On Sat., Jan. 22, the Winter Rental Center opened for the season. It is open from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekends. Cross-country skis, snowshoes and sleds are available to borrow at the Glen House garage, completely free of charge.

The Winter Rental Center functions under a recreational sports model, so students only need to provide their physical Hill Card to rent equipment, a relatively quick procedure. “Gear fairies”, student assistants who staff the center in shifts, are always ready to help. Racks of skis and snowshoes in various sizes are lined up in the garage, and assistance with fittings or getting started is readily available.

According to Sarah Jillings, the assistant director of Outdoor Leadership, the winter rental program was an innovation that started last year. “During COVID, with everybody trying to find as many creative outdoor activities as we could, we bought a fleet of cross-country skis and moved them into the garage with the snowshoes and other gear,” she described. Hamilton Outing Club (HOC) summer equipment is also normally available for rental to Hamilton community members, but this setup has made gear much more accessible.

Last year, 108 people came to borrow gear on the first day the Winter Rental Center was opened, clearing out their entire stock of skis. This year, although there are many more activities happening around campus, 30 people logged in on both Jan. 22 and 23 to borrow equipment. Sleds were a particularly popular offering, with plenty of hilly areas to play on around campus, especially the hill by Withiam Field (the lacrosse and soccer field).

Rentals will be available as long as the snow lasts. Jillings estimates that students can likely ski until around March 15, while tools like snowshoes and microspikes will be useful for a while longer.

“Our hope is that we are opening up access for people to be able to get outside and enjoy the winter,” Jillings explained. “Campus has so many great resources,” she says, and she hopes students and community members will take advantage of them.

To kick off the Winter Rental Center’s opening, the Nordic Ski Club led a beginners’ cross-country ski clinic on Saturday morning, which 35 people attended. The groomed ski trails on campus are also a relatively new offering, started three to four years ago. There are five to six miles of cross-country ski trails with groomed lanes for skate-skis as well as parallel tracks for classic skiing. The trails are located by the fitness facilities near the Science Center, on the 5k running course and the old golf course.

On the same day, HOC offered a snowshoe hike through Rogers Glen. HOC officers Catherine Fengler ’24 and John Myles ’24 led the activity with a friendly camaraderie, starting the participants off with a round of introductions and the ice-breaker question “Spiritually, what kitchen implement are you?”

They led the way to Rogers Glen and taught the students how to put on snowshoes, which enable people to walk on top of powdery snow without sinking down. Although Rogers Glen is a further trek from the center of campus, it is the largest forest, stretching to the College’s borders. Fengler and Myles think that it is the most underrated forest area on campus. This sentiment was echoed by Nate Cohen ’25, who frequently takes walks there. Cohen describes the Glen as “just so pretty in the winter. Seeing all the trees blanketed in snow, it really is magical.”

Cohen had only been snowshoeing a couple of times in the past, and had forgotten how much fun it was. The best part of the trip was the group’s “great sense of camaraderie,” he said. “I had the opportunity to meet new people and catch up with others who I often don’t see. Overall, I found the experience really restorative and am definitely planning to do it again.”

He is in luck, as the HOC officers hope to lead biweekly snowshoe hikes for the rest of the season, likely on Saturdays and Sundays. They also have tentative plans for bigger events like a candlelit snowshoe hike, so students should keep a lookout for emails.

“We’re going to keep offering those intro experiences, so that people get the equipment and become more comfortable using it,” said Jillings. She hopes that students will keep coming back independently once they have gained some proficiency, and take advantage of the trails.