When I waltzed into the Schwartz on Wednesday night?late as always?the cavalcade of stimuli nearly overwhelmed my senses in the greatest way. The heat of the day had dissipated, but inside it felt like a swanky New York restaurant.

As our trusty leader, Bill Yeo?a mountain man if there ever was one?bounded up the mountain, we made the designation between short legs and long legs, along with the distinction between ultra-marathon runners (Phil Shaw '08) and those who are tired after four miles.

While looking through the news this week, we came across the heroic story of a Slovakian man trapped inside his car by an avalanche.

Five days into the new semester and we're feeling exhausted already, right? I swear that as early as Tuesday afternoon, I overheard kids in Moulton talking about parties on the weekend.

Winter break can begin to drag on after enough hours cooped up watching reruns with your family. Just because the Outing Club won't be around to organize trips in January, it doesn't mean you can't take initiative for your own adventures. Below is a regional guide to fun, affordable, and accessible outdoor activities you can try on your own.

Fall season is coming to a close at the Outing Club, and this weekend we are sending out our last trip of the semester. Around this time in November paddling and hiking taper off due to cold and snow, and winter sports like skiing and snowshoeing haven't quite gotten started yet. Despite the small number of trips that have been going out during this seasonal transition, there has been lots of Outing Club activity on campus on which to report.

The late November haze has settled in on campus, and students and professors alike have found that the jobs they put off until "sometime before Thanksgiving" have now leapt to the forefront of their agenda.

One of the greatest clichés in nature writing is the individual who has discovered spirituality at the top of a mountain peak. He (or she, let's be fair here) stands above an endless bank of billowy clouds, has struggled beyond sweat, blood, tears?all those damn corporal ties that bind us to the earth?and has passed, finally, into the magical realm of the sublime.

Sure, there will be lots of parties this weekend around campus. The social houses seem to think they have the inside scoop on how to make Halloween a wicked good time (ha, no pun intended). But we at the BOC feel rather strongly about Halloween, as we do about many things. Now we offer you the following guide to Halloween tricks, treats, and the latest in ghoulish fashion.

You are sitting in class, walking around the quad, or going through the Union and you spot one. In fact, you see more than one and soon enough you realize they are all around you. They wear Chaco's on their feet, Carhartt pants, and shirts that should have been added to your mother's rag collection years ago. All of them love the outdoors, the majority dislike President Bush, some sport sketchy facial hair and a few of us, myself included, like going a couple of days without showering. Who are these wild people and where do they come from? Chances are that if they meet the above description, they are leaders in the Bowdoin Outing Club.

The wonder that little things can hold is amazing: there's soft, green moss on an old tree stump, frog eyes peeking out of a pool of water, a web of roots in the ground, and small orange, black and white fungus. The more you look, the more you can see?and the awareness of all these details is illuminating.

They say that April showers bring May flowers, which is probably true. However, the other thing that April showers have been bringing us this month is high releases on some of the best rivers in Maine.

Welcome back from whatever sunny destination you spent Spring Break in and into the last two months of the school year here at Bowdoin.