Outdoor Leadership Program

Hamilton students kept busy during spring break, exploring their passions at places far and near. Eighteen seniors traveled to Nepal to trek the Himalayas; the College Choir toured Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and West Virginia, where they performed with other college singers; Alternate Spring Break groups did volunteer work in Kentucky, Delaware, North Carolina, and Syracuse, N.Y. Athletic teams competed in the NCCAs and during trips to Florida, and the Curling team made it to nationals.

In November, 13 students accompanied Director of Outdoor Leadership Andrew Jillings to the 50th international conference of the Association for Experiential Education (AEE) in Black Mountain, N.C.

Every fall, Hamilton’s Outing Club (HOC) sends groups of students to the Adirondack Mountains where they attempt to summit each of the 46 high peaks in one weekend. This year, there were 25 trips and five overnight backpacking trips. Student participants included 40 HOC leaders, 20 shadow leaders (as part of HOC leader training), and 51 hikers for a grand total of 111. This year, Hamilton students summited 39 of the 46 peaks.

Five days, 120 student leaders, 60 trips.  After they arrived on campus and moved in, all members of the Class of 2026 set off on orientation trips aimed at connecting them with their classmates and introducing them to the area.

A large group of students braved the cold and embraced winter with a day of cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in Hamilton's Rogers Glen on a January weekend.

When Hamilton’s class of 2024 arrived on campus in August, 2020, it was in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, so many of the usual opportunities and experiences for new students were not possible. In an effort to make up for that, Hamilton this year offered sophomores the opportunity to take Adirondack Adventure trips during Fall Break.

On the evening of Sept. 9, Hamilton’s Marathon Canoe Racing Team loaded up two vans and began their journey to Old Forge, N.Y., to compete in the Adirondack Canoe Classic, a.k.a. the 90-Miler.

Anna Bastidas ’13 and Devin Farkas ’10 recently landed jobs in outdoor education as the associate director of the Bowdoin College Outing Club and the assistant director of Outdoor Programs at the University of Vermont, respectively. Day-to-day, Bastidas works closely with outing club officers, runs student leader training, and organizes orientation trips. Farkas oversees many outdoor-based clubs and directs the pre-orientation program.

Warming temperatures and budding trees on campus signal the beginning of spring and the end of the maple sugaring season. Last weekend marked the final boil of the season as Hamilton students spent all day Saturday reducing 60 gallons of sap into just over a gallon of syrup.

Many students joined in last weekend’s first campus-wide maple sugaring effort as a way to enjoy the outdoors while making tasty maple syrup.