Voices Crying (and Laughing) in the Wilderness

AS THE FRESHMAN TRIP TRADITION MARKS ITS 70TH ANNIVERSARY, 22 ALUMNI RECALL THEIR WILD TALES FROM THE WOODS, RIVERS, SUMMITS—AND SOPPING WET SLEEPING BAGS.

SINCE 1935 DARTMOUTH HAS SENT ITS YOUNGEST PACKING on its much-imitated, never-equaled freshman trips. For many freshmen it has been the trip of a lifetime. They've endured questionable cuisine, difficult dance steps, a multitude of crushes—some ending in marriages—endless pranks and countless pairs of painfully new boots.

The programs started as a way for the DOC to recruit new members, and the Ravine Lodge has been the ultimate destination since 1939, when 80 freshmen visited. The idea, to say the least, has caught on. Starting with hiking, trip activities have expanded to include whitewater kayaking, fishing, mountain and road biking, horseback riding, water coloring, and piloting a 30-person war canoe up the Connecticut River. And since Dartmouth invented the concept, more than 200 colleges across the country have followed suit, sending their newly minted students into every kind of wild situation.

As an organizational undertaking, it's huge—and largely student run.

Today the role of trips director requires an energetic senior with an appetite for the outdoors and massive amounts of paperwork. The logistics of coordinating more than 900 trippees and 200 crew/leaders is staggering. The trips themselves start at the end of August and run until mid-September, when trips directors start planning for the next year, assembling a huge folder of trip leaders, students, vans and routes as well as a full schedule of drop-off and pick-up times for a flotilla of buses moving trippees to 14 locations around the Northeast. The trips themselves range from bagging some of the high peaks in the White Mountains to exploring the issues of sustainability at the College's bucolic organic farm, located on the bank of the Connecticut River.

Since their inception, freshman trips have helped define Dartmouth, putting our boots on the same ground. Every kind of student has gone out green behind the ears and come back a little greener. Here are their tales.

Name Game

Rachel Krevans '79

San Francisco, California

The trips director my sophomore year had a wicked sense of humor. There were six freshmen on the trip I led: All were guys and all had names starting with "J." Four were named John. No doubt all six would have been if there had been enough freshmen named John who could handle a trip at that level. It was pretty funny, and actually very helpful, because I'm terrible with names.

Clueless

Putnam Blodgett '53

Lyme, New Hampshire

Most memorable about my trip in the fall of 1949 was the disappointment I felt when Jean Baptiste, a French-Canadian trapper, had to substitute for woodcraft advisor Ross McKenney for the evening program. Ross was already a legend for me and I had looked forward to seeing him in the flesh. After Jean Baptiste finished his patois, and lapsed back into everyday English, it took me several minutes to come to the realization that the men were one and the same.

Freshmen Rocks

Gerry Bell '68

Bethel, Maine

DOC Upperclassmen at the Ravine Lodge told us that tradition required freshman trippers to paint their class numerals on the dinner gong on the porch outside the lodge dining room. Some of us went them one better: We painted our class numerals on a dozen (or perhaps two dozen or three) rocks on the trail from the lodge to the Moosilauke summit. Then we all proudly posed for a group picture on the mountaintop.

We returned to Hanover secure in the belief that we were the hottest of the hot. Our triumph was short-lived. Four days later the second section of the freshman trip arrived back in town, their adventure marred and their attitude soured by having been forced to clean up—not altogether success-fully—after us.

Next a photo of the rocks appeared on the front page of The Dartmouth, under the headline, "Freshmen in Deep Doo-Doo."

Now we had earned the annoyance if not downright enmity of a significant percentage of our classmates. Oops. And that wasn't all. At the first meeting of the class of 1968, in Spaulding Auditorium, we faced the stony stare of Dean of Freshmen Albert I. Dickerson '30. "There are eight men here," he intoned ominously, "who don't belong in this college." He meant the eight of us. We had, he thundered somewhat redundantly, "desecrated the beautiful natural beauty of Mt. Moosilauke." Boy, he was angry. And the pace of retribution accelerated from there.

At dawn the following Sunday we eight were packed by some grumpy DOCers into the open bed of a pickup truck and driven—freezing—back to Mossilauke. We spent the day hiking up and down the main trail, with paint remover, paint thinner, turpentine and whitewash, erasing and obliterating the effects of what today would be termed our "poor choice." It was a long day, covering not a dozen or two dozen or three but a seemingly infinite number of rocks. None of the eight of us, to my knowledge, ever got in trouble at Dartmouth again.

Wrong Boots, Right Stuff

Ashley Korenblat '83

Moab, Utah

When I was directing freshman trips in 1982 all the trippees were staying in Mid Mass the night before the trip. The night before our first group hit the trail, it occurred to us leaders that we should pay them avisit. So we quickly gathered a variety of scientific-looking equipment, including clipboards, headlamps and magnifying glasses.

We dispersed through the dorm, knocking on doors and loudly announcing: "Mandatory boot inspection, report to the hallway with your boots on in five minutes." The sleepy freshmen poured out of their rooms awkwardly shoving their feet into their mostly brand-new hiking boots. We made the rounds, asking important questions such as, 'Are those the original laces?" After putting them on the spot, we would pronounce their boots adequate.

I noticed the inspection team heading for a small, confused girl from Brooklyn with whom I had spent several hours on the phone convincing her that a trip to the College Grant would be great fun for her first-ever outdoor experience. She had on L.L.Bean boots and I could see that the "inspector" was preparing to crucify her. I was terrified that the inspector might intimidate her beyond repair.

I held my breath as the team confronted her about her choice. She proudly announced that her boots were "from L.L.Bean. You know, in Maine." And that she had gotten them especially for the trip. And she was going. I was so proud of her poise. She was ready to experience for herself the joys of hiking and camping—and wasn't about to let some geek with a clipboard and a headlamp stand in her way.

Twenty years later I'm running Western Spirit Cycling and I see that same determination almost every day. We run cycling trips in the national parks and national forests throughout the United States. Many of our customers have never camped. They return from the trips dusty and tan, with a kind of glow that results only from time spent in the out-of-doors.

The camaraderie and confidence that comes from a freshman trip is the very best way to start the college experience.

Is the Lodge Food AlwaysThis Good?

David Agan '69

Wells, Maine

In 1968 the trips programs expanded on the traditional hiking trip and President John Sloan Dickey '21 led the fly-fishing trip in the College Second Grant. What distinguished this trip most was the first freshmantrip lobster bake. The director of trips, a proud Maineiac, came up with this harebrained scheme. The lobsters and instructions for how to do the bake came from the New Meadows Lobster Cos. in Maine. The lobsters (on ice and seaweed) were delivered to the Granite State by my devoted mom, Lou Agan, in the back of a station wagon.

A day before, DOC veterans had directed unsuspecting freshmen in the digging of a shallow pit below the lodge, next to the gravel road on the top of the bank above the Baker River. Other '72s collected large rounded stones from the riverside and these were used to line the bottom of the pit. On the day of the bake, a large fire was built on the stones and burned down to coals. Questions about the whats and whys of this activity went unanswered. When nobody was looking, participating DOCers loaded the lobsters and the seaweed onto the heated stones and covered it all with a tarp. A cloud of steam rose every time the cooks peeked beneath the tarp. Rumors began to spread about what was happening.

The lobsters were cracked and split with axes and butcher knives and served in the lodge that evening, much to the amazement of the '72s and an entourage of faculty and administrators the president had brought with him—who assisted any uninitiated '72s in the hows of lobster-eating.

Confidence to Compete

Frances Hellman '78

Kensington, California

In the fall of 1975 I signed up to lead a freshman trip and was put in charge of an all-male trip. I don't know if the schedulers thought Frances was a boys name or if they were just way ahead of the times and decided not to consider gender in assigning leaders. (This seems unlikely, since in those days Dartmouth was definitely not gender neutral.) There were five guys on my trip. Some of them were in great shape, but a couple were not. As a ski team member and soccer player, I was in pretty good shape.

One guy fell totally apart on the trip, got blisters and couldn't carry his pack. He almost could not go on at all. I ended up carrying his pack and mine. But the guys on the trip were totally cool with a woman leading the trip, and maybe it gave me a little bit of confidence to compete in what then seemed like a man's world. This was particularly valuable as I went on to study physics and later became a professor of physics at UC Berkeley, California.

The January Effect

Mark Winkler '79

Pleasantville, New York

I remember playing volleyball out on the field in front of the lodge during freshman trips. It was pretty cold and windy for mid September—even for the White Mountains. When snow flurries started, a freshman from Florida panicked. He was thinking that he had just made a big mistake: "If it's this cold in September, what's January like here?" he asked.

Maybe the Worst Pick-up Line Ever

Philippa Guthrie '82

Bloomington, Indiana

My trip was a hike. I think we did Cube, Smarts and maybe one other mountain. On the second night we arrived at our campsite near the top of one of the peaks just before sunset. Our trip leader said there was a ledge that provided a spectacular view of the mountains—if anyone was interested. Two of us were. One of my male tripmates and I followed the leader's directions and hiked a little bit farther up the trail to find, as promised, a spectacular panorama. You could see for miles, peaks upon peaks, but it also felt intimate, as if you could reach out and touch the next mountain by just stretching out your arm. So the two of us were sitting there on the ledge, dangling our feet and drinking in the view as the twilight began to fall and he said, "Hey, what's your bra size?"

I thought I had misheard him. He had not seemed like the masher type. I looked at him in total disbelief and said, "Did you just ask me my bra size?" He admitted with perfect ingenuousness that he had. I was stunned. Mind you, this was 1978 and I was coming to heavily male Dartmouth from an all-girls Catholic high school. I had two brothers and was expecting lots of maleness, but not outright bad manners and perversion. Still, my mother and the nuns raised no fools.

"You're disgusting. I don't tell guys my bra size. And if that's your pick-up line, forget it," I said. "Somebody might punch you in the face."

I sat there for a couple of seconds wondering if I should rush back to the campsite for safety and then I noticed his face. He looked completely bemused and was saying, "No, no, you don't understand."

"Oh, yeah. What don't I understand?"

"I just think you're okay and my father owns a company that makes lingerie. I can get you some free stuff," he said.

I looked at him, decided he was incapable of lying and burst out laughing. I found out later he was indeed telling the truth. I declined the free underwear, but I will always consider him a friend.

The Music Man

Amy McCormick '86

Princeton, New Jersey

In the fall of 1982 I went on a canoeing trip with 16 other freshmen. One of my co-trippers was David Beach '86, who seemed a nice enough fellow and has since become a close friend. On the last day of our trip, as we were paddling along, he was singing out Broadway show tunes. Nobody else was singing. I thought it a little unusual that someone would have the nerve to do that with people he barely knew and thought, well, thank God he at least has a nice singing voice. And now, here we are, nearly 20 years since graduation, and David is starring in the hit Broadway show Mamma Mia.

Learning the Language

Teru Clavel '95

New York City

My friend Brett Reece '95 and I led 12 totally innocent and trusting freshmen on a canoe trip. Although I adored all of the freshmen on this trip, I was completely charmed by Lazar Dimitrov '98, a Bulgarian student. He had only learned to speak English the year before, and came on this trip with a full-body snowsuit and moon boots. It was totally warm but basically rendered him immobile. He had heard Dartmouth was freezing cold, and was told we would be canoeing through ice or something to that effect. We all had to hold back our laughter.

He did not know a single curse word, but some of the hockey recruits on the trip quickly put an end to that. Throughout his freshman year he would visit me to ask seemingly obvious questions, such as where to buy a toothbrush, and if there was more than one place to eat on campus. Lazar graduated valedictorian of the 1998 class, and I felt like a proud sister. He moved to New York, and even lived with my parents in Greenwich, Connecticut, for about a year. Thanks to Dartmouth and that freshman trip, he is now a member of my family.

Frozen In Time

Keith Lenden '95

San Francisco, California

I was on a canoe trip, and we camped on an island in the Connecticut River. That night four or five of us decided to sneak off to the mainland and go cow tipping. Yes, we actually thought we were going to tip cows. We were landing our canoes and talking about our cow-tipping plans when the owner of the cows announced himself with a floodlight. He was holding a shotgun. No joke.

Luckily, this was not the first time he had encountered people with similar intent. It turns out he had actually hoped to enlist us to throw down some hay from the upper loft of his barn. He was getting older and didn't want to climb up to the top anymore. So we went with him to his barn and threw down many big bales of hay from his loft and moved them to their proper location in the barn. We were rewarded with ice cream sandwiches that were purchased in 1973. It was 1991. Although these desserts were as old as we were, they looked good.

Love Socks

Rachel Bogardus Drew '98

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Jon Drew '98 and I met during our freshman trip in 1994, on a hiking trip. It rained almost the entire time. By the last day I had run out of dry socks, but Jon had an extra pair that he lent to me. I promised to wash them and return them when we got back to campus. A week later I ran into Jon and told him I had his socks, and he said he would come by my room that night to get them. Well, he did drop by but we ended up spending most of the night talking, and he left hours later without his socks. The next night the same thing happened, and by the third night we had forgotten about the socks entirely. We ended up becoming fast friends, and then dating later on that term. We continued dating almost our entire college careers and moved to San Francisco together after graduation. We were engaged in October 1999, and married back at Dartmouth, with a ceremony in the Congregational church and reception in Collis Commongroud. Eight of the 12 people in our wedding party were also alums, and my bridesmaids wore green. By the way, Jon still hasn't gotten his socks back.

Sound Sleeper

Richard Jay Nussbaum '03

Berkeley, California

One trippee, whom we nicknamed "Narcolepsy" had the incredible ability of sleeping anywhere at anytime. One day, at the summit of a hike, he slept on a hard rock while the rest of us ate snacks and took photos of the view from the summit. Even more amazingly, the last night at Moosilauke we all slept in the attic of the main lodge, but there weren't enough beds or much floor space so Narcolepsy curled up on the middle shelf of a bookshelf, maybe two feet above the ground, a foot and a half high and four feet long, and slept through the entire night.

Even the Garbage isGreener in New Hampshire

Jon Kohl '92

Washington, D.C.

In 1990 I led seven freshmen on an adventure that took them no farther afield than the Dartmouth campus, a distance likely never achieved before or after on a freshman trip. That year the DOC wanted to lure students who would not otherwise participate. So our group visited, often in a van, a host of environmental venues. We talked with Bob Thebodo, Dartmouth's tree warden, about trees on campus; visited Sunvox II, Dartmouth's solar car; took a tour of the Lebanon landfill and the Claremont, New Hampshire, garbage incinerator.

Unfortunately, nearly half the group had signed up to go hiking but ended up in our group because there were no more openings in the regular trips. They arrived somewhat disappointed. Moreover, our group suffered taunts from other students. Despite the image, our group bonded together tightly and ended up producing the best skit-song of our section.

Flip Flopper

Laurie Morris Betts '82

Royersford, Pennsylvania

My freshman trip was in the Carter Range of the White Mountains. My leader was Doug Brown 'BO, whom, of course, I developed a crush on. I had brand-new, way-cool freshman trip hiking boots. I also developed a little blister problem within the first few hours. My hero Doug bandaged my feet up that evening but, sadly, never noticed how close I came to fainting whenever I was near him. By the last day my heels were bleeding so badly, I couldn't wear the boots at all and hiked the last 10 miles out in Monica Safford '82s flip-flops. (I have no idea why she was carrying flip-flops). I couldn't wear shoes with backs until November. Still have scars. I still hike, but in sneakers.

Mother Doesn't Know Best

Ellen Stein '86

Hartford, Vermont

My primary memory of my freshman trip is of my mom sending me on the canoeing trip with one of the family sleeping bags. It was a lovely brown cloth sleeping bag lined with a pattern of cowboys and Indians. It's great for the sleep over in your friend's basement but when you're under the stars each night, waking up covered with dew and then jamming the wet limp mess into a bag to go in the back of the canoe (which flips many times), the thing never dries out! I had one warm night followed by several cold ones. I didn't feel so bad, however, when I found out from a Texan friend that her mom had bought her duck boots from L.L.Bean for her hiking trip.

Off the Eaten Path

Laura Mattson '89

Rye, New York

Even though it was nearly 20 years ago, I still remember my freshman trip vividly. I lost three toenails to new boots and gained eight friends in one of the best few days of my life. Most people had experiences similar to mine—huge blisters, bricks hidden in packs, the "Salty Dog Rag," extremely dirty clothes, lots of singing and performing in the lodge—but the food stands out particularly. We had very memorable green eggs for breakfast, of course, but I also remember dropping a hunk of cheese in the mud, washing it off in a puddle and happily placing it in the dinner pot. The food was grim, but only slightly less so because a classmate from Texas peppered everything beyond recognition. It was a perfect preview of four years at Dartmouth. In less than a week we made friendships that will surely last a lifetime. I learned a little about judging people, too: The woman with the toughest exterior had the softest ear and most thoughtful advice as we talked and hiked for hours. I also found out that a little dirt in your soup never hurt anyone.

Three Days That Changed My Life

Elizabeth Mahoney Loughlin '89

Weston, Massachusetts

On the first day of my trip I was walking down a trail, slipped on a wet railroad tie and ended up with some torn cartilage in my knee. I couldn't walk. It was late afternoon and we had more than a mile to go to our shelter for the night, so my trip leader, Dave Lindahl 'B6, carried me on his back to the shelter. A lot of things went through my head that day: Dave was a lot skinnier than I was, and I felt as if I probably should have dieted before coming up to Hanover. Mostly, though, I really didn't want to ruin the trip for the 13 other people with me.

Ultimately, although my injury certainly changed the trip for everyone, I think it may have made our group closer than most. We spent the next morning hanging out around the campsite while waiting for the people from the outing club to bring up a stretcher. We learned every raunchy Dartmouth song that has ever been written, played games and got to really know each other in a different way than we might have had we been hiking the whole time. After the crew arrived with the litter my tripmates carried me on it for five miles out of the woods, but none of them ever complained. Instead, they laughed and sang and talked.

I don't think I realized at the time how much people sacrificed for me on that trip. I was so determined not to ruin their experience and felt so guilty that I didn't focus on how great they all were to me. So many of the friendships made in those three short days have endured for 20 years.

Cutie Pie

Sarah Henry Trundle '91

Charlottesville, Virginia

My husband, Rob Trundle '91, and I met on freshman trips, though not on the same one. We were at Moosilauke together before and after our respective trips. I remember noticing him on the bus on the way to the lodge, thinking he was a cutie pie. Apparently, he noticed me too, or so he says. I'm sure we both noticed a lot of people and things, though. One night somehow I ended up at a party in his dorm room and he walked me home. I ended up losing my key in the middle of the Green and he helped me hunt for it, both of us on our hands and knees in the dark. The rest is history, as they say.

A Crowning Achievement

Maria Park Bobroff '94

Greensboro, North Carolina

Our last night in the wilderness it rained. The next morning, while scaling a boulder, I slipped. For some reason I had both thumbs hooked in the shoulder straps of my pack and was incapable of catching myself as my feet gave way. The pack threw off my equilibrium and my face caught my fall. I slid the rest of the way off the boulder and found myself sitting on the ground, my group standing dumbfounded around me. They asked me if I felt all right, and I said I felt fine. There was no blood, and nothing really hurt. As I opened my mouth to answer them, I felt what seemed to be pieces of sand in my mouth. I spit them out into my hand, and after rubbing my tongue round my mouth, realized that I had "chipped" a couple of teeth. I remember smiling at them to ask if they could see any damage to my teeth. They made a collective shudder, stepped back, then chimed in that they could barely notice anything. Mr. Football Player knelt down beside me and gathered up the pieces I'd spit out. He offered them to me with the suggestion that I hold on to them "just in case." What felt like a few chipped teeth was the obliteration of my two front teeth.

Once we reached Moosilauke a DOC leader gave me a ride back to Hanover to see a dentist—who took one look at me and canceled the rest of his appointments for the day. For the next several hours he and his assistants worked on my mouth. One root canal and a fake mono-tooth later, I emerged from his office still dirty and bruised. For the remainder of my first and second years at Dartmouth, I had to return to his office every month for follow-up work. We eventually did away with the mono-tooth and I graduated to two porcelain crowns.

Putting Spring in Their Trip

Will Raynolds '04

Gillette, Wyoming

With Rory Gawler '05 and a few others we decided to sneak our 2 o-foot trampoline up into the woods, to give some trippees a memorable welcome to Dartmouth. The trampoline at our off-campus house was dismantled, its pieces numbered and shoved into the back of a van bound for the Skiway.

With our backpacks full of springs, we climbed the face of the Holts side of the Skiway, heading toward Nunamacher Cabin at the top. We reassembled the trampoline in absolute silence, keeping flashlight use to a minimum. Thanks to our numbering system, we actually got it done quickly, then continued awkwardly up the hill.

By, the time we got the trampoline to the cabin, the trippees had already gone to sleep. We set it up in a clearing next to the cabin, and started to bounce, hoping that the squeaking springs, laughter and loud music from our boom box would draw the trip group down from the loft. No luck: They were sleeping pretty soundly after the day's hike. Eventually we called to them: "Hey, trippees! We've got a 20-foot trampoline down here for you!"

The trippees soon rounded the corner of the cabin to find that it was true. We had music, cookies of all kinds and a head-to-head bounce-off showdown, which lasted surprisingly long given how tired everyone had seemed when we first arrived.

Sole Train

Chuck Sherman '66

Strafford, Vermont

My trip seemingly began on the train platform in Chicago railway station in September of 1962. I'd never seen Dartmouth before and I was taking the train from Minnesota with a steamer trunk full of my worldly possessions. My first train transfer took place in Chicago. I was wearing construction boots and a new backpack with a sleeping bag. Up and down the train platform I spotted a number of other guys similarly attired. We gradually gravitated toward one another and quickly figured out we were all headed to the same place. We commandeered one train car and got acquainted. When we arrived in White River Junction, we hailed a truck instead of a bunch of cabs and loaded all of our stuff, working together, and headed to Hanover and Robinson Hall. I'm still friends with some of them. I had dinner just the other night with one of them, John Rollins '66, and his wife, Anne.

Pemigewasset River, Lincoln, Now Hampshire

Mount Washington, New Hampshire

Willey Pond, Crawford Notch, New Hampshire

Connecticut River, Windsor, Vermont

"She had on L.L.Bean boots and I could see the "inspector" was preparing to crucify her"

"He was singing out show tunes. I thought it unusual someone would have the nerve."

"My hero bandaged my feet but never noticed how close I came to fainting whenever I was near him."

Bryant urstadt is a freelance writer whohas yet to master "The Salty Dog Rag."