OLYMPIC WINTER SPORTS IN 1936

Skiing is a big word in the Dartmouth vocabulary. It calls up memories of snow-laden pines in the Vale of Tempe, of breath-taking midnight excursions to the River Trail, of the thrill of Moosilauke races, and the wind-burned weariness that followed, of pleasant winter week-ends at a D. O. C. cabin, of Carnival ....

But to an increasingly large number of alumni, skiing is more than a college memory. It is, rather, a means of week-end recreation, valuable because it takes them from the confinement of the city to the white out-of-doors that only the mountains know; because it brings happy days and camaraderie.

This new interest in skiing was demonstrated vividly by the success of a special Dartmouth Snow Train which inundated Hanover with some 400 alumni and their families on the week-end following Carnival. The new Moosilauke project, which places the Alumni Outing Club in possession of 600 acres of mountain-side, a ski hut, and one of the most spectacular of New England's new ski trails is an even more arresting evidence—and its success as echoed by all those who have spent a Dartmouth week-end there has more than justified the work that has gone into the project. Again there is the significant growth of the Boston D. O. C. Best of all, Dartmouth alumni are entering their best skiers in the important meets this winter as a truly Dartmouth team.

But this looks wholly to the future. Meanwhile the laurels of the undergraduate team are undisputed. They stand out preeminently as Dartmouth's only undefeated team in the last two years, and as winners of the intercollegiate championship in winter sports.

Since Otto Schniebs took over the coaching of the winter sports team in 1931, the emphasis has been preeminently on skiing, but on a type of skiing which is all-around rather than narrowly specialized. When Carnival and the intercollegiate championships rolled around this year, he entered seven skiers in all five ski events—and they won the meet. A few weeks later, three men placed well up in the U. S. Eastern Championships at Lake Placid, with fine records in the jumping, cross-country, and combined events.

One man in particular typifies the all-around skier; is, in fact, perhaps the most versatile of America's best. Beautifully poised on the jump, strong in the cross-country, a threat in any slalom, and winner last year of the national downhill crown, "Bern" Woods '36 can be counted on for substantial scores in every meet. We are looking forward to the 1936 Olympics in Germany. It isn't too early to start thinking about sending a Big Green winter sports team abroad.

There is, then, much tangible evidence of Dartmouth's leadership in winter sports. But its truest claim to greatness is not in its champions, nor even in its pioneering the field of winter sports, but in the increasing numbers of men whom Dartmouth has taught to enjoy the winter out-of-doors.

Varsity Winter Sports Team.Senior Fellow, and Chairman,Dartmouth Outing Club.