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Photo Essay | Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Woodmen’s Weekend 2009

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The Colby College jack and jill team piles kindling around the fire below its coffee can.

Apr 28 | 7:36 am

Order this photo | Photo: Zeke Turner / The Dartmouth Senior Staff

Teams from colleges across the northeast traveled to Hanover to compete in Dartmouth Woodsmen’s Weekend. Team competition began on Saturday, April 24, at the Organic Farm.

The Paul Smith’s College women’s team uses peavey hooks to move a log up and down the course during the log roll, judged by Kayla Eisman ‘09.

The Wicked Wussies, Dartmouth’s team of alumnae 50 and over, race to maneuver logs onto a raised platform during the scoot load.

During the pulp toss, teams of four are timed while they toss logs back and forth, earning points for every piece of pulp they land between a set of gates.

During the quarter split, teams split a small log into pieces that fit through a 6 inch by 6 inch hole.

After judging the quarter split, Jimmy Bramante ‘09 settles a timing dispute with members of the Paul Smith’s College men after the team got one of its pieces stuck in the hole.

Dartmouth alumnae make a hand-off during the pack relay. The relay requires teams of six to transport a 25-pound sandbag and a frying pan using a wooden frame and length of rope.

The Colby College men’s team sparks wood shavings in the fire-building competition. During the fire-building event, two-person teams – equipped with three strike-anywhere matches, one cedar log and a coffee can full of soapy water – race to boil their water.

The Colby College jack and jill team piles kindling around the fire below its coffee can.

Soapy water bubbling over the sides of the coffee can stops the clock for the Paul Smith’s College men’s team.

Competition ended Friday night with a barbecue banquet and blue grass music. The band, Front Porch Down, from left to right: Pete Gadomski ‘08, Rory Gawler ‘05, Nick Garcia ‘07, Chris Anderson DMS and Marianne Epstein ‘08 (not visible) played while competitors and volunteers from the different teams danced together.

On Saturday, April 25, the Woodsmen’s Weekend moved to the Green. The day began with the conclusion of Friday’s team competition. The STIHL Timbersports Collegiate individual competition began in the afternoon.

Horizontal Chop: After chopping through their wooden beams, members of the Paul Smith’s College men’s team cheer on Curtis Karboski as he works through the team’s final block. Karboski would go on to win the Stihl timbersports individual competition later that afternoon.

Lauren Lesser ‘10, Cabin and Trail co-chair and Woodsmen’s Weekend co-director, competes in the horizontal chop with the Dartmouth women’s team.

David Nutt ‘09 faces off against a member of the Finger Lakes Community College men’s team in Birling on the Green.

Jim “Pork Roll” Taylor ‘74, Woodsmen’s Weekend head judge and Dartmouth woodsmen’s team advisor, judges birling on Saturday morning.

Dan Monahan ‘87 completes the last stage of the obstacle course, using a bow saw to cut a cookie off of an inclined log. Monahan invented the obstacle course, which combines a series of woodsman skills: throwing pulp, setting a choker chain, executing a dot split and completing a cut with the bow saw.

An ESPNU camera crew interviews Dartmouth men’s captain Luke Mann-O’Halloran ‘09 before the STIHL Timbersports individual competition on the Green Saturday afternoon.

Mann-O’ Halloran helps women’s captain Alix Perez Lawrence ‘10 during the STIHL Timbersports single buck individual event by placing a wedge between the cookie and log to reduce friction on the saw. This is the first year that women were included in the STIHL Timbersports Collegiate Series. Mann-O’Halloran and Lawrence both finished the day in last place – 11th and 9th place, respectively.