SKIING OVER THE NEW HAMPSHIRE HILLS 



A Thrilling and Picturesque Sport Which Has a Thou- 

 sand Devotees in the Dartmouth Outing Club 



By Fred H. Harris 



CLIMATE and geography mold the 

 sports of colleges as well as of 

 nations. 



The fact that Dartmouth College is 

 situated in the sequestered town of Han- 

 over, Xew Hampshire, among the foot-' 

 hills of the White Mountains, where the 

 hand of winter lies heavy on the land dur- 

 ing a large part of the scholastic year, is 

 responsible for the organization of an 

 athletic association unique in the annals 

 of student life in America. 



Unlike football, baseball, hockey, and 

 basket-ball teams, each of which in its 

 ultimate development enlists the active 

 efforts at play of a limited number of 

 athletes, the Dartmouth Outing Club is 

 composed of more than a thousand mem- 

 bers — nearly two-thirds of the entire stu- 

 dent body. 



The long months of cold and the deep 

 snows that serve to isolate this college 

 community have, through the Outing 

 Club, been converted into an asset rather 

 than a liability, and today Dartmouth is 

 a pioneer institution in the movement to 

 enlist the entire student body in healthful 

 sport, instead of offering the college 

 "letter"' only to those whose physical 

 prowess is proved. 



In the Outing Club all who love the 

 wide spaces, all who delight in the still- 

 ness of the winter woods, all who feel the 

 lure of the frozen trail, are welcomed as 

 of the elect. 



THE CLUB'S EARLY EXCURSIONS 



Beginning modestly, with sixty mem- 

 bers a few years ago, the Club in its in- 

 cipiency confined its excursions to Satur- 

 day afternoon jaunts on skis and snow- 

 shoes. Toward the end of the afternoon 

 a halt would be called and coffee made 

 over a crackling fire, under the shelter of 

 snow-laden trees. The trips grew in fre- 

 quency and the parties grew in number. 

 By the end of the first season scores of 



students had become interested in the ex- 

 cursions, and, as Thoreau said of his 

 Concord, the members "had traveled a 

 great deal in the vicinity of Hanover." 



Today the Saturday afternoon trips of 

 old have expanded into week-end jour- 

 neys ; the radius of the excursions has in- 

 creased from a few miles to tens of miles, 

 and instead of confining their explora- 

 tions to the foothills along the banks of 

 the frozen Connecticut, the enthusiasts 

 now make Mount Washington, the high- 

 est peak of the North Atlantic States, 

 their furthest objective. The camp-fire 

 of crackling twigs under the trees has 

 been superseded by the cheerful glow of 

 logs in the open fireplaces of comfortable 

 cabins, which shelter those who wish to 

 extend their outing overnight. 



BUILDING A CHAIN OE CABINS 



The first of the chain of cabins for the 

 week-end devotees of the Outing Club 

 was established on the site of an old lum- 

 ber camp at the base of Moose Mountain, 

 seven miles from the college. Built 

 through the efforts of a dozen club mem- 

 bers who elected to spend their Easter 

 vacation as carpenters, and through the 

 material assistance of a Boston alumnus, 

 Franklin P. Shumway, its immediate 

 popularity was so pronounced that no 

 propaganda was necessary to insure the 

 enthusiastic support of the student body 

 for the movement subsequently inaugu- 

 rated by another alumnus, the Rev. J. E. 

 Johnson, of Philadelphia. 



Mr. Johnson has raised an endowment 

 fund of $40,000 for the construction and 

 maintenance of these combination rest- 

 cabins and rustic club-houses which ex- 

 tend, at intervals of a day's trip apart, 

 from the college campus to the slopes of 

 the White Mountains. 



Close beside Moose Mountain Cabin 

 flows a brook which has been dammed to 

 form a deep pool, and the fact that this 



151 



