Cabin and Trail Awards
“Someone got a little woodshop happy!” —Sean Murphy ’88
During each weekly Cabin and Trail meeting, CnT gives out awards to individual chubbers for some sort of excellent performance on a given trip that week, or — more often than not — for the decided lack thereof! Most CnT awards are simply wooden boards with the name of the award routed into it, and painted or decorated with anything from a broken axe handle to beer bottle caps, to the “borrowed” parking brake of an old Volkswagon! Other awards are made entirely from materials as strange as toilet plungers, one-gallon beer cans, etc.
A CnT award is usually constructed in commemoration of a particular member of Cabin and Trail, in memory of that person having done something foolish or otherwise noteworthy on a CnT trip. After the award is constructed, it is kept in the basement of Robinson Hall, waiting for someone to award it during a trip report at the next Cabin and Trail meeting. For example, if you take a wrong turn while driving to the trailhead, during the next Cabin and Trail meeting you will undoubtedly receive one of the three existing awards for bad driving!
Many of the awards have the most bizarre names, and are meant to be awarded for the most bizarre things. Many of the histories behind these awards are obscure, and some of their histories are completely unknown to current Dartmouth students. This page details the history behind each award. Many thanks to the various alums who contributed their stories to this page! This page was put together based upon the stories of Cabin and Trail alumni from the times of the creation of the various awards. If you have any information to add that is missing from this page (some of these awards we still don’t know much about; others we currently know nothing at all about), or if you’ve noticed any errors, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
AWARD HISTORIES
- The 1978 DOC Trail Crew Achievement Award
- The Adrian Owens Golden Nose Award for Navigation
- The Adrian Owens “It Might Just be Sprained” Award for Concentrated Bullshit Under Pressure
- The Ann Salala “No Belch” Award for Grace Under Pressure
- Axaholics Anonymous
- The Ben Honig “I’m a Jackass” Award for Wanton Tomfoolery
- The Beth Rabbitt Award for Excessive Mothering
- The Blackburn = (Double Crump)^2 = Power Crumping Award
- The Caked Heel Award to the CnT Heeler Who Has “Stuck In There” the Longest
- The Carolyn Lyon Road Hazard Award for Lame Driving
- The Chris Radamaker Memorial Hook, Line and Sinker Award
- The Chris Saccardi DOUBLE STUFF Award for Eating Oneself into a Food Coma
- The Chubber of the Week Award for Senseless Devotion to Winter Sports (This is the 13th award listed. Coincidence? We think not!)
- The Chubber Sports “Athlete of the Week” Award for Exemplary Play in the Midst of Incompetence
- The Dartmouth Winter Carnival Citizen’s Classic Most Mediocre Performance by a CnT Senior Award
- The David O. Hooke “Back in ’82 … ” Award for Unequalled Old Fart Behavior
- The David Weissberger Award for Achievement in the Area of Excellence
- The Deck + Sundars Pinocchio Award for Creative Trip Reporting
- The Doowah Award in Memory of the Class of 1981 For Excessive Lunchmeat Behavior
- The Ed Watson Award for Selfless Sacrifices
- The Golden Spackle Award for Heeler Initiative
- The Greased Lightning award for fastest non-ski team C&T senior
- The Jay Benson Idiot Light Award
- The Jay Benson ’90 and Jim DiCarlo ’91 No-Dick-Around Award for Just Doing It
- The Jed and Dave Big Hair Memorial Award
- The Jim Dicarlo “It’s So Sweet” Shelter Award
- The Katya Fun in the Mud Award
- The Kevin A. Peterson Memorial Snowbank + Mud Locator Award (for Exemplary Driving Skills!?)
- The Kevin Stone Award for Ass Over Elbow Dedication
- The Land Family Award for Hospitality
- The Lar! Memorial Octopus Award
- The Lelia Mellen IGO (Immediate Grasp of the Obvious) Award for IMMEDIATELY Grasping the OBVIOUS
- The Lightning Chopper Award (For That Member of the Woodsman’s Team Who Never Hits the Same Place Twice)
- The Loss of Innocence Award for Outstanding Performance on a First Trailwork Trip
- The Mike Derzon Award for Long Distance Heeler Directing
- The Mike Derzon Sugar ’n Pepper Award for Strange Eating Habits
- MORALS COMMITTEE!
- The Morgan B. Heater Small Genitals Award for Faulty Privy Design
- The Nicolas J. Duquette Irony Award for Hilarity in the Face of Extreme Absurdity
- The Pablo Award for Mythical Devotion to the Stuff Legends Are Made Of
- The Peter Brown Memorial “I Break It. I Buy It” Award for Learning How to Handle Things
- The Philip Marvin Award for Flagrant Abuse of Power
- The Pinus!
- The Pro Routers Awad
- The Ronald B. Shores Jr. Memorial “Golden Feet” Dance Award
- The Rory Gawler Award for Excessive Canadian Pride and Biggest Male Ego
- The Scott McGee Teacher Award for Dramatic Demonstration of What Not To Do
- The Thomas Goldthwait Memorial Piss, Pass & Boot Award to That Member of the Woodsmen’s Team Judged Most Inebriated During the Woodsmen’s Meet
- The Tim Burdick Award for Finally Getting it Together
- The Tim E. Burdick In Pursuit of Lumberjill Award
- The Timothy Holm Golden Birch Award for Excellence in Vehicular Management
- The Will Bishop Award for Fowl Play
The 1978 DOC Trail Crew Achievement Award
At present, we don’t know a whole lot about this award, but as the name suggests, the 1978 Trail Crew was legendary for the incredible work they did, in particular a massive stone stairway up a mountain on one of the DOC-maintained trails. As you can see in the picture above, this award was constructed on a board that is heavily decorated with beer bottle caps … suggesting that perhaps the 1978 Trail Crew’s achievements extended beyond trailwork to include stellar alcohol consumption. Hopefully, they did not mix the two!
Many thanks to Andrew Bramante ’81 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Adrian Owens Golden Nose Award for Navigation
The Adrian Owens Golden Nose Award was created by Peter Brown ’90, after Adrian and Peter were on a night hike trip together to a cabin in the Mount Moosilauke area. Despite the pitch dark, and after considerable bushwhacking, Adrian recognized (or at least claims to have recognized) several particular trees, logs, rocks, streams, etc. Adrian did indeed manage to navigate the trip to the cabin, despite many new blowdowns that had altered the terrain since Adrian had last seen it. Peter was sufficiently impressed by Adrian’s Golden Nose that it inspired the creation of this award. Receiving the Golden Nose award can be both a blessing and a curse: while it can be given out for genuine navigational skill, it is usually given out in a tongue-in-cheek manner to someone who has recently demonstrated a blatant lack of navigational skill!
Many thanks to Adrian Owens ’90 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Adrian Owens “It Might Just be Sprained” Award for Concentrated Bullshit Under Pressure
This award stems from the same event that inspired The Kevin Stone Award for Ass Over Elbow Dedication. During the summer of 1987, summer trailcrew members, Adrian Owens ’90, Kevin Stone ’90, J. Scott McGee ’88, and Pam Lombard ’90 were restocking Agassiz/Ritchie Smith Cabin with firewood one day. The trail leading up to the cabin goes up a very small hill just before it reaches the cabin, and the trailcrew team was transporting unsplit logs along this trail in wheelbarrows. At one point, Kevin was running down the hill, pushing an empty wheelbarrow, when the bar in front of the wheel (it was a heavy-duty wheelbarrow with a brace in front of the wheel) hit a small stump on the trail. The wheelbarrow stopped all forward motion. Kevin did not. The wheelbarrow flipped upside down in midair, and Kevin was jerked into a full flip over it. As Kevin recalls, “It would have been a brilliant maneuver had my left arm not somehow gotten tangled in the triangle brace at the back of the wheelbarrow.” Kevin recalls that the other members of the trailcrew did an excellent job splinting him up and driving him to the hospital, but Adrian recalls that while treating Kevin right after the accident, Adrian asked Kevin if he felt at all light headed. Kevin answered that he did not, so Adrian reasoned that a more serious fracture would cause a drop in blood pressure and lightheadedness, and therefore “It might just be sprained.” As it turned out, however, Kevin had a double-dislocation of his left elbow.
Many thanks to Adrian Owens ’90 and Kevin Stone ’90 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Ann Salala “No Belch” Award for Grace Under Pressure
Ed Lowney ’85 created the Ann Salala award to commemorate one of the more amusing goof-ups in relations between the college administration and the student body. In order to maximize silliness, Ed routed the award with the name “Ann Salala”, instead of her actual name, Ann LaSala ’87. The incident in question is from the spring term of 1985, when the inhabitants of The Rock, an off-campus apartment occupied entirely by members of CnT, invited the then-president of Dartmouth, David T. McLaughlin and his wife over for dinner at The Rock, in an effort to improve the college administration’s then-skeptical view of off-campus housing. McLaughlin accepted the invitation, much to the Rock residents’ simultaneous glee at having the president over, and chagrin at having to actually clean The Rock in preparation for his visit! Everyone at The Rock set to work, cleaning things, dusting things that had never been dusted, throwing out dead house plants and they even painted the dining room! They decided to use serving utensils instead of lunging for the salad with their bare hands. Ann was renowned at the time for her loud belches, and seemed unable to get through a meal without at least one bullfrog-like call. As the day of the McLaughlins’ visit approached, there was much speculation as to whether or not Ann could restrain herself from belching for the special occasion, and as it turned out she did not let the President down. In the middle of dinner she let a big one rip, and then sheepishly excused herself after remembering the company.
Ann Salala was also the inspiration for the Chubber Sports “Athlete of the Week” Award for Exemplary Play in the Midst of Incompetence, since Ann was a force to be reckoned with in intramural sports. She brought the chubber sports teams to victory in several IM games, in several different sports.
Many thanks to Ed Lowney ’85 and Dan Monahan ’87 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
Axaholics Anonymous
Jim DiCarlo ’91 created Axaholics Anonymous for Jed Kaplan ’94 (one half of the inspiration for The Jed and Dave Big Hair Memorial Award), who was a heeler at the time. During a spring trails seminar one weekend, Jed and Jim were working on a new section of trail in Vermont, building small log bridges and turnpiking. Jed, being a freshman heeler of great enthusiasm, was chopping trees with abandon, hardwoods included. “I’m an axaholic!” he crooned with a glazed look in his eyes. He decided that a particularly nice (and heavy) piece of oak was going to come home with him — to what end is still unknown! — and he lugged it all the way back to the road, at which point he left without putting it in the truck. Jim chainsawed off a small piece and brought it back with him to the college woodshop, where the woodshop people graciously allowed him to plane one side of it flat. Then Jim created the Axaholics Anonymous award out of it, as a sort of “not-so-portable membership card” for Jed.
Sometime during the mid-nineties, Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity — that is, AXA — stole the award for obvious reasons. The award was a bequest within the frat for several years, until the fall of 1999 when Tim Bartholomaus ’02 was simultaneously a heeler in C&T and a pledge of AXA. C&Ters Emily Lesher ’02 and Erica Close ’02 learned from Tim of the award’s abduction by Alpha Chi, and staged a raid on AXA, in which they recaptured the award and returned it to C&T. Tim neither helped nor hindered the raid when he learned that it was going to take place, and consequently the award has remained in C&T’s possession since then.
Many thanks to Jim DiCarlo ’91 and Tim Bartholomaus ’02 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Ben Honig “I’m a Jackass” Award for Wanton Tomfoolery
Rory Gawler ’05 (the denizen of Canadia, who served as inspiration for The Rory Gawler Award for Excessive Canadian Pride and Biggest Male Ego) created this award in the fall of 2003 for Ben Honig ’05. Ben’s wanton tomfoolery occurred during just one week in which he managed to
1) Toss a full nalgene water bottle into the rolled-down driver’s window of the forestry team pickup truck, as Rory was driving away. The nalgene hit Rory squarely in the head as he was driving the huge vehicle in question.
2) Do, as Rory describes it, “something else jackass-like”.
3) Commit the act of assault with a toilet plunger. Rory and Ben were in Hanover Hardware picking up router bits, when Ben found the small toilet plunger out of which the award is now partially constructed. Ben whirled around and planted the toilet plunger squarely on Rory’s heavily balding forehead, where it stuck with perfect suction. In retaliation, Rory proceeded to pretend that he was a rhinoceros by charging at Ben with head bent down, and goring Ben with his toilet plunger horn. Still not amused at being crowned with a toilet plunger, Rory purchased it and used it to construct the award.
In commemoration of Ben’s week of wanton tomfoolery, this award is given out for any “jackass-like” behavior of any kind.
Many thanks to Rory Gawler ’05 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Beth Rabbitt Award for Excessive Mothering
John McCall-Taylor ’03 made the Beth Rabbitt Award for Excessive Mothering after a trip to the Grant in the winter of ’03, for Beth Rabbitt ’04 (creator of The Rory Gawler Award for Excessive Canadian Pride and Biggest Male Ego). During the trip, Beth made everyone on the trip sign out in groups of three or more whenever anybody wanted to leave the cabin, enforced mandatory frostbite checks, and “generally overprotected us”, according to John. The impressive thing about the award itself is not the routing job (which John considers horrendous) but the fact that the trip returned on a Sunday evening and the finished award was presented to Beth at the Cabin ’n Trail meeting the following night, with the paint still wet. Beth couldn’t believe that the turnaround was that fast.
Many thanks to John McCall-Taylor ’03 for providing this information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Blackburn = (Double Crump)^2 = Power Crumping Award
Crumping is an AMC term for sitting down and taking a break while packing heavy loads. It has a secondary meaning of slacking off, bagging on responsibilities, and letting down your side in the clutch. In other words, if you sign up for a CnT trip, and then don’t show up for it when it’s supposed to leave, you have “crumped” on the trip. This Power Crumping award was first presented in the fall of 1985 to Paul Blackburn ’88. Paul was apparently renowned for crumping on lots of trips, though many people have plenty of fond memories of trips with Paul that he did show up for. In the summer of 1988, Paul’s brother, Dave Blackburn, was on trailcrew and there was a trip which both Paul and Dave crumped on, making “Blackburn” an especially bad name when it comes to crumping. Stemming from this incident and others like it, Paul Blackburn was hauled before the Morals Committee, which was called into session during that Fall of ’85 meeting in which he was presented with the award. As the horrified onlooking freshman heeler, Chuck Wooster ’89, reported years later:
“I was attending my very first C&T meeting as an impressionable freshman, with that meeting being held in the plush confines of the Blunt Alumni Center, because Robo was being rehabbed at the time. Mr. Blackburn was dragged up to the council table, where the charges were read to him. I forget what they specifically were, but it involved him failing to attend either two events in one week or blowing off the makeup for the original task that he’d already blown off. Anyway, you get the drift — he’d bagged twice in one week.
“I believe he pled guilty to the charges, a gesture which did not prevent the prosecutors from tearing off his shirt and smearing pine tar (or was it klister?) on his chest as a punishment. The assembled chubbers seemed to delight both in the punishment and in the viewing of Blackburn’s pectoral muscles, seeing as how he was on the ski team and all. I never did find out how he got the pine tar off, and, amazingly, I never stopped attending C&T meetings thereafter.”
Contrary to Chuck’s initial impressions, this meeting of the CnT mock Kangeroo Court known as the “Morals Committee” was all in good fun. By all accounts, Paul thoroughly enjoyed getting to show off his pecks to the entire Cabin ’n Trail meeting. Paul reports that the only downside of his conviction by the Morals Committee was that “The stark contrast between the tar and the environs of Blunt is the most memorable feature of the event for me; I was so worried I was going to drip or smear on something venerated and expensive.”
Chuck Wooster notes that “The award notwithstanding, Paul has proven to be a most reliable and dependable person in his adult life, and I’d be happy to vouch for his character and morals, etc., etc.”
Many thanks to Paul Blackburn ’88, Chuck Wooster ’89, Adrian Owens ’90, and Mark Schiffman ’90 for providing this information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Caked Heel Award to the C&T Heeler Who Has “Stuck In There” the Longest
This award was created in honor of Alex Van Neivelt ’84, who remained a heeler until his senior year before ascending to council. Everyone was delighted when he finally ascended, hence the award.
Many thanks to Catherine Burke ’85 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Carolyn Lyon Road Hazard Award for Lame Driving
Constructed by Elaine Anderson ’83 for Carolyn Lyon ’84, after a trip where Elaine was driving behind Carolyn. Apparently, Carolyn would leave the turn signal on for miles at a time, and weave around the road (presumably reaching for the next music cassette or a snack). Several times she got off on the wrong exit and had to pause to figure out what to do next. Carolyn even got lost when the trip was driving through her home state of New York! Carolyn was apparently a lot of fun on C&T trips, and is a fantastic musician, but driving with her is not recommended! This award is for someone who drives in a goofy manner, not unlike The Jay Benson Idiot Light Award for Goofer-like Vehicle Operation. Actually getting the vehicle stuck should be covered by The Kevin A. Peterson Memorial Snowbank + Mud Locator Award The driving award that can be either a blessing or a curse is The Timothy Holm Golden Birch Award for Excellence in Vehicular Management, which is sometimes given out for good driving or fixing a problem with a vehicle, but more often than not is given out to someone who has recently demonstrated palpable lack of automotive skill!
Many thanks to Elaine Anderson ’83 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Chris Radamaker Memorial Hook, Line and Sinker Award
This award was made by some ’81s and/or ’82s and presented to Chris Rademacher ’83 for being (perhaps) the most gullible chubber in the history of C&T. Both the ’81s and ’82s were full of tall tales and practical jokes and Chris fell for them all, some repeatedly.
Many thanks to Elaine Anderson ’83 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Chris Saccardi DOUBLE STUFF Award for Eating Oneself into a Food Coma
Made in 1998, the Chris Saccardi DOUBLE STUFF Award for Eating Oneself into a Food Coma commemorates how Chris Saccardi ’97 was really into DinerTour and also into going to cabins and stuffing himself silly. Chris clearly slept well after dinner on trips, and no doubt slept through a lot of Wednesday classes after DinerTour as well.
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Chubber of the Week Award for Senseless Devotion to Winter Sports
Sadly, we have no information on the exact history of this award, which is currently given out for exactly what the title calls for: senseless devotion to winter sports! If you know anything about the history behind this award, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Chubber Sports “Athlete of the Week” Award for Exemplary Play in the Midst of Incompetence
Alex Tait ’86 created this award for Ann Lasala ’87 (inspiration for The Ann Salala “No Belch” Award for Grace Under Pressure) after the chubber soccer team trounced some poor opponent thanks to Ann. The DOC (mostly CnT people) has traditionally played in a variety of intramural sports: hockey, basketball and soccer, and was in the midst of a very long losing streak, when Ann came along. Ann actually knew how to play these sports (the typical method of recruitment of chubbers for chubber sports teams, then and now, was to grab anybody available — no experience required — to fill out the team size to prevent forfeit) and broke the chubber’s losing streak.
Many thanks to Alex Tait ’86 and Jon Owens ’90 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Dartmouth Winter Carnival Citizen’s Classic Most Mediocre Performance by a CnT Senior Award
The Citizen’s Classic was originally set up as a “in your face” by C&T to Winter Sports.... basically saying “Anyone can organize a ski race”. Because C&T organized it, you could only race in it if you were a senior. The award’s title explains it all.
Many thanks to Sean Murphy ’88 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The David O. Hooke “Back in ’82 … ” Award for Unequalled Old Fart Behavior
This award was created by Chuck Wooster ’89 and Dan Monahan ’87 in an attempt to make a fitting memorial to David Hooke ’82 when he declared that he was finally leaving Dartmouth, after having overstayed graduation by three years for some obscure research project. The numbers that are on the award (17) were saved from over the door into Room 17, which had been the DOC meeting room for many years and was converted to the Ski Team offices in 1986. Alas, the intended departure did not last. Hooke quietly repossessed the award in 1991 when he returned to work at DOC/OPO but returned it to service in 2001 when he left.
Many thanks to David Hooke ’84 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The David Weissberger Award for Achievement in the Area of Excellence
This award was created by David Weissberger ’00 for David Weissberger ’00, in a transparent and shameless ploy to ensure his own immortality in the storied halls of C&T, a ploy which David suspects has failed. Though given that this award, while not among the ones most frequently given out, generally does get awarded to someone a few times every term (more than many of the others), David’s ploy may have worked better than he gives it credit for. David did put considerable effort into deciding whether the award should be for “Achievement in the Area of Excellence” or “Excellence in the Area of Achievement”. As it turns out, he made an excellent choice!
Many thanks to David Weissberger ’00 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Deck + Sundars Pinocchio Award for Creative Trip Reporting
Sadly, we have no information on the exact history of this award, although its title does make clear what it is intended to be awarded for. If you know anything about the history behind this award, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Doowah Award in Memory of the Class of 1981 For Excessive Lunchmeat Behavior
This award was routed in the spring of 1981 by David Hooke ’84, who got carried away, figuratively (while making the award), and then literally carried away after he unveiled it at the next C&T meeting. “Lunchmeat behavior” was a term that was in favor at the time intending to indicate less than complete commitment to the organization or the task at hand. The term “Doowah” was also prevalent in the early 80’s, for someone who put out a great show but had nothing behind it. The name had been substituted some years before into that Robert Service poem that many of us remember from a key transitional moment in our chubber careers, that is, “Major Halfway Brown” became “Major Doowah Brown” in the chubber version.
Many thanks to David Hooke ’84 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Ed Watson Award for Selfless Sacrifices
This award was made in 1992 for Ed Watson ’93, who was from West Virginia. Beyond this, we don’t know why there is an award in his name for selfless sacrifices.
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96 for providing this information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Golden Spackle Award for Heeler Initiative
This award was made by Jay Benson ’90 for Julie Wade ’91, a heeler, and the award refers to the Atwell Hilton (Den of Iniquity) Project, which she and other heelers helped considerably with. This structure on Atwell Road became the property of the National Park Service during the protection of the AT corridor in the mid 1980s. The building was in terrible shape, and needed to be fixed up before it was to become the summer home of trail crew. In an effort to fix it up to “livable” status, Jay led dozens of work trips to the Hilton to sheetrock and spackle. The walls were so out of plumb that Jay and the many heelers who helped out with the project poured at least ten five-gallon buckets of spackle into the walls.
Many thanks to Jay Benson ’90 and Jim DiCarlo ’91 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Greased Lightning award for fastest non-ski team C&T senior
The Greased Lightning award was a sort of precursor to the Dartmouth Winter Carnival Citizen’s Classic Most Mediocre Performance by a CnT Senior Award, which is a sort of “evil twin” to the greased lightning award. The greased lightning award was made every year, so the recipients of the award actually got to keep it for good, rather than just for the duration of the C&T meeting. The practice of routing a greased lightning award every year has since lapsed, but it could always have a resurgence …
Many thanks to Sean Murphy ’88 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Jay Benson Idiot Light Award for Goofer-Like Vehicle Operation
F. Jon Kull ’88 (now a Professor of Chemistry at Dartmouth) and Steve Prentice ’88 made this award for Jay Benson ’90. Jay was driving a van (full of people) back from Moosilauke down 118. John and Steve were following behind in a car. When they got to Warren, New Hampshire, they flashed for Jay to stop, and then walked up to the driver’s window of the van and told him that they smelled burning brakes. They asked if he still had the emergency brake on and he said no, incredulously. As they walked back to their car they heard the distinct sound of a parking brake being let loose.
John and Steve constructed the award with a light and a parking break from an old VW Rabbit that had been left in a prime parking lot at an off campus house (not The Rock) for a number of years. They connected a battery to the back of the award so that the light would come on when the brake was engaged. Jon always wondered if the owner of the car noticed the brake was missing … since the car in question had been lying derelict for many years, they figured the parking brake would not be missed!
This is one of four existing awards for bad driving, along with The Carolyn Lyon Road Hazard Award for Lame Driving, The Timothy Holm Golden Birch Award for Excellence in Vehicular Management, and The Kevin A. Peterson Memorial Snowbank + Mud Locator Award
Many thanks to Jim DiCarlo ’91, Jay Benson ’90, and F. Jon Kull ’88 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Jay Benson ’90 and Jim DiCarlo ’91 No-Dick-Around Award for Just Doing It
We haven’t the slightest idea what the story is behind this award. Even Jay Benson and Jim DiCarlo themselves don’t remember what it’s all about! If you know anything about the history of this award, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Jed and Dave Big Hair Memorial Award
The award was made in part for Jed Kaplan ’94 (inspiration for Axaholics Anonymous), who had a crew cut when Oliver Will ’96 met him, though the ’fro depicted on each of them in the routing of the award suggests that at this point Jed had lost his “big hair”. Beyond that information, the history of this award is currently a mystery!
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Jim Dicarlo “It’s So Sweet” Shelter Award
This award was made by Christian Kull ’91 and refers to the building of Hexacuba Shelter and the phrase that Jim DiCarlo ’91 always used in reference to it when trying to drum up help for a worktrip, which happened just about every weekend of his sophomore summer. Christian presented the award to Jim after the christening overnight for Hexacube in November of ’89. Jim still has the twenty-person photo of the snowy morning after that overnight on his bookshelf, and recalls it as “one of my best memories of C&T”. Today, Hexacube shelter is used by many hikers of the Appalachian Trail, and Dartmouth Freshman Trip #24 (Moderate Hiking over Mt. Cube and Mt. Smarts) stays in Hexacube shelter during its first night out in the wilderness. As Dartmouth trippies and thru-hikers from Georgia alike can attest, Hexacube shelter is indeed “so sweet”.
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96 and Jim DiCarlo ’91 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Katya Fun in the Mud Award
Etkaterina “Katya” Czaja ’95 was known as a very sociable person with a lot of friends in C&T. She was the trailcrew coordinator in the summer of ’95. Nobody recalls whether the Fun in the Mud award was for a social event or a trailcrew worktrip. The award was made in 1995 by Austyn Fudge ’98, Nick Sherman ’98, and Christie Utter ’98.
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.edu
The Kevin A. Peterson Memorial Snowbank + Mud Locator Award (for Exemplary Driving Skills!?)
This award is one of the many C&T awards available for condemning someone’s lousy driving. This award is meant in particular for someone who has gotten a vehicle stuck, as the history and title of this award make evident. General idiocy in driving is covered by The Carolyn Lyon Road Hazard Award for Lame Driving and The Jay Benson Idiot Light Award for Goofer-like Vehicle Operation (which is particularly suited for anyone who leaves a parking brake on while driving). The driving award that can be either a blessing or a curse is The Timothy Holm Golden Birch Award for Excellence in Vehicular Management, which (because of the literal meaning of its name) is sometimes given out for good driving or fixing a problem with a vehicle, but more often than not is ironically given out to someone who has recently demonstrated palpable lack of automotive skill!
The Kevin Peterson Memorial Snowbank + Mud Locator Award has its origins in the creation of a “new cabin” in the Second College Grant. Many thanks to Tom Burack ’82 for calling our attention to the 1982 Aegis for information about the creation of this award, and to The Aegis for their kind permission to post the following information, from pages 200-201 of the Aegis 1982.
From the Aegis:
The Newest Cabin in the College Grant: The Hotel Silverado
What better to do over spring break than to go to the College Grant for a few days of cross country skiing? It would be a chance to see the cabins again, and to have one last dose of winter. This is a true story: the names have not been changed to protect the innocent.
We loaded into Kevin’s White Silverado four-wheel drive Chevrolet station wagon, and headed north. Arriving in the early afternoon, we drove in to the Management Center, after having exchanged jokes and insults with Nelson at the Gate Camp. He suggested we take along a shovel so we could clear off the roof of Alder Brook Cabin before the weight of three or four feet of snow crushed it. We obliged him, and somehow managed to strap the shovel to one of our packs.
It’s not a very long ski from the Management Center to Alder Brook, but with fifty- or sixty-pound packs, the face plant potential was high. I succumbed (several times), and had to be helped back to my feet: We arrived at Alder Brook in fairly good shape, except for Kevin’s little fall that broke one of his ski poles. Jim shoveled off the roof, Kevin got water, I gave moose calls and fired up the stoves. Since no moose showed up, we had to eat chili for dinner.
The next day we headed north up another road to Stoddard Cabin. The air was still warm, but sunny skies had turned grey, and from time to time snow fell heavily. We arrived at Stoddard Cabin (what a beautiful place!), ate lunch, played cards, and then decided that the mounting snow deserved attention. Donning snowshoes, (we hadn’t carried them all that way for nothing), we ventured out into eight to ten inches of fresh snow, and trudged along old logging roads, admiring the destruction wrought by the Spruce Budworm. Back at the cabin, I called for moose, but none showed up, so we ate macaroni and cheese for dinner. There was so much food in the cabin we could have stayed for a week, but the plan was to only spend two nights there.
The next morning we headed out on skis to see how far we could get up Black Mountain. Unfortunately, one of Kevin’s bindings was coming loose, so we turned back after an hour or so. Heading out toward the Dead Diamond, past the cabin, Kevin discovered that the river was crossable, and he returned to bring this news to Jim and me (back at the cabin being slugs). Well, it didn’t take more than a moment for these three dedicated piney skiers to realize that twelve inches of fresh snow would make for some great powder skiing. So, Kevin skiied down to get the Silverado while Jim and I cleaned cabin, packed up, and carried everything out to the road on the other side of the river. There we met Kevin, loaded up the car, and looked at our watches. It was about five o’clock.
Had Jim ever seen Hell Gate? Well, you can’t go to the Grant and not see Hell Gate, so we turned and drove north. Kevin very carefully kept the Silverado in the single set of tire tracks that ran up the middle of the road. From time to time the foot of new snow hid a mud hole. We arrived at Hell Gate, checked out the logging operation just to the north of the College Grant, in the Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy Grant, climbed around on a couple of log skidders, and then headed south again.
So far you probably think this shaggy dog story is leading nowhere, but you’re wrong. Kevin playfully stopped and started the vehicle just to give Jim a hard time, and then began swerving to miss the mud holes in the tire tracks. But he swerved too much. The truck came to a sudden stop, Kevin threw the transmission into reverse, but it was no go. Ever try shoveling out a car with snowshoes and skis as tools? (Kevin had left the shovel back at the Management Center.) After an hour, as the sky darkened, we had the entire chassis clear, and Kevin started her up. But as soon as backed it up, the darned White Whale just slid further into the snowbank. And so we came to spend the third night in the Grant in a new cabin, the Hotel Silverado.
But the story doesn’t end there. Oh no, there’s more embarrassment to come. As we struggled to get to sleep on the car seats, Kevin had to confess that this wasn’t the first time he had gotten one of these big four-wheel drive trucks stuck. Fortunately, we had some food left over, but we had left all the toilet paper at Stoddard. (I’ll never make that mistake again!)
Next morning, Jim and I prepared to go for help. Loading our packs with some food, extra wax, and warm clothing, we skiied back north in the hope that someone would be there at the logging site. Actually, the sound of chainsaws had awoken us that morning, so the big question was whether we could get them to help us. We were surprised to find the logging operation less than a ten-minute ski away. After some negotiations with one of the loggers, he agreed to come down with a skidder and pull out the Silverado. (There was no way a pickup truck with a chain could have done the job.) This fellow too, had a confession: The day before he had gotten his own pickup stuck and had to walk seven miles to get the skidder in order to pull it free.
We watched in awe as the fellow turned the skidder around, backing and pulling forward right through the huge snowbanks on the side of the road. Jim and I took pictures as the skidder winched the Silverado out of the snowbank. We drove back north to that plowed road, and then stopped to make payment: Twenty-five dollars and a sixpack of Molson’s! The logger chuckled, “It’s amazing what you can do with one of these $60,000 rigs”.
Back in Hanover, the tale soon spread (contrary to Kevin’s original and unwise plea to Jim and I that we tell no one of the night in the Grant’s newest cabin). It was soon learned that Kevin’s modesty was sincere: He hadn’t gotten big vehicles stuck just once or twice, but in fact at least six times, and all of them significant achievements. It’s little wonder that at the next C&T meeting Kevin received the “Kevin A. Peterson Memorial Snowbank and Mud Locator Award”, replete with tow truck.
The story has two lessons. First, the newest cabin in the Grant is not one worth staying in. Stick to Peaks, Alder Brook and Stoddard. Second, no matter where you’re going, if Kevin’s driving, be prepared to spend the night.
—Tom (Baptiste) Burack ’82
Afterword: It seems that the Hotel Silverado wasn’t driving too well upon its return to Hanover. A visit to Lester’s Chevrolet revealed a broken leaf spring, cracked due to excessive shearing forces. Three hundred dollars later, things were back to normal. It would appear that driving into snowbanks just doesn’t pay.
The Kevin Stone Award for Ass Over Elbow Dedication
This award stems from the same event that inspired The Adrian Owens “It Might Be Sprained” Award for Concentrated Bullshit Under Pressure. During the summer of 1987, summer trailcrew members, Adrian Owens ’90, Kevin Stone ’90, J. Scott McGee ’88, and Pam Lombard ’90 were restocking Agassiz/Ritchie Smith Cabin with firewood one day. The trail leading up to the cabin goes up a very small hill just before it reaches the cabin, and the trailcrew team was transporting unsplit logs along this trail in wheelbarrows. At one point, Kevin was running down the hill, pushing an empty wheelbarrow, when the bar in front of the wheel (it was a heavy-duty wheelbarrow with a brace in front of the wheel) hit a small stump on the trail. The wheelbarrow stopped all forward motion. Kevin did not. The wheelbarrow flipped upside down in midair, and Kevin was jerked into a full flip over it. As Kevin recalls, “It would have been a brilliant maneuver had my left arm not somehow gotten tangled in the triangle brace at the back of the wheelbarrow.” Kevin had a double-dislocation of the left elbow from the accident. Thus ended Kevin’s Freshmen Summer trail crew season (fortunately, the summer was almost over anyways). After a misdiagnosis by Adrian (hence the other award), the trail crew did a great job splinting up Kevin, and his arm is intact enough today for him to have typed up the story and blitzed it to us.
Many thanks to Adrian Owens ’90 and Kevin Stone ’90 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Land Family Award for Hospitality
The Land Family Hospitality award was carved in 1995 by C&T Chair Larry Breckenridge ’95 (inspiration for The Lar! Memorial Octopus Award) after Jenny Land ’96 hosted a winter trip to climb Camel’s Hump, and then went to her folks’ place in Shelburne for the evening, with midnight sledding down the mile-long run on Mount Philo. Many chubbers also played hockey at night on the pond in the Land Family’s backyard. Jenny’s parents made lasagna, bread, salad, and ice cream pie for TWO vanloads of chubbers, plus the Hookes, and flipped pancakes for them in the morning. Larry fell in love with Jenny’s then-new puppy, Larry, as well as her Dad’s pancakes. A trip to the Land’s each winter briefly became a tradition in C&T for several years running, probably the duration of Jenny’s four years at Dartmouth.
Many thanks to Jenny Land ’96 and Oliver Will ’96 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Lar! Memorial Octopus Award
The “Lar!” in the name of this award stands for Lars (or “Larry”) Breckenridge ’95 (creator of The Land Family Award for Hospitality). Made in 1993, this award is given to people who act in a lascivious manner and/or people who have multiple relationships, particularly those of the incestuous inter-C&T variety. People who receive this award are at a high risk for being hauled before the Morals Committee.
Simply put, Larry was a classic Lady-Killer. He was friendly, supportive, positive … and infamous for hooking up with many of the C&T (et al) women. Not to say he wasn’t incredibly sweet (which is how he managed to attract the women) but his relationships didn’t last very long. The award was given to him after he had yet another physical interaction with a member of the female gender, but Lars was a good sport about it.
However, rumor has it that Mr. Breckenridge was finally able to make a relationship last, and now there is a Mrs. Breckenridge, a.k.a Leah Cummings ’95, also a C&Ter. They are happily married and living in Colorado with their daughter, Nora.
Many thanks to Sandy Maruszak ’96 and Oliver Will ’96 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Lelia Mellen IGO (Immediate Grasp of the Obvious) Award for IMMEDIATELY Grasping the OBVIOUS
We have no information on the story behind this award at all. However, the title is obviously self-explanatory. This award is given out — rather frequently — to people who state the blatantly obvious while on a trip.
It is also blatantly obvious that we would like some more information on this award. If you have any, please blitz it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Lightning Chopper Award (For That Member of the Woodsman’s Team Who Never Hits the Same Place Twice)
Created by David Weissberger ’00 (creator of the extremely modest David Weissberger Award for Achievement in the Area of Excellence) in the summer of 1999, this award is one of those general awards, suitable for twisting towards any purpose or story. Since most woodsmen never do hit the same place twice, it is apt to be awarded often. It does also offer tantalizing metaphoric possibilities for double entendre. There is no real story to it, beyond the fact that David got bored and decided to start tom-fooling around in the woodshop that summer (perhaps he deserves the Ben Honig “I’m a Jackass” Award for Wanton Tomfoolery!).
Many thanks to David Weissberger ’00 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Loss of Innocence Award for Outstanding Performance on a First Trailwork Trip
C&T was trying to re-emphasize its trailwork responsibilities during the summer and fall of 2000. The state of the trails was reputedly pretty grim at the time; the AMC had recently bestowed the DOC’s section at Ore Hill the dubious distinction of “most primitive” section of the entire trail. Emily Lesher ’02, Jenn Butcher ’02, Zach Goldstein ’02, and Justin White ’03 thought that a good way to encourage first time trailworkers to stick with the program was to give them an award after their first trip. So the they came up with the “Loss of Innocence Award for Outstanding Performance” idea. The award was first given out to some heelers who were first-timers on trailwork, some of whom were their trippie charges from Freshman Trips they had led back in September. While it is doubtful that anything particularly mischievous ever happened on one of their trailwork trips, as the name of the award might suggest, they did think the name was really funny.
Many thanks to Jenn Butcher ’02, Kim Iwamoto ’03, and Justin White ’03 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Mike Derzon Award for Long Distance Heeler Directing
We know absolutely nothing about the history of this award, so we’re just going to make something up, and claim that it’s true. You may want to award us The Deck + Sundars Award for Creative Trip Reporting because of this page, but if you would prefer that we tell the truth about this award, you have to tell us what it is, because we don’t know it! To do that, send what you know about this award to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU. Until then, we’re just going to lie! Here goes:
Mike Derzon ’88 was off during the fall of 1986. He was hanging around Hanover for the first week of the term, after having led a Freshman Trip and then lazed around with his trippie charges during orientation for the class of 1991, when he decided “what the heck; I’ll offer to serve as heeler director this term”, forgetting that one week into the fall term, he was starting an internship with NASA.
After becoming heeler director for that term, he was whisked away in the middle of the night by two dudes in suits, with wires coming out of their ears, and wearing dark glasses — you know, “government agent” types.
He was whisked away because it turns out that the internship at NASA he’d accepted wasn’t your typical internship where you’re chained to a Xerox machine and doing menial summer-job-type labor, but calling it something cooler, an “internship”, so that it sounds important and actually relevant when you list it on your resume. No, Mike’s internship with NASA was actually for him to participate for three months on a top-secret government mission. Mike didn’t know that this was what his internship was all about, because NASA couldn’t tell him what his internship would involve until he actually showed up, seeing as it was Top Secret and all. Since Mike didn’t know what it was all about, he didn’t feel bad about blowing off his internship in favor of hanging in Hanover to be heeler director, but of course NASA saw otherwise, and sent the two government agent dudes to make him show up for work.
So the details of what his internship involved — which Mike was only recently able to reveal, once the information became declassified in light of the breakup of the Soviet Union — were these: NASA knew they wanted Mike when they saw his impressive resume as a quadruple-major in Physics, Chemistry, Philosophy (well, they kind of ignored that useless part of his resume), and Government, with a focus on International Relations, particularly with respect to espionage. They selected him for an elite force mission that involved being rocketed to the moon as part of a team to set up a top-secret government moonbase, with cutting-edge telescopes and radio transceivers. The intent of the moonbase was to take spy photos of the Soviet Union from the moon — the last place they’d ever look for spy satellites or a spy base! — and to intercept top-secret communist radio transmissions, and also, in the event of a nuclear attack from the USSR, to deploy this experimental ICBM defense mechanism: a REALLY big fly-swatter that knocks the missiles into the sun (Mike was also on the Dartmouth baseball team, so NASA figured he’d be really good at slugging the missiles away).
Mike really enjoyed his internship on the moon. In his free time, he did a lot of awesome hiking with a load heavier than any pack he’d ever carried: an EVA suit. However, seeing as the moon has only 2/3 of the gravitational pull of Earth [uhh, one-sixth? —ASE], this didn’t matter a whole lot. In fact, he climbed a 6,800-foot (about the size of Mount Washington) moon mountain in record-breaking time for that sort of elevation gain. He also discovered what the Apollo astronauts had discovered in the ’60s and ’70s, but didn’t bother to report since no one would believe them: the moon is made entirely of Extra Extra Extra Sharp Vermont Cabot Cheddar Cheese, a long-time favorite of C&T chubbers! Continuing his consumption and mastication tendencies that led to the creation in his honor of The Mike Derzon Sugar ’n Pepper Award for Strange Eating Habits, Mike would combine hunks of “moonrock” scraped up from outside the moonbase and eat them along with the military-issue freeze-dried “MREs” (Meals Ready to Eat, affectionately known in the military as “Meals Rejected by Ethiopia”, due to their dubious taste) they had brought from planet earth. And of course he put sugar and pepper on it. The other astronauts on the team thought their intern was really weird.
Of course, since the whole thing was top-secret, he couldn’t tell anyone about it, so he couldn’t explain to C&T council that he couldn’t be heeler director that term, seeing as he was on the moon and all. In fact, in order to cover up the fact that he was on the moon, he hooked up his Macintosh to one of the secure radios they had on the moonbase, in order to connect to the blitzmail server (yes; Dartmouth had blitz then). Mike sent blitzmail instructions to the heelers that term, telling them to lead Heeler-overnights, co-lead trips with council members, etc. He always apologized in his blitzes for never showing up to C&T meetings on Monday nights, claiming that he was studying deep in the bowels of Baker Library, doing preliminary work on each of his four senior thesis, so he could only afford to send blitzes to the heelers, and nothing more.
When Mike returned to planet Earth for the winter term, he had a little bit of trouble walking, given that he had been in a low-gravity environment for three months, and his muscles had somewhat atrophied. It took awhile for Mike to build up his leg muscles up again to the level needed for Earth gravity, so when chubbers saw him hobbling around at the beginning of the winter term, they said to each other “Wow! Doing a thesis really is brutal!”
Many thanks to Joel Dahl ’05 for providing the bullshit behind the supposed history of this award. If you can provide any truthful information about this award, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU, and we’ll use it to replace this tall tale!
The Mike Derzon Sugar ’n Pepper Award for Strange Eating Habits
As with The Mike Derzon Award for Long Distance Heeler Directing, we don’t know a whole lot about this award, other than that it is named after Mike Derzon ’88. We know a little bit, though, so we’re going to tell you that, instead of making up a complete lie, as we did for our “history” of the “Long Distance Heeler Directing” award.
Nobody was able to provide any information on Mike Derzon’s eating habits, which presumably had something to do with putting both sugar and pepper on something, but we might get a little bit of a clue about Mike Derzon and this award from the lyrics of a song he used to sing while playing the banjo:
"You eat the meat and you save the hide,
Eat the meat and save the hide.
Best darn shoestring ever was tied!
Oh Groundhog!"
Many thanks to Mark Schiffman for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
MORALS COMMITTEE!
The Morals Committee has had an ever-changing role in C&T, as the history behind it would periodically be forgotten, new rituals would arise around the Morals Committee sign, and then they would be forgotten, and then someone would remember a piece of the Morals Committee past and revive it. The Morals Committee at the time of this writing has returned to its roots as a joke kangaroo court, but the kangaroo court is all in good fun. As blistering as the “charges” brought before the Morals Committee may be, no C&T chubber will bring a Morals Committee charge against anyone who genuinely would not appreciate it — although we are hard pressed to think of any chubbers who wouldn’t enjoy a good Morals Committee trial! If anyone charged before the Morals Committee didn’t want to “go on trial”, he or she wouldn’t have to. That said, don’t let this positive spin dissuade you from respecting the vigor of the Morals Committee! When it comes to issues of “morality”, the Morals Committee is swift, sort of just, and UNMERCIFUL!
Originally, The “Morals Committee” would frequently go into session during C&T meetings, and was the equivalent of a kangaroo court for any member or heeler who was observed or reported to have been involved with inappropriate activity with a member of the opposite sex. This committee was quite active prior to and during the early years of co-education, when essentially contact of any sort (e.g. talking to, or standing within five feet of) the opposite sex could be considered “immoral” and fodder for committee action. Any C&T member could call a morals committee meeting to order by shouting “MORALS COMMITTEE” at the top of his or her lungs at any time during a C&T meeting, at which point they would present their evidence. Doug Chester ’75 was one of the most ruthless “judges”, and would mete out whatever form of justice seemed to fit the crime — ranging from a stern warning, to chugging a beer, to immediate klistering of the offending body part.
This role of the Morals Committee has been the primary one for most of its history (many of the histories of other C&T awards relate in some form to this incarnation of the Morals Committee, and the histories behind them contain links to this page), but this practice for the Morals Committee lapsed sometime in the early to mid nineties. At some point the original Morals Committee sign was lost, and a new one was constructed in 1995 by Tom Russo ’97. At this point, the Morals Committee was not made up of whoever chose to spontaneously self-appoint himself or herself as judge, jury and executioner for the particular “trail” at hand, as was the original practice, but had formal judges who were elected or appointed in some fashion. These judges wore a brown cow suit, a “flaming asshole” suit (we’re not exactly sure what this looked like. We’ll leave it up to your imagination), and an “inquisitor suit”, respectively, whenever the Morals Committee was in session.
By 2004, all that the Morals Committee sign was used for was when someone would grab it and bang it on the table at the front of the room whenever anyone said anything that could (or should) be interpreted in a sketchy or otherwise “morally corrupt” manner, but the banging of the sign was all that would happen. The Morals Committee no longer went into session, and didn’t really have any members — although the winner of “Take Off Your Clothes Night” was awarded the chairmanship of the Morals Committee, even though nobody knew what exactly the Morals Committee was about. “Take Off Your Clothes Night” is a C&T meeting main event held during one meeting every winter term, in which everyone choosing to participate in the event (often numbering as many as twenty or thirty of the people at the meeting) arrives at the meeting wearing all of the clothes and various articles of outdoor gear they possibly can. Many people will show up dressed in as many as 100 articles of clothing. They usually look like Humpty Dumpty from all the layers of clothing they are wearing, and they are all burning up and sweating, due to the fact that they are wearing way too much clothing in an already overheated Dartmouth building. Consequently, those participating in Take Off Your Clothes Night are the most eager for the event to get under way! Throughout the meeting, a gong in the front of the room is sounded several times a minute, as regular meeting business is conducted. With each sound of the gong, everybody has to take off one article of clothing. Towards the end of the meeting, people are actually wearing a reasonably normal amount of clothing, but those who came in wearing the most still have a quite a ways to go! Once a person is down to nothing but his or her underwear, that person is out. The last person to still have clothing to take off at the end of the meeting wins the chairmanship of the Morals Committee, seeing as that person is clearly the most concerned about modesty, since he or she wears the most clothes.
When the research for this website was being conducted, the C&T chubbers of 2004 learned about the original history of the Morals Committee, and decided to revive it! While the winner of Take Off Your Clothes Night is automatically the chair, three additional junior members of the Morals Committee are now elected by vote, and on Monday, May 10th, 2004 elections for those three positions were held. Eric Benson ’04 and Laura Yasaitis ’05 (a C&T couple who constitute a flagrant example of people who ought to be hauled before the Morals Committee) made a last-ditch effort to forestall their certain fate before the Morals Committee: they nominated themselves for election to the Morals Committee, in the hopes of getting elected and corrupting the moral integrity of the Morals Committee itself from within. Unsurprisingly, Eric and Laura were not elected. Surprisingly, they have not been hauled before the Morals Committee … yet!
Eleanor Alexander ’04, Pam Collins ’07, and Whitney Maughan ’05 were elected to the Morals Committee that night, under the chairmanship of Whitney Macfadyen, the winner of the Winter ’04 Take Off Your Clothes Night. The following week, during the C&T meeting of Monday, May 17th, 2004, the newly-revived Morals Committee went into session for the first time. They tried Anthony Bramante ’06 for dressing too nicely while on his FSP to Italy. Anthony’s girlfriend, Carolyn Treacy ’06 had visited Anthony in Italy earlier that term, and she brought the charges before the Morals Committee. Anthony’s presentable appearance in Italy (extremely uncharacteristic of Anthony), it was alleged, can only mean that Anthony is up to no good in Italy. As Anthony was not present at the meeting to defend himself, he does not know yet whether he was convicted or acquitted (he may not even know that he was tried!), but he will find out when he returns for ’06 sophomore summer this coming June!
Many thanks to Neil Van Dyke ’76 and Oliver Will ’96 for providing information on the Morals Committee. If you can provide any additional information about the Morals Committee, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.edu
The Morgan B. Heater Small Genitals Award for Faulty Privy Design
After completing the shelter at Ore Hill that replaced the Atwill Hilton, David Weissberger ’00 (creator of The Lightning Chopper Award (For That Member of the Woodsman’s Team Who Never Hits the Same Place Twice) and The David Weissberger Award for Achievement in the Area of Excellence) and Morgan B. Heater ’01 held a meeting to brainstorm different privy designs. They wanted something unique. They decided that a revolving throne with windows that would allow a good view to all sides would be a good design. They went and bought the biggest lazy susan bearing that they could find, but even after having half an inch of extra material on the inside of the bearing machined out, the hole was only about eight inches in diameter. After they attached a seat, it was definitely a one function unit. Morgan maintains that as it is much better anyways not to pee in privies, for the sake of happy decomposition, the design was not faulty. However, many people seemed to be unable to separate one function from the other and had some difficulty with the use of the spinning stool. Dave Hastings ’00 and David Weissberger ’00 conspired and created the award, which Morgan accepted with good humor, to imply that the seat was large enough for Morgan’s equipment (and nobody else’s). This award is an appropriate award for all those who have grand dreams, but fall a little short in the execution.
The privy still exists, though its Rube Goldbergish seat was recently replaced with a more conventional seat by Anthony Bramante ’06.
Many thanks to Morgan B. Heater ’01 and David Weissberger ’00 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Nicolas J. Duquette Irony Award for Hilarity in the Face of Extreme Absurdity
This award, created by Joel Dahl ’05 and Joanna Hurrell ’05, was presented to Nic Duquette ’04 at his very last C&T meeting of his Dartmouth Career. Nic was renowned (both in C&T and on campus generally) for having a truly great sense of humor. He was also known for several amusing pranks on campus and on trips, most notably the inception and co-creation of Keggy the Keg, an unofficial mascot for Dartmouth, which garnered national media attention — featured both on ESPN and in Playboy magazine — and pushed aside (in the consciousness of the student body, at least) the rather banal “Big Green” which had replaced the controversial “Dartmouth Indian”. More specifically to C&T, Nic was a guy who always knew how to tell just the right kind of joke on a trip, especially when humor was needed to dispell some sort of awkward moment in conversation, or whenever a trip had encountered some sort of frustrating situation. On one backpacking trip Nic led in the Carters, the trip had dropped a small five-person sedan at the trail terminus and left the Vox van at the trailhead. At the end of the trip, Nic and Joel drove in the sedan back to the trailhead, only to discover that the Vox van was completely dead and would not start. They were eventually able to fix the van and get it to start, despite their extremely limited knowledge of car repair, but Nic’s sense of humor during this unbelievably frustrating situation was perfect.
Joel Dahl provided the information behind this award, and he will miss Nic a great deal after he graduates.
The Pablo Award for Mythical Devotion to the Stuff Legends Are Made Of
David “Pablo” Cohn ’85 was not very involved in the DOC as an undergrad, but earned this award for his post-grad support of the Citizen’s Classic race. Having been invited back to Hanover by David Kotz ’86 to give a presentation, he writes of his recruitment:
Well, it must've been close to midnight on my walk around the pond. I was clearing my head after a pretty intense day of technical discussions, and I was sort of lost in my musings.
Out of nowhere, a stake truck piled high with snow and freshmen pulled up the path. The folks in back were singing “La Marseille” at the top of their lungs, like it was some sort of anthem. Everyone jumped off and started shovelling the snow off the truck and onto the road, which seemed a little odd. I watched their industrious efforts for a couple of minutes before asking, in my best Uh-what's-up-Doc voice:
“So, um, whatcha doing?”
“We're trying to cover this section of road with snow.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
[long pause]
“Wanna help?”
Who was I to say no?
It was only after the second or third truckload that it occurred to me to ask why we were seeking snow from points unknown to cover the streets of Hanover. I had figured it was some sort of prank, and hey, I've always been a joiner…
The stories say that when chubber hearts are pure in their devotion, the mythical Pablo will appear out of the night to swing a snow shovel yet again.
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96, David Kotz ’86 and David “Pablo” Cohn ’85 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Peter Brown Memorial “I Break It. I Buy It” Award for Learning How to Handle Things
Peter Brown ’90 was awarded this by Jon Owens ’90 after breaking the second or third axe handle in a week, and had gotten quite good at rehanging axes. In a related incident, Peter was trying to emphasize an important point at a C&T meeting by sinking an axe head (without handle) into a piece of 2 x 12 on the council table; he missed the 2 x 12, sinking the axe head into the table instead.
Many thanks to Adrian Owens ’90 and Jon Owens ’90 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Philip Marvin Award for Flagrant Abuse of Power
Constructed by Caroline Pott ’02 after the 2002 winter Woodsmen’s Meet in Montreal. Nobody remembers the specific instance that inspired Caroline to action, but the award speaks for itself: Phil (a generally quiet and benevolent guy) was testing out the limits of his fresh forestry team captaincy.
Many thanks to John McCall-Taylor ’03 and Matt Kemp ’04 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Pinus!
The Pinus! no longer exists. Before it was destroyed, it was an award for romantic involvement. This Pinus was a three-foot length of pine, carved in the shape of an “upright organ”. Betsy Leggat ’82 and Jamie Trowbridge ’82 were awarded the Pinus once, dumped unceremoniously in Betsy’s lap at a C&T meeting in the spring of 1981. Both turned bright red and tried to laugh. Jamie reflects that,
“ … looking back on it now, in the age of p**** enlargement and Viagra, I can see we should have been honored to receive such a totem of virility. But that’s not how we took it. We saw it as regressive C&T tradition that had to be discontinued.
“I took it upon myself to dispose of the Pinus, which had been making the rounds that spring. Without much forethought I wrapped it up in some fabric and took it to the student workshops in the basement of the Hopkins Center. The tricky part of this operation was cutting up the Pinus into ‘cookies’ on the band saw without anyone getting a good look at it. Then I drilled holes through the center of the cookies and reassembled the Pinus, using a dowel to hold the organ upright.
“At the next C&T meeting I unveiled the Pinus in its new uneven-but-still-upright state. Then I removed the dowel, spilling the cookies all over the Council table. I did not see what happened after that, because I was already on my way out the door, with others on my heels. I was prepared a shower, but those chubbers never caught me!”
Many thanks to Jamie Trowbridge ’82 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Pro Routers Awad
Pete Semen ’97 made this award in 1995. He was finishing off the trophies for the Woodsmen’s meet and blasted out this award.
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Ronald B. Shores Jr. Memorial “Golden Feet” Dance Award
The Ronald B. Shores Golden Feet Dance Award was given to Ron Shores ’76 after a very dubious dancing display at a Woodsmen’s Weekend in Montreal in 1975 or 1976. Nobody remembers the details beyond that, but “Shores” apparently was the kind of guy who must have been well lubricated to venture anywhere near a dance floor, and the results could not have been pretty.
Many thanks to Neil Van Dyke ’76 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Rory Gawler Award for Excessive Canadian Pride and Biggest Male Ego
This award, constructed out of a very large Molsen Canadian mini-keg, was created by Beth Rabbitt ’04 (inspiration for The Beth Rabbitt Award for Excessive Mothering) for Rory Gawler ’05 (creator of the Ben Honig “I’m a Jackass Award” for Wanton Tomfoolery). Rory was, and is still, renowned for both his extreme patriotism to his native Canadia, as evidenced by his tendency (which he denies) toward “extreme Maplewear” (mentioned on the award), and for his huge male ego. The seemingly-inevitable creation of an award like this in Rory’s name was precipitated by a bet for money Rory made with someone that he could get Beth to date him for a certain amount of time (perhaps The Lar! Memorial Octopus Award is in order …). Beth reports that, despite Rory’s best efforts, “he was way out of his league”, and she made the biggest male ego award to commemorate Rory’s bet. “The truth is”, Rory confesses, “I was exceedingly pleased to be the first person in my class to have an award named after him/her.”
Many thanks to Beth Rabbitt ’04 and Rory Gawler ’05 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Scott McGee Teacher Award for Dramatic Demonstration of What To Not Do
On a Saturday worktrip in the fall of 1987 on the J trail (named after J. Scott McGee ’88, Julie Wade ’91, Jim DiCarlo ’91 and John Decker ’91, who all worked extensively on it), during the relocation of the Appalachian Trail on Mt. Cube, Scott, in his zeal to instruct a group of clueless freshmen about trailmaking, successfully sank an axe into his boot while demonstrating (im)proper chopping technique. This cut the laces, cut the tongue of the boot and opened up his shin. Luckily, the axe missed all of the vital arteries and structural components. Scott is very stoic, so he just promptly dropped the axe, gritted his teeth, and started hiking out, telling someone to grab the truck keys and meet him at the road. Adrenaline kept him going. Later that night, when the painkillers wore off he couldn’t sleep, and so he stayed up all night in the Rock kitchen baking cookies. By morning every flat surface was covered with cooling cooking trays. The award was made by F. Jon Kull ’88, and presented to Scott at the next C&T meeting.
Many thanks to Jay Benson ’90, Carrie (Kull) Bjerke ’91, and Dave Metsky ’85 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.edu.
The Thomas Goldthwait Memorial Piss, Pass & Boot Award to That Member of the Woodsmen’s Team Judged Most Inebriated During the Woodsmen’s Meet
This award was created and named in honor of Thomas Goldthwait ’71 after a memorable performance at the Fall 1970 Woodsmens Meet at UNH. He managed to piss in an inappropriate spot, throw up spectacularly (several times) and pass out. These three activities became the minimum criteria for determining future recipients of the award, whose names are then stenciled onto the award itself, along with the year of the forestry meet in which they earned the award. During the ’70s this was without doubt considered the most prestigious of all C&T awards, and people would go to great lengths to try to “bring it home”. Ronald Shores was a recipient during his tenure — possibly in the same year (in the same incident?) as inspiring the Ronald B. Shores Jr. Memorial “Golden Feet” Dance Award. Jim “Pork Roll” Taylor ’74 was a recipient three times. He doesn’t remember too much about the specific adventures (surprise, surprise), except that during one of them he was “assisted” by the Montreal police, because he had passed out on a subway train and had been abandoned by his teammates.
This award was also featured in the lyrics of a C&T song, “Chairman Chris” (after Chris Mumford ’76?), from the period, which contains the line, “Piss, pass, boot said the woodsmen, merry merry men are we.”
Many thanks to Andrew Bramante ’81, Jim “Pork Roll” Taylor ’74, and Neil Van Dyke ’76 for providing the information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Tim Burdick Award for Finally Getting it Together
This award was made in honor of Tim Burdick ’98, and is given to those who become C&T regulars late in their Dartmouth careers. Tim went on a couple of trips his freshmen fall, and then none at all until he returned his junior spring, and remained a C&T chubber through graduation.
Many thanks to Oliver Will ’96 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Tim E. Burdick In Pursuit of Lumberjill Award
Tim Burdick ’89 (inspiration for The Tim Burdick Award for Finally Getting it Together) goes to Woodsman’s Meet. Our hero spies a fetching Lumberjill from another team. Our hero pines for Lumberjill. Wood is chopped, axes are thrown, canoes are capsized. Our hero pursues Lumberjill. Beer is consumed. Our hero demonstrates his bravery by offering to be the middle person in the three-man lift. Lumberjill is not impressed. Or is she? The Lumberjill was from UNH. Tim was absent some weekends after the meet, perhaps driving to Durham?
Many thanks to Adrian Owens ’90 and Mark Schiffman ’90 for providing information on this award. If you can provide any additional information, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Timothy Holm Golden Birch Award for Excellence in Vehicular Management
Sadly, we know nothing about the exact history behind this particular award. This award features a length of a birch tree with a sizeable dent in it, no doubt referring to (or even resulting from) the story behind this award. Because of the literal meaning of its name, this award is given out whenever you wish to compliment someone for actually doing a good job of driving or fixing a vehicle. More often, though, it is given out ironically for bad driving or vehicle treatment, as the dent in the column of birch suggests is probably the original intent for this award. This is one of four existing awards for bad driving, along with The Carolyn Lyon Road Hazard Award for Lame Driving, The Jay Benson Idiot Light Award for Goofer-Like Vehicle Operation, and The Kevin A. Peterson Memorial Snowbank + Mud Locator Award
If you have any information on the history behind this award, please send it to Cabin.and.Trail@Dartmouth.EDU
The Will Bishop Award for Fowl Play
The name of the new award is "The Will Bishop Award for Fowl Play," which is awarded for unique encounters with birds. This award is named after Will Bishop ('12), who hit a wild turkey in an OPO van while on the way to a hike, after which he brought the dead turkey back to campus, plucked it, gutted it, and cooked it. And it was delicious.
Information for this page compiled spring term 2004 by Joel T. Dahl ’05. Pictures by Carolyn L. Treacy ’06. Many thanks to Ashley “ASE” Thomas ’91 for considerable help with the building of this page (i.e. building it almost entirely by himself when our initial attempts at webdesign didn’t work too well!). Many, many thanks to all of the C&T alums who contributed their stories to this page. Special thanks goes to Nic Duquette ’04, who forwarded all of our enquiries about the awards onto chubbernet (as heelers and non-seniors, we’re not on it), and forwarded the replies back to us. This page wouldn’t have been possible without Nic’s patient blitz mediation, even as his blitz in-box was flooded with tons of messages!
