Last summer, the outdoors seeped into the Holderness School Archives. Or perhaps they were always a part of it? I am inclined to believe the latter.

Many of us spent last summer surrounded by nature, perhaps enjoying the calm lake waters that our beautiful state has to offer - or hiking one of our several breathtaking trails. Here in the school's archives, we spent our summer reading through four log books (c. 1970-1983) kept by members of the Holderness School Outing Club. Each log book is filled with the stories of adventures, photographs, and drawings that chronicle the many trips the Outing Club members took during those years.

Director of Outdoor and Climbing Programs Erik Thatcher ’08 says the tradition of keeping journals in the outdoors was revived two years ago, mostly thanks to the help from Margot Roguet ’22, and that journal entries were usually a photo or drawing from the trip along with a list of participants and possibly a doodle or two. This past summer, I worked with Erik to digitize the old journals and make them accessible to the wider community at some point in the future.

In the meantime, please enjoy a snippet of past outdoor memories, in this case from a hiking trip up Mount Liberty in the winter of 1973!