Every year freshmen and their leaders return from Dartmouth Outing Club Trips with tales that seem to be repeated year after year - ranging from the trip that hiked 50 miles in the dark with nothing but cous-cous to the trip that was raided 15 times and slept in a cabin with not only showers but also hot water.
This year's trips featured many similar adventures, from the memorable to the forgettable.
One trip ran into trouble trying to start a fire. But the problem was solved when an optimistic male freshman pulled out the cheap bottle of cologne he had brought on the trip - just in case.
"It was a very tiny fire that he couldn't keep going but it sure did smell good. It flamed up rather nicely, too," trip leader Leah Cummings '95 said.
On the first night of its hiking trip, group E23 was visited at the Hexacuba shelter by Bernie, a Dartmouth alumnus, who serenaded the group with his fiddle.
"He said he had a memorable freshman trip and wanted to make ours special. It was fabulous," trip leader Megan Currier '97 said.
"The through hikers staying with us were waiting for a string quartet to wake us up in the morning after that," she added.
On its second night, the group settled in at Smart's Mountain Fire Station.
During the night "two or three mice ran over the pillow of one of my trippees," Currier said. "Less than a minute later they were out of their sleeping bags and huddled in the middle of the room."
The eight-member group quickly decided to evacuate and ended up spending the night in the fire tower, "which, if you've ever been there is about four stories high and about six feet by six feet," Currier said.
Fierce fires
During the last week of trips, a canoeing group gathered around the campfire after a grueling six-and-a-half hour paddle -- and ended up roasting more than marshmellows.
One of the trip's leaders was attempting to dry out his Tevas next to the fire and "only when they started smoking did he take them away," his co-leader said.
"Basically he melted his left Teva into a lump of really smelly black rubber," she said. "It's the most amusing thing that happened considering it was one of the trustworthy, woods-wise leaders who was melting his clothes."
A wild ride
One hiking group became concerned when one of its freshmen began having trouble breathing while climbing a mountain.
"After removing her pack and distributing the weight amongst the rest of the group we tried to gain further progress, but she still had trouble breathing," said the leader, who took her trippee back down the mountain, just one mile from the summit.
"I handed the map over to my capable trippees and told them that I would meet up with them -- somehow -- on the other side of the mountain. They wished me luck and we were off," the upperclassman said.
The two returned to a hunting cabin they passed earlier that day, where they discovered a group of people who offered them the use of their mobile phone and a ride to the point at which they could meet the rest of the group.
"I had noticed the several pickups parked in front, but I had not noticed the All Terrain Vehicles and I was rather surprised when they started them up and said 'Strap your pack on the front and hop on'," the leader said.
"'Hicks on wheels' was what it was. I hadn't had as wild a ride as that in a long, long time," the leader said. "Our 30-minute ride through the woods left our wind-tossed hair splashed with mud and grime, but it was fantastic."
"And another fellow who my trippee rode with kept on trying to convince us that he was 'not a hermit,'" the leader said.
The two eventually met up with the rest of the group and "it pleased me greatly to see that my trippee excelled the next day while we climbed ... She completed a wall that no one else in the group managed," the leader said.
What do you do when ... ?
Jessica Roberts '97, the leader of a moderate hiking trip during section H, was concerned when her freshmen, who had been leading the group, stopped ahead.
"What do you do you do when a wild horse attacks you?" one of them called back.
When the rest of the group caught up they were confronted by a large horse blocking the foot-and-a-half wide path.
"We eventually found a way to get around," Roberts said.
Unexpected fame
An all-female hiking trip, Group H70, had been out in the wilderness for three days when a car of older men drove by.
"My trippees, not having seen men in three days of ANY age ... yelled and waved excitedly at the vehicle," leader Liz Lajoie '97 said.
The men waved back and the car disappeared around the bend.
But "shortly after, it came back around the corner in reverse, pulled up to the cabin, and the guys got out," Lajoie said.
As it turned out, one of the men was a columnist for a local newspaper and interviewed the group for 30 minutes.
The newspaper "was way up near Errol so I have no idea what the name of it was," Lajoie said.
"He finally left, thanking us and assuring us that we would be written up in the paper. It was a really random incident but it was cool nevertheless."
Keep going!
One freshman on a kayaking trip became concerned when he noticed water in the bottom of his boat. Reassured by others in the group that they too had water in their kayaks, he paddled on.
"As time went on, I started to feel more and more water inside my kayak. I started to fall behind the pack, even though I was paddling as fast and as hard as I could," Marc Cohen '98 said. "Little did I know that I had about 10 times as much water as everyone else."
By the time the group arrived at the campsite, Cohen wasn't able to bring his kayak onto shore. "It was too ... heavy," he said.
"I had a hole in my kayak. I paddled for five hours with a hole in my kayak," he said.
Hiking trip F45/46 brushed up on its Salty Dog Rag early in the morning before making the hike over Moosilauke to the Lodge.
"It was drizzling and we were in the clouds so there was a constant mist and the ground was a complete pit of mud," co-leader Allison Krasnow '95 said.
The 12-member group held their own mini-Woodstock, singing and dancing the Salty Dog Rag double-time while sloshing around and occasionally falling in the mud.
