week itself the rush is impossible to describe. The months of preparation planning and worry culminate in a few hours of display, but so far there has always been the delightful feeling for the committee that they have given Dartmouth and her guests a good time, and that is their goal.

I have purposely omitted any discussion of the Club's winter Sports Department and of the Carnival Competitions Department as they closely follow each other and are worthy of a separate treatment. The director of the former is manager of the winter sports team and receives a letter similar to that of the other athletic managers. He has gone through an extensive competition beginning freshman year with a large group, continuing sophomore year with a picked squad of four and ending junior year with his election as assistant manager. His work has been varied; it probably has included working on the ski jumps, laying out courses, supervising freshmen squads, arranging meets and all the routine which any athletic manager encounters. Of course managing a winter sports team is decidedly different from that of other teams. The manager must be an authority on ski conditions, skis, snowshoes, skates, ski jumping forms and ski jumps, ski waxes, etc.

The director of Competitions for Carnival is really continuing this work in a more complicated task, that of running the winter sports meet itself during Carnival. This includes taking care of the numerous entries and conducting the various events, cross-country ski and snowshoe racing, slalom (proficiency) and mile downhill ski racing, speed skating and figure skating, and ski jumping. It means supervising a number of events entirely different in nature and demanding different types of preparation.

The great mass of Carnival work is done by a large number of volunteers who are called out soon after Christmas vacation and who begin work at that time. These men, while coming largely from the freshman class, also include a number of upperclassmen. I believe the spirit shown here is certainly encouraging. The work runs from answering questions in the information booth to building snow and ice figures for Outdoor Evening. During Carnival itself cuts are excused by the Administration for those men whose labor is necessary.

CLUB OPERATES LARGE PROPERTIES

The equipment of the Outing Club is continually increasing. I believe it would be of interest at this point to note of exactly what it consists. As I am thinking mainly of the chain of cabins and trails, let us take a jaunt over the trails hiking first west of Hanover and then to the north to Skyline. Three miles across the Connecticut and fairly high up on a ridge lies Newton Cabin. It is a log structure with a capacity for six men and one of the most recent and most popular of the chain. Continuing west two miles we strike Happy Hill, or Tucker Cabin as it was formerly named, an eight man cabin. The trail then leads over a series of beautiful slopes and valleys and across the White River to the latest of the cabins, Cloudland, later to be dedicated to the memory of Eugene P. Clark 'Ol, former secretary of Dartmouth and long a devoted friend of the Outing Club. This cabin holds a score of men and is situated in what is probably the best skiing country available to Hanover. From there the trail wanders westward to join the connecting link of the Green Mountain trail twenty-five miles from Hanover.

We will take a fast and exciting ski run back to Hanover and turn east and northward. Seven and a half miles to the east lie the three Mooses, Bull, Cow and Calf which together will take care of over thirty men for over night and will feed over fifty. Northward the trail runs then to Holt's Ledge, a four man log cabin with a beautiful view westward over the Connecticut Valley. From Holt's we can either take the Quintown trail towards Cube or climb up over the Smart's loop trail. Smart's Mountain, as all know who have rested on its summit, affords one of the finest views in the White Mountains because of its peculiarly advantageous position. Here the Club is erecting a new log cabin to take the place of the old forest ranger's shack. Descending the other side of Smart's we resume the Cube trail and find the cabin of that name nestled under the brow of Cube Mountain. This is the largest of the D. O. C. cabins with accommodations for twelve men in a sleeping room upstairs.

After running up to the lookout on Cube in the morning we can plod north to Armington Pond where in Summer the Club's best bathing and boating facilities are situated. Many an alumnus can recall a morning plunge in Armington Pond or an evening paddle just after the sun dips over the ridge across the water. Hiking through dense woods for nine miles we come out at Glencliff and after a greeting at Windle-blo-inn at our old friends the Harringtons we climb up to Great Bear Cabin at the foot of Moosilauke.

Many are the stories connected with this beloved old peak with its years of Dartmouth tradition. We can ascend by several trails to the winter cabin on the summit, or we can take the longer Breezy Point trail around the mountain to Agassiz Basin Cabin. On the summit we will be lulled to sleep by the howling of the wind, at Agassiz by the roar and rush of the water in Lost River.

From Agassiz the D. 0. C. trail leads to North Woodstock and thence north through famous Franconia Notch to Franconia Cabin. Here I need mention only the Old Man of the Mountain, Echo and Profile Lakes and the Flume, to bring back memories to many readers. The cabin itself looks out over Echo Lake and has a capacity for eight. In it the Club has experimented very successfully with wall board for additional warmth. Our last trek takes us down three-mile hill into the village of Franconia, from there to Littletown and finally up a long slope to Skyline Cabin last and northernmost of the chain, lying 82 miles from Hanover. If there is clear moonlight we can look way across the Ammoonoosuc Valley to the lofty Presidentials capped by Mount Washington and to the undulating Franconia Range.

CHICKEN, WAFFLES, STEAK

Coming back into Hanover we will sojourn to the Outing Club House for an Off-the Trail Supper of chicken and waffles or steak that defies description. I will not take space here to describe again the D. O. C. House, now Hanover's most attractive retreat. Instead, we will step outside on the porch and if it is winter watch the throngs skating on Occom Pond under the glare of flood lights. It is a pretty setting with the green of the pine along the shore and the stars overhead. On the other side of the house and up on Occom Ridge a tall lamp post throws a shadowy light over the surrounding slopes. Lithe figures on skis fly down the sides and over the plain below—there is no thrill quite similar to that of night skiing. Further out on the golf links we hear the shouts from some party shooting down the toboggan slide at breakneck speed. Now from out of the darkness comes a party of skiers, mostly freshmen and sophomores; the recreational group, who have been off for an evening run with their skiing coaches. Three afternoons a week these men, who have chosen skiing as their required recreational sport, are taught the rudiments of skiing under experienced coaches.

I have not covered the Dartmouth Outing Club completely; volumes could be written concerning its influence to its members and to Dartmouth and even while this is being printed the Outing Club is thinking of new projects for [advancing hand in hand with nature.

SNOW-CAPPED MOOSILAUKE ON THE LEFT AND THE FRANCONIA RANGE ON THE RIGHT

A MT. WASHINGTON PARTY Looking down the Crawford Bridle Path

NEWTON CABIN Three miles west of Hanover and one of the most popular of the chain.

GREAT BEAR CABIN At the Foot of Moosilauke.

EVEN THE CHILDREN CAN JUMP Harry Hillman, Jr., age 10, son of the Dartmouth Track Coach.

A VIEW FROM SMART'S Looking east from the new cabin site with Cummings Pond in the foreground,

AGASSIZ CABIN Where hikers are lulled by the swift waters of Lost River.

D. O. C. HOLT'S LEDGE CABIN, NEAR LYME, N. H.

THE 1931 CARNIVAL COMMITTEE Left to right: J. B. Feltner '3l, director of competitions; C. Thorn '3l, chairman; D. P. Hatch '2B, director of finance; J. B. Godfrey '3l, publicity; R. C. Syvertsen, officials; V. R. King '3l, outdoor evening; D. Bartlett '26, at large; L. M. Hall '3l, Carnival Ball.

MOOSILATJKE WINTER CABIN

FROM AN EARLY "OUTER" Kindest regards and best wishes to the boys of "today" from one of "yesterday." Sincerely, B. S. SIMONDS '88 Pottsville, Pa.

Chairman, Outing Club Council