First-Year Trips: The Woods in Review

Jason Zhu: New to college? Why not throw a group of teenagers in the middle of woods for 3 days and see what happens! As I dragged my half-conscious body across the green at 6am, seriously rethinking all my life decisions, I was greeted by the joyous sight of my fellow 28s awkwardly lined up, having the same conversation we were about to have hundreds more times over the next 2 weeks: “Hey what’s your name?” “Where are you from?” 

If you’re really feeling social, you might even throw in the trusty “How has your orientation week been?” to really spice up the conversation. After half an hour of chatting and forgetting everyone’s names, we finally met up with our groups and onto the first highlight of the First Year Trips experience—the Safety Show. The dedication of the H-crew to put on an originally written and choreographed performance at 6 a.m. never ceases to amaze. N-O-S-E-X on trips to the chorus of “Hot To Go” shall remain a core memory for the rest of my life. But also the fact that they needed to write a song about no sex on trips raises numerous questions about trips years prior. 

Jokes aside, the trip itself was an amazing bonding experience that allowed me to connect with fellow trippees and TLs in a way that O-week couldn’t parallel. I was on a moderately strenuous hiking trip which meant we averaged 4 miles of hiking a day. 

We also completed the first two days of hiking in one which gave us time to play poker with sesame sticks and corn kernels, and make gourmet pizzas out of pita bread, tomato paste, ham, and shredded cheese over a campfire. And no we did not illegally start fires on trips, technically. On our first night, we ran into a man who was already at the campsite and had started a fire. Initially, he seemed like a perfectly friendly hiker who even shared with us his campfire bread. Then as we chatted amongst ourselves and asked for each other’s fun controversial takes, the man suddenly interjected and asked: “You wanna hear something that’s really controversial?” 

A wave of silence washed over us as we eyed each other, unsure what next words were going to come out of his mouth. “So what do you think of 9/11?” And for the next two hours, we not only learned about the true inner workings of the American government, but also the medicinal use of apricot seeds for cancer treatment and Android phones’ unique ability to track vaccines via the developer mode. And so that night we fell asleep beneath the stars, feeling the early autumn breeze on our faces, hearing the snores of “controversial man” right across from us: a Dartmouth orientation at its finest.

Samuel Zukin: Unlike many of my peers, I first set eyes upon the Dartmouth campus during move-in day on September 4th. Not even 24 hours later, I was already immersed in one of the college’s foremost traditions: First Year Trips! I did not know what to expect and was exhausted—Group A’s 6 a.m. rallying time was suboptimal—but I remained ready for and open to new experiences. I just never would have imagined that those experiences would center around getting “messed with” or “lowkey hazed” the entire four days. The first thing my TLs (read: Trip Leaders) tell us while we are getting breakfast on the morning of our departure from campus is that we are to watch a compulsory safety presentation, a detailed one at that—one that requires us to take notes as each tripee must receive a passing score on an online “safety quiz” before we can board the buses. So like any unsuspecting freshman, I whip out the Notes app. I’ll be honest here, I might be a bit too trusting—it was only around the “En Oh Es Ee Ex On Trips!” portion of the demonstration that I began to catch on. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only time I was caught buying into one of the trip crew’s comedic “bits.” 

The most creative “bit” that I was able to witness took place during the second day of my trip. Our Cabin Camping trip was having a good ol’ time enjoying the Grant, swimming in the river, going on hikes, playing wiffle ball and ultimate frisbee, when all of a sudden one of the Grant crew members walked over, interrupting one of our intense lawn games (if I remember correctly it was wiffle ball, a tie at the top of the fifth and final inning, not that I took it that seriously or anything though…). The upperclassman Grant crew member, all dressed up in their ridiculous flair lets us know that due to some issues with his prior group, a new student will be joining us. The 12 of us (our original eight tripees, two TLs, the Grant crew member, and the new kid) proceed to play some icebreaker games, during which our new tripee reveals some disturbing facts about himself. For example, he had to strangle his horse to death with a rope. I bought it all—well at least until he started talking about his mother’s affair and catching her in the act…

My fellow tripees did like to rib me for this gullibility, however as I tried to explain to them, after living in the San Francisco Bay Area for 18 years, one can never tell for sure if someone is joking or is just plain strange. Regardless, I’d say that it all evened out since the biggest “hazing” experience of the trip didn’t affect me one bit, while it shook up most of my fellow tripees and even TLs. The trip group staying in the cabin down the hill from us decidided that it would be funny to pull a night-time prank on us. Mind you, this “other group” was Cabin Camping and Nature Photography; when we went to visit them earlier that day to invite them for a game of frisbee, they looked so weary and unassuming. Apparently, (I say this since I slept through it all) they had been scouting our cabin for hours, lying in wait for the lights to go out. Then at 2 a.m., they finally decide to strike. They creep up to our cabin and begin to play an ominous recording on a speaker, “Charlie…Charlie…you are in my cabin…Charlie…Charlie.” After circling the cabin for about five minutes, they proceed to bang on the doors and windows. They then promptly revealed themselves, I guess even they thought it went too far. The next morning, this whole story is recounted to me, and I learn that my compatriots (or commiserators) were scared half to death. All of this to say that I had a great experience on First-Year Trips as I feel that I got a proper introduction to the essence of Dartmouth—tradition, commitment to the bit, and always being thoroughly surprised.