The Harvard Outing Club offers students the chance to step outside the University’s urban setting and explore outdoor spaces across New England. Through weekly trips that range from Boston-area outings to weekend hikes, the student-run group aims to make the outdoors more accessible to the Harvard community.
“HOC is Harvard’s main outdoor recreation club, but the primary thing that we do is exist to help the Harvard community get outside,” HOC Vice President Ashley Dawn ’26 said in an interview with the Independent. “We lead weekly trips that are open to all Harvard affiliates, and our main goal is to make the outdoors as accessible as possible for everyone that is a member of our community.”
All Harvard affiliates are welcome to join HOC—if you have an HUID and become a member, you can go on as many trips as you want. “We have no-questions-asked financial aid. A membership is $20 and that lasts six months,” Nate Marinacci ’27, former gear manager and current HOC leader explained in an interview with the Independent. “But you can pay part of that, or you could pay none of that, depending upon where you’re sitting.”
“Last fall, I believe we led around 75 trips over the course of the term,” he continued.
In line with its mission of accessibility, HOC organized a trip last semester to Middlesex Fells that was open to all participants, regardless of individual needs of accommodations, according to club president Tyler Shelton ’26. “Anyone could join, regardless of needs, of accommodations that needed to be met,” he explained.
Marinacci explained that HOC welcomes a wide variety of Harvard affiliates on its trips, including graduate students and University employees. “We’ve had members who work at the mail center come rent gear from us,” Marinacci shared.
“As long as you’re affiliated with Harvard…you can come on a trip, you can rent gear, you can be a member, you can go to the cabin,” Marinacci continued.
The HOC cabin is located near Pinkham Notch, N.H. The lodge, owned by HOC, is available to rent at a discounted rate of $8.28 per person for dues-paying members. It serves as a convenient base for multi-day hikes in the White Mountains.
Beyond trips and cabin access, HOC members can also rent equipment for their own outings. Gear managers Terry McCaffrey ’26 and Mia DiLorenzo ’26 host gear hours every Tuesday and Thursday from 5-6 p.m. in the basement of the Student Organization Center at Hilles.
As gear managers, McCaffrey and DiLorenzo help people get the gear they need to enjoy nature safely. “We have a lot of different types of gear. Sleeping bags, sleeping pads, tents, spikes,” McCaffrey said to the Independent. “We have a lot of cross-country skis and poles and ski boots.”
In addition to renting out gear, the gear managers instruct Harvard affiliates how to use the equipment they’re borrowing. Just before their interview with the Independent, DiLorenzo and McCaffrey assisted a group of three students by helping them pack their gear properly, offering tips on protecting it from the rain, and demonstrating the most efficient way to fit a sleeping bag into their packs.
“I think gear can be one of the biggest barriers to entry in the outdoors, and [gear rental is] just a great service HOC provides to make it easier for people who don’t want to spend a ton of money,” McCaffrey said.
Beyond going on trips and renting gear, HOC also trains a smaller cohort of its undergraduate members to be leaders for trips. Any College student who wants to lead, regardless of prior experience, is encouraged to apply.
“I think that it’s a super empowering experience to be able to go from someone who has nearly no outdoor experience, as many of our leaders are, to being able to fully competently lead backpacking trips in the White Mountains and do that safely for anybody on Harvard’s campus,” Dawn said.
To Shelton, leading HOC trips has been an opportunity to learn skills that can be translated to aspects of college life. “It gives you a very clear, tangible way that you are helping somebody else, and you get to highlight that and recognize that and learn how to do that better and apply it to other situations.”
Shelton shared that, as president, he often gets to lead the “sendier” trips that take on challenges like Mount Washington. However, to him, HOC leadership offers so much more. “I love initiating the more intentional, reflective, bond-building trips,” he added, offering an example of a HOC-led journaling session at the Arnold Arboretum.
“HOC is wonderful because it does both extremes,” Shelton said. “You have the agency to choose not only what you want to participate in as a member, but what you want to lead as a leader.”
Trip leader Elena Ferrari ’28 recalled one of her favorite HOC memories, from her training trip last fall, which brought together trainees with very different levels of experience. “For some of them, this was their first week hiking in their lives. And for others, they had just been hiking with family for years. And we were all together,” she said to the Independent.
For Ferrari, those kinds of efforts capture what makes HOC unique. “It’s not only a space to go outdoors, but it’s also this mission of inclusion that runs very deep,” she shared.
“I think saying how HOC has added to my Harvard experience is selling it short… I think HOC has really defined my Harvard experience.”
Olivia Lunseth ’28 (olivialunseth@college.harvard.edu) writes News for the Harvard Independent.