With the Outing Clubs
AS THE FIRST flurries of snow settle on Balch Hill thoughts of skiing leap to the fore, with all Hanover, from the window-dressers on Main street to the D. O. C. heelers in Robinson Hall preparing for winter. In the locker rooms at the D. O. C. House, Walter Prager, Swiss ski champion and successor to Otto Schniebs as coach of the Dartmouth teams, is organizing his skiers around the nucleus supplied by three Olympic veterans. Prager arrived in New York in the middle of October, speaking self-taught English and with a quick smile and dynamic personality to supplement his yodel and skill at playing an accordion. Welcomed by D. O. C. officials and skiers, the 25-year-old Swiss came to Hanover with a competitive record in all branches of the sport that has seldom been equalled. Under his supervision the preseason conditioning of the ski team has continued, with a squad that is larger and more powerful than any yet seen in Hanover.
The 1937 ski schedule, recently announced, lists 20 competitions for the three teams this year, necessitating a large and well-rounded squad. Starting the season at Lake Placid over New Year's, the varsity will compete at Rumford, Maine, the end of January in preparation for their own Dartmouth Carnival on February 5 and 6, which has come to be the outstanding intercollegiate meet in the East. Two weeks later comes the Intercollegiate Ski Union championship meet at St. Margarets in Quebec, while the team will enter weekly competitions as the racing season gets underway. Meanwhile the B and C Team schedules are full, with carnivals at Cornell, Middlebury and New Hampshire, followed by half a dozen races, and climaxed by the Harvard-Dartmouth slalom in Tuckerman's Ravine on April 18.
The greatest news for the Dartmouth skiing world is the probability that the D. O. C. will sponsor a national giant slalom in April from the summit of Mt. Washington to Pinkham Notch. The fourmile course down the cone of Washington and over the terrifying drop of the Tuckerman's headwall will be thoroughly governed by control flags, making it a giant slalom rather than a regular downhill race. If present plans materialize, this race which the Outing Club is able to sponsor with aid from the A. M. C., the State, and other interested organizations, will constitute the national downhill championship for 1937, bringing the best skiers in the country to Mt. Washington in April.
At Moosilauke plans to complete the D. O. C. ski development seem nearer fulfillment than they have for some time: Spy Glass Hill Farm, operated last year by Fordy Sayre '33 as a substitute for the burned Ravine Camp, will be managed by Sel Flannah '35, former Dartmouth ski captain.
Meanwhile Hanover's own development, Oak Hill, has been improved by further grading and smoothing on the south side. The faults of the tramway that developed as it was used last winter have been rem- edied, more handles have been attached to the cables and the machinery has been changed so that the apparatus is ready to draw a maximum number of skiers to the top of the hill the first time there is suffi- cient snow. Two small practice jumps are planned for the hill, a five-meter and a ten- meter, to supplement the present jumps in the Vale of Tempe.
Dartmouth's long-recognized need for a nearby racing trail has been realized on Moose Mountain, where a winding swath has been cut for three-quarters of a mile, with an average grade of more than 15 degrees. Reached by a road which will be kept plowed this winter, the trail will probably be the scene of the Carnival downhill race, and will be an excellent practice trail for Prager's skiers. Moose Mountain, the longest continuous slope near Hanover, offers possibilities for other and longer trails. As the cold weather draws nearer, ski trips have already gone out to Mansfield and the Green Mountains, finding as much as eight inches of snow and three and a half miles of continuous running.
Trips continue to be the backbone of Outing Club activities, with week-end groups climbing in the White and Green Mountains despite the continued favoritism of Moosilauke. A not-too-successful Katahdin trip set what may be a new D. O. C. long-distance record over Harvard week-end, and another is planned for Thanksgiving. The Intercollegiate Outing Club Association, conceived on Moosilauke five years ago, has furnished the stimulus for a number of joint trips, headed by the fall hiking week-end sponsored by the D. O. C. at Spy Glass Hill farm which brought more than a hundred representatives from other outing clubs. There have been trips with Vassar and with Radcliffe, and a D. O. C. group climbed Pico with Skidmore.
Slowly, but with increasing emphasis, the D. O. C. program is centering on one thing . . . . Carnival. Already the committee has held meetings, and the various departments have been organized. Headed by Owen D. Collins '37 plans have gone ahead under the various directors. The Outdoor Evening program, one of the most conspicuous Carnival events, has been completely revised. Already 80 posters advertising Carnival are stored in Carpenter Hall as part of an exhibit of American poster art. In another month the program will be fully under way, occupying the D. O. C. night and day in preparation for the big winter week-end, February 5 and 6.
It Won't Be Long Now!
