Dartmouth Mountains?

Shrmpngrtz
Thu, 30 Nov 2017 05:06:35 +0000

I would say that most Dartmouth students and alums enjoy the outdoors. The Dartmouth Outing Club has 1500 members and is the most popular club by far. The Connecticut River is at the bottom of the hill and through the Ledyard Canoe Club, you can rent kayaks, canoes, and SUPs. In the winter, you can go downhill skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway or make the short drive to Stowe, Killington, etc. XC skiing trails are also easily accessible from campus as there are trails on the golf course. Mountain biking and road biking are also popular. There’s also the Second College Grant - 27,000 acres of woods owned by the College where you can go hiking and rent one of three cabins. It’s a bit far away though. The area is pretty much reserved only for people affiliated with Dartmouth. The DOC also has 8 other cabins for rent that are much closer to campus. As for hiking, pretty much everyone I know has climbed Mt. Moosilauke - the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge at the bottom is run by the DOC. It just reopened after having gone through some extensive renovations. If you are more social, the DOC runs regular trips that range from rock climbing to hiking to canoeing. Difficulty ranges from easy to completely nuts. If you need gear, the DOC rents out pretty much anything you can imagine as well. Are there students who don’t like the outdoors at Dartmouth? Of course. And they do just fine. But Dartmouth has a lot to offer people who love nature.

As for other colleges, I would say that among the Ivies, only Cornell can compare with its access to the gorges and Cayuga Lake…then again Cornell has about 5 times the number of students as Dartmouth, so I don’t really know what the vibe is there. I would think some of the LACs in the boonies may have outdoorsy student bodies as well…I’m thinking the Maine schools (Bowdoin/Bates/Colby), Williams, Middlebury, etc.