With the Outing Club

AS THE SKIERS migrate toward early season snow in the mountains and Hanover air becomes crisp and cold, winter sports move again into the spotlight of Outing Club activities.

With the first fall of snow, possibly the strongest Dartmouth ski squad in history will snap on skis for a heavy schedule of competition. Coach Walter Prager has all but one of last year's lettermen returning to form a strong nucleus for his Big Green teams, and a wealth of promising sophomore material to use in any vacancies he may find. Many of the lettermen are fresh from a summer of competitive skiing in New Zealand, Australia, and Chile.

Dartmouth will open its season at Sun Valley, Idaho, December 31 and January 1, in an East-West meet with the University of Washington, at the invitation of the Sun Valley Ski Club. Champions of the Pacific Coast for the last two years and skiing on a familiar type of terrain, Washington promises to provide the strongest American collegiate competition that Dartmouth will meet this year. The result of this clash between the top teams of East and West should determine national collegiate skiing supremacy. The teams will be limited to six men, four men scoring in each of the three events—downhill, slalom, and cross-country.

The Dartmouth-Washington competition at Sun Valley will be the second meeting of the two teams. On April 7, 1935, while training for the U. S. Olympic Trials in downhill and slalom at Mt. Rainier, Dartmouth defeated the Washington Huskies in a dual downhill and slalom meet, winning both events. Three members of that Indian team, Dick Durrance, Ted Hunter, and Warren Chivers, may possibly be in the Dartmouth ranks at Sun Valley and face Husky veterans of that first encounter.

Another team of six men will compete in the Intercollegiate Meet at Lake Placid during the Christmas holidays. Coach Prager has not selected his squads yet, although all of the lettermen will probably see action in one of the two Christmas meets, and there should be opportunity for newcomers to compete.

The advent of a freshman squad this year under the guidance of Coach Prager and Varsity Manager Bob Mussey '38, marks an innovation in Dartmouth skiing. Formerly, the freshmen competed with the upperclassmen for places on the varsity teams and were forced to earn their numerals on that basis. Due to the proportionately small number of men able to earn numerals and the increasing size of the ski squad, the freshman team was officially approved last spring and the first squad organized this fall. They will have a full season of competition in Class C meets.

Other departments of the D. O. C. are busy with preparations for winter as well as the ski squad. The new log cabin which is being built at Oak Hill under the direction of Ross McKenney, woodsman adviser, is rapidly nearing completion. Though all log cabins are quite unusual in these days of ship-lath and two-by-fours, the Oak Hill structure is unique even among log cabins. The construction varies from the usual cabin in that the logs are butted into vertical corner posts, instead of being overlapped at the corners in Abraham Lincoln style. Corner posts have the advantage of reducing deterioration by rotting to a minimum while retaining an equally attractive appearance.

In the afternoon one can see and hear Ross and his crew of volunteer students working on Oak Hill. Not unlike the old crafts master with his apprentices, Ross teaches them the art of cabin-building as they work, showing how each thing is done and explaining why it is done. His ways are the ways of a woodsman—quietly invading the minds of his pupils with new ideas and new knowledge.

Cabin-building is not the only art which Ross teaches. Through leading week-end trips out to the various cabins and holding week-day sessions, he instructs students in woodsmanship, hunting, fishing, canoeing, and any phase of woodcraft they may fancy. As with his cabin-building aides, he does not lecture, but, contacting them personally, actually hunts, fishes, hikes, and canoes with them.

Encouraged by the outstanding success of the I. O. C. A. week-end at Mt. Moosilauke, the Trips Department has organized joint outings with other clubs almost every week-end. On November 6-7, Bob Stix '38 led a joint trip to Mt. Holyoke with the Mt. Holyoke Outing Club. On November 14, Jay Weinberg '40 and Gene King '39 headed a combined trip with the Skidmore Outing Club to Pico and Killington Mountains. The following week-ends saw trips with Radcliffe and New Hampshire clubs. The popularity and value of such trips has been definitely confirmed by student enthusiasm and they will continue through the winter months, a joint ski-trip with Pine Manor Outing Club to Mt. Mansfield heading the calendar.

Thanksgiving was celebrated at the Bull Moose cabin with the annual Rum and Molasses feed for students who remained in town. Groups made trips to various cabins and received turkeys from the Johnny Johnson Fund for their Thanksgiving dinner. Ross McKenney headed a trip to the College Grant in northern New" Hampshire for hunting and exploration purposes.

Several groups have journeyed to Mt. Moosilauke for work on the Byway, detour around the famous Rock Garden on Hell's Highway. The Byway, cut two years ago by a summer crew, has been blasted and smoothed into a much improved condition and will be skiable this winter with a minimum amount of snow.