Outdoor Club

Advisor: Duncan Bailey - Bradlaw

This self supporting student organization grew up from years as a ski only club. Since the beginning, our motto has been "to get in touch with the classroom out-of-doors." To address this goal we have historically offered single day skiing, hiking and bicycling trips and after school "how to" workshops. These exercises, coupled with several long weekend skiing and backpacking trips, form the nucleus of our program.

A typical year might find 3 - 4 day backpacking trips scheduled for Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans'Day and Memorial Day weekends. Some years have seen a culminating wilderness experience activity go out after graduation. Our target areas of white mountain National Forest, New Hampshire, and Rangeley Lakes, Penobscot Bay and Baxter Park regions of Maine provide high quality, remote backdrop for wilderness experience.

Skiing is a very popular recreation here at NFA. To address this interest, we run an eight trip, after school program to Wachusett Mountain, and one 4-day ski trip is scheduled over the winter break in February to Sunday River, Maine. This is our most popular recreation, with over 120 students skiing in the Wachusett program, while about 50 students, parents, relatives, faculty and staff will go to Maine.

Cycling our local roads during fall and spring has always attracted students of all abilities. Eastern Connecticut is blessed with good quality secondary roads rolling over its varied elevations. We have spent several seasons working up some good routes. Typically, our rides are of 20 - 45 miles duration and usually determined by weather, group strength and daylight. In 1992, three of us managed to survive the 100 mile Pequot Century, held in September.

With the help of some young paddlers, canoeing has crept into our list of pursuits. Memorial Day '92 and '94 was spent in Central and Western Maine, respectively. Camping on islands and along great rivers by night while setting off to explore different historical points of interest provided great recreational adventures. There is interest again in canoeing for the coming spring.

Closer to home, we spend short after school workshops practicing everything from cooking a meal on a backpack stove to learning useful knots. These workshops are designed to prepare students for experiences on overnight trips. If this sounds like something you would enjoy, then please come along!