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Of Croos, Trippees, and Kitchen Witches: Dartmouth First-Year Trips

If you dropped your first-year student off in Hanover in September this year (or years past), you probably noticed a group students sitting, standing, or dancing under a “Welcome” banner in front of Robinson Hall—with hair. Cotton-candy-colored hair. And you might have asked yourself, as many parents of new Dartmouth students have asked before: “What is my child getting into?”

You've just met the Hanover Crew—or “H-Croo”—of the Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC) First-Year Trips. For approximately 90 percent of incoming students, First-Year Trips—the five-day, four-night excursions in which first-years (or “trippees”) hike, kayak, bike, paint, fish, garden, rock climb, or otherwise enjoy the outdoors between Labor Day and the start of fall term—is more than an introduction to the wilds of New Hampshire. “Students return from Trips feeling like they made the right choice coming to Dartmouth,” says Whitney MacFadyen '07, this year's H-Croo chief. “It's not just a school; it's going to be their home for the next four years.” Though the Dartmouth staff works closely with Trips organizers, Trips is entirely student-run. “Dartmouth students have been going into the outdoors since the club's inception in 1909,” MacFadyen says. “Students are not just accountable to administrators; they're accountable to each other. That has a strong hold in maintaining a high standard for safety and makes students want to be involved.”

Each trip group consists of four to ten trippees and two upperclass leaders who are responsible for reading maps, assuring the group's safety, and facilitating discussion about what trippees can expect at Dartmouth. With the support of H-Croo, several groups depart at the same time from Hanover for their respective adventures. Along their route, upperclassmen “raid” the trips, providing treats for tired hikers.

Trippee Kelsey Roddick '11's group was raided by “preppies.” “They acted as if it was for a Harvard group. They had a cake with an 'H' on it. We were like, 'We're Dartmouth!' So they went away. But then they came back with a fresh cake and people dressed like teletubbies.”

On their last night out, groups converge at the Mount Moosilauke Ravine Lodge for games, performances by the wild-haired lodge crew (known as “Lodj Croo”), ghost stories, lasagna prepared by Lodj Croo's “kitchen witch,” and a breakfast of green eggs and ham (in honor of one of Dartmouth's most famous alumni, Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel '27). “Every night we have about a hundred of them,” says Pete Gadomski '08, co-chief this year of Lodj Croo. “One night President Wright comes up and speaks, and members of Lodj Croo give a 'Sense of Place' talk about their Dartmouth experiences. That's a very important part of Trips.”

“It's hard for others to appreciate the effect that Trips can have on people in their first five days on campus,” says MacFadyen. With its croos, kitchen witches, stories, and raids, Trips is a crash course in Dartmouth folklore and language from which trippees emerge as full-fledged members of the College community.

“I was super-nervous coming to Dartmouth,” recalls Roddick, an alpine ski racer from Illinois. “But the leaders were really supportive. And at the Lodge it was pretty sweet—we all smelled bad, but there was a slip-n-slide and they had stories about the College. It was reassuring that it was going to be fun.”

“We like to say that once they get to the lodge, that's where your anxieties have been eased a bit and it's a time to fall in love with Dartmouth,” MacFadyen adds.

Gadomski recalls his own First-Year Trip three years ago. “Trips helped me meet upperclassmen. It creates this atmosphere where there's no drinking, you're all there having fun, you're all on a level playing field. And then freshmen have this common experience they can share.”

For upper classes, Trips brings together students of diverse interests from across the campus. Says Gadomski, “People from all walks of life, brothers from fraternities I didn't even know existed, come lead trips.” MacFadyen agrees. “We want to have a representative face of Dartmouth greeting the new class so that they can identify with the people involved. Not only does it bring the campus together in a way that is stronger than any other Dartmouth event could be—maybe with the exception of the Homecoming bonfire—it brings out the best in everybody.”

But what's with the hair? “We're trying to provide as welcoming an environment as possible,” MacFadyen says. “One approach just happens to be trying to embarrass ourselves a little to make other people feel more comfortable.” The bright hair is also a marker, she says. “Throughout the fall, if first-years see us walking on the Green, they know they can ask us anything.”

“I don't know if it was the crazy hair and the outfits or just that they were all so nice,” says Roddick. “The whole atmosphere was welcoming.”

MacFadyen encourages parents to read more about Trips and outdoor programs on the DOC website, www.dartmouth.edu/~doc. “There's a lot of information about opportunities their students have to stay involved in the outdoors.”