With the Outing Club

Skeet Shooting at Oak Hill Is Popular New Activity; Eighty Gather at Ravine Camp for I. O. C. A. Party

Two sophomores, Charles E. Dorkey Jr.,and William E. Schumacher, who havetaken to sheet shooting at the D. O. C.'snew sheet field, as ducks take to water, havecontributed the following report on"Sheet." Clifford M. Roberts Jr. '42, amember of the Cabin and Trail Counciland secretary of the Intercollegiate OutingClub Association, has contributed the storyof a recent I. O. C. A. week-end at theMoosilauke Ravine Camp.

FIFTEEN HUNDRED SHOTS have been fired at that elusive bird, the clay pigeon, on the new D. O. C. skeet field. The field, built by Ross McKenney, is located at the foot of Oak Hill.

The Dartmouth Outing Club is indeed indebted to Mr. J. Shirley Austin '24, who has made the new field possible. The traps are of the latest, safest design, and the possibility of any injury to the trap loader has been eliminated. Safety rules are being strictly enforced at the start to make safety a habit with the users of the field.

The skeet layout has been in use less than a month and already twenty-five students and five faculty members have shot there repeatedly. A straight trap is now being installed and will be operating in a week's time. The fields are so arranged that they can be used simultaneously.

Scores have varied from three to twentyfour out of twenty-five. One student who broke only six out of twenty-five on his first round now breaks seventeen and eighteen with regularity.

Plans are under way at present for a turkey shoot to be held just before Thanksgiving. No prizes have yet been awarded but a prize shoot will be held each month which will be open to faculty members and townspeople as well as students. A system of handicapping is being devised so that the less skilled will also have a chance to compete.

Shoots are held every Thursday afternoon and whenever a group wishes to practice. Prize shoots will be held on Sunay afternoons so that townspeople and acuity members can participate.

Skeet shooting probably will continue until Christmas, after which cold weather and skiing on Oak Hill will stop it until spring. However, if enough interest is shown during the cold period, the field will be opened whenever snow conditions r«e the skiers from Oak Hill.

Like all the other Outing Club activities, skeet shooting will not be operated for profic.The charge of $1.25 for a round will only cover the shells, birds, and leave a few cents for a prize fund.

REPRESENTATIVES FROM fourteen New England colleges were at the Moosilauke Ravine Camp for the week end of November 8-10. Eighty men and women hiked over the mountain, sang around the fireplace and danced square dances at the annual Dartmouth fall I. O. C. A.

The story really begins on Friday noon. Of course, there had been planning, writing letters and making arrangements for over three weeks previous, but this is not a story about the members of the Outing Club who work in the office day after day, who are out on trips nearly every week end, and who take part in this particular trip. This is the story of a college senior.

He's a nearly average college senior. He won his letter in soccer. He is active in extra-curricular work, the glee club. He is a fraternity man, has houseparty dates about twice a year, comes from a large city. His marks are decent and he doesn't have to grind. You might say that he had gone through a normal three and a half years. His Outing Club experience? That began the Friday noon I told you about.

He's my fraternity brother, and I happened to be eating with him that day. "Going on a swell trip this week end," I told him. "What is it?" I gave him the dope about the I. O. C. A. How we took joint trips with other colleges, and how twice a year the D. O. C. arranged big get-togethers at the Ravine Camp at Moosilauke. "Want to come?"

That is how we have a story to tell. Here was a college senior who as a freshman had joined as a four-year member of the D. O. C. finally going out on a trip. We left that afternoon by truck with about twenty-five other fellows and girls for the Ravine Camp. I only caught glimpses of him after that. There is plenty of activity on these trips and you have a lot to do when you are the guy in charge. But I hiked into the camp with him and heard how surprised he was to find the huge log camp and bunkhouse with its electric lights, hot and cold running water and friendly atmosphere. I ate the first meal with him, when Toni Samuelson served a huge roast beef dinner. By night he did not need me to introduce him around. He was in the middle of the floor, just as much a part of our name games that we always play to get acquainted as any of us. When we quit that to gather around for some singing, he appeared to know at least one Skidmore girl rather well.

Rising at seven the next morning, after having retired at two, and lacking high boots in his equipment for hiking did not prevent his going up the mountain. On the summit, his feet soaking wet from the snow, but otherwise bathed in the brilliant sunlight of a perfect day, he exulted: "I've been up Washington four times, but I've never seen anything like this." The Franconia and Presidential ranges to our north wore perfect white snowcaps. To the west and south, a thousand feet below us, lay a solid bank of cotton-like clouds. To the east and north there was not a trace of white in the sky and the visibility was well over sixty miles. We all ate our trail lunches, and jammed into the smoky interior of the Winter Cabin amid more songs.

If the exercise, the excitement and the lack of sleep had taken anything from my senior brother, I certainly didn't notice it when I saw him back at the Ravine Camp after supper. For the first couple of dances he wore his heavy sweater, but he soon shed it, as the Reverend "Chet" Fisk of Hanover's White Church called square dance after square dance. If my friend got the directions which were called all mixedup, he just roared with laughter and would swing with his partner as fast as he could.

It seems hardly necessary to tell the end of the story. My friend thought that his introduction to the Outing Club, partway through his senior year was just about perfect. In the fraternity house I picked up more of his impressions, second-hand, how amazed he was by the fun and activity, about the quantities of food that everybody ate, the good time that everyone had. It certainly did not matter that few of us slept only twelve hours in those two nights. The trip embodied the best there is in the Outing Club: hiking on Dartmouth's own mountain, singing around the huge stone fireplace in the perfect setting of the Ravine Camp, enjoying the fellowship of eighty other people, fellows and girls, not of the same college, but all bound by a common fondness for the out-of-doors.

PRACTICAL PREPARATION FOR SKI SEASON Coach Walter Prager (left) and Captain Charles B. McLane '4I, son of Dartmouth Trustee John R. McLane '07, stop work to catch their breath on Oak Hill, where the skisquad is getting in condition by removing stumps and boulders from the popular D.O.C.ski slope.

"DESIGN DECADE" SHOW ATTRACTS STUDENTS The Carpenter Art Galleries last month staged, one of its most important and successfulexhibitions in the form of a survey of design in New Hampshire for the past decade. Thephotograph shows an exhibition poster in the galleries' new, outdoor announcementcase, and undergraduates on their way to inspect the display.