In the early morning hours of the night before Winter Carnival, dozens of students toiled under the glare of electric lamps, plastic buckets and snow shovels in hand, racing against time to rebuild the snow sculpture before the opening ceremony Thursday evening.
This late night labor crew was organized by the Dartmouth Outing Club and the Snow Sculpture Committee after the south wall of the original snow sculpture, a scale model of Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, collapsed due to warm weather.
With less than 24 hours before opening ceremonies, the Outing Club sent a mass e-mail to campus Wednesday evening soliciting ideas for a new sculpture that could be built overnight. The Committee selected the design of Dave Seliger '12, which depicts a twin-peaked mountain with a river through the center. The idea was chosen because of its simplicity and resistance to rain, according to Outing Club President Andrew Palmer, '10.
Construction began on the new sculpture around 9:00 Wednesday evening and continued until early the next morning, Palmer said. He estimated that there were around 70 people still working on the sculpture as of 2:00 a.m.
"The whole campus really rallied around us," Palmer said. He added that the football team, several fraternities and sororities, and many other students joined the Outing Club to work on the sculpture that night.
The original design of the new sculpture called for a slide between the two mountains, as reported in The Dartmouth yesterday, but when Risk Management reviewed the sculpture they decided it was too dangerous for students to climb, according to Rory Gawler '05, Outing Club general manager.
Consequently, the Outing Club decided to smooth the bottom five feet of the sculpture into a featureless wall, thus preventing students from scaling the mountains.
"We're trying to restrict access as much as possible because [The Risk Management Office] is afraid someone might climb up there and fall off," Gawler said.
Benjy Meigs '10, one of three sculpture chairs, pointed to the rushed nature of the project as the reason for its safety problems.
"Because it was a last minute design, there's no guarantee it will be allowed to stay past the Carnival weekend," he said. He added that the sculpture is normally approved weeks in advance of its construction.
In an earlier interview with The Dartmouth prior to the collapse of the original sculpture, Meigs described the project as "crazy ambitious," pointing to the inclusion of a climbing wall and a solid wood roof that would allow people to go inside the "Lodge."
The sculpture collapsed because of warm weather, not as a result of any design flaws, Gawler told The Dartmouth yesterday.
This year's sculpture is not the first to collapse due to uncooperative weather. In 1997 a horse-mounted knight fell in on itself and was converted into a knight's funeral. In 1996, a stegosaurus devouring Baker Tower was itself devoured by rain.
One obstacle that did not face this year's sculpture, though, was lack of will.
"That's what Dartmouth tradition is about, students facing overwhelming adversity and impossible challenges, yet overcoming them on sheer grit and determination." Tay Stevenson '10 said.
