An outing club or outdoors club is a student society centered on outdoor recreation. Outing clubs provide their members with the planning, training, access, and equipment necessary to enjoy these activities.
An outing club or outdoors club is a student society centered on outdoor recreation. Outing clubs provide their members with the planning, training, access, and equipment necessary to enjoy these activities.
Some students' unions began planning wilderness outings in the late nineteenth century in response to the early American conservation movement. [1] In 1909, students at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College organized a club around such outings, with a particular emphasis on winter sports. [2] National Geographic published an article [3] about a Dartmouth Outing Club skiing trip in 1920, and the following spring saw a 300 percent increase in applications for admission to the college. [4] By 1932, 14 outing clubs had been founded at universities in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. These 14 clubs formed the Intercollegiate Outing Club Association (IOCA) to organize multi-club excursions. [5] These clubs were based on the model established at Dartmouth, although similar groups had existed since at least 1888. [2]
Outing clubs were especially popular before and during World War II. They offered a way for students to find transportation at a time when few had cars and when gasoline was rationed. [6] Because many of these clubs were at single-sex schools, IOCA outings were a popular way for members to meet students of the opposite sex. [7] According to Dr. E. John B. Allen of the New England Ski Museum, collegiate outing clubs played an important role in promoting and modernizing skiing in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. [8]
An outing club participates in a variety of outdoor recreational activities. The specific activities depend on the club and may range from wilderness exploration (such as climbing, hiking, and canoeing) to more "extreme" sports such as snowboarding and hang gliding. [9] Clubs typically provide gear and training for new members to help them participate safely. [10]
Outing clubs often promote conservation through educational events or by participating in service projects, such as building or maintaining cabins or trails. [11]
Singing and square dancing were also important outing club activities in the past, but this is less common today. [12]
Like other student societies, outing clubs are usually run and chartered by students of a college or university along with an advisor. Equipment and fees are funded by membership dues, shared trip costs, or donations. [13]
Clubs tend to use a "common adventure" model, with democratic group decision-making and little bureaucracy. A trip may or may not have a designated facilitator or leader to enforce safety or legal guidelines. A less common trip model is the "guided or packaged trip," in which most details are planned in advance. [14]
Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is the ninth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although initially founded as a school to educate young Native Americans in Christian theology and liberal arts, Dartmouth primarily trained Congregationalist ministers throughout its early history before it gradually secularized, emerging at the turn of the 20th century from relative obscurity into national prominence.
Second College Grant is a township located in Coös County, New Hampshire, United States. The area of this township is owned and controlled by Dartmouth College. As of the 2010 census, the grant had a total population of zero.
Colorado Mountain College (CMC) is an accredited two-year and four-year institution with eleven college campuses serving 12,000 square miles in Western Colorado, United States. Founded in 1965, the institution grants more than 120 bachelor's degrees, associate degrees, and certificates, in a wide range of fields from Digital Media to Ski Area Operations. Approximately 20,000 students take on-campus or online classes every year, with a college-wide ratio of thirteen students to each teacher.
Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is the oldest outdoor group in the United States. Created in 1876 to explore and preserve the White Mountains in New Hampshire, it has expanded throughout the northeastern U.S., with 12 chapters stretching from Maine to Washington, D.C. The AMC's 275,000 members, advocates, and supporters mix outdoor recreation, particularly hiking and backpacking, with environmental activism. Additional activities include cross-country skiing, whitewater and flatwater canoeing and kayaking, sea kayaking, sailing, rock climbing and bicycle riding. The Club has about 2,700 volunteers, who lead roughly 7,000 trips and activities per year. The organization publishes a number of books, guides, and trail maps.
The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, moved to Durham in 1893, and adopted its current name in 1923.
Hebron Academy, founded in 1804, is a small, independent, college preparatory boarding and day school for boys and girls in grades six through postgraduate in Hebron, Maine.
The Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC) is the oldest and largest collegiate outing club in the United States. Proposed in 1909 by Dartmouth College student Fred Harris to "stimulate interest in out-of-door winter sports", the club soon grew to encompass the College's year-round outdoor recreation and has had a major role in defining Dartmouth College.
The White Mountain School, often called White Mountain or WMS, is a co-educational, independent boarding school located in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, USA. Established in 1886 as St. Mary's School in Concord, New Hampshire, the school moved to its current location in 1936, situated just north of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
The Mountaineers is an alpine club serving the state of Washington. Founded in 1906, it is organized as an outdoor recreation, education, and conservation 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and is based in Seattle, Washington. The Mountaineers host a wide range of outdoor activities, primarily alpine mountain climbing and hikes. The club also hosts classes, training courses, and social events.
The Dartmouth College Big Green are the varsity and club athletic teams representing Dartmouth College, an American university located in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dartmouth's teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Ivy League conference, as well as in the ECAC Hockey conference. The College offers 34 varsity teams, 17 club sports, and 24 intramural teams. Sports teams are heavily ingrained in the culture of the College and serve as a social outlet, with 75% of the student body participating in some form of athletics.
The traditions of Dartmouth College, an American Ivy League college in Hanover, New Hampshire, are deeply entrenched in the student life of the institution and are well known nationally. Dartmouth's website counts the College's "special traditions" among its "essential elements", and in his inauguration address, former College president James E. Wright said that the school is "a place that is marked by strong traditions". Some of these traditions remain supported by the administration, while others are officially discouraged.
Cardigan Mountain School, also called Cardigan or CMS, for short, is an all-boys independent boarding school for grades six through nine, located on 62 Alumni Drive, Canaan, New Hampshire, USA. It was founded in 1945 on land provided by Dartmouth College.
Moosilauke Ravine Lodge is a cabin complex at the base of Mount Moosilauke in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It is owned and operated by Dartmouth College, and open to the public from April through November.
The Wasatch Mountain Club is a recreational outdoor club for adults based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is a non-profit organization and has no restrictions on who may join. Some of its missions are:
The Wisconsin Hoofers of the Wisconsin Union is a group of outdoor recreational clubs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, operated by the Wisconsin Union Directorate.
Outdoor recreation or outdoor activity refers to recreation engaged in out of doors, most commonly in natural settings. The activities that encompass outdoor recreation vary depending on the physical environmental they are being carried out in. These activities can include fishing, hunting, backpacking, and horseback riding — and can be completed individually or collectively. Outdoor recreation is a broad concept that encompasses a varying range of activities and landscapes.
Passion for Skiing is a book that was published in 2010 about the contributions of people from Hanover, New Hampshire and Dartmouth College to winter activities, particularly the sport of downhill skiing. The book highlights the history of skiing from 1910 to the current era. It was written by Dartmouth alumnus Stephen L. Waterhouse, a native of Sanford, Maine and part-time Vail, Colorado resident, with the help of other alumni and ski historians. The entire 426-page book, with its more than 50 contributing authors scattered across the US and abroad, was edited solely via email by Nick Stevens, a former Dartmouth ski instructor, on his home computer in Maryland, and printed by Whitman Communications of Lebanon, New Hampshire.
On the Loose is an outing club for the undergraduate Claremont Colleges (5Cs), a consortium of five highly selective liberal arts colleges based in Claremont, California. It organizes trips to outdoor destinations around Southern California and the Western United States.