The End of the Trail
The Highest D. O. C. HonorsNow when it's all over, and the club is ready toelect its new delegation of 15 members, who is it thatwins the honor? Usually about 100 remain activelyinterested in the competition throughout the year.From these the best are selected on a basis of work donefor the club as shown by their records, by personalinterview in which the potentiality and personality ofthe man is discovered, and by election. Ten of the 15are selected by the members of Cabin and Trail andthe remaining jive are voted in by this first group often. There are no hard and fast requirements forelection. Generally the men elected have a reasonablefamiliarity with the D. 0. C. country, they have donea good deal of valuable work for the club, and theyhave shown a genuine interest. In addition the menmust be "good fellows," well liked by the members ofCabin and Trail for this body is a fraternity wheregood fellowship is as highly prized as in any socialfraternity on the campus. Records of the heelers arekept, of course, but the freshmen who enter Cabinand Trail each spring are supposed to have something more which cannot be easily measured, butwhich makes for the life and vitality of the club andcarries out a big job each year with no "D" sweatersfor remuneration. The reward is plenty of open air,healthful exercise, joy of work in the hills, and theundying friendships of the Trail
THE TEAR'S MILL
LATE in September every year there assembles in the offices of the Outing Club about one-quarter A of the freshman class, newly arrived at Dartmouth and eager for experiences of college life. They have responded to the call for heelers, and all of them have visions of some day wearing the green shirt of that organization. These 150 newcomers are a varied group. Some of them, it is evident, conceive of the club as a sort of a college boy-scout troop; others have come merely with the idea of gaining an easy road to some campus prestige. But to a great many the Outing Club is Dartmouth. They have heard of it long before they realized the strength of the Dartmouth faculty or before they understood the place which the Green teams have earned in intercollegiate sport. Many of them long ago determined to enjoy the unique facilities of this college man's club, and now they have a desire to become members of its governing body, and to participate as fully as possible in its activities. So, under the instruction of the members of Cabinand Trail, these men begin their first year at college with the thought of that day in April when 15 of them will achieve a position in that body which directs the activities of the club. This heeling for Cabin and Trail is no grind, though. There are few definite assignments at first. Instead, a half-dozen to ten parties leave the campus each week-end to roam the club's trails, to spend the night in any of the chain of cabins and to begin to familiarize themselves with the Outing Club country. This is no short task, and many who regularly indulge in these week-end excursions find that they have covered only a part of the trails by the time spring has come. But no matter. The main thing is to enjoy the glory of the autumn foliage, to tramp through the forests until hot food and restful bunks are doubly enjoyable, and to absorb as much knowledge of the country as possible. Within a short time work trips are begun, and the heelers find themselves marking trails and repairing cabins under the supervision of Cabin and Trail members, for soon the winter season is at hand.
Then comes the snowfall, and skiing weather. There are first experiences on skis, leg twisting tumbles, futile attempts at Telemarks, and finally overland trips to acquaint those to whom the experience is new with the knack of threading narrow trails, climbing steep hillsides and meeting with all sorts of snow conditions. The winter time is the best time for the Outing Club, and these ski trips are increasingly popular.
WINTER WORK
Carnival is work, but it still is one of the most enjoyable occasions of the year. The forces of the heelers are marshalled like an army and apportioned to various phases of the work. A crew of handy men with saws and hammers, paint and paste go hard at it to carry out the task of decorating the gymnasium for the Carnival Ball; another force is set to building monuments of ice and snow for campus decoration. In the biting snow and sub-zero temperatures another crew prepares for outdoor evening. During the 1931 Carnival, freshmen stood two-hour watches through nights when the thermometer was 10 and 20 degrees below zero in order to flood and freeze an artificial pond necessary for the skating events. No man can be wasted in the tremendous preparations which are necessary for the staging of Carnival. It means giving up of many of the joys of Carnival in order to stay behind the scenes and help keep the machinery running smoothly, and there are hours of drudgery connected with the work, repaid only by the fun of seeing the thing entirely worked out and running smoothly during the great three days.
Routine work such as this, and routine trips over the regular Outing Club chain are not all, however. Official D. 0. C. trips depart throughout the year for points outside of the cabin chain. Of these Mt. Washington is of course the most popular. Four or five times a year there is an opportunity for the freshman to visit the "roof of New England," and to ramble over the White Mountain country. He may choose the Thanksgiving trip when winter has just begun to settle over New England, he may go out for the skiing and snowshoeing of the mid-winter excursion or he may choose some time earlier in the fall or late in the spring when conditions are less severe. Among other interesting points which he may visit are Mt. Chocorua, Mt. Mansfield, College Grant, Mt. Ascutney, Camel's Hump, Carter Dome, Lafayette Ridge, and many more. Sleeping in the open or in shelters is often the rule on these trips, and a new kind of camping, different from that of cabin weekending can be experienced.
Handy woodsmen find themselves interested in many of the club's new projects. They may choose to help in erecting new shelters, cutting, trimming and notching the logs for the structures, or they may prefer to assist in clearing new trails. A logging bee to cut fuel for one of the cabins usually proves popular, and there is an ever new thrill to wandering through some littleknown tract of land in search of a new shelter site.
Not all of the work is of an outdoor variety. An organization of 1600 members and with as much equipment as the D. O. C., requires a good deal of clerical work, and though this is largely taken care of by a regular office force there are many errands to be run, and much routine procedure that falls to the lot of the ambitious heeler. Then, too, there are regular meetings to attend. Here instruction is given by the various department heads in Cabin and Trail, and the general nature of the program is outlined.
LOOKING DOWN ON ECHO LAKE FROM EAGLE CLIFF IN FRANCONIA NOTCH
THE LAST SKI PARTY (SPRING 1931) And now until next winter the skis will be put away
