On Friday night, just off the shore of Gilman Island, Kiersten Hallquist '08 and six other Dartmouth students on her Sophomore Trips flat-water canoeing section climbed into their canoes, took off their clothes and paddled their boats into one another in a moonlit game of naked bumper canoes.
Though just under 100 students participated in the appropriately-dubbed Strips, 18 students led nine different trips, which included strenuous and moderate hiking, climbing, two sections of flat-water canoeing, flat-water and white-water kayaking, skeet shooting and a low-ropes course. Strips began Friday after classes and trip leaders and their trippees returned to campus Sunday afternoon.
The 2006 Strips co-directors Katie Boldt '08 and Arjun Chandrasekaran '08 called the program a success.
"It went really well," Chandrasekaran said. "Much better than any event I've worked on in the past."
Boldt, who has been involved with the Dartmouth Outing Club since her freshman year, said that the purpose of Strips is to provide students with outdoor activity opportunities that they might not otherwise have. Additionally, Strips allows participants to branch out from their familiar social scenes and to meet different people from their class.
"I saw a trip leader and a trippee who just met on Friday talking today, and that's what makes us happy," Bodlt said.
Strips, which have occurred annually since 1999, were sponsored this year in part by the Office of Residential Life, the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, '08 Class Council, Programming Board and the DOC. Boldt and Chandrasekaran had been preparing for the weekend since the middle of winter term, when they applied for and were selected to be co-directors.
For Chandrasekaran, who has not participated in DOC activities since his freshman orientation, Strips were reminiscent of the freshman trips, in which about 90 percent of his class participated.
"But Strips aren't as awkward," he said. "People didn't mind going down the slip 'n' slide or doing the Salty Dog Rag. They don't have as many inhibitions when they're already familiar with their group members."
Keeping with the theme of lowered inhibitions, Hallquist's was not the only Sophomore Trips group to bond in the buff. In less exhibitionist fashion, a second flat-water canoeing trip section participated in group nudity on Saturday night when all nine trip members skinny-dipped, also off Gilman Island.
"We bonded most when we got everyone naked in the river," said Jenny Fisher '08, a member of the skinny-dipping canoeing trip. Afterwards, Fisher and her trip-mates moved their nudity to dry land, where they stood naked around a campfire.
"You kind of have to get naked on DOC Trips," Hallquist said. "It's like breaking a rule if you don't."
Boldt and Chandrasekaran were particularly pleased with the skeet shooting and the low-ropes course sections because both trips provided students with opportunities normally unavailable to them, or at least difficult to organize.
Andrea Palmer '08, a skeet shooting trip member, said that she had never touched a gun before this weekend.
"I probably never would have touched a gun in my life if it weren't for this trip," Palmer said.
Not that students who took part in more common activities, such as kayaking or hiking, had mundane experiences. Meredith Druss '08, a flat-water kayaker, reported that on the second night of Strips, her group shared a cabin with Camp Flying Cloud, a Quaker-run summer camp for 11 to 14-year-old boys that focuses on simple living. The Flying Cloud boys taught the sun-burned members of Druss' group that Jewelweed, a plant that grows in abundance around the Connecticut River, serves as a substitute for aloe. They also built a campfire using only flint and firewood.
"It was a really good fire. They let us grill our grilled-cheese bagels on it," Druss said.
