Boot n’ Paddle: Trippin’ Hard or Hardly Trippin?

This past weekend, the OC teamed up with the Sustainability Program to put on our annual Harvestfest (also known as OC-toberfest) over at the Sustainability house. The weather was gorgeous-clear skies, falling leaves and a pleasant temperature.

The festival was a near-perfect summation of what makes autumn special as students, faculty, and members of the community crushed local apples into cider and carved pumpkins. However, there is still one big glaring issue with this OC-led event: it wasn’t a trip. Right?

For all intents and purposes, the point of the OC is to lead trips. Of course, in defining one thing, we also must define another: what is a trip?

Over the years, I’ve been privy to a number of strange events like demolition derbies, museum visits and car rides just to find waterfalls. Did these count as trips? Put on your thinking caps, Booters, because we’re about to get philosophical.

Let’s head back to Harvestfest. Harlow Punderson ’22 is a sophomore in the Outing Club who hails from central Vermont. Punderson was instrumental in the success of the event, creating posters and helping to set up for the open mike. “I loved learning how the Sustainability Semester functions,” he responded when asked about the event. 

For him, though, it was more than just an event he had to work for. “Every year in the fall at home, my family makes 200 gallons of cider. It’s been going on for like 50 years or so and I’ve been a part of it ever since I was one year old,” he told me. 

This was the first year he had missed the tradition but was able to find solace in Sunday’s activities. “The general mood there was like something I experienced at the Cider Squeeze, so it was really nice to get that for me.” 

At Harvestfest, Punderson was excited to learn more about a place he was a part of, but also to draw a meaningful connection to his own life. Punderson didn’t travel very far, but he still had a thoughtful experience and enriched his life. Let’s move on.

The day after Harvestfest, Outing Clubbers Eli Idec ’22 and Piper Curtin ’22 led a trip to nearby Lampson Falls to cook some mac and cheese. Again, this trip was not into the deep wilderness and did not require much expertise, even in cooking. How does it fit into the zone of outdoorspeople? 

According to Idec, not all participants were wildly experienced in the outdoors, but the laidback experience seemed enjoyable for all. I asked Idec (a Pennsylvania native himself) why he led that trip, and he said, “I think [trips like these give] a new perspective on the Canton area. Being able to venture off the beaten path lets people explore what the area has to offer.” 

On his expedition to Lampson Falls, Idec took something banal—cooking—and brought it outside only a little farther away. This, like Harvestfest, hardly seems like the typical outdoors experience, but it provided experienced people with a good time and those less so with a new way to connect with their surroundings. Oh, look at that! We seem to be moving towards a conclusion.

So far, we’ve discussed two unorthodox adventures: Harvestfest and mac and cheese at Lampson Falls. At this point, I think it’s safe to say each is a trip, but we still haven’t defined that. 

As we’ve come to discover through our two trip leaders, trips can be anything and anywhere, but always help further understanding. As I now understand, a trip is any experience that helps someone better understand themselves or their surroundings.

Peter, you ask, why did you write this article? Don’t you probably have some understanding of what a trip is? Well, yeah, of course I do, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t question it (also: rude). However, I investigated all this in part so I could remind myself just how simple it could be. 

When I was talking to him, Harlow told me a little more about his background, “Growing up around Middlebury College has been interesting. As I got to know college students better, I learned how little they knew. 

In coming here I’ve been super conscious of the fact that there’s a lot of shit around me, but I know that unless I literally took out my car and drove around for a day, that would be the fasted way for me to learn what the hell was around me.” 

Essentially, Harlow said that so long as you take something away from it, anything can be a trip. In the immortal words of Thacher Carter ’20, “Every day is one big fuckin’ trip.” Thacher’s right—just make sure you took something away from it.